#fandom is so important to me and I really feel like I’m watching it die in real time right now

[theclownghoul]

Arcane Season 2 has me messed up and not in a good way

It’s actually breaking my heart that I don’t love this show anymore.

I don’t want to hate it, there’s pieces I love but there’s also pieces I hate. Act l had me in such high hopes and then it stuttered then crashed and burned.

I just feel so disappointed with so many parts of it. Actively angry at others.

There are some moments that I loved that had me feeling the same high as the first season but every time I thought things would develop better they didn’t.

I think I’m only really happy with Ekko and I was worried about him for much of the season. As an Ekko and Jinx shipper I was pleased with most of their story but the way they ended Jinx’s story undermined the importance of their talk so…

Honestly I would trade all the ship stuff for a proper story arc for Vi, Jinx, Cait and the rest

I saw the signs for Vi as soon as her pit fighter arc didn’t extend passed the promo clips. I kept waiting to delve into her issues but that never came.

Jinx was done so dirty. And this was something I prayed wouldn’t happen. She’s so personal to me in ways that would take too long to go into here. I had high hopes for her, especially after Isha and her starting to move forward, I knew it wouldn’t last but I knew (hoped) it would be interesting. I fully expected Isha to die but the way it happened was so weird?? The scene itself felt like it was manipulating me which is something I hate with a passion.

Likewise I expected her to relapse into suicidality after that and I had suspected that the scene with Ekko would happen. Her scene with Vi beforehand hurt in a good way and I wanted to watch as she hit rock bottom then clawed her way back as she started to mend the broken relationships in her life.

The thing that finally set me off was her hair. I thought she would cut it after she decided to live, as a show a change but before was just so cliché (it did look cute but don’t go trying to distract me)

I really didn’t want people blaming Vi for Jinx running off to try to end herself again. And I didn’t, even though I knew something was wrong about the way the scene played out and lead into the sex scene. I knew something was wrong I was just hoping that I was wrong.

I was so looking forward to the CaitVi sex scene, since King Princess was revealed for the soundtrack. Hoping her and Cait would have a real ass conversation, a hard conversation and then get that moment together but it just felt wrong. I wanted to love it but I didn’t. As a King Princess fan I was so excited but all I feel now is at best apathy and at worst anger. The more I read from lesbians in the fandom and those that care for Vi how I care for Jinx the worse I feel.

Briefly let’s talk about Cait. I was interested in her arc after Act l. Messy it would be and a long road back for sure but I had hope. She was done dirty too.

Back to Jinx…. What the fuck was that ending? Her “sacrifice” felt so similar to her fights with Vi (Act l) and Ekko (S1) where she was going to let herself die. No growth from the rest of the season, that’s how they left us, that’s what they did to a character that they did so beautifully in S1. I don’t care if she’s alive, that’s not a fucking ending.

(Apologies for continuing to bring up my predictions. I just think it’s funny how my thoughts make more sense than what we got)

I didn’t mind the idea of her sacrificing herself for Vi, Arcane is a tragedy after all. Her being the one to protect her sister in the end not because she thought Vi was better off without her but because Vi protects everyone and her sister can help now would have been great.

But that ending rubbed me wrong in every way.

The story of these sisters meant everything to me and what a fool we all were to think it was in competent hands. Like seriously I can’t believe this is the same writing team.

All of us went in with high hopes and then had those hopes crushed.

I’ve seen so many people who were excited to react and analyze go radio silent after Act ll and I hope they stay that way. I’d love to change my mind but I don’t think I can. I don’t think there’s any coming back.

I wanted to take the good moments and leave it alone but I keep feeling the disappointment because the show’s first season left a mark on me that I’ll treasure forever and I can’t let go. I still have so many feelings about this. Piltover and Zaun, Victor and Jayce, Mel and Ambessa, admittedly not my area of expertise but safe to say they all deserved better and we deserved better.

I would say it felt like a fanfic but I know fans have more grace and respect for this story.

This is not the tragedy I signed up for.

[kyluxtrashpit]

So tumblr’s killing post types (meaning artists and edit makers are screwed and gifsets will be a thing of the past as images look absolutely dogshit in the mobile editor), twitter is very much the nazi bar now (whether we admit it or not), any discord server with enough people in it to be regularly active turns toxic (not to mention discord is inherently a gated community anyway and fandom suffers for it), and every other site is either unsafe via lack of preparedness or just full-on predatory

Maybe this is just the heat and other things depression talking but I feel like fun internet things like fandom will just not exist in 5 years at this rate

[crushedbyhyperbole]

Whiskey on the Tongue

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: You are the forbidden fruit Dean had always wanted to taste, and when you steal his whiskey the way you do, he is powerless to resist.

Words: 2.2k

A/N: This is my first ever Supernatural fic after having started watching the show just before Christmas. I know I'm late to the game but is it ever really too late to start loving a fandom? I've tried to make the reader generic in every way other than being cis-female, and Dean finding her hot.

It's been an absolute age since I wrote anything and probably longer since I posted anything here on Tumblr but I'm getting back into it now. Hopefully this finds its way to people in the Supernatural fandom who love a bit of Dean smut.

I hope you enjoy and, as always, I value your comments and feedback.

Warnings: Smut, explicit smut, alcohol consumption, mentions of people who have passed away, profanity as standard with pretty much everything I write.

*** Minors do not read or interact - 18+ content ***

Dean let his head fall back against the headboard, clenching his fists to try to distract himself from the deep ache in his left leg.  It had been falling asleep for well over an hour now, but he didn’t want to move and disturb you.

The door to his room in the bunker was closed.  Locked, in fact, though he did not remember doing it.  You didn’t comment or so much as move when Sam brayed on the door and tried the handle, calling out for Dean to return his book.  The very book that was in your hands right now.

“I need that book back, Dean.”  Sam grumbled.

“Not now, Sammy!”  Dean called back, hoping his little brother would just go away.

“I’m researching Nephilim to help Cas with the Kelly situation, Dean.  It’s important.”  Sam became more insistent.

“I said NOT NOW, SAM!”  Dean hollered with a kind of finality that even Sam wouldn’t argue with.

Outside the door, Sam huffed and stalked away.  Dean looked down to see you looking up at him from your position, lay on his bed.  Your head was resting on his left calf, his leg bent with his foot tucked under his right knee.  You had your knees up with your foot tapping along to his banging playlist, your jeans tight around your thighs and with your head tilted back he could see all the way down the deep V of your t-shirt.

He was going to hell.  Straight there.  Do not pass go.  Do not collect two hundred dollars.  And he probably deserved it.

He snapped his eyes up towards the ceiling but it was too late, he could feel himself stirring uncomfortably in his jeans.  If Bobby was alive he would have skinned him raw just for having you in his room.  Bobby was always protective of you, his niece.  You were only a couple of years younger than Sam but Bobby had made himself very clear that you were off limits.

“If you touch one single hair on her body, I’ll make you regret the day your balls dropped.  Do you hear me, boy?”

Bobby Singer.  That man did not mince his words.  And to this day, Dean had taken that threat as gospel.  Even now that Bobby was up there with the Angels, that son of a bitch would find a way to keep his word.

You shifted, causing a painful twang to shoot up his leg.  The reflexive grunt he failed to stifle made you look back up at him, giving him that glorious view again.

Dean decided he could die like this.  If having a dead leg was a legitimate threat to his life, he would go out happy with the view of your rack in that lacy black bra he could see within the V-shaped window of that too-tight t-shirt.

He raised his eyes, once again to heaven, asking Bobby to forgive him or give him strength or something because – god help him – he wanted to take you right then and there.

It wasn’t unusual for you to seek him out after a case when you didn’t want to be alone, but you didn’t want to talk.  You would just sit while he drank, reading or working on spells.  You said he quieted the noise in your head.  Hell, he wasn’t going to argue, you were a sight for sore eyes every time he came home.  You were wicked hot and sexy in a non-slutty way.  Not that slutty was bad.  Dean liked slutty.  But that wasn’t you, you were different.

A drink.  That’s what was missing.  Dean needed a damn drink, especially if you were going to torture him by laying on him all evening.

He reached over to his bedside unit, for the bottle he kept in there for special occasions.  A bottle of twenty-five-year-old Speyside single malt that he liberated from the British Men of Letters on his last interaction with Ketch.

The pour made you stir again but it wasn’t until he raised the cut crystal tumbler to his lips did you move.  Your hand came up and claimed the glass from underneath, twisting it as you sat up so as not to spill any.

“Where’s yours?”

The cheeky glint in your eye had him pursing his lips in mild annoyance.

“Don’t pout.”  You lifted the glass, turning it until the mark left by his lips touched yours and you sipped, looking him straight in the eye.

Dean’s jaw went slack.  The glisten of the whiskey on your lips and the satisfied hum you made when you swallowed – he swallowed unconsciously when you did – made his mouth go dry.  He had never seen you like this.

You moved to kneel on the bed and walked your way slowly closer, giving his leg a tap; an instruction to move it aside.  He did, causing pins and needles to infest his nerves like ants swarming on a log to escape a flood.

Knelt between his spread legs, you brought the glass to your lips again, sipping at the amber liquid.  You leaned in.

Dean watched you, breathing shallow, attention rapt.  You hadn’t so much as touched him, yet every nerve in his body felt like it was on fire in the best possible way.  The closer you got the shallower he breathed until he was almost holding his breath, looking down his nose at how close your lips were.  His eyelashes looked to flutter against his cheeks just as yours did when you brushed your whiskey dappled lips against his.

He refused to lick where you had been.  He couldn’t.  As soon as he tasted, he would pounce, and…

“Don’t.”  He croaked out when you moved to lay your lips on him once more.

You looked confused but at least you didn’t look hurt.  He couldn’t bear it if you looked hurt because of him.

“Bobby…”  Was all he could say through his constricting throat.

You smiled then, full of amusement, lips brushing against his, you whispered “he’ll understand.”

Dean tried not to respond to you but you coaxed his lips apart and teased your tongue to meet his, short circuiting his brain.  The taste of the scotch and the sweetness of your mouth made him groan.  He had fantasised about having you for years, but never did he think it would be you seducing him.

His hands on your hips guided you roughly to straddle him, the bulge in his jeans pushing up against you as you settled.  He took the glass from your hands and downed the contents, his eyes on yours as he dropped the glass carelessly on the bedside unit.

Your lips met his again but this time you devoured each other, tongues stroking together, moans stifled by each other’s mouths.  He trailed his hands up your body, dragging your t-shirt along with them.  Finally, he could see what he had been having glimpses of this whole evening.  Plush breasts cupped in scant lace that was completely impractical for a hunt, Dean realised, like you had meant to come here like this.  You had intended this from the beginning.

He tore at the lace, dragging it under your breasts to free them, shoulder straps slipped down.  Pawing at them like he had never touched a tittie before, all he wanted to do was suck and nip and nibble.

Your breathy sigh was divine, and the moan that followed was filthy.  You cupped the back of his head as he took your nipple into his mouth and sucked hard, pressing him further, asking for more.

While he worked on your breasts you undid his belt and fly, reaching into the front of his shorts to release him from the awkward angle at which he was trapped.  You stroked him, firm but slow, feeling him for the first time.  You had always wondered what he had going on down there that every woman he had ever been with would come back for more at the drop of a hat.  You weren’t disappointed.

Dean lifted his hips, you thought to allow you to push his jeans down but instead he flipped you, making you squeal.  Once under him, he ravished your breasts anew, pinching one nipple hard while licking and sucking the other.  Soon you were a mewling mess, hips writhing, begging for something he hadn’t given you yet.  Excited that he had taken control away from you, you watched him sit up and yank your jeans down, lifting your legs until they were bare.  Your knickers followed and he spread your legs without preamble, lowering himself between your thighs until his hair and eyes were all you could see above your mound.

“Jesus Christ of Nazareth!”

You groaned as he suckled against your sensitive spot.  Fuck, he was good with his tongue.  Everything about him was good except his image.  Bad boy Dean Winchester.  He was every woman’s wet dream.  He had been your wet dream since you were seventeen.  But now you were plenty old enough and finally getting what you wanted.

Bobby had told you to stay away from him when you were a kid.  Dean had a reputation as a ladies man even then, but he respected your uncle Bobby enough to keep his distance… until now.

Dean dipped two fingers inside, creating pressure in exactly the right spot.  You gasped and gripped his hair as your pleasure began to crest, tugging on it for dear life.  He looked up at you then, to see your eyes closed against the intensity of it, neck and face flushed red with your oncoming orgasm.  When it came, the pulsing of your core was his sign to slow down.  He left off his suckling and stroked you through the pleasure, watching you all the while.  You were a beautiful mess.

“That’s my girl.”  He praised you in that deep rough tone you adored, helping prolong your climax until you took his hand away yourself.  “Are you ready for me?”

You nodded, allowing him to lift your knees up and stroke the weeping tip of his cock over your swollen clit.

From the front pocket of the jeans he still wore, he pulled a foil packet with Trojan embossed on it.  He was swift with its application, aiming his tip just so.

When he slid home, your eyes rolled back and you reached to grip his forearms.  It was something Dean would never get tired of seeing but it felt that much different with you.  You were the forbidden thing he had always wanted but could never have.  Even now he didn’t know whether he would come to regret this.  God, he hoped not.

Balls deep in you, he leaned forward to kiss you, wrapping your legs around his hips.  His instinct was to fold you in half and pound the living shit out of you, but you were already overwhelmed and he wanted to make this soft for you.

“Tell me what you need.”  He spoke softly as he nuzzled your neck.

“Just you, like this.”  You sighed.  Who knew Dean Winchester was a considerate lover.

His slow, measured thrusts brought you closer to the edge, your core fluttering each time, he could feel it.  It surprised him how quickly is climax built at this pace, but the added connection you both shared seemed to turn him on.  He would never give up Busty Asian Babe porn but he could get used to this with you.

You didn’t close your eyes against the pleasure this time, you watched him come undone above you, gasping as his orgasm made his legs and arms shake, muscles clenched tight to keep his weight from collapsing on you.  When he swelled you dug your fingers into his hips to pull him deeper with each stroke, and when he spilled you also came, eyes fluttering shut finally.

Dean knelt up, slipping the rubber off as soon as he was clear of you and, tying a knot in the end, tossed it in the direction of the trash can.

“Shot.”  You said with a smile as the sticky bundle went straight in the can.

He quirked and eyebrow and give you a slightly smug lopsided smirk that said:  What can I say?  I don’t miss.

When you moved to sit, he stopped you.

“Here, lemme get that.”

“Thanks.”

He stripped his t-shirt off and used it to clean up the wetness between your legs.  Though none of it was his, it would still dribble when you moved.  Afterwards he tucked it under your ass and flopped down on the bed at your side, moving his arm behind your head so you could rest it on his chest.  You were both content.  Both had goofy grins on your faces.  Both disbelieving that you had finally gotten what you wanted.

A loud knock at the door started you.

“Are you done?”  Sam said.  “I need that book.”

“NO!”  You and Dean shouted back in unison, laughing afterwards.

“Bobby’s gonna kill you.”  Sam called back through the door.

“I KNOW!”  Dean yelled gruffly, pulling you closer.

There might be a time in the future where the ghost of Bobby Singer came to make him regret the day his balls dropped and, if it happened, Dean would be happy to see him again.  In the meantime, you and he could work on a whole bunch of reasons to make the cranky old bastard come down from up high for a visit.

Dean pulled the sheets over both of your heads, nibbling at your neck until you moaned his name.  Aside from the roar of Baby’s engine, he had found his new favourite sound.

[chaifootsteps]

First I’d like to ask if you’re ok and unlike some bitter stans I won’t judge you if you feel strong disappointment and even some sadness about this. It’s not just you.

(Getting into it)

I think Blitzø is obviously not great but he was an asshole to a normal (for hell) degree. Loona was no better, Verosika wasn’t, stolas sure as hell wasn’t. I don’t know why they’re beating him down this much it hurts to watch. I really don’t want him being with someone who makes him feel like nothing.

So seeing Blitzø be treated like he’s absolutely detestable by everyone around him feels terrible, while stolas is given a fifth song (which should have been Verosikas) probably which is probably far from the last. And heralded. It hasn’t always been that way, him and Mills were besties, Loona appreciated him in a shy way, moxxie was an exception critiquing him. Now everyone and their mom want him to die.

Reminds me of when stolas was taken to hospital like a wounded princess despite being fine in a week because he’s immortal, and the journalists stomped on Blitzø like he was nothing. Punishing him for not running to his aid. That’s the fandom. And the writers.

Btw the duet sounded like…shit. Two characters in completely different directions with nothing in common and entirely different goals, zero compatibility but played up as quirky and fun. Also they retconned it so Blitzø likes the sex now. Thats new.

Also after via kills Stella or Andre stolas role is said to be “more important than ever before” as he takes the blame and…I’m exhausted. He’s already taken the show from IMP (whose now disbanded?) now more screen time for him?? What a nightmare.

Agreed with every last word of this. Blitzo is a shitty guy, but the hijacking of the plot into The Stolas Show robs him of the opportunity to be better and stronger. What little time he's allowed to grow on his own always comes back to Stolas, and he doesn't get to examine his actual faults because in Viv's eyes, his biggest fault is that he hurts "nice guy" Stolas's feelings.

You get the sense that Viv (and maybe Brandon) don't even like him at all and won't until he's giving Stolas the love Stolas quote unquote deserves.

[bickbickbarnes]

Hello:3

Bit of a random question, and I feel as though I should say idc who you ship or not:

Why do you ship wincest? Especially when so many people hate it and it's not something discussed much in the show.

Like I can kind of see a trauma bond but that's the most.

I'm really sorry if this sounds mean, it's meant as a /gen questin

Sure. I made a post about why I don’t ship Destiel a little while ago that basically sums it up, but it’s simple: they love each other more than literally anybody else. 

That’s it.

The entire show is literally a love story, a story about how far Sam and Dean will go for each other. In the show, the context is platonic. They’re platonic soulmates. But they’re literally canon soulmates. You see what I’m saying?

It’s not just a trauma bond, although they’re bonded by a good amount of trauma. They’re soulmates. They’re the loves of each other’s lives. They’re the most important thing to each other. They die, kill, and try to live for each other. Nobody Compares to what they are to each other. They’re so wrapped up and codependent, and they literally never stop being that way. Their version of heaven is them together. By themselves. 

The sexual pairing doesn’t have to be discussed in the show (though it constantly is, and is alluded to A LOT), because the foundation of the show is that nobody can love them more than they love each other. Fandom can go ahead and just add the fucking.At that point it’s just sprinkles. Sex would not make what they have weirder or more intertwined you know?

Anyway, for me personally: take two people who are the center of each other’s lives- nobody else can ever measure up, make that love the driving force of what I’m watching, and make them very very very pretty? Yeah. I wanna read about how they kiss.

[chaoticace2005]

Love your takes on Hazbin Hotel, I have a question regarding Vox and Alastor's relationship in contrast to Valentino and Vox.

I know there are many hints to Vox's previous relationship to Alastor as a friend, but I don't understand why Vox is still so obsessed with Alastor despite having a great relationship with Val even if it's just for benefits. Is it because Alastor knew him and liked his company when he was a 'nobody' in hell? I just don't understand why Vox is so obsessed and why he seems to be sexually attracted to Alastor as well? I mean he got so "excited" watching him almost die by Adam's hand and if he likes him why get excited by this?

I mean most people in the show seem more creeped out by Alastor than wanting to be with him and most people would not find a cannibal serial killer attractive up close.

I just don't understand Vox's creepy obsession with Alastor tbh, I like it but even I find it creepy.

It’s difficult to say exactly why one is attracted to a certain person, but I think one important thing to note is that people can still have feelings for others even when in a relationship with someone else. We don’t really know Vox and Val’s relationship. They are involved in some way and there appears to be sexual attraction, but it was stated in an interview that they aren’t in an established relationship. Also Val has his own weird obsession with Angel, which is albeit different but still very present and disturbing. In both cases however the obsessions are NOT healthy.

The reason he gets “excited” watching Alastor get destroyed by Adam is because of that very reason. Vox’s obsession with Alastor is NOT healthy. The idea of a “hate-boner” seems very accurate there. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a “you denied me so now I want to watch you get destroyed”, with the sexual attraction still very much present but mixed with anger and rejection now.

We don’t know his feelings before the seven years, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it went from a worshipping kind of obsession to what it is now, with Vox still having some feelings of reverence for Al but also a ton of betrayal, hatred, and attempt to hate him to block out the hurt.

This is at least my perspective on the matter. Take this with a grain a salt though because we only know a bit about Vox and Alastor, as well as VoxVal. Plus I’m on the aroace spec, so I have limited experience on such things. This is just my thoughts on the matter.

Basically though: logic for romantic and sexual feelings are complicated on their own, when you add the fact that none of the players are mentally stable in the slightest it gets even moreso.

As for the whole Alastor is a a creepy cannibal thing, I mean… you can’t account for taste. (Look at the fandom 😂 I mean Alastor isn’t real but there is also a concerning amount of people who simp for real serial killers.) Also Vox is a shitty person himself and enjoys watching people get hurt, being attracted to a serial killer is probably right up his alley.

[hxhhasmysoul]

Hello, hello, have you seen the newest update of JJK? I'm so proud of my best boy, Yuuji....

Can, I ask, why do you think Yuuji is one of the character that is so underated in JJK? He is the mc, but many people (in fandom) treat him like a side character? At first, I don't think so, but I love many shounen, and somehow Yuuji is one of the mc that is underated in their own story....

Sorry if I'm wrong, just I love Yuuji and want him to get the spotlight he deserve....

Sorry it took me so fucking long to reply to this.

If you think that the story doesn’t focus on him enough then I don’t really agree with that but I don’t think it’s wrong of you to feel like that. But I’m not sure this is even what you meant, I just wanted to move this out of the way. And the following paragraphs will explain that a bit. That will be the nice part of this reply.

JJK isn’t a story that mainly follows one character and the plot happens only where that character is. For example, as much as I watched of Demon Slayer (I think up to season 3 and I have no interest in picking it up again ) or read of the Chainsaw Man (first part, I got bored a few chapters into the second), made me think that those stories are too focused on one character. Villains did villain things on the side but the story always came back to the main character and focused on him in the end and plot usually happened where he happened to be, and he was the one to kill the bosses. In JJK even if the story lines feed into each other, they have much more independence and it doesn’t feel that Yuuji is the centre of the universe and the story just waits for him to move. And my personal preference is for the JJK kind of story, as I said CSM and Demon Slayer didn’t manage to hold my interest. 

It’s just a matter of preference. And If you’d like the story to be more streamlined around him there’s nothing wrong with that.

That being said, I think that the JJK story still strongly centres around Yuuji. 

He’s connected to all the most memorable and important villains of his time (aka those that didn’t die before he became a sorcerer). He’s one of the linchpins of Kenjaku’s plan and the only one of their experiments that they seem attached to, he’s Mahito’s obsession, he’s Sukuna’s nightmare and now also obsession. 

Yuuji is also strongly connected to all the major JJK themes: weakness vs strength, human connection vs loneliness, the value of life, bodily autonomy, humanity vs dehumanisation, oppressive systems of power, tradition, gender stereotypes, drive and agency, jujutsu world vs the normie world, family, love and friendship, new vs old. 

I think only Kenjaku also really connects to all of these to the same degree as Yuuji does, though some of the other characters are close like Sukuna, Maki or Megumi. Gojou or Nobara aren’t that strongly connected to some of them. And characters like Getou or Yuuta are even more tangentially connected to some of them or not at all. Yuuji really is the one who brings it all together. 

Here ends the nice part of this answer. Everything that follows will be rather bitter and unkind towards the JJK fandom. Because I’m really fed up with it as a larger group.

__________________________________

__________________________________

So why does the fandom treat Yuuji like shit? There are a few reasons that can be pointed to and they apply to varying degrees to the behaviour of individual fans.

__________________________________

Part 1 - This fandom is the fucking pits

The fandom in itself is absolute fucking garbage. Like interacting with it will make you lose faith in humanity and give you brain damage.

Casual fans 

JJK is a fairly popular title in the west and the fandom is quite big and loud. It’s an ongoing title with a hype anime and there are a lot of casual fans. It’s full of:

People who also like many other things and don’t really follow the story closely and don’t really know the lore. 

People who read/watched JJK once and haven’t really taken the time to understand the story and its world. 

People who as @/cursedvibes says have issues with object permanence and don’t remember what happened a few chapters earlier, and who feel that if the character isn’t in the frame that means that they are dead and/or forgotten and/or were always irrelevant. 

People who don’t really like stories like JJK but have never understood the idea of saying “this is not for me” and moving on. Instead they take it as a personal offence that this popular title doesn’t cater to their specific tastes. And they often have the delusion that their personal taste is the mark of objective quality. 

People who only want flashy fights and/or power scaling. 

A lot of these people feel that they need to shit out content about JJK on social media because that’ll get them into the trending tags. And since they don’t really have any opinions of their own apart from not being satisfied with JJK they find some cold take that sounds clever to them and regurgitate it over and over again until a new clever-sounding cold take becomes popular, rinse repeat. 

Those people should be ignored, blocked or muted. They’re just riding some pathetic bandwagon and clout chasing.

___

Righteous Haters 

The cold takes the casual fans regurgitate usually come from people who just thrive on criticising popular things. Those divide into:

The “Intellectuals” who think they are better than the plebs who like popular things. In their mind popular things can do nothing right and are by default shallow and stupid.

The “Enlightened” who will jump at any opportunity to call something problematic and emerge as the morally pure person.

It’s hard to tell whether these people actually read the story and know it well. Their takes are usually very divorced from the text and I’m always on the fence whether it’s due to genuine lack of reading comprehension or willful misinterpretation. 

If you engage with these people they will argue with fucking manga panels, like they will not accept the text even if it’s presented to them. They are honestly a joke. But a lot of them will die on the hill of discrediting Yuuji and spread that opinion around wrapped in pseudointellectual language. Some of them will even put on the airs of academia without knowing how to academia a text in any of the many possible academic analysis ways. Or how to academia about social issues. It’s an intimidation tactic that makes me disrespect them.

Among the JJK enlightened you will find a lot of terfy pseudo feminism. It will be very conservative flavoured and really misogynistic, usually not overtly queerphobic but the vibe will be there, and it will aggressively bring up the general fandom opinion that Gege is a man (which may even be true but Gege doesn’t officially gender themself) to attack and discredit Gege and their work, according to the terfy belief that all men are dangerous and evil. There will also be a lot of intellectualised transphobia especially in relation to Kenjaku, but also Uraume, Tengen and Kirara. And all so funny homophobia about how in their opinion Gege is attracted to their male characters.

___

The thirsters

JJK surprisingly aggressively caters to the female and queer gaze in ways that most shounen just don’t. I once wanted to make a joke post titled “The Masculine Forearm, the true main character of JJK” just consisting of panel after panel that is angled in such a way to put the skillfully drawn male hands and strong forearms front and centre. (The masculine hand and forearm are often mentioned in relation to the female gaze.)

I gave up, there’s just too many of those, simply look at the covers. It’s really funny because Gege does not hide the forearms of Yuuji or Megumi, but at least in the earlier manga that I analysed from that perspective, the forearm angles of those two are much tamer than for example when Sukuna or Nanami are shown. It almost feels like Gege knows or subconsciously senses that the forearm is thirst, is fanservice, and Gege is very consistent about not sexualising the teenage girls and likely also the boys. 

The forearm is of course the tip of the fanservice iceberg. Everything about the JJK men is very that to the point that JJK is widely known for its sexymen. There are people, including fan creators, in the fandom who have never read or watched JJK, they just learned of the sexymen thirsted hard enough to join the fandom.

These are the people who usually won’t actively attack Yuuji, they will just flood the fandom with the posts about their favs and make it seem that few people care for Yuuji. 

There are also Yuuji thirsters but there aren't that many of them. 

Yuuji is 15 years old in canon and some people just draw a line at thirsting over a character that is underage in canon. And as long as they don’t insult or harass others about that I don’t give a shit what they do. 

But also even if Yuuji was of age, Yuuji is not a prime thirst object. He’s for a slightly more refined palette. And he becomes more desirable if you understand his character better. 

On the surface Yuuji is a himbo, a dumb jock with a heart of gold and a cute face. There’s no mystique to him, no edge. This view of him is very widespread. For some thirsters that is enough but it’s not a popular thirst worthy type.

There are some thirsters who actually know the source material and know who Yuuji is but those are people who are in the JJK fandom for more than just thirst. 

Generally I don’t have a problem with thirsters but the more ignorant ones contribute to the general fandom idea that there’s nothing interesting to Yuuji.

___

Gojou and SatoSugu fans

I ranted about those people a lot and everything I’ve written about them holds up. A large and loud subset of them will spam all the tags, will create posts that boil down to “JJK is about Gojou (and Getou) actually and everything that happens in JJK is about him (them), regardless if it happens to other characters”. If you don’t actually block them on sight, wading through the main JJK tags is nigh impossible. 

Gojou really won the internets and is truly the “strongest” of the JJK sexymen. 

The overabundance of content about him exposes a lot of people to the “meta” his fans produce in droves. I put it in quotation marks because fuck, so many of these people are allergic to canon and what they write is deranged fanfiction tagged as meta or discourse. Gojou exists in the western fandom more as headcanon than canon. And to people who aren’t really invested in JJK, he seems like the main and most important character. 

There are both shippers, thirsters, casual fans and righteous haters (they hate everything about JJK but Gojou (and Getou) in this group.

And of course they influence the perception of what JJK is, including the perception of Yuuji. 

___

Sukuna fans

There are some of them who will spread takes that reduce Yuuji to Sukuna’s skin suit and will generally treat Yuuji as a function of Sukuna, not a separate character. Interestingly enough, Kusakabe is one of them but he pretends to be a Sukuna hater.

___

People who think Kusakabe speaks the truth straight from Gege’s brain

Because the reading comprehension in the fandom is very poor, there are people who take whatever Kusakabe says at face value and will ignore everything else that has happened in the manga thus far. They also haven’t picked up on the fact that Kusakabe has always been deeply biassed against Yuuji. 

Why is Kusakabe still alive? 

And honestly not only Kusakabe, to them any character that discredits Yuuji is always correct and spot on.

___

Megumi and ItaFushi, SukuFushi fans

There is a subset of those fans that despise Yuuji with a passion. They think that Megumi either should be or is the main character of JJK. They think that Sukuna has been obsessed with Megumi from the start because Megumi is special and has incredible potential. They will pretend that the main JJK storyline revolves around Megumi, they will often ignore Kenjaku completely and pretend they are not the main driver of the story. Because admitting that Kenjaku, not Sukuna was the main villain of the story, would just by itself completely discredit Megumi as the main character, because Megumi barely any connection to Kenjaku, only through Tsumiki and Yorozu, and has only a weak, practical, plot related and not thematic connection to Sukuna. He became Sukuna’s escape plan and a tool to kill Gojou.

He has no connection to any other major villains or antagonists in current day JJK. He’s only connected to Touji and Naoya, but it can be argued that Yuuji had more dealings with Naoya than Megumi. 

Yuuji’s connections to Sukuna are:

Practical - being Sukuna’s vessel and cage.

Plot related - he is Kenjaku’s way of controlling Sukuna and being Sukuna’s vessel influences everything about how Yuuji functions in the story and how he relates to other characters.

Emotional - they both harbour strong negative feelings for each other, Sukuna even more than Yuuji. 

Familial - they are related. Yuuji doesn’t know and would just likely compartmentalise it. Sukuna pretends he doesn’t care but it’s clear he cares very much actually.

Philosophical - Yuuji by merely being himself challenges Sukuna’s whole worldview. 

Thematic - strength vs weakness, sorcerer vs normie, humanity, value of human life, family, love, connection and loneliness, tradition, new vs old, bodily autonomy.

If those Megumi fans are shippers they will often push the dumb himbo stereotype on Yuuji. There are a lot of fics in the ItaFushi and FushiIta tags that will treat Yuuji as the necessary evil but you can really feel that the authors dislike him. Finding fics there from his POV or at least exploring him is a fucking chore. And that is or at least used to be the most popular ship tag for Yuuji. Pages upon pages of stereotyping or downright character assassination working hard to replace the canon Yuuji with the fanon one in the general fandom consciousness. 

__________________________________

Part 2 - People say one thing and do/think another

Basically a lot of people are not really self aware or are hypocrites or just repeat things they read and never put any thought into them.

You will see a lot of people criticising shounen tropes. That shounen is formulaic, that the shounen main characters are all the same, that shounen battles are all the same, that shounen main characters are overpowered… and so on and so forth. 

Those same people will latch onto Gojou and crown him the main character. 

Because faced with Yuuji … they have no fucking clue what to do with Yuuji. They finally got a shounen main character that at first glance might seem like the same old shounen main but very quickly it becomes clear he absolutely isn’t that. 

So there are three reactions to that.

Denial

No, Yuuji actually is a stereotypical shounen main. He’s got colourful hair, he’s strong, he fights with his fist, he’s super dumb and kind of a pervert but nice and everyone instantly loves him. He gets power ups and learns everything too easily and too quickly, fights the bosses and breaks the story. And of course he has a sob story and is related to the villain. And his mum has a braid.. She doesn’t, well she does have a ponytail, kinda, in two of her bodies anyway…

And that’s it, there’s all there is to him, there’s nothing more to see. 

Faced with canon they will reject all arguments or block you.

___

Rage

Yuuji is so fucking weak, why is he so weak? Why are there other characters in this story that get focus? Why is everyone more powerful than him? Why doesn’t he power up and destroy all the bosses, what kind of fucking shit is this? Well at least there’s Gojou the fucking GOAT, let’s go the strongest!!! 

Gojou died? Why? Didn’t he say he was the strongest? Why the fuck is Yuuji there? What can he even do? He wasn’t powering up and bodying opponents so we didn’t really pay attention to whatever was happening with him. This is some fucking ass pull.

They also can’t accept that the final battle isn’t a one vs one, that there’s actually a plan with many aspects and contingencies. That the characters are trying to be rational about this thing, they aren’t driven by their egos and desire for glory, well apart from two, and they just want to do everything they can to get rid of Sukuna and stop Kenjaku.

This is not acceptable. If it’s not hard hits and energy flashes but plans and strategy then it’s not a real shounen fight. Gojou vs Sukuna was kinda a fight like that, of course Sukuna was not doing it right because he was scheming too much. But it should’ve ended there, Gojou’s energy balls should’ve concluded the manga.

If you try to suggest to them that he’s just a different kind of character and JJK isn’t that kind of shounen and that it's actually okay for it to take a different route, the rage will spill. They will not accept that shounen can be many things but they will complain that all shounens are the same and predictable. 

___

Condescension 

Yuuji isn’t what they want him to be and that’s “objectively” bad writing. That’s it. They will actually list how Yuuji should’ve been written but more importantly how everything should’ve been written and generally Yuuji should’ve never been put forward as the main character because he really doesn’t make sense as one. Gege is just a bad writer and it’s all mid and doesn’t make sense. 

What’s even the point? Is there even a story in JJK, what is it even about? The magic system surely doesn’t make any sense, who even understands that? Everyone who says they understand is lying.

Sure, there were some interesting parts in it, so people got hyped, like the Hidden Inventory arc and Shibuya but only until Gojou got sealed, everything after that is just boring and awful and did I mention bad writing? 

And all those deaths of fandom sweethearts, pointless. Either they are just for shock value because there was nothing absolutely nothing in the writing that suggested that they might die, od Gege just being mean to the fandom and hating their own characters and Gege should honestly *insert violent ideation*. Or the deaths are too predictable, generally everything is so predictable in JJK, and stereotypical. 

Why do people even care or like it, they are objectively wrong if they do. Because hello the writing is so fucking bad, people have no fucking taste honestly. Who even reads that shit anymore?

Why are those people still in the fandom? Fuck knows.. They will spam the tags though, incessantly. The world must know how much they are better than JJK, Gege and those losers who have anything positive to say about JJK.

___

Honestly there is no winning with any of these people. What they claim they want is not what they are ready to embrace or even tolerate. They can’t also accept that maybe JJK just isn’t for them. There must be something wrong with JJK and with Gege because their tastes are universal and objective. 

__________________________________

Part 3 - JJK may be a shounen but Yuuji is a shoujo main character

I’ve written about it before (some of it is a bit outdated now due to what was revealed in the manga) but I will always stand by this. Because it really explains everything. 

Yuuji isn’t a typical shounen protagonist but if you look at shoujo protagonists you’ll see his type of protagonist. He is of course a mix of both and in the recent chapters he’s leaning a little more shounen but not too much.

He’s not indulging Sukuna, look how little he even speaks in this fight. He’s not revelling in this fight like Gojou had because he’s not fighting for himself. The outcome, not the fight matters. He’s still not ego driven, still two of his win conditions apart from his fighting abilities are his personality and strength of convictions that so deeply unsettle and upset Sukuna. 

Recently everyone in the story, apart from Chousou, Higuruma and Toudou puts Yuuji down, discredits all his accomplishments. He even is starting to believe it. Sukuna is continuing to take everyone away from him. And yet Yuuji is still fighting because this is not about his ego. This is about removing the threat that is Sukuna and hopefully saving Megumi. He really puts himself last and isn’t even given the space to feel bad. All of this will just be there to crush him later.

And the fandom just takes every single insult hurled at Yuuji by the other characters at face value, as if the jujutsu world hasn’t always been hostile to him, treated him as less than human. As if those characters were impartial and haven’t been showing their bias towards Yuuji. They don't pick up on the fact that the jujutsu world is rotten to its core and Gege has consistently used the story to question the values of that world.

So lastly the fandom can’t stomach that Yuuji isn’t 100% stereotypically masculine, that his arc isn’t an alpha male power fantasy. That he isn’t written to perfectly embody the conservative gender norms. This is what the weakness accusation is all about, even if the people hurling it would swear up and down that they aren’t misogynists. Because Yuuji isn’t only accused of losing but also of crying, of breaking down, of being scared. This slight proximity to what is considered stereotypically feminine is a vice. One that for many discredits him completely, makes him not worthy of being the main character. 

And if you think that I’m reaching with this… It’s a pattern that repeats itself in the fandom. You will see criticism of the JJK girls for not being soft enough, girly enough. Any proximity for masculinity will be zeroed in on and criticised under the guise of “feminism” with the terfy sentiment that female characters can’t be girly anymore. But girly characters like Hana or Yorozu will be hated for their proximity to stereotypical femininity because that’s considered feeble and shallow and unworthy. And just look how the fandom reacted to Megumi having an ugly and hysterical mental breakdown. To him showing weakness and not manning up. To him showing his emotions in such a visceral way. 

____

These are the three main reasons why I think Yuuji is so underrated and why so many people will go to great lengths to just shit on him.

[foreststarflaime]

How about 2, 3, 11 and 23 for whichever members of AGSZC you feel like?

Oh boy you got it, ty for the ask!!! I’ll probably just do them all

2. Did you always like this character?

Angeal I did always like on some level. I loved the banter he has with Zack on the first mission to Tamblin so much! He is very funny and dad-shaped

Genesis I honestly do not remember my initial feelings towards, which means I probably didn’t hate him initially. I was probably between neutral and vaguely like I think?

Sephiroth…hm. My first exposure to him was just Remake, so I didn’t really have any of the backstory that makes me adore him. I thought he was a cool villain, very dramatic

Zack? ABSOLUTELY. I am victim to the puppy just as much as any of us

Cloud, oh yeah of course! He was my original favorite (him and Aerith), I loved that sad pathetic loser but kinda cool energy

3. What first drew you to this character?

“You’re a liiiittle more important than my sword. But just a little.” *most mischievous happy chuckle*

For Genesis it was him being a drama queen. Gotta love that flair. And I’m obsessed with books and trench coats too 🥹

For Sephiroth it was definitely how Crisis Core humanized him. I adore Sane!Seph <3

Zack’s puppylike charm and unquenchable optimism is so so endearing and I love characters who are like that

For Cloud it was honestly kinda the whole mysterious thing he had going on with the weird headaches. That boy was NOT okay and I needed answers

11. How did you “fall in love” with this character?

I’ll combine AGS on this one bc it’s very similar for all of them. Short answer, seeing all the little breadcrumbs of how human they were Crisis Core dropped in various places, and their chemistry with and love for each other. Reading fanfics with them in it only made that worse as I got to see more of that in fanon. Then I went on a massive fanfic binge and read anything I could get my hands on with any form of AGS content in it and now I am permanently addicted. Briefly, my favorite thing about each of them that grips me by the throat: Angeal’s instinct to keep his emotions bottled up inside, honestly I resonated with that. For Genesis it was his whole struggle—the desperate desire to just want to live, to be who he was and be happy. For Sephiroth it’s how deeply he cares for his friends.

For Zack, all I can say is just watching through Crisis Core and getting to follow his narrative. That was more than enough for me, I was ride or die for Zack by like the first 30 minutes in

For Cloud it was honestly pretty much just the same thing as Zack—getting to know him by seeing his story play out in Remake. I am an absolute sucker for characters who care about their friends as much as these guys do, and the weirder about it they are the better

23. Has this character permanently altered or impacted your psyche in a way you won’t forget?

YEP.

I mean all of them have, you’ve seen how much I post about them. I connect them with everything I see these days. Like every cute animal video, etc etc etc. It’s an addiction. And these are the first characters that actually motivated me to write the fanfics I had in my head down to post them. And they connected me to all of you guys—I was never really active on any social media until this fandom, and I’m so glad I finally did start interacting! But as for specific stories—

I’ve accepted I’m nonbinary for…oh close to a year now? It took going to Oxford and getting to try things out in a new environment for it to sink in. But anyways fast forward to this summer and me discovering and feverishly writing about the trans Genesis headcanon. I was writing the fourth chapter of Silence, and researching top surgery stuff for that, and while doing that research was when it finally hit me that I wanted to do that. Which was simultaneously terrifying and exciting. So thank you Genesis for helping me process my emotions enough to start having nervous breakdowns about that lmao

And then somewhat similarly I was writing this Sephiroth-centric sort of character study fanfic which was very much projection about struggles talking to people and having a hard time finding the words to say things, etc yknow the type of thing, which is when my wonderful qpp @fridgefanatic started clowning on me about that being an autism (or at least some flavor of neurodivergent) thing, which threw me down that rabbit hole faster so yeahhhh

[ghosts-and-blue-sweaters]

Please scream about Ghostbur to me.

Coming soon: me screaming about Halo

OKAY here goes nothing !!

Also this is one of my favorite gifs :)

ANYWAY! MOVING ON TO THE!! RAMBLE!!!

Okayokay I just recently had an epiphany in regards to Ghostbur + the rampant mischaracterization that the fandom gives to him, and the epiphany is this: Ghostbur is an extremely multi-faceted character.

That doesn’t sound too monumental on its own—well-written characters should be multi-faceted!—but with Ghostbur, I feel like it’s much more extreme… which also makes him more confusing.

It’s so freakin rare to find anyone who actually understands Ghostbur’s character & doesn’t wildly mischaracterize him/have a super strange idea of who he is, and for the longest time I couldn’t understand it! I chalked it up to fans being unable to actually look at his character and dig deeper, or only being able to see a very surface-level Ghostbur, but now I think it’s a little different than that :0

Ghostbur is a very complex little guy—which most people don’t realize! He’s mature but also childish, and he’s happy but also depressed, and he cares so deeply for everything but he also doesn’t value his own life, and he wants to die but he’s scared of death. It all sounds very contradictory, but if you understand his character then you realize it makes sense!

And I’m pretty darn certain that the reason fans misinterpret him so much is because they’re only paying attention to one of his many facets!! Rather than seeing All of Ghostbur’s facets and quirks, they only focus on one, and the result is a very very mischaracterized ghost.

There’s a big issue when it comes to infantalizing Ghostbur; it’s definitely the most common mischaracterization I’ve seen. And I think the reason it’s so rampant is because it’s… sort of grounded in truth? Ghostbur is very whimsical and silly and smiley, and he does quite a few things that would be seen as childish—things such as refusing to talk/think about sad things, only focusing on “happy” things, deriving the most fulfillment and satisfaction from simple tasks, etc etc. I don’t think it’s wrong to say that Ghostbur has childish traits! Not wrong at all!! It’s an important part of his character, I fully believe that!

The problem comes when people only see Ghostbur as childish. When they only pay attention to his sillier aspects. When they cannot understand that yes, parts of Ghostbur are childish, but he is still an adult and he’s really quite mature!!

Another mischaracterization I’ve seen, though not as frequently, is sort of… I guess “dark Ghostbur” would be the best way to put it; they think of Ghostbur as creepy, as unsettling, as dead, as unnatural, as disturbing. They see him as something wrong, as something that is not supposed to be moving and talking and smiling. Someone who watches pleasantly as terrible things happen all around, someone who’s ready to kill and torture. Basically, this version of Ghostbur leans more into the ghost aspect—specifically, a creepy, supernatural ghost who’s clearly, undeniably inhuman.

This, again, is founded on a bit of truth! Ghostbur has definitely done or said creepy things—most notably whenever he talks about death. He’ll say things like, “Alivebur blew up the nation and killed everyone, it looks like Tommy killed himself, I want to die” and he will say it all in an easy, pleasant, smiling tone of voice, as if he sees absolutely nothing disturbing about the subject matter.

But the problem happens when fans only see this side of his personality, and make it into his entire personality. Because truth is, Ghostbur isn’t a generally creepy character! He’s super sweet and wants to help people, and he’s always looking for the good in others. He just happens to also have a bit of an unsettling side to him, but that is by no means reflective of his whole entire personality, and shouldn’t be viewed as such!

The many complexities of Ghostbur is something I could literally go on and on about, but this kinda scratches the surface of what I mean. He has so many wonderful sides to his beautiful & unique personality, and I think most fans are incapable of understanding all of them :( It’s very unfortunate, because he really is SUCH an amazing character!! He’s incredible!!! He does not deserve how the fandom treats him, not at all.

[doesntmeanitsmeaningless]

Hola Ailo!!!! The recap that you did ask for is here(a little bit late sorry but still counts), Louis show at the Victorious Festival:

Festival poster.

As you saw but still will link some pics because he look gorgeous, Louis wore full black with a cap 🫠 and the barricade photo I show you that deserves to be link again haha.

🚨Highlight of the recap shirtless Steve is back!!! Thank you Steve 🚨 (no idea if that is a highlight for you but it wouldn't be a recap of me without that important info).

His family was there, here is a cute video of Lottie, other with Olive and other with Lucky.

Seems like the weather was cold, because Mr. Weather Man comment about it and also was doing some arms and hands gestures a few times to said that he was cold, poor Louis, but hey we thank him for showing a tank top.

He said this sweet quote and mention that it was his first festival in the UK.

Here he was interacting with a fan but I wonder what the sign said.

Louis instagram story.

Some observations about the live:-Hands up and down during kill my mind instead of kmm lights (like this other time that they did it in other festival), seems like is a tradition now and I love it.

-You can see his family on the side of the stage moving to the rhythm.

-Fans were yelling I love you Louis and he was smiling.

-He was interacting with a lot of fans, was very smiley and so confident. It was lovely seeing him like this.

He also sign a doncaster bear of a fan I guess maybe after the show I don't know.

For your Nouis' heart, Louis give a like to a video of Niall and Ed Sheeran singing Little Things (here is the full video) on today's show of Niall, they also sing Lego House (there was no live 😑, we just have to listen after it was sad but still beautiful).

Louis took a shot backstage with Phoebe and Daisy.

I already share it but still, the short setlist 11 songs rip 7 😭.

The crowd look huge, I'm so proud of him.

Here is the live in case you want to watch it.

And that is it for the baby recap. I'm probably missing some things but is what I could do, I was very busy with Niall's updates so I didn't pay much attention to everything that was shared yet.

Let me know what you think, I love reading reactions of the recaps :)

I hope you have a lovely day. Here is a spanish phrase for you: Te mando un abrazo.

Oh wow CC 🤩🤩🤩 this is amazing!! Thank you so much!! 😘 Even though I did request it (as I’m in the alps, no wifi, and quite some fandom fomo), the feeling of getting a recap is… so unexpectedly heartwarming! 🥰 It made me sing We Made It “sayin’ goodbye, wavin’ to the hard times” to the mountains this morning, as you really make me feel so included!!

I love the outfit as a whole: it works!! I’m glad you sent a photo of the cap, I would’ve missed the “mauled by a dragon” aspect of it otherwise. 🤪

Weatherman Louis 🥶 lives in an entirely different climate than Steve 🥵! And the shivering pic… is gonna be a favourite of mine!! It’s convincing me that it must’ve been freezing 😎

Aww… the mini Tomlinsons!! 🥹 They do bring a cuteness factor that we don’t often see. And I can’t believe how big Olive is! Can that really be?!?🤔🤔

I love that the kmm hands are back: you know the Louies are in the crowd when…!!

I’m guessing the sign was one of those “please write me a tattoo” or something requests… and Louis didn’t wanna explain that he’s working, day job etc again… so he just says “how?” in THAT voice… wow! 🫠 Good of you to include that!! 🤭

Mini but fun setlist! Face the Music surviving every cut is a surprise to me, but hey… not my day job 🫢

And thanks for the bigger picture: Niall singing Little Things with Ed! Yeah! And Louis liking it!! Now c’mon boys…!! Just a little click, babe!

So much more to say but the kids & mountains are calling. Schöne Grüße aus den Bergen!

Und herzlichen Dank für die tolle Zusammenfassung!! 🫶🫶🫶

[gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun]

In defense of trashy ya dystopias

Okay, I’ll admit it: Hunger Games is an excellent book. It is powerful and well crafted, and deserves to be an eternal classic. I’m not sure any of the ya dystopias that followed it were quite so good, and I understand why they get mocked so often. Still, I think they deserve a better rep than they get.

Now, I understand that some ya dystopias are really, really bad. The only literary criticism that would call them good art would be a reader response based method that just says “well, some people like them so they must be good!” I don’t think that’s exactly how art works, but to an extent, that’s true. If a book inspired someone, encouraged them to read, and broadened their view of the world, who are we to say that it’s not worth reading? No matter how terrible a book is, it can at least make someone a bit more passionate about reading, and that’s value enough.*

First, I have to talk about Divergent. It makes me sad how many people hate that series. There are some valid criticisms, but most of it doesn’t make sense to me. People accuse Tris of being flat and basic, saying she’s an overpowered Mary Sue of a blank slate. That in particular confuses me. Tris isn’t dull and underdeveloped, she’s depressed. She’s reactive because she doesn’t care enough to be proactive. She’s numb, which comes across as her being unemotional. Now, we can debate whether that makes her a bad choice as a main character, but I won’t stand for her being painted as a bad character.

I was horribly depressed when I read Divergent. Watching Tris made all the difference in my life. I related to her when she threw a chair from the roof and watched it shatter on the concrete below, wishing she could follow it. I would have followed her to her death when she convinced herself that dying for her friends was noble sacrifice, not suicide, not the easy way out. I nearly cried when she realized at the last moment that she didn’t want to die, that she had to choose to keep going. I watched her build her life back up, even through the misery, pain and loss. I watched her find happiness, and I broke down when she gave it all up to protect someone else, someone who was trying to throw away his life out of guilt and grief. She sacrificed everything she had to give him a chance to fight through it and become someone better. She would have done the same for me. I needed to keep going, to honor that sacrifice and follow in her lead. Tris taught me to fight, and I am so grateful.

The Maze Runner was one of my favorite series. My longest completed story I’ve written was a trilogy of (unfortunately very straight) TMR fanfiction. I know it’s pretty garden variety dystopia, but it was very meaningful to me.

I think part of what made it special was having a male protagonist. Most ya dystopias are centered on teen girls, the intended audience, and while TMR could have used more diversity of gender in the cast, it was nice to see myself in the main character (although I like to believe I’m not that stupid). Thomas is also a very competent MC, which is always appreciated, and it feels earned more than Gary Stu-ed.

TMR has, despite not having any canonical evidence, a lot of gay ships in the fandom, probably because the boys all have a ton of chemistry and there are no girls (pretty much). I was deep in denial (see my straight fanfic), but TMR still gave my budding queerness a place to grow. While insisting that being gay was wrong and my homosexual crushes were Not Gay, I still managed to have very strong feelings on which Maze Runner ships are correct (Newt X Alby and Thomas X Minho, Newtmas shippers fight me). Being represented, even if I didn’t know it at the time, was so important to me.

Lastly, TMR taught me bravery. It taught me that even if things are just going to get worse, you have to try and make it out. I look at the world around me, and it’s not hard to imagine the Flare, or WICKED gaining power. Us kids have been handed the burden of fixing the world, and I need all the courage I can get. Like I say in my fanfic (the AWWWB series on Wattpad, first book called Good Grief), “Maybe the universe is just cruel. But… if we don’t know what’s outside of the Maze, then we’d better hold on to the fact that it’s just as likely to be a good place as a bad one.” We have to keep hoping that something better is coming eventually, even if it never does. We have to keep fighting.

I don’t have any others in mind right now, but I want to hear about other books (dystopian or not) that made more of a difference than they’re given credit for. Seriously, I want y’all to defend Twilight, to champion the Matched series. Tell me how they changed your life.

*note: books that spread harmful messages are different than poorly written books, but that’s a whole conversation by itself, so we’re going to be idealists in this post and pretend that’s not an element while acknowledging that in the real world it’s a true and harmful thing

[ladybeug]

was scrolling thru your art tag enjoying your comics when i suddenly discovered you were the one that wrote strangers in the bright lights. having gotten into miraculous only very recently, was tickled to experience a very small identity shenanigan of my own

incredible fic btw; i love it soooooo much. brilliant, hilarious, sweet, poignant. out of curiosity have you read much postww1 modernist stuff? i adored the usage of free indirect discourse for the narration, drunken and in motion and alive, almost reminded me of virginia woolf in a weird way lol. sorry if this is weird

Hello!! I'm about to get long-winded and self indulgent in this reply, fair warning :)

here goes:

Wow!! I don’t know how you found strangers in the bright lights if you got into ladybug in any time frame that can be described as “very recently”, I wrote that in 2018 when I was digesting some personal stuff and in a fantastic ladybug renaissance (of which I have now had several, I think I’ll die in this fandom).

But I’m so glad you somehow did. I only write every couple of years when I get really specific ideas, and the time I spend on it turns into memories of who I was when I wrote it. I feel like that must happen to actual writers too, ones who write often, but I haven’t written “often” since like 2009 and have never asked, so there you go.

But I guess that’s all to say that I am very attached to that story and it’s also one of the only things I’ve written that still feels like it hit the chord I was aiming for. It is so cool that anyone still reads it!!

To actually answer your question: I have never read virginia woolf, and the only modernist stuff I've read was years ago for school classes. I have to admit none of the style was inspired by classics, but instead inspired by the weird disassociation of trying to be alone in a crowd.

I have a final self-indulgent thought, it is a fun fact I realized as I was going down memory lane about this:

I associate ‘strangers in the bright lights’ with a friendship I made that stands out as one of the luckiest and rarest friendships I’ve made – I went to a mountain goats concert alone, and stood up at the front early, and met someone else who had gone to the same mountain goats concert alone and had stood up at the front early. It was one of the fastest and most comfortable connections I’ve made, and we liked each other so much we stayed in touch, even after they moved away. We are still in touch every so often, and as far as I’m concerned in a few years they’re going to publish the best fantasy novel you’ve ever read, so watch out for that.

The fanfiction is in part inspired by that beautiful feeling of meeting someone new that you want to talk to, and they want to talk to you, and a drink or two has propped up your self esteem and you don’t have to worry about who you are tomorrow, just who you are right now. It’s escapism. You feel important, and carried by that feeling, for as long as you are there. Lonely who? Not me. Trapped by past versions of myself, who? Not me.

Anyways the fun fact is - I found out this morning that concert was a year AFTER I posted this fanfiction. I didn't know about that moment of my life as I was writing this. The two are so connected in my mind that this is genuinely surprising, but the concert was in September 2019 and I published the fanfic a year beforehand.

In the words of mr. mountain goat himself: we held on to hope of better days coming, and when we did we were right!

[bluedalahorse]

Hi Blue!! 1, 2 and 21 for the ask game!!

(I think I’m funny choosing questions with the same two numbers lol)

Hej! I love some numerical patterns going on here.

Favorite secondary character

Saraaaaaa. She got me into this show, she kept me invested in it, she was an important part of my own journey getting diagnosed with AuDHD. She was the first of my two precious plushes and I will cherish her forever.

Favorite secondary romantic and/or sexual pairing

Saraugust, obviously. They’re actually my favorite pairing on the show overall. I can relate to each of them—Sara’s drive to decode the world around her and her weighing whether it’s worth fitting in or not, August’s perfectionism and and his jealousy and his fear that if he stops excelling at any given moment he’ll fall apart. Both of their complicated relationships to family and legacy. At their core they are both lonely weirdos in the process of growing up, and they click with one another. August makes some deeply awful decisions, and Sara makes some that aren’t great either, but it makes the story more interesting.

Most underrated character/ship/actor overall

Actor: Okay. My initial temptation is to be like, Frida! Or Malte! I do think fandom recognizes that they’re good. I wish we shouted them out even more, but it may never be enough for me ahaha. Their chemistry is really good too. BUT I have also talked a lot about Sara and August adjacent things, so… how about I shout out Samuel? Samuel can be quite funny, and he’s also great at communicating all of Nils’s walls and the vulnerability underneath. Like he gives Nils such depth and texture and I love that.

Character: You know who we don’t talk about enough? Fröken Ramirez. Boris gets shout outs but I love the way Fröken Ramirez is teaching queer lit and creating a space for debate in her class. I love how she greets Sara when she comes back to school. I don’t think Fröken Ramirez is perfect, but I get the sense she gives a shit about her students and I’d love to write a fic from her POV someday.

Ship: I’ve already made my case for Saraugust. So how about I make my case for Rolice? No, Felice and Rosh have never really talked, but they inevitably will talk someday because they are friends with Wilhelm and Simon. And I bet it’ll be a little bit tense at first because they’re so different, and they’ll bicker in a hot way. But then maybe they hit it off and maybe Felice had gay thoughts watching Bend it Like Beckham as a twelve-year-old and maybe Rosh makes her remember this and it smacks her all in the face. Maybe Rosh is ready to let a pretty girl boss her around and maybe that pretty girl is Felice. Look, I will die for a well-executed cross-class butch/femme ship, and I feel like Felice and Rosh could be that. I know Madirosh has been here forever and that probably people are attached to that but I urge you all to get on the multishipper train with me and travel to a wonderful land where Rolice can happen.

[rmd-writes]

dialogue day

share a section of dialogue that we like from our own work! It can be funny, sad, ridiculous, mysterious, plot-centric or just characters shooting the breeze…anything! And it can be from a WIP or a posted fic! It can be short or long! Let’s celebrate our beloveds having a chat.

thanks for the tags @carlos-in-glasses @alrightbuckaroo @strandnreyes @goodways @lovesgalores @heartstringsduet @jesuisici33 @mammameesh @reyesstrand @freneticfloetry @apothecarose

this was really hard for me, I write a lot of dialogue in many different ways across three fandoms, and as soon as I tried to remember any of it, I forgot every conversation I’ve ever written. In the end, I decided to limit myself to just dialogue in the form of food-related banter:

Lonestar - from the (Un)professional Services wip that @welcometololaland and I are writing

“Falafel?” Carlos asks, panic rising in his throat. “You’re not vegetarian are you? Oh my god, I should have checked first, I’m so sorry. Here, I can take it back,” he says, reaching for the container and inadvertently placing his hands on TK’s. “Oh sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“Carlos,” TK interrupts him, laughter in his voice, but it isn’t unkind. “I’m not vegetarian.”

“You’re not?” Carlos winces at the way his voice goes a little pitchy. 

“No, I’m not.”

Relief washes over Carlos and his breaths come a little easier. 

“I am vegan though,” TK deadpans. 

Carlos stops breathing. 

“Oh my god, your face. I’m kidding!” TK laughs. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist but the panic on your face was too much to keep it up. Thank you, though. You really didn’t need to do this.”

I think I’ve shared this snippet before

RWRB - from What, like it’s hard?

“There you are! I’ve been fucking waiting for you so we can finish this thing.” Henry’s mid-bite when Alex finds him, so Alex watches him take a bite of his peach, chew carefully and swallow, licking his lips to catch some peach juice. “Is that a peach? I’m waiting for you so we can finish the stupid contract and go home and you’re in here eating a peach?”

“Is it the peach you find offensive, Alex? Or is it the fact that I’m not at my desk?” Henry says, the hint of a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t get me started on peaches, they’re not right. But the latter. Are you done with the terms?”

Henry laughs softly. “What exactly is wrong with peaches? I happen to think they’re delicious.”

“It’s the skin!” Alex says, waving at Henry’s hand. “Peaches are all fuzzy so when you bite into them it’s like biting a person.” He sees the look of amusement on Henry’s face and inexplicably keeps speaking. “And the fuzz feels weird on your tongue and it’s just wrong! Eating food shouldn’t feel like biting someone and I mean—”

He cuts himself off, suddenly remembering the flash of chest hair he’d seen the other night as Henry had taken his tie off and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt when they were working late.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with a person having a bit of fuzz or hair or whatever. Or biting, if you’re into that I guess or, fuck—” Alex wants to die. He needs a fucking filter.

sidenote: if you haven’t read this fic and decide to read it, please read the first fic in the series first, this is very important for Reasons

Schitt’s Creek - from it’s just for snow

“One large melted ice cream for David?”

“You think you’re funny.”

“I am funny.”

“Sounds fake.”

--

“The usual?”

“God, please.”

“My name is Patrick actually. Large caramel mac, skim, two sweeteners, sprinkle of cocoa coming right up.”

I feel like everyone else has already done this but let’s try @liminalmemories21 @basilsunrise @sunshinestrand @maxbegone @cha-melodius @everwitch-magiks @clottedcreamfudge @treluna4 @hippolotamus @blackandwhiteandrose

[novella-writers]

Hi, you can call me Storm! I'm 30 and the mom of a loud and demanding cat ❤️

I’m a multiple paragraphs/novella style writer. I love to write detailed descriptions and delve into a character’s head/emotions as well as surroundings. I compare it to writing a novel together. Not every reply has to be novella length, however. If there are action or dialogue heavy scenes, I tend to do a shorter back and forth to keep the momentum going. 

I only do MxF (with me writing the female role). I don’t double, but I’m more than happy to write side characters of either gender to help move the story along. I only want female authors writing male characters as I’m uncomfortable with cis male authors. (Nonbinary pals are an exception).

I'm really hoping to find a friendship, someone who can add to our story, and most importantly, someone who wants a long-term connection. It's difficult for me to write with someone if I don't feel that genuine bond. It's also important to me to have a high level of activity, with at least one reply a day. 

If you suddenly stop replying ic and ooc, I'll drop the story after 2 attempts of gauging interest spaced a week apart. But feel free to message me if you want to pick the story back up again, even months later. 

Searching For: 

21+ partners only 

An excellent grasp of grammar, punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. (Literate to advanced writers only, please. I'm not looking for newbies)

Plot before smut. While mature themes will be in my writing, there needs to be chemistry between our characters. I normally do a 60/40 plot to smut ratio and my characters tend to be subs/switches depending on the circumstances 

 An older male character (early forties to mid-late fifties). I love the gruff and tough men with dark pasts who secretly have a soft heart. I also love grumpy, hypermasculine men being intimidated by sweet but fiery women. My characters are mid-late twenties to early-mid thirties so the age gap is legal. 

I'm not looking for age play. It's a romance between two consenting adults who each act exactly their age, and they just happen to be different ages. 

Enthusiasm to chat about our character and ship, how to crush them and then gushing over fluffy moments. I love crying over characters and what the heck they’re doing. I want my heart ripped from my chest from angst, then feeling like it’s going to burst from overwhelming cuteness. I want us to love these characters and the world we create. I want to make pinterest boards, spotify playlists, graphics, and toss headcanons back and forth until late at night. 

Have an idea for a scene? Found a picture that inspired you? Send it to me! Be invested when it comes to plotting/worldbuilding. There’s nothing worse than receiving one sentence in reply to two paragraphs of ideas, or having a doormat partner who says “sure” to whatever I ask. Building ideas one on top of the other, watching them snowball into amazing plot threads brings me joy. But having to pull plot ideas like I’m pulling teeth makes me think you’re not interested, and I will lose interest in return.

Interests: 

Modern fantasy, monsters, sci-fi, omegaverse, southern gothic/midwest gothic (i’m a sucker for that southern/texas drawl), horror, height/size difference, enemies to lovers, slow burn romance, spooky small towns, post apocalyptic/dystopia, crime/mysteries, emotionally charged/dark and gritty, forced proximity, opposites attract, fated mates, anti heroes/morally gray characters, traumatic pasts, grumpy x sunshine, touch her / him and die, and more.

I have lots of original plot ideas in mind as well!

Fandoms (OCs ONLY) 

Star Wars, Stranger Things, Mercy Thompson Series, True Blood, The Last of Us, Hunger Games, Fallout (TV Show)

I write only on discord using servers with organized channels. Like this post or add me on discord (magicofrain) if you’re interested. The most effective way to grab my genuine interest is by messaging me with a detailed reply. Please let me know which interests you liked from my ad.

Message if interested!

[matan4il]

Hi Lovely!

I know right now you have more important things to post about but I just wanted to let you know that all your posts about MileApo a few months ago got me curious and I am now deep in the Thai BL world.

I don’t usually consume non-western media because I can find it hard to connect with the cultural and social mores of other countries, especially Asian countries where they tend to lean more conservative than where I live in Australia.

However, as a queer person who craves queer representation in media, being able to watch all these series where these queer relationships are treated the same as straight relationships and aren’t there just for the sake of representation or for one of the characters to die at the end has been so refreshing.

That’s not to say I don’t think there aren’t issues with some of these relationships in the series, but overall it’s been enjoyable getting into the Thai BL world. It’s also so refreshing seeing actors who are comfortable in their sexuality and gender.

So thank you for your introduction to a whole world I didn’t know existed or that I needed, no matter how inadvertent.

Wishing you all the best for the upcoming year!

p.s. I’m looking forward to reading you Buddie meta for S7!

Awwww, Nonnie! :D

I'm really glad you got into something you enjoy, and gave you something that we all, as queer people, need and tend to lack, thanks to my posts. *HUGS* And if you also follow Mileapo, then I'm extra honored for having brought them to your attention. They seem to be genuinely good guys, and I'm happy about anyone supporting them. And if they truly are a couple, and will at some point come out as such, then they'll be even more deserving of, and in need of, support.

For the fun of it, here's a cute, short Mileapo vid.

Yes! I like that the BL world can feel very gay friendly, even if sometimes it's almost unrealistically so, and I particularly liked the Kinnporsche take on it, where the existence of homophobia in that world was acknowledged, but within the social circles Kinn and Porsche moved through, it has almost no effect. It was nice and refreshing, so I actually addressed it in some of my Kinnporsche meta posts, which should be among the posts in this tag.

And you're so kind, expressing this lovely sentiment regarding my Buddie meta. Thank you! <3333 OMG, Mar 14 isn't that far away anymore, is it? I can't believe Buddie is returning to us soon! :D I'm looking forward to s7, and obviously, hoping we get canon Buddie this season... Christopher has suffered enough, having to watch his moron dads be clueless about their feelings for each other. XD

Sending lots of hugs and love to you from Jerusalem! xoxox

(if anyone's looking for my fandom content, you can find it here)