#one of the biggest examples is most definitely Harry Potter

[starlooove]

Colorblind casting only works in stories that have nothing to do with race and I think that’s why watching Wednesday was so fucked as a black person

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

To circle back to soemthing from early : The writing of male characters by female writers have repeatedly made me stop reading , especially when I recongized what I like to call the 3 archetypes : The friend , the jerk and the lover , sometimes these mix together but rarely.

The lover : mostly found in YA novels but sometimes adult and potentially pre-teen aimed romances of stories , a guy who seems prefect in description and rarely if ever does anything to hurt or offend the protagonist who is usually a stand in for the writer. the few negative things you can say about him out of the story are treated either as quirks or endearing qualities by the end. Sooner or later the emotional sensitive side is revealed and boom even if they were "The jerk " they're now considered redeemed or potentially redeemed by love. Big example (and the most obvious ) Edward Cullen and Christian Grey are those.

The friend: usually nerdy , kind of fades into the background at a certian point after the protagonist is with the lover, is clearly romantic interest of the protagonist if it's a YA situation , but these feelings are unrequited, they're soundly rebuffed of admitted or it's ultimately a "you have to look into how they're written " to tell. If written at all back in, it's usually to help the protagonist get to the lover & usually ends up with a lover that's either very much like the protagonist , potentially the protagonist's best friend or family member, or someone completely unlike the protagonist. Big example :Jacob from Twilight

The jerk : the bad boy who may be at first seen as an antagonist/working with the antagonist, usually does soemthing notably evil in their first big solo scene. But then that slowly gets walked back especially if they're the lover by the end. Even if they don't end up as the lover they've been given enough pathos that some fans will even say they want the leading protagonist with them or will write oc self inserts trying to help them get better. Possibly may die at the end to help make sure the protagonist lives or ensure the big plan succeeded. Big example : Snape from Harry Potter.

Mind you these aren't solidified hardened absolutes. I'd definitely say, however ,if you look at like 5 or 6 female written stories especially multi book series where it's female character going on an adventure almost all the male leads who are the woman's age who aren't relevaties commonly fall into those 3.

Yes.

Of course, there are a bunch of cliched and awfully-one-dimensional female characters in most male-written fiction too, but for me the biggest difference is there have always been women, in every age, wondering aloud about how a particular male author writes women so well, whereas I really don't think I've ever read any male character in any work by any woman that feels believable and an accurate representation of the internal thoughts, behaviours and motivations of a man that I've been able to connect to. I don't think women are really capable or all that interested in truly understanding the Y chromosome experience, and so their male characters tend to read only like either slow-witted and defective women, cartoonish mustache-twirling villains or alabaster objects of wealth and success. Because of this, the women authors I like I tend to read for what they tell me about their individual female experience, not for what they tell me of the wider world outside of it.

[delcakoo]

stop you're making me want to reread harry potter </3 ravenclaw!won has been stuck in my mind for DAYS

slytherin!reader who's in a relationship with ravenclaw!jungwon and is mean and cocky to everyone except won i am in shambles

slytherin!reader x ravenclaw!won random hcs!! ✧.*

STOP OMG anon this idea made me all giddy insidE i adore the ‘im mean to everyone but you’ grumpy x sunshine trope sANJSHS AND WITH RAVENCLAW JUNGWON AHHHH this is a bit longer than i planned but uh. enjoy JSHSJD

your boyfriend aka the biggest nerd on the planet (ravenclaw moment) doesn’t even see it most of the time

but the way you treat him in comparison to pretty much everyone else at hogwarts is VERY different

you could be like. about to fist fight someone or seconds away from pulling out your wand and hexing a gryffindor’s ass

all 😐😡😡👿👊💥

but then jungwon just

“y/n!!! :D” WITH THE CUTEST LIL SMILE AND OH GOD HIS DIMPLE :(

SUDDENLy every hint of rage and anger in your body just poofs into nothing and you’re just SMILING because there’s your sunshine with his cute nerd glasses and mountain of books

“wonnie!” you let him give you a big hug and the random gryffindor you were about to fight is just 🧌😦 in the distance

“guess what i learned in herbology today!!”

if pretty much anyone else asked you that you’d give them the most disgusted face imaginable and just.

“the fuck would i care? 🤨”

or

“when?”

“uh i think it was last satu-“

“did i ask? ☺️”

listen you’re just a very honest and straightforward person!!

but when it’s wonnie <3?

you quickly take all the books in his arms and lead him away with a smile, “what, baby? tell me all about it ☺️”

and by now a majority of the students in hogwarts knows not to mess with jungwon

because doing so immediately means messing with you too 💗

you’re extra strict on this because in the past your boyfriend did get bullied a lot for well. to put it simply, being a ravenclaw

luckily though, you were able to find out their names 😊😊😁

at first you were going to use magic but.. lets just say your knuckles were sore and bruised for the next week ❤️

doing the damage yourself was so much more satisfying y’know 😍

of course jungwon didn’t find out about all that.. at least you think

though he does get suspicious whenever one of his bullies stop even sparing him a gLance 🤨

when he confronts you, you just say karma did it’s thing and smile evilly 🫶

(little do you know, jungwon can read you like an open book and knows damn well you did it <3 however your cute proud smirk makes him decide to let you have this one 😞)

but if your revenge ambushes ever result in you getting any kind of injury, he’s always quick to bandage you up with a disapproving frown :(((

he sighs while whiping up your bloody knuckles, “seriously, i hate seeing you like this more than anything. why would you do that for me?”

you scoff, completely nonchalant with a small smirk on your lips as usual

you could care less about your fists when in the end, your boyfriend isn’t being picked on

“that’s a pretty dumb question for someone as smart as you, love”

he groans, “no y/n, really! they’re not worth your time, revenge isn’t the—“

“it is. it most definitely is the answer baby.” you grin, he sighs “now stop worrying about me and come give cuddles ❤️”

another thing jungwon gets away with all the time is bossing you around

you fr just take it like a champ every time without a word because only HE can tell you what to do

if anyone else tried to…? 😬😬

for an example scenario. you’re doing a group project in potions with jungwon (<333) and his other nerd friends

being surrounded by so many losers almost had you throwing up but you pulled through for won since you knew he wanted to be with his friends too

this didn’t stop you from being a dick ❤️

“hey y/n, can you grab the frog eyes?” sunoo gestures from the cauldron your group is watching carefully

“didn’t even say please,” you mutter, “who the fuck are you to tell me what to do four eyes?”

poor boy shuts up for the rest of the project T-T

“y-y/n,” jake would stutter nervously, refusing to make eye contact with you, “can you maybe g-“

“ask me to help one more time and i’ll stick that stirring stick up your ass”

but then jungwon sighs, making you frown because wait, is he disappointed in you or something??? :((((

“babe, you’re not contributing at all, go get the missing ingredients on this list at least”

you pout

he sounds so unimpressed :(

of course now you’re feeling needy so you rush to get everything for him and bring a bowl full of the ingredients back with puppy eyes

jake and sunoo are absolutely flabbergasted

but your bOYFRIEND who you thOugHt was an angEl from heaven STILL gives you a disapproving look :(

“thank you, now apologise to my friends please,” he asks strictly

WHY IS HE TREATING YOU LIKE A CHILD IT MAKES YOU SO MAD AND SAD AND GRRRGHH

your frown deepens, trying to lean in for a kiss at least but JUNGWON MOVES AWAY FROM YOU???

“won…”

“apologize and you can have a kiss”

your eye twitches but you’re so desperate

so you turn to those

those two

gargOyles.

and murmur out a “sorry, i promise to help from now on,” without making eye contact once with either of them <\3

at this point sunoo’s jaw almost fell off because THE POWER HIS FRIEND HAD OVER YOU?? popUlarly known as one of the meanest students in the school??????

you dont even wait for their reply (because you frankly dont care) and turn back to wonnie who’s now- UAHSJHSN HE’S SMILING HE’S PROUD OF YOU?!!! :D

you pucker your lips in anticipation and he gives you a dramatic mmmmWAH

after that you’re just so giddy and happy and help by doing whatever jungwon asks and ignore the other two <333

secretly jungwon feels like his heart is about to explode because the soft spots you have for each other is 🫶

AUGHH my favorite trope ever sushjsbsh thank u for the lovely req <3

[sc0rpiflow3r]

Hi! 💚💖💀 for the ask game please !

Hii friend!! Thank you for the ask! ❤️

Being a fan is fun, but being a hater is much more fun 😈

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

Oh, as always, I could write an essay about Sirius Black. Here we go:

Sirius isn’t dramatic, he’s not high-maintenance, and he’s definitely not a drama queen.

Sirius Black is the tallest Marauder; he towers over everyone.

People forget that he feels deeply, that he’s the most loyal of them all. He loved James until his last breath, and he lived for Harry, the son of the man he loved. He would sacrifice everything for the Potters without a second thought. Sirius is loyal.

It’s not because he’s handsome that he uses it as his personality. In fact, he doesn’t even care about it canonically. He just is, and that’s okay; he doesn’t make a big deal about his looks (though everyone else does, because, well, he’s ungodly handsome).

His relationship with his family isn’t just about hatred, it’s something much more complex, especially with Walburga.

💖: What is your biggest unpopular opinion about the series?

The books are poorly written. Seriously, even I, as a non-native English speaker, can see the repetitive use of language and the limited vocabulary. And it’s not because they’re children’s books, there are plenty of YA books that are infinitely better written. The thing is, she-who-must-not-be-named created a vast universe with tons of loose ends, so there are endless possibilities to explore in fanfics.

Also, she doesn’t know how to write female characters. They’re put into stupid little boxes: the cool girl (Ginny), the 'not like other girls' girl (Hermione), the motherly type (Mrs. Weasley and Lily), or the crazy bitch (Bellatrix). Because of this, amazing characters who don’t fit into one of these categories are either forgotten or treated unfairly (like Luna and Fleur, for example).

💀: If you had to choose one major character to die, who would you choose?

Ohhh, well, I guess it’s no secret that I thrive on angst, so I’d choose Harry (sorry, Harry, I love you!!). Think about it:

And Harry embraces Death, greeting it like an old friend.

For the first time, he feels the weight lift from his shoulders, a burden he never asked to carry.

He lets himself be. Not the Chosen One, not the Savior, not the Boy who Lived - just Harry. Just a boy who grew up too fast, a boy who was never really allowed to be a boy at all.

Harry Potter doesn’t need to be a hero anymore.

He doesn’t need to be anything. He closes his eyes and lets the darkness take him, not with fear but with relief.

For once, he is free. For once, he is at peace. Harry Potter can finally rest.

Hater ask game

[sophie-hatter-jenkins]

Try

Written for @hinnymicrofic January 2024, using Prompt 21

Another not-really-very-micro microfic. Oops!

They didn’t know she was watching them, Ginny was sure of that. She was carefully hidden as she was amongst the leafy branches of the biggest apple tree, a climb that she was fairly certain none of them even knew she could manage, but Ginny had spent much of the spring practising, while all the others were away at school. Now, in high summer, she could shimmy up to the very top with no effort at all.

She knew that no one would mind if she left her perch and went to join them, but the thought that she might embarrass herself again left her glued to the branch. It also left her incredibly frustrated that she honestly thought she would scream, if that wouldn’t mean being discovered spying on them all, and if being discovered spying on them all wouldn’t in itself be even more embarrassing.

Instead, Ginny watched with increasing jealousy as her brothers splashed about in the cool water of the pond below. The air around her was still and languid, the heat of the afternoon lingering as day faded into early evening. She felt ridiculously hot and sticky, and the pond looked so very inviting.

Of course, if it had been just her brothers and her father in the pond, then she would definitely be down there too, right in the thick of their games - because she was Ginny Weasley, and no one left her on the sidelines if they knew what was good for her. But it wasn’t just her brothers, was it? No, there was someone else there too, and that someone else was Harry Potter. THE Harry Potter. The Harry Potter about whom Ginny had read so much, the Harry Potter who was the subject of all her most cherished daydreams, the Harry Potter who Ginny was absolutely, definitely, one hundred percent going to marry one day. In her pond. With her brothers. 

Of course, it was true that he was… shorter than she had imagined. Skinnier too. Still, Ginny thought, he was very handsome. He had such pretty eyes. The colour definitely reminded her of something, though she wasn’t quite sure what. Ah well, she was sure it would come to her eventually. She liked his hair too. It was so very black and looked so very soft, and she liked the messy way it always stuck up - a little hint of something wild and unruly about him, no matter how polite he was to her mum. 

Harry, of course, wasn’t swimming. Instead, he was paddling ankle deep in the shallows, occasionally engaging in splash battles with Ron. Watching him, Ginny was struck yet again by how horribly unfair it all was. What on earth was wrong with her that she couldn’t manage to utter more than a squeak in his presence? She had so many funny, clever and downright cool things that she wanted to say to him, things that she was sure would impress him very much indeed, but her brain seemed to turn to utter mush whenever he was in the same room. Take that very morning as an example - she hadn’t even been able to answer when he asked her a simple question about her Hogwarts letter without humiliating herself. It was, she had to admit, as she examined the grease mark on her elbow for the thousandth time that day, something of a spanner in the works when it came to getting him to realise that she was anything more than Ron’s weird baby sister. 

As she watched, Ginny heard a familiar voice hailing her brothers - Dad was home from work. She twisted to look back towards the house, to see him striding towards the pond, also wearing his swimming trunks. 

“Now then, Harry!” he said, bracingly, as he arrived at the edge of the pond. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

“Erm… If you’re sure, Mr Weasley,” replied Harry, in a quiet voice. “I don’t want to be any bother.” Ginny thought he sounded extremely nervous, and more than a bit embarrassed. 

“Nonsense! Everyone needs to know how to swim. I’ve taught seven kids so far, one more will be no trouble at all!”

Which was entirely true. Ginny couldn’t really remember a time when she couldn’t swim, because her Dad insisted all the kids learn as young as possible, especially with a deep pond being so close to the house. It seemed really strange to her that someone as old as Harry had never learned, and both her parents had found it really shocking that he couldn’t when the subject came up at the dinner table the night before. 

It started innocuously enough, with Fred remarking that he hoped the forecast heatwave would last long enough to get in lots of swims. Ron then excitedly asked Harry if he had any trunks with him, and Harry had blushed deep beetroot, looking down at the table as he admitted he wouldn’t be able to join them. 

Mr Weasley asked a few questions just to make sure he had understood correctly, then spent some time spluttering things like ‘basic life skill, even for muggles’, ‘dereliction of duty’ and ‘downright unsafe’, before briskly announcing that he’d be teaching Harry himself. Harry, of course, tried to argue, but Mrs Weasley had rustled up a pair of trunks that probably originally belonged to Bill (because frankly, every item of clothing in the house originally belonged to Bill), before she’d even cleared up the dessert plates. 

She watched as her father supported Harry as he got into the pond, encouraging him to put his face in the water and blow bubbles, then supporting him as he tried floating and kicking his legs. 

Eventually, her father clearly decided his student was ready for the next stage. “Right then, Harry! Just give it a try!” he declared.

“Okay, Mr Weasley.” Ginny thought Harry looked utterly terrified at the prospect, but he took a deep breath, and his features settled into a resolute expression. He hurled himself forward into the water, wheeling his arms and kicking his legs in a tidal wave of splashes that landed straight in her father’s face. Then he sank like a stone. 

Ginny gasped as Harry disappeared below the water, but of course her father plucked him from under the surface only moments later. Harry was red faced and spluttering, with both water and apologies, but her father had only kind reassurances for him. Harry took a moment to compose himself, before striking off for a second time, with much the same results. Again and again he tried, listening carefully to Ginny’s father between each attempt. Gradually, his arm movements became more deliberate, and his kicks became more controlled, but it only seemed to extend the length of time between sinkings.  

Just then, Ginny heard her mother’s voice boom through the trees, carried by a particularly shrill Sonorus charm. “Arthur! Boys! Dinner’s nearly ready! Bring Ginny with you if she’s out there - I can’t find her anywhere!”

With the promise of food imminent, Ginny’s brothers stormed from the pond towards the house. Meanwhile, her father gave Harry an encouraging smile, as he conjured a pair of well-worn towels.

“Come on, Harry, let’s call it a day for now,” he said, slinging a towel around Harry’s shoulders. “We’ll try again tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll crack it by the end of the week.”

Harry’s thin features were set with determination as the pair of them followed Ginny’s brothers back to the house. “Thanks, Mr Weasley. I’ll try my hardest.”

Once they had left, Ginny dropped casually from branch to branch and then down to the ground below. As she ambled across the orchard back to the house, her head was buzzing with what she had just seen. Harry had been so nervous to start with, but he had set about his task with impressive tenacity nonetheless. Well, Ginny was nothing if not tenacious too. If Harry could learn to swim, surely Ginny could manage something as inconsequential as speaking in front of him. She could start small, just like putting her head underwater, just like blowing bubbles. Just a couple of words in his presence, and not even to him - to her Mum, maybe, or the twins. Perhaps she wouldn’t manage the first time, but that didn’t mean giving up. She would just try again. And eventually, she was sure, it would all be worth it. One day.

[wot-tidbits]

1 to 1 adaptation

Disclaimer. This post has no point to change minds. Your mind is already made up and no one will change it. This is written for the sake of my own mind.

Look at the crybabies! They want 1 to 1 adaptation! Oooh, they do not know how adaptation works! Cry, little bigot, cry!

Hello and welcome to the most manipulative sentence that the WoT fandom has ever coined. A sentence which required 8 billion people on Planet Earth to suffer from amnesia simultaneously. Yes, even the person who uses it.

What logical conclusion a sane person can make after hearing the following scenario:

Listen to me, pal. In the last 24 years there are dozens and dozens of fantasy adaptations starting arbitrarily with the Lord of the Rings as the biggest mainstream success. Some of them got successful, some of them were not. People liked some and disliked others. No big deal. People watched the same adaptations over and over. For two decades and dozens of adaptations. For what we know, pal, people did not live in a cave. They got full access to books, cinema and television.

Enter the WoT TV series. All of sudden these people in question must live the last two decades in a cave with no access to cinema or television. They must watch the WoT TV series as their first adaptation. They do not know how any other previous adaptation looks like. They must suffer from amnesia and to forget all other previous adaptations in the last two decades and cannot compare with them. I am the telling you, this is the only logical conclusion, pal, that makes sense when you hear that a person does not know how adaptation works.

What you say? Remove any detail of that scenario and my house of cards is ruined? Imagine that all these people have not gotten out of the cave and it would be fine.

Imagine that such person exists. For real. No, actually I have better idea - imagine that there is a person who firmly believes that such scenario is possible to happen in any turning of the Wheel. Oh, what you say, I probably see such person every day in the mirror. Well, this is awkward…

Do not worry! I have the ultra giga mega argument in my sleeve! The bigots said that “iTs nOt liKE iN tHE b0oKs”! Yeah, this will show those losers! Definitely!

Yes, this argument worked excellent when the bigots cried about the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or Game of Thrones season 1-4! What, it did not work? It did not work at all? Are you sure? Oh, no, you did not suffer from amnesia and you all remember how well these adaptations were received by book fans? And that no one tried to explain the bigots how adaptations work because it seems they knew it very well already? Are you sure that millions of toxic people did not hide in their caves and stayed there in silence? What? It is not how the Internet worked in the last 24 years? You must have heard about “HARRY, DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIRE”? Yeah, what? The people who made fun of this difference between the movie and the book weren't mocked and bullied into silence? I am truly shocked.

Hey, I have another suggestion. You know these millions of people who liked their adaptations and knew how they worked what about that they died in mass extinction and now the thousands of people who cried about WOT TV show are completely new and have nothing to do with the old ones. What? They are the same people? Are you sure? 24 years is not enough time for mass extinction? Listen, pal, I assure you they are not the same! They want 1 to 1 adaptation! I am sure of it! No one has ever heard of that before in the long decades of adaptations! They must be new.

You and me, pal, both know that such thing does not exist. These losers believe that and they cannot provide previous examples to compare. Do you see how smart I am? Pat me one the back. Please, pat me on the back. They cannot….WHAT NOW? You started going around and have asked them about it already?!?! You asked dozens of these bastards? How dare you! I wouldn't never get close to these bigots! Do not believe anything they say! It is a lie! What? They gave as examples as great adaptations the Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and the first 4 seasons of Game of Thrones. Every single time? Every single time. Well, this makes it easy. They are truly completely insane as I told you. Don't they realize that none of their examples is 1 to 1 adaptation?!? It doesn't make sense to whine that it is not like in the books and at the same time every single bigot to demand adaptation on the level of the Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and the first 4 seasons of Game of Thrones. These adaptations are different than the books. It does not make any sense. They must be wrong. No, no, no, no, it is definitely not me assuming that the bigots want 1 to 1 adaptation. IT IS BLOODY THEM! They cry about it! I do not. Don’t you realize what will happen if the whole time we mocked the bigots for believing in unicorns and it turns out that we are the ones who believe in unicorns?!?! Madness! Do not let them breath! Mock them how arrogant they are! How they do not know how adaptations work! After all, did not you hear? Even Brandon Sanderson doesn't know how adaptations work! A person who you never assumed such thing and you used him as undeniable example of support for the show in the previous two years. Amazing, right? No, it is definitely not me. I still do not hear patting me on the back, pal. They must believe in 1 to 1 adaptation. Otherwise all of this unjustified censorship and mocking for years will be proof of my hypocrisy.

Someone should have told the same to the angry fans of the Avatar: TLA animated series before whining about the movie adaptation of Shyamalan. Why nobody tried to mock these fans then? Why I should know the answer of that?!?

Or maybe we should move closer in time with House of the Dragon. People were angry about that production too. What? Book fans loved the adaptation despite the changes and the casting controversy? You didn't hear that right, I assure you. These bookcloacks whine about every adaptation! Just like they ruined the Sandman! What? They did not do such thing either?

Ok, ok, ok, hear me out then. Winter Dragon! Yes! Oh boy, how much it was despised! Right? See! There was so much whining from the bookcloaks back then… What? Not just from the bookcloaks? What do you mean every single fan thought it was bad adaptation? Nobody pointed that they do not understand how Winter Dragon worked? No one mocked fans that they wanted 1 to 1 adaptation with the prologue? Everyone simultaneously knew what a bad adaptation looks like when they saw it? Are you sure you remember all these events right? Maybe you have some kind of amnesia, pal. You sure sure? I start suspecting you are one of those bastards, aren't you?

No, you are not? How convenient! Then how many more examples of fans of the source material who miraculously understand how adaptations work you will throw at me? Did you not hear me the first time?!? I AM NOT WRONG! The bookcloaks are wrong!

In conlcusion.

The sane person in question after hearing it: Yes, 1 to 1 adaptation is sane and logical conclusion based on the evidence of plenty of dozens of fantasy adaptations in the last 24 years.

We live in an age of wonders where fans of the Percy Jackson's TV show tell the people who watched the Percy Jackson's movies that they do not understand how adaptations work. These two adaptations are separated by merely 13 years apart but suffering of amnesia as we all know is eternal.

Let the Light keep you safe. LightOne

[jkrowlingbodydouble]

FAQ

Is this satire/a bit?

No.

Are you a deluded fanboy who can't accept that your favorite author turned out to be a shitty person?

No. My experience with the Harry Potter franchise before this whole debacle consisted of watching the movies on Apple TV with my father as a very young child, reading the first book under circumstances where I had nothing else to do but read and a limited selection of books to choose from, getting the second book after that and then falling off halfway through, and then playing Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (a Pokémon Go-style social location-based AR game released in June 2019) for the 6 months in which it was popular before the near-simultaneous occurrence of the situation this blog addresses and the COVID-19 pandemic obliterated it.

But this is like, spy shit. Spy shit is for governments. Even the biggest and worst corporations don't do spy shit.

I regret to inform you that they do. Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey is one particularly egregious example, but there many are others.

So, the original J.K. Rowling is dead, right?

She may be dead, or she may be in some sort of holding cell deep within the bowels of Disney, feeding them information only she would know under threat of torture to enable the body double to pass as her. It would certainly not be difficult for someone with Disney's resources to extralegally imprison one 50something year old woman with no skills relevant to breaking out of prison, but I do not feel confident that this step would definitely be necessary, so I choose to apply Occam's Razor and assume by default that she's dead if it matters.

When was she replaced?

My lower and upper bounds are 2011, before which she was working too closely with the film and theme park teams for the swap to be viable, and 2019, when she first began to express transphobic sentiments. I additionally suspect that she was replaced before the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, for reasons detailed in the evidence masterpost, but am not certain of this.

If she was replaced that early, why did they wait so long to make her transphobic?

First of all, they likely wanted to play it safe and test the waters to see if the facade had any cracks before doing something big and new that would attract lots of attention, and second, while it may seem obvious now that if you're going to replace a celebrity with a body double to sabotage their brand, terrible political advocacy is the way to go, hindsight is 20/20, so it may be that their original plan was simply to have the double sabotage the quality of future Harry Potter projects and the TERF idea only occurred to them a few years in.

Why trans people? Why not make her, say, racist?

Because it's the most efficient way to convert money and clout into suffering in our current political climate. Explicitly racist groups in the modern day Anglosphere are either disorganized street/prison gangs or only exist anymore so politicians can pay them to endorse their opponents, and she had already talked about Dumbledore being gay before the switch, so homophobia was out.

Do you have any, like, actual hard proof of this whole accusation?

Not yet. If I did, I would be going to the government or the press, not putting up posters and starting a Tumblr.

Even if all this is true, what do you want me to do about it?

For now, spread the word. Tell your friends. Post on your social media of choice. Write your congressman. Submit additional evidence via the ask box. (Or submit counter-evidence, if you have that. My first commitment is to the truth.) I want to state up front that I am not an expert in anything, merely a person with a hard-won knack for knowing when I am being decieved, and I am hoping if I get the word out I will attract more competent people who will be better able to translate awareness and resources into action than myself. I do have a preliminary objective, though. This theory does not require the NSA to bust down Disney's door and dig through all their files to be falsified. J.K. Rowling has three living biological children. It is exceedingly unlikely that the body double also had three living biological children who were also trained in impersonation and looked enough like Rowling's children to pass as them with makeup and/or plastic surgery. If we raise enough awareness, we can mass demand that Joanne and her children undergo some kind of publicly verifiable DNA test (I do not know how one would ensure it was tamper-proof, if such a thing is even possible, as I said I am not an expert of any kind) proving that she is their biological mother, and if she refuses, that would constitute undeniable hard evidence with which to back further action. Think of it like Pascal's Wager, except it actually makes sense. If you join our campaign and we're right, we've unmasked a reprehensible conspiracy and probably brought Disney's tyrannical stranglehold over American culture to an end, and if we're wrong, all you've done is mildly inconvenience a hatemonger. Sounds like a win-win to me.

[supercomplicatedperson]

I'm definitely not taking away from what youre trying to say, but I do have to point out how its not exactly fair to have site-wide statistics be the evidence for your argument when they can be used to show how most of the mysoginy can be rooted on the creators of the original media.

When you look at the stats and you see the most popular fandoms listed, most of them have a mayority male cast and don't exactly do a great job at developing their female characters well enough. So of course most of the ships are going to be between men.

It's not an inherent problem of the fans, if you take a chance and look through the fandoms of more recent media that have a more even split between genders and actually treat their female characters like people you'll see that the writters actually love writting about them. A good example is the Steven Universe fandom, where most of the characters identify as female:

This is from around 22,500 fics and around half of them have a f/f as a main pairing.

Or another show famous for having well developed female characters with a fairy even gender split. Buffy the Vampire Slayer's 41,800 fics:

The ships seem primarily het and pretty even on the queer end, and when you look at the number of times the characters appear, female characters appear just as often as male ones.

So when looking at the stats and you consider the fact that the biggest fandoms in AO3 are for media like the MCU, Harry Potter, Sherlock, Supernatural, Stranger Things, BOY BANDS. All of them are media that has an overwhelmingly male roster of characters and are famous for treating their female character's development badly, that and the fact that a huge chunk of their work is not exactly recent just does a lot to skew the statistics every year.

I'm not taking away from the various amounts of mysoginy you will find in a lot of fandoms, and I'm not trying to dismiss or pretend that there isn't mysoginy on the fandom's end, but a TON of people are in fandom to explore and play with already created and developed characters. So you can't blame them for not wanting to go through all of the work of actually creating one because the writers didn't.

every year the ao3 stats come out and every year people insist that the lack of women isn’t misogyny but because ‘most fic writers are female and therefore enjoy writing about men more’ and every year they don’t seem to understand that they themselves have just described a version of misogyny

[as-mod-eus]

DISABILITY AWARENESS MONTH! HOW TO RESPECTFULLY PLAY A MUSE WITH:  CPTSD

hello and thanks for reading! I’ve been in the rpc scene for a little while now and have seen c/ptsd given as an attribute to a lot of muses and have occasionally felt the portrayal was inaccurate or even disrespectful. so, in honor of disability awareness month, I’ve decided to write up a little awareness post for cptsd. from someone who has been diagnosed with ptsd for eleven years and cptsd for one year (though it was all cptsd all along), I’d like to give some insight into what living with it is like and how to play it accurately and respectfully. I’d like to preface this by saying I, by no means, am some expert on cptsd. I’ve just lived my entire life with it so I can give some good information on what living with it is like.

quick trigger warning before you advance. the following will contain: mentions of abuse/narcissism/gaslighting/neglect, detailed descriptions of cptsd symptoms

I.                         𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐒, 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐀𝐋𝐒𝐎 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐒𝐍'𝐓

a lot of times people write cptsd as interchangeable with ptsd. while they have a lot of overlapping symptoms, cptsd is, by definition, a more severe version of ptsd and to do it justice, it’s important to not simplify that experience. cptsd has a lot of overlapping symptoms with ptsd, bpd, DID, bipolar disorder, adhd and autism for example. cptsd is even confused for bpd and bipolar disorder by actual professionals quite a lot (from all the anecdotal experiences I’ve seen), so it’s important to know what cptsd is, but also what it isn’t.

everyone with cptsd has a different experience of it, of course. but there are typically very foundational feelings and experiences that most, if not all, cptsd-sufferers experience. read more under the cut!

II.                                                             𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐂𝐀𝐔𝐒𝐄𝐒 𝐂𝐏𝐓𝐒𝐃?

so I think the very first place we should start is at the origin of the condition, and how to write your muse’s background to be realistic for the condition. in general, trauma is very subjective. what might be traumatic to one, might not be to another, and vice versa. that being said, the biggest common denominator amongst cptsd sufferers is that the abuse was long-term or never ended at all, and is still actively happening. in a lot of experiences, it stems from severe emotional or physical neglect, narcissistic abuse such as gaslighting/smear campaigning/ scapegoating/etc, exposure to adult themes as a child, living with a mentally ill parent, reckless or oblivious endangerment, toxic shame, and much more.

if you’re struggling to conceptualize this, think of the following media examples:

the family dynamic in Shameless, most notably the lack of any healthy parental figure

the childhoods of both Beatrice and Bojack in Bojack Horseman

the childhood of Diane Nguyen in Bojack Horseman

the childhood of Sterling Archer in Archer

the childhood of Harry Potter in Harry Potter

something to note is that there have been studies that have concluded that even one positive, affirming figure in a child’s life can offset trauma enough to prevent post-traumatic stress. if you plan on giving your muse a really rough childhood, and having them come out of it without mental ailment, it might be a good idea to include somewhere in their background a parental figure or mentor who validated them, cherished them, and affirmed them of their inherent worth.

III.                                                            𝐑𝐄: 𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐄𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐘𝐌𝐏𝐓𝐎𝐌𝐒

a lot of cptsd sufferers experience something called dissociation and/or depersonalization, in which the abuse is so severe and inescapable, that the mind has no other option but to remove itself from the experience out of its own self-preservation. while this absolutely manifests as something that I can only describe as severe zoning-out, it can also manifest in different ways, such as maladaptive daydreaming or quite literally being unable to feel your body anymore or see anymore. for this reason, a lot of cptsd sufferers don’t actually show the “visible” and severe symptoms of cptsd until they’re out of the throes of abuse and physically and emotionally in a safe place again, at which time their mind feels safe enough to start processing the trauma. that experience isn’t always, if ever, a conscious decision and one more involuntary, that resurfaces through trauma responses, symptoms, and emotional dysregulation.

for many cptsd sufferers, commonly known symptoms like flashbacks don’t start happening until long after the abuse ends. for lots of cptsd sufferers, there’s a period of time where everything is “alright”, until suddenly the dam  breaks, and it’s not anymore. that all being said, when considering the timeframe for when your muse began exhibiting disabling symptoms of cptsd, it would be more realistic to have them begin after the fact. while a lot of us did have symptoms during the abuse as well, the dissociation/depersonalization acted as a good enough buffer that we couldn’t fully “feel” the trauma yet.

along with this should also be mentioned: dissociative amnesia. a very, very, very common symptom  of cptsd is dissociative amnesia. which is exactly what it sounds like. amnesia borne from  dissociation. credit where credit is due, it absolutely is more than just forgetting. it is quite literally your brain being unable to access the memories surrounding the abuse. sometimes that means years. sometimes that means an entire lifetime. for a lot of us, it means we sort of flickered in and out of our lives. one moment we were seven, the next we were fourteen, and suddenly we were twenty-one with a job and an apartment, with no real recollection of how we got there. sometimes these memories are tucked so deep down in our heads, there’s no hope for accessing them again. and that’s usually for good reason. other times, as we begin processing the trauma through therapy, these memories pop up again, and become known to our conscious minds again. when that happens, they can be devastating, and torturous.

IV.                                                                         𝐑𝐄: 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐒

alright, so, let’s talk about the big F now. what most people associate with ptsd and assume makes up the large majority of a ptsd experience is flashbacks. as I said earlier, cptsd has a lot of overlapping symptoms with ptsd, and one of those is flashbacks, but they typically come in a different form. flashbacks can be experienced as partial or full, somatic, visual, emotional, etc. there are a lot of different types of flashbacks, but the one I see the most get played is the visual flashback. for a lot of cptsd sufferers, visual flashbacks are the minority, if they even happen at all. the most commonly experienced cptsd flashback is the emotional flashback. emotional flashbacks are still flashbacks, so they involve being “transported” out of the present and into a past emotion, while still physically being in the present. hopefully that makes sense, but I’ll try to explain a little more!

emotional flashbacks can feel and absolutely are very disorienting, devastating, sometimes present with terror beyond words, and generally are something of a living nightmare. imagine the worst thing to have ever happened to you, and having to re-experience the emotional state you were in while it was happening, when something seemingly minor happens in the present. your emotional existence suddenly is no longer in the present, while your eyes, ears, and body all are. a lot of times, there’s a massive somatic experience that comes along with the emotional confusion and devastation, such as GI issues like pain and nausea, amygdala activation causing things like trembling, sweating, high heartrate, pupil changes and the like.

V.                                                         𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐀 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊.

so now that we know what a flashback is like, you’re probably wondering how to write getting out of one. the most effective way to get out of a flashback is to be grounded back into the present. sometimes, folks long-term into their recovery can ground themselves really effectively. other times, especially when someone isn’t aware they’re in a flashback, the grounding needs to be initiated by an outsider.

here is a really good resource to learn more about cptsd grounding.

for me, the first step is usually reminding myself, or being reminded, that I’m in a flashback, and saying it out loud to make it real and so I can hear my voice and know that I’m here, right now. physically interacting with my surroundings is usually the second step. pressing my back against the wall, putting my palms up on the wall, holding ice, splashing my face with water, or tasting/smelling something offensive like lemons or spice works to shock the body back into the present.

then it’s time for the emotional grounding back into the present. for me, that’s telling myself my name, my age, that I’m an adult, that the trauma isn’t happening to me anymore, where I am, and recent things I’ve done, like going grocery shopping or watching a new tv show. listening to new music also helps, as I’ve never experienced that song during the trauma and only while outside of the trauma.

getting out of a flashback is all about getting back into the present.

VI.                                                      𝐅𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓, 𝐅𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓, 𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐙𝐄, 𝐅𝐀𝐖𝐍

the most commonly known fear responses are fight or flight, but what few people realize is that there are two other fear responses. cptsd deals directly, and frequently, with fear responses, and it’s important to map out the type of fear response your muse has before you map out how they’re going to interact with the world. to minimize the experience of any one of these is a huge injustice to those of us who this is a reality for, so it’s important to remember that in most cases, just as would happen in a life or death scenario, the emotional experience of each is extreme.

also, consider how your muse might react to emotional intimacy or vulnerability. fear responses can play a major part in insecure attachment styles, and which one is developed.

fight — the fight fear response is exactly what it sounds like. it involves defensiveness, whether that’s physical or emotional. this is the one I see most commonly portrayed, though in my experience, not a lot of us actually have the fight fear response. some key attributes while triggered are: aggression, defensiveness, irrationality

flight — again, well known enough, but this fear response is a bit different from fight. in fact, it’s the complete opposite. to flee from the offending experience is to remove yourself totally, whether that be physically or emotionally. when physical escape isn’t possible, that’s when dissociation comes into play.

freeze — for those of us who have a freeze fear response, it’s categorized as completely freezing up when triggered. sometimes this is just physically, such as losing the ability to speak or move, and other times its mentally as well, such as suddenly and severely depersonalizing.

fawn — the fawn fear response is categorized as essentially fawning to the triggering event or person. it’s complete submission, with no ability for self-advocacy or self-defense.

lots of people with cptsd will have more than one fear response. a common pairing is freeze + fawn.

VII.                                                                            𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐒 𝐒𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐄

the ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences) test is a really good predictor of whether someone will have cptsd or not. in my experience, being in social circles with other cptsd sufferers for years, most of us have an ACES score of 4+, typically 6+. I personally have one of 9.

to take the ACES test for your muse (or for yourself!), you can do so right here.

VIII.                                                                           𝐑𝐄: 𝐂𝐎-𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐁𝐈𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐘

with cptsd, typically comes a slew of other co-morbid conditions, both physical and mental. I’d recommend doing your research on which conditions overlap most commonly, but here are a few:

depression

anxiety

bipolar disorder

autoimmune disorders

alcoholism/drug abuse

heart disease/stroke

also important to mention that cptsd, just like ptsd, can be highly dabilitating and disabling. for many of us, it causes massive strain on our interpersonal relationships, ability to work, ability to care for ourselves, ability to have financial stability, and more. if your muse has cptsd, unless they are deep into their recovery, it would be most respectful to play them as having disability.

IX.                                                            𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐃

finally, to cover one of the most important points: recovery. recovery from cptsd is a long road, and usually life-long, non-linear and very slow going. it generally requires having a really good psychiatric care team, including a therapist and psychiatrist, often being on medication (if not many medications) for the rest of your life, and having to reprocess the horrific trauma you experienced.

healing does not look like “man-ing up” or “just getting over it”. it does not look like distracting yourself with work/school/hobbies and then immediately being back in a bad space the second you’re alone with your thoughts. a lot of people mistake moving forward physically in life while still dissociating as healing.

true healing comes from revisiting all of those core lessons taught to the inner child, reparenting the inner child, and grieving and processing what has happened to you in a safe and supportive environment. often it involves making painful, difficult decisions such as going no-contact with family members, if not all family. often it involves painful, difficult decisions such as parting ways with people you love and care for because they aren’t healthy for you, or aren’t respectful of your boundaries, or whatever be it. it also involves relearning quite a lot. relearning how to love yourself, how to love others, how to regulate your emotions, how to advocate for yourself, and so, so much more. if you are writing a muse who is in active cptsd recovery, please be cognizant of the fact that therapy for cptsd sufferers might look a lot different from therapy for other conditions.

X.                                                                                         𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒

complex ptsd is a very nuanced and painful condition to have, and, as is true for most conditions, everyone experiences it differently. however, I’ve noticed in the rpc that portrayals of c/ptsd tend to follow the general media’s perception of the condition, which doesn’t do us sufferers any justice. it further spreads an incorrect narrative of what cptsd looks like, and dilutes what is a reality for a lot of us down into something that isn’t recognized when interacting with a cptsd sufferer. as a result, we can be treated unfairly, experience ableism, and have our conditions worsen even.

hopefully this post was at least a bit informative and I hope to see more representation of us out there in the rp world. thank you to everyone who read this, and feel free to leave a comment if I missed any big talking points! admittedly pretty tired now, but I think I touched on all the big outliers I’ve noticed.

happy rping and happy disability awareness month!

[olderthannetfic]

Do you know what the origin of the "sold to One Direction" thing is? I know it's a common trope (or was), but, I have no idea where I first heard of it, where I learned it was a thing. How do weird tropes like that get started, anyway? Why do some concepts take off and become huge parts of a particular fandom, but others don't? (And does this particular premise show up in other RPF contexts as much?)

--

tl;dr - Wattpad circa 2013, probably

--

I'm only familiar with that from doing Wattpad research. I don't think it's a major RPF thing, at least not under that exact name. Horny f!sub is kind of the Wattpad way, so a lot of the popular tropes there make sense from that perspective. I've definitely seen plenty of badtouch sexy slave/kidnapping victim/stalk-ee stuff with BTS and other music groups. But maybe somebody reading has more specific 1D history knowledge?

As for why one thing takes off and another doesn't, the big answer is:

Historical accident

We can look for patterns, sure, but a lot of it is ultimately survivorship bias. That's the thing where we look at what's remaining (successful companies, popular fic tropes), and we assume they have some special property that made them survivors and then extrapolate from that. But maybe it's coincidence, or maybe it's a different type of causality than the one we're looking at.

For example, a trope in a popular fandom will spread farther faster than a trope in a dinky little fandom, so maybe fandom size is what matters and not the nature of the trope. Most analyses assume it's the trope itself that matters.

On an individual basis, many specific tropes get popularized by a particular famous author or fic that other people imitate. Some get popularized by a fanworks exchange or fest. (That's how 5 Times fic spread.) But why do they stick around long term? Why do they gain traction elsewhere?

Aside from random chance, it's probably something to do with broad applicability and easy entry points.

So, for example, the show The Sentinel doesn't actually have Guides as such, but the AU added an official role for the other dude to make the two of them super destined. Sentinel AUs took off across a ton of fandoms. (Less so these days, but I've even seen them in BTS, so they're definitely not gone.) The AU version is basically soulmates + potentially codified top/bottom roles + superpowers. People like fantasy AUs. They like frameworks to fit their ship into. The trope isn't highly specific otherwise, so it can be tacked onto many settings, both real world and sff. It fits two-person ships easily, which is most popular ships. One can do some worldbuilding about whether there's One True Guide for a given Sentinel or whether the bond is more a matter of choice. Guides might be equal in numbers/prestige/public visibility to Sentinels or not. The existence of all this can be openly known by everybody or a secret like in the show.

A/B/O has a similar level of "proof my ship belongs together" stuff with room to play around with worldbuilding. It also overlaps heavily with prior popular tropes people like for pretty obvious horny reasons. Same with plenty of tropes. They're often a slight remix of already popular stuff.

Sense8 AUs, however, never really took off as a thing. I saw some fans sadfacing about this, but in this case, I think we could have predicted it. Why? Simple: the concept involves OT8, and that's not going to apply to most people's fandoms unless they happen to like a kpop group or a superhero team with 8 people. The 8 also don't have specific roles that would make this simpler to write. If you're going for less OT8 and more of a complicated network of relationships, that's a complicated story to write and it has much less of a template to work from. So low applicability + high barrier to entry.

Hogwarts AUs, on the other hand, are super popular. Why? My guess is that the biggest reason is that a million bajillion times more people know Harry Potter than know Sense8. Hogwarts also has some canned roles that are more obvious: which house is your Fave? Shit that could be in a clickbait-y personality quiz is easier to write fic about than something that requires you to make up everything yourself. But also, four houses are easy to keep track of in a way that all those Myers-Briggs types are not. Add too much mandatory complexity, and it gets too confusing.

--

If I had to guess about the popularity of Sold To One Direction, I'd say a lot of it is due to the problem of getting Mary Sue or y/n into the room with them. Why is she there? This fic concept provides the answer in one quick title or tag. Sexy slavefic and dubcon have had broad appeal since forever. There's room to go really dark or fluffier. Some of the fics are nothing but ravishment fantasies, while others are more abuse recovery stories (where 1D are better than whatever came before).

I don't think there's some simple answer for why this specific thing and not a closely related trope became such a known trope in 1D. Probably, if some BNF had posted a ravishment fantasy with a different pithy title at just the right time, some adjacent trope would be big instead.

As for why I've heard of this trope, it's absolutely due to 1D being a fucking massive fandom such that its popular tropes occur very frequently in a sample of Wattpad writing of the right eras. It definitely owes its lulzy memeticness to fandom size: lots of people care enough about 1D and 1D fic to know what the trends are and make jokes about them.

Here's Huffpo being dicks about 1D slavefic back in 2013. They don't mention the exact phrasing though. Here's a pretty standard specimen from 2013-14.

I presume this was also a big thing on Quizilla (RIP) and I see extant examples on Quotev. Sadly, these and Wattpad are fucking hard to study, and a lot of the meta-writing types stick to AO3, so I don't see as many good analyses of this part of fandom.

Any 1D fans want to weigh in?

[youphoriaot7]

No you know what I'm elaborating fuck this

Cw[?] for an incredibly long semipersonal rant about platonic bonds, the aroace spectrum, and the importance of friendships in media.

I grew up not knowing shit about aromanticism or asexuality. This isn't a surprise. I think most people did/do. And while I never really thought I was "broken" the way some people end up doing, I was definitely...uncertain. By the time I was a teenager, my friends had exes. I was so confused.

Doing a deep dive into my identity eventually gave me the aroace spectrum and somehow I just...knew? I was just like "yeah. This is me." So I moved on.

I've never really craved romance. I generally avoid romance novels. Romantic plotlines in fiction can get annoying for me if overdone/poorly written. And yet, they were in EVERY piece of media I touched, whether it was "for kids" or not. You have the crush-like relationships in Percy Jackson, or Harry Potter, or—hell, Anne of Green Gables. You have flat-out romances in older media—stuff like The Flash, etc. (Too exhausted to think of examples; you get the point.) In all of these, the best friend is secondary to the romantic plotline. Always.

I didn't want a romance. I still don't. I crave those platonic bonds. I crave found family, lasting friendships, people you can give your whole heart to and trust in knowing they'll have your back. (Some say that's love; I don't disagree. But it's just different. It's 1am, I'm not trying to crack the mysteries of life.) Yet no matter how hard I looked, those kinds of bonds just...were very few and far between. The biggest impact on me then that I can think of was probably Six of Crows. Stuff like that.

And then, I eventually find the QSMP. I find Tazercraft; these goofy little guys who didn't even speak the same language as me, but were so fun that I ended up putting on their streams during the day just for company. And all the while, there was never once a hint of romance between the two. They were genuinely just the best of friends.

Time progresses. I keep watching. I get more into their streams. I discover qMike is canonically aroace and nearly lose my shit—I don't think I've smiled quite as big as I did that day in a while. qMike (and ccMike o7) go missing for a bit, so I stick with qPac (and ccPac o7) and learn more about him. qPac develops a relationship—of course he does, he's always been flirty (/lh).

Yet none of this is EVER treated as "better" or somehow "superior" to his and Mike's relationship for the pure reason of it being romantic. None of the characters ever try to pit their relationship against someone else. Even four months apart (along with multiple kidnappings, jailings, murder attempts, and not one but TWO murder-death games) couldn't break the package deal of qTazercraft.

...I honestly don't even know what I'm saying at this point, I really need to go to bed kdhfksjfhsk. But I just...something about the way qTazercraft works strikes a chord in me that I don't think anything has ever really been able to hit in quite the same way.

I just love these silly little block guys.

How do I know I'm sleep deprived?

It's 1am and I'm still awake sobbing over qTazercraft and their platonic blood. AND I MEAN SOBBING.

[sofoulandfairaday]

The ultimate How I Met Your Mother Finale rant

I know this has been done before, and I know I'm several years late to the party, but I don't care, so IN THIS ESSAY I WILL tell you about why this finale takes the spot as the second-worst finale in TV show history (because Game of Thrones is still, to this day, unbeatable, and it will probably stay like that forever). 

But first, a little context: I've just finished binge-watching HIMYM. This binge has been going on for three days straight (my final exam of the semester is in a week and I should be studying, so the fact that the last few days were a partial waste of time makes me so mad). Second thing: I already knew how it would end, and yes, kids, it does ruin the show for you. It ruins the show so much it makes your blood boil when you rewatch certain scenes, but I will get to that. 

You might want to make yourself a drink because this is a complete list of all the reasons why HIMYM's finale sucks - I'm warning you, it's gonna be looong.

It completely invalidates the entirety of season 9

This is one of the complaints people most often have with this series, and I have to agree. It would have been so much better if the last two episodes never existed, and they just showed Barney and Robin dancing at the reception after walking out of the chapel, Ted noticing Tracy and then the platform scene. "And that, kids, is the story of how I met your mother". Cut scene. Honestly, I don't get the hate people give to season 9, barring the last 2/3 episodes, especially since season 8 was so much worse (except for a few honourable mentions, like The Robin). S8 was slower, less funny, and less deep, and while the authors took a risk by making s9 happen in the span of a weekend it paid off: they took their time introducing the character of the Mother to the gang and fleshing her out. They make sure to highlight all the little ways in which Ted and Tracy are perfect for each other, and even tie up loose ends, like with the Slapsgiving episode, that was a filler but it wasn't boring to watch (although it may be problematic for different reasons, I'm not Chinese, so I can't say for sure if it's cultural appropriation or just the authors making fun of a particular movie genre). 

Some episodes were arguably great: "Daisy" was amazing, and that whole fight between Marshall and Lily was so realistic and well thought out, "Sunrise" was extremely important for Ted's character development, same goes for Tracy and "How Your Mother Met Me", "Bedtime stories" was impressive, "Rally" was incredibly funny and proved once again what a beautiful character Barney Stinson is, so much so that even Robin never has doubts that he (the guy with the biggest commitment issues on the planet) will bail on her before the wedding, and says to Ted that "he always comes back". Daphne's character is super funny and the right amount of annoying, the shenanigans of the gang are well thought out and all of the characters (not just Barney) complete their arc in this season. The last two/three episodes butcher that.

Marshall and Lily

Marshall and Lily, arguably the world's most solid couple, are the only thing this God-awful finale gets right, especially Marshall, who is my second-favourite character, that finally gets everything he deserves. But what about Lily? They never mention her career after Italy, and I refuse to believe she goes back to being a kindergarten teacher as if her year in Rome meant nothing. I also refuse to think she becomes nothing but a political wife, the equivalent of Zoey, but without saving the world. We know she has three kids, but her postpartum depression is never really talked about much and they definitely had the screentime to delve into it. 

Barney

 Where do I even begin? Barney Stinson is, without a doubt, the best character in this series, the glue of the whole gang. I think the message they were trying to give is that, since his trauma stemmed from the absence of a father figure in his life, he could only truly heal by becoming a father as well. People also say that n°31 had to stay just a number, because who could match up with Barney Stinson? First of all, I call BULSHIT on that last point, because Robin wasn't the only girl Barney could have ended up marrying. I used to think that too, but it's just not true: that is the equivalent of saying that Barney was incapable to truly love a woman and commit to her, even after all the development he got, and that he only got one shot at love in life, and that's it. This goes against the point the showrunners try to make by having Ted and Robin end up together AND by having Tracy get with Ted in the first place: "it's never too late, you always have another chance at love, etc." And, let's face it, Barney and Robin are legendary, but Barney and Nora (hell, even Barney and Quinn!) were pretty good together too. 

Second of all, if they wanted to give Barney a kid, they could have easily done that, before Barney married Robin. Barney's "redemption" starts when he gets with Robin the first time, hell maybe even when we meet James for the first time: Nora, Quinn, finding out who his father is, the episode dedicated to the lies his mum told him/finding James' father, him getting to know his own dad, etc... those are all steps along the way. The s9 episode where Barney accepts the relationship between Loretta and the reverend proves how far he's come. So why not give him a daughter BEFORE he proposes to Robin? Have him cheat on Nora/Quinn with n°31, giving him a relapse, and having him get closer to Robin while struggling to be a dad to Ellie. That would have been great. 

Or, you know, don't give him children. What's the point of burning the Playbook if you're going to have him write the second edition? What's the point of having him do a complete 180 in the last few scenes and acting like having a kid is the only thing that makes him change? What's the point of doing that when the show spends entire episodes berating Marshall and Lily for "changing too much" when they have a kid?

Also, Barney is the "challenge accepted" guy. He loves his wife so much, he spent years wanting her, and then he gives up because there is no WiFi in his hotel. How does that make any sense at all? This is Barney Stinson, the "I will fly out to San Francisco and buy Lily a plane ticket", the "I will steal every girl from my best friend just to save him for Lily", the guy that wrote the Playbook (it takes effort to pull those plays off), the guy that planned for weeks his proposal, the guy that waited years to get back at the man who stole his first girlfriend, the guy that makes every night legendary... are you telling me that that guy becomes the equivalent of a bored housewife instead of living his best life while travelling the world? Come on. They don't even try to make it believable.

Ted

While watching seasons 7 and 8, I felt that Ted was becoming the worst character on the show: he was boring, depressed, basically had no good storylines, the whole thing with Victoria was pointless and inconclusive (and the whole "stop being in love with Robin" was completely out of character for her), but whatever, we could have accepted that because it passed the message that two people could be good together, without being soulmates - which, by the way, renders the TedxRobin ship pointless, because they were right for each other, but Ted and Tracy were soulmates. Him being hung up on Robin in the latter seasons is almost pathetic, and the thing he does with the locket is insane, not romantic - BUT I will say this: it can be seen in two ways, depending on who's watching. I personally like the two as friends, so I see the whole thing as a "Dahmer" situation, but I get the people who see it as a "Dobler" one and see what he did as a grand romantic gesture. 

The problem, though, is that the whole TedxRobin ship gets pretty old, pretty fast: it's an annoying on-and-off thing, that should have ended with the locket. Because, yes, Ted was in a dark moment, yes, he was probably depressed, yes, he thought Robin was his only shot at happiness, but he changes during season nine! He spends entire episodes letting go of Robin, including the one where she transforms into a balloon and flies away. Ted is the good guy, ultimately. He is the guy that is genuinely happy for his best friends. In one of the deleted scenes from the finale, he meets Robin years later and says that he's so happy with Tracy he never thought about Robin in that way anymore. All of that gets thrown in the trash. Why do that? To use a Harry Potter metaphor, Ted is Severus Snape, while Barney is James Potter: the former loved the girl of his dreams with all his heart, even to the point of creepiness, but they weren't meant to be together. 

Robin

This, along with the next point, is the worst of all: Robin is the worst character of the entire finale. Her relationship with Ted in season 2 is wonderful, and I say that as a full-on Barney/Robin shipper. There was never a problem in their relationship, apparently, but they then break up because they have an "expiration date" and ultimately want different things in life. Except that Ted is not her soulmate. The only times when Robin wants Ted are the times where (1) she can't have him because he's either trying to move on or (2) the times where it's convenient, for example when they become roommates again and they solve their disputes again. Around that time, we see perfectly that Ted had moved on and that the person getting hurt was Barney. It's one thing to see Ted and Robin in the finale as two people picking up where they had left off after they dated. But this is not the case. 

In season 7, we have the exchange that should have put an end to any and all TedxRobin drama, and that completely invalidates whatever the writers wrote after that about the two of them: Ted declares his love - "I think you know how you feel about me now. I don't think time's gonna change that. Just tell me: do you love me?" To which she answers "No". And Ted also says later to Marshall, that he's "happy because he can finally move on". 

What a load of crap. 

Getting over someone is hard, believe me, I would know. And, oftentimes, it doesn't happen until we find someone else to love (and from the moment he meets Tracy, there is no one else for Ted). But by giving Ted feelings for Robin after this moment, it takes away from the beauty of it- because it's one of the most heartbreaking feelings in the world when you declare your love to someone and they don't love you back. Ted and Robin were both honest at that moment, and it was the last genuinely good exchange between them. After that, during season 8 they try to show us Ted trying to get over her (and failing) and in season 9 Ted getting over her completely. This is also weirdly paced because at the beginning of s8 both are in happy relationships with other people and there's no jealousy (which is good, because at least they weren't toxic) and they seem just friends (when Robin leaves Nick to go see him in the middle of the night, she implies that she would do it for any of her friends), but after Ted breaks up with Veronica because of Robin everything is weirdly coated in this sort of tension between the two: first Ted loves her, but she doesn't, so when he helps her by taking her to Barney's proposal ("which means my best bro in the world has given me his blessing"). 

And, by the way, every time they try to paint Ted as the guy that comes through for Robin after this moment, they dumb down Barney's character. And still fail to make Ted a better guy than him (see: the carousel in Central Park). 

Yes, Robin and Ted have some chemistry, but it is nothing compared to what Robin and Barney have. Every time Robin is jealous of Barney, it doesn't seem like a stupid whim, just because some other child is playing with her toys (except, perhaps, during The Robin). Robin and Barney's relationship would need a whole other post, and the next time I rewatch the series I will write down all the things that make them perfect for each other, but, to me, the biggest difference between the two relationships is this: in season 6, when she's not dating either one of them, Ted accuses Robin of never making him feel needed while they were together, whereas Barney praises her for it. Those are elective affinities: that's what Barney and Robin have, and what Tracy and Ted have. 

Barney and Robin have more or less the same arc: they both get over their fear of commitment and they do that with each other. Time and time again, we are told that if they're ever going to settle down, it would only be with the other. The first time they break up is honestly so stupid, and even when they are broken up, they are the best of friends, which also makes Robin's behaviour in the finale look so stupid. The way the two of them fit together is unparalleled, both in a romantic and a platonic way. 

Think about it: Robin makes Barney a better man, while she makes Ted a worse one. 

Also, the whole point that there are different seasons in life for everything gets thrown out the window: apparently, Ted and Robin (that were a couple that ultimately worked in their young twenties) are the same people in their forties.

But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that the two final episodes butcher Robin's arc as well: episode 23 starts with Lily saying "I want this girl to be in our lives" and we know Robin never made other friends outside of the gang, because she didn't need to, and now she walks away from everything because of fucking Ted?? This is saying "hey, Robin was only in the group for Ted, who brought her in, and now she leaves because he's not her puppy anymore". Robin was the one that was eternally indecisive between Ted and Barney and you're telling me that three years and many many life experiences later, she's still not sure? 

The point of her story is learning how to get over her fear of commitment, learning how to be there for her friends (there's an entire episode dedicated to that, and it's the one where Lily's pregnant and we meet Robin's ex-best friend in Canada), and how to balance her job and her life. Also, the way her character is treated is un-feminist and un-progressive: she becomes Ted's consolation prize. She is passive throughout s9. She cannot, ultimately, win the modern-day struggle most women have and balance out career and love life, so her true life, her "happy chapter" begins after she has already accomplished everything she wanted to and she's free for Ted. She doesn't even go back to him, she just the prize the main character wanted for all his life and only got in the end because his wife died (ONE SCENE, people, ONE SCENE!). Also, this makes Tracy the "broodmare" that gives him the kids he wanted, and his "happy family" experience before he goes to be with his one true love. 

The mother

This. This makes me so mad. One whole season spent on building up Tracy's character, just for it to go to waste. It would have been so easy to screw her up, but she is hands down the best thing about s9. She's the perfect woman for Ted and the episode shot through her perspective is the sweetest. By the end, I liked her more than Robin and Lily. She was the perfect addition to their group, she fit together with them in a perfect way, and they show us the biggest moment of her and Ted's life... for what? To have her die in a few sentences? And I don't care if they shot a funeral scene, I don't care if the finale was supposed to be 40 minutes long, because, in the end, it wasn't. The scene where Ted meets her is the second most beautiful one (after Barney's proposal to Robin) and the climax of the whole show, but they ruin her... and for what? The chemistry Ted has with her, he has with no one. The joy she brings him, the way she understands him, is unlike any other. I am sure that one of the reasons they killed her off was the shock value and I hate it. 

I cannot stress this enough: Tracy makes Ted a better person. When he's with Robin, Ted is "the nice guy" in the most selfish and narcissistic version of the trope. When he's with Tracy, love comes easy to Ted. Also, the scenes between the two of them are arguably the best Ted scenes of the show.

The kids' reactions (ugh)

It's not really what they say- it's the way they say it. The end of HIMYM was not supposed to be funny, even though the show is a sitcom. It was supposed to be bittersweet and beautiful, because it's the end of an era, and the writers must have known that. So, Ted finishes telling his story, reveals to the audience that their now-beloved Tracy is dead, and the reaction is: "No, ahah, you totally have the hots for Aunt Robin" (their words, not mine). Like, what the actual fuck? I cringed when Penny said that. It's tasteless and not fun at all. Even if it has been six years... It's still your fucking mum, show a little bit of sadness at the thought of her. 

The reason the show ended this way

What makes me especially mad is that I know for a fact that the reason they went with this ending is that it was the original one, always intended for the show, from season 2 onwards. And, if you watch it right after s2, it makes sense. But if you consider the eight years that passed and the massive character development, then no, it's not the best possible one. So many things hadn't been decided yet back in s2, especially about Barney, Ted, and Robin, and I hate that they didn't dare to scrap their work. This ending probably had sentimental meaning to the writers, but authors have to do what's best for their characters, not themselves. It's like with GoT, in a way: I think that the authors were all too aware of the impact of HIMYM and didn't believe that their finale would live up to the expectations... which compelled them to make the worst decision possible?? Every single character is OOC during the episode. Oh, and Marshall and Lily moving in the last episode is a ripoff from Friends (or maybe a tribute? Idk). Anyway, I believe that the authors were too attached to their sentimental version of "what should have been" and didn't give the characters the endings they truly deserved.

"Life works this way" // "Life only moves forward"

Some people say that the show is realistic because that's how life works. But I call super-BS on that. That might be true, and yes, people do get sick and die (Max, Marshall's dad...) and life does go on. But then, you don't frame it the way they did. It's just bad storytelling if you do it like that. And the problem is not the structure of season 9, because the characters develop in that season. The problem isn't even the mother's death. The problem is Ted ending up with Robin because that's not life moving forward for him, that's him, doing the same thing he did in 2005, 25 (twenty-fucking-five) years before! 

In conclusion, this finale is incoherent and inconclusive, and not satisfying at all. The only character that gets a good ending is Marshall: why is that? What makes his ending great? It's the fact that his character arc is respected and he finally gets what he's been working towards for more than ten years.

[blueteller]

How I rate stuff (because, why not?)

I enjoy fiction a lot. While most of the time I don't strictly put things in categories (also, my tastes and opinions might change over time), I thought it would be fun to make a post about how I rate different series and works of fiction that I like – or don't like.

So here's a couple of examples, on the scale of 0-10:

(Remember this is based on my enjoyment, not objective criticism! Beside I'm a pretty lax critic, I truly start to dislike things only like, 3 and below. So have mercy on me! I'm just being honest)

10/10 - I have very few complaints, nothing more than nitpicks. Otherwise I enjoy everything about it. (Example: Avatar the Last Airbender - love everyhing about it)

9/10 - I have one major issue or a couple minor ones, but apart from that it's similar: I love it (My little Pony: Friendship is Magic - surprisingly, I love most of it)

8/10 - I have some issues which I consider visible, but still liked it a lot (Star Wars series - not all of it, but the best of it)

7/10 - I have a significant amount of issues, but still mostly liked it (Harry Potter series - my favorite bashing series, so many plot holes to tear through, it's hilarious)

6/10 - liked it, but probably wasn't a fan (Pokemon franchise - my childhood, but not nearly on the top of my list)

5/10 - I didn't dislike it, but I wasn't invested either (Star vs Forces of Evil - I liked the Eclipsa plotline at first but otherwise, ehh)

4/10 - something bugged me about this, so I dropped it (Attack on Titan - I'm like, nope, canibalism is a big no no for me, sorry)

3/10 - something bugged me and probably made me mad, definitely dropped it (the Twilight saga - the romance is GROSS, but at least it's so bad it's funny)

2/19 - I really don't like this and I have strong feelings about it! (Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian the movie - it's personal, they completely ruined one of my favorite books ever, why did they make Caspian and Peter into emo jerks??)

1/10 - oh I HATE this (that one Robinson Crusoe movie adaptation I saw once in class when I was 11, where they turned the MC racist for drama: I am still full of rage because that book was pretty cool, so like, whyyyy)

0/10 - I am in denial of its existence and happier that way. (Last Airbender Live Action Movie. There's no movie in Ba Sing Se.)

Other series I enjoyed:

Fullmetal Alchemist (Manga/Brotherhood): 10/10, very well structured, engaging, funny and 100% satisfying. Never gets old.

My Hero Academia: 10/10, love the world and the characters. Can't wait for the conclusion

The Chronicles of Narnia: 10/10, the first book series that wasn't for school that I ever read by myself. Still my favorite series of all time

Lord of the Rings: 9.5/10, I only love it less than max because it's very long and Narnia is my 10/10 fantasy series. Sorry LOTR, there can only be one favorite, even if I admit that LOTR is factually better quality-wise. I'm subjective, you know?

Danny Phantom: 7/10, it has many problems but the premise is GREAT and it has killer aesthetic. It's kinda unforgettable, even.

Some recenty found series:

Trash of the Count's Family: 10/10, recently found it, fell in love pretty fast. The characters alone are enough for me, but the story is honestly great as well

Solo leveling: 8/10, interesting, fun, simple in enjoyment. Not too long either. My biggest pitpick would be that the story was a bit simple, but it's exactly what it's supposed to be.

Suicide Hunter: 7/10, interesting, very funny at places, still too brutal for me (sooo much suicide and mindbreaking stuff... but I get why people like it).

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint: 5/10, don't kill me for this, I have reasons! It is interesting, and I like most of the characters, but I'm just not a fan of the main plot. There's just something unappealing for me about the whole "gladiator premise" (where a superior power creates the scenario where random people are forced to kill each other). Same reason why I never liked the Hunger Games (which I'd probably rate 4/10) and I'll never watch Squid Game.

The S Classes That I raised: 6/10, it is interesting, fun and hilarious in many places, but the supporting cast somehow didn't quite click for me just yet. The rating might change in the future, who knows?

[pleckthaniel]

Tell me more about Lovecraftian horror in Warriors it sounds very interesting :O

Okay so like, honestly WC invokes cosmic horror fairly often. Quick terms clarification: cosmic/lovecraftian horror has become kinda popularly synonymous with 'Big tentacle-y gods with hard-to-pronounce names,' but the original meaning and the one I'm using here is 'horror which emphasizes fear of the unknown and the unknowable.' I think with this definition you can kinda see where this tends to crop up: when the cats are dealing with humans, when they're dealing with the dog pack or Sharptooth, arguably also with the smart rats in Firestar's Quest, and to some extent when they're dealing with StarClan (though the Erins tend to downplay the cosmic horror of StarClan lol). But the biggest and most obvious place they invoke it is with Scourge and BloodClan, which is also why those elements have had the lasting power they do.

Let me actually backtrack a little bit here and ask a very relevant question. Why did the Erins get away with having Scourge kill Tigerstar? No other childrens' series that I can think of has done something similar. Can you fucking imagine if halfway through Harry Potter book 7, JK Rowling had been like, 'psych, Voldemort just got hit by lightning and fucking died'? People would have rioted in the streets tbh. And rightfully so! * In the children's adventure genre, which is where both HP and WC fall, as soon as you give us a relatively likeable, easy-to-root-for protagonist (Harry or Fireheart) a reasonably cruel and powerful archnemesis (Voldemort or Tigerclaw) to fight, you have promised the audience a showdown between them. You can't get out without giving them a satisfying resolution to that conflict. So how did the Erins manage to fully avoid doing so?

As far as I can tell, there are two major reasons that it works. One is what I'm going to call the Matt Arnold School of Avoiding Writing Set-Pieces (side note if you're a writer please listen to story break lol it's a good show it makes me think about shit and it indirectly prompted this post by making me think about TDH again). Basically the idea is that if you promise the audience an explosion, you can only substitute that explosion with an equal-or-greater-sized explosion. For example, in Star Wars, the beginning of the movie promises the destruction of an entire planet when the Death Star is introduced. So in order to get away with not blowing up Yavin-4 or whatever the rebel base is called, the planet-sized Death Star is blown up instead. You get to both see the explosion and have the good guys win; a fully satisfying ending for an adventure story. The Darkest Hour does the same thing. It sets up an ultimate showdown between Good and Evil that will determine the fate of the Clans themselves. When Tigerstar is killed, he is literally instantly replaced by another evil cat who also wants to take over the forest. So while the most surface-level expectation that the battle is going to be Firestar vs Tigerstar is subverted, the promise of the premise is still fulfilled.

The other reason is that BloodClan doesn't come out of nowhere. No their existence was not hinted at in previous books, but that's because they don't really come out of the world, they come out of Tigerstar's arc. In short, Tigerstar is an incredibly effective villain; he's incredibly charismatic, has no short supply of honor to his name to lend him a lot of credence in the eyes of the general population, and is completely ruthless in his pursuit of his goals. BUT, he has an ego on him. An ego that gets significantly worse over the course of the series. When it starts, he's just making derisive comments about kittypets. But by the time The Darkest Hour starts, he has tried to take control of a feral, vicious, barely-restrained dog pack and is also currently plotting to make himself the new god-king of the forest.

So BloodClan? They're just an escalation of the same internal tendency the dog pack represented. Tigerstar is so driven to succeed that he is willing to meddle with forces that should not be meddled with. Forces that are almost unknowably powerful compared to the Clan cats... forces that one could call... cosmic? So even though we don't get our classic Good-Vs-Evil showdown with Tigerstar, his arc still ends in a satisfying way, and honestly in a much better way than just fighting Firestar would have been, because we see that he planted the seeds of his own destruction with his hubris. He's transformed into the classic Level 1 human villain in cosmic horror, the cult leader who summons the actual tentacle-god and is promptly destroyed by it.

And BloodClan themselves, the reason they stick out in so many kids' minds as the most iconic part of the series, the reason Scourge is one of the few characters from Warriors to transcend fandom spaces and become semi-recognizable in his own right, is because they are goddamn scary, not in an edgy or gory sense, but because they are the cosmic horror, because their power is presented to us as beyond comprehension, to the point where they wear the teeth of the last cosmic horror in the books (dogs) for fun decoration. To the point where Scourge literally eviscerates the villain that had been built up to for six books at this point in one fell swoop, while also personally undermining the only piece of magic that currently canonically exists. To the point where their forces are presented as essentially infinite and undefeatable unless they are first demoralized by the death of their leaders. None of those things are traditional horror (even other horror scenes within the series or book itself, like the Bonehill scene, rely more on traditional horror elements) but they are instead about the terror that is inspired by encountering something that can literally crush you like a bug and might not even notice doing it.

Incidentally, this is also why I really don't like Rise of Scourge. It's a good standalone, I know it's a lot of people's favorite WC graphic novel. But when you tie it back to Darkest Hour, it completely undermines what that book was doing. I think what the Erins were trying to do was the classic like, tyrants are just humans too, type of theme. And I'm all for that! It's a good theme, normally. Obviously it worked really well for Tigerstar in arc 1. But it doesn't work for Scourge because Scourge isn't the tyrant archetype. He's not an evil dictator like Tigerstar was, he's fucking Cthulu.

--

* some have argued that the way the final battle between harry and voldemort in HP book 7 is kind of a cop-out ending, but i would point out that while it isn't great, it still isn't random nor out-of-character; it fulfills the promise made at the beginning of the book, that there would be a showdown and one of them would be defeated; my point is that the lightning scenario would not.

[romecardoso]

@c23tasks​

[TW: under the cut there is a gif of the creepy dude from pan's labyrinth. courtesy of cola.]

what’s your mutant’s ability? (if you need help finding a proper definition or just a resource for abilities, you can head over here. i recommend that you also link the page on your post when you find the ability you were looking for!)

Rome's ability is bogeyman physiology.

what’s your mutant’s classification level? (you can choose it here.)

Alpha

how old were they when they first discovered their abilities? how did it happen?

It first showed up when he was really young, before he can remember it. By the time he was a toddler, he was unable to control himself and was terrorising his parents left and right, becoming monsters that were much bigger, much louder than their angelic three-year-old baby.

so, what can your mutant do with their abilities?

He is the personification of a person's fears. When standing in front of someone and choosing to use his Bogeyman abilities, he will turn into a representation of that person's biggest fear. Like boggarts from Harry Potter vibes. When alone, or making an effort not to channel into someone's fears, his neutral Bogeyman form, and what he considers to be his true authentic self, is this guy: (faceclaim is the pale man, from pan's labyrinth)

…and what can’t they do (at least, not yet)?

He cannot assume the abilities of the creature he turns into, he has only his own (human-grade) strength, stealth, agility, etc. But as far as visuals and sound, he becomes the thing. For example, if someone's biggest fear is a werewolf, Rômulo will turn into a werewolf; he will look and sound exactly as the person expects in their worst nightmares, so say he has fur, is three times larger than himself, and he can howl. He even has the sharp teeth and can attempt to bite them, perhaps, but he does not have super strength or a bite that would be as strong as a werewolf's. This also means that if someone's biggest fear was another mutant, Magneto for example, Rômulo would be able to turn into Magneto visually, and even mimic his voice and mannerisms, but he would not have the ability to mess with metal.

what’s one thing they hope to learn or are currently trying to learn with their abilities?

He hopes he can learn to channel's someone's fear from further away. At the moment he can only do it if he's standing a few feet apart from the person, at most, but he thinks it'd be useful if he could tap into people's nightmarish visions from afar.

what is the most powerful thing your mutant can do with their abilities? do you think they would actually do it?

I think the worst he could do would be either giving someone a heart attack on the spot (which he wouldn't have much control of), or terrorising someone to the point of a severe trauma response. And I think he would, given the right amount of anger to tick him off. I don't think he has enough of a moral compass to point him the other way.

what are your mutant’s weaknesses?

Most people can be scared by something, even if that thing is just their old mother yelling profanities at them, but if the person is emotionally well resolved or their fears more abstract in nature, Rômulo cannot take on a new form, and will only be able to present his Bogeyman (pale man) self to that person. Which, can still be pretty gruesome, but probably inflicts more disgust than genuine fear. He also doesn't have a full grip on his human form, after growing up with an auntie that adored his Bogeyman form. It takes a fair amount of concentration to stay in human form, and if that concentration slips, he becomes his Bogeyman self, which can be an issue on day to day life. And he is also still susceptible to any human weaknesses he might have, so he could visually become Wolverine to scare someone off, but he'd still die from a bullet to the chest.

do they use their abilities in their day-to-day life? in what ways?

He'll bring it out if he feels the need to freak someone out, like terrorising some poor junkies who aren't paying him right. But in his day-to-day he mostly keeps it hidden, specially when he's bartending.

as a mutant, do they have any goals? dreams?

To be accepted, loved, adored for his mutant self. His goals are pretty self-centred for now, and he's leaning onto the brotherhood's cause to get somewhere.

how do they feel about the last 30+ years of mutant history? notably, the presidential address of 1983 and the essex house?

Rômulo has only ever had eyes for how badly the humans have treated mutants over the years. If there are any redeeming points in history, they have gone over his head, leaving him with a bitter taste in his mouth, so he's ready to wreak more havoc.

[shesmorethanfibro]

“Fibrophobia” the fear of doing absolutely anything physical that could provoke a fibro flare-up. (Original creds to @ Dear Fibromyalgia for this definition) When you have fibromyalgia it seems and sadly is a reality that really anything can negatively affect your pain. Stress, exercise, temperature, etc. and because of that I will admit, I get anxiety more often than not thinking that everything will lead to bad pain. I hate living that way, but sadly it is a very possible reality. I think it scares us from living, but it’s also hard to get over that fear when it’s rational and can really lead to more pain. ⠀ ⠀

I want to share my biggest fear that fibromyalgia could negatively effect. I want to be an actress. I once shared this fear of mine in a support group and this lady who does makeup for shows and movies once commented and gave me SOME peace of mind that acting may be an easier job as a lot of acting is sitting around waiting to shoot, they have water and healthy foods on deck, can nap when I don’t have a scene in my trailer or dressing room, can still get some exercise so it’s very accommodating. That has been a relief, but there are also some fears that come to mind. ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀

One thing I know for sure is that this is the thing I’ve wanted more than anything, and whether I have to get a massage everyday, or bubble baths every night, even if it hurts terribly every day I will not let it stop me. But there are some things that leave me hesitant. For example, Id love to be on type of shows that wouldnt be too bad like a cw one (like tvd), a teen high school one like Degrassi, one tree hill, the oc, pll, etc. greys anatomy, a Netflix one, and for the most part wouldnt be too bad. but my dream is to do movies and shows that are more demanding. Like marvel, Harry Potter, stranger things, Jurassic world, Godzilla /Kong ones, tbh any franchise, heavy action ones. So I constantly fear that is going to beat me down physically everyday or that they would rather cast someone who’s healthier who is less than a liability. In a marketing standpoint it’s nice to hire someone with fibro to show people it’s possible, to tell children to never give up but idk if that is worth risking their projects over. I would work my ass off even harder if I got the chance because of fibro, but you just never know. ⠀ ⠀

Another fear is one that people might not understand if you don’t have fibro and don’t live like this to be honest. My sleep. Yes 9-5 jobs in the acting world are possible, it’s more of the sitcoms ones but as we’ve establish I have my heart set on other type of shows which are ones that can go on into the middle of the night. I take meds to help me sleep and I have to take them at a certain time for them to kick in in 3 hours. With acting especially with the kind I want to do, it could go over schedule, change and what if I take my meds and it goes over schedule, and I’m even more tired. Or if I get out late and take my meds too late so going to bed basically in the morning, and what if I just have a scene in the morning. Yes I can nap in the day but with chronic fatigue you want and need to sleep at night. Or could just not take them that night if i have to, but i need to to sleep. I’m sure it’ll be a cross this bridge when we come to it thing, but when I don’t take my meds I fall asleep and wake up right after, all night. The longest staying asleep like 20 minutes at a time, but more often waking up right after I pass out. I know I will figure out what works best for me, and will just depend on what may happen that day but it just gets me nervous. ⠀ ⠀

I think that fear has a large part on fibromyalgia and it stops us from doing things sometimes because we want to avoid what we feel is the inevitable. But I’ve also learned that fibro is unpredictable, and some days when you think it’ll be too bad to do something and you have to do it anyway it may not actually be as bad as you may have thought it would be. I would never not follow these goals because of these fears because I know that even if it will be a lot harder, it is still possible and that’s all I need. It just scares me. But as I look back on my childhood, I see little things that I did that make sense when I realized that I wanted to be an actress. I don’t even remember exactly when I figured it out but it just all made so much sense. I have a bunch of goals, but acting is the thing I want most, that I think of everyday, that drives me. And pain or not, I won’t let it stop me from my goal. ⠀ ⠀

Another thing that inspires me to not give it up out of fear is knowing that there are other people with dreams who have fibro that feel as if they’ll have to give it up because of fibromyalgia. I was the same way. I so often hear why you’ll have to quit because of fibro, that most things are impossible, that an ever lasting love story isn’t realistic because of fibro. But I want to show people and not only them but myself that it is possible. I want everyone to know that yeah it may be hard, but when I go up to get an academy award or something someday that I have fibromyalgia and I’m doing it. And that is something that’ll make me push through that fear everyday.