#ppl should know by now i never directly come to the point

[wewaitinthatspace]

Do you have a favourite Pokemon

helloo sorry for taking so long to answer.

ok so the thing is I've never really being into Pokemon very much.

I mean I used to watch the shows periodically and I loved them. My cousins and I used to play the Pokemon FireRed game on our pcs for hours and hours. But I've never religiously followed Pokemon ever. So I can't make a educated choice when it comes to my favourite Pokemon lol. This question is more suited for @dans-exposed-ankle or my brother really. But I will try to answer this question with the knowledge they've tried to impart to me over th years. And @dans-exposed-ankle can answer this question next.

I must say when it comes to Pokemons I judge the book by it's cover. I'm also particularly attracted to the water Pokemons (this is because of Avatar: The Last Airbender) and always chose squirtle in FireRed.

But. Articuno is my favourite. Mainly because they look so majestic and also. Water. And flying. But also looks amazing.

Thanks for sending the ask!! Sorry for the very longggggg answer lmao.

[sandraharissa]

So I never wondered before what happened between Vander and Silco cos I had faith in the writers (my bad) and cos realistically it would require several professional writers to figure this out. I can't come up with a whole scenario, smth that should have been probs a whole episode or many flashbacks to the first revolution to parallel and give context for the second revolution. but since they dropped the whole revolution plotline there was no point in that ig. Now I'm not coming up with a whole plot for s2 to make it connect to a whole plot for the Silco and Vander backstory. I'll just talk about general things when it comes to

How I would do the Vander and Silco backstory:

Silco and Vander meet as young adults, probs in the mines.

Silco is a wide-eyed idealist, he's small and weak making it hard for him to survive from day to day but it's not important to his character (no insecurities, his character is not about that). He cares about and crafts his idea of an independent nation of Zaun. We're meeting a way 'better' version of Silco but he still has all his traits like being a bit of a diva and pettiness and pride and such.

Vander is capable and the 'get shit done' guy. He feels the need to use his strength to protect others. He has a strong sense of justice and fairness. He has anger issues too tho.

Vander uses his strength to protect Silco and so Silco feels safe with him but Vander also has violent tendencies and anger issues. There should probs be some instances where the possibility of Vander being violent with Silco is hinted at.

A la Powder's bombs or Mylo's lock-picking skills no one puts much value on Silco's ideas, everybody immensely respects Vander and his brute strength tho. It's the commonly lived by in the Undercity 'survival of the fittest' vs Silco's silly 'Undercity, united as one'.

Vander loves the idea tho and is Silco's first and biggest fan lol.

They start doing their thing together. At some point they build the Lanes and the Last Drop together.

Silco as a co-leader gets to do his thing, planning the nation and writing in his notebook and such, he's more of a planning guy, not the best in the field. He gets to do his thing but ppl really look up to Vander, with a lot of them not understanding the concept that they should have a shared national identity etc. but they do understand resisting their oppressors and Vander can lead them by example. Ppl admire him cos he rescues ppl and does justice and can kill an enforcer with one punch. Silco also likes that about him. He's the one to take direct action and is more of the pushing force of the revolution. He's like 'bro Zaun sounds amazing and what's stopping us from rounding up our friends and taking out this patrol on the corner? right now?' at Silco. Silco's 'brothers and sisters' beliefs low-key inform the attitude of the rebels even if they still don't get Zaun. He's also the one making all the smart decisions like creating a black market but he's underappreciated for it cos ppl don't directly see the connection between stuff like his scheming/business talents, the Lanes and the living situation getting better. (you could say Vander and Silco were the violence and ideology that make up a revolutionary movement).

As the revolution continues Vander was insistent that they need to push more, that's his mentality cos he was always more capable than others. With Silco being more logical and pragmatic. The stress isn't getting so much to Silco but it is to Vander. What got to Vander was that if he's the one pushing and ppl die bcos of it then it's on his hands and he can't stand it. Especially that it's probs partially self-indulgent. He gets to blow off steam and has an outlet for his violent tendencies. He is not making the best decisions, they are somewhat self-serving and on some level he knows this. Pressure to succeed and get results fast and guilt is getting to him.

Then they're on a mission that's gotta have them both doing different things but somehow connected to the bridge.

Silco and his team, or even bystanders, get caught/get in trouble. Silco starts spouting poetics at enforcers and bcos he pissed them off they decide to arrest everyone (so that's probs a one way ticket) but ppl did get inspired which causes more scuffling, probs ppl die, the situation gets worse but it allows ppl to let Silco escape/hide/he gets knocked out. Vander finds him and they escape via river, they jump from the bridge or from the docks, going further and further away from the shore and the enforcers and they start talking about what happened.

For context Vander and Silco's attitudes are opposite to each other at any time, and they also switch from what they were originally to what they become post their character development moments (betrayal and bridge massacre), they're narrative foils after all. One is at the core selfish and violent and the other is altruistic and for the good of everybody bcos of their lofty ideals. So Vander in his violent era at the end of the day cares about himself and ppl around him and keeping them (like Silco in s1 with Jinx when push comes to shove).

Vander is angry that Silco 'prioritized some "Zaun" over their ppl', starts criticizing his ideology and his ineffectiveness but Silco saw his approach working and decides he should try by himself again, like he did before Vander, with the focus on the whole business enterprise and such, now that it turned out in the last few years that he's good at it. He points out Vander's overly violent tendencies. So they're pissed and stressed cos of the situation, pressure gets to Vander and he feels responsible for every loss that happened. He feels responsible for Silco. If he failed then Vander failed. Then it escalates when it becomes more personal, they start being petty and criticizing each other. Vander stands to lose his most important connection. He feels rejected. Maybe Vander physically prevents Silco from leaving. They start struggling, things escalate, instead of letting Silco go Vander lashes out. And then Vander punches him, gives him the black eye (plus maybe chips his front teeth) and then in the heat of the moment starts drowning him.

Afterwards Vander blames it all on Silco, paints him as worse than what happened. It's easier cos his emotions tell him Silco somehow wronged him (hence the 'you animal' reputation, cos ppl could view it, especially if that's how Vander presented it, as Silco doing that whole thing intentionally, sacrificing his ppl to get a thing done and escaping himself). Vander projects his blame and guilt onto Silco, after years of leading by himself he mellows out and realizes Silco was not at fault but it's years into the cope/lie. He can't do better by himself and his straightforward violent methods don't work well enough for him to be worth it anymore. The bridge massacre is the last straw. Meanwhile Silco learns to be violent on top of being driven by ideology (but also he's not trying to convince anyone anymore of his ideas cos it didn't work the last time, he doesn't preach to anyone in s1 but Jinx).

Add somewhere in there a comment from Vander to Silco about pretty eyes for zaundads and dramatic irony reasons.

[survivalove]

debunking lies zutara shippers say about the atla creators & writers

disclaimer: this is in no way an endorsement or defense of bryke or anyone mentioned. literally just debunking false statements i see spread throughout and outside the fandom as it pertains to kataang

1. that bryke made kataang endgame because the nice guy should get the girl

this is something I see often usually linked with this video of a man ⬇️ who they claim to be bryan/mike echoing this sentiment.

this man is in fact john o’bryan, one of the three known zk shippers in the writers’ room (we’ll expand on this in point 5) talking about how he saw aang. not the creators. so of course it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he doesn’t even like kataang in the first place.

2. that bryke made kataang endgame last minute and zutara was the original pairing

bryan and mike (notice how i’m using both of their names separately. this too will be important in the next point) have talked about how kataang was planned since they originally wrote the show.

they have also talked ad nauseam in a video (which I will not share here cuz it made a lot of ppl angry) about why they do not like zutara and its shippers, so this entire point is bogus.

++ the reason why they say zk was the original pairing is because of one of the zk writers (joshua hamilton) wrote this in the atla fun facts that used to run on tv. (we’ll get into him later) those atla fun facts contain a lot of inaccurate/non canon “facts” which you can check and verify on avatar wiki if you know what i’m talking about.

3. that aang is bryke’s self insert (specifically mike)

yeah, here’s where the separation becomes important. bryan (L) and mike (R) are two different men. mike has never said that aang was his self-insert, nor has he directly talked about relating to aang. bryan, however, constantly talks about how much he relates to zuko. even, going as far to say he tries to think like zuko when he writes characters and shows.

the only time mike has come close to saying he relates to aang is when dante said he thinks mike is more like aang while bryan is more like zuko, and they, mostly bryan, agreed. (mike has actually said he relates to korra more than aang but hey) bryan also is the one who drew mike’s beard on adult aang because he considered it a nice reference to his friend. this is the main reason why shippers ran with that self-insert narrative because half the time, they think bryke is actually one person ☠️

++ in fact, aang’s original character design is based off the mixed black-chinese son of sifu kisu

4. that atla was supposed to have a season 4 where katara and zuko got together

this is mostly something that has come out of a fabricated interview by the head writer, aaron ehasz. he was allegedly asked what he would have liked to do if given the chance to write a fourth season of the show and talked about an azula redemption arc among other things. zutaras then made up a whole fake interview including that he wanted to make the two characters endgame.

ehasz then came out to say that most of these “interviews” were faked and that he has never talked about having a preference for any ship. if you go on his twitter, you will see him talking about an azula redemption arc tho.

as for atla having a 4th season at all, it was never intended. the creators, the music composers have all said at various points in time, the show was written and pitched as three seasons, three elements.

5. that most of the other writers shipped zutara and bryke’s authoritarianism shut it down

as I said above, only three writers on the original show have come out to say they preferred zk at some point. atla has had a total of 21 staff writers. 3 out of 21 is not most if you ask me.

as for bryke (yes now i’m using the shorthand cuz i proved my point earlier) being authoritarians, no writer or staff that has worked with them on the show has said this so…? idk where that came from but i’m not here to back them up just mention facts.

6. that all the women who worked on the franchise shipped zutara while only men shipped kataang

atla has very few female staff as it is:

5 writers (elizabeth welch: zk; others: unknown)

1 director (unknown)

5 storyboard/character artists (lauren montgomery: ka; elsa garagarza: ka; angela song mueller: zk; others: unknown)

1 comic writer (faith erin hicks: ka)

2 comic artists (gurihiru: ka)

++ mae whitman (katara’s voice actress) has expressed her like for both ships throughout the years.

so i’m not sure what defines all and only for some ppl but those definitions are not in my dictionary. disclaimer: i’m not declaring anyone here as a shipper in any official sense. this is just based off statements they have made that you can google!

7. that katara is written poorly in post-atla content because of kataang/bryke

I mean the first part isn’t really a lie, more of an opinion which I can agree with to an extent.

why I mention this here is because zks will not only go on a tangent and link the misogyny in the writing to a m/f ship and say the other m/f ship would have been more feminist…

but they also refuse to hold all the men involved accountable. like I said, 3 known atla writers shipped zk and 2 of them (joshua & john) were men (who would��ve thought men could like a ship and it could still be considered feminist 😃). they were also 2 out of only 4 atla writers that came back for legend of korra, outside of the creators. (19 to 4 ☠️ no comment). these shippers very well know this and instead of holding these men accountable for the misogynistic writing, they instead brag about them shipping it and ask them about zk whenever they have the chance.

another example is gene luen yang, a comic writer who again shipped zk (another man GASPPPPP) responsible for the first 5 comic books. everyone knows his comics suck in terms of characterization, particularly katara’s. in fact zutaras have made multiple threads on how poor the writing is. funnily enough, they always fail to mention that gly was the script writer or acknowledge his part in this mischaracterization, while bragging about him shipping zk in other posts. ironic.

meanwhile, bryke have never offered writers’ commentary on any of gly’s comics besides the search - mike (because they were mostly writing legend of korra during his run.)

basically these shippers don’t care about misogyny or holding male writers accountable if they ship zk which is funny because I thought it was… for the female gaze? why are you hyping men shipping it anyway? confusion.

[melonminnie]

Oh how can you still not know? -Dion x Vampire gn! Reader!

-dion version sense ppl asked<3

The black haired man’s eyes were kept on names face, for whatever reason he was mad, it wasn’t visible on his face, but yet you could feel it.

Perhaps it’s was because you had tried cutting his hand off a few minutes ago, Standing above his sleeping finger, a sharp knife dangling in between your finger.

of course you should’ve known he wasn’t asleep, as he couldn’t be seen in a such a vulnerable state under anybody’s watch, so when you brought the knife to his wrist. He opened his eyes, blood shot starring directly at you.

Daring you to actually continue what you were going to do to him. Of course you couldn’t.. Anyone would know that your ending would be less than happy.

Of course that was probably the reason the black head was angry. It didn’t matter to you because of course you couldn’t help it.

you’ve told him that your body no longer has the craving for raw animals, it needs human blood. Yet he refuses acting as if you never even spoke to him.

it frustrated you to the point of tears.

With dions murderous gaze, it might’ve been better if you had aimed at his younger half brother who was extremely energetic and over protective.

Maybe then you would’ve felt that missing piece in you fulfilled.

“How about I do the same to you” he suddenly broke the unnerving silence.

“what do you mean?” “you said you needed human blood do you not?” He questioned with wide eyes, the knife now in his pale hands dangling around.

“So that means you can eat your own blood too” he affirmed grinning like a maniac as he forcefully pulled your hand towards his lap. The knife digging deeper and deeper into your skin causing you to yelp and protest.

“Next time don’t even bother thinking about me being your next meal” he pressed his head against his significant others.

“Because you should be thanking god your even alive, because If I die your coming with me to hell” he whispered the whole time his grin not leaving his face

Suddenly his grip on names arm stopped, pushing you away and stumbling on the floor. Both arms covered in huge amounts of blood. Ruining the white clothes you’d been wearing.

This was the first and last time that Dion had seen Name cry, hands clutching onto the fabric of the clothes.

Dion was a cruel man, You had made a wrong choice a long time ago there was no turn back.

“I’d be damned if I go to hell with you, I’d rather die a hundred times than be with you all over again” Terrified eyes stared straight into the red ones.

One filled with terror and sadness, While the other filled with a feeling similar to joy.

“No wonder your mother thinks of you as a mistake, I’d think the same if I had someone as you as my son”

The happy feeling turning into anger, It’d be sure that you’d be dead this time right?.

The man laughed maniacally before standing up, his body inches closer to yours.

he slowly sat next to you, “You want my arm ?here come fucking have it”

I tried my hardest to match this to his actual personality (I failed sort of)

[narwhalandchill]

okay so. skirk thoughts

first of all: as much as her design is still just kind of an ehhh compared to what couldve been, i do think it looks so much better in the actual game. the sfx in her arms and legs in particular helps a Lot imo. still not a massive fan but given i already loved the hair+eyes as well as the general color scheme, im warming up to it. still unfortunate we didnt get something more ambitious but i can live with this lmao

personality wise i actually really love how they went about her? its a little unexpected but skirk really has that abyss autism rizz to her JSJSIDISGFK love it. like this really isnt someone used to any manner of regular human interactions and it shows. i really like how blunt and utterly unfazed she is even when dropping some insane lore bombs bc theyre just peanuts to her. shes just completely unlike any character from any faction weve encountered before and i rly love the energy they gave her

i also found her little ramble about the value of life and death pretty interesting. it almost makes it sound like she considers herself dead in some way? with how she talks about there being no point in holding onto the bonds and remains of dead things and how this personal philosophy of hers is why she never comes to the surface anymore. like huh. whats up with that.

it also really reminds me of how an underappreciated aspect of childes characterization imo is how like. Incredibly insistent he is on staying alive being the most valuable thing? like this comes up Repeatedly in his voicelines. and now we have skirk literally talking about how to live is in itself a blessing. like i am Not buying this being coincidental at all. so unless they physically disprove me in this somehow down the line im taking this as 100% proof that childes high regard for life is Directly imparted to him through skirks teachings. and thats really interesting to think about.

and like. overall im quite happy with this glimpse of her character we have? i have bigger issues with the overall handling of the childe+narwhal+skirk segment of the AQ but those are narrative problems. skirk really stands out as a character and shes just. really fascinating AND funny as fuck in her nonchalance like. what an icon.

the only real unfortunate thing w her appearence specifically i think just has to do with the way her manner of speech and position as a narrator of dubious reliability to an extent is already leading to some. Quite unfortunate misreadings and/or taking the implications of her statements too far at face value. and i just know fandom will latch onto those forever 😭

(& jic i dont mean dubious reliability in the traditional unreliable narrator or like. lying or sth sense. just that her worldview is so alien and foreign to us that it should be taken into careful account before just blindly running off with any particular thing she claims)

like. firstly. the narwhal. ppl really dont seem to be catching onto how skirks perception of it as just a scuffed pet thats a hassle to manage isnt like. actually reflective of what a massive deal of an entity it is (read the boss fight quest item drop lore i am begging. or just wait for me to start narwhalposting JAJSKDK its coming 100%) 💀💀 what it DOES reflect more than anything is what an absolute maniac surtalogi (+ skirk by extension) has to be in order to claim a creature of this magnitude as a PET of all things. its also good to note that skirk herself readily admits both her highly unconventional view on most things AND that her master wont necessarily share any and all information with her - more so what he thinks is pertinent for her to know. her assessment of the narwhal as a nuisance of a task for a disciple isnt really reflective of the ultimate big picture HSJDKDKSK though it is very funny i have to admit.

im just preemptively annoyed and frustrated by it already bc its highkey giving azhdaha all over again where 99% of fandom just dismissed his deeper lore bc they took the storytellers claims of zhongli creating him at complete face value. like to the point hoyo had to literally add a whole segment at the end of the chasm interlude where zhongli more or less directly wink wink nod nods that a career entertainer isnt giving you the most accurate lore on this stuff 😭😭 like please. ive had the tears from among the stars lore fucking HAUNTING me ever since i first read it. its not just a silly pet whale im hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

and secondly. people really jumping the gun on "haha skirk thinks childe weak" when she was... quite literally speaking in past tense JSJSKDKSISKDK thats ajax 14 not the current state of things. while i do agree skirks power level is still way above his to the point i absolutely do think she considers him weak from her standpoint & ways off from his true potential, id also just.... like to point out that she pretty much confirms that her view of his competence has very much changed too? like please yall

skirk, who in all the years post ajax' 3 day abyss trip made NO effort to contact or keep up with him whatsoever and stated that her disciple wasnt worth even speaking to in the past has now LITERALLY voiced the intent to assign him the task of being a messenger between herself (possibly even surtalogi) and neuvillette. and she has made it VERY clear that she views the communication between herself and neuvillette (and traveler too) as one between equals?

this isnt her assigning childe some irrelevant side quest to keep him busy but actually utilizing him for a task she takes at least relatively seriously. like wdym she still considers him the exact same as before 😭😭😭😭 like obviously childes far off from being regarded as anywhere near an equal by skirk bc SHES just that insanely powerful but seriously. to me this is as clear an acknowledgement of his growth on her part as we will get JSJSKDKFKSKDKJ

but alas. everyone loves a "ha ha childe so weak XDDDD" like they just never wanna let that one go. Man

anyway still rly like skirk!!! all im Really hoping for in the future Especially w how i feel the 4.2 narrative while overall brilliant really sidelined and mishandled the potential and gravity of the narwhal side of things is that like. PLEASE let the interlude be the continuation to this 3rd descender n skirk n childe abyss situation i am so fucking tired of khaenri'ah and the abyss order im sorry lmao

also itll be like 4 years before we ever see her in Real action as a combatant but i am already So hype to see that. especially since her powers are so abyssal and alien in nature like thats going to be So gourmet i just know it.

[stewpid-soup]

VENT CW!! STAY SAFE!!

anyone else find it exhausting to just enjoy things?

I don’t want to support people or companies that are actively doing things that are bad (racism, homophobia, defending SA, etc etc). but it’s so mentally draining to look through all of this terrible shit and not be able to enjoy things bc of their creators or ppl associated with it

i mean, i don’t support dream. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again. I don’t support dream or the dteam as a whole - but the dsmp was such a big comfort to me through quarantine, and even now i still love the storyline and the characters.

HP, well that’s self explanatory. JKR is just a shit person and i’m not gonna give her my money bc i enjoy the plot of HP. I just take fanon on its own for the most part. I own the books and the films already (my family loves HP and has for a long time, since before JKR was outed as a transphobe) so i don’t need to buy anything from her. HP was a huge part of my childhood and the thought of not interacting with any content related to it makes me so sad, because i still love it even now.

and as controversial as it may be, i’ve enjoyed hazbin and helluva boss for years now. it was another comfort during quarantine, and i watched it with friends and got to bond over it. i do not like vivziepop or support her, and it’s exhausting to see all this back and forth about her online bc it’s so confusing. I love these shows and it makes me so happy that I get to see hazbin come together after waiting so long, and the same goes for helluva boss. of course there can be improvements to the way vivziepop writes some characters, but i still love these shows so much. it hurts my heart to feel like i can’t enjoy the content because the creator is such a bad person.

and then the number of musicians i’ve had to stop listening to because they turned out to be shitty people. or actors i avoided watching content of because they’re bad people (especially when the list of ppl who support Israel came out- of course im not supporting anyone on there, but some of the ppl on there just rlly hurt my heart because ive enjoyed their content for so long)

i know there’s not really any way to avoid this, as people are complex and can be an asshole w/o you knowing. funding people like this isn’t something i want or care to do, so of course i actively avoid it. but I just don’t know what to do when it comes to this.

a friend told me that it’s sort’ve about picking and choosing things, because you never know what people are really like. they said that with the state of the world, it’s important to stay educated but don’t let shitty people get in the way of things you enjoy. i’m just at the point where i feel like i can’t enjoy anything because anytime i get stuck in a rabbit hole of content, i see people going back and forth about who should be cancelled and who actually isn’t a bad person. cancel culture is one of the worst things about the internet, and it just makes interacting with fandoms even more toxic than it already is.

ig this is just a rant talking about comforts i have that i feel like i can’t enjoy anymore because of cancel culture and just like..people being people? i’m just so tired of finding something i enjoy and then learning out that they are or possibly could be doing/supporting something bad and just— it makes me feel so guilty because i don’t want to indirectly/directly hurt anyone. i know what i believe in and what i do and don’t support, at least for the most part (still learning everyday atp), but it doesn’t make it any easier to part with things i hold so dearly in my heart.

does anyone else feel similarly? if so, what have you found that helps or at least is a comfortable middle ground?

idk bro, my life is so exhausting with everything i deal with in real life- so to feel like i can’t even find comfort in my silly little shows anymore is really depressing. my mental health is not doing well lmfaooo

[my-mt-heart]

Wait, what do you mean with "half of the EPs are misogynistic, ageist assholes"? Have you watched the first eps of TBOC? Also, what makes you think they are doing this marketing mess because of richonne fans? Have they campaigned for Caryl to split or smth? I try to stay away from social media except Tumblr so I dunno what's up, but I'm seein ppl worrying and even considering not watching so I'm getting concerned... One thing about richonne stans... i think some of them (quite a lot actually) deep down wanted michonne to get together with daryl. That is the vibe they constantly give me because why are they always talking about daryl, attending norman's events (i was there), stanning him like a very dedicated fan? never seen them being THAT passionate about andy/rick. I mean they got rick and i believe they love it but daryl is just like that cool bad boy you had a crush on and never got together with, y'know... otherwise why cconstantly being all over our business?

The marketing strategy for TOWL was rooted in competition, positioning the characters as the best while passive aggressively tearing down other characters/ships/actors, and that seems to be spilling into TBOC's strategy as well in order to keep TOWL's fanbase on the hook (the comments on a couple of posts made by official accounts about Caryl's "friendship" were full of Richonne fans mocking Caryl/Caryl fans). It's a short-sighted strategy to bring in more viewers and it'll backfire. They should be focusing on getting all Caryl fans onboard, the ones who are wary because of what happened a couple years ago and the ones who left many years back, and growing that viewership along with drawing viewers who might have an interest in other elements of the show that doesn't directly conflict with the interests of viewers they can rely on the most to invest long-term.

Side note, because I see this coming up a lot too: Yes, Daryl and Carol are friends. It never bothered me when Caryl called the other their best friend in the context of the story because 1) as many have pointed out and as I wholeheartedly believe, the best romantic relationships are rooted in deep friendship 2) it has never been written to exclude the possibility of fans seeing their friendship transition into a full-blown romance 3) I trusted I would see the payoff in the near future. However. When you beat the audience over the head with it in the promotion, when you know your core audience has built up expectations after a prolonged wait, when your showrunner isn't trustworthy, and when you're encouraging other fans to invalidate Caryl fans' experience, I do have a problem with the word "friends." No, they can't spoil what might happen for Daryl and Carol in the show, but that doesn't mean they have to define the relationship at all when they're promoting it. For Example: "Relive the moment this incredible bond took root" (if they want the flower imagery without the alliteration lol) is vague enough to encompass all perspectives until it's explicitly defined in the show, and it should be defined as romantic since, again, that's what the core audience wants.

I don't spend time in the Richonne fandom, so I don't know what the draw is to Daryl's character. People can have a variety of interests for a variety of reasons, but at least from what I can gather, some of it isn't genuine and some of it is about what Daryl's position as a character and Norman's position as an actor can do for them as well as what they don't want it to do for Carol and her fans. That's as far as I want to delve into it right now seeing as though any mention of Richonne from a Caryler is viewed as an attack, which this is not, and I don't have the emotional capacity for unnecessary fighting.

[ca-suffit]

Will never forget how when TCA photo shoots dropped and ppl were rightfully wanting to see more Jacob/Assad pairings for the promos, Virginia was getting asks saying that they were glad loumand shippers and those who wanted to see more jassad were “getting humbled” because they were getting “too cocky”, she was very much agreeing and adding on to these asks. It’s just really funny to me how she is always like “you should read the books and listen to the cast and crew, because then you’d know loumand is not the main couple this season!!” followed w that Sam gif she always hilariously misuses when like… the book and the show literally say the opposite… Reading the s2 reviews obviously confirms this lol but it reminded me of that moment and I had to laugh. So crazy, imagine seeing ppl excited for non-white queer rep and being glad they didn’t get what they wanted (and supposedly were never going to get it)… wanting to “humble” them… and saying you’re not racist…

I remembered this and here's the actual post :)

I also found some interesting things I never knew about while looking for this post so let's share those too :) :)

This was happening when I first made this account, so I remember it rly well. I was replying directly to all these ppl as long as I could. They're always saying stuff happens on anon bts so I was making it clear from the start that they could "finally" respond in public. Isn't that what they wanted? lol ig not.

Here's the only direct contact I had with virginia.

I *just* saw she replied to it, but take a wild guess why I wasn't notified of it. cuz u know I'd have responded if I had been. These ppl only get loud when they know there's no real "threat" of an interaction.

do u see how she didn't speak back to the things I was talking about in the post tho? she had to deflect again to "u hate lestat," "read the books," "ur speaking over jacob, A BLACK MAN" (their favorite shit to say like it's such a slam dunk?)

She also posted this

she was on a mission then to "prove" the bullying was real because this is the time when nalyra got caught doing all of this and they needed a distraction from that. she reblogged that showmey0urfangs PSA from the previous november too and aimed the fandom at black fans again, saying this was all part of an ongoing bts bullying issue. if it is then why tf can't u all ever have better receipts? why are these PSAs literally untagged shit from ppl's personal accounts or in direct reblogs to u and yet ur claiming it's all happening on anon. which one is it and why aren't u posting those things then? jfc they think we're all stupid.......

what I think is crazy too is the PSA caps reminded me of the timeline of stuff more. there used to be louder white ppl in the fandom about racism (and I remember this even more because showmey0urfangs got so mad about that in this post, trying to defend white fandom by screaming "I'M BLACK AND U HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME" at white ppl who pointed out she was doing racist shit) and it's funny how nalyra and virginia and them didn't start to be more openly racist like this until *after* those ppl weren't here anymore? crazy how u suddenly grew extra racist courage when u felt u wouldn't have as much pushback now. I don't remember them ever going after any users who they *knew* were white and saying this stuff either. if they feel any hint like ur prbly not white *and* not a book reader then look how the big voice comes out. but this isn't motivated by racism right lol?

look at this too

she answered so many asks back then to get sympathy and frame herself as a victim (to again distract from the nalyra shit), which is classic white woman / fandom manipulation.

idek how u write something like this tho and believe it makes sense? ppl speaking up about fandom racism is *always* going to be about fandom racism. u go in any fandom and it's there. it's never a cover up for something else. that's what white fandom *wants* u to think because they want to get as much support as possible. they know if they soothe white feelings about race and say "this isn't a real issue, it's about shipping / it's because I'm being unfairly targeted / it's because they're jealous" then most ppl *will* choose to believe that and defend them because it's the better feeling choice for them. talking about racism sucks. being on the side of loudly talking about racism sucks. you don't get to exist in fandom and "just have fun" when you do this. that's why most ppl stop doing it and either become white fandom themselves or leave public spaces for it.

look at this recent thing too

this is a manipulation attempt. she's aware of fans being upset at amc catering to white ppl for this and this is her way to cover up more for white fandom and say "I'm not an ANGRY BITCH about it (unlike some ppl), come support me, I'm better and nicer and treat ppl fairly."

anyway, fuck this racist bitch and her weird fucking ego over gatekeeping garbage ass anne rice books.

[chirpsythismorning]

I feel like a big part of the reason Anti Bylers are so aggressive is because this is the first time in mainstream media where there's a chance that the main couple of the show may end up being mlm.

Not only is there a likelihood that the main couple will be gay, it will come after years of these fans assuming that the cliche, safe straight ship was going to sail from start to finish.

If you look at the "predictions" these individuals have for season 5, which honestly have less to do with narrative direction and more to do with what they want, you'll always catch a certain undertone to what they're saying:

"The heterosexual, white male audience is the default for media. We will allow the wlw ship, so long as it has limited screen time. We will accept Will surviving, and even allow him to have an acceptance arc. But you will not receive queer rep at the expense of a ship that we are nostalgic for. The straight male audience is the one that matters, and we will be represented by the main couple in the show."

My favorite is when they’re asked what they hope for Mike and El in s5, only to list off qualities of Mike and Will’s dynamic. I legit saw someone say that they hoped they finally took the time to talk through their problems (oh so you’re admitting they never do..) and that we’ll actually get to see them be a team…

Like, do you hear yourselves?

I would actually like to read off their play by play of how they imagine s5 going down. Not just their wishes but like what they literally imagine happening over the course of the season, episode by episode.

And I’m talking the confident milkvans ones that are like super hostile about it. I wanna see what they hypothesize will happen in early s5 related to Mike and El… I don’t think I could keep it together if it is anything along the lines of them instantly making up and being happy for the rest of the season… 😳🤣

They just don’t realize how dumb that sounds.

S4 created conflict and hasn’t settled it. It was considered the beginning of the end, meaning those parts are going to fit perfectly together. If Mike and El were lacking romantically more than ever before in s4, don’t expect that to change much…

And gentle reminder that rewatch value is everything. If milkvans have to skip 3 eps in s1 bc they’re not together or fighting, skip all of s2 bc they’re separated, skip most of s3 bc they broke up in the second episode, skip most of s4 bc they separated in the third episode…. What does that fucking tell you?? They are not being prioritized for rewatch value, that’s what. Whereas byler is. (Bylers also are capable of watching milkvan scenes religiously… I can’t say the same about milkvans being capable of handling more than one second of rewatching a byler scene. And it’s bc they know if they watch it the mental gymnastics they gotta go through to convince themselves nothing romantic is going on is near impossible…)

Byler endgame is going to make the rewatch for the entire series hit, while milkvans, even with a hypothetical endgame would probably watch s1 and s5 and say the rest doesn’t matter. Do they think that’s how the show is supposed to be watched?

With one season left, they should have been hoping that monologue wasn’t in s4, but instead s5. Bc now how can those two one up that? They simply can’t. It was put there to show that they’ll never progress beyond this point. Nothing will ever top it. This is as good as it gets and yet, they still lost. What should that tell you?

What are they gonna just repeat that monologue in s5, but have mike say it 20x and THIS TIME it works?? Yay? Like there’s literally nothing satisfying about that in the least.

Can’t say I wish bad for ppl that simply like Mike and El and are bummed that they’re starting to lose hope. That as a basic idea is like whatever. I don’t like seeing ppl sad. Even if I told off a milkvan directly, seeing them like feeling depressed afterwards, does make me feel bad.

But when it comes to the hostile ones, people literally resorting to harassing directly with complete strangers unprompted and threatening to dox, over people merely theorizing? Like?? Was it ever that serious?

If we’re so delusional and we’re just setting ourselves up for disappointment, why not wait to say I told you so when it’s all said and done, if you’re so sure? Why dedicate so much of your time trying to discourage people on the other side? Unless it somehow qualms doubts you have?…

What makes this whole situation such bullshit, is that if this were a queerbait situation, you still shouldn’t be out here being hurtful like literally spouting off how you can’t wait for people to experience getting queerbaited? Like it’s fucking weird? The prominence of queerbaiting is literally referring to show runners taking advantage of fans, making them think it’ll happen, even encouraging it, and then ripping it away, usually ending in a bury your gays situation. That is the norm in the industry and it’s only now within the last few years starting to change in mainstream.

The hypocrisy of it all, is that they think we should just accept what they believe is the only possibility, queer-bait. But you know if the roles were reversed, which they inevitably will be when s5 drops, they’re going to be playing the victim, saying nonsense like if queerbaiting is bad then so is straightbating!! and it’s just going to be so out of touch and pathetic.

It’s not the same. Whatsoever. And the fact that they can’t see that, that one result is lazy writing and one is epic subversion, and are literally making a mockery out of the situation, convinced they’re right bc they have history on their side and gays should just be used to never getting their way and THATS okay to them?

Like it’s almost painful to watch. Especially knowing the 180 they’re gonna pull when they end up in the situation they convinced themselves we were gonna be in.

[soullessjack]

tbh a lot of the ways jack’s infantilization pops up is in discourse around him and dean and their relationship , especially after Mary’s death in game night. because everyone’s relentlessly clinging to the idea of jack as a pwecious widdle baby who can do no wrong, there’s this unanimous refusal to give him any accountability whatsoever for anything he does, particularly with killing mary and hurting dean so severely in the process. instead, everyone decides that dean is the bad guy for reacting to his childhood trauma unfolding again after he’d finally healed from it and got her back.

I mean spn fans fundamentally do not see jack as an autonomous person so it only makes sense that nobody can put him on equal footing in any of his relationship dynamics, but to vilify dean for having a very justified reaction to his fucking mother dying again is just an insane thing to do in the name of woobifying jack. yes, it was entirely accidental and yes, Jack is equally as traumatized by it, but that does not take away from the fact that what he did directly emotionally damaged sam and dean.

not only would a lot of fandom discourse benefit from realizing these are literally not normal functional healthy people dealing with normal situations that give them the liberty to approach said situations in normal functional healthy ways (dean promising to kill jack if he needed to in 13x02, & shooting jack in 13x23), but it would also benefit from realizing that jack is a grown ass invulnerable demigod with the capacity to cause a lot of major damage if he spins out of control, and he bears full responsibility for that damage (which is why it is actually so fucking stupid whej I see ppl say that jack becoming a baby would magically fix their conflict. no it fucking wouldn’t, you just don’t see jack as a full person with direct responsibility in said conflict and you don’t care about their relationship actually being healed mutually).

on the other hand, dean was reacting to a presumed threat almost immediately after losing two of his loved ones in a situation directly related to jack. he has every right to be wary and cautious, and given that he is actively traumatized and already an emotionally dysfunctional person from being abused by John, he isn’t exactly going to outlet his trauma healthily or behave in a way that miraculously breaks the cycle John created. I’m getting tired but lastly, ppl should also realize that jack is a grown ass adult with the emotional maturity to understand and forgive dean for the way he acted before—even while Dean actively struggles to forgive himself and tries to be as good a father as possible to make up for it.

Because again, their situation is not normal and they have no way of treating it or reacting to it normally. as far as jack knows and has seen of his powers, he is dangerous and is able to reach a point where he’s too much of a threat to keep alive. the tragedy of it is that he doesn’t want to be a threat, he doesn’t want people to fear or hate him and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone. that’s why he says “you were right all along” in moriah. between dean and jack, a huge facet in their relationship is the question of whether or not dean is right, and by the time they’ve reached a point of mutually seeing each other as father and son that question is up in the air as something neither of them want. jack never wanted dean to be right, and now that dean knows jack as a person and as his own kid he especially doesn’t want to be right anymore.

just. Please start thinking of Jack as an actual autonomous person. That is literally all it comes down to. It will open up your world

[b0rtney]

ALL im saying is if u gave me fuck u money i'd write a fanfic where, for some reason i will come up w later, katniss doesn't/can't volunteer for prim during the reaping.

so we get prim and peeta in the hunger games, hamish and effie coaching them as best they can. and prim is, ofc tiny and scared and like. 11 or whatever (i forgor ages), and peeta is like ":) ok new plan: make sure katniss gets her little sister back!" meanwhile hamish is like "do i even know a kind of self defense that works for someone the size of perhaps a small potato or large hamster????" and effie is like "oh dear lord. oh jesus. she's just solidly gonna die huh??? oh god i need a career change???" and prim, after the shock has worn off, is like "oh shit i have a sister (and mom ig) to get back to. i gotta live thru this."

so prim is like solidly understanding she's not winning against careers in combat. she focuses on any other skill she can get-- medicine to patch herself up, camouflage from peeta, shmoozing for sympathy points (with incredible success, bc she knows who she is and what she looks like), and once she meets the other tributes she manages to worm some useful info on a few things out of a few other tributes who r like "oh poor thing won't survive the cornucopia" and, most notably, she becomes besties w rue.

and so peeta plays his angle of "i just wanna get back to the girl i love uwu," but doesn't bring prim into it as katniss's sister v much bc he knows that would put a target on her back, he instead paints himself as this big ol' sap that'll be easy pickings (if you can find him) so it looks like district 12 just spat out some softies this year (everyone back home is preemptively mourning). maybe he drops one line abt "i will do anything to get prim home safe" w kinda a looking-directly-into-the-camera-kubrick-stare moment.

meanwhile prim is like "rue. bestie. it might be great for us to play our friendship to the camera a bunch? for ratings?? ppl send us things for free??" and rue is like "aight sure yea lets do it" so they do it-- and if my lesbian ass has her way maybe they have little tiny baby crushes and like. hold hands or somn. idk ceasar would play it up and soon we've got the whole capitol like 'THE BABIES OH GAWD NO' and so the star-crossed lovers thing still happens, but with prim and rue. the capitol loses it's shit, bc they're on the way younger side, with baby faces, who have been playing up how tiny and defenseless they are to anyone who will listen for clout and donations.

with a push from peeta/haymitch/effie, ceasar's little-babies-who-will-never-even-get-to-be-fully-in-love-bc-there's-no-way-they're-surviving-the-next-24-hours shtick for prim/rue gets spun wildly out of control before the games even start and suddenly the capitol is demanding the games be called off since "so many of them are so young!" at most extreme, or wondering if the minimum age for the hunger games isn't too young at most moderate.

district 13 was not ready for such a prime revolution moment to happen so quick, but they make the best of it in a somewhat disorganized way. They sway public opinion into spinning this story up, up, and away from capitol control, which eventually (through difficult to succinctly summarize PR bullshit) has everyone calling for snow to step down, and he can't very well use the cattleprods on the supposed upper crust, can he? not when every other district is already twitching for an excuse to revolt and has been for a while. so he 'gracefully' steps down (repercussions to be written in fic). district 13 is like damn they r fr handing us this one wtf.

coin(? i forgor names lol) is just barely too slow to neatly slot herself into power, bc now the capitol+districts is like "WE should get a say *insert democracy/anarcho-communism/republicanism/alt-govt.png*" idk maybe panem fractures into smaller govts that stop being affiliated w one country idk. i havent written the fic yet bc i dont have fuck u money.

what i DO know is katniss is honestly too involved in watching the games and subsequent bullshit to notice gale breathing, and peeta comes home w prim who is like 'can we go visit rue in the spring?' and katniss is like '....... u just restructured the govt...... sure yea wtvr' and peeta goes back to pining bc i just dont think he knows how to make a move when not on a death-related timeclock. maybe prim throws him a bone and wingmans him in there.

[zhouxiangs]

One last thing and then I'll never darken your doorway/ask box again, but I just need to get all this pent-up Way-related madness out of my system so I can put it all behind me and move on!

Inspired by your tags on the post compiling the mind control moments, I thought how this is a great example of confirmation bias and it's really fascinating how differently we interpret things depending on our predisposition to view someone/something a certain way: those ppl who view Way primarily as a manipulative, creepy, irredeemable antagonist (each to their own!) see him using his power on Babe in ep 9 when they're hugging as the sick cherry on top of a moulding cake - it's Babe's most vulnerable moment and Way can't help himself, he's at it yet again, the utter bastard.

Whereas in that same moment what I see - someone who views him primarily as a deeply fucked up, morally confused, painfully tragic disaster - is a man watching the person he loves most in the world (regardless of how we judge his feelings, that's certainly what Way believes) completely break down, sob in his arms, and feel utterly helpless in the face of that pain - unable to comfort him, to make it better, to make Babe stop hurting. He looks positively panicked. And that's partly because of his own lies and secrets and the general complications of their situation, but it's also because he's a trainwreck himself - he doesn't have the psychological toolkit necessary to provide Babe with the solace he needs. So he falls back on the only thing Tony's conditioned him to think he's good for - he feels powerless so he uses his power. It's all he has. It's all he can do. It's such a childlike reaction, it breaks my heart - often when a child encounters someone in distress, that's their exact reaction: stop crying! Don't be sad! They're bewildered, they're hurting now too, and they don't know what to do, they just know they don't like it, so they simply order you to feel better. It's coming from the same sort of place, it's just that Way happens to have the ability to make that order a reality! And maybe I'm grasping at straws, but I think it's important that all he actually uses his power to say is, effectively, 'dont cry, you'll always have me', which, as you pointed out, is a perfectly normal sentiment to express to an upset friend! And even then you can see his hesitancy in doing it. If he really was a terrible horrible no-good very bad boy, this would be the moment to take advantage of Babe, physically or emotionally. But he doesn't. Okay, so the bar is super low, but I don't care - I'm still claiming it as a win for Way's potential redemption!

and because it took me so long to reply to the others i actually got a third ask ijbol 

ANON DON’T LEAVE ME, my ask box is open for whenever you need to get all your pent-up way-related or pit babe in general madness out of your system, so feel free.

disclaimer i should have made earlier maybe: i didn’t know nut before pit babe, so i wasn’t influenced by him playing way in any way. don’t let my username fool you; i am a hot wheel omegaverse fan first and foremost and a nut supanut fan second.

i have to say i felt so proud as more eps came out and they kept making more and more obvious what was happening with way… because i clocked it in that first scene at the pool table, on second watch iirc. it took so much effort not to point it out to my friend when i watched the ep with her later that i had to shut up so i wouldn’t say anything lol i love when they do things like that hhh

i’m pretty sure that’s the moment i started paying more attention to way too, because he uses his powers on babe

to tell him something completely normal that anyone would just tell to their friends directly. and, to me, there’s only two ways to read his motives there: either he thinks he needs to use his powers to get through babe’s thick skull because he would not believe it otherwise, or he doesn’t believe in himself enough to think babe, his best friend, would actually listen to him and believe him. (arguably you could say he wants to make sure babe goes to him and no one else, which i don’t think is the case, but i will say it here just to be perfectly clear.) whichever his reasoning actually was it made my sad man alarm go off full blast. i didn’t have an opinion on him yet at that point, only found his reactions to the charlie situation funny, so that was my honest reaction without having any kind of preconceived notion or expectation from the character.

and then, as the story kept progressing, he kept using his powers for similar reasons.

yes he still mind-controlled babe in fucked up ways into believing he wasn’t worthy of love, but now, because he doesn’t already believe that anymore, the idea wouldn’t take. it would hurt babe’s feelings hearing his best friend say that, but it was honestly something he had believed at some point, and again way was trying to protect babe in the most misguided way possible.

and then of course there’s the scene in ep 7 after babe learns about charlie being another of tony’s children and i don’t know if you’ve watched it again after way’s reveal, but you can see his thoughts and feelings so clearly in his face. he’s feeling helpless in so many ways and he wants his friend to stop hurting so he knows the only think he knows that works and it’s so fucked up, because it doesn’t really do anything. he only gets babe to stop crying, which doesn’t make him stop hurting, only makes way stop seeing it, and i don’t think he puts that much thought into it, as you said it’s very clearly a childlike reaction, but it is so telling of way as a character and of his state of mind. not least of all because we’ve seen him comfort babe a lot more with things that are nothing compared to this, but here he doesn’t know what to say or do. so yeah, no notes.

you and me anon, you and me. i do think we’re getting a redemption arc, specially with pete’s whole thing toward way, but i’m cautiously not counting my eggs just yet. 

breaks my heart when people don’t stop to wonder why someone that from what we know has the sole mission of bringing babe back home to tony couldn’t have used his powers to either do just that back then or mind-controlling babe into thinking he was in love with him, and instead has spent the last 10 years next to him every day as his best friend. love by itself is neither good or bad, it simply is. 

[jovenshires]

i personally feel like if you're writing rpf you've gotta be prepared that the people you're writing about do have internet access and aren't clueless y'know? like. i understand not wanting them to see it and for their sake id hope they wouldn't either but no one is entitled to write about a real person and then demand that real person can't access something that is literally About Them. like. just bc they're "famous" doesn't make them public domain yknow.

now i do find those youtubers read fanfic videos kinda cringe personally too bc i mean they always have to choose bad or funny ones otherwise itd be 10h long and awkward. but yeah im also like. those people chose to write and upload those somewhere on a public forum that the people they're writing about Do have access to. i feel like that just comes with the territory in rpf. they aren't fictional and they can in fact read those. if you don't want them to it should be shared somewhere very personal imo.

but yeah obviously since the majority of the fics that do get picked for those vids are probably written by teenagers i do feel kinda bad for them for that but i feel like thats a hard lesson in that those people are in fact real and can see it. i never rly enjoy the content where ppl read fanfics about themselves tho for this reason. but if this is going to be submitted ones i think that might be funny and definitely a better way to go about this on their part. i still dread it tho and will probably cringe out of my skin (also i wonder who that video will include...)

i do agree with you. i put a warning before all my fics in the hopes that they won't read it, but as my dear friend mer always says, i'm not a cop. i can't control what you do. and i joke that i want spencer agnew to block me but it's just that - a joke (well, a half-joke). if they're seeking this out, that's on them at that point. they are grownups; they know how the internet works and they know how to avoid things and how to search them out. i can't even really be pissed if they put my work in a video, bc hey, it's out there (even if i would rather they didn't look in my general direction). but at the same time, i will say this:

i am making these things about smosh members, but they're certainly not for smosh members. they can read them if they wish or use them if they wish (like i said i literally cant do anything to stop them bc, you're right, we do publish these things publically) but they're not made for them. so when they read them and they're like "oh, that's weird, who would write something like that," well. it wasn't intended for them to read in the first place. and now they've gone and alienated a bunch of people who looked up to them. people who watched their content and were inspired to create something. it's kind of hard to stomach when they're mocking a portion of their fanbase - and not only are they mocking them, but they're making them a butt of the joke for other portions of their fan base. they uplift fan artists and video editors, but fic authors for some reason are always looked down upon. i think there's a difference between acknowledging it exists / talking about it and directly making content to target it you know.

i don't know if there's a "lesson" to be learned from all this. i don't personally think those teens who were writing that fanfiction deserve to be ridiculed for it. i think they'd found a way to express themselves and that's great. i personally hadn't written for months when i started writing smosh fic again, and writing is truly one of my biggest passions in life. the smosh cast, who i'm incredibly grateful for, led me back to it. but i digress; maybe i'm just naive.

i'll also add: i'm not saying, like, fuck the smosh cast for this btw. like i do agree it is their right to look at things on the internet made about them and use it for content. they're even allowed to make fun of it. i'm sure to some people it is weird to read stuff like that about yourself, they're allowed to say that and have that opinion. so go ham, make this kind of video all you want. im just saying it's kind of a dick move and i personally am not a fan of it. but im not gonna stop watching smosh over it or anything and i don't think the cast is worse people for it. i just dislike this kind of video. i dislike a lot of videos - i don't enjoy the tntl trivial pursuit videos and the fortnite videos either. this doesn't make me any less of a fan of theirs, just an opinionated fan.

anyway, like i said, i'm glad it's submitted fics - truly, i'm thrilled. it's still not for me (like i said i already have a hard enough time watching smosh pit theater........ i simply cant do this) but i think it's fine and a good way to go about it!! i hope the video is, for everyone who enjoys this kind of thing, a good video. as for whos gonna be in it - could be anybody at this point (ive read so many pairings yall have no idea) but im so certain i/anthony is gonna be there.

tldr: i do agree, but i also think the renditions of this they've done in the past have mocked fic writers for no good reason. if you want to watch the video i hope you enjoy, and i'm glad they're using submitted fics this time ! <3

[waltwhitmansbeard]

let's talk fic request etiquette!

as someone who has been in the fanfiction game for a hot minute now, i've been having some Thoughts around ask memes for drabblers and fic writers. these ask memes are such a fun and helpful way for writers to exercise their creative chops, and for readers to participate in the creation of the kinds of stuff they like to read. i'm a huge fan of ask memes myself (feel free to send me one!), and i've written a lot of stuff i never would have thought to write without other people's generous prompts in my inbox.

but! i think it can be easy for some expectations to emerge around fic writers and ask memes that can make writing stressful and overwhelming for writers, and that's not great! fic writing should be a source of fun and creativity for writers and readers, and so there are couple things i'd like ppl to keep in mind when they're thinking about asking their favorite writers to fulfill a prompt.

check their blog! a lot of writers have rules or guidelines for the types of requests they'll take and how they'll take them. for example, some writers may close down their askbox after receiving a certain number of asks, while others will happily take as many requests as come their way! writers will also likely have a list of fandoms and/or ships they'll write for, which is good for you to know when it comes to making requests. please do a thorough check of a writer's blog to make sure you're respecting their boundaries before making a request. some writers might have guidelines that fly in the face of some of the other items on this list, and that's okay! these are just general recommendations, and individual writers might feel differently.

make one request at a time. this piece of advice might be directly contradicted by the guidelines on a particular writer's blog, and if a writer says they're down to accept as many prompts in a row from the same person as they can, then great! do that! but it's not uncommon for a writer to be inundated with a lot of requests at once, especially after posting a new ask meme, and so it's considered polite to send one request and then wait for yours to be filled before sending another. remember, you're very likely not the only person who enjoys this particular person's writing, so give them the chance to do their thing.

only send the prompt and the fandom/ship/character(s). the idea behind these fic ask memes is to see what the writer comes up with when only given the prompt and the characters to write about. if you like this writer, you should like what they write! unless the writer says otherwise, please do not send detailed scenarios or plot descriptions of what should happen in the fic you're requesting. if you're reading an ask meme, and one of the prompts on the list makes you think of a specific scene for your favorite ship, wonderful! that should be something you write and explore for yourself. it is not another writer's responsibility to jump through your enumerated hoops when you send them an ask meme request. remember, your prompt is meant to be the jumping off point for the writer's creativity, not an essay assignment in a literature class.

specify the ask meme, especially if it's older. if you're sending in a prompt from an ask meme, and the writer has reblogged a number of them, please help them out and let them know which one you're sending from. this is especially true if you're sending from an ask meme that is not the one they've reblogged most recently. it's just helpful!

reblog the fic you've requested. this one is basic as hell, y'all. if you've requested someone write something, you reblog it and put something nice in the tags. end of story. this was written for you. the very least you can do is be nice about it. and if the prompt was not filled in the way you expected, or if you didn't enjoy the fic, fine! don't request from that writer again. but for this fic, just fucking reblog it. it's quite literally the bare minimum and it costs you nothing.

talk to the writer! if you're not sure what a particular writer's feelings are on ask memes/requests/writing in general, ask! i promise you, we love talking about writing and our favorite blorbos, and it's always better to err on the side of courtesy. feel free to ask us how and when we like to receive requests or what types of requests we're okay with taking. we'd love to tell you how to make our lives easier, lol.

remember that we don't get paid. unlike fanart, fanfiction cannot legally be commissioned or purchased, so even though fanfiction writers put just as much time and work into their art as fan artists do, we do not have the option of any kind of remuneration for it. and that's fine, we get that! but it also means that we are doing a lot of labor (labor of love, but labor nonetheless) for free. please keep that in mind when sending in requests. we're happy to write using your prompts, but it's a prompt, not a detailed commission. our ideas and wants matter, too.

fic writers, feel free to add to this list with your own suggestions. i can only speak for myself when i say i love receiving fic requests from people, because i love writing and i love connecting with others in my fandom and i love exploring these characters in a way i might otherwise not have done. but what i don't love is feeling like i am at the beck and call of others in my fandom. i write for me, and then i like to share what i've written with others. it's how i participate in my community, and i'm so grateful to anyone who has ever sent me a prompt to fulfill. please just remember that your favorite writers don't just exist to bring your personal whims to life, and that they work really hard to create the things you enjoy.

[thesilverlady]

Unpopular opinion: i don't think that Aegon was a ra**t and an enjoyer of child fighting pits or abuses his wife in the book and i say this a someone who prefer Rhaenyra and team black in general. Helaena and Aegon shared a bed together+ Helaena was said to be a happy and joyful princess+ she has never said or hinted at anything that imply she is being abused like Naerys+ if Aegon ii is an abusive husband Grrm will not shy away from pointing that out, he has pointed out that Aegon iv , Aerys and Robert are shitty husbands.

Aegon was said to be creep with servants in his wedding day which is despicable but not in the same level as a serial p*edo rap**t like in the show. That's come directly from mushroom and he is known for lying alot+ was in dragonstone at that time. So for the showrunners to go with mushrooms testimony about aegon is just weird especially when they talk so much about how they want to portray everyone as grey and sympathetic but then they destroyed Daemon's complexity and "greyness" so who knows 🤷🏻

"please don't take this as an attempt to justify the greens i am just trying to be as objective as possible with them especially Aegon"

hi! first of all I also try to be objective with all the characters so don't worry, I complitely understand where you're coming from.

Let's break down a little bit about what you said about Aegon, shall we?

I definitely don't believe he was abusive the way the mad king was with his wife for instance (I've seen this comparison both from anti Aegon + ppl who ship Helaena with other characters). There isn't a single hint that Aegon was abusive or shitty with his wife. infidelity or indifference are not abusive characteristics and in the f&b they end up having 3 children, and as you said grrm doesn't shy away from mentioned how terrible soem marriages are. Both the marriage of Helaena/Aegon and Viserys/Alicent was fine.

I suppose, from another perspective, we could come up with the excuse that since jaehaerys had deformities and jaehaera was reported to be "slow" (+she was a girl) they could have been pushed to try for another "better" child, hence leading to Maelor.

But still, I simply cannot imagine book Aegon II to be raping, and beating his own sister. It's purely a fanon interpretation that lot of fans like going with for their own reasons.

Now, when it comes to him being generally a rapist with his servants/whores I'm very conflicted. Like you, i used to believe that it could be an exaggeration. Mashroom melodramatises everything, and the Septon - while he's technically team green in the story he's still a maester and an anti targaryen like all maesters are so it's not like he's more reliable by any means.

However, I've listenered many arguments from the other side (that does view him as a rapist) and they have some valid points; like him being told he occasionally harassed servants couldn't be a "one time" thing. Sure the word rape isn't used in the context (i suppose in modern terms SA is more appropriate) but who is to say he would only "touch" once and let go? He was a man in a position of power still.

You see, I started thinking about Aegon position's pre-war; he grew up with his mother and grandfather whispering about Rhaneyra who - as a woman - was made heir and was technically in the position that by misogynistic westerosi standards should have been his, his father showed more favoritism to his nephews (Viserys adored Aegon's children too but I imagine Alicent wouldn't point that out). While we're told he was "lazy" it's impossible to not imagine his pride and ego being hurt from being so very obviously casted aside as a firstborn son.

From a course I've done in gender studies, as well as personal research, studies show that rapists have some common characteristics such as:

- a lack of empathy - narcissism - feelings of hostility towards women

There are also several types of rapists:

- opportunistic rapist: who seizes any chance for sexual gratification, such as the loss of self-control on the part of their victim under the influence of alcohol. - sadistic rapist: whose motivation is to humiliate and degrade victims - vindictive rapist: who has anger and aggression focused directly toward women. Such a rapist believes he is permitted to sexually attack women because he feels he has been hurt, rejected or wronged by women in the past

and many more. So with that being said, I did change my mind and started viewing him as a rapist in the book.

Honestly, I think the bigger problem are the feelings of shame the fandom brings to people who continue to like characters like these. Perhaps, a part of myself had originally wanted to come up with reasons to view him as a non-rapist so I wouldn't feel guilty about finding him interesting. At some point I reminded myself that you can like the most angelic character and fandom space will find a way to insult you, so Aegon being a rapist shouldn't be a reason for you to be "forbidden" from liking him. He's not even the worst asoiaf character in terms of crimes. Some people are salty because of the growing fanbase - which I understand, because some stans are delusional.

Now in regards of him being a pedo, it's something I actually don't agree with. It's extremely disappointing how such terms are heavily thrown left & right without thinking of the context and worldbuilding of asoiaf-verse

The pedo accusation comes mainly from this part:

The Testimony of Mushroom claims Ser Criston found the young king-to-be drunk and naked in a Flea Bottom rat pat, where two guttersnipes (<-term for poor/homeless children) with filed teeth were biting and tearing at each other for his amusement whilst a girl who could not have been more than twelve pleasured his member with her mouth

I've seen the take that Aegon gets off from seeing kids fighting one another, but i just think this comes from someone who simply hates him to the core. He was there for entertainment, he was drunk, and had 0 care about being seen in sexual acts at a public place.

The fact that so many people have been surprised at the existence of the fighting pits is a bit shocking because in the books we see fighting pits in the Slaver Cities of Astapor, Meereen, and Yunkai. So it's nothing knew. Sure, the whole thing is disgusting but so are many other things in asoiaf verse so idk what people are expecting.

Now the bigger issue is the girl who we're told by mushroom she's 12 and gives Aegon a blowjob. As you mentioned mushroom is known to be lying and at the time he was in Dragonstone,so how could he even know?

In another ask, I mentioned how I don't side completely with either mashroom or the Septons because I believe the truth is most likely somewhere in the between.

Septon Eustace called what mashroom said an "ugly picture" but admitted that Aegon was in fact found with a "paramour" and he insisted she was a well cared daughter of a wealthy trader.

Now, Septon Eustace's bit is also rather... convenient, wouldn't you say? First of all he doesn't mention the girl's age, makes a reference to her wealth to make the situation seem better, which is very suspicious

As I said, my interpretation is somewhere in the between; maybe the girl could have been a simple daughter of a poor trader and Eustace added the "wealthy" part so the girl wouldn't be seen in a disadvantageous position. Maybe she was 14 or older and Mashroom reduced the number to make it more shocking and worth of gossiping etc

Of course one could say that even if that was the case, 14 is still a child. And to that, I have to remind everyone that while that's the case for our world, asoiaf has more gray areas. Here it's mentioned how technically coming of age is 16,but we've seen many cases both in f&b and in asoiaf of girls having ahd their period much sooner and getting married/having children because of it. So, if that girl had "bloomed" by westerosi standards then she was technically "of age"

As for the show portrayal, I honestly cannot understand what they had in mind with Aegon, because on the one hand they portrayed him as whiny & depressed, abused by Alicent and Otto and ignored by Viserys - which of course makes the audience sympathizes and then they turn it around and he's suddenly a shitty husband according to Helaena and a rapist who his mother covers for.

To me it seems like they couldn't make up with their minds about how his character should be because while you can convey sympathy for a terrible character (perfect example is Viserys, Daenery's brother) it seemed like they couldn't find the connection between the two to make a proper image of him.

As for Daemon I agree with you they destroyed his complexity and made him a piece of crap whose sole focus is his brother and his niece, but I gotta say, while I know the showrunners have mentioned they want to "portray everyone as grey and sympathetic" in the show, i think their result is more "men are evil and women are victims" because they suck big time at writing and have misunderstood completely the themes from f&b

[aronarchy]

in your opinion, what should an anarchist and post-carceral society do about dyed-in-the-wool wrongdoers who *will* make the active choice to hurt people *deliberately* regardless of the societal conditions or measures taken to prevent harm?

(i'm not meaning to sealion here, i am just genuinely thinking about this question myself)

not really sure what you’re counting under “measures”—for example, taking a measure such as “killing them” would, obviously, ensure they stop hurting people. other things like (hypothetically) “isolating them w/no resources & no way out” would, also, drastically reduce to likelihood of them hurting people—no matter how much they want to & are willing to, if they don’t have the physical means, they can’t

though, I’m not in favor of things like imprisonment, bc to be able to lock up & hold someone like that already means you have some degree of disproportionate power and other things built and set up in place, and also it would be way overkill causing vastly more harm than needed which is bad

I struggle to imagine a world without any more prisons, bc I’ve never lived in one & our entire lives are saturated w/prison culture, tho there are some pre-carceral societies you could study; & personally tho I find it easier to think abt these things thru “what can I do right now,” bc it’s already a similar issue—trying to stop harm (a lot of harm happens in my life even rn), but w/o carceral apparatuses (also knowing that those can’t really help us with anything and are the harm, in similar ways)—and really anything we would do once we get to something that could be called a “post-prison” point is already what we’re doing now—or trying to do, tho the carceral state tries to prevent those things

& a key point abt that is that “harm” (esp in the form of abusive relationships) tends to not really follow a “community is in a position to stop it while it’s happening” in the first place, bc of how the entire society has a culture of silence built into it, & how tons of factors go into making these situations hard to escape or resist. & also how communities tend to suck at handling abusers even after they find out (lots of victim-blaming, not understanding how this stuff works, not understanding the risk etc). so w/, like, close interpersonal violence I’m very focused on improving the ability for victims to use self-defense, to escape, to cut contact w/abusers & decreasing the consequences for that, & helping us retake control of our narratives and decreasing tolerance for abuse & abuse apologia in general

there are also people, for example, I might come across near spaces I orbit rn & who are obviously not safe to be around (determined bigots, harassers, abuse supporters, etc) and a lot of the time I’m not in a position to do anything about that directly, but I try to spread knowledge abt right-to-not-interact-with-people-you-dont-want-to (for example), and awareness of how bigots & abusers/supporters use platforms and positions of power to enact harm, and making it easier for ppl to fuck off from them if they’re being toxic (think antifascist tactics, but including how they're applied on a smaller scale—focusing on preventing fascists from building power, denying fascism a platform from which to promote itself, interrupting the problem in its tracks before it can escalate to assaults or state takeovers)

every situation of harm/victimization is different, every manipulative/exploitative/abusive person is different, the treatment each gets from surrounding communities is different—but in general (if these things can even be said to be generalizable) whatever they are using to be able to cause the harm, whatever’s preventing ppl from doing effective self-protection, etc etc take care of that (& no one size fits all ofc but if it’s, like, a person who targets ppl in certain types of communities for attacks then a great first step would be removing them from their projects and disassociating from them and informing other at risk communities abt them)