#or any slander on any other character that people tend to hate i think.

[modkatisbacc]

I ain't done talking about the Elemental Alliance Actually (And some Predecessors)

This post is for the timeline of how things happen in my stories *Unless told otherwise, like in a crossover or if they setting is wildly different* and is most likely ( A Girl can dream) not canon compliant.

This is just for the main elements as no one else is really fleshed out yet. I'm getting there.

Putting this under a read more because I will eventually turn these into like short stories after noticing im... writing their entire backstory... uh oh Im going in too deep.

Man if I could draw ya'll would be getting so many doodles... one day.

We're just going back a generation and a half, since some of the Elemental Alliance that we see get their powers sooner/later than others.

The oldest in the EM Alliance, besides Garmadon, Wu, and Misako (I'll talk more about Misako later on in this post, as a treat. She's part of the Alliance too, after all <3) is Whint, Master of Ice.

Whint is in his late nineties when we see him in flashbacks, with Elemental Masters having expanded life spans.

People did not like the idea of Elemental Masters for a LONG time, and actively sent out people to hunt them. Either to kill them out of fear, or take their power for themselves.

When Whint found out about his powers as a young teen, he knew he was in trouble. Like every master of ice before *and after* him, he had visions and the gift of sixth sense. He would run on for several decades, trying to live in small villages and towns, and then in the Birchwood Forrest and the surrounding area when he noticed that his presence put people in grave danger.

He would leave pure devastation in his wake when he knew he was being followed by enemies. This is actually how Garmadon found him. He had been trailing Whint for nearly a week, trying to find the right time to show himself, as he had transformed into a falcon to follow him. After being nearly overwhelmed by enemies, Garmadon decided to show himself and save Whint.

After a lot of convincing, Garmadon finally got Whint to follow him back to the Monastery.

Whint is in his late sixties when he joins the brothers and some of the other elemental masters.

The Master of Lightning was just as tricky to find as Ice, if not more so. The Masters of Lightning never stayed in one place long, always retreating back into the desert. They never tell anyone their name, they never reveal their face, and they never reveal their intentions.

On average, the brothers and Misako have noted that the Masters of Lightning seem to have the shortest lifespan of the four main elements. With Lightning being the hardest to control, and with little to no training, by the time the three finally found a living master, several had already died mere years between each other.

A young teen by the name of Edna Walker had found the Master of Lightning herself. He was extremely tired, and had accidentally used his power in front of her while fixing up a vehicle he planned to steal.

Instead of ratting him out, as the town was full of people willing to do anything to get their hands on an elemental master (for money), she just grabbed him and drug him out of town.

While Edna thought on how to get him away from the desert safely, the two ended up forming a bond, with her being the first person to not actively try to hurt him.

Edna noticed that he never told her his name, only to be told he didn't have one, that he knew of. With that, the boy decided that his name would be Ed. The two were inseperable after that, and when Edna heard rumors of the brother's monastery, she took him there.

Imagine their surprise when they see an extremely skinny, very tired Master of Lightning show up on their doorstep.

*This is in order, they recruit Ed a few years after they recruit Whint, so Ed and Edna are... Hm... in their late 70's now?*

Years later, the two have a child and name her Libber. She receives the power of Lightning when she is thirteen years old.

During the time at the monastery together, Whint and Ed become close friends, and Whint is named the Godfather of Libber.

She is absolutely spoiled by her parents and you KNOW IT. She has such a bubbly and energetic personality and her parents are just so happy for her,, they know she'll be safe with the others.

Her and Lilly become best friends when she joins, as they are the youngest in the Offically Formed Elemental Alliance. (She is 19 and Lilly is 12, if the timeline is timelining thanks Ninjago Timeline)

Cole (Sr.) was the easiest next to Ray and Maya to find and recruit. He tended to hang around the monastery but was uncommitted to the cause. After much persuasion over the years, he finally commits to it.

He and Whint have to deal with a bunch of traumatized kids by the time they join. He helps build defenses around the monastery with his power and is the reason the Mountain of a Million Steps is Like That Somewhat (TM), actually.

He and his wife have a daughter, Lilly, and then his wife (Not named yet I'm sorry) dies from an illness.

He brings her around the monastery from time to time to get her adjusted to seeing other elemental masters, and then dies when she is twelve.

(I already spoke on Lilly. She got her own post Lets gooo)

Ember Smith, mother of Ray and Previous Master of Fire, led her own monastery not too far from the brothers. She was extremely strict on her teachings, and taught both Ray and Maya when they were young. Ray recieved her powers when he was still quite young, and she taught him how to harness them through brutal training.

*Ember wasn't apart of the EM Alliance but she is still quite important to its development*

She was killed in an apparent 'accident' at her monastery, with no one really knowing the truth behind it.

With Ray taking over, he and Wu were already quite close friends alongside Maya. Ray and Maya did Not start dating until their early 20's, though they did grow up together. (They did not have Kai and Nya until their late 20's-early 30's)

Ray had been surrounded by elemental masters and others who knew how to fight his entire life so settling in was much easier for him, although he was still grieving his mother.

Went to work forging weapons for the team, alongside Maya. With their Craftsmenship, they were practically unbeatable.

Practically.

Maya received her powers when she was six years old. She did not have her power passed down by a parent, as the previous master of water never had children, never really communicating with anyone else, let alone another elemental master.

They were so much of a recluse that the brothers and Misako could never discover who they were. Ember, however, seemed to know something that the others didn't and trained her alongside Ray. She learned how to harness how power quickly and how to be a destructive force.

Despite her strict upbringing she actually isn't very strict herself, and goes with the flow. "Oh I have these elemental powers now. That's cool! Ray and I match now!"

Little Maya definitely didn't have to put out fires around Ember's monastery when Ray's powers got out of control No Sir.

Now onto the Brothers.

These two classify their powers as elemental, though since they're the sons of the First Spinjitzu Master, everyone is pretty sure it's more than that.

When going to recruit Elemental Masters for the past few hundred years, Garmadon would go after the more estranged, dangerous, people while Wu would go after the ones that could be easily convinced.

Destruction and Creation are what their elements are listed as, though they tend to not use their powers in fear of causing more harm than good.

With the EM Alliance they let their Oni and Dragon features show out more, with Wu having a tail and more draconic features, while Garmadon had more Oni features. They usually used them to fight, as both had long sharp claws and teeth.

The two gave each other confidence, whenever they strode into battle or any distressed event, but with Garmadon's venom and the situation at hand, the relationship still was very stressed.

(The letter doesn't happen in any of my aus or stories btw. Im just... so sick of Love Triangles Please)

Misako is the one that tended to keep everyone together. She would accompany elemental master on missions that they needed to know more information about, and could fight very well.

Now, on to the... Misako Backstory.

She is effectively immortal, for reasons I cannot go into here as it will be explained a story I plan to write... somewhat soon. The brothers met her when they were children themselves.

Due to tragic circumstances, unfortunately.

Though this does help when she has to deal with booby trapped sites and the like, as even if they hit her she would just heal pretty quickly.

(Ala Salem from RWBY, but not evil. Actually a Lot Like Salem's situation from RWBY, if this gives any hints.)

Now here's the tragic run down in bullet points!!!

I have put Morro's whole ordeal about a Hundred years before the EM Alliance was formed. Garmadon was also off with Chen at the time *Dark Magic increasing Life Span as well* Wu hasn't stopped thinking about him even for a day.

The brothers/Misako were all teens when they started searching for their first generation of elemental masters, as their father had just died and they were desperate to find people to help them protect Ninjago.

The order of the EMs dying goes: Ember, Cole (SR) Libber (Technically but not really <3) Whint (Right after Libber) and then Lilly. (With the other Ems either dying as well or scattering after the war/time twins)

Ed and Edna have forgotten all about Libber somehow, and most of their past has been... replaced... by different memories.

Lilly got to visit Ray and Maya Twice before she got very sick. This means Cole and Kai technically DID meet, but lol ain't no toddlers remembering that. Ray and Maya also go missing shortly after and!!! No one knows!!! Because they've all distanced themselves by force or by fear

Misako wanted to raise Lloyd on her own so badly that it still eats her up inside that she left him at Darklys. She wanted to save her family so badly and technically she did and then in the end it didn't matter anyway and now it matters again all of a sudden and the last she saw of her husband he tried to murder her and *rambles*

Whint ran off when Libber was reported missing. He went to her parents first, only to learn that they don't remember him, and they definitely do not remember their own daughter.

This was made worse when he realized that his suspicions of Cliff selling her out were true when Ed And Edna showed him Jay, now thinking that the woman must have been the one to leave her child at their doorstep.

While going back to report to Wu he notices that he is being followed, and in an act of desperation runs into the Birchwood Forrest to try and lose them.

He's never heard of again until Wu comes to Birchwood Forrest himself and finds Zane.

Wu, in the beginning did NOT want to recruit The Main Four (Kai, Jay, Zane, Cole) as he believed they would be better off doing whatever they were doing before being unaware of their history and their true power.

In the end his fear of losing Ninjago to his brother and Misako convincing him that their parents/predecessors would not want them to live ignorant of their power/lives, he sets off to find them. Deadset on atoning for what he believes are his mistakes.

Anything I didn't put here are way too spoilery for the EM Alliance fic I plan on writing (and I haven't mentioned the time Twins/some of the others in the alliance for the same reason)

In my stories I DO make the Emperor and Empress like straight up evil, trying to keep the EM's under their thumb, or else.

"They're very private people" and the fact that we don't really have a clear timeline of Ninjago's history... like it skips from the FSM being around to the EM Alliance. And thats all we really see, because yeaah it's not relevant but what if its because it was kept a secret what if... (Things that will be talked about more in an offical au post when... when I actually get a cohessive plot down) and Mystake even filling in some of the FSM's history and how Ninjago actually came to be... Considering no one knew of the... civilization in the sea that predated Ninjago. And the Keepers.

Anyway they are so interesting and tragic to me and *twirls hair* why can't I write this much in fics that I am currently working on I'm crying.

[whateverisbeautiful]

Now that TOWL is over, what do you say is your top five favorite moments from the show and your not favorite top five moments from the show? From the start of their relationship, people were against this coupling, and some still are what do you have to say about that? Did TOWL exceed your expectations of what the show was going to be about, and what pulled you into liking this couple? Sorry for so many questions, and I love your breakdowns. I started to reread them all from the beginning. 😍💓

Hi! Thank you! I always enjoy answering so thanks for asking these questions and for rereading the breakdowns. 😊 I wrote out what drew me to this couple here. And for the rest of the questions I wrote out my response below. ⬇️💗

#1: Did TOWL exceed my expectations of what the show was going to be about?

TOWL for sure exceeded my expectations with the love story they promised. When they announced it was going to be a love story I figured we were going to get some pretty heartfelt scenes between them. What I didn't realize is that every scene of the show was going to be rooted in Richonne's love because their love was going to be central to each aspect of the plot. That was great and refreshing to see.

I appreciate how TOWL solidified that Rick and Michonne and the family they created are the most important in the world to them. Richonne's love and relationship have long been such a powerful thing and a massive motivator for these two characters and I love that TOWL didn't hold back in depicting how vital they are to each other. The passion and love displayed in TOWL felt very true to the characters. And allowing Rick and Michonne's relationship to take centerstage gave room to really explore the character's humanity in fresh and focused ways.

#2: Thoughts on people being against this coupling?

I think one of the great things about being a Richonne fan is that we really don't have to make anything up. The content speaks for itself. So while I have my thoughts on the people who hate on this couple and who have commented negative things about them for literal years, I feel like the TWD/TOWL content always ends up affirming what we know to be true and proving all the Richonne slander false.

People who are against this pairing can comment for years that Richonne came out of nowhere but there are seasons worth of pre-canon scenes that confirm the seeds of Rick and Michonne's attraction and love were planted long ago. They can say Richonne feels forced or like fan service but Gimple has said he was seeing the potential for Richonne when he was a writer crafting Clear long before any fan had even seen Rick and Michonne together on screen.

They can try to say that Rick's relationship with so many other characters is more important but TOWL especially set the record all the way straight on the person Rick prioritizes and loves most. They can try to knock the chemistry and say they just don't see it "for some reason," meanwhile it's on record that part of why the writers kept writing so many scenes for Rick and Michonne is because of their undeniable chemistry.

And especially after TOWL, which is Andy and Danai taking their chemistry to another level for six straight episodes, still not seeing the chemistry is certainly a choice. There's a reason many viewers said they tuned in to TOWL just from seeing the chemistry between these two actors and characters. What those two have is unparalleled and magnetic.

People don't have to like Richonne. We're all entitled to our opinions. But I have yet to see any substantial critique of the pairing, as people tend to just say they don't like it or buy it but never seem to pinpoint specifically why. (Although for many (not all) but many, we know why they don't see or like it.) The negative things said about Richonne are often either purely biased opinions or easily disproved. But again, it doesn't even have to be argued because the actual media shows, and has always shown, that Richonne is a beloved fact within fiction.

With 7 seasons of Richonne content on TWD and their closing TOWL chapter being heavily focused on the love they found with each other, it's clear that everyone behind these characters understands the absolute importance and value of Richonne. All these years later and Richonne being something special and meant to be is still proven true every time.

#3: TOP 5 Least Favorite Moments In TOWL

1. Jadis & Father Gabriel Scenes (1.05)

These are the most skippable scenes in TOWL to me. And I think there were a bit too many cuts back to their scenes which weakened the episode's pacing.

2. “If We Don’t Who Will?” “No One.” (1.06)

I was really not a fan of the writing for those two lines. �� It just didn't feel like how those two characters or any people would naturally speak. The visuals were beautiful tho.

3. Museum Scene & The Bumbling Trio in General (1.05)

There were a few decent moments in the museum scene but some of it felt a bit like clunky shenanigans. I also wasn't crazy about the bumbling trio of siblings in general. TOWL had done such a good job of making even small characters feel real and lived-in but those three siblings felt more like walking plot devices.

4. Final Fight Scene Dialogue (1.06)

This is another time where I didn't like the heavy-handed dialogue. It felt like they were saying things that should have just been left on a poster, like "In a dead world love is dead" and "love doesn't die."

5. More of an alternative opinion: Okafor should have lived & took Beale's place

It was sorta hard to think of a 5th thing I disliked since I loved so much of this show. So instead I figured I'd just say a personal change I would have been interested in seeing.

I think Terry O'Quinn is a great actor but he didn't really get screentime in TOWL. And so since they didn't give him more of an opportunity to show off his chops, I would have rather seen Beale be the one who dies in the helicopter with Rick in episode one and then have Okafor be TOWL's main antagonist.

Okafor was one of the most compelling characters to be added to the franchise in years and he played off Rick so well. They were great foils to each other. I think Okafor being the one left alive would have complicated things in a really interesting way both for Rick & Michonne and the CRM. Especially if they added some more layered villainous motives to his agenda, Okafor would have made a great and perhaps even stronger series antagonist.

#4: Top 5 Favorite TOWL Moments

Now this one is tough because there are so many scenes I love. Every episode of TOWL has some Top 10 worthy moments. One day I think I just might sit down and really try and see how I'd rank my favorite TOWL moments because I still don't know just yet where I'd rank certain scenes. Which is a great problem to have since it shows TOWL really did give us an abundance of riches. But until I have time to figure it out and elaborate on my top five, one thing I always know for sure is that the masterpiece Episode 4 features my favorite Richonne content of all time. 👌🏽

Thanks again for asking these questions and for your patience with me answering @theoneswholive32! 🫶🏽 I'd love to know yours and other people's least and most favorite moments from TOWL if any want to share! 😊

[wishful-thinking64]

One Hell of an Unpopular Opinion #08

Two out of the three Hispanic characters in Hazbin Hotel are deeply rooted damaging stereotypes within Spanish & Latin American cultures and the one that isn't a blatant stereotype is misused. ___________

With Spanish Heritage Month right around the corner and being a Latina myself, I think it's more than fair for me to give my thoughts on the Latinos (in Spanish, it doesn't matter if there's only one guy in a primarily female group, you have to put Latinos) in HH. Let's start off with the least offensive out of the group, Carmilla Carmine.

We're introduced to her in Scrambled Eggs which is Episode #03 of HH. She invited each of the Overlords to a meeting to speak about how brutal this year's Extermination was and what they could do going forward. During said meeting, Velvette throws the head of a decapitated Exorcist on the table for her to try and take control of the conversation. Things before and during the song Respectless (why this song wasn't called Disrespect or Diss-respect is something I'll never understand) escalate as Velvette figures out that Carmilla is the one behind the dead Exorcist based on her body language and when she asks, "You know why this angel's headless? Do you have a disclosure?" Carmilla immediately ends the meeting thereafter, confirming her suspicions were correct. People have already criticized the mystery of the dead Exorcist being solved way too soon, though I haven't seen as many people criticize why the other Overlords didn't look or immediately question Carmilla the SECOND that Exorcist's head rolled on the table? Like, you guys know that she's Hell's top ANGELIC arms dealer, why wouldn't any of you suspect her from the start? Even if she had ended up being a red herring, I would've seen it as the Overlords using the process of elimination and common sense cause why wouldn't the ANGELIC arms dealer kill an Exorcist??? In any case, the reason behind Carmilla killing the Exorcist was to protect her daughters and thus someone we should sympathize with. Except that, we don't know anything about her daughters and we still don't know her. So why should I care? I have no attachment and therefore no proper reason to care for a character I JUST met. And don't get me started on her daughters as they're nothing more than minor plot devices who could've been replaced by Vaggie. Speaking of which...

Vaggie is based on two harmful Latina tropes and one harmful LGBTQ+ trope with these being the "Feisty" Latina, the Crazed Latina, and the Man Hating Lesbian. Whenever the "feisty" Latina is done in media, she's almost never actually feisty but rather plain bitchy. The word feisty is used because the show runners tend to want the audience to like this character as, to them, she's (somehow), "a woman who knows what she wants and how to take charge." We see this several times when Vaggie isn't interacting with Charlie though I would say the times that this backfired the most was in Episode #01 and Episode #04. Back in Episode #01 when Vaggie was working on the hotel's commercial she wants Alastor to help out with it. Mind you, she previously slandered the advertisement he had originally made for the hotel so I don't know why she wants his help with making a new one in the first place but nonetheless Alastor basically says, "Yeah. No. I'm not gonna help you cause you already know I hate modern media and you clearly didn't like what I had planned so figure it out." Now, instead of ending the conversation and leaving the man who wants no part in this alone, she holds up the camera that she has in her hands and not only films him but actively mocks him too. This isn't a "bold move" like I've seen people claim it to be, it was simply moronic since she already knew he was an Overlord that's killed and fought people over MINOR INCONVENIENCES. After this the two strike a deal which is another plain stupid move on Vaggie's part as that's only going to come back and bite her in the ass later on in the series. Meanwhile, in Episode #04, she told Husk to go after Angel Dust even though... A.) Going after the residents isn't in his job description. B.) If ANYONE is going after the residents it should probably be THE MANAGER since it's their job to make sure that everything between the staff AND customers is good. C.) She KNOWS that Husk has been sexually and physically harassed by Angel in the past as not only has she SEEN it but she's TOLD Angel to stop harassing the staff. I guess the safety of your co-workers doesn't matter though if Charlie's sad. D.) Lastly, I swear that there was a rule that was established early on about NOT FORCING RESIDENTS TO STAY AT THE HOTEL. Like, am I tripping or did the series retcon that super fast??? Anyway, the point is that the series has Vaggie acting like a snide bitch when she's interacting with anyone other than Charlie. This "feisty" Latina stereotype goes hand in hand with the crazed Latina. The crazed Latina trope is when a Latina will throw hands for the dumbest of reasons or for little to no reason at all. It makes it seem that Latina's are overly aggressive which is how the series portrays Vaggie. She's always seen wielding an angelic spear 24/7 knowing that she can kill any resident or staff member who steps out of line with her, constantly seen threatening to hurt others with it. Out of the two racial stereotypes this one has been called out the most as it's paired with the man hating Lesbian trope because every time Vaggie's threatened to kill someone with said angelic spear, it has ALWAYS been a MALE character. Okay, now it's time to end this off by addressing the elephant in the room that is Valentino.

Oh, God. Where do I start with this failure of a character? I suppose, I'll start with the Casanova aka the Enticing Latin Lover archetype. This involves a strong suave man who's tall, dark (or I guess light purple in Val's case), and handsome (I wouldn't call him that but that's how he's portrayed in the series) as well as being full of ulterior motives! He's the sultry hypersexual Hispanic seducer that everybody can't seem to get enough of. I wouldn't have nearly as much of an issue with this as he's the Overlord of Lust but with how the stans either absolve him of or make LIGHT of his crimes solely because they think how he looks, sounds, and acts is hot (brother eugh), with the show runners encouraging stuff like that on social media (yes, I'm referring to when people were comparing Val's personality to Karen Smith from Mean Girls with Viv agreeing with it cause he's so dumb), his sole purpose is being a plot device for Angel Dust and being fetish fuel. Which really bothers me considering that a good chunk of Hazbin Hotel stans are LITERAL CHILDREN! Continuing on, we have ill tempered and idiotic Machismo/Macho Man. The show can't seem to make up its mind whether or not they want us to take Valentino seriously or not. I get what they're trying to do by making Val intimidating and cunning at one point and a "charming" himbo the next but it's done in such a jarring way that could've been easily fixed had they shown him being more creepy towards lower class demons and Sinners but have him be "charming" towards Overlords and other members of Hell's high society. Like in the show, he's openly verbally violent towards Angel Dust while Charlie is in his presence (I also hate the fact that show Charlie didn't actually do anything when she noticed that Val had hit Angel cause pilot Charlie would've thrown hands regardless of what Angel told her) and doesn't give a flying fuck when she's turning into her demon form RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM! Then there's the fact that the Hellaverse doesn't take violence seriously until it HAS to and then these moments can come across as unintentionally comedic. Case and point, when I initially saw Valentino backhand Angel Dust in Episode #04, I AUDIBLY LAUGHED. That shit SHOULD NOT have been nearly as funny as it was! It was meant to be a serious moment where the show segues into how Angel is abused at his job but there I was laughing my ass off in my room for a solid thirty seconds before I was able to regain my composure. Next up is point three about the Cholo or gangster archetype in which a Latino will wear stylish street wear clothes (similar to the outfit Val wears in Episode #04) and commit violent crimes. My previous points indirectly had me go into depth about the violent crimes part so let's move onto point four which is Val being a drug addict and drug maker. Latin characters (specifically men) have been depicted as drug dealers and druggies since AT LEAST the 1970s (it only makes it worse that Valentino supposedly died in this time period.) It's been heavily implied that the smoke from his cigarettes acts as an aphrodisiac which is why he blows it in other peoples faces so much. We see him smoking cigarettes (which contain so much God damn chemicals in them but especially nicotine) throughout the show like its nothing meaning he's gotta have a high nicotine intake (logically, he would've gotten lung cancer by now.) The last racial stereotype that they gave him is the raging alcoholic and I know that anyone can become a raging alcoholic however alcoholism is actually a very common problem among Latinos as more than 33% of them suffer from issues related to an alcohol dependency. It's an ongoing problem that many Hispanics face and seeing how Val is already shown to be a violent individual WITHOUT alcohol in his system, that's only going to make him worse and we saw that in Episode #02 when Val got more irritable and threw his drink in Vox's direction upon knowing Angel Dust was staying at the HH.

___________ People of the jury, I rest my case and I hope you all liked reading my thoughts and I'll see you later!

[epickiya722]

6,7,9,10 for the choose violence ask for both MHA and JJK

6. Which ship fans are the most annoying?

For both fandoms, I can find anyone annoying no matter specifically what they ship. Now, if I had to be specific, it has to be people who hate on a ship who are clearly just homophobic.

I recently had been called an "imbecile" by someone over an innocent ItaFushi post and found out they found the ship "diabolical".

Twice, one for each fandom, I made a post about F/F ships and someone had to bring up a M/F ship. Honey, please, I don't care. BEGONE, HEATHEN!

But again, no matter what they ship, if they annoy me, they annoy me.

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

Okay, for MHA, I don't actually hate Hawks. I'm more so indifferent with him even when he did appear. However, sometimes in fandom, I find his presence annoying. Especially, whenever Miruko is involved. I was recently salty for a week because for the Miruko tags, it his face there and the artwork centered around him.

Like, no, last time I checked Miruko was a bunny woman. Not a blond bird man whose jacket I have a disdain for.

I even once wrote a fic out of spite because someone said something about Miruko and hyped up Hawks and I'm like "She didn't do anything to warrant this slander but alright". Ever since then, Hawks would sometimes be the butt monkey in my fics. I actually was thinking about doing a sequel to that fic, too.

For JJK, it only recently became Yuta. Now, unlike Hawks, I don't actually not feel anything towards Yuta. I do like him.

However, I have a deep seething hatred for those who constantly bash Yuji to hype him up. Yuta is cool, but he is not that fucking cool to bash Yuji. Come on now. I hate it whenever I go on a post anywhere and someone will talk about Yuji's accomplishments or just only mention Yuji and some assholes will be like "well, Yuta this" and "Yuta that". Yuta is rocking the teenage boy version of Yuji's mom's haircut, so stop.

9. Worst part of canon?

Okay, did Miruko have to lose 3 of her limbs? Her arm? I was fine with that. A leg, I was actually confused for a while as to how she even lost it until I went back and saw what happened but I don't think she should have completely cut it off. 😭 Her other arm? Okay... her and Edgeshot are definitely the Heroes who lost the most in the final war. Mind you, Miruko's Quirk has her use her limbs. I'm glad she got her a little bazooka in the end, but she low-key sacrificed a lot more than other Heroes.

I actually wrote a fic addressing that because I'm salty about it. It was my recent Miruko-centric fic.

Okay, for JJK... do I have anything? Nothing really actually aggravated me... okay, I think Choso shouldn't have died. Or Yuki. I think about them and start punching the air.

10. Worst part of fanon?

Where to begin here? I feel like there are so many things.

For JJK, I low-key have a disdain for the first person who misinterpreted Gojo would be a fucking playboy. Like, no he wouldn't be in a committed relationship because he can't be loyal because "he's a man, he has needs" or whatever bullshit reason. It's because he's a jujutsu sorcerer! And one of the busiest ones in top of that! Hell, we just found out what his schedule looks like, he wouldn't have time to commit!

There's also how dumb some people tend to make Yuji. Like... he's dumb, he even admits it but I think it's just more so that he's not motivated to learn certain things and he just thinks he is. He's smarter than what he (and the fandom) gives him credit for.

And some of the memes? Don't find funny at all. I actually got tired of the "Nah, I'd win" memes I kept seeing. And how Yuta would make fun of someone for having "No bitches". That's stupid, I hate it.

For MHA, again some memes I just don't find funny. Recently any meme I see about "Midoriya being a fast food worker", who makes them instantly has me wishing they step on a Lego. And just saying, fast food workers have probably done more for anybody than certain people. Or that "Katsuki stole Ochako" from him is definitely a case of "those are OCs with the same name" because we know damn well canon Katsuki ain't touching Ochako like that with even a ten foot long pole and vice versa on her end.

Playboy Katsuki? Yeah, not really my favorite portrayal of him in fiction like that. I can see him being very popular and having a lot of girl fans because that's canon, it makes sense. But hooking up with a lot of people? And using it as some "escape" or whatever? Yeah... eh...

Also, sometimes I feel like folks want to use that "Black Best Friend" trope on Miruko whenever it comes to Hawks and DabiHawks. Like, she got to be his hype man or something. The idea doesn't appeal to me really.

Choose Violence Ask Game

[genshinconfessions]

Honest to god, the more I see people behaving like actual monsters or children throwing a temper tantrum over characters not having skin as black as the abyss the more I flat out just do not have the capacity to care. I get it sucks that the characters aren't being diverse enough, I get it, but throwing death threats, slurs and god knows what else at the devs while behaving like spoiled rotten brats just makes me not care to any degree. If people can't behave like ACTUAL ADULTS and genuinely have polite points to say other than "Time to attack the devs again/slander the VAs or whoever for agreeing to go with this" whenever a character isn't dark skinned, they have no one to blame but themselves if the devs elect to not listen to what basically amounts to spoiled two year olds not getting what they want. I genuinely feel bad for people who want more diversity but are less hateful and end up being lumped in with the assholes who think threatening the devs lives is a okay, and I also feel bad for anyone genuinely excited about the Natlan characters getting absolutely harassed and ripped to shreds for not "thinking they're ugly for not being dark enough". I feel like if the fan base were ALOT LESS VITRIOLIC about the issue of diversity the devs would likely listen more. But as it stands now I can't wait for the harassing and death threats being thrown around to die down again so I can actually browse genshin twit and tumblr again in peace without having to worry about running into anyone being genuine human trash towards the devs over the color of fucking pixels. I've got enough stressing me out like grieving the loss of a parent, I don't need people being assholes to add to it and it sickens me that they don't see anything wrong with how they're acting. I'm just. I'm tired and wish people could be less like bullies or arseholes for once over a silly little gacha game they claim to love yet act like this. Sorry for this being a long confession, I just needed to get this off my chest cause it's been bugging me and stressing me out so much since the Natlan teaser got released whenever I've gone to look at Genshin stuff practically everywhere lately.....

i'm very sorry for your loss :( and if it will help you feel less alone, i generally agree with your sentiments.

for me, i am a pretty staunch hoyo defender (evident in previous posts when we used to comment on asks more frequently), but i must admit, i was slightly disappointed in the natlan characters since i believed the fan edits with darker skin did look better, and i wished hoyo would have listened to the intl fandom regarding south american/african/indigenous poc things.

that said, it's never okay to send death threats to anyone for any reason. i'm sure the devs are a lot less willing to make changes if all they're getting is death threats and, like you said, vitriolic hate. constructive criticism helps ppl realize where they're wrong and how to fix it; unconstructive criticism is generally useless and tends to be ignored.

the societal issue of colorism runs very, very deep, both in asia and generally around the world. it's not something that hoyo can fix singlehandedly by changing some characters. granted, i'm sure it would set a very good example for future game devs, and it would be really great if they did listen to intl feedback! but if they choose not to, that's not smth we can change their minds about.

side note, regarding a lot of the 'natlan is colonized' comments, we don't know the story yet. it's possible that hoyo will address it as social commentary, or it might be something totally different. leaks and the search for instant gratification have really made it difficult for people to enjoy a drawn-out storyline, and that's really sad.

we've said this a lot on this page but i'll say it again: why spend so much energy hating fictional media? if it no longer brings you joy for whatever reason (i.e. you dislike the natlan characters), stop playing. if the fandom is the main source of negativity, stop engaging with the fandom, block users and tags, curate your own experience. if you claim to hate everything about it but continue to engage with it, that's quite hypocritical and unconvincing.

in any case, if you like the game well enough to keep playing, keep playing. you don't need to justify your reasoning to anyone, and you definitely don't need to fall into a trap of radicalized (and dare i say often performative) social justice.

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Controversial Character Tournament Round 2: Heather from Total Drama vs Dirk Strider from Homestuck

(remember that these characters are fictional and your fellow tumblr users are real. i will block you if you harass others in the notes, please consider sending your unhinged harassment to my inbox instead)

Propaganda under the cut, may contain spoilers:

Heather:

HATE: - "she's kind of evil, she only uses people for ulterior motives. she never regrets her actions. like she literally only does it for fun. she's racist, misogynistic, homophobic and xenophobic. also, she has very weak and episodic character growth, which just ruins the character entirely considering that it's a linear story"

Dirk Strider:

LOVE: -"everyone hates this asshole mans emotionally abused his boyfriend even after breaking up, kills himself because things didn't go his way, beheaded himself so said boyfriend would kiss him, became an anime supervillain because ???? anyway I love him" - "man who is responsible for like every bad thing in the comic. but also he's sixteen and didnt mean it. and it wasnt even his fault. but he blames himself. everyone loves blaming him and calling him abusive. i must stress that he is sixteen and socially isolated. he straight up isnt responsible. hes done many things wrong. but literally not the things people blame him for." - "there aren’t words to describe how fucked up this dude is" - "i know the controversial character people normally think of from homestuck is vriska but i've seen a lot of people slandering dirk over the years. he does just want to help his friends. all of the alpha kids are dysfunctional as fuck but i feel like dirk tends to get the most slander of the four of them, which isn't deserved. not to mention what they did to my boy in the epilogues they just deleted his character arc. people are all "oh he's the cool badass" or "oh he's evil and unfeeling" he is sixteen years old. and he likes horses and anime. also a slight side note but he's the one who tends to get sexualized the most which is bad. but that also tends to be controversial in this fandom so i think that should net him extra points." - "half the fandom wants him dead; half love him. he can't make up his mind about himself. any time i reread i go through a period of wanting to beat him with a rock before i warm up to him again. also vriska was already submitted so many times so he's like the next best" HATE: - "Listen I've fluctuated between both love and hate but either time I felt such strong feelings about it"

[katyspersonal]

Oh boy, more asks..

These are some... strong words, but you are not exactly wrong about it! It is hard to grapple with. Where exactly "We should respect many things being open to interpretation in Elden Ring" stops and "You people did not play the same game tho" starts? You are not wrong about it at least being 'boring'. What use would be the story through this reading? Obviously, the tragedy of cycle of revenge and becoming the very thing you promised to destroy is a story with more importance and depth than..... than..... uuuuugghHHHH

.....ok sorry I might have overreacted. BUT, I have my limits. What if I told you that trying to uplift the weight of the genocide by either dehumanising the species or finding an 'unavoidable reason' to do it is extremely poor taste. What then.

I suppose that a deeper reasoning here is how normal it became to see fandomry as moral act. The girls go into new interests and see stuff like 'war criminal', 'murderer', 'sex offender', 'committed/complicit in a genocide', 'abuser', 'fascist' etc etc as an obligation to hate the character! From which follows both desperately trying to prove that something is inherently wrong with fans of this character AND feeling in danger if THEY like this character! So what follows? Right, character should be "protected" from "slander"! A kind of behavior that does NOT belong in Fromsoft fandoms, but literally every other fandom IS like this so I am not surprised if people carry this disease here from their previous interests! I can't even judge it because in many cases people did have a reason to be worried about harassment because fandom inquisition would treat their morally grey or black fictional favs as testimony of their beliefs!

Again, maybe I am reading too deep into it? I am just really old, therefore I saw the fandoms as we know them these day at their birth. How that behaviour happened and how it developed. Yes, personal preferences and simply not wishing your fav to be hated are big factors when such things happen!

But I think we NEED to try and think what the writer tried to tell us! What IS the purpose of telling the story where the survivor of something unspeakable returns a long time later to wage a "war with no grace or honor" that gets countless innocent people killed? Would Miyazaki write a story that excuses fascism and genocide?

Nonetheless, so many people just not really think through this lense: why would author write this? A genius writer with multiple masterpieces under his belt before Elden Ring, consistently criticising all the ways society and humanity can go corrupted or monstrous? Would he focus on how wrong the Crusade was just to make Marika and Messmer good guys here, or focus on how cruelly Marika treated the last Fire Giant, after a war with 'Fire of Ruin that could burn the Erdtree' for you all to say she had good intentions in it? 'Death of the author' should have always stayed just a narrative method, as opposed to fandoms deciding to miss the point for the whole past decade!

...And the most frustrating part is that they'll treat those who simply demand more lore accurate reading of the story and characters, without even any moral weight to it, as "omnipresent problem", when going anywhere near Youtube, Reddit and Twitter attempting to avoid Marika defence is like that scene from animated Snowwhite and Seven Dwarves where heroine ran through the dark woods and something horrid would show up no matter where she pokes her nose!

But, look, anon, you are doing That Thing. You are upset at the way some DLC reveals had changed the things in the fandom, when it is not the fault of the DLC. Even before SOTE, there was the whole infight about 'wow Marika is like Gwyn but somehow more evil' vs 'she is just a puppet of Greater Will that wants to rebel'. Such complex characters just tend to attract falling into one extreme or another! One side, likewise, was saying that she was unfairly vilified even when criticism was valid, another was snapping at them saying they woobified her-

Again: just because we as a fandom are not ready for the concept of 'tragic backstory makes a character more realistic than someone bad just because they're bad' does not mean that writers should not make stories like this! I know I am one hell of a misanthrope that can't care less about the "community", but I think somewhere deep down, even I believe we could be better and help each other to improve! People who decided that character is just bad without sympathetic traits and will side-eye anyone who says otherwise are a HUUUUUGE pain, but so can be people who take any criticism as a personal attack!

_________________________

(The post in question: ( x ))

Eh, I am glad that you liked my analysis, anon; It is strangely a second instance ever since SOTE came out where I get anon approvals over "actually analysing lore for what it is instead of using popular headcanon or theory" (first was about Nanaya)! I do not check fandom beyond what ends up on my feed, just never had that habit, but are things actually this drastic?

Regarding your confusion, I think it became widespread because a very popular artist started to draw/write a lot of this fanon? Personally, I absolutely dread when it happens in the fandoms; when it is not a singular popular person on Twitter OR Youtube, it is a group of "cool kids" on some community Discord or whatever, but the resulting hegemony of the same takes/designs/ships/preferences/etc is always there! Don't get me wrong, I am a boring unimaginative autist whose only talent is over-analysing a videogame, HOWEVER. In the places where canon goes vague and one should apply their own creativity, I'd rather see variety of interpretations! Not something that can be helped: most fans, especially the new ones, will adopt popular takes without scrutiny in order to socialise faster and be noticed. It is a self-feeding cycle that you can only escape when you block out all fandom influence and try to look by yourself!

And, well, I guess this is what I do? I try to make sure I don't have any biases besides 'what makes more sense', 'what works better', 'what has more evidence' and 'what author most likely implied'! I guess this is how I ended with "acknowledging the actual relationship" as you've put it! 'Knowing' is a very loud word for Fromsoft lore, yet these games give you limited amount of ingredients and despite there not being a recipe, you would still not try to cook a cake seeing ingredients clearly meant for a soup! Or is it for salad? Or lasagna...? Well, it is not for something sweet, right?

[indieyuugure]

Hi! Let me start off by saying that I absolutely adore your ROTP series. This is also one of the very few Rottmnt/2012 crossovers in existance that does justice to both verses and doesn't put a biases on any. I love this comic.

Now that aside, I need to get something off my chest. I wouldn't have gone on Anon but experience has taught me that opposing opinions will make the followers of a blog insult and harass you so I tend to err on the side of caution. You see, I Love Love Love TMNT. And I love 2012 series, it's something I relate to so much and grew up with. It's my most favorite version of TMNT.

But the thing is, ever since the Rise movie got released, I've been seeing nothing but slander against the 2012 series and it breaks my heart every time I come across it. It has escalated to an unfair point that I've seen even 2012 fans who love it just as much begin hating aspects of it. I mean, don't get me wrong, it does have its flaws but it's unfair how highlighted those select few flaws are to the point of extremely biased comparisons and blame games and general 2012 slander which half the time doesn't even comply with canon. Moreover, literally every TMNT has its flaws just the same.

And recently, I've been seeing an increase in posts on your blog that have 2012 slander undercurrents or simply blatant frustrations with it. I love the comic but keep seeing this hatred still is just... it hurts ya know. Like really actually hurts.

So if possible, can you plz tag such posts with something I can filter out? (And let us know what that tag will be?) You don't have to but I really really love your art and comics, it's just the 2012 slander again that hurts me and I don't want to see it anymore. I've been seeing it everywhere.

Again, plz don't take this the wrong way, it's just something that's been hurting me and I had to get it off my chest. And find a solution to it that doesn't involve blocking or unfollowing because I genuinely do love this fancomic

Thank you for your feedback!!💕 (seriously feedback is extremely appreciated to me!)

I sorry my posts came off as 2012 slander, I really never meant it like that. I will admit I do critique media pretty aggressively, but I never mean it in a hateful way. TMNT 2012 is one of my absolute favorite shows and I love everything about! It’s the weird quirky stuff about it that while yes, I will criticize, I still love. It wouldn’t be the same without it. Just like the weather, I will complain about it, but I don’t want it to actually change.

I will try to be more conscious of how my posts are perceived, I really never wanted there to be a bias on my blog. I love all of TMNT for all it presents, and I don’t want to ever be slanderous!

Thank you again for your kind nudge! I’m very thankful to have people like you who’ll tell me if I’m making a mistake! I truly do love TMNT 2012. I can’t fix what I’ve said, but now that I know, I can be sure to be more careful to not sound biased going forward.

Again, I’m very sorry it came off that way, I didn’t mean to be so harsh. I never want to harm a series’s reputation, especially one that I love so much!

You are truly appreciated!💕

I know this won’t fix the things I’ve said, but I’ll say 3 of my top favorite things about 2012:

I love the way they depicted characters! They do an amazing job using indirect characterization that makes the characters feel so real. The characters don’t have to tell you things about themselves, you learn about them from the way the interact with each other, the way they solve problems, the things they like and dislike, and even what they’re doing in the background! It really feels like you’re there getting to know these fun people and go on adventures with them! Truly amazing!

I love the way the turtles look! Seriously I think they look so cool, and at the same time cute. They’re visual designs inspired me so much in my art and I will watch hours on end of them because they’re just so freaking cool!

I love the way their stories are told! The episodes are so well paced that it never feels boring to watch an episode! Believe it or not, I have never once wondered how many minutes are left on an episode. It’s so good at sucking you in and addicting you, that while I was watching it for the first time, I was straight up binging it and would be forced to put it down by my parents. Several times I would stop to eat something and have that weird “wait, who am I? What is my life?” Thing you get from a really good story. The stories and arc pacing are so good that Indie TMNT, my original series is using massive inspiration from 2012.

Once again, I am truly sorry for coming off as slanderous. Thank you for being so brave and telling me what many people were probably thinking. I want to do better. Thank you! :]

[radiostaticsmile]

Do any other fictionfolk have an experience where fandom interpretation of you used to be pretty accurate and you maybe liked seeing fan works but then and extremely popular fanfic changed everyones perception of you and now everyone writes you based on that rather than interpreting canon and now is far less accurate?

Especially in a painful or insulting way. I know a lot of fictionfolk avoid fandom anyways so I dont know how common this is.

but I used to love portrayals of myself and would see write ups on the character I am (dont want to say my name so i dont wind up in fandom tags) that felt like they somehow broke into my head and KNEW me. A lot of it could be painful but it was painful because its true. They understood i was cruel but based it on a moral code or reacted out of fear and paranoia while trying to look in control, at least some people did anyways. Now the only portrayal of me tends to involve not passionate hate for feeling like i was wronged towards the person i love which came up before and i was actually okay with, or pretending to feel nothing to hide the fact that I do care, or even silly not caring about him really which was wrong but fine. Now its all. I actively have Distain for him, but not even in an avoiding him way but actively using him and abusing this person on purpose for fun, having no love for him at all, delighting in making him suffer and not even out of feeling he is a bad person and earned it but just out of wanting to fuck with him because he can. And its.... just so opposite from who i am but close enough to what happened superficially (bc i did hurt this person in my canon) that its not even wrong number its actively painful and feels like. Honestly slandering me and now even I have to avoid nearly all content on this ship which is THE ship that matters to me (extremly important relationship. My partners who are the other character in this had to avoid it sometimes anyways since the accurate portrayal of the pain i caused still hurt but i tended to be okay with it or like it bc i tended to think abiut how despite this wr worked it out).

It doesnt have to be like that but im just having the experience of being wildly misunderstood when I didnt used to be and im wondering if others relate

[horizon-verizon]

Why are some people just so unwilling to admit that hotd's writing is BAD. Why do they jump through hoops trying to explain and "analyze" anything the writers make the characters do when at this point it should be impossible to ignore that the writers make the characters so whatever the hell they feel like? It's honestly frustrating because there are some people out there with some genuinely good analysis skills and knowledge about the patriarchy and "time period" but when they refuse to acknowledge bad writing at this level you see how hard they work to strrrrreeeettttch. Which would be one thing but they also tend to insist that they're more enlightened than the people pointing out the issues

I think it's bc people, generally, are not familiar, willing to become so, or deeply in tune with misogyny as it happens when it comes to framing an argument that eventually leads to a sexist or slanderous effect. The most recent example is Daemon (I am not saying we're being sexist against Daemon!) at Harrenhal with Alys. Because a lot of people hate Daemon and attribute lots of their biases against Targaryens more against him than Aemond or Aegon AND how they generalize medieval men into the same degree and persona of "sexist medieval man", they aren't very willing to think about how disengenuously Daemon AND Alys might be written. And they think that bc they understand misogyny as well as Daemon's simpleness of being a sexist, they think the writers' direction of him realizing he really isn't the shit is "complex". A modern regression of a sentimental Victorian play posing as a "deep" drama series. It may even manifest as them feeling that bc people think Daemon is less "evil" than they want to believe him to be, less intrinsically bad for Rhaenyra (themselves bc a lot self insert) both personally and politically, that the show is "making it obvious" that he is evil just for them and for the good of the "toxic ship loving" masses. And bc it is very true that some people will misapply discrimination where there is none and it's just criticism of a person with a marginalized identity (Hyuna of KPop and some people claiming it's sexist to hate her they way a lot of the world does right now), so people become even more defensive of keeping what they immediately perceived as simple misogyny finally getting its ass kicked.

Second, bc they underestimate Daenerys and magic (thus not know the diff b/t greenseeing, warging, Valyrian dragon bonds and blood magic, etc. or at least acknowledge they don't know shit) bc near-magicless Game of Thrones lulled them into an ignorant state where it's a lot easier to chalk up to the smoky, borderless force that is "magic". Daemon is dreaming? Alys is doing magic, she's a greenseer...meanwhile, they can't define or explain the limits and abilities of an actual greenseer when asked. And the lazy habit of attributing everything not properly explained or really explored in the show also goes for Helaena and her non-"dragon dreams". You don't know? Which itself comes from people used to coming up with unsubstantiated headcanons and theories to explain the plotholes the writers leave so they can excuse themselves continuing to enjoy the current show.

Third, they overestimate how GRRM creates and sets up that mystery vs this mystery. There are mysteries that are unlikely to ever be "solved", like what exactly is going on in the 4th continent--Ulthos-- of the world and knowledge of all the living creatures of Sothoryos. And then there are mysteries like the wyverns vs dragons and the blood magic of Valyrians that were made that will eventually be revealed bc it will give us specific clues as to explain how Dany is bonded w/her dragons. And people tend to lazily attribute any mystery like these as unworthy of speculation (thus they never find out any possible connections and weight them against each other for likelihood of truth); and all mysteries feel like they are the exact same kind.

Fourth, they are feening for a live representation--any live thing--for any ASoIaF story. So they underestimate the story GRRM is telling about the Dance and hot it relates to Daenerys like all the F&B stories inevitably do.

Fifth, there are "enough" genuinely well written scenes that "makes up" or misleads them into not really thinking about the implications.

Sixth, I think that people like the whole Gothic romance thing show!Rhaenyra and Daemon seem to be on...but the book likely wasn't like that, least not after they married. And they can't conceptualize that with all the incest and Daemon being so willing to have a moral value system that rests entirely on his family's existence and legacy and Rhaenyra being very proud of her standing, so they want to stick to the seemingly counter-Gothic writing. It's more digestable, people don't like gothic/gothic-inspired stories, therefore it's more "believable" that way.

Seventh, as this TikToker states, HotD loves to create character from parallel that is actually replicas rather than character from personal action. The constant contrasting and making characters when (most) of them [Helaena-Rhaena; Aegon-Jace; Rhaenyra-Alicent, but specifically that part of epi 5 where they faced men around them shutting them down] don't make sense as parallels-actually-replicas and already had foils set up in F&B. foils are different from what these writers are doing. These writers are making it such that, for example, Daemon is a negative presence in the Riverlands as well as incompetent; Aemond is also a second son and will seemingly do anything to get it, so that must mean that Daemon must have lingering feelings about the same and has the same desires....No, Daemon raised at least 2 armies for people when he didn't have to or when he easily could have used them himself and he mustered many Riverland houses without any real incidents--only the Tullys and Brackens were issues and they were taken care of. Aemond? He is the one who caused--and DIRECTLY!--many noble and peasant families' deaths when he chose to fire on them all after losing KL in Daemon's trick. Rhaena may have been something like the "odd one out" for not having a dragon, but she was hardly as on the fringes of her own family as show!Helaena was and likely kinda was in the orig story. She was actually very much an "It" girl and inherited her confidence from both Daemon and Rhaenyra, but used it in a different way from Baela. Specifically in a way that is perceived as inaccessible to men. Baela was fiery and a bit tempermental (so was Rhaena but she "reigned it in" better), down to fight, able to climb walls, not afraid of dragonfight, which are all attributed more to masculinity under a Western/Westerosi gender paradigm. Whereas Rhaena's schmoozing with lords and ladies while looking cute, Rhaenys the Conqueror-style, is seen as more "feminine" and undesirable, yet it can't be understated how her doing all this enabled her to keep important connections in the Vale and utilize Arryn/Corbray support for her brother later on so her and her family could continue to have some sort of backup against the rising Peakes. So either people never realized this, OR they saw this and resented how this brought more power in such a "unmasculine" way, a way men are not expected or cannot access or use for themselves, that they pretend/convince themselves it's not important. Which helps them to convince others totally ignorant has no value, and the writers, I fell, do not understand Rhaena's purpose at the Vale OR they have no plans to show how she and Baela work towards their family's survival and freedom away from the Hightowers 2.0. Meanwhile, book!Helaena is essentially a breeding machine for her side of the family who kills herself from her kid getting killed and being forced to essentially participate in destroying her own tiny nucleus of a family.

That bring me to the eighth thing. The bk!greens are pretty simple in terms of characterization. Now, I actually love what they did with Aegon for the most part. Have some gripes with Aemond's and many with Helaena and esp with Alicent and love Otto's. But because people have this idea of parallels the same way they thought of constant subverting in GoT, some believe that bc the greens have had rounder characters, the blacks must also...as if it were automatic without them actually thinking of how the show has actually shown that.

Ninth, people are very used to stories that do a lot of telling and not enough of showing, and underestimate how important and different that looks in high fantasy adult fiction vs virtually everything else.

Tenth, people love a female protagonist who is very simply bad vs good imbued with liberal anti-violent-no-matter-what sentiment (that was meant to protect the 1%ers interests), like Rhaenys-Hilary-Clinton, and they don't link anti-militance to privilege specifically in a modern, neoliberal capitalist world. Instead misapplying such a thing to feudal women. Even as they also like to say that Alicent and Rhaenys are like "ordinary" medieval noble women in terms of their internalized misogyny...which doesn't match their definition of "wise" and is both contradictory & reductive bc:

real medieval noblewomen frequently waged/plotted/initiated war and when they did peace calls it was either bc they didn't think they'd win/get out with the right sort of lives intact OR bc they were, they just aren't very much featured as fighters or political strategizers themselves unless it's in the name of a son, husband, etc., and then this works to make people ignore that these women directly participate at all----so Rhaenys and Alicent can't be nonnegotiably wary of violence while also being a "typical" medieval noblewoman

Alicent & Rhaenys frequently show how much they really care about smallfolk/vulnerable people like women, or keep them in their thoughts when they talk about "peace"....it's all ideological, not substantial, but it's played-framed as if they are being for real; the same tool of leveraging stability of male dominance that Gyldayn uses against BOTH Alicent and Rhaenyra, the show Alicent and Rhaenys but Rhaenys esp, uses against Rhaenyra as to why she should rule or have support while trying for her claim, and it's really just so false!

It's so weird, bc they say the nobles this, this, and that shouldn't be killing each other and in lieu the helpless smallfolk, but they refuse to recognize how both women still rely on violence against those ranked below them for their own ends, whether psychological or physical. And it really comes down to who is licensed to dole out and use violence and when and against who, which always turns out to be the nonconforming "instigator" of this particular ASoIaF story, Rhaenyra. And that esp comes from this bias against Targs and the belief that they somehow bring out the worst in nobles, when its actually that nobles fight for land, power, survival all the time and have since before the Targs. And there is this strange moral-victim heroine complex that people want to see in their female protagonist and mistake in as a meet replacement and worthy copy of Daenerys, the childbride/exiled princess turned self-made Queen and protector of the masses.

As for why they "insist that they're more enlightened than the people pointing out the issues", the first reason I pointed out.

[apatchworkstar]

Hi! >:- 3c surprised to see me here? Cause I'm a bit, to be making this. So! Context is I made a Muu playlist and I wanted to make a post about why I ordered it the way I did. Not to mention why I chose the songs I did.

So, as they say, from the top~

Selfish Princess - Fujiwo

I feel like anyone who knows of Muu and has listened to this song may be able to guess why it's here. But for anyone who hasn't...

I feel like this captures her dichotomy of how she wants to be catered to very well.

Wanna eat that sweet sweet chocolate, wanna drink that hot hot latte, wanna eat that soft soft bread. Wanna eat that sticky cheese, wanna sleep in that fluffy fluffy bed; dozy, dozy have a good night zzz / Wanna eat that bitter bitter liver, wanna drink that red red soup, wanna eat that soft soft flesh.

This song also showcases how lazy she can be when it comes to things she's asked to do. In conjunction with how she expects people to work around her, instead of the other way round.

One, two, three- start dancing to the beat with my mysterious steps / Murmuring, rolling, lazy lazy meow meow; don't wanna do anything! / Three, two, one- the fragrant that makes my heart beat wildly

It also highlights a aspect of hers that can get overlooked. That being that she tends to like people who aren't just seeming to suck up to her.

Guillotine, gunshot, burning or seppuku, any option you'd like. No one can beat me; oh how boring. / Sweet sweet is not enough, show me more of that twisted face. Lalala lalala lalala, see- it's not enough

You may ask "then why would she bully those who aren't giving into her whims?" and that's a fair question! Muu does like to be indulged, after all. She's just also someone who doesn't appreciate people feeding off her without any sort of recompense. This is shown in how she refers to Mikoto in the wireless headphones.

Mikoto-kun, he's a bit of a poser

Overall, it's a good starting song as it shows Muu at a baseline.

I'm waiting for someone to love this selfish me. My pillow is wet with tears at the lonely nights. I watch every second passing by-

but I'm... right?

Selfish, lalala~ Don't be afraid everyone. Please give, give me! Keep giving me everything. Everything can be forgiven because I'm the cutest.

Hello Dystopia - MafuMafu

Ah, Hello Dystopia, my beloved~ Also a very easy pick for Muu, given her role in her school's dynamic.

Now, exit, exit; disappear, if you'd please! / The influence of a desperate god, the screws in my head turn anti-clockwise. It's too late to let us down, isn't it? Don't you beg for your life- let's fall together to the depths of hell. / Here, there's only idiots crawling out of the woodwork who want to play. Let's go in order, starting with whose hands are free- raise them to the gallows

As we all know, Muu has a habit of acting against anyone who she thinks dislikes her/ has ulterior motives-

Rehabilitation, reincarnation, my specialty. A refuge for failures to gather in 140 characters / It's the cruel sin of tearing down a tower of building blocks. All right, we're saving the world; excellent, chanting in unison, almost logged out of life

-We also know that, in some sense, this is meant to be a kindness, as she refers to these actions as "gentle stings".

Let's chant babbled nonsense. Let's grant wishes, no matter what they may be. Good children surely get prizes for perfect attendance; a show made of the dismantlement of the slandered / This is fake news, see. Keep out; die a dog's death. Mostly sources from ambiguous tip offs

It also touches upon some implications about Muu. Namely, that she has a distorted sense of showing and receiving "love"

A utopia where love is uncertain; there's no way of knowing if any of it's true or not anyways. A utopia where love is uncertain. Hysteria where this is certain

And that she tends to view things like love and hate in a transactional nature.

Here's the question, question- what was brought into being after we hurt each other? Excellent answer; dystopia / A shooting gallery for shotguns; thank you, Merry Bad End / Ignorant irony, though there's no conflict. Like it's a piece of cake, throw an entire life into disorder

Furthermore, this song placed here means it can also be read as her initial relationship with Rei

Love me; for my ambiguous self, become mine. Give me validation, hereditary idiot. Have you written the fiction between you and me? The present state of wild delusions and exaggerations, a collar at hand

"hey"

Useless Angel - Nanawo Akari

Now we get to Useless Angel! Something that definitely highlights Muu's more lazy side

It's not that I won't do it, I just can't! / Aah, lately the word on the street is that there's a no-good angel who makes up for her uselessness with angelic power... Well, that's the plan! / I wanna get a good score on my upcoming test, but my brain can't keep up and my thoughts are clattering around. It's Saturday, and I wanna get up early but I can't stop playing online games in the middle of the night / Just lemme say there's nothing I can do about it! Even though I stuck my halo in my mouth / "But can you really fly if you work hard?" I'm making a face that looks like that

But it also shows more of her earnest desire for affection, and the lengths she's willing to go to receive it,

I want to convey to you more and more of my feeling being inadequate. But, when I'm noticed, I get nervous, a miscommunication. My blinking halo is cracking, but with this, I'll change your mind about my identity. I said it's a bluff, but the truth is that there's a foggy feeling of love. I want to search for it with you. / Hey, the no-good, no-good, no-good, no-good me- you'll love her! / I'll make your heart beat, beat, beat, beat just for you! If you'd just look at me seriously, I'd probably do it!

And her anxieties about not being deserving of said affection. Or receiving it for reasons that have nothing to do with her as a person.

But am I at least alright? / I hid my feeling of love in that kind of paper-mache shell, but I want to be laughing with you. Hey the no-good, no-good, no-good, no-good me... are you okay with her? To tell the truth, I don't have any self confidence. I'm an angel, you know. My head is spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning. It is filled with nothing but you- that's what I've been thinking about!

I think I'll be able to fly with this love I've received, since I'm an angel

It's not that I won't do it, I just can't!

Er, well, I'll put a lot of effort in anyway!

Chameleon - Surii

And Chameleon represents Muu in the midst of her efforts to earn love meaningfully. As I said before in this post, Muu doesn't want people to just fawn over her for no reason. And this time she's putting in her all to catch the attention she wants from Rei!

I get dizzy from falling in love burningly. I want to be loved, so I'm being an honour student. As I get irritated, my heart is scattered- but I'm a chameleon that can blend in this much / I want to resist to ask you for your affection. I want to show you the best attitude / A while crying and a while falling in love again. Today's makeup can't be messed with / A passionate chameleon becoming half dead again, but next time, for sure. A passionate chameleon. I'm a chameleon that just wants to be loved by you. Transform and diving into the average class. A complete change into the life of the lower class, piling up the dynamite on myself. Oh my, what a damp noise

But of course, Muu is someone who can't help but stay true to herself, even if it causes her trouble. As much as she tries to hide it, not everything can be covered up by hard work and determination.

The transformation is not perfect; my entire body is not something you desire. I take those dynamites little by little, apparently dangerous / Do you still wanna be loved? / A while buttering up and a while melting; I gotta check today's trend. Dazzling from singing flamingly, living a life with the passing grade. My resentful heart sways back and forth; I'm a chameleon that can be a part of it / My throat is parched, feeling the moment. But can't be forgiven because my outfit is way too flashy.

Even if it's painful, it's just something she ends up slipping back into. And so the loop of effort and pain continues.

Dunno... I cried so much that even my true original colour disappeared. When I tried to run away because it was too hard for me, you smiled at me.

Only want you to love me, is it not enough? Still not enough so try to blend in, chameleon

Ai Janai - DAZBEE

Yes, I know Gunsli has brought this specific song before. It's a great comparison and you should all give it a read when you have the chance! However, I do have my own reasoning. Especially it being placed where it is! Besides, I do do things a bit different from her, even if there are similarities.

But yes! We are slowly approaching the eye of the storm now. Everything is turning upside down and tensions are beginning to run high. Muu's starting to lose it, lost between her desire for love and her desire to earn it. And that's mixing with the burgeoning realization that maybe Rei wouldn't ever like her.

This isn't love, so depressed I feel sick. This isn't love; it isn't, right? Is that the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard? Denied, isn't it? / On an answer sheet with A, B, and Cs, I gladly marked each question wrong. Could we have a secret love? "let's solve the hard questions together", "I'll wait for you after school" ...as if you would say that. / Before I fall apart, I wanna confess about this love that won't go away / Something's wrong with me, I must be going crazy. I'm in a drunken stupor filled with regret /I'm half joking and about to cry / I won't get my hopes up

Further and further until we enter it and anything can be set off with something as simple as a push or shove.

My sixth sense is tingling, I realized I really need to see you / It's like I'm sucked into a vortex each time I remember, and I can't get away

I look up the psychology of your actions online for signs / "Let's share secret looks between us", "I'll be standing in the hallway" ...but you're not listening, are you?

You'd resent me for the deal I've made in my head

Is this respite before I'm faced with a dilemma?

(Bonus!) Notice - Moe Shop

It's the bonus round! Also known as the song I keep dithering about putting in the playlist or not. It just feels. Very fitting for this moment.

Signal broken, error, retry. No one told me how to do this. Faith, belief un-fucking-believable. Shaking, wavering proof of my love / Taking long to get a reply, regretting. Maybe I'm thinking about it too much. Shaking, wavering, vibrating

That sensitive age where you wanna start a coup, can't pick up anything dropped. Stand, bow, this is a warzone

Cut off 5cm of my school skirt, feeling a little blue and sentimental. Senpai please, notice me. I already know there's a sweetie, so bad that I seriously consider suicide. It really hurts. / Eyes glaring in the dark

A piano in the evening, Ivory skies above. I hear a voice calling someone to stop. Please almighty god, stop those footsteps before the magic of misunderstanding fades

"Please, senpai. Notice me"

Short lived rumours last 75 days. That couple who were dating, broken up already, love is a lie.

Messed Up! - Natsuyama Yotsugi

And now we arrive at the incident- including this, only five more songs to go...! Thankfully God's Parasol is very short. More like a preview than anything. But back on track! We finally reach a release and now Muu has to deal with the aftermath.

I messed up and I killed 'em!? I caused a big commotion in the early afternoon- a rouge coloured puddle. Ah, they went and died!! I've gone and done this and that, and now I'm getting worried. I wipe my sweat away as the cicadas cry. Crisis! Crisis! My thoughts go 'round and 'round. This story's taken a dark turn, oh... / There's nothing I can do. Escaping into a träumerei, please, close my eyelids already

"Co-ming. Who is it?" I open the door to a flood of justice "Could you tell us the truth about this incident" "Actually no, first, a word of apology please" Ah, I'm sorry, I'm s-s-sorry. I've been a bad girl, that's why please / I'm just getting my just desserts / My offenses are as stated. Oh judge, please send me to the gallows already / They messed up and killed 'em!? What a big fuss over nothing, a story turned märchen / and the whole crowd laughs like fools

Darling - Keina Suda

And now the aftermath starts to set in. After all, as we've seen in milgram (and Undercover) Muu is a girl filled with regret and wistfulness

Am I not good enough? I know I'm the only one / I can't win your heart. I know you better than anyone / Darling, I'll give you my everything- please, give me all your love

There is no point in being alone. Words couldn't be created. I know- I know, but I keep pretending. We can't be together; our hearts will stay apart / but my love for you is shameless / Panicked, you were having too much fun

Just forget it, I'll be waiting for all this to end / Darling, take me someday; I long for that day to come

God's Parasol - Shikiura

This is so short I feel like I could just put all the lyrics here lmao. So that's what I'm gonna do

With the parasol god gave me, I'll come to you, fluttering in the air. I don't need anything else, melting away with your sweet kisses. With the parasol god gave me, I'll come to you, fluttering in the air. Why won't you say anything other than goodbyes?

First Love Diary - Kashii Moimi

Now we're really getting into the conflicting feelings- the regret, the frustration and sorrow all melding into something manically tangled.

I could never come to hate you, and so this ingrained self-restraint has no function. I'm forever remembering the secrets shared just between us two. Do I have to keep my feelings under lock and key? Saying "I want to see you" is my signal that I've been hurt, but I'm reluctant to cry all by my lonesome after putting on a brave front. / It'll do me no good (Don't leave) to get this attached to you. (me alone...) / please don't abandon me / I want to stay gentle (I'm the best in the world)

Dizzily inhaling your gaze, I don't even know what I've been doing to survive until now (You're heartless, aren't you?) I hate it, darling. I beg you, grasp my hand and rebuild me as someone new. Just as you want me! (Aren't I remarkable?) Maybe everything about me is becoming immoral in an indifferent and imbecilic way. Yet your hands are forever lovely (this is our starting point) / Indeed your words are my drug. I'm falling upside down, so won't you catch me? (And take me away from these dark days?) / Even so, darling... (I want you)

I hate it darling, become my sustenance! You know, I can't feel a single thing. You're constantly not there (Is nothingness so awful?) I love you. Can you tell me there'll never be another?! / "My first love won't be fulfilled" Then what should be done about me, who was able to fulfill it?

Will it always be so painful? Yes, yes, I feel the same way. So let's hurry up and go together (to heaven)

Chronophobia - 2進P

And finally, the point Muu was at when she was whisked away to Milgram. This is the point where the mania has faded, only leaving hurtful memories that dig into her psyche.

Time is projected so clearly; it goes on everywhere. Beautiful lights deceive my eyes as usual. I sloppily tore the flickering image that's always next to me into pieces- you know, even if I close my eyes, it's still there. I dislike everything about time. I don't care at all for eternity. The bitter words and their meaning don't accomplish anything; they've left intense scars and won't stop.

Why exactly is that moon still waxing and waning? I can hear that deeply warped noise so close to me. I run a tightly gripped knife across my face, wanting that unpleasant sound to disappear. Don't touch me, don't come near me, sounds of time. Since I'm begging, just kill me already.

There's no smile in my eyes. There is only the unstopping memory someone has violated me with.

Why, why do I keep seeing it? Please, stop it. Shut my eyes. / Please, stop it. Let me sleep.

[dirtytransmasc]

In the book aemond is a psychopath, aegon a rapist, alicent a cunt. Haelena is the only normal child, in the show is the same. How can someone be team green? You said the are more 'complex' but no, they are just more problematic

the show is different then the books, by a fucking mile. the situation and circumstances for almost everything surrounding the greens is drastically different. when I talk about them, due to not having fully read the book (cause it's long and I can't get my ADHD to grab onto it like the show), I'm talking about the show. in the show they are significantly more fleshed out and complex, they earned far more of my pity than Rhaenyra and her kids did in the show, and I just liked them more.

in the books, they are bad people, but so is everyone else, especially Rhaenyra and Daemon. the sword has two edges. honestly, from what I managed to read/know about the book, everyone in that damn thing seems like they suck (outside of Helaena), but thats fine, that's great actually. a full morally grey to not so grey set of characters is interesting. they're all problematic, it's a game of pick your favorite sicko(s).

also the "Aegon's a rapist" horse has been beaten to dust. the only potential proof that he is one is from a very black favoring unreliable narrator who slanders the greens almost every chance he gets... so while I, and nobody, can say that it's 100% false, similarly, no one can say that it's 100% true either. (the vibe I picked up is that he may be a bit handsy without consent and a whore who frequents whorehouses as a customer, but not a rapist. doesn't make it right, but those two things are very different. I also think people tend to forget that the concept and age of consent in medieval times was VERY different. again, doesn't make it right. but there were things that were just... ok... then, that are far from ok now. all of this greatly effects aegons situation and the nuance around it).

Aemond was and still sorta (in the show) is a psycho. I won't deny that, but he has so many layers in the show, so many why's and hows to him and his growing instability, that IS fascinating and complex and I love to dig around in his characterization and psychology and I know I'm not the only one.

from the sounds of it, Alicent is like any other greedy noble ever, she's just a woman and a mother as well, so she's a bitch and she's protecting her kids which people don't like. Rhaenyra's also a bitch and she's protecting her kids. they all hate each other, they all want each other's heads on spikes. it's war between two sides of terrible people told through the lenses of unreliable narrators, no side is better than the other, "just pick your favorite asshole" seems to be the rule of thumb at that point cause who knows what the hell actually happened. (take this with a grain of salt, cause from where I stand, all I say is hearsay)

just let team green fans live their lives and remember that not everyone gives a shit about the book.

[olderthannetfic]

I feel like I keep seeing antis/anti-leaning people claim that proshippers are against discussions of racism in fandom. Obviously there is the basic bad faith interpretation (deliberate slander), which I'm not inherently against, but do you have any idea if there's a potential good faith interpretation of why they think this? Is there a specific fandom where the proshippers are actually yelling at the antiracists?

--

I get this question all the time, which is ironic since I tend to be public enemy #1 for the "AO3 is racist" crowd. (Or maybe they've moved on by now. I don't really keep up with them.)

No, there is no good faith interpretation. It's recycled Star Wars wank from 2015, SamSteve vs. Stucky wank from the same period, etc. etc.

The "anti-racists" in question include a lot of big names who should know better. Their central arguments boil down to:

The demographics of which characters get shipped and/or written about on AO3 are racist.

A lot of individual fics about characters of color on AO3 are racist.

AO3's refusal to "listen" and then censor is racist.

Fans of color "need" to be able to speak up about fic that is racist... in that fic's comments.

It's all ass-backwards because it focuses on the needs of the reader to find the content they want, which is content creator influencer hell, not the writer-focused AO3 approach.

The whole point of AO3-style fandom is that everyone has access to posting, and you can write what you want. Want more fics about your fave? Write them.

There are individual AO3 fics I find racist, but the vast majority of the discourse around the site focuses on things like writers who ship the black dude but use him as a prop boyfriend and not the single perfect tear woobie who's obviously their favorite. Is the pattern racist? Well, yeah, but you won't solve it by trying to restrict those fics. And the extreme form of this turns into a cliched top/bottom shipwar, which just makes everyone involved look like a moron.

Teaching people how to write their tops with personalities is far more likely to make the collective fic in a fandom less racist than demanding that they switch which pairing dynamic they're into. Making more original media where the man of color is the woobie in the first place would also help.

Plenty of the discourse is crying that such-and-such a m/m ship is super popular on AO3, temple of m/m, while gen about characters of color or some particular het ship with a nonwhite character is less popular. "Why don't you ship het instead of m/m" is a gigantic red flag for people who refuse to understand libido or accept it as a valid reason for anything.

A lot of the discourse is anti-kink despite lying about this fact. "Boo hoo hoo, I for sure psychically know who's a racist white person and who's a kinky black person whose id doesn't match up with mine!" etc.

There's also a lot of "This fic is race kink!" nonsense thrown around about any fic where a man of color has a big dick, as though penis size by itself is the racist cliche often summed up as "big black cock" and as though all ethnicities and nationalities are subject to identical stereotypes. This garbage gets uncritically repeated by newly-minted "woke" people falling over themselves to correct hundreds of years of injustice by yelling at others for a couple of days on twitter.

This is where the "you're calling me an anti to silence me" garbage comes from. Sound like a kink-hater, get treated as one.

AO3 does have bullying problems by now, and the various blocking and muting features were overdue. They are now being implemented, which is great. Anyone with half a brain cell should see that these are key anti-racist measures so that people can block idiots who write fic they hate or who leave shitty comments...

But a certain number of jackasses complain even about that because it will ~silence fans of color~ who need to go tell someone they're a racist in their fic comments.

These dumbass arguments have been circulating for years at this point, so the talking points have boiled down to catch phrases.

--

Damn right I'm against "discussion" when it means telling everyone that only white people would like nasty kink.

When the whiny "plz censor AO3" crowd stops sounding exactly like that asshole who used "freaks of color" in a past discussion about these kinds of things and when they're ready to discuss how to write extreme kink about their faves non-racistly without reducing the kinkiness, then I will be ready to listen to their arguments.

But they have none other than "write the kind of fic I like!"

[real-total-drama-takes]

Duncan’s over-hated

I’m gonna go ahead and elaborate on this, but beware: English isn’t my first language and im sorry if I’m not getting my point across in a way it’s easy to understand-

Firstly, he’s someone who’s obviously had a hard upbringing. It’s stated several times that he’s gone to juvie, he puts on a ‘tough bad boy’ act in front of everyone he meets, verbally and psychically. I’m no psychologist but people don’t do this for no reason. He’s been shown to hide his emotions easily, and fake them too (Him crying in world tour was faked) meaning it’s probably something he had to do growing up a lot, for reasons that aren’t so good.

Now, onto things that he gets lots of hate for, starting off with the worst; Cheating on Courtney. (I do not condone cheating or defend that in itself) in Duncan’s case, things are a little more different.

In island, him and Courtney were a healthy relationship. He was loyal to her and genuinely loved her, growing an attachment to her (he kept a picture of her under his pillow, obviously missed her) until action. She wrote an entire document detailing everything that was ‘wrong’ with him, and that needed to change. Of course, he did seem unbothered as he usually does, but he tried his best for her because he loved her.

Even after losing a full nights worth of sleep over her? it wasn’t enough. When he tried complimenting her like she wanted? still not enough. Let’s not forget the amount of times Courtney psychically hurt him.

Here’s the important part: When he met Gwen, he found her to be someone he related to. Both of them have similar styles, love horror movies, and have been showed to bond in island (which at that point, was only a friendship and nothing more) he grew attached to her because she was kind to him, didn’t yell at or hit him. When he realized how toxic Courtney was, yes, part of him still adored her, but part of him wanted out of it (as any one would) when he and Courtney weren’t ‘technically dating’, and Gwen was single, he saw it as a sign to make a move on her because he knew he would be treated with respect, and would feel safer. Was this wrong? Yeah, cheating isn’t okay. Did Duncan has his reasons behind it? Yeah.

No one would want to be in a relationship where if you do anything that upsets the other person, you get psychically beat as punishment. That’s literal abuse, and it’s understandable why Duncan would want to get out of that toxicity. He kept going back and forth between Gwen and Courtney because of his attachment issues, he knew it was wrong but he felt like he had to keep coming back to her because he does genuinely care about people. (He considered ending his rivalry with Harold after talking with him once, gave DJ a new rabbit so he doesn’t get upset, stood up for other contestants etc etc) so it’s shown time and time again he feels remorse for people and doesn’t always want to hurt them, yet he tends to hide his emotions a lot. This is what he felt with Courtney especially.

This isn’t to defend the wrong things he’s done, for example bullying Harold and messing with Courtney and Gwen’s friendship, probably more. This is just me going over why I think he gets a little too much slander. He’s not my favorite character, but I don’t hate him. He’s had his moments, great and terrible ones. I think this is what makes him more realistic. Duncan is a complex character, not saying he didn’t hurt other people or that he’s innocent, just stating this.

Thank you for reading (if you did read all of it) another apology if this was hard to understand

.

[sunshinemarauders]

Racist Experiences in the Marauders Fandom

These anonymous submissions come from a survey I published several weeks ago where I asked for fans in the Marauders fandom to share their experiences with me. I was overwhelmed with the results, and this is, in their own words, some of the submissions I was sent.

There has been lost of push back against fans using POC fan casts for various characters

weird reactions to desi james or east asian sirius!!

I have seen people get upset when characters are fancast as non-white actors (like dev Patel for James)

Clash of opinions about fanon Hermione being black

I have seen lots of racism towards people's newer fancasts, as all the OGs (ben barnes, andrew garfield, aaron taylor-johnson, etc.) are white and some people are trying to change that!

I saw a fanart one time, where james had a darker skin (he was latino) and someone commented that it doesn't suit him

I draw Sirius black as Asian and I’ve gotten quite a few racist comments about this and I’ve seen a lot of racism about desi James. Also when BIPOC people cosplay characters that people think are “white”

People tend to cast characters as white, and sometimes I see people getting mad someone is fancasting a non-canonically black character as black or as a person of colour (I've seen some good black Remus, non-white Lily, non-white Peter fancasts, and yet, there is still peope being sooo mad about it like??). Sadly, I think a lot of people can tell about the fact that fancasts are often discussed and hated for no reason when they're not white or whatever, when it's basically just a fancast, that goes against the "canon" a bigot (JKR) made up.

the first that’s coming to mind is people fighting against the interpretation/portrayal of characters as poc (most often james bs i think he’s most popularly hced as desi but also others) either that or just straight up gatekeeping

Only the general feeling that the white characters are more interesting and loved than any of the characters of color. Racebending seems token, like nobody wants to be exclusionary but also don't have the comfort or confidence to make that diversity ring true in terms of cultural resonance. By cultural resonance I don't only mean make them ethnic but to portray and discuss or casually mention the postcolonial personhood or third culture kid experience as applies.

A comment on my fic about making it a “racial jungle”, saying that it wasn’t accurate for the time period even though representation of races otherwise had no significance in the fic

theres is a lot people that will fight tooth and nail for exclusively white maruaders (in terms of fancasts) and they slander other people in the fandom for using more diverse fancasts such as desi james or black evan

I've seen it in passing, especially towards POC writers/people who HC characters who were not diverse in canon.

People not wanting desi Potters in art or otherwise

One Harry Potter fan got mad at me for drawing James (and Harry) dark skinned

GOD THE FRIKIN FANCASTS. They really don't matter that much and everyone makes it such a big deal. To me at least- representation only really matters if its real. If there's fat Peter, darkskin Dorcas, desi James, or Japanese Sirius/Regulus in a fanfic, that is the representation of that. It doesn't need to be reflected in a fancast used in an edit. Personal opinion but annoying as fuck I just wish everyone would enjoy the fact that someone spent time pouring over numerous tiny clips from many different TV shows and movies just for fun, and other people getting mad that they didn't use a person that literally doesn't exist angers me to no end.

mostly just a complete ignorance of POC identities. sometimes poc characters are ignored in favour of white characters. but also, even when POC are centered, i often see like a lot of fetishization and stereotyping and it's just... not good...

there’s a lot of jewish people in the fandom that have pointed out antisemitism within the fandom a few times. i am not jewish, and i cannot speak on the issue, but that’s something i’ve heard a lot. i’ve also seen the whitewashing of fancasts for characters like mary and dorcas who are widely accepted to be women of color, so that feels weird to me, but i think? that’s everything i’ve noticed or heard.

i've seen racism thrown to black creators, poc fancasts, and at myself for being arab and head-cannoning the black brother as arab.

There was a black dude cosplaying remus and their were people saying remus wasnt a N-word but it was a white person saying it

I have seen some fans respond in a racist way to Black fans who have called out the racism in the way in which Black characters are written and portrayed in the fandom.

[pixi4]

Let me spew some thoughts no one cares for.

The constant hate pile on Feyre for suddenly choosing to be a mother is getting ridiculous.

Realistically speaking, she saw her husband get murdered in a war and then brought back to life in a same fashion as she herself was. It is so logical to me that she would want a piece of her and Rhys to exist in this world. Was the short time and obvious disregard for their traumas unhealthy? Yes. Did they dicuss the pregnancy? Obvi not. Was the twilight-like pregnancy obviously added in so Nesta could have a Deus ex machina sacrifice? Very much so. Was Rhys abusive even before SF? Heck yeah!

But let's put the abusive Rhys and enabling IC on the side for once and focus on Feyre and her relationship with motherhood.

Continuously we've been shown that beneath her tough exterior is a gentle heart. The first book even proves it. The first book is literally just her running around with Tam and Lucien being free and happy and we witness not only her resilience but also her care. One aspect of Feyre that I feel like people tend to overlook is the fact that she's responsible, more or less, *cough* Spring Court *cough*. She's a person willing to sacrifice her sleep or meal for somebody else. That especially, is essence of motherhood. People think its Elain who is warm and motherly, i don't necessarily disagree. But Elain has continously shown how she wishes to be alone after the war. She doesn't want a male or a mate. She's uncomfortable with it. I'd argue that Feyre has more maternal instincts than any other female character in the series (except those who are already a mother of course)

The two main arguments that come with people disliking her having a kid are: a)she's boring now and b)she's weak now and can't fight her own battles.

Fae are literally animals. I'd like for you to go out and inspect the nature of female animals and their cubs. There isn't a predator a lioness wouldn't cut in pieces if she felt even a slight possibility of her cub being endangered.

Also for all the women claiming that her having kids takes away her agency, first of all, are you good? Do you not see how you are also being incredibly misogynistic by implying that a pregnant woman is reduced to "baby maker".

When it comes to the valid, technical points as to why the book SF and its prose and "plot" sucks, then yes, the pregnancy was out of nowhere with never before talked about issues (fae uterus/ Illyrian uterus) just so we can have a conflict. Is it a lazy plot device? Very much so, but the interpretation of motherhood in this fandom, with all due respect has to change. Baddass female warriors in fantasy novels aren't helpless once they have kids. In fact, having a kid, a being that by all accounts, depending on its age, cannot protect itself, that alone makes Feyre an even bigger beast. You got three books of Feyre running around killing bunch of people. What is so wrong with having one book where she gets to lay around and read books and chill, in the book where she's not even a main character?

For all the grievances this *awfully written* book deserves, the idea of motherhood does not deserve to be slandered because of the book's weak portrayal.