#in the last fandom i was in someone tried Debating Me and saying my headcanon (about aspd) is dumb and amateur

[woobifykamukura]

ghdsfkjghdsf is that a common thing?

I don't really get how he'd be misdiagnosed anyway; it would need brain scans, especially since it's so rare at his age, and if anything it would have been misdiagnosed as other conditions for a while. Only going off cry-stars here- I have no expertise myself- but she's said that can happen and there was a recent case in Japan where a young guy's dementia was mistaken for depression for ages.

If we doubt Komaeda's FTD it can only be via doubting his honesty imo (but I still think he's telling the truth). I also love seeing analyses of him through the lenses of other disorders as comorbid instead of alternative diagnoses- especially autism, but I've seen interesting takes wrt OCD and BPD too- but canonically I feel like bvFTD, extreme post-traumatic stress and political radicalisation adequately explain his issues.

TO BE FAIR it probably isnt As common as i think it is, i just saw one reddit post thst explicitly claimed the FTD was a misdiagnosis and that it totally makes way more sense for komaeda to have autism and bpd, and a surprisung number of people... agreed? for some reason??

which i need to state for the record a) i am autistic myself and b) have absolutely zero problems with headcanons, even if they arent ones i ascribe to personally

what i DO have a problem with is people erasing canon neurodivergencies and/or erasing traits CENTRAL to a character in order to square-peg-round-hole the headcanon THEY have as the most correct one

"nagito has ftd and was autistic before that?" cool! neat! seeing how those two disorders being comorbid with each other could be really interesting!

"nagito does NOT have ftd, the devs were wrong, they actually wrote an autistic character and didnt realize it" stop talking.

this is very like, misanthropic i guess but after SO MUCH SHIT ive seen it just speaks to an unwillingness to empathize with or relate to anyone that isnt exactly like you. and you cant just headcanon real people around you with Misdiagnosed Autistic (most.... times....) so this pops up in fiction

like. i am autistic! i also have two (2) personality disorders, and neither is bpd. this has led to a non negligible amount of autistic people completely stereotyping my other disorders as evil in order to prop themselves up ("i thought i was a narcissist/sociopath, which wouldve been awful, but really i was just autistic! phew!!" with implicit, sometimes EXPLICIT value judgements being made)

i have had a friend i had in real life, to my face, say he didn't believe i had either personality disorder and really i was secretly just autistic

...if we had been better friends, maybe he would've known me well enough to know that that's almost... comically untrue. lol

so in my opinion there do exist a certain minority of autistic people who see autism as the only neurodivergency that Matters, or at least the one that matters the most. and the only way they can feel any sympathy for anyone else is if they are also autistic

and i know this is a minority! and i just see it a lot because i am an autist in fandom and a lot of other autistic people are also in fandom! AND that this is a mindset prone to ANY minority- most people think their Problem is the Worst Problem, it just... happens. however i am just as irrational and prone to biases as anyone else and ive chosen this as my completely irrelevant hill to die on

that one reddit post made me so goddamn mad bc of All This PLUS its double insulting when someone says "i have a special interest in psychology!" as a way to say theyre extremely knowledgable, and doing genuine analysis with the lens of "i am looking at the text and trying to make an objective diagnosis" and then STILL DO THIS!!! because they have this veneer of "im just a guy asking questions" before diving right into a weirdly consspiratory subset of "everyones an idiot about mental health except for ME"

...which tbf i dont think that about myself. i am very good at writing a wide variety of mental illness due to a combination of research and life experience BUT i could really only tell you like. actual non-surface level FACTS about aspd and to a lesser extent, npd. because thats what i chose to focus on. there are far and away lots more people that know more about me about other things, and im fine wit that

i am however also aware of this extremely hyperspecific social phenominon. and thus it is my burden to bear. my mountainous molehill.

also r/danganronpa just fucking sucks like in general. every time i see a kokichi opinion there i get a little closer to pulling the trigger. i think the real moral here is reddit is garbage and should not be used for anything other than product reviews

(also fwiw i agree w ur personal take at the end, with a lil bit of ocd tendencies that like, started off manageable and nowhere near diagnostic level badness, since things he might do to manage his cycle and even the constant thinking about it are very much reminiscent of obsessions and compulsions. but ftd in of itself can cause ocd symptoms so after that it got... worse. thats my personal take on it ^^)

[awesomesauce2929]

Choose violence ask:

what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

worst discord server and why

what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

worst part of fanon

ooooh 🌶️ spice level is high, let's go. warning that there will be vent-like explanation here, this is going to be raw

what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person? Personally I use block button freely when I see accounts with bad vibes, bad behaviour, especially they are insulting someone with nasty swears and those who put others under the bus for drama. But there was a guy who attacked a ship for a sake of promoting his own art which he reposted (the art was made 2 years ago), after finding out his other horrible antics and allegations and how he throws others under the bus like it is his breakfast, I blocked him, he was really annoying.

worst discord server and why? well. here we go. basically I was friends with one of the admin, had a good time in the server for 1 year and half, after sharing my vent on my personal twitter, they scolding me, dropped me from the proofreader of their fan translation project because I said I couldn't do Chapter 3 at the time. They didn't even communicate that, in fact they got someone to be proofreader without telling me. They justify it by saying my mental health was bad and gaslight and isolating me further until I could not take it anymore, I lashed out. I apologise but the server was so tense that I got paranoid, anxious and got trust issues. I became inactive in that server on 1st January. I tried to reconcile and explain myself to the admin about my actions and I was sorry I was, but they send a crazy google document to me being passive aggressive and absolutely rude, with no respect or regard to my feelings whatsoever after I got over the shock and took some time to realise it wasn't worth explaining myself. the end. But this year I found two amazing servers that helped me to get better mental wise and I'm much happier in 2024 than 2023.

what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them? emmmm, I don't think that kind of thing happened to me so far because I don't hate character, I am mostly indifferent to some of them, I just see the fans playing up the antics as they are an active force compare to the character which is a passive tool to be used. But I will say that the opposite does happen to me, my interest in characters, especially interacting with others civilly or positively or both, grew well and I love creating headcanons about them or even fics hehe.

worst part of fanon the debate of the who is the most powerful saint, especially the gold saint is overdone. Camus being an abusive parent and most people ran with it, I don't personally like that headcanon because that is used to overhating the aquarius. and I think that is it really.

[tr1ck5]

(Part II of II) I do like how, in more recent years, more people are coming to Rinoa's defense, and more people are looking at her more positively. I think it really started when she became playable in Opera Omnia and Dissidia NT (both in 2018), because she's a Game Breaker in both games (and she's actually a Game Breaker in FF8 if you know how to use Angel Wing properly), and when she didn't reunite with Squall in Dissidia NT, so many people were pissed. So many people still want them to reunite in Kingdom Hearts. And almost every YouTube video I've watched of Opera Omnia where Squinoa interacted and were cute with each other, pretty much all of the comments have been positive AF

I admit, I myself wasn't the biggest fan of Rinoa or Squinoa when I first played FF8 20 years ago, even though I did use her in the active party as much as possible and tried to make Squinoa's optional interactions positive. I wouldn't say I was an anti back then, but I just didn't care for her nor their relationship. But now, after revisiting and replaying it 20 years later, Rinoa and Squinoa have grown on me. I can't really explain how my views changed; maybe it's just me maturing in the last 2 decades and understanding Rinoa's characterization and backstory and Squinoa's relationship, as well as having access to some of the few officially-translated Ultimanias, a lot better now than I did when I was 12 🤷🏻‍♀️

Certainly, for a lot of things in life, what you thought or believed in when you were 12 is gonna be way different when you're 32 👀

Sorry for the split Asks, it ended up becoming so long that I had to send 2 Asks 🤪

Oh I also absolutely agree that there is more, WAY more to Rinoa's character than being made to be saved all the time. But there IS a bit of that though, especially in the beginning... and that's completely reasonable to me considering she is essentially a civilian; she wasn't brought up in a military way and hasn't had the training that the others have had! And what I love is that it is something that she notices and brings up to the group herself: Rinoa: "I guess...I'm just scared. Sometimes...when I'm with all of you...I... feel like we're on the same wavelength......you know? But when the battles start happening, it's different. Everyone's tempo seems to pick up and... ...I get left behind. I try to catch up, but it's no use... How far is everyone going? I can't hear anyone... Once I catch up, I wonder... Is everyone safe? Will they welcome me with open arms? ......Is everyone ok? Will we all make it back together? When I start thinking like that..."

But she eventually makes up for it, because she is resourceful and smart and stubborn! And that is something I like to bring up in my own fanfic (warning: total headcanon territory); Squall himself sometimes forgets she hasn't had the same training they all did. She's a quick learner!

I also agree that by the time the game ends, with everything that's happened between them, yeah, the Seifer crush is definitely dead. What I like to think though is that Rinoa still hurts over the good memories she's had with him; grieves over the Seifer she knew pre-war crimes lol. There's a beautiful bittersweetness to it that I think is worth exploring a little, at least.

I think the 'don't interact, block and move on' strategy is always the way to go for much of online discourse. And I don't mean that when talking about stuff like politics, economy or philosophy etc; debating can and does have its place (when done in good faith of course) but there's... nothing to debate when it comes to personal tastes. No one's gonna convince you to like guacamole if you don't and you're not going to convince someone who loves it to suddenly hate it. That's how I see fandom preferences. Life is too short. Eat or don't eat the guac. Love or don't love the Rinoa. It's aight. It doesn't matter lol!

I think we definitely all collectively aged up and matured for sure! I do remember that back then people seemed more critical of Rinoa's character in general; maybe it was because we were teenagers ourselves back then? And now as adults we're more forgiving of what we couldn't realize back then was 'typical teenager behaviors'?? Haha I'm armchair-theorizing around, here. 😛

Add to that the fact that a lot of stuff like character growth and themes in FFVIII is subtle af. You kind of have to dig through a lot of optional dialogues and read between the lines on a lot of things to really 'get' the whole picture. I know 10 year-old me definitely did not have that attention span back then haha!

[bowtied-pasta]

Another callout post? On my blog? Yes.

If you simp for…

Slenderman

You have a suit kink

You absolutely have daddy issues and it’s terminal

Do I have to say anything about the tendrils or can we just all agree to not say anything about the tendrils?

Splendorman

You have a thing for that one trope where the characters are living in bliss until someone fucks with one of the characters and the other ones flips a switch and goes batshit trying to save them

How’s it feel to simp for a man that like 4% of the fandom recognizes enough to write about of their own free will?

You either headcanon he has a “normal” voice or that he has the silliest fucking clown shit going on, no in between

‘Fenderman

Much like Slender simps, I don’t believe I have to say anything about the very obvious attraction to tendrils that you have

How’s it feel to simp for a man that like 4% of the fandom recognizes enough to write about of their own free will?

You have your own version of him in your head and much like me, you have completely trashed the og scummy version of him and made him absolutely dateable

Kagekao

You probably hate wine

You have a thing for bullies that would absolutely be mean to you, regardless if that means they like you or not

You probably haven’t seen the art where his talon like toe nails actually fucking stick out of his stereotypical converse black shoes

Dark Link

You had a crush on Peter Pan when you were a kid

How’s it feel to like a character that 90% of the fandom doesn’t even know is a creepypasta?

Can I hear a “Ben is too much of a twink, so I became attracted to his goth twunk version instead.”

Zalgo

You want to be a prince/princess/royalty of some kind

You are a monster fucker and I cant explain enough how attracted to mouths you must be

You suffered through so many y/n fics that painted him as the bad guy, looking for a fic that would finally allow you to fuck him

Jeff

You absolutely read those y/n fics on quotev and wattpad and you were somehow smitten from the moment he cursed you out

You prolly have commitment issues or just emotional issues in general

You attempted an sfx version of his smile at least once. You cant lie to me

Jane

You are punk or you think punk is hot

You definitely have mommy issues

Tim

You have daddy issues

You tried smoking at some point because of this man, and if you decided you didn’t like it, you immediately moved on to try vaping

You probably like pink drinks from starbucks

Brian

Something something you like kidnapping tropes

In addition to that, you probably also like this man as a yandere

Dont even get me started on your mask kink, you cant deny it

Toby

You probably have adhd

You very likely believed his favorite food was waffles at some point, no matter how long you thought so

You like found family fics

Ben

You dont communicate very well at all

You like to call yourself a gamer. Wether or not that’s true is up for debate and I quite frankly don’t care enough to have said debate

You either despised the canon green hair picture of BEN that came out or you like it. There is no in between

E Jack

You would trust this man to patch your wounds and I can’t tell you enough how wrong you are for that

You have never tried to actually taste what kidneys are like, but growing up, you would answer those y/n quizzes as if you had eaten many organs in your short life

You, for some reason, think this man would smell good… and I’m sorry you think that

L Jack

I said this last time, but you fuck clowns

You like to say you don’t have a favorite candy, but if this man happened to give you something you didn’t like then you would be incredibly disgusted… but we both know you would eat it anyway

You don’t know if you prefer his monotone lack of color or if you think his rainbow self is nicer, but stripes… my guys, stripes just does it for ya, huh?

Helen Otis

You either are an art major or you make the mistake of over romanticizing the major by thinking it’s sexy

You can’t draw to save your life

Therapy sessions probably sound like a good date idea to you

The Puppeteer

You listened to Discord by Mandopony a lot when you were growing up

You have a bondage thing and refuse to admit it

You hate dolls because their creepy, but hell if you dont wanna be this mans “doll” for some reason

[asocial-inkblot]

Post Ideas, #3

Headcanon: Neither Zuko nor Azula were trying to backstab each other in the last turtleduck pond scene.

So after looking over the answers I got, I came to the conclusion that #3 would be a good idea to write about first. This one’s been on my mind for some time.

One of the never-ending debates within this fandom appears to be about which sibling tried to double-cross the other first, after returning home to the Fire Nation. On one side we have people claiming Azula had to have gone out of her way to bring Zuko home and reinstated as crown prince, for the sole nefarious purpose of destroying him...somehow? (I think for someone to come to this conclusion, he/she would have to focus more on facial expressions and sound effects than dialogue and plot. Intentional on the part of the series crew I’m sure.) On the other side, we have a much smaller but still note-worthy crowd that believes it was actually Zuko that was out for sibling’s blood while the two of them were in front of the pond, due to his response to Azula’s questioning. 

Both point-of-views didn’t come from nowhere and I can sympathize with either. However, I now believe that neither fire sibling was trying to harm the other (what happened before and afterward doesn’t matter much to that scene in question). 

My reasoning is as follows:

In The Awakening Zuko and Azula have finally made it back home (as have Mai and Ty Lee). Lo and Li present them to the people as their returning Princess and Prince.

Now the heroes have returned home!

Your princess, Azula... [Crowd cheers.]

And after three long years, your prince has returned...

Zuko!

Zuko reacts to the praise, but not with scorn, anger, apathy or even regret.

He reacts to it with anxiety.

Zuko approaches with a worried expression. [Crowd cheers.]

We next see them while Zuko is doing his favorite pastime at the pond, and Azula walks up to him.

Why does Azula walk up to Zuko? Why does she come to the garden that we have little reason to believe she has a strong attachment to? Well, in Azula’s own words:

You seem so downcast. Has Mai gotten to you already? Though actually, Mai has been in a strangely good mood lately.

She notices his mood. She knows he’s gloomy about something but doesn’t want him to be. Especially not when things are (from her pov) going so well for him. The Mai line has been interpreted by some people from the fandom as a sex joke. I think the takeaway is the same regardless, but I’m pretty sure Azula is just trying to cheer Zuko up by (dryly) joking about the general disposition of her friend (who at this point is also his girlfriend) and by hinting to him (Azula’s not a very straightforward person like Zuko tends to be) that his presence is making a hard-to-please Mai, very happy. I think her saying Mai’s name twice was deliberate too.

I don’t sense any malicious intent on her part here.

Zuko responds to Azula’s prodding. She replies back casually, and then he states what he’s most worried about:

I haven't seen Dad yet. I haven't seen him in three years, since I was banished.

So what?

So, I didn't capture the Avatar.

Up to this point, their words and even tone-of-voice are calm and unassuming. Then the mood changes when Azula asks what the problem is again.

Who cares? The Avatar is dead. [Zuko looks away.] Unless you think he somehow miraculously survived.

This moment kills me because Zuko does something right away that I noticed he actually does more than once with Azula.

He looks away! It’s brief but it’s there. Everyone’s different, but when I look away after someone confronts me on something, it usually means that I’m 1. afraid of something or 2. ashamed of something. Zuko has reason to feel both here. He’s being confronted by Azula on a gravely important matter.

So after he looks away, Zuko remembers how Katara told him about the spirit water while they were in the Crystal Catacombs, before Azula arrived.

[During flashback.] This is water from the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties, so I've been saving it for something important.

Wait, hold on a second. Did Katara just...not mention anything about the water being able to bring people back from the dead (aka help them survive as we saw Katara do for Aang)? Nope, she didn’t. She doesn’t imply that it can do that in the previous episode either. Here’s her saying the same thing but with another line and extra bit of info at the end:

[Holds up a vial.] This is water from the Spirit Oasis at the North Pole. It has special properties, so I've been saving it for something important. [Moves in front of Zuko.] I don't know if it would work, but...

Even Katara doesn’t know what it would do. So why would Zuko? I think it’s obvious by this point that Azula wouldn’t know about it either.

After Zuko’s done having his probably-would-have-been-good-to-know-about flashback, he responds in a way that actually makes sense when you think about it.

No. There's no way he could have survived. [They glare at each other.]

Of course he’d respond that way. Why should he think anything else or assume he should tell her any differently? Who ever heard of someone coming back from the dead anyway? (Don’t answer that.) They glare at each other sure, but is that really evidence that either of them at this point had it out for each other? Sometimes people glare when someone proves them wrong. Sometimes people glare as a response to someone else’s glare. An angry expression isn’t synonymous with “watch your back”. 

Now I’ll admit, Azula looking immediately displeased implies that she’s caught on and will bite back (though not necessarily try and horribly harm him, which she doesn’t do), but that’s only after Zuko lied to her (remember, we’re focusing on this scene only). She may not objectively know that he lied, but in her heart she knows, because he’s her brother. And he likely has failed to fool her in the past. I also don’t think Azula is the type to care all that much about reasons, only outcomes. Ends over means. So even if she knew for a fact that Zuko wasn’t trying to hurt her here, she’d still be livid and would still probably want to teach him a lesson about lying in such a way that multiple people could get screwed over.

Now to those still unconvinced about Azula’s innocence: What reason do you think she would have to want to harm Zuko for no reason?

To those sure that Zuko was being the crappiest sibling ever here: What do you think Zuko was trying to accomplish exactly? 

Honest questions btw. Why would either sibling want to hurt each other in this scene? They’re not “good” people (and Zuko’s especially bad at being a sibling at this point) but...why? 

I also think another argument to be had is whether Zuko is even cruel/conniving/smart enough to suddenly want to “throw Azula under the bus”. That would mean knowingly feeding her to the man that burnt him. Would he want her to be burned? Would he do that, and at that exact moment? We can only hope he’d never try to do something so low.

With that said, one of these days I’ll make a post about Zuko’s overall intelligence and intentions towards others (including those he has some bad blood with). It’s a number on that post somewhere.

Next up in important-ish discussion topics: #5

[wanderingaldecaldo]

Heyyyy, this is something I've been meaning to do for ages and finally got around to! I'm WanderingAldecaldo, aka Wash, a writer, screenshotter, and modder for Cyberpunk 2077.

Before following...

Please, no minors. I'm old enough to be your parent. It's weird.

No biphobes. If you think I'm less than queer because I'm a bisexual woman married to a man; or if you think a man has to be gay because he is attracted to other men, go on and fuck off right now.

Also, terfs/swerfs can jump off a cliff. Women are women. Period. Sometimes they’re wemon too but that’s beside the point.

About Me

I'm a fanfic writer and lifelong console gamer whose life turned upside down because of Cyberpunk 2077 and one set of pixels. I'm now a committed PC gamer, modder, and screenshot enthusiast because someone needed to fill my the demand for Mitch/Fem V content. My Meat Husband™️ has accepted that he now has to share custody of me with Mitch.

About This Blog

Besides my Mitch Cyberpunk obsession, I also post about BioWare (Mass Effect & Dragon Age [DA:I in particular]), Red Dead Redemption 2 (and possibly GTA6 👀), other video game nonsense, random nerdery, sometimes music. I'm also not shy about my politics, whether in general or in relation to fandom. I try to tag things thoroughly but let me know if I can help by tagging something for you.

Currently anon asks are turned off due to the bullying anon I received about another fan's headcanon of Mitch. If people want to be hateful to me, they can "say it with their chest" and have the courage to put their name to their hate. If you need to speak privately, DMs are open. Mutuals can ask for my Discord, too.

My OCs & Ships

I welcome asks about my OC Val and my ships, as well as HCs I have about them or any other character. I have a lot of thoughts on the Aldecaldos in general, and Carol in particular. Note: I won't debate others' HCs so leave that at the door, please.

My V, Valerie Vermilion #valerie vermilion

Mitch & Val, aka Apex Predators #ship: apex predators

Mitch & Driss, aka Panzerboys #ship: panzerboys

Hilary Navarro, Aldecaldo netrunner #hilary navarro

Carol & Hilary, ship name tbd

My Writing

My AO3 profile

Drabbles, excerpts, prompts, and more #wash's writing

That time an anon tried to spread information bully me for my Mitch/Fem V content

My Mods for Download

Clothing Mods:

Edgerunner recolors [fem V]

Edgerunner recolors set 2 [fem V]

Edgerunner recolors [masc V]

Scav Pants [both fem & masc]

Other Mods:

Fem V Photomode Pose Pack - "Night Out in Night City"

Locomotion Mods - including: Teddy to corpo; Placide to male average; Scorpion to corpo

Mitch’s jacket fix - fixes the janky mesh that CDPR decided was good enough

My Tutorials

MagicBorder - Reshade Effect

Mods I Use Regularly [in progress]

Val's Clothing:

Meluminary (like..75% of Val's wardrobe)

Ladybella

wingdeer

bubbles's Alt jacket

ygollonac's Alt jeans & harness

Always Cuff Your Jeans, a bisexual requirement

assorted Discord exclusive & custom mods

Val’s Appearance:

Kala’s cyberware - gold recolor

Discord exclusive cyberware facial tattoo

Rattail with No Tail

Photomode:

Meluminary facial expressions - amazing!!! subtle and beautiful

Anims (photomode) - meluminary, jenvi, mine

Pose packs - meluminary, noralee, fereldanwench, gloryride, mine

NPC Animations:

Male avg - jenvi, wingdeer, mr dude

Male corpo - wingdeer

Quality of Life mods:

Relic Be Gone - controlled via CET so no adding/removing archive

Wardobe Outfit Manager - life-changing!

Edgerunner Bazaar

Appearance Change Unlocker

No Intro Videos - helpful for modding & restarting

Last updated: 4 Apr 22

[grishaversecommunityyy]

The Grishaverse Ship Survey Results

So! After all of that, we finally have the results! What is the general opinion on the ships in the Grishaverse? Well, that’s for you to read below! It’s actually pretty interesting and, while some parts make sense, there were definitely some parts which... surprised me... Anyway, onto the results!

Everything in this post can be split into:

The Grisha Trilogy

Six Of Crows Duology

The Nikolai Series

Shadow and Bone: TV Series

Most Enjoyed Ships

Least Enjoyed Ships

Crack Ships and Shipping Discourse

Notes from the Survey 

(note from mod emily: i tried to bold all of fritz’ comments, but i might have missed a few! be aware there are two of us analysing here :))

The Grisha Trilogy

The first book series we asked about was, of course, the first chronologically: the Grisha Trilogy. The most popular ship, with 83% voters for this series selecting this, was Genya/David (Fritz was glad to hear that; Yes I am). This is likely due to the lack of alternate romantic interests in the series, which seems to be a major issue for Alina’s ships. It also seems to be one genuinely enjoyed by most fans, in contrast to Darkling/Alina and Mal/Alina (each around 30%) and Nikolai/Alina (just under 20%), for which I have definitely seen plenty of debate. The second and third most popular ships for this series were Tamar/Nadia (55%) and Nikolai/Zoya (47%). Interestingly, Genya/Alina (43%) and Zoya/Alina (30%) ranked surprisingly high, especially considering how few of my friends and associates I hear talking about them. Good for them!

Honourable mentions:

Alina/Sun (no doubt inspired by that crack fic I wrote a while back) (Still havent read that out of fear)

Alina alone (a common concept among those surveyed, though most mentioned it later)

Zoya/Genya or Alina/Zoya/Genya

Six Of Crows Duology

This series was a little less divided, I would say. Predictably, Kaz/Inej came out on top with a whopping 96% of voters (:relieved:), with Wylan/Jesper next (90%) and Nina/Matthias just after (83%). None of the others really came close, despite Nina/Inej gathering 35% of the votes and Colm/Aditi at 25% (yeah, I’m not sure why that was so popular on AO3 either, but nobody really has objections so I assume that’s why it amassed so many votes). As Six of Crows is decidedly less divisive about ships and doesn’t have such controversial ships (more on that later), it seems the fandom agrees with canon pairings and the votes are... pretty unanimous.

Honourable Mentions:

Jesper/Wylan/Kuwei

Polycrows (platonic or romantic)

Kaz/Inej/Nina

Whoever didn’t read the instruction about this being for only the book series and put Jesper/Milo. I will never escape. 

The Nikolai Series

This one is a little harder for me because I actually haven’t read this... so over to Fritz for analysis! But first, the stats. At 85%, the most popular ship is Genya/David, followed by Zoya/Nikolai at 77%. Tamar/Nadia and Nina/Hanne draw at 61.5% and Nina/Matthias has 56% voters onboard. There’s no real honourable mentions for this one, sadly. Hello Fritz here! Read the books and very glad to see Genya/David as the top ship as it damn well should. Although still a bit surprising since its more of a side-arc of the two and only ties in with the importance of the story at a specific chapter that I feel like I don’t need to elaborate about, if you read Rule of Wolves. (I believe the popularity of the ship also sky-rocketed due to ROW) Following of course Zoya/Nikolai, the high ranking makes sense, it is the main ship and lets be honest they deserve it <3

I think the only really surprising thing about this is the high votes for Nina/Matthias since [SPOILERS CROOKED KINGDOM] he’s dead so I feel like people should move on from that. Nina/“Hanne” having not as high a ranking as I would’ve thought, but with Matthias still being in the frame I guess we shouldn’t be surprised either.

Shadow and Bone: TV Series

This one is really interesting, with the exclusive show watchers now taking part! We have 89% voting for Kaz/Inej, 76% for David/Genya, 71% for Matthias/Nina, 67% for Ivan/Fedyor (that’s a thing???-->Yeah they had a few somewhat sweet interactions in the background-->nvm i watched it you’re right fritz) and 62% for Mal/Alina. What’s really surprising is how high Malina is compared to Darklina, with Darkling/Alina at 36%. Who knows, maybe Fritz’ analysis can shed some light on this?

Yes yes Fritz to the rescue: First of all we have to see their interactions a little different from what we already knew of them by the end of episode 8. I still think it is a surprising number, since the Darkling in the show isn’t as nasty as he was in the books BUT over all his actions are now seen on TV. We all thought the deer antlers were a necklace amirite? Well no apparently not, the darkling used the worst kind of small science to fit Alinas collarbone to the bone and out comes a gruesome sight: a reason why many people might have started thinking: Wow what a disgusting person he is. And on the Malina “ship”: Mal finally has personality!! jkjk :eyes: Mals and Alinas friendship has been portrayed way better in the show and I believe that the people noticed more chemistry between them especially by the end of season 1. So I’m still a little surprised Darklina has such a low ranking (what with him being all sweet and cuddly in the middle of the show) but it makes sense and the Malina ship as well. Their vibes are just *chefs kiss* and thats coming from someone who didnt even like any of these “ships” <3

Loving the quotation marks for the word ‘ships’, Fritz. Over to the honourable mentions!

Honourable Mentions:

Jesper and Milo (isn’t milo a goat? guys, why?)

Nadia/Marie (huh that didn’t appear anywhere else)

One person had several - Kaz/Inej/Jesper, Dubrov/Mikhael, Dubrov/Mikhael/Mal - and yeah, you can really see the show differences in these mentions right? (whose dubrov...and whose mikhael...)

16% actually voted for Inej/Alina which is wild to me because of book context (they did have chemistry in the show tho :cowboi_smirk:)

Another person with several! We have Nina/Inej, Genya/Alina, Zoya/Alina, Zoya/Genya/Alina. Very sapphic. Good for you.

Kaz/Jesper and Nina/Inej all in one

That’s a lot of honour and mentions but it’s so interesting to me and I think you should see too

Most Enjoyed Ships

The most enjoyed ship was Kaz/Inej. This had unparalleled support, being at 35%. Jesper/Wylan, which was next on the list (23.5%) and Nina/Matthias (18%) were also pretty popular. Most of the others were quite low, though interestingly Mal/Alina only had 1 vote (plus one for the show version). Overall, the SoC ships were a lot more popular in this section, which makes sense - this part is really about your favourite ship, and those were more unanimous in the last sections.

Least Enjoyed Ships

Most people said Darkling/Alina, which got 47% of the NOTP votes. A lot more people disliked Darkling/Alina than liked Kaz/Inej. Make of that what you will, but I take it as a somewhat general agreement among many of you guys. Mal/Alina was also strongly disliked at 22%, but around a half or more of these were clarified to be about the book version of the ship specifically. They really must’ve upgraded in the show! Jesper/Kuwei and any other Darkling ships were also voted by a few, but all of these pale in comparison to the anti-Darklina votes. Shoutout to the person who said Apparat/Anyone. I agree, though it’s not something I thought of before seeing this response. Also one person said they didn’t like the poly ships, which I hope meant just the ones mentioned earlier and not all poly relationships in general... Another shoutout to whoever said Kaz/Heleen, because why did I have to read that. A fun question, all in all!

Crack Ships and Shipping Discourse

I love talking about crack ships, so let’s start with that! This time, I really don’t want to have to count and list because... well, let me show you:

I think that sums up the sheer variety, to be honest. Then again, it would be rude not to mention that the most popular were Jesper/Milo, Darkling/Nikolai and Alina/Sun. (If you’re still confused about that last one, I take full responsibility.)

YES KAZ/KRUGE I SUPPORT!!!

Honourable mention to this:

which was a lot to take in, and:

Now for the discourse. Yep, the part you probably came for. 

Actually... maybe you didn’t? Looking at all of these responses, I see a lot of people genuinely don’t care about ship wars and so on, and often enjoyed the books regardless of the romances involved. Quite a few disapproved of the ongoing (though small) wars between Darklina and Malina, and others had a similar line of thinking, saying we should maybe stop focusing so much on it. You guys are right. I know this is a ship survey, and the conclusions should not include that shipping isn’t as important as we make it (Yes it should), but... that’s where it’s at.

And then again, a lot of you guys expressed disapproval for Darkling/Alina, discussing how it is often one-sided and manipulative and overall unhealthy, so I could be completely off with that last one. Some people mentioned that they ship this but as a slightly different version that the one given to us, recognising the flaws of the canon ship.

Someone said they headcanon Tolya as aroace (OMG YES!!). We need more aroace characters, so thank you for that headcanon :) We also have a few gay ships mentioned here, and one person telling us they love Malina. Yes, you’re right - it’s pretty unpopular, it turns out. Someone else said Alina should’ve been single, and I agree, actually!

One person rickrolled me here. Thankfully, Youtube’s ads saved me. *wipes forehead*

I leave you all with this, in the end:

Notes from the Survey

Statistics Stuff:

The top ships were taken from AO3, so some ships may be more focused on in other books and may not provide accurate statistics for an earlier series.

The main circles this was sent around may have had bias as most people are from the same discord server, which has debated these topics in the past. Hence certain ships may have lower-than-average results. In future, this could be improved upon by sending this to other servers and areas of the fandom.

Personal bias may be present in the analysis, though I have tried to minimise this in the more formal sections.

Observations and Notes from Me:

You guys really don’t like Darklina. Or you love it. Usually one or the other. Wow.

Be glad I didn’t talk about any of the cursed ships in this. The things I have seen... (:cowboi_eyes:)

I thought more people would rickroll me, ngl.

What Surprised You Guys:

Kaz/Inej/Jesper

A few of you guys saw some of those cursed ships, and that surprised you. Well, me too!

Nikolai ships being in the TV Show section at all, what with his character not being in the show (yeah what was up with that huh tztz)

Inej/Alina

The existence of The Severed Moon

Darkling/Nikolai(/Alina)

How fun the quiz was :D

Things You Sent Me:

Bee Movie copypasta

“Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition!”, except via an AO3 link

A fun fact about enzymes! I liked this one

Fic recs for Feriku and Sarai (esp for Wylan/Jesper shippers)

Another rickroll

Nice compliments :) aww you guys

I asked everyone for some kind of placeholder name and never used it. Sorry! But hey, anonymity, right?

Closing Statements

If you got this far (I feel like ive been sitting here for hours), thanks for reading! This was fun to do and I hope you enjoyed all of this too! The survey is still open for anyone who hasn’t done it but wants to. If I get a huge amount of new responses, I might update this post! But for now, adios!

-mod emily (and mod fritz)

[seven-oomen]

If You Are Going Through Hell, Keep Going

These are the words that Marin Morrell – Druid, Emissary, Guidance Counselor – says to Stiles Stilinski in “Battlefield” (02x11) And I think they suit his character just perfectly, because Stiles has been going through Hell all his life.

The Teen Wolf Fandom don’t talk nearly enough about Stiles’ traumas, so I’ll try my best to do it myself *I won’t even remotely touch on the Void Stiles, Dark Stiles, Donovan and the Nogitsune trauma though, because it’s extremely complex and deserves its own Meta*

It’s Canon that Noah was an alcoholic (as Rafael pointed out to Stiles in 03x11 Alpha Pact), that he neglected and lashed out at his own child (Stiles’ memory in 02x09 Party Guessed), and that Stiles was verbally, emotionally, and physically abused by his mentally ill mother, Claudia, throughout his childhood (there’s a whole magnificently acted, heart wrenching scene about it with flashbacks and all in 05x06 Required Reading.) It’s Canon that Stiles had to take care of himself and of his father before AND after Claudia’s death. And it’s Canon that Stiles – who was only an eight years old child at the time – was at the hospital with his mother when she died, nobody else:

[Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 11, Alpha Pact]

CHRIS: You knew… I remember meeting you once, before you were Sheriff. You questioned me about a body. You knew something was up. You just weren’t ready to believe it.

NOAH: You’re right. There was a night eight years ago… the night my wife died. I was at the end of a shift, and a call came in. There had been a pile-up, and a young woman… she was a teenager, actually. She was trapped under an overturned car. We had to wait for the paramedics. We were never getting her out, but I was able to hold her hand. She knew she was gonna die. But I just kept telling her “No, no, listen. The paramedics are on their way.” And then I remember her hand suddenly gripped mine so tightly that I literally thought she was gonna break the bones. And she looked me in the eyes, and she said “If you wanna be with her, go now.” And I knew she was talking about my wife… But then that other part of my brain — the part that looks for clues, for fingerprints, for logical connections… that part told me that there is no way that this girl could possibly know about Claudia. And so I stayed. I stayed until the paramedics pulled her out. Until her heart stopped beating and they declared her dead.

NOAH: When I finally got to the hospital, I saw Stiles sitting in the waiting room with his head in his hands… He was with Claudia when she died.

NOAH: But I wasn’t. I wasn’t with her because I didn’t believe… I just did not believe.

It’s also Canon that Derek Hale is a rape victim and that the hunters slaughtered Derek, Cora and Peter’s entire pack/family (including humans and children.) And it’s Canon that Stiles immediately sides with the Hales and openly confronts Chris about what Kate had done to the Hales in 01x12, Code Breaker:

CHRIS: Let me ask you a question, Stiles. Have you ever seen a rabid dog?

STILES: No. I could put it on my to-do list, if you just let me go.

CHRIS: Well, I have. And the only thing I’ve ever been able to compare it to is seeing a friend of mine turn on a full moon. Do you wanna know what happened?

STILES: Not really. No offense to your storytelling skills.

CHRIS: He tried to kill me, and I was forced to put a bullet in his head. The whole while that he lay there dying, he was still trying to claw his way toward me, still trying to kill me, like it was the most important thing he could do with his last breath. Can you imagine that?

STILES: No. And it sounds like you need to be a little bit more select—

CHRIS: Did Scott try to kill you on the full moon? Did you have to lock him up?

STILES: Yeah, I did. I had to handcuff him to a radiator. Why? Would you prefer I locked him in the basement and burned the whole house down around him?

CHRIS: I hate to dispel a popular rumor, Stiles, but we never did that.

STILES: Oh, right. Derek said you guys had a code. I guess no one ever breaks it.

CHRIS: Never!

STILES: What if someone does?

CHRIS: Someone like who?

STILES: Your sister.

Unlike self-proclaimed hero and ruler of Beacon Hills Scott McCall, who immediately sides with the Argents and tells Derek Hale that his family deserved to be burnt alive by the hunters in front of his comatose uncle………..

-----

I feel like there is a lot to unpack on Stiles’s trauma. And I will go over these moments one by one, why they’re damaging, what I think the context of the scene is supposed to represent ft how people might take it. And what my personal thoughts are regarding Stiles’s trauma.

First of, I would like to say that the following words are my take on this. I am a 29 year old trans man of caucasian descend who is an domestic violence and abuse survivor. I am diagnosed with ADHD since 12 and diagnosed with CPTSD since this year. I understand trauma and I understand what it does to people. But I am not a professional. I am a fan, who’s responding to the submission of another, anonymous, fan.

You are completely free to have your own takes on this matter and your own headcanons. That’s what fandom is for.

That said, I would love to have a discussion if you can have it peacefully.

Stiles is a character who was (Unwillingly) neglected, emotionally traumatized and both emotionally and verbally abused by both of his parents. There is even evidence of physical abuse by his mother.

I think it does need to be said, that neither of his parents intended for this to happen. What happened in the Stilinski family was by and large a very traumatic event for everyone involved.

Noah is an alcoholic, as Stiles also confirms in the episode that Noah never really stopped drinking. His alcoholism is a result of his own traumas and possible ND mind and an unhealthy coping mechanism.

As a result of this, Noah most likely was verbally and emotionally abusive during his drunken tirades.

I personally think that before Claudia was diagnosed and got sick Stiles had a good childhood. His parents tried their best to be good parents for him and laid a good foundation for him. This is evidenced in the bond Stiles seems to have with his father in general. He’s not afraid of his father, he’s nervous about consequences. But he never gives off a vibe to me that truly says; I fear this man and I have to stay in line to stay alive.

Unlike Isaac and his father.

This also tells me, that unlike Elias Stilinski, Noah never lashed out physically at Stiles. He was trying to break a cycle of abuse but more than likely still fell victim to it himself when he could no longer cope with trauma and his neurodivergency and started drinking.

That doesn’t mean that he’s not guilty of abusing his own son. We know Noah can be neglectful and dismissive towards Stiles (even though he tries his best not to be) and has a tendency to low key insult Stiles from time to time. Whether or not he truly means to or not is up for debate, I personally think he doesn’t mean to do it, but Stiles is clearly heartbroken every time Noah accidentally lashes out. 

As evidenced by sentences: “I’ve never believed a word he said since he was born.” “Thank you, son I should have had.” (To Scott)

Stiles already has a deep founded fear that he’s not enough, that he killed his own mother, that he’s not believed by the people around him, and that people don’t want to take him seriously.

This is clear in every interaction he has with the people around him.

Which also brings me to what happened in 2x09. Now based on the context clues of that scene, I actually don’t believe Stiles saw a play-by-play memory. But rather, Stiles saw his greatest fear play out in a hallucination. 

Why do I believe that?

Because in the same scene, Allison has a hallucination about becoming her own worst nightmare (a huntress like Kate) and Scott sees a hallucination of Allison and Jackson making out. (Aka, losing Allison.) 

I think the scene both has fabrications and truths in it. The truth is that more than likely, Stiles saw his father getting drunk at his mother’s funeral and lashing out at people around him in his drunken stupor. (Which on one hand, one can understand if you take the pain and trauma into account, but it’s not a healthy or an okay thing to do, obviously. This is definitely where Noah fell apart.)

I also like to think one of the other adults put a stop to Noah’s behavior before he could get out of hand. But we never really see her funeral play out, so that is speculation.

The fabrication is the scene that follows. We know that Claudia was the one that actually said the words to Stiles. “You’re killing me, he’s killing me.” 

And that Noah was the voice of reason in that scene. “No, he’s not. You’re sick, let’s go back inside.” (Or something along those lines. I can’t remember the exact words.)

What I think is more than likely is that Stiles’s greatest fear is that his father actually believes he killed his mother. As that is what his mother said to him before she died.  And so that’s what he hallucinated under the influence of the wolfsbane.

Stiles’s greatest fear is losing both of his parents, no matter in what way that is. He also fears that he failed as a son, and failed to take care of his father. All of this is fueled by losing his mother and watching her die at a very young age.

And that is where Stiles’s trauma truly lies. He watched his mother die (at the age of 10) slowly while she lost her mind to a terrible illness. 

His father couldn’t handle losing his wife and not being able to help her and the previous traumas he endured in his own childhood. And Stiles had to step up to take care of him. That changes a child and leaves a mark. A mark that Stiles can’t shake.

We know Noah neglected Stiles by not being able to care for him as he should have, we know Noah tends to think Stiles has wild conspiracy theories and tends not to believe him.

Which traumatized Stiles even though Noah didn’t intend for that to happen. That doesn’t mean that Stiles’s trauma isn’t real though. It’s very real. This is also the reason why he immediately chooses Derek’s side in 1x12.

For Stiles, not being believed is a daily reality and he doesn’t want anyone else to go through that as well. Which is why he chooses Derek’s side. Because Stiles, due to his own trauma, is hard-wired to believe the victim and tends to defend them.

Now I think a lot of people take a lot of Stiles’s scenes literal because they identify with what’s happening on screen. Because Stiles isn’t being believed by the other characters, the audience tends to take his perspective at face value. Even in situations where it’s made clear that Stiles, like other characters, is hallucinating at the time.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I do think it’s something to consider.

Tagging a few people who might want to add a thought or two to this.

@mostly-vo1d @artemisa97 @msmischief101

[bitter-sweet-coffee]

Henlo! I'm curious what your fave Sonic character(s) is ^^ and do you have any headcanons for them?

oh boy! okay i'm going to do my best to answer this but i have been in this fandom forever and could write a dissertation on just like,,, one character. so instead i'll sparknote some cute things about my top 4 and if you want to hear a more elaborate response i can do separate posts for each of them! it was hard enough to pick a couple characters since i love them all 😊

1) espio the chameleon

i love this little purple man so much oh my god. for starters, i'd like to think he isn't as serious as a lot of people make him out to be. yeah he seems chill but let's be real, he's arrogant and i love every second of it! he definitely radiates hot topic vibes but we're talking ronnie radke, hollywood undead vibes. definitely an e-boy but not in the fake alt way, he just radiates soft-grunge vibes? he's bisexual with a male lean and definitely dated mighty at some point, but i personally ship him with wave (more on that in a second!) his best friend is silver (i ship them too tbh) but his friends are rouge and shadow for the most part. he's the character closest to shadow (personality wise, not emotional proximity) and i adore their interactions in shadow's game so i sorta ship them too...? ahhh this is supposed to be about headcanons! anyways, i think he's fun to be around and has a thing for people with good stories to tell: wave about the past, silver about the future, and rouge/shadow with the present as agents. i think the cooperation between the chaotix detective agency and GUN is something people should write more often! oh, and he likes green tea boba ✨

2) wave the swallow

god, she made me realize i like girls and i still absolutely adore her. it was taken down but at one point years ago, her birthday was listed as november 11th which makes her a scorpio, and as a fellow scorpio i stand by it! she's also definitely bi but with a female lean, and her best friend/occasional partner is rouge. they remind me of maddy and cassie from euphoria, but wave isn't as bitter as maddy ofc. i feel like people forget that storm and jet are pretty damn incompetent without her, she literally does everything for them and that's a big nod to her people pleasing. yeah she's arrogant, but she's not wrong in being self absorbed because she keeps things running! she radiates hayley kiyoko, p!nk, 100gecs, and paramore vibes. she's a baddie but a softie! i think her and espio would be amazing together (even platonically) because he loves learning and debates, and she has a lot to say and needs someone to respond, as opposed to zoning out. i feel like she could be a famous rollerskater on tiktok or something, and would have her own line of custom gear! she might be cold and competitive, but she's really sweet and just has no way of expressing it... poor girl. i think her and sonic could be amazing friends, and i'd love to see more art of them being pals and going on adventures together!

3. shadow the hedgehog

hehehehehe oh boy, as the current love interest of my fixation character, shadow is getting more attention than usual these days! i always liked him but my fave boy and girl were espio and wave for the longest time, so finally getting to fixate on shadow is great for me! shadow is neurodivergent, basically in canon. his memory issues are both trauma related and just a part of his programming. something that i admire about espio and shadow being friends is that the former loves authority and doesn't need it, but the latter despises it but needs it. shadow was created to obey, and so even if GUN wrongs him a thousand times, he needs them. it's why he keeps going back to eggman, and helps sonic when asked. shadow might not admit it, but he has a saviour complex! although i agree that with modern music he'd listen to like mcr and pierce the veil etc, i think he'd also resonate with sex pistols and other music from the decades he missed while in stasis (footloose is probably one of his fave movies just because of the killer soundtrack!) he loves flowers and does his best to take care of plants, has nervous tics, and the reason his quills turn upwards is because of all the chaos energy he has! super sonic's quills turn up when transformed, and shadow is constantly tapped into that energy: even with inhibitors it's a lot to manage. shadow also loves reading, and i think his favourite book would be The Wars by Timothy Findley (amazing read, please check it out because it reminds me so much of Shadow oh my god)

4. INFINITE!!!

okay i have to keep this one short but he is currently my favourite character, and i could talk about him forever. i know SEGA claims his real name is Infinite, but i headcanon that in the village he came from he wasn't given a name because he was considered a burden and a curse (due to his heterochromia and other reasons). for me he was called araperi or ara (nothing/no in Georgian) because they only referred to him via negative reinforcement. the scar on his eye is because either he or another jackal tried to claw it out when he was little because it made him an outcast and he wanted to belong. he only started school when he was in highschool and never really learned how to read english (i base a lot of his village lore around Georgia and my experiences with Georgian culture- even though my culture was erased when i got adopted lol). he only learned english through musical theatre, and is fluent but not very literate in english (can't read or write very well). he radiates younger sibling vibes so i headcanon that he has 4 older sisters who all treated him pretty bad on varying levels. after a year or two of highschool he ran away with some friends and after meeting more nomads, squad jackal was eventually formed! infinite (or finn as i sometimes call him) was definitely into theatre (his favourite musical being sweeney todd) and he's an AMAZING singer, acting too (which is sorta canon because he adopted shadow's personality and fighting style after their first encounter and rehearsed a whole monologue lmao). his singing voice sounds like clem turner's but with a bit more rasp, probably because i feel like he'd listen to bring me the horizon and kim dracula! infinite is actually a big puppy once he likes you, he's just secretly awkward and insecure as hell (maybe the last part isn't a secret, haha)

wow, this was longer than expected and i feel like i hardly said anything, but this is sorta where i'm at with these four! i could talk about them forever though, so feel free to ask follow ups or request a full post for them, any ships i mentioned (or didn't) or if you want a post about anyone else!

[notthatiwilleverwriteit]

Hello! I have a given question if you don't mind. I absolutely fall in love with akiugetsu and I was a little heart broken when they didn't end up together. But something I don't understand is why did they drag out this complicated relationship. They were both suffering and wanted to end it but didn't and they both were with others but still continued. If they were still in love why couldn't they work on it to be a couple again?

Hello, dear anon and a fellow AkiUgetsu enthusiast!

I don’t mind Given asks at all. They are both a nice change to 19 Days posts and also a challenge since Given is a very different kind of work to analyze.

So far, I have talked about AkiUgetsu a couple of times:

My thoughts on AkiUgetsu’s story

My thoughts on Akihiko forcing himself on Haruki

About Ugetsu and Akihiko’s lack of motivation

I will probably repeat some of the things I have already said, but quite a lot of time has passed since my first ever Given ask. I have had many interesting discussions, thoughts, and notes since then about AkiUgetsu, so I wanted to take this ask as a chance to perhaps update some of the previous things. Given is the kind of very layered and complex story that you always find new things to mull over.

To me, it looks like you kind of had two questions: Why didn’t AkiUgetsu end their relationship earlier if they were both unhappy? Why couldn’t they have tried to fix it and the story took the AkiHaru road? I’ll be dividing my answer according to those two matters.

“why did they drag out this complicated relationship”

I would say AkiUgetsu is by far the most complicated relationship in Given, so I don’t think there is one clearcut answer to that. Both Akihiko and Ugetsu had their own complex and conflicting feelings regarding each other. And to make matters even more complicated, they were both poor at communicating when it came to each other.

I tend to visualize AkiUgetsu in two ways: a cycle and two layers on top of each other. I think both of those dynamics of their relationship contributed to them not being able to let go of each other and dragging it out as you put it.

Circles repeat themselves, but even they have a beginning that started it all. I think the beginning of the AkiUgetsu circle was when Ugetsu wanted to break up for the first time (vol. 4 ch. 17):

Ugetsu loved Akihiko. Before meeting Akihiko, Ugetsu’s life and passion had only revolved around music and the violin. But the more he fell in love with Akihiko, the more Ugetsu realized his passion was being pulled away from his music. Instead of chasing new heights in the violin, he was “chasing” Akihiko as in his mind was more filled with him. (There were also reasons regarding Akihiko, but I will get to those a bit later.)

I think that kind of disturbance of his priorities made Ugetsu both uneasy and scared. It felt like he was losing control. His music that was such an essential part of him that it borderline defined him was becoming almost stagnated. He was in this place where Akihiko loved him and he loved Akihiko but he was staying there at the expense of his music.

The bottom line is, he didn’t want to break up with Akihiko because he didn’t love him (anymore) but rather because his love for Akihiko was threatening something that was at the very core of Ugetsu’s existence. And I feel where he was coming from in all that. In fact, it’s something I can even relate to in his character.

But it seems to me like he never explained any of that to Akihiko. He just said that they should “end this already”. That choice of words was the end result of his own contemplating, so it sounded as such as well. Like there was this laundry list of problems in their relationship, and they should put a stop to it already. To Akihiko, this all seemed to come as a surprise and shock. Like he didn’t know what Ugetsu was talking about and despite them fighting a lot, Akihiko still thought they had been happy. And if Ugetsu didn’t explain his thought process and real reasons - like I strongly suspect he didn’t - I’m sure it all sounded to Akihiko like Ugetsu didn’t love him anymore.

It wasn’t told to us in the comic, but I have always had this headcanon that Akihiko suggested they stayed roommates. Maybe he suggested it as such or maybe he originally asked for time to find a new place and it never happened. Maybe he suggested they stayed under the same roof to see if they could still be something. Regardless, I think it was Akihiko who was reluctant to accept Ugetsu’s decision. And that ultimately wore out Ugetsu’s resolve which was on a shaky basis to begin with. After all, he still loved Akihiko and wanted to be with him, and deciding to break up was painful. So, when he allowed Akihiko to stay as a roommate, it was like an in-between solution that ended up entering them both in the painful cycle.

Then for two years, they were stuck in a circle that replayed the highs and lows of their relationship (vol. 4 ch. 20):

Whenever they had been apart for a while, they remembered the good they had together. They knew each other in and out and had years of history together. It was as if they both took comfort in the other one always being there. No matter who Ugetsu dated or where Akihiko spent the night, they could still fall back to each other when it all went back to “normal”. It was familiar and safe in many ways. Ultimately those honeymoon phases discouraged both of them to seriously move on. Ugetsu dated people halfheartedly and Akihiko could feel like he was needed in Ugetsu’s life again.

But the lows of the circle were also like small break-ups over and over again. For Akihiko especially, it was like being suddenly reminded of their real relationship status. That he was in this position from two years ago once again. Ugetsu didn’t love him and he was pushing Akihiko away. And Ugetsu being unable to take the last step and make up his mind already was frustrating to Akihiko. He still had feelings for Ugetsu, so he needed Ugetsu to put an end to it. All the while he didn’t know that Ugetsu was feeling the same and was waiting for Akihiko to walk away.

So, as I said, complicated with a side of poor communication.

Besides the cycle that was very hard for both of them to break, I think they were stuck also because there were two layers in their relationship as roommates. (vol. 3 ch. 16):

Officially and on the surface, they were just roommates. On paper, they weren’t romantically involved anymore and both free to date and sleep with other people. So, in this regard, Ugetsu had a full right to date whoever he wanted without that making him a “whore”, “slut”, or “cheater” as I have seen him being called in the fandom. He and Akihiko weren’t in a romantic relationship anymore, so he was single.

But I still understand why Akihiko got angry when he walked in on Ugetsu sleeping with that other guy and why the situation escalated. Below their official relationship status, under the surface, they were still very much romantically involved with each other. Akihiko still had feelings for Ugetsu, and Ugetsu still had feelings for Akihiko. They had sex together, they were still intimate with each other. It wasn’t said out loud but they weren’t just roommates and they were both aware of that. So, when Ugetsu slept with someone else which he was free to do, it still hurt Akihiko because it disregarded what they had going on under the surface.

That second hidden layer was also something that kept them dragging their relationship on as well. They had this “roommates with benefits” relationship going on while the strings of their previous official relationship were still firmly attached.

As far as the fandom discourse goes, I think this is where a lot of debate is brewed. The two layers created this “yes, but...” situation between AkiUgetsu. And I think people sometimes knowingly ignore one of them to support their interpretation of Akihiko and Ugetsu one way or another. I don’t personally think that you can be black and white about their situation.

What ultimately kept them together was both of them being unable to let go and waiting for the other one to sever their relationship. And so, together they sunk deeper and deeper while clinging to and rekindling memories despite both being miserable and in pain. Ugetsu wanted to be with Akihiko but he couldn’t feel at peace with him and he didn’t want to keep hurting Akihiko. Akihiko clung to Ugetsu because he loved him and some of that love still lingered, but the more he refused to let go the more he was putting himself down.

“If they were still in love why couldn't they work on it to be a couple again?”

Even though AkiUgetsu is most definitely my Given OTP, their final break-up still made sense to me and I think it needed to happen. I think the end of their relationship was already sowed in the beginning of their relationship.

As I already said about Ugetsu, despite loving Akihiko, he wasn’t at peace. He was also (and originally) in love with music and couldn’t have both fit in his life without feeling suffocated. I also mentioned there were reasons regarding Akihiko to which I would come back later. I think those reasons were another big factor why their relationship couldn’t work despite them loving each other.

Ugetsu didn’t originally want to break up just for his own sake but also for Akihiko (vol. 4 ch. 17):

When Akihiko was faced with Ugetsu’s immense natural talent, he both fell in love with it but also resented it. It excited him but discouraged him at the same time. And eventually, he lost his drive and motivation for music (violin) and gave up on it.

I think that reaction was a defense mechanism of sorts for Akihiko. In the presence of such intense talent, it was scary to try his best and still come second. That would have only confirmed what Akihiko already was thinking about. So, it was safer to give up, but that was painful, too. Giving up on one’s passion doesn’t kill the passion. It just gets shoved almost violently away in a place where you can pretend to have forgotten about it. That only became easier when Akihiko started playing the drums where he could find a proper distraction from the violin.

I don’t think any of that escaped Ugetsu. He noticed Akihiko’s lack of motivation and thought it was a shame. He knew Akihiko was good and had plenty of talent, but he had lost his trigger to evolve. On some level, Ugetsu realized Akihiko was giving up on the violin because of him. That Ugetsu’s music was painful for Akihiko. That his music was making Akihiko feel and do things he didn’t want to.

So, even though they loved each other when they broke up for the first time, it was the kind of love that made them unhappy. Now, could they have worked out those issues back then with proper communication? To some extent, maybe. Maybe they could have talked about Akihiko’s insecurity and figured out solutions for it. Maybe Ugetsu could have found a balance between the violin and Akihiko.

I want to say maybe, but...I tend to lean more towards a no. To me, those issues were about how they reacted to each other. I think Ugetsu would have always made Akihiko feel inferior and Akihiko would have always made Ugetsu feel like he had to make an either-or decision. I think those feelings would have always been underlying in their relationship.

And by the time they broke up for good, I think their relationship was at a point where there was nothing left to safe. When Akihiko finally decided to walk away from Ugetsu, I’m not sure if there still was the kind of love left between them that could have been salvaged. Over the years, it had twisted and changed shades. I honestly couldn’t have seen how they could had gone back after the pain they had put each other through. Instead of loving each other like they had used to, their relationship had become more about being afraid of letting go.

I don’t think neither of them - and especially Akihiko - could realize the state of their actual feelings until Akihiko spent some time living with Haruki. It both broke the cycle but also effectively helped Akihiko see the situation from a proper distance. He had loved Ugetsu but it had turned suffocating and he was scared to go back to it. He didn’t want to go back to it. He also realized his passion for music again, now with the trigger that Ugetsu had talked about. I’m not saying all this to make Ugetsu sound like the villain or poison, but Akihiko needed to get away to see things with a clearer mind.

Then there is also the development of AkiUgetsu to AkiHaru to consider. Now, I feel like I have to make something clear before entering this part of my answer. I do not ship AkiHaru. In fact, it’s probably my Given NOTP. Personally, I don’t see any romantic/sexual chemistry between them and I think they would have been better off as friends regardless of how AkiUgetsu ended. For me to feel their relationship, I think their development should have been executed better/differently.

But all that being said, the overall move from AkiUgetsu to AkiHaru made sense. It was the poetically satisfying storyline choice for Akihiko instead of AkiUgetsu being the endgame despite everything. From darkness to light. From the basement to the balcony. From losing motivation to being driven again. From coming in second to being someone’s number one. From angst to fluff.

As much as I’m not interested in AkiHaru, I do recognize its poetically symbolic value. I think to an author, Ugetsu-Akihiko-Haruki was an excellent opportunity to build parallels and “healing” type of character development. So, as such, I understand why the story went as it went despite preferring some other routes.

Thank you for your question, dear anon! It’s always nice to bump into AkiUgetsu folks!

[neroushalvaus]

Top 10 favourite characters from any fandom

I was tagged by @limalepakko , thank you! Since I have recently listed male characters here (or you know, in August, but we all know time hasn't been a thing for many moons), I took the liberty to list characters in general this time. I also went with which characters feel right at the moment, so does not show all my favourites. I also try to keep these short. (edit: okay so these are not remotely short, I will post a list first and have the explanations be under the cut, read if you want to hear my ramblings c': )

1. Fantine, Les Misérables 2. Javert / Jean Valjean, Les Misérables (yes i am cheating) 3. Carrie "Big Boo" Black, Orange Is the New Black 4. Jane Marple, Agatha Christie's Marple 5. Aunt Lydia, The Handmaid's Tale 6. Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones books & movies 7. Rock Lee, Naruto 8. Sarah O'Brien, Downton Abbey 9. Marilla Cuthbert, Anne of Green Gables / Anne with an E 10. Sister Monica Joan, Call the Midwife

*

1. Fantine, Les Misérables

I love Fantine with all my heart. I remember reading Les Mis for the first time and her story sending chills down my spine. Her character development makes me so sad, from a girl who falls hard and fast and won't deny anything from her lover, to a woman who is so beaten down by society that she can't do anything but laugh at her fate. But I love how she doesn't lose her pride or her fighting spirit and how she still has the guts to spit in Valjean's face when she sees him after being arrested. And I love how all she does is for her daughter and how despite selling "the gold on her head and the pearls in her mouth" she is content, because all that matters to her is that Cosette will live.

*

2. Javert & Jean Valjean, Les Misérables

I was really trying to limit this list to one character per fandom, but alas, I am but a weak little person. Thus, I am cheating already. The thing is that when it comes to Les Mis characters, Fantine, Javert and Valjean are the eternal top 3 for me, but I'm never quite able to say who I love the most. Last time I picked Javert for the male character meme because I love the symbolism and critique of society his character embodies, but let it be known that Jean Valjean is the best character in all of literature and I will fight you on this. The original soft on crime icon (aside from Jesus Christ but they're the same and you know it). Valjean's character journey is such a complicated one from an ordinary man (no worse than any man) to a person, who had been shaped by society and criminal justice system to be a very dangerous man, to someone you could compare to a saint if you wanted to... To an ordinary man, who would do anything for his daughter. He has so many character-defining moments, the biggest ones being in my opinion the trial of Champmathieu and letting Javert go instead of killing him. I just love Jean Valjean so much and could speak about him for hours.

*

3. Carrie "Big Boo" Black, Orange Is the New Black

Hopping away from the Les Mis hole and into a OITNB hole. I was debating on whether I'd put Boo or Pennsatucky on this list since I love them both so much, but I've been feeling so much love for my angry butch king that it had to be her. First of all, I'm just so happy to see butch lesbian representation where the butch identity is not just a joke. I know OITNB sometimes uses Boo questionably, but in general she is a nuanced character and one of the most interesting ones in the series in my opinion. I'm so sad they forgot all about her on the last seasons. I love everything about her, how she has trouble with feelings besides anger and often deflects serious stuff through humor, how fiercely protective she is of those she loves (boosatucky otp forever fucking fight me), how proud she is of her butch identity ("i refuse to be invisible")... Also, not to express attraction, but... Mama I'm in love with a criminal. And not to be a slut for how characters view religion/spirituality/God, but the relieved smile she has in one of her flashbacks when she says "there's no God... there's nothing", like you can't just do stuff like that and expect me not to love the character to bits.

*

4. Jane Marple, Agatha Christie's Marple

Last time I listed Poirot and was a bit frustrated I couldn't list Marple, but now it's time to right that wrong! I love this little old lady so much. I love Agatha Christie so much for just going "you know who is the person who knows everything that's going on in a community, and thus would make the perfect detective for a detective story? the nosy old woman". As she is introduced in The Murder at the Vicarage: "Miss Marple is a white-haired old lady with a gentle, appealing manner — Miss Weatherby is a mixture of vinegar and gush. Of the two Miss Marple is much more dangerous." She is so likable and witty, you can't help but love her. My favourite portrayal of her is by Geraldine McEwan, she looks so gentle but has such a sharp gaze. I would spill all my secrets to her any day. I also am compelled to tell you that when I was a child we had a costume party at my school and I dressed up as Marple and learned some old lady things in English (it was before third grade so I didn't know much English back then) just for the occasion (such as "thank you, my dear", "what a lovely necklace you are wearing" or "there has been a murder"). Teacher might have thought me rather morbid but I remember that day being quite good.

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5. Aunt Lydia, The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale is such a great series and a book and Aunt Lydia is such a great character. The way she's capable of being absolutely cruel and vicious, but how she is also protective and caring in her own way. One of my favourite scenes in this series is when Serena Joy (my other favourite, can you tell) tells Lydia to "remove the damaged ones" from a line of handmaids and Lydia tries to argue with her. Sure, she is responsible for some of the punishments these women are now "damaged" by, but she truly believes those punishments were for a greater good and now the handmaids deserve their place with the others as much as anyone else. It is chilling and the character is such a dark shade of morally gray, but I can't get enough of it. The actress who plays her, Ann Dowd, has so interesting thoughts about her, like here. I just love this character so much I could scream.

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6. Bridget Jones, Bridget Jones books & movies

I'm mostly talking about the movies here because Renée Zellweger's performance is iconic. Plus the movies are what made me love this character first. But I'll give it to the books, they're one of the few books I've laughed out loud while reading. Anyway, how do you even begin explaining the love I have for Bridget Jones... I love how she is a character so many people can relate but who would be a comic relief side character in some other story. Yes, yes, it is really bad that she is constantly described as fat when she really is not, but when I was growing up she gave me hope that people who are viewed as fat and/or unattractive by other people can be admired and appreciated, and they don't have to be super talented at everything and highly intelligent and some kind of a super smooth social butterfly to "make up" for what they "lack". And also that they can have standards (i once dodged a bullet by rejecting someone by pretty much subconsciously quoting Bridget Jones so..). I also love how the comedic tone of everything does not dismiss Bridget's feelings. For example in some other movie we maybe would concentrate on how "stupid" Bridget was to trust that Daniel was in love with her, but in Bridget Jones we concentrate on how Bridget was hurt by Daniel cheating on her, how he is the one who did wrong. Idk I just love Bridget Jones so very much can you tell.

*

7. Rock Lee, Naruto

Aka the boy who would have kicked Madara in the balls if Kishimoto had any sense of drama and good storytelling. I think I robbed Lee by not putting him on the fav male characters list. You know that post that goes like "gays be like 'these are my comfort characters', 1 literal ray of sunshine, 2 war criminal" etc? This child is the sunshine. I've been reading and watching Naruto again ( @hapanmaitogai is my sideblog for that nonsense) and I'm so ready to adopt Lee and/or Gai. Rock Lee is just such an earnest character, he has a goal he will give anything to achieve and he's the one true underdog in this manga. I love how he's so kind and polite (it's not so clear in English but in the Finnish translation he speaks as formally as he does in Japanese, he uses singular polite "you", calls Sakura "Sakura-neiti" = "Miss Sakura" etc... i love one polite boy). Also, he has the best fights in the series. Like Lee vs Gaara is a Classic, but we simply can't forget that time Lee absolutely crushed Sasuke in just a few minutes, or that time he politely asked Kimimaro not to kill him while he drinks his medicine. The best boy. I love that boy so much.

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8. Sarah O'Brien, Downton Abbey

Last time it was Thomas' turn, so now I must talk about the snakiest snake, the queen of weaponized handmaidenry, Miss O'Brien. She is such a great character especially in the first two seasons (I obviously love her on season three as well but Julian Fellowes really tried to make it hard by not explaining her actions at all, didn't he. Well, luckily I am ready to stuff the gaps with my headcanons). She has some of the best comebacks in the series and brings some needed realism in some conversations. I also love how she uses her position as a lady's maid for her advantage and how she is proud of her profession despite being highly aware of the power structures in the Abbey. And then there is the soap. That is such a good character moment, because for a character who always plans ahead, who is ruthless and cunning and intelligent... I don't think O'Brien thought about the soap thing at all before she left the room ("Sarah O'Brien, this is not who you are" hit me like a train). Just once she did something with nothing but anger motivating her and that became one of the defining moments of her character. And one of the defining things of the future relationship between her and Cora. That's why I find the Sarah/Cora ship so interesting, because there will always be the undercurrent of bitter regret. Also Sarah O'Brien and Thomas Barrow are the greatest brotp and Fellowes was a coward for driving the smoking scheming gay best friends apart, and

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9. Marilla Cuthbert, Anne of Green Gables / Anne with an E

I'm not saying L.M. Montgomery is entirely responsible for me having a fondness for strict, older women who first act unkind but have a heart of gold, but she most certainly did not help. Between characters like Marilla Cuthbert and Elizabeth Murray, how can you not fall in love with the type? It's been a while since I read the Anne series, but I really love how Marilla's character has been adapted into the Anne with an E tv series. Geraldine James looks like she was born to play her, she has me in tears so often. She has the ability to portray someone like Marilla, who is a very hard and stern person but feels deeply for her loved ones. I was watching the episode that dealt with Matthew's heart attack and Marilla berating her brother while hugging herself like she was trying so hard to hold herself together absolutely destroyed my heart.

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10. Sister Monica Joan, Call the Midwife

It was a tough choice between her and Sister Evangelina. I just love these nuns very much. Sister Monica Joan is such a lovable and wise character. She is so knowledgeable of many subjects, from the Bible to astrology, and I feel like her unspecified memory problems and confusion are handled very tastefully. I also love how she's such an important part of her community despite not working as a midwife anymore. She is such a kind woman and gets visibly upset when others are treated poorly. And how could I not mention her saying "I do not believe in weeds. A weed is simply a flower that someone decides is in the wrong place", like... I love her so so much.

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I won't tag anyone, but if you read this and you want to do this, consider yourself tagged and you're no allowed to mark me as the one who tagged you!

[hopeswriting]

FANDOM: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!

EVENT: Flufftober 2020 

PROMPT: Breakfast in Bed

AUTHOR: @hopeswriting​

RATING: G

PAIRING: Adult!Verde & Adult!Fon

SUMMARY:

Verde is sick and Fon brings him his breakfast in bed to be nice.

WORDS: 915 (BONUS: 1502)

*

Fon releases a burst of Storm flames through Verde’s room, then two more before he takes a step in. He’s not fool enough to think he disabled every devices set up by Verde though, but it’ll have to do.

He puts the tray on the bedside table, and turns on the lamp.

Verde is hidden under the blanket, doesn’t move, breathes evenly as if sleeping. Fon kicks the bed.

“Don’t make me knock you out to actually get you to sleep. Hand them over.”

Verde plays dead. Fon flares his flames and he bursts out of the blanket, his skin pale, his stubble unkempt, with dark bags under his eyes, and his hair in a total disarray.

He throws his phone at him.

“The others too.”

Verde rummages under the blanket and throws a couple of more phones, gives up two laptops from under the pillows, and a third one from a secret place in the headboard.

“Your watch too.”

Verde glares at him throughout the whole process of throwing his watch at him, aiming for it to go straight through his skull if the force—and the flames—he used is anything to go by.

Fon rolls his eyes.

He fries the devices one by one with his flames, and slips in the bed. He releases one last burst of Storm flames through the mattress and the bed frame to disable the last of hidden devices.

“Be glad I'm leaving you your glasses. And speaking of them, you didn’t even take them off. How much of an idiot do you think I am?”

“A lifetime wouldn’t be enough for me to answer you.”

Fon plays deaf out of the sheer generosity of his heart. He picks up the tray, and holds it still on his lap the time for Verde to settle against the headboard too.

“How do you feel today?”

“Perfectly fine. And I have things to do, so I would like it if you could release me already.”

“You’re sick. Science told us that, or are you going to deny it? Here, try some bread.”

Verde slaps the slice of bread from his hands. “And whose fault is that? Who’s the idiot who infected me?”

“Yes, because you live such a healthy life Verde. I can’t possibly imagine how else you could have gotten sick.”

“I’m the smartest man in the world.” Fon slumps against the headboard and starts munching on the bread. “I could single-handedly bring society into a new age, a society you’re part of, but here I am.”

“Single-handedly? That’s quite rude to all your fellows competent scientists.”

“You’re right, actually. They might even contribute more than me, as I’m certain they’re not being forcefully bed-ridden as we’re talking.”

“Are you going to just keep talking?” Fon holds a spoonful to his mouth. “Here, try some soup then. I don’t want you to go on a coughing fit on me again.”

Verde drinks his soup obediently, and oh, he does plan to keep talking then? God forbid.

“Where’s Reborn when you need him?”

“On a job.”

“Where’s Luce? She can’t possibly agree with this.”

Fon scoffs. “Luce can’t save you now. She said she won’t take a step in the mansion again before we’re all proven to be in perfect health.”

Verde grumbles, and mumbles, and mutters, kicking his feet—kicking Fon’s feet, and on purpose, Fon is sure.

He slumps against him, rests his head on his shoulder, so obviously sick Fon can’t believe they managed to debate on the fact so many times already.

“You’re all incompetent.”

“For the record, Viper proposed to attach you to the bed until you’re healed, and I’m the only one who stood against that. So you might want to show some gratefulness sometimes soon.”

“You’re all incompetent, brainless, primitive, and a total waste of space.”

“You want some yogurt?”

“You’re all so incompetent, brainless, primitive, and a total waste of space, and—”

Fon shoves the spoonful of yogurt into his mouth. Verde spits it out right back on the tray.

Fon musters all the patience he can.

Was it him that also stood against Lal when she proposed to daze him in Rain flames? What an unwise man he was then.

“This is disgusting Verde.”

“That was incredibly rude. I was talking.”

Fon smiles, with teeth. “I’m listening.”

“Well, as I was saying, you’re all so incompetent, brainless, primitive, and a total waste of space, and I hate you all.” He pushes his glasses back up his nose, smirking smugly. “That’s all.”

Fon crushes the spoon in his fist, stabs it in the tray. He grabs his chin.

“You listen to me well. You will play nice with me from now on, or I will stop playing nice with you and make this whole recovery so much worse than you could imagine. You’ll never be afraid of anything more than falling sick ever again, because every time you’ll catch the symptoms I’ll come haunt you in your dreams like the most frightening omen of death.” He leans his forehead against his, and brushes their noses together tenderly. “Rightfully so. Did we understand each other?”

Verde blinks slowly, a sharp focus shining in his green eyes. “Interesting. I feel unreasonably turned on right now.”

Fon raises his eyebrow. “What’s so unreasonable about that?” He headbutts him lightly, and settles against the headboard again so Verde can rest his head back on his shoulder. “Now be reasonable and finish your soup sagely.”

*

BONUS:

I headcanon Fon as a sweetheart at heart who can and will go feral if needed, but let’s go with just Feral!Fon instead.

That’s just who he is at his core, his default state, just completely feral, Take No Shit and Give No Fuck, very indulgent to his every desire, 24/7.

Now of course he learned all about being mannered, and harmless/trustworthy looking, and sweet, and restrained because it is needed for the job sometimes, and he can play the part flawlessly, but even then sometimes he just can’t bother.

Just… No, You Live In A Society And I Intend To Break Every Last One Of Its Rules!Fon, you know?

Fon being an actual Storm à la Gokudera, but so much worse (or so much better I guess, depending on how you see it asdfgh).

And so when he meets with the other Arcobaleno, he kind of just sets the tone for all their future interactions.

------

He meets with the Arcobaleno at the meeting of the Chosen Seven, and his vibes instantly rub Reborn’s, Verde’s, Lal’s and Luce’s the wrong way.

On the other hand Skull and Viper decide to love him, and it’s the birth of such a chaotic trio, Reborn can only be jealous and admiring.

(And he can’t help but side with them whenever it’s time to face consequences, because he just can’t let such a harbinger of chaos being censored.)

------

Reborn takes one look at Fon and immediately feels so deeply offended and challenged. “I can see you’re a little shit who likes to be a pain in the ass with the people you care about, but this is my role and there can be only one of us.”

Fon takes one look at Reborn and goes “We could have been such a wonderful team, but I can see you like to be the only one in control and I don’t like being told what to do, so you will have to go down.”

It’s not even an hour in the mansion on their first day, and Fon tries to rip Reborn’s smirk off of his face, and pluck his smug black eyes, and cut off his sliver tongued all with his bare hands, because “No, sorry, I’m Take No Shit Give No Fuck!Fon, so you’ll just have to be your insufferable self with someone else.”

It’s their first fight of many more to come.

------

Luce has none of their bullshit. She is pregnant, and she can’t believe she even needs to point it out because “Hello, can’t you see this big belly of mine? You will behave or god help you.”

She straight up uses her flames on them to daze them whenever they’re about to lash out on each other too much.

Not in a way where she’s forcing her flames on them or crossing boundaries of course, but just enough they don’t want to risk losing their own limbs if they were to power through her flames.

And when she really can give no fuck either, she just straight up… fakes some kind of help-my-pregnancy-is-going-wrong induced attack.

She just collapses on the ground, wailing, her arms tight around her belly, fake tears rolling on her face, begging like she’s being murdered in the worst of way.

The others are losing their mind other this because “What if one day it’s for real??? And what if we’re too late because we wasted time thinking it wasn’t?????? You can’t keep doing this, we’re begging you to stop.”

And Luce looks them straight in the eye and goes “Well maybe it’s time for you to act like adults who are actually adulting like they should.”

And then they all laugh because “What kind of unrealistic demand is that? Woah, you’re so hilarious Luce, who knew.”

(They just start doing it behind Luce’s back like little kids being naughty and not wanting their parents to catch them.)

------

Skull takes absolutely none of their shits either and it puzzles them all because “Uhmm, excuse you? You’re a civilian?? And we’re literally the Strongest people in the world???”

And he’s like “What, like it’s hard???”

(And it really doesn’t look like it’s hard for him, and it makes them lose their mind like nothing else ever did.)

Now Skull isn’t BAMF in this, and didn’t learn to use his flames in any significant way before meeting them, but he simply has the highest amount of flames and can go on for the longest time.

(And he’s actually very high on the list of the ones whose flames have the most raw power.)

Skull just retreats in what he calls his Cocoon whenever they want to try anything.

He surrounds himself with thick, dense (and powerful) amount of Cloud flames—the others swear they could actually cut like butter—, and chills in the middle of it until they tire themselves trying to push through.

(And then when they grow out of their urge to bully/take advantage of their “weakest” link, and they actual have a healthy relationship with him, he uses his Cocoon to avoid any consequences whenever he messes with them.)

Fon loves trying to break through his Cocoon. Fon is the best at trying to break through his Cocoon. Fon gets worryingly better and better at trying to break through his Cocoon.

Skull asks for proper flames trying from Viper and Lal because hell no, he doesn’t want to find out what will happen once Fon actually breaks through.

------

Verde never regretted his intelligence more than now he has to be around these people because of it.

And it’s actually saying all that needs to be said because he actually never regretted his intelligence even once in his life before.

He takes it upon himself to be the bigger person, and just ignores them and lets them to their devices. He fully expects the favor to be returned.

The favor is not returned.

Mostly because the others always want him to help them with their new childish plan of the day, or playing referee, or tacking side.

But also they’d be simply heartbroken to have to play favorites, and so they simply have to mess with him too.

And even then Verde takes it and bears with it because he’s the Smartest Man in the World, and he has other things of utmost importance to do, thank you very much.

But he’s just a man at the end of the day, and always snap at them eventually.

It’s always the most interesting weeks to live in the mansion when he does.

------

Lal just wants some predictability in this godforsaken house. She wants to have landmarks, a routine to fall back to.

Is that too much to ask? Apparently. Is it going to stop her? It will not.

If the others aren’t willing to cooperate with her, she simply will make them do it anyway. This is a treat.

She falls in a master-and-their-pet type of relationship with them, and the others find it funny because “What, you want to train us? Good luck with that.”

It’s a lot less funny when they go “Hold on, this isn’t right, is it actually working???”

Lal finds it cute they bothered doubting her skills to begin with. One of her jobs is literally to teach people to look death in the eye and tell it to fuck off, but they thought they??? were??? going to be a challenge????

She thinks the fuck not.<3

Her team ups with Luce or Verde (or both) are feared by the others.

------

Viper is there for the sheer chaos of it all. It would be Reborn’s role but he’s too busy competing with Fon, so it’s Viper’s instead.

They’re in it for the blackmail and information gathering too. Nothing like people lashing out when you want them to be their most open selves.<3

But they’re not neutral at all, on the contrary. They’re the wild card.

Some days they want the brand of chaos that will specifically piss off Reborn, so they team up with Fon and Skull.

Some days they want the brand of chaos that will piss off everyone else but them, so they team up with Reborn.

Some days they want a brand of chaos that is organized, so they team up with Lal and Luce.

Some days they don’t want to deal with any kind of chaos at all, so they team up with Verde.

The others treat them cautiously in this regard, and they love it. They love it even more when they dig a knife in their back and abruptly switch sides lol.

They absolutely do favorites too. (Fon/Skull and, surprisingly, Verde.)

------

And you know, I’m a big Polyamory!Arcobaleno shipper but I strongly feel in this one they’re just strongly and intimately platonic.

Just, you know, Arcobaleno as Family. The Arcobaleno bonding together by giving each other the childhood they never had.

And maybe they don’t deserve it, but I love them so much so they need to have this anyway.<3

*

This verse was a lot of fun to flesh out a bit! If it spoke to you too, maybe we can talk together about this? I’d love to!

Thank you for reading! Any and all review are appreciated ^^.

[fiore-rosewood9]

14 and 23?

Thank you for the ask kind tumbrl-er. Before I start I would like to mention that anything I say is related to personal experiences in a fandom and there is no right or wrong answer. People come in all shapes and sizes and that also means - Different sets of experience.

TRIGGER WARNING - Mentions of slurs, r*pe, p*dophilia, creepy behavior, mentions of psychological analysis on a character, personal experiences with fandoms and a long rant. If any of these disturb you, please refrain from reading this and skip this post. This is not meant to cause drama, but I had to involve them to explain my point. I also mention sensitive topics like the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 9/11 and the r*pe of Nanking, if you are related to any of these or have someone you know who died during this time, please refrain from reading, because I was extremely emotional and cried a bit while I wrote these, because what I wrote still has an effect on me.

Again, this is not meant to bash/hate on any ship mentioned here.

This is not meant as a personal attack for anyone who ships these. Also this may be a rant, I apologize for writing a whole novel and not a short answer, but I feel passionate about what I write here. This is going to be a really long post, so I do not blame you if you don't read all of it. I am going to mention a lot of things that are not related to the ships, but they do have significance in my mind and are related to my rant. With that out of the way, my answer is under the cut -

14 - Has a fanbase ever made you ship or not ship something? Why?

Yeah, I have been forced and threatened to ship certain things, via texts which made me leave certain fandoms. Hetalia is a cespool simply because I have been in it 8-9 years and can speak confidently about what happened to me. I thought the hate and immature fans in hetalia all left by the time it was 2016-17 but nope, there are still bad apples here and there. I just try to tell them I am not here for childish games and I am not here to debate which ship is the ''best'' since that is what certain people did all the way back in 2013. I am here just to enjoy my self and reblog fan art and headcanons and talk about hetalia and other fandoms and appreciate the manga/anime.

- Ciel x Sebastien (Sebastien is just there for Ciel's soul) I mean he does care for him in some aspect and I think he said something like - "I will always be with you til the day you die, my lord". There is a normal age gap between adults, and then there is lowkey p*dophilia. How old was Ciel anyway ? 12-13? Even though he is a teen, at this age people are not really mature in many aspects. I have collegues who have what you may call ''Sugar daddies'' in the west and let me tell you, they don't really act nice to their sugar babies. Unless it is some sort of consensual sex roleplay and you are living in a fantasy with your partner, most girls and boys I see feel ''trapped'' by their words.

The sugar daddy (In rare cases mummy) exploites them for attention and tends to lash out if the baby looks at their phone and doesn't pay 100 percent attention to them and tries to buy their attention which is simply wrong. Okay, I moved way offtopic, but certain ships kinda remind me of this unhealthy dynamic in a way. I know my opinion isn't worth shit since this is the internet and everyone thinks they're the next new hot thing around here but I just see them as servent and master and more like frenemies where Sebastien would do anything for Ciel, but you see, that is kinda his job. Just like how doctors act professional and it is their job to cure/heal you if you have some sort of pain.

- Izuku Midoriya x Bakugou Katuski - (I was in this fandom for a short time and only watched up to a certain season so please excuse me if I what I say is not accurate, this is also a long rant so you can skip if you want, in the last two paragraphs I explain about the pairing speciffically) So like from what I remember Katsuki is a bully. I really despise this ship, purely because bullying to me is not something cutesy and fun that people do. It makes you wish you kill your self faster because self harm no longer works. There was this weird person on tumbrl that sent me hate through tumbrl and I made a post about them, how I was a ''bad person'' for hating on this ship. I mean, I am allowed to dislike and even hate what I want. It is not you who has went through trauma and has CPTSD is it? In my high school, even though it was an economical one, except learning Economics, Accounting, Finances and other stuff I also got to learn things like Psychology, Ethics, History and Geography.

And each subject is tough, as in - You can't pass high school if you don't know the details. Except the book that we used in school that we learnt our lessons from, we were also made to carry two other books that we used for exercises, and other than that we had books that were by different authors, we had to read, but they didn't lift our grade in any way. So I have learnt psychology and world history for 4 years in high school and I learnt world history and world geography for 3 years in middle school. And now the first year in Uni, I got to learn psychology for year too. They also made us buy 9-10 books by different psychologists and write about them. From what I hear from my americans friends and collegues, they kinda don't teach you world history, it is like unless you know all of Thomas Jefferson's favourite foods you will be failed. I don't know if this is true, but judging by how they teach what Communism and Socialism is, in the american schools, I am kinda losing hope for what americans actually know about the outside world, aka, anything that is not the US and Canada.

I am not a psychologist and I have never studied to be one, but my own problems and the problems of my family and friends made me start reading even before high school in order to self improve as a human being because I have - Fatal flaws. I also have a few mental illnesses whcih have been diagnosed by psychiatrists, but where I live, mental health and the lgbtq+ is extremely shamed. This is why I never tell anyone I go to a psychologist, because people don't understand you and laugh at you and shame you. The lgbtq is harassed and can't marry or adopt children, however, this somehow is not a hatecrime. Which extremely frustrates me since this is against human rights in my book. You can't just harass a person for their sexuality. I may not have a phd in psychology but I naturally tend to help people and listen to their problems. It seems that I also give good advice and help people well, so sometimes in friend groups I am know as the ''heart'' and the ''psychologist''. I say that because I know a lot more than 4-5 articles that I read on psychology today, healthline or verywellmind, while people nowdays read a few articles and call them selves a psychologist. I am not one, but have the skills and knowledge to be one and can spot articles with old outdated information that hasn't been relevant in the past 30 years or so.

But that is the majority of people, who concider it a mental illness and base the lgbtq on what stereotypes they see on TV and what their parents told them. The internet is made for global use and that means that anyone can write all kinds of shit and use it. However there are a lot of problems with this when it comes to psychology and psychologists and psychriatrists. Many people still believe myths and things that were proven to be wrong. For example, in my country the word - Autist/Autistic, can be used as a slur, it is similar to what the Americans have in the - N and R words. And this is extremely upsetting, because while I am not on the spectrum, I don't think anyone should be degraded and be shamed of this label. Autism is a spectrum, but here it is used to signify that someone is slow. They're not slow, their brain just works differently. But that can be used for other illneses too. I think anyone suffering from mental illness deserves the support of family and friends and a normal life. I think anyone who is a decent and kind human being deserves a peaceful life.

So in real life Bakugou x Izuku would be a crap pairing. Because bullies x their victims do not mix well. Bullies in real life are cowards. They're like predators in the jungle. They are not real leaders. They always settle for someone who is clearly weak and vulnerable (This case - Izuku has no quirks and is useless in their world) so being beaten up, emotionally and verbally bullied isn't really fun. On top of that, when a bully develops an unhealthy dynamic, other people of the group, who never oroginally bullied the victim and were neutral or even friends, go and bully the victim, because they can and they will. Usually victims are powerless and telling the teacher and sometimes beating up the bully doesn't really make the bully leave you alone and respect you. And sometimes, you end up in the hospital with a broken leg and an arm and small injuries in your chest because bullies can't handle anyone standing up to them and ruining their status. Bullies have extreme, neurotic fear of being alone, so they find other assholes and bitches like them and attack always people - Who never did anything to them to insult them.

The bullies create it them selves. No one is an easy victim, not the person who wears glasses, not the anorexic girl that sits on the first desk, not the boy in a wheel chair, not the man with a stutter, not the woman covered in scars, no one. It is also a fact that schools profit from bullies since bullies usually have rich parents that think their child is somr sort of angel when in reality their child loves to make others cry and hits them when they don't get what they want. The problem with bullies is that they are hard to stop. Sometimes telling them off works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes punching them works, sometimes it doesn't. Etc. We can't predict which bully is bluffing and which bully is serious and will beat you up. They do not realize or care that they hurt their victims, even if the victim becomes a millionaire, to them, this person will always be inferior weakling that they need to torture psychologically and make them cry. They're sadistic. Bakugou from what I remember became jealous and only stopped bullying Izuku when he became ''strong'' that means strong physically. And for boys, it is generally easier, you hit the gym and no one bullies you. But what if you are a girl? I don't see girls being more respected or feared for being muscular. It is kinda like the jock x nerd. Cute in theory, but in reality it is beyond abusive. Even if the victims kill them selves bullies do not care. They just move on to another victim and are proud that they broke someone and are not as weak as them.

America x England - (OOOOH BOY, HOW MUCH DO I WANT TO BE CANCELED, HAHA) Well, as someone who has been 9 years in this fandom, I have a long history with this pairing. I do not know if I ever explained why do I hate it so much? I have a long and complicated history with it. This where my inner historian comes in. My uncle is a professor in history, but not in our city and we are not very close but I was always interested in history, but now I am a bit skeptical when it comes to history, because you never know how someone can twist it since history is written by the winners. Whatever I say in this post, is not meant to cause drama or offend anyone. From now on I am going to use, vulgar language and this may not be suitable for some readers

This is not meant to be hateful towards people who ship it, but I hate this ship, with passion. This has to be the worst ship, in the fandom history, ever. If you want, feel free to block me if that triggers you. I don't know from where to begin, since I am going to get canceled if I speak my own personal truth and my experiences. I have read the manga when I was 13-14 and have matured since then. The hetalia fandom in the past was more different than in 2021. So like there were ship wars, fan arts, roleplaying, everyone cosplayed hetalia and homestuck since they were the biggest fandoms, Carley Rae Japsean's song Call me maybe was blasting on the radio, Gagnam style was the shit and life was good. I was young, naive, full of hope and looking for fandoms to join in, since it is was a relativly new concept for me. I did not know what these cutesy boys I saw on deviant art were so I decided to scroll down through the comments to see what it was, and I read the name - Hetalia. If you then pay me one million dollars/euro and tell me that Hetalia is going to be my favourite anime and the fandom I stay the longest in - I would have rejected the money and not believe you. Pshht, Hetalia? What does this anime about personification of countries has that the other animes don't? Well, to that question, I can't answer and still ask my self.

When I first came into the fandom I only knew about it from deviant art and from a site called - Shamchat. This site no longer exists and has a site specifically made to fill the hole of it. I roleplayed and I think my happiest years in the fandom were 2013-2015. Those were the years where I met really, really kind fans. It is like everything else went downhill and the kind and sweet fans left one by one. And I was just left with hateful immature tweens and teens who only cared about their OTP and didn't care about other fans's emotions. I apologize if this sounds like a pitful story and I am pitying me, I did not mean it to sound it this way, or as a whining. I do not like whining.

They also seem strangely neurotic if you ask them why they ship UsUk. I can perfectly tell you why I ship anything without being mean. They just straight up insult you and send you passive agressive smileys - : ) - like this and never explain why they insult you, they just curse you. I do not understand why you make America to be the top? When he is clearly a power bottom?????? I mean, if you ever look through canon manga England and him as a country in a history book you wouldn't think he is a ''uke'' (I really hate the little girls who use japanese and think they kniw the language just cause they watched the anime and think they're quirky if they saw kawaii out loud). In fanfiction he is not fleshed out, he always seemed to blush and say baka and be a boring character over all. While Alfred is this dumb himbo/bimbo character that can't put 2+2 and laughs at everything like a small child. He is 19, for fuck's sake.

He is still a child and people can mature up until 25-26. But these ages are not real ages. For example Germany is 20, even though Bismarck unites Germany in....1871 if I remember correctly? Don't quote me on that and the americans have freed them selves in 1776. So technically Germany as we know it, should be younger but isn't. And they're both still awkward babies. America doesn't have a concrete religion but from what I know, Christianity seems to the most popular religion there as for now. I don't know if Alfred (Even though he is fictional) would identify as a catholic, protestant, puritan or some other stuff but he is awkward, he has a boyish charm that Ludwig does not have. So I can't imagine these good bois being tops with experience. Usually tops/doms come with lots of experience behind their back, or at least this is what people say whom I know who are also part of the lgbtq and bdsm community. Alfred just doesn't have the vibe of a top, he is more of a switch to me, or at best a power bottom. Ludwig has a dom/top vibes but he is extremely awkward in all senses of the word. America doesn't have a concrete religion but from what I know, Christianity seems to the most popular religion there as for now. I don't know if Alfred (Even though he is fictional) would identify as a catholic, protestant, puritan or some other stuff but he is awkward, he has a boyish charm that Ludwig does not have.

So UsUk was forced down my throat ever since I can remember, I have been insulted, threatened and took 2-3 hiatuses purely due to bullying. I Really HATE, HATE, HATE - feminine Arthur. I do not know why this is the fandom's fetish, or at least used to be even though some fans still draw him that way. I really love art, I used to draw and still do. I went to classes through out almost all of my life and I know my proportions. Whether you look through normal fan art or hentai manga (Arthur has the most porn idk how or why) he always has these weird proportions.....of a malnorished tween girl. There is some porn of him either as a child (A toddler by the judgement of his body) or of Alfred as a child, and they fuck. How is this supposed to be hot for anybody? I also remember (Which is why I left amino) on amino that users were extremely childish and lied about their age. Like no, you're not 17 and a half and are ''too mature for your age'' you are 17 and that still is a minor in my book. Also in one of the translated hentai comics there is this...idk how to describe it, there is this shaving scene where Alfred becomes a man and has his first boner from what I remember, the artstyle is great, but the scene can be described a child grooming. England lies to America how boners are a horrible disease and it can only be cured if he stays next to him. He then goes to France who tells him that boners are healthy and normal at this age and is upset at England for lying to him. Then when he frees him self America smiles, laughs and pisses on top of England I think he later fucks him. Like people can try to force their weak argument over england being a uke somehow now, but Pirate England is a top, how in the hell would anyone think he is a bottom?

UsUkers also love weird fetishes and force them down your throat, and not only shame you when you don't ship the ship, they shame you when you don't have their fetish. So like people go to my dms and ask me if I want to MPREG with Arthur beign the ''woman'' in the relationships, and golden showers. I also remember leaders acting unprofessionaly towards me. Some user was sending me child porn and when I told one of the leaders they just told me it was my problem and to fuck off. It deeply upset me so I took a hiatus and when I returned I was just met with another shit wave. I think I left last year because some girl was harassing me and constantly wanted attention. I told her to leave me alone since I have lectures and can't speak to her right now and she told her friend I was ''mean'' to her and her friend started insulting me in every comment on every posted I posted, be it fan art or fanfiction I wrote. Also they can't roleplay properly. I feel like I am in 4th grade where children used to insult each other. Like what stupid (probably american white girl) thing going to tell me this time ? Hmmmm option A - Alfred says that Arthur has horrible teeth, option B - Alfred says that Arthur has horrible cooking, option C - asks for sex and wants to impregnate him even though they are both males, it seems to be quite jokes among them. I get that americans want to see their country as this buff, strong, brave, macho type, but real people have strengths and flaws. In my opinion no country is dumb, they all look after their personal interest and empires love to exploit others, it is just how it is. They basically use english stereotypes and call it a day.

Before leaving I went to another ''better'' amino where I blocked one of the leaders. I don't remember if their name was Alfie or something else but it was something like that. And another leader asked me to unblock her, mind you. I was hesitant but I did. I usually do not block people unless they share content that causes negative reaction out of me - panic attack/rise in adrenaline/shaking/desire to puke/anxiety/etc or they have been a total asshole/bitch to me in the past. So I don't have the screenshots, since I changed my phone a few months ago. I used a Lenovo one and now I have an old huawei I used to have since we don't have money for a new one. So I saved the screenshots where they started saying how Francis is a rapist and I thought we passed this phase. I told the original leader and they all seem to not speak english well but she told me that this leader thought I was mean. I mean...she joked about rape, am I supposed to text - XD LMAO YEAH THE R WORD IS FUCKING FUN, YEAH DUDE YEAH! XD LOL LMAO. From what I see, if I have explain his behavior, he just has a high libido, which is nothing to be ashamed about.

There are also different types of attraction - Aesthetic, Romantic, Sexual. And he appreciates anything beautiful. He also says that ''You can't force love on anyone'' and is generally a really sweet guy. Also from what I see he copes with his loneliness by having casual sex while Arthur copes by abusing alcohol. People cope with loneliness in different ways, for him LOVE is important and he craves intimacy. He is suggestive and says sex jokes which is relateable. He also has moments of walking around naked, and while that may be perverted, far more people have done more perverted things than him. Also Greece and Turkey have a lot more sex than France has ever had. I don't know if it is canon or fanon but I read somewhere that Greece loves sex without a condom since it excites him. France is perverted but so are many other people, if a person is assertive towards such personality he will respect the other person's wishes and not force the issue, because he understands the concept of boundaries. It seems that some fans are either too young or too stupid to understand what is common sense and boundaries. Some couples in real life suffer from mismatch in their libido which is why they go to a couple therapist and ask how they can revive their sex life.

He is not a creep. I have met old men stalking me around after school and I have had a guy at a bar putting something in my drink not knowing that I saw everything so I just left. Real creeps do not understand the concept of boundaries and the fact that people are not their sexual slaves, they crave power and dominance and love ruining people's lives, it doesn't matter who their target it, as long as they are depressed and on their knees crying and shaking in pain and fear. So yeah, rape is not something to laugh at but it seems the shitty girls that got into hetalia think it is peak comedy. With Antonio it is different, I do not like throwing the term - P*dophile around because that is a harsh accusiation but from what I remember from manga...didn't he try to steal North Italy who was a child...to marry him? He never wanted South Italy but got used to him at some point, so I am sorry for ruining all of the Spamano shippers's fantasies. He also raised him. Which brings me to the second point.

England raised America. Period. It is canon, it is in the manga, he found him as a child. England loves America because he is the first thing that did not hate him, for him. Europe in the past hated England, this is why France jokes that he is the - black sheep of Europe. He was abused by his brothers, especially Scotland and threw things at him and chased him away. Scotland is not only an abusive alcoholic though. He is more complex and loves his brother in his own way but historically England was not kind at all to Scotland. So these people were telling me that I am a wh*re because I don't ship their precious UsUk? Well guess what honey, England isn't a useless girly bottom, America is neither a top, nor a dumb guy and England most likely changed his diapers. Also why would America blow his revolution if he wanted to be free? I mean England taxed the hell out of him and was a bit of a narcissitic asshole, so why shouldn't America want to be free from tyrany?

Also for people who bring the - BUT FIORE, ENGLAND KILLED JEANNE'DARC SO THAT MEANS FRANCE SHOULD HATE HIM, YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE! - well hun, France held a grudge for centuries until he got even by helping America with Spain and Prussia to free him self from England's grasp. America was the only thing that didn't hate him because he didn't know him. He was an alone child and he finally had someone to take care of him and listen to him talk, that wasn't a human, that didn't die (Davie) and England is an introvert but he has many issues which is why to him the loss of America hurt so much. Because everyone else hated him, or at least in his mind it looked that way. Portugal was always his friend and in a rare case lover and France had a love/friend/hate relationship with him. People can make the argument that France took care of him but France was probably around 12 in human years and England looks to be around 10 when he wore that blue dress of his and when England had a bow and green cloak and shaggy long blonde hair. France still cuts off his hair to this day. While England was in his late teens 17-8 when he found America who was clearly around 5-6. Their pairing doesn't make sense from a psychological point. So I would love to not have any usuk shit in my feed. I have enough abusive people in my life who treat me like a punching bag, I don't need to get upset online too.

Alfred looks 5-6 years of age and believe it or not some children piss them selves even to the age of 10. Some have medical problems but that is not an issue for now. I have been a nanny. I have taken care of children of all ages, and they're telling me? That I should ship a ship where some guy changed another's diapers but the other guy grew up too quickly and now they are dating? IN WHAT WORLD, I REPEAT IN WHAT WORLD?Does that mean I should feel some sort of sexual attraction and would like to bang children I took care of, because they went to the gym and have what society conciders the perfect body? I guess in their mind I should. In reality somewhat every country is related to hetalia so the boundary between what is incest or not is vague. But even when usukers bring the - BUT THEY ARE NOT BLOOD RELATED? - so what, incest is still taboo and some say that since they don't have blood relation it is not incest, but this is why stepbro/sis memes are so prevelent. Since it is a taboo and taboos get some people excited sexually. Whether they are blood related or not is out of the question, Arthur did take care of him as a child.

This is not meant to cause the old FRUK VS USUK wars, but in my experience USUK fans are extremely harsh and cold, at least to anyone who doesn't ship their precious ship. It is like they can't stand anyone who simply objectivly says - I do not like this ship. Bruv, do you know how many other ships I don't like in other fandoms, and no one has given me shit or threatened to hack my computer and send people to beat me up, simply because I DON'T SHIP USUK? maaaan-Let's not forget that these hypocrites also spread lies and said that ''Himaruya said that UsUk is canon'' and there was this black and white fan art that rolled around Twitter, Facebook and other social media for a while and people believe it. I think Hetafacts or some other youtuber debunked that it was nothing but a pure lie. It should not matter what ship is canon, what should matter more is fans being civil and kind to another but no, let's insult other pairings and make people hate ships they didn't originally hate just because.

Here is another ship I don't like - Russia x China. Also another ship - Russia x Prussia, also another ship Russia x Lithuania, or Russia (Romantically) x Latvia, or Prussia x Liechtenstein (Romantically). I even met one person who shipped Sealand x England lol or England x Seychelles x France or Belarus x Liechtenstein (Romantically) I dislike all of these ships. Do you see the word hate anywhere? No, because I don't hate them? Do you know why? Well no one told me - ''I hope you die raped in shit'' and told me that I am ''r*tarded'' in my comment section on youtube because I said that I do not care about certain ships. You see I used to feel this way about UsUk too. It was meh, I don't care, I see them as father and son, because England literally raised him. Also England is proven to be a horrible neglectful father and a workholic and alcholic. This is the reason why Sealand is taken care of by Sweden and Finland.

I always saw him this way so I don't know how the new fandom just started seeing him as the gremlin that he is when he was always a fucking old grandpa gremlin, not a soft uwu useless femboy that loves sex and screams BAKA every 3 seconds and blushes for no apperent reason whatsoever. I have many things that I don't ship. For example I feel conflicted towards pairings like - China x Japan or Japan x America because the r*pe of nanking is a thing and Japan denies and while Japan may have attacked America, americans kinda rationalize the two bombs and laugh at it while if anyone mentions 9/11 they freak out. So they can joke about other countries's misfortune but if it theirs - NO,NO,NO! I think global issues should be adressed in hetalia and people should make vent/rant art. If you are an indigenous person and a white guy comes to you and asks why you wear normal clothes and he says that indigenous people only wear feathers and all, this is why we need to speak to children about racism. Or being told that being latino/a makes you ''Inferior'' somehow (IT DOESN'T), or you're black and you get told by a white person how you should go back to your home land ''with the bananas''. I can joke about my own country's problems but it feels extremely offensive if the country that did the crime (R*pe, destruction of religious monuments, statues of popular poets from my country, more r*pe, stealing boys and babies and forcing other religion on them so they can kill and r*pe their own mothers and sisters. )I do not blame their descendents for what their grandpas did to us, what I can't stand is the superiority complex they have and how they insult this country and speak in their own language like we don't understand them and pretend like nothing happened, which is why I hate a certain hetalia country with passion.

It really sucks how due to Covid the hate against asians has risen, I heard from my favourite youtubers how certain people harassed them and hurt them for ''spreading covid'' or something. Well this just horrible and we really need to re-think how we treat people who were not at fault for a fucking global pandemic. I don't know where Yao Wang would stand, since he is a fictional country but unless somebody projects their homophobia and xenophobia through roleplay or art and send me hate art, I don't really care who they are as long as their are respectful. I can't stand usuk, and I can't stand the fans. I try to block every account that has this content which sucks ass since they look like cool people but no, it has to be fucking ew ugh usuk they draw. I sometimes feel like a bitch for blocking them since they're not the same fans that have insulted, threatened and harassed me but I would like to not blow my chances and risk ever talking to them. If you want to, you can call me a hater, a basher or anything, I don't care.

In a way everyone in hetalia is related but lets say that I do not have concrete hate over this ship but the serial bullying I received from fans over the years. Which is why I ship things like Seychelles x Iceland or Hong Kong x Iceland and I can't choose. Usually when UsUk fans ''defend'' their ship they have two arguments - It is cute and - the revolutinary war and how much england missed him. Two people may look cute together but would their emotional maturity and personalities match? These are important questions, which is why for me Gerita personalitywise, matches but the emotional maturity gap is way too much. For UsUk America lacks basic emotional maturity, raises his tone, cuts off people when they speak, weird obsession about being a hero and a tiny bit of narcissism here and there, he overly trusts him self which can cause as much problems as someone who doubts them selves. England is in another place mentally is honestly much better off with anyone else that is not America or Canada. Portugal, Spain, France, Russia, Japan,etc. America also has more developed friendships with countries like Russia, France, Siciliy and probably Japan and Vietnam. I think he can date Lithuania for me their dynamic is so wholesome and pure and everything click together. Russia also works but some people are put off by it due to the cold war. RusAme/UkFr is much more than just love/hate relationship, I don't know why people have the impression that they constantly fight and make up. Normal couples don't do that. Whether it is incest or not it is debatealbe. I have seen dynamics like theirs and let tell you that these people always ended up divorced.

I will share some quotes from people on different social medias I have found that describe it better than me -

Quote number 1 - from fanpop

"USUK is actually one of my most hated anime pairings followed by Spamano a few places behind for the same reason. The thought of raising a child as a son/brother only to bang him when he's older is nothing but disgusting and makes England seem like a pedophile for "falling in love" with the child he adopted and raised. I honestly can't understand why so many people insist that America and England aren't brothers and that the pairing isn't incest when Himaruya, the anime director and characters in Hetalia have confirmed that America and England are indeed brothers. Some USUK fans claim that America's independence makes them non-siblings. That's just ridiculous. Even if America would say "I don't want to be your brother anymore" directly to England, it still won't make any difference and it certainly doesn't change the fact that America was adopted and raised by England. If the USUK fans want to ship this pairing, it's fine, but denying that the pairing is incest is just annoying. It makes it seem like they think incest is gross, but desperately try to deny that USUK is incest only to continue shipping it or to keep telling themselves that USUK will be canon, which will never happen just like (unfortunately) every other Hetalia pairing except (possibly) AusHun.''

Quote number 2- from deviant art

''t's this reasoning that made me think back to all the Journal reads, essays and editorials many of the Anti UsUk fans write about why they hate the pairing. They usually mention about the pairing being incest, pedophilia and/or not cannon. While all of those might be true, I think there's more reasoning to why UsUk usually never works. It isn't to say those shouldn't be mentioned, because they should be, and I will mention them. First off, incest. Yes, UsUk is incest, but not because they share blood, but because they're BROTHERS. The fact that England adopted America should not be anyone's excuse for why it's not considered incest. Incest means sexual relations between people classed as being too closely related to marry each other. The definition of related is belonging to the same family, group, or type. Neither of these say anything about sharing blood, or having to be born from the mother's womb. If your parents divorced, and your father married another woman, who becomes your mother, she would be considered related to you, since you both belong in the same family. America and England are brothers, they're family, they belong in the same family, and even share the same family name (Don't believe me? Britain's full name is United Kingdom of Great Britain, just like America's full name is United States of America, which was declared by Acts of Union in 1707 before the Revolutionary War. Coincidence? I think not 📷). No, I do not count their human names, since they're mainly names used for the fanbase to use. Now, for pedophilia, that's the one that can be questioned. On one hand, if England and America are shipped when both are adults, then it shouldn't be considered pedophilia. On the other hand, they are about 800-700 years apart. Though, the same could be said with America and other countries like Japan, Ukraine and Belarus. While America may not be the youngest country, technically speaking, he's certainly the youngest most powerful country. So, if anyone in the fandom is going to pair up America with anyone, male or female, that country is most likely going to be thousands of years older than him. So, do I consider UsUk pedophilia? Well... not if America is already a grown adult. So, unless there are fanart or fan fictions with England being sexual or flirty with kid or youth America, pedophilia isn't really the big issue (especially since I haven't seen pictures or fanart of England being sexual or flirty with kid America, and are perhaps the only brotherly pictures and/or fan fictions I can find of England and America). Being that everyone knows that UsUk is CERTAINLY not cannon, I want to go more deep into why I feel UsUk doesn't work. Let's set aside the fact that it is incest, and look at this pairing from a realistic standpoint. I want to start from the bottom up, which would be the back story of how England's and America's relationship started. Why is this relationship so memorable, and considered adorable? Why does it work so well? To put it simply, the relationship between England and America is very relatable. They both reminded me of my two brothers, and my dad and my uncle. It's the story of the little brother, who looked up to the older brother as the greatest thing on earth; the most perfect person in the world. He could never think of anyone else that could be compared to his older brother. Then, suddenly, that little brother grows up and realizes that his older brother is a compete jerk, or isn't as perfect as he originally thought. Usually, this is hard for any little brother to grasp, and, once he does, the relationship between him and his older brother starts to friction. They no longer share the same relationship they once had. Little brothers can relate to America in trying to grasp and understand that his older brother wasn't the big, perfect person he once thought, when he says, “you used to be so big.” At the same time, older brothers can relate to England in losing the innocent little brother that thought he was the world, then having to watch him grow up, and turn into a complete

jerk himself, or lose his innocence. It isn't that England never saw any flaws in America, even as a little kid, but it's hard for him to watch those innocence and naiveness suddenly flushed down the toilet. Now, America is surpassing England, and England now needs America to help him at times. From what I've seen from my brothers and uncle, it's very hard for an older brother to admit he needs his little brother's help, that there might be things his little brother knows more than him, and to actually call or go to little brother for help. This is continually seen with England and America during World War 2 where America volunteers to help, and England continually refuses, but yet seems to need the help (this is especially seen in the Blitz series). When anyone takes these two characters, whose relationship represents and older and younger brother of our generation, then turns it into a gay relationship, it completely ruins the amazing buildup that Hidekazu Himaruya was intentionally going for. It's not that gay relationships are not relatable, but the one that's made in the UsUk fandom isn't something that gay couples can relate to. Turning something that was never intended to be a gay relationship into one is actually the reason why there are gay men and women that dislike yaoi. It's not only a misrepresentation of England and America, and their relationship, but it's a misrepresentation of gay relationships in general. That's mainly where it boils down to why I dislike UsUk. Yes, homosexuality is one of those reasons, being that homosexuality was VERY looked down upon back during World War 2, especially during the colonial days (if you were caught in the act of homosexuality, you'd most likely be kicked out of the city and, if not, be beaten by countless cowboys, then killed, and those cowboys would get away with it, not being punished for said act even if they were caught). More than likely, England and America were homophobic back during those days, since many Americans and Englishmen were completely against homosexuality. It wasn't until around the Cold War, or during the 1960's, when the world started changing their viewpoints. Though, with that aside, UsUk, to me, just can't work with the back story and buildup of the show. Though, the same should be said for many yaoi fandoms in general. Many of them just don't work with the cannon buildup set for the two male characters. If people try to pair America and England up, keeping the cannon story line of their relationship, it comes out as unrealistic, and a misrepresentation of gay relationships, the relationship between England and America, and history in general. It isn't to say that nobody should write UsUk. In my opinion, whatever shipping you want to use is completely up to you. Though, if you want to write a UsUk fan fiction, it needs to not ruin the cannon relationship buildup set for England and America. In other words, I don't want a UsUk of any type to use the same cannon back story from the Hetalia series, otherwise it just becomes very unrelatable, and ruins the intended relationship buildup between England and America as older and younger brother. Anyways, those are my thoughts on UsUk, and why I don't like the pairing in general. You can agree or disagree, but I wanted to get my thoughts out. You can let me know in the comments about your thoughts on UsUk. I'm interested in knowing what your thoughts on the fandom, whether you're a UsUk fan or completely against the pairing, like me.''

23 - Have you ever had a ship become canon, but you didn’t like how it was portrayed?

- Korra x Asami (It looks rushed and I think Asami deserves better, in my eyes Korra constantly changed relationships and has immaturity issues, I watched the show a long time ago tho)

- Light x Misa (Misa deserved someone who cared for her)

- Erza x Jellal/Gerard (Erza deserved better, the guy looks like he is an extra or made of plastic)

- Ban x Elaine (I really dislike this ship, I read some articles about Japan and I do not know if this real/legit and please excuse me if I spread misinformation, but from what I read, some people said that Japan has p*dophilia problems. Certain mangaka or their word for the comic/manga artist, put loli characters on purpose to please a certain fanbase that likes this type of content. I look like a loli somewhat because I have small frame while other girls matured on body way too fast, I remained skin and bones up until the age of 19, after that I somehow started to gain some weight on my legs but that doesn't mean I am still not short and skinny on my upper body. Old creepy men, asking where you live and asking you sexual intimate questions when you just want to buy you self some dinner after school, isn't my idea of fun. Which is why - 100000 years but has the body of a loli is bullshit. There are older women who have smaller bodies but no matter how young you look, every human being starts developing wrinkles and hair falling at some point in their life. They may be small, but they surely don't look like lolis.

[what-even-is-thiss]

People are allowed to disagree with your interpretation or headcanon.

Obviously they shouldn’t be mean about it but... not every counterpoint is a personal attack and you’re allowed to both leave the discussion with the exact same opinion that you came into it with.

Like you don’t have to convince someone that you’re right in order to have a friendly debate or argument with them. I personally don’t care if someone disagrees with my analysis but discussing it with them is still fun.

Politeness is still important. Respecting people’s boundaries and clearing up misunderstandings is still important. But I don’t want debate to disappear from fandom entirely. I love critical thinking and discussion. I love discussing my point of view and hearing other points of view.

For a long time now I’ve been afraid of expressing my point of view. I’ve been afraid of expressing counterpoints. I want to try doing that again. And I just wanna say... debate can be an act of love and passion. For me analysis and debate and friendly discussion is all a love letter to the source material and the fandom. Without it I’ve been feeling dull. Without passion. Without purpose.

I’ve tried to move from being a Logan to being maybe more of a... well Roman/Remus hybrid I guess. Being chaotic 24/7 rather than taking the time to be intellectual. It’s not working out for me. I love being funny. Don’t get me wrong. I love it. But... that’s not all of who I am. After the last couple times I was attacked I’ve been scared. But... it’s been over a year now. Maybe I’m different, maybe the fandom is different. I’m gonna try. I don’t know if I can remember how to be a Logan anymore but I’m gonna try because I used to absolutely love it.

Hi Fanders. Can we talk? Can we debate? Can we get excited over ideas together? Can we be happy when we’re proven wrong? I hope we can. Because I loved doing all that with you last time. I like it when we get our brains turning.

[thenexusofsouls]

“Why Didn’t You Do More?”- The Superhero’s Reality, and Why It Differs From Our Own

So this is a random rant of mine on the mindsets of some superhero characters and how we, as writers, can distinguish between the way they react to things and the way mundane people might. I do want to say that this will likely not have any solid point to it, haha, I just love to analyze things sometimes. It’s fun for me. So just think of this as a nice mental exercise.

Just for some background, this was prompted by a few conversations with friends, but also partially influenced by a line in a song, Holocene, from the movie The Judge. I recently watched this movie, and it’s amazing by the way, I highly recommend it, but be prepared for detailed and graphic scenes involving the effects of cancer and chemotherapy if that triggers you, as well as some kick-your-feels-in-the-face family drama. There’s a song used a few times throughout it that has lyrics that seem a bit weird and disjointed, but if you really sit down and think about them, there are some themes that stick out that are relevant to the characters. Being stuck in the past, remembering the past as being better than it was, wanting to go back instead of improving the way you are now, lying to yourself about things, and most importantly, accepting failure and loss of control of a situation. There’s a line in the song that I’ve been stuck on lately, namely, “...and at once I knew I was not magnificent,” and it’s really made me think about this concept in the context of the lives of some Avengers.

In the movie, Robert Downey Jr.’s character (who is so very much like Tony Stark if he had decided to be a lawyer as far as personality) has a very pointed, personal, and heartbreaking failure moment. It’s painful to watch his character break down simply for what the failure means for the character and those they love, but also on an emotional level as you think about where the character’s head is at. He was a character who prided himself on always succeeding, no matter what (trying not to spoil the movie here for everyone and probably failing hard, heh). It never occurred to him that he could fail. Some might look at that and just think he was just an arrogant asshole with an ego the size of a planet, and maybe that’s true on some level for this particular character, but in extrapolating his psychology to that of some characters in the MCU, I think there’s a point at which arrogance and a massive ego can become paradoxically altruistic and selfless for characters with abilities that are larger than life. And because the stakes and expectations placed upon them are just as large, that makes things like failure even more heartbreaking for them. As Peter Parker said in Captain America: Civil War, "When you can do the things that I can, but you don't, and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you." There’s not just a feeling of personal failure, but also a feeling of letting down a large group of innocent people as well… perhaps even the whole world, or on the level of Thanos as the opponent, the universe.

I’ve been wrapped up in analyzing this mindset lately, and thinking about that one line in the song, and it’s moved from the character in The Judge to Tony Stark and also Wanda Maximoff and their early failures with Thanos. In pondering their epic failures on a massive worldwide superhero level, the concept of altruistic arrogance, or a selfless ego, is a paradox that I think deserves some discussion. I think it embodies the mindset of a superhero who, while he/she may be human, does not have the same psychology with regard to approaching problems or viewing their life or the world around them as someone without their exceptional abilities might.

When Tony and Wanda fail to defeat Thanos in Infinity War, their failure comes as a painful shock to them, not only because of what’s at stake and the guilt that comes with letting down those they care about, but because they realize in that moment that failure was inevitable, because their best (at that point in time, at least) was always going to be not enough. And they didn’t know it. It’s like being let in on a joke after everyone’s already laughed at it at your expense… and the joke isn’t funny. I’ve been asked by some people in talking about various parts of Infinity War, why did they give up? I’m referring to these moments here, when Tony and Wanda appear to just go limp and space out and just… stop fighting, as they’re being essentially patronized by Thanos:

They’re not giving up, they’re overwhelmed. They’ve stopped for two reasons: 1) they’re legitimately exhausted after throwing out everything they had to offer, and 2) the realization that they were not strong enough even at their best is an arresting and stunning one in a very literal sense. They’ve already given it their all, and now they’re at a loss. Their goal isn’t accomplished, their loved ones are not out of danger, and yet they’re spent, they’re done. That is not something they have ever encountered before.

Let’s back up a bit and look at where Tony Stark and Wanda Maximoff’s minds are at by the time they reach Infinity War. Tony has been haunted by a vision placed in his head by Wanda since Age of Ultron, one that showed him all the Avengers dead and/or dying, in which Steve says “You could have saved us,” and “Why didn’t you do more?” While it is debated in the fandom whether what she showed him was the manifestation of his worst nightmare or an actual premonition of the future or both, its effect on Tony is staggering. From that moment onward, he is preparing to make sure that vision never comes to pass, but unfortunately, he’s got the wrong focus. He believes the way it could come to pass or why it might be possible is if he doesn’t try hard enough, either because he isn’t willing or he isn’t able to tap into his full potential. The fault, he believes, will lie with him and his willingness to go the distance for his friends, or, that he won’t be prepared enough and ready to whip out the full breadth of his power and ability. It never occurs to him that there was nothing he could do to prepare enough for that moment because he was already inherently unable to defeat Thanos then, through no fault of his own. He simply is not going to be strong enough by that time.

So for someone like Tony with a huge ego who I think believes that there is nothing he cannot accomplish if he tries hard enough, and for someone like him who is deathly terrified of being left alone in a world of friends dead because of his failure, coming to the realization that he “was not magnificent,” that yes, he has real limits that in this case mean he is not good enough… is psyche-shattering. His massive ego in believing he was capable of anything with enough prep and determination collided with his selfless desire to protect people he loved (like Peter), and guess what? The great and powerful Tony Stark wasn’t good enough. Imagine how utterly arresting that thought must have been for him. Well, you don’t have to imagine it, you can see it on his face. It’s the face of someone with a literal genius-level intellect suddenly realizing he’s out of ideas.

Turning now to Wanda, she’s lost nearly everyone she has ever loved. Her parents, her twin brother, and now Vision, someone she has fallen in love with, is being threatened. Her first instinct back in Edinburgh is to ask him if maybe they shouldn’t stay out of what’s going on. She doesn’t say that because she’s cowardly or selfishly trying to ignore the plight of others, she’s just terrified of losing yet another person she loves, and quite possibly the last person in her life that she is very close to. Her mindset is to play it safe, because as she learned from her brother, being a protector gets you killed. However, when Vision makes the decision to involve himself, Wanda immediately follows suit, because now she has to be his protector. She is not going to allow another person she loves to die. Bold of her to believe that she had that choice, that it was at all in her hands and within her control to decide that Vision would be safe, and that all it took was her decision to choose to protect him. Wanda is really freaking powerful, and I think that power disturbs her at times. Because of this, I doubt that she had fully explored the limits of her power by that point. I headcanon that she always had in the back of her mind, my limits are far above what I can imagine, and thought that if she whipped out all the power she possible could, she could do anything, destroy anything, kill anyone. It was untested and nebulous in her mind, but not unlike Tony, I think she thought that the potential for failure here was in her not being vigilant enough, not trying hard enough. Pietro died because she wasn’t there to protect him, she believes. So this time she’s going to be there for Vision. Unfortunately, that meant killing him at one point, but ignoring that for a moment, I think Wanda believed that she could hold Thanos back indefinitely and, if necessary, kill him, and it just wasn’t there. The ability, the potential, her focus, her scope at that point would not allow her to do that. It’s not her fault, really, and yet she failed Vision and everyone else. Which brings me to my next point…

Realizing that there was nothing more they could possibly have done to change this outcome, due to their own limitations their egos would not allow them to see before, does not change the level of grief, guilt, and emotional distress that they feel. If anything, it magnifies it. When superheroes fail on this level, they haven’t just let themselves down, they haven’t just let their immediate friends and loved ones down, they’ve let the world down. In this case, the universe. That is an immense amount of pressure to place on a person who, until a short time ago, fully believed that they were capable of stopping this from happening. Being told it wasn’t their fault or anything like that is never going to comfort them, because friends and loved ones are still dead, and everywhere they go there will be reminders of their failure. People who don’t understand may even outright blame them for what happened. When you or I fail at something, we might feel like sheesh okay, I suck, heh… or we acknowledge that it was outside out control and try to improve for later. When Tony and Wanda failed, they had to deal with personal failure, guilt, grief, and the weight of responsibility of so many lives on their shoulders. Wanda was spared a lot of that initially because she got snapped, but Tony was left to deal with it, and we all know how well Tony deals with crushing emotional issues…

Failure for a superhero means more than just letting oneself down, and when their (whether intentional or unintentional) arrogance permits them to believe that the possibility of success is theirs to grasp if they only put in the effort, the distance they fall when they’re knocked off that pedestal is even higher, the impact when they hit the ground even greater. So the listlessness, the thousand-yard stare, the silence (uncharacteristic from Tony to say the least)… you’re watching someone’s ego literally break down before your eyes and have to accept the unacceptable… that their worst-case scenario they 100% could never deal with emotionally in a hundred years is now coming to pass.

Superheroes live in a different reality from us (yes, because they’re fictional, haha, but I’m talking existentially here, not literally). Life won’t let them not think about the larger picture, whether they would prefer to or not. Imagine if you tried your very best, maybe even purposely prepared for some confrontation for years, and you know that there was not an ounce more of strength or power you could have unleashed on the problem… and you still failed. The shame, the guilt, the heartbreak… on top of now having to sit and watch the worst unfold because… you’re now out of ideas. Being a superhero, there’s always something new to try. A new idea, a new power, a new ability, a new piece of tech, a new strategy… Well what happens when this was already plan Z and there is literally nothing left to try? It’s a scary mindset to live in, and when the stakes are that high and the hearts involved are already that damaged (Tony and Wanda have suffered a lot and clearly would have done anything to make sure more death and suffering didn’t occur), it’s the worst time to find out that you weren’t good enough. And that blame that mundane people might place on them? You better believe they’re also placing it on themselves. And maybe that’s where the ego comes back into play. Nope, it was my fault, there was something more I could’ve done, I just didn’t realize it or see it. And that may not have been true, but that’s easier to believe and process, even as painful as it is, than to simply accept that there was no way they were ever going to be powerful enough to defeat the threat in that moment. There was nothing more they could have done. They did everything right, and it wasn’t good enough.

And here we could get into a discussion of fate and predestination, maybe regarding Dr. Strange’s multitudes of multiverses and time threads in which things could have gone differently. At what point did all those threads boil down into the “one” that he saw in which the Avengers won against Thanos? How far back does one have to go in time for there to have been multiple winning options? Or… was this always going to be the single, only option? Was all of this predetermined since time began to culminate in these moments in this exact way in order to be the one winning outcome? How set in stone were Tony and Wanda’s failures, and for how long? Or is it all just randomly shifting with each new decision, each new divergence in the path, like trains shifting tracks? It’s an interesting discussion to get into, but that is a whole ‘nother meta topic for another day, heh.

Alright, I think I’ve ranted on this enough. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this! Any thoughts or ideas on this yourselves? I would love to hear some other opinions on this topic. I love getting into philosophical and psychological discussions about my muses. =)

[courtingstars]

Notes on The Vanishing Prince, Chapter Three

Yay, Chapter Three at last! I had more notes than I expected, probably because I was looking forward to writing all of these scenes for SO LONG.

This was a pretty self-indulgent chapter on my part, for a lot of reasons. XD But I hope it still included some enjoyable moments, for those who have been looking forward to Furihata and Akashi’s feelings for each other progressing!

So keep reading for notes about Reo’s tarot skills, Akashi’s reasoning about his emotions at this point, and Furihata’s bisexual ogling of BASICALLY EVERYONE. (I can’t lie, the idea of Furi literally staring at everyone around him trying to figure out if he thinks they’re hot or not was super funny to me? Which was probably obvious. //laughs)

(Cut for tarot stuff, notes about platonic vs. romantic feelings, and me rambling on and on about bisexual representation and how I’m way too emotionally invested in N700 trains…)

Mibuchi and Tarot Cards

Some readers might be wondering if I made up the idea of Reo (I always call him Reo even though I use his surname in fics, I can’t help it, he’s just Reo to me??) being able to read tarot cards. And the answer is, I did not! According to one of the canon fanbooks, Reo’s special talent is tarot card reading. Back when I started planning The Vanishing Prince, I knew basically nothing about tarot cards. But I thought it might be interesting if Reo’s hobby appeared in the fic, since there’s going to be a lot of supernatural stuff going on.

Then I randomly started learning a little bit about tarot cards last year. I decided to explore it further, partly to write this fic, and partly for other writing-related reasons. (And it turned into this whole bizarre slash amazing THING that I won’t go into here.)

But anyway, a little over a year ago, I actually did a real-life tarot reading for Akashi, just to see what came up… And weirdly enough (or not, according to people like Reo, haha), the cards I drew fit PERFECTLY with the plot of this fic! So for the reading in Chapter Three, I used the same cards I pulled that day. That’s also why it uses the classic Celtic Cross spread layout, because I was still learning the basics at the time.

(I also did a reading for Furihata on that same day… So did it fit with this fic too, and will it come up in a future chapter? We will see. //grins)

Needless to say, I’m still no expert on the tarot! But I did my best to show how the cards could apply to what’s been happening in the story. (And what may happen later as well…) I also tried to balance the more traditional meanings of the cards with Reo’s interpretation of what they could mean for Akashi. Many experienced tarot readers like to use their intuition and the images on the cards as a method to interpret a reading, rather than the traditional meanings alone.

Reo will be in this fic a lot, so I don’t want to say too much about my characterization of him just yet… But I’ve always thought of him as someone who is guided by intuition in many ways, based on his canonical skill with the tarot. So I felt that he would probably mix traditional card meanings with his own instincts as he saw fit.

Akashi’s Feelings and Platonic vs. Romantic

So given how attached Akashi (Oreshi) clearly is to Furihata at this point, I think a lot of readers might be wondering why he still thinks his feelings for Furihata are platonic? Which is… an excellent question. //laughs There’s a LOT going on behind that, which is going to be unpacked over the course of the story.

But this chapter does briefly mention a part of his reasoning, so I thought it was worth pointing out… At the end of Chapter Two, Oreshi mentioned his other self was ignoring a major reason why he still believes his feelings for Furihata are platonic. In this chapter, Akashi mentions that reason in a different context:

“Akashi was under the impression that romance was supposed to include certain urges, about wanting to kiss and touch the other person. Supposedly, it involved a form of physical desire that was intense, possibly even explicit… As far as he knew, Akashi had never experienced any of that.

“True, he was still young. But teenagers were supposed to want to kiss each other, at the very least. Weren’t they?”

I didn’t connect it directly, but this is what Oreshi also meant in Chapter Two. Basically, he’s under the impression that romance has to involve certain forms of physical desire. And he isn’t experiencing that toward anyone, as far as he knows. Again, there’s a LOT going on there, and it’ll come up again in the fic. But it’s worth mentioning, since it’s not exactly obvious!

Personally, I find the question of what makes a relationship platonic vs. romantic to be really interesting… Especially since some people have romantic relationships that aren’t as physical. The nuances can get murky, so that’s definitely been a part of Akashi’s internal debate, which started back in Part Two of Storming The Castle.

About That Locker Scene

So now on the topic of being self-indulgent… I really couldn’t resist including that Seirin cameo scene. XD I love Seirin SO MUCH, and I really miss writing about all of them! Plus, I thought it would be kind of funny to answer a question that absolutely no one asked…

Which is, if we assume that Furihata is attracted to Akashi, then which guy would he find the most attractive on his own team? I honestly can’t remember why I came up with an answer to this question. //laughs But I did at some point, and now you all know my theory. (Basically, ikemen/pretty-boy point guards who are very skilled, but don’t have the most successful humor and are actually kind of huge nerds? Lol.) I also had a backup answer, which was probably obvious in the scene too. XD

And on a random side note, the phrase “some kind of magical ab factory” is one of my favorite phrases I’ve ever written. Pfft.

Also, if you’re wondering why the Rakuzan players didn’t get more of an appearance this time, don’t worry! You’ll definitely see more of them soon. (A lot more. Probably way more than anyone wants. //laughs)

On Furihata and Bisexuality

Anyway, in all seriousness, I’ve been looking forward to writing these scenes where poor Furi is trying to figure out his sexuality for FOREVER. There are a lot of reasons why… The two biggest ones have to do with LGBTQA+ representation, and explaining a key part of the romantic plotline of the series.

So I’m sure a lot of readers were wondering how in the world Furihata managed to be in denial for so long about his attraction to Akashi… Especially given that he’s called Akashi handsome and pretty, and has literally been ogling him for most of the series? //laughs So this is loosely based on something I noticed when I was younger, both in terms of my experiences and those of people I knew. When I was a teenager around fifteen years ago (I know, the dark ages, haha), the concept of bisexuality was really underrepresented, and often ignored. It did exist, in theory. But a lot of the time, most people just assumed you had to be gay or straight—or otherwise you were confused/undecided. Which was, of course, not exactly helpful.

The Spark of Light series takes place in 2010. While the overall understanding of bisexuality was improving by that point, there were still plenty of issues (and still are, to be honest). Also, the idea of bisexuality wasn’t necessarily being discussed in mainstream Japan… Being attracted to more than one gender has existed in their culture for a long time, of course. (Just look at their history and literature!) But from what I understand, due to a whole bunch of complicated reasons, there hasn’t been the same emphasis on recognizing the modern idea of bisexuality as there has been in, say, Western countries. That being said, things in Japan are changing a lot recently. And I could go into that, and how fascinating it is, but I’ll save it for another day!

What I do want to emphasize, though, is that not very long ago, a lot of teenagers tended to assume they were either gay or straight, period. For all kinds of reasons, many of us didn’t really consider anything else. And because of mainstream social conditioning—and homophobia—it often made sense to focus on your attraction to the opposite gender, without trying to figure out if you were attracted to other genders as well. To be honest, I’m guessing this still happens in a lot of places, given how much pressure there still is to be straight/have heterosexual relationships.

Which brings me to the issue of representation… One of the places I used to notice a lack of bisexual representation, oddly, was in fandom. Back when I started to post fic online (circa 2005), if fans had a headcanon that a character was attracted to another character of the same gender, it was typically framed as, “They’re gay.” Even if the character had relationships in canon with the opposite gender.

In fanfiction, this was often explained with something along the lines of, “He thought he liked women, but he really didn’t/was repressing his sexuality.” More often, the issue wasn’t addressed at all. Of course, gay-but-repressed is a completely valid interpretation, and happens in real life! But I always found it kind of strange that no matter how much the character seemed to have enjoyed their past relationships, people rarely concluded, “They’re bisexual.” I see bisexual headcanons a LOT more in fandom now, which is awesome! And I really wanted to contribute to that.

So when I started A Spark of Light, I knew Furihata would be finding out that he’s bisexual. I wanted to go with that interpretation, instead of implying that Furihata never actually wanted a girlfriend when he joined Seirin, or that he was confused, etc. I also wanted to attempt to portray what it’s like to be attracted to more than one gender, when you’re still figuring out your sexuality and you suddenly realize you’re attracted to more types of people than you originally thought you were? (And that some of the attractive people you ogled, but just assumed it was in a purely aesthetic/platonic way, were actually some of your crushes. //laughs)

So long story short… Furihata having such an obvious crush on Akashi, and yet not realizing it for so long, was definitely intentional! (Whether or not it worked well in the story being a separate issue, haha.) Because sometimes teenagers don’t hear often enough that they could be bisexual, so they don’t fully consider it, and it can take a while to figure it out, and sexuality can be fluid/change over time… And also, adolescence is generally a kind of weird period in life. XD (And so are the ways that social expectations affect our self-perception, especially when we’re young.)

In any case, this is just the beginning of Furihata exploring that issue, and what it means for him. But I wanted to make sure to clarify some of it as soon as possible, to give some idea of what I was trying to portray.

And Finally, Some Feelings About the Train Scene

I have to admit, I got a little emotional when I was FINALLY able to write Furihata riding on another N700 train, and thinking about how he has a crush on Akashi. <3 I’ve been looking forward to this moment in the series, and for Furi to realize he’s always been attracted to Akashi, ever since I wrote this part in The Fast Train to Kyoto WAY BACK in the fall of 2015:

“Akashi was sitting beside the window, just like before. He had a laptop computer balanced on his tray, and was typing away. Furihata couldn’t help noticing that he looked more unreal than ever. The ember-like glow of the sunset shone on his skin, mirroring his crimson hair and eyes. He looked like a picture of some kind, and way more mature than a teenager, with his blazer slung over an armrest and his shirtsleeves rolled up at the elbows.

Furihata had meant to speak first, maybe make up some excuse for running off, or even apologize for being such a nutcase. But when he opened his mouth, his tongue and throat felt strangely dry.”

So yeah, that’s how far back some of the foreshadowing goes. XD; I do enjoy writing subtext, but it’s so nice to finally be at a point in this series where the characters are having to face up to their changing feelings, and figure out what it means for them going forward. Also, I’m just so happy that I was able to get to this part, even though it took so damn long! It was worth the struggle. <3

I hope those of you who have been following this series enjoyed the chapter! And I hope you’re as excited as I am to be going back to Kyoto with these precious nerds. (It might get a bit intense, I won’t lie. //laughs) The next chapter is more or less ready to go, so my current plan is to post it in about two weeks. And I’m also hoping to post a lot more of the story during the summer. <3