#i just. hate how she's reduced to nothing but person b in a ship

[jazforthesoul]

every time someone reduces CAPTAIN !!! elizabeth "lizzie" lafayette down to "a sad lesbian" a fairy dies bc i shoot it with my gun. like you're telling me you were spoon-fed a character that has one of the most realistic and RAW representations of grief and perseverance in the series and all you got from that was "she's sad" ????

is she a constantly happy character? Fuck no! that's acknowledged!! but to take EVERYTHING that she is, which has positive and negative aspects THAT ARE BOTH SHOWN, to take the fact that she is THE DRIVING FORCE OF THE MAIN BACKGROUND PLOT, and reduce her down to NOTHING but her relationships?? ?what the hell!!!

[imagining-in-the-margins]

🌈CM Pride Challenge🏳️‍⚧️

The following are prompts including LGBTQA+ PRIDE! Reader, Original Character, Character/Character ships, Gen/Platonic fics are allowed!Please check out the Rules below the Keep Reading.

This event is over (Masterlist of Fics here), but you are welcome to use any of these prompts. If you would like to be added to the existing Masterlist of entries, please check out the Rules below!

General Prompts 🏳️‍🌈

Coming out is so much harder the second time

Describe Character’s first kiss with the same gender

Describe Character(s) spending a day at a Pride parade

The team realizes that A&B were more than roommates

Penelope goes a little overboard on rainbow decorations at Characters’ wedding

Character's marriage mutually comes to an end when they come out... now what?

Character comes out at the same time they announce their new relationship to the team

Character A fears it’s too late for them to live authentically, and B assures them that’s not true

Character A gifts B something colored like their pride flag because “the colors reminded me of you”

Child realizes that not every kid has two moms/two dads and they have a lot of questions about it

Queer characters have a hard time deciding what their child should call them and come up with fun ideas

Character A goes to a LGBT bar with B as a wingperson (or maybe they want them, themselves?)

Anything else you can think of!

More prompts (transgender, assorted, dialogue) below!

Transgender Prompts 🏳️‍⚧️

Character A helps B get their first tailored dress/suit

Character A helps B shave and/or put on makeup

The couple is looking for gender neutral nicknames

Character A buys B specialty gender affirming lingerie

Character is casually referred to with an appropriately gendered nickname for the first time

Characters are renewing their vows and redoing their wedding photos following a coming out

Character A walks in on B wearing a new gender-affirming outfit and surprises them with an enthusiastic compliment

The team throws Character an impromptu first birthday party following their coming out (how did they get a banner so fast?!)

Character A buys B a gender affirming but stereotypical gift (sports jersey, neon pink purse, etc.) that they would otherwise hate (but find absolutely hilarious)

Specific Prompts 💝

[Bisexual] Character gets irritated when people reduce their sexuality to their current partner

[Bisexual] Character A is in a M/F relationship with B and worries that their queer identity will become invisible dating them

[Asexual] Characters explore different forms of non-sexual intimacy

[Asexual] Characters are both asexual but too nervous to tell one another. They awkwardly attempt to have sex but end up laughing at how ridiculous they feel.

Dialogue Prompts 💐

“Are they… flirting?” “Big time.”

“I got to fall in love with you twice.”

“To be seen is to be loved." "I see you.”

“Be gay, do crimes.” “Aren’t you a cop?”

“There is no heterosexual explanation for that.”

“Life is very different once you find your people.”

“Cardinals and hydrangeas can change. Why not you?”

“You're still the person I love. Nothing will change that.”

“We both wear pants. Makes it easier to kick your ass.”

“It’s never felt like this before. I've never felt like this before.”

“I guess it makes sense now why it never worked out with my exes.”

Am I allowed to look at her like that? Could it be wrong when she's just so nice to look at? ("She" by Dodie)

“You can kiss a hundred boys in bars, shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling ... Well, good luck, babe. You'd have to stop the world just to stop the feeling.” ("Good Luck, Babe!" by Chappell Roan)

Rules ❤️🧡💚����💜🖤🤎

The fic can be a Reader insert, an Original Character, a character/character ship, a platonic ship, or a Gen fic. It can feature any Criminal Minds character. AUs and crossovers are more than welcome.

Tag me in the fic, or send the link to me in a Direct Message. It can be already written, or you can write it for the challenge - I’m collecting both! You can also tag it “#mentioningmargins” which is a tag I track.

The fic can be any genre, but ONLY send me smut if your bio states you are 18+. I DO NOT WANT smut written by minors. Ever. At all. I will check.Platonic ships and pure, fluffy fics are 100% allowed.

Please include Content Warnings and a one-sentence Summary of the fic in your post.

Have fun!

🌈Happy writing! 🏳️‍⚧️

[tevanbegins]

Random musings I wanted to share with my fellow Buck x Tommy stans. Read and humour me, please. 😉

So being in this 9-1-1 ship war is kinda making me feel like we are in the film 'My Best Friend's Wedding.' Here's my analysis of the movie and how it is relevant to the whole Buck-Tommy-Eddie conflict in the fandom:

Julia Roberts' character Jules represents the B*ddies, Cameron Diaz's character Kimmy represents us Bucktommies, and the hero Michael represents Buck who is caught in the middle of it all.

So in the movie, Jules (B*ddies) tries every trick in the book to sabotage Kimmy (Bucktommies) and split her and Michael (Buck) up. But all her desperate attempts are ultimately in vain, because Michael truly loves Kimmy, and the film ends on a happy and positive note with Michael and Kimmy getting married and Michael and Jules staying best friends (or should I say buddies, pun totally intended 💀) as they always were.

You know where I am going with this rambling right? (Also, please watch the movie if you haven't. 😁) Below are a few noteworthy points and takeaways from the film:

• Kimmy came later in Michael's life, but there was practically nothing to hate about her and there was no denying that she was great for him. So, even though Jules thought Michael was rightfully hers because she had been a part of his life much longer and tried to paint Kimmy as the villain, she failed because Kimmy was never the bad guy in the story as she was hell bent on making her out to be.

[Takeaway: Finding your true love in someone doesn't always need a long history of acquaintance or friendship with that person. Also, the new person doesn't automatically become the wrong choice for endgame because of the lack of said history. Neither is the BFF entitled to your romantic affections just because you've been too close for too long. Platonic soulmates can be a thing too.]

• Kimmy never tried to undermine Jules' significance in Michael's life as his best friend. Even though Kimmy and Michael got their happy endgame, the film didn't dismiss the importance of Jules and Michael's friendship.

[Takeaway: Buck's thriving romance with Tommy is not a threat to his friendship with Eddie and vice versa. Both relationships are different and are beautiful in their own ways. In fact, Buck and Tommy's love story began with Tommy clarifying that he understood his deep bond with Eddie and so he never intended to get in between that.]

So, my point is, Buck x Tommy being endgame is never going to reduce the significance of Buck and Eddie's friendship. It will always be important because it is beautiful, and if the Tevan romance is hampering certain people's enjoyment of B*ddie, that is because they can't look past their desperate want of a romantic/sexual relationship between those friends. They themselves are sending out the message that Buck and Eddie's friendship has zero value if it doesn't end in a romance, that the multiple years/seasons of developing a strong bond between those two is useless if they don't eventually fuck.

The difference between us Tevan stans and those B*ddie truthers is that we accept and acknowledge how important Eddie will always be to Buck even if he falls in love with Tommy, whereas the BoBs so badly want to believe that Tommy is a villain because he is the cockblock to their delusions (pardon my language). If Buck-Eddie's friendship in and of itself genuinely mattered to them, Tommy's arrival would never have ruffled their feathers. So they can whine and cry foul all they want, but nothing is going to change the fact that Buck x Tommy is as beautiful and important a romance as Buck x Eddie is as a friendship on the show, just as the message in the movie depicts.

To conclude, I have faith that Tevan will keep rising and flourishing and winning over all the stupid hate! Hope you'll enjoyed my little piece of romcom-inspired wisdom!

[salvatoreren]

In regard to your anti Rhaenicent about what’s the purpose of Alicent’s character other than being Rhaenyra’s love interest, I’m just going to say it: she doesn’t have one.

The writers screwed her up big time and this is something I’ve seen both pro Alicent and anti Alicent fans agree on. They desperately want her to be a victim of evil men because it’s the only way Rhaenicent can work. If she actively schemes against Rhaenyra then how can there still be hope for them? She needs to be a complete doormat with 0 personality, someone who is ready to set herself on fire just to keep Rhaenyra warm.

Who is this for exactly? Her fans hate it because they don’t want their favourite character to be reduced to nothing more than a glorified cardboard cutout. Her haters aren’t thrilled either because this nonstop victimisation is whitewashing her crimes.

Ryan Condal and Sarah Hess are ready for this show to crash and burn than accept they made a mistake by trying to force a ship that doesn’t exist in canon.

i totally agree with you for this, alicent has no purpose in the story but a perpetual victim, stripped of her agency, her ambition, all of that is reduced to her love for rhaenyra, that, all she did was for her, that she wanted to save her which is funny because you wouldn't constantly abuse, undermine or spread slanders of her and her sons if you love them so much, if you wanted to save or protect them. if you love them so much, you wouldn't instantly believe that rhaenyra would have it out for your children just because your father told you so...

when you think of alicent hightower nowadays, you don't think of the woman who herself made the green faction, who was her son's staunch supporter, who wanted it herself with no interference from her father that aegon should be king, no, when you think of alicent hightower, it's the woman who can't decide what she wants for herself, who is always fraying by the seams and always overruled by the men around her, who is rhaenyra's childhood companion, rhaenyra's so called first love and that's it. there is nothing powerful about her in the show.

and like i said, she's not complex as some may think she is, she's inconsistent, she doesn't know what she wants, she doesn't know whether to declare for rhaenyra or aegon when she has constantly worked hard for the latter to seat the throne, she switches it up every once in a while and you might argue, that's realistic, it's not, because, alicent clearly has ambitions that has been solidified for 10 years but that one moment she hurt rhaenyra, suddenly she forgets what she wants? as if she didn't abuse rhaenyra for those 10 years, like what.

in my opinion, rhaenicent could still work, young them of course but ultimately they chose themselves, that's why i vehemently hate this ship because of how much it's been shoved in our throats that there is still hope after all the atrocious shit they've done to each other, why couldn't their death be the fact that alicent ultimately chose power for herself? why did it have to be that she waged war because she was lied to?

let alicent plot against rhaenyra, let rhaenyra be brutal, be indifferent to alicent, let them fight each other but because it is of their own accord; that alicent cared more about her son's claim, that rhaenyra cared more about hers. not because they are forced to by the men in their lives.

but it's misognystic???? yeah, well there are many positive female friendships in f&b; rhaenyra/laena, rhaenys/rhaenyra, that were erased just to show that the patriarchy will always turn women against each other and how that's bad.

[some-pers0n]

For the ask game: 1, 8, 10, 14, 23

Oh boy quite a lot. Let's do it.

1 - The Character Everyone Gets Wrong

For Wof no joke it's gotta be Qibli. So many people write him off as a goofy silly guy who thinks a lot and is really smart when honestly he's a massive overthinker with horrible social anxiety and uses a cocky and confident persona to a) cope and b) try to make friends. He's not a joke-spewing machine that can't read the room and stop when somebody is in distress.

For TF2 it's probably Saxton Hale. Yeah he's funny and cool, but he's not really a good boss like. at all. Not even a good person before the comics. He was characterized as a guy who liked hunting endangered animals and selling terrible and cheap weapons to keep the Gravel War going. It's 500% more funny when he's got jokes about how unions and workers rights are a nasty thorn in his side.

8 - Common Fandom Opinion Everyone is Wrong About

[Insert character] being a Mary Sue. Typically it's Glory or Moon. Glory is a victim of poor character writing and favouritism on Tui's part and Moon's entre character is reduced to a plot device. Those aren't Mary Sues but just poorly written characters in ways different than a Sue. Plus I also just Hate the term and would rather people like...elaborate more on what they say as opposed to using vague buzzwords.

For TF2 it's probably that Engie is boring, both in gameplay and lore. For starters, put on the Gunslinger and Rescue Ranger and stop turtling in the same spots every round. Secondly, Engie's personality is one of the most fascinating due to it kinda being a little cover up. Not even to mention his whole family. So cool and interesting....

10 - Worst Part of Fanon

Hmmmm,,,flanderization is always terrible. I hate it especially with Qinter stuff since a good chunk of it horribly misses the mark of who Qibli and Winter (and even by extension Moon) are and what makes them click. Their whole this is that they have a persona and I feel Qinter as a whole should be based on them putting aside their exaggerated personalities and finding solidarity and comfort within being around each other as their pure selves. This and also the infantalization of characters like Whiteout. All my homes hate that.

Same thing can be said for TF2. Me and my homies hate Nazi Medic. Medic likes his coworkers, he just is a bit silly like that.

14 - One Thing you See in Fics all the Time

For WoF, it's gotta be swearing. I literally don't know why it kinda irks me, but it feels weird when you're writing something serious and straight-forward while the dragon characters say the fuck word. Nothing against it, I just...I dunno.

For TF2 it's always the goddamn shoe-horned in racism/queerphobia. Please man I don't need you to get up on your soap box and tell me that the 60s wasn't good for queers and people of colour I'm trying to read Old Man Yaoi. It's especially annoying when certain characters (ex: Soldier) only exist to really fulfill the role of being the person who make it "period accurate" by including 12 extremely harmful and horrible slurs in every sentence they speak.

23 - Ship You've Unwillingly Come Around To

For WoF: Cleril somehow. The "Cleril is good :)" -> "Peril is toxic and this relationship will never work" -> "Cleril is good :)" pipeline is real. Peril HAS been getting help and is vastly improving. She is doing so incredibly well. She uses Clay as a moral compass, but she's aware of that and trying to change. It's not that bad of a ship ngl.

For TF2: Jagerbombs (Demo/Medic). I'm God's strongest aro/ace Medic enjoyer so I like them best as friends, but honestly they're just great together. Literally written up like 19k words of these morons. Never would've thought in a million years I'd do it (especially considering how I'm the No. 4 Science Party person ever) but they're just wonderful. Honestly like them better than HeavyMed– *gets shot*

[chaos0pikachu]

So I'm gonna go against the grain here a bit b/c this is a rant that's just built up for to long, but I actively dislike the "Luffy loves like a child/Luffy is a big kid" infantilization of Luffy. It reduces down all the best and most interesting parts of his character, feels like an excuse for ship wars not to ship him with specific characters and removes him from his own cultural context.

Like, Luffy is pretty clearly, and obviously based loosely around Son Goku both the character from Dragonball but also Sun Wukong from Journey to the West, aka the Monkey King. Dragonball is a hugely influential piece of media on shounen in general, and it predates One Piece by almost a decade - publication for Dragonball started in 1984 and ended 1995 whilst One Piece wouldn't start serialization until 1997 in Shounen Jump. Oda even details how influential Akira Toriyama's work was on him growing up and also this bit:

There's even a whole bit in Sun Wukong's history about him fighting a Dragon King (Kaido anyone?):

"Sun Wukong immediately leapt through the waterfall and traveled up the stream to find its source. His mission was successful, and he quickly returned and declared himself king. With the support of the forest monkeys, Sun Wukong quickly established himself as a powerful forest demon that would go on to battle the Dragon King and other sea demons." (source)

Now I'm not saying Luffy is like, a direct reference/incarnation of Sun Wukong or Goku, just that Oda takes a lot of inspiration from a lot of places and blends them all together in a protein smoothie and splatters it out on page.

With the Nika reveal and honestly, the most current chapters, Luffy is is meant to be seen as a liberator, but also a shounen char that goes against the standard. Oda specifically didn't want Luffy to lose "the expressions" that he found to be important to manga. Which is why Gear 5 looks like it does.

"Battle mangas have to keep getting more and more serious in order to meet the fans expectations and I've always hated that." (source)

It has nothing to do with Luffy being "child like" which, just ew everybody needs to stop this. What makes Luffy childish? That he's openly physically affectionate? That he's loud? That he's joyful? That he's reckless?

Y'all have never been to a Latin party and I can tell. (hey did everyone know that Oda said Luffy would be Brazilian "in the real world"? Now ya do!).

Luffy has a ton of emotional intelligence, if he didn't where would the crew be? Who would have known to go after Nami even after she rejected the crew? Or Robin? Or Sanji? Would Water 7 hit as hard if Luffy was just a kid "playing pirates" with Ussop? Would Alabasta or Drum Island work as much if Luffy didn't understand Chopper and Vivi on an emotional level? Dressarosa? Wano? Would Luffy punching the Celestrial Dragon work as well if he wasn't a highly emotionally motivated and intelligent character?

Luffy's whole thing is he goes to an island, meets a person, adopts them (like a true latino), learns about their issues, and decides to fight somebody in the streets b/c they made their new bestie cry.

Oh hey Robin the government is bullying you? Ussop burn the fucking flag.

People think Luffy made that decision on a whim? Luffy's dumb but he isn't stupid; Robin didn't want to live more so she didn't think she deserved to because of what the world government did to her. She needed assurance that the Straw Hats were ride-or-die for her, that they weren't going to abandon her, that not only were they going to rescue her, they were going to sail with her. Luffy knew Robin needed a commitment, and Luffy is a char of action it wasn't enough to simply say "we're going to rescue you" (as he already tried talking) Robin's trauma went to deep. She needed proof, an action, a commitment and Luffy understood that.

Same with Nami; Luffy simply waited, he knew Nami wanted to be with them, but she couldn't bring herself to admit it, to be 'weak'. So he waited, he knew she wasn't just not a bad person but that she wanted to be crew. But she needed to ask for help herself so Luffy could assure her him and the crew would be there for her.

Same with Sanji during Whole Cake (which I would go into but I don't think OP has gotten to Whole Cake yet); Luffy knew what Sanji needed to hear to come back.

"Luffy is a child" no he's not Luffy is mi chepito, mi que lindo mijo. He's a thoroughly interesting character who represents hope, joy, and liberation (like, literally, in the narrative). He'd also 100% eat a donut off the floor after an hour because it's free food and has totally tried to fit his fist and Zoro's in his mouth before.

I just wish people would give Luffy more credit this isn't the 90s anymore, stop channeling the 4kids dub energy y'all.

like idk idk idk but its a little weird the way that parts of the fandom infantilize luffy and reduce him to a dumb kid who punches hard. 'oh he's so childlike' 'oh he doesn't understand' 'oh he's so naive'. babes. he's SILLY. he views the world with a childlike wonder and prioritizes freedom n fun but he KNOWS the worst parts of life. he's seen it. his crew are a bunch of suicidal strays with tragic backstories who he gives a home. he fights oppression with his fists. he destroyed the map room at arlong park because he knew it was the physical representation of nami's trauma. when he wants to be he is so perceptive its scary (figuring out how a person ticks, his emotional intelligence, figuring out weaknesses like crocodile's (water) in minutes). he can be grim and gravely serious when necessary. but his default is his love for life and the adventure ahead of him

[wolfsneedles]

im sorry but otis and maeve exacerbate the goodness and badness both in each other and this makes them special and more connected with their glimpses, gestures and inability to stay away for longer. unless ur telling me there are other superior ships too but the ending of s3 ep7 was so so special. Otis and Maeve's ending lines in the rain scene is pretty PRETTY indicative of who at least should be with whom, when its always been them in each others mind. Now idk what would writers do or make of it in s4 and cliffhanger like ending, but all love interests added were poorly added and gave us false hope for both characs to be with someone else like isaac/ruby thing, however the entire thing as eric says too, "happened bcs of otis and maeve coming together with special diff traits and bonds to form the best clinic that offers pretty feasible and amateur like opinions which in turn polished otis' skills of helping people more and also for maeve who was already pretty smart and bright ahead of her times, in her speech and tastes" and this was entire reason and beginning of the best season which led to clinical education, awareness for teenagers while otis and maeve also navigate through each others lives and troubles and love and ways of communicating since both have a different way of communicating and both adhere to each other and also give each other space more, (or maybe bcs i do prefer that ship more than others, im just so hyped at every scene and moment). However the best moment for me wasn't the bus scene kiss moment in france but when otis and maeve were both kicked out of sexed class for open and different opinions against or anti to whatever prude and harsh concepts Hope was instilling in people, a lot of ppl and characters owned up to their sexuality and rebelled but Otis and Maeve rejecting the idea and challenging and arguing but then also being kicked out of class is very special moment and a parallel between them that so many perhaps don't notice, It also tells how differently in choices, they are so connected in thoughts, Maeve never shrugged off otis and he doesn't bother her only and until they both knew they couldn't really stay away and he made an effort even after f_cking up to stay in his life, and apologized and competed rather foolishly with isaac but all this bottled down again to ruby and isaac just used for story development and then removed from scenes but in a way i think, it is best for them since otis and maeve are both confused about each other & overall relationships, i think they both would take things v slowly and they are that kind of patient couple if they are a couple.....which i cant see hope of. It all actually just started from them too, which led to graffitis and sexual topics to be embraced and accepted more, bcs idk if someone also noticed how otis has so much of jean in him, and even if he is embarrassed by his mother sometimes, the genes just reflect in him. He is good at articulating and smooth and i think maeve picks it up quickly, they don't even guess when they are together, and they both have innate desire to help ppl esp maeve under that hard rock shell of an exterior, she is the most selfless and forgiving person, maybe too much, and lets go of a lot of stuff, always looks forward to future and is quite pragmatic even but in sense of otis, they both are always inexplicably drawn and held together to each other by some bitter false or sweet ripe memory of their previous days and its so funny or adorable to see them actually cling foolishly to their past encounter messages, moments, talks, and dreams/jokes of having a clinic. We see eric as bestfriend of Otis rooting for them too, and so does Aimee (which is weak evidence or parallel since writers are putting hints like this always but it is always jeopardized somehow in the end too so im not hoping or keeping too high hopes on anything).

The rain moment in s3ep7 is the most heart-warming because maeve now doesn't push otis back and neither does she falls back on isaac somehow, and she welcomes his opinion again, only this time they actually confess in pretty open words & expressions which is more meaningful and rigorous and sparkling than the RainmomentInFrance which i think was, meaningless or maybe just a way to bring them close together.

You cannot tell me this is excellent dialogue exchange and yet so simple with breath your name by Sixpence playing in the BG,

Otis: "It was never about the clinic, it was to be close to you ��� and even if we aren't romantically together, id like to see you everyday, Nothing feels right when you aren't here"

This is more about companionship and soulmate-ism too than just a sexual relationship or deep crush situation. Even if they aren't together romantically, and still wanting to be close to her is big big thing & detail for at least something good and warm for them in future, because he hasn't confessed this to anyone or ruby even which was initially a casual relationship even. This explains pretty well that even if they aren't together or intended to be together, - the staying close + together or near each other is enough to make day.

Maeve: "It wasn't about the money for me, it was also to be close to you too

Maeve doesn't say much but a) smiles when he says we can be team and due to nearness to her he wanted to work on further and b).she exclaims and rebuts his claim that she was in it for money only when she has never been lucky in family/financial dept and wanted to be close to her too, but also how this was method for her to earn money too so like double benefit because maeve does need money and we cannot reduce her to romantic person only but the hardworking intelligent and practical persona she carries and embodies! and wants to rise academically and also does it selflessly, doesn't obstruct or infringe on someone's rights like most people do. But she also does admit at the same time it wasnt just for the money. With the background music score this moment might be the best cliché end or romantic confession even if in future it doesn't mean much because words...are winds and fade away, but i cannot deny the canon visible goodness these both characters bring out in one another, its like they do compliment and fit each other which i always find quite evident from s1 until s2 made their friendship too sour but its about what they bring in each other and only think abt themselves in each others presence. When they are with someone else they think about other things clouding their mind yet sometimes when they talk to each other, its like they both do comfort each other or it wouldn't have pained the writers to show how visibly hateful they are if they were. Perhaps the abortion moment in s1 was also very warm and changed my mind so much abt them, its like how otis is always there in worse situations for maeve along with aimee too ofc, and sometimes its childish to see him try so hard and desperate to be there but she eventually lets him in.

[marmarparadoxa]

Hi! I was quite surprised to see even tho hanji is loved in japan, she is heavily criticized even among her fans. they say hanji is too idealistic or too soft to be a commander or indecisive and bad at negotiation or too weird to be a diplomat. Being compared to sannes and shadis (gets in the way of progress, lies to ppl or bystander). she couldn't throw away any important things, so she couldn't change anything (references Armin quote).

(same anon) she couldn't move forward that's why she died. she can't understand others feeling. being naive/easily deceived. There's also this image of levi being selfish who made hanji suffer as commander to make erwin rest not caring about humanity and became passive post time-skip leaving her do most of the work, took her feeling and presence for granted. I'm sorry for the negativity but I hated these takes and really wanted to know your opinion.

Do you think Yams purposely ignored Hanji throughout the story or reduce her character to a bad commander? She didn’t get enough screen time and she was mainly shown as an insecure and overwhelmed commander and not having a plan or a solution to all the mess that was going on. I also felt like she seemed to be just a placeholder between Erwin and Armin. Do you think yams hated her maybe b/c she is an idealist or he thinks she is an unimportant character?

Hi anons! I’ve decided to answer your questions together, since they both broadly revolve around the same topic. Hope you don’t mind.

About those takes about Hange in the fandom...well, while some are funny enough (like “too weird to be a diplomat” what), others are nasty (“she couldn’t move forward, that’s why she died” you mean it wasn’t because of Eren’s Rumbling that Hange had to die? ...), and none of them makes any sense to me. Anyway, I think one can have quite an idea about the mindsets, and the sympathies associated with these ideas.

For one thing, I feel like a lot of Hange hate probably comes from those who think that what they were trying to do wasn’t right in the first place. In other words, those who support Eren’s actions, and thus think Eren was right in committing genocide, and killing millions of innocent people as the only sensible way to save Paradis. Consequently, I imagine they think of Hange as a traitor, and indecisive because they couldn’t throw away anything, aka accepting to massacre the rest of humanity just for the safety of their own island? To be honest these are mainly suppositions because my fandom experience is basically restricted to safe spaces only lol, so I don’t really know what these people's thought processes are.

As a second reason, I guess that, probably, there still are some that wonder at Hange’s alleged incompetence as commander, without taking into account that what they were dealing with as commander of the SC weren’t mindless titans or Paradis’ politics any more, but a world-wide racial conflict backed by a two-thousand years long history of hatred between Eldians and the rest of the world. And while their only external ally, Hizuru, wouldn’t raise a finger to actually help them but only thought about exploiting their predicament for their profit, they also had to deal with Eren, which suddenly turned their back to them, and decided to attack Liberio, thus cutting away forever whatever hope they might have had of resolve things peacefully. Ah, yes, how incompetent of Hange not having been able to resolve all this.

As regards the Levi towards Hange part, then, I see that there are some persons who not only hate the ship, but would also try in every way to downplay, or deny the significance of Levi and Hange relationship in the story. There’s no point in engaging in this kind of hateful discourse, I think.

Getting to what was Isayama’s purpose about Hange, and why did he choose to show them like that… Well, very simply, I think Isayama needed the Rumbling to happen in this story. Also, and this is what’s troubling me, I kinda got the impression that his intention was to make the Rumbling look like something unavoidable, the only realistic solution Paradis had. As a consequence of this, anyway, he couldn’t have other characters, such as Hange, having concrete plans and solutions for all this mess (except for Zeke’s euthanasia plan, which however was supposed to be thought of as an unacceptable and cruel plan by the majority of the readers). It had nothing to do with reducing Hange’s character, and showing them in a bad light, nor with any other character not having been able to confront Eren (till Mikasa killed him), and having Eren had his own way till the end. All this is about the story Isayama wanted to draw, what kind of obscure message he’s trying to convey, and where his sympathies lie.

As regards what I think in particular about Hange’s arc post time-skip, and their role as commander, you can read my thoughts in this meta and here.

[bloodraven55]

“But Bumbleby was rushed/forced to pander to the gays—”

There are a number of glaring flaws in this argument, most of all the fact that no straight relationship is ever called “forced” or “pandering” even if people don’t like it, let alone “rushed” when it’s only on the verge of officially happening seven seasons into the show, but I want to break down all of the many levels on which it’s wrong in order to hopefully kill it once and for all.

“It came out of nowhere—”

Jaune was crushing on Weiss the second he saw her, Sun was crushing on Blake the moment he saw her, Pyrrha developed feelings for Jaune in just one Volume and showed some interest from the moment she saw him, and Blake goes from being consistently annoyed at Sun throughout Volumes 1 and 2 to suddenly having a crush on him in Volume 3.

If Bumbleby supposedly “came out of nowhere,” then so did W/hite Knight, A/rkos, and B/lacksun. But no one ever has an issue with the speed at which those characters started having romantic interest in each other. And I’m not even saying they should—they’re all very valid ships and whether they came out of nowhere or not isn’t the point of this—but there’s a clear double standard applied to same sex ships as opposed to heterosexual ships here and it invalidates this point right out of the gate.

“It was rushed—”

Blake and Yang are only just now close to becoming an official couple after more than six whole Volumes of knowing each other. There is no possible universe where this would qualify as “rushed.” Again, W/hite Knight and B/lacksun albeit both one-sided at least to begin with both became obvious things within literal episodes of the characters meeting, and Jaune and Pyrrha were showing blatant romantic interest in each other by Volume 2 before kissing in Volume 3.

In the last case you can argue that it went at a faster pace because Pyrrha was going to die, but that doesn't change the fact that no one complained that it went too quickly—or about the other two ships I mentioned which were both initially based solely on one (1) instance of a guy showing interest in a girl—and yet people say it’s too soon for Blake and Yang to get together when they’ve had over twice as long for their relationship to develop.

“The shippers forced it into the show—”

I don’t think I even need to add any more here when the words of CRWBY speak for themselves.

“Toxic shippers think everything is gay—”

I mean, I’m gay and I only truly ship a handful of the possible same sex pairings in the show—certainly far from the majority of them—and I also ship a number of straight ships, but go off I guess.

I already made a post on this here, but it’s insanely dismissive and ridiculous for heterosexual people i.e. the ones who usually use this “argument” to assume that they know better than actual LGBT+ people what is or isn’t good LGBT+ representation, and for them to assume that just because they missed build up that it therefore isn’t there.

I can’t take someone seriously when they go into a discussion determined to believe that they’re already right and don’t listen to a word you say to prove otherwise, especially when they’re debating on a topic which doesn’t directly affect them and which they don’t have the same level of firsthand knowledge of.

“The wasps only care about Blake and Yang getting in each other’s pants—”

Actually, it’s the people who are most aggressively against Blake and Yang being a couple that tend to reduce their relationship to being entirely about sex even though they haven’t had a single remotely sexual interaction in the show, but if this were true then surely Bumbleby shippers would be very unhappy with the show because Blake and Yang have still not “got in each other’s pants,” or “swapped clit juice” as I once saw someone tastefully describe it?

But that isn’t right. Because in general us Bee shippers are currently exceedingly happy with everything that’s happening in the show to do with Blake and Yang’s relationship. So how can that be if all we care about is whether they fuck or not?

The answer is of course that we don’t only care about whether they fuck or not—in fact most of us couldn’t care less whether it’s ever so much as hinted that they have sex, both because the show almost certainly won’t ever go there and because that isn’t our priority—we’re just enjoying watching them fall in love.

Honestly this argument is one of the most lazy because one look at RWBY will tell you that none of the romances are at all sexual thus far so any shippers who truly only care about that aspect wouldn’t stick around very long when they’ll just end up disappointed. And of course the way that these people inherently view same sex relationships as sexual is homophobic and disgusting too.

“CRWBY rushed it to give the rabid shippers what they want—”

Like the last two points, this is a “criticism” that I’ve only ever seen levelled at same sex ships and never straight ships, so it’s yet another example of double standards and hypocrisy, but that’s only the start of what’s wrong with it.

The most galling thing about this is that these people insist that all LGBT+ people because as I’ve already mentioned that is always the group which statements like this are aimed at just want to see two characters of the same gender make out as soon as possible, which is simply not true.

No one would ever claim that straight people just want to see a man and a woman get it on as soon as possible and dismiss the worth of a straight relationship because of it. So it’s ridiculous to try and force that logic onto shippers of same sex ships, who are primarily LGBT+ people themselves.

If anything, we care even more about the quality of our ships—how healthy they are, whether they’re well built up or not, etc.—because we hardly have any to begin with in comparison. If one straight ship is rushed or poorly written, then there are plenty of well-handled ones to choose from instead, but the same isn’t the case for same sex ships.

We want to be represented well, which means that we want healthy relationships with plenty of development where the characters actually have chemistry and complement each other. We might still support rushed or badly-written same sex ships sometimes because it’s still representation which we are overall sorely lacking, but we don’t want them.

“But they ship baited with Blake and Sun—”

First off, straight ships can’t be baited the same way that same sex ships can. It’s simply not a comparable situation. But of course B/lacksun shippers are entitled to feel disappointed that their ship didn’t become canon. That’s utterly valid and understandable. However, that doesn’t mean that the writers or the show in any way misled viewers regarding what was happening.

“But Sun winked at Blake—”

And Yang also winked at Blake in Volume 2 while asking her to the dance, just like Sun winked at Blake in Volume 1 and then asked Blake to the dance. And Blake turned Sun down when he asked initially, specifically told him that they were only “technically” going together when she ran into him outside, and told him definitively that she had chosen to give her first dance to Yang.

“But Blake blushed at Sun—”

And now she’s also blushed at Yang, in a far more intimate scene at that. Next point.

“But Sun met Blake’s parents—”

And? Simply meeting someone’s parents doesn’t on any level automatically imply romance. Ghira didn’t even like Sun, and while a lot of people like to claim that Kali “ships it” which would be extremely flimsy evidence to base the canonicity of a ship on anyway, she’s someone who would do the same with anyone Blake brought home so it means nothing. If Blake had actually chosen to take Sun home with her herself then this would be a valid point, but she didn’t, so it has no weight whatsoever overall.

“But Blake kissed Sun on the cheek—”

And I kiss my mother on the cheek the exact same way every time I say goodbye to her. If you think that type of kiss on the cheek has to be romantic then quite frankly I’m not sure what world you’re living in. If the camera had been close up, if there had been any shots at all of their reactions, any blushing or lingering looks, a more private setting— literally anything to give it some actual weight and make it feel significant, then this might mean something, but it’s framed as a totally platonic goodbye with zero romantic coding.

And that’s without even mentioning the fact that right after that moment Sun flat out states that his time with Blake was “never about [romance],” which sort of kills the idea that anything about that scene was supposed to be taken as romantic. There was no reason to include that line except to make it clear to the audience that Sun and Blake parted ways as friends who now have no intention of ever becoming anything more.

Seriously, if they wanted us to think that there was still something there, then Blake would have been shown to be thinking about or missing Sun even one since they separated, but he hasn’t been brought up for even a second. If they wanted to set up a continuation of anything romantic for them when the group reach Vacuo, say, then they would have started doing it by now.

Plus the reverse argument that Blake and Sun have never hugged or held hands—both of which Blake and Yang have done multiple times—works just as well, perhaps even better since handholding is a well-established romantic cue in the show already thanks to A/rkos, R/enora, and O/zma and Salem.

“But why was Sun even there in Volumes 4 and 5 then—”

Because Blake needed a friend who she could exposition to about her thought processes and personal problems so that the audience could understand what she was going through, and she wasn’t as likely to open up to her parents about that stuff right away when she was convinced they’d hate her for leaving.

Sun was there to support Blake as she developed and to tell her that running away hurt the very people she was trying to protect. That was his narrative role in that arc. There was nothing to indicate that a romance was being built in those more than twenty episodes they spent together and if it was going to happen that would have been the time to do it.

On the other hand Blake and Yang’s shared arc together is built on the fact that Blake’s romantic ex, who Blake had already directly contrasted with Yang and whose Semblance was already a foil to Yang’s, maimed Yang specifically because Blake loves her. The basis of that arc has romantic weight, which is what makes the difference here. Though the scene at the end of Volume 3 where Adam takes Yang’s arm isn’t romantic in and of itself, I should clarify, it just has romantic significance in that it makes it clear that Blake and Yang’s feelings go beyond mere friendship.

In short, the summary of this whole section pretty much boils down to: two characters spending time together doesn't inherently equal romantic development, and it isn’t in any way “baiting�� if those two characters don’t then get together.

The characters’ feelings follow a fairly logical progression over the course of the show, with Blake showing interest in both Sun and Yang in V1-V3, then ceasing to show interest in Sun after that as their relationship becomes totally platonic by Volume 5/the beginning of Volume 6 at the very latest, while the events of the Fall of Beacon only solidified how strong her feelings for Yang were and once she reunites with Yang their relationship begins to head towards romance.

It’s a pretty realistic depiction of how human feelings work, and a far less messy situation than in a lot of other shows where there isn’t the same massive level of hatred and vitriol towards the “victorious” pairing, because this was never even really presented as a love triangle or rivalry.

To conclude, I just want to list some of the contradictions that I’ve seen within the arguments made against Bumbleby, because I think it’s very telling that the people who are against it can’t even settle on one coherent narrative on why it’s bad.

“Bumbleby has no development, but also the show focusses too much on Bumbleby.”

“Monty wouldn’t have wanted Bumbleby—it goes against his vision—even though I didn’t know him and have no idea what his vision actually was, and he explicitly stated that he wanted LGBT+ characters in the show who might already be in the main cast and that he wanted Blake and Yang to have a shared arc together, as well as being responsible for the set up of that arc with Blake and Yang being introduced as Beauty and the Beast while Adam canonically represents Gaston.”

“The Bumbleby shippers have so much influence that they forced the writers to make the ship canon, but they’re also just a vocal minority who don’t matter.”

“Blake and Yang hardly interact—they’re barely even friends—but they also interact too much and it’s making Bumbleby take over the show.”

“Arryn is a victim of the toxic wasps who harrassed her and sent her death threats for saying that the song Bmblb doesn't automatically make the ship canon, which there is zero evidence of,  but Arryn is also an unprofessional cunt for expressing her support of Bumbleby.”

“None of Blake and Yang’s scenes together are romantic so Bumbleby is forced, but even when they have undeniably romantic interactions I’ll ignore them or deny that they mean anything so I can still pretend it has no build up.”

“Bumbleby is bad because Team RWBY are a sisterhood, but all of the other straight relationships within teams—even those who’ve flat out called each other ”family”—are fine, and I’ll just pretend that there aren’t other definitions of the word sisterhood which have nothing to do with actual sisters and are the ones that actually apply in this case.”

“Blake and Yang’s relationship could be seen as romantic or platonic, but I personally think they’re just friends so Bumbleby is bad and came out of nowhere.”

I’ve seen all of these countless times with my own two eyes and it’s absolutely hilarious to be honest. Anyway that’s it. I have yet to see a single logical argument as to why Bumbleby is bad that isn’t made in bad faith, fallacious, or just doesn’t hold up when you actually look at the show. It’s about to be canon, and at this point to be honest anyone who doesn't like that can simply accept it or go and watch something else that will pander to their specific tastes instead.

[batfam-adventures]

(Commentary and thoughts on the problem with certain anti tags and frankly anti tags in general, be warned)

I'm going to be honest, there is nothing that infuriates me more than those who attack a ship, or a character as abusive for the reason of banter, poor writing verging on character assassination or astonishing reasons as one character being created to be a beard for the other.

To give an example, the TimSteph ship has attracted a lot of hate recently because apparently one of the two is abusive towards the other (mostly Steph).

Now, I'm not against preferring another ship to that one, such as StephCass or TimKon, or feeling that Steph has basically had a lot of her agency taken away recently, reducing her to just Tim's girlfriend and that causing people to distance themselves from the relationship, those are all fair enough reasons to not really like the ship. Even feeling like there is no chemistry is a reason, that I disagree with, but can respect.

What I can't respect are some of the reasons given for hating the ship.

To give an example, one tumblr outright stated that part of the reason (though not all of it) they hated Steph was because she was created by a homophobe (Chuck Dixon who IS conservative at the very least) to serve as beard for Tim.

Ignoring for a second that Tim is explicity sexually attracted to women (though considering the run that made that clearest was FabNic's version of Red Robin, I can understand not knowing about it), Steph was originally created to be a one-off character, it was fan popularity that caused her to return AND become a love interest for Tim. Even ignoring that, Tim was dating another girl named Arriana, which didn't work out for various reasons, the least of which was his constant absences to perform his duties as Robin.

Speaking of FabNic, it was his run as writer for Robin that is most often brought up when giving reasons to hate Steph and call her abusive. A run that was basically a rush job, when Dixon left DC again for unrelated reasons, where FabNic proceeded to write Steph hire Scarab of all people to fight Tim non-lethally after promising Batman to make him better. I'm going to be honest, I hated the idea of this to begin with, but someone pointed out how stupidly out of character Steph hiring Scarab was given that A) she would definitely not have the contacts to pull it off, and B) Scarab was the entire reason Steph got fired as Robin, resulting in a lot of trauma for her and I have to agree.

Combined with Steph being portrayed as unusually incompetent and her motivations being glossed over and it really reads like either A) FabNic had a vendetta against her character, meaning her character was hurt again almost immediately after being finally getting a break and having her incredibly spiteful death retconned or B) he was in such a rush due to being brought in to write the final arc of Robin in a hurry when Dixon left, that he didn't think his ideas through, and just wanted to get rid of Tim's supporting cast quickly and finish things up for the next writer to have a clean slate, causing him to write that mess of an arc.

To anyone unfamiliar with FabNic's work, the exact same thing happened in Red Robin when the Nu52 was about to happen, so he ended up butchering an entire arc he had planned, Tim's character suffering from an abrupt shift in coldness again when he was getting better and left the series on a frankly unsatisfying cliffhanger. So, I can completely see that as being what happened.

Now as for those who say that Steph's banter with Tim is cruel and abusive. This is something he canonically said very shortly before their relationship started.

So Tim definitely gave as good as he got.

Though this is nothing to what he once said to his first girlfriend, Arianna.

Not that I believe for a second Tim is actually sexist, but his banter can be unusually and unintentionally aggressive at times.

Now I'm not going to say a word about most of Yost's Red Robin run, but what helps is that Tim is not being portrayed as being in the right with many of his actions and gets called out as such, plus he was written pretty clearly to be in a mentally bad place.

Otherwise I and probably a lot of Tim's fans, hate the Batman jr. Character arc every writer (but Dixon ironically) seemed to have fixated on him having, making him become positively humourless for quite a while (especially in Teen Titans, but to be honest there are many fans of the YJ team who hated that run.) Which basically started with Steph and his dad's deaths by the way.

I'm not going to deny Tim and Steph had their fair share of drama before War Games, most notably the power imbalance caused by Tim knowing Steph's name, but being unable (yes, unable) to give her his. Tim had a reason for not telling Steph, Bruce making him promise not to, and he kept that promise even with the YJ team, and even made it clear that Steph couldn't know if they entered a relationship. That's all fair enough, even if Tim had a nasty habit of reminding Steph he knew her name while they were out in the open, putting her identity at risk and knew she hated it.

The stalking was caused when Tim implied he personally knew a girl they rescued, causing Steph to realise just how unbalanced their relationship was, since Tim could be cheating on her without her knowing due to the double life (and had in fact done so to his previous girlfriend Arianna, with Steph).

Which lets be honest, is also completely understandable as their relationship couldn't work long-term without it being equal knowledgewise.

Think about it, you're in a relationship with someone who refuses to tell you his real name, you may be able to recognise him without his mask on, but have no idea he goes to the same school as you since he makes sure to avoid you while simultaneously keeping an eye on you.

Tim himself realised this, since when Batman leaked his secret without his permission, he eventually made it clear he didn't blame Steph and that he should have been open with her when it began to trouble her.

As for Steph coming on to him when he had a girlfriend and wasn't interested, well this is what caused her to crush on him...

He had just been traumatised by being trapped underground with Cluemaster (brrr.) So kissing her in relief when he had a girlfriend was understandable, but it's also understandable that Steph thought he was interested in her especially since he never mentioned a girlfriend.

Amd Tim clearly cared for her in some way regardless judging from this page when Steph was kidnapped a few issues later.

As for Steph only being in love with Robin... the problem is that Steph made it clear once that she didn't care if Tim quit and she'd love him all the same.

So, no, I don't think Tim and Steph was an abusive ship, it might not be your cup of tea, but it's certainly not abusive, especially when written by a writer who isn't being rushed or got a lot on his plate.

As a side-note, it's worth noting that due to how the Tumblr Search Engine works, people not looking for Anti Tags, and instead quite the opposite, still end up finding them on occassion, so yes, they have a right to be annoyed and complain in private conversations.

I'm sorry if this devolved into a rant, but many anti threads have a nasty habit of focusing only on the bad, even when that bad isn't consistent characterisation. Whether we like the Character or not, we need to remember that having so many writers means that the Character will be screwed up occasionally. How many times has Batman learn not to be a jerk only to return to be a jerk almost immediately? How many times has Green Arrow gotten his act together only for another writer to have him return to cheating on Black Canary again?

We have to concede that any character can be screwed up by the wrong writer and we shouldn't hold that against them, especially when the stuff we don't like doesn't consistently happen.

[eradicatetehnormal]

Thinking About Soriku

While it's no longer my OTP, SoRiku is and likely always will among my favorite KH ships. I admit that part of that is because I went in with a bias, due to a fan comic type thing that I read, prior to finishing the first KH game. After playing the games and seeing the community I shipped it more.

To be completely honest though, I didn't really see the ship outside of THE scenes in KH2 and through that symphony of sorcery scene in DDD. It was when I interacted with the community more that I realized how much there was to the ship. How they pointed out details like Riku technically sharing the paopu with Sora and that being the keychain on the combined keyblade dubbed "the gayblade" by the community. How jealous Riku acted in KH1 while suspiciously being more focused on one-upping sora than actually saving Kairi. How Riku did everything in his power to make sure Sora can come back safely in KH2 and 179 days, and of course the entirety of how their relationship is portrayed in DDD, with how Sora is disappointed with having to be separated from Riku and Riku always talking about Sora with almost nothing but positive things to say. All the other pieces of evidence that could point to hints of romantic attraction. From what I hear, people having a better understanding of the ship after interacting with the community is actually kinda common.

Soriku is one of those ships where the implications are subtle. If you're not looking for it, it's blink and you miss it, outside of a couple of stand-out scenes. If you ARE looking for it, it's extremely obvious to the point of almost coming off as intentional, especially post KH2 if you're looking at it from Riku's pov. I bet it's the work of the event planner:

Here's like, the thing with the community though. It's been at odds with a certain other group of shippers and they go at it A LOT, and it can make the community unbearable to be in sometimes. Not to mention how oversensitive some members of the community can be and how unwilling some of them are to live up to their past. The past of Sorikus being yaoi-obsessed fangirls who wrote and drew smut is real is very real and is a legacy that still lives on, even if it's not as bad as it used to be. There were consequently, children who saw that content. I understand Sorikus not wanting to acknowledge that past because

A. a lot of them consider it something that was a part of their cringy teen years and don't want to acknowledge it

and

B. Many Soriku shippers are genuinely queer and either aren't responsible for that content or fit into the prior category

And to be fair, a lot of the times when Kaisos bring this up, they do tend to have bad intentions and try to dismiss their own homophobic behavior, but at the same time if the yaoi side goes unacknowledged, especially when it comes to the older fan content, then it does seem like we aren't owning up to the fact that some of us are fetishy and it can leave and unwanted mark on the community. Also, yeah, going back to what I said earlier. Some of us are over-sensitive and do have a habit of calling people homophobic for saying that Kairi is Sora's most important person on their own platforms, and that's an issue too.

That being said, despite the community I still like the ship and it is still an S-tier pair for me, not GOD-TIER, but S-tier. When I actually remember how good their relationship is in the series, and good some of the fan content is, I can't bring myself to hate it.

Here's the other thing though. What if it actually happened? What if the series ended with Sora and Riku in an embrace saying that they'll always love and be there for each other, and then a strongly implied off-screen kiss? Regardless of how people feel about it, or what the intentions on Square and Disney's part, Sora and Riku ACTUALLY getting together would be a huge fucking deal. Not just for the KH community but for JRPGs and gaming in general. Hell, it'd be a huge mark in Disney history, as they would be among the few confirmed MAIN LGBTQ+ characters in a Disney property. Because of that people. will. riot. There will be many calling it the product of an agenda. There will be idiots saying that this ruined their childhood (which honestly if THAT's their argument, they didn't have a childhood worth ruining) and there will be people angry at Disney and ALL OF JAPAN for "forcing" children to see homosexual content. Probably giving prejudiced conservatives who like to be controversial, leeway to the yaoi argument as means of racism and homophobia. There's also the question of narrative meaning in Kingdom Hearts. First off there's the obvious, which is the writers will have to address Sora's relationship with Kairi else it feels disingenuous, and that can get messy rather quickly, especially because a lot of Kairi's relevancy is linked to her relationship with Sora. Pairing him with Riku can risk undermining his relationship with Kairi and if she doesn't do anything with Aqua and the other characters, can reduce her down to nothing but wasted potential, nostalgia, a cute design, and a cool backstory. As sad as it is, a big part of her appeal is her romantically coded relationship with Sora.

The series has always been about friendship first and foremost before everything else, even if it does value other types of relationships. Sora and Riku are considered by the creators, to be what the series is all about. What does it say about the power of friendship if the two leading characters were in love the entire time? This is less of a narrative issue with Kairi because she was never portrayed to be Sora's friend. She was always written to be a love interest to him in some way. Whereas with Riku, he was always written to either be Sora's rival, or embarrassingly close "friend", at least on a surface level. Sora and Riku getting together romantically could work to undermine the theme of friendship being the most powerful form of magic. Both Kaisos and Soriku's would probably just say "WELL IT CAN BE ABOUT BOTH", but part of what makes it so special in the eyes of many people is that it's NOT about both. That it consistently keeps its friendship theme and never safely comes out of it by making overly big moments with the love interest (except for Kairi single-handedly being the most important person to Sora. Why wouldn't it be Kairi AND Riku). So that initial message getting underplayed can risk taking the series down a peg for a lot of people.

[felinalain]

Cates garbage list of problems

- Eddie being retconned as a “ egregiously depressed suicidal bastard “ (thanks Symbean) which is against Eddie very core.

- Symbiote being retconned as a cruel manipulative abuser.

- Both main characters being retconned several steps back into their character development, for the sole purpose of Cates getting to develop them again, except he’s doing it by destroying everything that made them “them”. And it’s even worse compared to the run that came just before (like Carnage 2016 and Costa run). Like, this wouldn’t be so bad if this run was happening right after the 2000s. But it’s not.

- Eddie cancer arc being retconned: makes no sense because of anti-venom and mister negative. Also if the symbiote gave Eddie cancer, why would he abandon him because of the cancer in the 2003 hunger?

- Eddie memories being changed by the symbiote: makes no sense because other character remember the same events like Eddie did, and other symbiotes could/would have told him about it

- Mary being retconned, only to be replaced by Cates OC Dylan (note, I like Dylan, but the way he’s being shoehorned in is what I have a problem with)

- Dylan entire origin (codexes?)

- Anne have been raped by the symbiote. (forced pregnancy is rape) edit: Recent issues have mentioned that symbiote codexes can only “affix” to existing foetus, so Anne was pregnant, from Eddie? And somehow the codexe made the baby an hybrid? Unsure and unclear, better than rape option, still stupid overall

- Codexes as a whole being nothing more than plot gimmicks. They can do anything and everything depending on what the plot need. They can resurrect the dead, imprint people, transmit info, make hybrid babies, and probably do the washing and coffee while at it

- Red is dead and Cletus barely reacted

- Cletus HATES fate and destiny with a passion, why is he going along with Knull bullshit?

- There is no Carnage in this event, only Grendel and Cletus. Garnage? (thanks mushroom for the name, it works)

- Why do the Venom symbiote codexes matter so much to bring Knull back? Who knows! Not Cates apparently!

- Shriek and Scorn being killed off as sacrifices goes against all of their respective characters: !Shriek was never a meek submissive, even if she WAS obsessed with Carnage. She was always shown as strong and fighting. She even fucking SLAPPED Carnage once when she had enough of his bullshit! !Scorn fought against Carnage in Carnage USA and she was shown to hate him and want him caught at all cost... we never get told why she’d become a zealous follower of his, and she dies with her character butchered

- Shriek being killed to bring back demogoblin, who never even got that well along with Carnage, only to then give him tits and have him make out with Carnage, because it’s fine to do that now that he has tits, but Carnage couldn’t just make out with Shriek, that wouldn’t have worked, got to have those monster-tits

- In fact, every single named women that Cates wrote into this shitshow is dead, or was retro-actively raped. Every single one. The only survivors so far are in side-stories that he didn’t write himself. (and that’s not saying all side stories women survived) Here is a full list, to not loose track, adding the most recent entries as they appear, because apparently he’s not done yet:

Scorn: character butchered, killed Mary: erased from existence Anne: retconed into a rape victim (of sort, see above point about her) Shriek: killed to give Demogoblins tits, so he and Carnage could make out Louise Kasady: rectoned to have died in child birth Alejandra (A ghost rider): Killed Sadie and Tess (from the family taken over by the life Symbiotes): alive, in tubes in the makers lab? Traumatised. Patricia : Killed by Garnage Aunt Sarah (Andi’s aunt) : killed by carnage worms Andi: Still Alive (now sharing her body with Donna and Scream) Misty: Still Alive (for now)

- In Alejandra case, she died for her codex, despite that she never, ever had a symbiote herself. The excuse for her death being that the spirit of vengeance had the codex because it bonded to Venom once, so it passed her the codex (because spirit are known for having spines, as we all know) That is literally making up bullshit to get to kill a woman character.

- Now let’s compare this to the number of male characters that got the short end of the stick this run: Lee price: dead (cf more on that below) Mac gargan: paralysed Osborn senior: still crazy The Judge (from the side story): dead Jameson Junior (wolfman): escaped carnag-ification, probably traumatized? Miles:  escaped carnag-ification, probably traumatized? Sadie brother and father (from the family taken over by the life-Symbiotes): alive, in tubes in the makers lab? Traumatised. 

Now assume any character not on this list is still alive, and the worst they got was normal super-hero type injuries while fighting Garnage legions... When you know that there is an overwhelming majority of male characters in comics, do you see the problem with the fact that nearly all the victims are women?

- The entire scene with Miles getting caught by Carnage, being told by two writers, and cates version makes no sense and makes Eddie an idiot “Mac get to Carnage!” “Mac Get away from Carnage!” (thanks lobac for nailing this)

- On the subject of Miles, let’s go back in time to earlier Venom issues when Miles got mad at Venom, as if he’d forgotten about his reality jump, except Miles had SEVERAL issues in which it was proven that not only he remember he jumped universe, he already MET Venom before this, when Flash still had the symbiote. So WHY would he react like this now? (we all know why, Cates doesn’t give a damn about anyone run but his)

- The symbiote was braindead, suddenly it’s not. We never got told why or how

- Venom symbol was never copied from spider-man, it’s actually a dragon because knull symbol is a dragon! Look at my edgy oc design! I didn’t copy Venom, he copied me!

- Making Carl Brock a physical abuser, and a poor man, when we were told in ASM that he’d never raised a hand on Eddie and it was emotional neglect that turned Eddie into what he was. Less important but making Carl poor when in ASM when we first met him he had a maid and a fucking mansion on a hill.

- Everything of Eddie’s past actually seems more pulled from the cursed Dark Origin than from the ASM issues where Venom first appeared. (Carl, the house, the grimdark, etc)

- Eddie personality being reduced to “gruff bland dudebro with manpain” instead of over-the-top, literate, dangerous, lethal protector. Heck, Dylan feels more like Eddie than Eddie himself!

- On that line, Norman feels more like Carnage than Carnage has the entire run!

- Absolutely no acknowledgement of the symbiote abuse of Eddie, it’s being brushed over without so much as a single line mention, like “we’ll talk about it once Carnage is dead” Edit: we are now several issues past the whole abuse thing, Garnage event is over, and their relationship switched back to being happy partners with still no explanation or acknowledgement, leading me to ask: “Why the fuck retcon all that shit in, if it’s to then ignore it? What was the point, aside from pissing off the fans by making shit up in a desperate (and failed) attempt at edginess?”

- The life fondation symbiotes being once again treated as monsters with no personality when their stint with deadpool AND scott both proved the opposite. Yes they’re being possessed by knull, but it’s barely made clear and barely shown whether or not they’re fine with it. (And they should not be)

- Lee price character was murdered before he was. He always was a cold, calculating bastard working from the shadows, and was created and used to demonstrate that host can abuse symbiotes. In Cates run he was just a stupid braggard. His death wasn’t satisfying because he wasn’t himself.

- Ravencroft and the people in it (mentally ill people) are represented as monsters, and the establishment itself is made to look like a b-movie asylum. I know comics have a hard time with respecting mentally ill people, but I still wasn’t expecting it to be that bad

- Why does Eddie still have so many wounds? He got a big-ass black eye, why isn’t the symbiote healing him like it always did in the past? Eddie never stayed hurt, the symbiote never LET him stay hurt... so why is it doing that now? (never solved, past Garnage event Eddie is now healed)

- Eddie and Sleeper reunion (AC3) is as cold as an iceberg. All past interaction they had, Sleeper called Eddie “father” and Eddie called Sleeper “his child/baby” And now it’s “... oh yeah you’re here. Cool I guess?” Also Sleeper is a cat. Why? Who the fuck know!

- Eddie refusing to kill Norman Osborn. Norman Fucking Osborn. And why? To not set a bad exemple for Dylan. Who is not even present at the time. Who is in deadly danger because of garnage. Let me re-iterate. Eddie LETHAL protector Brock, refuse to kill Norman Green Goblin Osborn.

- (AC3) The symbiote suddenly doesn’t mind dumping Eddie, to jump on someone more powerful. We spent months with shit being shovelled at us about how possessive it is, and how it fucked up Eddie to keep him forever, and then suddenly, poof. It’s jumping ship.

- (AC3)  The symbiote is evil because it's staying with Eddie, then it's Evil because it's leaving Eddie. Not even mentioning that it did this because it's trying to kill Garnage. Ya know the thing that's trying to kill literally EVERYONE?

- (AC4) Garnage can see the green door, when only gama-radied people can. Garnage is not gama-radied. This is apparently a dig from Cates at the writer from Hulk who think Knull is not that good. The whole dialogue certainly seem that way.

- (AC4) Eddie “I can’t fight I need to protec my child!” Brock “Wait, spider-man protect my child I must fight” Again with the constant change of motivation that give you whiplash. Of the bad kind.

- (AC4) Eddie spent the whole run being made to hate symbiote, bath into codices to create a new Venom.

- (AC4) Miles who had previously gained control of the Garnage piece attached to him, now somehow has lost control again, and Eddie has to fight him. Anyone who read the Miles tie-in know this is bullshit. Cates did not consult the other writers on this, once again.

- (AC4) The bonus note at the end, presenting Eddie having lost the symbiote as an addict, when at the time, Eddie reaction was to exercise like a madman to get stronger, to get revenge for the symbiote. The only one to ever make Eddie a sad mopping mess is cates and yet he mocked that very concept. Am I the only one seeing the arrogant irony here?

- Garnage die in one-shot. After all the hype and build-up and “he’s invincible! we’re doomed!”. He dies. In one shot. In the most anti-climatic way possible.

- Dylan kept a piece of Garnage. Why the fuck would he do that?! Why the fuck did he become suddenly so stupid?!

- Ravencroft side story can be summed up in a single (if long) sentence: “Hey what if we changed everything that ever made Cletus interesting, like the chaos and killing, and made him an agent of destiny, born from a lineage of serial killers, while throwing in some racist bullshit in our comic! Doesn’t that sound neat?”

- I’m astonished at the length at which Cates will go, to avoid writing the main characters of the serie he’s supposed to be writing. He retconned Eddie into an entirely different man to not have to write him, and he use every single excuse he can come up with to avoid writing the symbiote. So far, the symbiote:  (numbers aren’t fully accurate I went from memory) - Was there but silenced with medications - Was brain-dead  - Was a dog  - Was gone and got used in a space viking elf war  - Was back to fight Garnage and kept being treated like everything it said or did was evil  - Was held hostage and silenced by Garnage - Got blown up with a nuke, on the “Honeymoon Island” as we call it

Please someone tell me: if C*ates hates Venom’s character so much, why is he still writing them?

I probably forgot some, but if I did, feel free to add

Also, a personal thought but the pacing of the whole run is awful. We go for half a dozen issues of nothing but exposition dumps, then cluttered rushed action scenes, and then back to expo-dump... that’s not a good story-telling pace.

edited 17 TIMES.

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

You are awfully judgemental and opinionated and seem to think you know all about Corey and the reason for his problems. It doesn't show any respect to him at all and just adds the the negativity of what is already a messed up world at the moment. You collect all these articles of awful things celebrities have said. Maybe you should practice what you preach.

I’m awfully opinionated and judgemental? Sorry, anon, I just don’t like racist assholes like Lea Michele, if that makes me “awfully opinionated” then great, I’d rather be called “awfully opinionated” and NOT stand by racism than watch it happen and keep my mouth shut.

I’m not going to pretend I have the biggest platform on any social media but I do have some form of a platform here because as of writing this, I have just over 1.5k followers on this blog. It’s nowhere near what some celebs have, and I don’t kid myself, but as a white young woman with any amount of following, the best thing I can do right now is to use my privilege and try to raise awareness by spreading information, calling out other white people for their racism, and spreading links/petitions. If even one of my followers sees a link or something I’ve shared, then that makes a difference.

I don’t claim I know/knew Cory (not “Corey”) or any of the cast, I live in the UK for fuck sake and I was 15 when he died, you think I knew any of them personally? Nah, I was a fan and nothing more. On that note, I was not the one who brought up Cory into this ordeal regarding Lea and her disgusting racism/diva tendencies in the first place - I recieved an anon who mentioned Cory, and I responded. If you read what I said, I said that NO, she is NOT to blame for his addiction or death - at the time, I was extremely sorry for her. No one physically forced Cory to overdose or take drugs the day he died; he had an addiction and needed help, and I mean it in the nicest way possible but no one is to blame for him overdosing because it’s not like anyone physically forced him to take drugs, he made that decision himself.

As I said in my post, the reason Cory took drugs is because he said so himself that he had a VERY turbulent childhood and he was 13 when he started taking them. He was very open about his addiction and his upbringing, and so I’m absolutely not saying Lea is responsible for his drug addiction because she’s not, his drug addiction was a thing long before he was on Glee. I think I made that VERY clear.

What I meant by my response is that we know the Glee set was extremely toxic for EVERYONE. Cory was fighting his drug addiction and would have been in a vulnerable place because of that - the toxicity on set would have really been horrible for him to deal with, I imagine, especially since we know none of the other cast members could speak up against Lea because Ryan would have fired them or reduced their roles. So yeah, being on a set like that, it definitely wouldn’t have helped him in the slightest.

As for my respect for Cory...frankly, you don’t know about my feelings regarding Cory. I was 15 when he died, a huge Gleek, and like a lot of Gleeks, I was inconsolable and absolutely heartbroken. None of us knew him personally but he was so open and honest and genuine that it felt like we lost a big brother - sure, us fans didn’t go through nearly the same amount of pain and distress that family, friends and the Glee cast/crew did, but if you ask the Glee fandom as a whole, they’ll probably say either the same or something extremely similar. His death was the ONLY time I’ve seen the Glee fandom actually stop fighting and come together to mourn; I’ve spoken before about how horrible the Glee fandom was, and we all acknowledge how toxic the fandom was due to all the ship wars, anon hate, etc., but when Cory died...we all stopped that. We all came together and mourned and cried. Not a single Gleek alive was unaffected by Cory’s passing. So please don’t tell me I have no respect for Cory or his struggles because you don’t know how hard it was for this fandom, especially for those like myself who looked up to him and took inspiration from how hard he fought his demons/problems.

You seem very angry about me reposting screenshots of tweets that Lea’s co-stars and Glee extras - as well as other people who’ve had a bad experience - have made. Why? Why should we ignore their voices? Why should we ignore what Sammie, Amber and Alex (who are all black) have said when right now black people are fighting for their rights? Why shouldn’t I post and share information about how absolutely vile this woman is, especially to her black and POC co-stars?

I’m sorry if you’re a Lea Stan and this is all upsetting for you, but frankly when this many people have come forward to share their stories about how a) racist and b) generally horrible she is, her feelings are no longer a concern. She didn’t care about Sammie’s feelings when she threatened to “shit in her wig”, didn’t care about the extras who she referred to as “cockroaches”, didn’t care about Daubier when she said “you can’t sit at our table” even when numerous other cast members said they wanted him to. Why should I or ANYONE ELSE be nice to her right now, anon?

I agree that we should all be kind, love over hate and all that but honestly? Why should I or anyone else spare her any kindness when she doesn’t have any respect for anyone else but herself? Ignoring that she did so many vile things, especially against black people, especially right now while black people are dying and fighting for their own rights, misses the point completely of the movement. Her being pregnant doesn’t mean we should go easy on her*, neither does the fact she lost her boyfriend years ago - her grief over losing him does NOT excuse her racism or how horrible she was, especially since there are MULTIPLE people who’ve said she was that horrible and vile BEFORE Cory died and before she was even on Glee.

I’m sorry, anon, but I have to disagree with you on this.

*While her being pregnant doesn’t mean we should go easy on her, I am absolutely against bringing her baby into this. The baby hasn’t done anything, they haven’t even been born, so everyone please don’t drag the unborn baby into it or make hateful comments about them.*

[gayregis]

ok also. i don't think geralt's into pet names BUT he's really just like. thoroughly physically affectionate. like he's not good with words but he knows very well just how and where his bf wants to be kissed and touched and what makes him feel good and what makes him feel appreciated both in terms of sex and in just in general and in turn jaskier is very vocal abt how good geralt makes him feel or abt how much he really appreciates him and his company and how he loves him bc They Know Each Other

in a little sacrifice when geralt begins tripping over his words around dandelion and essi... he was shortcircuiting from the pressure of having to speak in front of two poets. ... the thing is that geralt has the capability to be incredibly eloquent, but it’s only when he’s not thinking about it, and also usually when it’s about something he scorns, or a hateful situation (the nature of humanity, impending doom, the dangers and woes that ciri is facing...) ... when he has to speak about good things and love, he kind of becomes reduced to “you make me feel good in my heart :)” 

i know that this isn’t the ship on the table right now, but, i mean, it took geralt four books and like what, 10 years, to tell yennefer he loved her... i feel like with dandelion, there was less, ahem, drama in their relationship (they don’t really on again/off again, it’s more of a mutual everlasting thing) so it could have gotten to that point sooner between them, but it also has to be considered when exactly it turns romantic or geralt Realizes that he’s not only capable of love but legitimately loves dandelion ... not just in a friend way... 

(personally i understand the appeal of a ship that has love at first sight, but i really like the “love at second sight” dynamic in which they realize they’re important to each other right off the bat but only really realize their feelings later... also i think falling in love / realizing that you have fallen in love with your best friend is a common gay/bi experience...)

so i like to put the estimate of when geralt Realizes actually exactly at the point where dudu changes into dandelion in eternal flame. because at that moment geralt realizes that all he wanted to do when faced with dandelion is hold him, talk with him, be with him somewhere quiet, peaceful, and safe... that he loves him, even if he is wearing that stupid gaudy blue kaftan... that all he ever feels towards dandelion is this desire to be with him, spend time with him, protect him from anything that may come their way... dudu and geralt in this moment both were expecting geralt to raise his sword, geralt was already reluctant and never wants to harm innocents, but after dudu shifted form into dandelion, any kind of drive he possibly could have had for unsheathing his blade in an act of violence just got knocked out of him, blew away like the wind. (also worth noting that right before dudu shifted into dandelion’s form, he was in geralt’s form, and that only made geralt actually more OK with using violence than he was with dudu in any other form... geralt’s self-loathing knows. only a few bounds.)

the reason why i bring it back to this time geralt realizes he’s in love is because of that moment where all he wants is to just sheathe his sword, rush forward, and hold dandelion in his arms... feeling horror at the fact that his sword is glistening in his hand. he doesn’t know what to say, actually, in this moment. the dialogue becomes a monologue as dudu continues speaking in dandelion’s voice and form, and where geralt is supposed to repond, it just says: “geralt nodded reluctantly.” “the witcher said nothing.” “the witcher said nothing.” i interpret this scene as him basically being paralyzed with feelings, especially after a shard of ice where he and istredd went toe-to-toe and was told he can’t experience love because it’s a biological impossibility. he’s still thinking about this question throughout eternal flame, and it comes to a head in this scene, because what else, other than love, stayed his blade, paralyzed him?

geralt’s situation relating to his feelings and love are intensely complex. it’s not the simple “oh i have feelings for you but i’m too abashed to say them uwu,” but rather “i was born to be emotionless so i could fill a societal role and specific caste laid out for me but your presence in my life has changed everything and now i think i might be able to feel love, and i feel love for you” ... so yeah he has difficulty verbalizing all of that. especially when he hasn’t had a traditional upbringing with the presence of fairy tales and stories of love told to him since childhood, he’s missed out on a lot of “normal” societal things like this so he does not have a framework to understand his feelings through! no one told geralt that when you want to spend night and day with someone, sleep in the same bed, talk to them endlessly, and you feel like you can be completely honest and truly yourself and seen for who you really are around somebody... that’s love! 

before dandelion’s presence in geralt’s life, the idea of pleasant touch was really foreign to geralt. from contracts, he felt claws and teeth and maybe the sewing of a wound afterwards. from other contact with other humans, he felt nothing except the ocassional contemptous spitting or throwing of stones (legit what it says in the last wish). the witchers in KM seem to go for that masc shit (he and eskel hug for an imperceptable moment, blink and you’ll miss it) and i can imagine witchers roughhouse for fun and stuff like that, but in the outside world, with no one who could ever understand who he is, what he is, what role he was meant to play... it’s a very isolating life. 

i’m stealing an entire paragraph from this other post i wrote a while ago: “tbh there was probably an entire first week of their friendship where geralt flinched or became immediately alert when dandelion got close to him to speak, touch his arm in jest or gentle motion, or grabbed onto his hand, forearm, or sleeve in anxiety, because geralt just…. wasn’t used to anyone touching him, even in a passing or platonic manner.” geralt wasn’t used to kind touch, but he has highly trained mind-body coordination. i think in one part of tower of the swallow in a chapter prelude, witchers are called a “caste of warrior-priests” which just makes me think of the monk class in D&D... which can be a good analogy. geralt is NOT just a sellsword. his profession goes entirely much deeper, it’s literally what he was genetically altered to perform. this is why he has such a difficult time separating himself from his work, because it almost cannot be done. witchers do undergo extensive training, and especially individuals like geralt who are focused on ethics and morality take time to reconcile the physical and mental effects on their body. it’s not really just “guy with sword feels things physically bc that’s just how he’s wired,” but geralt has really tuned his soul and body together as a result of both his profession and coping with being forced into his profession.

so i think when dandelion introduces this concept of good touch to him in addition to the idea that he can be loved / deserves companionship, it’s natural for geralt as he becomes more in-tune with his emotions to feel them more physically. i ask whomstever is reading to take their mind out of the gutter bc this part at least is a nonsexual context, because they can put it straight back into the gutter later, since this post does involve dandelion.geralt’s emotions are practically on the same level of chronic pain as his shattered leg later on in the series. you know when you feel despair and grief in your chest, the tingling sensation of love in your arms and shoulders, the bristling anger on the back of your neck... it’s along those lines. 

so when he’s feeling emotions very heavily, and can’t begin to craft the statement beginning with, “so, i’m not supposed to feel emotions, but...” he just acts with his body. this can actually be seen in all the times he saves dandelion, saves yennefer (debatable b/c she’s pretty badass; it’s more like he helped her), and when he just runs to ciri without even needing to say anything in something more. 

in his worst times, geralt’s a man of philosophy and surmising and indecisiveness... like in baptism of fire, regis says that the cardinal directions have no meaning to him, as long as he is going somewhere... he paces around, and also like in baptism of fire, the song about the ornery wolf... look how the wolf dances in the holt / teeth bared, tail waving, leaping like a colt (...) look how the wolf is dragging his paws / head drooping, tail hanging, clenching his jaws (...)” ... but in his best times, he’s a man of action. he acts when it’s most important.

ok time to put your head back into the gutter now! i’ll put the nsfw stuff under a cut to save all of your eyes

this part can be treated like an add-on to the post. wow, all this writing just to say geralt doesn’t suck at sex... ok. 

well in terms of geralt x dandelion i think that after their first time together, dandelion accuses him of lying about how many people he’s fucked, because ‘it can’t possibly be that small of a number’ because geralt wasn’t awkward. he was very emotional as to be expected, but also we know he doesn’t tend to show emotions on his face, so the intense rippling feeling of love & desire he feels when dandelion pushes his hair back behind his ear flew under the radar. which is good in geralt’s perspective, because he strongly feels that it would be embarassing if dandelion knew how much he’s affected by him. honestly similarly, dandelion who’s not embarassed by much is at first apprehensive to think about his and geralt’s relationship, because usually he can just leave whenever he feels like it... but with geralt, it became different, geralt was no fling, and realizing this very early on in their relationship was alarming until dandelion did what he usually does and just drops it and remains happy. 

honestly you could make the argument (not outright STATING it... i’m not being h*rny on sideblog...) but you could argue, that geralt and dandelion have bomb ass sex because both of them are canonically good in bed, weirdly enough. geralt is pretty giving and loving in his sex scenes, even when it’s not even romantic and rather a crazed passion, like with fringilla. it’s canon that he’s a proponent of oral sex b/c he defends the concept in discussion with regis and also gives it canonically, so idk what to really say here except geralt’s a real one and sapkowski had a vision i guess for his main character. 

another important thing mentioned in geralt’s sex scenes is that he’s pretty intuitive with pacing. in the last wish, he and yennefer take their time and have quite a soft and loving experience, and in lady of the lake, he and fringilla experience this more sort of intense scenario. but i think these differences are meant to speak to the differences in love and relationships between the pairings... while geralt and yennefer experience an all-consuming love of mind and body, geralt and fringilla had more of a ... bad decision. this makes us have to headcanon for what the pairing of geralt and dandelion would be like, i’m inclined to say it would be a lot like geralt and yennefer because the thing about geralt and yennefer is that they find intimacy in each other that they’ve yearned for their entire lives, and geralt and dandelion have a lot of that similar energy of finding something in another that you’ve always longed for. 

especially towards the beginning of their relationship, i feel like just their abilities to be vulnerable are what drives them. of course, having emotional sex is a fireworks-type event for geralt, while for dandelion it’s more just like, 3 PM on a tuesday afternoon, so that affects their dynamic a lot, again especially in the beginning of their relationship before geralt met yennefer and villentretenmerth, because geralt really was just not sure of himself. dandelion’s very sure of himself so he kind of doesn’t realize that it’s the beginning of an Emotional Journey for geralt and not just something casual like eating brunch together. geralt becomes more confident over time though and that’s good but he still gets just regular pangs of gay love that stops your heart momentarily, from being ... in love... 

as for actual dynamic during i think it would be funny and good to keep them both in-character and interacting as they normally do. cue humorous arguments with no vitriol or consequence: “stop moaning in musical scales, it’s ruining my concentration” “no— fa so!” 

[raquellmurillo]

☕1. they completsly wasted raquel's character in s3 and s4. she could have done so much for the heist since she knows how the police operate but instead the reduced her to the proffessor's girlfriend. ☕2. palermo as a chracter + berlin/palermo is overrated

TOTALLY AGREE!! CAN I HAVE AN AMEN.

Let me share with you another lil controversial point on that subject...

I hated how they put in that “I’m nobodies girlfriends” line; show us that then! Especially with Alicia’s press conference. The writers all of a sudden have developed a fear of grey areas. If Raquel was in the exact same position as Alicia, it means she would have followed orders and been part of non protocol procedures. She should have this knowledge to help get Rio before the (or even with no need of a) heist. It’d be reducing her to dumb or insignificant enough to suggest she didn’t know, which would contradict her position and power in s1. She can’t be so high up and utterly oblivious of this. 

S1&2 showed us that there isn’t a good or bad side; there’s just sides with both good and bad people. 

The portrayal of Alicia as a torturer, (eps. of Rio) was done to make the police look bad. S3&4 totally changes the earlier concepts of ‘good’, ‘bad’ and ‘sides’. I’m by no means a supporter of torturing or ‘non protocol procedures’, but I firmly believe Raquel as a character intelligent enough to be able to tell good from bad. It would be logical for her to be part of non protocol stuff. What is holding a guy who kills children on the daily to try to get information to break up a human trafficking gang? Who deserves the protection of the law; him, or the children? If we’re going to depict the police as non protocol torturer’s, at least show both sides. Because in this way, we wouldn’t have to reduce Raquel to an idiot who has worked in the police force for years and knows nothing about it!!! (Things would be different if they didn’t try to force it down our throats that the police is bad, torturers, murders; but they ought to assume the consequences of their decisions, because they seem to have forgotten Raquel was part of the police and how high up she was....) She’s not someone who can be reduced to the ‘weakest link’ in Sergio’s plan. Bullshit. It should be Raquel’s plan, not Sergio’s. The cowards are just too scared to let go off Sergio being the mastermind, because, let’s face it; Raquel beat him last time. 

B)

That is some tea indeed. I am a hugeee fan of the actors, (long before this show was made lol) and I think they’ve done a great job with what they’ve got given...

... however, what they’ve got given. Not the best. Palermo, I think is an interesting enough character, but they tried too hard to make him Berlin #2.

but berlin x palermo...

They have one overly dramatic kiss/goodbye scene (really well acted, in their defense - but the writing???); perhaps I’m just a practical person lol but as soon as Berlin walked out, telling Palermo he’s never gonna see him again.... first though: well, it’s gonna be a bit of an awkward morning when he comes back to pack up his stuff?? Or is he just gonna ditch all his belongings? He that rich yet? The devil is in the details! Such a lil thing was able to distract me from fully enjoying that scene lol. It was done for the drama rather than the practicality, and in lcdp, putting drama over practicality?? 

What they had was well acted - probably is so popular as it seemed like the most natural dynamic we got (also planned)... but when you look deeper into it, it seems like a house built on sand. People took what they got and made the most of it I think. 

I’d want it to be based on more of a solid foundation, to find out more (and in detail!!) about the exact past of these characters. Why are they soulmates? I’ve got three flashback of which one is a wedding when, ironically, one is getting married to someone else. It’s not good enough just putting that in and just leaving it there. When did this happen? How? Explain? It’s not a ‘we’re gonna drop this’ and run away thing. There is absolutely no base, other than assumption, to say they’re soulmates. They simply haven’t had enough screen time or character development. We no nothing about their relationship apart from the fact they’re apparently soulmates. It has potential. But someone skipped the beginning and wrote the end. And that is not how you write a ship. You can’t skip to that part. 

[janiedean]

REDACTED (Remove the //, this just appeared on my dash and ugh I have no words)

I resent the ask even if probably I wouldn’t have had the need since that person blocked me and guess what I never even talked to them ever nor I had an idea of their existence until now so I guess I’m now on some sansan blocklist? K THEN FINE, but lmao.

like.

the hilarious conclusion of that ‘meta’ saying ‘DON’T REDUCE SANSA TO SANDOR’S LOVE INTEREST BC SHE’S A MAIN AND HE’S NOT’ when the entire damned point is that sandor is her love interest not the contrary is rich, but lmao. RETHINKING THE UNKISS. obviously the fact that sansa makes it up is based on trauma, but the entire damned point is that she thinks he kissed her and then basically she spends all the time going like OH BUT HE KISSED ME, HA BUT HE CERTAINLY DIDN’T KISS THEM and she’s thinking about it like it’s a badge of pride and she starts it when she’s sure she’s going to get married with someone and it keeps on going when people actually kiss her nonconsensually...... and when you dream that your first kiss/boyfriend/relationship is 100% the material of romance like sansa does and circumstances make it sure that you have no agency over who you get to kiss, if you actively make up a thing that never existed in that sense ie you’re sure that someone else kissed you before everyone else could... you won’t choose someone you don’t want to kiss.

you’re going to choose someone you do want to kiss.

like the fact that out of every single person she could choose sansa decides that it’s sandor who took that kiss from her and not anyone else and she’s 100% convinced of it means that she’d rather think that HE took it out of everyone so she can tell herself that her first kiss was with someone she wants not so deep down (and she superimposes it on blackwater because it’s the only timeframe in which he could have presumably done that) than admit to herself that her first kiss was with someone that she despises or that she didn’t want to kiss.

that’s the entire fucking point of that and if these people stopped trying to deny that sansa stark uses sandor clegane’s memory as a coping mechanism maybe we’d get somewhere.

also: by the time we got to asos/affc, sansa is not eleven. sansa is a teenager with teenager fantasies which, guess what, also happen to be sexual which is a thing these people really have a problem admitting (yes teenagers think about sex, yes teenagers have fantasies, yes teenagers have wet dreams both men and women, do get on with the damned program), and every single one she’s had has been about sandor because the moment she’s forced to marry tyrion and the willas possibility goes up in flames and no one on the tyrell side smuggles her out or anything she stops thinking about loras if she hadn’t before, from then on if it’s someone it’s sandor.

spoilers if these people didn’t grasp the concept: sansa stark is into sandor clegane to the point she has legitimate sexual fantasies about him and sansa stark is into sandor clegane to the point that he is her literal coping method to survive the fact that her fantasy of being in a love song is being torn to pieces by each single person around her, sandor clegane is the only man referred to as brave and gentle and strong in sansa’s pov which are, oh, wait, the qualities the man she deserves/who’s worthy of her ned listed way back in book one, sandor clegane is literally the only person who’s looked out for her in KL since ned died before she marries tyrion except that he’s not actually related to the people who orchestrated her brother and mother’s death (no shade to tyrion I actually am 100% fine with sansatyrion and if it was book endgame I wouldn’t be disappointed tho obviously I’m on the other train), sandor clegane left his cloak on her floor after blackwater and she fucking kept it and put it on, sandor clegane put that damned cloak on her in that scene we know of, sandor clegane had a scene with her in the beginning where he tells her about how he ended up with half of his face burned that’s fucking ripe with knighthood imagery because if you think sansa putting a hand on his shoulder when she tells him his brother is no true knight has no significance in this context sorry but you’re wrong, and the fact that it’s a relationship with problematic elements same as 99% of the relationships in these books doesn’t mean that you can actually ignore all the goddamned symbology thrown in your face.

also the fact that nothing happened between them in that sense when she was too young to know what she wanted and he was a complete mess but when they meet again she’s going to be a way more confident and older person who will definitely know what she wants and he will have done the equivalent of going to westeros rehab and a) will have quit drinking b) won’t hate himself as much as he did last we saw him should even out most of those problematic elements, which is also why every goddamned single sansan shipper in existence that I know of doesn’t think that the two of them doing anything more than what already happened during acok was a good idea and why every goddamned sansan shipper in existence would argue for them being a thing when she’s old enough to know what she wants and he’s not getting ptsd flashbacks every other second and he’s not drinking himself blind to forget about it.

like, I know that coherency is asking too much from this fandom but for the love of everything that’s holy to these people I just wish that they would stop twisting text around to deny a thing that’s there. if I spent all of that time negating the very likely chance that canon jon/erys might happen in the books as well I’d drive myself insane, which is why when it inevitably happens I’ll roll my eyes and hope grrm writes it better than the show even if jon/erys is very low on the list of ships I would pay to see canonized for good. there’s no goddamned point grasping at straws like that, thank you and I said everything I had to say on the topic.