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broomsticks · 2 years ago

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me, seeing if i can bait anyone into diving into BL fandom drama with me 😈

transcript (pdf) here

v interesting episode bringing together some really different perspectives! podcast hosts are australia-based academics who usually focus on china politics—i haven’t listened to any other episodes but they’re definitely on my to-do.

they also brought on an american(?) scholar of chinese history/ art history lecturer at HKU, who reads fanfiction and is interested in chinese tv dramas from the state censorship/regulation pov — and a(n asian?) BL (+ thorki, johnlock, etc) fanfic author 幻想症患者 (love the nick. means smth like ‘suffers from delusions’)

it’s no easy feat to be the lone fanfic writer in this discussion, to have to fairly represent the many aspects to these really complex issues, and there were a couple of rather - honestly not even fandom 101, more like fandom 100-level type questions you’d only get from people with no fandom experience.

on the whole though the hosting was good, you can tell the hosts did a lot of prep on the untamed show and the controversies re. the actor and his fans/his real-life fans fandom

though, on that note, i thought the discussion was a bit muddled between these different groups of ‘fan/fandom’. i have no doubt that everybody in the discussion was clear that these were separate things and which they were talking about at any point in time, just maybe didn’t have the language to signpost/ organize it more clearly, but i could’ve used more structure imo.

• • •

i especially appreciated huanxiang’s point about how (very grossly paraphrased) there is safety and protection and freedom in nicheness and obscurity and (less grossly paraphrased) drama draws unnecessary attention from outsiders who don’t understand fandom - particularly this bit:

I would be very, very careful to link [fandom trends and phenomena to anything (LGBTQ issues etc) in real life], not that it cannot be done. But please don't do that before like, before you have finished like 100, 200 BL novels or something like that with like a full understanding of the space

understanding before judgment! please! yes!

but also — while n=1 is just that, n=1, but i’d be lying if i said i didn’t giggle a little at the undertone of the cultural value(?) that attention, standing out, is a negative thing and viewed with this like default-aversion/suspicion. idk

that said, my main thought re. this hesitation wrt people who don't belong to this community and understand the norms of this community wasn’t so much kinks and fantasies and premier zhou/chairman mao RPF, but rather not showing celebrities rpf of themselves / creators fic of their characters. neither type of wank is great, obviously, and the two types do often go hand in hand, but i’d almost rather wank be brought into the community than leak out of it

• • •

another point alluded to (not really discussed) on the pod that might be new to western media fandomgoers/ my usual mutual circle is that the untamed netflix tv show originated as original fiction published on a site that hosts both OF and FF both pay- and free-to-read. there were fan translations and all, that were taken down after official translation rights were sold (there is a lot of wank & drama on this issue. a lot.)

a 2019 censorship crackdown on the site, unrelated to (predating) the untamed/xiao zhan controversy discussed on the pod

anyway, point being - the coexistence of the two camps — intended-for-commercialization amateur fiction, presumably sanitized and lowest-common-denominator and all that, and niche not intended for wider popularity-type writing — is fascinating. good to know that they can stably coexist in some form, given how much concern there often is re. commercialization of fanworks that the former will outcompete the latter!

• • •

BY FAR THE BEST TAKE - MY FAVE part of the podcast - was dr angie baecker’s response to the question is BL (response is also applicable to slash fic) subversive?

BL is and can be an extremely subversive space. But I also think BL can replicate a lot of structures that are not subversive. I also want to draw attention to the fact that many people in the LGBTQ community, some enjoy BL, some read it, some don't, some hate it.

when you have largely straight women writing romances about gay couples without having much access to knowledge about what those relationships are like, I think that there is [huge potential] for misunderstandings about queer identities and the LGBT community

It can be really freeing to see [to see the range of different types of M/M relationships], to explore not just homosexuality, but also homosociality

But at the same time, when you have such an emphasis on the male relationships, like everyone in the Untamed is a gay man or in an M/M relationship, that often comes at the cost of erasing a lot of female characters. And so you have this drama that may have started in some ways from the lack of agency given to female characters, but then it replicates a lot of the erasure of women as centres of agency within stories, too. So, I think it can be subversive, yes. And it could be very unsubversive, actually.

definitely some food for thought there. obligatory (and i do mean it!!) preface that fandom is not meaningful activism, does not have to be, you are not a bad person for not engaging with it — but i do wonder… in my view, there’s an element of - ‘with how oppressive the power structures of mainstream media, wider society, etc can be… why not take the opportunity to push back against them a little, here in this space where we can?’

• • •

also had a laugh at dr baecker’s unfortunately prescient prediction, their hesitation, that while I feel like right now we're really on the cusp of a rising trend in terms of seeing BL represented in pop culture - we're only going to see more and more of it -

I am a little worried that there might be some kind of like a foreclosing of this space because there's always this kind of Icarus phenomenon of when something gets too popular, right, it gets clipped back a little bit. So, I do worry about that.

😬 hahaha. that aged well.

• • •

misc pieces of fun fandom drama:

whether character name tags should include diacritics/tone marks! on the side of no: convenience - up until recently, tone marks wouldn’t autocomplete correctly. and for all the incorrectness, it’s not (any more) ambiguous. on the yes side: tone marks are objectively (more) correct. does their omission amount to racism?

it seems like (some sections of?) chinese webnovel fandom apparently have the fandom culture of not messing with the creator’s stated preferences — not just canon ships, but sexual preferences (topping and bottoming). fascinating!! fandom etiquette 👀

#fandom podcast #fandom meta #the untamed #acafandom #fanthropology #fandom history

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speaking-at-the-theater · 2 years ago

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watching and dreaming

WATCHING AND DREAMING! i’ve got popcorn and soda ready :D

OH SHIT

–

the in-between? yay?

funky little in-between places between worlds, the unknown, the in between, the nowhere realm, gotta love them

–

FUCK

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AMITY VS LUZ! the fight to the death literally no one wanted!

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oh shit. poor…..everyone!

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terribly sad moment but the color coordination or purple+green+red´+yellow+blue was great (couldnt get a pic w amity’s hair in it that didnt exclude hunter

–

gotta love those tiny details in dream sequences that remind the mc that something is wrong. toh is so good at that, keeping consistency across eps! a witch’s duel was introduced in s1, and yet now they are recalling the concept, drawing attention to it, in a way

—

it’s interesting how ‘light’ here also has implications of truth, reality, knowledge. reminds me of hs in a way, though ik the idea is not exclusive to that

–

family reunion time!

rai-rai? really?

collector is soo cute!

collector is just an amoral child propaganda yes!

(can you guys tell i love collector???)

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spiders are cool yes!!

wow! character who does bad stuff but doesnt realiza it’s bad? sign me right up! i love collector, did you know that?

the interesting contrast of childish innocence plus terrible atrocities is always fun to watch

watcha playing eyyy!!

–

love how luz, eda and king are kind of showing collector what his games feel like (getting injured, painful) for them, while being part of the games themselves! i imagine this si setting up for a ‘stop! this isnt funny anymore’ ‘well, that’s what everyone else feels too’ moment

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poor collectorrrr nhghhshshshsh new fave character ig

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O COLLECTOR IS THEY THEM I DIDNT NOTICE

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love this shot

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collector is so like a child, they encounter a feeling they dont like and immediately become mean

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couldnt help but notice their eyes were without that white dot- kinda like the amity-puppet, yk?

collector spinel kinnie, also older-collectors are archivists? cool

ok so my predictions about the archvists taking collector in where wrong, cool. might wanna do something with that later tho

man that’s- that’s sad. collector literally got abandoned by their siblings, and then made new friends, just to see their siblings practically genocide everyone there, just for one of their friends to blame them for that and trap them in an empty dimension for a lot of years (and obviously leaving collector w some trauma). even if they dont say it in grown-up words, what happened to them was awful

luz collector parallels yes!

fuck you belos! go raine!

–

texts i found

-liar

-i gave up my palisman for you (i think?)

-im done

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oh they really said ‘go big or go home’ w the horror here didnt they?

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i think it’s cute, seeing luz tell her story of the owl house. kinda like those end of movie narration where the mc describes what they learned. very…heartwarming, excuse me while i cry bc this is the series finale

the knee! i love that theme of ‘can you hear the world singing?’ i’ve seen in so many other places. real magical. and TITAN MAGIC?? gimme.

no but fr they baby

collector saying a baby could do what it took luz like 6 eps to learn

i love!!!!! the idea that luz and the titan/isles are connected to eachother, have loved it since i first came upon it in s1, i should do a (heavily canon divergent basically full on au) fic of it.

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at first i heard ‘he must really like you’ as ‘he was really like you’ and honestly i like both.

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‘hear that?’ ‘hear what?’ didnt that also happen last ep? i’ve been watching so much media it’s mixing around in my head

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oof. collector recognizing raine’s earring.

oh?? collector tell us your plan??

‘kindness and forgiveness’ wont help you now collector.

also isnt belos kinda a titan now??? should he be inmune to collector’s magic?

what a load of second-hand embarrassment

collector is such a child!! they see a new rule in this game we call life and they assume it always applies and are surprised when it doesnt! .

‘no, you did good, collector’ yes!! bc collector wasnt completely in the wrong for wanting to understand belos! it means they learned from what luz taught them!! it’s not their fault belos is an asshole!

wow! for everyone who thought king was gonna be the petrified one this season, not quite!

that silent ‘oh no’ look

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no dont say that!! that’s sad!!! i’m sad now!!

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luz! light! she became light!!

gotta love ‘tiny golden sparks representing magic through a connection with the world surrounding you’ sounds too specific but both toh and spop have done it!

collector i gte you’re grieving but please stop putting yourself in dangerous situations you have to be rescued from

even so: ‘the archivists arent here! the couldnt have taken her!’ noooo

oh. luz’s…..shards, return to the stars. the light glyph is written in the stars. huh.

‘i should have thanked them’ oh. bc everytime they get separated, the separated party thanks luz (‘luz, thank you for being in my life’ ‘thank you for being my big sister’)

i’m crying now.

KING’S DAD????

i should be more surprised but this was set up since the beginning

‘luz is a noceda! you know what that means? it means she’s too strong to let any of this bring her down’ literally!! the name noceda means ‘don’t give up/yield’ theory of language my beloved

‘I’m sorry for everything!’ reminds me of catra. damn. and ‘i don’t want anyone else to go missing……’

i need the music for the titan luz scene.

love this logo?? bc 1 it reminds me of the solar system which correlates w the space theme we’ve got going but also, it reminds me of like, connection. how mixing glyphs together makes them stronger. how luz’s strength is in her friends, her attachments, her connection to the world!

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OH!!! THE INTRO LEITMOTIF IN THE TITAN LUZ SCENE!!!

is that collector screaming????

no he looks like a cat fr

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no but??? the isles being overtaken by green vegetation?? utterly natural for humans (belos, and to an extent luz) but utterly alien to the people of the isles?? then luz giving back the red vegetation??? smth about accepting other people’s differences even if they dint align w yours???

gotta love all the callbacks this ep is doing. i could make a compilation of them but it’s like they’re saying ‘we know this is the end, but remember the journey’ remember remember remember ughhhhhh toh will never die.

love how all the glyphs have their natural element form, but also other connotations! the light glyph deals w light, but also knowledge, truth (it helps wake up the people of the isles) but also the obscuring of truth (the invisibility glyph) while fire is both fire and like, movement, the sphere titan!luz travels in is made of fire glyphs while the teletransporting spell has a fire glyph in the middle, light also seems to have themes of ife? and it makes sense for fire to be movement: the more hot something is, the more the atoms in it aare moving and just…. hajdjakd.

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eda’s requiem???

what the fuck is going on here what does that do

also ‘i am the good witch luz child of the human real student of the demon realm’ YES????? BC SHE’S NO LONGER PRETENDING TO BE SOMEONE ELSE, SHE’S ACCEPTED WHO SHE IS AND WHERE SHE COMES FROM

MORE CALLBACKS

collector seeing the hex-children and curling up…… gonna save this

whoa!! belos is a bastard!! come on, still attepmting to manipulate luz??

also ‘you’re human, you’re better than this’ ‘WELL WE AINT’ (stomps) YESSSS

and the acid rain not hurting luz….nice detail. the titan does look upon her

’Hunter deamonne is canon!!’

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uh??? no- no more glyphs??????? nooo

–

my babies!!!! theyre all so grown up now

–

in remembrance of flapjack

ToT

…..

i’m going to cry now. bye

i have no grand speech about how much this means to me, mostly bc there are no words to describe it. it’s just…..thank you, TOH, for being in my life.

#toh spoilers #wad toh

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trashcatsnark · 3 months ago

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I mean, I think first and foremost- FC5 is just a villain fucker fandom. The Seeds for all their flaws and lord knows they're numerous are of course attractive which helps but also they're the game. They're the entire point of the story, they're the characters everything revolves around, who get the most lore as choppy as it can be, most additionally materials (books, comics, dlc) also center on them. So, they're gonna draw the most focus.

John in particular, and granted I love John but would consider him my fave of the Seeds, I think it does help that he's probably the most conventionally attractive of the family (Faith is beautiful as well, but Fandoms latch more heavily onto male characters)

I think he also tends to get humanized a bit more because A) he's often seen as the least competent herald, B) he's more emotional than the others, C) honestly I think the fact he seems to believe in Joseph the most also earns him extra sympathy

Going into each point in more detail - I think the fact he gets taken the least seriously makes him more prone to being "silly guy'ed" in the Fandom, like yes, he is brutal, he tortures people, carves off their skin, and he also does really cheesy lame infomercials, he builds a Hollywood sign of his favorite word, he threatens to huff and puff and blow down houses, he has a jacket with little planes on it- compared to Jacob, Faith, and of course Joseph, he's just a bit harder to take seriously.

Compare their broadcasts even. John's is the full scale infomercial- a stage, lights, flowers, a chanting audience. It's cartoony and over the top- even managing to somehow beam it straight into our skull at the top of a radio tower.

Meanwhile Faith's is just her in a dark little room, standing behind Burke, whispering in his ear as he stutter each one out in response in a bliss stupor. No frills,not theatrics, just proof of what she can do.

Jacob just puts a camera in the room, tells you and Pratt exactly what's going to happen to him.

Yet, despite his more theatrical silly sort of image, his actual approach to what he does is so much more brutal, physical, and in a lot of ways more realistic but also less terrifying in others.

On one hand, I can totally see and of course empathize that what John does is more akin to actual experiences of abuse, because he's not creating entire dreamscapes from drugs or conditioning people into murder soldiers- he's just hurting people, bloody fucked up torture.

And at the same time, that also feels less intimidating in some ways. John will hurt you. Jacob and Faith will change who you are. This isn't to undermine any form of trauma or abuse, just to say John's victims tend to walk away still feeling like themselves. Mary May, Jerome, Nick, and Joey all still feel like themselves at the end. Traumatized and survivors but unlike Pratt or Burke, they don't fundamentally feel like different people. John tortures people until they say Yes just to make the pain stop, he doesn't really care if they actually believe it (because this isnt about them) and other than already devoted peggies- no one else really does.

He just doesn't have the same impact as the other Seeds

Similarly, he's a lot more emotional and reactive. A lot of the things he does, feel like reactive temper tantrums. Drowning the deputy, flipping tables, etc. Faith is very placid and calculated until she really starts to feel the loss of control. Jacob is pretty calm until the end. Joseph only really gives into showing his emotions when grieving his siblings than a full scale tantrum when you resist

John leads with the tantrum. He's not a calculated man. He's angry, he hurts you. Which again is simultaneously, very realistic in a way, but also makes him feel so much less intimidating and in some ways easier to empathize. For some people, not everyone, it's easier to empathize with someone who doesn't seem in control of themselves or their emotions. In a weird way, I think John for a lot of way feels more genuinely unstable versus calculatedly cruel.

Of course, he does have control, he does have autonomy, he does have control- he could stop taking peoples skin at anytime, but also he's been given an almost free pass to skin people for God, so.... he's probably gonna keep doing it.

Which I think goes into the last thing I mentioned, John of the heralds... seems to believe in Joseph the most. Both Jacob and Faith express some level of doubt in Joseph. Jacob admits he's not certain if Joseph hears God, but he believes the world is ending someway somehow. Once Faith realizes she's losing, she fully flips the script- Joseph is the ultimate villain, no longer the loving Father she swore he was before but an abuser, he plied her with drugs, she was just a kid.

But John never really has that moment. Not a casual admission of doubt or a desperate switch in everything he's been saying. Up until his last breath, he believes in Joseph, the project, everything.

Which on one hand, one could argue makes him the least likely for redemption due to him genuinely being convinced of these things but I also think that honestly makes him more empathetic.

Jacob and Faith both have more skepticism in the beliefs they're spewing. A certain level of awareness in that what's happening here isn't actually helping anyone. And yet they still do it. Jacob doesn't know if for sure if Joseph talks to God, still kidnapping people, starving them, brainwashing them, culling the herd, and stands by it all because they'll need soldier to survive what's coming, whatever that is. Faith knows on some level that Joseph isn't the hero here, that she wasn't the first Faith and if she fails, she may not he the last, still she whispers in your ear how sweet and loving her family is. She drowns people in bliss, shaves their heads, and calls them angels- maybe because she's scared, maybe because a part of her likes the power, maybe both.

John however does buy into it all, maybe because it allows him to act some of his worst most violent impulses while still being mostly "good", still being a part of something, still having a promised paradise after the collapse- regardless of why, he does. He becomes fixated on getting the player to convert because he's told it's his only way to get to New Eden, seems genuinely excited at naming their sin, them saying yes. And yet, despite being the most bought into it- he's the one getting admonished the most by Joseph. Every interaction between them feels like he's a child being scolded, because even though he believes in this the most, even though he's atoned, he's still reactive, he's still impulsive, he's still fucking up- even in a family, a belief system that allows some of his most depraved impulses- he's still not good enough for a fucking "good job, atta boy, john"

Like, they're all committing atrocities, but Faith and Jacob don't even fully believe in the reason they're committed the atrocities, yet here they are arguably committing worse atrocities and doing a better job at it...

And of course, this is just my thoughts and speculation and feelings, I personally am not big on the redeem the Seeds train, I love them because I kinda just love fucked up little guys. But I do see why John gets that treatment the most beyond just his face- he's this incredibly odd mix of pathetic, brutal, sad, abusive, reactive, desperate, broken, violent, childidh, campy, clingy, weirdass man. That can inspire "oh I can fix him," "he can make me worse," and instant Cain instinct activation at any given moment.

And I can appreciate how that can feel frustrating to the treatment of Hudson, though I also think that's more a game issue than a fandom issue. Because while Fandom wise, i do think its worth saying that female characters just don't get as much love which sucks, I mean Faith gets absolutely the least amount of attention of the Seeds. The female gfh(Jess, Grace, and Adelaide) get little love as well. But I think for Joey it massively does not help that of our kidnapped allies, she doesn't get to interact with us as much. Pratt, having been completely broken by Jacob, talks to us in in nearly if not every one of Jacob's cutscenes, if only to prove how broken he is. Burke is in everyone of Faith's, even has a whole boat ride with us to try to convince us how good the bliss is.

Joey doesn't get that, every time she's in one of John's scenes, she's got tape over her mouth. Because John may have gotten a yes out of her once, but he knows, we know, she knows that without that tape she's not about to start telling us to say yes, confess our sins, or preaching peggie shit. John breaks skin, not spirits.

And I do think people empathize with her, I'm a Seedfucker to the day I die but when I first heard the tape of John torturing her, I wanted to cry and fucking blew up every stereo truck blasting it. But I do think just between how much the villains are the main characters in fc5 and how Hudson is really not allowed a lot of space to be a character until John is dead, it does mean a lot of the audience just isn't going to feel connected to her beyond that sort of empathy for her pain,

John Seed is a comfort character for some people. Folks like to ship him with their deputies or craft redemption arcs for him.

There's nothing wrong with that, obviously.

But I just can't wrap my head around it.

There's nothing comforting about the way John Seed treated Joey Hudson. I don't understand why the ordeal she went through doesn't seem to matter to fans of his.

She was bait for the rookie deputy and nothing more, because she wasn't going to give in and join the cult.

He terrorized Joey and the rest of Fall's End, stooping to the lowest, most inhumane levels to get his way. Some even theorize that he hurt the "sinners" in his care just because he wanted to, for malicious, sadistic reasons that didn't have anything to do with the cult. At worst, some people go as far as to speculate that he raped Joey.

It's easy to see why someone might come to that conclusion. The way he acts is deplorable and he makes everything feel extremely personal, sometimes in ways that can be interpreted as sexually charged. He'll do anything in order to get his way because "no" is antithetical to him. He regularly flies off the handle, so much so that Joseph is threatening to cast him out. All the touching and getting right up in the player's face is so uncomfortable and obsessive (which is the point, but I digress).

So why does he get to be redeemed and venerated by fans? Don't his actions warrant consequences?

Are people willing to let him off the hook because he's attractive? Because he had a horrible, abusive childhood? Obviously he's got a lot more lore than most of the cast. Is that something people are interested in exploring for him over other characters?

I'm not trying to come after anyone personally. There's nothing wrong with liking villains and Jacob, Faith, and Joseph have also done terrible things to innocent people.

Which is like, fine. It's a video game.

And I know that John, like Joey, is a victim of Ubisoft's choppy, inconsistent writing and storytelling. Things got changed and swapped and cut during development that got us to where we are, with the story we have. Flaws and all, not like it was ever going to be perfect.

But in my opinion, I feel like the adoration for John does a huge disservice to Joey. People make thirsty edits of him while she's literally tied up behind him. It's tasteless and makes the optics of her situation look even creepier.

Her pain has largely been ignored for as long as the game has existed. I can't for the life of me figure out why.

#apologies for the dissertation #again just my two cents thats probably largely incoherent because im typing on a tablet and sleppy #but yee largely in think there are a lot of reasons people feel connected or empathize with villains #and while i can really see why that feels like disservice to their victims i think its partially due to villains in many mediums tend to be #the main focus and therefore invite more lore more emotions more connection and is more sometimes more a fault of the piece of media not #guving that same attention to the victims in terms of making a connection #but also of course sometimes certain characters just scratch the brain right

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beautifulterriblequeen · 3 years ago

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B2:S - Chapter 3

Much of this series will be about the differences and additions in the novel version, and how they contribute to my understanding of story canon. But there will be character appreciation, the odd theory and headcanon, and suchlike as well.

Here be Lujanne, Callum, Rayla, Ezran, Bait, and Soren goodness!

Spoilers for Book Two: Sky below.

Lujanne having excellent fitness for all her walking around the Moon Nexus, and she's so energetic that Callum has trouble keeping up with her! She seems like those active grandmas who almost never stop moving, who have a lifelong supply of endless stamina. It makes me wonder if Lujanne will need that level of fitness for some upcoming conflict.

Callum feeling really hungry over not eating grubs and then still deciding he'd rather be hungry. It makes me wonder all over again how Lujanne got to the point where she eats grubs, considering that other Moonshadow elves we know of back in the Silvergrove don't. I still love my hc that the giant leech ate all of Lujanne's moonberry bushes and she's taking her revenge. Whatever's going on there, Callum is definitely not at that point yet.

When Lujanne asks Callum how he knows she's real, he thinks to himself that he'd put up with just about anything from someone who was going to teach him magic. That's a great parallel and foreshadowing for Viren's student/master relationship with Aaravos! And it's telling that neither student gets exactly what they hoped to get. Lujanne doesn't actively teach Callum any spells, because she believes he can't learn Moon magic at all. Aaravos does offer Viren power, but it takes him to some very dark places - literally and figuratively - and the cost is terribly high.

Callum sees a moon shape among the ruins, and Lujanne explains that the Moonhenge layout is an intricate rune that uses the structures themselves as part of its symbols and power. That's apparently a thing even with ordinary Moonshadow villages like Hollow Wood in the east, which is the coolest idea I've seen in a while: city planning as magic runes!

Yes, that's the same shape as the pendants Ethari made for himself and Runaan. Protection? Home? Feelsiness? A sense of safety and belongnig for all cycles and seasons?

Wonder what this Moonhenge rune stands for, then, and how much of this landscape is included in that rune. I bet it's more than we think!

But it makes sense now, how toppling the stone pillars would disable the spell the druids would cast to connect with the Moon Nexus lake. Breaking the infrastructure of the Moonhenge breaks the rune.

There's a physical sensation involved with the visuals that Historia Viventem brings up! When that one ghostly druid walked through Callum, he felt icy cold. Like in ghost stories. I really wonder about what exactly Historia Viventem is doing when it activates. It shows truth, "what really happened here?", so it must have some kind of time-related element, maybe tied to how the moon always repeats the same cycles or something. But it also seems to draw on the spirits of any living people involved in the flashback, because Callum could physically feel that wispy shape passing through him. So very interesting!

Orrr... is that all wrong, and there's something else at work with this spell than time? Maybe the world beyond life and death can act as an imprint of the things that have happened in the living world, and the spell that Lujanne (and later Callum) casts taps into that place, with perfect recall. I'm looking really hard at the sentence that says "dozens of translucent elf ghosts" and "phantom Moonhenge" and "lost in their own world" here.

Lujanne says more here than in the show about the world beyond life and death, being her mysterious Moonshadow-mage self. She says that "beyond" and "between" might both apply to where this other plane of existence is, and she doesn't much care which. With all the relativity swirling around this place, and not much in the way of empiricism, it's sounding like perhaps multiple conflicting ideas might actually coexist in such a place, allowing more ideas to fit there than we might normally believe is possible. Which is a fascinating bit of worldbuilding. Basically, every headcanon anyone has ever had about the Moon Nexus could all be true at the same time, for all we know.

Oh oh oh, Callum coming in soft with a secret wish! He takes one look at the Moonhenge and immediately thinks of finding a way to see his mom again! Poor boy, my heart! I'd say that could be another interesting parallel with Viren, but then, who wouldn't hold that sentiment?

Oh my, is this another breath of life into Ye Olde Ley Lines headcanon? Lujanne mentioning the Nexuses again, so soon after talking about the runic design of the entire Moonhenge, makes me wonder if the six nexuses are in fact giant runes. On Earth, the places where ley lines cross are called nexuses, and there are those who believe those points got marked with ancient structures, like Stonehenge and many many others. If Xadia were crossed with magical lines which naturally formed nexus points where they met, and if powerful magical runes were built across those entire areas, well. That would be cool beans, fams. Can I smack a map of Xadia and release a spell like Luz Noceda does? Because ngl that is my first instinct here.

Lujanne has got to be missing some grandkids to spoil, right? The way she's always whipping out cake and ice cream for Callum, and she's so grandma-ish about it. Headcanon about her being Runaan's mom aside, she is canonically lonely and she's very sweet to Allen and Ellis and I think she's missing whatever family she once had in the past. She may never get to have that family back, so she's finding a new one among the humans who live nearby, and I think that's sweet. Found family isn't just for the young.

But Ellis is straight up gonna be her fave, I bet, because she didn't turn up her nose at Lujanne's illusion food!

Ezran and Bait have a lot more to their relationship than was visible in the show, and I'm so excited by it! Ez can tell by looking at Bait's colors that he's not truly jealous of Zym, even if he's really grumpy about the dragonling taking up his favorite human's time.

And Ez thinking a lot about his dad and the things he's taught him. They're soft leadership material, and I love that so much! "Pick your battles" and the importance of encouragement. Ahh, my heart. Ezran, you're going to be such a good king.

But wait a second: both times that Bait gets extra grumpy in Zym's first training session, Ezran has just mentioned something about flying. Guys, I think Bait wishes he could fly, really badly. And that's his biggest problem with Zym, and with Ezran teaching Zym to fly, instead of Bait who doesn't have wings so. Bait is so old that his secrets have secrets, and I'm really curious how flying fits into them now!

Rayla, Dramatic Assassin: "I need to patrol for dark forces." That's what Lujanne called the source of the purple wisps that found them. I wonder if that's an official term all Moonshadows know, or if Rayla is just taking her cue from a veteran Moon mage. And I wonder how far Rayla is falling into the apparent pattern of "one mage, one assassin", since she does spend a lot of her time patrolling without being asked.

When Callum tells Lujanne that he was bad at prince stuff, and she asks if he didn't give up and got good at those things anyway, it's an opportunity for Callum to embrace subverting his parents' expectations in favor of seeking his own path, which is a primary theme of the show. But Lujanne is a couple generations older than Callum, at the very least, and I have to wonder what her upbringing was like. Is her version of success the one she took? Was she bad at magic once too, but she persisted? She is very soft and doesn't want to kill anyone.

Maybe Lujanne had dreams of doing something else with her life, but she felt she had to pursue the destiny that others handed to her, so she studied magic as hard as she could, and she did get good at it, but using it to defend Xadia from humans is not what she wanted to do with her life. Whether there's a parallel between her and Ethari on that point, there's one between Callum and Ethari, I think. How much of your life are you willing to let others direct for you?

LISTEN I WAS DYING AT THE EAR BREAD SCENE OKAY

This is my new favorite Soren and Claudia moment ever. Soren loves him his bread, okay. Even as earplugs for Claudia's sleep ocarina tune. The fact that it's "super effective" makes me think of a Pokemon defense. The fact that he learned it at camp, where he also learned about Moonshadow Madness, is hilarious. Later on, Corvus doesn't know Soren by name, but I still love the idea of Corvus being a kind of Strider-esque camp instructor, filling the ears of his young charges with all kinds of useful tactics like ear bread for magic spell songs (which actually seemed to work as intended), and warnings about the enemy elves' blood-themed tactics (which may or may not come back around in BH)

I thought they were gonna go in a kind of deep direction when Soren still wanted his ear bread back, but then he just. Eats them. Just noms them. I love this kid. Give Soren all the bread!

#book two: sky spoilers #book two: sky #b2:s #tdp spoilers #ToX spoilers #gloaming glade spoilers #lujanne #callum #rayla #ezran #tdp zym #soren #tdp claudia #tdp bait

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yioh · 4 years ago

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Hey Yura! You've been reblogging posts on what looks really good wlw mangas lately and I'm dying for some good recommendations (especially since u have great taste🌸🌸)! Could you maybe list what you're reading (or watching) and what vibe each story has?

Hope you're having a great day and I'm sending lots of love your way!!!

hi hiii !!! sorry for taking so long to reply >_< i wanted to properly write an answer and then i .. never found time aaaaaaaa but here are my faves !!!!

relationship guidelines - this one is a manhwa about these 2 girls who have been friends since they were born !!! myeong in is aloof and rarely shows her emotions and is 'cold hearted' and ji won is cute and quirky and super flirty and overall a dumbass 101, somehow they find themselves kissing eachother and their relationship becomes ........ something they cant seem to understand themselves jsdhdkjh, i rly love this manhwa its so funny and so pretty and the characters r so fun and relatable its so lovely !!!! the pacing is so good too

not so shoujo love story - fellas this one . this one is SO good omfg its the funniest webtoon ever like the humour is just complete crack kldhkjh, its abt a 'delinquent' girl called rei who is in love w her senior (called ...ochinchin ... because... he has a massive chin..) and she rly rly wants ur typical shoujo style romance, only, plot twist the one whos in love w her isnt the cool popular senpai guy (who might be ??an alien??) but the perfect pretty vice president hanna !!!! its SO so cute also super slowburn and SO wholesome , also theres so much tension between hanna and rei i dshjsdhfh, the art style is GORGEOUS and the writing is amazing and i just . its a masterpiece pls read it, altho its hilarious its also ... so gentle and so loving i :')

she is still cute today - a slice of life abt wholesome puppy qi lin who is kinda an outcast and how she befriends a girl called cang shu, someone who prioritises her grades over everything else, to the point she barely has a life. its a story abt how they positively influence eachothers lives for the better and heal with eachother through their simple everyday school life(also mega mega mega slowburn, theyre friends rn but also ... gfs somehow lol) :) its v funny ad cute and pretty also theres a bonus mlm side couple that r rly funny lol, they have a rly gay friendship group and its SO cute and wholesome

tamen de gushi - i havent caught up w this in ages rip sdhjdsh but its just a cute slice of life abt 2 girls who befriend eachother and one of them has a HUGEEEEEE crush on the other, v v v v wholesome !!!!

still sick! - oh my god . this one is a masterpiece..... its a manga that revolves around shimizu, this super dorky girl that has a secret hobby of drawing doujinshi of her fave wlw ships lmao, and her work place colleague, maekawa, finds out about her secret hobby and barges into her everyday life and changes it in a way that she'll never expect ! from the synopsis it sounds p average but god the LAYERS this manga has . it deals w burn outs and love for drawings and has such wonderful characterisation and writing and the characters r so vibrant and fun and !!!!! the romance !!!!! they r so so so cute like i genuinely got butterflies at this kssdhkjdsh

soulmate - this manhua is so unique !! so its abt this girl who switches body w her teenage self, so she gets to experience falling in love with her lover all over again whilst her teenage self finds herself, 27 years old, and dating a girl ????!!! it deals with regret and first love and loneliness and dreams and just . i was v cautious abt this one because it could get weird but it was so beautiful and respectful and so .. melancholy and yet cute and joyful... the art is also so pretty !!!

bloom into you - this one’s an anime and its about a girl called yuu who believes she isn’t capable of falling in love even though she always longed to have that feeling, and then she meets her senpai, touko. somehow they get into a relationship where they brush hands and kiss secretly in the student council room after school and know all of eachothers secrets, touko tells her not to fall in love with her and yet yuu... doesn’t even understand her own feelings. ok as for vibes, its just TENDER tender TE n d er and . sad and it will make u so touch starved oh my god. its a very beautiful story and the soundtrack, colours and general vibe of the story is so nice and the characters r so freaking well written u will melt, i rly rly love this anime alot lmao its one of the very few romance anime i really adore, it doesn’t feel cringey at all and all the characters feel so painfully real ? its so good !!!!!!!!!!

that time I was blackmailed by the class’ green tea bitch - ok ok ik the title sounds wack but this is actually one of my faves rn, it’s just the softest cutest high school love story and it’s the perfect amount of funny and adorable and the art is also super cute and the relationship with the mc and her mum is so cute I’m 🥺 also it goes into other topics like academic pressure and loneliness (not too deeply tho) and it’s just a v good read … as of now it’s ongoing and has 17 chapters :)

i have some more i havent read yet :’) but these ones r 10/10 i hope u enjoy them !!!

#talk to me!#reccs

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hongism · 3 years ago

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Hyello, okay so. I don't have the emotional energy to take in and discuss everything in that chapter so imma just gush over the info cause I am a ✨whore✨ for world building.

So obviously MOC SPOILER

hi bestie HELLO guess WHO!!! finally ANSWering!!! altho im gonna answer separately and space everything out all Neatly bc im all over the place so strap IN we’re going on an moc RIDE!

THERE'S A WHOLE SIREN COMMUNITY?! AND YN AND IT MUST BE WOOYOUNG WERE FRIENDS? SIRENS HAVE A FULLY FLEDGE COMMUNITY WITH PRIESTS AND SCHOOLS AND MULTUOLE CITIES TO SOME EXTEND??? MAYBE EVEN AN ENTIRE PLANET WITH SIRENS MAYBE THEIR ORIGIN PLANET? HOW MANY TYPES OF SIRENS ARE THERE AND IN THE COMMUNITY HOW DTRICT ARE THE DIFFERENT ROLES?!?! ALSO DOES THE SIREN COMMUNITY ALLOW FOR DIFFERENT TYPES OF SIRENS TO BE TOGETHER? OBVIOUSLY THEY SHOULD BUT ARE THE CHILDREN THEN HYBRID TYPES, LIKE WHEN WE GET BLUED DARK SKIND BABIES OR CAN A SKREN ONLY BE ONE TYPE. WHAT POWERS DO SIRENS HAVE AND DOES THE POWERS REFLECT THEIR PERSONALITY AND DO THE DIFFERENT TYOES LEAN TOWARDS CERTAIN JOBS. LIKE WE JUST LESRNED THE OCEAN GOTTA BE PRIESTS BUT MOON ISNT STRICT WHAT ABOUT FIRE. AND IS YN INSTIC TO PULL OUT A HEART CAUDE HER PERSONALITT, TRSUMA OR IS IT RELATED TO THE MOON. ALSO CAUSE ITS A RED MOON WHICH IS COMMONLY A BLOOD MOON, IS YN THEN A SPECIAL MOON SIREN AND THATS WHY HER POWERS ARE STEONGER OR HER INSTICTS TO USE THEM ARE STORNGER BUT THEN THE MILITARY FUCKED HER UP. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

now this is the thing im biting my tongue on SO HARD bc it’s my favorite aspect of the world building and the universe and everything involved in it bUTIHDFKJG THERS SO MUCH I WANNA SAYYYYYYYYYY in short that one dream sequence holds more hints and information than ANYTHING from previous chapters, i think that it’s probably the MOST IMPORTANT dream to date. while we’ve seen some crazy ones in the past, this one is both the biggest hint and the biggest window into y/n’s past by FARRRR. even tho that whole scene was dialogue i think there’s so much to pick up on from it and so much to see and learn from it and it’s one of my faves bc there’s so much to unpack from it !!

Like yes the story and the development is freaking ✨yes✨ I love it. Genuinely think moc should be released as books. But I just cannot deal with the emotions rn.

But also now all I'm going to be thinking about how many sirens are actually out there. And if yn knew her parents and wasn't just an orphan the military found in the streets... How the fuck did she end up in the military grasps. What happened to her parents what happened to the community, is it still out there? Guess I gotta go back and reread the galaxies and the backstories, obviously I must have missed or have forgotten something. Ugh how the puzzle pieces are puzzling (or something). Moc is a drug and I'm not going sober anytime soon

(obviously you don't have to respond to my questions, this is more just an insight into the spiralling of theories going on in my mind)

releasing moc as books? a dream and a half, i can say that much slkjdlgkjlkf but back to the sirens... how many are out there? we heard early on that hongjoong was looking for ‘the last five’ but then seonghwa debunked that and said that was a mistranslation over time that was passed down and such, but beyond that, we don’t really know much about sirens as a whole? there are some hints in the galaxies and planet descriptions but if that dream sequence is a puzzle, i would say we have a handful of pieces that can be put into place based on what we’ve learned so far!!!!

Okay I lied, I am ready to unpack a little of the ✨emotions✨

When hongjoong explained that hwa tried to stop San only for San to detain him and in a sense make him watch the scene unfold. And then realising hwa had to go through that again, only being even more helpless. I don't doubt hwa loves San, but to see the events happening again, with someone he clearly loves as much as he does yn even if he also loves joong, and to see the desperation and determination must have been just. Horrible. Just absolutely soul breaking horrible. I can imagine him vowing to himself after San that he would never let something like that happen again. That of any of the crew got out of control like that, that he would fight harder to stop them. That he would would do absolutely everything in his power to stop it. And then being helpless as he watched yn do it. Just pure heart wrenching pain. And it must have been beyond terrifying to see someone you love ready and determined to kill themselves partly from rage and partly from desperation. With the backstory, that scene becomes almost as cruel as the warehouse scene with San. The only redeeming quality is no one needing life saving surgery in a time crunch, otherwise they would be the same level of ✨never again✨

honestly i think the two crew members i torture the most are san and hwa bc i just keep putting them thru all this shit and hurting them so much but really this was the defining point of why seonghwa was so afraid. before we kinda just knew he was afraid of yn and hongjoong was mad about it. in this revelation we get to see the source of the trauma and how it was amplified by it being someone he loves as dearly as he loves yn. and for sure when first reading that scene of yn and jisung in the brig, it’s meant to evoke a sense of anger and rage like yn is so angry to a point where she would do this sort of thing, but my hope with that scene was also to show that desperation. that when looking back at it after having already seen the rage and the aftermath, that reading it again shows how desperate and hopeless she was in that moment. which is exactly the same emotion that was evoked back in that warehouse scene with san, except it was relayed differently because the warehouse was a more immediate sense of desperation. this brig scene was meant to emulate that but in a slow burn kinda way where the veil of realization is pulled off after the fact and not in the moment!!!

Just to make sure you don't misunderstand. Those asks were compliments. You are an absolutely incredible writer. And the fact that you aren’t afraid of hurting your characters *cough cough* SHOOTING SAN?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!!!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? *CLEARS THROAT AGRESSIVELY* just makes the story much better. No one gets plot armour, making it more realistic (?) and really draws in the writer and sorta imitates the fear and desperation the characters feel

PLS don’t worry, i live for every moment and i live for these open and raw and genuine conversations i didn’t take any as an insult i PROMISE!! i think part of the nature of this whole trope of space pirates and criminals is that hter is no guarantee of safety! i don’t wanna have to cut corners to make sure everyone stays unharmed and undamaged throughout the story when the nature of the world i’ve built thus far is a wildly dangerous one!!! i always say that i try to be as realistic as i can, all things considered, and i think that’s the biggest thing that adds to the ‘realism’ in my mind so im so happy to hear that you see it and appreciate it and enjoy it!!!

OHOHOHOHOHOH ALSO

YN GRIPPING SOMEONES HEART??? YOU WRITE THAT SO FUCKING WELL. LIKE ENIGUH DETAILS THAT WE KNOW WHATS GOING ON, BUT ALSO NOT SO MANY DETAILS SO IT GETS DETACHWD FROM THE STORY. LIKE THE LACK OF CLEAR SUPER MANY DETAILS REALLY MADE IT THAT *YOU ARE EXPERIENCING THIS, NOT JUST READING IT* LIKE IT MADE IT WAY MORE EMOTIONAL AND OERSONAL AND THE READER REALLY GOT IMMERSED IN THE MOST HORRIBLE WAY THAT KUST MADE IT ALL RHE MORE BETTER. ALSO JOONG AFRAID????? JOONG REALISING HE GOT A FULLY FLEDGED HEART RIPPER SIREN WHO CANT CONTROL HER BODY TO MOVE THROUGH A HARMLESS DOOR BUT CAN DEFINITELY KILL IN A HEARTBEAT (OR TWO 👀) ALSO THE CONTRAST OF REMOVING RHE BLOOD COLOURED WHITE OLASTIC AND HAVING A CLEAN HAND UNDERNWATH. THE SYMBOL OF IT ALSO BEKNG A TRASH CLEANERS SUIT. LIKE SHE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO ACTUALLY USE THE TRASH PROTECTION DUIT FOR ITS INTENDED PURPOSE. ALSO THE OART WHERE SHE SAYS SHES FINE EVEN TJO SHE ISNT. AT FIRST I READ IT AS HER TELLING HERSELF TO LIE BUT THEN I REALISED ITS HER ADMITTING SHE VERY MUCH ISNT. AND SAN NOT KNOWING???? AND KISSING HER HAND AND UGH AND SEONGHWA KNOWING. I BET HE'S LOWKEY GETTING MORE AND MORE AFRAID OF HER. LIKE YN IS READY TO KILL HERSELF AND ANYONE AROUND HER TO KEEP SAN SAFE. AND SHE INSTICTUALLY GOES FOR THE MODT AGRESSIVE METHOD POSSIBLE. IHHHHHHHHHHHHH I FUCKING LOVE YOU AND YOUR WONDERFUL WTITING AND YOUR TWISTED MIND THAT CAN CREATE ALL THESE FUCKING SCENES THAT GOT ME THUNKING AND FEELING ✨EMOTIONS✨

truly one of the HIGHLIGHTS of the chapter simply bc of how shocking and sudden it is!! for me, that was one of the easiest scenes to write in the chapter, oddly enough? it was something that when it came time to write it, i knew how i wanted it to be and was able to just sit down and write it out the way its written in the final draft of the chapter. i really love playing with those aspects of fiction and storytelling. tangible to a point, without spelling it out. i think it’s obvious that i really love delayed realization in writing, but i really like playing with how the brain processes information and for me personally, i don’t pick up on things right away! i can realize them in a snap or it can take me a bit to go ‘oh god that’s what happened’, and i like playing with that in y/n’s character a LOT.

and in that same vein of thought, there are some layers to that scene as well when compared to the door scene. in the door scene we saw hongjoong clearly tell y/n ‘you need to do this to save san’ yet she wasn’t able to do it despite trying and believing hongjoong. then in the heart scene we saw y/n clearly tell herself ‘you need to do this to save san’ and she did it then. so there’s a lot at play in that parallel alone too. and with that internal monologue she has of im fine vs not fine, then san kissing the hand that touched a literal real actual beating heart for me that was a sort of self indulgent scene and i was really worried about it coming across as too cheesy or something like that, but that is something that’s gonna impact y/n as a character and her relationship with san when they have the conversation of ‘oh hey i put my hand through a man’s chest for you’

i think part of why this chapter was so difficult to construct and write as a whole definitely is because of all the undertones and nuances throughout, and in a lot of ways it’s so so much to even think about that it’s almost too much packed into one chapter alone, but even if you don’t pick up on all the nuances throughout, i’m hoping to revisit them and bring them back around in that delayed realization style again bc that’s one of my favorite things to do ofc :3

#21y redeemed fool #mists of celeste #moc: spoilers #caly answers #sorry i wrote you a whole essay in response oh my god?!??#T_T

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karliahs · 3 years ago

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“I’ll get the jackets,” Tim says, and hopes it’s something, one more little signal for the thing he doesn’t know how to put into words anymore. If Tim is no longer a thing of easy pleasures, he hopes he can become a creature of effort - of intentional, worked-for warmth.

Jon squeezes in return before taking his hand back, his grip delicate and warm. Tim rifles through a wardrobe for two soft hoodies, paying little mind to who they belonged to - Jon was a known clothing thief who gained power from appropriating Tim and Martin’s jackets.

By the time he’s shrugged one on and headed out into the living room, Jon is standing by the open backdoor, looking out over the heathers and hillside beyond. He looks dazed, more than anything, finding all that space stretching out in front of him, and Tim can’t tell if it’s loss or gratitude holding him there. A surge of tenderness goes through him at the sight, and Tim almost laughs at himself as he pads over to join Jon. You're going soft, Stoker, he thinks. After all that, you're going soft.

Once again, Tim sees an echo of a place they haven't quite reached: sees himself tugging the jacket around Jon's shoulders like a blanket. Instead, he hands it over and leads Jon outside to the rickety chairs. It's not hesitance holding him back exactly, and certainly not a lack of desire. It's more like…care. Care he never would have needed before.

He drags his own chair a little closer to Jon's before he sits down, knowing Jon sees him do it, letting him note and process this intentional drawing closer. Tim used to flirt lightning-fast and joyous, instinctual, safe in the knowledge that he could fall a little in love with half the people he met, so what did rejection or awkwardness matter, really? But Jon takes things slowly these days, and Tim is relearning love as a back and forth, as goodbyes and welcomes. He is luxuriating in having time to wait and see what will come of the two of them. The three of them.

"Martin shouldn't be long," Tim says into the silence.

"It's Saturday," Jon replies, sounding weary but fond. "He always dawdles at the markets."

"I could text him," Tim offers. "Chivy him along a bit."

Jon shakes his head. "You're…it's fine, Tim. I…I need you, too. Both of you." His voice is low and his eyes are fixed on the horizon.

from nothing sweeter than local honey

!!!! thank you for asking!! alright here we go:

i will try not to make this self-deprecating because that's no fun for anyone, but this is not one of my most-edited fics so my brain is already yelling SHOW DON'T TELL at me. the last thing i will say on this matter!

so much of this fic was just me thinking about what it would be like if tim got to have an after. any after. what would a good life for him look like that also acknowledges he's been fundamentally changed by his experiences - and knows that himself too, because tim's smart and self-aware

love concrete gestures in place of things you don't know how to say. 'i want you to be warm, i'll help take care of you, we're a team so i will take this if you take that'

'creature of effort' is a little bit harking back to one of my fave quotes by leslie jamison: 'I believe in intention and I believe in work. I believe in waking up in the middle of the night and packing our bags and leaving our worst selves for our better ones.'

i usually try to sort of apply critical thinking before simply adopting popular fanon into my own work but jon sims: clothing thief is GOOD and it can stay

also the small intimacies of living side by side, intermingled clothes, no longer feeling a need to insist on what exactly is mine or yours

i like little scaps of realism among my h/c to make the comfort even juicier, and so one of the things i nitpick myself on is not having every character just look at the other person and immediately know everything that's going on in their head - which happens partly because describing expressions is hard! so that's why tim can't 100% tell what jon is feeling in this moment

i think jon is actually thinking something like: wide open exposed space in front of me, is that safe? footsteps approaching from behind, even though i know who they belong to, is that safe? do i make myself less safe, provoking those around me, by not totally believing in this safety? do i deserve safety if i can't feel its presence? am i wasting this maybe-safe time by worrying about whether or not i deserve it?

having lots of space in front of them is obvs Metaphorical. they have a future now and that's terrifying and good. what do you do when you're alive and you never expected to be. can we endure it, the rain finally stopped?

tim's thoughts there slip into a more playful cadence - he's making jokes, even just to himself - to reinforce that that hope is still there.

again in terms of pockets of realism...a lot of times in romance things just Happen, people are just drawn in by the tide of it and find themselves doing perfect romantic things. and that's nice!! but there is something more real and kind of more romantic to me about making choices, building on small gestures, going slow because you care so much about this. you leave and then you come back, and you get them their jacket, and you hope it all says: look, i'm here, i'm trying, let's try

i always really appreciate characters who seem to have a genuine love of people - gregarious, high-charisma people where it stems from loving people in general

in my mind these little concrete offerings show how well tim knows jon, deep down. i would imagine jon as someone who doesn't always pick up on nuanced emotions exclusively communicated through words and prefers when there are actions to back them up, partly because that's the way he communicates himself. 'tim says he forgives me' is a lot harder to hold onto than 'tim brought my favourite berries back from tesco, tim brought me a jacket, tim could have sat further away but is choosing to be close'

"Martin shouldn't be long," Tim says into the silence.

"It's Saturday," Jon replies, sounding weary but fond. "He always dawdles at the markets."

"I could text him," Tim offers. "Chivy him along a bit."

Jon shakes his head. "You're…it's fine, Tim. I…I need you, too. Both of you." His voice is low and his eyes are fixed on the horizon.

lil realism: there are awkward silences sometimes

i don't know how to explain it but it feels so right to me that jon would use the word dawdle. and that tim would say chivy. they're dorks your honour

sorry martin is sir-not-appearing-in-this-fic, in my defence i do not like to write martin because i am not good at it. he's shopping. let him shop

love that jon here is trying to communicate the fact that he cares about them and also has some needs, sometimes. he's trying! he's had time and space in which to get to a place where he can try!

'eyes fixed on the horizon' it's the future and they have one. this whole fic is me going there's a future and they're going to be in it together, that is so simple and yet so huge that you'd need forever to get your head around it

#asks #tysm for asking!!#long post #tma /#jontim

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butterflies-dragons · 4 years ago

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oh j0nryas know about balticon report, they just think he was being coy (asdjkahs same delusion with s/ns/ns), that he was rambling bc he was trying not to give spoilers. at this point he could go on live and say "no dumbasses there is no j0nrya, there won't be, there never was" (same w pedoships) and they will all be like "omg it is definitely happening in twow, look at how he's trying to divert our attentions, we are onto you george hehehe"

OK let’s review, again, chronologically, all the times that GRRM was being coy and trying to divert his readers’ attention regarding the ships you mentioned:

The “It could be very different things to each of those involved” Alternative: “Mind you!”

JUNE 24, 1999 THE HOUND AND SANSA

Moreta12: I understand, I’ve heard your opinion on that. In ACOK, it seems that the relationship between the Hound and Sansa had romantic undertones. Is that true?

GeoRR: Well, read the book and decide for yourself.

Moreta12: I’ve read the book and I’ve debated those particular scenes with a few others. Half say that it’s romantic and half say it’s platonic. I’ve taken the romantic stance.

GeoRR: It could be very different things to each of those involved, mind you

Moreta12:Yes, but it seem like evidence points towards romantic undertones. Will the Hound appear later?

GeoRR: Yes, the Hound will be in STORM OF SWORDS. In fact, I just finished writing a big scene with him.

[Source]

The “Why are you asking me about Sansa’s sexuality?” Alternative 1: “Are you really asking me when your fave male adult character can fuck a girl, 15 years younger than him, without guilt?” Alternative 2: “Why are you so gross?”

OCTOBER 05, 1999 AGE OF SEXUAL RELATIONS IN WESTEROS

The nature of the relationship between Sandor and Sansa has been a hot topic on Revanshe's board. Sansa's youth has been one focus of the discussion. What is the general Westerosi view as to romantic or sexual relationships involving a girl of Sansa's age and level of physical maturity?

A boy is Westeros is considered to be a "man grown" at sixteen years. The same is true for girls. Sixteen is the age of legal majority, as twenty-one is for us. However, for girls, the first flowering is also very significant... and in older traditions, a girl who has flowered is a woman, fit for both wedding and bedding. A girl who has flowered, but not yet attained her sixteenth name day, is in a somewhat ambigious position: part child, part woman. A "maid," in other words. Fertile but innocent, beloved of the singers. In the "general Westerosi view," well, girls may well be wed before their first flowerings, for political reasons, but it would considered perverse to bed them. And such early weddings, even without sex, remain rare. Generally weddings are postponed until the bride has passed from girlhood to maidenhood. Maidens may be wedded and bedded... however, even there, many husbands will wait until the bride is fifteen or sixteen before sleeping with them. Very young mothers tend to have significantly higher rates of death in childbirth, which the maesters will have noted. As in the real Middle Ages, highborn girls tend to flower significantly earlier than those of lower birth. Probably a matter of nutrition. As a result, they also tend to marry earlier, and to bear children earlier. There are plenty of exceptions.

[Source]

The “Unreliable narrator - Part 1” Alternative: “The much more important lapse in memory that was promised”

JUNE 26, 2001 SF, TARGARYENS, VALYRIA, SANSA, MARTELLS, AND MORE

[GRRM is asked about Sansa misremembering the name of Joffrey’s sword.]

The Lion’s Paw / Lion’s Tooth business, on the other hand, is intentional. A small touch of the unreliable narrator. I was trying to establish that the memories of my viewpoint characters are not infallible. Sansa is simply remembering it wrong. A very minor thing (you are the only one to catch it to date), but it was meant to set the stage for a much more important lapse in memory. You will see, in A STORM OF SWORDS and later volumes, that Sansa remembers the Hound kissing her the night he came to her bedroom… but if you look at the scene, he never does. That will eventually mean something, but just now it’s a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on.

[Source]

The “Unreliable narrator - Part 2” Alternative: “It doesn’t mean what you think it means”

OCTOBER 05, 2002 SANSA’S MEMORY

[Note: This mail has been edited for brevity.]

… this is an inconsistency with ASoS more than an outright error. In ASoS, Sansa thinks that the Hound kissed her before leaving her room and King’s Landing. In ACoK, no kiss is mentioned in the scene, though Sansa did think that he was about to do so.

Well, not every inconsistency is a mistake, actually. Some are quite intentional. File this one under “unreliable narrator” and feel free to ponder its meaning

[Source]

The “Unreliable narrator - Part 3” Alternative: “Better ask yourself about Sansa’s psychological state”

NOVEMBER 27, 2007 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS

Here’s a really particular question (which I realize means it probably won’t get asked in a general interview): In A Storm of Swords, there is a chapter early on where Sansa is thinking back to the scene at the end of A Clash of Kings when The Hound came into her room during the battle. She thinks in the chapter about how he kissed her, but in the scene in A Clash of Kings, this actually didn’t happen. Was that a typo or something? —Valdora

GRRM: It’s not a typo. It is something! [Laughs] ”Unreliable narrator” is the key phrase there. The second scene is from Sansa’s thoughts. And what does that reveal about her psychologically? I try to be subtle about these things.

[Source]

The “The answer is No” Alternative: NO!

APRIL 15, 2008 FUTURE MEETINGS, POVS, ARYA’S ROLE, EASTERN LANDS, AND ASSASSINS

[Will Sandor and Sansa meet?]

Why, the Hound is dead, and Sansa may be dead as well. There’s only Alayne Stone.

[Source]

The “He’s a lot more dangerous than he is romantic” Alternative: “BUT THERE IS SAM!”

AUG. 21ST, 2009 AS SER JORAH MORMONT… - NOT A BLOG

weltraummuell: The Hound Oh please don’t cast an old guy for the Hound, his scenes with Sansa are so romantic and erotic, I couldn’t bear if it’d feel creepy all of a sudden. Well, that’s me making demands. LOL

GRRM: Re: The Hound Old guy? No, but… the Hound is still a whole lot older than Sansa, and was never written as attractive… you know, those hideous burns and all that… he’s a lot more dangerous than he is romantic.

kestrana: The Hound Yeah its a “girl always wants the bad boy” kind of thing although Sansa seems to pull something else out of him. It feels so wrong sometimes but I want to see them together again tee hee.

weltraummuell: The Hound Hehe, George, maybe you didn’t intend it, but he turned out to be a very erotic character to female readers. Especially since he’s mutilated and dangerous. Makes him unpredictable and vulnerable which is the most explosive aphrodisiac for a girl’s fantasy. ;)

weltraummuell: The Hound And I know from discussions on other board other women feel just the same about Sandor. He’s an absolute favourite with the ladies!

halfbloodmalfoy: The Hound LOL, you’re such a man. To many of us women, dangerous *is* attractive.

GRRM: The Hound But no one has any love for poor old Sam Tarly, kind and smart and decent and devoted…

[Source]

The “That’s interesting...” Alternative: “They are deeply troubled individuals, Harriet”

22 JUNE 2012 SWORD & LASER VIDEO PODCAST

GRRM: I am sometimes surprised by the reactions, of women in particular, to some of the villains. The number of women over the years who have written to me that their favorite characters are Jaime Lannister or Sandor Clegane [the Hound] or Theon Greyjoy… All of these are deeply troubled individuals with some very dark sides, who have done some very dark things. Nonetheless, they do draw this response, and quite heavily, I think, in the case of some of them, from my female readers in particular.

Veronica Belmont: I’m a big fan of the Hound, myself, actually.

Tom Merritt: Of Sandor? Really?

Veronica Belmont: Yeah, the Hound… Maybe it’s not because I feel any compassion towards them, I’m not really sure what the attraction is. Ah, I’m not going to call it attraction, actually. Let’s just say it’s a fascination, perhaps.

GRRM: [Chuckles] Well, I mean, fascination is one thing, but some of these letters indicate that there really is like a romantic attraction going on there. And I do know there’s all these people out there who are, as they call themselves, the “San/San” fans, who want to see Sandor and Sansa get together at the end. So that’s interesting, too.

Tom Merritt: The TV show has sort of played with that a little, and probably stoked those fires.

GRRM: Oh, sure. And I’ve played with it in the books. There’s something there, but it’s still interesting to see how many people have responded to it.

[Source]

The “I guess I don’t understand women” Alternative: “I'm shook”

JUNE 23, 2015 GRRM Q&A AT THE SCIENCE FICTION BOOKSTORE IN STOCKHOLM

Question: “Is there any fan reactions that you have been surprised by, like is there a character that’s more popular than you thought or have people been shocked by something you didn’t think we would be shocked at?”

GRRM: “I’m reasonably certain what people will be shocked by. I knew that the Red Wedding would provoke a big reaction and it did. I was pretty confident that, you know, throwing Bran out the window and then killing Ned in the first book would get reactions, and indeed they did. All of those worked exactly the way it did to the extent that things that have surprised me, they tend to be smaller things. I guess I… Maybe I should not have, I don’t know. How do I phrase this without getting myself in terrible trouble… I guess I don’t understand women, but I was definitely, you know, way back when, surprised by the number of women who reacted positively to characters like Theon and the Hound as dashing, romantic figures. The san/san kind of thing took me by surprise, I must admit, and even more so the women who, and there are some, who really like Theon. So that surprised me.”

[Source]

The “Comfort level of femininity” Alternative: “That's not a reference for romance”

MAY 29, 2016 BALTICON REPORT

My con friend asked about the Jon/Arya relationship again and brought her (impressive) Game book that had all of her references marked out with little flags. She brought up the Ygritte connections to Arya that Jon saw in her. George did not directly answer yes or no if there would be anything romantic between the two.

George did say, despite what readers see as clues to a romantic relationship between Jon/Arya in the books themselves, he did not confirm this so easily but inferred that what Jon saw in Ygritte was a comfort level of femininity. <<< She and I obviously discussed these comments after the meeting and this was the general feeling.

My con friend was referring to George explaining Jon’s perception: GRRM replied, “You know, I don’t think it’s a reference for that [for romance]. It’s a reference to a certain physical type, and a certain indication of what Jon finds admirable. It’s like someone who reminds you of, you know… Other people might be put off by this, you know, hair that looks like small rodents have been living in there. It doesn’t put him off because he is used to that.”

The “I was making up shit.” Alternative: "I wish I can delete that"

MAY 29, 2016 BALTICON REPORT

After the Coffee Talk just outside the room:

My Con Friend asked about Arya and Jon again. This time GRRM gave some very pointed replies:

GRRM finished (in the hallway now) by saying that he “wished some past things weren’t such strong foreshadowing,” and that he, “wished some new things had stronger foreshadowing then.”

Friend: Ok, if you foreshadowed something in the first book, like, really cleverly hidden, would you then follow through on that hint? For sure?..

GRRM: “Well, this goes with what I said before, the story changes and expands as I write. I wish I was able to go back and make revised drafts, but that’s not going to happen.”

Here is a transcript of the outline discussion and Jon/Arya portion of the coffee talk:

[question about Jon/Arya]

GRRM: “Alright, you’ve thought about this more than I have. I mean it’s simple, Jon is very fond of Arya. They were the two odd birds in the Stark family nest, here. They didn’t quite fit in with the others, they look like each other, they both had the brown hair, you know, as opposed to the auburn hair of Sansa and Bran and Rickon and Robb. So there was always that closeness between them. And, you know, Arya didn’t mind that Jon was a bastard, and Jon didn’t mind that Arya was a tomboy, so there is that closeness there.”

[question about Jon comparing his lover to his sister]

GRRM: “If he did it, uhm… I began writing these books in 1991, and, uhm, I worked on it in 91 and then I got a tv play, so I put it aside to really work on ‘Doorways’ tv pilot and did a tv show in 92-93. In 94 I returned to it [the books] and worked on it. You know, up till then, in my career as a writer, I’d always written the entire book before I opted for sale. That’s unusual. Most writers do chapters and an outline. They write a few chapters, they outline the rest of the book, give that to the publisher and the publisher says ‘oh okay, I’ll take that’.

“As some of you may have noticed, those who have been paying very, very carefully attention, I’m not good with deadlines. And, uh, and I’m not good with outlines, either. I always hated outlines. So with Fevre Dream and with Armageddon Rag and with Dying of the Light and all my novels, I wrote the entire book. I didn’t do chapters and outline. I sat down, I wrote a whole book, and I sent it to my agent and said ‘Look, here’s a whole book, and it’s finished’. That way I ran into no deadline, it was finished before it even went on the market. And it worked well for me. And my initial thought was to do this the same way, but what happened, you know, was in 1994, uhm, when I returned to it and I’m working on it and I’m very enthused about it and I say ‘I really wanna write these Game of Thrones books as the next part’. But I was still in Hollywood and I’d just lost all this groundwork on ‘Doorways’, I was still in… The studios and networks still wanna work with me, so I’m getting other offers, like ‘We want you to write this movie’, ‘we want you to do another tv pilot’. And, you know, I took a couple of them and was ‘Oh god, I gotta have to put the book away again’. Cause I have no deadline [for the book]. You know, when you think Hollywood, they will give you a deadline, you know, they say ‘here, son, write this movie, we want it in three months’.

“So, I said ‘look, if I wanna get back to being a novelist, I’m gonna have to sell this even though it’s not finished’. So I had my 200 pages of Game of Thrones at that point, but they wanted outline. I said ‘I don’t do outlines. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, I figure it out as I go. And that’s how I always did it.’ No, we had to have an outline. So I wrote two pages, a two-page thing about what I thought would happen. It’ll be a trilogy, it’ll be three books, Game of Thrones, the Dance with Dragons, and Winds of Winter. Those were the three window titles. And, uh, it’ll be three books and this’ll happen, and this’ll happen, and this’ll happen. And I was making up shit.

“And I had thought that those two pages were long forgotten, because, of course, the books did sell. They sold in the United States and in Great Britain, both. They sold for enough money that I didn’t have to take any more Hollywood games. So I was able to say ‘no’ around. I had a few less [?] to wind up in in 94 and 95. Once I had, I said ‘no, I don’t want any more movies or tv shows, I’m going to write these books now’. And I started writing the books. And in the process, I pretty much disregarded the outline. The characters took me off in entirely different directions. So, for 20 years I had forgotten that that two-page thing even existed. And then someone in my British publisher, HarperCollins, they got a new office building, uh, brand new offices, and new conference rooms, big conference rooms that they decorated with books and stuff like that. And they named the conference rooms after the writers, so one of the conference rooms [?], and they put up these plastic display cases, including the outline. The two-page outline, yes. [?], they didn’t ask my permission, they just put it up. And in that two-page outline, Jon and Arya become a romantic item.”

“You know, I don’t think it’s a reference for that [for romance]. It’s a reference to a certain physical type, and a certain indication of what Jon finds admirable. It’s like someone who reminds you of, you know… Other people might be put off by this, you know, hair that looks like small rodents have been living in there. It doesn’t put him off because he is used to that.””

[someone says they have 5 minutes left]

“You know, I was pretty pissed that that outline got out there. It should not have happened. Outlines and letters like that are meant only for the eyes of the editor. They shouldn’t go on public display. And, uh, they also [?] my papers on [?], all my papers and correspondence. You know, I’ve been sending that stuff there for years, and it’d be, you know, available for future scholars or whatever, just like the papers of many other writers. Somehow, in the back of my head I was like ‘yeah, 20 years after I’m dead some scholar will go in and find them’. They’re going in right now!” ”

[question if he is still going with the 1991 ending]

“Yes, I mean, I did partly joke when I said I don’t know where I was going. I know the broad strokes, and I’ve known the broad strokes since 1991. I know who’s going to be on the Iron Throne. I know who’s gonna win some of the battles, I know the major characters, who’s gonna die and how they’re gonna die, and who’s gonna get married and all that. The major characters. Of course along the way I made up a lot of minor characters, you know, I, uhm…Did I know in 1991 how Bronn, what was gonna happen to Bronn? No, I didn’t even know there’d be a guy named Bronn. I was inventing him along the way when I was writing, ‘Okay, he gets kidnapped. Let’s see, there are a couple sellswords there, their names are Fred and Bronn’.

“It was actually Bronn and Chiggen, and then one of them dies, I flipped a coin ‘okay, who dies? Chiggen dies, cause his name is stupid. Bronn is a better name, so I’ll keep Bronn’. And then Bronn became quite an interesting character and plenty of these characters take on minds of their own. They push to the front till you [?] speech and you think of a cool line and you give it to Bronn because he’s trying to talk, and now Bronn is somebody who says something cool. [?]. That’s how characters grow on you. “So a lot of the minor characters I’m still discovering along the way. But the mains-”

[question if he knows Arya’s and Jon’s fates]

“Tyrion, Arya, Jon, Sansa, you know, all of the Stark kids, and the major Lannisters, yeah.”

This report appears in the following sources:

fattest leech of ice and fire blog [Source 1]

asoiaf.westeros.org [Source 2]

westeros.org [Source 3]

The “Unreliable narrator - Part 4” Alternative: “I think I had enough...”

DECEMBER 2016 ASKING GEORGE R.R. MARTIN ABOUT SAN/SAN

My question is regarding Sansa Stark. Her sexuality has evolved through every book and yet the memory that seems to stick the more with her in this regard is the night of the Blackwater. So I was wondering if you can expand on your view on what this is, since as before that night her interactions with Sandor Clegane weren't really physical.

The night of the Blackwater, yes. Ahhh... Well, I'm not going to give you a straight answer on that hahaha... Uhmmm, but I would say that ahhh... you know a television show and a book each has its own strengths and weaknesses; there a re tools that are available to me as a novelist, that are not available to people doing a television show. And of course there are tools available to them, that are not available to a novelist, I mean they can lay in a soundtrack, they can do special effects, they can do amazing things that I can't do, I just have words on paper. What can I do, well I can use things like the internal narrative, I can take you inside of territories... thoughts, which you can't do in a TV show... Ahhh... You just have the words they speak, you see them from outside because the camera is external, while prose is internal, and I have the device known as "unreliable narrator"... Ahhh... Which again, they don't have. So, think about those two aspects when you consider that night of the Blackwater.

[Source]

Most of these questions make me think of Nabokov having to clarified, regarding Lolita, that he didn’t write a romance..........

So there’s that, everyone can draw their own conclusions. God knows that in this fandom: “We look up at the same stars, and see such different things.”

Thanks for your message.

#anon ask #grrm #jon and arya #sansa deserves better #the things i have to read...#poor george #poor nabokov

73 notes · View notes

raayllum · 4 years ago

Note

the part in your last post where u said “i’m obssessed with rayllum” made me remember of when some ppl on twitter were like “it’s so uncomfortable seeing adults obsessed about shipps with teenage characters” and. it’s not that deep?? 😭😭 it’s just a bunch of drawings/PIXELS in a screen?? 😭😭😭 i get that fiction can influence reality but Damn, some people take it *too* far

if fiction could screw with people like that i’d be fucked bc i was reading greek mythology (incest, murder, people killing their own children, and more) from age six. and my book of myths was sanitized, sure, but barely. but i’m not. if anything, my long held interest in mythology has added a lot of joy and light to my life, including helping me earn my english degree, in which how literature affects reality is literally something i’ve taken courses on. the anti vs. everyone else discourse stretches back to plato and aristotle, so you can imagine how tired i am of it. because while fiction can influence reality, fiction is not reality, and treating fiction like it’s reality is what’s actually harmful.

it’s also not uncommon or weird at all that adults — people who were once *gasp* teenagers themselves — would enjoy revisiting that time in their lives vicariously and with beautiful hindsight in hand? like “coming of age” films and anything with child or teen protagonists are written by adults. looks like we have to chuck out the entire varied YA genre because the authors like ships between their teenage characters.

it’s also like when i was fourteen, my fave ship was between two side characters who were 13 and 14. but i shipped them and wrote stuff about them well beyond that age, because i exist in reality and grow beyond the source material, and it’s not that much of a stretch that i would want to take those characters with me and have those characters exist beyond the limits (age or otherwise) of their source material, too.

then when i was 16, my favourite ship was between characters who i always saw as 25 and 23 years old. sometimes in my fics they were even 28 and 26. because it’s almost like i’m drawn to dynamics and change and interesting development more than any arbitrary idea that i should only like couples who are my age. (not even getting into how much younger fandom shits on older fans in their 30s and 40s who — like me — probably grew up in fandom since their teen years). which is stupid, to say the least.

and now i’m here at 20 (aka i only just stopped being a teenager like 1-2 years ago) and my favourite ship is rayllum, who are each a month shy of their 15 and 16th birthdays respectively. and like my other ships, i’m gonna love ‘em forever, and we don’t know how old they’ll be by the time the series is over. maybe they’ll be my age (and i would’ve surpassed that likely by the time the saga is over anyway) or maybe they’ll only be 17.

really, any argument against adult fans being invested in certain aspects of a source material shows a complete ignorance for fandom history from the 60s — fandom has always 90% been an adult space and still is — but just shows a complete lack of like, empathy and long term thinking. like zero braincells and imagination.

i’m writing a series where my main characters, at the start, are between the ages of 11-15. by the end, they’re 16-20. i started writing them when i was 12 and i’m probably only going to have the whole series finished and published when i’m 35. can i not dedicate 20+ years of my life to writing about teenagers that i created and the war they’re going through and the relationships they have??

because yeah, they’re teenagers, that’s where the series starts and ends, but i know exactly what they’re like in their 30s and 40s and further?? i know who has kids and who doesn’t?? and i write about it in my own little document that will never be published because it doesn’t matter within the series as a whole, but it’s still fun. and the only main difference between having fun with my own canon and having fun with someone else’s is ownership.

like if i imagine my own characters in ways that are technically canon, because they’re mine, figuring out life in their 20s and including sexual relationships sometimes and child rearing etc., then why can’t i do that with the characters of a source material i didn’t create firsthand? there’s no imagination difference.

but then, according to that sort of twitter thinking, aging up teenage characters to ages that adults probably relate to more, for a variety of reasons, is also wrong. so then you’re circling back to having adult fans only being able to write about the characters as teens — which goes back to the shaming principle i mentioned earlier.

which comes back to using shame to make people feel guilty for liking the characters they like with a convenient moral panic with dangerous and desensitizing insinuations. (ever heard of alarm fatigue?) because that’s not what the late 1800s women’s movement did to sex workers or born out of puritanical christian / terf or aphobic rhetoric (teens can’t be ace bc teens should be sexless, etc).

not to mention, it acts like teenagers are a monolith who not only can’t know how to curate their own content (infantilization + helicopter parenting) but that it’s not important for them to learn critical thinking skills. (shocking that twitter is seeing the meltdown of that and poor reading comprehension now). it acts like teenagers never like any “problematic” ship. that “protect the children” rhetoric never means harassing said children. like my worst experience when i was in an anti infested fandom was when i was sixteen year old (questioning) sex repulsed asexual and i was called a pedophile by grown adults, bc i protected my privacy rights and didn’t have my age online, and bc i shipped two characters who didn’t have canon ages in the show and i saw as 25 and 23. (there was age discourse over the 23 year old, who was an alien, and dated another alien who was 10,000s of years older than her but looked like he was in his twenties, and then she dated a teenager. so. very objectively clear, isn’t it? *eye roll*) like if you need to know someone’s a minor so you won’t repeatedly and violently harass them with moral & illegal accusations — although i’m sure i would’ve been harassed anyway — they’re not the problem here.

which is to say: twitter anti rhetoric? tis bullshit

#anti purity culture #thanks for asking #anonymous #fandom nonsense #twitter #anyway cheers to that nonnie #Anonymous

88 notes · View notes

s1utspeare · 4 years ago

Text

Get To Know Me!

@foxofninetales tagged me in this ask game and since I LOVE HER i will now be doing it (i mean i’d do it anyway but now it will be filled with love for FOX i am not accepting CRITICISM ON THIS POINT)

Part I

name: Brigid! I’m named after the Irish goddess of like, poetry, healing, smithcraft, and protection, or the Irish saint (they’re both pretty similar it’s just whether or not you’re talking about Celtic religion or Catholicism). She’s very cool, and I think it’s a very fitting name for who I turned out to be!

pronouns: she/her

star sign: i’m an insufferable theatre kid of course I’m a Leo

height: 5'8″ babeeeyyy (172 cm). I’m not short like, at all, but all of my family members are over six foot, so I’m like. tiny in comparison. they all make fun of me all the time for it :(

time: 8:49pm! A delightful time of evening!!!

birthday: July 31st, same day as Harry Potter lol.

nationality: american :P

fave bands/groups/solo artists: hnnnngggghhhh why would u ask me this I don’t KNOW jk i just have a lot uhhhhh all time faves would be Bastille and Mumford and Sons, but I’m SUPER into kpop right now, so my top groups are BTS, Stray Kids, and One OK Rock (who are technically jpop but I really like their stuff). I also am a Broadway BITCH (hello, theatre kid) so before this year all of my Spotify library was basically just show tunes.

song stuck in your head: Get Away by VeriVery. I think they’re a pretty new group? idk i saw them on one of those tumblr promotional things and checked out the music video which is like??? really interesting conceptually? so I’ve just been listening to the song for a while lol.

last movie you watched: Train to Busan! I’m gearing up to write a dmbj zombie apocalypse AU and so I was like “this is a popular zombie film! I’ll watch it for inspiration! :)” holy shit. holy shit i was so wrong. It’s one of the most viscerally affecting films I think I’ve ever seen, I was like. On the verge of an anxiety attack the entire time but in like the best possible way?? it’s a mastery of character introduction and action/horror and I cried for like the last ten minutes straight. SO affecting. I do NOT RECOMMEND IT if u are already made anxious by zombie apocalypse scenarios, blood, violence, and a Lot of Death.

last show you binged: hmmm uh like I’m currently watching Mystic Nine but at like a normal pace, so the last show I probably binge watched was maybeeee The Uncanny Counter on Netflix? HIGHLY recommend that one, I made @cross-d-a watch it and I’m living for her liveblog reactions lmao. Idk most of my free time has been spent writing the past few months which. After months of only having the energy to watch shows is kind of really invigorating? the things u can do when u fix ur health I’ll tell you what

when you created your blog: in 2012 asldighalsdkfjladskjga i came on here to like burdge’s pjo fanart :)

the last thing you googled: "is it bad not to have an air cap on your tire” ALSDIGHALKDFJLADFJA FUCK ME (i learned that it’s not necessarily bad but it can get dirt and stuff built up in there so I went to the store after work today and replaced it)

other blogs: everything is here bc i am too lazy to create a sideblog! so sorry to everyone who does not follow me for cdrama content bc this is all I am now.

why i chose my url: cause it’s my ao3 username and i wanted people to be able to find me more easily on tumblr! :) the long answer is because i love shakespeare and also i think that slut is a really funny word and concept for me especially because i am one of the most sexless people u will ever meet in ur life so slutspeare is like. an aggressively ace joke that only I think is funny.

how many people are you following: 588

how many followers do you have: ah just over 200?!??!!? which is like. a lot for me. I think it was like 75 up until like last year omg

average hours of sleep: my sleep app says I average around eight! which is very good for me! I do have to get enough sleep consistently or I will Have A Bad Time so my sleep schedule is pretty good and luckily I don’t have the Insomnia depression I have the Sleep Lots one which I am glad for bc idk what I’d do if I couldn’t Be Unconscious regularly. Die probably.

lucky numbers: I don’t think I have lucky numbers?? my favorite number is 21 for no reason other than the vibes alone.

instruments: i’ve played the piano for uhhhh.... eighteen years now? and I can play the ukulele and am surprisingly good with the recorder since I’ve had to play it in Multiple Theatre Performances. I was also an honor choir singer back in high school so I’ve done a lot of select ensemble stuff which was super fun!

what i'm currently wearing: a Life Is Good long-sleeved t-shirt that says “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” that I got in a military surplus store like a million years ago and red Adidas athletic shorts that I found at the thrift store a couple weeks back

dream job: playwright! I just wanna be a playwright! playwriting is like drugs i literally go nuts for it

dream trip: I don’t know??? I don’t really like traveling tbh aslidhalkfdj umm I do want to see the grand canyon sometime before I die tho so maybe a road trip down there? I definitely like traveling solo so I’d probably just hang out with myself and drive and go to whatever places I want and see dumb tourist attractions and sing loudly in the car

fave food: CURRY i know i said eggs the last time it asked me this but I miss my local Indian restaurant I want to eat literal Platefuls of tikka masala at 12pm at the Indian buffet after my physics class again :(

top three fictional universe you'd like to live in: hmmm i don’t know, actually! probably one where I have Powers and could do Cool Hand Motions and make Lights Appear. If I were anywhere with like. An Actual World-Dooming problem tho I would not be helpful at all. I would just die. Besides, I already live in fictional universes half the time, I’m a writer!

Part II

last song: Basquiat by Pentagon! The music video is like. Very whumpy. So if you’re into that... the song’s also a bop

last stream: i don't watch streams very often, I just watch clips from them, cause those usually just give the best parts lol

currently reading: mmmmmbbbaaaaahhhhh literally nothing? I’m trying to get caught up on the backlog of dmbj fic I haven’t gotten around to so Binding by @vishcount is next on that list! oh I guess I’m also reading Johnny Tremain with my kids (one of them SPOILED THE END and I forgot how it ended and now I’m big sad).

currently watching: Mystic Niiiiinnnneeeeee! love those gay history bitches. everyone in that show is so funny. I just finished the Fuba Side Plot tho and now we’re back to Politics so i’m like >:( someone give zhang baby rishan a hug (and then i write angst about him what is wrong with me)

what is antipoetry to you: antipoetry??? what the heck is antipoetry hold on... uhhhh that’s just poetry. who came up with this term. i guess like lyrical fiction would be the technical correct definition but idk I consider anything to be poetry! like that’s the whole point! poetry is poetry is poetry as long as it’s focused on intensity and emotions it’s poetry! a haiku? poetry. the random one-lined mess of words on my phone? poetry. a literal drawing of a cardinal with the word “bird” written next to it? poetry. idk I’ve been trying to teach my kids that there are no wrong ways to write creatively; if you’re expressing yourself and making emotions, then you’re writing! also like half of my work could be considered antipoetry lmao. I love emotionally supercharging the mundane.

currently craving: i have noooo ideaaaasssss i’m literally just vibing. uh. water? ok i took care of that one my water bottle was right next to me.

AH IF YOU READ THIS MUCH THANK YOU???? i love u

uhhhh no pressure tags for @xia-xueyi, @nope4ever, @bookjoyworm, @elletromil, and @gaiahenshin, as well as anyone else who would like to give the full-rundown on themselves! :D

#ask tag #about me #Brigid's Fox #asldighalsdkfj i thought cross' tag was very funny so i've decided that's my foxofninetales tag from now on #because i love her

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ryuijsakamoto · 5 years ago

Text

I just would like to take a moment to talk about my fave headcanons i have for all the characters

Akira:

he is the most OVER DRAMATIC bitch on this earth

he definitely did theatre at some point in his life

after his arrest he sometimes gets really nervous and has trouble conveying his words. he stumbles over them and cant convey his point well

ann and haru like to braid his hair sometimes

when he was younger he faked not being able to see so he could get glasses, it didnt work tho

so hence now he wears fashion glasses

he had braces in middle school

there is One(1) picture of middle school akira. One

he 1000000000% believes in ghosts and has since he was a child

aliens though? not real.

takes lots of selfies when he moves back and sends them to his friends often

biggest flirt but if u flirt back with him he. Dies cannot talk his face is fully red and hes hiding behind his hands

takes every opportunity to visit his friends

claims hes not a sap but futuba swears she saw him crying over a handwritten thank you card from ‘’that one arcade kid names the kind or smth’’

Ryuji:

when he was a kid he has a fluffy mess of hair similar to akiras and it was the cutest thing ever

he needs reading glasses but no one knows because hes embarrassed by them

he likes to doodle on papers, hes not an artist but he likes to make dorky quick drawings in the corner of his paper

he has trouble focuing sometimes and likes to tap his foot silently or draw lines on paper to help him focus

calls yusuke and akira pretty boy by habit, it started as teasing but then it just became a Habit

he keeps every gift his friends give him and therye very dear to him

he has akira help him dye his hair

when one of his friends is gone / in danger he doesnt dye his hair again until he knows theyre safe

his mom sewed his purple jacket for him herself

he likes to cook and bake

he hold his bros..bro come cuddle me...he very affectionate with his friends and casually touches like hugs, hands over shoulders, etc.

sings to himself when hes alone

Ann:

she has a pretty popular instagram account

she has really bad handwriting

like ryuji, very affectionate

she loves beanies and wears them especially in the snow

likes to make pointless arguments with ryuji sometimes, stuff like is water wet?

likes to curl her hair over breaks, thinks it looks cute

she loves to watch sappy romance and drama shows / movies

she stress eats

hates when people attack her friends on her instagram

she has pet fish

she picked up gardening from haru, its only a small plants and she forgets to water it sometimes but shes trying her best

Yusuke:

he is secretly a sucker for cutely decorated sweets

he had a small anime phase, not that he told madarame, but he has a box full of his old anime drawings and he will Never show them to anyone

he, like ryuji, sometimes drawes in the corners of his papers

unlike ryuji his are more detailed n not as dorky, its usually a detailed flower pattern or something of the sorts

he straightens and dyes his hair

his room? full of art pieces and posters u cannot see his original walls

he always has his phone on dnd and forgets to check it for days sometimes

he has 5 pairs of the same shirt, each one for a different occasions (they all look the same though...we dont ask why)

when he gets too worried over his art and stuff usually his friends will drag him out of his room and make him go eat with them

his friends pictures in his phones are hand-drawn little sketches he did

when hes concentrating really hard he puts his bangs into a ponytail so they dont fall in his face

so clumsy. he trips over everything

Makoto:

got through school before highschool without having to study

is not good with change

loves cute plushies and clothes

is Tired please give her a break

when Sae notices shes overexerting herself she makes sure to leave some of makotos favorite food and a small note for makoto on her bed

she just loves her sister very much

actually really likes spicy foods

u mention around her youre having trouble in school? not getting enough rest? forgot your lunch? Mom Mode Makoto activated

when shes alone she can curse up a storm

likes to play poker

is really good at talking to people and keeping up frienships

after highschool she is always busy u wanna hangout? she has 2 available days for the next 5 months

Futuba:

she has braces. she despises them

a very picky eater

sometimes she falls back into her old habits of hiding and isolating herself, when that happens shes learned to text someone and they sit outside her door and talk to her untill shes feeling better

cries easily, especially over characters and shows

has a phantom thieves fan account

when morgana and akira move away she gets a cat plushy because she misses her friends

shows everyone so many fun online things, discord? they have s discord gc because of her

akira has to remind her to drink water and fix her posture too much

wants to cosplay

shes really nervous for her first day of school but joker texts her all throughout the day even if he got in trouble for it

surprisingly a morning person

Haru:

she Runs on caffeine

likes to spoil her friends, yusuke spent all his money again? heres enough to get home and also buy a 3 course meal

works at a plant shop even though she doesnt really need to because she loves being around plants

plays piano and cello

touch starved pls hug her PLEASE

likes to fish

cutest laugh please protect her

also dabbled in acting, though hers was more classical stuff like shakespear

she loves golf and swimming

knows how to fight and will do so if needed

she bullet journals

Akechi (in general + if he got to stay with the pt):

actually doesnt have a strong opinion on pancakes, just was really feeling like eating pancakes that day when he overheard morgana

he loves the praise he gets but the spotlight is exhausting

shido told him long hair didnt look good on him once so now he refuses to cut it out of spite

loves to watch gordan ramsey, thinks its hilarious

Bottles up his emotions like crazy

actually really caring towards his friends, always checking up on them and making sure theyre taking care of themselves

loves shit talking his dad, esp with ryuji haru and yusuke who join him and shit talk their own father figures

he wears colored contacts

writes poetry, no one knows this though

cannot back down from a bet, tell him that he wont eat that spoonful of wasabi? hes choking it down with tears but at least he proved you wrong

kinda very incredibly petty

a big fan of mythology, he looked into it after getting his loki persona

loves movie dates with the phantom theives

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bmblboop · 4 years ago

Note

"Martial Arcs is pallet-swapped Diodeshipping from Pokémon" You wanted someone to ask, so consider this me asking! *gets comfy for story time*

(With regards to this post)

*claps hands together* So.

When you dip in and out of a few different fandoms, there may be characters people gravitate towards more. Characters you prefer to talk about more than others - characters whose stories resonate with you personally among other things. I’ve been doing some meta analysis of my own to assess what kind of characters and character tropes/arcs I seem to like the most. (and even try to predict which characters I’m gonna fall in love with before I even get into the fandom. For example: I have spoiled myself to most of the Kingdom Hearts story and I already know Riku is gonna be my favorite character lol.)

Anyway - this is a long way of saying that my taste in ships seems to be staying consistent as well. Cut for length and also me rambling too much about Clemont.

The thing about Diodeshipping is that it’s biggest draw is the jock/nerd, mutually supportive boyfriends thing - but there is much more to it than just the roles going on here. Also - this is not a ship comparison like ‘oh A is Y and B is Z’ sorta thing because the personalities don’t match up at all. It’s all in the character motivations.

Clemont has a huge background character arc during XY (well, huge by Pokemon Anime standards - the only other relevant comparisons I can draw are Brock whose arc took 4 regions and Cilan who didn’t change at all). He has a tendancy to jump to conclusions that often blames himself for things that aren’t his fault. His whole arc, from the very first episode until the gym battle (5/8 if I may add, so about half the show) is about gaining self-confidence and bettering himself as a person and a trainer.

Ren’s arc in Volume 7 and 8 is about Ren’s tattered self-confidence - placing the blame on his own shoulders for not being strong enough and letting his friends down. In this regard - the pallet-swapped role here is Clemont (blonde) is Ren (black).

Where the Jaune (blonde)/Ash (black) parallels are there, they aren’t as strongly rooted bc RWBY is much more three-dimensional- (ohgod that was a pun aaaaaaa-)

Jaune/Ash are the ones that lift up their other half in times of self-imposed stress. They are the beacon of light the other looks up to. They aren’t a swoop-in and Save the Day kind of partner either - they trust and have faith in the strength and conviction of their partner, even if they need a motivational push to realize it themselves. Jaune has a lot of Clemont-y traits himself and falls into the character-fave-archetype of mine for “sweet blond nerds going through a confidence arc, glasses optional”

And it’s not like one is always the damsel and the other is always the hero - in both ships they will lift each other up. It’s more pronounced in RWBY than XY because of the greater character depth but there are several occasions where Clemont is literally picking/lifting Ash when he falls pretty sure he saved his life in the Diancie movie - that’s good ship fuel.

I dunno - this was just a ramble-y way of saying that the bros-supporting-bros can totally be read as a crush due to the sprinkling of emotional vulnerability and unconditional trust is very similar between the two.

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 5 years ago

Text

I Need to Talk About “Problematic Faves” within TWDG [3/?]

Character design, being drawn towards characters we find visually attractive, and how big of a role in plays in our feelings towards them.

“He's a murderer but like.... a cute murderer, y’know?”

This goes hand in hand with the whole first impressions thing we’re talking about, but rather than talking about the character’s traits, dialogue, history, and overall character, we’re talking about physical appearance.

This is something I want to touch on even though I already know the answer to it. It’s just a food for thought sort of idea that I wanted to explore given how much we talk about our favorite characters appearances while discussing them with one another.

Let’s face it: We’re all a little shallow at some point in our lives.

“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” is bullshit. I pick up that book in the first place because it’s pretty and has sprayed edges. The only reason I put it back it is because I can’t find an actual summary of the book because publishers think we want to read a bunch of “Best book of da year!” by Who The Fuck Cares written all over the place rather than an actual summary...

....What was my point?

Oh, right, character design.

When we’re first introduced to a character, we immediately make a judgement of them based off their looks.That’s not to say that our opinions remain the same based on our first impressions after only looking at them, but it’s something we do initially.

Game developers, artists, writers, and directors will usually strive to make their characters as visually appealing to us as possible because that’s what makes us go “ohhh they pretty *picks thing up.*”

There are issues that develop from this, such as unrealistic expectations of what true beauty is and how it actually affects the audience. After taking in so much of this content, I started to wonder if it had any affect on why we have “Problematic Faves” and if there IS something linked within the way we view them as physically attractive.

While I believe that appearance is an important factor in character development and is what draws us to them, it’s also a bit more complicated than that.

One of the many things I adore about the final season is it’s character design for all the students at Ericson. All of the Ericson kiddos have their own unique looks and manners of which they hold themselves.

Sure we’ve got Louis and Violet, who we all gush about all the time on how beautiful they are. How many times have we talked about Louis’ freckles or Violet’s eyes or just how gosh darn pretty we think they are while incorporating it into writing our fanfics or headcanons or creating out artworks of them?

But what’s great is that they aren’t all “conveniently attractive” or someone a shallow Hollywood director would look at one time and say “there’s our star!”

Willy is a fan favorite among many in our community. What I love about his design is his teeth. He’s a kid growing up in the apocalypse without proper dental care. His teeth are crooked, there are gaps between them, and he’s even missing some. If that same Hollywood director were to look at him, they’d either slap some extreme braces on him or cast him as a tree troll.

But not everyone has those perfectly straight pearly whites. Some of us have crooked teeth, or we’ve had painful braces to try and straighten them, or we’ve lost or broken a tooth at some point. You know how refreshing it is to see a character as likable as Willy show up with that smile of his while still being considered a fan favorite?

Speaking of refreshing, what about Ruby? Everyone loves Ruby. She’s not tall and thin, she’s short and thicker.

I remember seeing nasty posts questioning why someone like Aasim would have any interest in her because of the way she’s built, and that that pisses me off.

It’s so damn great to see someone like Ruby portrayed the way she is in this game. As someone who IS more on the shorter and heavier side, it’s hard to find a character like this who doesn’t suddenly become slim therefore “prettier” over the course of the story or who isn’t a terrible or whose weight and build is all their character is. The last movie I watched that featured a plus size main character was that god awful Sierra Burgess movie on Netflix and that character made me want to punch things.

All I can say is thank god for Ruby.

Speaking of which, how about Omar? He’s short and stocky, too, but y’know what? We made this dude a GOD. What does that tell you?

These are examples using more minor characters that fall into that non-”Problematic Fave” tier, but what about our characters that do?

I used to have a strong theory that some characters got more love and attention JUST because they’re more attractive to the audience, even if their character is boring, holds little to no plot relevance, or is an “evil” being beyond forgiveness.

It’s a theory that I believe still holds some truth, though I think that truth lies more with the younger fans, or those who aren’t quite as mature.

As someone who has worked around elementary school children, as well as 13-14 year olds, I think I can safely make the assumption that they tend to take things at face value a good chunk of the time.

Pretty person = Good!

Not pretty person = Bad!

That sort of deal.

So, the question I pose is:

Does a character’s level of attractiveness have an effect on our willingness to forgive some of their more problematic behaviors?

I’m sure most of you read that and said “Uh, is this a trick question? No?”

When you think about the kinds of stories that we’re always told about the beautiful princesses who are pure and good and the ugly stepmothers who are evil and bad, it’s not hard to see why the younger ones would see things as more black and white rather than a shade of gray.

If the pretty princess poisons her “evil” stepmother during their morning tea, how easily do we forgive her just because we’re told that she’s a pure, pretty princess? We know poisoning someone is bad, but... if the stepmother was ugly and evil, then the princess must have had a reason for doing this, right? So... it’s okay... right?

Is the princess justified in her actions, even if the stepmother wasn’t doing anything more than drinking her morning tea?

I look at that and say, “No,” whereas a much younger person might say, “Yeah. The stepmother was evil.”

Young children are fascinating to talk to, by the way. They’re sponges who absorb knowledge like you wouldn’t believe but somehow they still take everything at that face value and believe whatever the “good” person says in a story until you help them see the bigger picture. That’s why they tend to be more susceptible to falling for twists.

But once you explain to them the more complicated elements of the princess and the stepmother, they’re intelligent enough to grasp that the princess is wrong.

I believe once we grow older and open ourselves up to more complex stories full of gray characters, learning about them through experience, we start to see that beauty isn’t just in the eye in the beholder, but also that it doesn’t mean shit at the end of the day.

You can have the most beautiful person in the world be your main character, but if that beautiful person drowns a bag full of kittens, suddenly they aren’t so attractive, now are they?

One of a kid’s favorite example of a good-looking antagonist is Hans from Frozen.

While I think the whole “he was actually evil the whole time haha we fooled you” thing in that movie is garbage, I give it credit for being the first exposure of this concept to young kids, sending them down a path of looking at different characters they see in a new light.

We like characters who are attractive because, well, they’re attractive. But we’re also mature enough to know that their attractiveness isn’t solely based on their appearance. It’s merely the seed that only grows with development, personality, and an arc. It only makes up a small portion of why we like a character in the first place. We know that just because someone is good-looking, it doesn’t justify their actions.

But for those who are still growing out of those black and while fairy tales and just starting to expand their views of different characters while learning that looks can be deceiving, are they more likely to forgive a character or not fully understand that they’re in the wrong just because they’re visually pleasing?

Another example outside of TWDG that I can give you is Nathan Prescott from the game Life is Strange. I’ve mentioned this game several times before, and even wrote a whole segment on it in my Louis and Violet essay from a while back.

When I was a young lass, I picked up this game and really liked it. I wasn’t as into it as I am TWDG, but I liked it enough to play every episode as it came out and then check the tag to see what everyone thought.

While browsing this tag, I noticed that a lot of the fan base seemed young. Makes sense, it IS a game starring teens set in an academy setting and I was young, too.

But with that, one thing that always bothered me was how a number of young people talked about Nathan.

Nathan who, if you haven’t played the game, is one of the antagonists. They would gush about this kid, seeming to make up excuses for the appalling things he did and it felt very tied to his looks.

I’m sorry to any Life is Strange fans who might’ve been one of these young fans... but that really is the impression I got at the time.

Maybe I just didn’t get the hype about this dude who drugged girls so he could pose and take pictures of them because of his weirdly under-explained relationship with the surprise villain of the story, but he doesn’t seem like the type of guy to get all “Poor, precious, beautiful baby boi didn’t deserve this !” about.

Then again, if writing this has taught me anything, I might have missed something by not being involved with that fandom, but what I gathered was that he didn’t become the redeemable character they all thought he would be and they didn’t like that, so it becomes harder to try and justify the things he did because he didn’t end up being good in the end even though they all thought he would be. I guess.

But, gathering that a lot of them were so young and going off the content I predominately saw... I don’t know. It didn’t ever feel right. I had suspicions that lead to this theory. That’s what I’m saying.

This can apply to other fandoms, too, where a group of people will take a character/person they find attractive and gush about how pretty they are rather than anything else that makes them interesting. Not everyone, of course, but I get the feeling you all know what I mean and have come across something like it before. I’m just trying to explain it.

Or maybe it is just me and you have no idea what I’m talking about.

Either way.

Returning back to our “Problematic Faves,” lets ask this question about them in particular.

How much of David’s attractiveness plays into my love of him?

I mean, he’s not a bad looking dude. In fact, I dare say that the Garcia brothers are both very attractive guys. I give ‘em both a 10/10.

But does that actually aid in my actual feelings towards him at all?

What about the others we’ve talked about so far?

I don’t see many people talking about how pretty they think Kenny is... though his mustache IS majestic and that’s something we all agree on.

And Lilly’s okay. I guess.

Nate could be a good-looking dude if he’d just put his crazy eyes away.

I believe our best bet it in getting a more clear answer to this question would to be take a quick look back at Minerva.

Remember how I said Minerva was so hyped up based on a two second appearance in the ep3 trailer? Granted, we did have more than JUST her appearance to form this hype around.... but admit it, a huge part of the hype was how good she looked.

She looked awesome.

Hell, just seeing her had me excited to see what she would do in ep3, even though I had the feeling she wouldn’t be an ally.

I used to have a hard time wrapping my head around why so many people love her as much as they do, and I previously thought it was based a lot on her appearance.

Is it ignorant and shallow of me to think y’all loved her based solely on her looks?

Probably. Yes. Yes, it was.

Now that I’ve looked into this further, I see that there’s more to the love and interest surrounding her, but..... it’s kind of what my first thought was? In the beginning?

Either way, it’s still an interesting idea to consider when thinking about a character you love.

With that said, what if we apply this question to a character who is less of a “Problematic Fave” and more of my “God Tier Fave.”

You all know that Louis is my favorite character across ALL the games. My love for him is vibrant, but one of the many things I love about him IS his character design. He’s a visually appealing guy, and his personality, different traits, dialogue, flaws, and character arc only build onto the attractiveness of his character.

If Louis didn’t look like this, would I still love him?

Assuming that everything else about him is the same, then yeah.

What if the developers went with the concept art of him that looked like a odd Harry Styles knockoff? Would I still love him?

Again, I want to say that I would, assuming that everything else about him be the same. But going with that certain concept art does take away an important aspect of his character and his relationship to Clementine.

Many of you have told me how much you appreciate the fact that Clementine and Louis represent a sweet, healthy black couple. That’s important to all of us. If we went with the first concept art, then that’s something we’d lose. Would we still ship clouis? Probably, but again, that important element and representation is lost and that would affect our overall opinion of it, even if just a bit.

But, what if Louis looked exactly as he does now, but were to do something awful? Would I still love him?

Well, my first instinct is to say, “Yes.”

In ep3, Louis tells us that he purposely broke up his parents marriage because his father wouldn’t let him take singing lessons. He broke into his father’s credit cards and made it look like he had a mistress, then made sure his mother knew about it. He did this over the course of a year. Then, when the divorce was finalized, he threw his father’s words back in his face: “You get to be happy or you get to be rich. You can’t be both.”

Knowing this, I still love Louis.

What he did was awful, but the reason I don’t hate him or even like him any less is because of how he acted while telling us. You can feel the guilt and remorse in his voice, the shame that he was once a person who thought that was okay to do.

He did that a long time ago, he learned from this terrible mistake he made, went as far as to punish himself by taking on a irresponsible, piano-playing jokester persona who anyone rarely ever took seriously. Louis changed for the better and he’s still a likable, relatable, lovably character despite this.

But in order to dig a little deeper into this idea of attractiveness and just how far we’ll go to try and justify a character based solely on their looks, I then thought:

“Okay, then consider this: What if Louis and Minerva switched places with him doing all those things she did that made me dislike her? Would I still love him?”

And things got a little complicated.

Because my immediate first thought was “Yes.”

That shocked the hell out of me.

Why the fuck would I be okay with LOUIS acting the way Minerva did, but not MINERVA herself? That makes no sense.

Louis betraying us on the boat by knocking Clementine out and locking her in the cell isn’t suddenly okay because it’s LOUIS.

Louis showing up on the bridge to try and murder Tenn isn’t suddenly okay because it’s him and not MINERVA.

The reality is this: If Louis and Minerva traded places, I wouldn’t love Louis. I don’t care how attractive his character design is, I would feel the same way about him that I feel about Minerva. I love Louis for who he is within the context of the canon game, but if Louis traded places with Minerva, he wouldn’t be that Louis that I love.

The problem with asking myself this is I know Louis’ character and I want to think the best of him. I’m attached to him. I don’t want to imagine him doing anything that horrible because I know that would be an breaking of his character. His appearance has nothing to do with it.

But my first instinct was to side with him.

That’s when it all came together.

A character’s appearance is important in the first impression, but our perception of that character’s attractiveness is only elevated or lowered based on the important things: personality, backstory, relationships, flaws, fears, regrets, change, and complete character arc.

So how does this apply to my love for David?

Well, it eliminates any possibility that I only like David just because he’s pretty.

Perhaps I’m not so shallow after all.

Yeah, that’s the conclusion of this segment: something I already knew. But, I felt it was a concept that could spark some thought about what attractiveness really means while debunking any idiots who may grasp at straws with the insult of, “You only like [blank] and excuse their toxicity because you think they’re hot!”

... except the Life is Strange community might come after me for implying a nicer version of that towards one of the antagonists... but hopefully you understand the point I was attempting to make in bringing that up as an example.

I like David’s design, but him being an attractive dude isn’t why I like him. If anything, his looks being appealing to my eye is at the end of my long, complicated list of why I like him.

Conclusion:

Looks matter initially, and our perception of a character’s attractiveness is either elevated or lowered based on the more important qualities of their character, problematic or otherwise.

[continued in 4/?]

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uozlulu · 4 years ago

Note

Who are your favorite top ten black clover characters and ships? Talk about them.

This is both easy and hard. Like I have so many faves and ships, can I really make a top ten? Let’s find out

Ten top faves in order they came to my brain:

Asta - It was favorite character at first bellow really. I like that he’s got his own political philosophy which is more than some other Jump heroes in similar positions have sometimes. He reads very nephew I never had to me. I just really love loud, kind characters really.

Noelle - I like that her powers improve and grow with her desire to protect others. She’s also set up for such a great character arc when all is said and done. It’ll be fun to see her continue to loosen up more and more as we go now that she’s with a family who loves her openly and unconditionally.

Yuno - He reminds me of my little brother so a lot of his interactions with Asta bring on a lot of nostalgia. I also like how there are layers to him even if they’re subtle. He’s clearly got some depression issues to work through. I’m looking forward to how he handles a manga spoiler as he deals with more and more with such things.

Charmy - I like that she can be both funny but also srsbsns when needed. She’s always entertaining and there’s so much more we can learn about her as we go along.

Mereoleona - She’s very loud and very interesting. Like does sense use her grimoire when she makes those fire paws? I think we’ve only seen evidence of her grimoire open once but maybe that was actually Fuego’s. I also like how she’s in a position in which she can reject the nonsense of nobility without us having to sit through some family estrangement drama.

Magna - I want to see more of him. He’s an interesting dad friend to Klaus’ mom friend and he’s also constantly struggling to make things work. He’s very, very relatable. Reminds me of my struggle with learning to spell and learning math post-pre-algebra.

Charlotte - I love her. A constant contradiction. Confined by the etiquette of nobility and her own nerves while deep down having her teen crush phase ten years later than most. Really hoping the filler arc allows her to sort some stuff out not only for shipping reasons but I think that she’s kind of not quite done with her identity crisis so if she could get more of a harness on some of her contradictions or find a way to blend them together more smoothly that would be good for her overall. Would also love to see her and Luck figure out they’re actually (half?) siblings

Vangeance - Very relatable back story, and I am looking forward to seeing how he grows as a character now separated from Patri. Looking forward to what the filler arc is going to do with him.

Yami - He reminds me of my older sister in how he and Asta interact with each other, though my sister and I don’t you know how so much bathroom conversation >____>;;; (but that’s Jump for you). I’m hoping we get to learn more about him as we go along here. Also curious how many people in Clover Kingdom realize Yami is actually his surname considering Julius calls him Yami and calls Vangeance William.

Father Orsi - I’ve always rather liked him. In many ways he’s Asta and Yuno’s dad. I’m kind of hoping the current backstory subplot ends with that being acknowledged in some way kind of like how during the elf arc we had a lot of familial talk like Licht and Tetia getting married, Yuno being the reincarnation of their child, Tetia and Lumiere being siblings, etc...and had a plot point of Asta saving Orsi’s life while Yuno kept the threat at bay. Yuno especially is at a critical point that his part of the subplot could go in that kind of direction, which would be nice since Asta had the bigger father son moment with Orsi last time, but it won’t surprise me if by the time we get there it will be both Asta and Yuno who affirm that Hage is their home and the church and their squads are their families.

Ten ships I enjoy in no particular order:

Asta/Noelle - Asta’s still hopelessly devoted to Sister Lily and Noelle has only just discovered her heart can doki doki but I think they have the potential to grow and change together and become a really strong couple as that progresses.

Yami/Charlotte - These two are very relatable. Does Yami know? I think he does, but I also think he can’t be 100% certain, which is very relatable especially since I too grow up as an “other” around my peers. Charlotte is also relatable because a lot of what she says out loud is some of my own internal monologue from back when I used to get crushes on people. It’s such a stupid mutual crush that could really become something fun if they would both just communicate and be themselves.

Luck/Magna - They have a deep friendship and understanding of each other which could totally translate into something more if they wanted, which is always my jam. They also seem to know how far is too far when you factor out that they’re a hyper violent comedy routine at times, and that’s also nice.

Yami/Vangeance - Makes me sad how little content there is for this ship especially after I filter out what I don’t want to see on AO3. Again you’ve got that friendship that could evolve aspect and they’re also two people Clover Kingdom sees as an “other” and had to prove themselves to get where they are. They both seem to have a love style that isn’t controlling given the love they show for their squads, which I think is what both of them need.

Finral/Klaus - I know. I know. Everyone’s going “Where did that even come from?” and the answer is there is so little Black Clover fic when I saw a fic for this ship a while back I was like “Okay. Tell me more,” and it sold me on the ship. Both of them are kind of in a support position for their squads, they were both raised as nobles, and they both are kind of learning to let go of that nobility, though Finral has already let go of a lot of it now and Klaus is only starting to loosen up. It’s an interesting dynamic I’d like to see more of.

Noelle/Kahono - Might have been me projecting a bit but when Kahono set up a double date designed to get Noelle and Asta together it reminded me of when I was in the closet back in middle and high school and fixed this girl I had a crush on up with the boys she liked alsfjldskfjaldkj. Also Kahono seems to have a lot of warmth and affinity for Noelle, and I think if they were able to interact more something could develop. They’d be very cute together, though I think Noelle likes her crushes weirder than Kahono but maybe Kahono has a secret weirdo side we just haven’t seen yet.

Grey/Gauche - Do you ever like look at Gauche and feel that one gifset of Nick Furry burst forth? Yeah, so in a world in which he finally calms down a bit about Marie, he can be part of a ship as a treat. I like that they both can bring out sides of each other others can’t and I think they both have a lot of room to grow together as people. It would also be nice to see Gauche unwind a bit (though I think he’ll always be stuffy) and Grey open up more (though she’ll always be shy). They also seem like characters that wouldn’t overwhelm each other either, which is good because I think both of them wouldn’t respond well to more aggressive personality types.

Charmy/Rill - We need to talk about how everyone Rill loves has handed him his ass. We really do. His butler did, Asta did, and now wolf!Charmy has. Just wait until sheep!Charmy hands him his ass, he’ll never look back. That said, that’s not why I like them. I like them because I think Charmy needs someone who will appreciate her and I think Rill definitely will as he gets used to her. I also think Rill needs someone who won’t put up with nonsense unless it’s the fun kind of nonsense and Charmy definitely would fit the right kind of chaotic energy. I also like ships in which the girl is just as capable of saving the boy (a la Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask) so again, like Asta/Noelle and Yami/Charlotte, I’m here for this ship.

Leopold/Yuno - This stemmed from me thinking about how they would interact since strangely enough we’ve not seen them in the same place as the same time yet since Leopold didn’t participate in the Royal Knight Selection Exam. I would love to read some fics with this pairing but there aren’t a lot out there. In some ways it’s that anxiety/depression ship dynamic that I gravitate towards so it’s no surprise I’m curious how it would go. Maybe they’ll get to work together in the next major battle arc.

Noelle/Nero - But like when Nero is in human form, you know? Again, it’s that anxiety/depression dynamic. I also think that while Noelle can draw on strength from Nero in battle, Nero can draw on strength from Noelle outside of battle because Noelle has that side of her that likes to care for people and has a lot of compassion for others even though she tries to cover it up by being tsundere. It’ll be fun to watch them fight alongside each other since they’re both going to be training in Heart Kingdom during the filler arc at some point.

#anonymous #ask box replies #long post #ymmv #shipping talk #not really manga spoilers #but hinted at #black clover

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