#i want pure fanon in canon thank you

[aingeal98]

Honestly think part of the reason why cass is so often mischaracterized is bc she challenges the perceptions of Bruce (good or bad) that so many people

Honestly I think the majority of it is them not wanting to engage with female characters at all but knowing Cass exists and not wanting to be a fake fan by excluding her so instead they defang her into irrelevant side character number 2 so they don't feel guilty about engaging in fandom solely through focusing on the boys. But I do agree that part of the reason people like to ignore her canon and create something else entirely is because of how much of it challenges their good dad Bruce/bad person Bruce characterisations. Like if you want good dad Bruce content you can dismiss everything he does to the boys as ooc or twist it to being their fault and focus instead on the cute Robin moments. But Batgirl has consistent flawed person Bruce characterisation where he's not the main character and he's not pure evil but he's not good either. If you want to engage with Cass you can't ignore Bruce's flaws to the same extent you can with the others, because from day one he's Like That. Every single good dad Bruce moment from that run comes wrapped in like 5 layers of complicated bad parenting and it's so fun but alas. Not simple enough for fanon that wants WFA writing to encompass all of canon. (I enjoy WFA but it's very much a separate thing and should stay that way.)

Likewise with people who hate Bruce it's easy for them to mischaracterise Cass because she represents a lot of what Bruce's philosophy should be without all the flaws that make him easy to hate. And people kind of get threatened by that, so instead of actually engaging with the text and discovering all Cass's fun unique flaws they just make something up to vindicate their fave. Which is annoying to read sometimes like I have rolled my eyes several times during fics. Most of the time she's ooc by just being sort of a supportive doormat but sometimes they're like you know what I'm going to be brave and give this female character some flaws and then the flaws are just more ooc garbage so they can get a scene of her apologising to their woobie batboy.

Moral of the story is as always, read Batgirl 2000. Thanks for the ask!

[casscainmainly]

thank you so much for answering my ask! and so fast too, haha, don't worry about deleting it that stuff happens <3

i'm just curious though, im kinda new to dc and i mostly know stuff from tumblr (ive started reading comics from reading lists tho!)

since you're a cass fan, what makes you think dick is the fav? i love them both ofc but just tryna improve my understanding of the dynamics between the family. i've heard that cass and damian are the favorites? and jason? though apparently jason is only in fanon and ahh im just kinda confused im so sorry for the stupid questions

Trust me, no question about comics is stupid!! It's impossible to know everything (and I'm relatively new myself haha), so don't feel bad about asking anything. Plus I love answering asks :)).

Anyway, fantastic-nonsense's post here covers about all of why I think Dick is the fav. In case you don't wanna go there, here's one of the panels:

From Infinite Crisis #6. As clear an answer as we'll ever get, I think.

The question of 'who is Bruce's favourite?' is always subject to personal interpretation, though. Lots of factors - what a person has read, which character they like, what interpretation they have of Bruce - go into who someone thinks is Bruce's fav. Sometimes it's not even a question of pure canon, but a question of theme. Which character being Bruce's fav is the most narratively compelling? To me, that's Dick - their relationship has the most history, the most depth, and frankly I prefer one of Batman's successors (who to me is Dick or Cass only) being his favourite.

Cass being the fav is compelling too, but not as compelling to me as her not being the fav. Her story, her quest to break free from White men's expectations (both David and Bruce's), makes me not want her to be tied to Bruce's love too much. So while there are great canon reasons for her being the fav, I don't think it's a necessary or even particularly interesting angle for Bruce-Cass.

I actually haven't heard many people argue for Damian being Bruce's fav (it's usually Dick or Cass in my circles), which goes to show how much opinions vary haha. Damian has great reasons too - his entire death/resurrection has strong Bruce-Damian moments - but this is the least interesting fav kid pick to me. He's been raised to think of himself as Bruce's fav, and his arc is about undoing that belief in legacy, being the heir, etc. So being Bruce's fav doesn't do much for him. Having the only bio kid be the fav isn't that interesting either.

Jason definitely is the most fanon-y pick, though Jay being Bruce's fav is genuinely interesting. It's just that Bruce's love for Jason is a lot about the dead kid he used to be, and also half of why Jason is so obsessed with Dick is because he knows Bruce is obsessed with him. So in a roundabout way my preferred Jason-Dick dynamic hinges on Jason not being Bruce's fav. But I'm not well-read on Jason, I think some Jason fans might have good reasons for him being the fav.

These are all my interpretations of these characters, and the fun about reading comics is growing to develop your own opinion about questions like this! To me Bruce's fav isn't a strict right/wrong answer, I'm like one well-written meta away from changing my mind. But I hope this clarified my thoughts on the question!

[pastorfutureletthembe]

X

I have honestly so many questions, my artist heart is bleeding for you, sir.

Also, I'm aware that this is not canon and was created according to s1&2 impressions, but this object's design is similar to the one in LULL.

I wonder what it is and how it works 👀. The threads remind me of greek mythology.

I know it's purely fanon at this point but, just for fun because I'm always hungry for timey saucery:

If this kind of object existed in universe, what would the implications be?

It takes the threads from timelines or each timeline is a thread, and it makes all of it into a tapestry, right? That would be logical.

In the literal sense, a tapestry is a huge, often complicated picture woven out of cloth. So there are many many threads woven together in complex ways to make up a bigger picture. It is often used metaphorically to describe something complex with many parts, pieces, ideas, woven together.

But if so, it means the tapestry itself would already be done, and each timeline would be a pattern. The big picture would be key events common to each of them.

Or. If what we see is actually ropes made from threads and each rope is a timeline, the machine would undo and redo these ropes infinitely. Taking parts of each timeline and basically making a medley for the next one.

Would only one timeline be made at the time?

A complex machine like that would mean every batch would be made from several timelines. So there would be, for example, 12 timelines playing simultaneously and the machine would prepare the 12 following timelines using the current playing ones.

Fanon aside, the idea of an actual machine, concrete or liminal, in canon is an interesting concept to toy with.

Would it be a machine created by man or pre-existing in the cracks between time and space? Can it be controlled? Can it be influenced? Can it be broken? Why would certain people be able to connect with it through powers like Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang?

I still think their powers are about the impression of light in time and space, and if so, the machine would basically be like the sun, and those people would be gravitating around it. On a smaller scale, this idea is close to the Saturn imagery too, with its rings of dust. Saturn is the planet associated with time.

The position of Saturn's festival in the Roman calendar led to his association with concepts of time, especially the temporal transition of the New Year. In the Greek tradition, Kronos was sometimes conflated with Chronos, "Time," and his devouring of his children taken as an allegory for the passing of generations. As such, the Roman Saturn had similar associations. The sickle or scythe of Father Time is a remnant of the agricultural implement of Cronus-Saturn, and his aged appearance represents the waning of the old year with the birth of the new.

Mythology goes in this direction: using the old to make the new, transitions, destruction for construction, chaos to order.

Also, I hope they don't go there, but what if these powers were hereditary and came from a time when a group of rich and excentric people who created a machine to time travel? And this machine somewhat got connected to this liminal object like the one we see in the PV? And that's how they get extra.

Going back to headcanon territory more than fanin theories but what if one of these guys stole this machine to save his wife's life when others really just wanted to get richer and kill opponents? Haha

Anyway, all very interesting things to think about in a pure recreative context. I'm not saying that's what Link Click will become, again. I'm just saying GUYS WHAT IF THEY ACTUALLY WENT THERE? haha

Moar design explanation please, that's so interesting!! 😍✨

My brain is currently on fire. Thank you Link Click for feeding my tetris mind lmao

[arom-antix]

So, with the main part of this whole thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai (Samurai from here on) situation having blown over, I thought I'd make a final-for-now summary post that outlines the key points in this situation so that I can cap this for the time being. It's also for the people who've stumbled upon one of the many posts about this and have no clue where to start or don't understand the context, because yeah, there's a lot. I've had multiple people reach out who were in that situation, so here's the summary for anyone who's interested.

Links to all the posts in this situation:

Initial posts: 1. Samurai's answer w/ my response 2. Samurai's response to me

Main threads: 3. Culture and fandom thread 4. Screenshots thread

Other threads: 5. Initial receipts 6. First ask 7. First anon ask, rebuttal 8. Second anon ask 9. Third anon ask 10. Fourth anon ask 11. Fifth anon ask 12. Sixth anon ask, thread 13. Disclaimer to not misuse my posts 14. Follow-up regarding Samurai's continued hypocrisy

I will be referring back to these post in the normat "no. #".

There are multiple key players in this whole thing but seeing as this post contains primarily my words and take on things (and the others involved have honestly had enough stress about this for one month) I've elected not to tag them. You can find them in the posts I linked to. However, I will note the abscence of any real response from Samurai. I'll get into that further down.

A big thank you to everyone who's contributed to this discussion. It's been wonderful finally getting all this stuff out in the open.

Break for those who want a usable dash or don't care. But I encourage you to do so because this does matter for your fandom experience going forward.

So first, what happened? Well, the first thing to understand is that this whole thing started a long time ago, and the reason it's becoming a big thing now is pure chance. It was going to happen eventually. It happening now is just how it went. But for the sake of cohesion, I'll approach it from where the situation itself arose, especially since it displays some of the behaviours I'll be highlighting later pretty well.

The way this all kicked off was that Samurai posted no. 1 in response to an ask about the canon vs. fanon spelling of Yuuri and Viktor's names. In this response Samurai was pretty rude and demeaning towards Japanese name translation inconsistencies. There was also a minor spelling error. I pointed these things out in a reblog of Samurai's post which can also be found in no. 1. Now, Samurai did respond to this, but not in the way you'd think. She didn't reblog my post. Instead, she quietly edited the spelling error in her original post (just became incorrect in a different way), and then reblogged that new version of her own post and tagged me in it. Strange, but okay, I guess. In her response she apologised for the cultural insensitivity and explained that English was not her first language which, sure, that's fair. However, she also went on to explain the spelling error was actually just a misunderstanding, and then was even more wrong about Japanese in her explanation of that. Go to no. 3 to get an explanation as to why she was doubly wrong. I couldn't be bothered to start anything about this poor response, so I reblogged it so people could see it, said "sorry if I was harsh, have a good day", and went on my way.

Later that same day I then got an ask (no. 3 and 4) about that last reblog which said that I shouldn't have apologised for being right, and explained that Samurai was not a stranger to poor behaviour and bad takes. I was already tired of Samurai and had been for a while, so I answered the ask by explaining that I just apologised to keep the peace, but I was over trying to do that anymore.

And this is where the situation took off from. People started reblogging my post with their own grievances about Samurai, including bad experiences from interacting with her, and I began getting asks where people corroborated these claims and shared their own frustrations. I won't explain those asks and reblogs here since they're in the links at the beginning, and their main points can be boiled down to the following:

Avoiding accountability Samurai has a knack for worming their way out of taking accountability for their actions. She'll divert attention from the issue at hand, she'll use whataboutism to point fingers back in your face, she'll fabricate a sympathetic angle of her actions and use your natural tendency to want to see the good in people against you, she'll make sure you know just how sad and insecure she is, and she'll do it all while talking like she's an expert. Like when she responded to my post but didn't actually admit that the spelling mistake was just that. A mistake. She didn't have some advanced knowledge that she proceeded to explain. She was just wrong. Twice. And she couldn't even just say "Ah sorry, my finger slipped."

Victim complex She's also always the victim. She doesn't get enough engagement? The fandom doesn't understand her. She's trying so hard, why are worse posts getting attention when she makes such high quality stuff? The fandom must be rotting from the inside with no academics left to admire her supreme intellect. Someone posts an anylisis similar to hers? Plagiarism! Thievery! Piracy! It could never be because there are only so many scenes and conclusions to draw about said scene in a show that people have been analysing for eight years. Someone disagrees with a conclusion of hers? Well they're an acephobe, of course! A bigoted Karen who's trying to erase the real academics in the fandom! God forbid someone criticises her? Blocked, blocked, blocked, the fandom is so toxic, omg, she needs to get better at recognising fake friends, smh.

Manipulating the narrative As you might not be surprised, she also loves being in control of what her audience sees of the discourse she gets into. See: her not reblogging my post and instead making a separate post when that was more work than just responding directly. She's also notorious for editing her posts so when people criticise them she can feign ignorance and claim she never said that. And in terms of the individuals who've been intimidated into silence by Samurai and her entourage, if their stories got out, that would be a catastrophe, right? It would hurt her precious reputation after all.

General Manipulation and Gaslighting And yeah, that leads us to the big one. Now, these are hefty accusations and I'm especially bringing up the latter a bit dubiously. However, I think it needs to be said that many of the tactics she uses are manipulation strategies. I'm saying that as someone who's been at the receiving end of these methods. They get you to shut up. They get you to doubt your own judgement. They get you to think things you wouldn't have otherwise. And, most importantly, they get you to forgive things you never would. They worm themselves into your brain and get you to question your own ability to make decisions and understand the world. And that right there where it becomes gaslighting. Again, I'm not saying Samurai is being all that extreme but I am saying that she's leading people down the slippery slope of accepting this type of behaviour by convincing them that it's actually okay because she said so.

Insincerity This overlaps a good amount with manipulation, but I thought it was necessary to point out separately, because she's notorious for it. As was mentioned in no. 12, she has repeatedly displayed disingenuous behaviour across social medias and has used those different behaviours to twist the story into what she wants it to be, so she comes out of it looking either like a victim or like an underdog and saviour of the fandom. Is it a crime to want to look good online? Of course not. Does she use that liberty to fabricate a benevolent image of herself despite repeatedly not living up to said image? Very much so.

Bullying and Namecalling This goes back to how I mentioned her accusing people of being acephobes for not agreeing with her very important and perfectly correct analyses. Beyond this, she has also called people illiterate for not agreeing with her analyses as if these "academic" takes of hers are so obviously right that only someone incapable of accessing the source material would disagree, has called someone a Nazi for using the actual current DSM-5 medical term for autism (as far as I've been informed in private, see no. 3, 4, and 5 for partial context), and has recently become very fond of calling people dicks.

Superiority complex This all of course comes down to the actual issue at the bottom of all of this: Samurai thinks she's better than the rest of us. She thinks she's more academic, more literate, more intellectual, and laments the lack of people who can match her frea- I mean, level. No weird takes on her blog as she says (no. 4). This is a "dick" move to use her own vocabulary but is even worse when you realise that she's not all that academic or intellectual herself. Which, by the way, is completely fine! You don't need a PhD to discuss anime men. However, she makes it sound like that. She belittles posts that aren't as "academic" as hers simply because they upset her or have more interactions. She belittles the entire fandom simply because other people don't subscribe to her lonely intellectual narrative and enjoy fandom casually. She insists that her analyses are better than other metas when the academia she's so proud of isn't even really there in a lot of them. And she will absolutely make you feel worthless for thinking you can contribute to the fandom on her level because no one is as good as her.

Do I really care much about some arrogant loser on the Internet? No. Do I care that she's belittling her entire community by ridiculing their contributions and positioning herself as the one true deliverer of gospel? Absolutely. See, the issue isn't just that she's arrogant. It's that that's not enough for her. She pushes the rest of the community down so that she can feel even more superior. She also routinely complains about her lack of engagement which, wow, what a mystery, what might be scaring them away? But secondly, she's indirectly belittling the support the fans of her content are giving her. No. 11 is from one such fan who experienced this. Let it be made clear that Samurai might genuinely want to form a community and be social, but she does not see herself like the rest of us when it comes down to it. She sees herself as better. Or, at the very least, she posts as if she does.

Okay, that's all well and good, but Arom, why does this matter? Isn't it just petty fandom drama? Why should we care? Well, you should care because the people who've been hurt by this behaviour and those who've left the fandom to be free of it are your peers. They're not random Internet strangers. The next one could be your close fandom friend. The one after that could be you. The reason I'm making this post is so that you can understand how Samurai operates and not fall for her tactics. They're incredibly easy to start forgiving. I've been there. You have to catch this stuff before it turns into something legitimately damaging. I also want you guys to be able to take this situation with you and apply what you've learned to other actually dangerous people. I don't consider Samurai dangerous. To be frank, I consider her an immature embarrassment. Can she hurt you? Of course, but the scope will be limited. However, there are plenty of people of there who are much better at doing these things and do them far more insidiously with far worse goals. I want you all to be able to realise before it's too late. I was in one of those much more insidious friendships once even if the goals weren't any worse than Samurai's. They sneak up on you so damn fast.

And now, because I know some of Samurai's entourage might be itching to hit me back with this: Why is this public? Shouldn't stuff like this be kept private? Isn't this just us bullying Samurai in the hallway where everyone can watch?

Now, if you're a specific person, you'll likely recognise these coming points because yes, they're lifted directly from your ask. However, seeing as this ask was not sent to me (I'll leave you guys to ponder why that is considering all other asks were) and has not been published because the recipient didn't want to spend their energy on it, I'm not going to say who the asker is nor am I going to be speaking to them directly in this part. Rebutting a statement no one but me and a few others have even read wouldn't be fair to the asker. However, the ask brings up some very common points in discussions like this that I want to catch right now before anyone starts thinking those points are good.

So first: Why is this public? Now, on the surface this seems quite reasonable to ask, right? I personally agree that private beef should stay private and that there's no need making a bigger scene out of things than necessary. But this beef isn't private. It's not a one-off thing, and it's not new. It's been happening for at the very least months and has been happening both publicly and privately on different social medias. Oh, also, it has already been attempted to be handled privately. Doing so did diddly squat. People have actually been scared into silence by attempting to handle it like that. Some things just cannot be handled one on one because one party is entering it with malicious intent.

Allegedly Samurai has also been called out in a Discord server before (no. 12) which I can't confirm but wouldn't surprise me. Guess how much that did. Nothing. Nada. Nul og niks. But then you might be asking why a second call-out is supposed to do anything, and that's where I get to the real point of this whole thing: Getting the word out. This and all the previous posts aren't about actually getting through to Samurai because I'm acutely aware that she won't actually change by being told off. She's demonstrated time and time again that she'll simply wait the situation out and then vaguepost about how much of a victim she is and how toxic her ex-friends are.

So, instead of getting her to own up, we're trying to reach everyone else. If we can make people aware of her tactics so that they can avoid her or at the very least be wary around her, I consider that a success. If we can limit her access to victims, we'll have done what we set out to do.

Second: What about Samurai's mental health? Aren't we hurting her by destroying her reputation? Well, dear reader, what about everyone she's hurt? Do they not deserve to talk about this stuff simply because it'll make Samurai upset? This might be a kind of wild suggestion, but there's a very easy way to not be publicly called out for being an arse: just don't be an arse. No one made her do these things. Like mentioned in no. 12, she destroyed her reputation all by herself. If stating aloud what someone has done ruins their reputation, then the person who did said things is at fault. Spare the messenger. They've already been hurt enough. If Samurai had simply owned up to her behaviour and apologised and made a change when people had called her out in the past, we wouldn't be here. She made this necessary. Don't feel bad for her that she's getting what was always coming to her.

Third: Why are we digging up old posts? Isn't it unfair to hold Samurai's past against them? Now, I want you to notice what this whole situation is actually about. Is it about a single incident? No. Is it about a set of repeated behaviours which are harmful and manipulative? Now you're onto something. I agree that digging up unrelated dirt on someone just to slander them for their past when it has no or an at best flimsy relation to what's actually being discussed is mean and unnecessary and should not be done.

However, the point of showing those older posts is to make it clear that this isn't a new thing, and it's repeated and unchanging. Bringing up their posts about being insecure and being sad about not getting traction isn't about those posts, it's about showing how much Samurai clearly cares about interaction and to point out a repeated behaviour of deflecting criticism by hiding behind insecurity and making their own fans feel bad about not being good enough. It's not about the posts. It's about explaining why Samurai is uncomfortable to be around.

Oh and fourth because this is the funniest thing: What about the new fans? They'll think we're all mean and negative! Okay so first of all, and please excuse my French, absolutely dogshit take. "What about the new fans?" Dude, what about the ones who are already here and are being driven away by Samurai's awful and demeaning behaviour? What about the people who've been hurt and are finally being heard? What about when the new fans see Samurai calling others acephobes and Nazis for disagreeing with her? Is that not driving them away? Is that not projecting negativity?

Now, yes, that was targeted towards the asker because oh my fucking stars, I haven't seen a take that bad in a while. If you want to ignore or criticise this point of mine, go ahead because I can't source it and the asker's full statement isn't publicly available so I'm aware that this is a weak argument. But I want everyone to know that if you've been ignored and demeaned and called names for simply trying to assert yourself, you're allowed to be negative publicly. You're allowed to publicly make it clear that someone isn't listening privately and so you're speaking in the only place they can't ignore. You're allowed to not be peachy and positive at all times just because a new fan might come across your post. You don't have to treat every post and word you make public as an exhaustive representation of the entire fandom.

And so, with all of this outlined, I have a personal message for Samurai and Co.: Do. Better. I know you can because I've seen you interact amicably with the fanbase multiple times. I'm not here to tell you to get off the Internet and I'm not here to get you to stop participating in fandom. What I am here for is to get you to treat the fanbase with the respect it deserves. You're not better than people just because you're queer. It's the Yuri!!! On Ice fandom. Basically everyone is queer. Get over yourselves. Develop some maturity and accept that you can be contradicted. Accept that not everyone will agree with you. Accept that just because you point really hard at canon, your analyses will still just be theories. And that's okay. You don't need to be an academic to be part of fandom. You don't even need to be right. You can be straight up wrong and still be allowed to be here. However, you also have to let others do all that stuff too. You can't tell people to be nice and then not be so yourself. Fandom is collaboration which means that sometimes you have to just accept that some members of the group have takes you disagree with or find straight up stupid. However, that does not give you the right to tell them they're doing fandom wrong or claim that your way of doing it is better. Because that's how you come across. Whether intentionally or not, that's the message you're sending. Stop acting suprior. It's actually very easy and frankly embarrasing that you haven't figured out how to not be insufferable yet. You're adults. Act. Like. It.

Finally, and I promise this will he the last thing: What do we do now? Samurai has been exposed, hasn't responded, and will probably just wait for this to blow over. What are we supposed to do with all this information? Well, you're free to choose of course, but my suggestion is to simply keep an eye on her and her entourage. They've so far showed no sign of wanting to change, and if you see them misbehaving, don't be afraid to hold them accountable, or, if you'd rather not be mixed up in this, feel free to shoot me a DM or even an anonymous ask. If I get enough reports or the reports are egregious enough, I might make a follow-up post just to keep people updated.

And if keeping a 40+ year old (yes, Samurai is really that old, I was shocked too) on an Internet leash seems extreme, just remember that she made it necessary. She clearly won't listen when people tell her directly how she's hurt them. In my opinion, some social pressure to behave is in order. All she has to do is be nice and nothing more will come of this. It's up to her. It takes a village and sometimes the entire fanbase.

So, it's up to you, Samurai. Your behaviour will be the direct catalyst for whatever I and others choose to do or not do. All you need to do is behave. If you can do that, we'll get to go our separate ways. If you can't, well, you've seen what that results in. But if you do legitimately make a visible effort to change, I'll gladly make a post about that too. I'm all for a redemption, but you're the one who has to put in the effort. Not your friends, not your fans, not your victims, not me.

Your choice. I'll be waiting.

And to anyone who's dying to tear my head off: Please read all the posts linked to at the top before responding. I'm not naming any names. You know who you are.

[fangirleaconmigo]

It's been awhile, Geralt x Jaskier enthusiasts, but here is your newest installment of...

Otherwise known as...

Things that sound like Geraskier fic writers made them up, but that are, in fact, book canon.

This time with commentary on the original Polish wording from @cherrypoison1889! Thanks, Cherry!

Today we're talking about dopplers, otherwise known as shape shifters, also called vexlings in the world of The Witcher. Dopplers are often used to expose the fact that Dandelion is a vulnerability for Geralt, that he loves him.

There are quite a few Geraskier fics that play with this trope. (I will give you a rec or two at the end of the post.)

It makes sense! Plus, the show used a doppler, (more on that later) so the concept is right there!

But does the concept of using a doppler to reveal Geralt's true feelings for Jaskier just exist in the fevered imagination of Geraskier fic writers?? Is this pure fanon? Or canon?

Well, you may have guessed (since I didn't write all this out for my health!)...

It is canon.

In The Witcher book, Sword of Destiny, we meet a doppler called Dudu, who turns into Dandelion (Jaskier) to protect himself from Geralt. He even has a few choice words to say about what he sees in Geralt's thoughts.

Want the details? Of course you do, you've read this far, why not?

When Geralt meets Dudu in this story, the doppler is in the form of a halfling called Dainty Biberveldt. Dudu has bonked Dainty on the head, stolen his shit, taken his form, and is running around Novigrad making business deals with his ill gotten gains.

Dainty wants his shit back from the doppler, but does not want to turn Dudu over to the city guards because Dainty is a decent person who knows that they will murder the doppler in an absolutely horrific way that I will not describe to you. Novigrad is rife with violent bigotry towards non humans, and dopplers in particular have been slaughtered to near extinction. They've been subject to genocide, basically, just because they creep people out. (I could write a thesis just on the way this short story handles themes of racism)

But anywho. That's how we get Geralt's involvement. Geralt is pitching in to get Dudu under control so they don't have to involve bigoted law enforcement. (We stan Dainty ACAB Biberveldt in this house)

This particular scene opens when Geralt has pursued the doppler into a crowded marketplace and has finally cornered him in a tent. Dandelion is elsewhere in the market, being a slut, so he is nowhere to be seen. When Geralt corners Dudu, they are alone, and the doppler panics. He can't get away. So, he decides to be crafty.

First, he turns into Geralt as a way to protect himself. The book describes Dudu changing into Geralt, down to the last detail. Now there are two identical witchers in the tent. Then Dudu speaks.

"Don't come any closer," the second witcher said huskily and smiled. "Don't come any nearer, Geralt. I won't let you lay your hands on me."

So now he looks just like Geralt and has his husky voice. Perhaps he is hoping Geralt will not be able to harm someone who looks like himself. Perhaps he just wants to be equal to him physically.

Either way, Geralt's self esteem is too low for the first one to work. Here is how Geralt responds to an exact copy of himself.

"What a hideous smile I have," thought Geralt, reaching for his sword. "What a hideous face I have. And how hideously I squint? So is that what I look like? Damn."

So, Geralt reaches for his sword immediately, and the only reaction he has for himself is disgust.

Here is where I asked Cherry for her thoughts. Is Geralt as mean to himself in the original Polish? Hideous is pretty strong a word! Here is what she said:

Cherrypoison1889: Geralt is indeed very harsh on himself, when he sees the doppler transform into him. In Polish, he uses the word "paskudne" to describe himself, which is literally hideous. However, he also calls his face "gęba" which is a more vulgar word for face, which in Polish is "Twarz". So he's even harsher on himself, I'd say.

Oh noooo. But just when you think Geralt's low self esteem is going to be a strategic advantage, it betrays him. Why? Because when Dudu says, you can't defeat me, because I am you and I know everything you know...

"I am you," the doppler repeated. "you will not gain an advantage over me. You cannot defeat me, because I am you!"

That is where Geralt starts to lose ground. Why? Because Geralt of Rivia says, no, you can't really copy me! Because you are a good person, and I'm a bad bad bad man. I kill people. I'm a killer. You cannot relate. You cannot even begin to understand the mind of a bad evil killer man like me.

"No," the witcher countered, "you are not. And do you know why? Because you're a poor, little, good-natured doppler. A doppler who, after all, could have killed Biberveldt and buried his body in the undergrowth, by so doing gaining total safety and utter certainty that he would not be unmasked, ever, by anybody....But you didn't kill him...Because you're a poor, little, good-natured doppler, whose close friends call him Dudu...you only know how to copy what is good in us, because you don't understand the bad in us."

Geralt isn't saying this to be strategic. He truly believes it! He knows Dudu has seen his thoughts! Listen to what he says next...

"you aren't capable of defying me, because I am what you are unable of copying (sic). You are absolutely aware of this, Dudu. Because you took over my thoughts for a moment."

So, Geralt is like, you saw what a mess it was in there. You know what a killer I am. You may as well give up now.

I thought 'took over my thoughts' was a little bit of an awkward phrasing, it almost implies thought control, when I feel like the context is thought reading, so I asked Cherry about that. She said:

Cherrypoison1889: As for the "taking thoughts over" bit, it is the same in Polish, I am afraid. the word Sapko uses is "przejąć" which means exactly that, although I assume that the "take over" in English was meant to be understood as "acquiring" although I can't be sure of that. It sure does sound a touch awkward.

But back to the story, Tellico (Dudu) has now been inside Geralt's head. So he knows that's absolute bullshit, even if Geralt doesn't. He has seen what is in Geralt's heart, which prompts him to take another shape.

Tellico straightened up abruptly. His face's features, still those of the Witcher, blurred and spread out, and his white hair curled and began to darken.

"You're right, Geralt," he said indistinctly, because his lips had begun to change shape. "I took over your thoughts. Only briefly, but it was sufficient. Do you know what I'm going to do now?"

Do you? Do you dear reader, know what he's going to do now? I'm going to let you make a guess.

The leather witcher jacket took on a glossy, cornflower blue colour. The doppler smiled, straightened his plum bonnet with its egret's feather, and tightened the strap of the lute slung over his shoulder, the lute which had been a sword a moment ago.

Well, if you've read the books up to this point, we all know who's form he has taken. Cornflower blue, egret's feather, lute....smart doppler.

"I'll tell you what I"m going to do, Witcher," he said, with the rippling laughter characteristic of Dandelion. "I'll go on my way, squeeze my way into the crowd and change quietly into any old body, even a beggar. Because I prefer being a beggar in Novigrad to being a doppler in the wilds."

He then has a powerful monologue about being subject to extermination and genocide. About hunger and fear and freezing to death. He makes a very touching plea to Geralt, asking the Witcher why he is denied the right of survival, granted to everyone else, just because he is a doppler. It is about a page and half long and I HIGHLY recommend people read Sword of Destiny, because this is good shit. He says he will stay in Novigrad.

"As a resident of Novigrad, I'll trade, weave wicker baskets, beg or steal; as one of you I'll do what one of you usually does...."

The Witcher said nothing.

Now, Dudu, in Dandelion's shape, having seen Geralt's thoughts, takes his gamble. And boy does he have guts. He tells Geralt about himself, about his supposed bad bad heart.

"Yes, as I said," Tellico continued calmly. "I'm going. And you, Geralt, will not even try to stop me. Because I, Geralt, knew your thoughts for a moment. Including the ones you don't want to admit to, the ones you even hide from yourself. Because to stop me you'd have to kill me. And the thought of killing me in cold blood fills you with disgust doesn't it?

The Witcher said nothing.

Tellico adjusted the strap of his lute again, turned away and walked towards the exit. He walked confidently, but Geralt saw him hunch his neck and shoulders in expectation of the whistle of a sword blade. He put his sword in his scabbard. The doppler stopped in mid-step and looked around.

"Farewell", Geralt, he said. "Thank you."

"Farewell, Dudu," the Witcher replied. "Good luck."

Dudu wins that one, quite handily.

The doppler turned away and headed towards the crowded bazaar, with Dandelion's sprightly, cheerful, swinging gait. Like Dandelion, he swung his left arm vigorously, and just like Dandelion he grinned at the wenches as he passed them.

As he walks away, Dudu even plays the lute and sings "exactly like Dandelion". Then he shouts back advice for Geralt to pass on to the bard.

"Pass that on to Dandelion, if you remember," he called. "And tell him that Winter is a lousy title. The ballad should be called The Eternal Fire. Farewell, Witcher."

Dudu has seen Geralt's thoughts EVEN THE ONES HE WILL NOT ADMIT TO EVEN THE ONES HE HIDES FROM HIMSELF, and his next choice was to turn into Dandelion.

Now, do I think that the author meant to imply that Geralt is trying to hide his love of Dandelion? No. Slim chance of that. However, it isn't like it's a secret that Geralt hates killing creatures who do no harm or who cannot fight back. So there is still something a bit fuzzy to me about the thoughts that Geralt hides from himself.

It is ripe territory for a Geralt x Dandelion enjoyer to exploit, cultivate, and use for their fics and headcanons.

I asked Cherry for her thoughts about this, about what Geralt's hidden thoughts are having read the original Polish, and she said this:

Cherrypoison1889:

I feel like Dudu used Geralt's self-loathing against him, in a way. As in, if Geralt were to kill Dudu-as-Dandy, he would admit to himself that he is a ruthless, horrible person, who kills "intelligent" beings, despite what he claims, which would also make him a hypocrite. And we know Geralt is a big softie, so he wouldn't do it anyway. I think changing into Dandy was an additional precaution, just an extra measure in case Dudu turned out to be wrong.

I really liked this story, I don't remember reading it back when I read the books (it was ages ago, so I might be wrong anyway). It's really funny, and Geralt is babbie. Darling boy, he just bought himself a new jacket and it got ruined in the frenzy...

Babbie Geralt, that's our darling.

It is sad that Geralt has so much self loathing that it didn't help Dudu to look like him, but it is very sweet that Dandelion is such a point of vulnerability for Geralt, and that Dudu had his number.

Dudu wins this round soundly. The story isn't over. I won't spoil it in case you guys want to read it. But it has a great ending. It is definitely one of my favorites.

I will just never get over how easily he gets the upper hand on Geralt here. Geralt of Rivia, legendary monster hunter, defeated by little Dudu because of his low self worth, his mushy heart, his solidarity with non humans, and his love of a slutty bard.

Now, recommendations.

The Doppler Effect, by @a-kind-of-merry-war This is the first doppler fic I read in the fandom and it has alll the delicious emotional drama, pining, and sexiness that you want from a fic like this. It is excellent.

Images of You, by @pherryt This one is a delightful 'continuation' of what happens in Sword of Destiny. After Dudu learns about Geralt's feelings, he essentially matchmakes Geralt and Dandelion eventually receiving a sexy thank-you of his own.

Them, by @gilligangoodfellow I feel like dopplers and Dudu in particular is so ripe for exploration in fic. So it is wonderful to see a fic like this. It's a short character study of Dudu as gender fluid, with the doppler coming out to Zoltan. Seriously, try it.

Alright, thanks for reading, folks!

For more Geralt and Dandelion "I can't believe it's not fanon..."stay tuned. I am organizing a master post with all of the posts I've done. So keep your eyes out. (in the mean time, most of them seem to show up in the tag, just not all of them)

And lastly, THANK YOU CHERRY! I love having a partner to do these posts with!!

[hetalian-veteran]

The Curious Case of Hetalia's Scotland

I will never get over what I like to call "The Curious Case of Hetalia's Scotland." Not only because I find it funny, but because to me, this is something that demonstrates the pure power of fandom and fanon.

Because for the longest time, we didn't really have Scotland in the series. Like, we knew he was technically a canon character, seeing as he was mentioned by England a time or two before, but we had no design or skits of him at the time. Not to mention those comments were only made in the comics, which many fans didn't read, seeing as many of us only stuck to the anime for the longest time (which is me, I am many fans. I am still trying to find the courage to read the manga aside from little panels I find online).

And so, what did the Hetalia fandom do? Well, the fandom did what the fandom does best... Taking matters into their own hands and creating their own design for the character/country.

I'm not gonna put an actual picture of the fanon design here because I don't want to repost anyone's art without their permission, but if you look up "hetalia scotland" on google, and then click on "images", you'll get the picture of what I'm thinking of. A tall guy with pale skin, bright green eyes, fiery red hair, and wearing a cobalt-blue suit with two white sashes across the front. A man who literally just looks like a human personification of the Scottish flag.

Now, I have no idea who came up with the fanon design for Scotland. I've looked, and I genuinely cannot find out who the first person was who drew him. But regardless, this is the design that the fandom largely latched onto. So much so to the point where you had people making fanart, fanfics, and even cosplays of this character. People even collectively decided on his personality, interests, what his relationships with other the characters were like, etc. (This can all be found on the fan character wiki). It even got to a point where I, as well as many others, genuinely started to believe that this was the canon design/version of the character for the longest time. Primarily because we just didn't know any better.

In short, the fanon version of aph Scotland spread far and wide throughout the fandom, and everyone seemed to just largely accept him, even to the point of believing he was canon.

And then one day, Himaruya drops this sketch.

He posted this and said that the characters here were Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. However, he didn't say who was who, so we were left to guess which character was which at the time. We were getting closer to a canon Scotland but were still unsure which one he was. And even then, you had people who still clung to the fanon version.

And the later, Himaruya formally introduced Scotland in the comics and even released this piece of official, beautiful art.

Fully illustrated designs of all of the UK brothers. England, Northern Ireland, Wales... And Scotland.

This was it. We, as the fandom, finally had our canonical version of Scotland, as well as the rest of the UK brothers. But let's be real here, when it came to fanon-created characters, the fans largely latched onto Scotland.

And what did a large chunk of the fandom do?

That's right. I dunno about everyone else in the fandom, but in the fan spaces I was in, you had a large chunk of people who took one look at the canon design and thought to themselves, "Yeaaah no. We like our version better."

And I just... This is still so funny and wild to me.

Imagine waiting years to get a character design, and when the design finally comes out, you have since become so married to a fanon design, that when you look at the canon design, you go, "No thanks."

It seems like people have become much more accepting of the canonical design of aph Scotland over time (and I'm happy for that), but even so, the sheer reach and influence that the fanon design of Scotland had is nothing short of amazing to me.

Anyway, there you go, that's my ramble for the day.

[stromuprisahat]

I love your takes on the grishaverse so I was wondering what you thoughts was on the theory/headcanon that Alina didn’t really lose her powers but unknowingly locked them as she did before the books’ beginning? Maybe there was a period where she couldn’t summon light bcs she was too exhausted and stressed out by the whole ‘final battle’ thing – banishing thee Fold, Mal’s ‘death’, Darkling’s death – so she assumed she had lost it. And then it was easier to unknowingly continue like that bcs it allowed her to remove herself from ruling and making any decisions and just have her simple co-depended life with Mal as she always wanted.

Personally, I don’t think that’s what happened in canon (certainly not what Bardugo meant) but I find it feasible as fanon interpretation, considering how depressed and deluded Alina appears post-RAR.

I'm more leaning into the explanation, that she intentionally, yet subconsciously rid herself of them (and maybe revived Malyen, when we're at it, since the second life bullshit is just that- bullshit that doesn't make sense, since no other amplifier's running around the same way. But then again- I'm very skeptical, when it comes to Malyen actually being one- he has no properties others do.).

Alina recognizes that as long as she's Grisha, she won't be able to be only with Malyen, and she already admitted she's trying to mould herself into whatever he seems to want from her.

Merzost doesn't seem to be random- it's driven by intention. Ilya "upgraded" mythical animals to have certain properties, Aleksander fucked up first, but then managed to find a way to actively protect his people, when in situation his powers weren't enough. Alina lost what made her special, but since her goal wasn't finished yet, other Sun Summoners sprang into existence and fucked up destruction of the Fold, because it's merzost-made, therefore logic tells us ordinary Small Science shouldn't be enough to vanquish it.

It's true the previous time Alina worked with merzost, her powers "disappeared" for a while, but the "magic" also isn't working from nothing. No matter what we're told, there is a cost, some input. It's not "pure creation". We can see it, when Sasha makes nichevo'ya- he's using his own essence, his life force or whatever want you to call it, to draw them into existence, so Alina would need ~something~ to distribute her powers among others, and the amplifiers are just that- they amplify, wider one's range, not give a new ability.

Besides- there's the question of what grandpa Ilya wanted. If he aimed at Grisha being accepted, instead of othered, why would he take away from one the give to more. It might look pragmatic, but the range is too limited and even if he created such "tools" over and over- he'd only make a new caste of "once-Grisha", instead of levelling the playing field.

One of my fellow fans also pointed out that if merzost is magic, perhaps Alina used it to become an ordinary otkazat'sya. I don't believe so. She might've made herself to appear as one, but after all those books spent reading how is being Grisha integral part of their being, something that makes them themselves... looking at post R&R Chapter 17 Alina isn't looking at slightly more traumatized Alina that can't summon the Light because it's not a part of her. It's looking at a husk of the girl, just like the ends of previous books, when she was suffering due to missing her powers on physical level.

And her lack of skill, when using merzost previous time would support it. She locked away her powers and her hair went white the first time. She got rid of her Light, but her body "remembers" it's missing something.

edit: Also- thank you for (positive) feedback, I'm not being rude, I'm just an social idiot with totally not ADHD, so I get focused on "the point", and forget the social stuff like greeting and replying to nice words, which ARE very motivating for me, but HERE'S THE STUFF I'm thinking about and my brain's coming up with coherent answers- LOOK!

[from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras]

I see you very much as an expert on all things Rohirrim, so I bring to you this question, hoping I can pick your brain for info to use in my own fics (full disclosure). 😅

It seems to be a popular fanon that the Rohirrim/Riders of Rohan have tattoos, and that body art is a part of their culture. Do you have any thoughts or personal HCs about this that you're willing to share?

Thank you in advance! I appreciate you and your blog so much (if you didn't already know that).

Oh my goodness!!! I am so very honored to be thought of as a person who is knowledgeable about my beloved Rohirrim, and I hope very much that I can live up to that reputation. Thank you!!!

I’m not aware of any real textual evidence for body art among the Rohirrim, and the historical record in the medieval Anglo Saxon and Norse societies that Tolkien used as a reference for them seems to be disputed. But I absolutely understand and agree with the conventional wisdom that tattoos are a thing in Rohan. It just fits well with a warrior culture that has a wilder, dare-I-say more pagan aesthetic as compared to the smooth solemnity of Gondor or the formal elegance of the elves. And since they���re a culture that doesn’t document things in written words, pictorial representations such as tattoos and body art would be one way to fill that gap (along with their songs and oral traditions).

In my mind, tattoos in Rohan are common but basic—they’ve really only got the technology for the “stick and poke” method so the designs are kept simple because anything too elaborate is difficult to pull off well. They’re mostly in black line (using soot) but some have color using powder made from grinding up certain dried roots and plants.

Each village/community has its own distinctive tattoo motif that is worn by all of that community’s members. So you can tell just by looking at someone whether they’re from Upbourn (a fish because it’s a river town) or Dunharrow (mountain peaks since they’re in the White Mountains) or Everholt (a boar in honor of the wild boar that live in this part of the Firien Wood), etc. And soldiers also tend to share tattoo designs specific to their éored—getting your éored’s mark is a formal rite of passage for the younger members when they first get assigned to their company. These shared tattoo designs are important both for group cohesion and as a means of identifying fallen Rohirrim even if the deceased isn’t known to whoever finds the body.

Beyond these ritualized and practical functions, I do also like to think that there are some purely decorative tattoos among them as a means of personal expression and/or to help cover small scars that so many Rohirrim have from battle, riding accidents or other mishaps. Obviously horse-based designs would be very popular, as well as other flora and fauna of Rohan. But they’re a very sentimental people and so I think little emotional signifiers would also be very common (again, especially because they generally don’t have a means to pay tribute to beloved people/things in written form, this sort of symbol would serve the purpose of making some kind of record of those tributes).

In terms of specific people in my head canon: Éomer has a little simbelmynë blossom for each of the major figures in his life that he’s lost (forearm). Háma had a sun to remind him of his wife, who brought warmth and light to his life (shoulder). Théodred had stars in the shape of a particular constellation that is visible every year on his mother’s birthday (chest). Éowyn has a representation of her father’s sword (left wrist) and gets a quill (right wrist) to represent Faramir after they get married. (Faramir got a little running horse in her honor on his first trip to Rohan. He was glad he did it, but he never wants to sit through that again.)

Merry brought tattooing back to the Shire when he showed up with a tobacco pipe on his bicep (both for its association with Buckland and in tribute to Théoden, whose last words to Merry were about smoking together someday when peace was restored). Unsurprisingly, tattoos did not catch on with the other hobbits, but Merry remains very proud of it.

Anywayyyy…I hope that was in any way helpful! Thanks so much for asking!! I remain a huge fan and am so grateful to you for helping convince me to put some of my thoughts and stories out there vs keeping them all in the confines of my own Google drive!

[burst-of-iridescent]

I saw your response to the previous anon. even if we assume that you are right about KA (you are wrong, but I don't see the point in arguing with you), there has never been such a lot of negative interaction between Aang and Katara as there was between Zuko and Katara. Katara threatened Zuko with death and was literally going to leave him to die (and Zuko remained alive only thanks to Aang), and Zuko betrayed her trust and literally said that he did not understand why she was angry with him (although Katara explained to him the reason for her anger a minute ago) and then, according to Katara herself, forced her feeling that she has no choice. I hope you understand that "a partner who respects her, admires her, supports her, cares for her, and loves her just as much as she does him" is pure fanon, and none of this is in the canon (neither in the show itself, nor in post-canonical things)? it's normal that you ship zutaru, and you can read and write as many fanfictions as you want, where Zuko loves Katara, and Katara loves Zuko, but the truth is that the canonical Zuko, the real Zuko, was never in love with Katara, he chose another girl for himself, and had a child with another gir (Mai actually) whether you like it or not. Just like Katara chose another man for herself and lived with him for many decades, gave birth to three children from him. You may think they made a mistake, but it was their choice, and canonically they never considered each other as likely partners. It's weird that you can't understand in any way that canonically there was never anything between Zuko and Katara.

what a pity that avatar: the last airbender ended ten minutes into the southern raiders episode. what a pity that katara never told zuko that she was ready to forgive him, that she never hugged him tenderly, that she never joked with him, supported him, comforted him, and agreed to fight by his side. what a pity that zuko never took a lightning bolt to the heart to protect her, and that katara looked shocked and terrified at the sight. what a pity that she never yelled his name, forgot the incredible danger she was in and tried to run to him and help him. what a pity that katara never took down a firebending prodigy at the height of her power and then rushed to zuko's side and cried when she was able to heal him.

what a pity that they didn't end the show with a beautiful, strong, intimate friendship that provided the perfect foundation for a romance to develop.

i'm not sure if you're aware that fictional characters usually undergo something called development, where they adopt different attitudes, behaviours and feelings from those they held before. i love that katara goes from threatening zuko to fighting for zuko tooth and nail in the finale, because that is called change, and growth, things that are generally considered good and necessary within character arcs and relationships - but i understand you may not be familiar with those concepts in romance, given that you ship kat.aang.

literally said that he did not understand why she was angry with him (although Katara explained to him the reason for her anger a minute ago) and then, according to Katara herself, forced her feeling that she has no choice

it is usually good to provide this little thing called evidence when carrying out analysis.

that is hard to do, of course, when you have none.

You may think they made a mistake, but it was their choice and canonically they never considered each other as likely partners. It's weird that you can't understand in any way that canonically there was never anything between Zuko and Katara.

in case you don't know, zuko and katara aren't real people with free will. their choices are made for them by writers whose job is to make those choices make sense within the scope of their own narrative arcs, and fit the themes and messages of the show. when they fail at that job, audiences are perfectly within their rights to recognize that and examine what could have been done differently.

just because something is canon, that doesn't mean it's immune to criticism. of course i know katara canonically got married to a.ang, and that zuko chose a different partner. that doesn't automatically mean those are the right narrative decisions because - and this may come as a shock to you - engaging critically with media also means looking at the ways in which it fell short and how it could have done better, and the romances in atla are by and large one of its major shortcomings.

[we-are-inevitable]

I felt a little bad about ranting in a reblog of your post, but I also didn't want to make my own post because my rant is directly related to what you've been saying and context is important, so I'm just gonna leave this here:

It's honestly baffling to me (as someone who does in fact love javid) how some fans are so adamant that Katherine or Sarah were only put into the story to keep javid from being canon or just so Jack had a girl to snog at the end.

First of all, allow me to introduce you to my precious newsgirl Charlie who was Jack's first love interest in the original script because newsflash: Jack was and always has been written to have a romantic plot with a girl. Not David.

Charlie was cut because her story was too dark for Disney (her aunt was a prostitute and they lived in a brothel) and was replaced by Miss Sarah Jacobs. Again. Not David.

Yes, many of Sarah's scenes were cut from the film, but that does not mean that Sarah wasn't important or that her relationship with Jack was thrown in at the last minute because Newsies was looking gay. Kenny Ortega is a gay man and he did direct the movie but that doesn't mean he didn't care about Sarah and that doesn't give you license to dismiss her. The movie simply didn't care much about romance because it's central message was family. Jack finds family in the newsies and he finds family in the Jacobs and that's his happily ever after. The romance with Sarah was a comparatively minor subplot, but I assure you it's still there.

Fast forward to 2011, Harvey Fierstein quite literally reinvented Newsies to "follow the love story" of Jack and Katherine. His reinterpretation sets up a story of Jack Kelly and Katherine Plumber/Pulitzer who are both looking for something which they ultimately find in each other. And hey! Guess what! They do in fact fall in love, and it's cute, and it isn't at the expense of some great Jack/David love story. Jack and Katherine are the love story. And frankly, I've never really understood how purely musical fans even landed on Jack/Davey in the first place because there's really not much there in the script.

Anyways, people are allowed to ship what they want, but what isn't cool is pretending that the canonical relationships only exist to ruin your ships.

TL;DR Hate on Katherine if you want, but Jack Kelly loves her.

Rant over and have a lovely day :)

HATE ON HER IF YOU WANT BUT JACK KELLY LOVES HER!!

god. thank you for this!! it’s a shame i didn’t see this earlier but everything you’re saying is so correct- jack has been, is, and always will be a loverboy, whether it’s with sarah or katherine or anyone else.

as a javid shipper, i get it; jack and david are an incredible ship, but that doesn’t mean that katherine’s character is supposed to be fully pushed to the side. you can’t rely solely on fanon and saying that katherine’s character exists just as an excuse for javid to not be canon is such a gross take.

also like,, people always say “oh but the romance made no sense! the show would be so much better without the romance!” great! so if it was javid centric in canon, you’d think the romance was unnecessary there, too, right? if you replace kath with davey, you’re still gonna say that the romance was rushed and they had no chemistry, right? because if you’re just seeing the “useless” romance as the romance with a woman- one of the few women in the show- then you’re… gross!

i am a javid shipper through and through but goddamn guys. we gotta start giving kath her flowers. she’s a good character and a good love interest.

[mamuzzy-creates-stuff]

Surprise self-rec time! Pick 3 of your favorite things you’ve written / draw and share them here, then put this in the inbox (anonymously or not) of your fellow writers to spread the positivity and help celebrate already written fics 💞

I realized that I had this in my inbox for a while and also @runekirikjartan tagged me for this game, and I finally have the mood for eh, fuckit, why not. Thank you for the ask and tag <3

PLEASE MIND THE CONTENT WARNINGS!!!!!!! And the descriptions.

KNIFE GAME - CW: SELF-HARM Republic Commando Characters: Kal Skirata & Null Cadets Gen fic, whump, hurt/comfort Word count: 407

Kal is having self-harming tendencies and I experimented with the thought that children who are isolated from society, how would react to something that a "normal pristine pure citizen of society" would shun and would react with disgust, helplessness and fear. But not the Nulls.

DEVOTION The Clone Wars Characters: Sheev Palpatine, Commander Fox Ship: Sheev Palpatine x Commander Fox Word Count: 302

Have I mentioned that I love messed up toxic fictional dynamics? Now I mention it. I present you my favorite toxic workplace dynamic, Sheev x Fox.

I DO DESERVE BETTER (Cloneship) The Clone Wars Character: Clone Trooper Dogma, Clone Trooper Tup Ship: Dogma x Tup Word Count: 559

This plays after winning the campaign of Umbara, and before taking away Dogma. Basically a break up fic. I love this fic, because I had a chance to experiment with Dogma's character how I see him, closest to the canon.

As for art... not sure, currently I don't really have anything I'm particularly proud of and I'm probably would choose the one with the most notes.

Eh FUCK IT. Fuck the notes.

YOU LIED TO ME - CW: VIOLENCE CW: BLOOD When you click on the link, there is a thumbnail. the actual picture is under the cut. Darman beat the shit out of Kal after learning that Venku was his child all along.

This art was the reason I started the febuwhump in the first place and eventhough i never finished the challenge itself, I was really proud of myself ^^

FALLOUT!ORDO I absolute loved this style I drew Ordo.

ANIMATIC: EXPECTATIONS Fanon treats Tup as a baby, and Tup has enough of that :PPPP /jk TCW x Joshiraku animatic I really enjoyed doing this silly animatic~~~

I hope you enjoyed my little tour of my stuff. ^^

NPT if you want to do it ^^

@insertmeaningfulusername @hastalavistabyebye @aerjnn @starwarsanthropology @nocturius8015ficore

@five-oh-thirst @mereelskirata @nooneherebutusghosts @trashcanmando @wyvernsrus

[saintsenara]

What do you make of Charlie’s constant absence from Weasley family gatherings? Who is this mysterious man? Why does he not get involved?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

controversially... i don't think it means anything.

i know that the parts of the fandom which like to portray molly and arthur as terrible parents [which is a singularly uncharitable reading of them, and one i loathe] often use charlie not being around more as evidence that his parents drove him away [something that's often intertwined with the widespread headcanon that charlie is queer to suggest that he left home because molly and arthur wouldn't accept him for who he is].

but we know from canon that charlie spends time with his family at least once a year in the four books prior to voldemort's return [after which the political situation, understandably, makes travel considerably more difficult], and i don't think that this is particularly unusual for an adult child, whose younger siblings still need parental care, who lives abroad.

this is culturally contingent - many readers will come from places where it's comparatively uncommon for young people to live far away from their families, or to only see them occasionally, and have that not suggest a negative relationship between them, but it's certainly not something i'd consider particularly strange within the social norms of britain and ireland. when i lived in england, i only came home a couple of times a year - and my parents only came to visit me a similar number of times - and this involved missing some people's birthdays and other events [in person - obviously i called!] and nothing about this ever struck any of us as a bad thing.

travel and accommodation costs money and takes time, people don't have infinite time to spend away from work [and charlie's job isn't something which could be done remotely], parents recognising that their adult children have their own lives [including career ambitions which might take them abroad] and don't need to come home constantly is a good and normal thing, and parents having their own lives and wanting to spend time on things other than going to see their children is also a good and normal thing.

there's no evidence that molly and arthur don't support charlie's career or are unhappy that he works abroad. charlie appears to talk to his family frequently even if he doesn't see them in person. bill, fred, and george also all leave home as young adults - and bill is similarly absent from family gatherings until he moves back to england to join the order of the phoenix. the idea that molly expects everyone to come round for sunday lunch every single week of their adult lives, that she throws tantrums if they don't, and that charlie not doing this is so defiant that it can only mean something bad is pure fanon.

and - of course - charlie canonically stays in romania once the war begins in order to help the anti-voldemort cause. that we only see him once in the final three books is because of these specifically unusual circumstances.

basically, he's chill!

[purge-samauwu]

About your thoughts on LaiossKabru as a top:

I like top!Laios/bottom!Kabru because they are not the normal dom!top/sub!bottom. Instead I see them more as servicetop/powerbottom. It’s more interesting dynamic to me that way :D

But I totally agree that it just gets boooooriiiing if it’s always the same stuff. Like nobody wants to even try out writing stuff differently from the Fanon. I hope it’s not because of that, since dunmeshi especially has a really strong fanon going on. So yk, people might get nervous to try new things :/

I see the same with Farcille, it’s little sad that Marcille has always a pillowprincess-esque role when there is many other fun ways to explore their dynamic.

Especially with transness! I love this fandom for it’s love for trans head-canons, yet I find it a little sad that people tend to equate having a D to being the top. Like I guess because lot of the ships are queer, it’s sad that they tend to default to somewhat heteronormative dynamics/sex one way or another :/ Not that it’s bad but like…

Basically it would be nice if dunmeshi fandom experimented more :D

Have to do everything myself huh

I feel as if I failed to properly make this point when posting about it the first time so thank you for your words! 🧡

Also usually I see a lot of trans kabru, which I like don't get me wrong, but whenever he is trans it's always to make him be a bottom. Which I'm not purely against but to then portray laios as a one note top with no variation is so unfair, which is why I love seeing the one's where he's trans or where he's the main focus rather than a background character in a fic that's supposed to be half about him.

And I guess it just feels like a stab at me personally, because I tend to project onto characters that hold a lot of my traits, when he is protrayed that way in fan works because as a person on the spectrum that agrees with the notion that he's autistic it feels like people are accidentally contributing to his feeling, and by etension my feeling, of invisibility and loneliness. I don't know, it could just be a me thing but I can't help but feel frustrated sometimes.

Anyways, thanks for your ask!

[toraawa]

ive been a fan of yours for a while and i gotta say, i think you have the best grasp of yurisere/predatorshipping in the fandom. you actually take their characters into consideration and acknowledge their complexity as two stunted individuals who are very different but similar instead of diminishing them to memey single-trait characters. its amazing how many other other fans reduce serena to only "edgey mean girlboss" and yuri to only "nasty psycho" and then call any other version of the ship than constant hate fucking, backhanded affection and beating each other to a pulp "wrong". very tiring how only a handful of us dont like that to be the only thing they ever do

btw, your fics on ao3 are a godsend. judging by your stats im definitely not alone in loving how you write yurisere. thank you for doing the lords work. cant wait to see more updates

First of all, thank you for the high praise! It's the second time this week I've been told something similar, lol!

Though I will say anon, the rest sounds pretty charged towards something or someone particular in the fandom, so at the risk of aggravating some current stuff I don't know about...

Yeah. I agree. A lot. You pretty much summed up my thoughts perfectly.

"Edgy mean girlboss" and "nasty psycho" for Serena and Yuri respectively is... extremely accurate, lol, to the point where I kinda have to laugh bitterly for how pervasive it is. Like, I know they both got shafted hard by canon, but it's a bit annoying when so many people override Serena's multifacetedness to fit the girlboss mold and accuse Yuri of being one-dimensional. I'vs seen some even get strangely angry at the prospect of him not just being the sadistic plant guy. I just don't think him only being that is true. Then again, I'm a staunch defender of the assessment that most of Yuri's character is shown, not told.

Unfortunately, the fanon interpretation of characters overriding canon is something that happens in pretty much any fandom, so there's not much we can do but ignore it and find like-minded people. It's super annoying, but it can't be helped. There's also a broader phenomenon of prioritizing tropes and meme-y dynamics over actually appealing characters, so there's that too.

Since we're all waiting for more canon interaction, I'm definitely in the minority in that I don't think Yuri and Serena's interactions in Duel Links will be a pure hostility fest the entire time. I've also gotten accusations over the years that my Yurisere writing is objectively "wrong" for a plethora of reasons, many of which you stated above, so... there's THAT, too.

At the same time though, that isn't to say Yuri and Serena would never fight or bicker or even be mean to each other — I never expect them to be completely nice and friendly to each other right off the bat. And people are free to write and draw whatever they want — I want to express my disagreement and only that here — so if I don't like it, I ignore it. The people who don't fall into fanon have a much more appealing, deep, and romance-forgiving interpretation of yurisere to me, so I just focus on that!

Anyway, thank you once again for being a fan of my writing! I'm honestly surprised at the following for my current fics on ao3. The Arc-V tag doesn't get much engagement despite being updated every day. It's always great to know there are others who enjoy and share my idea of Yurisere, so to anyone lurking: don't be afraid to reach out!

[peskellence]

DBH Favourites

Thank you for the tag @reedeemable!! 💞 This was a lot of fun to do, I reeeeeally had to think on a couple of these things

Favourite girl: A tricky one as I like most of the girls in the game, but I'm going to have to go with Kara ❤️ I have a soft spot for her and her story in general (which you might not guess given my crippling Reed900 addiction. It's not that I don't love my girl, I just tend to write post-pacifist stories and aus-- meaning i am very much headcanoning that she is far away from Detroit living her best life in Canada)

Favourite boy: If we're going purely on canon? Connor. If we're going fanon? His PS5 upgrade any day of the week baabbeeyy (nines cyberlife i love you please one chance)

Least favourite character: Zlatko (although Todd also sucks)

Favourite ship: **SLAPS REED900 BUTTON AGGRESSIVELY** i just think they're neat (detroit evolution permanently altered by brain chemistry. ive never once looked back)

Least favourite ship: Hankcon—although absolutely zero disrespect to anyone who enjoys it!! I just prefer the familial or platonic angle :)

Favourite side character: Does Luther count? I am uncertain if he counts as he is such a key player in the Kara story. If yes, my boooooyyyyyy. My sweet underrated masterpiece

If not, then Ralph. I love this lunatic and his succulent culinary skills (he was the best guy ARRRROOOUND. WHAT MURDDAHHHH)

Favourite theme/soundtrack: This is an unbelievably tricky one for me as pretty much the entire soundtrack is gold. Buuuuuttttt im going to go with Hostage and the rooftop chase music tied for first. Connors story truly has some bangers

Honourable mentions for the Opening Title music and Kara and Alice's escape theme.

Favourite chapter: You know what? I'm going to say it. I think we peak early with The Hostage. It is an insanely great hook to draw you in, getting you super excited for the rest of the game. At least it did for me

Is it a tutorial chapter? Yes. But DAMN if it's not a GOOD one. It serves its purpose perfectly in introducing Connor and his story and i really, really admire that about it. chefs kiss 🤌

Honourable mentions for the The Nest and Crossroads

Least favourite chapter: I passionately hate Jericho. I'm sorry to any fans of that chapter but I just can't do it. The replayability is awful for me. It's a tedious slog finding that graffiti every single playthrough

Favourite platonic relationship: Again, with these the fandom brainrot is real. If we're going purely based on the events we see in the game? Connor and Hank as a platonic/familial type bond. If we're going fanon, then Tina and Gavin have my whole heart.

I know we see them together in game—but i will never not adore the way the fandom expanded on their relationship. they are best friends for life. mlm and wlw solidarity

Favourite design: Zlatkos Creatures

Is it horrifying and is Zlatko an irredeemable bastard man for what he's done? yes. absolutely. but i simply can't look away. im a sucker for nightmarish/horror adjacent imaginary and *damn* is it done well with these guys. I want to give each of them a gentle kiss and tell them its going to be okay

Honourable mentions for Lucy and Ralph—they both also look incredibly cool (basically i have an intense appreciation for damaged androids huh)

Least favourite design: I don't really have one? If I had to pick though, I am not a big fan of the eden club outfits. love the body glitter detail (if some of them have that? it could have been a trick of the light or i simply imagined it) but there's something about the """uniforms""" that i don't find very appealing. a bit sports/swimwear adjacent?

then again i appreciate the chapter and its designs for not going AS explicit as they could have gone. given the 'oh yikes' elements that are already at play

Favourite scene: oh man don't make me pick. there's SO MANY incredible moments

that being said, i really like the bridge scene. its such an iconic visual with hank holding up the gun to connors head. there's a silhouette version of it on a poster that i have hanging in my hallway, so i think im legally obligated to pick it

Also just all of the deviation scenes. Breaking through that red wall is an insanely cool, striking visual every time

Least favourite scene: Todd hitting Alice is an extremely hard watch for me. I picked up that gun with the intention the kill (no questions asked) during my first playthrough. I was not about to let that shit slide

no pressure tags for @faxaway @geekazoidfreak @illegalvampire and @dbhstruggleposting <33

[casualdadnomad]

i am back with more headcanons! today we got college gaang x going to the gym!!

masterpost (>ᴗ•)

college athletes: suki, ty lee, toph, sokka

suki’s colorguard stuff is a killer workout in itself (ex guard girl here, i was jacked)

and being the captain of the self defense club, it’s kind of accepted she could knock you the fuck out

ty lee being a cheerleader also gives her an insane amount of muscle but it’s less visible and more just strength

so she just looks completely normal and then BAM she puts zuko in a shoulder sit

the ty lee cheerleader arc is something i want to go into more detail on so someone please tell me to do it so i have an excuse to

toph being on the rugby team is something so close to my heart

she does lifting, conditioning, rugby practice etc all ON TOP of the earth bending she’s doing on the daily

she is 5’0” of pure muscle

sokka is on the fencing team which is more agility centered than strength centered

he’s fast, he has a great reaction time and hand eye coordination

something will fall and he will catch it so fast

like wow i didn’t know spider-man was here

i also headcanon he can just do a backflip. like he’s one of those backflip guys i’m sure you know one

absolute gym bros: katara, azula, zuko

katara was field hockey captain in high school but didn’t continue in college

she is a busy woman and has so many passions to spend her time on in college!

she does however hit the gym regularly she loves the gym

her and zuko are gym buddies :)

zuko is huge man i feel like this is not explored enough in fanon HE KICKED THROUGH A WOODEN TABLE??????????

me when i see fanart of zuko that lets him be strong!!!!!!!!!!!! 😁😁👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

he works out all the time because he realized young that being bad at bending sucks but he could just get as good as possible as good old acoustic combat

azula works out as part of her healing process

good way to get her anger out

boxing is one of her favorite workouts but she also is a part of a firebending club

mock trial? try mock agni kai

great way to make friends while keeping her skills sharp

plus having a firebending major is a lot of exercise in itself

same with katara and toph and the other bending majors

mai spends enough time working on precision with knife throwing that her reflexes are also good, better than sokkas for sure

but if you asked her to run a mile she’d laugh in your face

katara gets ripped for bending, aang is ripped from bending

he can’t major in airbending cause he’s the only one but he spends a lot of time keeping his skills sharp

he actually compulsively practices because he’s afraid he will forget something and some aspect a irbending culture will be lost to time but that’s another post i could make like and subscribe for the gaang trauma responses post

his endurance is great from sparring and airbending and he also loves running

he is the only one in the gaang who loves running (only one in the gaang who will run willingly at all)

as much as the gaang, who canonically are fighters, love physical activity, they also love being so very lazy! they don’t get a chance to be lazy often so they will take any chance to give their bodies a rest they can in my au

rest is just as important as being active :)

okay that’s all for tonight! can u tell im a tired student athlete and am projecting lol ok i have to go to bed cause i got class tomorrow thanks for reading !