#just because something is widely popular doesn’t make it canon

[quillkiller]

Remus and lily are best friends what are you on

listen yall need to grow the fuck up and just accept that some people simply wont agree with someone else’s made up hc <- just like you’re not agreeing with my hc, which isn’t a even a hc, because there’s nothing in canon saying they were ’best friends’

[mrabubu]

Heya! Ignore this if this is rude, sorry to just dump my opinions in your ask box like this!

About the Leosagi thing, it has a bit of a history in the tmnt fandom, that’s why it’s so popular now with the rise one. I’m not as knowledgeable as some older fans, but the Usagi comic book series and tmnt have been intertwined for a pretty long time. Crossovers and things have been happening almost every iteration, aside from rise. Each crossover tended to focus heavily on the friendship between Usagi and Leo, leading to a big chunk of the fandom shipping them in a bunch of the iterations.

The Usagi chronicles is widely regarded as a middle of the road show. It’s not amazing but it’s great to see the Usagi comic books get a show of their own! (in a, weird, several generations down the line way) The fact that it was released around the same time as rise, and that rise never got to have a Usagi crossover like most of the iterations before it, lead fans into taking the crossover into their own hands. It was tradition at that point, and those leading the charge happened to be the same ones who shipped Leosagi before rise, in 2003 and the like.

Leo being gay or trans has been a popular headcannon for a long time, probably because of the extremely queer fandom. Either way Leo in rise being more flamboyant than any Leo before him reinforced this I suppose. As someone who doesn’t mind the Leosagi ship (and is queer themself), I don’t think just because a guy is flamboyant or confident they’re gay. That’s a pretty small minded take and assuming that a guy can’t be flamboyant in any way without being “outside the norm” is a tale as old as time. But knowing this you can still have fun with flamboyant gay characters. I think some people can find comfort in head-cannoning a character as a confident, charismatic gay man!

But, aside from all of this, everyone should be allowed to do whatever they want with characters forever. People should not feel offended if anyone portrays a character as straight or gay, canon is fandoms personal playground and it doesn’t matter at the end of the day. I think your Y/N stuff is awesome and you should keep doing whatever you find joy in, because that’s what fandom is about. Try not to get too offended at the Leosagi shippers, tmnt has had this tradition long before rise, and it’s just the fandoms history moving forward with the newest iterations. Let the gay people go wild, doesn’t matter who they ship who with, if people are having fun and making art together.

I hope you don’t have to receive any kind of hate for the ship you prefer, you aren’t morally obligated to like anything, and this is your blog, you choose what happens here.

YOU are NOT being rude, anon, don't worry xd

Just in case, yeah, I know about history between TMNT and Usagi, and I know they had crossovers many times.

Again, I have no problems with people who enjoy their headcanons by themselves and don't touch anyone with it. You don't touch me, I don't touch you, simple as that. I'm not a fan of both these headcanons, so I just either keep scrolling or filter/hide them. I don't try to make people stop enjoying something they like because I have no right to do so.

About Leo, there was already a comment that I agree with, and I hope they don't mind if I quote them here:

"There's a difference between being flamboyant and being gay. Being flamboyant does not make you or someone gay. This is a common stereotype that can be harmful to the LGBTQ+ community. Being flamboyant is a way some people express themselves and their identity and trust me, it does not determine their sexual orientation or gender identity."

I have a little personal history with thing that is different, but has the same core, because I'm half-blood. One of my parents was from another country, and because of that some of my actions and personality have been judged based on my ethnicity.

Again, you headcanon Leo as gay? Okay, just please, don't try to make people believe it's canon. Because I've seen cases like this, and there's a whole video where a person basically says that Leo is gay and if you don't agree, "heck, you're wrong! And the fact that you don't agree only proves that it's canon" and a bunch of other "proves" that mostly made out of thin air. Like, wth...? Who gave you right to say something like that? You're not the creator of the show. And because of people like this there are a bunch of those who actually believe this headcanon to be canon.

For me it turns into a problem when people are crossing the line and start shoving their headcanons into your face, trying to prove/make you believe that it's canon, and simply being rude if you don't agree or just say that you don't like it. If a person didn't do anything to you personally, who said you have the right to being rude to them or even harass them?

If this behavior crosses the line of my interests, why do they have the right to be offended by my disagreement, but I have to ignore them if it hurts me?

Not to mention how bad I feel for RIse creators who are still being constantly pressured by people with all this which is NOT okay and shouldn't be okay.

Just in case, all this isn't directed personally to you, anon. I'm sorry for so much text again xd

[theshippirate22]

I have a theory

listen up bitches (gender neutral) (affectionate) i’ve been cooking this for an incredibly long time and i’m very very excited to share it but it is gonna be long so i’m putting it under a cut

my theory is that there has been a new set of archetypes created by popular m/m media either in canon or coding and i would love if it was more widely recognized by a distinct name so here we go:

I present to you: The Mirrorball x Running Up That Hill Boyfriends™️ Theory

i need to preface this by saying that i am absolutely not an english major or expert but i have done so much analysis that i’m 98% positive i’m on to something here

so usually mlm ships- at least in my experience- get boiled down into typical Grumpy x Sunshine, Golden Retriever x Black Cat, or like. Babygirl x Badass. and i hate that because those are like really watered down hetero romance stereotypes and i think queer people deserve to get our own archetypes instead of trying to force queer characters into prepaid boxes but that’s a story for another day so:

basically, all content with widely accepted mlm ships (even if they are more in coding than in canon) has this pattern with the ship that fits into Mirrorball x Running Up That Hill

(name pending- open to suggestions)

Boyfriend No.1 of course is the epitome of Mirrorball by Taylor Swift (i know, i know. bear with me here). He’s constantly trying to prove himself and his worth and usually he’s driven to hide or overcome 1-3 specific and intense insecurities/character flaws. He often has innate loyalty to a system or person who has repeatedly abused/neglected/abandoned him and thinks that this treatment is a result of his own character rather than a reflection of the abuser. In relation to the plot and audience, this is the “more dangerous” of the two because he’s so desperate to hold onto the status quo that he’ll often act in a way that makes things more difficult for himself, often by leaving Boyfriend No. 2, sacrificing himself, or doing “the wrong thing.” He also commonly has an older male figure that is breathing down his neck constantly, haunting his perceived inadequacies, and fueling his self-loathing. He’s constantly mischaracterized because he’s either boiled down to “the silly one” or a visage of his trauma and the people that relate to love these characters are usually extremely sad people. Usually this character is also the “mean girl” of the couple.

Examples of the Mirrorball boyfriend: Dean Winchester, Aziraphale, Stede Bonnet, Lucius Spriggs, Sherlock Holmes, Eddie Munson, Mike Wheeler, Prince Rupert, etc.

Boyfriend No. 2 then, is the Running Up That Hill Boyfriend, based of course, on the song by the same name by the perfect Kate Bush. He’s the one that’s seen The Horrors™️ and gained a layer of cynicism that Mirrorball doesn’t have. He was once loyal to something that used/hurt him but he rejected it and used his newfound freedom to restructure his entire personality and reach his much higher potential. Usually, he has passed so far from having a few insecurities to perceiving himself as utterly worthless and unlovable but he’s so convinced that it doesn’t even haunt him, he just goes with it and usually comes off looking overly-confident or cocky. This is The Bitch (affectionate)™️. There’s probably a scene of him covered in blood. This is The Girls’ favorite blorbo and ultimate whump. He tends to be really good with kids and he’s the kind of character that would and often has to CLAW a life out for himself by his fingernails.

Examples of the Running Up That Hill Boyfriend: Castiel, Crowley, Ed Teach, Black Pete, John Watson, Steve Harrington, Will Byers, Prince Amir, etc.

unfortunately i haven’t seen a lot of popular queer stuff so if you can think of other mlm or mlm shaped characters that fit into these archetypes please please please tell me

i’m specifically curious about:

-Hannigram (Hannibal)

-Buddy (911) (@criminally-obsessed if you would mind weighing in but obviously no pressure)

-Lokius (Loki) (@henderdads same thing)

-Any of the marauders but specifically WolfStar

-Stucky (MCU)

-RWRB (i’m so sorry i don’t remember the guys’ names)

-Nick and Charlie (Heartstopper)

-What We Do In the Shadows has one I think?

-literally anyone else please and thank you 🙏🙏 love you all

if you want like explicit examples of each piece for a character lmk for sure because i could talk about this all day long

[magpod-confessions]

i saw the ask that was saying jonelias hate was homophobic but wtgfs hate wasn’t lesbophobic and didn’t want to reblog it because i didn’t want to get involved in drama but. yikes.

the wtgfs thing- no, it is absolutely not lesbophobic to be more interested in the main characters than a side ship. that does not change the fact that misogyny and lesbophobia are a pervasive issue in popular and fandom culture. i feel like it’s possible to acknowledge that main wlw ships being ignored for a side mlm pairing is something that happens, and that’s bad, and it is also not inherently misogynistic to be less invested in a side wlw pairing.

the jonelias thing- yes, treating jonelias like some terrible morally reprehensible thing is silly, and no it’s not somehow inherently sexual. there are many darker/more questionable ships that are significantly more widely accepted, and not everybody is going to be interested in jmart. a lot of people like corruption arcs and would have found that to be more interesting. however, you cannot just call someone a bigot because they prefer the canon ship over your fanon interpretation. a lot of people aren’t going to like a ship like jonelias, for plenty of different reasons. maybe it doesn’t fit the way they see the characters, they would prefer jon regaining his humanity and healing in a healthy way, maybe they just don’t like it. that doesn’t make them inherently homophobic. you can disagree with someone and dislike their ships without it meaning they are a bad person.

the mean lesbian thing- i feel they missed the point here. the issue isn’t jonny writing women as mean lesbian stereotypes. none of the characters even have a canon sexuality beyond tim and jon liking multiple genders and jon being somewhere on the ace spectrum, and even those are vague. the issue is fandom stereotyping, seeing women in a terrible situation under pressure getting angry at a man and then deciding they must be mean man hating lesbians. seeing a man who has a sense of humor and is presumably bisexual and deciding he’s a flirty slut with the emotional capacity of a teaspoon. seeing a violent woman who cares for another woman and deciding she must be a masculine butch lesbian and other interpretations are somehow wrong. etc.

can we please all just acknowledge that nuance exists and differing opinions aren’t evil

.

[sommerregenjuniluft]

⋆゜✭ navigation

pinterest, ao3, microfic tag here on tumblr

hi i’m lune:)

writing tag for snippets/drabbles/writing challenges or games

☽⋆ ﾟmasterlist:

Ant Pile | rosekiller | E | 21.3k words | chapter 2/2 | modern day AU, unhinged stupid teenage boy behavior, hood rat x whatever the opposite of a nepo baby is, slice of life

This is a story about two boys raised by the sun. Florida heat, being a teenager, best friends and how falling in love works when you've already loved them for as long as you can remember. — [ heavily insp by Dominic Fike’s song Ant Pile/album Sunburn ]

no one’s gonna say anything against a dude kissing his homie good luck | rosekiller | M | 3.1k words | stupid teenage bois, jealousy and Good Luck Kissing

Evan’s fingers clench in the worn cotton. Somewhere in the back of his head there’s sirens going off, a voice yelling at him to not do it. It’s a husky little thing when it tumbles out of Evan anyways. “You want a good luck kiss?” — [Ant Pile b-side]

Die a Little Death For Me | jegulus | E | 2.7k words | smut, trans reg, light dom/sub, voyuerism ft. the rosekiller boys

James leans down, admonishing, voice patronizing in his ear, “You gotta be quiet for me though, love. Can you be a good boy and do that for me?”

Suck the marrow out my bones and all you’ll taste is yourself | old wolfstar | T | 1.6k words | domestic, toothrotting fluff

“Moons,” whispered on a breathy little snicker, much too boyish for a man in his mid fifties and the mattress dips beneath his weight.

Teeth | wolfstar | E | 3.9k words | written for the Kinktober 2023 prompts Dubcon and Stripping

And then Remus squats down in front of him, a palm held under Sirius’ chin, “C’mon, spit, baby.” Sirius cheeks are flaring and he throws his chin up and forcefully spits the man right in his fucking face.

Always Pushing her Luck | lesbian wolfstar | E | 2.6k words | the inherent eroticism of lathering someone up in sunscreen/aloe lotion

Remus braces herself but, really, she should have seen it coming. “Kiss it better?”

Ribs Are Designed To Be Crawled Into | lesbian wolfstar | M | 1.7k words | bloody and gory-ish, feelings realization, canon universe

“Chest a widely open crater that Remus wants to duck into and make a home for herself in. Close the bones of Sirius’ ribs behind her like some grotesque form of double doors.”

rotting/festering away in the docs:

The Other Lily | the other zoey pandalily AU | E? | Christmas rom com fluff & angst with a happy ending, Rosier cousins!, College AU

Lily is popular by accident because she likes helping others, is top of her classes and can be ‘witty in a real sexy way’ according to her best friend James. She doesn’t know what she expects from romance until Lily runs into someone that’s just as thorough, clever and unintentionally charming—Evan Rosier. A perfect match on paper that she’s eager to explore. But then she accidentally causes Evan’s cousin Pandora to get run over by a car and sort of becomes her girlfriend and then gets invited to a skiing trip that Evan is also going to attend and, well. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. James tells her she’s bonkers and if he was less consumed by a particular delivery guy with pouty lips and a French accent he might have been able to do something about it.

or, How Lily Evans steals someone’s girlfriend in a roundabout way Christmas miracle style

sun-baked dirt | wolfstar & jegulus cowboy au early 2000s | E

i’m talking mechanical bulls, chaps, skinny dipping, ex-equestrian black brothers, meaningful talks under the stars, the prettiest set of boots and lots of heart eyes and sexual tension

mira, mi amor | insp by a zar prompt! | jegulily & background wolfstar modern day nanny au | E | age gap, chronic illness, poc jily, smut

harry has 4 younger siblings: we’re serving an angsty almost-teenager, red-haired twins (because i couldnt help myself) and one precious toddler—lily and james are shagging non-stop to compensate for having the hots for their nanny and regulus is perpetually stressed out or horny (…….or both)

— a million and one more little things, mostly porn oneshots but also a whole fuckin haikyuu and maze runner au?? yeah

feel free to come yell at me about any of these:) also haikyuu, jjk, atla, aftg, httyd or anything in general really<3

[chalicedefinite]

I have been on this tag since day one and the majority of the posts and blogs I've seen adore Louis. Pointing out canonical traits like him actively lying in Canon books and now the show as well is not being hateful or disrespectful. Saying episode 5 and the whole tale infact being revisited is Not fans of lestat being apologists. It is what Anne Rice canonically did with the Vampire Lestat and the books that followed. Louis is loved widely in this tag. Lestat is being hated on as a result of the villainous portrayal in season 1 which again Canonically is a tale (not a true one) being told both in books and in the show. A lot of people however took it too far with the lestat hate and started calling anyone who liked him names and then people starting to fight back and the rest is how we got to here. If there is no understanding to fans of both characters the two most loved characters in the show -who at the end of the series canonically end up together- then what the hell is the point of being in this Fandom in the first place? Please don't take this as a personal attack it wasn't meant as one but as another person's experience and thoughts of the fandom so far.

I’m going to be honest I find this very hard to believe that it was only just about liking Lestat.

I’ve gotten more hate and vitriol from Lestat fans ever since I’ve joined this fandom. I’ve never talked bad about his character and I make it very clear on my blog that I love him and that he’s my favorite character both in the show and in the books. And yet, because I calmly engaged with a popular blog’s theory about episode 5; everyday I wake up to hate in my inbox that I have to delete. Lestat fans have been nothing but disrespectful to me for no reason.

Im a Lestat fan myself and I talk about how much I love him all the time it seems and I haven’t been once called a racist. I’ve had anons accusing me of hating Lestat but never ones accusing me of racism. This is the second time someone has told me that Lestat fans are bullied for liking him when all I’ve seen and experienced thus far is the exact opposite which begs the question: Is it really because you like Lestat or is it something deeper that other people picked up on but not you yourself? 3. How is anyone’s rational response as a human to someone calling them racist for liking Lestat is to deny the systemic oppression of black people? This is the main thing that doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. How did we go from, “Users were attacked for liking Lestat” to “So a bunch of blogs are now starting to agree with and talk about how reverse racism is real.” I’ve gotten attacked for liking characters before and my reaction to that is blocking whoever is causing trouble and ignoring them. I got harassed to hell and back in the Voltron fandom for defending and liking Allura and never at any point was I thinking about how affirmative action is the real systematic evil plaguing society. If this kind of thinking was always in the back of certain people’s head as they were analyzing the show then it’s safe to say that people weren’t mad at them just because they liked Lestat. You can not properly analyze a show where a black man talks about how he was systematically oppressed for being black when you don’t even believe in systemic oppression yourself. How can you sit down and watch this show where Louis is constantly being put down by the white people around him, where he has to pretend to be his husband’s chauffeur, where you see white people burning a black neighborhood, where Louis and Claudia cant even sit next to Lestat and have to sit at the back of the bus and come out of it thinking that reverse racism exists in our society? Louis is the age of a lot of black people’s great grandfather, what he went through was not that long ago and the society he lives is still alive today.

4. What purpose would it serve narratively to have Louis and Claudia lie about episode 5? I’m leaving this question here because the last time I tried to have this discussion it led to anons hounding me.

[otherworldlygate]

The Fascinating & Frustrating Experience of Writing AUs for Tales of Symphonia

You might have been wondering when I would type out some juicy meta for this blog instead of just reblogging art, so congratulations! Here.

Enjoy this "meta" about AU fics and concepts.

--

The truly fascinating/frustrating thing about designing any remotely serious AU within the ToS fandom at large is dealing with the fact that the characters in the game are heavily—and I mean HEAVILY—ingrained into the world. I’m not necessarily talking about Sylvarant and Tethe’alla, but rather their universe at large. Aselia as a whole has so much going on, and the cast is firmly rooted in it. We can’t even separate the history of the world from our cast, because despite being 4,000+ years in the making, we have 4,000-year-old characters thrust upon us.

The world of Aselia is a deeply interesting place, and there’s a lot to explore there. This is probably why in-universe fanfiction is so incredibly popular.

I’ve been in many fandoms over the years, and something I’ve noticed is that most of them have a pretty balanced ratio of canon to completely AU fics. That is decidedly not the case for ToS. While there are AUs, quite a few of those continue to explore within the canon world using the rules the canon has given: for example, a semi-popular idea is Tethe’alla as the declining world where Zelos is the current journeying Chosen. We also have a handful of canon divergent stories (what if X didn’t happen within the story/what if Y happened instead of X?). Lastly, there are a wide variety of fics that explore the world or timeline at large: there are stories about the original Hero Group, stories that poke around in the rich concept of the Balacruf Dynasty, fics that utilize the Otherworldly Gate in interesting ways, and even stories that detail the lives of other Chosen, like Spiritua.

I shouldn’t discount the difficulty that comes with writing these kinds of stories, especially large sweeping concepts that require a lot of thought. The best example of this is Declining!Tethe’alla. At a glance it sounds so incredibly simple: all right, so…Zelos is the journeying Chosen, then!

I mean, yes. But you have to consider everything that comes along with Tethe’alla as the declining world, not just the fact that Zelos is the one making the journey, now. For example, I think it’s especially important to imagine the kind of world Sylvarant might have become, if the Balacruf Dynasty had never lost its seat of power (or if it had, but to another military force). Copy-pasting Tethe’alla’s particular brand of “flourishing” into Sylvarant doesn’t work; you have to put more thought into it than that! Colette, as part of the mana lineage in Sylvarant, would always remain there. But the Ranches would be in Tethe’alla now, so Anna wold have been there, and Lloyd should be, too.

Would Sylvarant send a team to Tethe’alla (via Yuan) to assassinate Zelos? Would Raine and Genis have gone through the Gate if they lived in the declining world, and if they didn’t, what kind of place would Sybak be in an impoverished world? Would they even be forced to go there? Would Presea have been experimented on? Would Alicia have followed after by circumstance? Would Alicia and Regal have even met when competition to work for a rich family would be so intense in the first place? (Would the Lezareno Company even still exist at this point? Would Regal’s father still be alive and heading the company? Would Regal have gone to prison?) Would you even place these characters in the declining world, or move them to the flourishing one?

Like, the easy road is just checking similar boxes to the canon to keep things familiar, but that isn’t always the right—or best—choice for a story. Like, if we’re here to read about Declining!Tethe’alla, I think most people are interested in how the world has been affected by that difference, as well as the characters within it, especially our main cast.

Even then, those considerations branch out: would Kate exist in this version of Tethe’alla? Would Corrine? Would Sheena’s fate be different or the same when it comes to Volt (would Mizuho be more cautious or desperate?). How are half-elves treated? What is the caste system like? What kind of village is Heimdall now, after 800 years of the world declining and everyone scraping by for mana? Is the king’s power tentative or is there even a king anymore? (Is he constantly in danger of being overthrown? How has this affected the way he rules and the laws he enacts? Does he have many children and wives to ensure the bloodline doesn’t end?)

Tethe’alla knows about Sylvarant in the canon, so with Sylvarant as the flourishing world, do they know about Tethe’alla? How widespread is this knowledge? Is the Otherworldly Gate even working in Tethe’alla when it’s declining? Is there perhaps a Gate to match it in Sylvarant that is working? Would Raine still be obsessed with history or language if she was not abandoned at a historical-looking site as a child? (What might their education look like in this world, if they even get one?)

Did Zelos’s father still die in the same manner, or did he die on his own Chosen journey? Would Zelos’s father have taken the role of Chosen more seriously if he’d grown up in the declining world, or would he have carried on with a lover anyway? What about Mylene? Knowing Zelos would die either way (trying to save the world or actually saving it) how would this affect Zelos’s relationship to his mother? Might she be able to love him? Would Seles even exist? Would Zelos want to save the world so that Seles would not have to?

Not every “Chosen” bothered going on the journey; many simply continued the lineage instead; what about a Declining!Tethe’alla story where that is Zelos’s responsibility and he does not have to journey, but will have to give up one of his own children to that fate?

This is just one semi-AU concept, and it even takes place within the canon world, so…we have the same magic system, expsheres, exbelua, familiar towns and cities, races, ranches, Desians vs. Renegades, summon spirits, seals, Chosen Journey, and so on.

It wouldn’t be difficult to flip the script if the characters weren’t so ingrained into the world, which, to be perfectly clear, here, IS A GOOD THING! It means the worldbuilding was well done.

--

Let’s talk about Presea for a second. She’s a great character, but a lot of what makes her interesting hinges on her backstory, which is firmly rooted in Aselia. If you popped her into a modern day AU, there’s no really effective way to build a story around her that works to the degree the canon one does: her backstory of being poor, experimented on, losing 16 years of time, finding out her sister died horribly and partially because of her, finding out her she’d been hanging around with her father’s corpse for a long time without realizing it, dealing with the fact that her emotions have been severely suppressed…and a multitude of other things, is…baked so far into the ToS canon that it’s hard to find anything that works in a similar way and doesn’t feel icky or insensitive.

Like, for all intents and purposes, canon!Presea is 12 years old. Her body should be 28 years old, but it’s not. Her mind should be 28 years old, but it’s not. She remained “frozen” at the age of 12 for 16 years and she logically knows it, but wasn’t mentally present for it. That’s a huge character bit. It’s integral to her story. It’s hard to just…throw that away and carry on in a modern AU where she’s sipping Starbucks and texting Colette dog memes.

When it comes to characters like Regal or Sheena, who canonically carry a lot of guilt on their shoulders, this issue is still quite difficult. I like to imagine with characters like this, their primary character traits are not the guilt they feel, but rather, the capacity for feeling emotion that deeply in the first place. Sheena is canonically a very emotional person, so this fits her easily, and Regal comes off a lot like an empath to me, so it works for him, too. Sheena’s story is about failure (and overcoming that failure); the failure doesn’t have to be “making a pact with Volt” in an AU. In fact, I’d argue that the game never really settled the score with Sheena’s issues regarding Volt in a satisfactory way in the first place, so in an AU there’s no real need to explore the guilt if you can’t find a place to put it where it actually works. (I also take some issue with the “solution” of the guilt surrounding Volt to be…more guilt. Yikes.) Far more integral to Sheena’s character is the depth of her emotions anyway, and her desire to make friends and form meaningful connections to people (even though she struggles with it). Obviously her situation with Volt did affect her, and deeply so, but since the game tied it up so poorly it doesn’t feel like it’s cheating to largely ignore it in some AU circumstances.

In the case of Regal, I think many fans believe his primary character trait is “man who feels too much unreasonable guilt” but that belief is wrong. It’s not that his story has nothing to do with guilt, but I think at its core it’s about compassion and empathy. I wish the game had gone a bit more into Regal and his family’s history, particularly his relationship to his parents, because the only information we get about them is from the drama CD (where his father functions as his foil: an unempathetic scumbag who does not care about the health or well-being of his employees). When Regal inherits the position of a CEO and eventually the title of President, he struggles with the policies his father put into place that actively harm his employees and the rules he was raised under that don’t allow him to have any time for himself (no friends, no fun, everything must always revolve around working). It’s very clear he’s miserable living like this. The drama CD has its issues, of course, but I do like how it goes into the boring way Regal meets Alicia, and how long it takes him to even realize he doesn’t know her name, which, in the drama CD, is an extremely important part of Regal’s initial character arc. Neither the game nor the CD make Regal and Alicia’s relationship about love changing someone: rather, Alicia says something that weighs on Regal’s heart (“I don’t expect you to know my name; you employee hundreds of people.”) and he realizes he doesn’t have to be like his father and so chooses to be different. He was always a compassionate and empathetic person, but he gives himself permission to take control of his own life and do things his own way. He starts pushing for employee safety and making an effort to appreciate and protect the people who work for him. He doesn’t do this just for Alicia—he does this for himself.

Obviously he falls in love with Alicia in time and then struggles with the guilt he feels over being forced to take her life, but part of what makes this interesting is the timing of it. He’s only recently taken control of his own life, and was then forced into doing something that felt out of his control. He’s supposed to be protecting his employees, not hurting them. He’s supposed to protect the people he loves, too, not hurt them. This is the core of the guilt he feels.

Anyway, while guilt does play a role in Regal’s life, it doesn’t define him; what does is his capacity to feel compassion and empathy for others. He’s a good businessman, and he’s smart, but he makes a very real effort to think for himself and do things his own way for his own reasons. This is explored a bit in the game when he does things like passlock the Toize Valley Mine, admit that his family’s wealth was had on the backs of Sylvaranti humans, and per his ending, funnel resources into rebuilding Palmacosta despite it getting him side-eyed by people within his own company. I think it cannot be overstated, either, how important it is that he is neither racist nor classist, despite his upbringing. This is the way he chooses to be.

Presea, on the other hand, is harder to work with. She doesn’t have a lengthy and rich history before her time was frozen for her, so her character feels very reliant on “being 12, but knowing she should be older and all the trauma that goes with that.” That said, I think one could explore Presea in an AU in the context of feeling like she was out of the loop for some years with her sister. It’s not the same as losing 16 years of life, and it’s not the same as realizing Alicia’s been dead for the last 8 years or seeing her father’s still-reeking corpse in his bed. But there is a similar “vibe” to, for example, her being separated from her sister for years and losing a connection she once felt to someone dear to her.

--

That said, this mostly just proves my point: most of the characters in this game are extremely hard to separate from the world they were written into. It means great things about Tales of Symphonia, but bad things for me, a person trying to write an AU.

Like sure, you an come up with ways to kind of “copy/paste” the traumas of the canon into a modern story; for example, instead of Regal and Kratos killing someone, maybe they’re driving the car when they’re involved in an accident that ends up taking the life of their loved one. In Kratos’s case, maybe it was an accident where a drunk driver hit them, to help spread the blame; Kratos’s guilt could come from being out on a night when drunk driving rates are notoriously high—for example, New Year’s Eve. But in Regal’s case, there’s just no real way to seriously mimic the canon while still remaining true to his character. The point of his guilt in the canon is that it’s not completely misplaced: it’s just taken to an extreme. If he goes to prison in a modern story for being behind the wheel of a car when one of his passengers dies, he has to actually be found at fault: under the influence of drugs or alcohol, neglectful in caring for the car to a serious degree, driving without a license/insurance, or failing to wear glasses/contacts when he needs them. However, doing this goes against his character because the point of the canon is that even though he feels guilty, he isn’t actually to blame.

Colette can be born with expectations of her (becoming the first doctor in the family, for example) but it’s impossible to carry forward the Chosen traumas without making an AU feel convoluted. Like yeah, med school and residency require a lot of sacrifice, but it’s not the same as ACTUALLY GIVING UP YOUR LIFE TO SAVE THE WORLD. The burden feels different and will affect the characters in different ways.

--

Anyway, all of this is not to say that I have anything against AUs, or that I think it’s bad that Tales of Symphonia works so hard to root the characters within the world of Aselia. It’s the opposite, actually. I think it’s fascinating how much work has to go into an AU of any kind in this fandom for it to feel natural for the characters. I love that the cast feels so “at home” in their own world that it’s reflected in the kinds of fics we see published on AO3.

It’s just hilariously frustrating that, if you want to include the entire cast in an AU, and not just the blorbo or two that you really love, you have to bend over backward to worldbuild a ton before you begin to write, lest you end up writing yourself into a corner… Or worse, you might shoehorn a character into a role because you need the role filled, even though it doesn’t work very well for the character in question.

Like, Zelos feels as if he’d be easy to transplant into a modern AU of any kind, and I would say he definitely is…but only if he remains on the fringes of the story and doesn’t play a major role. If he needs to matter to the story to any serious degree, you can’t ignore the fact that canon Zelos has so much going on in his life and world and head that taking only the easy parts of him into an AU doesn’t feel right.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of copy/pasting one big trait of a character into an AU to try to make it work, but what ends up happening is the whole thing feels flat and boring. A guilt-soaked Regal in a modern AU isn’t very interesting, for example; the guilt isn’t the trait that makes him feel whole: it’s his capacity for compassion and empathy despite his privileged position in society that does that.

I’ve toyed with a few AU ideas for Tales of Symphonia, and honestly just looking at the sheer amount of worldbuilding I would have to do is instantly overwhelming. The current one I’m turning over is a modern Aselia AU, so I can’t even come up with “similar” vibes from the canon or it instantly reads as if the characters are just on some kind of tragic hamster wheel, doomed to repeat the same mistakes of the past.

It was during my quest for world and character backstory-building for this AU that I realized the heart of what matters to me in any AU is not that the characters feel like a copy/paste of their canon selves, but like a believable version of their original self: one built not on the circumstances of their birth or life experiences from the canon, but rather, character traits they hold that feel ‘core’ to me. Lloyd and Colette’s optimism and trust, Regal’s empathy and compassion, Sheena’s emotional depth and search for connection, and Presea’s desire to be treated normally are all examples.

Still, it can be hard to apply these in a meaningful way when crafting a character’s backstory, especially in AUs that differ drastically from the canon, either due to a completely different setting (mermaid!AU), metaphor for something (werewolf!AU), or tableflip (Declining!Tethe’alla). If the setting is modern and we’re more concerned with core character traits and not putting them in Situations Similar to the Canon, does Alicia still need to die? Does Virginia have to abandon her children? Can Kate’s father just be a regular scumbag? Does Presea need to be deeply traumatized? Do so many parents have to be dead? Marble? Does Colette have to suffer so much? Can we allow the characters to live happier lives and still manage to write them in such a way that they feel naturally like themselves? Can we give them worse fates and still come out of it having written the characters well?

Things to think about!

[crystallos-sol]

Warning you now under the cut is me rambling about my perspective on multiple popular fandom ships and such. My perspective won’t be accepted widely and that’s cool no hate to anyone who does ship these characters. Y’all do you I’m just sharing my word vomit. (No I did not mention any ship by name so this should stay in the tag it belongs in!)

I’m saying that the entire relationship between Luz and Amity always read a little weird to me. I don’t tend to enjoy most canon or fandom favorite ships so I really did not think much of it but the way they wrote romantic relationships was so off putting and inherently worse than how they wrote the platonic relationships within the show.

And no it’s not just Luz and Amity’s relationship that’s off putting to me, even Gus and Matt and Hunter and Willow (although more implied with the ending of TOH). It just doesn’t read as if any of them are comfortable and able to just exist together. Amity can’t go two seconds without mentioning or thinking of Luz (which is a major annoyance and is largely why I hated it when she was around because she lost anything that made her interesting and her own character but that’s another can of worms).

Willow gets downgraded into being “ Hunters girl “ which is not fair in the slightest to her. I love her character! I really like that we got that intense moment of her putting her damn foot down more than once! But it’s really disappointing and disheartening to see her entire character go down the drain because someone decided Hunter needed a partner (which has much as it’s a cute idea I genuinely do not think if he had a partner that it should of been Willow but again another can of worms.).

And goodness has funny has it is to see Gus make fun of Matt it’s also really hard for me to see it has romantic? Or in a romantic context. To me it just reads as two best friends but again nothing against people who do like these pairings, I get it it’s fun to ship characters. I just personally do not see it.

It also just irks me when a character gets completely put down and ruined because someone wanted to shove them into a relationship. Like damn I was enjoying Willow and Amity but okay ruin my two favorite characters in the whole show.

Again every ship I’ve talked about I don’t have an issue with. I don’t want anyone to think I’m out here mad or something I am disappointed in the way they’ve handled Amity and Willow’s characters after they got partners. I however contrary to most people in the fandom would of loved AceAro Luz or even Willow hell even Hunter. I just think it would be neat to see and because as much as relationships can be cute and all it’s always nice to see Aro representation.

(Also because Luz is very friend oriented and made her own found family which is so so cute and Willow went around and befriended everyone she could and also Hunter grew up with a fucked up understanding of the world and has canonly said his friends mean the world to him and that’s so fucking cool and nice to see for once). I also think it would work for their characters and arcs. Idk would of loved to see their characters remain intact that woulda been neat.

[sugutoad]

Matchup Trade for @averagetoyakinnie !

# s.black

ஓ๑ I was extremely tempted to pick anyone but Sirius because I have done only one other matchup of Harry Potter and I had chose him too but this man was literally so perfect for you. I’m not necessarily good at convincing others on why I chose a certain person for them but I do hope the following makes more sense to you and possibly even convince you:

ஓ๑ Sirius seems to cross almost all your checkboxes concerning your ideal type. He is absolutely a snarky individual who often goes far and beyond to tease his partner but he does have a sense of awareness of when to stop. Canonically book wise, Sirius is said to be extremely tall — which most of the fandom unfortunately ignores because they focus on the height of his actor. This isn’t really a popular headcanon but I stand on my life that Sirius has soft and chubby hands. Imagine looking at his sharp jaw, only for him to have the babiest soft cheeks. He absolutely loathes them tho. Always being there for you? Check that box for sure! Sirius supports you through thick and thin no matter what! And do not fret the slightest, dear. He visits all your sports events and absolutely spoils you with ice cream if you win or even lose. After a lost game if you are frustrated, he will take you home and sit with you to watch some of your shows. The whole concept of television doesn’t really come to him too well but he loves it. Normally I don’t look much or focus on ideal types, but when I chose him and then saw that you had included an idea type, I was even more excited to do this matchup!

ஓ๑ I understand that your mbti (ENTP) and Siruis’s mbti ( ESTP) don’t exactly go hand in hand with one another because of how similar they are but I think that is the perfect thing. You have a similar way of thinking and that allows you to know how the other person is. And arguments do happen but nothing big. It mostly consists of you scolding him for doing something stupid or bickering like an old married couple about small things (like if pineapple belongs on pizza.). But the both of you are so charming and chaotic with one another that is actually scary to Mcgonagall. Besides the similarities between your mbtis, the N and S helps you to differentiate ideas when presented information. That way, almost no information is not being used as you both have different ways to get certain information. 

ஓ๑ When he first met you on the train to Hogwarts, you looked so cute to him. Awkwardly fumbling your fingers and a distant yet shy demeanour is what had charmed in the first place but was he in for a journey as he began to know more of you. This duo is a chaotic rule breaker type. But at least you try to keep him out of detention so you have your limits to ruler breaking at times. But when you have an interest, he will keep his big mouth shut for hours as you ramble on and on (he will certainly try to get himself into your interest so you both can discuss it. As much as he loves listening to you, he loves talking too.) Someone should have taken a picture of this man's face when his innocent idiot said something sexual :) For visuals, his mouth was slightly open but in a smirk and his eyes were wide opened (don’t forget the single raised eyebrow)

ஓ๑ Though it’s normally you giving him advice and comforting him, especially after a bad day with his family, sometimes it’s switched. He knows how energetic you are but he understands more of you. So when you run off your social battery, he holds you quietly, occasionally saying a joke to lift up your mood or just some sweet words. 

ஓ๑ He is a growing boy, ok? He needs food. Lots of food. So you can imagine his delightment every time you bake or cook him something. 

ஓ๑ Similar to you, one of his major love language is physical touch. This probably originated from the lack of affection he received as a child so now he is pretty much a clingy teddy bear! At first you thought it was cute but sometimes it is overwhelming. You would be trying to study or practise for a quidditch match, he will almost never let go. But no matter how many times he touches you, when he walks past you and your fingers brush against yours, it still makes your stomach flip with butterflies.

ஓ๑ He is actually in love with you. Like seriously (see what I did there?) The way you are a bubbly shine of light that blinded him with your upbeat smile and the beautiful way that you love almost everything, seeing the beauty in everything surrounding you. Even during Azkaban, his only possession was a small photo of you. And when he saw you again, he held you for almost eternity but for him it still wasn’t long enough. Nothing could ever make up for the 12 years he spent without you. 

ஓ๑ Also what do you mean he is dead? (Delusional) Last time I checked, the both of you are married after he escaped from Azkaban and have a son named James Black. 

ஓ๑ Hopefully I convinced you? This is a pairing that most people wouldn’t have seen coming so it is certainly harder to explain my reasoning behind it but I think that is what makes it so perfect. 

Other Potential Matchups: Literally none because my head couldn’t think of anyone but Sirius for you. 

[sunlitmcgee]

 Hello! This is a ramble-style masterpost type thing about the version of c!Benchtrio that is in my fic “Heal What Has Been Hurt.” It is filled with headcanons, ramblings, interpretations and general behind the scenes things that I’ve had in mind when it comes to how I write them and their various gender presentations throughout the course of the fic.

 I’d like to say that I am a GNC fem-presenting AFAB transman. This is just something to keep in mind when it comes to my thoughts and opinions on the concept of gender, gender identity and presentation. If anything here doesn’t align with your personal experiences, that’s okay! Just please don’t be an asshole, because this is based upon MY experiences with gender identity and is inherently quite personal for me.

 Another thing I’d like to say is that while the majority of what I say here is related to my AU fic, some things reflect my feelings around DSMP canon and my perspectives of the characters 

I always wanna remind that HWHBH!Benchtrio’s relationship is strictly queerplatonic and that anything described here is not meant to be taken as romantic or heaven’s for-fucking-bid sexual. If you think something here is…just….keep it to yourself and don’t say it to me. Pretty fuckin please.

 And on that last note, nothing here is meant to apply to ANY of the CCs who created these characters. This is about the characters and ONLY the characters. This isn’t a place for truthing or whatever. Get the fuck outta here with dat shit.

Don’t be weird, ya dumb piece of cu-

Let’s get into it, shall we!

 For starters, let’s start off with the basic idea that, to me, Mister Author Man, whose opinions on these characters obviously shape the way I write them but shouldn’t be taken as the word of god when it comes to vague stuff that’s more open to interpretation, all 3 of HWHBH!Benchtrio embody a sort of “archetype” of masculinity. A different flavor, one might say. Their presentations and performances of the concept vary, but the core idea of “man-ess” is present in all 3, albeit to varying extents.

 If we want to go in order from “most masc” to “least masc” in terms of traditional ideas/roles, then let’s begin with our darling little draggie goat HWHBH!Tubbo.

 HWHBH!Tubbo is buff.

 HWHBH!Tubbo is fat, muscular, and heavy set.

 HWHBH!Tubbo is short but built like a full-grown bull, horns and muscles and all.

 And above all else, HWHBH!Tubbo is the member of the trio that to me embodies the sort of masculinity that I shall lovingly deem “The Stronk Guy.”

 When it comes to how he’s dressed/often described, you rarely see HWHBH!Tubbo in anything traditionally feminine. He wears tank-tops, button-ups, heavy coats and thick winter pants. He wears overalls,which are a very boyish sort of clothing item commonly associated with the American South and physical labor, usually on a farm. The two sets of horns of his head make up for his generally short stature, making him seem as tall as he is wide, thus increasing the intimidating presence he has thanks to his claws, scales, wings and oh yeah constant smoke that pours out from every hole on his round little face. Round face=wide facial features=square shape. Squares in terms of character design are often used for characters that are sturdy and strong with a big presence in the scenes they’re in. Another very “macho” trait. Manly men get your attention as soon as they are in the room.

 Out of the 3, Tubbo is the one that works out the most.

 He is the one who performs most maintenance-based tasks around the house, such as repairing furniture. 

 He helps with the farms in Snowchester and lifts many heavy tools.

 He’s the one that gets a spider out of the house when it scares Michael when he goes to lay in his little race car bed.

 He picks both of HWHBH!Alliumduo up like they weigh nothing.

 And he is the one that makes Tommy go from “C!Tommy if he had proper therapy” to “stereotypical young teen girl swooning over her popular jock crush in an early 2000’s disney channel original movie” thanks to those burly arms of his. He has a way. With the Tommy.

 Boy could snap you like a motherfucking glowstick-

 Basically, when in regards to his gender and overall presentation, HWHBH!Tubbo is the kind of boy who is best at home in himself when he can go at with his power tools in the lab and go home wiping the sweat from his brow to his two lovely partners so that he can eat dinner, help with all the dishes, take a bath and kiss both his children’s foreheads, then flop himself onto the bed and hug both of his platonic husband’s.

 He isn’t a very girly boy.

 And that is okay!

 HWHBH!Tubbo doesn’t feel drawn to most typical “girly” things. He mostly wears earth-tones along with his coats and leather jackets. He likes flowers, yeah. But everyone likes flowers! And he cannot cook for shit, so in his mind, he really isn’t the “”lady”” of this household.

 (Any usage of words like “woman”, “man”, lady-like or “manly” here are intended to refer to the traditional stereotypical Western ideas behind gender and gender roles. Just as a friendly reminder!)

 But there’s a reason behind heal!Tubbo’s specific brand of manliness that isn’t just his personal preference. Think back to Manburg. Pogtopia era. Think back to the time when c!Tubbo served as a political spy during a time of war against a nation that was ruled by c!Schlatt: a bumbling idiot obsessed with “gains” and protein powder who constantly hurled verbal abuse and beat down on anyone who defied him, be it physically with his hands or politically through various abuses of authority.

c!Schlatt is an almost Comical icon of toxic masculinity. Loud. Harsh. Always quick to Anger. Aggressive and self absorbed. Dismissive of the emotions of others including his own and valuing raw strength and power above all else. On several occasions, there were scenes where he’d directly attack the masculinity of the cabinet members, be it telling c!Fundy(a transman!) that he’ll “never be a man” or talking down to c!Tubbo and calling him weak, soft, cowardly and all manner of insults commonly hurled at people our society sees as men who don’t conform to a rigid binary.

 With hwhbh!Tubbo, he has taken that weakness that an abuser saw in him and Embraced it for the strength it actually is. He is soft. He’s fat with a big round belly! He’s physically strong, yes, again, bulk like a tank. But in terms of his emotions, by Schlatt’s standards, he’s much Weaker than he used to be because of how open and vulnerable he is: and that’s a Good Thing.

 Manliness isn’t toughing it out and beating down on anyone that defies you. Manliness is giving your 2 kids 20 kisses on they little heads as you hold them to your chest and carry them upstairs for bedtime.

Manliness is Softness.

Manliness is Openness.

Manliness is Gentleness.

Manliness can let you Heal.

 Let’s talk about heal!Ranboo. Much like Tubbo, Ranboo has a pretty typically masculine presentation. He wears suits, formal vests, sweaters and button-ups, but has a dash of more feminine apparel with his various earrings and rings and necklaces that contrast to the lone wedding bane and bee-charm bracelet we see on heal!Tubbo.

 Fashion aside, heal!Ranboo’s sheer height makes him stick out like a sore thumb. He’s a tall, thin creature with long, gangly limbs and shiny scales. He’s a fighter! He knows how to handle himself in a scuffle. He prefers to use his words and to avoid fighting via diplomacy, but he is not afraid to use violence(or at the very least Threaten To) when it comes to Clingyduo or his children. It’s best to say he simply has a bit more self Restraint than Tubbo. But only Just.

 heal!Ranboo is the middle child of heal!Benchtrio. Despite this, he is the universally agreed upon “mature one” and often takes the role of the “””straight””” man compared to clingyduo’s goofy mischief.

 With this notable maturity, Healboo, like his counterpart in canon, takes it upon himself to be the household’s main Provider. He’s the breadwinner. The moneymaker. The one who goes out each day to work and toil in the mines to gather resources to bring home. He brings home the bacon! Therefore, he is also the one in charge of the family’s Finances. His name is on the contract for the mansion’s construction. There were many jokes about c!Tubbo being a golddigger, way back when the two first got married. I see no reason to say that there weren’t similar jokes made between the two when they first got together in HWHBH.

 Financial control is a right that’s long been limited to men. Men do the work, pay the bills, own the house and make the Big Choices for a family.

 Going back to the point about his skills in combat, it is traditionally a Man’s job to protect his family. It’s Man’s Work to be tough and fend off the danger. The man brings home the Kill(money and household finances) while the woman cooks, cleans, raises the children and provides whatever Affection her husband may require. Golddiggers, as a concept, are women who specifically seek out Wealthy Men to reap the riches from this(very harmful) arrangement.

 But all of this hinges on the idea that a man is a tough, strong, scary, loud go-getter who’ll lash out at any opportunity to climb up The Ladder ™. 

If not that, then a wealthy man is one who has to be Smart. Clever. Good with his words. A charmer. A suave, dapper figure in fitted clothes with well-kept hair. A man with visible wealth in the form of pretty jewelry. A tall, dark and handsome kind of fella. A princely sort! This type of Man is one you see at gentlemen’s clubs and cashios who most certainly is inclined towards the academics.

 hwhbh!Ranboo is. Basically that. He’s just transmasc. And aromantic asexual. And platonically gay. And riddled with 70 flavors of psychosis that’s worsened by his severe anxiety, paranoia and memory issues.

 (hwhbh!Ranboo is, specifically, a young trans man who had his body hijacked and controlled by an older man in a position of authority who used that control to abuse him and his loved ones. Just a side note to think about)

 Basically, hwhbh!Ranboo has the Aesthetics of the “tall, dark and handsome and filthy Rich suave ladies man” type of manhood…just as a paint over a very anxious, very emotionally-driven young queer boy.

 He spoils his beloveds. He coddles and pampers them. He is a partner who finds joy in showering his qpps with material gifts In Tandum with his physical affection and words of praise. In many “traditional”(read: sexist and fucked up) circles, this would make him someone who is perceived as Weak. He’d be Emasculated for his behavior.

 But ofc, he’d be denied his manhood in the first place in these types of circle, because being trans, heal!Ranboo’s masculinity is one Directly in contrast to the roles he’d be put into on the basis of his birth sex. 

 That makes you think: maybe there’s a reason Ranboo sticks to very masculine dress when he’s out and about, and only wears stuff like dresses and skirts when he’s at home with his two partners. People he trusts. People he feels safe around.

 heal!Ranboo is a breadwinner/provider who turns to those he provides for for comfort and safety.

Manliness is seeking Comfort.

Manliness is not viewing your Fears as a Flaw.

Manliness is indulging in self Expression that makes you feel the most like Yourself.

Manliness is showing Love to those you care for.

Manliness is Caring.

Manliness is Gentleness. 

 Now. Let’s talk about the main character protagonist himself. c!Tommy. The boy. The guy himself. The most character ever of all time in the history of anything.

 hwhbh!Tommy is, to put it simply: A pretty boy.

 He’s very pretty! He’s got long hair that goes well past his shoulders, shiny blue eyes, a lean(for the most part) figure that makes him rather petite next to Beeduo, and a pair of earthy brown wings that have flecks of gold on each feather. He wears skirts, dresses, lace, silk and cardigans. Most of his outfits have either natural earthy tones(greens, blues, browns, etc) or brighter pastels(purple, pink, white etc). He wears jewelry. He had butterfly pins that he bought from Claries. 

 On top of that, he’s got a shit ton of plushies, blankets, pillows and general soft cutesie comfort items. Plushie Henry is a big one.

 He’s got many traditionally girly hobbies and interests. Knitting. Sewing. Cooking/baking. Gardening. He loves to sing and likes to read about the symbolism of different flowers. He’s made a point for there to be plenty of plant life in the Big Innit such as in the lobby and connected cafe. While video games are stereotype as being a “boys’ thing”, one of heal!Tommy’s favorite games is OMORI, which is a game with a very cutesy art style that consists of soft pastel colors and a cute, feel good ost. Again. Very girly, very pretty.

 heal!Tommy is a character that I’ve given a lot of my Personal Gender Stuff as a transguy who found myself leaning into a lot of girly cutesy feminine things when I was first recovering from my trauma. For me, it was a matter of being able to indulge in media/hobbies/aesthetics that gave me a sense of comfort and safety while also further allowing me to explore my gender. 

 For hwhbh!Tommy, it’s a matter of him finally being able to indulge in what gives him the most joy without being hurt for it: loving things, loving people, and caring for them. Being a nurturer.

Who sings to the flowers to help them grow?

Who made a Prime Path and keeps it maintained?

Who inspired Wilbur Soot to make L’manburg, acting as a sibling’s muse?

Who fills the server with music? With song?

Who reaches out and tries to mend broken relationships?

Who forgives?

Who tries his very best to understand, even when it hurts him more?

Who is the person that takes care of the server? 

 c!Tommy is a character who is Driven by Love. Platonic love. Familial Love. This boy loves and he loves to SHOW his love to people by caring for them in whatever way he is able to. He isn’t always the best at it. He is often brash and harsh and loud and blunt and yes, annoying. He’s a little shit.

 He’s weird in a weird little girl way.

 He is also an incredibly caring, sweet, emotionally intelligent person who always puts the needs of others First Before His own, often always to his own detriment. Caring for cWilbur in Pogtopia. Reaching out to cBeeduo during the outpost. Forgiving cEmeraldduo, time and time again. Asking his abuser “why don’t you hurt” while in the prison.

 In my experience as an AFAB individual, women* (*or people society views as women) are expected to 1: keep their own emotions bottled up and tend to the emotional needs of others around them, 2: be quiet, submissive, polite and “ladylike” 24/7 constantly. Or else we will be labeled as annoying hysterical bitches who are just looking for attention.

 Sound familiar?

 In HWHBH, Tommy’s gradual shift from his original masculine presentation of a plain t shirt and pants to his current mix of sweaters, skirts and dresses is a visual way to show his shift throughout his recovery.

At the start of the fic, Tommy was still riding the aftershocks of his near-death in the prison. He wore simple clothes, lived in an empty house, hardly ate, slept and was unable to take care of himself. The entire first chapter is XD watching him nearly freeze to death because he wandered out into the forest without a coat while dissociating. His hair was thin and cut short. He thought that beeduo wanted nothing to do with him. He was unwell. He was alone.

 But look at him now. Long, thick hair. Healthy diet. Gained some weight. (Mostly) healthy sleep schedule. Lots of family members and friends he talks to daily, either in person or over the phone.

He has a garden.

He sings to the flowers.

He sings constantly.

He is always singing or talking or downing something. He enjoys doing chores. He thinks it’s fun.

 Throughout the entirety of the DSMP storyline, c!Tommy was punished for Wanting. For wanting People. For wanting to be Loved. For wanting TO love without having whatever/whoever he cared about taken away. Now he has a child(2 actually, he’s just silly and hasn’t realized it) and a father and 2 platonic partners who love him dearly. He has hobbies and favorite TV shows. He grows his hair out, wears skirts and plays with his father’s make-up. He gets flustered when Beeduo call him pretty or beautiful. He watches Sailor Moon. He made an oc self insert for it. He regularly daydreams about heal!beeduo being tuxedo mask the same way a female lead in a teen romcom talks about going on cheesy dates with her crush. He has a flower cow with buttercups on it. 

 Michael calling him Mummy and Shroud calling him Mimi doesn’t need an explanation, I feel.

 For a character whose main joke catchphrase is some variation of “I’m a Big Man”, cTommy really is very Girl Coded. Hwhbh!Tommy is just the result of me taking that and amplifying it for the sake of comedy and fluff. Mostly fluff. Because I think he’s a character who deserves the softness that can come from “girl stuff” and things we commonly associate with femininity.

Masculinity and Femininity and all forms of gender stuff and gender expression are, at the end of the day, just made up gobbledy gook we humans made up in the same way we made up shit like Money and Language. But I still like to talk about them, because it’s a topic I find to be very interesting and important when it comes to storytelling.

Manliness is Nurturing.

Manliness is Loyalty.

Manliness is the capacity to care for and protect and fight for what you value the most.

Manliness is the attempt, however vain, to understand the people around you(though ofc, there are always times when you shouldn’t because it isn’t Safe for you)

Manliness, like Womanliness, is whatever YOU want to make of it. Same with any other clusterfuck of a queer identity. 

I just think that hwhbh!Benchtrio’s gender stuff is fun to talk about. I hope you enjoyed reading about it :)

[phoenix-is-the-hottest-thing]

hi! if i may ask, do you have any advice on transposing (?) characters in AUs? i have one i wanna write but i get overwhelmed by stuff i feel like i have to account for, like a character's allegiance, combat ability, traumatic experiences, place of birth, music knowledge, relationships with other characters from that universe waughg. for example, writing Mobius in a position not limited by Elysia, but because she's on a guy's shitlist (he denies it, but he's on her shitlist too, it's mutual)

Hmmm I’m not sure what you mean on that last part (especially since Mobius is hardly limited to Elysia in canon? She has a lot of complex relationships, including negative ones?) BUT I guess start by just. Writing something.

Let me explain. You are overthinking the backstory part. So get some part of the actual story you want to tell down, even if it’s just one scene, and see how you feel.

You don’t have to know everything before you start writing, your best ideas will come up as you go. If you are really into those details and it turns out you’d rather tell the backstory of the characters— that’s actually perfectly fine! I did that in vampire AU via the flashback sections, but you could also just make it the entire plot if you wanted, you are free…

But a story is made of scenes, not background details. So it is more important to write something down than knowing everything you’ll have to take into account for the AU to make perfect sense.

Having said that, I’ll answer the question you actually asked!

To get less overwhelmed when thinking up backstories, think of your AU’s plot. You’re writing a story, not a TV Tropes page— those details must serve the story you are writing. Not everything is all that important, and what you decide is important should be chosen to reinforce your message, make your story more solid or interesting, etc. Characters and their backstories are tools!

Additionally, since you’re writing existing characters into an AU, study the original characters. Know who they are. It will be much easier to write them naturally, without having to think of those AU-specific details ahead of time.

Let’s put both previous points into action.

If you’re telling a story about freedom, you can focus on how Mobius chooses to let her creations have free will, and encourages them to follow their own paths, regardless of whether they will side with her or not. For this to be important to her, she probably feels that she lacks freedom— in her canon backstory it could be because her ideas are widely rejected and she has trouble accomplishing her goals because of it.

Even if in your AU she doesn’t have a lab or an apocalypse to study, this core idea isn’t hard to apply to something else. In a random High School AU it could be that she has controlling foster parents after her dad died, for example, or there are situations where being a minor results in a lack of agency that forces her into undesirable situations. The possibilities are endless! Core character concepts are not tied to specific circumstances, which is what makes them transposable.

Also it’s easier for both you and the reader to just use what’s already there as much as possible. For you that means they’ll be easier to keep in character, and for the reader it’s familiar context (or they learn something new about a character thanks to you).

Mobius’s music knowledge? Well she claims music is just noise, but she feels touched by Eden’s last song. So she doesn’t seem interesting by music unless she has a personal connection to it. That’s perfectly transposable.

Elysia on the other hand, she’s the type to listen to Eden, and she likes dancing, but she doesn’t seem to be the overly academic type. Canon Elysia doesn’t seem to play an instrument either. She probably knows plenty of popular songs, dancing songs, and songs that Eden has sung to her or talked about, but not more than what Eden told her about music theory. That’s also transposable.

But! Remember, details must serve your story. If you’re writing a story about a band, you can take those above points, keep them, and then give the characters a twist.

Perhaps Mobius CLAIMS she hates music but she actually finds singing soothing, so she sings in secret. Perhaps Elysia loves listening to music, so she decided to try and learn an instrument. By combining what your characters are like and what your AU needs, you get a unique, interesting result that readers will be curious about.

Now for entirely “new” things, well. If you have lots of new characters to introduce to existing ones, you could just take an hour and make a relationship chart. Just one hour. Not days. Set an alarm up. You can change it later, but limiting the time you spend will help you feel less overwhelmed.

If you are wondering about a detail canon doesn’t talk about and feel lost, worry about when it’s relevant, and when it is relevant pick what makes what comes next most interesting.

Say that your characters are visiting a new town, and start talking about how different it is to their home town— wouldn’t it be most fun if someone dropped “actually, I was born here”, and became the character to give them a tour or know more than others about the place? That way you can mix worldbuilding and plot seamlessly!

I think that should be enough to get you unstuck. I hope my advice will be helpful.

Just remember one last thing: Your story must be something you enjoy writing, not something that will be a “good final product.” Make sure to have fun, okay? ^^

Happy writing!

[strangestcase]

i saw a post of yours a while ago, i don't remember it exactly but it was about hyde being warped by fandomization (which i've seen u mention a few times), i was wondering if you would expand on that phenomenon? what exactly is this fandom version and what's different between him and canon?

i'm somewhat new to gothic lit circles on tumblr so i am really curious, and you seem to have been around these circles more. i don't even really know what counts as a "fandom", is it simply the posts on this site or something more? (sorry this got so long and broad. anyways i like your posting!)

Fanon Hyde is, basically, not allowed to be Hyde.

He can trample a child, but he only murders people who deserve it. He can be creepy, but not scary. He can be witty, but not intelligent. He can commit murder, but not bloody murder. He’s violent but not too much. He’s treated like a child because he’s short, treated like an idiot because he’s impulsive, reduced to a Chaotic Gremlin Baby uwu if not a literal baby.

He’s a toddler’s idea of a meanie.

I think it’s because Hyde is, in most adaptations, explicitly worse than in the book. We don’t know much about what Hyde DOES that is that bad- could be anything, really; from what Jekyll says, it ranges from the innocuous yet scandalous to the legitimately vile. He enjoys seeing others suffer. He likes causing pain. A lot of adaptations make it more concrete by depicting Hyde as an abuser or a sexual predator, and the fandom understandably doesn’t like that.

But another bit of it is that the fandom… usually jumps to assume the best in Hyde. Out of the very wide range of evil he incurs in, they only focus on what is only bad for the time. Hyde is JUST a drag king, so he’s not THAT bad, right? Right? Right????? He isn’t a monster like everyone says, RIGHT???????

Plus, TGS Hyde, who is infantilized to hell and back and not even evil, just an annoying, inoffensive teddy bear of an asshole that THINKS he’s evil, is one of the most popular versions of him…

So the result is that too much of the tumblr crowd perceives (deep sigh) Mr. Hyde of Classic Horror as Just Goofy, Really, Just Weird And Rude, He Could Never Be This Sex-Obsessed Freak Bitch Thing He Is In The Movies.

Don’t get me started on his twinkification. Put some facial hair on that beast.

[applesandbannas747]

same anon as before but thank u for the interesting response! and i’m sorry in advance for this long venting lol, but honestly i’m just really frustrated because i think fence could be as popular and mainstream as projects like check please or heartstopper if 1) there was good marketing for it, 2) if the releasing of the issues wasn’t so puzzling, and 3) if the storyline was progressing in a natural way.

rise makes no sense in context of the novels at all and im just? if they were going to have tie-in novels they should have been used to progress character and relationship development, not create an alternate world that’s never going to be addressed. even putting aside gross mischaracterization the novels literally cannot be canon so they’re just published for? no good reason i can see? they could have prequels (seiji and jesse or harvard and aiden pre-series) or been about the team bonding/getting better at fencing, or focused on side characters that won’t get as much focus in the comics (eugene! if he’s mostly being side-lined in the comics the novels could have been his time to shine instead of him being even more sidelined. or even bobby and dante or kally and tanner). there’s definitely a lot of characters in the comics and if it was getting overwhelming the novels could have picked up that slack but they didn’t so their purpose mystifies me — there was also clearly no reason to have nicholas and seiji as pov characters in those books because srb (and i do adore all srb’s other work so this is hard for me to say) was terrible at writing them. when she was good she was good (which makes me think if there had been more editing the novels could have been better) but when she was bad she was very very bad. since she was even worse at writing eugene i guess i should be glad eugene didn’t have a pov. but seriously if the novels were mainly just haiden it could have just been haiden pov.

idk i just used to love fence so much and always noticed there was never a huge following for it, which is okay because the small fence fandom is great!! but i���ve always thought it could have had a bigger audience. there is so much promise in the first issues of fence — kings row competing against exton, the revelation of the truth about nicholas, the reactions and results from that, character development for all the main characters, relationship development for nichoji & haiden, the team actually Becoming a team & the idea of seiji nicholas and eugene being the fencing team after aiden and harvard graduate. but i feel like we’re never going to see any of that. page time is spent on things that aren’t as important instead, and then it takes ages for the next issue/volume and like you said it doesn’t feel coherent or connected to the other issues anymore. it confuses me that all the edges in fence r being sanded down and that the interesting promises in it are constantly being put off.

i’m sorry for talking about this sm i have not been successful in getting anyone into fence irl 😭 i hadn’t read rise or the novels until this month and i reread vol 1-4 before i read the new stuff and it made me very nostalgic

Hi again! lmfao dude no need to ever apologize to me for vents about Fence because I am forever pontificating about it. I agree that Fence has (or, rather, had) the potential to be really popular to a wide audience and I think you hit the nail on the head. And so much of it is just such easy fixes--like putting any effort into marketing lol or when releasing the compiled issues as volumes, giving them all distinct covers and names would have been SO helpful. Reusing the issue covers for the volumes was a mistake (and again, that's something marketing should have been all over!!). and the storyline. oh man. yeah. that ship has sailed and I've had mental breakdowns about it--but if we'd stayed true to the original concept of Fence and BOOM and Pacat put more effort into reaching a wider audience, it could have been big. Another consideration here, of course, is the content-to-hiatus ratio, which loses a ton of fans, but I maintain that if BOOM had their shit together, they could have fixed that problem too! and it's so frustrating

GOD RIGHT??? The novels came in, ruined Fence, and then aren't even actually canon because they don't actually fit in the universe??? My theory is that since Pacat is a SRB superfan, he kind of let her go overboard and realized after the novels were published and he had to move his story forward post-Disarmed that he'd fucked up giving so much freedom to her. Because they called it canon--and he still says it's '80% canon' but it couldn't have happened. So the point of the novels was basically for Pacat to read fanfiction from his favorite author of his OCs--it did nothing positive for the story, the characters, the franchise, or the fans. and LITERALLY!!! I've always thought doing a prequel for the tie-ins made more sense. Like following the fencing team with Harvard, Aiden, Kally, and Tanner would have been so fun, or focusing on Kally and Tanner or Bobby and Dante would have been fun and would have left room for actual plot progression!! It was pure selfishness on the authors' part to do the novels how they did them. And if Pacat would father fangirl over SRB than write a meaningful story, that's his right, but it still bugs me that there was clearly no thought given to the consequences of the novels. So instead of dealing with them, we ignore them and pretend that they're still '80% canon' to make ourselves feel better for our oopsie. hahaaa I have nothing nice to say about SRB or her writing. I don't think she got anything right in Fence--except for hinting Eugesse, which you know she only did because she knew it was popular in the fandom and she wanted the hype and baited us with it lmfao But! I've always had issues with her even before she touched Fence--her blatant sexism in In Other Lands was disturbing to me when I read it (shaming and looking down on feminine traits isn't Woke or Revolutionary just because you assigned those traits to men in your "badass feminist society" and had all the women be grossly sexist and predatory) so it's not just me being an asshole because she ruined my favorite thing in the world <3 But I know she's very beloved among her fans and I'm sorry that she failed you in Fence when you love her other works so much. If there was one mercy from the novels, it was the lack of a Eugene POV even if it further proves he's not really part of the team/a main character...unfortunately that's a fair trade jkdfah

I always thought Fence deserved a bigger following than it ever got--and maybe having a bigger fanbase and more money being thrown at it would have helped BOOM commit to buying enough ahead to let Pacat and Jo actually work on it consistently and put out content more regularly. It really was setting itself up to be so fun and full of tropes the gays LOVE. i mean, sports 'manga' that's actually queer? All the fun tropes with rivals and 'becoming a team'? The classic character archetypes used smartly and effectively? I genuinely think it would have appealed to all the people who love Check Please and Heartstopper and Yuri on Ice. And it still does, I guess, but I feel like if Fence gets popular now, I'd be a bit sad to see all that love centered around a version of Fence I don't like (but that is pure selfishness lmfao I fully admit it). I just so love/d all the edges and conflicts in Fence and it's sad to see them sanded down in canon and resolved of screen.

LMFAO my dude I am sorry for rambling so much at you twice in a row now! Anyway, I'm always here to talk Fence uwu even though i can be harsh and unpleasant about things i don't like jskdfha

[yeehawbvby]

EDIT 12/4/23 - IGNORE ALL THIS unless you’re interested in Max’s old lore!! It doesn’t apply to her anymore :3

-

Because I’m balls deep in PLA brainrot, and I didn’t wanna make a new oc just for this, I now have properly outlined Maxine lore for those who care ��🗣🗣

- born in Unova

- became a trainer at like 13 and was kinda on her own/constantly on the move from then-on. Stayed in the region for the most part but rarely went home

- moved to Galar at like 19-21

- earned the terribly corny nickname DynaMax from Leon and Hop and when she grew popular it became a widely used nickname for her amongst fans UGHHHHH

- almost the same story as the protag in SWSH. Became champion at 24

- pressure got to be too much so she left for Paldea a year or 2 later to try and settle down a little bit/go to school/figure out what she wanted

- wound up getting mixed up in all THAT stuff

- eventually graduated, didn’t know what to do from there

- impulse got a bunch of pokemon-related tattoos during a crisis lol, mainly related to legendaries she’s encountered and her starters but some god-likes (Arceus + Giratina) were mixed in there

- canonically she fucking dies (I still dunno how, maybe pokemon battle or something)

- is reincarnated from the same age into Hisui because Arceus saw the tattoo as some kind of pitiful plea at a second chance from someone it deemed like.. mildly worthy (even though It Was Not lmaooo DUMBASS)

- kinda follows a mix between canon and a few fanfics I’ve read from here

- keeping it vague for now but I just know she fuckin SOBS when she sees Ingo because she knew him and his brother and hasn’t seen them in forever but now Ingo doesn’t even know her because of his memory loss. Like she doesn’t handle it well at all that her one connection to her prev life doesn’t recognize or remember her or anything (she gets it and doesn’t hold it against him or anything and hides it the best she can but still!!)

Idk how I’ll bring her back for the next games but I think this is kinda fun uwu I might make character sheets for each region too✨

[notquitejiraiya]

I want to ask! 3 - 14

Absolutely absolutely! I answered number 8 and 14 in my precious post (replying to the lovely @clumsydragon28) but I’ll answer the rest under here:

3) screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

Oh god, many many many. The first that comes to mind (if I try and keep this Naruto related) was something about Temari being forced to birth Shikamaru’s misogynistic son?? like mate, please calm yourself.

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

I don’t often block, but the straw that broke the camel’s back with the most recent block was just someone’s persistence ignorance and lack of interest in learning and improving, despite pretending to. Not even just of a craft, just of being a better, more personal and understanding human

5) worst discord server and why

A server entirely made up of Paul McCartney stans I was invited to and quietly observed for like 6 months before being chucked out for being inactive. I sent like one message — I was too scared to speak — and I don’t even like Paul McCartney past a general appreciation of his music. Not the worst as in a bad place, but worst as in I didn’t belong lmao.

6) which ship fans are the most annoying?

I personally don’t think any fans are THAT bad anymore. Not bad enough to be mean about. Back in the day found a fair few shippers whose main ship has Naruto as one of the characters to be a right pain in the arse. But that’s only my memory of the old, bad shipping war days (from the sidelines) and honestly, it’s not that bad. Not bad enough to broadly label as annoying.

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

Not necessarily hate, but Sakura. I always found her just fine in canon but all of the pointless discourse around her absolutely drives me up the wall to the to the point where I see her name (outside a fic as a non-main character, which is rare for me, too) and I just groan.

9) worst part of canon

Do I even need to say it? It’s the fucking aliens.

10) worst part of fanon

Maybe it sounds dumb, but for me it’s just when people write Naruto himself. I can’t think of a single fic I’ve read where Naruto hasn’t annoyed me. He was already so precariously on the edge of bearable for me in canon that seeing interpretations of him is always bound to drive me nuts.

Alternatively, across various fandoms, bragging about how niche things are as if that makes them better. This always gripes me in fandoms: spaces that are supposed to bring people who enjoy the same things together. Of course please do like what you like and be proud; I’m happy for you that you like that thing, but the popularity or lack of popularity of something is no bearing on how much more nuanced, clever or deep your level of thought is.

11) number of fandom-related words you've filtered

Grand total of 6 muted words on twt if that’s what this means. 0 on tumblr because I can control what I see better :)

12) the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

I mean, I don’t think anyone in my fandoms is that unpopular. Maybe I just got good at not seeing bullshit, but nobody. My violence for this one is that there’s content for most things in this fandom to a level that reflects canon and that doesn’t make things “unpopular”. Less popular, maybe. But obviously your fave with 1 minute screen time or 3 lines in a novel isn’t gonna have an insane fandom following probably. Doesn’t make them unpopular, they’re just a nobody.

If I have to give a “proper” answer though, I say Rasa. Just cause I find him interesting and he’s perhaps not widely enjoyed.

13) worst blorboficiation

Think as of late it’s got to be Kankuro. But specifically the cat-boy stuff I see. I just don’t get it. The man might have a good and the capacity to be silly and soft and dorky, but the cat-boy stuff just doesn’t align with him at all for me. Not a fan.

[cherrylight]

Idk why but I feel super insecure selfshipping with my fav character when I see such a popular pair shipping pop up of them. I feel guilty selfshipping… Or people saying that the (charector I like) doesn’t like/feel attracted to people who are *specific gender,body type, personality, etc) idk it just makes me feel really sad. Sorry for the sudden vent like ask!

its ok anon!! its totally ok im glad you came to me for help!

you should never ever feel guilty on selfshipping!! even if its nerve wracking, or scary, it should be fun and enjoyable. 

i completely understand feeling insecure on seeing your favourite character with a popular or a canon ship, it makes you second guess everything, makes you think “do they actually love me? would they love me at all? would they choose me instead of them?” its frustrating in a way because this character means so much to you that seeing them look so happy with someone else that isnt you is heartbreaking

i have that a lot with dave actually, as much as i love and adore him and him being my absolute favourite and loml its hard to like look through the tag because all i see is that one particular ship.

HOWEVER; no person should ever tell you your favourite character / f/o doesnt like a specific gender, body type, personality, or anything like that. does not matter on whatever “canon” thing they say; your f/o loves you for *you*. they do not mind any flaw you have, any negative traits you have, any body type you have either; they love you for all your flaws and all! if you have bad days, or a continuous of bad days; im sure they will be as patient or as helpful to you during those times.

selfshipping should be for you and makes you super excited to gush freely even if gushing isnt something you do on a daily basis; it should make you feel happy and look at the character with hearts in your eyes. the sadness of selfshipping is knowing that there is a popular ship amongst the fandom that will be continuously forever there, but that does not mean your f/o will ever love you less; in fact, they will remind you just how much they love *you* and *only* you, and no one else; you are their most favourite person.

selfshipping in all honesty is scary, i second guess a lot but i do feel making your own content for your selfship is really special. 

anon, its ok to feel insecure, its ok to feel sad over those things, but your f/o adores you. loves *you* for who you are. people are just mean and enjoy ruining peoples happiness because it makes them feel good, you cannot control a fandom to stop the wide range of a popular ship with that character, but you can control how you create your selfship narrative. 

i am so sorry this is so long i had too many thoughts khfgkdlhgdfh but you are not alone at all anon <3