#i dont think any other fandom wants me to be fair but hey

[toastedjeans]

i'm probably overreacting again, but i honestly don't really feel welcome here anymore. so if anyone sees this or cares, i'll be less active until probably end of february, and then i'll debate on leaving tumblr for good

if you want an elaboration it's in the tags

[isdalinarhot]

on the state of kholin haterism on tumblr

this is gonna be a long one, so bear with me.

one thing i think that has changed in the tumblr fandom in the three years that ive been in it is that the culture in 2021 was ALSO at a largely anti-Kholin sentiment, but there were two key differences.

the first is that most people making critiques of such characters would use the tag #kholin critical, which was useful either if you were sensitive to criticism of one of the kholins for whatever reason AND if you wanted to read analysis of some of their faults by many different users under one tag.

the second is that said kholin critical criticisms were... less stupid? like a lot of it was talking about reddit fandom hypocrisy where dalinar was held up as righteous and badass and could do no wrong even though he had tons of personal and political faults that other characters (largely people who WERENT extremely powerful nobles) were demonized for. also a lot of stuff like "adolin is kaladins friend now but i dont think just categorizing it as simple enemies to besties is fair because adolin WAS being overtly racist to kaladin at the beginning there". a lot of discussion about how the Kholins treat darkeyes and characters of lower dahns where the bigotry there was being downplayed by fans in favor of the characters being painted both by fandom and in the universe of the books as Always Right All The Time. stuff like that.

that's not to say the whole kholin crit tag was all, like, stuff that isnt bullshit. people have been dunking on elhokar for being a whiny failking since the beginning of time. but the vibes were a lot different.

kholin critical kind of fell out of favor as a hashtag because most of us realized hey on a doylist level either the things we're criticizing the kholins for are purposeful character flaws that make for richer, more realistic, more engaging characters; or they're oversights from the moderate liberal Sanderson, in which case, why are we complaining about Dalinar doing this, when we should be complaining about Sanderson doing this. so this whole thing is stupid. and also by then the atmosphere on tumblr was way different, this was by and large the Moash Website and while people were haters about characters they did not put the hate in character tags so people largely avoided each others haterism. and there was peace for like a year and a half, i guess.

things are way different now. for context. i track the #dalinar kholin tag. so whenever my dash is dead im checking my tracked tags, and thus i see every original post about dalinar that someone decided to tag #dalinar kholin. and boy howdy, things have devolved. this used to be a chill experience for me, i'd see first time readers go OH MY GOD HE DID WHAT?????? during oathbringer and "[some philosophical shit dalinar said]" -brandon sanderson. follow for more inspiring book quotes" about three times a day, fanart once every couple weeks or so, stuff like that. but now a solid 75% of the posts in dalinars tag are like. hate. not literary criticism, but hate. sometimes about justified things, sometimes about unjustified things, but still, extremely negative.

in a bubble, that's fine. god knows ive been a hater on my blog before and ill be a hater on my blog again. and its not even like im opposed to reading well thought out criticism of my faves on any level because, like, dalinar is kind of a rat bastard! but like. listen. you don't put character hate in that character's tag. you don't do that. the people who are checking a character's tag are fans of that character and fandom is for fun. being a hater directly reaching out to the lovers for comment is rude as hell.

also a lot of the things people dislike about dalinar tie back to his neglectful fatherhood and his alcoholism which is, like, a thing i understand people would have strong negative feelings towards him for having because Neglectful Alcoholic Dad is like one of the top 10 kinds of abusive dads out there so lots of people have very visceral very personal experiences related to that. but when posting about this in any form whatsoever it feels like im having to go back to Treating Addicts Like Human Beings 101. like i feel like ive made a billion posts to the tune of "okay kids, you can do bad things while drunk and you are still responsible and you can also get drunk at inopportune times and you are still responsible, but the act of being addicted to alcohol does not make a character ontologically evil". and like thats. um. a personal thing but also oh my goodness.

i dont really have a conclusion to this. im just thinking goddamn its bleak out here right now.

[emeraldkarma]

I want more young just us fics that arnt about Tim Drake.

Like it's so hard to find fics about the 90s young justice that doesn't center around Tim. He'll it's hard to find fics about any of the characters in young justice that don't involve tim.

Like yeah tim is cool I know it can be fun writing him and all his angst but like maybe I wanna red about just kons daddy issues, or the fact that most romantic relationships he's had have been with adult women and explore how he matures and finds out that "Hey that was kinda fucked up, those were adult women and I was fresh out the tube they like totallytook advantage of me. " but atleast he has a few fics focused on him, like most of them are tim kon fics but he's like the second most popular character in the 90s young justice fandom.

or bart "dont tell wally" allen and the fact that he has felt death, got his knee blown out by deathstroke and deals with constant self esteem issues because he worrys that he's not good enough to take up the flash mantle. He'll half the fics that he's tagged in are 1)young justice cartoon fics, which fair who doesn't like a future apocalypse refugee? But I'm not looking for that guy I want 90s comic bart. 2)he's a side character in a Timkon fic or barely mentioned. That's it.

But you know who gets the worst of this?

Cassie. I have found one, count this, ONE cassie fic were she wasn't a background character for a Timkon fic or just a tim fic. And she has angst potential too, her boyfriend died in her fucking arms? She got so depressed she joined a cult to cope 😭 he'll you could write her as feeling pressured to be okay for tim, bart and kon because of how much they've gone through when in compared to her.

I am proposing Tim drake black out week were everyone writes fics about som other young justice characters that arnt him. And I dont want to make this post and have people think I hate tim or tim kon it's what got me into young justice and he's one of my favorite characters but the fandom is so saturated with him that it's impossible to find anything about the other characters. 😔😔😔

[smellybead]

(Hi this post is not formatted or worded the best I apologise it is late I'm tired, not wearing my glasses and mildly pissed off so hope that explains the slightly disorganised state of this)

The sheer amount that hange is referred to with she/her and just overall perceived as a woman is !! Really somewhat annoying !! Like go ahead and do that sure

But people's reasoning will often be "hanges gender is up for interpretation" I want to know where that interpretation came from and why tho? The character that's very purposefully depicted as ambiguous with their gender, is mostly referred to either neutrally or masculinely and opts for masculine clothing options.. I personally dont see why you would choose to perceive them as completely a woman. Hey, if you were to give me genuine reasoning why you like to perceive them as a woman, I may not agree with you, but I'll hear you out!!! However if you tell me "it's up for interpretation" "i can interpret her gender how i want" and end your reasoning there, I'll know that's very likely not why and you're just saying that to have plausible deniability and dismiss any criticism that people have. AND IM NOT SAYING "it's up for interpretation" IS FLAT OUT BULLSHIT REASONING. DONT THINK THAT I AM !!! I'm just saying that this is what soooo many people give as reasoning when they just don't WANT to perceive hange as anything but a woman (because they don't like queer/complex identities/dont see them as valid)

Yes‌, in fandoms people headcanon characters as genders other than what they are canonically, i very much do this regularly. But this is *giving* queer/complex gender identities to characters who lack it, as a form of representation. Not *taking it away* from them when they already have/are implied to have it. It's very rare to see characters who don't/are implied to not conform to the gender binary in popular media! I personally see myself and my identity represented so much in Hange especially! So it's frustrating to see people (cough cishet people) dismiss it and take it away from them!

It's just like, yeah, sure, hange could be a woman if you wanted them to be, thats *fine*. But why are we as a fandom so hugely opting for that and treating it like it's solid canon facts. Treat it like what you say it is and what it actually is: an interpretation. It isn't canon!! Isayama was very particular about Hange's gender being vauge/not defined!! I personally see Hange as something outside the gender binary, their gender is queer in nature to me. That is my interpretation, it's not canon either. Hange's gender ambiguity (their gender ambiguity, not any possible queer identity) is the canon thing. Although I do think use of they/them and gender neutral language *is* more in line with how they are canonically portrayed.

Also, I see people say "oh well she has boobs so as far as I'm concerned that's a woman" (I know you're just an ass if you're saying that. Boobs ≠ woman hope we are clear on that. but also) is it crazy for me to say that's debatable? Yeah hange has definitely been depicted with boobs (especially when WIT was animating, they got feminised a fair bit in those seasons) but a lot of the time, hange's drawn/animated with a flat (or at least a much flatter chest). If anything is "up for interpretation" I would say it's hanges boobs LMAO.

"Thank you MAPPA for giving hange back their flat chest" we all say

Anyway sorry for my rambling. Uh basically/tl;dr let us have ambiguous/gender non-conforming characters and if you dont like that, don't hide behind "it's up for interpretation" to dismiss conversation about it.

Hange ily sm ur so dear to me please come home

[quotidian-oblivion]

for the Melrin ask - Worst thing you think Merlin ever did. im so curious about this one

I had to think so much about this one too.

I don't know. I love Merlin, he's my favorite character. I justify everything he does, even if it's bad. That's what happens with any favorite fictional characters.

I don't want to say "Not telling Arthur sooner" or "Mistrusting Mordred" or "Poisoning Morgana" or anything of the like because, to be fair, that's a given. It's something a lot of us will lament about. Mainly because the writers did not do their job properly (imo).

I'd say, the worst thing he did, to me, is be passive.

I'm bringing up my own values and morals here because I believe that Merlin ruined himself and all of Albion by being passive. By listening to the dragon and not doing his own research. By being whatever Arthur needed him to be. By taking things upon himself. By not trusting others because that's what he was told.

If Merlin had been a little more assertive and a little more sure of himself and what he wanted, then the show would have gone on in an entirely different direction. But he's passive. For the majority of the show. The biggest time where he's not is in the first scene where he challenges Arthur because he wanted to stay true to his ideals and values which was to stand up against bullies who prey on the ones who can't defend themselves against them.

If he had been more assertive, he would have told Arthur earlier, he wouldn't have poisoned Morgana, he would have trusted Mordred or even Gwaine and the others more.

But he let himself be led by Destiny and Kilgharrah and Gaius and whoever else advised him rather than take some time to think things through first. Like Arthur does.

The thing about Merlin and Arthur here is that Arthur really is bolder than Merlin, but in a different way. He is bold in a way Merlin lacks, which is with practical and tactical matters. He questions Merlin's judgement, questions his father's judgement, Gaius's judgement. Agravaine was a main villain for season 4 because of his perfect ways of manipulation and deceit in a way that it got past Arthur's critical thinking and assertiveness. Arthur doesn't take things at face value and is willing to consider different ways things can go and the show mostly shows that when it comes to questioning Merlin's judgement (like about Agravaine and the siege tunnels and about Gwen at first etc). But in the first few seasons, he questioned his father's judgement a lot too but the fandom mainly focuses on Merlin's opinions vs Arthur's even though he and Uther had met head-on-head multiple times.

Arthur doesn't take things at face value which is why it's possible for so many magic reveal fics to look and be accurate.

But Merlin does. Merlin takes a lot of things at face value. He took Kilgharrah's sayings at face value, he took Gaius's (good-hearted but misguided) warnings at face value. He took what the druids said, what Edwin Muirden said, what Julius Borden said, what that druid seer in the Diamere episode said, and so many others at face value. Just accepted it without thinking much about it and went forward.

Don't get me wrong, Merlin has a very strong moral compass and moral thinking. But he lacks critical thinking. Something which Arthur doesn't lack. They complete each other in this way.

But if we're not looking at all that then I'd say the worst thing I believe Merlin ever did was poison Morgana because- WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MERLIN, DID YOU NOT THINK OF ANY OTHER FUCKING SOLUTION???? HOW ABOUT GETTING MORGANA OUT OF THE CASTLE? HUH? WHAT THEN? WHAT ABOUT TELLING HER THAT HEY, I'M GONNA POISON YOU BUT DW I HAVE THE ANTIDOTE SO THAT I CAN REVIVE YOU AGAIN WHEN MORGAUSE COMES AND LIFTS THE SPELL BC I KNOW THAT YOU DONT WANT THIS EVEN THOUGH YOU THINK UTHER SUCKS. I MEAN, THE USED THAT PLAN SEVERAL HUNDRED TIMES ALREADY, WHY COULDN'T THEY USE IT THIS ONCE???????

[the-s1lly-corner]

hiii could i get J, P, Q an U for Slender? thanks! and i hope your day is going really well >_<

More Fluff Alphabet /w Slenderman but these letters!

my days been pretty okay! slow, but not terrible :O gonna be slow from tomorrow until next saturday so i might promote requests being open ponders not proof read!! though to be fair i dont. think i proof read any of my stuff

J (JEALOUSY)-

he can get rather possessive in general when it comes to you or his proxies so uh

don't like, try to make him jealous on purpose, it doesn't end well for anyone involved. actually don't try to tick off forest demons in general

i know i keep saying stuff like "oh god forbid someone make you uncomfortable" in these but like. slenderman is still this huge powerful creature, i know my interpretation on him is a bit silly n different but he still has roots in the 2010s fandom interpretation, you know?

there will be... a mess... is what im saying

in the case that someone is being weird with you, he's less jealous and more angry, though, of course not angry at you

though there will be hard boundaries set in place if you try to rile him up on purpose, he doesnt want to waste his time on someone whos going to toy with him like that. both in a "hey thats not really cool or healthy of you to do to me or our relationship" and also "im fucking slenderman im a old ass powerful demon, who do you think you are?"

P (PETNAMES)-

he calls you; love, darling, my dear

he likes being called; really anything under the sun, because as long as its something coming from your mouth hes pleased, because it ultimately means hes yours and youre his

q (QUESTION)-

for more context see this post! dives into lore stuff for my au/hcs but it'll help add context to this segment!:

here!

hope the link copied well enough </3 if not you can find it on my blog, titled "all entwined in one web" or something along those lines

anyways

some variant of "why do you stay"

you could have decided to be with literally anyone else, but you chose a solitary self loathing demon who eats people in order to survive, created for the sole purpose to cause issues and harm to humanity

on one hand he wants you to stick around and keep him company; but on the other hand he wants you as far away from him as possible so you can go out and live your own life without being in danger or having to put up with his whole deal

please give him lots of reassurance, its going to take a lot for him to stop asking those kinds of questions; assuming he stops asking at all

U (UPSET)-

i feel like him being upset is similar to the jealousy part of this post, but just more. broad. like hes not going to take shit if youre going to try to upset him on purpose

hes more patient if its accidental, though. diving into a previous fluff alphabet, if its an accident and something that can be helped in terms of future instances hes likely to work through it with you. he knows his time with you is short, if his partner is a mortal, and he doesnt want to waste that time

soft slenderman my beloved, let this man have complex emotions and desires and whatnot

kinda just. vanishes when he gets real upset, though, since he cant control his anger that well and generally just doesnt want you to see him like that- best way to help him like that is to just give him time

if youre the one upset hes going to listen to you, if you need someone to talk to. man of few words, advice can go fifty fifty

either gives good advice or not good advice; and thats on him being around for a long time but not really spending a lot of that time you know... interacting with others in a meaningful way

bonus if you still live at your place he's going to do a bunch of your chores for you. in. varying degrees of success, similar reasoning as above since he doesnt really have a home of his own to do like. dishes or laundry at. still bouncing between if im going to have the mansion be a part of this au of mine or not, and if so, how its going to tie in to everything

shrugs

[hiemaldesirae]

Question: how would your characterization of demon Alastor react to finding out for the last 60+ years that what he thought was Vox breaking up with him was actually Demon!Valentino drugging/r**ping him with his venom/aphrodisiac and Vox has No memory of what he and Alastor actually had? No memory of anything except maybe the last month? And to find out Valentino only did this so Vox (who was becoming a TV mogul) would put his pornos on the tv. How would he help Vox remember? What would he do to Valentino? Would Velvette also suffer?

okay so. nonny, i wont blame you for not knowing, especially since ive never explicitly talked about it on main, but for future reference, im not that big on the whole abusive staticmoth dynamic. i can see why others enjoy it, and i do read stories with it from time to time simply because the premise captivates me that much, but in general id say i much more prefer a version where val and vox are at the very least best friends if not crossing into the sort of blurry best friends who smooch sometimes territory.

now having said that, i'll still answer your question because again, not very fair of me to just brush you off for no reason when i never made my preferences clear beforehand. (this gets long, so i'll leave a readmore.) warning: my demon radiostatics are always freak4freak no matter what. so this does get a little iffy in terms of ethics

my favourite interpretation of radiostatic is two sickos who are just as closely obsessed with each other, so in the unlikely case that al would let vox go for that long, when he realizes again the first thing he's going to do is go and. well. for lack of a better term, atticwife him (i hope to god this isn't just a term used in east asian fandoms because if i have to explain this ill eat lead). maybe after a little bit of time, he'll allow vox some liberties, but even then it'd be very little. ill put it this way- imagine the most toxic irl relationship you can: someone who tracks and micromanages their partners every move, barely lets them outside the house without going with them, monitors every friendship that they allow their partner to have, and there you have it. thats radiostatic! ah, young love. so sweet, dont you think? after all, alastor can't risk his muse's eyes slipping off him again. he's been deprived of that attention for far too long, and it wasn't even by his own doing! that's an offense in and of itself.

now im assuming that its only val who's doing the exploitation here so presumably vel would have no hand in any of the mess, and perhaps not even be fully aware of the nuances behind the scenes. i mean, it wouldn't really matter either way because once alastor finds out the reason why his other half hasnt been reciprocating their insane little song and dance he's getting rid of any and all obstacles, permanently. vox doesnt need anyone else so long as he has him- and hey, he was friends with him, rosie and husk first, so its not even as if its much of a loss. the only people he'd presumably leave alive would be voxs own contracted souls, and even then thats a bit of a gamble depending on just how bad i want the both of them to be: without his contracted souls, vox would be weaker and more susceptible to whatever alastor wants, so i guess its a matter of whether or not i want the freak4freak relationship where theyre both equally strong but vox willingly submits because he gets more thrill out of it that way or whether i want freak4freak where vox has to struggle way harder and still ends up giving in anyway because al is simply stronger

as for what he'd actually *do* to val. i mean. he does still have that radio broadcast of his, doesn't he? i think you can probably put the pieces together. the thing with animal sinners is that theres simply so many parts of them to break... show-wise, i never understood how overlords like alastor or val could even rise to their position, with the amount of weak spots they must have. that broken antenna vox and val share is certainly something that speaks to their higher vulnerability. and moth wings are especially fragile: i owned little silkworm moths at one point (they were my babies, i loved them for the month or so i got to care for them) but their wings were so thin they were wearing holes in them by the second or third day. val's coat-wings look much thicker in comparison, but of course, my perception is limited by the show only. so i mean, who knows? im sure whatever happens, itll make the best entertainment in al's eyes :)

[squid-ink-symphony]

hey i saw a post where you were talking about ships.. Uh.

callie x agent 3.

discuss.

please..

we need all the exposure we can get there are 5 of us.

we are very lonely.

NO BUT LIKE I LOVE THIS SHIP

ALONG WITH 4 X MARIE

LIKE IVE SEEN CALLIE AND AGENT 3 ART BEFORE AND ITS LITERALLY SO GOOD

i didnt wanna mention idol x agent ships in my post cuz sometimes ppl get all defensive about it like "erm well actually the agent is canonically a child and-" shut up. shut. up. they are whatever age you want them to be. they are literally a self insert for the player. plenty of ppl have agent ocs who are adults. it just varies from person to person and their headcanons.

but then i got an ask (that i already deleted) accusing me of being a proshipper bcuz apparently 3 x neo 3 is problematic bcuz its "power imbalance?" and like.. ig yeah that could be an issue irl w ur boss taking advantage of u. but like..... thats.... clearly not what im talking about???

so may as well discuss idol x agent ships as well lol

3 x callie is like. top tier. its so good. like you just know 3 and callie would goof around together. especially the splat 1 version of 3??? like their dynamic would be top tier. and i just know 3 would whisper stuff to callie and they would giggle about it and refuse to tell anyone else what they are laughing about. and i am always a rarepair enjoyer. like. its so good. (i ship callie x marina x pearl so you know im masochistic when it comes to my ships)

AND 4 X MARIE??? i know this one is a bit more well known but i love it. i dont know if i would ship my main agent 4 with my main interpretation of marie, but like another version of them? yes. it works so well. marie is literally in love w 4.

BUT OK ANOTHER RAREPAIR: 4 x callie. i know everyone loves 3 x 8 cuz blah blah 8 beat up mind controlled 3. but ??? 4 beat up mind controlled callie and we got NOTHING from the fandom. im mostly a 4 x 8 shipper at heart but this is another one i rlly like. i just know 4 would try to show off by picking smth heavy up or doing some cool trick only to fail miserably. and callie would be able to do it first try.

and i have even more opinions on different idol ships and combos but uhh thats for another day when someone wants to listen to my ramblings lol

anyway in conclusion i love rarepairs and pretty much every splat ship so yeah feel free to talk to me about them any time. i love figuring out character dynamics and all that. also everyone has such good designs everyone looks good together. also just like. non romantic pairs as well. like ppl who have sibling dynamics. ppl who are clearly in a qpr. ppl who are besties. apprentice and mentor dynamics. i just think every splat character is so interesting on their own that pretty much every combination is top tier. and like. things dont have to mutually exclusive when it comes to relationships. im a multipshipper.

and i think the same goes for other dynamics. like in my mind one version of neo 3 and 3, 3 sees neo like a younger sibling and spoils them and doent want what happened to 3 to happen to neo. in another version 3 sees neo like a younger version of them and tries to toughen them up and neo sees it as unfair and there is angst while 3 has to confront everything they went thru and if it was even fair for them to have gone thru it. cuz in their mind ofc its ok to do this to neo, its what 3 did to become the way they are. in another version they are just besties. in another version they are dating. in another version they have a competitive love/hate relationship and argue a lot about whos better.

LIKE THINGS DONT HAVE TO JUST BE ONE WAY!! i like exploring different stuff and seeing everyones takes on them!!!!!

so yeah come talk to me about splat characters im very normal i swear :)))

[b3achysurfur]

yo hey logang member here

just wanted to lyk i actually dont care if you dislike logan, i have characters i dislike too like thats ok i just feel like this all turned into petty drama that wasnt needed 😭 i disagree with some stuff you said (like that one comment about understanding how logans parents didnt want him) but i guess i just wanted to clarify i myself dont have any true ill intent towards you i just think this whole situation is kinda stupid and wanted to clarify that so have a nice day ig- i blocked immediately because i didnt want to see more drama but here i am lmaoo

i personally like logan because he contributes to the group, keeps a level head in tough situations(like standing up for barons other victim) and can make a decision under alot of pressure (like shooting the phantom) and i think he has alot of potential but feel free to debate

hi , idk what happened but the logang has started interacting with me again. did someone make a post or did y’all js get curious? I genuinely wanna know 😣 but you guys are welcomed here !!

um but yeah I agree. thing is I never started this account to troll or start drama/discourse. the account was so that I could separate my main and sbg content and it’d be more organized. I had been posting Logan hate before hand, and a lot of ppl found my posts funny/agreed so I just continued it here. you guys just got rlly mad for no reason. I get that some of the jokes I made were a little harsh, but at the end of the day it was never that serious. I do apologize if I stressed anyone out, but this whole thing is so silly. I’m use to bigger fandoms being more aggressive, and even the sbg TikTok fandom is pretty blunt, so I didn’t think you guys would take my jokes so personally. but you live and you learn.

also I appreciate you being so kind! I understand that many ppl just blocked me bc they didn’t want to waste their energy on smth silly / js assumed it was bait content. which is totally fair! like I’ve said in other posts, I have no ill will towards anybody I’ve interacted with, regardless of how the conversation we had went down. If I’ve said smth that’s upset you, my dms are always open to chat or js tag me in a post/comment and I’ll talk with you. Sometimes I can be a bit rude, but I promise it’s not personal at all. The only person I hate is Logan fields. Not you guys. Even if your a logang member (funny y’all took a liking to that name btw 😭).

I will continue to post Logan slander, and I can’t promise that I’ll tone my content down all the way, so if that’s not for you then you’re welcomed to block me or the Logan hate tag. I use like the same 4 Logan hate tags so it’s not gonna be a sneak attack. Also even though I post logan hate, I AM ALWAYS OPEN TO DEBATING. I’m very open-minded and will change my opinion if you make a good point that I can’t refute. I just have not run into anyone who could do that yet.

okay now for the fun stuff. You said you like Logan because he contributes to the group, but I disagree. I feel like Logan has contributed least to the group. When you say “he keeps level-headed”, I feel the opposite. Logan is very shy and timid, and he gets scared very easily. Logan is very easy to persuade and intimate, which is why he got bullied in the first place. Although he stood up to Barron, he wasn’t level headed at all. He was clouded with rage (which in part has to do with the phantoms) but shows he cannot control his emotions well. In many offical arts + earlier chapters, Logan is seen crying / hesitating constantly. Yes he has a reason to be terrified, but you cannot say he is level headed. Especially compared to everyone else. I’m not sure how I feel about him being able to make decisions under pressure. I think Logan is good at analyzing situations. Thats why he was able to come up with multiple theories about the phantom world. But I feel like in order to say he makes good decisions under pressure, he’d have to actually put these decisions into action. Logan is still very hesitant though and I don’t want to base his character off of one scene, especially because I’ve talked about why I feel like that scene was a cover up and not genuine. Most of the time Logan follows the instructions and commands of others. He actually buckles under pressure imo. like when they were fighting before getting the car, Logan would’ve never mentioned he was scared if Tyler had not spoken first. He would’ve just followed everyone else due to peer pressure. Logan always acts second. I honestly believe if he had saw Aiden on the roof he would’ve never even considered using his gun because he avoids situations that have a lot of pressure and responsibility. So no, I don’t believe Logan makes good decisions under pressure. Again that’s just my opinion and I’m down to talk about it more! but if you do want to debate pls js reblog this or put another ask in bc the comment word limit is so annoying 😭

[banditchika]

finally back in town homie here u go 💘 🎀 💞 💌

💘Is there any posted fic you want to rework/re-edit/re-write?

you know, i think all i'd want to rewrite is my blemiplat fic. all my stuff from other fandoms are kind of relics of the person n writer i was during the time those fics were posted, but i reread the blemiplat fic recently and it BUGGED ME. after all the time i spent agonizing over what to write for arknights (which you were there to hear, u brave n beloved soul) and all the wips i ended up making, i published just the one thing and it was too early... i NEEDED the deep plat lore, she's out of character w/ the new info we got and it drove me BONKERS when i reread it recently... in some alternate universe a more disciplined bandit rewrote that fic, but this one is leaving it be

🎀give yourself a compliment about your own writing

like any good jester, i've got mad jokes! that hasn't changed, but i think in the past i was capable of establishing a strong mood and setting and keeping a fic very contained within that atmosphere. i dont think my newer works have that cozy contained feeling anymore, but it could be im being more daring w/ my new fics? the jury is out...

💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

characters, for sure. i live n die by whether or not characters r recognizable, esp since my plots tend to be along the lines of "hey wouldn't it be funny if". its important to me that my writing is technically strong too, but i can and have convinced ppl to follow me to places they wouldn't go w/ a gun as long as my character work is strong

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

heehee

[Pearl] slips from her perch and muscles into the space between Marina and the arm of the couch, leaning her entire (insubstantial) body weight against Marina's side. They’re pressed hip to hip, as close as they can get without Pearl going squid and clambering crawling into her lap. She's taken to doing that recently, an about-face from the Pearl who usually restricts herself to friendly bumps of the shoulder and quick, one-armed hugs.

To be fair, that's a boundary that Marina set to begin with. She'd been so skittish in the early days, longing for and shying away from friendly touch in equal measure. Then came her stupid, awful, wonderful crush, and with it the lingering fear that Pearl would see right through her if they touched. Pearl would get too close, and she’d know that Marina was helplessly in love, head over heels, and that just couldn't happen. She couldn’t give away one secret without losing the other. Her past, octolings and inklings, Off the Hook… it was too much complication, even without considering that Pearl didn't love her like that. 

But the big secret is out now, and Pearl's reaction has outstripped even her wildest dreams. Not only did Pearl accept her, all of her, without a second thought, she’s even helping Eight settle into life on the surface. Not to mention the way Pearl’s been acting lately. She’s so sweet, practically doting, and Marina can’t help but hope that she has a chance -- if only she can keep from getting ahead of herself.

But it’s just so hard to play it cool when Pearl is warm and plyable and close enough for Marina to smell her ridiculously-expensive cologne. One of Marina's tentacles squirms over her shoulder to twine around Pearl’s narrow frame, the tip of it coming to rest coyly on her collar. She nearly chokes, her cheeks blazing with heat.

And that’s the other reason why she tries not to open herself up to more contact than girl friends -- girls being friends, oh cod -- would normally share. Her tentacles and their occasionally-uncooperative brains want nothing more than to betray her constantly. 

[laffy-taffy-creations]

DAY TWENTYYYYYYYYYYY

This fic was cross-posted on AO3 here

Shattered Worlds Shatter Hearts

Blanket | Found Family | "You will regret touching them"

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Words: 1,958

Warnings: Arguing, platonic break ups, kidnapping, implied manipulation

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey, out of curiosity, what’s your guys opinions on MEQAT3?” I asked. I waited with bated breath.

There had been some leaked documents, spread misinformation, things that painted me as the bad guy. Who I used to be known as. I tried leaving that place behind.

“Oh, fuck no. They’re nothing but pure evil, cold-blooded killer, extremely dangerous, I just want to… punch them in the face!” Deku spat out.

Yikes. I knew the misinfo was that bad, but… this? From him?

“I think that’s a bit far, but… yeah, from what I’ve heard they sound like another villain. Probably someone up there with the ranks of Voltluxe and the LOV I’d bet,” Ochako said.

“Huh.”

“Any particular reason for that question?” Midoriya asked.

I straightened. “Well, I keep seeing a bunch of stuff painting them as a bad person but, like… has anyone ever actually seen them? I mean, they could easily be strawman, or someone who’s image has been… misconstrued, and manipulated to push a narrative just as easily as they could be someone to stay away from,” I explained. “Also, yikes, I dont think I’ve ever heard you use those words to describe someone Midoriya.”

“I’m sticking with what I said. Nothing but a heartless monster the way I see it.”

A mixture of fury, fear, and helplessness swirled in my stomach. “Have you ever actually seen them? Ever met them?” I tried.

“Have you?” he shot back.

He was so… sure of himself! He barely even listened to what I had said, falling for the propaganda so easily!

“It’s pretty hard not to have met my fucking self!” I shouted. Then recoiled. I realized what I’d said.

His expression fell. “You’re… MEQAT3?” he asked.

With a deep breath I nodded.

Then it morphed into one of disgust. “I cant fucking believe you. YOU’RE ‘MEQAT3’?”

Shock. “Are you kidding? You’ve known me for… how long has it been now? And you seriously believe that I would do that?”

“Well if you’re MEQAT-fucking-3 then I dont know what else you’re hiding."

“I wasn’t hiding anything! MEQAT3 is a name that has ties to a lot of trauma for me, I wasn’t fucking ‘hiding’ anything from you guys! You’ve seen me, I’m not like that!”

Uraraka sat back during the whole conversation, shifting nervously.

“Well I guess I dont know you then.”

“You know, your blind faith in your sources is so amazing I could almost forget that you just called ME a COLD-BLOODED MURDERER OF ALL THINGS AND A HEARTLESS MONSTER!”

“You dont even know my sources. I have others that aren’t from the fucking internet, OV. I’ve heard things. Dont try shit like that with me.”

“You know I have a good feeling I know who you’re talking about and I cant even believe that you’re willing to believe him over your own friend.”

“You’re no longer my damn friend.”

All Might. He was choosing to believe All Might over me on the things that happened to me.

“I cant fucking believe you right now,” was the last thing I said before storming off to my room before I did something I’d regret.

So much for his usual belief of ‘everyone needs a hero, everyone deserves to be saved’. He cant even get over his own bias for the sake of saving friendship. How does he think he’s gonna save actual people in danger? What makes All Might soooo much more reliable than us? What makes him so special?

[Calm yourself a bit Clovie]

Absolutely not! He’s willing to believe Him over us and not able to recognize literally all ‘information’ about us came from him! It turns into a he-said-we-said situation but he’s too fucking blind to that because of his own obsession!

[It’s not fucking fair, it was never fucking fair. But we cant blame him for his own false conclusions.]

He said he wanted to punch us Augs. He called us a cold-blooded murderer, and a heartless monster.

[He’ll come around in due time… hopefully. All we can do now is wait.]

I’m gonna punch something.

[Just dont punch him.]

You say that like we’d ever consider it as an option…

----《 ¤ 》----

Trapped. Captured. Brilliant. With the one person who wanted nothing to do with me.

The chains around me clanked while I adjusted my position. I was kneeling on the floor, trying to get a feel for the situation.

I vaguely knew this place. Clearly we were being held captive. I didnt remember much of my actual capture, I could only tell that it had happened because, well, I wasnt where I was meant to be and also in chains.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Midoriya asked. He’d gotten a lot more… distant at the very least. I wouldn’t call it hostile. It most certainly was hostile, considering this was Deku, but most people wouldn’t really pick up on it, and it couldn’t really be considered that hostile.

At the very least it was aggressive.

“I’m just trying to figure out what the fuck my options are, because I dont use my quirks to save us, then I’m selfish. If I do use them, then I’m a monster solely for having them in the first place because of their capabilites, so I’m just trying to figure out the best course of action so that you dont get more mad at me!”

He sighed. “Vee, I’m not mad at you-”

“You told me our friendship was over just because I’m MEQAT3.”

“MEQAT3 is a monster who killed people. You are OV. There’s a difference.”

“And how exactly does that work?!” I turned to look at him. “Whether you like it or not, I’m MEQAT3, that is a name that has been used to refer to me many times, we are not separate people, but the version you’ve been lied to about is!”

“And that real version of MEQAT3 is a monster who killed people.”

I just looked at him in disbelief. “Okay, firstly, I AM the real version of MEQAT3! Second, those people I supposedly killed attacked me first! They experimented on me for years, put me in a shock collar when I stepped out of line, funnily enough THEY were the ones that killed MY friends, the other experiments in my line! They killed my friends, kidnapped me- I have not seen my parents a single day since I was nine -and I only ESCAPED their clutches because of these powers, ones they forced upon me by the way. And third, I didnt even kill them. I should’ve! Especially considering all the shit they did, to me and my friends! But I didnt. They were in the infirmary for a few days at fucking most, recieving more immediate care than anyone else already in the damn infirmary!”

The villain walked in through the doorway. “Well well, you two fighting already? Dang, that didnt take long, wasn’t even my original goal! But I can work with this~,” they purred.

"Oh shut it, this doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

"No no, it doesn’t, please keep arguing,” they said with an amused smile on their face.

Deku tried breaking out of the chains with his quirk, but ultimately failed.

“Awww, trying rush to escaping? But I haven’t even gotten to the main part!” the villain said, drawing some sort of specialized gun from somewhere and charging him.

Well, they would’ve been, had I not put up a giant wall that ensnared them upon contact so they couldn’t get to him. “I dont fucking think so you lunatic,” I growled.

I snapped the chains around me and stalked towards where I held them in place. “You touch him I’ll make you fucking regret it.”

“Uhm… Vee?” he asked nervously from behind me. I turned. I assumed it would have been from seeing my powers actually in use for the first time, and it mostly was.

But there was also marks, running across what skin was visible, a few ever so slight slashes in his outfit.

My grip around the villain tightened. “Yeah?”

“What are you-?”

“I dont have the time for a sentimental moment right now, there’s a villain here but yes I’m saving you because like it or not I still see you as my friend.” I turned back to the villain. “And for you, since apparently you already had some fun, I will make you regret it.”

The place around us turning into some sort of void, a reality of its own, controlled by me rather than the bunker we had previously been in. The blurring of faded colors mixing with with a darkness far beyond was the only thing one could see in the environment, like something out of a video game. I ensured that me and Izuku were on a platform, safe from all else in the area while the villain got subject to plenty of horrors. Spikes, none deadly, choking to near suffocation, and finally when I switched us back to our reality, thrown against a wall.

“Hopefully you learn your lesson not to mess with class 1-A again, it’d be a pain to do that all over again but worse. Anyways, I’ll be taking this, bye!” I said before grabbing Deku by the shoulder and teleporting us both to the common room.

I didnt give him the chance to say anything, instead leaving to go get a blanket of sorts and gather my thoughts. Just a quick moment of decompression. Even when I did return, I didnt comprehend anything he was saying if he was talking at all. I chose to go on auto-pilot.

I would not be able to handle more verbal abuse. Not right now.

I settled him on the couch, healed up what injuries I could see, which was probably a new power he hadnt been told despite it being the first one forced upon me, which only proved my point about propaganda and slander, and then went to the kitchen to go make some food.

“If ever under an intense amount of perceived stress, you almost always resort to cooking.”

I froze.

“Aaaand your fear response is only ever freeze when something has to do with your past…”

“What are you doing?" I asked, going back to the food.

“Just…” He sighed. “Just starting over I guess. Going with what I know. They never mentioned that you had a healing power.”

I snorted. “Huh, I wonder why…”

“Shut up.”

“I told you from the first day. I’m not in control of my public image. The person who forced this all upon me is. And me having the capabilities to heal at all obviously would’ve been omitted, as well as all the time I actually spent caring for the others at the lab.”

“Whatever… Who even experimented on you? You mentioned something about that.”

“...okay, you’re gonna wanna stay sitting for this one. Snuggle up in that blanket, get nice and cozy, cause this is gonna be hard to take,” I told him, adding a few things to the stew I was making and putting a lid over it, lowering the stove temperature.

I turned around. He wore an expression of equal parts confusion and fear.

“There’s only one person popular enough to have made this much of a fuss about the old me, and it was a hero. And they would’ve had plenty of incentive to spread all that slander, to attempt and drag me down, keep me quiet and afraid. Would have worked, except that I’m not afraid.”

“...oookay?”

“Who exactly gave you all those first-person accounts about how ‘terrible’ I was?”

He thought for a moment, before his features morphed, and I could’ve pin-pointed the exact moment his entire reality shattered.

[yonpote]

I need to know why and how you were anti-phannie from 2014-2016

alright here we go i get to talk about THIS shit now.

i was generally anti-rpf at that point, and honestly? i think it was for fair enough reasons as some people were a bit too eager about showing (general) youtubers stories they wrote about them sucking and fucking their friends. i think i was also pretty high and mighty about being a somewhat oldhead phannie tbh, like ugh do these gaming-channel-only people even know about dan being super edgy and offensive 🙄 and lowkey it was a lot of subtly misogynistic "i'm not like other girls" type shit like i was sooo much better than yall cuz i hadn't watched that video (yet.)

i was generally not into these sorts of fandoms to begin with. i wasnt on the superwhopotterlock side, i was on the homestuck/dangan ronpa/anime of the month side of tumblr, if that gives you an idea of what i was like lol. around 2014-15 i was very much in a community that is kinda similar to what you might see on twitter now, where if you had any interests in media that portrayed anything problematic, that means you are in full support of that problematic thing. if dan howell said something racist in 2010, it doesn't matter that he wasn't being racist in 2015 he's still racist and liking him makes you a racist etc. and of course, rpf is included in problematic topics. if you ship real people, even if said people say they don't mind it, you are a sick pervert and you should be in the loony bin for being so depraved. and if you write or read any fiction that has immoral acts, it means you support those acts in real life too and you are trying to normalize abuse and SA (yknow as if whitecishetpatriarchy hasnt normalized that enough) and you're a danger to children and you deserve to rot in prison (yknow as if a queer person writing stories about queer people hasnt heard that one before)

now here's the real kicker. in 2015-2016 i ran a game grumps fan blog where i did talk about shipping the grumps. "wait how were you anti-rpf if-" well have you ever heard of this thing called Lying? or perhaps even, Cognitive Dissonance? i HAD to run a separate blog for this interest, because if my friends knew i consumed slashfic about arin and danny they would stop being friends with me and think im this evil horrible monster etc. genuinely that was where my brain was at, and is a little bit the reason i decided to this day, to make my phannie accounts completely separate from my main accounts.

nowadays, none of my non-phannie friends actually give a fuck and i do occasionally talk about dnp being silly gay white boys w them! at this point i dont post about em on main just out of respect like "hey im sure you dont actually want to hear about british yaoi constantly regardless of our level of friendship so i'll keep it over here okay?"

also, yeah i grew out of thinking consuming media with deplorable acts makes me deplorable. my favorite tv show is hannibal. i know its shocking, but i dont actually support serial killer cannibals. i will say, i dont fuck with "pro/anti" language with regards to what is considered "problematic" or having that be an identity marker. i think that people are free to write fiction as they please so long as its all properly tagged for people who dont enjoy that kind of content to avoid. but i also think there can be and often are problems in the way these stories are written, and yeah if all the romance stories you read growing up involve some sort of force or danger, that CAN normalize this sort of action as inherent to romance stories/real life romance. but i think thats an issue with like, society at large, and it's not on an individual fic writer to be educating teens who read their dead dove fic despite the explicit rating and tags.

TL;DR: BASICALLY. I WAS A DUMBASS KNOW-IT-ALL BUT DW I GOT BETTER.

[satans-codpiece]

I was not expecting EY epilogue to be so short or come out so quickly and neither was I prepared for it. Tbh you should rename it to "How to fuck up an audience in 600 words or less" because HOLY SHIT. I knew it wasn't going to be pretty™ but did you really have to go this hard??? The 2 being all cutesy romantic on a cruise with a burning harbour literally in front of them???? THAT RAM SET ON FIRE????? The tea vendor?????? READER FEELING GUILTY AND RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DESTRUCTION????????

And then you have the nerve to answer that other anon's ask about Ram saying I love you with "haha no he loves you but he has too many issues to admit it out loud" ONLY to then turn out the next day and use it HERE of all places is. God. You bastard-

Oh shit uh.... I kind of realized I don't really have anything laying around in the horny Ram art department (that isn't a total disaster or way, WAYYYY too self-indulgent) sooo.... may I offer you a WIP in these trying times??? Entirely SFW but I feel like it's plenty horny still, just in a different way ;) (Link in another ask again. Btw, you can post the WIP publicly if you feel like the Ramattra nation should see it. I still have no goddamn idea if I should try to revive my abandoned art blog or start a new one or if I should even commit to posting semi-regularly in the first place why are my feelings so fucking complicated on something so basic-)

OH I FEEL YA MAN, same story here, don't care about the game I care about the universe, except I left the franchise entirely ages ago only for Blizz to be like "hey you liked Zen right? Here's his hot angsty younger brother" and I'm like FFFFFFFFFFFFFFfffffffffuck you Blizzard, and fuck me for falling for that eye and brain candy...

Heard about that "sometime in 2024" release date, THAT AIN'T IT MATEY, could be in December for all we know, I NEED it sooner- But hey, I guess Blizz's laziness means the fans can go wild???

And oooooh you say shit like this keeps you active? Guess I gotta bother you some more then :P Also NEEEEEY you an SSS+ tier writer the heckle you talking about-

HAHAH YEAH FKDJSG So my original draft of it was actually even darker, with more of Reader "waking up" on being released from their room, then spiraling and feeling guilty and only being maintained by the feeling that they have to keep Ramattra in check. So, I think this one's a bit kinder in that Reader's still feeling guilty, but it's easier for them to push away the darkness.

fjdhsgks listen! Again! My original epilogue was darker (I think I didn't have him use it, but I also don't think Reader prompted him to say it?) And to be fair it's more that he has too many issues in that moment at the end of Ch5... and he's kind of settling into accept that you do love him and want ("want") to be there with him by the epilogue... so he can choke it out sometimes.

PLEAES STTART AN ART BLOG???? HES SO FUCKING GORGEOUS???

Like, yeah idk, it certainly is... difficult to know how to engage with fandom. More than a few times I've wondered if just being in a small, dedicated discord would be a better choice (but then I'm awful at engaging with people directly, so I tend to lurk in discord servers...)

Hah, see, I completely missed Ramattra's release. I played a little bit at OW2's release, so a bit into season 1, then I just stopped playing. I don't think it was intentional quitting. But I somehow completely missed Ramattra's entire existence until I randomly started playing Overwatch again in March/April (I don't even remember why? I think the Minecraft server I was playing revealed itself to be run by morons and I was looking for a game to spend most of my time and just ended up back with Overwatch).

Only to, bam, load into a game with someone playing him and for me to immediately go "oh my god" (and also he gave me headpats and i...... I wonder if that person has any clue what they've done. but then I think most Ram players who give headpats are also Ram Enjoyers.)

LISTEN.... I DONT EVEN BELIEVE ITLL BE 2024 BC BLIZZARD BUT I HAVE TO PRETEND......

gjkhgsd You know that um. that chart that depicts "art quality vs perceived art quality over time"? to show how artists' perception of their work changes as they develop it? I feel like I'm permanently stuck in a "I'm sure my work is fine given the time I've spent working on it as a craft, but it still doesn't look/behave in the way I want it to." groove for like. at least a year.

The last time I genuinely 100% liked something I wrote was uhhhh probably in Februaryish with an unpublished DBD!Wesker/Reader WIP. (The WIP title is Boon: Wesker's Worms LOL)

[a-stitch-in-time-and-space]

ok i agree w/ everything you said about those ladies besides, lwaxana gives s*xual pr*dator vibes and that is why i dont like her.

I can see that reading for sure and all things are subjective. I do strongly disagree, but hey, fandom is a space for that! Super chill.

to go a little more into this though, since it's not really so much about what any of us feel, but more about how we engage with female characters (and I'll use your example of why you don't like her - not to drag you, your dislike is totally fair, she's fictional, she won't mind, but just because it's a single line that kinda puts her in a box. And not a very nice box to be in, that's for sure...)

a little tw for mild references to some of the shadier writings of star trek vis a vis sexual assault and otherwise sexist and/or strange relationship dynamics

okay so you know how Riker has like. two? episodes that're suuuper shady in terms of his treatment of women and the rest of the time it's pretty chill. and he's one of my favourite characters, but I have gotta skip those episodes, because whatever they were trying to do, they Did Not Succeed - and there's a reading of him that incorporates those elements and if you do you've gotta contend with the character being quite probably someone who's assaulted women.

or how Worf at times espouses sexist shit that makes me roll my eyes outta my head and you're either gonna say "I don't fucking like this character" (and again, totally fair, I've seen people who don't Vibe) or you've gotta find a way to make this work for you if you want to explore that character - or both of those things, you can dislike a character and want to write about them

Or some of the weird shit the writers have Geordi do (which, Geordi is my favourite character in TNG, but sometimes ya gotta breathe and go "the writers are fucking dumb, the writers are fucking dumb")

or - the spiritual successor of Geordi, Julian Bashir (my favourite character from DS9 - clearly I have a Type). You've gotta go: This is stupid writing. I can make it work with my own read of the character, but first and foremost The Writing Is Dumb!

Or hell, Q - since we're talking about Lwaxana and I assume her interactions with Picard and Odo, let's not forget to mention Q, both in TNG and on VOY with Janeway - some of the more urgh-inducing scenes between Q and Janeway are, I think, meant to be charming and funny? And I'm a massive QCard shipper here, okay, I actually vibe so hard with him as an alien who doesn't get shit about boundaries (this mostly with Picard, with Janeway I have gone: "Hm. This doesn't feel good" a fair few times).

or how the writers of DS9 had Garak be in a very uncomfortable relationship with Ziyal, who was a teenager, then not a teenager within much too short a span of episodes (and actress changes)

or Quark. Remember the episode in which Quark tries to get Kira's likeness so he can put it in a sex-fantasy roleplay that she did not consent to? or how there are two cold opens where his female employees are told they have to sleep with him to keep their jobs

or like... Neelix (okay, I am not a fan of Neelix anyway, but for people who are fans, there are times when you've gotta wonder what in the heck the writers are thinking - not the character, the writers)

what I'm trying to say with the post I wrote is that this same graciousness isn't offered to female characters - especially female characters of colour, but in the case of Lwaxana

she's older, she's an ongoing female guest star, she's very (sometimes uncomfortably) sexual towards especially Picard and for a short while Odo, before they become really good friends.

she's also in-text several times in positions in which men are trying to control her (the episode where she gets kidnapped, the episode in which the guy who's married her is a misogynist) and she uses or tries to use her "wiles" to escape these situations.

She's really more of a faded beauty who's putting a pressure onto her daughter (in a rare interesting, complex, fraught mother-daughter dynamic that I loooove) and refuses to let go of the past, because (and here we get into my read, but mildly supported by canon) it's the only way she seems to have learned how to be loved and have relevance. She's terrified of letting that go, because where does she go next, without everything that's defined her? which is why her final episode with Odo is actually so powerful to me.

Picard is never threatened by her in-text. He's not massively fond of her (at first, she grows on him... like a mold), he would prefer to avoid her, but he's not in a powerless situation here. She undoubtedly makes him uncomfortable at times in a way that - like some of the above examples have made me go "mmmmokay" but certainly not the worst example of this in the writing.

With Odo I also don't like how some of her interactions with him go in the first episode they're in together. But once they're friends and you see how easily she accepts him ("I can swim" is always going to be one of my favourite little chuckle lines) that no longer applies. He clearly likes her and enjoys her company. There's something incredibly lifelong platonic partners in their easiness with each other.

You can argue in both cases (and argue well) that there are scenes that are kinda sus. But there are lots of scenes that offer you depth of character. She's not one-note. She's got off moments.

Some of these guys (and others - I haven't watched as much TOS and Voyager so I don't want to misrepresent anyone, but I feel sure that Tom Paris has made me squint once or twice + I've not seen Enterprise yet) have whole episodes that make me shudder.

It's really - within this fandom for sure - open how we interpret characters and I'm not saying anyone needs to read Lwaxana like this or change their minds and like her.

The point of the post is not to say you have to like any of these characters. Or even to say you have to engage with them regardless of how you vibe or don't vibe with them. It's just... I have listened to several up-until-then-enjoyable deeply analytical podcasts where at some point one of the (guys... always guys... I'm guessing white) makes a sneering comment completely dismissing their value within the series.

My point is that Lwaxana (since we're on her) has value as a character within the Trek universe. She added something important. She's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's a big series, we're not all guaranteed to like everyone.

and in the original post I used "shrill" and "cringy" on purpose, because those are descriptors I've heard. And they are absolutely rooted in misogynist dismissals of female characters no matter what shape they take (Keiko, Lwaxana, Michael, and Ezri are radically different from each other and yet all easily brushed aside regardless of screentime, personality, show, age, role/job).

I'm not making points about having to engage with or like characters. I'm just saying we need to be aware of how easily we specifically look down our noses at female characters (and specifically female characters of colour - apologies, this was just because we were talking about Lwaxana, but some of the shit I've heard about especially Michael and Keiko have made me want to bang my head against a wall... or other peoples heads against walls... you know, for a nice change)

so how much sympathy or analysis of behaviour is afforded to female characters vs their male peers. What judgements are we making and how do they compare to our readings of their male counterparts?

sidenote: I hate using male and female about star trek, my brain is just like "why anyone gender? why do this? you're in space? there are aliens? y'all can't chill with the binary for two fucking seconds?"

different post

[salemruinseverything]

[don't worry, the mile long description is staying, that's my only accomplishment on this site aside from april 13, 2007, brobecks bmonday, and ferb time]

[i'm also liveblogging homestuck intermittently, go here [browser only] for a nice little organized archive. unlike everything else on tumblr it works better on mobile browser, my desktop theme doesn't like long posts]

also follow @emopopalbumtournament

hi, welcome to salemruinseverything dot tumble, your source for quality reblogs, horrible [affectionate] original posts, and frequent tøp-posting of varying quality [read: reblogging half of what's in the tag every time lore happens]. my name's salem. [mainly.] i use they/them, xe/xem, joy/joyr, ae/aer, it/its, and 🍭/🍭s pronouns [also mainly, you can check my pronouny for more of both of those.] [also, i do sometimes use he/him or she/her for myself, but id prefer if other people didn't.] this is mostly a bandom/shitposting blog, but i have been known to post about politics, animatronics, minecraft* youtubers, the nintendo 3ds, and doll collecting very frequently. i once got someone to ask dallon weekes if he knew what furries were, and that is both my biggest accomplishment and the worst thing i've ever done. my only personality traits are being personally victimized by pete wentz, having a crush on gerard way, surviving solely on caffeine and spite, and being a kinnie which i refuse to be ashamed about anymore. i'm allergic to red meat and grass [yes, seriously]. i have a lot of ocs. feel free to read on if you want to know anything else but that's really all the info you need.

dni if: you're a queerphobe, an ace/aro exclusionist, anti-xenogenders/neopronouns, a terf/swerf, a pedo/map/nomap/anti-anti/whatever you guys are calling yourselves now, people who genuinely give any shred of a fuck about proship/antiship discourse, anti-kin of any sort, you actively support brendon urie or ronnie radke, preps/posers /mj [this list will also get amended at some point it's like 2 am as i write this] [also fair warning that this isn't an exhaustive list and i hardblock without hesitation if your vibes are off. no hard feelings unless you're a bigot]

hey if we're mutuals/i follow you please tag these w/ "salem dont look" [you absolutely don't have to but id appreciate it]: any photos of actual needles [talk of needles/cartoon needles are fine], minimalist aesthetics [especially in black and white], death from overdoses [other varieties of death are fine im emo & desensitized [mostly]], the names morgan & chey, any photos of posessed ybc!patrick, & agere stuff [i have nothing against y'all and you're very welcome here, but it's a big squick for me lmao]

a short list of things i post about [formerly a list of things i actively post about, but half of these fandoms are dead now and i'm too lazy to take them out]

my chemical romance

various decaydance bands

hating brendon urie

twenty øne piløts[? in my 2024? it's more likely than you think.]

i DONT KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME

the aforementioned bamd secretly being catboys

waterparks [the band]

sanders sides

various mcyts/associated streamers/youtubers

homestuck[? in my 2024? it's m-]

tally hall. how did i forget tally hall.

brian david gilbert [& associated acts]

particularly polygon but i can no longer count that as an associated act [the polygon fandom is dead but i'm keeping this in here for 1. clarification 2. the memories]

the heart rate of a mouse [i apologize in advance]

will wood, with or without the tapeworms

lalaloopsy [where is lalaloopsy tumblr. please]

american girl

some other general doll collecting stuff as well, but i do mainly collect the two mentioned above [mostly lalaloopsies. lalaloopsy fans please interact]

showbiz pizza/the rockafire explosion[/chuck e cheese occasionally]

disney parks [i hate the corporation but i am a sucker for a good dark ride]

scott pilgrim vs. the world [ramona flowers is my precious little meow meow. she's me fr. if she gets hurt i am killing everyone in this room and then myself]

i haven't seen a single episode of supernatural since i was 9 and have never played tf2 but castiel and scout are my special little guys so i post about them sometimes

this list will probably be changed at some point by the way this is just off the top of my head

tags i use:

#salem's random thoughts: any original textposts i make

#salem's shitposting at midnight again: my old textpost tag, is now mainly used for memes if at all

#top 10 gerard way gf moments: you know how i said one of my only personality traits was having a crush on gerard way? yeah

#salem please stop talking about your kandi: a catchall tag for any posts i make talking about/with pictures of my kandi because i had a Phase™ that i'm not actually fully out of

#awsten knight troll propaganda: hey did you know that awsten knight is a valid troll name? and that him typing in all caps all the time could technically be counted as a typing quirk? yeah [the tag that inevitably led to parxstuck]

#tally hall out boy cinematic universe: a mostly abandoned project wherein i tried to connect everything possible to tally hall and/or fall out boy

#salems selfies: this is just pictures of my face

#you're a hot mess and i'm falling for queue: uh. queue tag. yeah. mostly used when i hit post limit but sometimes i schedule things

#salems im okay liveblog: on the rare occasions my favorite webcomic, i'm okay (trust me), updates i am bound to liveblog the new episode so if you dont care about it then block that cause I Have Emotions About These Dumb Emo Teens

#salem answers a question: tag for asks

#my friends!!: things my friends/mutuals post!

#seven of spiders: tag for my band!! it's mostly an actual band now!! we still don't have a drummer though

#salem's discography liveblogs: there were a lot of bands i was avoiding getting into just because i didn't know when or how to start with their music, so i now have a list of said bands and i've been going down the list, picking a band and listening to one of their albums until i finish their whole discography. used to be on sundays but i kind of just do them whenever i feel like it now. i also have individual tags for each band but you can find those by going through the tag. current tags to block if you don't wanna see this: #salems gorillaz liveblog, #paramore discography liveblog [my blacklist tags for this are inconsistent im sorry]

#vampireposting & #idogposting: i like vampires & idogs. self explanatory.

#salems ocs, #the murder crew, #dsmpjoys au, #parxstuck, #my chemical l'manberg au, & #the reprisians: stuff abt my ocs/aus! [please send me asks about them pls pls p] [note because i don't know where else to put it; dsmpjoys & mcl are on indefinite hiatus o7]

#every day i have strange sentences (?) put into my ask box by tumblr user full of teeth: dumb shit [affectionate] that everest sends me. still using his url from two urls ago because i'm lazy.

#liveblogging my breakdown: the posts that get a little too venty lmao, feel free to block if you don't wanna see that shit

#ftwwwposting: mcr play ftwww live challenge

this will also be updated cause i Know this isnt all the tags i use on a regular basis

other things i think are important to note:

all my posts are ok to rb unless they're specifically tagged w don't rb [although i guess this isn't much of an issue now that i can turn off reblogs but. still]

the yellow heart emojis have no deeper meaning other than i like yellow and i am intentionally putting more whimsy into my life 💛

i don't actually ship any real people [at least not anymore- i sincerely apologise if you scroll down far enough to find unironic rpf-posting], but i do make a concerning amount of rpf jokes and am a throamie, so sorry in advance for that. sometimes i think those two emo boys should kiss. i'm not saying they ARE [i swear i'm posting about peterick in a platonic way i swear it on my life it's not my fault bandom has not caught onto the concept of duo names]

ask me to tag things if you need me to! it doesn't matter how "dumb" you think it is, i will try my hardest to tag it

the only thing i won't tag is blood, because i'm an mcr fan and that shit's so prevalent in this fandom that i don't even wanna try- however, i do tag gore, & i only rb cartoony/artistic gore, no realistic stuff :p

on that note let me know if i miss any tags so i can add them! [i do forget to tag things excruciatingly often, i'm sorry for that]

also on that note since people keep asking: i put tws on fall out boy/panic! at the disco because people asked me to [i don't anymore because i'm like 80% sure they both unfollowed me and also for the reason in the following note but. if you see older posts with those tws that's why]

ALSO on that note. i reblog so much mcyt stuff that it's basically impossible to tag it all at this point so like genuinely no offense but if you need that blacklisted please just unfollow stop harassing me to tag it

all the tw/cw tags i use are formatted "tw/cw [thing]", & mentions of that thing are tagged "tw/cw [thing] mention". i often forget which things i use cw tags for and which i use tw tags for so id recommend blocking both to protect yourself from my stupidity

please send me asks. i crave human interaction

i block people a lot, don't @ me- this is my space and i'm curating it how i want. literally, if you give me weird [in a bad way] enough vibes from a quick scroll through your blog after you follow me, i'm blocking you.

i threaten to kill other people and myself a lot. please know that i'm joking. murder is bad. suicide is also bad

my sideblogs: [ironically only three of these aren't related to my ocs]

@mediocreincorrectquotes: incorrect quotes of various fandoms

@sevenofspiders: blog for my band :p

@salems-edits: feel like the url sums that one up

@terribleocincorrectquotes: incorrect quotes of my ocs, horribly organized

@ooc-tiktok-comments: the uh. the url sums that one up too

@cottoncandy-system: system blog (hi we have osdd. apparently)

@bimbemo: aesthetic sideblog (HUGE flashing lights & eyestrain cw)

@its-just-ray-toro: its just ray toro. follow for ray toro on your dash

@bunnyboylyricbot: lyrics i like posted twice daily [when i remember to queue things]

@starstruck-n-m3tal: i am the #1 scholar on all things party poison

all of the sideblogs below are semi-rp, semi-aesthetic blogs for my ocs all of which are very inactive

@parxstuck: blog for my horrible horrible waterparks-themed mspfa

@emopopalbumtournament: my horrible horrible tournament blog

@alluwantizbadboys - gabe kennedy

@sharpeasaknife - helena sharpe

@christmasknight - noelle knight

@thearistocrat - cain harmony

@mxs1n1st3r - celine sinister

@frmthrzr2thrzry - aaron knight

@b3aut1ful--quarant1n3 - razz roscoe

@voluntaryv1ct1m - jaxxie boyd

@began-and-ended-in-ellipses - cas roscoe

i also have a few secret sideblogs. you'll have to find them yourself

also i am now forcing you to look at these pictures of ryan ross.

[Image ID: several assorted photos of Ryan Ross. /end ID]

that's it thank you have a good day

[stxleslyds]

is it a hot take that I don't rlly care about duke thomas, harper row or any of the other recent additions to the batfam or at least their general grp of gothamite heroes

like there's too many of them now. too saturated. how can i care about these additions and how they affect the dynamics of the group when the previous dynamics were so messily written beforehand

can you please enlighten me bc there's not much that draws me to care about them both as individuals and as members of the group.

in complete fairness, they are new so maybe we just haven't seen their impact yet or given them their time to shine. theyre not as well-established as the others. I want them to be consequential so i can care. tbh it's gotten to the point where I just don't bother to read the issue if any of them are there

i rlly dont get the hype pls send help. it's not hate, just apathy and it sucks

Hey there Anon! Well, I would say that you (or anyone) not liking some characters from Bat-related books isn’t a hot take, but that might be because I hyper fixate on Jason and Dick when it comes to DC comics as a whole and I only am aware of other characters due to their interactions with Dick and/or Jason.

But yeah, I would still say that it isn’t a hot take or unpopular or bad, as you said, there are just too many characters right now and it is impossible for us to keep up with all of them. I really don’t believe anyone has the time or money to keep up with that many characters. And sometimes you read about a character and they don’t make you feel any sort of way that makes you invested in their story and that’s completely valid.

I don’t really like when people say stuff like “if you don’t include x and y in your headcanons, fics or art, then you are this or that” when it comes to the “Batfamily” because I don’t really believe that anyone is able to relate to all these characters or follow every single new story that comes out from them.

Let’s be honest, keeping up with all these Batman-related comics, money wise, is completely impossible unless you are rich and don’t mind wasting money in probably bad comics. I pick and choose what comics I will read each month and which I am actually going to buy, because I can only buy digital books through comiXology, single issues isn’t something that is available in my country.

It is completely ok to not like, hate or simply not care for a character. For me it is very simple, from DC I only like Dick and Jason and characters and I have enjoyed their interactions with other characters which has led me to like other characters like Damian, Donna, Roy and Garth. There are other characters that I appreciate, like Tim, Cass, Barbara (as Oracle) and Talia, but that I wouldn’t go out of my way to read about. And then there is every other character in between that I am just indifferent to, like Kate, Steph, Duke, Harper and so many others.

I just don’t care enough to keep up with all of them, fandom and DC thinking that just because we like one member of this “family” we have to be aware of everyone else within it is kinda dumb, some characters we are just not going to connect with and that’s as valid as being able to connect with each and every single one of them.

From what I heard Batman: Outsiders from Rebirth was an excellent book and that one has Duke and Cass in them and they seem to have been developed in a very good way and they have a brother/sister relationship. That’s lovely and I am happy for Cass and Duke stans but no matter how good the book might be, it is still a book that I am not interested in reading because it is not content that has what makes me want to read a DC book.

If you want to know learn about these characters then I would suggest looking for blogs that talk about them or look for comics that revolve around them, and if after you read that and you still don’t feel any connection to them then that’s okay too!

Now, when you said this in your ask “like there's too many of them now. too saturated. how can i care about these additions and how they affect the dynamics of the group when the previous dynamics were so messily written beforehand” I have to say Anon, you give too much credit to DC. They certainly had written well developed dynamics way back then, but now all of them are gone and we are just left with mess and promises of characters having mended their relationships off camera if you will… Jason and Dick, Dick and Tim, Damian and Jason, Jason and Tim, all of these dynamics have been messed with or they have appeared out of nowhere and we are expected to just take it.

Sometimes I even think that DC leaches onto the progression and “development” that fandom comes up with and then just writes from there, let me explain myself a little better, you know how Jason and Tim suddenly became fandom’s idea of best bros? Well DC could have seen that and then give us those pages of them having brunch together and then teaming up against Dick in Robin War. Like, DC never makes the effort to explain their current family dynamics, we are just expected to take it and be like “this makes sense, of course Tim and Jason would be good friends, they just talked about Jason beating and almost killing Tim before and now they are best of friends, they also don’t mind the fact that they have opposing ways on how to deal with crime, nothing matters, just…believe us when we tell you they are besties”.

DC just hates developing dynamics now, and they refuse to acknowledge that they have given every dynamic that Dick used to have with these people to Jason and the reason why it doesn’t work is because Jason and Dick are very different characters and they should understand that just because Dick used to be written as having a solid relationship with Tim and Damian, it doesn’t mean that Jason needs to have those same exact relationships with them now. And, this me and my “leave Jason alone” narrative being outed, but Jason shouldn’t be written as if he cared enough about all these people, like what? Leave me alone! It doesn’t make sense; they barely know each other and it just makes Jason’s character a basic copy of Dick. Leave Chonky alone DC!!!!

What is it with me and not being able to stick to the topic? Why did I just go there? It doesn’t matter, to end this post I just want to say that not being able to keep up or not being interested in all these new and/or old characters is perfectly reasonable and no one should ever feel pressured into liking a character or anything of the sort. You not feeling anything for those characters shouldn’t suck, it is just how things work sometimes.

That obviously has to go hand in hand with still being respectful of the characters that we are not interested in and their stans, yeah, I might not care about a character but I won’t go out of my way to be nasty about them either.

I hope this response as put your mind at ease a little bit Anon, please don’t feel bad about not being able to connect with characters, you keep on liking who you like and keep exploring whatever seems interesting to you!