#canon here often meaning 'the canon of this text' and not necessarily that it's canon in that loosey goosey way hs treats canon

[crazyexdirkfriend]

homestuck has always been a character driven story, though. you can’t expect people to automatically be chill with characters suddenly representing a more thematic purpose when, up until that point, homestuck has largely been mostly a series of character studies. as if in order to have a characters story be thematic you can’t keep their characterization in tact. presenting critique of the epilogues as if it’s just people being upset their faves didn’t get happy endings or the right characters didn’t kiss is. super disingenuous. they’re just badly written man.

Hi! So, Homestuck is obviously character driven in many ways because it has a metric shit ton of characters (there's bound to be one or a set that appeal to everyone) and the characters are the heart of the story. For most people, engaging and interesting characters are why they read a story. And that's absolutely fine- but it doesn't mean every story is written that way, and every other manner of writing or reading story is incorrect or bad.

So you don't like the epilogues. That's absolutely fair! There's plenty of reasons to not like the epilogues-- such as how it was handled by staff, or elements that were offensive or improperly tagged. But I would like to say that's clearly not what I'm talking about. I'm talking specifically about a not HS-specific notion that character supersedes theme. (You know, like modernised myths that completely ruin the actual meaning of the original text because no attention was paid to theme or purpose)

Like I said, I'm posing a question in order for you to critically examine why. Is it that X, or is it that Y. And you know- it's perfectly fine for you to critically examine your feelings and still go "yeah no canon sucks, I could do it better." Because some people could do better- and sometimes canon sucks. For example, I personally have decided that HS2 canon DOES actually just suck for naming that poor child THAT.

But some people will critically examine why they hate something and think "Actually, Hussie doesn't hate Jake. Jake is a fictional character and I don't like what happened to him, but that doesn't mean that Hussie baited us into liking him and then deliberately gave him a shitty story because he hates Jake and he hates us too." (If anything, I would argue that narrative manipulation points to Hussie baiting people to DISLIKE Jake to bait and switch them, but that's another story.)

And I'm not sitting here saying "the epilogues are perfect and great and everyone who hates them is or thinks they're bad is wrong." I'm not self centered enough to believe that when over half the fandom had a mass exodus after the release and I probably would have joined them if my circumstances at the time were different. The epilogues are a desperately unpleasant read, one I very much struggle with every time I have to reread parts of them before writing something new. Like I said, most people read stories for characters or interesting plots, and it is desperately unpleasant for your favourite character to become a pseudo-philandering self-harming alcoholic who is sexually assaulted and domestically abused and is forced to defecate himself on stage. That's not what I would have written. But, I also don't view it as out of character.

BUT, I do think it's not the right take either to think that HS hasn't always been thematic, deconstruction of the nature of form, playing with narrative manipulation. HS breaks the fourth wall, uses intertextuality, epic narrative form, breaking the actual structure of the website, gameplay, animation etc etc etc. All of those things were so important in making HS what it was. My OG thesis pitch was on narrative manipulation in HS back in 2017-- literally not dissimilar at all to narrative text as God and how that manipulates a reader discussions in the epilogues. Academic journals have been written on how HS uses form to tell its own story. All of those things are as fundamental to HS in my opinion as the idea that it's a story about kids and growing up. The latter is the reason why we LOVE HS. But the former is the reason why it's so important as a seminal text. There's any amount of great stories about kids and growing up-- but they're not HS.

HS could have never had a continuation beyond opening the door unless Hussie wanted to deconstruct the form and the narrative itself, and the concept of endings. HS as a web comic structure in a liminal space ends when the door is open. Now, a very good argument can be made here for "ok then there shouldn't have been an epilogue." I actually don't disagree with that. I think one of the best things Hussie could have done would have been to allow a few more lilypad conversations and have HS finish dead the second the door opens. But it didn't-- and HS could have never had a happy, neat epilogue and have everyone agree on a vision.

On the subject about HS being a story about kids and growing up, HS also says real people don't have character arcs. It's a pretty clear reason as to why everything wasn't tied up neatly at the end of HS proper, and it's a pretty clear reason for most of the epilogues. Recovery isn't linear. Sometimes people grow up wrong. Real people don't have character arcs.

We think of story largely in character arcs so we think-- Dirk always wanted to be a good person, so his arc should be him becoming a good person. Not that Dirk tries so so so hard to be a good person, so hard and it still doesn't make him happy. It still doesn't get him where he wants to be. He's never ever going to be good enough to feel redeemed-- oh and btw, he's literally in a story that's ending, it's falling apart, and he's so so so scared to not exist. He's more scared of that than he is of being a bad person. Is that desperately unpleasant? Of course. Is it out of character? No. It's just not what anyone focusing on a solely character driven story would necessarily do. It requires deconstructing the narrative and then going, what would this guy do next now. Character and theme and narrative and form all have a symbiotic relationship. It's meat and candy.

HS isn't just character driven. But that's just what most of us (MYSELF INCLUDED) care about. And that's not wrong, that's not bad, that's not some terrible flaw in recognising one's self in the other. In fact it's the logical reading of a text you love. But you actually miss a huge chunk of what makes HS so special if you're only looking at the characters and their interactions and arcs. You miss a lot of what makes a lot of stories so interesting. It also makes it a lot harder to not become disillusioned when stories get difficult or disappointing or unpleasant. But I wouldn't still be here if I didn't think parts of recent HS were worth investigating and analysing.

(Also just for transparency: my original post wasn't actually about the epilogues, though considering my subsequent and previous post I entirely understand that it's been read that way. I saw art on my dash by a meta poster I remember from 2018 who got a lot of stick at the time for thematic analysis. Including from myself. And I was considering whether or not that was unfair. Because a character can thematically represent something that they are not, in actuality. Things can happen to a character that represent something else. Freudian analysis if you will. And if I wasn't caught up in being outraged that he'd said something sticky about one of my favourite characters, something that did not happen in the text, then maybe I would have been able to engage with it on a more in depth level. And I annoyingly missed the opportunity to investigate it in my HS thesis in 2019 because of my own hubris.)

Anyway I'm a realish person and I don't have a character arc but I do grow up in weird ways that would make younger me desperately uncomfortable. I think that's a theme in itself.

[adragonsfriend]

There are no trash takes on Jedi philosophy, there is contextual analysis.

As may be obvious from the title (humorous--I have gone through several common misinterpretations myself), this is about that infamous scrap of poetry,

There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no ignorance, there is knowledge. There is no passion, there is serenity. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no death, there is the Force.

And the other version,

Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force.

I've seen quite a few interpretations of these along the lines of "the second version is reasonable but the first version is crazy and stupid," so here's why I think both versions are actually communicating the same idea, and the wording doesn't really change the meaning much at all.

So just like I did in my post about "do or do not there is not try," let's start by asking some questions to establish context before we look at the text itself.

Is it THE Jedi Code or just a mantra? Legends says it's the Code, canon says it's a mantra. The fact of the matter is that no matter what, it's really a scrap of poetry which couldn't encompass the entire philosophical basis of a culture even if it was trying, so we'll consider it a mantra.

Does the fact that it's a mantra rather than THE Jedi Code mean that we can't get anything deep or meaningful out of it? Of course not. Just because it's not the whole of or a full explanation of Jedi philosophy doesn't mean it's just a nice sounding string of words.

Who is saying this to who? This mantra is often used to focus a meditation, with the first phrasing used by adults in the culture, while the second phrasing is more often used by children.

What were George Lucas' inspirations for Jedi culture that relate to this mantra? (borrowing from this post) A combination of christianity, buddhism, and his interpretations. I'm not an expert in any religion, and definitely not in buddhism, but I know enough to know I'm about to make some sweeping generalizations, so take this with a grain of salt. Disclaimers aside, this mantra, and the way it is phrased, indicate it is being inspired more by buddhism. The way christian texts, specifically the Bible, are written typically goes "here is a story about people doing something, and here is how big G god and/or Jesus reacted." There are metaphors sprinkled in, but they are mainly there to clarify for readers. Buddhist texts on the other hand (and lots of other eastern belief systems as well, like daoism, hinduism, etc. It's an important note that these belief systems don't necessarily conform to the western idea of what a religion is, and often their original languages don't even have a word which is equivalent in meaning to "religion") use metaphor in often deliberately contradictory ways, to make the reader think about things which are difficult to express in words alone. The ongoing struggle to reconcile contradictory descriptions is the point. This doesn't mean those texts can be interpreted however a reader would like. There may be multiple right interpretations, but there can also be wrong interpretations.

What the mantra does NOT mean:

"There is no ___ …" =/= "The experience of ___ is fake news."

"There is no ___ …" =/= "___ is not a useful concept."

"There is no ___ …" =/= "We should totally ignore ___ and pretend we've never heard that word before."

The mantra is not realy a set of advice on how to act. It's a set of statements about Existance. And I do mean capital E, philosophical, epistemological, weird, deep, think-y, Existence.

Temperature Metaphor

You know the first time someone tells you as a kid that cold isn't real, it's just the absence of heat and you're like… "but I'm touching something right now and it feels cold???" It sounds wild the first time you hear it, but as you think about it more, maybe learn about it a second time in science class, get some more context about how molecules work, etc. it begins to make more sense. It gets easier to grasp, until eventually the knowledge feels intuitive--especially if you're a STEM person who thinks about it a lot. We still talk about cold as a concept, because it's useful to us as well--lack of heat can have damaging effects on our bodies after all, and a cold drink is great on a hot day--and it's more efficient to say "cold" than it is to say "lack of heat." But there are some situations, like developing refrigeration or air conditioning, where it is not just useful but essential to think of temperature as it really is--heat exists, cold doesn't--and thinking of it colloquially can only hold us back (if this isn't actually intuitive to you, that's fine, it's just a metaphor--you could also think about dark being the absence of light, vacuum being the absence of mass, any number of things mirror this).

Probably the easiest like to get one's head around, imo at least, is "there is no ignorance, there is knowledge."

Taken hyper-literally it would mean "why seek out knowledge ever when everyone already knows everything?" But if we say knowledge is to heat as ignorance is to cold, then we can understand the real meaning--knowledge is real, where ignorance is only the name of an experience.

The Whole Mantra

This is the way the Jedi are understanding of emotion, ignorance, passion, chaos, death, etc. They are introduced, as children, to the idea that whilst they may feel all of these things, what they are actually experiencing is the lack of the other things--peace, knowledge, serenity, harmony, the Force. That's why they start with the "___ yet ___" phrasing--it introduces them to the first steps of understanding:

They can feel emotions, yet peace is still real and out there to reach for no matter how overwhelming those emotions may be at the moment,

They can feel ignorant or unknowledgeable, yet knowledge is out there to find,

They can experience passion (meaning suffering or pain in this context), yet know that serenity will return to them,

They can find their surroundings chaotic, and yet look for the harmony in the noise,

They can understand that death happens, yet be comforted by the fact that the person dying is still as much a part of the Force as they ever were.

Eventually they move onto the full mantra:

They will always feel emotions, but if they always reckon with those emotions and pass through them they can always return to a place of peace,

If they feel ignorant, they must seek out knowledge, rather than acting rashly. Also, their own knowledge is not the limit--others may hold knowledge in places they consider clouded,

They may experience suffering and pain--it may even feel like a good thing--but there is no wisdom in pain, it is the distraction from serenity, which is where truth can be found,

No matter how chaotic the world appears, it is actually a part of an underlying harmony that makes up all the patterns and the beauty in the world,

Death is not an ending, no matter how much it may look like one. It is a natural transition back into the Force, the place all life comes from.

A Jedi youngling is someone for whom this understanding is an essential part of the culture they are being brought up in.

A Jedi Padawan is someone who is beginning to learn to apply this understanding outside the confines of the Jedi temple, in a world where not everyone shares it.

A Jedi Knight is someone who has learned to apply this understanding on their own, without supervision.

A Jedi Master is someone for whom this understanding has become intuitive and automatic, no matter their surroundings.

All this is to say,

[somethingpersonarelated]

On simplifying Akechi

My brain was ridden with these ideas people have about Akechi that piss me off a little. Mostly ones that say he is "just crazy" or "just hates Joker." There's countless metaposts countering these arguments (and they are absolutely wonderful) but I often wonder WHY simplifying Akechi down is so appealing, even to people who are fans of his character. I can't say I've never been immune to simplifications of his character either, and I feel like that's important to admit. I don't even think it's necessarily a bad thing, but I was wondering about that why question.

TW: Discussions of mental health and child abuse

Source: A high schooler's holiday from the P5 Comic Anthology (read it here!)

I do think it's hard for all of the little things Akechi's character builds upon to be conveyed through a single playthrough. If you go in blind or don't finish his confidant, you may only get that surface level exploration of his character. Base Akechi is flashy and still gets the point across that it needs to: he's a foil to Joker and the PTs. However, by missing out on his social links and special events, you miss cultural, relationship, and personal context.

Many words have been said about the translation, particularly in the engine room, being faulty in areas. But some people still don't understand that Akechi's plan isn't to kill Shido, even when the text makes that clear. There's also this scene with Shido, which reads more as an exposition dump in a long section of the game most players will either tune out or skip. Not everything you see will always stick in your head, and Persona is a LONG game. I feel like it's easy to forget people just... forget canon sometimes. It's easier to put these details aside and say Akechi isn't affected by the system he's raised in. But the reality is, you miss what Lavenza says about Akechi's role, you miss that one exposition scene, and you miss the confidant: you believe Akechi had much more autonomy than was actually true. In conversations I've had with people IRL about Persona, 2/3 either skipped or did not finish Akechi's confidant. It isn't improbable, playtimes can range from 100-300 hours, most playthroughs take weeks. People will forget things. It isn't a maybe, it WILL happen.

When the game feeds you so much information, it's also easier to take what the characters say at face value. Doing this with Akechi will bite your ass. Those words in Rank 8 are directly expanded upon in No More What Ifs, the engine room, and 2/2. Maruki and Morgana confirm Akechi doesn't hate Joker, but you never hear Akechi say it himself. To me the game beats you over the head with this information (as the game has a tendency to do for certain situations), but I've also been in the rabbit hole for over a year now.

There's also this idea that recognizing that Akechi was set up by Yaldabaoth, his upbringing, and Shido means that all the venom is taken away from his actions. That isn't true, and Akechi holds to that in third semester. He doesn't give himself any grace for the situation he landed in, wanting to take accountability for it when it is undone without his consent. Akechi is by no means a perfect victim, and he doesn't believe that either. Recognizing that he had no choice, it was either homelessness and neglect or the plan he conjured himself only brings to light the tragedy of his situation, not whether his actions were morally incorrect. He wanted his father to be in his life, and he wanted his father to suffer. He wanted to have someone like Ren in his life, and he couldn't have someone like Ren because his plan would be jeopardized. It's a series of choices, some of which are forced upon him, some of which he chooses himself. That is an important distinction to make.

There's also this idea that Akechi is 'just crazy,' or never suffered from abuse or events that affected him long term. That he doesn't suffer from unspecified mental health conditions or trauma, and chose everything with a clear mind. When someone brings up this argument, it's usually in response to people talking about his life experiences. That somehow, the existence of trauma or a condition is an excuse for whatever he did. There's a double standard here: Akechi is someone who suffers from a condition that makes him 'plain crazy', simplifying his entire motivation and role in the story, while also removing him from the context of his mother, Shido, and his experience with the foster system. Actually interacting with these facets of his character brings to light the challenging things the story asks you to think about when it comes to Akechi: Is he a victim? Is he like the Phantom Thieves? What about his situation informed his choices? Interacting with this requires effort and an actual acknowledgement about what it means to be someone that suffers from trauma. Calling him 'plain crazy' not only is in disservice of textual analysis, but more importantly incorrect (and frankly, it falls straight into ableist tropes about mental health).

Sometimes internet debates/discourse lead to simplification, even just random headcanons may lead to simplification. That isn't always bad. There are many ways to say what I said here in fewer words. I, unfortunately, am not skilled enough to do that. But some of these simplifications lead to entirely incorrect judgements about a character, or even about mental health issues. When that happens, I wish people would learn to reflect about what that means when they interact with a piece of media. Or even with other people.

tldr: people should learn to say they just don't like things instead of coming up with excuses that make no sense. basically

[svsss-fanon-exposed]

Exposing SVSSS Fanon: 3/∞

CANG QIONG MOUNTAIN'S TWELVE PEAKS HAVE COLOR-CODED UNIFORMS

Rating: CANON

Fanworks will often depict the disciples of Cang Qiong Mountain's twelve peaks in matching, color-coded uniforms to each of their peak. This is not something that is often mentioned in the novel itself, but it is canonically accurate.

However, we do not know many of the peaks' signature colors. The fact that they do have specific uniforms in specific colors is canon, but many of the colors used in fanworks are, in fact, fanon.

In the text, only two peaks have canonically-designated uniform colors.

It is stated that there are set uniforms for all of Cang Qiong Mountain Sect's disciples:

Though the disciples on the peaks had to wear uniforms, there were also many acclaimed cultivators who weren’t subject to these restrictions...

and

Thankfully, on An Ding Peak, trivial matters like assigning rooms and uniforms to newly accepted disciples didn’t require the peak lord’s involvement.

and also a passage here:

 Several hundred disciples in uniformly colored robes and furious expressions surrounded the invaders

In the original, the phrase "uniformly colored robes (服色统一)" could be read as all of Cang Qiong Mountain's disciples wearing the same-color uniform, but it could also be read that they were all dressed in uniform, as 服色 denotes both color and style of clothes (notable that "color" in Chinese is a more abstract concept than in English).

This passage isn't clear on its own, but there are other places where it is confirmed that the colors worn by the disciples of various peaks are different, and can be used to tell which peak a disciple belongs to:

[Shen Qingqiu] held his breath, attention rapt, and watched a youth in black rush out... ...The color of his robes confirmed that he really was from Bai Zhan Peak...

Aside from this, Qing Jing Peak's uniforms are the only others that are given a description:

Enveloped in Qing Jing Peak’s many-layered teal uniform, [SQQ] was immaculate and slender, with a great deal of graceful beauty.

While this passage describes the Peak Lord's attire and might not necessarily extend to the disciples, another passage shortly after this says:

A group of teal-robed boys and girls ran down Qing Jing Peak in a trailing conga line, one after another.

This confirms a uniform color used by the peak's disciples.

These passages, however, are the only ones which definitively state a uniform color for any of the twelve peaks-- meaning that we only know that Qing Jing Peak's uniforms are teal (青色）and Bai Zhan Peak's uniforms are black (黑色). Anything other than this is fanon and headcanon.

One more side note-- Luo Binghe is described as wearing white:

A seventeen-year-old youth, slim and tall and graceful, dressed in white robes

But this description only begins after the timeskip at the beginning of Chapter 4 (7S TL). Luo Binghe is, as of now, still a disciple of the sect, and thus would be required to wear a uniform. However, one important change had occured during this time-- Luo Binghe, at the time of the Immortal Alliance Conference, is Qing Jing Peak's head disciple.

The only time another head disciple's appearance is described is regarding Shen Qingqiu:

Shang Qinghua suddenly heard the tinkling of sword tassel pendants, and a youth wearing Qing Jing Peak’s uniform slowly approached him... ... His black hair was neatly tied behind his head with a light-green ribbon...

The color of his uniform is not stated, other than it being Qing Jing Peak's, and the "light-green" color of the hair ribbon is 青色，which is the same color translated as "teal" when describing QJP's uniforms above.

Therefore, one interpretation could be that head disciples of Cang Qiong Mountain's twelve peaks wear white uniforms with accessories in their peaks' designated color.

This, of course, is not explicitly canon and should still be taken as headcanon (I would categorize it as supported or neutral fanon on this blog).

However, the idea that the twelve peaks have each their own uniform colors, and that QJP's is teal and BZP's is black, are canonical facts.

[anxious-witch]

Dead boy detectives characters as their big three in Astrology-Charles

Text in the pictures and more explanation under the cut

So, this, unlike Edwin's, aren't canon, just my hcs, although Charles is imo implied to be a Taurus in a scene where Edwin says Taurus and Aries are highly incompatible. Because I refuse to believe this boy is Aries and even less so that Crystal is a Taurus so.

Taurus-Sun

~ Strong will & aesthetic sense, very tactile

~ Loyal & great at taking care of what they love

~ Patient & present, drinks in life with no rush

Sagittarius-Rising

~ Wide-eyed truth seeker, lives life as a quest

- Spontaneous, adventurous, philosophical soul

~ Inclusive & generous, magnet for opportunity

Cancer-Moon

~ Soulful & deep, needs emotional security

~ Sympathetic, extra sensitive & very protective

~ Sentimental, strong ties to the past & family

Text from moonomes.com

So, he'd be a perfect balance of earth, fire and water in his big three. Taurus Sun, aka he is grounded enough to have a stable base people he cares about can lean on. Fiercely loyal, once you have his affection, he'd anything for you(cough like fight a demon or go to Hell cough). As a Venus sign, he cares about his apperance, but still keeps it comfortable. Hence why he looks so effortless cool throughout the series. Also Tauruses often love to indulde in little pleasures, such as food, so it's no wonder Charles complains about missing spaghetti. He is a creature of comforts.

His down to earth attitude balances well with Edwin's Capricorn qualities. Both are grounded, but when Edwin focused solely on the goal, Charles is there ti be present in the moment and notice what happens around them and react accordingly. Like with the Night Nurse, where Edwin froze, because he had no idea how to face this kind of threat. Charles was present and his protective instincts kicked in immediately. 

Then we have Sagittarius Rising. I knew he had to be some sort of fire sign, because that boy has so much inner fire to keep him going. And Sagittarius is exactly that. Rising signs are all about how one is perceived, and Sagittariuses are positive and friendly, with boundless energy. One could say that Charles' statement of being "aces with people" fits perfectly here. They are always here for the new adventure and experiences, especially when they are surrounded by people they love to be around.

Last but not least is Cancer Moon. Cancers are known for having many emotions, even having a reputation for crying often, although that's not necessarily true. Having it as his Moon, that represets emotions, especially hidden ones, does mean Charles has lots of feelings. He is sensitive to feelings of others, and in normal circumstances, should be of his own. However, he, similarly to Edwin, isn't a fully realized Cancer Moon at the beginning of the series. He bottles up his feelings, hiding behind his more "desirable" Rising. But eventually, the dam breaks, and he cries and/or lashes out.

Also, interestingly, Cancer Moons are known to be very possessive, which we see when Edwin is spending time with Monty or the Cat King. 

With his full potential realized(which I think, he has more work to do than Edwin does as things stand rn) he'll be a wonderful friend, attentive partner and somehow who freely expresses his emotions, both good and bad.

[epiphainie]

I completely agree with you in that there are many bad faith interpretations of tommy and buck and tommy’s relationship. I don’t know if this one I’m about to share would necessarily be a bad faith interpretation but I’d like your take on it. In the scene where buck comes out to eddie, eddie says to buck “this changes nothing between us” and buck responds with something along the lines of “uh good, that’s a relief”. I’ve seen a lot of people interpret buck’s facial expressions as not showing just relief but relief mixed disappointment because a part of buck wanted things to change between them, in the romantic sense, he just doesn’t realize it. I do agree that buck’s expression as he says the words is interesting but I don’t personally think it has anything to do with him harbouring romantic feelings for eddie. for me it felt like one of those moments where you dread the reaction for so long, that when you finally face the thing and open up, even if the other person’s reaction is positive, it takes a minute for you to really internalise it and let yourself believe it.

Another moment that people often talk about from this scene is reaction to buck saying he can’t stop thinking about tommy. People often say eddie’s facial expression shows some sort of disappointment but again, I don’t know if that’s it? again, it is an interesting expression so I get why people would pause and focus for a minute but to me, it reads as eddie searching for a moment to give his honest advice to buck in the scenario.

Anyway, I’d love your thoughts on those particular moments and how you see them. Again, I’m not saying that the interpretations people are making of that scene in relation to buddie are necessarily in bad faith. I know it’s fun to analyze and interpret scenes in ways that you enjoy and I’d never want people to stop doing that. I just feel like Oliver and Tim have been very clear in that they do not want to tell a story where a guy comes out and is in love with his best friend and if buck was truly disappointed in hearing eddie say nothing’s going to change between them post buck’s coming out, that would be a quite bold contradiction.

Hi anon!

I'm not sure if you actually meant to send this to me because I'm kind of the exact opposite of a person who engages in the practice of reverse-engineering actors' faces to find deep secret meanings that doesn't actually exist in the script. I think it's a slippery slop of a fan practice where if you go "haha he looks jealous here" and want to make it gay in your fantasy world and are capable of compartmentalizing that from the actual text, it's great! If you look at it like it's subtext that is meant to one day come to surface, as some sort of proof that this is not the actual story, you're either too deep in your world that you treat these characters like they have agencies and thoughts and feelings and are not, yknow, fictional - or that actors are making the conscious choice to layer their performances with breadcrumbs for a plot that doesn't exist at the time.

I've seen all these arguments with almost every scene this season. Eddie's face when Tommy enters the bachelor party. Buck's face when Bobby says Tommy is good for him. Bobby's face when he says Tommy is good for Buck. Eddie's smile when they enter the hospital room. Most of these are insignificant and the others have in-text explanation (Yeah, Bobby smiles weirdly in that scene. Guess what, he's kind of planning to kill himself). And like I said, if people want to read these in a pro-Buddie sense and go do fandom stuff with it, that's great. But we all know this fandom is taken over by the question of "will Buck and Eddie happen?" so everyone who's not even doing this in bad faith (I don't think all do) are looking at it in "does this support canon romantic Buddie?" lenses. So much of shipping Buddie is about speculating for the next episode, next season, next whatever that I think it's so easy to find yourself on that slippery slop where you fit every shot, face, editing choice to your interpretation. There's also the sunk cost fallacy at play here - once you do it for so long, it's hard to give up on the belief that it'll happen.

I think both Oliver and Ryan great actors - and that scene is one of my favorites in the season - but no, I don't think there's more to their faces than what they're given to play. Which is as all of them mentioned a billion times, a scene of a guy nervously coming out as queer to his best friend and receiving support. If I'm wrong and the rest of this fandom is right and the production/writers/showrunners are actually fully married to the idea of canon romantic Buddie but The Powers That Be are keeping gay Eddie in the closet as if he's a real person and they're the evil step-mother, and come S10 Buck realizes he's been in love with his bff all along, then yeah in-text, that would recontextualize all their performances. It still wouldn't change what the writers' intention has been with the text as it exists today or be proof that Oliver and Ryan are making acting choices for a hypothetical future SL.

[irldiancie]

All Kagehina “proof” I know of

Ok i wasnt gonna post this but ive been told by a friend to explain why some might ship Kagehina so... try me. i dont exactly ship this myself but lets just say im a pro when it comes to this topic also it's not as bad as i thought it was there are worse ships idk why i was a hater also i lowkey got some of this from shipping wiki but most of it i knew already, plus NOT ALL OF THIS IS NECESSARILY REFERENCES TO THE SHIP it kinda just adds on to it anyways lets just get into it

ok so starting with common knowledge i think everyone knows that Hinata is the protagonist followed with Kageyama being the deuteragonist, they get the most screen time together and are pretty much paired MOST of the series, we get a lot of content with them together while also getting content of them on their own, they're known as the "freak duo," the "greatest teammates" and like 100 other names they've been called I've seen a lot of people intemperate their relationship wrong, I've seen a few say Kageyama was downright "abusive" to Hinata which I think is a little farfetched, but to each their own! They genuinely do care for each other and it shows, even at the end of the manga you can tell how far their relationship has come, even if they consider themselves rivals, they are without a doubt still friends Now a lot of people have said "well they're not gay they're just friends", while this is true, it has been referenced/implied officially in many places, including manga panels and english dubs, so while it isn't canon there is a few cute things about it which we know are official which is why I'm sharing this, I myself know it isn't canon, plus I didn't really make this to prove anything it was kinda for fun sorry if that made little to no sense but I'll start getting into more interesting stuff 1. at the tip of the iceberg we have the fact they're in so much official art together

theres like a 1000 more of these btw theyre often put near eachother even in official arts not based off them

I have like 1k more of these but i have more proof than this but i think you get my point some of this is probably promo art but that's also considered official art so 2. moving on i think another known one is that Ukai calls them lovebirds ONE TIME in English dub and I have no idea who approved that but I think it's funny and obviously this probably meant nothing but take it as you want video of it here 3. this is kinda randomly thrown in but the fact that they also trust eachother, they've mentioned it a couple times but I think it's nice to know 4. i dont remember when this was or what chapter or something but kageyamas grandfather said "somebody even better will come for you", which just happened to be Hinata of course 5. ALSO after that whole fight scene back in season two, Hinata says this

he didnt really consider kageyama as a friend, but he considered him a partner which i believe is more important to hinata. teammates/partners were always something Hinata wanted, as before he went to Karasuno, he didn't feel like his friends in Junior high were necessarily teammates. Meaning he valued Kageyama more because he was his partner.

(credits to triananero for these images) and when him and Kageyama started working together, they most definitely were perfect together, as they balanced each-other out, which made them become an unstoppable duo or whatever they called them 6. the fact that they have matching jersey numbers 9 and 10 moving on to less canon stuff, there is a light novel of Haikyuu called Haikyū!! Shōsetsuban!! which probably isnt close to canon but Furudate was a part of it even though it wasn't written by him, so it's at least somewhat official 7. anyway according to shipping wiki there is a chapter where Kageyama feels "fluttery feelings at the bottom of his stomach" when Hinata texts him, it's on volume 8 chapter 1, I REALLY WANTED TO SHOW YOU GUYS BUT I COULDNT FIND IT ANYWHERE ONLINE. i searched countless tumblr posts and websites but i could only find chapter five and chapter three so im fully convinced this is lost media LMAOOOO 8. also in Haikyū!! Shōsetsuban!! apparently there's a part where Hinata daydreams about him and Kageyama eating under cherry blossom trees i just found that cute AS MUCH AS I WANNA SHOW YOU GUYS I LITERALLY CANNOT FIND ANYTHING OF THIS LIGHT NOVEL ANYWHERE i just know it's real, if I ever get my hands on it which I doubt, I'll share proof it exists btw AND THIS IS REALLY RANDOM AND SOMEONE WANTED ME TO INCLUDE THIS BUT 9. Basically there was a ad for deodorant a couple years back, collabing with Haikyuu, where you could buy deodorants to “smell like them” or whatever, some shippers believe it’s a Kagehina reference as they also advertised Kageyama and Hinatas scents together as some like matching couple thing

and then there's this

And I think I've said enough, there's way more you can find out about this ship, but I hope with this post you've learned something new or whatever... I MIGHT MAKE THIS A SERIES should i do kenhina next or kuroken ANYWAYS DISCLAIMER I didnt look too much into most of these things but I can gaurentee this stuff is true also this was just for fun and not serious but i hope you liked my little post!

[paxopalotls]

RAHH i just read both your tue danny / phantom / dan centric works, and how does it feel to be so correct and compelling and correct? more seriously - what about TUE / TUE Danny do you find most interesting to explore? do you have any characterization / headcanon that isn't necessarily canon compatible? and free space (please ramble about them as much as you want)

Sorry it's taken me so long to go through my inbox! I hope you don't mind the long text; TUE is one of my favorite episodes and Dan is a character that I find very fascinating.

Thank you for the kind words aahh! I don't often write so it means a lot that you liked my works. For context if anyone else is reading this, I wrote a couple IB fics about Dan/Phantom, and my thoughts about him, which I'll elaborate on here.

I have a lot of feelings about Dan, especially since he as a character is so tragic. It's strange to me that no one ever mentions the fact that when Vlad performed the removal of Danny's human half, it was Phantom that betrayed Vlad, not the other way around. I always thought that meant there was something wrong with Dan after the accident also. I delve into it a little in my fic, but I do have more thoughts about his attitude. It's interesting to me that the comic portrays his actions as being motivated by Vlad's self preservation and selfishness, and I don't necessarily disagree, but I do think it's more complicated than that. I personally believe his actions have a very complex motivation, more than just "Vlad is evil so fusing with him made Danny also evil".

It's difficult to deal with grief, and from the few scenes shown, it seems Dan dealt with it by shutting down. I also think he had a lot of conflicting feelings of grief and rage; Danny was the one who regularly defeated the ghosts, but he was also the one protecting them from the human ghost hunters, releasing the ghosts back into the GZ rather than allowing them to be taken for experimentation. I think it would anger him that his lenience towards the ghosts was taken advantage of, leading to the deaths of his friends and family. Vlad never showed an inclination towards abusing the ghosts, so this is what I believe caused him to do such uncharacteristically violent things like paralyze Johnny 13 from the waist down, permanently damage one of Box Ghost's eyes and one of his hands, and destroy Ember's vocal cords.

Something I touched on in my fic too is that I believe Danny has a weird relationship with death, due to the fact that he managed to come back from it, and also due to the general existence of ghosts in his life. AGIT states that all ghosts are people who've died, as well as that some lose their humanity over time. Due to this, I have a belief/theory that Dan expected his friends, if not family, to come back, and when they didn't, he dealt with his loneliness through anger. In TUE, he acts like he doesn't care about any of them, but I think he actually cares too much. He is caustic and taunting towards them, his parents especially, because his anger at them for hurting him is compounded by his grief at their loss.

In addition, the interference of Clockwork probably also contributed to his anger; there are two timelines that exist, the one where Danny lost and the one where he didn't, and the only reason that he won was because of the interference of Time himself. I think this is a lot of what motivates Dan's actions in TUE; he's trying to prove to Danny that the timeline is "inevitable" because he's trying to prove it to himself. His loved ones have already died, and he's angry that this alternate Danny gets a second chance. The only moment of true vulnerability we see in him during TUE is when he realizes that Jazz, his Jazz from his timeline, had always known who he was. It's obvious that despite his efforts to seem unemotional about everything, all of his actions are due to his turbulent emotions, and this is even more evident in canon due of AGIT confirming that ghosts are beings of emotion.

I do think Vlad's emotional state also compounds with this, since Vlad as a character is more prone to hiding his hurts than Danny, which is a large part of what makes up Dan's personality. In addition, Vlad's character is largely driven by a desire for family and affection, but he responds to this insecurity with a need for control and self-aggrandizement. Vlad's goals throughout the show are to amass power, largely to prove himself to those he cares about - Danny and Maddie - as well as to spite those he hates - Jack. His feelings for Jack seem more complicated than that, however; he is upset at what he sees as a betrayal by someone he obviously cared about; the two of them were best friends and roommates before Maddie was in the picture.

I think both Danny and Vlad center a lot of themselves on the people they love, though it's more evident on Vlad's side, and Dan as a combination of them does as well. His tendency is often similar to "splitting" in BPD, where he responds to a perceived betrayal or personal weakness with volatility, which is something Vlad does as well, with Jack, Maddie in some ways and especially with Danny. Dan as well responds with hostility towards people he is attached to who he perceives as hurting him, something that is complicated by the fact that part of what he blames them for is the fact that they died. He is especially ruthless with people he sees as betraying him or his lenience, like Valerie and the ghost rogues gallery; this is also a combination of Vlad and Danny's personalities. Vlad's hatred tends to be more long-standing than Danny's but he also tends to be more methodical with his actions. Danny on the other hand responds to his own anger with immediate aggression, but lets go of slights relatively quickly. Dan, as the combination of the two, holds grudges for a long time, but tends to rely on brute force rather than long term plans like Vlad would have.

He also has a lot of self-loathing, which he projects onto Danny and Vlad from this timeline, Danny especially. As I mentioned earlier, a large factor in this is Clockwork's direct involvement in the current timeline, which superseded his. In addition, I think that Danny and Vlad's interpersonal dynamic might have fed into this; both of them can't bring themselves to permanently harm the other but they do both hold some level of resentment for the other, Danny more-so since Vlad has an attachment to him. Danny's hatred for Vlad especially seems to derive in part from his own fears about himself and his selfishness, and I think that influences the way Dan interacts with both of them.

TLDR: Dan's specific concoction of mental illness derives from both Vlad and Danny, which affects a lot about how he acts and feels. There's a lot to explore about his trauma and how that relates to his new place in the current timeline, and I have a lot of feelings about him. (He makes me sad!!)

[girlfromenglishclass]

The reunion of Penelope and Odysseus at the end of the Odyssey is the culmination of a romance that's kind of grand in scale, so it makes sense that it's been fixated on in artwork. But in the scene, there is the question of the whole slaughter that just happened. There are plenty of relatively moral justifications for it, but there remains the question of Penelope's reaction.

Penelope's reaction to the bloodshed changes the interpretation of the ending, and it's often skipped over in favor of the classic romantic fade-to-black ending. We have three options.

Option #1) Penelope has no reaction to the slaughter/doesn't care. This is the one favored in more cinematic/simpler looks at the story. It's also the closest to what you will find in-text, as they don't necessarily have a discussion about it. Admittedly, it does work best if you're focusing on Odysseus as a romantic hero, fighting to return to his wife. A ten year voyage to get back to her should end in their touching reunion, and a moral debate dampens the climactic end of the story. However, this ending removes Penelope's agency from the plot.

While Odysseus has been outwitting monsters and seducing a goddess, Penelope's role in the story is fixed in her home. (This is entirely fair given the original audience's perception of female virtue) So this means that the suitors and their occupation of the palace is basically her primary concern. We learn about her cleverness and cool head by her ability to outwit them, same as Odysseus with his trials. So for her not to react to the killing of the suitors takes her opinion out of her own subplot. So, verdict: good for a romantic climax, bad for Penelope's character.

Option #2) Penelope is angry about the slaughter. This option does cast a pall over the idea that Odysseus has been toiling away trying to return to his lady love. It says that he'd do unspeakable things for her, but she will cease to love him for it. However, this option definitely offers the most drama. Odysseus returns, but not the same husband she once knew. In fighting his way back to her, he has become a creature of violence. This also could add to the tragedy of the maids who were hanged simply for cooperating with the suitors. The downside is that it completely changes the tone of the ending. Odysseus is given a kind of pyrrhic victory. Also, this is the least in line with text, since Penelope is quite happy to have Odysseus back in canon (once she knows it's him). So, verdict: the most bittersweet ending, most drama, least in line with Homeric canon.

Option #3) Penelope is glad the suitors are dead, and that her husband killed them. Not to be biased, but this one is the most fun. It also is compliant to a canon interpretation, for the same reason listed above. This makes sense with Penelope's predicament. As a woman in Bronze Age Greece, her home is where she has the most influence and power. With her husband away, she has more authority over it than ever. (See Clytemnestra's control over court in Agamemnon's absence) However, the suitors exist as an occupying force. They have taken away her authority, plotted to kill her son, and made her life miserable. In her position, she cannot take revenge, but Odysseus can. In this interpretation, Odysseus frees Penelope and in taking his place as king, returns her dignity as queen. Many readers presume that the primary motivation for the slaughter was that the suitors were, well, suitors. They were here to marry his wife, which he's understandably displeased with, so off with their heads. But really, the suitors are closer to an invading army. One houseguest is annoying; one hundred and eight houseguests is an occupation. The downside? It solidifies Odysseus and Penelope as a murder couple, and depending on your opinion of the morality of it all, implicates her in the crime. So, verdict: the bloodiest, possibly most fun, keeps Odysseus the hero, but does give both characters a sense of brutality.

[neverenoughmarauders]

What are your thoughts on Lily’s feelings towards James in canon? Do you think she loved him like he loved her?

I wish we had insight from one of Lily’s friends in the text on their relationship. ( I don’t count Snape because his memories explanation his behavior and not her.) Lately, I’ve been feeling like he loved her more than she loved him and that’s makes me wonder if that’s the appeal of James with Regulus.

I am so sorry for the delay in responding to this.

I have so many thoughts, but to start with your last question: I am not going to speculate in what makes James and Regulus appealing, as I really don't get it, but no, I don't believe James loved Lily more than Lily loved James.

Did Lily and James love each other?

The doe and the stag - Lily's true love was James Potter

Very often fanfics write about Lily having a doe Patronus before she starts falling for James, and I don't necessarily think that's right.

According to JK Rowling, the Patronus often mutates to take the image of the love of one's life (because they so often become the 'happy thought' that generates a Patronus). Lily's happy thoughts start centring around James, who of course is the Stag. It's not his patrons that changes, it's hers. Lily's doe is a symbol of requited love, with Snape's doe being a symbol of unrequited love:

Although Lily and Snape’s doe Patronuses matched, Severus’s love was devastatingly unrequited. Lily’s true love was James Potter, who, although Lily once told him ‘I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid’, she ended up marrying the untidy-haired Quidditch player after they left Hogwarts. Their connection and love showed through their Patronuses in a different way to an exact match like Tonks and Lupin. Lily’s husband’s Patronus was a stag, the male form of her doe. The stag and doe complemented each other rather than matched.  [Wizarding World]

Leaving out the patronuses for a bit just because it can be a bit of a cop out

I am very careful about what I categorically say are 'facts' and what is interpretation or headcanons. But here's the thing: We have points of evidence that indicate that Lily and James are in love, and NO evidence to the contrary once we get to their seventh year and beyond. Which means, they were in love. If we were meant to doubt it, we would have been given competing narratives. We are not. Not even by Snape.

What do we know about their relationship (I am going to skip ahead to when they start dating, as it is a post in itself to analyse their relationship pre-dating):

They start dating in year 7, after James matured. They are Head Boy and Head Girl, which isn't by chance - they are clearly similar in brilliance and seen as responsible role models by this time. Interestingly, they are positioned throughout most of the series as a team, chronologically-timewise starting with being Head Boy/Girl in school.

Lily and James got engaged, married and had a child within two years of leaving school. Of course, this could have been the war making them feel desperate and throwing themselves at anyone, but really? James had plenty of friends, Lily we know less about, but they were both occupied with the Order, young, talented and popular (yes both were popular, according to JKR), so there's no reason they would feel they needed to get married quickly, except if they were in love.

Before they got engaged (so likely around 17/18 - and not long after they had started dating), Lily invited James along to meet Petunia and Vernon. It ended disastrously, but it's interesting that this seems to have been the first time Vernon met Lily, as well as James - there's at least very little to indicate Vernon ever met Lily without James. Within a very short space of time, Lily felt James was such an integral part of her life that she simply had to bring him along when she met her sister's husband-to-be.

The pictures of Lily and James. Everything we see about the Potters' life in photos suggest two happily married people. (1) At their wedding: '[Harry] stopped on a picture of his parents’ wedding day. There was his father waving up at him, beaming, the untidy black hair Harry had inherited standing up in all directions. There was his mother, alight with happiness, arm in arm with his dad.' (2) In the order: 'Harry’s heart turned over. His mother and father were beaming up at him, sitting on either side of a small, watery-eyed man Harry recognized at once as Wormtail' (3) In general/in Harry's photo album: 'It was full of wizard photographs. Smiling and waving at him from every page were his mother and father.' (4) The picture that accompanies Lily's letter: '...he kept the part from which Lily laughed, throwing the portion showing James and Harry back onto the floor.'

Lily's letter to Sirius is possibly the biggest clue to Lily and James' married life, and while I've seen it argued that Lily was actually mascaraing her bitterness, I will note that I've heard this read by two narrators in two different languages, and both, like me, read it as Lily being in love and trying to look after not just her son, but also her husband. The letter often denotes them as the team and married couple they are: 'we've had to pack away the ornaments ... we had a quiet birthday tea... we were sorry you couldn't come.' But more importantly, it features the famous passage: 'James is getting a bit frustrated shut up here, he tries not to show it but I can tell -- also, Dumbledore's still got his Invisibility Cloak, so no chance of little excursions. If you could visit, it would cheer him up so much'. We've all lived through the pandemic, so we know how easy it is to get frustrated, and James, from everything we learn about him, is a man of action - just like Sirius. What Dumbledore says about Sirius, I think it's likely applies just as well to James: 'Sirius was a brave, clever and energetic man, and such men are not usually content to sit at home in hiding.' Yet James tried to hide his frustrations from Lily - why? Likely because he didn't want to burden her or make the situation harder on her - or he might have feared that she might have felt like she wasn't enough. Lily, however, noticed because she knew him, and loved him. She understood that it was not personal, and she also knew exactly what would cheer him up, and tried to bring that about. It's a short passage that I think shows the two of them trying to take care of each other in their different ways.

Finally, of course, James died trying to give his family time to escape. And Lily - unsurprisingly - screamed when Voldemort killed him. Okay, maybe because she knew she and Harry would have no time to get away - but considering everything else, it's more likely it's the one moment of grief or pain she allowed herself before her focus shifted to keeping Harry safe. 'The green light filled the cramped hallway, it lit the pram pushed against the wall, it made the banisters glow like lighting rods, and James Potter fell like a marionette whose strings were cut... [Voldemort] could hear her screaming from the upper floor'

Did James love Lily more than Lily loved James?

Canon: We don't know - and I am not sure it matters

Usually, I struggle with questions like who loved who most because love isn't this quantifiable thing that can be ranked. However, in this case I do actually have a headcanon... Sticking to the canon, however, we really have no evidence to suggest one of them were deeply in love and not the other. Just because James asked Lily out first doesn't mean James necessarily was more in love with Lily than she is with him.

Headcanon: James fell first, but Lily fell harder

Okay, so I do think they both just loved each other - and I do believe love isn't this quantifiable thing (as per above). However, looking at canon, I can't help but believe that Lily had more of her life in the relationship than James did, so to speak.

Lily was muggle-born and lost/fell out with the only person we know was her friend in canon (we don't know that Mary was a friend, it's not improbable, but we don't know). And it was her best friend to boot. While not moving country, Lily might as well have. She enters the wizarding world which isolates her from most of her relatives - and any friends she might have had before Hogwarts. When we meet Lily as a married woman, we learn that the people she surrounded herself with are Order members (like Marlene), her neighbours (like Bathilda) and James' friends.

James on the other hand, still financed Remus (so even if Remus was more distant from the Marauders than he used to be - which is a valid interpretation based on being suspected of being a spy, not being mentioned in Lily's letter and standing away from the rest in the Order photo, James was still actively interested in and supporting his friend). James was still best friends with Sirius, as is very clear from Lily's letter, Sirius being the best man at the wedding and Harry's godfather. James still liked little excursions. And James was close enough with Peter to let Sirius convince him to be secret keeper, and received him as a visitor shortly after Harry's first birthday.

I am not sure this really counts, but I also can't stop thinking about the whole Snape/James thing. We know James isn't fully honest with Lily in their seventh year. James didn't stop hexing Snape, yet he kept this from Lily. Why? Because she didn't like it and he knew that, yet he couldn't stop himself (though tbf, as we know from Sirius, Snape never lost a chance to curse James).

Yes, James loved Lily, but she's not his end all or be all (not that I am suggesting that would be healthy!). Yet, there's no canonical evidence to suggest that James was not Lily's end all or be all. Well, for both of them, the most important thing in their lives was Harry, and he was really their end all or be all (they both died protecting him), but removing him from the equation for one second. If Lily and James split up, who has the least left? Lily - as far as we know. Therefore, I suppose my headcanon has crept in unbiddenly: James fell first (though not nearly as soon as some fanfics write it as and Lily definitely struggled more with her emotions towards him - 'nah, she didn't' I think is such an important line), but Lily fell harder.

[vashtijoy]

on canon

So here's the deal:

No work of fiction has a single interpretation. There are as many interpretations, pretty much, as there are people, and that's because the job of fiction is to tell us about ourselves—about others too, yes, and about the world around us, yes. But primarily, a work of fiction is a collaboration between the author and the reader/viewer/player/etc.

What does that mean, exactly? Surely the creator is the one who gets to say what a character is? Well, no.

Let's take a character (call him... idk, something nice and generic, like "Boro"). The creator wrote Boro with certain ideas in mind. But Boro doesn't really come to life until he reaches the viewer—when the creator's concept interacts with the viewer, to create something new. And there are a lot of viewers.

A work of fiction is as much what the viewer sees as it is what the creator intended. It's what we all bring to it, as much as it's what the creator wrote. Art is not dictated; it's not a straitjacket, with rules and diktats that must never be broken. Art is released into the world. Because art is nothing without an audience.

What Boro (or his frenemy Ben, or their close lookalikes Bight and Bell, or any characters or canon you want to name) are is as much about how you think of them, and what you see, and what you personally bring to them, as they are about their dialogue and visuals and the events of their plot.

on fanfiction

This means there is really no "bad" fanfiction. We all create and write to our own vision—we draw on our ideas of the original work, on the inspiration we personally drew from it. We take the things that spoke to us—that moved us, or obsessed us, or that we just found funny—and we create things we love, using the original work as a source. Plus, we're all learning our art—some of us have been writing for twenty years, and others have just started. That kid writing today will write the epics of tomorrow. So don't bite the newbies.

Sometimes our shared universes overlap, and that's great! Sometimes nobody else agrees, which can be kind of lonely—but doesn't make your vision somehow less valid. We are not painting by numbers; we're creating a palimpsest of slightly different (or very different) visions.

Why start fights because someone else doesn't share your artistic vision? Make your own thing that you like. We're a flock of birds singing, not the Borg.

digression: so why do you spend so much time talking about canon

I'm more of a researcher than I'm a writer. And what became clear to me very early on was just how much I'd missed on my playthrough of P5R—and just how well the story hung together, when you scratched a little below the surface. Those things interest me. I don't like the feeling that I misunderstood things, and I like unearthing connections, obscure text chats that are easy to miss, cockeyed correspondences that don't necessarily mean anything, and so on.

For me, canon is our shared baseline. It's the light outside before it hits our retinas, before we get into the detail of whether the blue I see is really the blue you see. I find digging into canon can spur ideas; a close look at it can support interpretations that are often ridiculed ("Akechi feels remorse for his actions" would like a word).

Ultimately, everything I blog about is my interpretation. I hope it's accurate and I'm glad when it speaks to people! But it's not the law. And if people are creating things that don't agree with it? Good. That's exactly how it's supposed to be.

tl;dr

Write your story. Sing your song. Tell your truth.

[cookii-moon]

Ninjago has social media so why not share some headcanons

so I was chatting with a friend and this came up and I wanted to expand on it and talk about it

Basically... how the ninja interact with the canon social media. Yeah. Twitter- I mean Chirp... is a thing in Ninjago. Canonically. And then never brought up again. So uh

What better to do than explore how the Ninja's social media life is going in relation to them being celebrities. And then post it on a social media at 9 pm. Headcanons under the cutoff yayy

Ok so first off Cole because he started this mess and I want to get him out of the way because I want to get to the other's.

He's... I mean are we going to deny he's popular... He was kinda already a celebrity before becoming a Ninja thanks to his family history. Either way, he is very afraid of the omnipresent conglomorate known as a fanbase. They scare him so he just does not interact with them whatsoever, yet he still somehow manages to remain VERY popular with fans for... a variety of reasons... his lack of interaction means they feel like they can get away with a lot of things. Despite this Cole does still have exactly one active social media account and it is an anonymous (Insert Ninjagan equivalent to Instagram here) where he quite literally just posts art randomly and daily and says absolutely nothing. By anonymous, I mean he pretty much just has an online name and profile picture that he made up that has no connections to his personal life or being a ninja. The other Ninja are aware he has an art account, but not of the name or any other details, so they've made a secret game out of finding his social media identity. It remains yet to be found, which is either a relief, to Cole (though he isn't even aware of it) or sad, to the people who are betting on it.

Lloyd!! Little candy loving goblin man!!! Lloyd is awesome I want to draw him more often hhh

Lloyd kind of just talks about funny things, posts memes, and shares cool fanart. He tries to steer clear of negativity in general because good lord knows he's far too exhausted from his own trauma and stress to fight the internet. He just tries to turn a blind eye to stuff but he still gets caught up in the web that is social media sometimes, what with fame and all that, which often ends in him getting emotional. And subsequently having Kai offer to punch somebody. His socials are public but he doesn't advertise them much at all for the sake of a peaceful atmosphere, so he has like a decently small follower/sub/whatever count for how popular he is. His fanbase is pretty tame for the most part, though there are a few overbearing young children who don't quite understand things just yet.

Kai, the guy who made chirp canon by posting about being in the hospital and causing a break in that probably violated several laws and frightened the children.

... I mean it's kind of canon that he uses socials. Since he's likely one of the only two Ninja with public and advertised accounts, people flock to him a lot over that fact alone, so not all of them are necessarily there for Kai. He has a pretty dedicated fanbase of people who like him for his charm and personality, but he also has a few people who find him annoying and pretentious. Some people kinda don't mind him and just follow him for Ninja news or snippets in general, even though he doesn't just post about Ninja stuff. Since it's kind of hard to convey a personality in.. you know... text... unless you know someone REALLY well, he tends to have a bit of a divide in the community over how he comes off as arrogant or full of himself sometimes.

Nya our local girlboss who's movie counterpart rides a straight up motorcycle through hallways endangering hundreds of children- look I love Nya but principal where are you.

She does have a social, but she rarely uses it. When she logs in every month or so it mostly just consists of roasting Kai or answering curious fans. Despite this she does look at the fanbase every now and then because she finds it equally parts heartwarming and, when it comes to the idiots and trolls, amusing. She's pretty popular because of her general attitude and girlboss vibes.

Zane, robot man with infinite access to the entirety of the web.

So hear me out here... I don't think he has an actual social, but I think he edits wikipages. Like not fandom or anything just straight up Wikipedia. In every language. (or, well, regional dialect?) I know it's really specific but that just seems like something he'd enjoy. It's a secret hobby. He'll be up at night facing the wall in his bed, eyes open trying to finish this wiki article because new info about prehistoric dinosaurs and their connections to birds came out and he has to document it right now oh my god, and the others think he's just like asleep or smthn. It just makes him really happy. His fanbase isn't as large as the others, but he's still very well liked by the majority of the ninja fans, even though he rarely interacts with social media outside of interviews (because Jay is actively trying to stop him from getting anywhere close to it so that he doesn't have to explain certain things)

And last but not least... Jay... the social menace of the internet.

He's the second ninja with a public and well known account, and he's very popular. He talks about everything. Funny memes. Fanart. Silly thoughts. And he loves gossiping about the other's in good fun. His sole purpose is to entertain both others and himself, and he is very good at it, even online. He's also really involved in the community and likes giving shout outs to talented people and such. Being really involved also means he knows their secrets. He knows about the more sus parts of the fanbase. He knows about the secret Benedict cult. He knows about the real reason Cole and Nya are so popular. Sometimes, he'll deliberately mention these parts of the fanbase, randomly and oftentimes months apart, and just set the place ablaze because he finds it funny. Nowhere is safe from him and they all know it. It's become a meme at this point with some even people making up wacky conspiracy theories about him being omnipresent or the account being run by a robot with very well programmed bad jokes. But his sheer presence in the fandom and his personality makes him very popular. And the social he uses is probably YouTube, but he also streams sometimes. On YouTube. Not twitch. He never changed. Ever. The others love coming in during a stream and messing with him or teasing him in chat. Mostly Cole and Nya. They're subbed both to be supportive and so that they get the notification whenever he's live or uploads so that they can leave a comment. Because of course they would. Cole's YouTube account is the only account he ever uses that's public, and he made it for the sole purpose of teasing Jay. If that doesn't say best friends, then I don't know what does.

[ink-selfship-shenanigans]

I am not an Ink simp but I do have a lot of headcanons about how he shows affection and thus I am here today to feed y’all.

So canonically Ink is short asf and while he does often get tired of being small, he also takes advantage of it in various ways, I don’t have a ton of examples but it’s a thing and plays a role in a few of these other things.

Often gets clingy, if you are leaving for work he is going to cling to your legs at the door at least jokingly, not controlling but it’s still obvious he doesn’t want you gone.

Will get on stool/counter just so he can kiss you.

They wear fem outfits on date nights, I don’t know why I think that but I do.

Ink acts like an absolute creature at times and this is very visible in his love language.

He often makes pillow/blanket nests and will definitely steal your hoodies and stuff for that purpose.

Love bites, small, gentle, stimmy, innocent ones.

Ink has a neurodivergent love language known as “penguin pebbling”, which is when someone shares small nice things with others as a sign of affection, platonic and romantic. Which means getting handed tiny trinkets he finds or sent silly little memes and posts over text. A lot. He likes to show you things.

He loves snuggly competitive games such as tickle fights and roughhousing, he will make a genuine effort but chances are he’s gonna lose.

Ink also can’t/chooses not to differentiate between platonic and romantic attraction and isn’t entirely monogamous, he just gets cuddly with whoever he trusts, so this doesn’t even necessarily have to be exclusive to one person or for romantic Ink simps. People who wanna vibe with this lil guy platonically can do so too!

I hope this has sufficed, here is your sustenance.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS!!!!

I will help him make that nest

Also the bites!!!!!!!! Combined with those spooky little fangs it makes for an amazing little gesture of affection!!!!!!

And the clinginess!!!!! Little guy is so silly and adorable (and also i just realized it might be a nod to his abandonment issues I'm pretty sure he has? Poor boy I'm never going to leave him :((((( )

[hirazuki]

Give me all the hot takes

🔥🔥🔥

OMG I feel like I have nothing but hot takes, if I listed them all we'd be here for years 🤣 I will give as many as the number of flames you sent!

Under a cut, because (unsurprisingly) it got long XD

There is ✧･ﾟ:* nothing *:･ﾟ✧ in the published text of The Silmarillion to indicate that Eol was chronically abusive/violent towards Aredhel or Maeglin during all their years together. One single snippet of dialogue of one single exchange of heated words does not constitute an abusive environment, as neither do arguments/disagreements or the experiencing of anger. If anything, instead of being present and violent, it seems as though distance grew between them and he made himself scarce more often than not. His relationships with both his wife and his son are clearly shown to be cases of mutual deterioration over time -- people who are fundamentally at cross purposes with each other, as far as wants and beliefs and desires go, and the text quite solidly implies that Aredhel had her share of the blame, given as she was to recklessness, impulse, changeable mood and mind, etc. -- and this decline was almost exclusively exacerbated by the effect of outside forces on their lives (Sindar vs. Noldor, the ban on quenya, Feanor's sons and Aredhel's connection with them specifically, etc.), rather than any more domestic issues between them. Was it unhealthy? Sure, but certainly nowhere near the picture general fandom paints "canon" out to be, and I wish more people would engage in the wonderful nuance the text provides us with. Also, as far as published Silm goes, Eol wove enchantments to draw Aredhel to his dwelling, but it doesn't say he forced or coerced or enchanted her to enter; she entered and stayed willingly. And it drives me crazy to see people flay Eol as a rapist in one breath, while going 'YAS QUEEN' for Melian with another*, when it's the same scenario in, incredibly, the same place -- it smacks of double-standards, and a couple of other words that I will refrain from using, as some people on this website think I'm nice and I'd hate to shatter that illusion XD *I have absolutely no issue with Melian; I really enjoy her as a character. It's the hypocrisy that I can't stand :)

I've ranted about this before in the tags of some post somewhere, but: Celebrimbor. It's been my experience that, fairly frequently, there's a tendency to portray him in a manner that tends to make him very... bland. Wonderbread™, if you will. Idk if it's to contrast Annatar or to contrast Feanor and Curufin, but it ends up making Celebrimbor far too soft and pliable and people-pleasing, distastefully so, taking away all of the interesting hard surfaces and edges. Yes, he distances himself from his family and rejects them; yes, he can want to build a new reputation of his own, untainted by the First Age; yes, Ost-in-Edhil can be a place of open doors and second chances; yes, he can be hyper-aware of his legacy as Feanor's grandson and seek to present an opposite image through his words and actions -- all of this is beautiful. But it's even more beautiful if he's allowed to have traits that are callbacks to his father and grandfather; let him be angry (in private or in public, in short isolated spurts that come out of nowhere or as a simmering undercurrent), let him be shrewd and sharp and opinionated (let Annatar cut himself on him a little). This doesn't mean he can't also be kind and earnest and honest and trying his best. Most of all, let him be greedy -- not only for knowledge or power in and of themselves, not necessarily, but for what those things can afford him: the ability to make that which he loves (i.e. Middle Earth) a better, grander place. We're all greedy for the things we want, and I would argue most of those things aren't negative -- stability, acceptance, a better tomorrow, etc. Greed isn't limited to physical things or luxuries and it isn't inherently a bad thing! [/troy baker voice]. There's just so much there to play with, even completely aside from his dynamic with Annatar, and it just makes me equal parts sad and upset to see a character with such ambition and potential and fire frequently so babied and made naive, that he is reduced to the written equivalent of a soggy waffle.

Okay, now for something that is a bit more lighthearted and personal, but no less hot -- and perhaps? may contradict your own Mairon interpretation (in which case, I'm always happy to agree to disagree ^^) -- I can totally see why fandom makes Sauron into this super sexy/sexual creature but... it's a hard nope from me. He's certainly alluring and attractive to others, and knows how to use it to great effect, but I just can't see him genuinely vibing with it, relishing in it for himself ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I know I keep harping on the Luthien incident, but it's just such a stark contrast to literally everyone else who comes across her -- including Melkor -- that it's really difficult to interpret his utter non-reaction to her as anything but a personal disinterest in matters of the flesh, at least in and of themselves without some kind of connection/relationship there. Everyone likes to joke about him being the whore/slut of the Silm, and sure it can be funny at times, but that concept is just so alien to how he reads to me.

[laundrybiscuits]

Do you think Eddie was flagging in the show?

If this approaches discourse, I'll understand if you choose not to respond.

This is kind of a multi-layered question, but I think it’s worth talking about in the context of broader approaches to fandom.

I haven’t seen these terms used for a while, but fans used to talk about “Watsonian” and “Doylist” explanations as a good shorthand for “in-universe logic/rationale” and “out-of-universe motivations.” For example, the Watsonian (as in what John Watson might think) explanation for a villain monologue might be that the character wanted to prolong his moment of victory because he wasn’t ready to let the feud go. The Doylist (as in what Arthur Conan Doyle might think) explanation might be that the author needed to pad out the wordcount. 

The important part is that neither of those lenses is wrong. They’re just different ways of looking at a text. 

Word of God (i.e. what the creators say about a work in interviews etc.) is not the same as canon, and canon is not sacred. It’s just what’s on the screen or page.

I’m going to be a little self-indulgent here and bring in some Death of the Author by Roland Barthes, because I literally have a page of quotes stored on my tumblr. Admittedly, the translation I have is a little dense, but I think I’ve pulled out the key points. (Also, caveat that this is not the only valid way to do lit crit, but I think it can be very helpful in fandom.)

“The text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture.” 

I think about this all the time in regard to fandom, because it reminds me that texts don’t spring fully-formed from some ethereal plane. The cultural and literary references you grew up with, as well as the ones you continue to consume, feed directly into whatever you produce as a creator. That’s why my number one tip for young creatives who want to improve is to be intentional about the media they consume*. That’s where inspiration comes from: just tip more material into the slurry of your subconscious, and see what alchemized new thing bubbles to the surface. 

That also means that as critical readers, we can always try to see connections and patterns, regardless of Word of God. However, it’s important to remember that those connections and patterns are not necessarily lodged within the text itself…and that brings me to my next quote.

“The unity of a text is not in its origin, it is in its destination.” 

It’s rarely useful or interesting, in the context of fandom, to treat a text as an artifact to be excavated. It’s much more relevant and functional to ask what you as an individual get from the text—what your own relationship is to the themes, motifs, ideas, messages you’ve gleaned from your experience of reading/watching. Every reader has a different relationship to the text, because every reader is a different person with a different history. 

The difference between fandom and Extended Universe-type stuff isn’t just licensing. Frankly, I personally would find that a pretty boring fandom experience, if absolutely everything were strictly canon-compliant and cross-referenced. Fandom is transformative, which means it interprets and reinterprets texts as a form of consumption/creation, and that necessarily means a willingness to discard anything that doesn’t suit whatever story we’re trying to tell. 

In other words, Eddie doesn’t have a canon sexuality. Hell, very few characters in general do. As I mentioned in the first footnote to my last reply, it’s useful to think about sexuality as behavior + identity + desire; we often see behavior on screen, but we rarely see the other two in an explicit way. We can read him as flirting with Steve, we can read him as flirting with Chrissy, or both, or neither. That’s how fandom works. 

So, do I think Eddie was flagging in the show?

Let’s break that question down into a few different aspects.

Doylist: do I personally believe that the various people involved in the show deliberately intended Eddie to flag as a(n implicitly MSM) sado top? 

No. I don’t. Honestly, I simply don’t trust them that much. I don’t think they had queerness explicitly in mind when they created Eddie, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is queer-coded, much like a Disney villain. He represents anxieties about nonconformity and morality—of course he’s going to resonate with queer people. 

Ultimately, though, I don't really care about this particular creative team's intent. It's not interesting to me. There are so many shows that I enjoy more than ST for their artistic choices, and I'm interested in hearing the intent behind those, but specifically what I personally enjoy about ST is the stories its components let other people tell.

Watsonian (1): do I personally believe it’s within Eddie’s canon characterization to be flagging? 

It’s not impossible. It’s also not impossible that he’s just aping more generic metal accessories. Personally, I think it’s somewhat unlikely that at 19-20, living in the middle of nowhere and with the various plates he’s spinning, Eddie’s had enough exposure to kink to be really confident and knowledgeable about flagging. But I’ve also heard some pretty wild stories about small town gays back in the day, so I’m willing to be convinced either way.

Watsonian (2): do I personally believe it’s within Eddie’s canon characterization to be a sado top?

This is venturing into some even trickier waters, but my answer’s very similar to the last question—it’s not impossible. You don’t need to be a particular kind of person to be a top/bottom/dom/sub, no matter what the old fandom flamewars may have claimed. (Being in my early teens and witnessing the SasuNaru vs NaruSasu discourse was not a good way to learn about this.) Different parts of the same experience can resonate with people for different reasons, and there’s more than enough wiggle room to interpret literally any character in any way. 

(I will say that people who actively seek out DMing tend to enjoy controlling a scene to evoke particular emotional responses from players, and that's the angle I find most plausible for Eddie.)

I am personally agnostic on the matter of Eddie’s sexual preferences. As a reader, it’s most important to me that those preferences are coherent with the rest of the characterization within the fic. As a writer, I tend to characterize him as pretty switchy for the same reason I tend to characterize him as gay and into mythology: I am just projecting onto a blorbo.

That’s all any of this really is. 

*On a practical level: I often suggest to young creatives that they make a habit of identifying at least one thing they like AND at least one thing they don’t like about art, whatever form that art comes in. It builds critical faculties by making sure you actually digest the art you're consuming, and it’s also a good reminder that even the worst piece of dreck (probably) has something worth learning from—and even the most sublime masterpiece has flaws.

[onewomancitadel]

I actually wrote a post yesterday about fandom critical posts on here going too far and deleted it because I felt I was fighting imaginary ghosts, but this is going too far, in my view; I wouldn't take it to the post because I doubt OP would care, though.

I don't keep a reading tally. I read. I thoroughly endorse reading as panacea to the soul and for developing the mind. To say that fanfiction don't count as books, is it because

Fanfic is published online

Fanfic is often of poor quality

Fanfic does not have a middleman (agent, editor, publisher) between author and reader

Fanfic follows predictable tropes, formulae, character, etc.

Panfandom practices mean you can be reading more about fanon-wide accepted archetypes as opposed to canonical texts

Fanfic is derivative

I can't peer into OP's head, and this is really more about background radiation of fandom criticism (when I am often myself reflective on the matter), but these are the ones I can glean. 'Sour gummy worms' certainly suggests number 2 is the salient point.

Fanfic is published online

Is The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect not a book for having been published online in 1994? It's a sci-fi cult classic which has never been officially published because it's too strange and offensive. Clearly, in the web age now, online is not the problem. Once upon a time RWBY was a "webshow", now it's just a show.

2. Fanfic is often of poor quality

Many popular releases are of poor quality. Masturbatory "litfic" navelgazing hyperrealism is of forgettable quality. If we lowered the bar to "literally unintelligibly written" like some fanfics are, then yes, I will allow that fanfic does not even have a base quality filter from the proofreading perspective or even indeed necessarily obeys the traditional literary form. At least if you pick up a published book, it's generally guaranteed to actually be legible. Fair suck of the sauce bottle. But is a published book with poor proofreading, or rejection of literary norms, now not a book? Is a book defined more by publishing practice or over actual discrete novelistic output? If it's the former, we can end the post here. If it's the latter, we can keep going.

3. Fanfic does not have a middleman (agent, editor, publisher) between author and reader

Are self-published books not books? This is another problem related to the first point; my favourite romance novel, The Land of the Beautiful Dead, is self-published. It had no middleman. It would've never been published if it had a middleman, I suspect: too long, too literary, too weird.

4. Fanfic follows predictable tropes, formulae, character, etc.

Take that up with the romance genre, and the historic science fiction conventions, and probably even fantasy too, whilst we're here. Genre fiction has never enjoyed the reception that literary fiction has, and is often intellectually demarcated, but genre fiction books are still books. That being said - I'm sure somebody has made the argument in the past that they don't count as reading, but consuming. I've certainly encountered creative writing teachers who don't just view genre fiction as silly, but actively hostile to real writing.

5. Panfandom practices mean you can be reading more about fanon-wide accepted archetypes as opposed to canonical texts

Panfandom practice is really something that makes me think about fanfic not just as a particular medium of creation but the cultural archetypes assigned to it. I think it's true that recent social media culture has forced more stringent and constrained interpretation of a given canon text and encouraged Migratory Slash Fandom-esque type approach to storytelling... but in some ways I think that's sort of inevitable? All practices have particular cultures. Anything that gets burrowed is repurposed within reason. If Spirk is the heritage of fanfic, the reason slash is predominant is probably because slash was the foundation from the beginning. That being said, I don't think that literary convention means it is not literary. By nature, it has a convention.

6. Fanfic is derivative

This is where you get those really embarrassing "Dante wrote fanfic" justifications when they are not meaningfully the same. But the impetus for this is the fact that transformative storytelling is normal, not aberrant, and not just fangirls wanting their dollies to smush together. When you have a story told to you, you get enjoyment from telling it to others. That's how folkloric traditions survive in part. There's a gross tradition there that I actually can't even really get into, but fanfic is certainly different in terms of cultural value (it is not of religious or philosophical or moral value, for one), medium, tone, genre, conventions, etc. and these are radical divergences from fucking Dante.

Like, let's be honest, it's not about fanfic not counting as "reading" (reading as in reading a book), it's about the embarrassment of fandom, the happy resurgence of cringe culture about fandom, the shittiness of crappy fanfic which flanderises and ruins the characters, and the poorly behaved fans who cannot distinguish transformative fandom from the canon text and the poorly behaved fans who cannot distinguish the canon text altogether. The real accusation here is less that whether fanfic materially counts as a book and reading and more to do with the fact that fanfic is seen as childish and intellectually offensive, which is hostile to reading culture. I follow people on here who say they're too old for it at twentysomething. As a fellow twentysomething, I enjoy fanfic more now than I did as a teenager.

Relatedly there is an issue of fanfic readers celebrating the fact that they don't read books. So they themselves are somewhat responsible for this; there's a proud ignorance to it, that fanfic does things what published work doesn't or is afraid to, that fanfic is free, that they can access fic authors churning out work for them to binge when they want and just move onto the next thing without a thought. This is not a correct perspective either. Reading is good for you. Fanfic can function here as hyperpalatable convenience which supplants expanding your palate. To even know what your palate is, you need to develop that aesthetic and narrative language, which means not just reading the canon but being curious and reading as widely as you are able.

Part of the issue with fanfic, in my view, is that the practice is incestuous. Not just that it has its own conventions, but that it is largely limited by endorsing this very dichotomy that OP of this post is similarly endorsing. Fanfic practices beget fanfic practices beget fanfic practices. The gulf gets bigger.

Is fanfic, then, a book in the sense that it widens your palate? If it's an incestuous tradition, it can leave you out to the cold of broader literary narrative conventions. And that, to me, is actually where the most convincing argument can be made in that fanfic is a narrow corner of a field of infinite possibility. But fanfic doesn't just encompass a type of story, fanfic comprises self-published short stories, novellas, and novels, working with transformative IP (as is rather natural, bar for copyright disrupting this practice). Judgement of quality and convention is not really the same as judgement of the medium. I can readily make criticism of the former, but I can't really complain about the latter, especially because I believe that you get better at writing - irrespective of what constructive criticism you do or don't get - by just writing a lot. A lot of writing, and a lot of reading. This is why fanfic can be bad if it does not foster widely reading but it can equally help develop your skill by matter of writing a lot and having an avenue to pursue that (and a supportive community).

That is my spiel. I don't intend this as a vague about OP; I have criticisms of fandom myself, but I didn't take it to them because I don't think they would like to hear what I think. I am just interested when arguments like this have their real meaning nested in implication.

Also, I don't make a tally of what I read, so that angle of the argument holds little water for me. I read; what I read makes me read other things to follow the body of an idea; and then I read some more. Pretty straightforward. I think it's weird to gameify that stuff online, and I'll never quite understand it. It's somewhat related to the point OP originally made, because fanfic would "inflate" that book count, but maybe if fic readers thought of themselves as readers altogether, we could all hold hands and read Dostoyevsky and be happy forever.