#i'm not tagging the ship for obvious reasons...

[saintsenara]

I know you responded with a meme, but if you're able I'd love to hear your thoughts on harry/hermione 👀

fine. i'll scream into a pillow periodically and get through this...

obviously, i don't actually find the concept of harmony sincerely upsetting - people shipping things is never that deep, and because, as i've said before, i subscribe to the principle that any pairing is possible if you just have enough nerve. i've been recommended some harmony fics by people who are fonder of the ship, and while i've not found them immediately compelling, i do appreciate that there are plenty of people who disagree.

but my feelings are basically the same for harmony as they are for dramione: that it's never done interestingly.

harmony is - like all hermione pairings except [broadly] romione - a breeding ground for fanon!hermione, who is perfect and flawless and so clever she can solve millennia-old mysteries in afternoon. i hate this version of the character because i find her boring - it's just standard self-insert stuff, which is fine but not something i have any interest in reading. i similarly dislike the version of harry who appears in these stories, who ends up - like all men in hermione pairings except [broadly] ron - being either this impossibly sophisticated and suave intellectual with the body of a greek god or a doormat who's happy to shut the fuck up forever and do whatever she says.

[i also hate - obviously, since he's my king - the way harmony stories are often even more egregious than dramione ones in writing ron as a cruel and violent misogynist who is ontologically indistinct from your average death eater. and i think it somewhat proves my point that neither of these ships work particularly well that this character assassination has to take place in order to make them plausible...]

and i think the flattening of harry and hermione's personalities within most harmony is the main thing which keeps the ship from being interesting. because - while i certainly don't go in for the common anti-harmony argument that harry actively dislikes hermione - it's undeniable that there is a lot about the two of them which wouldn't be conducive to a harmonious [lol] relationship.

their communication styles - hermione works through problems by debating them, harry prefers not to be challenged - are the obvious one. their ways of expressing affection - hermione shows people she cares about them by nagging them and meddling in their lives, harry very much does not - are another. they have extremely different views about authority, they decompress in different ways [harry is someone who clearly needs to keep physically active to clear his head, hermione is much more of a homebody], and harry's impulsiveness is a poor match for hermione's fondness for planning.

they are also similar in ways which would cause them to butt heads. both have a tendency towards obsessiveness, which they rely in canon on ron pulling them out of. both have a significant capacity for cruelty and extremely black-and-white moral codes - harry has a tendency towards forming judgements on people and situations based on whether they are people he likes or things he benefits from [i.e. how he's appalled by dobby's treatment because his masters are the malfoys, but doesn't give a shit about kreacher's because his abusive master is sirius], while hermione tends to regard any rule-breaking she does as justified even if she'd regard it as outrageous from anyone else [i.e. her fury over harry appearing to use felix felicis to improve's ron's performance at quidditch when she herself confunded cormac mclaggen to get him onto the team...]. both have a tendency towards giving people the silent treatment when they're angry. both are incredibly stubborn...

and so on.

obviously, they also have positive qualities in common too - a shared loyalty, for one - but it always seems to me that the standard move in harmony is for authors to completely ignore these conflicting traits, either really over-egging what makes harry and hermione compatible platonically in the books or just inventing similarities [especially intellectual ones] to justify the pairing. whereas i would much prefer to see just how difficult it would be for harry and hermione to fall and sustain being in love with each other, and i've never seen that done compellingly.

but the conflict i'd love to see explored in harmony fics most of all, but which never seems to be acknowledged by fans of the pairing, is that [despite the fanon slander that ron is the person who behaves poorly towards her] harry is often horrible to hermione and hermione is often scared of harry.

this is at its most profound after ron leaves the horcrux hunt in deathly hallows, but we see several times throughout canon that - if ron isn't there to mediate between them - harry often treats hermione in a way which can be considered downright cruel. if she criticises him in a way he considers unjustifiable, he tends to side with other people against her [ron in prisoner of azkaban over the firebolt; ginny in half-blood prince over snape's textbook]. if she tries to reason with him he often beats her down with the force of his emotions [i.e. when she tries to get him to think about whether his vision of sirius in the department of mysteries might be a trick] or his convictions [i.e. when he lures her into near-death by being certain that nagini is really bathilda bagshot], and she often ends up having to soothe or appease him when he's the one who's screamed at her.

hermione is also scared more generally of harry's experiences - she's by far the least amenable of the trio to talking about voldemort [even though she says his name earlier than ron does] - and mission, which puts up a barrier between them which will be difficult to bring down post-war. i think there's something which could be really interesting there - the most interesting dynamic in hinny, after all, is when harry and ginny's tendency to not actually be honest with each other is explored - but unfortunately at the minute that sort of character work is drowning in a sea of "ron is so stupid and harry and i just love talking about classic literature, come darling, put on your leather trousers and let us solve world hunger; i look like emma watson" nonsense.

dull!

[oxandthorn]

bc morticia / hoshina's currently in my brain lmao

he'd have his usual pencil-skirt/tight style dress for his domestic haunting and then somethin more functional for fightin. or sitting coyly in chairs lololol

[vampirehizzies]

no you don't understand, in a moment he will realize it is futile. she can't be saved

[bobmckenzie]

sorry for thinking about which perfumes my f/o's would like best on me it will happen again

[haven-of-dusk]

The thoughts nobody asked for on the much discussed 7x10 Tevan/Bucktommy/Bummy/whatever you wish to call them dinner date:

From a character perspective it's...fine. i really struggle to come up with an alternative word for it, because I struggle to have strong feelings at all about it. We've known since last season (at the latest, arguably sooner) that Buck has a kinky side. Now we know Tommy has one too. And they flirted about it. Neither of them were really acting out of character, and the scene was perfectly tolerable. But...that's sort of the problem.

From a writing standpoint, this scene is...kind of an abysmal failure. Or at least I presume it is, but it depends on what the writers wanted to accomplish with the scene.

If the goal was to solidify the Bucktommy relationship, bring more people on board, end the season strong, etc, then it failed. Miserably. Because in an episode full of story-essential moments, emotional beats, drama, and so forth, there's just this date scene doing...nothing. It doesn't push Buck or Tommy forward as characters, it does nothing meaningful to develop their relationship beyond the surface layer we've known it's had since their first episode together, and its only tie to the episode's main plot is a transition into a joke. They set Tommy up to finally develop his character, give some backstory, have him comiserate with Buck, build their rapport...and then we skip right to 'teehee, daddy issues.' It feels like the middle of the scene is missing.

Like...stay with me here, and don't jump away just because I'm bringing up Buddie, but the 3x9 kitchen scene is a prime example of what it seemed like the 7x10 date scene was going for. We start with a connection to the episode's plot, framed semi-light heartedly ("So she shoots him, and then takes him back?"), we transition into them having a serious, meaningful conversation, with Buck apologizing for his absence during the lawsuit arc and them discussing Eddie's boxing crisis, and then the scene ends on a lighthearted note with the infamous "wanna go for the title?"

So the issue with the 7x10 date is that the middle section, the emotions, the bulk of the conversation, just isn't there. It's like making a sandwich but ending up with just the pieces of bread. Yeah, you can still eat it, but it's not really the same thing, is it? It's lacking the SUBSTANCE.

And this ties into a larger problem with Tommy...he just never gets ANYTHING to do or say beyond surface level comments or observations. I hear the defense repeatedly that "it's a short season" "give them time to flesh him out more" "they didn't have space to include all the development, but they've got good seeds!", but this date scene is the very blatant counterpoint. This was a PRIME chance to do something with him, in an already story heavy episode, a season finale no less, and to tie his discussion of his trauma in with Buck's and have them bond over painful memories, give them a dynamic about HOW they approach those discussions, ANYTHING. But instead we skip past the development and end on a passable joke. This is a short, condensed season, yes. It's why I accepted them cutting most of the bachelor party because it was just fun and the episode needed to focus on development and story. But this date has no more story or character weight than the party did. They giftwrapped an oppurtunity for themselves, and then squandered it.

Which brings me to the question...do the writers even want me to root for Buck and Tommy's relationship? Because if so they are doing a TERRIBLE job of it. Tommy barely appears, and when he does they do nothing with him. They feel as though they are actively avoiding giving Bucktommy a dynamic or developing anything about why Tommy in particular is a good fit for Buck. Saying "he's good for you," doesn't cut it. Having them kiss twice, doesn't cut it. All of it leads me to wonder if they're just setting the couple up to break up cordially next season, Buck having learned more about himself, and Tommy...having a boyfriend for a few months I guess.

The daddy issues joke has caused a stir that overshadowed the real issue with the scene: Tommy still doesn't have a character, or a motive, or a dynamic with Buck, or anything. And it's starting to feel like he never will. And it's a bit frightening that I can't tell if it's intentional or not.

[kanonavi]

I am once again tagged by @radellama, thanks a bunch!

~

Last Song: Song of the Ancients / Fate, by Keiichi Okabe

Currently Watching: Still Trigun (1998), I am unfortunately too busy to watch much else (Though I do sometimes think about how much I want to rewatch TGCF season 2....)

Three Ships: Xiao/Venti, Feng Xin/Mu Qing, Minamoto Kou/Mitsuba Sousuke

Favorite Color: Still cobalt!

Currently Consuming: Nothing at the moment, last thing was some chai tea. Now I'm thinking about grilled cheese again tho...

First Ship: Leo/Takumi from Fire Emblem: Fates

Relationship Status: Unfortunately, no

Last Movie: I genuinely don't remember... It was either Spirited Away or a combined Megamind/How to Train Your Dragon movie night

Currently Working On: A lot of my current angst is actually over the fact that I'm too deep in the schoolwork trenches to actually work on any of my own personal creative projects. But, my other project besides the Genshin Poetry Gala fic that I've been working on for months now is a TGCF essay about how the main couple are representative of the story's main themes. They make my brain explode <3

~

Tagging: @hollyisanonymous, @rubberbandballqueen, @tempests-bards-and-birds, @sl33pyr3v3ri3, @stardustdiiving, @h4msanta

[kakusu-shipping]

BakuDeku beloved the base level MHA ship thankyou for the ask @echoes-lighthouse

SHIP IT!

What made you ship it?

My nephew who got me into the show in the first place dsnfjdsf He was the first to imply Bakugo and Izuku were a couple, probably because he heard it from the girls who recommended the show to him in the first place. That and him telling me All Might was my Type were my first introductions to the program as a whole.

Favorite things about the Ship?

Childhood friends to rivals to lovers 60k slow burn. I love a bully turned ally, I adore really everything about Bakugo, and I think Izuku's neat and his persistence is cute. He'll hang on to fond memories of Kaachan, even if even back then Bakugo was only ever mean to him, to other kids, to everyone... Izuku still sees him as a good person and a good hero and a good friend... It's cute.

Unpopular Opinion?

Not exactly an opinion per say but people who call this one problematic/toxic because Bakugo is Izuku's "abuser" make me uncomfortable... It's weird to call a kid an abuser to me, even a fictional one. He was 14, no one is their best at 14.

Bonus Headcanons!

I don't think they were Dating dating as kids but they were as non-romantically close elementary school kids could get. Holding hands, going everywhere together, sharing everything. They were a pair Do Not Separate.

In middle school Bakugo still had his feelings for Izuku, which is why he went so out of his way to torment him. He didn't like him, he hated him, obviously. He was just trying to convince himself of this feeling.

Izuku's feelings for Bakugo are muddled, and if you asked him about it he'd struggle with a simple answer. It wasn't always like that, but sense Bakugo first used his quirk against someone weaker than him just for fun, Izuku's had a hard time keeping the green flag in his opinion of Bakugo

Half of the class are pro Bakugo/Izuku, mostly the Baku Squad, Shoto, and Hagakure. The other half of the class think Izuku deserves better, Uraraka and Tsu especially are rooting for him to turn Bakugo down. Izuku appreciates it, but is quick to say he's putting his hero work before a relationship. Bakugo has refused to comment on the debate

[bilbos-stolen-untensils]

I'm not saying this to be mean, or to give people byler-doubt, I want Byler endgame just as much as the next person but.. I watched a deep dive video on Superwholock and let me tell you the Byler fans mirror the Johnlock shippers in many ways. I think I'm done getting my hopes up because Johnlock broke my heart and I wasn't even apart of the fandom until 10 years later!!!! Once again, I'n not trying to be mean! I'm just saying, and it makes me sad to think about history repeating itself like this.

I'm not getting queerbaited in 2024 or 2025, I'm just not. And hey, if I'm wrong, be prepared to say I told you so!!! Please do, I will be HAPPY if I'm wrong <33

(This is my last post about this, so don't worry to all my Byler shipper moots. I'm truly not trying to make anyone doubt it being endgame. Also please don't send me proof or reblog this with proof or how I'm wrong, I'm not into that kind of shit. I'm pointing something out, that is ALL)

[harrowscore]

i think i finally found a semi-famous (?) blog that blocked me lmao

[tuulikannel]

New Assclass fic! I got to say I like this one. ^^ And here's the thing: I wrote the whole freaking thing (over 20k words) in five days. After the writer's block I've been struggling with, that sure felt nice. ^^

Summary: Akabane Karma was 10 years old when his parents bought a house in Tokyo. At first everything seemed quite perfect. The house was spooky and exciting, its neglected garden like made for jungle adventures. If only his parents had stayed there with him and not just left him with a nanny… but at least there was this other kid living in the house too. Shuu was pretty weird, sure – he studied too much and never wanted to go anywhere – but despite everything, Karma was just happy for the company.

[saintsenara]

Absolutely no pressure if it really does make you uncomfortable to talk about but I would LOVE to hear about why dramione pisses you off... first and foremost because I'm a card-carrying dramione hater and there's nothing quite as enjoyable as a fellow hater articulating their haterade. Please. I'm handing you the mic. Go to town. (If you want!)

thank you very much for the ask, anon - and it's very sweet of you to ask whether dramione makes me sincerely uncomfortable [it doesn't, and if there's ever a day when i find harry potter shipping preferences that deep i shall face god and walk backwards into hell]. i subscribe to one belief in fandom above all others - that you can write yourself into, and out of, the most nonsensical premises if you are willing to engage with your characters in their full spectrum and if you have enough nerve. which is to say, there is almost certainly dramione out there that i would regard as interesting and well done, which feels coherent as a premise within which to situate both hermione and draco's canon selves, and which does so by being unsparing in how it deals with the whole "he thinks she's literally subhuman" thing...

but the reason i don't like dramione as a pairing is because i've never actually seen it done in a way that actually is interesting.

i'm on the record as a straightforward hater of fanon!hermione - the preternaturally perfect, incandescently beautiful "brightest witch of her age" [lupin means by this - please, i am begging you all to understand - that she's clever for a fourteen-year-old, not that she's some sort of epoch-defining intellect] who makes you wonder if we've all forgotten the early-00s flame wars over mary-sues. i am also on the record as a hater of the classic draco-in-leather-pants version of the other half of our pairing - draco is an insecure, pointy little dickhead whose jokes always flop, and he is so much more fun in this form than he is as the suavest man alive.

and, obviously, dramione is famous for being beholden to these characterisations [something, if i may, which is really letting harmony and snamione off the hook...]. and that is just so boring! even in a setting in which an author doesn't want to deal with the context of blood-supremacist prejudice - and good for them! why not! - i would much rather see fics think interestingly about how mashing draco and hermione's personalities together would actually go. how would he handle her constant need to debate things? how would she handle his fits of crippling jealousy? how would he handle her stubbornness? how would she handle his self-interestedness?

and i think something quite striking could actually come of this... as i've noted elsewhere, draco's narrative mirror is ron, who is obviously a ride-or-die hermione stan, and there is - therefore - a way set out within the arc of canon for thinking about how hermione and draco might interact. it could be a genuinely fantastic piece of enemies-to-lovers fun, but this would involve both hermione and draco's canonical characteristics being thought about [and harry and ron's: the former always seems to come around to dramione really quickly, while the latter is written as a death-eater-adjacent boor who doesn't want the woman who "belongs to him" to be happy], and i'm afraid that the vast, vast majority of dramione writing seems to have no interest in doing this when "just make him suave and her perfect" exists...

but, of course, there is a second major objection which i know many people have to dramione: that he is a member of a terrorist organisation which believes in eradicating people like her, and that he believes wholeheartedly in that organisation's beliefs.

and my feelings about this are more complicated.

because, to be frank, as someone who has - only this week - written harry having a sensual little snog with his parents' murderer, i can't really get up on my high-horse about people shipping the heroes with the villains. and, indeed, i won't - another fandom [and life!] principle i have is that the potential of redemption for everybody is one of the most important things about humanity; that even the most evil people can repent and repent sincerely; and that love is strange and unpredictable.

i do think something interesting could be done with draco having to unlearn literally everything about his life, and with both him and hermione grappling with their personal limits when it came to remorse and forgiveness as they realise that, against all the odds and no matter the heavy weight of the past, they want to make something together. but, once again, the standard move in dramione seems to be a sort of "nooo, he didn't really mean it!" or a "hermione gets over it immediately because he didn't rat them out when the snatchers caught them!" [no - he didn't rat harry out. he doesn't seem to have a problem with hermione getting tortured by bellatrix...] or a "well harry using sectumsempra means i'm over the fact he called me a mudblood" or "uwu he was sixteen". and, once again, i think it's dull!

and this, of course, brings us to the other category of dramione - the one in which she's a dirty little fucktoy for a sadistic pureblood lord. while this is at its worst in other hermione/death eater ships, we've all seen the fics: hermione is given to draco as a forced bride; hermione is given to draco as a sex slave; hermione is given to draco to be degraded etc.

i have no moral objection to people wanting to read and write this stuff, because i'm neither a cop nor a priest. my objection, once again, is that this is dull.

i think there is something really, really interesting which could be done with draco finding himself attracted to hermione despite what he's been raised to believe about her, above all for the way this could be used to play with the gendered dynamic we might expect to find when this trope is used.

discrimination is justified by societies - again and again throughout the course of history - with the claim that it protects women [and men's claim to them]. we can imagine easily that this is the same in the wizarding world because voldemort literally tells us so - in the opening chapter of deathly hallows he explicitly equates tonks' marriage to lupin as the cause of the "rot" in the black family tree, before he goes on to murder charity burbage while accusing her of supporting miscegenation.

what we see less frequently is the idea that men need to be protected from the other - societies are much more amenable to seeing men's behaviour as hypocrisy [and tolerating this] rather than moral corruption, and we can assume in the wizarding world that it would be perfectly acceptable for a pureblood man to have a muggleborn mistress or a half-blood love-child in a way it never would be for a pureblood woman.

so how does draco justify his attraction to hermione to himself? how does he keep her a secret? how does he think of women more generally, if he has a pureblood wife at home and a muggleborn woman he cheats on her with? does he see nothing contradictory about sneaking off into broom cupboards and then strutting into the slytherin common room and telling pansy parkinson that hermione is a digusting mudblood dog?

or, does he get the other side of the coin? do lucius and narcissa think he's being corrupted? is his temptation all-consuming? will he lie about hermione attacking him to save face? will he turn on the tears and place her in unimaginable danger and then feel only the slightest hint of regret?

and i just think that has so much more potential than your standard "draco's sadistic but, more importantly, he's hot" stuff.

because i will read things that are objectively baffling if they are, at least, interesting. dramione nation, i'm begging you... just be interesting.

[icedteaandoldlace]

Oh, hey, found out who we have to thank for coining Cisco and Kamilla's ship name. 💞

[jacky-rubou]

fiddlestan for the ask game? :)

i am gonna be blunt, I don't really like that ship that much so the bingo kinda looks sad lol

it doesn't hit in a good way for me tbh. I wouldn't outright say it's gross, but I have some negative associations with this ship so I can't really muster much enthusiasm with filling out the bingo much more than the ones I did put. sorry, haha.

[severuslittleslut]

Friend, you're talking about a child looking at a patronus that's representing his mother out of the pov of her best friend/soulmate. That's the connection. That's why he's calm. It's a motherly hug.

i never understood the true potential of snarry until reading these parts in dh cuz wtf is this...

like why tf was he so seduced by this doe that he didnt wanna call hermione for backup AND he apparently didnt even realize that it was a patronus up until later??? also he did the same thing before where he was so enamored by something he didnt know was snape: the advanced potions book

[moinsbienquekaworu]

Deep fondness for ship names but like, the qualities french navy ones. Le Téméraire. Le Triomphant. Le Superbe. La Combattante. La Résolue.

[transhitman]

Ok I posted about this in anger a while back but I'm gonna say it more intelligently and actually tag it because I think it's something people need to hear. Something that bugs me about how people talk about the morality of the men in this game is that a lot of analysis totally glosses over Anya's motives and what she actually asks of people, and in doing so once again strips her of agency. Like. The reason Curly sucks isn't because he failed to properly punish Jimmy, it's because he ignored Anya in favor of her abuser. He didn't listen to her regarding how to move forward, he didn't give her a way to protect herself. No matter what he would have done to Jimmy, Anya is still traumatized and in danger, and that's the most important point of failure.

I think a lot of people are projecting a revenge fantasy on Anya, and while I'm not gonna argue about the validity of revenge here, for Anya specifically I think that's a major mischaracterization. She's the one who says that our worst moments don't make us monsters. And while yes, this could just be her trying to appease her abusers, she still doesn't strike me as a particularly vindictive person. She's a nurse, symbolically in a role associated with care and healing. Before the crash, she seems like a very soft-spoken and restrained person. Hell, she can't stand giving Curly his meds because she feels so bad for him. There isn't really a point in the game where she calls for violence at all. And even if punishing Jimmy or Curly is morally correct (subjective), saying that it's what anyone Should have done still glosses over Anya's wants and needs. It still centers the abuser, even in vitriol.

It's especially weird to see people judge Swansea on these grounds, because like... We don't know what his dynamic with Anya was like. We don't actually know what she said to him, if she even confided about her pregnancy or the SA at all! I honestly think Swansea's actions give more credence to the idea that Anya herself wanted a peaceful resolution. The whole "Oh, I'm holding it together" thing, him becoming more hostile after speaking with Anya... He waits until Daisuke AND ANYA are dead before trying to kill Jimmy. I think the obvious reading is that he wants Jimmy dead, but Anya asked him not to do anything crazy. Genuinely, I think Anya just wanted to be safe. She wanted out above everything. She didn't want more violence. The only violence she commits is against herself in the end, in order to escape this hell her coworkers made for her.

And like. Swansea is kind of the only one who actually did try to protect Anya in a meaningful way. I won't say that he couldn't have done more for her - all of the men on that ship failed her in some regard - but Swansea intentionally keeps the axe out of Jimmy's hands. He keeps the pod a secret, probably to give to Daisuke, but we can't say anything for sure. I joke that Swansea should have killed Jimmy from the start, but if we're being real that would have been an insane thing to do given what the characters know. But Swansea isn't the point of this post. Like. Idk I just think it's really bizarre that when people discuss Anya's assault, they still do it from the perspective of the men involved. It's weird and I don't like it. Like people have said before me: it's not enough to hate abusers, you have to love victims.