#or people writing those long-ass character analysis posts on some of my own characters if my story was a real franchise

[marshmallowprotection]

What are your thoughts on the new Cg? Butler Saeran? I’m not use to the him nor Jumin and Zen with glasses. But they look good

Normally, I would do a lengthy analysis post about the image, but there isn’t much here for me to analyze! I do want to write something for the anniversary that I will try to get out before the end of the month, but it's not going to be tacked onto an image analysis since there isn't much for me to say here other than point out a few Easter eggs. 

I got what I wanted. Jaehee in a tuxedo. This is what I manifested at the start of the month and I am grateful that we not only got her in a maid outfit, we got her in a butler outfit, too. Jaehee stans, you have won and she is front and center! This is her moment and she is killing it. I feel the need to stare at her for a little while because it's cute and there's no way I'm going to let this moment pass me by without really appreciating Jaehee aesthetically.

I'll be honest, I don't know why the recent trend has been to make our boy Yoosung super clumsy. He's never really been a clumsy guy and I don't know where someone got the idea that Yoosung isn't on top of what he's doing. I will agree in saying he's probably the easiest person to bully in the entire universe because he's sweet and gullible, but he isn't clumsy, and yet, every image we've gotten of him this year other than his birthday image has had him busting his ass on the ground in one way or another.

Does ANYONE know why they're bullying Yoosung this bad? I mean, he's really cute here and I appreciate that he's trying his best to really impress the MC, but c'mon, give him a break.

I did not realize how badly I needed Jumin in glasses. Jumin's already a very handsome person but somehow adding glasses really elevates it here for some reason. I don't know how his vibe has enhanced for me but it has. I wear glasses myself and I always have, so it's nice to see the characters in glasses in official artwork because I'm always super curious to see how they would look. It's working for Jumin, that I can tell you.

I like that his hair isn't as neat and tidy as it usually is, too.

I fear they have slayed. Saeyoung and Zen are dazzling in their own right and I can't remember the last time they were drawn side by side but I think it's been a little while.

I've already noticed many people have pointed out that Saeyoung is wearing a ring. It's a little bit silly that he's wearing it over his glove, but I have to admit that is something he would do if this were his timeline. He is proud of the fact that he gets to live in this world, and he's even happier to know that he has somebody by his side who understands him more than anyone else. He's definitely that guy who doesn't stop talking about his partner because he's so in love. 

Zen with roses is something I've come to expect because he's also a traditional romantic. Red roses are the best way to captivate someone with your love and it’s no surprise that he follows that path. It might seem a little cliche but who is he if not somebody who loves romantic cliches? He is that guy who would watch romcoms with you all day long regardless of your relationship status with him, he just gets it.

I don't know how I feel about him wearing glasses since he doesn't seem like a glasses guy, but maybe if I saw him in sunglasses I might be able to rationalize this better. He's wearing a stylized pair here and I think it's the gold that's throwing me off. If it was silver, I don't think I would feel as perplexed by how I feel because silver fits him better as that's typically what he chooses for himself.  

Controversial thing to say every time I say it, but I have to tell you guys that Jihyun is still my third favorite character in the game, and I really don’t mind when Saeran and V are drawn together. I recognize that they do this because those two are tied together as the leads of Another Story, just as the core five, meaning Yoosung, Zen, Jaehee, Jumin, and Seven are drawn together.

But, to me, seeing Jihyun with everyone makes me feel like there is a timeline where V did the right thing for everyone and asked for help at the first sign of trouble instead of continually shooting himself in the foot. A lot of the art that's drawn with V included is self-indulgent and can only exist as true fanservice because it would never be true in most routes of the game. 

Normally, I would expect him to look exasperated in art like this but he seems to be fairly confident which is a good change for Jihyun. I’ll take it! 

I have no idea what they're doing here, did they choreograph a song and dance? They aren't the most coordinated members of the group so that makes me want to laugh. It's sweet, but I have a huge feeling they're going to trip over each other if not on their own feet. Saeran is as cute as always, I could talk about him for hours.

Seeing him as a butler always takes me back to when Ray said he would be happy to be your butler in a huge mansion. That was utterly indicative of the fact he was willing to become subservient to you if it meant you would stick around. That’s what the first bad ending is all about. Unfortunately, he thought so poorly of himself that he would be willing to make himself nothing more than something for you to push around if that's what you wanted. 

At least, in this context, he's doing it because he wants to make you happy, sure, but it's not something he's doing to make sure you stick around, he knows you'll still be there no matter what because he doesn't have to work himself to the bone to prove he's worthy of your companionship. 

I don't know if anybody picked this up but the painting is in homage to the anniversary image from two years ago. Rika was in the painting that time, and this time around, it's MC.

I do think it's worth noting that they are playing with light and dark imagery which is to be expected in a game that takes a lot of cues for religious imagery. Rika and MC are always bathed in white and black, light and dark, true contrast.

They're both wearing a dress that goes off of the shoulders, the only difference being the color and the style. MC has a more sleek pattern and Rika is bathed in ruffles. Rika’s seems to be more constrained and MC’s a little more loose around the edges. MC is free to make choices one way or the other by pushing outward, and Rika makes choices that go against her best interest as she pulls inward. I think another CG that plays on this is the BE from V Route.

Love her or hate her, there are important parallels at play here. 

In conclusion, Rika has always been like this in official art and I don't know what to tell you.

[iricathel]

just how much are you willing to read about why ruki is the perfect match— i mean rukina is the ship ever and the more i read their interactions the more i find myself nodding along like yeah they’re meant for each other they should get married this instant. wait. they did dfgdfg so i’ll save you the trouble of talking endlessly about the reasons they just click together because i’m sure you know about those already (a future long ass ask maybe? 🙏)

shuu — i think this one would be fun because they strike me as partners in crime. at least a bit. i think shuu would enjoy irina’s attitude and strength and maybe irina might like digging into what shuu’s actual personality is, facade aside. don’t ask me why but i sense some strong magnetism here. hottest blondes in the area, people move aside to stare at them (i at least would)

reiji — i really am not being that original but. hear me out. people that can ruin your self esteem and bring you down to your knees however you wanna take that one. i think reiji can work really great with someone that is both capable and incredibly smart but isn’t afraid to speak their mind. irina’s balance between not letting people step on her while still managing to keep everything under control… a ship filled with political and romantic intrigue (?) also pls reiji would go insane with someone that is both fancy and playful and damn. irina could tease the heck out of him, i’m calling this a win on society

lina ily sorry for the spam <3

Omg Kuu ily so so so so much wtf this is so sweet 😭

— Talking about Rukina, ofc I have my own opinions about their ship since I made them interact not only here, but for YEARS with different people and different sites and it's wild for me how even if the "admin" changes, they still have that magnetism no matter what (and also there's a reason why it's my fav ship sjsjsjsjsj). But ofc I have mostly my view and Ruki's admin too, I'm always glad to read people's opinions about their ship and how they feel them work together since it can open our eyes¿? Like maybe there's something we don't see but it's so obvious for others— So my askbox is always open for all kind of rants everytime you want 😤

— I'll try to save my analysis for the match-making post sjsjsjsjsjsj

It's right that for both Irina and Shuu it will be intriguing to meet each other, since one will feed the other's curiosity — Not to say that also Shuu will enjoy fr teasing Irina. I can also tell as both are candidates for their own clan's throne it would be crazy af if they marry bc imagine all that power??

But I don't wanna break it too much, but even if they can start so well, I think there would be a divorce so fast too sjsjsjsjsjsj But I will talk deeply about this in another post since canonly Irina knows both Shuu and Reiji

— It's funny to me see some people seeing Reiji as a good partner and the arguments are so good tbh, but if you look at it separately.

Reiji with Irina is one of the most problematic ships she could ever have and that's bc the beginning of their relationship is so tense and polemic even they feel uncomfortable with each other's presence bc they snap their traumas. Like they just need to look superficially to each other and they travel again to their childhood to revive their traumas again and over again

+ I feel like Reiji would see Irina as a disgusting woman bc even if our girl is a fancy, elegant woman with some manners, she's clearly not the perfect woman in his eyes either. And that's a problem for both ngl

BUT(T) NOW I SAY AGAIN, I WILL TALK DEEPER ABOUT EVERY GOOD AND BAD POINT FOR EVERY MATCH IN ANOTHER POST probably in a week

Again thank you so much Kuu for writing this bc I also love to see how people pay so much attention to my ships/character that they can tell things I never talked about before here 😭😭

[sapphire-weapon]

do you ever look at some of your olds takes and think wtf was i thinking? or do you think you’ve remained pretty consistent

also pls set up a ko-fi if u don’t have one already

i don't look back and go "wtf was i thinking" because meta is a progression

i have tons of shit that's outdated and not what i believe anymore, but that's how it goes. i'm not trying to write canon law. i just vomit up some thoughts. and then i get other people's perspectives on those thoughts. and sometimes, depending on the perspective that's shown to me, i revise those thoughts.

meta is usually a group effort. when the evil within came out, there were four or five of us reblogging each other's LONG ASS meta posts and then adding our own LONG ASS replies with rebuttals and other insights, and that's how we were able to crack that incredibly difficult story and its absurdly complex storytelling.

silent hill fandom was the same way. just essays about essays about other essays until a consensus was reached.

this is my first time i've been providing really intense meta on my own without a team working on it -- and that's fine, because it's RE, and i've been living in this filth pile for decades and don't really need a team for this one.

other times, new canon information comes out and i get shown that i missed the mark. this happened BIG TIME with remake ada for me. anything that i wrote about remake ada prior to my "ada is a selfish character" post from today? garbage. worthless. useless. throw it the fuck out. i didn't have all of the information at the time i wrote those posts, so my conclusions didn't reflect the actual reality of her character.

you really need to be able to take an L and roll with the punches if you start going serious on meta analysis, because you will be wrong from time to time. and if you don't know how to take the L, you become one of those people who gets all pissed off at the writers whenever a story doesn't go the way you thought.

and you don't wanna be that guy.

i was wrong about what separate ways was going to do, and i was wrong about where ada's character was going to go

and that's okay.

also why would i set up a ko-fi what would i even put on there

[feysandfeels]

Hey! I'm so glad to see you posting again. I wanted to ask are you still part of the sim fandom, you barely seem active anymore? I don't want to be mean or anything, just a question out of an observation

Hello my boo!

I am. I most definitely am. Life just got really busy. I had a blast reading HOSAB and going through part of ACOTAR las year before life became chaotic lol. I'm still a Rhys girlie. I still love Manon Blackbeak and I am still waiting for her book. I am thankful I got Miss Lidia being badass. Queen.

But to tell you the truth, the theories got a bit much. Like the whole fandom shifted to really long and dull analysis of why Elain will end up with x or y, and when you've read Sarah's books for as long as I have you just know how this story will turn out. It's going to be Elucien. I'm sorry to the rest of you but if Elain and Az do hook up it will be that... a hook up they both kinda regret eventually and rather pretend never happened, Cassian brings it up on solstice dinner and everyone laughs and cringes.

The other theories were like the really really really really long explanations about how this word that appears on this one chapter is echoed in this other book in the other series meaning that the cat is actually Dorian's father, who somehow is now connected to Nyx because Nyx has a cat plushie in his crib. Respect to those who enjoyed it, but it's not for me.

And if it wasn't that then it was how much everyone hated the crossover and how it ruined ACOTAR or CC or whatever for them and I just *tired sigh*. While everyone is entitled to their own opinions and can post about them online, it did become like the trend to hate or not trust or dislike her decision. So I took a step back of my online fandom experience, because it gets tiring to see everyone and their mothers criticize Sarah.. when I adore her so much and I do think her work is good. Sometimes I do wonder if for all the people who dislike her world building, her writing style, her character dynamics, her narrative choices... like is it worth it to keep reading it just because you like 3 characters and then hating what she did with said characters?

Anywho, most of my irl friends who also read sjm are on board with the crossover -like why not it will be an experience™️ - and excited to read the 5 to 10 chapters she will most likely spend in Prythian and then send Bryce on her way -with like cocktails, a espresso martini like the pretentious bitches we are-. So that's where I went. To the "well rather wait until it drops before I start saying it's a mess" camp. It drains me a bit to see how other people are already like "i hate it"... so when we see how it actually develops oh I just know it's going to be worse. Because like yes she clearly retconned some aspects of her plot.. but I think, more often than not that is part of the creative process in most artistic endeavours. You cannot plan a big ass series that will take a big chunk of your life to write and not have those initial plans change. It's like the architecture vs the garden writing thing.

So yeah I curated my online experience so much I got an irl experience instead. But you know you can always hit me up to talk about her books, mostly in a positive-critical way. Because yes... her world building is not as straight forward or like squared (I don't have a better word but like... the rules are clear and logical and A-> B -> C) as some people normally prefer; but I think there's something engaging in how she approaches it when you tie it to her characters and then extrapolate that to fantasy trends in the past few decades. Like give her some credit is all I'm saying.... which people really don't... even when they like her characters...but then again they like them for their version of the characters and not for how Sarah wrote them.. you know Sarah... the one who created them.

This got way longer than I expected... no I'm off to learning my lines again.

Besoooooos and long live Feyre Archeron High Lady of the Night Court and Her Royal Highness Fire Breathing Bitch Queen of Terrasen Aelin Ashryver Galathanius

[names-of-courage]

Warning: long post

About

Names of Courage is a Links Meet AU comic that focuses on the personal relationships between the Heroes of Courage and them overcoming hardship.

With how sparse the Zelda games are with the towns and the population there will be more towns and OCs to flesh out the universe. I will also be adding onto the series lore and tweaking it to fit better than what the devs have done within their own series. /lh

Disclaimer: This Links Meet AU comic is based on The Legend of Zelda series and is not affiliated with The Legend of Zelda franchise nor the Nintendo company in any capacity other than being a non-monetized fanwork. The only characters I have a right to are the ones I've 100% created without being remakes of existing characters. This comic is loosely inspired by @/linkeduniverse

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This comic will have mature themes and may not be suited for those under the age of sixteen (16). This comic should not be read by those under the age of thirteen (13) without parent/legal guardian's informed consent. See this post for what triggers will be in the comic

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[audiblehush]

First off, I want to apologize for how long it took me to respond to this. Work and grad school got busy quickly and I had some fires to put out. 

Secondly, that I did see your post (and didn’t even disagree with all of it), but I also saw lots of comments on Reddit and other fandom-y spaces discussing the Debling triangle, so my post was more of a general airing of me working through my own thoughts. I apologize if it came off as vague posting or aggressive toward you in particular; that wasn’t my intention at all. 

Thirdly, my frustration with the potential “love triangle” has increased with TWO whole ass promotional pieces  (video and stills) of Debling instead of Colin… the actual Bridgerton the show is supposedly supposed to follow. AND I know we’re probably going to get promos of other characters before we get to Colin and I’m just like… what the FUCK? So I’m feeling significantly saltier then I was the other day.

I’m going to try and address your points mostly in order, though I may jump around a little for my brain to cope with how tired it is, as well with how its linking some of these narrative or fandom threads - sorry in advance if it’s confusing. It’s going to be so long, I’m sorry…

To your point of other Penelope pairings: I’m really used to multi shipping in various fandoms, regardless of things being canon (because fandom is a fun sandbox to play in), but yeah the problem is tagging those other ships as containing Polin - its a big yikes. But on the other hand, and maybe I’m just old in fandom years (mid 30s), but I suppose I’m just numb to a lot of poor fandom etiquette (despite the fact that AO3 has an incredible tagging system compared to those of us who had to survive the FF.net dark days). It’s shouldn’t be an an excuse, they need to be better, but I often just don’t have the time or emotional real estate to push back with it, so I just roll my eyes and scroll past and continue to be irritated by it. Maybe that’s sad that I have just accepted that people across all fandoms are trash at tagging, idk… but I rarely have the energy to do more than just scroll by. A downvote if I’m on reddit lol.

I find that I have to identify the multiple groups surrounding this show and how the writers have to deal with it: what different portions of fandom wants (Polin or otherwise), what general audiences want, and what is thematically and narratively cohesive and well-developed. Sometimes there is overlap between those different groups… but not often. Good writing should be the priority, but I feel like marketing and popularity contests have taken over at the expense of strong, well-structure and well-developed narratives.

So many people lack any sort of media literacy surrounding analysis; I’m a high school English teacher and I unfortunately am fighting the battle first hand to get teenagers to think even remotely critically about both media and the world they live in. I have certainly seen the general population and large potions of the Polin fandom unfortunately calling for the ‘punishment’ of Colin  and I also find it incredibly exhausting and unfair… considering the reason they prooooobably do is because the show has barely given him any screen time. And so much of the fanbase grasps at the low hanging fruit when it comes to this show; it’s frustrating to feel like I’m watching an entirely different show than other people.

My intention was never to imply that Colin is getting enough screen time or development. He’s NOT, and that’s why a huge chunk of the general fanbase reacts negatively toward him; they refuse to even TRY and empathize with him in S1 and S2 despite everything he’s been through because it requires analyzing closely what few scenes we’re given. He has been barely touched on in the writing, and people don’t view him as a fully realized, complex character in his own right as a result. He has been deceived by two women in his life (one he doesn't know about yet...) and the narrative gave him a total of TWO scenes to grapple with his sadness. It's a disservice to his character and yes, it's unfairly coloring the way the fandom views him. (I also desperately need Penelope to be the one to willingly choose to tell him about LW in order juxtapose S1... but that is a post for another day...)

I just HAVE to hope that S3 will give us the development of Colin we need that they’ve alluded to: his burgeoning friendship with Will (please let him have real friends, omg), his relationship with his family (who are neglecting him at best and making him feel like a burden at worst), his search for purpose, his writing that he doesn’t even feel comfortable telling people about. It would be ASININE for them to do nothing with him; they've laid a decent enough stage to do some exploring, but I do have concerns it will be difficult in only 8 episodes. I don’t mind a pining Colin (which I do view as different thing than being jealous, for the record), but I don’t want his ENTIRE personality built around Pen when there is still so much of him to uncover. It's awful that Colin fans don't feel like he's seen in his own damn pairing.

However, my post was intending to address where Penelope is at the end of S2 and start of S3 and why her genuinely putting herself out on the marriage mart makes sense for where we leave her character. She heard Colin air out (at that point a likely accurate summation of) his feelings publicly and is like “Okay, I’ve had my head in the sand long enough. I heard him loud and clear, time to stop with my girl crush and move on.” Yes, she ghosts Colin, but she’s sort of at rock bottom at the end of S2 and I wouldn’t be surprised if she leans into making some poor-ass choices at the beginning of S3 to cope with what she feels she has left (likely LW and her focus on the marriage mart). I’m hoping that when Colin apologizes to her for his words, that she apologizes to him for ignoring him and not communicating her hurt… to say nothing of the LW confrontation that has to happen, obviously.

I completely agree that Penelope ultimately needs to realize that outside validation isn’t what she needs; I’ve also been there. But that is also often a long, drawn out process that usually has catalysts that help someone come to that realization through either direct conversation or circumstance. As you point out, Pen has multiple elements to her arc with different characters… all the ones you listed, and a new one this season with Lady Danbury (and I can’t tell you how excited I am for that relationship). Our world views are often shaped, or better or worse, by the kaleidoscope of people who come in and out of our lives… I guess I just don’t personally see Debling being a small part of that as a big deal, just like Marina being a part of Colin’s is just a sliver of his story, as well. 

I wrote about this in a different post actually, but I don’t think narrative parallels have to be perfect mirrors in order to still be parallels, and I think Colin and Penelope’s stories mirror one another a LOT throughout S1 and S2, and not just the courting. They are often fun house mirror versions of parallels, but they ARE similar, and I don’t know that it’s an accident. 

Regardless of the reason behind why both Colin and Penelope are courting / being courted by other people, its a choice that the writers, for better or worse, have made. I have only been in the Bridgerton fandom for maybe half a year, so I (thankfully) missed all this terrible stuff I saw about Ruby Barker from both racists and people who have issues distinguishing reality from fiction and hound people online. I also don’t know how even Colin’s biggest champion’s felt about that plot line initially, as it obviously not from the books. But as a relative newcomer who has mostly lurked, from the discourse I’VE seen around Marina (which is admittedly likely limited) is heavily influenced by how part of the fandom harassed and abused her actress (which is literally so horrific considering what’s going on with her right now :( ), rather than the actual character and her function in the narrative. 

I don’t really care about Debling at all; he’s literally just some guy who, if IMDB is to be trusted, is only around for like, 3 episodes. But I guess  I’m just confused  that the anti-Debling crowd is furious at his inclusion at all because it hurts Polin’s love story…but will then defend Colin’s courtship / engagement with Marina because… she was pregnant and the show decided to elevate her brief book mention? To show Colin’s drifting and search for a purpose and to be needed by someone? Those are certainly reasons… just like Penelope has narrative / character driven reasons to be genuinely trying at the marriage mart, whether she is successful, fails, or removes herself from it. The fandom has treated (and sometimes continues to treat) Marina incredibly unfairly, (so much that the fic I’m drafting right now has a pretty massive Pen/Marina reconciliation in it because the fandom's lack of acknowledging nuance is killing me… if I can ever finish it), but to me, the Marina/Debling thing seems a bit of a double standard from a narrative perspective. 

If I’m going to be stuck watching this “love” triangle, I ALSO want Penelope to say no if he proposes; in fact, I don’t want the courtship to even get that far, as I want her to see a man who is likely perfectly pleasant who could give her a comfortable life, and maybe even love her and for her to be like “…wow, I feel absolutely NOTHING for you. Sorry, you seem okay, thanks for playing, but I don’t want to shackle myself to someone for life for mere comfort.” …and then yes, bang it out with Colin once they’ve worked through their shit hahaha.  One of my big fears about this whole plot line is that I desperately don’t want Colin to suddenly realize his romantic feelings for Penelope because some other guy noticed her first so magically his romantic lightbulb goes off… I would literally never forgive the writers. I'm already struggled with having had to watch the S1 engagement and deal with Colin nearly having ended up with someone who is not Pen. And personally I WOULD prefer that Colin acknowledge that what he felt for Marina wasn't love... because if we are going to be all in for Pen's love for Colin and refuse to let her entertain anyone else... then I think it should go both ways... though we can def. do that without vilifying Marina. I LIKE that in the book that Colin and Penelople both only really had heart eyes for each other, and I'm annoyed the show has tampered with that. They can salvage it, but it will take some masterful strokes for them to be successful.

But I will say that I DO think that there are loads of ways the writers could approach this “triangle” since they’ve insisted on including it. I will ALWAYS want her to say no, but there are other narrative dangling threads that could complicate things that I try to take into account when I’m looking at a whole story. For example, I actually don’t know that Pen’s financial situation is THAT secure?? She’s only been doing LW for what, three years? As opposed to the decade or more in the book… she would not have nearly enough money to survive on her own, and I’m also pretty fuzzy on the Featherington finances at the end of S2 which would support her and her mother otherwise. They obviously still have debt, but didn’t Portia keep the funds, or am I misremembering? Idk, I need to rewatch S2… Aspects like that could influence some of the choices Pen could make (aside from potentially being forced to hold the idiot ball… I am NERVOUS when Nic said that Pen makes ‘some choices’ in this season… sigh).

The writers are not always successful at balancing all these plot lines, but I try to keep an open mind…I  am an optimistic person by nature when it comes to my media as a) if I wasn’t it would suck literally all enjoyment out of the fandom experience for me (…and I would not be able to survive the rest of this school year with nothing to look forward to, good god) and b) fanfic does a lot of heavy lifting for me personally in terms of exploring badly executed plot lines… fix it fic, basically. Thought sometimes I feel like I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel...

But yeah, not developing Colin will be unforgivable for me because this is HIS season as much as it is Penelope’s (if not more, because he’s the Bridgerton). They cannot truly choose each other if one half of the pairing is basically just only there to have sex with someone; it is their emotional dynamic and rich inner lives that make them interesting to me and compatible with EACH OTHER… and if we get robbed of that, I’ll riot. 

But we won’t know until it airs, and I have to hope they’re just trying to keep his story a secret as long as possible and they’re going for the low hanging fruit now... god knows that's what the average paying customers want, ugh.

At this point I’m just taking it a day at a time and working on meta I may never post and a big wish list of what I need S3 to do to make me feel like these characters have gone on a journey that feels earned, both individually and romantically as a couple. I know they won’t do it all, I’m not THAT naive, but a girl can dream...

But for now, I just want my goddamn Colin promo. When they finally air some, it better knock my fucking socks off. Like, I better have heart eyes IMMEDIATELY. 

This is literally so fucking long, I'm so sorry. But I’ll end with a potential chuckle: I had two of my eleventh grade girls burst into my classroom today absolutely LIVID about today’s promo: “Where is COLIN? If it’s not Colin I DON’T WANT IT.” And I was like “same girls, same.”

Thank you for politely engaging with me; I love this pairing and have wanted to discuss it with people but so much of the tumblr fandom in particular seems really aggressive that it’s made me a bit gun-shy to post anything. So thanks for responding!

( @dollypopup I just realized I have no idea if tumblr notifies of replies to reblogs because I’m hardly on here… feel free to ignore this haha. )

Listen, Polin has been my Roman Empire for months now, but this fandom is WILDIN’.

Chunks of this fandom who claim to be Polin fans seem to hate either Colin or Penelope and I’m just like… why are you here, then, if you refuse to empathize or even TRY to understand either critical half of the pairing?

“Colin can’t see what’s in front of him and he insulted her in front of his peers!! GROVEL; I hope Pen moves onto Debling!!!”

First of all, you’re not a Polin fan if you hate Colin so much you want her to move on to someone else. Second of all: yeah, no. Yes,Colin put his foot in his mouth, arguably in a big way because of status, but plenty of people in real life have experienced saying something that came off poorly to a group of people. Everything we know about Colin’s character tells us he is going to feel horrible about it; he’ll apologize, MEAN IT, and she’ll forgive him. She has her own apologies to make.

Believe it or, it is NORMAL for people to grow into romantic feelings slowly. Stop punishing Colin for discovering who he is by experiencing his own character arc with his own mistakes. He’s allowed to have flaws; he’s allowed to work through his insecurities!

Tbh, most of the criticisms I see of Colin are pretty surface-level and petty, so I don’t give them much real estate in my brain because they’re just… bad, lol.

On the flip side -

“Penelope feels entitled to Colin’s feelings; she’s selfish and the fucking worst!!”

S3 Penelope: *overhears Colin say he would never court her; BELIEVES him - decides she’s going to stop wasting her time, move on, and look for a serious suitor and marriage prospect a) as is expected of her in this era and b) so that she has security, especially considering her family’s dire financial straits.*

“Oh my GOD, this is so anti-Polin, how could she POSSIBLY even THINK about accepting a proposal from anyone but Colin?! GTFO”

SIGH, 1) we have NO IDEA how this plot line is going to pan out: Lord Debling may or may not be serious about her, we don’t know what that even looks like, or for how long. The show synopsis historically likes to play with the fandom expectations a lot. He may possibly propose… and if he does, it would clearly exist as a sort of parallel to S1…. but 2) GOD FORBID Penelope entertain the idea, despite very real fears and evidence that would lead her thinking it would likely be her ONLY proposal… or that even if Colin proposed post heavy-petting session, how on EARTH could she think that he would be doing it out of honor-bound obligation and not love. 🙄 Her potentially considering a proposal isn’t anti-Polin; it’s a realistic response and consideration to two (and likely an additional half) seasons worth of external and internal stressors that are tying into her character development.

Penelope’s heart is fragile for a multitude of reasons due to her home life, her prior experiences with Colin and Eloise AND the rest of the ton - it’s incredibly frustrating for people to ignore why she would potentially not believe Colin even if he DID confess / give her a marriage proposal, just like it’s frustrating when people don’t try to understand why Colin might struggle with his own feelings.

Some of y’all really don’t understand people like Penelope who have been told their entire lives that they are not enough, are terrified of putting themselves out there by being emotionally vulnerable and potentially rejected for the fundamental aspects of who they are… even though some of y’all claim to identify with Colin when he has his OWN STRUGGLES WITH SOME OF THESE SAME FEARS. And it’s almost worse because Pen is painfully SHY: You don’t just magically become confident one day because you decided to be; it is a constant battle against negativity that eventually becomes heavily internalized… it takes years of work unlearn those thought patterns, especially when you’re surrounded by people insulting and rejecting your to your face (her family) or behind your back (the way the ton talks about her family… it’s likely Pen heard gossip about herself, whether individually or as an extension of her family PLENTY)… with an added dose of also being ignored when not actively insulted.

It would not shock me at ALL if Penelope genuinely considers a Debling proposal. All of Colin’s actions in S1 and S2 have ultimately taught her that he is never going to return her feelings; she is likely going to be pretty oblivious to his own romantic realizations this season because why would she look for or entertain those hopes again? Some of y’all complain that she is selfish about Colin’s romantic feelings (which lol, I disagree strongly, but sure hypothetically, I’ll allow it) … so then when she tries to move on by listening to him and his actions she’s suddenly… punishing him and undeserving of him?? When she would have every reason to be skeptical of these feelings coming from seemingly nowhere when he starts of the season trying to find her a husband? NAH fam, she’s doing what anyone with any sense of emotional self-preservation would do: move on and try to be content, even if she knows she’ll always love Colin in her heart.

AND even if Penelope develops potentially fond feelings for Debling… do you really think it’s unrealistic for a 19 year old young woman who has done nothing but pine over a man who is oblivious to it (or worse, finds a romantic relationship with you laughable… in her eyes), who has not had ANYONE be romantically interested her… to maybe get a little fluttery around someone who is reasonably nice looking and shows her genuine interest right off the bat? Spoiler Alert: that is probably exactly what would happen because it’s a heady feeling!!!

This entire plotline is either a parallel to the Marina situation, or a reference to the book line that basically has Colin going “Oh shit, what if I had never realized Pen is the love of my life?? What if someone else had seen how amazing she was and snatched her up??” - Maybe it’s even both! Deep breath: it’s a just plot device for Polin to realize they’re made for each other.

Colin and Pen are going to be on their own journeys this season that fly in the face of what the other is going through. Colin is grappling with newfound romantic feelings for Penelope (while likely struggling to trust them because he thought he loved Marina but lol no he didn’t, so how is he supposed to know???) while also battling against former (and potentially current) impulsive actions… and Penelope is fighting for her LIFE trying to bury her feelings and move on because she’s trying to protect her heart because Colin literally said out loud he’d never want her AND she’s likely thinking of her security. They are both grappling with internal conflicts that oppose the other and THAT is what is going to make the tension and development so good… and that’s without even addressing all the LW stuff that needs to get worked through!

I need y’all to flex that empathy muscle a little and realize that this isn’t about fucking fan-service, or you projecting your own experiences onto these characters (or even the weird self-insert “I am/want to be this character” or “I want to fuck this character”) - you can relate to these characters but ultimately it’s about the STORY - it’s about exploring these characters realistically in how they would react to their own traumas and lived experiences, and how what they think they want/need comes into conflicts with their counterparts.

This is a romantic DRAMA, and these characters are going to have their ups and downs… and it’s a Shondaland drama for better or worse, so you KNOW it’s going to get messy (good lord just look at S2 and how far that “love” triangle went… I’m hopeful for the new show runner because she’s a fan).

Polin will be canon because they unreservedly CHOOSE the other and it will be glorious, so everybody chill the fuck out and stop shitting on my imperfect, emotionally fragile yet beautifully relatable, evolving lovers. They are the BEST fucking ship, but most of this fandom doesn’t deserve them tbh. They’re both messes in their own ways, and honestly? If they were real, neither Colin nor Penelope would tolerate this slander y’all are throwing at the other.

LEAVE COLIN AND PENELOPE ALONE AND LET THEM MUDDLE THEIR WAY TO TRUE LOVE. 🤬

[nevermindirah]

Do you have any thoughts on the use of AAVE for Nile (or lack thereof) in TOG fanfiction? I've been reading some Book of Nile fic and some writers seem to write her as a Millennial™ (using words like "fave" and "woke") but never acknowledge her Blackness in her patterns of speech. I know we don't see her use as much AAVE in the films, but I would argue she's in situations where code-switching would be valued (first in a "professional" environment in the army, then around a group of non-Black strangers).

Hi anon! I have many thoughts on this and I'm honored you asked me! But I should start by saying I'm white and any thoughts Black fans and especially Black American fans have on this that they want to share would be beyond lovely. (I'm not gonna tag anybody bc that feels rude but please add onto this post if any of y'all see this and want to!)

The main reason I personally avoid AAVE for Nile in my own fics is because I'm not Black. But Nile-centric fics by Black writers tend to avoid using much of it too, at least from what I've noticed/understood, and my guess is it's largely for the reason you mention, that she's in situations that encourage code-switching.

In movie canon Nile is highly competent at tailoring her language to each situation she finds herself in. This fantastic linguistics analysis meta shows how skillfully Nile chooses her vocabulary and grammar to meet her goals with different conversation partners in different contexts. In comics canon Nile had a bunch of different civilian jobs before joining the Marines, so she would've had experience code-switching in the ways that made sense for all those different contexts as well as the Marines and her family and high school and wherever else she spent her time before we met her. And now she's spending her time with a handful of immortals none of whom are native English speakers and a fellow Black American but one with a Queen's English UK accent whose professional experience is in the CIA where high-status code-switching is often an absolute must for success or even survival.

Fics featuring Nile are charged with extrapolating from that to how it might show up in her use of language that she's coping with a traumatic separation from her family and her career and pretty much everything she's ever known and now she needs to be able to make herself understood to people who seem to care about her and each other but are super duper in crisis, three (soon to be four) of whom predate Modern English entirely and the only one who's anywhere near her contemporary she's not supposed to talk to for a century. All of these people are telling her that pretty much any contact with any mortals poses an existential threat to her and the rest of the group. How the FUCK is she supposed to cope with that, like, generally? And would it be a more effective way for her to cope if she talked to Andy Joe and Nicky using the speech patterns that she used to use with her mom and brother, to at least retain that part of her identity even if it means having to do a lot of explaining, or would it meet her needs better to prioritize Andy Joe and Nicky understanding what she means with her words over using the particular words and grammar forms she used with her family?

I've seen several fics, both Nile-centric / BoN and otherwise, explore this a little bit in how/whether Nile uses Millennial™ speak. It's often a theme in Nile texting Booker despite the exile because of the popular headcanon that he as The Tech Guy is the only other immortal who understands memes. But Nile's much-younger-than-Booker mom probably uses Boomer and/or Gen X memes and Andy has been adapting to new communication styles for forever as evidenced by her canon high level of fluency with standard-American-accented English.

Which brings us back to people avoiding AAVE because they're not Black and they don't want to make mistakes (or they're not Black and they don't want to get yelled at for making mistakes, though I think many people overestimate how much they'll get yelled at while underestimating how much these mistakes can hurt). I can imagine some Black fans hold back from using much AAVE in fic because they don't want to share in-group stuff with white people who are likely to then adopt and ruin it, as white people so often do with Black cultural stuff. Some links about this including a great Khadija Mbowe video. I'm saying this gently, anon, because you might not know: woke, an example you cited as Millennial™ speak, is AAVE, and that's gotten erased by so many white people appropriating it and using it incorrectly online.

And also there's the part where fandom is a hobby and you never know when you're reading a fic that's the very first thing someone's ever written outside of a school assignment. This cultural considerations of language shit takes a level of effort and skill that not everybody puts into every fic, or even could if they wanted to because they haven't had time to build their skills yet. It's definitely easier for non-Black fans to project our millennial feels onto Nile than to do the layers of research and self-reflection it requires to depict what Blackness might mean to Nile, and it's not surprising that often people sharing their hobby creations on the internet have gone the easier route. There's not even necessarily shame in doing what's easier. It's just frustrating and often hurtful when structural white supremacy means that 3-dimensional Black characters are rare in media and thoughtful explorations of them in fandom are seen by the majority of fans as not-easy to make and therefore Nile Freeman, the main character in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, has the least fic and meta and art made about her of our 5 main immortals.

I've been active in different fandoms off and on for twenty years and I barely managed to write 5,000 words about Sam Wilson across multiple different fics in the 7 years since I fell in love with him. There's an alchemy to which characters we connect with, and on top of that which characters we connect with in a way that causes us to create stuff about them. Something about Nile Freeman finally tipped me over the edge from a voracious reader to a voracious writer. It's not for me to judge which characters speak to other individuals to the level of creating content about them, but I do think it's important for us to notice, and then work to fight, the pattern where across this fandom as a whole Nile gets way less content, and way less depth in so much of the content that's in theory about her, than any of these other characters.

Anyway, back to language. My two long fics feature Nile with several Black friends — Copley and OCs and cameos from other media — but all of those characters except Alec Hardison from Leverage aren't American. It's very possible I'm guilty of stereotyping Black British speech patterns in I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore. I watched hours and hours of Black haircare YouTube videos in the research for that fic and I modeled my OCs' speech patterns on what I heard from some of those YouTubers as well as what I've heard people like John Boyega and Idris Elba saying in interviews, but the thing about doing your best is you still might fuck up.

I'm slowly making progress on my WIP where Nile and Sam Wilson are cousins, and what ways of talking with a family member might be authentic for Nile is a major question I need to figure out. For that, I'm largely modeling my writing choices on how I hear my Black friends and colleagues talking to each other. I haven't overheard colleagues talking in an office in a long-ass time, but back when that was a thing, I remember seeing a ton of nuance in the different ways many of my Black colleagues would talk to each other. Different people have different personalities! And backgrounds! And priorities! A few jobs ago my department was about 1/3 Black and we worked closely with Obama administration staff many of whom were Black and there was SO MUCH VARIETY in how Black people talked to each other, about work and workplace-appropriate personal stuff, where I and other white coworkers could hear. There are a few work friends in particular who I have in my head when I'm trying to imagine how Sam and Nile might talk to each other. From the outside looking in, God DAMN is shit complicated, intellectually and interpersonally and spiritually, for Black people who are devoting their professional lives to public service in the United States.

One more aspect of this that I have big thoughts on but I need to take extra care in talking about is the idea of acknowledging Nile's Blackness in her patterns of speech. There's no one right way to be Black, and Nile's a fictional character created by a white dude but there are plenty of real-life Black Americans who don't use much or even any AAVE, for reasons that are complicated because of white supremacy. (Highly highly recommend this video by Shanspeare on the harms of the Oreo stereotype.)

Something that's not the same but has enough similarity that I think it's worth talking about is my personal experience with authenticity and American Jewish speech patterns. My Jewish family members don't talk like they're in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I've known lots of people who do talk that way (or the millennial version of it), some of whom have questioned my Jewishness because I don't talk that way. That hurts me. Sometimes when another Jew tells me some shit like "I've never heard a Jew say y'all'd've," I can respond with "well now you have asshole, bless your Yankee-ass heart," because the myth of Dixie is a racist lie but I will totally call white Northerners Yankees when they're being shitty to me for being Southern, and this particular Jew fucking revels in using "bless your heart" with maximum polite aggression, especially with said Yankees. But sometimes I don't have it in me to say anything and it just quietly hurts having an important part of me disbelieved by someone who shares that important part of me. The sting isn't quite the same when non-Jews disbelieve or discount my Jewishness, but that hurts too.

Who counts as authentically Jewish is a messy in-group conversation and it doesn't really make sense to explain it all here. Who counts as authentically Jewish is a matter of legal status for immigration, citizenship, and civil rights in Israel, and it's my number 2 reason after horrific treatment of Palestinians that I'm antizionist. But outside that extremely high-stakes legal situation, it can just feel really shitty to not be recognized as One Of Us, especially by your own people.

It can also feel really shitty to be The Only One of Your Kind in a group, even if that group is an immortal chosen family who all loves each other dearly. Sometimes especially in a situation like that where you know those people love you but there are certain things they don't get about you and will never quite be able to. I'm definitely projecting at least a little bit of my "lonely Jew who will be alone again for yet another Jewish holiday" stuff onto Nile when at the end of I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore she's thinking about being the only Black immortal and moving away from the community she'd built with a mostly-Black group of mortals in that fic. Maybe that tracks, or maybe that's fucked up of me.

Basically, this got very long but it's complicated, writing about experiences that aren't your own takes skill which in turn takes time and practice to build, writing about experiences not your own that our society maligns can cause a lot of harm if done badly, it can also cause a lot of harm when a large enough portion of a fandom just decides to nope out of something that's difficult and risky because then there's just not much content about a character who deserves just a shit ton of loving and nuanced content, people are individuals and two people who come from the exact same cultural context might show that influence in all kinds of different ways, identity is complicated, language is complicated, writing is hard, and empathy and humility and doing our best aren't a guarantee of avoiding harm but they do go a long way in helping people create thoughtful content about a character as awesome and powerful and kind and messy and scared and curious and WORTHY as Nile Freeman.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

THE BOX IS NABOO

That’s it, I’m doing it, I’m writing that stupid meta I’ve had in the works for two and a half years, I’m sharing it with the world. I promised it for last Thursday, my poll was forever ago, but whatever! I’m writing that freaking thing.

(super duper long post, press j to skip)

Enter my rabbit hole.

First thing to establish: the Box makes no sense whatsoever in-universe.

((EDIT: Something I forgot to mention. IRL, the premise of a giant murder cube and the aesthetic - wall patterns, light designs, etc - of the episode come from the 1997 horror movie Cube, (see the episode’s wookieepedia page). However, while the two are very closely linked visually, the Box does not follow the movie structurally or narratively, as you can verify by simply reading the movie’s summary.))

Recap of the context for the "Box" episode (s4e17): Palpatine is planning his own kidnapping. It was never meant to succeed, and while the plan would obviously benefit him (making the Jedi look bad, pushing Anakin closer to the Dark Side, making Republic citizens more afraid -> more docile, etc...) his actual goal is never explained, and it’s weird that he’d go to such extreme lengths for results so minimal that we’re never told what they are.

So Palpatine asks Dooku to kidnap him at the Festival of Lights on Naboo. Dooku hires Moralo Eval to design a giant box-thingy to test bounty hunters to hire the best of them to kidnap Palpatine. Moralo then gets arrested to alert the Republic that something is afoot, and hires Cad Bane to break him out. Obi-Wan - undercover to learn Moralo’s plan - goes with them. They evade capture and go to Serenno, and Bane and Obi-Wan have to pass the box-thingy test. The level of brainkarked logic here... Truly on par with Megamind, Gru and Heinz Doofenshmirtz.

Setting aside the insane plot holes and utterly nonsensical behavior of the villains, the Box itself is moronic from a plot perspective. It’s insanely complex, obviously incredibly expensive and would have taken months (more like years but it’s a short war) to make when it’s not even needed for the dastardly plot! Just hire some guys who have already proven themselves against Jedi! Throw cash at Bane and Embo and a few others! Maybe attack them with your saber and see how they do! 

And after all that, Dooku still ends up trying to kidnap Palpatine on his own. I can’t even... 

So why does the Box exist? Well, apart from being a nerdy callback to Cube, giving us a good thrill and being generally awesome to look at, it has actual narrative purpose within the SW universe.

The box is Naboo.

What the Box lacks in plot relevance, it makes up for with its heavily symbolic meaning. It very closely follows Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon’s experiences on Naboo - but only certain parts, which I’ll explain later.

We start with clean, sterile environments, SW’s favored way of showing villainy.

Then we have the protagonists locked in a room as dioxis, a poison gas, pours in.

And then they escape... this way.

(Okay, here the shaft is down, not up. And it’s not a ventilation shaft per say, it’s the designed escape route. Same difference).

We then skip most of TPM (namely, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon discovering the droid army, finding Padmé, leaving Naboo, landing on Tatooine, going to Coruscant, etc, etc) to come back to Naboo and go directly to the lightsabers and catwalks.

(Note: in both scenes, Obi-Wan has to propel himself from a catwalk.)

In TPM and TCW, the catwalks are immediately followed by ray shields

And we finally end with the last scenes. Now, they don’t look the same but they are structurally identical. 

Obi-Wan is faced with a challenge unsuited for his abilities (facing Darth Maul // shooting three moving targets when he’s far more skilled with a blade than a blaster) on a narrow space above a melting pit/pit of fire. 

He first watches someone die failing to complete the task...

 ... and has to do it himself, faring much better than expected (holding his own against Maul // shooting all the targets easily). 

He then almost falls to his death and gets saved unexpectedly.

And then there’s the final showdown.

In both scenes, Obi-Wan is angry. And in TCW Dooku eggs him on, banking on his anger. (More on that later.) In both cases though, he centers himself and is able to overcome both his opponent and his own unbalance. But in TCW, he doesn’t go for the kill, because he doesn’t need to. 

The Box, as a literal character-explorator ex-machina, thus shows us Obi-Wan’s growth.  

In TPM, Obi-Wan follows Qui-Gon’s lead. In TCW, he is the leader. He identifies the gas, makes the plans. He doesn’t fall from catwalks anymore - he runs atop moving ones. He doesn’t stay stuck behind ray-shields, he finds the solution. (Btw, how did Moralo know what blood type Derrown the Exterminator was? There was a 50% chance of him dying - thus killing all of the bounty hunters. Was that an acceptable outcome? TCW I need answers!) He doesn’t slay his foes, because he’s become powerful enough, skilled enough and wise enough to survive (and win) without needing to kill.

He’s grown - and, even more interestingly, he’s also stayed the same. In the previous episodes, we see some of the dark aspects of Obi-Wan. How he - like all Force-wielders, all people - could lose himself if he stopped maintaining absolute control.

But in the Box, surrounded by the worst criminals of the Galaxy, the most ruthless, worthless people, he’s still kind and tries his best to keep them alive.

The Box is a reminder and a reassurance for the audience that Obi-Wan Kenobi is still there under Rako’s face. He hasn’t lost his compassion, his restrain. He’s still a Jedi. And he’s an awesome, badass one. 

And now, for what it tells us about Dooku! 

It’s much shorter, don’t worry. Basically, Dooku considers that the best way to pick “the best of the best” of the deadliest people in the Galaxy is making them go through what killed his Padawan. There, I’ve broken your hearts, you’re welcome. 

More seriously, Dooku is a manipulative ass. It’s pretty clear that he knows Rako is Obi-Wan, or at the very least suspects it. 

He has an interesting reaction upon learning Rako’s identity, he keeps praising him despite his usual distaste for low-lifes, he smirks secretively after Eval says “I’ll show you who’s weak” (not included there because it’s a close-up of Dooku’s lips and no one wants to see that) and he tells Rako he’s very disappointed when he doesn’t finish off Eval.

[Later]

(Look at this smug asshole - I can’t. YOUR GRANDSON IS THE BEST, WE KNOW, STOP ACTIVELY RUINING HIS LIFE ALREADY.)

(Dooku... why...)

Now obviously Dooku couldn’t have made the Box specifically for Obi-Wan, because it would have to have been designed months before the Council ever decided to send Obi-Wan undercover, but he has no qualms trying to use it to push Obi-Wan to the Dark Side. Ffs Dooku, making your spiritual grandson relive one of the most traumatic events of his life on the off chance that he’ll join you (and desecrate his Master’s memory in doing so) is not okay!

Final tidbits of analysis: I mentioned that not all of TPM is mirrored in the Box. What’s omitted is the droids (even though Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon fight B1′s and droidekas between the dioxis and the ventilation shafts) and anything pertaining to Sidious (all the political stuff on Coruscant). You’ll also note that the fake lightsabers are orange.

=> The Box distances itself from anything that connects Dooku to Naboo. Red lightsabers are the trademark of the Sith, so they’re not used. The bounty hunters will be facing Jedi, so logically the fake sabers should be green or blue - and yet they’re orange, the color closest to red without being red. It fits with Dooku’s special brand of dishonesty - he always tells bits of the real story but twists them just enough to absolve himself of any fault and to justify his choices. 

(”We can destroy the Sith” -> could maybe destroy Sidious with Obi-Wan, but fails to mention he’s a Sith Lord himself; “the Viceroy came to me for help, that’s why I’m attacking the Republic” -> political idealism is a small part of it, but fails to mention he’s Sidious’ underling and is playing the Viceroy like a fiddle; “Qui-Gon would have joined me” -> maybe, still fails to mention he’s working for the man who ordered Qui-Gon’s death; “I told you everything you needed to know” -> debatable, never said that Palps was Sidious; “Sifo-Dyas understood, that’s why he helped me” -> partly true, doesn’t admit to killing Sifo-Dyas right after getting his help)

So we have a twisted version of Naboo, droid-free (as droids are now irrevocably associated with Dooku, even if that wasn’t the case in TPM) and with sabers that aren’t quite red. Keep in mind that Dooku had already fallen by TPM. (We know this because he killed Sifo-Dyas and created the Clone Army - part of Sidious’ plan - when Valorum was still Chancellor, as per the episode The Lost One.) That means Dooku was (in)directly complicit in Qui-Gon’s death. And the Box doesn’t (=refuses to?) acknowledge that. 

(Also omitted in the Box are the Gungans and Tatooine. It makes sense, because Dooku probably wouldn’t have the full details regarding those parts of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan’s missio as they weren’t as public, and would see them as irrelevant if he did. He utterly despises Anakin, and Gungans are the type of people he always dismisses out of hand). 

Anyway, that’s my two cents about the Box. To quote Lucas...

“It’s like poetry. It rhymes.”

Thanks to @lethebantroubadour @impossiblybluebox​ @nonbinarywithaknife @ytoz​ and @kaitie85386​ for voting for this one. Next up is a compilation of the Jedi being casually tactile with each other (because they’re a warm and affectionate culture, dammit).

Also thanks to @laciefuyu​ for giving me gifs I ended up not using ^^; you rock anyway!

[starlessalex]

A long ass post in which I think too hard about future ACOTAR couples.

After lurking at the ACOTAR tag, I saw a lot of great theories and analysis that try to predict the trajectory of the spin-off trilogy. I’ve decided to write my own take on the subject (probably to my own detriment - involving myself in another ship war wasn’t on my bucket list this year, but here I am). I was thinking about what the potential future couples of the story might be, but through the lense of the plot - which couples make the most sense plot wise, which couple have the most potential to drive the plot toward. Here are my thoughts on the matter.

Before I start I will make a couple of disclaimers: 1) I obviously have my ship preferences, and it just so happens that the ships I like the most are the ones that according to me make the most sense narratively. That being said I’m not trying to be malicious or rude about all other ship possibilities - I actually like some of them quite a bit too. 2) I let the books speak for themselves. I do not invoke any paratextual information regarding those books: no SJM interviews or online posts. This analysis is based on what, imo, can be logically inferred from the text. 3) Of course there will be spoilers.

If that’s clear we shall being:

In my analysis I focus on the plot and which couples ensure the smoothest and most logical progression of it. Because of that I do not focus on the foreshadowing SJM included in the previous ACOTAR novel: I don’t quote anything, nor do I talk about previous interactions of those couples. In this analysis, I’m interested in the bigger picture so-to-speak. So first we need to establish what that bigger picture is.

Those books are meant to be standalone fantasy-romance novels with an overarching plotline that will reach its climax in the third book (since it's a trilogy). Each book will feature a different couple which apart from falling in love will lead the story to its next stage. What it means for the story is that the couples that we will be following are all heavily connected to the main story/conflict of those books. ACOSF established that story/conflict as stopping/defeating Koshei. I would argue that ACOSF also established Beron as a secondary antagonist as he is Koschei’s ally. With that in mind, the potential future couples all have to be connected in some way to those individuals.

We actually have a pretty small pool of characters to choose from. Since the story was pitched as SJM was writing ACOWAR, that book is where we can start our search for clues about which characters are going to be the future leads. I don’t want to use SJM interviews for information because things often change during the writing process, however, just in this instance I will note that recently SJM said that not much changed from that initial pitch so all foreshadowing in ACOWAR is still relevant. ACOWAR established 7 characters with potential future romances and storyline: Nesta, Cassian, Elain, Lucian, Azriel, Vassa and Mor.

Four of them are directly connected to Koshei or Beron: Nesta and Elain were made by The Cauldron gaining power that might potentially threaten Koschei and Beron. Elain is especially connected to Koschei - she’s a seer and had visions of him. Additionally, as far as we know she’s Lucian’s mate which makes her connected with Beron. Vassa was entrapped and cursed by Koshei and is currently trying to escape him. Lucian resides with Vassa at the moment, plus he is Beron's stepson.

Out of the 7 of the potential lead characters, two (Nesta and Cassian) already had their story told, which leaves as with 5 possibilities. Mor, unfortunately, also seems quite unlikely to have a book for herself in the near future because since ACOWAR no love interest for her was introduced and plot wise she also doesn't have a lot to do with Koshei. She has a connection to Eris (about whom I will talk about in a minute) and by proxy to Beron, but, again, there isn't a love interest for her in sight (I will talk about why Emerie doesn't seem like a possible candidate, at least not yet). With that we are left with Azriel, Lucien, Elain and Vassa. All of those characters have direct ties to Koshei and Beron with the exception of Azriel.

After ACOSF, three more characters caught people's attention as possible love interests too - Emrie for Mor, Gwyn for Azriel, and Eris for ...well for no one, at least for now.

Especially the Gwyn and Azriel ship gained a lot of traction among the fandom. I for one, don't mind them. I like the fanarts and the aesthetic but, logically, they together won't lead any of the two upcoming novels.

Gwyn, Emerie and Eris, are characters that were only just fleshed out on page in ACOSF, with Gwyn and Emrie being only just introduced to the story in ACOSF. Additionally, Gwyn and Emrie have nothing to do with Koschei and Beron so, unless they are paired up with one of the three remaining characters with those connections they won’t have their own books. Maybe, if SJM decided to continue the story beyond the spin-off trilogy, then we will get books with them as leads.

So, we are left with the above-mentioned quartet: Azriel, Lucien, Elain and Vassa.

So how do we couple those characters up?

Elain has two possible love interests - Azriel and Lucien. Technically, both ships work but if SJM goes with Elain and Lucian than their book would have to be the last, because that is where I imagine Koshei will be defeated. Also since Lucien is connected to Beron, I imagine he will be the one to strike him down for good, or at least have a huge rule in opposing him at the very end. If Elain and Lucien book will be the next one we are left with Vassa and Azriel to lead the last book, not together obviously. They would have to have different love interests - the last book would have to be either Vassa x someone (Jurian, probably) or Azriel x someone. To be honest, if the next book is Elain and Lucien that would mean Azriel isn’t getting a book because as I said Azriel x Gwyn makes little sense as the second novel in this trilogy and no sense as the third one because neither Az or Gwyn have connection to Koschei.

I strongly believe that the person who is most likely to deal with Koschei and the person who has the absolute right to defeat him is Vassa. She's the one who has been entrapped and cursed by him. Additionally it was her conversation with Feyre at the end of ACOWAR that was a giveaway as to what the spin-off trilogy is going to be plot wise. It also seems right up SJM alley to have her female protagonist defeat her abuser in a very poignant and satisfying way. I’m pretty sure that Vassa is going to be one of the leads of the future two books.

Lastly, I think we all can agree that at this point it's obvious that Azriel and Elain are two characters that SJM wants to write about and they will be main characters in the spin off novels, whether in the same book or not..

So to add all of this up we have two possible scenarios in fort of us:

1) The next book is going to be Elain and Lucien, and the last book is gonna be Vassa and someone (Jurian, Eris?, Azriel????). This scenario doesn't make much sense because: a) It would mean Azriel won't have a book (unless he's paired up with Vassa, which by now is not foreshadowed or hinted at at all). b) There's no clear love interest for Vassa, because Lucien would end up with Elain. Jurian is a possibility but he's, you know, Jurian. I don't think many people would want him as a MC. There's also Eris (bare with me here). Eris, technically, has a lot of the same plot connections that Lucian has (son of Beron, connected to the Night Court where most of our heros reside) + SJM clearly loves him. This couple is far fetched, obviously.

2) The most likely scenario, imo. The next book is Azriel and Elain - they have plenty of foreshadowing, Elain is connected to Koshei, the seer and the spy infiltrating Koshei/ Autumn Court (there’s plenty of possibilities as to how they together can be involved with the main conflict). The last book, Lucien x Vassa - the will defeat Beron, defeat Koschei, Lucian as the son of Helion the Spell-Cleaver will break Vassa's curse once and for all.

There's also other scenarios, however unlikely:

1) Gwyn and Azriel, Elain and Lucian (why yes: both Az and Elaine get books, why no: Vassa doesn't get a book which is unlikely cause she's the person most connected to Koschei, Gwyn has nothing to do with Koschei)

2) Mor and someone, Elain and Azrie or Elain and Lucian or Vassa and Lucian (why yes: we get a Mor book which is great, why no: Mor has nothing to do with Koschei, we don't have a clear love interest for Mor, Az or Elain, or Vassa are not going to get a book.)

To sum this all up. The characters that the fandom should keep an eye on are Elain, Azriel, Lucien and Vassa. The next books will be about them, and the most logical way to tell their stories is to couple Elain with Azriel and Lucian with Vassa. There is plenty of great analysis of the subtle and not so subtle way SJM is foreshadowing those couples since ACOWAR.

Of course I can be totally wrong with my predictions but judging by what's on the page I think I'm mostly right here. To be 100% sure we must simply wait

[ashdumpsterpile]

Ohmygod YES Susan Pevensie is awesome please talk to me about Susan i want to know everything you have to say

Literally THANK YOU for asking me this bc Susan Pevensie is a character I never get asked about and I have So Many Opinions.

I'm going to start by saying that Susan used to be my least favorite character in the series. This goes for the books and the movies. Some of it was for personal reasons--she reminds me of a couple of annoying ppl I know irl--but it was also bc I watched Prince Caspian which shoehorned her into a relationship with Caspian which I hated.

HOWEVER. I ended up rethinking this position after interacting with Susan fans and realizing that there are so many wonderful things to love about her!

(putting under the cut bc this got long)

Things Ash Loves About Susan Pevensie

Aight I'm not going to do a formal analysis yet on her, but instead rant about some of the unrelated things I adore about Susan Pevensie.

Susan the Archer

Look we all love archery here. I don't have anything more to say.

Okay, I actually do have more to say. I love the fact that Susan is a complete badass with the bow. You get the general impression that she's one of the royals in charge of public relations, traditions, foreign policy, etc. and yet she's the most competent archer in the series. One of the few things I liked about the movies is how they didn't downplay this. They actually let her be a badass and show off her skills.

Also the part where she kicks Trumpkin's ass was awesome.

Susan the Gentle

Susan being the most passive Pevensie was something I definitely underappreciated as a teenager. I think my non-ability to see past "I'm not like other girls" narrative and the combination of Susan being described as the most traditionally feminine woman in the Narnia series is what initially turned me off from her.

HOWEVER, now it's one of my favorite attributes! I love that Susan is a badass and the most beautiful woman in Narnia. She has hair down to her feet, every man and woman in the kingdom want to fuck her, and she's still a fucking badass who will not hesitate to kick your ass.

Susan the Sister

Most of my thoughts of Susan as an older sister mostly stem from my own personal headcanons, but she is an awesome sister to her siblings. She's Peter's voice of reason, Edmund's sass partner, and Lucy's big sister.

Susan the Mom-Friend

She is a literal mother-figure for Corin.

"[...] the most beautiful lady he had ever seen rose from her place and threw her arms round him and kissed him, saying: "Oh Corin, Corin, how could you? And thou and I such close friends ever since thy mother died. [...]"

-The Horse and His Boy, 33-34

Most everything I have to say about this ventures into headcanon territory, but I love the idea of Susan basically adopting Corin after his mom dies. The way she trusts Cor--who she thinks is Corin in this chapter--is really sweet and I wish we could've seen more of that relationship.

Susan the Flawed

Something I notice from the fandom is a lot of people who hate Susan tend to because of her flaws. On the other hand, most Susan stans like to wave away these flaws and blame C.S. Lewis for being misogynistic or Aslan for being a "cruel god" and ignore the fact that she is a deeply flawed person.

Susan gets something of a "reverse redemption arc" in The Chronicles of Narnia. This makes her not only a fascinating foil to Edmund--as both are analytical, logical people--but an interesting character by herself.

She starts out in TWW as very skeptical of Narnia and it's whole deal and also very condescending to Lucy throughout. She ultimately does admit that Lucy was right and does get on board with the whole prophecy at the same time Peter does, and ends the book being crowned "the Gentle Queen."

In The Horse and His Boy, she has a very interesting dynamic with Edmund and in even more interesting relationship with Rabadash. They don't even interact on-page with each other, but it's highly implied that she was interested in him when he was a guest in Narnia. His behavior obviously changed when she visited him in Tashbaan, but you have to wonder what their dynamic was like before for her to travel all the way to his home when relations between the countries were strained at best.

Prince Caspian is where the cracks start showing through. Susan has lived an entire life as an adult in Narnia, gets thrown back to England with her siblings, and is yet again in Narnia as a child. This book is what really emphasizes her one fatal flaw: convenience.

(Put a pin in that thought, I'll get back to it.)

Susan denies once again that Lucy saw something that the rest of them can't seen. She continues this narrative until every other sibling finally acknowledges Lucy in the right and only then does she apologize.

The last mention of Susan is in The Last Battle, where all of her flaws rise up against her in the worst way possible. I have a lot of controversial opinions on this that I'm going to address later, but I just want to say that Susan's reverse-redemption arc is something I actually like about her.

(There is also evidence that Susan does get a full redemption arc, just as Edmund and Eustace did, but C.S. Lewis was pretty much done with The Chronicles of Narnia at the point and instead encouraged fans to write their own version of how that went down.)

Okay, back to convenience being Susan's fatal flaw. So the one thing that comes up time and time again in the series is that Susan is very focused on material comforts. I believe it's implied that she's vain, and it's canonical that her own personal comfort spurs her to make decisions.

"[...] I really believed it was him — he, I mean — yesterday. When he warned us not to go down to the fir wood. And I really believed it was him tonight, when you woke us up. I mean, deep down inside. Or I could have, if I'd let myself. But I just wanted to get out of the woods and — and — oh, I don't know [...]"

Prince Caspian, 81

Prince Caspian has the strongest examples of Susan doing this, but certainly there's evidence elsewhere. There are a lot of fans who are distressed by this, claiming that Aslan and the others are too hard on her and shouldn't judge.

Honestly, I like that she's written with this flaw. Not only is it very relatable--(my own personal comfort and convenience is something I highly prioritize too)--but it humanizes a character who otherwise is ridiculously op and basically the Helen of Troy of the series. It may sound like I'm using this as an excuse to rant, but I really wouldn't have her any other way.

Susan As Portrayed by Anna Popplewell

Movie!Susan is a fucking delight.

She's sarcastic and badass and awesome and I could spend hours heaping praise on Anna's acting and her portrayal of Susan, but I can already tell that this post is going to be long so, I'll just stop here.

(10/10 want to be stabbed by her tho.)

Personal Headcanons

Let's talk about my fanon thoughts. I have many.

Susan is Aro

There's canonical evidence for this! Susan is a character who is heavily pursued by suitors everywhere, and even lets herself be courted by many of them, but chooses not to settle down. Even when she gets back to England and is described as only having interest in parties and material things, boys aren't mentioned.

I like to think that in The Horse in His Boy Susan was interested in Rabadash at first because he was a brilliant conversationalist. Nothing she says about him implies romantic interest, before and after she realizes the truth of his intentions.

Susan and Edmund Were Best Friends

This might be my love for The Horse and His Boy showing itself, but I think Susan and Edmund were thrown into circumstances where they interacted the most with each other.

Edmund is the ruler in charge of politics. Susan is the ruler in charge of Cair Paravel's public image. I imagine they spent time as ambassadors to other countries and planning royal functions.

They're also the most level-headed and logical out of their siblings, so they probably found a lot in common.

Susan Fancast

I literally just said I loved Anna's potrayal of Susan's (and I love what they gave us of older Susan too in LWW!), but I read the books in 2008 and my parents didn't let me see the movies bc I was like...nine years old and they thought it would be too scary.

So I had to headcanon my own interpretations.

Queen Susan the Gentle:

For some reason Merlin wasn't too scary for me to watch and I fell in love with Katie McGrath in like. Two episodes so. (On an unrelated note, I also fancast Bradley James as Peter at the time.)

Anyway, fanon Susan is basically Morgana Pendragon pre-evil arc. Sassy as hell, hot as fuck, and can kick your ass.

Unpopular Opinions

Yeah, feel free to skip this part if having controversial fandom opinions is a deal breaker for you.

The Problem With Susan Isn't Actually A Problem

I'm about to start so much discourse in the Narnia fandom, but C.S. Lewis's choices with her in The Last Battle weren't misogynistic. Bear in mind, I'm not saying that all of his writing choices in the series were A++ or excusing away certain racist/sexiest bits, but it's honestly baffling to me that people are so up in arms over Susan's exclusion in the final book.

So the part that everyone loses their shit over is as follows:

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except nylons and lipstick and invitations. She always was a jolly sight too keen on being grown-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly. "I wish she would grow up. She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age. Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can."

The Last Battle, 83-84

There's a lot to unpack here and I first want to say that everyone's opinion on this part, no matter how different than mine, is valid. I'm going to be quoting some other ppl's opinions on here and by no means am I bashing them. I just want to address my feelings on the matter and the best way to do that is to cite the thoughts of ppl who have opposing ideas.

Here are some arguments on Tumblr I've heard regarding "The Problem of Susan":

"How about we talk about what might have happened if Narnia hadn't deserted Susan? [...] What if we didn't tell Susan she had to go grow up in her own world and then shame and punish her for doing just that? She was told to walk away and she went. She did not try to stay a child all her life, wishing for something she had been told she couldn't have again."

"Narnia is filled with metaphors (often not very subtle ones) that are supposed to teach us how to be, and the most glaring one for any young girl to absorb is that it's okay to be a girl like Lucy, unthreatening and cheerful and valiant and faithful, but to be a girl like Susan gets you punished - in fact, you aren't just punished, you're destroyed."

"why do we call it ‘the problem’ where’s the problem about a young woman dealing with her trauma and choosing her own path, actively making the choice to keep living and to stay and to carve a life out in England when her siblings couldn’t? what is the problem about susan forgetting to somehow cope with what she’s experienced? why is it ‘the problem of susan’ that she recontextualised her faith?"

And then there's JK Rowling who said this:

There comes a point where Susan, who was the older girl, is lost to Narnia because she becomes interested in lipstick. She's become irreligious basically because she found sex. I have a big problem with that.

It's weird how I'm still finding new ways to hate JKR in the year 2021. Again, there is absolutely zero implication that Susan had sex when she came back to England. ZERO. Did she actually read the books? IDK. If someone shares this opinion pls reply with actual canonical evidence.

Back on topic, I'm a firm believer of death of the author and interpreting art via your own experiences. Which is why I'm also going to share my own interpretation by saying y'all are wrong.

Susan Pevensie was not abandoned by Narnia. She was not barred from Narnia because she is traditionally feminine or because she "owned her sexuality" (another opinion I didn't have time to condense down for this post) or because she recontextualized her faith or even because she deserved to be punished.

I also fail to see how Susan recontexualized her faith, as the entire point of it all is that she has none. Bringing this back to Susan's fatal flaw (personal convenience/material comforts), her prioritizing herself over her own faith is the reason she is "no longer a friend of Narnia." Not...whatever fanon y'all are imposing on her character.

Susan is not being punished for liking lipstick and looking pretty. Susan's not even being punished. Y'all read Neil Gaiman's The Problem of Susan and forgot it wasn't canon.

There are many reasons Susan is not in Aslan's Country (one of them being that she's not actually dead yet), but the main one has to do with this:

"[...] But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.”

Voyage of the Dawn Treader, 215-216

Yeah, okay that's why Susan is no longer a friend of Narnia. The implication when the Pevensies are told that they can no longer enter Narnia is that they are to find Aslan in other places. Susan doesn't do this, instead choosing to focus her life on material things. It isn't the lipstick, it's that she only wants the lipstick.

Susan Had Sex In The Books

Oh and not in the context y'all are thinking. (Again, there are no implications that Susan was barred from Narnia for having sex or that she had sex when she came back to England.)

So there's actual canonical evidence that Susan and Rabadash had a sexual relationship. Sort of.

"What think you? We have been in this city fully three weeks. Have you yet settled in your mind whether you will marry this dark-faced lover of yours, this Prince Rabadash, or no?"

-The Horse and His Boy, 35

Edmund calls Rabadash her lover. Not her suitor. I don't know if the word had a different meaning in 1954, but it feels like C.S. Lewis is saying that they're fucking. I'm not really happy with the idea of Susan sleeping with an abuser, but really proud of her for Getting Some as a woman born in a time period where having premarital sex was a big no-no.

This also invalidates the weird opinion going on that Susan was barred from Narnia because she had sex.

Suspian Is The Worst

I haven't really talked about Movie!Susan much, but as long as we're talking unpopular opinions, it's worth noting that I hate Suspian. Some of it is the "Susan is Aro" headcanon screaming inside of me, but it's also the fact that it's written poorly, does nothing interesting for either character and generally comes across as awkward.

I feel like they were trying to make Prince Caspian sexy and relevant to teens. It came across as super heteronormative and unnecessary.

It also gets really really weird bc the next movie then gives Caspian and Edmund mad chemistry and we're all just like........ok.

Final Thoughts

Susan may not be my favorite character in the series, but she's grown on me over the years. I have many issues with fanon interpretations of her--which definately fueled some of my disdain for her initally--and I don't identify as a Susan Apologist.

I do however adore Susan and have many headcanons for her not mentioned here. I love reading fanfic, writing fanfic and meta, and generally having conversations about her and would love to talk more about it.

I welcome criticism (CONSTRUCTIVE) and conversation on all of my opinions and observations. Please drop into my inbox. <3

[momoliee]

Hi....if you don't mind me asking, can I ask, who are your top 5 favorite TGCF characters? And why do you like them? Sorry if you've answered this question before....

Hi it’s totally fine!

[1. Mu Qing 2. Xie Lian 3. Pei Ming 4. Shi Qingxuan 5. He Xuan] [Honorary mentions : Hua Cheng and Quan Yizhen]

1. Mu Qing : born on the lower class side of an elitist, classist country, mu Qing had to work from a very young age to prove for his poor, sick mother. He’s had to endure the constant flaunting and bullying of the rich, endure being looked down upon and treated as dirt even tho those people weren’t much better than him in terms of cultivation or sword ability. Then he meets the crown prince and his body guard, and despite this guy being a filthy rich royalty, he still extends a kind hand, still treats him as an equal. It’s why for the first time, Mu Qing actually feels less, he feels inferior in terms of personality and wealth and capability and just, in terms of everything. Mu Qing then has to battle to incompatible emotions within him : jealousy and admiration. But mu Qing knows what’s right and what’s not, so he shoves the jealousy deep deep down cause Xie lian is his FRIEND, Xie lian is the guy who helped him. Yes they fall out, and it’s all mu qing’s fault for acting so cowardly, but not a day passes that he doesn’t spend it feeling guilty and horrible and hating his own existence for what he’s done. And when they meet again, he can’t confront him, can’t face him with what he’s done. So he acts like a little dick and picks on him. Helping him without telling anyone. You know, just being a tsundere. Their reconciliation is my favorite part, mu Qing admitting to all his thoughts and faults, and with all the vulnerability that he never allowed himself to ever expose, he reaches out a hand and asks to be his friend. Deep down hes a good guy, it’s just that he happens to be a prideful coward and an ass on the surface tho. (I can write a whole meta analysis on him but there are still 4 more characters so imma stop here)

2. Xie lian : I initially thought he was gonna be like, the stereotypical extremely nice and kind character who always smiles in the face or hardship and never complains. Basically the vanilla character that ive stopped liking a long long time ago. But he surprised me. Xie lian is an extremely three dimensional character who isn’t always kind or nice. Xie lian cries, complains, screams and yells, lashes out and WILL go full apeshit mode when hes driven to his limit. He will blame others for not seeing how hard he’s trying, but he will still continue to try anyway. He thought that kindness was the easiest choice to make, only to realize that kindness is the kind of choice that only matters when you still make it despite being UNABLE to afford making it. What does it mean to be rich and donate a small portion of your money compared to being poor and donating the only meal you managed to find to someone who is more in need. It’s why I love him. He’s a traumatized character through and through and him finally being allowed to heal is like a balm on my heart.

3. Pei ming : beloved manwhore, most precious slut of ours. The comic relief, hualian’s number one shipper and supporter and fan. Cleanest member of the heaven (besides fenqing). This man will have his fling then shower the woman with riches and make sure she’s well taken care of even if the sparks of desire have long since been extinguished. The most charming. Covering up for his friends no matter what. I just, I love him ok.

4. SQX : I’ve always found her/him extremely endearing and was always so so fond of him/her. She’s bubbly and kind and would always listen to you and never turn a deaf ear to a cry of help. But she wouldn’t complain, no matter what befell her she would take it without so much as a protest. The kind of friend everyone needs, especially Xie lian. The kind of sunshine energy that we all need some of tbh

5. He xuan : (this post is too long so im just shortening the metas bit by bit) extremely complex character, had everything taken from him, suffered some of the absolute worst trauma that he couldn’t recover from, and after being thoroughly emptied out, he filled himself up with revenge in order to keep going. Cause how else was he gonna keep going? Met someone who may or may not have made the years easier on him, only for said person to abandon him too. And after his revenge was complete, he went back to the initial emptiness, this pointlessness that dwells deep within him that he can’t get rid of. Idk I just find him very very tragic

Honorary mentions : Hua Cheng for obvious reasons and qyz because he’s the Goodest autistic boy who only ever wants to repay the people who were kind to him with 10x the kindness

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Audrey Roget

Audrey Roget has 10 fics at Gossamer, with some different ones at AO3, fanfiction.net, and her website. You might know her from her very good fics or as part of Musea, a collective that all wrote fic and posted X-Files fic recs. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Three Times Dana Scully Didn’t Go to San Diego for Christmas and The Shirt. Big thanks to Audrey for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)? A little, yes. Not so much by folks who were around in those days. I sometimes go hunting for beloved stories from the early years, both those I read and loved, and those I never got around to. I am always delighted to hear that later generations of fans have stumbled across my stuff, especially since I haven’t posted anything new in a number of years. It’s fantastic that both years-long fans and new ones are out there continuing to rec fic from all eras, and to maintain archives for fans yet-to-be born. What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it? What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general? It may sound corny, but the main thing I think of, and the thing that has ultimately been most valuable and lasting, has been the friendships. The feeling of having found a tribe – not just of TXF fans, but of other people who could be as enthusiastically engaged as I was (if not more so) with fictional stories and characters – was mind-blowing. Since I was a kid, I had often mulled over the books/movies/TV I loved and speculated internally about what happened off the page or off-screen, or created new stories for characters in my head. But, except for an elementary school phase where I and my two BFFs regularly played Charlie’s Angels, I hadn’t engaged in that kind of gleeful immersion in a fictional world with others until TXF fandom. My involvement in fandom followed pretty quickly from getting hooked on the show, so for me, it’s all one big ball of experiences. Even as my interest in/involvement in fandom has waxed and waned over the years, I’ve been lucky to remain friends with wonderful people who I originally connected with as fellow fans.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)? What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

My initial entrée to the fandom was through fanfiction. I didn’t get interested in the show until mid-season 5. Around the same time, I read an article in a zine called Might (co-founded by Dave Eggers) about this thing called fanfiction that people would write and publish online. At first I thought it was satire or a joke – the fic cited involved Wilma Flintstone and a polished sabre tooth, as I recall – but then realized this was an actual thing. So I figured that a show then at the peak of pop culture must have fanfiction, and I went looking. Early on, I scrolled atxc on a daily basis and downloaded stories. But I didn’t engage in discussions about the show on Usenet, since I only knew how to access it with my Earthlink email client, and I didn’t want to post using my real name.

Later, I set up a pseud address with Yahoo and subscribed to a couple of email fanfic/discussion lists, and stayed subscribed to those for years. There was also a period in there somewhere – of maybe only a year or so, when I think about it – when I’d often nerd out into the wee hours with other fans via IM chat groups. That was around the time the small writers’ collective Musea was founded, and we were active for several years after the show’s initial run. In the early aughts, I followed many authors to LiveJournal and eventually set up my own account and stayed involved in fandom that way, until it mostly dispersed as well. What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show? In a word: Chemistry. I had casually watched a couple of episodes during the first four seasons, but I’m not a huge sci-fi/horror fan at heart, and the story lines didn’t immediately grab me. But I happened to tune into The Red and the Black in 1998, and BOOM. For the first time, the intense layers of emotion and attraction between Mulder and Scully really struck me – and then of course, upon further viewing, I realized it was unmissable, an essential element in the fabric of the show. As a wise woman once said, a switch had been flicked. Mulder and Scully’s magnetism was like nothing I’d ever seen, and though I eventually came to appreciate the storytelling, humor, production values, and other components that made the series so successful, watching those characters interact has always been what kept me coming back. Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files? I was part of a list-serv discussion group for The West Wing for a while, which was a fun melding of character and plot analysis with political discussion. Later, I got into the House, MD fandom, again mostly as a fanfic reader/writer. I was finding that other fandoms, unlike TXF, were more dispersed, the networks of people structured more loosely, if at all. There were fanfic and discussion communities on LiveJournal, and fanfiction.net was the other main hub for posting and reading, but if there was anything centralized like Gossamer, Ephemeral, or the Haven, I never found it. Within all those fan communities, as in TXF, there were partisans for various characters and pairings, and flame wars erupted over plot developments that outraged this faction or that. One main difference was that those other shows had larger, ensemble casts and more varied subplots. So on one hand, there was more opportunity to explore back stories and multiple perspectives. In House MD in particular, there were several entrenched rival shipper camps, which were about equally grounded in canon, rather than TXF’s central ship. I was less into TWW fic, but my impression was that readers were less militant about their pairing preferences than TXF or House fans. Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

I was deeply fascinated by Greg House for several years. (And the love-hate chemistry between him and Lisa Cuddy was a strong draw for me.) House MD came early in a wave of TV shows centered on anti-heroes, and Hugh Laurie brought amazing complexity and thoughtfulness to the character.

Philip and Elizabeth Jennings (The Americans) are a lethal pair of antiheroes. The inherent moral conflict of a sympathetic narrative from their POVs, and the global political conflict they embody was TV catnip for me. The internal struggles at the hearts of those characters were so exquisitely written and performed, they completely fascinate me.

The West Wing felt so much like a show created specifically for me. I’m especially fond of story arcs and scenes that centered on CJ Cregg, Charlie Young, and Josh Lyman. Though I loved Martin Sheen’s human portrayal of Jed Bartlet, the fact that he was the President always made him a little untouchable in my mind. But CJ, Charlie, and Josh were basically hard-working functionaries who were ambitious and idealistic and funny and flawed, and they spoke to me. What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom? Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully? Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I do continue to think about Mulder and Scully and watch episodes somewhat often. I’ll sometimes run a favorite episode as background when I want something comforting on. I read TXF fic pretty regularly, which can inspire me to go back and watch a particular episode or story arc I haven’t thought about in years. Just recently, I started listening to The X-Files Diaries podcast (@XFDPodcast, @admiralty-xfd), and that’s a fun dive into the characters, and how other fans react to and interpret episodes.

Every once in a while, a TV show or movie – and more particularly, the characters – will grab my attention and make me curious about how fanfic writers have interpreted the original material. Random example, I saw Singin’ in the Rain for the first time in a theatre a couple of years ago, and the chemistry of the three leads sent me to AO3 as soon as I got home. I also loved the first season of Mercy Street and found some well-done stories in that fandom. I usually peruse the Yuletide gifts every year and have been amazed by the sheer variety, creativity and cheekiness of the output. There are a bunch of other shows I’ve followed faithfully, and sought out fanfic – Broadchurch, The Killing, Agents of SHIELD, Elementary, The Good Wife. Although I’ve found some well-written stuff in those fandoms, I’ve rarely gotten the same charge from them as reading TXF fic. Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

syntax6 (@syntax6) – Universal Invariants/Laws of Motion. I’d also shout out to syn’s Hunter fics, too – well worth reading even for those who have never seen or particularly loved the show itself.

JET – I re-read Small Lives Awake every year around Thanksgiving time. Other annual holiday re-reads: Revely’s The Dreaming Sea and Jordan’s Through the Fire (both set at Halloween).

Amal Nahurriyeh’s Casey universe – the rare post-col fic that felt hopeful, made extra intriguing by a kick-ass original character. [Lilydale note: the series starts with Machines of Freedom and has lots of additional fics and snippets.]

Prufrock’s Love – Finding Rokovoko was genuinely terrifying and tender.

melforbes (@melforbes) – Seaglass Blue is a recent favorite, lyrical and bittersweet.

These are just a few (apologies to those that didn’t come to mind immediately). Fortunately for readers, there’s an astonishing number of authors who have written in TXF fandom whom you can depend on for a good yarn, insightful character study, and/or ingenious “fixes” where 1013 went awry.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Probably the two set in my own (former) backyard of Southern California: Enivrez-vous and Ravenous. I’d first read the Baudelaire poem that was the source of the former’s title back in university days, so I was tickled to be able to use a few lines as an epigraph. Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online? It’s not out of the realm possibility. I’d meant for “Three Times Dana Scully Didn’t Go to San Diego for Christmas” to be followed up with “And One Time She Did.” In fact, the idea for that never-finished story was what inspired “Three Times” in the first place. I have a couple of scenes sketched out and – unusually for me – even know exactly how to end it. Every year, November rolls around, and I think I should finish and post it…maybe in 2021?

Where do you get ideas for stories? Sometimes it’s from my environment. “Enivrez-vous” and “Ravenous” describe places that I’m fond of, that made me want to place Mulder and Scully there. “What Not to Wear” has that element too – I set it in Memphis as a tribute to a great trip there with a sister Musean. But WNTW was also inspired by a kink challenge in a years-ago LiveJournal thread, so sometimes ideas come from fandom discussions or even other fanfics. In the House MD fandom, a fic by another writer made me want to continue the story, and the author kindly allowed an authorized sequel. What's the story behind your pen name? I wanted my pseudonym to sound like it could be a real person’s name – or at least, maybe like a romance writer’s pen name – rather than an online handle. I also wanted to use a slightly obscure fictional character, to amuse anyone in the know. I had long had a bit of an obsession with Whit Stillman’s 1990s film trilogy, which started with Metropolitan; the 3rd installment, Last Days of Disco, came out the same year I started down the TXF rabbit hole: 1998. The central heroine of Metropolitan – who is mentioned in or makes a cameo in the other two – is Audrey Rouget, a lover of Austen and, eventually, a book editor. I altered the spelling of the last name as a nod to every writer’s companion, Roget’s Thesaurus. Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions? I have a few close friends – from outside TXF fandom – who know that I’ve written fanfic. I don’t know if they know my pseud; if they do, or if they’ve ready any of the fic, they haven’t said so to me. They are fannish sorts themselves, but not really TXF fans. A smattering of other friends and family members know or could intuit that I’ve been a fangrl on some level for years. My boss, whom I’ve known for about 3 years, recently mentioned off-handedly that she was really obsessed with TXF “back in the day,” and I am DYING to know if she got involved in fandom, but don’t think I’ll ever work up the courage to ask.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now? Most of the X-Files stuff continues to be generously and steadfastly archived by Forte at The Basement Office. The House MD stories and some TXF things are at fanfiction.net; same for AO3. If ever post anything new, it will probably go to TBO and AO3. I really ought to get it all together in one place, one of these days…

(Posted by Lilydale on April 6, 2021)

[mariaiscrafting]

Cishet dnf stans are without fail just super gross about it. I've cultivated my tumblr sphere to be so queer that I genuinely forgot how terrible cishets are about mlm ships they deem "attractive". Cishets making homophobic "jokes"........bro that's just homophobia.

I feel like that's so much easier on Tumblr anyways since Tumblr is so disproportionately queer. I can actually stand to follow Dream stans (*cough* looking at you Angel *cough*), George pfps, and some DNFers here because they're mostly queer. Probably the main reason I stopped using Twitter was actually because of all the cishet DNF shippers. I think there's just something about being queer that makes you more understanding of comp het, queer fetishization, being treated as Other, being psychoanalyzed like a lab specimen, and being potentially outed. Subsequently, queer shippers are simply less likely to take DNF shipping a step too far...

There are lots of ways in which cishet shippers take it a step too far. One common thing is fetishization. Contrary to popular-anti belief, not every shipper is fetishizing mlm relationships. But a lot of them are. Fetishization is contingent on a foundational belief that one is consuming media about a certain romantic/sexual dynamic because they find it attractive. To fetishize is to treat a ship as Other, as lesser or more or weirder or "special" or whatever. If one wouldn't treat a het relationship the same way as they do the mlm relationship they're theorizing about, gushing about, drawing about, writing about, etc., then one should reexamine the reasons one is even shipping them, because the likely answer is fetishizing reasons. Another way shippers take it too far is their creepy fascination with all the intricacies of DNF. Like, the analysis of every voice inflection, every mention of the other, every moment they're together, every smile and laugh and facial expression. It's so beyond creepy. This isn't how you treat real life humans. This isn't how you treat people you respect. This is how you treat fictional characters, or toys, or specimens you're curious about. It's absurd.

But those are all things I've talked about a hundred times on this blog. I'm glad I have been able to, too, because it seems so impossible to get through to Twitter DNFers compared to Tumblr DNFers, partially because of the character limit and partially because of what mcyttwt stan culture is like (stubborn, hardheaded, overly protective, significantly more obsessive, etc).

Regarding homophobic jokes... I think a lot of cishet shippers think they can't be homophobic if they are shipping an mlm pairing. Because if you're so open to gay people that you ship them, how could you possibly be homophobic? Isn't that the opposite of homophobia? To that, I respond the same way I respond to cishet men who claim they're not lesbophobic because they like lesbian porn and white people who claim they're not racist because they have black friends and men who claim they're not misogynistic because they love their daughters or wives; bigotry is not solely enacted upon with explicit hatred. Bigotry can manifest itself in many ways, and in the 21st Century, most often that is in subtle ways that implicate one's own view of minorities/oppressed groups as distinctly "Other." You can have a fascination, love, or adoration for an oppressed group, and still be bigoted against them. Love /=/ the inability to be racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. A failure to accept criticism and recognize one's own propensity for homophobia will only lead to making the same homophobic remarks/jokes, failing to eradicate one's own subconscious beliefs that led to one's homophobia (e.g., comp het), and stagnation in one's personal growth.

And yes, if you can’t understand how treating DNF like this obsession, this other-than-human idealized fasion, is homophobic, then you are one of these subtlely bigoted people, and I am begging you to pause, step back, and self-reflect, please.

As always, the usual disclaimers apply. First, not all cishet DNF shippers cross a line in their shipping. If you read this and you don't know if this applies to you, it's important for you to pause and reflect on your manner of shipping. Recognizing when we do wrong is the first step in eradicating homophobia and fetishization. Second of all, for those who don't know what prompted this ask, here is a link to the half-joke post of mine from a few hours ago. Third of all, I am never an expert on any of the discourse I engage in. I'm simply providing my opinion. Fourth of all, this is not meant to be hateful. Yes, I come from a place of extreme frustration and exhaustion towards cishet shippers, but I still think there is capability for growth within the mlm shipping community. I am a DNFer, just a queer one; I read DNF fics, I love DNF art, and I watch DNF compilations. I, too, gush whenever Dream and George act fond of each other. I'm not an anti; I just like to criticize the communities I am a part of because I love the spaces they provide for me and want them to grow and improve through self-reflection and critical analysis. Positive change always starts from within.

Anyways, if you're interested in my other random rants about related issues: here is one of my original takes on DNFers crossing lines they shouldn't and dehumanizing DNF for their own enjoyment, here is a more general take of mine about reading into DNF dynamics with empathy, here is my thing with fetishization (thank you Angel for the input), and here is a long-ass post with queer perspectives on DNF shipping (thank you Xen for the input).

As always, reminder to blacklist /neg or #discourse if you don’t want to see posts like this from me. Take care of yourselves <3

[personasintro]

Hello, I’m not trying to defend rude people coming to you asking you to hurry the story lol but I’m going to tell you something that might help as advice as a writer, maybe? Just please don’t take it the wrong way bc I’m not trying to tell you how to do your thing!

I think what frustrates readers the most is that the story escalated SO QUICKLY from the beginning, like since the “deal” to all the fluff, the “””””fake””””” dating, the sex, the (very obvious) romantic moments that were completely brushed off, not to mention all the confusing things Jungkook says to Y/N and viceversa, etc. AND THEN.. the whole story goes back to (in a sense) zero: Jungkook is back with Kiko, the person that hurted him so deeply on him, Y/N and Jungkook are still friends even after they spended all those weeks being basically like boyfriend and girlfriend and that there’s clearly something there that ALL of us can see (unless you didn’t want us to believe that and we’re all not reading the same story).

And I’m not saying that it’s bad or that you’re doing things the wrong way but IT IS very confusing to us bc its starting to feel like there’s no real character development and everything’s going backwards instead of forward.

Again, I’m not saying this is how you should do this but, as a reader myself, the lack of development, in terms of character and not as a “this is how I want the story to end” type of thing, it’s very frustrating and dryning for some people.

What I’m trying to say is that maybe the people on your ask box aren’t just being obnoxious and trying to tell you how they want the story to end. Maybe they’re mad at the fact that after everything that’s happened between Y/N and Jungkook, they’re still with the same mindset. I mean, even the whole “mutual help” agreement is over and they’re still the same characters when the story began. It makes you wonder if maybe that’s everything there is to their story 🤧

My point it’s that: if the story’s plot it’s based on that “mutual help” they had, isn’t it supposed to bring some noticeable change to the character’s life after instead of just passing by, almost uneventfully?

Anyway, I hope I don’t make you feel mad or sad with my whole ass analysis lol that really isn’t the point of it, I’m just seriously very confused with the way the story is progressing, and maybe clarifying some things, without spoiling anything, may help us readers understand where is this story going. Btw, none of this means that the story or the plot or the characters are bad AT ALL, I would say it’s the complete opposite, we are all SO immersed in it that we’ve got to the point were we’re just desperate for more! But yeah, thank you for your beautiful story! I’ll still check every update even if you decide to complete ignore this question lol ❤️❤️

As much as I appreciate you trying to justify all those asks, it doesn't change the fact how I feel about this whole thing. Frustrated, sad and overwhelmed, that's how I've been feeling for a few weeks now (maybe even months) because some people on this app are too much sometimes. It's one of the reasons why I disabled my asks.

If any of the readers have any problem with how the story is going, I've said too many times they don't have to read it. Them getting all frustrated over how I write my OWN story is ridiculous. People trying to tell me how to write my story is ridiculous. If you guys read my answers to every ask, you probably know by now what makes me frustrated and what bothers me the most. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out and I ask... how the hell people are still being so pushy with their own preferences? I've explained countless things so many times and honestly, I'm exhausted because of it. I feel like nobody listens to me what I'm saying and that puts a little disrespect in my opinion.

+ I get the feeling people don't read MH thoroughly and forget all the things that have been discussed there. I don't get the feeling as if the story went back to zero, I'm sorry that you do but well, I respect your opinion but obviously are opinions about this are very different. I can't believe I've to explain this all over again but well... here we go! y/n and Jungkook being still friends doesn't mean there are things that haven't slightly changed (whether they acknowledge it or not). Them acting like a girlfriend and a boyfriend has been explained by THEM, why they acted like that and even admitted it felt nice. There is an obvious attraction and their deal hasn't helped with that.

+ I know very well what I'm doing with my story [SLOW BURN STORY] and I asked readers many times to just trust me. I'm so freaking frustrated because if people are getting so frustrated over my story too, why the hell are they still reading it? I'm not asking for people to tell me what to do, directly or indirectly because I'm sorry but that's the vibe I'm getting from all those asks. They're not normal and typical asks of "oh I wish they were together" but the length those people are willing to go just to push their own preference is ridiculous.

+ If you think there's no character development (just because y/n x jk aren't together and jk x kiko are) then I'm sorry but MH isn't probably your kind of story. And I'm not going to point out what those characters development are because if you read the story thoroughly and with some sort of understanding, you could easily tell what it is and you wouldn't have to question me about it.

+ Again, if anyone finds this story so frustrating and draining (that's what you probably meant) just don't read it. I really appreciate everyone who does read it, but ONCE AGAIN... I'm not sure what to do with it? I'm not going to change the story and even though I do read those opinions, 90% of time I don't even know how to respond. And people willing to take some of their time to be frustrated in my inbox when you can probably tell that it is as much frustrating for me, is blowing my mind and not in the good sense.

+ Maybe they’re mad at the fact that after everything that’s happened between Y/N and Jungkook, they’re still with the same mindset. This fucking blew my mind all over again. As much as I'm aware a story can evoke a lot of feelings (one of the reasons why writing and reading stories is so amazing), this is different than just people being casually mad about something. And that's exactly it, people are mad and then they come into my inbox and spread negativity and even bigger distaste to writing for me. If anyone is so mad because of how story is going and it's hard for them to process it (now I'm going to be the one giving you an advice) just don't read it. And I don't mean this in any rude way, I genuinely think people shouldn't read it if them being so mad means they'll show their anger and frustration to me. Because newsflash but I'm a person behind this screen, I can get mad and frustrated too. Do you guys think these kinds of asks aren't hurting me to a certain extent?

+ You think this story is confusing? Alright, what am I supposed to do with it? Like, I'm genuinely curious what you guys expect me to do. I told you to trust me, it didn't help. I told you this story is a slow burn one, it didn't help. I told you there are things that are changing and if you read the story properly and with some understanding, you'd be able to notice it (even if it's not something big and eye-catching), that didn't help too.

+ It's not my responsibility to explain and clarify every thing people are confused about but still, I've always tried to explain everything but you know what? I don't feel like doing it again. Because every time people are confused about something, it always has something to do with the future of the story and people indirectly asking me about spoilers – whether you think it's true or not, I've been here long enough to know when people are trying to get answers out of me. Plus, it's very hard almost impossible to explain some things without spoiling anything. That's why I always told you guys to trust me and you'll get your answers at the right time.

I really hate explaining my thoughts like this because it makes me feel like a douchebag but I'm so sick of some people thinking like I owe them something. At the end of the day, I'm here to write a story and me interacting with all of my readers is my choice. I could easily just post a chapter and not care what people think, and I do think some people are using this fact over me thinking they can be impolite, rude, pushy and frustrating. I've been patient enough about this, but the more this keeps happening the more I'm questioning my presence here.

There... here are my thoughts and I know people will take from it whatever they want (or more like won't take anything from it) but honestly, I'm so exhausted if you couldn't tell by now. I'm so done with always justifying myself. These thoughts have been bubbling inside of me for so long and I always told myself to just close the app, breathe it out and come back positive... but I realized that every time I think about this, I feel exactly the same and I know that it's not my fault because that's how some of you make me feel.

All I ask if for mutual understanding because I've always been trying to be respectful and understanding, that's one of the things I've been very careful about.

[the-music-maniac]

I got sucked back into Ever After High, so hoo boy get ready for a long ass analysis about a ship

Did I mean to get sucked into Rapple? Uh, no. Fuck no. I usually make it a point not to sell my entire soul to small fandoms because the inevitable lack of fics will just break my heart. But here we are.

I'm low key distressingly neutral about the canon/popular ships for Ever After High. Namely Dexter x Raven and Apple x Darling. I have absolutely nothing against them, cause they’re both really adorable. I don’t know if appling is canon actually but it is strongly hinted at, and while I’m ecstatic that there’s some form of lgbt rep (however small), and that Dexter isn’t sadboi anymore cause he’s with Raven, I’ve always just liked Apple x Raven way more.

I guess I’m posting this cause I want to analyze why I like Rapple specifically? This isn’t meant to attack either of these ships or shippers in any way btw! This is just my personal opinion, I just felt the need to mention dexter x raven and apple x darling cause they are (for the most part) canon. :))

Tbh i really didn't mean to make such a gigantic analysis about this, but I got carried away lmao.

1. Rapple has a lot of narrative tension and weight:

I feel like rapple has more narrative weight as a ship then most I’ve seen in the Ever After High fandom. These two characters are undeniably the focal point of the story, and while all characters in the show have backstories and well developed characterizations, Raven and Apple are the "leaders" and the main main characters.

Raven with Apple could make for a really a complex and interesting storyline. After all,  Ever After High is ALL about breaking free of your pre-determined destiny, it would be the perfect twist in the story for Apple to fall for Raven and vice versa. There's so much more to write with that kind of turn in the story; the growth of a relationship, character development, the backlash they might recieve from a hero and villain together, fighting what everyone else tells them they should be. Honestly if we're gonna go there, it kind of mirrors what lgbt people have to go through on the daily. In my eyes, appling and dexter x raven (I'm sorrryyy I don't know the proper ship name) pales a bit in comparison, just in the amount of weight they carry (not that it HAS to have narrative weight to be a good cute ship of course).

Darling for Apple is also unconventional and a plot twist, cause it no longer follows the stereotypical hetero-normative fairy-tale, and I absolutely ADORE Darling as a character, but in the end she is still a Charming. Apple is still pre-destined to fall for a Charming, she's still following what her destiny tells her she should be, and while that's good on one hand, cause Apple wants to follow her destiny, I feel like when she pulled Raven back from the brink in Wonderland, she realized that destiny is not so set in concrete and what matters more is the people behind those destinies. I think Rapple would really drive in that point; destiny or no destiny that’s not what matters. So while appling does have some narrative tension as well, it doesn’t make me gleefully go “oh my god FUCK, you wonderful DISASTERS, now you’ve gone and done it. Now you've fucking stepped in it. AMAZING.”, y’know? Dexter and Raven is the exact opposite.  Destiny-wise it's pretty unique and frowned upon, but again, heterosexual romance (not that I expect all the characters to be lgbt, that's not what I'm saying) so it also doesn't hold as much weight as Rapple. I'm greedy ok? I want both. I want aspects of both. Maybe I'm just a shit-stirrer though lmao, maybe I just need a ship that fucking destroys all expectations and fucks shit up in the process XDD. It's possible *shrugs*

2. The amount of growth they go through together.

So it's pretty undeniable that Apple at the beginning is....um. Selfish, if we're gonna go with mild language. Kind of a bitch if we're gonna go with stronger language. She doesn't give a shit that Raven will have a horrible life if she follows her destiny, all she cares about is her part of the story and her happy ending. But the thing is, Apple doesn't stay like that. She becomes Raven's roommate and friend, and when it really came down to it, during the Wonderland part of the story, even though Apple is the one who gives Raven the book, she doesn't push and shows her support in thinking that Raven is too good to become the evil queen. And then when Raven was almost lost, Apple is the one who pulled her back and told her to choose who she wants to be. She let go of her need for Raven to be evil and saw her as her own person; someone she cares about deeply. Raven on the other hand starts off unsure and kind of insecure. She was still figuring herself out, and trying to resist what everyone is trying to tell her; that she has to be evil. I feel like through her personal growth and Apple's influence she starts to be more settled, confident. And Apple's support before and after she signed her storybook in wonderland definitely helped. This mutual growth actually brings me to my next point:

3. Rapple has a very strong basis for a relationship

So there's a definite reason why I love the concept of enemies to friends to lovers SO MUCH, and despite what people say, no it's not just because of UST (i mean that's a bonus but far from the only reason). What I care about is again, the mutual GROWTH.

What enemies to lovers does (healthy enemies to lovers btw, rivalries and stuff, not abusive shit) is force the two people to confront the worst parts of each other first and foremost. Meeting someone for the purpose of dating/because you like them means you'll put up a fake, mellower version of yourself to impress them, but there's none of that if you start off hating each other. Clashing is also often because of some underlying issue or sometimes because of a weakness in character; there's numerous reasons, pettiness, unhappiness, jealousy, anger, but it's never because everything is perfect. This means that, in order for these two characters who dislike each other to end up together in any capacity, they have to grow as people first, become better versions of themselves, and in the process they help each other achieve that. They also have to learn each other and let go of whatever was nagging them and compromise. It takes work and I love that, so much more than just a kiss to fall in love, or love at first sight or any of that fairytale stuff. Because that’s exactly it, relationships take work. It takes people repeatedly choosing to stay and work things out, and compromising, and that’s, in pure essence, exactly what you’re doing in enemies to lovers. Not only that, but it means they willingly choose the other person despite their setbacks, because god knows they're not the easiest option, means they see the worst in each other and want each other anyways.

Raven and Apple already have that set up in Ever After High, the only difference is, canonically, they're only friends (which honestly is just as good, not everything needs to be romance but this is a shipping analysis, so, I’m gonna stay on brand here). They disagree with each other, and they annoy each other, and they fight sometimes and they're still best friends despite it all. They really truly know each other, and that I feel like is such a strong basis for a relationship. Other than Maddie, I don't think Raven truly is as close to anyone else as she is to Apple, and the same goes in reverse. They even live together. *leans forward creepily* oh my god they were roommates.

I don't know, I just feel like, with other Raven and Apple ships, there's always a hint of potential for a relationship that the show and books never really explored or developed extensively, while Rapple already has these solid af steel foundations that could be built on and made into something amazing.

4. We know the most about Apple and Raven respectively

This is a rather minor detail, and more about me personally, but I'm the kind of person that has to really know a lot about characters in order to ship them. I also have to like both characters but I feel like that's kind of a given for shipping. If I know very little about the characters involved I lose interest. I know the most about Raven and Apple, we follow them closely throughout the series, and in the books, we see things from their viewpoints. In contrast, I just don't know as much about Darling or about Dexter.

5. I just find them cute as shit tbh

This is pretty self explanatory, they're just plain adorable. Something about them makes my heart go squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Oof this turned out WAYYY longer than I intended it to be, but anyways, stan rapple- or don’t y’know, stan appling or dexter x raven, or whatever other ships, stan ALL the other ships, ship anything and everything you want, be happy. I’ve been writing this ever since I finished my physio midterm and got this analysis idea that wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone so now my eyeballs feel like they’re about to fall out of my head, I’m gonna go pass out now, peace.

[hopefullystillatheatrestudent]

okay so i’ve been going crazy these past few days. all about cockles/jensmish and obsessively watching their panels or reading the transcripts BECAUSE. THEY ARE LOUD. LIKE. i saw some fancams on twt and i thought people were just exaggerating but noooooooooo!!!???? so, getting to the point. you said that how do we know that jensen is performing masculinity? because jared isn’t and THAT IS A BIG BRAIN MOMENT. ON POINT. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. a particular moment from gag reel that jumps out (which you’ve talked about) when jensen goes ‘cas, you are my baby daddy’ and misha goes, ‘i know i love you too’ and jensen goes, ‘i didn’t say i love you’ and misha goes, ‘i know you wanted to’ and jensen says, ‘i love you’ WHAT THE FUCK! that was NOT a joke. yes, people took it as a joke and had a good laugh BUT I HAVE WATCHED IT TOO MANY TIMES AND IT LIVES IN MY MIND RENT FREE BECAUSE IT WAS NOT A PERFORMANCE. THAT WAS JENSEN. THAT WAS MISHA. jensen has a had trouble with the pda and being all touch feely (the breakup theory) and he gradually grew into it, accepted it and misha was right there all along, never pushed it. it was like a deancas au but tbh, 99% of destiel is because of cockles and we all know it. i just. jensen has latched onto dean as an emotional support because he tunes with it. understands it. projects on to it. yeah, i just had to say it and get it off my chest. (and what about those poetry pages on instagram? alma? what is your opinion?) btw, you have a lovely blog and your analysis are right on target.

so there is a LOT i’m going to address here(how dare you bring up [gunshot] i HAVE to talk about it now) so again!!!! under a cut it goes but i hope you appreciate my rambles anon it seems like you do :,)

1. jared vs. jensen and performing masculinity. hell yeah man. jared and jensen are both just ‘guys from texas’ but they are still so vastly different. today i actually had a revelation that i’m pretty sure has to do with me being bi. and it’s that i have a group of straight friends(that i love dearly but they care too much about hockey and pitbull imo could not be me) and i have a group of queer friends(who are also batshit[affectionate]). and it’s like whichever group i hang out with a different side of me emerges? they’re both me, it’s just that certain aspects of who i am as a person only surface depending on who i am around. however, i will say i feel like i watch what i say around my straight friends more. i see that very clearly in jensen as well. around jared during panels and on set, he’s definitely putting on an air of machismo and engages in typical guy talk. i do think an element of it is performative, because he wants validation from jared that they’re still just two dudes from texas taking on the world together despite his sexual identity. does that make any sense??? i hope so. but when he’s with misha he is an entirely different person and his sense of humour becomes wildly different. the machismo fades away, he’s way less caught up in what people think about him, lets his guard down, etc. to go back to my original point which is how j2 are different in that regard....jared does not do this. he is a constant. he does not flip a switch between ‘performing masculinity’ and ‘not’ because he isn’t performing any part of who he is. he just IS. so yeah these two are similar in many regards but there’s somewhat of a dissonance between them when it comes to how they perform masculinity because one of them is putting on a show and the other is merely being.

2. that crypt scene blooper(here just in case you need to see it again. do it. as a treat.) when i tell you i have easily seen this over thirty times??? since it first came out??? i mean it. it is such an overlooked(r*mantic) moment and it means so much more than people think it does. i’ve talked about the context behind it, and i think that’s why this blooper was so meaningful, so i’ll mention it again. jensen and misha had a LOT of trouble with this scene. the reason is that jensen couldn’t wrap his head around why dean would be saying these things, if i remember correctly, and both of them sat down and scoured over how they should play it for a while before filming(teamwork ;) teammates *ahem*). [to be honest we all know why jensen had a hard time with that scene and it is because it is blatantly romantic. rip to him but i would simply give in to it at that point but oh well] so anyway, their heads were scattered going into shooting, which is NEVER a good headspace to be in for a scene, ESPECIALLY not a pivotal one. but they had each other to help them through said weird energy on set that couldn’t possibly have invoked the best feelings, especially considering jensen STILL doesn’t think he played that correctly(but he praised misha on his performance :,) ). and with that context every single part of that video hits haRD 

-’stop pulling my face towards your crotch’ i think this is objectively hilarious because it really really looks like jensen is pulling HIMSELF towards misha’s crotch. again, you’re fooling no one, jensen. misha’s wheezing laugh and the way he wraps himself around jensen is also,,,sweet??? like i don’t know how else to describe how i see it but this moment really reads as jensen, in his weird ‘constructing elaborate rituals’ way is asking for security through a physical touch from misha and he happily obliges and gives jensen what he needs. because i mean...watch it again. jensen ‘fights back’, but not really at all, actually. pretty wimpy counterattack. he literally lets himself be smothered by misha, and i would literally describe what they end up doing as cuddling. 

-’i need you, cas. you’re my baby daddy’ i love having an actor’s perspective on things bc i think i can explain what’s going on here. jensen just delivered what was(in his own mind) a rotten take of the lines he’s most scared of delivering. so the scene was already messed up. therefore; ensuing fuckery is warranted to help him feel better. but there’s also for sure more than meets the eye for what he says here because of misha’s reaction after??? like he seemed genuinely touched. first of all, he’s saying ‘you’re my baby daddy’ as half-jensen, but not necessarily dean either(because he didn’t say the previous lines as true to his character...you get it), to misha, not cas. i think i’ve made this point before, but every single innuendo in the gag reels is to misha specifically, never once cas. therefore; logical conclusion: ‘you’re my baby daddy’ was for misha and it meant something deeper than we think because of what follows it

-this part. jensen’s giddy ass smile after he sees misha crack and then misha says ‘yeah, i know’ (can i just say his voice when he says this is so intimate???? like am i intruding guys??? sorry i’ll let myself out) also he is smiling SO BIG

- ‘i know’ ‘why are you laughing?’ ‘no i know i love you too’ this analysis is already so long but i still want to get into what THAT whole exchange means. ‘why are you laughing?’ to me sounds like jensen’s pretending to be affronted by misha laughing at something that is serious. and it’s serious because he quite literally meant ‘i love you’. he did. misha knows it. misha’s really REALLY good at cutting the bs and just getting to what people are actually trying to say. he has an innate sharpness to his sense of humour. so yes, misha is being 100% accurate when he says ‘i know, but you wanted to say it.’ misha isn’t lying here. jensen did want and mean to say ‘i love you’. and then he actually does say it(in a jokey way but not really). 

- so yeah. it is actually so romantic??? like in a weird way jensen was professing his love for misha here?????? and that’s why this clip will NEVER. ever. get old. 

3. jensen having trouble with pda and projecting onto dean: we can all call ourselves dean coded cas girls but NO one deserves that title more than jensen ackles himself. he is dean winchester but marginally less repressed because he actually did admit he was in love with his best friend and let himself be happy, and pretty early on too. one year and two months as opposed to twelve years. so. happy deancas au is correct. and yes about the pda thing: one day i want to write my own post about both of their body language when it comes to each other, but all i can tell is jensen, even in the early days, couldn’t help himself from flirting with misha, but if misha ever crossed a line, jensen would not be happy. clearly he’s come around, however. what i find sweet is that misha always follows jensen’s lead when it comes to how much affection they’re allowed to show each other onstage. it touches my soul

4. destiel is cockles fault. yeah. and the thing is everyone knows it, too. even non-cockles shippers will explain early destiel as entirely dependant on jensen and misha’s wild chemistry. and that chemistry is easily explained by the fact that misha and jensen are literally just wildly horny bisexuals who were crazily attracted to one another and were falling in love on screen before our very eyes. and when you have THAT insider info(which sounds cray doesn’t it!!!! the destiel actors are in love irl??? huh???) everything really does click into place. why destiel got SO popular when the show and actors never ever intended for it to happen.(i know some people think misha was playing cas as gay the whole time for shits and giggles, and i won’t deny that[especially considering he found out early on that destiel was why he was staying on the show], but i don’t think he really wanted it to amount to anything, nor did he care??? i mean he has the real thing with jensen, for one, so their characters aren’t really as important. for two, he loves joking about destiel because it’s a cultural phenomenon and it’s fascinating, and i’m sure he did ship it because he’s unhinged, but i don’t think it was vastly important to him either way.) destiel got popular because everyone was and is unintentionally reading into the real deal. i could pull up countless gifs that people have used as destiel proof that is actually just jensen and misha being messy. mainly jensen. if i’m being honest.  the symbiotic relationship between destiel and cockles is why i’ve stayed onboard the destielcule and shellerscape for three solid months now; because it is utterly fascinating to witness and kind of super beautiful, too. 

5. alma(and others). so. i do NOT want to really REALLY get into this in its entirety here and now so i will just give you my opinion on if i think alma is misha or not. also; i don’t want to mention the other poetry accounts here bc i feel like that’s a bigger breach in privacy, but a lot of people do know about alma now. way too many, actually. this is why we can’t have nice things. anyway-to answer your question-there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that yes, misha is running that alma poetry account. i am 100% certain. some people think it’s actually three people and they’re all connected to misha in some way but that is so needlessly complicated. as it goes in psychology; the easiest explanation is probably the right one. it’s just one person running that account, and it is misha collins. i don’t know why it’s so hard to believe KNOWN POET misha collins(who is known to spend most of his free time writing poetry anyway) would have created a secret poetry account to write about his intense secret relationship under an alias and also get legitimate feedback since no one used to know it was him. oh and the handwriting is identical??? you are blind if you do not see that i am sorry. and a million other things prove it’s misha too but yeah all you need to know is yes. it’s him. it would take a literal livestream from a random woman on that account to convince me otherwise. and honestly not even that because a random woman could technically still log in if misha asked her too. so. it would take a hell of a lot to convince me otherwise, clearly. that said DO NOTTTTTTTTTTTT GO ONTO THAT ACCOUNT WITH A SUPERNATURAL RELATED USERNAME AND COMMENT THINGS THAT ARE COCKLES RELATED. ARE YOU BRAIN DEAD WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT’S OKAY. sorry i got heated but god please just don’t be dumb so many people have already gone way too far 

6. thank you for your lovely compliment on my analyses!!! i love doing them but i don’t know if people actually like reading them so i really appreciate it