#this could go for any ship

[epickiya722]

Folks, you're probably gonna hate me for this one, but I do not see the point of going into someone's inbox and go "why do you ship SatoSugu romantically, they're like brothers!"

I don't see the point, I really don't. Do I want to? No, because the reason won't make sense.

Here's my first question.

Did Satoru Gojo, the really tall one with white hair and strange blue eyes, and Suguru Geto, the one with long black hair that's usually tied up with sharp shaped eyes, jump out of the pages of the manga and the screen of whatever device you're watching the anime on and confront you in the middle of the night and go "We're so gay for each other" and that made you mad that you had to bother other people who is minding their own damn business about it?

If so, let me know how that happen because how?! If not, then how about this question.

Why are you wasting your time? Why? Just why?

Why are you wasting your time bothering people over two fictional men? Hm? Why does it matter to you how people ship them?

Here's the overall reason why people ship SatoSugu. It's the same reason why you see them as "brothers".

Because they want to. It's how they feel.

Getting mad at someone for shipping two characters who indeed have a rather not-so-brotherly relationship is like getting mad at someone for liking the color purple.

Seems silly, doesn't it?

That's why instead of wasting your time bothering people and being a nuisance over a ship, why not use that same energy into other things?

I genuinely mean this from the bottom of my heart. Use that energy into writing fics or drawing art of the ships and characters you like. Bake, practice playing an instrument, take up sewing.

I'm not saying this to be funny, I really do mean this.

Find something else to do that would make you actually happy and trust me, you would feel a lot better.

Even if you have to get out those feelings, make your own post about it WITH THE PROPER TAGS!!

Look, I don't see SatoSugu as brothers. I have siblings and some of the things they do I don't see myself doing with my siblings. Like purr each other's name or choose to have a fight on a death date that my "best friend" on died and have the person who possesses his body say "oh, how romantic". Season 2's first opening is like a love song for them.

But hey, if you see them as brothers, good for you. Go right ahead, I'm not stopping you and I don't see the point to. I'm not going to jump into your inbox and go "they're so gay for each other". Why? Why be a bother?

Honestly, if you don't like it, block it. Don't waste your time and stop bothering people. There are much bigger issues, folks, come on.

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[sadagios]

double victory, was it? (it doesn't feel like one)

i saw a post about 3L!Grian meeting SL!Scar, but since SL!scar never died i figured he can't see any of the winners nor join them before the next session, and they appear before him as shadows. also, i thought 3L!Grian would be really happy to see a scenario where scar didnt die by his hand and actually won.

❀ bonus sketch ☘

[leathfaic]

One of the things that pisses me off about MWIII and the lead up to it so bad is that whole "Oh I wasn't in the tank" thing around Graves.

Because it takes away from my success as a player and its just dumb.

But more importantly because Activision for some reason decided to play it like "Look at Soap being so dumb thinking he killed Graves, isn't he a ridiculous little man?" while Graves is given the "strong survivor" treatment by them.

Soap took out a tank.

Without dedicated gear.

He survived multiple assault teams while at it too. Not just survived, he took them out as well.

And then blew up a tank with nothing but some C4 to a point where no one in it could have survived.

Like he did that and you're telling me Graves wouldn't be fucking afraid of running into that guy again? If being in a tank can't save you from his wrath you're telling me he ever felt safe around him?

Nah. No way. We deserved to see him flinch the moment Soap enters the picture. To keep to the other side of the room. Trying his best to work with anyone but him.

Soap is unhinged and highly dangerous, or he would have waited for his chance to piss off instead of fighting that thing but he gets treated like instead of letting loose of his anger over the betrayal he was just a big dumb dumb and everyone else was in on the joke.

Like fuck man. That also means the player is seen in the same way, like you thought you just won a cool boss battle? Oh you stupid little player, that was for nothing and we're gonna take that feeling of success back. Games don't need to be gratifying, do they?

Actually that probably could be MW3s whole title.

[ladeldee]

When you're trying to introduce yourself to the new people but your husband will not stop hyping you up.

[your-average-art-dealer]

I've come to realize a trend/trope in ships I like and It all really boils down to:

Insanely popular and or powerful person/being x Just some random ass dude (gender neutral)

Just like: "Wow I have so much power and/or status!" (and maybe even many love interests that already want them) "Oh, who's that standing at the corner?- *literally just the most basic and average being on the fucking planet standing there* "OH MY GOODNESS, MOVE OVER RANDOS I'VE JUST SEEN THE LOVE OF MY LIFE!!!<3!!!" like that's so funny to me

[eddiezpaghetti]

Okay, so my experience with Stranger Things is a weird one.

I didn't care when it first came out, started to watch it out of "might as well" in 2020, wasn't interested in it enough to make it past S2, forgot about it outside of going "oh, hey, cool, there's a lesbian in it now, I guess," in S3, got really annoyed when "Running Up That Hill" got popular from it because it was a song I listened to on fucking loop after one of my best friends died in high school and I fully expected its appearance in the show to ignore the whole survivor's guilt theme of the song (and was very happy to learn later that it did the exact opposite of ignoring the lyrics), saw people drawing Eddie, suddenly got a lot more interested, watched just the fourth season like a fucking psychopath because I was seriously only there for Eddie, then got interested enough to start the show over properly, having mostly forgotten what I did watch of the show before.

And let me tell you something from the perspective of someone who started with the complete fourth season, who wasn't there from the start, who wasn't tainted by ship goggles or this internal battle of hope and despair, who wasn't theorizing about what the painting could be or expecting Mike and Will to kiss when Volume 2 happened or rooting for Mike and Eleven's relationship to go down in flames or whatever the fuck. Just someone who went blind into Season 4.

It's really fucking obvious that Will and Mike are gonna be endgame.

Like holy fuck. It's so fucking blatant I don't even know why people are nervous.

No sane fucking person would shoot this scene this way if they wanted the audience to care about El and Mike as a couple. Despite being all blurry in the background, Will's reaction to what's happening here is smackdab in the fucking middle, clearly showing that the important part is what's going through his head here. What he's feeling. It's like the opposite of that scene from Kingdom Hearts II where Sora and Riku reunite and Kairi just fucking vanishes into the aether while it's happening because, despite the fact that she was standing between them when the scene began, she doesn't matter to the scene, so she's just kind of gone when the camera angle changes. Will could have been behind one of their heads, or so far in the distance he blends in with the background, but he's not. He's so obvious that despite being massively blurred out, he's still the first goddamn thing you look at. What, you think that's an accident? You think he's in the middle of this dramatic fucking scene because of a mistake? He basically has a big flashing neon arrow pointing at him with "THIS IS THE POINT" being screamed through a megaphone.

And then this?

They're paired up like they're taking fucking prom pictures. Each one of these pairs is so fucking close to one another and so fucking far from everyone else. It's not, "Oh, they're standing vaguely near each other in a group shot," it's fucking Noah's Ark out here. Again, there's no way to take this as an accident. It's not just a framing issue. If they wanted to make the shot look balanced while still not hiding anyone else behind El, they would have scattered people around much more naturally. Even if they wanted to keep Nancy with Jonathan and Hopper with Joyce, there's so much room on that hill for three people to stand on El's left and three on her right. But they didn't do that. They put Mike and Will together on purpose in the most obvious way possible.

Like I get that coming up with crackpot theories is fun in and of itself and I'm not blaming anyone for having fun. I totally get the appeal of arguing a point and reaching for every stupid little thing to pull into it because it's like a game, okay? I've done that. But if you're trying to actually convince someone (whether it's someone who wants to believe or someone who's pissed at the very idea that Mike and Will could be in love), stay away from blue and yellow lights, stay away from costume design, stay away from the existence of closets in backgrounds. And don't worry about whether Mike's gay or bi when he's in love with Will either way. I'll give you a little tip about persuasion: You're only as strong as your weakest argument. Even if you've got strong stuff in there, too, the person you're trying to convince is going to dismiss anything you say as complete insanity the second you start going on an entire tangent about the shape of a character's fucking pocket.

Sometimes, clothes are just clothes. Sometimes, there's a closet in the background because it helps establish that a character is in a bedroom. Sometimes, blue and yellow are just a couple of colors that look nice together. And sure, it might be set designers and costume designers and cinematographers smirking and winking at the audience from behind the camera. But if the show was just those things, instead of those things in the context of everything else, they wouldn't be saying anything of note.

But this?

This tells a story all on its own. Someone with no context can look at this and automatically assume that each paired person is standing with someone they care about deeply, seeking comfort as they watch some sort of disaster unfold. And yeah, romantic couples usually come in twos, and we live in an amatonormative society, so that's going to be the first association anyone makes seeing a bunch of people paired off.

It's the same reason you look at this

And go, "Oh..."

"Those two are probably a couple."

And I genuinely don't understand how people could have watched S4 Vol. 2 and gotten scared. Because as someone who went in with no investment whatsoever, I just looked at these two--

--and went, "Oh, those two are a couple. Good for them." And I moved on. Shut up about the trees for five seconds and just see the forest for what it is.

Oh, and if you're still nervous? Little thing from a storyteller here: You don't leave a hanging thread like "Will confessed his romantic feelings for Mike by projecting them onto El, but Mike either didn't understand or at least didn't say he understood," without coming back to that later. That's Chekov's gun hanging on the wall, babes. It's gonna fire at some point. If Mike was going to reject Will's feelings, if they weren't relevant, they would have had that discussion in Argyle's van. There'd be no reason to leave you in suspense.

[bryverros]

couch theory, we are really going through it rn

[luck-of-the-drawings]

[OLD ART ALERT] A COLLECTION OF SCENES FROM THE GILLIONS CATSCRATCH ARC THAT BROUGHT ME GREAT JOY. i love fishy chips especially when its just gillion being delirious and violent and hostile

[daily-uquiz]

*crying*

[yangscowlick]

Because the “shrodinger’s queerbait” nonsense will never go away, indulge me an analogy (and a long post).

wlw ships are the “made from scratch” cake in a world where we only ever expect cake mix from the box.

Say you have a show where, in the first interaction between a male and female character, there is a red box. It could be a Betty Crocker box of cake mix. Because all it takes is just one smile — one wink — one raised eyebrow— and the fans don’t question it. We’re clearly making a cake here. The box is red.

Meanwhile, you have two female characters building their own relationship that have elements that could build to romance. There are eggs in the fridge. A few more episodes, there’s flour in the pantry. Sugar. Baking powder. Queer fans start whispering…we could be making a cake here. Other fans scoff “you will read into anything. They’re just eggs! Everyone has eggs in their fridge!” Maybe so, maybe not. They are written off as discrete ingredients, nothing to see here.

That red box is still sitting in the pantry. Obviously we’re going with that one, and it’s definitely cake mix. That guy and girl stood next to each other again.

The wlw relationship is now full-on batter. It was a cake recipe all along, but it’s not baked yet. The crowd that wrote off every ingredient is now saying the writers are just going to “squander” that box that could be ready-made cake mix or that they’re being “forced” to bake a cake with the very ingredients the writers deliberately bought and put in their pantry.

Now it’s in the oven, the cake is baking. That crowd will still insist it’s forced, or maybe its actually something else, or it’s rushed, or it’s pandering. Whether the writers painstakingly built a pantry to make the cake they truly wanted or they were cultivating good ingredients and realized they had the fixings for a more decadent cake and went there, it doesn’t matter. It’s still a recipe. One that fans who always have to piece together ingredients had hoped for or saw from the get-go, despite being scoffed at and disparaged. Just because that crowd didn’t see (or refused to see) those ingredients as part of a whole, doesn’t make it any less of a recipe.

And wlw fans shouldn’t have to keep writing essays to demonstrate that the wlw “cake” has all the ingredients every cake mix does, or keep pointing out that fans were ready to believe a cake was being baked when they saw a nondescript box, but that they’ll do anything to discredit or doubt the cake from scratch that’s now cooling off on the counter.

It is partly a function of heteronormativity from the audience in immediately seeing romance in any whisper of interaction between m/f characters and passing off all charged interactions between female characters are sisterly or platonic. And it also comes from writers, who are either being cautious so as not to spook corporate overlords or audiences, or who are preserving plausible deniability.

To take the analogy further, box cake mix is fine! It works! It is, practically speaking, what a lot of folks know by default. I thought I was a Duncan Hines girl once myself. Vanilla cake mix has the ingredients measured out, it’s a safe bet, it tastes like cake.

But it doesn’t mean every red box is cake mix. And it doesn’t make the cake that had to be pieced together from scratch due to censorship, caution, time, narrative build-up, what-have-you, any less of a cake.

[pixlatedvampire]

Someone come help me kill my ghoul and skeleton so I can have Ragnvaldr and Cahara in my party

[holy-reference-in-a-username]

im figuring out how they feel about each other

text:

Edd: Matt's just such a nice person! He always knows how to cheer me up <3

Tord: Matt is always willing to play along with whatever bullshit I come up with. He can also be quite thoughtful, when he remembers to be.

Tom: *shrug* He's objectively hot.

Tm: ...what.

Edd: Wow... where would I be without Tord, really? He's *always* been there for me.

Tom: ...

Matt: Oh, Tord's great! He always has the best ideas for pranks and stuff... especially on Tom!

Edd: Tom'a got his issues, but deep down he's just like a teddy bear. Just as cuddly, too!

Tord: Tom is really fun to mess with. He deserves it... most of the time.

Matt: Tom's the best! He's a great listener and an awesome musician! I'm a little jealous of him, to be honest.

M: Also he's reeeeeeeally cute when he's angry!

E: *nod*

Td: *nod*

Tord: Edd's always been with me. I don't know what I would do without him.

Tom: ...Edd's the reason I'm here.

Matt: Edd's the best! He's kind, smart, supportive, creative, inspiring... everything!

[bipanicoverthegravessiblings]

TCOAAL 🤝 Mouthwashing

Fandoms that are fairly cool, but a vocal part lacks media literacy and fails to get the point

[msnihilist]

Timmy/Dale could be HUGE, imagine Dale is still super fond of this guy who saved him as a kid. Now imagine being Peri, assigned to your first godkid, and his dad is a piece of shit but then he starts going on dates and one night he comes home with your fucking brother.

[kittyandco-archive]

does anyone else get so upset when you think about all the things that happened to your f/o... all the things they went through? all the things they haven't healed from? the pain that they may still be enduring? how you can do your best to help them but you can't protect them from everything. so you just love them the ways they needed before, how they deserved. and you see them happy because they finally accept, at least in some ways, that they do deserve it. they deserve love like all beings do