#sometimes a character is more of an event than a person. they're like a force of nature

[slyandthefamilybook]

it's not a perfect formula but you can often tell whether a story has merit by removing extant characters and settings and reducing it to its bare components

The Book of Boba Fett is about Boba Fett running a criminal empire on Tatooine -> The Book of Boba Fett is about a guy running a criminal empire in a place

The main draw of the show was that it's about Boba Fett but like. who is he? Who is Boba Fett? He's a guy who looked cool one time in that one movie

I kid, there's more to him than that. Boba was a boy when he lost his father in a war his father is partially responsible for. His father was killed in front of him by people who claimed to be keepers of the peace. There's something there! But that's not what BOBF is about!!

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

I sometimes see the opinion that MXTX took the clichéd tropes she'd critiqued in Scum Villain, and played them straight in MDZS. But though a lot of them appear in MDZS, I'd argue that none are actually played straight at all!

The main point of MDZS's tropes is subversion. Yes, WWX has a 'tragic backstory', even an arguably overused one (orphaned by his parents at a young age, forced to live on the streets with nobody to rely on, etc) – but how things differ in how it's used. Tragic backstories are normally used to build sympathy for a character, to make us care and get invested in them. But... we're never actually shown any of those street days, we're never shown and never dwell upon how much he suffered during them. They're only really mentioned in passing and whenever dogs come up! If the goal was to make us feel bad for WWX, this would be very ineffective writing. But what's actually important here isn't that WWX went through tragedies – it's how he doesn't let the tragedies he went through define him. He doesn't dwell on them, the narrative doesn't dwell on them, it's never used to earn sympathy points... because what defines WWX is his choices and how he chooses to act, not a backstory completely out of his control. What gets us invested in him is his personality and the character writing of MXTX, not tragic events used as a substitute for identity.

And this trope treatment fits extremely well with WWX's personality itself – he's someone who 'forgets the pain as soon as the wound has healed'*, but also who actively chooses to focus on the present because you can't change the past; someone who holds the belief that 'gains and losses [should] remain uncommented on' when choosing what to do.

The use of the tragic backstory isn't the only thing that's subverted, either – the other main thing is the 'blackening' of the protagonist, and its impact on the protagonist's fall. After being thrown into the Burial Mounds, on a surface level it does seem like this blackening has occurred: the first thing we see when he returns is his gruesome torture of the Wen cultivators; he's 'forsaken' traditional cultivation in favour of an 'evil but more powerful' path; and frankly, Sunshot-era WWX is terrifying. But MDZS is not a blackening story, and so the events of the Burial Mounds aren't used as a catalyst for that purpose. Though it's true that WWX's not entirely the same person he was before (because how could be be?), underneath it all, his morals, worldview and core** stay the same. Though gruesome, his revenge is directed towards the ones who wronged him, not those past that and certainly not the entire world. His experience in the Burial Mounds doesn't lead to him being some evil, blackened overlord... like everyone says he is at the start! That's subverted, because again, WWX's values and choices are more important to the story than genre conventions.

But the most crucial thing? What leads to WWX's downfall isn't any blackening! It isn't any vengeance or morally dubious actions***– he was praised for those things during the Sunshot Campaign! No, what leads to his downfall is something completely unrelated to that, something which would've disappeared had the trope been played straight. It's him doing what's right by defending the Wens, it's him following his moral code when it opposes the world's, it's him standing up to the injustice of others – not others standing up to the injustice of him. That's the subversion here.

(Also, once again, the fall of Lotus Pier, the Burial Mound, etc, aren't used for sympathy points – and if it was relevant, they wouldn't have been used to excuse any actions, either. Using tragic events as an excuse for doing bad things is critiqued many times in MDZS, through characters like Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao. And that's not exactly a trope subversion, but it is a critique of badly handled 'excuses'.)

These are by no means all the tropes MDZS subverts – the nature of guidao vs the usual nature of modao being another very major one – but they're the main ones that feature in Scum Villain.

So, though at first glance MDZS seems to play the tropes MXTX critiqued there straighter, it's not a simple case of using them as cliches, and we see that by how they're used to impact the narrative, and how that differs from what they're traditionally used for. MDZS doesn't fall back into clichés Scum Villain satirised – it's the subversion to Scum Villain's exploration and critique.

--

*Which I know is generally used negatively, to describe someone not learning a lesson from a punishment, but it really describes WWX in general, too. He doesn't dwell on that pain, he does his best to move on from it.

**...heh

***And, because it's often debated – whatever the morality/culpability of Nightless City is doesn't even matter! The events happened at a pledge conference against him that was already taking place. WWX's actions there didn't make people want to kill him because that was explicitly happening beforehand.

[love-takes-work]

I've seen a fair number of people interpret Rebecca Sugar's (and the Crew's) decision to put Ruby in a dress as subversive, and I want to discuss why that feels like a clear miss to me.

Every time--every single time--I've heard Rebecca Sugar talk about the queer relationships on this show, it comes with this expression of wholesomeness, and often glazed with a sheen of wistfulness, flavored something like "I needed this as a child and young person, and I didn't have it." Much of Rebecca Sugar's work to bring this wedding (and other unapologetic queer relationships) to the screen was framed as an emergency--as in, we HAVE to get this out there for those kids we used to be, because we know they're drowning.

Yes, it's funny sometimes when people make jokes about Sugar deliberately "adding more gay" or "making it gayer" as a big eff-you to the people who spoke against it, but that doesn't sit right from where I'm standing. It took so much strength (and resulted in so much battle damage) to fight that fight, yes. But from everything I can see from the interviews and conversations I've seen and read, this wasn't served up in a "ha-HA, take THAT!" kind of way. These characters having these kinds of relationships should have been a non-issue, and the fact that their very wholesome kids'-show wedding and very sweet kiss and very adorable love for each other was seen as Political when it should have been just two characters in love is so sad to me.

I've seen dozens of people suggest that Ruby is in a dress and Sapphire is in a suit "to fuck with the bigoted censors in other countries" or "to give the finger to gender roles," but again, I think it is simpler and sweeter than that. Rebecca's said that Ruby in a dress is how she feels in a dress. Celebration and exploration of feminine-coded stuff felt wrong to Rebecca for a long time, like it wasn't hers, because she wasn't really a woman and didn't want it forced on her. As a result she was robbed of all the beauty that should have been a non-issue, from what TV shows and toys she was supposed to enjoy as a kid to what kind of person she was supposed to marry and what she should wear as an adult.

Ruby never got a choice about how she looked really. Once she got to choose her presentation for a significant event, this is what she chose. It means so much more to see that than to construct it primarily as a reactionary measure, as if it would somehow foil the sinister censors in more homophobic countries (who, incidentally, are not therefore forced to show Ruby in a dress even though they tried to hide that Ruby was a "she" or that she was in a romantic relationship with another "she"; y'all, they just don't show the episode).

We see plenty of other examples of gender-role-related expectations being casually stepped on and squashed, like when they took the trouble to give traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine "clothes" to some watermelons to make the audience think there was a husband and wife watermelon only to have the wife be the warrior and the husband stay home with the child. With stuff like that, yeah, sure, maybe it's designed to make you think "oh isn't that very feminist of them!" Or maybe it's more "well why do I see this as a 'reversal' when it's just a thing that happened?" This show is full of ladyish beings who fight and have power. And as for Steven. . . .

Nobody has negative reactions onscreen (or even particularly confused reactions) when Steven wears traditionally feminine clothes, and it is (of course) also not presented as a "boy in a dress gag"--it's not supposed to be funny. When they go all in slathering Steven in literal princess tropes throughout the final act of Season 5, we understand that it's because the powerful Diamonds expect him to be Pink Diamond, not because the show is trying to girlify him or embarrass him or even make the audience think positive thoughts about boys in girls' clothes. It's more neutral than that in my interpretation: "these are literally just pieces of cloth, and while some of them have meaning, they don't inherently have a gender." I don't see this as transgressive. It's just in a world where putting on what you want to wear doesn't HAVE to be a political statement. (Though obviously it CAN be, and plenty of people wear a variety of clothes as a fuck-you to whoever they want to give the finger to. I just don't see that as happening here.)

Don't get me wrong; Rebecca Sugar certainly knew about the politics (intimately) and has lived at many of their intersections. She was not ignorant of how queer people are seen in this world. She was silenced as a bisexual person because her identity supposedly didn't matter if she was with a man and planned to be with that same man forever. She was shunted into "omg a woman did this!" categories over and over again, which she wore uneasily as a nonbinary person while accepting that part of who we are is how the world sees us. But what is it like if everything someone like her embraces is seen as a statement synonymous with "fuck you" to someone else?

She is married to a person who happens to be a man and happens to be Black. Her relationship isn't a "statement" about either of those aspects of his existence; her love is simply something that is. She is Jewish working in a society that's largely Christian. Her cultural perspective to NOT center her cartoon around Christian holidays and Christian morals; her choices to make an alternate world in this specific way is simply something that is. Her queer perspective as a nonbinary bisexual person has helped inform the Gems' radical philosophy of "what if we learned to explore and define ourselves instead of doing the 'jobs' we're assigned and being told it's our nature?" Her decision to include queer people in a broadly queer cartoon isn't designed PRIMARILY as a battle against baddies, or to drown out all the relentless straightness, or to deliciously get our queer little paws all over their kids' TV. It's an act of love.

So this is just to say that though I DO understand that sometimes subversion and intentional transgression are very necessary, I do not think that's the HEART of what's going on at this Gem wedding. We got a wholesome marriage scene between two of the most lovely little flawed-but-still-somehow-perfect characters, and I very much want to see their choices as being about them. About how Ruby feels in a dress. About how Sapphire feels about not having to always wear a dress. About them incorporating a symbol of their union into their separate lives so they can have some independence in their togetherness. About them celebrating their love by letting Steven wipe his schmaltz all over them.

There are many choices in the show that ARE carefully constructed to counter existing narratives, you know, giving the Crystal Gems' only boy all the healing, pink, flower imagery; having a single-sex species that's ladyish with all the members going by "she"; featuring many nurturing male characters who cry and cook and raise kids without mothers; pairing multiple fighty ladies with gentler guys; and importantly, intentionally loading up the show with stories, characters, and imagery any gender will find appealing despite being tasked with expectations to pander to the preteen boy demographic.

But it's very important to me that the inclusion of queer characters and the featuring of their choices be seen primarily as a loving act, and way way less of a "lol screw the bigots." I want our stories to be about us. Yes, I know it's a necessary evil that sometimes our stories are also about fighting Them. But every time I see someone say they put Ruby in the dress to "piss off the homophobes" or "stump the censors" I feel a little gross. Like the time I picked out an outfit I loved and my mom said I only dressed in such an obnoxious way to upset her, and I was baffled because my aesthetic choices, my opinions, my choices had nothing to do with her. Yet they were framed like I chose these clothes primarily to cause some kind of petty harm to her, when not only was it not true but I was not even that kind of person who would gloat over intentionally irritating someone.

The queerness of this show isn't a sneaky, underhanded act trying above all to upset a bigot or celebrate someone's homophobic fury. It lives for itself. Its existence is about itself. It's so we can see ourselves in a show, and it's so people who aren't queer or don't have those experiences can see that we exist, we participate, we want very similar things, and definitely are focusing way more about celebrating our love at our own weddings rather than relishing the thought of bigots tearing their hair out and hating us.

It's dangerous to turn every act of our love into a deliberate movement in a battle strategy when their weddings just get to be weddings.

I think there’s this idea that that [queer characters] is something that applies or should be only discussed with adults that is completely wrong. And I think when you realize that talking to kids about heteronormativity is just like air that you breathe all the time, it’s kind of amazing that that is not true in any other capacity. I think if you wait to tell kids, to tell queer youth that it matters how they feel or that they are even a person, then it’s going to be too late! You have to talk about it—you have to let it be what it gets to be for everyone. I mean, like, I think about, a lot of times I think about sort of fairy tales and Disney movies and the way that love is something that is ALWAYS discussed with children. And I think also there’s this idea that’s like, oh, we should represent, you know, queer characters that are adults, because there are adults that are queer, and you should know that’s something that is happening in the adult world, but that’s not how those films or those stories are told to children. You’re told that YOU should dream about love, about this fulfilling love that YOU’RE going to have. […] The Prince and Snow White are not like someone’s PARENTS. They’re something you want to be, that you are sort of dreaming of a future where you will find happiness. Why shouldn’t everyone have that? It’s really absurd to think that everyone shouldn’t get to have that! --Rebecca Sugar

[bonefall]

.. opinions on wind runner? i feel like im one of the only ones that genuinely hates her sometimes

If you feel like the only one who genuinely hates her, I think you need to look around more. Wind Runner is a very widely disliked character, because she's often used within the story as a small antagonist who "threatens" the authority of Tall Shadow. Gray Wing dislikes her. Thunder is openly cat-racist to her. She spends several books trying to break through the moor cats' xenophobia to join a group that came to HER LAND.

Then, when Moth Flight is old enough to be a relevant character in Forest Divided, Wind Runner is turned into Yet Another mean mom the very moment Moth displays ADHD. She's contrasted to her mate Gorse Fur, who is a Soft And Good Dad, and ultimately MASSIVELY punished with the harrowing events of Moth Flight's Vision (even though, for most of that book, she's completely right.)

Ask yourself why they're especially harsh on WIND RUNNER for being mean to her child, in the arc with Tom the Fucking Wifebeater and his redemption death, plus Thunder being forced to stop being mad at his abuser Clear Sky, please.

To me, Wind Runner is an intense, ambitious woman who's demonized for it in a way that men just aren't. She's subject to several misogynistic trends within WC, plus a huge helping of xenophobia that goes absolutely unexamined. If DOTC cared at all about women, it would have treated her with the nuance she deserves.

Wind Runner is treated with nearly endless suspicion by Gray Wing through books 1 - 3, while he's bending over backwards to suck Clear Sky's toes.

Her wanting to join the group that came TO HER HOME and being a bit pushy about it earns a stronger reaction from Gray Wing than Clear Sky murdering people.

She's pressured into changing her name "to fit in," and it's still not enough. She wanted to join the group so bad she changed her name, at the request of the Mountain Cats, for a chance of being better accepted

This came after she'd already saved Jagged Peak's life when a burrow collapsed on him. She's plenty trustworthy.

She keeps doing shit to try and prove herself to this group of assholes. Remember Bumble being dragged back to her domestic abuser? Gray Wing interprets this as a power struggle, when WIND RUNNER WAS NOT EVEN PART OF THE GROUP AT THE TIME.

From Wind Runner's POV, she did something that the Moor cats wanted done. It was fucking evil. It was committing violence against another member of the out-group the cats see her as.

But who actually has the power here? Tall Shadow does.

Gray Wing said it himself that she could have come up with some excuse for Bumble to stay, and she didn't. In fact, any cat could have spoken up. No one did.

and still. STILL. Wind Runner gets nothing. Her reward is Gray Wing surmising that actually, her doing their sick dirtywork was a political move.

It's more consistent as a motivation with how Wind Runner wants to join their group. The thing she's been doing.

She only actually gets to join the group after Thunder starts publicly hurling slurs at her for suggesting they need to be ready for Clear Sky to attack them. "What do you know about peace? Last time I was here you were NOTHING BUT A ROGUE WITH A ROGUE'S NAME"

Gray Wing even starts purring when she gives birth, because her ambition goes away briefly and she "stops bossing everyone around." this is treated like a sweet thing. god forbid women retain their personalities when they have kids

She loses her first premature child to a seizure and Gray Wing starts proselytizing his religion to her. "Maybe it's a good thing your weakest child died because Jesus has them now" I want to beat him with a hammer

When her second child gets sick, Clear Sky has a bright idea that involves killing it. I refer to this as his "reverse leper colony" suggestion. He only develops a sense of humanity towards the sick when his brother's pregnant wife is in danger. Wind Runner and her kitten barely seem to clock as people to him.

It's only after her SECOND baby succumbs to a horrible, painful death that she decides the moor cats are assholes, and she goes to start her own group. It's LONG overdue. I was extremely excited to see it.

Now. Listen.

I've been treated just like Moth Flight before. I've practically heard the scolding in Book 6 Chapter 3 verbatim. I'm not downplaying anything about Wind Runner being harsh to her; being yelled at like that never fixed the problem.

What I'm saying is that this is the SAME arc that summons the hollowed-out ghost of Storm to coo that Clear Sky "never drove anyone away" with his abusive behavior and gives Tom the Wifebeater a heroic redemption death.

So why is the scolding from Wind Runner treated as unambiguously harsh? What's the difference between her and them?

Why is it that outside of this little bubble of the community, you can get buried in a flood of people crying about how "Clear Sky made Summisteaks Butt he thought it was the right thing :((( He feels bad about shoving Thunder's face in a weeping, pus-filled wound and trying to kill him :((((" but Wind Runner is mean about Moth Flight not catching a rabbit and she should be skinned alive

Why is WIND RUNNER held responsible for the death of Clear Sky's child in Moth Flight's Vision, WHEN IT WAS COMPLETELY HIS OWN FAULT??

So, why should I hate her? Because she's mean to the idiot protagonists? Because she's Yet Another Bad Mom whose actions ARE treated as Bad in the story, in the arc famous for openly weeping whenever someone's mad at their abusive dad?? When she has this whole horrific, unexamined story about how incredibly bigoted The Settlers are towards her and the extremes she goes to in order to please them?

I'm glad she's mean, actually. She should have been even meaner. I think she should have a gun

[guess-that-ship]

Guess That Ship Tournament Season 12: Submissions CLOSED!

The Concept: You describe your ship* to me, I pick out the submissions which I find most compelling and pit them against each other without revealing who they are, people vote on them, and their identities gets revealed once they’re eliminated.

Submission Guidelines

*For the purpose of this tournament, relationships do not have to be romantic in nature. (I’m sometimes going to use “ship” as a shorthand, just know I mean “relationships” in general.)

Relationship can be between any number of characters.

Real people are accepted if they’ve been dead for more than 100 years.

Roleplay characters are accepted as long as the description only pertains to the characters and not the players.

Crossover ships are only allowed if the crossover is official.

OCs are accepted. (However, OC x Canon is not accepted. Please do not submit other people's OCs without their permission.)

No overtly NSFW submissions. (Mentioning they have sex or are a sex worker is fine, but try to avoid anything more than that.)

Two submission per person. (Do not submit the same ship twice. I cannot enforce this on Google Forms without forcing you to log in. So just be champs and respect this rule.)

Failure to follow these guidelines may result in all of your submissions being disqualified for this season.

Summary Guidelines

Selection Process: I will read through the list of descriptions submitted without reading their names and pick the most compelling submissions. Then, I will check the name to make sure there's no repeats.

Keep it concise, but also bring something unique to the table. Make sure to describe their relationship, not just summarize the events of the story.

Previous submissions for reference. The ideal submission should be 2-3 paragraphs, but you can make it as short or long as you want. Please keep in mind the longer your submission, the less likely it is to get in.

Tips on what to avoid while writing a summary can be found here.

Descriptions should be based on canon, not headcanon. (e.g. You can say “they love each other” instead of “they’re lovers” if their romantic nature is debatable.)

Avoid author commentary. (e.g. "They're canonically x," "I love them," "Play/watch/read this," etc.)

Use canonical pronouns.

Avoid identifying information or setting specific giveaways. (i.e. Ninja village, space necromancers.)

When submitting OCs, please make sure to at least put a name somewhere. (e.g. "John and Bob by anonymous" or "OCs by Joey.")

The more popular your ship is the more vague the description should be.

Exclusions

Ships that were accepted in Season 7 onwards and ships that at least reached the semifinals in Season 1-6 are not allowed. For a complete list, please look here. (No need to look through the whole list, just Ctrl+F to find the ship you want.)

Any submissions from Harry Potter will also not be included.

Notes

I will not vet the ships/pairings for problematic content.

If you participate in this tournament, know that you run the risk of unintentionally voting for your nOTP. The mod does not take any responsibility for any distress that may cause you.

There will be a limit of one ship per media in the bracket. You may submit two ships from the same media, but keep in mind only one ship will be able to get in. (A series or franchise will generally count as one media, but they will be evaluated on a case by case basis.)

Submit your ships here! Submissions will be open until Monday, August 5th at 10 PM EDT.

Please reblog this post to spread the word! The more submissions, the better!

[butterfly-ribbon]

been thinking of ppl saying that mizuena should've been in a yuri or josei manga that isn't popular which is a sentiment i understand bc yes a hypothetical mizuki akiyama that exists in a yuri or josei manga would probably have her transness made explicit i guess (absolutely not guaranteed tho imo considering the amount of transfem manga i've read that quickly veer into third sexing u_u) but even if i accept this premise at face value i'm not fully onboard with it bc i feel like her character exists best in something like prsk bc she exists as a response to trans girls being into things like love live, revue starlight, bandori, etc. it's in her metanarrative…

not saying gacha game writing is always good … a lot of ppl often say it's frustrating how much it expects you to fill in the gaps (bc that's part of audience engagement) and ena5 was arguably gachapilled abt it but i think it makes sense. gacha thrives on implied queerness bc even when the writers are passionate about what they're writing abt they can't risk alienating executives and wider audiences bc writing queerness in something 'mainstream' is often complicated? so it's not always the writers' choice? i think mizuki is pretty Explicitly transfem though. the only "issue" with her writing to me is that they don't let her say this, which i also only consider a problem /at all/ bc when she's outed it's pretty explicit? gacha often has very character driven writing … the queerness is often also an Audience Draw. i wish they would at minimum call mizuki a girl. textually. i want ena to call her a cute girl … though considering how many ppl go "ano ko", she's getting called a cute girl all the time lol.

with that being said, i think the picnic event is one of my main examples of things that make me go,,, mizuki's character works best in the context of something like prsk as a response to things like bandori bc it's about a tgirl vs cgirl idols. that mixed events inherently highlight mizuki's circumstances as "othered" by society around her and the inherent complications of her own life vs others. ppl compare mafuyu and toya sometimes also but it's so bare bones by comparison bc mafuyu is literally in a dissociative cPTSD fugue at all times. it's about so much more than being forced into a life goal she doesn't want. everything about how her mother has raised her has warped her as a person. made her unable to see healthy or more objective realities. mizuki and mafuyu both have wanted desperately to die and disappear. mizuki even now … struggles so much with that and being around "normal" ppl is hard for her bc of it bc no matter how she tries, she can't be a normal girl. an average girl. so she has to be abnormal or exceptional. no in between. how she exists in contrast to bandori is so genuine in that engagement with gender and i specify bandori bc it's colopales other game.

going back to the picnic event i love the moment when they're eating the food airi prepared and talking about how airi and shizuku are "idols who are capable of bringing others hope", but then mizuki quickly goes from admiration to somberness, wishing she could be the same as them ... and even when the others bring up the music she makes with her circle it doesn't do much to cheer her up? it reads so much to me as a trans girl struggling with an inherent sense of inferiority amidst cis girls who have never had their own girlhood questioned in the way she has and can thus take so much for granted! ena might be really ruthless and mean in a way that is atypical of femininity and airi may have struggled with not being traditionally feminine and was bullied for failing to act out "proper" girlhood, but she still has a very different experience from mizuki and neither can compare to the constant transmisogyny and degendering that mizuki constantly has to go through every day and having her identity denied so vehemently on a systemic level.

it's so pointed to me bc mizuki is an idol fan and has that genre awareness ... the way trans girls often connect with media like mahou shouio and idols but despite their love for it, still feel an inherent sense of alienation due to being an Other ... bc there's a separation between "liking these girls and these things" abstractly versus actually meeting them, and i think it's interesting that there's literally no way in the context of this game that any of these girls could be idols and trans, specifically bc mizuki is a trans girl who can't be one and this game predicates a major portion of its story around mizuki As A Trans Girl! if mizuki tried to be an idol, she'd be outed and harassed! that's a fear she already has to live with when she's making music with niigo even though it's safer due to its anonymity. transness and idols don't have to be disconnected of course, but her being a trans girl who's a fan of this stuff who's disallowed the opportunity to directly take part in them is So fucking important. her engagement with all of this.

this is an event about ena's relationships with other women but also how mizuki exists in the borderlines of girlhood ... how no one else is so prepared as she is for things going wrong and how much she has had to take on undue responsibility in the world at large just to "exist"... she's protected at home but everywhere otherwise, she always has to take responsibility for how others see her, how others project onto her, how others expect her to act, and the event ends with mizuki still declining ena's offer to join the group call with airi and shizuku bc it didn't resolve anything ... bc simply repressing her own insecurities and fears in the moment to rescue ena and airi bc it's more important to act didn't help in the grand scheme of things when this is something mizuki is always expected to do! ena did it out of kindness, but it's terrifying to be invited to a group trip with her childhood friend who is actually a cool and beautiful idol, and then for another beautiful idol to be there. and both of them are so pleasant and sweet and nice. how is mizuki supposed to interact around ppl like that, after all?

the mizuena in the picnic event is so fucking vital bc of ena trying to give mizuki comfort but making her more and more discomforted, which is good buildup to my footsteps, your destination. it's about how mizuki still exists on the fringes of girlhood even when someone is actively making effort to make her feel "included" and the invisible yet uncrossable barrier that exists between her as a trans girl who loves things like idols and idols themselves (who are predominantly cis girls). airi and shizuku are very sweet! but it's… kind of agonizing, bc airi was already ena's "friend" and mizuki feels like she has no place in the lives of others and wouldn't deserve to be ena's friend if ena found out about her transness, which is why she clings to the plausible deniability around her gender status. airi is someone who can bond with ena and be close to her much more easily bc of their shared experience with misogyny, but this is something mizuki has to struggle for much more even though the misogyny she struggles with is even more Amplified due to how the [trans]misogyny she experiences is often denied and erased even among other girls...

[writers-potion]

Hi. I'm writing a novel in first person and my main character has some serious trauma around swimming, but I'm not quite sure how to write that fear or that reaction they would have. also having the same problem with a lot of fear-related subjects when writing in first person. any tips? thanks! :D

Hi, thank you for the question!

As someone who has a deep fear of drowning AND of swimming, I think I can testify for that particular fear in person. But before I dive in, here are some factors to consider:

Age of your character: A child or teen or adult?

Children are more likely to show fear by expressing dislike, or even being violent/throwing tantrums when they're made to confront it. Teens may try to hide it, or build creative (sometime extreme) methods to avoid it like hell. Adults, at least mature ones, will learn to build barriers around their fears: avoiding it as much as possible, but also learning to control their reactions when they come to contact with it.

One-time event or chronic?

Another thing to consider is how the trauma came to be in the first place. Here are two traumas from my personal life:

Fear of water: I nearly drowned in a wasterfall at age 2. At age 5, one of my friends pushed me into a pool unexpectedly. Age 10, my sister made me swim to the deep side of the pool and when I stopped to take a break, I couldn't stand up. Age 13, I had a horrible swimming teacher who expected everyone to be able to swim..etc.etc. I've had multiple near-death experiences in water and after that, even after I've learnt how to swim, I'll NEVER.

Fear of elevators: I was locked inside an elevator for over an hour during a powercut. When I managed to forced the door open to escape, I found myself staring at the abyss that smelled faintly of oil. I was stuck in between floors. + Around the same time, a delivery man in the same elevator grabbed and kissed me, then ran away. A couple of days later, he tried to force his way into our apartment when I answered the door. These two event alone was enough to compel me to take the stairs for the next seven months.

Usually when a trauma has been built over time, it's difficult to see the problem rationally even when time has passed.

Traumas caused by a large, one-off event, moving away from the specific location and getting rid of the situation more or less permanently is often enough to make the person see the situation rationally. It was that particular elevator, that delivery man. It's not going to happen again. It'll remain more like a fully healed scar that tingles once now and then.

The attitude of your character. Do they want to overcome the fear, and feel frustrated/angry at themselves when they inadvertently feel scared? Or are they highly defensive? Maybe they have no mental walls built, and simply run away at the slightest hint of the feared situation.

Tips for Writing Fears

It's easier to open up to strangers. It's easier to confess a fear to someone who doesn't know your personal history, since there's less chance you'll be judged.

Simulating isn't the same as actually confronting. Your character can find themselves dreaming about being able to swim perfectly, then feel their daydream shatter when they actually try to.

Extreme tension + crashing afterward. Whenever your character is exposed to swimming, they'll be at their wit's edge, being tense and paying extreme attention to their surroundings. Once they're home, they'll simply crash like how you'd hit the bed after a long, hard day (maybe feeling body pain, constricted chest, headache, loss of appetite from the sheer exhaustion).

Overly prepared vs. Avoiding. It's one or the other. Either your character brings a safety jacket, a donut tube, a rope, snorkling equipment, etc. or they don't bring a swimsuit at all so that they can say, "I can't swim in my skinny jeans and silk shirt, can I?" and avoid it altogether.

Saying "I'm okay!" repeatedly. More to themselve than to others as a form of desperate self-assurance.

Panic. At times when your character comes dangerously close to swimming, they'll just panic and make the situation worse for themselves. For example, if they just happen to slip inside water while sitting at the edge of the pool, they'll immediately start kicking and gasping as thogh they've already drowned. It almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They'll swallow water, strain all the muscles in their body, and sit extremely still covered in multiple swimming towels afterward, saying nothing and playing the moment over and over in their head.

Being nervous for the whole day if they know they have a swimming class (or something similar) later

Dreaming about drowning

Trying to learn swimming, but not progressing for months because they can't bring themselves to step out of their comfort zone (which is going to be very small)

Hope this helps! :)

[frownyalfred]

i feel like fan works include a lot of clark and bruce meeting or interacting at a gala. is this something that actually happens a lot in comics? i can't think of any time this has actually happened in canon other than that one time in batman v superman

I don't think they meet for the first time at a ton of galas other than in BVS. There are several interactions that happen at galas in comics.

I think galas provide a very convenient and compelling vehicle for fic writers to create first/subsequent meetings. In no specific order:

they have to stick to their secret identities because they're being observed, which creates an interesting, if forced, scenario.

lots of room for OCs or in-universe characters to be mixed and matched depending on the situation at hand. oh you want Clark to be jealous of Bruce? let's have some models hanging off his arm. oh, this is about Bruce hiding injuries? let's have some random "friend" from polo come and whack him on the arm.

it's a somewhat plausible situation in which the press and the elite would, technically, be rubbing elbows. (as someone who attends galas occasionally I have some notes about how this is sometimes written, but it's usually plausible!) So Clark Kent might never see Bruce Wayne up close and in person if not in this capacity, at this event.

they allow for comparisons to be drawn. both Bruce and Clark can be shown acting in different capacities, identities, personas, etc than normal. they are both masters of their own respective games, and a gala is a great playing field to demonstrate this.

breaking the "rules" in this setting feels particularly egregious, and therefore desperate. does one of them truly feel a certain way they can't hide anymore? do they have some sort of intel that can't wait? when they meet up at a gala and pierce that invisible barrier between them, readers realize it's a big deal.

identity porn is 10x as compelling with an audience. "I know something no one else knows" is a powerful thought.

They have to get dressed up :)

Galas are temporary, isolated events with clearly defined beginnings, ends, etc.

Gotham galas are known breeding grounds for chaos and random attacks.

Any accidental media exposure at a gala has the potential to make the tabloids/gossip rags and create greater interest in a certain pairing, occurrence, etc. If you're setting up a media push (cough cough, ASOH) that's a great place to do it.

As I noted above, I have some thoughts on how galas/reporters interact irl. I actually think the BVS gala scene was a really good example of that being a little more grounded -- Clark was invited on a press pass specifically to cover the literary (?) foundation. He was there mingling with guests specifically assigned questions (that were probably pre-approved by the foundation/hosts) and approached Bruce Wayne, who expected to give a canned quote to the random reporter, only for Clark to go off the rails and ask about Batman.

[david-talks-sw]

I can’t remember which post it was off the top of my head but you’ve mentioned how George was explicit that nothing in The Clone Wars directly influences Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side, what about indirectly? There’s the obvious one: Anakin finds it easier to give into his anger as the war goes on. But I was also thinking the events of Hardeen and Wrong Jedi arcs weaken Anakin’s trust in the Order that then plays into the circumstances in which his fall to the Dark Side took place. Like that weakened trust meant Anakin distanced himself which gives context for why he refused to go to Obi-Wan when the visions started.

It also fits with his character because one of Anakin’s flaws is that he takes things way to personally, e.g. he was not the only person the Council lied to about Obi-Wan’s fake death. Then when Ahsoka was leaving the Order after the Council let her down, which they did let her down, she had to remind Anakin that it was about her not him.

Of course weakened trust is nowhere near enough to cause someone to commit genocide and Anakin didn’t seem to make any effort to mend those fences either. And of course none of this would have happened without Palpatine manipulating things. Hence my question of how you think The Clone Wars indirectly influenced his journey to the Dark Side even as none of really tied to why Anakin ultimately fell.

I think you summed it up perfectly, actually.

If you're using Lucas' word as the "be-all, end-all", then The Clone Wars is indeed just an asterisk/addendum to the story of the films.

Its purpose? Providing context for the minor changes between Episode II and Episode III, changes that aren't exactly relevant to the story of Anakin's downfall.

"Anakin seems more mature and less whiny, in Episode III, what happened to change that?" He got a Padawan of his own during the Clone War and when you're put in charge of someone, you grow up real quick.

"He and Obi-Wan were constantly bickering in Episode II, now they're best buds, why?" In Episode II, Anakin was in Obi-Wan's care but felt he needed to leave the nest, whereas Obi-Wan was being a helicopter parent. In The Clone Wars, we see that once Anakin gets knighted, their relationship smooths over, now becoming a more brotherly bond than a parent/child one. Obi-Wan will sometimes worry that Anakin will fly off the handle, but he's also able to recognize his former Padawan is now his own man, whereas Anakin takes responsibility more frequently, now, due to now having a Padawan of his own.

"What's the relationship between Anakin and the other Jedi we saw in the background of the movies?" Find out by tuning in to The Clone Wars!

"The clones have names, now? And they're the Jedi's friends, when did all that happen!" You can find out by seeing them fight side-by-side with the Jedi and slowly becoming independent thinkers, only in The Clone Wars.

"The Jedi are more scheming and political in Episode III, they and Anakin are at odds... why the shift in attitudes?" They were drafted into a war, and forced to make compromise after compromise to a point where their values have been rendered pointless and they've become begrudging hypocrites. They're playing politics (and sucking at it) because they've been dragged onto a political chessboard and are trying to keep up with a far more skilled opponent. These terrible decisions impact all of them, even Anakin.

Stuff like that.

But none of that is relevant to Anakin's story, which is more personal, in nature. It's a story about how his own greed turned him into the very thing he swore to destroy, which parallels how the Republic became the Empire for those same reasons.

The films show us this, and The Clone Wars *reinforces* this narrative by giving us further examples of it.

While Anakin is aware of what's right and wrong... the more the war rages on, the more frequently he takes the "easy" path and gives in to his anger and selfish desires, enabled by Palpatine.

Sometimes Anakin does manage to get a grip, he does manage to take responsibility, he does learn to let go... but then something happens (often orchestrated by Palpatine) and he goes right back to square one... then square zero... then square minus one, etc.

He never takes that final step to being a more enlightened person.

The Clone Wars challenges the Jedi at times, questions their actions... but ultimately, the responsibility falls on Anakin's shoulders. The series will show you moments where they fail Anakin, but there's as many moments of him failing them.

Could the Jedi have done more? Yes. But if you think them doing more would've solved the problem, you're missing the point of the story of the Prequels.

Functionally, all that is achieved from the Council/Anakin conflict (again, orchestrated by Palpatine), in Episode III, is creating more pressure for Anakin to cave under. That's it.

They're not a meaningful factor in his turn to the Dark Side.

Padmé is.

When he's hesitating between saving Mace or saving Palpatine...

... he's not thinking "one of them was nice to me, but the other one was mean to me and kicked out Ahsoka, so I'll chop his hand off".

And he's not thinking "this isn't by the book, Mace you hypocrite!"

Lucas tells us what's going through his head, in that moment.

It's about Padmé living. And we've already established that what that's really about is "Anakin not wanting to live without her". So, really, it's about Anakin.

Mace and Anakin butting heads isn't even considered. If Mace had been laughing with Anakin and hugging him on the daily, Anakin still would've ended up chopping off his hand. It wasn't about Mace, it was about Anakin.

If Ahsoka had stayed with the Jedi Order, he still would've joined the Dark Side. Because it was never about Ahsoka, it was about Anakin.

If Qui-Gon had lived, Anakin would've still turned. It was never about Obi-Wan or Qui-Gon being the teachers, it was about Anakin.

Because the message of the story is basically that:

"Ultimately, it's up to you to take personal responsibility and be compassionate. If you avoid responsibility and give in to your darker impulses for selfish purposes, bad shit happens. The only meaningful change can come from within."

And in Anakin's case it didn't. He zigged instead of zagging at almost every turn.

Now, you can agree or disagree with that message. But that's what it is. Even some of the current Star Wars authors acknowledge this.

The story of Anakin Skywalker is told in the movies.

The Clone Wars is there as an addendum to:

Shine a spotlight/provide context on minor changes between Episode II and Episode III.

Humanize Anakin, to further drive the point that what happened to him can happen to anyone.

ADDENDUM:

[meimi-haneoka]

Musings

I was scrolling through my TL this morning and I stumbled again on a certain scene from volume 8 of xxxHolic.

I went "...ah" and shook my head, smiling.

Then I started writing a thread with my musings, but it became so long that I decided to pour them here instead.

The scene in question was this one. The Spider Lady and Watanuki.

Kimihiro Watanuki and Yuna D. Kaito. Two boys who have initially no idea what they're doing on this earth, what their life is worth for, growing up alone, quick to throw their life away to make others happy. Although in personality Watanuki and Kaito are very different, this one complex aspect brings them closer.

I couldn't help being reminded how CLAMP love to portray this particular theme in several of their stories, almost as if they were tormented by it.

Clear Card Arc introduced the theme of self-sacrifice, with all its devastating effects, in a series where it hadn't been explored deeply yet. First in a milder way with Syaoran, but I think we all agree that the character who brought that message home the most is indeed Kaito.

Yet, I really appreciate how this doesn't turn everytime into the "same reheated soup", as we say in italian, because each series' approach is different from the get go.

Holic addresses several thematics straightforwardly, without sugarcoating them. All the volumes are brimming with life lessons and impactful lines that corner you and force you to think about life and your relationship with others. Sometimes those truths are hard, like a slap in your face. It's no wonder that the entire "Phrase" area of the CLAMP exhibition was all dedicated to Holic. Its portrayal of the thematic of self-sacrifice follows the same pattern, and one example is the criticism from the Spider Lady directed at Watanuki in the aforementioned volume. He will leave that encounter having learned something very important from those words.

For CCS, on the other hand, CLAMP have always chosen a different approach, fitting for its genre and demographic.

Although there are several nourishing lessons we can get from it as well, the messages are usually always passed without judgement. It seems CLAMP prefer letting the characters go through things, make their own decisions, their own mistakes, learn and grow firsthand from them. The thing we hear the most in the entire series is "Look in your heart, find the answer in yourself".

And despite how often Momo gets angry at Kaito, as an impartial magical beast she's prevented from doing a speech similar to that of the Spider Lady. While many might think that would've worked best, the world view and narrative structure of CCS is different from that.

In the same way, CLAMP leave the readers free to perceive and take the message home as they want, guided by the characters' actions rather than their explicit thoughts and spelled out words of wisdom.

While in Holic it's clearer what their stance on a certain topic or thematic is, in CCS things are more blurred and nuanced. The events are presented as they are, resting on a delicate balance, as if asking you "This is what happened. Everything considered, what do you think?", making an effort to not pass a judgement along so you can make your own idea of it.

We never get anyone lecturing Kaito for what he did, nor looking down upon him, because that's not CCS' language and there's no need for it. The characters understand the sentiment that moved Kaito, even though that's not treated as a justification for the path he chose. The message will be conveyed eloquently enough by facts - Akiho's tears full of anger in chapter 78. Rather than choosing to make a character lecture him harshly, CLAMP "left" Kaito dealing directly with the consequences of his actions, in order for him to look into his heart and learn a lesson from it. More than the act of deciding her happiness on her behalf, Akiho is furious because Kaito crumpled his life and threw it away in the trash in the attempt of saving her and giving her a happy life.

This approach is totally in line with CCS' compassionate world view. A world view that tries to cause changes in the world guided by kindness, refraining from applying prejudices and dispensing judgement upon others.

But beware, comparing the two approaches to the same thematic doesn't mean that one is better than the other: depending on the situation, sometimes we need the frankness of Holic, sometimes the sensitivity of CCS.

It is in my opinion pretty wonderful how the same theme can be communicated in different ways, choosing different paths, approaches, just like in these two examples here.

Two different approaches for the theme, but same conclusion: once we form connections with others, we don't belong to ourselves alone anymore. We're not free to dispose of our life without affecting other people who share that bond with us.

We may think we're not important, that we can come second or third or last behind everyone else as long as they're happy, but that's not true. Seeing us suffering, or missing our presence will ultimately make other people cry. Even people we didn't really think they could ever love us.

So cherish your life, always. Today you're doing it for your loved ones, tomorrow you'll learn to do it for yourself, too. ❤️

[miguel-owhora]

please do, come join us PLEASE. i love this au so much it's so fun like genuinely.

but!!!!!! idk how designs work but :3 For the most part, they all look like their game designs, obviously. im only gonna do Micah n Arthur for now, since they're the main characters of this AU, but i might do other characters later on.

Micah still looks the same, same hair and same facial hair, and same body shape. His hair only gets greasy when he forgets to shower, but otherwise it's pretty soft and healthy, and whenever he wears a cap, he pulls it into a short ponytail. He still has the same staring problem and same heavy bags under his eyes. I like to think he wears glasses, but sometimes he just doesn't, so it's 50/50 if he'll wear them. He will, however, wear them around Arthur because he once called him 'handsome' when he was wearing them and it did wonders to his ego.

He generally wears comfortable clothing, both online and in person. Sweatshirts, worn out and well used, often colored in a washed out red color, and sweats (off whites or grays) are also common. Half of the time he wears flip flops with white socks that are in desperate need of some throwing away. He has a couple of hair ties he has on his wrists at all time for either 1. his hair, or 2. to play around with. I think he'd be a big fan of energy drinks, or straight up alcohol whenever he needs a quick booster.

However, I do think Micah does know how to dress himself if he needs to go to some fancy event. Let's not forget he comes from a line of lawyers, and I imagine his daddy drilled into his sons on how to properly dress themselves because "no son of mine will dress like a slob." So he definitely knows where to get suits and has tailors phone numbers written down, so when he's needed at some event that requires proper clothes, he comes in looking well-groomed. He probably carries Arthur around like some arm candy.

Speaking of Arthur, he still pretty much looks the same as he does in the same. I think everyone in college looks a bit younger, but still the same appearance as they do in the game, if that makes sense. Anyways, he still has the same hair cut but his beard is more trimmed, more of a stubble really. He has an almost soft and quiet vibe to him, as in he's a chill guy who looks kinda grumpy lmao. Blue is still his favorite color, he probably also wears sweatshirts like Micah, but wears jeans instead of sweats. When he is at home, he definitely mostly wears shorts, and also wears sandals with socks, like Micah. Probably wears some sort of cap with either some stupid fish joke on it, or a little deer. He always has a tired look on him, because he's almost always tired of dealing with everyone's shenanigans when he just wants to sit down somewhere and draw something.

He probably has some hair ties on his wrists, too, because he happens to know a lot of people with long hair. Anyways, I don't think he's really that deep into his family's shady business. While his dads were a little confused when he chose to study art, they were actually pretty supportive and fund his tuition. Well, more so Hosea than Dutch, because Dutch had been expecting him to follow in their footsteps. Still, he does drill some law facts into Arthur's brain.

Anyways, that being said, since Arthur isn't that deep into the family business, he doesn't really attend any fancy events. That's more of John's job, who does end up following in the lawyer path. But, considering Micah eventually does work his way into Dutch's good graces - which leads to a semi-friendly rivalry between John n him (which could be a nod towards the events of RDR) - Micah gets a higher position and rank within the company, he's forced to attend several events, which he despises. But he does deal with it, and gets cocky and in a pleasant mood whenever Arthur joins him, mostly as his arm candy.

Whenever he does attend these events, Arthur wears a basic and simple suit. Of course, considering he comes from a wealthy family and his sweetheart does have money, it's simple but of high quality, tailored to fit him. And goodness gracious, does it really emphasize his beauty.

[sunnysaystuff]

My stance on the Jegulus-Jily-"All Death Eaters suck because canon says so" dispute (or whatever):

TLDR AT THE BOTTOM!!!!!!!!!!!

After receiving MULTIPLE hate asks (wtf I'm literally nobody why do you care so much) guess I have to put this out here!!

first up - stuff I think is important:

Wolfstar isn't canon and it's the backbone of the fandom, so why do we suddenly decide canon is the shit when people write Jegulus/Jegulily fics? "James would've never liked a Death Eater" fanfiction means you can make stuff up, regardless of what canon James would've liked or wanted.

"Canon-compliant Jegulus fics don't make sense" did James explicitly tell you to your face that he would never date Regulus :0 canon-compliant is a very loose term. a lot of the time it just means that canonical deaths and plot-related events occurred, moreso than relationship-related events.

Jegulus haters often say that Jegulus fans constantly villainize Lily, but the fact of the matter is that they don't. You see more Jily fans villainizing Regulus for originally being a Death Eater than you see Jegulus fans villainizing Lily. "Regulus deserves the villainization and Lily hasn't done anything wrong" - reminder that you can hate on canon Regulus all you want (despite the fact that he eventually changed) but you should know that fanfiction might present him differently. Random fanfic Regulus is not the canon Regulus you despise.

Jegulus fans who despise Snape for his actions in canon aren't being very fair. He joined the Death Eaters and then he ended up working against the Dark Lord, just as Regulus did. Yes, he spent years bullying Harry, but do you honestly think Regulus wouldn't have behaved similarly if he had been in a similar position? If Regulus had been in love with Lily, and James and his brother and their friends were constantly making fun of him, and then Lily died after marrying someone he hated, do you think Regulus would have treated the godson of his estranged brother who betrayed Lily, the identical-to-James son of his enemy, with fairness or kindness? Regulus was canonically also not a nice person at all - was literally a Voldemort fanboy, and Snape wasn't even confirmed to be that much - and in fanon he's often characterized as this petty little shit. So do you think Regulus wouldn't have been awful to Harry as well?

Adding on to that, people call Snape toxic and creepy for being "obsessed with Lily" (he loved her because she was a bright spot in his awful life, platonic or romantic. Obsessed? Maybe <- My hot take), but when Regulus does it with James, it's sexy?

"Stop romanticizing Death Eaters" if it's not your cup of tea, don't read. I think these characters are just that, characters, and fanon stuff means you can do whatever you want with them! You can rewrite someone's entire story and personality if you want (ex: THOSE Dark Harry fics, a number of Dramione fics).

my personal opinions:

Jily and Jegulus are both super fun ships. Love 'em equally, though I'd say currently I'm leaning toward Jily.

I love Jegulily. I think it's really fun and has a lot of potential :0

I'm alr with Snape bashing and no Snape bashing (it's not that deep gang, same for Peter 'cause honestly it's kinda silly how people try to sub-in other characters as the 4th Marauder. Peter existed y'all.)

I think the Black sisters deserve more attention :0

Yes sometimes the characters are ooc in fics!! What to do when you see this and don't like it is click the back button!!

I don't have a problem with Remadora, but I prefer Wolfstar :)

I don't believe in canon casanova of gryffindor tower; I think it's cute in fanon though<3

endnotes/tldr since I wrote a whole essay:

ship and let ship. every (non-proship) ship is valid. this is what fanon's for.

let people hc and do what they want omg pls stop throwing hands over little things

have your opinions they're valid! just don't try to force them on others!!

feel free to argue with me in notes if you want; just be respectful please! I'm down to hear others' opinions; you might change my mind on stuff!!

might add more if I missed anything! I just thought it was lowkey important to put my opinion out here.

[radiation]

I kind of want to hear your thoughts wrt how anya couldve been handled better. Do you think the pregnancy part shouldve just not been there in the first place? I cant think of any ending for her that is less gruesome that doesnt also change many aspects of all the later parts of the game. And also in general i just think you have interesting takes on the game and i wanna hear more

Good question and i will provide my thoughts under the cut. Listless unfiltered stuff tho Im so out of it right now but im chilling.

As a conclusion of all that precedes it I agree, the ending is properly gruesome and its hard to say it should've been done any other way. If we're being faithful to the story and her character as-is i'd say less so change the major events and moreso change the way they're delivered and slip in more respectful characterization of anya here and there through fleshing out her life and personal motivations, even if it's just hints of it

However unless they really really did a crazy good job i probably still wouldnt like it. But that's like, the unfortunate domino effect of writing a character like her, i feel that her character/place in the story is misogynistic on a pretty fundamental level and eliminating that would require restructuring things about her character/the story. But idk, who's to say they couldnt have.

Its complicated because theres all these different layers of narrative decisions being made that influence other shit and the more fundamental of a choice you change, the greater differences there will be down the road. Its butterfly effect shit. Like sometimes i think about this in my own projects. I think about like, what if while developing my own game, i'd made the 2 main characters completely different people? What if they were fucking like, Kevin and Trent, and id gone down the whole pipeline of fleshing out their characters and actually made them genuinely good. If thats what I made and thats what everyone was used to and then I randomly replaced them with Neal and Jack and the themes associated with them, people would be like. Thats wrong why the fuck did you do that. You ruined the themes bro. But the same is true of the other way around. You have to ask: is what's in front of me truly the best version it could have possibly been, or could it have been any number of things, and I'm just attached to what's right in front of me?

Its not to say you cant write about misogyny or sexual assault, or that there aren't people with experiences like Anya and you can't write about them. It's more asking like, out of all of the routes they couldve gone with wrt having any female characters whatsoever why did they choose this one specifically. If they had from the get-go written a bit of a different character with different themes and went down that whole road, no pregnancy or whatever but some other shit more impactful for what was there, they could have potentially written something equally or more powerful, just tackling a different vein of subject matters.

Like not saying at all this is what they should've written, I think its kind of lame, this is just a random ass example. But what if the conflict between Anya and Jimmy was them previously being like, rivals for the same position at their job, and likely due to misogyny in the system Jimmy ended up getting it instead of her. Anya is essentially in the same position of inferiority under Jimmy that Jimmy is under Curly and while Jimmy is obsessed with this narrative of him not getting what he deserves and lashes out, Anya is forced to grin and bear it, and their characters are meant to call attention to the gap in acceptable behaviors and entitlement that is created by patriarchal society. Idk. I think theres already hints of that and its way less emotionally impactful than whats there rn but the point is like, it still could've been well executed, and if thats what was there, people wouldnt be asking like "wow this sucks ass i really wish anya had gotten sexually assualted instead" LOL do you know wha ti mean.

I dont even know what my point is right now but idk I guess i dont have a good answer for what is the best thing they couldve done differently. I can only speak for my own preferences and honestly I dont write about this subject matter at all. Like ill be honest the specific subject of women being abused/assaulted makes me so upset i dont want to put even a fraction of an ounce of that into the world period, so i just dont write about it, my mind always goes to women dealing with other kinds of conflicts instead. And I generally tend to write more about things like microaggressions and the complexities of relationships rather than unbelievable injustices without relief. I lay a lot of respect on my characters, when horrible things happen to them I offset the events into the realm of neutrality by affording them things like privacy and moments of calm and monotony. I like writing like this and i think its good but its certainly somewhat informed by me living a privileged lifestyle. So yknow who am i to say what experiences you should write about.

Well i just looked it up and it seems like the main developers on the game are both men so im gonna say actually yeah Methinks they should've just straight up written something else. I mean i have no way of knkowing their experiences for sure but im gonna take a wild guess and say they dont have a lot of skin in this game. Also i just realized they also made how a fish is made that game looked pretentious as fuck sorry.

[thrawns-backrest]

I've never heard anyone talk about this theory on tumblr, but I was curious to ask you. What do you think about Ronan becoming a Grysks spy? I saw such an idea in one fanfic, but there they made Ronan just an ambitious and stupid villain. But I thought about and decided that given its canonical nature, such a development of events also seems to be probable to some extent. It seemed to me so, because look: Ronan in Ascendancy is even more vulnerable than Eli, who managed to build good relations with at least Vah'nya and Ar'alani, he obviously needs a lot of time to somehow get along with at least a brother-in-misfortune, and already especially with someone else. In essence, he is alone, and his character also repels the Chiss from him, which leads to their distrust and unwillingness to explain anything to him. A person who communicates little with anyone and understands little is easy to take advantage of, besides, attachment to some things or people is something that the Grysk are only too good at pressuring, with intimidation or cunning. And Ronan is attachmented to Krennic, to the Empire, to the Death Star, so in theory they have something to hit. In addition, if he is faithful to someone, then he is faithful, as we see, almost to the end. And if someone else could become for him a figure like Krennic to whom he "swears" - this person could push him into many things.

If anything, I'm not saying that this is a full-fledged theory and it will be so in the canon. These are just my thoughts on one of hundreds of possible scenarios. I was wondering how likely you think this is?

Oooh... honestly, as much as I love Ronan, I think that's very likely. I think it's even likelier when you consider Thrawn's suggestion to Ar'alani about feeding Ronan the right kind of information because they know he's a potential traitor.

Looking at the book, it's hard to tell if they mean that in the sense of feeding the Empire information through him or using him to misled the Grysks but both scenarios are kind of sad because neither assumes an eventual assimilation into the Ascendancy (which I'm trying to fix in my fic lol).

But yes, as you said Ronan is a very likely target for the Grysks. Ar'alani herself points it out and if something isn't done to prevent it, Ronan could easily be converted into a Grysk agent. The moment he realizes Thrawn didn't send him on some secret mission to find Chiss jedi, he'll grow even more distrustful of him. And if his experience in the Ascendancy is as negative as we assume it'll be, there's plenty of dislike there for the Grysks to feed and exploit.

In a way, characters with a lot of zeal and extreme views always have that problem. They're just... unstable. Kind of like Anakin in the prequels, because they feel so strongly about something they're open to manipulation and their loyalties can be exploited with the right kind of nudging.

That said, making Ronan's motivation ambition and depriving him of his intellect is just... dumb. Ronan genuinely believes he's on the side of the greater good, that the Empire is doing good, etc. I can see the Grysks convincing him that the Chiss are the bad guys in the grand scheme of things, maybe that they're planning to betray or attack the Empire and use his loyalty and inflated self-righteousness to pit him against them.

The thing about Ronan, I think, is that he has an eye for detail and is good at noticing things and reading people (e.g. realizing that Vah'nya is force sensitive) but he's not as good at using that information to come to the right conclusions. Sometimes he does and that's when his skills shine but sometimes his takes are just so far off it's funny.

Whether it's because he tends to overthink or because his biases skew his thinking, it's still a flaw and one that could be exploited.

My only hope for Ronan resisting the Grysks' manipulation is that he's already seen what they're capable of. There's this moment in the book where he gets a very strong reaction to seeing the bodies they've left behind ("Ronan nodded silently from his seat at the conference room table, trying very hard not to be sick. [...] He tried to remind himself that these men had been thieves who’d stolen from Stardust and the Empire, and that they deserved punishment. The rationalization didn’t help.")

At the end of the day, Ronan isn't cruel and doesn't have the stomach for cruelty. And that could be the only thing stopping him from trusting the Grysks who don't have a problem openly showing their ruthlessness. But, of course, if he's already in a bad place and vulnerable to manipulation, that might not be enough to save him.

[bugflies00]

do i have a presentation due at 8am that i have barely started even though its midnight? yes. however i was thinking again about the category 5 ctommy event last night and all the things i talked or saw people post about and it got me thinking

i was especially thinking about how ctommy is too often, in fan interpretations, forced into the role of the perfect, quiet, palatable victim — which, i mean, we've all made various posts on the subject, i don't need to get into the how again — but i was trying to think about why.

because on one hand, a good part of it, its true, circles back to what society has deemed the "acceptable" victim, which many of us have internalised and unknowingly refer back to, hence why many automatically try to sand ctommy down to be more "pitiful" (not saying people do this intentionally btw . we all have biases like that and they show up in different ways . i just like Talking about this stuff this is Not a callout or god forbid telling people to harass fic writers they disagree with. Ok.)

but i also think, in ctommy's case, a lot of it can come from. projection? well this might be the case with many other characters obviously but im focusing on ctommy here because like. i think he's a character who's very relatable for so many people, who are also loud and not subtle or discreet and who feel annoying most of the time, and a lot of whom are kids and teenagers. and something that's always struck me when reading comments etc about him is theres this sentiment of- when this fictional character is annoying it's seen as loveable and endearing, so why isn't it the case for me, as a person, in real life? a lot of those fans have also been hurt or perhaps even abused and found a way to relate through ctommy's own abuse

and so i think sometimes this tendency to "sand ctommy down" is less out of a desire to actually reduce his character but rather because, through him, they want their hurt and pain to be recognised. and as we all know, when ctommy is quiet, that is so unusual that in fics, it often immediately strikes a reaction of "oh, what happened to you, who hurt you". it's the idea that him being annoying and loud is missed, but people only realise that when he's gone quiet. so the more "quiet" and "docile" he is shown as, the more striking that reaction from other characters will be, and the more support he receives. im not in any way saying this is something you should apply to real people or anything, im saying that this is a trend not just in ctommy fics but in general media — if you're someone who is loud and brash, it's often portrayed like the only way people will acknowledge that you have feelings at all is if you lose that "spark", and suddenly people miss you being annoying.

and suddenly, it makes a lot of sense why so many fic authors write ctommy as so oddly ooc and quiet and pliable and docile — because they've been taught that's what a victim should be, but they're not like that! and you can live vicariously through a fictional character who's able to undergo a much more drastic outward transformation than you and be showered in love for it, and theres a desire for that to happen to them in real life, to have their hurt actually acknowledged. is this word vomit does anyone understand what im trying to say here

[guess-that-ship]

Guess That Ship Tournament Season 11: Submissions CLOSED!

The Concept: You describe your ship* to me, I pick out the submissions which I find most compelling and pit them against each other without revealing who they are, people vote on them, and their identities gets revealed once they’re eliminated.

Submission Guidelines

*For the purpose of this tournament, relationships do not have to be romantic in nature. I’m sometimes going to use “ship” as a shorthand, just know I mean “relationships” in general.

Relationship can be between any number of characters.

Real people are accepted if they’ve been dead for more than 100 years.

Roleplay characters are accepted as long as the description only pertains to the characters and not the players.

OCs are accepted.

No overtly NSFW submissions. (Mentioning they have sex or are a sex worker is fine, but try to avoid anything more than that.)

Two submission per person. (Do not submit the same ship twice. I cannot enforce this on Google Forms without forcing you to log in. So just be champs and respect this rule.)

Failure to follow these guidelines may result in all of your submissions being disqualified for this season.

Summary Guidelines

Selection Process: I will read through the list of descriptions submitted without reading their names and pick the most compelling submissions. Then, I will check the name to make sure there's no repeats.

Keep it concise, but also bring something unique to the table. Make sure to describe their relationship, not just summarize the events of the story.

Previous submissions for reference. The ideal submission should be 2-3 paragraphs, but you can make it as short or long as you want. Please keep in mind the longer your submission, the less likely it is to get in.

Tips on what to avoid while writing a summary can be found here.

Descriptions should be based on canon, not headcanon. (e.g. You can say “they love each other” instead of “they’re lovers” if their romantic nature is debatable.)

Avoid author commentary. (e.g. "They're canonically x," "I love them," "Play/watch/read this," etc.)

Use canonical pronouns.

Avoid identifying information or setting specific giveaways. (i.e. Ninja village, space necromancers.)

When submitting OCs, please make sure to at least put a name somewhere. (e.g. "John and Bob by anonymous" or "OCs by Joey.")

The more popular your ship is the more vague the description should be.

Exclusions

Ships that were accepted in Season 7 onwards and ships that at least reached the semifinals in Season 1-6 are not allowed. For a complete list, please look here. (No need to look through the whole list, just Ctrl+F to find the ship you want.)

Any submissions from Harry Potter will also not be included.

Notes

I will not vet the ships/pairings for problematic content.

If you participate in this tournament, know that you run the risk of unintentionally voting for your nOTP. The mod does not take any responsibility for any distress that may cause you.

Submit your ships here! Submissions will be open until Sunday, May 5th at 9 PM EDT.

Please reblog this post to spread the word! The more submissions, the better!