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loonyoz · 2 months ago

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I real love the points you’ve made, interesting how deeply ingrained heteronormativity is in society (society is very vague i know). I tend to feel more comfortable engaging in stories about queer relationships because I assume it’s less likely to place characters into gender roles (which is, of course, not always the case). I can’t speak to the variety of bg3 or other fics out there, but I have definitely noticed similar stuff. It always bothers me when people decide a persons sexual preferences based off their appearance or mannerism, because 1. It often implies something weird (or stereotyped) and 2. I just think it makes no sense, in real life I don’t think you can or should determine a persons preferences based off these things. Or like sure this person tends to let others take the lead in group dynamics, that doesn’t define everything else about them. It’s like saying that because someone likes to put milk in their coffee the must like it in their tea as well.

I've also been confused about the language used for awhile now. I had always thought that top/bottom referred to who is/isn’t penetrating during sex. Yet I often see it used interchangeably with dom/sub, which has to do with a desire to explore a certain power dynamic in a relationship or sexual activity. If my understanding these definitions is correct, this honestly makes me very upset. In a generally cisnormative society the partner being penetrated is often associated with women, due to a variety of reasons, one of which being that afab people have vaginas. If bottom and sub are used synonymously it’s implying that the norm for sex is that the partner being penetrated is submissive. Furthering these gender roles in which a man is always dominant and a woman is always submissive. Which also carries over in the portrayal of some queer relationships, in which the penetrated or submissive partner is often assigned a “feminine” gender role in the relationship.

Of course people can write and read what makes them happy but as a reader and someone who cares about social issues Im going to be disappointed by something that tosses aside what makes a character an individual in favor of enjoyment of something that perpetuates an unnuanced and harmful approach to gender and sexuality. Of course I’m not saying someone can’t be, for example, stereotypically feminine, enjoy bottoming, and enjoy a submissive role. That’s obviously valid, and not a problem. The problem is how we talk about it. For example: someone saying oh this person definitely bottoms because they act so effeminate. If you find yourself saying similar remarks, I think it’s important that you reflect on why you’re saying that. Why are you make that connection? God I hate discrimination biases because it can be a lot subtler than other forms of bigotry. It can be hidden in the sociocultural environments that we are familiar with, and can be a product of systemic bigotry. It can be hard to notice in others and in yourself, and it can do so much harm.

I appreciate how you brought up that there are arguments on both sides that are harmful. I often observe arguments becoming this aggressive polarized nightmare. Nothing but more harm is caused by those types of arguments. If both sides are self reflective, able to listen, and able to explain their point of view in a non aggressive manner, that is when you can have a productive discussion. Of course things are rarely as simple as that. Which is a whole other topic in and of itself.

I also think what you brought up about sexual trauma is really important. I would need to do more research if I wanted to make a reflection on the various portrayals of sexual assault and what that means. But there can definitely be some odd take aways depending on how you depict the occurrence of sexual assault and recovery from the trauma. I think the way we view gender and sexuality definitely play a role in how sexual assault is talked about.

If you've gotten to the end of this post, I would like to say that I am by no means an expert in any of these subjects, and I am limited by the scope of my personal perception. If you feel Ive misrepresented something, or caused harm, please let me know. These are difficult and sensitive topics. I know Im taking a risk by posting it on the internet, where communication can be difficult. I am always open to constructive feedback as long as it is respectful.

People get really defensive about "writing Astarion with women" when what people are actually annoyed/upset about is that people are putting him in heteronormative relationships with women.

And it's not like, "YOU, INDIVIDUAL WOMAN, WROTE HIM WITH A WOMAN? A POX ON YOUR HOUSE!" and more like "a majority of fandom is writing him in this specific way with this specific type of character that doesn't really reflect who he is in the game and shoehorns him into a generic booktok dom daddy."

Which. Yeah. People are allowed to feel annoyed/alienated by that type of trend. I think. Maybe. I've seen several fics where Astarion being with big burly men (implied to have been penetrated) was portrayed as traumatic, while being with little virginal female Tav was "healing". And yeah, you're technically acknowledging his pansexuality ... But the implications aren't great. Ya know?

And there's a LOT of conflating domming/topping/being on top. Which ends up only highlighting the heteronormative approach to a lot of fic about him. "He gets on top > so he always tops/penetrates > so he's a dom." Because for some reason penetrating others is less traumatic to him than to be penetrated? Which is a whole bag of worms that people seem reluctant/unable to unpack.

Now, the other side of this argument are people who go "lmao those delusional wamen think this homosexual twink would top them" which is. Also not great? But in the end reflects the same type of reductive and heteronormative argument, it's just coming from the other side of the spectrum. He's flamboyant and pretty so he MUST be incapable of putting his dick into someone else. And he's MORE feminine than the women he gets paired with, so obviously that's unrealistic and he must be paired with a big strong man instead. Which is like. Well you're paired him with a man but you're still being just very heteronormative about it. Even gay relationships must have a "man" and a "woman", is your argument? And Astarion, being beautiful and a presumed bottom, is "the woman"?? Hmm. Don't like that.

Maybe. Astarion is. Pansexual. And can both bone down and be boned down. Maybe he does have a preference. Maybe he doesn't. Maybe he doms, maybe he subs. Maybe he switches depending on mood/partner. Maybe he likes different sex positions where he's on top and ones where he's below. Maybe he's down for whatever as long as it's with someone he loves. Maybe he's neither "the man" nor "the woman" in a relationship and he's simply Astarion, a man in a relationship. Maybe in the end it doesn't fucking matter and putting him into rigid binaries is doing him a disservice.

Anyway. My nonbinary Tav's gonna upgrade his gender to Man+. Cis premium. They're gonna explore his gender and preferences and expression together. I think that might be fun and freeing maybe. And they're gonna take turns topping and bottoming and both will be soooooo healing because um. They're having consensual sex and are in love. So it's healing by default. Regardless of who's putting what where.

Well. Anyway. All I'm saying is. Stuff.

#was accidentally on tumblr at 4am and wrote this rant in my drafts lol #rant #social issues #I guess I tag this with bg3??? I did start talking more generally but it is originally about bg3 #bg3 #astarion

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russilton · 2 years ago

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I don't like omegaverse, the trope just makes me kinda uncomfortable, even though I can see how, if executed well, it can be interesting and ambiguous to read and write. It's just not my thing and I mostly avoid it. But even I have to admit that reading your take on it is not only interesting but also enjoyable, just because you seem to have given it a lot of thought that isn't at all superficial and also because you seem so passionate about it, which I love! ♡

It’s perfectly understandable that a/b/o makes you uncomfortable! When its written wrong, it makes ME uncomfortable. I won’t touch a fic that flips the dynamics I enjoy. I don’t ever begrudge people for not liking the stuff I create, I’m writing it for me and people’ like me.

A/b/o is, and always will be, so so controversial. It is the marmite of fic tropes. Some people hate it, some are indifferent, and some, like me, LOOOOOOOVE it. It’s why I’m so passionate when I talk about it. It is at its core a trope created so that male slash pairings could experience societal and systemic sexism, with bonus werewolf tropes. It’s kinda dumb. Even I think it’s silly when I’m writing it.

But once you flip off that top crust I think there’s a rich opportunity to explore gender and sex expression without having to make a world up from scratch, or risk misrepresenting incredibly fragile topics. I’ve seen it argued before that a/b/o is transphobic and while I understand where those people are coming from, I believe they are categorically wrong. Through a/b/o I’ve seen greater acceptance and understanding of intersex anatomy, and it lets me, as a trans man, impart trauma and issues I experience in my life, on ‘cis’ men. It makes you feel less othered, not having to use the trans label to explore those things because often when writing trans characters I feel burdened to write in a way cis people won’t misrepresent… and sometimes I don’t want to?

Sometimes I want to write about men and heat cycles to impart my feelings about periods, I want to write male pregnancy without it being weird and laughed at. I want to write about how horrifying and gross it can be to feel damp when you don’t want to. How isolating it can feel to not fit with a societal standard of gender, and on the other side the euphoria of living authentically. I want to write about alphas thinking consciously about how their hormones effect others, or how some use that as a weapon. Or about omegas doing comfortable traditionally feminine things like nesting or seeking comfort without it being a big deal? I like writing about alphas who worry about being a slave to hormones, and omegas who are comfortable and confident in their bodies

And that’s just the dynamic part of it. A/b/o has such rich ties to other tropes, like how packs are real, tangible, found families. The soulmatism of scent bonds and bonding as a whole. How body language becomes so much more important that I get to write about it like everyone is living through my lens as an autistic person.

That’s why I guess it feels like I’ve put so much thought into peoples designations and how they relate to each other, cause I have! It’s so interesting; to play with the new webs created by packs and bonds and hormones. How they would effect F1 as a whole and inner team dynamics. It’s stupid but it’s also stupid FUN

Anyone who’s read to the end of this weird little ramble, uh, thank you! And I also wanted to impart a lesson I was taught in my old fandom, which is that’s a/b/o shouldn’t be written without the slashes or not in all caps (ABO) as it is too close to the racial slur used against aboriginal Australians. If you are prone to forget like me, set up a keyboard shortcut that auto corrects ab* to a/b/o, or just use the term omegaverse as the anon did here hahah.

#asks #anonymous #tw: a/b/o #a/b/o #tw: discussions of trans bodies

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incurablyromanticsblog · 3 years ago

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Don't know how people are gonna feel about this but Loki should've been dealt with the way they dealt with Lucifer (from the Netflix show) I mean while the show straight up dismissed loki's feelings, lucifer netflix really showed us the natural and organic character growth with ups and downs while still maintaining the comic hilarity (WHICH WASNT AT THE EXPENSE OF THE MC). It's love interest and side characters are all original characters dealt as independent characters rather as brownie or plot points.

And the scenes that prompted me to think this?

1. Lucifer asking his Mazikeen to cut off his wings because he's moved past being a pawn in his father's 'Great Plan'. We could've had loki come to this conclusion and tell Mobius (who would've been an actual all out ally who was forced into doin lg what he did) that he no longer wanted any place in a land that hated him. (Once again like Lucifer calling the silver city hell)

2. Lucifer actually being the way he's supposed to be (angel of light, light bringer etc.) We could've had Loki act like the way he Actually Is. Not like how @iamnmbr3 so eloquently put it 'like larry the dumb lookalike'. We could've had Loki being stern yet having that air of sarcasm and wit that he had in his the films. His eloquence, his physical prowess (none of the falling flat on his face stuff, a lot of people talk about how he was trying not to hurt the people in ep 2 but srsly Loki would just immediately disarm them), and most of all his agency and refusal to cower or the pathetic attempts at lying.

3. Costumes. The lucifer netflix team had an extensive costume department that ironically pales in comparison to what disney is capable of but still we see Lucifer have a wide array of clothes and styles. Have Loki take the first chance to change his clothes. If he wants the 50s aesthetic have at it! he can wear the tuxedos and the nice leather. Or maybe change into some nice Viking-inspired leathers and battle armor. Have him as a pirate, or a knight or a cowboy. You're traveling through time good man! you can at least hit some of the cool spots.

4. In depth analysis of lucifer's mental health. the only episode of the Loki tv show I liked (loose term) is the first one cause it's the only one that gave a fraction of what we were promised: an insight into loki. That's it.

5. Lucifer's organic growth. This is self-explanatory. Loki watched one video and was good. Very good five stars. I understand that they only had six episodes but come-on. You could've had the subtle changes through out all the eps and lead to the big finish finally. With each episode focusing on certain aspects of Loki.

5. Lucifer's exploration of self-loathing. This deserves to be a separate point because Istg it was done so well. Basically lucifer messes up and he's faced with the hatred that's been conditioned into him (not unlike Loki) and then he learns what it is and actually tries to love himself. And not by kissing a female variant of himself (ew and also respect the gender fluid persons). He actually saw the good in him by reflecting and his actual good friends helping him.

6. Lucifer actually wanting to be good. Look Idc what shut mike waldron wrote, loki is not selfish when his whole arc has been doing things for asgard, thor, odin, frigga etc. We all know that New York was mind control, I do not know why it's being swept under the rug. But here's the thing, that self loathing I mentioned earlier is a huge part of Loki thinking he's some monster and intent on proving it.

7. Lucifer facing his 'devil-face'. Loki should've come to terms with his Jotun heritage. The TVA could've had a case in Jotunheim concerning the Royal Family and Loki could've seen the entirety of Jotunheim and it's people not just that most-likely war propaganda the Asgardians force-fed him. Maybe have him meet his siblings or better yet his mother. There's a very nice fic on A03 called Asgardian Galdr that deals with this beautifully.

8. Luicfer having a Breakdown and Crying: First off this happens gradually, his problems pile up etc etc. and he faces off his father and gets angry until he finally breaks down. And basically God says, "I'm sorry but i can't fix you," And Lucifer in all his grief and desperation asks, "But you're God,'. I know we talk a lot about Loki being made weak in the Show but that's specifically about him being made weak and helpless to make Sylvie seem like a stronger character (Don't get me started on the Sif and Narcissm scene istfg), But maybe seeing Loki try awkwardly to be good and near the finish of the show we see it blow up in some angsty way? only for some conversation like this to happen and have Loki understand that being good is something that is innate and something he already had the potential for all along. Maybe learn that he's not lawful good but as always the morally grey character we know him as. (Protector of misfits, god of outcasts i.e all the shit Marvel shat on) and rise as the God of Chaos and Stories against the rigid bonds of The TVA and essentially Kang.

9. Lucifer having a nice healthy romantic interest and relationship. Lucifer and Chloe's relationship is more often than not the main point of the show but no matter how much it is focused on it remains health, organic and not a weird allegory for something disgusting. Even if Sylvie weren't a Loki (once again ew) the whole dynamic was toxic. She constantly put him down, and invalidated his feelings (Sounds like Odin huh?) and guess what Loki fell in love with her after one day, one conversation of what love was and Mobius calling her his girlfriend (he also said that it was freakish and i agree). We could've had Sigyn sweet lord. (I'll make another post about this)

10. Lucifer's Sexuality. There is a whole episode in which Loki's paramours are getting murdered and they all vary from men to women to all that comes in between. And there's no shame, no offensive jokes. Have Loki flirt with dudes, i understand ms.karen that this is for children, don't worry the casual sex ;) was offscreen. Have Loki turn into a woman and flirt with woman cowards, maybe make some questionable remarks about horses (That make Sigyn laugh)

11. Lucifer's Powers: lemme sum up, Lucifer can, let's call it, use compulsion on people. He is known for his strength and prowess and abilites to grant favors. Have Loki shapeshift into animals, absolutely mauling people. Have him use his silver-tongue to coax people into making or changing history (Yes Brutus, Caesar is getting to be a bit much, say have you heard how sharp knives are?)

I'm pretty sure there's more that i can't remember rn. And here is one thing i would like to make very clear.

You are not bad for liking the show or hating it whatever. The problem is that the show framed a lot of bad things as good (Anything the TVA did, Mobius' torture session with Loki, the way Sylvie treated Loki only for them to become romantic partners, the Sylkie fiasco as it was offensive to genderfluid people and the bare fucking minimum of LGBTQ and POC rep). The show was also marketed specifically to make us think hey! Loki might actually be the main character only for it to blow up in our faces. We were also promised an actual plot rather than a constantly plot twisting concept that could've been worth something.

Also i'm still working on a Loki fic rn after which i will write a Loki(TV) Rewrite but unitil then ig.

#loki criticsm #loki negativity #sigyn #loki x sigyn #lucifer #lucifer netflix

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entraptism · 3 years ago

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My takes on Masters of the Universe: Revelations, because Why Not (SPOILERS!)

Can't believe how emotionally attached I am to Orko. I don't remember a single episode from the old cartoons, but I remember the little guy being the first character that gave the "I wish I'd thought of that" feeling, his design is just so good! When he first showed up I was like "there he is! There's my boy!", when we saw him all frail and sick I teared up, and when he died, lets just say I had to stop and go play with my dog for a while. Seeing a Beloved Childhood Character(tm) die is just not something that happens every day.

Okay, with feelings out of the way, lets tackle Big Thing One: this series so far has barely been about He-Man. Not a bad thing, there's a whole world of characters to explore, Teela was basically the main character and her and Lyn had great (still unfinished) arcs that I'm happy to have be the main focus of the show. BUT. I really hope that's not the end of Adam. Boy deserves so much better than that shitty death. Bring him back and kill him a third time if you have to, but let him have a proper heroic death, he deserves as much. He's a good boy, and even though he basically only had one episode of character development (episode 1 doesn't count because there's nothing to develop, as it serves as a tie-in between the changing world of this show and the static world of the old one),it was good stuff, and him choosing to forego paradise only for his reward to be to be backstabbed immediately, not getting to fight The Fight? Feels bad. Even if it's just for one episode, for a final showdown with Skeletor, I hope he comes back in some manner, he deserves as much.

Big Thing Two: the way this show 100% embraces all of the ridiculousness of the old stuff and juggles it alongside taking itself 100% seriously is amazing. I'm honestly speechless at how the writing, the visuals, and the acting all converge in this incredibly serious world of characters with all sorts of issues, which is full of weird technology, those outfits, and those names?? Amazing. I especially adore Lena Headey's acting, oh my god. To voice a character who calls herself Evil-Lyn, who wears that helmet, and to do it so gloriously? Incredible. Also, the Lord of the Dead who Feeds of Fear is called Scare Glow. What.

Onto smaller stuff: They referenced the Horde! I'm sure it's just a throwaway line, but still!!!

Speaking of, they said He-Ro and Grayskull fought together, yet they also both wielded the sword of power??? I'm confused about that one.

Andra is preciouss and amazing and I love her so much. She seems to be a new character (though maybe not? idk) and she's a nice addition. It's unclear if her and Teela are friends or if that's just what historians will say about them but either way their dynamic is fun, though the intentional visual parallels implying that she's to Teela what Teela is to He-Man got me scratching my head a bit. Like I can't tell if they're supposed to be an established couple or best-friends-to-lovers or unrequited, because I also got some weird love triangle vibe from Adam-Teela-He-Man. Honestly, hopefully this isn't something that will be explored too much in the show (edit: not because I have any problem with any of the couples mentioned, just because I don't think a heavy focus on romance would fit well in this story). I'm not coming at this as a shipper, just observing the tropes and visual language used.

The only real place were i was like, "yes, They Are in Love!" was the Sorceress and Man-at-Arms. No idea if that's a thing or not but god I hope it's explored more because it has this whole Star-crossed lovers vibe that I just really dig.

Also Lyn get your shit together but ALSO the way she puts on a mask the moment Skeletor comes back is SO good, again both the visuals and the acting worked really well together and it's so clear, without it being said outright, that she's very much NOT done with her newfound independence. I wonder if she'll change her name to Misunderstood-Lyn.

Skeletor canonnically is evil because he's an incel, amazing.

I feel the need to reiterate that Andra is precious and I love her.

Roboto, yet another example of "yes, we will keep the stupid name and the questionable design. Yes, we will also explore the nature of this mechanical replication of a living man and possibly make you cry about it". I am STILL salty that Teela didn't call him "brother" at the end.

throwaway thought but remember the creepy cyborg girl? that shit will keep me up at night.

I kinda wish Adam hadn't been "the only one" to choose his "lesser" form, I wish Himbo Paradise had like a small group of twinks living there in harmony with the himbos it would have been so nice and wholesome to see the one who feel like they were their true selves with the power and the ones who feel like they were their true selves without it co-exist in harmony because yeah, they're different, but they all died for the same noble cause and they just get each other in a way no one else can because of shared experiences. Also some of the "lesser" ones might not be twinks, just not He-Man levels of buff. But mostly I like the idea of a himbo-twink solidarity utopian society it makes me smile.

And now for a segment I like to call, The Horny Corner:

There was some good stuff in Himbo Paradise but tbh not really my thing.

Andra is Precious, yes, but she's also so Pretty???

Teela has (presumably, unless this is all or at least partially misdirection) Good Genes, like the Sorceress and Man-at-Arms are both very very fine wine. Especially Man-At-Arms like sir please don't ever put that dumb helmet again you look so good without it?

Lyn's hair! I gasped the first time we saw it! So pretty!!!!

And of course, Teela. Oh my fucking god. Oh my god. jesus fucking christ. oh my god. fucking shit jesus fuck oh my fucking jesus fucking christ. god in heaven. holy fucki ng shit.

#masters of the universe #motu #masters of the universe reveleation #revelation #motu revelation #he man #teela #evil lyn

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helisol · 4 years ago

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dude im not sure you will get it after reading this either, but you Can read it now

okay so first of all do not expect me to adhere to rules of grammar or Proper capitalisation, I am writing from the heart

so it’s been said before by other people but if Quark and Odo didnt look like the aliens that they are but instead like two regular prettybois the fandom would do cartwheels over their dynamic and Not call them a crack ship. because really, their dynamic fucking SLAPS and I’m here to tell you Why.

their surface-level dynamic is “Respected and Talented Security Chief and Cunning Immoral Businessman who are in Love but pretend not to be” and that's just an off-brand version of enemies to lovers! which is excellent and for some people that’s all you really need to get invested in a ship.

but some people look at it and go “Hm, no, that’s not enough. I mean, they work as friends but it doesn’t really have to be romantic.” and to that I say you are Absolutely Valid, not everything has to be romantic.

it just so happens that these two fuckers have one of the most compelling romance stories ever, and it’d be a shame not to explore it.

so before I dive into the internalised homophobia and repression, I’d like to take a moment to talk about Quark as a character.

because if you have brainworms like me you can kind of see that its an honest to god greek tragedy.

this guy comes from a race of people where being kind, ethical and fair is considered Abnormal and Horrifying. and I’m not gonna call Quark out of all people kind, ethical or fair but,,,

you ever notice how he’s A Much Better Person Than Pretty Much All Other Ferengi?

dont get me wrong, Quark is still a bastard, but every once in a while his True Character shines through. and I say True Character because guys,,, the way he behaves around other people is an Act. he’s pretending to be something he’s not.

he has to try so hard to be a good ferengi it’s honestly painful to watch at times. because he is a SHIT ferengi!

he loves his friends- because that's what the ds9 crew are. they’re his friends! and it makes him miserable because that's not! normal! for a ferengi!

let’s compare Quark and Rom for a second.

Quark reeks of self loathing because a lot of the time he just Doesn’t act like a ferengi is supposed to, and this drives a lot of conflict in the show. he knows how a ferengi should act, it’s just that he can’t!! fucking!! do it!! but he still tries and tries to fit into that mold, which straight up ruins his life on multiple occasions.

Rom is also not a Model Ferengi, but he lives without hating himself. and it’s mostly because he doesn’t care about how a ferengi Should act, he’s loved and cared for even when everybody knows that he’s a shit ferengi! because his non-ferengi-ness works to his benefit. it encourages and highlights his abilities as an engineer. the success and love he finds make it easy for him to be content with his true self. Unlike Quark, who doesn’t get unconditional love from anyone.

its so!! tragic!! because you can see what Quark is really like!! his true self!! he’s a nice guy who cares for people!

its right there all the time and it's so blatantly obvious. especially in episodes like “Body Parts”, “Bar Association”, “The Way Of The Warrior” and “Ferengi Love Songs”

his own wiki page literally calls him “a compassionate and generous man by ferengi standards” which pretty much translates to “not really a good ferengi”.

anyway so Quark is a tragic figure or whatever but we’re actually here for the REPRESSED! HOMOSEXUAL! TENDENCIES! that he and Odo both exhibit.

with characters like garak you don’t really need to have brainrot to pick up on those tendencies, because that was something andrew robinson chose to do, on purpose.

and to be fair, Quark wasn’t intended to be Any kind of representation, not even by the actor. I’m just pointing out that he Does look and act and talk like a little gayman.

I will admit that he is Painfully Straight in the text of the show, but on a meta level he’s just. a dude who has a serious case of repressing his real personality. and taking it a step further- he also represses his feelings towards another man.

and that man is Odo.

a few things on him:

Odo is literally desperate to be a person. unlike Quark, who at least has the comfort of belonging to a society of people with a set of rules and expectations, Odo has never met anyone or anything like him in all his years of life.

like, we all know Odo basically grew up in a lab, right?

with people who didn’t know anything about him. who he was so unalike that they literally called him “Nothing”

but he still learned to look and talk and act like them (because if he didn’t he’d feel *pain* which is very fucked up by the way?)

so we know for a fact that Odo wants to be recognised as a person- which is why he tries really hard to conform to the ideals of the society that raised him. instead of exploring his nature as a shape shifter he maintains a humanoid form, picks up a job and creates an entire personality around what he wants to be seen as. but not what he really is.

and that's the thing that causes all the conflict between Quark and Odo. the type of person odo wants to be seen as is the polar opposite of whatever the fuck quark wants to be seen as.

In the same way that Quark acts like a Normal Ferengi, Odo acts like a Normal Security Officer. and in a cruel twist of fate, the Ferengi happens to be the antithesis of the Security Officer.

If you only look at them as the things they act like, and not the things they are, you might say they’re way too different to like each other, right?

but,,, if you think about the fact that they’re both putting on this act,,, this performance of idealised versions of themselves,,, you can see that they are The Same. They Are Both Gay Repressed Loser Aliens Who Try To Act Like Things That They Aren’t!

Imagine you’re Odo.

Imagine that you’re Nothing, because you’re not like anything anyone has ever seen- and because you are Nothing you don’t fall in love with anyone for years and years. since who could love something that isn’t like them at all?

But then one day this Thing shows up in your path and you just hate it. Because it’s not like anything *you* have ever seen. It’s disorderly and looks grotesque and it’s criminal to boot.

It’s all the things you learned would make a “Bad Person” It’s everything you aspire not to be, because if you were any of those things you would BE PUNISHED.

But the trouble is, eventually he’s not an “it” anymore, he’s “Quark” and you see him every day of your miserable little life because you live on the same damn station in space and it’s hard to avoid each other.

He also happens to be one of the only things in your life that are constant. He will never leave because he is stubborn and greedy and you just *hate him so much* that you’re convinced he must be doing all of it to spite you. And yet you also can’t seem to leave him alone.

So Odo Must Hate Quark. everything else is a non sequitur for him. he can’t not hate Quark.

because Quark is, and i’m sincerely sorry to apply christian fucking imagery to this, The Forbidden Fruit.

If he liked quark he’d admit some kind of moral failing. it would be the end of his act. but on the other hand...it might be a good thing, because at least he could have quark.

but Odo can never go through with biting into this apple because the consequences are horrifying to him. he could never have quark because, according to his performance, he would Never like quark to begin with.

and here’s a take for you: Odo's Brand Of Internalised Homophobia Doesn't Stem From Heteronormativity. It Stems From The Fact That He Was Kind Of Assigned Asexual At Birth.

and the show sort of alludes to this, for real! not just subtext! canon! except the writers used the wrong person.

because instead of Odo having these Forbidden Feelings for Quark he has them for,,, Kira.

but since this is My Quodo Manifesto you’ll understand that i am 100% willing to just toss that part of canon out the airlock.

so Odo does canonically have that mindset of “no one could ever love me” for decades he repressed any and all feelings of love to avoid getting hurt. in the show he breaks this cycle of repression when he takes a chance and enters a relationship with Kira. yay?

but we all know that aint it chief. and part of the reason why That Ship Ain’t It is the fact that Quark is Right There. and he is simply the more interesting choice for odo.

he and Odo literally share the same problem and have weird intertwined character arcs! they are both dreadfully afraid of not conforming to the ideal versions of themselves, so they reject everything that could challenge their Performance!

on some fucked up level they hate each other *and* themselves individually. and this hatred makes them reject parts of their real identities for the sake of protecting their image. which. yknow. in gay people. is internalised homophobia!

so you can see that they’re both repressing A Lot even if you view them as Friends, but the most important thing in this kind of romantic dynamic is usually,,, when the characters *stop* repressing.

and the thing is. the thing that Kills Me with these two. They Never Get That Moment. Thats Why You Need The Brainrot To See Them As Romantic.

The Ascent gives us an example of what happens when they both take their act too far. I mean, who could forget “Fascist!” and “Fraud!” That is what odo thinks of quark’s performance and vice versa, but we don’t really hear them adress the fact that they *are* playing these roles to a ridiculous extent.

We also never get an example of what would happen if they dropped their act instead of over-performing it. or rather we don’t get to see both of them drop it.

And the reason why we never get that moment is because there’s this one key difference between Quark and Odo.

Quark knows that he’s constantly repressing his true nature and his feelings for odo. We pretty much hear him say so in the iconic root beer scene in Way Of The Warrior. he knows that he’s not a good ferengi but he keeps up his act.

So quark is aware enough to feel that sweet sweet self loathing. But Odo isnt self loathing as much as he is just self sabotaging.

and this subtle difference between them is why, at the very end of the show, we get “That man loves me, can’t you see? It was written all over his back!”

this moment is quark dropping his act and asking odo to do the same. he wants to hear a genuine Goodbye from him because they have known each other for Decades and they are Friends. but odo is so unable to express the feelings he’s been repressing all these years. that he self sabotages again and just walks away.

even though this is like. very anticlimactic. considering I just spent 2000 words talking about how Odo and Quark are Most Certainly Gay For Each Other.

The fact that their ending is so Weird is the reason why quodo is so engaging and appealing to me? especially post-canon quodo.

like, the amount of “what if’s” this ship has are Astounding.

What if either of them had dropped their act a little sooner? What if they both did, for just a moment, and it was the straw that breaks the camels back?

What if Odo comes back after a few years? What if Quark comes to get him?

What if, in that moment in the finale where Quark drops his act, Odo had returned the gesture? What if Gag-Reel Quodo Kiss.gif Real?

with the depth that I read into their relationship, those what ifs are really fun to think about.

anyway its 1 am and i’m not an english major so literary analysis is not like, my strong suit. plus most of this was written in a late night screaming session with a friend who has the exact same opinions as me. i just think aliens hot and in love. thats all.

#the SOUND of my HEAD hitting my DESK with TERMINAL VELOCITY #quodo #star trek

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matan4il · 3 years ago

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your meta is so in line with my own thoughts about the relationship after 4x14. it got me thinking about how bucktaylor and eddiana will be resolved in season 5 if buddie was the path the writers do intend on taking. i think ana will be easier to get rid of, but as for taylor, who seems like a more strongly established character than ana, do you think buck always prioritizing eddie and christopher will interfere with their relationship, to the point where taylor feels she can't compete?

Hi lovely, thank you so much, it makes me incredibly happy to hear my meta could echo your thoughts! :D I tend to think Ana will only be there for a short while, and Taylor will be sticking around for longer. Realistically, the way Buddie prioritize each other and their family unit with Chris over anyone else, it would HAVE to come up with any partner either man dated. Not just with Taylor, Ana realistically should also have had a few questions after what we saw in 414. Buck so fully stepped into the role of being there for Chris AND for Eddie (taking care of Chris, but also of Eddie by taking him home and before that, by connecting him to Chris... Ana is not there when Eddie finally speaks to his son from his hospital bed, which you know is the most important talk for Eddie) that it'd be weird if Ana wasn't a bit weirded out. Buck got to be the 'girlfriend' more than the actual girlfriend. And there's no way this dynamic will change in s5, so yes, realistically any partner, but especially take-no-BS Taylor, would be questioning Buck about this. Will she actually do that? It really depends on what Tim has in mind for her. I heard (I haven't read it myself) that Tim wants to explore the reporter angle, which... IDK how to tell him this, but a reporter is NOT a first responder. It makes me wonder how he plans to utilize Taylor's character. There are so many options, especially if Tim is making some eyebrow raising decisions (like using a reporter as a first responder) that I don't know I can say what's going to happen with Buck and Taylor... I'm so sorry if this isn't a more decisive answer, I'm just honestly side-eyeing Tim so hard right now. I hope this helps anyhow! xoxox

I have loved reading your metas for season 4 and I can’t wait to read your metas for season 5 later on this year! 🥰 You are so on point with the level of trust between Buck and Eddie, and Eddie making Buck Christopher’s legal guardian. I just can’t see anyway really except for Buddie going canon, because I can just see it causing an underlining level of distrust in any future relationship for Eddie, because there is no way Eddie would ever change his will and remove Buck, so any LI (Ana or anyone else) may always on some level feel that Eddie doesn’t trust them with Christopher. I mean let’s face it if he’s in a serious relationship with someone (who isn’t Buck) there would be a talk about his will and Christopher especially with the job that he does, so it would come up! Anyway this was a lot longer than I thought it would be haha. I hope you have a great day!! ☺️

@charlyrose94 Hi love, it's always such a pleasure getting an ask from you! I'm so happy you enjoyed the meta and thank you, I can't wait to be writing s5 meta for you, too! *HUGS*

And for real! Exactly, just imagine if Eddie ever had to explain why Buck is legally Chris' other guardian and why it's never going to change, knowing the levels of trust and love and connectedness this implies, especially when Buck is always there. Imagine a partner having to find a way to deal with the fact that Eddie comes not just with a kid of his own into the relationship, but another partner, too. One who has Eddie's heart (Chris) and his back in the field and can communicate with him non-verbally, and they would die for each other, and they only have eyes for each other whenever they're in the same room, which happens in game nights and late night talks way too often... yeah, I feel like this is continuing the ask above, but realistically, very few partners would be willing to put up with being second best in their own romantic relationship. Now if only the writers would acknowledge this! Thank you for the ask, hon! xoxox

Your meta of 4.14 is amazing. I wanted to add that we have two people in this talking about Buck not being expendable. Buck clearly feels guilty when he goes to Bobby and he expects a dressing down. Eddie uses a different approach and I bet this time it hits home. With Buck knowing what's on line, he will at least consider his actions. It speaks how Eddie (&Chris) are on a whole different level than Bobby (who=mentor, father figure). Meaning: Buck does stuff for Eddie he won't do for the team

Nonnie, I so agree with you! I think Bobby knew he stood no chance of changing how Buck felt and thought, which is why he backed down and had to trust that somehow, as he's done before, Buck would manage to sort himself out. And he did. With the help of Eddie, just like in the past (like in eps 301/303). Eddie is ALWAYS the person who manages to reach Buck when no one else can. The stuff soulmates are made of, honestly. Buck loves everyone on the team with his whole heart, Bobby is a special person in his life, they have a really important bond, but no one will ever get Buck and intuitively understand what he needs and how to give it to him like Eddie. I've written about this in the past and it's even truer after 414. Thank you so much for the great ask! xoxox

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uhlikzsuzsanna · 3 years ago

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SPOILER WARNING: Do not read if you haven’t seen all of Season 1 of “Loki,” currently streaming on Disney Plus.

Ever since “Loki” first premiered in June, Kate Herron, who directed all six episodes of the Marvel Studios series, has had to pretend like she knew far less than she really does. For one, she couldn’t acknowledge that the homages to sci-fi classics like “Blade Runner” and “Brazil” that she’d baked into the elaborate sets for the Time Variance Authority — the cosmic bureaucracy tasked with maintaining the sacred timeline — were “meant to be sinister” rather than just “playful and quirky.”

For another, Herron was delighted to see fans theorizing after the very first episode that Kang the Conqueror — a character already set to appear in the Marvel Studios feature “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” as played by Jonathan Majors — was really pulling the strings of the TVA. But until the finale streamed last Wednesday, she couldn’t even hint that those fans were only half right: Majors does play the mastermind of the TVA, but he’s a variant of Kang referred to as He Who Remains. It’s only after He Who Remains encounters Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his female variant counterpart Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), and Sylvie plunges a blade into his heart, that the multiverse is reborn, creating the possibility for Kang the Conqueror to emerge.

Again, though: Herron couldn’t acknowledge any of that, even to those closest to her.

“Nothing has prepared me better for working with Marvel than playing tabletop games with my friends,” she says with a laugh. “It definitely taught me how to have a good poker face. You have to hide your hand — and sometimes lie.”

Now, thankfully, all of that is behind her — as is “Loki” itself. Despite receiving widespread acclaim for her assured, ambitious, and visually sumptuous work directing the show, Herron says she has decided not to return for Season 2 of the series.

“I gave it everything — in my soul, in my heart, everything,” she says. “I feel so proud of the work we’ve done. And yeah, I’ll be enjoying Season 2 as a fan.”

She’s quick to sing the praises of everyone she worked with at Marvel, and she says she’s “sure” she’ll work again with the studio. For now, however, she’s ready to take a holiday, and then turn to a project she’s writing herself “that’s really close to my heart that I really want to make.”

“It’s my own decision, but I just feel like my part with ‘Loki’ is finished now and I’m just excited to see where his story goes,” she says.

Before she parts ways for good, however, Herron spoke with Variety about bringing Jonathan Majors into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, what she thought of the shocking revelation about infinity stones and what she would like to see happen in Season 2.

She always knew “Loki” would introduce Kang and the Multiverse…

From the very start, Herron says, she and head writer Michael Waldron knew that their six-episode run of “Loki” would always end with Loki and Sylvie meeting He Who Remains at his citadel, the result of which would cause the creation of the multiverse.

As Episode 6 makes clear, both of these events were massive turning points for the future of the MCU — and Herron still can’t quite believe she got to be the one to make them a reality.

“We were just, like, waiting to be told, ‘Actually, guys, we’ve had a change [of heart],'” Herron says. Instead, Herron says she and “Quantumania” director Peyton Reed participated in casting Majors in the role.

“I was just like, pinch me,” she says. “I can’t believe I was at the table for that, because I know it was such a big decision for them all.”

Herron also decided to have Majors provide the voices for all three “Timekeepers” who are supposedly at the head of the TVA, but are revealed by Sylvie to be nothing more than “mindless androids.”

“We didn’t have someone cast for those voices,” she says. “I remember thinking, well, ‘Wizard of Oz’ is clearly a reference for us. We should have the wizard. It’d be great if it’s Jonathan. So we sent him all the art of the timekeepers. And he just kind of came up with these incredible voices for each of them.”

…but not with a cliffhanger.

The most significant decision of the season, though, may be that it ends with a giant cliffhanger, when Loki discovers he’s in a brand new reality for the TVA in which Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Hunter B-15 (Wunmi Mosaku) don’t even recognize him. But while Herron knew how this season of “Loki” would end, at first, she did not know that there would be any more seasons after it.

“When I started, there wasn’t a discussion of Season 2, exactly,” she says. “It was just that season of ‘Loki.’ As we got deeper into production, everyone was very happy, and obviously there’s so much to explore with Loki. It felt like we should continue the story. So I think the cliffhanger ending came in later in the process.”

Herron says she sprinkled in some hints to viewers that Loki is in a new timeline, like redressing sets to look slightly off, and recasting Eugene Cordero’s TVA receptionist Casey as a hunter headed to the armory in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. But her favorite bit is that the final line — said by Mobius to Loki — is the same as the first line spoken in the show, by a woman in the Gobi desert, also to Loki: “Who are you?”

“That was kind of the question of the whole first season,” Herron says.

She was just as shocked about the Infinity Stones as everyone else.

In the first episode, Loki discovers to his horror that not only does his magic not work inside the TVA, but Infinity Stones — heretofore believed to be the most powerful objects in the known universe — are just inert rocks there. The revelation sent shockwaves across the Marvel fandom; Herron was right there with them.

“That was in Michael’s script when I first got it to pitch [for the directing job],” she says. “I remember being like, ‘WHAT?! You put me through so much!’ But then I thought, ‘Oh, it’s kind of genius, because it shows how powerful the TVA are. Who are these people? What is this place?'”

Herron especially appreciated how her shock — and the audience’s — mirrored Loki’s own as the rug gets pulled out from under him. “I was quite excited by it,” she says. “It really shows you that there’s a new power in the MCU — and it’s not what we we spent the last decade dedicating our lives to.”

She told Kevin Feige she wanted gender parity among her crew.

Prior to “Loki,” Herron’s most high profile job was directing the second half of the first season of the Netflix dramedy “Sex Education.” She got the “Loki” job thanks to a 60-page pitch memo that filled out just about every detail of the world of the show. After hiring her, she says Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige asked her, “What are your terms?”

“This was the first time I was gonna get to hire my heads of department on a television show I worked on,” she says. “I was like, I’d really love [the crew] to be 50/50 across gender.”

Herron says she wasn’t out to fill any jobs on the film with a specific gender. But, she says, ��There aren’t enough women in these roles. They’re out there. It’s a lack of opportunity. It’s not a lack of interest.”

She did end up hiring two women for critical roles that are still rarely occupied by women: cinematographer Autumn Durald (“The Sun Is Also a Star”) and composer Natalie Holt (History’s “Knightfall”).

“I felt like she was inside my mind,” Herron says of Durald. “We have the same taste. And I love the way that she talks about light as a character.”

Herron hired Holt unusually early for a composer, after she’d completed editing the first episode during the pandemic shutdown. She knew that the particular sci-fi film noir look of the show that she was developing with Durald needed similarly unique music, and she liked that part of Holt’s pitch was focusing on Loki’s identity as a character.

“Her music then started to inspire how I wanted to shoot other scenes,” Herron says. She’s especially enamored of Holt’s vision for her dynamic and foreboding theme for the TVA.

“She was like, ‘Oh, let’s have that theme be Kang’s’ — well, He Who Remains, I guess, in our show. But I hope that will go on to be Kang’s theme. That was the real fun of it is that you feel like he’s really played a hand now across the whole show, because you realize that music is his music.”

Herron, Durald, and Holt all deliver distinctive and superlative work that’s nothing like the MCU has quite seen before — and nothing quite like anything previously in their careers, either. And that’s entirely the point.

“I think for us, it was about just showing people what we could do and that we could do it at this level,” Herron says.

The episode in which Loki comes out as bisexual was inspired by Alfonso Cuarón and Richard Linklater.

Every episode of “Loki” features multiple extended scenes of two characters just talking to one another, a rarity in a comic book production. Herron says that cutting Episode 1 together during the pandemic lockdown and seeing the scenes between Loki and Mobius (Owen Wilson) play out so well “definitely gave us confidence” to continue that rhythm for the rest of the show.

That was especially true for Episode 3. Written by Bisha K. Ali (who went on to create the upcoming Marvel Studios series “Ms. Marvel”), the episode is essentially an extended meet-cute between Loki and Sylvie as they get to know each other on a planet doomed for total annihilation.

“Bisha’s reference was ‘Before Sunrise’ and ‘Children of Men,'” says Herron. “And it lit my brain on fire. It was kind of weird. It was almost like a bottle episode in the sense that we’re just with the two characters, but obviously, it’s Marvel, right? So they’re bonding in this Apocalypse, which also feels very Loki at the same time.”

That episode is best known for making Marvel Studios history, when Loki casually mentions that he’s had dalliances with both men and women. Herron says that when she first interviewed for the job, she asked if the show was going to acknowledge Loki’s sexuality, which had long been established in the comics as bisexual or pansexual.

“I think everyone wanted to acknowledge it,” she says. “It was just really about giving a care and consideration and doing it in the right way. I think everyone knew it was gonna be quite a big moment. So it was just really about doing it in a way that felt respectful. And honoring it.”

Herron also confirms what many fans had suspected, that she deliberately made the lighting scheme for the scene evoke the blue, purple and red of the bisexual flag. “We knew what we were doing with that scene,” she says with a smile.

She has a lot of ideas for what she’d like to see in Season 2.

Since Herron will be watching Season 2 of “Loki” only “as a fan,” she is also free to wildly speculate as to what she’d most like to see happen — like how, wherever Loki story leads, “we’ve opened the door” for the character to explore his sexuality with men as well as women.

Otherwise? She says she wants to know where Judge Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) goes to when she leaves the TVA in search, she tells Mobius, of “free will.”

“I love her,” Herron says. “Gugu used to always call her an indoor girl, which made me laugh, but she is. She’s in the office, but she used to be this kick-ass Hunter. So I’m like, Okay, well, where’s her path going?”

Herron is also keen to learn more about Hunter B-15’s backstory — since she deliberately decided to hide it in the scene in Episode 4 when Sylvie shows B-15 her repressed memories as a variant.

“I was like, we shouldn’t see her memories,” Herron says. “It’s a character that thought they had power and realizes they have no power. It felt really powerful to at least give her some power in that scenario. The memories are private. They’re hers.” She pauses. “Also as a fan, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, who is she?!'”

“And obviously, you know, Loki and Sylvie?” Herron continues, on a roll. “He’s in a completely different reality. What’s going to happen to him? How will he get back? Or will he get back? And where’s Sylvie? She’s still in the Citadel? And the multiverse of it all. What the hell is going to happen?!”

Herron chuckles at her own excitement. “So I think there’s so many questions to be answered, and so much more road to travel with all our characters,” she says. “You know, I’m really proud that I got to set up Loki’s story here. But there’s so many different aspects of his identity and personality that’s yet to be explored. I’m excited to see where it goes.”

#Loki #Loki series #Tom Hiddleston #Kate Herron #Jonathan Majors #variety interview #2021.07.17

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jadeyarts · 3 years ago

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Do you have any thoughts on Tiffany becoming Finn and Jake’s brother? Cause I know you ship Tiffinny

i typed up a huge thing but tumblr's new body section kind of sucks ass and deleted half of my post so i have to retype everything and it's not gonna sound as smart cuz im fucking tired so bare with me - also obviously spoilers for "together again" from adventure time: distant lands

thaaaat's the thing i was conflicted about.

see, on one hand it makes perfect sense that margaret and joshua would look at tiffany and want to take him in. and it makes perfect sense that tiffany would be receptive to this and want to be taken in by them. and in terms of wrapping up character arcs, tiffany needed a positive influence to steer him in the right direction after spending most of his appearances being fixated on bad influences and wanting to do the right thing but getting swept up in the wrong crowds and in a setting that explores the after life then there would be no one better than margaret and joshua. to help wrap up tiffany's arc for those who are invested in him, and for how they had chosen to utilize his character for the special, this was the best way to end it with the hope of him being able to improve.

but on the other hand A.) tiffany is a grown ass (albeit also dead ass) man by the time he meets margaret and joshua so its not like he really needs to be adopted (although i'm not really opposed to adults being adopted when theyre orphans who absolutely need those kinds of positive familial relationships in their life) but B.) i think it's conceptually weird for tiffany to be adopted by finn and jake's parents. not because of finn, but because of jake ... and the contextual history of tiffany's presence in adventure time as a series.

1. because tiffany was intentionally designed with an androgynous silhouette and a typically female name so that he could be conceivably presented as someone that jake could conceivably leave lady rainicorn, his girlfriend, for. and this is in fact a plot point, because she is intentionally lead to believe that this is a possibility. tiffany was introduced with the intention of making jake's girlfriend romantically jealous. tiffany never had a shot because he's the same age as jake's little brother, and that's intentional on his part too. but he's still someone introduced in a romantic context in relation to jake.

2. it's almost immediately established that while jake isn't really interested in tiffany and doesn't seem to actually care that much about him... like... at all... tiffany's attachment to jake is more comparable to finn's attachment to princess bubblegum early into the series - one sided infatuation - than comparable to finn's completely platonic brotherly attachment to jake. tiffany resented finn because he had no idea finn was jake's little brother. he did not understand their actual dynamic and was jealous of it.

3. also jake explicitly states he had a crush on the character widely believed to be (and conceptually considered as possibly being,) tiffany's biological dad. which is, idk, not problematic or anything i just don't think people usually crush on the bio parents of those who are or would become their adoptive siblings??? so its just weird to me

but also, 4. finn blushing at seeing tiffany again in the deadworlds, an action he really only ever did in the original series when confronted by characters he was attracted to. that he does in together again. which introduced the plot point of margaret and joshua adopting tiffany. maybe it's just me but actively putting that in and then in the same special going, "oh, they're going to be brothers now!" is... kind of a really weird decision, idk.

also imho i think actually considering finn and tiffany brothers is kind of a stretch because of the context... like, they both lived to adulthood - finn dying at approximately 80 or so years old - without ever having been raised together or considering each other brothers, ever. they had never spent a single moment as siblings, in life or in death. margaret, joshua, finn and tiffany had all died as adults who lived full lives... and tiffany never knew margaret and joshua at any point in any of their lives, and finn is the only one listed who had been actually raised by them.

so their lives had to end - as adults - for them to be thrown into a scenario where they could even theoretically be called brothers, and i don't think they really could be called brothers contextually because even ignoring the life they had before death, there would never be any time for them to actually live in the reality of being adopted by the same couple, or to get used to the idea, or to even begin considering each other brothers - because finn immediately decides to reincarnate. finn ceases to exist as he was known by all those who loved him, and all ties to that life are severed. possibly penny or shermy exist, now. but finn ... finn's just a memory.

but largely, it don't matter. none of dis matters. they're not real and my identity is not dependent on a fictional relationship going the way i wanted it to or how i thought it would, whether the writers shared my opinions or mindset regarding writing fictional characters we're all invested in or not. while i am still conflicted about the plot point for the reasons given, it doesn't really ruin my enjoyment of the special or feel it is any lesser as a finale.

#from jadey to you

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jubberry · 4 years ago

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oohkay let's go tua with those ship asks: fiveya, horrance and alluther.

thanks el i love you

Send me a ship and I'll answer three questions based on if I ship it or not.

fiveya obvs i ship this since this is 90% of my tua drawings lol

1. ill wait ill wait (to be the one) by georgiestauffenberg made me ship it cause holy fuck dude. I dont know if i ship them romantically when i saw them onscreen cause first of all, age difference is kinda weird lmao. Second, they dont rlly interact much outside literally the first couple of eps. But he was so soft for her, and i felt like they had so much unexplored history.

so i looked at fanfics cause i was wondering if ppl still ship it, then i liked the description of this one so i gave it a go.

Basically the premise is that vanya dates a much older man who seems to know a lot about her. And it was amazingly in character and just provided their characters some depth that u wouldnt find outside of a romantic relationship between them. (The implication of five pining while she doesnt know who he is, their missed chances when he time travelled, fives missed chances of living and having a 'normal' life bec of his own hubris, vanyas insecurity and being able to open up bec shes with someone whos known her since childhood). Its so sweet and thats how i was like, oh yep i can do so much more with these two, and what has kept me interested in drawing them etc.

2. My favourite things are the shippers cause i made some friends in the fandom who are super cool and supportive! I dont get super involved in fandoms and usually just watch from afar so finding people to talk to and muck around with in this tiny fandom is super cool 😭

Though thats not to say I havent come across some bad apples in this fandom and things that I dont like. I think thats the importance of carving out a place for yourself and ur friends in fandom tho.

Another thing I like about the ship itself, i just like the grumpy person whos soft for one person trope. Its so cute. I like all the little clues in canon on how their relationship as kids is quite warm, which is interesting cause five is basically the star student and he can be quite cold vs vanya who is the black sheep of the family.

I also like how five likes her powers even when she caused the apocalypse he spent the majority of his life in lol. Like its a popular hc that five is just a wife guy and i love that.

I see vanya as the type who has a lot of love to give, and she sometimes has unrealistic expectations of what her partner can give. Betrayal and lies really angers her, but also when her partner cannot meet her expectations of love she gets very upset bec its also an indication of how shes not good enough, or not loveable enough to be able to have this in the relationship (her insecurity means every failing always comes back to her, even if its out of her control).

I feel like five would be a level-headed person enough in the relationship to not be afraid to say 'vanya ur being stupid' (ie. the s2 confrontation lmao). Also, five's personality means she will never have to doubt his actions bec she knows hes the type who will not give u the moment of the day if hes not interested.

Not to mention they also have the whole apocalypse vs. saviour, hero/villain thing. Theres just a lot to explore!

3. I probably have several. But mostly I dont mind five being a dick to vanya bec first, even if the appeal is hes soft to her hes already kind of a dick in canon lmao. Also, vanya isnt a child. Shes grown and she can handle petty af things like five telling her shes not good at cooking lol. I also dont mind it cause I feel like people are getting too afraid to write... conflict for fear or portraying an abusive relationship or smth. Like, chill. Conflict is fine, resolving it is how u get a story. However in saying that, nobody should be obligated to write any way unless you want to! Fanfic is for comfort so if what your doing is making u happy then its good enough!

horrance which i also ship but i love the platonic and romantic relationship equally:

1. I came in tua in general not shipping anything so Im honestly not sure. I do remember someone doing a meta before s2 came out that was basically how ben acted weird when klaus summoned dave in s1 that made me go 👀 Otherwise, tua s2 rlly made me like them cause tua FED horrance shippers. Like..... the fact that klaus didnt want ben to leave him, and ben knows thats why he stayed 😢 or the fact that klaus was all over him for some reason???? Somebody also mentioned gay ben once and I resonate with that deeply. Like i get that jill exists but i resonate with gay ben deeply.

2. I love their bickering, theyre so cute together. I just like ben being angry bec hes self aware that hes got both shit and amazing taste. Shit bec he cant believes he likes Klaus (and also amazing also bec Klaus). I think the idea of them being kind of underdogs, theyre not rlly leader types and dont want to be, helps them bond together even in platonic horrance. They're both down to earth, and even tho they can annoy each other, they also know if they want a space to feel comfortable its with each other. Theyre not pressured by rivalry over leadership, or any sort of competition.

I love the idea that even tho ben is like klaus's ''conscience'', hes also down for chaos and bitchy. I feel like klaus rlly enabled that side of him, its not exactly a good thing but its p funny lol

3. I know some people think their dynamic is unhealthy but i dont care lol

alluther. So id say i dont ship this, mostly due to the fact that im not invested? Just like all tua ships so far I rlly came out not wanting anything but platonic relationships cause I feel tua doesnt do romance very well. With alluther, theyre so cute but im not super invested in either of their chars so they havent stuck for me. I appreciate seeing them and talking about them tho, and I'm def open to exploring them further.

1. I think tua canon romances are just so lackluster 😔 Idk who writes the romances but I was just like 'nice' but afterwards I dont really think about them. I love their dance scene and the message behind it! Otherwise, theyre sweet like most of the tua romances but im not super invested, same with all the non canon ships.

2. I really feel like tua needs to decide on what their relationship is. Like, just say its incest or not and stick with it 👀 Or if you wanna support it or not, just make up ur mind. I think I would've liked it better if I found the characters more interesting. Allison especially I feel like suffers from the fact that tua just doesn't want to make her ''mean''. They want to make her supportive and are less interested in making her flawed (ie. she should've had a conflict with Vanya in s2, but the writers didnt want to write the girls fighting which is stupid imo and not what that conflict is about).

In regards to Alluther, the scene where Allison gets annoyed at Luther for sleeping with someone else felt out of line. Like, how are you marrying other people and moving on but Luther isn't allowed to? But honestly, I don't mind if they actually just acknowledge it and make it a deliberate part of Allison's trait that Allison can expect a certain loyalty automatically from other people (which can tie in to her childhood being a star, and the rumour).

Luther is a big simp for Allison, which is sweet, but at the same time it would be nice to have him explore himself for a bit, and who he is outside of the academy. Then maybe they can rekindle their relationship again as new people and see where they go from there.

3. I don't hate them, but they're ok. I'm not super invested in them, just like all the tua canon romance. But I wouldn't mind making content for them if I were a bit more invested in their characters. I love their dance scene in s1 and I feel like its super a underrated portrayal of what their relationship is meant to be. I know no one talks about it but it's just such a great scene, and I'm pretty sure the choreographer was into interpretive dance? The scene had a lot of meaning that I don't see people dig around with.

Essentially I'm pretty sure the fairy lights are obviously a throwback to their childhood together, spending time outside of Reggie. So the dance scene kind of symbolized that pocket of space they made for each other in their life (even if theyre far away, or with other people, they will always have that space for each other).

The way they danced was more like playfighting than dancing, which means their relationship isn't sensual. It's more ''pure'', and romantic. Its basically two kids rekindling their love as adults. I also think this is a response to the incest, cause in s1 tua klaus literally said that 'thank god Regg is not their real father' right before Allison and Luther meet lmao. So its kinda like saying Allison x Luther isnt supposed to be 'ohh step sibling hot' but two people who experienced the same trauma as kids and finding comfort with each other (and rekindling that love after many years).

#harcest #fiveya #horrance #i dont think this is anti alluther but i did say i dont ship it #cause im not invested in tua canon romances #i wont tag just in case #ask game #THIS GOT SO LONG

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thatsjustrwde · 4 years ago

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For the RWBY character prompt thing: you gotta tell me about Ironwood for sure! And if somebody already asked, how's about Qrow? :)

OH BABEY A DOUBLE (I’m gunna put Qrow in a separate post to avoid making this too long) thank you so much!

Warning: This is a PRO IRONWOOD POST. I also go into team RWBY taking responsibility for their abuse towards Ozpin. Don’t read this if you don’t like it. You’ve been warned

My top three two ships for Ironwood

1) Ironqrow (Ironwood x Qrow) {Volumes 3-7}

I have loved the idea of these two since the fall of beacon. When they first interacted, I wasn’t too sure about them because it seemed like they didn’t really like each other.. but that scene where all the robots were turning on beacon and Qrow spotted ironwood, ran at him with his scythe, only to jump over him and save him from a Grimm, sold the ship to me. It was clear that they didn’t actually despise each other. Qrow wasn’t quick to point fingers; he knew that what was going on wasn’t James’ fault, and he even tried to add a little bit of comic relief to the scene. (When ironwood’s ship fell, and Qrow smirked “well, it won’t be much of a walk”)

My love for the ship was reinforced in v6 (yeah I know it was the fan service volume but I’m rolling with it anyway). Qrow knew that they HAD to get to ironwood in order to complete their goal. He trusted James, and he knew that he was a smart and capable leader who would know what to do (ah,, the good old days ;;)

And then in the early episodes of v7, their bickering that we once saw in v3 was non existent. They were happy to see each other, and James even initiated a hug. He was just so relieved to see him ;; it made my heart melt, I remember posting about this moment so much, all over instagram and tumblr. I loved them so dearly.

2) Ironwood x Glynda (idk if they have a ship name)

God,, I always loved them. that scene in v2 with Ironwood and Glynda standing together in the dead of night looking over the city of vale was so special to me. I love Glynda and her character, she is so dynamic. that scene with her and ironwood showed to us that she truly respected and cared for him and his well-being. She was worried for him as well. I just wish they had more interactions before his death. they would have been very sweet and POWERFUL together.

My three least favourite ships for Ironwood

1) Ironqrow {Volumes 7-8}

Oh boy. RT really knows how to take something good and just, ruin it huh.

I feel as though I don’t need to dive too deep into this (as I’ll be covering Ironwood’s fall from grace later) but yeah... The fight with Qrow and Clover was.. unfortunate. Everyone seemed to lose their braincells in that scene, and the moment it was over, Qrow was dead set on killing Ironwood for some reason even though he was the one who decided to side with a literal murderer, but go off MKEK you really did something there...

Yepp this absolutely killed the ship for me in canon (though I stilln love thinking about them out of the canon setting), I was an absolute wreck after this scene. they deserved better.

2) Ironwood x Winter

don’t worry I’m not about to pull the “IRONWOOD WAS AN ABUSIVE FATHER FIGURE AND GROOMED HER CAREERRHYUGGHR” no.

I always saw Ironwood as a POSITIVE father figure to winter, even before v7. We knew that winter was one of his best soldiers, and was most likely one of his students before then. I believe that Ironwood gave winter a chance at something great, to leave her actual abusive father and hone her skills as a soldier instead of becoming the heiress to a company that she did not want to be tied to. I believe Ironwood was a stellar father figure and role model to her, and that is the reason why I do not ship them. their relationship was so much deeper than that. it was found family.

3) Ironwood x Salem

What the fuck. Like actually what? This was a thing? What is it with this fandom and glorifying abusive relationships... I remember seeing a lot of people trying to justify it like “awh salem was so sweet with him she just wanted him to stop fighting. She would leave him alone after!!” Thats manipulation honey, we don’t fuck with that here. no. Absolutely not

My biggest criticism for Ironwood

See: the reason I made this side blog

It’s no secret to us in the RWDE community that his fall into the role of the villain was POORLY WRITTEN AND WE ALL HATE IT SO FUCKING MUCH. where the hell did this even come from? oh I know! TEAM RWBY LYING TO HIS FACE AFTER HE WAS NOTHING BUT KIND AND GENEROUS TO THEM. god I’m heated already.

I’ve talked about his stupid semblance before but it doesn’t even matter because his semblance wasn’t the cause of his descent anyway. We were all HOPING that it was but nope! it was him “losing his humanity” because he lost his other arm. How fucked up is that.

Shitty writing aside, I know James had flaws even before the shitshow that was v7-8, but honestly there was nothing he did that I can criticize harshly. He was a good and honest man with good intentions and a pure, big heart made of gold. Of course he made mistakes and of course he wasn’t perfect, but he was always trying to do the right thing to protect the people. He was a good man until MKEK decided they needed a reason to kill off another headmaster.

My favourite thing about Ironwood

his MUSCLES

His willingness to sacrifice himself to save others. During the fall of beacon he told the students that they didn’t have to stay, even though he could have used the help greatly. But he KNEW that they weren’t ready to handle a crisis like this, and he didn’t want to force them into a responsibility that could have left them emotionally/physically damaged, or worse.

During the Ironwood and Watts fight, IRONWOOD MANGLED HIS OWN ARM TO CAPTURE WATTS. He was so headstrong and brave and he wanted to do everything he could to prevent Salem, even if that meant hurting himself and losing another part of himself. God I miss him so much ;; I’m tearing up a little writing all of this...

A head canon I have for Ironwood

I love creating head canons for characters, it always makes them feel more real to me. one of my biggest head canons is that, in a peaceful world setting, he would enjoy sleeping in on the weekends. ;;. He is a headmaster AND a general which means he has to follow a strict schedule all the time. Maybe this is coming from my desire to take care of him and make sure he is happy and healthy and not stressed out.. But yeah, lazy Sundays, sleeping in late. pls let him sleep he needs so much sleep. What I would change about Ironwood if I were making a rewrite

Strap in kiddos I’ve been thinking about this for a very long time. I’m sure that someone has come up with a similar concept, but I will share my ideas anyway (: I am going to preface this by saying that for this rewrite to work, we need to have Winter receive the Winter maiden powers from Freya in V7. To start, we will have to go back all the way to v2 when Ironwood was first introduced. I would have Ozpin and Glynda share their concerns to each other about Ironwood bringing all of his ships to look over the festival, but I would take that time to thoroughly explain his semblance. His semblance is stupid, so I would make some changes. To start off, I wouldn’t make it passive. The way it is now is just,, a weird way to give him a mental illness without actually giving him a mental illness. Activating it would have to be a decision that he made if he knew that he had to make decisions that would be hard for him. This way if his semblance caused him to do something actually horrible, he would be directly accountable for it, instead of blaming him for something that he couldn’t control. Semblances are a representation of the user, so with time and with more stress put onto Ironwood, I could see him falling victim to his own semblance if he were to abuse it too much. This will help as we lead into a better way to write his fall from grace.

From there, I would keep pretty much everything the same until we get to v7. Team RWBY arrives in Atlas and gets arrested and brought to Ironwood just as they do in canon. This time, however, we have Oscar explain EVERYTHING. No lying. Salem cannot be killed. Oscar explains that Ozpin shut himself off after team RWBY forced the truth out of him, and while the truth is a lot for Ironwood to handle, he understands why Ozpin kept it a secret. He shuns team RWBY for their methods and explains why their actions were unnecessary and abusive, but agrees to help them anyway since he knows that they all need to come together if this is going to work. Hence, his arc kind of goes backwards. Instead of team RWBY having his trust from the beginning, they will need to work to gain it back.

He takes Oscar under his wing to try and draw Ozpin back out. He greets Qrow, they fall in love, he also formally introduces the team to the Ace Ops. The Ace Ops take an IMMEDIATE backseat in the story. We don’t need more characters. For the sake of this rewrite specifically, they are barely around. We are focusing on Ironwood and his growth/relationships. I would explore more times to show the deep connection between him and Winter. As I said earlier, I see him as a healthy father figure for her, so I would definitely focus on that for a bit. At this point, Winter would not have received the maidens power yet, so we could have a scene of him assuring her that she is a perfect fit for the role, and encouraging her and just,, you know, solidifying that he wasn’t pressuring her into doing it.

Carrying on with the main plot, instead of being left in the dark for the whole season, Ironwood is already aware that Salem cannot be killed. This gives him and the rest of the team a lot of time to work on a new plan to defeat her. They spend lots of time training, Ironwood takes care of them, offering his resources to them. Overtime the team do start to gain his trust little by little again, but this will all kinda fall apart when Salem arrives.

With stress levels higher than ever, he activates his semblance. Team RWBY and friends KNOW about his semblance and they understand why he is acting irrationally. Maybe they have different ideas than him, but they would not directly oppose him. This completely fixes him from becoming a cartoon villain. Team RWBY and friends would work WITH Ironwood at a distance to fix amity and get global communications back up safely. From there, Ironwood could deliver a message to the world about Salem. Since people know who he is, it will make the message more impactful. Just like he did with his message to Mantle.

Qrow and Winter are positives in his life. They keep trying to ground him and bring him back to reality, but he will not deactivate his semblance. He is too scared of what’s to come with Salem. They support him in this, and do not turn their back on him.

Winter receives the maiden’s power, and is told to open the vault to obtain the staff and raise atlas further into the sky to save his people. Winter agrees, why wouldn’t she? They have already evacuated most of mantle to atlas anyway. In situations like this it’s impossible to save everyone. RWBY could whine and bitch if they wanted to, but there is nothing they could do in this situation because, for the sake of this rewrite, they wouldn’t be as stupid as they are in the canon proper.

The vault is open and the staff is vulnerable. It is in this moment that the ACTUAL VILLIAN comes into play. Watts took advantage of the security from behind the scenes, giving Salem the exact time that the vault was open. And thanks to him overhearing everything, he knows that all she needs to do is use the staff, and Atlas will fall. Salem appears in the room, and the big finale battle would occur. They weren’t ready yet. They hadn’t finalized the plan to stop her without killing her. Team RWBY Oscar and Qrow would do their best to keep Salem distracted while Winter and Ironwood speak to the staff. Meanwhile, Neo could breach Ironwood’s office and retrieve the relic of knowledge for Salem.

The battle plays out, she keeps coming back, the team gets tired, Salem loses her patience and just PLOWS through them to get to the staff. She enters the realm and the mystical world around them begins to shatter and break. With that much concentrated evil in this place coming up out of nowhere, it would be sure to shift the balance.

She goes head to head against Winter and Ironwood for the staff. She knows that using the staff will cause Atlas to come crashing down, so that is exactly what she does. Since he is already out, she just gives him a command. It doesn’t matter what it is. Atlas starts to fall. She strikes a lethal blow to Ironwood (Keeping the theme of her killing headmasters) and flees with the staff. Qrow runs to his side, he and winter are crying, Team RWBY is upset, OZPIN IS UPSET. With his aura broken and his semblance down, he smiles at them all, says that he is proud of them for their work and he knows that they will find a way to defeat her. He tells them to get out and save themselves, save as many people as they can. They do that, but for further angst, Qrow stays with him, holding him and crying against him as Atlas falls. Team RWBY use the gravity dust keeping Atlas falling slowly to their advantage. They get as many people as they can into airships and send them to mistral. They then make their own way to Vacuo... Since global communications are back up, the world would know about this. This would give Shade academy a good chance to prepare. (damn I could write a fic)

What I think of Ironwood’s allusion and what I would change.

It’s dumb the way that CRWBY has portrayed it. In the story of the Wizard of Oz, the tin man doesn’t have a heart, but learns to love overtime. I used THIS aspect for helping my rewrite of Ironwood. He was hardened at the beginning, but managed to trust again and eventually smiled and said that he was proud of team RWBY and friends in his dying moments. It’s just more impactful that way I think.

#long post #ironwood #pro ironwood #ironqrow #rwde #rwby crit

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rosedhall · 4 years ago

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do you have any thoughts abt jaya?

Okay, so initial preface is that I don't actually really care deeply about how anyone else chooses to portray this relationship, these are just my own thoughts and how I like to interpret or present the two of them, specifically romantically in this context. If you have a different way of doing so, that's cool, I'm just very into overthinking dynamics and it doesn't really to bother me what other people do with them- so take this as my own thoughts in portrayal; alright epic.

I want to start off with the inevitable: "fixing/saving" Jimmy as a dynamic and inadvertently woobifying him is one of those things that generally causes me a bit of distaste in some presentation of these two, but I do think it's key to note that it's a trope I'm not particularly keen to fall into personally so this may originate from a preference. Let's be frank in that Jimmy has issues, issues that extend beyond even his demonic possession. The man is not very stable; he's pushy, unnerving, overtly a bit of a leer, manic and socially illiterate (I am too because I'm autistic, but it becomes an issue when you're making women feel unsafe with it and Maya evidently), they're traits which make him a fucking brilliant character but in equal measure a demanding person. And I feel removing those aspects to fit in the ship does Huld's performance and Tim's writing a disservice, equally, utilising Maya as a tool to alter him for the better is unfair in similar respects. I think Jimmy is at his most fun when he is making people feel uncomfortable; do you see how quickly people get endeared to him within the first cutscene? It's grand characterisation.

Maya is her own character too, with her own ambitions, and reducing her down to a trope wherein she has to help a man capable of seeking therapy himself but refusing to do as much is kind of unfair to her, it goes into some places which causes issues and is kind of ooc - given that she explicitly chooses to leave given the option: because of course she would, poor woman. If you wanted to touch on the flaws of that sort of "saving" story then I completely respect it but uncritically only having Maya about to be an untrained support system feels inadequate to her character potential to me: obviously partners help each other, but your partner isn't your therapist and that could and should be discussed with this sort of relationship. If you're writing Jimmy as manipulative in regards to him leaning in on the "you can fix me" narrative, I think that goes hard and acts as a sound criticism if you have dramatic irony running alongside it y'know. I think Maya is great in that she CAN help with the possession, she's a medium, but even Huld has mentioned that Jimmy's problems run wayy deeper and they have to be touched on.

I think it's why I am kind of partial to: "Jimmy Hall's weird crush on poor Maya, who is trying to get a degree, dammit" as a dynamic, specifically.

Stripping Maya of autonomy kind of goes hand-in-hand with the previous issue, I have with some presentations or interpretations of Maya as this immediately smitten... almost personality void who serves to be an object to be fawned over or someone to fawn over Jimmy. She has her own problems, she's blunt and kind of apathetic - presumably because she's been seeing dead people and channelling their memories for fuck knows how long, which must take a mental toll. Her own problems have never seemed as touched upon by the fandom, which sucks, I think there's potential there - hell, maybe it could serve as a point to flip the "woman fixes broken man" trope on its head and portray how Jimmy could help her with the turmoil of seeing dead people constantly, could be a fun Jaya prospect for those who ar interested in promts. Maya and her character are just as important in this ship and I think it should be touched on more in mutual presentations of it.

I can seen Jaya or whatever as one-sided particularly, given that it's essentially canon, although it's unknown if that stems from whatever is possessing him or Jimmy himself. But in equal parts, if you can find a way to mellow Jimmy to a state where he wouldn't be detrimental to Maya whilst keeping him bizarre then I completely fuck with the concept.

How I would portray it in a mutual way is kind of an interesting question... I think it's important for Jimmy to have some semblance of stability because Maya's smart enough to keep clear of him when he's behaving tumultuously. Like I said above, I don't want Maya to have this " obligation " to save Jimmy because it's not her job and she's her own person. I think there's potential to be explored in how they can assist each other without encroaching on the obsession Jimmy displays in-game.

As for if I " ship " it, I don't know if that's the best term for me to use? I like the dynamic but it's hardly typical and I am not keen on the prospect of losing the disconcerting aspect of their relationship or lack thereof as it's what makes it so unique and fun to explore. I think I do, but not in the typical manner, I don't want to alter the characters so much to just produce a sappy ship which doesn't have a parallel in-canon (hey, that's what I use Roseharvey for lmao - simplifying of course, this ask isn't about that ship). I love the characters and therefore I love portrayals of the ship which amplify their quirks, flaws and of course some of their positive traits, and the potential issues that arise from having the both of them in a romantic relationship, I feel like glossing over the obvious pitfalls a relationship like that may have only does the characters a disservice, so if I were to present Jaya in a mutual or even one-sided manner I would always feel inclined to tackle them first. Of course do whatever you please and take my opinion as just that.

I don't particularly have a closing statement, so take this rambling as you will *peace sign*.

#asks #jaya #txt #jfc this is so long im so sorry lmao #long post #ill tag as much #jimmy #maya #it's 1am so excuse mistakes #please ask me more about these sorts of topics can you sense i have.. mang thoughts #many #makes me want to write a fic about mayas ghost torment surprisingly #jimmy can be there if you're into that

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sanguisfulgur · 3 years ago

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I just don't get why Ephrem is single ship. It seems like in your own lore that isn't healthy and yet here you are doing this and I looked into this Lawrence. Boring and no bio on the blog so clearly the mun doesn't care about him either. You got conned. Better to drop the trash boring white man character.

Oh you're back? Oh honey please this is just embarrassing now. I get it, you’re a little bitch who’s big mad they can’t hop on Ephrem’s dick but that certainly isn’t my problem or my fiancée’s so let me break it down for ya’:

It’s Laurence, not Lawrence. You didn’t look that hard if you can’t even remember how to spell his name.

My fiancée - the mun of the blog - has ADHD and other health problems that aren’t anyone’s business. That’s why he doesn’t have a bio yet. You could just ask them about him rather than making assumptions but I suppose it’s easier to do that alongside ableism because if you read my fiancée’s rules, you’d know they have ADHD and it interferes with their writing .

Ding dong, you’re wrong. It’s perfectly healthy for an incubus or succubus to have a monogamous relationship. The problem with Ephrem and Laurence was Laurence was human. Ephrem was afraid of hurting or killing him by feeding too much/too often on him. They worked around this and it does cause some actual relationship problems which we have discussed in Discord and will appear in threads.

You don’t see everything on the dash/on our blogs. Rpers chat in IMs, Discord etc. My fiancée and I are no exception. We plot, rp, write fics and explore our characters and their relationships so don’t make assumptions about what is going on with us or our muses based on what appears just on Tumblr.

Crow literally made Laurence for Ephrem but lmao yeah a’ight, I got conned. He was literally a muse made for my muse that I helped my fiancée create but I WAS CONNED Y’ALL.

Boring white man. Okay sweaty. Yes he’s a white man... so fucking what? Last I checked you do not get to dictate who I ship my muse with based on their race and/or gender. That is my call based on my muse’s sexualities (because y’know, I’m not a freak who would base any ship dynamic on race.). He is not boring which you would see if you read what is available for him or y’know, ASKED mxthborn about him. He has a very interesting origin that makes him not-quite-human but yeah, boring.

Even if you do find him boring... so fucking what?? That ain’t my problem, bitch! I love him. My fiancee loves him. Ephrem loves him. I do not care if you do not like him. I could not give less of a fuck.

TL;DR; You’re honking your big fat clown nose and showing off your ableism and weird fetishism towards Lewis Tan again with this shit.

Ephrem dicks Laurence - and only Laurence - down and there’s nothing you can do about it. xxx

#ask #anon #{outofsugarandblood}#THE CLOWN IS BACK DFGHDGFS

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thebad---catholic · 4 years ago

Text

My problems with AOS

Well here I am, 10 years late with an opinion no one asked for, but I have to write this down and throw into the void so that I can be at peace. I’ve been salty about this film franchise for a very long time now. This will mostly focus on Star Trek (2009) with the other two movies sprinkled in.

1. Starfleet

Honestly where do I even begin? In TOS, Starfleet was modeled after the navy (idk how accurately, but Roddenberry was in the air force so I’m assuming he’d know how all that works). You can get a feel for the chain of command, and everything feels natural with character ages and things like that. There’s a procedure for everything.

AOS Starfleet feels more like a high school club than an interplanetary exploration organization. Jim is supposed to be twenty-five when he gets the rank of captain- after he was almost expelled for cheating. He has no idea how to operate or run a starship. TOS Kirk moved through the ranks of Starfleet and was promoted on merit and leadership skills- he worked for his position.

Why was Jim the only person who knew what was happening when Nero showed up? Was there any requirements to joining to Starfleet other than get on the shuttle? Why did the linguist not know the difference between Vulcan and Romulan when they’re the linguist? How did Pike bypass the chain of command to appoint Jim Kirk as First Officer which was an obvious show of favoritism to someone was about to be thrown out of the academy? Why the fuck was he allowed to keep the title of captain? What the fuck?

Speaking of Jim.

2. Jim Kirk’s Character

I...don’t like Jim’s character in this film. It’s not terrible for a younger version of Kirk, but like I said though, there’s no reason Kirk should be this young. And in this one he’s just kinda a douche.

We know from TOS that Kirk gets around, but he genuinely cares for his exes, and in general respects women. He uses sex appeal as a strategy, but more than anything this comes off as a subversion of the femme fatal trope bc Kirk is a man. In the movie, he’s just a standard action movie protag who has lots of sex just because.

The scene when the Orion woman says she loves him and he replied “that’s so weird” is just...so weird? Like I can’t imagine Kirk doing anything in that situation than backing off and explaining that he doesn’t feel the same way. The scene continues with him hiding under the bed when Uhura walks in. Watching how the camera angle makes Jim out to be a voyeur made me uncomfortable then and it still does. It could be explained that Jim is trying to figure out Uhura’s identity or that he’s listening in and people look at who they’re listening to but like...she was in her underwear. You shouldn’t look at people while they’re getting undressed, especially when they don’t even know you’re there? Is that a hot take? Apparently.

In TOS there’s this really nice scene in This Side of Paradise(S1E24) where the whole crew is high (again) and has abandoned ship, leaving Kirk to tend to things. We see Jim move around the ship with a little clip pad and make the proper checks. This is a captain who knows his stuff. That is the Kirk we should have seen if we’re going to see Jim become captain.

AOS kirk goes through a standard “stop being an asshole” arc commonplace for male protagonists, but this happens well past the point he should stop being an asshole. Either the AOS series should’ve been a prequel with Jim becoming captain at the end of the trilogy, or he should’ve been older with a completely different arc- maybe coming to terms with his rank? Imposter syndrome? Learning to trust his crew and building trust with them? Building a friendship with Spock and McCoy? There’s a lot to work with here.

3. Spock and Uhura’s relationship

Why. Like why. For what. Por Que.

I like giving Uhura a bigger role, I don’t like making her a love interest to do that.

It doesn’t make sense for either of their characters. Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, linguist expert who handles all transmissions to and from the enterprise- an icon of black women’s representation is now demoted to Spock’s nagging girlfriend. This bothers me more than a little bit.

It manages to make even less sense for Spock. A hallmark of Spock’s character is his duality. He struggles to combat his emotions and the human half of him. His repeating character arc in TOS is coming to terms with humanity while upholding the Vulcan way of life. Having him in an established romantic relationship before this arc is supposed to happen just makes for a boring romantic subplot about a relationship that shouldn’t happen and that I don’t care about.

TOS Vulcan culture is kinda shitty. Explicitly patriarchal and stuff, and also kinda racist against humans. The source of Spock’s inner conflict is not himself but a society that views him as lesser for being half human. However, one thing that I can certainly understand from a “logical” (logic in quotations bc racism and sexism is fucking stupid) people is ritualized arranged marriages. It just...makes sense to me that Vulcans would simply have their mates chosen for them and then marry that person and be done with it. Neat. Logical. Conformity.

This makes Spock and Uhura’s relationship even stranger. Why would Spock go so against conformity that he dates someone before he truly comes to terms with himself? Even if they throw out ponfarr and arranged marriage, it still doesn’t work but now it especially doesn’t work.

My personal theory is that Spock and Uhura’s relationship was established purely to make shippers shut up. It’s no secret Spirk is the most popular ship from TOS. I have no doubt they knew this while writing the movie. So to quietly wrap a no homo on Spock and Kirk’s friendship, they use Uhura as a prop to do so.

The teacher/student dynamic should only be relegated to fan fiction and the throwaway line about oral sensitivity makes me cringe. Every. Time.

4. McCoy

Karl Urbans performance is easily my favorite part of this movie. He captures DeForrest Kelley so well it hurts. He made Leonard Nimoy cry. His chemistry with Pine made McKirk go from the most underrated triumvirate ship in TOS to rival Spirks popularity in AOS. His scenes with Zachary Quinto are just *chefs kiss*.

So why doesn’t he have more of a role? The triumvirate is missing a third.

In particular, there’s a scene where Uhura, Kirk, and Spock make their way down to a planet to talk to a Klingon. I can’t remember which movie it was or why, but Spock and Uhura were bickering and Kirk remarks “can we do this later?”

The line was funny. It would’ve been golden if it was McCoy and not Uhura.

A fantastic performance by an underutilized character in a movie where that character should’ve been at the forefront.

5. Representation

I am skeptical of any movie that advertises diversity. Nonetheless, it made me happy to know Sulu was going to be gay. This is Star Trek after all, known for its diversity and large LGBT fan base, and an homage to George Takai who’s a gay man irl. So whatever.

The fact that I wasn’t expecting much says a lot about the current state of LGBT rep in media but this blink-and-you-miss-it shit is really starting to get to me.

I mean he jus- he doesn’t even give his husband a KISS. Like why.

6. Destroying Vulcan

WHY. Oh god why.

This isn’t Star Wars, JJ. We don’t do that here.

Imploding Vulcan was the most god awful shock value bullshit plot device I’ve ever seen in a movie and it was done entirely to make Spock sad. Besides the gaping plot hole of “why did Nero go back in time to destroy Vulcan when he could’ve just saved Romulus” I’m just grasping to find a purpose for this particular event. New fans don’t care at all about Vulcan while I was enraged that they would do Amanda that dirty.

It’s not just that they did that, it’s more that they did it like that. Vulcan’s destruction should’ve caused a federation wide meltdown as the biggest catastrophe in the entire franchise. If they were gonna make the stakes so pointlessly high, they should’ve treated the destruction of Vulcan exactly how they would treat the destruction of earth. There a million ways to treat that event with more gravity and million better plot lines that don’t involve G E N O C I D E

7. Miscellaneous petty bullshit because I’m a baby

-lower the fucking stakes Jesus Christ

-Don’t like the set. It’s bright and white and boring and gives me a headache. You don’t need a remake of the old set but like have fun ya know? Shit looks like an Apple store.

-Christine and I are the same in that we are both soft and are thirsty for Spock. Imagine my surprise to learn she wasn’t fucking there. Same with Janice but I’m more pressed about Christine. I don’t even remember the name of that blonde doctor lady who is Not Christine but i didn’t want her.

-The costumes in AOS look boring but still don’t feel like a uniform either. I deadass think Chris Pines outfit in the SNL skit looked better than the actual movie (minor adjustments needed)

-I didn’t notice this at first but someone pointed out that women’s uniforms don’t signify rank and now I can’t not see it. I don’t...think this movie treats women good? Or McCoy? Or just people who deserve better?

-Lens Flare

-I get why they did it but I don’t like that they misquoted the opening theme to say “no one” instead of “no man”. I probably wouldn’t have even notice except they gave the line to Uhura. Comes off as just a touch too “yay feminism” which is really rich coming from that treated Uhura like an object to be looked at when she wasn’t too busy being Spock’s emotional support gf, and completely cut two women from the main cast.

8. Conclusions

If I could describe these movies in one word it’d be generic. Which sucks because Star Trek far from generic.

They’re fun to watch but not think about. It was nice that I got to see a Star Trek movie in theaters. I just wish it as the same Trek I saw on TV.

#star trek the original series #star trek tos #star trek aos #star trek alternate original series #jj abrams #jim kirk #captain kirk #dr mccoy #bones mccoy #spock #mr spock #lt uhura #nyota uhura #hikaru sulu #star trek #star trek headcanon #trekkie #trekker #star trekkin

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