#there's other traits that are like endemic to my type in characters but I think the ones that pop up most frequently are:

[reinemichele]

I feel like . saying this on the poll about tumblr icon vs discord icon would get me unwanted attention from anyone looking through the reblogs, even tho I have anon off, so

Tumblr icon: terrorist & cop soulmates who keep reincarnating and hate-loving and trying to kill each other, in which the terrorist blew up the cop's girlfriend with a bomb

vs

Discord icon: JPN warlord from the 1500's who's allergic to emotional vulnerability, whose love language is being annoying as hell, and is like sooo good at torturing people <3

(Quote from another character to him: stop withholding information, and stop gambling over enemy spies!) I think the terrorist would win . because he has bombs and War Criminal 9000 does not <3 I think they'd semi-sarcastically flirt with each other though

But it makes me wish I still had the discord icon of my horrible little unkillable prison warden/clown (who shares the name with another... clown... and I can't really search for content of him easily...) At one point a character is like, "How many graves do I need to dig for you??? :/" 2 bodies and personalities (that clash <3) but 1 name, so they use each other's names in conversation with each other to be annoying/confusing. The entire cast of characters hate his ass. He's a creep that stalks the heroine, and frequently tries to lock her in a cell <3

These are far from the only times characters try to kill him . nor the only times he's a complete creep <3

(Also all of this is official art!)

[jellybeanium124]

I saw the post you're talking about, and I think it's endemic of something I see a lot in the canyon, but isn't exclusive to the canyon and is generally a wider online fandom... thing. And it's something everyone does in small, healthier degrees.

Here's the thing: op of the post claims to have those specific gastrointestinal issues. And I am sorry they have to suffer with that (lord knows I've experienced some truly awful stomach pain that stuck around long enough to be considered chronic, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone). I am not trying to make fun of them, a real human being with real feelings and physical issues, at all. All I'm saying is is that this specific post is an example of how a lot of people in the canyon have tied their own self identities into izzy.

I think those of us outside the canyon are too quick to go "lol those canyoners identifying and resonating with izzy lol?? are they saying they are abusive and unpleasant lol??" but that isn't their perspective at all. one thing I've mentioned recently is how much of a black box izzy is. we don't know that much about him. we know nothing about his past, and we only have clues to his internal world. so people project parts of themselves that can sort of line up with izzy if you squint, onto him, and after 2 years of fandom and all the *gestures at everything* people have grown very, very attached to him. why haven't canyoners who hate s2 left yet? because they still have a strong emotional attachment to izzy, and he brings them joy (and, oftentimes, there are other characters in the show they still like too).

And when you've latched onto this guy so hard, and projected the most vulnerable parts of yourself onto him (especially mental and physical disabilities), then someone joking about those traits with izzy feels like someone joking about you.

there is no one, cohesive canyon!izzy. canyon!izzy is whatever the specific canyoner needs him to be. if a canyoner has autism, their izzy has autism. if a canyoner had abusive parents, their izzy has abusive parents. if they have chronic pain, their izzy has chronic pan. and so on.

I mean we all do this, to a certain extent. me and my jewish friends love jewish!ed because we are jewish. a lot of us love autistic!stede and audhd!ed because a lot of us have one or both of those things. I think ed has strong opinions about mini m&ms being the best type of m&m because I know he has a sweet tooth (trait mentioned once, which is how I connected ed with candy in the first place) and I think mini m&ms are the best m&ms (trait that has absolutely no canon support, and is just me projecting onto him). we blow up "a dollop of milk and seven sugars" into a consistently remarked upon character trait for ed. they blow up "izzy the spewer" into serious stomach issues. these are both one-off traits that are not meant to be that deep or thought about this much. the difference lies in the tone and seriousness.

izzy is tragic. you can disagree with me on that, but the canyon 1000% sees him as a tragic figure, and I'm trying to get across what I've gleaned is the canyon perspective here lol. so while we tend to give ourselves to stede and ed and the others with a sense of joy, canyoners tend to give themselves to izzy with a sense of sadness and vulnerability. people are hurt, and the world is hard, and projecting onto this guy makes them happy, so when others joke about traits they relate to deeply, they get, from their perspective, very justifiably upset.

I'm not trying to like... convince y'all to change your opinion about the canyon, or anything? like I don't like that group either otherwise I would... be there instead of here?? y'know? ok like basically the point of my response isn't to try and get the emotional reaction of "oh those poor damaged canyoners 🥺!!!" like nah. no. that's infantilizing and reductive. they're grown adults. my point was to show how I think we got to this point where people take any sort of criticism or joking around izzy so personally. we all know that canyon!izzy is not really all that similar to canon!izzy, and I think these two trends have the same cause. it's because canyoners have projected so much onto him, and given so much of themselves to him.

guys the point of "izzy the spewer" is not that izzy suffers from chronic digestive issues. there is no evidence of that except that he had tummy problems this one time. the point of it is "guy who thinks he is the best pirate and should be in charge of other pirates gets seasick, which is funny because it means he immediately failed in a super obvious way at doing perhaps the single most basic pirate thing"

you could argue that's ableist if you want to take the stance that playing a character's incompetence for laughs is always inherently ableist, but if that's your stance i'd expect you to have a bigger problem with the show's portrayal of stede than of izzy, because stede's incompetence and physical clumsiness and overestimation of his own abilities is played for laughs all the time

[gillzilla]

A Treatise on the aTROSity, Including How Hope Came to Me in the Form of The Lego Movie 2, Knives Out, and Little Women

I will start out by saying that I have never made a real, detailed post on Tumblr, mainly because social media kind of scares me. But the Reylo community's amazing kindness, strength, openness, and willingness to speak the truth in their writing over the last week and a half is honestly what has gotten me through the heartbreak and depression caused by the stabbing in the chest that was this movie. I am one of the people who loves Kylo/Ben Solo because I have mental health conditions and an abuse/trauma history within my family, which is also why the holidays are hard for me, so a big thanks to the people in charge of the story for TROS for making it even harder this year. After a week and a half of legitimate mourning for the butchering of the themes of Star Wars and of all the characters, but particularly the sequel trilogy characters, I am ready to add my two cents to all that has already been written about this movie.

First off, I have not been a Star Wars fan for my whole life. My parents tried to introduce me to the original trilogy as a kid by taking me to see A New Hope in the movie theater for the 20th anniversary screening in 1997. I fell asleep for most of it and was terrified by the trash compactor scene, so you could say the movie did not resonate with me. It actually wasn't until Phantom Menace came out that I started to get attached to Star Wars. So many older fans love to shit on that movie, and it certainly has many flaws, but a lot of us who were around the same age as Anakin when that movie came out and are now adults have started to speak up about how the movie was a gateway into Star Wars for us. Anakin gave me a window into the Star Wars universe that I could understand and relate to. I could relate to Anakin being a kind-hearted kid who wanted to help others and just wanted adults he could look up to, and I liked the podracing scenes. As with every single other sci-fi/fantasy hero's journey story that I loved as a kid, I empathized with and related to a male hero. Now, the wooden dialogue/acting/directing of Attack of the Clones and the tragic ending of Revenge of the Sith that left me so emotionally devastated that I vividly remember calling my friend to tell her I was so depressed I couldn't focus on studying for my eighth grade English final, kind of took me out of Star Wars again. There had been a spark there, but at that point I figured, eh, I guess it's not really for me after all.

I didn't rediscover Star Wars until the end of the first semester of my freshman year of college. This was a very difficult time in my life, as I was in what I would now consider to be a mental health crisis that unfortunately lasted for five years because I was too ashamed and uneducated about mental health to seek out help. I was very, very lonely during that time. It was close to finals week and I was sick, so as I sat in my dorm room I decided, why not pop in those DVDs of the original trilogy that I got at Costco last month. After watching them, I remember thinking, "Why have I not been watching these my whole life???" The original trilogy hooked me after that point and I started watching the movies every year around Christmas in commemoration of my rediscovery of them.

I was just as surprised as anyone when I found out that Disney bought Lucasfilm and that they were going to make a sequel trilogy. I had thought there would never be any more Star Wars, so I was overjoyed, though tentative, because I knew that though I loved Star Wars, it also had a tendency to make missteps that were somewhat endemic to sci-fi/fantasy hero's journey stories, such as poorly written dialogue, emphasis on ridiculous plot points that took away from the deeper overall themes, lack of diverse characters, and objectification/misogyny against female characters (I do not like watching Return of the Jedi because I hate, HATE the Jabba's palace stuff for what they did to Leia, honestly they gave Leia nothing interesting to do in that whole movie basically, but that's a whole nother essay).

So I went into The Force Awakens not really knowing what to expect. But oh my god, was I blown away. I am not lying when I say that I cried for at least an hour after the scene where Rey and Kylo are both reaching out for the legacy saber and it goes to Rey as the music swells, oh my god. I FINALLY realized what it meant to feel seen in the stories that I loved. My whole life I had been attached to and empathizing with male heroes, because they were pretty much the only heroes out there. To see Rey as this amazing female heroine who was not objectified and was a compelling character with an intriguing backstory that I related to as a child with a trauma history who often grew up feeling lonely, and to see that she was going to be the main Jedi in this new trilogy, I was overjoyed. It gave me hope. And then, on top of that, we got Adam Driver. Need I say any more. So many people have written about what an absolutely incredible actor Adam is, and I swear he is the only actor who could have pulled off the role of Kylo/Ben. The first time I saw TFA I didn't catch all the nuances of the character and his dynamic with Rey, but something about him really intrigued me (and made me want to watch everything Adam had ever been in). My love for TFA led me to start investing time in the online Star Wars fandom, which I never considered myself to be a part of previously, as the fandom had always reeked of being a "no girls allowed" type of zone. I found out about amazing, female-led podcasts that I started listening to every week and whose hosts I value just as much as my friends. I also started following the Reylo fandom on Tumblr. Learning more about the mythology behind the sequel trilogy, including how the creators were writing Rey's story as a heroine's journey and her and Kylo/Ben as dual protagonists, added so much to my understanding of what was going on in the storytelling and gave me the words to describe why I was connecting with these stories so much. I can honestly say that Star Wars and the Reylo fandom generally have been instrumental in helping me to get through the last four years, which have been a very difficult and isolating period in my life.

And now I'm up to TROS. As so many have said, the vast majority of it is a steaming pile of trash. People have done such an amazing job of breaking down why this story and how it treated its characters and retconned the beautiful story and themes that Rian gave us in TLJ was so painful for us. Many have pointed out that this movie is a result of catering to the most toxic portion of the Star Wars fandom, the "dudebros." Going further, I want to state that, whether consciously or not on the part of the cis, straight, white, male writers/director/CEO of Disney, this movie is a reassertion of masculinist ideologies. I want to clarify that when I talk about "masculinist" vs. feminist ideologies, I am talking about how our society and culture defines "masculine" vs. "feminine" ideas, traits, etc. Gender has nothing to with biological determinism and is socially and culturally constructed. Masculinist ideologies include beliefs such as extreme individualism, competition, "us vs. them" dichotomies, and power and value being defined based on hierarchy, which necessitates the use of violence to perpetuate the hierarchy. Feminist ideologies include valuing community and collaboration, connection and empathy, the idea that every person has inherent worth regardless of their productivity, actions, mistakes, class, race, sexuality, etc., respect for all people, and an abolishing of hierarchies. Masculinist ideologies are those of the white supremacist hetero-patriarchy, which, as we can see playing out in various ways all over the world, has been rearing its head in a very obvious and ugly fashion the past few years (though of course it has been around for wayyyyy longer than that).

Anyone who has been reading the fantastic analyses of TROS by those in the Reylo community can likely see how TLJ and even the story as it was set up in TFA were communicating feminist ideologies. One big example of this is Kylo Ren/Ben himself as a character. As so many have eloquently described, this is a complex character that commits atrocities, but is shown to be a victim of immense abuse and trauma that was failed by everyone in his family when he needed them most. This is a character that, had he been able to have the full and well-written redemption arc that he deserved, would have had an extremely moving story of how toxic masculinity and masculinist ideology is destroying boys and men by keeping them from being full people who can express all of their emotions, be vulnerable, and be open to love and connection. Reylo resonates so much with me not because it is about Rey supposedly doing all the work to change Kylo in some sort of toxic, co-dependent way, but because Rey and Kylo/Ben were always equals to each other. They both pushed each other to be better, more whole people. The wonderful work that folks have put into analyzing the mythology behind the feminine and masculine symbolism in TFA and TLJ (again, to clarify, "masculine" and "feminine" being culturally defined terms), and even the more obvious original goal of the sequel trilogy for the force to finally be balanced by Rey and Ben themselves becoming balanced between dark and light all relate to these gender issues. Balancing the dark and light sides of the force is also about balancing the "masculine" and "feminine" aspects within themselves.

This is a beautiful message that has so many real world implications. In our world, for lack of a better term, everything "feminine" is basically shat on. Patriarchy hates anything "feminine." This is how sexism plays out, but it also has to do with the ideologies that we believe in, down to our basic understandings of empathy and whether or not people have inherent value. The world would certainly be a better place if the "masculine" and "feminine" were better balanced, specifically if "feminine," and feminist, ideologies were more valued. This is what makes TROS feel like a stab directly in the heart. This was a trilogy that clearly did have feminist messages, regardless of DLF's bullshitting about Star Wars being "for everyone." Star Wars has always been progressive, the original trilogy is about rebels taking on fascists for god's sake. DLF's pandering to the most toxic part of the fandom for TROS is therefore representative of a much larger cultural, social, and political battle that is going on around the world right now. We are at a turning point for humanity in which we are starting to face the devastation that has occurred due to masculinist ideologies being the most highly regarded and utilized by those in power, but those in power are also trying to maintain their power by strongly reasserting those ideologies. So I would argue that this is not just about one movie that I and many other people didn't like. This movie is a small representation of a much larger battle that we're fighting.

Now, that reassertion of masculinist ideology that was the stabbing in the heart of watching TROS has made me super, duper depressed for the past week or so because, as others have pointed out, it communicated to me that no matter how hard we fight, the white supremacist hetero-patriarchy will reassert itself and win in the end. It even re-triggered the pain I've felt over the past few years since our current president came into office in the U.S. However, as I near the end of this long treatise I would like to share the stories that gave me hope over these past few days. I re-watched The Lego Movie 2 the other day, and that story gave me hope. The "bad guy" in that story is a literal embodiment of toxic masculinity/masculinist ideology, and it ends with the male hero realizing that he doesn't need to sacrifice his humanity and connections to other people to be a hero, or even just to be a man. How to Train Your Dragon 3 also told a story about a male hero/leader that rejects masculinist ideology. Additionally, I was given hope by Rian's amazing movie, Knives Out, which I went to see solely because people on Tumblr recommended it (thank you folks!). Rian had a clear theme and vision for this story that was about exposing and dissecting what I would call "toxic whiteness," and what it does to a family and those around them. And lastly, I saw Greta Gerwig's incredible adaptation of Little Women today, and that gave me hope because one of its main themes is about the struggle that (cis, heterosexual) women have in asserting themselves as full humans with talents, dreams and goals for their lives outside of being in romantic relationships, but also wanting to have romantic relationships at the same time. As has been said by so many, "STRONG" WOMEN CAN FALL IN LOVE AND HAVE ROMANTIC/SEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS. Feminism is about giving all people the chance to be fully human, and for heterosexual women that includes being able to have a relationship with a man and still be valued and respected for everything that we are outside of that relationship. The above mentioned stories, and others (She-Ra, Dragon Prince, AtLA & Legend of Korra, I'm sure there are others) give me hope that there are creators out there that are communicating feminist themes, even in big-budget movies that lots of people go to see. We need more of this. Tied to this is that THE HEROINE'S JOURNEY OF THE SEQUEL TRILOGY SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN/DIRECTED BY A WOMAN/WOMEN. Folks, we need the opportunities to tell our own stories. All of the diverse folks out there, if you are a creator, please keep on creating! We need you out there and we value all of the beautiful, integral work that you do!

So in sum, I'm not going to let what happened with TROS ruin my love of Star Wars or of the sequel trilogy. The story belongs to the fans now, and there are so many of us out there to care for it. You better be sure that I will never stop speaking up about how wronged we were by TROS, that is the hill I will die on. But I am not giving up hope and I hope that you will also join me in not giving up hope. As Poe stated so well in TLJ (with one minor adjustment), "We are the spark that will light the fire that will burn the [patriarchy] down." End of treatise.

[thethespacecoyote]

Sorry if i bother u, but what got you into a/b/o type of fics in the first place ? To me personaly they are a little bit too much on the dripping fluff and kink side by my personal taste, i have a few favourite of them of course but they are not my cup of tea. I still respect if someone likes them, and with no ill will i would like to know your "history" with these type of fics. Again l have no hate or anything if someone like a/b/o fics, what i m asking is the y here. Thank ya darlin, stay safe

Well, I wasn’t really into it much before early 2016, but there are some amazing ABO rhack fics by purge-that-urga-rhackathon, ledgem, thirtysixsavefiles, callmearcturus etc etc that I read in the beginning of of my interest in this ship and fandom so they’ve always been connected. And when I started writing my own fics, I was inspired by the tropes I’d seen in these fics and well it just kind of grew from there. 

It’s true that some of the reasons I like it are kink-related, and my personal reasons for my kinks is a whole other can of worms, but I also enjoy any AU that subverts something like gender due to the issues I have with my own gender, and the feeling I had as a child and young adult that I was being squished into a certain box of behavior and expectation. Like, in ABO both men and women can be domestic and caring, as well as aggressive and headstrong, or any mix of those traits. And it’s considered normal. Its very existence subverts our own commonplace real world notions of gender, and then again within the universe itself you can continue to subvert the new stereotypes and roles that are endemic to it. I get that a lot of ABO can kind of fall into stereotypes and weird ideas rather than subvert them (usually do to the age or inexperience of the writer so I don’t really get the point in yelling at them for it if you don’t actually want to try to educate) but I personally also enjoy turning the AU’s tropes on their head as much as I sometimes enjoy just playing them straight. You can create so many permutations of relationships too that might change and provide interesting fodder for storytelling based on social dynamics....alpha/omega, sure, but you can also explore alpha/alpha, omega/omega, beta/omega etc. And when you combine this with preexisting concepts like m/f/nb genders then you have an endless array of potential couples and even family units and friendships to explore. 

Generally, it’s just an interesting concept to world-build around and think about how different characters might react to the restrictions or lack thereof imposed by something analogous to real world gender issues, but separate enough to be a controllable fantasy for many people who have been hurt by gender essentialism in their own lives.

That was a little rambly but I hope it made sense?