#i know it's a meme to be like 'if you like/dislike [thing] no you don't/yes you do'

[peachdoxie]

can you fucking not with the "you're wrong if you like xyz food"? it's the exact same sentiment i'm complaining about but in the opposite direction. for fuck's sake, can people just STOP with invalidating other people's food likes and dislikes? it's not that fucking hard!

honestly i'm so fucking tired of people acting like it's a goddamn sin to dislike — or even hate — a certain food. like who the fuck cares if someone doesn't like cucumbers or some shit. stop acting like there's something wrong with someone if they don't like something. so fucking annoying.

[ohmotherwhereartthou-if]

This may be a bit broad but for the RO who have loving parents, what would they think of MC when

They first meet them

Vs

They start dating their kid

Vs

They marry them

The way I had to sit and and actually think about who of the RO's actually have a healthy family dynamic lmao! I mean, it's technically just Valeria and Cassandra but because I don't want to give just the Castellions some love; I'll include Aurelio even though his dad passes just before the story technically starts.

-

They first meet them:

Cassandra: Alejandro dislikes MC upon first meeting because Cass is his world and nobody in his eyes will ever be good enough for his little girl. Would act extra scary on purpose and while Cass knows he is just putting on a show, MC 100% doesn't see it that way.

Insert meme of: 'Get your dog!' 'He don't bite.' 'YES HE DOES!'

Valeria: Her parents are weary of outsiders like everyone else in the town, they have no issues being polite at first meeting but they warn Valeria not to be too trusting of strangers and exercise caution. Would ask her brothers to keep an eye on MC while they are around Valeria, they love their daughter dearly and think her too naive to be left alone with a stranger.

Aurelio: His father would be sickly at this point and likely bedridden but if Aurelio trusts MC enough to introduce them he would trust his son's opinion and welcome MC with open arms. Making jokes and inviting them to stay for dinner so he could get to know them better.

They start dating their kid:

Cassandra: If MC did not make a good enough impression on him yet, then he openly disapproves. Would see MC as unworthy and would try, in private, to talk is daughter out of it. At the end of the day he would respect her decision, but would be passive aggressive with MC until they win him over.

If MC got on his good side he would begrudgingly agree, MC still has to put in some work to win him over completely but Alejandro would actually try to get closer to MC and invite them on hangouts so he can try to get to know them better and see if they are really a good fit for his daughter.

Valeria: If MC passes the vibe check from her brothers and actually comes over to meet them, then they would be open minded. They would prefer Val be with someone in the village but would not be so close minded to absolutely reject someone who might be open to moving into the village one day. Might have some beef if MC talks about taking Val somewhere far away one day.

Aurelio: His father, who's name is also Aurelio, don't know if I've mentioned that before. Current Aurelio is the Jr, his father is Aurelio senior. But to be entirely honest... Aurelio Sr. knows his son and he would smile and congratulate the two but would honestly not take it seriously because he figures it wouldn't last. His son is the perfect copy of himself, he himself never fell in love again after his childhood love and mother of his son passed many years ago. He would spend majority of his son's development years surrounded by many different 'girlfriends' and being married to his work. He expects his son would be the same, if anything he pities MC for taking the relationship seriously.

They marry them:

Cassandra: If he likes MC he's pretty happy, if MC is a guy then he would see him as the son he never had and would ask him often to go and have father son nights with him. He would low key try to steal a good chunk of MC's time and would tell Cass to share him lol. If MC is a woman then he is happy to have another daughter (He would never call it a marriage though sadly, Alejandro is devout and would see the relationship more as a domestic partnership). In Castellio Gay marriages are not a thing, people can file for domestic partnerships and would publicly be seen as "best friends" even though most people know what it really means. He would never be rude to MC or his daughter about it though, he is happy that you both are happy and would just tell himself it's a very close friendship (read: is in denial and is okay with that). He would refer to MC as his other or adopted daughter when people ask who is MC to Cassandra, and would shut down any hate being thrown towards his daughters. He would also invite MC out with him and Cass to go out on fun trips and activities together.

If he hates MC? Rolls his eyes so much they might fall out of his head, highly disapproves of the union but will accept whatever makes his daughter happy. Expect many sarcastic comments 24/7.

Valeria: Very happy that their little girl is getting married and hopes that MC is forever blind to just how crazy this family is, tries to rush the marriage so MC can't change their mind lol. They would welcome MC as one of their own and would expect them to move into their house or build their own in the village. The only huge beef they would have is again, if MC suggests taking Val away to Sanctuario or something. That would bring a huge issue and their would need to be peace talks.

Aurelio: He would not believe it at first, his son? MARRIED? What manner of witchcraft is at work here? He would be convinced his son is either under a spell or is being blackmailed, after confirming his son is being serious he would honestly still be in disbelief for a while. Once it all sinks in, he would cry tears of joy. He never thought his son could find someone who would accept all of him with all his flaws and still want to stick around. He is so happy his son has finally found his person and is so happy he got to be alive long enough to see it... even though in reality that sadly never got to be. 😭

[joyce-stick]

The Beef Stroganoff Song! (arbitrary subtitle discourse edition)

So, you may have noticed here that the subtitles in this clip (from Symphogear GX episode 3) are fairly different from what you're used to seeing when people post this video, and the phrasing in the subtitles is fairly different from what the associated memes often say

For those who don't know, Symphogear got itself released on blu-ray by Discotek, and with that came with a new translation authored by Noelle (@ulsairi on twitter ) who is notable for being the only trans lesbian anime translator I know of off the top of my head.

Her translation appears, in my opinion, really rather polished and very good, and I strongly appreciate the way it's written and how much character it adds to the dialogue by giving everyone distinct voices and adapting things into more natural English. It's also a fair bit gayer. I haven't encountered many people who've seen these subs, but I think most fans of the series would consider these a net positive change. There are some people who are mad about these subtitles, and they can die mad.

Anyway, let's talk about the different phrasing of the beef stroganoff song. I'm mostly going to compare to Crunchyroll's subtitles for reference since that seems to be what most others go off of. Here's a link to that version.

So right off the bat we can see here that while CR's translation appears to be a lot more, for lack of a better word, functional, Noelle's translation tries to apply more dialectal force "it's beef stroganoff/Yes! It's THAT beef stroganoff!" And generally communicate through the tone how excited the girls are to get started. Additionally you'll see throughout that the latter is a fair bit more lyrical, there's a lot more punctuation and verbal tics and filler phrases written into the dialogue to express that they are singing, which makes sense since Japanese tends to omit a lot of the sorts of prepositions that Noelle threw in here,

Like, Yumi (yes I went and looked up her name on the wiki) just says "beef stroganoffu" because it's obvious from context that it is beef stroganoff, she doesn't need to spell it out, at least, not in Japanese

(We know like maybe ten hiragana and 1 kanji do not trust us on Japanese this is all just basic shit we learned from online guides)

So this probably leads to a rushed translator from Crunchyroll (they are notoriously crunched for time) who's just trying to Get It Done probably not really bothering to throw in extra additional connecting letters to express the tone of the character, only doing so when it's required to make basic grammatical sense in the target language. So they likely didn't think to make the subtitles have flourishes like this that aren't explicitly in the original Japanese. Noelle meanwhile had the time to consider things like this and take such liberties in order to attempt to convey the same tone that was arguably implied by the Japanese, even if not explicitly put forth

And that's about all the things I should not repeat I guess, TL;DR, these subtitles are more fun to read because the translator had more time to think about the best way to make them more fun while still being accurate to the spirit of the original dialogue, who'd have thought!

(In case you're wondering, the Commie subtitles say kind of the same thing here, and y'know, it doesn't seem like a wrong translation, but also I really dislike this subtitle styling, orange on pink with that font and that drop shadow is just kinda bad. I appreciate the effort but like. Come on. Please fansubbers, please think about if the font and colors you chose actually work with the image you're putting them on)

Moving on!

horizontal and middle rhyme with each other so you can almost actually sing this, actually let me take a moment to try it right now- never mind, I can't sing. Hahaha. I don't actually think it lines up that well with the melody But I thought it did! Didn't I? That's significant, that this actually reads like plausible lyrics to a silly song someone made up instead of a literal translation of a Japanese song

Anyway, here comes the first major difference!

So in the Crunchyroll subtitles, Yumi says "it doesn't have to be beef" which in English (in my estimation) sounds a tad scatterbrained, like, "oh yeah sure beef but whatever really it doesn't actually matter," while Noelle's subtitles rather say "Got no beef? Don't you worry!" Which implies something different.

"It is recommended to use beef, but you may substitute something else if you are sorely lacking in beef" as opposed to "Oh the beef doesn't actually matter, zoinks lol!" CR's translation is kind of a bit funnier in how it sorta comes from nowhere without this qualification, which probably lead to this phrase's memeticness, but Noelle's translation seems more reasonable to me so yeah again, tada, yay for sensicalness.

Now here's another interesting change:

Again, the flat manner in which the CR subtitles say "finish with salt" with rendezvous only being included because that's literally what they said, is sort of absent any stronger emotional implication,

Noelle's translation meanwhile going with "don't forget them, they need it" imparts personhood upon the salt and pepper. The implication being that the girls are saying, "the salt and pepper are in love, please reunite them, they must be in gay love together." Or maybe you think the salt and pepper cannot be forgotten and must be reunited because they are Only Friends.

Whether you choose to believe that this is the salt and pepper getting married, or merely subtext, or an interpretation, or salt and pepper shipping bait, this is a deeply important tonal indicator because it reminds you that these girls are ultimately playing with their food!

"And there, now you're in for a treat!" I don't think I need to explain this one.

Now, here's an interesting one!

In the Crunchyroll subtitles, it just says the memetic "boys don't know this." With no context, no elaboration, no clarity, no qualifiers. Boys don't know. Did the boys magically get their brains wiped? Are the boys biologically incapable? Who knows. Nothing is said but that.

Noelle's subtitles, on the other hand, qualify this statement by saying "Boys aren't taught to cook, so they may not know" (And note again how, it says "kno-ow" to emphasize, once more, that they're singing, and also this lines up with the long "ooooo" sound they make at the end of this lyric, so cool)

There is now context! Boys aren't taught to cook! Anime and Japan's culture in general still pigeonholes people into gender roles! And an anime translator just wrote you a hidden translation note about it! You might be a boy, you might know how to cook, but certain boys in another part of the world aren't traditionally taught cooking, so they may not know

They may not, but they could!

Trust a trans person to express gender facts with subtle nuances like this in anime translations.

And with that lovely bit of good translation and good writing and good localization of a thing to make it make sense to people

Mew!

[all-things-jily]

Ok but we get harassed for tagging ships that are in the post too just because there’s other ones mentioned

The fandom is supposed to be fun! You guys support harassment and bullying over fiction! The problem that needs addressing is the people who harass not the people who tag! There’s a way to get people not to tag btw it’s tell them nicely! Not act horribly! Jily fans been sending jegulus writers hate & writing “if you wrote jily maybe you’d get treated better” the problem lies with the way jily fans act & people will start biting back because people can only take so much.

OK so I was looking at this for some minutes, truly dumbfounded. Because it's like no matter what we say we're not being heard.

Rant below for those who want to avoid it lol

"You guys support harassment and bullying over fiction!"

I'm ?????? Where in the world have either of us who have spoken up done that? When have we ever said anything other than "tag your posts properly"? Don't these two sentences have completely different meaning? Who are these people that are harassing? Because harassment is never ok and we have not encouraged that. But if you think that simply telling a person who used incorrect tags to remove the extra ones is harassment, I'll have to tell you that no, it is not, it is a very normal thing to do actually.

Yesterday there were a few posts about asking people to tag properly and in response we got that "Jily fans are horrible and inhumane, they harass and bully, they're the worst people ever" and actually got harassed in response. Do you think there's anything normal and fitting in what happened and in that reaction?

"Jily fans been sending jegulus writers hate & writing “if you wrote jily maybe you’d get treated better” this is actually wild because NONE OF US in our community have done that or WANT that, we want to stay as far away from all of that as possible. If you have some anon trolls going around in the community, that has nothing to do with us, most of us are grown people who have been fans since books came out and ain't nobody got time for that, I'm sure most of us don't even know who your writers are or their accounts. In fact, you can tell just by wording of that message that it's clearly a troublemaking troll and not a serious fan, no normal human talks like that.

As for fandom being fun, YES, it's supposed to be fun! But this is where my words about it not being a group project come in, because what's fun for you is not fun for us! In fact, it's the opposite of fun, we dislike it immensely, it upsets us and puts us in a bad mood and it doesn't even belong in our tag. So why should we be upset every single day, going into our tag that's supposed to be a place of comfort and fun, seeing things that are not supposed to be there, when people can simply --- tag properly according to Tumblr guidelines? And this is not new, we've been put through this for years now, and we've been asking politely over and over and over and nobody is listening, and now that we've gotten louder - in our own tag - suddenly we're the bad guys and harassers. When should it be enough? So this part of the ask "people will start biting back because people can only take so much" was incredibly ironic, because we've been taking it for YEARS and now we aren't even biting back, we're simply asking to tag and posting silly memes in our own space but are still getting vilified.

I will also address the first point because I think it causes a lot of general confusion about tagging:

"tagging ships that are in the post too just because there’s other ones mentioned"

A ship tag is for posts that have positive mentions of that ship.

If a post mentions multiple ships and is "X is great, Y is good, Jily is bad, I don't like it anymore" - this is not for Jily tag;

If a post has "Jily were together for 2 minutes, broke up and then *insert 3 paragraphs gushing over another ship that were true loves*" - this is not for Jily tag;

If a post has a poly ship that includes James and Lily - this is another ship, not Jily;

If a post is a huge fanfic dedicated to another ship with James or Lily and then has the last sentence about Jily basically settling together - this is not for Jily tag, though I see how there could be arguments about it;

There are many other instances too that I can't think of right away at this moment, but basically there's nuance here and just because Jily is brought up in a post doesn't make a post about Jily and the tag is for people who love the ship and want to celebrate their love, and the last thing they want to see there is completely unrelated posts with random Jily cameo in them that do not even portray them in a good way. This last topic is a bit of a complicated one with slippery edges, but I hope it was still comprehensible.

[anotherobeymeblog]

Tbh, related to my last post, a dynamic I love but hardly ever see in fanworks is that of Dia with an MC who fuckin hated him at first. Always getting annoyed by his antics, calling him out on his sometimes questionable decision-making, constantly at odds with him. And over time, reluctantly warming up to him, probably still giving him gentle bonks at times but not getting as genuinely heated about it.

Why, you may ask? Yes, enemies to lovers is great, but doesn't this dynamic make more sense for Lucifer? But you forget a core part of how Diavolo functions in relationships: he feels like people are only around him because they have to be. So to have someone who used to be very vocal about disliking him? Well, he knows that, if that MC really didn't want to be around him, they wouldn't hesitate to tell him to fuck off. (They've probably said meaner things than that let's be real)

But they don't. They willingly spend time with him and they text him stupid memes that made them think of him and they sometimes get mad at him but they still stay.

Now look me in the eye tell me that isn't a perfect dynamic for Diavolo.

[mrstsung]

The "i love you (not you) in every universe" meme

But with shang tsungs

(Look i don't really hate mk12/mk1 shang tsung that much he just lost the appeal after nrs's shitty practices with the VA and the character just feeling like such a downgrade)

And i hate that cary hiroyuki tagawa's voice isn't used in the mobile game which uses his likeness. That was kinda shitty and very disrespectful. Which adds to my dislike now for alan lee's shang tsung. Not alan lee himself but his performance. It kinda soils it. Which is a shame,because he had potential but i can't stand off my principles of a person or company doing another person dirty. It's lowkey fucked up. But it's one of those things that's not horrible,just disappointing as fuck type situations.

Yes i know mk11 has two looks but i count it as i need more spaces. Lol.

But for the most part,i love shang tsung regardless of what mk media he's in. Shitty or not. Shang tsung is shang tsung to me.

But i still have principles and standards i go by. Character and series aside. Art is important to me so keeping it's integrity is also a value i hold dear. Again that one iteration of shang isn't horrible it's just the stuff surrounding it is yikes to me. So he's bottom tier shang. Not the bottom shang,that belongs to the old malibu comics shang tsung. Oof.

Congrats on not being the worst shang ever mk12/mk1 shang tsung!

[decepti-thots]

1, 8 and 12

"the character everyone gets wrong"

moving over to exRiD for this one. arcee is imo subject to this a lot, despite fannish sentiment around her being overall very positive. i suspect a part of this is that the segments of idw1 fandom i hang out in either haven't read much or all of exRiD and/or do not read it as often as other series like MTMTE, so she tends to be subject to a lot of 'flattening' into her most iconic, meme-y characteristics. fun murder lady who likes murder! yay! but the thing is that the popular perception of arcee in a lot of circles is perpetually stuck in what she started as, not where she was ultimately taken. arcee's arc in the latter parts of idw1 are about the ways she grows out of and beyond the original concept of her as Scary Violent Lady TM, and about finding personhood for herself beyond that. by the time you're a dozen or so issues into phase two, that entire concept of her is being questioned and developed by the comic! it would perhaps bother me less if that entire original presentation of her wasn't so heavily rooted in phase one's (trans)misogynistic portrayal that we're ostensibly all on the same page about being bad, and the later stuff that is largely ignored wasn't a direct attempt to work with and rectify. (this has gotten better in the past 3-4 years, though.) i don't think anyone is deliberately leaning into that, it's just a side effect of most folks in the places i hang out not being overfamiliar with the actual canon stuff. but. well. it does make me a little sad. she's got such a compelling arc! i would like to have more enthusiasm for it, as opposed to making fun jokes about her stabbing people. (on the plus side, discussing this before has persuaded at least three people i know of to read exRiD and they told me they loved her in it, so!)

"common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about"

anyone who thinks exRiD is light on character work, as per the above, is wrong. sorry. it has great character work! the division of 'MTMTE is for character stuff, exRiD is Plot TM only for dudebro nerds' is incorrect, and unfortunately remains a common sentiment. barber did not do it the same way that roberts did, but exRiD is intensely interested in its characters and barber has spoken at length about how interested he was in digging into character dynamics. if anything is barber's signature, it's his extensive use of internal character monologue, even! yes, he also really likes doing convoluted plots- and it's fair that is simply a turn off for people- but the perception he doesn't care about characters or interpersonal relationships is very unfair. this man did not do All That with thundercracker for people to write that off.

"the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them"

i did this question previously for aileron but also! also!! more people need to give some love to idw needlenose. as with aileron, it's not that people DISLIKE him, it's that he is great and i want more people to understand this. he's got a complicated cross-faction sibling relationship with tracks! he's a gay widower and it's really sad!! he's a hardcore True Believer in the decepticon cause and imo a wayyy better exploration of what a generic non-high-command decepticon is struggling with in the aftermath of the war ending as a real believer in the cause than stuff like the scavengers that gets more play in fandom. but he gets way less attention as idw exploring that, unfortunately. i love him so much, please join me in the needlenose stan corner.

[charmac]

[meme of that one fish from SpongeBob voice]

Wait you people actually DON'T genuinely dislike Rob as a person (as opposed to as an artist) I thought that WASN'T a joke

/gen (i do genuinely dislike him lol I just tolerate him cuz he's decent at his job and isn't actively causing harm, at least not on the scale of SOME ppl (eg jkr))

This ask is confusing to me, ngl I don't know Spongebob very well so idk the tone, but I don't really think this is a "you people" kind of thing here, just my opinion(s), which you really can't lump into the majority of the fandom (or really anyone else at all)

I'm pretty sure when most people in this fandom speak about liking/disliking RCG they do mean as creatives, where the "like" comes from the positives they've given us with their projects (mostly Sunny) and the "dislike" is the negatives they've given or contributed creatively. To a smaller extent people have decided if they like/dislike RCG as people based on their personalities and the opinions they've shared on the Podcast, and to another extent what they see from or hear about them on socials..

My feelings are muddied because of my personal experiences, which is funny because I've seen quite a few people express that's why they never want to meet these guys, and I think that's totally legit because having met Rob and had conversations with him, my perspective is forever a little warped (and don't ask about Glenn or Charlie cos that's truly fucked)

But for the most part, yes people generally dislike Rob as a person but tolerate him for what he birthed (Sunny) and does creatively, lol, that's the general fandom opinion and similar to mine, which I thought I had expressed but maybe I didn't do it properly? So to be clear: most of my "like" for Rob lies in what he has done and given us in Sunny (and to an extent Mythic Quest, as well) and most of my "dislike" lies in... most else he's doing right now

[myrmyrtheorca]

For the Fandom OC Ask Meme!

Do Lidija and Dino ever cross paths? Just asking. For reasons.

Is there someone your OC liked at first, but then grew to dislike? For Myr and Anemone

Who would your OC most likely to get a puppy-crush on? (but it can’t be the cc they’re actually shipped with!) For Ysoude (jk jk from what you've shown, I don't think if she's a puppy love kinda person! Unless she is 🤔)

Hello Kitt! Thank you for your questions 🩵 the answers are kinda long this time so read more jail it is

I see the DinoxLidija group is scheming. plotting. pondering even.

... but unfortunately not in the near future. I'll say that up to the end of Varia arc, the two main plotlines (Myr in Namimori, or MIN, and Lidija + Anemone in the City, or LAC) remain parallel lines that meet only indirectly through the appearance of a particular OC who's able to move with relative freedom.

Because Dino will be important for the events of the MIN plotline, he won't be able to meddle with the LAC one at least until after Varia arc, where significant changes to the canon timeline will be made (namely much more time between the end of Varia arc and Tsuna's departure for Future arc, and subsequentially the earthquake that kickstarts Shimon arc). You can consider Varia arc to be the moment of "rupture" with the canon series of events, after that there will be much more room for the more original part of the fic. (And then there's the future episode! Wehee!)

So... will they meet? Probably! But not anytime soon. Sorry friends. Before she finds someone to love, I need to crush her little heart to pieces. Yes that's necessary. I don't make the rules.

Is there someone [Myr] and [Anemone] liked at first, but then grew to dislike?

-- [Myr]: hhmm. Not an easy question. Probably Teodoro, the current Head of Housekeeping. Being as opportunistic as he is, I imagine he was one of the first to turn his back on her. Maybe they were friends before she lost her rights? I didn't think of that, but it's a good idea. Thanks Kitt! I got new food for the brainworms thanks to this question 🩵

-- [Anemone]: well, one could say Tristam. He wasn't an insufferable child like one could expect. He didn't demand things and didn't treat other kids badly either. He's always been a polite boy. He got worse in his pre-teens, after Nifate started educating him accordingly, but then again... it was subtle. Tristam isn't an openly arrogant ruler, he knows how to play his cards well - he just has a more aggressive playstyle than his mother.

Who would [Ysoude] most likely to get a puppy-crush on? (but it can’t be the cc they’re actually shipped with!) - (OMG AN YSOUDE QUESTION EVEN THOUGH SHE'S JUST BEEN MENTIONED AFHADK) Here's the thing... Ysoude doesn't get a crush. Ysoude takes, steals, and conquers. Her definition of having a crush is stalking her victim until they either give in to her demands, or refuse. And Ys doesn't like people who refuse her. Who could possibly do that? She's the most beautiful of the Cavalieri. ysoude propaganda ysoude propaganda ysoude propaganda

Having said that, she's attracted to power and somewhat respects those who exercise it ruthlessly, so... yeah, Xanxus 100%. Probably Mukuro as well, though she'd detest all the feats related to his more human side. God forbid, probably future!Rasiel too because he has the bonus of being a dumb cunt-

[blueyellow8green]

Random thoughts about Spider from Avatar 2

So I know everyone really hates Spider and don't get me wrong I love the memes but I want to analyse his character a bit beyond "he betrayed neteyam by saving Quaritch".

Because that isn't the full story here. So from the comics which includes Spiders childhood and "origin" story we see his mother is killed at a very young age. So there's trauma number one as we know his dad is also dead making him an orphan. He is then abandoned by the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE by being left behind. I know he is raised by norm and the scientists but cmon that's abandonment issues squared. Then on top of that he is labelled a "pandoran human" (a human born on pandora) which he is the first one ever. This separates him from other humans as well and would explain even further his connection to the planet.

All of that alone in a young teenage boy is gonna traumatise him enough into making some perhaps stupid choices (I don't think him saving Quaritch was stupid, it was an emotionally loaded decision). But it doesn't end there with abandonment issues because although he grows up alongside the Sully family (and therefore Na'vi culture) he is never truly a part of that culture. He has no way to connect to ewya by the hair thing (I can't remember what it's called). He is disconnected on a physical level trying to keep up with the Na'vi, being unable to breathe with them, being separated from their cultural practice and not being able to take part in their religion no matter how much he may believe in ewya.

And despite all this he seems happy, at least in the comics and flashbacks of the movie. He is content enough with how things are with the Sully's. He clearly cares a lot about them and views them like his family.

Yet Jake literally refers to him as "a stray cat" that won't quite leave them alone. Neytiri openly dislikes him and probably ignored him as best as she could (a decision fueled by her own trauma but also he husband is half human?? Like girl pick a standard at least Spider hasn't committed war crimes unlike Jake). We actually don't see much if the kids interacting with Spider once their older apart from the scene where he goes "it's not great to know who your father is 😐"

Which yes was a funny scene but really he is opening up about what is probably a strong point of trauma with him and he gets ZERO support or recognition from people he sees as family.

I remember watching the movie and getting half way through and just constantly thinking "the Sully's haven't mentioned spider yet? When are they going back for spider? That boy is being tortured and no one cares? No one cares cause he's human?" I know getting him back wasn't feasible for Jake but they don't even say his name. They go and play with the fish and forget he ever even existed. Jake's main concern is what Spider will say, he assumed he couldn't be trusted despite practically raising that boy. Imagine you are abandoned by everyone, your parents are dead, you have never been accepted ever. And then you find out that you "family" forgot about you AGAIN. Spider has every right to be hurt and he wasn't.

I'm disappointed because we had an opportunity for an halarious dynamic is Neytiri and Jake had adopted Spider more officially when Quaritch return they could be like "we killed your ass and stole your son :p". Objectively I think that would be way more entertaining.

Him saving Quaritch if anything proves he is better than his father and maybe even Jake. Spider is literally breaking a cycle of abuse and violence in this movie but no one is willing to see it. Him teaching Quaritch the way of the Na'vi may seem like betrayal but really what we see is a traumatised abandoned child sharing his love for his home. What he is doing is more that what Jake did by trying to bride the gap with the Na'vi, Spider is bridging the gap with the sky people. Which I think will make the difference in the war.

I don't know if Quaritch will get a redemption arc but I do know Spider deserves better than everything he has been given. And the solution isn't to just give Spider an avatar body but to give him a home and the unconditional love a child deserves.

[redhoodinternaldialectical]

I don't know if you're still doing the ask game, but how about 1, 22, and 25? For Jason, and Steph too if you're up for it :D

--Cologona

Because I could still find it: yes! Still doing this ask game :3 Sorry it took so long to answer!

1) Why do you like or dislike this character?

I spent like seventy years attempting to find the post with this meme on it so I could give credit lmao, but I could not for the life of me, so uh, just know that I'm remaking this thing from memory I guess???

Jason is the bee in my bonnet, the rock in my shoe, and I am chewing on him forever and ever - meanwhile I will enjoy pretty much any comic about Steph simply because I love watching her do her thing :3

But to go into more detail I really enjoy Steph's narration style and the way she navigates the world. She feels very refreshingly street level and hopeful. Also as someone who grew up as the only "girl" (trans man but egg) in my martial arts class which was taught by a detective with a very drill sargent/tough-love approach to teaching and got an extra helping of PTSD as a result... watching her struggle, get dismissed bc of her gender, and go on to become a great hero despite Batman and his bullshit feels really fucking good. Def love Batgirl 2009

Jason on the other hand is just so deliciously messy. He's hurt a lot of people, but at the same time his anger is super justified! He's intimately familiar with violence in a way that I think makes him unable to conceptualize trust and gauge what an 'appropriate' response is. There's been several times where he's expressed the idea that serious violence by him against others is just normal and forgivable and not a big deal. There's something so compelling to me about that bc I think he really does see it that way, and it comes from a place of him being extremely used to receiving violence and being expected to forgive and not hold it against them. That wall of text in the meme picture is a tiny fraction of one of my essays on him. He's got so many fascinating layers and I love peeling him apart and putting him back together like a robot performing surgery on a grape.

Sometime after I finish Chained, I really want to write Four and Twenty Blackbirds, which is a fic concept I've had for ages now that puts them together in a lesbian/gay man queer relationship. The premise is that somehow or other Steph comes back to Gotham secretly/early and Jason is the first one to find her and they end up building a weird organized crime/community support organization called The Blackbirds.

Not sure on the timeline. Maybe it'll start before Under the Red Hood? Maybe after a modified Hush plotline?? In any case: Jason offers to preform High Vengeance against Black Mask either for or with her. She does not want him killed! She would feel like that went completely against everything she died for. However, she does want that fucker taken down, and is touched that Jason clearly genuinely cares. Also I'm going to have Jason assume without question that she is fully competent and his equal. Unlike every other vigilante in town, she will never have to prove herself to him. So anyways she tells him that yeah, she wants her revenge, but it's gonna happen her way, and the plot moves on from there, as together they destroy and co-opt Black Mask's organization and establish a territory for themselves :3

22) If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to this character? Something you don't like?

Unless given a reading suggestion by someone else, I exclusively read JayTim fanfiction, which heavily skews what I look for and see in fic. I'm also pretty damned picky lol I write much more fic than I read these days

Even the most basic, stripped down version of Stephanie's core concepts and background ought to be enough to conclude that she would have very complex feelings about both Jason and Tim and them dating each other. She had a supervillain father and a character arc about learning to value the lives of even her worst enemies. Now her ex is dating a guy who had a henchman father and the same character arc in reverse, a guy who specifically targeted her killer in order to get back at the mentor who bears some responsibility for both her death and his own. They are so uniquely poised to understand each other from across this fascinating chasm, both in terms of approaches to vigilantism and dating Tim. You could not ask for a more fertile storytelling ground, regardless of if you want her to be supportive or not.

So yeah, for Stephanie I like it when she has a personality outside of cheerleading Tim while being vaguely sweet and quirky.

The bar is in Hell here folks, and out of the hundreds of fanfics I've read I've only ever seen it cleared twice. And that's only if we include my own goddamned writing. This goes beyond normal fandom simplification, especially when you factor in that Cass, famously against all killing Cass, gets similarly denuded of all internal motives and qualities in favor of being (sometimes literally) wordlessly supportive for no apparent reason, while in those same fics the male characters get to have opinions and internal viewpoints. JayTim nation, I am praying for us to learn how to write women, truly.

Now on to Jason!

I think of Jason as someone who is intense in every facet of himself. He can be cruel and mistrustful or tender and romantic, but no matter what he is I want him to be a little unhinged with it, a little too deep, a little too incapable of not giving a fuck. I want this man lost in the sauce, whatever that sauce may be.

I dislike him being overly apologetic, which practically translates to me disliking most fics in which he is apologetic at all lol I do think he would come to regret some of his actions, but I tend to think those would be different actions than the ones he's usually depicted apologizing for. For instance, I can absolutely see him apologizing to a victim of the Joker for not killing him when he got the chance, but I don't really think he'd have the framework to consider his fights with Tim to have been all that far out of line.

25) What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

Ohhhhhhh boy that was fuckin ages ago??? I'm not honestly sure I remember, though I do know that I read JayTim fanfics before anything else that involved these characters, so it had to have been based on that.

...Gah, I don't even remember how I found this ship lol! I mean I started with Boostle?? Maybe JayTim was in the background somewhere of one of those fics? idk

I suppose my first impressions were that Jason was a Big Mood deeply traumatized and lashing out bc of that, and Stephanie was gir waffles XD random rawr means I love you in dinosaur.

Anyhow, thank you very much for the ask @cologona! As per usual with these things I hope it was a fun read and you have a good day and all that jazz :3

[lietpolski]

when you have the chance, could you do a mischaraterization analysis on iceland?

sure!! i think the difference between him and nor is that people are more aware of the liberties they're taking with his characterization, so, disclaimer: i don't care how you characterize him and i don't think i'm better for sticking to canon. but let's talk about canon iceland!!

one thing that's a personal pet peeve is his age, and when he's portrayed as an adult. i've seen people saying that they don't even know if he's meant to be a teenager or not! but:

he's meant to be 16-17, as hima has said! now, i think it's fine to take creative liberties with most characters' ages. however, with iceland it's such a core element of his personality that aging him up just,, entirely changes him as a character!

iceland is meant to be a teenager. no, not in the emo tumblr user who loves memes sense (that interpretation was 90% of iceland content in 2015 haha), but like a teenager who because of his age can be immature, and struggle with his emotions, connections to others, and a lot of insecurity. you can see some of that insecurity in his need to be seen as mature, but also his embarrassment over his accent & being hot-headed (another aspect of him that's underexplored! people forget that side of him!)

"According to Himaruya (in a Comic Birz interview), Iceland tends to feel uncomfortable with his thick accent and hard to understand language, opting to speak in English when he can. This was further instated when it was mentioned in his Volume 5 profile that he tries his best to hide his accent.[17]"

but more specifically, i'd say that iceland's main internal struggle & driving force is his want to connect with and be close to others. but in response to him always been forgotten, being an afterthought, and falling behind, he's put up a front of indifference about it - "i don't care if people don't care about me"

but here's the thing! although he tries to act uncaring and fine being alone, he loves his overbearing family :,) and values the connections they give him so much!! in my opinion, him disliking how the other nordics act is just a front (except when he's being babied, which is understandable haha) and i think this gets kinda lost in fanon. just look at these interactions! (image order is left to right)

this one below makes me especially sad :,)

the other nordics being what stops him from being lonely is huge when you consider iceland's origins:

he was all alone, for years and years and years, with no one like himself to explain to him who he was, what he was, a little kid all alone and he was so lonely. that is, until his big brothers finally came over to his island to bring him home!

so yes, iceland does care about his family and does want them close, and he's not as indifferent to everything as he wants to act. he's a character with some deeply rooted insecurities, and he feels the need to hide them

and some quick thoughts: i don't have a lot of obvious examples, but iceland is an old-fashioned person! he's not as in touch with the rest of the world, he wears grandpa sweaters and cravats, he has an old ass phone, he doesn't at all strike me as internet savvy and i don't like that characterization of him

i've covered this in more detail with my denmark & norway rants, but he's super close to both of them, likes both of them, and sees both of them as brothers! in fact, he sees sweden & finland as brothers too!

(+ that image i showed earlier saying that he looks up to sweden as an adult, and how he calls them all nicknames! dan, svi, fin, nor!)

one last thing about his relationships!! people seem to think that him and hong kong are an entirely fanon thing, when actually they have at least 2 manga chapters where they interact and seem to be friendly! here's one of them :)

i hope you found this long rant interesting, he's one of my favourites!

[meu-light]

I think you all don't understand how JittiRain's style of writing works on you...

You "hate" on all of the shows based on her novels but tbh most of her characters are very well written (yes, even the ones we dislike). And yes, her main trope is miscommunication but she throws in the SUPERNATURAL sparkle which makes it amazing (at least to me).

Let's get everything in order.

Theory of Love (2019)

Did we hate Khai? Yes.

Did he get what he deserved? Yes. If you know a few things about the novel, man has repaid his sins.

Does it have huge rewatch-abilty points? Yes. I personally think about it all the time.

Also, we got MEMES from this show. Y'all watched it.

2gether, Still 2gether and The Movie (2020, 2021)

One sentence. WE MADE A MEDIOCRE AT BEST SHOW SO HUGE THAT GMMTV IS STILL TRYING TO MILK IT.

We watched it. It was not good. Thankfully P'Aof came in for Still 2gether and made it bearable but apparently you like hot guys and you're showing it.

Memes? Yes. Side couple? Yes. Guitar? Yes.

Do I need to say anything else? Y'all watched it.

Fish Upon the Sky (2021)

A literal disaster. The show compared to the novel was nothing. Thankfully (again) P'Aof produced the show and made it somehow watchable. And yet again we made the main (if not both) couple(s) of the show HUGE, so huge that they have an actual P'Jojo show they STARRED in which, believe me, is a HUGE UPGRADE.

Also, it was kinda cute and we got a lot of memes but that's about it. Y'all watched it.

Vice Versa (2022)

Do I need to remind you what kind of ruckus this motherfather show caused while it aired? We were OBSESSED. Theories, cinematography explanations, camera angles, everything. The whole color per episode thingy (which was also in the novel btw), studying the locations, the whole package and yet you dare to tell me that you did not enjoy this show?

Puen was a piece of poop most of the time but he came around IN THE NAME OF LOVE and I approve.

I still have a Talay pfp ffs. No need for anything else. Y'all watched it.

You enjoyed all her shows, now stop crying about it and saying you don't trust her because the woman has been playing with y'all for years, you like it but you don't want to admit it.

WATCH BE MY FAVORITE FOR GAWIN!

[wantonlywindswept]

@lucdarling replied to your post “so all of the fic where the GAR and Coruscant...”:

pls give me your fic recs, friend. this sounds very relevant to my interests.

​oh heckie yes i got u boo @lucdarling

Fics Being Mean to the Coruscant Guard:

Two Strikes / Crowning Glory A variety of steps Cody takes to ensure the Guard doesn't get abused as horribly -- Fox and his men might not be on the front lines, but they're still Vod'e -- and their consequences.

linking to the first fic in the series, the story starts out mostly with Cody being a slut (affectionate) but then goes on to get into the Tragedy of Darth Plageius the Coruscant Guard and Fixing It and tbh if you read nothing else read this series it is So Good. make sure to follow the links, things are slightly confusing and non-sequential if you don't

it also actually addresses post-trauma stuff too which is AMAZING, yes def read this but be sure to put some time aside for it the series is like 500k and you Will want to read it all in one sitting and then you might get yelled at by your wife for not sleeping for three days or that might just be me, 100/10

Galaxy-Saving Memes You can only access the page if you're GAR. The Coruscant Guard decides to infiltrate it because they are tired of being ignored, and honestly? Their memes are way better. Or, the Guard saves millions of lives through stupid internet posts.

second on the 'if nothing else read this' list, unless you dislike epistolary stories, in which case you can skip. but it is short and it is fucking HILARIOUS which you would think wouldn't be possible given the subject matter but no, it is great, 100/10

The Adoption Wars The only thing stronger than the dark side is Rex's ability to get adopted. Or: the one where Rex would really like everyone to know that he is perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Oh, and Fox finally gets to kill a sith.

only somewhat about Being Mean to the Guard but by god it is cute and adorable but also makes you Feel Emotions, excellent story 10/10

Their Days Are Darker After the death of ARC Trooper Fives, an altercation at 79's leads Wolffe to spend his leave snooping around the Coruscant Guard. Fox assumes he'll drop it and leave the Corries to their fate; it's what everyone else has done. He is very, very wrong.

so this is heartbreaking in the whole 'doesn't understand that what is happening is wrong' kind of way and tbh Cody is a little bit more of a dick than i usually imagine him but it is still Quite Excellent 10/10

exploitation, hesitation The Coruscant Guard makes a mistake while working with the 212th Attack Battalion. Fox prepares to take the heat.

EXCELLENT writing with the whole 'pov character thinks one thing is happening while outside characters Definitely Do Not', fox is so self-sacrificing which is why and how we love him 10/10

learning solitude It's a gradual, insidious thing, Fox's absorption into the Chancellor's office. The Chancellor wants a clone commander of his own, so he gets one. All Fox gets is a position far away from his brothers, a lesson in how to work around natborns who detest his very existence, and a seemingly endless list of monotonous jobs to keep him occupied through all his waking hours and beyond. Fox misses Kamino.

less Guard more Fox, but man what a way to emotionally stab you in the face! lots of gaslighting and manipulation and it is part of a series but the series also gets Extremely Dark at the end before having a recovery/happy ending, so ymmv 10/10

Blood Iron Fox has seen many things seized during raids. Illegal weapons, Spice and other assorted of banned drugs, slaves, carnivorous beasts trained for the fighting rings, the list goes on. Nothing prepared him for finding beskar among the crates of contraband and bad life choices.

so much worldbuilding fuck yeah! semi-the mandalorian crossover, the Guards have it Real Fucking Rough but then they run into some traditional mandos with hearts of gold beskar, v excellent 10/10

i'm sure there are others! well i know there are others, but these are the ones i remember standing out/have read so far. all of these have happy endings, i wouldn't do that to you (and tbh don't really read stuff w/o happy endings myself)

go forth and read whump!

[inchidentally]

for any new followers, bl 'wank adjacent' to not see me respond to tricky asks <3 I always keep them beneath a cut but yk <3

straight up anon I was wondering why the gossip pages suddenly had this insaaaaane influx of Rebecca hate anons when she hasn't done anything of gossipy note with Carlos for a while and then I'm like ahhhh yes either Carlos or Lando decided to pull the carland0 hashtag out. this year's been esp egreeeegious:

_Carlos needs an image boost while he looks for the best seat

_Lando's dad wants in on the ship name hashtag to promote his scooters

_Carlos complains that Netflix has always given him unfavorable treatment so he gets Caco to liaise with them at races, he looks for the Netflix boom to create 'moments' with Lando/McLaren and Kym confirms they prepped Netflix thinking he'd podium at Barca and get to announce his new seat

_Lando needs image rehab and wants ppl off the topic of him and Max fighting

_Carlos is rumored to have lost potential seats due to delaying and might end up having none at all and needs to boost a reminder of the popularity he brings as a driver

and like I always say, yes there is a genuine if not quite the way they portray it friendship between Lando and Carlos! it's the same as Lando has with other drivers but rpf girlies just don't find them as yaoi or they aren't as hot for those guys. and I enjoy all their interaction in the not-insane privacy of my own head where rpf and reality have nice solid lines alsfsljafg. but it also reminds me how much I love that Lando and Oscar never went for any of this PR bullshit and have actually wanted to develop a genuine relationship without fan/McLaren/Netflix/TV network involvement. at no point does Lando turn to gimmicks with Oscar when he needs a PR boost even tho he could easily do so with McLaren's help and Oscar is a solidly safe bet bc he's considered so inoffensive and loved now.

but they won't jump on their ship name, they won't play gay for attention and engagement, they don't create any memes or soundbites, and the sweet and fun things they do aren't buzzworthy or contrived into a bromance format that fans are cultivated to recognize. some fans know Oscar helps Lando's brain sometimes, they get on the same wavelength and have nonverbal communication, they respect and support each other even when there's a huge disparity of outcome in a weekend, and they both genuinely love making the other laugh. like, none of that is something you can stick on a sm graphic and guarantee the kinds of numbers the bromances get. Netflix even made a joke about how they couldn't create a narrative around them even when they openly begged to make it happen salfgsaljfgla.

nobody in PR is at all intrigued by these two guys cautiously getting to know each other and cultivating a unique and unlikely positive and healthy team atmosphere together. there's no handy orchestrated narrative there. McLaren social media occasionally roll with the 'twinning' thing but even that isn't gimmicky enough and it's more about them being on the same wavelength than them actually being identical in any way. even the Oscar nickname thing has been unconsciously taken from fans by Lando bc he only said it the first time without thinking and from there he's kept it as something that just makes them both smile AND has even changed it up when fans started co-opting it too much. and neither of them pull it out in random interviews to try and create a buzz about it.

and whenever we get a dry spot in landoscar content or for the millionth time hear about them hanging out and not posting it - it's worth remembering that we're also not getting the 1D/BTS rpf truther pipeline fans showing up and that no one will try and conspiracy theory Lily into a beard/fake/bitch/leech or even decide to dislike her !! and we don't have to realize ah, they're only hanging out or talking about each other to manipulate fan engagement for a double purpose. they're either together or mentioning each other bc of their job and otherwise it's bc they genuinely like each other.

side note it is always wild to me that I got sucked into F1 solely bc of carland0 PR and I don't normally mind the pandering - and I wouldn't mind it at all if carland0 as a fandom wasn't also responsible for the most repulsive, misogynist, maniacal campaign of hatred toward women and decides that either they're evil and fake/beards or they're brainless idiots with zero self-respect who serve as fake/beards. the fact that I got on f1blr and saw that ppl push that insanity and actually think carland0 could be or is actually a real gay relationship FULLY out in the open and with no shame to this very day... like shame on me for looking at gossip pages but genuinely I see it as much in normal fandom spaces as I do there which is insane. literally Lando decides to hit like on a post to generate the predictable response and the gossip pages go from every day shit to Rebecca back to being treated like a force of pure evil who urgently needs to be exposed and disposed of and who Carlos is paying for and doesn't even remotely like and is pure PR - even though apparently she's also terrible PR?? - and his family all want her destroyed and all the old photos and jobs fans dug up recirculating as "proof" that she is pure evil ??!!!! the woman hasn't even been publicly with Carlos since Barcelona and has done nothing but go horse riding and modeling but then someone sprays water on the carland0 hive and it's suddenly time to martial the fucking flotilla against her again as their only "obstacle" to carland0 finally being together aslsafglsjagflasfgljfag

I do have to laugh bc Carlos only growing in public affection for her and bringing her up when no one else does and him traveling with her to her modeling gigs when he's on break and leaving lovey comments on her content even tho she doesn't on his is already breaking ppls brains and making The Hatred Narratives change up every five seconds to try and de-legitimize them as a couple bffbfbf

[snobgoblin]

thinkin about that art of Lucio holding Faunus in a little princess dress. so okay here's how the M6 would take care of Faunus

🦊 🪄 Asra

I yapped about this already with the familiar rules but they view this as gaining a new little accomplice /affectionate. they get into a lot of trouble pranking people with this goat. also, taking into account something the devs said- a snake suits Asra because it's not a huge commitment as far as taking care of her. a baby goat that needs to be bottle fed would get annoying kind of quickly to him (he's got stuff he wants to do!) I think so Danny doesn't leave them alone for too long. but, he does love Faunus because he loves Danny and this is an extension of him (I might yap about the significance of her being a goat to Asra specifically later)

🦉🌙 Nadia

I do wonder about this one a lot. she shows disgust with Lucios menagerie but that's mostly just "I don't like exotic animals being forced out of their homes and then running wild around the palace" you know? she seems to really value an animal who is well trained and scoffs at Mercedes and Melchior for this reason. she doesn't like them being let on the furniture. this doesn't mean she dislikes animals though, of course not, there's Chandra and Sacha and Nadia's horse (I forget the name) to consider, but the difference is all those animals respect her and behave. she likes respect. and for this reason, I think she would be alright being around her. she's a very polite and shy little baby and only eats furniture sometimes. as for taking care of her, Nadia probably has a servant do it. but she won't let Faunus leave her care without another jewel on her collar

🐦🍻 Julian

he gets along with her for sure and absolutely loves taking care of her. I think Julian's been described as a frantic mother hen before- he has no problem taking her under his wing. treats her like the most fragile baby in the whole world. he would die for her. well he might just die in general for anyone. he insists she needs medical care because she "has a limp" (she doesn't she's a wobbly baby goat) and he definitely goes on this whole poetic spiel when Danny picks her up again. very dramatic goodbyes

🐻🌿 Muriel

he........ hates goats. for obvious reasons. he's definitely wary at first but he's too much of an animal lover to resist saying yes to taking care of her- its not her fault she reminds him of someone else, anyway. though he can't understand her like he understands Inanna, that doesn't stop him from talking to her like he talks to her chickens. he seems to know exactly how to read her at times, he's just really good with animals. he and Faunus are like the dad and dog meme.... like he'll insist he doesn't have time to take care of her and then ask Danny when he'll be busy again

🐈🔎 Portia

she's the one taking care of Lucios menagerie so naturally she's good with animals. she seems exhausted at times with it (calling Mercedes and Melchior "those dopey dogs" and Camio "Mr Shitbird") but I don't think that reflects her view of animals in general, judging from her reaction to Pepi for the first time and also the seals in Julian's route. she's very excitable with animals but she doesn't like taking care of them I think. I think she would like running around in her garden with a baby goat chasing her though

🐕 🗡 Lucio

TWO WORDS: PRINCESS TREATMENT. this man loves goats he's obsessed with them he just thinks Faunus is the greatest thing. he's gonna be messy with bottle feeding her probably and he doesn't even know how to work an oven so it's probably not gonna be warm, so like Nadia he's probably got a servant helping him. when Danny comes to pick her up he will insist he needs more time because her commissioned dresses and portraits are not done yet. also he likes running with her through the halls (baby goats follow you around like crazy it's very fun) at times he does forget she is an animal and not a perfect being so he gets briefly upset when she chews on furniture or something, but he can't stay mad too long and he's just kind of like "eh we'll get a new one"