#really niche ship of really niche characters

[ravewing]

whirlpool — is he really as awful as the fandom makes him out to be ?

a wings of fire character analysis. minor content warning for mentions of abuse, grooming, pedophilia, and the likes.

whirlpool is, indubitably, the most universally disliked wings of fire character (and by a long shot, too). in the seven years that i've been an active wof fan, i think i've only seen two, maybe three, people say that they can even stand him. ask anyone in the fandom who the "worst character" is; nine times out of ten, they will probably answer, "whirlpool." ask the reason for this, and they will probably reply with something along the lines of him being a pedophile.

but is he?

i would like to note that i am in no way defending whirlpool. he is by no means a morally good, nor redeemable, dragon. i recently reread the lost heir, so i'm trying to approach this with an unbiased, strictly objective viewpoint. this is just my analysis of his character based on what i've heard people say about him compared to his actual character in the novel.

for a character that appears only in one book (two, if you count turtle's brief flashback in talons of power), whirlpool is a character that wings of fire fans just cannot seem to let go. for countless years, whirlpool has been the subject of a wide array of jokes, memes, and is overall used as the fandom's punching bag—and with good reason (at least, to an extent). however, this has, in recent years, quickly downspiraled into blatant pedophilia jokes.

pedophilia is something that, as i've noticed, is seen as "funny" or "quirky" in certain niches of the wings of fire fanbase, especially so on reddit. make a post asking for people to share their favorite ships, and you'll get at least five people saying something like "clay x bumblebee" or "burn x auklet" to be funny. perhaps it's just the fact that most of the people cracking these "jokes" are teenaged redditors, but the fact that pedophilia is watered down to nothing more than "Boiii!😂😂Cursed funny joke🗿🍷" is, without a doubt, an issue. this downplaying of such a heavy topic not only leads to people just blatantly saying insensitive things for a bad jest, but it also results in the people making those jokes becoming desensitized to the severity of the issue.

when something as serious as pedophilia is treated as nothing more than meme fodder or a buzzword to casually throw around, it diminishes the real harm and suffering experienced by victims. and over time, this normalization will blur the line between satire and genuine endorsement and create spaces where predatory behavior is either ignored or, in the worst cases, subtly encouraged under the guise of just being “dark humor.” this kind of discourse can also alienate victims of a genuine real-world issue, which inevitably makes it harder for them to speak out or feel supported in these communities. and while yeah, humor can be a tool to cope with difficult topics, there’s a stark difference between using it to challenge harmful behaviors and using it to trivialize them.

but i'm getting off track.

whirlpool is not a good dragon. he's manipulative, concerned with nothing more than his personal status and wealth, lacks proper seawing etiquette and self-awareness of his patronizing, annoying personality, by all accounts, an awful teacher, and is just overall a condescending know-it-all. he was a one-off pretentious antagonist, and that is all he was ever meant to be.

he serves as queen coral's most trusted advisor in magic and publishing in her council, and, since he's practically bending over to kiss the ground that her talons walk on like a well-trained circus seal, she finds him to be absolutely delightful, intelligent, and just overall a brilliant gift to all the world. considering this, it's no wonder why coral arranged for him to marry anemone in the future.

that's a detail that most people seem to forget. coral is the one who set up the whole anemone and whirlpool thing. of course, this doesn't mean that whirlpool didn't want to marry anemone; it's just that he was only in it so that he could become the future king of the seawings. he is never shown to have any sort of attraction to anemone (nor to tsunami or auklet); he simply views them as pawns in a game that will ultimately result in his seat in a throne. obviously, this is not a good thing. it's implied by anemone that he was essentially manipulating her to use her magic more, thus becoming "evil" and more susceptible to challenge her mother for the seawing crown (and i'm pretty sure that blister was encouraging this, too; the only difference is that her ideal end result would be using anemone as a war weapon to secure her reign over the sandwings). he is a manipulator, but not a pedophile.

when i first read the lost heir in third grade, whirlpool was nothing but just an annoying side character who's only trait was being a boring "erm, ackshually" kind of guy who spent his every waking moment praising queen coral's literary works. obviously, as an eight year old, i didn't fully pick up the more serious underlying tones of manipulation for power, but after re-reading the book many, many times over the course of seven years, i've gathered a much more comprehensive grasp of his character.

the thing is, he just... doesn't have that much depth to him. that's the whole point; he's meant to just be a one-off antagonist that the reader isn't supposed to like. think about it. why would tui intentionally put a pedophile in a book directed towards elementary and middle schoolers? she wouldn't. he's literally just supposed to be annoying and die.

compare him to coral, for instance. yes, whirlpool was awful. but unlike coral, he did not write a scroll about eugenics, treat and harness a dragonet like a literal dog, publicly torture and execute loyal subjects for an accident (that was really coral's brother's fault), threaten to KILL his own daughter (okay, well, he did attempt to murder tsunami, but i think it's also pretty bad to tell your kid that you're going to kill her), neglect over 30 other of his own children, among a bounty of other not-so-great things? no. what i'm trying to say is, people often bash repeatedly on whirlpool with the same three jokes (like, come on, at least make a new joke. like whirlpoop or something i haven't heard that one before) while overlooking awful things that other characters do as well.

people love scarlet, blister, burn, darkstalker, vulture, mastermind, and countless other villains, despite the fact that many of them have done the exact same things as whirlpool or worse (elaboration in like two paragraphs). and there's nothing wrong with liking villains at all (personally i love a ton of wof's villains; i mean, come on, who doesn't?), so long as you're not trying to justify/redeem/defend their actions!!

what i'm trying to say is this:

this extreme vilification of whirlpool relies on literally nothing but exaggeration or outright misinformation. while yes, it is absolutely true that he was manipulating anemone to serve his own ambitions, his interest in marrying her had nothing to do with attraction or pedophilia—it was calculated power play, one arranged by queen coral herself. many people conflate his manipulative tendencies with predatory behavior, but his treatment of anemone was no different than how many other power-hungry characters in wings of fire have used young dragons as pawns in their schemes. this does not make him any less of a bad person, but it is important to distinguish between the two accusations.

another major issue with the fandom’s treatment of whirlpool is the sheer inconsistency in how different villains are perceived. as mentioned earlier, characters like darkstalker, scarlet, and even queen coral have committed arguably worse acts than whirlpool. darkstalker, for instance, manipulated young dragons like moonwatcher, fathom, and his own girlfriend, placed magical compulsions on his own friends, and tried to commit genocide—yet he has a massive fanbase, with many people willing to justify or romanticize his actions. scarlet is a tyrant who tortured innocent dragons for entertainment, but she is often seen as a charismatic, even beloved villain. (i can't lie, i love her too) coral, despite being directly responsible for the forced betrothal of anemone and whirlpool, does not receive nearly as much backlash as he does. why, then, is whirlpool singled out as the worst villain when he is hardly unique in his cruelty?

the answer likely lies in the nature of his character. unlike other villains who are powerful, charming, or entertaining, whirlpool is pathetic. he is not a fearsome warlord like burn or a tragic antihero like darkstalker is meant to be—he is an annoying, self-important sycophant whose ultimate goal is to climb the social ladder by cozying up to queen coral. he is the kind of villain who is easy to mock, easy to laugh at, and easy to pile hatred onto without deeper discussion. it’s the same reason why villains like mastermind or vulture don’t inspire the same level of vitriol—they are manipulative and amoral, but they aren’t written to be particularly cool or interesting in the way that characters like darkstalker or scarlet are.

at the end of the day, whirlpool is a terrible dragon. he is an opportunistic manipulator, annoying, a pathetic wet cat, and an overall detestable character. however, the way the fandom fixates on him, and exaggerated or misrepresents his crimes while ignoring worse actions from other villains, makes me wonder: why do some villains get a "pass" while others are relentlessly mocked? why do people misrepresent certain characters in ways that turn serious topics into joke fodder? and most importantly—why are we still talking about whirlpool, a one-off side villain from a book released over a decade ago, as if he’s the worst thing to ever happen in wings of fire?

side note: i couldn't figure out how to work this in there, but i don't know where the misconception that whirlpool is a super old decaying man came from. is he far too old for anemone? without a doubt. but from what i gathered from reading tlh, it seems like he's implied to be only slightly older than tsunami; somewhere around riptide's age, perhaps. anyhow, thank you for reading my chaotic mess of a character analysis! as a treat (or an abhorrent punishment, depending on the kind of person you are), here are some funny whirlpool expressions. the last two are my favorites .. he looks like he has eyeliner on in the last one lol

[hollow-lime-green]

hi, anon from "t/b discourse is dumb" ask here 👋 this conversation actually is really interesting and i wanna add a little more if thats okay. (how long is the average anon ask? im not new to fandom but i am relatively new to tumblr and its etiquette... so sorry if this is too long. ive done my best to condense it 😭 there's just too much to say and im a rambler)

i hope i didn't come off as blaming anybody for their response to harassment and such, i don't want to contribute to that. my ire is only pointed toward people who make it their business to hurt others over innocuous fandom happenings, those people who leave dickish comments on fics and send anonhate and mass qrt on twitter. but like i said, expecting those kinds of people to go away any time soon is not really something i have hope for at this point. you put it well: people get so emotionally invested --- and i too Love getting emotionally invested when it comes to fiction --- that logic stops being a factor. people all over the internet also tend to struggle with simply disliking something and leaving it there. you're allowed to dislike/disagree with something without turning it into a moral failure when it's all down to preference and the characters involved are not Real

i just wish more people saw the value in Healthy™ discourse. hell, even if someone's opinion ticks you off, that doesn't mean you can't engage in an open minded discussion with them, if you want to. but people can't do that even outside of niche online fanbases.

i would love to share my own opinions on t/b dynamics for satosugu and to learn why others may feel differently. actually, stsg is the first yaoi ship ive been this invested in, though it's been a while now, and reading fics for them has opened up a Lot of doors of thought for me that i wanna talk to someone about. but there's such hostility around the topic that opening that discussion up to the general fandom public hardly feels worth the risk, as much as i want to. that kinda leaves one floating out at sea here. so i have these conversations where i can, but i'll also block people over simple things. not because i think they're evil or their opinions are invalid, but because i really do just want to have fun, and previous fandom experiences have exhausted me with how much of the same repetitive venom i can personally handle at once

welcome back anon, and feel free to ramble away. honestly this has been a nice side quest for me during the thesis-ing, believe it or not.

if you want to have discussions/share takes on stsg (or fandom meta), then feel free to keep sending them anon, and i am happy to host that discussion in our friendly little corner. i haven't gotten anything nasty in my inbox, and i think everyone commenting and engaging with the posts on my blog is pretty friendly and level headed :)

i think it's possible that some people could get offended by your previous ask? but it's very obvious, to me, anyway, that what you are saying with "t/b discourse is dumb" is "this drama is dumb why are we doing this why can't we just have fun". you can twist the words, but that's the clear sentiment that I think 99% of us are trying to get across here.

and that also does not conflict with empathizing with and supporting people who have been targeted by this harassment. in fact, i would say out of anyone, they are probably most securely in the camp of "this drama is dumb please let's stop".

as @fushiglow pointed out, part of the reason fandom can get so vicious is due to depersonalization. none of these people would be acting so fuckin foolish in person. but across the screen, it is a lot safer and easier to be an absolute asshole than when you have to look someone in the face as you tell them that they are literal scum for your opinions on dick in ass, or something.

over the past few months i have been struggling with this in reverse, actually. one of my gaming group members almost definitely voted for trump (white women... we need to talk). i get so worked up when i think about it, because i hate her for it, especially her reasons for it (she is antichoice). and yet, when I see her in person, when we hang out, it is so easy to remember that she is my friend and she held my hair back when I was puking after my other gamer friends gave me too many free beers (blue moon isn't worth it guys).

one other thing i would like to add, and part of why i'm so happy to post this ask, is that conversations are not sentences. you get to clarify. you get to add. you get to change your mind. real 'discourse' (note: this word has lost all meaning in the year of our lord 2025) or debate is an exchange of ideas, whether it's about dick in ass or how we react socially in the situation of being attacked for dick in ass. keeping the conversation going to clarify these things, like your intent with the last ask, is important and necessary! it's what keeps us from being xitter/bluesky. we don't need to live as zingers and soundbytes on a text-based forum. we have the space to express ourselves fully, as many times as that takes. and i think that helps build back the empathy that is lost with the lack of face-to-face, voice-to-voice communication in online spaces.

so in the words of the great philosophers re: t/b discourse:

any hole's a goal

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The squad of all time has arrived on scene.

[park-chan-yall]

Stray Kids as The Heart Killers

[skitskatdacat63]

super obsessed with your art, seb looks soooooooooooo stunning!!! I am now very curious however, only if you feel like going into it, as to which other historical figures you align with which drivers?👀👀

AAAAAA tysm Grace!!!! Though I am so so so sorry for how rambly and long this post is gonna be, but you just asked me abt one of my brainrots!! I will answer your question but also talk about my history alignments and AUs in general LOL

But if I'm making comparisons of F1 drivers and historical figures, my brain kinda forces me to make it an AU because I'm like "this needs to make absolute sense historically and contextually.)

So, tbh of the four historical AUs that float around my brain, only two of them are really specifically about certain historical figures. The four are: Nandopoleon(About how Fernando reminds me of Napoleon), War of Spanish Succession(mostly about that era, but Seb and Nando are supposed to be paralleling Charles VI and Philip V), Napoleonic Hussars(which is about how , in general, Hussars = F1 drivers), and Rennaissance Muse(this just happens to take place in a different era.)

Explaining my AUs and the historical contexts(proceed with caution, its a lot)

Nandopoleon:

Okay so I'm really really am so deranged about Napoleon = Fernando, but I’ve not posted about it too much because I wanna make a well thought out post about it. But basically I think they’re similar people with similar characteristics and motivations. There was this period of time over the summer where I was only brain rotting about how well any of Napoleon’s quotes fit Fernando(with my fellow nandopoleon confidant @/sweatyflytrap haha.) Here’s some quotes as example: 

“Victory belongs to the most persevering.”

“It is not necessary to bury the truth. It is sufficient merely to delay it until no one cares.”(Piasco era lol)

“Victory is not always winning the battle…but rising every time you fall.”

“From triumph to failure is only one step.”

"A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon."(trophies y'know)

"Always carry champagne! In victory you deserve it, and in defeat you need it!"

Tell me Fernando wouldn't use these as instagram captions! TELL ME!!! But the other thing that was driving me crazy is how well excerpts from the personality/image section of Napoleone's wiki line up with testimonials from Fernando's doc. Examples:

"He cheated at cards, but repaid the losses; he had to win at everything he attempted."(Napoleon) "Whatever activity I take part in, I have this compulsion to find the compeititon in it."(Fernando)

"He could rapidly dictate a series of complex commands to his subordinates, keeping in mind where major units were expected to be at each future point, and like a chess master, 'seeing' the best plays moves ahead"(Napoleon) "When you talk to him, his mental capacity is so strong. He's talking to you, but his brain is thinking ahead"(Fernando)

Like c'mon tell me they aren't at least a bit similar??? There's a lot else I find similar about them but I cannot list my whole manifesto here skdjlsd

Anyways this AU would be Fernando as Napoleon and would be Webbonso -> Strollonso. Basically, Napoleon had two wives: his first wife, who was older than him and who he was super in love with, but had to divorce because they couldn't have kids, but he still loved her deeply. And then his second wife , who was much younger thanhim and from the Austrian royal family, and this was a politically motivated marriage but they still got on pretty well!!(also it's funny, before she married him she didn't want to be with him because the public perception of him made him out to be not the best guy, but then she wrote to her father about how loving and kind he was. very Strollonso, no?)

War of Spanish Succession:

Mostly explained it here and here. I'm not too interested in either Philip V nor Charles VI themselevs as individuals, but rather the roles they fufill in the "story." Though I will say, I got hit with a brick while reading Charles VI's wiki when finding out that he apparently had several male lovers! So I guess my AU having an arranged m/m marriage isn't even that far off the mark hahaha. Why did they have a 13 year war, they should have just arranged a marriage between the two canidates sigh sigh. But yeah, mostly Austria vs. Spain, I think it fits well with the Vettonso rivalry!! They would end up being: Fernando I King of Spain and Sebastian I Holy Roman Emperor hehe. Also I sketched some more:

Napoleonic Hussars:

Explained here as well as with art, and more art here. I'm really still proud of the points I made, I just feel very ardently about it!!! Not about any specific figure, but rather a historical group that I think lines up extremely well with F1 drivers. But this one is fun cause I can kinda insert any driver into it and they'll work pretty well. It's fun to figure out what kingdom what driver would be, either based off their nationality or the nationality of their team. I remember vividly staring at a map from this era trying to figure out where Maranello would be....But like Renault = Kingdom of France and RBR = Kingdom of Austria, and stuff like that

Rennaisance Muse:

Mostly just this post, I've not thought about this one incredibly deeply. Mostly just brainrot about how I think Seb looks like The David with his curly hair

[gu6chan]

drakengard fanbase is truly insane because aside from the one time a dude called me classist bc i said watching a playthrough isn't the same as actually playing the game (crazy, but a one time thing, every fanbase has it) like. ive been in fanbases where ive been harassed over liking a ship but this is the first ive ever been in where ive been harassed over liking a character. what is up with that

[skrunksthatwunk]

very surprised when i learned multishipping was not the default way to be btw. still surprised by it actually

[fagoutboy]

sorry hold on. are people valorizing the past so strongly these days that now ppl think old fandoms were BETTER? like im sorry i really think the problem is just that you arent 12 anymore

[mister13eyond]

i love writing bc my brain is like "what, finish your multiple wips based around a ship you love and care for that you have clearly thought out continuations for? no. you're going to write about your oc being a surrogate parent to giorno giovanna"

[reraen]

slowly but surely letting myself interact with a work the way I want to and not what's safest for me in context of any given fandom as a whole

To explain: I'm trying to stop forcing myself to find a ship I tolerate enough to dive into transformative works for. And I mainly write ship fic or implied ship despite not actually caring about shipping as a whole. Sure, I have quite a few ships that break the rule, but for the most part? Yeah, I force myself. It's like when I was in the 1st grade and a girl told me to have a crush on someone and I went, "Okay, sure!"

It took me until my early 20s to realize and break the "must find a crush" habit. So I doubt this will resolve itself easily either. But at least I'm aware of it, so it's definitely a start! I'm going to focus on Gen work moving forward, too, as well as aspec stuff! Gonna slowly but surely work to break the bad habits heteronormativity instilled 😤

[a-taut-thread]

Having a boring ass night rn, forget me nots hurt/comfort save me forget me nots hurt/comfort...

[kou3218]

The History of Lightcannon

Warning, this is very long so buckle up. (Also spoilers for Arcane)

For those wondering where this ship came from and how it's bloomed from something that was pretty niche into something nearly mainstream. It's an interesting journey. So let's dive in.

(Note - Updated post with more information on the history. It's actually older than I realized.)

Let's start with some context, Lightcannon is the name of the ship between two characters from the MOBA game, League of Legends. Officially launched in October 27, 2009.

Luxanna Crownguard (though she prefers Lux) from the kingdom of Demacia. She's a mage whose skilled in light magic. She became a playable champion on October 19th, 2010. She is literally the Light...

...To the Cannon known as Jinx (formally known as powder.) from the slump of Zaun. A psychopathic loose cannon whose also a uncertified genius when it comes to tinkering. She became a playable champion on October 10th, 2013.

Both residing in the world known as Runeterra.

Now you might be wondering, "How in the hell does a pretty blonde noble mage girl from a kingdom of knights get shipped with a blue haired psycho steampunk Harley Quinn knock off that's a continent away?" (Don't pretend Jinx wasn't made to cash in on the hype of Quinn. Riot is known for cashing in on trends.)

(edit 12/3/2024)

Well originally, I thought it was due to the Cosmetic Skins that League is known for releasing for it's champions. They usually have some fun special interactions with characters and even some lore. Creating AU's of sorts. Some are one shots, and others get expanded up into full on spinoffs with stories and their own expanded narrative.

In 2015 RIOT launched the Star Guardian set. Basically a Magical girl set for the characters: Lux, Jinx, Janna, Poppy, and Lulu. And this set is what many thought kicked off lightcannon. Myself included.

In the Star Guardian lore, they are childhood friends. With Lux being described as, "Cheerful, courageous, and just a bit clumsy. Lux shines the brightest among her Star Guardian team as its captain."

While Jinx is described as, "The cynical teen rebelled, refusing to treat her powers as anything more than a plaything to serve her own interests. While Jinx scoffs at protecting a world she doesn’t trust, she does believe in her childhood friend Lux—and if someone could see into the depths of Jinx’s heart, they’d see a furious, burning need to keep those she holds dear out of harm’s way, at any cost."

If you are at all familiar with Magical Girl shows, you can see how this kicked it off. There is always an undercurrent of Yuri in ever MG series. For this, the classic, Good Girl x Bad Girl with a heart of gold. This even got it's own cinematic. With plenty of shots of Lux and Jinx Longing for each other.

With some rather fun interactions in game.

And a classic scene from one of the stories

However, it was pointed out to me by @questionablecuttlefish there were people before the star guardians that were already shipping them together as for back as 2014!

Barely 3 months after Jinx was released. The first lightcannon fanfictions started to appear. Which is kind of crazy!

This also pre-dates ekko - who became playable on May 29th, 2015!

Now at the time, Jinx didn't have much lore. She was just the crazy boom girl, and it was hinted at that she had a history with Vi and Warwick. (Too be fair, VI's lore was kind of all over the place and she was mainly "Police Brutality, LoL.) So she was kind of malleable.

Lux however had a lot of lore. She was born into a high standing Noble family that is sworn to protect the king. Hence the name Crownguard. She is depicted as a bright, cheerful, and optimistic character. She's also related to the champion Garen, her older brother. However, she is a mage and magic is hated in her country of Demacia. So, she has to hide who she really is. Garen does know and accepts her. There are also a number of stories where she has done very questionable things. One of her decisions led to her trusting the wrong man, Sylas. A criminal mage that tricked her into helping him escape. Which ended up triggering a mage rebellion, which led to a lot of people dying. (And her OG lore, she operated as a spy. Which some people have played with.)

Sounds familiar right?

So a big part of what drew these two together was the potential these two could have if they met. The idea that Lux finds someone who encourages her to be herself. To let her magic free and accept all of her. Which could also apply to Jinx as well. The idea that they could be who they truly are with each other. And still drawing a bit from the Star Guardians down the line with the whole Good Girl x Bad Girl.

Again, this was still pretty niche. Very much a crackship, but people were pretty creative in what they thought of.

Then came a big shot in the arm for the ship, the Cinematic trailer for Wildrift.

This trailer had jinx hoping around runeterra and grabbing people to join her team to fight. The first person she grabs in Lux, whose bored and wants something exciting to do. And here comes this manic pixie dream girl who pops out of nowhere, jumps in her laps, takes a selfie, and then pulls her into a portal to fight a giant monster like she wanted. Plus the fact that Lux can create pretty shiny lights and massive magical explosions doesn't hurt either. With a lot of the promo stuff having them act like friends helped to fuel it further.

And then, a year after this, Arcane launched!

This not only gave Vi more depth, but also Jinx (Originally named powder). She went from, "lol, random, psycho murder, boom girl." To an incredibly tragic character who who just want to hug and tell her everything is alright.

And it wasn't that we wanted Lux to fix Jinx, we wanted them to help each other. And with the ending of season 2, the viability of Lux and Jinx actually meeting skyrocketed even further. With Jinx faking her death and sneaking onto an airship that was seen over open water.

Possibly to Demacia to get a fresh start? Not impossible. Maybe even be her guiding light.

Additionally between season 1 and 2 or arcane. There was this fun little Chinese Animated web series called, Valoran Town. It didn't have too much an impact on the ship, but was still a bit more fuel for it.

Basically, a slice of life series about the champions living in a small town. The main story focusing on Lux as she runs away from home trying to live free and independently from her overbearing Brother Garen. Her best friend and now roommate in the series is Jinx! Since a lot of promo material for wildrift did have them acting like friends, this felt like they were kind of leaned into that angle. Which worked pretty well.

Each episode is about 5 minutes long, but it's just super cute and fun. Also a nice pallet cleanser from the heart ache of arcane.

This person was kind enough to upload and subtitle all 12 episodes.

Give it a watch, it's free. (Just turn on closed captions.)

So, yeah. That's the history of lightcannon. We love it for many reasons, but for me. It's the potential they could have. It's very much a crackship, but I will sail it everyday. Hope you learned something.

And some funny things to think about.

Lightcannon and Caitvi/Piltover's finest means that Jinx and Vi have the same taste in women. Upper class femme.

But it also means the Crownguard sibling also have the same taste in women. Or, at the very least, have a kink for criminals/killers.

Garen with the Noxian assassin Katarina.

Lux with Sylans and Jinx.

Which would also make Lux and Jinx Bisexual too, so represent.

Yes, I support timebomb too. Arcane Season 2 episode 7 is beautiful. I see why people ship Ekko and Jinx together. I'm a multi-shipper. You can do that. They both love Jinx, and she deserves all the love.

[renshengs]

hmm i do think that danmei and dangai (censored danmei cdrama adaptations) being many non-chinese fandom people's first impression of chinese media has given them some misconceptions about mainstream chinese media, and it shows in a way that i find very frustrating when seeing discussions about cdramas on here. dangai dramas aside, even if government censorship didn't exist, the chances of your favorite cdrama gay ship becoming canon is about as high as the chances of any of those iconic homoerotic male friendships in a western TV show becoming canon. which is to say: extremely low.

what i think is that internationally huge danmei fandoms like mdzs and tgcf and drama adaptations like cql and shl have really fucked with people's conceptualization of danmei, in that they're using it as this reference point when analyzing relationships in all other forms of cn media, including cdramas and chinese games, which then manifests into people making very bold, very dubious claims about "queercoding" because 2 characters from a random cdrama reminds them of the one or two danmeis they'd encountered that shaped their entire perception of chinese media. basically it's this meme:

many people here need to understand that cdramas and chinese films are obviously mainstream forms of fictional media in china, just like how the mcu or the doctor who franchise is mainstream in the US and UK, or like shonen is mainstream in japan. not to burst your bubble of happy ignorance, but homoromantic relationships such as qingming/boya from the ying yang master are—for lack of a better term—fujobait. they are fujobait. bromances, because those sell well and everyone knows it. popular ships like bakudeku were not actually made canon in mha because shonen is mainstream, and in most industries geared toward maximizing capital, having full-on gay people front and center is considered a monetarily risky move. which sucks, of course, but china is absolutely no different. i promise you that if the govt removed their censorship laws for TV broadcasts, your favorite gay ship from mysterious lotus casebook or the blood of youth or fangs of fortune still wouldn't be canon. they might be allowed a bit more intimacy due to the lack of restrictive filtering, but they are not going to be sucking face for the same reason that gojo and geto from jjk didn't suck face.

danmei is still widely considered niche and risky in china, and if you haven't seen the recent news, authors are still getting arrested for writing it. assuming that chinese fiction, mainstream chinese fiction in particular, operate like dangais where the two guys with the most gay tension would be made explicitly canon were the censors to be lifted, is frankly pretty ridiculous. dangai dramas are adapted from danmeis, which are stories centered on a gay romance and narratively depend on the two guys falling in love. non-dangai dramas are very much... not that, hence why people shouldn't watch them expecting a censored danmei and then forcing assumptions of "my ship would be canon if only it weren't for censorship" on them.

it's very clear when someone who knows absolutely nothing about the actual situation with danmei and queer existence and mainstream TV censorship in china is trying to push their, if i put it crudely, "boss baby meme" perspective onto cmedia. fandom is all about poking at interactions between your favorite characters and giggling and speculating, but i think lots of fandom people (many of them safe in the pockets of their more progressive areas) view govt censorship as this big abstract dam that, if broken, would result in the canonization of all their favorite ships, which is not only an incredibly naive belief but also one that shows how much they view TV censorship as more of a personal inconvenience that's preventing their favorite ships from kissing on screen instead of the looming, deep-rooted issue depriving mainland chinese people of creative freedom it actually is. with cmedia fandoms there's a specific widely popularized "they're so gay omg how did censorship not notice" gag when there's any perceived homoromantic undertones in a story that's both rather insensitive and also ignorant, and many dangai and cdrama fandoms in particular (donghua fans too, link click shippers i'm looking directly at you) could really use some more education and sensitivity regarding this.

i've been in danmei & cdrama fandom spaces for years and post-pandemic this kind of nonsense has definitely gotten worse, especially when you compare shipping discussions here to shipping discussions in cn fandoms. here every 2 seconds someone makes an off-color censorship joke about tgcf donghua and over on douyin they are straight up commenting under the nezha sequel announcement post if there's going to be an oubing kissing scene. granted i obviously cannot see or know everything going on in cn fandom spaces because they are incomprehensibly enormous, but in all the spaces i've been in i've never seen a single censorship joke from anyone. why do people here absolutely insist on making them?

anyway. fandom be normal about chinese media challenge!

[lets-try-some-writing]

I have observed several types of fic writers, and so for kicks and giggles, here they all are. Each of them scares me for different reasons.

The Prepared And Ready To Publish™:

Several documents dedicated to worldbuilding, planning, cross referencing, character lists & traits, plot twists, and then the actual fic document.

Dedicated to the max to creating a rich world. Probably knows more about the niche thing than you ever will. 100% could have written a thesis and chose to do fic instead (or did both at the same time).

Created a masterpiece and promptly vanished off the face of creation before coming back in with another banger to crush souls and save fandoms.

Their arrival is akin to the birth of a new era because they never fail to somehow make a niche ship popular, make a headcanon fanon, or otherwise give so much depth and interest to a character or setting that whatever they have devised is largely accepted as gospel by their readers.

They either use a high end writing program or wordpad. There is no in-between.

Mysterious. Very mysterious. Reasons for this mysteriousness vary between fics and authors.

100000/10 would be friends with them if I could. Legendary writers. But also they scare me because ??? What void offered you such power ?????

The Baby Writer:

All vibes and loosely strung plots.

It may not make the most sense, but good gracious the dedication is there.

Notable lack of comprehension when it comes to characters and places, but it's bad form to not leave a kudo because it takes guts to post anything in fandom.

They are still figuring things out and their grammar or formatting (possibly both) is probably a mess, but they've put heart into their work.

Sweetest rays of sunshine who want to be involved and are eager to learn the ropes.

The fandom's young ward or despised new arrival (depends entirely on fandom popularity and age).

8/10 would happily offer advice to them. Just can't read their work for too long without wanting to throw it into grammarly. The fear factor comes in the form of the miraculous misuse of fandom terminology. (Yeah it's tough bud, the fanon is wild. But goodness that term/canon word does NOT mean what you think it does.)

The Smut For Your Soul:

Meticulously plans the smut with all the loving care of a sculptor.

Somehow plot got involved.

Miraculously, they managed to not include an iota of plot and it has somehow managed to work.

Headcanons abound and cuteness and or angst lurks merrily behind every corner.

The tags mean everything and nothing at the same time. They are but faint guides to the fae wilds ahead. Tread lightly.

Has a mountain of unfinished WIPs that will follow them to the grave or emerge ten years after conception to grace whatever fandom spawned the idea.

The fandom thanks them for their service, although often that praise is late or hits like a freight train.

???/10 I personally avoid smut but I have friends who write it so it really depends. Terrifying because you never know who falls into this role of writer. It could be anyone. Normalcy is a mask poorly adorned for the sake of conforming to The Great Machine.

The Angst Lord:

Has a million slightly different ways to hurt their blorbo. Each are somehow more horrifying than the next.

The embodiment of the iceburg videos seen all over the net. Ask one question and you shall unravel and scheme of torment so great you shall regret having dared to speak up.

Has dozens of WIPs or unwritten ideas that they claim they will return to.

They are controlled by passion and emotion and can and will insert their own complicated situation into a fic.

Almost nothing is off limits.

Arrives to the fandom ready to brawl and somehow ends up respected or feared. They often stare in bafflement as they end up unscathed and watch angry comments fly toward the arguably innocent shippers.

Generally some of the nicest people who happen to enjoy inflicting The Horrors upon someone fictional.

'10/10 would befriend and promptly regard like a wild racoon. Offerings of angsty ideas yield delightful commentary. But also I need to prepare myself for anything they say because O U C H my SOUL.

The General Writer:

Fluff, cuteness, possibly a delightful touch of angst and pure unbridled creative simplicity.

They may not have the most brutal or soul wrenching tale, but they always manage to write something that someone, somewhere, desperately needs.

Devastatingly underrated and deserves far more praise for their contributions to the fandom.

Produces some of the softest of scenes and the most touching of interactions between characters in a contained, careful crafted, tale.

Introducing new ships or family dynamics in such a tasteful manner that brain chemistry can easily be altered.

Arrives to the fandom as a lurker and shows their appreciation through their work. Oftentimes, they are very quiet and go unnoticed.

INFINITE/10 Love these writers, honestly a gift to fandom. The sheer level of dedication to producing fluff is astounding and scary all at once.

The OC X Canon:

Has so many ships and headcanons that it's astounding.

The lore development rivals IDW and Lost Light combined. All the kudos to them for putting their souls into their characters.

The dedication is mind boggling.

They put up with so much crap they could be in MMA Wrestling if the verbal assaults translated into physical strength.

Has so many adjustments to lore and whole AUs devoted specifically to creating a perfect world.

Skilled in the extreme (or not) at integrating their ocs into canon.

Arrives to the fandom not intending to make ocs. Leaves with seventeen leashes for their new abominable creations. Is loved or hated by literally everyone, sometimes for no reason.

6/10 perfectly lovely people but very niche in their interest and thus not everyone's cup of tea. Scary because that level of sheer willpower is meant for demi-gods.

There are more types of writers, but these feel like the big overarching ones. Which kind of writer are you? :D

[samglyph]

Kinda random question that popped into my head

Ie. A show you haven’t watched, a game you havent played, etc etc.

*someone you know includes like. Tumblr mutuals/people you follow that you’ve never spoken to but respect and trust in some way.

*high kudo/bookmark counts for example, or a lot of people are talking about it.

*seeing art of a non canon couple that looks cool, knowing that canon doesn’t reflect that and going to read about them instead of consuming the source material

[thankskenpenders]

Help me out here: Why is there so much Ian Flynn hate going around lately? I thought everyone loved that he was contributing to the games. Now suddenly they aren't. I guess that's par for the course for this series but I don't get it. He isn't perfect but I like what he's done. Am I a weirdo?

Ian Flynn has always had a lot of fans, but any creator putting their work out there is going to have detractors as well. That's just the nature of being an artist. To some extent, it's no big deal. He's not a perfect writer. Nobody is! I consider myself a fan of his work, but I've criticized plenty of individual writing decisions from him on here.

But Ian doesn't just have critics. He has his own obsessive hatedom. And the specific nature of Ian's hatedom is... interesting.

A decade ago, Ian was only the guy writing for Archie Sonic, meaning any debates over his work were quarantined within that tiny niche of the larger Sonic fandom. Only people who kept up with the comics month to month had any real reason to have an opinion on the guy, which means we're talking about merely thousands of fans as opposed to millions.

Within that group, he had some haters. You had the people who were mad about story changes made during his run, particularly things like ancillary characters getting killed off (although over the years we've learned that most of those were editorial mandates from Mike Pellerito). You had the people mad that Ian didn't push their favorite ship, with feuding SonAmy and Sonally fans claiming that he was CLEARLY biased towards one or the other. You had the people who just really, really liked one of the previous writers way more - usually Penders, as hard as that may be to believe today. That sort of thing. Pretty normal comic fandom type stuff. Again, it comes with the territory.

Unfortunately, many of those haters only got worse over time, morphing into reactionaries who constantly try to incite Comicsgate type culture war bullshit.

There are people still mad at Ian for making Sally bi and pairing her with Nicole instead of Sonic in the later Archie comics. There have been elaborate MS Paint red string conspiracy boards explaining how people like Ian and Jon Gray have apparently been destroying the franchise from the inside for years by Making Sonic Woke. (Jon gets dragged into this because people are still mad about him drawing The Slap 20 years later. Yes, really!!) There was an unhinged change.org petition trying to get Ian fired, specifically from people who were mad that the Freedom Fighters aren't in the IDW comics. There was even a very sad little fan campaign from these people trying to get Sega to move the Sonic comic license away from IDW and over to Udon, because they thought Udon would bring Sally and Bunnie back and also make them sexy again. There's a lot of this.

(Unfortunately, Penders has also exacerbated this by gossiping about Ian on Twitter and giving these fans ammo, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)

The thing is, for years, people who only played the games or watched the cartoons had no reason to pay attention to any of this. Now, though, Ian isn't just writing for some weird spinoff comics that only the super nerds read. Now he's writing comics that are canon to the games, and ALSO some of the games themselves, and ALSO consulting on other tie-in media like Sonic Prime, and ALSO writing the official Sonic encyclopedia, and ALSO serving as part of the new Sonic Lore Team at Sega. And on top of all this, he's got an increasingly popular podcast where he fields questions about his work on all of these things, which serves as one of the fandom's main windows into creative decisions being made behind the scenes.

As a fan of Ian's work, it's been really cool to see him rise in prominence. But the dark side of this is that his obsessive haters from the Archie days now have WAY more of a potential audience of their own. Now, every Sonic fan has to have an opinion on Ian. What this frequently means is that you'll have the Comicsgate types taking things Ian writes or says out of context, attempting to get more of the general fandom to yell at the guy.

Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of Sonic fans who take the bait:

You've got hardcore fans who disliked basically any recent piece of Sonic media and are looking for someone to blame.

You've got the people who are concerned about the sanctity of Sonic's canon, who shoot the messenger any time Ian mentions a new retcon from Sonic Team on the podcast - or any time he even mentions the THOUGHT of changing anything about the canon, as we saw recently with the Sol Dimension nonsense.

You've got people who romanticize some sort of mythical artistic vision that Sega of Japan supposedly has (or had) for the franchise. To many of these fans, American contributors like Ian just don't "get" the heart of the series and are trying to turn Sonic into something different. (This "heart of the series" tends to be some mix of Japanese instruction manual lore, the cinematics from Sonic CD, the OVA, and/or the games written by Shiro Maekawa, depending on what Sonic media the fan in question grew up with.)

You've got fans of specific characters or ships who pin the blame for how their faves are depicted entirely on Ian - most vocally fans of Shadow, even though the root problem is that Sonic Team hasn't known what to do with Shadow since 2006. At best this stops at regular old criticism, but at its worst this devolves into claims that Ian has an agenda against certain characters.

You've got fans annoyed by a perceived over-emphasis on comic-original characters in the IDW comics, ignoring the obvious facts that these characters exist because the game cast is so tightly controlled by Sega, and also, you know, that people just like the IDW characters and want more stories about them.

You've got a LOT of discourse over IDW's Sonic being a hero who tries to give his enemies second chances, as if half of Sonic's closest friends aren't already former villains and rivals. Honestly this is very transparently just reheated Steven Universe discourse lmao

You'll also see people who just think they could do Ian's job better. They can't believe that THIS GUY is the American fan working on all these Sonic projects, when clearly THEY understand the characters and lore and themes SO much better than this charlatan.

All it takes is for someone in one of these categories to be unhappy about some recent piece of Sonic media, and for them to come across an out of context quote or comic panel that rubs them the wrong way, and suddenly the leftist Zoomer Sonic fans will join the latest dogpile on Ian alongside the reactionary Comicsgate types who are mad at him for Making Sonic Woke.

In general, when fandoms get upset, they tend to want a scapegoat. A person or two to point a finger at and go "THAT's who ruined the thing I love!" This tends to be based less on reality and more on which contributors are the most visible online. You'll sometimes see teenage and adult fans of children's cartoons single out a storyboarder who's particularly vocal on Twitter, blame them for every story decision they don't like, and harass them off the platform out of a sense of retribution for their favorite ship or whatever. Failing that, fans might choose to blame every nitpick, down to individual lines of dialogue and frames of animation, on a showrunner, just because that's the name they associate with the show. And unfortunately, when it comes to Sonic, Ian is now arguably the most prolific and outspoken contributor on the English speaking internet, and therefore a common scapegoat.

Some of the things I've seen Ian blamed for are truly wild. A lot of people have claimed for YEARS that he's just lying about the existence of creative guidelines and restrictions from Sega - or, as fans call them, The Mandates - even though they're just an inherent aspect of working on a licensed property. Others claim that The Mandates are real, but somehow Ian's fault. A vocal minority of fans have convinced themselves that Ian is the sole reason the Freedom Fighters don't exist in the IDW comics, even though Ian says he's been pushing to bring them back since day one.

Sometimes you'll see people say he ruined shit he didn't even work on. A few weeks ago on Twitter I saw someone claim that Ian had written a rejected script for Sonic Forces in which Tails died. I could not find a source for this for the life of me. As far as I can tell, the rumor seems to have been born from an alleged leaked script for Forces with margin notes from Aaron Webber that criticized the way Tails was written, and also an old tweet where Aaron joked that Tails would die in an upcoming episode of Sonic Mania Adventures. These merged into "Aaron Webber criticized a draft of the Forces script in which Tails died." How'd Ian get dragged into this? Who fucking knows!

It's all just a big game of telephone. All it takes is some asshole to make something up about Ian on Twitter or YouTube or a DeviantArt journal or some forum, and at least a couple people will believe it, and then it gets repeated as fact. Again, this used to be contained by the niche nature of the Archie Sonic fandom, but now there are WAY more people who are receptive to this shit.

It's just sad to me that Ian tries to be so open and honest about his work, to try to explain the rationale for certain things, to keep fans looped in on the direction the franchise is headed, and this just gives the Flynnspiracy types more quotes to take out of context and try to paint him as the devil. If it sounds like I'm being overly defensive and dismissing his critics, man... some of the things I've seen people say directly to him are just unbelievable. People will send paragraphs-long angry screeds in to his podcast that completely tear him apart, and he has to sit there and be like "Well, that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it." People literally pay for special guest interview episodes where they just rapid fire complaints about his writing at him directly to his face. I don't know how he does it. I would snap.

All of this over Sonic the fucking Hedgehog of all things.

I don't know how to wrap this up. Engaging with fandoms online is very tiring, which is why I tend not to do it. Things like this are too common. I guess, just... remember that making art collaboratively is a complicated thing. The people involved are generally trying their best given the circumstances, but they're only human. They make mistakes. But please treat them like humans. Criticism and dogpiling are not the same thing.