#not tagging character or ship names

[xxcrystalinerose]

Going back to Zag's romantic relationships from Mel is extremely hilarious to me because of how comparatively well-adjusted he was.

Sure he done fucked up with Meg in the past and they had to kill each other as part of the job description, his sudden leaving seriously hurt Than while also having communication issues w/ each other, and there's the matter of Dusa being a lowly servant of the House. But in the end, he sorted everything out with 0 grievances from all parties involved (that one dialogue where Than admits Meg is the one who tells him to finally pursue Zag seriously warms my heart). Got the Mom(s) Seal of Approval™ even, and from Achilles too!

Meanwhile I look at Melinoë and she has a frankly criminal amount of situationships. Her rizz level is insane and she goes straight for the throat when flirting yet somehow her dating life is simultaneously a mess and nonexistent. Nemesis regularly kicks her into the dirt verbally AND physically but is the only person to acknowledge how fucked up it is that Mel is sent out alone in the hopes of killing an all powerful Titan that took SIX gods to kill in the past. "Fuck you and fuck your stupid frog in particular" then turns around and gives free Death Defiances. Her and Moros try to flirt with each other but they kept missing the mark because sometimes one of them says something totally unhinged like it was normal (I don't think watching people die is an appropriate bathtime conversation topic, my man). Her and Eris are a hot mess—literally with all those rounds she shot at Mel AND without a basis of workplace professionalism. Icarus is one shot nerve away from accidentally proclaiming his undying (literally) love to her but his guilt complex is hanging on to that nerve. And then there's Arachne and her not so little crush warring with the fact that said crush is family with and is helping the gods who cursed her.

Never have I realized how important it is that Zag has become a minor god of relationship counselling until I look at his baby sister and think, "yeah girl you definitely need help for all that shit".

[firedragon1321]

So because this rant gained a bit more traction than I thought it would, I felt the need to make a sibling about S0wwiku specifically. Because I have complicated feelings about that ship.

The Ship That Couldn’t Sail

In my other rant- which was more about general toxic behavior in mid-late 2000s KH fandom- I mentioned S0wwiku would probably be my ship of choice, if not for the poor behavior of other shippers. As a ship, it’s more plausible to me than S0k@i.

Most S0k@i moments feel forced to me, and they get more hokey the further on the series goes (looking specifically at KH3). It feels like some Disney executive is trying really hard to push the pairing and sink S0wwiku. This feeling could be because Kairi needs better writing. Note that adjacent Final Fantasy canon pairings- like Tidus and Yuna- never felt forced in large part because the female half was given thoughtful development.

Sora and Riku are closer as characters. They do more individually and together. They’re built from better stuff, and feel like more realized human beings. It’s natural to assume that the possibility for a romance is there. I don’t think Disney will ever allow it. But in a fandom with ships like Riku and Michael Fucking Mouse, S0wwiku is tame, reasonable, soft, and could be fun.

So why don’t I turn this blog into a S0wwiku spam blog? Why do I hesitate to reblog something if it’s tagged S0wwiku, regardless of how harmless it actually is? Why do I claim I swap between this ship and S0k@i based on mood when that’s not true? Why have I spent years avoiding this ship, despite my interest in its possibilities?

Because of other shippers.

The short version of my other post regarding S0wwiku shippers is that- in the mid-late 2000s, when I was seriously entering fandom- they engaged in bullshit behaviors that made the ship unattractive to be associated with. In this rant, I’m going into more detail.

Seme/Uke Dynamics

For people who don’t know what that means- it’s a top/bottom dynamic that originated from Japanese doujinshi and yaoi manga. The “seme” is the top- taller, stronger, bearer of few emotions other than lust and jealousy. The “uke” is the bottom- shorter, weaker, overly emotional to the point of crying over a paper cut. It’s the bullshit “strong man, weak woman” het dynamic, but with one man chosen to be the “weak woman”. 

Sora was assigned the uke role, while Riku was relegated to his seme. This led to fics and art where Sora was sexually, emotionally, and socially inferior to Riku. Sora existed to moan Riku’s name and cry over Riku. He had no will or agency of his own. Riku, meanwhile, had to take care of this infantilized Sora. He was in charge in nearly every scenario. Some fics tried to soften the blow by making him dote over Sora, as one would a cute dog. 

Either way, both characters had no agency or identity outside the relationship. This is my core problem with shipping in general. I saw a tribute to a particular Star Trek ship (the most popular of all) that thanked the ship as if it was a person. The characters were merely parts of the relationship, with no identity outside of it. Which in real life is- a dangerous mindset to have. Even when I didn’t fully understand why when I first entered KH fandom, it still made me a little queasy.

(It’s basically co-dependency. Namely- “an unhealthy dependence on relationships”. I’d have to do more research on the seme/uke dynamic and co-dependency. It’s an interesting angle to view it through.)

The seme/uke roles were decided by an unknown selection of fans and became rigid from there. Swapping them was unthinkable. Those interpretations became the characters (never mind the games existing). “Orgy XIII” went through a similar transformation, where their ruthless actions were ignored in favor of their softer fan characterizations.

Today, the seme/uke dynamic is more vestigial, due to a fandom-culture-wide abandoning of them. While seme/uke dynamics have fallen out of fashion, their impact remains in KH fandom today. There’s a lot more talk of consent than in past years. But the damage is done. The seme/uke setup took their complex and nuanced bond and flattened it.

Of course, if anyone were to point out the flaws in this setup back in the day, they were called homophobic and knocked out of the fandom space. I can only talk about them now because it’s safe to do so, and age and experience gave me the words to be more respectful about it.

Steadfast Belief

Recently, I noticed people viewing the characters- mostly Riku- through a gay lens because they are gay themselves. Which I could see how they might reach that conclusion. One piece of “evidence” I noted that seemed pretty plausible through that perspective is how Riku offers Sora a Paopu, but quickly takes it back and says it was a joke. People with perspectives outside of mine might interpret the characters differently.

That’s not what this is about. This is about the religious belief that S0wwiku is canon. 

A bad behavior that’s been making a comeback in recent years is the insistence that S0wwiku is intended to be canon. This feeling comes from- as mentioned above- a more natural connection between Sora and Riku than Sora and Kairi.

There are shippers- of any pairing, in any fandom, then and now- who aren’t satisfied unless their ship is validated by the source material. They will jump through thousands of hoops to “validate” it with evidence of their own making. This process makes the ship almost an extension of the shipper. When the logical fallacies are called out, it’s treated as a personal attack. Then, things get ugly.

KH has a history with this behavior. S0wwiku was around long before Kl@nce shippers ever rose up. It didn’t invent the rules to the game, but it knew how to play and dominate.

This behavior is the big one that’s still around today. It’s so bad that the pairing frequently pops up in meta for unrelated topics regarding either Sora or Riku- a sort of stealth “insistence” that it’s “canon”. The Sleeping Realms Theory is written by a bunch of S0wwiku shippers who use it to play old games with new rules. Video essays exist to explain that S0wwiku was always Nomura’s intent- all the way from 2002.

Which...isn’t true.

A ship doesn’t have to be canon or valid to be shippable or enjoyed. Why do people need “proof” to ship something? A ship should be shipped just because you like it. You don’t need Daddy Canon giving you permission and telling you not to stay out past nine. Slash shipping in Western fandom was codified by Kirk and Spock, which came out of this exact sense of exploration. Fiction is a whimsical land to travel, and non-canon ships are hidden in its dark caves. Discovering them is supposed to be fun. That’s the magic of fandom. 

If you focus on making everything anchored to the author’s original story or intent, you’re not having fun. You’re the fun police. And you’re some of the people that give me so much anxiety that I’m afraid to publish original fiction.

Miscellaneous Bullshit

Below are behaviors I didn’t find it notable to dedicate a whole section to, but should be mentioned anyway.

Bashing characters- mostly Kairi- for being threats to the ship. People even wrote fanfics of Kairi dying brutally, or being rejected by Sora and Riku. Or both- see The Horrible Bloody Death of Kairi. I forgot to mention this in my other rant, but that fic is deleted, so the author likely had regret for her actions.

“Cringe” behaviors that- while not bad individually- were carried out in a sort of groupthink mentality back in the day. Everyone was saying “OMG S0WWIKU KAWAII YAOI >:)”, which gave the ship a kind of vibe that not everyone was into. If you weren’t feeling the vibe, you didn’t ship the ship. This wasn’t a conscious attempt to gatekeep- it was just kids having fun. Nor is it the dominant thought pattern anymore. But elements of it have lingered in my mind.

Attacking other fans for reasons listed here, and that I neglected to mention. I will not stop saying this- once the topic leaves the ship/fandom and enters a personal attack, it’s gone too far, and the conversation needs to end.

Monster in the Mirror

To me, S0wwiku is associated with people who carry out these behaviors. The ship itself became inseparable from the behavior of the people who ship it. And that’s a shame! Exploring Sora and Riku in a romantic way could have been interesting for me. It could have given me ways to create better romantic bonds in my original fiction. Accepting it as an adult could bring me some psychological peace. 

But that wedge is always going to be there. And other shippers don’t want to destroy it. It’s comfortable to them. Like Jack Skellington, they see the Heartless as part of the party, and not a world-eating threat. S0wwiku isn’t a ship. It’s a label. It’s a way of living. It’s a belief system. It’s extended beyond the two characters that compose it into a dangerous, multi-armed monster of terrible fandom behaviors.

Shipping is supposed to be about love. Perhaps I could join in, if we all make steps to remove the hate.

[bungobble-my-balls]

OK correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like the main 'yin/yang' parallel with Atsushi and Akutagawa is not something like 'this one is bad but secretly has a good side and this one is good but secretly has a bad side'.

I feel like it's more about 'who they are at their core vs who they choose to be'.

At his core Akutagawa is kind and at his core Atsushi is not. But despite this Atsushi tries every day to make the kinder choices and I love him so much for it. He has to work so hard to be good.

He wants to be a bitch SO bad I know he does but he tries his best to help people and be nice (sometimes he fails but that's OK <3)

Atsushi doesn't always WANT to help people, a lot of the time he's selfish and scared, but he does help people anyway. He keeps helping people over and over again. There's still some selfish motivation to it, and his initial motivation for helping people was because the headmaster told him that's all he was worth, but overall he does care about the people he helps and it weighs on him if he fails to save them. And of course, as the series goes on he starts helping people more because he can rather than because he feels like he needs to.

In Akutagawa's case, he's still capable of being kind but his environment led him into being someone who chooses to hurt people. But he's always been a protector at heart. In the start he was bad compared to Atsushi because he was choosing to hurt people and keep the cycle of abuse going. Just like how Atsushi developed in why he saved people, Akutagawa starts to get redeemed when he chooses to not just act on his rage. Not only does he start to spare people, but he speaks more kindly to them (apologising to Higuchi and telling Kyouka he's proud of her). It all culminates into the moment he chooses to help Atsushi and sacrifice himself for him, going back to his core value of being a protector. Even when he's finally revived, he keeps this role in his new position as Aya's Knight.

I kind of see the streaks of white in Akutagawa and the streaks of black in Atsushi not as their 'hidden sides' but as their fundamental selfs. That's who they are at their core, and their main colours (black for Akutagawa and white for Atsushi) are how they're presented to everyone else and how they try to have people see them as.

[seventh-district]

Making Incorrect H:SR Quotes Until I Run Out of (hopefully) Original Ideas - Pt. 6

[Pt. 1] [Pt. 2] [Pt. 3] [Pt. 4] [Pt. 5]

[tumatawa]

I like how Kabru tends to strategically adjust his attitude depending on the person he's talking to

[firstligamen]

(late) valentines

[coco-chip]

A new update means I get to finish an old idea I had that had been sitting unfinished in my drafts for months 😅😅😅

[weirdglassthing]

It’s IRONIC. god. Nobody understands satire humor these days

First attempt at drawing Gideon and Kremy went surprisingly well maybe I’m destined to become a scaly idk. You guys have no idea how hard it was finding a pose that was easy to draw with Kremy’s alligator mouth. I probably forgot like 400 fey curses I barely remembered gideons flower crown. I’m not drawing that thing but imagine the dulcet tones of the worlds greatest bard (morning Ross) playing in the background.

Guys you can’t blame me I just watched episode 15 and I was possessed and blacked out and woke up staring at this

Ft. Some drunk pixie wives and the only three people that cared about Thaco (I did not look up a reference I just drew a clown)

Anyways pose under cut

It had to be adjusted a bit

[dimeadozencows]

This is how I always interpreted that scan

(the text says: tried surprising mondo with homemade chocolate on valentine's day but he walked in and found out without realizing these were for him so he's trying not to cry in an attempt to salvage this. (There's an arrow pointing at taka))

[tiredandoptimistic]

I do not ship Shirley and Jeff, but I do think it's deeply strange that they never get together in the show. Basically every other combination happens at some point (Jeff/Britta, Jeff/Annie, Annie/Troy, Annie/Abed, Troy/Britta, arguably Troy/Abed). Everyone other than Pierce has at least two romantic subplots with somebody else in the group, and Shirley gets what, Chang and Andre? Bullshit. She and Jeff have a great dynamic and they're the same age, I see no reason for them to not get at least an episode long subplot. It would be more compelling than half the other ships on that show, plus it might finally give Shirley some spotlight.

[clarissasbakery]

i love them so much

[cheebuss]

a vicious fight to the death… maybe

[skellagirl]

Gordon/Barney/Alyx is really really funny to me conceptually bc it's like, two hot geniuses in their 20s who look at the 40-something smartass who hangs around and go 'yeah that guy. we both want him carnally'

[liauditore]

Equally Invalid

[bandtrees]

they would get divorced in one universe just to find eachother in another one

alternatively titled: sometimes you're the level-headed token flesh-head impulse-control-and-polycule-member of a stubborn, eccentric, and hearty telephone-headed drug addict, and there's cruelty in the world you deem fit to suicidally fight, and that either goes about as well as you'd expect it to, or you learn about love and the value of your life and junk along the way

[peaceandlove26]

$10000 to anyone who knows who they are