#wank about the boys

[javelinbk]

Fans await the arrival of the Beatles at London Airport, 22nd February 1964 - part 1 (part 2, part 3, part 4)

[thrumbolt]

Some people keep getting mad that others do crackships, or focus on less popular characters and they really don't understand that if they weren't such sad, pathetic little haters, but instead created a welcoming fandom culture, people would also love to make more content for the characters and ships THEY like.

Tamlin week has been extremely successful, creative and fun - and he's a generally hated side character! The weeks of popular characters like Rhysand or Lucien don't even compare with numbers of submissions - maybe ask yourself why.

It's at least partly because in the Tamlin corner, you can do creative stuff for whatever and people hype it up. Tamlin/Feyre? Cool! Tamlin/Amarantha? Hell yeah! Tamlin/Rhysand? Fucking go!

Do the same with some popular character however and some asshole will want to send you hate messages for shipping the wrong characters or whatever. No wonder this fandom has to commission half its art.

[sharonisthebettercarter]

Well the comics did a good job squandering any sympathy and shiz for dicklander, and the show too. I only feel bad for his child self. His grown ass can get attacked by rabid kryptonian dogs for all I care.

i disagree.

and look, i ain't gonna tell you how to feel boo, i can't obviously. i can only spew out nonsense and hope i might reach you or someone else who comes along to read my long winded bullshit.

but while both renditions are pieces of shit, i feel so much for comics homie too if not more. he's even more whoobie than show homie but gets dismissed but i digress.

throughout the story, we're made to feel *suspicious* about the claims on homelander or that his story may have more than meets the eye. ennis presents it point blank. he doesn't tell the reader how to feel about homelander, or anything, or anyone. he makes it clear how billy feels, how other characters feel, but he also certainly makes it show that things aren't quite adding up about him and billy's claim. he presents the story and lets *you* the reader feel (which is what real *good* writing does)

BUT it's framed out in a way to make the reader realize he *wasn't* this big bad awful guy he was made out to be, a piece of shit sure, but and not the real monster they were after, that billy was fuckin' wrong (like his dumb ass always is), that his end and final point in the story was manipulated, coerced by outside force, and not truly justified as a result.

leik, this guy got his WHOLE LIFE fucking RUINED, his whole self image, gaslit into fucking oblivion to *believe* he was a bad guy until he *became* a bad guy, after literally never once getting a *choice* for anything, ever, at all, at any point in his whole gotdamn life.

this boi never had a chance... and even after ALL that. people STILL want to control or punish him when he lacks one major vital thing that would warrant him *actually* deserving that.

AGENCY. fucking agency, the answer is agency, homelander has none of it, never has, and still does not have it. (he pretends to but it's not quite the same, the lack of it is what makes him a ticking time bomb)

you seem like someone to really value your own agency so idk, i feel like you should get that??

BUT GOTDAMN LET THE BOI JUST FUCKING BREATHE AT LEAST ONCE PLEASE????

UGH

just try to imagine if every single choice in your life was made *for you* by *someone else*, and that's homelander. and it doesn't stop into adulthood, it just turns into a fucking fucked up conservatorship beside someone who wants to kill you, oh yeah, and stunted growth so you never get a chance to really grow up and feel like or be your own person either.

like i'm not kidding, he might as well be a child STILL in that regard and it is super fucked up how often people exploit and groom him that way. i don't care if he's fucking 16, 40, or in his 70s, the man *ain't* grown like he should be and *needs* the space to actually *grow* before we decide to fucking judge him, else we're no better than his abusers.

and when a kid commits a crime, it's the parents/guardians that are brought up on charges/trial. there is a *reason* for that.

homelander's very clear lack of sanity/mental capacity and vought being his 'guardian'/conservator?? (if he even is a real legal person...) would put him under this spectrum of bullshit, and baby i don't want to say it's ableist not to acknowledge this, but...

i mean if i'm being real, it kinda sorta is...?? wait... HOLD THE--- FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!! OH MY FUCKING SATAN--it IS!! and I JUST GOT WHIPLASH FROM WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE BOYS FANDOM WHEN IT COMES TO HOMELANDER.

this motherfucker is *CRIMINALLY INSANE*, emphasis on that last fucking part, in every sense of the word *CLINICALLY*. and when that happens, even the fucking laws in the fucked ol' U.S. of A. DO NOT 'punish' a mofo by regular 'incarceration', they still order institutionalization but with a HOSPITAL for TREATMENT. (granted there are a whole mess of other problems in this country that still do not handle this properly jesus fucking christ--)

ABLEISM! it's fucking ableism that doesn't let fandom recognize this!! EVEN some of the people who claim to love him!!

except THEN make it WORSE on top of everything *because* of the stunted growth and vought AND limited personal agency and... fuck me... UGGGGGGHHHHHHH--

but THAT is homelander. and uh... yeah. yeah, you'd probably lose your gotdamn mind too, i don't think ANYONE could walk out sane, realistically speaking. pain is easy to say we'd walk out clean from, and then we all turn into pussies the *second* it's our turn to deal.

and the whole point of the twist is to rob you of any satisfaction of his death and make you angry at his circumstances rather than at him. again, ennis doesn't explicitly *tell* readers how to feel because it's more of a graphic novel but...

i personally think the show is aiming to recreate this effect because if they can pull it off (and manage to make an entire population feel like utter ableist shitheads for wanting him dead), then they'll be pulling off some kinda magical MAJOR amazing heist of the feels for the ages that will *hopefuly* be enough to push society in some better directions than its current state (man, we really could not have asked for a better time for this series... holy shit--)

as much as it pains me, *this* was why he was killed in the comics. not just for... ugh, sadness, realism... but because it was *part* of the lesson in exemplifying what was actually wrong.

man i am just way too fucking hyper analytical with this shit and also sometimes SO SLOW i--

[asmo-cosmetics]

i am about to be just as annoying about lucio as i am about julian i CANNOT with this shit

list of things lucio has done wrong, according to morga:

- was born

- was sick

- did not enjoy chores

- ran away when he was getting attacked by a bear

- had pretty fantastic survival instincts especially for a child that age?? if morga hadn't killed it the musk bear probably would have left on its own eventually?? "hide and wait for help" is literally what we teach children to do in emergencies irl?? i hate this bitch

- "turned into a liar" (read: was lied to by her so many times that she literally skewed his perception of himself)

- chose a different name (very cool, "identity inclusive" game studio)

- took the hint of something she wanted him to do (kill his father)

- realized he probably could not do that the exact same way his mother would have done it because they are two different people with two different sets of abilities

- found a clever way around that in order to accomplish the goal in his own way without doing something he had less confidence in his ability to achieve

- expected love in return for doing as he was told

- ran away when she tried to kill him

- ran away when she tried to kill him 2, the sequel

hello??? HELLO??? i'm losing my everloving mind. as always not a debate i will block you 🩷

[whimsicalwavess]

I be needing some horse girl Felix in my life it’s not leaving my brain it must exist in reality

[not-poignant]

Are Sebastian and Alex going to learn about bdsm and safe practices/negotiation? Or do they keep fumbling around and doing what they're doing?

Hi anon,

People who learn about BDSM don't necessarily practice safe practices or negotiation.

And there are elements of negotiation in this story! It's not a black and white 'they're not doing this in a paint-by-numbers sort of way and therefore it doesn't count' situation, y'know?

They are two characters in their mid-20s who live in a tiny town, one of those characters is dyslexic to the point that he can barely read, and the other's method of doing things has worked for him all his life (or so he thinks), they don't have any reason/s to learn about BDSM, and it's not likely that either of them ever will.

That also doesn't mean that they can't enjoy their kinky sex life.

There has been a lot of discussion already, and there will be more and more going forwards. It might not be at the level most people want, but Sebastian has certainly obtained consent (more than once), offered and then insisted on debriefs and post-sex discussion, explained to Alex how to communicate if he hates something, and made it clear that what he likes is unusual and sadistic in nature. It's also clear that Alex likes being pushed, i.e. - not being forced to give consent in every circumstance when someone can take control and give him what he wants anyway. That's actually pretty common in some people with a child abuse background who become people pleasers.

If you want negotiation + safe practices at a certain level, you'd have to completely remake Alex's character into someone who can magically be a functional, communicative, healthy human being, and he's not that. Alex is getting better at communicating (that's how we go this far in the story in the first place), but if you expect this story to end on Alex being a perfect human who can do Instagram-level kink negotiation, then no, this isn't the story you want, anon.

If you look deeper and don't expect cookie cutter kinds of dialogue, there has been ongoing negotiation in the story since the early chapters. When Alex makes it clear through physical response and then verbal that he doesn't like yelling, Sebastian stops yelling. When Sebastian makes it clear that he has complicated feelings about hiring his ex-school bully as a cleaner, Alex makes it clear that he doesn't share those complicated feelings, especially in light of the pay rate. Sebastian consenting to Alex being his cleaner makes it clear that those terms are acceptable to him.

When Alex tries to undervalue himself, Sebastian makes it clear that he's not comfortable paying someone less simply because they value themselves less. When Alex then takes that pay, it's a form of consent to Sebastian's attitudes. Their relationship has been an ongoing negotiation since the beginning, and that's how they've grown closer. If you're used to only looking for very obvious signs of negotiation, it might be easy to miss the non-verbal and subtle forms of negotiation that are happening.

For example, it might not seem like it, but Sebastian - many chapters ago now - talking about how he likes control in the bedroom and that turning Alex on long before they'd ever shared anything sexual together, is a form of communication. Alex learns he likes the idea of it without it ever been forced on him, and Sebastian wouldn't have that conversation with someone he didn't trust (for example, Alex in the beginning of the story). They had to have trust to have that conversation, Alex had to have trust to ask Sebastian questions about it in the oblique way he did, and they had to share a common comfortability have a conversation in that direction in the first place.

In A Stain that Won't Dissolve, these things don't look like a psychologist's version of: 'Okay, what do you want, and this is what I want, and here's where we meet in the middle' - a lot of life doesn't look like this (but if you want that, I've written that in Falling Falling Stars - it still has dubious consent though, lol). Both Alex and Sebastian have poor communication on their side, and it's a growth story for the two of them.

But no, I have no intention of Sebastian ever learning terms like 'subspace' or 'RACK' or anything like that. A lot of people in the world, especially prior to easy access to the internet, figured this stuff out on their own and many of them made it work even without the rigid or codified structures of the world of BDSM (and some of those people went on to invent the world of BDSM that we take for granted today).

It's the kinks that make you kinky, not the knowledge of an acronym or the world it engenders.

There's also no reason to think that Sebastian has access to a healthy education about BDSM there, it's not like Elliott was practicing much healthy BDSM in my other Stardew fic, The Wind that Cuts the Night, :D Elliott knew all about safe practices, negotiation, and BDSM, and chose to ignore a lot of the safe stuff over messing around more dangerously.

The fumbling around is the point, basically. Growing up is messy, and dubious consent is hot (for some of us), and there are many ways we communicate with the people around us, especially when it's two guys in a town the valourises machismo and stoicism over emotional openness, and one of those guys was beaten by his father over not being macho and strong enough which makes him exceptionally resistant to communicating clearly even about basic subjects and needs.

That's the part I actually really love about this story.

[bananonbinary]

oh my godddd just got recommended a post about how the slay the princess fandom is misogynistic and giving in to "the trend where fandom ignores the female characters" bc people are having fun shipping the voices. several comments were like 'ugh i know its so bad already ://" shut up. shut up shut up shut uppppppp

the slay the princess fandom is VERY small. if you check ao3, we've got less than 200 fics total. and guess what? the hero/princess ship is by FAR the most popular. the voice ships are miniscule in comparison. if people playing with m/m ships at ALL bothers you, you may in fact just be homophobic. (and maybe instead of bitching about how what a handful of other people create isn't to your liking, you could like. create something yourself.)

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

can people with the worst takes ever stop talking about "fixing" fem characters for the grand crime of not being palatable enough to their personal tastes.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Sonic fandom when Knuckles has an entire epiphany montage where he calls the Whipple family his home: I mean. This could mean anything. Maybe Wade and Knuckles are good friends. Maybe Knuckles is friends with them.

Sonic fandom when Maddie tells a construction worker that the damage Knuckles did was done by her "big kid" so as to not admit that she has alien anthropomorphic animal teenagers living in her house, and then follows that up by calling Knuckles by "our big red friend" to Sonic, with all of this happening after Sonic says he considers Knuckles to be his roommate: OMG Knuckles series confirmed Knuckles Wachowski CANON I cannot believe we won!! He's her kid this is his home he's Sonic's brother!! After the show he gets back to the Wachowski household and gets in sooo much trouble cause Maddie is his mom

[coldflasher]

supergirl really made me care about mon el, huh

[selamat-linting]

yknow as someone who usually dislike mainstream slop i think i'd be more forgiving of ppl who thinks indie wrestling are inherently more artsy and mature.... if theyre actually right about its virtues. because turns out their idea of adult media is if hazbin hotel were written by 4channers and their idea of artsy is jackass turned up to eleven. the only good thing in it is the queer performers and the occasional comedy matches making fun of heterosexuality. oh, and the kane impostors.

[slowlyvaliantmoon]

eegggghhhhhhhhhhhhh

[simptasia]

i got this headcanon about cardassian beauty standards

basically ya know how in disney animated features they do this thing where cute and pretty = circles and roundness. because humans like that. reminds us of babies. and Evil = Sharp Angles

well i imagine cardassians work the opposite way, where angles and points and long limbs are very appealing. and roundness and what we'd call cuteness ranges from meh to genuinely unappealing

reverse the eye thing too. small eyes = good, Big Eyes = unnerving. basically the pointier and haughtier looking the better

so a cardassian would Not get the appeal of a disney princess. also in cardassian propaganda cartoons, bajorans would look Very Cutesy (which still cuts deep cuz it comes across as infantilizing)

anyways. this means by cardassian standards:

dukat is very attractive, he is conventionally handsome (and it seems only fair to honour marc alaimo, The First Cardassian, in such a way! dudes' features were used as the base, after all)

garak would be considered unappealing, unsettling or plain. he truly is plain simple garak

damar is canonically handsome, so there's that. he's more rectangle-y so still not Round. by my logic he's less handsome than dukat. in-universe. by conventional cardassian standards

[every-dayiwakeup]

The obsession y'all have for condemning characters' "actions" like they hurt you personally will never not be funny to me.

Patrick Bateman isn't going to be chasing me around my house naked with a chainsaw. Pennywise isn't talking to me from the sewers. Billy Loomis isn't going to call me up and ask me what my favorite scary movie is.

They. Aren't. Fucking. Real.

There are actual fans of real-life serial killers and school shooters, and what gets your feathers ruffled is a fictional character and their fans? Be serious!!

How can I like a certain character? Because I know the difference between reality and fiction. Next!

[juneibyou]

the best part about having your favourite band's lyrics be a significant portion word salad is that whenever you're particularly emotional in some way you can find a song that musically fits the vibes and the lyrics will suddenly be interpretable to exactly the situation you're in. it's magical

[rosalinesurvived]

Adding onto that post I made on Lyanna’s appearance I also want to call out Elia’s canon appearance. The Martells are “Salty Dornishmen” meaning Elia should be small, black eyed, brown-skinned and having black curls like Arianne. She’s also chronically ill so she should be looking sickly.