#so unless they’re like… super homophobic… they probably just won’t care

[wiz1ys]

the only thing i love and that i am confident about is that the ga collectively agreed that mike drastically changed in s3 and hated him for it ? for example i binge watched st in 2019 when s3 came out and when s4 came out i remembered no detail except the outline of the show and that mike was annoying like 😭 so we can ALL agree that mike’s change needs explanation no matter what

[djhedy]

what is canon and should we respect it (a not-essay on aftg fandom)

i want to write an *entire* essay on this but i am between meds right now so exhausted and suffering a HEAT WAVE (uk?? why! we are normally so temperate) and also there's always a risk of sounding patronising when trying to put your opinions/experience across, so i'll try to write briefly and wotnot

what is canon:

"the material accepted as officially part of the story in an individual universe of that story" or, as we'd probably all put it "wot the author wrote"

why this matters, and why the author matters - our characters wouldn't exist without them

beyond a basic respect for the author, which i would define as like not being a bitch to them (because every human being has feelings, and this is something easily forgotten on the internet), we land on the question "should we respect canon"

well... maybe?

it sort of depends why you're here. the experience of literature/art can be defined a few ways: what the author intended, what the reader experiences, the impact on society.

what nora intended: if you care, she's written a lot of extra content on tumblr. but given that the majority of people who read the books probably won't care enough to find the extra content, this isn't canon. it isn't canon because it isn't in the books of the story. calling it canon is gatekeeping. but it's SUPER FUN and i enjoy seeing what nora's interpretation of her own characters are. thanks nora we luv u.

the impact on society: people get SO UPSET about this question. and it's a reasonable question for sure. art does impact society and vice versa. i just kind of don't think this is the big deal you think it is. people are always hunting for signs of homophobia, sexism, transphobia etc in fandom works. and like... sure, you can do that if you'll enjoy it. this essay isn't really about this, and i don't want to ramble. but aftg is an indie publication. its impact is so insubstantial. maybe chill out. the people who are like AARON IS HOMOPHOBIC BUT ANDREW THE MURDERER IS UWU or, opposite, SETH DESERVED REDEMPTION AND MATT IS ABLEIST - my guys it's a book. these characters are flawed. literature isn't meant to be a pinnacle of morals (unless... it is) and we're supposed to love these characters because they work through their flaws and settle into who they are. are they still dicks at the end? sure! it's fun. not everything has to be light and perfect. and you'll have more fun with art if you stop hunting for homophobes in the fandom of an independent publication with a few thousand readers. that's not how to succeed at the gay agenda. we're on it, i promise.

WHAT THE READER EXPERIENCES: this is the big one! you know when you read a book or watch a film and say "oh wow so it was about THIS, THIS was the important bit!" and someone disagrees? well, they're not wrong and you're not wrong. experience is a whole thing. what someone has experienced in life before they come to the art, what they experience during the art itself. art is a communication from the creator to the audience and that communication is subtle and will be different for *every* single person.

this will upset a lot of people, but it isn't canon that neil is demisexual. the label isn't mentioned once in the books. can it be inferred? ABSOLUTELY. he's demi in all of my fanfics because i personally love it. but nora mentioning it in extra content does not make it canon, in the same way that jkr telling everyone she saw dumbledore as gay after the books, does not make it canon. #theauthorisdead (but let's still be nice to them. ...unless you're jkr. fuck jkr.)

my point is just that canon doesn’t always matter. collectively most of us have decided neil is demi, which is important rep to a lot of people without rep. how sexy of us.

and experience matters. there will be people to whom it's important to write neil as not-very-demi. there will be people to whom it's important to write neil as super ace. be kind to each other.

i've decided i need to add another heading.

WHAT'S THE POINT OF FANFICTION?

to preserve canon? no, because... nora already did that. there's a huge amount of fun to be had trying to write neil and andrew as *accurately* as possible - but this *accuracy* will be different from person to person. because a work of literature is complicated and writing is hard and - individual experience. we've already gone through that. but like, have you ever tried to write andrew's dialogue accurately, the way he speaks like he's half-high half-shakespearean?? it's DIFFICULT. i have tried.

you know what's also fun? experimenting. what would their relationship be like if neil was an alcoholic. what if andrew liked wearing dresses. what if one of them cheated. what if matt died of a drug overdose.

in my head the point of fanfiction is EXPLORATION.

sometimes you're exploring the characters as accurately to your experience of them as possible, sometimes you're adding a new element in to see how they would react. let's be honest, that new element is usually something you're obsessed with in your own life. gender presentation? why people cheat? why people relapse? why relationships break down?

anyway, back to the list.

WHAT'S THE POINT OF FANFICTION?

to dick around and have a nice time? yes.

to work through your own identities/traumas/what have you? probably if you're anything like me and basically everyone i know in the fandom lol.

i think this is everything i want to say.

no wait i lied! final point.

if you've ever studied literature or philosophy the first things they teach you is to question *everything*. for example: what is fanfiction, what is canon, "we have to respect canon" do we??

if you've heard someone using the word "feminisation" to mean "make neil soft uwu", rather than repeating the word, question why it's being used here. what does feminise mean, what does soft mean. maybe you love the dark side to neil, maybe other people like the side of him that can heal.

there's nothing wrong with playing with sexual dynamics and relationship dynamics. sometimes you might be writing something cliched, homophobic, sexist - if you work out you are doing that, maybe stop it. on the other hand lots of couples *do* play out the dynamics of - trousers on in the bedroom, trousers on in the relationship. it's not homophobic to depict a homosexual relationship where one is subby and one is dommy. it exists. so like, chill a little.

and remember you are not always right and everyone is different?

man did i accidentally make this patronising?

woops.

lots of love hedy x

[awhst-alt]

I HAD THE BEST BYLER DREAM LAST NIGHT AND I REALLY WANNA SHARE IT WITH YOU ALL

it's so long (literally 2k words) so im gonna put it under the cut haha <3

so basically this would take place after mike and will start dating or something, idk exactly the time frame (i picture them being like 18 or something and this is the summer before college) and will goes to this summer arts program for like 2/3 months (i dunno how long american summer is but something like that) and its all the way far from home so there is dorms and stuff and he's "not in hawkins anymore" (no pun intended)

mike and will decide after will finishes his school they'd go to college together (cuz they're gonna be comic book artists together bc thats boyfriend shit) so throughout these months he's practically just waiting for will (<333333)

so one specific scene i remember from my dream involved will and mike getting off the bus to the school and then they hug and then mike grabs wills hand and brings him behind the bus and then he gives will a biggg kiss bc he won't be able to kiss him for 3 months. then they say they love each other and will gives him another quick kiss and is like "two kisses". they agree they'd call each other every day.

so will goes inside and mike goes back on the bus and goes home.

and basically the whole day is a whirl, until the end of it, in which mike is sitting in the kitchen near the phone waiting for like 3 hours for will to call, and will doesn't end up calling.

AND THEN IT GETS SPICYYYYY

so meanwhile at the arts program will asks like the front desk or something if he can call mike and they say phone is offlimits and they don't let him call mike

so then will goes to sleep and he's paranoid that he thinks mike is gonna hate him or something like that

mk than the next day in class there is this girl (they didn't reveal her name in the dream, ill call her stella) so stella is basically looking at will the entire class but will doesn't know it

so when they exit the class stella's like "hi" and will says "hi"

then stella says "i like your painting."

will is like rlly weirded out so he goes "thanks?"

"i um- hope this doesn't sound weird but i have no friends, do you want to be mine?"

"sure"

and then end of scene (this does not sound like a normal conversation but it's my dream so it doesn't have to make sense"

so BACK AT HAWKINS mike is still sleeping even tho it's like 3 pm because yk depressed boyfriend shit but then the PHONE RINGS and mike gets out of bed frantically and goes to the phone and he picks it up and is like "will?" and then it answers "it's el, idiot"

i feel like this is important for context but el speaks english very well now and hoppers back and she lives with hopper and not the byers anymore. ANYWAYS

el says "how's will?"

mike says "idk he didn't call"

"he didn't?"

"no, he didn't"

"okay. well maybe he will call later"

"yeah mb"

"wanna come over"

"ok"

so mike hangs up and gets changed and goes to el's house bc they r a couple o' besties and when he gets there it's like a therapy sessions bc mike usally talks to will every single day and he can't for like 3 months (unless will calls, but he's not going to) so he accepts he's gonna be depressed for 3 months and he's just talking to el about how he's gonna miss him so much and no be able to see his face and that shit

so el's like "well do u wanna do something to take ur mind off of him"

and mike's like "no im not gonna replace will" (I SCREAMED IN MY DREAM SRSLY)

but than el says "okay. guess im gonna go to the mall by myself" (ig starcourt is rebuilt by now)

and than mike bolts up and is like "fine"

"we can by something for will"

"okay yay"

so then they go to starcourt yasss!!

anyways back at the art school will is having lunch and stella is with he friends (even tho she said she doesn't have any friends) and one of her friends is like "omg did you see _____ he's so hot"

and another friend says "YESS! but ____ is cuter"

"what abt u stella? who do u have ur eyes on"

she says "byers" BUT NOOOOOOO WILL IS MIKES MAN

and they say "ew that kid who came back to life"

she says "yea. but he's cute, and shy, and once i wrap them around my finger i can get them to do anything"

so then she goes to sit down next to will at lunch

"hi will"

"hi"

"hru"

"im good"

"okay. good." and she gets upset because will goes ask how she is but she keeps her urging rage inside. and than they have this weird conversation and will is uncomfortable the whole time bc shes all like flirting with him and will is seeing someone obvi

but then she puts a hand on will's shoulder and he's shaking and then says something (idk what it is it wasn't explaining in my dream) then will stands up and runs to the bathroom. so he's just sitting in the stalls crying.

okay back at starcourt this part wasn't shown in my dream but im just gonna make up that mike and el go looking around starcourt for something for will (sort of like the mike/lucas/will montage where they were looking for stuff for el) and then i guess they find something for will and i don't have the slightest idea what they could have got for him BUT THEY GOT HIM SOMETHING GOOD

so mike's all happy but they'res still that depression inside of him lol

so fast forward a week, it really isn't explained but ill just make up that will still hasn't called mike, and he's super sad and all sleeping in but decides to look through his good ol binder full of will's drawings and in the arts school will and stella have a few more interactions im sure which are still very uncomfortable

okay so it's lunch again in the cafeteria and somehow will and stella are talking again but somehow it ends in stella kissing will and will like pulls away immediatley and is like "what is wrong with you!?"

and she says "what?"

"i'm seeing someone!"

"oh i uh- i didn't know."

the whole cafeteria is staring at them

so will's freaking out almost on the verge of a panic attack "idk what to do, he's gonna hate me and-"

"he?"

will has the look on his face like shit shit shit oh fuck no

"you're gay?"

"i-"

and will runs off once again. and everyone in the whole cafeteria knows that he's day and ofc with everybody being homophobic will knows it's not good at all bc everyone's gonna bully him

so then the next day he goes to class and the teacher is like "does anyone care to tell me where ___ is?" (it would be like a math question like 'where x is' but in art idkkk) and then the teacher calls on "will? can you tell me where ___ is?" and they'res a pause and then the teacher says "or perhaps you'd want to find your boyfriend instead?" (giving me anne with an e vibes prolly cuz i did a rewatch last weekend but i won't explain more in case some people haven't watched it but) anyways will stands up from his seat, everyone is looking at him, and he's shaking and so concerned but then he goes "fuck. you" badass will yeaaaa thats my boy

so then he runs out of the classroom and out of the school in a really cool montage way but then he realizes he's like 2 hours away from home but he runs and runs and he goes to a random bustop (it's not even garanteed if it takes him to hawkins but whatever) he gets on and tries to go back to hawkins.

and soon enough, he gets there, and immediatley goes to the wheelers because he needs to see mike and apologize for everything. so he's at the wheelers, and rings the doorbell, realizing he's still in his uniform lol but karen answers and mike is upstairs in his room sulking (i picture it would be 8 pm by now) so will asks for mike and karen calls mike. mike groans obviously because he doesn't know it's his boy, but he comes down, karen gets out of the way and as soon as he sees will they have a really big hug and it's super sweet and my heart UFHEIOSKA

mike says his usual "are you okay?" and mike is still confused as shit but will says "i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry" and mike says "you don't have to be sorry for anyrhing" but will says "ill explain"

so then they go to will's room, side-by-side on his bed and will starts explaining everything

(this is mostly improvised by me but it's still pretty similar to the dream)

"i hated it."

"the school?"

"yeah. there was no you, (mike blushes lmao), everything was terrible, i felt so lonely, they didn't let me call you-"

"what?"

"they said the phone was off limits. i wanted to talk to you so bad and i thought you'd hate me"

"i could never hate you, will, even if i tried." will smiles

"and then there was this girl, and she hit on me and i didn't know what to do bc i'd be the face of the school if i told her i was dating you and was gay and today she kissed me"

"WHAT"

"im sorry im sorry i didn't kiss back and i was so scared bc i never was in a relationship before and i was so scared it was considered cheating-"

and mike LAUGHSS

"what? mike? what's wrong?"

"if you don't do anything back, it's not considerd 'cheating'"

"oh. good. are you mad at me?"

"what? no! no never!" so mike opens his arms and says "come here" so will and mike hug or something like that and then mike says "do you need me to beat her up?"

and will says "you can't even beat eggs. besides, your noodle arms wouldn't be able to do harm to even a fly"

so mike laughs and says "i'm glad your home"

so will blurts "i cursed out a teacher"

"you? cursing?"

"yes."

"might have to start calling you a bad boy now"

will just smiles and says "i love you"

and mike says "i love you too"

AND THEN END AND IM SO PROUD OF MYSELF BC I LOVE THIS DREAM LIKE I CAN'T BELIEVE MY BRAIN THOUGHT OF THIS BUT IM OBSESSED

ALSO ONCE I FINISH WYBMFFAE ILL PROBABLY WRITE THIS INTO A FULL BLOWN FIC BUT AHIHFUSAH

edit: i have no idea what mike did with the present him and el bought for will but i guess they ended up giving it to him lol

[piratejct]

* 𝐠𝐞𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐚𝐲, 𝐜𝐢𝐬-𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐞 + 𝐡𝐞 / 𝐡𝐢𝐦 | you know 𝐤𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐲 “𝐬𝐢𝐝” 𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐮, right? they’re 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐰𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐨𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 by 𝐨𝐡𝐢𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫𝐬 like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole 𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐧𝐭’𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐚𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐭𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬, 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟎𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬, 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐨 thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is 𝐣𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝟏𝟔𝐭𝐡, so they’re a 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐧, which is unsurprising, all things considered.

NAME: kassidy averescu  NICKNAME(S): sid. strictly sid  D.O.B: january 16th, 1996 AGE: 25 BIRTH PLACE: irving, north carolina  CURRENTLY RESIDING: irving, north carolina SEXUALITY: bi-curious, but we don’t talk about it  OCCUPATION: entitled twat / pesky lil crook 

tw: mentions of gangs, crime, drugs, weapons, attempted murder but not really. 

BACKSTORY: 

born and raised in irving, has lived in the same freakin’ mansion in aquila drive pretty much his whole life. serving you the full rich boy fantasy, except it’s all rotten. illegal as shit. his mother, who’s been pretty much an outlaw since she was in her early twenties, literally runs like a tiny little crime organization where she recruits family members and people she finds trustworthy enough to pull off heists and just... earn all that $$$ in ways that could get you seriously fucked if anyone ever found out. she’s quite powerful and.. frankly quite scary for a woman in her late fifties. truly knows how to get shit done. i mean.. she trained her kids to be semi successful young criminals, so.. that’s pretty badass of her. 

to be fair, though, he still had a childhood. he wasn’t, like, laundering money at the age of six. growing up, he obviously wasn’t exposed to a lot of illegal stuff. would get whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted and didn’t even question it. thought for the longest time that his mother really was this successful business lady or whatever, and all the shady people in their living room past 10pm were just other company owners. 

never met his dad. guy’s been out of the picture since before his mother even knew she was pregnant. has few half-siblings, though none of them probably has the same father as their mom was never one for commitment. sid fully leaves the half part out when talking about them, because.. well, they all pretty much grew up together, so that makes them 100% siblings. 

he’s the only boyo in the family and uhh... sometimes it’s as if he believes he deserves special treatment because of it??? idk. 

did well enough in high school, got accepted to college in charlotte on a swimming scholarship even though the fam had more than enough money to pay for the studies. but, he was a good swimmer and.. it was recognized. he used to compete a little and even won a couple of times, but.. he still wanted more. started getting greedy. grew up getting everything handed to him, was the best on the high school swimming team so when he went off to college and met another guy who was maybe even slightly better?? oh, hello, he was not gonna take it. i think that was like the first time he felt properly jealous. threatened to shit. at that point in his life, he was aware of the stuff his mother had been pulling, having been involved a couple of times before. so, he thought he could just take the matter into his own hands and once before a competition, he crushed up a bunch of sleeping pills and had someone slip them into the dude’s gatorade. guy literally passed out in the water and almost drowned. to nobody’s surprise, the competition was put on hold and sid literally had the audacity to be like ??? what !! but he passed out, so .. how does that not mean i win??? 

anyways, the accomplice felt so horrible about this, they told on him and sid was obviously kicked out of uni. in fact, the whole situation was serious enough for people to want to take it even further (aka to court) but that’s where sid’s mom stepped in and did some of her ~ magic ~ to get her shit child, as well as the overall family name, out of trouble. she was so, so disappointed, though. like, wow, she went in on him, and he cried like a little bitch on the ride home. hasn’t spoken of this incident since, but if you bring it up, he’ll stick to the story the guy just passed out. not his fault. don’t hold it against him. <3 

has grown a lil since the incident. learned to be more careful when it comes to sabotage. now, he’ll smile to the opponents face, lose with grace, and afterwards get his revenge if he’s feeling petty enough. 80% of the time, he is. 

currently lives with the fam and is very involved in the whole.. heisting. gets a massive kick out of it, tbh. 

PERSONALITY: 

um, first of all, he’s absolutely unhinged. quite unpredictable. like, he’s not necessarily always ready to stab someone, but there are moments where he just does something and you’re like ??? oh my fucking god, please stop. literally, whenever he’d get angry abt something he’d go a little off the rails and maybe shoot the radio or the tv and his mom wld jst be like ... it’s okay, baby. go at it. i’ll let you shoot one object a week. whatever makes you feel better <3 so yea, in a way she... encouraged a lot of this behavior?? idk, i don’t wanna point fingers, but if she had let him.. not be a brat for a second, he wld maybe be a different person today. rip. 

restless. so fucking restless. and you know what does not help?! all the coke he does! and molly! and other shit that doesn’t do any good when your mind is already going hundred miles per minute. yum, yum. 

absolutely thrillseeker. he just wants to feel stuff. adrenaline rush 24/7. can somewhat contain himself enough not to mess up when on a job, but in his free time?? he’ll literally get someone to ram his head into a wall and freakin’ laugh abt it. it’s a mess. a riot. 

omg ... has the nasty tendency of handling weapons like they’re toys. will spontaneously do shit like a point a gun at you or put it in his mouth and be like ... yo yo yo. thinks it’s funny? i honestly don’t know what’s going thru his mind. 

because his thoughts move at the speed of light, he also tends to speak super fast when he’s all riled up abt something. also knows a bit of asl n ... its actually quite scary how fast he can sign along. 

doesn’t hold back. if he feels strongly abt something, he’ll prob voice his opinion. isn’t afraid to be like “i hate that guy and i don’t want him around” when the guy is literally stood there like ?? chill. i just came to get my copy of great gatsby ??

acts like he’s the shit. conceited prick. self-proclaimed big dick energy, but if u look closer, it reeks of insecurities. absolutely never point that out. 

genuinely offended when he can’t be the best/most skillful person in the room, esp if it it’s something he considers himself good at. has bit of a hard time admitting defeat. 

fr the most part, his bark seems bigger than his bite. has definitely tried resolving conflicts by going “mooooooom!!!!” at the age of twenty-fuckin’-five. manbaby realness. 

guess he can be bit of a fuckboi?? sleeps with a bunch of ladies while looking at boys from afar and going ..... *heavy sigh*. has had a crush on.. quite a few, but he’d rather eat his own hair than ever publicly admit to it. 

though, he’s by no means homophobic. jst ... a little unsure of his sexuality n it makes him a lil insecure. bt.. vulnerabilities and ... that sorta stuff?? pfft. not in his household. 

also . don’t call him kassidy. he won’t respond. unless you’re his mom. and you’re angry. then he might weep. 

WCS: 

um. i’ll make a list at some point maybe bt until then.... come punch him in the gut? <3 

[athena1138]

About Me/Tag List

I figured I’d go ahead and instead of just updating my tag list, I’d just create a full About Me because I don’t really have one. 

I’m absurdly shy, so instead of talking to other people like a proper member of society, I just go like/reblog every post someone shares until they either block me or they talk to me lol. (So, if I’m in your notes a lot, I greatly enjoy your presence and consider you a friend even if we’ve never said a word to each other.)  If you’re interested, my Ask box or my DMs are always open to people who wanna talk. I’m not a great conversationalist, so it’d be best if you just throw me into a topic instead of trying to make small talk.

My name’s Becca. I’m 25, live in the U.S., use she/her pronouns, and I’m queer. I would use a more specific label but frankly idfk what's going on anymore.

I graduated with a Bachelor’s in Mandarin Chinese, and I also speak nearly fluent Spanish and a bit of French. I’ve got 2 cats, Varric and Chowder.

Athena1138 is my name for just about everything--snap, insta, tiktok, twitch, steam, epic. I’m on both PlayStation and Xbox under Blackheart1138 because I was young and edgy. I’ve got an ao3 as PusillanimousBitch1138, and I’ve got other tumblr blogs, too. Pb1138 is my writing blog and Gossamer-Wings-and-Teeth1138 is my art blog. I have others but they’re not as active. 

I do not tolerate terfs or anything of the sort, nor homophobes, racists, sexists, nazis, white supremacists, Trump supporters, incels, MAPs/pedophiles, you get the point. If you’re into that kind of shit, you can go ahead and flush yourself down the toilet with the rest of it because I want nothing to do with you.

I stream at twitch on Mondays at about 5:30 EST, and I try to post YouTube videos of my streams on Sundays. Both names for that are athena1138 if you're ever interested.

My main fandoms seem to be Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Critical Role, Dimension 20, the Witcher, things of that nature. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, I ran out of steam lol. So this is my tag list if you want to blacklist something or whatever. The posts I tag the most consistently are posts that I make myself. 

shut up becca -- this tag goes with all original posts I make, no matter what they are. Sometimes I’ll forget, but I’m usually pretty good about adding at least this one. 

selfie / my face / me -- these are some of the tags I’ll use if I share a selfie. It doesn’t happen super often, but I usually do 2 or 3 at a time because I’m feeling myself. 

critical role spoilers / critrole spoilers / cr spoilers -- all 3 of these are the tags I’ll put on every post concerning the newest episode of Critical Role until a week after it airs. I.e., this week’s episode is 118. Every post concerning ep118 will be tagged with all 3 tags until the following Thursday. Unless I forget which happens, but usually only for a post or 2. This applies to all posts, even ones not made by me. If it’s a post that applies to more than just this one episode, I will also include the tags -- critical role / critrole / cr -- and I will also tag characters as needed. 

cat / cats / my cat / my son / my cats / my sons / my children -- these go with posts about my cats. Each cat has his own individual tag, either -- varric giovanni cathras / pippin armani took / riz chowder gukcat -- depending on which cat it is. 

It is important to note that I do not tag most posts which are reblogged. 99.5% of the time, I do a fast reblog. The other .5% is usually just me talking in the notes. I will sometimes tag things that I think might be triggers and will tag it like “ tw whateveritis “ but that’s for the really sensitive stuff. If I post a lot about something that you think I should tag, you can tell me, but I won’t promise to commit to tagging it. (Like, Cullen. I’ve been asked to tag posts about Cullen. Like no, dude, at that point you should just unfollow me because I post about him a lot.) I try to be considerate, but at the end of the day, this is my blog and I don’t have the spoons to try to conscientiously tag each and every one of the nearly-limit-reaching amount of posts I post every day. If you do have something you want me to tag, please send it to me in a DM rather than as an ask on anon. I tend to see anons asking me to do things like that as aggressive whether they intend to be or not, and will most likely just delete it, whereas with a DM I have a face to place it with and can check myself. 

personal -- posts where I talk about myself or my life or my family or my feelings. this one has been popping up a lot more lately. 

becca writes -- posts where I share my writing

becca draws -- posts about my drawings 

becca rambles -- posts where I’m just talking, probably about nothing super important 

becca rants -- rants. 

becca’s work -- posts about my job. Usually paired with the becca rants tag because my job is stressful 

becca’s family drama -- posts about shit going on in my shithole family. I’m white trash so there’s quite a bit of it. 

becca speaks -- kind of goes with becca rambles, but this one usually goes with asks, too. 

becca’s dreams -- my dreams. I have very detailed dreams that I usually remember, so the interesting ones get posted. 

my ocs -- my ocs. I’ve got like 54 of them by now. I don’t talk about them as much as I used to, but they’re still there. There are tags for groupings (like, wardens: missella/mireena/brilla/rastig , hawkes: belladonna/anna/nev/mariana ) but there’s too many to just tag them by name anymore. I’m also very tired and won’t write out every single grouping I have, especially since I’ll probably just churn a new one out and have to update it again. 

Which brings me to my final thing:  I’m a bitch, y’all. People are usually surprised. Most of the time, I don’t mean to be. I have a hard time reading social cues and more often than not, I don’t realize I’m being rude until way after the fact. It’s worse when I’m tired which is all the time nowadays. You’re free to call me on it if you care to. 

[crazycookiemaniac]

Omg why are you losing so many followers youve been drawing gay shit for forever??? (Or maybe i as a gay was just interpreting it that way)

Because I literally spammed people every day for one week lmao. And also, a lot of people follow others for specific content. The moment I stop drawing that exact thing they followed me for, they unfollow me. There are also accounts that follow just to make you follow them & if you don’t, they unfollow you after a while. There’s people who followed me for haikyuu & weren’t interested in BC content, and there were people who followed me for BC content but got showered in gay art instead and that was not their cuppa tea. 

But mostly, i start appearing on people’s feed the more I post. So having me post incessantly for one week made me show up on feeds that I hadn’t shown up for  a good while, so there were probably people who forgot they had followed me in the first place & me posting was a reminder to unfollow.

Truthfully, follower counts are dumb. Yes, it is important for you to have a high follower count for you to get attention, but the amount of people actually following you if you don’t have a consistent art style & rarely ever post something with different vibes than your usual ones, is equal or less than 1% of your total amount of following.

My instagram tells me I have 43k. I do not have 43k people following me. I’ve had 43k that once saw my account & pressed the follow button, but their feeds are filled up with other people’s accs that interest them more than mine (as well as my own feed does not show all the content of the 200+ something people I follow, unless I scroll down till the depths of hell to find every single post on that day and then do so on the next day as well).

Essentially, 95% of your followers are there because of content. They want to see what entertains them. Most of them don’t care about the artist and don’t interact with them at all. Many of them are scared to, given the high follower count. Social media & big accounts make people forget that there are other, real, living & breathing people that are behind them all.

So, to many, I was just a random artist they found and “lol”ed at one of my comics & pressed follow without thinking about it. Most of them don’t go to my account and see all other art I’ve posted to see if they actually like what I do, or me as a person and as an artist at all.

People who don’t know this get really discouraged when they don’t earn a lot of followers, or when they lose a lot (like I did). And some people think you gotta have hundreds of thousands to be famous. I’ve seen accs going around that paid for ads, that had over 150k followers and less than 1k likes on their posts.

Truly famous, loved, growing and/or steady accounts have an amount of likes per post proportional to their follower count. For example, if someone has 150k followers, most of their posts will vary from 20k to 100k likes.

When I was growing my account because I hopped in the fandom bandwagon and stupid little me didn’t know that would only make me crash later, I had like 20~30k and some of my posts reached more than 20k likes (because people liked my stupid comics). Nowadays, I’m not part of the fandom that made me grow anymore. I’m part of a very underrated one (Black Clover), as well a I am drawing a very underrated ship (LuGna) that above all else is getting hated on. I have everything against me in this, so it’s no wonder I lost so many followers.

They didn’t wanna see gay art. They didn’t wanna see Black Clover. They didn’t even know what the fuck was going on. Not everyone paid attention or kept up with my warnings. Despite me explaining multiple times in multiple posts what the Thunder Flames project was about, a lot of people still didn’t know what I was doing that for.

The thing about being a big follower count is that, unless you’re actually loved for what you do (and to do that, once again, I need to emphasize that you need to keep a steady rhythm, a steady vibe, a steady you. Because people follow you for your first impression on them, and you gotta keep up to that first impression if you wanna keep your followers.

I’m unsteady. One look at my gallery and you’ll see how disorganized everything is. Oh, lookit, a 1 min speedpaint of a random drawing I did on an old piece of paper! And right on the left there’s a stupid random comic I did–on the right there’s this super detailed, shaded drawing I’ve done that actually looks terrible to me and I will 100% archive it later, and then there’s B&W mixed with gray shaded, flat colored and fully shaded characters of different fandoms + OCs from commissions and whatever else. 

The thing is, I made my follower count based on a fandom, and now that I’m not there most of that follower count does not have me on their feed. And most of them do not want me on their feed. Now, I’m trying to build a follower count for who I am as an artist, because the few people who have actually stayed and followed me throughout the years know how inconsistent I am in terms of art style, fandoms and everything else.

A solution to this would me either keep creating/posting the same thing all over again (just in different patterns), or creating original content (which I do plan on doing at some point). But for now? Since my follower count does absolutely not reflect on how many people actually like me and/or my art, I’m going to be as chaotic as fucking ever and do whatever the fuck I want.

So yes, I do find it comical that I lost 1k followers over this and am not fazed in the very least, especially because I literally foreshadowed losing 1k and hit the fucking jackpot.

The only reason I’m talking about this at all is because 1- it’s impossible not to notice my follower count decreasing, especially because every new 1k I thank people publicly through stories; 2- some people were actually worried I was upset over it and I have to 3- show that I am not, while simultaneously trying to show people that just because you’re losing followers doesn’t mean you have to stop doing what you want to create content to please people. It doesn’t mean you should be upset, and it doesn’t mean that what you’re doing is bad or wrong.

It means you’re fucking renewing your followers & you’ll now grow for what you’re trying to grow for, bitch. That’s what it’s all about.

Obviously, people do take a great risk doing this. I am taking a great risk doing this. I could’ve lost 5k, I could’ve lost 10k. But I only lost 1k! And that’s because I believe in the project I worked on; I knew there were people out there who enjoyed what I was doing and it’s on them that I was focused on. On the people who supported me AND my art, not just that one single funny comic post I did 3 years ago.

This answer is 100% a lot longer than what you could’ve possibly expected for and I am typing this while being awake for more than 24h so I’m sure that I’ve repeated myself a lot and that there are a lotta typos or w/e and I apologize for that!! But I’m too lazy to go back to read everything over & turn this into a neat post & I’m pretty sure I could answer your question in the first paragraph.

Oh and also. Yes. Yes I have been drawing gay shit ever since I’ve become an artist because I’m so fucking pissed at the lack of canon gay content in a way that it’s depicted as a normal fucking romantic couple instead of having eeeeeeeeveryone point their finger to the gay couple and scream “HEY THAT’S GAY!!! THIS CAN’T BE PART OF THIS VERY HETEROSEXUAL SHOW WHERE EVERYONE IS OBVIOUSLY HETEROSEXUAL EVEN THOUGH NONE OF THE CHARACTERS HAVE EVER SAID THAT EXPLICITLY BECAUSE WE KNOW THAT THE CREATORS ARE EITHER HETEROSEXUAL OR TOO AFRAID TO LOSE AUDIENCE IF THEY TREAT GAY PEOPLE AS NORMAL PEOPLE!??!! WHAT SORT OF ABSURD NONSENSE IS THAT??!! GAY PEOPLE AREN’T NORMAL!! THEY’RE GAY AND THEY SHOULD HAVE A GAY SHOW JUST FOR THEM IF THEY WANNA GET SCREENTIME” and yadda yadda yadda.

I’m tired of this bullshit. Ever since I was an artist I’ve been rooting for gay ships in shonen manga while knowing they would never happen just because they were gay, and now that we are in our Blessed-By-Satan, Pandemic-Chaotic, What-The-Fuck-Is-Going-On, We-Don’t-Know-If-We-Wanna-Go-Back-Or-To-The-Future-Or-Just-IDK-Fucking-Die year 2020, in which the LGBT community is thriving and being louder than ever to fight for our rights, Me, in my twenty four years of fucking age, having gone through several fucking disappointments ONLY regarding this matter, am sitting here on my ass, hopeful as all galactic, glittery shit that for some fucking reason, my new OTP formed by very underrated characters from this very underrated franchise in the southern and western communities, becomes canon because my stupid eyes can see chemistry between them even though those stupid haters’ can’t. But that’s because they’re stupid and homophobic, and they really should just shut the fuck up. I don’t wanna dream, I want to believe. Let a bitch pray in peace.

But even if I’m getting ready for disappointment, I’m gonna make this project happen and I’m gonna have a shit ton of artbooks from this Thunder Flames project inside my fucking garage if no one wants to buy them. But I am going to invest a shit ton of money in it and I am going to have these artbooks come to life. Because I am spiteful and petty and homophobes should shut the fuck up, and I wanna do what I wanna do bc as an independent artist, I’m building my future with my own two, very toned and buff by now from all the drawing I did, hands. 

God fucking damn it.

Jesus christ I’m just rambling at this point, I’m so sorry. If anyone ever reads this out of context people are going to be so confused.

But that’s fine. They won’t. You know why? Cuz I got almost 11k followers here on tumblr but less than 0.5% gives a shit that I’m here, so I’m safe.

Have a nice day, drink your water and fuck homophobes. Peace

[ober-affen-geil]

So here’s the thing. This is probably blindingly obvious to everyone in my corner of the fandom pretty sure it’s why most of us are here in the first place but it’s my blog so that means I get to screech about what I want to. And today I want to screech about Roswell’s tendency to be breathtakingly blunt about things and exactly how much of an extraordinary gift that has been.

Now, this is true across the board. Roswell deals with issues like immigration and racism pretty head on and I’m not downplaying that. But I’m also trying to speak from personal experience here, and those are not topics that apply to me. What I can speak about is how Roswell has treated the depiction of its queer characters. This is about Michael and Alex. Surprise!

Because seeing queer characters, let alone a queer couple, being treated (writing-wise) in such a casual way is still unusual. It’s becoming more and more common, but it’s a slow process. To the point where I’m still expecting lower than the lowest bar even if I know it’s established canon.

But what Roswell has done is given me that lowest bar, given me the minimum of what I was expecting, and then raised it. Repeatedly. 

And it’s little things like having both of its queer characters explicitly identify themselves multiple times, which gives them ownership over their own sexualities. (I’m bisexual, it’s not that complicated.) Or like having Alex specifically confront not one but two different characters over their past homophobic behavior towards him. (Because you think I’m weak. Because I’m gay.) These things are critical because we just don’t see them unless it’s a Very Special Episode, and in Roswell they’re spread across the whole season.

But it’s also really big things, like taking a queer couple that they could have teased and strung out over the whole season and literally handing them to us on a silver platter in episode one. Of the show. The pilot. The formative episode of not only the entire season but the whole series. The one they had to sell to network execs.

Because that low bar I was talking about? That was hit with “are you cooking meth.” That scene was the highest my expectations would allow me to go; we got sexual tension through animosity, talking threateningly into each other’s ears, physical contact/extended time in each other’s spaces, and a hint (just a hint) of a Past. It ended here:

which was just enough of an almost-not-subtext-but-not-quite-text plausible deniability type scene to pique my interest, and that was it. After that scene I was ready to settle in for the long haul. I smelled gay in the water and I was prepared to wait however long I needed to for it to be canon. 

Roswell made me wait almost exactly two minutes.

Two minutes and we were served the sexiest of eye sex scenes and my expectations were already exceeded.

They could have ended it on “what I want doesn’t matter” and I would have been over the goddamn moon because it had already gone so far beyond what I was anticipating. That was as good as text as far as I was concerned and it was better than anything I usually see. Again, in a pilot episode. 

But this being Roswell, it didn’t end there did it. No. No, they don’t half-ass anything apparently because they needed to make absolutely sure the audience knew exactly what type of relationship Michael and Alex had. I was already putty in their hands and they just kept turning the heat up.

And this isn’t even mentioning the fucking forehead touch that ruined all our lives (see above) because that is literally it’s whole own thing. Establishing a queer couple that firmly in a first episode is very, very rare. Even today. Roswell decided to take the plunge and they did it right from the get-go and I applaud them for it.

But they weren’t done. Again, my expectations were low. Ok, we have achieved canon. Now they’re gonna take a breather, step back from that story line and let it settle for a few episodes and then they’ll stick their toe back in the water. But I can wait, I have the pilot to reassure me. And when I heard “what happened at the reunion cannot happen again” I was oddly vindicated. I knew how this went now. Now we wait.

Except I only had to wait about 25 minutes and 20 goddamn seconds before I got a confrontation with a love confession.

Again, my expectations were exceeded. By the mere fact that this couple had a second conversation about their relationship in the episode, my low bar had been blown out of the water. This was something that was going to be pushed, this relationship wasn’t going to be waived or tossed or otherwise written out. It had history, it had depth, and the writers were willing to go down that rabbit hole.

And that scene ended here:

which, like the pilot, already had me ecstatic. The implications were obvious to me and that was enough. It was more than enough; I was beyond satisfied. I was thrilled to have this to bask in. From what I was used to watching, that was as good as text.

But that’s not the last we see of Michael and Alex in the episode. The last time we see them is this:

which takes us from (and then they fucked) hahaha nooooo.....unless? and moves us a step further to give us AND THEN THEY FUCKED. Which is just. My goodness it’s almost unprecedented in the media I normally engage with.

This is two episodes in and already I have had my expectations piqued, met, and exceeded twice. This is more than a promise to the audience, this is same day delivery. 

And then????? Episode three???? Gave us THIS???????

In the first ten minutes. 

And I know we all know what happened after that but guys. I don’t care where this story line goes I super do, absolutely nothing that happens ever at any point in the future will erase what this show did in the first three episodes.

The writers didn’t just establish a relationship, they established an established relationship. It was given to us, fully formed and fully realized, explicitly and without any subtext. (Except the implications of their history, the details of which were examined on screen later in the season.)

I love watching Roswell because I as a queer viewer don’t have to reach. I don’t have to tilt my head and squint, I don’t have to justify, and I don’t have to write an essay based on a yarn board I put together from tiny scraps of “maybe”. And most importantly, I didn’t have to wait for it. 

I’m used to elbowing my way to the bar and waiting an hour for my order only to have it turn out to be the wrong one. Roswell greeted me at the door and whisked me over to a reserved table with my favorite appetizer already set out.

This relationship is as foundational to the plot and characters of the show as the relationship between Max and Liz, and it is treated as such from episode one. And I don’t think I can ever articulate what a gift that was to receive. But heaven help all of you, because it won’t stop me from trying.

[oncloud999]

Jikook - an essay apparently

Ok I have a lot of thoughts lately and no where else to express them. 

I’m a fairly new fan and while some of my friend irl know about this, its too embarrassing for someone of my age to still be into shipping or whatever, so no that’s not getting out there... 

anyway. So i only joined the fandom maybe mid last year and initially didn’t ship anyone cos I’m honestly over that. But then I thought V and kook looked cute together so I looked into their stuff a bit. I still didn’t really ship them but did have a preference for the two of them together, more like bros and bffs rather than anything romantic because i just don’t get that vibe from them. I do have a friend in real life (who’s actually korean... ) who was into JiKook being a couple which I thought was odd because a lot of the shipping things come from their skinship and I thought she’d be less affected by it cos she’s korean but.... 

anyway, even when i was more into vkook, i saw a lot of jimin and jungkook together that did make me raise my eyebrows. like their firework vid and the pics and vids of them spending time together after concerts. i also did come across some photos of jimin and jungkook hanging out. i also watched a few jikook analysis videos and scoffed at them because honestly, you can make them out of anybody if you focus on certain things. 

anyway, fastforward to a few days ago, i don’t even remember what i was doing, but somehow i started seeing jimin and jungkook together as something more than just friends or bros. I mean whatever relationship they have, it’s clearly very special. you don’t plan your world trip during your long awaited holiday around your friend’s bdays unless they’re REALLY special. Jimin flew across the world to be with jk for his birthday before the next leg of his trip. i mean, yes, you can argue that he needed to come back to pack or whatever, but there are easier ways to do it than coming back for 1 night and then flying off again. he could’ve flown from paris to hawaii directly. 

so to keep my sanity, i need to somewhere to write out why and why not i think they’re a couple or whatever...

Reasons why I think they’re a couple

- they’re super close. they definitely hang out outside of their group activities and enjoy spending time with each other. as previously stated, jk obviously means a lot to jimin for him to plan his trip around jk’s birthday. they always talk about hanging out late into the night

- their tokyo trip and gcf. i’m not even going to go into it cos people have already talked enough about it, including the two of them. it especially means a lot cos jk obviously doesn’t like travelling all that much

- even before a couple of days ago, i have noticed sometimes namjoon getting in between the two of them when they’re being a little too flirtatious

- their onscreen flirting is something else. like you can see it as fanservice, but the two of them get so into it and what gets me the most is when jimin gets super shy and giggly about it and then sometimes have to walk away from jk. there are also moments that are not specifically on screen that’s very odd. like when they were in that run bts ep in canada and rm suddenly asked them if they were a couple cos they’re wearing matching clothes. and it’s not even like that time jin asked where it was directly in front of the camera. they were literally having a conversation in the background when whoever it was was playing that keeping your eyes open game and they were just taking photos in the back. 

- they are way more into touching each other than any other members. like jimin especially will hug and touch the other members, especially taehyung, but it’s never the hanging off each other, purposely seeking each other out on a huge stage for some contact sort of thing. jin and jk are also really touchy but they’re so bro about it 

- taehyung... if they are a couple, i would peg tae and jhope as the two who definitely know. taehyung during that one vlive where he was like, jimin wants to come, but i think jk won’t let him... at 1 am in the morning. also see below the uncertain section

- during their earlier days, jm clearly seems to have a crush on jk and jk seemed to very purposefully avoid that. they seem comfortable with each other now but defnitely there was a time that it got awkward when jm talks about how much he likes jk or wants to kiss him or go on a date with him. it could all be for fanservice again, but then he was kind of hurt when jk would not play along. 

- jm softens so obviously when it comes to jk. it’s not just the occasional fan accounts or whatever, like when they say that jm is a hard ass until jk comes along and he softens. when he did that v live with rm, the moments when he’s softest is when he was talking about practicing with jk. the only other person he’s soft with is taehyung but even then it’s not that often

- jm sharing friends with jk. when they went out around town in london with jm’s friends. they are clearly jm’s friends and jk just tagged along... apparently, jm doesn’t like sharing his friends? but apparently it’s ok for jk. even if they’re like brothers, i don’t really take my brother around with my friends... and if jk wants to see london as well, i’m sure he could’ve gone with one of the other members or the managers like how they sometimes do when it’s just one of them going to do something. i would personally find it more awkward hanging out with my friend’s friends than people i already hang out with 

Reasons why i don’t think they’re a couple

- it’s all too in your face. if it’s real, i wonder if they wouldn’t try to hide it better. or maybe they think the fans just think it’s fanservice anyway... it’s hard to tell. if it wasn’t so in your face sometimes, i would be less skeptical

- they still seem very bro-y to me a lot of time. like jimin seems to take care of jk a lot and the way he takes care of him is far more motherly/older brother

this list seems short but i think they’re both very important points.

anyway onto points that are maybe... because it’s speculation

- they may both have girlfriend. there’s definitely been rumours about both. and some more reliable than others. the one thing that goes against either having a girlfriend more recently is.... jm going on a trip around the world with his friends. if he did have a girlfriend or partner, you would think he would want to spend whatever time he has off with them, especially cos their holidays are so infrequent. and if you want to make the point that maybe his gf was busy, well, you would still try to spend whatever little time you ahve with them rather than going around the globe (again) with your friends. the only reason you wouldn’t stay in one place to spend a lot of time with them is if... you already spend a lot of time with them when you’re working lol. jk did have that maybe-maybe-not girlfriend during that time. i think if it was something, then it’s probably over now (poor girl, she was bombarded...) and it clearly means jk didn’t have anyone at the time. or she really was just a friend and it was blown out of proportion (again poor girl if she was dragged into this for nothing...). long story short. they’re either a couple together or they don’t have anyone in the recent past at least. we don’t know. but also there’s that clip from 2018 where jm was trying to convince jk to go on a trip with him around the time of jk’s birthday but jk refused. lol 

- the whole jk/jm sharing rooms, hiding in each other’s room sagas... it definitely seems like there’s other people in the room when they do their lives sometimes. especially the ones that people have pointed out like osaka with taehyung and that one time after eat jin last year when everyone crashed the party when jk was throwing a fit. interestingly, that is also one of the most uncomfortable vlives i’ve seen when it was just jk and jm at the beginning. the chastised and shy look on jm when the camera first panned to him, the weird looks, the funny touches. like what, i felt like i had to give them their alone time. and then the doorbell. now going back to why i think tae knows. in both these cases and another one (that i don’t know the time of), tae comes and refuses to leave when jk clearly asks him why he’s there and when he would go. (the one last year especially makes me want to laugh so badly cos jm esp was trying so hard to get everyone to leave). he’s probably trolling them by giving them grief. anyway, there are a lot of analysis videos etc on youtube. i won’t go into it further

- them rings. the rings they apparently bought in tokyo and still wear together or separately to this day. they definitely have them and they definitely wear them. again it could just be “friendship rings” but... yeah. 

- sharing clothes. a popular trope of why people are together. i mean jk and tae actually seem to share the style of clothes more but they tend to have their own (like those modern hanboks, they both have them and don’t seem to be sharing). where as jm and jk apparently actually share clothes... again could be bro behaviour or whatever, but then why doesn’t tae and jk share? they’re definitely more similar in built and style. 

- lately there seems to be a lot of taekook. apparently i just read that there’s been a lot of noises from taekook fans and maybe homophobic fans to bighit to try to get jikook to tone it down. and obviously there’s been a few times that jk’s behaviour has upset taehyung’s fans especially (and tae himself lol) so maybe it’s to make amends for that... they were really going at it at the golden disc and grammys. but even their more touchy stuff on stage like during bwl perfs during the concerts, their touches don’t seem very flirty. 

as to whetehr i think the rest of bts knows... i think they suspect but as i said before i think only tae and jhope knows for sure. jhope cos he’s pretty close to both of them and tae because he constantly seems to be trolling. but jin, rm and suga... maybe they suspect or just think jk is that friend that hates people getting close to their best bud, but who knows. rm maybe knows more recently because he’s definitely coming between them more. 

will we ever know. probably not. not while they’re popular and not while their country (or the world) is still so homophobic and don’t like their 40 year old celebrities to be in a relationship. maybe one day, we’ll hear that even after they’ve stopped promoting as a band, they’re still housemates or whatever. but that’s probably the most “confirmation” we will ever get. but as long as they’re happy, i just really hate seeing them sad. i just wish the world was less toxic towards them. or the world needs to be less toxic in general. 

the relationship i enjoy the most within bts is actually the one between jin and jungkook cos they are actually hilarious and chaotic together, but somehow jikook seems to have more of a romantic edge to their interaction. 

even if they’re not a couple, they definitely have a very strong bond and very close. whatever it is, they’re clearly special to each other beyond being friends or bandmates. maybe it’s better if they’re friends because couples break up but friends rarely do... 

anyway, this turned out much longer than i expected but i’m glad to have put my thought into some kind of coherent-ness... and off i go onto the delulu train. 

[thecorteztwins]

🔥 villains. 🔥 the hellfire club 🔥the difference between naive and unintelligent characters

Welp, this all got STUPIDLY LONG and I’m really sorry. Under a cut because HUUUUUGE.

🔥 villains.There’s just been a robbery! All the jewels in the museum’s vault have been stolen! The culprits are….Sabretooth and Magneto!Yeah, that doesn’t sound right, does it? Thievery isn’t really something either of them do, they’re not bank robber or cat burglar types at all. And Magneto’s not a fan of Sabes to my memory, it’s unlikely he’d work with him unless it was essential to his ACTUAL goals…which this isn’t. But hey, they’re both bad guys, so they must do ALL the bad things! No matter what it is, it’s in-character if it’s evil or unlawful, right?This is the logic that I see running both often in fandom, and also sometimes with canon writers. There’s a mentality that if someone is villainous or bad in ONE way, then they must be villainous or bad in ALL ways. I think there’s always been this misunderstanding, as people do tend to think in black and white a lot, but I think it’s also increased with the rise of purity culture in Tumblr, where people/characters/works are All Good or All Bad, and if the bad guys aren’t depicted as 1000% heinously evil then it’s APOLOGISM. An example in RP would be that more than once I’d had people expect Fabian to be a racist. I can see why, given that he expresses sexism, classism, a bit of ableism, and disgust with physical mutations. But not only does he never express racism, he never expresses racism DESPITE AMPLE OPPORTUNITY. Think about it—his main antagonists are Magneto (Jewish) and Quicksilver (Jewish and Romani), he once personally fights Bishop (Black and Indigenous Australian) one on one, he’s on one team with Shinobi (half white, half Japanese), and his allies/underlings in the second-gen Acolytes included people who are African American, Moroccan (and Muslim-coded), and Inuit. And he never, ever, EVER even THOUGHT anything related to race (or religions that are usually implicitly tied to race) about ANY of them. Given how blatant his other prejudices are, I think he would very much let the reader KNOW if he were racist, anti-Semitic, etc. An example in canon…look, I’m sorry to bring up this dead horse again, but it is the best example that I presently have—Sebastian Shaw making the “women’s work” comment. As with Fabian, I get why it makes sense on the surface. He’s a powerful man, the proverbial rich old white guy, and he’s part of an organization where women walk around in lingerie as a general rule. It seems like it makes sense, it does, I grant that. But then if you actually look at his history…for 40 years of canon, he’s been allies and enemies with many powerful women, and never made a remark about their gender, never relegated lesser or menial tasks to them, never treated any of them differently as partners or foes, he actually never even flirts with any of them, be they opponents or partners in crime  (except that ONE issue when Emma is in Storm’s body and he kisses her…yeah that was a weird issue, why does a telepath need a gun to switch bodies?) Which is pretty unusual for a male Claremont villain. And he actually reacts with “I…see.” the one time a comrade makes a genuinely sexist remark. He doesn’t agree with him, he’s more like “wow ok I can’t believe he said that but I guess I’ll let it go since I want to recruit him” So, it’s actually VERY odd for him to suddenly say something like that, once you know the character. Especially since, like Fabian, he had TONS of opportunity in the past and he’s also not a character that most writers want to seem sympathetic or likeable. So it’s unlikely the writers were just trying to make him look good by playing down some secret sexist tendencies all this time or something. It’s more likely he just doesn’t have them BUT IS STILL A HORRIBLE PERSON! He just doesn’t need to be horrible in every way! Most people, even the MOST terrible, aren’t horrible in EVERY WAY POSSIBLE.That’s also why I try to avoid having Fabian being too homophobic (beyond “I can convert lesbians”) or transphobic, despite the fact that I *could* justify it (since those things are very intertwined with sexism)—because he’s awful enough. Giving him additional bigotries just seems stupidly redundant and cheap. Especially since I think people actually hate a bigoted character more than they hate a murderer; like I feel like if Duggan ever graduates to Shaw making a racist or homophobic remark, I might have to close his blog, but it’s fine to have blogs for fictional serial killers. By the same token, a villain having good traits doesn’t somehow eliminate their bad ones, especially if the good and bad traits are unrelated to each other. A mass murderer supervillain is not “actually a good guy deep down” because he loves his family; it’s actually VERY common for even genocidal dictators to care for their own. Hell, not to go all Godwin, but Hitler was an animal-lover and had a beloved dog. You can certainly point to good traits to show that a villain isn’t ALL bad (which as I just said, I support) but not being “all bad” isn’t the same as “actually a good person and just misunderstood!” Like, Shaw being an egalitarian in a lot of regards or was good to Madelyne Pryor or loved his father, doesn’t change he’s a heartless, morally bankrupt monster who abused his son and sold out an entire oppressed species (his own, no less) for his own financial gain. Mystique is an incredibly complex character, far more so than Shaw, but her love for Destiny and Rogue and many of her other good points don’t change that she hunted down other mutants for the government, abused her human son for not being a mutant, has committed rape by deception numerous times (though I think that’s due to the writers not realizing that’s a thing), constantly tries to manipulate her daughter’s life and choices, and I’m pretty sure I recall an issue where she framed a guy for domestic abuse just for funsies?Basically, villains are people. They have individual different traits and beliefs and motives, and those things will drive them towards individual different types of villainy. One villain probably won’t do the same kind of villainy that another does. Likewise, someone being a shitty person in one way, or many ways, doesn’t mean they will be in ALL ways. Pointing this out isn’t the same thing as denying their flaws or defending them, but some people do do this and that’s wrong too. Nuance needs to be allowed for. Pointing out Shaw isn’t awful in every way doesn’t mean I think he’s a misunderstood woobie whose crimes should all be forgiven. Pointing out Mystique has done awful shit doesn’t mean I think she’s pure evil and all her complex points should be ignored. It just means I don’t think characters should be strawmanned by fans OR writers as paragons or demons, especially when it contradicts what canon has actually established (with the caveat that canon is dumb sometimes too, and also some characters canonically ARE one extreme or the other, but I’m talking about ones who AREN’T)🔥 the hellfire clubI’ll give two on this! One is “unpopular” just in the sense it’s not something I’ve ever heard anyone express, but I’ve never heard an opinion in opposition to it either. The other is “unpopular” in that it does directly contradict a popularly held opinion.The first is that I think it’s stupid that Grant Morrisson made The Hellfire Club into a strip club, and it’s stupid that writers since depicted it this way. The Hellfire Club is shown in the 80s and 90s as being, first and foremost, an elite social club for the wealthiest and most powerful people in society. It’s basically a big posh country club, and most of its members are just regular people. Super duper rich people, but still normal people, lots of old money and new money and big business owners and politicians and probably royalty/nobility. Most of what they’re doing is big fancy, stuffy galas and balls, that kind of thing. But under the surface, it’s hinted that there is indeed a much more sexual underside to it. The female staff wear very fetishy maid costumes, the female Inner Circles literally have dominatrix lingerie as their getups, and while we actually never see what goes on beyond the closed doors in the 80s, nor was anything directly stated, the hints are definitely there that it’s as libertine in the private rooms as they are prim and proper in the ballrooms. We don’t know WHAT exactly is happening, only that it’s dark and decadent and surely sexual in some kind of “abnormal” (read: kink shaming) way.And then it turns out it’s just a strip club where the dancers wear corsets? Really? REALLY? I’m sorry, you expect me to belief that these oh-so-forbidden and secretive sexual delights that are available only to the richest and most powerful people in the world are…a TITTY BAR WITH NO ACTUAL TITTIES EVEN OUT???? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! It’s so fucking juvenile! It feels like something a 13 year old made up while trying to come up with the mos edgy, shocking, “sexy” thing he could. It just…doesn’t work. It doesn’t work firstly because it completely took away the whole “upper class veneer” that is as much an essential part of the HFC as the sex. In fact, I think more so. Writers, artists, and fans all like to focus on ZOMG THE SEXY COSTUMES but thematically speaking, I think the fact it’s an elite organization exclusive to the super-wealthy is much more important; that should be what they’re really about as villains, but writers end up focusing way too much on the shock value of the kink, and that’s how you wind up with stuff like this. The second reason it doesn’t work is that…it isn’t even shocking. When what they were doing was kept hidden, the reader could imagine no limit of decadence and depravity. When it’s revealed, and revealed as something that’s frankly super and common and TAME (seriously, strip clubs aren’t edgy these days) that you can get anywhere else, you’re left wondering why exactly anyone gives a shit about being in the HFC if this is all it really is? We should NEVER get to see what the HFC patrons truly do in private, and we should definitely never get shown that it’s just watching a woman pole dance with Victorian underwear on. That doesn’t make the HFC look sexual, it makes them look like PRUDES!Honestly, I do actually love the sexy sinful decadent aspect, but it’s overtaken the “extremely rich and powerful people trying to rule the world from behind the scenes through political and economic manipulation” aspect (which is far more interesting and villainous) that I kind of wish sometimes they had been created without the kink or colonial cosplay aspects, and instead had just worn some 80s powersuits.Now, here’s the “unpopular as in contradicts the popular” opinion. I see the Hellfire Club described a lot, in canon and fandom, as an organization of powerful MEN, as a bunch of MEN who just want to control others, as a BOY’S club…but aside from Sebastian Shaw, all the most prominent and effective members of the Club have been women? I mean, think about it. The names most synonymous with “Hellfire Club” in fandom are Emma Frost, Selene, Jean Grey as Dark Phoenix, and Sebastian Shaw. Shaw’s the ONLY dude that really gets any focus from writers OR fans; the women are almost always utilized more by writers and remembered more by fans. Heck, in the London Branch of the Hellfire Club, NONE of the male members of the Inner Circle even got NAMES, while ALL the women did. Now, of course, individual women in an organization being successful in said organization and beloved by fans/writers, doesn’t mean the organization itself can’t also be sexist. And like most people, the disparity between the costumes of both the Inner Circle and the mere staff does lead me to believe that it was probably founded and run only by men originally, and I bet women probably weren’t even allowed in for a long time (especially given that it was established in the 1700s) But that’s my HEADCANON. That’s what I EXTRAPOLATE. But what’s actually on the page IN THE PRESENT is women that are on equal footing with men, or superior to them. They’re not just simply ALLOWED in the Inner Circle, they’ve been dominating it from the first appearance with Emma ruling it alongside Shaw over Leland and Pierce, and then Selene coming in to challenge Shaw and Emma (with Shaw being terrified of her) in a way that none of the other members (all male—Leland, Pierce, Von Roehm) could. Gender is never brought up by anyone, even the most despicable male HFC members like Donald Pierce. So while I believe it was founded by sexist men, the Inner Circle seems pretty egalitarian now.But of course, there’s the costumes. I absolutely think it’s a sexist setup that the men get to wear (super ugly) period cosplay while the women are in fetish lingerie. It seems to be the standard uniform, and the fact that they haven’t CHANGED it shows that there’s definitely still some sexism.Except…it doesn’t seem to be a rule in-universe that the women HAVE to wear them? We actually see female members of the HFC, such as Selene, wearing clothing other than that while hanging out there; there’s actually a scene wear Selene is wearing pants and a sleeveless turtleneck with gloves. Maddy also wears a lot of black leather when she’s a member, but it doesn’t look like the Hellfire Club ladies getup, it looks like all the other stuff she was wearing in the 90s. And when Selene, Emma, etc., AREN’T in the Hellfire Club…they often still dress exactly like that, or in a similiar manner. I think it’s pretty clear that no one is MAKING them wear the uniforms, they just LIKE them, they’re probably “encouraged but optional” or something like that. And Emma even has that WHOLE DAMN SPEECH about how this is her armor, how it empowers her, etc. That said, while I don’t think any other CHARACTERS are making these women dress like that, I do think the writers/artists are. If a real woman made the speech that Emma did, I’d be like “ok sure, you go girl, do what feels empowering for you”. But Emma ISN’T a real woman. Every word in her mouth in that panel is being put there by Chris Claremont, a horny man with a dominatrix fetish who is trying to justify it by selling it as feminist. That is what it is. But just because that’s the case on a meta level…on an in-universe level, no one makes these women dress like this, and that’s very evident, and while the way they’re treated by writers/artists is definitely affected by them being women, the way other characters, including the Hellfire Club men, treats them, isn’t. At least not til shitty recent stuff. (I’ve seen some people think SHAW made the women dress like that….yeah, sure, like he could make SELENE do anything? He’s completely afraid of her but somehow can make her wear something she doesn’t want? Emma and Selene dress like that no matter where they are and whether they’re presently HFC members or not, but somehow he’s making them do that? HOW DOES ANYONE GIVE THIS GUY THAT MUCH CREDIT?)Basically, I think people are TRYING to be feminist, but it often ends up feeling like SEXISM to me? Because it’s totally ignoring and erasing the power and agency that these women exert in this organization, and often even claiming that it’s actually the men who have all the control, when aside from Shaw it’s usually the ladies running the show. It just seems disrespectful to me. It’s like, as much as people are claiming to hate a lack of agency for female characters, they seem more comfortable with that idea than a situation where women actually HAD it. Maybe it’s because they’re villains, maybe it’s because the costumes really are distracting and unequal no matter how the writers try to justify it (again, I wish they’d just gone with business suits), but there seems to be an overall fandom determination to insist on women like Emma Frost and Selene as victims or simply accomplices to a greater (male) villain, rather than embracing them as the Top Tier Bad Bitches they were/are, and, again, that seems more sexist to me than not. But I worry people will think I’m sexist if I say that. But you know me, you know I LOVE agency for female characters, and how I rail against it when see them ACTUALLY lacking it in comics, so you know it’s not that. I think it’s just a part of the rise in purity culture that even “progressive” people would rather see a woman forced or coerced to be a victim than choose of her own volition to be a villain and be GOOD at it :/🔥the difference between naive and unintelligent charactersWell, firstly, obviously there IS a difference. Naivete is just a lack of experience or learned knowledge, neither of which has anything to do with intelligence. A naive character may make mistakes in a new situation based on their lack of knowledge about it, and that may LOOK stupid to those who have this knowledge, but it’s not the same thing. I think we can agree that, say, Tony Stark isn’t stupid, but if he had to navigate in the wilderness, he might do things that experienced hikers and campers and outdoors people know are SUPER BAD IDEAS. Because this isn’t something he knows about or has experience with.So, I think considering characters who are new to this world (as is common in comics—lots of people from other dimensions, planets, and times) as stupid because they don’t know a lot of things we take as a given, is erroneous. I think it’s pretty common for fandom to look at, say, Longshot or Thor, and deem them as basically being idiots because they’re not familiar with their new environments…when in fact, we’d all be acting the same if we wound up in Asgard or Mojoworld. Not that there’s not other reasons they can’t be idiots, but not knowing what a toaster is isn’t one of them.The big difference is that naivete is a temporary state, and I think both writers and fans forget that. The character’s naivete will gradually decrease as they learn more and more. So if you’re writing an Avengers fic where Thor has been on Earth for five years so far, he probably knows what a toaster is, can order normally at a restaurant, isn’t confused by normal sights like cars or traffic lights or computers, etc., but could still be confused if he went to a Midgardian country with very different cultural norms than the ones he’s learned in the United States. Likewise, I can keep Malcolm perpetually baffled by new worlds in RP since time is kinda wobbly here and can be static or move forward or back as we like, but if I were writing him in a linear story, he would have to learn along the way about the technology and norms of other worlds as he experiences them; if he didn’t learn, THEN he would be unintelligent, not just naive. If he touches a hot stove once because he didn’t know what it was, and it burns him, that’s naive. If he touches it twice to test if it does the same thing again, that’s curious and maybe even smart, despite looking stupid to others. If he keeps doing it every day by accident, then THAT’S an idiot. Also, even a naive character may still be able to deduce that certain things are bad ideas, dangerous, etc. For instance, let’s say my character is a normal everyday girl sucked into a fantasy realm. She doesn’t understand the language, and the people around her don’t look like anything humanoid, but when all of them go quiet and still when a larger, more decorated one enters, and they all give it a lot of space, she can probably deduce that this is someone of great importance, and she probably should do what the others are doing and not risk pissing it off. She may know nothing about these beings or their customs, but she still can use her powers of observation and common sense. It may end up being a TOTALLY wrong move—for instance, maybe newcomers are meant to come introduce themselves to the leader by touching them–but it was a good, sensible guess. Whereas if she’d just walked up to the being and given it a good swift kick, that’d be unintelligent to an almost unbelievable point, and no amount of “she’s just naive!” could excuse it.Oh yeah, and optimism doesn’t automatically equate to naivete either. To be honest, I think that extreme cynicism is just as naive in its own way as thinking everything is sunshine and daisies, and I’d like to see this explored more in fiction rather than the perpetual “happy positive people are dumb and naive and just don’t know better, whereas the grumpy cynics are always smarter and more experienced” that media is so fond of.TL;DR Not only is naivete not unintelligence, it also should be a temporary state. It’s definitely cute to watch a naive character stumble around their new experiences, but in gaining those experiences, they’re going to become less naive, and make few mistakes. Naive characters should also still be capable of acting in ways that are sensible, even if they end up being wrong for the new situation. And being positive doesn’t automatically equate naivete either, nor does negativity equate to the reverse (and can be naive in itself)

[smashy-headcanons]

Weekly reminder of the blog rules, FAQ, and character alt stuff for mobile users.

Blog Rules

No NSFW content allowed. Not everyone is comfortable with NSFW content. I’m not super comfortable with it either, aside from the occasional light joke. Please keep it off the blog.

No politics allowed. Politics stress me out. I made this blog with the hopes that people exhausted from being bombarded with politics every minute won’t have to deal with it here. If you bring politics onto my blog I will knife you. And no, that does not mean I “don’t care” about certain issues. What it means is that I want this to be separate from the blog. And as a side note, no mentions of Tr*mp on this blog are allowed. I ended up deleting a submission because of it.

Headcanons go in the submissions. Non-headcanon content goes in the asks. Unless you’re sending an image or video to me, send it as an ask if it’s not a headcanon or quote. If it is a headcanon, please PLEASE send it as a submission and not an ask. It’s so much easier to post a submission than an ask because when headcanons are sent as asks I feel obligated to respond to it in some way and it almost feels repetitive when I’m saying one of the same three phrases repeatedly. The one exception I will allow is if you’re specifically asking for feedback regarding said headcanon. If you want to submit a headcanon but are worried about being anonymous, tell me in your submission that you want to be listed as anonymous and I will say it was submitted by anonymous.

When sending a submission, write it as best you can. Do your best to make sure there are no typos, and USE PROPER CAPITALIZATION. PLEASE. This isn’t as necessary with asks since I’m not going to be able to edit your own ask, but at the very least make it readable. I understand not everyone speaks English as their first language. I also understand that many people who are learning English as a second/third/etc. language may speak broken English. This is not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is when a submission is sent in which none of the names are capitalized or the submission is littered with typos. Most browsers/computers have spell checkers installed. If you struggle with spelling, you can use that. I’m not asking you to write your submissions like a formal essay. I just ask that you try to keep your posts as close to posting quality as possible. The reason this is an issue for me is because I try to make sure the posts on this blog are high quality, and when I have to go through and fix every capitalization error it makes posting submissions/asks even slower than usual for me.

If you’re sending an incorrect quote, include the source. If there is no source, say there’s no source.

Keep the discourse to a minimum! Please! Discourse stresses me out. There’s way too much of it on this site. Let me have ONE (1) part of this website where discourse is no issue.

LGBTQ+ gatekeepers (ace exclusionists/homophobes/biphobes/etc.) are not allowed. Asexuals are LGBTQ+. Trans people are LGBTQ+. Bi/pan people are LGBTQ+. If you try to imply that a particular LGBTQ+ identity isn’t LGBTQ+ then you will be blocked. Simple as that.

Racism, sexism, ableism, etc. of any variety is not allowed.

If asks and submissions are closed, that means that they are closed. I know I’m not the quickest at answering asks and submissions, but please wait. You can ask to make sure there isn’t some bug or error, but please don’t just DM a headcanon at random if the asks and submissions are closed. I won’t post it until it’s posted in my inbox. If you need to write it down to remember it, do so.

If I accidentally post anything that goes against these rules (aside from the headcanons in the asks thing, that I can deal with for now), tell me and I will delete the post (or fix it, if the change is minor). I will admit that I can be on the naive side. I may post something on accident that goes against what I want to have on this blog. If it breaks the rules, tell me so I can delete it.

Only add tags that apply directly to your submission. Don’t go through and blindly click every tag. Tag headcanons with the “smashy headcanons” and “headcanon” tags. Tag incorrect quotes with the “smashy quotes” and “incorrect quote” tags. And, if you are the person who came up with the quote and it didn’t originally come from somewhere else, THEN you can use the “source: original” tag; if it did come from somewhere else, please refer to rule 5 and INCLUDE THE SOURCE SO I CAN PUT IT IN THE TAGS! If there is an image in your submission, add the “image” tag. If there’s a video, add the “video” tag. Use common sense when tagging your submissions and tag them like you would add tags to your own posts (i.e. not adding a bunch of unnecessary things that don’t apply).

FAQ

Q: Is NSFW content allowed? A: No, this blog is strictly SFW. Any NSFW submissions will not be posted, and NSFW asks will not be answered.

Q: What do you mean by “TP” Link? Who is Raichu? A: There is a separate page on this blog explaining this topic in detail. I recommend looking at it if you’re new.

Q: Is there a smashy-headcanons Discord server? Will you make one? A: There is not one and there are no plans to make one. Assume that the answer is no unless I specifically say otherwise. Also, please don’t make one yourself. If there’s going to be a discord for the blog, I want to be the one to make it.

Q: Can we request headcanons for a particular character? A: Sure, go ahead. It might take a while and I usually only do about 1-5 per ask, but I will try.

Q: I’m seeing other people’s submissions on the blog, but there’s no submission link. Is something broken? A: If that’s the case, then check between Thursday 10am CST and Friday 10am CST. If they’re not open by then, then I probably turned them off because I had a lot of stuff in my inbox. Don’t send submissions as a private message; I turned them off for a reason.

Q: Are we allowed to ask questions that aren’t headcanon-related? A: Absolutely! It can be Smash-related or it can just be something random. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be a question.

Q: Can we request headcanons for a particular pairing? A: To a limited extent, I will give you ship-related headcanons. I won’t guarantee that I’ll answer yours, since I try to keep ship-related headcanons somewhat limited. That doesn’t mean you can’t tell me about your ship or ask about it. It’s just with headcanons that I try to keep them limited.

Links, Pikachu Line, Dr. Mario, and the Pokemon Trainers

You may notice I use different tags for the different Link/Zelda/Ganondorf incarnations, and that I refer to not only Pichu and Pikachu, but Raichu as well. I’m gonna go in detail on my explanation on the different terminology I use, but there’ll be a simplified reference afterward.

Links:

Young Link (MM Link) and Toon Link (WW Link), who have their own titles in Smash, are tagged as “young link” and “toon link” respectively, since that is what they are called in Smash Bros. With some Links, I add the abbreviation for the game the incarnation is from, as is the case with Breath of the Wild Link, Ocarina of Time Link, and (sometimes) Twilight Princess Link, whom I tag with “botw link”, “oot” link", and “tp link” respectively. Prior to Smash Bros. Ultimate, I used to refer to TP Link as just “Link”, so if you see a post mentioning/tagging just Link, know that the post is referring to TP Link. From now on, whichever incarnation of Link is being referred to will be explicitly stated.

I won’t worry much about specifying Zelda or Ganondorf’s incarnation, so just assume it’s either all incarnations or the most recently used one, unless the post specifies otherwise. In the case that I have to specify which one is being discussed, I will use the same shortening of the game titles as I do with Link (e.g. TP Zelda or OoT Ganondorf), but since there is now Zelda from A Link Between Worlds, I will refer to her as ALBW Zelda.

Pikachu Line:

My headcanon is that the Pikachu from SSB64 and SSBM is different than the Pikachu from SSBB, SSB4, and SSBU. Furthermore, I headcanon that SSB64/SSBM Pikachu evolved into Raichu and is no longer participating in Smash Bros, and SSBB+ Pikachu is the Pichu from Super Smash Bros. Melee. The Pichu in SSBU is a different Pichu that’s new to Smash. There is also a female Pikachu that was introduced in SSBU, and I will be referring to her as Pikette (suggested by mushroomfusion245). Additionally, apparently Pikachu Libre is going to be in SSBU; she will be called Pikachu Libre and tagged as “pikachu l”. Additionally, the Spiky-eared Pichu is in Smash as Pichu’s alternate costume, so I will tag her as “spiky eared pichu”.

Mario and Dr. Mario

This is a relatively recent change, but Mario and Dr. Mario are considered two separate people on the blog, with the latter being the father of the former (and Luigi). They will be tagged separately as well.

Pokemon Trainer Stuff

Since SSBU was announced to have both Red and Leaf and their Pokemon, I realized I’d have to tag them individually, as well as their Pokemon. That way, we can come up with headcanons for all of them.

I’ll use the tags “red”, “ivysaur”, “charizard”, and “squirtle” for Red and his Pokemon. For Leaf and her Pokemon, I’ll use “leaf”, “l ivysaur”, “l charizard”, and “l squirtle” to distinguish. The only difference between the tags and the names I’ll use is for Leaf’s Pokemon, which I will specify is Leaf’s Pokemon. For example, while I would call Red’s Charizard just Charizard, I would call Leaf’s Charizard “Leaf’s Charizard”.

Long story short, SSBU made stuff a lot more complicated.

Now that we’ve gotten the reasoning out of the way, here’s a reference for all this:

Link in SSB64 and SSBM (the adult Link, anyways): OoT Link

Young Link: Young Link

Toon Link: Toon Link

Link in SSBB and SSB4: TP Link (but just Link in posts prior to E3 2018)

Link in SBBU: BotW Link

Zelda in SSBU: ALBW Zelda

Pichu in SSBM/Pikachu in SSBB onwards: Pikachu

Pichu in SSBU: Pichu

Pikachu in SSB64 and SSBM: Raichu (since I headcanon that it evolved after SSBM)

Female Pikachu in SSBU: Pikette (will be tagged as “f pikachu”)

Spiky-eared Pichu in SSBU: Spiky-eared Pichu (tagged as “spiky eared pichu”)

Pikachu Libre (first appeared in Pokemon ORAS, look it up): Pikachu Libre (will be tagged as “pikachu l”)

Mario: Mario

Dr. Mario: Dr. Mario (will be treated as Mario and Luigi’s father)

Red and his Pokemon (plus their genders for clarity): Red (male), Ivysaur (male), Charizard (female), Squirtle (male)

Leaf and her Pokemon: Leaf (female), Leaf’s Ivysaur (l ivysaur) (male), Leaf’s Charizard (l charizard) (male), Leaf’s Squirtle (l squirtle) (female)

[veshialles]

There’s a provincial election coming up pretty soon, and basically the options are;

-NDP: The current guys, whose political stance involves just about everything that the working/middle class (aka mostly everyone who lives here) needs to function (labour rights, unions, fair trade, welfare, slightly higher taxes to keep public stuff funded and running), but I’m guessing that they will more than likely get voted out because... well basically just because it’s the furthest left party, and Albertans are just...god we’re so fucking stupid. I literally know nothing about the party leader, but my Facebook friends seem to hate her, so she’s probably just doing her job? Unless there’s something I missed I guess

-Alberta Liberals: the “left-wing” party that is politically speaking actually somewhere in the middle, because language is meaningless I guess. Definitely won’t win because, again, we’re dumb and pretty much everyone here is mad at Trudeau (like for super fucking trivial shit, not even any of the questionable stuff), so any mention of the word “liberal” sends Albertans into a feral rage. Their leader is a lawyer, and he’s the first openly gay head of an Alberta political party. And, not gonna lie, he’s kind of handsome, just sayin’

-Alberta Party: “What makes a man turn Neutral? Is it a lust for gold, power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?” For real though, started out as a right-wing group, but recently merged with a different group and became centrist. They seem pro-environment and pro-science though so not bad I guess? Their website specifically mentions “agri-food and artificial intelligence” which I don’t know about y’all, but my mind immediately jumped to the conclusion that electing them would lead to the human race being slaughtered by Farmer Robots. Their leader even kind of looks like he’s a high school Math/Science teacher who is only one bad hair day away from becoming a mad scientist so?? It’s a possibility.

-UCP: Because I guess they finally realized that “Progressive Conservative” was a hilarious oxymoron, and it was redundant to have all these different right-wing groups, because wow there were so god damn many before the merger holy shit! So now you’ve just got every right-winger under one politically confusing banner, ranging from the mild “sometimes you gotta look out for yourself, fam” types, to the “I think we should stop funding everything and give people less rights” types. It’s a disaster, and their leader looks like a mob-boss but goofier, and he’s also a raging homophobic/misogynist/man-baby so please do not vote for this fucker. Their HQ is uncomfortably close to where I live and I do not like that at all not one bit.

-Freedom Conservative Party: Basically separatists, I think? I honestly don’t know, and I don’t really care. There’s basically no information about them other than like, a manifesto and a very sparse Wikipedia page, so they’re hopefully unlikely to win, because their whole vibe basically just seems like when you tell someone “Oh yeah no worries, I can do this by myself” and then you inevitably fuck up majorly, and have to get help. I don’t even know who leads this damn shitshow lmao

Honorable mentions:

-Communist Party: Yep, literal commies. That’s all the information I could find about them, because I couldn’t stay on their bright as fuck webpage for more than a minute before my eyes started to aches in their sockets from the strain.

-Green Party: They stand for “ecological wisdom, non-violence democracy, respect for diversity, participation in democracy, sustainability”, so basically they’re hippies. I mean that in an endearing way though, they seem like a good bunch, and much like the AP, they’re pro-science and pro-environment, but for that reason alone, they don’t have a shot here because of the oil industry oof

Well, that’s my take for the morning lads. Yeah this was definitely not an unbiased review at all, nor is it particularly well informed, but the point is; y’all better go out and vote on April 16th! (I mean, if you’re an Alberta resident, of course)

[the-stars-in-sapphos-eyes]

An open letter to one Ms. Taylor Alison Swift (@taylorswift - swifties please reblog!)

     So I’m writing this because I genuinely get the sense that Taylor cares a lot about her fans and wants to be the best version of herself possible - there’s obviously been a lot of drama in past years and, without reopening that wound, she dealt with it really well and seems like a very sincere and compassionate woman. She’s clearly demonstrated that she values her fans’ voices and wants to make her music and performances welcoming and safe for everyone. All in all, this gal has as much of my support as anyone can, given my cynical nature. It also helps that I’m autistic and she was my SpIn (special interest; it’s an autistic thing where we’re basically just wholly obsessed with a certain thing for a period of time) for years when I was younger, and also was the first (and only, for a long time) American artist who’s music I was allowed to listen to.

     Okay, long-winded backstory aside, I’d like to point something out.

     I love ME! Super catchy, super fun, super I-don’t-give-a-fuck-if-you-think-i’m-cringey-i’m-having-fun! That last point is also super important to me as an autistic person (yes I keep mentioning that I’m autistic for a reason), because neurotypical people tend to find us cringe-y when we are really enthusiastic about things that may seem trivial to others. So, imagine: I’m listening to the boisterous snare drums of the opening (another plus because I’m in marching band) and the silky sweet and infectiously gleeful vocals of Taylor Swift come in, serenade me about wholesome love over big brassy chords (...I play a brass instrument!). I’m ready to BOP to this.

     Then I get hit with ableism and a slur. I’m only writing this whole think because I am 100% sure Taylor has no idea that the word “ps*cho” is a slur and that “lame” has origins in mocking disabled people. At this point, they’ve become colloquial in their use and no one really gives them a second thought, even if they are vaguely aware of their problematic histories. Except, of course, for disabled people who are still targeted by them.

     I didn’t know ps*cho was a slur until about a year ago, so let me give a brief explanation. Ps*cho is a shortening of ps*chopath, which is closely related to so*iopath, and this explanation really applies to all of them. The words are used to refer to people who have low to no compassion to the point of being violent and aggressively anti-social. This is a stereotype of people with cluster b or personality disorders. Actual people with personality disorders can have trouble with empathy (which is different from compassion) and socializing, but there’s a disgusting and pervasive stereotype that this makes them dangerous and threatening, when in actuality they are far more likely to be victims of violence and abuse than perpetrators.

     I don’t think “lame” needs much of an explanation, but I will remind all of us that it began as a way to describe disabled people who don’t have full use or control of their bodies, which was always viewed as a negative thing to begin with. Disabled people have always been devalued and dehumanized. But the word has now evolved to have a purely negative meaning that describes anything that neurotypical and able-bodied people deem below them. Surprise, they view us disabled people as below them, too! Another point arises in the music video: when Brendon Urie (whom I also love) sings about “lame guys” we see a bunch of men floating around on umbrellas and, although I’m not sure if it was intentional, a lot of them look like they’re trying to be creepy and predatory, which is a hugely pervasive stereotype of neurodivergent men. For more on that, look up why neckbeard is an ableist term.

     Okay, do you guys remember 2006? I don’t because I was four, but remember a little song called “Picture to Burn”? With lyrics “so you can tell your friends that I’m obsessive and crazy/that’s fine I’ll tell mine you’re gay”? (side note, cr*zy is also pretty offensive and also has ableist roots). Remember how Taylor re-released it with a changed lyric so that the song wouldn’t be homophobic? That was way back when it was totally cool to be homophobic, but this teenage girl still realized she could do better, and she did. Obviously, it’s not really applause-worthy to be a decent human being, but that still gave me a lot of hope. (Oh have I mentioned I’m gay? I am).

     So now I have hope that this will reach Taylor. She’s active on tumblr which is super cool, honestly. We stan that. I know she cares about the message her music sends, and I know that if she sees this she will do what she can to change the fact that a lot of her disabled fans feel really uncomfortable listening to this song. We know she doesn’t mean any harm, but it’s still being done. And thankfully, it’s not a hard lyric to change! I’ve thought of a few acceptable alternatives for myself when I’m singing the song in my head, so I’m sure such a stellar songwriter isn’t going to have any problems coming up with an even better lyric to put in.

     Just to highlight the problem, I’m going to include a few links of others who have raised this same concern:

https://twitter.com/jackdrat/status/1126213531378995200

https://themighty.com/2019/04/taylor-swift-brendon-urie-me-lame-psycho/

Okay, so all that being said! I know there are also tons of disabled swifties on this site, as well as abled ones who genuinely care about us! So I would really appreciate it if you guys reblogged this and/or tagged @taylorswift, because I know that she’s going to take action if she sees this, but she probably won’t unless we really circulate it.

[bmichael]

Cold Takes

You need something extra after you drag yourself out of bed at 450am in a polar vortex to go to the gym long before sunrise. So I was honestly delighted this morning to see a new Chuck Klosterman - Bill Simmons podcast posted.

I’ve had an up-and-down relationship to reading and listening to these two. Growing up, I was a sponge for their ideas, then as a more mature person I outright rejected and ridiculed them, and now as we’re all more or less adults I can relate to their thoughts in a probably more considered way.

Simmons was in the news recently because of this WSJ profile of The Ringer and him that mentioned, among other things, that the Ringer makes around $15MM a year on ad and podcast revenue. Now, I saw some sports blogs and twitter users throw this number around as if it were large. And it’s not zero, but it’s not really a large revenue figure for a media network with you’ve got to figure at least 50 staffers (it launched with 43 and has grown) based in LA. He’s a businessman and a business, man (I will retire that phrase now) but it’s definitely still a pretty small business.

So the podcast. I started listening to it as I went through my usual deadlift-squat-rows day -- not super fun but not the worst (squats-focused is the worst) and found it pretty entertaining. I don’t really care about Tony Romo’s announcing one way or the other and I thought they both circled around some pretty un-nuanced ideas re: basketball offenses. (Is the best offense just having James Harden try to score every play or pass -- maybe?! Three pointers and dunks are really good -- whoa, great point!)

There’s one relevant point to this ramble where they’re talking about the different Fyre Festival docs and what being an influencer means. Neither seems to have a strong grasp on the term. Simmons focuses on it qua job or activity, where you get paid to endorse something while Klosterman sees it more as an Aristotelian category. Neither correctly assesses it as a figure in the culture with great-than-zero brand recognition and a role within the capitalist-media complex to generate added revenue for someone or something and not always yourself. Ie, they’re both influencers, but neither seems to consider this.

(This point sort of comes up later tangentially and unnoticed when Klosterman laments his latest book dealing with all these things currently being made into films and documentaries while he got none of the credit...)

At the 1:15 mark Simmons brings up the movie Green Book and its unfair treatment thus far. Now, in the last podcast with Wesley Morris, Simmons talks about how he likes Green Book and thinks the movie works just fine while simultaneously reading the wikipedia page for the concept of the magic negro (really, he does this). He’s coming from a place of really liking the movie and attributing to it (or to his enjoyment of the movie, maybe more precisely) a nobody-believes-in-us type of moral gumption and gravity.

My reading of Simmons in the last two podcasts is that the movie’s embattled status as controversial and under fire by parts of the media pisses him off slightly and makes him want to see it succeed. In this equation, Green Book is the 2019 Patriots and Simmons treats it accordingly.

So Simmons says to Klosterman (almost a direct quote, but I don’t have time to go back and re-listen. It’s at 1:15:30-ish)

unless you satisfy all these different demographics, a piece of art will be rejected

He doesn’t clarify what “different demographics” he means, but I’m taking him to mean black people, primarily. He perhaps also means young people and/or woke twitter warriors. Simmons continues, saying that he thinks art “should make you think”.

By itself, I found this point uproariously out of touch and wrong, but Simmons kind of continues to sort of tease this point out with Klosterman. I’m saying “continues to sort of tease” not because I write in a folksy, casual style but because he really doesn’t seem to have an argument or single point of view in mind, and this is what I found so fascinating by this part of the podcast.

(Klosterman, for his part, doesn’t really say much about Simmons’ comments except that he grew up in a different era and understands he has a POV or prejudices implicitly that he cannot control.)

So a little later, Simmons brings up the movie Cruising, which I have not seen, but he says is very good. Apparently, its a “ 1980 erotic crime thriller film written and directed by William Friedkin and starring Al Pacino” about a serial killer targeting gay men. Simmons brings this movie up to make the point that people are much more easily mobilized these days (so insightful...) and to say, further, that if the movie were released today it would have been boycotted heavily and possibly not released.

I find this to be a laughable take, but he goes on to say something very revealing in response to something Klosterman says. Chuck says that if Cruising were made in 2019, maybe it would be made by a gay director and/or have a gay star. And Simmons is like, oh so they’d anticipate these issues and get out in front of the controversy.

This was so revealing to me because it snaps into focus a few different domains Simmons occupies and shows he almost ‘code switches’ his thought process, unconsciously, depending on whatever ghost of a coherent thought happens to be haunting his mind in a given moment.

This is clearly Simmons the producer and media mogul. He wants to get this movie, Crusing, made in 2019. Logistically, he knows certain demographics will boycott the film and maybe prevent it from being released.

(By the way, there have been some movies prevented from being released, generally on the basis of a moral panic, but the most recent one I can think of is the Woody Allen Louis CK one which, who the fuck would want to see that anyway? I’m sure it would ‘make you think’... that CK and Allen are pieces of shit.)

This is not really a great place to come from as a critic or even person who runs the Ringer media empire. Speaking to the latter, obviously the Ringer is a vehicle to make money for its owners, but it does seem to have a more coherent, somewhat woke new media 3.0 purpose that’s not 100% cynical in the vein of, ‘hey cast a gay actor for this homophobic film so that it won’t get boycotted’. For the former, sure it would be something you’d note and maybe write about, but would it really ‘make you think’? It would make me think that the movie was a cynical piece of shit floating in the homophobic toilet bowl of American culture.

Drawing back even further, it just goes to show me at least that the majority of influencers in this apparently lamentable influencer culture still don’t really consider themselves influencers. The sort of way saying someone’s a “white male” is kind of offensive because it creates this contre-pied cognitive step where a white man actually has to identify as a subgroup of humanity and not the default setting, as it were, and realize that he has discursive and political motivations that aren’t just ‘natural law’ or something and are generally around to further his demographic’s self-interests.

Simmons constantly spouts this backward, establishment-protecting bullshit when it comes to entertainment - and with regard to everything else. The one arguably moral stand he took, to badmouth Roger Goodell on his ESPN podcast, had the effect of making him more famous and gave his flagging outsider status a little more life, allowing him to pivot to the Ringer. He and his site still slavishly cover football, despite making jokes (I guess?) about CTE and concussions.

There is not a large conclusion to all this except to get my thoughts out there. Like, I don’t think Simmons is evil or anything, but he’s totally unaware of his biases -- the same as anyone, I know.

It just galls me that I think he thinks he’s this establishment-wrecking poster boy for new media when he’s just the same old self-congratulatory, now-middle-aged white guy holding back progress in the name of art or a sophisticated critical view when it’s really about the bottom line and protecting conservative values.

[damnedrainbows]

Talk To People

So this is something that’s been bugging me for a while but really, really now that I see it’s happened to me again. Sorry if this isn’t super coherent, I’m just...ugh.

Talk to people.

Talk to people when they do. Something. Wrong.

Tumblr has a serious problem with this, and granted, I empathize. I have severe anxiety so I get it, it’s hard. I laughed with a good friend because I spent days thinking she was mad at me when she wasn’t at all and I was too afraid to ask. But if someone you’re interacting with does something wrong, TELL THEM.

No one is a mind reader, and more than that, talking to someone over blocking helps prepare for the real world where blocking is not an option. Someone does something at work that upsets you? ....Well, odds are it’s not something you can afford to quit over/get them fired, etc. We all need to learn to talk. And I say we in collectively, because I need to as well.

It really upsets me how expendable people in the RPC seem to be. How people are so willing to drop partners over...the drop of a hat. Now I’m not saying something like, a wildly racist or homophobic post or what not, I’m talking someone forgets to tag something, maybe they’ve messaged you too much, or maybe they’ve forgotten a rule, and instead of messaging them they’re just....dropped. Blocked. Gone from existence. As if the friendship you cultivated doesn’t even matter.

I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen a friend get blocked by a seemingly sweet mutual, who even said they loved them, in that offhanded way everyone throws, and then...they blocked them. My friend never learned why. I’ve had it done to me. It really fucks you up, leaving you to wonder what went wrong?

I had a mutual that, we legit only spoke once; they just asked what muse I wanted for a starter call and next thing I knew I was blocked. We spoke ONCE and it still bugs me because I don’t know what I did. And it happened again now. I don’t know what I did. No one should have to deal with that.

And at the end of the day...it makes me wonder, how much do I really matter to people in this community? How many people that have bonded with me would just...drop me like that? Have I even done anything significant to make a mark on them? To make them...think twice? Apparently I didn’t this time.

It terrifies me because I’ve stated in my rules but maybe I should have it at the top of my blog: I have severe memory problems. I have fibro, I have ADD, I have depression and anxiety and possible bipolar; I have SO much that effects my memory, meaning I am going to forget rules. I’ll probably forget more than once. But even when stating so....how many people are going to care, when it comes down to it?

....I’ve rambled too much. But, listen. If I’ve ever done anything wrong, if I’ve done anything that bothers someone, TELL me. I don’t care what it is; whether it’s forgetting to tag something or saying something offensive without realizing it. I won’t know unless I’m told. Please, I will not be mad. Tell me. I strive to be a good person, and this is just fucking me up because I don’t know what went wrong. Since I don’t know what I did...I don’t know how to rectify it. What if I do it to someone else without realizing? I won’t know.

Talk to me.

Talk to each other.

Please don’t hide feelings.

Talk. To. Each Other.

[bluephoenixdruidicprincess]

Dom Sherwood Controversy -- Thoughts

So, I got no less than 5 asks and messages about my thoughts on the Dom controversy. I really didn't want to open this can of worms. But here goes.

In regards to Dom Sherwood using the "F" word? I personally don't give two shits or any amount of shits for that matter. Why doesn't this matter to me? Because the only thing I care about is Shadowhunters being a good show. That one day, Shadowhunters could become a show that is on par with a show like Supernatural, for instance. It's not currently but I cling onto that hope in order to justify continuing watching this poorly written show. I really don't care if the cast or crew are decent people. I don't need Dom to be a decent person for that to happen. Is he a shitty person for using that word? Possibly. I don't know the context in which he said the word nor do I actually care enough to do the research. Is he a homophobe? Is he not a homophobe? Did he mean his apology? Did he not mean his apology? Who can tell? Certainly none of us because we don't know him on a personal level although some of the fandom likes to think they do. But either way? It doesn’t matter to me. I don't actively watch interviews with the cast because I want to feel connected to them as people. I don't care if they're good or bad people. I just want them to do their job. All I care about is that they give a good portrayal on the show they're working on. Let's take for instance Kat McNamara. She seems like a lovely person. Truly, in the interviews I've seen her in, she's a complete saint and I'm not ashamed to admit I have a healthy amount of adoration for her as a person. Does that stop me from thinking at times that she may be the wrong fit for Clary? No. I've always thought that and I still do at times. Part of it is the writing but another part of it is that whenever Kat tries to portray Clary as fiery and selfless, she comes off as pretentious, condescending, and rude to me. It doesn't stop me from liking Kat as a person. It's just a flaw I find in her portrayal of Clary. Just like when casting was first announced for this show. There was a whole lot of talk about how amazing it was that there are so many POC casted. I personally didn't care. I didn't even notice until the fandom started pointing it out. I don't see race or ethnicity unless it's actually important to the story being told. And thus far in Shadowhunters, Izzy being portrayed by a Latina hasn't been super important to the story. Just like in the show, Lucifer, I had been watching and adoring the show for two seasons before I came across a post in the fandom talking about how amazing it is that the show is so heavily POC casted. When I saw that post, I was like, "Huh. I guess they are. I hadn't really noticed." It's great to see POC have a higher and more quality representation in media but at the end of the day, all I care about is the story being told and if I like the portrayal.

There's been a lot of speculation about whether Matt and Dom are still friends. Again, it doesn't matter to me. As long as they're professional and this problem doesn't get in the way of their portrayal of Alec and Jace and the parabatai bond, they can be bitter enemies for all I care. Are they friends or not? Have they ever been friends? Doesn't matter to me. Cast mates hating each other is nothing new in media. What does matter if the actors can table it and put forth a good end product. 

One of my favorite episodes from the show Supernatural is this episode in Season 6 called The French Mistake. It's basically where Sam and Dean get sent to this parallel universe in which they find out that in this reality their world that they were living in, the world we know as Supernatural, is actually a fictional tv series. Much like it is in our reality. That there is actually a production crew producing their lives. There are a lot of reasons for why I like this episode. First of all, this episode is meta as hell. The French Mistake serves as this outlet for this show and everyone involved to make fun of themselves. But another reason I love this episode is a certain theme they kind of explore a little. All throughout this episode, we have Sam and Dean having to pretend they're Jared and Jensen but they're still behaving with the Winchester brotherly bond we all love about them intact. So on the outside looking in, within the confines of this episode, we have the cast and crew remarking constantly, "What's going on with Jared and Jensen? Why are they talking? Why are they spending off camera time together?" And my favorite iteration of the line, "They're acting weird but at least they're talking now." It's interesting because in the eyes of the fandom, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, and Mark Sheppard are viewed as really good friends. And in this episode, they're not portrayed this way. In this episode, we see Jared and Jensen as these very rich, very shallow people who don't like each other while in real life in the fandom we see them as great friends. Misha is portrayed as the pinnacle douchey actor obsessed with his twitter fan following instead of being the quirky and likable philanthropist the fandom views him as. Mark isn't in this episode but I'm sure if he was, we would've gotten some equally entertaining parody of him. This episode I enjoy because it introduces this idea that who these people are on the show, how they allow the fandom to perceive them, and who they are in real life can be very different things. These people allow us to see bits and pieces of who they are but none of us can really know as we don't have a personal connection with any of them despite how much we may want to. Also, this episode has an amazing scene where Jared and Jensen have to act badly on purpose and it's just wonderful. I have no idea how the crew was even able to get through one take of filming that scene without dying from laughter. Here it is if you've never seen it. 

Do I have to like Dom as a person to be able to watch Shadowhunters? Absolutely not. All I care is that he gives a good portrayal of Jace. As long as he didn't break any laws, it won't blacken my perception of Jace. And while as horrible as it is to use the "F" word, it's not against the law. If you think that it should be, well then we're going to get into some Freedom of Speech territory and I really don't want to get into any of that with any of you. And whereas you can use the argument that it's wrong for an actor affiliated with a show about tolerance and the progression of LGBTQ relationships in society, it doesn't change the fact that you can still be a part of a show that does deal with those issues and not care about those issues yourself. I bet nowhere in Dom's contract does it say he has to believe in the same societal issues that the show is fighting against. All he needs to bring to the table is the ability to act. That's what he's being paid for. I would also like to point out how hypocritical it is to use the statement that's it's wrong for someone involved with a show about intolerance to use a derogatory slur seeing as how the fandom is pretty intolerant themselves of any opinion they don't agree with. This fandom will crucify anyone who doesn't agree with their very narrow-minded opinions about the show. Which, again, is ironic considering what the show is about. The Shadowhunters fandom is truly a very toxic environment which is why I only spend time within this fandom while the show is airing. Unfortunately, the show is not so good that I can warrant spending their hiatus time in the fandom too. Spending that much time in that toxic of an environment, I'm fairly certain I would grow to hate life. 

And also, this goes along with the themes in The French Mistake. I have a personal belief that you should never meet your heroes. The French Mistake talks about how you can speculate on who that person is but that doesn't mean you know them or even if you should know them. Everyone should be very wary of putting media figures on pedestals. They're human just like us. Some of us are good people, some of us are bad people, some of us exist somewhere in the middle. Just like these media figures. Some of them good people, some of them are bad people and most of them exist somewhere in the middle. By putting that actor on that pedestal, idolizing them and not embracing the truth that you don't actually know them and that they have flaws, you're setting yourself up to be disappointed. Idolize the show, idolize the characters but be very careful about how you idolize real people. That's what I do. I love the show Supernatural. I love Castiel as a character. I love Misha Collins' portrayal of him. And I think Misha Collins is an amazing person. His efforts with Random Acts and making a difference in the world is wonderful. His quirky and free thinking personality gives me joy when I watch his panels. The fact that talking about his wife and children can move him to tears of joy and love on a stage in front of a thousand people is beautiful. But I also accept that he probably does have flaws that I may not like. He does say things at his panels that I don't entirely agree with but it doesn't change my perception of him as a person because I accept those things as a part of him. 

I would like to close this with imparting a little bit of wisdom that I've acquired over my life. The word, "faggot" although a terrible and reprehensible word, is also just that, a word. I have been called too many insults to count throughout my life (whether it be my personal sexual preferences or other personal things about me) and it used to bother me until I realized this simple truth: You are the one who chooses to be offended. At the end of the day, words are just a compilation of letters. We give those insults power over us by choosing to be offended. We stop giving meaning to those words and those words lose their hold over us. Once I stopped seeing words like faggot or haole or whore or bastard as derogatory terms and just saw them as words and shake them off like they're yesterday's trash, I was much happier. Does it give Dom a pass? No, certainly not. Am I willing to forgive him for it if he was one of those actors that I did actively follow and idolize? Probably not. But would I also think he's a terrible person? Probably not because I don't know what was going through his head when he said it. I don't know the guy. I don't know if he said the word because he's a homphobe or not. I can't know because I don't know who he is as a person. I don't pass negative judgement on people I don't know. And I don't really care to pass any kind of judgement, be it good or bad, in Dom's case. As long as he gives a good portrayal of Jace, that's all that matters to me. I just want these actors to do a good job. Just like with Misha Collins, all I really care is that he gives a good portrayal of Castiel/Jimmy/Lucifer, whoever he happens to be portraying at the time. The fact that he seems to be in possession of this very beautiful soul is just something extra but hey, I'll take it. If theses actors are decent people outside of the work place, hey, that's icing on the cake but I don't necessarily need that icing to enjoy that cake. 

But anyway, that's my stance on this very controversial topic with Dom. I personally don't care. I kind of rambled there for a bit but I feel like I got my point across. I have a feeling I'm going to lose a lot of followers but hey, that's life. I'm just doing me. You don't like it? You can either deal with it or get out. Or you can send me a mean message or a mean anonymous ask. I know how you trolls work. You're no different than the bullies I had in high school. And much like my bullies in high school, if you try to belittle me in any way, I'll ignore you. So, there's that.

[rebelgirlmatrix1213]

6. for the pride month asks on your questioning process

I'd say I'm still around the questioning phase, mostly cause finding yourself out is pretty difficult and confusing. It all started out at a convention actually. My whole life since I learned what it meant I was brainwashed by my own family that being gay was wrong, and I belived them cause no one I really knew or trusted told me otherwise. I was shielded from anything reminiscent of Lgbt and as much as I hate to admit it, I was homophobic. I didn't know any better, and it still upsets me that my family did that to me. Throughout my childhood I never had crushes (that I could remember anyway, I've been told I had one when I was 5). I had crushes on fictional character, but never real boys like my friends, like I was supposed to according to everything is heard. I remember several times when I'd thought a girl really pretty but I'd mentally tell myself "But not it 'that' way". Heck I remember asking my mom if it'd be ok to kiss my best friend when I was 7 or 8 (at that time I didnt even know being gay or anything else existed) But one year I went to a con and had an experience, or more an epiphany that changed how I thought about lgbt. I realized that nothing anyone is doing in this community is "wrong", I guess unless you're just super religious. What makes other people happy, and who other people are is non of our business and they aren't harming any one. Then I started thinking about myself. I don't remember when exactly it happened, but I do remember a conversation with my best friend, telling her about this time I saw a girl and accidentally ended up staring cause I thought she was so pretty, and I remember telling her "I don't think I'd mind dating a girl" , and she suggested I might be bi-curious. And suddenly I started noticing my own though processes more. And somewhere along that line, I got my first crush. It was insane. I finally knew what it felt like. It was a friend who was going by non binary at the time but who is now genderfluid. It low key sucked though cause they're hella taken and probably gonna marry their gf. But at least I knew how I felt. I don't care what the person's gender or lack their of is, if I like someone, I'm goong to like them for them. And I started alternating from bi to pan. I use them both, even though I know most people don't do that. I guess I'm just more comfortable with bi cause it's the first term I used. Anyway I later found the term asexual and I was so so happy cause I had been feeling that way for so long without a word to put to it, and now I had a way to define it. I'm fairly sure I'm Ace but there is a small chance I could be demi-sexual, I won't completely rule it out. But that's the thing about this whole crazy sexuality thing, it takes time, and it can be confusing to label yourself. But it can help you so much. Being able to use labels makes me happy and gives me a sense of community and helps a me identify with other people. They aren't for everyone, but they're there for a reason. And if it takes you a little longer to find yours? That's perfectly fine. I guess this got a bit off track, but to repeat myself from earlier, I guess you could say I'm still questioning. For right now I'm going with bi/panromantic-ace if you'd like something to affiliate me with. And I've never been as happy as I was when I finally found all this out and embraced it. And I'm surrounded by friends who make all my parents phobic bs worth it, so I'd say I'm luckier then most. Sorry this got so long, but if anyone wants to talk to someone about figuring yourself out, my ask box and my dms are open! Thanks for the question!!