#this isn’t ship hate this is ship propaganda

[notaplaceofhonour]

A reminder that Anti-Israel doesn’t mean “Pro-Palestinian”.

The militant faction referenced here is Ansar Allah (aka The Houthi Movement, commonly known as just “the Houthis”), a totalitarian theocracy that does not mince words about hating not just Israel, but the Jewish people. Their slogan, which they display as the symbol for their movement, is “God is the Greatest; Death to America; Death to Israel; A Curse On the Jews; Victory to Islam”.

Also no, the Houthis didn’t risk jack shit for Palestine. They’re one in a long line of militant factions who are directly responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Abandoning their own people’s humanitarian needs to wage war isn’t a “risk” for them; it’s standard operating procedure.

The people obscuring this fact to position them as heroes for opposing Israel are engaging in dishonest, manipulative, and immensely antisemitic propaganda. (Also, like, “puppets”? Really? That’s not even subtle.) You do not even have to scratch beyond the surface of just “who is this referencing, and what is their slogan that they plaster everywhere on everything?” to know this. The fact that anyone would fall for it demonstrates gross negligence & a deep & unserious lack of curiosity on their part. There’s no excuse.

But what if you did actually spend more than 5 seconds to know more than 2 facts about the government of Yemen? Well, you might find:

There is a long history of antisemitic violence in Yemen. It culminated in 1949, and roughly 47,000 of Yemen’s 50,000+ Jews fled to Israel. A few remained, but the Houthi regime (which formed in the 90’s and is the one that is now attacking Israeli ships) is so openly, explicitly, & genocidally antisemitic that it forced even that remnant to flee.

The last Jew in Yemen, Levi Salem Musa Murhabi, is currently rotting in a Houthi prison where he has been illegally detained & tortured for the last 7+ years. Our last sign of life was in 2022, so we don’t actually know if he’s still alive.

The country that tried to murder all their Jews & continues to torture the only one that remains is now attacking the country where all those Jews went, all the while chanting “death to Israel, a curse on the Jews.” Do the math. They didn’t “show up” for Palestinians. They pulled up on Israel because that’s where all the Jews they’ve been trying to murder for years live.

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Semi Finals

Propaganda Under Cut

Jane Crocker

Dynamite gumshoe gal.... I will NOT be talking about homestuck 2 or any of that mess. She loves baking and held so much rage inside of her and I understand. Was hated by large swathes of the fandom for "standing in the way of Dirk/Jake" because she had a crush on Jake. 

She had the hots for Jake, but couldn't accurately convey her feelings, and he ended up with another male character (Dirk). Later on she was brainwashed and evil and had him captured and it was heavily implied some awful things would be done but a fair amount of people who ship Dirk and Jake took that as free reign to villainize her entirely for getting in between them when she never really did.

So victimized by the yaoi fangirls people claim Random Fascism in the sequel was in-character

Peggy Carter

She’s a victim of Stucky mainly bc of the way marvel used her to give Steve an ooc ‘happy ending, but I know I’ve seen some posts calling her toxic or something it was 2019 so In CAT:FA, she’s introduced as a confident British agent. She has some chemistry w Steve Rogers (although more fans (on tumblr at least) preferred Steve and Bucky). She wasn’t just *woman who is strong*, but also had some emotional depth, with an actual range of emotion outside of angry and sad. She had a spin-off show, and she just continued to fight Russians and misogynists, even having chemistry in an almost wlw relationship and an eventual marriage to a famous shield agent. She went through character development and just was an awesome character. Then you know what endgame does? It has Steve Rogers travel back in time and take all of that development away. Most fans were mad at Marvel, and a lot were mad at Steve, but some fans threw Peggy completely under the bus, saying that they traded the (fanon?) queer ship/(canon) friendship for a bland love interest, which, um, she was so much more then that? I remember people really disliking Peggy, which isn’t fair to her character when she is/was so much more then that.

Peggy is vilified by people who ship Steve with his war comrade Bucky Barnes. I’ve even seen people claiming baselessly that she was secretly HYDRA the whole time. 

She gets in the way of stucky which OBVIOUSLY gives people, most of them women themselves, the right to be ridiculously misogynistic. Dismissing her character arc, traits, presence in the movies and her part in Steve Roger's life, saying she is insignificant on the ground of very subjective readings is one thing, but outright calling her 'just some old coochie', among other colourful, wonderful things, is another. They also keep reaching to villainize her (saying she's a literal nazi which she's not) and cancel her so their ship is somehow made more valid for it, erasing the competition as it were.

[olderthannetfic]

There is absolutely something to be said about how the activism-ization of the act of fan content creation has outright ruined femslash. F/f ships are REQUIRED and if you’re not creating for them you’re a misogynist not doing your part for the ~revolution~ which OFC has resulted in sapphics getting shitty content made halfheartedly by armchair activists looking for brownie points and head pats that push sexless propaganda for the radfem cause and the actual bisexual women and lesbians and just f/f in general fans get to suffer through this forced bullshit with the added caveat of being harrassed ourselves for creating beyond the bounds of ‘content for the ~revolution~’ like literally ANYTHING sexual that isn’t a muscle mommy and a femme waif.

Yes I am a lesbian and I hate it here.

--

I remember reading this one Rizzoli & Isles fic early on in that show's run and being shocked when the POV character was staring at the other one's ass. It had been so long since I'd seen femslash so unabashedly thirsty. It was such a funny moment. Shouldn't the characters in a fic that's little more than PWP stare at each other's asses?

[do-you-ship-this-comic-ship]

propaganda:

They’re two space outcasts who managed to find the other and almost always have each-other backs when the rest of the galaxy is against them. They don’t get along all the time and can have their fights/falling outs, but they always manage to find a way back to one another and it clear they both care about eachother deeply, even if rocket in particular is way to angry and emotionally stunted to show it most of the time. Personal favourite moments with them include the 2015 Groot miniseries where Rocket, despite hating earth, helps Groot to go on a space road trip there, (and the moment in that same comic where they say they’d go across the galaxy and back for eachother 🥹) the two of them going on a virtual beach vacation together in the Groot and Rocket Raccon comics, and them straight up saying I love you to eachother in the gotg eidos game and the Telltale game

I do slightly prefer their platonic bromance as is, but no one can tell me there isn’t at least more than one universe where they’re a married couple.

Also I just think it would be super funny if there’s a version of the gotg where the main romantic couple is the weird comic relief talking Racoon and sentient tree monster rather than any ship involving the conventionally attractive humanoid heroes like starmora.

[nickel156]

I've got a serious problem,

y'all and I need to talk about it. I am deeply offended that I'm not getting threatening messages from the Elriels in my inbox like the rest of the Eluciens.

Clearly, I’ve been slacking in my Elucien propaganda because my inbox should be full of hate by now. And I know why—I’ve been so caught up in posting about how Cassian is a walking red flag that I haven’t been putting enough energy into properly preaching the gospel of Elucien, aka the superior ship. I must be loosing my edge.

I mean, here I am, openly supporting Elucien—aka the most logical and superior pairing—and yet… crickets. Meanwhile, other Elucien shippers and Gwynriel supporters are getting threats left and right for daring to think that Elain and Azriel might not be the endgame couple. Where’s my hate mail, Elriels? Don’t you want to tell me how wrong I am for shipping Elain with her actual mate instead of Azriel??

I’m just saying, if my inbox isn’t blowing up with angry messages from pissed Elriels telling me how delusional I am, am I even doing this right? I’ll take this as a personal failure and step up my Elucien game because clearly, I haven’t ruffled enough feathers. I'll work harder to trigger the masses.  😘

[rainbowstargazerlilies]

Mechs Ships Tournament: Shipping Round 4 Poll 1

Propaganda:

Polymechs:

They're inseparable they hate each other they would die for each other they actively enjoy killing each other ect ect ect

Look they're immortal and stuck in a spaceship you don't think they've hit all possible combinations over the years and settled into a weird comfortable vibe you can only get if youve murdered, been murdered, and had sex with every one (maybe minus nastya) of your friends?

immortal space pirats.... cuddle piles, romantic... not romanticm... poly mechs <3

(Points to every album) there thats my propaganda. But in all seriousness they are a group of immortals with nothing to do but sing and love each other in their own fucked up ways <3 

Chaotic little guys on a ship for a long time, the relationship web they got going on could rival the coven web

you cant tell me you would live with people for millions of years without it getting even a little gay.

Polygamy

when you spend millennia doing music and violence and shenanigans with the same 8 other people on a ship (and when the ship is technically another person), there's bound to be some group canoodling

i care them

they're everything to each other!!!

i refuse to pick

it’s polymechs!! what isn’t to love

Look at them.

how could you pick individual ships when they are so good together!! with the exception of nastya + jonny cos they are siblings your honour.

a lot of people have polymechs with her and aurora being monogamous but she canonically has queer orgies. on mechs tumblr account she describes herself as "The only one seemingly capable of a committed, responsible and fair relationship" so polymechs with all of relationships besides nastyaurora being on and off and everchanging is both the best polymechs and the most canon compliant polymechs to me

The idea that they're crewmates. You ask one of them what their relationship is with another and they say, "That's my crewmate". And then, maybe one of them meets someone on another ship, and they mention they don't have strong feelings about someone because, "they're only my crewmate" And they just cannot comprehend the idea of being crewmates with someone and not having strong feelings about them. They're immortal and half of them hate life, but even if that wasn't true, they'd die for any of the others a million times over. They've murdered billions of people on a whim, but even if that wasn't true, they'd murder anyone if it made one of their crewmate's lives a bit better. Remember how Tim blew up a moon for Bertie? He had only known Bertie for about 10 years. What would he do for people he had known for about 10 millennia? What would Ashes do for the people who would never betray them? What would Nastya do for the people who would always spend time with her and never die? What would Brian do for the people who would always forgive him for following his beliefs? What would Raphaella do for the people who are always willing to help her with her experiments? What would Ivy do for the people who'd always stay and tell their stories? What would the Toy Soldier do for the people who only ordered it to do what it wants to do and always lets it be involved? What would Jonny do for the people he could never permanently hurt? What would Marius do for his family? They all love each other more than anything, even if they don't have the words for it. (via @mchasmfiend)

Loki/Sigyn:

https://youtu.be/TdKCUmOa5Jw?si=Y3owraM96zp4kdrs and https://youtu.be/nxVjWJJmt9Q?si=76dQ6LBg00eldlUY

anti ship lesbians/sappics

Transgender lesbian anarchists.

spsaphics

Round-up for the round here :)

[andcenterfolds]

Three types of Byler antis I’ve seen online:

1) Romantic M*leven truthers (they believe on the type of Wattpad type of romance, wholeheartedly see M*leven as the primary driving force of the show)

Most common lines used: Mike loved El at first sight, Mike can’t live without El, El will be heartbroken if Mike leaves her (as if she wouldn’t do it first)

What I observed: they project on El having Mike as this handsome heroic gentleman who will swoop in and save her

2) Homophobic GA (mostly straight conservative men, on Twitter they have athletes as their pfp)

Most common lines used: Mike isn’t gay, Mike isn’t into “that”, “Gay propaganda”

What I observed: they see Mike as the alpha of The Party so he has to be paired with a powerful but vulnerable female protagonist who needs him

3) Girlboss malewife M*leven dynamic enjoyers (most toxic of all, teenage to early 20s Twitter users with an actress or kpop idol selfie as their pfp)

Most common lines used: “ironic” homophobia against Will, makes fun of real people instead of having an actual argument because being mean online is cool and it’s alright because they’re women

What I observed: they think Mike kissing El’s foot is a groundbreaking dynamic, insult Byler as “another white gay ship when theirs is a…straight…white…ship…

(addendum) Bonus: a subset of this third type is when they’re a Millie stan. They can’t separate characters from actors so: a criticism with El’s character is an attack against Millie, their hate with Will getting in the way of their ship extends to Noah.

The common denominator of the the three? Projection 😭 they see themselves as either El or Mike, they lack objectivity to watch the show for its visual storytelling.

[jahtrashh]

I saw your take on Zuko and like I agree so much. this fandom either idolises him or hates him and I always found that sooo weird. same goes with characters like Jet who are somehow treated like perfectly functioning adults by the fandom and held accountable of their actions as if they were grown men. and that’s so freaking weird. the point of Zuko’s redemption arc is that his arc isn’t linear, he makes mistakes, learns from it, makes up for it. as for Jet, although not a big fan of the way the writers handled his death, he’s literally being seen as an unredeemable monster, as if worse that characters like OZAI OR ZHAO by many fans and… just… how ?? why ?? they are both 16 ?? like yeah, they did so much bad stuff, they did really messed up stuff but they are also quite literally products of their environment and a freaking 100 years war. how is Zuko, fed with propaganda, on a ship since he’s 13, with a freaking general as his only paternal figure at that time, surrounded by men twice his age who are also either soldiers or at least army related, and still 16 at the time, suppose to be a “nice guy” archetype that does nothing wrong. like please be for real one second. and don’t get me started on Jet. whole village burned to the ground, orphan, had to raise so many kids, probably grew up in extreme poverty. ofc he’s messed up. ofc he’s violent, blinded by rage. but again, 16 !!! HE’S 16 !! it kills how people don’t realise that teenagers (especially teenage boys) are anything but mature, collected and emotionally rational. like bfr.

but in the atla fandom ig saying this would make me a zuko/jet apologist. whatever that means. as an adult i just see a bunch of messed up kids in the middle of the war, and that’s basically it. at best i feel bad for them, at worst i pity them.

Say it louder for the people in the back. I don’t know how to dumb it down enough for people to wrap their damn head around how these are in fact, also, teenagers involved in war. The world is in shambles during war, right and wrong are easily blurred during those times, and it takes a very special person to be able to differentiate between the sides without getting too caught up in what they believe is right or wrong.

Zuko could’ve stayed a racist, imperialist, dipshit. But by the end of the show, he turns into just a simple dipshit who accepted his life changing 180 with open arms. Yes he said some insensitive shit to aang about his beliefs and mocked his anti-violent views even when he joined them in season 3, but AGAIN, not only was he still learning how to be a decent human being, he was also blinded by his own hatred of his father, mixed with the very much pro-violent nature of the fire nation, PLUS the lack of education on Aang’s culture and philosophy which was AGAIN, taught around PRO-PA-GAN-DA the FN created. All of which, takes time to unlearn. On top of figuring himself and who he was, which is what most teenagers, more often than not will have a whole crisis about ALONE. I honestly don’t know how people expect a redemption arc to go, we’ve all had to learn how to be better about things, and the progress isn’t going to be liner nor will it always be easy. That is human nature. That is LIFE.

And on Jet’s case, why do people think it’s such a terrible thing to make some characters who were victims of war crimes, to be angry, to lust for revenge against the perpetrators, or be irrational and violent. THEY HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO. The FN took the last bit of Jet’s life that he barely even had and stripped all of that completely away from him like the savages that they are. Why is it a terrible thing to be angry at people who didn’t think twice about the families, the sense of community that his village had? I agree that Jet was going too far when he was trying to take it out on innocent people, but can you really blame him? He didn’t have an adult to help him out on the importance of emotional maturity and how to be angry at the ones who actually harmed you like Zuko did, and even if he did, teenagers won’t be emotionally matured TRULY until they develop into adults. He had to be the mock adult for the kids younger than him, he didn’t have time to decode himself and better his actions because he was too focused on protecting the freedom fighters and himself against the FN’s abuses.

People don’t realize that this is not babying them, or being so called “apologists” this is called understanding why these two are the way that they are. Why are they like this? And it’s so much to take in and talk about at once that you’d need an entire college level essay to completely break down and comprehend how deep war can affect not just adults, but teenagers and children. Those two groups don’t have true moral compasses, so the environment and circumstances can really impact and easily mold their minds to fit the standards in said situation in order to survive it. This is called self-preservation. A more than common trauma response.

I mean seriously, I heard someone say they can understand Zuko hate but not Iroh hate, when he has in fact, done much worse than Zuko has ever done in those 3 years at sea. I love Iroh, but he’s an adult, why are we choosing adults over traumatized and war-fed teenagers who mainly comply in that shit to seek approval from their actually psychotic, genocidal, narcissistic, and abusive father that would dispose of them if they didn’t fit his standards? Why are we quicker to blame the teenagedvictim of the FN’s attacks and cruelty, than the actual people, adults, who conducted the attacks?

Are we truly regressing as a fandom? The show wouldn’t give them their traumatic experiences and talk about their abusers if they wanted the viewer to antagonize the victims. Goes to show that the loudest voices screaming “irredeemable monster” and “they want people to feel sorry for him” never truly know who these characters are and how they operate, they need everything spoon fed to them which is very unfortunate. The real irredeemable monsters are right there in their face and they choose to look somewhere else.

It’s so obvious how people in this fandom pick and choose who to feel sympathy for, when they all needed it.

[sylkishagsuperiority]

It’s fascinating how two years after the show so many people still wholeheartedly believe the TVA propaganda of Loki and Sylvie being “the same person” and that Loki “fell in love with himself”.

Neither of those statements is true beyond the most surface-level interpretation, and while it works for the casual audience on some level (since most of them will look at it like “oh how funny, of course Loki would fall for himself”), it’s also been used to justify a hate campaign on a completely harmless ship.

Loki and Sylvie are only considered “the same person” because when HWR isolated the events of the Sacred Timeline (presumably the sequence of events that would lead to his birth and not any of his variants), he needed everything in every enslaved universe to happen the exact same way. That means every universe had to have the exact same people in it, making the exact same choices over and over again. But because every universe is its own reality, it wasn’t possible to make everything perfectly identical, and it only worked as long as the TVA was pruning branches 24/7. The universe wants to break free, after all. People want to make their own choices. But under HWR’s tyrannical rule, everyone was allowed only one singular path, a role to play.

That’s what “a Loki” is, at the end of the day. A role, an archetype, a catalyst to the Avengers. As long as the person assigned that role fulfilled their part, it didn’t matter if they were a white man, a Black man, a woman or an alligator. But at the end of the day, every person saddled with that role was their own individual. They’re not one person in multiple bodies. They’re not clones. They’re all completely separate, autonomous beings that exist independently of each other.

That’s where the accusations of Sylki being “transphobic” fall flat, because Loki and Sylvie are not, and have never been, the same person. Sylvie was never meant to be a fem Tom!Loki. She’s from a separate universe and never met him until they were both adults and probably well over a thousand years old. She led a completely different life and has entirely different memories, experiences and skill sets. People who purposely reduce her to a female version of someone else only do it so they have an “ethical” argument against the ship, but their misogynistic refusal to see Sylvie as her own separate person doesn’t change the fact that she’s exactly that and always has been. At no point in time did she ever exist as Tom!Loki, nor did he ever exist as her.

The TVA propaganda reduced variants to the same person because they only saw them as their assigned role on the Sacred Timeline and nothing else. And a lot of people bought it without giving it even a moment’s thought. But now that the Multiverse is free, the concept of variants doesn’t even exist anymore. Now there are bound to be universes where there is no Loki at all, or where the “God of Mischief” isn’t Asgardian, or where they don’t have powers, or a million different possibilities. And all of those people are only bound together by temporal aura - the only indicator the TVA used to identify variants, since DNA is useless (once again, Loki and Sylvie are not genetically related, which frankly should be obvious given we’ve seen an alligator variant and now also a Skrull Kang variant). Hell, for all we know, the temporal aura thing might not even work anymore either, given that the universe is free to do as it pleases instead of following a single predetermined path.

Tl;dr: Loki and Sylvie are not the same person, it was TVA propaganda meant to justify their 24/7 genocide of realities, and Loki didn’t fall in love with himself; Sylvie being as different from him as it gets is kind of the whole point.

[do-you-ship-this-taz-ship]

Propaganda: they’re both professional haterssss you know they fucking hate each other after their fight over custody of the Voidfish. they’re two bickering ex husbands who were never even married and the kid isn’t even theirs. their hate sex could knock the moon out of the sky and they’d still try to blame each other for it.

Submit a ship through the form or in my askbox!

[satyrn-exe]

12, 23, 25

sorry!!! i completely forgot about answering this!!! i noted the questions down then it just slipped my mind! this are all jrwi related :3

question: the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

answer: exandroth !! he’s a very interesting and awesome character! he’s entertaining, funny, and silly !!! theres a lot to love in canon material, but you could do a lot with him in terms of fan content

i know a lot of people hate exandroth because of how he treats peter, which is totally fair, but i dunno, i feel like he’s too silly to be absolutely despised. i have more of love to hate him thing with him :3

(obligatory disclaimer that i obviously understand he’s a villian and a Bad Guy, and i don’t like support him morally. but i enjoy those aspects a lot too!)

question: ship you've unwillingly come around to

answer: hmm… i think it would be jay x ensa. i just prefer bloodshot (jay x anastasia) and just couldn’t quite see the chemistry between them, in all honesty.

but the propaganda has reached me !! i think they are very cute and i love women in stem 🫶

question: common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

answer: spicy question here.. but i don’t know if i have an answer. maybe the people who kept demanding there be more canonically queer & lgbtq+ characters? this is an pretty old (and outdated) complaint but i always thought the people pushing it were rude and abrasive.

not that it’s bad to want more representation & to see yourself in media, especially your favourite media! but from what i remember (which isn’t a lot), people were pretty pushy about it

original post here !!

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Pepper Potts

So many fics make her bitchy and controlling for absolutely no reason she deserves better

So for this we have to think back to like... peak Avengers MCU era. I am sorry. Back when Avengers had just come out it was BRUTAL out there for anyone who didn't like Tony/Steve (Tony Stark, Pepper's canon love interest, and Steve Rogers aka Iron Man and Captain America). While the ship itself is like, fine, it got sour so fast because Pepper was demonized SO much. When she wasn't completely sidelined and ignored, she was a cheater or an abuser (??) or what-have-you in fics so the two men could get together. It's much better now and last I heard Pepper gets some of the love she deserves (bc we do love women in this house!) but oh MAN it was bad back then. TBH all MCU women were treated like garbage by the fanbase but she got the brunt of it because she was in the way of The Most Popular Ship. She was just too #girlboss I guess

Frequently villainized for being a canon love interest for Tony Stark. Often portrayed as a Nag, constantly bothering him about doing "work" for his "company" when he could be working on inventions or spending time with his love interest! Sometimes she just Doesn't Understand Him, inconsiderately pressuring him to stay out of being a hero instead of being who he really is; only the m/m love interest really understands him! Or maybe she's the aggressor, who took advantage of the power imbalance between her and her poor innocent *checks notes* boss in order to pressure him into a relationship he didn't really want where he was treated terribly, and only his m/m love interest can save him from her! Pepper deserves better!

Sharon Carter

she “got in the way” of stucky shippers, in the comics she’s like the love of Steve’s life 

When she first appeared she was unfairly treated by fans for "getting in the way" of the Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes ship. A shame because she's a really good character. I'd talk more about how unfairly Sharon, and her actress Emily VanCamp, have been treated by the fanbase and the creators, but that's a different story.

She and Steve Rogers were meant to have a romantic relationship, but the entire fandom and many Stucky fans dislike her because it wasn’t a good ship. I think she isn’t the best but she doesn’t deserve so much hate

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

PROPAGANDA

Katara Propaganda

"She's smart. She's powerful. She an eco-terrorist. She's got the ability to grow as a person. She's a victim of misogynistic fans who codify her as an annoying bitch (sadly not affectionate) cause she's the "mom character." And that's all she will ever be is "The mom character." She bested Azula and could blood bend your ass but won't cause she's chosen not to be a monster! But she's the annoying mom instead."

"if i have to hear ONE MORE *touches necklace* joke i’m gonna mcfreaking lose it"

"despite being one of the most well-written feminist characters of children’s TV, the fandom decides to define her based on her very realistic 14-year-old girl flaws. Ignoring her complex independent arcs and motivations, people love justifying their hatred towards her based on her one line directed at Sokka that he didn’t love his mother as much as she did. Which, if we’re being nitpicky, isn’t so harsh given that it was Katara who shouldered most of the burden of her death, as well as Sokka’s admittance that he doesn’t even remember his mother. Not to mention that ALL the characters make selfish mistakes given the fact that they’re all aged 12-15??? (Aang hiding Katara and Sokka’s father’s letter, anyone???) She really is an elegant breakthrough of the typical female character molds of “girl who is badass” and “girl with a crush on the mc who sits on the sidelines” and it’s so frustrating to see her get the most hate out of the Gaang"

Guinevere Propaganda

"Back in the day, there was an extremely loud section of the Merthur shippers who hated Gwen just for existing in a canon relationship with the characters. They spewed a lot of vitriol especially a mix of misogyny and racism to her because she "got in the way" of a popular ship.."

[letstrywritingmaybe]

I’m requesting yet again for yall not to leave me comments, I don’t need them and I don’t even necessarily want them. Especially if you’re going to question me and I don’t know you. I don’t care to defend myself. I hate conversing through comments, yeah I know it’s a thing but I don’t like it. I prefer messaging on tumblr or even an ask.

My reputation as a Shinichi hater is alive and well. Good, cause it’s true and I won’t deny it. I’ve been trying to escape this ship for years now and I still haven’t. I’ve said a million times I’m just here for Shiho, give me a better option and I’ll jump ships in a heartbeat! I just can’t get over how cruel he was to her, and how he tried to get into her good graces by pretending to be nice. Plus the canon ship propaganda is so tiring. Sure recently we’ve gotten some stellar moments and I try to focus on that, but I just think my queen deserves better. She deserves someone who can and will love her loudly without making her feel like they settled. Yes his actions speak louder than his words and it’s clear he cares about her, but then I get stupid shit about the canon ship and I’m just like really? This again? Give me a reason to root for them! Or at the very least let my queen live and let her move on. I could care less about him. Everyone fucking loves him already, where’s the love for my queen? I swear most fics go on about how perfect he is and how she’s the problem and how much she needs him, miss me with that bs. I get that in canon, and I’m so over it.

Now excuse me while I continue to write CoAi fics that end happily

Update: while I’m here ranting on my blog. I truly don’t understand why we continue to romanticize the idea of him being an idiot and expecting them to be closer when he didn’t fucking ask or make things clear. The amount of times I’ve heard my irl peeps complain about not knowing where they stand with someone cause it was never clarified is annoying. I don’t want that in fiction too even if I do prefer things to be realistic! Either let my queen make a move and be like this is what I want with you or have him say the actual words to get them together! What’s with all this not knowing and not being on the same page even though you’re supposed to know each other best??? Idk man. I just find it ooc for her to be open with her feelings so I think he has to be the one to spell it out. But then I read this fic and I’m like it’s well written sure but why is it my queen’s fault that she thinks they would be better off apart? That’s very in character to me. And yes him having a problem with it also makes sense, but then to have him go around and play the victim and be like why don’t you understand me???? Like what???? Boy you fucking didn’t say shit! And okay sure you can say she avoided him cause she would, but then why wouldn’t he be clear when they have the actual convo like why make her guess? She’s going to second guess cause of course she would! And that just makes it a whole mess again! Cause now he’s upset with her and she doesn’t get it and he still isn’t being straightforward. It’s 2024, is it really that hard to get a real confession out of him? Must it be coerced like whatever bs happened with the canon ship? Does he really have to lose her to finally go after her?? Cause at that point I low key fucking wish he would. I just really freaking hate that it’s always her fault. Why the fuck is it always her fault for not catering to him? I’m so annoyed cause I like the writing style but it’s exhausting reading this bs. I want out of this fandom. I really want to be done. I care way too fucking much and it’s not healthy at all for me.

[aragornsrockcollection]

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but Tolkien saying his work wasn’t allegory did not make LotR immune from being a reflection of his experiences, especially with WWI, and strong parallels between the emotional journeys of his characters in war and the emotional experience of Tolkien’s generation didn’t happen by accident, and we don’t have to pretend they did.

Tolkien didn’t even pretend they did. He talked about how the dead marshes were designed in direct reflection of no man’s land after the rain, craters in the earth from shells filled with rain water, nothing living but the potential of fallen soldiers staring back from any of the pools.

It is also true to say that the War of the Ring isn’t an allegory for WWI. A war being an allegory for war is… kind of a weak allegory. What we’re looking at is someone using their own experience with the horrors of war to make the internal worlds of his characters experiencing the horrors of war feel more real. Lobelia Sackville-Baggins isn’t an allegory for obnoxious relations, but I guarantee her character was not birthed pure from Tolkien’s imagination without him having met people like her in the same English countryside environment that inspired the Shire.

People keep bringing up ‘Tolkien doesn’t do allegory therefore your argument is invalid’ on my post about how the experience of the hobbits in LotR speaks to the experience of young men of Tolkien’s generation being shipped off to fight in WWI. Specifically, the fact that a shiny glorified version of war was sold to them previous to leaving.

And I’m also not saying Bilbo is equivalent to the war propaganda in early 1900’s Britain, I love Bilbo, I love his stories of adventure, I do not think he was trying to mislead the youth of the Shire, ok? That’s not the point here.

But isn’t it interesting how much the Hobbits talk about their adventure vs Bilbo’s adventure, and the fact that nothing is like they thought it would be, while Bilbo is also proven to be an unreliable (though still heroic, well meaning and sympathetic) narrator of the events of The Hobbit? This discrepancy between what the hobbits (especially Frodo) thought adventure would mean based on the stories of their elders and what it actually meant? And how that feeling of disillusionment was also an enormous part of WWI, and WWI vet JRR Tolkien’s generation’s experience of war?

Tolkien saying LotR wasn’t allegorical does NOT mean the character’s disillusionment in the book and the people’s disillusionment in history don’t speak to each other.

That’s not allegory, it’s parallels, it’s commentary on how war works in the context of an in universe war, it’s writing what you know.

He absolutely uses allegory all over the place in his books though and he is a dirty lier when he says he isn’t, you can come for me for saying THAT now if you want, but first let me tell you what in LotR isn’t an allegory and why I think Tolkien hated the idea so much:

The Ring is not the Atomic Bomb.

If I were Tolkien, and I wrote this story in which there was a big evil weapon that could destroy the world, much of which was written before 1945 when the Atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but it came out and became popular soon after those events and also during the Cold War and related nuclear arms race, I too would start telling people nothing I had written had any relationship with any events that had happened in real life ever.

To be clear ‘the Ring is the A-bomb’ is a completely tepid take. It only makes sense on the very shallowest level, and if you proceed with reading the books with the assumption that this is the intended take-away, you are going to be extremely confused at what the message about the atomic bomb even is.

The goal of the books is to drop ‘the bomb’ into the lava which ends the highly destructive war by breaking the spirit of the enemy (literally and figuratively, the literal spirit Sauron, and also once the will of Sauron is gone most of his troops, being slaves, flee). So the atomic bomb is good and should have been dropped!

… but the weapon that could destroy the world should never be used by anyone, to use it would make them evil themselves, and just as bad as the enemy, so the Atomic bomb is bad? And should not have been dropped?

Normal people change the course of wars! Wait, with atomic bombs? By not using atomic bombs? The bad guy is the one who made the atomic bomb, but the good guys have the atomic bomb, also there is only one atomic bomb and no chance of another atomic bomb, so that really captures the zeitgeist of the 50’s for sure.

But the world is understandably obsessed with the subject after the way WWII ended, so this comparison was absolutely inescapable in Tolkien’s book about the big scary weapon in the big scary war.

And even if the allegory were clear and consistent, it completely EVISCERATES everything else that Tolkien super cared about expressing with his work with the blunt force of a really really polarizing real life political agenda.

Tolkien cared SO MUCH about language, and the interactions of these fantasy races, and the enormity of history and mythology and our place in it, impermanence, hope in the face of despair, mortality, poetry, geography, what it means to be noble, what it means to heal, friendship, awe, a whole world. All that stuff he is remembered for, and the reason he is credited with creating a genre. He spent his whole life building and peopling this complicated world, and he didn’t want people to look at it and reduce it to a single real life issue that he didn’t even write in on purpose. He wanted his world and everything he put into it to be an escape that felt true, not a thin veil stretched over a hot-button issue.

Which I get, but I think his saying he didn’t intend there to be any allegory was just way simpler than saying “I put in tons of allegory, but you are picking up all the wrong ones.”

Like, come here and tell me Saruman and Isengard aren’t allegorical to the forces of industrialization in our world. Say it to my face. The trees literally take their revenge on them, COME ON.

Abstract concepts are even more liberally used for allegory, or tell me the Ring isn’t an allegory for Power that Corrupts.

Tolkien even says in the letter to his editor Milton Waldman (which was put by Christopher Tolkien as a sort of forward to the Silmarillion) that the type of allegory he dislikes is “intentional allegory.” Which is to say he dislikes obvious thinly veiled allegory which relates one to one with reality.

He kind of ignores the existence of moral allegory, which is indisputably a part of his books, which to remind ya’ll, are about fighting an ultimate evil and finding a part of it will always live inside yourself.

Listen, the man is not alive, I can never have this conversation to confirm, but I know in my soul he was mad at people calling his books allegory cause he invested so much in the literal world building and didn’t want people to sweep that all aside looking for what deep message he was trying to send about life by creating eighteen dialects of elvish.

He just wanted to make a cool language and for his literature friends to not blow past his cool language as window dressing. It’s not just window dressing, it’s a vital part of his world. But there is also a ton of allegory in his story. There is a ton of symbolism in his story, and he didn’t have a problem with that word, even though allegory is basically symbolism applied to narrative. He would have called what I am referring to as allegory “applicability.”

But ultimately it’s a big story, it fits a lot of things, and it is not going against his authorial wishes to read into it, and even if it was, stop limiting your experience of art by authorial intent. I think authorial intent is interesting, and it’s a fun angle to consider, thus why I try to imagine what allegory pissed off Tolkien the most in this post, but it is not everything and shouldn’t limit you.

For example, I don’t care what Tolkien thought, pipeweed is in fact marijuana, cause it makes me chuckle to think of hobbits stoned out of their minds.

TLDR: People who keep telling me to stop reading “allegory” into Tolkien’s work: you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[rainbowstargazerlilies]

Runoff Mechs Ships Tournament: Shipping Round 4.5

Two polls came to a tie this round, or within five votes of one! To be fair to all competing ships, I've decided to throw them all in this runoff. The top two ships will continue in the tournament, to face off against the clear winners of the other polls this round: the trio from HNOC and Polymechs and Lyf. Make your choice carefully.

Propaganda under cut

Propaganda:

Polymechs:

They're inseparable they hate each other they would die for each other they actively enjoy killing each other ect ect ect

Look they're immortal and stuck in a spaceship you don't think they've hit all possible combinations over the years and settled into a weird comfortable vibe you can only get if youve murdered, been murdered, and had sex with every one (maybe minus nastya) of your friends?

immortal space pirats.... cuddle piles, romantic... not romanticm... poly mechs <3

(Points to every album) there thats my propaganda. But in all seriousness they are a group of immortals with nothing to do but sing and love each other in their own fucked up ways <3 

Chaotic little guys on a ship for a long time, the relationship web they got going on could rival the coven web

you cant tell me you would live with people for millions of years without it getting even a little gay.

Polygamy

when you spend millennia doing music and violence and shenanigans with the same 8 other people on a ship (and when the ship is technically another person), there's bound to be some group canoodling

i care them

they're everything to each other!!!

i refuse to pick

it’s polymechs!! what isn’t to love

Look at them.

how could you pick individual ships when they are so good together!! with the exception of nastya + jonny cos they are siblings your honour.

a lot of people have polymechs with her and aurora being monogamous but she canonically has queer orgies. on mechs tumblr account she describes herself as "The only one seemingly capable of a committed, responsible and fair relationship" so polymechs with all of relationships besides nastyaurora being on and off and everchanging is both the best polymechs and the most canon compliant polymechs to me

The idea that they're crewmates. You ask one of them what their relationship is with another and they say, "That's my crewmate". And then, maybe one of them meets someone on another ship, and they mention they don't have strong feelings about someone because, "they're only my crewmate" And they just cannot comprehend the idea of being crewmates with someone and not having strong feelings about them. They're immortal and half of them hate life, but even if that wasn't true, they'd die for any of the others a million times over. They've murdered billions of people on a whim, but even if that wasn't true, they'd murder anyone if it made one of their crewmate's lives a bit better. Remember how Tim blew up a moon for Bertie? He had only known Bertie for about 10 years. What would he do for people he had known for about 10 millennia? What would Ashes do for the people who would never betray them? What would Nastya do for the people who would always spend time with her and never die? What would Brian do for the people who would always forgive him for following his beliefs? What would Raphaella do for the people who are always willing to help her with her experiments? What would Ivy do for the people who'd always stay and tell their stories? What would the Toy Soldier do for the people who only ordered it to do what it wants to do and always lets it be involved? What would Jonny do for the people he could never permanently hurt? What would Marius do for his family? They all love each other more than anything, even if they don't have the words for it. (via @mchasmfiend)

Loki/Sigyn:

https://youtu.be/TdKCUmOa5Jw?si=Y3owraM96zp4kdrs and https://youtu.be/nxVjWJJmt9Q?si=76dQ6LBg00eldlUY

anti ship lesbians/sappics

Transgender lesbian anarchists.

spsaphics

Brian/Tim:

THEY ARE BOTH VERY PRETTY

gay people

#they played tsuru+spouse and hatter+hare (tags via @majorshatterandhare)

Hatter/Hare:

Gay homosexual gay Tim and Brian gay

(Posh tim voice) "Hello!"

alice.