#tbf between what she did to meta & what she did to me- i mean what

[star-tipped-spear]

Hey Bandana here’s a question are you friends with an of the former enemies now in the star allies?

most of em yea! i will admit i was pretty hesitant at first, but i warmed up to them eventually, or technically “warmed up to them again” in some of their cases. however, i will not confirm nor deny that i’ve bitten Magolor for what he did.

[janiedean]

Is it bad that I really enjoyed reading the kinda fandom history/fanw*nk history posts abt j*nsa? XD Tbf I'm also a bit addicted to fanlore articles. XD Anyway I think in the tags of one post you mentioned j*imexs*nsa starting as an antijb thing? Would you mind elaborating on that? Sounds like an interesting, albeit bonkers, story, too.

dw I don't think it's bad I mean... we all enjoy catching up on wank we weren't part of (and my friends the things I could tell you abt spn fandom or when I was around at the sidelines for the worst rpf fic ever..) but anyway *deep breath* SURE THING LET'S SAY IT I mean....... it's not like it hasn't been years and I can talk abt it so whatevs, under the cut because reasons, also I'm saying now that a lot of this was what I deduced from circumstances and you've got to take my word for it unless someone who was around then remembers it and can confirm my impressions bc it was a lot less obvious than the j*nsa stuff

but going from the premises again:

I got a tumblr in like may 2011, read asoiaf june-july of that year, started being active on the tags around august-september 2011 so it was before S2 aired and 95% of the people that were bnfs/around then aren't on tumblr anymore/are here rarely these days so you've gotta take me at face value

in the main asoiaf bnf group there was this one jc shipper who like... I mean she's still active on twt and blocks everyone shipping jb on sight but good bc let's just say she's a piece of work not to mention that she spent months/years writing meta abt how jb was like fanfic stuff and had no book basis and how if you liked j but not c you were a misogynists which was wildly popular

I would like to add that person is basically... let's say everyone in jb fandom who ever got harassed knows exactly who I'm talking about and I'll leave it at that and was not for ship and let ship let's put it like that

so basically this person was on my dash bc I followed ppl who followed her and I saw a lot of jaimes*nsa stuff from her

in the sense that like... she was doing with it what I did with jonc/brynden back in the day when I was wanting to convince the world they were the crackship that was promised as in posting abt it/spamming it/discussing how it made canon sense/more canon sense than jb anyway and the likes, and like there was a fairly numerous amount of stuff for that ship back in the day - like before S2-3 aired jaimes*nsa had pretty high fic numbers/fanwork numbers considering that in canon they haven't interacted once

and that went hand in hand with keeping on trying to burn ground around jb before S2 aired/before they met in canon with that meta

and like... it's not like it started as an antijb thing in itself bc I'm sure that there must have been someone into it before the show aired same as there were ppl who as I was reminded lately wrote brienne/loras hatesex and so on, but the explosion which was during S1-3 (then it lost a bit of traction I think mostly bc jb exploded and sansa/tyrion happened on the show and the ppl involved kind of went more on twitter and didn't produce that much content anymore tho it still has numbers™) was also continuously fanned by person above + her followers who most likely were like... genuinely into it but again the antijb meta was around quite enough at the same time, so

also like... let's just say that back in the day I was the main t*robb ship contributor and I also wrote jb though less but jb was smaller as a fandom so I did post when the ao3 tag was at like... 30 fics or smth so I separately had my foot in both ponds and like until S3-S4 any t*robb fic where jb was the sideship would get tangentially less views/reviews than ones where they were not which in itself wouldn't be a problem bc obviously maybe ppl wouldn't ship one of them, but then there was this uuuh specific case

where someone who followed me for the t*robb who also followed her at some point asked me in private if a 22k t*robb fic that was the sequel to... my most famous/popular jb one let's put like that had a lot of jb in it because they were die hard jc people and it was triggering to them (which... I mean fair enough but in retrospective using that term instead of 'you know I really don't vibe with jb and I'd rather not read it' felt a bit like they were trying to guilt trip me ngl), I said that they showed up together in two scenes and were in the background and at most it was 1k worth of fic and the answer was that it was way too much so they were going to have to skip and like again their prerogative but idk that conversation kind of left me like is this some kind of roundabout way to say that it'd be better if I didn't sideship them? idk but until S3-4 I had the distinct feeling that at least for my own stuff having both ships together meant less readers and ngl I didn't update the infamous t*robb wip fic for a year because I was planning to make jb fairly prominent as a sideship there and I was there like 'oh god what if I get wank over it' and I didn't but again I would like to state it wasn't just because of one person, it was... the general atmosphere that seemed unfriendly unless you stayed on the jb tag/kept both separate

and I would like to add that the moment S3 happened and it sailed anyway bc it was going to was when the targeted harassing of anyone who was active on the tag started ssssso :|

basically like... I have a lot less evidence to go on re ^^^^ than the j*nsa stuff because that is well-documented the rest is my very humble opinion about the background of when j*aimesansa started getting popular but like it also was v. prominent in between jc people (same with the jcsansa threesomes) who were also following that person - I would like to also add that a bunch of ppl who shipped both were absolutely lovely and nice to interact with in other situations and not harassing anyone about it and again nothing against ppl into it as a thing but the moment of its peak was in conjuncture to the burning ground around jb moment driven by that specific person so *shrug*

[kuronekonerochan]

The laziest compilation of thoughts about the mess that was Alice (spoilers)

I finish a lot of shitty dramas. Like a lot. I could review them, but I won’t bc there’s too many and I’m too lazy (when you ff some dramas from 45min to 5 per episode it doesn’t really count as watching too many dramas bc it’s really a commercial break, lol). Some I watch for the so bad it’s good content, or love hate watching or just to have something to watch while I eat, even if they’re boring af. It’s also a tiny bit of ocd bc I need to see how they end (even the ones I drop I check out the finale). I only drop the ones that as Marie Kondo says *Do Not Spark Joy, more specifically...annoy me and make me cranky.

I sometimes bitch about it on DMs with ranty spoilers without structure and that reference other unrelated dramas or shows, because ADHD and my mind refuses to stay on topic, which would make it probably unintelligible except if you are in the niche who happens to have watched the other unrelated dramas, so it’s probably useless as a review.

That said, here are some random disconnected thoughts about Alice.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERTS BEWARE

(this is like partly copypaste of DM rants bc I am that lazy biatch. Also, fair warning I will seem super harsh or this drama because that’s the thing about a bitching dm versus a proper review... I am not bringing up all the points and talking about the good and what I liked as well as the bad, it’s just the bad...and although the drama is imo a mess, it does have some good in it. So if it were a review I’d always argue pros and cons...ranty thoughs who cares about pros? boring..I will not be bothered with devil’s advocate).

This was fascinating to watch, interesting but not good... but like a trainwreck.

I continued watching this mess despite the headache inducing convoluted plot (I watched a lot of timetravel stuff and I love it...encompassing all the theories about it, from butterfly effect, to effectively changing the future (with characters forgetting it or keeping it in memory because “eye of the storm” theory, the “efforts are futile and you can try to change it but the future is set in stone”, to “small changes can be made but big events are fixed points in time”, to “every change creates a new time line” and multiverse, etc... and trust me, all of them can be done well when well written or turn out a confusing illogical mess and that has nothing to do with the theory chosen, but with presenting how time travel works for that story and what the basic rules are and sticking to them...or when something happens that contradicts them, come up with an explanation as to why that happens.

 I don’t mean the drama should be an exposition borefest with too much pseudosciency jargon...but this drama gives you too little in the way of rules and the viewers sort of figure out how timetravel works (which is not bad per se, huge fan of show don’t tell...but there’s a limit to how much they cannot tell or the characters chose not to ask just for the sake of plot and not without any logic to it). Anyways, the little “rules” that we gather along the way...the writing doesn’t stick to them and keeps contradicting itself without addressing or explaining it and hoping we’re so confused we don’t notice. Some dramas you just say “eh, forget it, it doesn’t make sense, let’s turn off our brains and enjoy it”, but here if I wanted to try and follow what was going on at all it required “brain on” mode for their convoluted plot twists...which also made me aware of so may plotholes the time road should have looked like Swiss Cheese. I could go into them...but I cannot be bothered and the list would be extensive and still incomplete, so I will just put 3 here bc I can’t help it:

 1) Hot Daddy with emotional turmoil the entire drama of “Oh no, I abandoned her in 92 and regretted it, it happened 1 year ago for me, and now I find out she died in 2010. How was she, did she suffer? What did she know? Oh god, if only I were a time traveler eventually going rogue who could show up and talk to her any time in the timeline between 92 and 2010...Alas, I have to live in misery with the consequences of my actions...there is just ABSOLUTELY no way of solving this. I guess I’ll just keep making unauthorized time travel journeys from 2050′s time agency back to the year of 2020 and only 2020 to constantly be blindsided by murder attempts on everyone everywhere without having a clue to what’s going on when I could simply go back to before 2010 and talk to the one person who is proven to know what is going on.” Here is where there could be a bullshit reason as to why he could go only go to 2020 and not before, but the drama didn’t even bother.

 2) They say Tae Yi’s mom was originally a time traveler who settled with her physicist dad in the past, eventually making way for her to discover time travel herself. The mom is missing and this is never addressed again. 

3) The book...who wrote it? Because I have guesses but they never outright answer it... and if the biatch author knew that stuff why the alice in wonderland stupid analogies?

 Coward, or petty, or both.... or maybe just a chaos gremlin godlike entity who wanted to watch them all squirm, like the author from Extraordinary You...and that I could get behind, but sadly they don’t go that metaphysical/theological with the plot...which is honestly the main problem with this drama. It seems ambitious in concept but it’s never explored decently in any way, not in the pseudoscience, not in the philosophical sense of the meaning of time/space/existence, not even in its relationships, with the constant back and forth and weirdness of it.

Besides the timetravel migraine, we had the weirdest directing, that made the relationship between the leads feel a bit too incesty...which was the main reason I kept watching this drama...morbid curiosity of how they wrapped up this mess of a plot AND especially the relationship payoff...would it keep being weird with trope romance drama scenes like the female lead and second female lead facing off and being jealous, or that weird hair washing that felt more sensual than maternal? I knew it wouldn’t happen but my inner chaos gremlin wanted kdramaland to grow some balls and go full “predestination: oedipus edition” with this mess. Alas they sort of did, mostly didn’t. Even that angle was a whole inconsistent mess: there were times where it felt too romantic, then for a short minute I misguidedly shipped the journalist friend, then it seemed the dude was ace, then they calmed their tits with the whole weird romantic vibes and it got platonic cute, then with the memory merge thing finally motherly vibes, then I shipped the journalist again for 1 sec only...and then the ending:

Alice ended with the lead solving every problem by shooting himself (technically) in the head...and that's the second meta perfectly fitting ending for a drama with a good cast and terrible writing that drove itself into a corner this year, after the sleepless princess ended with the leads jumping off a cliff. I don't think it's a self aware choice of the writers, or an admission that they themselves know it was bad, but the irony is delicious.

Spoiler for the ending: he undoes timey wimey stuff from when his mom first got killed in high school and closed the time travel door. So he became an architect and new Tae Yi just woke up in her bed remembering everything, but in reality she had just come back from a conference abroad and had never met him. So mom TaeYi didn't die then, but never got back on screen after the time undo so who the f knows what happened to her. 

Also, if new Tae Yi remembers, does that mean hot daddy from the future does as well, but he is just stuck in the future without a time door to ever see them again? The drama doesn’t care answering that and forgets his character is even a thing...I will miss you, my fave who looked emotionally and literally constipated 24/7 (it doesn’t care answering much at all tbf... a little known fact about the time travel paradoxes according to the physics of this world is that besides doppelganger chickenpox it induces severe lazy writing).

Anyways new Tae Yi went looking for architect (? okay...I guess) ML after she woke up, at first he didn't remember her, but it ends with him meeting her, apparently remembering her and they stare at each other... you know, like any bad traditional romantic kdrama finale....so there is still THAT vibe. 

Honestly, the usual romantic ballad score for scenes between the leads WAS NOT the most intelligent choice for this drama in specific but boy did they stick with it (not to mention the ending song... that goes, in english “we be like Bonnie and Clyde we ride or die...which...k, sure)...so technically the ending was exactly the cliche post amnesia running back to each other and staring for the final scene while romantic music blasts trope. Take it as you will.

[amireallymakingasideblogforthis]

a mess of diavolo thoughts and meta

Am I the only one who thinks Diavolo asking for Lucifer's loyalty was pretty justified.

Tbf I’m only on lesson 15 so who knows what might come up later but I get annoyed when people say he was taking advantage of lucifer or asking for something in exchange just  to spite him 

Like things we know about Diavolo

*Primarily concerned with keeping the peace between the 3 regions and will do anything for that goal*

Is the son of the demon king(also have a theory that he is the antichrist and was born like Satan)

Is considered the heir?(I have thoughts and questions on how power is exchanged in devildom I mean demons are immortal right)

Is the main go between for the demons and the king

Is often oblivious of human things 

Generally cares about people on a large scale 

His affability is played up 

It is also important to state that who decides who dies in many Abrahamic traditions is Azrael

It is also stated in om that fate is considered absolute and that there is a set path to how people should live their lives, this also coincides with many branches of Christian belief, during the train arc the witch states that even though she knew her death date she was not able to prevent it and also cements the belief that fate is absolute 

So Diavolo in raising Lilith not only defies the path of fate(read god) and more specifically defies the will of the angel Azrael, this flagrant breach of the power dynamics between the kingdoms could definitely send them into war(something that is directly opposed  to Diavolo’s reason for being for his entire life) for someone so concerned with the balance of the three kingdoms the risk that he was taking by saving Lilith is not trivial. 

Side note in Christian mythos hell was only created when Lucifer fell while this is obviously not the case for om I think we can assume that it was much more desolate and less powerful than it is in present

Diavolo also did not have any assurance that Lucifer would not side with heaven when they cracked down on this(until very recently lucifer was the golden child of heaven) especially when he knew he didn’t have the power to bring back Lilith in the way Lucifer wished her to be back 

So In asking for his loyalty before carrying it out I at least interpret it as “when shit hits the fan bc of this, can I trust you to have my back” bc without lucifer and the other brothers contributions in the war devildom would surely be destroyed 

I care Diavolo so much and have a lot of headcanons and meta about why he is the way he is 

Side note considering my antichrist theory I think Diavolo is essentially going behind his dad’s back to stop the rapture(hence why despite being one of the few demons with free range on the surface and clearly being interested in it he is so oblivious to human culture bc if he were to go up there he would start the apocalypse 

This also further explains why he dislikes belphie so much, belphie had/has the power and has shown the desire to completely destroy all that Diavolo has set up and maintained for millennia

Essentially negating all of the sacrifices he has had to make for nothing but a anger induced power trip(ps I love belphie please don’t interpret as me ragging on him)

Their ideologies of self-sacrifice for the greater good vs. revenge and fulfilling a personal sense of justice are diametrically opposed

[anxiety-trademark]

The week in review:

Raw 10/12 NXT 10/14 NXT UK 10/15 Smackdown 10/16

Raw:

Love that Dana and Mandy now have a theme, but drop the “Mandy” intro.

So they’re saying Miz is the reason these 2 were traded over before the draft?

Unfair nitpick: Mandy deserves to wear all the Gucci she wants, but I’m a little irritated because that’s Charlotte’s thing. I’m an idiot, I know.

I appreciate that wwe is taking this new team serious enough to give them a platform to work out any pre-teaming kinks.

Mandy doing real decent mic work. Especially compared to Lana and Dana. Good for her.

Dana needs to work on her speed.

I like the way Mandy went into that armdrag by hitting the ropes first. Point.

*Dana pins Lana*; *Mandy climbs halfway through the ropes like she might interrupt* ???

Mandy can be a decent face, why not. She’s a little bland rn but it’s a work in progress.

Like the knee strike by Mandy into the senton by Dana, especially off Mandy’s shoulders. Fine finisher.

Lol Nattie mad Lana lost them the match again. Ma’am tbf you get taken out by a punch and then crumple up into a ball far too often.

“Are you really that stupid” in kf I kinda get splitting them up, but in a meta sense, Nattie was the perfect partner for Lana.

Zelina: “Alexa Quinn seems to have a little bit of an identity crisis going on [...] she’s a joke to me,” Why do you care about Alexa Bliss? Cuz she’s cute and psychotic and makes me fear for my life, as she should for you too.

“Twisted union” omg they did dual Sister Abigails. See Zelina you should’ve just sat there and ate your food.

Zelina ran her mouth about Alexa, so Fiend accompanied Alexa in an ambush and they took out Zelina and her client together. This is precious, I love this story. Love that Fiend will do Alexa’s bidding just the same. Points.

Fitting to make Nia and Shayna the 2 hated ones in the battle royal. Still love their dynamic.

Sexy Muscles Friends rekt by Nia. Shame.

Nia is so fucking funny. Sees all of the women looking at her with fire in their eyes, and she’s like, “just breathe” before they stampede on over.

Lmfao Nia eliminated in part by Shayna. I can’t stop laughing.

WELP RIP LANA. I know who’s winning this one now.

Not an ounce of me cares about Drew and Randy brawling.

Wise of Lacey to use Nikki’s tornado ddt attempt to set her over the rope. She gets a point.

Good for Bianca getting the elimination over Shayna. Deep history there.

Love seeing Riott Squad evade each other in the ring. This spot was totally planned, but it’s still great.

Lana won by eliminating Nattie lmfao. I hate that she won cuz wow that’s an awful challenger for Asuka, but that’s hilarious karma.

Again I don’t fucking care about Drew or Randy, bye.

Highlight: Alexa & Fiend wrecking Zelina & Andrade

---

NXT:

I mean Ember should definitely be in nxt, that’s where she’ll shine. She was spinning her wheels as a mere spot monkey on the MR. If she learns how to do promos, maybe she can try up on the MR again in the future.

*The Garganos plan to overcome all odds* No.

Rhea may not own the place but she owns the division. Io may be champion but Rhea is the obvious standout. Sorry bout it.

I liked that. Challenge is made in the pc by Raquel, Rhea overhears it, and they decide to fight then and there before being held back by officials. I approve of this segment. Points.

The disrespect shown to Shotzi’s helmet. Whew what a bitch lol.

Love the block to Candice’s neckbreaker, hate how long it took Shotzi to kick Candice. Full second wasted.

Ugly suicide dive. Didn’t feel impactful whatsoever.

lol kicked out at one. Candice said fuck your suicide dive. Fair.

Candice and her sorry ass attempt at her discount Natural Selection EVERY SINGLE MATCH SHE FIGHTS IN infuriates me. Negative 3 points.

Candice’s entire demeanor isn’t buyable. Her and her slow, methodical bs style. She’d be eaten alive on the MR.

Good counter by Candice. There are high risk moves that Shotzi needs to not do on random tv matches.

Haha Shotzi kicked out of the backstabber and springboard moonsault. Good.

That moonsault is absolutely not textbook. Io’s is textbook. Lacey’s is textbook. Charlotte’s is textbook. All of them can do the backflip part perfectly aligned and straight. Candice’s is ugly as sin in comparison, only difference is hers is a springboard.

*sigh* okay so if you want to built a repertoire between Indi and Candice, having Indi give her brass knuckles to help her win the match is great. But ffs Candice, after you pop Shotzi on the apron, fucking THROW THEM DOWN ON THE GROUND and then go for the cover. How awkward, watching her hold her arm behind her back for 2 friggin minutes before giving them back to Indi. Mk.

So Toni’s entire repackage is literally JUST new music and calling herself a heel?

GREAT neckbreaker by Aliyah.

Sure whatever. Anyway.

Highlight: Raquel & Rhea pc segment

---

NXT UK:

I don’t know what’s worse; watching a long match of nothing but wrist locks and rest holds, or watching the competitors become exhausted from doing nothing but wrist locks and rest holds.

This is wrestling with no ropes, no turnbuckles, and no running allowed.

I remember once in 2019, people said Piper Niven is what wwe wants Nia Jax to be, but 10x better. You know what Nia Jax does well? Comedy. She understands how to be an entertainer. She understands how to perform in the ring without busting out that sweet workrate. Nia Jax found her niche, and that’s why she has a title rn. Piper Niven has not. In the spirit of fairness as well, the pandemic has not treated a lot of these women kindly, and it’s apparent to me that Piper has supremely suffered from it.

This makes me want to go watch Sasha vs Nia 2019. That’s how you make an intriguing match utilizing the difference in size between competitors.

Lol so Piper is in the corner, Isla hops up onto the turnbuckle in the opposite side of the ring, Piper slowly walks over and stops a mere 2 feet from where Isla is crouching up top, and then just stands there until Isla hits a meteora. Lmao. This should’ve been 3 mins with zero wrist locks. Anyway.

Highlight: the ending sequence by Piper was fine

---

Smackdown:

Great video hyping up Bianca. It’s cool to see how highly wwe rates her. Hopefully they take their time with her, because there’s still some things she needs to work on in the ring, but she has the full package imo. Just needs more time to cook.

It’s interesting how it worked out that Sasha became the queen of Hell in a Cell.

Bayley’s such an asshole, I love her so much.

“...which I did ALL BY MYSELF by the way,” lmfao PLEASE. That shit would have been gone at Wrestlemania had it not been for Sasha.

To be fucking fair, it’s buyable for Bayley to be overly paranoid and believe Sasha turning on her was inevitable, considering Sasha HAS been eyeing that title since 2019. She still stayed loyal though, Bayley. Could’ve let some nobody win it off you and then take it from them herself... but she didn’t.

The execution isn’t the best, but the points that Sasha is bringing to the table are valid. Problem is they went over 2016, 2017... and skipped to the tag titles in 2019. Y’all had ISSUES in 2018 lmao but it’s fine, we’ll pretend it never happened. Probably for the best. 6 month build that amounted to nothing other than a brilliant one liner of, “YOU AIN’T SHIT SASHA”

Lmao Bayley refusing to sign it. Bahahaha. Sasha should be calling her a chicken shit lesbireal. Coward isn’t strong enough.

Highlight: Bayley being a delusional asshole

---

*Raw shined the brightest this week thanks to Alexa and the battle royal.

[bettsfic]

do you like echo/becho? i ask because i feel like you're someone who's very good at seeing a wide variety of ships and characters in pretty nuanced ways. i personally really don't like either the character or the ship, especially after s5, but a lot of people seem to suggest that this is only because i'm blinded by love of bellarke (tbf i'm not much of a multishipper) or because i'm susceptible to internalized misogyny. personally i thought i just didn't find the whole thing well written but 1/

2/2 i do try to examine my personal biases when consuming fiction and my responses to it. like idk for me personally there was just no arc or substance for me to respond to but i thought i’d ask someone whose writing opinions i really trust so i can work out whether my dislike genuinely does just stem from me being immature or if the writing behind genuinely feels weak to anyone else?? thanks

this is a really good question and i’m going to start off by apologizing to becho shippers because my answer is very critical of canon becho (but obvs pro fanon becho, bc i’m pro fanon everything p much).

i have to tackle this from two sides: as both a critical/meta fan and a transformative one. which is to say, the critical side of me has a lot of problems with echo, but the transformative side of me addresses those problems with, “but how would i fix it?”

first i’ll tackle my issues with echo as a character. she’s been around since s2; she has a background character’s amount of depth with the screentime of a side character, which is to say i agree with you, she’s poorly written. 

take miller, for example. he’s a side character fleshed out well. every season, we know what he wants and where his allegiance lies. we know who he loves and what he wants to protect. gaia is another good example of a side character whose drives and motivations are simple enough to understand so that their screentime is in proportion to the amount of depth they possess. gaia is the flamekeeper. she holds a small but integral portion of the conflict because her loyalty in s5 is split in 3 ways: to blodreina, to indra, and to the flame. she is absolutely integral, in a small but efficient way, in resolving the story of s5.

which leads me to ask: what’s echo’s piece of conflict? she works with raven to get back to the ship, etc. she wears a shock collar and looks mean. she backs up bellamy in terms of brawn. she has a little sex scene. the season could have stood on its own without her. she could have died at the end of s4 and s5 would have been exactly the same. 

which leads me to becho.

if echo was meant to exist as anything other than a wedge between bellamy and clarke, we would have seen echo’s redemption arc. this is a woman who killed bellamy’s ex gf. who has betrayed his trust over and over again. and now for some reason we’re supposed to just take jroth’s word for it that she did ~~something to get back into bellamy’s good graces. in four seasons we have not seen a single positive interaction between the two of them, nor even playful/fond antagonistic actions a la bellarke s1. other than the mt weather rescue of s2, it has since been “you are thine enemy” the entire damn time, right up until echo has a knife to her gut and suddenly bellamy is like “lol stop you need to stick around for useless cockblockage six years from now”

the becho reunion scene i think is pivotal, because bellamy and echo are kissing in the foreground, out of focus, while clarke is in the background, in focus, watching. i think becho’s existence is solely for that scene. because i don’t think there’s anyway to interpret that other than, at worst, jealousy, and at best, “oh fuck he moved on.” 

in other words, echo is a plot device. so you’re not internally misogynistic for disliking her, she’s being objectified by the story itself. 

i would not at all be frustrated by her or dislike her if we just saw literally any lead up to their relationship. but all we get is a black hole of “TRUST US IT HAPPENED OK.” also, if bellamy expresses actual romantic interest in echo or literally any other character i guarantee me and my multishipper/poly brethren would be all over it. but we don’t get to see bellamy’s romantic interest come to fruition, because it always happens between seasons. i think this matches up with my theory that jroth has pulled a joss whedon on bellamy and his character exists only to torture The Ideal Man. but that’s maybe a rant for another time.

now, as a transformative fan, i do see plenty of seeds of potential. i’m very drawn to untrustworthy characters who slowly develop loyalty toward one person at the expense of everyone else. bodyguard characters. that alone i think is becho’s single commonality and why they’re together: if bellamy is knight to clarke’s queen, echo was lieutenant to roan’s general, and they were trapped together for years, grieving over the loss of the people they admired most. i can see – though it is not what we call “on the page yet” – the logic behind their courtship.

i’m interested in echo’s grieving over roan and how it might differ from bellamy’s over clarke, and the exploration of her actual feelings for him (which, if i were to write it would be something akin to erotic worship, a topic i’m deeply invested in exploring). i would like to see that toxic kind of love transplanted onto bellamy, and bellamy greedily accepting it because he’s lonely and desperate and grieving over his own loss. i like the potential hideousness of their relationship, the entrapment they experienced together, both in mt weather and on the ark, and how that might transfer onto the page in the hands of someone willing to take it seriously. 

i would never write them as an endgame ship because i wouldn’t be able to resolve that toxicity and therefore would only ever be able to offer them a HFN ending. if i perceive their love correctly, it’s not a sustainable kind of love at all. it’s comforting yet destructive, a vice like an addiction, i imagine. 

in short, becho has so much potential, but it’s poorly wrought and managed, and both of their characters are experiencing a massive disservice – echo as an actual character at all, bellamy as a viable romantic hero. 

[amorremanet]

hate meme: harry james potter, abed nadir, freddie lounds & santana lopez? ^.^

“send me literally anything and ill tell you something i hate about it”

abed nadir

sometimes got too much attention and/or narrative forgiveness

like? abed is one of my favorite male fictional characters, period, and he means a lot to me because he’s one of the only examples of GOOD autistic spectrum representation in fiction, and i know that dan harmon and the writers loved him a lot (and for that, i don’t blame them)

but look at troy’s last episode in season five (the one where they had a massive, school-wide game of, “the floor is lava” before troy left to sail around the world with levar burton, but abed tried to drag it out forever, at the expense of literally everyone else, because he didn’t want troy to go)

for one thing: on the in-universe level, abed dragged the entire population of greendale into this game and kept dragging it out without regard for the game’s effects on anyone else (and people were getting hurt, greendale’s ability to function as a school — even by greendale standards — was pretty much dead, and abed was totally fine with that)

and he massively disregarded troy’s agency in the whole matter (because he lied to troy about the purpose of the game; britta, for all her many faults, is the one who went, “uh, troy, abed is screwing with everyone to keep you at greendale”) — and this was all cast not just as sympathetic, but as ultimately more or less okay, because abed only did it because he loves troy so much and he’s terrified of both change and losing his best friend

which *is* sympathetic, and i feel abed on both counts, but that doesn’t make what he did okay???

for another thing: on the meta-level, troy’s last episode wound up being more about abed than it was about troy. like, this was going to be the last time we got to see troy at greendale and he did have an arc in the episode, but his arc was subordinated for the sake of an abed-focused ep

and if they were trying to have a “troy and abed” focused ep, then…

1. troy’s last episode was really not the time for that; abed should’ve been a secondary focus, at most

2. they did not succeed, in terms of foregrounding the troy/abed relationship, because they approached troy and abed individually, rather than looking at their relationship, and they didn’t go back to the relationship enough to make it work (like in the “pillows and blankets” two-parter)


3. there wasn’t a balance between troy and abed like the one you had in the “pillows and blankets” two-parter, or like the abed/shirley balance in “messianic myths and ancient peoples” or like the jeff/shirley balance in “foosball and nocturnal vigilantism” (or basically any jeff/shirley episode; they usually balanced pretty well, without either overtaking the other)

so, yeah. i love abed, but ffs. making him the show’s pet was really not good for anybody. to be fair, i would also say that annie suffered from this at least as much as abed did, so it’s not like abed was alone in this — but it really sticks out in a series that otherwise tried to be good about balancing its ensemble cast and challenging the typical protagonist-centered worldviews you see in most sitcoms

harry james potter

it’s less about him, exactly, and more about how tumblr fandom has taken to handling his status as a survivor of horrific childhood abuse and a few metric fuck-tons of trauma (but tbf, i think most of these answers fall into the heading of, “it’s less about the character, more about X thing in contexts surrounding them,” so)

which isn’t even exclusive to harry, because the hp fandom is totally bogus about handling abuse culture in general, and it’s rife with all kinds of double standards

—like, on the one hand, sirius attempts to commit a very premeditated murder by proxy, and even though the proxy is remus and he would’ve suffered for it more than sirius bc he’s a werewolf and the murder would have happened on the full moon, this is apparently totally 5,000% acceptable because sirius has abusive parents and the intended victim is snape

but on the other hand, you are victim-blaming, abuse apologist garbage if you think that severus is justified in never forgiving james and sirius even if his actions based on that were mostly in the wrong, or thinking that he had every right to fight back against james and sirius when they tormented him in school

(and never mind that james potter was not, at that time in his life, a victim of fucking anything. he is a wealthy, pureblooded man who came from a loving, supportive family, and is canonically regarded as both straight and white

TO BE FAIR, he is also never specified as being white, like voldemort, lucius, and draco all are — and as other readers have noted elsewhere, the way the dursleys talk about james/lily is heavily racialized, despite being about him being a wizard, in the text — so poc!james is one of the, “jkr didn’t say it’s not canon, so it could be” type of headcanons

but he’s also never said to be a poc, so that’s fanon

moreover, it can’t be treated as canon in order to make it out like james’s years of bullying snape were anything but a guy who is canonically privileged in every way that he can possibly be privileged in jkr’s universe bullying another kid who does not have most of james’s privileges [he’s male, a halfblood — less privileged than purebloods but more privileged than muggleborns — and he’s canonically regarded as straight and white; that’s it on the, “privileges that snape has in jkr’s universe” front]

—but hey, if it’s fair game to bring up all of the racialized coding in how the dursleys talk about james by way of trying to ignore the fact that jkr treats him as white in canon, then how about let’s remember all the antisemitic coding in how jkr writes about severus, even though she doesn’t outright say that he’s jewish: source (nb: this post was written in 2005, the author didn’t have dh), source, source, source, source, source

and oh, never mind how james flat-out says that he bullies severus, “more [because of] the fact that he exists, if you know what i mean” [ootp 647]

and never mind how plenty of the people who act like severus was obligated to forgive james and sirius have reblogged things about how nobody is ever obligated to forgive their abusers, and/or condemn him for fighting back while applauding when hermione punches draco [which i say without judging them bc she’s fighting back against a blood purist little snot who torments her and her friends for fun, and i love that moment too], like??

ffs, guys, you can criticize and/or condemn snape’s actions without acting like he was terrible because he saw no reason to forgive james and sirius for what they did to him, or acting like it was Totally Wrong Forever for him to fight back against the guys who meant he didn’t even get a reprieve from his abusive, neglectful home-life at school bc they decided to torment him, and they had classmates who thought it made them cool)

furthermore, it’s apparently soooo totally not sirius’s fault that he abuses kreacher because he’s stuck in grimmauld place and lashing out against his abusive parents because kreacher still loves them…… or so say people who are otherwise happy to call out the wizarding world for having this institutionalized and magically reinforced system of slavery, which i guess doesn’t matter when sirius “cinnamon roll uwu~” black is the person abusing that system to get away with his bullshit and explicitly abusive treatment of another sentient being—

which all goes back to harry because of how abuse culture ends up rearing its ugly head in how people discuss him as a survivor

like, apart from the double standards that all fandoms have toward abuse culture and survivors, there are two big sides that i’ve seen, in this trend.

on one hand, you have the people who want harry being a survivor to excuse him of things like trying to use the cruciatus curse (and successfully using it on amycus in dh!) or similar

on the other hand, there was the shit like what you saw after “cursed child” first came out, where people were going, “omg but harry is an abuse survivor, he would NEVER say/do anything like this to his kids ever” — which…… uh?

no. not how it works.

even ignoring the irl psychology parts related to abuse and survivors of it, jkr has two big models of abusers in the series:

people who are over-privileged af and bully down because they fucking can and who the fuck is really going to stop them (draco, bellatrix, the dursleys, bartemius crouch sr., umbridge, tom-mort voldingdong, albus dumbledore, and oh yeah, james and sirius);

and people who have been hurt by others before and lash out at others because of it, to the point of becoming abusers themselves (severus, sirius, barty crouch jr., peter pettigrew, arguably albus and tom-mort have shades of this as well but it’s very debatable, and if ginny, and remus actually crossed the line into abusive, rather than being, “well, they’re not abusers, but they have these examples of behaviors that could become patterns that went this way,” they’d both be on this list too, but since they don’t, they’re only getting mentioned)

(she has three big models if we include, “abusers who are not recognized as abusers in the text because she didn’t feel like it today i guess” — which mostly means the weasley parents, but other characters definitely have moments of doing shit that should’ve been called out and wasn’t, c.f. harry running around and trying to cast the cruciatus curse, hermione keeping rita skeeter in a mason jar and hexing the signup parchment at the DA, hagrid trying to attack dudley and turn him into a pig over shit that vernon said and dudley trying to eat harry’s birthday cake, fred and george full stop)

so, yeah, uh

idk guys, how about let’s NOT invalidate abuse survivors in fandom by perpetuating these ideas that survivors are and/or have to be perfect cinnamon rolls, while all abusers ever in the world are these ridiculous slobbering caricatures of all things terrible

that’s not how it works

acting like that’s how it works ends up helping police survivors and invalidate their experiences because it plays into things like the idea that all abusers are obviously abusive, which leads to real-world survivors having a harder time being believed when they try to reach out for help

which makes it all a function of abuse culture

if you really care about survivors — and if you really care about harry as a survivor — then don’t use his status as a survivor to make shit harder for irl survivors, period

freddie lounds

i guess this is more of a problem with how freddie was written tbh

but, like…… true, nbc!hannibal avoided being absolute about most things even more than hannibal himself avoids vegetarian recipes

the most absolutism you really got was, “murder is generally wrong, like. killing in self-defense is one thing, but even if you’re trying to get ingratiated with a cannibalistic serial killer again in the name of stopping him (william), murder is probably going to be wrong so you should, like…… not do that, i’m just saying” and, “eating people is wrong unless hannibal didn’t tell you that you were eating people, in which case it is still wrong but it’s his fault, not yours”

all of which is stuff that the show doesn’t really get any cookies for taking a stand on because, “in 99.999% of cases, murder is wrong and should be avoided” is…… not really a unique or groundbreaking moral sentiment

like, it’s one of the beliefs you find in, as far as i know, every human civilization all over the world, throughout history

(there are, of course, differences of opinion on how to punish murderers, and there are exceptions made for people who get around the law by being wealthy and powerful, or by virtue of having some form(s) of societal privilege [e.g., whiteness, or straightness in the case of the, “gay panic” defense], or all of the old arguments about how killing someone during a time of war isn’t a murder and therefore doesn’t count, and then there are all of the semantic debates about, “are all killings inherently murders or what”

—but still. most people tend to agree that murdering other people is generally wrong.)

but yeah, uh

one place where i would’ve liked a little less ambiguity is freddie’s relationship with and feelings toward abigail

like, i wouldn’t have needed her to suddenly develop an increased amount of sympathy toward other victims — whether in general, or even just specifically, “other victims of hannibal lecter,” and given how he treated her on multiple occasions, it’s pretty ridiculous to just expect her ever stop being a pain in will’s ass (i mean, even when she wasn’t in the right, which was most of the time, some of how will treated her was unhelpful to everyone and in the realm of, “yes, i get where you’re coming from but this still wasn’t cool”)

—but with abigail specifically, the show sort of went back and forth between, “freddie is genuinely interested in helping abigail and does have some kind of regard for her as a person” and, “freddie is just out for herself and only using abigail and her trauma to further her own career,” which was all further complicated by the fact that pretty much no one on nbc!hannibal was a reliable narrator about anything, for any number of reasons

like, beverly probably came the closest before she got totally fridged for no good reason, but even she wound up hindered by the fact that hannibal was manipulating the evidence and playing everyone around him like a really overpriced theremin

and idk

i think the best “compromise” or interpretation here would’ve been, like… “freddie starts out just trying to advance her career because that’s just how she does things in general, but eventually, she did come to genuinely care for abigail as a person and to genuinely want to help her, which would explain things like why will was open to working with freddie against hannibal in season two, since he may not have trusted her in general, but he would trust her to want to take down the man whom they thought killed abigail (even though she was secretly still alive, at that point)”

but the show itself was never really clear on that, and it’s like

okay, guys, i don’t think you need to spell out absolutely everything, and i realize that a certain degree of ambiguity in most situations and with almost all of the characters is part of your #Aesthetic

but this would be an example of you once again screwing over the characters who are not named will and/or hannibal, especially since I got a feeling like it’s less that you were leaving things vague on the, “freddie and abigail” front, and more that you just didn’t really care to figure things out about this part of freddie’s character

so……… yeah

santana lopez

okay, i don’t blame her for wanting artie out of the way when he was dating brittany back in season 2 because lmao, i did too, but for starters, artie wouldn’t have been dating brittany if santana hadn’t blown her off in the first place

—which isn’t #Problematic in terms of her character development because…… uh, well yeah, that was the point. santana created the problem by blowing brittany off and trying to convince herself that she was “totally straight, except sometimes scissoring with brittany, lmao feelings are totally pointless and should be hated and santana doesn’t have them” and it was part of the story of her coming to accept herself as a lesbian

but it was kind of, “ummm…”-inducing that she… never actually had to accept her own responsibility for brittany/artie happening, like

first, in the duets episode, she tried to meddle and break them up by going, “brittany’s just using you for the free dinner at breadstix lmao” — which she succeeded in, because brittany and artie didn’t even sing (though they both still voted for themselves in the, “who should win” bit at the end) — and santana apparently thought that was it

tbf, it’s not like she could foresee puck and artie bonding, and puck trying to ““help”” artie get back with brittany by being so thoroughly himself…… but then brittany and artie were back on, and santana’s response was to manipulate brittany into cheating on him by going, “it’s not cheating bc we’re both girls” and expecting brittany to just go along with it

then, brittany calls her on that in “sexy” — inasmuch as brittany got a chance to do back then — and santana only accepts responsibility for anything in the sense of, “okay, brittany wants me to get more in touch with my feelings and admit that i do love her because that is how i fucked up before”

she doesn’t look at brittany’s relationships with other people, or at brittany’s feelings about anything but santana and the current state of their relationship + how it might go in the future, and so on — and this is another example of a situation where santana is presented as being sympathetic but still in the wrong, and brittany calls her on it, and it’s part of her overall growth in the end

but we never really address the manipulation in telling brittany, “it’s not cheating because we’re both girls” (which, by glee standards, is not that bad, and tbf, brittany and artie weren’t perfect angels in any of this, either, since artie was pretty ableist to brittany even before the, “how can you be so stupid, brittany!” “you were the only one in this school who never said that to me!” moment in the fleetwood mac episode, and brittany had her own manipulative moments with both artie and santana

—but it still kinda bugged me that santana had an opportunity to grow and learn more about using her capacity for manipulation for good, and it…… didn’t really go anywhere?

and you can tell that she didn’t learn about manipulating brittany — at least not until way later down the line — because a few episodes later, she’s plotting to use dave to win prom queen bc she thinks she can then go on to convince britt-britt that she’d made a royal decree that brittany had to be her girlfriend)

finally, santana was really ableist toward artie throughout the entire brittany/artie arc

……and beforehand.

…………and afterward.

………………and just in general, even without brittany needing to be involved, because to be fair, this was just one part of a larger overall pattern of ableist bullshit on glee’s part, of which artie wasn’t even the only victim (he was just one of the most notable ones because he was one of the only canonically disabled characters)

so, it’s like? yeah, santana said pretty ableist shit about artie, on a pretty regular basis — the “stubbles mc-cr*pple-pants” nickname is one example i’ll never forget

—and yeah, she said offensive things to basically everyone else on the show (c.f., calling rachel, “yentl”; calling mercedes, “wheezy”; taking her internalized homophobia out on kurt, not in the scenes like, “kurt and blarren sing about how much they love each other all over santana’s pain over being forcibly outed because that’s so what she needed to hear right now, stfu both of you” or in fairly going, “hey, shut up and quit judging MY wedding to brittany as a bad life choice just because YOU couldn’t make it work with blarren” but in all the smaller instances that you barely even notice at first; taking her internalized homophobia out on dave even while asking him to help her win prom queen/blackmailing him into it; list goes on)

but the ableist shit she said to artie sticks out to me, in particular, bc santana’s other examples of this behavior were generally cast as, “she’s witty and outrageous, yes, but you should really probably not actually say things like this, it’s asshole behavior on her part,” while the shit she said to artie…… kinda didn’t

not because the ableist shit she said to artie didn’t get called out

(bc lbr, most of the things that santana ever said didn’t get, “called out”

it got shown to be Not Cool bc it would get associated with people getting upset with her

or it would sound too much like Sue [who is almost always in the wrong, so sounding like her is something that you generally want to avoid]

or it would be used to show that santana is being selfish and rude even without it being called out [like when she called mercedes, “wheezy” before going, “we don’t have to like each other, let’s sing a duet together and win that free dinner at breadstix”]

or it would otherwise have some kind of repercussions

—but it probably wouldn’t get, “called out” as such, outside of REALLY big exceptions, like how they used, “well, but santana was bullying him” as a justification for finn getting her outed, when…… yes, her bullying him was wrong but these things are not the same

or the bit in, “silly love songs” where oher glee club kids [in order: finn, lauren, puck, quinn, tina, and rachel] bite back at santana over insulting them)

but her ableist shit toward artie sticks out because the show always kinda seemed to…… not agree with santana about it, exactly, since her saying it was still narratively seen as Not Cool?

but it seemed to give her a half-pass because plenty of the other characters who weren’t physically disabled expressed similar feelings about artie and his disability, just with less vitriol (e.g., puck, who even got to be friends with artie but still said ableist shit; he just wasn’t actively trying to be mean like santana was)

or they tried really hard to make it sound like, “well, this is just commonsense and how things are, what can you do” (e.g., MOST of them, back in season 1’s “wheels,” where rachel was pretty vitriolic in her ableist nonsense, but not directly at artie

—like, she was one of the, “but this is just how things are, don’t take it personally” when talking to him, but then lumped schue’s, “all of you will spend this week in wheelchairs to learn about accessibility!” lesson plan in with him giving kurt a fair audition for the “defying gravity” solo when she had her little diva moment of, “maybe someday, you’ll find a way to create teaching moments without RUINING MY LIFE” and then tried to storm out while still in a wheelchair)

which is all really less about santana herself, and more about how santana fit into the show’s overall patterns of ableism, but

i’m really hard-pressed to come up with something that i actually hate about santana, which is why hers is the longest answer (bc i had to dig deep and bullshit my way through it, oops)

(harry’s is closest in length but that’s because i had an actual point to make; by my standards, his answer is pretty short)