#people try to get the actors to back up their fanon ship or whatever

[captainclickycat]

Come to think of it, someone asking a cast member about a headcanon or ship or whatever that I didn't like or want to hear about had the same effect on me as in a pub quiz when the announcer says "and now time for a sports question".

Just full-volume static in my head for a couple of minutes, and then I'd tune back in and the guy on stage would be like "...with a goose and fifty billion in stolen banknotes"

[heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon]

Basic math time for basic bitches who actually think Emberlynn is based on Medrano and will try to bring her actual face into it as "proof" (since we're resorting to being *that* petty...)

I'm so sorry to be the only one showing the work, but...

+

+

So obviously =

(Included because...Of course Nichols is that type of Tenderqueer, of course...)

And

But most importantly ...

Reasons/motives for this well deserved pettiness and revenge? Exhibit A:

(That bullshit not to mention Nichols defending the people snubbing her former employer and meetcute organizer...)

But most unfortunately for the fandom...

Exhibit B:

And Medrano just had to sit there and take what this fangirl who fell in love with this character design and voice actor of a gay spider was doing with her characters until Viv herself became uncomfortable enough to put a stop to it because the fandom ran it hard into the ground until these kinds of interpretations became fanon enough to do some serious irrepressible damage to perception of the fandom both in and outside of it? Not saying Ashley and Micheal's coupling was cringe but eh? Like ... Imagine falling in love with a fictional gay sex worker character you're helping animate so hard that that his straight ace voice actor becomes your boyfriend? And then you feel so protective over this character that's not yours and your boyfriend, who is yours, that when, inevitably, your boyfriend gets recast and you're both let go from this pilot job, your relationship with your former employer goes to shit? But your straightbro jock of a "third" that the fandumb culture also ships with you/your boyfriend, and has known/worked with your former employer far longer than both of you have, is caught in the middle of it...? So yeah I take it back, actually, Nichols ... Kinda cringe. Kinda spoiled. Kinda entitled. Not the vibe. But if this was an intentional ...stab... at Ashley and The Hunicast Culture it's kinda deserved. Lol.

But I'm telling you, now all we need is for Emberlynn's Boyfriend to be a stab at Micheal voiced by Blake so we can sit back and watch The Cult of Kovach go psycho.

The real question is ... Do we think Bosco would have the balls to voice like a jacked up parody of his hunicastsona who died of a brain injury playing college football or something and Emberlynn and her softdrink guzzling boyfriend Adopt Him TM because "we saw u frm across the bar at the Chunk E. Chez n dig ur vibe or wateva! ;3 <3" and the only reason Emberylnn even wanted to that is because she saw Blitz with Loona and wanted A Hellhound of Her Own and her boyfriend is jealous so he keeps trying to like, freeze this poor footplayers brain with soft drinks so he can stuff him in a freezer to switch bodies with him eventually so that Emberlynn will like him better, because they're Pinkle and The Brainfreezer, get it? And this poor WereDude is too brain damaged to escape the toxic polycule shenanigans and he doesn't explicitly want to be their third but eventually Emberlynn herself kinda grows on him like a tumor so he just submits to following her around. keeps her from getting into the more intense fights at the back of a denny or whatever at three am. kinda like a more "mature" Buttons and Mindy dynamic or whatever and aside from Emberlynn's jealous boyfriend with an inferiority complex constantly trying to switch bodies with him without Emberlynn noticing ...It's cute. It's fine.

But do we think Bosco would agree to voice that? I think he would .

Final piece of evidence to suggest Emberlynn specifically might be a parody of Ashley('s misconduct and handling of Viv's characters during Hunicast days...):

So... Ashley's main inspiration for 'Far Fetched' is Danny Phantom. right? And who's the most remembered character on Danny Phantom?

No one:

Absolutely no one:

Not a single soul:

A result from Ashely's own twitter that came up from 4years ago when I just searched up "Emberlynn Pinkle Ashely Nichols" to make sure nobody already made the hilarious connection I'm about to:

Like okay... If the blue and black fit, girl...

Knowing Viv, just add "lynn" to the end of a name if you want the perfect parody of someone ...

Blam. And you can take that joke after the joke you made out of Medrano's characters and got a boyfriend out of it too!

Look... All's I'm saying is I might be sheltered in this but I've never seen a femme vivizepop fan talk or behave like Emberlynn Pinkle does either outside of or before the hunicast popularized any of the weebshit behavior first, ever!

And again, if that short was a short Revenge Story, if you will, then... it's perfect!

[vinnymauro]

6, 7, 23 for the ask game !!!!! 🤍🤍🤍

hi milo!! thank you<3

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

i don't know how to say it other than generalizing but like almost every single popular fanon m/m ship. like going back to teen wolf days. i hated stiles bc of sterek fans. i was a scott fan and i hated his best friend. i cannot stand a certain type of buddie fans(and not even coming from a bucktommy pov, like i just want buck with a man) y'all have ruined the fandom for me to the point i have 911 filtered and i actively watch the show. for a very long time i could not get into a single m/m ship in a show bc i was like well their fans are gonna be annoying so why bother. i try not to fall into that and just follow my guidelines for ships bc i know what i like. but god damn it some people are so fucking annoying i can't ignore it and i'm instantly turned off. also any sort of ship fan that's willing to go into someone's ask box and harass them over a fictional relationship. please get a job.

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

stiles stilinski. fuck that guy. listen. i was a scott mccall stan, i loved that fucking werewolf so much. my favorite tumblr url was scootmccool ok. but when it comes to his best friend? hatred. i didn't even finish the show and i think part of it might have been the fact that stiles had a storyline that had him lying to scott and i'm like this is so fucking stupid. and everyone was acting like stiles was a poor victim in all of this bc scott is too good and too pure and would shun the poor stiles. like. girl. scott is his best friend why would he shun his best friend y'all are stupid. and i'm so sorry if anyone is a stiles fan that follows me now, i promise i rarely talked shit about him or even tagged it. i just kept it between me and my friends. and like i get it, dylan is a great actor and he's attractive i guess whatever. i just cannot stand stiles. and i think it was attributed to how the fans acted. how they basically made it the stiles show. like people would end up talking about stiles and whatever sterek crumb they thought they saw and i was like ??? ok but scott is right there. scott is the main character. anyway idk if this is making any sense bc i haven't watched teen wolf since 2015 or 2016 and i don't remember much outside of my emotions. also realizing this i did not curate my dash like i would have now. and at the time i was also indie rping scott and would have annoying people playing stiles. so it could be different now if i was an open minded person and could stomach a rewatch to finish of teen wolf but i know i'd get to allison's death and never want to touch it again.

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

hm. so i could kind of put buffy and angel in this category. but i'm very much of the mind where none of these men are worth buffy and she is better than them. bc none of them will ever understand that she is the slayer. but i don't hate angel and buffy as much as i did when i first watched it. more recently you can put glinda/elphaba in there bc the new film made me go ok. i get it now. i guess i need visuals to understand things 😭

make me choose violence

[bulkyphrase]

6, 8 and 10, go!

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

I think this is in part a function of which parts of the fandom I hang out in, but definitely st*cky. Don't get me wrong, I like the ship. I've got 200+ st*cky fics in my AO3 bookmarks, and according to my rec list spreadsheet I've rec'd 65 st*cky fics since 2021. But outside of fic I just can't deal with most of the content or discussion around the ship.

I think it's because there's a common attitude that the ship is actually canon but Marvel is too cowardly to admit it? I like to treat my non-canon ships as fun what-ifs, and holding up canon scenes and treating them like proof that your ship is right instead of evidence that your ship would be a fun time just really rubs me the wrong way.

8. common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

Endgame was a fun and satisfying conclusion to the OG6's story and with a few minor exceptions I think everyone was reasonably in character.

I don't think it's perfect, I don't think it's a great work of art, but I came out of the theater very happy with it and that hasn't changed. The time heist was wonderful. The final battle was too dark but had some amazing moments ("on your left," "I knew it"). I hate the whole Vormir concept, but the scene between Nat and Clint plays out exactly right.

Steve's ending isn't necessarily what I would have wanted if Endgame were the last MCU movie, or if it were a cartoon or comic that didn't need to worry about casting and actor's contracts. But as a way to write Steve out of the MCU, I love it. He'd been trying to build a home in the future for a decade only to have each attempt washed away by the climax of the next film. That he escaped that cycle by going back to his first home and having whatever off-screen adventures we want to imagine is just a really nice idea to me.

10. worst part of fanon

In general, the worst part of fanon is that people act like it's better and more interesting than canon. Like, the MCU isn't overflowing with depth and complexity to begin with, and fans come by and swap out what there is for dumb fandom cliches. Canon Tony is better than just a snarky tech genius who can't live without coffee. Canon Steve is more interesting than a human golden retriever who exists only to take care of his teammate/boyfriend (same goes for Sam).

A specific piece of fanon I don't care for is the idea that was Steve suicidal (or just dumb) in the Valkyrie crash in CATFA. The scene is clearly written to show that crashing the plane was Steve's only real choice - it was on an autopilot to New York - he couldn't steer it, only force it down, and when he took his hands off the controls the plane went back to its original course.

His being suicidal in that scene isn't supported by canon, reduces the heroism of his sacrifice, and is a good example of the sort of take that makes me distance myself from the st*cky fandom.

Also, I don't don't know if this is fanon or just an extremely common mistake, but according to the movie dialog the Hydra factory in CATFA is in a place called Krausberg, not Azzano and not Kreischberg.

Thanks for the ask!

choose violence ask game

[scoupsahoy]

so i, like most people, pretty much subscribe to the bisexual steve harrington and bisexual nancy wheeler cinematic universes and all that and i've never really had any conflicting thoughts about it

but i was thinking about it this morning and i'm having gay thoughts and i just wanted to pitch them as a lesbian projecting my experiences onto these guys

specifically steve and nancy are so interesting when thinking about this because - partly because they dated - their fanon identities are SO popular and pretty rigid that it's almost accepted as canon. and i dont want to step on that at all but i do want to explore it...

i'm gonna go back and forth but we're gonna dip our toe in with steve.

the thing about him is that basically since season 1 he's been - not queer coded - but definitely immediately latched onto by both fandom and the actors as queer in some way. the guy who played tommy hagan apparently played tommy as harboring feelings for steve, same with dacre as billy, and the way ostensibly one of the only popular ships in the first couple of years or so was stoncy. so like there's this groundwork there which is admittedly impacted by the fact that joe is like. an attractive white adult man. obviously.

but i'm sitting here as a lesbian also really drawn to steve for a lot of reasons but particularly because i see a lot of myself in him? i'm running with something here okay -

season 1 steve is head over heels for nancy. that's, like, undeniable, and honestly the main reason people think he's attracted to women at all but !

he's practiced. he knows what to say to girls. and everyone tells him he's barking up the wrong tree. nancy is too smart for him and honestly super uncomfortable when tied to him. she's playing hard to get, that's his favorite game. she sleeps with him, sure, but she doesn't tell anyone about it, she doesn't like how affectionate he is all the way up to season 2, is honestly incapable of saying she loves him. he's heartbroken by that, but he's not surprised. he's spent a lot of time basically trying to force this pretty little box to close tightly and it bursts open in his hands. and he's upset even though he knew it wouldn't all fit.

there's this through-line with nancy that she's being misunderstood all the time and she resents it, that she knows what she wants and makes it clear to herself but nobody can read her well enough to figure it out. and steve is part of that. she's vaguely uncomfortable with him and his affection and how much he loves her and honestly deeply resents him for not being able to see her and her priorities.

for nancy, she's with steve because he's nice and funny and attractive and he's who she should want to be with. he makes her feel good and gives her butterflies and whatever but it's not really steve she likes, is it? she likes that steve likes her and fights for her and respects her and shows her love and for a year she convinces herself that that's what love is!!

but it's not. of course it's not. she didn't love steve and she doesn't even really know she doesn't until he asks her to say it. and she can't. she didn't know she was lying until she was confronted with it and it's deeply sad for steve but it's also deeply sad for her.

maybe this is just me projecting as someone who was "boy crazy" through middle and high school, but the person you have tricked yourself into thinking you loved noticing that you don't, won't, can't love them, feels like shit. you want to prove them wrong. you want to prove yourself wrong.

because nancy is different than steve. after barb dies, she is no longer friendly with like. any girls. at all. honestly until season 4 when ronance started to get popular she was probably most often headcanoned as this badass straight girl or whatever, which is fine obviously, but also maybe by design?

her best friend is a lesbian (overwhelmingly in fanon) and after she dies she only interacts with men until robin. boys understand her and she wants to prove to them that she's tough and they like her, she's the queen of hawkins high or whatever fred benson says to her.

like. immediately after she ends things with steve, she's with jonathan, because he likes her a lot and he sees her more clearly than steve did and she thinks: okay this is what i needed, this one is right, it's better, it's good

come season 3, she's frustrated again because jonathan doesnt really understand her the way she wants to be understood. but they love each other! she wants to make this work! she's the most driven person she knows, she is determined and stubborn and after everything, there's no reason she shouldn't want to be with jonathan. so they make it work and it's good. all patched up.

brief look back at steve: hitting on women and completely striking out this entire season. it's comical actually. it's actually embarrassing how bad he strikes out, it's like his spark is gone, like he's not even trying! he hardly has the time, anyway, with the kids and work and the upside down. all that.

and then, after some pressing with dustin, he falls for robin. like falls for her. and she's totally different from nancy, because nancy wasn't emotionally available, nancy would never have been able to love him, he's come to terms with that. but robin?

oh she's a lesbian.

season 4. steve is going on dates with girls he doesn't like, who don't like him, who he's not even interested in. robin points it out: you have no idea what you want. which is true. he's very easily swayed. he falls fast and hard but it's never good, he wants something REAL. robin knows exactly what she wants. if only they could combine...

enter nancy wheeler. getting slow-motion broken up with by her boyfriend, too busy to care. boys love her, by the way, she's sought-after, but she has a good excuse. she has a boyfriend that lives far away. she doesnt know why he doesn't come to visit her, but she's also not really interested in coming to visit him either. they're at a stalemate. and it's perfect. she gets to live her life free of romance because she technically already has a boyfriend who loves her very much.

and then her and steve are thrown back together again, and they're so different from how they used to be after less than a year and a half. they've grown and they. woah, they want completely different things. he wants six kids and she thinks that's a nightmare. she doesn't want to be like her mom, doesn't want some big nuclear family, and the problems she and steve had haven't gone away, but she still flirts with him. she thinks it's fun. it doesn't mean anything. she's with jonathan now.

and everyone is up both of their asses like: oh my god nancy and steve need to get back together, they lost each other along the way, they were destined to be together.

but really. steve couldn't be going after someone less interested in him if he tried, with nancy. not with robin or the girls he goes on dates with. he's so positive he likes girls, and these girls never ever like him back (and when they do... he's painfully disinterested), and he doesn't consider why he keeps crawling back to something so unattainable on purpose. over and over again.

and nancy, really is only chasing the opposite of what other people expect from her. she doesn't want to be her mom. she doesnt want to be with steve. she doesnt want to be with jonathan. but thats what everyone thinks she wants. and the worst part is that she doesn't really know what she wants! because this is what she knows she's supposed to want! she's got to be with some man if she's going to get anywhere she wants in life. but god, it is never about the men at all.

im just sitting here holding steve harrington by the face, like: please examine why you are exclusively interested in women that want nothing to do with you. examine why you're so determined to make things work with people you know it will not work with.

and i'm sitting here holding nancy wheeler by the face, like: please examine why you are exclusively interested in men only when they've expressed romantic interest in you first. examine why you're so determined to stay in relationships that you're unhappy in for way past their expiration date. because being pursued feels worse.

i'm just saying that all the crushes i had when i was in high school ended up coming out as gay after graduation or were otherwise extremely disinterested. and every guy i did date had to literally corner me in a hallway to ask me out before the last day of school or something so i wouldnt literally run away from them.

[t00thpasteface]

I would love to know the top 3 questions you were HOPING to get most! (Also to get the answers to said questions 😝)

(19) What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

The TES fandom has stage IV terminal Hiatus-Brain. I actually would like to elaborate on this as a standalone post, but I'm honestly terrified of starting some kind of batshit drama with it, so I'll try to keep it short and sweet (and if you want me to go on, I will):

I feel like there's a lot of (talented, creative, and absolutely galaxy-brained!!!) artists/writers/worldbuilders in the TES fandom who are SO irritated by the actual canon, who devote SO much time to building their own characters and lore, who are SO desperate for representation that TES just will never feasibly have... and I think these folks just honest-to-god need to Read Another Book, so to speak. I feel like they would be a lot happier for it, and that the canon is just holding them back at this point.

Whether that means putting your energy into engaging with art (I hate the term "consuming media" with my entire soul) you actually love, or creating your own, you have got to break out of the vicious cycle of "wouldn't this be a cool TES lore idea" -> good mood -> plays TES game -> "oh I forgot how much I hate the actual canon" -> bad mood. I've been there! It sucks! And believe me, you are not doing yourself any favors by refusing to let go of something you hate!!

(20) What is the purest ship in the fandom?

LDB/Lydia. What can I say? Match made in heaven. Even though Lydia is just the starter housecarl and doesn't have any grand backstory, something about this ship is just giving "childhood friends to lovers" for me. Which I am always a sucker for. Something about the fact that you're guaranteed to get her at the very start of the game, when you've barely even seen a fraction of Skyrim, and you can keep her with you the whole rest of the way... I don't know, it's very sweet, very pure. And you know I love the whole "mutual pining roadblocked by social hierarchy" trope. LDB and Lydia both thinking the other one is just playing their part as hero or housecarl and worrying that their love is unrequited... Gah!! So cuuuute!!

(21) What are your thoughts on crack ships?

I've said this before, but it always bears repeating: crack ships are a blessing. More people need to just relish in the ridiculousness of crack ships. Modern fandom is defined by speculation, conspiracies, campaigning for headcanons/ships to be "endgame", and even harrassing creators/devs/actors/showrunners for failing to live up to the hype or fanon. Crack ships are a wonderful, uncomplicated pleasure that gives a big ol' fuck you to all of that.

I don't think a ship needs to be feasible within the story itself. I don't even think the characters need to get along, really. As long as you're NOT, like, literally producing cartoon kiddie pr0nz, which should go without saying, I think you should be able to go absolutely nuts and ship whatever the hell you want. And have fun doing it!!

I have a lot of fond memories of the wild west days of the earlyish Homestuck fandom (from the trolls up to the Gigapause), where it was almost kind of a game to come up with the most batshit crack ships and to hoard them like a multishipping dragon. I still love the quadrant system. It's a shame that the culture on Tumblr overall has shifted away from that outlook and turned into what I can only describe as slow-burn racetrack betting. It's borderline soulless!

And yes, I include crossover ships in this. I've enjoyed a few myself, especially as a tween playing Smash Bros and looking up fanart on the family desktop. And remember that Samurai Bravo explosion back when s5 of Samurai Jack was on everyone's mind? In the immortal words of KC & the Sunshine Band, THAT'S the way (uh-huh, uh-huh) I like it!! Just good, wholesome, crazy fun.

[senadimell]

Boromir for the character ask?

send me a character and i’ll list:

favorite thing about them: Honestly? His focus. He's a problem-solver. He focuses on whatever task is in front of him, and while he's the golden child, I honestly don't know if he'd be the best fit for Steward because he seems to be at his best when he's thinking about concrete solutions to discrete problems.

Oh! The other thing is that he evaluates the advice given to him for what it is, not based on the authority of the advisor. He’s not going to accept bad advice just because it comes from a trustworthy source, and he’s going to be honest about his thoughts. So he’ll trust and respect the advice of the council of Elrond, but not to the point where he doesn’t ask questions or question things that don’t make sense (I’m thinking about Caradhras here) It’s a good skill to have as the de-facto heir to Gondor, and it makes sense that he’s not in awe of elves or Gandalf and acts among them as a guest but also as an equal at least in political status, though his experience is vastly more limited.

At the same time, he’s not arrogant or haughty. He's a team player. He’s supportive of decisions for the most part, though where the ring is concerned, things get skewy. He’s not the kind of person to rub mistakes back in your face. He’s compassionate and understanding (which we see even in the way he treats Frodo as he strives for the Ring).

least favorite thing about them: Honestly Boromir doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I suppose his positive traits are also double-edged swords. Focusing more on the advice than the giver sort of has Feanor vibes? And you can see where his focus leads him when he talks to Frodo about why he wants the ring and how he would use it. He can see his corner of the world (Gondor) and his place in saving it (political, but primarily military leadership), and it’s his practicality, drive, and focus that the Ring exploits. He’s too busy thinking about what he must do to save the day that he misses the grander scheme (yet he’s doing it because he cares! he cares!).

brOTP: Um, Faramir, I guess. Though I guess it’d be kinda sweet if he’s got a brotherly relationship with Bergil. I can easily imagine Bergil hero-worshipping Boromir, and so I think it’d be sweet if Boromir did acknowledge him and know him by name.

OTP: none? look, I rarely ship and even more rarely out of canon.

nOTP: also none? Shelob? The Ring?

random headcanon: I dunno...

unpopular opinion: boromir has dark hair Sean Bean is an actor he’s not the only face

So I feel like there’s a bit of a structural problem with the LotR fandom. Characters are often written in pairs or as foils, and inevitably the comparison starts to turn towards “who’s better?” Then, if you don’t ship them, there’s a tendency to aggrandize one character’s virtues and minimize their flaws (which tends to happen everywhere), but then the comparison game starts. Because they have a paired character, the natural next step is to lionize your favorite by de-emphasizing the other character’s strengths and virtues (and sometimes also highlighting their flaws). (I’m not immune to this by far, btw, and am possibly about to engage in it.)

This happen the most with Frodo and Sam, but I think you also see it in Boromir and Faramir. Because obviously, in the books, Faramir is the golden child. Not in his father’s eyes, of course, but narratively speaking. And I have mad respect for him.

Most people don’t try and diss Faramir (because frankly. it’s hard. like, what are you going to say?), but there’s a tendency to downplay the fact that Boromir is his culture’s golden child, and Faramir...isn’t. Which isn’t to say Faramir isn’t beloved by those who know him, but his strengths are not valued in the same way that Boromir’s are. Faramir knows this. And given Boromir’s attitudes discussed above (how confidently he assumes his position in the world), I can’t believe he’s the 100% supportive, loving, sensitive, protective brother that fanon depicts him as. I don’t see how he can be.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe the brothers love each other deeply. But growing up with siblings has taught me that it’s possible to love someone and yet be deeply wounded by them due to the casual and inescapable intimacy of your relationship? You can share more inside jokes and weird stories than anyone, yet you can never get away from how deeply they know you--not your thoughts, but who you are at home and who you were when you were seven and how you acted when someone broke up with you or what you did when your parents were furious.

You also know exactly how you match up against them, because you will always exist as a unit. And because your relationship is as natural as the lens  in your eye (you can’t imagine viewing the world without it), you forget about the other as a person and just say something and don’t think about how it hurts them. You can joke about this one thing and your sibling can carry around the hurt for years and you didn’t even know. And maybe the hurt isn’t even your fault--maybe they were just sensitive and you had no way of knowing, but the hurt doesn’t go away for the lack of malice. And even best-friend siblings are capable of malice towards each other at times.

So Boromir is good at things that Faramir isn’t, and Boromir knows it. He’s probably ribbed his brother in what he thinks is a playful way about when you’re going to shape up, or do X, or do Y, or why do you do that, anyways, or do you realize that’s a little unbecoming? maybe you should stop that. You know Father’s going to think that you’re... And he doesn’t realize how those slights can add up over the years. I do think he’s said things to his peers about his brother that have ended up hurting him. No matter how pure and nice he is, that sort of thing is unavoidable, and due to his cultural upbringing I don’t actually think he’d question the appropriateness of his attitude/acceptance and glorification of martial prowess at the expense of those who don’t have it in the same degree.

I think this passage is really telling:

For on the eve of the sudden assault a dream came to my brother in a troubled sleep; and afterwards a like dream came oft to him again, and once to me. 'In that dream I thought the eastern sky grew dark and there was a growing thunder, but in the West a pale light lingered, and out of it I heard a voice, remote but clear, crying:          Seek for the Sword that was broken:          In Imladris it dwells;          There shall be counsels taken          Stronger than Morgul-spells.          There shall be shown a token          That Doom is near at hand,          For Isildur's Bane shall waken,          And the Halfling forth shall stand. Of these words we could understand little, and we spoke to our father, Denethor, Lord of Minas Tirith, wise in the lore of Gondor. This only would he say, that Imladris was of old the name among the Elves of a far northern dale, where Elrond the Halfelven dwelt, greatest of lore-masters. Therefore my brother, seeing how desperate was our need, was eager to heed  the  dream and seek for  Imladris; but since the way was full of doubt and danger, I took the journey upon myself. Loth was my father to  give  me leave, and long have I wandered by roads forgotten, seeking the house of Elrond, of which many had heard, but few knew where it lay.' 

There’s so much you can read into this. Faramir has this dream, and he has it many times. We know he’s a lover of lore and no less devoted to his kingdom than Boromir, though his love is expressed differently. He is “eager” to heed the dream. So would I if I was having prophecy dreams all the time.

But is Faramir a member of the fellowship? No. Why? Because Boromir “took it upon himself.” He wanted to do it, he thought himself the better candidate (and Faramir the worse), and he argued his way into doing it against his father’s wishes. Coupled with Denethor’s later attitude towards Boromir, I’m inclined to believe Boromir was uniquely able to obtain this quest for himself because Denethor has a soft spot for him.

I find myself inclined to disregard Boromir’s account of Faramir’s motive (”how desparate was our need”), because it sounds like he’s justifying the appropriateness of his actions.  If it’s just about the great need of the kingdom, it’s nothing personal that one brother goes and the other stays. That view implies  that Faramir’s interest in this mission is primarily utilitarian in purpose, with a little academic curiosity--that is, it’s nothing personal. Doesn’t matter who goes! Not as long as we protect the kingdom! Which...just doesn’t square with his description of Faramir having repeatedly cryptic dreams that he wants to understand. I can almost guarantee that Faramir wants to know what those dreams meant more than Boromir.

It’s a bit tragic, because ultimately Faramir was more suited for the quest than Boromir (tramping about in the wilderness doesn’t seem to be a problem, he’s also a team player, and he’s much more willing to accept the power of the Ring/not downplay its personal danger, and would be able to see it in a bigger picture beyond just Gondor). Ultimately, though, if Boromir was the one to catch Frodo in Ithillien, the story would have a veeeeeeery different ending. (Gollum would likely be dead, and I can’t imagine he’d be inclined to just. let Frodo and Sam go free.)

I kind of view their relationship as a much less antagonistic version of Agravain and Gwalchmai from Gillian Bradshaw. (Agravain is more of a jerk than I can ever imagine Boromir being, and has a wicked temper). 

Also none of this is to say that I don’t think he’s not protective of his brother.

So a lot of words to say: I don’t think the Boromir and Faramir relationship is as uwu cinnamon roll as it seems in fandom. I think they loved each other, but I think Boromir did have a tendency to take what he wanted when he thought he deserved it and not give it a second thought, even when it was at the expense of his brother. Sure, he’d defend his brother night and day, but I expect him to be a bit of a jerk, be unaware of the extent of his behavior, and also see little wrong with it (the ring quest seems to have crossed a line, by the way he justifies it).

Still, they do love each other deeply and genuinely. It’s just a little more conflicted.

song i associate with them: Requiem, from Dear Evan Hanson. Not a particularly creative association (and I don’t associate him with Connor at all), but his death comes as such a shock at the beginning of TTT and brings with it so many mixed feelings due to both their relationship and the circumstances of his death. Nobody’s mourning is straightforward: not Frodo, or Denethor, or Faramir, or Aragorn, or Merry, or Pippin. His absense is woven throughout TTT and even RotK, in plot and in emotion and in theme.

favorite picture of them:

Don’t really have a favorite, but this one is nice.

The Sean Bean runners-up: one, two

[scimitar-and-longsword]

I genuinely wish to understand the interest and appeal of Book of Nile, and you seem like the right person to ask, so could you please enlighten me? (i promise this isn't meant to be rude, i'm just really curious)

oh my gosh, Well I certainly LOVE this ship and I’d be happy to brainwash convince you of it’s merits! But first of all do not EVER feel pressured to ship anything. I certainly don’t care if you ship or don’t ship what I ship. I try to tag anything I post with “Book of Nile” so you should be able to avoid it should you so choose. 💜

First The Book of Nile Manifesto

This honestly describes it better than I could, it’s super well written and has been basically this entire rare-pair ship’s intro into the fandom lol (the rest of this post just vaguely summarizes the manifesto sooo yeah, read it)

Alright! That out of the way, I LOVE THIS SHIP SO MUCH! And here are the 3 main reasons I love it 

1. Nile and Booker have so many parallels!! Strong ties to family that they were separated (in one way or another) from due to their immortality, youngest members of the team, sarcastic AF, relatively modern military ties, similar deaths (neck related lol), I could go on.

2. THEY HAVE CHEMISTRY! They get along fairly quickly and make each other laugh, Booker seems extremely intimidated by her in their first scene, and then Nile wants to just let him off with an apology. Booker grabs clothes for Nile, Nile won’t leave Booker behind in the lab. Booker is the first person Nile sees come back to life. They work together really well in the fight when they’re protecting Andy, taking over for each other when Booker gets shot and then Nile’s gun gets jammed.... they just vibe and I’m here for it.

3. Nile is the main character. She deserves to be LOVED!

Ok. So the main hurdle that I think most people have with the ship is the “age difference” which is fair enough and again if the actors’ ages squick you out you don’t need to ship this, I won’t judge. BUT if you can get past that then I need to introduce you to probably the most important piece of fanon regarding this ship: 

BOOKER NEEDS TO FUCKING WORK FOR THIS AND IT’S GONNA TAKE AWHILEEEEEE 

Most of this fics for Book of Nile revolve around them VERY SLOWLY figuring out their attraction for each other, right along side everyone’s fav Booker ship: Booker x Therapy.  A lot of fics take place at the end of or along side the 100 year exile. That or they take place in the future, beyond the exile. That’s not to say they ALL do, but it’s many of them. At a certain point age probably doesn’t matter. Like yeah 26/250 is a weird dynamic, but is 126/350?? Idk that’s up to you, but I think those lines start to blur the longer they’re alive. The literal thousands of years between Andy and Quynh don’t seem to matter soooo??? Also we all love to joke about Andy Joe and Nicky getting it on with famous people.... those age difference would have been WAYYYY bigger (ok sorry /salt) Obviously that doesn’t account for AUs.... but it’s an AU... you can do whatever you want lol age them however you’d like...

I also really love that we as a fandom of collectively written Booker as A: A house husband and B: Worshiping the ground Nile walks on. 

Anyway *I* have a lot of fun shipping them!

I hope that helped explain the appeal??? idk lol Obligatory “I hate it here and this was forced on me”

(thank you @poe39 and @bookernile for helping me sort through my thoughts lol)

[princesscas]

Hi! I have a question. I haven’t been heavily involved in tumblr/social media for a while. I had stopped watching supernatural for a couple of years and just got back into it. I ship destiel, but sometimes things about wincest come up. I keep seeing things about people not wanting to “ship shame” which you just mentioned as well, and I’m just confused. How is it okay that people ship two brothers? Like they are actual brothers on the show?? I don’t care that they’re not irl. I don’t know who the N girl you’re talking about is but apparently she cares about canon, so how can she like it? And why is it wrong for people to condemn people for shipping two brothers, when that is the thing inherently wrong? Like it’s disgusting... it’s not about them being guys, it’s incest... Again, I just don’t get it and I hope I don’t come off as rude! Thank you!

Nah, you’re not rude at all! Never ever like them. I’m still upset about what happened two days ago so what the hell, tea time!

To start off, I believe that everyone can ship whatever like like as long as they aren’t sending hate to others. Take a look at this (lengthy) post about ship wars. People can ship whatever they want, end of story. Doesn’t really matter anyway because people are gonna do what they wanna do. Do I like those types of ships like you described above? No, but it’s none of my business to tell others what they can and cannot ship. Sometimes I read darkfics. That isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay. Is the post/fanfic properly tagged with such elements? Then it’s fine. Start hyjacking posts/leaving nasty comments? That’s 1000% not fine and it never will be. 

Something that doesn’t get brought up enough: There is a vast difference between an ordinary w//cest shipper and a J-two-squared tinhatter who believes the said two actors are secretly gay, their wives are beards, they hate mish, everyone who doesn’t like w//cest are wrong, etc.

Now, it’s on the shipper if they start normalizing such things. (in//st, unhealthy, etc) And the rabid obsessed (N&Co) hate-everything-that-breathes crew is a prime example of this. 

This thing is already long so why not throw out some receipts, huh?  IMO, you cross that ‘ship whatever you want’ line when you do this: 

...I ship an angel and a human my dude. (and two 100 yr old super soldiers, I wonder what they think about stucky lol) also jesus christ the rest of that is a mess. 

/tw: biphobia here./ REAL bisexuals? “oh you aren’t bisexual if you like one angel and a hunter.” And they’re obsessed with calling everyone ‘teenager girls.’ This is not only wrong but also pretty damn transphobic and misogynistic. 1) Most people have aged over the years (wow that’s crazy right?) 2) trans, nonbinary, and gender fluid people exist. 

Overall, these people are a horrible bunch. They’re obsessed with preaching to people about ‘tagging properly’ when they could take it upon themselves and use a blacklisting extension. Or just block every single blog they don’t like. These people are a very small portion of the fandom but they’re loud, they want you to think they make up all of the fandom but they don’t. Not even close, when other in general posts gets thousands of notes/retweets and theirs get maybe a couple hundred. (and a lot are from reblogs for replies) 

Not gonna lie, I feel the need to defend w//cest shippers because I’ve known/have/had mutuals who do ship it and they’re nice as can be. 

The loud bunch are so loud, it silences the others who partaking in normal fandom things. Or really, if I were them, I wouldn’t want to associate myself with those people. 

Let’s pretend for a second. Imagine if you loved a ship (it could be any ship from any fandom) but the fandom is toxic as hell and the most ‘popular/well known’ blogs/artists/writers are these people. Fandom corners have history on the way they were built upon throughout the course of the fandom’s media. 

You browse the tags, the blogs, the fanfics, and find yourself staring at a hateful group of cult-like bigoted people. But wait. These people? They don’t like fanfiction or fanon. No, they hate anyone who writes anything outside of textbook canon. Any characters outside of SW/DW/JW won’t be present. (if you’re curious or are brave enough, go look at the AO3 tag, it’s sad) 

I try to be empathetic with people. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what it’s like. To love a show so much with your favorite ship but one part dislikes it and another part are so inherently hateful.   

The OP deleted but this thread on Reddit is exactly what I’m talking about. And they mentioned something else I think not many people bring up: OT3′s. 

I’m gonna quote this but it’s 1000% true. 

“What I can't for the life of me understand though is why people would hate on Misha as an actor because of his role on the show. I've seen a lot of Misha hatred - and I mean A LOT of it. In fact, I recently went through the anti-misha tag on tumblr and blocked over 200 tumblr accounts that either were dedicated to bashing him or castiel, or posted constantly about it.”

“It's really nuts to me that people would choose to put so much time and effort into hating an actor who hasn't done anything to them personally or hasn't even affected their lives, when they could be putting good feelings into praising the actors who have affected their lives in a good way instead if you feel me.”

Constantly is the key word here. I don’t think these people ever stop, not even for one second, to sit down and say, “God this is exhausting, I think I need a break this week.” I really dislike these people but I also feel empathetic for them. What is their mental health like? It isn’t healthy. Go show a therapist this, they’d probably quit on the spot. (okay prob not but that’s my best example atm) 

This has gotten extremely long so I think I’ll stop here. There are some nice people out there who will ship things you don’t like but a toxic side can make it seem much worse than it actually is. Ironically, it’s usually the opposite. (ie: voltron’s’s toxic side scaring off other shippers of that fandom) 

Lemme end this with pre!serum smol Steve and his legendary quote: 

[iaintyourbro]

So Your Ship (or Theory) Isn’t Canon

The day comes where you find out that your ship is not the canon pairing. It’s a sad day, you go through the stages of grief. 

“BUT EVERYTHING WAS POINTING TO THIS!”

Except, it probably wasn’t. 

This is how I had to deal with it a few times, and why it didn’t ruin the overall story for me. Full disclosure: None of these are considered “Main” pairings. 

Okay, let’s talk about the only couple I really cared about for FF7 back in the day: Vincent and Lucrecia 

Like most rational people, I have a very deep adoration for Mr. Valentine. I had a wall scroll of him in my room. He was mysterious, powerful, and my God, I’d say he was pretty effing romantic. I was also 12, but WHATEVER.

I played OG, got Vincent, saw the Waterfall scene and I was like “THIS MAN DESERVES TO GET THIS WOMAN.”

So, as we all know, the OG didn’t go in to a ton of detail about this whole thing. That didn’t really come until DoC, which of course, I didn’t play at that point. It wasn’t even out yet. And then I didn’t play it when it came out because I didn’t want to play a shooter game. 

They tell you that Hojo marries Lucrecia and that Sephiroth is his son. But then you have me that creates a theory based on a fanfiction ( That was a great fanfiction and I have no idea what it’s called because I read it 20 years ago.. ).

My theory became: Vincent was actually Sephiroth’s father. It was the only rational explanation, right? 

Who would sleep with Hojo? He’s gross. Very gross.

So, in my head, Vincent and Lucrecia did have some type of relationship and Hojo had forced her to marry him. BUT WAIT - she was already pregnant with Vincent’s child. Lucrecia played it off like it was Hojo’s, but he had his suspicions. Not that he cared, this was an experiment. He didn’t care about anybody. 

So I sat with my theory about Vincent being Sephiroth’s father, and that his sins went deeper than just not being able to stop Lucrecia and Hojo from experimenting. And Vincent suspected it too, so it wasn’t a complete mystery. In this theory, Vincent heavily suspected that he was Sephiroth’s father.

I think I replayed OG a few years ago when it came out on Switch. Once again, my love of Vincent came back. **I’m realizing that I probably did like Cloti even 20 years ago, but it was overtaken by my love of Vincent in my memories**

So I get online and am searching for Vincent things. Specifically about him being Sephiroth’s dad. And I came across it... the post proving it wasn’t canon. That the devs had done an interview and flat out said “No, Vincent isn’t Sephiroth’s father.” And if this was an episode of Maury, some folks may have jumped for joy.

I was actually hurt. Like, this can’t be right. Why wouldn’t they add that level of drama? But it wasn’t. It wasn’t canon, it was pure fanon. I’ve believed this for like 15 years. So I felt defeated.

And part of it was being wrong, which I think is a huge motivator for these ship wars. Nobody likes to be wrong. We are all human, after all. 

And I did go through about a 10 minute thing of eff that game. But guess what, I looked at it again. I actually watched DoC cut scenes (finally) and it made sense. It’s clear, it’s canon that Hojo is Sephiroth’s father. 

However, that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy that theory on my own, along with whoever else does. Fanfiction, fanart, playful discourse online about it. 

And that was fine. It didn’t ruin the game for me once I took a step back from my own theory, my own head, and looked at it as a whole. 

DoC did change my opinion of Lucrecia. For some reason I thought she was this nice lady. 

I even named my main World of Warcraft toon after her. I still have that toon, it’s still my main. 

But I was kinda like “damn she’s gonna play him like that?” And I wasn’t mad at the story anymore, I was mad at Lucrecia. But, what’s nice about that whole thing is, as the story continued in DoC, you found out she regrets her choice. She feels guilty about Vincent’s father’s death, so then goes crazy trying to save Vincent. Her “husband” treats her like trash, so then I REALLY hated him.

But I thought it was a good thing to make sure I reviewed all of the canon resources for Vincent and Lucrecia. 

I will still eat up a good fanfiction of Vincent being the daddy, though. I just will not ruin or twist the story of FF7 as it was written for it to fit that narrative. Doesn’t make me like it any less!

My next contenders, though not as serious as the above: Zell and Selphie from FF8 

I don’t know why. It was pretty obvious that the game showed Zell and Library Girl with the Pigtail (I mean, they could have at least given this chick a name) and Selphie and Irvine. And I knew that playing it. But in fanon land, I preferred Zell and Selphie. Something about them made them cute to me. Irvine and Quistis I’d generally pair up too. I have no idea why to this day, maybe just to stick people together. But even more than Irvine and Quistis I liked the idea of Seifer and Quistis. That became the thing. 

In any case, I never was upset playing the game and it never showing a single scene between those fanon couples. I loved FF8, still do. The only reason 7 overtook it was because of Remake. I still love the idea of Zell and Selphie together. 

Okay, this one actually I did have a hard time with: Psych

I wanted Shawn and Jules together by like episode 5 of that series. You want to talk about a slow burn? Those two. Shawn had other girlfriends. Jules had people. They’d still clearly have this tension. You’re like wtf guys. Come on.

When he needs to choose to save his gf (Abigail who I legit just found out was played by Rachel Leigh Cook) vs Jules in “Mr. Yin Presents...” I was like omg you son of a bitch go save Jules. Jules likes you. You know you love Jules. And he doesn’t. He save Abigail. And I was sad.

Then Abigail breaks up with him and I’m like hah!

And Jules and him get together. I actually had to spoil that for myself to keep going, cuz I almost stopped watching it. The tension was too much. That’s one where if they didn’t end up together, I think it would have ruined the show for me, as crazy as that sounds. I absolutely love the other themes in that show, but I really, REALLY loved Shawn and Jules. 

So when they break up for a bit later on, I actually got depressed. Had to spoil AGAIN to keep it moving. 

But I can guarantee one thing: If they didn’t end up together, I would not have gone online and started fighting people about it. I would have either stopped watching the series or I would have just suffered through it, depending on how tense it was.

I can tell you, when they finally kissed, I lost my shit. The tension was relieved. To get this shot, I had to watch it again AND GOT ALL WARM AND FUZZY.

And I can tell you right now, if this happens with Cloud and Tifa... I’m not sure what will happen to me. Cuz I reacted ridiculously with this, and right now I’d say I’m more invested in Cloud and Tifa. 

It’s just the release of the romantic/sexual tension that I need, I guess.

So the actual actors above were together IRL too. And I was like all about that. They were adorable. Then... she married another guy. I was like wtf guys, come on. 

I definitely made sure not to let that ruin the show, since their characters were still together. 

But in any case, you can love whatever ships and theories you want. You really shouldn’t go around lying about the story, removing parts of the story, twisting translations, words, everything that’s right in your face. 

That’s where I get annoyed. I love all the characters (except Hojo, but he is there to be hated) - so seeing this discourse is sad. 

I do laugh my ass off now more than I did before - especially over on Twitter. 

[full-course-identity]

Give me your thoughts on uuuh Jake

wew boy

okay. gonna word dump this, and probably other interpretation asks, so I can get the words out there.

from my POV, there’s 3 types of canon Jake + 1 fanon vers + my personal interpretation. lemme explain what they are;

Book Jake, who I don’t have enough experience with bc I STILL haven’t finished the book… >_>;

2River Jake, who is kinda oblivious and very in-the-moment impulsive (not so bad he’s jumping place to place ADHD like Rich, but like, not considering that maybe dropping everything to seduce Madeline or Christine is a bad idea when he clearly really likes Chloe). these are debatably survival mechanisms bc of his family (and wealth, if you want to go into the “being rich actually traumatizes you and locks you into dissociation” theory–but to be fair, this is partially reliant on thinking Jake is Genuinely Rich. … well, not Rich as in… yeah); ignoring any pain he feels in favor of getting dicked down and forgetting about everything for a while. very “I’m not sad, I’m busy!!!!!” 

Bway (possibly the new canon general for all Jakes since it sounds like London’s is modeled after him but just… toned down), who is still oblivious, but towards other people’s emotions instead of himself; he’s manipulative, a little impulsive but a lot more malicious about it, and he knows exactly how hurt he is about his parents. this jake’s awareness of himself makes him act worse because he knows this is the only thing that seems to help and it’s basically the only thing he actually has control of. his wealthiness is undeniably present and Bad here because the reason taking what he wants and not caring that it hurts people is his main coping skill is pretty much only because he’s been allowed that privilege all his life. i tend to think this version of him should be done by a white cishet dude (despite jake’s actor on bway being genuinely FANTASTIC) bc being marginalized in a high school should’ve curved a lot of the “endless power and privilege” he gets for being rich (Not That One). 

[i… think this jake has ‘better’/more nuanced writing in BWay… but i don’t think it fits the musical nor is it the overall direction i think it should’ve gone. BMC feels best to me when there’s a heavier element of Dark Humor that briefly nods to a Larger and more Fucked Up world behind the bit we see in the musical. making it largely a twisted comedy, maybe even ramping that up further with more whiplash lines like jake’s “which means the house is empty, so that’s fun”]

Fanon Jake is… like most of the fanon characters in BMC, a bit… “bipolar” (like, radically shifting depending on the situation). the BMC fandom has been born with heavy engagement from minors in the current fascist climate of fandom as a whole. as a result, you have three general uses of jake that as “approved of” by somehow the exact same people despite being conflicting in a lot of ways. THIS IS NOT ME SHITTING ON FANON, i actually think most of this fandom is just a casual romp for most people and that shouldn’t be snatched away from them nor mocked nor treated like you HAVE to be logically consistent when this is just a fun hobby for most… but there are still trends i notice:

1: Jake the sweet bi disaster who loves their significant other and is just a little bit hopeless in their silliness and Down For Whatever-esque personality. this is often used for shippy pictures and memes and cute little oneshots, plus, of course, fluff.

2: Jake the tragic abuse victim who is extremely sad and has to learn to love again and has always been selfless, plus or minus a permanent disability post-fire. this is of course used for hurt/comfort, plus in combination kinda with michael in the bathroom-esque posts and tragic art, often also used as an example of the squip being the worst for jeremy or rich guilt trauma. also: aesthetic and moodboard posts.

3: the one I have the least good will towards: Jake the “why does everybody woobify mlm? You can’t portray him without flaws! queer boys aren’t your fetish!!!” with an attached, clunkily written reasons why he was an asshole that is also simultaneously watered down so you don’t think he’s a Monster bc then you’d be vilifying queer men (well, more like they’d feel bad about their cutesy-er ‘emotional support’ art and writing which is Totally Different from all the other cutesy emotional support art and writing). 

basically, Meta Trying To Make Jake Reasonably Flawed But Not Evil in this fandom is RARELY genuine–it’s more often than not moralistic hand-wringing made so that they can wash themselves of the guilt for actually enjoying something with a character they portray as mlm, or otherwise the guilt of enjoying anything romantic or sexual involving men or queer people period when we’re apparently not supposed to do that anymore, as decreed by the radfems infesting our spaces. 

and, well, or you’re an mlm writing this post, you’re probably young and still feeling extremely sensitive and scared about your identity. i once saw a very wise post by a trans person who had been trans for a long time, who said that when you first come out as trans (or queer in general, but especially trans people who are beginning social or physical transition and coming to terms with themselves) you are obvs on High Fucking Alert and so you’re insecure and scared of anything, ranging from “obvious transphobia” to “just trans people enjoying themselves and exploring transphobia in fiction or else their own sexuality”. again, this can relate to a lot of identities tbh, and as such young mlm either cis or trans can get very Itchy about people enjoying mlm content.

anyway.

wrapping it back around to me: i edit jake on a case by case basis (sometimes i even make him eviler or meaner based on what’s set up during Bway, he’s just not my usual go-to villain), but i tend to think of him as a tragic Mr. Peanutbutter-y sweetheart who kinda knows he feels like shit yet also knows that if he stops to assess it, it would make his life a lot harder in a time where he can’t afford that. his relationship with chloe is extremely toxic (chloe abuses him horribly, specifically), and so he tries to claw his way out of it only to be continually back in by chloe and her bullshit. 

this is why he doesn’t really get... well. he genuinely thought the thing with christine was going to be permanent; he wasn’t jerking her around, he thought he was over chloe and wanted a girl as cool and fun and genuinely nice as her. afterward he Gets It, and so feels Really Bad--at a time where he doesn’t have his house, his legs are broken (i don’t tend to put him in a perma-wheelchair), his parents have abandoned him, and he best friend is in the hospital. guilt crashes in on him from all sides, and he just has to... pretend it isn’t, even as he can no longer stop himself from thinking about it.

if i was to do a jake focused story, it’d probably be a dating sim where you play as him and watch his life change in conjunction with his attempts to find happiness again; you can either choose decisions that help him greatly or ruin his life so ver much... hmm. lets file that under hashtag “story ideas i’ll never use even though they could be great”

to wrap this up: i like jake. i don’t... really enjoy most of the written content (fanfic, meta, sometimes even the storylines on ask blogs) in this fandom about him or... really, most of the characters, which i feel bad about--i’d enjoy it more if it was every in conjunction with my usual Wants in a fic, which is, like. extreme angst.

BUT

i do still like jake, and i can super enjoy his portrayal in memes and visual art

he’s just not my total fave, but like, the reason he tends not to come up a lot in my content is more what i’m focusing on and why. i’d be happy to use him in stories if his presence fit.

as a bonus

here’s the ships i’m happy to use him for, generally: deere, michael/jake, brooke/jake, toxic chloe/jake, and of course, different ocs/jake

his identities/labels: cis, bisexual/romantic... tho sometimes i actually go for bisexual and aromantic! outside bway and eviler jakes, i’m good with him being any race, and even then it’s just a matter of suspending disbelief re: privilege theory. also, PTSD probably, and maybe generalized anxiety as a result. maaaaaybe autistic too? adhd would be a hard sell for me since he seems super put together in a way that’d be extremely difficult for every form of adhd, but i can see him being neurodivergent on the spectrum + like dyslexia maybe. oh, and i sorta-kinda think he may be color blind? but really i’d drop that at a moment’s notice if it’d be easier to write him without it lol.

his interests: one is more or less sports in general, tho i think that, unless he went straight for track or swimming or something Olympics (which he probably can’t do now...), that’s a high school or some college only focus for him. so, besides sports, i think he’d kinda like the satisfaction and steady growth of Collecting Rare Things That You Have To Look For, like cool rocks, bugs, etc. 

as for careers... some form of doctor something, maybe a businessman of some sort but he’d likely try to curve his power in that field as much as possible; he inherits his parents' assets and company or whatever, but he probably takes a backseat to that and only really has it out of a sense of ‘it’s my job as my parent’s kid to keep the company going--without engaging in the same awful legal issues they did--for as long as i can’. one of my fave jake-is-there stories, vanceypant’s spicy bis-focused fic 1999, has him owning a restaurant, and that was cool as hell.

also jake loves dogs. especially golden retrievers. yes.

[kylermalloy]

My Official Unofficial Ranking of Supernatural Seasons That Nobody Asked For

This was...surprisingly easy. For someone who has a hard time picking favorites, I’m apparently quite eager to throw some seasons of one of my favorite shows under the bus.

My reasonings for this ranking are...all over the place. Since I’m considering seasons as a whole, I look mostly at the overall narrative structure, the prevalent themes, and the major character arcs. I won’t take individual/one-off episodes into much consideration...except for when I do. I won’t like some seasons/story arcs for any rationale between “this was sloppily executed,” “the message is misunderstood by viewers,” or even just that gif of Chris Evans “I don’t wike it.” I’m trying to look at seasons and storylines objectively, but I guarantee my Sam!girl bias will peek through at some point. Also, I reserve the right to change my mind at any point after I post this!

From bottom to top:

14 - Season 14

Ah, the twilight years of SPN. Now that we know this is the penultimate season, I’m a bit more lenient toward its shortcomings. Long running shows usually do stutter to a halt, story-wise. But still. I’m not taking it out of the bottom spot.

What was this season even about? Michael overtaking Dean? Nah, that barely lasted three whole episodes. Jack becoming evil? Not until the last six episodes. Team Free Will becoming a cohesive family unit? Lol. For a season that tried to set up Jack’s evil arc as a kid betraying his family, I hardly saw this “family” except in fanworks. The most heartfelt moments remained between Sam and Dean (not that I’m complaining about that—I loved those moments!) Was there an overarching theme besides “nobody is okay, especially Sam”? Season 14 is clumsy, unfocused, and does a poor job of telling the story it tried to tell. Even Mary’s second death reeked of “well, we didn’t know what to do with her and we needed a tragedy.” Oh yeah, and John was back for a hot minute.

13 - Season 9

Here’s one of these weird seasons. I like it, but I don’t. It’s well done, but it’s terrible. Also, I’m taking fan response into consideration on this one, since it colored my perception of it so negatively.

Season 9 could have been great. In a way, it was great. It was Dean’s dark arc—the part of Dean’s dark arc that I like. I’m not here to debate, just lay out the story. Dean stepped over a line. He tricked Sam into possession, lied to him for months, then refused to apologize afterward. He took the Mark of Cain as a penance, but it blew up in his face and turned him into something worse than he was before.

This is where fan response comes in. Fandom (from what I can tell; I wasn’t here back then) vilified Sam for setting boundaries with Dean, overwhelmingly siding with poor Dean who just didn’t want to be alone. The show, on paper, wasn’t trying to make the audience think this, but the POVs were skewed in such a way that we hardly got a chance to see Sam’s perspective and Sam’s trauma—so casual viewers didn’t really have a choice.

On a completely unrelated note (see, this is why this season is ranked so low) we have the angel storyline. What could’ve been a really cool and impactful story of celestial beings walking the earth, as well as Castiel exploring his new humanity in a way (that wasn’t just about sex) ended up a trite, dull affair about underdeveloped politics and characters I don’t care about. Did Metatron (the supposed big bad) even care about the Winchesters? I can’t remember. Only the actor’s indulgently entertaining performance saves that character. Even Castiel’s human arc was so short and ignored I sometimes forget it happened. This was a season that was so all over the place—good bones, bad execution.

12 - Season 12

This season is just...forgettable. Yet another season that was so all over the place—but unlike season 9, the story arcs did not culminate in a cool twist that pushed the SPN story to new heights. We had the BMOL, Mary’s return, and the Lucifer/Kelly/Dagon/nephilim story, and...honestly I can barely remember anything about them. The twisting story threads got interlocked at some points, like Mary working with the BMOL, and Sam and Dean working with them to take down Lucifer, but the threads were all wrapped up independently. To me, this suggests a lack of true investment in the stories and season arcs. Ultimately, Mary’s return was utterly wasted, the BMOL might as well have never existed, and the Lucifer storyline is a bloody, bloated carcass being dragged along behind the show by a fraying rope (called Buckleming) complete with a bad smell.

The reason I rank this season above season 9 is that I don’t shudder when I hear people talking about season 12. I don’t generally get angry when I think about it (except the way they did Crowley dirty) and it did give us Jack, the greatest fanon projection the show has ever given us. (I’ll elaborate on that in a minute)

11 - Season 10

This is the season in which I don’t like Dean’s dark arc. By that I mean...it wasn’t much of a dark arc. Instead of exploring Dean’s inner darkness and the choices that led him to take the MoC, we get a meandering season of (pretty enjoyable) one-offs. We are repeatedly told Dean can’t fight off what he truly is—except we’re also being told that Dean can’t truly control what the MoC is doing to him, meaning the MoC isn’t what he truly is. It’s a mixed message, and it ends up being too many episodes in a row of Dean staring moodily at his arm while he drinks. Sorry, an ancient tribal tattoo does not a compelling big bad make.

Speaking of bad guys, though, season 10 gave us Rowena! And more Crowley material! And the Stynes—wait, no. We don’t talk about...whatever they were.

I do like Sam’s determination to save Dean, and I even like the underhanded methods he used to get the MoC off. Charlie’s death was a horrifying shock, but it actually fed the story very well. And I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about individual episodes, but Soul Survivor and Fan Fiction are both epic.

10 - Season 8

...this season. This season is such a mixed bag you could almost rank it as two separate seasons! ;) This was Jeremy Carver’s first season as showrunner—and while I like what he ended up doing, I hated the way he played with the brother dynamics throughout the season, especially the first half. Season 8 starts out disjointed, very unconnected from the previous season. The story thread of “Sam didn’t look for Dean” is overplayed and very tired. Also a bit of a reach, considering the season 5 finale. My point is, Sam and Dean both act like pod people for the first part of this season. Dean is mad at Sam for...doing exactly what Dean himself did a few years ago (fandom misses the nuance of Dean’s hypocrisy and jumps right in the blame-Sam boat with him) and Sam is suddenly...living with a strange woman we barely get to meet and okay with not hunting anymore?

This is another example of the skewed POVs hurting the show’s message. We don’t get to see Sam’s grief the same way we saw Dean’s struggle in purgatory, and since Sam’s Amelia arc makes very little sense anyway, we’re forced to imagine it—and this is a disservice to both Sam and the overarching story.

However, the saving grace of season 8 is the second half. We get the bunker, the Trials storyline, which is a whump goldmine for my Sam-loving heart, and one of the best season finales this show has ever produced. I mean...they got married. In a CHURCH! I’m not really a wincester, but seriously how do you not ship it just a little when the show gives you stuff like THAT?!

*deep breath* I’m good. Moving on!

9 - Season 13

I...have a soft spot for this season. Anybody who follows me on here can probably guess why. That’s right, it’s Jack, the greatest fanon projection the show has ever gifted us.

Let me explain. The narrative structure of the season is a mess. The exploratory theme of Sam and Dean as parents is derailed by the fact that Sam and Dean spend less than six episodes with their surrogate child and spend the rest of the season spinning their wheels until it’s time for the finale. Lucifer as a villain doesn’t give a crap about the protagonists, which makes him a really boring and terrible antagonist—to say nothing of the fact that two of the writers try to make him sympathetic and end up assassinating the character harder than Michael!Dean did. I only found Scoobynatural mildly entertaining. As for Asmodeus...who’s that?

Basically, the only shining light in this season besides the brothers is Jack. And we don’t even get a consistent characterization of him. He’s essentially a blank slate, which means we as fans and fanwork creators get to make him whatever we want. While he’s supposedly the Winchesters’ kid in canon, it’s rarely shown—that falls on us as fans to make a reality. And boy do we make it reality! This is where I found my corner of fandom, and that’s why this mess of a season ranks relatively high for me. Still in the bottom half, but it gave me one of the greatest gifts the show has ever given.

8 - Season 7

I shouldn’t have to defend myself, but while most of the fandom harbors a little black spot of hatred for this season...I don’t. Like, at all.

I don’t agree with all the creative choices of this season—the Leviathans were an out-of-nowhere big bad with no connection to the Winchesters. However, the guy who played Dick Roman did a fantastic job hamming it up. And I love how all the pieces came together in the end—Sam and Dean, Cas, Crowley, even Meg as a surprise reluctant hero. We also got Charlie! And Kevin! Bobby got a fantastic arc, both before he died and from beyond the grave. And Crowley, even though he helped win the day, also rigged the game so he took all the pieces left on the board. Mad respect for my king.

Also, as a stalwart fan of Sam whump, Sam’s hallucination storyline was all kinds of awesome. (Except for how it abruptly ended and was never spoken of again)

I know objectively this season isn’t very good, but I still find myself rewatching it a surprising amount. I have a soft spot for Sera’s storytelling, and she did not have complete control over the creative decisions for this year. Season 7 only barely misses out of the top half.

7 - Season 3

This season is great, it really is. I think the main reason I rank it so low is because of the shortened season—Sam’s aborted arc. And that was obviously out of everyone’s control; the creators had to just pick up the pieces and make do with what circumstances gave them.

Basically, I don’t have anything bad to say about this season. It’s a brother-lovefest, it gives us Bela and Ruby, and yes we get some truly great one-off eps. Bad Day at Black Rock, A Very Supernatural Christmas, Mystery Spot, Jus in Bello, and Ghostfacers are among my favorite episodes to rewatch. I just mainly miss the end of Sam’s arc. Although I do appreciate the writers’ strike giving us Castiel instead, I still wish we could’ve gotten to see boyking!Sam save his brother.

6 - Season 2

While on the surface season 2 is barely different than season 1, it also gives us loads of gamechangers. It’s the coming-of-age season—Sam and Dean aren’t kids anymore; in fact, they aren’t anyone’s kids. The season bookends of John’s death and Sam’s death make a horrible tragedy that I don’t even care much what’s in the middle.

But then again, everything in between is so good. There’s not much of an overarching story, just a sense of dread and desperation as...something...draws near. (We don’t even know what it is, but it still scares us! It’s masterful!) The tone is consistent and effective, the brother dynamics are still balanced enough to fully enjoy, and of course...there’s Playthings. :)

(Y’all are gonna stop believing me when I say I’m not a wincester, I can feel it. What can I say, I have incestuous shipping tendencies.)

5 - Season 11

This is a season that I could tear limb from limb for falling so flat in the end, but...somehow I can’t bring myself to. I didn't find myself into the Amara storyline too much, mainly because the God/Darkness sibling dynamic wasn’t developed enough to parallel with Sam and Dean invest in. But this season does an awesome job of healing the brother dynamics. While seasons 8, 9, and 10 were fight-heavy, Sam and Dean spend this season in relative peace. In times of potential crisis, they band together instead of fracturing apart. And that, honestly, is enough for me to forgive...well, a lot, plotwise. The Dean/Amara connection that went nowhere, the Casifer storyline that went nowhere, the Darkness’s grudge against her brother that...went nowhere...and I’m not even going to touch on the Sam/Lucifer dynamic that started out SO GOOD and then...well...

Again, I’m not going to touch on it. I love this season despite its flaws.

4 - Season 1

Here it is. The season that started it all. I said I was going to consider mostly narrative structures for this ranking, yet here season 1 is without much of a narrative structure, fourth from the top.

The first season of a show is always the feel-around-in-the-dark season. This is where we learn the rules of the show, how the world works, and most importantly, who our characters are. We spend 22 episodes with the writers and actors just...figuring out who Sam and Dean are, most especially who they are to each other. They were so successful in this that they spawned a fifteen year phenomenon centered around this fraternal love story. As an additional plus, since the characters were so new, season 1 gives us the most balanced POV between the brothers. We get to feel for both of them without being pitted against each other, and I appreciate that more than words.

The horror is old-school, the storytelling can be a bit cliche, but every show has an origin story and I’m in love with this one.

3 - Season 6

Again, I love Sera Gamble’s storytelling. It’s most evidenced here in her first year of showrunning. This season had the astronomical task of following up season 5. How do you follow up the literal apocalypse?

...Astoundingly well. To me at least.

This season’s narrative structure is my favorite. It’s kind of a noir thriller, with more twists and turns than Supernatural usually gets. In fact, having now watched Vampire Diaries and The Originals, season 6 of SPN kind of echoes those shows. (I don’t think it’s coincidence that TVD aired its first season one year prior to this)

Instead of trying to outdo the literal devil (the mistake of latter seasons) we spend most of season 6 not knowing who the big bad is. We meet a few baddies, get backstabbed by former friends, and we’re told Raphael is a threat, but in the end the big bad was the friend we made along the way—Castiel. It’s depressing, it’s not what we expected, and it’s honestly a departure from “traditional” SPN. But I like it. I like it a lot. If Sera had been allowed to do more seasons like this, she probably would’ve stayed longer.

2 - Season 4

I love a lot of things about this season. The way they handled the angels was great—the right way to do unknowably powerful beings. I like Sam’s dark arc. It’s coupled perfectly with his good intentions and his all-consuming love for his brother. The plot twist at the end is perfect—Sam, in doing the right thing, unleashes the worst evil this world has (yet) known.

The tone is also perfect. It’s dark. A little edgier. Edging toward eldritch horror rather than ghost horror. Balanced out with light episodes that pack a hard punch in the feels regardless. And this is a little thing, but the color grading shifts back to more sepia after the technicolor of season 3. It gives us this little sense of dread throughout the season without even knowing why.

I could complain about the skewed POVs, about how fandom still sometimes crows “Dean was right about Lilith!” when all Dean opposed was Ruby and the demon blood—he wanted killed Lilith too. But as this instance of POV-warp serves the storyline in a good, necessary way, and Sam truly did need to be brought back from his dark path, I’m choosing to ignore it.

1 - Season 5

Are we surprised? Maybe some Sam fans are—I know some who get vexed about the blame for the apocalypse being solely and constantly placed on Sam...but I’m not. The overall story of season 5 is just so good. Lucifer is a good villain in this season. Sam and Dean have an excellent healing arc. The angels are good villains, also ironic mouthpieces of the overarching themes—despite touting “fate” and “unavoidable,” they are champions of free will, since they do whatever they want in their father’s absence. Zachariah most notably. Castiel was utilized in a good way (whereas now he struggles to still have purpose in the show) Bobby and Crowley both were good in this season (and also sparked a rarepair that’s—hilariously—canon) and this season did not pull any punches when it came to death. Even the main protagonists were shot point-blank halfway through the season! (Don’t talk to me about the samulet, I can’t do it without bawling)

And Swan Song remains my favorite season finale and overall episode. Dean relinquishing control of his little brother, allowing him to make the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of the world. I still halfway wish the series ended with Sam and Dean both throwing themselves into the Cage, destroying themselves for the world, out of love for each other. (insert “poetic cinema” meme)

And there we have it! To my mutuals, I’d love to hear your thoughts or your rankings. And to @letsgobethegoodguys - Steph, since this was so hard for you, I did it myself so I could feel your pain. 😘

[killian-whump]

Killian Jones deserves more friendships... Just sayin

YES.

Although, to be fair, he does have friendships and relationships in the show. Plenty of them, in fact! The problem is that they’re TOLD to us rather than SHOWN to us most of the time, and the few glimpses we GET of these relationships are so short and infrequent that it makes them easy to forget or underestimate, and WAY too easy for people to shrug off or sweep under the rug in order to focus on whatever relationships THEY want to paint as being the “one and only” important relationship in Killian’s storyline.

For fun, let’s have an impromptu retrospective of his canon relationships: 

Hook and His Mother: From Wish Hook’s naming of Alice, and his comment that his mother “tried to stay with [him] as long as she could” we know that they had a good relationship, he remembers her fondly, and she left him all too soon. Unfortunately, that’s literally all we know - and we never got to SEE her.

Hook and His Father: Before he sold his sons into slavery for a rowboat, Brennan Jones seemed to be a good father. We’re told this by the show in the way he comforts Killian, and how Killian idolizes him and wants to be just like him. Granted, this could be due more so to Killian’s own tendency to pick a person in his life and put them on a pedestal, but we know from the others he’s put on such pedestals that he tends to choose people he feels are good people. Even Killian’s “He wouldn’t do that!” outburst when he learns what his father has done points to the fact that his relationship with Brennan before this point was positive enough that the boy genuinely doesn’t believe his father would do this to him. And it is this good relationship they had that left Killian feeling as abandoned and betrayed as he did. Had the relationship been bad from the start, he may not have been as scarred by the abandonment, itself.

Hook and Liam: The show makes a HUGE deal about how important Liam is to Hook, and we can see that in how Hook talks about him and the few flashbacks we were allowed to see… but he only actually appears in three episodes. It’s just the first of many examples where we’re told “this is an important relationship of Hook’s” without being shown enough evidence in the show to really illustrate how or WHY it’s so important. We only get glimpses and are forced to fill in the blanks on our own.

Hook and Milah: Like with Liam, we are told in a myriad of ways just HOW important this relationship is to Hook, but shown very little of it. Fandom has done a wonderful job of filling in the blanks, of course, but there’s so little canon information to go on, aside from the fact that we’re TOLD that his love for her never waned for literally hundreds of years. It’s why some fans can so easily shrug off the importance of this relationship, as well - which is the problem when it comes to almost ALL of Hook’s relationships. He has them; we’re told he has them, but without SEEING them, it’s easy for people to discredit them.

Hook and Smee: Yes, we know they’re “best mates” and Smee is always around and he’s Hook’s first mate and always loyal to him… but you can count the number of truly meaningful scenes they share on, well, one hand. The show relies more on the viewer knowing that Hook and Smee are a classic duo than they use the actual storytelling to show us that it’s true.

Hook and Baelfire: Hook didn’t sell Baelfire off of his ship the day after he arrived. It was some time later. You can tell by how close they are in the Port/Starboard scene, when Hook reveals his own abandonment to him. Hook also confirms it when he tells Emma that Neal was with him “long enough to know I miss him, too”. That wasn’t a day or two. It was awhile. Long enough to profoundly affect Hook. Long enough for Hook to harbor (and maintain) almost fatherly feelings towards the boy. And we were cheated out of seeing it.

Hook and Cora: We saw more of this than a lot of other relationships, but nowhere near enough. How did they go from literally trying to and/or almost killing each other to being partners who tease each other with comments like, “Why do you still doubt me?” and are obviously banging in kinky ways. I want to know more about how that relationship developed. I want to know more about how sincere it was (or wasn’t), because it feels deeper than the usual superficial villain pair-up that we usually see, and this holds true when they’re reunited in S5 in the Underworld. There is a warmth between them in that scene that points to a sincere friendship that I wish we’d seen more of.

Hook and Emma: This one we get to see in its entirety, and it’s beautiful.

Hook and Tinkerbell: Again, we’re TOLD they had a history, but mostly through off-handed comments, implications, their consistently friendly/flirty demeanor towards each other, and behind-the-scenes confessions that the actors were told they’d had a fling.

Hook and David: Another one we get to see pretty thoroughly. Bless.

Hook and Belle: Okay, so he knocked her out and almost killed her on their first meeting. Aaaaaaand he tried to kill her on their second meeting. And he shot her and erased her memories on their third. But… it got better! This is one of the few relationships the show stuck with and actually gave us glimpses of throughout the seasons, making it feel like a genuine friendship that was growing deeper and more meaningful as time went by.

Hook and Ariel: This one goes without saying. Yes, they had some ups and downs and some bludgeonings and slaps, but ultimately, these two are friends. And Wish Hook and Wish Ariel’s friendship just proves this all the more. However, as usual, the kind of “blink and you’ll miss it” acknowledgement of this friendship makes it all too easy for people to dismiss it as “fanon”.

Hook and Henry: Another pairing that we got to see develop in canon, thank goodness. Hook went from the “cool pirate guy” to the guy his mom was dating to a true member of his family and his step-father. And it’s great. And S7 gave us Henry meeting another version of his step-father, this time as a grown man, and forging a genuine friendship with him, as well.

Hook and Ursula: Granted, they definitely weren’t friends when Ursula came back to Storybrooke, but she sailed on Hook’s ship with him and his crew for some time before Hook was forced to betray her. And when he made right on this betrayal years later and got her voice back for her and reunited her with her father (who admitted his guilt in Hook’s betrayal as well as apologizing for his role in it), Ursula was clearly willing to forgive Hook and help him in return. I think, given the positive foundation of their relationship and their eventual reconciliation, a friendship could’ve (and should’ve) blossomed here.

Hook and Nemo: Aw, geez. The show sets Nemo up as a fatherly figure to the men he “rescues” aboard his ship. He’s clearly a father figure to Hook’s half-brother, Liam. He openly states that he wants to help Killian similarly, literally telling Hook he wants him to join their family. And while events in the past led to Killian leaving, it’s obvious in the present-day scenes between these two that Nemo still sees Killian as a part of his “family” - and that Killian feels the same. That the show cast him off entirely to shores unseen is a damn crime.

Hook and Liam: Another brother. Another Liam. Another family member that Killian begins to bond with… and then gets literally shipped off the show.

Hook and Snow White: Out of nowhere, they have a close moment on the docks where she kisses his cheek and says she’s glad he’s the one Emma’s found to share her life with. Sweet. He also calls her “Mummy” in a later scene, during the finale. Hilarious. BUT WHERE’S THE REST OF IT?! And by “it” I mean the rest of their damn relationship?!

Hook and Jasmine: These two form an entirely unlikely (but delightful) friendship in S6. However, we’re kind of just expected to assume there’s a friendship there by the closeness they share (their frank conversation on the Nautilus) and the smiles and warmth they consistently address each other with.

Hook and Black Beard: Now THIS is how you do a “frenemies” ship right here. They’re like the Itchy and Scratchy of Once. They try to kill each other. They play cards. They try to kill each other again. They take over the other one’s ship. They talk about their lady troubles. They try to kill each other. They offer unsolicited advice. They go portal hopping together. They randomly have a swordfight. They abandon each other to child natives. They try to kill each other again. They hunt for treasure. They plot out elaborate schemes to give friends a good adventure. This one’s gold.

Wish Hook and Regina: Oh, goodness. S7 gives us so many subtle touches, smiles, and intimate moments between these two that those watching for such things are convinced something more than friendship was brewing there - but it was done SO subtly that those who weren’t watching for it literally missed it all entirely. Whether they were building up something for an eventual romance or just presenting them as extremely close friends, there was definitely something purposely put there in canon. Hopefully, we would’ve found out more about it in S8, had we been lucky enough to get one.

Wish Hook and Alice: Finally, another relationship we’re SHOWN and allowed to enjoy as it progresses - both in flashbacks and in the present day. BLESS.

Wish Hook and Jack/Nick: Here’s the thing. Nick is introduced to the show in S7 before the ten year jump to when the curse is cast. And he’s shown still with the group at Lucy’s tenth birthday party - and is obviously caught up in the curse itself. So that’s over ten years that Hook knew Jack in the New Enchanted Forest. Regina, fully awake in Hyperion Heights, tells Lucy that her father (Henry), Rogers (Hook) and Nick (Jack/Hansel) were like the three Musketeers back in the fairytale world and convinces her to set up a “guys night out” for them. The focus of this is, of course, on Henry’s relationships with Hook and Nick, but from Regina’s comments and the fact that all three men are set up to hang out together as a trio, we can assume Hook and Jack were good friends. As usual, we’re subtly TOLD the man has a friend… and left to fill in the blanks for ourselves :P

Wish Hook and Zelena: This is another subtle one. When Zelena shows up in the New Enchanted Forest looking for her daughter, she’s not that friendly to the Hook she finds there. In fact, she dismisses him outright and tells him to piss off. But he stands up to her, sticks with her, manages to even impress her a little… and ultimately helps save Robin’s life (and Zelena’s). By the end of the episode they share, Zelena is obviously warming up to the pirate - and when Kelly encounters him in Hyperion Heights, her fondness for him is visible in spite of the danger she’s in and his own obliviousness (”It’s Detective, actually…”).

Wish Hook and Robin: Obviously, they’re going to have a familial relationship once Robin and Alice get married, but it’s obvious from the show that they both have deep feelings and great respect for each other already. Hook, thinking he’s on his last legs and going to die soon, takes it upon himself to ask Robin to look after Alice when he’s gone. That denotes a great trust and affection for her. And, similarly, Robin respectfully asks for his blessing (what was once customary is, in Robin’s more modern generation, considered old fashioned and unnecessary) and insists that she will do whatever it takes to keep him alive to see their wedding. This exchange shows us a lot of warm feelings between them.

Rogers and Tiana: These two are even sweeter than her beignets. And unlike some of the subtle friendships he’s had, this one’s a little more obvious.

Wish/Hook and Rumplestiltskin: Just when you thought it was safe to get trapped in a snowglobe with your arch nemesis… This one was just bizarre, really. After literally years in real time and centuries of show time being SHOWN how much these two hate each other… the show decided to TELL us in S7 that, actually, they were the closest thing the other one had to a friend that whole time. Sure, Jan. I try to murder all of my friends multiple times, as well as trying to make them (and their loved ones) suffer as much as possible. Some people love the twist, some people hate it… but in either case, it’s just WEIRD.

Ships I Left Off: I’m gonna be honest here. As much as I enjoyed Robin Hood and Hook’s scenes together, I never really bought them as being the best of friends. They seemed more like acquaintances to me, and I think the fandom colored them as besties based more on the friendship of the actors than on the actual canon content of the show. And even though Elsa and Arthur both spent episodes “adventuring” with Hook and he obviously grew to (or just did) like both of them, I don’t really feel like either of those led to lasting friendships that persisted beyond the “buddy adventure” episode they shared. I also left off crack ships and any ships that are entirely fanon creations.

So! In closing, I’d like to contend that it isn’t so much that Killian Jones needs more friendships… THE SHOW JUST NEEDED TO LET US SEE THE ONES HE’S FREAKING GOT.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[sometimesrosy]

God, people can be so hateful. I did the HUGE mistake on going on twitter the other day (during con, basically), and i was disgusted. Like, i KNOW that some bellarke shippers are trash, but not ALL of us are like that. I got so MAD when i read that clx shippers (same thing for them, not all of them are trash) think that we watch the show just for canon b/c and talk shit about the actors for giving us “fake hope”. BUT didn’t they try to cancel the show after lxa died OR just stop watching the (1

show after that?(Kind of since they’re still being annoying on social media). e.g., i didn’t like clxa but not for that i went psycho and tried to sabotage the show. I love the cast, the show, beliza (bc seeing that they are bff just melts my heart)and bellarke, but i will stay even if my fav ship don’t become canon bc this show is so good and original. (I’m obsessed with it basically). (2

I’m sorry for me venting on you but i got so irritated and you’re just a wonderful sunshine that radiate positivity so, god bless YOU. (3

I forgot to add [b/cho] when i said “i didn’t like clx but not for that i went psycho ecc…” I’m just respectful and i always expect people to be the same. Sue my parent for raising me good. (4

Well CLs have no right to criticize BC when BC act like CLs. The Blorkes are EXACTLY like the CLs with less actual cause, because Bellarke is actually canon and happening, and CL actually died. Do you still have hope? We still breathing. We’re literally still breathing and Bellarke is actively happening and they don’t even NOTICE? What TERRIBLE shippers they are. They must not actually ship Bellarke or be fans of The 100 AT ALL. That’s why I call them Blorkes now, because they aren’t shipping Bellarke at all, or they’d see how much canon bellarke we got in season 5.

The Blorke Antis are infuriating. And they deserve to be criticized. But they aren’t fans of Bellarke in canon, only in their fanon. Which is the same for many CLs, who made up their own Lxa Show, only slightly related to the story on screen, and then were devastated when The 100 didn’t follow The Lxa Show. I don’t interact with CLs and haven’t since season 3, and it’s better that way. And now I don’t interact with Blorkes since season 5, and I’m finding it better that way, too.

The truth is, fandom is vulnerable to people becoming antagonistic, cruel, cliquish, vicious, self centered, over entitled, and harassing. This is part of fandom culture. And it doesn’t matter WHAT you ship, you have to be careful that you yourself are not doing it. Because when people come at you and call you horrible names for talking about something you love, something that hurts you, or something you don’t like, the you get defensive and start attacking back. 

This is one of the reasons I am so against the anti/stan mentality. Because it sets us up as enemies inherently, and equates not liking something or someone with that thing or person or character being EVIL, bad or whatever designation they’ve assigned it as impure. 

Shipping is a way to engage with a story, and it’s awesome! But it is not the only way to engage and it is not the most important way. But fandom tries to force their ships and faves and headcanons down the throats of the rest of the fandom. They don’t seem to be able to STAND when someone just enjoys something, if it’s not what they enjoy, so they try to ruin the joy. 

to tell the truth, if you think i’m this full of sunshine and radiate positivity then i’m doing a good job keeping my anger in check, because I am full of rage and bitterness towards fandom in general, the 100 fandom in particular, and the blorkes personally. Like, personally. I know who you all are, and I’ve been talking to you for 3 years, and THIS is what you come up with? I am DEEPLY disappointed in the blorke ignorance, cruelty, self centeredness, and entitlement. Disgusted. 

And the wisest thing is to stay away entirely from fandom twitter. and tumblr tags aren’t much better. Create your internet bubble. Cull your connections. Unfollow, block, mute, filter as needed. 

Having nothing to do with the anti fandoms is the best way to enjoy the show and ship you love. 

[animentality]

you know what’s funny?

tumblr is so progressive that it comes full circle sometimes to come back to just plain old bigotry. 

it creates discourses that don’t even or shouldn’t even exist, lmao, like, people create problems ONLINE that do not happen, in real life, in person to person interactions. 

like tumblr’s rabid lynch mob mentality, its weird adoration for beautiful straight white actors but avid distaste for all other straight white men, its weird pseudo-scientific poorly researched and usually inaccurate information, like that looney tunes post where people called the tasmanian devil a racist stereotype when it’s actually an animal....

its inability to not rag on anyone who makes a small mistake that was overblown by social media and taken as an example of “everything wrong with the ___ industry!” and its tendency to over react, demonize people who’re wrong but certainly not irredeemable monsters, its glorification of the liberal media which is also prone to lies, white supremacy, cultural hegemony, academic monopoly, internet “causes” run by scammers, vilification of every other website even though tumblr has its own mess of nonsense......

belief in a black and white, two dimensional world run by stereotypes and easy solutions, idolization of irresponsibility and laziness, selfishness, proposed “freedom” without the associated costs, romanticization of online friendships, admiration for “queens” and “sweet baby boys” who are living breathing celebrities who are flawed and uneducated in subjects they proclaim to care about...

narrow-minded faith in the internet as a democratic space when it’s not, it’s also run by corporations, physically, since your internet connections rely on maintained network cables, undying faith in some end all be all solution to racism, sexism, and homophobia when underlying causes of these things are not simply that human beings are bad, hopeless love for pointless material wealth despite proposing to be communist/socialist proletarians and trying to play it off as a joke, its perpetual lies about being “poor” when a lot of you just romanticize being poor like it’s fun and makes you part of some special community of oppressed people, then getting into a competition based on who’s “poorer” 

and speaking of that, its predisposition to playing the tragedy olympics, everyone trying to use their race, gender, circumstances, physical disabilities, mental disabilities, mental disorders, behavioral disorders, or just play not being in a good mood today...

self diagnosis and using web md to diagnose yourself with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and whatever else you want to because this site feeds you with the ideal mental illness, one which is there when you’re feeling sad and lets you dramatically imagine yourself as a poor, misunderstood artist plagued with both brilliance and madness...

the toxic, self-destructive, contradictory beast that is fandom life here, where fans ship everything and anything, but hate heterosexuals, but also homosexual relationships that are abusive, but then every ship is abusive in some ways, because fans said so, because the representation isn’t enough, or it is enough, but it’s not the way they want it to be, and its inability to be pleased with any diversity because there should be MORE, there should be MORE in general, and in greater quality, or it wasn’t done well enough or didn’t take into ONE SPECIFIC FAN’S experience as a black disabled woman of color from twelve different nations ...

its discourses about canon and fanon, tearing down everything, building up the “wrong” show, the wrong movie, the problematic discourse, everything is terrible, whining about one’s own agenda, whining about others,’ endless arguments over what should be and what shouldn’t be, constantly begging for gays and lesbians, yet these gays and lesbians have to be sexy and attractive and explicitly gay so that one’s own sexual appetite is fulfilled, all under the guise of progressiveness, when fetishizing sexual and romantic relationships and celebrating them as better than “normal”  heterosexual relationships only further distances them from the mainstream culture, threatening content creators or calling them all garbage if they do not have the proper amount of POC or LGBTQA folks....

the worst thing, though, about tumblr, is that the memes here suck. 

[bluerobokitty]

Okay, so I was one of the interviewees for the #LanceIsBi article that just released recently, known as “Shardy”. Given how much the article is being discussed now, I’ve decided to post my entire interview in full to show just how in depth the discussion actually became. 

The article barely scratches the surface of the issue of the bisexual treatment in fandom, this is true. However, as someone who has been screaming into the void about this for a solid year and a half now, it was nice to finally have a platform on which to speak.

This whole thing started because the #LanceIsBi movement gained so much traction to the point of trending on Twitter. The editors of Den of Geek grew curious and wanted to look at why such a thing happened. Remember, not nearly as many people are involved with VLD discourse. Our fandom’s discourse so multi-layered and so complicated, people on the outside can’t really see it unless they become involved themselves. As far as DoG was concerned, this was just a fandom thirsty for bi representation. 

My quotes about it being mostly for a shipwar are not used within the article, but that would be an entire article on its own. However, this article did focus on how fans do queerbait themselves and others, the importance of separating fanon from canon, and real bisexual representation comes from the characters, not background colors and jokes by voice actors. I’m not gonna toss the baby out with the bathwater here - that’s a pretty good start. 

So without further ado, here is my interview. It was conducted via Twitter DMs back in October, but for ease of reading, I formatted the interview to post here. It’s a very long post, so if your “read more” function doesn’t work on your phone, I apologize. 

What’s your name? (You don’t have to give me your full name if you aren’t comfortable.) You also don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but if you’re willing to say so, how do you identify?

My name is Shardy and I identify as a bisexual female.

How long have you been a Voltron fan?

I’ve been a Voltron fan since Legendary defender first aired. I never had the chance to watch the original as a child, but I had friends who were super into it so when the reboot happened, I decided to check it out.

How do you interact with the Voltron fandom? Do you write fic? Post fanart? Discuss the series online? Whatever!

I interact as much as I can through fanfic, artwork and zines, I’m trying my hand at making merch, and I’m always discussing the series on Twitter or Discord from meta and worldbuilding to theories and ships.

Why do you see Lance as bisexual when the show hasn’t expressly said that he is?

So when I started headcanoning Lance as bisexual, I saw bisexual Lance headcanons making their way around fandom since day one. By then, fandom was pretty small and it was obvious that he was mostly headcanoned as bisexual for shipping purposes. Which, I really don’t mind, so long as people are respectful about it. I hadn’t entirely embraced my own bisexual label yet, I was still confused about a lot of things. But then I see this guy in this show who clearly prefers the opposite gender, but if he were bisexual, maybe it would be because he’s nervous around his own gender? Maybe he doesn’t know how to approach dudes like that? Maybe he doesn’t want to risk humiliating and outing himself by hitting on a straight guy? And I realized that was MY experience. That’s exactly how I felt around other women. Nervous, scared, maybe I should just stick to guys since it’s safer, makes me less vulnerable.

Lance is my favorite character because he’s closest to me in personality, so I projected a lot of experiences onto him. Of course, I relate to all the other characters in lots of different ways, too, but Lance is a bit special to me when it comes to my sexuality. I really used him in my fanfic to explore my own sexuality, and that’s the case for a lot of women in fandom, really. I know that he is thus far explicitly straight in canon, but the beauty of fandom and transformative works is that we don’t always have to strictly follow canon. So long as you don’t start insisting that such things are canon, because that’s when you start to queerbait yourself and see things that aren’t there, and if you base your expectations like that, you’ll only disappoint yourself in the show if not hate it. Which I’m starting to see a lot of people in fandom do.

This is why I am so incredibly bothered by #LanceIsBi movement. Which I will get to here in a minute because this movement stems from a much bigger problem that’s been festering in fandom for over the past year.

Do you think the series will ever openly confirm Lance is bisexual? How will you feel if they do or don’t?

I don’t think Lance was ever meant to be bisexual. I think he was always meant to end up with a girl (my money’s on Allura given the events of these past two seasons lol). It would be cool, though. I would like to see a little arc dedicated to him coming to terms with his attraction for his own gender, too. Because that’s what bisexual representation is all about. Coming to terms being someone attracted to multiple genders. And accepting that it doesn’t make you confused or broken or prone to cheating or anything else people who don’t understand bisexuality try to throw at us. Embracing our label. Even if Lance were to end up with a girl in the end, that would still be good representation because it’s never about the gender of our partner but our experiences and growing with our identity.

Unfortunately, people just don’t really accept bisexuals in different gender relationships most of the time. There was this huge blowup in fandom earlier this year about that. I’m a bisexual cis woman but I married and had a child with a cis man. It doesn’t sit well with a lot of people, so I get told a lot that I don’t really count as a queer. It looks invalidating. I think it’s because a lot of people think bisexual issues and homosexual issues are the same thing, and while we overlap in some things, our needs and our issues are not the same at all. We are two unique sexualities with our unique issues. I’ve been having quite a time trying to educate people about that ever since I came out.

So I don’t really blame the producers and the crew at all for not wanting to open that particular can of worms. It would be amazing if they did anyway, and a great opportunity, but if they don’t want to deal with that blowback, then that’s completely understandable. So if Lance is explicitly straight all the way through the series, I don’t have an issue with it.

Why do fans, particularly with Voltron, read so many of the characters as LGBT when there is very little if any canonical evidence in the series itself that they are? I know it isn't just Lance being bi. I've seen people Keith as gay, Pidge as trans, etc.

I think a lot of fandom headcanons the Voltron characters as LGBT+ because with so little representation out there, of course we would take matters into our hands. The producers of Voltron also worked on Legend of Korra, which we know ends with a bisexual girl/girl couple, so I think there’s an expectation that Voltron will do the same thing. Shiro and Keith obviously have a very intimate relationship. Lots of shoulder touching. There’s a million reasons from shipping to seeing ourselves in these characters that make us headcanon them as different sexualities. Tumblr in particular has always been attractive as an LGBT+ space so that’s why such headcanons are prevalent there.

How did you first hear about the #LanceIsBi movement? What about the whole #LanceIsBi thing appeals to you?

Alrighty, here’s the thing about the #LanceIsBi movement that super bothers me as a bisexual.

It’s not really about the headcanon. People are allowed to headcanon whatever they please, for whatever reason. That I have no problem with.

The #LanceIsBi movement came about because Jeremy Shada said that Lance’s milkshakes brings everybody to the yard. This is nothing against Shada, I assume he was just joking about how handsome Lance actually is – which he is! Lance is a really pretty guy, he has a better skincare routine than I do. So of course, it’s not a stretch to say that other people than just the ladies are attracted to him, that’s just how good-looking he is. But to take that as confirmation that someone is bisexual… that’s not how bisexuality works. It’s not about who’s attracted to you. It’s about YOU being attracted to two or more genders and how YOU deal with that. And what we seen in canon is that Lance is very much only attracted to women. As of right now, there is no bisexual story there.

It just really takes away from what real bisexual representation is, like I mentioned earlier, being about Lance’s personal issues as he comes to terms with this identity of his. Or even just him saying “Hey, I’m bisexual” or “I also like dudes, but here’s why I’m not as confident around them.” It doesn’t really have to be that deep, you know, I don’t need him to rehearse a whole documentary on bisexuality in order for it to be good representation. It makes it about HIM. About his character growth. HIS story. That’s what matters.

One issue with bisexuals (and I assume it’s not so different with pansexuals and aroaces from what I’ve seen) is that it feels like our identities have to be determined by OTHER people. Are we queer enough? Are we oppressed enough? Are we not with a different gender partner? Our own voices are never enough and it’s exhausting. Lance being confirmed bisexual is because of a joke by his voice actor. The colors of the scenery behind him. Because of multiple genders being attracted to him instead of the other way around. But it’s not his own character that confirms his identity. That bothers me. It infuriates me.

Added to that, fandom tends to blow things way out of proportion. They queerbait themselves a lot because they twist things around because they want their headcanons (specifically their ships) to be canon that bad. I’ve seen people new to fandom say they got into the show because they heard about this bisexual guy being awesome is a cast member only to find out that there’s this guy being awesome who is explicitly not bisexual at all. It’s awful seeing that kind of disappointment. Had I not been in Legendary Defender fandom since day 1, I probably would have fallen for that trap, too. I love this show so, so much and fandom makes it look like the crew is delivering something that isn’t there at all, and they’re even taking the heat for it. Lance is being held up as a bisexual icon next to actual, canon bisexual characters from other fandoms and that’s just… not right. Because once again, it’s not about his character, it’s only about what fandom wants. And non-fans come into this show with these expectations of seeing something that isn’t there.

And if Lance were bi, and if he still ended up with a female character, I know for a fact fandom would not be accepting of that. A lot of people would be, for sure, and it would be great to have that kind of support, but there’s a lot of people out there who won’t and then the whole “bi-het” debate starts up again. And it’s a debate that affects a lot of bisexuals in real life.

This whole movement, taking a joke as canon confirmation of Lance being bisexual, just feels like fandom actually doesn’t care about bisexual issues and representation. They only like it because they feel canonly validated shipping Lance with another male character because there’s this really weird attitude in fandom right now that all your headcanons must be canon in order to be valid. It’s very transparent, and very upsetting. It makes light of bisexuality, turns it into a shipping tool, and completely forgets what fandom is all about in the first place.

First off I just wanted to thank you for being so open and honest with all of this. These are fantastic observations on the whole thing and you really nailed a lot of things I was interested in asking about. Do you think fans would be better off seeking out shows/other pieces of media that feature canonical bisexual characters? Or do you feel as though people want that in their favorite shows regardless? Or to put that question another way, there are other shows out there with confirmed LGBTQIA (and anyone else I missed, nonbinary etc.) characters. Why focus on a character that, so far, can only be headcanoned as bi? Is it just fans REALLY wanting an LGBTQIA character in their favorite show? Why put so much expectations on this one specific show when, admittingly, all of TV has lot of work to do when it comes to representation?

When it comes to for the specific demand that Lance be bisexual, it boils down to a ship war. I’m sure you already know, our fandom is pretty notorious now with our ship wars and how far certain shippers will go to have their ship be canon confirmed. It’s pretty messy, and there are a few factors at play here.

Like I said earlier, a lot of fandom really doesn’t care about actual bisexual representation. Those of us who ship Lance with someone else such as Shiro or Allura, we can get some pretty heated comments. So when things pop up like #LanceIsBi, it’s a little transparent. I remember before S2 came out, fandom lost its mind when an interview said that Keith and Allura were gonna have moments together (whether platonic or romantic, it wasn’t clear at the time and could be interpreted either way). A lot of Gay Pride Keith edits came out and the whole thing was pretty ugly and, dare I say, misogynistic in tone because how dare Keith have a meaningful relationship with a woman even if that relationship is not romantic. And when a lot of Kallura shippers were like “well, we think Keith is bi or pan” (asexual Keith headcanons are also pretty popular with Keith fans), we’re immediately fired back with how that doesn’t matter, we’re just using bi/pansexuality as a copout, we’re actually homophobic, etc.

So when one character is heavily headcanoned to be bisexual but other characters are not allowed to have that same headcanon, it’s pretty telling. And I think it has to do with stereotypes. Lance is flirty and flamboyant and extroverted, maybe a bit promiscuous, so of course he must be bisexual. Keith is the stereotypical emo gay, skinny with some muscle, tight pants, weird hair. And once these headcanons are popularized, the rest of fandom is bombarded with them with no room for argument. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone admit to headcanoning Lance as something other than bi, and anyone who says they don’t headcanon Keith as gay (I am one of them) is met with hostility.

It’s not something I’ve ever seen in fandom before, at least not to this extent and I’ve been involved in online fandom for the past fifteen or so years now. Sure, there’s always been ship wars, there’s always been people being nasty to each other over fictional characters, but it feels different these days. It’s a different type of fandom wank. There’s a different attitude here.

I’m wondering if it has to do with the line between creator and consumer thinning so much now thanks to social media and cons becoming so frequent and mainstream. Fifteen years ago, there was no way we would ever dream of being in contact with showrunners, crew, and voice actors on our favorite shows. We never even sought out such contact, not unless you were really gutsy. And cons were very few and far between, so the only way you could interact with any of these people is if you had enough money and could travel to them. Now with things like Twitter especially, you can just tweet your questions and tag creators in your work, and chances are good that you will actually be seen and acknowledged.

And with this exposure, this really thinned line, I think a lot of fandom fully believes that they can actually influence a show. It’s been done in other shows, or at least enough that the creators give this illusion that fandom influences a show. So they think it’s the same with Voltron, but it’s not. Voltron is not a TV show, it’s a Netflix series meant to be binged in one sitting. But fandom has this belief that if they push and push and push enough, then all their fanon dreams will become canon. And they push back on the rest of us who don’t really go with the flow because they feel threatened.

Sheith, followed closely by Kallura, is the biggest threat to Klance, like I’m just gonna be brutally honest here with the whole ship war thing, we all know what it’s about. Like I said, fandom pushes for a bisexual male character, completely ignoring two things: 1) Lance explicitly flirts with women and ONLY women in canon and 2) Shiro and Keith are very intimate and touchy for a pair of guys (lol I’ve known a lot of guys and they don’t shoulder touch to this extent like Keith and Shiro are so TOUCHY). You would think fandom, determined to have mlm representation, would be all over Sheith because they are already established to have a personal, intimate connection that definitely goes beyond just a pair of dudes being bros. Instead we get all this age discourse, accusations of pedophilia and abusive power imbalances, etc.

And on the other side of this, Keith can’t be bi/pansexual because that makes him still available for Allura. Kallura is a threat because they’ve been the ship of Voltron since the beginning. They were heavily teased in DotU, they get together in the sequel comics and every reboot so far (except for Legendary Defender at the moment). By insisting Keith is gay, then he won’t want to be with Allura. There’s even this headcanon popular in this circle that Allura is a lesbian, yet I’ve seen very little femslash content in this fandom, and none of it reaches the popularity of the mlm ships.

So it’s pretty clear from the two issues that bisexual representation isn’t really something a good chunk and the loudest part of fandom really cares about. This section of fandom only accepts bisexuality when it’s convenient for their favorite ship.

And they insist that the rest of fandom kowtows to these headcanons because I guess there’s this belief that if they get all of fandom to unite for a headcanon, then the showrunners will have no choice but make the show reflect what’s popular. Even though that’s not how fandom or media works at all.

I think it’s a generational thing. A lot of these fans tend to be younger, for some this may even be their first big fandom, and there’s this weird belief among them that they’re only allowed to ship things in hopes it’ll be canon and their headcanons must be 100% backed by canon, so they tend to read too deep into every little joke and offhand comment and fanwork responses made by cast and crew. Maybe because they’re new to this, but these kinds of fans just don’t seem to understand the transformative nature of fandom. That while we do everything out of love for the source material, the stories and art and other content we make doesn’t necessarily have to have a 1:1 reflection of canon.

That's all fantastic insight, especially on the generational gap between certain members of the fandom. Yeah, your comments about the hate for the Allura/Keith ship just reminds me how weird I always found that since in all incarnations of Voltron they've been pretty much the ONLY canon ship of the main characters.

This is all fantastic, I wish I could use it all but as it is with articles I know I'll have to really cut it down. But still, it's all super helpful. Legit.