making an important announcement about some things i’ve noticed in the gwendoline christie fandom that really bug me.
disclaimer: read this at your own convenience and discretion. i am not responsible for any sort of hurt feelings and frankly… i don’t care. if you’re mad about this, you are probably the problem. /lh
to start with id like to begin on a positive note so that i’m not diving into negativity, i don’t want to be completely negative about my experiences because i’ve actually met some of the kindest people in the world through this fan base.
the gwen fandom, the gwandom, the gwendoline christie fandom , the lesbian cesspool, has been an incredible experience that i’m grateful i’ve had the pleasure of being apart of.
i went through a rough patch during november, and if i hadn’t found out about gwen, or met such wonderful people during my time here , i honestly wouldn’t be here right now. i owe my life to these people, gwen included. i will forever adore miss christie and what she stands for alongside the friends i’ve made along the way.
and while i know someday this hyperfix will end, it’s really disheartening to me when a fandom is what makes me grow distant from things i enjoy. it happened before, i feel as though it is happening all over again.
and no, i’m not taking issue with anything like the catrissa stuff or the brienne and larissa ship going around or anything like that. i like that we can all be weird together and enjoy aus like catrissa and crackships like bririssa (not sure the official name that was decided lol). my issue is the amount of content i’ve seen that either focuses on gwen herself, or the strange relationship with minors, or the odd artwork of gwen, and the absolute disgusting behaviour towards giles.
gwen would be absolutely appalled seeing fanfictions of herself that involve nsfw or just her in general, anyone would, it’s disgusting to make works of real people in that setting. it’s like you’re treating them as an original character you can mould and manipulate as you see fit and using someone who is real with thought and feeling and consciousness for smut fics is not okay, or any fic in general. i totally get the hype around her characters, i literally have “brienne’s princess” in my bio and i’ve had “jane murdstone’s bloodbag” (in reference to my vamp au) as a name in a discord server.
but i think the fandom has begun to blur the lines between fictional characters and reality settings when it comes to gwen and the personalities she portrays on the television screen. it’s not fair to her. it’s disgusting. i’ve seen a minor do it, i’ve seen a grown adult do it. it’s something i don’t see shamed and frowned upon often enough and it’s really not okay.
on that note i’d like to quickly mention the photos, we alllll know what photos i’m talking about. the bunny one, the nudes, the ones gwen has expressed regret towards and wishes to not have them spread. was there not a “fan” who brought her a book of her nudes and wanted her to sign it? that person who was blocked on instagram by gwen because they reposted her nudes on their story and tagged her???? how can you refer to yourself as a fan after behaving so abhorrently? absolutely disgusting behaviour. as a collective fandom we need to stop touching those photos (metaphorically speaking) and leave them in the past.
i’ve been told of numerous circumstances in which adults have shown their nsfw works to minors in this fandom and it has to fucking stop. it’s disgusting!! how can you do that knowingly? i constantly ponder terminating my account after a minor got ahold of my nsfw work, and upon realising they WERE a minor it was as simple as blocking and moving on. it’s truly not that hard, folks. and the minors on tiktok who fight with others saying silly things like “that’s my wife” or worse. i’ve seen it all, i feel like, and the more i see it the more sick i become. i cannot stand it.
i have seen and heard of fans who have fat shamed gwen for that one pink dress she wore to the met gala. she looked so happy in that dress, and the audacity one must have to fatshame that poor woman on twitter then turn around and continue to proclaim your ‘love for her’ as if you’d done no wrong? are you fucking serious? are you mental?
and the sexualisation over the porcelain doll look, gods some of you are sick. those were not real breasts, people. considering the fact she wholeheartedly regrets her nude photoshoots , what possesses you to believe she would actually flaunt her chest in that outfit?
the blatant mistreatment of poor giles is not fucking okay either. just because you’re jealous of someone who makes her immensely happy does not give you the right to post something so vile and cruel about him. shame on you. why do you believe this is okay to post:
????????
are you serious? have any of you stopped to consider how HAPPY giles makes her? or is her happiness the last thing you ponder when you look at her? have you even noticed how unhappy she looks lately? have you truly paused to consider how she would feel about seeing this on your page, random twitter user, or the rest of you who think this is okay? bless your hearts.
and some of the absolutely horrific things i’ve seen about her online and the hurtful behaviour towards giles makes me question the difference between a fan and just the general paparazzi. because if you truly loved her and you truly loved giles then i would not be ranting into the fucking void about it for no reason.
i avoid interacting with pages i find problematic on here to keep from stirring the pot but tonight i chose violence and got reeeeeal pissy about how i felt about this place. it’s not okay what i see on here and it’s getting exhausting seeing the same cycle of content on a daily.
that’s everything i have to say, i think. i probably missed a lot that should be discussed in the comments but i’m done for now because i know if i go on i’ll probably cry.
before you post things about real people with real feelings , stop to consider how they will feel those real feelings towards the content you put out. chances are you’ll become less problematic and obnoxious that way. 💘
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A Necessary Post - Yang, Taiyang & Seeing Red
I debated this being a message or a note or a reblog, but ultimately this warranted an essay. Because a hatred of nuance is not even remotely the reason why Tai is critiqued as a teacher or father.
With that fact in mind, let's begin:
During RWBY Volume 4, Episode 9: Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back Taiyang has a great deal of critical feedback for Yang regarding her fighting style, personality & Semblance.
The issue is that Tai's words and advice when compared to what we saw on screen before & afterwards demonstrate he does not understand how it works or how she used it.
So here for your reading pleasure if a more or less line by line breakdown of Tai's advice and why I don't feel it holds up & more to the point, why I don't believe Yang utilized it.
Taiyang: Do you realize that you used your Semblance to win every fight after the qualifiers?
Yang rightfully points out that her using Burn is no different than anyone else using their Semblances. I would add that Yang's Semblance only serves to enhance her already present abilities with damage taken in a fight. So her not using it would be stupidly holding back extra energy for no reason.
Tai's critique also fails to register that when using her Semblance to take out FNKI, Yang specifically disrupted the ground so Neon could not skate effectively & used the boost in power to turn Flynt's own weapon against him.
I will be addressing Mercury further down but she used it effectively and intellectually here and to great effect.
What's more, every other fights fighting style, weapons or both were literally built around their Semblances. Yang's threat level remains fairly consistent without her Semblance, all three of these other characters take a huge dip.
Taiyang: Because not everyone else's is basically a temper tantrum.
Ignoring that calling the manifestation of Yang's soul a temper tantrum is another in a long line if dickish things Tai says to Yang. Her Semblance literally does not work that way.
Her anger has jack and shit to do with it, this has been explained & demonstrated time and time again. Yang only gets a power boost when she's been injured, the fact she tends to be angry when using it is because being hurt sucks and she's usually in an intense fight. When the fight is going well and she still gets to use it she's not angry, as seen with a pleased smirk here:
So as before, Tai's critique is bereft of any merit, Yang's Semblance does not work that way.
Taiyang: I'm serious! Once you take damage, you can dish it back twice as hard, but that doesn't make you invincible!
Cite a time Yang thought she was invincible, cite it provably that Yang thought, said or indicated that she felt she was invincible. You can't because Yang never indicated as such this is something Tai is assuming about her at best.
& no her jumping in the Nevermore's mouth is not an example because she was not using her Semblance, did not take damage, it was a very effective strategy & seemingly either part of the plan, or was so easily understood that it could be safely and reliably worked into the plan. She wasn't using her Semblance here but finding evidence of risky behavior was hard, especially with her Semblance, go figure.
In fact every time Yang used her Semblance she did so only because someone landed a blow, which just happens in fights sometimes.
Taiyang: It's great when you're in a bind, but what happens if you miss? What happens if they're stronger? What then? Now you're just weak and tired!
We know what happens when Yang misses, she can swing again!
After the first blow on the Paladin she missed & needed help to catch it, her missing had zero impact on her Semblances.
As to what happens if they are stronger, um, she loses, that sometimes happens in fights. Its not something Yang can do anything about by holding back on extra strength. Not to quote Qrow but sometimes bad things happen. Other characters losing to stronger opponents don't get given this kind of diatribe's because its pointedly obvious that there was nothing to be done about it.
& on the final piece, she was very pointedly not weak and tired after using it. The only times she has been shown to be is when she was extremely low on Aura regardless in which cases not using her Semblance is a death sentence.
So again, we've established Tai's critique comes from nowhere & his understanding of her Semblance is nonexistent.
Taiyang: But you gotta keep your emotions in check. Keep a level head, and think before you act. Your Semblance is a great fallback, but you can't let yourself rely on it.
This is so painfully unfair it hurts.
No other character gets this kind of shit for expressing emotions in combat. In fact we see characters expressing emotions in battle all the time. Nor has she stopped displaying emotions in combat:
I already outlined how in all two of the Yang fights Tai actually witnessed she used strategy and retained excellent combat form. So again, baseless claims from Tai.
What's more, Yang primarily does use her Semblance as a fallback rather than rely on it in these fights. She only whipped it out against Mercury when he'd unleashed his seeming kill move on her and was confident he'd won.
Not using it here would be dumb and make no sense.
Yang doesn't rely on it to save her, she deploys it when it makes sense to & she has the energy or the need. This is more than we see from many characters.
Taiyang: It won't always save you. Obviously.
So now he is critiquing her for a fight he didn't even witness & knows jack shit about. So let's break this down once again:
Yang has spent the last 24 hours questions her sanity.
Yang's new home (Her words) is burning down.
Yang's sister is missing in all this chaos.
Then Yang's partner gets fucking stabbed, and the guy who did it is standing between them with a sword & gun, with fire all over Grimm all around.
Anything Yang can do he can counter, she tries to go around he only has to pivot. If she tries to fire from long range she might hit Blake. She tries an earth shock wave, she launches Blake into the fire.
She quite literally had no others options & zero time to try anything else because he can just shoot or stab Blake whenever he wants.
Taiyang: You definitely have your mom's stubbornness.
This, this right here is where all this is actually coming from. Tai is once again projecting Raven onto Yang despite them frankly having almost nothing in common.
With most of Yang's visible personality tells being inherited from Summer, such as the mother daughter shoulder check of V9. Thanks to chittychittyyangyang for the GIFs
Or as outlined in some songs with Yang's side of the lyrics explicitly citing how she is trying to fill the Summer shaped void in their lives.
Like the smell of a rose on a summer's day,
I will be there to take all your fears away.
Taiyang: Your mother was... a complicated woman. Like everybody, she had her faults, but those faults are what tore our team apart. And, it did a real number on our family.
Tai blames Raven for tearing their team apart. Save that by all accounts, barring her absence things seemed to be going fine. Qrow seemed to be present in their lives, Tai looked happy, the girls were happy & Summer at least seemed happy though we know she was covering up a lot of dread.
Keep in mind Tai is projecting Raven, the woman he blames for destroying the team and damaging the family onto his daughter who literally kept the family together after Summer died. Yang's established this, Ruby has established this, its canon.
Yang: I had to pick up the pieces. I had to keep things together. Alone. (pause) Weiss, if you have something to say, then say it.
Ruby: If you thought we wouldn’t come for you, then you must’ve forgotten who raised me.
Tai was not the one holding that home or family together. Unless you think the writers are gonna randomly swerve & say both Yang & Ruby are big whiny liars for some utterly nonsensical reasons. So no, I don't take him seriously as a narrator or critique of Yang, I have no reason to.
But let's push on, because I'm not done.
Taiyang: You both act like the easiest way to tackle an obstacle is through it. (pointing at Zwei) That strength is all that matters in a fight.
Ah yes, Raven, the woman famously known for thinking the easiest way to deal with an obstacles is to tackle it head on. That's why she spent years adorning herself in a Grimm helmet that hid her eyes & raised a False Maiden to serve as her body double.
A woman so inclined to rely on her own raw strength that when she was ambushed by Salem's forces she decided to trick them into an ambush.
Then when fighting Cinder and was at a disadvantage she freezes her in place while making Cinder think she is going on the offensive leaving her to be crushed by Stalactites & also utilized mind games to distract her & deal the finishing blow... Cos she only relies on strength.
As to his final piece of advice I already address it up above, there was no way around Adam, the situation was fucked from the start.
Saying it was Yang's fault she was dismembered is no more than victim blaming, I stood by that in Volume 3 to to this day & beyond.
Taiyang: But if you just take a second look, then maybe you see... (walking toward her, stepping around Zwei) there's a way around as well.
But let's actually look at Seeing Red & if Yang listened to Tai's advice or if she not only ignored it but did the opposite of what he ordered.
Let's see she goes in with open aggression & emotions, and also takes many blows rather than going 'around' them somehow.
Yang, as if she were 'indestructible' outright tanks a massively charged up Aura beam for the purpose of increasing her strength.
Then burns through all of her Aura & Semblance energies delivering one direct blow, relying on it to save her & leaving her weak & tired.
Or in other words, she:
Yang didn't miss, but we know that isn't a real issue anyway.
Yang used her Semblance to 'win' the fight & very much did rely on it to save her.
Yang expressed anger & many other emotions in the battle & still continues to does so.
Yang willingly took huge risks that involved her being able to take tons of damage rather than go "Around" the problem.
Yang knew Adam was likely stronger given it was 2 V1 but relied on her Semblance to get her out of that bind and she was in fact left weak and tired.
This is also the first time she has done several of these things, or otherwise demonstrated these traits, such as being left weak and tired or willingly tanking big attacks rather than just being hit by surprise or due to being overwhelmed.
I don't take Tai's advice seriously because none of it was accurate or aligned with the Semblance we saw in action or had described to us.
I don't trust Tai's opinion on Yang because his take on her is explicitly informed by Raven & not the Yang we spent four & then five more volumes getting to know.
I don't take Tai's words over Yang's, Ruby's or what we see on screen because Tai is at best a secondary or minor character & a recurring theme in RWBY is the failure of older generations.
These failures are not just in the past but how they have been consistently failing the next generation as the story is being told. There is zero reason to think Tai is some magic exception to this narrative trend when much more well explored characters like Maria, Qrow, Ozpin, Ironwood, Raven, and hell, Summer Rose are not.
& that is my stance on that, thanks for tuning in!
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I've been thinking about AGGGTM ships again. This series isn't meant to be ship heavy (as it should be, because I barely survived the shipping madness from HSMTMTS) but I love writing about both the canon + non-canon couples. So I've decided to talk about ships I've seen for AGGGTM in this post because I have uni assigments due and I wanna procrastinate.
Disclaimer: These are just ships I've seen on Instagram or Twitter. My opinion is my opinion and if you don't like it, then just move on. This is only gonna be non-canon pairings so don't expect PipRavi or JamieNat here (because I ship those and this is only about non-canon pairings).
Pippa Fitz-Amobi/Connor Reynolds: eh... I can kind of see it. I see it in the sense of them being childhood crushes that fade in a week. Connor did canonically have a crush on Pip in book 1 that faded after book 1 (it wasn't mentioned again). They wouldn't have anything long-term as they're better off friends.
Jamie Reynolds/Stanley Forbes: This ship has four fics on AO3 and I've actually enjoyed them. I'm personally more of a JamieNat shipper but this one is pretty cute. I see it as Stanley being Jamie's bi awakening (I hc Jamie as being bi). They'd be cute if you know... Stanley didn't die.
Ant Lowe/Connor Reynolds: UH NO FUCKING WAY. Even if we're going based off book 1, they'd still be awful because of how Ant acted in the series. He was so disrespectful towards Connor when he pulled that prank in Kill Joy, knowing that they were running on limited time. He's also so nasty towards Connor in Good Girl, Bad Blood when Jamie went missing. I can't even imagine these two working out in an alternate timeline because I fucking despise Ant Lowe. Fuck Ant Lowe I hope Jamie beat his ass when he found out about how he treated Pip and Connor during his disappearance.
Cara Ward/Lauren Gibson: I really like this ship! I'm still not Lauren's biggest fan (she reminds me of a former friend), but I think the show might change that since Ant's not there. Asha and Yali have lovely chemistry from what we've seen in their posts. I also feel like Lauren having a sapphic arc would be better than that Ant/Lauren nonsense. Seriously, wtf was that???
Zach Chen/Connor Reynolds: YES YES YES YES. If you follow me, then you know how much I love this ship (I created their AO3 tag btw). They would be so cute together! I kinda feel like Connor had a little crush on Zach in the book (he was acting pretty secretive about where he was after the memorial in ggbb. Like dude, nobody cares if you were playing Fortnite with Zach. Is there something else you're not telling us???). I would love for them to make them canon in the show (especially since Zach is there... and why would you add him but cut Ant?), but it's unlikely.
Pippa Fitz-Amobi/Max Hastings: EWWW DISGUSTING. IF YOU FUCKING SHIP THIS GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME YOU WEIRDO 🤮 (Yes, this is a real ship I've seen when looking through the ship tags on ao3 😭).
That's all I can think of. Some of these were fine... except Ant/Connor and Pip/Max. Anyways bye! - Em <333
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On a previous post, you said that Arlecchino was "lowkey a pervert". Pretty please may I request headcanons on Arlecchino being a perv to her S/O?
You most certainly may !! :3c thanks for the request !!
Headcanons below the cut,
Content: Gender neutral reader (referred to as 'you'), pre-established romantic relationship, some flirtatious/downright suggestive themes. All of this is in the context of a pre-established relationship where this behaviour has been deemed okay by both parties.
MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM
Arlecchino is very smug, and not much phases her (except maybe some genuine soft fluffy statements and such, so keep that in mind!). Most of the time she's just deadpan, stone cold and perfectly composed.
She's such a tease, just about every time you stand up or walk by her she'll make a comment on how your ass looks nice (maybe give it a playful swat if she's feeling a little rowdy). Even if she doesn't say anything, you can just feel her staring with that devilish little smirk on her lips.
She loves to pull you into her lap with little to no warning, just wrapping her arms around you and tugging you in close as she noses into your neck.
Nothing excites her more than being able to claim 'ownership' of you in public. If given the opportunity, she'll drag you into her lap at the dinner table or coax you into sitting right up against her at any given opportunity, flaunting you in front of the other Fatui members like a designer accessory. Failing that, she always gifts you clothes and accessories that she knows you'll wear (and that she knows people will recognise that she bought them for you).
She also adores teasing you by whispering raunchy things to you and watching you squirm, or giving you sly looks as she licks her lips and smirks. She's also fond of grabbing your thighs, or taking your hand in hers and guiding it to sit on her thigh (squish squish!) and watching your embarrassed reaction
She's downright clingy at times, standing behind you and wrapping her arms around your waist (or chest) as she nuzzles her face into you.
If given the opportunity, she'll leave lipstick marks all over you for everyone to see. She has a special shade that she wears just so it'll show up obviously on your skin tone.
Despite her own clinginess and possessiveness, she'll always tease you the moment you show any signs of neediness yourself, tutting her tongue at you and putting on a voice that borders on infantilising simply because she loves to tease you.
Please don't repost, steal, copy or otherwise plagarise my writing! This includes posting translations to other sites.
MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT!!
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