#idk if those statements about it “not needing to be sexual” were actually said by harvey

[kanakori]

not to wwdits post but if nandor and guillermo dont finally fuck this season im throwing my laptop through drywall

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Hi BPP, i noticed in one of your asks about Jikook, you mentioned paying attention to their Vlives and i swear to you that one of the biggest reasons i think Jikook are not just platonic is because of their Lives especially the ones when it’s just two of them. There is this different air around them and you can literally always feel how thick the air is with tension.

I know this might sound a little delulu but i 100% trust my guts when it comes to certain things. I’m usually not very great at catching things at first glance but when someone else catches those things and brings them to my attention, I’m exceptionally good at paying more attention and catching those things many people will miss. There is nothing in the world that can convince me that Jimin wasn’t with Jk in his room during that famous “naked bread Live” where Tae surprised Jk in his room. There is also Hobi’s Live from 2016 where Armys kept asking for Jimin and Hobi went to Jimin’s room and it was clear that they were hiding something or someone. Now this one is debatable as to who it was in Jimin’s room but there was 100% someone there with him as we could literally see a shadow pass by in the tv screen. Another Live that was very telling was the New Jersey Live of May 2019. That Live where Jk started a live and later panned to Jimin. That Live is a goldmine and minus all the analysis, anybody who has a little bit of a brain could immediately tell that something fishy was going on with Jikook. I always laugh when tkkrs also use that exact same Live as proof that taekook were sharing a room because of that statement Tae made about “weren’t we sharing a room”, i mean he came into the room and the first question he asked was, “whose room is this” he literally didn’t even know it was Jk’s room in the first place lol and if they were indeed sharing a room, why the hell will he feel the need to ask Jk “weren’t we sharing a room” outta nowhere? If you live in the same house as someone, do u just wake up outta the blue and ask them “aren’t we living in the same house?” How does it even make sense? If you paid attention you would notice that, just b4 tae said that, there was a cough sound that came from maybe the bathroom or something and Jk immediately asked Tae to stay put while he went to the bathroom and while he was there, you could hear him mumble something offscreen and that is when Tae said that. I always thought maybe tae said that to cover things up or he was just being his chaotic adorable self idk but that Live pretty michconfirmed alot of things for me. Not forgetting how Jk was literally kicking tae outta the room lol.

Almost all of the lives with Jimin and Jk in them pretty much give them away and the lives are my biggest reason for thinking Jikook are/were more than friends. I honestly can’t tell what kind if relationship they have with each other these days but nothing can convince me that those two have always just been platonic. Even if they have never actually dated each other or been in a relationship, i know that they have felt sexual attraction towards eo and have probably acted on it. I mean lets be serious here, why else do you think Jk would visit Jimin’s room multiple times a day, goes there really late at night and remains in there for abt 4 hours at a time “doing nothing” as Jimin said? Especially when he has 5 other hyungs he could visit and hang out with when he is bored. We know he is really close to Tae too so why wouldn’t he even spend some of that time hanging out with him? What is so interesting about any room Jimin is in that he has continued to be obsessed with those rooms for years BPP? Since b4 their debut, we they have always liked spending their nights together. Jk would pile clothes on his bed to go sleep in Jimin’s bed, when Jihope were roomates, it was the same time taekook shared their big living space together yet we found out from Jimin and Hobi that Jk came into their room every single night to sleep there. The one time staff hid cameras in their hotels rooms without telling them, what happened? Didn’t we all see Jimin and Jk getting into Jk’s hotel room together even though all the other members got into their rooms together? Let’s not even talk about Hobi’s bday Live in 2019 when Jimin had to come back to get Jk cuz it seemed like he couldn’t get into his room without him or how during the Live itself he mentioned telling Jk he wouldn’t be able to get which suggested that they were together in the same room before joining the Live.

I dunno combing through footage of all these years, it is crystal clear that there was/is something up with those two. They are just too sus.

Sorry for the extremely long ask.

***

I agree.

[voidedaurora]

I just saw that Goatcatto made their stream on the situation public again, and one of their friends said it was because you implied that they were okay with children sexualising themselves (their own words) and that you were aggressive and dishonest during your conversation with them on Discord, did you knew about this or have you tried reaching out to them again?

THIS IS NOT ABOUT QUARTELZ

Oh trust me I'm aware of this, they pretty much threatened me when kicking me from a gc we had after I had a disagreement with them. Said disagreement was bc I boosted a post where someone had allegedly aged up a MINOR OC they had for Sexual/porn purposes and I obviously thought that was really gross and weird, they came at me ab how they disagreed with my take and hounded me for proof of that person I boosted actions, I did not make a callout on the person I replied/boosted, I simply went "hey this is really weird!" but despite this they hounded me for evidence I don't have and never claimed to have, coming down on me for the fact I'd made one opinionated post on my tumblr. Another part of the argument/disagreement was because they'd tried to convince me that I was like Idk, crazy? for thinking its wrong to age up characters for sexual purposes or use aged up characters for those period, they got really upset that I didn't have the same stance as them DESPITE the fact that my stance (that being: I don't think its morally right or correct for people to age up characters specifically to draw porn of them, or otherwise use previously ORIGINALLY child characters aged up forms for porn. I think its weird that people feel the need to make porn of a child character so bad that they age them up so they can, to me that's disgusting) and after a while of them arguing with me about it I'd gotten frustrated at them 1. trying to hound me for evidence I never had and never claimed to have (I never made a claim against the person I reposted/boosted) and 2. trying to change a like CORE moral belief I have that quite literally cannot be a bad thing, if anything It just makes me more careful than your average person. Anyway after getting frustrated I'd pointed out it makes them look really fuckin weird to be trying to defend all of this, at least to me, and they had started giving reasons why they COULDN'T possibly be weird (kyles was that they work with children and Goats was that this behavior is normal bc they drew porn of their 15 yr old oc but aged up when they were younger!) Yall can make your own conclusion on goat but this is exactly what they said ab that minor porn thing they drew (screenshot was actually used to try and go against ME on twitter by kyle, glad I have this bc they kicked me before I could get ANY screenshots)

Despite what they're saying, I was not dishonest about anything (though things could differ due to me interpreting it differently), and any rudeness was a result of them pushing me to that point with the way they spoke to me, when they don't agree with a take OR are trying to idk "interrogate" you about something they're very blunt, argumentative, and otherwise rude when talking. They take everything to the 100% , best example I can give rn is this 1. "that wall is a little blue"

Goat/Kyle: "Oh so you think that wall Is a deep blue? is that the bluest wall you've ever seen?" Obviously not the best example but I do not have access to the chats so I cannot grab an actual one unfortunately. At the end of our interaction it was either goat or Kyle that asked me smthn along the lines of "so you put an opinionated statement on your tumblr?" and I'd just replied "yes" and they both flipped tf out, going like "GOAT WE WERE RIGHT! both sides are hopeless!" calling me immature then telling goat to put their stream (where they did no prior research and didn't even know about my tumblr existing before despite it being a click n a half away, these people literally need to be spoonfed info or else they WONT look for it/have it period) as some sort of threat? and then kicked me :/ then Kyle vagueposted ab me on twitter and we had a short back n fourth where they tried to argue using the screenshot I provided. Anyway, just wanted to clear that up as best as I can since goat and kyle love their drama and do stuff like you mentioned, vaguelyshit-talking ppl that have differing opinions

[the-owl-house-takes]

"huntlow didnt get enough time to get developed properly" true statement, we were all robbed of a third season and a lot of character development and chracter dynamics for many many characters and so on but its irrelevant to me cus i still wouldnt like it if it was properly developed. i know myself, id still be ok w it being part of the series but i still wouldnt have any interest in it and would find ship art equally annoying just cus i dont like it.

"if hunter was with a boy/willow was with a girl-" irrelevant, thats a different ship with a different character. there is no argument, stay on topic.

"bi/pan erasure or something along those lines" it has nothing to do with their sexualities and i dont care about canon or your headcanons or the characters sexualities none of that is relevant i just dont like them together as a ship

"huntlow antis/huntlow haters" be real. people can just dislike stuff without it being a big spectacle. do you think i put huntlow anti on my job resume or my tinder profile??? its not an identity, its just an opinion (also this is a salt blog. why are there sharks in the ocean)

"hunter having trauma doesnt mean he cant love" the grass is green the sky is blue i still dont have to like the ship and i still think hunters trauma takes priority for most people when they make huntlow stuff, maybe idk i have the tag blocked but ive seen some stuff and i see lots of arguments abt this. yes willow can be a rock for hunter but shes not supposed to be his only rock, hunter needing a rock is not supposed to be the only time they talk or interact, and there are ways to talk about hunter and huntlow without making it only trauma-related. i dont like the trauma-unrelated stuff either its still boring to me.

"something about willow idk i feel like people focus more on hunter when they argue about huntlow so i dont actually know any arguments about willow" willow is an underrated character and i love her but i still dont have to like the ship and i feel like a lot of the time people treat willow in general like one of her best character traits is Likes Hunter, or like shes hunters rock to lean on but never spin that around and let hunter be willows rock, and more often than not, somehow???, hunters trauma is still involved in willows insecurities or its used as part of how she heals from those insecurities?? like. can a girl not just say 'im worried about not being strong enough and being a burden' and not get 'when i was working for belos something something i thought i wasnt strong enough and i was wrong so ur strong too' and something like that like. a lot of huntlow stuff is like that ngl.

"just block people/the tags" I AM but like. i can still dislike it. and im perfectly valid in saying i think its annoying when i go to the tags and more than half the posts i scroll through are blocked cus its huntlow. im perfectly valid in saying i dont like ship whether i have the tags blocked or not.

"people can ship whatever they want" no they cant because i said so. the sun revolves around me. god watches me, his special little guy, fart and immediately cries in joy and throws a celebration party. (but also people are allowed to not ship stuff too like. it goes both ways.)

"so what are people just not supposed to make huntlow fanstuff" yes. i never want to see huntlow ever again my life. (but actually dont do that keep making stuff itd be sad if people stopped)

"everything you say is insane" ya

-

[findafight]

i apologize in advance for the loooooong ask lol (and no pressure about replying if u dont wanna haha) but i saw ur post in the billy hargrove tag and thought it was an interesting character analysis! im a billy fan but im inclined to agree with most of what u said, and i think it's also interesting to compare him and max to zuko and azula. one thing i wanted to comment on tho is when u said "He's also just a racist asshole that has all the means to not be one and doesn't use them or ever feel bad about it."

i just wanted to offer an argument for that point, bc we see that billy's been abused since he was a kid and watched his mom be abused before him, and we also see neil throw slurs at billy, so it's not farfetched to believe his dad spouted racist shit around him too. he also still lives with his dad, and we see in their argument before billy goes to fetch max that billy's safety at home can depend largely on agreeing with and repeating what his dad says.

seeing as how his mom left, how susan doesnt stick up for him (doesnt she even avert her eyes when neil backs him up against his wall?), and how other older women seem to objectify and sexualize him, it also seems like he doesnt have any other adult support in his life--especially not at home where he's supposed to be safe. i would say all of that points to him not having *any* means at all to not be racist, esp considering that his safety might depend on whether or not his dad hears the wrong thing about who he (and max, since his dad seems to put the onus of her actions onto billy's shoulders) might be hanging out with.

he's not in an environment to recognize that racism is bad, and in fact i think it's an environment that teaches him by implicit threat that being racist might actually be something that could help him feel safe, if only bc it means his dad wont have one more thing to come after him about. what means does he have to stop being racist, when he doesnt seem to have external adult support? why would he feel bad about being racist when that mindset might offer him some form of safety? considering all that, i think it's actually surprising he doesnt throw any slurs at lucas (im not applauding this, just observing), esp when put together with how billy himself gets called the f-slur by his father. the importance of words and what you choose to say and what not to say, etc etc.

obviously racism is bad, and im not arguing against his actions *being* racist, i just think that saying he has the means to not be racist isnt entirely accurate. it would be like saying azula has the means to be a good sister but she doesnt use them or ever feel bad about it. that would be an unfair statement when considering how both she and zuko were raised to be pitted against each other, and she had something more to lose by being seen as the more powerful/superior/better sibling by their father. furthermore, the only kind adults in her life have left her with her father for various reasons (her mother & iroh). i dont think she had the means to be a better sister/person, nor would she ever have the need to feel bad about it, because she wasnt raised to look for the means or question why she would want them, if she even knew they existed. the same can be said about billy & his racism. i dont think he could even *start* to have those means, let alone use them, until he starts properly healing in a place he feels safe.

idk, just something to think about i guess. i hope this doesnt come off rude, this is meant as genuine discussion. 😅 people tend to look at billy's scene with lucas, pronounce him racist, and call it a day without considering the context he grew up in, and the fact that racism doesnt come from nowhere--it is always, always something you learn. billy literally says this to max: "i'm older than you, and something you *learn* is that there are a certain type of people in this world that you stay away from." sure he mightve just picked up racism from school or society or something, but with the context of his father at home and how aggressive billy gets with lucas in a similar way to how his dad just got aggressive with him, it makes you wonder how billy might have *really* learned that lesson.

anyways, i dont think he has the means to stop being racist all of a sudden, all by himself, and it seems unfair to blame him (from a narrative standpoint; lucas & his friends, however, have every right to go off lol) for something he cant necessarily choose to improve in his life when he's still living with his bigoted abuser. we dont know if he ever feels bad about it or not--we never see it on-screen but things between him and max certainly change enough for her to try desperately to save him in s3 where she's still (sorta-kinda) dating lucas, so i assume there was some kind of calm-down there, plus billy and max's relationship got to a point where max grieved him *so hard* she got targeted by vecna--but he definitely doesnt really have the means to choose not to be racist. i dont think he thinks he *can* choose this, nevermind discussing whether or not he could and chooses not to.

that being said, i do agree about how he didnt really have a proper redemption arc, or any chance at healing at all. sorry again for the long ask; im sending it cuz im genuinely interested in a good faith discussion. you said you didnt necessarily like billy but found his relationship with max interesting, and you said so on a post about healing & redemption. ive always found that billy's healing & redemption are intrinsically tied to his upbringing and his abuse at home, and i find that his racism is an extension of that in a way people dont acknowledge when making their broader points--instead saying that either the people who sympathize with his home life are excusing the racism, or the people who are naysaying his racism are excusing the abuse. theyre tied together, and i found that most of your post looked at billy fairly except for that one point about his racism being something he can choose--like his racism is something separate from his home life--so i thought id just. give it a genuine go. 😅 anyways, hope ur havin a good day!

Hi! So you've got some good points and in that post I didn't really touch on his racism more than the other things because that would be, to me, one of the things easiest for Billy to begin to rectify. Saying he has all the means wasn't correct though because he doesn't, and unlearning bigotry is not an easy thing, especially without support, but not an impossible thing. People can and do change their perspectives or beliefs even in environments where it is punished.

Reading your thoughts I think you are right in that it likely very much is linked to his abuse, in the way his father treats him and Susan's non-action. Him telling max that "you learn" s also interesting and I think does show that Neil encouraged racism and bigotry in general. The only positive interactions with older women he has is grown women sexualizing him, which is unfortunately never examined further in the show, and the only man we only see him interact with is Neil. So. He obviously doesn't have adult support in his life, we don't see him with any teachers but there's only so much they can do too.

However having adult support isn't fully necessary for him to realize his actions were wrong. I think I was sort of looking at how Max has also been in that house with Neil and Billy, and that Billy often does, like you said, emulate Neil or act as an extension of him possibly for his own safety, leading to his abuse of Max and his seeking of power and control in other areas while max pushes against that.

From the flashbacks in S3 showing Billy and max meeting, they look significantly younger, I'd say max was likely eight or so? And Billy about twelve. So Max has been in this situation for possibly about four to six years (considering she consistently calls him her brother, implying she is used to him as her brother not her mom's BF's son), and while we don't know how her mother treated her or allowed her to be treated, it would not be far to say that Max could have also acted and believed the same things as Billy as a form of self preservation like him. But she doesn't? And it could be that her bio dad still influenced her when they were in California, or that Susan did put more effort into protecting Max, or Max's own experiences at school enforcing that Neil was wrong. Idk.

For me, Max threatening Billy into not coming near her friends again could have been a point where he took a long hard look at himself and reevaluated what he was doing. Even without support he could go through that realization, and attempt to be better. He could have realized that max was not his enemy but in fact another frightened and abused kid. That could have been his gateway into breaking the cycle of abuse with max, and we don't see that. Very unfortunate.

And you're right! We don't know what happened between them during the interim of S2/3. For the most part, and I haven't rewatched billy s3 scenes in a while, he seems relatively the same as the start of s2 though. I don't think we ever see them interact until the sauna test and by then Billy is flayed and out of control. So we do not see if any repairs to their relationship were made, or if billy did work to change. I think if he did, the show would have tried to show us that his and Max's relationship was better, even if it was still rocky and that Billy clearly still had some issues(like those with older women). But it did not, and so we are left to assume he didn't change all that much between seasons.

Max has a lot of conflicting feelings for Billy, because she is scared of him but also sees him as her brother. She wants to have a brother she can rely on but doesn't. I don't think her desperately not wanting Billy to be a mind flayer puppet indicates their relationship was better, but that Max does care for him either way. He's her brother, whether or not they get along, and she does not want him to be involved or being manipulated.

When he dies, and max feels guilt for it, I sort of have the opposite interpretation as you. I see her immense guilt and grief from it stemming from the fact that Billy had abused Max, and at some point she likely wished he was gone, out of her life, possibly dead. Because she was a scared abused child. And when he died trying to save her all those feelings of guilt for wishing she never had to see him again compounded with a possible sense of relief that she wouldn't, because now he was gone.

I also think she wanted a positive relationship with him. She wanted to have a brother she could trust, who she didn't want to wish away. So her confusion and relief and guilt for his death are what leave her vulnerable to vecna.

To just touch on billy not saying a slur to Lucas, I am pretty sure it was in the script at some point before being pulled. Possibly because Caleb was young and I thiiiiink it was during the scene he shoves Lucas into the wall, so someone realized doing that combined with calling him a racial slur maybe traumatic especially for a child actor and they cut it.

[mithliya]

https://www.tumblr.com/menalez/723707154787352576/naur-have-you-seen-coloredcanvass-essay-reblog-to

^ it gets even worse lmfao cuz she wrote her own essay reply to her (i think 6b4t blocked her cuz i can’t see it in the notes) and it’s even longer and more deranged.. the essay wars kek

yeah uh i saw it and there’s literally so many issues i have w so many parts of that response that idek where to even begin. she’s straight up talking over an eastern lesbian of colour repeatedly, minimises homophobia from OSA women, argues OSA women don’t have the power to perpetuate homophobia, compared op to incels, and more… she even argued that straight women are put in conversion therapy by their husbands??? it was really weird.

saying a lesbian of colour “sounds like an incel” for saying that radfems should be separatists (???????)

argues that libfems calling for a sex strike when roe v wade was overturned is somehow a bad thing, bc apparently encouraging women to sleep with men (who are unlikely to even sexually satisfy women to begin with) & risking getting pregnant from it when they can be literally prosecuted for getting an abortion makes sense..? like at least the libfems were trying to make a statement about how if women have no rights then women aren’t gonna waste their time sexually pleasing men!

this was just bizarre. i could also compare russia to taiwan to argue that asia has the best gay rights and europe has the worst but at the end of the day we know that the west is ahead in terms of human rights (women’s rights, gay rights, individual rights, etc). no, not all of the east has it bad & not all of the west has it good. op never even argued otherwise! she said that western women overall have more privileges than eastern women, western gay ppl overall have more privileged than eastern gay people, and so they can afford to be less extreme in their fight against discrimination & oppression in a way that the rest of us cannot. she did not say that every western woman is super privileged and lazy or something.

also i love the assumption that tokyo is like, a good example of a place where homosexuality is accepted.

we were talking about lesbians specifically and if the fact that women have no agency in a huge portion of the world and are often forced into marriages and there’s phenomena of lesbians taking vows of chastity JUST so they don’t have to be with men doesn’t clue u in on how many lesbians have resigned to the fact that they can never actually be with women, then idk how to help.

my god. do we really need to explain how there’s significantly more & better representation of female heterosexuality than there is of female same sex attraction then?

conversion therapy? for being attracted to men? are u being serious right now… the rest is true and idk how this is supposed to support the idea that women should keep on marrying men. but women are not sent to conversion therapy for being married to men.. thats not a thing

minimising homophobia from women as if lesbians haven’t been abused, disowned, sent to conversion therapy, forced into het marriages, duped into situations with men, etc etc with the help of OSA women..

not all men

saying things are far less common in the west & women generally have it better in the west is different from saying they don't exist in the west. yes, all of those horrible things exist in the west. no, overall, misogyny in the west is not as blatant and overt and accepted and indeed western women have a privilege over eastern women in that sense. women where im from literally cannot even go to police for being raped bc that often means losing everything. shi'a women where im from cannot initiate divorce even when theyre being abused. marital rape is legal where im from. these are just a few examples of things we experience and its not wrong to say that.

calling an eastern woc a “racist, classist piece of shit” for saying western women tend to face less extreme misogyny than us sure is something.

if every woman was fully aware of her oppression and combatting misogyny then things would be very different today. even women in the middle east will argue they don’t have it bad. my own mother argued she never faced misogyny in the workplace while also saying she quit work because they kept sexualising her and telling her she’s too “alluring” as she’s the only non-hijabi in her workplace. people face oppression, it doesn’t mean they are aware of it or accept the nature of it as oppression.

there’s a couple more things she said that i take issues with but there’s a limit to how many screenshots i can share so let me summarise the remaining stuff:

1. thecoloredcanvas offended on behalf of eastern women and putting “eastern” in quotations, but not doing the same for western women. odd behaviour because i’ve never come across an eastern woman who even takes issue with the term.

2. saying “no radfem is seriously claiming that they can’t live or function without sex” immediately followed up with “sex absolutely is a need”…

3. saying woc & lesbians aren’t being “chased out of” radical feminist spaces. she even argues that if we leave radblr, it’s on us as if this space isn’t hostile to us and protective of racist & homophobic women. she ignores the entire history of “the lavender menace” & political lesbianism & racism & lesbophobia within radical feminism.

[bisluthq]

I get how the “secret relationship” stuff in reputation is going to appeal to queer people, because straight people outside of the spotlight don’t have to hide their relationships (unless you’re in a Romeo and Juliet situation I guess). But we know Taylor was dating Joe and we know exactly why she was hiding.

I get relating to a lot of the themes of the album as a queer person, but I don’t get why people need that interpretation to be the “correct” or “real” one. You can relate to the album even if Taylor wrote it about a man, your interpretation can be different from Taylor’s

This is exactly what I said dude. There is no such thing as a correct interpretation of art. There is what Taylor was thinking about (usually autobiographical although she does fantasize and make stuff up because again, she is not a dick powered jukebox). There is what you think about. Things we think about when listening to her songs can change over time (as I said, this applies to what Taylor thinks about them too because it is HER CREATIVE WORK). I guarantee you End Game is giving her a little thrill now that she’s with a professional athlete but she didn’t write it with him in mind.

An interpretation is just that - one way to read something. It’s not limited to sexuality btw like people read things differently all the time. I’ve shared this before: CLM is like the most romantic song I’ve ever heard FOR ME. My current situation actually fits that really perfectly. I played it for my bf a few months into us dating expecting him to love it and he found it depressing and tragic. He didn’t get the romance at all. He didn’t hate the song as like… a song lol like he thinks it’s pretty but he fails to see how it’s romantic. That same day - we were sharing like what our most romantic song is about the other person because it was early days and we were vom cute ew 🤢 - he chose Patience by Guns ‘N Roses and I had the same reaction. Like, cool song ngl but I don’t get how it’s like a grand statement on romance. Idk what the fuck Axl was thinking when he wrote Patience (I suspect very little because he would’ve been high as shit but ok) but for my bf that’s like the grandest statement on love and fits us and for me it’s a little confusing and tbh it sounds like they’ve broken up when he’s singing it??? And that’s his same point on CLM lol. So like yeah people interpret things differently guys. This is what I’ve been trying to say.

Saying “I pick up queer themes in Dress” is fair play. Saying “Taylor didn’t write Dress about Joe, she’s a big fat liar who lies, it’s about supermodel Karlie Kloss- no wait it’s about supermodel Lily Donaldson because there’s a picture of them at a party in a bathtub with like 50 other people and she mentions that public moment in her song and ergo this song is about Lily/Karlie/the homophobic violinist from her first band and who cares what it means to me because I never go outside but Taylor is gay and this is the proof” is just unhinged.

Also there are a host of other reasons to want to be secretive in mf relationships other than Romeo and Juliet or super famous vibes just btw. Hookups within friend groups or intermixed friend groups often have to be kept on the DL. Hookups at work - unless it’s proven to be serious - should be kept on the DL. Dating while in the midst of a divorce or serious longterm breakup has to be kept on the DL. If you’ve got kids, dating has to be kept on the DL unless you’re a messy bitch who lives for drama or until you know it’s serious. Reconnecting with exes has to mostly be kept on the DL until you know it’s serious. I can go on. Being gay or being in a truly forbidden situation aren’t the only two valid reasons to want to know places you won’t be found.

Any of those situations could have you relating to Dress. The best friend stuff makes it sound a bit gay to me (someone who has hooked up with a number of her female friends) but that’s not the only interpretation nor is it factual. It’s also not invalid.

My last thought is like… as fun as muse analysis is, I like Taylor Swift because she articulates thoughts about MY LIFE better than I can. I don’t imagine Taylor and Joe or Taylor and Jake or Taylor and Harry or Hiddleswift or whatever when I listen to my favorite songs. I imagine my own life. That’s what I love about her. It feels like she’s articulating feelings and experiences I’ve felt better than I ever could yk?

[dearweirdme]

taekookers in general consider taekook's premiere 'date' a statement, or a semi coming out, or water testing, or normalizing seeing them together. all of which make 0 sense.

1) taekook don't need to normalize the sight of them together as it isn't something abnormal to the fandom in the first place. 2) they're not coming out right before of military enlistment for sure, idk how people even consider that option, and 3) the "testing waters" thing is hypocritical.

what is there to test? reactions to what? there's nothing gay about attending an event together, namseok did it already, jihope did it at pfw, all of these members attended events together for the first time, and it'll probably happen more times in the future with different combinations of members.

and the fact that the people who dismissed any and every queer coded message in jungkook's gcf films are the same ones saying that is hypocritical. gcf tokyo had a queer coded song by a queer artist. gcf saipan had queer coded lyrics over jimin's part twice. gcf helsinki had the entire frame change to white and the filter change to bright colors when jimin appeared on screen (but people love to ignore that part yet always praise the filter warming up at namjoon's part). gcf osaka paused the music twice just to show us jimin giggling and being a goofball. the fact that in general every time jk's voice was heard in any of the gcfs was always because of jimin being at the crime scene. all of that means nothing though, because apparently jungkook is stupid and doesn't know what he's doing or what kind of messages his gcfs send in regards to jimin and the music he chooses is meaningless (even when he himself said he searches for the lyrics of every song he posts/uses) because people are being willfully blind. or jungkook is just a company puppet doing whatever he's told, including highlighting jimin in gcfs to serve a hidden company agenda.

if everything queer coded (the gcfs, showing up with the hickey instead of just covering it to avoid discourse, etc) thing jungkook has done in regards to jimin can't be him testing reactions or normalizing his... rather unique bond with jimin, then what is there to normalize about normal friend group hang outs or public appearances?

Hi anon, long time no see!

You are reacting to me saying I don’t think Tae and Jk were testing the waters by spelling out why they aren’t testing the waters. Isn’t us agreeing on that enough anon? Why the whole ask again? Go send this stuff to Taekookers who do think that instead, don’t use my blog as your platform.

Also, funny enough you say Tae and Jk cannot possibly be testing the waters.. but Jimin and Jk can?

I don’t disagree entirely that Jk could have been queercoding his GCF’s, but I dont think it’s likely. You however think he’s Jimin-coding his stuff… and that to me is highly unlikely. Idols in general do not share their relationships, no member of BTS has ever shared his relationship, Idols in general are not allowed to come out.., idols dating in-band is not great for marketing, so allowing a queer in-band couple to test the waters is not an option in SK. If it were only testing waters for a public relationship or only testing waters for a queer member… big maybe.. but all of those together, nope. If Jk and Jimin were actually together Bighit/Hybe would not have let Jk publish that GCF. They let him, because they know it’s a platonic friendship.

You take queercoding to a level it’s usually not taken to. Queer coding (and there is also debate on using this term dor real people, but I do get what you mean) is done by queer people to point out their sexuality, not their relationships. Queer coding is Tae referencing queer artists, and art, it’s Jk wearing queer coded clothing and doing song recommendations. It is not pointing to one person and outing your relationship.

You see everything Jk and or Jimin does through Jikook-eyes. Leave the ‘hickey’ (it’s a bite!!!) and the GCF’s and Rosebowl out of it for a minute… and then what is left of your ‘proofs’? You come to me with the same three things over and over and those just don’t actually proof anything, because it can also point to friendship. Ofcourse Jk and Jimin have a unique bond, they are members/brothers/friends who have lived together for years, who have gone through tough times together, who have worked together on a physical level as well… all of that creates closeness. Look at Hobi and Jimin and how they interact… not that different if only you want to see.

And please, read my posts better, because I’ve explained all of this before and I am not prone to change my mind about this.

[piqued-curiosity]

“omg how dare you/this other person reblog an excerpt from this book that said this lesbophobic thing”

Very different to pass around a non-homophobic excerpt from a book that said homophobic things from an author that has literally dozens of books essay and speeches, than to pass around an explicitly homophobic essay from some tumblr user containing slurs and tack-standard rape apologia. Are you really gonna pretend you shouldn't get angry and "zero in" on the homophobia even if some good points were made, especially if the homophobia was stated to be the point by the title of the essay?

Kinda too late, since you already said you agreed that homosexuals have every right to "zero in" on the tiring and homophobic aspect of "don't be cruel to homophobic teenagers". In that situation you understood why there's baggage and it's not something gay people can just sit back and take even if there's a good point in there somewhere. I agree btw. If you can understand that, you have the capacity to understand why bisexual women have every right to zero in on being called degrading sexual language, be told they're just like TIMs, and especially being told their rape is something they weaponize against lesbians. This last statement is absolutely standard rape apologia thinly veiled, in the same vein that rape victims are lying to bring down good men, that they're speaking up for attention, that they're just speaking up for political clout, and all the other "you're weaponizing this!" bullshit that gets thrown at SA victims when they speak up. IMO bi women have every right to be furious about this AND zero in on it to, and definitely to criticize people spreading and endorsing messages that contain this rhetoric.

So no, you didn't seem like you were going "yay! degrade those bi women!" but it sure didn't slow you down from posting it, endorsing it, praising the author, saying she's your Andrea Dworkin (weird cope btw), treating bi women like they're homophobic idiots if they have a problem with you endorsing and defending the post, or telling by bi women that it's frustrating they would "zero in" on their degradation, as if it was something immensely petty and unimportant. Yeah some people did much worse things but why does that mean we can't criticize you for being insensitive and dismissive about how you've treated this and the effect posting rape apologia has on the people it's directed against? BTW the reason you get message and other people don't isn't because bisexuals are just whiny bullies trying to single you out for no reason. It's because most of the people in that fucking post have already, multiple times, said they view degrading language against bi women as deserved and don't think it's a bad thing. So there's nothing to argue with them, they're just acting on their beliefs. We BELIEVE YOU when you say you don't support that so we're trying to make you see how, in this case, you actually are being insensitive and cruel in how you're treating it! Doesn't mean we don't talk about the other people plenty and much more harshly.

See, the thing is, I agree with you! Just skimming this, there’s nothing I feel the need to argue with you on.

But where you lose me is when you continue to act like I fully endorsed that post without criticism, which I did not. I reblogged it because I supported the fact it was pointing out a very specific type of lesbophobia that comes from bi women. While reblogging it, I explicitly criticised it. My annoyance comes from the fact that I know what’s wrong with it and I made that clear right off the bat…yet I’m still getting anons about it weeks (maybe even months? Idk) after it happened as if I never approached it critically.

Also I never said “she’s my Andrea Dworkin”. It was just an admittedly bad comparison.

I’ve said all I can about it at this point. Stop pretending I was never critical of the post when I made sure to be clear that I was.

[ineffably-human]

Why Nandermo Is Happening, It's Gotta, Goddamnit It Had BETTER

Here's the thing: in spite of some of the things said prior to S3 actually airing, I'm still convinced - or idk, maybe convincing myself? but convincing myself VERY VERY HARD - that Nandor/Guillermo is going to happen on a romantic and sexual level. (This is regardless of whether they actually end up together, though I think that has to happen too, I'll get to that later).

Because they didn't have to do it this way. They really didn't. It's not like everyone was chomping at the bit for Nandor/Guillermo as a queer slow burn romance. I think there were enough shades of meaning in Season 2 where they could have gone anywhere with it. 'I want to be you,' or 'you're handsome but you're also a father figure,' or 'becoming equals and brothers-in-arms as warriors.' The 'will-they-won't-they' with the two of them was always 'will Nandor treat Guillermo with respect and kindness, will Guillermo become part of their house for real, will Guillermo become a vampire?'

And then they just...set the ball rolling HARD towards two of those right out of the gate. And they set up the entire third season like cascading dominos that put Nandor and Guillermo on parallel character arcs, linking their desires and thoughts about happiness to each other at every turn. They did this while slowly, the whole time, exploring them both as romantic and sexual beings in text. And remember, they plotted Season Three and Season Four together.

Please join me in a game of 'They Did Not Have To But They Did'.

(Note: I've been working on this ship manifesto-type thing for weeks, at different levels of confidence in my own thesis statement depending on what interview the fandom just rediscovered, so it's ginormous but just...bear with me.)

You can see it from minute one of the third season, because everything is different now within this new dynamic they have. It's clear immediately that Guillermo is in control. His sadness isn't as deep, he's confident in his abilities and what he wants. He's figured out how to either herd the ancient children he lives with, or step around them. He can't even be hypnotized.

But even though he rarely needs Nandor's backup, Nandor is his constant advocate. There are still times he's rude or out of touch with Guillermo's feelings, but often that's resolved by some kind of major progress within the same episode. We see far more often that he stands up for him, corrects everyone about his new position, trusts and respects his skills.

And Nandor seeing his skills, seeing him as a warrior, is a BIG deal because up to now he's seen Guillermo as under him - as a kid. Maybe as a new pet horse. Sometimes as a friend, when he allows himself to. Certainly not as an equal, or a vampire. And yeah, Guillermo is still a "little rascal," but that's quite a few steps from infantilizing him.

What a great setup for the two of them to become equals, friends, maybe brothers-in-arms. And they could end it there and NEVER ADDRESS IT beyond that. But they don't! There's more!

Nandor is becoming a softer and more dynamic character, and the story is giving him an arc of his own. While Guillermo wants to be a vampire, Nandor is questioning what meaning and value being a vampire has. His conclusion to all this is to look for love, specifically! A committed relationship, someone to share his life with! What develops from that? Well.

Nandor's like a puppy dog ready to sweep up the first lady who's nice to him. Meanwhile we establish he used to admire the bodies of his fellow male warriors.

A lesbian clocks within two sentences that "Nandor" is really into "Guillermo" romantically. Guillermo is so freaked out by this he immediately excuses himself.

She then mentions it to Nandor (who is surprised/confused but not disgusted at the thought) and we get the confirmation that Nandor is interested in men as well as women.

They didn't have to do that, but they did.

And then there's Gail, can we talk about Gail? Because this is the setup for Gail:

Nandor wants to make someone a vampire. That person keeps getting his hopes up and then refusing them. They have done this for 40 years.

(They didn't have to do that, but they did.)

Guillermo is jealous and considers himself a protector of Nandor's heart as well as his body. It's revealed Gail is now a werewolf, their 'mortal enemy' (pretty sure slayers are up there too bud), and he doesn't hold that against her and wants to make peace with her pack. He makes her a vampire and she still leaves, never just being upfront with him, and it's Guillermo who's there to take his heartbreak seriously and to comfort him.

They didn't have to do that! But they did!!

Guillermo's role as a bodyguard is cemented among the group in The Casino, and he takes another step towards this being the family he's eager to create for himself. Nandor continues to be his biggest advocate and tries to make him feel included. Guillermo's sexuality is once again addressed, slowly and carefully, basically teased prior to what we know they'll address even more explicitly in Season 4 - and no one is looking and listening more intently than Nandor is.

Nandor's love crisis has gone to a full-blown existential crisis, but it's also still about relationships. He feels like life has no meaning and is pointless because he sees vampires as having no real connection. Vampires have no real families. (Family, a theme repeated throughout the season.) He doesn't even have a girlfriend. (Romantic relationships coming up again, even if individual women aren't for a while.) And then we get the pan over to Guillermo's plane coming home to him, showing that he's not alone in having ALL of those things that are EXPLICITLY stated together, because Guillermo is there.

Did not have to but did!

So let's be clear: we've put Guillermo into a much more equal dynamic in the household, and we've set up very clearly over three episodes now that Nandor is looking for love, Guillermo has feelings for him, they're both interested in men, and Nandor feels empty and bereft of meaning in a way that Guillermo can provide and already does.

The next three episodes put Nandor's love journey on hold but cement their new dynamic, integrating Guillermo as a part of the team and showing him experimenting with the power he holds. (He tries whispering in people's ears but, this is important for later, always does better when speaking out loud.)

Guillermo literally slaps sense into Nandor at one point while he's descending into melancholy, tells him to "help me help you fix this", which is...an insanely married statement. And Nandor's sense of honor flares brightest, as usual, when Guillermo will potentially be hurt on his behalf.

There isn't a single episode that doesn't have at least one interaction between them, that doesn't put them as a duo as much as Laszlo and Nadja in their rhythms. And then the last three episodes drive it home.

Nandor says specifically, in the depths of his depression, that he still has 'roommates' (as opposed to family members) - no life partner (a gender-neutral term now), no children, no one to share his dreams or his fears with. Jan reads his vulnerability and gives him the five seconds courtesy of asking him how being a vampire is going for him, and now Nandor wants to be human.

Nandor wants to become the thing Guillermo has spent the last twelve years trying to escape, and they're on inverse paths, with Guillermo saying that if he's turned they can both find happiness. But Nandor admits he cares far too much about Guillermo to ever make him a vampire because it'd weigh on him forever. And even with his position as servant and the promise of vampiredom revoked, Guillermo can only think of Nandor. The fact that they (he) couldn't make Nandor happy.

Meanwhile, what is Nandor getting from the cult? Well, he's getting a sense of community. He's learning new things, he's embracing the surprise and novelty of failing when he doesn't use his powers. He's second in command to Jan and it loops back to the 'number two' joke at the beginning of the season, but it's also really important I think - that Nandor is learning to find joy in being 'weaker'. Working in a position of support or equality, finding a new kind of power in that. Understanding that as a component of his life, and of relationships.

And this is all set to a song (One Week) that's about a man reciting a string of pop culture minutia so he can avoid the real problem, addressing a rift with someone he loves.

Guillermo rescues Nandor, saves his life again, and Nandor in turn gives him the second truly emotional conversation they've ever had - in which he confesses how deeply unhappy he's been for decades, how this is a new kind of joy he's never had in his entire life. He shares his feelings in a way we've never seen him do with anyone else, in a way he lamented he wasn't able to do with anyone at the start of the episode.

Nandor wants love and belonging and meaning, he wants discovery and new things, he wants to be challenged, and there's not a single one of those things that Guillermo isn't trying to create in the Staten house. Or that is already present in their relationship. They didn't have to set Nandor looking for these things, didn't have to make it clear he already has them in the person he's seeing in a new light, but they did.

Nandor winds up in the same cage Guillermo was in at the start of the season (didn't have to but did!) to process where he's been so far. I wonder if this is where he started thinking hardest about what Guillermo has become to him, because it's in episodes 9 and 10 that he begins to call him by pet names. (Didn't have to do that, but they did.)

Nandor's anger is strongest and deepest towards Guillermo after he's deprogrammed, there is something raw and personal in that "and you!" compared to the others. His attempt to Super Slumber reads very much like someone lashing out. Guillermo doesn't push back, though, mainly just says he wishes Nandor wasn't doing this. And he goes from grief to indignation to raw anger as Nandor continues to dig his heels in, and yet he's still pushing so much down, still doesn't give him that second physical or verbal slap that has been what Nandor needs in the past. He hasn't remembered that he has to truly speak to bridge that gap.

"I don't even care about [becoming a vampire] anymore, I just don't want you to go."

Nandor calls him 'my dear Guillermo.'

It takes Colin Robinson's death to remind Nandor that life is precious and break him from his super slumber plans, but all of the pain still hasn't come to a head. They read like a married couple, shooing the cameras from the room before Guillermo flat-out tells him he's running away from his feelings. Nandor in response is deeply cruel, more than he's been in ages, saying that Guillermo is one of the things (the feelings) he needs to get away from. Blatantly disregarding his presence in saying that once Laszlo and Nadja get away, he'd be all alone. Saying "[his] sweet, sweet Guillermo" couldn't possibly understand how he feels, because Guillermo isn't a vampire. (The unspoken being 'and you never will be.')

Guillermo tries to manipulate his way into keeping things as they are, but once again the way to do it is to go on the attack, challenge Nandor, be his match. To show just how much has changed between them. And I believe more and more that it really was a test on Nandor's part, a statement - "I believe you can stand with me, but you have to acknowledge the cards you hold. If you want this, throw away what our relationship was for last twelve years and come and take it."

"This is what I have been waiting for," Nandor says, when Guillermo finally does. He's newly invigorated, excited even. What has Nandor been waiting for this whole season, something he mentions again and again? Someone to share his life with. A lover, a partner, a part of his family.

He uses the same words as his marriage proposal to Gail to ask Guillermo to come with him, and to say he's going to make him a vampire in his homeland, linking their journeys together. Guillermo nearly calls him '[his] Nandor'.

They didn't have to do that, but they did!

And when it all goes wrong, when Laszlo is giving his goodbye to Nadja (a spouse he chose below his station, who his peers saw as nothing), it's a parallel to Guillermo and Nandor once again. Laszlo always saw Nadja as needing his protection but now feels he's watched her blossom and come into her own; he sends her Guillermo out of love, not because Nadja is helpless. But Nadja still feels Laszlo couldn't get by without her, that she's protecting him from himself.

"It is a very dangerous world out there."

"You're joking, right? It's me who's been protecting you!"

...

"You've finally proved that you can take care of yourself, and more importantly, you can take care of me."

One half of the pair understanding the other's power, the other still feeling responsible, just as both couples are ripped apart.

Didn't have to but they did!

I don't know if the whole series is a love story between Nandor and Guillermo, but Season 3 absolutely is. It's a love story about a very dysfunctional relationship that has a lot of different facets, but sex and romance are clear and present parts of it.

I think the biggest concerns going forward are going to be 1) are they going to claim one of them has no romantic/sexual interest in the other, 2) are they going to make them 'endgame' so to speak and give them a happy ending? And as long as everything we're seeing is what's happening, I don't think either of those things are anything to worry about.

Because they've made it clear both characters, especially Guillermo, are interested in men, something that's only going to come up more in Season 4 (remember, they plotted 3 and 4 together). Because there's been a romantic and sexual dimension to their relationship this whole time, but especially this season, where they started practically from ground zero and built a case for the two of them as a marriage. Because their biggest and most important relationship has always been each other.

And as for happily ever after, well, if Guillermo belongs with this family - and I think we're meant to believe he does, he's certainly fought for his place in it - then I don't think his reward is going to be forever wanting and never able to have the person he's in love with. He'd have to, if nothing else, move on and find fulfillment in some other love story.

But this is the love story they set up. This is the most important relationship in both their lives, and they spent 10 episodes moving it from something very toxic with painful edges to a chance for both of them to find the family and partner they crave.

Nothing else makes sense. There are a lot of kinds of love story, honestly, they didn't have to tell a romantic love story. But they told a romantic love story. And they know people are here for it. And nothing is holding them back from continuing to tell it.

[desidarling123]

FACT CHECK: Did JKR sue people for writing Wolfstar fanfiction? [FALSE] [with sources]

So, if you're at all active in the HP fandom, and ESPECIALLY if you're on TikTok, you've likely come across a post or video claiming the following:

JKR LITERALLY SUED PEOPLE OVER WOLFSTAR FANFICTION! AND THAT'S ALSO WHY SHE MADE REMADORA CANON -- TO SPITE THE SHIPPERS!

I'm not sure who first started this claim or how its various permutations grew, but it spread at the speed of light across social media. This widely-circulated meme summarizes it:

For the LONGEST time, I didn't know what to make of it. The claims were vague enough that they seemed like they could be true -- after all, JKR is a megacunt and a renowned TERF. You don't need to fact-check either of those things.

But then -- for the first time ever -- I came across a video on TikTok claiming that what was being said was NOT true, and that it was being used SPECIFICALLY to stir up drama. Which was... crazy, to say least.

And that led me, well, to do my own research & fact-check. I've taken the original video's structure and added some exposition as well.

So here's the truth:

That 2003 case the above meme refers to? Not even REMOTELY what the situation was about. Hell, not even CLOSE.

In 2003, JKR sent a cease-and-desist letter to an explicit adult HP fan fiction website, called "Restricted Section". Here's the letter:

As the above letter states, the site was sent a notice because of overarching concerns that minors would accidentally stumble onto the sexually explicit content the site hosted after searching up 'Harry Potter'.

The hand-wringing over minor safety probably seems dated now, but it was, in fact, standard practice in the early 2000s - sexually explicit fan content was being removed across the internet for those exact concerns. In fact, just the year before, in 2002, fanfiction.net was purged of NC-17 content (which would happen one more time, in 2012).

I feel ridiculous stating it, but just to be clear -- in the above letter and all my subsequent research, there's NO evidence she went after Wolfstar -- or any ship, for that matter -- directly.

In fact, the letter goes an extra mile to declare that "our clients (JKR) make no complaint about innocent fan fiction written by genuine Harry Potter fans", but that, "there is plainly a very real risk that impressionable children... will be directed... to your sexually explicit website".

But that leads in nicely to the next point -- the website DIDN'T shut down, as per the letter's request. Instead, they added password protection to ensure only members older than 17 were accessing it.

OK, but why did JKR and Warner Bros go after this site in the first place? Most believe it was because of a widely-publicized article in THE SCOTSMAN that talked about the website. But, once again, this article doesn't go after Wolfstar in particular -- it only goes after Harry x Draco and Harry x Snape. The inclusion of latter was arguably what generated the biggest controversy -- the pairing of Harry, a fictional minor, with an adult character, in slash stories largely written by adult heterosexual women, was not one that could be cast in a good light to the general public. It's hardly a surprise JKR's lawyers sought to do something before the controversy got out of hand and worried parents started to make calls.

What I said before still goes, though. The legal core of the issue was ALWAYS to do NOT with the ships, but the EXPLICIT NATURE of the work -- and the (very real) concerns that the series' then-mostly-under-18 readership could find said works with very little as far as guardrails were concerned. (I know, because I was one of those kids)

TLDR; JKR did NOT sue people over Wolfstar fanfiction, she sent a cease-and-desist notice to a website that was not taking adequate precautions to prevent minors from accessing the explicit adult content on the site.

To be clear -- this is not meant to be a statement on what to ENJOY in your fandom ships. You can ship Wolfstar, Remadora, both, neither -- it really doesn't matter. I think the fandom is critical enough of the author to have reclaimed her work on our own terms, and people should be allowed to just, idk enjoy things.

But propagating straight-up falsehoods is dangerous, especially when it comes at the expense of 1) a safe fandom environment (see: the current fandom ship wars between Remadora and Wolfstar, which are difficult to watch) and 2) serves as a distraction from the ACTUAL garbage JKR engages in (of which there is plenty -- no need to make it up lol).

Also, truth be told -- inter-fandom ship wars don't generally add anything productive to the necessary conversations that need to be had about her works. The thought that dashing fan ships was a key motivator in her writing rather than, I don't know, plot concerns, is ludicrous on face, and gives fans a level of control over the original writer that just... doesn't exist IRL? And certainly didn't back then?

And again -- the books would have been VERY different series, plot-wise, if Sirius Black HAD lived. Him being in a relationship with Remus, confirmed or implied, has no relation to that decision.

If we have talk Harry Potter, I'd rather talk about just about anything else -- the racism, the misogyny, the lack of any sort of organic queer rep and JKR's inability to just own up to the problems in her works. But the minutiae of ship wars -- and the inevitable stream of disinformation that comes with it, sans any kind of concrete evidence -- is one I'd prefer to pass on.

SOURCES:

Cease-and-Desist Letter Copy: http://archive.is/HTLsq

THE SCOTSMAN Article: http://archive.is/VdEaY

Restricted Section Updates Page:

https://web.archive.org/web/20030815233612/http://www.restrictedsection.org/news.php

BONUS: The original TikTok video I came across whose structure and sources I shamelessly stole to read and build out my argument. I copied a lot of their wording because it explained it better than I could, you just get some bonus snarky commentary from yours truly

[bookofmirth]

ok so this might come off as a bit rambly so please bear with me lol

i've noticed that the acotar fandom has this incessant need to be right when it comes to canon and it really sucks out the funness of fandom. shipping is supposed to be fun but when it comes to this fandom, it's almost like a competition to see who will be more right when the books come out. engaging with theories/predictions about characters and the plot is supposed to be exciting but when it comes to this fandom, some of the theories/predictions are problematic at worst and nonsensical at best. like how can you say with your full chest that you're so confident about where the series is heading in the future because of this or that theory when you're stuck in the past and refuse to see what all of the text is telling you in the present. it doesn't make sense. the selective reading is so strong that it has me looking sideways sometimes lol

i guess my question is why do you think the fandom is so divided when it comes to ships right now? i've seen people say this wasn't the case for feysand and nessian, so what's the difference here?

Oh boy Brielle, I have some thoughts on this. It's complex.

To be clear, I am not saying that this applies to literally every single person who ships a certain way. This is a commentary on the fandom as a whole, and there are always exceptions.

This got really, really long, so I'm putting it under the cut.

I think that one of the main draws of this series, and of sjm's writing in general, is her ships. I think that people get very, very attached to their ships.

I also think that sjm does NOT fully think through some of the choices that she makes when writing. See: the way that she takes from all these different cultures and mashes them together, which could be seen as disrespectful of their origin. She has retconned things, like Mor being queer and Lucien being Helion's son. I think that she thoroughly thinks about some of the aspects of her books, like Rhys's reaction to sleeping with Feyre for the first time, but then really half-asses other aspects of her books, like Mor coming out.

Then, we have your good old misogyny and homophobia - people in the fandom don't like Mor because she hurt the poor bat boy's feelings when she didn't sleep with him, and they don't have a mating bond, but she's never really told Azriel "no", and so every single moment of pain that Azriel has felt in 500 years is Morrigan's fault. And Mor's experience as a closeted queer woman who feels unsafe around the people she should trust the most is completely disregarded by the fandom.

Finally, I think that a combination of these factors has created the monster we know as e*riel, and that the fandom is perpetuating its own mythology.

What all of this comes down to, and the real reason I think that the fandom is behaving this way right now, is that e*riel is dead. It's never happened, it's not going to happen, but because we don't have the clear closure we got with moriel (where people would be accused of homophobia for continuing to ship it), people are still trying to figure out any possible way for e*riel to become canon, though every single sign points to it being a non-issue.

This weird thing where people have to be "right" all the time, and the way that "right" = "canon" is a relatively new development. It's as if everyone in this fandom forgot that they are in fact in a fandom, which inherently diverges from canon.

However, I think that the need to cling to canon is because the alternative would be to admit defeat and say "well, even if it doesn't happen I will still ship e*riel, it's fine, I will live with that." But they don't want to do that. In response, they look at canon so hard that they are reading the white space between the letters to create their theories, which as you noted as largely nonsensical and often fail to take into account who the characters are as individuals, how they are connected to other characters, and why it would or wouldn't be appropriate for them to be involved in various plots.

People could say, as eluciens having been saying since day one, "I really ship this thing but I can see that it might not become canon". But they don't say that. They literally refuse to see any other possibility than e*riel becoming canon.

You pointed out that people are stuck in the past - absolutely. The number of reimaginings I have seen of scenes where either Azriel or Elain has literally zero to do with the scene, but people try to shove one or both of them in there. And this from books ago. People are stuck on the Truthteller scene, and refuse to acknowledge that neither of them have acted on their feelings, whatever those might be, for years. And they ignore the fact that once Elain and Az do act, it goes horribly wrong.

Here are the facts as of right now:

ACOSF is the most recent book. In that book, sans extra chapter, those two had no interaction other than looking at one another.

If we include his POV, then he said it was wrong, we got confirmation that nothing has ever happened between them, she returned his necklace. Elain was aroused, but that does not mean she was ready to even have sex. "Yes" to a kiss is not "yes" to every single sexual act Az can think of. They parted on awkward, bad terms after a scene in which it seemed like they were about to start something. Yikes. Unlike Wings and Embers, they did not end that chapter still thinking of one another. After they part ways, the omniscient narrator does not mention Elain, or Az thinking about Elain, again.

His POV occurs months before the end of the book. They do not interact after that.

Elain has a mate she has not rejected, nor accepted.

So anyway, your question was why are people like this. lol. I think the fandom created a monster, and that monster is clinging to life. It can't accept the idea of morphing into a non-canon ship, though it never was canon in the first place. It had just convinced itself that it was.

There are other aspects to this, that have to do with gwynriel and elucien.

Gwynriel is a new ship, it's almost guaranteed to happen, people are super excited to ship it and give Gwyn all their love. I'm sure they would rather create content for that ship than argue about whether or not it's going to be canon, but they are in constant defense mode. Some people honestly didn't like e*riel before because they don't like Elain, or because they don't like Azriel, and those are valid reasons for not liking it. Why people ship gwynriel doesn't matter. The tone of the discussion is, unfortunately, being shaped elsewhere, which I will mention below.

Elucien is an old ship, older than e*riel. I can speak from this perspective - personally, I have been holding my tongue for 4.5 years. I have been letting people live, and just talking about the things I like. Then when acosf came out, it was like I could finally say all the things I had been thinking about Azriel, because I now had proof that the things I thought about his character (and because of that, about e*riel) now had solid canon foundation. This is 4.5 years of me holding in a lot of shit and finally being able to say it. Sometimes yes, I might take joy in having been right.

I think that a few people are clinging to canon, and that sets the tone for the discourse in the fandom. Someone says "according to page whatever, blah blah blah" and people feel the need to respond, and then it turns into and "I'm right" contest instead of... a fandom... A lot of us like debating. To me, it's fun. But when Person A starts a conversation that's about canon and it actually ignores canon, it's hard to let that conversation go by and just keep creating whatever we want to create. Instead, we respond, and so the tone of the conversation is shaped by what Person A decided to say.

I also think that there is a lack of distinction between theories (what will happen in the future) and meta (analysis of what we have now).

There is also a lack of "I" statements. Opinions are being stated as fact.

idk if there is a way to make it better, other than to just go back to ignoring one another. This whole situation makes me want to throw out every single canon ship I like and create exclusively non-canon content, just for spite. Except I really like doing meta, and so I don't want to. I guess for my point, I'll just keep doing meta, keep creating different content, and keep reminding people that they aren't here to continue perpetuating canon, but to play with it.

[cravingsfromatwistedone]

Idk if it is my old butt, but none of us were like this back when we read lemon as minors.

Speaking for myself, I was aware of what I was reading, as 16 years old Is a common age to experience sexual desire. And what a best way to quell that need, if reading about your favourite character? Something that is not real and can be modelled to your very specifications. Looking back now, now Adult me can difference a piece wrote by a minor vs one of an adult; is quite obvious with the implemented theme and... this does not apply to everyone, but the grammar is also a big indicator.

It baffles me how much of a sharp, left turn people have done in the last years. The amount of characters that were aged up (yes, that is something that have been existing for a lot of years) even as the author was a minor themself... speaks how little importance this new "This is character is a minor, hence you can't write about them" policy.

I am aware of some of those minors are acting like that due to proclamed grooming... but they aren't entitled to judge everyone as if they are predator/groomers. They choose to see everyone in a bad light rather than be calm and give them the benefit of the doubt (because as many good people are out there, so are the ones who actually do bad stuff) but they are only making the good people rethink they behaviour and, after seeing how those supposed groomed minors act, me, As an adult, really don't want to interact with someone who likes to point their finger and refuses to see and respect the others. And that response from us (that, actually, is pretty common. The same thing parents do to their kids, grounding them because the parent is aware that the kid won't listen and isn't seeing the reason behind the punishment... when is deserved, of course. Teenagers choose to see that as a challenge and try to push harder against a non-existent enemy.

And that Idia user is just proving that this policy is stupid; speaking of committing such act just because your very fake, very flexible character isn't the same age as you and you won't acknowledge your previous statements because that would mean you were an hypocrite... yeah, very stupid.

Characters are made with that young look because that is what sells; youth is far more wanted than seniority. If It weren't because the author wanted to put an age, all characters can be +30, we won't be none the wiser because that's how a great deal of them (characters) are designed to be.

You depict the character that you love as an equal in terms of age because, personally, I want them to be +24 just like me. When I was 18, I imagined the characters the same age as me and so on.

Well, I could speak more but every time my mind turns into a mush because like every other topic, it is not a black-and-white one, but a big scale of grays, so this small rant will turn into an essay if I proceed haha. I hope that I have, at least, made my point and reached you as I intended.

You know your fans, so apologies if you find this text discourse-inducing in some way. You can delete this if that's the case!

I EXTREMELY AGREE WITH ABOUT THE FIRST PART YOU SAID DARLING! DURING OUR TIME, NOBODY REALLY CARED ABOUT WHOLE ORDEAL OF CHARACTERS BEING MINORS OR ADULTS! AS A WHOLE, THE FANS WHO ADORED THE SAME CHARACTER JUST, SHOOK EACH OTHER'S HANDS AND MOVE ON??

LIKE, THERE WAS NO ISSUES ON WHETHER THE AUTHOR WHO WROTE THE SMUT SERIES ON WATTPAD WAS A MINOR?? OR HOW THE SMUT SERIES CONTAINED SUPPOSEDLY 'CANON' MINOR CHARACTERS?? INSTEAD, EVERYONE JUST COLLECTIVELY ADORED AND LIKED THE WRITTEN SERIES???

NO ONE POINTED FINGERS AT THE PEOPLE WHO WERE READING IT AND JUST BLATANTLY CALLED THEM A PEDOPHILE OR GROOMER, INSTEAD THEY JUST GUSHED ABOUT THE CHARACTER TOGETHER??

LIKE YOU SAID, SOCIETY HAVE TAKEN A SHARP LEFT TURN, DECIDED TO BE 'WOKE' AND TRY TO FIND FAULTS IN EVERYTHING TO MAKE THEMSELVES LOOK GOOD. SOMETIMES THE ISSUES FALLS IN THAT THEY WEREN'T EDUCATED ENOUGH ON THE TOPIC OR THEY WERE MISGUIDED INTO THINKING SUCH THINGS OR MAYBE THEY JUST PLANNED TO REFUSE EVERYTHING AND CONTINUE ON WITH THEIR OWN KIND MADE UP PRINCIPLE.

SOME AUDIENCES WOULD GO SO FAR TO PROCLAIM OF BEING GROOMED TO JUSTIFY OF WHY THEY'RE ACTING LIKE THAT AND IT'S JUST :/ WHY? THESE KINDS OF INFORMATION MUST BE TAKEN WITH A GRAIN OF SALT AS TO HOW NOT EVERYTHING THEY SAY IS TRUE. I'M NOT SAYING TO DOUBT EVERYTHING PEOPLE SAY BUT IT'S ALRIGHT TO HAVE THAT KIND MINDSET TO ENSURE YOUR SAFETY HERE IN THE INTERNET AND TO AVOID TO PLUNGE INTO A WEB OF LIES

[talas-starlight]

Lover - Percy Jackson x Fem!reader

SUMMARY: You’ve crushed on Percy for years, him on the other hand? It’s more of a recent development. That doesn’t mean he likes you any less.

(Older Percy & reader - they're like 21) ALSO idk perfectly what happens in trials of apollo so let’s just ✨ignore that ✨ & this isn’t sexual despite what the title may suggest

WORD COUNT: 2.7k

A/N: hi friends this is for @fromthewatertribe​ ‘s 1k follower event!! Im sure most of you have but if not definitely check out their work!! Its soooo good I promises and ugh their Leo fic?! *chefs kiss* anyway idk if this is any good oop I tried

PROMPTS USED: 9 & 11. (they’re bolded)

WARNINGS: swearing, mentions of ptsd & anxiety, kissing stuff lol ish eh idk, mentions of percabeth breakup?? Does that count?

MASTERLIST: here!

An obnoxiously red and orange light filters into the motel room, even with the old and tattered curtains closed, the motels’ sign conquers its way through the fabric. Sighing you flop yourself on the faded, probably twenty-year-old bed. Nose scrunching as some dust raises into the air, consequently letting out a sneeze.

“Bless you.”

“Did you just bless yourself?”

You winced at the reminder someone else was in the room, exhausted after the two-day travel to a motel room in the middle of whoop. “Yeah…”

“You really are something, aren’t you?” At the calm amusement evident in his tone, your heart rate began to slow down. He didn’t think you were crazy.

You let out a breathy laugh. Wow, I wonder how those stains got on the ceiling? Lava monster perhaps? Are those even a thing? Probably.

“Yeah… well, someone has to Jackson.” You glance towards him, he’s sitting at the small, poor excuse of a dining table. Heart rate picking up again as he gives you a small smile, already having his eyes on you this entire time.

“If I don’t, who will?” you continue.

“Touché. In that case, I’ll do the blessing from now on; you deserve a break.” Shooting you a wink. Instantly feeling flustered at his action, you fight the urge to cover your face with your hands.

Oh, Percy, if only you knew you’ve already been blessing me for the past six years.

“Even say…. If we’re in a battle?” you muse.

He gets up from the table and walks towards you. Once he reaches your side of the queen bed, he kneels, grabbing the hand closest to him, while putting his other on top of his heart. “Oh, y/n l/n, even with my dying breath.”

With that, you burst into a fit of laughter. This boy and his sarcasm.

You play along. “Hmmm what a great tale that will be. The one and only, Perseus Jackson, spending his final breath on sweet old y/n l/n. How dare you burden me with such a legacy to live up to! They’ll think I’m your lover, you know. Demigods all around the world will come searching for me, just to gawk at the beauty that stole your heart.”

At this point, Percy has fallen from his kneeling position, completely lying on the ground, overcome with laughter.

“This isn’t funny, Percy! How am I supposed to live with the guilt of knowing I don’t live up to their expectations?! I’m hardly a warrior either, oh the disappointment.”

Gasping for breath, he manages to find his words, “Don’t stress it y/n, you’re plenty beautiful. I just know they’ll all be stunned by your beauty. Don’t sell yourself short… trust me, once they see you, they’ll be envious that my lover was so enraptured by me that you’ll never be able to love again.”

Now it was your turn to laugh. Would that be so bad?

Gasping for breath, eventually, both of your laughs die down, leaving you both breathing heavily. “C’mon Percy, let’s get some sleep. Its going to be a long week of scouting for demigods if we’re tired.”

As Percy nods, silently getting up to go to the bathroom to change, but he can’t help but think to himself that he wouldn’t mind if he was stuck in the middle of nowhere with you. No matter how long.

It had been three days since you and Percy arrived in the town you continuously fail to remember the name of. It wasn’t the only thing you were failing at doing either, because it seemed that for some unknown reason, the school that was supposed to arrive here for their camping trip still hadn’t shown up.

“We should send an Iris message to camp. It doesn’t look like they’re showing up any time soon, and by the looks of things, we’re going to need to have them send someone for more supplies.”

Percy sighed, looking out the window. Was this the opportunity he was looking for? Maybe… he knew he’d be a stupid fool to pass it up. Swept up in his new thoughts, he never replied. “Percy?”

Without even looking at you, he nodded, turning to go to the bathroom, “Yeah sure, I’ll go into the bathroom and make the call.”

Humming in acknowledgement as he left the room, you couldn’t help but stare at the spot he was previously standing in from your position on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t look too good.

For such a great hero, you wondered if this quest was doing him any good. After the first day of scouting the campsite, it was obvious he was already antsy to get home. It seemed no matter how light you tried to keep the atmosphere; it was like something was weighing on his mind. Mostly when you were both in the motel room together, you supposed it was because he barely went on quests nowadays. Understandably so, after all, who could blame him for wanting a break and spend time with his family? This made you feel immensely guilty since you could never give him words of truly understanding what he’s gone through. You’d arrived at camp a few days before him, yet over the years you were never sent onto a major quest. It upset you greatly at first, but you grew to appreciate your time at camp.

Before your mind could delve further into its guilt and self-pity, Percy re-entered the room, sitting next to you with a huff. “It’s all good. They’re going to send Leo with some extra supplies, and he’ll help us for the rest of this quest.”

Accidentally getting swept up in how pretty his eyes were, you tensed up, realising he was staring at you expectantly. Quickly nodding and clearing your throat you looked down to your lap, “ahh, okay that sounds good. I guess we’ll have time to sightsee or something…”

Sightsee? Really y/n? There’s nothing in this stupid town!

An awkward silence filled the room. Due to your previous thoughts, you were unsure how to proceed. This was the first time you were alone with him and had nothing else better to do.

Percy on the other hand, found that the obvious swooning look in your eyes was his green light. “Uhhh actually y/n?”

Oh, please don’t ask me why I basically just drooled all over you for NO FUCKING REASON. Snapping your head back up to look at him, you desperately tried to ignore the pounding in your chest that managed to find its way into your ears, “yeah?”

“There’s something I want to ask you.”

Holy shit he knows, doesn’t he? He knows I’ve liked him this entire time, and he’s going to reject me even though I never even said anything!

“I uhm… look I know we’re kind of on a small quest and all but technically we ARE waiting for Leo and the school to arrive before we continue… and you know we kind of have like at least a day or two until then so I was just wondering…”

“Yeah, Percy? You can just say it, you know; I really don’t mind.” I do mind, but please get this over with before I cry. With your heart rate increasing at an alarming rate and face heating up so much, you wanted Zeus to blast you right then and there.

Percy felt like he was about to puke, he’d never felt this nervous before. Yeah, he had his moments growing up with Annabeth, after all, she was his first girlfriend, but this was different. He wanted this to be different. Sure, he never regretted their relationship, and yes, he knew he’d always remember everything they went through- what he went through but… he wanted a clean slate. He desperately just wanted nothing more than to know that there was at least one person in his life that wasn’t constantly fighting for their lives—someone who didn’t have to live with as much trauma as him.

“W- would you maybe... Gods, do you want to have dinner tomorrow night? Maybe at the diner further into the town?”

HOLY FUCK.

He was interested and honestly, you were over the moon. Breathing out the breath you were holding in, you fail to hide the smile on your face, “yeah, I’d like that.”

His face instantly broke out into a wide smile matching yours. “Wait really?”

Unable to hold back a small giggle, you nodded, “yeah, Percy.”

Staring at yourself in the mirror, you admire the blue dress you found in a charity shop this morning while Percy was sleeping. I can’t believe this is happening.

If you had old even more awkward 15-year-old y/n that you were about to go on a date with the boy you admired from your table during meals (when he was there), you would’ve laughed. Mainly because at that point, he didn’t even know you existed, only having your first conversation during the battle of Manhattan when you were helping Will.

Okay… lets do this.

Walking out of the bathroom, Percy is already sitting on the bed in his usual t-shirt, jeans and converse waiting for you.

“Woah… You look uh-” Never finishing his statement, worry bubbled in your chest.

“Oh, uhm… I- I can change if you’d like?

Jumping up from his place on the bed, his head shook quickly. “NO! N-no don’t do that.”

“Ah uhm… okay? Sorry, it’s just I saw it in a store earlier and uhm… it looked nice, and I just thought that maybe it’d be cool to maybe put in a bit more effort? I mean… not that you don’t look good or anything! I love what you wear, you always look nice! but I don’t know… I don’t get to look nice much and… I just wanted it to be kinda special since we don’t get to… well our lives don’t really grant us these opportunities very often. Or at least for me anyway…”

“Hey, no, it’s okay! I totally get it… you look beautiful.” After hearing your small confession and thought to prepare for your date, his heart felt like it was melting. How could someone be so thoughtful when all he was doing was taking you to a rundown diner who probably only served mediocre burgers?

A small wave of guilt washed through him. Feeling like he would never be able to truly sweep you off your feet or give you that sweet, tooth-rotting love and affection, every day, just like you deserved. After everything, he knew he could try his best but even then, he’d never be able to hide the anxiety or PTSD he had acquired over the years.

You looked up to him with a smirk. “Glad to hear it, lover.”

Cheeks heating up at your comment, he laughed trying to play it off as cool as possible. Taking a step closer to you and flattening his shirt as if it would wipe away its wrinkles, he held out his arm. “Shall we, lover?”

Matching his level of fake sophistication, you linked your arm with his, “with pleasure.”

And with that, you both walked out of the motel, with hopeful spirits. To any onlooker, you both looked like normal young adults.  

“Where the fuck are you?!” Percy’s voice boomed from his end of the phone, supposedly made without any monster risks.  

You winced, slowly and cautiously walking your way out of the forest. The once clean dress was now covered in dirt and had few tears. It went perfectly with your dishevelled, twig and leaf infested hair.

“Space doesn’t really exist, so I’m nowhere. Life is built on social constructs and, since there’s no way to know if we’re really alive or if it’s just an illusion, I can’t be anywhere.”

“Y/n.”

Okay, he was concerned, and you couldn’t blame him. After all, how did you expect him to react after getting separated from you as you were chased into the woods by an Empousai after dinner?

Romance at its finest.  

“Yeah, sorry, I got caught up, but I’ll be there soon.”

Ending the call, you couldn’t help but feel guilty as you replayed the events that just occurred in your head. The date was amazing. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was still sweet. Which led you both to go on one of those cliché night walks. That was nice too, until two Empousai came out of the forest and decided to attack you both.

Percy being…. Well Percy, he swiftly got out riptide and didn’t hesitate to defend the two of you. You, on the other hand, were completely caught off guard only just noticing as one of them turned their focus on you while Percy was distracted.

And what did you do like the perfectly trained demigod you were?

You ran like a headless chicken into the forest.

After a few minutes of running, they tackled you into the ground. Trying and failing failed to shove them off, you suddenly remembered the dagger you strapped to your thigh under your dress and stabbed them.

Clearly not your proudest moments.

Finally making it back to the room, you unlocked the door and let out a huff of relief. “Well… that date didn’t go as expected.”

Percy, took in your current state staring at you with wide eyes… but he didn’t say anything. Is he angry at me? Fuck now he’s going to call off whatever this is, all because I’m an incompetent idiot! I knew I should have tried harder in the sparring activities at camp.

Feeling highly intimidated under his intense stare, you began to play with the hem of your dress, voice going quiet. “Look I uh- I know it probably wasn’t the date you were hoping for but I uhm-“

Before you could even finish your poor excuses, your words are soon lost entirely. Percy stalked towards you with a determined look on his face. Reaching you, he firmly placed his hands on either side of your face, smashing his lips onto yours.

You let out a small, muffled squeak of surprise as your eyebrows shot up into Olympus. Yet unlike your fighting skills, this was something you managed to adapt to at a faster pace.

Eyes fluttering closed, you fisted his shirt, pulling him closer.

Please don’t let this be a dream.

Because Gods forbid if this your one chance, you weren’t letting this moment end that easily.  

Moving your lips against his, the urgency he came onto you with slowly began to dissipate, feeling his soft, but slightly chapped lips move against yours. Deepening the kiss, you let go of his shirt, gliding your hands up his tense torso and along his strong arms, eventually placing your hands on his wrists that were on either side of your face. Applying a small amount of pressure to the inside of his wrists with your thumbs, his mind began to drift into a calming haze as you softly stroked them. It was almost as if you were able to brush away the worry that bubbled in him when he got back to the room, only to find you weren’t there. Yet here you were… safe.

It was intoxicating and calming having him so close to you, his entire being overcoming your senses to a point where you fought the urge to let out a small whimper when he pulled away.

Resting his forehead against yours, chest rising and falling heavily flushed against you; he continued to hold you in his warm embrace. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.” He whispers, breath fanning against your face.

Because as much as Percy was afraid he’d let you down, he knew no matter what you were worth every single risk.

“…but I’m going to have to teach you a few things when we get back to camp. We can’t have my lover running away in battle all the time, how will I know if you sneeze?”

Letting out a snort, you playfully hit his chest. “Anything for you, lover.”

A soft smile graces his face as he looks at you adoringly as the word takes on a whole new meaning… because you were right. He’d do anything.

A/N: whelp! i hope you all liked it :)) its not perfect but oh well? 

also i dont have a percy jackson taglist but i gotta tag the holy grail of fic writers for this fandon eep @cabinofimagines​   🙈 🙈

Divider credit: @biskit-rising​

[duuhrayliegh]

social media

warnings: none? maybe a smidgen of language? fluffy bucky, bad description of dancing? idk, there really isn’t anything in this one to be warned about it just super wholesome

word count: 2437 

a/n: okay so this came out longer than i meant it to, but i’m not mad at it. there’s mention of he/they pronouns and gender identity, if i didn’t do the subject justice please let me know. also tiktok mentions and all creators are tagged accordingly so please go appreciate their wonderfulness :) 

p.s.: my requests and tag lists are open!! 

if you want to know where these characters are coming from, check out the other parts! you don’t have to read them in any particular order!

ray’s m.list

******************************

Being from the 1940’s, Bucky didn’t have much education in the world of smartphones and social media. When he came out of cryo in Wakanda, Shuri wasted no time showing him the ways of the iPhone. Honestly, he was stunned because there were so many things you could do with it. So much information was available at the touch of his fingers.

Shuri taught him the ins and outs of the phone. He had gotten pretty good at it, if he did say so himself. She had just begun to teach Bucky about social media when Steve pulled him back to the Big Apple. When he returned to New York, he was able to easily contact Steve, who was not as proficient as Bucky was. So when he met the fantastical group of four friends, they began to teach him. This was one of those things that they were incredibly excited to teach Bucky about.

“So you don’t have an account on anything?” Freddie held his hand out for Bucky’s phone.

“No, I have one on something. I think Instant Graham? My friend set it up for me, but she never taught me how to use it.” Freddie smiled and shook his head, dark curls bouncing back and forth.

“It’s Instagram, bubs and that’s a good jumping off point.” He opened the black iPhone and swiped through the pages on the homescreen. Coming across the sunset colored icon, he hovered his finger over it. The screen changed, opening to a white screen with the words, WELCOME to INSTAGRAM, whitewolf. Bucky smiled at the name displayed and Freddie scrunched his brows.

“What is a White Wolf?”

“I’m the White Wolf. It’s Wakandan. We can change it if we need to.” Freddie looked over at Bucky and saw the happiness on his face at the name.

“No, it’s good we can leave it.” He clicked on the profile button in the bottom right corner of the screen. “Okay, so this is your personal profile.” In the top left corner whitewolf was written with a little arrow next to it facing downward. Freddie opened the edit profile section.

“Do you have a favorite picture of yourself? You have to set a profile picture so people know that it’s you.” Bucky nodded in understanding, and then took his phone back to scroll through his pictures. He didn’t have many, just the ones that he took recently. There was hardly any of just him, but he eventually found one he deemed good enough.

“Alright, now what do you want to put in your bio?” Shrugging his shoulders, Bucky leaned back into Cassie’s plush couch.

“What does yours say?” Freddie pulled his own phone out of his pocket. The pale lilac color seemed to shine through the clear case that it wore. Opening his own Instagram, Freddie leaned the phone towards Bucky.

|| he/they || activist || va te faire voir ||

“What does ‘he slash they’ mean?”

“Oh, those are my pronouns.” Freddie received a head tilt from Bucky, so he decided to elaborate. “So, I identify as a non-binary who is comfortable with you using he/him pronouns or they/them pronouns. If you’re talking about me to someone else, you can say ‘he is at the store,’ or ‘they are at the store.’” Bucky nodded, still a bit confused on the subject.

“When do you use each one? Like is there a certain time that you say he and him and another time for they and them?” Bucky was trying to get some clarification on the topic.

“Not necessarily. Usually, when you’re first talking to someone, it’s common practice nowadays to use they/them pronouns so as to not misgender anyone. I know it probably sounds a bit excessive and a small bit over sensitive to you, but to a queer or non-binary person it makes a whole hell of a lot of difference when someone tries to be inclusive.”

“Okay, so like if I just meet someone on the street, I should use the they/them pronouns until told otherwise?”

“Yeah, absolutely. Do you want to include your pronouns in your bio?” Bucky smiled and nodded, happy with himself that he was able to understand that so well.

“So, what does it mean to be non-binary and still use the he/him pronouns? Don’t those two contradict each other?”

“Not really. Gender is a spectrum, as is sexuality, but for someone to identify as non-binary and use he/they pronouns, means that I feel that not everything about manhood accurately describes my truth. On that same hand, I still do identify as a male.”

“Right, right.” Throughout Freddie’s lesson about gender identity, he was able to finish Bucky’s profile and begin to follow the three girls. After clicking the blue follow button on all three of the girls profiles, the group chat between them started blowing up, that was a new phrase Bucky learned last week.

Evie: um, i just got the weirdest insta notif

Penny: me too???

Cassie: I did too.

Cassie: Wait, who is Bucky with right now?

Evie: DANG IT FREDERICK I WANTED TO HELP HIM SET IT UP

Bucky: My name isn’t Frederick, Evie

Incoming Call from Evie

“What do you want, spaz?” Freddie answered on speakerphone. An indignant scoff  came from the other end.

“I thought we were all going to help him with that, Frederick.”

“Um, I don’t remember us talking about that.” He laughed as the door to Cassie’s apartment opened, allowing Penny to walk in and smile at the two men on the couch. “Also, when were we going to have time to do that with you being at school and all?”

“We were going to wait until the weekend!”

“Eves, you’ve been saying that for the past like three weeks.”

“Oh my gosh, fine.” Her end of the phone got real quiet, “I’ll be home in like ten minutes. I call dibs on helping him set up a TikTok.” Three beeps signalled to the room that Evie had hung up the phone. Bucky turned to Penny and began to ask about her day.

“Ya know, the usual. Rude customers, bratty co-workers, life’s a dream at the bank.” She slipped out of her nude heels and made her way to the sofa. “What have you boys been up to?”

“We have been setting Buck up with some social media and learning about gender identity and respecting pronouns.” Freddie said proudly as he handed Bucky his phone back.

“Sick! Which ones did you do?”

“All the classics, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook just for PR though because hardly anyone uses it anymore.”

“Right, and can’t do TikTok until Evie gets here. Um, did you set up a Spotify for him?” Bucky recognized the name and the memories of Shuri helping him floated in his head.

“Oh, I have one of those. That was actually the first thing that Shuri helped me set up whenever I got this thing.” He opened the app quickly to prove what he was saying. Penny smiled and gave a small thumbs up. “I do have one question.” The two of them gave Bucky their undivided attention. “What is a TikTok?”

“Right, so it’s just short videos. It’s really pretty cool and a really good way to waste time.” Freddie answered while pulling up his own page on the app.

“Yeah, and the thing that shows you videos is curated to your tastes because it’s based on your likes and people you follow.”

“I’m almost positive that Evie is going to teach you a dance and do a TikTok with you, if you agree to it.” Penny laughed at the thought of Bucky doing one of the dances that she saw on her For You page. The door to the apartment swung open a second time, revealing a winded Evie.

She dropped her school bag on the floor, hunching over while gripping the side of the granite countertop. Evie held a finger up and the group on the couch waited for her to speak.

“I ran--” deep inhale, “I ran from the subway.” Another deep breath as she lifted her upper half, stretching out her back with her hands on the back of her hips. “You haven’t done TikTok yet right?”

“No, your Highness, we haven’t done TikTok.” She smiled big and then plopped herself on Bucky’s left side. She thrust her hand toward him, wiggling her fingers. Bucky cautiously placed his phone in the center of her palm.

“This is going to be good. Okay so since your name on Instagram is whitewolf, we can’t use that for TikTok. It’s gotta be something snappy.”

“I don’t know, I think you can use the same one for both, Eve.” Penny remarked as Evie downloaded TikTok onto Bucky’s phone.

“Well, of course you can, but we’re not going to.” She giggled as the app opened. She looked over at Bucky with wrinkled brows. “Do you have any nicknames?”

“Um, Bucky is my nickname.” He said in a duh tone.

“Well, obviously, but do you have any other ones? Like, what do your friends call you?”

“Bucky or Buck, I don’t really have nicknames.” Evie groaned and threw her head back.

“Okay, well let’s think. You’re a Sergeant. Your real name is James Buchanan Barnes. Superhero name is Winter Soldier or White Wolf. You have a metal arm.”

“You’re literally just stating facts, Evie.” Freddie said from the other side of Bucky, who was nodding along in confirmation to Evie’s statements.

“I know! I’m processing. What about vibraniumjames?”

“That’s disgusting.” “Mm, yeah that’s a no from me.” Penny and Freddie talked at the same time.

“metallicsergeant? jamesbby? Any of those tickle our fancy?”

“The first one isn’t terrible, but it’s not great. Why don’t you just use whitewolf like his Instagram? Or you could do iambuckybarnes.”

“Yeah, I’m with Freddie. I like whitewolf or iambuckybarnes, it’s simple. And I am the White Wolf, so yeah.” Bucky said to a disgruntled Evie.

“Oh my gosh, fine. We can always change it later, but this is fine for now.” She set up his profile, making it match the other ones that Freddie had made. Once she was finished with her work, she turned to Bucky and smiled big again. “Now, I can teach you a dance and if you’re cool with it we can post it on your profile.” Bucky shook his head and pulled himself off of the comfy couch beneath him.

“If we’re going to do this, we need to do it right, so don’t hold back on me.” He smiled as Evie squealed in excitement.

“You know, my school friends were just dying to see the day that you got social media.” This statement confused Bucky.

“And why would that be?” Evie laughed as she scrolled through her TikTok feed, searching for the right dance to do with Bucky.

“Well, for one, they think you’re hot and they’re thirsty hoes.” She clicked on the original dance video, showing the screen to Bucky. “And, for two, they love you. Everyone does.” Bucky shook his head at that. He did too many bad things for everyone to love him.

“Hey, remember what we talked about?” Penny said from across the room. “We don’t downgrade our progress. Most of the general public is more forgiving than we give them credit for.” Bucky nodded then focused his attention on the video.

“This is Cardi B’s song Up. People on TikTok have made a challenge of doing this dance to the song. I think it originated with a girl named Mya Nicole. Anyway! We’re going to do this one, if you’re up for it.” Bucky looked at Evie with one brow quirked. There was so much shaking in this. Nonetheless, he shrugged his shoulders., it clearly was making Evie happy so he wasn’t going to take that away.

“Sickening! Okay, let’s start learning it.” It took a good hour and a half to help Bucky move his body in the way that the dance required. By the time they were ready to start filming the actual video, Cassie had walked in.

“What is happening here?” A large smile spread across her face as she watched Bucky and Evie practice one last time. A breathless Evie turned to Cassie.

“Bucky agreed to do the Cardi B Up dance with me.” She then turned to Bucky, “You ready to do this for real?” The tall man beside her shook his head while laughing.

“Yeah, let’s do it.” From the safety of the couch, Freddie, Penny and Cassie were watching the scene before them unfold. Both Bucky and Evie jumped into frame, with their legs spread wide. Throwing their fists in front of them and then behind their legs in time with the music. Bringing their hands above their head to clap and then jumping again, throwing just one hand up at a time.

Shifting to the side, the pair brought the leg closest to the camera up to their waist while hitting it back down with their fist. They both remained facing sideways as they shook the leg they just hit and ran their hands down their torso. The pair did another vertical jump, bringing their knees up to their fists. Once their feet hit the floor, they folded at the waist, slamming their palms flat on the ground.

Smiles were plastered on both their faces as they finished out the dance, knees bent, bouncing their legs back and forth while tossing their hands above their heads. Loud laughter rang out from the three friends in the living room as Bucky and Evie dropped to their butts. The video ended with Bucky and Evie yelling at the other three in the room.

“You’re definitely going to go viral with that one, Buck!”

“Like an infection?” He asked with wide eyes of concern, more peels of laughter rang out.

“No, like famous, lots of people are going to see it.” That relieved and scared Bucky at the same time. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it, but he knows that his friends wouldn’t steer him wrong.

“Now we can caption it something cute!” Evie breathed out as she leaned over the couch next to Cassie, who was now curled up beneath a fluffy white blanket.

“Don’t forget to tag the original creator, I hate it when people don’t do that.”

The video was posted with the caption,

iambuckybarnes: am i doing the tiktok right realpokemonevie? dance cr: theemyanicole

And it wasn’t long after posting that Bucky got a call from Steve that he needed to come into the tower.

***************************

@mishaandthebrits

[i-did]

Ok ok this may be a dumb question but we'll see, what are your thoughts on bdsm + andreil? The vast vast majority of these types of fics have Andrew as the dom (and I get why) BUT theres 1 dom Neil fic and I'm like 99% sure I think I saw u comment on it so I'm assuming ur reading it and enjoying it too. And tbh, I find it much better than pretty much all the dom Andrew stuff, I hadnt realised the potential dom Neil could have until I read it. But anyway, I wanted ur thoughts? 🤲 (this is so badly phrased I apologise)

Lmfaooo being perceived is so weird. I hope I didn't say anything because I remember commenting on that fic and thinking about commenting something about my personal sex life, but I don't remember if I did lmfaooo. Omg okay, all that aside–time to now respond to this seriously.

Okay regarding that specific fic, yeah I read a lot of AFTG fics of all types, I haven't read something NSFW in a while, but when I saw the ‘Dom!Neil’ tag I decided to give it a shot. It’s interesting seeing how other authors go about their ideas and just enjoying their story. It doesn’t align with my personal ideas of everything obviously, but those are my personal HC and that fic is that authors personal HC. I like that they’re exploring something that this fandom doesn’t see explored a lot and is just a fun read, lol. Honestly I give up on most BDSM fandom fics because the depiction of Neil makes me uncomfortable ...almost always. I agree a lot more with this fics concept of how they would explore power vs control in a BDSM sexual sense, than most Dom!Andrew Sub!Neil fics– which I have long ago stopped trying to read.

Okay here are my personal ideas about Andrew and Neil, and how they would explore sex.

Many NSFW HC below the cut:

I personally don’t think canon Andrew and Neil would go into BDSM culture or ascribe to either roll strictly. I feel they wouldn’t like established dynamics like that and would get turned off by that aspect, especially since Andrew both craves control of situations but fears ‘being like them’ and a lot of Dom play is about power dynamics that he wouldn't be comfortable with. Andrew sees power in sex as different as control during sex. He needs a controlled environment, and be in control of the other by having them listen to his boundaries, but he can’t feel he’s overpowering the other person. I don’t think he could do a lot of strictly Sub things either for similar reasons, he would feel like he's giving up control of the situation in a way that could make him very uncomfortable.

Neil on the other hand is also often portrayed as a very textbook sub, but I don't think he is. I see him written as a brat a lot, but personally I don’t see him doing that since a lot of what playing with a brat is, is giving them what they want and denying them what they want and them ‘defying you’ and stuff. It's like a form of playful miscommunication I don't see Andrew or Neil ever actually doing. Obviously all healthy and proper play is outlined and discussed beforehand, but I see Andrew and Neil as needing the actions themselves to be clear and cut and dry.

Neil also gets off on Andrews pleasure, Andrew is the same about Neil, they're almost like a feedback loop of “the other enjoying themselves is inherently hot.” to me, Neil getting off on other people (Andrew) getting off is a very Dom like quality. In turn, Andrew is very turned on by pleasuring Neil, but from the point of his knees, which is almost sub like, he is turned on by sucking someone else off and seeing how into it they are. Either way, I think they both wouldn’t be into hardcore BDSM or BDSM culture but also aren’t vanilla. I don’t see either of them going to leather clubs instead of Edens and going to Folsom Fair and joining BDSM social groups and stuff.

I also don’t think either would ever use titles for the other, I think they don’t call each other by their names often on a day-to-day basis, since usually the people were talking to already know their name, and we don’t need to use it for clarification. I do think–just like in canon with emotionally charged moments–names will be used with more emphasis, especially Abram which is not used frequently.

Side note about my Jewish Neil HC: Judaism rocks because sex isn’t shamed, but rather considered a blessing and a holy act. In fact, it’s a good thing to have sex on Shabbat, G-d is actively like ‘fuck yeah you little humans, enjoy life’s pleasures and each other's company’ sex was designed to feel good and a way to connect. Shabbat is all about human connection with those important to us, and a day of rest away from work, so sex on Shabbat is actually actively a good thing. I don’t think Neil is ever religiously Jewish, but Andrew making a joke about this once would be peak to me. Which also fits Abram, a very Jewish name I HC to be not just Neil’s middle name but his Jewish name, and is used in said holy context of sex.

I think like a lot of healthy adults who are sexually active, they will explore and will be more adventurous to try new and other things, especially when dealing with issues like waning to get off but having touch aversion and issues like that. I have a lot of sex life HC about them actually, ways they navigate erectile dysfunction, mental health, and what they like in a safe environment. They trust each other, and I like imagining different ways aspects of their relationship would change or evolve in my head in all different types of ways, including sexual. I also enjoy giving them kinks and inclinations I specifically don’t have, because it’s like me exploring the concept of why someone else might like something even though I personally don’t. I’m not imagining things that make me uncomfortable necessarily, just things I'm neutral on or don’t see the appeal of, but know why they appeal to others and try to imagine what these characters might think.

I feel canon Andrew and Neil explore sex and dynamics that make them comfortable, I have HC about Andrew possibly exploring pup play and wearing a collar for Neil partially as a “joke” in the beginning, but discovering they really like it. I also HC Neil is really into athletic stuff sexually, he thinks Andrew half dressed with his padding still on and a jock strap is just peak sex appeal. I also think Neil is very sensory, and makes associations with smells and senses easily, so he develops a sweat kink, which leads into his armpit kink. Neil isn't turned on by ‘the bad smell of sweat’ but rather the fact that when Andrew is sweaty he smells like Andrew a lot, rather than after a shower he smells more like soap, and he can’t smell Andrew as much. Andrew on the other hand prefers cleaner sex. He’s not triggered by dirty sex though– he used to suck guys off at an alt dance club and is used to the smell of sweaty balls, it's just not an active turn on. Neil has ‘nothing is hotter than Andrew wearing running shoes and socks, and only running shoes and socks’ energy to me too. I think Andrew feels good about himself in leather, but isn't going to be a leather daddy and wear the leather assless chaps and the cap, he will wear the leather harness that every gay wears to pride, but he wears it just for Neil. Also, Neil loves Andrews pecs, Neil’s kinda a boob guy, but for Andrew’s pecs specifically.

I personally think Andrew and Neil typically don’t have penetrative sex. They do it sometimes–and when Andrew is ready he will bottom more as a way to prove something to himself than anything–but it’s not their preferred way or their ‘go to’. When they finally do, they don’t see it as ‘finally having sex for the first time’, since all the sex they've been having is real sex, even if its oral, hand jobs, etc. I don’t think Neil is naturally inclined to bottoming, and since even the visual of topping can make Andrew uncomfortable, they enjoy sex in any other ways, thigh fucking, docking, Andrew fucking Neil’s ass cheeks, sucking each other off, mutual masturbation, frottage, etc. and it leads to stronger orgasms when they don’t have to hope ever second will be a cliff edge and turn into a panic attack. Safer waters are simply more comfortable for them to swim in, and they deem all sex as equal in ‘value.’ that being said, Andrew likes his ass being ate, as long as its just Neil’s tongue, while Neil is neutral on his ass being ate, but loves doing it to Andrew.

I also think they would explore toys, but not in the way they're often explored in fics, which is very vibrator and dildo centric. I think they would use jacking off toys, the disposable egg kind or some more long term ones, maybe even something they could use at the same time. I don’t see them ever actually using handcuffs or restraints really either. Andrew would see Neil tied up as an equivalent statement of ‘I don't trust you not to touch me’ when he wants to actively progress past that, and shows he trusts Neil by not holding his arms back or letting him touch him. Andrew had to hold down previous partners, but Neil is different, Neil listens. This isn’t my personal opinion about restraint, but it is what I think Andrew would think.

I have no idea if this is what you meant by ‘my thoughts’ but here they are. *puts something in your open palms,* idk what emoji that would be