#it’s so clearly a problem faced by people who don’t actually ship it

[padfootastic]

hey hey hey since we’re popping in just for hot takes, here’s another one:

platonic. prongsfoot. isn’t. a. thing.

how many fucking times does this have to be said.

should i start tagging every remus and sirius interaction as platonic wolfstar??? clog up the whole goddamned tag for u????

honestly what is so hard to understand that a ship name denotes…A FUCKING SHIP

and in case it bears repeating: a ship is inherently non-platonic thank u very much. a ‘platonic ship’ is…wait for it…a friendship. there u have it. shocker i know.

[bipanicoverthegravessiblings]

I’ve been following this blog ever since your first headcannons and I’m in love with your writing. I’ve been DYING for someone to request this but nobody has so I will! Could I request a Yandere Andrew with a willing fem reader? She’s just pretty chill and doesn’t mind Andrew’s possessive and yandere nature and is even willing to cut ties with people because she loves him and genuinely sees nothing wrong with it?

P.S I just love the Ashley and Gabriel ship! I think it’s adorable! I love Gabriel’s design and the pairing looks adorable together! I’m always looking on Tumblr multiple times a day to see if you’ve posted something new.

If you accept, please take your time and have fun! Thank you!

Anon- you are so sweet. Thanks dog <3

totallynotcryingtotallynotcrying—

Yandere!Andrew Graves x Willing Fem!Reader

You can’t remember the last time someone cared about you as much as Andrew did

Someone who would do the things he did just to protect you

Really you couldn’t be luckier

Most women would be terrified to see the dark silhouette of their partner standing outside their window late at night

Not you though, you know he was just making sure you were safe.

You waved to him once, and though it was difficult to see- he waved back

It was endearing how much Andrew cared about your safety

It was sweet how much he noticed about you

Small details that would go overlooked, like the shampoo you used- or the way you held yourself while conveying emotions. He noticed.

Andrew loved you. And you loved him.

“I’m just…worried.” Your friend’s voice felt like the vocal equivalent of chewing cardboard. If it wasn’t for the subject right now, you would’ve tuned her out ages ago. But this concerned you and your life, so you listened, “Like- he’s a stalker Y/N! Straight up stalker! What if he like- wears your skin like a jacket or something.”

“Hm.” You shrugged, “I’m sure he’d sew a lovely jacket then.” A small grin formed on the corners of your mouth as your friend gave an annoyed sigh.

“I’m being serious! He’s obsessed with you!”

“Boyfriends are supposed to be obsessed, aren’t they not?”

“No! Like weirdly obsessed!” You could hear the desperation in her voice, “Y/N, you don’t get it. I’ve been- I’ve been getting letters, voicemails, goddamn post it notes on my desk to stay away from you and they’re all from him. He broke into my house!”

Andrew….did all that?

“Oh my god…” you let out.

“Thank you!”

“Oh my god…he- really must not trust you then.”

“WHAT?!” You had to hold the phone away from your ear as your friend yelled into it.

You slowly brought it back to your ear, “Well- yeah? I mean- clearly he doesn’t trust you.”

“Clearly he’s insane!”

Alright- you had enough.

“Look,” you took a breath, trying to remain calm, “If you have a problem with my boyfriend- that’s fine. But I’m not going to sit here and listen to you insult him.”

“I’m not insulting him I’m—“

“Don’t call me again.” You said flatly, and not a second later hung up the phone.

You should feel awful. You should feel apologetic for what you said. You should consider your friend’s words..

But you didn’t.

It wasn’t like how they thought it was.

That friend, and any others who had something to say could fuck themselves over it

It was hard every time you had to do it

But Andrew- bless his soul- always comforted you

Hell, sometimes he even did it for you cause he knew how difficult they could be

He’s so sweet

Still would make them call, but you slowly blocked out the incessant sound of the phone’s ringing

When one of those conversations would bring you down, Andrew would be right there to lift your spirits

Andrew’s hands cupped your face, his thumbs trying to lift the corner of your mouth into a smile. The more he did it, the more it amused you- causing an actual smile to stay.

“There we go.” His head tilted a little as he gave you a small smile of his own, “Much better.”

“You’re a dork.” You buried your face into his chest, sighing happily as the familiar feeling of his hands stroking your hair.

“I’m your dork.” He hummed, “And I like your smile. So you better keep it, or I’ll carve it on to you.”

“Awwww, is that a promise?” You tilted your head up to look into his pale green eyes, your chin rested against his chest.

He nodded, “Mhm! Now C’mere.”

He leaned his head down, kissing you softly. You returned the kiss, reaching your arms up and wrapping them around his neck to hold him there. Not like he’d pull away, but as a measure for yourself more than anything.

For all the “warnings”

All the “concern” people gave your relationship with Andrew Graves

You didn’t care

You loved him

You loved his fucked up ways of affection

His twisted form of love

And he loved you back, tenfold

[love-fictional-ppl]

Ace and Sabo arguing over who loves their gf more, but she loves them both equally and just absolutely adores them

Maybe smut if ur up for it

The one piece is real

Yesss I love this concept and ty sm for the request anon🙏🏻🙏🏻 I’m ngl Sabo might be ooc😭

༶⋆˙⊹｡⋆ʚ♡⃛ɞ ✩ ˛˚.

Equals

Summary: look at the request sillies🤭

Pairings: dom!Portgas D. Ace x switch!fem!reader x switch!Sabo

Warnings: language, arguing(brief), smut, making out, double penetration,anal, oral(m&f receiving), facial, fingering, unprotected P in V(wrap it b4 u tap it), Sabo has a mommy kink, hair pulling, double creampie, aftercare

A/N: for the sake of the story Sabo and reader are apart of the Whitebeard Pirates also for my sanity sabo and ace both ate the flame-flame fruit(no actual tak abt it tho) and tbh fuck a plot

You were below deck on the Moby Dick, walking up the stairs, you were ordered to mop the entire deck, so you had in each hand a pale of water and a mop.

Finding where it was least crowded on deck, you start on the port side. Eventually you heard arguing somewhere amongst the ship. At first you assumed some of the guys were getting into, listening closely you realized your guys were getting into it.

You dropped the mop, not really caring who tripped over it, and made your way over to the commotion.

As you made through the crowd of pirates, you see people making bets on who you assumed were the two hotheads. Suddenly, you can hear what was being said clearly.

“HA! She loves me more!” Sabo shouted in a manner of fact.

The raven haired boy let out boisterous laughter. “As if a mother could love a face like that!” Ace retorts.

“Says you!”

You were honestly shocked they hadn’t already started beat the shit out of each other, better yet that they could be this immature. All the noise was starting to annoy you, especially the sounds of your boyfriends thinking you loved one more.

“How bout this!” All heads turned in your direction, “I love Luffy more!”

Ace looked utterly appalled and Sabo looked like he had been hit by a brick. After fully processing the remark, both boys started clinging to you saying things like; “you don’t mean it, do you?” And “Stop goofing around!”

You truly couldn’t help laughing at the pair, you were still annoyed though about the fact they think one is more cherished than the other.

You started to head below deck to the three of you’s shared room. Both boys followed you, desperate for an answer.

“I love both of you equally and more than anything, so I’m going to prove it to you.” You stated bluntly. You didn’t bother to look back at either of them, simply walking to privacy.

A light blush covered Sabo’s cheeks at your words, Ace on the other hand started grinning like a child.

You finally reached your destination, opening the door you walk over to the bed and start to take your shirt off.

Sabo was caught off guard by how quickly this all seemed to be happening. He simply watched, unsure, for a second or two.

“Man, I’m gonna fuck the shit out of her if you don’t hurry up.” Ace’s voice brings Sabo back to the reality of the situation.

Ace seemed to have had no problem with your pace because he already had no shirt off, which is no surprise considering he never wears a shirt. The raven haired man pulled off his hat and set it on the desk in the room.

Sabo, finally finding his footing, takes off his hat as well placing it next to the other male’s. You strutted over to your blonde haired lover and kissed him sensually with tongue, helping strip him of his clothes.

“I love you.” You told him, looking deep into Sabo’s eyes. “And you,” you then turn to put your attention on Ace.

You walk a few steps towards Ace, he readily responds by grabbing your waist and pulling you in for a rough, sloppy kiss.

You turn your head away from the kiss and urge Sabo forward, he took a few slow steps toward you. Sabo couldn’t be sure why, but he felt anxious, in a nervous and excited kind of way.

Once the blonde was a few centimeters from your face you dropped to your knees, catching both men by surprise.

Gently tugging on the blonde's belt, you look up at him through your eyelashes, "Be a good boy for me, okay?"

Sabo bit his lip and nodded his head ferociously, "mhm, yes, mommy."

"Good boy."

You began to unbuckle his belt and release his member than you suddenly stopped. When Sabo's gaze landed on you he realized you were coaxing Ace to join you and feel the warmth between your legs, he wasted no time to walk over and rip the shorts and panties off your body. After presenting you bare and in all your glory, Ace shoved his face in between your thighs and started slurping your juices like a starved man.

After you came down from the shock of Ace's roughness, you returned your focus to Sabo's throbbing cock, tip peaking out of his underwear desperate for attention. you yanked his pants down and started tugging at his shirt, signaling him to take it off, which he picked up on quickly.

Standing in front of you in his birthday suit, you decide to fondle your sweet sub's balls and take his length into your mouth. Sabo's head fell back and he shut his eyes, allowing himself to be consumed by the pleasure your mouth brought him.

Ace was flicking your clit back and forth with his tongue causing you to moan around Sabo. You had lost your pace due to the pleasure you felt so Sabo grabbed you by the hair and started fucking your face. The male behind you started fucking you with two fingers while massaging your clit with his tongue, occasionally sucking on it. You were cumming a few minutes later.

Sabo followed shortly after, pulling out to paint your face. You stuck your tongue out to taste him, only managing to catch a tiny bit of his cum, the rest landing on your cheeks and forehead. The submissive male used his fingers to scoop the cum off your face, you sucked the semen off his fingers.

Suddenly you were lifted off the floor and dropped on the bed, Portgas D. Ace being the culprit. Sabo followed the both of you and moved you to straddle him. Ace once again got behind you and pulled a bottle containing a clear liquid from the night stand.

You shivered at the cold feeling of the lube being squeezed onto your asshole.

Ace whispered in your ear, "Gotta make sure you're ready for me, okay, Love?"

You nodded your head enthusiastically, wanting him to be inside of you already.

When you least expected it, you felt the familiar defiance of Ace's fingers pushing against that tight ring of muscle, you grimaced at the feeling. Sabo placed his hands on either side of your face, making you look at him.

"I'm right here with you." Sabo then pressed his lips into yours.

Ace's middle and ring finger moved at a steady pace, eventually turning the uncomfortable sensation into pleasure. You pulled away from the blonde in front of you and dropped your mouth open into a silent moan.

"You okay? You wanna keep goin'?" Ace checked in.

"Yes," you moaned, feeling his fingers still working.

A few seconds later, he removed his fingers leaving you feeling empty, only to replace the emptiness with his cock.

"Oh-!"

Sabo once again pulled you in for a slobbery kiss, distracting you from any discomfort.

Ace dropped his head back and started picking up the pace, his hands holding your hips. The sound of skin clapping could likely be heard above deck. You gathered your strength and braced yourself, placing your left hand on Sabo's shoulder and using your right to grab his cock and line it up with your entrance.

"Holy fu-uck," Sabo groaned when he slid inside of your tight cunt.

You rocked your hips backwards against both boys'. Ace grabbed you by the hair, his right hand making a ponytail. The male behind you used this new found leverage to fuck you even harder than before.

Sabo fucked upward with shallow thrusts. You dropped your head onto the blondes shoulder and pulled his face toward you, kissing his scar.

“I love you both so much,” you told them.

“We know, Sweetheart, we love you too,” Ace responded.

You reached behind you pulling his jet black locks, pulling him in for a kiss. The kiss was awkward due to how hard he pounding into you from behind.

“I-I’m gonna cu-um,” you cried out, the lower half of your body had gone numb awhile ago.

“I’m close too, cum with me okay, mama?” Sabo was babbling and you struggled to make sense of his words for a minute.

Sabo’s thrusts contrasted Ace’s, Sabo gently rocked his hips up whereas Ace was slamming into you. You and Sabo came together, you were shaking and exhausted. Sabo pulled out and you held onto his shoulders for support as Ace continued jackhammering into you.

“Shi-shit, your ass is so tight, I’m gonna cum.” Ace’s pace sped up and became unsteady.

The dominant of the two pulled you up so that your back was pressed against his chest. Ace’s right hand roughly groped your tit and pinched your nipple. Your eyes were shut tight.

Ace didn’t last much longer, you felt the warmth of him filling you up. Ace pulled out leaving you completely empty, both holes clenching around nothing and dripping cum.

Sabo adjusted you so that you could lay with your head on his chest. Ace cleaned himself up, dressed, and left to fetch you a glass of water and a rag to clean you up. You were so physically worn out that you fell asleep before Ace could return. When said male returned and saw you asleep with his brother, Ace attempted to clean you up without waking you.

You spoke groggily with your eyes closed, “I love both you idiots, okay?”

Ace chuckled, “we love you too.”

He kissed your forehead and joined you in the bed. Both Ace and Sabo drifted to sleep while admiring your beauty.

༶⋆˙⊹｡⋆ʚ♡⃛ɞ ✩ ˛˚.

A/N: this took way longer than anticipated😭 sorry for the wait I hope you enjoy, anon.

[ckret2]

I was going to just reply to this post, https://www.tumblr.com/ckret2/760386247709622272/chapter-updated-and-crossposted-to-ao3-this-one, but then my message got so long and I got kind of heated about what I was saying so I decided to just make it an ask. I’m talking about what you were mentioning in the post, about how people apparently didn’t understand Bill doesn’t just not understand human hygiene.

I understood it the first time. I thought it was very obvious, actually. I don’t know why other people apparently didn’t. I can’t see how it could possibly give anyone the impression that he doesn’t get hygiene when he literally uses the fact that he gets hygiene against his captors so clearly because how else would he be able to even know that he could rub the grossness in their face? To make himself feel better about how he’s a prisoner and also kind of has no choice?

Unless they genuinely forgot because of… I think it might be a kind of be a result of societal ableism— a problem with ableism and how it’s influenced trends in fandom. I’ve been in a lot of fandoms where I noticed that people do this a lot with any characters with a certain kind of neurodivergent air— characters I often related to— who act how they want and generally don’t care about social standards or being “normal.”

An annoying portion of the fandom just starts treating them like they don’t know any better instead of knowing and not caring, and start talking about them like they’re dumb in a way that kinda reminds me of how I’ve been treated as an autistic person, whenever I thought any social rule or norm was pointless. Like people would just keep explaining to me that it existed no matter how often I clearly expressed that I knew it existed, I just didn’t see a reason to care. Other kids who acted neurodivergent got this too, no matter how obvious they made it that they just didn’t care.

I mostly got this as a girl who didn’t act “girly”— or ashamed of myself— for being not feminine enough or tomboyish enough. Teachers and parents and even a lot of classmates who just kept trying to “correct me when they realized I basically wasn’t “properly” ashamed. They talked around it, but autistic people are not dumb, and their underlying logic was almost always just that. With adults they genuinely seemed to think they were helping me, and just refused to get it, but classmates would get more patronizing after a while. Idk but- anyway…

I’ve started to identify and dread when people might do this to any character I related to in a certain way who chose not to care about social norms. And there was definitely something awfully familiar about the way people seemed to begin to think about them after a while. Especially if there hadn’t been any new episodes with that character or something for a while, they’d just start to remember them as stupider as their minds fell into certain patterns.

And people who do this to the characters, start talking about them like they’re canonically dumb and start almost infantilizing them in fanworks. I remember this one character I really related to, where people started writing fanfics and shipping them with this other character who was kind of a bully in canon, “teaching” them how to act more normal and treating them like a child, and this awful dynamic became The Most Popular Ship for that character. It was disgusting.

And then other people start to get the idea that this is canonical, when it’s entirely fandom based canon that shouldn’t even be fancanon and only exists because of ableism in the first place. But it spreads because people see this group of the fandom talking about it and, especially newcomers, just start to assume this is normal, this is what canon looks like. That’s where the fanworks featuring this come from.

And Bill is one of these characters. I can’t put it into words but he does share that certain ADHD ish quality that I relate to as a neurodivergent person and that makes me worry people will twist him into the Stupid Boy Don’t Know Anything Normal set mold too. Anyway, I’m pretty sure this bs is the reason for any “misunderstandings” like this about Bill.

I think in this case it might have just been mostly people treating Bill like he’s dumb as they forgot after a while of reading the chapter and started thinking of him… the way they think of characters (and people) with adhd or some other form of neurodivergence who don’t fit in, automatically, w/o realizing. And they started building it worse off each other. And then newcomers came in and saw how they were talking about Bill and started unconsciously reflecting it. It wasn’t in anything to do with your writing.

And I’m sorry you had to deal with it, too. I hope you didn’t have to cut down or dumb down your story, or… not too much, because of it. You shouldn’t have to bring down your work because you’re afraid an audience won’t understand. In this case, I really think it’s more because of a fandom trend and a societal problem than you actually being bad at writing Bill in any way. You shouldn’t have to dumb down the story to make it more obvious for this. And it wasn’t your fault in any way I can think of. But yeah.

I was trying to delicately avoid flinging accusations right at my own readers, especially since there's no way to know what any one given particular reader is bringing into a story—but honestly I've assumed all along it's either ableism, racism, or fatphobia, three issues that predispose people to see the affected person/character as both "stupid" and "dirty" and all of which apply either to Bill or to his human body.

I can't cure ableism, racism, or fatphobia in a fanfic. But I can make it harder for people to default to Ignorant Dirty Gremlin Child stereotypes. And I want to make it harder, because I'd like people to understand my work on the terms I intended to present it. An author's job is to communicate their ideas in words that accurately convey those ideas to the reader, and if a lot of readers don't get it, it's first and foremost the author's duty to see if there's anything else they can do to couch their ideas in language readers will get.

Anything beyond that is out of my hands. I've now done my level best with chapter 8.

[marlsswrites]

you're absolutely disgusting for glorifying fascist characters

james married lily and they would both vomit at the idea of being anything close to friendly with a death eater

Okay this is so stupid but I feel like I should speak up about this because it is HORRENDOUS.

Also really? An anonymous hate comment? Thats just sad, if you’re going to be hater at least have the guts to say it to my face.

I actually laughed when this came into my inbox. They are wizards! Fictional wizards, to clarify. We know next to nothing about regulus, james or lily! So, if i want to make a post about jegulus, i will make a fucking post about jegulus.

You can’t go around calling people fascists just because you dont agree with their opinion, it is so childish and it takes the meaning from the word.

I respect everyones opinions, you dont like jegulus? Thats fine, i respect that. You ship jegulily? Cool, I don’t massively ship it but id never hate on someone who does. You ship jily? Yay, me too! So how about you send a prompt to my inbox and ask me to write a jily oneshot, you dont need to flood my inbox with stupid hate while being anonymous! If you really want to say something, you wouldnt do it anonymously.

There is so much to this fandom, so many headcanons and so so many opinions. And everyone has the right to their opinion, I really dont give a shit that you dont like jegulus, but calling me a fascist is just so pointless.

How on earth do you want me to react? “Sorry, I will stop shipping the couple that have offered me comfort on a daily!” Or “oh wow, you’re being pointlessly stupid, that is such a good point!”

No, because at the end of the day, no one reacts like that. No one will listen to you if you act like that! If you dont support me for liking jegulus, get off my page, honest to god. If you dont like jegulus but you like wolfstar, just skip the jegulus content. Its so easy!

If you want less jegulus content on your feed, maybe stop actively searching for jegulus creators to hate on?

Jegulus brings me so much comfort, if im having a bad day I can just do some writing, or make a video, or read some more of the fanfic i was in the middle of. And you are calling me a fascist simply because i seek comfort in a couple of fictional wizards? Just let people be happy, it really isn’t difficult. And if you cant understand that, you really shouldnt be commenting on it, because you are obviously uneducated and not mature enough to be saying and speaking up about things like that.

I am literally just a another human trying to have some fun and find happiness in the things that I love, and you are some random person online who clearly only finds joy in trying (and failing) to make people feel like shit, get a life. And again, if you have a problem with this post, please DNI, hate is not wanted and is really not needed.

Anyway im off to write some more gay fanfiction about said ‘fascists’, bye!! 🫡

[mswyrr]

"ready or not" - grace/daniel ship meta

It's a delightful Horror/dark comedy film about how rich people suck. Scary but not too scary (I am a 'fraidy cat about Horror movies) and just a romp really. It's paced well and has a great Final Girl and I'd recommend it.

But now I want to talk about my ship lol

SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

Hm, so, are they "in love" exactly? No. There's chemistry and ultimately they appreciate each other (as the only two people in that house "who [have] a soul" - Daniel is able to recognize and appreciate that Grace has one because he's still got one too, albeit tattered and buried deep). But the more important thing, for me, is the structural shift between the two brothers and how that strongly implies things would have turned out happier if Grace had fallen in love with Daniel.

Namely, Alex has a heel turn arc and Daniel has a face turn arc. And, the one who face turns acts on the promises the one who heel turns broke.

The film is a wedding night gone wrong, specifically a new spouse who proves untrue. Grace says her problem was "in-laws," but it's actually Alex breaking the vows he just made to her that comes closest to killing her. The in-laws themselves are not the most efficient threat ever. They're pretty bumbling. Alex keeps Grace in the dark and Alex turns on her, that is what brings her close to death. As well as a funny political satire, it's a satire of the tensions marriage brings into a family, over who your new spouse will be loyal to - you above all others, as they've promised, or the family that raised them, even if it's shitty.

Grace marries one man who promises to be good to her, care for and love and protect her. To be her family, when she is a foster kid who has no family. And then Alex proves false and the other brother, the "weak" one, poisons his family and puts himself between her and a bullet.

Daniel does what Alex promised to do.

Now, he largely thought he was doing this for Alex (not realizing Alex would have a heel turn), so it's not primarily about Grace - HOWEVER, Daniel independently recognizes and values Grace as a person as well as doing it for Alex. Loving his little brother and trying to protect him is how Daniel kept his soul; he's that kind of person at heart. And the structure lends itself to asking how well he and Grace would get along in other circumstances. If this is how he is when they barely know each other, what would he be like if he was the one who'd met and fallen in love with her? Or what if he survived?

The writing includes other elements that strength this as well: they both recognize each other. Early on, Daniel keeps saying "You don't belong in this family - I mean that as a compliment" and saying she "has a soul" so she'll never fit in. And Grace recognizes his soul too. She keeps reaching out to him and believed Daniel would help her before he knew it himself. ("I knew you'd help me." / "I didn't.")

A YouTube review was like talking about how Grace doesn't survive by her own wits because she trusts Alex and he turns on her, it's only "good luck" that saves her. That she has “plot armor.” And I was like wuuut lol Good luck is part of it, but not beyond belief - and Grace does keep herself alive with her grit and wits and then she reaches out to someone and that person poisons his family and takes a bullet for her.

Another point is that, despite it clearly not being a love match, Daniel warned his wife, Charity, about the family cult before their marriage and let her decide whether she wanted to take the risk. Alex hid the information from Grace because "If I told you, you would've left."

That's the key choice where Alex doesn't put Grace first. He puts what he wants (to keep her with him) first. And that foreshadows him putting what his family wants first. Subconsciously, Alex was always ready to betray Grace if she pulled the wrong card. He betrayed her by not warning her.

I think the final thing that makes it work for me is that Daniel and Alex were both children the last time someone pulled the Hide and Seek card. As much as the movie tries to make us not feel bad about the kids today, they're not to blame for the shitty way they've been raised, and Alex and Daniel weren’t to blame for what happened 30 years ago.They were kids.

It's *this* time that they're both adults and making decisions as full moral agents. It's this time that they both find out who they really are. And the decision Daniel makes is to put a stop to all the ritual murder bullshit.

It's also about the heroine's victory. What does Grace *want* from the very beginning of the story? A permanent family, people who will stick by her and love her.

In the canon movie ending, Grace survives, but she's still a foster kid with no family. Though she's legally filthy rich now, it's not the same. She doesn't actually get what she told us she wanted from the beginning of the movie. In fact, she loses the one person she was certain would be family to her, along with the hope her in-laws would be there for her. So there's that sadness to it, which makes the ship meaningful on her side. In this terrible circumstance, she found someone who has a good heart too and would prove true.

The story both provides us with a lack (Grace, the heroine, not getting her heart's desire) and someone who the story shows us could be that for her. Someone who has a soul, despite everything, and wants to do the right thing, to protect and love.

There's a reason why there's timeloop stories where Grace keeps playing the game until she can have a "complete victory" by saving Daniel and winning the family she wanted as well as getting away with her life and the money. The heroine's victory in the film itself is compromised.

The reason why there's a lovely bunch of gems of fanfic about Grace and Daniel on Ao3 is that the story itself provides that bitterness to the sweetness of Grace's survival, that she's still so alone, and a strong foundation for ways they could have been happier or worked out if they'd fallen in love instead of Grace and Alex or if Daniel had survived.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Iris West

Treated terribly by fandom because of racism and misogyny

Iris is one of the oldest Flash characters (well, oldest by measure of the Silver Age Flash) and despite the show's problems she was adapted pretty well. Her being pushed aside 100% has to do with her being Black in the adaptation. The most popular ship on Ao3 for that show is her white husband x a white passing supervillain clearly intended to be read as actually white who has been in LITERALLY ~SIX EPISODES. He DIED IN 2016. THEY ARE STILL DOING THIS

Gets mom friended like you wouldn't BELIEVE. People hate her because she was childhood best friends with The Flash and has chemistry with him :( like it's her fault she's sweet and smart and not the male blue coded villain to the red hero. I am so tired

Stephanie Brown

Literally my best friend ever!!! Every time she shows up in a comic I point at her and smile!!! She’s the vigilante known as spoiler & batgirl & was a robin before getting fridged because of editorial mandate and misogyny she deserves so much better @_@. The m/m that some people hate her for is timkon; like they ARE very gay but people are genuinely insane about hating her instead of also realizing that she too is gay (insane amount of subtext w her bff cass). Basically she was Tim’s girlfriend for a long time on and off. People will literally call her abusive for no reason they’ll be like oh but she didn’t apologize for starting a gang war accidentally and faced no consequences for it :/ as if she wasn’t literally KILLED OFF BRUTALLY. And although hate is rarer for her nowadays from what I’ve seen she’s also a victim of Background Lesbian Syndrome. And also a victim of Woman Not Allowed To Have Ocmplex Feelings in the source material itself (tim is canonically bi now yay but like steph wasn’t allowed to have any complicated feelings at all at her on again off again ex breaking up with her for good???). Anyways she’s the light of my life.

she’s the light of my life my baby girl my everything. she canonically dated tim drake, but people love to ship tim with his male friend kon or his male brothers (🤢🤮) and so they constantly sideline her, making her the quirky wingwoman or sometimes even villainizing her by trying to claim she was abusive to tim. i don’t know why so many people hate her my girl will literally just be standing there and people will hate on her.

Stephanie was first introduced in the 1994 Robin series as a side love interest for Robin, but when she turned out to be really popular she became the main love interest. Because of this, she was fully fleshed out as a vigilante calling herself Spoiler to try and take down her villainous father, the Cluemaster. She later grew a lot closer to other cast members, such as Batgirl and Oracle, to get herself a firmly established place among the bats. Then, she dies in a gang war after taking up the Robin mantle. Eventually, in 2009, she was brought back from the dead and took on the Batgirl mantle. Her and Robin get back together sometime around ~2010 and they are solidly together until 2021. Then, Robin breaks up with her off panel for zero reason in canon, only to date some really boring guy named Bernard. By fanon, she's often demonized and turned into an abuser to make either this ship, or a lot of other mlm ships happen. Either that or things are mysteriously set in the time she's dead despite characters who were not yet introduced until she returned appearing. strange.

[doverstar]

Okay, two whole people asked me to share my thoughts on River Song as a character and my thoughts on Doctor/River after I wrote a whole Clara Oswald essay, and it took me 4 days to write that I ship River with the Doctor and I love her, but there are so many problems. The biggest is named Steven Moffat. And because you asked, I will tell you why, turn up your screen brightness here we go-

*huge inhale* In a nutshell, River Song is ridiculous. Stop wait let me explain- *hands you the nutshell and pats your hand* Shh. River Song as a character first appeared in Silence in the Library, right? We were with the Doctor’s tenth incarnation and Donna Noble, statistically the most popular era in the show’s long history. And this episode was Moffat’s fourth-ever story for the show. Blink and the The Doctor Dances two-parter were all so good. He was on a roll. River comes in and she’s so much fun. And she knows the Doctor. Already. And the crowd goes oooooh collectively. She knows him intimately, it seems. And he has no clue who she is, so oooh again, she’s from his future! It is heavily implied that they'll be married—it’s just the first place anyone’s brain goes.  And then she dies. And we loved her, end scene. Then Moffat took over the show and got the opportunity to explain himself, and he explained himself really poorly.

River went from being a very interesting flash-in-the-pan to being an overdecorated ideal. She is Moffat’s ideal woman. She’s crazy, she seems independent and powerful and unattainable, but she’s actually totally obsessed with the protagonist and consistently making innuendos at him. Her sun rises and sets on the Doctor. Why? Because that’s Moffat’s idea of an attractive woman. I kid you not. I think the problem with writing something that is pure self-indulgence is that you’re so excited about what you’re writing, you don’t stop and think, hey, is this working? You don’t measure the quality. You’re not thinking clearly, it’s just wish-fulfillment. River is everything Moffat thinks a woman should be. Mysterious, strong, insane, violent, but only because of the man she’s drooling over. Her whole story is an excuse to write a woman like the one I just described, because it’s hot to Moffat. (I know. Gross.) Here comes a Moffat rant. The man is insanely talented, and I am not silly enough to believe that all of his writing regarding women is fetish-fueled – I just don’t think that way typically when I’m watching something, but it’s really hard to miss with Moffat. Haven’t you noticed every one of his female characters is full of lust for the protagonist? That’s weird. It was weird when Amy kissed the Doctor against his will, engaged to Rory and not interested in “anything quite so permanent”. It was weird when Nanny Clara kissed him after having just met him, in the middle of a dangerous situation, and then not keeping her eyes front up the magic ladder. (It was weird that Oswin was dressed like that and lounging in all of those poses the first time we saw her, as a dead woman in a Dalek shell, go back and watch it. Laugh like I did. You’re [hallucinating that you’re] stranded on an alien planet in a ship that crashed—and that’s what you’re wearing to work? The last survivor?) It's weird that rando Tasha Lem divulges intense, universe-altering danger to the Doctor in a breathless voice with space wine as they creep closer together over a bed. Ew. What? Why is that even happening? And finally, it’s weird that a girl brought up to murder her parents’ much-older alien best friend, who she was brainwashed to believe is the universe’s biggest problem, should want to eat his face off. Especially when their timelines are out of order and she hasn’t gotten to know him for real at all yet.

Is the Doctor attractive? Yup. Was any of that necessary? Nope. Now we’ll transition for a bit into what I think is wrong with the ship, even though I do ship it. (More on the pros of it later.) The more we learned about her, the less River and the Doctor made sense. The only truly wonderful thing about their dynamic (my favorite part!) is that the Doctor and River act like they’re already married, even though they’re meeting out of order. They have that assurance in one another. They each know the other person will become someone they’re willing to marry someday—they each get a sneak peek of that future together. (River in Let’s Kill Hitler, the DoctorinSilence in the Library.) So when they do meet, even when she’s in Instant Kill Mode and he’s in You Scare Me mode, it’s with an expectation that, hold on, eventually I’m going to really really care about you. Everything they do with one another from that point forward is influenced by that expectation, which makes them comfortable around one another. So that’s sweet and I love it. The problem is—River isn’t the Doctor’s ideal woman. She might be Moffat’s, but on paper she should not work with the Doctor romantically. Moffat engineered this woman—who is supposed to eventually be the Doctor’s wife—to be violent, self-centered, insane, very sexual, and willing to shatter any laws of time (or morality) she sees fit. That’s the opposite of what the Doctor admires, chooses, and is attracted to from everything we’ve ever seen of him. (Does the Doctor like smart, capable women who are good in a crisis? Yes! Obviously! That’s not what I’m talking about.) But suddenly after meeting River, being told one day she’ll be his wife, (instead of organically learning why he would marry her and organically learning who she truly is and then growing to love her naturally), very quickly and without explanation he’s all “And unlike me, she really doesn’t mind shooting people. I shouldn’t like that, kinda do a bit!” What? Since when? Since Moffat. Because Moffat is behind the wheel and Moffat finds that hot. Sir, just because you told me to ship it doesn’t mean I’m convinced. Now, is it her fault that she’s a murder weapon? Is it River’s fault that she was brought up to believe it’s okay to choose violence, wear poison lipstick, and be the girlboss of murder? Absolutely not. Melody Pond was kidnapped, tortured, brainwashed, and used as a human/Time Lady weapon just because she was there. She had absolutely no choice in the matter. And when she did eventually, finally get to choose, she chose to rescue the Doctor and start over. She sacrificed every remaining regeneration she might have had to reverse her actions. That last part? That’s awesome. I love that. But that nice moment doesn't fix the rest. The story goes that River was stolen, raised to kill the Doctor, and then fell in love with him along the way—and the special sauce is, she’s meeting him out of order; every time she sees him he knows her less because she’s moving backward along his timeline. (Unnecessarily complicated, but very fun, Moffat! Can’t forget fun in Doctor Who.) The story goes, too, that the Doctor meets his wife from the future in the biggest universal Library one day, watches her die, and waits for her to appear again so he can start a love story he knows the ending to—and the special sauce is, he’s meeting her out of order; every time he sees her he’s getting to know her more and she knows him less, because she’s moving backward while he moves forward. That does make for an interesting love story. You’re excited to see it play out because you and the Doctor expect it to be a doozy based on River’s “not those times, don’t you dare, you watch us run” speech in Forest of the Dead. But the problem is, they were both told they’d marry one day and therefore they treat it as a foregone conclusion, so there’s no organic attempt at really, truly falling in love. They behave as though they didn’t fall anywhere, they were pushedinside and someone locked the door. (I just pictured Moffat outside with the key. “Now KISS!”)

The point is that nobody worked for this relationship. If you’re going to explain how they fell in love, because the audience already knows they apparently will, then actually show them falling in love! When did the Doctor decide he loved River? When he found out she was Amy’s literal daughter? When he found out she was a psychopath? Or did it all begin in the Library when she died for him, because he already knew that for some reason one day he would marry her, and it’s all just placebo from then on? Or did Ten just regenerate into the sort of man who inexplicably “love(s) a bad girl, me”, and really gets off on those moments when River threatens to shoot and kill other life forms? Yeah, that makes sense. When did River decide she loved the Doctor? When Kovarian told her he’s the scourge of universes? Or was it when River heard he's ultimately the reason she was kidnapped and made to be raised by the Silence and forced into a space suit as a child, because one day she has to rid the universe of this man? Oh! Maybe she fell in love with him when her literal parents went to primary school with her as peers and Amy told her about the Raggedy Doctor as little girls and Mels decided she’d marry him for some reason one day even though she was trained to kill him! (*big pause to catch my breath*) Do you see what I’m saying? We didn’t see it happen. We were told, not shown, that they were in love, or that they would be in love enough to marry one day, and then we watched it not actually happen. And so did the Doctor and River. They are both living in a constant state of resignation to their relationship. Moffat didn’t tell a love story, he told an epilogue, and neither of the lovers got to experience the beginning! For all the cutesy times they quipped “spoilers” at each other, they never once just let things take their course naturally. They lived in the spoilers. The spoilers are the only reason they’re together in the first place! 

And one more thing. A side thing. The Doctor did not want to marry River. That’s disappointing, isn’t it? The wedding was not a happy one. They did it because according to River, their history (their relationship’s “archeology”) differed - she’s either the woman who murders or marries the Doctor, and given those choices, the Doctor wanted to choose murderer instead of wife as River’s role because it was the only way to save reality, but she wouldn't listen to him until he called her wife. Their wedding, just like everything else about their romantic history, is something they’re forced into. It’s contrived. It’s confusing. It’s very difficult to believe in. Moffat gave us all the relational-dynamic payoff prematurely and never actually showed us the part where they fell in love.

That’s my problem(s) with their relationship. Now let me talk about (as requested) River as a character again and what I actually do find most interesting and endearing about her and about her relationship with the Doctor. Like I said, I actually do love her, I actually do ship it, and now I’m gonna vomit out why.

The most endearing thing about River to me is that she is insecure, and that humanizes the silly ideal. Now, in spinoff material River led a very long and varied life, and the Doctor was not the only man she was intimate with. But he’s the only one she loves. That love is what makes her so insecure. And it is love—after a while of repeatedly running into him after Lake Silencio, River is consistently choosing to put the Doctor and his needs before herself and her own. She always had it in her; she’s Amy and Rory’s daughter and the child of the Tardis, after all. But it’s the influence that the Doctor has on her that makes her go from psychopath to heroine. She genuinely believes he’s the best man ever, which is saying something when your father is Rory Williams.

And she, River, murdered him or tried to. She was stolen from his friends and made to attack him, made to put them in danger. She had to lie to him nearly every time they met, or at the very least withhold important information from him. Every time she met him, he trusted her less and less and less. 

And the Doctor is not perfect, but think about how River must see him. He must seem perfect, right? He’s so, so kind, he’s so, so good. He’s so brave. He’s so selfless. He’s so smart. He’s amazing, and he uses his time and his talents for other people, saving lives and helping out all across the stars. He even helped her. He even forgave her. That’s why she fell in love with him, not because he’s hot when he’s clever, not because she’s a psychopath and really, Madam Kovarian, who else was she going to fall in love with, what a basic mistake – NO. If you want to look at it from its most compelling angle, no matter how confusing it gets, how contrived, the most compelling angle is that River loves the Doctor because the Doctor forgave her. In spite of everything. And we see how she really thinks of him, how insecure she truly is, what she really thinks he must feel about her, in The Husbands of River Song. That episode is my favorite River episode.

She got to marry him, but it was under force. She got to be with him, but not forever. She got to help him, but not always. They kissed, but he treated it like it was the first time. He forgave her, but he had to bail them all out in the end, because when she tried she made a mess of it. “Trust you? Seriously?” “I don’t wanna marry you.” “You embarrass me.” “Why do you have to be this? Melody Pond—your daughter, I hope you’re both proud!” River is in love with him, but she genuinely does not think he is in love with her. On paper, it doesn’t seem like she’d be someone he chooses to love. Maybe someone he chooses to pity. Maybe someone he chooses to look after, because her parents are dead now and he loved them and he failed to save Melody the first time, guilty to the last. Whichever way she looks at it, he can’t possibly love her. Sure, he flirts with her, but he flirts with everyone. Yes, she’s smart, but he only takes the best. He’s surrounded by smart. She saved him and it was her honor, but she’s not the first to do that anyway. And like I said, neither of them got to see when the other person first started loving them, because it’s all back-to-front and they exist in a state of resignation. I can think of no better way to feel insecure about where you stand with the man you love than literally never ever knowing when it will begin.

But River’s cool. She’s brave and clever and she can do just about anything she wants with whoever she wants. She can live like the Doctor—adventures in time and space, and maybe sometimes he’ll run into her. In fact, she keeps calling on him when she needs help, and doesn’t he always come? Doesn’t that mean something? One day they’ll be married, just keep waiting, okay, now they are married, he’ll get used to it, he still flirts with her, stay cool, stay funny, stay smart, at least he’s still around, just keep waiting— And then after a while she stops waiting. She’s not like her mother. She gets on with life. The Husbands of River Song is genius because their timelines are synced perfectly, at last, for them to be at the peak of their affection for one another. River doesn’t know him, but not because he’s wearing a new face, because he’s actually really, really obvious about the fact that it’s him. He’s constantly trying to get her to see it without outright saying it, but she has this mental block that will not even consider that he’s there, especially the deeper they go into danger together. Why is that? Well, she says it. The enemy says she’s the perfect bait, refers to her as the woman who loves the Doctor, and what does River say? It's right here. And it’s made very clear by her actions throughout the episode before this speech that River really does believe it. Because he’s standing right behind her listening to all of that and she hasn’t seen that it’s him, because of course he’s not here. She suffers from the same mentality her sweet dad Rory did—that the person she loves will never love her the way she loves them. River doesn’t think she’s nothing, but she thinks she’s nothing to the Doctor.

I think it’s beautiful that she was wrong. I think the Doctor loves River, and I think it’s a very different love than what he had for Rose Tyler (or, now that I think of it, Sarah Jane). It’s still love, it’s just not the same. It’s nice that you can ship both, actually.

(If you ask me which I think is the better love story between the two ships, that’s a different essay for a different time, and one that I think will have people drop-kicking me throughout every facet of the internet. Right now we’re focusing on River and on her ship with the Doctor, which I do enjoy.) I may not think that it was brilliantly executed, but the fact remains that at some point, the Doctor did grow to love and care about River Song. And there’s one part of their wedding that I also liked a lot— When he marries her and her parents give consent, the Doctor’s first request of his wife is “help me”. That’s what wives do! That’s what husbands need from wives! That’s marriage. The sticking together no matter what, being the person you both turn to in life’s darkest moments. River understood that concept, because when Amy asks in The Angels Take Manhattan if allowing the Angel to touch her will send her to Rory, who has just died in front of them, the Doctor says he doesn’t know, and Amy asks “But it’s my best shot, yeah?” The Doctor shouts no, but River tells him to shut up. “Yes, yes, it is!” And she’s crying, but she’s smiling too. She knows what she would do if she were Amy. She knows why Amy is going to let the Angel touch her. Because that’s marriage. And that’s what she feels for the Doctor. I do ship it! I love the idea that love helped shape River instead of hate, contrary to Kovarian’s plans for Melody. I love the idea that the Doctor started out untrusting of River and in the end, trusted her implicitly. I love that he had her when he needed help. And let’s face it, they really are so much fun.

[bi4demibuddie]

I think some people need to be real here, about interviews.

Tim Minear saying in an interview about Buck getting Tommy’s attention makes sense. He’s talking about right now. He wasn’t going to put Buck and Tommy together and have this big deal of a kiss and hype it all up just to go ‘well…actually it was Eddie” later down the line he could very much twist it round. He isn’t going to spoil future plots. Ryan Guzman said at the beginning of the season that Eddie was going to be happier this season and was being somewhat positive about his relationship with Marisol, we now know that was a lie for obvious reasons. Oliver said in an interview during the break that he had no idea what they were doing with Eddie’s story which was a lie because they would have been in the middle of filming these episodes and considering Oliver/Buck is in the Vertigo poster and gonna be involved he’d already know about it.

It’s like Ryan saying that Eddie is straight in an interview, he’s gonna say that because he was talking about right now and in the moment Buck came out it him. When Buck came out to him Eddie was canonically straight and it also would mess up the vibe of his current story by saying he was anything else, they can still change it later.

They are media trained and sometimes bluff in interviews so they don’t give anything away. It would also actually be very shitty of Tim Minear to actually use Eddie as a misdirect for Buck getting another mans attention, it’s a slap in the face to buddies. He could have written it any other way for Buck to get with Tommy without getting Eddie involved and there is very clearly a reason he did have Eddie involved especially since he spent more time talking about Eddie that whole episode.

hi anon! Yeah, i read the interview in question and i found it kind of ambiguous in its wording. Also, Tim wouldn't outright just say it was Eddie because it would be kind of crazy to admit that just after having Buck kiss another man.

What Tim says in the interview is this:

"I was excited to play a story about Buck being jealous of his best friend being stolen by a guy who's kind of like a cooler version of Buck, at least in Buck's head. So that's the story that you think you're watching. That's the story that Buck thinks he's in. That is not the story."

Which in both cases (Buck is vying for Eddie's attention because he is love with him, or in the case that it really is T's attention he's trying to get) it's true. In both cases it's not the story of a man jealous because he feels like his best friend is being stolen.

He also says:

" I never say he's trying to get Eddie's attention. He's trying to get somebody's attention. And I think it's in that moment in the loft when he says, "Trying to get your attention has been a little exhausting" — it's in that moment where Buck realizes, "Yeah, I guess so. I guess this has been about you the whole time."

Would like to point out that he doesn't need to say that it's Eddie because the show, you know, blatantly shows you. And, again, he is not going to just come out and say in an interview just after that episode that it's Eddie when in the end of said episode Buck says the contrary.

Also, notice how Tim doesn't say it's T's attention either? He says somebody. He doesn't tell you it's T's attention that Buck wants, he deliberately uses Bucks own words of "Yeah, i guess so. I guess this has been about you the whole time" Which still emphasizes the fact that he is not sure, and Buck may have realized wrong. Tim could have outright come out and said it's T, and he pointedly doesn't.

And let's assume it's really T's attention. Problem 1: you are right, it would be extremely mean for Tim to frame this entire episode the way it's framed, knowing that there's a large fanbase that ships buddie. He would have been laughing in our faces. Problem 2: Why does the gym scene exist? Why is Buck peacocking to get Eddie's attention? There also are some scenes that i can't explain if we follow that perspective. Also would like to point out that you don't need to have Buck yapping nonstop about Eddie throughout the entire conversation with T, even after the kiss. What is up with that?

Let's point out the fact that they've kept framing Buck and Eddie like a couple in the following episodes, which certainly is a choice. They did not need to put Buck and Eddie in a couple's costume for the bachelor party, but they did. They did not need to have Eddie drop Chris at Buck's home to go cheat on his girlfriend with his ex-wife's doppelganger, yet they did and framed it as if it was Buck who Eddie was cheating on, like Eddie lying to Buck was more important than Eddie lying to Marisol.

The show is making choices, and it seems like it's going somewhere that might be Buddie related. If they are not going the Buddie route, they should stop framing them as a couple an focus more on each other's current relationships with their SOs.

Finally, you always have to take interviews with a grain of salt, especially the ones made just after an episode has aired. Until the season is over, or even the show is over, you never know if they are telling you the truth or it it's a lie to throw you off the scent. It's fun to speculate about what they are saying, but don't take their words as confirmation for anything because thing could change.

[anonymous-dentist]

Can you give me a recap. What's happening with Cellbit???

God what isn’t happening with Cellbit

Basically, here’s a list of what the Feds have done to him, and his current response:

15 years ago, the Federation kidnaps him after he sees something he shouldn’t have. It seems like he was being held for observation. He escaped, but I think he was caught again? Idk I don’t speak Portuguese

He got shipped SOMEHOW to the Hunger Games with no memories of his childhood with Bagi and his parents

Time passes. He’s put in prison because people were “afraid of [his] potential”, aka probably because he was entirely too chill with killing the shit out of people

Time passes again, he crashes onto the island, and Problems Start

My guy gets chainsaw tortured! Aka he gets chased down a hallway and murdered by a laughing Cucurucho and then revived and chased down a hallway and shown his corpse by a laughing Cucurucho. After an interrogation, he’s elevatored upstairs to… Richarlyson’s old bedroom area, which was basically the Feds saying “Hey we’ll do this to your son too lol”

Felps aka Cellbit’s best friend get kidnapped

Bobby dies and so does most of Roier’s soul

Because of that, Cellbit joins the Feds to investigate secretly and shit. He then gets kidnapped and he ends up losing like three days’ worth of memories

He tells people about the chainsaw torture and they laugh in his face and/or ignore him. For MONTHS

The Feds try and murder him during the elections, but that’s fine, he ends up murdering himself

The Feds trick him into giving up a HUGE amount of information in a secret office under his house (this is a surprise tool that will help us later)

They keep making him go on jobs for them, and he’s pretty sure that they’re the guys threatening to kill his son if he tells anybody about the missions (that was probably the Resistance tbh, but he doesn’t even know they exist)

ElQuackity happens. Just. Everything about him tbh, but especially him threatening both Richas and Roier to the point of Roier Cubito legit being afraid for the literal first time ever that Cellbit has known him

Then the eggs get kidnapped, and the Feds aren’t doing shit to help

Then Forever and Pac are drugged

Then Forever is sent on a suicide mission into the Nether

And then the eggs aren’t back

And then there’s a Federation prison on the server

And then the eggs aren’t back and neither is Forever

And now Roier is even more of a broken man than he already was because the Federation isn’t doing shit to help find the eggs

And then Cellbit finds out that he’s missing 12 or so years of his life because of the Federation. That he had a HOME, and then. He didn’t. Because of them.

Tbh I think that last bit was the real final straw, but then:

The Mini-Me event was because Cellbit got intel from a rebel worker (kinda) who promised Cellbit information in exchange for the “goods” at the presentation

Cellbit didn’t feel Anything even after he won the day by all means necessary after stealing the Mini-Mes

So he went home and had a nervous breakdown and now he’s killing workers because like. Okay.

So why is Cellbit killing all these workers? Well, he isn’t thinking super clearly now, but he’s basically trying to get his family off the island safely. That’s his priority. They can’t leave until the Feds are gone, so he’ll make the Feds gone.

He’s tired of the complacency everyone else is showing. After all the shit they’ve been put through on the island, why isn’t anybody actually fighting back? Don’t they want to leave?

So. Yeah! :D

[meraki-yao]

TN Candies Part 3

I was gonna make a collection like the last few times but thanks to his majesty Mister Tony Curran, I’m going slightly insane now, so this one is gonna be a little shorter (I’ll write another one during the weekend) but this one will be about M&G, so buckle up :D

Part 1/ Part 2

The usual disclaimers, if you know if jump directly to under the cut:

This post contains content regarding real-person shipping. If you’re uncomfortable with the subject, again, please don’t read under the post and leave

 I need to reiterate this in case my position in this gets misunderstood: My writing about “candies” isn’t because these are MY opinion or things *I* found or *I* believe in them being evidence. I am just a translator and messenger.

Chinese people have a very different understanding of platonic/romantic affection/relationships compared to the Western world, and they look at the candies with rose-tinted glass. Among the “candies” I’ve seen, most of them are a matter of interpretation: yes those are things couples will do, but it wouldn’t be weird if friends did it too. So they’re not that serious or up for further speculation. There is I think only one “candy” that I can’t quite say the same, which I will explain and elaborate on in this post. 

Please remember that the people who do this do it in good nature: If they’re just friends the fans won’t be upset or betrayed or anything, they just prefer to see them as romantic. They don’t mean any harm, and they don’t cause any harm because China is physically and digitally too far away for them to actually fuck shit up, and they understand the lines of parasocial relationships: those who met with Taylor during his China trip in December know to, and didn’t bring up this in front of him. They know where to draw the line, and whoever doesn’t and starts becoming a problem gets kicked out of the community. This is meant for fun.

Nick, Taylor, Tony and M&G, what the fuck is happening

1, "My Taylor"

The day(night) after the M&G teaser was dropped was the GQ Men of the Year event that both Taylor and Nick attended, but Nick left early. The funny thing is when asked to do a Taylor impression again, Nick said “My Taylor”. Now, clearly he means “My Taylor Impression” but that didn’t stop “My Taylor” from trending on Twitter. Active Weibo rwrb fan called 激情大肥鹅 (the username means… a thing that I will not translate, go use google translate😅) commented on the boys:

Translation:

“I can’t stop laughing I’m gonna die

Taylor: handsome  handsome  handsome

Nicholas: beautiful  giggles  shy  dropping his stuff on the ground”

2, The Crown

Mentioned this in my part 1 post in the Taylor’s China Trip section:

A fan asked Taylor to sign his and GQ magazine shoot, he first drew the moustache on Nick’s face, giggling “I’ll sign on Nick’s face”, signed his own signature, then just when he was about to give the magazine back he suddenly changed his mind and said “wait wait I wanna do something on my face”, and then drew a crown on his head while muttering “crown prince”.

So, to summarize the candies of this one fan interaction here: Historical George had such a moustache, Nick plays George, George is the King’s lover, Kings wear crown, and Taylor first drew a moustache on Nick and then a crown on himself.

… Go figure 😅

3, Alone

Currently, out of the 7 M&G posts on Nick’s Instagram, Taylor liked 3 of them: “The Son The Seducer” poster from 18 Jan, “Power breeds Power” poster from 16 Feb, and the red carpet post from last week. Note that in all three posts, we don’t see George with any of his lovers (sex partners? Idk the right word to use): the first poster is only George, the second poster is George with Mary looming over him, and the third is the cast.

4, Comments

Tony Curran (King James in M&G) commented flirty comments Nick’s GQ MOTY post and “The Son The Seducer” post. Now the weird thing with “The Son The Seducer” post is Taylor liked the post first, then Tony commented, and then A DAY AFTER HE LIKED IT Taylor went back to comment “Hell Yeah”! The likes one Taylor’s comment surpassed that of Tony’s comment (sorry sir😂)

5, Word Choice

(I really, really this one is a stretch but the Chinese fans like this one so I might as well translate) On M&G red carpet post, Taylor comments “Yeah Boy ”, and umm… the idea is he could have used “yeah baby” the same way he did during the RWRB UK VS US draw off, but he used “boy”, something not as on the nose as “baby” but more intimate/closer than something like “yeah man”

6, Twitter Likes

Whatever the fuck Tony’s doing today: Among Tony’s recent Twitter likes, there’s a couple of rwrb/firstprince posts, and a post of Taylor.

… yeah

(ok this is the tin hat part, so skip this bracket if you want to you have been warned: there’s this idea that if you’re in a relationship, your friends will cheer you on and tease you and like stuff about your relationship. It’s what my friend group does with the couple in our group, it’s also what happened to the cast of my rps ship JZ that I mentioned here: during the farewell concert to their show, the rest of the cast kept teasing JZ both in and out of character (JZ were okay with it, it’s all in good fun)…so… with that logic…yeah.)

Alright that’s it for this M&G special edition of candies!  I think I can get the next one done by Saturday, but definitely writing another one of these within the week (200 fucking screenshots…)

Tagging a couple of folks:

@lfg1986-2 @tal-vez-o-quizas @na-18dia @mylucayathoughts @androgynoustriumphclown @hopefulblizzardsublime @whattfisausername @leimons @ghostwithatophat @badhimboi88 @pippin-katz

If you're not on the list let me know if you want to tagged in the next one!

[digital-yuri-saga]

WALL•E and Unregulated Capitalism

So, we all know that the second half of WALL•E (Pixar, 2008) shows that apparently, in 700 years, the human race is all fat, “disabled” and “lazy”, right?

Except, the problem is, they didn’t get that way on their own.

WALL•E’s main message, in my mind, is that if left unchecked, capitalism will take away literally everything. And, you can see that: The Earth has been practically destroyed by pollution, and the human race has to live in a giant outer space cruise ship, confined to their reclining hover chairs and watching their holographic screens all day while they idly sip on their food, all Buy-N-Large(TM) brand.

What’s more - the tasks the humans would normally do, such as housekeeping, putting on makeup, teaching their babies everything they need to know to be able to Human properly, even piloting the damn ship - all of it is performed by robots who were made to take those tasks out of the humans’ hands.

But is that really it? No.

Part 1 - The First Half

At the beginning of the movie, we see WALL•E performing his programmed directive - to “clean up” the Earth by compacting all the trash on the ground into huge towers, and nothing else. There are dozens, if not hundreds of other WALL•E line robots who perform the same task, and they seem to be self-sufficient - they have their own shelter, they are solar-powered so they don’t have to rely on an outside source of energy, and they don’t seem to need anything else.

And then a dust storm happens and all of the robots are damaged except for one, the titular protagonist and the last of his kind.

The movie skips to 700 years later, at which point WALL•E seems to have gained some kind of individuality. He has plenty of spare parts to keep himself alive if needed, and more than that - He likes to collect things that the humans have left behind. He collects everything from twinkies to lighters to even VHS tapes, and he seems to love all of it - all the things that humans loved, that were left behind when they left Earth.

While we see WALL•E’s current daily life, we also get some context: The humans have left Earth as it is, and are now on a giant ship somewhere. This is revealed through an advertisement from Buy-N-Large, which was seemingly a prominent corporation in the world beforehand. They seem to have had control of everything, actually - we see an “Ultra-store”, gas station, and an unholy amount of other Buy-N-Large branded things, as well as enough advertisements to make the average person irate within seconds.

At some point, this company - who knows what they originally were - monopolized so much of everything that it had basically taken over what we see of Earth. Everything, everywhere was Buy-N-Large, and nothing else. There are even corporate-sponsored newspapers - promoting the propaganda they want regular people to hear.

We then get some blatant exposition in the form of an advertisement, fitting for the world as we see in the movie.

“Too much garbage in your face? There’s plenty of space out in space! BnL Starliners leaving each day, we’ll clean up the mess while you’re away.”

The mega-corporation was advertising vacations to the regular people, presumably also non-stop, in addition to the propaganda that the Earth was in trouble and everything sucked. Why not have a little escapism?

“The jewel of the BnL fleet - The Axiom! Spend your five-year cruise in style. Maided on 24-hours-a-day by our fully automated crew, while your captain and auto-pilot try to course for non-stop entertainment, fine dining…”

Here we get to see a glimpse of what humans looked like before they left - perfectly “normal”. There does seem to be some diversity in the people shown, too, though they are clearly actors who were likely cherry-picked and paid to promote this ship. I don’t see a single fat person in the ad, which is more likely implied to be because of the in-universe corporation choosing only the most conventionally attractive people to promote their product.

“…and with our all-access Hover Chairs, even grandma can join the fun! There’s no need to walk!”

Also, it seems that at least a small part of the intention of the hover chairs was to be a mobility aid for those who wouldn’t be able to get around a giant-ass cruise ship on foot. But, they weren’t just advertised to the elderly / disabled / people that needed them, they were advertised to everyone.

Everyone that could afford a “5-year” vacation on a giant cruise ship, anyway.

We don’t see what happens to those who may not be able to afford, or even get to, one of these ships. Presumably, they were left behind too. Would a giant capitalist regime let people on that couldn’t pay them? Doubtful.

After this, we see WALL•E discover the plant - a glimmer of hope. Something finally grew on Earth. And then, immediately after, a probe - presumably from BnL to try and find evidence that the Earth was sustainable for living - lands, carrying several EVE units, also presumably made by BnL. One of them is deployed from this ship, and she is activated and begins scanning her surroundings for life.

WALL•E follows this unit around and EVE pays him no mind, because he seemingly doesn’t have what she’s looking for. She is eventually frustrated with not being able to “complete her purpose” to the point of taking it out on her surroundings. The two finally exchange formalities, and once another dust storm passes by, WALL•E takes her back to shelter.

EVE seems to fall in love with all of WALL•E’s objects, just like he did, and then he shows her the plant. Detecting life, EVE’s programming overrides her free will and collects it as a sample, then forcibly shutting her down. WALL•E stays by her side the entire time until the ship comes back for her. He hitches a ride on the ship, not wanting her to be taken away forever, and it leaves for space with him, docking on the Axiom.

We see here that there is an immense amount of space junk orbiting Earth, and that BnL was even attempting to colonize the Moon.

After the EVEs are unloaded, we see some of the robot crew of the Axiom, who strictly conform to their directive. And, as soon as anyone steps out of line, police bots are summoned - and one of them sees the plant that EVE has found and takes her away.

Part 2 - The Second Half

After some robot hijinks, we see the state of humans 700+ years after they left Earth - All of them have become fat and seemingly unable to provide for themselves to a ridiculous extent. They are constantly bombarded by ads from the screens in front of them while the robots seemingly do everything else. Several generations have passed since the original humans boarded the ship. The robotic teachers are indoctrinating kids from a very young age about BnL - quote, “B is for Buy-n-Large, your very best friend.” The megacorp wants people to be dependent on them for everything - why else would they herd everyone into areas they have full control over?

Keep in mind that while these humans all seem to be fat and hover-chair bound - this seems to be enforced. As stated earlier, BnL wants people to be hopelessly dependent on them, because that’s how they stay in power.

WALL•E breaks one person’s immersion, and she looks around - she doesn’t immediately go back to what she’s looking at on the screen, and even helps WALL•E. She doesn’t go back to looking at her screen, either. She apparently didn’t even know the Axiom had a pool, even though she “could have” looked over and seen it at any time. That is how much control BnL had over these people’s lives.

EVE is brought directly to the cockpit of the ship, where the Auto-Pilot AI notices she has found a plant and wakes up the Captain. The Captain himself is victim to the same automation as everyone else. He simply goes through the motions, and then changes the time for everyone on the ship. After his morning announcements, in which another ad is shown, EVE is reactivated.

We then see the protocol for organic life being found - and a pre-recorded message from the then-current CEO of BnL. In this, he mentions that the microgravity of the ship could have caused some “slight bone loss”, an understatement, which leads me to wonder - Was the CEO telling the truth about the passengers��� state being due to the conditions outside the ship? Or was the complete immersion, to the point where the Captain of the ship remarks he didn’t know there was a jogging track, the real cause for their current state?

During a “why can’t I voice activate the book :(“ joke, WALL•E and EVE reunite, and EVE immediately rushes to hide him from the police bot and tries to warn him of something related. Hmm.

Once EVE is opened up, the plant seems to be gone somehow. EVE is deemed to be ‘defective’, and sent to the repair ward. This will be important later.

We then see the Captain analyze a sample of dirt that came from WALL•E, and out of curiosity, he then begins to look up topics related to Earth. Knowledge that he didn’t already have. Knowledge that Buy-N-Large did not educate him on, because they wanted him to be just as hopelessly dependent on them as the others.

We are then taken to the “repair ward” - where the “defective” robots go. Here we see robots with all sorts of erratic behavior, behavior that puts them out of line. When looking at these robots as if they were human, this can also be interpreted as stereotypical mental illness that this repair ward is trying to “cure”. WALL•E promptly causes a scene, accidentally freeing all of these robots, who parade him around and alert the attention of the police bots. The robots, meant to serve the passengers of the ship, are governed by their own police state.

WALL•E and EVE are framed as rebels, and they go down to the escape pod bay, where we can see a police robot deposit the plant necessary for the humans return to Earth into an escape pod so it isn’t found.

The police robots are programmed not only to enforce compliance on the robots, but to use deception to keep the humans as they are - hopelessly dependent on Buy-N-Large.

WALL•E goes after the pod, and is shot into space along with it. We then see that the pod is set for self-destruct, implying the robot’s intention was to destroy the plant. To kill any remaining hope that humans could return to Earth.

The plant is saved and WALL•E and EVE have some romantic moments in space, and we come back to the woman from earlier, who still has not turned her screen back on. She is still admiring the view of space from the giant windows as the others cruise by, immersed in their screens. She accidentally breaks another person’s immersion, the man from earlier, and they connect over seeing WALL•E outside.

We cut back to the cockpit, and the Captain is still doing research into everything he’s missed about Earth. The Auto-Pilot tries to get him to stop by setting the ship to “nighttime mode”, but he doesn’t listen and continues researching. He does not blindly follow the AI. The other two humans seem to rebel some, too, splashing pool water at each other with their feet, and then at a robot when it tells them not to.

WALL•E and EVE sneak back into the ship, and EVE tries to sneak through a trash chute back to the cockpit in order to deliver the plant. The Captain is overjoyed, but that turns to confusion and disappointment when he sees EVE’s memories of Earth. But, that doesn’t last very long, since he has that hope for a better Earth - the plant. They have to go back.

The Captain calls the Auto-Pilot down, who immediately tries to take back the plant, and when the Captain refuses to give the plant to it, it shows him a video - from the same Buy-N-Large CEO. And the CEO gives the message,

“…so, just stay the course. Um, rather than try and fix this problem, it’ll be easier for everyone to remain in space.”

”Rather than try and fix this problem, it’ll be easier for everyone to remain in space.”

Not that it would be impossible to solve.

It would be easier.

All of this - the programming the Auto-Pilot and police bots conformed to that led them to use deception to keep humans in space, the completely sedentary, fully immersed-in-ads states the humans were led into, the reason they have been up there for 700 years - all of it was because of the opinion of one man. One CEO. One CEO who decided that it was easier if humans never regained their autonomy, that it was easier if they never got back to a state where they could fend for themselves. He wanted this.

The Captain once again rebels against the AI from Buy-N-Large.

“I can’t just sit here and do nothing! That’s all I’ve ever done! That’s all everyone on this blasted ship has ever done! NOTHING!”

“I don’t WANT to survive! I want to live!”

The Captain - no, the humans don’t actually want this. And when they are given even a scrap of their agency back, by chance through WALL•E or otherwise - they want to do things their way. Not the way Buy-N-Large wants them to.

As soon as the Captain plainly denies the Auto-Pilot, it and the police bots still under Buy-N-Large’s will immediately go against the Captain. The plant is taken from his arms and thrown into the trash chute. And who manages to climb up the chute just then, but WALL•E. He tries to keep the Auto-Pilot from getting the plant, and the Auto-Pilot resorts to damaging another robot to get what “it” wants.

What Buy-N-Large wants.

Both of the robots are tossed down the trash chute, and the Auto-Pilot forcibly takes control of the ship.

But hope is not lost - WALL•E and EVE reawaken in the trash area, and they realize that WALL•E can be repaired if they get home. So, the two of them fly out of the trash area, going straight for the area where they will deposit the plant and turn the ship around.

The Auto-Pilot catches wind of this, and sends every police bot available after them. The Captain helps by hijacking the comms, telling WALL•E and EVE what to do. The “defective” robots from before help the two, and the Captain stages his own rebellion by causing a distraction. He manages to press the button to launch the return mode of the ship, and everybody’s immersion is broken at the same time. They are herded onto the same deck, and see reality for themselves - the Captain is struggling against his own robot. The Auto-Pilot ends up tilting the ship to get the Captain off of it, and because of this all of the humans fall out of their chairs and begin sliding helplessly downhill.

Mind you, these people have just been broken out of their entranced state induced by Buy-N-Large - likely for the first time. They may never have moved a muscle outside of changing what they were watching, or grabbing a cup - all because Buy-N-Large wanted it that way. They have all just been given their agency back for the first time. And, after the humans are almost killed by transportation vehicles because of the Auto-Pilot, and WALL•E ends up squashed in the plant deposition chamber because of the Auto-Pilot, the Captain stands up for himself.

Literally.

It may not be true for every single human on the ship, but they have always had the ability to stand up for themselves, literally and figuratively. Buy-N-Large - the mega-corporation - tried to snuff all of that autonomy out.

The Captain is able to walk - albeit with difficulty - over to the Auto-Pilot and turn it off, and the ship is turned back upright. Some of the other humans can be seen standing up too in this scene, so these specific humans may not have needed mobility aids - this is unclear. But, either way, they, along with everyone else, were forced into them, necessary or not, for Buy-N-Large’s purposes.

Together, everyone manages to pass the plant to EVE, who tosses it into the deposition chamber. The course is set for Earth, and the humans fall over again as the ship launches at hyper-speed towards its destination. The Axiom lands on Earth, and the humans step out onto its surface for the first time.

One notable thing I see in the background at this point - you can see one human walking with the help of a robot as a mobility aid. Despite their autonomy being returned, some of the humans may still need mobility aids, and that’s okay. That’s normal.

WALL•E is repaired, he and EVE have their happy ending, and, meanwhile, the humans set out to rebuild. The scene pans backwards to see the progress the humans have made - and a lot more plants. And then the movie ends.

The credits show more of this progress, with the humans making progress as the visuals “evolve”, seen with the evolution of art - likely not to imply that the humans were in a “devolved” state, but to emphasize just how much was being done - and, hopefully, the influence of Buy-N-Large is gone forever.

Part 3 - Afterword

Disney-Pixar’s WALL•E is not about how, if left to their own devices, humans will become lazy and ruin the planet.

WALL•E is about how, if left unregulated, capitalism will strip away the freedoms humans have outside of their interactions with their products, to the point where they are hopelessly dependent on them, because nothing else exists.

We don’t see very much of the more controversial parts of humanity in WALL•E - homelessness, real (not artificially induced) disability, the differing opinions of humans - because capitalism in that world has tried (and almost succeeded!) in stamping those out.

Sometimes, a narrative will not include everything that exists to tell itself.

I believe, for a movie made in 2008 (16 years ago, almost two decades at this point!), WALL•E makes a great point. That point is not about the hopelessness of humanity, but the dangers of capitalism.

Was it insensitive, in retrospect, to portray that by way of making all of humanity fat and “lazy”?

Yes, but they were never “lazy” in the first place. They were made that way through several hundred years of indoctrination by the corporation - the capito-fascist regime that had control over their very existence. As soon as they gained their autonomy back, they used it to stand up for themselves - taking the “hard way” out.

Does it demonize mobility aids through this? No. The hover-chairs used as mobility aids throughout the movie were partially intended to be mobility aids for those who needed it - Buy-N-Large abused those to give themselves another layer of control over the humans. We also see a human still using a mobility aid at the end of the movie, a walker, when everyone steps off the ship.

Would this movie hold up to 2024’s standards for fat representation? It definitely seems like this isn’t the case. But, the movie was made in 2008. It would be impossible to properly hold a film to standards that came into play after it was created.

TL;DR: WALL•E doesn’t think humans will end up lazy - but they may be subjected to capitalist fascism.

[maul-of-shame]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I also saw people hating the thought of Elrondriel, but they were quick to pair Galadriel with Adar. Their logic? Elrond is her friend, ergo it would be cliché to make him fall in love with Galadriel, because friendship should stay as friendship, and nothing else. Okay??? But it's perfectly fine and better to ship her with her enemy, again? Sauron, yes, Adar, yes, but not Elrond? What gives?

(I'm not against these ships btw, just calling out the double standard.)

Is there actually something wrong with a deep friendship that slowly and gently turns into something more? No, there isn't anything wrong with that, and no, Galadriel and Elrond are not acting like brother and sister. There's a stark difference between the Galadriel/Finrod moments and the Galadriel/Elrond scenes.

[TW: Rant again cause I'm on a roll and on fire X'DDD]

I’m so very glad you brought this up because I’ve been seeing this exact double standard floating around too, and I just cannot with it.

Look, I’m not against Adar/Galadriel (I do enjoy Adariel, haven't interracted with it yet but I can see the appeal) or any ship—go ahead, ship whatever you want!

But this logic? It’s the epitome of “I like this, but not that, and here’s a completely arbitrary reason why.”

So, let me get this straight: the moment you make Elrond and Galadriel’s friendship into something more, it’s suddenly cliché, right? Because friendship should stay friendship?

But it’s totally fine for Galadriel to get into bed with a literal ancient evil, Sauron himself or any other Dark Lord?

The irony is just delicious.

You can ship her with the very embodiment of darkness and corruption, but if Elrond, who’s always been a close and trusted ally to Galadriel, even looks at her with something other than a platonic gaze, suddenly it’s all “cliché,” “too much,” “not original.” It’s almost like they’re pretending not to see the clear bond between Galadriel and Elrond—one of mutual respect, understanding, shared history, and deep care for each other’s well-being.

That, to me, is exactly what a slow-burn, deep love is built on.

Repeat it with me people: There’s nothing wrong with friendship turning into something more when it's built on real, solid emotional connection. It’s organic, it’s human, and honestly, it’s beautiful. There’s depth in that kind of love.

But then the moment you try to pair Galadriel with Elrond in this context, it’s somehow wrong or “too easy”? It’s hilarious.

Sure, throw her into an emotionally abusive, manipulative situation with Sauron or any dark lord because they’re enemies and the tension of that makes things "interesting".

[ Side note: If you have to resort to emotionally abusive, manipulative situations to make your character’s journey "interesting" or "complex," then maybe the problem isn’t with the character, but with the way you’re writing them.

Like, seriously, there are so many other ways to create depth and tension in a story without dragging a character through the mud and having them suffer for no reason other than to generate conflict. This isn’t 101 on how to build an interesting plotline—it's just lazy writing with a side of drama for the sake of drama. I mean, sure, you can throw a character into situations where they have to face tough choices or grow through adversity, but that doesn't mean you need to abuse them emotionally, manipulate their trauma, or throw them in the path of dark lords and villains "just to create tension".

That’s a shortcut, not depth.

There’s a difference between character growth through adversity and the kind of plot that thrives on pain and suffering for the sake of shock value.]

But when it comes to Elrond, a guy who’s clearly been there for her, supporting her—genuinely supporting her from the start—it’s somehow "too convenient"?

Why? Because it’s "friendship", and “we don’t want that to ruin the purity of their bond.” As if Galadriel herself wouldn’t be the first to want the peace and comfort that someone like Elrond could give her, after everything she’s been through.

To me, it's not about them suddenly becoming these romantic figures in one swoop; it’s about the rich layers that develop naturally between them. Their relationship is built on history, respect, and even some shared grief. Galadriel isn't just falling for anyone with a pretty face—she’s looking at someone who’s been her rock, who understands the weight she carries, who’s seen the darkness within her, and who never once turned away.

That’s real intimacy, not forced or contrived.

It’s the slow warmth that grows over time from knowing someone deeply. Why is that so hard to believe?

And let’s get one thing straight—this whole “they’re like brother and sister” comparison? Nope. I’m sorry, but no.

There’s a huge difference between the deep connection Galadriel has with Finrod and the one she shares with Elrond. Finrod’s relationship with Galadriel is one of family, and while it’s incredibly tender, it’s not the same kind of connection that Elrond and Galadriel share. Their dynamic is a different kind of love—one that isn’t defined by familial bonds but by friendship, mutual respect, and eventually, yes, romantic potential.

People will sit there all day saying, “Elrond is like a brother to Galadriel,” but then, when Sauron LITERALLY takes the form of her DEAD BROTHER, trying to manipulate her and pull her to the dark side (again, literally using her brother's face to corrupt her), somehow that doesn’t even raise an eyebrow?

I mean, we’re supposed to believe that it’s fine for Sauron to impersonate Finrod’s image, playing on Galadriel’s grief and vulnerabilities, yet Elrond is “like a brother”?

A brother???!!!!!

Galadriel's actual brother’s face was hijacked by the dark lord, and she didn’t fall into the abyss of despair, but Elrond sharing an emotional, deep connection with her over centuries is “too much” for some people? Make it make sense.

It’s the perfect example of how people are willing to turn a blind eye to the most manipulative, abusive moments in the story when it involves characters they don’t want to see paired together. But when it comes to Galadriel and Elrond? Suddenly, they’re “siblings,” as if it’s some sort of forbidden, untouchable relationship that would “ruin” everything about her. But Sauron literally impersonating her brother to emotionally manipulate her and "be in love with her"? Sure, no problem, no issues there.

It’s like they’re treating Galadriel’s trauma and grief as a plot device for Sauron’s evil schemes, but when Elrond—someone who truly cares for her and has always been by her side—is involved, suddenly it’s too close, too uncomfortable, and “off-limits.” Talk about double standards here again, where emotional manipulation by the villain is fine and dandy, but a slow-burn, actual partnership rooted in respect and shared history is somehow crossing a line.

It’s truly mind-boggling.

You can’t claim one thing and then completely ignore the depths of manipulation and trauma inflicted upon Galadriel when it’s convenient.

That’s where we draw the line: when the logic is selective and clearly biased. If we're going to look at Galadriel’s relationships and her emotional depth, let’s actually consider the nuance, the growth, and the potential for her to be loved and cherished, not just used or placed into situations where her suffering is the point.

To me, Elrond and Galadriel’s connection is one of mutual respect and understanding, not some weird brother/sister complex. And if Sauron can masquerade as Finrod and nobody bats an eye? Then there's absolutely no reason for people to act like Elrond’s connection with Galadriel is some taboo thing. Let her have love, let her be cared for.

Let’s stop pretending that Elrond’s feelings are any less valid than Sauron’s manipulations.

[stargirlie25]

Yall

In the blinding sun off the turquoise water, his shadows were gone, his face stark and clear. More ... human than I had ever seen him.-Acowar

When Azriels shadows disappear, he looks most human. Which he is not and will never be. Also the sun is very clearly mentioned here.

“I don’t want a mate. I don’t want a male.” She wanted a human man.-Acofas

Could this be the reason Elain is drawn to Azriel? He is another version of her once love? It seems that Elain might be attracted to the illusion of Azriel. He looks most human when his shadows are gone and his shadows always vanish around Elain.

Now Elain is drawn to sunshine. the sun. Light. brightness.

The suite was filled with sunlight.

Every curtain shoved back as far as it could go, to let in as much sun as possible. As if any bit of darkness was abhorrent. As if to chase it away.And seated in a small chair before the sunniest of the windows, her back to us, was Elain.

We both took the invitation and left our sister in her sunlit room.

She had been always so full of light

“What can I get you, Elain?” Only with Elain did she use that voice. But Elain shook her head once more. “Sunshine.”

She set down the tray and wiped her flour-coated hands on the apron she wore over her dusty-pink gown. Even in the middle of winter, she was a bloom of color and sunshine

While Azriel....

Az said, his shadows lingering in the archway, as if fearful of the bright sunlight in the ring.

So if this is clear, Elain is sunshine,loves sunshine,resorts to sunshine,and symbolizes sunshine. Sunshine/light are a part of her true character.

Azriels shadows disappear around sunshine AND Elain.

See how both this characters together take away from each other?

Azriel shadows. Always would be his companions. Always disappear around Elain.

Elain always full of light. Finds darkness abhorrent. Night court black specifically sucking the light from her face.

They both compliment each other horribly. Taking away something important from each of them.

He still has not gotten over his feelings for Mor.

She still wears Graysen's engagement ring.

They are both a distraction or a runaway to their problems.

Azriel wants Elain because he thinks she should be his mate.

Elain's reason for not wanting Lucien is because he is her mate.

Azriel thinks Elain should be with him because he is the last brother and she is the last sister. As he said ''the third was given to another'' MEANING Elain could be anyone, any person but that would not matter because Azriels crack theory still stands. This also proves, that he has no real problems with Lucien. Its just the fact that the ''another'' is mated to the ''third'' sister.

His petty jealousy of Eluciens bond is because of his own problems he has been struggling with for centuries. He believes he will be happy like his brothers if he were to be with Elain. His problems led him to say bullshit about Lucien which is incredibly uncalled for. He would say it even if it were another male. There's no real reason for Azriel to not like Lucien.

By the way another thing debunking Azriels dumb crack theory is the fact that Rhysand,Cassian and himself are not actually brothers?

There best friends at most. This flumps the ''how could two sisters be given to my two brothers but the third was given to another!'' (This isn't the actual quote''

BECAUSE YALL ARE NOT BROTHERS. DIFFERENT BLOOD. DIFFERENT FRICKING EARS. DIFFERENT DAD. DIFFERENT MOMMA. PEOPLE LITERALLY SHIP HIM WITH RHYSANDS SISTER!!!

RHYSAND,CASSIAN AND AZRIEL COULD FUCK IF THEY WANTED TOO AND NOTHING WOULD HAPPEN?

Only the Archerons are sisters. Otherwise they all ended up with their people who match them.

[rey-jake-therapist]

I was looking at your previous posts about Elrond/Galadriel and was curious as to how you’d feel if the show actually went in that direction (let’s never mind the topic of celeryborn for a second). I personally don’t mind the idea of this storyline, live and let ship. That being said, hypothetically in my opinion if it did happen it would have an inevitable element of Galadriel settling for a relationship that makes her feel safe after getting burned by the “monumental galaxy shift” of Sauron. I can buy Elrond having unspoken romantic feelings, but I personally can’t see her feeling any grand passion for him, considering that they’ve been friends for so long and she’s never been drawn to him that way. (In comparison she was clearly attracted to Halbrand almost instantly.)

I have read some posts arguing that Elrondiel would actually be healthy for Galadriel, unlike Haladriel which is TOXIC11!!!; not that I disagree, but if we’re talking about Galadriel’s actual choices/motivations/feelings in canon, as much as it makes antis fume, Sauron is the one she passionately desires. (I am not counting her mentioning the long-dead husband once, I’m talking about her emotional landscape in the present here.) Is that love mixed with rage/betrayal/grief/a lot of other bad feelings? Absolutely. But the monumental galaxy shift did happen, and it’s not doing Galadriel justice trying to erase it. In contrast, other good guy love interest options may be “better” for her, but does SHE actually want THEM? The show has yet to convince me of that. I think the show may have written itself a bit of corner at this point because any other potential Galadriel romance will have the spectre of her Sauron trauma hanging over it.

Okay, let's forget about Celeborn and Celebrian indeed.

If Galadriel and Elrond got together, got married, conceived Arwen, if Galadriel didn't build Lothlorien but lived with Elrond in Rivendell instead, yada yada (sorry but just writing this makes my head hurt... No Lothlorien ?!), it wouldn't be the first time in fiction that a female character would end up making the "safest choice", over the bad boy. And yes, we're supposed to believe that she's very happy like that and has no regrets whatsoever, because these stories are often written by, you know, men, who more than often self insert themselves into the character of "the good guy".

Of course, the problem with Saurondriel isn't only that Sauron is a "bad boy". I mean, he's literally a menace lol I love Saurondriel more than I ever thought I would, but I love it as a doomship. I love the fact that it's a romance that can never get a happy ending.

I think the show may have written itself a bit of corner at this point because any other potential Galadriel romance will have the spectre of her Sauron trauma hanging over it.

Yes, it probably will, and that's another reason why at the end, I'd rather have Celeborn come out of the woods and take his husband's role back. It would be really unfair for Elrond, who deserves much better than being a third wheel. Celeborn, on the other hand ? He's perfect for the job !

And may I say that this obsession with wanting Galadriel to settle down with someone that early in the show is a bit weird ?? She and Elrond are friends. Even if they decide for whatever reason to put Celeborn off the table and have Galadriel and Elrond get together, it can happen at the very end of the show ? What would a romance do except complicating things, exactly ? And same for Celeborn, why are people so obsessed with him coming back in season 3, what's the rush ? He would come for what, exactly, what did this man ever bring to the story ? There's a reason they declared him dead, he's that useless.

Last time I checked, the main subject of TROP was the Rings of power, Sauron's coming to power and the mess it created in Middle Earth, not Galadriel's love life. Let her shut the door at her ex's face and then we'll see ? idk ?

[better-call-mau1]

Congratulations! You’re being smothered with a completely random headcanon about Mandalorian marriage customs rescued! Please do not resist.

The Rite of Riduurok Akaanir, aka “Lover’s Quarrel”

Alright…so I gotta be honest and say that even though I can’t remember how exactly this headcanon came to me, I’ve been carrying it around for years, ever since first watching Rebels and shipping Sabezra 😅 …and at this point, I feel like it’s burning a hole in my head, trying desperately to get out, so I’m gonna save myself the expense of reconstructive cranial surgery and just share it:

Mandalorians like to fight. Actually, they don’t just like to fight, “weapons are a part of [their] religion,” or at least their culture—and for many, their entire lives are built around that. In the case of the Children of the Watch, strict adherence to a No-Living-Being-Can-See-You-With-Your-Helmet-Off orthodoxy even gets in the way of basic interpersonal behavior, like eating a meal together. The implications of that are…interesting…and not in a “wow that’s cool!” way…more like a “kark, that’s depressing” way.

Basically, I started to wonder how the “BAM! BOOM! BAM! BOOM! BLOW STUFF UP AND KILL THOSE FORCE-WIELDING MANIACS!” portion of Mandalorian culture (so…most of it?) intersects with intrinsic parts of human…wait, nope, sorry Grogu sentient life—namely romantic intimacy. (Paz Vizsla has, presumably, not taken his helmet off in decades…and he has a son who’s probably 12ish years old, tops…so do you think he ever stares at his kid and tries parsing out his own features to get an idea of what his wife looks like?) It’s an extreme example from an extreme sect, but there’s application to Mandalorian society as a whole. Where does love fit into a worldview or galaxy-view, I guess where conflict is a core tenet? When do individuals stop existing as warriors and start existing as people? Do they ever?

Anyway, the point is that on its face, the cultural dogma doesn’t seem to leave much room for authentic social and romantic intimacy, especially the latter since, ya know, the beskar has to come off both literally and figuratively in order to procreate. It’s difficult for me to see how the necessity of physical and emotional vulnerability can coexist with the rest of Mando culture—so let’s just leave it at that.

But for a civilization to survive as long as Mandalore has without totally disintegrating, those intimate relationships have to exist, and there’s plain evidence that they do. For all their problems, the Wren family clearly loves each other, and we even get a glimpse of some soft Alrich/Ursa PDA in “Heroes of Mandalore.” Then there’s Bo-Katan, who still cares deeply for her sister despite…well…joining a terrorist faction to help overthrow her. That says something, right?

Wrapping my mind around how authentic love can exist in a fictional warrior society really got me thinking—so much so that I headcanoned a ritual (Riduurok Akaanir, “Lover’s Quarrel”) to help myself work it all out.

The general idea? On Mandalorian wedding nights, the bride and groom have a private duel. A duel to the death? Maybe if it’s an arranged marriage and one party really wants out and I’m gonna speculate that Bo-Katan widowed herself at least four times before running off to join Death Watch.

More commonly, though, it’s just a playful act to embody love transcending conflict. Alrich Wren, for example, isn’t a traditional warrior, but Ursa didn’t assert her superior combat prowess on their wedding night by firing a wrist rocket at his face something Bo-Katan probably did to a few of the short-lived husbands Satine picked out for her. (“Parry this, you kriffing casual.”) Instead, I’d like to think Alrich and Ursa went through the basic motions of a hand-to-hand duel, not necessarily to prove who’s the better warrior, but as an intimate prelude to the actual consummation of their marriage—almost like a mutually disarming dance. (Could it be light-heartedly competitive? Sure! As the first Mando to perform the Riduurok Akaanir with a Jedi, Sabine would go all-out to make sure she doesn’t lose to Ezra! 😆) When the dance-duel ends, they set aside their warrior identities to become something more: husband and wife. It’s like a way of saying, “As Mandalorians, what we do is fight, but we’re more than mere weapons. We fight so we can love. We wear armor to protect ourselves, our homes, and our families. It’s an important part of who we are, but we’re ultimately made of flesh and blood, not cold beskar.”

So that’s the point of Riduurok Akaanir, a term I came up with using this nifty English to Mando’a online translator (before I just called it “Wedding Night Fight” in my head). It’s not supposed to be a blanket explanation—but intimacy and vulnerability don’t have clear utility in a warrior culture, and this is my best attempt at bridging that perceived gap.

If you made it down this far without dozing off, enjoy this Sabezra incorrect quote! 😁

Fenn Rau: I trust that Sabine briefed you on Mandalorian wedding customs?

Ezra: Yep! I know exactly how not to get myself killed before officially becoming a married man.

Rau: The trick is not getting yourself killed *after* becoming a married man. Did she explain what happens on the wedding night?

Ezra: Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Rau:

Ezra:...yeahthatsnotreallysomethingIneedorwantSabinetoexplaintomeandKanankindofgavemethelowdownbackduringmyJeditrainingdayssoIthinkIknowwhattodobutthanksanyway.

Rau: Kanan taught you about the Mandalorian ‘lover’s quarrel,’ then? His instruction was even more thorough that I imagined. Or maybe he always knew you and Sabine would end up together.

Ezra: Sorry, did you say...?

Rau: The Rite of Riduurok Akaanir is usually non-fatal. Sabine seems to be genuinely fond of you, so I’m sure you’ll survive to see the sunrise.

Ezra:

Ezra:

Ezra: Oh kriff.