#this post is about fandom in general but it can also apply to real life bc a lot of people do assume that platonic=familial irl

[theinsomniacindian]

Look, I love family-coded relationships in fiction and all but not every platonic dynamic, especially those with significant age gaps need to be familial e.g. father-and-child, siblings etc.

Sometimes they can be stuff like chaotic coworkers, mentor and mentee, ride-or-die friends, forced to work together, roommates, frenemies etc.

Saying that every platonic or non-romantic relationship is basically 'sibling-coded' or 'parent-and-child' tend to dumb down complex dynamics into something simpler and easier to consume.

I'm not saying that familial dynamics can't be complex but most of the time, people just tend to go by popular depictions/stereotypes e.g. familial relationships don't always have to be sweet and healthy- they can be messy and even toxic at times- but most people tend to go for the former one. Sure, it's a personal choice what you want to depict but for some reason, I've only seen romantic relationships being depicted as messy and/or toxic.

Such assumptions also push forward the idea that any relationship that isn't romantic can only be familial, which reeks of amatonormativity. In a way, it's almost like affirming the idea that romantic relationships are superior to others due to the assumption that they are the most versatile.

Tl;dr platonic dynamics can be pretty interesting and varied without being family-coded in some way.

Disclaimer: I'm NOT saying that you can't enjoy familial relationships or have headcanons about them. The problem is when people start believing that every platonic relationship has to be familial in some way with no other alternative, which is what this post discusses.

[megismyname]

A few general statements for the fandom:

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

And yes this applies to personal or private information you may obtain or theorize about any of the players involved. Just because you obtained it “publicly” doesn’t mean it should be shared for the whole of the fandom. Ask yourself if this was being shared about you, would you want everyone that knows you discussing it? If not, keep it to a 4-5 person group chat.

Stop villainizing Nic and Luke for not performing on your perceived timeline.

Nicola is only 38 - she’s not in a “mid life crisis” and if I hear that one more time I’m gonna pull my hair out. Luke is not a “fuckboy” because he had one HBS and dated a younger woman for a short period of his life. Just because “guys like Luke” wouldn’t date you doesn’t mean he couldn’t love Nicola. And for real, WTF does “guys like Luke” mean? Just say that you’re projection fat phobia on Nicola when she’s not even “fat.”

Follow up - Nic and Luke are not distancing themselves from Bridgerton or from each other.

Most of y’all became fans during the WT so you were so used to constant content 24/7 and unfortunately that’s over. Luke and especially Nicola are also more high profile now compared to previous seasons. BTS posting on social media is gonna be different. It has nothing to do with their thoughts toward the show or each other. They’ve both commented multiple times how much they love Bridgerton. And they’ve both commented how much they love each other. Stop creating drama just because you need a dopamine fix.

Another follow up - social media is not real life.

Y’all I don’t know them personally but I PROMISE you that Luke reached out to Nic personally and wished her happy birthday. (Hell depending on where you fall on the theory spectrum, he was the one with her at her birthday dinner and took the picture.) I will tell you that my birthday is January 8th, the day before Nic, and I had to two Instagram story posts wishing me happy birthday. TWO. And I promise you I have a lot of friends. But you know what? All of my close friends texted or called me that day and gave me personalized greetings that weren’t for the whole world to see. And - GASP - this includes friends who have posted for me multiple past years in a row. So yes, even pattern breaking doesn’t mean anything. It’s been a week so please stop dwelling on this. And if you are still upset then I have a question for you - does it equally bother you that none of the Bridgertons publicly wished Will Tilston a Happy 18th Birthday? If not, please reevaluate the reasons behind your expectations.

Stop the public bullying and ostracizing.

The public hate needs to stop. Everyone is always accusing “shippers” of being the reason why N&L seem closed off but my opinion is that if anyone in the fandom is influencing their behavior, it’s the people continuously spewing hate. I will admit I’ve been guilty of throwing down against some of the more toxic creators in this space but I’ve always felt like I was “giving a voice to the voiceless.” What we need to do is stop attacking other creators because their opinions are different than us. And yes, I’m bringing this back to “opinion” because as I said the other day - nobody knows “fact” no matter how “obvious” you think it may be. You think Antonia and Jake are their significant others? Great. You think Nic and Luke are together? Great. Until the day that there is ever a definitive answer directly from the teams of Nic or Luke, everyone is on equal playing ground. I’m sorry if that bothers you but it’s true.

Side note to all of this: if a creator is saying stuff that makes you uncomfortable just know that when you make a post complaining about it, you were in fact perpetuating that information that makes you uncomfortable and only making the visibility larger. Just keep this in mind.

And with that, I’ll take my leave for now. Let’s all take a collective deep breath and remember that these are two real people with real lives and we’re only seeing what they choose to show us. Maybe it’s time we all pick up some extra hobbies. Start playing online games with your group chat. Fun some other methods of injecting fun in your day. It’ll make the time go by and you won’t be driving yourself crazy over this fandom. Keep your heads up y’all and just keep moving forward - it’s not that serious y’all. 💛

[nothorses]

I noticed that you reposted something that is along the lines of proship

I agree with leaving media alone but I think its incredibly disgusting when people ship, for example siblings, because what it feels to me is that they have an incest fetish or something

I know just because someone writes about murder doesnt mean they support it, and I believe that. but usually when people write about murder it's in a negative context, obviously showing how it is so incomprehensible to outsiders about how someone could do that, or showing how we need to get these people help.

trying to apply this to, for example, incest, if someone ships an incestuous relationship then it seems like it would be in a good context, and it seems like they support it should it be in real life. that's how I view this all. (itd be different if they shipped siblings as a strange headcanon and talking about how it's bad... this reasoning I can understand the most to the point where I can let myself ignore it)

how am I supposed to learn to not care? especially when they are really outward about it?

okay.

I do not participate in shipping discourse because I do not participate in shipping. I'm not really In Fandom anymore like, generally. I don't... care.

Because of this I had literally no idea what you were referring to in this ask. I had to scroll. So far back. To get to this post, which also doesn't refer to shipping discourse.

I also have not talked about incest here, and the post in question doesn't talk about incest.

It's about murder. And gore. Which you say here is fine.

Literally why did you send me this ask.

And like... there's a fair chance this is just bait, and there's also enough of a chance that you're genuinely asking that, like, fuck it. I'm gonna get shit no matter what I do, so I may as well try to do a little good.

You use the words "feels" and "seems" a lot in this ask. And I'm really glad you did, actually, because I think it's honest; you're operating on your feelings and assumptions, and that's really important to keep in mind.

And your feelings on this are valid! It's normal to be uncomfortable with certain content, and it's normal to not want to see or engage in it. You don't need to feel any differently about those things. You don't have to consume incestuous content, you don't have to be okay with it, and you don't have to be around it.

But ask yourself: you assume that other people engaging in this content means they support it in real life, but what if they don't? What if you're wrong?

Maybe they're saying it's wrong in a way you're just not picking up on, or that you don't recognize. Maybe they aren't saying it's wrong; maybe it's in the context. Maybe it's in a genre trope in a genre you're not familiar with. Maybe it's irony or satire that you aren't picking up on. Maybe they aren't saying it at all, but that's still what they think, and they just chose not to put it in that content for... who knows what reason. Maybe they're literally just bad at writing.

What then?

Sometimes you're going to feel or assume that something is going on, and you're just gonna be wrong. And you could ask who's fault that is- did you fail to pick up on something you should have been able to, or did they fail to communicate it well enough?- but like, what are you going to do with that information?

Sometimes people are not very good at literary analysis, and sometimes people are not very good at writing, and that's just part of learning. Do we tell everyone not to attempt to talk about certain topics unless they're "good enough" to do it "right"? How do we know when someone's "good enough", and how do they get to that point without practice? Do we just ban those topics altogether? What topics do we ban- where's the line? How do we enforce it? How do we prevent that from being weaponized against marginalized people?

Anon, you asked me how you can "not care" about these things existing. And I think that's a valid question; you feel there is injustice, and you want to stop it. That can be a very noble impulse, and it can be harnessed for a lot of good.

But it can also be really, really toxic- not just to the people you hurt because you act on assumptions and impulses that are incorrect, but to yourself. You can't control everything. You can't control how other people feel, whether or how they engage in certain topics, or what they do or say. You just can't. And trying, or wanting to try, or thinking you should try- it's going to drive you nuts.

So here's how not to care:

Remind yourself that you might be wrong. Take a moment to think about all the things you don't know for certain, and the things you would need to know to be absolutely, 100% sure that you're right.

Consider how important this is to you. How close is this person to you? How important is this issue? What would it feel like to let this go- would it continue to impact you? Do you have other options? (removing yourself from the situation, blocking tags/posts/people, etc.)

Consider what you can do, and what you should do. Think about the tools at your disposal, the power you have in this situation, and how likely this person is to listen to you. Think about whether those tools are ethical. Again, what if you're wrong? Is there any reason you might regret your actions?

If you still feel like it's worth addressing, start by asking questions. Make sure you really know what's going on, and if (and when) the situation changes with new information, walk through this process again. Repeat back what you believe is happening until they confirm that you're right, decide again whether this is worth it, and then proceed.

Sometimes it's more effective to just vent to someone else, or to make a post about the issue generally without confronting that person- especially considering your assumptions might be wrong! Maybe it's worth it to talk about what you thought was happening, but you don't know that what you thought was happening is what was actually happening. You can still talk about it, just, y'know, without making it an attack on someone else.

And again, I don't give a shit about fandom discourse. This is important to me because these are themes that crop up in regular-ass media all the time, and disagreements that crop up in regular-ass relationships with friends and family and loved ones. I think it's important that people have the skills to navigate disagreements, unintentional harm, and perceived slights in healthy, productive ways.

You can't live your whole life demanding that everyone agree with you on everything, or blaming other people for everything you misinterpret or assume incorrectly. You cannot assume that everything that hurts you was designed to hurt you. You can recognize that these are assumptions and feelings, and that's great! And I hope you're being honest when you say that you want to learn to let things go.

[selfship-confession-void]

"Isn't Enemies to Lovers proship" Nope! Here's Why (+ Explaining Strawmen)

Proship/comship/neutral/darkfic DO NOT interact!! This post is not and never will be for you, stay away from me.

So I got this question as an anon but the ask just disappeared 😭 anyways I feel like this is a good topic to tackle because this shoddy argument is thrown around a lot

Short answer: No, but it can be depending on the execution

Long answer: Enemies to lovers as a trope isn't inherently toxic, but if it's handled wrong then yes the relationship would be abusive and ergo would be proship. But just because it CAN be handled poorly doesn't mean it's AUTOMATICALLY toxic and bad on principal

More under the cut:

I've had people I've hated who I later warmed up to. Happens all the time, that's life, you're not gonna like everyone. But that doesn't mean we abused one another or made one another's life a living hell. If you're thinking about ETL (Enemies To Lovers) in the context of the Enemy being this ruthless tyrant who tears down the MC at every opportunity, ruins their life, and overall makes the MC severely harmed from their actions: yes, that is abuse. THAT relationship would be proship.

But that's what I call BookTok ETL, cause BookTok is where it's most normalized (and let's be fr, they normalize proship stuff ALL THE TIME). BookTok ETL is specifically different from general ETL cause most interpretations of the trope are written by people who know there's a line between flirty angry banter and actual harmful interactions. Any sane person who loves the trope will tell you there's definitely a limit and that it becomes gross and uncomfortable when that line is crossed.

And, what I find important to emphasize: every trope CAN be toxic if done wrong. Childhood Friends to Lovers can be unhealthy if the childhood friend in question is a thoughtless shitbag and torments the MC. Coffee Shop AUs can be toxic if it's someone harassing an essential service worker the whole time. I've experienced media that's made me love tropes I usually don't care for just as much as I've seen media do a trope I love so badly that the relationship is a cesspit mess that I wouldn't ever dream of supporting.

My point here is judging a general and inherently harmless trope just based off of the idea that it could sometimes maybe be portrayed as toxic, doesn't mean the trope is on principal bad/toxic/gross. "But what about hero x villain?"— same rules apply. If Villain is terrorizing Hero or the ones they love so badly that it gives Hero trauma or deeply negatively impacts them in a scarring way, that is abuse and no one should argue that it isn't. But the trope can also be lighthearted and sweet, depending on the way it's handled.

Now onto my second portion:

What is a strawman?

A strawman is directly defined as "an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument". The very question of attributing harmless tropes to abuse romanticizing proshippers is a strawman. An argument that's meant to seem like a "HAHA GOTCHA" to people who don't sit and think for more than two seconds on how you're literally grasping at straws. This ties into a common trend of proshippers trying to worm their way into everything.

Let me be blunt: proshippers did NOT and never have invented shipping, selfshipping, fandoms, or anything of the like. They like saying that as an imaginary "gotcha" card to the rest of us, just claiming with zero proof or evidence to have invented online spaces because that's easier to argue over than the fact that they're supporting actually disgusting things. 9/10 they just wanna piss people off and then flood them with harassment when the person points out the obvious holes in their argument (pretty ironic coming from the "we don't support harassment!" crowd by the way)

So, to reiterate and be as clear as possible; no, enemies to lovers and hero x villain aren't proship. They can BECOME proship if specific portrayals are done in a very toxic way that make the relationship abusive, but any trope can be represented horribly, so no it does not automatically mean the trope as a concept is proship. Claiming it is is a strawman argument largely used by proshippers because they're deflecting from what they're actually doing wrong and trying to grasp at straws to "epically own the stupid antis" or something like that

Ty for reading

[0neir0z]

yeah i'll probably still use tik tok, but Even less than i did when i stopped posting media takes and general fandom content on there a while ago (it houses my drag and cosplay content primarily)... but as a commemoration to 15/16 year old nic, formerly hannibastardlecter, here's an update to one of my favorite stupid headcanon posts.

what the nbc hannibal characters are getting cancelled on twt for

will: he doesn't have twitter but this was a coup staged by his students: complaints about how he never grades anything on time, animal neglect, running away with a man instead of finishing out the semester. other people get on this train and it's for being an ex cop and also a fed.

hannibal: always getting into random fights on that damn ipad of his about anything really, unhelpful mental health threads, yapping too damn much, BUT nothing about the serial murder and the cannibalism because twt users rarely focus on the important

alana: ngl i cooked with this one the first time and it's for being a moderate democrat who Still thinks it's okay to reach across the aisle and be friends regardless of politics, calling her relationship with margot lesbian even though she is bisexual

freddie: are you joking it's literally everything you could ever imagine someone getting nuked on that website for, she doxxes and gets doxxed daily, it's where you can find the colostomy bag pic

abigail: the vegans got to her, never escaping the "what if she's like her dad" allegations, swiftie

bedelia: she is too grown to be on twitter but probably supporting applied behavioral analysis therapy and lowk being a terf (idk who i was when i had this take the first time but it is Correct)

jack: does not have twitter. probably just general hatred bc he is above all a fed.

bev: nothing honestly. probably just posts innocuous life updates and pictures with unmistakably gen x hashtags. a little funny.

price: being an old gay with old gay takes. fbi drag race era carson kressley.

zeller: i just Know that man was weird asf on there when he was in college in its inception

franklyn: Being So So Weird About Real People (hannibal), idk if twt has a cheese community on there but i bet they hate his ass also

not included in the original but matthew brown is a fucking FREAK on that website and so is chilton.

original if you even care:

[lgbtlunaverse]

I'm very firmly on the anti-censorship and pro-kink side of things in the "should artists be allowed to depict taboo subjects in their work" debate, and have only grown more sure of that stance as time goes on. And I think I've now reached the point where I am convicted enough, and have surrounded myself with a social circle that generally also believe this, that I now keep seeing really really bad takes that ostensibly agree with me. And they annoy me to death. Frankly, more than that, I think they might be outright harmful for how we engage with art in this little community here, and our part in the fight against censorship.

Permission to retire the phrase "fiction doesn't affect reality" already? It clearly hasn't stopped censorship, so it's not effective, which is the only argument I could think of to keep such a blatant lie of a statement around. I don't understand how you can proclaim to like art and yet also believe it is something entirely disconnected from the world we live in. A litle pocket dimension that never touches anyone outside it. What, you close a book and it vanishes from your mind instantly? How dull. How sad. Of course, the relationship fiction has to reality is much more nuanced than 'monkey see monkey do'. But we've got phrases like "depiction is not endorsement" for that. We don't need this one, it sucks.

While we're at it! Retire the phrase "thought crimes" for this specific discourse too! I keep seeing the argent "thought criems aren't real only actions count" and gang, I cannot stresss this enough: making a whole movie or writing an entire novel are, in fact, actions. Putting words on a page is not a thought that is a thing you do in the real world! And therefore it affects real people! Again, this is far more nuanced than bad thing happens in story -> bad thing happens in real life, which is a belief that wayyyy too many people have, but if you're all so concerned about reading comprehension then statements so oversimplistic that they become outright falshoods are your enemy! Stop using them!

I think a ot of these problems come from the fact that these arguments arise from fandom spaces, so there is this air of "none of this fucking matters" but they are being applied to things that very much do matter actually. The writers of these posts clearly think their cause matters, so start acting like it! If your argument is phrased as such that, if you followed it to its logical conclusion, social critique of any artwork becomes "problematic" by default, you have already lost. If your worldview does not leave any space to call birth of a nation racist then you have already lost. This is not a tenable position! What are we doing here?!

[eazy-peazy54]

"Welcome, babies. To the Fruity Pebbles Castle of Torment: a scary castle with 100 rats."

~~~

There comes a time once in every f-slur's life to make an intro post for this god forsaken hellsite.

Now is that time.

~~~

GREETINGS, TO EVERY FOOL WHO HAS MISTAKENLY STUMBLED UPON THIS TUMBLR PAGE!

(This is my sick ass and very cool intro post!!)

SOME MAY CALL ME A MAD SCIENTIST, OR A "RINGMASTER-TYPE," BUT MOST THINK OF ME AS SOME SORT OF WEIRDO WHO THINKS THAT BILL CIPHER IS "SO ME FR" AND TYPES LIKE THAT FOR FUNZIES IN HER INTRO POST SO SHE LOOKS COOL.

(The last one is true, I'm truly a nerd trying to impress you all so you stick around and like me. In all honesty I'm just a kid who wants to be both Bill Cipher and also a vampire. I wanna bring a real Will-Woodian vibe to your function [aka your dashboard.])

THIS BLOG IS ONLY A GLIMPSE INTO THE ENIGMA OF THE LONG AND VAST MAZE THAT SOME MAY CALL A "BRAIN." I PREFER TO CALL IT A MIND-HOLE.

MIND-FUCK, MIND-HOLE, SAME DIFF.

ANYWHO, ONWARDS!

🧪 ABOUT ME: ~ My name is Peazy ~ She/He/They ~ Bi ~ Minor ~ I PROBABLY HAVE AUTISM!! (we can tell) OR ADHD OR SOMETHING !! OR BOTH!! PROLLY BOTH!! 🫀 WHAT I DO: ~ I shitpost. A lot. Mostly, actually. But I am ALSO: ~ An artist! ~ Singer-Songwriter ~ Starting a band! (Mr. Amnesia and The Surrealists, check us out if we ever drop anything!) ~ Writer (of both real stories, and fanfiction!) ~ Creator of the Mary Bell Township ARG! (check out my TikTok and Youtube links if you're interested.. :3) 🐇 FUN FACTS: ~ Once again, I make music! ~ I'm making an ARG that I might make a sideblog for, so stay tuned! ~ I am allergic to gluten ~ I fuckin LOVE cats ~ I'm somehow Goth and Emo and Scene all at the same time?!?? ~ I play the pianooooo!

💫 CURRENT HYPERFIXATIONS: ~ Will Wood ~ LITWTC/Life in The World to Come ~ Gravity Falls ~ My own ARG ?? somehow ?? Don't ask, I don't know how this happened.

~ Moral Orel

🌊 FANDOMS: ~ Will Wood ~ LITWTC/Life in The World to Come ~ Gravity Falls ~ Smiling Friends ~ Captain Laserhawk: A Blood Dragon Remix ~ Portal ~ Once again, my own ARG somehow.

~ Moral Orel

~ Sonic The Hedgehog

~ Hatsune Miku/Vocaloid

~Undertale

~Deltarune

🎹 MUSIC I LISTEN TO: ~ this list is never gonna be EVERYTHING i listen to so bare with me

🎼 GENRES: ~ Goth ~ Emo ~ Vaporwave ~ Alternative ~ General "Weird Kid" music ~ Rap ~ Swing ~ "Indie" ~ Folk ~ Punk ~ Hyperpop ~ Basic white girl music that I will not admit as to specifics 🎶 ARTISTS: (in no particular order) (also this is NOT all of them) ~ Will Wood/Will Wood and the Tapeworms ~ Lemon Demon ~ Tally Hall ~ Oingo Boingo ~ DEVO ~ That Handsome Devil ~ Crystal Castles ~ Glass Animals ~ Man Man ~ Tyler, The Creator ~ Kendrick Lamar ~ Desert Sand Feels Warm At Night ~ Infinity Frequencies ~ POiSON GiRL FRiEND ~ Girls Rituals ~ Black Dresses ~ Jack Stauber ~ Mitski ~ She Wants Revenge ~ Joy Division ~ New Order ~ Joey Valence & Brae ~ Chappell Roan ~ Gorillaz ~ SOPHIE ~ Charli xcx ~ Kesha ~ MF DOOM ~ TV Girl ~ Ethel Cain ~ Lamp ~ Panchiko ~ Yaelokre ~ Radiohead ~ Billie Eilish

🕯️ AESTHETICS IM INTO: ~ Yes, this needed its own category. Hush hush. ~ Gothic (I'm goth don't come at me for putting it in the damn aesthetics) ~ Emo/Scene (SAME SHIT APPLIES AS THE LAST ONE) ~ Frutiger Aero (and anything relating) (<- I will yap about this for ages hold me back) ~ Frutiger Metro ~ Southern Gothic ~ New Wave ~ Utopian Scholastic ~ Vaporwave (IM AN OG PLEASE CHAT) ~ Weirdcore (NOT THE ONE YOU'RE THINKING) ~ 2000's/Y2k (once again NOT THE ONE YOU'RE THINKING) ~ Twee (oopsie daisy) ~ Whimsigoth

~ Halloween shit ~ General vibes of mad scientists and circuses ~ Whatever the fuck Will Wood has going on

🎪 OTHER INTERESTS: ~ Danny Gonzalez, Drew Gooden, Kurtis Conner ~ Flamingo ~ Making PLAYLISTS RRRAAAGH ~ Aesthetics (ask me about this shit I will yap for ages) ~ Liminal Spaces ~ Jfashion ~ Gyaru fashion ~ Other Subcultures ~ Everything creepy! ~ Song analyzation ~ Vampires ~ Circus stuff ~ Mad scientist stuff ~ HALLOWEEN ~ Playing piano! ~ YAPPING

🏷 TAGS TO LOOK OUT FOR: ~ #asks :3 - everything people yap to me in my inbox! ~ #fanfic shenanigans - I want you to take a WILD GUESS. ~ #peazy's yapping - general stuff, or long posts of me yapping ~ #long post - again, take a wild guess. ~ #reblog - like a normal reblog, but I said something in the tags! ~ #art reblog - same as the last one, but art I really liked and had something to say about! ~ #important - actual important things, like awareness posts and all that good jazz :) ~ #mutuals/#THATS OOMF 😭 - MUTUALLSSSS

~#mary bell township/#mary bell township arg - my arg! Arg content goes under both tags, but there’s usually more content under #mary bell township :)

🔎 OTHER SOCIALS: ~ TikTok ~ Instagram ~ Youtube ~ Ao3

🦇 DNI: ~ Jokes on you, there is none! Except... ~ Homophobes, transphobes, nazis, racists, terfs, radfems, pedos, proshippers ~ Blogs who solely post NSFW (a few suggestive things are fine! but if you're posting straight-up PORN or only nsfw and only smut, then no thank you brother) ~ Adding on to that, if you have a NSFW side blog, that's fine! ~ Also don't tag my posts as NSFW pretty please. I'm a minor, and if I'm talking about my mama, I mean my mother. ~ people who don't fw bagels /j ~ Either way, I block as I please!

PHEW, FINALLY THATS OVER WITH. BEEN MEANING TO MAKE ONE OF THESE FOR A WHILE NOW.

ANYWAY, I HOPE YOU ENJOYED LEARNING ABOUT ME, AND IF YOU READ THIS FAR..

thank you! :)

It means a lot!

NOW,

BEGONE.

[fitsofdespair]

i have hesitated to say anything before now. in part because i removed myself from fandom discourse and really from actively discussing iwtv a year ago. i consider it all a lose-lose situation.

but also because i’m generally of the opinion that black fans don’t need people to be their white saviors, least of all me. black people have never been saved by white people. they were never just given anything when it comes to strides in equality, they fought for it and still fight for it, against constant violent pushback every step of the way. only instead of the good ole’ days when racists just called those fighting for equality uppity, they’re now “bullies” for daring to call you out on your shit after the repeated condescension and the resulting harassment you’ve exhibited towards them.

in this day and age the word bully has zero meaning anymore. i mean come on, melania trump calls people mean about her husband bullies. elon musk thinks he’s being bullied by twitter users, though he clearly holds all the power and is absolutely the problem. its become a meaningless word that goliaths use to call davids because they won’t use the real word they actually want to say. some of these popular blogs are not being bullied, they’re being held accountable for their own actions.

it’s pretty disgusting the number of you who decided to identify strongly with these users that not only fail to question their own racial biases but have gone so far as to suggest black people don’t face racism anymore. this is so fucked. tbh it can be argued in many ways white people, especially in the deep south where i’m from, are inherently raised steeped in racism, even if its not direct. just because your family aren’t ostensibly racist doesn’t mean they didn’t bake their own little prejudices into your upbringing and being raised in your environment didn’t encourage them. even if you don’t see yourself as racist, you have to unlearn all this shit, even if it never once occurred to you that you are part of it. just cause you believe in equality and don’t hate people for their color or cultural background does not make you free of perpetuating microaggressions against them. this applies to fans across the world of course. (like for you white euro iwtv fans, you may say you have no problem with black people but i’ve heard some wild things some of yall have to say about the turks.)

i understand that probably half or more of you are not usamericans. but no matter what environment you live in, no matter where you were raised, there is no excuse for your behavior. just because YOU don’t see racism in your day to day life or are in the more likely situation, too blindly comfortable in your place in society to notice it right in front of your face, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist as a constant presence in other parts of the world or isn’t deeply ensconced in online rhetoric.

so for you white iwtv fans who can’t be fucked to mention let alone defend people you, in many cases once called friend, against the absolute horseshit your current comrades are spewing wrapped up in their nice safe cocoons of victimhood, i hope you do some serious soul searching to figure out if this is who you are, a person too cowardly to call out a friend because it might cost you their friendship. a person quick to condemn others on hearsay because you couldn’t be fucked to wonder am i on the right side of this? and if you do manage to get wise and change your mind, remember its not unforgivable to say, you know what? i was wrong. i wrote in an old post that the hallmark of being a functional adult is changing your views accordingly when you learn new information or even just ruminate on what you know (i myself was a little bitch about ep 5 when it first dropped until i had to sit down and ask myself why i was actually feeling some kind of way about it). dying on a hill is not all its cracked up to be. being told you’re wrong is not always a personal attack and its often an opportunity for improvement if you can be bothered to genuinely hear other people out. an alarming number from all walks of life never figure that out. for my part, i am still learning and hope i never stop learning.

while that sentiments all nice and gooey (i mean them, but i understand its still sacharine to put out there), i am still guilty for not having directly written anything about this until now. and thats on me and i earned any flack i get for that. again, i am more of the mindset that black people don’t need white spokespeople, but that doesn’t mean they'll mind allies. and as a sidebar, going out of your way to say you are rising “above the noise” or “ignoring the drama” is absolutely your right, but it does not make you superior. it just makes you complacent with the status quo. i mean as long as you get to squee!! about anything and everything who cares about other people, right?

[my-pjo-stuff]

At this point everyone and their mother know that I'm a proud German and like to bring in fun stuff or specific things about my country up once in a while. Generally I'm trying to stir away from it, seeing as this is my PJO blog and I don't want to bore you all. But I think it's time to play my "As a German" card and say that the PJO fandom needs to take the words "fascist", "eugenicist" and "nazi" out of their collective vocabulary. Now I don't think I need to explain what those things have to do with my country. I will however explain the fact that German children tend to me made very aware of the meaning of those words. We learn about our history and the crimes committed. We learn about the past ideologies of the Third Reich and how to dismantle them. I especially have grown up being very sensitive to these things, as my parents have placed great importance on me understanding the whole of my country's history. That includes the Third Reich.

And as such to say that I am frankly horrified at the way the PJO fandom treats these very loaded terms is an underestimate. I have seen multiple different people comparing Luke and the TA to Nazis, saying they are eugenicists or even fascists.

Which is just genuinly so harmful because they are not.

I won't go into the specifics of the way they are not because it would go beyond the scope of this post while also being very easily searchable simply by googling the definition of the aforementioned words.

Using labels such as "Nazi", "Eugenicist" and "Fascist" on people and things that are not waters the term down a lot. Which is genuinely harmful because there very much are still IRL people with those beliefs! We cannot allow ourselves to forget the true horror of these words, because that would allow these horrors to return. If every villain starts being a "nazi"- then how can we recognize the actual nazi?

This fandom seems to love the "fiction has an impact on real life" argument. As a German I am genuinely asking you to apply this here. Now don't get me wrong- it's fine to point out these ideologies and practices in fiction aswell as parallels should they be found. I myself pointed out how Camp Jupiter's Wolfhouse is borderline eugenicist- but you NEED to do your proper research first. There are plenty of other valid ways to criticize characters, especially Luke, if you want to do it. But calling him these names is just genuinely harmful.

Please be careful using these words, and remember who and what stands behind them.

[thecoolerliauditore]

Recently (A couple of months ago I just finished like a week ago) I decided to rewatch all of Scott and Pearl pov and idk why, but I'm getting yandere vibes from Scott and not Pearl. Like isnt it supposed to be the other way around???? Idk maybe it's just because in secret life Scott was more mad that Pearl didn't say "I love you" than Jimmy, and in double life when supposedly Pearl was a 'yandere' Cleo said "I have everything you want" which made Pearl confused for a second of what Cleo meant, until it hit Pearl that it was Scott and replied something like "Wait you think I want Scott?". That's really all I have rn, but idk I feel weird about it cuz Scott is gay.

This is why I'm here cause your the Scott expert, am I delusional or is this vibe no one is talking about?????? (Pls help)

First off being called the Scott expert is wild to me I think of myself at most as a grad student taking notes for my research paper studying his behaviour but this feeds my ego so keep going.

Anyway you are totally insane anon I totally don't agree.

Definitely have not made multiple posts in the past basing my analysis of Scott's character on him being weird about Pearl.

Definitely have not had other ppl in the past happy to hear they're not insane for seeing it too.

Or addressed it feeling illegal to acknowledge this aspect of Scott's character.

don't look under the cut haha nothing is down there

HE'S CRAZY HE'S FUCKING CRAZY HE'S INSANE HE'S THE WORST HE'S LITERALLY THE WORST THE WORSTTTTT THE WORST MAN ON EARTHHHHH UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

LL they were like. Very affectionate but it was just cute to me (I think I was watching with a friend and even remarked that they acted like siblings at one point. oh how naive). Like yay they're besties! Double Life was when I was like. Oh something's. Something's strange here.

The way Scott automatically slaps the "ex-girlfriend" title on Pearl despite that not being true. The way Scott is the one constantly using romantic terms to refer to her while Pearl never does the same for him. The fact that Pearl explicitly said she "felt like (she was) being broken up with" which means she didn't see their relationship as romantic.

Also that's an insane thing for Cleo to say ?? I don't remember this but that's. That sucks. That sucks so bad. If you can give me the episode/timestamp I would thank you forever.

She literally didn't see him in that way anon she literally never did. It was never about forcing Scott to be her boyfriend/soulmate/etc it was about being abandoned and lacking closure. <-- my totally correct opinion.

Maybe slight side note but I really need to study the way people use "yandere" when referring to Pearl because as a weeb and a former yandere enjoyer it's. idk. fascinating to me. The culture I mean. Because the life series fandom is relatively less weeby than what I'm accustomed to I think "yandere" is like. slotted in as a sillier way to say toxic/obsessive female love interest And because at least in fanon Pearl kind of fits the description for your standard yandere which is conventionally attractive weirdgirl but Evil!!!!

And there's like. Something about that and the way like you mentioned if anything it's Scott who possesses more yandere tropes i.e. referring to Pearl as his (ex) girlfriend without her knowledge/consent, fishing for affection from her and even killing her friends.

Just FYI I wouldn't personally consider Scott a yandere and I would definitely do a double take if I saw someone referring to him as one in the wild. But I do think it being completely unacknowledged by fandom is interesting not only as a byproduct of the"scott can do nothing wrong" fanon but also as a reflection of how the yandere trope is approached In General when applied to male characters. I remember there being like a fairly big discussion back in the day within the anime community regarding male yanderes and how they weren't as enjoyable/iconic as their female counterparts because they were "too real" -- lots to unpack there, very fun for me specifically. That sounded sarcastic in text somehow but I'm serious I find that super interesting.

(side side note getting this ask made me really happy. I love that people agree with my opinions whoaaaa. )

[cowardlybean]

ok so

beyond being gross and weird I think there’s something to be said about the lack of literary analysis in proshipping (this post is about mp100 in particular but this can apply elsewhere)

there’s two points I’m getting at here: lack of understanding of the characters being interpreted, and intent of author

first of all, the common rebuttal to “he would not fucking say that” is “it’s just fiction and for fun” (which is just a really common rebuttal for everything but that’s beside my point). But that point lacks acknowledgement that their interpretation isn’t based on the source material. For example: Reigen, the guy who notoriously stood up against a terrorist organization to keep kids from being in danger, being interpreted as a pedophile (there’s no soft way to put it). It’s going directly against what is set up in a (in my opinion) disrespectful way. Also there’s a point to be made about trampling over platonic relationships for the sake of shipping and how that applies to proship but i digress!

There are methods to have characters act in ways they would not normally. In fact, most of my favorite fics across all of my fandoms do this!! What they all have in common is an understanding of that character that explains what pushed them to the point of deconstructing their own morals and values. “Wouldn’t it be fucked up if this happened?” works so much better when you can see how it led to that point. And even then I’d venture to say there are some lines that shouldn’t be crossed, knowing these characters do in fact belong to the author, but me drawing lines in the sand isn’t going to be accurate to everyone’s view. It’s always going to be a nuanced topic!

Second of all is the importance of authors intent when reading. Rather than applying this to the base media, however, I’m pivoting focus onto those creating proship content. What is their intent while writing? Through unfortunate exposure in Multiple fandoms I see these common reasons: fluffy content with or without acknowledging the ship being (for lack of a better word. i wish i knew a better one) problematic, dark content such as gore or rape, or (there’s no way to put this lightly) jackoff material. Keep in mind these are generalizations, but im also not giving some of these people the time of day to add defenses.

The “fluffy” content I can sometimes see as the author of the content not understanding the consequence of the ship itself (incest and pedophilia bad) due to a multitude of factors, and I genuinely do think there are learning experiences for them in non negative or aggressive ways. Dark content I can make a case that this is a form of self harm whether intentional or unintentional, however for some this gets looped into the last category. Finally, it’s pretty obvious some people just yank their shit to incest and pedophilia and I REALLY don’t think I need to explain why that’s bad. Point is, it’s important to consider proshippers intent, and how it’s more complex than just gross people who are intentionally malicious. I think there’s learning experiences here for every proshipper, however those who refuse to acknowledge that their actions have consequences (entirely different post to make there about how proshipping can in fact have real life repercussions) I hold a special vendetta against.

To conclude I’ll say I’m not someone who calls myself an “Anti”. Do I hate proshipping? Yes, absolutely I do. But I also enjoy fiction with darker topics that are handled in a critical manner!! Think Oyasumi Punpun. Good manga btw, absolutely horrifying though. I don’t think dark subjects should be kept out of fiction but I do think they should be handled with care.

[melomelomuskmelon]

Whinnies.

general info under cut !! also yes. i'm lyman-garfiel. tumblr drank all my pepsi and called me a bitch and i got terminated.

🪲Hi hello welcome =)!! i am lymantria, [lyman, tria, ly, mantria, mister mantria or lyme 4 short] i have a secret real name. you have to reach clown level 50 to unlock it 🪲My identity is.. all over the place but my pronouns are he/it and i use masc terms until i don't. if i'm close with you feel free to use a femme term for me evrey now and then like you're giving your beloved leopard gecko a nice fat juicy hornworm you bought as a treat.

🪲 I'm a genderfluid and abrosexual little freak of nature, neurodivergant in the direction of "healthcare system is too ableist and classist to actually give me a screening for anything" but likley autism/adhd as well as npd with a bpd comobidity 🪲 please be 16+ if you're gonna follow me, i don't post nsfw on my blog but i do jokingly hornypost quite often, i will be changing my age gate to 18+ when i turn 21 so,,,also keep that in mind

🪲 My interests include, beastars, valve games.. portal is my special interest . don't get me started on my cube game, the furry fandom as a whole, rockafire explosion animatronics, parasitic wasps, parasites in general, christain borle, mlp, rtvs, falsettos, christain borle.. and a certain one of my besties has gotten me back into danganronpa. god dammit.. and i am,,, sighs.. a phannie 🪲 i do vent on this blog! i have a LOT of personal issues going on in my daily life, serious topics will have a tw and be placed under a cut, nobody's obligated to comfort me, i just like using this website to scream into the void about my problems, i'm coping the best i can behind the scenes and am recieving help, i just,,,, have a brain and a home life that sucks asses and need to yeel about it. 💎🦎💎

💎DNI💎

🦎 general dni material applies, i don't tolerate racism/homophobia/transphobia/zionism/ableism and all the isms that make people feel like shit for their identities .

🦎 with that being said, i support 'leboys' and 'mspec lesbians' and whatever new identity anti-inclus people are trying to police. as long as you aren't attracted to something that is rightfully illegal to diddle. i don't give a shit and neither should you. queer discourse is stupid and i HATE you. 🦎 if images of bugs/parasites disturb you, not because i hate you.. but because i really like insects and will reblog pictures of them quite often and don't tag them, just for your own saftey i'm a bug boy <3 🦎 Another general one but like.. if you support romantisizing dynamics like incest and grooming/pedophilia in fiction please dni, i understand protraying these things respectfully, but if you're going to make traumatic shit seem desireable i don't feel comfortable being around you 🦎 "narc abuse" mfers. i'm a narcissist and i can assure you the only bitch i'm abusing is myself. 🦎 If you hate on melon's twink death. more of his titties for me. FUCK you for not getting the body horror/dysphoria arc you can write with this element of his charecter.. and if you think he's sexier as that maul-nourished twig I, as a maul-nourished twig am squinting at you

🦎 Arturo giles, you can LIKE. arturo giles and be my mutual, you can even REBLOG. art of him, but arturo giles HIMSELF. dni and get the fuck away from me. HISSSSSSSSSSSS

🍈💜SELFSHIP INFORMATION!!💜🍈

🍈MELON <33🍈

🍈i... love this guy, i'm sure you've noticed by now i post about himm... a lot, his psychology interests me and i need to poke around that lil' fatass forehead of his

🍈 that being said. i may be his wife and boyfriend but i don't concider myself an apologist for his actions, being traumatized as a child does not justify killing people to fuel your own hedonism. he FRUSTRATES me in that regard, so again.. as his wife, i have a right to point and laugh at him

🍈 STRICTLY. nonsharing with this shitlit. i'm always open to shootin tha shit and having a fun little convo about about this.. VERY interesting motherfucker. but the relationship i have with him is also a coping mechanism due to having similar trauma i don't wanna interact with other selfshippers/people who make romantic comments towards him. you will be blocked. i have other f/o's notably scarab from fionna and cake but my sharing status on em is open and they aren't as consuming as melon is.

🍈🦎Love's failures🦎🍈

Love's failures is my little brain-baby beastars au fanfic, surrounding the entirley self indulgent question of "what if melon,,,, had boyfrin..and it was me". Love's failures follows both melon and Lymantria as they experince an agonizing codepandancy towards eachother as a newly-escaped convict melon is forced to work alongside with his once abandoned ex friend as they attempt to rebuild the once booming back alley market, both for their own selfish reasons Love's failures touches on topics of drug abuse, the impacts of emotional and physical incest, codepandancy, abuse, self harm, suicidal ideation, gore/murder [its melon guys..], sexual abuse, child abuse, ptsd. and.. a bunch of other shit that will be tagged in the actual chapters, but that is my..general trigger warning for the shit that will go on in there, i WILL state theres an eventual happy ending, the toxicity won't be for nothing i prommy

all content regarding the au is tagged as eather #melyme or #love's failures au, and i'll likley have chapter entries in a separate tag when the chapters get written !

will lyman be able to get over the parasitic affection he feels for fuckshit muskmelon?, will melon learn how to be a normal fucking person as his past sins finally get rubbed in his face in a way that finally hurt him?, can these idiots actually figure out how to better themselves when constantly egging on eachothers self destriction?

find out..

💎Enjoy my blog. please💎

[neechees]

about the whole preoccupation w incest thing amongst white people on the internet i haven't really noticed it? i am white and find it intriguing (i was incestually abused as a child and so i find it interesting how it develops in families, how people respond to it, etc (it's kind of been part of my healing process)) but i don't really see anyone being obsessed w it? maybe pointing out themes of it in media but that's kinda it? some of my mutuals, idk if they're white, but they have also been abused the same way i have and find discussing it or finding media with incest in it to be a part of exposure therapy/dealing with the trauma. id love to hear your thoughts on it :)

I've talked about this a few times in the past, but I'm posting again to make my views & boundaries known that 1. Dni if you're a "pr0shipper" & enjoy shipping incest, I do not want you here, 2. Fiction does not exist in a vacuum. Im going with the assumption that anon is not a proshitter & they're asking this in good faith. Just putting a readmore because this got long and also for anyone who is triggered by this topic

The conversation I think is surrounding proshitters ("shippers"), but I think the conversation also goes deeper into things like "incest" & "step family" being popular porn site searches that very often feature white actors, as well as those things showing up in film, book, and TV, but in romantisize/sexualized/downplayed ways written by and featuring, again, white people. So I believe generally the "obsession" part means White people who are overly preoccupied with seeing incest quite often, especially and specifically in sexualized, fetishized, and/or romantisized ways. Because personally (& I believe other nonwhite people can attest to this as well, and that's what the other posts mean to say) a lot of the people who have this overkeen interest in incest are White.

Like it's not talking about people wanting to have nuanced depictions of incest, why it's bad, how that affects people & can be extremely traumatizing, and then approaching that topic respectfully (because it should be, that's a terrible thing and showing respect for victims of it & ensuring its not, accidentally or not, endorsed or shown as "okay" or normalizing it, is important. Execution as well as intent are important & should be done with tact.) The people who are mentioned as being "obsessed with incest" as these pr0shippers who find incest "sexy", want to see it, actively search it out where it is both romantisized/sexualized/fetishized, and will apply it in fanon interpretations even when it doesn't exist in canon or this interpretation wouldn't/doesn't make sense anyway, specifically because they enjoy seeing it. They find it titillating. Quite a few of the popular users on this site who have famously defended incest (and/or pedophilia) both in real life AND as proshitters have been... White. And racist.

I think there IS a correlation between White people, proshitters (who are usually people who defend romantisized depictions of things like incest), and liking incest, because I very often seen proshitters be racist (and other types of bigoted tbh), and ALSO defend things like racist depictions of nonwhite characters, things like slavery AU's featuring Black characters, or colonizer AU's, and the like. It's a common joke (not so much of a joke tho tbh) that the more White people that exist prominently in a fandom, then the less fun it is, specifically because of racism that will then exist in that fandom. So there's this huge overlap of White fans being racist but ALSO there being a lot of fans who enjoy seeing incest in their fave medias, because of the proshitters, who do both. There was also that whole thing where a bunch of popular white users on here (many of whom ALSO defended incest) defended sexual raceplay & then called any nonwhite person (ESPECIALLY BLACK USERS) "homophobic" or "transphobic" for rightfully and correctly calling this racist.

Lots of White people like to do this thing where, if they are marginalized in some way, then they'll weaponize that marginalization against anyone who criticizes them for something (most often racism), even if their marginalized identity has nothing to do with the topic or was brought up. White women who happened to be gay called me "homophobic" and "misogynist" (even though I'm a bi woman but you know) because I talked about the nazi associations & racist inclinations of cottage core. I saw multiple White lotr fans call a specific artist "homophobic" because that artist asked that their art not be tagged as an incest ship, and that incest ship is very popular (and their art piece was depicting them as just family), but this incest ship isn't even canon, and the artist wasn't actually homophobic or against gay relationships in general. So they essentially just called this artist "homophobic" for no reason. Because they didn't want their art piece of two family members to be incorrectly interpreted as incestuous. Im even reluctant to draw fan art of some of my favorite characters who are family members, because I dont want people who ship incest to interact with it or tag it as that, and the fact that so many artists even have to ask people NOT to do this is insane.

Like it's one thing if someone analyzes media with it or might find comfort in certain characters in books or TV etc because they feel seen in their trauma, and yet can acknowledge that this isn't for everybody and not everyone processes their trauma this way, and that seeing it (incest in media) can make trauma WORSE for many people, AND that not all representations are made equally, and none of those are free from being available to criticism in approach of that representation anyway. But very often there's White fans (many who aren't even incest victims themselves, so they don't have the "I'm coping" excuse) that are offended that other people don't like seeing incest at ALL, that people will (understandably) not want to interact with them if they're a pr*shipper, and hate being reminded that treating incest like its a fun little interest that shouldn't be handled with care just because it's being featured in a fictional situation (or even sometimes when it's NOT) is pretty fucked up and even disrespectful & insensitive to incest survivors, and then chalk up any criticism of the amount of sexualized/romanticized incest as "censorship" even though that's not what's happening, and again, very often self victimize themselves and often are also racist.

[atamascolily]

some thoughts about the Clara Dolls

A year ago, I posted a very long essay about Homulilly and her familiars which was inspired by all of the questions I had about the Clara Dolls (specifically, why there are so many of them). While I feel like I have a decent grasp of their canonical attributes--at least as they have been revealed thus far--there's one area that still puzzles me, and which by definition, doesn't have an easy or authoritative answer.

Over my time in fandom, I've noticed that many people have a radically different interpretation of the Clara Dolls than I do--that they pay far more attention to them as individuals than you might expect for minor background characters that are never directly named in their source material, especially given their limited screen time. Which naturally begs the question: what is it, exactly, about the Clara Dolls that appeals to people so much, more so than any of Homulilly's other familiars?

Here is my guess: the Clara Dolls are compelling precisely because they are so individually detailed. Unlike the interchangeable masses of Lieses (birds), Lottes (soldiers), Lilias (teeth), Lisas (airships), all of which are variations on the name "Elizabeth", each Clara Doll has its own name and costume. While they are all still clearly variations on the same theme, both in terms of their doll-like bodies and the "sins" they represent, each of them is unique in a way that the other familiars aren't, and the supplementary material released with Rebellion goes into great length about their different personalities.

Most media follows what TV Tropes The Law of Conservation of Detail, meaning that there is a tendency for any given details to be relevant; unlike real life, superficial and unrelated details are omitted for narrative convenience. Thus, I think it's only natural that people would look at the individualized Clara Dolls and assume that they must be important, or else why would the creators go to so much trouble to distinguish them from each other?

To be honest, though, I'm not sure the Law of Conservation of Detail applies to Rebellion, at least not in its entirety. Rebellion's defining visual characteristic is its copious attention to details, many of which are barely visible or discernible outside of freeze-frame. Rebellion is a kind of fever dream, dominated by excesses and so packed that I've spent years untangling the meaning in each still frame, and barely made a dent in it.

It's not that these details aren't important. Far from it--they greatly add to my enjoyment of the film and my interpretation of Homura's character. And while I enjoy unpacking the symbolism, I'd argue that the film's meaning does not depend on any one in particular--that they support what is already there. They are icing on a particularly complex and elaborate layer cake, but it's possible to enjoy a hefty slice without ever digging into them.

And I think the Clara Dolls fall into this "decorative" category, in the sense that plenty of casual viewers watch Rebellion without ever realizing that there is more going on with them than is apparent on the surface--to the point where you could remove their scenes entirely, and the general plot would progress more or less without a hitch (and casual viewers or first-time viewers might not even notice their absence!) They are excellent, but I'm not sure I would call them essential.

Narratively speaking, the Clara Dolls are a mass, a mob, a chorus. Unusually for such a group, they are also visually distinct from one another. Hence the disjunct, I think. This is true for a lot of things in Madoka Magica as a whole, and can be best summed up as the difference between Gen Urobuchi's script and Inu Curry's vision of it, but that's a whole 'nother essay in and of itself, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Inu Curry very clearly loves and cares about the Clara Dolls or else they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of creating them--but that's different from how the Clara Dolls appear in the final product, which is a composite of multiple peoples' work and effort and all the competing priorities that go along with that. What works for a worldbuilding draft or a still image doesn't necessarily work for a finished film, and while I enjoy the Rebellion Production Note and other supplementary materials immensely, I will always treat the finished film as the primary canon, which supersedes all else.

Thus, I find it hard to get excited about the Clara Dolls as distinct individuals or to believe they will play a larger role in future installments. It's not that they couldn't, it's just different from the role that they were playing before in Rebellion, which seems like a dramatic shift to me--especially if we're talking adding 14 distinctive characters into a 2-3 hour movie! The question I ask myself is, "what would be gained, narratively speaking, by doing so?" and I keep coming up blank. Maybe Walpurgis no Kaiten will surprise me by providing an answer, but I doubt it.

This is not to suggest that people who see the Clara Dolls as individual characters or who want to see them with an expanded role are doing something wrong, by the way. I think it's fine if other people want to flesh them out in fan creations--that's the whole point of fanworks!--just that this particular aspect doesn't appeal to me personally, and I don't think it will ever be of major canonical important. You do you.

It probably doesn't help that I don't have a very sympathetic view of the Clara Dolls in general--there are strong hints that Homura was horribly bullied as a child and that the Clara Dolls are simultaneously the dolls she played with as a substitute for friends and the bullies who tormented her. They don't seem to have any respect for "God" ("Gott is Tott!" and the thrown fruit at the Madokami stele) or their erstwhile master (they mock Homulilly on her way to her execution and cry crocodile tears; they throw more fruit at devil!Homura at the end of the movie). Homura can command them, but it's not clear to me that they will obey; they are wild cards more than anything else. The Clara Dolls are only interesting to me inasmuch as what they reveal about Homura herself, not as characters in their own right.

For what it's worth, I have the exact same reaction to Hitomi: I've seen a lot of people get very excited about the idea of Hitomi becoming a magical girl, to which my reaction has always been a blank stare and a ".... and what would that accomplish, exactly?" Hitomi's narrative role is to be the Ordinary Friend who gets drawn into the protagonists' problems, the perpetual victim who must be rescued from the monsters again and again. Hitomi is defined by her normality; removing it would completely change the character and derail the story as it stands.

Would that divergence be an interesting story? Sure. But that doesn't seem to be the story Madoka Magica is interested in telling. You can sense that in Gen Urobuchi's most-likely-unserious answer to the question of what Hitomi would wish for: "for Kyubey to disappear immediately". Kyubey is the messenger of magic, his narrative role is to guide Madoka and her friends into their roles as magical girls; for Hitomi to reject him as her wish sends a pretty strong message. But it's a moot point, because it will probably never happen--as soon as Hitomi became a magical girl, her role would have to be filled by someone else, and she wouldn't necessarily add anything else to the existing team. (Again, not to say that she couldn't, but that it would be a very different story if she did.) Madoka Magica is centered around a core cast of five magical girls, with Nagisa Momoe already serving as an impromptu Sixth Ranger in Rebellion--what else is there for Hitomi to do?

As I mentioned earlier, I think many, if not all of the disjuncts between various fan interpretations hinge on the difference between Gen Urobuchi's script and Inu Curry's interpretation of it. AFAIK, the Clara Dolls as distinct individuals only exist in the latter, but it's an open question for me how much Walpurgis no Kaiten's script will build on the visual elements in Rebellion versus ignoring them or going in a different direction. So much of the movie ultimately hinges on this question, and I think the role of the Clara Dolls is definitely one of them.

Given that Walpurgis no Kaiten appears to be focused on mirrors and reflections, with at least two different Homuras running around, I think it's natural to wonder if the Clara Dolls are involved in all of this in some capacity. That said, they're not the first thing that leaps to my mind in all of this, and I find the divergence between my assumptions and that of other fans absolutely fascinating. Can't wait to find out what is actually going on when the film is released!

[the-far-bright-center]

'Union of Opposites'

(Note: The analysis below was originally written in response to this post. Screencaps are from AotC. Vaderdala artwork is by Chris Fischer.)

A common misunderstanding about Anidala is the dismissive claim that they are 'incompatible' and/or 'dysfunctional'. This often manifests via various judgemental takes on Padme choosing to be with Anakin. Whilst we as Anidala shippers know there are plenty of compelling in-story reasons for Padme's decision to enter into a relationship (and marriage!) with Anakin in AotC, I wanted to take a moment to point out that the whole ‘but they’re politically incompatible!!1’ claim that so many of the detractors make is missing the point.

It's unfortunate and deeply frustrating that so much of fandom in general focuses on whether something is 'realistic' or not. Often this is done at the expense of examining the symbolism, themes, and the overarching structure of a story. Contemporary fans seem to struggle with 'suspension of disbelief' and fail to grasp that characters have specific roles to perform within stories, and don't exist just to act how they think people should act in the real world. With Anakin and Padme in particular, this leads to a great deal of 'moralising' rather than simply analysing the actual story within its own context.

I’ve said it before, but in my understanding, Anakin and Padme are meant to embody the Jungian/alchemical concept of the ‘Union of Opposites’. In this view, it is through the joining (or rejoining) of two seemingly 'opposite' entities that both psychological and spiritual wholeness is attained. Many Anidala fans (myself included) have noted that Anakin and Padme two child prodigies who have been bound to serve the Republic in their respective ways since they were young—actually have a great deal in common, and that this is one of the reasons they bond with one another so strongly. This tends to be pointed out to counter arguments that they aren't compatible in-story or that they wouldn't have 'realistically' fallen in love. So how then can we simultaneously claim that Anidala are 'opposites'? It's about the symbolism, of course. And the way this applies to Anakin and Padme is readily apparent not only in their respective origins (water world/desert planet, slave boy/child queen, etc), but also in almost all of the visual imagery associated with them (fire/water, dark/light, life/death, etc).

The union of these opposite entities is supposed to create a 'dynamic stability'. Fittingly, one of the most overtly symbolic shots in AotC is the moment when Anakin is meditating on Naboo, and the sun is breaking through the clouds to form a ‘yin/yang’ symbol:

To me, this sums up the entire interlude on Naboo. It shows that for Anakin, despite the inner turmoil he is experiencing (the nightmares about his mother), being in Padme’s presence on her homeworld is calming and soothing to him, and helps him find the balance that so often eludes him elsewhere. And it alludes to the fact that despite Padme’s ongoing anxiety and worries for the future, she can be herself in Anakin’s presence in a way she cannot be in any other aspect of her life.

The yin/yang imagery is just one illustration of how Anakin and Padme’s ‘opposite’ nature does not mean that they are inherently incompatible—on the contrary. They are meant to be together. They need each other. On a symbolic level, they each represent two aspects of galactic rule which are ideally supposed to be in balance: the peacekeeping /defence side and the democratic, truth-speaking side. Of course, we see that the galaxy as a whole is thrown drastically out of balance by Palpatine’s machinations—Anakin’s fall, along with the Fall of the Republic and the ensuing Dark Times, illustrate the devastating result of this.

Anidala is a forbidden love story that seemingly ends in tragedy, but which is ultimately vindicated by the result of said forbidden union…aka by the love of Luke their son. They are not inherently incompatible, nor are they inherently dysfunctional. Rather they are torn apart because the galaxy itself is being torn apart.

That’s why it’s so important to view RotJ—not RotS—as the real resolution of their story. By acting in *defense* of his son (aka acting in the manner of protector and defender as he and the Jedi as a whole were always supposed to), Anakin returns to his True Self, and brings balance to both the Force as well as to these two long-sundered aspects of the galaxy. And with his dying breath he declares that those who love him ‘were RIGHT’ about him. He acknowledges this long-suppressed Truth (’there is good in him, I know, there’s still…’), and in doing so, symbolically joins himself with his beloved Padme once more.

The Union of Opposites is the ideal and intended outcome of the alchemical progression, aka the magnum opus….which is what the PT and OT form together. 

Anidala is my ultimate romance because their relationship is at once deeply personal and yet also mythic and larger than life. Cosmic, even. And since I don’t view them solely through the lens of ‘realism’ like the majority of fandom seems to, I also hold a MUCH more positive view of them than most fans do.

[amememightywarrior]

Phases of growth of an internet user in fandom, circa 2024

0-10 yrs - if you're on the internet it's either your parent(s) posting pics of you to facebook or you're watching youtube kids with less supervision than you actually need 'cos there are some weird as shit channels out there labeled 'for kids'. 11-12 - somehow they gave you a smartphone but you're very busy watching minecraft or roblox youtube channels and video-chatting your friends and you're probably into Pokemon. 13-16 - You are convinced only fellow teens your age belong on the internet sharing memes, because this is literally where ALL your peers are. What do you MEAN there are older people here on [social media site] that you can actually interact with?? Ew! 17-18 - The weight of IRL expectations is slowly crushing your creative spirit but you persevere. Time to apply to college. 19-20 - The end of your life is nigh. Also you're in college now trying to be an adult. What is happening?? You can vote now???? 21-24 - College, graduation, and discovering the wonderful surprises awaiting you in the economy earlier generations have left you (right now? it's shit. sorry.) You're still here doing what you enjoy. But are you letting your life slip away between your fingers? 25-29 - The 13-16 yr olds react like they're amazed at you for being on the internet but this is where you have your audience/friends/ways to talk about your favorite shows, which you STILL HAVE THANK YOU VERY MUCH. Your biggest fear is hitting 30 and having nothing to show for it but you've been making a lot of adulting mistakes and learning from those mistakes in a big way. It really stings when teenagers scream in astonishment that you're over 25. 30-39 - Now the gap between you and the 13-16 yr olds is bigger than ever but you look at them and see your past self and oof...but they deserve that chance to learn and grow just like you. And now you also know they will experience what you have: the neverending weird looks from whoever is currently 13-16. Such is the curse of aging. You may have a kid or two yourself by now, too. It doesn't bother you as much when you see polls asking about what age you are as a fanfic writer. Your twenties were miserable but it's getting better now that you kinda know what you're doing. The only drawback is the random aches and pains. Hey you! Quit shrimping! I see that! You're gonna regret it! 40+ (and I do mean the plus) - You were here before all these damn kids. How dare they try to cite the Deep Magic at you, you were there when it was written (the Deep Magic: the first Star Trek fanfic ever posted on the internet). You witness the very real loss of knowledge and wisdom of the internet that seemed like it had been around just ten years ago, as no one knows to even look for the history of anything. The landscape has really changed, but you're still here doing what you enjoy. Only difference is you can see the big picture now. When someone pulls out the famous 'do you know what this old tech is' pop quiz, you get excited when you see something familiar.