#i was literally just ranting about this to my beloved mutual but i need this on my blog too.

[wordsmithic]

Hi, sorry if this comes out as a ramble, but your Troy ask made me rewatch the movie (for the umpteenth time, lol), and it brought a lot of old feelings back, both good and bad. The good is how much I adored the Iliad as a child and that's something that still thrives today—since I was a kid, I loved Greek mythology in general, partly because I'm Palestinian/a fellow Eastern Mediterranean, so there is a lot of overlap in our histories, cultures, customs and myths, but the Iliad has always been a favorite. Hektor is my favorite character (and I love him and Andromache), but I also have an immense soft spot for Briseis... and now to get to the bad, rewatching Troy reminded me how a lot of people erase her and her role—and her romance—to Achilles in modern retellings. Now, I'm not going to argue which Achilles ship is the best (especially because that man is a hoe, if we're being honest), I don't care. My problem is the modern erasure of Briseis and the other women in Achilles's life that are romantically entangled with him being reduced to, "He's gay, actually." It reads biphobic if you believe him queer (Patroclus too, who had many named women concubines/slaves), first off, misogynist second. He has a son with his foster "sister," Deidamia, and in some versions even married. In the Iliad especially, Patroclus tells Briseis Achilles will marry her and Achilles himself refers to her as his wife/bride, stopping a whole war when she's taken, and she's even allowed to aid in Patroclus's funeral rights. In some versions, Achilles falls for Polyxena, and tries to make peace with Troy so he can marry her. In the afterlife, Achilles chooses Helen as his wife for some reason. Just... all these women, with complex situations and feelings, are all reduced or erased in modern tellings (and usually for a man/Patroclus), and it makes me want to scream. People use the excuse of, "We don't like the romantic situation they're in," but then claim to "better" it by... erasing or reducing these women and their complex roles and feelings from the story overall? Brieseis, for example, mutually loved Achilles and saw him as a husband... he also killed her first husband and brothers, and you can argue part of her love is out of the need for survival. Yet, she greatly mourned him when he was killed, too. And if exploring this complexity is still not your yum, what about Polyxena? Wouldn't she fit the girlboss archetype of using Achilles' affections to gain his trust, before stabbing him in the back (literally)? Or Deidamia, who's young and left at home, bereft of her husband and son? Heck, try and fill in the gaps how Achilles x Hellen happened, if you must. All these women have an important role in the story, and to Achilles, that could be explored—but people don't because they dismiss what's already there or don't know anything about The Iliad outside modern retellings (mainly The Song of Achilles). So, we get people claiming things that are untrue ("Achilles and Patroclus are exclusively gay!"... in some myths, they're actually relatives/distant cousins, fun fact 😭), and acting like they fixed something by "adding" onto "flat female characters" in a way that reads inauthentic and ignorant to the source material. I get wanting to prop up one's chosen ship, it's just the hypocrisy of promising to be more progressive in one area, but diminishing the progressiveness of another, that kills me. Anyway! Sorry for the rant, I just have a lot of feelings I wanted to share because of the movie and I know you've talked about all this before—it's just something hard to discuss on the internet without people coming down your throat 🥲. Anyhow, justice for Briseis, is my rallying cry, I love her so much, queen made a whole war stop for her and managed to escape from Agamemnon unscathed. Queen who launched a thousand ships to my heart 🫶🏻.

I'm glad you re-watched it! It's a beloved of many Greeks since the movie is quite epic and makes you understand some of the original's glory. Hector, Andromache and Briseis are some of my fave characters in the movie, and it made me also look out for those characters when they appear in the text.

Btw, I would love to know a Palestinian's pov on our shared traditions and myths, how do you guys learn the Greek myths, what parts of them have had perhaps an affect on your heritage and since when, etc! 😍

Briseis' situation is complicated one because many people won't catch the nuance of her living in a patriarchal society as a war captive and thus developing a strange co-dependence to her captors. In addition, the Homeric Epics are a work changed by time in the Greek society, as people added and altered stuff, so many storylines have been affected by other layers of patriarchal societies. So of course the notion of "slave girl mourning her captor's friend" would seem natural, because they probably don't consider a slave woman's POV. Or perhaps she was in the mourning because she had to be there as a woman "belonging" to the Greeks, and the text does not mention it explicitly because it a given for the era. (I don't recall the whole relevant text sorry)

I am not sure if the average author - judging by what is published in the Anglophone market - can handle the complexity of Briseis and other women in the Trojan war. For Briseis one could go for a romance there but they'd have to depict all of her psychosynthesis properly, so it doesn't come off as "Achilles killed my family but he is hot so I love him". To be fair, it is a challenging task but I am still sad that I haven't heard retellings that do this well. Such a retelling done well would be chef's kiss!

As you said, unfortunately, the writers for now focus on the couple Achilles x Patroclus which, ok, let's accept it since it's a ship and there is some background to it (although those guys are most likely 1) cousins 2) very close to each other like brethren in a way westerners misinterpret). I've enjoyed Song of Achilles and I am surely not against such works, but you are right that the female heroines are reduced to flat characters. A fandom full of women manages to be misogynistic - again. We shouldn't be surprised because misogynistic influences are very strong in our societies still, although many don't see it 😕

[mew2late]

long rant abt c pumpkin & (some) tnt duo

(cw/tw: loads of abuse mention)

screams and shakes around like that one halloween animatronic … u know the one …

like this is how i feel when i think abt tnt duo. in my mind its always been one sided… like they can never actually MUTUALLY like each other. it’s such a disheartening feeling/experience. never being able to recognize their own feelings or the other person’s.

I could rant abt Quackity’s relationships for genuinely fucking ever. I genuinely believe that Q and Wil are so incompatible and are gen only able to quote unquote be together when their lives are in ruins. They can only find solace in each other when they’re amidst chaos or their own downfall like it’s a fucking joke. BUT NOT WHEN THEIR LIVES ARE GOOD! They have no interest in one another when they’re being fulfilled in some other way. They’re genuinely ALWAYS each other’s last resorts and I will DIE ON THAT HILL.

Don’t even get me STARTED with pumpkin duo i will fucking **** ****** trying to verbally articulate the sheer complexity of their dynamic and why I will always be a pumpkin duo truther. I will always have a deep craving for a Schlatt revival and an actual redemption arc. I think so many ppl get caught up in this fanon central caricature of him. Like why make him one note evil villain 😈 😈😈 when you can have a complex and even at times conflicting character.

Schlatt gets infinitely more interesting when you actually delve into his relationships and his actions taken all throughout the server. Everything is meticulously planned even the mistreatment of everybody in his cabinet excluding a few ppl. Do I think he knew/was prepared for just how bad it eventually got? No clue.

Abuse is made up of the “good” and bad, they require each other to keep the victim not only afraid but dependent. Life is pretty easy when you have ppl at your beck and call. I always imagine what Tubbo could’ve ended up being if he hadn’t had an out in the form of Tommy/their relationship. My beloveds fr..

Back to /srs rant lmao. Does nobody think abt just how hard it must’ve been for Q to try and get out from underneath that. Knowing that he doesn’t like the way Schlatt treats him, that he isn’t respected or seen as a person most of the time, yet he has no choice but to try and survive bc nobody else has his back atm—because they physically can’t .

Then there’s the trauma bonding.

For the ppl that don’t know a trauma bond is the (unfortunate) relationship formed between an abuser and their victim . There is no mutual bond or equal/leveled ground in that bond. It’s basically getting attached to your abuser and the abuse they inflict on you.

Smthin smthin… self harm addiction smthin smthin…

I wish more people highlighted the importance and actual existence of Quackity’s dependence on Schlatt because that’s what J wanted. Do I think he MEANT to do that? That he went in with the intention of breaking Quackity into submission/compliance, forming a twisted relationship/bond that graduated into a mutual enabling? Doesn’t matter because he managed it anyways.

Schlatt’s brutal existence says everything we need to know about him internally. Like it’s amazing the way his facade slowly faded away as he lost autonomy bc of his alcoholism and that people started treating him as such. Like. He was playing with his cards showing LITERALLY.

… and that’s where i’ll leave this bc my brain is actually cooked and this probably didn’t make sense anyways LMAO

[wereoz]

YAY when i saw u tagged me my mouth literally dropped open THANKS @belleandsaintsebastian

last song: dancing barefoot!! was so obsessed with that song around… 2022? and about every other time i encounter it

currently watching: twd & the mentalist!! love twd sm i love long series and how they become homey and i love thinking abt constant underlying messages which twd is RIFE with. i am watching this season quite infrequently tho just cuz i don’t enjoy it as much as the others and i have been angry ranting abt it tbh………

the mentalist is quite frankly…… bad. 😭😭 WELL actually idk…… like it has strong points and obviously something abt it hooks me cuz hello i’m on s4 but in s1 & 2 i was like thats so cliched and annoying and that’s literally just police brutality so….. but in s3 i was enjoying parts & building little fantasy worlds abt it in my head & oh my god im obsessed w teresa lisbon & i LOVED the finale because it had DRAMA!!!! but then all the drama surrounding one plot avenue is just SUCKED OUT (imo) in the beginning if s4 so??? and one plot thread was just left so like thats annoying….. and the main guy at the last few minutes of an episode was literally told. i’ve diagnosed u with aspd (well. he said ‘psycopath’ i think but then when he lightheartedly asked a coworker he used the term ‘anti social personality’ so) and its like…. a joke basically so…… thank u very cool. literally that one house autism GOTCHA moment i had flashbacks

currently reading: love and marriage by monica ali, i got it from my english teacher cuz she brought in her favs. it was funny cuz last minute she was like oh no i forgot!!!! theres a lot of sex!!!!ask if u have questions i’m ur pshe teacher!!! very earnest & giggly shes great. i like it so far and the style of writing, im VERY interested in where its going, so glad i’ve found a book i enjoy sm

‘how far we’ve come’, for a competition…… ough i need to pick that up again before time runs out.

fever wake, very interesting to read, especially cuz i always read it before bed , all hazy and tired lmao

lesbians guide to catholic school, just for the mandatory 10 mins reading at my school in english. don’t really like the writing style, but i find the main character, yamilet’s, unique relationship w her family SO interesting. being the second favourite just bc shes a girl, how she reconciles her love for her brother with how frustrating that is, homophobia from beloved family members, and her dad being deported all interest me a lot

current favourites: …..always hot chocolate & whipped cream, my binder!!!!! oat biscuits, pasta, painting in acrylics & just working in my gcse sketchbook in general, collaging, imagining scenarios & fic scenes in my head especially w music, listening to music to and from school, when i make people laugh, that i’ve become more social and less afraid to talk to people,

no pressure tags <3 : @gayfilmbro @preordainedplace (again!! no pressure esp for u!! cuz ik were not mutuals but i love ur blog & art <3 and with it being so hard to find anyone posting abt one deranged movie released 13 years ago it feels like were locked in the same cage already lmao) @1985houndsoflove @thelastdaysofrocknroll @thepunkmuppet @doctorgregoryhouse @pnt03prcnt

[nosolaceofastraightanswer]

nine people i’d like to know better!!

idk if i have nine people but i’ll try lol!!

tagged by @creepy-not-crawly <3333 tysm. sorry i took so long lmaooo.

last song i listened to?

my 2021 beach bunny obsession lives on in my almost 42 hours playlist of all the songs i like

currently watching?

kiko and the age of the wonderbeasts. i saw it on netflix and so far it’s pretty bangin. the art style is really cool, and it’s very pretty to look at in general

currently reading?

fanfic-wise i’m rereading Broken Clocks by Gin_Juice on ao3, they are one of my favorite authors and definitely my favorite in the tua fandom. they have a very distinct writing voice and incredible dialogue. the most impressive thing about their writing imo is how they incorporate original characters in a very skillful way, where they don’t feel out of place in-universe. sorry for the rant lol i just love their stuff

in terms of actual books, i’m in between books right now and trying to focus on summer work (:/) but i hopefully will get back into the swing soon.

current obsession?

long term is tua please help i can’t leave someone needs to put me down

but my short term obsession right now is dead end paranormal park, specifically courtney. omfg. i can’t believe the third season was canceled ughghghg. anyway she’s literally an icon and THE MUSICAL EPISODE!!!??!? HELLO?!??! somewhere down there makes me so sick /pos. i feel like i’m going insane. PLEASSEEE whoever’s in charge put the songs on spotify. please. i’m begging.

TAGGING!!! all of my beloved mutuals ily guys sm. no pressure!!!!

@dead-peppermint

@princessofshazabah

@stdneyelyse

@waitupimalittleslow183

@cardigan-ns

@someominousecho

okay so i have six but that’s over halfway!!! we are slaying tonight besties!!! okay guys have a wonderful day <3333 and thanks so much for tagging me @/creepy-not-crawly

[aroacedindjarin]

I know so many people have said this already and in much more coherent ways than I can but the way luke was depicted in tbobf (and im not just talking about the uncanny valley cgi… why did they not just recast him orz) makes me so frustrated even now. Especially now. Maybe i’m just a delusional dinluker but i really really believe that luke skywalker needed to be in the mandalorian season3.

I cannot believe luke skywalker would make grogu choose between his dad and becoming a jedi. It is just so explicitly ooc for him. I’m reading the destiny path comic right now and there are so many pages that show luke struggling with the worry that he can’t be a Jedi because he can’t let go of his attachments to his friends. and i know this is a core theme of luke as a character, it’s not new, but the comic is just so explicit about it and goes into depth in a way that it doesn’t have time to explore on screen

It explores luke’s worry about disappointing yoda when he left dagobah to go help leia and han in cloud city, and how he feels about ben and yoda refusing to talk to him anymore or help him through the force because he didn’t make his jedi training a priority above everything and everyone else, like a Selfless Jedi should. and grogu goes through the literal exact same thing. and luke reacts in the exact same way yoda and ben did to him?

In the comic, the radio silence from his teachers eats at him so badly and adds to the struggle he’s going through after finding out Vader is his father and losing his hand. He feels abandoned and afraid and, even though these feelings lead him to realise he can make his own way as a jedi, I just don’t think he’d inflict the same thing on grogu. Even if i were to look at it from a perspective of luke being forced to make his own way without his teachers made him a stronger jedi - so maybe he’s doing the same for grogu?

After all, I know grogu is such a young child so I also understand the series tries to come at it from the angle of respecting a child’s wants and needs, not forcing him to commit to training if he doesn’t want to. But I just don’t understand why luke couldn’t join grogu every now and then. Teach him some jedi stuff on the weekends. They make it seem like luke has nothing better to do anyways, he’s got droids building his school for him and seems to spend his days entirely with grogu anyway. If he went back to tatooine with grogu at the end of tbobf, i just think there would have been so much to explore between luke and literally any of the characters. din and boba specifically of course but if that led to luke in mando s3 there could’ve been so much potential.

Perhaps they just needed a reason for a big emotional scene for grogu to choose his path and his destiny. Perhaps they couldn’t put luke skywalker in the show too much for fear of throwing off the sequels. There’s the argument that luke already had his screen time and, trust me, I also hate the re-usual of existing characters to the point where they’re wringed out of any substance and have been so fleshed-out and developed it’s almost grotesque to force them to stay in the show any longer. but star wars doesnt have a problem with that for so many other characters anyway.

I just wanted to see grogu growing up to be both a Mandalorian and a Jedi. It would’ve been so perfect with the Mand’alor Din storyline too. Grogu, the son of the Ruler of Mandalore and the student of the strongest Jedi in the galaxy, the start of a new generation and so much foundation to explore between Mandalorians and Jedi!!!!!!!

[femboyclownpierce]

:0 i would love to hear how you write etho!

after making that post and going to bed i've realized that it's so hard for me to describe all the thoughts that go into it so

tl;dr: i have consumed an ungodly amount of ethoslab content to the point that writing him is kind of second nature

you could also probably go thru my archive for etho text posts i've rb'd, cuz those have also influenced me a lot and i'll link a few at the end. i also sincerely recommend watching and rewatching his hc7 because that is like, everything i love about etho in 40-smth episodes.

long and kind of complicated/messy answer under the cut. i tried to go as in-depth as i could w/o being overly rambly

when you think of etho, what do you think of? you probably think "mysterious cryptid redstone guy who is scary." that is the devil talking. he is not mysterious, a cryptid, or scary at all. he is just a guy who's reputation is bigger than him.

here's some (very basic) traits i'd assign to etho before any of those:

humble

reflective*

confident

competitive

friendly

mischievous

avoidant

*reflective in the sense that he mirrors other people's energy.

originally i had a whole rant typed up explaining these personality traits, but i realize you are probably a fellow ethogirl and a lot of these need no explanation. if you want an explanation/to better understand why i chose those personality traits, i am going to once again recommend his hc7, as well as checking out anything he's done with team canada (pick a series and just start watching. if you dont know where to start, one of my beloved mutuals has a neat little guide for ppl new to etho's content that includes some staple team canada content.)

some things i apply to my etho that make sense to me that might go overlooked by the casual enjoyer:

he is so incredibly neurodivergent coded. i am not going to make any assumptions on etho's brain structure, i dont think its my place, but seriously. give your etho some silly thing to be super passionate about on the side. make him easily distracted/get off topic easily. make his storage system start out well but quickly descent into chaos as he gets too lazy to use it.

he goes with the flow! this goes along with me describing him as a reflective person. he "yes, and"'s stuff like there's no tomorrow. he takes whatever energy is thrown his way, and he chucks it right back at you. he gets dragged into shenanigans and goes "oh this might as well happen! let's see how far we can take it."

he likes to avoid problems he doesn't see as immediately his own/aren't immediately affecting him. his response to moon big was literally "i'll let the other hermits deal with it. look this low gravity makes not having elytra so much easier! lets go build a bee farm." if it doesn't affect him right this instant, or there's nothing he can do about it, he will worry about it later (and probably forget to worry about it.)

he prioritizes the "fun" factor above all else. if you know what the bamboozler is, you understand this. also, the bee farm i just mentioned. if there is a very efficient/straight-forward way to do something or a very fun way to do something, he will go with the fun way most of the time. if the only option is boring, he'll find a way to make it fun.

his reputation precedes him, but his reputation is a little inaccurate to modern times. someone who doesn't know him very well might think he's menacing or scary, but the reality is that he's just a silly little guy. don't get me wrong, there is a reason he's seen as menacing, and if he wants to be he can be, but most of the time he's just here to chill.

his humor is very roundabout. he tells a very long story to get to the punchline, or he tells something that plays into stereotypes so much it's ridiculous. here are some examples. he is also a professional "your mom" joker, like i literally cannot link enough examples his staple joke is "your mom."

most importantly, i think, is that etho doesn't take himself too seriously. i think a lot about the quote from cleo that goes like, "etho doesnt say he's a grownup, he giggles and runs away." so dont make etho too serious!

HE IS LITERALLY JUST SOME GUY. i cant stress this point enough. he should have "just some guy" energy. tiny voice he's doing the best he can. things happen to him and he is mildly bewildered. something goes wrong and he needs like, one second dedicated to panicking before he does anything about it.

just for bonus content, some of my favorite posts/clips that heavily influence the way i interpret/write etho. he is so ^-^ | he calls food poisoning an adventure | evidence that etho's a former scene kid | obviously your mother never loved you 'cause you're some sorta monster :) | "you jerk" compilation | etho teasing scar in among us

[rollercoasterwords]

algorithms are destroying the world make your own gd decisions about shit

if you hate freedom so much go read a google ads round robin fanfic on ff.n (I think Michelin and Bridgeport are doing the enemies to lovers back and forth rn) or go 😳 at whatever happened to lj

or change all the names and sell your erotica to bellsaplus; just know that the writing is better, and the porn is more diverse on ao3

🥂

(I say porn but JEEZ guys even if you’re reading nothing but gen-fic the writing is still usually trying to say something unlike the useless pap that capitalist “content creators” churn out — to generate clicks in order to generate data on what people do everyday sitting and watching or better—-shopping. that data is then sold to other bidders. please protect the plentiful, the beautiful, the ao3. god knows what anyone would say if they say my ao3 history)

wow ok coming in hot! i'm assuming this message is meant to be like...ranting at me the way u would to a friend on facetime and that the "you" you're yelling at isn't actually me? and i am also going to take a wild guess and say that this is a response to the tiktokification essay i wrote that has escaped its enclosure and is now running wild across tumblr. so.

yes i agree we need to protect ao3 and yes i agree anything made for the sole purpose of getting as many people to click on it as possible is probably going to be pretty soulless but i feel like this rant is maybe getting slightly away from what the original intent of my post so i'm just gonna use this as an opportunity to address a few things i've seen across people's responses that have made me like :/ (warning this gets long lmao)

the tiktokification essay was not intended to be an all-encompassing analysis of the way things are across every fandom space connected to ao3. like. i am pretty secluded over in my little corner of marauders-fandom tumblr and i generally post my little essays expecting maybe like...10-20 people to interact with the post? like, when i post stuff on this blog, it's just because when i start thinking about something i can't really relax until i sit down and write my thoughts out and organize them. so when i'm posting those thoughts on tumblr it usually feels to me like the equivalent of facetiming a friend and rambling at them, except the friend is my little handful of beloved tumblr mutuals <3 anyway, i know the post is called "the tiktokification of ao3" which is a very broad statement, but that's just because i like pithy titles. if i had known it was going to run amok across tumblr i probably would have been a little more intentional with my phrasing, but oh well! what i did do is specify in the post that i was only talking about the marauders fandom, because that's literally the only fandom space that i am a part of. it's interesting to see how widespread the stuff i was talking about seems to be across different fandoms, but for anyone who has interacted with the post to essentially just be like - "ok but this isn't true everywhere/in every case"....cool! that's because i was talking about a phenomenon i have observed specifically within the marauders fandom.

it was also not intended to be me shaking my fist and cursing the youth, nor was i trying to invite like...an "us vs. them" mindset between older and younger members of fandom spaces. this is where i've seen some stuff that's made me a little like...hm. because, ok. i am one of those people who's sort of in-between the like...older versus younger sects of fandom spaces. and so i see the ageism that gets aimed towards older people by a lot of younger teens, and i understand why a lot of older adults are fed up with young fans and feel defensive, and i get that teens can be annoying on the internet. on the other hand, i still very clearly remember when i was an Annoying Teen on the Internet, and it was because i was still just...learning, y'know? like. i was just coming into contact with complex ideas about emotion and morality and relationships and everything, and that is just part of being on the internet together. there will always be shitty people, yes, but there will also always be people learning, and especially when those people are young teens, i personally tend to try and start out by giving them the benefit of the doubt. like, i tried to be clear in the post and also included in the tags (though those do get lost when the post gets spread around) that i wasn't trying to condemn anyone for engaging in the behavior i was talking about, because i do genuinely think that a lot of it is simply coming from a place of not knowing any better. so, while y'all can vent however you want on your own blogs and i do understand the frustration, i just want to make it clear that my own intention was to say - hey! younger marauders fans! here are some things to think about moving forward in how you interact with fic, since you have maybe grown up with only one model of social media, unlike those of us who grew up with the internet (i was literally born the same year google was invented) and have seen various examples of social media and observed how it's changed over the years. and it was also intended to say - hey! older marauders fans! if you're scratching your head and wondering wtf is going on with younger fans, consider that they maybe genuinely do not know better and this might help explain some of the roadblocks when it comes to trying to communicate with each other about our fandom spaces.

i did not intend to imply that there is anything wrong with wanting people to read your fanfiction. this is another thing that like. i might have spent some more time clarifying had i known how many people were going to be reading the post. but i did state very clearly that "those sharing their work online might be seeking community, but that is fundamentally different from seeking an audience." it is completely natural and understandable to want people to read your writing!! i actually made a separate post about this after the tiktokification essay but obviously they're not going around as a pair lol. however, i stand by the statement that writing fanfiction with a goal of going "viral" or just getting as much interaction as possible is not sustainable and will not bring you deep or lasting joy. idk i'm not gonna go on about this here if u want to know my thoughts on social media culture rot u can scroll through my blog i've talked abt it in a few different posts.

i was not trying to say that negativity is a new phenomenon in fandom spaces. a few people have interacted with the essay and said something along the lines of "i disagree with this"/"this isn't accurate" because there always have been and always will be people in fandom spaces who are entitled and rude and criticize fic. which like...cool! i'm sure that's true. i do think you missed the point of the post a little bit. it was specifically about a phenomenon in the marauders fandom involving the way that changes in social media over recent years have fundamentally altered the way we view online interaction, and the way i have observed that bleeding over into the marauders fandom. it wasn't just about general negativity in terms of things like comments and messages so much as it was about how expectations relating to influencer culture and virality have led to things like...people making tiktoks about "jegulus fics i hate" or fics going viral on tiktok and people then interacting with the writers as though they are the ones who made those tiktoks. and granted, i have only really been involved in this fandom for a single year, so maybe i'm just wrong about how new this is! but the tiktok stuff at least can't be older than like...2020. so. i do actually do think it's valid to talk about how changes in social media culture might be affecting the ways people interact with ao3 and fic, and i do think there's more to it than just "people will always be negative and entitled sometimes!"

i was not trying to say that we have a right to treat influencers/people posting shit on other social media sites as though they are products. this is another thing that a few people have felt the need to add on, which...okay. nothing wrong with wanting to clarify that. again, if i'd known the post was going to get so much attention, i might have spent some more time talking about it. but i'll just clarify here - my observations about the way capitalism gives rise to an influencer culture that essentially leads to viewing people as products are just that. they are observations. they are not normative statements. just because i understand why we interact with influencers like that does not mean that i think we should interact with influencers like that. however, there is a difference in an influencer whose job is content creation on social media versus an ao3 writer, and the purpose of my essay was to talk about that. saying "we shouldn't treat ao3 writers this way" does not mean "but we SHOULD treat all influencers this way."

anyway, as i warned at the beginning, this got very long -- and honestly, each of these points could probably be its own separate essay, but....i'm tired rn lol. i know that most of the people reblogging the tiktokification essay probably will not come all the way to my blog and run across this post, but i'm just leaving it here because i get grumpy easily and it's annoying to see people misinterpreting or missing the point, so i want to have all the little things i've thought about addressing in one place.

and anon - the main reason i say you may have been getting slightly away from the original point is just

1 - it had nothing to do specifically with porn, and that seems to be mostly what you're talking about? which like. real. but also just wasn't really part of the original post lmao

2 - you seem pretty angry, which again is valid, but i'm just...not. like i feel like u came into my inbox wanting to rant back and forth, and the thing is that i wasn't really intending to rant in that essay! like i said, i'm not necessarily angry at the people i've seen asking for algorithms, because i think a lot of them genuinely don't know better because they have only ever used social media that is algorithm-based, and to me that's mostly just sad and something i wanted to pick apart and piece back together like a puzzle, so. apologies for hijacking your rant to as an excuse to write a whole 'nother essay lmao i appreciate ur energy tho <3

[happy-whumper]

I- I'm sorry w h a t 💀💕

Okay I literally just saw this and I??? Thank you so much??? For apparently 101 followers asdhj

excuse me I need a minute to deal with this--

Jesus okay, thank you guys so much!!! I...Did genuinely not expect to ever have that many followers ashdhs (which is also not why I started Tumblr but that is besides the point right now--)

I do want to take this opportunity though to thank some of my beloved mutuals especially~ this is in no specific order though

@darklyria; you are literally one of the sweetest people I have ever met and the best friend anyone could ever wish for <3 Thank you so much for always supporting me with any ideas to *cough* hurt the beans *cough* and helping me so much with further developing my characters!!! They would probably not be what they are now without you~ Also for really motivating me to write more again and create way too bastardly bastard man kajsh (one got soft so it's okay--) I am so grateful that you're in my life and I can call you one of my best friends!!! <3

@whumpasaurus101; Lee!!! You are so sweet, kind and supportive and I am so happy that we're friends!!! (i...don't even know for how long...time is a construct anyways-- 💀) Thank you for always letting me rant about my characters and joining me in simping over...frankly probably way too many fictional characters ajsh And also, of course, for bullying me into even posting the first chapter of "Pet Society" I...may have never posted it otherwise probably xD Also for reading over and helping me with chapters!!! @as-a-matter-of-whump; One of the reasons I even got into whump in the first place!!! I think "Written in blood" was actually one of the very first whump stories I read aksj You are such a kind person and I still remember how excited I was when you send me the link to the whump discord server aksj @myst-in-the-mirror; Even though we haven't talked in like..a good bit until recently (which is totally my bad ahdj), you are such an amazing friend!! You are just so sweet and understanding and aksjhj honestly I don't know what I did to deserve that-- Thank you for being so supportive of my writing and always writing such amazing comments, they truly make my day~ (as well as how much you like Olivia aksj it just gives me life tbh 😌) And I really love simping over hot assholes with you too xD

[beachytablecloth]

brooke my beloved, since you were curious--

okay so the reason i only have one tag blocked is because for the longest time, i did Not know how to block tags so i kind of just. let it happen. (actually just learned how to filter on ao3 i little while ago thanks to grace, can't you tell i'm great with technology? 😌) and honestly once i learned it was like a spur of the moment thing, like, not to make an office reference, but ya know how they were like "michael has to fire someone and hasn't, he'll prolly fire the first person that makes him mad"? that was how blocking the tag went oiuyfdghjiko

the first post that made me mad was the tag i blocked and--don't judge me--it's the httyd movies 😬 ik everyone loves them but i. i love the books. so much. and the movies are uhhh they are Very Different from the books. like. percy jackson movie level different, and the books were like. a huge part of my childhood. plus, they replaced my favorite character with astrid to give hiccup a love interest and that is unforgivable in my mind because camicazi is the best God i love that tiny scary blonde child she's so funny

anyWAYS i won't go on a rant about how much they make me :/// cause i know most of my mutuals really like the movies and i wanna be respectful, but tbh one of the reasons it's blocked and makes me mad is because people would like. genuinely get mad at me in high school when i told them that i didn't like the movies and preferred the books??? like, i was in a class one time and okay i was one of four seniors in the class so it could be because it was a Pretty young class, but i mentioned that i did Not like the movies and they all Literally yelled at me for it and basically said my opinion was stupid and wrong and i had to go "we need to stop this conversation because y'all are making me mad and imma say something i'll regret later" and surprisingly that worked ??? but yeah, so one of the main reasons the movies fill me with rage is because of everyone in my life who got genuinely mad at me for not liking me lol great times

anYWAYS yeah. the next tag i block will probably be the next post that fills me with rage. thinking about blocking divergent now because i walked into two of my roommates and their friends watching the first movie and that filled me with rage (do not even get me started on divergent because that history is just as complicated as the httyd movies lol)

anyways this is really long. i am *sparkle emoji* procrastinating homework *sparkle emoji* so ig i made this as long as possible to Not do homework lol love you hope you're having a good day <3

omg hi corey <3 sorry for answering this so late i'm. just like that.

ok first of all i'm old af and have been on tumblr so long that i used to used extensions to block tags/ content -- most people remember xkit, but anybody remember tumblr savior??? yeah i'm ancient. so blocking tags is like second nature to me. plus i spent a lot of time in the one direction fandom so there was a lot of stuff that needed to be filtered out. hahaha. i love that you only recently learned to filter on ao3 kasjd;flj but tbf ao3 is a v confusing website!!!!

also. i LOVE the httyd movies, but NO judgment from me here. i totally understand loving a book series and hating how the movies change things. i never read the httyd books, so i never had anything to compare the movies to. totally understand your rage though.... you should've seen me when i first saw the sixth movie of a not-to-be-named disgraced franchise. i was LIVID.

but i'm so sorry people got so mad at you??? i understand how passionate people can be about the things they like, but there's no excuse to like. literally fight about it! that's so messed up :(

if you ever want to rage about divergent my inbox is always open because oh my god, did that series make me angry lmao

anyway i love your long messages please send them anytime (although i probably shouldn't encourage procrastinating..... jk i am the queen of procrastination)

<3

[spacesheeeeeep]

since someone already said faity, how about buffy summers ?

buffy summers my beloved ! :')

Favorite thing about them : She is literally THE funniest character ever. RIP to all the vampires she slayed in cemetaries who didn't laugh at her jokes but I'm different. There are of course a lot more things I love about her and I could probably talk about her all day so to make it shorter and simpler : I love how human she is !

Least Favorite thing about them : Idk if I can really say it's my least favorite thing about her (just like what I said about faith for this question), it's more like flaws which make me sad for her... Poor girl just needs to know that she deserves happiness and doesn't need to take it all on herself all the time...

Favorite line : every single one of them "Well, you were mythtaken ! :)"

brOTP : Her and the original scoobies mean the world to me actually :') Their relationships are so complicated and painful at times, but there is always so much love between them and it hurts my heart a little tbh. They are just teenagers and their failed father figure trying to fight "the forces of evil" while living their (sometimes very fucked up) lives !

OTP : I already ranted about fuffy in my faith post so I'll make it short here vezffldfrk- But basically they are my whole life, and I care very very deeply about these two and their relationship ;_; <3

nOTP : I don't like ships including people from the og scoobies with her tbh. Giles for obvious reasons and Willow and Xander because I really really love their platonic relationship and I find it so heartwarming ! (Also there's another ship but we won't get into that because many of my mutuals, whom I love dearly, like it and I understand the people who like the ship so yknow- there's no need to really talk about it)

Random headcanon : She never got her driver's licence. She failed everytime and no one accepts her now because she has this reputation that she either will kill you with her insane driving or weird shit will start happening around the car (like fucked up creatures coming and all that)

Unpopular opinion : Tbh I don't really know what the popular opinions are on btvs because I mostly stay in a lil' corner of the fandom where the only takes I see (on buffy at least) are from my very sexy and correct mutuals-

Song I associate with them : Same as for the two other character asks before, I have a ton of songs I associate with her that's why I have a whole playlist for buffy but here are some : A Better Son/Daughter by Rilo Kiley and I bet on losing dogs by Mitski (and for fuffy My Best Dress by Florence + The Machine >:D)

Favorite picture of them :

[paneerlajwanti]

How r u the mutual in law...i literally love you sm...i rant about beth and benny to you...humse zayada kon pyaar karega aapse <3 yeh shanka kaise hui aapko jiji

* gently holds this ask in the air like rafiki holds simba *

* yeets it into my face *

aaa i don know i am cynical and i have double standards for myself and have long internalized the fact that i am tolerated and am over the hedge and do a lot of everything and get hyper and sometime just need to be shoved under the carpet for sanity

you do rant about beth and benny to me, that is CORRECT you know we should do that more often disaster comfort ship, my beloved

oh and im kinda tearing up as i read this and type this,, you,, said

"humse zayada kon pyaar karega aapse <3 yeh shanka kaise hui aapko jiji"

and expect me to just be okay with that????

thank you for loving me so much i will hold that so fucking close to me and i wont let it go

[icharchivist]

I have finished winter troupe debut episode! It was very dramatic lmao. Was enjoyable though. Winter troupe all had very interesting characters and It's nice to see a troupe that is all adults.

Since I complained about spring troupe issues being solved by not talking about it. I have to talk about how winter troupes issues were solved by literal outside forces trapping them or letting them read peoples minds.

I'm guessing they did this because unlike the teens who are more willing to be open about themselves and pester others,,,, adults are a lot less likely. (Before winter the adults were, sakyo, and itaru? cause the uni students aren't really adults yet. sakyo opens up to Izumi because he knows and trusts her. Itaru. Hasn't really opened up yet but he's getting there.) Whereas winter troupe is a group of strangers and the two who know each other literally are in the middle of massive misunderstanding/fight?/idk mutual disappointment.

(Also misumi just getting trapped in random time loops???? Holy shit is he ok???? Like he was able to figure it was tsumugi and tasuku this time but what if he doesn't know the people? I have so many questions)

Ok rant over. I have accepted that magic exists in a3 and all it wants is for people to get along and understand each other. But yeah once I crawl through the events and next act I have to rewatch spring hahaha. I definitely wasn't fair to them.

Homare oh my god. Just. Holds gently. I want to protect him. No one deserves to be called a broken cyborg :(

Gahhh all of winter troupe I just want to protect.

Also I saw fuyupoly is a thing? Because I'm excited to see the troupe develop more.

(you said you had a Google drive of the inbetween acts events :eyes: should I message you or something?)

tHEY’RE SO DRAMATIC I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.....

And yeah tbh when you talked about Spring having communication problems my first thought was “oh BOY you haven’t seen Winter yet” DLKFJDLFKJDFLKJDFLK

I. think about Winter much more than i should but yeah, pretty much it’s the fact they’re adults and strangers and just. are extremely conflict avoidant, all of them, for various reasons. Tsumugi because of his crushed confidence, Tasuku because he struggles to convey his feelings and he lost Tsumugi in the past, Hisoka because he litterally has no past and it freaks him out (Homare was spot on when he said Hisoka knew he couldn’t defend himself), Homare because he’s scared he’ll mess up again, and Azuma because he spent his life keeping people at armlength.  They’re all adult and agreeable people, and they are also all pretty understanding in some way, so they let some conflict pass by hoping it will be over soon. Some of them like Tsumugi, Azuma and Homare are also pretty analytic of people on a psychological way so they can try to navigate with what they know. 

But in the end without communication it’s not going very far, but they don’t really know how to do it when all of them are adults who have got used to it. 

so yeah, like you said it’s really that they’re adults and that unlike the youngest ones i think it’s just. they’re all used to compromise and compromise a part of themselves as well. 

but yeah the magic being the thing solving it cracks me up all the time i’m just. Like. okay. Okay cool okay. Normal. Like. Thematically wise i think it’s because Winter is a season that’s so cold and sad but there’s a bit of magic in it (like the magic of christmas) and i think that’s what it is meant to echo but that’s. so out of the blue DLKFJDKLFJDLKFJLDF that said once that just accepted i really love the way the three magical events reflects the characters (Tasuku and Tsumugi needed to reconnect and find back the comfort they had with one another and plushies are considered comfort items that helps transition into a safer place, it’s also linked to childhood and those two are childhood friends. Homare and the loupe are pretty straight forward, he needed to see closer, deeper. Azuma and Hisoka both were locked into a room, isolated, just like their past (or in Hisoka’s case what his flashbacks implies) make them feel isolated, having experienced loss).). I am FASCINATED with Winter. i just. akjhfkdhfkdjfmldjfmd?? sljhfjldk.

but aah i’m glad you enjoyed the ride so much i’m so happy!!

and god yeah please someone check on Misumi i worry for him wtf

and Homare’s arc yeah!! yeah!!! his arc is one of my fav arc i just. really love how it all plays out. It’s really rare to see a story goes “here’s a character with low empathy: and he’s the most loving and kind character you can imagine”. The way he struggles from it, how sad it makes him, this way to see himself, everything makes me want to cry for hours. I want to hold him so bad.

Fuyupoly is definitly a thing yeah. Fuyupoly my beloved. I adore Fuyupoly so much 😭 but Winter is honestly a slow burn, especially in comparaison to the rest of the teams. 

I actually didn’t think much of them at first read (Azuma and Hisoka were already my favs though, i’m so soft for them)(also i say that but i know i found back screenshot of me crying about fuyu on first read so i did feel a lot but it didn’t hit me until late, how much i actually cared), and now i legit can’t stop thinking about all of them. I don’t know how much it says about their slowburn or what it says about me but; Winter.

ANYWAY congratz on finishing the main story of act 1 :3c and yeah, i’d prefer if i could share it in private (bc it’s, a lot of content and if i provide it in public this is clearly piracy and DLKFJDF i know a3 tends to take down some of this content and i’m trying to be stealthy).

Though if you don’t want to come off anon, you can tell me in another anon’s ask, i’ll link you my drive, then you’ll need to send me an ask to tell me you got it so i can delete the post, if you prefer?

anyway the drive is up and ready anytime. i just didn’t update some of the latest act 2′s events but act 1 is filled and that’s the priority. so you know also this drive includes 1) Story events, 2) the songs linked to each plays (which tells the story of the plays, def recommand it), 3) All the backstages from limited time cards i could get. Backstages linked to specific events are inside their specific event files, else the cards which didn’t come in an event are in the “Scouting file”.  What’s important to read plotwise is the Event stories. The backstages are very good and i def recommand it but it may be overwhelming so you can skip them and come back later for them DLKJFLDKFJFD it’s really just the main plot of each event that you should watch.

(also i should mention only the first two events are fully voiced, the rest are just with some voicelines here and there, but i still recommand watching it bc of the mood with the music and the sprites and all)

so yeah ready to send it anytime you want  !! :3c

[maryasmorevna]

Mikasa Ackermann, Levi Ackermann, Amane Misa, Aeron Greyjoy for the charactet ask :3

SOMEONE HEARD MY PRAYERS AND NOW MY TIME HAS COME, tysm!!!!! <3

okay, let's start with levi (my beloved):

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life (THEE little feral anime man after my heart)

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang (Dark, Tall and Snarky + piercing grey-blue eyes and chronic insomnia? clearly my type ❤)

hogwarts house: gryffindor (maybe....?) | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff

ugh, the hp sorting house system is way too reductive. he has qualities of gryffindor, slytherin, and hufflepuff - brave, astute, loyal to a fault, etc. so it's a hard choice. but if i really have to choose, i'd go for gryffindor. i know that his Bad Boy facade shouts slytherin, but while he has larger goals (killing all the titans, then saving the world etc.), he's got no actual ambition for himself. hufflepuff would also be a good option.

daemon (from the his dark materials series): (because i've just decided that's just way more accurate than the hp method) some kind of big feline. maybe a panther - a black panther would be the ideal - aloof, predatory, dangerous, fiercely independent.

best quality: besides his obvious strenghts as a leader and warrior, the way he cares for his comrades-in-arms. it's very hard to gain his trust and respect, but once you have it, it's forever. he's pragmatic and ruthless, yes, but he also has a huge capacity for compassion and friendship. not that he would be effusive about his affections, of course.

worst quality: none, he's absolutely perfect ❤ jklsdfhjk jokes aside, he really struggles to open up (a serious understatement), idt he ever talked about his traumatic past with anyone. i mean, maybe he mentioned it to hange and erwin (erwin knew him when he was still an undergound thug, so...), but... he's not great with feelings. despite his apathetic, intimidating mask, he feels and cares deeply, but he has a long history with losing the people he loves, so he tries to not personally care about his squadmates, which can be both a strenght and a weakness. of course, he spectacularly fails at this.

ship them with: well, it's not a secret that i'm a huge rivamika fan, this ship is almost literally consuming my waking thoughts lmao. imo they're perfectly compatible: very similar personalities (stoic, the strongest warriors, absolutely terrifying on the battlefield but with a soft underbelly), very similar pasts/experiences, so many parallels that it's actually ridiculous, etc. i love how they're both each other's equals and likeness (yes, i took it from jane eyre. no, i don't regret anything lmao). a lot of tropes i love, too: Terrible First Impression (the Pride and Prejudice vibes are so strong with these two, you have no idea), Kindred Spirits/Mirror Images, Veteran/Young Prodigy, The Last of Their Kind, even Height Difference lmao. i could write a whole rivamika manifesto, but this is already too long. (maybe for some other time 👀) i would've loved for their dynamic to be more explored in canon but alas, isayama clearly didn't give a shit about the ackerman legacy, he just used it as a plot shortcut to give them conveniently unique powers, since they never really talked about it 🙄 (and before some troll comes into my askbox shouting "you iNcEsT fReAk!!!!1!!", they're only very distantly related. we know shit about the ackermans but we know for sure that they've got at least several generations between them. biologically their shared DNA is 0%, obviously they don't see each other as family, all the eldians have a dead ass common ancestor from 2000 years ago so they're all basically ⁓related anyway. if you really wanna scream about i.ncest, go watch got/dark/the borgias and shut the fuck up please. or alternatively go outside and touch some grass) sorry for the rant, uh. anyway, i can also see levi/erwin. idk if i'd ever care enough to read a fic about them (i'm usually a huge multishipper, but for some weird reason not when it comes to rivamika? same with braime and kastle tbh), but still, i can see it.

brotp them with: hange and erwin, obv. veteran trio >>> ema trio, sorry not sorry (at least h. and e. died before yams had the chance to ruin their character arcs)

needs to stay away from: ...uh, filth, i guess? lmao

misc. thoughts: besides the stupid teenage fangirl crush i have on him, i'm genuinely fascinated by the man himself. he's a huge mess of a contradictions, and yet somehow it works: he's violent and brash and kind of an asshole, but also has a strong moral code and integrity; he's obv very skilled at all the killing/torturing stuff and yet he has a huge respect for life; he's got a potty mouth to say the least, and yet some very aristocratic manners/tastes (the way he sits, his preference for tea and usually refined clothes); he comes from what's supposed to be an illustrous bloodline, he's methodical and very precise, and yet he was born and raised in the underground, he's been used to filth and blood and poverty since he was a child, kenny of all people was his father figure, and probably has known no other life than a perennial survival mode existence. he's "humanity's strongest soldier", but while well-built he's also small, the david to the titans' goliah, and probably not what people would assume a born warrior looks like. he's also one of the few characters who stayed true to himself and his original characterization until the end, bless you smol king ❤

(okay, this is getting long!)

mikasa:

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them (so much. she deserved better ❤️) | actual love of my life 

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! (stunning lady ❤) | 10/10 would bang

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff

this is actually easy: mikasa belongs to hufflepuff and no, i won't take criticism (just joking lol). enough with this "hufflepuffs are fluffy puppies/Cinnamon Rolls <3" thing: mikasa values loyalty and duty more than anything else. she's also hardworking... and fierce, strong, lethal. yes, hufflepuff and lethal are not mutually exclusive concepts.

daemon: (finally the better option) a she-wolf, fiercely protective of her pack.

best quality: loyal, brave, incredibly strong (alongside her more fragile qualities). practical and level-headed on the battlefield, at least when eren is not included in the picture.

worst quality: struggles to let go of the past (understandable, considering her trauma). tunnel-vision when it comes to eren, obv. extreme levels of delusions ("if only i spoke openly about my romantic feelings for him - as if i didn't made them abundantly clear in ⁓6 years - he wouldn't kill 80% of humanity :(((" lmao okay. just. okay), but that's more on the writing. she's sadly more static than any other main character throughtout the whole series.

ship them with: see above :) but recently i've also started to be intrigued by mikasa/annie and mikasa/sasha. also, i'm sympathetic to jeankasa fans, though i don't actually care for the ship.

brotp them with: EMA trio, especially armin+mikasa. their friendship is so beautiful and special. also sasha.

needs to stay away from: ...... eren, at least romantically. again, that's more on the writing than anything else, but e.remika unfortunately encompasses many tropes i loathe with all the strength of my old shriveled heart: childhood friends-to lovers where the (male) childhood friend doesn't acknolewdge/is completely indifferent to the other (female) friend's romantic feelings, she hopelessly pines for him for years without anything more than a cold shoulder... until in the last chapter it's revealed that he loved her all along and doesn't "want other men to have her!!! :((" (then why did you have no reaction whatsoever to jean's years-long crush on her while she was jealous of any vaguely female-shaped human being you were friendly to, including hange? are you that dumb, man?); the female character's development and entire arc 100% revolves around the male protagonist - she has no goals, no dreams of her own except staying with him forever and ever; the romance is based on an idealized childhood dream, therefore reaffirming those childish illusions would make the character regress, not actually grow up (and nope, epilogue!jk doesn’t count; that also lacks build-up - i would’ve said the same about rm as well, so it’s not about shipping, guys, it really isn’t - and mikasa needed an inner change; getting married to another man but still praying to eren’s shrine is not substitute to actual development lol). post-time skip she's never really frustrated/angry with him, they never get a confrontation about him becoming a, y'know, mass-murderer of gigantic (pun intended) proportions; she puts him on a pedestal, and never stops idealizing him/never sees him for what he actually is (the narrative framing him as some kind of tragic martyr/saint eren from paradis with zero agency and basically... no clear motivation for the abovementioned mass murder, and not the actual complex tragic anti-hero/villain motivated by revenge and righteous fury he deserved to be, does not help). it lacks a good or even decent build-up - it's basically all tell and not show. now, if they'd actually been childhood friends to enemies to lovers/mutually co-dependent... it could have been interesting. sadly, it's not my cup of tea. of course this is just my personal preference, no hard feelings to the shippers.

misc. thoughts: enormous potential. she's been my fav female character since s1 - and ah, i miss s1!mikasa, when she had actually other stuff to do besides mothering eren. i love that she's the strongest warrior (second only to levi, obv), that her skills are never called into questions despite her gender, i love how she stands up for herself and the people she loves, that she may seem cold and stoic and yet has a such a huge heart, that she's not perfect but also sometimes awe-inspiring. sadly, she never really gets out of eren's shadow; what she lacks is an arc focused on herself. that's why imo getting deeper into the ackerman lore would've helped (also, you cannot make the main female character and the most popular male character descend from the same Unique Bloodline or whatever, and never really make them acknowledge it out loud; as a writer, you just can't lol). my spite is so strong that i'm currently writing a ridiculously pretentious fic that's 70% development for her character, to give her a voice, and 30% ackerthirsting. (yes, that's the fic i'm always vagueblogging about lmao, rip @ my brain). if any other rivamika fan is interested… mind you, it’s in italian tho, and idt i have the skills to translate into english.

misa:

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life 

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff

daemon: mmh, maybe some kind of butterfly? beautiful, colorful, and short-lived.

best quality: glorious fashion sense, more inventive and ingenious than fans actually give her credit for.

worst quality: shallow, impulsive, and obv her dependence on/obsession with light (which stems from trauma btw, but still… the very opposite of a relationship between equals).

ship them with: rem, kinda (monster/human ftw!). also weirdly enough mogi, a little bit? she deserves someone who actually respects her… though she’s far from being a perfect angel. she may actually be crazier than light on some aspects. but in this house we stan evil ladies anyway, so i have no problem with that <3

brotp them with: uh, idk, maybe matsuda?

needs to stay away from: obv light. also takada.

misc. thoughts: a tragic victim of sexist writing. she may be… unhinged to say the least, but she didn’t deserve the abuse she got from light (and from the fans). the female characters’ writing in dn is so bad that idk if it’s on purpose, to kinda mirror the reality of women in a patriarchal society (dependent on men, housewives whose life entirely revolves around their husband/boyfriend etc.), or just casual misogyny lol. it’s even more baffling since we don’t know the author’s gender (they may be a man, a woman, nb, anything really). i tend for the latter option tho.

aegon greyjoy (now, i wasn’t expecting him lol):

general opinion: fall in a hole and die | don’t like them | eh | they’re fine I guess | like them! | love them | actual love of my life 

hotness level: get away from me | meh | neutral | theoretically hot but not my type | pretty hot | gorgeous! | 10/10 would bang

hogwarts house: gryffindor | slytherin | ravenclaw | hufflepuff

i’m so sorry, i haven’t the slightest idea lmao. maybe gryffindor? mind you, it’s been a long time since i’ve re-read the books, so i don’t have many thoughts about him.

daemon: maybe it’s cliché, but some kind of fish/squid lmao

best quality: ugh, i really can’t remember much from his chapters :(( he’s not a coward, i guess? (lame answer, sorry!)

worst quality: definitely his religious fanaticism.

ship them with: no one.

brotp them with: uh… his family, ig? except euron.

needs to stay away from: obv euron. brr ://

misc. thoughts: i genuinely like the greyjoys chapters, though i vastly prefer the martells (with the exception of theon and asha, bcs i love them). yes, they’re deranged. yes, victarion is… well, victarion lol. but the drowned god religion is actually interesting, grrm knows how to write trauma - every time aeron mentions euron and that freaking door i’m like… :// - and the tragedy of it all… just great writing all around.

okay, that’s the end lmao. thank you so much, love!!! ❤❤

[jjpmoans]

Fairy Lights | Jaebeom

Merry late Christmas and Happy New Year @twinmoles​. Hi, I’m Nik and yes I’m your secret Santa. I’m so sorry for scaring you about our first interaction and again, sorry for all the awkwardness. I’m a writer so I figured it is good if I can gift you a fic. I hope you like this fic and I’m sorry that we don’t interact as much. It was good to talk to you, I hope we can still be friends in the future. May 2020 be kind to you! Also special thanks to @ahgaseloveletters​ for arranging the project. May god bless you guys! And to my fellow mutuals and followers, Happy New Year!

Word count : 3.1k

The sound of keys jingling outside your room makes you flicker your eyes away, just in time as Jaebeom walks in. Giving him a brief smile, you turn your attention back to the movie played, relieved now you know who's home. To be honest you don't have to wonder who because the only person who share the room with you is Jaebeom but who knows in case of any intruders.

"What are you watching?" dropping a kiss on top of your head, Jaebeom proceed to undress his coat and hang it on the coat hanger.

"Hmmm, Searching." you reply halfheartedly, eyes fixed on the screen. The amount of concentration you have been giving makes Jaebeom chuckles in adoration, the spot beside you dip and you feel his head on your lap.

"May I know why you are on my bed instead of yours?" you heard him but you ignore, like he doesn't know how you love his bed better than yours. Granted, your beds are just the same, perhaps the difference is presence of the bed owner instead.

"Is it good?" he asks, face appearing from below you. Absentmindedly, you hold his cheek and another hand on his hair, scratching his scalp lightly. "Hey, give me some attention too."

"Well, I can't say it's good or not if you keep distracting me like this." you proceed to ruffle his hair, Jaebeom hisses in return but keep his position on your lap. "But all I see now is her father is a mistake. He doesn't even know his daughter but act like he knows her."

"He's unbelievable."

"Her father looks stressed."

"Well if your beloved one goes missing, aren't you stressed?" you reply, still running your fingers along his locks.

"I won't even you out of my sight, let alone go missing."

Your attention of the screen diverts, straight to the man below you. He's staring at you, unreadable gaze with a hint of fondness. Your lips curls into a smile.  "Is that a way to say you love me Jaebeom?"

"Well, if you put it that way-- probably I'm just very fond of you." joking, of course he loves you. But you won't think that love as a love, instead you'll take it as friendly love.

You know he is too limited to love you.

You hit his shoulder lightly, scolding him for taking your eyes off the movie and now you need to rewind the scene so you let him snuggles against you while you try your best to focus on the movie.

Except you can't.

With Jaebeom sleeping on your lap, you're forced to think again the complicated relationship of you two. Instead of being normal roommates, you guys have gotten the title so mixed that now it involves your feeling too. You went from sleeping separated to inseparable, in bed or outside the room. Each day you wake up tangled between Jaebeom's hold and his legs all over you, back pressed against his chest.

On other days where he is extra affectionate, he'll shower you with kisses to wake you up instead of shaking your shoulder. On sunny days, he'll bring you on walks and ice creams while on rainy days you'll be huddled under your blanket, head on his arm while you both fixed your attention on some movies.

It has become complicated ever since Jaebeom saw you broke down over some heartless fuckboys who was one of those he knows. Jaebeom himself has a big reputation in the college, listed as one of the big shot if anyone can ever score him. However, Jaebeom is well known as someone who will never bring back girls to his room, neither do he go to the girls' room. In short, he doesn't do one night stands. That makes him even more interesting, countless of girls have been trying to the only one in his bed.

But they just don't know.

You're the only girl he ever let on his bed.

On the day you broke down, Jaebeom was there to pick up every pieces of you, mending it back by hugging you tight, consoling you with promises that aren't empty. He promised to protect you, to hold you and to always be with you, nonetheless how busy he is.

So there he is, fixing your breakfast every morning, though it's just cutting some apples and making sandwiches, he does it for you every day.

The first time he did that, you almost die of laughter because who knows, the big shot Jaebeom has a heart of gold?

Please, don't mention when you almost have a heart attack when you heard a faint meow and wake up to grey kitten kneading your blanket, which almost went flying if it wasn't for Jaebeom's fast reflex catching the poor tiny paws in the air.

Everything about Jaebeom is fascinating. How he lives absolutely opposite to what he painted his mask outside the room. How people picture him as someone who enjoys party and only go private parties where actually, he rarely attends parties except from the other six close friends of his. How people always picture him sexually and disgustingly trying to get inside his pants while all he cares are strawberry milk and his kittens and you.

Never have you thought you'll be important to Jaebeom.

But never have you thought you want to be more important than just friends.

Feelings are complicated, they grew out of fondness. What used to be normal now seems really personal, the way Jaebeom will drop a kiss on either your cheeks or your forehead or on top of your head when he's heading out, or the way he looks at your lovingly whenever you rant about your day. How his eyes twinkles whenever you jump in excitement when his kittens roll over on the carpet.

Everything in him makes your dizzy. You feel over-loved. You feel overfed.

So you don't dare to ask for more because you don't know, how well can this tiny heart stands. One wrong move and Jaebeom will be out of your life, forever.

_____________

 "Where are we going, Jaebeom?" your breath hitch when you heard the sound of owls and countless of cricking of crickets. You are about to turn around but Jaebeom stops you from doing so, knowing you will freak out if you see something you shouldn't see.

"Just a little more walking, princess. Now stop grumbling and start walking." walking is definitely okay but now the slope becomes higher and to the point of it’s wearing you out.

"This better be good or I'll pushing you off the hill when we arrive, Jaebeom." you curse under your breath, running out of oxygen though the night seems breezy with lots of wind. "That is if we ever reach the place. Is this place non-existent Jaebeom? Because I can't see anything- oh my god."

Jaebeom knows you've reach his surprise for you because you are frozen on the spot, amazed by the brightness of the fairy lights.

"Jaebeom! This is so pretty!!" you scream, turning to him and running into his arms in return of his thoughtfulness. You pretty much crashing on his chest, knocking the breath out of his lung with your beaming smile and excited laugh.

"Careful- ooofff. You're so excited huh?" he laughs as you nod, skipping even to match his pace, getting closer to the well decorated hut. Now that you are standing right in front of it, you are more amazed by the decoration.

Fairy lights are already out of question because the hut is literally built up from lights all over the place. Between the wooden pillars are strings, clipped on it are pictures of both of you, together in every picture. From the first year of you being official roommates to the year you become unofficial bed mates and to the year where everything becomes more complicated.

One thing that you can spot in each pictures is you, smiling wider than usual. You know you were happy. And you know that Jaebeom makes you happy.

"Come on sweetheart. Go sit near the box." then you realise that there is a black box situated in the middle of the hut, sitting alone, probably waiting for you to open it.

You look at Jaebeom, waiting for his signal to let you be the clumsy girl who just climb the hut not-so -girly. Luckily you're wearing a pair of jeans and hoodie, not a dress. Jaebeom nods, burst out laughing after seeing you hurriedly discarding your shoes and crawling towards the box.

"This is for me?" you beam in excitement, eyes inspecting the black box. Jaebeom, always being the cheesy one, giving you a stretched smile.

"Of course, sweetheart. For you." he takes a seat at the edge, watching you inspecting the box curiously. "Are you ready to open your present?"

You nod eagerly, having so much adrenaline in your blood. Just as you pull the cover open, the whole hut goes black and your scream echoes on the hill.

Not because of the black out.

But because the black box is an explosion box with more pictures of you and Jaebeom and fairy lights. The only light illuminating your face is coming from the box, you gape in awe you watch the perfectness of the gift laying in front of you.

"You did this for me?"

Jaebeom is now sitting opposite of you, watching you with interest.

"Oh my god- Jaebeom!" you want to cry. Attached in the box are the pictures where you are chilling on your bed, one of it is best described as just woke up to utter disappointment. You remember that was when Jaebeom pranked you by saying you were late to class when it was in the middle of the night. However, it was a fail prank because he didn't know that you're the type to check the watch before waking up.

You can't express how touched you are. So this is where Jaebeom has disappeared to. You thought he was busy going on parties at Jackson's but instead, he's busy making the explosion box.

"It was hard but luckily Bambam has the hand of an Art God. He forced me to mention him since he said you won't believe I did this all alone." you chuckle at his attempt to hide his embarrassment. "But I still did most of it."

Your hand reaches to cup his cheeks, caressing it softly. "I know."

He grins, ushering you to open the second layer of the explosion box.

You give him a look; he is more excited than you are to un-box the gift. "How many layers does this explosion box have?"

"I think around uh-- five?"

"That many? Bambam's right. There is no way you can do this alone."

"Heyy!" you snort, however your eyes find a square shaped paper, pasted on one of the four walls of the box.

"First year of us?"

He nods, gesturing you to open the second layer.

Falling just nice on the first layer, your second layer is filled with even more pictures, one of it with a pocketed note to which you quickly open to read.

‘This year is the worse. I saw you broken apart in my arms, because of someone whom I've known a potential danger. But I never warned you, but I never thought it would be this bad. You were trembling and I were never that close to kill a person. I'll protect you, sweetheart. I promise. I protect you with all my life.’ - Jaebeom

You put down the note, eyes glimmering with tears. "Jaebeom."

"Don't give me that look- oh! Come on. I don't want you to cry! Please?" he rushes to your side, wiping away one drop that has fallen. "Oh god"

"Thank you, Jae." you press a quick kiss on his cheek while composing yourself. "The year where you break apart. Very original, Jaebeom."

"Excuse me will you stop trying to condemn me in each layer?" to that you burst out laughing, proceeding to open the next one.

"Let me guess, the year where we become bed mates? My goodness, Jaebeom. Be original!" just as you open it, a set of pictures of you and Jaebeom having selfies on bed and a picture of you hugging his kitten and a bottle of strawberry milk on your hand.

"When did you took this picture!?" you can't believe he took picture of that because he was sulking all the time. Nora didn't want to be in his lap and you stole his last strawberry milk. So he scooted further from both of you, sulking on his own. You on the other hand, were too engrossed into the movie that you don't even persuade him to cool off. "My goodness you were so childish at that time!"

"If I stole your fried chicken, you would burn the whole room." he points that out. True, you would burn him if he tried that. "Talk about being childish."

"Whatever. Can I move to the next layer?"

"Uh-"

Him hesitating is already a signal for you to stop but you go on, not realising he hesitated for a second. The fourth layer unveil, making your heart stop altogether.

'The year where everything gets complicated.'

Under it is a pocketed section, meaning there is a note meant for you. Ignoring the weirdly silent Jaebeom beside you, you reach to read the said note.

'It was messy. I wake up every morning to see you by my side sleeping soundly and so beautiful. I know what you're going to say, you're pretty even you're asleep. I can't help but wonder if you feel the same way I feel. I did everything without feeling forced. Waking up to you is the most natural thing out of everything. There were days where I wait for you to be in my arm because I feel so calm when I have you close. I know I am the one to blame, but I can't help to treat you more than just a friend. I know I shouldn't be crossing lines, but I can't stop thinking about what will happen to us when we finish college in one more month?' - Jaebeom

True, that has been on your mind since the start of the semester. Both of you are graduating soon. You only have this semester, then you're going on internship before graduating. Like him, you just don't know what will happen to you both if you keep this mess going.

"What are we going to do Jaebeom?" you slowly lift your eyes from the note, meeting his own gaze. You almost snort when you can actually see mixed feelings conveyed in his eyes. Fear of uncertainties. "What are we?"

 He holds your hand, bracing himself to speak.

"I know I'm a coward who writes it down instead of saying it out loud. But I can't risk a confession because I don't want to be rejected. Deep down I want you to feel the same way and I don't have to do all the talking." You know where this is going. Your chest burns with tension and you have countless of things trying to simultaneously think inside your head.

"I love you, y/n." Breathing has never been lighter than now. It feels like all of your burden has been lifted, all your insecurities and fear has naturally dissipated into thin air. "I love you so much that I feel like I've becoming stupid for you."

"But you are stupid."

"Shush! Don't say that."

You reach to hug him tight, burying your face in his chest. "I can't believe this actually happens."

"Me neither." Jaebeom palms your hair, dropping kisses on your forehead.

"Will you be my girlfriend, y/n?"

You almost wanted to cry out of giddy and cheesiness. You swear, Jaebeom makes you curl your fingers all the time but this time, you don't seem to care. You're over the moon and you will definitely be sleeping tonight with wide grin.

"What if I say no?" you want to see to what extend he loves you. Trust you to be that clingy girl but you want to know.

He looks down, knowing you too well to fall for your trap.

"Then you have to be single for the rest of your life. I don't think there will be any guy who loves the girl who stole his last strawberry milk that his mom made specifically for him."

His laugh echoes when you quickly punch his chest and wiggle out of his grip. Pulling you onto his lap while you try to escape him, he successfully stops you by trapping your hands with his arm.

"I'm kidding, princess. You love me too much to reject me." you made a face at that but you can't deny, you have been too whipped for him to reject him. "Also, if you don't accept me, you can't open the last box."

You gasp, forgetting that there is one more box left to open. Jaebeom chortles, letting your hand to reach the last box and open it.

Nothing.

"What- Jaebeom!" irritating snorts coming from him and you want nothing other than to bite his cheeks for laughing at you.

"Here," he taps your left shoulder, making you turn to the said direction, holding his hand up in the air.

In a split second, a chain of necklace falls vertically from his fist, the pendant stops right in front of your eyes. It is silver, the pendant the shape of stars, a big star in the middle surrounded by smaller stars circling it. Your eyes dilate, shocked from the sudden reveal.

"Do you like it?" Jaebeom whispers beside your ears, creating goose bumps all over your body.

"It's beautiful, Jaebeom." you reply breathless, too many things to absorb from tonight's occasion. "Can you put it on me?"

After twists and turns, Jaebeom manages to clip the beautiful necklace without damaging it, both of you dying of laughter after he succeeds.

Now that everything is over, you scoot to the edge of the hut, leaning against Jaebeom to see the sky.

"I never thought I'll end 2019 like this."

"Neither do I."

With you in his arm, he closes the distance between you, leaning slowly to take your breath away with lips skimming just above yours before molding it to his own. It feels like two seconds but your lung is on fire that he needs to pull away before you lost consciousness.

"Happy New Year, princess."

Just as the clock strikes 12, you are snuggling in Jaebeom's arms, fireworks shooting in the sky indicating that you are now, entangled from the messiness.

Never have you thought the year will be this surprising. Never have you thought that you are Jaebeom's.

Happy new year, indeed. 

——————————————————

All rights reserved © jinyoungmoans

[ Writings ]

[womenhoodlooniness]

Mean Girls: Private School Edition

During the infamous quarantined lockdown of March 2020, not only did my procrastination habits worsened due to me having to lose all sense of time but it made me reflect amidst all the silence.

This might sound selfishly cliche but if it was not for the whole world shut down, I would have not been able to come to terms relating to my self-worth.

Let's time travel back to my high school days: 2015-2019.

Yes, I'm getting old.

So I went to an all-girls, private high school in Burbank, IL. At first, I thought I was going to hate it. All of my other friends were going to public schools within the Chicagoland area and here I am, the only person going to a school that nobody has ever even heard of.

As if looking like the most big-headed whitest chick at my school didn't make me feel like an outcast enough.

To be blunt, it did make me feel uncool. But I understood my parents wanted me to have a good education that was not at a sleazy neighborhood school.

Even if it did mean taking my voice out of it completely.

Long story short, I ended up liking the school. It felt like a crackhouse made for girls. Meaning, it really was a place for us girls to wind down, get comfortable, and not having to worry about any boys. It was a place of femme empowerment but also endearing chaos.

However, there is always a price to everything beloved.

Last year, when the peaks of quarantined lockdown were at an all-time high, I allowed myself to do a lot of retrospect thinking.

A lot of this thinking was rooted in how my experiences at the private high school were actually fueled by naiveness and all things non-endearing. This retrospect made me question a current friendship I was undergoing at the time in quarantine, questioning if it was really meant to be.

I was friends with two girls at the time. Let's call them X and Z. Mostly because it sounds cool.

I was friends with X for the longest. We remained friends even after the private high school shut down and had to part ways during our sophomore-junior year. I thought she was cool. We had similar music tastes, taught me things I did not know and just overall looked at her as a big sister. Mind you, I was too naive to even think of the other side of our friendship.

Z was a mutual friend that was also close friends with X. I found her cool as she did with me, but she and X were more considered as each other's best friend than all of three of us combined.

But there's a twist to it all: Z actually used to be my bully in freshman year of high school. To put it short, she bullied me because she thought I was "weird" even though I never even tried to talk to her. She would always have a way to tease and make fun of me.

At first, I would try and laugh along but after a while, it started to feel forced because it would barely hit me at times that she could not stand me. Like all bullies, she had the tendency to feel above me since apparently I was seen as a target: The weird, quiet girl.

Who would have thought?

On top of that, X would actually laugh at the "jokes" Z would use against me! Yeah, the same girl I was friends with the longest...go ahead, call me stupid now.

I even brought it up to X at a later time and her response?

"That was just my humor at the time."

Ah yes, creepily looking at my old Facebook profile pictures and laughing at them is DEFINITELY the humor to have. Even after that sketchy comment I still was friends with her for about another year or so. I would rant about her behavior more but I'll just save that for another post...

Anyways, sometimes it would feel weird to even be offended by Z's "jokes" because not only I had one but two mean girls entrapping me. I feel like I had no other choice BUT to feel okay with it. There would be times where confrontation was needed, but the attention was very intimidating to me.

The private school was such a small school so anything that goes would flow smoothly from one period to the next. The drama did spread like wildfire at that forsaken palace of gossip.

Overall with there not being a confronting witness, it really felt hard to get the motivation to stand up for myself. If anything, it helped fasten the depreciation of my self-worth. All because there was nobody to give me a smack of reality to tell me that I should not let that slide.

Also because of the naiveness that came with not realizing the meanness of those comments and the reason why they hurt.

It's even frustrating to also think back about how it would have been best for myself to be the doormat I was, no matter how weird and uncomfortable it got. I say this because Z was SO liked back in that high school. Every girl thought she was funny and cool; she was definitely on the popular scale.

So if I had brought the issue up to the school, then perhaps most definitely they would have looked into it as it did intrigue some feelings of "unsafeness" in me. Now that I think about it, I mean this with seriousness.

I say this because one time, Z called me a bitch because I would not let her copy my homework for the 5th time. And that's just one of many examples.

But as for the students? That would of most likely been the messiest. Especially since Z literally had the popular benefit of being listened to and influencing others.

From that, I should ask, who would have the most sympathy:

the preyed underdog or the praised show dog?

Fast forward to March 2020 where I was questioning the genuinity of everything to the point where I felt like it was best to not associate myself with those two girls again. For the sake of saving myself some pressure and self-depreciation.

I must admit, I mostly wanted to back up because of X's current behavior at the time instead. So this post is most likely going to be considered as a first-half as it does display a "blast from the past" theme. While the second post would be presenting more so recent events. Nevertheless, both posts are still relevantly intertwined as they are important in strengthening my points.

Also, I can not keep typing forever.

Overall, I wanted to bring some of my traumatic past up because not only it presents an aspect of internalized misogyny (again) but also portrays something bigger.

You see, I started to feel at ease at the private school because I felt like I had all the supportive relations I could have with my femme peers. In retrospect, that was lacking to a very large degree.

I did not realize it until I was in college as I gained more maturity and knowledge when dealing with other (girl) friends that were so much different than the ones I numbed myself to.

I had been exposed to a kind of respect that I never thought I would have experienced. It felt so fucking surreal. And because of that, it leads me to compare for the better and for the worse.

It helped paved the way for me to grow.

But the fact I even thought that I would have not had the same respect as Z, no matter how much I cried out of injustice, is what concerns me. How could I think that private school was so beloved with femme love when there was a huge possibility of numerous girls going against me, all because I was not on the popular spectrum?

Perhaps I am wrong. Maybe there is an alternative timeline out there involving myself getting justice served and respect granted. Despite the judgment that is forced upon me.

But this is why concepts such as internalized misogyny and girl-girl bullying need to be brought up more. All because it can plague ourselves in which can rapidly plague entire environments within spaces that are meant to bring support from one girl to another.

Also, yes, we can forgive them because most likely these bullies are going through something too in which can cause them to act aggressively to us - based off of jealousy or attention, whatever can be interpreted the best.

I actually forgive Z because I had learned that she was going through a rough time during freshman year which at times does make me speculate if her actions were based on jealousy..but let's not be bitchy narcs here.

Even with that, it still does not allow for me to succumb to being seen as some fucking fool to her. It does not favor her to make me feel like a doormat. And it definitely should not be permitted for me to feel like shit because I had no choice but to do so.

Where is the self-worth in all this? Because I need it just as much as she does.

We need to prevent further harm so we won't hurt others and most importantly, ourselves.

[scarmander]

Women, power and anger

An analysis of Game of Throne’s misogyny regarding Daenerys Targaryen in the last two seasons.

This is a very long rant. It’s over 4000 words. I needed to get this off my chest because it helps with my grieving process. 

A quick summary: I try to figure out when the show decided they wanted to go with the ‘Mad Queen’ bullshit theory. I try to undertand why they’ve done her so dirty lately. Spoiler alert. It’s not pretty.

So, if you want to know 

Game of Thrones has been known for its brutality, its shocking twists and deaths and ruthless scriptwriting. It is also known for having ‘strong’ female characters amidst broken journeys and fallen heroes. In a sea of raped, enslaved, prostituted and belittled women our female protagonists were born. From those patriarchaly imposed positions of subordination Daenerys Stormborn, Yara Greyjoy, Missandei of Naath, Brienne of Tarth, Sansa Stark and Arya Stark were hatched from the fossilized shells of the broken bodies and souls the male characters had made of them. They rose from their own ashes, time and time again, made themselves stronger with every blow men would throw their way. We watched them grow, evolve, fear, feel, fail and win for years, watched them become more than what their society wanted them to be, more than what they were allowed to be. They became rule-breakers, game changers, rulers and warriors. But that was until the show had decided that the end was coming and everything ought to be put back into order. The patriarchal one, that is.

It is my belief that everything changed the moment when Daenerys Targaryen, undoubtedly the most empowered and powerful woman on this show, decided to sail for Westeros with her fleet, three female allies (Yara Greyjoy, Ellaria Sand, Olenna Tyrell), the three dragons she had given birth to and the ‘largest army the world had ever seen’. Imagine the audacity of a woman accomplishing all of that. So, it is on this character that I will put my focus on, I’m also super fucking biased, but whatever, I would gladly do an entire essay on how they’re ruining every female character in this show. Anyway, back to Dany T. main female protagonist, the woman with the most amount of screen time (behind the two male protagonists Jon and Tyrion).

Let’s talk about the audience’s opinion of Daenerys. Truth be told, Daenerys’ influence and might as a character has already greatly surpassed the show’s realm, and that for a very long time. Even in the first seasons where she didn’t actually get that much screen time, she made a mark. And she has grown increasingly more so over the years. She has become an icon of pop culture to the point where people who are unfamiliar with the show recognize her. Now, this might have in part been facilitated by her peculiar looks and strange-sounding name, but Daenerys Targaryen is known worldwide for having power. She is primarily known for one thing: she has dragons. She’s the Dragon Queen, the Mother of Dragons. And those dragons are the physical representation of her inner strength. The only reason she has those dragons is because she walked into her husband’s funeral pyre and hatched them from stone like she hatched herself out of the stony shell of a weary, fearful teenage girl the world had forced her into being. And out of that pyre came out dragons and a woman with so much might the world watched in awe. Some people may call her Khaleesi, an unusual title which has stuck into people’s minds to the point where non-watchers recognize the title as her name. She is the most recognizable character in the show to the point where her hair colour has been a trend that has become every hair stylist’s worst nightmare, where people have named their children and pets after her and her title. She is also noticeably the show’s best marketing strategy, she is the one with the most personally dedicated amount of merchandising, and is relentlessly used by HBO’s marketing team to promote the show. But I digress. Sort of. The amount of power her character has both on and off-screen is indisputable and is probably what led us to the gigantic mess that has been season 8. She has too much power. Even away from the show’s narrative. She has had an impact on women. She has marked us, branded us with her might. And the show does not know how to handle this.

So, Daenerys, one of the most iconic female characters of this generation goes to Westeros. Unluckily for her, her arrival into Westeros also coincided into her arriving into the male protagonist’s territory. And that was the show’s last straw in deciding to let women have that much power. This is her fatal flaw, existing in the same realm as the male protagonist. The writers realized right then and there that they had greatly miscalculated. Because of how much power they had let Daenerys accumulate over the years she had spent far far away from the male protagonist’s character arc, she had become a threat to the sacred male character’s hero journey.  See, that’s the issue with having a strong female character that you let grow into her own power for 7 seasons, where she is free to go into conflict with men after men after men who all share the same unlucky traits: they are all both non-white and not the main male protagonist. So, Daenerys brings them all to their doom, they try to tackle her, try to diminish her, take her power away. They try, all of them, so many times. And they all inevitably fail. Because she is powerful. And men and women alike bow to her when they realize her might and her power. She is a goddess incarnate, dragons or not. She is so powerful fire dares not harm her. She is unique, mystical, mythical and strong. And not only is she powerful and strong, she is beloved by her people, her own soldiers follow her not out of fear but out of complete devotion, because she frees them, gives them the freedom she had wished someone would give her and finally realized she had to give to herself. She is a woman. She is their mother. She has power. She frees people, loves them, inspires them and has so much power the world shakes beneath her feet and fire fears her wrath.

And then comes season 7, along with Jon Snow, D&D, and Tyrion’s shitty battle plans. Whatever, it’s all one and the same. It’s all there to take her out piece by piece. That’s it, that’s been the show for two seasons now and I wish I had realized it earlier. I mean, I had my moments of realization here and there, but damn was I severely unprepared.

In Season 7 episode 2, Daenerys has a council made up of 4 women (Olenna, Ellaria, Yara, Missandei) and 3 men (Varys, Tyrion, Theon – and I’m only including Theon out of pity). By episode 3, Daenerys has 1 woman – Missandei, who unlike the other women does not advise her on military tactics – left in her council, and just as many men. Hell, by episode 5, she has gained three more men who ‘advise’, or more accurately question her every move. Jorah (I mean not you bby, come back to us), Jon and Davos, who is more of a comic relief personal pep-talker than anything else. But Varys and Tyrion’s advice grows like ivy and tries to strangle Daenerys from every angle. They try to control her more and more with every episode.

How the hell did I not notice right there and then where this was going? I don’t know, call me blinded by love.

How the hell did Daenerys end up with so few women left in her council? Men happened. The writers, the characters, all of them. That is literally the first thing they did to her storyline in season 7. It went something like this:

1) Get Daenerys to Dragonstone.

2) Get Ellaria and Yara out and destroy some of those ships, she has too many ships, that’s bad, can’t have her be too powerful.

3) Get Olenna out, but like, not at the exact same time because that would be too conspicuous, let’s wait another episode or two. Oh, and take out some of those Unsullied soldiers and even more of her fleet.

4) After one fucking badass battle let’s kill two random traitor assholes who have sided with the queen who murdered their former queen and daughter of their liege lord, their liege lord, their liege lord’s son and a good chunk of King’s Landing’s population on the field of battle who have refused her generous offer to get their titles and lands back if they just join her against the murderous queen. And also that one offer of going to the wall to protect the realm. They refuse. She kills them. Tough luck, bitch. Bad choice, should have probably offered them a cup of tea and a warm blanket instead as they went back to King’s Landing to fight you and kill your army at their nearest convenience. You fucked up because idk, Dickon was kinda hot I guess. Yeah and also they have names and one relative people know on the show, so that’s bad for you. Randyll and Dickon Tarly. You don’t know it yet, but this one is gonna be bad for you because you are now evil and your hand and his shitty bff are now saying you are mad. Maybe you should have been, maybe you should have killed them both too. If only. Sigh.

5) Have her lose a dragon. Give it to the Night King instead, she is too powerful.

6) Have her fall in love with the man who would bring her doom. Have her save his life. Have her think that maybe she deserves something good as she grieves her child’s death. They decide he’s the one who is going to kill her. Because having her become mad isn’t bad enough. She has to be killed by the one man she has let herself love not out of obligation but out of mutual admiration.

7) Make her promise to help defeat the Night King and go North to fight him.

Now, they take all that away from her. But they give her a love story with Jon Snow in return. And you think, alright, at least she’s not alone in this world.

And then we move on to season 8. The ultimate acceleration of events because they realized that they needed to wrap this shit up and that people didn’t hate her enough. So, Season 8 is where you learn that the plot twist to end them all was that Jon Snow was going to be the one who destroyed everything Daenerys has and is and will be the death of her. Groundbreaking work there. I wonder if GRRM has the same ending planned. So here’s the plan in Season 8:

1) Get Daenerys to WinterHell. Everyone is behaving like assholes. Bran is a cold little bitch who’s like “remember your dragon? Your dead dragon? He’s back and now he wants us all dead yayyy” and she has like zero seconds to process it because ‘we don’t have time for all this’. But you know what we have time for? Sansa hating her. The xenophobic MAGAs hating her. That’s valuable screentime. Sansa hates her for daring to bring her SoLdIeRs to her HoUsE and her DrAgOnS who she can’t believe are there to fight. Sansa brings up food issues when she knows the wall has been breached and the Night King is bound to arrive very shortly. She knows Daenerys isn’t going to stay here very long. Doesn’t matter. She (the writers) wants to be angry and petty and so she is. Because we couldn’t possibly have women collaborating on this show. Not after last season! Notice how they left out every single woman in Dany’s circle? Cause who would want THAT. Am I right MEN? I hope the meninists are having a good time.

2) Jon doesn’t comfort her much, doesn’t defend her much. He’s there. Like, he’s a physical man who barely says anything and is there. His purpose is to be… There, I guess. Good for him. He has everyone’s support anyway. He’s a man and he’s there. That’s all they ask of him. He’s not formally the King but he is the King anyway. He has the power. He makes the decisions. He’s a man.

3) Daenerys gives Jon access to her dragon. The one she gave metaphorical birth to. The one she walked into a pyre for. He has it. He has access to her power.

4) Jon now knows who he is. The man who tells him is that one relative of the family that Daenerys killed last season. He hates her. He tells Jon to take her throne, that it’s his anyway because he’s a man. He says that Daenerys is evil and should bend the knee to him. Jon then ignores Daenerys for at least an entire day while she has to face the man who killed her father, made her a homeless orphan on the run who lived on the streets, in fear, running away from assassins. She is angry but listens to a woman’s tale about him, asks for Jon’s opinion on the matter. She lets him have the decision.

5) The Night King comes. Daenerys’ armies are first in line and defend WinterHell with everything they have. Daenerys herself is first in line. Jon Snow wants to wait around. Daenerys has a sudden jolt of independence run through her spine, claims back her own authority and climbs on her dragon, burns as many wights as she can. Jon Snow follows her mechanically, like a lost puppy, gets attacked by the Night King and Viserion. This injures Rhaegal. Daenerys knocks evil Mr. Freeze down from HER precious bby boy and tries to burn him. It doesn’t work. She saves Jon’s life a second time in the process. And then a third, risking her and her dragon’s life for him. She ends up on the ground, with her oldest friend with a sword made of dragonglass and fights for her life. Her oldest friend dies in her arms.

6) And so it goes down from here.

This is the moment you’d think SOMEONE somewhere would show the tiniest fucking bit of sympathy, of gratitude. And they don’t.

What we got instead in Episode 4 was Daenerys being alone as Jon was being praised for her accomplishments. Jon falls upward as Daenerys faces consequences for her actions, good or bad, it doesn’t matter. Daenerys faces consequences because the show wants her to. She is alone. She begs Jon not to tell anyone about his ‘rightful claim’. He betrays her and tells his family. She has warned him Sansa can’t be trusted. Turns out Sansa can’t be trusted. And on it goes as Sansa, Tyrion and Varys plot behind her back to make sure that Jon falls upward for the uptenth time, Varys even going as far as to suggest killing her. His reason is that she is a woman and he can’t control her. That is Daenerys’ biggest crime on this show. And it won’t let her live it down. Hell, they’ll kill her for it. There is talk of a wedding between Jon and Daenerys. Somehow this is a bad idea because she is too strong and cannot be controlled.

She is too strong. Too much. Too powerful. That is Daenerys’ problem. She is too much and too much of a she. She is a dragon they cannot tame.

7) And just because she hasn’t had enough already they kill another one of her dragons for shock value, out of nowhere, with no purpose whatsoever but to show that they could. That she would be ‘mad’. That this somehow was the point of her character. It feels gross and unjustified.

8) And then, because why the fuck not at this point, fam, they go and execute Missandei. It has no purpose other than to show us that they put a former slave back into chains to kill her, to make Daenerys and Greyworm angry. That is what her life is worth. Her value will be the sum of two other character’s madness level.

And the countdown accelerates.

Let’s go back to when everything changed for Daenerys Targaryen. Let’s go back to Season 7, Episode 3. The moment where Daenerys Targaryen met with Jon Snow, hero extraordinaire, broody, rugged, manly and characteristically lacking of ambition. Jon Snow is a Bildungsroman’s wetdream of a protagonist. A poor little bastard boy hated and mistreated by his (semi-evil) stepmother who somehow rises to great heights despite everything adversity has thrown his way and who somehow ends up being the Chosen One to lead them all out of the darkness and to fight evil. Like Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, King Arthur and countless other Christ-like figures before him, Jon Snow is good. That’s it, that’s all there is. That’s all you need to know about him, that’s all the story wants you to know about him. He is good. Sure he makes mistakes, but he’s good. He’s killed a child but he had his reasons, he killed a man begging for his life, but he had disobeyed him. He is good. And to top it all off, the lucky bastard just might happen to be a man. He is therefore the Chosen One. He is thus because he is He.

In Season 7, Episode 2 when Melisandre introduced to the audience the show’s own version of an Arthurian prophecy – Azor Ahai or: ‘the prince that was promised will bring the dawn’ – the show had its last inkling of an ability to pretend that they could somehow have a woman be a hero. Daenerys’ only female adviser and personal translator Missandei of Naath (a former slave they had captured and chained last episode just to kill her, in case you’d ever think the only woman of color in this show could die as a free woman) pointed out that that the High Valyrian word for ‘prince’ is genderless and that it could mean that Daenerys might also fit that prophecy. They also introduced the idea that BOTH Daenerys and Jon would play a role in this. I was fine with this. I thought all of their parallels from previous seasons meant that their fates were linked and that they would be two sides of the same coin.

If only the show had stopped right there. If only they hadn’t even tried to bring that up when they didn’t need to, when they didn’t even need to pretend to care. I’m wondering what the purpose of this line was. What was the meaning? A red herring? A last sliver of hope? Their last attempt at trying to pretend women mattered as more than canon fodder to further narratives, as more than bodies to be used and killed for entertainment’s purposes? It doesn’t matter. The very next episode sent off the ticking time bomb on Daenerys’ life.

In Season 7 Episode 3, Daenerys Targaryen met Jon Snow. The writers called it “A meeting of Ice and Fire” continuing on their claim that this is what the entire show had been leading up to, that even in Season 1, GRRM had told them that this was important, that the story was about these two characters coming together. I was pumped. I was rejoicing. The whole meaning of the show was right in front of me. And here’s how it happened: they made Daenerys look smug and entitled, having Jon Snow look humble and measured in comparison and when I watched it, I was taken aback, I didn’t understand what they were doing. I remember thinking that the way they were framing it looked weird because she was just as much of a protagonist as he was. I had been stupid enough to think the show could have a female protagonist when they already had a male protagonist.

The show wanted you to side with Jon Snow. The show wanted to make it clear that if you had to choose between Daenerys Targaryen and Jon Snow, you would choose Jon Snow. Humble, measured, naïve, male Jon Snow.

The ‘General Audience’ caught onto that. The moment Daenerys’ set her eyes on Jon Snow, she had lost. You should go and have a look on the comments of the Youtube videos of their first meeting. On that day, Daenerys was the villain. She lost that day, because she was in the man’s way. Because she spoke to him and didn’t bow. Because she stood there, fire and might, and didn’t let him take everything from her right on the spot. He was asking her to lay her entire life’s goals aside to help him with nothing in return. She was painted as arrogant for not bending to him and his will on the spot.

If only things had stayed that way. If only she’d stayed ‘arrogant’ and hadn’t let him close. Would she still become ‘mad’? Would she still lose it all anyway to make sure he would get it all in the end? Probably. Because why not? Why would the show give the most powerful woman any other outcome?

I guess the moral of this story is that women are only allowed to have power as long as it doesn’t interfere with a man’s ability to have more power than they do. And isn’t that what Varys has been telling us in the latest episode? That Daenerys and Jon would never be able to rule together because she was too strong for him and would bend him to her will? Because what could be worse than a strong woman having power? A strong woman potentially having power over a man. And so the ticking clock went off on Daenerys’ life. Her time has run out, because the show needs to have the male hero to win over everything, and if he can’t because a woman is in the way of the inherent inevitable male-centric greatness he will stumble and fall into reaching... Well then, it’s the woman’s fault and she angry and mad. So Daenerys will be mad and angry and hysterical and evil and he will kill her. Take that, woman she show tells you. Take that and die. We don’t need you when we have a male protagonist.

In a way, this show will end quite like the fairy tales warned us it would. The white knight, the Chosen One, the Prince that was promised, in his shining armour of goodness will swoop in and kill the evil dragon(Queen) to save the realm. And if this is a fairy tale then the dragon had it coming for daring to stand in the hero’s way. Perhaps the dragon ought to have apologized and stepped aside, perhaps the dragon ought to have known its place. Perhaps the fairy tale’s magic kingdom should have stopped the dragon’s rise before. And they did try. All of those men are knights, even the worst slavers of them all. Knights because they fought the dragon. They died trying to take her down. Perhaps they were right, then to try and defeat her. Perhaps it is sad, after all that the dragon took those poor men down. But it’s alright, the male protagonist will win. Because that’s what he does.

But if this is winning then why does it feel like rage and fire?

Because somehow the dragon is every woman. “You are a dragon” is what this show is telling me, as if that was a bad thing. “You are a dragon. You are too much. You ask too much. We will not bow to you, begone, be slain, you are in the man’s way. You are a hiccup in his rise to greatness. You will be killed prophetically and be swept aside and the hero, the man – the words somehow become synonymous – will inevitably win. And down you will go, defeated and broken. You and your might. You and your will. You and your power. Bow to us, woman, to our will, wishes, words and actions. Bow to us.”

The show wants me and you to know that. The show wants you to see what happens to women who stand in the way of men’s ascension to power, who are too powerful, who are too much for the story to handle. You are a dragon and you will die.

But dragons are fire made flesh risen from the ashes and dragons do not go down without a fight.

In a show that wants women to gaze adoringly at the male protagonists, women like Daenerys Targaryen have no place. They have no place because the show cannot fathom how someone could take her seriously, could value her efforts and her strengths when men are… There. That’s all they need to be.

And from that same patriarchal cesspool of a show/fictional society was also born Cersei Lannister, evil queen incarnate. She was the protagonists’ – male and female –  foil, their enemy, and she still is somehow, but she is also apparently doomed to be the female protagonist’s future. Cersei is evil because she has power. Cersei is bad because she is a madwoman. Cersei is all of your fairy tale’s evil spinsters. Cersei is in the way of a man’s greatness. And Cersei is Daenerys’ future as much as she is Sansa’s, or mine or yours. Bow down, women. Or be villains.

And so, in Season 8 Episode 4, as they tried to tear down at the last piece’s of the main female protagonist’s might they ignited the enraged fire that women try to swallow back down with every breath, for fear of being slain for having shown too much power and might. And the audience has never loved Daenerys more than it does now. The audience has done the unexpected. People who hated her now want her to burn the world down. People who already loved her have never wanted her to use her might as much as they do now.

“Dracarys” was Missandei’s last word. The show didn’t seem to realize it was a call to arms. “Women everywhere, join her and burn it down” seems to be the meaning the audience got from Missandei. I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.

The show wants me to think that ‘Dracarys’ was meant to take down the Cerseis of the world. It didn’t realize it made me want to take it down.

Maybe the show is right, maybe I, too, am a dragon ready to be slain. But if that’s the case I’m not going down without burning everything to the ground. Try and take me down, assholes.