#they are not actually characters on the show who have canon personalities that refute fanon

[steveharrington]

ted wheeler honestly being a well written and realistic depiction of an oblivious father who loves his family but doesn’t really understand them as people and then somehow having his fanon characterization turned into this abusive monster who actively antagonizes his children and leaves them with lifelong trauma like. hello. nancy literally complains that her parents are boring and cookie cutter and they don’t really love each other but they’re complacent enough to just keep on living their little suburbia life. and yet somehow it’s such a common characterization to have ted be like Evil. it’s just so silly to me. esp on the evil dad show where characters like el or jonathan or max have actually been explicitly shown to have faced abuse from their father figures

[cambrioleur]

In the interest of making this blog a bit more intelligent and less of a collection of dumb memes, here's an actual "hot take" that I have...

Ben is likable but he's also jaw-droppingly underdeveloped in the official canon of the show. Basically he's what TV Tropes terms a Satellite Character, in that he's almost always shown in the context of his interactions with other characters, with these scenes being from their viewpoint and not his. He never gets a real arc or storyline of his own: Claire and Guédira are consistently the central POV figures of the assorted B and C plots, while Ben appears in the A plots but in an exclusively supporting role.

The show actually DOES have opportunities to expand on his character a bit more but for whatever reason it never takes advantage of them. You'd think that Ben getting sold out by Assane and tossed in prison would have been a perfect candidate for this, but he appears in like three scenes in the last few episodes of Part 3, with these once again being mainly from the perspectives of Guédira, Claire, and Assane (not to mention that the audience still doesn't know exactly how he sustained all those injuries).

An additional issue is that so far, Ben hasn't had any meaningful conflict in his relationship with Assane, which seems unrealistic given what an utter mess Assane is a lot of the time. Claire has the obvious conflict of desperately wanting her relationship with Assane to work but being let down by him over and over again, and also having to deal with how his antics are negatively affecting their son. Guédira is an Assane Diop stan while also being a police officer who's supposed to be trying to jail him, which is a comedic conflict but it's a conflict nonetheless. We never get any of that with Assane and Ben; their friendship is fun but it's weirdly smooth-sailing. We don't know if they can survive the kind of turmoil that arises between Assane and Claire on a regular basis, because up until Ben gets thrown to the wolves at the gala, he's never been on the receiving end of Assane's dishonesty and erratic behavior. (This is why I actually think that the betrayal was a good narrative choice.)

So Ben's characterization is that he's the technically-competent friend who's also a loyal, solid dude...and that's it. We don't really know who he is in the same way that we know who Assane, Claire, and Guédira are. And the result is that the fans can project pretty much whatever they want onto him. If they want to say he's in love with Assane, fine, because there's nothing canonical that obviously confirms or refutes it. (In contrast I think it's fair to say that any notion of Assane reciprocating these potential affections is 100% fanon; the showrunners clearly view him as someone who can charm anyone he wants to while also being completely heterosexual, although one could argue that they're attempting to have their cake and eat it too.) The same is true if they want to say that Ben is in love with Claire, which is a theory that I've seen crop up a few times. My own opinion is that he's probably aroace or something along those lines, but at the same time I find the interpretation that he loves Assane to be plausible enough, although I have absolutely no emotional investment in it.

Anyway, bottom line...Ben's character should be developed more. Also I personally think he should turn on Assane. But that's just me.

[littleweowmeow]

I see you repost a lot of pro zuko post in the last weeks and I wanted to ask, have you notice how much more anti zuko post have been posted in the last months ? I don’t usually mind zuko metas but the last ones I’ve seen are sooooo full of bullshit, they’ll claim things that didn’t happen in the series or misinterpreting things, to make him appear more villainous or more unredeemable ? kind of weird.

i do understand that the sudden rise of zuko’s hate comes from fanon zuko who’s basically a whole ass new character and certainly not canon zuko, but it’s seriously annoying. like I feel that this happens also with Aang. he also gets shit on by soooo many people for the wrong reasons, always citing things that didn’t really happen (or at least not like it’s usually cited) and… is the atla fandom seriously regressing ? how is it possible to misinterpret things like that in a children show. ofc atla is pretty mature for a children show, but it’s also not some Faustian bible with hours long needed interpretation to understand something.

Oh, of course I noticed. Actually, I used to be a fan of reading canon/fanon Zuko comparison posts, but then I realized something. The people writing such posts (mainly Azula Stans) just took advantage of the hype around canon/fanon Zuko, and the one they call the "canon" Zuko is actually not Zuko from the series at all. Seriously, Zuko is much cooler than all this. In fact, this is just a covered-up hatred in order to expose their favorite (Azula) better than she really is, because of incorrect characteristics and other bullshit addressed to Zuko. In general, the tag "anti Zuko" is blocked because I will not tolerate this diarrhea in my feed, but it continues to appear. This is not a criticism or discussion at all, so it's not worth paying attention to.

It seems to me that Atla fandom has sunk to the point that when I see a person saying the right and ironically obvious things, I almost idolize that person because damn it, is there really a person with brains here. What is happening in the fandom is either a special incitement to hatred for God knows what reasons, or people are really degrading at the speed of light. I know that a lot of hatred for Zuko stems from the ship wars (it's just ridiculous), but there is another point. Due to Zuko, it is easier to put your favorite in a more favorable light (it does not matter what specific example we are talking about) For example, this idea that Zuko is a bad firebender is a lie hammered into his head by his abusive father and the show actively refutes this idea. Some people just benefit from picking it up, it's something like "woooo Zuko is a prince and he's had the best teachers all his life and he's still worse than the "character name". Although this is a complete discrediting of the facts and not a desire to take into account the fact that Zuko's mental problems had a strong effect on his bending. And of course this nonsense about him being bad because he's not a child prodigy. There are many such examples, some of them have become considered canon. For example, that he is bad at firebending and stupider than the rest. Now there is really a lot of mischaracterization and humiliation of Zuko, but this is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to make their favorite seem better. It's just not worth a drop of time.

About Aang, I don't often see content with him, but my God, the reason for almost all of Aang hate is the ship wars. I may be wrong, because I have never participated in ship wars, so this is just a look from the outside. I'm sure that Aang hate reasons are almost the same as what I said about Zuko.

[piebingo]

Funny you bring up that post by heartbreakprincewille because that’s actually what led me to ask my previous question. That post got me thinking about whether Wilhelm being the character most subverts traditionally masculine stereotypes is purposeful on the part of the writers to demonstrate effeminacy and subsequently queerness, or rather is exemplary of shifts in how male characters in media are written. I recently binge read your fics and lurked on your tumblr so I wanted to know your perspective, although in retrospect I probably should’ve provided more context.

Speaking of fanon, I haven’t seen any fics where Wilhelm is portrayed as more feminine. That being said I only ever read fic when I’m given the link on tumblr. I wonder if that sort of portrayal stems from people’s understanding of his character or is instead the classic tumblr mindset “cute character, must woobify”

It is a great post isn’t it! The way Wilhelm —and any other characters— are written is intentional, and the masculinity/femininity that they portray was surely something that Lisa thought about amongst all the other personality traits that they have. Wille being a prince —and one seen as a messy, bad-boy party prince type of person by the media— probably comes into play through the infamous traditions he hates so much. Even if we look at Erik who’s the "ultimate prince" (aka the next king, rip) he was portrayed to be this strong, confident man that could handle everything, including the future of a country. But we learn that he needed help and saw Boris, so this was, to a certain point, a facade he was putting on. Masculinity and prince/king come hand in hand. Thus it makes sense to have this prince not live up to our expectations in both his personality and portrayal of this typical masculinity, because he doesn’t want to follow those traditions, and this need to refute those traditions does and do something against them does stem from his queerness, in a way, because Wille breaks traditions to pursue his relationship with Simon. That’s part of the whole show, Wille defying the expectations and traditions of the crown. It could also be this newer way of writing guys through this version of a prince, i don’t know, but I do think his role had a say in how the character would end up being, if that makes sense.

It’s quite usual in fanfiction for writers to explore things that is going on in their own lives and apply it to the characters they love —either gender identity, sexuality, mental health, problems in life and so on— so that is definitely a common reason for people to explore things that aren’t canon. It could also be that tumblr mindset, and it could be that someone sees a character completely different than someone else.

[murfpersonalblog]

🔥 choose violence ask game 🔥

CQL/MDZS Edition

1) the character everyone gets wrong: Jiang Cheng might be the most polarizing character of all IMO. But I don't think people get him "WRONG," so much as we tend to fall on either side of the discussion: either more or less critical of his inactions/overreactions. Personally, I am less inclined to forgive a lot of JC's BS, but!!! I also blame his parents' godawful child-rearing for him being so emotionally constipated.

2) a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom: Canonically, LWJ never bottomed a day in his life, and I rebuke any heresy refuting this god-given evidence, amen.

3) screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr: That one poll where people actually voted to behead WWX and marry Xue Yang had me like WHOMST???? Like, I understand marrying JGY, but XY?! O_O

4) what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person? I haven't blocked anyone in the CQL/MDZS fandom (yet)

5) worst discord server and why: I don't use discord. I wish they'd change the layout, it's a jumbled mess IMO.

6) which ship fans are the most annoying? I don't read anything but WangXian and 3zun fics, so I don't really get annoyed by other ships

7) what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them? See #1. I'm actually hating JC LESS because of how the fandom acts--I used to spit on that man's name, LOL. XD

8) common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about: Look, is it 13 years or 16 years y'all, cuz I am CONFUSED.

9) worst part of canon: the fact that Jin Guangshan ever existed.

10) worst part of fanon: the racism. Y'all out here really doing the most, huh?

11) number of fandom-related words you've filtered: I only filter out Bottomji; I did NOT sign up for this; hasn't WWX suffered enough?

12) the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them: Does Nie Mingjue count as unpopular? I guess, in WX-centric fics he might be?

13) worst blorboficiation: Xue Yang. Don't get me wrong, he deserves a hug, but he's done way too much heinousness out of pure spite & wickedness for me to sit here uwu-ing him. (Even if he is hella pretty.)

14) that one thing you see in fics all the time: wangxian 😍

15) that one thing you see in fanart all the time: wangxian 😍

16) you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc): ONLY shipping LXC with either NMJ or JGY, when he deserves BOTH of them gosh darnit. It's Venerated TRIAD Feels!

17) there should be more of this type of fic/art: there's plenty of 3zun, but I want MOAR

18) it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on... The fact that LWJ has the arm-strength of Hercules himself--people never talk about how physically inhumanly STRONG he was! Like...he lifted WEIGHTS. O_O

19) you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like... Jin Zixuan

20) part of canon you found tedious or boring: every time Sect Leader Yao speaks.

21) part of canon you think is overhyped: The Incense Burner chapter. Like sure, all the smutty smut-smut, but I don't like sex pollen type tropes.

22) your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores: LWJ being a literal TODDLER when drunk. It's the most adorable thing on the planet, but people usually just have LWJ pass out and wake up the next day, without showing how his repressed childlike/immature tendencies come out when he's inebriated.

23) ship you've unwillingly come around to: Lan Sizhui with Lan Jingyi. I see them more as brothers, and I ship LJY with Ouyang Zizhen more. But I get it--having LSZ w/ Jin Ling would be LXC w/ JGY all over again, in terms of who would marry in/out; while having LSZ w/ LJY stay together in Gusu is much neater, logistically.

24) topic that brings up the most rancid discourse: See #10.

25) common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing: that LWJ bottoms. He doesn't. End of discussion! 😤 And Happy Hanguang-June!!! XD

[thecoolerliauditore]

Anon idk if you were serious but this is genuinely something I've been trying to puzzle together as well, so here's my two cents on the matter.

Flower Husbands is unlike any other ship in the series. It is "canon", they are very explicitly "husbands" during Third Life and thus they are treated differently in fanon compared to other ships.

One thing I've noticed a lot is that FH's fanbase almost feels like a remnant of pre-Third Life fandom culture where shipping was a huge deal i.e. people thanking Scott and Jimmy for "allowing" people to ship them or saying that the fandom "owes" shipping culture to Flower Husbands.

It's a very strange sentiment to me, someone who came in late during Limited Life, because by the time I got here treating CCs as authority over fandom work was cringe at best and detrimental at worst. I was not there for Third Life but I can only imagine the suffocating atmosphere created by the "shipping is evil" culture that Scott and Jimmy's acceptance of it has stuck with people to this day, as if they liberated the fandom.

Because of that, I think some fans (especially younger ones who are perhaps more used to being under authority in their day to day lives) genuinely feel like they owe their creative freedom to Scott and Jimmy, and that translates into a need to show respect to them as both individual people and as a ship. Thus, they might view toxic interpretations as disrespectful (to Scott, especially) and the fans who engage with that interpretation as bad people.

This respect for the CCs comes in direct contradiction to a lot of toxic FH believers' "logic" when it comes to interpreting the life series, which is very character-heavy with little to no consideration of the CCs. I know I personally consider the life series as an individual narrative separate from it being a youtube series and that's the angle I approach my art/writing on, and I do think most of the toxic FH people at least in my circle are similar. This is how you get arguments that go nowhere, such as "why are people calling scott for hitting his friend IN MINECRAFT?"

I personally think that the queer aspect of it also might come into play. Scott is gay and markets himself as such, he might be some younger fans first or only gay representation they experience in something they care deeply about. As such, they become overprotective of the character and the CC (and assume homophobia on his detractors part as a result, because he's The Gay One first and foremost).

This relates to my next point which is that it's funny you call into question which sector of the fandom is responsible for the discourse, because Jimmy is almost a non-factor in all of this. I don't know if it's the fact the CC isn't gay (and thus not owed the representation tax), that Jimmy seemingly has "moved on" from FH or because Jimmy is never "respectable" in character and that attitude has bled into fandom but Jimmy is almost never really considered in discourse. It's always the Scott tags the discourse shows up in. Although niche, I have definitely seen interpretation posts where Jimmy is the aggressor in the relationship instead of Scott, but it's never that genre of toxic FH that gets vagued in the maintag.

My pet theory is that Jimmy is someone very easy to project on, with the self-confidence issues and bottom of the barrel position that I think is universally relateable to some extent, and thus he's treated more or less like a self-insert while Scott is treated like the idealized gay boyfriend archetype, hence how people seem to almost take it personally when people call their dynamic "toxic". (FYI this isn't me trying to say this is bad I actually think projection is awesome, I'm just putting it out there ++ I've seen at least one person try to refute a toxic FH post with their own IRL relationship which is kind of funny to me)

While all fanworks tend to have at least a little bit of wish fulfillment mixed in, the primary appeal of FH, I believe, is the romantic fantasy it represents. It's kind of similar to how people approach Empires from my understanding -- the outline of the characters/events is kept, but the specific interactions and context is discarded for the sake of the narrative.

Flower Hubands fanon is that the two were in love and Jimmy died, breaking Scott's heart. The hitting, berating, death threats and so on are the inbetween segments of them "playing Minecraft", and thus not taken seriously.

Meanwhile, fandom approaches other ships differently. There's a lot of breaking down specific lines of dialogue, analysing cubito body language, reading between the lines.

Obviously things stack up over time, but something like Etho saying he loves Bdubs post-death in LL and Bdubs calling Etho his "boyfriend" in SL can dramatically change one's read of Ethubs as a ship -- whereas, with FH, it's hard to read into anything without bias and come out of it with the pure, romantic readng still completely intact. And due to the popular fanon version of FH operating by its own rules and I'd gather the recent "discourse", most people simply choose to disengage from looking into Scott and Jimmy's 3L relationship entirely instead of bothering with the sticky stuff.

I think an interesting comparison to look into might be how Treebark is approached ala most of their most popular fanwork does fall into the "overall intended vibe" category that Flower Husbands fanwork typically falls under (treebark = king and hand, tragic yaoi. flower husbands = doomed husbands, tragic yaoi) , but Treebark fans and Martyn fans especially are very quick to also hype up the posts psychologically breaking Martyn apart and pointing out all the times in 3L Martyn was manipulative towards Ren, or how he was waiting to betray him the entire time, or how he Did betray him in LL.

Martyn can be Ren's loyal hand AND a total bitch, but Scott can't be Jimmy's bereaved widower AND a total bitch. There's more to say here about both ships involving a (afaik) cishet CC and an openly queer CC, how in both cases it is mostly the queer CC whose character is interpreted as manipulative, but Martyn's identity as a CC doesn't centre him being queer but that's diving a bit too close to queer discourse for my liking.

TLDR FH is unique as a ship in fanon, the way people approach it is inherently different

I'm actually so curious what it is about flower husbands specifically that makes this shipping discourse vortex (one that drags u down if you stare at the posts long enough. Trust me i know.)

Calling any other life series ship toxic? Totally fine and okay for the most part. But do that to flower husbands and you get almost an "if you don't agree with how *I* think the ship goes you're wrong and stupid and a bad person!!" energy (or something EXTREMELY adjacent to it.)

Like. Are people too attached to these cubes. Is it the worst side of the scott fans, the worst side of the jimmy fans, or some hell combination of both...what is it

(No but seriously if anyone has some meta theory about why this one ultimately meaningless interpretation caused the fh fandom to start tearing itself to shreds I'd be interested..)

.

[loveeachotherslikej2]

So, i made Jared's answer so why not Jensen's. It feels like he had to so i can't find myself to gif it. I just interpret his word ~ (My interpretation =/ "his word". We're good ?)

Jensen knows he can't be over with hellers who think that platonic love is less powerful that romantic love...

Fan : When did you know that the way Castiel loved Dean was in a romantic like deep love like when in the series did you know ?

He explains first that "Dean really ever knew until the very end there. In fact, i know he didn't because i never played that. But as Jensen, it was kind of discussed internally..."

"it's interesting because i think the term romantic is being used because there isn't a term that necessarily.."

he struggle getting to his point because he doesn't want to offend anyone.. and it's really hard with people who can't understand that the show wasn't about that. But like hey he have Jared here thanks. When he says that Dean knew in the very end (i assume he's talking about the last scene with castiel) he doesn't mean it romantically and this is what he will try to explain..

He finish saying that he don't think lust is involve..

"That the love that cass had is heavenly, he's an angel so he's able to love on a level and on a plane that human emotion doesn't necessarily comprehend and i think we might default to making it a romantic or a sexual love.."

He manages to take into account what misha said without refute him.. but as we can see it didn't prevent hatred.

.

He go to "destiel doesn't exist" to Mark Hamill style answer.. (X)

Did i think that's better ? Not really 'cause that's two different universe. Supernatural is about love, platonic love, family bonds about these two brothers willing to die, kill or do anything for each others it shows at each episode involving them (yeah i can pretty say every here😅) (platonic soulmates, you know). Interpret this love just makes it incest 🤷‍♀️

"The way i kind of interpreted it, and this is the great thing about the show and I think the relationships in some of these characters is that they're open for interpretation, if you find identity in a character because of whatever reason.. fantastic ! Great, if that encourages you to be a better person..."

But i kinda love what he said for all the people out there who (i can't understand yet why) find identity in a fanon ship. Just don't spread hate.

"And i think cass' love was a love that isn't identified by humans necessarily, it was a love that superseded that and we try to find words to describe that and I just don't think there are words."

So what he try to tell us is that Dean understand that love of castiel, because hey castiel isn't human it's not romantic love, either platonic. It was on other plane that humans can't describe it. So can we move on already.

#destiel isn't canon#but interpretation is welcome#even if the show was about platonic love#not really a rant#just anti destiehellers#and anti jared hate#castiel's more than just a ship#btw i love the no word to describe it#cause yeah you know it's dean#and castiel loving him in that way it's refreshing#we cover platonic and now we have heavenly#why not#long post#i'm really grateful to this actually#cause yeah it's good to make clear that destiel doesn't exist in canon#but to actually take into account misha's words for his character#makes me feel better to like castiel#it may seem strange but like i can now interpret Misha's words in Jensen's way without him being there❤

Thanks for reading

[basketballandtextbooks]

disaster take

i saw this discourse on other blogs and come to the realization that most people probably won’t agree with me but... here’s my two cents:

wendy and kyle are very similar characters, not identical, but the character writing in south park is usually quite shallow (for any character in the cast) and normally any depth that can actually be found in any one character is entirely coincidental or accidental on the part of the observer. For example, in a previous post I mentioned that Kyle probably learned to dance after the events of the rain forest episode, and we know he must have because of highschool musical. This creates and interesting nugget of character depth that fits with his overall character but the connection is most likely entirely accidental. Did the writers think that deeply about Kyle’s character, or did they just forget the throwaway joke they kin-assigned Kyle for one episodes purposes?

for me these gaps between writers intent and interpretation are entertaining and it’s very fun for me to play detective, putting together the whole characters through the lens of ‘death of the author’ and figuring out how the characters behave based on not only their behavior in any one individual episode, but how the inconsistent and shallow character writing makes an overall character-arc (no character is more fascinating in this fashion than Eric Cartman, who has the most cohesive and entirely accidental character arc that spans from episode one and showcases a fascinating and horribly flawed individual)

All of this stated, the similarities in how Kyle and Wendy are written may not be intentional, but the fact is that given the same exact situation they respond similarly and to varying degrees. A good example of this is when they are jealous or their ego is bruised, they both have a tendency to have excessive if not murderous reactions (teacher into the sun, nuke canada, burn down the school, bully your friends)

I don’t think anyone can really make a good faith argument denying that they have strong similarities. There are of course differences, during the smurfs Wendy showed a much cooler head than Kyle would in the same circumstance. They do not need to be identical to share strong similar characteristics

Now for how fandom has perceived Wendy.

There is good reason that some individuals feel that the fan-reaction towards her isn’t entirely based on her writing being inherently ‘worse’ than Kyle’s. It also isn’t true that everyone who loves Kyle and hates Wendy is sexist or suffering from a case of internal misogyny.

That said, Wendy is held to a higher standard than Kyle is. Or more accurately, she is held to account for her actions in canon and Kyle is not. A primary example that I’ve heard multiple times in explaining why she’s a ‘bad’ character or a ‘bad’ person is that she broke Stan’s heart by dumping him. Some accuse her of cheating on him (with either Gregory or Token, pick your poison).

We can dismiss the cheating accusations immediately, there isn’t even a sliver of evidence she ever cheated. The times where she pursued other love interests they were either broken up or not together.

But the underlying message that hurting Stan makes her a bad character and not holding Kyle to that same account when Kyle, as early as the super best friends episode and as terribly as the assburgers episode, has a pattern of hurting Stan and in worse ways.

Wendy dumped him, that’s awful, but she’s allowed to have different feelings for other people and she’s allowed to end a relationship with a boy who constantly vomited on her. But the fan perception of this is “what a bitch” while the reaction to the style friend breakups is “oooh the angst”

This is only one of the ways we can see her being held to a different standard than Kyle. Not every fan is guilty of this, but enough people share this sentiment that is entirely justified for people to point out what appears to be underlying misogyny in how the characters are treated.

There are arguments based more on her writing than her actions, I have heard the ‘she’s always right and that’s not realistic’ on at least four different occasions now. But not only is this factually untrue if you’ve actually watched the show, it ignores the many times Kyle has also been right for seemingly no other reason than the writers convenience. Making him the moral center of the episode or a center of a joke. I find the ‘she’s too perfect’ to be a bad faith argument because the research behind it is shoddy and even when the person behind it acknowledges cases where she was wrong (killing her teacher, bullying, petty grudges to name a few) it’s always hand-waved away as ‘oh, okay, that once, but other than anything that disagrees with me, she’s too perfect. This is a very clear case of confirmation bias. Any evidence that backs the argument that she’s too perfect is guarded and anything that refutes it is discarded.

There will be some fans that hate her and love Kyle for completely unrelated reasons to holding her to a different standard, sexism, or internalized misogyny. But it is a fact that a significant amount of the fandom holds her to a completely different standard and a very possible reason for that is either her gender or how she disrupts their precious ships.

I would make the argument that she has a far stronger and more engaging characterization than Clyde using the same standards I set above where I judge characters based on the totality of their appearances rather than on individual episode. A even removing that framework and basing solely on episodes that focus on them individually, she has a stronger character. And yet I have never once heard or seen anyone making the argument that they dislike Clyde because his character is too flat. This is another case where she, and the majority of the female cast, is held to a different standard. I’ve never seen anyone say ‘it’s hard to write Gregory because he has very little character and the writers only created a flat stereotype’. But I see that sort of perspective all the time for female characters that have more screen-time and development than Gregory ever had.

I love all the characters above and I find their characterizations and lack thereof to be a fascinating puzzle that I spend my free-time putting together.

But female characters in South Park do suffer from what I would consider a form of internalized misogyny. Most fans don’t do this on purpose (thus internalized) but the society we’ve been raised in has a tendency to put men and women on different scales.

This isn’t a scale that’s fair to either sex. The unconscious mentality that “its okay if he has no personality because he’s a guy” does men a disservice too. If you do fall under the category of someone who judges the female characters more than the male ones, I’m not trying to say you’re a bad person or even that you’ve done a bad thing. I want you to reconsider your opinion. Take a moment to actually think about it. I know I’ve been guilty of holding men and women to different standards. In both real life and fiction, I expect less from men. I look down on them in an unhealthy fashion that if I don’t address, could lead to ending up in harmful situations or harming someone else.

fiction is a lens that we can use to better understand reality. I am an advocate that you can treat fictional characters in any way you like and it doesn’t fucking matter. You want to kill Wendy because you think she’s an annoying bitch? Go for it. It doesn’t matter. Wendy is not real.

I don’t want you to change your fandom behaviors, I want you to reexamine them and ask yourself how deeply the disparity in how you view men and women goes. If you use fiction as an outlet for misogynistic or even misandrist feelings, I think that’s valid, but I want you to know that you’re doing it.

If you hold men and women to different standards, whether in fiction, real life, or both, I want you to be aware of it.

Now the elephant in the room.

Damien is one of the most popular characters in South Park and he has one episode focusing on his character. His personality is frequently discarded because in canon, he’s an uppity little git who is both petty and weak. He wants to be liked, is affected by bullying, and cries to his daddy about it.

In fandom he is frequently portrayed as a cool and collected impervious person who, yes, has a temper but instead of how petulant and bratty he appeared in canon, fandom portrays this as ‘badass’.

To put it simply, fandom has a tendency to ignore canon entirely in the name of what’s ‘hot’. They want the prince of hell to be sexy and dangerous, so he is just that.

The majority of popular fanon characterizations fit these same molds. They want Butters to be cute and sweet, so every character flaw he’s ever had is hand-waved away.

How does this relate to my topic?

Fans of the female characters are not impervious to this. Heidi Turner is an extremely flawed and vicious individual who would stoop to any low to protect her damaged pride. She is also a victim in a toxic relationship that put her through a horrible experience. And so the fandom either acknowledges one half, how cruel she can be, or the other, how pure a victim she was someone protect her. And neither combine her to a whole character. A person who was in a bad situation, had a lot of positive traits, bad things happened to her, and she didn’t bad things in return. Her penitent for cruelty in some earlier episodes when she was still a bg character is completely hand-waved away by both camps.

She’s an interesting character and she’s dumbed down for the pleasure of the audience, isn’t this the same treatment the men receive and thus invalidates my entire thesis that they’re held to a different standard?

For starters, the idea that an argument is entirely invalid because of one exception is in itself a fallacy, but to avoid acknowledging her existence would be confirmation bias. She is an anomaly, a female character given the same treatment as the male characters. Is it because she’s deeper or better written than the other female characters? I would argue no, critically watching her episodes she has tons of the same troped behavior that the fans love to despise in the rest of the female cast. Although unlike the other characters (both male and female), where I must do an in-depth watch of the series over the course of 20+ seasons in order to create a whole understanding of them, the majority of her arc happens over the course of two seasons.

An easily digestible amount of content. No one needs to put together the puzzle pieces to understand her like you do with the majority of the cast, it’s all there.

Except it isn’t, and this is why I mentioned her behavior in earlier seasons is discarded. The way people frame her is solely from the seasons where she’s a primary character, ignoring the clear characterization we got from her in earlier seasons that do help to create a more whole understanding of her personality and character.

That all said, there are still portions of the fandom who hate her purely because she blocks their kyman or style or insert-gay-ship-here. There are fans who hate her not because of her flawed personality or even that they find her character flat, but purely because they want to see ‘two hot boys kiss get the gross girl out’. Which is a pretty common mistreatment of Wendy as well.

Now, male characters are on occasion given this treatment but nowhere near as often. While creek shippers and crenny shippers might fight until their last breath, neither group seems to actually hate Kenny or Tweek. But in the ship wars of a ‘het ship’ vs a ‘gay ship’, the female character is frequently trashed by the gay side.

I could go into an aside about the troubling fetishization of gay men that borders on outright homophobia at times, but this has been surprisingly alot.

I guess my point is that any which way you fandom, try to at least understand that sexism is real and be aware when you might be perpetuating messages that can appear unbalanced. And maybe, ask yourself why you do that.

[pennysword]

An Ode to My Hero Academia

Okay, like every anime fan, I've fallen into the My Hero Academia hole and can't get up... and that's not a bad thing.

I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't on the fanwagon when My Hero Academia landed on American shores in 2016. I was two years out of college and the only thing I cared about was finding a nine-to-five that paid my bills and kept my mom from telling me to do something with my life. I was also deep in the pit of post college depression, wherein I'd moved away from all my friends and thought myself too socially awkward and weird to be able to make new ones. That's something a lot of us deal with, I think, especially when we're forced out of our comfort zones.

I am a shojo romantic at heart. Most shonen don't really hook me emotionally the way shojos do. And if it does hook me, it's set in a world so fantastical and so bizarre that my interest wanes before long and I would forget the plot all together. When I did delve back into manga or anime (decreasingly so once I got my first adult job at twenty-three), I wanted to wrap myself in the blanket of the tropes that were comfortable to me: a wallflower female lead with surprising feistiness and sense of justice, a beautiful male lead like prince from a fairy tale, a second lead who would do anything for your affection. These stories were mostly set in the real world, even if they didn't make sense sometimes, I could make excuses because I loved the idea of shojo so much more than disliking the flaws.

While a lot of my friends watch anime religiously, I'm more of a casual fan (which is really a nightmare to otakus, who expect you to know every single canon, fanon, and side canon that has ever existed). I remember my first encounter with the show was equally as casual. My friend explained to me it's general concept while waiting in line for my badge at ACEN 2017. “It's about superheroes! There's this girl who is literally a frog! An ostentatious personification of America! When people cosplay this other character they wear a green zentai suit because she's supposed to be invisible and that's funny!”

Fresh off the tails of One Punch Man, which came out in 2015, I thought it was the same concept and I rolled my eyes. I knew that anime followed trends, like most things in the world: one year psychic-mecha anime was what everyone wanted to do and the next, post apocalyptic themes were all the rage. So I thought My Hero Academia was just another One Punch Man, a self-referential, satirical comedy about heroes who knew how ridiculous their own genre was. I'd seen it once and wasn't really interested in seeing it again.

My second encounter with My Hero was a bit more personal. It was 2019 and I was taking my eight-year-old cousin to her first anime convention ever. Her family has always been a little more conservative, being Jehovah's Witnesses and living in one of the most right wing cities in Mid Michigan... and I was thrilled when she confessed to me that she enjoyed shonen-ai, that her mom had bought her a complete set of Sailor Moon manga, and that she wanted to borrow my own personal manga collection for reading. There was only a four month turn around, but I made her a janky cosplay and drove her to Kalamazoo for one day of their local convention, Dokidokon, wherein she pointed out someone cosplaying her favorite character, Shoto Todoroki from My Hero Academia.

At this point I had the base knowledge that my friend had given me at ACEN two years prior, but I just couldn't follow what my cousin was saying. After she shyly asked for a picture with the cosplayer, she explained to me why she shipped this character with that character and why that other character was a jerk... I couldn't understand any of it. And I realized that I had missed something much more important than hopping on the fanwagon of one of the greatest anime of its time... I'd missed an opportunity to connect further with my little cousin, someone who was just beginning to sprout seeds of her own ideas and her own interests, separate from her religiously zealous mother and her perpetually aloof father. I had missed a chance to truly enjoy her happiness, to witness her excitement when she saw her favorite characters pop out of the television screen and manifest themselves before her, alive and in the flesh... and just as heroic as their two dimensional counterparts.

That fall, I watched the first episode of My Hero Academia on my morning elliptical workout and my life was changed.

I mentioned before that one of the reasons I have a difficult time connecting with the shonen genre is the fantastical worlds that I cannot relate to. For instance, I can apply logic to the world of Naruto in my head, but it never seems real like it could be real to me. I always find myself questioning social structure, in-world history, and the story's depiction of the human condition. There's always a nagging voice in my head that refutes all of these pretend worlds in shonen... but My Hero is set in a world not unlike our own. In fact, aside from his green hair, the main character seemed like someone I might have known in middle school: a small, meek nerd type who is always scribbling something in his journal, always knew more than he was letting on... someone you wanted as a friend, whether you realized it or not. Izuku Midoriya as a character is as close to the shojo trope of a wallflower main lead as you could get. When we meet him, he's quirkless and is often bullied for by his childhood frienemy, Katsuki Bakugou. He's kinda squirrely, kinda spazzy, but feels like a grounded character because his golden heart is his most defining attribute. Midoriya has no illusions about what he is. He knows he's weak. He knows that people look down on him. But he is just… good. His goodness is infallible and his goodness rings true in everything he does, including when he risks his life to save said bully in episode two.

Conversely, while Midoriya is full of impressionistic verve, Bakugou turns the tables on the typical second lead shonen stereotype because he's not some edgelord that wants revenge for his slaughtered family. He actually has both parents at home and lives in a nice house and neighborhood. He doesn't have some kind of revenge fantasy playing in his head on his journey to become the best hero... he's just a fucking dick. A dick with a chip on his shoulder because his whole life people have told him that he's the better than his peers... and when Midoriya proves to Bakugou that natural talent isn't everything, he must grapple with the idea that world wasn't everything he thought it was.

Midoriya doesn't automatically become a cool kid after attaining his quirk from his idol, All Might, either. He doesn't stop being socially awkward. Midoriya still nerds out when it comes to All Might and he still takes copious notes on every hero he encounters, his classmates or otherwise. Midoriya has a goal but he doesn't have a grand plan. There's no shortcut to the end, only day after day of hard work and determination and figuring shit out on his own. Since he is the protagonist, we see the reasoning behind everything he does and this fact grounds the world of My Hero Academia for me. We see Midoriya fail and win and fail again, but we never stop rooting for him because we know he is smarter and more capable than his awkwardness allows him to show the world.

We follow Midoriya during some of the darkest times of his life, including when he learns that he would never develop a quirk. What hurt him more than the doctor delivering this news was his mother's fervent apologies rather than words of encouragement. Because even without a quirk, Midoriya could have done anything he wanted to, had he had the support of his family. In shonen anime the parents are usually convenient plot devices or they are dead. In My Hero, though, Midoriya has a close and communicative relationship with his mother. One of the more powerful scenes involving Inko Midoriya is when she refuses to let Midoriya go back to his dream school despite his protests. She explains that, first and foremost, she is his mother and her duty is to keep him safe. When I see this scene I always choke up because this is how humans act and I don't think I've seen it in another shonen before. I hear the common argument, “Well, he's training to become a hero. He's gonna get hurt.” as a justification of why Inko should be fine with Midoriya's broken bones. And while logistically that may be true, we know that most parents wouldn't feel that way. It makes sense as a narrative, given what we know about Midoriya and Inko's relationship.

Something I also love about this series is that every character has a fail stop, a logical reason why they aren't as OP as possible: if Todoroki uses his right side too much he gets frostbite and if he abuses his left he gets burned. If Ururaka overexerts her Zero Gravity, she gets motion sickness. Even All Might, Midoriya's mentor and the strongest hero in the world™, cannot be in his hero form for more than three hours a day. Every character must learn to recognize and live with their shortcomings, because even heroes need to find their place in the universe... and rely on those who fill the empty spaces around them. Because this show, despite it's taglines and ultimate moves, thrives on the logic of balance, of give and take accepting that no one can go at it completely alone, I realized that it was nothing like the aforementioned anime. It was so much more.

Like my friend told me three years ago, on a surface My Hero Academia is about superheroes. It's about capes and costumes and training montages and redemption arcs and all the things that we nerds love... But beneath the surface, My Hero Academia is about recognizing your own power. Izuku Midoriya isn't a hero because he inherited All Might's quirk. He's a hero because, to the very marrow in his bones, he does what is right. Izuku strives to be better than his own self doubt and the world telling him he's not good enough, even though most times he ends up crying his eyes out. He embodies the will to succeed that we all have within us when we find our passions, whether it be beginning your fitness journey with some anime on the elliptical, bagging that nine-to-five job, or something more substantial, like training, despite the odds, to become a hero who saves people with a smile on his face.

[alwaysspeakshermind]

Top 5 Anti-Varchie Arguments & Why They Make No Sense

#2: “Varchie’s too rushed/forced/there’s no development.”

[Note: this is one of the arguments that really grates my cheese, because the refuting evidence is so! Very! Obvious! that I don’t even know how anyone can bring themselves to actually use it. So be warned...this post is long. Also, it definitely jumps around a bit, because I was in a serious ‘Really, dude? Really?’ mood when I wrote it, and upon calmer reflection, I decided to remove a few overly sarcastic things I put down in the heat of the moment and add a couple of clarifications so it doesn’t sound like I’m trying to insult anything I’ve no intention of insulting.]

Varchie’s too rushed? Varchie’s too forced? Varchie has no development?

Yeah, no.

I’m trying to not lose all pretense of tact here, but this falls in the “anyone saying this must be too young to grasp the concept of abstract reasoning because people cannot possibly be this dumb” type of arguments.

Because again...no.

NOOOOOOOOOO.

Since the beginning of the series, Archie and Veronica have been Riverdale’s best-developed couple. (Yes, even better than Bughead, who, no shade whatsoever because this is by no means a post meant to disparage one of the other three pairings I’m 100% on board with in this show, didn’t even interact in the pilot), and anyone with more than an ounce of common sense can recognize that. Even if they hate it with every fiber of their being and wish it weren’t true—it’s true.

Development (particularly that of the onscreen relationship variety) does not fall in the category of artistic elements that lend themselves to subjective interpretation. It is a technical, structural element, meaning it is either there, or it’s not, and deliberately ignoring or refusing to acknowledge its existence does not render it null and void. Though they are the first of the canon couples to kiss onscreen, Varchie is also the only ship on the show that takes longer than two or three somewhat-romantic interactions to begin a relationship.

No, seriously. 

Give it a second and really think about it…

In six episodes, how many the-average-person-would-recognize-this-as-romantic times do Betty and Jughead interact before they kiss and begin a romantic relationship? [Note: and by “the average person,” I mean “would even your clueless dad who would probably rather be watching something else instantly recognize this as a Definite Romantic Moment™?”]

How many times in twelve episodes do Cheryl and Toni interact at all before romance is inarguably hinted at [in 2x14; 2x14 is where their half-second interactions become more than fanon and the average viewer learns what most of the rest of us already knew anyway]? 

How many times do Alice and FP interact at all in ten episodes (the point when people suddenly decided they had an entire romantic history and “needed to be put together”), and how many times do they interact after that before they begin whatever kind of relationship it is they have?

How many times do Kevin and Joaquin interact at all, period in one episode before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times do Kevin and Moose interact in thirteen episodes before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times in one and a half seasons do Kevin and Fangs interact at all, period before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times do Archie and Val interact at all, period in six episodes before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times in two and a half seasons do Archie and Josie interact at all, period before beginning a romantic relationship? 

How many times in two and a half seasons do Veronica and Reggie interact at all, period before beginning a romantic relationship and how many of those scenes also include Archie? 

(I’d also mention Josie and Reggie, but apparently I’m the only one who remembers that pairing. And also Josie and that summer fling “relationship,” but I’m kind of still trying to block that one from my mind because it really horrifies me that my girl kissed a dude who looks like he pours axle grease on his hair every morning, walks around wearing plaid shirts with cutoff sleeves like Larry the Cable Guy, but still has the nerve to whine publicly about her not wanting it to be anything more, so I won’t.)

But, etc., etc. You get the picture.

This is not, of course, to hurl accusations of “worthless!” at any of the above-mentioned ships or those who ship them; it’s just an example used to illustrate the following point:

If any or all of those pairings seem[ed] cute/promising/full of potential and/or not rushed or forced to you when none of them were so much as hinted at in the pilot (and the show goes for long periods of time without those characters even sharing screentime, let alone actual interactions or even glances), Varchie shouldn’t either. 

Especially in light of the fact that Varchie has a stronger romantic buildup in one episode than most teen couples get in three.

For instance:

Varchie Development In 1x01

Diner scene: Archie and Veronica meet at Pop’s and the romantic interest on both sides is made obvious from the beginning.

School Hall scene: Walking with Betty and Kevin, Veronica spots Archie, asks about him, and makes her interest in him explicitly known (“In that case, mind putting in a word?”) once Betty says “we’re just friends.”

Lunch scene: Veronica immediately addresses Archie regarding the song he’s playing, and Archie surreptitiously checks Veronica out  (it’s quick, but he does. If you don’t believe me, go back and watch Archie during that scene while keeping in mind where Veronica’s at.)

Invitation-to-the-dance scene: Veronica calls Archie over from practice in order to give Betty a prime opportunity to finally ask him out, and Archie pays more attention to Veronica during the conversation—jogging over right away, smiling at her, even agreeing to go to a dance he’s indifferent to because Veronica jokingly insists and agrees to come with him and Betty. Also, “Archiekins,” Veronica’s pet-name-of-choice (besides “Lover”) for Archie in the comics, makes it first appearance.

Dance scene: Veronica jokes about how Archie needs to drop the fine arts/sports question for a night so they can all have fun, Archie refers to her as Ronnie for the first time and tells her he’s trying. Veronica teasingly tells him to work faster, and Archie watches her leave with a look similar to the one he wore in the diner when they first met.

Seven Minutes In Heaven scene: As soon as Archie’s name is suggested, Veronica looks his way, and she visibly leans forward to watch the bottle make its selection. Although it does not “clearly [point] to the new girl” as Cheryl claims (the bottle actually lands in-between Betty and Veronica, meaning no one can say for sure who Archie’s going to kiss), Archie’s eyes immediately cut over to Veronica, and Veronica immediately looks at Archie.

Closet scene: There isn’t much doubt what’s going to happen as soon as the door shuts behind Archie and Veronica, because the sexual tension is palpable, and the entirety of their conversation is like a very awkward dance around the fact they are interested in each other. By the time they kiss it feels inevitable, and even the kiss itself is postponed until the end of the scene so that it acts as the exclamation point to the story arc.

 Once they exit and find Betty gone, the next eight to nine episodes consistently juxtapose Archie and Veronica’s new Friendship™ status with mildly flirtatious and subtly romantic moments that hearken back to the 1x01 makeout; by the time they become an official couple toward the end of Season 1, their relationship development is already slower and stronger than that of most of those previously-listed canon ships after three seasons. So, quite frankly, if you can’t recognize/acknowledge exactly how well-developed and non-rushed a relationship Varchie is, the problem is not the show/writers/the Varchie shippers.

The problem is YOU.

**IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING SLOW-BURN DEVELOPMENT**

When it comes to fictional relationships, development is not the same thing as a preexisting history between characters. In all forms of fiction, everything important—whether it directly impacts/advances the plot or not—must take place on the screen, stage, or page. (The motto is show, not tell.) Character interactions are not excluded from this rule, particularly when it comes to film or television, where narration is an optional touch to be used sparingly, rather than the default mode of conveying information to the audience. While you can absolutely try to argue that “Barchie has the best development, not Varchie” on the grounds that the former has a long history of friendship, the reality is that at this point in the show, Barchie does not have enough onscreen interactions period, let alone romance-tinged interactions over the course of three seasons, to qualify them for a slow-burn status, let alone a good slow-burn status.

Now.

I’m not sure exactly why, but the concept of slow-burn has lately become so popular and so synonymous in fandom with “best development” and “superior quality” that the term gets thrown around until its original meaning is all but lost and everyone seems to think that if a certain potential pairing doesn’t happen right out of the gate, it automatically = EPIC! SLOW-BURN! ENDGAME!** while any pairing that does happen first automatically = boring. forced. predictable.

Which is…just…not…true.

[**Yet another side note: I LOATHE the word endgame. Always have, always will, and one day I will write the essay on the ever-swirling debate regarding Riverdale’s use of that word and why Veronica had to say it in-narrative for the pure and simple reason that people wouldn’t shut up about Kevin saying it that one time back in the pilot, and in math we call that an inverse operation, BUT TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY.]

Fictional relationships are about character dynamics just as much (if not more) than they’re about story, so it really doesn’t matter if the relationship that winds up being the E-word relationship is expected/planned or unexpected/unplanned. Slow burns can be great, but they are not the only type or relationship with value. Furthermore, not every ship that doesn’t show immediate progress on the romantic front is a slow burn, and not every attempt to create a slow burn works.

In TV, there are epic slow-burns, there are mediocre attempts to create epic slow-burns, there are bad attempts to create epic slow-burns, and then there are blatantly terrible pairings that attempt to cloak their pulled-out-of-a-hat-for-drama-ness beneath the heading of “slow-burn.” (Come to think of it, maybe that’s why people are so confused about what actually constitutes a slow-burn???)

Using another Friends example, think the J/R pairing…did they have the potential to be a good slow-burn relationship? Yeah, sure. All the actors on that show had chemistry and everyone interacted enough to make everything narratively plausible. Were they a good slow-burn relationship? No, because they came from left field, happened so late in the game and, worst of all, had to follow a strong relationship with better romantic chemistry and multiple seasons of solid storylines behind it. There are some people who prefer them together, yes, but even everyone who does like them (at least everyone I’ve ever come across) fully admits that they would also have preferred that pairing occurred much earlier in the show, when not so much water had gone under the bridge.

[Or, if Friends isn’t your sitcom, think instead of the giant misstep in How I Met Your Mother’s finale, where 7-8 seasons of plot and character development were bent, clipped, and otherwise torpedoed to splice existing material onto the plan for an ending that was concocted back when the show’s creators expected to only get maybe 3 seasons. Could that ending have worked after 2-3 seasons? Yes! It could’ve even been great. But after all those seasons, and all that story/character/relationship development in directions that wound up being more compelling than the original plan, it just didn’t work. It wound up feeling like someone luring you on a fun-but-long car ride with the promise of dessert at the end, and then being like “Ta da! Here’s a fruit parfait! Eat up!” Because while plenty of people enjoy fruit parfaits and wouldn’t mind eating them for breakfast or a snack, no one really appreciates being served berries, yogurt, and granola when they were led to expect ice cream/cake/cookies/pie. When you expend a lot of time and effort building something up, you absolutely have to deliver. You can’t pull a switcheroo at the last minute and call it good, because all that does is beg the question if this was your plan all along, why did you waste so much time developing everything but this?]

When it comes to creating slow burn, there are no shortcuts. It’s a delicate and tricky road, because in addition to needing to make sense from an in-narrative and character aspect, it also requires careful, unflagging cultivation over an extended period of time. It can’t show up and disappear at random for the sake of plot convenience; it needs normal and consistent onscreen interaction (i.e., frequent everyday conversations with and without other characters present), readily-observable-by-audience romance-tinged interaction every 2-4 episodes (flirting, furtive or longing glances, touches that linger, special smiles, noticeably consistent too much attention paid to the other person’s dating or personal life, etc.), as well as an unwavering attraction/willingness to go there from both parties.

In other words, slow-burn is exactly what the name implies: a long, slow, process where each step depends on the one before it, and you can’t rush it, skip steps, or let it fade into the background for a couple seasons while you work on something else. It must be shown, not told, the connection must be inarguable from the beginning, and there must be so much sizzling sexual chemistry between characters that even interactions in platonic settings resemble mutual flirting rather than friendly banter. After one season, Barchie doesn’t have any of that. After two seasons, Barchie doesn’t have any of that. After three seasons, Barchie still doesn’t have that.

But you know who does have all of that? 

Varchie. 

In every. Single. Season. 

(You know who else does? Bughead, but that’s a different essay.)

S1 takes about thirteen episodes to bring everything that begins the second A&V see each other to fruition, and is peppered throughout with flirty interactions, wistful glances, etc., and every few episodes, they share a moment that unmistakably hints at romance/their continued interest in one another. 

In S2, even their breakup is handled along the lines of a slow-burn formula…they sit on opposite sides of the room and exchange glances at the beginning of the episode. Their “we’re still friends” moment is awkward and laced with obvious sexual tension where a direct reminder of the relationship they’re trying to forget is introduced (the watch), and Veronica’s instinctive grab for Archie’s hand makes everything worse. Their I Love You Too reunion beneath the fake mistletoe is built up to like a first kiss scene. 

In S3, in order to make other pairings seem remotely plausible, the narrative goes out of its way to separate Archie and Veronica and keep them from interacting, but still throws the two of them together every few episodes or so for a moment that underscores their connection and shows how even their best attempts at friendship are sabotaged by the very non-platonic feelings they have for each other.

They are not rushed. They are not underdeveloped. They are most certainly not “forced.”

Oh, and speaking of forced...

Some quick definitions of “forced,” because we seem to be very confused about this word in relation to fiction as well:

(1) Obtained or imposed by coercion or physical power.

(2) (of a plant) having its development or maturity artificially hastened.

(3) (of a gesture or expression) produced or maintained with effort; affected or unnatural.

Beyond the fact that definitions 2&3 clearly refer to plants and facial expressions and thus maybe shouldn’t be used as an argument against a fictional relationship in the first place, none of these apply to Varchie. Their relationship involved no coercion/exercise of physical power whether you look at it from a meta or in-narrative perspective. Neither development nor maturity was hastened; if anything, it was deliberately stalled to create conflict between three of the main characters and then grown on an episode-by-episode basis. It is effortlessly produced/maintained thanks to the actors’ dynamic (which is also the point where the affected/unnatural part collapses; KJ Apa and Camila Mendes work too well together to make their interactions seem anything but natural) and the ease with which the characters’ personalities mesh.

But, hey...you know what could be reasonably construed as “forced?” You know what does actually fit all three of those above definitions? The contortionist-level attempts it took to break Archie and Veronica up in order to pair them with characters they have had hardly any onscreen interactions with in three seasons. If you truly despise forced fictional relationships, then perhaps it would be better to focus more energy on decrying the plot gymnastics that were required in S3 to break up Varchie and bring Archie/Josie and Veronica/Reggie into existence. Because regardless of whether you like or dislike those last two pairings, they are, by positive rather than normative standards, extremely forced.

So, once again...Varchie: not rushed, not underdeveloped, not forced. 

And once again (I’m getting so tired of typing this, but hey, it will never not be applicable, so oh well): You’re perfectly free to be mad that Archie and Veronica  prevent your ship from happening, and/or get all the scenes you’d like your favorite pairing to get. But arguing that they have no development when they are objectively the best-developed and least-rushed pairing on Riverdale is just ridiculous. 

[applekitty]

ive noticed that a LOT of fanfics that try to redeem dedede really dont try. like its not like the author is lazy but the way its executed is

i have never read a fic wherein dedede is given a satisfactory redemption arc, he’s usually just nice from the beginning and very flat with the same personality every other ‘game’ dedede has, basically just ‘i am loud, i’m not mean or cruel im just loud and also im very sassy and a dad dont mess with me im epic’ which seems at first like it might substitute for his evil nature but it doesn’t

or he’s just really outrageously stupid, which is more anime dedede. 

i do agree with you, though i think dedede in and of himself is a hard character to do perfectly ‘correctly’. because when it comes to game canon, there is no correct way to write him. because dedede has no personality. he has hints of personality. which is not replacement for a personality. you are left entirely to your own devices when it comes to dedede’s flaws and his entire mindset in general, because canon supports absolutely everything you could ever put onto his canvas. i could say dedede is a hostile matriarch with no care for anyone other than himself and his kingdom and it’d be supported, because the only times dedede has been forced to act out of good is to defend his planet from something (potentially, in magolor’s case) hostile. or i could say he’s just a cozy uwu dad who’s done some wrong but he’s fluffy and cute nao and canon would sort of shakingly support that.

i went out a LOT about this on the hnk discord server. i’ll leave the entire transcript below but it’s about how people write game canon / why i don’t read game canon fics / the intrinsic, EXTREME difficulty with writing game canon fics. had this convo with @sociallyunacceptableorb , @toon-kirby , and azuranaito

i’ll tl;dr it here but: the reason why game fics seem a little strange while going in is because the games themselves lack a solid personality for the characters. fanon personality exists for them, and usually when writers write for them, they step in such a way which may not align with you, the viewer’s expectations of the fanon personality. it may seem inherently unsatisfying, to you, but for others, it’s very satisfying. the status of game canon and fandom canon makes it harder for you to be satisfied by the fanfics you read unless they are very surface level, boring sorts of fanfics. 

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:40 PM

kitty’s opinion time

most writers cannot go without incorporating the anime in some regard to kirby content due to how much the anime had bled into the interpretations of the games. people will write spanish meta knight as a game thing, people will write kirby being babyish / saying poyo being a game thing, as well as dedede being southern a game thingthe writers who decry the anime as bad / only good ‘at the time’ yet use anime personalities / interpretations make me lul extremely.(edited)

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:44 PM

Galaxia was from the anime.

Girlaxia was from 4Kids.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:45 PM

kirby saying ‘poyo’ is an anime thing, galaxia is an anime thing, to pick and choose from the anime shows that the games and their lack of writing cannot stand on its own without having to take from the very franchise that’s being decryed to help a worse written franchise

(edited)

no writing / intrigue writing ≠ good writing

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:47 PM

To be fair, it’s probably for the best that anime bleeds into the games or else we’d be stuck with oceans of edgelordery KIRBY IS EVUL AND EATS INNOCENT LIVES… though that’s already on AO3.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:47 PM

looks at matpat

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:48 PM

He ignores all canon to make people mad on purpose.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:48 PM

honestly if removing anime canon / anime’s bleed into the video game’s interpretation = writers to go 'KIRBY EVUL’ then idk what to say other than lul

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:49 PM

I mean, I don’t think the games writing is shit, but I also don’t trust edgy people with Void Termina.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:50 PM

i think saying 'game writing > anime writing’ is just blatantly.. wrongbecause that’s just saying 'little to no writing so that way you can focus on gameplay > a literal 22 episode made for television with themes and lessons’

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:51 PM

Oh! Yeah, that I agree on.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:51 PM

i also dont trust edgelords with kirby or void honestly

or any kirby characters

i dont trust edelords period

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:51 PM

I thought you were saying that all game lore was trash.

It’s crumbs.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:51 PM

i used to be one and i made EVERYTHING baaad

it’s comparing crumbs to a loaf of bread

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:52 PM

“Well, I hate pumpernickel! So the entire loaf is bad!”

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:52 PM

uerGHERUG

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:53 PM

“But you haven’t even eaten it.”“IT’S BAD.”…this metaphor is getting lost.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:53 PM

honestly it’s why i just.. dont read game fics, because there’s little to no ground for writers to stand on and write stuff with

things get too wild and they feel just.. weird ig

i dont know how to put it into words, really

AzuraLast Wednesday at 12:54 PM

That kinda makes me mad with what happened with one of my friends. People got onto her for crossing the anime and games together, which, when she wrote it, it wasn’t bad at all, but because the anime was involved people wanted to bitch at her for it.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:54 PM

interps of game canon are based purely off the person who writes it and all the people reading said thing all have different interpretations which inherently makes reading a game fic unsatisfying and ooc for you personally because your hc filled in the void the game left differently than the authors did. but for the writer it is ic.(edited)

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 12:55 PM

Like gijinka fic?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:56 PM

reading mirror fics also, inherently, can be unsatsifying i think

for the same reasons

people have so many different interps of how mirror world works that reading anything about it, just on its core basis that the author uses to define a 'mirror world’ can feel unsatisfactory

gijinka as well suffers from this

AzuraLast Wednesday at 12:57 PM

My friend didn’t write gijinka. But she self projected quite a bit onto Meta; her HC for him was that he was an engineer trained under Haltmann.Which also ended up writing out the actual irl problems her major has which is an aerospace engineering.Hoo boy, with the Mirror World, there’s no clear line with it but the majority is usually edgy.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 12:58 PM

people have different interps, and because of how the western world works, we all think our interpretation is the best we can possibly have. usually when we read things we suspend our disbelief, and when it comes to kirby fics, game fics, gijinka fics, i don’t think people can really.. deeply get involved in them.it’s a problem fics i suppose in general have. but it’s especially bad for game canon writers, or gijinka writers.people have hugely different adaptations of the same subject. with the anime there’s clearly written rules and characters defined over the course of 100 episodes. there’s a clear cut story with lots of dialogue and content there to be tackled. but even still, it can be interpreted differently by different people because thats how life works. only the existence of a canon episode cannot be refuted; a fic can be

game canon is harder to do because yes you have the games, and a lot of them, but there is no writing. it is all gameplay. which means that personalities and dialogue and whatever else is not the focus. people can have extremely varying interpretations of canon because of this, which is what intrinsically makes game canon harder to write for. with anime canon it’s easier to write closer to canon because there is a clear cut one. but with game canon, there is no clear cut canon.

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:02 PM

That’s also why so many people also freak out about all the supposed lore the games have, right?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:02 PM

the lore in games is very open ended is the thing, so it leads to people’s speculation and very different extrapolations of the lore and canon, yes

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:03 PM

Yup! It adds to their own things; it’s satisfying less for the confirmation and more for the new content to tinker with.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:03 PM

kirby is very, VERY dry in terms of story telling in the games, so any piece of lore given is EXTREMELY important for content creators / theorists(edited)

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:04 PM

I can’t really fault people who build off lore since it’s such a personal thing. Other people get huffy and whine about them “not really appreciating the game” but I find it is appreciation, just in a different fashion. It goes downhill once people get childish and argumentative, though.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:05 PM

the thing is people can also do that ^ for the anime too

remember that one server you were talking about in #newbie-chat

lol

in the end we are the people going 'you are not appreciating the anime right and the way you write for the games is going to intrinsically be unsatisfying unless you go onto the crutch of anime lore'i do anime/game fusion because i know the games can’t stand on their own

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:08 PM

Aheh. But of course.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:08 PM

[snobbish laughter]

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:08 PM

I actually don’t for the same reason. It feels cheap, like I’m forcing a square peg into a round hole.The barebones of the games doesn’t mesh with the backstory of the games that well for me.

StarRodPiplupLast Wednesday at 1:09 PM

So, like, if I wrote a fic with a sentient Galaxia, and then threw the rest of anime canon in the trash, it wouldn’t be cool?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:09 PM

it’d be relying on the anime canon in some regard, showing that the game canon can’t hold its own

StarRodPiplupLast Wednesday at 1:09 PM

Too many plot holes

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:10 PM

it would be a tad bit jarring, at least in my opinion because im the local brutal 4kids anime stan

but for other people it wouldnt be, i’m just a person with too much time to complain about kirby

StarRodPiplupLast Wednesday at 1:11 PM

I’ve been really curious if “a nightmare of a galactic crisis” was just a coincidence or a deliberate lore inspired word choice, hence why I’ve steered away from capitalist idiot nightmare….it’s fun to write him like that though.

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:11 PM

Also, if it’s a prequel… where the hell does Tiff go? The Cappies? Cappy Town? Dedede just abandons everybody for no reason and there’s a fountain powered by something that Kirby had to create by eating?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:11 PM

schrodingers cappytown

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:12 PM

I would like to know my own headcanons give my own appreciation to both the anime and the games. Games can’t stand alone with their bare bones and the anime can always be expanded upon. Nothing wrong with having fun while writing, that’s all it is, isn’t it?

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:13 PM

honestly i think the best way to write kirby stuff is anime/game fusions

i wonder if it’s because thats what i write HMMMMMMEIUGUIERGHERG

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:13 PM

I fuse. I go by manga lore.

Novel, whatever.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:13 PM

novel lore or bust

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:14 PM

I fuse because it feels the most natural for me.

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:14 PM

Because the novels actually build on it! They don’t pop backstory in everywhere! It’s just a Kirby game with more explanations for stuff in it!

StarRodPiplupLast Wednesday at 1:14 PM

I just wanna write about an evil vampiric wizard for some reason

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:14 PM

the games do need something to help them, i believe. when it comes to content creation of the purely fic type, anywayscourtesycalling does great one-shot comics and what not, they do game lore to the t because their comics are.. well.. oneshots. they’re satisfying by themselves

anyways i’ve got a lot of feelings on people decrying the anime as bad or cool to hate then taking things from the anime and putting it into game lore. that’s mostly what this is about

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:17 PM

It seems kind of hypocritical in a sense too, doesn’t it?“Oh, I hate the anime but love the games but I’ll piss on the anime as I write my fic because even though I love the games I need to strong bones of the anime to hold me up as I write my fic.”

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:18 PM

yeah that’s sorta what im on about here thank you for summarizing it for me

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:18 PM

Yep! I joke about it a lot myself.Especially people using 4kids voices when they say 4Kids is trash.

AzuraLast Wednesday at 1:18 PM

Same, all it seems to be is a freaking joke.

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:18 PM

Sorry for turning this into a Steven Universe-esque debate thread.

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:19 PM

i instigated it

:v

Garlude Smoocher (Shirley)Last Wednesday at 1:19 PM

:v

chingkittycatLast Wednesday at 1:19 PM

it’s an interesting thread anyways so

[des-shinta]

Discussing this publicly as...Y'see, me getting comments like this DM'd and Emailed to me?  That's why I even keep bringing Zi-O up or have stayed even tangentially involved.  it’s not to keep sniping at it, it’s putting out there that you can choose another target, as this horse is out of this race until it is all said and done. Hell, that was the entire point of the last post about it.  I’ve been through this song and dance and want people to stop bringing it to me. Though I am not calling out KaijucorpsTokuandrobots and his opinion of my work or in any way attempting to publicly shame him.  Frankly, his is the most civil DM I’ve received on this thus-far and why I have chosen to cite it. They have otherwise escalated to Death Threats for me not wanting to watch a show that It’s clear I won’t like. I just...I’m seriously just done with this fandom.  Marzgurl’s two twitter threads on  the missed concept of the ‘Ally of Justice’ are so on the ball for how bad it’s been getting. I WANT to do and have been doing exactly as KaijuKorpsTokuandrobots is demanding and leave it alone for others to hate or enjoy as they wish to, and as I stated my position and bowed out weeks ago I would like to leave it be.  I mostly have kept silent on my commentary since outside of...what, a handful of posts in the time it’s been running, not counting repetitions of the same subject such as the show being predictable, expanded reply threads, or snarking at crap? Though That’s part of why I format my videos and reviews the way I do, to better explain the positions I take.  The extended in-depth length is for those unfamiliar or familiar with the media to see more of it than is present in shorter-length ones that's just the opinion piece, with my perspectives and analysis set between the recap.  Doing this allows it to be more objective than others, and provide a better explanation for my perspective. It is not done to lead them to a subjective conclusion that ignores facts on a matter simply to make others opinions align with mine.  That’s just manipulative and arrogant and...well, if you knew me or paid attention to my conduct, you’d know that isn’t me. If I did and was, in the Kyoryuger videos I could’ve just said “you’re all wrong about Daigo”, instead of addressing how there were legitimate grievances one could have against him due to his character archetype being one that grates on a lot of people and super sentai overuses, and also ones that had been blown out of proportion in the face of those who have legitimately erred in the same fields Daigo was blamed for but didn’t actually do.  I could’ve just ignored the fandom complaints instead of acknowledging the reasonable ones and providing evidence against the ludicrous or exaggerated ones. For if you notice, I always supply evidence of why I have the perspective I do. For It has not nor has ever been about my opinion being the right one, it's about putting thought into one’s entertainment and seeing if it holds up under scrutiny.   That’s what a reviewer’s job is. I’m an analytical and introspective person, I THINK about things.  I LIKE Informing people about things, I believe facts and trivia are neat and fun to share, and media content regardless of genre, age or demographic that put in that extra effort to have all these big allusions to other work seamlessly woven into them and work for their story gives them a whole new layer of depth that is absolutely wonderful, especially if it is to other things I have enjoyed. And conversely, when I see something that has held itself to higher standards in the past acting as if it could not care less, I am compelled like many to call it out for that, and explain why that is. To paraphrase Linkara, “By teaching you how something is Bad, you learn how something is good, and if you are a creative type yourself, these are then tips to avoid creating something horrible.”

I don’t see how that can be viewed as being smug or any different than anyone else that does the reviewer thing, as my presenting of facts and the evidence supplied from interviews, analysis, data, records and what-not in the video content I make (and often these large blog posts)  is always divorced or set separately of my Opinion or snark about something so it is uniquely distinguishable on which is which.  My opinion does not superceed all of that, my opinion is a result of knowing and being aware of all of this, seeking out this information as I love to learn facts and trivia about stuff I enjoy, and presenting them all in a condensed collection of content. Analyzing the common themes, tropes and plots the writers on a show make use of in their original works (the Toshiki Inoue Drinking game, anyone?), and the conduct and statements they and the producers have made over the course of their careers inform the direction their work can take, as all of that can play a factor in the final product that results. And it’s not like I’ve never been wrong as a result of my research being erroneous or the knowledge I’ve gathered being faulty, and I’m more than capable of admitting it and have done so when told.  if you’ve seen my videos on the Garo Franchise, I’ve had to do so a number of times because there are Not a lot of good, Reliable sources on it, and some of them have misreported information or treated Fanon opinion as if it were canon fact without verification. In example I had believed that Shou Aikawa and Toshiki Inoue were the writers to The series Garo The Crimson moon because it was originally reported they were the only ones writing on it.  That turned out to not be so, and I was unaware of that as no-one had written differently in any of my usual resources.  That wasn’t malicious ignorance or smug self-assurance, but operating off of the information that had been provided.  Since that new information corrected me, I haven’t repeated something that wasn’t so.

But It is NOT about people lying to themselves about what they enjoy.  To cite the specific gripe, I don't think Kyuuranger fans are lying to themselves in liking it and have never at ANY point said that about THAT show or any other media, I think they didn't see what others, including myself, disliked about it or didn’t find it disagreeable themselves.  That’s not lying, that’s having a different perspective on it and what angers/annoys/frustrates others they don’t have a problem with. Everyone has a different perspective, I just put a lot of thought into explaining mine, why I have the gut reactions, revulsion or love I do for something.  That doesn’t make me automatically right, that’s giving you all the evidence to why my perspective is the way it is, and the reasoning of my own instincts. Hell, in the entire year Kyuranger was Running, I only discussed or made mentioned of it around a dozen times in any significant manner in that period after I dropped it.  Most of them?  When it was Relevant to discuss it or refute something that had been spread in the fandom which was a factual Lie or blown out of proportion.  I otherwise left it alone for people to enjoy or hate on as they wished and stayed out of it...until people kept berating me to give it a second chance. After MONTHS of this I finally caved and watched more of it.. and proceeded to predict every episode of the series simply from the ‘next time’ trailers.  One of the bigger things I called before it happened?  Revelations of Quervo’s betrayal and his related possession by Don Armage.  Why could I? Because it was a cliche. Raven’s and crows by Proxy of Tengu (quervo’s creature themes) in Japanese Literature/mythology are most commonly used as either Divine Messengers or traitors to their cause; the latter often from selfish, self-serving motivations or malevolent corruption. Quervo ended up not diverging from that latter interpretation. And I saw them as taking that route with it (as opposed to Just Redoing Utsusemimaru's story from kyoryuger with Tsurugi as...well, Kyuranger redid a lot of stories from previous sentai), because of the derisive and flippant manner the show treated Death as both a consequence and tragedy before making it reasonable that they would do so.  All that informed because of my experiences with Japanese storytelling tropes, mythology and the Eastern take on The Heroes Journey Monomyth. But I dropped it in the first place because it was clear it was not going to be something I would enjoy and I would be spending the whole year bashing it, but I didn’t want to do that.  I went and did the ‘don’t like, then don’t watch’ thing people often want from those in the detractor camp of series people like when they don’t want to hear a dissenting opinion, and instead went to watch “wander over yonder” and other series I did like which did many of the same things Kyuranger did in ways which were more appealing to me. As That Pointless hate and bile was not something I wanted to spread or have infest my life.  I did not want to rally a crusade of bloody vengeance against the show for every perceived slight. For That’s not the person I am or want to be. And with how horrible 2017 was for me personally (including my Stepfather withering away from an incurable disease before dying and relatedly being thrown out of my home), it was something I could do without. I decided I was done with it, and made my exit calmly and rationally as a Mature adult would when they decided they didn’t like something, and only brought it up when it was relevant to bring it up after that, until other people dragged me back. Would you honestly have preferred it if I spent week after week angry at something and pointing out every single way it was messing up?  ‘cause anyone can do that.  Many people still did.  it’s not like I was ever a deciding voice, just another sharing the same perspective.  I would’ve just done it with the framing device of explaining the context of why people disliked it, as opposed to bashing it on the principle of it existing. So why Should I be the guy that Goes onto every blog, every forum and lambasts any person that ever said something good about it with a bulletpointed list of reasons?  Hell, I avoid the Tokusatsu forums in their entirety because OF my experiences with that fandom Toxicity. And The reason I ended up predicting the content as I did when I finally gave in?  It was Because I am very well-versed in Science fiction and space series tropes Kyuuranger as a series called upon (star trek, star wars, babylon 5, farscape, gundam, Battlestar galactica...the list goes on as I prefer sci-fi stuff to fantasy series) alongside super sentai ones due to me having watched over half the franchise and the afore-mentioned mythology awareness, and thus could ask myself ‘From what I’ve seen before and this show has been doing thus-far, how could they go about doing this plot they’ve teased in the next episode?’  Watching the first Five episodes of the series was more than enough to provide that.  And Five these days is considered lenient now, many Reviewers have reached the point of doing it in One, depending on their familiarity with the general signs of poor execution in the genre, medium or premise of the related story. Once more, it wasn’t about being right, it was about thinking on and applying the experiences I have had to the subject matter, and speculating on where it’s going, only to find it was as I had Guessed.  My continued dislike of it being because those predictions included ‘what are the bad ways they could do this story’ as well, and finding more times I guessed that to end up being true. And I do this with...basically everything.  My roommates and family are astounded by how often I call plot twists in advance of the story’s seeding of it.  One of the reasons I don’t like M Night shyamalan movies (besides all the other reasons people cite) is his twists are ridiculously transparent to me. I literally had the response to the twist that Bruce Willis’ character in the Sixth sense is dead of “yeah, and?” because I didn’t think that was what they were building up to, I just thought that was the quirk of the movie’s story.  the same with the old lady being the Devil in “Devil”. Months ago My roommate showed me the movie “Cabin In The Woods”. I had never seen nor heard of the movie beforehand. AS I later learned, It is Notorious as a movie where people do not see the plot twist coming. In the first few minutes of watching? I guessed the plot twist. It is actually a very good one that I do not wish to spoil here and was pleasantly surprised at how they went about executing it, but I Figured it out because I’d seen a lot of the works of The movie’s Writer Joss Whedon. If someone were to propose I had a superpower?  That’s basically it, I predict narratives from precedent of their content, it’s genre, and their creators.  I am VERY good at doing this once I know where they’re going.  That is, after all, how I guessed the entire second half of Kamen Rider Ryuki’s story without having seen it beforehand from making a Phoenix Down Joke. My roommates and I love the Venture bros, Season 7 is currently Airing, it has been wrapping up a number of it’s previous hanging plot threads and story seeding. Of them I guessed from the watching of previous seasons: Vendata being the blue Morpho and the Monarch’s Dead “Father”. The Monarch and Rusty Venture being Half-siblings as Jonas Venture Senior had Sex with The Monarch’s Mom. And Rusty being a clone. There are others, but there’s spoilers involved.

I was excited about all of that, because the series had been building up the suspense about answers to those questions for years or seeded paralleling stories to them previously in the series (I.E Hank, Dean and Dermott’s relationship).  I was elated to learn I’d been following the deeper lore of the show as they’d intended from their intermittent seeding of the story, that I’d connected the clues as they’d wanted them to be connected.  And for all of that to add up?  That’s Good storytelling.

And it’s not like I’m always right about that stuff either or desire media to bend to how I predict it would go.  if I’m not experienced with a certain story engine, I’m less likely to be right and more willing to go with the flow to explore it, and conversely really open to things that defy my expectations.

I’m a huge fan of .Hack and the Megaman battle networks series, and other stories using Virtual settings for storytelling (though Not SAO, I’m in the camp that dislikes SAO), thus was very experienced with the tropes, storypoints and themes Kamen Rider Ex-aid was making use of.  I played this same ‘game’ with it...and It proved me wrong very often with how it was taking things.   I didn’t see where it was going, as the show was not Predictable nor following the expected formula’s.   Sometimes I disagreed with or was critical of what it was doing, such as the lacking focus on Hiiro Kagami’s relationship with his lost Love Saki and her impact on him.  For how important it was to the series and his Character it was very poorly grounded, established and explored even with the Later Snipe miniseries going back to her death to further flesh it out, as it was something that needed more than the show was able to give for it to fully justify where they took it and all the connected links in the story it chained together.  Or, say, Kiriya’s Death in how Toei tried to make money off of a character death by selling commemorative shirts to it, as that’s a scumbag thing to do and made it seem like they ordered his death just to sell merchandise.  it wasn’t true and was just a bad marketing decision, the reaction to it being so hostile as Toei had pulled crap like that before and had shown itself tonedeaf to that conduct.. But for the most part, I adored how original a lot of it was by it’s end, most of my early criticisms they took the proper steps to mediate, and at the end it used all of it’s assets very smartly.  I enjoy it not because it conformed to some pre-scripted narrative, but because it defied and exceeded my expectations of it, and tended to blow up my expectations in the best ways possible.  whatever nitpicking that’s applicable to it doesn’t negate the overall good it did and quality it put out week after week.

And even with those nitpicks and any other criticism I voice, it wasn’t about me being personally right and the show wrong about how it did it, but areas in which the product was flawed and the areas in which it could have been improved.  Pointing those out?  That’s what a reviewer does.

But To bring it back to Zi-O as this is ultimately what this is all about with people wanting me to shut up about it despite me already having done so for the most part...with the extensive experience concerning the Writer and Producers I have had in almost everything they’ve worked on, how Negative that experience has been, Time travel stories being something I really adore and read/watched/played a lot of, awareness of how easy it is to screw it up if you don’t care about addressing contradictions or think of how to do it without such, and the first episode and the ones I’ve been dragged into commenting on since by people sending me messages Just like this one, I’ve done this ‘how would they likely do this from everything that’s been presented’ exercise with them and ended up being mostly spot-on with the predictions Thus-far.  I’m not going out of my way to do it or bash every little thing, I’ve been trying to do what I did with Kyuranger and Leave it be unless there’s something relevant to say, or someone drags me back.

Again, the post I linked to up top?  That was another attempt to do that, showcase what is the standard expectation I have for a series using a time travel story device so you see where I’m coming from on this. And yet, half a dozen people instead shot me angry messages and death threats, some of them telling me ‘Beast Wars Transformers is Shit and makes no sense and zi-oh was already doing it better than that because it intentionally decided to not play by any rules, even the ones it made up.’ ...The fact it ‘explaining’ it’s ‘rules’ and calling people losers for bothering to care about story consistency is locked behind a subscription paywall instead of it being part of the main series seems to be lost in this. ...Is this the one people want to fall on their sword over?  Really?  Guy’s, it’s a show run by a man who’s known for crappy conduct and screwing people over.  There are better targets for this, and people who are more active in shaping public opinion than the one who’s moving towards retiring from doing web-video content altogether because of medical reasons!

You want me to leave Zi-O alone, just let others enjoy it blindly?  That’s what I’m doing.  Stop bringing it to my doorstep and dragging me back.  You’ll just see come occasional snark when I’m given the prompt, that’s it.  If there’s no supplied prompt you won’t even see that.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

sw metas i have half-written:

poe’s arc about leadership relating to Lightness being an active, constant choice wrt his canonical issues with self-esteem

refutes kyle idea that poor self-image necessarily leads to Dark choices/etc

both in fact suffer because of internalized comparisons to heroic parents; your kyle ideas are Invalid because poe is RIGHT THERE dudes

refutes fanon that he’s a Super Confident Happy-Go-Lucky Fluffball have people even read anything about poe ever

confidence is never innate, even in Space

this might be the one thing he DOES have in common with han, tbh, it’s an act for others’ benefit

how trust is poe’s heroic “fatal flaw”

and how that makes him different from all of the other SW main trio characters (in all three trilogies so far)

(but maybe arguably most similar to PT obi-wan? undecided)

somehow it hasn’t bitten him in the ass yet but i’m Nervous

how revolutionary would it be, though, for trust to actually be a GOOD thing in genre fiction as a whole? like to have a hero who trusts both persons and people and it DOESN’T bring about his downfall?? so much more interesting in 2017 than trust as a fatal flaw imo but i’m perhaps a schmoop

LPoA is leia’s space bat mitzvah (need to look more into sephardic traditions)

truly the biggest disservice the OT did leia besides the slave bikini is how much the loss of alderaan got shortchanged and i’m so glad it’s being given due gravity now

the ceremonial memorization with bail and breha as aliyah - focus on light/darkness in ceremony (literal, with candledroids introduced as part of alderaanian culture) - leia’s entrance to adulthood not as an individual but as maker/keeper of law and responsibility to community

is there a civilian alderaanian equivalent to her Day of Demand? would that be more akin to her Name Day?

does leia have an alderaanian name as well since bail/breha kept “leia” her name in deference to padme? wouldn’t it be kind of a clue to the wider galaxy (like panaka) that the alderaanian princess has a nabooian name?

this may be a plot hole. unrelated to bat mitzvah, just wondering.

wouldn’t it be like, Léa in nabooian though? maybe “leia” is already transliterated

 this ultimately does not matter, i’m just saying. SW needs to either go all the way with its worldbuilding or admit that it only goes like, 20%.

contrast between leia entering alderaanian adulthood pledged to community and her choice to put galaxy as a whole above alderaan as a planet wrt kier: does this diminish/convolute some plotlines in LPoA? was kier really necessary narratively -- what exactly does he show that the OT doesn’t, etc, wrt leia’s willingness to put the rebellion/galaxy-at-large above all else? couldn’t we have had leia/amilyn perhaps?

that has nothing to do with space bat mitzvahs, i just feel like leia being space bi makes more sense than most things in the SW universe. 

also, no wonder leia was an angry ball of being unwilling to love anyone in the OT, but why does leia have to be subject to the “heroine’s journey” trope of Everyone I Love Dies And The Pain Makes Me Sharper/Smarter/More Determined/Stronger/Me? it is a Bad Trope.

breha as the literal, visible beating heart of alderaan and mother of the rebellion

aND I LOVE IT SO MUCH

::slams fists on table:: MORE FIC ABOUT BREHA/PADME/MON!

kes/shara and bail/breha are actively/intentionally constructed as healthy couples with core-level disagreements about Big Issues who remain healthy couples as a contrast to anakin/padme

(unknown variable: han/leia?)

[severusnape101-blog]

FAQ’S

Any kind of questions that people could have on this blog along the way: How can you excuse what Snape did?!? The favourite of Snaters. Liking a character doesn’t mean one excuses their actions. I know perfectly well Snape was no angel, thanks. But I can still like him. Shocking for sure. How can you like such a grey PROBLEMATIC TOXIC GROSS CREEPY asshole?! (and all the tumblr fashonable buzzwords, ups, I forgot friendzoned, silly me!) Because I can, that’s why. I see people fawning over Bellatrix, I don’t see why I can’t like Snape, along other characters. Are you obsessed about Snape? You dedicated an entire blog to him. Uhm no? But I like reading headcanons about my favourite characters. And yet Snape’s tags and in general Snape’s discussions are so full of haters, fake news and discourse I decided dedicating a blog on a favourite of mine wasn’t that bad in comparison. I mean, there are entire blogs dedicated on hating Snape, why not one dedicated to discussing what actually happens in the books, as opposed to inventing falsehoods and clogging the tags with hate? Why you don’t tag your posts with ‘Snape-hate’ ‘Ant-Snape’ etc.? Because I’m very tired myself of going on the Snape tag and finding basically nothing but hate and jerks who purposefully put hate there because they’re obsessed with the thought of people not knowing about their opinion about a fictional character. So I refuse to do a ‘war’ on Snaters, despite the blog name; I’m just interested in having a little corner of tumblr to finally talk about this character in peace, without having to recite a ‘mea culpa’ first or having to refute for the 50th time the fact that Snape was in fact not a stalker.

 Hey! Your post showed in the tags dedicated to Snape hate anyway! Liar!

Well, first check my original post and see how I tagged it, there’s a huge possibility that tumblr decided to be a little shit and show my post even in tags I never tagged. Yeah, tumblr can show posts in some tags even if you don’t tag it, so, for example, if I wrote a post that says ‘Snape is a hero’ and tagged it ‘Snape-love, snape-positive, let-kill -snape-discourse, yes-we-know-he-bullied kids-omg, no-not-hermiones-teeth-again-please’, chance is that this post could still show on the ‘Snape-hate, snape-dislike, snape-sucked-voldys-nose-pass-it -on’ tags, just because it contains Snape’s name. There’s not much I can do about that, so this is an issue that remains, sadly. But if I mistagged I apologise, my bad; sometimes I’m tired and ranty (not randy, don’t misread, just ‘ranty’ as in a ranting mode, lol) and commit errors. Let me know and I will correct the tags! People can dislike whomever they want! It’s not your place to tell them what to hate/not hate! Yeah, totally right.That’s not what the blog is about. This blog is about me being fed up with Snaters. Since people can dislike whatever they like, I can say I dislike gross headcanons about a character I like. Writing counterarguments and reminding people Snape was not in fact a pedophile doesn’t equal to me telling people they can’t hate Snape. It just means that I’m not buying into this crap headcanons.  Do you differentiate between Snaters and people who dislike Snape? As a matter of fact, yes, I do: Snaters to me are usually the kind of people who believe nonsense written about the character just to further hate on him, especially if said nonsense is not canon, totally bs, doesn’t have any linking to canon and is so outlandish it’s ridiculous. They’re the rude jerks that write on fanarts and fanfictions ‘Omg how can u liek Shape he was a nazi lol’ and send anon death threats to people who just said they like Snape. Basically they’re trolls/bullies who take the Snape hate excuse to harass people/vent their personal problems.  People who dislike Snape usually don’t need to invent bs about him, don’t have problems saying ‘Yeah he wasn’t totally black but I still don’t like him’, if they read something like ‘If Harry had been female Snape would have sexually assaulted her’ they laugh at its absurdity and don’t buy into it just bc it paints Snape in a bad light. Basically they base their hate/dislike on canon facts, without the need to invent/exaggerate/attack people that don’t agree. Why are you more angry when people say ‘I hate Snape because he was a stalker’ (fake)?  Because it’s fake. When a person says ‘I can’t like Snape he was a bully’ that’s a fact, I’m not going to object (I also didn’t like that part of Snape). When a person says ‘My opinion is that Snape was obsessed with Lily that’s not love for me (but that doesn’t mean he stalked or sexually harassed her)’ I won’t agree but it’s an open interpretation, based on canon evidence, and also this person can actually differentiate between idolising someone and harassing and stalking someone. But when someone says ‘Omg I hate Snape he stalked Lily when he was 9 hiding behind a tree!!!’ not only I’m not gonna agree, I will probably give you a wide berth bc wow, sexualizing a little kid? A dirt poor, socially awkward kid ashamed of being dressed with woman’s clothes, hiding not to be seen is considered a stalker now? That’s quite weird. To say the least.  Did you not know Snape was basically the ANTICHRIST and also he raped Lilly and stalkeddd Petunia and he ate Dudley omg and friendzoned Dobby and fondled the Squid without their consent, such a creepy obsessed stalkerrr!!!!1! (and basically every fake, fanon facts Snaters have invented during the years about Snape). No, as a matter of fact I didn’t know any of that. You know, I read the actual 7 Harry Potter books. The ones in which Snape never raped, sexually harassed and/or stalked anyone (well maybe the Marauders, but he was almost eaten as a result, so I think they’re even). But I’m sure the fanfiction you took these facts from is amazing and well written, not to say interesting and intellectually stimulating, I’m sure. Can you pass me the link?