#don't know if the writers are implying what i think they're implying but either way um. that moment in 'The Show' was a lot. for me

[itsmyfandomandilikeit]

Ok I have gone through all available evidence and I have a prediction.

Look I'm ngl I am watching Arcane for Cait and Vi. I love the show overall but this ship is what I'm most here for, especially after I spent the last 3 years under the assumption that Mel was dead. Glad she isn't. Point is, I really want CaitVi/Violyn/Piltover's Finest to be handled well, and I pay a disproportionate amount of attention to what happens with these two.

After watching the first arc of season 2 the other day, I was trying really hard to ignore the ending to episode 3. I didn't like that Cait hit Vi in the stomach and abandoned her in a pit after being all classist at her, but I thought, this is Arcane. Arcane is the greatest fucking thing I've ever seen, of course they're gonna find a way to make this work. But that made me think of it as a puzzle. How could they possibly make this work?

Option one, Cait sucks now and she and Vi don't get back together. I don't think this makes sense, because of the brand. CaitVi is a popular ship that just about everybody likes. A huge amount of the hype for this season before the trailers came out was building up assurances that don't worry, CaitVi is happening and it's not gonna be ambiguous. Take this teaser from like two weeks after season 1 ended, a couple of Valentine's Day icons, and one million tweets from Amanda Overton. Why the fuck would they make this season be about Cait and Vi not working out? It simply doesn't make logical sense.

Ok, so we're starting from the assumption that Cait and Vi have a happy ending that makes people feel like they should be together, and continue to want to play as them in the games and buy merchandise. That means they either explicitly get back together, or it's so implied there isn't much of a difference. My money is on zero ambiguity. Vi is the main character and Cait is maybe #3 or #4. Ambiguity about their ending would just look like a weak writing choice and they didn't know what they're doing. The Arcane writers don't tend to go for wishy washy.

But here's the problem. Domestic violence is bad. It's about the fastest way to guarantee the majority of your audience doesn't think two characters should be together. It would take a herculean effort on Cait's part to make up for that and honestly I still wouldn't believe it. To me, there isn't any kind of act of service that makes up for hitting your partner. Not even ensuring the independence of the nation of Zaun. Add on top of that the over the top hurtful comments about Vi's blood and class. It makes her look very much like, deep down, she thinks of Vi as beneath her. If she meant those things, a relationship between them is impossible. (Not to mention how many teenaged girls I know are watching this, and I don't want them to think it's ever okay to be treated like that, even in a fantasy series.)

So my prediction is this. The only way to make a relationship between Cait and Vi viable again is to render those comments and the sentiment they carry meaningless. How do the writers do that? Imo it turns out later that Cait intentionally came up with cruel things to say to cut Vi loose. She realized that Vi would never be able to kill Jinx, and this new explosion will make the situation aboveground even worse, and Vi still won't be able to contribute to the hunt after this. Vi has no future as an enforcer against Jinx and will probably get treated like dogshit as a Zaunite, so Cait is "breaking her heart to save her", as Tvtropes would say. In Cait's mind, it's better if she's left down here in Zaun.

What evidence do I have for this? It fits Cait's characterization as a genius who thinks quickly and several steps ahead. It fits the tiny animation details we zero in on of her stiffening her trembling lips and furled eyebrows. It un-ruins the most popular canon relationship in League. It allows act 1 to end on massive shock value but roll it back later to show that Cait actually does love Vi, enough to let her go for her own good.

I'm not arguing this is the best possible solution but it's the one I think they're going to go with. Amanda Overton and some others have repeatedly said that CaitVi fans will be happy with the ending to Arcane. Everything about the show(the opening, Netflix Brazil's Twitter account, the story) points to them being the show's OTP except for this one scene. I think Cait intentionally cut Vi out of her life by pretending to be much crueler than she wanted to be, to protect her and, likely, as a form of self destruction.

[princess-of-the-corner]

God I forgot about Qilin. Cool asfk akuma, arguably one of Gabes best designs, dragged down by the fucking ticket inspection and bringing in the goddamn army. (As well as how the episode felt like it was written avid ACAB Enthusiasts)

my problem with the episode is that it's a bit all over the place in a few spots like.

Firstly take this with a grain of salt because I'm white af

Okay. This is supposed to be an episode about racism and the cops being harder on minorities. But it doesn't.... come across that?

The ticket inspector was initially doing his job. Sabine didn't have a bus ticket. Yes it's because Mari got off the previous stop with the tickets, but if he handwaved everyone who said 'oh I totally bought a ticket but I lost it'.......

Now he does get unreasonable after that, accusing her of being hostile, having her arrested instead of just printing a ticket, etc. But this is also a show where the 'you seem to have broken a law so you immediately get arrested' is not out of place. (I mean sometimes it is BUT it's a 'what works for the story' thing). Doubly so as the target audience is children who sometimes do think 'oh god oh god I sneaked one extra candy they're gonna send a full swat team and arrest me and I'm gonna go to jail!!'.

Then you have the whole thing of literally all the cops showing up for one lady and then the Akuma and then the cops ignoring LB and CN in favor of blasting the Akuma with weaponry despite months of the Heroes handling this on their own. Which at first seems out of place until you remember episodes like Rogercop where all the cops weren't mind controlled they just went 'yeah I guess the obviously Akumatized(controlled by supervillain) cop in a mech suit is in charge because the mayor, who he kidnapped, said so. Time to arrest the Heroes!!". So while it hasn't happened in a while, cops just acting Like That™ aren't out of place in this world.

And like. The ticket inspector is a rando who is only seen here going against Sabine, but we have no idea how he'd act with a white guy breaking the same law. And Roger has been shown to be corrupt as hell toward white people(specifically the Couffaines who as far as we know are white). So it doesn't quite get the message across that this is out of the norm.

Then you have Marinette having to apologize to the ticket inspector who, at this point, is now much more reasonable of 'well she did technically break the law by riding the bus without ticket or ID, but given the circumstances we'll let it go' but Mari insists on paying the fine like he was in the right.

Honestly I feel like this episode suffers from not being direct about what the issue is. Yes it's implied that it's a racism thing, yes most of the audience including the kids will probably pick it up. But when you give that much wiggle room on 'what is motivating this character's actions', then combine it both with stuff that's /supposed/ to be extreme but is par for the course in the series and the protagonist apologizing to the guy who instigated all of this.... it gets very mixed and it can get lost and make people who do see the allegories wonder if they're just reading too much into things.

And I don't know exactly where to place the blame on. Did the writers pull back to try and make the situation more 'relatable to everyone' thus making it relate to no one? Was it a bigger thing of the studio or S&P saying 'hey you can't depict real racism in a kids' show'?

I mean either way there's some blame on the writers for the other flaws like Mari apologizing and undercutting anything the ticket inspector did wrong. But still.

[somelazyassartist]

.

[pong03]

Leo kurosagi analysis

this was requested but tumblr wont let me post to their ask so: Okay, Leo is selfish. I'm not gonna deny all the bad things people say about him, or even deny he is a bad person, but he is a GREAT set up for a character. I would like to say that Tokyo debunker is giving set up for growth from each character, Leo is just the most Jarring, for the fan base. full disclosure, I did not like Leo or even consider liking him until I saw the HATE on here, I'm not just trying to be quirky by liking the most disliked character either. I tend to just want to see the good in what most people dislike. I like kpop and I tend to bias the most criticized or least biased members of a group, because I think it's an amazing feeling to give love... Although I understand it's cathartic to hate too, and that's probably why the Leo hate is so strong. I also still don't LIKE Leo, but I really do want to explore his character and I probably will make more posts as we see him more and as I experience him more myself. The Leo cu*king tho, is maybe my least favorite "trope" in TBD fanfic rn... but I don't k*nkshame y'all :*

I also would like to say Sho is his friend, not his victim or Rapunzel. There is some value to Leo in Sho's eyes and I think we shouldn't degrade that because we see that if Sho doesn't like someone he will not engage i.e Ren. Sho is a sweet character and I think he might be friends with Leo because he wants to see the best in him or knows his more repulsive behaviors are a defense mechanism or explained by other reasons we the MC are yet to see. Why I think that is even tho the weird blob guys in the mystery diner suck at making food he still wants to see the best in them, and that very scenario could be a cheeky analogy from the writers themselves, about Sho and Leo. Obviously Leo could be blackmailing Sho, I know that is a commonly held belief, but I do have some perspectives that could debunk that thought. Leo doesn't Garner blackmail on his peers. I think Leo is nosy, and invasive, but he is also incredibly capable, implied by his contributions to the vagastrom group case. If he wanted to figure out who Alan killed he could with his hacking prowess, but instead he asks Mido himself. In invasive ways yes, but he could just have found the information himself, whether by hacking or asking the countless witnesses of the clash. Rather he asks Mido face to face, and, correct me if I'm wrong we can't say he wouldn't have taken no for an answer because Mido just gets mad at his antics and never gives him a straight up no. Again I could be wrong so let me know if Alan does give him a straight no. It's been a while since chapter two for me.

Right now I want to explore some possibilities for his character given the information we have about him ATM. I mentioned above the fact his little nasty, mean, degrading comments could be a defense moreso that he wants people to try and push past that to see if they're viable as his friends. Especially because he is micro-influencer he might be protective of himself because of that. As well as being a chronic liar online he may want to know if he can trust you not to expose him online. I think exploring his past would be amazing because even his stigma makes him seem like an overly cautious person, as well as invasive. Cautious? I feel like its cut and dry that wanting to hear what people say when you aren't around could hint to him being quite anxious about what people think about him. like idk I also feel like the jealousy we see towards Sho might also be more about people finding Sho more approachable. I think because Leo wants to be more involved with people in power he might have not been trying to scare Subaru away because "Sho is mine >:(" and actually could have been jealous that Subaru noticed Sho first and not him. Still awful right? but also like I said I don't see Leo as enjoyable but more so a lot of room for redemption, or explanation. Sympathy or empathy might be something we feel for him a lot if he is properly explored.

Obvs these are just possibilities right :) I actually find him very cute and I like his catty behavior, especially because in comparison to other nasty ghouls he is like a kitten hissing at you, harmless. Like dude Taiga shot me, and you're just a nasty baby, I smell your fear on the inside, you just want to be loved like everyone else. He's a true tsundere and not that "I swear I don't like you!!" shit and I appreciate that. I hope nobody misconstrues this as defense of his toxicity more-so that the point of tokyo debunkers focus seems to be everyone is demonizing these teens who seriously are just teens, and sometimes teenagers are catty are toxic, but they're still learning. Especially when the adults suck too... if not more because they are adults. AND LEO IS HATED FOR BEING STINKY AND MEAN BUT TAIGA AND ROMEO ARE LIKED BUT SO MUCH MORE MORALLY DECREPIT... so idk that especially irks me. I still would like to know what people think and if you are also excited to see the exploration of the ghouls especially Leo, and what theories you may have on him yourself.

[eulogium-red]

i'd like to see more of the theme of "family" in overwatch. we see it a lot with ana & fareeha, ram & zen, brig/torb/rein/bastion, genji & hanzo. but those are the obvious ones between playable characters. the ones that are much more clearly written on the wall, even once-in-a-blue-moon players could pick up on. much else is hardly focused on despite how much family (or a lack thereof) has shaped many of the character's lives & identities for better or for worse

i don't like how martina & the unnamed reyes kid are only mentioned in passing, despite gabriel himself visiting often unannounced. clearly they were an important part of his life. clearly, family is an important part of his life — i'm very willing to wager that small passage about the death of his parents in declassified was written very intentionally. his complicated relationship with death, and how it was further affected by his own "death," & how he's now in some warped reversed position with his new family. but we don't get much more than a few voice lines about martina (is she even mentioned by name in-game orrr am i not remembering?)

i want to see how ashe manages the gang throughout the second omnic crisis. or perhaps we could see her mannerisms slightly change with bob. maybe instead of standing side-by-side with him as she is in the reunion cinematic, she puts herself more between him & potential unrealised threats. or maybe she subtly tries to nudge him under awnings whenever she spots ufos, weary they're housing subjugators — little things that are very intentional. maybe her demeanor tilts ever so slightly from confident but guarded, to guarded but confident.

i want to get a better picture of the role sam english played in fareeha's life just from playing the game, especially after ana's presumed death. i want to know more about their relationship other than the christmas dinner they had. i wonder how many players just assume fareeha's father died young, or assume the writers didn't care to write one at all? for a long time, i thought the former. i wonder what sam thinks of some of fareeha's closest friends — has he met cole & angela? what does he think of helix? we hardly even see fareeha's native heritage expressed other than the two skins off the top of my head

what about cassidy & echo? i know this is a more implied one, but cassidy was the first one to nurture her "childlike intelligence." even today, he guides her — he encouraged her to help winston&co at paris when he was still on the fence. one of the cutest things for me is her enthusiastically shouting "hello winston!" mid-battle, presumably not long after cassidy told her to say hi. she probably would've either way, but i also don't want to discredit the role cassidy has had on her development & i really do want to see more of them

or, speak of the devil, how winston views everyone at overwatch as family. how in watchpoint: gibraltar's 1st defense spawn, you can see the little beds he set up for lena and mei, how you can read an email as proof he got the blankets from a small kids blanket business. the way he keeps photos of the gang, years later. how vehemently protective he was of all their locations. i wish we could see it reciprocated a little more, i wish we could see individual sleeping areas for other heroes as the story progresses, or more items on his desk. & that's not even getting into hammond

& i don't think i can have a family post without mentioning dad 76 or how i desperately want to see benicio being the best supportive dad for lúcio more but honestly i'm getting pretty sleepy so either i'll add more later or someone can add more.

depending how you stretch the definition of family here, it can include other dynamics too. baptiste finding a new sense of belonging in the new overwatch, or mei braving the antarctic to not let her team's death go in vain & to help people who can still be helped — from jiayi and her team still on mars, to the people who now need her help on earth. i'd also argue hana's squad in korea. what are niran's siblings up to? are we gonna see more of efi & orisa? moreover, how are all these non-playable side character characters handling the invasion? i guess we got some texts between lena and emily

family is such a powerful motivator, but can also be really complicated, as seen with the amaris and shimadas + kiriko, i wish we got a similar amount of investment some other places too

a major theme of overwatch is moving towards the future, progressing in some way. & that looks different for everyone depending on their emotional readiness to do that, and what they view "progression" as. so it makes sense a lot of characters don't look back on those they lost along the way so much, at least not too openly (zarya comes to mind), but that's what can make their present relationships with others that much more worth preserving & seeing

probably an impossible ask of a game feeling the effects of layoffs that's primarily focused on pvp/bp/shop items but ykn

thank u for coming to my tedtalk

[simplydnp]

what's your opinion on fanfics about dnp? (more in a way of do you think that it's crossing boundaries and/or being parasocial)

i'm of the same mind of dnp in that phanfic is fucking incredible. it's an important and valid way to express yourself, as well as a building block of our community. i don't think it's crossing boundaries, as it's fiction. i don't see it as parasocial either--you're writing for you and others like you. most people don't want dnp reading their fics, it's not for them in a sense, it's for us.

i think dnp are extremely aware of fanfic and its value and place in community. they've always encouraged it, appreciated the support, and given us space about it. they're not ones to make videos about it and mock fans for it (which happened to some of our lovely fic writers here writing for other yt fandoms, and i'm so sorry about it). dnp are fandom culture people. they've written fic themselves! and published it in their book!

the word parasocial has been twisted lately to imply any fan support is unnatural and should be shamed, which is complete fucking bullshit. making art is always important and valued. and it is necessary for your existence as a human, but also for the thing you're a fan of to thrive.

the parasocial side comes in once you start believing you know this person. and that you're their real friend. when in reality, they do not know you specifically, and you are not their friend, you are an audience member.

so a parasocial relationship only occurs when people start crossing boundaries (digging for not publicly available information, contacting people in their personal life, showing up to their house, etc). which, is absolutely nowhere close to real fan behaviour.

tl;dr: phanfic is great, i love you fic writers, parasociality is a problem but not one that we have

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan]

Guys. Why is there even a debate here. Some of the games were explicitly written to be connected, some of them weren't. Not everything has to fit into one cohesive timeline. As a matter of fact, they can't. Now, there is some more nuance to it. Read below for my explanation (infodump) plus a more nuanced chart.

Red and blue lines are canon within the games' text. Ambiguities are filled in with green. I'll get more into that later. Let's first explain the two completely separate mini timelines.

The Four Swords miniseries stands mostly alone. The Master Sword and the Triforce are present in every other game or (mostly--looking at you, Master Sword in LoZ and AoL) have a good reason not to be, but they are not present at all in these three games. Instead, we have the Four Sword and Light Force. The only wrinkle is that Ganondorf shows up in FSA... so I don't know about that one. I don't think anyone does.

As for BotW and TotK. Oh brother. What do we do with these. Skyward Sword is intended to take place seemingly millennia, or at least several centuries before Ocarina. We see the founding of Hyrule with the first monarch and her chosen knight, the cycle of recurring evil and heroism being established, and the forging of the Master Sword

Wait. What about Rauru and Sonia? I thought they were the first rulers of Hyrule. And if the Zonai were around long before Hyrule, where is any of their presence in Skyward Sword? Huh. Alright. We don't know how much time passed between the first Calamity and the second, but from the past era of TotK to its present, we can account for at least 10,105 years of history. We don't even need to get into how Zora and Rito coexist or anything smaller like that. There's just no fucking way these two games fit with any of the others. Fine, that's fine. Moving on.

There's also a little hiccup around the Oracles. Nintendo seems to go back and force on whether the Oracles feature the same Link as in ALttP and LA, but if they do, it probably makes more sense that Oracles happen before LA (the linked Oracle game ends with Link boarding sailing off on a small ship and LA starts with him on one). So like... I guess they fit there?

Either way, let's take a second to look back at where this idea of a timeline split happened. Remember that WW and TP both clearly take place after OoT. That isn't theorizing, that's in the actual text of each game. The thing is, they're mutually exclusive. TP has Ganondorf being executed, as he would have been after the Hero of Time goes back to his original era and warns Zelda that her plan to get to the Triforce first isn't going to work (which is implied to be what happens at the "The End" screen of OoT). WW has Ganondorf coming back by breaking the seal put on him, and the Hero of Time didn't appear to stop him again (as would happen if Link was sent back in time). Fans started theorizing way back in 2006 that OoT created separate timelines, with WW and TP being mutually exclusive sequels to it as the evidence.

Some fans have asserted that Nintendo just "took" the fan theory. But come on, put everything together here. The texts of OoT, WW, and TP HEAVILY imply the timeline split. The only reason we called it a theory is because the writers didn't literally say "And then the timeline split in two". The texts are pretty clear though. It's the only thing that makes sense. That isn't to say that there needs to be a cohesive timeline, and that the split is the only way to fit it together. No, OoT is connected to both WW and TP no matter what. That was the intent. It's just that the explanation for OoT to have mutually exclusive sequels actually fits neatly into the texts of the games.

And now we come to the tricky part. Put yourself back into the 90s real quick. ALttP seems to have been written as a prequel to Zelda 1, showing Hyrule before its period of decline. Alright, let's just accept that because it may as well be true. The lore at that point was so thin that it made enough sense. I kinda slapped Zelda 1 and 2 at the end there to show it, because we do have a cohesive timeline from ALttP to TFH. That's fine, all well and good.

Likewise, OoT seems to be written as a prequel to ALttP. We see conflict over the Triforce, the origin of Ganon, the seven sages, and an earlier iteration of the Master Sword. Back in 1998, we had no reason to not believe it. These are tenuous connections that are not explicit in the games' text, so I've paired them with green lines to show it.

But wait. ALttP is ALSO mutually exclusive to TP and WW. Oh brother. What do we do about this? Even after figuring out the timeline split in 2006, fans didn't know what the fuck to do with the first four games of this franchise. They could go after TP, but that's even messier than putting them right after OoT. Yuck. This doesn't feel good at all. Oh yeah, and then there's the Four Swords games that don't fit anywhere.

Now you can imagine the position the writers of Hyrule Historia found themselves in when they were tasked with creating an official timeline. Some of the games have certain explicit connections, as detailed in my first chart. But they had to cram everything into one timeline. Well. They knew they had a timeline split in OoT, because that's what the texts of OoT, WW, and TP collectively say. The lore of ALttP also mentions seven sages (or wise men, but let's call them sages), but not a legendary hero. So... if you really stretch your brain out here... it kinda makes sense that there's a timeline where the Hero of Time died fighting Ganon. Maybe. Kinda. Not really, but kinda. And then there's the Four Swords miniseries. Fuck it, throw them in randomly.

The two-way split doesn't disagree with OoT's text at all, which said that Link won. The three-way split does disagree with it by asserting that Link lost. But if we're really trying to fit everything into one timeline, that is the cleanest place to put them. Some people really hate this, but it does seem that those are the same people that demanded that there be an official timeline in the first place. ie the same people who were gonna be pissed off with anything Nintendo gave them that wasn't exactly their own theory being confirmed.

Alright, real talk. The producers of the Zelda series have said time and time again that they think of what would make a fun game then write a story that fits around it. The Wind Waker devs wanted you to sail around the ocean. Then the writers decided "oh, we could put this after Ocarina! After all, weren't they left without a hero? What if Ganon came back with no one to stop him? How would that problem resolve itself? What if the gods just flooded the world?" Then the Twilight Princess devs wanted a spiritual successor to Ocarina, with an epic adventure on horseback across the traditional Zelda kingdom setting. So the writers went "hey, in Ocarina, Link warned Zelda about Ganon, right? What if he was executed then, and then the world was never flooded?"

We have to realize that trying to put games with this design philosophy into a neat little timeline is a futile effort. It's never gonna work because it wasn't designed to. More so than any other storytelling medium, video games take so many approaches to continuity. The Halo games were all meant to be sequential and fit neatly into a strict timeline. Pokemon is all canon within itself but the ties between games are less important than the stories of each game. Mario essentially has no canon except for recurring characters and settings. Zelda is gameplay first, canon second. That's why the two most recent mainline games don't even try to fit in the canon of the previous eighteen. That's just how it works and we're gonna have to accept that.

[keets-writing-corner]

Alright everyone, buckle up and sit down. I was talking with @nerdasaurus1200 on another post and came to the conclusion that I need to write Sera meta so let's freaking GO

I'm mostly gonna be talking about Sera, what we know about her so far, and what makes her tick (aka her fears) and why she's not a bitch/asshole the way apparently so many people like to portray her? (I've mostly just been hanging out with fan art and headcanons specifically about Lucifer in the fandom so I haven't seen these specifically, but someone approached me about how they liked m portrayal of Sera in my fic which was NOT that of an asshole and apparently multiple people are portraying her that way? Idk I haven't seen any but uh yeah let's talk SERA)

Characters are always the most important part of a story, and even if they're not a main character and/or the audience nor the writer know what they want/need, the writer at the very least needs to know How and Why a character makes decisions, instead of just "oh they're an asshole" So let's do that for Sera. Why is she making the decisions she's making? LETS GO

Let's start off by talking about what we know about Sera

She's at least as old as Lucifer, she was there for the creation of earth given the appearance of her silhouette in Charlie's exposition

We know that the exterminations might have been Adam's idea, but it was HER decision to approve them

We know that she's FOR SURE older than Emily

and the other thing we know for sure about her is that she is the High Seraphim (we don't know WHAT that means exactly but clearly it is a position of authority and rule)

So those are the things we know for sure:

She's about as old as Lucifer

She approved the exterminations

She's older than Emily

and she's the high Seraphim

Now I'm going to circle back to all of these points but I want to start off with her relationship with Lucifer

Unfortunately for all of us, the only thing we can say about their relationship with 100% certainty is that they for SURE know each other, either because they were essentially "coworkers" in the past, or because they're both the respective rulers of their realms (even if Sera has some people above her) and they're implied to interact with each other

(at the very least you cannot convince me otherwise that they don't interact. Someone had to have talked to Lucifer about the exterminations for him to have had "approved it" and we know it wasn't Adam because Lucifer hadn't seen Adam since he fell to hell until the finale, and we know that Sera was not only the one to approve said exterminations but also decreed that no one else in heaven know about them. She clearly must have spoken to Lucifer about it because there's nobody else left who had the authority to do that AND knew about them)

So at the very least in present day Sera and Lucifer have some sort of professional relationship as leaders. And I'll come back to this because it's implied that this relationship isn't a very good one, but first let's talk about the past

full stop, we have NO IDEA what sort of relationship Sera and Lucifer might have had when he was still in heaven. But here's the thing, even if their relation was strictly "yeah I know them cuz I work with them, but that's as far as it goes" Lucifer's fall STILL would have been horrifying for Sera to witness. He was the same rank as her, probably no other angel except the elders likely ranked higher, and they still banished him. Charlie's storybook leaves it at that, but Lucifer implies it was violent in his debut episode.

trauma is a funny thing when you think about it, you're just as likely to develop trauma by watching someone else be assaulted as you are for you to have been assaulted. And Sera was there, she likely saw the whole thing happen. So not only did Sera watch how brutal the elders could be to someone who questioned and disobeyed the order, but the fact that it was done to LUCIFER someone of equal rank and authority as her means that absolutely NOBODY is safe from the elders

and this is without taking into account that on some level, she and Lucifer had to have been close. There are no other seraphim in heaven besides her, the elders (who appear to be rather hands off and uninvolved) and Emily. Emily was likely created as a replacement for Lucifer, so at the time, it was basically just her and Lucifer as the only seraphim up there. They not only worked closely together, they likely had a close bond as well. Now I have my own head canon preferences as to what kind of bond, BUT let's ignore that and look at 3 options (although there are likely more, but huuu this post is gonna be long already so let's not push it yeah? )

option 1: equal peers. You are Sera and you've known Lucifer all your life. You two have "grown up" together, learned about the world and your powers together. You're comrades in arms! You know all of each other's secrets! You lean on each other for support as you lead heaven together. You work together all the time. Sure, he can be a little excitable at times but it's so much FUN right? This guy could be your bestie/brother. And you sit back and watch as the only ones with more authority than you, skewer him and banish him to hell for having questioned the order and now there's a metaphorical spear against your back at all times because you know it could have been you instead, and it could still be you if you don't behave

Option 2: Lucifer is your mentor. He's taught you everything you know. The ropes, your powers, the world. He's fantastic! You admire him greatly. He has such energy you could never hope to match. You put him on a pedestal, and in one fell swoop the only people he answers to destroy your mentor in front of you. You are now alone, without any more advice or guidance other than a warning to not step out of line as your mentor once did

Option 3: Lucifer is your apprentice. He's adorable! A little over enthusiastic but who doesn't love someone who's passionate about the things they like? He brings a wonderful energy and vibe, and... he's your responsibility. You try to reign in his wild energy only for the elders to step in and banish him because you failed him and now you know that the elders could do that to you too

So, I'll be honest, option 3 is NOT the one I'm biased towards, but if it ends up being that one, it would make Sera's behavior towards Emily extra heartbreaking. She already failed one apprentice, she will not fail another one, right?

Either way, Sera is terrified of going against the elders because of what they did to Lucifer in spite of his rank. She knows first hand how harsh they can be and because of that, she will do everything in her power to make sure nobody around her falls into the same fate. No one will ever question the elders again, and she will lie and withhold information to make sure that happens

And we're just talking about the INITIAL banishment.

Now why would Sera bring this up, unless what she was most afraid of wasn't even the initial banishment, but of the suffering she clearly knows comes afterwards? And why would she care or even know about the suffering? Well, if it's true that she and Lucifer were close, then regardless if she was spying on him or not the way we know heaven can do, she still watched a cute enthusiastic little angel go from this:

to this

all because because he suffered.

She watched him question, get banished, suffer, and change into someone she didn't recognize, in real time. And the worst part is, she's not only scared of what happened TO him, she's personally scared OF him and what he's become. He might be fallen, but he's still a powerful angel

And this segways into another bullet: she approved the exterminations, but WHY

Charlie's intro implies it was as some sort of punishment towards Lilith who was rallying the demons and they felt threatened

But clearly there's more to this

So first thing I'd like to point out, Sera doesn't look happy about this decision. She mentions as much in the song "You didn't Know" when she outright tells Emily "It was such a hard decision" and earlier in the same episode she outright tells Adam she wouldn't have approved of this if she had known it'd make things "worse"

But this is incomplete. Something doesn't make sense. Sera clearly meets with Lucifer for certain matters as previously established, and Lucifer, in spite of his initial trauma "NO CHARLIE DO NOT TALK TO HEAVEN" knee jerk reaction, never doubted that he COULD in fact get her a meeting with heaven. He outright tells her at the end of episode 5

He never says, "I'll try to get the meeting". He says straight up, I can do this. There isn't a doubt in his mind that he can get this meeting. He knows Sera will meet with him/take his call (idk how he contacts heaven) and will agree to the meeting. We don't really know WHY Sera agreed to this if she thought it was a bad idea and never really intended to entertain the idea to begin with, going as far as to tell Adam to rig the results and calling Charlie misguided. So what's up? Why on earth would she agree to it? Well...?

Sera is scared of the demons of hell, hence why she approved the exterminations, but she's even MORE scared of Lucifer and folded to his request. (or idk maybe there's more going on here and she feels guilt about what happened to him so she folds to him sometimes idk, but for the sake of this meta, SHE'S SCARED OF HIM)

but here's what's kinda weird. Charlie's storybook only mentions LILITH'S involvement with the demons rising in power, not Lucifer. Sera later claims that they were uprising to Emily as the reason she's scared of them and that it's her job to keep everyone safe.

Clearly SOMETHING happened between the creation of Hell and the exterminations being approved that involved BOTH the sinners AND Lucifer that made Sera scared of both. Sera doesn't seem the type to fear without reason. She fears questioning the order because that incurs the elders' wrath. She fears the elders because of what they did to Lucifer. She fears angels falling because she saw how much it hurt Lucifer. Sera is not the type to fear randomly. Clearly there is some sort of thing that happened that made it clear to Sera that Lucifer is to be feared enough to fold to his requests and that the sinners are dangerous enough that it justifies genocide.

And now to bring back the whole Sera is older than Emily. Emily didn't know this otherwise Sera wouldn't have needed to tell her. AKA Emily wasn't even around when said conflict happened. Sera not only had to go through something that clearly traumatized her to the point where she agreed that genocide was a reasonable response, but she had to go through that ALONE. Trauma is hard enough to deal with, but to have to navigate it alone really gives it some steroids it has no business in having

This genuinely makes me wonder how long the exterminations have to have been taking place. It probably took a WHILE for hell to gather up enough numbers that they started making buildings by the look of Charlie's storybook, AND THEN did something against heaven, so this was not happening from day one of hell, far from it. And this also makes me wonder how old exactly is Emily? She strikes me as extremely young

season 2 come out please, I'm working from CRUMBS here, there is so much we don't know

But yeah, all of this to say, Sera isn't just some alpha bitch who's prejudiced against demons (not to say there isn't bias there, there ABSOLUTELY is, ugh) but at her core, she's a leader who underwent a lot of trauma and she's full of fear and she makes decisions, rational, moral or not, based off of that fear. And yeah unfortunately, fear, especially trauma based fear, messes with us in ways we never would expect

a kind man may suddenly resort to violence. The confident argumentative person, may instead end up frozen. Someone who thought they valued their family all their life instead runs away. We may regret what we do in moments in fear, we might even logically know that we're making bad decisions, or decisions that go against our morals. Sera CLEARLY hates that she made the decision to approve extermination, but she holds onto it steadfast because it alleviates the fear

Funnily enough, I don't particularly LIKE Sera. I dislike her microaggressions towards Charlie and her attempts to sabotage her efforts at the meeting by calling upon Adam. But as a writer, looking at the clues I got to say she's a very interesting character to me. She seems like a reasonable authority figure, but she's so full of trauma that she's letting her fear make all of her decisions for her

[coraniaid]

I don't think there should be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot and I don't have any reason to believe there is going to be a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot and I would not watch a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot.

But, that said, if there were to be a Buffy reboot I think a big (small) change that would improve the show a lot (especially in its first season) would be to have a much broader pool of recurring student characters from the very beginning.  Not just the Scooby Gang and Cordelia, but ideally almost all the students we see in the first season should appear in multiple episodes and, if they die, they should be talked about at least once afterwards.  As it is, Season 1 is full of ghosts: characters like Amy and Harmony who will go on to be somewhat recurring but aren't quite there yet, and characters like Jesse and Cordelia's boyfriend Kevin (remember him?) who only exist to die and are not mentioned before or after. Most of the show's recurring minor student characters will only be introduced in Season 2.

In particular, I think the characters most ill-served by this in canon are, in order of first (and often only) appearance:

Jesse

I actually think the concept of Jesse – as a sympathetic character who is killed in the opening episodes before we really get to know him – is a good one.  Beyond any possible shock value of his death, it's a useful way of establishing that people can and will die in this story, and of stating out loud the setting's rules for vampires ("you're not looking at your friend, you're looking at the thing that killed him").  On the other hand, the execution is pretty awful because it is immediately clear that Jesse is not the same status of character as Willow and Xander (he isn’t even in the opening credits), he is not actually sympathetic at all (he seems to exist to answer the question "what if Xander Harris but Worse?"), and large parts of the fandom (and later writers of the show itself) will decide to completely ignore what the show is telling them about how vampires as a concept on Buffy work and why Buffy is not only justified but morally obliged to Slay them.

But the most egregious thing about Jesse is, of course, that after his death in The Harvest he is never talked about again.  I honestly think that just a couple of lines of dialogue spread out over Season 1 (Buffy blaming herself for Jesse's death while worrying whether she’s making a positive difference as a Slayer, say, or Xander mentioning Jesse as a reason for disliking vampires, or Jesse being named as one of several mysteriously missing students by Principal Flutie) would go a really long way to fixing that.  

A brief cameo appearance in Nightmares wouldn't have hurt either.  (Just months ago Xander failed to save his best friend from vampires and was taunted by the demon wearing his corpse and had to watch him turn to dust in front of his eyes, so of course he’s terrified of … clowns.  OK.)

Amy

OK, for real, if I were in charge of creating a Buffy reboot I would be very tempted to just add Amy to the Gang after Witch.  She knows that magic is real!  She knows Buffy knows magic is real!  She seems to be on friendly terms with both Buffy and Willow when the episode ends! And yet she vanishes after her first appearance more quickly than Marcie Ross.  

But, failing that, having Amy show up more than once a year in the high school seasons would be a start (especially since the show implies so much is happening to her behind the scenes each year).  Let her be a friend of Buffy's who doesn't know anything about Buffy being the Slayer.  Have Willow at least think about asking her for help with Angel’s soul curse!  Pull the trick the writers used in The Wish (and never used again) of having Willow talk about her as if they're friends even in episodes she's not appearing in.  Show us Willow spending time with her rather than Buffy during Dead Man's Party!  Remember that this character exists even when she’s not on screen!

Lance (and his various bullies) from The Pack

Hapless victim Lance is basically a proto-Jonathan and, if I were remaking the show, I would just lean into that fully and simply replace him with Jonathan from the very beginning.  

It would be tempting to do the same thing with Kyle and Heidi and the others, too: rather than retroactively introduce multiple new characters who apparently used to bully Xander in Seasons 2 and 3 that we’ve never met before and never will again (how big is Sunnydale High meant to be?).  

The obvious problem with that is that the show tells us that the Pack remember eating Principal Flutie alive, which means rather than hanging out in school giving Xander and Willow a hard time when the plot requires it they should probably all be in therapy for years.  But you can fix that while fixing The Pack as an episode by just ... not having the fact Xander not only remembers assaulting Buffy but lies about it to her face presented to us as a punchline?  Have Xander forget what happened to him. Have them all forget what happened when they were possessed, and then Kyle and Heidi and the others can be conflated with Inca Mummy Girl's Rodney and School Hard's Sheila as and when required.

Owen

This requires slightly more work, but I think Owen and Scott work better if they're the same character too.  Rather than Owen promising to stay friends with Buffy and then never appearing or being mentioned again, or Willow telling Buffy she "wasn't ready" to date Scott before Season 3 as if he even existed then, just make Scott somebody that we've already met and who Buffy had previously briefly dated pre-Angel.

The challenge here is that Buffy breaks up with Owen because she doesn’t want to get him hurt and she’s still very focussed on keeping her identity as the Slayer secret and only letting a handful of people know.

But that fits into the wider theme of Season 3 perfectly.  By this point, Buffy’s let far more people know than just Willow and Xander.  Xander’s girlfriend Cordelia knows, and Willow’s boyfriend Oz knows, and Buffy’s own mother knows, and none of this has caused the world to end.  Why shouldn’t Buffy try dating a normal guy who knows she’s the Slayer?

(And I think everything about Scott works better if he’s somebody we’ve seen before – somebody we’ve seen Buffy be romantically interested in before – rather than suddenly appearing only to disappear almost as quickly. Scott is meant to represent Buffy trying to reassert her claim to a 'normal' life after everything that happened with Angel last year..  What better way to do that than to try to start things over with the one person we do see her trying to date on the show before Angel? How much harder would Scott's rejection of Buffy hit if we'd seen that the pre-Angelus version of Buffy really did get on well with him and would have expected to make things work?)

Kevin

The end of Season 1 features, back-to-back, two of its best episodes.  In Out of Mind Out of Sight, we focus on Cordelia Chase.  We're reintroduced to Cordelia's friend Harmony and we meet Cordelia's current boyfriend, Mitch.  (Who is attacked by Marice Ross, but survives.)  In Prophecy Girl Cordelia briefly bonds with Willow while talking about how much she likes her current boyfriend, Kevin, only for the two of them to discover him dead, killed by vampires on school grounds.

Wouldn't the death in the latter episode work much better if those two "current boyfriends" were the same person?  Wouldn't we care more about Kevin's death if he was somebody we'd actually met before? 

But let’s go further than that: at the start of Season 2, in Some Assembly Required, we meet Chris, whose brother used to date Cordelia but tragically died. Chris tries to bring him back, and his brother pursues Cordelia.  The show doesn’t mention – or doesn’t remember – that Cordelia already has a tragically dead ex-boyfriend, one who died only two episodes ago.  Why not fix that?  Why not identify Chris’s brother Darryl with Kevin as well?

Make Mitch/Kevin/Darryl a single character, and then we would achieve that rarest of sights on Buffy: a minor character who we meet an episode before they die and who is mentioned again in an episode after they died.

And wouldn’t that almost make a potential Buffy reboot palatable?

[the-whumpening]

Re: Anonymous hate messages

[Image ID: Screenshot of an anonymous message sent to me, @the-whumpening. Several lines have been annotated by me with colored highlights. All text has been transcribed exactly as typed. The message reads:

i would not be protecting a (yellow) pedophile and incest supportor (/end yellow) but for each their own!:)))

(green) we do not claim (/end green) (blue) her. she (/end blue) (green) is not even doing "whump" at this point. (/end green) just plain (yellow) depraved pedoincest fantasy stories (/end yellow) while thinking (blue) she (/end blue) has (purple) one more personality every week. people do not need to see that, (/end purple) it is not okay. none of it is. (orange) maybe all those bans should have been a sign. /End Image ID]

As expected, I received my first ever hate message after talking about the situation with "antis" attacking whump community members. The "proship"/"anti-proship" debate has been around for fucking ages, and I'm personally sick of it, but I thought this would be a good teachable moment for any younger/less-internet-savvy folks here.

This ^ is trolling. Whether they believe everything they said or not, ultimately their goal was to rile up emotions and cause friction. Having been on the internet a good, long time (my main blog is from like 2009, y'all), I have seen my fair share of trolls. I've fallen for a few, too. It's inevitable. But to save your sanity and help you all deal with users like this, I've decided to share this message and break down the clues that told me it's not worth interacting with.

Yellow Highlights: What I've highlighted in yellow are the "scare words," I'll call them. They're flinging the most extreme, most obscene terms they can think of at the situation, even if it doesn't fit, because they're trying to scare me in to either complying or arguing. Nobody looks good if they're "arguing for" incest or pedophilia. They're setting up a no-win situation where my position looks absurd and unsupportable. Edit to add: my position, by the way, is that you can write/make whatever you want as long as you tag it appropriately and post it where it abides by the Terms of Service, which my friend did. I do not support censorship of any kind. I didn't think it needed to be said but I don't "support" real life pedophilia and incest, either. No one does, including my friend who was banned. That's a nonsense claim.

Blue Highlights: I referred to the specific user who got banned by his preferred pronouns in my original post. I exclusively used he/him, multiple times. By using she/her in this message, I know this user isn't arguing in good faith because either A) they didn't read my post clearly and think it's about someone else, or B) they're intentionally misgendering my friend. You cannot argue with someone who isn't approaching in good faith.

Green Highlights: This anon says that "we" don't claim the user I mentioned as a part of the whump community and that "[he's] not even doing "whump" anymore." Here we have a logical fallacy: that user doesn't belong here because they're "not a real whump writer." They've essentially made up a rule to exclude this person, and that justifies (to them) how that person was treated. (Who is "we," by the way? Anon is implying that they are aligned with the majority of the community, thus threatening to place me as an outsider.)

Purple Highlights: Blatantly ableist rhetoric towards someone who presumably has Dissociative Identity Disorder. As above, they're trying to justify why it's okay to bully and harass someone off the platform. "People do not need to see that." Nonsense. We don't exclude anyone from the community on the basis of their disability. Once again, Anon is not engaging in good faith.

Orange Highlight: Finally, their closing line feels like a threat. They claim that this user should have expected to be harassed, even that they deserved it. They imply that being banned/reported automatically implies guilt, regardless of the fact we know tumblr staff is less than charitable regarding bans--especially with queer and disabled users, and double especially anyone who posts any kind of remotely mature content (like your standard whump fare). We all remember waves of transfem users being banned out of the blue this year, as well as anyone sticking up for them. It happens all the time. I also mentioned in my original post that this user had been mass reported multiple times which led to his bans, which I think the gravity of is missed here. He was targeted, multiple times, by a ton of people falsely accusing him of breaking Terms of Service. Mass reports are rarely trustworthy, imho, and especially not if they happen to the same user multiple times. You know what most folks do if they don't like a person's content or behavior? They block them and move on. Maybe a single, accurate report if it seems necessary, but a reasonable person should never sic their followers on other users to mass report or harass. It's bad internet etiquette, and it has been for decades. The golden rule of the internet: if you don't like someone, block them and move on! If it sucks, HIT DA BRICKS!

And that's why I did not respond directly to this anonymous message. Nothing in its content gave me any indication that Anon and I could have a real conversation and gain an understanding of one another. I hope this helps some of you deal with any potential hateful messages you receive. The goal, above all, is to push you to an emotional high and make you have an angry outburst on them. That's what trolls feed off of. And if there's one thing being on the internet for longer than some of you have been alive has taught me: don't feed the trolls. Do not engage. Do not argue. Delete or block, and move on as much as possible. Turning off anonymous asks (or asks in general!) is always okay. Remember: you alone control your internet experience. You curate what you do and don't want to see and what kind of interactions you allow. Blocking is always an option. Turning off replies is always an option. Filtering tags is always okay. Be better than these folks, and remember you are in control of what you see and do--but you cannot control anyone else.

Side note: I did get a very lovely message from someone (who I will not name to prevent harassment) showing me support and being really kind, so that 1000% makes up for shitty messages like this.

[skaruresonic]

idk why so many antis took the whole "like long lost sibling would " on that alt text for the promo of dark beginnings as canon and 'solid evidence' that shadria have a sibling relationship when the text can also be read as sarcastic or mocking? I might be reaching but sarcasm doesn't really translate well in text but putting any indication like ' or () when it doesn't flow in the original text always feels like somebody making snarky comment to me, idk to me personally I could argue w antis that it mocking them by being like 'isn't this obvious ship bait totally platonic' ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Idk it just so annoying to see so many antis go 'haha shadria fans must be weeping' when it a fucking alt text on a promo that I doubt any writers or higher up would quality check in comparison to the fact in canon that shadria has yet to be label unlike other characters in the series as well as ignoring how many opportunities the series had to outright have shadow call Maria his sister no media be it games, shows or comics has him calling her sister or vice versa. So unless the new game outright has him referring to her as sister in all languages, shadria will still be a valid ship and even if that does happen it still won't erase all the moments the two had either shippers r still gonna ship.

I don't understand why antis think one little text line that not even in any media is gonna make Sharia shipper suddenly stop. Apology for ranting but omg it so annoying seeing anti act so high n mighty over something so trivial 💀

Personally, I'm inclined to agree with Beev on this one. It seems like they threw in "as long-lost siblings would" in order to placate the antis. Which would, ironically enough, imply an awareness that the piece could be read as romantic.

There was really no need for a parenthetical note to dictate the tone of the piece. If they left it at "Shadow and Maria reach out for one another in an infinite abyss," the reader could interpret it any way they want.

(Random tangent, but describing space as an "infinite abyss" also strikes me as a bit strange. You can see stars in the piece.)

I think SoA knows the flavor of the food they've been serving us recently, but they did this as a sort of PR move to cover their asses. They might be worried about losing face with Shadria antis, who form a not-unsizable portion of fandom now compared to Shadria shippers.

...but I mean. Come on. There's no way they're not aware.

And the thing is, it's not like the manga or anything else is explicitly confirming the dynamic is definitely romantic, either. It's not like we shippers aren't aware we have our ship goggles on; we just wanna vibe in our space.

Ever since playing SA2 as a kid and wondering if Shadow was in love with Maria, I've always had the feeling that their dynamic was supposed to be left open to interpretation. Antis want to impose their reading upon pain of accusing you of being a freak, while the shippers are more like "haha... unless?"

Also, it's really funny to think this is the ship they consider worth calling people "demented dogs" over. Have you literally played any other video game ever? Read any book? Watched any movie? Oh no, a ship the game probably wanted us to ship a little! OOGA-BOOGA.

This is probably one of the least problematic ships in existence tbh. Methinks the antis doth protest too much.

Besides, you're (general you) being disingenuous to claim there are no undertones whatsoever. Why include them if the dynamic is only supposed to be interpreted a certain way?

Using Sonic X as an example of what I'm talking about might be cheating, but since it's about as non-canon as the manga appears to be, it seems fair to mention it.

In Sonic X, Shadow also tends to recall Maria through a romanticized filter; he remembers her as being extra beautiful and ethereal compared to other characters who recall her as simply an ordinary girl.

Compare Shadow's flashbacks to the flashbacks of the soldier who shot her:

In the soldier's flashback, Maria is just a frightened child who pulls the lever. We're not shown her body, but rather his reaction:

In Shadow's flashbacks, Maria slumps tragically to the ground and/or lies on the ground, calmly speaking her last words while bathed in soft blue light.

There's a heightened sentimentality to Shadow's memories of Maria which serves to emphasize, I guess, the "beauty" that the ARK tragedy took from him. Considering Shadow is stated to like "nothing," maybe he finds nothing or no one else as beautiful.

Not that her death wasn't tragic in and of itself, but there's a marked difference in tone. One feels like a child's senseless death viewed from the POV of the man who killed her, and the other feels like... to be frank... something romance anime-coded.

It's worth noting that Shadow maintains this romanticized filter even when fantasizing about an alternate timeline where she survived (or perhaps the future they had been looking forward to after she was cured), so you can't always chalk it up to a product of Gerald's brainwashing:

...let's unpack this on the therapist's couch, hmm?

---

I don't understand why antis think one little text line that not even in any media is gonna make Sharia shipper suddenly stop.

Very true, and it's a fool's errand to try. I was going to reblog that piece without tags, as per usual, but I decided to tag it as "Shadria" just to flip antis off. Fuck you, you can't tell me what to ship on my own blog. xP

(also tagged it "Shadria" because "Shadria" was the original ship name and it's still a perfectly good ship name. it's a pet peeve of mine, how antis chased shippers off the Shadria tag and forced them to come up with less elegant portmanteaus. "Shadaria" and "Mariadow" sound so much clunkier than "Shadria")

---

Apology for ranting but omg it so annoying seeing anti act so high n mighty over something so trivial 💀

No worries, antis are annoying at best. Wish they would just go away. >.>

[beloved-child-of-the-house]

i stand with you in the face of a defensive misunderstanding of what critique is.

i think understanding what a critique actually is is a skill that increasingly is not taught. i remember going through freshman art courses feeling the frustration that all negative, nasty, unhelpful, and missed-the-point-entirely feedback is so commonly conflated with critique, and then critique gets a bad name because everyone remembers the time someone said their painting looked like an asshole (true story, altho now i think i would take it as a compliment) instead of the time a teacher or friend or classmate helped them uncover a hurtful bias or think of new ways to explore the same idea or how to connect it to related ideas or how to look up and understand other people's ideas on the same topic.

anyway i think you're great.

ahhh you're so kind to me!! i appreciate your support, and i think you are great also.

i have experience with giving and receiving critique as a student myself, and i think it was the best part of my degree! i majored in creative writing in college, and critique was just a generally accepted part of learning to become a writer. i don't even remember people being especially worried about receiving critique on their work. we had guidance on what kind of feedback was useful, but we were still at liberty to give it as we saw fit as like messy 19 year olds. the standard was that we gave it both written on printed copies of the work AND aloud in front of the whole class, and the writer receiving it was not permitted to speak during the critique. understanding how people are perceiving your work is important!

i don't have any particularly negative recollections of the critique process, although once in a high school writing class, the boys in the class told me that my male characters touched each other too gently and real boys are more rough with each other. in particular, they took issue with me writing that one boy nudged another. nudging is too soft. nudging is for girls. that was more than 20 years ago, and i still think about it sometimes because it was such an interesting perspective! i did not take their advice, though.

i should dig up that piece and see if it reads queer in any other ways. i think that's what they were getting at. (actually i once had a non-fiction class tell me i was in love with my roommate after reading an essay i wrote about her)(i did not listen to that advice either, but having 12 acquaintances tell you that you're gay in 2006 before you realize it yourself is Truly Something!)

i think people have conflated criticism and critique and think that being more openly analytical is the same thing as being negative. but analysis is so fun to me! analysis is why i joined fandom in the first place, and it's why i write fic! can we trust each other to be respectful and to speak in good faith even when we're not singing each other's praises? for me fandom would be better if we could.

oh i also want to clarify that i don't think it's impossible to demonstrate that you've thought deeply about a piece of fanwork while remaining completely positive. people do it all the time and do it very well!

i know i sometimes have tunnel vision wrt my own perspective. in a lot of situations, i wish it were more acceptable to be more direct, and i know people sometimes find the way i express myself to be kind of shocking. i know a lot of people like to be spoken to more indirectly than comes natural to me, and i don't mean to imply that my perspective is the only correct one or that there's no good reason to err on the side of gentleness/politeness in our responses to amateur art and writing. i just think that at a certain level of circumspection, it feels like we're all holding each other at arm's length.

i think for people who can't bear to feel exposed, making and sharing art is always going to be painful and difficult, and maybe too painful and difficult to enjoy the process unless they're sure of a soft landing. but like. the rewards of being loved only come after the mortifying ordeal of being known, right?

[graendoll]

So I just read this post and have some additional thoughts. I'm making a new post so as to avoid any potential shipping nonsense on OP because no one wants that.

Basically OP is talking about how Buck's storyline is about learning how to love and be loved and Eddie's is about self-discovery (very abbreviated overview...please read the original).

Anyway, Buck's storyline being around learning how to love and be loved made me start thinking about Tommy and how he fits into this.

(Full disclosure I ship Buddie. I am not a multishipper, but generally don't have a problem with other ships. I just avoid their content because it hurts my feelings 😅.)

The way that Tommy has been presented thus far is, imo, another stepping stone on the path of Buck realizing what he really wants so he can find a fulfilling endgame love/partner. The post I linked goes through the lessons Buck learned from his other romantic partners, and so far Tommy has been framed as "the LI that makes Buck realize he's queer".

The few scenes they've had together up to now really don't feel like the way an endgame LI gets presented. I know folks are rooting for him and Buck to be it, but the writers would have to pivot a lot to do that. (Not that they can't, just...it WOULD be a pivot).

First, Tommy did not pursue Buck. Buck is pretty consistently chasing after his failed romances and Tommy is no different.

Second, the narrative choices have inserted Tommy in specific scenarios between Buck and Eddie. Tommy and Buck have really only been Eddie-less two times. First, when they had coffee and Buck asked him out and second, when they kissed in the hospital. Both of these were ways to move Buck's story forward and had little to do with the development of Buck/Tommy because narratively they're entirely one sided. Tommy comes to coffee so Buck can admit he wants to try something and they kiss in the hospital so Buck can come out to the firefam without making a lengthy, time sucking speech.

Tommy is there in both cases to move Buck's story along. Every other interaction between the two has either had Eddie in the scene or mentioned him a strange amount. I don't remember any of the other people Buck dated being framed so closely to Eddie or having Eddie haunt their relationship the way he has with Tommy.

This doesn't mean Eddie and Buck are endgame, but what it does mean is that Tommy is LIKELY a plot device to propel Buck's narrative along. (A narrative which includes a pre-packaged family, btw, who love him exactly as he is. Which maybe he'll decide he DOESN'T want, we don't know.) As OP of the linked post said, Buck is learning how to love and be loved and Tommy, while significant what with the bisexuality of it all, really just feels like another step in this process to me.

Obviously this is just one woman's opinion and like OP I'm old and have been disappointed too many times to put my whole chest into believing Buddie is endgame, but right now the narrative isn't really implying Buck/Tommy is either so whatever happens I think Buck is still a work in progress regarding his HEA.

(Also it shouldn't need to be said but please don't get spicy about ship wars kthxbye)

Edited because tumblr is being weird about embedded links on my phone....

[34saveme34]

that was btw, somehow worse than him dying to me

NOT THAT IT'S A BAD THING

I LOVE HOW IT ACCOUNTS FOR SO MUCH OF WHAT HIS CHARACTER IS INSTEAD OF KILLING HIM FOR THE SAKE OF HIM BEING A VILLAIN

I hope he gets therapy

platonic puzzl3.......... save this sinking ship that is Puzzles mental health

if it can be salvaged

yall think later down the line Marty will yoink him from his place of imprisonment and unleash him SOMEHOW even stronger

also I LOVED how they defeated him, but also this bitch is sloppy as hell

he's gotta get his aim better

like yeah he's really good at being everywhere but he's. NOT actually good at fighting

he would need someone like Wren again for that

honestly, Marty, Puzzles and Wren would make a crazy villain trio

they'd a 3 parter to defeat them like that

like yeah uh, as soon as they found where he was, he became vulnerable because he's bad at fighting

also the way he still flinched away and hid behind the TV- like I genuinely think he didn't have the greatest life either, based on what they're implying

like yeah, I just- I can't see it any other way really

cuz it seems like all.... all he had was his TV...... it was his best friend....... he became his OWN best friend

and thus. he was alone

with only dreams that could only try but never succeed at fixing his mentality of- of life in general

like. something VERY important that maybe not everyone noticed

yeah he talks big words and he's Sophisticated (tm) and all that jazz

but. he never truly had the chance to grow up, with the way his life went- that was taken away from him

like he didn't have friends at all FOR a reason

like HOW scared he was to go close to Leggy at first, being scared it was probably a trap or something

as if he has. trust issues

and that implies so so so much more

anyways why was the ending shot focusing on the Tender Tunnel, they didn't need to do that

I'll just- choose to believe it doesn't mean anything so I don't feel disappointed when it never gets brought up again, since this show tends to have shots that seem important then seemingly just. aren't somehow

not that that would make this wotfi any less great! I've been basically talking about how I loved it and how I only have this one tiny gripe with it cuz of knowing this show! so like, don't come at me about it please, or at least not with the intention to dismiss me or say that I'm Somehow hating on the show or the writers or whoever involved

I just have a normal amount of gripes with a show that had been going on for very long with its ups and downs

[yan-randomfandom]

Hello! Call me Yan (any prns), and I'm honestly here to satisfy my cravings as a writer 😔

♪ REQUEST STATUS: OPEN—Although please understand if I was unable to answer yours, it might be for plenty of reasons.

WHAT DO I WRITE?

x reader, my beloved i dont use y/n tho

Yandere. There are times I won't write yandere, but it's my blog's main trait.

Please read at your own risk. There will be warnings at the start of the chap!

Headcanons, one shots, and drabbles

Mostly SFW — Sexual themes are mild at most. I do not write smut.

My account is multifandom. I am in multiple fandoms, so expect my content to be different every once in a while!

☕support me on kofi!

MASTERLIST... LIST

PART I: Masterlist

Keep reading if u wanna request!

SO, YOU'RE AN ANON

You can name yourself as an anon! It's a nickname of sorts

Feel free to use a name even if it's taken! This is because I hop around fandoms, so anons may come and go, plus it's definitely an easier way to find your request (in tags) 😺

Think of your same-name-anons as like,, wow, u have the same name as me! siblings frfr??

FANDOMS?

I lurk in many fandoms. Not about to list them all, though 😭 Mostly I write about my current obsession! Almost always it's my blog theme :O

Please don't hesitate to ask from wherever fandom you are! There's no harm in trying! :) Except BNHA. Preferably, no anime.

Better yet, feel free to list down your fandoms in the comments! Anything that you would want to see yandere content in! Just so I can browse and maybe write for!!

LIMITS?

No problematic shipping requests.

Unfortunately, I don't do OCs (':

If the character is 18-, they can be aged up if you'd like, but strictly no NSFW, or in certain circumstances, romance. They're gonna be platonic.

I don't do intense gore. While I do have yandere content, I'm on the sorta wholesome side? Define 'wholesome' ... Implied scenarios are more likely😩

I write non-yandere stories too tho!

Minors, please stay safe. Don't go meddling around with adult spaces!

Sadly, I'm lacking in knowledge of other popular media, so if you happen to request one of those, I might not reply. Instead, I'll be keeping your ask until one day I check that media out.

Doesn't matter if the character is well known or not! Cuz I WILL attempt to learn about your request!

Part 2s are my weakness. I'm sorry.

WHY IS MY REQUEST TAKING SO LONG?

...college

If it's something I've never posted about yet, then it's either I'm not in the fandom, or I'm just clueless.

But other than that... sometimes I take days— weeks— months? to truly click with an idea.

I want to enjoy whatever I'm writing, so I take a break until an idea comes up.

And there's also the fact that I'm working on multiple things at once 😭😭 I tend to focus on easier ones first!!

Also I usually think of ideas at night c:

Worst case scenario: I truly have zero idea for your request, I'm so sorry 😔

NOTES ABOUT ME!

Yandere is my guilty pleasure, I fear🤕

HOWEVER, I do not, and won't ever, condone the behavior I will portray in my writing. Please don't misunderstand, don't romanticize. They are purely fiction and for entertainment.

I regularly change my theme (profile, colors, banner, etc.) just so you know.

This account is for everyone,, we're all just trying to find content of our favorite character fr— so please don't hesitate to request :)

As I close my eyes to sleep, that's when I start imagining scenarios for my writing!

erm skibid toilet

[sokkastyles]

ATLA Live Action Ep 1 Thoughts:

When the writers meant they wanted it to be like game of thrones, clearly they meant "we want the battles to happen in complete darkness so nobody can see what is going on," and not, you know, the sex stuff.

Idk why this never occurred to me until now but ostrich horse is chocobo.

They are clearly going for a darker, more grittier feel here, but it clashes with the attempt to keep things true to the animated origin. Like, the earth kingdom OC looks straight out of some more realistic Adult fantasy show, whereas Sozin's character design makes him look like evil Santa.

So firebenders are able to do that to bodies, which I appreciate from a fanfic perspective and also confirms what people have been theorizing about the agni kai, that Ozai put his hand on his son's face. Not sure it was necessary to see it, though. The original does a good job of horrifying us with implied violence and the adults already get it, while showing it makes it less accessible to a younger audience. This is hardly a problem unique to this show, though.

Air nomads actually riding sky bison!

I like having more background with the air nomads and Aang's actor is great but front-loading the flashbacks doesn't work great for the pacing.

One thing I do really like is the emphasis on how the war damaged the harmony of the nations in more than just a spiritual way. No one has friends from other nations now. Zuko comes seeking "someone who does not belong" with the (false) promise that no one will get hurt if everyone keeps to themselves, keeps the status quo. The air nomads are a complete anomaly in a world of division. We are introduced to Aang, Sokka, Katara, and Zuko, and all are isolated in their own way by the war at the beginning of the story.

Overall there is something just weird about the pacing. Characters keep pausing at vital moments of action to deliver exposition or meaningful monologues. It just feels off.

Zuko so desperate for "glory" that he accepts Sokka's proposal to fight one on one (nice foil to the final agni kai by the way). Then his surprise when Aang shows himself reveals that Zuko himself did not know whether he would really find the Avatar in this village he's suddenly shown up to terrorize. God, it just emphasizes how low Zuko is at this point. This is probably his first real high stakes fight and he might have killed Sokka over absolutely nothing out of a false sense that he had something to prove. It's just...sad.

The scene at the Southern Air Temple looked great and had me in tears. I actually saw some criticism of this to the effect of them "ruining Aang's arc" because he comes out of the Avatar state himself, but first of all, let's be real and admit that if mastering the Avatar State was Aang's arc, he never completed it. Second, just because he could bring himself out does not mean he can control it, and he's still letting his emotions control him which is a learning curve for handling that power, it's just that he was able to control his anger in that moment by remembering the people he loved. Which is not that different from how the scene plays out in the original, only he isn't using Katara as a crutch. Which is a good thing, actually. It's much more fitting and poignant that he thinks about Gyatso here.

I don't think there was any mention of Katara wanting to go north. She has a few lines about wanting to help more and Aang teaches her about balance so she can bend now, apparently, but where is her drive? It feels like they're attributing her accomplishments to Aang and that bothers me. Maybe it'll be mentioned in the next episode, since they haven't talked about Aang learning waterbending yet, either. But I do miss the Katara who was ready to banish herself from the village the moment she met Aang not just because it was the right thing to do, but because of her own desire for independence and autonomy.

Liked the scene between Aang and Iroh. It gives us a glimpse of an Iroh who is stuck as to what to do and so he just gives Aang the Zuko treatment by offering him tea. I'd be excited if this means we get to see more development for Iroh.