#not interested in starting discourse I'm just answering an ask as I see it

[butmakeitgayblog]

So I'm relatively new to the fandom, and during my stay in this rabbit hole, that is, Clexa, I've got a few questions that I'm hoping you could answer :)

Why is everyone here pro-Lexa? Like don't get me wrong I absolutely love Lexa as a character and Alycia is a queen, but why all the hate towards some of the other characters, like Bellamy? I've never watched The 100 the whole way through (literally exited outta the show the second Lexa died), even then, it's been years since I watched it. Did I miss something while I was binge-watching, or was my teenage brain at the time just too immature to realize he was a total jackass..? Also, it's not just Bellamy, I've also seen hate for Bob, the actor who plays him. Which brings me to another question: does this fandom not like Eliza? I always see so much support when Alycia has an upcoming project or is posting Instagram updates but nothing for Eliza? Again, no judgment for the Alycia love because I completely understand why everyone here is head over heels in love with that girl but I just wanted to know, has Eliza ever done anything wrong? Or have I just conveniently only stumbled upon Alycia stans on this app?

Anyway, a totally unrelated note but since I'm here… may I just say ma'am, your writing is the bomb diggity. Like the perfect blend of humor, sexiness, angst, and fluff, THE GODDAMN FLUFF. Genius, you're a genius, like a mad scientist of Clexa fanfic. Hope you keep doing what you're doing, my friend. Take your time though, and don't listen to those ignorant anons that are crawling around yelling "wHy ArE yOu TaKiNg So LoNg To UpDaTe?" Thank you for writing for the Clexa fandom! ❤️

First I wanna say thank you for the sweet words and reading, that means so much to me 🥹💕 not to be a nerd but I screenshot that for one of my worse imposter syndrome days lol

Long post so you can read under the cut. Long time clexas you can just skip if you want because honestly I got annoyed all over again just typing it and you know it all already 🥴

Now right off the top, you don't have to hate Bellamy if you don't want to. It's not like that's a prereq for being a clexa, so if you like him, like him and don't worry about what anyone says. He's a fictional character so anyone who gets intense over someone liking him I think needs to take a walk.

But the reason why a lot of Clexas, myself included, hate him is somewhat of a two part answer. The main reason being is that his character is trash 😅. I mean I'm not gonna dissect every little bit of canon but the main points for me at least, since I can't speak for anyone else, are that he was constantly fucking up literally everything. He gets to earth, proclaims "tHeRe aRe nO RuLeS" and then,,, immediately declares himself the leader and starts forcing people to follow what he says. He literally almost let Clarke fall into a pit of spikes, tried to handcuff her and keep her hostage "for her own good", he spearheaded the whole thing with taking off their wristbands, HE BACKED PIKE, participated in the massacre of a peaceful army sent to protect skaikru, he constantly shamed and blamed Clarke for everything that ever went wrong even when a lot of that stuff was either the best solution in a bad situation OR was an indirect fallout from something fucked up that skaikru had done. The sweaty little fucker was always trying to control/manipulate Clarke and skaikru and his own damn sister despite the fact that everything he ever planned himself turning out to be: A Terrible Idea. Basically the dude sucked but was held up on spindles of glorification as being this heroic uwu soft boy that wasn't actually supported by any one damn thing in canon when you actually look at it objectively. And I'm sure I'm even forgetting stuff. The dude just sucked.

Agian, that's my own two cents.

The other reason being, it's rollover from having to deal with blarks. Their constant harassment and shoving their fanon, non-existent ship down everyone's throat, while being entitled little brats throwing tantrums about them not happening at every turn has led from what probably would've been just a mild distaste for a character for most into loathing even the name. Understand I'm not saying the word harassment lightly. They were awful for years. Death threats and homophobia, spamming inboxes with hateful messages and sending awful pictures/memes etc. One even sent EJT a dick pic with Blark written on their penis. They sent memes non-stop about Lexa dying when people were still reeling from it. I'm not saying all Blarks are bad because they're not, but there was enough harassment and viciousness from a large enough and loud enough faction that at a certain point it becomes a blanket feeling of animosity toward the entire ship and everything that follows it.

As for disliking EJT. In reality, she used to be the fandom favorite. I mean she was our girl because she used to champion us and was hilarious about it. Go look up old cons and interviews with her. She was funny and great. Once upon a time E was our biggest cheerleader and dealt with A Lot of abuse and harassment from The Other fandom for it. I'm talking body shaming, slut shaming, comments about her intelligence, sexual harassment and trolling her about her boyfriends and very descriptive messages about how they wanted her to harm herself. The list goes on. And no one, especially not Bob who was the golden boy for The Other fandom, ever said a word in her defense. Never told his fans to stop or that he condemned it. Ever. Not once. That never sat well with clexas, but you can't control what other people do.

We had her back anyway. So, it was whatever. Gross, but whatever.

And then she married Bob. Which, and Blarks cannot seem to wrap their heads around this fact, literally no cared about. She could've just married him and kept being the same person and no one would've cared. In fact, the way this fandom loved her, at first everyone was like hmmm weird and sudden but good for her I guess! Be happy!

But then Bob's ex came forward with very serious allegations about her past relationship with him. She released a statement that you can easily find online and from that it painted a very dark picture of things that involved both him and EJT. As I'm someone who believes victims, I have no reason not to believe her, and since the very bizarre (non) rebuttal that EJT posted in reply made zero sense, that was that. It changed the lens of how a lot of people started looking at her.

Which leads me to the charities.

Hear a collective Clexa sigh.

They're a saga in themselves, but to sum it up as short as possible, EJT had been a part of a children's organization for YEARS that she herself helped set up. Clexas raised a lot of money for this charity through fundraising and selling fanart and we really cared about it. And literally within months of them being married, he became involved in it, and then shortly thereafter, magically they both had to "step away from it" for dubiously explained reasons. (Which, if you read his ex's statement, logical deduction of what probably actually happened will make more sense than what they claimed, and not in a good way.) Sensibly, they started recieving backlash from supporters because, again a lot of people had been helping this charity for years and all of a sudden she was just gone from it and all the projects were halted. I'm not blaming solely her for anything but to just cut and run like she did was sus to say the least.

So to steer away from that shitshow, they started another charity. With a bunch of right-wing MAGA nuts. Yeah. They weren't open or transparent about anything, no records of where any of the money was going, iirc no real legitimate charity registration/tax documentation that anyone could find (and in the US that's all public info sooooooo). It was a total clusterfuck that people started calling them out on from the start. At first they tried to ignore it and just keep collecting money by doing these ridiculous cameos as cash grabs, but just like the first charity, after a while (and a lot of initially unaccounted for money being raised) the poor little darlings just had to "step away for mental health reasons."

Which I would accept and support wholeheartedly because mental health is extremely serious... except funnily, they didn't stop doing the cameos. They kept doing those and charging their fans money to listen to them blather on about made up ~behind the scenes info~ about Blark stuff and it being super secretly canon but for a million reasons that they don't know and can't name, stopped it from happening. Claims of love scenes and kisses that have never been backed up by evidence (like a script) or corroborated by a single person involved in the show. But it's totally true guys, just trust them bro. So yeah, they've kept doing all that. Just... not giving the money they're charging for the cameos to their "charity."

So that's the meat of it, I might be forgetting things and smudging some finer details because it's been a long while ago, but I think you can get the gist. People don't like Bob because he was an ass to fans and EJT herself before them even getting married. He's said ableist things and quoted racists trying to sound smart and never once apologized for anything. He's been accused of abuse in his personal life and has never addressed it, only made his wife write a terrible fanfiction-esque response to appease his ardent followers. And frankly, she pissed off her fans. Once she married him, she completely flipped her personality from a funny charity doing, body positivity leading, cheerleading about "Clexa are soulmates" and "Lexa is the love of Clarke's life" girl, to doing personal cash grabs constantly while spewing all this made up Blark garbage that directly contradicts things they've both said in the past to please her faithful paying cameo fans (read his fans).

It's all left a lot of people with a bad taste in their mouth, to say the least.

And ya best believe if Alycia does some crazy shit, I'll turn on her too 🤷‍♀️ but honestly I'm not too worried about that cuz the girl is a cryptid who you literally can't pay to go to cons or do cameos

[esoteric-goblin]

on worldbuilding, and what people think is going on

there is one facet of fantasy worldbuilding that is, to me, the most interesting and essential but i don't see it come up in worldbuilding guides or writing prompts or anything, and that is the question of:

what do the inhabitants of your world believe about how the world works, and how are they wrong? a lot of fantasy media will set up their cosmology, gods, magic systems, planar systems, concepts of the afterlife, &c., and proceed as though the inhabitants of the world know and understand them.

from someone whose entire academic career is focused on studying human culture in various regions and time periods, with a focus on belief systems (religion, occultism, mythology, folklore): that sort of worldbuilding is unrealistic and missing out on so much fun.

people are always seeking new understanding about how the world works, and they are mostly wrong. how many models of the solar system were proposed before we reached our current one? look at the long, turbulent history of medicine and our various bizarre models for understanding the human body and how to fix it. so many religions and occult/magical traditions arise from people disagreeing with or adapting various models of the world based on new ideas, methods, technologies. many of them are wrong, but all of them are interesting and reflect a lot about the culture, beliefs, values, and fears of the people creating/practising them.

there is so much more to the story of what people believe about the world than just what is true.

to be clear: i think it's fine and important for the author to have a coherent explanation for where magic comes from or who the gods are, so they can maintain consistency in their story. but they should also be asking what people in the world (especially different people, in different regions/nations and different times) think is happening when they do magic, or say a prayer, or practise medicine, or grieve their dead. it is a rich vein for conflict between individuals and nations alike when two models of the world disagree. it is fascinating how different magic systems might develop according to different underlying beliefs.

personally, i think it is the most fun to spawn many diverse models of the world, but give none of them the 'right' answer.

(bonus points if you also have a thriving academic system in the world with its own theory, research, and discourse between factions! as an academic, it is very fun to imagine fictional academic debate over the topics i'm worldbuilding. sometimes i will be working out details for some underlying mechanic of the world and start imagining the papers being written by scholars researching it)

[writingwisterias]

Following on from previous Leon Eras, how do you think all the different Leon Eras would react to a best friend or S/O that's been there when he's seen Ada and knows how he feels about her, so they're always feeling a little bit inadequate? Like there's always that little voice in the back of their mind telling them that they're not good enough for Leon and that they'll never be as good as her? Especially for the best friend who's secretly in love with him, they probably never said anything earlier because of their insecurities, I imagine that RE4R Leon would almost pretend not to see it because he's torn between how he feels but DI Leon would be the kind to keep you locked in a cuddle until you feel a little bit better about yourself

Hi Anon!

So I do think this is a really interesting idea especially since how Leon reacts to ada in the game is important to his character's development! However this is no hate on ada because I love her and would do anything she asked me to 👀

Warnings: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Trauma, insecurities, slight angst

GN!Reader

RE2:

This is where Ada becomes a big impact in his life and how he would view/trust people in general

So if you started dating him after the events of raccoon City I would say it can be hard to deal with

Not only his insecurities about your loyalty would feed into the relationship, he's constantly watching for underlying meanings in your words

But also he's just generally guilty in what happened at the end

I don't think he would be hung up on the kiss they shared, but I do think how he reacts to people and forming a trusting bond when they ask him to do things would be difficult.

Because he doesn't see her after the events of raccoon City until Spain I don't think seeing her would cause a problem to you.

Just the trauma she added to the night unintentionally

RE4R:

Now we enter more interesting territory where their relationship is now complicated

If you are dating him whilst he goes to span the first thing he does is tell you he saw her

He's going to be very open about it and would probably tell you everything she did

I think he admires her in her constant watching and protective nature over him whenever she knows it or not

That being said I do think adding you into the mixture of their complicated affection would cause some difficulties

He's trying desperately to be respectful over your feelings but also he has a lot of questions for Ada he wants answering

I think he would tip toe around the line of knowing it's wrong but purely so he can get the closure he needs

He's willing to take the chance that you would be understanding when he does eventually tell you

Infinite Darkness:

We don't actually see Leon and Ada interact in this Era of him

So if there is any discourse about it, I would say it's because he keeps mentioning her

Maybe he doesn't mean to or he doesn't understand what he is doing but he's constantly talking to you about her

I doubt it's all praise, nor would it be about her looks but the constant mention of her name would eventually get to you

If you mention it he would probably be upset because she is a large part of her life but he would get over it I'm sure

Damnation:

Okay this is where things begin to complicate with their relationship and you

There is that one line in the film where it suggests that they did have a night together

I don't think he would hold that over your head in anyway. He's not comparing you to her at all

But you are

Let's say you are his partner and joined him on this mission, you are a witness to the banter and cant help but feel a bit jealous

Like she's everything you aren't in your own eyes

I think he would get a bit frustrated with how you are taking it and the fact you never seem to understand that he only cares about you

You can't blame him, it's silly to be jealous he wouldn't be with you if he wants her

But seeing how he reacts to her and their history does make you sad

RE6:

This is the main game we see their relationship almost end but also left open

So we will replace you with Helena because it's more interesting.

It turns the situations into he prioritized her safety over yours even though he is in a relationship with you.

He doesn't actually realize what he's done until after the events of the game and he has a lot to make up for

I think it would take him a while to realize as well like he's not going to understand why you are upset straight away

Not because he's dumb but because in his head she needed more help

He would get frustrated with your reaction and not really understand where you are coming from because nothing happened. There was no kiss or anything

It ended with a goodbye and a promise to maybe see each other again soon.

And that's what angers you, until he figures that out it would be rocky whenever she gets mentioned

Vendetta:

Again we don't see Ada interact with Leon in this so if there is an issue it's because he's bringing her up

And of course he will...he's drunk and hates the world

So I don't think he would bring her up in a negative way so when you do get touchy about her- he's confused

I think he would dismiss your concerns because he's literally not said a good thing

It's not until you explain it to him that he understands it sounds like he's still hung up on her

So he would make an effort to show you that's not the case, whenever that's literally saying it during sex

I'm talking like major praise towards you..he would never say her name during that time but imply that you are better

It does work sort of because he is worshipping you but is also doing it on the base of hating her

Eventually he would get distracted by something else to hate on and it wouldn't be a problem

Death Island:

He's not bringing her up as she's part of his past at all

But let's say you are both out n about and he catches the eye of someone that looks similar to her

He then has to explain it to you because he freezes and double takes

The explanation of the complicated history would make it difficult for you because what do you mean this woman has been through almost every important event of his life

Very quick to reassure you he's not seen her in years nor does he want to

He's very content with how his life has turned out and doesn't want you to think otherwise

He would understand if you need constant reassurance over the topic he's more mature so he understands how the situation can be seen

[stormins]

jjk headcanons 🔞

this post contains mild nsfw headcanons about satosugu (goge) and shokohime (just shoko's) and how they found out they were gay + the preferences I personally think they have.

DISCLAIMER: Written 'cause I'm bored, if you disagree w my takes, just scroll. I'm not engaging in top/bottom discourse.

english is not my first language so bear w me, okay.

satosugu (goge)

I'll start with them since they have my entire soul and heart on a chokehold right now

Satoru thought he was straight all his life, being born and raised in a conservative clan, he was taught he'll have to look for a suitable wife once he comes out of age, if he didn't, then he'll have to marry out of convenience to a noblewoman from another prestigious jujutsu clan; chosen by the Gojo elders. So, he automatically believed there was only one option to choose from, women.

Also, he didn't give a damn about romance, since he was entirely focused on perfecting his abilities at the time.

Then he turned 16 and met Geto Suguru, immediately finding him interesting; Suguru's pretty black hair, soothing voice, unusual bangs... bangs, bangs, bangs. Gojo liked his style and personality a lot, he kept Gojo on check and rapidly become his equal. They trained together, ate together and played videogames together. Gojo loved being surrounded by someone as strong as him, even being scolded by Suguru was kinda fun instead of annoying, so without noticing, Suguru became Satoru’s first best friend and crush ever.

He thought he only admired Suguru a lot at first though, that was, until he had a wet dream starring no other than his best friend in it.

In his dream, they were kissing profusely and touching each other in a warm embrace, entangled in his bed without a care for the world. It was a pleasant dream, Suguru touching Satoru's abs and chest, ass and cock, exploring his body; coy, foxy eyes staring at Satoru, which made him harder than he's ever been. Satoru never thought about touching another man's cock but found himself very happy to explore Suguru's dick. In his dream, Satoru jerked him off and even put him in his mouth, that morning, Satoru woke up with a very painful hard on and a lot of questions in his head.

Gojo never told Suguru about his dream and attraction for him, instead, Satoru set on a “I’m very gay but I don’t care about coming out” mindset, which was surprisingly easy to live with.

Their friendship only grew from that point, Satoru teased and flirted with Suguru, it became a casual bro thing between the two, sometimes Suguru flirted back too--which always led to Satoru's heart jumping so hard it made him choke.

Two years later, he found gay porn, his eyes were glued to it at first, this new discovery was both very arousing and life changing. Then a question popped in his mind, was he a top or a bottom? Or a switch? He entertained the idea for a while, staring at the ceiling, thinking what gets his dick harder, being fucked or fucking someone...? He didn't get the answer right away.

That was until a very hot afternoon, when the sun was ablaze and they planned to a friendly outdoor sparring, he witnessed something that radicalized him: Suguru in tight shorts.

Tiny, tight, black shorts.

He never knew Suguru hid all that.

Suguru looked delicious, long, thick legs and an ass so fat Satoru wanted Suguru to sit on his face to suffocate in it. Suguru also had a pretty snatched waist, his body had a special harmony, it was muscles and curves that sent Satoru's mind on a spiral. Suguru's high ponytail did nothing to ease Satoru's internal gay turmoil too, his neck was all sweaty and that white t-shirt he was wearing was very much see through; pink pretty nipples on plain sight.

And Satoru had seen Suguru wearing only a towel before, but he never paid special attention to him until now that he had become some sort of simp, if Suguru asked him to bark, he'd bark and roll over, so as the dog he is now—he saw more skin and had a neuron activation moment.

He wanted to manhandle Suguru and sit him on his lap to kiss and lick him all over, then Satoru would fuck him while griping that slutty waist and fat ass, yeah, there was his answer; he was born to pound some ass, more specifically--Suguru's ass.

It did happen of course, as time went by, Suguru ended up confessing and Satoru will never forget that day, the loveliest day ever--their first time was sloppy and messy but it was fun, Suguru turned out to be a pillow princess when cumdrunk and a power bottom on special nights, it was so hot.

Suguru never had an issue with labeling himself, he always knew he was gay but of course that wasn't public knowledge since he was born and raised in the countryside--but that never stopped him from accepting himself for who he was and what he liked.

So when he moved to Tokyo, he felt more free and accepted, he didn't date anyone though, but he felt more at peace on a big city with more open minded people all around.

When he met Satoru, Suguru was dumbstruck. His white hair and vibrant blue eyes, he was the most beautiful person he had ever seen. Of course he kept on a collected face that day, he wasn't going to crumble right away.

What surprised him about Satoru was his personality, he seemed all serious when they were introduced, after that, they didn't get along that well--fights broke now and then, Satoru was bratty as fuck and Suguru valued order and good manners a lot. Despite that, the more time they spent together, the more they showed their true colors and started caring for each other.

Suguru learned they matched their personalities really well, when he let the curtain of correctness down, he behaved as goofy as Satoru did--they both liked pranks, wacky jokes, playing videogames until midnight and escaping from class to go to the arcade.

He never showed Satoru how flustered and nervous he felt to Satoru's teasing when they were just friends, that one time Satoru put an arm around him and gave him a kiss on his cheek, Suguru faked annoyance. That one time Satoru pushed his messy bangs behind his ears, he shoved Satoru's hand away.

But alone and locked in his room Suguru blushed and smiled thinking about it, that´s when Suguru knew he had developed a hopeless crush on Satoru before becoming best friends.

When they were officially inseparable, he felt like teasing back and flirting too, it was so fun because he could mask his advances as friendly behavior, sometimes it made him a bit sad though, but he learned to live with it as time went by.

They went on missions together all the time and spend summer, winter and spring together. Rides on bicycles, they went to Okinawa once, they also went to karaoke together, sometimes even Shoko joined them...

Suguru felt his crush developing into love when their second spring as best friends hit Tokyo, and Satoru insisted on even spending more time together outdoors, whether it was taking a long strolls together to enjoy the weather or share popsicles or spar, that spring was the best season of his life.

Of course not everything was cutesy and pure, he also wanted Satoru to fuck him stupid. He often thought how good it’d be to have Satoru inside him, Satoru’s large, pretty hands all over him, on his waist, on his ass, on his neck… He knew he was a bottom when he played with himself there years ago and busted a nut so hard he passed out. It was laughable how he simply blacked out to a hard orgasm, but it happened, so ever since then he has fantasied about Satoru doing it to him rather than his own fingers.

Time passed and Suguru couldn't keep his feelings to himself anymore, so he bashfully asked Satoru out one day. Satoru was blushing and giggling the entire 'date' and that's when he had a boost of confidence and simply confessed, Satoru hugged and kissed him so hard they had to move it to their rooms, where they messed around and fucked for hours.

They immediately started dating after, no one was surprised, and four years later (in an alternative universe where gege is a kind person) they got married and adopted Megumi, Tsumiki, Mimiko and Nanako.

They are happy gays in my universe, okay?

shokohime

so, they're my favorite lesbians ever but sadly we don't have lots of crumbs about them so this is like... 100% made up lore by me (when i catch you, gege)

Shoko has had multiple people, men and women, confessing to her and never really caring about them at all, just declining one after another--she thought love wasn't for her, she wasn't interest in it, they only thing she cared about was fooling around, hanging out with her friends, just living in general, a classy carefree life.

Even Gojo and Geto were surprised she never accepted any dates at all, they once questioned her about being a lesbian since she only had expressed her profound love for female idols, but she doubted about being one, she did reject some girls before so... maybe it was just pure fanatism and nothing that actually labeled her.

But then she met Utahime, it was insane how clingy Utahime was and how Shoko never felt annoyed by her, she'd let Utahime give her bone-crushing hugs all the time and never stopped her, they even shared cigarette breaks when Utahime agreed on escaping from class. It was a nice friend at first, until Shoko felt like her company was all she needed and looked forward to after class.

It wasn't a revelation but much more like something that just happened, they forgot an umbrella one day, having gone to walk around the forest near jujutsu high and the rain surprised both of them. Utahime was distressed, her white miko was all soaked and dirty and Shoko felt really bad about it. They walked back to the school and suddenly found themselves running, it was fun and exhilarating. They started laughing all loud and competing on who's faster and shit until Shoko needed to rest against a tree, Utahime stopped and stayed next to her in a second.

Utahime's face was so red and her smile was wide and just perfect, Shoko couldn't help herself and kissed her. They ended up making out messily in the rain. Shoko pushed Utahime against a tree, bumping her lower body against her, both a panting mess and completely lost in the feeling. That's when Shoko knew both things: that she was indeed a lesbian, and that if she didn't eat Utahime out at that very moment, she'd die. So she did, Utahime's tears merged with the rain, moaning loudly and that was the beginning of their relationship (and their exhibitionism kink LMFAO)

They kept it a secret for a while, not telling anyone about it until they graduated and Utahime was offered a position as a teacher in Kyoto. Shoko was really sad, watching her leave broke her, the dorms where suddenly so empty. Utahime insisted on not breaking up despite the distance, Shoko agreed even if she felt stressed about it, she learned she needed Utahime's bone-crushing hugs to have a good day.

Years passed and Gojo found out about it a night when they went out to drink. Gojo had fought with Geto and vented about it, which lead and gave Shoko the will to confess to his friend that she had been dating Utahime all this time. Gojo was shocked but not surprised, Utahime wasn't the best person when it came to hide her feelings after all.

Gojo offered to help, (in exchange of Shoko talking and convincing Geto to forgive Gojo) being a clan leader of an important jujutsu family, in a blink of an eye he had Utahime and her students moving a whole season to Tokyo so they could compete in a friendly tournament. It worked and Shoko passed all the time with her beloved, she was the clingier one now.

In this universe, they also got married and went on double dates with Gojo and Geto, bowling, KFC, karaoke, you name it.

My gays lived happily ever after :,)

my twitter

my ao3

[destinationtoast]

Come join the Fandom Data Projects community! (You don't need to have a project or any relevant background... just curiosity 🤓)

Apparently I can't reblog the community post I made outside the community, so to quote myself:

Hello, fans of fandom data science, fandom research, fandom stats, fandom surveys, fandom data visualization, and everything related! 🪭📊📈📋📓🎉🎉🎉 I run a blog called @toastystats , and I love fandom data! I am starting this community for folks with a personal or academic curiosity about fans/fanworks and a desire to answer questions with data 🧑‍🔬. All of the following are welcome here: * Sharing questions about fandom and brainstorming ways to gather relevant data; * Sharing analyses & insights; * Trading tips on how to gather or analyze data; * Chatting about methods; * Asking for volunteers to participate in surveys or help gather data; * Anything else related!

Learners and lurkers are welcome. Drama and discourse are not; please be thoughtful and generous in how you participate in the group, and try not to stir controversy. (That's not to say there aren't valid fandom research topics that involve controversies -- but the goal of this space is to focus on people helping each other with research and learning in a low stress environment.)

(Honestly I'm starting this partly because I'm curious about the Tumblr community feature, and I like to learn by trying things. 🤓 We'll see how this goes.)

[raayllum]

Hi. I don't mean this to be confrontational at all and apologize if I come off that way. I'm asking purely out of curiosity.

I feel like I rarely see you post any TDP critical takes or engage with TDP critical takes made by others unless you're rebutting those takes. I believe (unless I'm mistaken) you even said once or twice before that you have the "tdp critical" tag blacklisted. I was wondering if there was a particular reason for that. Whether you were just uncomfortable posting anything negative regarding the show given that you're primarily a fanblog or maybe you simply lack takes that are actually critical of the show or for some other reason.

It's absolutely fine if you don't want to share or engage with criticisms of the show. I was just curious why for such an active blog that's even existed since the very beginning of the series I see most exclusively positive takes shared regarding the show by it.

Not confrontational at all! TLDR at the bottom because I'm sorry in advance for how long this is.

It's because of 3 main things:

1) It's my blog so I only really engage and focus on (to the best of my ability) takes that I agree with. Occasionally I rebut more critical takes, but most of my stuff I post is things I wanted to write regardless (like my "why Callum made his choices in 7x02" meta) and then discourse came after I'd started writing the thing privately, but it was still a topic I thought was fun to explore. If people posted critical stuff that I agreed with, I'd probably reblog it, but it has just yet to happen, and I'm not too interested in generating it myself (more on that in a second).

2) I have a background as and was trained to examine things like an English major; I also tutor/teach humanities and literary analysis (and a surprising amount of math) for a living. This does not by any means make me an authority, but it does mean I approach stories from a very specific good faith lens that I think the majority of fandoms in general just... don't? Or at least seem not to, as far as I can tell, but maybe I'm wrong; I don't know what's going on in anyone else's head. (This also does not mean that anyone who's an English major has to or should think this way, or does; this is just how I personally internalized further what I learned from my degree and how it aligned with what I'd already been inclined to do with stories since like, childhood.)

What I mean, therefore, at least (and more elaborate thoughts on it here in terms of the perspective I'm coming from) is that because of my lifelong inclinations of 90% of the time Enjoying Canon / my background, I typically go into stories assuming two things: first, that the story is exactly what is supposed to be; and two, if something doesn't work or make sense to me, I assume first that I'm wrong, and I go looking for reasons about why the story would do this before I pass judgement on it. This can apply to character beats / characterization, execution, plot, etc. just about anything. This doesn't mean that the story can't be 'wrong' (or 'bad'), just that it's never my initial assumption.

My search for reasons/answers also does not mean that I'm going to magically be able to deduce reasons, or that any reasons I find are objectively correct and/or intentional or have to work for anyone else; sometimes I can't find the reasons (which to me is my biggest indicator that a story is not for me or no longer for me). Sometimes I find the reasons and it still isn't 'good' or is still not my preference (a good example would be when I thought a TV show randomly paired 2 characters together that I was a not a fan of in their s4, and I still don't like them together, but when I got to S5 I was like "Oh yeah, for plot reasons, of course you'd pair them together, that makes perfect sense") but I know I'm giving things a fair shake. I'm engaging with the story as is, which is my primary interest, not necessarily what I expect or even want the story to be. No piece of media promised to be my ideal; I entered in the story contract of being along for THEIR ride and gauging if the loop-de-loops are a thing I'd enjoy, but they're not going to (nor do they need to) tell my story to be 'Good'.

I've shipped things or enjoyed ideas that would 100% make a story worse if it was canon, and I didn't want them to be canon! I didn't need them to be, either. I'm interested in learning, growing, and adjusting with whatever is presented to me, and if I can't do that (or am no longer enjoying doing so) then it's time for me to go. This doesn't mean I never approach stories from a lens of 'here's what they could do better' (I'm not a big fan of She-Ra or The Owl House, which are both notoriously popular, and I have Thoughts on both of them; I can talk all day long about how structurally broken but fun Frozen is, or how poorly butchered the Star Wars sequel trilogy is) but that's usually when a story has a persistent flaw to me on a structural or overarching basis—consistent tonal issues (which I don't take seriously even for shows like Shera that I think have them, because I'm the adult choosing to watch stuff made for children so of course the tone's not for me) or broken lore, ableist/racist writing, or too many underdeveloped characters or retcons. A single scene, episode, or season (depending on the percentage of the show it is, if it's a full third or something than yeah that's more of an issue)—depending on the severity of the fumble—is probably not going to be enough for me to be pissed about it.

Part of this also stems, I think, from giving stories the grace that I'd want my own to receive some day, but I digress.

I also know from my experiences as writer is that sometimes the choices I (or a story has made) won't work for everyone, wasn't made to work for everyone, and what I dislike about a thing is 100% a choice that the author was making On Purpose that they love, and well - it's their story, isn't it? So holding space for "this is how I subjectively feel, this is what I think the story was trying to do, here's why I feel it didn't quite hit that goal, or did have the pay off to set up (just not in the manner I'd predicted" is like, important to me to all hold simultaneously as separate things that can occasionally overlap.

3) As stated before, I do have critiques—quite a few, actually—for TDP (a few I've briefly touched on here before, such as its lack of female-female relationships) but generally speaking I've never seen anybody else have the same ones.

Part of this is undoubtedly because I don't go looking, but I've also been in the fandom for 6+ years and have seen a Lot of critique for the show to the point it all gets redundant/recycled (hence the blacklist because I've never agreed with any of it) and I do think—not all—but a lot of is just... not that well founded in the text or just not very well expressed, which makes it harder to understand where people are coming from. I've written before about different types of fandom critique (vague/assumptive vs more specific critique which I think is more communicative/productive) but I know for myself, my critique is going to be Consistent for the whole show and specific about why I think what I think. If something bothers me in one season, I'm gonna meticulously check to be like "is this in other seasons? did it bother me then? if so, why or why not?" and if I'm not being consistent on that basis in terms of where and why I'm levelling critique, that's gonna change my mind.

For example, I think S6 repeats a lot of dialogue / ideas, sometimes almost if not directly back to back in scenes, and sometimes in exceedingly similar ways, particularly at the Starscraper sections of the story. For example, Kosmo explains that "on every moonless night, a blizzard rages and shrouds the heavens" and then Kosmo repeats the exact same information like 7 minutes later in the exact same way: "for centuries on every moonless night, a blizzard rages and shrouds the heavens." And it would be one thing if these repetitions were like, in different episodes, because not everyone is going to binge or watch the previously on, and you gotta get audiences caught up. That's why Karim and Miyana have a similar discussion/repetition in 4x08 and 4x09 respectively, but we're in the same episode in S6, we like Just learned this. I don't necessarily know what information we'd put in the 2nd instance with Kosmo instead (maybe highlighting his desire to see the stars, foreshadowing that he'll be timeblind further?) but I've looked for a reason for the repetition, and while I think it's a cool idea for Kosmo to have a tendency to repeat things as a character quirk / set up his affinity for being timeblind (because to deal with alternate timelines is to deal with repetition until things branch off) it's not a satisfactory reason for me.

Or like, S2 has my least favourite pacing in the show, because while I adore the flashback episodes and they're really fucking important for theme (my number one fave thing!!) they do cause the middle of the season to more or less grind to a halt in terms of the main storyline when 2x04 was already more of a transition / filler episode (which we needed after the Moon Nexus arc, 2x04 is one of my fave eps in the season, but it would typically be a transition episode to move us into a new plot section of the story, & that's not quite what happens here, so the pacing drags a lil).

But I don't think season 2's pacing is bad. I don't think 6x04 is a bad episode or that Kosmo is a poorly written character. It's just not my personal preference, and I think I'm a lot more cautious about using that metric (my enjoyment, my preferences, how relatable it is to me, etc) to discern how "good" a story is quality wise. A story can be a great story even if there is nothing relatable in it to me or if it makes me deeply uncomfortable, because art can exist for a lot of different reasons and my limited-ass white western perspective or personal story preferences is not the be-all end-all. I think TDP is a beautiful example of rejecting punitive punishment, and I've gotten more pro-abolish prisons as I've gotten older, but some of my own works have characters who chase revenge and that's the portrayed as the right thing to do, because not everything has to line up perfectly or have a singular way in which to align. It's interesting to explore a variety of viewpoints and that's the whole reason I write.

None of this means I never use my personal preferences or enjoyment as a metric, but that's usually when I'm making recommendations to people or just talking about my personal feelings, and I don't tend to lean on those much when it comes to Analyzing a story other than a jumping off point of "Huh this scene made me emotional, I wonder why? [examines the narrative for set up and pay off]". Cause I think I do, ultimately, consider myself a meta blog, and that's always been my #1 in fandom ever since I got into fandom at 12 years ago, that's what I love doing and engaging in.

If people wanted to have Actual Discussions of "this character beat felt ooc" and they could present their evidence from the text (similar scenes where a character responded differently or something or whatever), and I could say "oh, interesting, that felt in character to me because of XYZ" and I would present my evidence for the text, and we would go back and forth both having a good time before probably respectfully agreeing to disagree, I'd love to engage just for the discussion, I love character and characterization analysis. One of the most fun times I ever had was arguing both for and against the "S4 Rayla is a fake/illusion" theory before the season released because it was fun to consider and counter stuff. I have one friend who's also autistic and back in university we would just swap contrarian story viewpoints for like, an hour on something we had both read, and it was the best. (That friend loved the end of Game of Thrones, which like no one fucking liked, and also has S4 and S7 as like their top 2 TDP seasons, which isn't even true for me, god bless their soul.)

But I would say at least 70-85% of the time when people are critiquing a thing, while it might be coming from a consciously analytical standpoint, that's not what they want to express or that's not how they express it (or at least, not in a way that I can personally understand). They want to vent, and I've definitely done that before with stories myself, I get it. Sometimes a story pisses you off and you just gotta vent. But I'm not going to engage with someone who's venting unless I agree, and if it becomes clear that they are after I do engage because I think maybe they're not venting, and then they are, then I'm just gonna leave 'em in peace. I hope they're having a great time / get whatever they need out of the process.

I also just... am not going to post things I don't agree with. I'm not gonna pretend to have critiques I don't. If I have a critique on... anything that I felt was worth posting about, I would. I don't think I do. Like, I walked out of S4 feeling so happy and excited and content with the season as a whole, MUCH more than I felt when first walking out of S6 or S7, but like I process that shit privately and now I really do like those seasons, so? Yeah.

I think a lot of my disdain for Heavy constant critique comes back to like, I remember being like 13-14 years old and being so excited to come onto tumblr and find out what the ATLA fandom was analzying, because it's in many ways the show I reverse engineered literary analysis from (Katara-Azula was an early, apparent, and favourite foils dynamic of mine, for example) and there's so many lovely things about it. At that point my fandom experiences had been like a really small fandom of a show that wasn't that good but we loved it for what it is, and HTTYD, which had a very thoughtful thriving community of analyzers, and they would debate episodes and ideas in a very friendly manner even if they didn't always agree. So getting on ATLA tumblr and seeing nothing but hate for so much of the show for miles, and seeing so much hate for all the specific things that I loved the most, and that were the most meaningful to me and that I was stupid or childish to like or enjoy or get excited about them, broke my heart honestly. And I just never want to be that or potentially contribute to that for anyone else; I really don't. And at a certain point, if your critique does align with the majority takeaway, you gotta ask yourself if you wanna or really need to toss your hat in the ring and if you'd be adding anything to it, because sometimes we don't all need to comment on every single particular XYZ thing has commented on (no I didn't like the Crowlord jokes in S4, I don't like his character in general, he's also barely in the show, my dislike does not matter to me; the story uses him for comedic relief, he objectively fulfills that role even if he doesn't subjectively work for me, it is small potatoes, I'd rather focus on the more interesting, more prominent things that I love).

TLDR;

Thus far, every time TDP has done something I went ??? about, I've found a reason + one that worked for me, or it's small enough that it's a nitpick. If I don't love all parts of canon, then I stop enjoying it, and if I stop enjoying it, I leave the fandom. If I'm in the fandom, then I love and appreciate all parts of it, even if things may not always necessarily align with my preferences. I'm interested in seeing what the story is doing and focusing on that with my blog, my primary interest is not based in what I want it to do (not saying that's where anyone who does critique the show is coming from or that it's lesser to do so, this just how I'm conceptualizing the difference in mindset, but maybe I'm wrong about where the divide is or what the mindset is). 90% of the time whatever the show does I end up liking more or finding more interesting anyway, and I've also never had anything align with my specific brain more than TDP has. Kinda simple as that, in some ways.

[vulgrados-best]

Intro Post

Hey I'm Miguel. I'm a xenic nonbinary butch dyke, pronouns are they/them + ze/hir. I'm 17. I'm from Vulgrado, an island region off the coast of Paldea. Recently I had to move to Zapapico to take care of my grandparents.

I'm a Cyclizar Racer, and a pioneer of new types of races. I'm best known for my Bodyguard Racing (name subject to change) style. My rival is @yveltalreal so sorry boys I'm taken.

As it turns out I'm probably plural! At the moment you can refer to us as Miguel& when referring to us all. My two notable headmates at this moment are Zacian and Asterion:

Zacian - He/Him, They/Them, Swor/Sword

Fuzztive (Factive + Fictive) of the legendary wolf pokemon, Zacian! Speaks very formally and is passionate about human society, pokemon conservation efforts, and swords.

Asterion - Ze/Hir, He/Him (exclusive to friends and headmates)

Fictive of The Minotaur from mythology! Speaks bluntly with lots of ellipses and is passionate about stories.

Our Pokemon are:

-> Celcity - Cyclizar | Male

-> Nyoom - Eulimmun | Nonbinary (it/its)

-> Terrainity - Excadrill | Male

-> Mãesaur (& Meninosaur) - Kangaskhan | Female & Male

-> Reapwing - Scyther | Female (they/them)

-> Ferravis - Skarmory | Female (she/he/it)

Uh. I tend to swear a lot, yell a lot, and I love the word dyke.

Also I might start religion discourse on accident considerin' Lachrilove is more commonly referred to on Vulgrado than Arceus. So if ya see me say "Lach" its kinda like how you guys say "Arc"

Fuck uuuhhhh. Look at me and my pokemon 👍

And, no, nothing's wrong with my Cyclizar. It's just a color morph.

// Miguel's universe's pokemon are based more heavily on irl animals. Miguel has and will frequently express distress about other universes' being closer to canon (lack of color morphs, lack of variants, biological workings, etc) or generally unlike theirs.

// Miguel loves to talk about their universe's pokemon and will share knowledge from their universe on other people's posts. They will not understand your universe does not work the same as theirs if you don't explicitly state to them that It Does Not Work Like That for your characters.

// The mun will also not realize discomfort with poke-biology arguments unless it is explicitly stated to them. This goes doubly so for poke-biology about Rapidash as the mun works with horses irl.

(ooc under the cut)

Guidelines:

No NSFW (Miguel is a minor.) Keep it PG-13

Any kind of PKMN IRL blog can interact (Miguel is aware of the multiverse)

In Character Anon Hate is acceptable (but at least make it interesting.)

Pelipper Mail/Malice: OFF (unless funny enough)

Musharna Mail/Malice: OFF (unless compelling enough)

Magic Anons: OFF

Tags:

Posts Made By Tags:

#riders diary -> Posts made by Miguel

#howling voice -> Posts made by Zacian

#labyrinth lost -> Posts made by Asterion

#rotating cast -> Posts made by headmates who don't have a tag

#flowering garden -> Posts made by [Information Redacted until 9/18/2025]

Posts About Tags:

#rivals feud -> Posts about Maple

#caveboy tag -> Posts about Nick

#miguel family -> Posts about Miguel's family

#saddle up -> Posts about racing

#vulgrado info -> information about the fan region Miguel is from that is based on the Azores Islands of Portugal

#lachrian info -> Information about the religion Miguel is a part of.

Important Tags:

#festering -> something important.

#unseen watcher -> signifies that post is invisible to blogs linked to this one (@yveltalreal , @espers-n-espurrs, @jaimemes, @aspens-dragons, @victoria-vd, @rock-n-rolycoly @estranger-and-stranger-still) [works the same as blindspot]

Misc. Tags:

#answered best -> ask tag

#sysposting -> System related posts

Story Arcs:

Minor Arcs:

🏇Neighborhood Arc 1: Riders (Finished) -> 4 Cyclizar Riders get territorial when Nick and Miguel explore a junkyard. Nick mentions to Miguel they had previously driven him and his friends out of the Junkyard.

A couple days later Miguel challenges and beats the Riders in a 4 on 1 Capture the Flag Battle Race, and the 4 Riders invite Miguel to join up with them. A week later there is a sort of rematch and Miguel is betrayed and beat up by the Riders.

A revenge plan is made by Miguel and Nick, this involved getting the Rolycoly Racers (who had been pushed out of the junkyard earlier in the year) to play a prank with Paintball Guns on the Cyclizar Riders. This goes badly as Nick is nearly run over and Miguel beats the shit out of the rider who attempted to do so. Miguel is then arrested.

Major Arcs:

🪼Trouble in Paradise (Finished) -> Miguel joins the Alola trip! Miguel joins Flynn and Maple on their Island Challenge, acting as a bodyguard against dogmon for Maple. Over the course of the trip they go through some mishaps (such as getting beaten up by an angry Buneary, and Maple jumping into the ocean to rescue a baby Vulpix) that cause the trio to get closer.

During the Electric Trial, Miguel was hiking and came across a dead Mother Skarmory, killed by a Tinkaton. Miguel rescues the baby Skarmory that is in danger and runs for their life with the little guy in their arms. They decide to keep the Skarmory who is named Santo Ferravis (a name recommended by Nick).

At one point Maple and Aspen break into the Aether Foundation Lab and Aspen gets kidnapped. It turns out that Aspen was taken by Nihilego and the gang, after some deliberation and preparation (such as Miguel being trained by Victoria), goes into an Ultra Wormhole to rescue Aspen. During the rescue, Miguel is injured by Aspen's Kommo-o, Hibiscus, and is left with a scar.

Afterwards things go... mostly smoothly (except for Maple disappearing for a couple days, and Maple getting attacked by a different Kommo-o) and they finish the Island Challenge. The gang returns home in one piece.

☠️Revenant (In Progress) -> Something's not right with Maple.

[all mentions of dyke will be tagged #d slur tw for filtering.

Mun identifies with the label and feels uncomfortable describing their character as simply sapphic.]

Main is @werewolfcave

[hiiragi7]

hi there!! i've been reading some of the discussions you've had & many of them are super informative and some comforting to read from the perspective of someone who's questioning if they might be plural/have a CDD. i really appreciate ur blog & the views and experiences u share on it, it feels like a warm hug amidst The Horrors of Syscourse.

i've had something on my mind though. this is probably a silly question, but it's possible to have a CDD without (C)PTSD, right? admittedly i'm kind of just asking this for reassurance while i'm on my own discovery journey. like. i have experienced traumatic events and some of it is ongoing & i'm still living with the people responsible, but i don't think i fit the PTSD criteria due to not experiencing flashbacks or strong emotions related to the events—i usually just feel totally empty & detached from it. i still believe i've been negatively affected by the events hence considering them traumatic, but that doesn't include any kind of flashbacks.

i've been trying to look into it & find answers but i've seen a lot of conflating of having experienced trauma with having PTSD, so most of what i find is "can you be plural/have a CDD without trauma" discourse.

i think it'd be neat to see more conversations about this but free to ignore this ask if u don't want to answer it/if u don't feel equipped to! wishing u the best. have a great day!!

This is actually a very interesting question.

I've read a lot of medical literature on trauma, and each author in the field seems to define what qualifies as PTSD or PTSD symptoms differently, which also lines up with my own experiences with medical professionals in practice. In general, me simply being traumatized was enough for me to be given an automatic PTSD diagnosis, regardless of which therapist or psychiatrist I saw. Some professionals I saw were very specific with what they called what, others were a lot more loose with it.

I've seen a lot of differing definitions and academic debate over what qualifies as a flashback, dissociation, a posttraumatic symptom, and so on. That is to say, it can all be very vague.

For example, there are other forms of flashbacks that exist outside of the well-known ones; some people only relive traumatic events emotionally, or through repeated thought processes, or somatic pain. A lot aren't even aware these are flashbacks, because it's experienced as 'random' emotions or pain or spirals or some other response, and a lot have trouble figuring out what even triggers these responses.

Would these experiences fall under what we call flashbacks in PTSD? Well, it probably depends on who you ask. And, in practice, whether someone with these experiences gets diagnosed with PTSD or a mood disorder or a personality disorder or somatic pain syndrome depends on the medical professional evaluating them.

To further complicate it, a lot of people don't experience overt c/PTSD symptoms until they are no longer living in the traumatic situation, which, for people who develop cPTSD, means they may not show obvious symptoms until a very, very long time after the trauma started. I didn't start getting "classic" PTSD flashbacks and "waking up in a panic attack in the middle of the night" type nightmares about the trauma until I wasn't around the people who did it anymore. However, I have experienced many other trauma-related symptoms and heavy dissociation ever since I was very very little. Before I was diagnosed with PTSD in highschool, I was diagnosed with a lot of other things first.

There's also just the fact that, for whatever reason, people don't all develop the same symptoms in response to trauma. Some people with very complex trauma never experience classic PTSD symptoms. Some people are very dissociative and numb, or develop mood disorders, or obsessive-compulsive symptoms, or somatic symptoms, or eating disorders, or some combination of things. Some people never externally harm themselves or cope using substances while others develop addictions to these things.

In addition, some people's experiences with trauma don't fall under the PTSD criteria's definition of trauma, so even if other symptoms are present they don't "technically" fit criteria. And sometimes medical professionals use their own judgement and diagnose these people with PTSD anyway, and sometimes they don't.

Plenty of people diagnosed with other childhood trauma-based disorders besides CDDs also don't fit c/PTSD criteria or show many c/PTSD symptoms or receive a comorbid c/PTSD diagnosis for whatever reason. It's complicated and messy.

This is all to say, I've encountered medical professionals who treat PTSD as synonymous with "traumatized" and are very loose with what they call PTSD and I've also encountered medical professionals who are very strict about the criteria and are very insistent on only diagnosing people who fit that, and I've met a lot of professionals somewhere in the middle as well. I've also encountered plenty who would much rather focus on helping the symptoms than on what the diagnosis is or isn't, and who don't really like the way mental health diagnosis is structured in the first place.

So, to come back to your question... I don't think there really is an objective answer to it, though personally I'd just say "sure it's possible, and I wouldn't really worry about it much."

In the end, what I've found is that it doesn't actually really matter that much? Regardless of whether there is comorbid PTSD or whether there isn't (or whether it's delayed onset or etc), in the end what you're dealing with if you have a CDD is still trauma, and the treatment for that is more or less the same, regardless of what you call it. There might be differences in, say, approaches to medication specifically, or specific symptoms, but even that is often just throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. Honestly, in my experience, treatment mostly looks different based on symptoms and individual needs rather than diagnoses, really.

In general, I find that a lot of people dealing with trauma and mental illness tend to over-focus on diagnosis and getting it right and trying to figure out whether they "really" have something or whether they're mistaken or somehow faking or so on. I think that's an unhelpful approach to it; there's no objective way to confirm that sort of thing, and either way you still need ways to cope with your symptoms, and coping skills are useful regardless of diagnosis. Learning how to ground yourself is useful regardless of whether you "really" dissociate that bad, learning emotional regulation skills is useful regardless of whether you "really" have severe mood swings, learning calming techniques and self-care and how to be gentle with yourself are good things for everyone to learn, coping skills are not just for people with certain diagnoses. In fact, you don't even need a diagnosis of anything to do these things.

And with trauma, like... it's all just trauma processing in the end, really.

I'll even go as far to say that even if you don't have PTSD, books and resources for PTSD might still be useful to you if you have a CDD or another trauma-related disorder, since a lot of symptoms overlap with other disorders and especially with trauma the recommendations for what to do about it tend to be applicable to a lot of different situations outside of strictly PTSD.

I realize I rambled a long time just to say "well, it's complicated and depends on what we mean by PTSD, but also it's all trauma anyway" but I hope this was helpful still?

I'm also glad to hear what you said about my blog, it was very nice to read.

[astralleywright]

everyone pivoting to arguing about semantics as we've finally gotten a decision is pretty interesting now cause you've got "the gods aren't colonizers, because exandria isn't a colony! it's resources aren't being exploited to brought to somewhere else, checkmate liberal!" i mean sure but if you went to somewhere and killed everyone already living there and built your house on their graves then uhhhh

also there's this weird undercurrent of OMG! the gods are having their dignity and agency taken for things out of their control! but god forbid you say laudna was ever coerced or fcg was treated like property or ashton's family was nuked or that orym damning himself with nana morri is bad actually or dorian's brother dying wasn't his fault or imogen-

it's just a long way of saying "reparations are bad because you're blaming privileged people for having privilege" which is a very shallow opinion to have. i don't think everyone who dislikes the c3 story is a bigot but damn!

so ive been sitting on these asks forever in the hopes of gaining enough intelligence in the intervening weeks to give a really good answer to them.and i didn't because that's not how anything works. and then i started answering it but then end of c3 news broke and now i'm in the torment nexus forever. but i want this out of here before it ends so, i'm gonna give it the best i got

to start off, i would discourage casting any group in this fandom at large as white as untrue and unhelpful. there are people of color on every side of this issue! and as mentioned, semantics and language are at the center of this discourse, and so is identity reductionism. a lot of these people make the same generalization about our side of fandom, erasing plenty of fans of color while dismissing their analysis. as well as many of the people of color who have actually been a part of creating c3! so to do the same ultimately just substantiates its place in legitimate discourse, which it does not deserve.

but, yes, this is an incredibly lib way of approaching the topic. it seems like, finally realizing the disconnect between what they thought c3 was saying and what it actually is, a lot of people have fallen back on the only lens they really know how to critique from, one of representation and identity. and the tumblr understanding of representation is a very shallow, largely western perspective, one void of history and power dynamics. it's especially notable with the colonialism critiques, which often seem ignorant or disinterested in the actual processes and strategies of colonization in favor of a much more simplistic tumblr approach to race and representation. sometimes, that manifests in posts accusing the primordials and eidelons of being bad indigenous representation because they attacked the gods with no provocation, both ignoring that colonization itself is violent and leaning into the Noble Savage trope. sometimes that manifests in posts noting the underusage of Marquet, a continent inspired by Africa and Asia (and as such not white), in comparison to the Eastern European Wildemount (and as such white), and expecting that to stand in challenge to colonialism being a theme of C3. but not actually elaborating on the extensive history of both colonization and colonizing on each continent, or the way racialization explicitly occured as a process to justify colonialism, or that the history of Eastern Europeans being seen as white is very, very complicated and still evolving. that second one is particularly annoying, because the original critique about Marquet is actually a really good and relevant one when it's not being thrown around as a lame gotcha.

there's a deep focus on connecting broad labels and definitions in a way to make one Exandrian group or another look oppressed or victimized, when in reality the difference in power and agency that group has versus the real life counterparts is like. comical. see that one post comparing the armies of Vasselheim being perturbed by BH to pacifistic Buddhist monks being met with colonizers. The monks and the Vasselheim armies are both religious, the colonizers and BH both bring challenge; ignore that these Exandrian acolytes are armed exactly as heavily as the colonizers and backed with the same mandate of heaven.

that's also where you get the arguments about the god's agency being erased, about Bells Hells taking away their choice, etc etc, from the same people that will say it's Dorian and Opal's fault the Spider Queen murdered Cyrus and turned Opal into a puppet. because of course when you're blind to power dynamics, you end up siding with the powerful. if you see the world as something that makes sense, is broadly fair and merit-based, of course you would. if someone is unpleasant or makes bad choices or even just gives you the ick, that must be because they're bad, inherently. the primordials attacked the gods for no reason!! and so on.

[zykamiliah]

Hey, sorry to bother you, but I've been seeing something in the fandom that kind of confuses me, so I'm leaving this ask to my favorite svsss blogs.

I've been trying to get more into Shen Jiu's character, as he is pretty interesting and arguably a fan favorite, and I've noticed that, so far of the fanfics I've read, he is more often than not depicted as a good teacher. A harsh one, but still good? Or not terrible?

One that likes teaching, is involved with his students, taking the little of what we've seen of Shen Yuan's teaching methods and just, giving them a twist, "improving" them even sometimes.

Often it ends up being a show of how Shen Yuan was clumsy, not that good of a teacher (or of a Shen Qingqiu) and I'm... Kind of confused by this trend? Like, is it rooted in canon? Obviously this is still more interesting to read than the "SJ is just a tsundere that never did anything wrong ever" thing, but it feels kind of similar.

I cannot imagine a character as genuinely bitter and angry as Shen Jiu enjoying being a teacher, having a nurturing bone in his body or even being hands on in the teaching of his disciples, several of which he literally bullied out of his peak. But maybe it's just me and I'm wrong?

Was Shen Jiu a good teacher?

I guess I'm just curious of where it comes from. I like Shen Yuan's character, and it often feels like people take Shen Jiu's to show how bad at everything SY is, even if it isn't consistent with SJ's character and often lack nuances, in my opinion.

(Or even if the story claims loving SY while also stripping him away of everything that makes him interesting other than his obliviousness, but that's a whole other thing.)

Sorry again, and I also apologize for the long ask, I'd just figured you or someone that follows you might have an answer.

(Also, I get that fandoms gotta fandom, and I'm not saying people shouldn't write it or anything, I may be a strickler for canon but I'm not the police. Write what you want. I just wonder where it comes from, as I figure that knowing its origins might help me in the future, but I promise I'm not trying to start discourse or anything, so I hope I've made my point clear enough without offending anyone.)

hello!! :DD

well sj being ooc in fics is a common thing by now. people tend to portray him softer than he's in canon, to the point it sometimes turns his whole character upside down. in extreme cases, you'll be dealing with a bitter, more tsundere version of sy with sj's backstory, which is secretly what many people want IMO lol often this people also perceive sy as an incompetent dumb nerd that only knows about monster lore and has no other skills or abilities aside from that-- essentially, they fall for the unreliable narrator's trap of believing every lie he tells about himself.

it's never outright stated, but sj didn't like children, so is fair to assume he didn't like teaching or caring for them either. taking into account qing jing peak's toxic atmosphere pre sy's transmigration, AND the fact that sj was paranoid about being overthrown since he hadn't developed a golden core even after becoming a peak lord and taking lbh in, I don't think he'd be interested in teaching anyone anything. in a lot of cultivation novels, disciples are just given manuals and left to self-study them (like he let lbh use the fake manual, expecting lbh would die from using it. haha. such a good teacher!). this could be the case. aside from that, I don't personally think sj would want to provide any kid guidance. and that's not mentioning how he allowed and enabled bullying, targeted talented disciples, and overall was more worried about his own cultivation and survival and reputation than other things or people.

so where this fanon sj comes from? I'm not sure, really, but I think some people just want a version of him that's palatable AND defensible, like my friend furby says, a declawed sj that's just a poor misunderstood meowmeow who deep inside is secretly good and nice. it's a thing that people who struggle with liking "villainous" or "morally bad" characters do: twisting the narrative around to justify this character's actions. It doesn't help that he's SO complicated, and people who have very black-and-white thinking struggle to place him in either side of the spectrum-- it's the problem mxtx outlined through sqh and sqq's voices

ch.14 house arrest

ch.19 shen jiu

really, the fandom has just proved mxtx's point xD

anyway, there's a lot of misconceptions about sj. there are some pretty wild theories around. some fans also treat his abuse as The Worst Abuse in comparison to the Child Abuse he did, because of the (unconfirmed) hints that sj was sexually assaulted by qiu jianluo, as if SA is the worst kind of abuse and child abuse falls back on the tier-list ¯_(ツ)_/¯ because obviously anything that involves sex in inherently worse, apparently

in other cases, people are simply more familiar with the fanon version of the characters, and that's who they portray in their writing. after all, many people read the novel once and then go on to read dozen of fics; it's normal the fanon sticks more on the brain than canon (not judging! it happens to me as well lol) and those fanon versions are more popular because, as i said, this version of sj is more morally palatable (and bland and less fun ┐(︶▽︶)┌)

thank you for the ask!! :DDDD ❤️❤️❤️ i love receiving asks~

[beautifulpersonpeach]

A Rant.

A lot of you have sent me asks about how JK's solo promotions isn't the same as Jimin's and other BTS members, about JK's rumoured all-English album, about BTS doing payola (you can read my views 4th paragraph from the bottom), about how HYBE has apparently destroyed the BTS OT7 agenda...

I don't want to answer y'all for two reasons:

Perhaps some of you are newer followers, but I can only repeat myself so many times. Don't you get bored of hearing me say the same thing over and over again? /gen

I don't share the apprehension, worry, or appetite for speculation and theorizing that I'm seeing from many people on Tumblr and Twitter.

It's very possible I'm the one in La La Land and you all have good reason to be concerned. But the way I see it, a lot of hysteria is being driven by two things: (1) a very myopic pov, as though the time between June 2022 and December 2025 is the most defining period of BTS's solo careers, as though this is the best and only time for any member to make a move, leave their mark, and thrive. And that BTS/BigHit is working on the same timeline.

(2) All these conversations are being driven by people who have brought that toxic hyper-competitive feature of k-pop, inwards, into the group, and now see the members as direct competition in the narrowest and most reductive sense possible.

And I just don't relate.

I don't feel sad for Hobi on how his solo roll-out was 'sabotaged' relative to Jimin's, I don't feel angry for Joon on how his roll-out compared to JK's, I don't feel confused at JK possibly having a full English album, if anything I'm even more excited by how he's pushing himself and I think it suits him given his pronunciation is one of the best in BTS. I know he'll be more involved than with Seven given how long he's been working on his album, I just hope he doesn't sacrifice depth in his artistic and lyrical expression for a shallow, wider reach.

In my very honest opinion.

When BTS talk about wanting to be together for a really really long time, I wonder if people have sat down to really think about what that looks like. Because maybe it's just me, but I don't think it makes sense for a company/group that has operated like BigHit/BTS, to shove their grandest plans for seven individuals into a ~3 year window. Right now, it's JK getting the push, he's been very vocal and consistent about his solo ambitions for the last 4 years, and I'm glad he's getting this shot.

Also,

While I feel BigHit has become bloated and inefficient, the boys are still capable handling their affairs and I feel very comfortable not having all the answers for a business and career that isn't mine.

I have my opinions about how things could be done differently, and I think if people want to voice their dissatisfaction to the company that's obviously fine, but I don't feel sadness, anger, or pity for any of the guys in BTS in Chapter 2. Not for my biases, not for Jungkook, and certainly not for Jimin. And it's getting tedious repeating my unpopular sanctimonious opinions to people who have already made up their minds and really ought to be more honest with themselves.

Speaking of Jimin, it continues to amuse me how the top group of people who just do nawt rate this man, is his solos. It's like dejavu for the discourse around OSTs circa 2018 - 2021 all over again. PJMs complaining about how BigHit was holding him back from doing OSTs, just for Jimin to say he wasn't interested at the time. Or how in 2022 people were fretting in my inbox about how only Jimin hadn't done any solo work/promotions yet and I would put out gentle reminders about how he operates and his tendency to leapfrog the rest when he's ready, then we started getting the producer pics.

Jimin has always been a 'bigger picture' kind of guy so how can anyone blame me for not taking this latest outcry seriously when that man continues to do what he's always done: work in silence, and wow with the result.

(Does anyone really think a man with no plans would be airborne every 2 weeks, and that a company with no desire to market him would be paying for and managing those plans?)

Not to be dismissive of people who wanted a stronger American push for Jimin's debut, while I agree he would've benefitted from a more targeted push, I genuinely think Jimin has always been better suited for Europe anyway.

I mean, look at him.

*

Anon from yesterday said they envisioned Jungkook doing a song/video like Troye Sivan's Rush... I didn't comment on it yesterday, but Anon, personally, I've never seen Jungkook as capable of making a song like that. Jungkook will never make anything like that. The only person in BTS who has the range for that sort of provocation and subtext, is Jimin. And the market that will fully embrace that sort of art isn't America, it's Europe. In my opinion.

We'll see what his plans are.

Anyway, I'm not sure how more tactfully I can say this, but my blog isn't the place to be if you feel some type of way about seeing Jungkook succeed like this relative to your bias, if you think his promotion and success is at the expense of your bias, and so on. It's not even that I care about some vague OT7 ideal, it's that while I understand the anger and heightened emotions a lot of you feel, I just cannot relate to it. And it won't be enjoyable for either of us if you come to me with asks about it because we think very differently about the group and our relation to BTS.

You can mark this post to revisit in 6 months so we can compare notes.

[aqours]

ok i REAAAAAALLY need to make a dedicated sideblog for this shit now i realize bc this game is gonna fucking fully get me dragged into this discourse so i'm gonna make an active effort to stop putting these on main, but i can't see myself saying more beyond this in general but ANYWAAAAYS

so i recently made this post about the cognitive dissonance regarding this game and people using fucking CALL OF DUTY a game that is more or less a recruitment drive to make the US military look cool and try to get kids to join up and that GTA's wanted system is actually NOT rewarding you or something to try to play a dick measuring contest with coffin but this interaction really interested me and i wanna talk about it bc i just blocked them after they refused to answer the last question but this is a very specific kind of gaslighting tactic i'm very familiar with from my own days as an anti

i think p much all of us who are used to engaging with this discourse are used to like y'know, being called awful horrible disgusting things. this is not the first time some fucking weird random person came onto my content asking me if i was a kid didler or wanted to fuck my brother. ain't gonna be anywhere near the last time either folks, but i and Lord God knows that's not the case so i don't care what a rando on the internet says but here's the thing: you can't "win" this, but they want to win it. no matter what you say you are the absolute worst kind of dreg of society that should be shot behind a barn and no amount of anything would work. if i actually pulled a list of sourced all that would have happened was they would've doubled down on calling me an inc*s*ious p*d* that I would be willing to use articles probably written by "people like me." because YOU don't care about "winning" this argument, you just wanna get the facts out on your end. it's a catch-22 folks, nothing you say will get you out of it!

i started by calling them a karen, they immediately escalated the living FUCK out of it and tried to trap me in this catch-22 to keep feeling morally superior to me. me saying i don't have such desires and never will isn't enough because i like this game. nothing but me renouncing it will change it.

but here's the thing about antis- they fucking HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE it when you turn it on them. look at the difference. look at the difference between they were the one throwing the catch-22 at me vs. the other way around. what about you? you just came onto my post to harass me, so i'll say it back. how about you? are you just accusing me of these horrible things because you are projecting your thoughts on me? you told me to get a therapist: so maybe you're the one that needs help if so!

violent video games must encourage violence, riiiiight? and you support it because it's violent. Game of Thrones had in*e*t in it so everyone who likes it also is the same. and Demon Slayer, where the pfp is from is violent, so you support it. the main protag's little sister also gets a superpowered form where she gets physically older and a tits out kinda look. so clearly YOU want to see your sister in the same way, right?

and it went as expected. you can see the tone going from smug jerking off with a shit-eating grin to just annoyed while smelling their own farts like it's a rose. and the moment i started doing the same uh i got NO fucking answers and they stormed off. i waited half an hour for a response before blocking them

so why am i typing up this walltext? because i used to be an anti. i fucking guarantee you i would've called everyone who liked this game [insert horrible things] like 7-9 years ago. so let me tell you, you know what pisses off antis more than anything? more than ANYTHING? turning this catch-22 bullshit on them. this is the only way you can end this miserable conversation without blocking them.

it's all one-sided bullshit and the moment you turn it on an anti it IMMEDIATLY shuts it down. this fucker KNEW the answer and you know it. so i wanted to share that, if you ever struggle with this shit: well the best thing you can do is block them and to give a fuck about winning their imaginary argument, but this is the only way to make the headache end otherwise. just throw the catch-22 right back and that's the end. thanks for reading!

[ddarker-dreams]

Hi Lock~ I wanted to ask you abt how you got into literature, and how you’d maybe recommend someone else to start? I want to expand on my reading (and also you’ve hyped up Dostoevsky sooo much I’m hooked but I KNOW I’m not at that lvl yet haha) but there’s so many different sources and stuff idrk where to start. I have seen your list of recommendations and other people’s lists as well but Im never sure if they’re a good place if someone is just starting into literature; I’ve been really interested in Picture of Dorian Gray, Jane Eyre and Frankenstein right now, do you think they’d be okay? Did you look at books you knew you’d be into? Or did you try out smth new entirely? Also did you look at any sources online that you could recommend? I know I’ve asked a lot so you of course don’t have to answer them, but please let me know what you think!!

I also wanted to ask, as someone who’s read many classics in literature, in your opinion, how would you define literature? And what do you think makes a book a classic?

From a very clueless anon, hope you and bun bun have a great day and stay hydrated!!!!

hello anon!!! there are so many interesting questions here, i'll try answering them to the best of my abilities!!!!

(how i got into literature)

i'd been neglecting published works for most of my life because i just preferred fanfic way more. it wasn't until a bit into 2021 that i saw this Discourse Causing Post that 'you can't grow as an author if you don't read published works,' or something among those lines. i thought this was really interesting because i'd never given it much thought. around that point, even though writing was a hobby, i felt really motivated to improve. i normally spent no more than a day or two on a story before moving onto the next. which is fine, because fanfic writing is a hobby, but i felt i'd be capable of more if i put in the extra time and effort.

so basically i got into it because i wanted to write my silly little yandere fics better jdfklgjsdg

(recommendations for getting into literature)

i focused on the genre i thought i'd be the most interested in: horror. then i branched out from there. i looked up what people considered must-reads for the genre because i figured that'd be a good place to start. if you know what sort of genres you like, doing some research into its most prevalent/foundational works isn't a bad idea. that's the approach i took. authors throughout the centuries influence and inspire one another, i wanted to be able to map those connections out. this also helps give some context to older books with references that'd be loss on a modern audience.

(how i went about looking into books to see if i wanted to read them)

i research everything like my life's on the line, so i do look into books before i read them. i go for a synopsis that doesn't include spoilers and consider if that's a story i'd get invested in. if not, i'll read some reviews for fresh perspectives. if i'm still kinda meh by then, the book gets passed on.

(defining literature/classics)

UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH literary theory is not my field of expertise ... i'd personally define literature as any written work such as fiction and nonfiction. it can encompass so many things that defining it feels tricky. as for how i'd define a classic, all art is subjective or whatever, but there are stories that just have the It factor. whether that is their cultural impact, or works that are pillars to the genre(s) they were written in. you can see the ripples that it made after its publication.

finally, as for the books you listed (jane eyre, the picture of dorian gray, and frankenstein), i'd highly recommend them!!! all of them are apart of the gothic genre, which is one of my favorites. they've all stood the test of time for good reason.

[spinnysocks]

blog information & boundaries!

blog information ;

i am an adult but my blog is sfw with strictly no nsfw.

my blog is intended to be for 13+ to 16+ audiences as i repost gorey art and such sometimes; my filter tags for these are #tw blood, #tw gore, #tw death, #tw cat death & #tw animal death. if these tags are filtered, then my blog is safe for under 13s, agere/petre, or anyone sensitive to those topics.

i tag anything and everything that could be triggering / sensitive topic / etc. if i ever miss a tag, please let me know!

my bio contains a ‘I Block’ list which acts as a DNI; it's what it says on the tin, i block those who come under or support that criteria.

asks ; almost always open and i love getting them! it may take me a while to respond but i will in my own time ^^

the character opinion bingo, ship bingo and character ask game are always open too! each have tags for navigation

i feel it is important to add that i am not answering asks about donations at the moment, because of my disabilities and the fact that i can't verify them.

tag games ; i'm almost always happy to participate! if i don't respond it's because i forgot or i didn't want to participate, for example if the game could ask about personal information that i'm uncomfortable with sharing

mentions ; feel free to tag me in anything! just like asks, i'll get to them in my own time, but i see them & appreciate them

boundaries ;

• please tag these :

[ any sui / sh mentions or jokes including off mentions of hurting oneself on purpose. any mention of hurt or deceased small pets or animals (mourning a pet is obviously fine, but i am sensitive to small pet/wild animal abuse and death). pictures of anything deceased (excluding art). talk or mentions of vomit. reblog bait (causes me paranoia). ]

i'm generally forgiving but if these things turn up on my dash untagged frequently then i will have to unfollow you

• filter tags that i would appreciate :

[ insects. clowns. dolls. heavy blood or gore. horror art / photos in general. food stims / pictures of food in moodboards. ]

not as important as the first list, but very much appreciated as these can be uncomfortable for me. just tag as the words please, i have them filtered out ^^

• to note, i usually won't follow back those who post :

[ vivziepop media. mlp. heavy gore content. general unsafe for work content. heavy horror media. k!nk posting. omegaverse. yandere under any circumstances. any other fandoms or media i may not want to see (most are compiled in the blacklist of my moodboard blog). ]

there are exceptions, such as those who tag correctly. also, i don't usually follow empty blogs unless i know you

• regarding my dni, i do not want to be involved in discourse in any way. please do not start arguments with me about what i support because i am not interested.

• something i feel is important to disclose : because of my disabilities, i struggle to respond to interactions quickly or at all. this is just a disclaimer that i am not ignoring you, as my lack of response is a personal difficulty. please don't take it to heart as it is not because of you that i'm not responding, and please do not hold it against me because i cannot control it. i ask you politely not to pressure me into responding quicker, thank you. /explaining

i will say that it is fine to check whether i have seen an ask you sent/a comment you made/a post you tagged me in. just don't tag me multiple times in the same post please, it is paranoia-inducing for me.

also, DMs are perfectly fine, but i genuinely am really bad at keeping track of messages and responding frequently. sorry about that. /gen

• please use tone tags when talking to me! most of my mutuals use them so it's not usually an issue, but i can misunderstand things without them.

• please don't :

[ make “*bites you*” jokes even in a platonic or silly way. trick me, such as during april fools, or make fun of my naivety. ] will be updated as needed!

last updated this post on december 6th.

if any part of this post is hard to navigate, let me know and i will make adjustments. this layout is one that helps me, but if you need me to clarify something or make reasonable changes i gladly will /gen

[stormblessed95]

Thank you for answering my ask Storm. I appreciate it. I am new to tumbler and have not read everything you have posted mainly focussed on the member dynamics in your masterlist. In your recent post you mentioned that the bullying had happened and that’s how I got to know. I believe in the same post or some posts after you said you were willing to engage in respectful discussions and after much diliberation I thought to myself, that it was ok to send that ask. And it was, coz you answered it so respectfully.

Even if I may not agree with you fully, I do see where you are coming from. Your blog is yours to moderate and that is that.

My gripe with this fandom is that a lot of fans do not allow for a difference of opinion which then just means that we are a cult. The boys are not perfect and it should be ok to call out some of the things they do if it is done in a respectful manner. It is really quite something for people to say that there is a need to police fans/solos or Jikook fans because look want happened to Taekookers. It is too late to make that call because now no fan would be able to take the Gandhian stance of looking the other way. History does define how the present is handled. Yes, it is negative approach but it is what it is.

In any fandom, big accounts have a moral responsibility to ensure that the same energy is given in calling out bullshit but a large number of the ot7 accounts are Taekookers so the same energy isn’t given and this is what has resulted in a whole lot of solo accounts who are unnecessarily hated on most of the time.

Thank you again for allowing discourse. I very much appreciate it.

Having a difference of opinion and not allowing anti rhetoric on my blog is not the same thing. And saying "I have these criticisms of Tae and I think that's fair" is fine, but it also doesn't change that it's the same rhetoric that his antis use against him and it's not something I'm interested in entertaining. I truly couldn't care less if people agree with me or not. That's always been the case. Just as it's always been true that I've held that this space is mine and mine alone. Y'all are here only if you want to be lol. You can feel however you want to feel, that doesn't mean I'm entitled to have to do anything about it nor does it mean I have to hold space for it. Which I think is the problem that occurs when you hit over a certain number of followers. I'm not quite sure when that transition happened for me, but sometimes I miss how my blog used to be 2+ years ago 😅😂

I love Tae. I love him so much. I love his bond with the members. I think there are for sure things we can talk about critically there. Just as there are things I think we can talk about critically for each member and for the group as a whole. Do I think now is the time? Probably not with all that is happening with k media and the harassment happening.

Do I think any of those critiques involve their relationships with each other, including how Tae interacts with JK, no. I think their relationship and how it works best for them, is not something we get to interject on. Opinions about that stem from personal biases and often, also anger about antis and the desire to protect other members from said antis.

I also agree that a large number of "OT7" accounts on Twitter don't give the same proper energy to calling out bad behavior because they are taekookers or diet solos/shippers. But then we shouldn't be calling them OT7 accounts, right? I promise there are really good larger accounts out there that aren't full of bullshit. You just gotta use your block button freely. Because not giving fake ot7 a platform, is a good way to start. But it's hard when it seems like no one else cares. I promise I understand that. I understand the frustration and the pain that brings. As someone who deals with haters who feel protected behind an anon label, I feel like I extra understand it sometimes.

Fandom spaces are going to be what you make of them. All types fandom can be full of so much bullshit. You gotta carve out a corner in it that brings you happiness and peace and do what you can that way. Or you aren't going to have any fun. And that's what fandom should be, something that is fun and brings you joy.

Thanks for replying kindly again 💜

[sevensoulmates]

As always it's a delight to get to read your posts and meta, it's just as satisfactory and fun as it is watching the show. You're just awesome ❤️

You know after watching the last episode (and now that we know little bit more about Marisol) it made me feel really sorry for her, because I just know she'll be collateral damage while Eddie figures himself out and that's just so sad. And I wasn't really sure why those comments Eddie made about him/Marisol when they encountered Buck and Tommy at the restaurant and after having sex with her made me feel so uncomfortable, but then you pointed it out and I was like yeah that was kinda like locker room talk, Eddie was overcompensating here like trying to be a big macho man and that's why it felt so weird.

I'm baffled about Eddie's situation the most because I'm sure it's gonna be hell for him for a while since he will have to work through a lot of issues to finally be at peace with himself. And until stated otherwise my headcanon is the same as yours. I'm sure he is a gay repressed man (and not no get into the gay Eddie vs demisexual  Eddie discourse but I'm sure he may be both) I grew up in a Mexican household, I was raised catholic and although I wasn't in the army my dad was and he raised me and my siblings with an iron fist. So Eddie's background/storyline has always hit too close to home for me. I'm just dreading all the issues he's going to have to face.

Which brings me to this. To show his coming out arc and make it into completion do you think they will have to show us more about his childhood and upbringing, not just having Eddie talking about it but to have scenes like we did with Buck's childhood?

And why do you think the scene about Buck apologizing to Eddie for hurting him at the basketball court had to happen off screen?

Btw thanks for always replying to my questions.

Hi there!!! No problem!!! You always have super interesting questions to ask, so I am always delighted to answer them!

We all know how Eddie feels about "performance". I just feel like why would Eddie feel like the performance stops once he's actually made it past the dating phase and into the relationship phase? Maybe the external pressure from others is off (none of his family or the firefam questioning him, etc) but in order to KEEP the relationship, it really would require MORE performing.

It's fascinating to me, because we don't see Eddie acting this way with Shannon. You could make some arguments that their relationship was pretty fractured from the get-go and we didn't really see their dating/"honeymoon" phase but even when they were ~slightly~ back together in season 2b, Eddie wasn't acting like that with Shannon. Even when they were sleeping together, he wasn't. The most he did was make a couple of cringe comments about his "dashing good looks" or something, but that was more poking fun at himself. Even when Eddie was telling Buck about how "sex complicates things" with Shannon, he wasn't out here smirking or making comments about how good it feels to finally get some after two years of (apparent) celibacy. Say what you want about their relationship, but at least Eddie respected Shannon enough as a person to not start speaking about her that way. Their relationship was far too serious for that.

With Ana, it was so incredibly hard to watch because even though the storyline ITSELF wasn't about sex, a lot of their scenes had that edge to it? Like the sex-scene fake out in season 4, "grade me on a curve", "you really like to see me dressed up" "and the other thing" it was so ODD and FORCED. At the time of s4/5 airing you could maybe chalk it up to Eddie overcorrecting since it's his first real relationship after Shannon, but then he goes and does the same thing with Marisol which now makes it a pattern.

Once it clicked in my brain that the reason his relationships with women feel so fake is that he is literally putting on a show of hyper-heterosexuality (idk if that's a real term or not but roll with me here) it all made sense. I think seeing him "in a relationship" with Marisol for real was the final puzzle piece to seal this deal for me.

His extreme performances with these women, combined with their purposeful lack of development into full characters, all points to the fact that none of these relationships are going to work out. Eddie is not going to be able to actually settle down with his "endgame" partner until he actually finds someone he can be his true, real self with and "doesn't have to pretend with them" ;)

Is it bad that I actually enjoyed getting to know Marisol a little? Putting aside the actress, Marisol, the character, is interesting, because we're actually getting to know her a little bit more, far more than we got to with Ana. But I find both of these love interests fascinating in one mutual way: the fact that they put up with Eddie. Like I think about other characters and if they would've been okay being treated by their partners the way Eddie treats his girlfriends and I'm like.....hell no!

Oddly enough the only person I could see putting up with it was Buck before he finally started realizing that he doesn't have to be in a relationship with someone just because they want him. Only someone who also has deep insecurities, abandonment issues, and a general lack of self-respect would put up with Eddie's BS to his girlfriends. That's not to say that Eddie's a horrible person or abuses his partners or anything, but it's basically indisputable that he does not ever put in any emotional work to actually create meaningful relationships with his girlfriends. So why were Ana and now Marisol, so willing to accept that?

Ana resisted the break-up even though she could feel Eddie's whole heart wasn't in it. She was willing to keep trying in a dead relationship just in the hopes that something would work out. The same goes for Marisol. Idk about you, but if I was in a relationship with a man for going on 4-6 months and he knew NOTHING about me? I'd feel unloved, uncared for, and unappreciated, and I'd LEAVE.

We know that Marisol was scared of Eddie rejecting her or fetishizing her and that's why she didn't tell him about the nun thing, and I understand her reasoning and fear there. But gworlie, what else do we know about you? Can Eddie name a single hobby you have outside of loving Jesus and DIYing houses? Does Eddie even know your last name? It really makes me think that Marisol is unfortunately the type to just let things like this slide in the hopes that some man will accept her, any man. Since they rarely do because of the nun thing. And boy, do I understand that feeling, but that's NOT real love. I bet you anything once we get to the Eddiemarisol breakup she's gonna be very similar to Ana in that she knew Eddie's heart wasn't fully in it, but she just didn't want to be alone again.

I think that like attracts like, and Eddie's clutching onto this relationship for the same reason Marisol's clutching onto this relationship: because it's easier than being alone and being judged for it.

This is a tangent but I also want to point out that one thing that Eddie found uncomfortable about Marisol being a nun was the fact that nuns used to be his teachers....but was Ana also not a teacher? Just because she wasn't a nun, doesn't mean she couldn't have also been in a position of power that Eddie could've found uncomfortable. I find it interesting that even though Marisol's not a teacher, the show found a way to connect her to teachers and therefore to Ana.

As for Eddie's coming out arc, while I don't think it's entirely a necessity to have flashbacks to how he grew up, I certainly think it would help a lot of people who can't read between the lines if they had some. I especially would like to see scenes of young him + Shannon. Maybe seeing how the pressure from his family and church led him to believe men have to be a certain way, potentially microaggressions about being lgbt that he might've seen from his family/church (I don't necessarily mean full-on homophobia but possibly like little ways in which he was shown that there was no other "acceptable" option from his church other than heterosexuality. I think seeing scenes of how he and Shannon got together could be enlightening too, how their community reacted to them getting pregnant, etc. I think all of this, combined with a mirrored storyline in the present (similar to Buck Begins) would really drive home the point the show is trying to make, especially if they can finally be overt about Eddie's queerness. BUT all of this can still be done present day without the need for flashbacks either. I just think it would be a way to make the storytelling more rich and to spell it out more obviously for the people in the back.

As for Buck apologizing to Eddie for the basketball scene...I would've liked to see it too, but at the end of the day, it's like Ryan said in his interview...Eddie was always going to forgive Buck because he loves him to his core, because he knew Buck didn't come at it from a place of truly wanting to hurt Eddie. All of it was a manifestation of Buck's own issues, and by this point (especially after the lawsuit arc and the deadbrother arc) Eddie is aware of that. We did see plenty of scenes where Buck was scolded and demonstrated he was aware his actions were shitty, and Eddie probably assumed that letting Buck stew in his own guilt was atonement enough. And so I think likely the writers felt that in the end, the sentiment got across. Separately--given all the switcheroo stuff that happened with 7x04 and 7x05, I wouldn't be surprised if there WAS an apology scene and it got cut for time.