#i'm assuming you meant them as characters and not the shipping?

[laugtherhyena]

Idk if anyone asked this already but What are your headcanons for kizuna and ayame?

Surprisingly I had never reviced an ask like this before so much so that it took me a lil while to think of stuff since my headcanons tend to fall more into character interpretation territory so here's the more headcanon-y ones, if that makes sense.

-Ayame's red jacket is comfort object for her hence why she always keeps it around despite barely wearing it, specifically over the shoulders since it's kinda like having a blanket wrapped around you.

-Ayame is named after a flower so i always liked the idea that one of her parents is a florists/gardener of some kind and that's where the name came from. I also like the idea that she resembles her father way more than her mother, i feel like that could tie into her being self-conscious about femininity n stuff.

-A friend of mine (Hi Poi) headcanons her as having a pet dog and i love that idea a lot and even made sprites for the little man. Her parents got it for her when she was a kid since Ayame never had many friends growing up, as you can expect, her favorite activity was to race with the dog around the neighborhood tho she doesn't do it as much anymore by the time she becomes a part of class 79 because the dog is pretty old by then.

-Same friend also headcanons her as being somewhere in the autism spectrum and honestly? The more i think about it the more i start love the idea, i feel like sports/running is probably her special interest seeing how focused and knowledgeable she is on it + how Ayame seems to love the idea of sharing that with someone/her friends to the point she can go a little overboard with training without even realizing (Aka making Yuki run around the school with her for 2 hours in her FTEs)

-going off this line from her FTEs, i feel like aside from not being into it another reason why Ayame tends to not dress girly is because she feels as if those clothes would just look weird on her, like she puts on something more feminine and can't shake off the feeling that she's "doing it wrong" and thinks she just looks stupid and that putting it on was a terrible idea.

-HATAMORI JUMPSCARE💥💥 Despite being a socially awkward person Ayame is a very affectionate partner, hugging, cuddling, picking up/carrying her gf around, kissing her on the cheek and that sorta stuff because that's her go to way of showing love. Sometimes this want to display affection bypasses her awkwardness, sometimes it doesn't, but that's no problem when Kizuna is the queen of physical affection and won't think twice before wrapping her arms around Ayame and hugging her tightly like she's a giant stuffed animal.

Anyways speaking of her uhh hi Mrs.Tomori

-She first got into cheerleading out of the status and spotlight it would being to her in her school's social hierarchy but started to genuinely enjoy it overtime because jumping and twirling and pulling out those stunts is just really fun for her, so much so that she'd suggest crazier/more elaborate choreographies out of really wanting to try it out and if it will make her stand out from the other girls even more that's a bonus.

-Kizuna is a pretty impulsive person, hence why she tends to say whatever comes to her mind without a second thought most of the time. Getting that star tattoo on her face was an impulse idea because she just thought it would look super cute then proceeded to rethink her life choices for the following days after getting it because the face region is one of the areas where it hurts the most to get a tattoo on and she did not know that. + Tattoos are not only generally seen in a bad light in japan but she shouldn't be getting one in the first place since she's still a teen, so you bet Minako scolded her for days over it which wasn't very fun either. (looking back on all that Kizuna would say it was totally worth it tho)

-After a lifetime of window shopping on fancy stores and boutiques Kizuna knows a lot about fashion and would jump right into helping one of her classmates pick something like that up if asked despite her unwillingness to grow closer to them. It's an excuse for her to look at a bunch of clothes and ramble why they're so pretty and how they'd fit this specific person, tho she would be pretty bitchy if the person didn't like her suggestions or thinks they know better than her on the subject.

-KIZUNA/KANATA BESTIES INTERLUDE‼️Sometimes Kizuna will randomly go to Kanata's house initially talking about some random unimportant thing but Kanata knows her well enough to be able to tell that something's bothering her but Kizuna being Kizuna has a hard time opening up from the get go, this visit almost always turns into a sleepover where after easing her into it Kanata gets Kizuna to talk about what's been getting under her skin and does her best to try helping her with the problem or just comforting her.

-She's a comphet lesbian (i will die on this hill) who thought that it was completely normal for her not feel anything towards the guys she messed with because dudes are just replaceable and only really serve to buy her things or bring her to cool places, besides girls are competition so for the longest time she's never even considered the idea she could be anything but straight. When she does realize she's into girls she has a mini freak-out and thinks back to the times she was jealous of the other girl's physical attributes wondering if it wasn't some weird form of attraction in disguise.

(Stemming from the previous headcanon, I imagine it was Kanata who first asked her she's into guys at all while trying to help her move on from her shitty habits and hearing about the things she did. Subsequently, she was the first person Kizuna came out to, albeit in a "oh my god what do i do" way.)

[asneakyfox]

so let's talk about david jenkins saying the idea was that the crew would dump ed overboard in the mutiny before the writers changed their minds and had him kept in the hold.

he says they changed this for pacing reasons, so that the reunion could happen in 2x03 instead of being delayed longer, and i cannot argue with that, waiting any longer sounds excruciating. so i'm not complaining about this as, like, villainous interference from the WBD suits or anything, although it might be a decision forced by cutting the number of episodes. probably still the right call under the circumstances. BUT i'm interested in it because this explains a couple things that are weird about the plot structure of the whole season as it stands.

so first of all the crew throwing the body overboard just immediately makes a lot more sense because it doesn't actually require them to have failed to notice he wasn't dead. it would be pretty tough to carry the body into the hold and lay him out and cover his face with a lil washcloth and everything and not notice at any point during this that he's still breathing or that he has a pulse. and if they did notice you'd think they'd either finish the job quickly or try to treat him if they'd had a change of heart, not leave him to die slow. however the idea that they would beat him till he stopped moving then immediately chuck the body overboard, that totally makes sense, you wouldn't stop to check if he was already dead or not because one way or another he will be pretty shortly after you dump him in the ocean.

second the line from stede to izzy about "you were the one who kept his body onboard" always bugged me because it feels like it's meant to establish something about izzy but it's really unclear WHAT it tells us about him, in a way that doesn't seem like intentional ambiguity: i've seen people interpret it as a sign of his devotion and i've seen others assume it was a practical decision that the crew should keep ed's body around to claim the bounty on blackbeard. (and i've seen both interpretations from people both in and out of the canyon, so it's not even a normal izcourse divide.) i actually wondered at one point if the purpose was to foreshadow where izzy's arc is going to end by establishing that he thinks it's more respectful to bury a pirate on land than at sea, although if that was the idea it sure didn't work on the people who'd care most.

however this new info from djenks explains it pretty neatly, which is that the reason for the line isn't to establish character stuff about izzy at all it's just there to awkwardly patch a plothole. it's that someone in the writers' room was like "but it doesn't make any sense, why WOULDN'T they dump his body overboard once they'd killed him" and somebody else was like "idk uh maybe we can put in a line about how izzy stopped them or something."

now more interestingly! this also would change something bigger about 2x04. because i'm guessing the idea here would be that ed would have actually for real washed up on an island that looks just like the one in the gravy basket and just never actually gotten up off the beach, and stede would find him there, mermaid scene, and ed would wake up mad and storm off into the woods with where he meets mary read with stede already trying to follow him and the rest of the episode proceeds as normal from there. (and probably buttons would be just, like, hanging around following stede, or maybe he was already acting as a psychopomp and led stede to ed's body, idk, lots of possible ways to play that.)

this means you completely lose the beat of the crew voting ed off the ship. you wouldn't lose the idea of the crew being pissed at him; you could still have the kitty collar onesie probation stuff after he got back. but this is a BIG change.

first of all it solves a big obvious problem LOTS of people pointed out immediately when the episode aired which is that it makes no sense that stede would just stay on the ship after letting ed be exiled. reuniting with ed has been his driving goal for months and it's not even like ed has definitively told him to fuck off, he's just stomping off angry and incoherent and not even clearly in his right mind. but they couldn't let stede actually follow ed on his own initiative immediately, because it would undermine the later fisherman breakup if stede has already established that he's willing to leave his pirate career behind if that's what it takes to be with ed. so you end up with this awkward beat where he's just kind of passively standing there until buttons tells him what to do.

i think there's something even more important it does though! one criticism a LOT of people had about s2 was feeling like the crew all hated ed now and there was no clear sign they'd forgiven him by the end, and also some people had the impression that stede had just overriden the crew's decision (even though he does say he's going to ask their permission; it DOES feel weird we don't see that). now i've said before that i think there was probably going to be a reconciliation between ed & lucius, and by extension the crew as a whole, in the lupete wedding verision of 2x06, and i still think that. but regardless of whether i'm right or wrong about that. even without a reconciliation, this would seem like WAY less of a problem if the crew hadn't voted ed of the ship.

as it is, we have THREE scenes devoted to the idea that the crew as a whole (not just lucius & izzy, who both have more complicated individual relationships with ed) are uncomfortable with ed's presence on the ship - there's the initial one where stede's holding the meat on his face where they're all yelling at him, and then there's the actual walk of shame where they've just voted him off, and THEN there's the youtube apology scene where they're heckling him and stuff. and having three separate scenes like that makes it feel like the narrative is really hammering in this idea of a big dramatic rupture in the whole crew's relationship with ed. but only the last of those scenes was originally supposed to be there! the first two were just thrown into the plot to justify why ed ends up wandering around an island to run into anne & mary! if you only had the youtube apology scene, it would be much more clear that most of the crew weren't really all that mad - as it is, roach and jim explicitly saying they aren't mad feels like it's overshadowed by the weight of the earlier scenes.

(also a minor issue, but i've mentioned before that surprisingly often people think the vote was unanimous. this doesn't actually make sense in terms of the episode, because we know it was deadlocked and izzy cast the tiebreaker. but it is sort of weird, if the idea is that the crew is split on this, that we never get any sign of who voted which way; there's nobody but stede who is clearly presented as specifically not wanting ed to be exiled. which DOES end up making it feel like it's the crew as a unanimous block that wants him off the ship. but that makes sense if the whole concept of the crew wanting him exiled was sort of hastily written to patch a plot hole instead of being a fully developed idea.)

anyway. like i said i can't really complain about this as a pacing decision. but it is really interesting to me how many knock-on problems with the whole arc of the season were created by the change, and how much cleaner the original idea sounds like it would have been.

[yellowocaballero]

i very much enjoy the extremely scientific analysis of the naruto verse in which there are three genders, aka naruto, sasuke, and Woman.

AM I WRONG? AM I WRONG? pulls down projection screen and plays powerpoint

Obviously let's give room for nuance. A ton of Naruto characters don't fall into these gender norms. This does predominantly apply to the rampant proliferation of the three-person dynamics that were assigned by the government and dictate your entire life. And, like, society. It does not end. Gender isn't a biological factor in Naruto, it's a social dynamic constructed entirely by your homoerotic tension with other men. And there are so many.

Madara (S), Hashirama (N), Mito (W). Izuna (N) and Tobirama (S) - tragically, Izuna died before women could be invented. Sarutobi (N), Danzo (S, horrifically) - see above about women not being invented yet. Jiraiya (N), Orochimaru (S), Tsunade (W). Yahiko (N), Nagato (S), Konan (W). Obito (N), Kakashi (S), Rin (W). Shisui (N), Itachi (S), that little deeply unimportant girlfriend (W). Um, fucking, Naruto (N), Sasuke (S), Sakura (W). Even - even, fuckin, Rock Lee (N), Neiji (S), Tenten (W).

And what do they all have in common????

(OT3. They're all OT3s. Is what I'm saying).

There is some room for alternative gender expressions here, like being butch or femme. Naruto gender expressions: teacher, otouto, woman who you can't even tell is woman gendered because she has no backstory but you just have to kinda assume that she has a polycule-based backstory where she was Woman Gender. I feel almost as if 2/3rds of the Rookie 9 are liberated from this. InoShikaCho just doesn't fit (their chaotic cousin energy is just too strong and Ino's too much of a lesbian). Hinata's too busy being defined entirely by a different throuple's N to have codependent dynamics with her own N and S (and I'm hesitant to even say that, since I actually don't know if Kiba and Shino have a codependent rivalry - do they?).

I get, like, the reason for all of this. Curse of Hatred. Cycles. N and S Genders being sourced from demigods or something. Narrative parallelism. Sympathy points. It's not the bad guy's fault he's evil, his N and W gendered counterparts died :(. But an extremely strange side-effect of this is that all of the male characters are, like, Just Naruto or Just Sasuke. But the vast majority of the female characters are - like, completely defined by the men in their lives - but also they are more likely to be a unique person. Mito, Sakura, and Rin have actually nothing in common. Writing so sexist it creates more interesting characters?!?!

Unironically, this is why I'm always saying that Sasunaru is the ship of all time, nothing will ever top it, you will NEVER do it like Sasunaru, etc. Every important relationship in the series is meant to evoke Sasunaru. (Notably, none of the explicitly romantic ones. But we're beyond such paltry understandings of the most iconic pairing of all time as fundamentally based in romance. We're operating on a higher level than that). This unbroken chain of toxic yaoi has culminated at the end point of Sasunaru, and it exists to parallel Sasunaru and define their relationship by the dysfunction of generations of tragedy. That's why Naruto has to consciously break the cycle and free them from the generational hate - it was the only way to save Sasuke. This is also why I'm always saying that Sasunaru is the point of Naruto, and that the entirety of Naruto is about Sasunaru. Come back to me when your work has invented new genders in the all-encompassing pursuit of toxic yaoi.

This also means that the only truly gender non-conforming individuals in Naruto are its mightiest heterosexuals: Minato (W) and Kushina (N). Truly insane. The N/S/W configuration is the societal norm, it's bonkers to make a major good-aligned male character a wifeguy. By Naruto standards Minato and Kushina are the only queer couple.

[donut251155]

The "Yugi twins situation" is NOT incestuous

I'll just analyze stuff people used to "prove" the opposite of this, as someone with a close (PLATONIC!!!) relationship with a sibling

I'll just get straight to the point

This scene is NOT incestuous. They hadn't seen each other for DECADES, it makes sense that Tsukasa reached out to touch Amane - usually if you can't believe you're seeing someone you reach for their face, no? And he just moved his head up (+ the つ (translated as "rub" could just be his hand moving and could be a translation error. Like the "ah…" from Amane, he says "つー" (Tsu) which would've probably been him calling out for Tsukasa)

Also Amane was blushing because he WAS ABOUT TO FUCKING CRY??? IT'S NORMAL TO GET RED WHEN YOU CRY??? That's basic knowledge I fear

He'd seen his brother after AGES, AFTER HE KILLED HIM. I WOULD'VE HAVE CRIED TOO IF I WERE HIM Y'ALL HE'S CRUSHED BY GUILT, GRIEF AND IS HAPPY TO SEE HIS BROTHER AGAIN

I also think that if the scene was supposed to have some incestuous undertones, Tsukasa wouldn't have moved his thumb back.

Someone said this

I believe it doesn't have incestuous undertones for three reasons:

1. He had a dreamy and hopeful face in both cases. Usually, when characters dream of doing anything, even eating a cake or something like that, the artist adds blush to make the desire stronger. Tsukasa's desires were just having fun with his brother at a festival, something COMPLETELY PLATONIC, and knowing that his brother genuinely cares about him (another COMPLETELY PLATONIC thing driven by a sense of insecurity that he got because of how grumpy Amane was while sick. He wanted to hear his brother say "I love you" (PLATONICALLY) for the last time. It's less ambiguous in the Italian version because it's "Amane, tu mi vuoi bene?" which can only be seen as platonic (voler bene is platonic, amare romantic))

2. He looks cuter blushing. He's a child, children are supposed to be cute. He looks depressed without the blush in the first image 💀💀

See? He's cuter with the blush

3. He blushes for like 90% of the time. It makes him cuter, more childlike, he's FOUR YEARS OLD. The blush disappears when the drawing is too small for it to be added, when he's supposed to be confused, scary/creepy or serious.

This part fucking hell. Y'all do not know how four year olds think, do you?? Let me enlighten you

To the four year old Tsukasa, you either love or hate someone. No in between. He isn't talking about romantic love, he's talking about caring about someone, usually deeply. He means the platonic kind of love, it's all he knows. Nene reacted that way because she's 15, to her "love" is the romantic kind of love and she's in love with Hanako, same with Kou - they're teenagers who learnt that romantic and platonic love are different. Tsukasa doesn't know. He loves Amane in a platonic, brotherly way and thinks Nene loves his brother in the same exact way, like every other 4 year old would've assumed

(I reached the max of images :(( I meant the part where Tsukasa asks Nene if she loves Amane and says they're the same after she says she does, her mistaking it as romantic love and him taking it as platonic. Mb guys I'm new to Tumblr)

For the pose where the early manga showed us how Amane supposedly killed Tsukasa: it's not suggestive in any way. It just looks like Amane pushed Tsukasa down, stabbed him and that his knees gave out after he noticed he actually did what he did because of the wave of guilt and grief he felt (he even dropped the knife)

That's all I can think of atm :D

If you have any questions about this, ask ahead and I'll answer them!! I'm ready to answer

And sorry if I sounded a bit pissed off, but I am. I'm so sick of people misunderstanding sibling love lolol if you ship them go fuck yourself and do not talk to me, do not even breathe the same air as me I hate you and you're a disappointment to humanity

[ametrinesu]

Draw your favorite HSR on a aquarium date?

im assuming you meant favorite hsr ship? if so, then i bring you aventio on an aquarium date :)

i can't say i really ship them, i'm not very big on shipping in general, but they're both one of my favorite characters so i like it when they interact

honestly i really enjoyed drawing the background

[utilitycaster]

But wouldn't you say that at least the fandom experience during c3 was a lot nicer than during c2? I mean, the characters all got along immediately so no room for unnecessary drama and no ship wars, I heard it was really toxic during c2 so I'm glad that c3 had none of it.

Anon, the polite answer to this that assumes you are very new to this fandom and blog and also, if I'm being honest, reality, is "No." Drama in a fandom is largely decoupled from whether the characters actually get along on screen (much like "I wish these characters would talk" is often decoupled from them actually talking and much more about whether they're talking about the thing OP wants them to talk about). More importantly, Campaign 3 had something far stupider and more unkind and insidious than ship wars, which is people harassing you for saying a ship simply wasn't very interesting. I would also say that one of the loudest voices in the area of fans who defend Campaign 3 claiming it's more toxic is specifically speaking about their very individual Twitter experience which I do not think is indicative of the larger fandom. I do think that C2 had more fans harassing the cast on Twitter, which on the one hand is far worse behavior; but it also kind of meant that the fandom on Tumblr, while not without ship warring, was somewhat quieter. I will also acknowledge that my own personal experience is heavily colored by the fact that I was new to the fandom in C2 and so did not have a significant following until late in the game, but Campaign 3 was rife with people who, as best as I can tell, serially show up to fandoms and attack whoever they perceive as popular, sometimes genuinely popular people and sometimes it's just someone who can eloquently string together meta they disagree with, and then when you hit back go "I'm just a little guy just a little birthday boy you're so MEAN." On Tumblr, at least, toxic C2 fans were easy to stop and frankly only turned post-hiatus and many of them prided themselves on not posting hate in the main tag (and quit the fandom altogether); toxic C3 fans have the tenacity and intellect of the average cockroach.

The real answer is: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what PRIMORDIAL ROCK have you been under. Even if you believe everything the serial liar I suspect you are listening to said about C2 drama how did you miss ALL of C3 drama, especially on like, my blog specifically, as an initially unwilling participant who eventually, as discussed below, decided that if these wretched stochastic parrot morons wouldn't leave me alone I may as well pull out the metaphorical shotgun and make starting shit with me as unpleasant an experience as possible.

Look, I'm not going to pull up my posts in which I've called people by name since I don't think you will care and/or will consider those unnecessary drama, despite the genuine erosion I believe they have committed towards the quality of discourse through their bigotry, and lack of intellectual rigor, empathy, or ability to criticize things through any lens other than false accusations of the Leftist Epithet Du Jour (eg: calling Delilah Briarwood a colonizer, which is simply untrue). But also, starting from barely 6 months into Campaign 3 and continuing through the end, ie, this is three years now.

I personally got hate for saying "It is valid for Imogen to be mad at Laudna for breaking the gnarlrock, and moreover, I feel like Laudna is given more leeway for her behavior than almost any other past character" to the point that someone joined Tumblr only to block me and then stalk me and post about me in the discourse tag.

That eventually came to a head when they called me out by name for replying to a response on a post I had originally made in which I said "Imogen's powers aren't a good metaphor for queerness in that her lack of control actually causes real problems for other people," a statement that a lot of Imogen and Laudna shippers and fans are still to this day throwing fits about despite it being over two years ago.

Multiple people, including people who had lost friends or relatives young and at least one cancer survivor, were sent outright death threats for saying nothing harsher "I think the story is interesting if Laudna remains dead." Now, I was only a lurker when Molly died, and I know people quit or were mad and harassed the cast on Twitter, but the worst I saw on Tumblr were people either quitting, or being weird and annoying about prioritizing Molly over the captured party members and later being kind of dismissive of Caduceus as "temporary".

I was repeatedly harassed to the point of at least two individuals making multiple alternate accounts to reblog my posts or send hate to me and just random people who had interacted with said posts for saying "I don't think Imogen and Laudna is a very good ship"; while we're at it, ship wars are something I dislike but expect in fandom, but I cannot stress how fucking wretched a subset of Im/odna shippers were to the point that to this day they look at people who created genuine content and meta for a competing ship that was always tiny in comparison and have decided it was done purely out of bitterness.

In general, there was just an utter incapacity among many C3 fans to accept "I don't care for your blorbo/ship/campaign" as a post on one's own blog. I was talking with some like-minded friends yesterday and to this day, over a month and a half after the campaign ended, actually a decent amount of people who liked Campaign 3 have almost identical criticisms (pacing, not following on a number of character centric-threads, lack of inter-character interactions, a resolution that is intriguing but was poorly set up, cutaways to other parties at inopportune times, and generally the campaign feeling like they put out all the ingredients on the table and said "here's a finished cake.") but it's fine if they say it, because they preface it with "I loved Campaign 3 and Bells Hells, but." In the end a lot of C3 fans will just attack if you don't think Bells Hells are great and the best. Again I am not naming names but there are even multiple people who openly prefer Campaign 2 by a margin but avoid this criticism simply by being like "Campaign 3 is also really really good, although [same list of criticisms I have]"; see lack of intellectual rigor and analysis. I think it's actually a very simple split: C2 is my favorite because the campaign allowed the characters so much leeway to interact and change and grow that they became my blorbos, whereas I would have liked to have liked BH more but the campaign was ill-suited for them and they didn't really talk.

At least Campaign 2 people wanted their stuff to be canon, and threw fits because it wasn't. Campaign 3 people are like BUT THE 20 HOUR SUPERCUT?????? and cannot accept that they have a canon ship that some people find dull or a blorbo some people think isn't a great person. If someone is mad about not getting something in the story, that's fandom as usual, it's irritating but it's life. Many campaign 3 fans cannot tolerate a whisper of dissent with their opinions without shitting themselves and making it everyone's problem. I know multiple people whom I followed during Campaign 2 for their meta who straight up stopped writing it because if you said anything even mildly critical of Campaign 3 you'd get hate. Campaign 2 harassment on Tumblr was something that largely ended shortly after story beats that proved one person right; Campaign 3 harassment was unending unless you either bow to the people sending it and say "I'm sorry for saying anything other than that your blorbo and ship is perfect," stop posting, or, and I'm really the only person who took this route, make it clear that you can and will hit back ten times harder.

So no: I found the Campaign 3 fandom on Tumblr specifically uniquely toxic because it fell outside of normal fandom toxicity. I think Campaign 2 toxic fans were deeply shitty, but they largely left and I think their unpleasantness is mostly confined to a fandom space and did not degrade the conversation; I think at least some Campaign 3 toxic fans are both genuinely stupid and genuinely bad people who are a negative influence on the fandom at large and I hope we recover during a hypothetical C4; I am cautiously optimistic if only because I think on the basis of mutual blocking they have largely self-selected out and will exist in their own weird echo chamber.

I will also note at this point my criticism of Campaign 3 is almost entirely untagged both as discourse and main and almost entirely either reblogs, or in response to asks such as this one. To be transparent, while I'm sure some critiques will arise as I work through my C2 rewatch I plan on keeping them again, untagged such that only followers, people who follow people who reblog such critiques (not many, I usually get mostly likes on those), and people looking at my blog specifically. I think it will taper off, particularly since a lot of C3 fans had little interest in anything else CR has done.

And finally: again speaking only for myself I'd rather have a brilliant campaign with a toxic fandom, where I can minimally participate in the fandom by reblogging posts I like and enjoy myself with a great show and a handful of likeminded fans in a discord (indeed this is kind of what I do for Veilguard), than a mediocre campaign with a delightful fandom. As demonstrated "it's eh but the people are nice" is not, for me, a defense of Campaign 3 but further condemnation of its quality, and then the people weren't even nice and were in fact in my estimation far worse than those from Campaign 2.

Anyway: I just want to put this out there but I am vanishingly unlikely to be swayed on anything by an anonymous ask. If you want to actually have a chance you better be saying what you say with your whole chest. But also, this is just. Extremely wrong, and you have a very incorrect read on what I personally value in addition to having a poor understanding of the CR fandom history on Tumblr but another problem about the C3 fandom? I got a lot of asks like this one where I cannot tell if the person is just naive to the point of not even realizing how little they know, or if they're trying to be manipulative but are exceedingly bad at it.

[sainteclectic]

+ since it's aro awareness week, I'll finally unleash that rant on why the state of shipping discourse in this fandom bothers me

disclaimer that i am not saying you can't be uncomfortable with jashshipping!! I don't really like romantic shipping in this fandom either. this is just a commentary on the culture surrounding this discourse and fandom shipping in general. OK LET'S GO.

I've noticed this weird distinction people make between platonic and romantic art in regards to what gets the "jashshipping" tag added. it's also incredibly arbitrary what kinds of posts are considered "jashshipping" - is a qpr jashshipping? why not? they're in a relationship. why does it matter if it's romantic or not? why is romance the only kind of shipping seen as valid, either positively or negatively?

on a personal level, I feel this pressure to always clarify that I'm not talking about romantic pairings. qprs, close friendships and relationship anarchy in general aren't seen as jashshipping, and it feels like I need to preemptively devalue my queerplatonic ships by saying they "don't really count." I need to be careful about my work not being "too romantic" or people assume I'm "jashshipping." i just find it demeaning as a partnering aromantic person.

and this culture is why people who enjoy non-romantic pairings don't want them to be tagged as ship - because there's this implication that a ship HAS to mean romance. it shouldn't, but it still does. it would be great if we lived in a world where shipping meant any kind of relationship between two characters instead of just referring to romance, but we don't.

this is why I tag ship names without tagging it as jashshipping. because the nature of "shipping" in this fandom is always implied to be romantic in nature, which is what makes it the most taboo to discuss. so I don't tag it as jashship because that's only used for romance {or for what the fandom perceives as inherently romantic actions, which is another can of worms entirely}. but elevating a romantic ship to a higher negative standard is still placing romance above any other form of relationship. there's still a hierarchy in place.

I don't think ships as a whole {hah} need to be defined by romantic attraction. it's short for relationship, after all. to designate ships as ONLY romantic implies that romance is the only valid type of relationship. and to designate romantic ships as uniquely bad still implies romance is a unique type of bond.

{I also have an issue with the implication that dating what is essentially your headmate is selfcest by default, but that's another discussion}

TL;DR - I think the culture around what designates something as "jashshipping" should be viewed with more scrutiny. it's very amatonormative to assume pairings with any level of closeness is "jashshipping," and it implies a hierarchy of relationships even if that hierarchy is negative. jashship works as a content tag for anyone uncomfortable with romantic pairings, but to imply it's an objective judgment on what's considered romance is reductive.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

This might be a question long overdue, but I just want to know something.

WHEN DID FÉLIX FALL IN LOVE WITH KAGAMI???

Isn't "Pretension" right after "Emotion"??? Am I just to assume that in-between episodes, Félix was just stalking Kagami (how he gets from London to Paris and vice versa is beyond me) and somewhere along the way, he fell in love?

He was chatting her up during the Diamonds' Dance, but weren't they talking about Adrienette and Kagami's ring? In what part of that conversation did Félix have his anime BA-DUMP moment?

And seriously? Kagami just vouches for Félix because what? He showed some humanity by not liking calling the sentimonsters monsters? How does that mean anything?

Kagami has shown thus far that she isn't a good judge of character (either that or I'm missing something), so how can she be sure Félix even meant a word?

Félix isn't just "someone who can't express himself". Sure, he was emotionally stunted, but that doesn't excuse anything he did as "someone who can't express himself".

He expressed himself very well. He expressed his beliefs, his backstory, the whole Doofenshmirtz monologue. And even if he was bad at expressing himself, I wouldn't trust Kagami to tell me that.

I've briefly talked about this before in a broader post on Félix's bad writing, but I'm not even sure if Felix loves Kagami. Nothing in Emotion sets up Félix falling for her. His crush just randomly shows up in Pretension which is indeed the episode after Emotion. According to the dialogue, it was love at first sight mixed with some actual stalking:

Kagami: What is it you want to tell me?! Félix: I... I don't know. But ever since I saw you, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. I've felt that... you and I... were the same. (Kagami looks surprised.) Félix: We have so much in common, and yet, you're also so different. I've never met someone like you. Kagami: We don't even know each other! Félix: I know you. I've been following you non-stop. Kagami: Even better! You follow me, you spy on me and now you've kidnapped me to get to know me?! Félix:(shyly) Uh... yes?

And Kagami just goes with it because this show has incredibly messed up ideas about romance. I think Juleka and Rose are the only couple I actually ship in canon and that's only because homophobia is keeping the writing from making them an official couple. I'm sure they'd have some major flaw that I'd hate if they became canon because none of the canon teen couples feel healthy. They all have at least one glaring issue. I think the only healthy adult couple is Tom and Sabine and even they aren't great because they fall uncomfortably close to the trope where the doting wife is just there to support the main character husband. You might even feel that they are that trope! If you do, I won't argue against you because they're right on the edge for me.

Circling back to the ask: If Félix is in love with Kagami, then I don't think that he's in love with her as a person. He clearly only went after her because she's a sentimonster and that's his only requirement for a love interest. If she was human, then he wouldn't give her the time of day.

My cynical explanation for why Kagami fell for him is that she was programed to love Adrien, but Félix looks the same so the programing was able to switch targets, trapping her in another bad relationship. I have no other explanation for why she'd be interested in Félix after all of the crap he pulled on her. Kidnapping her. Stalking her. Snapping her mother and friends out of existence. What does she even see in him? Get some standards!!!

I suppose Kagami could just be using him to learn about sentimonsters and ensure her own freedom, but I doubt it. While that would be a fun twist, it doesn't fit Kagami's more concerning season five behavior like her outing Ladybug's identity to Félix. I still can't believe canon had her do that. It was worse character assassination than what season five did to Nino and Nathalie, on par with what the final did to Marinette. No one is safe, no matter how minor their role!

Feligami would also be a great way to talk about love and/or lust blinding you to a person's glaring flaws, but I don't think canon is doing that either. The writers seem to genuinely believe that this is a cute couple and that Kagami blindly trusting Félix after everything he's done to her is totally fine.

[cometblaster2070]

shipping in ever after high is really so much fun honestly it's just like being inside of a build-a-bear.

it's like ik these people have spoken maybe 3 words to each other maximum and never have scenes outside of group settings but those 3 words made me feel like they'd have really good chemistry so.

like there's 2 characters who have literally ZERO scenes together but who the fuck cares because 1. their vibes match 2. they look cool together and 3. it would be REALLY fucking funny.

and the funniest part is that people make it work so well??? you see the most crack, ridiculous, unfathomable ship ever and you think haha wow wonder how this would work and the person shipping them pulls out a 22 point powerpoint and an illustrated show bible and goes "well i'm glad you asked-"

they just??? end up working??? and it's so funny???

also then there's also like the ships which are basically considered canon even though the show hasn't explicitly confirmed most of them. like dw eah you don't have to worry about anything we've got the message (we have not got the message we have severely misinterpreted the message but who is caring bye).

funniest examples is probably how im assuming briar is meant to be sort of shipped with hopper (for lack of another male character she really interacts with in that sense yk) but you can't expect me to look at epic winter and her friendship with apple and not IMMEDIATELY think she'd be perfect with either faybelle or apple. (i am a bribelle shipper i must admit <3)

and ik it ended up being a part of her character and story and arc and all later on but i just LOVE that apple had more chemistry with literally any of her female friends (special shout out to raven) than she ever did with her boyfriend.

regardless just love eah ships in general because i find them WILDLY entertaining and i enjoy hearing people talk about why they love a ship.

[prismatoxic]

okay, shipping brainrot from my last post aside, i'm still thinking about the shapeshifter arc. the other sites i use don't have inline posting or do but it's clunky, so i guess i'm theorizing here. some of this may seem obvious; bear with me, i'm not trying to be patronizing, just working through things. this will probably be long.

(edit: i've since learned there's canon explanations for all of this. regrettably i don't like them. enjoy my ideas of what would be better maybe? but keep in mind i wrote this before i knew it had been explained anywhere else.)

(edit again: i've done a 180 and come fully around on the canon explanations! i have a lot of thoughts about them but this isn't the post for that. anyway i'm disabling reblogs, sorry. you can still look at this if you want)

laios reveals what he knows of shapeshifters, and that they function on memory:

no one ever really suggests in chapters 39 or 40 who thought of which fake except in the case of which ones laios must have thought of, but i want to posit who i think each one came from, and what it means narratively if i'm right. so, mostly a thought experiment/character study that i could be wrong about or that was never meant to be clearly defined in the first place. but maybe fun to think about? (i'm sure other people have done this before too, but i think it'll be fun to write up.)

from the outset, i think it's worth mentioning that chilchuck knows all three laios fakes are, in fact, fakes. two chilchucks say this, but the one on the right is the real one. senshi and marcille immediately corroborate this, though we can't tell which of them it is except that it's not any of the really obvious fakes.

what i think this suggests is that, brought to the surface, the warped perceptions of the rest of the party that chilchuck, senshi, and marcille have can be easily discerned when compared with the real thing. each of these laioses is from one of them, but they immediately figure out none of them are right with the real laios right there in the room. this is important.

as for who's who...

i think it's fair to assume that giant laios is from chilchuck. laios is the tallest member of their party, at six feet; while chilchuck sees marcille and senshi as their correct heights, laios is a giant to him, and his bulky armor doesn't help. that's why, even if this is his perception, it's glaringly obvious that it's wrong as soon as it's made physical. it's the only big one, and easily falls into the camp of "doesn't seem to know much about monsters" that the others also do.

stupid laios is, i think, from marcille. because the giant one is so likely chilchuck's and i don't think senshi sees laios as someone who stupidly wants to eat everything (even if senshi's opinion of him isn't stellar right now, "i have to eat it" wouldn't be paired with being an idiot to senshi), it tracks that marcille would be the one to remember him this way. to someone who doesn't appreciate their monster eating and otherwise thinks he's an idiot just as much as the others do, dumbly muttering about eating things seems like a reasonable portrayal of laios.

feminine laios, then, is from senshi. i think his physical perception of the other party members is the most off-base; this is likely because he's known them for the least amount of time, and his idea of what they look like is based more on their races than anything else. i think the resemblance to falin might not be intentional--someone suggested to me the other day that the dwarf perception of tall-men is probably more feminine in contrast to how Macho dwarfs are. i think that makes sense (if it ever comes up canonically, i haven't seen it yet). laios and falin do just... look like gender-swapped versions of each other, also. so if senshi sees laios as a feminine person, well... that just winds up looking like falin.

so this leaves us with only the real laios. confronted with their perceptions of him, his friends can immediately tell all three are incorrect.

moving on, we eliminate the three most obvious fakes from the rest of the party, starting with marcille:

if we take into account what i just said about senshi, i think this is his. racial stereotypes about elves being what they are, him not knowing the party as well as the other members do... she stands out, and that's why.

now this is where things start to get interesting.

the next two fakes to be eliminated aren't so blatantly incorrect that they can be struck right out at a glance, but it's not hard to notice the flaws when you look closer, and chilchucks A and B are the ones to point it out. chilchuck is naturally observant; most of his fakes seem to emulate this. (the one who addresses the fakes is A, the real one, but B is proving himself able to pick up on the things A notices. this is important.)

notably, chilchuck and senshi assume these must be laios's versions of them.

we can assume this is correct, if we want to. we can take the framing of this as being an intentional reflection of the truth.

or... or... we can look a little deeper. we can wonder if, perhaps, this isn't a reflection of laios, but a reflection of his friends and what they think of him. laios may not immediately notice the problems, but i don't think it's because he doesn't remember these details. i don't think laios sees much of anything in vague terms; he's observant in his own right, but in ways he doesn't really recognize, nor does anyone else. i think he was so focused on their faces and mannerisms that he didn't notice the bigger picture, glossing over something because so many other factors are at play.

senshi and chilchuck think laios doesn't take notice of things, but the vast majority of the shapeshifter arc is about them and marcille not trusting laios's judgement as it is, given how things went recently. is it possible there's more to their assumptions here than what the text explicitly says? i think so!

so then who do these two belong to? marcille, i think.

if we assume dumb laios is hers, then we can also assume her perceptions of the others are kind of broad and vague. she doesn't think poorly of them, necessarily (at least not in as obvious a way as she does with laios, who, i'll remind you, she's currently upset with), but she doesn't commit unimportant details to memory, like chilchuck's neck band or the damage to senshi's helmet.

we've got three more "obvious" fakes to get through, and laios offers another lore tidbit on how the shapeshifters work:

anyway, the first of the next round is marcille again, setting the stage for how these three next fakes are eliminated.

marcille changes her hairstyle all the time, so this isn't a surprise. the last one pictured here winds up being our next fake, as indicated by her grimoire:

so the fake marcille in this section is the one with the most visibly different hair texture (who even draws attention to this), and the spellbook that's woefully incompetent. i think she's from chilchuck.

he's observant, as i said before; even if he didn't commit her hair to memory, he did remember the stuff she's said about how important hair is to magic. maybe that's why the texture is so striking. more importantly, chilchuck isn't wary of magic quite the way senshi is, but he also doesn't understand it. the general tone of the low-quality grimoire also just... sounds like the way he'd frame something like that. (plus, the "how to turn back time" bit is a thing he specifically called her on when she suggested it a few chapters ago.)

so the next fake chilchuck and senshi are revealed via their tools:

i think the chubby-cheeked chilchuck with the simple lockpicks is from senshi, and i think the ordinary-looking senshi with the simple cookware is from chilchuck. the former speaks for itself--senshi sees chilchuck as a child, and knows absolutely nothing about picking locks. as for the fake senshi, chilchuck has a decent mental image of him but knows nothing about cookware.

so now we're down to the final three fakes, and there's only one person left who they could be from: laios. nobody thinks this, not even laios himself, but i want to explore the concept because i think it has extreme merit. the three remaining fakes have some key similarities between them, namely in that they're all close enough interpretations that making a distinction is difficult. they look a tiny bit different, but both the real people and their fakes make plausible cases for why they're the actual person. i want to talk about why i think laios is the one who made that so, and what that means about him.

chapter 39 ends with all his companions--real and fake--doubting his skills. seeing a pattern?

chapter 40 opens with laios determined to regain his friends' trust in him...

...while his friends (and their fakes) talk about how he's liable to like the fakes more, because they're monsters.

this is a needlessly cruel interpretation of laios, but after how things went post-falin-rescue, it's not a surprise. they see him as reckless and single-minded, more interested in the things he's weird about than in the people around him.

laios is really bad at talking about what he's thinking--not because he's hiding it, but because it doesn't occur to him that it's important. meeting the lunatic magician in the paintings is a prime example of this, but he does it a lot. they likely have no idea why he told toshiro about falin and the black magic; to them, laios was being flippant with sensitive information, not worrying about their safety. to laios? he was trying to get help. he trusted toshiro, and his perception of their friendship made him think the information would help them gain an ally who cared about falin as much as they do. he wasn't trying to put falin or marcille in danger--far from it, in fact. but he didn't tell his friends about his thought process. he didn't think it was important to share.

(he's autistic but we all know this. moving on)

so, we have laios's plan: the pairs cook together, while he watches for behavioral differences to discern who's who. it doesn't occur to him, or anyone else, that the people he's watching for mistakes are his own perceptions of his friends. and now we get into the meat of why i wanted to write this post.

assuming i'm correct... let's talk about laios's view of his friends, and how he challenges those perceptions.

starting with my favorite, chilchuck:

chilchuck A, of course, is in fact the real one. this is a pretty significant character moment for him too, in my opinion; we know he has difficulty expressing his emotions, and that a lot of his conflicts so far have stemmed from that. the fact that "chilchuck B asked for help with a menial task" is a gotcha moment to him is... telling. not only because it's so obvious to him, but because it's not obvious to any of his companions. he thinks they know this about him, but he's never openly expressed anything to make them think this is an issue he'd have, in addition to having sought help in the past.

his "convictions and pride and all that" seems to them like someone trying to convince them of something, not someone reminding them of facts he assumes they know.

anyway, back to laios. if we accept that chilchuck B is made from his memories, this suggests several things. first of all, chilchuck B is, despite his softer eyes and willingness to ask for help, still a fairly accurate portrayal of chilchuck. he's easily annoyed and he's observant, two traits chilchuck is known for. i think the reason chilchuck B has the kinder eyes and the more gentle disposition is because to laios, those things are indicative of someone being a good person, and he very much thinks chilchuck is a good person.

we know laios isn't especially good at reading people in general. thus, his idea of who his friends are is skewed in broad strokes, but not in the ways they think. he knows who chilchuck is, but he also associates chilchuck with his own ideas of what makes someone "good", which results in a chilchuck who's less rough around the edges. confronted with this--the real chilchuck asking him if he can tell--laios compares the two and thinks, reasonably speaking, the nicer one who trusts him has to be the friend he respects so much.

senshi and marcille also want to accept this chilchuck, likely for similar reasons. they also respect and care for him; they've seen him go through a lot. laios's ideal of him is just that, ideal. in a roundabout way, it's only their deep fondness for who chilchuck really is that makes them want to see him this way.

next up, we have marcille.

the fake, marcille A, is a radical departure from what makes chilchuck B a fake. laios notes that the real marcille is exactly the same as she always is. the reason, then, that marcille A confuses him--and the others--is that after everything they've been through, their perception of her has changed radically.

if we look back to senshi and chilchuck's marcilles, it's readily apparent when they're eliminated that both interpretations hinge on the knowledge that she performs black magic. senshi's tries to use it to prove herself; chilchuck's has a grimoire loudly proclaiming it's what she does. contrast this to marcille A: she doesn't mention black magic at all, and her grimoire looks strikingly similar to the real one.

that's because laios doesn't think her performing black magic changes anything about who she is. her doing so proved her to be just as dedicated to falin as he himself is, and the knowledge that her goals involve it doesn't faze him. (additionally, marcille has been teaching him magic, and falin had tried in the past. though his image of a grimoire is flawed to someone experienced, to anyone else it looks fine.) thus, marcille A isn't a flagrant black magic wielder; she's someone who's been fundamentally changed by what they--and falin--went through.

let's go back to chapter 27:

chilchuck and senshi are appalled, and will continue to be. while they ultimately don't prevent marcille from doing this, and care enough about both her and laios (and in chilchuck's case, falin as well) to be in tentative support, this changes their view of her in a negative way. she's dangerous now, in a way she wasn't before, but she's still marcille--goofy and a little reckless. thus, their views of her, and the illusions that result.

laios's opinion of her changes for the better.

she is, all at once, both competent and loyally dedicated. she will stop at nothing to help falin. whatever goofiness she exhibited before now is gone, replaced by the cold demeanor of someone who is doing something extremely dangerous for reasons that are inherently selfish, but ultimately too important to reject.

thus, we return to marcille A: cold, sharp, dedicated. not reckless or goofy, but methodical and haunted. she may have returned to "normal" since they left the castle town, but laios's opinion of her, and understanding of her love for falin, has been forever changed.

so faced with the real marcille--still silly, still whining, still frequently annoyed with him--he's confused, because that's deeply familiar, but it doesn't line up with what he knows about her now.

the truth, of course, is nuanced--these things are true about marcille, but only under duress; it's similar to how laios becomes a competent leader when the going gets tough. she has this within her, but it's not her default state of being. still, the shapeshifter picks up on the strongest memories laios has of her, this new interpretation of someone he thought he knew.

now then--onto senshi, the punchline of this particular joke about the differences between the copies. i still think it says a lot.

i think this one speaks for itself, though i find chilchuck's agreement interesting. senshi is the newest member of the team; little is known about him. laios happily notes that senshi "always looks cool" while chilchuck says he looks normal (and chilchuck B insults the real one). laios sees senshi this way because he thinks senshi is cool as hell, and this manifests in an idealized version of a face he's not as familiar with as he is with chilchuck and marcille.

this is clearly comedy, but it also speaks to the same desire to see the best in the rest of the party. marcille is the only one who notices likely because her opinion of senshi isn't so romanticized. chilchuck's senshi, of note, wasn't a perfect replica: we don't see much of him after the obvious fakes are hauled off, but he's a little squashed (he's the top one):

which indicates that chilchuck's visual memory of senshi is already flawed. if we compare this to giant laios and the marcille with the unique hair texture, it tells us chilchuck's attention to detail is more specific than the others'; he can remember the hole in the helmet, the importance of hair, but he doesn't quite see the bigger picture. giant laios is also surprisingly... rugged? which i imagine has to do with chilchuck's perception of him as a tall-man. (or maybe how he clearly has trouble seeing laios's face half the time, lmao...)

anyway. laios thinks senshi is super cool and chilchuck has an imperfect idea of what senshi look like as it is. (i wonder if chilchuck is some degree of faceblind? not enough to not recognize someone at all, but can't pinpoint specifics.)

and so, we arrive at the moment of truth.

so let's go over what i'm theorizing here... all the remaining fakes are illusions based on how laios sees his friends. the illusions manage to make mistakes that reveal the truth to him, but i think the reason for that harkens back to what laios said earlier... the illusions are being updated over time.

laios isn't considering any of the things that give the fakes away until this moment. if it had taken a little longer to resolve things, maybe they'd have started course-correcting, but they aren't given the chance. laios makes sure they aren't--he acts very quickly. even as he presents the three pairs with his findings, he's aware that everything will fall apart as soon as he does... and he's banking on that. while the shapeshifter illusions defend themselves from being killed, he gets right to the heart of the matter in the only way he knows how: confronting the actual monster involved.

when all's said and done, laios reveals how he figured it out:

potentially of note, all of these details happened before the red dragon fight. chilchuck fighting a mimic and revealing his history with them, senshi gushing about the dungeon's ecosystem, and marcille being attacked by the undine weren't super recent memories. when laios brought them forth in his mind, he had a delay before the shapeshifter updated its illusions.

well... except with marcille. marcille A actually didn't show her hand so easily; it was the real marcille's carelessness that proved her identity.

but what this suggests is that, when confronted with the realities of marcille versus his idealized version of her, laios had to make a choice: did it make more sense for her to have been radically changed by the revival and subsequent loss of falin, or was the presence of a marcille he knew so well proof of an illusion? she was the one who was the most different, and as such, the contrast was the same one that eliminated all three laioses at the start: with the real thing in the room, the fake became apparent.

so, to reach a conclusion: one again, laios has proven he's not as scatterbrained as his companions think, but this time he did so on a more personal level than usual. to them, he reveals that he knows their quirks enough to define them by such when they're otherwise faced with convincing copies. to us, the readers, if we accept what i've suggested here... he's revealed a lot more. he respects, admires, and idolizes his friends, all out of fondness: he wants to see them in an ideal way, whatever that means for each of them as individuals.

anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Since you were asked what were your favorite hp fics, how about your not favorite hp fics? 🙃

https://www.tumblr.com/hollowed-theory-hall/760514932420820992/what-are-your-favourite-harry-potter-ships

Or ships you are against hahaha and what short reason?

I'm assuming you meant ships and not fics, and that you really want me to get controversial, huh.

So, like, I wouldn't call it "against," as I have nothing against people shipping anything, and I don't even mind seeing some of the ships on this list on occasion. These are just ships I don't personally find compelling (some of them I can find objectively compelling and are just not to my taste), so it really isn't "against", more like not my cup of tea ships.

Also, ship whatever you ship, I really don't care what anyone else ships, and these are just some of my subjective opinions. So, in no particular order:

1. Hinny

I talked about my dislike of Hinny plenty, and I have a substantial "anti hinny" tag on this blog, which I will refer to here (and the tag here, if you're interested)

2. Drarry

I talked about Drarry here. Drarry is a pairing that has so much going for it, I wish I could like it, but I find Draco's canon character annoying, so I can't ship him with Harry who's my favorite and gets only the best from me when it comes to shipping. So, it's a not my cup of tea thing.

3. Linny

Talked about them here. I just never got the impression Ginny truly respects Luna, and that sucks for Luna and this relationship.

4. Wolfstar

So, this is, I guess, a big one to say I don't particularly like, and I'll give a bit of my reasoning.

My canon-loving self can't get behind fanon Wolfstar at all. They're not even actually the characters, and as Sirius is one of my favorites, I really dislike his fanon version. Additionally, as I mentioned about Drarry, I can't really be invested in a ship where I don't feel about the characters the same way (that's a me thing), and as I love canon Sirius but am very critical of canon Remus, that also stops me from ever really liking this pairing.

But even if we ignore my own opinions about the characters and talk about canon Wolfstar — I'm not a fan.

I just don't think they work. Like, I can see them having sex during OotP, but I wouldn't call it a healthy relationship. I can see it because they're the only Mauraders left, and neither of them is in a good mental space. Like, I can see them getting into a messy situationship because they're depressed and they miss the dead, and this could be super interesting, but it isn't the form Wolfstar usually takes.

I mean, both of them were James' freinds first and each other's second. James was the most important person to Sirius, but also to Remus, I think. Like, James was the one who held the Mauraders together. Sirius would not have befriended Remus and Peter without James, I guarantee it.

I mean, it's telling both thought of the other as a traitor and potential spy during/after the war. And I think, even during the books, they never really got over it, they just kinda cast it aside.

Like, it's mostly that I can't get behind how Wolfstar is portrayed in the fandom, even when the characters stick closer to canon. I just don't see this as a good relationship. I think, if they were to get together as adults, it would be so much messier. And I can't imagine them getting together as teens during school, since, I think at that point, the interest in each other wouldn't be there. I never saw them as each other's first choice. Like if they had to choose which Maurader other than themselves to save — they'd both choose James.

It might also be my Prongsfoot agenda speaking, but, like, you can't tell me Sirius "it's been 14 years and there wasn't a day I didn't think about your father" Black wasn't in love with James Potter since, like, day 1. I honestly believe in the canon books, Sirius was in love with James (not the other way though, I think in canon it was one-sided, but James did love Sirius, just not romantically).

5. Jegulus

I need to talk about this, I guess. Like, I probably wouldn't have minded canon James being shipped with Canon Regulus (although, I'm iffy about that too, becouse James likes having "the best" and according to Harry and Slughorn Regulus is just a downgraded Sirius, so why would James go for the seemingly "lesser" Black Brother when Sirius is right there and more than willing.) But the fanon version of both of them are just really not for me.

Neither of them actually feels like the characters they are supposed to be. Like, they kinda remind me of the fanon portrayal of Percico (Percy x Nico, from Percy Jackson) back in the day (haven't been in the PJO fandom in years, so I don't know what they're up to now). Like, I think fanon Jegulus is a Percico variant, and I wonder what the Fandom overlaps is.

6. Harry x Cedric

I can get behind the idea Harry fancied Cedric a bit in 4th year. It makes sense, I understand Harry, Cedric is hot, Harry's hormonal, of course, he'd have a bit of a crush. I just don't think they would make an interesting or particularly good couple.

Like, the fact Cedric dated Cho for as long as he did tells me he would not have gotten along in a relationship with Harry. Becouse Harry and Cho are very different people who look for different things in a relationship. I think Harry would find Cedric frustrating as he found Cho if they actually tried to date or got a chance to get closer.

7. Snape x any of the golden trio

Again, no hate, just, this one is really not for me, and I never really wanted to read it.

8. Bellatrix x any of the golden trio

Same as above.

9. Vernon or Petunia with anyone other than each other

I just don't think anyone else (except maybe Marge) deserves it. I can get behind Petunia cheating on Vernon with Marge.

10. Bellamort

I talked about it here. And I just can't get behind it. I don't find them particularly interesting, I don't think Voldemort was interested in Bellatrix romantically in canon (they might've had sex), and I don't think he particularly respects her while she's obsessed with him. So, I don't find them (be it canon or fanon) compelling to read about. The fact that Bellatrix would be easy for Voldemort to be in a relationship with doesn't mean it's a good thing, I think Voldemort should struggle in a relationship. The most interesting Voldemort ships push him into a character arc, and Bellamort doesn't do that.

11. Ron x Lavender and 12. Harry x Ginny

I feel like canon speaks for itself, but I wrote a bit about Harry and Cho here.

13. Most Dumbledore ships.

Mostly becouse Dumbledore is a character I'm not usually interested in shipping. I'm interested in Grindledore because of its impact on Dumbledore's character, but, he's just not a character I want to read a romance about. This is my personal opinion.

---

I have a lot of other ships I'm indifferent towards. Like, Snape with either Lucius or Narcissa, or Pansy x Hermione, I'm not a big fan, but I don't dislike them, just indifferent.

I'm also sure I missed a bunch, but I tried to hit the big ones I don't like. Though, even with some of these, if the summary is interesting I might read a fic with them.

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #6658:

The amazing thing about creators being ambiguous about romantic relationships between characters is that it's meant to be able to include everyone's ships as valid.

Even if a character is "lesbian coded" (I hate coding so damn much tho. it was literally only created to give people an excuse to invalidate other ships they didn't like) said character can still be shipped with men because their sexuality isn't confirmed

And to assume that every character is straight unless said other wise is a problem.

But also even if a character has a confirmed sexuality shipping them with a character that goes against that sexuality is still valid.

It's not taking a queer character away. Some people just want to enjoy them another way. And others are still allowed to enjoy them as their canon sexuality.

It's the same as a canon heterosexual ship but people make Headcanons of the two characters instead being homosexual so they can enjoy a mlm or wlw ship instead because that's just what they enjoy.

I wish people could just ship and let ship these days...

Although I'm still very tired of the "coded" bullshit that needs to die. Like yeah it's great if a couple characters give off "yeah we could totally be lesbians" but when used to bash on anyother ship in existence its just toxic (I'm looking at you 31m1k0 shippers) I know I'm mostly saying all this about wlw ships but personally I have yet to see a large amount of toxic shippers for a mlm ship. Not that they don't exist but it must be in a Fandom I'm not in.

[raconteur-wanpi]

One Piece 1130

Here comes another review / reaction!

Starting with the Yamato cover stories again, it seems whoever is the suspicious kidnapper is also trying to steal Yamato's katana! Or at least, I'm assuming it's the same person. I feel like this means we're going to find out who it is rather soon. Is my bet on Perospero going to be completely and utterly debunked? We'll just wait and see.

Franky and the rest of the strawhats remaining on the giants' ship seem to have decided to call off the search! It's certainly the right decision, because as we'll see later, the rest of the crew is indeed already on Elbaf. It's interesting to see Franky specifically showcasing determination and speaking out the decision, I kinda love it. You have to remember he was the leader of the Franky Family for a long while, nice seeing that element of his again.

The rest of the New Giant Pirates are starting to show up! I remember both Gerd and Goldberg, but getting more dialogue from them is nice, they seem like genuinely charming characters and I love both their designs. They even showed up in Vegapunk's flashback, helping out Saul pick up all the books in Ohara. They seem to not like Rodo very much, which is kinda funny but makes total sense. It's also worth mentioning that apparently, according to Linlin's childhood flashback, Loki, Rodo and Goldberg were all born on the same day, or at least very close to each other! (From chapter 866)

The strawhats unfortunately don't recognize these two, who are certainly their allies, so instead they hide away from them.

This panel of all of them making their escape from Rodo's weird creepy dungeon is pretty cute, I always love seeing the strawhats casually interact. Sanji saying he used to cross a rope bridge like this is very interesting to me, surely there was one in Germa, right?

* Edit: oops, turns out that's Chopper saying it! Big thanks for the corrections in the replies. It's really hard to tell, but that makes more sense, we do see that in Drum Island.

Anyway, Luffy seems to spot something that catches his interest during this walk-away.

Meanwhile, back on the ship with the Giant Warrior Pirates....

Dorry and Broggy have been framed for the Egghead incident by Morgans also! Well, they did go against the government, so it's to be expected. Their bounties increasing to such numbers seems to actually align with real life inflation rates, Oda did his research.

Aaaandd here it is, one of the biggest things in this chapter. Vivi left a message to the strawhats!!!!!!! Being with Morgans, she was obviously able to draw the marking on the photo before it started getting reproduced for publishing. Everyone predicting Vivi joining the strawhats this arc is probably correct, hopefully! Please let it happen. Go get your girl kids!!!!!!

OK, this is the other huge (pun unintended) thing revealed this chapter. More information on Loki and, well.... the revelation Harjudin might be his brother!? They're both the King's sons, right? They both get referred to as princes here, aren't they!?

King Harold is referred to as Loki's father here, so it's safe to assume he was Harjudin's father also. If this is the case, Harjudin going after the Flame Flame Fruit in Dressrosa makes more sense.

Hmm, this narrative is pretty interesting, Loki getting called things like "cursed", "the shame of Elbaf" "not right in the head" etc, it feels like pretty cruel words. Even if he is indeed a horrible and dangerous person, something tells me we're meant to be wary of people being spoken about that way, so it might be a case of the people of Elbaf taking their measures against this guy too far and pushing him into what he eventually turned into.

One Piece loves this narrative, when you have things like Wano's unjust treatment of the Kurozumi Clan or Doflamingo's treatment when he was a child. Yes, Orochi and Doffy did turn out into terrible, horrible people, but the implication of those narratives is that it's the systems that failed them that created those monsters. It's not to feel sympathy towards them or anything, they really don't deserve that at this point, but rather to understand how they were created, and that the people who unwittingly turned them into such dangers were in many ways in the wrong as well. After all, Tama is also a Kurozumi, for example, and Wano needed to get over their treatment of entire clans for the crimes of a few. We even see that with Yamato being hazed for his father being Kaidou in the cover stories, only for Denjiro to scold the younger generation for this behavior. Not to mention, "the shame of Elbaf" does immediately make me think of "the failure of Germa" and such similar things. In fact, if we wanna push that parallel further, Loki being almost married off to the Charlottes' in a similar way, might have in fact been an attempt at "getting rid of the failure" and letting someone else deal with him, rather than an attempt at making amends with Linlin. I do think it's most likely that Loki will be a bad guy, but I think there will also be a narrative on how cruelty breeds more cruelty. Oda's favorite!

And here he is, the "accursed prince". Wow, what a panel! This is such a good drawing in sense of scale and danger. Incredible artistic work. Immediately leaves such a strong impression on who this character is, it's quite the introduction!

[mikayuumouse]

akutagawa for the ask game!!

omggg yess this is gonna be fun

The game in question;

So for Akutagawa, hmm. I'd say:

My favorite thing about him is probably his character. That sounded so vague lmao 😭 I love how he is, as a person. Like his personality/writing is just my absolute favorite (did I mention he's my favorite character). Idk if that's as specific as the question implied though, so something specific I like about Akutagawa is his drive. He's determined, reckless, definitely fueled by his emotions, and I love it

I don't have a least favorite thing about him, although I kind of wish he had eyebrows 🤔 also I hate that he abused Kyouka and Higuchi, but alas, character flaws and Akutagawa is not without sin

Favorite line is "Return the weretiger to me" is that even a question you guys. Honorable mentions to "The weretiger is my ordeal", "Yes", literally any time he's said Jinko, and ["Just the two of us?"] "Do we need any more?"

idk what "brOTP" means, I assume it means my favorite platonic relationship Akutagawa has? For that, it's Akutagawa and Gin. I know they're not the best siblings and Akutagawa isn't the best brother, but I still appreciate their dynamic as family, and I think Gin helps shape who Akutagawa is

SSKK. I live and die for Sskk oh my God they're my favorite ship they're my everything they're soulmates I love them pleaseee Asagiri let them kiss we all know Akutagawa is in love with Atsushi and Atsushi is in love with Akutagawa, like omg they're so freaking perfect for each other, and mirror each other, and are infinitely connected even in alternate universes. Sskk allllllll the way oh my God I would literally jump into an active volcano for them I ship them so much, the romantic undertones of their relationship actually have me walking into the sea and never coming back because WHAT, oml they're just so good together and they love each other, I know they love each other and care about each other and quite literally died for each other! You can't tell me that they're not meant to be! I love, love, love, love, love Sskk with all my heart

Akutagawa x Higuchi. Literally why would anyone even ship that. Ew.

He paints. He's not exactly amazing at painting or art, but he finds peace in it (he finds himself accidentally painting Atsushi more and more often...)

Uhhh idk, I feel like Akutagawa is underrated? Like he was so not talked about for so long in this fandom, until the latest chapters. He's definitely getting the spotlight more now, but he's still underrated imo (no idea if it's an unpopular view tho lmao) (also this isn't unpopular but TOP AKUTAGAWA SUPREMACY THANK YOU 🛐)

Breathe by Taylor Swift. I'M JOKING I'M JOKING, it's actually It's Alright by Mother Mother

And one of these two is my favorite :>

thanks for the ask!<33

[crystxlangxlic]

i've heard multiple times that virgil was not supposed to be a main character and only became one because of his popularity and i just like?? don't believe that??? i can't find a source for it and can't remember where i first heard that so i'm going to assume it's misinformation and even if thomas has said that he must be lying

you mean to tell me that they created an all-black-wearing edgy emo character and he wasn't going to be a main character??? who was very clearly made to be a parallel and foil to roman?? and they were very clearly pushing for them to be shipped together?? like the cast at the time was literally incomplete without virgil since logan and patton were meant to be a duo and that left with roman with no one, he needed someone just as extra as him and someone who would take a somewhat of an antagonistic role since that was also missing. i just don't buy it

[billcipherbong]

"ford is aroace to me idk i cant imagine him being interested in romance/he's totally ace coded"

ok let's take inventory

every time ford dismisses romance he does it in relation to women. why are we assuming that a man rejecting a relationship with a woman means he rejects relationships all together.

it's funny how every damn time an autistic character shows up on screen everyone immediately agrees there's no way autistic people this character can care about romance or sex

"ace coding" is not a thing. "queercoding" is, "homoerotic subtext" is, these are actual devices that have showed up in literature and media over centuries to the point that they can be defined. "ace coding" as of yet is not a tradition in writing

are you guys familiar with the terms "confirmed bachelor" or "he never married" there's a Cultural Tradition through history to conceptualize gay people as "uninterested in romance" even outside of writing

there's even a more modern tradition where people (usually not even ace folks) very un-subtly try to wield asexuality to keep people from identifying as gay

why does fandom never remember gay ace people exist

why are you guys ignoring how much ford gushes about his companionship with fiddleford and bill "oh i cant imagine him being romantic" you dont have to. it's like... right there in front of you. i feel you're letting your preconceived notions abt autistic people get in the way of proper understanding of the work lol have you read J3 or TBOB???

when asked about gay HCs, while he validated any interpretations, alex ALSO went on an entire spiel about ford being a guy who deeply represses his own feelings because he doesnt want to confront them and just, i guess for NO REASON, he commented about how gay marriage wasnt even legal until a few months before GF ended. look up Interview with Alex Hirsch: Unlocking mysteries of Gravity Falls' Journal 3 tumblr hates external links.

but back to that but about gay marriage. are you aware that gay marriage hasn't even been legal in all US states for 10 years yet? are you aware that GF only ended 6 months after June 26 2015? are you aware that alex hirsch has received at least one email from Disney demanding that Blubs and Durland's relationship be kept comedic instead of romantic?? are you aware as of 2025 disney is STILL censoring LGBT narratives??

so like. why are you, gay people online, insistent that ford can be written freely as a gay man and since he wasn't, clearly he isn't gay

i know people take HCs very personally and i know a whole lotta people are gonna take this as a personal attack because "fandom is for fun >:(", but i'm here as somebody who's trying to do LITERARY ANALYSIS. especially as a queer AND autistic person, it's genuinely baffling to me to watch a whole slew of fellow gay people ignore actual historical context, authorial intent and the actual text to make arguments that make no logical sense. an entire slice of ford's story is deadwalled bc people are, idk, too uncomfortable admitting bill and ford feel/felt romantically abt each other?? and it drives me NUTS, i dont even mean it in a shipping way, i mean it in a way that makes yall sound like "ok so, i dont wanna say louis and lestat loved each other like that, can we say they were bffs"??? what is bro yapping about!!?!!!!

like truly there is something deeply hilarious about how ford pines's very very intentional word of god confirmed gay subtext gets more people claiming hes simply not a man who does romance instead of gay than the average fandom where a character is simply presumed straight by the author and the audience like HOWWWW

and again. why is it always the autistic character whos presumed as to not ever feeling romantic love or sexual feelings. like idk maybe there's more ways to feel and express things that isnt just how allistic people have taught us things are done. use your imaginations. isnt that what fandom is meant to be about.

tl;dr yeah yeah personal readings and headcanons, but personal readings can be and are affected by personal biases and fwiw i dont care if you hc him as being Somewhere in the aroace spectrum, what drives me nuts is denying that he's gay at all.