"oh i have too many crushes / f/os i need to stop-" would you love only a few flowers in a meadow. selfship with the entire cast who gaf nobody can stop you self indulgence is the name of the game. do not be a coward.
my piece for @thecodywanzine! thanks to the mods who let me go completely ham and cheese on this bad boy. this one's about living longer than you ever expected and not knowing what to do with it
HTTYD 2 is ten years old today, it was my first exposure to the franchise and despite its many glaring flaws i can't help but love it and hold it so close to my heart.
This scene is a great example of why.
I love it so much. It's a heart-wrenchingly beautiful reminder that as good as he is, Hiccup is not some perfect hero. He is still just a person, a flawed human being who has cracked under the pressure of his circumstances and is barely given time to grieve his fathers' death.
(I adore scenes like this — It humanizes characters so much more, and just adds to that layer of perceived realism.)
And you can see the regret on his face as soon as he says it. But in that moment he doesn't do anything about it; he's still processing Stoick's death, and he only snaps out of it when he sees Toothless is under the Bewilderbeast's control again and Valka has to hold him back from attempting to go after him.
What he said and did to Toothless there was a momentary lapse in judgment fueled by grief. And later, as he breaks Toothless out of the Alpha's control, you can see he feels terrible about it. About how, even if it was brief, he pushed away his best friend. And he loves Toothless so much.
The way he talks to him literally breaks me every time I rewatch it.
"It wasn't your fault, you'd never hurt him, you'd never hurt me."
"Please, you... are my best friend, bud. My best friend."
And when Toothless comes back he just looks so elated to see Hiccup.
Though, Something that's even crazier to me is the fact all this takes place over less than a week. Once he gets toothless back and Drago is defeated, he is immediately made chief. And with the state berk is in, he is given presumably no time to properly mourn Stoick, or to fully adjust to the presence of his mother.
(though I feel his and Valka's relationship will never be what it could've been. He knows she chose not to come back, and that is a blow to their newly formed and fragile bond that, as much as they love each other, is not something she can ever fully make up for.)
But at least through everything, since the beginning, the one real constant he's had has been Toothless.
They're friendship was built off a mutual feeling of out-of-placeness, then unconditional trust and unwavering loyalty.
they love each other so much it makes me wanna throw up
It's okay to be emotional over a ship. It's okay to be emotional over characters. It's okay to share grievances over a ship as much as it's okay to gush over a ship. It's okay to feel so overwhelmingly negatively over a ship just as much as it's okay to feel so overwhelmingly positive.
While it's always going to be better to focus on positives, it can also be just as good to let out any negatives you might have about something rather than bottling it in and, for some, feeling alone in your thoughts about it.
It is so, so, SO OKAY to be so heavy in emotions concerning a ship whether negative or positive because it means you're invested in the characters and their relationships. When spaces seem to allow only positivity when some people might have some negative thoughts on a ship, it really negates any conversations about it and even understanding sides of why someone may or may not ship something.
While understandable, there is a double standard between being negative and positive about ships (or portrayal of characters). If you feel overwhelmingly negative about something, "you need to go touch grass". If you feel overwhelmingly positive about something, "go at it queen". I would personally argue we all need to touch grass.
It is NOT okay to harass others. It is NOT okay to let your emotions dictate that you should attack somebody for LIKING a certain ship or DISLIKING a certain ship. Your emotions DO NOT dictate how OTHERS should feel.
It is okay to be negative about a character or ship as much as it's okay to be positive about them. Neither side of being for or against a ship is more virtuous than the others. It's okay to have some fucking emotions regardless if their positive or not, because it means you CARE about the media and the characters in it.
No, you should not revolve your whole online experience in negativity. Find positive in things you DO enjoy. But to brush off people who vehemently might dislike a character or ship as "losers with no lives" is to disregard a person's emotions on something. And if you do wanna think that mindset, congrats, people who obsessively love a character or ship are just the same by your logic. Obsession is obsession, regardless if it's negative or positive.
TL;DR, If it's okay to be overwhelmingly positive in liking something like a ship or character, it should be just as okay to be negative in disliking something like a ship or character. Just as long as it's not the ONLY thing you focus on and no one is actively being bullied, attacked, or harassed about it. And of course, either way, positive or negative, it is all fiction, and a real person should not be attacked or harassed for it. And if you don't want to indulge in negativity you might have, 100% valid. Both sides always need to take a step back into reality.
We are interrupting our regularly scheduled program to bring you a snippet of a potential ZoSan undercover as a married couple fic:
(Timeline wise shoehorned in sometime shortly after the timeskip, before the Strawhats make it back into the news big time.)
(People need saving from a exclusive circle of nobility, but most of the Stawhats have already been seen around the island, so the lot ends up on Zoro and Sanji to try get in posing as a freshly married couple on their honeymoon to try get more information.)
[after coming up with the plan and Zoro and Sanji hesitantly agreeing]
Robin: "You seem a little stressed, Cook-san."
Sanji, chain-smoking his third cigarette: "I'm fine, I'll do this… I just… I don't like lying about something as significant as marriage, alright? I know it's stupid, but that's just how I am."
Luffy, perking up from where one might have thought he wasn't paying attention at all: "Oi, Sanji, promise to protect Zoro?"
Sanji, puffing out smoke: "Obviously, the Marimo would get lost within all of two seconds without me having his back."
Luffy: "Good! Now, Zoro--!"
Zoro, already rising to the bait: "Oi, if anyone is protecting anyone, I'll be guarding your lanky ass, shit cook!"
Luffy, laughing: "Alright, then as the captain of this ship I hereby pronounce you married!"
Zoro:
Sanji:
Robin: "Oh my, congratulations!"
Brook: bursts into song
Luffy, grinning at Sanji: "See, now it's not a lie anymore, so you don't have to feel bad about calling Zoro your husband."
Zoro: "LUFFY!!! YOU CAN'T JUST--"
Sanji: wordlessly walks off to get ready for the mission
Usopp: "Wait, wait!" runs after Sanji, grabbing his wrist
Sanji: stares
Usopp, sweating nervously: "Need your ring size…"
Sanji: staring intensifies
Usopp, scurrying off as quickly as humanly possible: "Wedding gift!"
Luffy, in the distance, still being yelled at by Zoro: "Too bad we don't have time to celebrate, I really want some wedding cake… :("
Ive been seeing an increased number of people in fandom tags going “I want to do this- should I do this?? would people be interested if I did this?”
and im
i am holding all of you gently
do not let the validation of strangers prevent you from playing!!!
be “cringe”! if you let the amount of attention you get on the internet be the main motivator for your fun you will end up in a spot where you resent having fun because you’ve stopped having fun for YOU, you’re having fun for people you don’t know and it sucks!!
fandom is for fun not for making consumable content (ick)
The cutest reminder ever that the way family works in TSAMS canon is that two parties have to be in mutual agreement that they are family. If one party doesn't agree then they aren't family. Parties can revoke familial ties whenever they want and that means they are no longer family.
"Code Relation" theory is stupid because you're then implying that Eclipse is Sun and Moon's child. Which he isn't. Or that Killcode is somehow Moon's child and his brother at the same time that he's Eclipse, Lunar and Bloodmoon's "father" at the same time that they're Sun and Moon's grand children. Like, we're seeing the issue here, right?
Don't make things more complicated than it has to be. Just accept the fact that family is literally determined by a verbal agreement between two animatronics and nothing else because none of them were born from wombs. That means respecting canon when characters in canon decide that they aren't comfortable being family (like Eclipse) or just straight-up disown everyone (like Bloodmoon). It's okay to have headcanons, but don't try to push them onto canon.
I’m pretty sure Mike and El are the only couple in the show that don’t have shared interests.
Lucas and Max: Arcade games
Dustin and Suzie: Science/Technology
Jonathan and Nancy: Documenting life (Through Photography/Journalism)
Joyce and Hopper: Investigation (Hop was a cop, Joyce is Joyce) +caring for their kids
Mike and El are never given any interest that they both have and do together. Their relationship isn’t even given much volume beyond their trauma bonding. They actually went out of their way to have El dismissing Mike’s interests and only have El gain her own when she’s away from Mike.
With every other couple we have scenes of their shared interests adding to their relationship. Scenes that prove that their dynamic is rooted in a real, not-purely-physical connection.
There is one other couple who didn’t have shared interests… (*cough* Steve and Nancy *cough* who are broken up *cough*).
Mike and Will by default have a lot of shared interests. They’d be the only best friends to lovers in the show (which is actually crazy in a show with so many couples and friendships). DnD, despite being the root of the party itself, is specifically tied to these two in an interesting way. They’ve used dnd a few times as text above a more romantic subtext, which I feel like deserves its own post.
(I feel like it’s worth noting that technically they have Art (writing and painting), but Mike’s interest in writing has never been specifically confirmed in the show, so I’m not counting that.)
I’d be really interested in seeing canon byler having an isolated interest in season 5 that goes beyond subtext. Even if it’s still dnd, just isolated.