#especially if you don't particularly care about the popular bits of the fandom

[volkarine]

it's wild that at one time the witcher (twn) was one of the largest and most active fandoms on tumblr and now if you get 100 notes on a gifset it feels like winning the lottery lmao

[hollersparrow]

why the fuck was all might allowed to be a teacher. he's teaching at what is widely regarded as the best school in the country, particularly for heroes, but also just in general from what i understand. there is no way in HELL that a school like that would let a person who is uncertified and has no higher education to teach, regardless of how famous they are or how much pressure the hpsc put on the school or even how eclectic and eccentric the school/its teaching styles are. there is simply no fucking way.

at most he'd be allowed to be a guest in some of the hero classes to provide additional feedback, etc etc. he probably couldn't even do administrative work as that generally requires either ample teaching experience or some level of training/school to do as a job.

also, i don't care how much nedzu loves chaos, he also loves his job and wants to protect/care for his students. he would not just skip over all might's lack of ability for this, no way no how; he would expect him to follow the rules set up to ensure that the teachers are equipped to handle the position and to teach the students

semi-related to the above, it is a personal headcanon of mine that many of the UA teachers are not as popular or as widely regarded as other heroes BECAUSE THEY HAD TO GET A TEACHING DEGREE. many of them worked as heroes or sidekicks to gain field experience but did so while also attending university to get an undergraduate degree AT THE LEAST. then, depending on the person, they either went straight into a teaching assistantship or continued working as a hero for a few more years to get more experience. however, many of them weren't able to reach higher levels of notoriety simply because they didn't have the time or the energy to market themselves and they ALSO didn't have a need to, as they were working towards a different goal.

for some, especially those in the support course (i'm thinking powerloader but i'm sure there's others), i could see there being waivers like many schools offer for folks teaching a trade (at least in the US). if you've worked in a trade for long enough, you might only need to get your teaching license which is usually not as long as getting a degree since your work experience shows that you know what you're doing. so i could see some of the teachers for support courses or even business courses being hired through a similar process.

i also think that most of the teachers don't work as heroes during the school year. i think that they keep active hero licenses and are able to be called on at any time (i could also see staff wide training/sparring being a part of this), but that they generally are taken off the roster. there are definitely some exceptions to this, like aizawa who's quirk is super valuable and who is also insanely willing to sacrifice himself and his health to help others (he needs therapy and some sessions on how to set boundaries). i think yamada is also an outlier with his radio show, although i think that started while he was getting his teaching degree and was working for the university's radio channel and he just decided to keep up with it. however, everyone else just teaches and then picks up freelance work during the summers (also see them only being on 10 month contracts or an equivalent type of work schedule).

i also know next to nothing about the requirements for teaching in japan, so take most of this with a grain of salt. but, at the same time, i think bits and pieces of this are probably universal.

it should probably also be mentioned that i really like bnha for the potential and the amount of room left for fanfic and the fandom to play around in the sandbox that is the world that Horikoshi Kōhei has created but i literally can not finish the manga or the anime. i have tried. multiple times. and i can't get past the sports festival for either of them. so maybe this gets better explained or something or maybe my standpoints on the characters are a little off.

[rikomoriyama01]

🗣️ (also sorry this got long, turns out i have thoughts) so like riko is one of the weirdest fandom cases i've ever seen. i've been in fandoms where characters who commit actual war crimes and genocide are badass babes or uwu soft bois, and even spoiled mafia brats who commit terrible crimes against the heroes for daddy's attention that get love and redemption. it's so weird to see just how isolated from all that riko is to me.

i do think it's partly how aftg is written, and that's also partly because niel's pov is not at all forgiving of riko, while is entirely forgiving of people like andrew. but i also think it's because of how riko himself is written. he's one of these characters that's better on paper than he is in the book to me. because he's never presented as smart enough to fall into the magnificent bastard trope where everyone applauds how devious his plans are, but he's not outright hammy enough to just be a fun read, he doesn't even get the same stupidly dramatic flare as andrew. and while we're told he's powerful and doing dangerous stuff, he's presented on page, more often than not, as a petulant child that neil is just done with or a guy who likes to torture people who neil is also done with. neil is never actually scared of riko, or even particularly threatened by him, and i think that hurts him and makes his position in the narrative weaker. especially when nora is trying to play him as a villain and a threat in a mafia story rather than a good old fashioned rival in a sports drama. for example, his first impression on the kathy show should live up to the hype of this imposing charismatic villain who broke kevin's hand, but instead loses him temper, forgets all of his media training and lets a nobody like neil goad him into losing control of the interview, and then his payback, things like shoving neil around and seth's death, are basically brushed off because neil doesn't really care that much. it's not given the weight to be a seriously omg this guys a threat first impression. and this isn't uncommon, lots of media hamstrings their villains at the start by making sure we know the main character is too sassy for them and can humiliate them, without thinking about how weak that can make the villain seem. it feels sometimes like nora wanted riko to be this chess master villain or tragic child who's lashing out at the world, without committing to it fully to either, or was just not an experienced enough writer to have known how to write either of those things in the pov of someone who hates riko's guts, which is understandable, writing is hard and that sort of nuance takes practice, especially if you just go by the books and not the extra content, and i do wonder how differently nora would have portrayed riko if she rewrote the main trilogy now with presumably a lot more practice under her belt. in the end riko ends up in this weird grey area to me where i understand why he's not popular, given he has none of the usual obvious traits that fans like to latch onto when redeeming a villainous character, and even the ones that are there are glossed over pretty quickly because of neil's pov, and a lot of his more interesting pieces are on paper not actively presented in the book, and not everyone reads super deep, but i also don't understand the amount of hate. i have literally never seen a character in any other fandom i've been in have this much fandom wide hatred.

See I have nothing to add here because you single handedly dropped the best analysis of Riko's character in the series I had pleasure to read so far and summed up all my feelings about why and what of the fandom. If the goal was to write a character that is impactful yet easy to hate then that goal was achieved but for me it real takes away form the magnitude of feelings Riko could evoke in reader and questions he could provoke in narrative if he was given bit different presentation that woudl still align with the lore we already have.

[toweroftickles]

Who are your favorite underrated ticklees? like characters you think should have more tickling art/fics about them?

Oh, now you’ve done it. You’ve unleashed a tangent. 😂 Buckle up, kids; this word-and-picture vomit is gonna take a while. All 30 slots gettin' used up on this one.

UNDERRATED LEES

Let’s start with Avatar. When the second movie came out I went through a bit of a phase…half the characters in it could go here. The whole Sully clan. The Na’vi are perfectly sculpted ‘lee material - their long bellies, the ribs, the feet - and NOBODY TAKES ADVANTAGE OF IT.

(Literally just think of all the tickle torture they get up to)

Moving on to anime, Studio Ghibli is packed with characters who deserve more tickle attention. My favorites have gotta be Ursula from Kiki’s Delivery Service (I really wanna see content with her, Kiki & Tombo together), Lisa from Ponyo, Fio Piccolo from Porco Rosso, and Young Kiriko from The Boy and the Heron.

(I could watch that gif of Ursula wiggling her toes for the rest of my life)

I'm also a fan of this girl Pipirika from Magi: Adventures of Sinbad. Not sure why. I don't even watch the show.

Then there’s Suki from the other Avatar. Less-popular character in a popular fandom. Crowded out by the rest of the Gaang.

Victoria and Mr. Mistoffelees from Cats 2019. SHUT UP I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK 😖

VICTORIA IS SO PRETTY AND SWEET AND PURE AND THE WAY THEY NUZZLE EACH OTHER AND THIS WHOLE MOVIE IS TICKLE-CODED

I'M NOT A FURRY

Vi and Caitlyn from Arcane/League of Legends. That show (and this pairing) is massively popular online, they are insanely hot together, so WHY is no one making tk content except me? HMMM? These bitches are ticklish as hell and they deserve this.

It’s. Not. FAIR. I am so thirsty for CaitVi content in the leadup to Season 2 the inside of my mouth looks like the Atreides family is going to set up a base camp and harvest exotic spice from the back of my uvula.

Art3mis from Ready Player One. Book Twitter has seemingly made it their life’s mission to demonize Ernest Cline and anyone who loves the novel/movie, so fan content is already a little thin on the ground as it is. But she needs to be put in a tickle machine, stat.

Ben & Gwen Tennyson. OG series; none of that reboot horsehockey. They fight and antagonize each other so much I’m genuinely surprised there was never a tickle torture moment in the show.

From the Nintendo side of things, Imma go with two underappreciated gothic sorceress baddies (Veran from Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Medusa from Kid Icarus Uprising). I'm also very fond of the various "hot ninja lady" iterations of Impa, particularly her orange-and-black ensemble from Skyward Sword.

And both Wii Fit Trainers.

Red Savarin from the obscure Tail Concerto DS game Solatorobo: Red the Hunter. Never played it; he just looks insanely ticklish to me. You know, some characters you can just tell.

Still not a furry.

Let's see now, Disney/western animation...Kida, obviously. Robin Hood & Maid Marian, especially the latter. (I love her giggle so much.) Mowgli is more childhood wish-fulfillment on my part: that insane Jungle Book tickle scene messed me up, and each time my prepubescent self rewound the VHS tape, I played a game with my mind. I kept desperately believing/wishing that this time, it would be different: Baloo would get Mowgli back, or their tickle war would resume later. No such luck. It's about him & Baloo specifically.

The 2004 iteration of Batgirl is my favorite one. Plus she's got a great laugh. XD

The Spider-Verse movies continue to be a Tumblr phenomenon, and yet I have not found a SINGLE solitary tickle post about Rio Morales. Can you imagine how adorable she would be as a lee? ❤️ ((Ticklish moms + older women in general warrant more appreciation.))

I also made this here list a while back. This community can tend to neglect characters who are canonically ticklish, perhaps because the question has been answered already.

********************

WHEW. Got all that outta my system. XD If any of you are still alive and still reading this, anybody on this list that you agree deserves more tickling fanart/fics? Any thoughts on underrated lees of your own?

[angelinthefire]

As someone who's been around the fandom longer than i, what do you think of the claim that destiel shippers were the reason female characters got killed or kicked off the show? This seems to be a really common narrative in gen fandom spaces like r/supernatural but there's never any mention of wincest shippers and idk I find it kind of dubious. I mean obviously when it's applied to characters like bela or ruby it makes no sense but what about others? Like the claim usually goes oh they could never keep around a love interest for either of them because the hellers would throw a fit but did that happen? Usually it's brought up with Jo, Lisa, Meg, and Hannah. I know that is not actually why Meg left the show, but what about the others? I also know Alona and Cindy Sampson in particular are cited as receiving harassment for their roles but did this actually have anything to do with destiel seeing as it wasn't that popular of a ship back then? I only started watching in 2014 when destiel was the biggest ship and it never seemed to me like they were trying to set up romances that were shot down by the fans. I mean did anyone actually expect hannah to be an endgame love interest? And no one really makes this claim about Amara either. And it also wouldn't apply to characters like Charlie or Missouri either who both still got killed off. Idk I've just been seeing a lot of narrative recently about fans being primarily responsible for the killing off of female characters but I feel like it's shifting blame a bit, even more so to apply it solely to destiel fans (I mean did destiel get Sarah Blake killed??)

Yeah blaming destiel shippers is ridiculous. Destiel shippers didn't even reach preponderance in the fandom until s8. The worst of the misogyny of the fandom was solidly concentrated in the first half of the shows life. Attitudes changed as societal attitudes changed, and as the show itself finally broke down and developed more of an ensemble cast.

The wincesties/bronlies were always far more venomous when it came to characters who threatened to get between the bros. No matter the gender. As can be seen from the segment that tried to keep Misha from coming back. Were there destiel shippers who hated on Meg or Anna or others? Yes, but to a degree that is pretty typical across fandoms, especially in the 2000s. Not to the degree that they actually tried to launch a campaign to get any actors fired. Which, again, is what bronlies did to Misha.

In general I think it's incorrect to blame the fans for female characters being killed off. If the writers are committed to a character and a vision and it's working for them they can make it work for the audience too. The thing with Jo and Bela is that, to my understanding, their existence is the result of network notes to try to include more female characters, so Kripke was never super committed to them in the first place.

You point out why Hannah and Meg don't make sense as examples. Alona's role was in s2, and in s5 she was basically brought back in order to be killed off. Same thing with Sarah Blake, which is a useful counter example. She was also brought back to die. Since neither of them had a recurring role when they were killed off, it doesn’t make sense to blame shippers. Again, it's the writers deciding that the most useful thing a female character can do is die to further the main characters' motivation.

Few people liked Lisa at the time s6 aired, she was seen as boring and as detracting attention from the brothers.

I think there's a relationship between the sexism of the writers and the fans. When the writers don't care about characters and see them as fridging material, fans can pick up on it. And then fan hatred of the character is cited as an excuse to write them off. This is a simplification, I do think there are parts of spn fandom that are particularly toxic, but I also think it's true that fan opinion is never the only reason why writing choices are made.

[utilitycaster]

not to be all “only i like my blorbo correctly”, but i’m fully convinced that certain people would hate Imogen as a character if they actually engaged with her outside of “conventionally attractive sadgirl that’s one half of an aesthetically pleasing queer ship”. fully believe that if she looked like Chetney or Ashton or even Fearne, and didn’t come with a prepackaged ship, people would be forced to look at her as the complex, unique loose cannon that she is

Hey anon, I agree with much of this and I hope you don't mind if I go on what might be one of my weirder tangents/theories but this has been percolating for a few weeks and I think I've cracked the secret to one of the more toxic segments of the fandom.

I definitely think that if Imogen were not a woman, a lot of people would hate her (granted, a different group of people who hate her now would probably like her more if she were a man, because misogyny is extremely extant outside of the bubble, and even a little bit within the bubble, that is Tumblr). However, they'd be fine if she looked like Fearne...but many wouldn't be fine if she were also played by Ashley. Or yeah, if she weren't easily shipped with Marisha's character.

Here's the deal. When I and a number of other people were like "oh hey! Imogen is not really taking other people's feelings into consideration and is being rather insensitive about the Ruby Vanguard, given that they've killed half the party, particularly since she's literally known Laudna like 10 times longer than she's know her mother was alive" the attitude was "wow, you hate Imogen, you hate women, you're so unfair" and yet now, at a table that is half women (and a group of characters that literally has only one man) everyone who thought I hate Imogen and how if she were a man everyone would care is now literally just mostly ignoring her (and honestly like, everything) and instead constantly whining about how they miss Laudna. Which is frankly weak as hell, like, anyone who's loved Pike or Yasha is like "oh you must be new here", and at least people talking about Travis being missing during the gap between Bertrand's death and Chetney's arrival were making good memes. But I digress.

My theory, which I do admit is the most tin-foil hat I think I've gone, comes from some polls I've seen circulating complaining about queerbaiting in past shows, and also my recent interest in Glee as ground zero of really horrible fandom behaviors (thanks to people who have provided insight into that!) Anyway. I recently learned that apparently Quinn and Rachel was a really popular ship, for reasons I cannot, for the sake of what little decorum and kindness I am maintaining here, speculate on. Setting aside that this is not queerbaiting and it's wildly inappropriate and damaging to say it was, given that this show was full of queer characters and Quinn was shown hooking up with a woman, this has in fact clicked into place for me why people constantly ship Marisha and Laura's characters despite chemistry that is inconsistent at best and tepid on average. It's not terribly hard to draw lines from Quinn to Vex and Rachel to Keyleth, especially if you consider how fanon tends to handle these archetypes. Then they transferred this to just Laura and Marisha's characters in general, and here we are, and man if it hasn't gotten even more flavorless with every transfer.

So anyway yeah a lot of people really don't like Imogen much as a character unless they can project onto her, but because she's half of The Ship, they also will not tolerate any exploration of her flaws that could threaten The Ship and so they need to remove her agency and blame it on various rocks instead of Imogen being cranky and impatient as a person (like, again, if you want to interpret her powers as chronic pain, why are you not allowed to grant her the same complexity as Ashton, who is also cranky and impulsive?) But really the kicker is that if Marisha isn't physically onscreen, they start acting like a cat you locked out of the bathroom and simultaneously forget they're supposed to care about or enjoy Imogen as an individual.

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

*KICKS THE DOOR DOWN* WWWAIT FREYA I HAVE MIXED FEELINGS ON FANDOMS VIEW OF THIS SHIP I NEED TO KNOW UR OPINION. HOMUMIKU???

WKSHJSHJDBJHAHAHAH HIIIII, GRACE!!!! ❤️💕💞💝💗💖💘💓💕💞💖💞💘

Homumiko (HUGE spoilers for DGS after the bingo sheet):

I have been waiting to get into this ship properly, because I have THOUGHTS and I need to be forced to get them out coherently.

Let's get into the basic ship itself. Honestly? No comment. I think hmmk cheats a bit by relying on the literal decades people have spent shipping Holmes and Watson together, and I doubt that they would be half as popular without this history; but, as someone who has never had strong feelings about HolmesWatson either way, I don't have that bias! Even if we're just going off of DGS and looking at how they complement and trust each other, and are obviously more comfortable around one another than most other people, I don't really have a strong opinion on them. I do think they're close, but whether that bond is platonic, romantic, sexual or some mix of the two is just not something I particularly care about. You know who I do care about, though?

Susato-san.

OKAY, SIT DOWN, EVERYONE BECAUSE THE SHIP BINGO PART OF THIS IS OVER, AND NOW WE'RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE PARTS OF HMMK I DO CARE ABOUT AND WHY THAT ACTUALLY HAS VERY LITTLE TO DO WITH THEM AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH HER.

Let's get this out of the way first. Based on my very modern sensibilities, I take a rather harsh stance on Mikotoba's parenting.

Do I think he loves his daughter? Sure. But which parts of his daughter? Because it's very easy to love a child who is always obedient, elegant and the literal embodiment of idealised Japanese womanhood without knowing or truly even looking at her. I think Susato made it easy for him to love her, because she believed she had to earn it. Her father left when she was born, consumed by grief over her mother's death -- her mother, whom she killed. I know the game tries to justify this by saying it was Jigoku who dragged him away (and I do think him leaving was good for him, because I doubt he would have been a good father even if he'd stayed due to his grief), but the point is that he still left. For six years. And when he returned, he didn't even return because of her (whether she knew that from the moment she met him or not is debatable, but I think, at least on a subconscious level, she knew. And, of course, it's also debatable whether he could have returned sooner because of his commitment as a transfer student, but the Mikotobas are a powerful family, and, if Soseki could return before his period of learning was fully up, I think he would have been able to pull strings to return home if he wanted to).

This falls under speculation, so I understand not agreeing with it, but I don't think Mikotoba ever properly spoke to Susato when she was a child, especially not about what he did in England. I believe that a part of the reason why Susato started reading the Sherlock Holmes stories to begin with was because they featured a doctor in London, like her father had been, and she wanted to feel closer to him through those stories. And it probably worked! Her father probably did start engaging with her more after after she picked them up, because it was an easy way to connect with her. That's why I believe she was so insistent on the existence of John H. Watson, as a doctor, when she met Iris and learnt the truth.

There's this distance between Susato and her father which glimpse in moments in the game, like how he remarks on her lack of composure in court (suggesting that he isn't used to seeing her yamato nadeshiko mask slip), how he less requests her trust and more orders or expects it forthright, and how he seems reluctant to face the parts of her that inconvenience him (like how he asks her to play the koto when he isn't home and how, when faced by her real anger, he looks to Holmes to explain the situation rather than actually attempt to himself).

HOWEVER, in the setting of the game (Meiji-era Japan), I will concede that Mikotoba is a fantastic father. He may not have been very present in her life growing up, but men largely weren't expected to be. Their jobs were to provide for their children, not nurture them. And Mikotoba went well beyond his duty in that regard. Add to that the fact that he had her properly educated, ensured she knew how to defend herself, and allowed her to pursue her studies overseas at a level that was on par with any man, and you can see that he's really quite a great father; which is why I don't think he sees his absence as a flaw or even notices he was absent. Susato, though, does.

Now, Susato is obviously a product of her time, too, so I believe she'd be insulted if anyone was to suggest that her father or childhood was lacking in some way. That being said, I do believe she is aware of the distance between them in a way he is not. I think her affection for him is founded on a sense of duty and filial piety rather than pure love (although, obviously, she does love him), and, as she grew older, she stopped vying for his affection; hence why she's obsessed with the Great Detective more so than anyone else when we meet her. I also think that this distance contributed to her becoming so attached to Kazuma, in spite of the fact that he kept her at arm's length, too; he may not have allowed her very close, but he was always there, and he saw her for who she truly was. When she leaves at the end of the first game, Susato is not so much anxious that her father is ill as she is shaken -- she seems more upset that she's leaving her Baker Street family rather than that her actual father might be dying, and I think that's because she knows how to live without him. This distance between them, I believe, becomes all the more apparent to her when she goes to London and sees the deep bond held between Iris and Holmes.

And, speaking of, you know who else I think is aware of the distance between them and the part he played in creating that distance? The Great Detective himself, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

See, I think Holmes has always known about Susato. I'm quite sure that, from the moment they met, he knew that Mikotoba was running away from something and that he had left an infant daughter back home. He just didn't care.

We don't know what Holmes was like when he was younger, but I believe he was a lot closer to how he appears in a lot of modern adaptations and how Watson describes him in some of the Sherlock Holmes stories: the 'cold, calculating computer' character. I don't think it's a stretch to think that Holmes viewed marriage and children as mere distractions and interferences to the mind; and Mikotoba was, presumably, his first real friend. He wasn't going to let something pesky like a baby back home detract from his friend's obviously sterling character and brain! After all, it's a lot easier to ignore this nebulous, abstract entity when you simply consider its existence, and thus its abandonment, unimportant. It's a lot easier when you don't know what it's like to be a father yourself. It's a lot easier when you don't know her.

Here's the thing: I believe Holmes's image of and relation to Mikotoba began changing from the time he started raising Iris. Suddenly, that inconsequential baby seemed to bear quite a bit of consequence, actually. But it was still all right to keep dismissing her, because maybe Mikotoba's baby wasn't special the way Iris was. Maybe she was a brat or an idiot, and really not worth much time at all! Maybe she could've lived without him and been perfectly fine, regardless...? As time went on, I believe the excuses he made for Mikotoba's decision all those years ago became increasingly flimsy, but he was still able to hold onto them because The Daughter was still an indistinct figure in his mind. She wasn't quite real.

That is, until he met her.

In the game, Holmes tends to keep a certain width between himself and Susato. He very rarely initiates conversation with her the way he does Ryuunosuke, and from a Doylist (ha) perspective, this is obviously because Ryuunosuke is... the main character. Looking at it from a narrative perspective, though, I think he was afraid of hurting more than he already has and must.

Holmes is a very resolute man. He sticks by his decisions regardless of what anyone else thinks, so I don't think he ever regretted what he did. However, I do think he felt guilty. Certainly, he didn't quite take her father away from her, but he did play a role in keeping him from her for so long. I think there was a part of him that consciously guided Mikotoba away from thinking about Japan while they lived together, because, well... he didn't want him to leave.

There's an interesting layer to the separation that Holmes creates with Susato, because, beyond the distance he maintains between her and himself, he also keeps her identity separate from her father's. Contrary to how he refers to Ryuunosuke by his last name, Holmes only ever calls Susato "Miss Susato" or "my dear (madame)", and never "Miss Mikotoba". I view this is his way of, perhaps subconsciously, dividing from that little girl he once decided did not matter. And it's interesting because, to an extent, he tries to do with her and Kazuma, too.

In the SS Burya case, despite meeting Susato first and seeing how affected she is by Kazuma's "death", Holmes largely ignores her in favour of focusing on Ryuunosuke and his bond with Kazuma. He calls Kazuma Ryuunosuke's "dear companion" and pretty much only interacts with Susato when he has little other choice... until he sees her cry.

See, I believe that when Holmes found out Susato was going to England and was about to be wrapped up in the whole messy affair, he was fully committed to Not Giving a Damn about Her. Sure, he would let her and Kazuma live with him, but by no means was he going to allow himself to grow attached to her because, again, he values his relationship and history with Mikotoba too much for it to get complicated in this way. Susato's relative composure throughout the case helps him hold on to this resolution; however, when he catches that final conversation between her and Ryuunosuke in the cabin, he is finally forced to see and acknowledge the amount of pain she is truly in. It forces him to at last face the fact that he can't avoid or fake aloofness around her any longer, because she is not some nebulous, distant entity he can continue to ignore. She is an actual girl with a fiercely strong spirit, a brilliant mind and real, human emotions. A girl whom he's hurt twice-over now and must continue hurting until all his lies finally come to light.

When he makes that decision to enter the cabin and console her the only way he knows how, he throws away any hope he had of feeling anything but apathy towards her. In truth, he probably didn't have much hope of that to begin with, because at his core, Sherlock Holmes is a good man, and he cares.

He cares for her, too, even though he may have no right to. How could he not, when she loves him so openly, trusts him so readily, saves his life? How could he not, when she comes to him in the middle of the night with a secret she can't tell anyone else because his judgement is the only one she wholly trusts and believes in? How could he not, when she refuses to accept he lied despite the living, breathing evidence he did until he admits it himself? How could he not, when after everything he has done, she still looks at him the way she always has and says that she's proud that her father is the assistant of "the Great Detective"?

How could anyone not? How could Mikotoba not... love her the second he laid eyes on her?

And of course this doesn't shatter his love for Mikotoba -- he has no right to these feelings in the first place: no matter how indignant or guilty he may feel, it doesn't change the fact that he has been lying to and manipulating her the entire time they've known one another. He can't even bring himself to tell her that he's been lying; he has to go through Ryuunosuke instead, because, even after all this time, he still can't face the woman whom he's done nothing but cause pain for from the moment she was born. When he can't even give her that ounce of respect, who is he to judge Mikotoba?

So he doesn't. Till the end of the game, he keeps Susato at a distance and pretends that everything between him and Mikotoba is as it was from the start. But, inside, I think he knows it isn't. Because I think Holmes can see that Mikotoba doesn't feel half as guilty about what they've done as he does, and that he doesn't view the fact that he left Susato 16 years ago as a real problem. And while he doesn't judge Mikotoba for that, I don't think he can look past it anymore. That final investigation and dance of deduction, to me, is less an assurance that they are still the same partners they were before, and more a final farewell to their old, uncomplicated bond -- the one that did exist before they grew to love other people and understand what love truly meant to both of them.

Going back to the ship itself, I think shipping them pre-DGS works perfectly well. They both had a huge impact on each other's life and changed one another for the better; Holmes by drawing Mikotoba out from his grief, and Mikotoba by pulling Holmes from his life of solitude and loneliness. They needed each other, but it is also because of these reasons that I think there was an issue of codependency between them, hence the semi-horrible for each other box I gave them. With Mikotoba, it's clear cut. Holmes helped him run away from his very real issues at home and allowed him to live like he was a bachelor with zero familial obligations again. With Holmes, it gets a bit more foggy, but I believe that Mikotoba basically allowed him to live believing he was the only person Holmes would ever truly connect with and properly befriend. Holmes is obviously his own person and whatnot, but I do think there was a bit of unhealthy attachment there on his end if not both.

During DGS and post-DGS is where their ship gets more complicated for me, because, while Susato is still very much there at the beginning of their relationship, her role in their lives and what they did to her becomes impossible to ignore once she and Holmes actually meet. I don't believe that they can just pick up from where they left off because there is now (imo) a fundamental disagreement in how they view their actions and how it affected her. So, even if they do go back to being lovers or whatever afterwards, I feel that there should be this chasm or weight between them that they simply don't talk about or acknowledge in any way. Because I don't think they'd discuss it. Holmes because it isn't his place, Mikotoba because he sees it as a non-issue (maybe he doesnt even notice this distance), and both because sweeping unpleasantness under the rug is so ingrained into their cultures.

My main issue with the way this ship is often portrayed post-DGS (why they got a 50-50 on the I would erase them from existence box) is that it ignores what happened with Susato. The few times I've seen the concern that she might have an issue with their relationship even brought up in hmmk works is always because they're gay. Which, like!! Fair!!! It's the 1800s, I get it, but!!!! You're ignoring the actual, very big issue for why she might be hurt and that's because DGS ends with her finding out that three of the men she's closest to have been lying and using her for their own means her entire life!!!!!!!! And she just has to take it!!!!!!!

Which brings me to the second most popular interpretation of this ship which doesn't just put Iris and Susato in a box somewhere unseen, and that's the one where all four of them are a peaceful happy family with 0 issues! And this one bothers me because it seems like it's taking what Susato said at the end of the reveal as what she 100% sincerely meant down to her core, rather than something she had to say because (1) it is her duty to honour her father no matter what, and (2) because Iris was there. When she learns the entire truth, I don't think Susato knows what she truly thinks or feels about any of it; but she sees Iris, and she sees this little girl who was abandoned through her circumstances as a baby, named after her mother, and forced to grow up much sooner than she should have been, and she sees a girl who is more her sister than anyone else. So she does what she always has and tucks away her own emotions so she might tend to someone else's. She has been the perfect daughter her whole life; she can be the perfect sister.

Even if you don't subscribe to the, admittedly, harsh view of Mikotoba's parenting that I do, I don't see how you can get away from the fact that they still lied to her for a significant portion of time. Especially from Holmes, whom she trusted and believed in more than anyone else! In the face of his shoddy deductions, she still held onto her unwavering belief that he was a genius and a good man, and then it comes out that he's just been lying to her from the first day he met her. I just can't extract the ship from their treatment of Susato, so when I say that I would erase the ship from existence, it's mainly about these two bits. As with Asoryuu, the primary reason why I don't ship them personally is because I can't do that to her.

And, obviously, it's just shipping and fun and games, and everyone should feel free to ship whoever in whatever way they want bUT IN A SPECIAL WORLD MADE PERFECTLY FOR ME. iris would be perfectly oblivious, and susato would have tossed both holmes and mikotoba into the thames and left them to figure it out. In a world that must still vaguely make sense with the canon of the game, though, then Holmes would have given Mikotoba the boot and taken the kids; because he may be a coward, but at least I can see that he knows he fucked up, and he allows Susato to set the terms of their relationship, just like he does Iris.

Anyway, I'm so sorry for how long, convoluted and only tangentially-related to the ask this is, but thank you so much for it, Grace!!!! I don't think I quite got down what I meant precisely, but it's the closest to coherency I've ever gotten so. Thank you 💖💕💗💓💕💘💕

[pynkhues]

Sophie, I think the rules for the leslou fest have that tone because for the last 48 hours people have been completely vile about it (and about the organiser) on Twitter. To be honest, if I was the organiser my tone would not be so polite.

There has never been any deceit surrounding the purpose of the fest. You say you wouldn’t have a problem if it had been called “bottom!Louis fest” – what do you think ‘leslou’ is supposed to mean? But okay, sure, benefit of the doubt, maybe you genuinely weren’t aware that leslou is used to indicate top Lestat/bottom Louis – are you seriously THAT mad about having to, what? Click to read the rules? Be so fucking for real.

I’m sure you’ll disagree with me but personally I think you’re bitter because people are actively trying to curate an event that doesn’t fit YOUR preference. You cannot tell me in good faith that you’d be making a post like that if it was a bottom Lestat fest.

This event was never intended to be fandom-wide – it is specifically for those of us who like top Lestat/bottom Louis and want to see more of it, and want to participate in an event with fans who have similar interests. Sure, it isn’t going to appeal to everyone, but it isn’t supposed to! Not every event has to appeal to everyone! If you don’t like it, literally just keep scrolling.

I didn't know people had been rude about it to the organisers, anon, and I'm very sorry that they have been, but I'm a little baffled by your response to my post? Like, okay, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt too and assume you've probably seen a lot of discourse around this and assumed I was piling on - I wasn't! I genuinely thought it was funny, I'm not mad at all - I've had a really busy couple of days with Real Life Stuff and had seen the event pop up on my feed a few times, bookmarked it to have a look at wondering if it would motivate me with these WIPs if I don't get them done during Kinktober, and hell, I am writing bottom!Louis as a part of these fics (which I've been open about too, by the way!), but the second I pulled open the FAQs tonight, I just - - well. Like I said. I laughed.

Like, I don't know. Sure, think I'm bitter about not having things catered to me, I don't really care, but I do think there's a bit of a bait and switch in their posts, particularly given bottom!Louis is far and away the most popular iteration of the ship in terms of fan content? It would always get more prompts, as well as fic and art fills anyway, so the specification feels...Motivated, especially as in my long history of fandom, specific events like that were usually about - using OP's words - 'creating space' for works that don't often get much oxygen.

I do agree that not every event has to appeal to everyone, but this one - just to me personally, after those FAQs - has a little bit of a vibe that maybe some people are invested in making sure the most popular iteration of these characters stays the most popular in the hiatus. This is such a divisive fandom broadly, and I guess my point was more that that sort of thing just reminds me of that, y'know? Anyway, I really do hope people create great stuff - I read and enjoy and am currently writing bottom!Louis too after all! - and that you have fun, whether you're creating or consuming.

[sunshinemarauders]

Why do people babygirl-ify Death Eaters?

Hi everyone! I'm back with more of my research!

After returning to the marauders fandom to study it, I was particularly interested in why fans were drawn to characters that were canonically death eaters. I understood the obsession with Regulus Black and Draco Malfoy- they were canonically children and they canonically defied the Death Eaters, but I was curious about Evan Rosier and Barty Crouch Jr. To my (pretty extensive) knowledge, all we know about them is that they're Death Eaters, they're Wizard Nazis. So why did I, in doing my research, keep finding people saying these two characters were their "babygirls"? It concerned both me and my professor, who thought it indicated a bigger problem within fandom as a whole. The ability to think that making a character queer erases them of their ties to the Death Eaters is, in my opinion, dangerous. How will this be played out in the real world? Will we see actual Nazis, or actual terrorists, or actual war criminals be called babygirls?

This is a short summary of why people said they think people "babygirl-ify" Rosekiller (Evan Rosier and Barty Crouch Jr.) from my research. As always, if you have any questions or if you want to chat about any of this, reach out to me! My asks are open

Because its fun

I truly think it has less to do with their evilness, and more to do with what we have in canon. We know characters Draco Malfoy, we know what they're like, what they've done. Then, we see something 'uncharacteristic' and it stands out, like a literary uncanny valley. It stands out, and if someone was to try, I know I'd just swipe past it. However, when you compare them to "empty vessel" name-only characters, because we don't have many fully-fleshed out evil characters in the material, it's easy to slap a babygirl sticker all over him, and be like oh its my headcanon. A popular character, with facts and details about them, will stand out when you make a new headcanon that doesn't fit inside what we know about HP. I think characters like Barty, Evan, and even Regulus, are ragdolled around and basically original by the time nearly anyone writes them. This isn't a condemnation! Just how I understand it.

People started to realize that Regulus was an interesting character himself, rather than him being a bratty younger sibling to Sirius. Therefore he had to have friends, so we started to see a surge in Evan and Barty. In the early Reggie appreciation era (early 2022) we saw quite a bit of Bartylus, but that has died down as people like to think of Jegulus as their endgame now. I also think that fanfiction greatly shapes the minds of the fandom, especially well written popular ones. The first and most prominent one that Rosekiller character appears in is Just Lovers (like we were supposed to be) on ao3 by bizarrestars. Here, they are playful and sarcastic best friends of Reggie who help him through his lil emotions. Everyone loved them so much that the zar (the author) gave us their own lil intermission of it.

Because it's fun! I really don't think it's deeper than that. People started liking Regulus and then they decided that his friends could be nice too, and then they decided that his friends could be queer or even dating each other and they could be babygirls and who cares it's just fun. I'm not a big Rosekiller shipper and I'm more of a Wolfstar girl lately (but that's just because most of the Jegulus fics are sooo poor quatlity, like yes I know that Regulus is mean, but if you make him an absolute ass with no redeaming qualites I'm not gonna want them to get together) so I might not have the most insight on this, but I don't really with there's a deeper reasoning here other than the fact that it's fun.i guess because people just wanted to see them as "normal teenagers" like the marauders, like to remember that before they became death eaters they were boys as well doing stupid things and getting in trouble like everyone else did, and also because they fit well into regulus' potential circle of friends, idk i like the idea that the three of them (evan, barty and reg) were friends in school and then they took different paths where regulus "got" his redemption arc and the others just went insane following voldemort's ideals, i guess i just love angst and it would be a tragic story of how their friendship ended tbh

For a long time we had very few Slytherin students in the Marauders era, and whether we like it or not Slytherin is the most popular house of Harry Potter, people love characters with tragic pasts and dubious morality and also they are characters with very poor description and easy to shape in their personal desire, I don't think that's wrong, but I have no interest in them as characters, to me they're just irrelevent, occasionally appearing in my ideas for fanfics I'll never write, usually as future death eaters

i think the current fandom is less inclined to read/write self-insert fics or OCs, and evan and barty are essentially blank slates that authors can overlay whatever personality they want to that will help fill out their story. also, it’s fun to add characters to the slytherin house during years we don’t know much about. also x2, most fics aren’t writing about them killing people and enjoying it. i don’t think the fact that they were death eaters is the reason people are babygirl-ifying them or wanting to ship them.

this is a very interesting question, and i haven’t thought about it in these terms. personally, as i mentioned briefly in the last question, i hate babygirl-ification in general. i don’t like the way that it infantilizes men, and despite the fact that in this case they’re fictional, i’ve seen it happen with real people several times (dan and phil, crankgameplays, even markiplier a little bit). it has very weird connotations and i just don’t vibe with it at all. he’s not your softboy cinnamon roll babygirl, he’s a man in his 20s. it’s just odd to me, and i’m FTM transgender, so i’ve seen it happen to trans men too and it just feels gross to me. like i’m not softboy cinnamon roll i’m just. a guy. i am literally just a guy. but like in general i hate the concept of babygirl-ifying anyone, as for it being characters without a redemption arc, i think it’s because they got popular in a fic where they were never evil in the first place. i could be wrong, but from what i noticed barty and evan only became liked characters in Just Lovers, which is a no-voldemort AU, meaning they were never death eaters. and they were given nicer roles in the story to serve the plot and further regulus’ character development. like they only got a better reputation because the author needed them to for the plot and they were in a setting where that made sense, and ever since then they’ve been big characters. like i don’t think it’s necessarily about them in canon at all. i think people liked who they were in that one story and it just kind of exploded from there and now they’re being written with redemption arcs in other works too. and really, i don’t see anything wrong with that. i will say i am Not A Fan of those AUs where someone joins the death eaters to save someone else, like james joining for reg, i refuse to touch them. that’s icky to me. but yeah idk. i don’t like babygirl on the whole, i think it’s gross and infantilizing and weird, but as for why these characters are getting that treatment, i think it’s literally just because of a fic they read where they were interesting characters and weren’t morally reprehensible and it’s snowballed from there.

[notmoreflippingelves]

EoA for ask meme

otp: *coughs* Elena/Esteban. sorry not sorry.Look if they didn't want me to be unhinged about them, they shouldn't have spent an entire season soulmate-coding them and then capping it off with a BATB homage.

favourite canon pairing: ymmv on how canon it is, but considering it was pretty strongly teased in the series finale, Julio/Doña Paloma. I do find Carla/Mateo pretty cute as well.

worst pairing ever: I wouldn't say any of the pairings for the show are bad. It's just a lot of them don't particularly interest me. I could say Elena/Mateo, because personally I find it overrrated and I'm already gonna talk about it later. But I am going to go with Esteban/Doña Paloma.

I did actually kind of ship it the first time I watched the show...right up until the episode where their AU selves got married. And even though the whole point of "to Queen or Not to Queen" is that everything is absurd and everyone is wildly out-of-character (especially the two of them), they just seemed so miserable together and I couldn't unsee it. I also find it kind of annoying that Paloma is treated as sort of the default "acceptable" Esteban shipping option for people who don't want to pair him with OCs. And just...it's fine and I understand why many people would feel uncomfortable shipping him with certain characters (even if I don't)...but like...Victor is also right there. And honestly, I'm able to get a lot of the same vibes that I initially liked about esteoma out of estevictor, esteban/naomi, gaberico, and Julio/ Paloma---plus just I find those dynamics are more interesting in general.

guilty pleasure pairing: It used to be estebalena, but now, I have much less shame over it. It helps that I really only see it happening in S3 or later and that I hc that Elena would be the much more dominant/instigating partner in the relationship. I mean I guess Shuriki/Esteban is the obvious answer. But it is worth noting that I don't like it when it's genuine/mutual/romantic. I only like esteriki in the noncon/dubcon "Shuriki abusing her power" sense. So my guilty pleasure ship is less Shuriki/Esteban and more "Esteban/severe Shuriki-related trauma that leads to extreme woobification." I want him sad and pretty and haunted by the Dark Times™ so that he can have allll the angst, whump and hurt/comfort.

a pairing you want to see more: Literally every ship that isn't just some permutation of the Four Amigos. There are so many great characters in this ship that can be paired in so many interesting ways, but they rarely get acknowledged. I think I am particularly baffled by the lack of m/m in this fandom, since it's like the complete opposite of every other fandom ever. There's a bit of Mateo/Gabe, but honestly, it's positively dwarfed by other pairings for the amigos. (Also I don't care about Mateo, lol). There's also a criminally small bit of Gabe/Rico, but there could be so much more.

But honestly, the ship that I am genuinely baffled isn't more popular and really really want to see more of is Victor/Esteban. Like it just seems like a no-brainer to me. It has so many tropes that people normally go feral over. Childhood friends to lovers? Enemies to Lovers? Foe yay? Mutual redemption arcs? There isn't even an age difference and Victor's marriage is all-but-over. So, what is stopping people? I've seen at most a handful of ambiguously romantic ship art and not a single fic. Where is it? Where is the estevictor? Give me the estevictor!

that pairing everyone likes but you’re like “lol no” : Elena/Mateo. I mean I get why it's so popular given the popularity and attractiveness of both characters. But personally, I just don't find them interesting. I feel they both have better chemistry and interesting potential with other characters than they do with each other. And its popularity within the fandom certainly doesn't help, as my little contrarian hipster brain turns its nose up about 90% of fandom juggernaut pairings. Plus, I just don't care enough about Mateo to care about a ship with him. He's casually cute with Carla and I can see him with Gabe as well. But otherwise, nope. Don't like him enough to care who he's shipped with.

favorite non-romantic pair: There are a bunch of dynamics that I do ship sometimes (or more than sometimes) but I also love platonically. (Esteban & Elena, Elena & Naomi, Esteban & Naomi, Naomi & Gabe, Elena & Gabe, Elena & Valentina, Elena & Marisa, Chloe & Maliga, Cacahuate & Bobo, various permutations of "Team Isa"). But in terms of pairings that I only view platonically, either Victor & Carla or Isabel & Elena.

[summ3rhead]

was traipsing through ao3 today and marking for later a bunch of wn fics so i could close some tabs and noticed you did the wings of fire au and the 1930s au and first of all been loving both of them immensely

on wings of fire, day is often made a lot better by seeing that there’s a new wings of fire au update, second i really love how you write all the characters and their dynamics, esp beatrice & camila i’d say

something about how you write them both as individuals and their dynamics w others is so refreshing

on the 1930s au, i think it’s definitely one of the most interesting, refreshingly intriguing fics i’ve seen in a while, ava landscaper & novelist beatrice is 👀, esp since i feel like a lot of fics would’ve had them be the inverse (which obv there’s nothing wrong w that but a person just craves change once in a while)

the idea of novellist!beatrice has my whole fucking heart, i love the mental image of her being a broody lil writer. michael’s schrodinger mustache had me vv amused every time it was mentioned and also masc beatrice!!!! always love when beatrice is explicitly masc in fics, it’s just so 🫶🫶🫶🫶

lastly, and clearly the most important aspect, beatrice having a lil dog!!!! beatrice and her dog jonty!!!! beatrice w a dog is often always galaxy tier imo, but especially in this situation w the dog being named jonty, if i were ava i would’ve fallen in love the instant i found out beatrice named her dog jonty

broody writer beatrice & her dog jonty, it’s just too perfect to fit into words, it’s so adorable

speaking of which, do you view beatrice as generally being a dog person? me personally, while i agree that yeah, beatrice has cat energy, as people say, and while the preference between cats & dogs (or other animals) is minimal, she’s absolutely a bit more a dog person more than anything else, probably because of her cat energy personality

feel that it’s similar w ava, ava has dog energy (but not golden retriever energy ((not fully anyway))), but she’s an absolute cat person, because of her dog energy

First of all, THANK YOUUUUUUU oh my heart <333 I'm beyond grateful that you're liking both of those fics!!

Making Bea explicitly masc in my 30s AU was my TOP priority, I couldn't have her walking around in skirts and dresses. I simply Could Not. and honestly, though I do take into account fanon and stuff, mostly I'm writing from off the top of my dome!

I didn't think about how they could have been written inversely! I just think Bea fits being a novelist in the 30s, I'm following popular fandom since I want her to be a sci-fi writer, and Ava being a landscaper worked with how I wanted to portray her, and tbh I don't even remember where I got that idea from... I could have made Ava be anything,,, but I wanted her to be a bit all over the place, a bit ramshackle and messy, constantly covered in dirt. I didn't want to make her too close to what Jillian and Michael are like in the fic.

speaking of Michael,,, oh I have plans for him and it's going to be hilarious. Sneak peek: There'll be a bit of a frenemies thing going on with Michael and Bea.

When I was discussing dog names with my sister we kept coming back to Jonty because it made both of us laugh so hard so I'm glad you're liking it too haha !!

I love writing broody Bea, bcos underneath it all you know she's a softie, particularly through the way she cares for Jonty etc. And how she'll interact with Lilith etc in the coming chapters.

Idk about Bea being a dog person. I just think she's an animal person. I can see her in the 30s AU growing up with animals all around her. Like, that's the way her upper-class parents showed love-- through spending money on her. All the right lessons-- French, Latin, German etc. (Dancing and music lessons too). She probably had a few spaniels, cats, and maybe even a falcon as a child. And that's what kept her company in her childhood-- her books and her animals. But I agree with you about their energies. Absolutely Ava has dog energy and that's why she's gonna be BFFs with Jonty. Dogs just know these things.

Thank you for this ask! It made my day. I've been struggling a bit with the next chapter of the 30s AU since my wings of desire AU is taking up so much brain space atm, but you've inspired me to keep going so thank you <3333 I'll try my best to get an update on that this week or next :)

[jjmaybanks]

jiara's being so obsessed with their TEENAGE ship's sex life is so strange to me. maybe I'm just too fuckin old for this fandom but why do you care so much about these 16 year olds having sex?? I feel like a lot of people saying that stuff *have* to be adults

There's a little bit of this in every fandom but I feel like their sexual attraction to rudy or to jj as a concept is fueling this to the degree that it is. I've heard through the grapevine about a jiara discord server with most of the members in their 20s and 30s in which apparently, they obsessively banter about their sexual scenarios 🤨... I think this behavior is particularly strange and juvenile and I also think if we studied them in a lab we would quickly come to the conclusion that A. they are horny projecting and B. they have peter pan syndrome like the rest of us millennials who are living in some obx daydream. I don't mean to make excuses for their weirdness but since you mentioned you might be "too old for this fandom" I feel obliged to say I believe this show is most popular among people in their early to late 20s, not teens. A lot of people in this age range still find teen dramas appealing because there is a part of all of us that deeply yearns for the simplicity of that part of our youth back. But even with that said, it's just as easy to forget the adults on these shows are playing teen characters considering they all look at least 22 (and are at least 22) and especially with the way most of the characters are written and the situations they are thrown into, you forget they're supposed to be kids. I would be more concerned if they were actually teen actors, but I'm not going to deny there is always going to be a small portion of people who are in fact creepy about it so your discomfort is valid.

[dandylion-s]

Why do you think the Euphoria fandom's most popular characters/ship is Lexi Howard & Fezco (Fexi)? They're not one of the main ships featured on the show, like Rue and Jules. And while many fans clearly identify with Lexi, who is intelligent, dedicated, caring and passionate, I wonder why (especially amongst fellow fanfic writers) Kat Hernandez, who writes fanfiction and has a secret double life on the internet, isn't more popular in the Euphoria fandom, or featured more prominently in fanfic.

Ok so this is my estimation (and please bear in mind that I'm not a very active member of this fandom anymore, nor am I an authority on fanfic) I think that Lexi and Fez resonated so much with people because there's a lot of room for fans to speculate and ideate onto them. Like within the axes of interesting/characterisation, most of them is left to our imagination, particularly when it comes to their motivations and their futures. There was soooo much speculation about Fezco and s2e1 provided a lot of answers, same with the bit about Lexi in a car with her dad.

The other thing that strikes me is that they're two characters who are (for the most part) unfailingly nice. They're quiet, they're loyal, they're smart, and in a show full of characters who lie, scheme and manipulate, that can be a big draw. This isn't to say that not-nice characters don't attract fandom, it's their contrast against characters like Nate Jacobs who are just unfailingly just evil, and imo that makes him quite boring.

I think the issue with Kat is that her characterisation is so all over the place in the show. First she's smart then she's dumb, she's honest then she's manipulative. Coupled with the fact that the show and SL basically didn't give her a storyline in S2, and when it did it was fucking bonkers. There's such a thing as just growing weary of a character and I think that's what happened to Kat, in the interesting/characterisation graph there's a lot of room for fans to speculate about her but god the show makes her out to be so shit, it just isn't fun.

The point I'm trying to make is that Lexi and Fez provide a very rich place to mine art from because the show mostly leaves their characterisation stable and (mostly) adherent to fans' hcs while giving us just enough plot for us to keep creating.

Tbh, my main reading is this: Lexi and Fez are a heteronormative white couple. They're both conventionally attractive and fit into the bad boy with a heart of gold/ smart girl with hidden depths trope. Add to that that the show doesn't detract from their relationship like it does to Jules and Rue or their characterisations like Kat, they become fertile ground for fandom and fan work. I wish it was different and I'm not saying that I'm a saint and immune to biases, but that's just how it is. And I'm not even white or straight. Or even conventionally attractive lol. It's a combination of bad writing and unconscious biases and SL treating Barbie like shit.

so there ya go. I hope this response is up to par. Thank you for a great and nuanced question, anon. Huge departure from the terfs I usually get in my ask box.

[bhawk-goose]

this is such a weird read because of how normal it is. Like, nothing individually is too unbelievable. People can have plenty of different responses to trauma, so of course something like that would lead someone to pursue a more fulfilling artistic career rather than just animating for a giant corporate machine that couldn't care less about them. And they got popular, that's fine, people and bands get popular, and I'm guessing Dan & Phil have some kind of leading roles in MCR or one of the other emo trinity bands, so of course, especially w/ a large fandom, some fans are going to focus on the lead members. Sure, Phan seems like kind of a random ship, but I don't have any context, so IDK how much sense this makes, and w/ how common the "by Allah, you people are dogs" meme is on this site it doesn't really matter how much sense it makes. And obviously the most popular bands of a genre are going to have crossover, people tend to like genres, not just specific bands. And sure, the imagine seems a bit cringe and random, but the emo trinity is popular, and IDK much abt interned history but I think it was especially popular around this time, so of course someone's gonna make an imagine involving all of them, and of course it's a little cringe, most people aren't good writers. Probably the most unlikely part of this(aside from 9/11 itself, but that's the first domino, so I'm counting that as an axiom of sorts) is heritage posts reblogging it, but it's not particularly unlikely to be reblogged by them, it's old, it's silly, it's about a fandom that was very popular at the time but had lost some of its popularity since, it's not too unlikely. And it's a popular Tumblr user, so of course it became a meme and spread outside Tumblr. Sure Dan and Phil returned to gaming(which they apparently had been doing both alone and together before), I see no reason why that shouldn't happen, especially if they're in a relationship. And sure they're gay, sure statistically most people aren't gay, but that also partially explains the ship, since there is now genuine chemistry, so it may have been there in the past as well. And also, when gay people are hated and scared into keeping their sexuality a secret(often from themselves), statistics will say less people are gay, and when one person comes out as gay, that can easily make others near them more comfortable to come out as gay. And then the rest seems like it could believably be a coordinated effort or FoB and MCR planned a coincidental evend and Dan and Phil took advantage of the situation.

Then you zoom out, and 9/11 caused two celebrities to almost kiss in front of the gay flag. What the fuck. I've been bamboozled with the truth(or possibly lies that don't have a large enough effect on my worldview or actions for me to bother fact checking).

[chisiuwu]

sorry for disappearing from here, i'm still drawing but i kind of took a break from social media some weeks ago and i didn't bother to update tumblr. i will come back and post my latest drawings soon, but i probably won't read dms, reblogs, notes or asks for a while. maybe months. a friend showed me my inbox messages (i was too anxious to open them myself--) and most of them were nice, so thank you for supporting me, it genuinely means a lot that you took the time to write nice words and reach out to me; to the person who asked me to tag more properly certain arts, i will take your critique into consideration too

if you follow me in other social media, you probably already noticed i disabled notifications, replies and dms, and it seems that i'm pretty much unreachable. i don't particularly enjoy it either, but this is better than having strangers making me uncomfortable – i said it on twitter but, fandom drama* apart, i'm not a very social person and comments are a bit overwhelming now that my art is popular (⁠´⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠.̫⁠ ⁠.⁠ ⁠`⁠) i do appreciate every single good reply i get, but twitter and instagram (especially twitter) are very hostile towards art, in the sense that it gets seen for only 5 seconds and people act either like the artist won't read what they have to say or like they need to please people's desires. the good thing is that i'm not a very emotional person either and now that the Big Thing is over i can just relax and enjoy the very few interactions i get from my mutuals and friends

(*the fandom drama in question was adressed in a twitter thread i don't regret making even though it got blown out of proportion. i said what i said and i thought about it very carefully before posting it)

the reason i'm spilling my thoughts here is precisely because tumblr posts survive better than tweets or whatever the hell insta stories are. i can freely say what i need to say not having to adjust my words into a certain format. for example, i wanted to remind everyone that i'm not mad over people who unfollowed or broke the mutual for whatever reason. especially if you're an artist and we kind of got along, i genuinely hold no resentment and it'd be okay for me to interact again (except if you subtweeted me in that case k1ll y0urself). i also ran a chainblock extension on google chrome that basically blocked every quote i had on certain tweets, or people retweeting tweets calling me out. i have literally zero memory of who said what, and if you either got caught up or you have changed your mind and want to get unblocked, you can try to get in contact with any of my mutuals to tell me! last thing i want to say is a bit obvious, but i ever create something that makes anyone uncomfortable, i can't care less about being unfollowed over it. i am educated enough to understand what kind of impact my art has, and if anything i ever did was truly hurtful, my friends would tell me. i am just drawing anime lesbians

so, if you've read this far: 1) i won't stop making art, don't worry about me because i will come back and i am also one of the very few mentally stable lgbt people in the world 2) it always makes me incredibly happy to connect with others through my works, and i'm very thankful towards every person that has ever left a positive impact on my life, even towards those who are silently following for any reason they may have. i hope you are all having a nice day ♡

[padfootastic]

Hellooo! I know this may be a sensitive question due to the nature of the Marauder's Fandom but I'm curious if you have any thoughts about why Wolfstar is so popular? I know many ships are popular but I kind of feel that Wolfstar is disproportinately so if you know what I mean? If you go to Ao3 and filter out sirius/remus the stories are halved :( which makes me sad bc I don't like Wolfstar but there ought to be good stories there. Even when I filter Wolfstar, it still sneaks in!!

hahaha r/s discourse my beloved <3 (lol i’m mostly kidding. i’ve been lucky to fall under the radar so far, not to jinx it, but ik it doesn’t take long to attract the wrong kind of crowd with such controversial topics 💀)

and like, yeah, totally agree that i think r/s is extremely disproportionately popular. i can think of a few reasons-

- premier gay ship at a time when there was none. it’s a super, super old ship and the kind of proximity and history implied in marauder friendships, particularly the actual interactions between r/s is v tempting. also, wasn’t there something about how the actors were told to act like they were in a relationships or sumn in the movies? idk i never rly saw it but that could’ve definitely effected it.

- it’s a convenient pairing. james & lily, remus & sirius, no one cares about peter. nicely tied up with a bow, yeah?

- stereotypical surface level portrayals of remus as the nerdy, wet towel bookworm and sirius as the hot, rebellious bad boy is a classic trope for a reason. (altho i’m sure this is a vicious cycle on its own—both the portrayal and popularity reinforce each other) there’s also something about like, remus and his hidden darkness contrasting sirius’ very visible darkness yeah? oh also! i often think it’s a bit of a self insert thing too? sirius is so clearly too good for him, he’s super competent and attractive and rich and just has. a lot going for him, yeah? and most people can’t put themselves in his shoes. you know who else is relatable though? meek lil remus lupin. and for him to get the absolute catch that everyone wants? well. isn’t that the perfect scenario? (and like, to be fair, not bashing this. at all. i’m all for self inserts, i love it. i think it’s one of the best uses of fiction one can partake in)

- it’s angst fodder, especially the older interpretations. not just the canon timeline, but right back to the prank—you have a lot to work with. it’s also great for AUs, like u can play around a lot ykno?

anyway, yeah. few reasons why i think it’s popular. pretty sure a lot of it is also just,,,nostalgia and momentum? as well as remus being the only reasonable option for sirius and vice verda bc of the lack of other eligible characters without making things horribly AU. of course, i’m horribly biased bc i don’t think it’s a good pairing at all, atleast not in most of its iteration i’ve seen, and of course, i’ll always, always consider james/sirius to be superior. (i don’t think i’ll ever not be mad that it’s not the premier m/m ship, actually, considering all the material we get for two characters who’ve never been together in real time but oh well)