#the other fandoms i’m in). you can in fact just ignore creators you do not like. i know it gets very frustrating over time but that’s what

[un-pearable]

yknow i understand ian flynn haters from an intellectual standpoint - just like every other fan community and ESPECIALLY comics, inevitably there will be people with interpretations you dislike, and sometimes you will have the misfortune of those interpretations being the ones in “official” media - but they seriously cannot stop obsessing over this guy. he has zero power over you. if you do not like his takes you can ignore them. there is enough media in this franchise to do so. rabid haters are putting this guy up on just as much of a pedestal as rabid fans are when at the end of the day he is legitimately just some freelancer that SEGA pays occasionally to write some translations or tie in media. it’s really not that big a deal whether you like him or not

[beneathashadytree]

HEY GUYS! LONG POST HERE, BUT PLEASE READ🙏🏽

I am genuinely appalled by the discourse ongoing in the LNDS fandom these past few days—but above all, I am severely disappointed in what had started out as one of the most inclusive and sweet fandoms I’ve ever been in. I have a few things to say, so in this post I’m trying to put all my thoughts to words. Apologies if I sound harsh, but I’m genuinely livid. Also, please ignore any typos. I’m not wearing my glasses while word-vomiting.

First off, for a fandom that is composed of mostly adults, you guys have been acting terribly childishly. It’s 2024, and yet people are still unironically shaming others for “switching up on their favs” as if a person owes 2D characters any loyalty. Let people enjoy things. The novelty of Sylus and how he’s quite literally 6 months behind the other 3 love interests makes people want to catch up on the enjoyment of him all at once. He’s still such a brand new character and concept, so there’s no wonder everyone’s hyped up over him.

I’ve seen people get genuinely mad at other players and writing whole think-pieces about this. I promise you guys, the company making this game is still benefiting whether you’re pouring your money into Sylus or any one of the previous 3. We’re all happy to have an interesting character pop up among the roster now, and we’re taking our time getting to know him. Doesn’t make any of the first 3 any less loved. I genuinely don’t remember this amount of nastiness when solo events for each of the guys used to drop.

In fact, if the popularity thing is worrying you, going off MLQC (the company’s past game) the character who was last added was—eventually, after the initial hype died down—kicked off to the sidelines in most major events and was given the least content, and was the least favorite of fans.

Secondly, and this has my blood boiling, there is an insane amount of entitlement and rudeness I’ve seen on my timeline concerning how people characterize the men—particularly Rafayel.

Absolutely nothing warrants this shitty attitude towards other creators for how they depict characters in their fics. It seems you guys feel protected behind a screen and think it gives you the right to bully strangers online. Fanfiction is for fantasizing about your favs; for letting your imagination run wild. If this were a character analysis, then yes, maybe I’d agree that inaccuracies are aggravating. However, in fanfiction, there are zero rules, especially when it comes to smut.

Sexual preferences are not equivalent to a person’s whole personality—so whether he’s written as a dom, a sub, a switch, or whatever the fuck you wanna call it, this has nothing to do with his kindness, gentlemanliness, passion, power, ruthlessness, snark, or whatever minuscule aspect of his character makes up his lovely whole and matters to you.

I think this circles back to a lack of ability to separate sexual matters and personality, because how else do people interpret fics depicting him in a certain manner as them erasing his character? They might overlap, but they can very well be mutually exclusive. I’ve seen incredibly sweet and gentle men irl who were absolute doms in bed, and I’ve seen powerful and passionate men who were reduced to tears between the sheets. There is barely any correlation whatsoever, and if anything, claiming otherwise is what I consider piss-poor media literacy and reading-comprehension.

My third point is that for some reason, there have been many, many posts and replies on here where I’ve seen people just straight-up spread pure hate for the characters. Maybe this bothered me in particular because I’m an OT3 (OT4 now!) and absolutely adore all of them, but I find no logical reason for “yucking someone’s yum” when we’re talking about liking the characters of an Otome game—a genre of video games which is made to literally cater to the tastes of as many people as possible.

It’s especially disheartening to see when it’s at a time like this, when new content is about to drop, and you find in the replies of every other post/discussion at least a few people spewing hate and disgust at Sylus. Again, so many people are incredibly excited about him. Why is there a need to rain on everyone’s parade, especially in such an unsolicited manner?

This fandom originally started as a safe space for people of all races, backgrounds, genders, sexualities, and personalities to bond over our mutual love for characters. All I’ve seen on my TL lately (in terms of discussion) is negativity, and it’s such a fucking let-down. I hope whatever the fuck has happened to this fandom cools down after a bit. It’s probably exaggerated and very in-your-face rn, cause more and more people are downloading LNDS, so the probabilities of finding people being nasty are increasing. But I seriously don’t want to grow to resent this fandom and find myself distancing myself from it to protect my peace.

Let’s all remember to be kind towards other players, to not act entitled or bratty about the characters, and to try and mind our own business if we see content that doesn’t suit our tastes.

[theinsanefoxwriter]

Gregory Deserves Better...

I never make actual posts to be honest, but I feel the need to right now, because I’m just so…tired of this. My favorite character in the newer FNAF era has been mistreated by both fans and the creators. So I’m making this in light of the new book coming that, at least from the description we have right now, sounds like it’s just Security Breach, except Gregory is replaced by Cassie.

I’ve said many times elsewhere how I suspected they wanted to boot Gregory for Cassie, and...I had no idea how right I actually was. It angers me, but…mostly, I’m just hurt and very disappointed, because it sucks to see a character I loved get so disrespected then practically replaced. The ending of Ruin felt like a slap in the face, and the sting is only getting worse. (And very quickly, in case anybody takes this from what I'm saying, no I don't hate Cassie. I just don't want her to completely replace Gregory.) I’m not here to talk about that situation, though.

If anyone for some reason leaves a comment arguing the points I make, I’m just going to ignore or even delete it. I’m not here to discuss or argue with people who disagree with me and/or think Gregory is a bad character. I just want to express an opinion that I don’t think is said nearly enough. And that opinion is the fact Gregory is severely misunderstood and mistreated by both the fandom and canon itself. I’m not going to get into everything, but enough that you can hopefully understand the point I’m trying to make.

Most of the Gregory hate at the beginning was due to him destroying the animatronics and then lying about it to Freddy. I don’t see how this makes him hateable or a bad person. “Why’d he have to go out of his way to destroy them?” “He’s a bad person for lying to Freddy and giving him the upgrades of his friends.” “The Glamrocks were so awesome. Why did Gregory have to do that?” What kid in danger would want to help or be nice to the scary robots trying to kill them? Or against the better argument, why would he have sympathy for them in a moment of intense danger? When they were actively trying to kill him? He did what he thought he needed to survive, which was destroying them and using the good parts they had to give him a better chance against them. If they had been nice, he would have liked them, but they weren’t. They were after him. And choosing to do that plus being able to do that doesn’t make him a bad person, and it doesn’t mean he's uncaring towards others or that he’s heartless. What I think people don't take into account is that Gregory did befriend an animatronic, the one who wasn't attacking him. He went to great lengths to help Freddy, and genuinely cared for him; that bear needed to be rescued on more than one occasion lol, and Gregory clearly wasn't just doing it because Freddy gives him a hiding place.

And in regard to the lying, I think Gregory hid that he was getting the upgrades from Freddy's friends, because he didn't want to make Freddy mad or hurt his feelings. That does sound like something a kid would do, and he is a kid. He's not gonna be perfect in this situation, and he doesn't even do anything that bad. I don't think Gregory gets enough credit. Everybody just sees a mouthy kid destroying animatronics they like (despite the fact they're hunting him, and the virus has made them basically mindless. Why wouldn’t he?), and they hate on him for it and other rather stupid reasons. Gregory is more than the “annoying” kid who destroyed your favorite animatronics. He’s a clearly guarded and defensive child who got stuck in a bad and terrifying situation, but…in the end, stayed anyway to prevent this and other bad things from happening to anyone else. Gregory cares. Yes, even if he destroyed some animatronics. The creators calling him the “darkness of the Pizzaplex” or whatever they said doesn’t make sense. On the surface, he might look like some child who destroyed Freddy’s friends, but look any deeper at all, and that’s not the case. There’s so much potential for his character, and I’m upset that he isn’t being given the spotlight or time to further explore his potential properly, especially since Security Breach ended up being a bit lacking in a lot of areas: perhaps another factor in why he’s so misunderstood.

In the end, I’m simply tired of seeing a character that I connected with treated like he was just a writing mistake that now needs to be replaced by a “better” character. I’m not saying his writing was perfect, but he deserves way better than this. I feel very passionate about the characters I like, which is why this has affected me so much, and I hope at least a few people see this.

Anything I missed I’m going to touch on briefly here:

GGY? A cool concept, actually, that I wish was utilized in the games. And Gregory is clearly possessed there, similar to Vanessa, so him being Patient 46 and causing people’s deaths can’t actually be held against him.

Dropping the elevator on Cassie? I firmly believe that was not him, and very clearly the Mimic’s doing. There’s solid evidence behind it, but I’m not going to get into it because it’s exhausting. Just know that no one can convince me otherwise. And even if the writers wanted Gregory to do that, it’s out of character and clearly an act of character assassination.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Now go hug a misunderstood gremlin!

[teeth-cable]

I need more people to talk about how just like the POC designs, the writing is terrible at clueing the audience what race and ethnicity the characters are.

Beside stereotypes, the racial coding in the writing is little to non-existence. The characters don’t have mannerisms from their cultures, speak in slangs or idioms relating to their group from their time periods, or make cultural references.

Without having to rely on outside sources (Livestreams, looking up VAs, leaked audition sheets, etc), the only characters I would successfully guess would be Vicky, Val, and Velvette, and even then, it doesn’t mean the racial coding is good.

Vicky is the only one from this list whose racial coding isn’t atrocious. I can tell she’s Latino because she curses in Spanish, but that’s it. This is admittedly nick-picky , but I wish when cursing she would have used Salvadoreño specific slang and curse phases to signal she’s Salvadoreña.

Val, I can tell is Latino too, because of his accent and him cursing in Spanish, but it’s egregious. The accent fluctuates so much, it’s strong, then weak, then strong again. Not sure if the VA was struggling or if this was an intentional direction given to him, though the fact, I and other people were confused, at the direction, speaks for itself. Another issue with his accent is how it’s sexualized, contributing to the Latin Lover stereotype of his character.

Velvette, I won’t sugarcoat it. I wouldn’t even guess she was supposed to be black though the writing or the majority of her designs until the finale. The finale, the last episode of the season and the only time she has textured hair with her screen time being around two minutes and sixteen seconds in total.

Visual designs isn’t where race coding ends. This is important to remember because it ignores the good coded characters (King Dice from Cuphead, Darwin from TAWG, the Funk trolls from Dreamwork’s Trolls) and how Viv failed and could have done the racial coding better.

For Viv, she has to rely on other coding methods too because there are characters who aren’t humanoid enough, or even humanoid at all, for visual coding to work. There really isn’t anything I can say to explain why the race coding sucks beside Viv doesn’t care about representing POCs.

I wanted to create this post to highlight how Viv fails at coding in every aspect. The fandoms and critics shouldn’t praised her for giving Velvette textured hair or darkening Sera’s skin from her leaked audition sheet. We need to stop praising creators, especially white ones, for doing less than the bare minimum (The bare minimum being making POC characters look POC) when creating POC characters, or worse, justify it. I’ve seen people tried to justify the terrible POC designs by using one of Carmilla’s daughters as an example, as if one decent POC design in a sea of ashy and euro-centric or erased features for the majority of the POC cast suddenly invalidates the criticisms.

I’m also getting tired of the fandom making posts questioning why people have and still draw the POC characters as white, as well as people harassing artists for accidental whitewashing. I’m hate the whitewashing too but in this case, it’s different because this is Viv’s own fault due to her poor racial coding. Not every fan will have the same intense knowledge you do or even should, to know what a character’s race or ethnicity is, that’s Viv’s responsibilities as the creator.

Mind you, these were the human designs we had before the show aired. Alastor being mixed creole and Niffty being Japanese yet they look white as hell here.

[crispycreambacon]

Ending April with a small parting gift. I’m gonna miss this.

Anyways, an announcement of my own.

The short of it

I’m leaving the Watcher fandom. Don’t worry, I won’t be unfollowing anyone, but I will be ceasing the creation of art for Watcher and interaction with the community at large. Thank you all for this short but meaningful ride. Feel free to unfollow me if you were here for Watcher art, and for those who stick around…

Thank you :]

I hope to not disappoint with this new era of mine.

The long of it

It’s been a couple of days since a certain channel dropped an announcement that imploded its fandom. It was… a mess. A lot—and I mean a lot—of us didn’t handle the news well, and we made that known to everyone. The impact was so massive that YouTubers, who are nowhere near the niche that Watcher operates under, covered the situation, and some of them explained very well why the decision went over so poorly. Meanwhile some of them made fun of the situation, and some were just there for the clicks, but that’s the cycle of YouTube drama for you.

With the amount of ears waiting for even a peep out of their mouths, Watcher couldn’t ignore the backlash any longer and released an apology video three days after the announcement. By all accounts, it was a pretty good response. The reception was mixed, but it was definitely more well-received than their first video, and they actually listened to their fans who gave them valid criticism over the sudden shift to a streaming service.

However…

For as much as I appreciate their response, I still can’t find it in myself to continue following Watcher. I really mean it when I say this disaster soured any enjoyment I had for them. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch them again for a long time without thinking about this situation or remembering the people they have hurt, even if unintentionally, through their poor execution of a business decision.

Do I believe they could’ve pulled off moving their content to a streaming service? Absolutely. However, so many factors doomed this decision and their announcement from the start from them believing that $5.99/month was “affordable to everyone” (seriously?) to them insisting that this was for the fans even though the fans have vocalized that they were never there for the high production value. They were there because the three guys who run Watcher were enjoyable!

I feel like if they had been honest about the fact that the TV quality they are aiming for was more for themselves than anyone–hell, it’s the mission statement in their About page, and, I don’t know, considered the idea that $6 is not cheap, especially for international fans, people wouldn’t have gotten so angry at them. Now, there are still numerous issues plaguing this business model, but to go through all of the arguments would require a separate post, and I’ve already expended too much energy on this situation. Needless to say, Watcher has burnt their bridges, and it will take a while before they can build them back up again, let alone get people to trust them enough to cross them.

On the other hand, I can’t blame Watcher fully for my departure. Despite my heavy disagreement with their initial decision, I understand why they thought this decision was a good idea in the first place as YouTube is a very unstable career path, and it would rather hurt its creators with its relentless demonetization, censorship and restrictive guidelines than give up just a tiny amount of its profit. Besides, they’re in control of their content, and they could do what they want with it even if their fans disagreed with them.

Speaking of the fans, my god. The situation revealed a side of the fandom that I never thought I would see, but in hindsight, I should have seen it coming. To see fans resort to anti-Asian racism and death threats so quickly was extremely heartbreaking, and as an Asian person, it made me feel very unsafe and unwelcome in the community.

Moreover, using Steven as a scapegoat to absolve Ryan and Shane of any wrongdoing was unfortunately a very common response. Yes, he is the CEO, and yes, his series being centered on traveling and eating expensive food really doesn’t paint him in a positive light, but need I remind you that RYAN AND SHANE ARE GROWN ADULTS. They’re the founders of Watcher, and they both have to agree to the initial plan for it to be implemented. You can’t assume that Steven was a boogeyman terrorizing your precious little boys just based on a 15-minute video. You don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes.

All of this to say that the initial announcement combined with how the community reacted violently to the announcement really nipped my interest in Watcher in the bud. It was a shame too because I really did love Watcher, and I still do. Had it not been for the time I invested in following them, I wouldn’t have made great friends, regained the joy in creating art–even reviving a hobby/skill that I assumed was long dead, and had a reason to be able to laugh or smile even in terrible days. I truly am grateful for Watcher, and I do not regret ever getting into them at all. However, I think it’s time for me to go.

Thank you all for this weird and wonderful ride, but at some point, you’ll have to hop off. I just didn’t expect to hop off it so soon.

[utilitycaster]

Hi! Hope you don’t mind me asking but, I’ve seen you comment about a “fjord moon” theory every so often in your tags, and I’m quite curious what’s it about? I don’t think I’ve ever heard about it, is it something more prevalent in twitter spaces?

It started in Reddit spaces but it had a moment within the fandom at large during Campaign 2, especially after a YouTube video surfaced shortly after the campaign had come back from hiatus in August 2020. It hasn't come up lately since Campaign 3's plot pretty thoroughly debunked it, which wasn't necessary for reasons I will cover below.

I talked about how stupid it was at the time, and will do so again but I don't feel like looking back through my archives to find that post, so: the idea was that Fjord was from Ruidus. I call it a theory because its creators called it a theory but it was really just a lot of incoherent yelling that unfortunately happened to fall into the hands of a prolific and popular but talentless video maker and was boosted by a prolific and popular but deeply stupid figure on CR Twitter.

You can read it here but in short he basis was that Fjord was actually a Spelljammer Space Orc (Scro; yes this is just Orcs backwards; Spelljammer is not exactly the most brilliant of concepts) because he was intelligent and walked upright, ignoring that Spelljammer was, at the time, from D&D 2e only which can generously be described as "wicked racist in the depiction of orcs". Not that 5e is not without its foibles, but it had largely 86-ed the worst of the racism that pervaded earlier orc depictions. Also Garthok pre-dated Fjord and was a half-orc with the same intelligence, but what are facts to an idiot. So anyway this guy working off a deeply racist older concept for orcs spun this into a wild conspiracy theory involving the fact that Travis likes Dragonball Z; something about the film Spaceballs (as far as I know Travis has said absolutely nothing about this, this is just that the Mel Brooks Star Wars parody and my personal childhood favorite Spaceballs exists I think?) and various other random pulls from science fiction media. This guy asked a question at a panel and mistook the cast looking at him like he had lost the plot as a sign he was onto something. Somehow, people listened to him.

Here's the thing about theorycraft. It is more important, in writing a theory, that you base it on evidence than that you get it correct. Any dipshit can guess and any lucky dipshit can guess correctly, but if you show that you can't structure an argument for beans, anyone who can structure an argument for beans will rightfully look at you and say "well, they predicted something once, but that's a fucking fluke because they're a fucking joke." Theories should explain something that needs explanation (Fjord having an INT of 14 and the name Fjord and being an orphan does not). They should not solely rest on things the cast likes or things that merely exist in-world and certainly not from Spaceballs and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the connection of which to Critical Role in that Reddit post is not explained, ever.

To give some examples of good, mediocre, and bad but at least not nearly that bad theorycraft: the theory that Ashton was a meteor that was around early in C3 is in my mind not very good, but at least it fits within Exandria canon and explained something about Ashton needing explanation at the time. The theory that The Emissary is the source of the stasis bubbles is in my mind a very good one explaining several key mysteries (source of stasis bubbles; why Erathis sent him rather than coming himself). The theory that Bor'Dor was a dog was fucking stupid and made no sense nor did it explain anything that needed explanation (and also wildly misjudged how border collies behave) but did at least not say "also, the TV show Lassie...exists in our reality, and this is evidence" The Fjord Moon Theory is maybe the stupidest and worst CR theory I've seen in my entire life, and it's up there for fandom theories over all. I get that it was August 2020 and I don't begrudge people who were very bored and scared from joking about it while not taking it seriously, but I do begrudge those who did take it seriously because like, come on.

Anyway, I bring it up in tags sometimes because many of the worst C3 takes on Twitter that make it to me via "can you fucking believe this" screenshots in the groupchat are either started or propagated by Former Moon Theory People.

[lavernius]

Okay, this is probably gonna be a strong start, but: I've kinda hated Lopez because of the way RT insists on him being Mexican, but with your Locus post being so good and hinting at your interpretation of Lopez having themes of disconnection from his culture (Something I've struggled with and continue to struggle with in my own relationship to being Mexican), I really want to hear your thoughts about that topic, because I would genuinely love to not hate Lopez and to be able to see something even vaguely like myself in him.

Oh my god what a wonderful ask to recieve as Lopez’s biggest fan. You have every right in the world to hate Lopez IMO, he pisses me off a lot of the time for similar reasons. Thank you so much for your perspective and interest!

Here’s my “Lopez and racial allegories” meta, from the perspective of a second-gen brown immigrant! Tentative follow-up to my Locus colorism post, racism CW.

I’ll start by saying I am not Mexican myself, but of the very large denomination of “brown people who latch onto any brown character because it’s so hard to find representation in media”. I did grow up with a predominantly Mexican/Latino community, which doesn’t give me, like, a right to speak on your culture so much as it gives me a unique perspective and experience.

First and foremost: we all know Lopez’s entire existence is laden with not-so-subtle racism. In-universe as much as by the white creators themselves. The entire bit that Lopez is Mexican sheerly because he speaks broken Spanish is annoying! Coupled with the fact that his whole role on Red Team is doing manual labor and he’s largely ignored otherwise—yeah okay Rooster Teeth. Good going on that one. Let’s reclaim Lopez for the actual culture.

I’ve come to see Lopez as—no thanks to RT; I fill in the blanks of Lopez’s character on my own—a beacon of cultural alienation, social isolation stemming from racism, reclamation of tarnished pride, and a righteously furious statement of “Look at me, I’m here and I’m brown and I’m not sorry.”

ISOLATION/ALIENATION: You’d think the most obvious allegory to him being a brown person is the fact that he speaks Spanish. It IS, but not just because he speaks Spanish: his language is his skin, something he was “born” with and can’t change without mutilation of his body. He has to learn how to navigate a world specifically designed against his language barrier. If more people spoke Spanish or tried to learn, the metaphor wouldn’t be as potent, but it’s so rare for him to find someone “like him” that it’s less about the language and more about the isolation.

UNFAIR STANDARDS: The other obvious racial allegory is the usual “robot racism” of sci-fi (which is its own bag of worms that I despise), which constitutes for the other half of this meta. He IS his job as far as everyone else in concerned. When is he ever doing anything but fixing or building, as per Sarge’s orders or the team’s needs? Similarly, real-world POC often have to fight to prove we can be “as capable” as our white peers, and even when we are clearly capable it’s very easy for them to reduce us to our talents before the fact that we’re people.

He’s largely forgotten by the fandom, too, as a reflection of the show’s negligence. Not really much to say there, just kind of goes to show you how easily forgettable he is because he gets no respect as a character.

SOCIAL CONFORMITY: Lopez’s Technical Guide to Empathy has Lopez admitting he could fix his voice module himself, but doesn’t see the point since no one cared to fix it before. He has to conform to their “normal” to fit in, like many POC do to live comfortably in a predominantly white society. He doesn’t, out of pettiness more than actual pride; I know what that’s like.

RECLAMATION: As per the last point, I take his refusal to speak English as a “fuck you” to the notion that he HAS to for other people’s sakes. He has a love-hate relationship with his language barrier. There’s an outtake from 7 where he tries to get Sarge to fix his language module, but more recently he’s resigned to it or—as recently as S15—desired for people to learn Spanish FOR HIM instead. Reclaiming prejudice isn’t easy, but it fits Lopez as a person to say “You can’t hurt me with that if I own it.”

PRIDE: He’s proud of being a robot! No matter how much it slights him, he knows it’s who he is, and the trauma of existing results in him being almost afraid of being anything else. I like to pretend his S17 labyrinth METAPHORICALLY reflects a fear of being whitewashed, because even if he’s proud, he’s traumatized by the nature of being a robot. Replace “robot” with “POC”; standard robot racism stuff.

CULTURAL DISCONNECT: I kind of ignore that he speaks Spanish poorly in canon (I get the bit, I just don’t care for the execution), but when I acknowledge it it reminds me of the cultural disconnect of thousands of immigrants and their families, especially those who lost their language to the West and struggle to learn it in adulthood. Alongside this, living for years without ANY real, substantial exposure to someone he can talk to means he’s naturally more adjusted to the Reds’ lifestyles (on top of forcing him further into being cast out). If someone comes along and properly understands him—see Locus S12—for the first time since another robot did, of course he’s going to be shellshocked, he doesn’t actually have experience with that part of himself.

RESIGNATION/SELF-ERASURE: Lopez isn’t quiet by nature, he’s quiet because he has no one to talk to! Before the Reds betray him in Blood Gulch he doesn’t shut up. When he meets 2.0 he spends hours just talking to that kid. When they launch him into space in S15 he just talks to himself the entire time. Over time he just seems to grow more resigned to being ignored, which results in him stifling himself because of aforementioned isolation. I’ve seen a lot of my peers of color—who are too scared of the backlash of speaking—shy away from A) self-acceptance and B) self-defense (in various forms), because they don’t expect to be accepted, much less heard.

Like all reclamation, the only reason the “Lopez is a brown person” narrative works out is because it was intended to mock and offend. All of the bits I covered are just me recontextualizing unfunny bigotry from the show, which, sadly, is the easiest way to enjoy a lot of offensive RVB characters without mischaracterizing them entirely.

There are times, obviously, when Lopez’s language barrier doesn’t actually stop him from talking to people, but to me it’s more about the experience of isolation and anger and wanting to be proud but struggling to find the support for it. Literally half of these metaphors wouldn’t matter if he got to talk to someone who cared about him and understood him simultaneously.

Lopez is designed in such a way that hating him for his writing is genuinely justified. Still, if just for the sake of being able to tolerate him, I prefer seeing him as the brown person who is angry because the universe isn’t made for him and wants to see him fail, but lives just to spite it.

[arinbelle]

So I saw a Nesta anti say they want a normal civil convo on why we like Nesta because they just don’t see it. I can respect someone trying to see a different POV so I wrote an extremely long essay on it and I think since my tags aren’t working I wanted to share this. For context, person said that Nesta is abusive and they have provided textual evidence. They also said Nesta excuses her actions because of her mental health. So they wanted to see what we see different because that is all they see. I thought I’d share this ridiculously long exposition I wrote out, since this is the most writing I’ve done in months.

Addition: I saw this creator say they understand why Nesta lashes out and acts so harmfully but their issues is the stans who excuse her actions. I do see Nesta stans who ignore some of the “bad” things she’s done but that’s really not the majority. Also if your issue is the fandom and not the character itself, idk if you’re really an anti. I hate Rhys stans, I’m not really anti Rhys. I dislike some of his actions but I more so hate his fans. It’s not the same thing.

My reply:

I think there's a lot to unpack here but I'll try my best to explain. I've seen your posts before where you bring evidence of Nesta's abuse on Feyre. And I'll give it to you. Yes. That is abuse. It's verbal abuse, it's mental or emotional abuse, and yes it's wrong. All of it is actually textbook, and yes, lots of Nesta stans like to say it's not because they are siblings but yes, unfortunately, abuse is abuse. (Addition: no one is saying verbal or mental abuse isn’t as impactful or dangerous as physical. It is. Studies have shown verbal abuse can at times register as physical pain and abuse to victims. And yes, Nesta was abusive to Feyre growing up. But my key word is WAS).

That being said, I have never thought Nesta gives her mental health as an excuse for her actions or words. If anything, she is completely closed off about what her own upbringing and traumas were like until we were well into acosf. If you can move on from the first few chapters of acotar, you can see that deep down Nesta loves Feyre and even her father.

It is Nesta who goes after Feyre and tries to get across the wall. It is Nesta who tells Feyre it is okay to go back to her life with Tamlin- and she tells her, don't come back, not in "we hate you" way, but in a, you've taken care of us, you've shouldered this burden, and I'm telling you it's okay and letting you go. It is Nesta and Elain who are turned Fae against their will, and you know, it is unfortunately Feyre's fault. Was that the goal? No. But you can understand some bitterness on Nesta's part. Even so, with all the trauma she went through in the Cauldron, she sees the importance of speaking to the High Lords about what is coming with Hybern and she does. She has a sense of morality and inner self, and she doesn't want to act like a coward even though she admits to everyone she is afraid. It is Nesta who helps in the war anyway that she can with the healers and the scrying, even though her entire life has just been upended and again, this is so scary to her. Everything about this new life is scary to her but she is trying.

Then her father dies and what little progress she had sort of reverses significantly and quickly. I will argue that Nesta has not at all been abusive to anyone past Feyre's childhood and the few first chapters of Acotar. Being mean to people who invade your personal space (Mor, Cassian) every once in a while is not abusive. It's just being a bitch. And honestly, everyone in acotar for the most part has had their bitchy moments.

She never excuses her actions and words. In fact, she KNOWS what she's doing. She's well aware of the hurt she's caused in the past and what her regrets are with her family and it tears her up inside, which is why she so rarely addresses it to herself and definitely not to others.

Why we love her? I think she's so different from all the other characters in acotar because she is so jagged. Because she admits that she's broken and sad and lost and she refuses to make it nice for everyone else's sake. That doesn't mean she keeps punishing people around her even though I've seen many antis say she does. Nesta moves away from Feyre and the IC when she's spiraling and the only times we get references of her being mean is when she's forced to meet them and play nice. Think of it this way- your dad is dead, you're grieving, you haven't had the 500 years plus of experience to navigate this in a healthy way, and people are constantly in your face either trying to get you to play nice or judging you foe it. Many antis love Rhys's quote on how Elain is nice or how Mor is so nice even though she's been through so much. But the reality is this, hurt people are HURT. They are not happy. It's not a realistic expectation for a person going through a major depressive episode to put on a facade to make everyone else feel good about themselves. It's not even in any selfish way, their mind is literally incapable of doing it because they are stuck in grief or numbness.

I think a lot of her stans, myself included love her because we see ourselves in her. Saying the wrong thing and then regretting it afterwards. Being stuck in our own minds and constantly being sad and anxious about everything and having nowhere to turn. Keep in mind that when Feyre was depressed, Rhys constantly tried to help. When Nesta was depressed, Feyre even admits rather than stepping in and doing something about it, she let it go on because she thought it would be fine. Everyone did. Cassian did that, Elain did that, even Amren somewhat. And maybe it would have been but we see it wasn't. I'm not going to argue about how wrong the entire "rehab" bit was, because that's not the point here.

In acosf we see Nesta deal with her inner demons. She reflects on her mother, who we can tell was somewhat emotionally abusive and definitely manipulative. Her grandmother was physically and verbally abusive. We hear her self doubt and we hear her tell Cassian she regrets what she did growing up in that cabin, she regrets how she treated Feyre, and she has no idea how to make it better. It is so much self hatred and it has morphed into something that forces her to lash out on people when they even slightly push. It's not healthy, but again, it's not abusive. Another issue is that besides Feyre and Cassian and Azriel, everyone else around her is NOT helping the situation. You can have your favs too but the fact is, Rhys constantly provokes and goads her. He has a grudge against Nesta and he has in writing admitted that he holds her to a higher standard than Elain. Mor tells her she wants to throw her into the Hewn City, a place known for brutalizing and abusing women. Amren calls her pathetic and a waste of space. This is a woman who is extremely depressed and on the verge of suicidal. None of these taunts and behaviors is kind and it probably does even more damage but we never hear anyone talk about that unless we bring it up in Nesta's defense.

I think there is another thing to account for. Feyre wants Nesta in her life. It is very different if Feyre said, you know what, I resent everything you did to me and I don't want you in my life. And I'll admit it, Feyre would be valid to do that. But she doesn't! That's a key fact. Feyre wants Nesta in her life, she wants this relationship intact. And by doing so, that means accepting that there will be days when Nesta will not be her best self, when she will lash out and say mean things in retaliation. It would be a very different story if Feyre went no contact. But it's not. And to be so hateful towards Nesta never really made sense to me since Feyre herself is her biggest advocate.

It is FEYRE, who stands by her sister when anyone tears her down. It is Feyre who tells Rhys off everytime he makes a snide comment and that's often. It is Feyre who explains to Cassian that she knows how much Nesta cares and how difficult it is for her to show her true feelings (this is Feyre giving not an excuse but an explanation for Nesta's behavior, something Nesta doesn't bother to do.) Feyre defends Nesta more than Nesta does for herself, because Nesta never does. I'd argue that Feyre loves Nesta more than Nesta loves herself. And even by the end of acosf it's not clear if Nesta has a good and healthy self love for herself but she most definitely loves Feyre very much.

One random thing that I see antis love to run with- Nesta didn't teach Feyre how to read. Nesta didn't know. She says that to Feyre, she's very surprised to learn this, and it's in writing. Now Feyre does say she didn't think Nesta would teach her, which also hurts but also surprises Nesta. Because she says no, we would have taught you why didn't you tell us. Because Nesta has not seen the damage she has done to Feyre with her words until they have these moments and talks. To Nesta, she was lashing out because she was so angry at their father for not doing more to keep them alive. And to be clear it did fall more on their father than any of the children. But I do believe that had Nesta realized how truly hurtful and damaging her words were to Feyre, she would have stopped. Each time Feyre admits something that affects her about Nesta's actions, Nesta mulls it over and is shocked. It shows compassion and objectivity towards herself. She sees an error in her ways and she tries her best to correct it.

Now onto the controversial reveal on Feyre's pregnancy. First things first, Rhys has no excuse to lie the way he did. None. And in our modern world, that is indeed considered spousal abuse. Now as to why Nesta said it- yeah, she does it for the wrong reasons. We hear it in her POV. She is so angry at Amren, she is so angry at everyone for lying to her and sitting around discussing her and then saying that she needs to be the respectful one. But, and this is so important, the minute she says it she instantly regrets it. She KNOWS she's fucked up. She hates that Feyre is crying and hurt and it's because of her. A truly abusive sister who's as cruel and heartless as everyone makes her out to be would have relished in the hurt she caused. But she doesn't. She just hates herself even more for what happened. And the fact that Rhys's threat doesn't even upset her, the fact that she is just so done and ready to die on that hike should tell you this is not someone who enjoys hurting anyone. Everything is aimed at hurting herself.

Antis like to say that Nesta saving Feyre and Nyx was the bare minimum. And sure. Yes. It is. But that's not the point. The point of that entire scene and end is that Nesta took from the Cauldron in anger and hate and vengeance for what was done to her. She stole it as a big fuck you to the Cauldron and everything else that forced her to turn Fae. And she fears that power and never touches it, never wants to actually use it, because she hates it. And yet, when Feyre is dying, Nesta is willing to do anything. She will use the power she fears to try and save her and most importantly, she willingly gives it back and says she will give it all back as long as Feyre is safe. The very thing she took out of anger and retribution, she will let that go. She will let it all go as long as she can keep Feyre alive. Is that not love? Is it not growth and healing?

I think one of the issues with SJM as a writer is sometimes she shows instead of telling. You need to do a lot of reading between the lines sometimes to understand her characters. Nesta especially because she is very much so an actions over words person and shes so rarely upfront with how she's feeling. And not just Nesta, we see this issue with Cassian too. Because they both do things to represent and signify love and honor and sacrifice yet their words can be jagged and mean and give off a different impression.

Just to reiterate, there's never been a time that Nesta has actively used her poor mental health to excuse and justify her words or actions. In fact, more often than not we hear more about how angry and hateful she is towards herself and how much she regrets her past. A true villain would offer excuses and justify what they've done. The most we ever get with Nesta is an explanation regarding her upbringing and trauma, and to clear it up, an explanation is not an excuse. Nesta never excuses her actions. When she's being honest with herself and her feelings she admits her errors, she admits to her shame, and she says she wants to do better and be better.

Another thing I think is important to remember is that SJM herself sees Nesta as a strong impactful character. She herself said in an interview, no, you aren't supposed to hate Nesta and she's quite surprised people do because after she re-evaluated her own writing during acotar, she realized Nesta is not the villain in this story. She's a hurt girl who's been through some horrible things and her life experiences have then impacted how she acts and reacts. SJM said sees herself in Nesta. She has denounced Tamlin as an abuser many times and would never put forward a main character with this much impact on the plot of this book and the Crescent City series if she thought otherwise.

This was super long but I'm happy you've tried to see it from another POV. I won't be getting into arguments with people who DM me or message unkindly on this post simply because I don't care. Acosf came out years ago and I'm no longer in the mood to engage with anyone who won't try and keep things civil in a conversation about fictional characters.

Have a good day!

[you-can-be-what-you-want-to-be]

People aren't mad because John/Arthur aren't canon, people are mad because the creator made fun of the fans that ship them in the Christmas special

I see… the post has been deleted

I’m just very used to being in bad fandoms where something as small as “I don’t ship them personally” is taken as a homophobic statement, and people have been saying forever if it’s not canon it’ll be queer bait, so I assumed which I maybe shouldn’t have done but with it coinciding with the “John is a child episode” it just made sense

now, I do have to say though, that while I don’t know a whole lot because I’m not on the Patreon, I was for awhile. Again take this with a HEAPING load of salt for that reason since I clearly don’t know the specific situation. Everything I’m going to say I will try to say from an objective viewpoint since I don’t know the situation and will only focus on the facts I do know.

But how is this new? For the karaoke creep special they keep calling it weird to call each other romantic terms. And when Arthur died by not sacrificing the little guy last season Harlan was ROUGH. He said anyone who voted to not sacrifice were children smashing dolls together, that they forgot the story they were in and hopefully this punishment would remind them that actions have consequences. He basically said this is your fault for being stupid. He ended up having to post a semi apology saying it’s eldritch horror story, it’s supposed to be about harshness and not knowing the consequences before hand, and that he teases his audience and that if they don’t like that this isn’t the right show for them. His phobia play through he did a bit as Arthur and John where he was like “and we are NOT doing anything in the shower no matter what the fan fictions say” “let them dream John”

I also would like to mention that word of god should be ignored in these stories and that Harlan does NOT have a PR team. Again I don’t know the situation. I don’t know if he was ad libing live, in which case he should be given more Lee way as self editing in the moment is hard, I don’t know how if he said the most vile stuff alive, or if he said something a little mean but harmless like the “no we are not doing this” “let them dream” or what. Maybe it is bad and he deserves to be roasted, idk.But making jokes about a non canon thing can be a normal thing, especially if it’s a thing people keep bugging you about.

I do know that fandom as a whole has a problem attacking people over though, being someone who frequently got called homophobic for headcanoning single characters as aro, this one specifically has already harassed him about this ship which I’m sure gets annoying, and that he has explicitly said he will poke fun on the Patreon, and that he has said Jarthur won’t happen, and that he is one guy without the means to sort through hate mail removed from situations and doesn’t have a PR team to tell him “hey this off the cuff joke is a bad idea”

all that being said, again I do not know what he said specifically. I think either way a lot of people need to reassess if this is the fandom for them. I’ve seen a lot of people only get into the show for shipping and then get mad when there’s eldritch horror and the attitudes of eldritch horror in the eldritch horror podcast. If he said something that bad then maybe consider getting out since he writes about delicate subjects and it will only get worse. If what he said wasn’t that bad and people are getting mad about being lightly teased but it wasn’t confrontational or homophobic, they might want to leave because that’s just what Harlan does, tease people, and it’s not new and will continue, especially about non canon stuff in his own work. And if you got into and are only staying for the shipping…. Yeah. If that’s the only thing you want maybe it’s time to move on.

and if you decide to stay, know that. Know and be warned ahead of time that you will be teased so it isn’t a surprise next time

edit: so I did get the full context quote and it’s literally just “we want to hang out together alone for Christmas” “platonically, as in canon” “oh of course of course.” This. This isn’t bullying. It’s a little tongue in cheek sure but the whole thing is just saying it isn’t canon. I’ve heard complaints on comments on this post about other stuff he’s done, which I don’t know much about but is also applicable. I did my best to say “either way, this is stuff related.” As someone who writes and has written things before where every single chapter people kept pushing for something I wasn’t going to write I get it. I’m not saying anything he might have done is right but I think it’s understandable at the very least, for a writer to be upset about his stuff being constantly misinterpreted and having fans try to push it where he doesn’t want it.

him reminding people it won’t happen is fine, especially when people keep accusing him of queer baiting. I still think what I said earlier stands even hearing other opinions, because although I can’t say either way, it seems like everyone who is upset says this is a repeated behavior, and if you stay you can’t be surprised by it every time. If it’s going to bug you you have to either be prepared for it to keep happening or leave.

That isn’t to say no one can be upset about anything else but this specific thing I don’t think is worthy of that. All he did was jokingly repeat canon in character (which is much better than like. Someone who keeps hinting at something and never giving it) in a teasing manner. He didn’t say anything negative about shippers, or anything homophobic, just said “hey remember kids, we aren’t into each other like that.” Which is. Fine. It’s annoying but it isn’t malicious.

If the issue is mods or his interactions with people say that. Don’t make it about him light heartedly going “don’t accuse me of queerbaiting.” it makes it so when actual issues like what people are talking about in the comments (if they’re legit, again I try to stay only in the actual content part and abstain from knowing about creators) come up no one takes them seriously because so many molehills were mountained.

If you’re pissed about how he talks to his fans say that, don’t make it about a lack of queer rep when he said day one there wouldn’t be any. Make it about the issue itself. You don’t mention that someone’s a domestic abuser for example after you say “and they have NO CHEESE in their house thats MONSTROUS who does that.” If you want to be taken seriously about a problem you focus on the thing that matters which is. Hurting people.

I guess at the end of the day I’m no one’s boss, but I am tired of not knowing what to believe or not when someone saying something like “no comment” on if characters they wrote are together is homophobia, or a character who’s been Described as a dick acting like one and then the creator gets accused of being shitty (random examples not to do with this specific fandom). If everything is a big deal that makes someone the worst when the subject is not actually hurting anyone… it’s exhausting. Idk anything about Harlan. At the end of the day I’m here for my little horror stories. But I will say definitively that I don’t think it’s bullying to say a ship is not canon and that to act like it is makes it impossible for people who actually care about morals and what someone is doing to keep the energy to stay that way without becoming part of a mob just taking people at their word.

If it upset you I’m sorry, it’s always disappointing when our take on media is dismissed, especially by the creator. And it’s fine to be disappointed. I get that. But don’t blow it out of proportion, and don’t make it about something it isn’t. If you’re upset about the quote say that it’s disappointing without saying it’s punching down. The author is dead and it’s one of the biggest podcast ships out there. If you’re upset about anything else make a post about that issue without tying it to this fun bonus non canon episode. You are allowed to be upset just and if it is about shipping: stop making someone disagreeing with you about a ship a big controversy. You can ship whatever you want regardless of canon and no one is trying to stop jarthur shippers, and if it isn’t about that stop making things about shipping if that’s not what it’s actually about.

[main-character-moment]

I think the reason Alastor shipping discourse is so annoying to me is the fact that, yeah. Ship what you want forever. But consider you’re also straight up erasing a queer identity that the creator went out of her way to include in the show!

People bring up the argument of “oh but people always make straight characters gay! Why can’t we make aro/ace/aroace characters be in relationships?” Because you’re erasing a queer identity. If there was a canonically gay character in a show, and a huge portion of the fandom went “actually no I want to write him with a woman instead” there would be bloody murder over it. But when an aspec person has their identity erased? It’s always “I’m just having fun with the dynamics! Vivienne said we can ship what we want!” And that’s well and good but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re still erasing an extremely underrepresented queer identity.

There’s also the argument of “but aro/ace/aroace people can still have sex/date/whatever”. Also true! But a lot don’t, and I see no one calling out that fact. The only people I’ve seen saying that are saying so justify their ships. Outside of fandom it’s always an argument that aspec people shouldn’t/can’t have sex/date. There’s also the fact that Vivziepop has heavily implied he’s aro and not that into sex, be it repulsed or neutral.

It just bothers me so much that people will go out of their way to ignore identities. Like, ship him all you want with whoever you want! I can’t stop you! All I can ask, though, as an aspec person who’s neutral/positive across the board, if you’re doing so to explore dynamics, ffs remember his identity. It’s an important part of his dynamic with other people. Plus, it’s an interesting one to explore! How does an asexual (and implied aromantic) character deal with the very sexual hell? How would a relationship form with someone who wants genuine romance? In radiosilence/one way broadcast you have a plethora of ways that you can fuck around with dynamics too!

There’s so much you can do with it. Please I’m on my knees begging. For once just let aspec people be aspec.

[wrenwinchester]

I keep seeing stuff about Dean, and how he deserved better, or blamed himself for everything. And I have to keep myself from defending Sam because Dean isn’t the only one. (If you can’t tell I’m a very Dean-coded Samgirl, and I have to remind myself that most of the time the creators of the edit, or post know this and they’re just highlighting Dean’s experience. And I can appreciate that.) so this is my Sam appreciation/defense post because I have feelings.

Sam deserved everything and more, he wasn’t always the best brother, but neither was Dean, and the ways both brothers struggle are with things they superimpose on themselves because they don’t know how to handle their grief, or how to live without the other. Dean tries to fix it by taking his brother’s autonomy, Sam tries to respect Dean’s autonomy when he dies, or something happens, it’s why he didn’t just go call an ambulance like he wanted to in the finale (I know I usually say non-existent finale, but I’m making a point.) it’s why he didn’t look for Dean while he was in purgatory, he figured Dean was probably in heaven, and he couldn’t imagine a world where taking that away from him was good. (Also he was traumatized, and tired of losing people.)

He went through so much crap, and it’s so overlooked by the writers, directors, and a majority of the fandom. And as someone who was overlooked growing up (even now frankly, I mean my parents were doing steak dinners for our birthdays now since we’re all adults, and they did for both my brother’s previous birthdays and my birthday we did burgers and hotdogs with the whole family which was fine, but also still left me out. Anyway), because they hid what they were feeling and going through and hid it well, it’s so obvious to me when someone else is hurting and it just bothers me so much to see it ignored in the fandom. Claiming to be a Dean Stan and hating Sam is outrageous to me because Sam is someone Dean loves so much. How you can hate someone he loves just confuses me.

I see so much of myself in Sam, a tired, burnt out gifted kid who gave everything his all until it was taken away. Who had his hopes and dreams and interests shunned and criticized by the people who were supposed to encourage him, and when he finally got out of that situation, he got dragged back in. (I know it’s more complicated, but I’m focusing on specific aspects.)

Now you don’t have to like Sam, or even some or most of his choices, but to hate Sam in Dean’s name is wrong. Dean loved Sam more than anyone else (yes this includes Cas, it may have been different, but he still loved Sam more.)

Dean himself said it best, “that’s my job right. Look out for my pain in the ass little brother.” And “I had to look out for you. Thats my job.” And “that’s my job right. Show my little brother the ropes.”

No one loves Sam more than Dean, and the fact that someone could love Dean and hate Sam just doesn’t compute in my brain. And again I know that’s not usually what’s going through these creators’ minds, but it still irks me 😂

[post defending/appreciating dean]

[hostilemuppet]

I know the reason why Branch never mentioned having brothers before was because the creators only thought them up for the third movie and then they had to find a storyline that would fit into the movie’s canon.

But I’m curious to know what’s your opinion on Branch’s brothers?

I mean, I know how you portray them in your AU, but I curious 👀 about your honest opinion of them based on what we learned from the movie.

I don’t know if anyone has asked this before and apologize if have and I couldn’t find it.

i like brozone! jd has been... soured for me after seeing how the fandom treats him but hes still funny when you dont have a bitch in your ear telling you he did nothing wrong

jd: i think jd was abusive. people get mad at me for saying this, but i dont care; he was in charge of his younger brothers and he worked them to the bone, he forced clay to wear underwear he hated and take photoshoots in them for gods sakes! thats freak behaviour! i think a lot about how he treated them, either directly stated by canon (the underwear thing) or inferred by canon + how theyd be treated irl (on top of the super strict workout routine bruce was probably kept on a super strict diet too, dehydrated to make his abs POP, he was MISERABLE). plus the fact he feels absolutely zero sympathy, he just says he "had a lot of responsibility", implying that his brothers should feel grateful for how he "took care of them" 🤮 ELECTRIC CHAIR! i do like how hes so full of himself though, i like how eric andre says he thinks hes the "alpha male" and thats something i feel like a lot of people are missing wrt his characterisation. hes not some cool, rugged, charming guy out in the forest; hes the guy who says he could TOTALLY survive a zombie apocalypse, guys!

bruce and clay: people have literally no reason to get mad at them for leaving the pod, im sorry. they were teenagers who moved out of the house, best case scenario because they hated their big brother, WORST case bc they were escaping ABUSE! yeah, they could have said bye to branch, yeah, they MIGHT have been able to keep in touch (for clay we dont know how long he was bumming around the tree before the last trollstice happened, i do think it was a few years though), but why are we acting like them MOVING OUT is some big crime? they werent gonna stay in the nest forever! BRANCH can be upset, he missed his brothers! we can sympathise with branch! that doesnt mean we need to DEMONISE them for not lying down and letting jd control their lives! bruce was a bit of a dick to branch though but its okay bc they made up. clay however did NOTHING wrong, put some respect on his name 😤

floyd: idk why both the fandom and the movie act like floyd is the only brother who didnt hurt branch, when hes the one who should have hurt him the MOST! he PROMISED hed come back, likely knowing he wouldnt, while the other three just said "sayonara, dont get your hopes up, see you never". floyd gave branch hope that theyd see each other again, and then fucked off for 20 years, not even TRYING to find branch! obviously floyd is my favourite, but most of that i freely admit is like... conjecture, and headcanon, and in the movie itself we really dont know anything about him other than "is gay" and "got branchs hopes up, only to let them get crushed". hes kinda an asshole! which could be fun, but everyone, including the writers ignore it! i kinda hope in the cartoon theres an episode that addresses how floyd never visited. i mean, even the movie says that jd TRIED to visit but found the empty troll tree and assumed everyone was dead! did the same happen to floyd? or did he just not care? without clarification you kinda gotta assume the latter, but im really excited to find out what secondary canon has to say about it!

[self-insert-hell]

Thoughts of an aroace shipper and selfshipper:

[Putting this here on this blog as it mentions self shipping.]

As someone who’s aroace but also comfortable with attraction when it comes to fiction, I honestly feel confused about the whole shipping discourse when it comes to any aroace character that’s on the spectrum. Because, personally, as an aroace, I don’t mind people shipping aroace characters for fun, as long as they’re respectful of their canon identity. Plus, when it comes to fan creations and such, it’s not canon in the first place. At the same time, I understand the frustration with people who don’t want aroace characters to be shipped and feel like it’s erasing aroace spectrum rep. When it comes to the whole “erasing rep” part, it gets muddy and complicated when you’re referring to the whole spectrum.

Although, I do have one thing I’d like to discuss about the whole representation part. When it comes to fandom, people ignore all types of identities and ship what they want. Again, I’m only cool with it as long as the individual isn’t acting like it’s canon canon. That and it’s up to the creator and what they feel comfortable with. If they don’t want their character to be shipped, cool. If they don’t mind their character being shipped, cool.

Then things get a bit more nuanced and somewhat “confusing.” At the same time, shipping characters can help someone figure their own identity. I would’ve never understand that I experience queerplatonic attraction if it weren’t for shipping. I often (unintentionally) put myself in stereotypical black and white boxes. I mean, I thought I wasn’t aroace because of the one and only time I did feel attraction. Later on, I realized my aroace identity is very complicated but I know for a fact that I’m pretty “far down” the end of the spectrum.

Also, specifically, when it comes to OC x canon ships and self inserts of the sort…personally, do whatever you want. It’s for you right? And you just want to have fun. I repeat, as long as you aren’t acting like your ships are canon and recognize the character’s actual identity, I personally think it’s fine.

While these may be my personal beliefs, I also understand the lack of representation. But again, I feel like most aroace representation is lacking no matter what part of the spectrum you’re on. That and while people are going to do what they want anyways on the internet, at the same time, people also need to be respectful of other people’s characters that they don’t own.

Then you have people who can be aroace and fictsexual. Again, if the creator of a character is comfortable with their character being shipped and the person who’s shipping that character acknowledges the character’s canon identity, I think it’s fine for fictiosexuals to do what they want.

Again, this is my personal opinion and I obviously don’t speak for everyone on the aroace spectrum. I just wanted to talk about this and explore this topic.

Anyways, this isn’t as important but I’ll put my further two cents here.

Take me for example. I selfship with Alastor in 2 ways. When it comes to my OC, canonically my OC is aroace as well, and in a QPR. But I also put Alastor in the romantic category. Why? Because I also enjoy writing my oc in romantic situations and I’m lowkey poking fun at myself. It’s for me and it’s purely because I find it fun and well, funny at the same time. Also, I put a tag for it if anyone doesn’t want to deal with seeing that stuff.

Further more, despite my own confusion when it comes to identifying any emotion I feel (I’m sure neurodivergency has a role in that), I also like exploring a range of emotions in what I create because it’s all fictional. It’s not real.

Furthermore, after finding out about what a QPR is, I finally had the words to correctly convey and label my self ships into.

Overall, it also can be cathartic. What if someone is cupioromantic and one way they cope is with shipping/selfshipping? Besides the self shipping, fans like to project parts of themselves onto characters. (I repeat, the ones who are just having fun but also are respectful) I’ve also seen non-aroace people wanting to explore how to write aroace identities as well. As long as they do the research and are respectful, go ahead! If you’re writing an aroace character for the first time, you’re not going to be perfect and that’s okay. Now, obviously, I’m not saying it’s okay to write harmful stereotypes of aroace people.

Shipping can be useful in exposing new identities that some people may not know have/have enough knowledge on. It can also broaden one’s perspective as some people may not understand that being aroace is a spectrum, can fluctuate, and isn’t all black and white.

But yeah. I’d like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

This ain’t for you proshippers.

[earth4angels]

i’m not one of nattie’s mutuals that writes but i draw fanart and participate in fandom and as an avid reader of smut, the way yall are treating her is insane.

(1) if she had nothing to do with it, then leave her out of it

(2) “he made her bleed,” “he hurt her,” y’all are the most vanilla people in the entire fucking universe and sex with you is probably boring. not everyone is into the same shit as you and if YOU aren’t into the shit that’s being written, scroll past it and move on. if you want to hate on things people are into and the people that are into them, there are facebook groups for that. don’t take it out on fanfic authors that don’t even need to be taking the time out of their lives to write smut for others in the first place. ESPECIALLY don’t be taking it out on fanfic authors who aren’t even doing the things you’re saying they’re doing in the first place.

y’all are fucking lame, go outside.

foxe,, the way this is the first time we everrrrr interacted since we became moots is insane. you’re so talented and gahhh your reblogs makes me laugh HARD (trust me i need it being in the jace nation)

BUT I WISH I CAN PIN THIS NOTE SO DAMN BAD. you went offffffffffff! i couldn’t agree anymore! if i can reblog this OVER AND OVER EVERY WEEK I WILL.

i’m growing to ignore the random whining but damn it pisses me off bc i’m not their mom, i’m not the jace fbi where i have the power to control anyone’s thoughts or writings. i am only here to support and vibe with my moots or anyone that interacts with me. i don’t know how hard it is to understand that fact.

a fandom, is a space of different groups, problematic and all for the vibes sides, the creators etc, and when people shove this mentality onto me or any of my friends i’m just in disbelief. how can you be so fucking sick? talking about rape so easily? i can never fathom how people can be this ignorant.

i’ve read these fics they have complained about, most of them coming from my own friends and we have a gc where we discuss this stuff and i’ve analyzed them on my own, no bias and i’m like where is the damn rape and torture yall claim happens? i’m just like consensual sex is suddenly??? against a will?????? oh my god i can never… i just don’t know but… damn. this is only when jace is out of his pocket of being a virgin, all hell will break loose if me or anyone writes him experienced, short tempered, sassy, talks back etc.

[tikiki05]

Anon who said ignore and not talk about a Ghostflower is kinda misguided cause Gwen and Ghostflower stans regularly harassing people on different platforms and people's personal tumblrs on top of being racist over a fictional ship has been and continues to be a problem. A couple months after ATSV was released last year, the tags had crazy content but Gwen stans would bully and harass anyone who didn't ship Miles and Gwen or who criticized Gwen's behavior even a little or just didn't like the character causing a bunch of fan artists, writers and people doing deep dives, especially Black creators, to leave or just stop posting and voicing their opinions because the harassment wasn't worth it, so the fact you're getting hate comments despite being nice about things sadly isn't surprising. They're currently on other platforms about Miles/Spiderverse harassing people too, I think they must have a discord or something and put up a bat signal whenever there's any Ghostflower pushback. But Ghostflower is a ship that might be well known but is not necessarily well-liked, people are not obsessing over that shit like that at all. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that random white writers trying to add to their legacy by fucking up Miles' lore who know nothing about Black women or Black people aren't going to insert Gwen or some other white woman character they can relate to into things though. Like literally every white writer for Miles seemingly can only imagine him (and other Black characters) with someone white/nonblack and they write the most forced shit to make that happen and it feeds into the racism towards Black people in the fandom/comics. Tis sad as fuck.

Good evening and thank you for this ask! For context, this is the post they’re speaking about

And thank you so much for the sympathy, I know that that anon meant no harm but seriously how do you expect me to ignore something that’s not only highly related to something harmful, but is also super freaking prevalent in the fandom???? It makes me so sad. I haven’t been in a whole lot of fandoms, but I am surely no stranger to hearing about Black creators be harassed and driven away from fandoms and it absolutely breaks my heart. To be driven out of something you care about because you’re being attacked for another thing you care about? Not in the same way, but I’ve been in that position in my real life a handful of times, and it really isn’t fucking fair.

Not to toot my own horn, but honestly I do take pride in these posts I make. I hope people see these posts and can feel hope themselves. Like “oh hey! I’m not the only person who dislikes the popular thing! That’s cool :))” cause that’s definitely what I needed for awhile. And I hope that by speaking up about this, we can legitimately drown out and shut down the racist people in this fandom. Maybe I’m being overly optimistic and cheesy and cringe, and if I am I apologize for that, but damn I am sick of fandoms continuously being unsafe places for BIPOC creators.

And the white writers thing is really frustrating too cause like, ahh! As a white writer why can’t we all collectively be better??! And really listen to the people whom we’re trying to write characters about?!?

I don’t know, this post kind of just turned into a thought dump/vent thing but I hope someone gets something out of it. And I hope that I can stop hoping for things to be better and really see them become better.

More of a downer than my usual answer ask posts but thank you bunches nonetheless! Have a restful evening <3

[gaycrittercentral]

Im curious and new to the fandom what are Sam and max's personalitys I don't understand them really much but I like the characters! Do you have any tips to help..? A easier way to understand their dynamic

Oh hi welcome to the fandom bud!! :D hmmmm let’s see, how can I summarize these two dumbasses…well, the show bible is a fantastic place to start if you’d like to hear from the creator himself! There’s a lot of really interesting stuff in there, including a page or two that goes into detail about both of their personalities. Really neat stuff!

But let’s see, if I had to summarize them…well, I guess I’d put it under a cut cause I’m gonna ramble a bit lol

I guess I’d say that they’re just a couple of lunatics who enjoy doling out their slanted version of justice and accompanying it with their constant banter. They’ve been best friends and partners in crime ever since they were children (and in fact still have tons of baby photos framed around their office lmaooo) and it shows. They’re often described as having their own language, and they have incredible physical comfort with each other, with Sam frequently seizing Max to fling him at people or use him like a weapon (Max likes this, notably) and Max occasionally using his partner like a cat tree. And while they like to poke fun at and do slapstick on each other frequently, it’s clear that they’re incredibly close and really care for each other. Also they’re gay as fuck lmaooooo canon just doesn’t know it

Ooh here’s something I think gets misinterpreted a lot! Sam is not as reasonable and moral as he might seem. He just looks that way in comparison to Max, but he is honestly just as deranged in a lot of ways. He just hides it behind his carefree cadence and friendly smile lmao. It’s the kind of thing where if you ignore what he’s actually saying, he sounds calm and friendly and nice, but then you tune back in and realize he’s suggesting they wrap Max in tinfoil and stick him in a microwave for fun, or casually threatening some bizarre form of violence against something. I think it’s best summarized by this meme lmaooo

That said, he is still the more reasonable of the two of them, and probably the only one capable of feeling guilt or shame. It’s just that hanging out with Max kind of obliterates any chance of those feelings sinking in for long.

Oh and for Max, one thing I think is good to remember is that despite his frequent zero braincell behavior, he does in fact have a decent amount of intelligence. Which is kind of frightening, actually. He’s not as verbose as Sam, or at least doesn’t like to be, but he’s got smarts enough to make witty jokes and concoct his own plans and whatnot. He’s just also a goblin who likes clobbering people with flyswatters and would totally eat pizza off the floor lmao.

Conversely, Max isn’t exactly as deadly as he claims to be, either. Like, he’s still an absolute terror, but I think it’s important to remember that all one really has to do to keep him at bay is push his head away lmaoooo he arms too dang short

Ok but that’s all a bit in the weeds, so let’s see…basically, Sam is a cheerful goof who would really like to be a cool film noir detective, but is too busy having fun to keep up a serious facade for long. And Max is an irrepressible scamp who just likes to cause trouble and get into fights and wander around aimlessly. Sam does have his own weird sense of justice that he wants to uphold, but Max is kinda just happy to be along for the ride, and both of them are really only fighting crime and solving cases because it’s fun for them. And they’re a little codependent. Lmao.

Ooh, y’know what else has some really great analyses of these guys across different incarnations of the series? @h-worksrambles’s excellent discussions of their voices! Here’s the one they wrote on Max and his voice actors over time, and here’s the one on Sam. There’s a bit in the latter one where they talk about how Sam has a sort of shallowly-hidden temper that tends to burst forth on occasion, which I had never really given a lot of thought to but that I feel has deepened my understanding and enjoyment of his character! Definitely check those out, they’re a great read. :>