#it was even better because I ship

[scarlet-streak-rambles]

Ok so I’m playing Overwatch with my dad, right? I’m Reaper, he’s Ana, so we get that one interaction talking about Soldier:76

Reaper: Tell Jack to stop chasing me.

Ana: I tried. He wouldn’t listen.

Reaper: Isn’t that just like him?

It’s a cool interaction, lets us know what Soldier’s doing since he isn’t really with the recalled Overwatch, awesome. However, there’s one issue: we had a Soldier:76 on our team, so instead of a conversation about an old friend it seemed like Reaper being passive aggressive like a kindergartener. “Tell Jack I’m not talking to him.” “He’s not talking to you either.” “Asshole.”

[mossy-aro]

tbh as much as i do think it is worthwhile to discuss the topic of shipping aromantic/asexual characters and the nuances of it all (as well as the general attitude allos have towards aspecs in fandom spaces). it also makes me sigh equally because like... what characters. i'll be real guys we don't even have characters to discourse over. literally there are like 3 ever and none of those have fandoms anyway and the ones which do are like 'it was confirmed on twitter in a nebulously worded post by the creator'. its so bad out here

[francy-sketches]

sorry I got posessed by the wattpad demon I'm normal now (lying)

+alt version that didnt fit the #aesthetic but it better represents my #vision of them ^_^ hashtag couplegoals

[bixels]

Bit of a weird question, but what is your overall least favorite thing about MLP? 

Sparity.

[muffinlance]

Wait, what’s going on with Embers???? That fic has been on my read later list since 2021, what’s happened with it???

Brief overview, then I'm likely never touching this topic again, because this is not a Drama Blog:

Context: Embers is a super old AtLA fic that was written during the early fandom days, read widely at the time, and was the origin of the widely-used fanon name of "Wani" for Zuko's ship (kind of by default that it was one of the first popular fics to give his ship a name, I think?), even though most fic writers don't seem to realize it's from there anymore.

"What's Going On": I used to include a link in all my stories to it, because I believe in crediting other writers for borrowed elements, and I was using "Wani" in all my fics. But BOY did I not want to be sending readers that way anymore, so I've adopted a new name for Zuko's ship, and removed all Embers links.

None of the criticisms about Embers itself are new; I'm assuming they date back to when the fic was being written, because this isn't an "it aged badly" thing, this is an "actually yeah this gets worse the longer you think about it and I shouldn't have ignored my bad feelings just because some of the worldbuilding was interesting" thing.

An Incomplete List of Why I Made the Change:

I don't actually like the story that much anymore, and don't want to rec it

I tried to re-read it recently to see if some things were as bad as I remembered and it turns out they were So Much Worse Oh Yikes. More specifically, the treatment of Katara and Aang and their respective cultures has... rather a lot going on. One example: The Fire Nation and Air Nomads are both given multiple backstory elements in an attempt to make the average Fire Nation soldier's participation in the genocide/war in large part the fault of the Avatar and the Air Nomads themselves, and also fully justified from the Fire Nation perspective. And I do mean fully. One of its core tenants is "People from the Fire Nation (and only people from the Fire Nation) who don't follow orders Literally Die, therefore murdering pacifists and babies and continuing the war (and their regularly scheduled war crimes) is the only thing it is physically possible for them to do". I cannot emphasize enough how literal that is.

Also the name "Wani" means "Alligator" and is... objectively a pretty lame name for Zuko's ship? Where's the personality, where's the deeper meaning, where's the resonance with Zuko's themes? @tuktukpodfics initially thought I was calling the ship "Wanyi", and that's what I've switched to, because it is Objectively So Much Better. In their words: “Wànyī (萬一): Literally ‘one in ten thousand,’ ‘perchance.’ Used grammatically in Chinese to mean ‘what if’ or ‘just in case.’ I think a ship called ‘The Perchance’ is perfect for a boy clinging to false hope.”

TL:DR; I don't rec Embers anymore, because I don't actually like the story anymore, and there are things about it that get worse the more I think on them. I've removed links to it and renamed Zuko's ship to "Wanyi" ("The Perchance") because our boy deserves a ship name that reflects his character arc.

[anonymouscheeses]

Old sketch I decided to give line art and color. Will definitely NOT finish this but if I do thennnn iunno congrats on me finally finishing an abandoned sketch 😭

[thevulturesquadron]

She. Was. There. She was in Genosha during the massacre. She saw SO many die because people hated and feared them. She held the damaged body of a loved one in her arms till dawn.

Gotta stop seeing everything through the friggin’ lenses of a ship or another. There is more to a character and their choices than who you want to see them smooch with.

Stop it! Some of you out there really don’t deserve Rogue.

[thefawnfallacy]

You don’t have to like sebaciel or the many undertones it presents in the series but it’s actually getting to the point where insistent ignorance of the sexual nature Ciel is presented in can be dangerous. Fiction does not exist on a 1:1 scale with reality but just using this fictitious scenario of Ciel being sexualised (by Yana herself) while having a panic/asthma attack and it being called “not actually sexual” or sebaciel fans being called “delusional” when pointing out the erotic nature of, not just this, but the many instances in which the viewer is meant to see Ciel in a sensual manner, is concerning.

You should be able to identify a sexual situation, even if it’s a situation in which the things happening are not inherently sexual. One of the main components of grooming is that is does not start out sexual, there’s a buildup to that in which the groundwork has already been laid. I’ll say it again, you should be able to identify when something sexual is happening without it being inherently sexual.

Yes, Ciel is repeatedly sexualised canonically, it is not being used to mock shippers, he simply exists in a very erotic manner in many situations using a variety of different ways to depict it, most commonly being flower language. No, you are not “morally correct” for not enjoying it, you just find it uncomfortable or triggering and that’s fine. Yes, you should be able to see that he’s being sexualised because he’s fake and if you cannot see it then there’s a chance of not being able to see this in real life, whether it be a friend, a child in your care, or even yourself.

Not being able to identify the sexual nature a character can be presented in is not a good thing. It doesn’t mean you “aren’t a porn addict”, it doesn’t mean you “aren’t a bad person” and it certainly doesn’t mean you are “not a pedophile, like those shippers are”. It means you cannot spot the difference between a bad fake relationship and a bad real relationship.

Stop giving a damn about fictional characters and start giving a damn about yourself.

[mxtxfanatic]

Fandom Gripe #23: I know that fandom is in some deep denial about its treatment of female characters that are canonically involved with fan favorite m/m ships, but do y’all realize that when you disappear female characters from the narrative wholesale to push the idea that your canonically straight fav was “secretly gay all along!” you’re making several bad implications? That 1) bi men don’t exist, 2) bi men do exist, but those who have genuinely loved a woman before cannot genuinely love a man after that (therefore bi men don’t exist in practice), 3) women cannot inspire genuine love and devotion in men, therefore any relationship with a woman is “lesser” than the one they later have a man (see previous parenthesis), or 4) to acknowledge the existence of a lovable woman who isn’t a terrible person, where if a relationship previously existed, it did not end because of “incompatibility,” is enough to destabilize the present relationship between two queer men?

Because why is the tgcf fandom allergic to acknowledging that He Xuan had a whole ass fiancée that he loved? Why does no one ever seem to remember that the kidnappings and murders of He Xuan’s sister and fiancée were the final straws that sent him on his rampage, and he still keeps a shrine to them in the present-day of the story? Why is her entire existence and significance to He Xuan as a man, character, and to his character arc disappeared in favor of pushing Shi Qingxuan—the brother of the man responsible for his fiancée’s death—into that same role, as if to say that her impact on He Xuan is significant... just not when it's from her? Why does He Xuan’s life in fandom essentially begin not just after her death but because of it?

[farshootergotme]

The idea of Bruce having a crush on someone in the League and others realizing it is so amusing to me. Everyone just looks at Batman after he accidentally does something stupidly obvious that makes his crush evident to the rest and they're like "Oh my god, you have a crush." And they never stop teasing him about it at any chance they get.

It's just so great that the infamous Dark Knight has a crush. Like, they know he's dated. But there's a difference between knowing and seeing how Batman acts when he likes someone.

(Spoilers: he's more of a loser than they expected)

[al-luviec]

juvie buddies

[hamartia-grander]

No but Astarion wanting to be valued for more than sex and seen for something that's not just sex regardless of who romances him and Wyll wanting a chaste and genuine romance with sincere and committed courtship with no sex regardless of who romances him is insaneeeeee. I know everyone's talked about this before but everytime I stop to think about it I lose my mind. They couldn't be more narratively bound I'm clawing at the bars of my cage

[fresanita]

Angel Dust Turns Human - Pg1

I need to mention how insane it is that Angel Dust is like, around 8ft tall. I'm not good at drawing tall people, so his human form made him shorter since, if he was alive, he'd be at least around 6ft; that's as tall as he's gonna get!

Anyways, I like Angel Dust centered media bc he's my fav🫶👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨 It upset me, when I finally watched the damn show, how little screen time he had (no, those 2 episodes were not enough for me). Personally, I don't think his character was that explored, so I'm just stretching him out a bit in this - even if it goes against Canon, sorry☹️

In fact, this whole comic goes against Canon😔. Since the whole point is Parental Alastor & Angel as a son figure. I don't see enough of that (obviously since it doesn't fit much but idc) so I made my own.

It's also possessive Alastor, since I really love 'yandere' parental/platonical relationships, there's not much media with that trope💔

NO ROMANCE! This whole thing is found family🙏

[dayurno]

this is somewhat of a vent post & something i said i would not do again but has been plaguing me enough that i think getting it out might feel better. so. has anydoggy else been. Baffled and upset by nora sakavic’s refusal to speak on how terribly aftg has treated its characters of color? with the author of the series coming back with a new book and starting up on her online activity again, and questions of what she’d change about aftg bubbling up, it’s particularly glaring to me that we are all playing this very long game of pretend where we ignore how badly the non-white cast has been treated & her lack of thoughts on it

and i understand not wanting to bring up nicky and thea because people pick on her for it. i’m not trying to discredit nora sakavic’s terrible history of getting harrassed online by aftg fans. but i think it is very cynical, and it is very juvenile, and most of all very cruel, that she gets to ignore the very real ways the books have set up these characters to be hated. i think it’s obvious why the characters who get the most hate are the only canonical characters of color, and i think we do not get to treat this like a deliberate decision on the fandom’s part when the books have put these same characters in degrading and embarrassing and terrible positions in the first place. aftg is not a story about nice characters with clean pasts, but there is a very specific nastiness to the only characters of color being a brown man who sexually harasses and later assaults the main character, a black woman whose only scene is her lashing out at her love interest after being ignored for the first two books, and the japanese villain who gets maybe two lines of complexity before he goes back to being a terrible person. the white cast, in comparison, while not at all free from flaws, are never shown to commit mindless evil; all of their actions are ultimately justified. the book goes out of its way to give them concession after concession. we know exactly who to side with, because aftg tells us who these people are. does nicky’s assault ever get addressed in the books? does riko’s reasoning to be the way that he is ever gets more than briefly aluded to? is thea reserved even a shred of humanity or grace in her one scene?

anyway. it’s been years of talking about this and the fandom has been constantly hostile to criticism in this regard, and more recently any criticism at all, and it’s Grating to be on the other side of this discussion. it’s exhausting to know that in ten years we do not get even an acknowledgment besides the author saying she will not answer questions about nicky and thea anymore. it’s upsetting and it’s ugly and i wish no one had to talk about this again, but we do because what i thought was common sense has been washed away by a sudden influx of no-nuance adoration for the trilogy. basically i hope we all explode

[royalarchivist]

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Wilbur: Everyone give it up for Alex Quackity! Thank you.

A close-up of one of the TNTduo hugs from the Lovejoy concert :')

[strobbylemonade]

101 - a dummy's guide to loving and becoming human again