#like there are so many characters that have explicitly expressed romantic interest in canon and you could never make me give a fuck

[danothan]

fanon vs canon is kinda interesting to me bc on one hand, i don’t understand how someone could treat fanon as their “sandbox to play in” when it’s so far removed from any source material that the foundation isn’t solid enough to build on top of. on the other, i feel like it’s the comic reader’s rite of passage to cherrypick and outright ignore certain writing choices

i get that it’s a matter of familiarity and how informed one’s decisions are, but sometimes it feels like canon-based interpretations get treated like fanon anyway, so maybe the true difference is just how annoying it is

[angel-fruitcake]

How is it canon when it’s unrequited u make no sense whatsoever is it delusion or memes

first of all- 'unrequited' means distinctly not returned. Dean's stunned lack of response in the moment was not a rejection of Cas' feelings, and should not be considered as such. therefore, Destiel cannot be considered unrequited.

second of all- Cas' love for Dean has been confirmed many times on multiple different occasions, by both Misha and Jensen themselves, as well as Robert Berens, to be romantic love. that is not up for interpretation. based on that fact alone, it is canon. whether or not Dean's feelings are ever explicitly and/or verbally expressed does not change the fact that Castiel is canonically in love with Dean Winchester. that makes it c a n o n.

third of all- the fact that Dean's feelings have not yet been verbally confirmed is of very little consequence when compared to the monumental amount of very compelling evidence suggesting that he does, in fact, return Cas' feelings, even if Dean himself hadn't yet realized it at the time of the confession.

if you have watched this show and actually picked up on the frankly staggering amount of very clear context clues, it is quite obvious that, aside from his brother, Castiel is the most important person in Dean's life, full stop.

i don't have the patience right now to list every single instance that suggests Dean's feelings for Cas are mutual; there are far too many. but i will remind you of the most significant ones:

when Cas died in the s12 finale, Dean mourned that loss unlike he had done with any other character death up to that point in the series, and the way in which Dean grieved Cas was very purposefully portrayed in such an undeniably different way than how Sam grieved Cas. even the loss of his mother seemed to almost pale in comparison to the immense weight of Cas' sudden absence in Dean's life. Dean mourned Cas like a spouse rather than like a brother or family member; it is known as the 'widower arc' for a reason.

Dean was nearly suicidal up until the very moment he learned that Cas had come back. when Cas inevitably returned, the sudden change in Dean's demeanor was so immediately apparent and extreme, it gave Sam whiplash.

in the final seasons, Dean no longer showed much if any interest in having any romantic or sexual partners, a stark contrast to earlier seasons. the last committed relationship he had was with Lisa, which was quite a few years prior. this is in direct contrast to Sam, who had several romantic love interests over the course of the show (Jess, Madison, Ruby, Amelia, Eileen). the role of closest person to Dean other than Sam was always filled by Cas, the only difference being the lack of romantic label.

Dean and Cas' relationship has been directly paralleled in multiple different instances with canonically romantic couples, the most significant ones being: Sam and Jess, Cain and his wife Collette, John and Mary (during the widower arc), and Sam and Eileen in the final season.

additionally, directly following Cas being taken by the empty, Sam's attempts to call Dean were completely ignored, despite Dean knowing that his brother needed confirmation that he was alive. the sole thing occupying Dean's mind at that moment was Castiel; nothing else in the world mattered.

do you get it?

[amerricanartwork]

I saw your lilypad art post, and I got curious: why do you enjoy lilypad? it's not a common RW ship, so I'd be interesting to hear what about it you enjoy!

Hear me out, guys... I must explain myself before I get onto the Lilypad essay.

I made that original comment because, at the time, I wanted to just get the aforementioned headcanons out as soon as possible. Understand, my reluctance wasn't because I didn't want to talk about Lilypad, but rather the exact opposite: I had so many feelings about it, yet had put so little effort into expressing them in a coherent, presentable format that I just knew it'd distract me for the next week or two if I let it rent too much space in my conscious thoughts. But now that little comment has left me with several people asking me to share those thoughts, and, both thankfully and unfortunately, I simply can't resist indulging in thoughts about the characters I love—!

Keep in mind, I haven’t finished Saint campaign yet, and even then I’ve found like less than half the broadcasts in Spearmaster campaign yet, so there’s likely some extra canon info I may be missing that could add to or change some of what I say here. I also apologize if some of what I write here seems really out-of-character. I try not to let my passion for my little headcanons and scenarios make me disregard the canon, but even so, I might slip and think up some weird things occasionally. Nonetheless, I feel like I’ve got enough of the picture to start confidently enjoying this ship, so I’ll talk about it anyway! 

As always, feel free to add to these ideas if you can! Without further delay, enjoy this 3381-word essay, with a few initial headcanons sprinkled in, on why I adore Lilypad!

Oh, and just in case, if you couldn’t already tell, major Hunter campaign spoilers below.

Quetzalli on Loving Lilypad

I’m gonna start this out with a preface: I can generally find the appeal in a lot of different ships and the art other fans make for them, but for me to ship something enough to actively draw it and make my own headcanons about it and such (outside of, perhaps, gifts for other people), it usually has to contain a variety of “ship tropes” that I personally fancy. Many of my most-favorite ship tropes tend to be the ones that aren’t just cute, but that carry narrative significance and seem poetic in some way, usually because they can facilitate character arcs in the involved characters. The more of these a ship has, or the more ship tropes I can portray it with without it seeming too out-of-character, and the more I like those specific tropes, the better. This principle is a major reason why I’ve gravitated towards Artimand as my main slugcat ship, but for now, I’m going to focus on which of these I see in Lilypad — in canon content, other fan-portrayals, and my personal headcanons — that, as opposed to other iterator ships, has currently won me over.

I’m gonna describe the main general things I like seeing in this ship. Some of them are more due to fandom portrayals than what’s in the canon, but they all play a big role in my current love for Lilypad. 

Synergy

I’ll begin with how I really appreciate just how much synergy Looks to the Moon and No Significant Harassment are shown to have, at least in fan content! I always like seeing pairings where the characters aren’t just romantic, but also work really well together as a team or even just as friends. After all, just because the characters may be romantically in love doesn’t mean they must only show it in explicitly romantic ways. To me, Lilypad strikes me as a relationship where Sig and Moon would make an amazing team in many aspects of their lives, whether it's collaborating on projects, sharing their interests, or trying to maintain order in the rest of their group. And their compliment is just really sweet to me, though I’ll get to that later.

A Shoulder to Lean On/The Lady

One of my favorite ship tropes is “character with a lot of weight on their shoulder who finally gets to lift it off and be ‘normal’ for once when around the other”. I’ve always found it sweet when characters like this, especially ones who are normally very selfless, finally get a chance to indulge and enjoy themselves for once! And once again, this is another thing I imagine in Artimand too, and you could project this onto Trafficlights given Suns’s implied high status, but I think it works especially with Lilypad, given Moon’s role as group senior means she objectively has a lot to manage all the time with no permanent escape from it. Even beyond the whole Five Pebbles rot drama, Moon probably had a lot on her plate just in terms of maintaining order between the rest of the group and setting a good example to the younger generations, especially as the group expanded over time, not to mention trying to find the solution herself. Combine this with how I picture her to be the kind of person who cares a lot about her image as a “proper” and  “dignified” leader, and someone who often sacrifices her own desires to promote the group’s welfare, I just find it really soft for her to have someone to lean on, metaphorically (and in a worm-off-the-string scenario, literally), and who better to go to than her best teammate, who knows the power of a good laugh and will stop at nothing to have fun with those he loves? Not to mention, since I headcanon Sig as slightly younger than Moon (2nd gen, specifically), I just find it rather cute in an ironic sense that the older, more serious Moon is soft around the younger, far more chaotic Sig, especially as Moon would go through the realization that she actually kinda likes this little troublemaker! 

This also comes back to something I mentioned in the tags of that beepsnort post, which is that one of my other favorite ship tropes is “guy who loves/is good at making people laugh x girl who has a REALLY weird/embarrassing laugh”, and that just works so well with Lilypad! It’s admittedly a very headcanon-based thing for me, but given how I’ve already explained my perception of Moon as very proper and serious, I imagine one of the best ways Sig takes the weight off her shoulders is by being the only person who can consistently make her laugh so hard! And with the beepsnort headcanon it’s even cuter, because of course Moon would be super embarrassed every time she even so much as gives a half-chuckle at one of his jokes, because Sig is relentless when it comes to getting the giggles out of her, and he won’t stop until she’s rolling and shaking on the floor of her chamber, her beepy-snorts filling the room! My GODDD I love this trope so much, and for beings who are inherently such workaholics, I think getting to genuinely relax and have fun for a bit, once she gets over the initial shock and embarrassment, would be something Moon would really come to value.

Inverses Attract/The Tramp

I’ve mentioned it in my last Artimand headcanons post, but one of my absolute all-time favorite ship tropes is the classic “opposites attract”, although I prefer the name “inverses attract”. As I like to portray it, the trope not only involves characters who are opposites personality-wise, but those being opposites of the same core aspect, and ultimately helping balance each other out by offering the other half of the equation to each other (hence the name “inverses”). The trope I just wrote about above is how Sig helps Moon to relax and have fun, but as I try to do with all ships, how does it work the other way too? Well, I really like to imagine Sig learning to be more openly serious and dedicated! Don’t get me wrong, Sig is a hard worker (it’s pretty much the nature of all iterators), but given he seems to pretty strongly reject the quest for the Triple Affirmative, I imagine the next problem would be in him finding a new purpose to strive for. And what better new purpose than in standing by and protecting the group senior he thinks he just might wanna be more than friends with?

It already works because Moon, of course, would work to keep Sig in check and make sure he doesn’t go too overboard with his shenanigans. But just imagine how inspired he’d grow over time seeing Moon work so hard to keep the group together and keep them striving for their purpose, even if he doesn’t agree with it. I imagine it’s why Sig’s methods are still rather controlled rather than purely chaotic, and there’s a reason to his rebellion. Thanks to Moon, rather than slaving away at a seemingly impossible solution until his mind collapses with his structure, he’ll use his talents to, at the very least, keep the local group together as long as possible, because even if they’ll all be gone one day, that doesn’t mean they have to go alone!

It’s why I’m also labeling these two tropes together as “the Lady and the Tramp”, yet another ship dynamic that gets me every time! It’s a specific instance of “inverses attract” where the noble, proper lady finds a taste of freedom and courage from the dangerously charming tramp, who from her finds a new sense of purpose and honor! And in my opinion, Lilypad is most definitely the best opportunity for this dynamic among Rain World ships!

The Fated Couple

Slow-burn couples seem to be pretty popular in many fandoms, but what about a really slow-burn? There’s something just so romantic to me about the idea that Moon and Sig, from the moment they met, have always just clicked so perfectly, and have been by each other’s side so constantly ever since, to the point it seems practically inevitable to everyone (except them of course) that they’ll eventually get together romantically. Of course, there are two main roadblocks to their romance being 1.) their whole objective and purpose for being created is kind-of fundamentally opposed to strong attachments like love (I mean, if Karma 3 is Companionship, wouldn’t romantic love be considered the worst example of that?), and 2.) even if they did reject this purpose, being massive immovable structures with the only humanoid part stuck deep inside a box, a budding romance seemingly couldn’t really go anywhere anyway. In fact, because of these roadblocks much of my Lilypad imaginings take place in the ever-popular “worm-off-the-string” scenario, especially since the next couple of reasons for why I like the ship play a lot into the themes I like to incorporate in this story concept. 

However, these issues towards such a romance are also what make it so sweet in the end! Just think of Moon, alone in her chamber, beginning to worry about how she’s actually kinda sorta, maybe, hypothetically, possibly, just a little bit starting to like the carefree and charismatic Gen 2 in the local group as even more than just a work partner and a dear friend, but oh no, that’s indulging in a Karmic Sin, and as group senior she can’t just throw away their purpose like that and set such a bad example to the rest! What’s she gonna do?? And then on the other side, Sig puzzling in his chamber, pining so hard for the group senior yet seemingly unable to confess, because, even disregarding Karma 3 and the fact that giant immobile calculators aren’t about to be snuggling any time soon, why would someone as perfect and powerful as her want someone like him, so dismissive of their core purpose and unorthodox in his methods? Is there even a point in having these feelings at all, when they might very well end up simply fading to dust along with the rest of his structure?

Maybe, they both think, it’d be better to just keep these feelings to themselves and quietly love from a distance. That is, until…

Moon’s Collapse and the Slag Reset Keys

The fourth reason is, of course, the most steeped in canon. It goes back a bit to the “shoulder to lean on” concept, but even aside from that, there is something just so romantic about this on both sides.

Firstly, from Moon’s perspective. There’s no doubt that the collapse must have been very traumatic for Looks to the Moon physically, but I like to think about just how much it’d affect her emotionally, too. I mean, being so painfully destroyed by your own brother, with seemingly nothing that can be done to stop it and no one to help you? And then consider how lonely it must have been in her final moments. The only comfort she does get is from Spearmaster’s visit, and even then she sends him off to go deliver her final words, which has still got to be really depressing. And finally, think about how betrayed she must have felt, trying so hard throughout her operation to help her citizens and the local group and be kind to everyone, only to have it be repaid like this, forced to collapse in on herself, being buried under her own body, unfathomable pain all around, and with not a soul to help her.

So then, think about just how shocking and heartwarming (literally, if you think about it) it must be when that lovable Gen 2, always so playful and carefree normally, is the one to give her a second chance and being her back when all hope seems lost, and using such a unique delivery method no less! I mean COME ON, Sig literally brought her back to life, how could one NOT fall in love with someone who did that for them? It links back to the “shoulder to lean on” idea, in that, for once, someone finally looked out for Moon and gave back to her for all the kindness she gave to the world. Think about this as the moment she truly realizes she’s in love with No Significant Harassment, and how tragic it’d be knowing now, it’s too late to say it. But, even so, if he’s willing to go this far to make sure she’s okay, then maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance her love at least wasn’t alone.

Now, my thoughts about this from No Significant Harassment’s side (which also kinda turned into a mini NSH appreciation paragraph that links back to the earlier Inverses Attract and Lady and the Tramp segment), I think it’s very poetic to see him going out of his way to take his messenger concept, originally used for no more than a trivial prank and at most a very experimental and unfinished alternative communication method, and turning it into a noble last-ditch effort to rescue the one he loves. It doesn’t just clearly show how much he cares for Moon that he worked to save her when no one else did (and if that’s because the odds of being able to do anything seemed very low to the rest of them, that makes it even more sweet) I think it shows off a lot of Sig’s character beyond just being a jokester. Like, I’d seen this kind of personality for Sig in the fandom content before, but this action and the other broadcasts are what first made me truly realize not just that it is based in canon, but that, more importantly he’s not just stupid or unfocused, he’s rebellious. He doesn’t joke around because he just doesn’t care, it’s because he’s independent, he’s got other places he wants to go and plans that don’t fit into what most of his peers are used to. He makes light of the world because he sees what others don’t, and it’s honestly pretty frickin’ funny how blind others can be most of the time (case-in-point: him making a slugcat from a messenger, which no one else thought to do because those creatures seemed too “dull” and “primitive” to ever be capable of such a thing). So think about how significant it must be when he’s openly taking something seriously. This is where that dynamic of the Tramp, and how Sig would benefit from this relationship is really highlighted. I just adore it when the easygoing, carefree character finally finds purpose in their lover, and springs into serious action like they never were before! And it makes sense too given what I said about them not getting together before: seeing Moon collapse would show him directly that even beings as durable as iterators don’t last forever, so if he’s got these feelings for Moon, he’s got to make a move while there’s still a chance! And what better way to show his love than to bring her back when all hope seems lost? Which brings me to the final aspects I’ll talk about here, first of which is…

True Love’s Kiss

Yes, you read that right. The real reason I love the slag reset keys as a plot element so much is not just because it shows Sig’s secret strength of character, not just because it finally gives reward to Moon’s kindness, but because it is a real fairytale come true! 

I know this sounds crazy and probably totally unrelated to Rain World, but think about it! You guys have probably seen Snow White and Sleeping Beauty before, or at least one of the two? Isn’t the whole trope that the beautiful princess, fairest maiden in the land, gets cursed through some means or another to die (or in Aurora’s case, fall into an indefinite sleep), which is only undone when the strong and brave prince, riding upon his noble steed, awakens the princess by giving her true love’s kiss? I already love both those movies on their own for various other reasons, but after my description, is this starting to sound familiar in another way?

I mean, with everything I’ve said about Moon in this post so far, there’s no doubt you could perceive her as the “fair princess”, who through unfortunate circumstances is put to a premature and indefinite death. And there’s no doubt Sig fills the role of the brave prince by working to save her with the slag reset keys, which in this metaphor are undoubtedly the “true love’s kiss” that ultimately conquers all, always longed for, and finally delivered! And hey, given Hunter is the one to carry the keys to Moon, a small yet courageous beast who stops at nothing to meet his goals, Sig even has his own “noble steed”! And even if Hunter is technically the one to actually deliver the green neuron, and the death the “princess” succumbs to wasn’t out of genuine malice towards her, I think the sentiment is still there and the parallel is close enough! 

But yes, as strange as it may sound, the fairytale parallel is the main reason Lilypad resonates with me so much! Those classic fairytale-esque romance tropes and that poetic storytelling found in Disney’s first feature-length animated films has always been dear to my heart, and is even more so now that I’m older and can truly appreciate the beauty of them. So now, even in my fandom experiences, ships that win my appreciation over all others are often those that manage to embody those classic romance tropes and themes as best as possible, and frankly, even Artimand loses ever-so-slightly to Lilypad in this regard! Or, as I also enjoy calling them, “Lifeline”, for reasons that are probably obvious now. 

And it’s even better when you consider…

Some Things Never Change

Another trope I’ve recently begun to love is the idea that some phenomena in the world never truly disappear, but simply manifest in different ways, sometimes unexpected ones. And given the whole Triple Affirmative quest and the Ancients’ mass ascension philosophy, this idea is something I especially love seeing in Rain World content. Even the canon events show this idea, but think about how wonderfully it would work with Lilypad beyond just the slag reset keys, especially taking up that “worm off the string” iterator AU concept some have explored in this fandom already.

Just think about how sweet it would be when Moon and Sig, operating primarily through their puppets now, get to finally hug and kiss and be with each other so directly now! Think of the way Sig would speak to Moon about how, even after her collapse, she's still somehow beautiful as ever, and Moon returning with how even all the trouble the group has faced hasn't put a dent in his charm! And it's even sweeter when you consider it’s against everything their creators stood for! Think of Moon, after everything she’s been through and how much she’s probably changed at this point, now willing to give some of these “worldly attachments” a chance, because you can never truly get rid of them, but she knows better than anyone that you won’t be around to experience them forever, so why not enjoy it while you’ve got the chance? And it’d make sense too, not just for her own benefit, but for Pebbles and the rest of the group’s sake too! She’s always strove to set a good example for them, and since their original quest has left them with nothing but pain and trauma, why not show them that maybe all these attachments aren’t so bad after all?

I just think it’d be really interesting to see Moon joining Sig in that rejection of the Triple Affirmative, and what better way to do that than by finally embracing that love they’ve felt for each other for so long? Because love never truly dies, it just appears in new people. And maybe they don’t have to spend their whole lives as grand iterators, the vast infinitely-advanced mechanical deities who embody perfection in almost every way. Maybe, even just for a bit, they can just be people, falling in love just as their creators did all over again!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

And with that, I think I’m FINALLY done here. HOLY COW, this is easily my longest post yet, and I hope it doesn’t disappoint! Part of the reason it took so long was because I was trying to find the perfect way to express all these ideas without it just spilling out onto the page in some weird half-coherent mess. But eventually I just said “ah screw it, let’s just ramble about this ship and see where it goes!” and my god, did it go far! And I still managed to somewhat organize it, so yay!

But aside from that, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who asked for my thoughts on Lilypad, and everyone who made it to the bottom of this essay! I’ve never really gotten a chance to openly ramble about one of my favorite ships to the rest of the fandom like this, so seeing that some fans, even if it’s ultimately not a huge amount, actually wanted me to do it was such a welcome surprise!

I hope you all enjoyed the drawings and the art! I’ll be around in case someone wants me to write another ship essay or something! And who knows, it’s likely I’ll find more reasons I like Lilypad as time goes on and I see more fan-content and find the rest of those broadcasts! But at least this was a starting point! 

Expect more LIlypad content to come in the future, but until now, thanks again for the opportunity!

[sailorsnightmare]

Last post unleashed the angry aroace in me regarding fandom reactions to aroace characters again so now I have to rant about it (as one does).

The canonical aroaceness of characters have always been heavily debated in queer and non-queer communities and it is ALWAYS aroace characters specifically.

For example: When Ryusui Nanami from Dr Stone stated he’s attracted to all people, everyone accepted and respected that he’s canonically Bi.

But when it comes to Senku repeatedly, physically AND verbally expressing his disgust with romance and sex, stating numerous times that he holds no interest in it, ending off the series with NO LOVE INTEREST, it’s suddenly a debate if he’s really aroace or not.

The second a character is aroace, all of a sudden they have to scream “I AM AROACE AND I DO NOT PARTNER AND I AM SEX REPULSED” for people to even fathom that they could be aroace, solely because gay pairings are more palatable.

And even then, tons of people won’t even respect it and will instead do anything they can to excuse dismissing said character’s aroaceness in favor of romance and sex AGAIN because “aroace people can be in romantic and sexual relationships too!”

Sure they can! That isn’t relavent here though, so stop using it as an excuse. When a character in media is explicitly aroace, why would you still go out of your way to force romance/sex into the characters identity? That entirely defeats the purpose of said representation.

If we had enough blatant aroace representation to be able to explore the complexities and varieties of aroace individuals that would be absolutely lovely! All kinds of aroaces deserve to see themselves shown in media we enjoy. But that isn’t the case here given that aroace rep in general is about as frequent as a droplet of rain is a desert during a drought.

Platonic relationships, familial relationships, queer platonic relationships, there are SO many different kinds of love out there that people refuse to explore despite the fact that they’re equally as emotionally impactful and important as romantic or sexual relationships!

What about platonic soulmates? Two friends who are bound to each other no matter the world they’re in?

We’re all familiar with found family, why not explore it more? Blood families even? Close-knit circles of longtime friends?

So many beloved troupes can be depicted and enjoyed in platonic means without erasing a characters aroace identity in favor of another queer one. We all deserve to feel seen in media we enjoy and we all have the freedom to choose how we consume said media, but please keep in mind that behavior like this is harmful.

No queer identity is lesser than another. Allow our community the joy of inclusion and please refrain from constantly coming up with excuses to erase an aroace character’s identity because you wish they were something else. This doesn’t happen nearly as often with other queer characters as it does with aroace ones.

[10piecechickenmcnugget]

can i talk about mcrp and societal norms rq

with the way that relationships/shipping/things of that nature work in mcrp it’s pretty safe to say that heteronormativity isn’t really a thing, and you could even go as far to say as it’s fully to the opposite end and has now become homonormativity (although m/f relationships are still around if a lot less common)

this brings up an interesting discussion as to how amatonormativity works, with the same connection to how the ccs and fandom portray/feel about romantic/sexual relationships and shipping within mcrp

while it’s incredibly common for ccs to jokingly flirt with their friends or even canonize romantic relationships within roleplay, it’s equally as common for ccs to explicitly ask not to be shipped in any way or at the very least not sexually

so in my humble opinion i would say that amatonormativity is not nearly as commonplace as it is irl, but probably exists to some extent, in most cases it just being that many people put varying degrees of emphasis on romantic or sexual relationships, but there’s most likely a lot less backlash or stigma when people express little or no desire to actually have a relationship like that

on the subject of stigma, in my experience the mcyt fandom overall is a pretty decent place for the most part in terms of acceptance, there’s a lot of queer acceptance and fucking around with giving characters weird genders and to a (unfortunately) lesser extent less stigma around physical and mental disabilities etc (this is still a little controversial from what i’ve seen); so i think that would also translate into mcrp like what i’ve said above into those things being a lot less stigmatized in mcrp worlds/etc

thank you for coming to my ted talk

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hello, I am asking about GSR because I love your thorough and thoughtful answers. I'm rewatching early CSI, and I know that the opinions of the producers towards GSR were not always favorable early on - they'd planned to can the whole relationship after S3, if I recall correctly, but WP & JF campaigned to keep them going. So I'm wondering, for early GSR, do you think that some of the claim that Grissom always loved Sara is retconned to fit the later plot? Or do you think that Grissom was written/acted to have been in love with her the whole series, and just keeping it under wraps, as the character later claims? Can we canonically read S1, S2 & S3 William Petersen acting a Grissom who doesn't know what to do with his feelings of love for Sara, or is it more likely that he was at the time meant to be acting as not sure how to handle her being so interested in him while his interest was not as strong? It seems like by S4 Butterflied that the writers & WP had decided Grissom was currently and had been in love with Sara. Would appreciate your thoughts!

hi, @nostromosigningoff!

thank you for your kind words! i'm glad you like my answers.

in response to your question:

up front, i will say i do not believe that the idea grissom expresses in episode 04x12 "butterflied" (and also at later points, such as in "immortality") that he has always been in love with sara represents a retcon.

for something to be a retcon, it has to contradict a previously established canonical plot point, thereby breaking the continuity.

for example, in s1, catherine is established to have a sister (who often helps to care for lindsey), but in later seasons, she is depicted as an only child; her sister being written out of existence is therefore a retcon.

so since it is never established that grissom definitely is not in love with sara pre-s4, then it can't be a retcon to have him say (or at least imply) in episode 04x12 "butterflied" that he has been in love with her the whole time he's known her.

it's not a rewriting of explicit history.

there is room within the narrative for what he says to be true and (within the universe of the show) to have always been true.

and, ultimately, i think the show makes it pretty clear that grissom does in fact have feelings for sara from the start, not only through explicit textual acknowledgment but also through certain acting choices billy makes, staging decisions, overarching themes, etc.

that said, the question of "was he (outside of the universe of the show) always intended to have been in love with her and only her from the beginning?" is, admittedly, a little more complicated, the answer running along the lines of "yes and no."

more discussion after the "keep reading," if you're interested.

__

first, some clarification: despite the fact that the showrunners eventually questioned the viability of gsr at the end of s3 (after grissom had declined sara's dinner invitation in episode 03x22 "play with fire"), they were not (in general) unfavorable to romantic gsr prior to that point.

while anthony zuiker had never intended for csi to be a show that focused primarily on the characters' home and love lives (and instead wanted to keep the drama firmly situated in their work), gsr had indeed been conceptualized of as a romance—and a mutual romance, at that—from day 1*.

* or technically "day 2," since jorja fox was only hired and the character of sara sidle only created after they had already filmed the pilot.

jorja fox was cast as sara with the understanding that her character would be "the love interest for gil grissom"—and note the wording she was supplied, which suggests that grissom has an interest in sara (and not that sara has unrequited feelings for him). she knew going into the job that her character was meant to match up with the show's leading man and be the object of his attraction.

to that end, many scenes throughout csi s1, s2, and s3 were written and/or directed and acted with the gsr romantic angle explicitly in mind—with the feelings evident on both sides.

multiple episodes of the early seasons heavily feature and develop the notion that grissom does have both a sexual attraction and an emotional connection to sara, beyond anyone else, and only really make sense within that context (e.g., episodes 01x03 "crate n' burial," 01x10 "sex, lies, & larvae," 01x23 "the strip strangler," 02x16 "primum non nocere," the entire grissom jealousy arc of early s3, etc.).

moreover, within these episodes, sara is not always shown as being the "pursuer." there are plenty of times when grissom expresses his attraction to, feelings for, and devotion to her unprompted, such as, for example, in episode 02x16 "primum non nocere."

this example is especially relevant to our question, as grissom's "since i met you" quip not only establishes his attraction and emotional connection to sara but also specifies that it has been a "from the moment he met her" deal. since when does he care about beauty? literally from the moment he met her and realized how beautiful she is.

the fact that he does so proves: he's not just a boss stuck in the awkward position of having a subordinate with unrequited feelings for him; he has feelings of his own, which he often expresses independent of her saying or doing anything to provoke him to.

while he is undeniably conflicted about his feelings and unsure of what to do about them, the fact is that he does have them.

and much of the tension between grissom and sara in the early seasons is based on that reality—both explicit narrative cues (such as catherine bringing the issue up to grissom in episode 02x15 "burden of proof," prodding him to deal with whatever lingering romantic feelings exist between him and sara so they can effectively work together) and billy's acting choices make that point clear.

the problem is that neither grissom nor sara can ever just fully walk away from their connection; that deep down, neither one of them wants to.

so.

outside of the universe of the show, the situation was that the showrunners had this ship that had been written as being romantic from the beginning, with mutual feelings on both sides, which they had then teased for so long and complicated in so many ways that after three seasons—which is the traditional point at which most tv "will they or won't they?" couples have their slow-burn arcs resolved—they were questioning if it was still viable (and particularly as the ship was polarizing and not universally popular with the fans).

after all, by this time, they had already had grissom and sara acknowledge the attraction head-on (see episodes 03x02 "the accused is entitled" and 03x22 "play with fire") and had had grissom turn down sara's direct romantic overture toward him, so it was time to either "drive or get out of the car," so to speak.

it was never the case that the showrunners (as a collective) had hated gsr or been against it as a romance from the get-go. it had also never been the case that they viewed it as a one-sided, "sara is in love with him but he is indifferent to her" thing, either.

whatever else may be true, grissom was consistently shown to have feelings for sara (which oftentimes complicated their interactions).

it's just that after the rigmarole of s3, there was some question of "now that we've gotten grissom and sara to this (fraught) point, should we bother to continue their romantic relationship? or is our audience burnt out on all this angst? do people actually still want to see them together?"

the writers were inclined to think no, especially because (as stated) gsr as a concept had always been divisive among fans.

however, both billy and jorja understood gsr to be so central to their characters that they advocated for the romantic storyline to continue (and eventually see some consummation).

over the course of the hiatus between s3 and s4, they lobbied to maintain the ship (or, in other words, to go with the original plan), and eventually, they persuaded the showrunners to stick with it, which meant that s4 began with romantic gsr "still on the table."

as talked about in this excerpt from the csi: crime scene investigation companion book,

because billy and jorja were successful in their campaign, there was essentially no gap in coverage with gsr being written as romantic throughout the series; that throughline persisted from episode 01x02 "cool change" on, even after the events of episode 03x22 "play with fire."

now.

all of the above said, a couple of things should be noted:

first, csi was always a show with multiple writers who, though they functioned as a team, were nevertheless not a monolith in terms of how they conceptualized of the show, its characters, their storylines, etc.

that so, mileage would often vary with csi storytelling depending on which particular writer was the primary one for a particular script or even longer story arc.

though gsr was conceived of as a romance from the beginning of the series, prior to them "going canon" with the big reveal at the end of s6, there were various writers who put their own spins on the ship. some of them applied little effort to developing the romance angle as main text on the show, adhering to the zuiker "focus on the criminalistics" mandate to the letter and leaving it mostly to billy and jorja to inflect their performances with attraction/interest "between the lines" as they would in the absence of more explicit treatment in their scripts. however, others would alternate based on their own whims or what the story of the day called for, sometimes teasing the romance explicitly and other times downplaying it and/or leaving it understated (especially in favor of other potential grissom ships, like kessom). still others consistently played to and developed the romance, pushing that overarching story along and establishing it as a series mainline (the most reliable captains of this last camp, for my money, being david rambo and sarah goldfinger).

there was also variation, even among those writers who did place gsr romance on the center stage, in terms of how they portrayed the dynamic, and particularly with regards to the question of grissom's characterization within it. some wrote more toward grissom being confused, others toward grissom being repressed and afraid, others toward him being manipulative of sara's feelings, others toward him being conscientious of power structures and professional considerations, etc. they also had multifarious interpretations of the exact nature of the romance itself, especially in terms of what grissom and sara's pre-vegas history might be, the type(s) of attraction at play and how that might manifest, what exactly the characters' hang-ups and motivations with regards to each other were, the level of intimacy between them, etc.

that being the case, we can't really speak of all of the writers and showrunners sharing a common attitude toward or understanding of gsr without oversimplifying the matter.

the truth is, views among the writing and production staff on the show toward gsr were as various as they were/are within the fandom.

carol mendelsohn, for example, has spoken of the fact that there was never a consensus in the writers' room about whether or not grissom and sara had slept together prior to sara moving to las vegas. she personally felt that they had, though other writers/producers felt they hadn't.

while there was a baseline understanding across the production that sara was meant to be grissom's love interest and that there was some kind of nebulous ~history between them, there were lots of different ways members of the production team interpreted and depicted that relationship beat (which is why the gsr storyline sometimes feels so inconsistent, even within the course of a single season).

another thing we have to keep in mind when talking about intentionality re: gsr romance is that while we as fans often talk of ships "always being endgame," more often than not, showrunners and writers don't operate with that kind of certainty in place.

with the exceptions of shows where the main romance is the be-all, end-all central plot point, with the whole story revolving around particular characters getting together/staying together/having an eventual happy ending, in most cases, most tv romances do not come with a guarantee of endgame status. writers prefer to keep their options open, writing toward what is most interesting and playing on chemistry wherever they may happen upon it.

they also sometimes are constrained by production realities (such as studio mandates, shifting actor availabilities, cast dynamics issues, etc.), which make it so they can't necessarily just "write what they want."

that so, while it is accurate to say that the writers always conceived of gsr as being mutually romantic in nature���as per the character notes jorja was given by the production team and the fact that when billy and jorja first met, they did so with the understanding that they were going to be scene partners/playing love interests going forward—it is not accurate to say that they always believed (much less knew for a fact) that grissom and sara would wind up together in the end/become the flagship of the show, spanning all fifteen seasons and a movie/get married and live happily ever after, and particularly not from the beginning of the show.

sara was meant to be grissom's primary love interest from the beginning, yes—and certainly their dynamic was written with mutual feelings/interest on both sides.

however, "primary" does no mean "only," and neither does it necessarily mean "forever."

that so, before the character was really solidified, particularly in early s1, the writers had occasionally fitted grissom into some interim romances and tried to present him more as the archetypal "cad about town" than would later be the case.

they also, as the show progressed, sometimes teased and explored other romantic options for him than sara, mainly with heather kessler, writing those interactions in such a way that (had they wanted to, and particularly had the audience reacted favorably) they could have slotted heather in as grissom's "primary romantic option" rather than sara instead.

so for as much as sara was created to be grissom's love interest from the beginning and for as much as gsr was written as a romance (with feelings on both sides) from sara's first appearance on the show, gsr was not necessarily intended from the beginning to be endgame.

in the writers' views, it was one option of many potential ones—a main option, a consistent option, an option they poured a lot of narrative time and attention into developing over the course of the show's first three seasons, yes, but an option all the same; one possible choice among many.

it wasn't until s4, after billy and jorja's intercession, that they really decided to make gsr endgame, knocking all other possibilities off the table.

that choice on their parts was, of course, cemented in episode 04x12 "butterflied."

so.

getting back to your original question of "was grissom always written/acted as being in love with sara from the get-go or was he originally meant (prior to s4) to have been more uncertain?" here are my thoughts:

as established, both billy petersen and jorja fox knew from the beginning that their characters were meant to have some kind of romantic connection, and the writers were definitely conceiving of gsr that way.

it is also true that gsr was not intended to be one-sided; grissom was written and depicted as being an active participant from the beginning, just as sara was.

but as also established, the particulars of the connection between grissom and sara were very much "not pinned down."

it wasn't as if the writers wrote up a "gsr dossier" and handed it over to billy and jorja and said, "here is the entire history your characters share together, complete with notes about how exactly they feel about each other and what beats and nuances you should play with them going forward. also, you should know that we intend for them to eventually get married and be together forever, so make sure to foreshadow that as much as you can."

to the contrary: both billy and jorja have often spoken of the fact that given the preponderance of "blanks" in their character histories and how little information the writers gave them to go on regarding grissom and sara's past dynamic, they often consulted with each other to come up with what we fans might refer to as "headcanons" about what they believed had happened between grissom and sara in san francisco, as well as to make sense of what was currently going on between them at any given point during the early seasons of the show. they relied on each other to "get on the same page" and to create internal cohesion in their performances.

it wasn't something that was just handed to them.

they were also in the same boat as members of the audience when it came to wondering what the future held for grissom and sara as a couple while the show was still running.

while they knew their characters were romantically entangled, they didn't know to what end.

at the beginning, there was so much ship teasing.

but would grissom and sara ever get together? if they did, would the relationship be long-term?

they didn't know.

they were just going along with the story as it was being written.

and, as discussed above, the writers themselves didn't have some huge, overarching plan to start out with. they knew from the onset that sara was an emotional touchstone for grissom and someone he was deeply connected and attracted to, but they weren't necessarily married to the idea that grissom and sara would themselves get married.

as stated, "endgame gsr" was one possibility among many, and, particularly at the show's onset, when there were no guarantees of how long csi would even be on the air, it was a long-shot, far-off-into-the-future, we'll-get-there-if-we-get-there possibility at that.

there were a lot of moving parts in play and nothing was set in stone.

so.

all of the above being the case, can we say definitively that every second billy played grissom on screen, his intention as an actor was to depict grissom as being deeply in love with sara? can we say that he always fully understood grissom's motivations and knew that grissom was scared of the depths of his feelings for sara (as opposed to just being unsure of how to deal with her intensity)?

no.

while it's a safe bet to say billy was always aware that grissom and sara had history and that there was a possibility that they would eventually become a couple from the start, we can't say that he always knew exactly what was going on with them. there might very well have been times when he felt like the attraction was more one-sided or when he doubted anything would ever transpire between them; even when he perhaps thought that the writers might take grissom down other roads for romance instead (i.e., pair grissom with heather).

that said, did he, as an actor, nevertheless always seem to keep those initial notes on grissom and sara's connection "in his back pocket" so that grissom's emotional attachment to sara and attraction to sara played a consistent role in his characterization?

yes.

and did he regularly depict grissom emotionally reacting to sara (even if the nature of his reactions was more ambiguous), such that we as viewers can easily believe grissom's later claims that he has always been in love with sara when we view them from an in-universe perspective?

absolutely.

the facts that billy and jorja did come up with their own takes on gsr and talk through that "secret history" together and that billy so often ad-libbed some of the most romantic gsr lines ("since i met you," anyone?) and that billy did imbue grissom's reactions to sara with such emotion all strongly suggest that even if he didn't know for sure—based on a "word of god" dictum from the showrunners—what the exact nature of grissom and sara's relationship was or that they would for sure end up together, he was playing romance between them, and it was a consistent, deliberate acting decision on his part.

see, for example, his comments about his ad-lib of grissom calling sara "honey" in episode 03x22 "play with fire": "[the producers] said, ‘he can’t call her honey.’ but that’s exactly what would happen. he’s afraid for her—he’s afraid for everybody—but it is specifically for sara. he knows the stress she’s been under with him. with her shock, she doesn’t even know until later on that he called her honey. he doesn’t know that he called her honey. only the audience knows."

he may not have been able to say for sure, "i know sara is the love of grissom's life and that he's going to marry her someday, so i'm gonna play him that way in every episode." but he knew enough to recognize the importance of that connection and to consistently depict it, leaving the door for development open.

he also knew enough (along with jorja) to advocate for the continuance of the gsr romantic storyline at a time when the showrunners were doubtful of it.

and because he did, grissom's later in-universe claims that he's been in love with sara the whole time are emminently believable, regardless of what kinds of questions were being asked behind the scenes regarding the viability of gsr from a production standpoint.

so that's the thing: when i look at grissom and sara's story, i see nothing in it that contradicts the idea that they've been madly and mutually in love with each other since 1998—and, in fact, i think their story only really makes sense when viewed through that lens.

even for as indecisive and tempestuous as grissom can be about his relationship with sara in the early seasons, never for one second do i doubt that he has feelings for her.

there is no episode i can look at and go, "yeah, at this point, gsr was completely off the table. they just added it in later."

if grissom was just wholesale uncomfortable with sara's romantic attentions on him and not sure how to deal with them, then episodes like 01x10 "sex, lies, & larvae," 01x16 "too tough to die," 01x23 "the strip strangler," 02x05 "scuba doobie-doo," 02x15 "burden of proof," 02x16 "primum non nocere," 02x23 "the hunger artist" (which, lest we forget, explicitly features grissom seeking out sara while a love song plays), 03x02 "the accused is entitled," 03x09 "blood lust," 03x22 "play with fire," 04x03 "homebodies," and 04x07 "invisible evidence" would never have happened—or at least wouldn't have played out the way that they in canon do.

and mind you: all of those episodes take place before episode 04x12 "butterflied" stakes its claims to the longevity, singularity, and depths of grissom's love for sara.

in those episodes, grissom's romantic feelings for sara are all made main text—acknowledged not only through william petersen's acting choices but in dialogue, staging, and even through the show's soundtrack.

they are deliberately shown.

and what's more: nowhere in the show is grissom depicted as having that same sort of consistent, almost unavoidable emotional connection with anyone else, either.

though of course fans can and do argue about what he may feel for heather or even other potential love interests besides sara, the fact is that just by sheer volume and duration, his connection with sara is his longest, most intense relationship on the show by far.

even if one does believe he may at some point have feelings for heather (which, of course, i don't), it would always be a situation of "and" not "instead of" where sara in concerned.

his love for sara is a thread that runs through the whole tapestry of the show.

it's never the case that he stops having feelings for her in favor of having feelings for anyone else. he also never really moves on from her, even when he declines her romantic overtures at the end of s3.

so at the end of the day, though neither the showrunners nor the writers nor the actors may have known with surety from the beginning that sara would end up being grissom's one true love and the only woman he ever had any real feelings for, and while at various points during the production there definitely were other options they considered, what the show ends up actually depicting (all doylist intentions aside) is that sara is the object of grissom's heart from day 1.

it's not a retcon for the writers or grissom himself to say he has always been in love with sara, because there is consistent evidence of it, both internal and external to the show, from the start.

it's not something that was shoehorned in or decided upon long after the fact.

the option was there from the day jorja fox signed her contract.

and it was given consistent enough narrative attention, both by the writers and by the actors, that by the time it is explicitly stated, it doesn't at all "come out of nowhere" or contradict anything already established in the show. rather, it confirms what has already been implied for a very long time prior.

so tl;dr? while the showrunners may not necessarily have been sold on a gsr endgame from the start, that also isn't to say that they were against it, either, or that eventually "going there" went against their original intentions.

gsr had always been on the table, and billy, for his part, consummate knower of his character that he is, was always, from the beginning aware of that possibility and depicted grissom accordingly, leaving that door for a gsr romance open, so that now it seems very clear looking back that the love was there all along.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[centrally-unplanned]

Anyway, I have been way off the wagon on anime recently - I blame Buffy - so I am catching up! First one was The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, REALLY Love You. In this harem comedy our protagonist has accidentally been given 100 soulmates by god, who was distracted watching Laputa: Castle in the Sky while filling out his destiny sheet, and now he has to date all of them or they will die. So he just...does that, and tells them all, and one by one he adds girls to his polycule. Episodes generally alternate between "courtship" episodes where its one-on-one with the new girl, then group bonding episodes where they all hang out together. Its honestly somehow pretty good? The list:

Its very zany, meta, & irreverent. Obviously each girl is a "trope", but they have a lot of fun with them due to the premise. Because everyone instantly falls in love and gets together in one episode, the "will they won't they" tropes don't function, right? They will they'd already! So instead it pits those tropes against the intergroup polycule dynamic for silly shenanigans. Its cute!

My favourite line is when the tsundere chick start's tsun'ing over a homework assignment and one of the girls turns to her and goes "what are you even fighting against in life?" Wrecked.

It has a lot of fun "conceptual" animation bits to express ideas, breaking well outside the box to get those ideas across. If you want to communicate the awkwardness of breaking the ice with a new friend, might as well showcase it with two salarymen descending into a shonen brawl over trying to give the other their business card first, way better than shot/reverse-shot.

It does overstay its welcome on its "bits", hoping to pad length with added jokes that don't have enough to work with since nothing is happening. Like many shows, I could reduce its duration by 25% and lose little, it be that way.

Its "focus on one girl" episodes are inherently less creative, because they have essentially ditched the premise? It does a good job at the trad romantic elements, but I think it would be way more interesting to have the courtships be done by the entire group, and play off that more.

Fanservice is sometimes annoying but its almost always comedic with some payoff. You know the genre, you won't love it, but it won't bother you if you clicked on a show with this title.

For the love of the Oedipal god can the people who make modern anime learn how to draw breasts please? I swear on side profile shots it looks like gravity has been rotated 90 degrees horizontal and pulled their chests into launch position, who wants this?

A lot of the gender & sexuality in anime has been changing recently - I mark it personally to like 2015 or so. Things that were implicit are being made explicit - a lot more characters are canonically queer, increasingly you have characters who are explicitly trans, and relationships have more openly stated consummations & sexual components. All of this is good news, and as a part of that I have slowly noticed explicit polyamory creeping into shows. Harem dynamics always had this handwavy denial of their premises going on, "oh its all tension, the expectation is I will choose a girl from the menu at the end". This tee-hee plausible deniability is just extraneous in the modern era, so you see it falling off slowly. Unlike queer rep I don't think this is too much of a sign of like...growing discontent with obligate monogamy in subculture Japan? But still, its fun to see for what it is, and I do think it reflects a little bit growing openness about how alternative sexualities go beyond niche media consumption in life.

[birindale]

Well, I guess I'm transcribing news segments now.

Filmation She-Ra: The day I held aloft my sword and said, "for the honor of Grayskull!"

[Filmation She-Ra's transformation sequence segues into Dreamworks She-Ra's]

Beth Canon, VP of Development, Dreamworks Animation Television: I was a child of the 80s, and I grew up watching She-Ra. I was just a huge fan of the property, because honestly there wasn't that much for girls at the time. Because I had that--that personal connection to the show, it was so important to really do it right, if we were gonna reboot it. A lot of my friends and I were having conversations about female empowerment. I think we just started to feel like it was the right time, like there was something happening, we felt like young girls really needed a new sort of… superhero to look up to.

ND Stevenson, Executive Producer: Beth was awesome to work with. She was interested in uh, especially my take on female characters. She wanted to go a little bit deeper than the typical 'girl power' show would go, which was really exciting to me, that was exactly what I wanted to do. I didn't quite find myself relating to princesses when I was a kid. They were always very pretty, they were always very dainty, they were too perfect. And that wasn't my experience. As a girl. And so I really wanted to see a version of that that rang true to me.

Filmation She-Ra: [kicks in a wall] Now to take care of a few things.

?Elizabeth Kresin?: Welcome to the rough pitch of episode 114, we have boards from uh, Mickey, Angela, Jasmine, and Kiki

Josie Campbell, Story Editor: We have a lot of women, we have a lot of people from different backgrounds. The fact that we wanted to make a show that reflected what we wanted to see, and who we were as people, I think really spoke to everybody. It was like another reason we all really care about She-Ra.

ND Stevenson: We have a first time art director, first time directors, first time story editor, so we really relied on each other, and we really relied on the support from each other in order for this show to be possible at all. So much of that ended up going into the show, even just the story about all these characters working together to like, solve this problem, to save the day. It felt like a lot of what was going on with us, as well.

Josie Campbell: I think the biggest message of She-Ra is sort of a combination of, "No one can do this alone"--She-Ra is a strong hero, she's got the sword, she's got the mystical background, but she still needs her friends to come and help her.

[recording booth]

Aimee Carrero: From 129?

Unseen crew member: Yeah, we'll pick it up from 129.

Aimee Carrero, voice of Adora/She-Ra: [as Adora] For the honor of grayskull! [as herself] Girl power isn't like explicitly stated in our show, but it's implied and I think it's because Noelle has created a post-misogynist world, which is like very refreshing to live in because obviously as soon as we walk out of this room we're faced with things on a daily basis. But in this world, a woman in power is not something that's commented on. A woman's shape is not commented on.

Karen Fukuhara: [as Glimmer] Why isn't it attacking the woods?

Aimee Carrero: [as Adora] It's still just a Horde bot. We know how to handle these--[screams]

ND Stevenson: It was very important to me from the start that our characters represented a diversity of body shape, diversity of ethnicity, and a diversity of, I guess… romantic and gender expression. We wanted our characters to fall along these spectrums in so many different ways.

Karen Fukuhara, voice of Glimmer: The reaction on this show has been absolutely nuts, it's amazing. I--I've gotten phone calls from friends that have said, "Thank you for being part of a show that--that I see myself on."

Glimmer: Iiiiiiit's makeover time!

ND Stevenson: To see yourself reflected in that way, it's hugely important, because if you only see one type of body type in that role you start to think, "Maybe that's just what a protagonist looks like."

[at a table read]

ND Stevenson: And Marcus, on 128 could I get a--a scream and a--and a voice crack there? 'Cause Bow's just really freaked out.

[back in the recording booth]

Marcus Scribner: [as Bow] Did you learn anything new from Light Hope?

Aimee Carrero: [deflective chuckling] Getting way better at transforming my sword! Look! [holds up a pretend pitcher] Hyeaah….

Bow: [huge gasp] Wow… a pitcher… that's so useful!

Marcus Scribner, Voice of Bow: Bow back in the old days of She-Ra was like this middle-aged white man who was like, "Hah, She-Ra, let's save the day!"

Filmation Bow: She-Ra! Thank goodness you're here.

Marcus Scribner: I feel like new Bow is obviously different, in that he's an African American character, and I think he's a really cool male character in an animation we haven't seen too often.

Bow: Do we have a new addition to the Best Friend Squad?

Glimmer: Shut up.

Marcus Scribner: He's there to support his female leads, and I think a lot of young boys can learn a lot from watching Bow does and how he treats the women around him.

Sea Hawk: Can I be this miniature painted model of Bow?

Adora: No! Those represent Bow and Glimmer. And this one's mine. [fields incredulous stares] … Bow made them for us. Okay, just--! Everyone focus!

Marcus Scribner: My little cousin Jackson and my little cousin Timothy both watch the show. They watched all thirteen episodes super quick, I was getting really excited 'cause I was like, "Oh, we're gonna get you guys Bow action figures and Bow pins and all this stuff--" and they were like, "Nah, we want She-Ra figures!" which I think is super dope. And kind of like the motive of the show is really opening people's eyes and--and getting people to see a strong female lead in an animation, which I don't think is done too often.

ND Stevenson: I think we were all sort of making the show for ourselves, in the past. So, when I look back and I see myself as this kid, and I think, "What does she need to see right now?" and, "How can I be the person that I needed when I was that age?" and hopefully that rings true to the kids who are watching it now.

Producer/Director: Carly Marsh Editor: Sharon Ruedeman Director of Photography: Emily Geraghty

[bloody-wonder]

First of all, thanks so much for sharing your books recs and reviews. I love reading your blog (especially since I did not find many books blog that as good as you in tumblr). ��🥰

Can I ask your opinion on something? So, I saw some discussion on why shounen series (or series with strong bromance vibes) have more romantic vibes than BL manga/mahwa (MLM books). (Sorry, do you like any BL manga/manhwa or shounen series?) And I kinda agree. But what do you think?

Sorry for this random ask, feel free if you want to ignore this ask....

wow thank you! i love sending my bookish posts into the void and i love it even more when the void expresses its appreciation haha

i didn't know about this discourse but in general i agree with the controversial (?) opinion that non-canon queer-coded or homosocial relationships oftentimes make for more compelling ships than their canon counterparts. one could argue that it's bc something that is just out of reach feels more appealing than something that you already have but in regards to my personal frustrations when reading romance stories and plotlines it often comes down to how the relationship of characters who the author already decided are going to fall in love has little room to breathe beyond that - the sword of damocles of romance is constantly hanging over them and determining their entire narrative. there's little intrigue in that bc when you're an experience reader or a genre-savvy media consumer you know exactly how it's gonna go, bit by bit.

furthermore, i think it's interesting that women and people who used to identify as women when they were young are likelier to write an explicit romance or a canon queer relationship bc they have been socialized to value that type of fiction and in doing that they will, whether by intention or not, regurgitate all the possible tropes and clichées which doesn't necessarily make their original story a compelling romance. by contrast, people who grew up socialized as men have been taught to suppress emotions and value no homo male bonds with their bros which is why a stereotypical cishet male sff author will 1) write an absolutely yucky romance for his male lead and his female love interest, 2) rather die than acknowledge that queerness exists and 3) pour all the most profound and intense feelings his conscious and subconscious mind is capable of into the depiction of the male lead's relationship with his male sidekick. ambiguity tends to make things more interesting so no wonder people will feel more drawn to a ship that is ambiguously homosocial in eve kosofsky sedgwick's sense rather than to a ship that is merely a love story between two people of the same gender.

which brings me to my last (more personal) point: as someone who has been socialized as a woman i am slightly obsessed with romance. however, as someone who identifies as aroace i don't find most romance books or even romance subplots relatable or compelling. this contradiction is a source of constant frustration that accompanies my reading experience - i often seek out romance books bc i do so enjoy a good love story and end up disappointed and alienated most of the time bc of this built in failure to connect with fiction that is written by allos for allos. for example, i have tried to take refuge in historical mm romance bc i figured that neither comphet nor modern identity politics would spoil the magic of two people falling in love for me in this case. however, having read quite a few of those, i have noticed this compulsion the authors have to 1) let the reader know by any means necessary and as soon as possible that the characters in question are in fact into men and 2) state explicitly that these men find each other attractive - a compulsion that speaks to the allo experience of being aware (most of the time) what type of person you're attracted to and being able to interpret a perceived connection as romantic or sexual attraction almost immediately. a compulsion which i, as an aroace reader, find utterly bizarre and terribly frustrating. not to shame allos for how their sexuality works or anything, but i think trying to convince the reader that two characters are into each other without relying on these two conveniences would be a good writing exercise.

by comparison, a relationship that is just allowed to develop without its participants interpreting it as a romance (bc the author who wrote it didn't intend them to at all) feels like freedom. yes, it's unfortunate that they won't kiss or fuck in the end of all that quality time but ah well, i can go to ao3 for that. and yes, if they're not canonically queer it's not real rep etc etc but i think that by now we have all understood that media consumption is not activism and queer rep in your favorite tv show will not bring about the age of tolerance. what i'm talking about in this post is why it sometimes feels like queer fiction fails to depict queerness and romance in a compelling way.

[luimnigh]

Plus also according to @jeremywhitley ‘s interaction with @dumbfandomaccount , apparently Nadia isn’t canon ace — Marvel wouldn’t let him make her ace in the text.

I mean, yeah.

Canon, in the fandom sense, is what is explicitly laid out in the text. While Nadia has expressed explicit disinterest in "kissing boys", the word "asexual" has not been used to describe her in a canonical text.

Word of God, that is the expressed opinion of the creator outside of the work, is that Nadia is ace.

The problem is that subsequent writers are not beholden to Word of God like they are to Canon. Because it's not written in the text, and because not all readers have access to the Word of God, it's incredibly easy for a subsequent writer to ignore it, intentionally or even accidentally (as they themselves may not have heard the Word of God).

Meanwhile, if you want to alter Canon, you either have to write around it by casting it a different light or explaining events that we did not originally see; or engage in Retroactive Contunity, where you explicitly go back and alter what originally happened.

(You might notice that this a very narrow definition of Retcon, but I feel it's a very overused term and the existing definition is so wide-ranging as to include many forms of twist reveal or recontextualisation of prior events.)

So, theoretically, of this moment a subsequent writer could write a story where Nadia expressess sexual interest in another character, and it wouldn't be a retcon or contradict canon on that concept alone. If it was male character she expressed interest in, they'd have to write around the previous "kissing boys" comment, but that could be done without engaging in a retcon.

(Much in the same way that Gwenpool's arc in Love Unlimited has recontextualized Gwen's relationship with Quentin. It hasn't changed the fact that she cares* for him, but explains that those feelings weren't romantic, despite her attempts to make it so.)

Hopefully, with Marvel now being willing to call an Ace an Ace, Nadia's asexuality can be set in the stone of canon sooner rather than later.

[amoremoccidere]

The Kairi Question (A Queer Reading of Kingdom Hearts)

I realize the first question that’s going to be on a lot of minds the minute I start talking about Sora and Riku as a romantic couple is how that fits with Kairi’s character.

There are, of course, the obvious responses, such as the fact that Kairi hasn’t played a major role in the story for a very long time, if her role could ever be called major in the first place, but that doesn’t delete her character from the story entirely.

Instead, I would like to revisit the fundamentals and really disentangle Kairi’s role from our preconceived notions of what the best friend to the male lead is “supposed” to be.

In other words, anything that is not explicit within the text is not canon.

Kairi is never explicitly stated as Sora’s love interest. The closest we come to it at any point in the story is in Chain of Memories, where Sora’s memory is addled and Namine, planting herself in Kairi’s place in many ways as her shadow, her Nobody, causes Sora to express disappointment in that they were never really friends, “Or anything more than that.” But that only confirms that Namine addled Sora’s mind to make him think he was attracted to her. Whether those feelings came initially from Kairi is left vague, even when Namine admits that Kairi is the girl in his life who is most special to him.

Feelings can also change, and people can realize that things they thought they once knew about themselves are wrong. Though I doubt this is something Kingdom Hearts would ever address plainly using specific terminology (even if Sora and Riku were to become an explicit couple in the future), since it has a certain tone that’s just slightly hovering over grounded reality, there are many people out there who didn’t realize they were queer when they were young and thought they had a crush on someone just because that person was their “favorite girl” and they didn’t realize there’s supposed to be a feeling that goes along with that. It’s a nigh-universal experience amongst homosexual and asexual people in particular. That feeling that you have to “choose” someone.

Sora’s feelings for Kairi could be interpreted as having never existed at all, or having once existed and then changed, or having been presumed by even Sora because everyone on Destiny Islands thought he liked her and he simply went along with it because he thought he was supposed to like her.

If they did exist at any point, it’s easy to support the interpretation that they don’t anymore.

Sora’s confusion when Kairi hands him a Paopu fruit--a colloquial symbol with romantic connotations--and the distress on his face is easy to read as a rejection.

It certainly isn’t an explicit expression of romance from Sora, in any case. There are none in the series. No verbal confessions, no kisses, no dates outright stated as such.

If there are no explicit confirmations, we have to turn to implicit.

But the problem with Sora and Kairi is that every scene between them that could be interpreted as romantic has a pointed, purposeful, and platonic parallel elsewhere in the series.

I’ll only give a few here to make my point, but I may make a post dedicated to this later, showing every single time Sora and Kairi do something together that’s repeated by another two characters at another point.

The existence of these platonic scenes juxtaposed against Sora and Kairi does not necessarily mean that it is impossible to read them as romantic, but that every scene between Sora and Kairi reliably has a platonic counterpart is worth noting when analyzing the purpose of these scenes.

So, if we’re assuming Kairi’s role in this story is not to be Sora’s love interest, since that role falls to Riku, then how can her role be read?

Well, personally, I read her role as--bear with me--to...not be Sora’s love interest.

And I don’t mean that in a she’s-a-strong-independent-woman-who-don’t-need-no-man way. What I mean is that she is there, specifically, to subvert the expectation that every hero in every story needs to get the girl. She’s standing in the role of “the girl” specifically to take up that space, but Sora has no intention of “getting” her.

Kairi has never been a particularly important part of Kingdom Hearts. None of her choices seem to matter.

In the first Kingdom Hearts game, her role throughout most of the story was that of a corpse. She was a MacGuffin, passed from place to place, from villain to villain, until she was rescued, just before the climax, leaving said climax for Sora and Riku alone.

In Kingdom Hearts II, she boldly left the islands in search of Sora only to be captured, passed again from villain to villain, and be rescued (by Namine this time rather than Sora)...just before the climax, leaving the climax for Sora and Riku alone once again.

In Kingdom Hearts III, if we count Re:Mind, then the story becomes more about Kairi toward the end of the installment...

...until you unlock Episode Riku after the credits, where the story goes right back to being about Riku and Sora.

...And then someone who looks like Riku and Sora.

The non-numeric games barely mention Kairi at all, usually giving her one or two short scenes where she has no lines. Even Birth By Sleep gave her less screen-time than Sora and Riku, and she only shared one scene with them while Sora and Riku were never apart.

And even Melody of Memory, a game with only thirty minutes or so of plot that was mostly about Kairi...

...ended with Kairi being told she couldn’t come, outright vocalizing what the rest of the games had all implied, finally saying it to her face. “This story...”

“...isn’t yours.”

And she’s disappointed. Understandably. Everything, this whole time, has been about Sora and Riku, and that’s something she can’t ignore anymore.

She’s the love interest that wasn’t. The girl the hero wasn’t supposed to get. She is there to be the subversion of a trope. She’s there specifically because she doesn’t have to be there. But that’s okay.

Why?

The only thing that’s been keeping her in these games all this time, the reason she keeps being pulled back into the story even when she’s not relevant, every single scene without dialogue given to her in those games where she’s otherwise absent...

They’re all there for one reason.

Sora loves her.

Maybe it’s not the way she wants. It’s certainly not the way he would have loved her in any other game. But he does love her. No game fully passes without at least a mention of her, because he’s thinking about her, or dreaming about her, or talking about her. And even if the story doesn’t belong to her...even if the romance doesn’t belong to her...he’s always going to love her.

She’s the girl Sora loved in the wrong way.

And I think she’ll be okay with that.

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

So it’s worth remembering with cases like achilles that while erasing his relationships with men and only giving him notable ones with women would, typically, be a case of biphobia in the context of how fgo handles it it is really more a case of common garden variety homophobia- they’re fine with having implied or even explicitly bisexual and lesbian women (because this is more easily fetishized by the straight male audience they primarily target) but a homosexual male RELATIONSHIP (even if it involves men who are bi or another orientation) would, in their eyes, gross out or otherwise put off the demographic they want to court. This is also how you get weird stuff like hephastion being sort of semi-replaced with a secret twin sister who isn’t him but still uses his name, or that time they genderbent waver for an April fools rom com parody with him and iskander, or how most of the male bisexual implications (like, for example, fergus) are only ever allowed as crude jokes.

It’s also worth remembering that people having honest discussions about how franchises handle these things is pretty different from the implication that saying these discussions are equivalent to ‘rioting’ or otherwise getting incredibly upset gives off. It feels like trying to brush off any conversation about it by painting it as a kind of hysteria- and I do recognize that probably wasn’t your intention, but the fact a clearly unserious post got tagged with a comment like that definitely gave the wrong impression, especially with how the other part was phrased to give off the implication that people feel entitled to lgbt relationships to the point that a confirmed straight character is rare- which I again recognize is not what you meant, but it definitely came across that way

At the end of the day, a character can turn to the screen and explicitly state their orientation or preferred type of lover and that wouldn’t stop a large sections of fans from manipulating scenarios to create the relationships that appeal to them most, regardless of how it meshes with canon. I don’t think something as inconsequential as the shipping side of a fandom should prevent a character that was characterized as being romantically active from expressing that, or from ever mentioning that they have interests. As it is, there’s many servants who are alleged flirts who never express it, and I really don’t think it’s unreasonable to wish that some of them did simply because it makes sense for them. I’m not saying you can’t have your headcanons and it certainly wouldn’t stop many people, but the fact they imply it so often and then never commit does get frustrating. If you disagree you’re entitled to that opinion but mine differed

I wish more servants gave us lists of people they’d fuck tbh

[stxleslyds]

What are some of your headcanons for Jason? You talk down fanon a lot, but it seems like you jave your own ideas about Jason that aren't explicitly backed by canon (like Jason being interested in sex but not romance), so I'm just curious what they are.

Hey hey Anon! Thank you for the ask and the patience because I have lost track how long ago you sent this.

You are very right I talk down fanon a lot, but only when it comes to ideas that have been so internalized by fandom that they seem to be treated as canon. Otherwise, I don’t have problems when people have their own headcanons for their favourite character or anything like that. Although I must say that anything to heavy on the “Batfamily” thing does make me reject it but I won’t go out of my way to talk about it.

Having said all that here is my list of headcanons for Jason Todd.

Jason is aromantic. As you said, I have expressed my feeling about this before, I just think that it fits his character and general personality, and like I said in my post about his “romantic” relationships I felt like they were all forced or like Jason was chasing a relationship of that kind because he though that was what he was supposed to do. I also headcanon this for him because I rarely enjoy romantic relationships in comics.

Jason has green eyes. Listen, fanon has sold me this one and I bought it like freshly made bread. In my headcanon they don’t glow or have any sort of magic properties, they just changed colour after he came out of the Pit. Why, you ask? It adds to the hot factor, yes, I am that shallow sometimes.

Jason was a HUGE Nightwing fan, I am talking about him having secret Nightwing merch that he would never let Dick know about. That would have been in his Robin years, and as an adult Jason sometimes catches himself being impressed by Dick’s Nightwing stunts every once in a while. It is not quite admiration, it's just nostalgic admiration if such a thing exists.

Jason HATES Bruce and Batman, sorry, I am that person. He has hated Batman ever since he came out of the Pit (for all the reasons displayed in UtRH) but through out the years he has began to hate Bruce too. It is not a “I will kill you” kinda hate, it is just a “I can’t stand your presence and if you ever breath in my way I will punch you” kinda hate.

Jason doesn’t see Bruce as his father but he does see Dick as his brother. I think this way because as I said in my previous headcanon, I believe Jason hates Bruce and there is enough abuse and manipulation in canon that makes me believe that Jason would never call Bruce his father or thinks of him that way anymore. Him seeing Dick as his brother is once again due to nostalgia of what they once were before he died but he would never call Dick his brother out loud.

Jason doesn’t hate Tim or Damian, he is just indifferent to them, if he has to work with them for whatever reason he would but it would just be that. He just feels no strong connection to them by himself. Maybe in a future if he develops a strong friendship with Dick, he might grow connected to those two too by proxy.

Jason considered Dick his big brother before he died and he loved spending time with him, (headcanon within another? Dick was very present in Jason’s life before he died if Bruce wasn’t around), when his memories started to come back about his time spent with Dick, he stated to feel more connected to the adult version of Dick, but only when those memories came back.

Talking about memories reminds me of the headcanon (not only mine) of Jason getting his memories back when has contact with something from his past. It can be something that he reads, smells, sees or is reminded of.

I think that’s it! Those are all my headcanons for my boy! Look at them, there are so many! Why do I have so many headcanons? I have no idea, also as I was writing them, I realised that my Dick Grayson loving heart cannot stop itself and appears everywhere. I really do believe that Dick and Jason had a great relationship before Jason died and that they can become good friends in their adulthood if they just sit and talk!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this! Have a wonderful week!

[collisiondiscourse]

on the wonder duo (part 1)

(BNHA Analysis Post Ahead! This isn’t explicitly romantic, but it is an analysis of the relationship between the two most popular characters in BNHA--Katsuki Bakugou and Izuku Midoriya. Split into two posts because I realized that this was gonna be long as HELL)

yall ever think about the fact that the wonder duo is perfectly set up in so that bakugou and deku together are the better version of all might?

bc like. ive been thinking.

everyone knows the win to save and save to win parallel. How they are supposedly two halves of a whole perfect hero (which, previously, was defined as all might)

but ever since bakugou and deku started working as one—growing together to win AND save and continuously reminding each other that they shouldnt try to do things alone, ive realized that its BECAUSE theres two of them that they surpass all might. its not a case of deku and bakugou both being 50% of an ideal hero, but rather i think that they are 100% of what all might SHOULD HAVE BEEN from the very beginning.

as early as the AM v AFO battle in kamino, we see the effects of all mights flawed existence. the fact that he, the greatest and supposedly infallible symbol of peace, was destroyed—society had begun to collapse. there was suddenly no pillar to hold people together and the impacts were so severe that even in the latest chapters of mha it keeps on getting worse. the truth is, all mights biggest mistake was the burden he placed on his own shoulders

with bakugou and deku... its different.

its different for them because down to their attributions, they seem like two halves of a whole person.

i think that the wonder duo are going to surpass all might because of the fact that they work together.

@bakugoukatsuki-rising @svpercraigus @tybee​ @isaustraliaathing​

(batshit crazy and conspiratorial essay under the cut !)

1. Complementary Colors

I’d like to first preface literally everything I say by the fact that I am not an expert analyzer or literary major in any way. I am literally just some random fan on the internet who has wayyy too much time and looks wayyy too deep into things, but here we go!

A common thing we see when we talk about bakugou and deku is the way they are... sort of an inverse of one another.

Down to the design of their features and the way they move, Deku is the obviously softer of the two. There’s an intentional contrast between the two of them, in the way that Deku’s drawn with round shapes and curvy hair and the way Bakugou is literally all spikes and half-mast eyes and rough muscles. Bakugou’s movements too are languid and showy, with the way he leans when he walks and splays his legs and kicks open doors. Katsuki, in a casual sense, is loud and dramatic. 

Deku on the other hand s finicky. He jitters when he walks and he’s often fidgeting and mumbling. Comparatively, the aura he radiates is energetic and frenzied, even self-conscious to a point unlike Bakugou’s calm and confident movements.

the point is, there’s a clear difference in how either of them are designed and what exactly they are supposed to represent. They utterly complement each other down to the way they behave and even their main colors (red-orange and blue-green) being literal complementary colors.

Now, moving to my more ungrounded points, this is quite a bit of a stretch so I’ll try as much as possible to make sense of these with hyperlinked sources because. yeah.

Down to their names, I think Deku and Bakugou both symbolize something deeper. I think that the way Hori expresses characters and what they’re meant to do is something that we have to pay close attention to when we talk about the Wonder Duo’s rise to success.

Izuku Midoriya (緑谷 出久), as some of us may know, does have an interesting meaning when broken up. According to a lovely fan translation of his name, ‘Izuku’--while not an actual name used commonly in real life--means to ‘Come out’ or ‘Long time’. ‘Midoriya’ on the other hand means (Midori) ‘Green’ and (ya) ‘valley’. The translator further pointed out that his first name ‘Izuku’ could be a reference to him being the first legendary hero to come out of the long-running All Might Era. (or, if you’ve been reading @/bakugoukatsuki-rising’s posts, the first significant anime protag in a long while to come out as queer, ppfft)

but that isn’t my focus right now.

We know that Hori LOVES telling stories with names, and more often than not in the BNHA universe, names alone tell us a lot of things about the characters. When referring to Izuku’s last name, Midoriya, it’s important I think to step back and realize that hey, maybe there’s something more to Green Valley than just the fact that his motif is all green.

After searching for a lil on the specifics of green valley, I’ve found out that across many cultures, the colour green and valleys in general tend to represent life. From dream analysts, to Christianity, and even old Taoist teachings, valleys are seen as areas of fertility and escape. They are seen as safe havens and often escapes for people to come to after running away from bad circumstances.

(Sound familiar?)

Deku, in essence represents life and peace. He represents being the “salvation” that the world in BNHA needed. To me, it sounds like Horikoshi is trying to say that he is the long-awaited hero in the sense. The one that people can feel will create a society that feels safe for everyone after years of All Might just saving people from themselves as a band-aid solution.

On the other hand, we have Katsuki Bakugou (爆豪 勝己), who’s name we commonly know means (Katsuki) Winner and (Bakugou) Explosion Master. He is essentially, the champion. The power. His name means success and power and all the things that make up winning.

When putting them side by side, it then becomes increasingly... interesting to me how their names almost perfectly slot into All Might’s save to win and win to save mantra, and how they are both quintessential parts to what made All Might as a hero.

2. Hero Too!

Now, I’m not even gonna really TOUCH much of what happens in canon. If you want me to do a step by step breakdown of their arcs in regards to the plot of manga and anime, feel free to send me a gratuitous ko-fi tip so I can pay for the headache I get after trying to organize my thoughts into word vomit.

What I WILL talk about on the other hand, is the subtle shift both of them slowly have in regards to how they look. Bakugou and Deku, while growing up, seem to have MANY many parallels--but before I elaborate on all of that, I wanna talk about something else.

Detour: Deku’s Red Shoes 

We all know the iconic symbol being Deku’s red shoes. For all his life, save for some outfits like his hero one, we see Deku more often than not wearing his signature red sneakers which have become a running joke in fandom.

But the funny thing is, in Japan, red shoes seem to have an interesting connotation.

In 1922, a popular Japanese nursery rhyme was written, called “Red Shoes”. The interesting part to me about this song was the symbolism that, in my tiny pea-sized brain, I could connect to the story of BNHA.

The story goes that there was a little girl with red shoes named ‘Kimi’. She was from Shizuoka prefecture (which, if you didn’t know, is most likely where Musutafu supposedly is) and was raised by a single mother. When she was young, her mother had to entrust her with a foreigner under the impression that they would give her a better life in America. The stranger is a man named Charles Hewitt (who was described to have blue eyes) and supposedly took her away. 

The singer of the song (supposedly the mother, but some argue it was written from the perspective of a childhood friend) believes that Kimi is happy and living a better life away from them, when the reality of the situation was much worse. The young girl with red shoes in actuality had Tuberculosis, and thus the foreigner whom she was entrusted to had left her to fend for herself and eventually left her to go to America while she died alone and orphaned.

“When I see red shoes, I think of her.”

A very interesting story with very interesting implications indeed.

-

Anyway, moving on to the more... “nuanced” and connected parts of this section, I have every reason to believe that Bakugou and Deku were simply MEANT to be working together down to how they dress. Now, I’d like to discuss their hero costumes.

At the start of their series, using these godawful pics for reference, it’s clear to see that neither of them seem alike in any way--reflecting the dissonance in their relationship at that point in canon.

ough. deku why. (yes we know why its because you love your mom you stupid little bunny <3)

Anyway, we see an immediate gap in how the two of them are. Deku’s first costume is one that reflects how he treated his dream of being a hero. He was still in that childlike idolization phase, the one where his dreams and aspirations were hinged on pure feelings and inspiration from All Might. Katsuki on the other hand was a lot more tactical--professional to an extent. The gap between their respective development with their quirks is something that is clearly felt in every fashion decision they’d made.

(Notice how Deku’s green is a lot brighter and less like the green accents Katsuki has all over his costume.)

As time progressed however... their costumes changed. The colors, the silhouettes, the practical functions, most things.

(Deku’s Gamma Costume and Bakugou’s Winter Costume used respectively)

we begin to notice a few similarities.

As the show goes on and we see more evolutions of their costumes, it almost seems like they begin to look like a matching pair. Deku’s green grows darker and almost teal in nature, while Bakugou’s orange is veering towards red territory. This is important to note because red-orange and blue-green as I said earlier were complementary colors as compared to simply orange and green. The minute shift is something I really wasn’t quite sure was intentional, but something I find interesting to pick up nonetheless as the colors they used to accent their costumes begin to match up.

Secondly, I think and important thing to note is silhouettes. The way that both Bakugou and Deku’s costumes are designed follow a lot of parallels that typically we don’t see with the rest of 1-A. For one, they both have a combination of tight long-sleeved tops with a bulkier set of bottoms. They also share the use of utility belts and metal pieces typically worn around their necks. Deku has his bunny-eared hood that mimics All Might’s hair, while Bakugou has his orange and black explosion ear-pieces that mimic his own quirk.

i don’t think any other people in class 1-A match each other as subtly yet strongly as these two. Uraraka and Deku and Bakugou and Kirishima do come close however.

“But Codi, you fucking knob!” I hear you plea. “This is such a reach and tells us practically NOTHING!” And yes, I’m inclined to agree with you! You’d be sort of right in the idea that this is a reach. Maybe I am looking too much into this, and maybe it really isn’t that deep--but I do think that them subconsciously matching outfits means something quite brilliant.

In the way that their costumes are designed, each aspect of either outfits have a very logical explanation. The changes were strategic and made with their fighting styles vividly in mind, so what that tells me is that BECAUSE these costumes are so complementary or similar in nature (Bakugou’s reinforcing his arms while Deku reinforces his legs), these two are implicitly showing the audience that their combat styles are complementary as well. 

The evolution of their design choices and similarities tell us that even unknowingly, their minds line up in strategy on the battlefield--a clear exhibit for why they would be INCREDIBLY POWERFUL as a Hero Duo to begin with.

When I look at their hero costumes side by side, I see a mirror. I see the way that these two are reflections of each other and are strong where the other isn’t. The point I see in BNHA repeatedly is that EVERYONE HAS A WEAKNESS. Nothing is infallible, regardless of how hard you train or how powerful your quirk is. Everyone will always have a weakness, but the significant difference I see when fandom discusses the future of Pro-Hero Society is that the new generation is finally raising itself to be RELIANT on each other. 

Observing their fighting styles and the simple use of their quirks, its obvious that they are indeed two parts of a whole hero. Bakugou, who’s quirk emphasized his arms and hands and the power that comes from it, while Deku who’s quirk now emphasizes his legs and lower body and the way he’s always running to save people.

IN CONCLUSION:

As they become heroes, it is easy to assume that if nothing else, Bakugou and Deku will cover each other’s weak spots (especially when you consider the way Deku probably won’t be able to keep using his arms with the way both the anime and manga are going...) (also chapter 285, anyone?)

-

Part Two: Interactions, OfA

kofi || commission details

[2-bdamned]

in regards to the aoex pride post i made last month, here are my personal headcanons as to why i think those are their sexuality’s! ( also thank you to @johnannepeterric for asking about this as i’ve been waiting to share these for a hot minute!!)

rin:

sexuality + gender identity:gay and trans(ftm)

reason: i don’t think he exactly cares for the concept of gender and sexuality but just thinks people should be allowed to like and be whoever they want. he knew he was in the wrong body since he was a little kid but never knew how to phrase it till later on in life. as for on screen reasons, he tends to cover up quite a bit before and after becoming a demon as well as tending to wear baggy clothes to hid his form. not to mention he has very poor posture which most transmasc people (myself included) tend to do when we can’t bind or don’t feel masculine enough. and i think he’s gay mostly due to the fact that he’s never really shown to have any friendships outside of the exwires and tends to get his platonic and romantic affections mixed up quite a bit (as to explain why i still headcanon this after the manga and his confirmed feelings towards shiemi)

yukio:

sexuality: bisexual

reasoning: he seems to show and equal amount of emotions to his colleagues and to the exwires and im like 90% sure he doesn’t really talk about romantic through the manga/anime at all. i think he’s always known he’s liked both genders since he was young. shiro seems like he was very accepting and i honestly think he would’ve helped both the boys with their sexuality’s and gender since he didn’t get the freedom to express that stuff when he was younger due to you know ‼️‼️(SPOILERS) ‼️‼️ literally being a clone made in a lab. yukio seems the type to not really care about gender when it comes to romance and instead look for traits like personality and motivations. his friendships are most based on him genuinely liking the person rather than keeping up with his appearance as someone who’s quite popular. this could possibly lead to the same being transferred over to his romantic bonds.

shiemi:

sexuality: lesbian

reason: like rin, she tends to get romantic and platonic affection mixed up from not having friends till high school. there’s a bit in the manga where izumo brings over some romance novels to try and help shiemi out with figuring out her feelings. we all know most romance novels don’t exactly have the best explanation for feeling so i think that’s where shiemi got mixed up. she gets her admiration for rin mixed up with romantic feelings when in reality, she’s not into him. we can also use the garden scene from kyoto arc as some reasoning to this headcanon. izumo called shiemi a weed and she surprisingly takes this “insult” very well and even thanks izumo for the interaction. even later in kyoto saga, we see shiemi use even more of her power to save izumo from the miasma. she clearly cared a lot about izumo and basically wore herself down to the the brink of exhaustion trying to dave izumo herself when she could have easily run and got help from another exorcist. sheimi seems to care deeply about her friends but shows more concern to izumo than any other exwire (minus rin and yukio).

shima: ‼️‼️ HIS WHOLE HEADCANON REVOLVES AROUND MANGA SPOILERS SO THATS A HEADS UP‼️‼️

sexuality: gay

since he found out about izumo from the illuminati, he never really had a “crush” on her per say, but showed an unromantic interest in her due to her past and just wanted to know more about her. since he had kinzou around him as a kid, i think that played a huge part in him hiding that he was gay (just bc kinzou is a huge perv and probably pushed some of that onto him). that could also lead to the reasoning as to why he’s so pushy with izumo. he’s trying to convince himself he liked women by trying his hardest to like izumo. the kinzou thing is the only thing really leading to me believing this but an alternative reason could also be a fear of changing his personality this late on when both suguro and koneko have known him to be a certain way since he was young. he’s shown to have this perverted personality since he was quite young and it’s even mentioned in an extra concerning why suguro and koneko use his last name and not his first. these two factors lead me to believe his attraction to izumo and subsequently, his attraction to women, is just a lie he’s putting on.

koneko:

sexuality + gender identity: pansexual and genderfluid

reason: koneko is shown to have a deep love and care for the people around him and i think that not only applies to him with friendship, but with romance as well. like yukio, he tends not to focus on the gender of the person perusing him, but rather their intention, personally, and motivations. he wants to know if his partner is a good person rather than their gender. gender wise, i just don’t think he cares. it’s not explicitly shown but it can be heavily implied when he talks to rin about why he has a hard time trusting him after the “son of satan “ reveil happens. for gender identity, i think i as a kid, he was commonly referred to by most pronouns since he wasn’t exactly the most “boy looking” when he was young. later on he learned he didn’t exactly mind what gender people perceived him as but rather how they perceived him as a person. there’s no canon information for the genderfluid headcanon but again, these are my personal headcanon, they don’t exactly have to make sense.

suguro:

sexuality + gender identity: gay and trans (ftm)

reason: this one is mostly me projecting onto this man so if it doesn’t exactly make sense, y’all know why! but he’s shown to be quite affectionate to rin in both the manga and the anime. he doesn’t really tend to do that too much to other people, especially the women that are around him. he probably has some sort of crush on rin or at least some form of admiration to him. as for his gender identity, this is literally just me projecting. that’s it. but i think he does show some signs that i tend to show as a trans person ( the one example i can name off the top of my head is that he seems pretty insecure when shima and koneko brought up his body before he started working out and hates mentions of his body in general ). like rin, he tends to have very poor posture and also doesn’t wear form fitting clothes and this is especially prominent in official art.

izumo:

sexuality: lesbian

reason: she has a very deep relationship with paku and shiemi after the events of the manga take place. she never shows this same connection with any one else throughout the series. she gets severely worried once paku leave cram school and is shown to be quite empty after this happens. ‼️‼️SPOILERS‼️‼️ the same thing happens once shiemi leaves cram school as well and is taken by her family to go train. she seems to be deeply affected by these two events and even goes as far as to show the others her concerns after the thing with shiemi happens. after she ‼️SPOILERS‼️ gets kidnapped by the illuminati and winds up the the hospital, shimei is the first person she lets see her true emotions and feelings and doesn’t once make a comment on her being some kind of hindrance. we also see her show quite a bit of empathy towards shiemi when in kyoto. there’s a scene where they two are gardening and she calls shiemi a weed. she’s very much plays into a tsudere type roll in the beginning but this seems more like a backhanded compliment rather than trying to be a jerk to her. both of the girls receive this interaction in a positive way. we also can use the scene where shiemi saves izumo as a reason for this as well. izumo shows a genuine concern for shiemi both during and after her being stuck in the miasma. even when they go to the hot springs, she seems to have this perpetual blush while looking at shiemi. these all lead me to think she has some sort of feelings toward both paku and shiemi, leading me to headcanon her as a lesbian.

shura:

sexuality: lesbian

she was basically born just so she could produce a child to fuel some demons deep desires. her unhealthy attachment to shiro can be explained by this. i think this is the case for all the “attraction” she showed towards him as a young girl. all her life she’s been told she has to have kids with a man and that’s was her purpose for a long time. thus why i think she’s a lesbian. she never shows any real attraction to a man throughout the entire series besides the man who saved her as a child. she never talks about men till after her character arc in the manga and even then, it seems she just wants to live the rest of her life differently than before and doesn’t exactly seem too enthusiastic about finding a husband as it’s never mentioned again after that point. she really only seems to show an “attraction” to men when it’s useful to her. she uses her looks and charm to get what she wants when it comes to men. she has this facade she puts on where she acts innocent and cute and uses her looks to her advantage. she never truly shows an actual attraction to a man.

mephisto:

sexuality + gender identity: gay and genderfluid

reason: i don’t think any of the demon kings are cis. like not even remotely. they all have to take on different forms and have taken on many in the past. as long as it’s a body, they’re basically fine with whatever. mephs past forms are never shown but we can assume he’s taken on many different body’s in the past as well. after all this body hopping and the fact that gender is literally a thing made up by humans, i don’t think meph really cares about the forms he takes and how his gender is perceived. he knows he’s a powerful demon and could easily destroy the knights of the true cross if he wanted too so gender is the last thing he really cares about. as for sexuality, nothing on screen really points to anything but he tends to show more affection to the men on screen than the women. in fact, the only women we see him really interact with (that i can remember) is shura and we all know how they feel about each other. even though those two both “flirt” with one another, these seem to be more so parts of their personality’s rather than them both having an interest in each other. his “flirting” with shura seems to be more taunting her and displaying his absolute discard for human problems.

amaimon:

gender identity: agender

reason: just like meph, amimon had possessed(?) many different forms over the course of their existence. we even see him take on a rather feminine presenting form when they were destroying the earth. but unlike meph, he is less fluid in terms of gender and instead, prefers to not identify with one. she does use all pronouns and doesn’t exactly care on that front but i think there’s certain terms and compliments they don’t exactly like. meph does use gendered terms with amimon, but these two seem to be very close and have probably communicated this before as well. like koneko being genderfluid, there’s no definitive evidence to support this claim other than these are my own headcanons and i can do what i want.

[potteresque-ire]

More ask answer about Word of Honour (山河令, WoH) and the so-called “Dangai 101 phenomenon” under the cut ~ with all the M/M relationships shown on screen, does it mean improved acceptance / safety for the c-queer community?

Due to its length (sorry!), I’ve divided the answer into 3 parts: 1) Background 2) Excerpts from the op-eds 3) Thoughts This post is PART 2 💛. As usual, please consider the opinions expressed as your local friendly fandomer sharing what they’ve learned, and should, in no ways, be viewed as necessarily true. :)

(TW: homophobic, hateful speech quoted)

The following are three opinion pieces published by state-controlled media re: Dangai and WoH:

O1) Published on 2021/03/04, in Shanghai Observer 上觀新聞

8.6分爆款武俠劇《山河令》背后，是90后愛看的江湖 Behind the 8.6-score Wuxia drama WoH is the Jianghu loved by those born after 1990

[Pie note: the 8.6 score refers to the score WoH got from the popular TV and film review site, Douban]

O2) Published on 2021/03/16, in China Comment 半月談:

國產電視劇掀起「耽改」熱：「腐文化」出圈，青少年入坑 The Rise of Dangai in C-dramas: “Rot Culture” exits Circle, Youth fell into the Ditch

and its related editorial:

「耽改劇」 盛行？警惕對「腐文化」進行無底線炒作和過度消費 Dangai Dramas Prevailing? Be alert to the Uncurbed Hyping and Excessive Consumption of “Rot Culture”

[Pie Note: “Exiting the Circle” (出圈) and “Falling into the Ditch” (入坑) are both fandom vocabularies. “Exiting the circle” refers to something being so famous that it is no longer contained within fandom (the circle) and instead, breaks into public consciousness, mainstream. “Falling into a Ditch” means to fall for a fandom so hard that one cannot crawl their way out it. For example, c-turtles commonly refers to their joining the YiZhan fandoms as ditch falling, followed by being “hammered to the bottom of the ditch” by Gg and Dd’s candies.

“Rot” 腐 refers to the same rot as in fujoshi 腐女 and “rot selling” 賣腐 described in PART 1.]

O3) Published on 2021/04/07, in 光明日報 Enlightenment Daily

耽美作品改编盛行带偏大众审美 Popularity of Dangai Dramas leads the Public’s Aesthetic Astray

To summarise first,

* Article O1 was very light on the characterisation of Danmei—the terms Danmei and Dangai never even appeared in the article. It focused, instead, on WoH’s Wuxia elements, including the beauty of its presentation—much like People Daily’s review of TU focused on the drama’s aesthetics, including its world view. The relationship between Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing was never mentioned, not even garnering a description such as 摯友 (“close friend”) as LWJ and WWX did. The article did point out that the drama was catering to a women audience.

* Article O2a (the opinion piece) and O2b (the editorial) are about Danmei and Dangai, collectively as the subculture they named “Rot Culture” (腐文化). No drama names are mentioned (in reading Chinese news, it’s important to note whether the critiqued target is named or not; the former (點名批評) is considered significantly harsher). The article, as hinted by the word “rot” in its title, leaned heavily towards characterising Danmei and Dangai by the traditional BL characterisation. Article O2a was also the only article out of the four that explicitly addressed  homosexuality. Rather than addressing the queer elements in Danmei/Dangai as queer, however, the article argued the genres could turn their young audience queer.

* Article O3 is also about Danmei and Dangai as the “Rot Culture” subculture, without the naming of any dramas. This article is notable for its association of the genres and the state’s concern with the “feminisation” of Chinese men.

Based on these op-eds, the state is characterising Danmei and Dangai predominantly as characterisation 2 — traditional BL, women’s fantasy. They recognised the psychological need behind the popularity of the genres among their (het) women audience, and the tone, is overall, of understanding and approval:

One of the cores of Dangai is the pursuit of “beauty”. The “double male leads” in Dangai dramas score sufficiently high beauty points to become the party to be defined, to be gazed, to be consumed. It is a counterattack to the male gaze. In addition, such “double male leads” enjoying equal relationship, admiring each other and fighting together shoulder-to-shoulder, also reflects the ideals of women towards relationships.

In the visual world of Dangai, two beautiful men respecting and treasuring each other, progressing together shoulder-to-shoulder, not only fits with women’s ideal model of  relationships, but also also create wide, yet-to-be filled emotional spaces for women’s unstoppable imagination to flex. Such relationships have less considerations of reality and self-interest, and thus appear to be more pure.

However, these opinion pieces have also made clear that the state saw the queer elements surrounding the genre, and its opinion of them is much more … reserved, especially when they cross the fiction / reality line and become the focus of the promotion of the dramas via the actors, who straddle that fiction / reality line.

Due to the lengths of these articles, I’m only translating the notable “chunks” in each of them—the “chunks” that connect the genres with queerness. I’m deliberately keeping these passages as “chunks”—ie, without removing sentences in the middle—to highlight the state’s logic in making the connection.

From O2a: 國產電視劇掀起「耽改」熱：「腐文化」出圈，青少年入坑 The Rise of Dangai in C-dramas: “Rot Culture” exits Circle, Youth fell into the Ditch

“M/M CP”, “Beautiful Men Economy”, topics surrounding this market—today, nobody bets an eye anymore at “selling the rot” being the industrial phenomenon. “Sell the rot” is to sell “rot culture”, with “rot culture” being the subculture for the audience’s imagination, of M/M (ambiguous) love stories for major content.

Such subculture, if confined within its fandoms, may be harmless. However, if it is to be adapted into TV dramas in significant scale, if it is to break through the subculture circles and enter the realm of general public entertainment, then one must take caution of its bad influence, especially to inexperienced youths.

With the established review system for web and TV dramas, production teams often remove the “romantic plot line” between the two male leads in the original Danmei canon and display “brotherhood love” in the TV drama, while “playing edge ball” to provide their audience with room for imagination. In the subsequent promotion and marketing, however, the two male actors may have to “sell the rot” as well.

[Pie note: I’m translating 打擦边球 literally as “playing edge ball” as this is a very commonly used term in discussions of China’s censorship. It means to step as close to the forbidden line as possible without crossing it, to take advantage of loopholes.]

Author of the article “On the Danmei-ization of Chinese Dramas” believes that, in recent years, CPs “selling the rot” , the practice of which is rooted in Danmei culture, have become a hit in the Chinese TV industry. TV dramas with Danmei elements entice their audience to create CPs around the leads of the dramas; they make use of the fervour generated by the discussion topic to achieve high viewership.

In recent years, academics have already expressed concern and investigated the influence of Danmei culture on the youth’s gender awareness, their opinions of marriage etc. For example, the article “Sexual Orientation of Some Youths in Hunan Province and Analysis of their Potential Causes” investigated the sexual orientation of 1,260 youths in the province and discovered that: among males, 2.9% self-identified as homosexuals, 4.9% bi-sexuals, 12.4% unknown; among females, 2.4%, 12.4%, 14.3% respectively. 37.5% of the people knew about Danmei or Doujin (同人; fandom), among which 32.3% indicated they “liked” it. 11.9% indicated that they longed for the homosexual romance in such works.

The author of the article analysed that, students who knew about Danmei or Doujin were more likely to report bisexuality or unknown sexual orientation. This demonstrated the influence of such culture on the sexual orientation of youths.

( Cartoon from O2a, titled “Learning to be “cool” 學酷 )

From O2b:「耽改劇」 盛行？警惕對「腐文化」進行無底線炒作和過度消 Dangai Dramas Prevailing? Be alert to the Uncurbed Hyping and Excessive Consumption of “Rot Culture”

Not to be overlooked is this: the severe reality of “Rot culture” exiting the circle and becoming immensely popular is urgently awaiting the entire society’s alert and attention. Objectively speaking, many Dangai works are not aspiring to positively, proactively guide and display Danmei culture, but only to set up attention-grabbing gimmicks, the purpose of which is solely to “sell the rot”. Not a small number of Dangai’s plots are illogical. Worse, in order to attract attention and satisfy the “taste” of fans, some production companies are forcibly selling “M/M CPs”,  conducting “bound” promotion [Pie note: as in bound by CP pairing] and embarrassing interactions [Pie note: as in, getting the actors to interact in a suggestively romantic way] , “playing the edge ball” [Pie note: as explained above] to generate personalities, consuming “Rot Culture” without a bottom line. These poor marketing tactics not only hurt the interest of Danmei audience, but interfere with the online environment and its order. The indulgence of radical language, moreover, challenges and affects mainstream values. These bad influences must be paid attention to and supervised.

From O3) 耽美作品改编盛行带偏大众审美 Popularity of Dangai Dramas leads the Public’s Aesthetic Astray

In addition to the explosion of the number of Dangai dramas, many dramas that are not originally Dangai are attaching themselves to the Dangai genre, by setting up double male leads, by playing up the suggestive atmosphere between male characters in their plot lay out. Some variety shows make use of the plot setup, the post-editing, the promotion of topics etc, to forcibly pair up their male guests for the purpose of hype and attention. This vulgar custom of “playing edge ball” as a means to tempt, to lead the audience into indulging in fantasies [Pie note: sexual fantasies implied by the idiom 想入非非] have spread from visual media production to the areas of promotion and marketing. Some interviews, magazine photoshots, short video production have also joined the bandwagon of borrowing the popularity of Danmei culture. They use all sorts of sensitive topics to tease and excite the public, tirelessly, happily guiding the fans to overanalyse Dangai dramas and even, the relationship between the actors of Dangai dramas. With the push of such gimmicks, Danmei is reaching the public through multiple channels, gathering popularity and turning into a phenomenon.

From O3) 耽美作品改编盛行带偏大众审美 Popularity of Dangai Dramas leads the Public’s Aesthetic Astray

Men with delicate looks, with traditionally feminine (soft and reserved) quality, are often sought after by the rot women (fujoshis). There has been a recent, popular saying in the industry: to find out if a male star is popular or not, find out if there are fans calling him “wife”. Artists with a tough image often do not make it big, but explode in popularity once they switch to a soft beauty style. Netizens have teased “Ten years as a tough man known by none; one day as a beauty known by all”. This take on aesthetics is influencing visual media creation and entertainment production to a certain extent. Watching from a distance, more and more traffic-generating stars look like “cream young men” [Pie note: 奶油小生, from 奶油 “cream” + 小生, “the role of young men in traditional Chinese opera”, is an old-fashioned term traditionally used to describe young, good-looking actors who often presented as pale, mild-mannered, scholarly]. Some entertainment venture capital picks “flower men” as their choice for leads regardless of the TV dramas/films’ subject matter, follows the young (male) idol path. Commercial products and ads extend their offers to “little fresh meat” [Pie note: 小鲜肉 is the nickname for young (male) idols]. Even cosmetics, which have conventionally been thought of as women-only products, are no longer asking only women stars to be their spokespeople. Feminine beauty can exist, but all things shouldn’t be taken to the extreme. As “flower men” overflow on screen, masculine, tough men are reducing in numbers. This may counter the basic rules of art creation, and disrupt the development of diverse social aesthetics.

Any product produced by the mind, in the process of production, is also producing minds that will accept it, consume it. Audience of Dangai include not only adults, but also not-too-mature youths who pursue “Rot Culture” as a fashionable trend. In particular, as the aesthetics of men in the eyes of young women turn even more feminine, such change can indirectly influence the cognition of young men, cause the young men to subconsciously shift their own gender expression closer to the feminine beauty anticipated by women. Most Dangai stories are far removed from reality; some young audience nonetheless mix them up with real life, develop biased understanding such as “only love that doesn’t treat matrimony and reproduction as destinations is true love”. Although Daigai is often made “Danmei-less”, in that the romantic relationship between the two male leads are re-written as brothers and zhiji (confidants), the canon and the Rot Culture behind it still hides large amounts of pornographic, violent content, including biased, unhealthy perspectives on gender, and un-scientific, even wrong biological knowledge. If such content isn’t given restrictions, it will seriously mislead the values and self-fulfilment of the young.

PART 1 PART 2 <-- YOU ARE HERE PART 3