#which in my opinion also contributes to why it’s not the most popular ship in the series

[vincentsleftear]

I completely understand the desire to discuss the apparent taivan erasure within the Yellowjackets fandom but I am sooo tired of seeing people chalk it up to those two women being “butch”.

Like. I understand the sentiment but come on guys 😭. THESE are your “butches” ?!

fellas is it butch to wear a jacket when it’s cold outside?

[helpallthenamesaretaken]

The Judo Flip Scene; The Scene that Divided the Percy Jackson Fandom: What Went Wrong?

Annabeth grabbed his wrist and flipped him over her shoulder. He slammed into the stone pavement. Romans cried out. Some surged forward, but Reyna shouted, “Hold! Stand down!”

Annabeth put her knee on Percy’s chest. She pushed her forearm against his throat. She didn’t care what the Romans thought. A white-hot lump of anger expanded in her chest—a tumor of worry and bitterness that she’d been carrying around since last autumn.

“If you ever leave me again,” she said, her eyes stinging, “I swear to all the gods—”

Percy had the nerve to laugh. Suddenly the lump of heated emotions melted inside Annabeth.

“Consider me warned,” Percy said. “I missed you, too.

-Mark of Athena

This scene is one of the, if not most, controversial scenes in the entirety of Rick Riordan's books. It has caused many fans to go deep into the morality of the scene--into the question of boundaries, whether it is just a good boundaries into Percy and Annabeth's relationships or just abusive behaviour. In this post, I will talk about my opinion on, 'What went wrong?'

First, let us dissect this scene, shall we? We have Annabeth, who has lost her only proof of permanence for six months. The guy she was dreading would die for five years before she thought they had their happy ending was suddenly snatched in a time where she thought life couldn't get any better. During this time;

she saw jason falling in love with piper and was stressed that percy would be doing the same without her

she was stressed percy would never even remember her.

she canonically spent hundreds and thousands of drachmas (and probably time too) on iris messaging every monster and god she could just so that she could find him

she spent a WHOLE lot of energy on this.

she was probably advised by people in camp to find another guy, probably got these comments regularly

she was also troubled by athena's roman form to find athena parthenos statue and ditch finding percy, which must have been hard to handle

she was in charge of helping build a WHOLE WAR SHIP

she was also in charge of rebuilding the home of the gods

And you know what? It makes sense that she would have all of these emotions buried inside her. It makes sense that she would be angry, stressed, and depressed and that she would bury all of this inside. "During their separation, something had happened to Annabeth’s feelings. They’d grown painfully intense—like she’d been forced to withdraw from a life-saving medication. Now she wasn’t sure which was more excruciating—living with that horrible absence, or being with him again" Yep, homegirl was going through some stuff.

Though we don't know what his thoughts were on his point of view, from the fact that he laughs and never brings it up later, we can conclude that Rick wanted us to know that he didn't care, and that these interactions are common between both of them, though one could argue that isn't really reliable.

So; Annabeth having an outburst of emotions is a completely normal reaction, judging the amount of things she has gone through, even though it isn't the right way to express her feelings. But, why is the judo flip scene actually bad? Why did it give even percabeth shippers the ick?

The Way Rick Wrote It: Rick treated the scene as if it was funny, Annabeth was such a girly girlboss who did it to keep Percy in his place. "I only judoflip my boyfriend". And people were mad. Mad that girls are portrayed to be girlbosses by making them violent. Mad that this violence was against a guy who was implied to be abused in his childhood.

My Argument: This scene was written in a time where media with violent comedy was popular among kids (tom and jerry, oggy and the cockroaches, i see you), and that it aged badly. Another important thing: a lot of the fandom also thought of it as percabeth's most romantic moments, and hyped it up so much, which contributes towards the whole ick of the scene.

My Argument: One thing to take into account was that the romans were really on guard when the greeks arrived. they were scared it was going to be an ambush. so when annabeth judoflips percy, their nerves took over. i fully believe the humor of 'i only judoflip my bf' was just their way of diffusing a potentially dangerous situation of misunderstanding.

But in the end I do agree, the way this was written was a major disservice to the feelings that Annabeth was experiencing that time. Rick failed to portray that scene as an exhausted traumatised teenager having an unhealthy outburst of emotions, which is what it really was. Instead, he tried to make it a funny type of scene, and the fandom carried it forward by hyping the scene up as if it was one of percabeth's most romantic moments, and even though the intentions were good, he failed to convey the meaning behind what they said properly.

So now that we've answered the question this post was made for, I'd like to end this post with a positive note. I'd like to point out that in cotg, there is no moment that annabeth physically hurted (hurted is too much of an overstatement) percy if you think about it, which shows that she has improved. If you want proof, I searched any time where Annabeth teased percy physically when he said something 'stupid' and what I found was 'nudged me with her toe' and 'lightly pinched me'. So, even though Rick messed up in writing that one scene more than ten years ago, it's safe to say he has improved.

****************************************************************

[miyuskye]

HERE I GO with this super interesting event from the All Ships Ship Week event hosted by @ficwip

The ship dossier! And what ship I could've dossiered if not my current hyperfixation, aka Jon/Elias??? Sooo, the thing with loving a podcast is that you don't get a lot of official art, since the physical descriptions are also very scarce by author's choice. BUT! they recently made a TTRPG game based on the podcast, which these semi-canon designs. My personal image of the characters in influenced by the huge amount of fanarts circulating around, but, probably an unpopular opinion, I like these designs too. With reference to the image, the top one (not in the ship sense) is Jon, aka the Archivist, aka the pet project/obsession and the bottom one (again, not in the ship sense) is Elias/spoiler, aka the mentor/obsessed.

It would have been great, if I did actually understand the assignment and not gone off the trail with a full AO3 statistical analysis. Under the cut because probably not a lot of people are interested in my ramblings. The dossier is intended for both people familiar with the series, but also for people who know nothing about it. Warning for sparse spoilers about the whole TMA series (not TMP since I still have to listen to it!) (as I said, Elias is a big spoiler himself lol)

Let's begin this trip with a biiig disclaimer. Sadly for us avid AO3 users, the AO3 fandom does not represent the fandom in whole, so these stats are based only on the number of works in the AO3 context. Looking around at non-fanfic related site, i.e. reddit, I know there are some JE shipper there too, though I can't really be sure in what percentage with respect to the non-shipping community (or the people only shipping the canon couple). Links to the guru of fandom stats! toastystats (tumblr), AO3. There's also a github repository but I personally found it a bit cranky to use and it doesn't use an AO3 updated DB, though for big data statistics is fine due to the central limit theorem but for smaller fandom/tags it might be a bit inaccurate. Also the code is in python 2, which is now a bit difficult to use. I personally made my stats by doing targeted searches using the AO3 search function! Super easy to use, albeit a bit repetitive. Stats were made on Oct, 19-22, 2024. Again, I think the results won't change much through the years, especially regarding the main TMA tag data, but who knows if JonElias will surge in popularity (hehe it's a distant hope, I'm pretty much sure that the population distribution is already well-established).

TMA (The Magnus Archive) is a horror podcast, following the events of Jonathan Sims, aka Jon, aka the first part of my ship, who works at the Magnus Institute. This Institute is a facility researching in supernatural events and records supernatural encounters in the form of statements given by volunteering people. Jon is the Head Archivist, meaning he manages the statements and records some "odd ones", as per request of the Head of the Institute and his direct superior, Elias. Sooo yes, he's also his boss. :) lovely for them.

My lovely idiots are the 3rd most popular ship! Such a big achievement for me, who I usually ship obscure ships. As of today, we have 1434 JE works out of the whole 29751 works in the TMA tag. Way to go, JE community, let's keep this up!

The Jon/Martin ship is actually canon in the podcast, so that big percentage, compared to other fandoms, is largely explained by that (instead of simple popularity like Oikawa/Iwaizumi in the Haikyuu fandom). My other favorite ship is Jon/Tim, and I proudly contributed to that 2.78% (ofc also to the 4.8% of JE but it seemed quite superfluous to write).

Fun fact: speaking of spoilers, Elias' character tag in AO3 is a MASSIVE spoiler. It was what ruined the plot twist for me, because I looked for fanfics around ep 40ish (out of 200) and got that spoiled :( I understand why AO3 did that, because before the reveal the tags referring to Jonah and Elias were separated and I guess they wanted to unite them (since I also read some Jonah/Jon works before the reveal - all of them ended up having Elias being somewhat connected to Jonah OF COURSE, but I believe that before The Reveal there was also the belief that Elias was one of his descendants. I became part of the fandom after that, though, so it's just speculation based on older posts I came across).

This is probably my most favourite slide. JonElias has the highest Mature-to-Gen ratio (based on the AO3 rating system) with respect to the other ships. Jon/Martin, being 40% of the works also leads most of the general fandom stats, so it's more correct to actually cite the ship that makes the stat. I also believe that a lot of the more Gen-oriented fics feature Jon/Martin due to them being canon, that is also one of the possible factors influencing their and the whole tag ratios. Due to this, I believe that the Elias/Peter ratio might actually influenced by that, since they're a non-conflicting couple with the main one and are thus frequently included in their fanfics. The other fave of mine also has a higher Mature-to-Gen ratio than the general one, but not as high as JE.

Jon is the main character, so it's obvious that he is the most cited in all the works. Elias is the villain, so it's not so strange. Also, this refers to the characters tags, and this means that Elias might be included as a character even in other ships-based works. I believe the same happens with Tim, since ships with him have a lower presence in the fandom, but he is the third most included character. It's probably because he gets included into most of the Gen/JMart works.

These are the most used AO3 tags for the JonElias main ship tag. Do I really need to explain? They just do the talking in my place lol

A few words on the Alternate universe tag: AUs are somewhat canon in the show, due to plot-related reasons, and I believe this gives us space to imagine, stories where Jon is as deranged as Elias without denaturing canon. I personally believe Jon has the capacity of being feral as, if not even more than, Elias. Canon showed us a glimpse of what we could have but ended up not getting, again, due to plot-related reasons. Some fanfics are based on those glimpses. Also the Do not Archive will be an interesting topic to talk about later!

These are the most used tags for the individual characters. Some of them are also matching but not in their JE tagged works. For example, the tag Fluff might be present in 12% of Elias' works but more than half of those works are Jon/Martin-based works, so he's included in the work but, in a way, not actively participating in the fluff. Also, Jon is canonically asexual, hence the related tag! A few words on that, this doesn't and rightly won't stop people from producing M and E-rated works with him and characters (not necessarily Elias), contrary to what some people might think. And I assure you, as an asexual person, that no one of the JE fanfics I read (even the ones without the Asexual character tag) erased Jon's asexuality. If anything, the ones where Jon's asexuality was present and acknowledged were also my favorites!

Small digression on the Do not archive tag. I noticed that both JE and Elias' tag had a percentage of works being under that tag. Which is used when an author does not want the series staff to read their works. It's mostly used on M+E works (77% of DNA tagged works are M or E rated on AO3), as one would expect. At first I guessed it was related to the pronounced M-to-T ratio of the JE tag (which is even more pronounced on the DNA tag), buuut it turns out the main cause was just a quirk of the data/bias of the data case. As I said, there are only 1434 (as of end-October 2024) works in the JE tag and this means that this number can be biased by a single external source, which causes the shift in the data. This means that this is not a trend!

By excluding the cause from the analysis, the Do not archive tag percentages for JE are still higher than the other ships, but not by such a large margin (around 7% which makes sense).

Nothing to say here, the series reaching its peak in terms of fandom response and also due to COVID making people consume more media content, the JE rise followed the general raise of fanfics in the TMA tag. Which isn't surprising but not to be taken for granted either! Another sad but probably not a trend fact is that Jon/Elias production was slightly more flourishing during the earlier years of the series (especially 2018-2019), than it is now. This might probably related to a ship actually being made canon or probably fandom disappointment in the TMA finale (which I can understand). I read in a lot of earlier JE fanfics very excited comments about "omg I can't wait to see him and Jon in s4/5" and I was like *sad violin noises*, because they didn't get the amount of (canon-expected) interactions the JE fandom thought they would get. Again, this is just speculation and to be taken with a grain of salt.

Unexpectedly, M+E JE works have more words that Gen-rated ones (expected on the JE tag due to their M-to-T ratio, but kinda unexpected compared to the whole TMA tag).

JE fanfics are slightly more kudo-ed and bookmarked than the general fandom trend.

A conclusive remark, is that I made this just to see what behaviours could be extrapolated from such a tiny tag in an otherwise medium fandom (as for 2020, median number of fanworks in labelled big fandom was 45k. Havign roughly half of that number means that TMA is, on AO3, a medium fandom to me).

Anyhow, I wish you happy JonElias day which for me is once again every day since twp months ago :)

[lesbianwithchainsaws]

I don't really know much about this but Adam from Saw?

Hell yeah. Thank you so much!!!!!!!

Favourite thing about them:

His reactions to everything in the game are great. Especially love how he's in a death trap and still asks for a cigarette as if his life isn't literally in danger. So I guess just his humor and everything despite how tragic everything happening to him is

Least favourite thing about them:

Idk, his taste in friends? (Adam name drops Scott Tibbs as like his only friend, and Scott Tibbs is an asshole!!)

Favourite line:

I don't give a crap if you covered yourself in peanut butter and had a 15 hooker gang bang!

My name is Very Fucking Confused, what's your name? is another good one.

Also the entire scene where he pretends to die from the cigarette. It's not a line, but it's one of my favourite moments in Saw

brOTP:

Adam and Amanda. Besties to me

OTP:

Him and Lawrence

nOTP:

idk. Adam doesn't interact with most of the characters to have enough bad ships

Random headcanon:

The "Adam is trans" headcanon is hugely popular (and correct), and I'd hc that him being queer is a big reason why his relationship with his parents isn't good. I also think he had a lot of mental health issues and his parents just didn't help out, which also contributed to it. So he ran away from home and didn't forgive them when they tried to apologise and be better.

Unpopular opinion:

I don't understand the "Adam is alive" theories. He very much clearly isn't

Song I associate with them:

I remember seeing this fanart of Adam that used lines from Twin Size Mattress by The Front Bottoms so that's his song now

Favourite picture of them:

[steveharrington]

Hope this doesn’t come off as argumentative bc I’m a big fan of ur account but I’m confused about your post complaining about how people write Steve. Like you say you think it’s gross but you personally disliking something doesn’t make it wrong. You complain about how it’s not accurate to his character but why does it matter if someone writes OOC? I just feel like fanfiction is fiction and purely for fun and even if people are using Steve as a self insert or making him weaker it’s not hurting anyone. I also don’t understand how writing Steddie a certain way is “fetishizing” mlm… like no one would call it fetishizing if it was stancy or any het couple so complaints like that just kind of seem to “other” queer relationships. Sorry I realize this became kind of ranty I really am wondering if I’m misunderstanding what you said or just missing something

it’s not just that i don’t like it, i think there’s genuinely something concerning about a trend of writing sexual fantasies wherein one person is helpless and infantilized. it isn’t just about it being out of character, it would still be weird even if it was true to steve’s character. i know people will disagree with me and say the whole “fiction is fiction” thing, whatever, i personally am very suspect of fics where the entire sexual appeal is based around steve being clueless (sometimes drunk or high because fanon has decided he’s clueless about drugs despite him literally having said he’s smoked weed before) and behaving as if he’s way younger than his canonical age of 19. and where it becomes fetishization is when every single nsfw work, regardless of which characters it’s about, are all indistinguishable because people see two men and are like “oh okay so which is the helpless innocent one who can barely function without direction and which is the sexy dominating one?” like. if you view every gay relationship in terms of these very extreme sexual roles and force characters into them regardless of their true personalities, to me that is fetishization. the reason people don’t refer to it as fetishization in regards to stancy is because honestly the number of stancy fics that would fit this description is so minimal compared to the number of steddie fics that do. in just three months, steddie has rocketed up to become the most popular ship on the ST ao3 tag, which is fine and great and i’ve contributed to it, but you can’t deny that the sheer volume of smut fics where steve is treated like a clueless little baby in the steddie tag greatly outnumbers those in the stancy tag. and i’m not trying to pearl clutch or whatever, i read smut and i think it’s great that people have fun writing steddie smut, but those particular trends are very weird and concerning in my opinion

[mokutone]

What about Anko for the ask thing

anko!!!! tysm i'd love to talk abt her

favorite thing about them —I like her hair, I like that she's fun, and I find her past with Orochimaru to be very interesting! she contributes tool things to the narrative.

least favorite thing about them — Quick question. Why did she lick Naruto. What the fuck was that. i try to pretend that didn't happen because it was weird

favorite line —nothing really sticks out to me! alas!

brOTP —Asuma sensei!!! i feel like she's a little sister to him, kinda. He just attracts people who are awful drinking buddies, and she's no exception. She likes to get him in trouble, push his buttons, and be a huge pain in the ass, but she's also an absolute riot and every once and a while she'll genuinely admit that her life is much better with him in it.

idk LIKE. i just want her to have some stable and comfortable relationships, and Asuma seems like he's got good boundaries and such an extraordinarily chill vibe that I think he'd be a really good friend for her.

OTP — eeeh??? i don't know. Therapy, I think that would be beneficial to her.

nOTP —...Yamato...I know the Yamato I write doesn't apply a label to himself, but I def see him as gay. Also, I think that Anko could be a LOT. for him, and she would get really frustrated with his tendencies toward caution + preparedness in all things. Like, loosen up a little, dude! Christ. Not everything needs a five step plan. I know this is (as far as Anko goes anyway) popular ship based off their shared Orochimaru trauma, but I feel like they'd have a stronger basis for a relationship (and this case I mean friendship) based on Anko liking sweet and fried foods (which Yamato dislikes), and Yamato being neutral to positive on spicy foods (which Anko dislikes).

Going to dinner, ordering a full meal, putting on each others plates what they themselves will not eat, and filling each other in on the latest Jōnin gossip (because, deep down, I think we all know that Yamato is a bit of a busybody, and Anko is transparently a troublemaker and a drama enjoyer, not even deep down at all).

random headcanon —She's not a fan of bitter flavors either! Most teas are a little bit bitter, so she tolerates it well, and certainly more than she tolerates spicy foods, but she's not a fan. Mostly, she likes tea ceremonies for the ceremony of it. Also, the sweets balance out the bitterness well, so that's fine.

unpopular opinion —i think that she, specifically she and sasuke should have teamed up to kill orochimaru for good, and that orochimaru should have stayed dead afterwards. thanks for coming to my ted talk.

song i associate with them —Transgender Dysphoria Blues by Against Me!

i don't really know if i can explain this one well? I tried really hard to pick a different song but the vibe of this one is like. idk. if i think of a song for anko, i think of this one

cw the song does use the f slur but it's like. a very good song.

favorite picture of them

here's a picture of her from when she was a kid. ignore orochimaru's shoulder this isn't about him. look at her she's so happy!

[moonandblossoms]

This is for the asks on why I ship FushiKugi.

Well, I started to become much closer to the Jujutsu Kaisen fandom for the past few months. You all know that every fandom has shippers and there are problems and beefs with other people around us. As a FushiKugi shipper, I have been asked for a handful of times on why I like the ship. Till date, I have not perfectly explained why I liked them. In this post I will tell why I actually like them. This is going to be quite long though.

Before I begin, I would just like to tell a few things which we all need to understand. We shippers are naturally biased (or may not) towards our favorite ships. We also have slight negative biases for the ones which we hate or don't like that much. Its hundred percent okay to have biases because they are quite natural. Maybe, I am a bit biased for FushiKugi and have some negative biases for its rival ships- Most of it being ItaKugi, NobaMaki and/or maybe even ItaFushi. Nevertheless, I stay a bit unbiased and appreciate its rival ships as well. Btw, I multi-ship Nobara with all the three but I am far more inclined for FushiKugi. Maybe because I am biased.

Well, its absolutely fine if you don't ship FushiKugi because they are not your cup of tea. Definitely okay, but what pisses me off at times is people questioning me about shipping FushiKugi. They don't really question when people ship Nobara with Maki because its quite a very popular ship in the fandom. Even ItaKugi for that matter, but they are like, "FushiKugi.... why you ship it?" or "I can't understand why people ship Nobara with Megumi" or "FushiKugi, is that even a ship?" or anything like this. Okay, you hate them, you hate them. That's not my problem, but can't you just give a second thought or accept that everyone are entitled to have their own opinions, choices and preferences?

Didn't Nobara have screentime and moments with Megumi too? Weren't there times they shared a good chemistry? Also weren't there times when they too had some notable moments? I can't understand why people tell that NobaMaki and/or ItaKugi made sense but not FushiKugi. There is a hypocrisy behind their opinion. Nobara almost shared equal chemistry with both Yuji and Megumi. The dynamics were just different, but they were more or less made equally sense. 

In the love-triangle between Yuji, Nobara and Megumi, FushiKugi arguably gets the least attention or fan contributions from the fans because they think that Yuji is more of a shippable character than Megumi or Nobara because of Yuji’s affable and extroverted persona. That's why ItaFushi and ItaKugi are comparatively popular.

However.... just because Megumi is very introverted and anti-social, it doesn't mean he should not have any girl friend or should be shipped with any female character. Nobara is practically the only female character he has interacted with after Tsumiki, who is actually his step-sister. Anti-social guys can form a lot of potential building chemistry w/any girl. Anti-social guys can actually have more development than extroverted ones because they aren't like that. They will travel the road to become more socializing with people. They have more room to improve themselves. They'll learn to socialize well and that's a development for them. There is no such policy saying that guys like Megumi are better off-single than getting married. I have seen the same from Naruto fans who tell that for Sasuke. In this case, Megumi is also a shippable character and it wouldn't make sense for him to be shipped with any other character apart from Nobara if we talk 'bout hetero ships. Yuji still has an untapped potential w/his classmate Yuko Ozawa, whom Yuji acknowledged and respected her despite many of his class peers didn't care about her that much because of her being fat and kinda weird. Heck, he even says that he will pick her out of all the classmates in their class.

You might even tell that they are together because they are teammates. But, teammates are really potential to form an amazing chemistry because they are close! They are put as teammates for a reason. They not even need to be romantic.

Honestly speaking, Slash or femslash have the least probability to become the endgames in shounen as far as we have seen. Barely any BL or GL ship becomes canon. Its absolutely okay to still ship them because nobody forced you to ship canon ships. Heck, I am not sure if even FushiKugi will become canon but I still ship it. So we all are not yet sure which couples will become the endgame.

Thus it quite pisses me off when antis tell that FushiKugi never made sense. Ironically, even the skepticism about their hate is what really doesn't make sense. If we ship, we exactly don't need a reason. Sometimes we don't need a reason to like something, we just need a reason to hate something. Regardless, there are a lot of shippers who still have reasons to support them.

So finally.... I will tell why I love the ship so much. 

⚠ MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD ⚠

Believe it or not. Megumi is REALLY protective of Nobara. He prioritizes her safety and cares a lot for her. Whenever they both were fighting as a team, w/or w/o Yuji, Kugisaki is the one who gets attacked by cursed spirits first. Both Yuji and Megumi show a lot of concern for her, but Megumi is consistently shown prioritizing her safety more than Yuji does before Yuji gets into action. He acts more of a team leader for them because he is naturally more intelligent and matured than both of them. That automatically puts him to show more concern for Nobara.

Kugisaki is unarmed. I'd rather avoid confrontation.

Why does she have to get sucked away so often?

Prioritize Kugisaki first!

Even if Megumi could or couldn’t deal with the job which he said he want to do it by himself (because he felt it was very important), he took Nobara’s safety as the priority.

(Also I want to add a slight hint of showing Nobara and Megumi fighting alone w/o Yuji. They both were only shown together, Yuji was not in the frame till Nobara got sucked up).

Megumi was shown to be concerned for Nobara during the cursed womb arc, pre-good will event arc and death painting arcs. They have been clearly highlighted. Even in the death painting arc, Megumi was stubborn enough to protect Nobara. He was so desperate on saving her when she was getting sucked off. 

In the anime.

Despite that, Nobara tells she will manage this by herself, which pinpoints a lot on how much she doesn’t want Megumi to stress himself out on her but instead focus on taking out the special grade spirit. This is not a sign of not wanting help that can be proven as an anti-hint for the ship, its to prove even how much Nobara is concerned for Megumi that she doesn’t want him to help her but take care of the cursed spirits.

But did it stop Megumi from taking any action for her? NO. He was insisting upon her safety a LOT on Yuji while they were confused on how to deal with the cursed spirits. The situation was so stake for them, but Megumi kept emphasizing a lot on saving Nobara. He’d let Nobara take Yuji's help instead of him taking Yuji's help, showing how much of concern he has for her. He was so aware that Nobara would need Yuji more than he needed.

Its not only Megumi who cares for her, Nobara does as well.

Of course the anime did shit with this scene where Nobara was going after Megumi when he was hit by Todo. Nobara was not made to react that much in the anime.

The signs of care and mutual respect was evident in their bond.

He devices the right strategies so that his teammates are always on the safe side. But lets be honest, Megumi has shown to be a lot more concerned for Nobara right? I mean, he EQUALLY cares for both his teammates but when it comes to safety, he is mostly shown (keyword: I said just shown, don’t overlook) that more for Nobara because he trusts Yuji's skills a lot and he knew that he is pretty strong. He doesn't underestimate Nobara, no! Not at all. He feels that she might need more help. What Megumi shows for her is care. Care is not equivalent to underestimating. They both are completely different.

He not only cares for Nobara during fights, battles, etc. When Nobara was shown sad about Yuji’s death, he gives a soft glance to her. He himself was worried for his friend but he was shown to be worried a bit for Nobara as well.

We can see something similar when Yuji reveals himself to be alive.

Everytime when Nobara cries a bit, we can see some pitiful glances from Megumi.

There was another similar hint being the bunt strike. Megumi intentionally went for a bunt so that Nobara could go to the next base even if it means that he couldn’t make it.

They actually have a funny dynamic too. Nobara teases Megumi a lot. She teases him more than she does to Yuji. Like, she calls him, "What a child", "Problem child". 

And sometimes she annoyingly amuses the audience regarding him like, "That's a tall hurdle for an anti-social guy like him", "Not a bad answer, I'd have killed you if you had said big boobs" etc. etc. 

In the manga, when he was asked about the type of girls he prefers, Nobara intervenes with some funny statements.

To all these, Megumi actually gets annoyed by her. Megumi clearly understands Nobara and does find her annoying at times, but he really doesn't express it like that. He doesn't get too angry with her remarks and teasing. 

He just considers them for a while but gets moving on. 

This funny teasing needn't be an anti-hint for the ship. They are a part of the funnier side in their dynamic. Even Megumi once kind of teases-"Kugisaki, go back" when Nobara couldn't take a run as Maki got out (in the baseball game).

Simply, for an anti-social (not exactly) person like Megumi, Nobara's statements should have made him feel annoyed but he never broods about it too much. He reflects his matured side on Nobara as well. He pretty much has a soft side for her.

They had a lot of development. When Megumi met Nobara for the first time, he did show a sort of an ignorant expression (but he wasn't like, "Aah, I am not going to care for this woman"). As the series went on, he started to care a lot for her (mentioned earlier). There was a huge difference on his perspective on Nobara as a comrade ever since she joined their team. There is a great uphill in the development of their bond.

When Yuji was presumed dead, there were high chances that Megumi and Nobara would have come to know each other well. They were often shown together and high likely, this period would have given them the opportunity to know well about each other. They even had the driving force to win in the goodwill event for their dead friend (Yuji obviously wasn’t dead hahahahaa).

Megumi and Nobara understand each other very much. They adjust with each other's personas as they are polar opposites (they are also opposites in terms of preferences- Megumi like rice whereas Nobara prefers bread, and Megumi is a dog person whereas Nobara likes cats). Nobara was also quite well adapted to Megumi's introverted trait and Megumi can adjust with Nobara's brash attribute. 

They have another hint in the cursed womb arc. When Nobara got sucked in, Megumi went for her rescue. When she was saved by Megumi’s Gamma, she says that she hates frogs. Now here comes how she actually adjusts with her. We’d expect Megumi to actually be angry with telling such thing during a very serious situation, but instead he APOLOGIZED.

They both pretty much gelled well with each other, if not right away. They both haven’t been teammates for that long, thus its really great that they gelled a lot quickly. Nobara gelling with Yuji was fine because he is funny and cheerful like Nobara, but Megumi is not like that. Its really a great thing for him factoring his personality.

In the second ending (Give it back), we can see Nobara and Megumi being with each other. This was actually one of the major reasons to trigger me to ship the couple.

Also both of them going for shopping (seeing a young boy and a young girl going for shopping is really romantic).

And them having some nice chat before the beach.

Look how she is staring at Megumi here >////< (Idk if she is really staring at him but its cute hehehee)

They were frequently shown together in the second ending.

Out of the last few scenes in season 1, we can see Megumi telling Nobara that Sukuna’s reincarnation triggered the Yasohachi Bridge curse. He tells Nobara to not tell Yuji about it because Yuji will be greatly shocked. He ate Sukuna’s finger for the first time to save Megumi, but that explanation would surely not satisfy him at all.

We can see how much Megumi trusts Nobara on this matter. She tells “Don’t underestimate a lady’s consideration.” 

These panels shows Megumi’s concern for Yuji and his trust for Nobara. We can see how Megumi started to become more comfortable with her which made him build trust on her (as Yuji and Nobara told him during their mission that they can trust him and to also tell about himself).

There is another slight hint shown when Nobara and Megumi meet Yuko Ozawa who was Yuji’s classmate and seemed to have feelings for Yuji. Megumi orders black coffee and Nobara tells that he drinks in order to look cool in front of girls (but however Megumi tells that he generally likes drinking black coffee). I guess even subtle hints are often used to tease the ship a bit.

Also in the first light novel of Jujutsu Kaisen, Nobara gets angry w/Megumi for visiting Angel Maid Café (not w/Yuji).

By looking at the illustration from the novel (not sure its from the novel but more or less seems like it), we can see both of them might would have had some nice time with the maids there. Nobara would have been jealous of those maids spending time w/him and thus she voices her displeasure to it.

Bonus take: This was only in the anime but I would still love showing it.

Megumi says that he loves girls who have an unshakable character (However do note that he said something different in the manga). Nobara has an unshakable character.

So I have explained most of the hints for FushiKugi and my thoughts on them. Honestly speaking, no ship is romantic except for MechaMiwa (Mechamaru and Miwa) because Gege Akutami himself said that Miwa is the only female character to have a romance in the story. But the other ships are platonic at the least and FushiKugi is definitely one of them. I am not actually shipping them only for the reasons above, I majorly ship them because of the potential romantic dynamic they can have.

Yuji and Nobara also equally made sense. I quite like them too but they mostly stroke to me as best friends/Nakama type bond. They share more of an informal bond which is capable of making them as thicker friends than romantic lovers since they both are extroverted. Having an introvert paired with an extrovert is something very interesting and filled with a lot of potential, because both the partners can try to tone themselves to being normal by correcting each other’s flaws. Say, like Megumi is too grumpy at times. Nobara can make him feel a bit normal. Sometimes Nobara can be brash. Megumi can make her to be to cool down a bit. This is an advantage of opposite people being paired up with each other.

There is also a common shounen formula used (kindly note that a few animes are prone to contradict some). There are rarely any chances for the main female lead to end up with the main male lead. In this case, its Yuji and Nobara. Despite the number of hints dropped, there are chances that they might not end up as well. The female lead is more inclined to end up with the second lead male or any other relevant male characters. Say, did Rukia end up with Ichigo? No, it was Renji despite Rukia shared a lot of moments with him. Did Sakura end up with Naruto? No, it was Sasuke. When the female MC is a Tsundere, she is more inclined to end up with the second lead male who is mostly an emo-type (not exactly) or someone who is not very extroverted or energetic. To be precise, a Kuudere. From this shounen formula/pattern, I estimate that Megumi and Nobara might have chances of ending up with each other. Kuudere/Tsundere combination is pretty famous in Japan.

But however, shouldn’t the MC be given the priority to end up with a girl? Yeah, agreed. But doesn’t Yuji have any other girl apart from Nobara?

Let’s stop sleeping on this character.

This girl might have made a very minor appearance and she is much irrelevant to the plot. But also according to the general shounen formula, the main lead male is inclined to end up with a soft and shy girl, who is generally a dandere. Yuko is a perfect example of a dandere. In this case, Yuji has chances of ending up with Yuko as well. 

Yuji expressed his respect for Yuko when he was asked about who he liked in the class, he says that he likes Yuko. Yuko started liking him back. Yuji even recognizes her immediately despite she heavily changed in looks. 

The main lead is more inclined to end up with danderes, who watch their love interests from a distance.

So, this is how the shounen formula goes in short:

Main male lead, who is a Deredere (sweet and energetic): Paired w/Dandere female character who is generally not the female lead, but a side character.

Second lead male who is generally a Kuudere: Paired w/Tsundere who is the main female lead.

To be more short, this is how it goes.

Deredere/Dandere

Kuudere/Tsundere

This is the usual pattern which shounen follows while making ships canon. However, we are still not sure whether Jujutsu Kaisen will also follow this but this is the usual pattern followed. So I feel that the show might possibly follow this because of the circumstances given. I mean circumstances similar to animes having the combo ships mentioned above.

I mean, its fine that Nobara and Yuji had a lot more moments than Yuji and Yuko had on-screen. Its not even close but that’s what every male lead and female lead have with each other. Even if they have so much, they don’t usually end up with each other. Its just like how Naruto and Sakura had a lot more moments and scenes than Naruto and Hinata had, but Naruto did end up with the latter. Because, also according to shounen formula the main male lead and the female lead are too close that they don’t even need to be canon. They are so close that they are more like thick friends than lovers. However, there might be a few exceptions because few animes are quite different and break some shounen rules. But when considering the general formula, Megumi and Nobara have the most chances to end up with each other.

Also, lets not forget that Zenin clan members use tools. Nobara freaking uses tools and of course, she is quite strong! 

I even said that even anti-social guys can also be potential love interests but they are prone to romantically gel better with the girls they were close with and in this case, its Nobara. Just like how Sasuke ended up w/Sakura (the girl w/whom he was the closest to), Megumi can end with Nobara. Considering that the most obvious females don’t generally end up with the male MCs, this can possibly apply for ItaKugi. Don’t mistake me for hating them. I am absolutely a huge fan of Nobara and Yuji’s dynamic. Its just I love them as Nakamas. I like even FushiKugi as a Nakama type but wanted to see some romantic growth in them because of the Kuudere and Tsundere dynamic.

Nobara’s status is still unknown. She might be alive or dead, but who cares? I still love them. 

I see a lot of potential in them. They made sense at least for Jujutsu Kaisen standards. I like their match, That’s why I love FushiKugi.

Apologies at the earliest if there is anything factually incorrect.

Official art, not by me.

Thanks for reading!

[shinidamachu]

I’m actually convinced Kikyo’s role in the later parts of the manga was influenced by the anime. It’s no secret that if an anime adaptation becomes popular the manga artist will take note and talk to the animation director on which episodes gets more views.

I was actually a fan of the early depiction of Kikyo, such as the scene of her reappearing after supposedly falling to her death the first time and meeting the shinidamachu (which didn’t get animated). Also the part where she straight up murdered a monk in front of the child, which did get depicted but glossed over as the series went on. (Would’ve been a good atonement arc.) It had the appropriate horror feeling, just like the manga depiction of the man-eating Noh mask. This all got toned down or forgotten in the anime and later in the manga. Like compare early Naraku’s gross true tentacle form to his mega-ultra-super-eye-power-up-form.

which begs the question, if RT’s current series MAO is animated and becomes popular how will the anime affect the manga…

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know shit about the professional animation world, so please take this for the personal opinion that it is. Also keep in mind that I haven't reached the later parts of the manga yet, so knowledge is limited by fandom meta.

As a viewer who enjoys consuming media critically, however, I can't help but agree with you. Kikyo’s role in the later parts of the manga was probably influenced by the anime. I guess the real question here is: how much? I fear that is almost impossible to reach a right answer, or even a satisfying one.

But the influence the anime had on the original story wasn't limited to Kikyo's role. Take the toned down horror elements you mentioned, for instance.

But to be fair, we still have other factors to consider, Takahashi's tendency not to reread her own series once they're finished, regressing character development as a consequence, for example.

In Kikyo's specific case, the issue lies in the fact that the whole concept of her character is brilliant but Takahashi dropped the ball executing it and that reflected in Kikyo's relationship with Inuyasha, which ended up lacking substance.

Sunrise picked up on that and tried to retroactively fix it in order to milk the nonexistent love triangle, knowing ship wars equal money. However, they took the easiest, chepeast route, toning down Inuyasha and Kagome instead of truly building up on Inuyasha and Kikyo.

They told us when they should have been showing us and gave us quantity when they should have given us quality, failing to address the real problems with the character and the relationship in question: execution and development.

That's why every change they made in this regard was shallow at best and blew up in their faces at worst. It didn't solve anything, only created inconsistencies that ended up negatively affecting the characterization of other characters and consequently the story itself.

That being said, Inuyasha is the only series of Takahashi's I've ever took interest in. And after 2020™ whatever tiny chance of me engaging with another one of her works was annihilated, so I most definitely don't care about what happens with MAO.

Maybe I change my mind in the future, but currently, I think you'd be better off discussing MAO with someone else. I'm sure plenty of people in the Inuyasha fandom also loves it and will be able to contribute more to the conversation than I ever could.

Thank you so much for your ask, though. I hope you have a nice day.

[galadhremmin]

We have derived Caranthir liking the Dwarves (and vice versa) because apparently, Finrod succeeds in every field Caranthir fails, and at this point it's clear this derives from the in-universe writer of the Silm and his own biases. Think about it: "Dark Finwë" , a grumpy, prejudiced lordling, and "Hair Champion", most handsome, noble king, have met with the same people!! Yet the king of the first secret kingdom is everyone's friend, but the prince that trades with them regularly is not... seems sus.

Hence, Caranthir is friends with the Dwarves. (But that is just an interpretation, so you're free to think what you wish, I just have several opinions on in-universe prejudice and the almighty narrative.)

I think that 'we' might actually have been Dawn Felagund years ago. Maybe this reading existed even before that, but I doubt that-- she's been very influential in silm fandom and was long before tumblr was much of a thing. https://dawnfelagund.com/caranthir-the-slandered

I wouldn't say it's 'clear' that what amounts to Caranthir's entire documented personality derives from the bias of the in-universe narrator, though as you can see from Dawn's writing it's a reading you can argue for. There are a number of different approaches you can take to the Silm and its biases anyway. One of the few times when it's absolutely clear the text isn't telling the entire story is when it talks about the Easterlings. I've posted about this before but the recorded names are, uhh.... the ones to betray the elves are unlikely to actually have been named things like 'ugly lord' and 'ugly beard.' 'Dark Finwe' on the other hand is a documented reference to his haircolour being dark like Finwe's own; hardly a negative judgement!

I personally think Caranthir can be exactly as ill-tempered and prejudiced as the Silm paints him without becoming an unsympathetic character. If a writer cannot make a moody, deeply prejudiced man an interesting character that is a failure as a writer; there are after all enough books who manage exactly that. That is not to say choosing not to write him that way is a failure (obviously not), but it's not necessary in order to make a reader feel for him at all.

Just going by the text, I think it actually might make for a more interesting narrative to explore in fic to me. Because he does change his mind about something, and at a very specific moment; when he meets the Haladin. That is much less dramatic if he secretly been as nice and popular as Finrod, and got along with everyone all the time already. He's been raised by Fëanor, who said things like 'No other race shall oust us!' and rallied the Noldor not motivated enough by vengeance for Finwë alone by playing on their deep-seated fear of being replaced by the Secondborn. Very unlikely that had no impact. At best it has made him uninterested in humans in his area (while they're not much of a threat to ruling instead of the elves anyway). The text says they paid them no heed.

And yet! Caranthir sees how brave Haleth and her people are. He 'does her great honour.' He changes his mind and offers them lands. His tragedy to me is not that of a slandered figure, but of this deeply, deeply prejudiced person raised to distrust the motivations of human beings -- who overcomes those beliefs, offers friendship, is rejected! then extends that same trust to the Easterlings anyway... and it's those specific Easterlings, not the ones who ally with his brothers-- who betray them all. And cause the disastrous ending of the Nirnaeth. It's the 'to evil end shall all things turn that they begin well' part of the curse hitting him in the least fair way possible. Someone finally changes for the better, and the outcome is treason and destruction.

That is a very good character arc to me, actually. His aesthetics-based scorn for the Dwarves is reprehensible but strikes me as deeply Elvish, and part of his prejudices. Naugrim is too unflattering a name for them for it not to be common. His temper-- well why can't he have one? Sure there's only one recorded instance -- but that's imo because there are hardly any conversations in the Silm! Anyway I like some people with tempers well enough. Personally I think people are missing out on opiniated grouches.

Obviously the biased anti-Feanorian Pengolodh reading is a nice one, and I have enjoyed a lot of stories written based it. But it's not at all a reading that is necessary for me to read Caranthir as a flawed but sympathetic character. He can have serious faults and still, ultimately, be someone I feel for.

What I was asking though was if I overlooked any canon evidence of Caranthir being particularly, personally fond of the Dwarves; and it seems I did not. Also; there is room for Caranthir growing to like the Dwarves over centuries without an anti-Feanorian bias reading this strong, there is simply no evidence for friendship in the rather barebones narrative (I'm not interested atm because it's wildly overdone to me & I like variety).

That said, in my opinion making Caranthir the hidden, slandered Feanorian Finrod equivalent with a dash of Curufin's Dwarf affection is not as enjoyable as simply working with what little canon character is actually there. Because there is one (and it's not the greedy tax collector of some fanon depictions either imo)

1. To start with, wrt Caranthir as the anti-Finrod, I don't think it works that well. Sure sure dark/light, open/prejudiced, repressed/shouty, but different motivations, different locations, plus they meet very different peoples even if both are Edain-- besides, Caranthir's own older brothers do successfully ally with the Easterlings without betrayal, while Curufin (much more so than Finrod! no Khuzdul for Finrod!) is the Dwarves' Friend(tm). Also, a flawed Finrod already exists. That's just the regular edition. He has his own faults and (very different) tragic arc.

If Finrod never seems to have strong prejudices to overcome, and if he's not confrontational (which... look he's a diplomat. Make of that what you will. Pretty awkward there in Doriath, buddy!) he does have trouble facing his own complicity (he wanted to sail those ships despite the murders) until Sauron beats him to death with it. He leaves Valinor with the idea of ruling but he has to give up the crown. He's ambitious, he seems emotionally repressed, he's.. possibly paying the greater Dwarves to drive the Petty Dwarves out of their ancestral home to build a city? Oops. Depending on the version you go with in that case, of course; there's also ones where he's free of the blame of that one. Not of wanting to sail those ships and being uneasy with the guilt wrt wanting to do so despite their being stolen and murdered for though. No he doesn't kill; but he wants to use the result of it anyway, and to make it worse he is actually half Telerin.

There's also (to be fair, only for sure after the disaster of the Sudden Flame because that's the recorded instance) his guards killing random innocent trespassers to keep his kingdom hidden -- yes, that's right there in Silm, yes he's still King at the time. Beren has to wave that ring. People just seem to miss that he'd be killed without it somehow.

I think it's just too easy to reduce him to the golden perfect opposite of Caranthir. Yes he's described more positively; he's also just mentioned more because unlike Caranthir he rules an actual kingdom, the greatest and richest in Beleriand in fact; and does things that have a lot of very longterm effects, like helping B&L steal a Silmaril. They don't 'meet the same people' anyway -- the Haladin have a different culture from the Beorians which contributes to their reaction to Caranthir (and iirc their later fate).

Sidenote: Dawn's essay attributes the Green Elves helping the Feanorians at Amon Ereb to Caranthir's diplomatic skills; but why not to those of Amras or Amrod? This is the quote; 'Caranthir fled and joined the remnant of his people to the scattered folk of the hunters, Amrod and Amras, and they retreated and passed Ramdal in the south. Upon Amon Ereb they maintained a watch and some strength of war, and they had aid of the Green-elves' -- nothing here indicates it was Caranthir who got them that aid. In fact A&A are the hunters, i.e. more likely to have roamed in various forests where they would have encountered Green Elves, imo.

There's also the very desperate times to consider in which this aid takes place. This is just post Sudden Flame, and even if the Green Elves didn't like Caranthir they probably liked him better than Morgoth. Also, speaking of cosmopolitans, Maedhros allies with, yes, Dwarves (Azaghal), Grey elves, Easterlings (and you might say: Fingolfinians); even part of the remaining people of Dorthonion rally to Himring post sudden flame (that means Edain and Arafinwean followers in Himring, at least for a time), and he manages to be friendly with Felagund despite calling him a badger. ;)

Finrod is not the only other leader to forge diverse alliances, and though B&L ends happily his people mostly do not. Caranthir's not much like Finrod in any way. Not in motivations, temperament, tragic arc. That's fine. No hidden kingdom for a dragon to eat either. Finrod could probably do with being a little less like Finrod sometimes, though he's well-intentioned and likable. Caranthir loves to shout and isn't sneaky. Good for him.

2. Curufin also already exists. His love for Dwarves is one of his defining and redeeming characteristics and boy does he need them. He's daddy's favourite, a sneaky overambitious bitchy bastard who is also a talented smith and linguist, and truly considered a Dwarf friend, which is apparently exceptional. He's quite flawed; tries to help Celegorm force a political marriage, laughs with a bruised mouth, seeming to lose his mind while attempting and failing murder after first losing his own stronghold and then the city he tried to take from his cousin. He's just... a personality. Mostly a bad one! You can feel for him though, because he seems like an utter mess. Many 'i would love to study you' feelings on my part. Would hate for him to be real but also I'd pay to be his therapist.

3. And then finally there's Canon Caranthir. A difficult, prejudiced person who despite that (which doesn't at all have to mean there is no despite, the despite is what makes it juicy)

- seems to be responsible for re-establishing (large scale?) trade with the Dwarves, whatever he might think of them (and they of him) to their mutual benefit. I don't think he's greedy either. It seems like a mutually profitable situation. Access to Dwarvish goods seems pretty vital to Beleriand, and facilitating trade is a real service.

As someone pointed out in the replies, the Silm does mention Dwarvish companies travelling east to Nan Elmoth and menegroth various times, but quote wrt Caranthir says 'Caranthir’s people came upon the Dwarves, who after the onslaught of Morgoth and the coming of the Noldor had ceased their traffic into Beleriand' and 'when the Dwarves began again to journey into Beleriand.'

They stopped at some point and Caranthir's people made it happen again.

- which means he's practical. He seems like he's good at organising, and setting his own feelings aside if necessary despite his prejudice and temper (which is an achievement it wouldn't be without his, hm, everything). Also he and his people as well as the Dwarves work together well because ''either people loved skill and were eager to learn,' despite their (initial?) mutual dislike. Those aren't bad characteristics; seems like it was an exchange of skill as well as goods and possibly providing safe travel opportunities.

I don't like the 'greedy Caranthir' fanon and don't think it is even that easy support entirely with canon. 'They had of it great profit,' the text says-- both Caranthir and the Dwarves. They exchanged skills and knowledge and Caranthir seems to have helped them start trading in Beleriand again. That's hardly Scrooge Mcduck.

- Another thing we can say about canonthir (lol) is that he apparently attaches a lot of value to aesthetics (was he a visual artist? is a he a sculptor like Nerdanel? WORSE: AN ART CRITIC?! Feanorian art critic is truly nightmare fuel) and that's why he dislikes Dwarves (of all things...). Either way points to 'aesthetics' as something apparently important to Caranthir. Which makes sense given who his parents are. What is interesting to me is that this apparently DOESN'T matter to Curufin, who is a lot like Feanor in most things. That's interesting!

I've never, never seen this but I think it would be very funny to attribute his aesthetic prejudices to Nerdanel. I love her; but why should her opinions be perfect? I know she wasn't considered beautiful herself, but she's an artist. She's got to have had some strong opinions on aesthetics anyway. I doubt it's the beards; Mahtan had one as well. And 'stunted'...at least some of this comes down to the Elvish obsession with height yet again. Hm.

- eventually Caranthir overcomes what have to be some very deeply held beliefs about human beings and their place in the world, and offers what for all intents and purposes looks like real friendship, not the ruling over Men Feanor seems to have had in mind at best. He's capable of real change!

Anyway his character works just fine to me from canon, and what he achieves and the ways in which he fails are more interesting that way rather-- neither slandered Feanorian Finrod 2.0 nor Curufin 'Dwarf Fan' Feanorion without the sneakiness and murder attempts pack the same punch as a stupidly prejudiced grouchy man doing his best anyway for centuries in this stupid ugly cursed land, eventually changing for the better, opening up-- and being brutally punished for it by the Doom.

Dammit. I hope there's therapy in the Everlasting Darkness.

hm a bit long but that's what I get for trying to gather my thoughts wrt why after considering it a bit transferring Curufin's love for Dwarves to Caranthir is a bit boring to me personally. Though there are still stories that still do it very well.

[literateleah]

the paradox of emily prentiss’ audience perception and character design

some of y’all about to be real mad at me, but it must be said:

emily prentiss’ character design makes no sense: my personal opinion + an objective analysis

i think it can be challenging to separate the versions of characters we have in our little brains from actual canon content, but doing so is important for understanding what those characters are truly like, especially within the context of their environment and in contrast to others around them. plus developing a deeper understanding of the media we consume is super fun and interesting! with that being said: emily prentiss should not work for the fbi and here’s why (in three parts regarding who’s responsible: cbs, paget, and fans) (sit down and grab a snack i promise this is over 3k words)

quick disclaimer: i don’t dislike emily at all! that’s my girl, i just looked closer and realized some funky things the writers did and felt the need to analyze her of course: so let’s get into it

part one: what cbs did

cbs set the stage for emily’s introduction on the heels of the departure of lola glaudini as elle greenaway! lola has clarified that she decided to leave the show because filming in los angeles was not the best environment for her personally, and after one successful season on a major network (but not much established long term plot or drama beyond elle’s departure as a character) a consistent ensemble cast was required- particularly because the bau had been criticized for being predominantly male in the first few episodes of the show and not much development was given to penelope or jj yet. enter emily prentiss.

for the duration of seasons 2-3ish, emily was framed as a chip off the block that was elle greenaway, just slightly…richer? in her first few episodes emily was hesitantly polite but ambitious, clean cut, intellectually concise and held her own within the team. she seemed equal parts intimidated and frustrated by her male superiors (gideon, hotch) but certainly proves herself among other profilers. her childhood was explored only within reference to her strained relationship with her mother (which was only ever referenced once more after the fact) and we received a short overview of her educational and career history in her first few episodes. emily fit right into the hole elle had left, and didn’t have many major storylines yet.

seasons 4-6 brought a bit more development and depth to emily’s character! she begins dropping more snarky remarks, one liners, and socially deepening her relationships with the other team members. this seems more within the lines of elle’s design, but emily arguably took more time to grow into her place within the team. during the foyet arc she was vulnerable and supportive, and the doyle arc gave her some independence and agency she didn’t have previously. this era also solidified her appearance and persona as more edgy, which falls in line with general fanon perception of her character (especially when compared to jj or penelope). i can’t address this era or season 7 without mentioning that cbs was actively trying to remove paget from the cast, similar to how they did to aj cook as well. paget has spoken about this instance before, and i believe it slightly affected her portrayal of her character, and “lauren” was somewhat of a goodbye for both paget and emily (thus why she wished for mgg to direct since they were best friends).

season 7: in my opinion, one of the best seasons for emily. she was wisened and deeply wounded by her experiences with doyle, which was understandable of course. she returned to the team she loved and learned to appreciate life in a different way, remaining mature during this time period as well! though her departure was a bit less than graceful and sudden at the end of this season, it made sense compared to some other exits the team had seen.

now *sigh* all the rest.

paget as emily appears in two separate guest appearances (once in s9 and once in s11, and she is referenced offscreen as well) before permanently reprising her role as unit chief of the bau. these appearances were most likely to boost ratings and get the team back together (i.e. 200) or just to pepper in international cases (tribute). emily’s personality remains pretty consistent here, just more mature and comfortable in leadership positions (seeing as she is running an entire branch of an international law enforcement organization). then season 12 hit.

upon the departure of thomas gibson as hotch, cbs reached out to paget to see if she would be interested in fulfilling her role as emily within a longer term unit chief position. i’ll get into why this is wack in a few paragraphs, but the remainder of her time on the show is spent on a mature portrayal that seems very distant from her previous versions. emily is more authoritative, gives orders with ease, and has no qualms about leading a team of agents or even receiving promotion offers as director of the entire bureau.

thus concludes a general summary of the canon content cbs gave us as viewers. now let's talk about what they didn’t give us, regrettably

the primary aspect of emily’s design that comes to mind for many is her queer coding. though not much was to be expected from cbs, a prime time cable tv network, each of her relationships on the show (all with men) seemed oddly forced, and without much chemistry as compared to the SOs of other main characters. rumors of scrapped plotlines have floated around about what may have been, but the ultimate lack of acknowledgement of any queer characters in the main ensemble still leaves a feeling of disappointment to audiences, and leaves more to be desired as for how emily navigates social bonds.

part two (sidebar): what paget did

i think it could be agreed within audiences that paget brewster’s portrayal of emily made the role what it was! her dry witty delivery and emotional prowess combined with sitcom acting experience made her performance a mainstay for years. i think she did the best she could with a confusing and at times flat characterization, and brought the role to life.

paget also heavily contributes to fanon indirectly with her comments outside of the show (press, cameos, twitter etc). her general continued interest and fondness for the role post production affects fan perception, particularly in what she chooses to elevate and comment on. she and aj have both spoken about viewing jemily content, and paget and thomas have both also commented on hotchniss. most cast members feel free to comment on their characters in the appropriate timing, and seem open to discussing fanon ships and theories outside of canon!

part three: what fanon did

as we can tell from this fan space as well as the presence on insta, tik tok and twitter, fans LATCHED onto emily super quickly. she’s remained a favorite over the years, and this fan persistence is what brought her back so many times after leaving (so many times). in my opinion, queer coding and a bolder female trope (in contrast to her female counterparts) are the main pulls because they resonated with so many fans- new and old. with that being said, newer fans of the show in the past year in particular have been heavily influential in fanon, solely because of the large influx of fan content and popularity of it.

fan content began to take coding and bite size moments and snippets from the show as canon, and cemented it into much of the content and discourse they created. these small pieces of emily’s character are significant, but have become magnified by how easily they are to share and edit. for example, a collection of catchy one liners from emily over the seasons makes for a great video edit intro, or gifset! there’s absolutely no problem with this content, it just all combines to create a certain fanon perception no character escapes (this isn’t a phenomenon limited to emily or the cm fandom!)

these droves of content also solidified emily’s personality as much more defined, but at the same time, simplified it in a way that’s slightly harder to explain.

fanon: more emo/goth than canon basis

fanon: more introverted/anti social than canon basis

fanon: more violent/chaotic when canon emily is relatively well mannered and doesn’t start many conflicts (particularly in the workspace)

fanon: much less maternal when canon emily displays desire on multiple occasions (even crossing professional borders) for children, particularly teenage girls (possibly projection)

(again, nothing wrong with this interpretation at all and it still varies! This is just a generalization based on most of the popular content i have seen)

part 4: why it doesn’t work

let me start with this: emily prentiss does not like her job.

we don’t receive much in depth information about emily’s internal feelings and thoughts towards her mother beyond resentment. this stems from wanting to make it on her own, as a professional and as an individual (cough cough college deposits). this makes emily’s insistence on proving herself to authority figures in her earlier seasons is interesting to watch in different circumstances. she cites her experience and denies help from her mother when justifying her placement in the bau to hotch, she is extra vigilant about being helpful on her first case with gideon, etc. nevertheless, emily forges her own path outside of diplomacy and becomes a successful profiler and agent, with the help of her privilege, wealth and name whether she likes it or not. but if we read between the lines and fill in the blanks cbs neglected, these ambitions may subconsciously be oriented towards pleasing her mother.

example one: emily’s authority issues go further than just “rebellion” or “anarchy”, she frequently questions the ethics and sustainability of the work that the bau does. every team member does this, but emily much more so than anybody else.

in “amplification”, emily almost breaks federal protocol to inform civilians of anthrax threats. she butts heads with both hotch and rossi on this front, and ends the episode with having a conversation with rossi about the ethics of lying in their line of work. emily resigns to a solemn “it be like that” and moves along, accepting this reality.

on multiple different occasions emily laments to derek about the darkness she sees on the job, and it’s shown that this gets to her quickly on particularly bad cases. this is another contradiction of the design that she can supposedly “compartmentalize” better than others on the team, when she cannot unless the lives of others are at risk (doyle arc, s7 finale).

emily also responds in this way to many cases involving children, a similarity to jj many don’t notice upon first watching the series. “seven seconds” and “children of the dark” come to mind, during the latter in which emily is prepared to cross multiple professional lines to adopt a teenage girl left orphaned by the case, until hotch stops her and establishes that her emotions can’t rule her judgement on the job. regardless of hotch’s thoughts about her attempted caretaking abilities, these actions and impulses deeply contradict the typical bureaucratic pathways of the work the bau does.

the looming reputation of her mother’s diplomatic history hangs over emily, and after going to law school and working for the cia, she most likely did want to forge her own path as far away from being a socialite: being a spy. her inner nature doesn’t always reflect this profession, and leads me to believe that with her knowledge of psychology, law procedure and care for children: emily prentiss might be more inclined to working in social work, placing suffering children and teenagers in homes they deserve.

and finally, the hill i will die on: emily prentiss was an bad unit chief

this wonderful post touches on my general sentiment, but there were many reasons as to why emily prentiss’ career arc makes little to no sense (plot holes included).

first: her background. emily attended chesapeake bay university as well as yale and achieved a ba in criminal justice. keep in mind that though timelines evidently don’t exist in the cm universe, emily prentiss is ONE YEAR older than aaron hotchner (for context). in her first episode, she professes that she has worked for the bureau for a little under ten years in midwestern offices- something the audience laters knows to not be true. emily worked with the cia and interpol as a part of a profiling team and undercover agent up until roughly TWO YEARS before her canon introduction. plot holes and time gaps aside, this makes me wonder, why didn’t she just say the cia was a backstop without revealing the highly confidential nature of her work with doyle (similar to jj’s state department backstop and cover story)? penelope or hotch could have easily accessed her file and seen that she did not in fact have experience with the bureau in midwestern offices recently, and given the fact that erin strauss set up her bau placement, i’m presuming these formalities or references were overlooked.

second: her experience within the team. emily worked as a part of the bau with the bureau for roughly 6 or 7 years. after this, she is invited to run the entire london branch of interpol, one of the most renowned international law enforcement organizations. i’m surely not the most knowledgeable on requirements or standard timelines for such matters, but with the fact that emily had never led a team in her life (not in the bau or interpol previously) and had roughly 10 years of field experience, i don’t believe she would have ever realistically been considered eligible to run the whole london department.

third: her return to the bureau. fanon depiction of their relationship aside, if you believe aaron hotchner’s last wish before going into witsec was to entrust his team to emily prentiss, you’re dead mistaken. bringing emily back was clearly a pull for ratings after the loss of two main characters (hotch and derek), but logistically a bad decision. let’s suppose emily has had 4 or 5 years of experience in london now, this established authority position would be unlikely to change at the drop of a hat, even for old teammates or friends. also considering how close they were after a decade of working closely in bureaucratic and field contexts, i firmly believe hotch would have referred jj for the job of unit chief but that’s another discussion for another time.

emily’s reign as unit chief is odd, because of the many chaotic storylines crammed into it. but amidst bad writing and viewings plummeting, emily’s character is completely flattened. completely. emily is unrecognizable, both in appearance (that god awful wig) and personality. at times she acts as a complete wise authority, giving orders and delegating local authorities as hotch did. but at other times she makes multiple illegal, emotional, and incorrect judgement calls based on personal circumstances that lead to further chaos (deleting the recording of her and reid’s mexico conversation and reprimanding luke in “luke” for the exact same thing she did in season 6 even though she enabled her to do so come to mind).

i’m not sure if this is due to paget trying to find her footing in the role again, or the writer’s bad decisions towards the end of the show wrecking any previous design for their ensemble. then, there’s the infamous “wheels up” scene in s13e1. notoriously cringey, this seems like a vague caricature of something rossi would say many years in the past (the same goes for her pep talk in “red light” in the hunt for diana reid). these moments are meant to mature emily in the audience’s eye, but instead completely removed her from who we understood her to be, and made her an unreliable leader.

part five: and why it does

in theory, emily was a bolder foil to jj, similar to elle who she arguably replaced at first. she came into her own, and stands as a more uniquely developed character than almost any other in the main ensemble. she isn’t as maternal or domestically inspiring as canon jj, less bright and sunny than penelope, not quite as stoic or intimidating as derek or hotch. And yet at the same time, she’s a fairly blank slate. stripping fanon content away entirely, canon emily has few defining traits (all of which are constantly changing), and that may be the key to why we love her so much.

[mojoflower]

WHY is fanfiction not the appropriate venue for your political or social battle?

We can all agree, I posit, that there are changes that need to be made in the world (racism, for example;  patriarchal inequalities;  rape culture;  capitalism;  plug in your personal cause here).

We can all ALSO agree, I think, that the way culture, media, etc. portray things influences a consumer on an unconscious level.

We can agree that, in real life, certain things are clearly bad:  abuse of others, non-consensual sex, systemic inequality, I can go on….

So.  Let me feel my way through this.  I, personally, feel like fanfiction (specifically on AO3, since that’s where I encounter it) is NOT an appropriate battleground for enforcing cultural change by:

Leaving comments about how someone’s work is (in your, the commenter’s, opinion) wrong, damaging, unfair, insensitive, etc.

Telling the writer they should change this or that.

Telling the writer they must add or delete tags.

Broadcasting your opinion of the writer’s egregiousness outside AO3 (twitter, for example, or here on tumblr).

Organizing a campaign of harassment against the author if they don’t change to suit your personal requirements.

First of all:

 Be the change you want to see.

Fanfiction, unlike any other media out there, is INDIVIDUAL.  It is one work, from one single person – voluntary and unpaid.  You yourself are one single person.  You can have as much influence as this writer.  Write the works you want to read, instead of demanding that the writer change to suit you.  This is how romance novels changed from non-con, non-condom-wearing, shudderingly unequal stories in the 70s and 80s to where they are now, for example.  New people started writing stories, and eventually established authors started changing, too (or dwindled away).

Remember that you know nothing about the author.

You don’t know their culture, their skin color, their age, their gender.  You don’t know their socioeconomic status or how much free time they have.  You don’t know their current mental or physical conditions.  You don’t know any of the things going on in their life.  AND.  You are not entitled to know these things.  When you lash out at an author for not doing research, for not editing, for… anything at all… you cannot assume that they’re not fourteen, not suicidal, not a native speaker, not disabled such that writing a single paragraph is a tremendous effort.  You don’t know they’re not in an abusive situation, or economic peril.  You do not have the right to tell them to change.  Whether you are asking them to change text, tone, tagging, ships, plot, you name it.  Anything.

Dead Dove:  Do Not Eat.

Don’t like, don’t read.  These are simple concepts, and the tagging system on AO3 helps you to avoid many triggers.  Simple common sense, once you're into a story that’s raising your hackles, will warn you away from the rest.  If you say, ‘no, this person can’t write that, it’s contributing to pain in the Real World’ then you are functioning as a censor.  I mean, at its most basic level, a censor is someone who strikes out passages in books or other media because it’s… immoral/bad/etc.  The problem is that morality is incredibly tailored to the group you’re in, and also incredibly fluid, shifting over time.  So… why do YOU get to be the censor and not the author?  What makes YOU the final word?  Seriously, think about it.

Fanfiction writers are the most vulnerable group you could target.

Which makes them easy prey, and possibly makes them the juiciest and most satisfying targets.  Address your anger to Hollywood or Simon & Schuster or Congress – and your voice will doubtless get lost in the shuffle.  Address it to an author on AO3 and you can deliver your blow personally, one on one, and witness the damage.  There is no professional buffer between your resentment and their reaction.

Who are fanfiction writers?  Overwhelmingly women, overwhelmingly queer, often very young and inexperienced.  Wow.  What a rewarding group to start slapping around.  You wouldn't be the only one to think so.  Seriously.  Aim your anger at someone who is STRONGER than you.  Not someone who is (likely) weaker than you.  You’re kicking a kitten, while a lion lounges behind you.

Censoring someone’s thoughts is bad.

People should be allowed to THINK.  And they can think whatever they want.  Whether and where and how it should be expressed is another matter.  AO3 is a safe place for whatever weird-ass thoughts you have.  It is expressly written into their mission statement.  AO3 was SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED so that authors could have a place for their dead dove fics.

So.  Why is [your pet cause] okay on AO3 and not on a script in Hollywood?

AO3 requires membership before you can post anything, so it’s arguably private.  AO3 provides tools for readers to avoid works they might find triggering.  AO3 profits no one.  Follow the money, and there are your true culprits.  Not a housewife from Hoebokken.

Fanfiction writers make no money.  When they write, they are not lawmakers, filmmakers, teachers or preachers.  This is not their job.  They do not have a responsibility to the community, because they are vested with no power and no paycheck.  Please move your battlefield to one of these other venues.  Your fight will be harder, but it will also do a lot more good than traumatizing some naive  kid away from writing forever.

Fanfiction comprises an individual’s personal thoughts and personal works, written for their own enjoyment, shared only through AO3 to (presumably) like-minded readers.  Fanfics are a person’s fantasies and daydreams.  They might be an author’s therapeutic exercise.  Or someone trying to explore something new, whether it be cultures, ideas, sexualities or kinks.  Humans need a place where they can be wrong and make mistakes.  Think about that, I implore you.  If you are constantly pointing out someone’s errors, you may eventually either silence them forever, or instill in them permanent resentment.  This does not further your cause.

You have your personal cause.

I’ve seen a lot of them.  Incest is bad, you’re not allowed to write about it.  Pedophilia is bad, you’re not allowed to write about it.  Abusive relationships are bad, you’re not allowed to write about them.  Racism is bad, you’re not allowed to write about it.  Genderswap is transphobic, you’re not allowed to write about it.  A/B/O romanticizes damaging gender inequalities.  There are many.  If every single one of you got to stamp out your personal crusade, then fic would be scant on the ground and many people wouldn’t try to create anymore.  It’s stifling to creativity and terrifying to an author that they might slip up and be called out.  No one, as far as I know, likes to think of their fanfiction as something that will be turned in for a grade.

Your standards are your own.

What are the precise parameters of an abusive relationship?  Transphobia?  Racism?  Pedophilia?  Fetishism?  Where does dub-con become non-con?  No one is the mouthpiece for the whole world.  You are only the mouthpiece for yourself.

If you think to yourself that it’s not okay to tell someone they can’t write about, say, a gay relationship, but it IS okay to tell them they can’t write about a certain ship or dynamic (for Reasons), then maybe you should step back and check yourself and your entitlement to someone else’s endeavor.

In conclusion:

I’m not saying that racism doesn’t exist in fanfiction.  Or creepy sexual abuse, or glorification of harmful dynamics.  It certainly does.  I’m not trying to play semantics with you.

But when you see these things, when they bother you... back right out.

That’s it.  Just back out, ignore it and find a different fic.  (Or better yet, write your own!)  Shower the fics you approve of with love and comments about why you think they’re great.  Give them kudos and bookmarks and shout-outs on your blog.  Eventually, if your opinion is popular, authors who thought otherwise will realize that readership is looking for something different.  They’ll change or they won’t, but the body of work will change over time, and THAT is what you’re looking to accomplish.  Not to stamp out fanfiction altogether.

[shihalyfie]

A quick guide to Adventure/02 ship portrayals

This one’s going to be a bit more of an unusual post, since I usually prefer to talk about series text than I want to talk about the fanbase, and especially shipping, which is one of the most infamously loaded topics you can possibly bring up here. However, shipping is still a lot of fun and should be fun, in my opinion!

Digimon’s franchise history being so long means that its international fanbases often didn’t really “swap notes” when it came to shipping, unlike how a lot of modern anime fanbases have enough global interaction on social media and art websites that trends can easily spread worldwide. This means that, in the early 2000s, the Western fanbase (dominated by the Americas, Europe, and some other mostly English-speaking countries) developed a lot of shipping trends independently from Asian fanbases (with a lot of trends shared particularly between Japan, China, Korea, and Southeast Asia). When “swapping notes” became a lot more commonplace in the early 2010s, it thus became interesting to see how different some of the trends could be for cultural or localization reasons -- or, conversely, how some of these trends came out to be very similar to each other despite having sprung up in independent places.

Disclaimer: I do not claim to be an expert in fanbase psychology or culture, nor do I have accurate demographics records or anything of the sort. I also do not claim that I have an accurate view of every single person in the fanbase, and most of this is taken from personal observations of fanart trends and personal discussion with people who hang out in other sectors.

Another disclaimer: This post is made primarily to discuss some more obscure ships or perspectives that might not be immediately apparent to those outside their fanbases. If you see me omitting an obviously popular ship on this list, it’s not because I don’t like it or don’t want to talk about it or anything; anything obviously omitted is because 1) the reason why anyone would ship it is obvious enough that I don’t feel like I’d contribute much to the discussion, and/or 2) I haven’t really been able to pinpoint a consistent portrayal consensus in its fanbase, either because the fanbase is small enough that I can’t form any consistent conclusions about it, or because it’s conversely so popular that takes on it can come from multiple different directions. (Optionally: 3) its fanbase scares me to the point I’m afraid of saying anything in-depth about it at all lest it come after me.)

Taichi/Koushirou

This one I’d call “semi-obscure”; it doesn’t tend to have as much of a following as the Taichi/Yamato or Taichi/Sora mainstays, but it’s been slowly gaining in popularity, especially in recent years when a lot of people are rewatching Adventure and realizing just how much Koushirou was attached to Taichi over the course of it. The fact that Koushirou knew Taichi prior to the events of Adventure is often easily overlooked because the series doesn’t focus on it much (and a lot of attention to that position tends to go to Sora), so it’s something more for the hardcore fanbase than it is the mainstream.

Watching the series itself and paying attention to Koushirou’s behavior indicates that, even though he usually tries to keep his distance from people, he’s comfortable going up to Taichi and reporting things to him (it’s especially apparent in the Japanese version, where the impression you get of his respect for “Taichi-san” is somewhat enhanced), and the Adventure novels describe Koushirou as having particular esteem for him because he doesn’t really have much perception of seniority. Taichi, for his part, spends a lot of time deferring to Koushirou’s expertise, and it’s rather notable how much of an emotional sounding board Koushirou becomes for Taichi in Adventure episodes 48 and 51.

You can imagine that a lot of fans of the ship were pretty happy at seeing this line:

Indeed, that’s right. Koushirou is probably the closest to Taichi’s “right-hand man” for all intents and purposes.

More in-depth fanwork with the ship tends to go into how Koushirou is probably really exasperated at what Taichi often puts him through with his antics and is keeping a lot pent-up about it -- one of these days he might start venting it if pushed to the edge, like in Adventure episode 51 -- but adores Taichi for who he is all the same.

Taichi/Mimi

You can credit this one almost entirely to Adventure episode 26 having a scene where Taichi teases Mimi by calling her “princess” and offering to catch her when she comes down; it’s the most commonly cited scene by shippers talking about why they like it.

While it’s a somewhat obscure ship either way (mostly thanks to its “competitor” ships with Taichi or Mimi being far more popular), this one is slightly more popular in Asian fanbases than it is the West due to the strong emphasis on Mimi’s “lady of the house” personality meaning she’s even verbally very polite to everyone, which means that she also defers to Taichi a lot and very politely calls him “Taichi-san” (like she does her other elders) when other characters might be more abrupt with him. (Mimi being so likeable is a big reason she ends up so shippable, and her English dub portrayal being rather different is a big reason the shipping climate around her is so different in English-speaking countries.) Taichi, on the other hand, is clearly willing to be playful and fun with her as demonstrated in the scene here, so you get the impression they’d get along quite beautifully.

Yamato/Sora

This one is canon, and so a lot of people who are making works set in the canon timeline are certainly willing to “acknowledge” the ship, but those who are actually hardcore into the ship are a somewhat smaller number, and often have more specific thoughts on it. People who are deep into the ship generally cite their personality compatibility; Sora is someone who tends to have very poor self-awareness and needs someone who would be sensitive about her feelings and actively reach out to them even when she’s being irrational (which Yamato demonstrates a very high capacity for, often too sensitive to other people’s feelings at times) while Yamato, being someone who can sometimes be too emotionally passionate for his own good, needs someone who can be very patient with him and understand his feelings.

The fact that even a drama CD that is largely otherwise crack distinctly portrays Yamato as going out of his way to properly apologize and try to explain his position when Sora is upset at him (which is, really, something that a lot of us could learn to do when people are mad at us) rather than dismissing her feelings indicates that, despite what it says about the two often being too stubborn, they actually have a pretty decent chance at getting through things as far as argument resolution is involved.

The rationale for what they would see in each other is quite simple: Yamato does have a lot of respect for Sora after the events of Adventure, and it’s not hard to believe he’d decide to be passionate about reciprocating her feelings after her confession on Christmas 2002. As for what Sora saw in Yamato -- I mean, considering how many real-life people report being thoroughly enamored by him as a kid, is it really surprising that Sora was, too?

Yamato/Mimi

This one’s interesting since it’s the first one on our list to have a massive disparity in following between the Western and Asian fanbases. In the West it has a rather passionate following especially among long-time fans, but in the Asian fanbase it’s functional rarepair.

I haven’t really been able to figure out the reason for this difference; it’s not just an English-speaking fanbase thing, as I’m informed it’s very popular in Latin America, too, so I don’t feel inclined to consider the English dub a huge cause (the Japanese version infamously had them not speak a single line directly to each other in either Adventure or 02, but I don’t think any of the dubs really added that many more lines). I’ve heard stories about it being a sort of “beta couple” phenomenon to go alongside Taichi/Sora, but Taichi/Sora is also an extremely popular ship in Asian countries, too, so the only thing I can think of is simply that Koushirou/Mimi is so popular in Asian fanbases that it somewhat displaced most other Mimi ships.

Among the Western fanbase, cited factors as to the appeal of the ship have generally been about their character profile similarities, such as both being fashion-conscious or both having music backgrounds. They also technically have cooking backgrounds, but Mimi’s cooking tastes being a bit bizarre (natto with sugar...) provides some other interesting dramatic opportunities...

Yamato/Jou

You can mainly credit Adventure episodes 23 and 51 for this. Jou ships are not particularly common in Asian fanbases (more on this in a bit), so while this ship doesn’t have a massive following per se, it’s still notable in that it’s probably one of the few more consistent Jou ones you’ll see on that end.

Interestingly, its fanbase generally takes the interpretation that there wouldn’t be much friction between the two. While both of them tend to be a bit more on the emotional side rather than thinking with logic, Yamato seems to have a lot of respect for Jou’s taking responsibility for others and thus isn’t particularly standoffish or hostile with him (Adventure episode 23 just being a really emotionally bad time for him), and on the flip side, Jou constantly minding others’ well-being means that he might be someone very well equipped to take care of the often loose-cannon Yamato. Beyond that, a common fanart depiction is Yamato giving Jou emotional support during his studies, which is a very pleasant image.

One point often made is that since Jou tends to be a tricky one to ship (see below), Yamato is the one person he seems to be more comfortable with to an elevated level above the others, possibly because Yamato has a very “I can take care of myself” mentality -- so Jou can see him as someone on his level instead of someone he has to take care of.

Koushirou/Mimi

This one probably has the most infamous disparity between the Western and Asian fanbases. In Asian countries, it’s historically been considered one of the most popular Adventure/02 ships next to Taichi/Sora and Takeru/Hikari, and pretty much dominates the shipping scene with either character. Conversely, up until the early 2010s, Western fanbase considered Koushirou/Mimi a functional “crack ship” and rarepair, and the change only really happened because of the aforementioned social media mixing causing a lot more people to realize just how popular it was in Asian countries, and also partially the increased accessibility of Japanese-exclusive media to the Western fanbase (see below on this).

The main reason for the disparity is most likely cultural. The Japanese version of Adventure makes it very clear what everyone’s grade levels are; Koushirou and Mimi are the youngest in the Adventure group besides Takeru and Hikari, so, in a similar vein to Takeru and Hikari being the “young kids ship”, Koushirou and Mimi inspired a bit of psychological tendency towards that. Countries that don’t really adhere to social levels to this degree don’t emphasize this as much, so this factor didn’t come as much into play. On top of that, a lot of the extra franchise material that heavily fueled the ship’s initial popularity, including the Adventure mini dramas and Diablomon Strikes Back, either did not leave Japan or were heavily delayed in getting localized. Moreover, the honorifics and seniority issue is in play, so the impression of Koushirou respectfully deferring to Mimi while Mimi endearingly goes “Koushirou-kun~!” has tended to leave a strong impression on people.

In general, Mimi tends to be a very difficult character to ship with others on the Japanese side due to her sense of formal politeness and distance from everyone making it harder to read romantic intent through her way of treating others, so the fact she treats Koushirou this way (most likely heavily influenced by the fact he’s the only one her age) probably is a big reason this ship is so dominant there.

Although ships that surpass a certain level of popularity tend to get a bit fractured in how people portray the ship, Koushirou/Mimi portrayals in fanwork are surprisingly consistent: the idea is that Mimi would develop a crush on Koushirou, but get increasingly frustrated at his failure to notice her because such things so easily go over his head. This is probably because this kind of portrayal has been relatively consistent with the characters’ interactions; Adventure episode 10 (another shipper favorite) was pretty much all about Mimi getting frustrated at Koushirou not paying enough attention to her feelings and how they resolved that, and their interactions in Diablomon Strikes Back have this vibe as well. Said Adventure mini drama (despite largely otherwise being crack) also solidifies the image of Koushirou being very diplomatic about his love letter in a way that frustrates Mimi at...well, the idea that a love letter he wrote would not be for her, so you can certainly see why this inspires the imagination.

Many people have cited that a big reason they like the ship is that it subverts the usual expectation of the “nerdy boy and cute popular girl” trope, because of how it portrays the cute girl as the one wanting attention from the somewhat socially awkward (but very kind and forgiving) nerd. In addition, since Koushirou is someone who has generally struggled with severe self-worth issues, the idea of someone having a crush on him throwing him for a loop is said to have its own appeal.

Jou/Mimi

Conversely, Jou/Mimi has an extremely strong Western following (even the dub staff shipped it!), but is functional rarepair in Asian countries. It does seem to have been gaining some degree of popularity as of late (it used to be nearly impossible to find Asian-made fanart of the ship, but you do see it every so often nowadays), although I’ve yet to confirm whether it’s like the Koushirou/Mimi example where social media interaction and bleed helped it gain traction.

While the American English dub can be pinpointed as helping a lot of it (most infamously having The Movie depict a heart-shaped something sent to Mimi from Joe when it was originally a nameplate), the question is probably not so much why Jou/Mimi gained traction in the West -- after all, there was a whole arc with them in Adventure episodes 45-50, and it has its own “nerd and cute girl” appeal -- and more so why it didn’t gain so much in Asian countries.

The answer is, again, most likely cultural. Jou ships among the group are not particularly common over there, and it’s probably because, in the realm of seniority and honorifics (they also make it very clear Jou is two years older than her), there’s a very strong impression of how Jou keeps a lot of people at professional arm’s length -- especially the girls, as he tends to use the almost excessively neutral “-kun” instead of something more endearing like “-chan”, and thus implies he actively wants to be strictly formal with them. (This is probably why Yamato/Jou seems to be the only other Jou ship that can be said to have caught on in that sphere, because Yamato may be the only Adventure kid Jou had an intimate one-on-one personal conflict with.) In the case of Mimi in particular, a combination of Mimi also largely being respectful with him in the same way she treats other elders, plus the dominating popularity of “competitor” ship Koushirou/Mimi, led to it not really catching on very much. Likewise, as said above, Mimi hasn’t tended to be shipped very often on the Japanese side with anyone but Koushirou partially due to the way she treats everyone so respectfully, so when you have two characters who have a tendency to be good about maintaining boundaries, it’s harder to ship them together.

Still, while these factors don’t necessarily help the situation of why it didn’t quite catch on at the time, as I said earlier, it does seem to be gaining some popularity nowadays with people starting to consider the bright and bubbly Mimi having an impact on the sometimes-too-fussy Jou...and, also, a two years’ difference stopped feeling as big of a deal as it did when you’re a kid.

Jou/the girl with the bike in Diablomon Strikes Back

Yes, really. (For the record, the part about him physically taking the bike away from her was a dub addition.)

Everyone who ships this generally does it in good humor, and nobody in its fanbase (seriously or otherwise) actually thinks the series canon was intending to push this. It’s also not like it has a massive diehard fanbase or anything. What is fascinating about this, however, is that both Western and Asian fanbases independently conceived of the ship without swapping notes -- if you ask “if Jou started dating someone outside the group, who do you think it would be?”, you will be very likely to get this answer (with varying levels of seriousness) no matter which side of the pond you’re on.

Since, as I mentioned above, Jou doesn’t tend to get shipped with people in the group very often within Asian fanbases, probably the reason people started taking this one so into consideration is that for some, it actually seems more likely that Jou (who traditionally kept others in the Adventure and 02 groups at respectful arm’s length) would hook up with someone he had a “meet cute” with and could start casually dating, rather than someone he has a lot of emotional baggage with (which he has historically played very poorly with). Considering that Jou is from an “elite” family and a prospective medical student, it’s not like he’d be a bad catch for someone even on face value, and he and the girl seem to have parted on good terms (you could even imagine they swapped numbers afterwards).

Again, I think most people generally take the whole idea in good humor and don’t take it too seriously to the point of claiming it’s so-obviously-canon or whatever, but it catching on like this is probably the inevitable result when you depict this many interactions with someone whose only other plot function was having a plot-necessary bike. (Really: they arguably didn’t need to do this.)

Takeru/Daisuke

Moving onto 02 ships! This one’s interesting because it’s another noticeable cultural disparity. I can’t say it’s a particularly popular ship in the West, but in Asian fanbases (especially the Japanese one), it’s got a surprising amount of prominence among hardcore fans that has especially been increasing as of late, and it’s enjoyed a very interesting prominence in doujinshi in particular. Some of the most prominent Digimon artists who table at events (such as Comiket) are Takeru/Daisuke fans, and this has been going on for decades; as far as the “casual mainstream” goes Daisuke/Ken’s fanbase dwarfs it by a landslide, but as far as people who regularly do fanart or discussion of the series to the point of selling books for it go, Takeru/Daisuke may actually be more popular. (I say may; again, I haven’t exactly done hard statistics on this.)

In this case, I would say the American English dub was a huge factor in the disparity for this one, mainly because the massive disconnect largely happens between people who watched only that version, and...pretty much everyone else (i.e. although it’s not as fervent as the Japanese artist crowd, you’re more likely to find a Takeru/Daisuke shipper in non-English speaking Western fanbases than you are Anglosphere ones). This is because 02′s English dub changes were a lot more significant than Adventure’s, and especially in the case of Daisuke and his relationship to Takeru and Hikari; because said dub heavily played up the hostility between Daisuke and anyone not named Ken, it left a lot of people having a hard time imagining a ship between him and anyone not named Ken working well at all.

The popularity of this one is, indeed, heavily dependent on their Japanese version dynamic, where Takeru has a tendency to be playful and otherwise not very straightforward about his feelings (and does really seem to be quite fond of Daisuke and his antics), whereas Daisuke tends to be a bit defensive and think people are making fun of him -- meaning that Takeru could flirt with him complete with red hearts and a bouquet of flowers and Daisuke would have no idea he’s being flirted with, because he’s too dense. Even if/once Daisuke does pick up on it, or start developing his own feelings, he might be a bit tsundere about it because of Takeru’s way of going about things, so it’s probably why it’s led to so many artists making extensive comics about the dynamic. On top of that, a lot of people picked up on Daisuke and Takeru showing up together to greet Iori in the Kizuna drama CD despite Daisuke saying he was approaching Iori first, meaning that the two of them were hanging out anyway -- i.e., the ostensible claimed “friction” between them is not an object.

Takeru/Ken

This one kind of borders on rarepair either way, but it mainly has to do with Takeru’s reactions towards Ken in 02 episodes 37 and 45, which indicate that he’s clearly emotionally warming up to Ken but picks these very cryptic ways to show goodwill to him (because, again, he’s never really emotionally straightforward). Since Ken isn’t nearly as dense as Daisuke, depictions of the ship tend to be more about how Takeru’s very roundabout ways of addressing problems would play with reaching out to Ken’s emotions, and how Ken conversely might be able to conversely break through to Takeru since he’s much more straightforward and empathetic.

Daisuke/Hikari

Of course, pretty much everyone understands that Daisuke has a crush on Hikari, but the fanbase that ships them as a two-sided ship is much smaller. (If anyone ever claims to you that there’s a consistent shipping “war” between Takeru/Hikari and Daisuke/Hikari fanbases, it’s a total lie; Daisuke/Hikari is pretty close to rarepair in terms of sheer population count.) On top of that, the ship’s fanbase is, again, significantly smaller among those who only watched the American English dub, because its significant changes to how this issue was handled meant that a lot of people read Davis’s advances on Kari as extremely creepy.

Those who actually ship Daisuke and Hikari as a two-sided ship generally follow the idea that (at least in the Japanese version, and other dubs based off of it) Daisuke was never truly straightforward about his apparent feelings for Hikari at any point, which made it very easy for Hikari to dodge them -- but at the same time there’s no real evidence Hikari dislikes Daisuke at all, only that she doesn’t want to acknowledge his weird dancing around the subject. So for the two to hook up, Daisuke will someday have to sit down and properly be straightforward about his feelings for Hikari, and Hikari will have to affirm them and agree to at least try out dating him. It’s not like both scenarios are completely implausible, given that Daisuke might someday be able to come clean about it once he’s matured a bit (although, unfortunately, he still hasn’t by 2010, if the Kizuna drama CD is any indication), and Hikari does ultimately find Daisuke to be an endearing friend, the only question simply being if she’s willing to entertain seeing him in that way or not. If it were to work out, Daisuke is fundamentally a good person who would work very hard for her sake, and Hikari being a kind person goes without saying, so it’s not difficult to go from there.

Miyako/Hikari

The rationale on this one doesn’t really need too much explanation; there was a whole episode dedicated to their complementary personalities and how Miyako’s aggressive emotional reaching out to others makes her one of the only people who can break through Hikari’s shell. I mean, hell, even the episode titles (for both the Japanese and English versions) laid it on thick here!

(There’s also the fact they’re Jogress partners in general, but I generally am not fond of using that as romantic shipping rationale without further qualification because this leads to mentalities like claiming Takeru and Iori were “spares”, which is a sentiment that I find to be somewhat disrespectful to their character arc.)

Ken/Hikari

A “somewhat uncommon ship that has a somewhat bigger following than most uncommon ships” (I have no other way to put this). Most of this one comes from 02 episode 31, in which it’s established that Ken and Hikari both have similar backgrounds and negative experiences with the darkness (the Dark Ocean in particular), and thus are very likely to understand each other’s feelings in this respect. Beyond that, they also have similar temperaments in general (being very kind towards others, but also firm when they really believe in something).

I’ve also heard of some people enjoying the symbolism behind it, with the one formerly associated with the “darkness” related to one associated with “light”, and what that would mean for both of them.

Daisuke/Miyako

Possibly the only Daisuke ship besides Daisuke/Ken to gain some noticeable degree of traction in the West as well (although the disparity in population count is still huge). This one doesn’t really take a lot of explanation; I’ve said before that Miyako might have been the closest person to Daisuke before Ken came into his life, even if they probably wouldn’t have admitted it at the time. They’re both chaotic disaster children who are very comfortable bantering with each other, and I don’t think I need to go into why the trope of “couple that constantly banters but actually cares for each other deep down” has appeal.

There are also a few lines in the Japanese version that quite a few people have picked up as potentially hinting that Daisuke might have harbored a crush on her, or at least felt a little antsy whenever she started exhibiting a crush on others...

Ken/Miyako

Similarly to Yamato/Sora, this is canon and thus has a lot of people who generally acknowledge it as part of being canon-compliant, but doesn’t have a lot of people who are hardcore into it.

In canon, Miyako was the one who was portrayed as having a prominent, aggressive crush on Ken, and so the general mainstream idea is that she probably continued to have this deep crush on him and thus must have asked him out at some point (with him optionally having been oblivious to this fact). However, most people who are hardcore fans of the ship feel that there may be a higher chance that Ken started falling for Miyako and was the one to ask her out (with her having been oblivious of the degree of his feelings for her, which could mean either in the sense of being oblivious entirely, or in denial that he would like her back in a sort of mutual pining sense).

The reason most likely has to do with hard analysis of their personalities and picking up on certain minor things in 02; there’s quite a few moments where Ken makes it clear that he’s well aware Miyako is caring and invested in his emotional welfare.

The case for why Ken would find Miyako endearing is also given in 02 episode 38, when she makes him laugh from her antics (and then calls his smile cute), which also is very prominently depicted as part of their marriage in the epilogue. (The fact he’s constantly respectful of her as “Miyako-san” also leaves a strong impression, if you follow the Japanese version.) On the flip side, Miyako may openly call a lot of people cute, but there’s no indication she ever seriously intends to ask them out or expects them to like her back -- and given that, as much as she initially liked Ken for shallow reasons, she eventually came to treasure him as an important friend, it is rather believable that any sign he’d actually like her back would completely go over her head for a while.

What’s particularly fascinating about this is that this is consensus in both Western and Asian fanbases, having been agreed on independently without swapping notes on this, even though such a directionality wasn’t depicted in hard canon -- well, at least, not until Kizuna had Ken chasing after her and worrying about her safety (and her in particular) during a battle, which, as you can imagine, a lot of people picked up on. In addition, in a similar way to how Koushirou/Mimi fans like the idea of what someone having a crush on him would add to Koushirou’s character arc, a lot of Ken/Miyako fans like the idea of Ken, who struggled a lot with holding himself to “well-behaved” standards over the course of 02, allowing himself to indulge in being the one to have a crush on someone he admires, or even a bit petty with jealousy (just a little).

[soupthatistohot]

Why do I write primarily mlm fanfic?

This was something I asked myself the other day. I am a girl, I think I'm queer (but I am attracted to men, whatever I am), so why do I fixate on mlm relationships? Why do I never feel compelled to write wlw or even just some good 'ol straight stuff? I brought this up to a few friends of mine who also watch anime. One of them said that it’s because lots of popular media only really focuses on developing their male characters well, and I think this to be a very suitable explanation (as well as the fact that I’m queer and thus gravitate towards queer stories).

Take Sk8 the Infinity for example. I could count the number of female characters in this anime on one hand, and one of them is a robot. The others are supporting roles who only serve to support the male main characters. I love Sk8 very much, and with the possibility of a 2nd season I’d love to see a prominent, well-developed female character (but if they make her Reki’s love interest I will literally stab someone). But as the anime stands right now, there are no female characters that aren't just basically plot devices.

Another show I love dearly, Yuri!!! on Ice, is much the same. While there can be more of an argument made here because 1) competitive figure skating is split up between men and women, and 2) I believe that the story Yuuri and Victor is absolutely meant to be a romance, so having the two men as the focus is somewhat necessary, there's an overwhelming lack of fleshed-out women in the story. All the female characters are supporting members that only exist for the benefit of male characters. Yuuko and Minako support Yuuri, Lilia exists so Yuri P. can improve, Mila is just... kind of there, and Sara's whole character is centered around her brother being overprotective of her.

Okay, so let's look at something a little less... fruity. Horimiya. I've only watched the anime, so if there's stuff I miss from not having read the manga (yet), please forgive me. I still think this is a valid perspective, though, because if there's female development that the creators decided was so unimportant that it could be cut, that still supports my point here. In my opinion, Miyamura is a lot more developed than Hori. He has his tragic backstory of being a loner, and having his secret piercings and tattoos and all that. A lot of the story ends up focusing on his side of things... despite the fact that Hori is the protagonist. The story follows her perspective for the most part, we learn things about Miyamura as she does, yet I feel like she's a bit dull. She has a uncommon home life and has to take care of her younger brother, that's her big bad secret? I get that it's kind of unexpected since she's the pretty, perfect, popular girl, but I still feel like it's a tad anticlimactic. It's hardly ever addressed beyond the first few episodes, too, and it just kind of exists as a fact within the story. Even beyond our main couple, it seems like the other female characters development and stories are all focused on the boy they're interested in (except for Sawada, but she's there for like a couple of episodes and then doesn't really show up all that much again... and her crush on Hori is handled really weird, I didn't exactly love it). Remi's entire character is pretty much centered around her boyfriend, and Sakura and Yuki are basically competing for Toru. Meanwhile, the guys have story beats themed around the girls they're interested in, but I feel like it's not as obsessive or dramatic as how the girls are depicted.

So, we're given these female characters, who are really watered-down and honestly kind of boring, and we're not super compelled to write about them. When we are given flat female characters, there's nothing to work with. It's more fun to use the characters who have had development and play around with the "what ifs" and our own personal headcannons. The characters who get this special treatment are primarily male. And while I commend a lot of shows for developing their male characters in such a way that doesn't exactly fit with society's idea of masculinity (ex: Reki's insecurities and depression, Yuuri's anxiety and femininity, Miyamura's isolation and depression), in the end these characters are still boys, men, males.

I also think mlm is so prominent because of both straight girls and queer people. For straight girls, it can often be fetishization (forgive my generalizing, I'm sure not all straight girls are like that, but an overwhelming amount definitely are). I think one of the best examples I can give for this is Phan. This is a bit different since it's not anime, but instead real people, but if anything that really drives home the point even more. The way Dan and Phil were (and probably still are) treated in the fandom internet space is disturbing, to say the least. Their audience, while much of it was queer, was also made up of an overwhelming amount of heterosexual girls who not only shipped them intensely, but also often sexualized them. And look, there's nothing inherently wrong with being a straight girl and writing smut, but it gets to a point where it can be kind of weird if its excessive. Like, if that's all the relationship is really about, and if the people you're writing about are real human beings, that's definitely overstepping. I will admit that I had a Wattpad and that I wrote Phanfic way back when, and this is something I'm not exactly proud of. Granted, I did not write anything explicit, it was still super weird, whether or not I was queer. And I'm not saying all the problematic aspects of the Phandom were because of straight girls, because what I contributed was arguably problematic, and I did not identify as straight at the time. At the same time, though, there were straight girls who wrote exclusively smut (or "lemons" as they might've been referred to at the time). There were those who analyzed every post, every bit of information they could find about these men on the internet. They obsessed over the fact that they occasionally shared clothes (which is fairly common for roomates of similar sizes to do), and gathered evidence to support the theory that they shared a bed. It was bad. It was invasive, and it got to the point where it wasn't about the people, it was about the fetishized fantasy these girls made up in their heads about these real, actual men.

Dan and Phil's online presence kind of disappeared for a few years... and I don't blame them.

Getting back on track, mlm is prominent for queer people because it's the LGBT representation they so desperately want to see actualized in media. If a show doesn't make their favorite queer ship canon (and they often don't), they'll do it themselves! That's what fanfic is for! I also know that queer people project onto these characters a lot, and that writing about them is almost like a form of therapy. They see these characters as queer, and they see themselves in these characters, so they write about these characters experiencing similar emotions to them. The thing is, the most compelling characters are male, so those are the characters they end up focusing on, even if the person in question is strictly sapphic. My best example is how I project onto Reki. Personally, I end up thinking of him as (and thus end up writing him as) having some internalized homophobia around being bisexual. That's literally what I am currently going through. I can't project this onto any of the female characters in Sk8, because I couldn't see them going through this experience because they're not developed enough to.

Despite all of this, I still enjoy all of the shows I mention a lot. I think it's just an interesting topic that I was thinking about. I'm not trying to bash anything that I used as an example, these were just my personal observations based off of what I know about these shows and their fandoms. I do, though, believe shipping real people isn't super cool, and I stand by that as someone who used to do it. I'm not going to stop you... I just think it's intrusive and inappropriate to pretend like you know enough about influencers to dictate who they should be involved with romantically. Their love life is, frankly, none of your damn business.

So, long story short, we should make anime (and popular media in general) less misogynistic.

(Also, please leave Dan and Phil alone, they deserve privacy)

[potteresque-ire]

Hi! I have been reading your posts and responses to anonymous and I am inclined to comment on your broadly realistic views and detailed analystic answers and let us not forget your ability to be warm in putting forward your opinions. I am truly a huge fan. Thank you for being a station for various answer seekers.

If you have time and patience, please elaborate on the situation GG is still facing post 227. Recently I read various comments insinuating GG copied DD for Douyin night which is absurd but the implication that only one party is still being targeted unnecessarily raise hackles of a lot of solo fans. And I, under any circumstances, DO NOT believe the involvement of the other party. Firm believer of BJYXSZD.

My point is what is being done to stop these antis from targeting GG. Since one of the motive to target GG is to severe the relationship of GG and DD, IMO at least. Does constant attack (external stimulus) on GG (belittling him by comparing him to DD) may have the possibility to effect their relationship (internal reaction)? Objectively yes, but given your perception of their relationship, what is your opinion in this matter, however subjective it may be?

Moreover, how much extreme and sometimes irrational analysis done by bjyx community can lead to harm to both of them especially GG?

Also, I have seen DD being the captain of BJYX in various circumstances but also throwing off people from their old predicted/maintened theories especially in case of Kadians. I am not sure how much to trust these 'candies' since he has a reputation of not giving a f*** of others opinion. So why would he post GG related or non-related content with same kadians. I mean if he posts private content with GG related kadian then why post promotional content with GG related kadian. Does it imply that kadians are related to GG or not or he doesn't care and we are thinking too much. I am not sure what I am writing now, maybe multitude of thoughts poring out here. I am extremely sorry for that.

I do not know whether people believe or not but 1st post by GG yesterday had initials YB in the circle. Not at all explicit, and depends on believers but I felt like he was just trolling BJYX, it may be good naturedly but after his promotional brand picture of shrimp in bunny's hand. I do not know I just felt, dissappointed/bitter/unsure about all of this. I think it is normal to feel this way from time to time even for SZD because along with emotional investment we have rational perspective which is necessary to scrutinize evidence(maybe) from time to time.

I whole heartedly apologize for writing an essay length ask, this is the reason I wanted your patience 😅.

If any other blogger wants to add or comment on this please feel free to do so. Your suggestions are highly welcomed. 🙏

Hello Anon!

I take it that your questions about safety are concerned about the behaviour of c-solos and c-turtles? International fans aren’t likely to put Gg and Dd at any risk. That said, however, frequent fighting among i-fans would likely drain Gg and Dd’s international fanbase, as many fans do not enjoy being a combative atmosphere (I, for one, will run away as quickly as a turtle can run!). Lost i-fans can’t be easily replenished, whether they’re turtles or solos ~ The Untamed, as a foreign language show so beloved that fans are willing to scale tall language and cultural barriers to understand it, isn’t something that comes around often. (stanning Gg and/or Dd does take a lot of work!)

About the arguments. I probably only know about a fraction of them since I do not interact directly with fans outside Tumblr . As far as I can tell, however, recent arguments among c-solos and c-turtles have been ordinary fights, and also, fairly “bi-directional” between the solos (ie. I don’t think Gg or Dd has been relatively exempt from attacks compared to each other). 

These arguments can be heated and some of the attacks may sound vicious, but there’s nothing much to worry about from a safety angle, as they haven’t caught the attention of those outside the fan circles.

The theorising by turtles are also not inherently dangerous. c-turtles have mostly been careful about keeping their discussions among themselves. The only risk it may lead to in the future, that I can think of right now, is the associated YiZhan content on China-based websites (ex. Bilibili, Douyin), which has become fairly plentiful. YiZhan candies used to be relatively obscure given the guidelines of CP fans to keep them among themselves (they call this practice 圈地自萌, literally, drawing a circle on the ground and have fun in it by oneself). These days, however, anyone who’s curious can get a good sense of YiZhan’s story by browsing Bilibili. 

This probably contributes to the continued growth of the turtle population; however, some of this content is created by non-turtles who seek viewership and have little concern over Gg and Dd’s safety. They are the ones who re-upload the BTS, for example, despite the repeated pleas and warnings by the “站姐”s—the superfans who take/purchase these videos—as well as the turtles to not do that. If these content creators go overboard, there’s a possibility that YiZhan content may get caught in the government’s “Eradicating Pornography and Illegal Publications”（掃黃打非) movement. The movement originated in the mid 2000s, and its recent waves have been used as pretext to remove LGBT+ and BL content on line (I will eventually set up a post re: those events). Just last month (2020 Dec), Bilibili has been explicitly named by the government for hosting questionable materials, which means it’s already under scrutiny. Sweeps performed on an entire website are usually broad-based enough that no specific individuals are targeted; however, the government also encourages, with financial incentives, the reporting of specific content and has set up a dedicated website for doing so. While all YiZhan content has no direct relation to Gg and Dd, removal of such content may cause an over-reaction from fans, which can, in turn, lead to accusations of poor fan management by Gg and Dd. Most people will also assume the YiZhan content to be created by turtles.

(Another example of how an alleged turtle mis-step can get the YiZhan fandoms and Gg and Dd tied to the 掃黃打非 movement: a few days ago, a Weibo post showed a photo of a hardcover version of an explicit BJYX fanfic, reportedly sold for profit, and GG haters were calling for an arrest for “illegal publication.” So far, there’s minimal noise on the issue, so it isn’t something to worry about. It can also be fake news, which is so bountiful on the platform and on every aspect of daily life that most die a very peaceful, very well-deserved death.).

Whether fan arguments / theories may affect Gg and Dd’s relationship (assuming they’re in a relationship) … my guess is, not much. Gg and Dd are busy people, unlikely to closely follow their fans’ discussions. Again, I expect effects to be felt only if the arguments get out of hand ~ as in, if they begin to involve the public and/or the government.

As for the question about what is being done to stop Gg being targeted: fan wars are incredibly common in China (as in everywhere else), and Gg and Dd’s aren’t special in that sense ~ it’s just that as turtles, we know about those surrounding Gg and Dd and they feel significant to us. No individuals can stop a fan war ~ all we can do is to not join these wars ourselves.

Personally, I think the international fan base of Gg and Dd, as solos and cpfs, have more chance to achieve peace than its Chinese counterparts — if they choose to want that. Popularity in China is not only quantified (which is likely true everywhere, by marketing departments), but very visibly so. Sales numbers, votes, traffic attributed to each idol are frequently released to the public, possibly to foster competition among fans and drive these numbers further upward. c-turtles’ demonstrated strong performance in pushing these metrics has made them a target to those who wish to have usurp their consumer power. They, therefore, have good reasons to be wary of anyone who try to sway them from their “turtle-ship”, whether to turn them into solos or to lure them into an entirely different fandom. The swaying messages are also not always obvious, not always a direct “your cp suck”.  They can be subtle, many even come from netizens who appear to be fellow turtles, who may say “oh, maybe we (turtles) are wrong” or “we have to be realistic; Gg and Dd will never look at each other publicly again”—messages that cast doubt and sink morale in a fandom that’s already running an uphill battle. Remember: traditionally, CP fandoms are not expected or welcomed to last, and solos have been happy to (correctly) point out that the BTS, the origin of the most solid “evidences” of BJYXSZD, are getting older by the day. c-turtles can’t expect anyone else to help defend their ship if something happens, given CP fandoms’ lack of respectability, given YiZhan being a real person M/M pairing that is often frowned upon. So it’s understandable, to me at least, why c-turtles are on guard, and occasionally, clash with those who they feel may be trying to take away what they love.

i-turtles, I feel, don’t have that many reasons to fight. We don’t really have other fandoms (for example, the up and coming danmeis—the adapted BL dramas) vying for our attention (and wallets). No one can put an expiration date on the YiZhan communities except ourselves.

Another way to see this is: we—as in, the combined Gg + Dd international fanbase, the solos + CPFs—are lucky in a way the fans in Gg and Dd’s home country are not. Collectively, we’re much further removed from the pressure to perform as fans, which is immense in China with their fan circle culture and fan economy. i-shrimps and i-motorcycles ~ some of you are reading this, I think? (hello!) ~ here are my humble thoughts: the solo/turtle ratio of Gg and Dd’s international fans doesn’t make much of an impact on Gg and Dd’s star status, on the popularity metrics that matter. Our spending power is limited outside China’s borders, and while Gg and Dd likely love us equally as fans, our adoration for them doesn’t really matter much, if at all, to the production/media/commercial companies that control the trajectories of their careers. 

Along this line, the turtles’ “double loyalty” doesn’t have much of an ill effect, because there are few popularity contests here that mean much; few times (if any) when the turtles must face the dilemma of whether to vote for Gg or Dd because only a single vote is allowed; few situations where they have only x amount of dollars and must split it equally between Gg or Dd’s endorsements. There’s also much less cause to worry that i-turtles may draw the attention, or ire of the Chinese government ~ the whole international fanbase is too far away, too spread out to destabilise the regime in any way.

What the turtles do have in common with you, the solos, is their knowledge, their love for Gg/Dd. Knowledge, in particular. The people who know about Gg/Dd are still far and in between—at where I am, at least, and my guess is, it’s likely true for many of you too. Think of the turtles as people who you can talk to about your favourite star in places where few people know about him, can help promote The Untamed  far and wide—many people still haven’t heard of the show, and they deserve to.

For the turtles ~ no one can take away our turtle-ship identity, as long as we don’t give it away. No one can report on the our communities to the government and get them dissolved. Our votes, our spending habits are no one else’s business but ours here.

So, Anon, here’s what I think, and these are all very personal opinions, very personal decisions on how to navigate fandom …

I truly hope that we, as the international fanbase, can try to use this luck that we have. Make our communities not mere copies of their (combative) Chinese counterparts but something different, something with our own flavour, something with more peace and less fighting.

Specifically, I see little cause to try to persuade/dissuade anyone to be a solo/turtle. I find them… not the best use of time. Why? Because frankly, neither solos nor turtles have a better grasp of who Gg and Dd are. Neither solos nor turtles have a truly good grasp of who Gg and Dd are. These discussions are therefore bound to end up with more ill will than conclusions, since both sides are short of facts.

We’re all short of facts as audiences, who’ve all only seen a tiny sliver of who Gg and Dd are as human beings.

I don’t mean Gg and Dd’s star image is fake ~ it’s just that, their star image is their “work face”, and even I, a lowly turtle, must act somewhat differently in my own office. It’s part of being professional.

Gg and Dd’s star image are their professional face, and no professionals worth a salt truly ignore other’s opinions, especially when the profession is being an entertainer whose job is to face and hold the attention of the public. 

This is true for Gg; this is true for Dd.

Social media accounts are also part of Gg and Dd’s professional face ~ whatever is posted on there will be scrutinised by millions of fans, and they know that. The posts do provide some insights about Gg an Dd’s personalities, but they can’t be expected to show a complete picture. No parts of these posts, therefore, whether it’s the content or the kadians, are sufficient evidences for / against any aspect of their personal lives (especially as private an aspect as their romantic lives). Anon, you mentioned promotional marketing materials, and here’s my understanding of them ~ ambassadors such as Gg and Dd have minimal control over their design. The shrimp-holding bunny you’re referring to, for example, is very likely provided by the company.

However, may I also add this? Please try to not think of the shrimps / motorcycles as enemies of the turtles. Millions of people are behind each of these labels, and true for any group of this size, a fraction of its members are bound to be annoying. A small fraction may be awful, even. But they don’t represent the entire group. The shrimps are not only Gg’s fans, many of them have supported him longer than any turtle (since turtle-ship can’t be older than 2018); they’re also the reasons why Gg is in the industry ~ they voted for him in X-Fire. Likewise, a subset of motorcycles have been with Dd since UNIQ; they were there when the Korean ban effectively dissolved his group; they stuck with him when he was attacked for taking on the role of LWJ.

We’re all Gg and Dd’s fans, if you ask people outside the fandom. Remember: few outside China understand why heated arguments can occur between a bunch of shrimps, turtles and motorbikes. (It sounds a bit kafkaesque, just typing it out.)

It’s important not to lose sight too, that Gg and Dd’s social media accounts, where many new candies are found, primarily function as bridges of communication between them and their fans. These accounts do have different degrees of “professionalism” ~ Weibo and the official accounts being more formal, and Oasis, Douyin being more laid back and intimate; still, they all serve similar purposes. They’re not candy generators, or a script Gg and Dd have an obligation to follow to confirm / refute BJYXSZD.

Also: these accounts are accessible and watched by the public, not all of whom are friendly to Gg and Dd.

Re: Gg’s drawing on Oasis. He used the account as it’s intended for—to interact with his fans (the caption of the first draft was an unspoken invitation to shower him with ideas) and maybe, to show off a little (it was a very nice piece of artwork ~ a comment that I, sadly, haven’t seen much of). I doubt he posted his drawing because he wanted fans to carpet-search for traces of Dd in it (even though he probably expected that would happen); I very much doubt he posted his drawing because he wanted his fans to fight over scratch marks or black dots.  

If these fights keep happening, I can imagine a possible outcome. He’ll stop showing us his drawings. His social media accounts will become less and less personal, as they already have.

I’ll share with you my thoughts about candies too, while I’m at it. These are probably not-so-popular opinions, so please take them all with a grain of salt.(Salted caramels? 😊 )

I haven’t looked at why candies are called candies, but I find the name appropriate for how I think of them ~ candies are 1) neither evidences or truth, 2) sweet, 3) treats (non-essential, not like the main course).

The first point is, perhaps, the one I try the hardest to keep in mind. There are posts out there claiming the candies as made-beliefs—generated from edited pictures or videos, exaggerated translations, and their interpretations forced by “guidances” in the annotations/narration. There are also posts claiming that turtles are deceivers, or have been deceived by brainwashers who maliciously created these make-beliefs. A turtle may assume these posts are all lies, all made by antis. 

But, speaking turtle-to-turtle, I’d venture to say this … there’s some truth in the *first* statement. Many candies do, indeed, taste different if their taster returns to the original source—not necessarily unsweet, but less sweet. Candies, remember, are generated by fans like you and I. Same for c-candies ~ they aren’t endorsed by Gg and Dd, aren’t necessarily closer to the truth just because of the relative proximity of their birthplaces to their leads. 

Candy generation is The Tradition of CP fandoms. It’s a celebrated skill, and who doesn’t want to generate a candy that will be talked about, that will be part of the BJYX canon, for as long as the fandom lasts? Some fans are, therefore, also more … efficient in the “marketing” of the candies they generated — in persuading others that their candies are evidences, the truth. “Guidance” photos and videos (which pinpoint the place to watch, sometimes with appropriate sound effects for emphasis) have come about that way, and because they’re easy to digest—especially where language barriers exist—they end up spreading to i-fandoms.

These photos and videos may look more professional / trustworthy, but they often have an additional layer of subjectivity ~ on top of the already subjective opinion of what makes a candy. Translations (of BTS, fake rumours house content etc) also introduce a subjective element. Word choices can significant modify the tone of a conversation; speakers of different Chinese dialects may also have different interpretations of the same phrases. Example: I, as a non Chongqing/Sichuanese speaker, can guess the literal meaning of the “puppy” term Gg used for Dd — 狗崽崽 (gou zai zai) — but I also had to rely on others to tell me how endearing the term is; me being a Chinese speaker actually doesn’t make my interpretation any more valid, or authoritative, in this scenario, because my dialect doesn’t use this term at all. 

It doesn’t mean the people who’ve put in the work have any less-than-good intent; the vast majority of them come from a place of deep love. It’s just that we all carry our own perspectives, and as fans, our strong emotions in our fanworks.

This is why candies are often insufficient as good “points” for arguments, why they fail to convince non-believers, sometimes to the disappointment of some turtles. As evidences, they aren’t objective enough; they’re also often touch upon the assumption that’s mark the fundamental difference between solo and cp fans — the assumption that Gg and Dd are (not) together. Take, for example, this segment from a (polite) ask I got from an anon solo:

All the matching clothes, jewelry, shoes etc. Stopped being valid candy when I realized that the brands have popular stars "endorse" their products. The lightning pendant? Other actors have also worn it. Does that mean they are in a 3-way with (Gg) and (Dd)? Probs not.

Solo anon was correct! Brands have star endorsers, and other entertainers have, indeed, worn the same lightning pendant. The implied argument is also valid: people who don’t care about, don’t even know about each other can wear the same things. Most of us do that on a daily basis with our mass-produced garments.

However, a counterargument can also be made to the statement above, and easily: even the most precious, most beautiful wedding rings (say, from Tiffany!) are not exclusive to the first RL couple who bought them. It doesn’t mean the first RL couple is sleeping with all the couples who bought the same rings afterwards, doesn’t mean those rings aren’t significant to every one of these couples as romantic mementos. More often than not, couples wear matching things not because these things are exclusive to them—because how often can one find things that only exist as a single pair in this world? They wear matching things because they want to see something on themselves that remind them of their significant other and so, as long as the things aren’t so prevalent that everyone is wearing them, they can already serve their purpose.

But you see, Anon, that arguing over this would’ve been a waste of time? Because the solo came in with the assumption that Gg and Dd were not a couple, and the counterargument was made with the assumption that they were. The pendants alone are insufficient to prove either side correct or wrong. No one knows why those pendants ended up on Gg and Dd’s necks, except Gg and Dd and their teams. If I were to argue with anon solo, we can go on and on and on until we’re both left with bitter tastes in our mouths and WWX-red in our eyes, and forget the one thing that really matters: we’re both Gg’s fans.

(We could’ve spent the time talking about how that scene in The Wolf with Ji Chong throwing Zai Xing in the water is ❤️.) (I can’t believe the script waited 30+ episodes to do it. 😂)

This leads to my second point, Anon. Candies are meant to be sweet, and they’re meant to be sweet for you. In Chinese, a term for an expert candy person is a 嗑學家 (the candy-eating in CP fandoms is called 嗑糖 (ketang) ～ with 嗑 ke denoting a specific form of eating that requires breaking something open first with teeth—such as watermelon seeds; a 嗑學家 is a 嗑 (ke)-ologist). A 嗑學家 isn’t someone who can recall the longest list of candies, or spread the most candies around, or convince the most people that the CP behind the candies is real; they are those who can find their own candies in a source material, and be overjoyed by the sweetness of their discoveries without outside help. To me, at least, this term encapsulates the subjective nature of candies ~ what’s right for you may not be right for me and vice versa, and that’s perfectly all right. In other words, there are many candies out there but you’re not required to believe in all of them; instead, you’re free to choose candies to your own liking, compose your own version of the BJYX canon that you love, that you find sweet.

Wait, but you may say. Doesn’t that make my canon fantasy? Yes and no, because candies are based on real events. They’re interpretations, which sit somewhere between reality and fantasy. They’re like … opinion shows on news channels.

But what if I need to convince people of my canon —

Your “opposition”’s canon is as fantastical, and as real as yours — maybe it isn’t, but neither of you have a way to prove it one way or another.

Wouldn’t solos call me delulu, or clowns?

Maybe. But one step outside the fandom, and all of us fans—solo and cpfs—are delulu, clowns.

(That’s why while I’ve used the cpn label, I haven’t called myself delulu, or a clown. Anyone who thinks I have the truth about the love story about a pair of idol I haven’t met from thousands of miles away … the joke’s probably on them, don’t you think?)

Of course and again, Anon, this is only my take! I like candies precisely because I like to watch the real-time generation of candies, which ones different people claim as their own, which candies fall away and which stick around in the fandom over time. As a fic writer, this ship has gifted me with a treasure trove of information ~ what do people think of as romantic gestures, as give-away signs of love? The fun/amazing part of BJYX is that candies are available for so many different answers to these questions. Some people think of longing gazes and sweet smiles; some think of touches that can’t be helped (the many, many, many “fights”); some think of service (buying foods, designing clothes); some think of caring about the other’s well-being (throat candies and dumplings + noodles + crackers); some think of being The Other’s One and Only Exception (Dd being so talkative around Gg, Gg being so … fussy around Dd); some think of expressions through the arts (songs, drawings, dances); some think of grand gestures (the wave heart in the ocean); some think of matching clothes and symbolic accessories (rings); some think of birthdays and anniversaries (314, 622, the first snow); some think of sharing life’s hassles and small tidbits (fake rumour house); some think of … just looking VERY good together. Etc etc.

Some think of a subset of these, some think of all of these…

(Personally, I’m a very picky candy eater. I know about many of them, but only a small fraction impresses on me.)

(Still, I love watching candies. I love watching the joy of people sweetened by them ~ or, when c-turtles exclaim kswl! — the short form of ke si wo le! 嗑死我了! I “ke”ed so much I’m dying!)

This gets to 3), Anon, and I apologise to you too, for answering your not-essay-at-all with an essay! Candies are, to me, treats, and I don’t expect them to come at any frequencies higher than treats do. The reason isn’t because I don’t like candies ~ I enjoy watching them, as I said, even if I don’t eat many of them; the reason is because I don’t expect anyone’s romantic love to leave a trace in everything they do. For example, if I truly find myself in a SZD/SJD discussion re: Gg’s drawing, I’d say the lack of Dd in Gg’s self-portrait doesn’t really mean much. Even if Gg and Dd were head-over-heels in love with one another, Gg doesn’t have to put Dd in everything he touches. Likewise, Dd doesn’t have to present a consistent, or decipherable story with his kadians. This is true for the real-life couples around us too, isn’t it? They don’t perform every single act in life leaving a noticeable trace of their significant other. And the misunderstanding that couples do that — that their romantic lives take over who they are as individuals — IMO, partially explains why people who choose to not to date or marry, people who’re aro-aces, often have a difficult time convincing others that they’re complete humans. Romantic love is, of course, very, very important and can be life altering, but it also isn’t everything about a person ~ especially not if a person who has a career as exciting as Gg’s and Dd’s. Gg and Dd who also have friends, family, (many) talents and interests …

(And lots of ugly icons on their cell phones. Yes, I’m talking about you, Gg. That long-armed Pepe from your 2018 snowless Beijing post will give me nightmares…)

[redjennies]

Why do you think that b/j and w/j are so popular? Not asking you to engage in hate, you just seem level headed about this stuff

in general, Jester ships are so popular because Jester hits the Katara/Hermione Granger/Bella Swan/etc character mold where she's the fun, relatable, pretty but not too pretty girl that the audience can latch onto and imagine "character I'm attracted to is attracted to me." while this can lead to problems of "reducing a character to a shipping prop" especially when the extremely shippable character is female, this "character a is me and character b is what I'm attracted to" model isn't an inherently bad thing. it's where most shipping comes from. so when you consider that Jester ships are popular and that w/j and b/j were also the sort of "underdog" ships to fjorester, which anyone half paying attention saw coming from a mile away, it's kinda unsurprising that these two are so big.

speculation on contributing factors to the popularity of these ships specifically under the cut. full disclosure, I am specifically looking at these through a "how fandom works" lens, not a "how they are in canon" lens because it's a more interesting perspective for me.

so by this logic, w/j is popular because it's most popular guy character/most popular girl character. like seriously, Jester and Caleb could probably barely ever interact and not have anything in common and even actively not get along at all and this would probably still be an immensely popular ship. so the fact that Jester and Caleb do get along and do interact frequently and do have things in common and Caleb does have canon feelings for her only adds to this popular formula the ship already has going for it. in fact, the way fandom generally works dictates that this probably should be the most popular ship in the fandom, if not second to a Caleb m/m ship.

but it's not. which is insane.

from a "just how fandom works" perspective, b/j has everything going for it that w/j does: canon feelings from one party, the inherent popularity of Jester ships, not being fjorester, etc. while it's not most popular male and female character, Marisha and Laura were the only two female players at the table for the majority of the campaign so that's going to win over the f/f shippers. but for the life of me, I am amazed that an f/f ship beat out every single other ship in the fandom without being the central focus of the show (such as catradora or xena/gabrielle). like the beauyasha in me is *eye roll* at this development, but the lesbian in me is living for it.

here's a few of my theories as to how the fuck this managed to happen that were not mentioned above:

in the same vein as "beauyasha is a good shipmate for people who want Jester with Fjord or Caleb," beaujes is a good shipmate for m/m shippers who want to see Caleb and Fjord with Essek, Molly, Caduceus, or each other. I have thoughts as to why an m/m ship hasn't managed to get extremely popular but I do think this feeds into it.

it's relatively inoffensive as far as the major Jester ships go. where some people who don't have strong opinions on any Jester ships might still hate widojest and/or think fjorester is just god awful boring, beaujes is really only disliked by people who are really, really invested in beauyasha, widojest, and fjorester. while tons of nasty shit has been said about it during ship wars, I think the average multishipper probably has a positive, if not particularly invested, opinion towards it.

a friend pointed this out to me but it's actually the closest to a good girl/bad "boy" Jester ship. like Fjord and Caleb both have their dark sides but let's be honest, they're kinda dweebs. Beau actually has an edge to her and that's a very popular ship dynamic.

hell, I've noticed even FJs and WJs who don't particularly like beaujes tend to prefer it to the Jester/dude ship that they don't like.

anyway there's legit canon based reasons to ship either of these. I don't ship either, but they have their moments. this is just some of why I think these ships in particular flourish in a fandom environment.

I say this as someone who draws, Beau and Jester are extremely fun to draw and so there's a ton of fan art of it and some really fucking good fan art of it and that's gonna further the positive fandom opinion of it. shit I don't even like beaujes and you can still catch me liking art of it on a regular basis. it's fucking cute.

eta, because I cannot believe I forgot to add this back in after my app crashed and deleted the initial response: never underestimate the shipping power of "oh my god, they were roommates."

[a-slut-for-smut]

what are your top 10 relationships in aot?

Hmm very interesting question anon- thanks for asking! Idk if i can really rank them since i only have the one OTP, but i can certainly give my 2 cents on the most popular pairings, according to the interwebs.

2 things to keep in mind:

i dont hate/dislike any pairing. I dont care enough to waste energy doing so. I like what i like, other people like what they like- simple as that, i cant understand why its so hard for ppl to grasp this concept

You may be wondering about my recent tag usage because ive been tagging a lot of diff ships- mainly for my anti-SNK139 shitposts. Just had a wild idea that maybe- JUST MAYBE, we could all put aside our differences and just have a laugh at our shared misery. Because idk how any of us are supposed to be happy with this ending. I mean, upon reflection I see what Isayama was going for, but idk its just tough to swallow unlike Levi's fun juice. Which, in my opinion, should be taken as a compliment- the man set the bar so high with the previous arcs that our expectations were thru the roof despite a rushed final arc, and he just...missed the dunk? Anyway hot take, i know.

Ok i digress- to the ask, in no particular order:

Levihan

Cute ship, very fluffy. Who doesn't like best friends to lovers trope? And theres no denying they have mutual respect for each other, which is a huge kink of mine. Honestly, its hard for me to ship a pairing if it isn't evident. That said, does this pairing get my ovaries going? Eh, not particularly but i still likies

Erehisu

I was behind this ship mainly because i was sold on Eren's "Walter White" villain arc. What better catalyst for a dramatic change in character than if their child was involved? The idea that Eren went full Hitler because he got Historia preggers and wanted the child to grow up in a "free" world? What parent wouldnt sell their soul for that goal, given the world they live in? And Historia- grappling with the knowledge/morality of Eren's plan but for the sake of the child? Prime for character development. Not to mention all the blatant crumbs. But Isayama went NOPE.

Eremika

Oh boy. So, firstly, i would have readily accepted this ship if Isayama laid off the one-sidedness a bit. But he didnt. And while im sure there are instances that can be interpreted as mutual affection, i dont see how that excuses all the times Eren snapped at her/just generally annoyed with her attentions. Like, we dont know his POV at all until the very end which retroactively you can say, oh he didnt want to cause her future pain? But by then its too late for US. And in the end (im not clear on this tho/too lazy to check) was it ever made clear to Mikasa that he reciprocated her feelings? Im prob biased/self-projecting here, but I would NOT have stuck around on the off-chance that the dude is faking his disinterest?? Even if he did save my life and is my childhood friend! You dont owe someone love because of that, but because of how you mutually treat one another. Anyway i woulda taken the fucking hint and moved onto Levi's dick, i would never put up with that nonsense

Eruri

These 2 are bonded, to say the least. They hold each other in high regard and i love that about any ship. Good stuff.

Ereri

Doesn't do much in the ovary-dept for me relationship-wise, but man, this ship is popular for a reason. The fanart for this ship is TOP TIER 

Yumihisu

Again, they regarded each other highly and theres no denying they deeply cared for one another. Sometimes love doesnt give a shit what genitals you happen to have, why cant ppl understand this? We all got hearts and souls, that counts for something??

Aruani

The energy for this ship is a little tepid for me. Maybe because her ass was stuck in a crystal 70% of the story, but i liked pre-crystal annie alot. If anything, i preferred her dynamic with Eren more, mainly because Eren respected her so much and she contributed a lot to his character growth in the first arc. Just my preferred dynamic for a ship. Also she kicked his ass so much i was beginning to think he was into it

Jeankasa

Dont mind it at all. I think it lacks a certain degree of intensity that i prefer in my ships, but theres def mutual respect there and im all for it.

Jeanpiku

Thought this was a cute ship that came to bloom in the later chapters. its intriguing dynamic- falling in love with the (former) enemy kind of way.

Rivamika

Uh. Where to start. Actually i wont because this post is long enough as is. Just peruse my blog if you're actually curious ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)