#this is canon to me and I need other people's opinions

[virtualflowerbatathlete]

Weird opinion nobody asked me for:

Several things can be true at once when talking about Leo’s arc in HOO regarding romance.

NO, Leo did not need to resolve his self esteem issues and insecurities before he started dating. You don’t have to be fully mentally healthy to date someone or be in love (Look at Percabeth! Both of them were a mess when they started dating, but they grow together.) The implication that you need to be fully recovered from any mental illness or trauma before being “allowed” to date is a dangerous one.

BUT it was incredibly disheartening to watch these insecurities lead Leo to being in a relationship where he is not as happy as he hoped he would be, and even in some cases, being abused by a girlfriend who seems almost ashamed to be associated with Leo at all. Calypso’s irritation and snipes at Leo don’t feel at all like when couples like Percabeth or Solangelo tease each other. When Percabeth and Solangelo tease each other, there’s an undercurrent of genuine affection, and also a sense that the two are on even footing in the relationship; Nico can call Will his “significant annoyance,” and Will can call Nico his “little ball of darkness.” Annabeth calls Percy “Seaweed Brain,” and he can call her “Wise Girl.” But there is no even footing with Caleo. Leo is so desperate to make things work with her that he won’t fire back when Calypso insults his interests or personality. The relationship is volatile and imbalanced, and honestly, that feels like a far more tragic ending for Leo than him being single at the end of HOO.

ALSO it was fully possible for Leo to have an arch where he realizes that he doesn’t need romance to be happy, and later getting into a romantic relationship. (Hell, it could even happen in the same book) I deeply resent the takes where people somehow see both these things as mutually exclusive. As an example of this, over time, I learned that grades don’t define who I am, and that I can build my self worth outside of them. That doesn’t mean that I have to give up on getting good grades entirely. What that does mean is that I focus more on learning the material for my own benefit than trying to get the highest score, and strangely enough, my grades started going up. In the case of Leo, a character arc where he learned to love himself and not need a romantic relationship doesn’t mean that he would stop looking for one. Instead, he would seek meaningful connections with the people around him, one of which could bloom into a romantic relationship.

ALSO it would be fully possible for Leo to have this arc while in a romantic relationship with someone. While a partner can’t “fix” you, the people we love can open doors for us to learn and grow. Hell, in the books, we see this demonstrated with Leo and Jason. Leo confides an insecurity, and Jason challenges this insecurity. This causes Leo to think, and thus to grow. Yes, they were not canonically romantic, but my point still stands that this isn’t necessarily a journey Leo would need to do alone. He could have had a romantic partner who helped in his journey of learning to love himself.

ALSO the desire Rick, and by some extension we (the fandom) had in HOO to pair every single character off with their “perfect match” is one that should be questioned. I think that Rick and the fandom have come a long way, and I think TOA really played around with this concept in a very interesting way. But the strange implication I sometimes see is that Leo having no romantic partner must mean that it’s an unsatisfying arc. As an aroace person, the implication that life and stories are only satisfying if the person involved ends up with a romantic partner is disheartening.(I say this as a Valgrace shipper) If your first instinct when hearing a character is single or learning to love being single is to go, “OH GOD, THEY’RE ALL ALONE AND WILL NEVER BE HAPPY! THIS IS THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN FOR THEM!” Maybe, it’s time to examine the implications behind those thoughts.

ALSO shipping is fun and not that serious. If you like a ship, go for it. This is not me telling you not to ship Leo with anyone, as I said, I’m a huge Valgrace fan.

Anywho, if you want more extensive thoughts on Calypso, lemme know. Also feel free to add, I’m sure there’s even more nuance to talk about

[delulluart]

Copia is a cannonically fat man and you should of draw him fat :/ it is fatphobic not to

Hey anon,

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn't intend to come off as rude here. It's never cool to go to an artists (or writer, or any other creatives) space and demand them to do something the way you think is correct. I talk about them being hairy Italians in my opinion and don't agree with wrinklefree sixpack Instagram fitness Influencer versions with waxed chests of the Papas, but I never go and harass any artists who do draw them like that.

I strife to draw them as realistic/ close to what we see as possible with some headcanons/freedom of interpretation - for example, them being hairy, because they're Italian old men, despite us having seen Secondos whole chest, some flashes of Terzos and Copias tummys etc - because we can't expect TF to wear a fake chest hair lmao; or, I personally HC them being different heights than TF, which he also can't change; things like that!.

And in Copias case i actually mostly follow TF's general shape and what his clothing is designed to suggest (making him a bit taller and broader). So, to say he's "canonically" a fat man, is wrong. I have some pics here, just as examples for the "canon" (= the dude on stage) that show off kinda the maximum belly we've seen in 2023 at Copenhell by Tommy Skott, and also, bc we had such a long era of Copia blessing us, a Copenhell 2018 shot by Christian Hjorth of him as Cardinal.

There's some tummy, he has thick thighs, and butt but he's not fat. The thighs are clearly mostly muscle (second pic by Katja Ogrin, in 2022, I've never recovered from that one), too.

What I'm NOT saying is: "he can't be a fat man!" or "fat people are bad!" (I'm a fat person, too) or something like that.

Please draw him fat, if you want that, support artists who draw him fat - there's been great art recently all over (and I guess you've been influenced/inspired by that to send me this message?) and we need some cool fat character rep!

It just is not the way I, personally, see him.

Also, sidenote, I don't draw him skinny, ever; as mentioned earlier, I see him have a tummy, thick thighs etc. My art ALWAYS famously features these characteristics, there's always some tummy: Just 4 of the most recent examples here, here, here and here.

This isn't an attack, but it's important to realise what's "my own headcanon" and what's "canon" before making demands. Headcanons are amazing! and you can always request (or, better: commission) artists to draw your HC! But they're not universally canon. And you should never demand or guilt trip, please.

Sorry for rambling, ig, at least there's some juicy Copia pics to enjoy.

[obsidianpen]

After reading No Glory and Hauntingly, it's hard to enjoy hetero romance, and it's not just because your way of writing is elite; there could be so many reasons that I went hardcore m/m and f/f shipper. Like, I am dead serious when I say my favorite telenovela pairing is Luisa x Rose from Jane the Virgin. So, I am really, really excited for your original work, and even more stoked that you decided it to be an m/m pair. But yeah, would love to know why you decided that?

you know, it was an interesting thought process that involved a lot of self reflecting. There’s definitely controversy around women writing gay male romance. Most of it is, I think, bullshit, and the arguments such as ‘its fetishizing’ are way off base (no, that would be male directors and producers creating plotless w/w porn, imo). But it was a Big Question: why should I, J…Jamie (lmao I’m almost more OP than myself anymore when I’m online) write a story with a bi male lead, when I’m a female (I love writing bis okay we need more of us!!) ? The reason I like writing Harry/Tom has everything to do with their dynamic and roles in the canon, and nothing to do with the gender. Id ship them regardless. In fact I probably would have realized I shipped them sooner if it was f/m; I was just too young at the time to realize that’s what I was rooting for because I was a bit sheltered in that regard.

anyway - so yeah, why am I still interested in m/m outside of fanfiction? I asked myself, staring at the mirror. So I wrote a little bit out of this original idea, one version as a female lead and once as a male, and you know, it was a pretty interesting exercise. When I was writing a male protagonist, I was… calm? Idk, I didn’t overthink him. I knew who he was and I just wrote what he did and what he thought. But when I was writing a the female version, my anxiety was so much higher! I found myself agonizing over every bit of her personality, worrying if people would find her ‘too this’ or ‘too that’, too predictable, too pretty, not pretty enough, too tough, too weak, etc etc. I felt like no matter who I made her, people would be upset and fucking hate her. And then I realized, oh. This is probably why so many women authors like writing male leads. Because that agonizing feeling, that’s how it is to be a woman, all the time. And it’s so relieving to get to leave that behind when writing a male lead. Maybe this is all deeply problematic on my part, I’m not sure. Internalized misogyny? I don’t think so, just the bleak reality. But yes I likely have issues lmaaao

Another reason was simply that the last original work I wrote has a female lead, so I thought I’d switch it up again. Writing an m/m story is what got me into writing in the first place, so it feels weirdly like have to acknowledge that in new projects I take seriously, too?

and to acknowledge that story I already wrote with the female lead - Starlings - I agonized quite a bit less over her, and in hindsight, I think it’s because she’s a child. She goes through puberty during the story, surrounded by older women, and there are almost no men in the whole thing, so the dynamic is totally different. It’s not big on the romance, either, which also helps. So yeah. No anxiety there. But with a grown ass woman in a story that’s centered quite a bit around a super problematic romance? Anxiety. Anxiety for days. I also feel this anxiety when I write Hermione, btw.

there will definitely be a different kind of worrying writing this new original thing, though - writing a gay magical romance set in southern 1920s America is gonna require a TON of research, and I’m not taking that lightly. But that worrying isn’t nearly as personal, which makes a lot of difference.

I’m interesting in other people’s opinions on this! So please share if you’re willing. 🌸

[anachronisticcrab]

Disclaimer: Don't like? don't read, don't engage. More in an edited section at the bottom of the post.

Tell me why my roommate is kinda aphobic and started crying when I call them out on it ONCE

So we had a stupid argument (so dumb. But also not cause it's based in him being aphobic) over him shipping Jayvik in arcane.

My issues with this (I have not seen arcane nor will I watched it cause one of the characters has my dead name and it makes me uncomfy to hear it seen and spelled the same way, this is just what I have learned through ppl who have seen it)

Viktor is asexual canonically. Like from the creators mouth, he has been ace and possibly aro since the beginning. Everyone that I see that ships them draws Jayce and Viktor fucking. Leave him alone, he's an ace guy, I have like 3 and u gays have 5 million twinks to draw getting railed

Jayvik shippers often draw art in ways that comes across as ableist, pedophilic and infantalizing of Viktor. It's always big huge Jayce carrying around a teeny tiny Viktor and it bothers me. (Lots of ships do this, it's always weird and gross. I'm not pretending I've never enjoyed that art, cause it's sometimes really well drawn, but it's still a little creepy and ableist) ((Edit: not calling Jayvik pedophilic in canon, I'm saying the way that I've seen shippers treat them as 'Big strong man and tiny fragile uwu boy' comes across as pedophilic to me))

This is the big one: Jayce is Viktors allegorical rapist. The scene where Viktor does, Jayce throws him into a void and forever changes Viktors body and life without his consent because Jayce thought it would fix him. Very powerful as a disabled plot line of able bodied people doing things to a disabled body in order to 'fix' them, but gets even more powerful with Viktor being ace. An allo character does something to an ace characters body without their consent, forever changing their life, because they thought it would 'fix' them is an allegory for corrective rape. It's corrective rape. Don't ship Viktor with his allegorical rapist.

So those are my issues. I've talked to a few ppl about it, my roommate included. They know my opinion on it, just not the details cause he has a habit of crying his eyes out whenever he's criticized and I don't have the energy to deal with a grown man bawling his eyes out all the time.

The only thing I've ever said to him was an argument we got in where he said that making Viktor ace was infantalizing disabled bodies and I got pissed at him and he cried

Today, my roommate decided to show me and 2 friends of ours fanart of Jayvik, with the weird size dynamic and Jayce carrying Viktor around and I said 'how is that not infantalizing but him being ace is?'

My roommate agreed, and then I started talking about how that, and the allegorical rape, made it awful to ship Jayce and Viktor and I said 'leave the aces alone, we don't ask a lot'.

Tell me why he shut down and then began crying, so I left the room cause I'm not apologizing for telling him to keep his aphobia in check, and when I came back he left and hasn't said a word since.

Tell me why I have to shut up when he says it's funny to see attractive characters as sexless cause its an inherently humiliating quality, that making someone disabled asexual is infantalizing and gross, that the few ace characters there are are definitely fucking each other cause they're human, when he says aphobic things 10 times a day, but he gets to cry when I call him out on that?

Plus now I feel guilty cause my friends keep shooting me looks since I'm not apologizing, and when they started trying to placate him I was quiet other than to say 'not just about you, but like. Yeah' l

Why are allo people the way they are?

Edit: I've updated the tags to remove arcane and anti Jayvik, ppl were right that I shouldn't have added them to begin with. In my defense for anti Jayvik, I didn't know u needed hyphens in tags now for it to work properly, I'm not really active on tumblr these days. Secondly, Just so y'all know. I don't feel like arguing with allo people anymore cause I spend so much of my time catering to allo people. If you're upset, don't read. If u comment upset about me being pissed at allo people for an opinion that I'm objectively correct on, I will be blocking you immediately cause that's how the internet works. Don't like, don't engage. Leave me alone, this is a vent post cause I'm sick of allo people being stupid Third, not claiming that this is my roommate being aphobic. Of all the things he's done, this is one of the least aphobic, it's just still frustrating. This post is mostly because he can't take any criticism on anything without crying and it's irritating, especially when I call him out on questionable behaviour. Fourth, do NOT try to educate me, a fucking aroace person, on aroace terminology and realities. I am aware that not all ace ppl are aro and that not all aro ppl are ace and that ace ppl and aro ppl both can date and fuck. I know that shit. That's not what this is about. Fuck off. Fifthly, no I have not watched arcane, I say that so early on in the original part of this post. I will not watch arcane, this post isn't really about arcane. It's a vent post about my roommate not being able to handle me pointing out that their mindset and the way they view things is aphobic. This is not an attack of arcane, it's an attack of people refusing to listen to aroace ppl when we raise concerns. Such as a number of ppl in the comments did within an hour of me posting this. Lastly, I'm not saying you can't ship JayVik, do whatever you fucking want. I'm saying that I have issues with it as a ship, and I am irritated at my roommate for immediately crying and running off when I tried to raise my concerns and opinions on the relationship, the concerns I have coming from the place of an aroace person who is fed up with them being blatantly aphobic in other contexts and things that they say. Update TL;DR: Don't like? Don't read, don't engage. Not for you. If you try to argue with me, you will be blocked cause I don't have time for that shit. This is a vent post, not an attack on fucking anyone and the opinion of one random tumblr user has no affect on you or your favourite show. There are more important things to yell at ppl for.

[berryhatfingers]

You said you wanted to make people mad on the internet, and you have instead brought delight to my internet. I love your opinions and share them. So I’m build on what you said and potentially piss people off myself.

I feel like despite it being such a huge deal in TSC the fandom has decided to ignore the fact Jean is 19, that he was 14/16(I can’t remember if he had two years before joining the line and I’m too tired to check) when he was sold and because the most abused and targeted person there. The one Riko learned, practiced, and intensified his sadism on.

Like the sexualization of Jean is so frustrating to me. I get that everyone heals and responds to sexual abuse/assault differently, but that’s not the only thing Jean needs to heal from, there’s also cult-aspects, being owned/trafficked, his sister having been sold as a child bride to her death, years of ritualistic torture/abuse, and others, so much else.

Because yeah, Jean is a fighter, his instinct is to fight, he also fights in his own way: keeping French, his accent, and teaching Kevin the language were just some ways in the nest, he had rebellions, smart ones. What he’s doing a USC is also such a big ‘fuck you’ to Riko hating Jean-Yves the French boy. THEIR PR STRATEGY INCLUDES HIM BARELY SPEAKING ANYTHING BUT FRENCH. Like that interaction in the mall wasn’t official strategy, but it’s such a healing move, he’s getting to fight/rebel safely, not having to panic over public statements/speaking, holding openly hold his nationality, his language, his personhood. THAT is what TSC is about.

Yes, we have simping after Jeremy, and yeah, JereJean is probably gonna start teasing in. But just for some perspective guys, it took me seven years to be able handle that sort of intimacy, friends are hard on their own, but those extra layers that are part of sexual intimacy (which I’m including kissing in) had more layers of vulnerability, trust, and triggers.

I want TGR to be Jean getting to heal, coming into his own, letting him have friends, a home, something like freedom, and maybe a flirtation with Jeremy. But Jean didn’t have friends (‘cause cult) he had alliances, his closest relationship was with Zayn and when that bargain got broken we know what Zayn let be. That was a connection/alliance that Jean had to build and fight for. Renee was complicated, friends that could have been romantic in different circumstances. Renee is the first person Jean was friendly with since his sister who hasn’t complicit in his abuse, and even then she knew about the abuse, and removed him from that environment without his consent and without a plan (thank you Neil for sorting that).

So Cat, Laila, Jeremy, the floozies, the Trojans (minus Lucas) are Jean’s first experiences of friendship and amicable companionship. Let the kid breathe. Because @sidevolt is right, he’s NINETEEN.

SocMed AU is a great little teehee moment, and I love it. But don’t forget canon, how young these character are, how traumatized they are. When thinking about Jean remember he and his sister were human trafficked as children, Elodie died, published is the only version where Jean didn’t, and now he is a traumatized kid who’s trying to figure out what life looks like without daily violence and threat of horrific abuse.

I know a lot of pre-2024 fandom material has Jean as older, but even then he was still what, 20/21? Still YOUNG. I didn’t understand the weight of these character’s youth when I first read these books, they felt old, as can happen when you read about characters older than yourself, but I’m in my mid-20s now. I am still young, but I look at these characters and I feel the heaviness Wymack does, because they’re kids, they’re barely legally adults, but further they’ve had to act adult so much while still being KIDS.

So yeah, don’t sexuality these characters, don’t rush let, let them be, let them heal, let them find their place and their rhythm to life rather than saying their healing should be rushed/haphazard so you can get JereJean to be canon in a month.

Let the art be art. If you want those things write or read fanfiction, I know I’ve come off judgey and preachy in this, but like guy, not everything needs to be canon, and not everything need to happen fast in a series either. That’s the power of fandom, that you can have what you want without the canon. Have an au, canon-divergence, headcanon, ship, dream for post-story future, whatever, I enjoy such things, and you get to as well! We can all enjoy fandom spaces however we do so, these are just my thoughts, k thanks.

(Also an aside @sidevolt if I ever start writing fics I will definitely ask for translation help)

i'm french and in my early twenties, of course i want to make people mad on the internet!

here are some opinions :

- i don't want JereJean to kiss in tgr, Jean is not ready for that.

- Jean isn't a weak submissive damsel in distress, he is a 6ft man who's first instinct is fight. just because he had to submit to survive doesn't mean he's naturally submissive

- and yet he is still a teenager with no normal life experiences, so sexualizing the way some people in this fandom do is weird

- the way some people sexualize any character is weird actually

- the socmed AUs can be funny, even if they're ooc and not realistic

- i want tgr to end with Jeremy's graduation, and book 3 to be about Jean learning to live on his own during his last year

- i don't like it when people use french words in fanfic bc most of the time they don't use the words correctly and it makes me cringe. sorry about that one it's a little mean but it had to be said. i'm more than okay to help with translation tho, just dm me !

that's it for now but there will probably be more.

i'd say "don't like, don't interact" but please, interact :)

[cherryskieszz]

Do you guys think William Afton would say everybunny instead of everybody

[sieglinde-freud]

oh im obsessed with this actually… who ever wrote this one i am kissing u on the forehead and hugging you real tight… inigo is such a loverboy im kkkhhhhhhijnsdnfng

[beanghostprincess]

Affirming Luffy is aroace and using it as an excuse to talk shit about a ship is both fucked up and just extremely wrong. And I'm saying "wrong" in the sense of "actually not accurate" because Luffy is not canonically aroace. It is a very popular headcanon and he does seem uninterested in both romance and sex. So much you could even say it's coded. But inside of that term, which happens to be a spectrum, by the way, there are infinite possibilities and different ways of experiencing both aromanticism and asexuality. Affirming Luffy denies relationships like those completely is both inaccurate in canon and also extremely harmful for the aroace community because he could still be canonically aroace and want those relationships. Maybe in different ways. Maybe with little to no frequency. But still, saying it's "wrong" to ship him with people that way is insulting to the aroace community and to the fans of Luffy ships. Not to mention that the people who often use a character being "aroace" as an excuse (I'm referring to when the character is not canonically uninterested completely in those relationships, by the way) are not even aroace themselves. They use our identity only in negative situations. They speak about being allies, but only mention our existence when it comes to harmful statements and ship wars that don't even matter. There's so much you could say about Luffy being aroace! So many possibilities about his way of seeing the world and experiencing love in different ways! And yet, people decide to infantilize his character and make a whole deal out of him not knowing what sex is and being an innocent baby who doesn't know what masturbation is. He's nineteen. He's a pirate. He is not stupid, thank you very much. He knows what he's talking about, whether he wants to do it or not is a whole other story and it depends on your views on him. And infantilizing him only comes from a place of infantilization of the aroace identity itself, and it's so, so fucked up. Of course, these people are also the ones who treat him like a baby and excuse themselves by saying "those are neurodivergent traits" when they probably aren't even neurodivergent themselves. It's disgusting. And also, as a reminder, do not post hate comments about a ship in its tag. It's really mean. Hope I made things clear <3

[marshmellowtea]

i change my mind aleheather can be yaoi too cuz if alejandro is a gay man then heather is a trans guy/transmasc in the same way that if heather is a lesbian alejandro is a trans girl/transfem. Do Not Separate Them

[crownedwille]

.

[sukugo]

everytime sukugo gets called a crack ship i suffer +10 damage

[swords-of-a-soilder]

I've sleep on it here's my beef

If you wanna log in to participate in a event that fine, I get for some CC's purgatory 2 isn't lore (I mean it clearly is, but some players are choosing not to involve it in their lore.) But when you've made the discussion not to take part in the lore you can't ask about it on screen.

I literally got confused when someone told me bad had a reason and to check there lastest reblog, thinking the book gave them the reason and apologising, this fully left me thinking that the residents where told to return home until I was discussing with someone else and realized I fully misread that (I need to wear my glasses more TBh)

But this play apart of the problem because what I except was a lore reason and I went looking for it, just to find out later there is no lore reason bad just calls himself vactionbadboy halo when he wants to log in.

Look I get playing purgatory for fun, I get wanting to log in to see your friends, Tubbo did it, and Pac did it; but the difference with them being they made up a reason to be there (the boat didn't leave) is a completely valid reason.

I can see them going home and then later being drag back to the boat by the incompetent egg Island workers, but jumping back and forth to the island in the middle of purgatory is problematic.

If you don't want to take part in the lore then don't, don't ask questions about what's happening lore wise (on stream he can always inquire in dms ) , don't do things on the Island that messes with other people's lore or breaks the immersion make it easy for the actual people who care about the lore; Ie: fan fiction writers, artists, role players (I am all these things) to pretend you're not there!

This sounds dumb but I genuinely, when lore is happening take note of every little the to go "how can I explain this in lore, how could I enhance this in lore" to help with my fan art or fan works.

Genuinely I have a list of game mechanics,(chat, tabs list, death messages) and have written ways to explain them in lore, so you can imagine my annoyance when someone who isn't supposed to be involved ask questions fresh of a lore event.

I think the confusion to add to it is that Phil has been trying to do more improv on the spot right now rp; like leaving cuucurhoo the notice of the eye guy and keeping his webcam on until a big event ( and I love him for that, genuinely I love lore so much because it feeds art and fan fiction)

But I feel like im being taken a fool when someone who isn't technically supposed to be there asks questions about something they're not supposed to be awear of and even bounces of it like they're in lore "yeah it looks like we're going to war with you guys." we who? You're supposed to be Vacation halo, you aren't in purgatory right, if so how did you get home?!

Get what I'm saying? It sucks because everyone else so far seemed to-do A decent job of staying out of lore if they want to visit some committing to not coming back to the island at all (cough* bolas *cough ) .

If you don't wanna take part in the lore don't complicate the already existing lore, it annoynes me greatly.

I don't mind the attenting events so much, it's the fail rping of discussing something you shouldn't know not long after it happened. (Metagaming)

[fiona-fififi]

...

[themyscirah]

Reading shit comics kind of sucks but at least I get the satisfaction of proving my own point w this

[quietwingsinthesky]

Do you agree w/ the fandom interpretation that john was so homophobic he’d have beaten up and abandoned his sons for being gay? Cause sure, he grew up in the 60s as a mechanic and then later became a marine during the vietnam war, but i also don’t think homophobia would’ve necessarily been a priority for him? Like obviously he’s not gonna be the full on supportive and politically correct loving dad, but i think that the fandom’s general opinion on that is pretty warped by people’s relationships w/ their own fathers

I do think this is one place where people tend to project. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that; working out our issues through fiction is healthy and good! I don’t think there’s any canon proof of it beyond, as you said, him being a marine from the sixties who would probably not be super knowledgeable about being queer, maybe a little apprehensive about it from what he’s absorbed through the culture he grew up in. I think we’d be correct to point out that if Sam or Dean were queer, he might be uncomfortable about it, he might try to avoid the topic, which is in of itself hurtful.

The thing about me is: I fully disagree that John was ever physically abusive towards his kids. At most, I will bend this interpretation to say he was probably too harsh on them while teaching them to fight and that maybe he and Sam have traded blows before when arguments got too loud (by blows, I mean, probably shoving with the yelling, you know, assertion of physical space. It seems realistic to me that two people who have been using violence for a long time to protect themselves, and for John, his family, down to the hierarchal power he’s put in place of him -> Dean -> Sam, would resort to it when things got too heated.)

(I also think that sometimes fandom’s insistence that John had to be physically abusive can sometimes get a little insulting because it perpetuates the idea that emotional abuse does less harm and can be overlooked and for flattening out John’s character in a way the show very literally pointed to and said He Did Not Do That. This is the entire point of Max’s episode in s1, for the show to point out that their experiences of abuse were different. How well it was handled is arguable, but I take it as clear evidence that when we talk about John’s relationship with his sons, the focus should be on the emotional abuse, the codependency he developed with Dean from a very young age, his neglect of them both, his attempts to suppress Sam, etc. And I appreciate this about the show, because you can’t talk about any of those things without also talking about why they’re happening, why John thinks this is necessary, how he loves his sons and isolates them to protect them and ends up doing more and more damage that will never leave them through their entire lives.

I’m sure there’s depictions of John being physically abusive that handle it with the same amount of nuance that the show handles him being emotionally abusive in canon. I have not seen them, unfortunately. I’ve seen John being physically abusive 90% of the time just being used as shorthand for him being Bad and Evil and A Terrible Father. Which does not interest me. So I will remain here as a staunch defender of He Would Not Fucking Hit His Kids.)

Sorry, okay, we got off topic there this is about gay shit.

The point of All Of That was for me to be able to say, John’s not going to react to his sons being queer by beating them. He’s definitely not going to abandon them. Hello? John Winchester? Abandon his kids? John Winchester, the guy who has been keeping them in warded up motel rooms their whole lives and moving them across the country out of paranoia the demon who killed his wife could find them if they say anywhere too long? John Winchester who only trusted one or two people to ever look after his sons when he went on a hunting trip too long? We think that John would ditch his kid because they’re queer???

Like I said, I think the most realistic reaction for John, (if not just flat out him going ‘that’s fine, now load this gun while I time you because that’s more important for me to know that you can do’, because. He kind of has bigger priorities to worry about here. Like werewolves.) would be discomfort and pushing it out of his view, ignoring it. Which would still fucking hurt! And would have horrible effects on Sam and Dean both, would encourage Dean to repress it if he thinks his dad is ashamed of him, would push Sam away if he trusts John with this fact about himself and can’t be accepted easily.

I just think this is truer to John’s character.

Anyway. If nothing else here persuades anyone reading that John Would Not Fucking Do That, well. He thought his kid was demonspawn, remember? He thought Sam was corrupted and might not be able to be saved. I don’t think you can get more clear queercoding than that, and you know what John’s very telling response was to that information, to finding out something a thousand times more terrifying than Sam being gay ever could be? To refuse to look at it. To insist to himself that whatever Hell wanted with Sam, he wouldn’t let it happen. To tell Dean to take care of it, because even when John is certain that his son might literally become a demon, he could never bring himself to pull the trigger on him. Because he loves Sam.

So like. He literally would not do anything for the much smaller realization that Sam is gay. His son has demon blood that might turn him super evil, and John still wouldn’t hurt him.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is, I try to keep the fact that John loved his sons at the forefront of my mind when I’m writing stuff about him, because I think if you let that slide out of your head, you can very easily make him much worse, much more flat than he was in canon. The real picture of him is just an extremely flawed man in a terrible situation who fucks up his kids as much as he protects them.

And also he wouldn’t care about them being gay because JohnAzazel real and true and they fucked sloppy in that hospital basement-

[ryutarotakedown]

oh that reminds me i wanted to make another poll: