#which reeked of purity culture

[friedwizardwhispers]

Pros of being in a small fandom and getting an adaptation: more contents, more people, bigger fandom

Cons: discourses and bad takes (tm)

[atsadi-shenanigans]

Feeding Alligators 43 - The Proposition

Astarion makes a proposition.

Warning: that shitty feeling when you're demisexual (with purity culture trauma) and someone you thought of as a friend propositions you with sex and you realize, in a survival situation, your choices are sex, or losing this friend and possible support. There's a happy ending eventually, but both of these people have serious issues.

On AO3.

“That went well,” Astarion says. He sits nearby on the unshattered stairs leading to the front door, hair dripping from the quick wash he’d given himself.

The air stinks of smoke and char and some nauseating, roast meat reek you refuse to think about. Everybody calmed down (Karlach) and most got their wounds treated. Shadowheart had conjured up a rain to put out a fire (with a fucking arrow in her hand), leaving the tollhouse a fire-gutted wreck. Fucker ain’t structurally sound in the slightest; you’ll ask Gale to thunderwave it before y’all leave to make sure no unsuspecting travelers try to take shelter and get crushed when the roof finally caves in.

Literally everybody got hurt except you. Lae’zel tore ligaments in her knee. Gale’s hands and half his face are mildly burned. Shadowheart actually got hit in the face with shrapnel in addition to the aforementioned arrow-through-the-hand. And Wyll is gashed down his side to his ribs.

Karlach is still burning too hot to be near anybody—she sits over in the road with her teddy bear.

And Astarion, who doesn’t need to breathe, inhaled smoke right after Harvey Dent gashed his head. You gave him a healing potion to help his lungs—he don’t need air to live, but he does need it to talk—because Shadowheart is triaging the magic she got left.

“They’re dead and we’re not, darling, and that is what matters,” Astarion says. He wipes his blades down again, having already inspected his bow (and found no damage).

He’s right. Y’all did what y’all had to. Karlach don’t got hunters on her tail no more, and none of the injuries are more than y’all’s resources can handle.

Except you are completely fine and none of the others are.

Astarion finishes up and slips his daggers back into the sheathes on his belt.

“We’re probably staying here for the night, huh?” you say.

“I can’t imagine the others will want to go far.” He looks to the rotting carcasses. “But I also don’t anticipate anyone, even the gith, wanting to linger amongst all this.”

You nod. You can help set up camp. That can be your contribution; you should really ask Gale for cooking lessons. Nobody fucks with the camp cook.

“Well, my dear,” Astarion says. “Shall we see what items might be left in that ruin? I’m rather sure I saw a basement.”

Bringing back presents also boosts morale.

“We probably shouldn’t go alone,” you say, and completely miss his smile turn sour. “Hey Karlach! You wanna see if they got shit in the basement?”

In the road, Karlach perks up. Woman has such golden retriever vibes.

***

Karlach ends up taking an ax to the charred hatch cover that does, indeed, lead to a basement. And then to the big doors Astarion can’t jimmy open—you let him search the ripe body y’all find down there. Must’ve been the toll collector. You got a sneaking feeling it wasn’t them dead gnolls outside that got him. Might be the way his gut is cleaved damn near in two, like some Harvey Dent motherfucker and his overcompensation sword nailed the guy.

Most of the boxes in that first room are empty, save some salvageable rags, which you stuff into your bag like there’s gonna be a shortage (you got maybe six or seven days until shark week, you suspect). Find a couple of broken weapons, a pair of frayed sandals, and not much else. But as you start into the second room, stepping over splintered wood, Astarion grabs your elbow.

“Careful darling,” he says. “There are traps about. Stay next to me, hmm?”

Circular grates dot the floor. A lot of them.

“Can you disarm these?” you say.

“Oh, I got it,” Karlach says, flexing her biceps unnecessarily (but not unappreciated). She skirts the first one, hefts up a heavy looking jar that comes up to your ribcage, and sets it over the grate. “There. Fucker can’t spew if it’s blocked, yeah?”

“Indeed,” Astarion says. “Why don’t you be a dear and go handle the others?”

“Aww, what’s a matter, Fangs?” she says, and if he were a cat, his ears would be plastered to his skull. “Can’t do a bit of heavy lifting?”

“I’d rather not dirty my hands, if it’s all the same to you,” he says, despite the fact that 1. he's wearing gloves and 2. he's still got dried blood crusted in the creases down the front of his armor.

Karlach looks at him for a second, and the both of them make weird facial expressions. Then she grins. And there’s something odd in that grin. And in the way she glances over to you.

“Gotcha,” she says. And saunters off to find more huge-ass pottery.

You start rummaging through the first box you see. Old clothes. Not moldy or covered in mildew or crusted bodily fluids, so into the pack they go. Move on to the next.

It’s quiet as you work. Karlach shuffles over to the corner, secures that vent, and starts rummaging herself.

Two boxes later and Astarion sighs. You look up, find him about where you left him, but leaning on a shelf with an arched brow.

He…hasn’t been looting?

“You alright?” you say. He don’t look injured. His arms are folded and you catch the barest flicker as he apparently resists the urge to roll his eyes.

Then he pastes on the smarm again. “I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate you. That was quite the plan, back there. Very effective.”

“Uh huh.”

He’s angling for something. And he seems to know that you know, and he leans into it. “Are all your plans going to be so vicious?”

“I’m not…it’s not on purpose. I’m not trying to cause…mayhem.”

“And yet you’re rather good at it.”

It’s still not a comfortable thought, that part of you. It’s keeping your ass alive, but if (when) you get home, you ain’t sure you’ll be able to cram it back into the box you took it out of.

“I don’t know how to fight and I can’t use magic,” you say. “If you don’t hit hard and hit first, you give them a chance to hit back and you get your ass handed to you. We cannot afford that.”

But no disgust wrinkles his face. No frown draws his brows together the way most people in this situation would.

“You know, my dear, some people might call that cowardice,” he says.

This time you get to roll your eyes. “Bet you those people die young.”

He barks out a laugh. Doesn’t seem to mean to, but his eyes are wide and sparkling in the dim torchlight. Karlach pauses her rummaging, and then begins again in earnest.

“I like you,” Astarion says. “It’s refreshing to talk to someone with a modicum of sense, for a change.”

Insulting the entire rest of the group. There’s a tactic that should work to do…whatever he’s trying to do here.

“Neat,” you drawl, using that extra second to try to get a fucking read on him.

“Honestly,” he says, and his voice drops. “I’m beginning to like the whole package. And you clearly like me, too, so…?”

You stare. After a moment, you realize he’s waiting for a response and you’re just standing there. You should probably put on a facial expression. You’re doing the blank face thing again and that tends to piss people off (you look like an idiot, you stupid girl, ohh I’m a stoic Indian hey-ya-huh-huh). You should really stop. You should stop right now.

You can’t stop.

“…so?” you finally manage.

“Come now,” Astarion says, expression dripping smarm. “Don’t be coy. Your body’s already given you away.”

What in the fuck is he talking about? What is this? The man flirts literally more than he breathes. He’s fucking with you, somehow, trying to get a reaction. You’re just not sure which one.

But his eyes widen in what really looks like a genuine smile. No malicious smirk, no smug, just…a man smiling at you.

“I could feel it, you know. As I was getting…” He steps towards you and you ain’t sure when he got that close. His gloved fingertips brush down your neck where he bit you, so featherlight, you ain’t even sure he actually touches you. “Getting lost in your neck. Your little shakes of excitement. You enjoyed it, didn’t you?”

He is entirely too close. You can smell iron on his breath. That strange, almost electric charge that hugs his skin crackles against yours.

“Um,” you say.

He was this close when he bit you. His soft lips on your neck. His fucking tongue. And the noises he made slurping on your wrist. You ain’t never heard those kinds of noises outta someone before.

It’s his spit. It’s that memory effected by his goddamn vampire spit. Of course you had a physical reaction. That was normal.

But you barely know the man and having a chemically induced reaction like that don’t mean you want what you think he’s alluding to.

“I…I was trying to help, is all,” you say.

Thank fuck he steps back. Only to throw out his arms to show himself off. “And look how well it’s worked. I’ve never felt better, all thanks to you. So let me repay you for your noble sacrifice.”

Is it just you, or does his voice take on Wyll’s cadence over that last bit? (Yes, much better. Analyze that and not the situation unfolding here. So much better.)

But then he leans in again, lids all heavy.

“We could take an evening to ourselves,” he says, voice low and…and melty. “Get away from camp—get some privacy. I know somewhere quiet. Somewhere…intimate. Somewhere we can indulge in each other.”

He waits. You stare. Cause it sounds like he’s suggesting…?

He sighs. “And I do mean sex, to be clear.”

…no. No. He’s not. He can’t be. It ain’t the first time somebody joked like that with you (against you, using you as a prop to make their buddies laugh). But he don’t got no audience to play to. And he ain’t never took the joking this far. The others wouldn’t find that funny, would they? You want to look over to Karlach—suspiciously loud in her searching—but don’t think you can break his eye contact.

“You really don’t owe me for that,” you say. “I’d do it for anybody.”

He lets out that soft, high giggle. “But you didn’t do it for just anyone, darling. You did it for me. And that’s hardly the only reason. It’s more of an excuse, if anything. Assuming…you want that too, of course?”

Your chance to get the fuck out of this. But then he tilts his head down and what you suspect might be actual lust (might have been this whole time, oh god, you didn’t see, you never see until it’s too late, until it’s printed on a big, plastic sign some high school kid twirls over his head outside a roadside sandwich shop).

“But we both know you do,” he purrs.

Oh god. Oh sweet jesus.

You been friendly. You shoulda known better. People—men especially—always take it wrong. Why do they always take it wrong. Why is he targeting you for—

Oh.

Yes. That makes sense, don’t it.

A pile of lovers. That’s what he’d told Shadowheart he had. Man likes sex. Nothing wrong with that, but now he’s stuck out here with all y’all and who is the easiest target? Who has no backup? It’s the same reason he picked you to bite in the first place. You look as you do, so he probably pegged you from day one as the most desperate. The easiest prey. He wants a quick, no-strings lay, and who better than the fat girl with no connections to anybody?

You can say no. Logically, you know this. You don’t think he’s the type to hurt you for refusing (none of them ever seem like they would in all those crime stories, do they?). And Karlach stands right there. You’ve refused people before (it’s all you ever done).

But that was back home. You had a stable job and a couple of hundred bucks in a savings account and your own, one-bedroom apartment. You could stand on your own, two feet back then. Back there. If anybody tried to give you shit, you could call dad’s side or Sasha (who carried a baseball bat in the trunk of her car).

Here?

You’ll die without Gale’s blood potion—and it needs all of them to make. You can’t even ask for help without the dirt potion. You got a brainworm, and your best chance of not turning into a space monster is a band of people you keep leading into danger while you sit your fat ass in the background and take not a single fucking scratch.

What happens when you make a bad call? What happens when they get sick of covering for you? Coddling you? You are wholly dependent on their good will for food and a…and a fucking allowance.

You been trying not to think of that for a week. Of just how defenseless you are. How you worked so hard, and yet you are right back where you started, poor and helpless and vulnerable and staring down the barrel of fucking someone you don’t know.

Except you ain’t some twenty-year-old kid this time. Now you know what’s happening to you. Your body is on the market, and there’s no Sasha to swoop in with her pickup truck and whisk you away into the night.

“You’re…you’re not joking?” you rasp, throat drier than a salt flat.

Astarion blinks. “Darling, I would never about this.”

He wants to fuck you. Whatever reasoning (easiest prey, the lamed deer) he actually wants to fuck you.

You can’t feel your hands.

You’re not…possessive of your “virginity.” It ain’t some commodity (Mother). You know, intellectually, it’s an activity just like any other: riding in a hot air balloon, scuba diving, eating one of them lollipops with a bug inside (crickets actually don’t taste too bad, once you get over the leg barbs dragging on your tongue). You ain’t opposed to trying sex sometime.

It’s just…you barely know this man. You barely know any of them.

God, you’re being fucking precious. It’s just sex. People have sex all the time. They been having sex they weren’t enthusiastic about for thousands and thousands of years and they all survived just fine. This ain’t no different. And you can use this, right? Forge a…a…

(Relationship, and your stomach clenches.)

An alliance with him. That’s just good interpersonal insurance, right? He’s damn good with those knives. He’s even pretty—not that that part really matters to you; it’s the same category as “his shirt is white” and “his hair is white” and “his face is symmetrical and he’s got fangs.” Just an observation.

He watches you. Waiting. He expects an answer. He expects a yes. Possibly a gushing “oh me oh my, lowering yourself to offer me??”

It probably won’t be bad? Somebody with a pile of lovers in the city has to know what he’s doing? Orgasms feel great and other people really like sex. It’s just an activity. You were probably gonna do it at some point, anyway. This is just sooner than you anticipated. It probably won’t even last all that long, right?

It’s the smart move.

“I, um, yeah,” you say and now you can’t feel your face.

“Wonderful,” Astarion says, lighting up. “Once we have a chance, I promise you a night of passion you’ll never forget.”

You certainly won’t be forgetting your first time, you’re sure.

You can’t throw up on then man’s shoes. That would be the height of rudeness. God, you’re such a mess. Your body is wigging out for no reason. It’s not that big of a deal; there’s no reason you should be this light-headed.

“Oi! You two!” Karlach pops her head out of an aisle. “Think I found a secret door!”

Oh thank fuck. You want to hug Karlach. Swoon into her arms. Except she’s still on fire and you just told Astarion you’d have sex with him.

Astarion lifts his eyebrows and makes an intrigued noise. He starts past you, but pauses and leans in to whisper, “See you later, lover.”

Your heart lurches. It’s not a good feeling. The pit in your stomach only grows when Karlach—behind Astarion’s back—catches your eye and gives you a grin and two thumbs up.

She knows. Oh sweet christ.

You smile back and hope it doesn’t look as weak as it feels.

Previous - Index - Next Chapter

[imminent-danger-came]

Yeah, David Breen had to write a tweet when the fan translated version of the Mandarin version of LMK came out. People were freaking out about Wukong being a deadbeat dad and debating on whether it was a d*ck move or Wukong recognizing that he had sh*t mental health and was not in the proper head space to take care of baby MK.

Also that memory? That was a vision MK had in Episode 3. He was helping Tripitaka with magic circle stuff, the vision broke in and interrupted the ritual, and all hell broke loose. It isn't an actual flashback to his childhood.

Thank you to the person who shared the screenshot in my notes! You're a real one. I'll put it here for easy reference:

First, I wanted to clear up that I didn't mean my questions in a "this is why it can't be true" way—cause it is true—but in a "these are the questions I have!" sort of way. I think that's how one person interpreted it and I'm like OH NO. MY QUESTIONS MEAN I'M INTRIGUED/WANT TO KNOW MORE I SWEAR.

Next, the visions in 4x03, 4x04, and 4x05 are different than what I think is a memory:

(4x03 The Great Tang Man) (Sending the curse one because like. what the fuck. what the fuck!)

-

(4x04 Pig Napped)

-

(4x05 Court of the Yellow Robbed Demon)

-

These are the visions of Sun Wukong trying to find MK in the scroll. They're different from what Subodhi presses MK to remember ("Tell me of your childhood, your parents." "You do not remember?" "And what else?"):

See the difference?

Every vision MK has includes the same scenes, except this one. That's why I think it's a memory; that and the way it's framed, with MK closing his eyes in focus. The other visions from 4x03, 4x04, and 4x05 all are unprompted, being forced upon MK. Why make this last "vision" so different from the others? Why show Guan Yin (?) making the stone monkey? That would be because it's a memory—be it MK's, something from the scroll, or a mix of both.

Monkey King not being MK's dad doesn't equate to him not being involved—MK being born from the stone means that he doesn't have any biological parents, it's a weird grey area. I also just can't imagine that Guan Yin (if it was her) made MK on top of flower fruit mountain and that Monkey King was none the wiser (edit: lol it was NOT on top of flower fruit mountain. Anyways, carry on!). I also don't know what other reason Sun Wukong would choose MK to be his "successor".

"Monkey King was ripping his way through memories looking for MK, but kept coming back to the stone. He doesn't know why."

I'll be honest, "he doesn't know why" is SUPER vague (which is good, can't have a writer spoiling the whole show on twitter lol). So, Monkey King doesn't know why he kept going back to the stone...what does that mean exactly? It's vague and up in the air, and it's phrased in such a specific way that I can't help but feel like Breen is being purposely misleading.

Either way, I don't really see the problem with Sun Wukong being a dead beat dad. Like he's not MK's dad, but if he were I don't understand what the issue with that is. Sun Wukong is an interesting character, he means well but he can also hurt others through the distance he builds around himself. In 3x05 Amnesia Rules he literally says "Can you imagine what I would be like if I didn't have friend's? I'd probably turn into a manipulative jerk!" Well, currently all of his past friend's are dead and he is a manipulative jerk. And I love him.

Sun Wukong is nuanced. He doesn't make the right choice all the time. The way he treated the main gang in s3 was fucking shitty ("how could you lead us into this fight without a real plan!?"). But he also doesn't intend to hurt people. He always has his own reasons. And, when he finally realizes the pain he's caused, he tries to make amends and put himself on the line. People "freaking out" about Wukong being a "dick" (which he kinda has been this whole time, he's a little shit and I love him) just reeks of purity culture.

AND THE FUNNY THING IS, WUKONG SPEAKS DIRECTLY AGAINST THAT:

“Point is, mistakes happen, but so long as you leave the world in better shape than you found it, then it’s all good. Right?” (4x01 Familiar Tales)

Wukong makes so many mistakes all the time. I don't know why in this instance it would be one step too far.

There's also just so much we don't know. We don't really know anything about MK's origins, or why he was created, or who created him, or what everyone knows/doesn't know. But I will say, whatever it is I'm excited for it!

[genericpuff]

Oh, so that's where the whole "Lolita" thing came from... Uh. I can understand the whole tiredness that going down that rabbit whole provoked you, so it's okay if you wanna rest for a while.

On another note, can I say this whole "Dr. Pepper show" comic reeks of mid 2000s weirdly disturbing content? Like, I'm not trying to say all those things back then were bad, but I think you get what I mean when I say that... Yeah, the 2000s were wild times and tons of stuff that shouldn't be normalized or publicly exposed as "okay" were, well, alright.

And I mean, there's nothing wrong with liking or making content with dark topics. But there's just something about the whole "Gothic lolitas" that make me feel uncomfortable. Like, yeah, I know is a fashion style on some areas. But, like, knowing RS particular interpretation of what it is doesn't make me feel any better.

So, uh, when you feel better (and if it's okay), any theories on what the webcomic could have been about? I personally think it may have been straight-up nsfw of, well, whatever the plot of it was. Or maybe another one of those "purity culture deconstructs", idk.

Anywho, thanks for the info from where "usedbandaid" originates. Have a nice rest of the day. And i'm so sorry for whatever horrors you may have witnessed.

haha I'm okay, honestly, it wasn't so much horrifying in the sense of being like, legitimately triggered, it was more so just like ... whoof. I gotta ease up on my own habits because there's nothing here that I need to be seeing LMAO Just kinda makes me feel sorry for myself a little bit for getting sucked into it in the first place but I know it's just my ADHD tendencies to be like "OOH, STUFF??? I WANNA ABSORB ALL THE STUFF" (instead of doing the things I'm supposed to be doing).

Man, if people go on this many rabbitholes to find my old art some day... let me know because I'd genuinely love to see LOL I've lost so many of my old pieces over the years. But I'm sure there's also still plenty of cringe that would make me (⊙x⊙;) So I'll give RS credit there, a lot of that old stuff - especially The Doctor Pepper Show - was made when she was like, 18. I can understand her maybe wanting to disconnect herself from both that comic and her old usernames affiliated with more more fetish-y art. But that's the Internet for you. It's true what they say - anything you post on the Internet is there forever. Even stuff from 20 years ago.

Oh god 2004 was nearly 20 years ago-

As for The Doctor Pepper Show, there are still pages out there for it that you can find, along with summaries. I think she got about 3 chapters in before she quit doing it (seemed to be due to her going to college around the same time which is like, yeah, valid). Unfortunately so far it seems there isn't a way to get entire chapters to read it at length, but there are some spare pages floating around.

I believe it was about a woman in a neo-Victorian society trying to become a doctor ? (from what I've been told) which is interesting but you can still tell there was a lot of RS' own personal kink stuff going into it. Which is like, fine, more power to her, at the VERY least she was right to put it behind an 18+/R rating back then. But it's wild that she's still doing that sort of thing in a comic that's being marketed to children (LO). Makes me wonder if she'd ever return to it after LO is done, god knows when that day will come though.

[devils-dares]

You can delete this if it's offensive, but I was wondering if you could explain how you as a disabled person feels about the portrayal of comic!Matt, specifically in Zdarsky's run. I want to know if there's anything you have that you like/dislike about it, thanks!

hoo boy, okay. well first of all thanks for understanding that talking about disabilities is uncomfortable for some people. i can give you my personal insights. just to preface: i don't have a disability that messes with my senses (sight, hearing, taste, feeling, smell) so i can't approach this question with that angle, however my disability affects a major life activity, which for me is walking.

i'd also highly recommend checking out @briefcasejuice and @mattmurdockspainkink for their takes on comic!matt (highly recommend this piece by ren)

so for me, one big issue i have personally with being disabled and how that information is taken in by others is that it can truly limit my autonomy/make people infantalize me. because my flare ups reduce my ability to function as a human being so much, oftentimes i'll be seen as a child or someone who is helpless, when i am very clearly not. i'd like to think i'm self sufficient, and infantilization of people with disabilities is just humiliating honestly. it's also hard for people to believe that disabled people can be morally wrong?? i've noticed that in a lot of experiences with myself and other people who've never met me before. purity and disability do not go hand and hand, and that is heavily played into the part with the whole infantilism thing.

this is interpreted as a trait that's righteous in matt's core, whether it be through his upbringing or his religious values, but oftentimes the weight of the words feel fake, because almost everytime you see one of these instances where matt's "traits" are involved, either he does opposite of his character development (but we aren't here for that side of zdarsky) or he's with a woman. in this specific run, he's with elektra for obvious reasons, but it feels like elektra is written in such a way that it makes matt feel weak, his decision making childlike, no control over his executive functions, and that's what pisses me off as a disabled person.

there was a lot of hope in vol 6 issue 1 with the whole "don't make my disability your fetish" line or whatever and that got me real excited to read because i wanted to see matt stick up for himself and just be able to, as cliché as it sounds, be himself for once. almost every single cemented iteration of disability in pop culture has a negative connotation, and although i'm not saying that disabilities are fun, you can only shit on them so much (trust me i know). instead we get this baby-man who is stripped of his autonomy whenever he's in a twenty foot radius of a singular woman.

matt's always described as a morally pure person, a good human being, couldn't hurt a fly. it plays into the stereotype that disabled people can't do much for themselves. just because i can't walk some of the time doesn't mean i have the decision making and morality of a four year old, same with matt. he's arguably actually a bad person. he's pretty shitty in the comics honestly, specifically in zdarsky's run. i get that being unassuming is his whole schtick, but holy fuck dude that's not his whole character.

i know that this daredevil, especially with the adventures he's on right now, is meant to be fantastical, and at the end of the day he's a fictional superhero, but god, i'd give anything for an issue of just matt being exhausted. yeah, he's high functioning, but at the base of his character, he's a middle-aged blind lawyer. tell me that doesn't reek of exhaustion.

thanks for asking this question!!

[serpenteve]

I honestly don't vibe with bardugo and her writing at all. If the sab trilogy were published today I doubt very much it would be an instant hit. I think the backlash would be 10x harsher if r&r were to come out today. People these day like strong female protagonists, who are allowed to be a little morally grey and not just the ideal "good girl", fmcs who are encouraged to embrace their own selves (jude, feyre, nesta and the list is long) something tgt completely fails at. That trilogy reeks of purity culture. It gives me the fucking ick with how slutshamey it is towards Alina for daring to have a teeny tiny crush on someone other than mal and how author constantly dumbs down alina to show how "mal knows the best🥰"

I think there would be more disappointed readers as well, especially since there are so many better written alternatives. I mean, I don't think Alina was particularly beloved even when the series was still being published because a lot of readers found her actions baffling or frustrating. It's like she didn't even want to be in her own story and needed a lot of other side characters, evil plot coupons, and contrived coincidences to drag her through.

You know how a Mary Sue is a character who's so contrived that the whole plot of the story and the other characters have to be distorted and mutated in order to serve the needs of the Sue instead of the needs of the story? I've sort of come to understand Mal and Alina's relationship is like an OTP Sue. See, Mal and Alina are Bargudo's OTP and nothing can come between them: not relevant plot points, not other characters, not background social issues, not character development, not death itself, not even the laws of previously-established canon.

We're not really reading a story about a young girl discovering she's got magical powers and is the Chosen One. We're reading a story about how the author's OTP got separated by her own story shenanigans but found a way back to each other through it all. Which is not the story we were expecting, nor was it particularly compelling since both characters are easily the least well-written and least interesting compared to the rest of the cast.

[cto10121]

Twilight Clown Takes Special Edition - Stupid Romance Novel Focuses On Stupid Romance!1!!1

Another video whining about how great the Twilight lore is and how ~awful the romance is, and how to ~fix it. Well, I do know what needs to be fixed—clowns not understanding what romance is. And thus we feast, on nom nom nom

Bella Hate Dumb Round ♾️

I did not read thousands of pages of four books to be told this character, whom I know now like the back of my hand, has no personality. In fact—fuck it, homegirl has too much!!!! Plus a full on character arc from low self-worth and poverty to wealth and empowerment!!! Give me literally any situation and I could tell you, 100%, how Bella would react to it.

Clown OP: Bella is so selfish and narcissistic!!1!!1

Bella: *relieved that James tricked her and she is going to die instead of her mother* 😮‍💨

Also, Bella not wanting to live without Edward and doing reckless shit…is because she is in love with him. It’s literally passion. As soon as Edward comes back 99% of her reckless behaviors disappear. And of course she is not stupid enough to pick fights with actual vampires!!!

“I hate X about Twilight!!!1!!! I only saw the movies!!!” Not again…I’m not strong enough…

But the Lore!!! The Lore!!!!

If the upcoming show does this, that is the day it will be dead to me and pretty much all thinking audiences. There is literally no other plot in Twilight but the romance plot, and if you take that away and replace it with yet another vampire lore shit, then what is the difference between Twilight and, say, Vampire Diaries? Nothing, which would suck because VD was godawful trash (the books at least, but from what I’ve heard of the show…😒)

These clowns never realize that in many ways Bella and Edward’s relationship go against the religious paradigm as well and subvert typical gender roles and behaviors (the girl wanting sex, the boy wanting to abstain, the girl not wanting marriage, the boy wanting marriage).

Actually, had Meyer decided to go full-on lore and ditched the romance entirely that would have been more in line with her religion. Christianity of all kinds is savagely anti-sex and eroticism and adores magic, fantasy, and made-up histories. That is what it is made of, after all.

Oh, Clown OP. You just opened a big can of worms that is my detestation for how the utterly creepy purity culture shitshow that was the Buffy/Angel saga went down.

As far as I remember, Buffy/Angel started out okay, if not particularly inspiring—just your typical teen drama romance. But then Angel loses his soul after sleeping with Buffy and become evil. Because of course sex is dirty and nasty and evil, and if you sleep with someone you and/or your partner ~lose your morality and become depraved.

Now that subplot reeked of toxic purity culture and I will always hate, hate, hate Whedon for doing that bullshit. To this very day, I get so angry at this stupid plotline—they literally could have done anything else to separate the two and they chose this! Awful.

“I hate X about Twilight!!!1!!! I only saw the movies!!!” Reprise (Scherzo, petulante)

(As for the hybrid thing, technically Jacob is a hybrid as well. He and Renesmee both have supernatural and human characteristics! Definitely not bad in terms of a basis for a future relationship. But once again, the imprinting mechanism is biological.)

Jasper already turned his back to his violent (vampire) past and deserted the (vampire) war. That was his redemption arc—choosing peace over war. We don’t know his feelings towards his time as a Confederate, but given the parallels the narrative between the human war and the vampiric one—as well as the neutral and distant way he spoke of it—that his Confederate past is nothing he holds dear. Jasper out of all the Cullens is the most vampiric, so it makes little sense for him to still be the proud Confederate or remember his human life well.

Also. Breaking Dawn literally had Brazilian, Spanish, Russian, English, Irish, Romanian, and Middle Eastern vampires—on top of our American vampires, our Italian-Greek vampire royal family, and our Native American werewolves. Oh, and indigenous Latin American hybrids. You clearly have not read the books, Clown OP.

There are no other storylines. Alice’s story was over the moment James was killed. Rosalie already got revenge on her rapists. The Volturi are power-hungry opportunists, but they don’t act without provocation. James and Victoria and Laurent are random nomads. What other storyline, OP???

To Conclude, Once Again

Thank you.

[aurorawest]

So I saw this post the other day:

Fellas, is it biphobic to love sex with a man more than a woman? Is it misogynistic to recognize that male and female bodies can and do in fact feel different? (can confirm from personal experience!)

Like, this post is from 2014 when purity culture was just starting to ramp up, so I sincerely hope both the OP and the writer of these tags have grown up, as they ask slash writers to do, but hoooo boy does this reek of 'cis women shouldn't write m/m fic because they're fEtIsHiZiNg iT!'

Also, Jesus Christ, a lot of people like the idea of One True Love, which doesn't mean they operate in their personal lives as if they can only love one person. But go off I guess, they're biphobic and hate women.

[avi17]

Choose violence: 7, 12, and 24

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them? For some reason I'm having a hard time thinking of these, though I know there have to be some. There's definitely characters fandom has made me dislike MORE, or ones where I don't hate them in canon but am over the fandom portrayal (usually due to woobification.) But I'm blanking on examples for some reason. (Also is a whole piece of media an option here because I literally hate Star Wars because of the fans not the movies >.>)

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them Hmm. The answer might at one point have been Boromir, but thankfully he seems to have had a reappraisal in recent years so it's only more casual fans who say stuff that makes me want to fight them XD

Actually you know what? My answer is going to be fucking Beautiful Suzuki from YYH. Is he absolutely ridiculous? Fuck yeah. Is Genkai wrecking his shit hilarious? Also yes. But Team Urameshi literally would have lost the tournament without his help- like indisputably, Kuwabara would have lost his match and Kurama (despite losing on a technicality either way) would have almost certainly been killed. He's actually smart and an incredibly skilled inventor trying to do his shit in a realm that seems to only value brute fighting skill (I love fandom portrayals of him as a bit of a mad scientist), and his little speech to them about wanting to help them prove that underdogs can win- even though they kicked his ass- always has me genuinely cheering. And he fights in the Dark Tournament because he's a famewhore, but he comes back to Kurama in s4 out of genuine loyalty and seems to have genuinely put the ego (mostly) in check. Also whatever he and Shishi have going on in s4 is cute XD

He is just a big gay diva who shoots rainbows out of his hands and I support him dammit Also NRS can still meet me in the pit over their treatment of Kung Lao but I'm not sure that counts either XD 24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

"Is Billy Hargrove racist?" which honestly shouldn't really be discourse because the answer is literally yes. Any discourse about if Seladon is evil or not- yes she mega fucks up, I would definitely agree for a little too long after being presented with the evidence (I don't actually lose my patience with her until she's in prison after that encounter with the Skeksis and still blames Brea, everything before that I basically understand where she's coming from even if she's wrong). But I've heard people say that she's WORSE than the Skeksis, and that she deserves her own genocide, in ways that always reek of misogyny, which. Wow fuck off. Also the champion personally is still "is LiuLao incest," because a) no, b) honestly don't even care at this point if it is, and c) fuck off forever. Any discourse about the Feanorians is always a mess but I kinda feel like that is appropriate because they are a mess and so are my feelings about them. Same with anything about Rhaenyra Targaryen/the rest of Fire and Blood/House of the Dragon. Any and all fandom purity culture horseshit. Also I have Very Strong opinions about which Fire Emblems are good and why but I just don't get into that anymore bc why bother

[him-e]

i'm not arguing that the j*nsa fandom isn't embarrassing about some things, but in fairness i wanted to point out that the writer of that post (the one i'm almost certain you're talking about) is not a j*nsa shipper. a lot of j*nsas are reblogging it, for sure, but the original post is from somebody who's not a shipper.

Fair enough, but that post is only the latest in a looooong row of similar threads in which j*nsas basically pat themselves on the back for being apparently the only sansa fans who aren’t gross about her and it’s… yeah, you said the word, it’s embarrassing.

[sokkastyles]

Do you think Katara felt like she had no other choice but to end up with Aang especially after Aunt Wu's prediction of marrying a powerful bender and Aang’s outbursts in The Ember Island Players and Love is a Battlefield comic?

It's not made explicit that Katara feels that way, but I think it's likely that she did, and I think the show encourages this, and that's a major reason why I don't like KA.

Katara's belief in destiny and faith in Aang as the Avatar has a strong potential to be misused in the context of a romantic relationship. Katara already sees Aang as this nearly god-like being who will solve all the world's problems, even before and from the moment she meets him, even when given evidence to the contrary. And every time she doesn't see him that way she is given more reasons to idolize him, or punished by the narrative when she doesn't.

This idea is directly contrasted with Katara's arc with Zuko and the theme of destiny being something you make yourself and how we as people have a moral responsibility.

It's interesting to me that antis will make a lot of noise about potential power dynamics in zutara but will never point out the inherent power dynamic in Aang being the most powerful being in the world who Katara worshipped before even meeting him, and how every time she is dissuaded from this notion, the show treats it as a flaw on her part. Every time the show makes her feel guilty for disagreeing with Aang or standing up for her own feelings it just breaks my heart. I'm talking about things like Aang ignoring her in favor of showing off for his fans, while the narrative makes her feel bad for being upset. Which happens in the series and continues after they become a couple in the comics. I'm talking about the way Aang made her feel guilty for her feelings in "The Southern Raiders" and how he couldn't support her during a time of emotional turmoil. I'm talking about how she's held responsible for not reciprocating Aang's feelings for her in exactly the way he wants when he wants, and how this is never solved in the show except that it would make Katara look bad if she was still confused in the end. He did save the world, after all, right?

The show assures us that Aang deserves this worship from Katara because he's a pure ray of sunshine, but that just encourages us to ignore every time he isn't.

This also is a problem that carries into LoK discourse and how every time someone says Aang treated his kids unfairly, people are like "how dare you, Aang did x thing," or "Aang is a spiritually pure pacifist how dare you say he did anything wrong!" Do people really not understand how harmful this type of thinking is? Aang shouldn't have to be Ozai for you to say that he did anything wrong, and he shouldn't have to be a rapist for you to say that Katara is not obligated to reciprocate his feelings, at any point in time, or to act on them even if she does have feelings for him. This is why the more intense Aang stanning I've seen often reeks of purity culture, because it goes along with the idea that if a person/thing is ideologically pure, they are immune from criticism. Which is a dangerous, fascist way of thinking about things. And it's ironic that the show itself is all about defying this kind of manipulative ideology but then tries to justify it for their hero. Ozai wasn't just a bad person because he burned his son's face and perpetuated a genocide. Those things happened because of an inherent belief in his own superiority. Which is why no one should be treated as above reproach, even if they appear to be morally righteous. The history of the world is full of people who used the guise of moral righteousness to commit atrocities. Which is why the discussion should have never been about how good Aang is or what he deserves from others; not from Katara, not from his children, not from the world as a result of being born into power. But a lot of that also results from the nature of "chosen one" fantasy stories, especially if they are not carefully handled.

[a-slut-for-smut]

002 for Gojohime ;)

002 | Send me a ship and I will tell you:

Firstly, I just want to sincerely apologize for the delayed response! I honestly had terminal gojohime brainrot at the time of receipt and trying to answer this then would have made my goddamn head explode lolol

But thanks for sending in, best thing about these asks is they really help you evaluate why you feel the way you do about a character/ship so thanks for sending <3<3

When I started shipping them:

Right around when JJK season 1 anime started, although I actually wasn't watching the series but rather serendipitously stumbled across a complication of Gojo and Utahime interaction clips on youtube...the rest is history

My thoughts:

For Gojo, despite the teasing about her being weak its really his way of flirting because his other methods dont work (as far as getting that kind of direct attention from her). It's implicitly implied he trusts and cares for Utahime- going directly to her about the mole investigation and his train of thought immediately assessing her situation after he used purple hollow, among other things.

As for Utahime, i love how informal/combative she is with him despite him being the world's most powerful (and possibly unhinged) sorcerer- that doesnt seems to factor at all in their interactions and suggests to me a comfortable familiarity in their relationship.

Overall im just a huge whore for these two idiots- their chaotic dynamic reminds me very much of my relationship with my own himbo XD

What makes me happy about them:

I like to think Gojo's been madly in love with her for so long and his plan all along is to annoy her to the point where she becomes madly and homicidally in love with him which is a dynamic i LIVE for XD

What makes me sad about them:

Having been scarred by many a male shounen mangaka, i highly doubt they'll be made officially canon but a slut can dream eh?

Things done in fanfic that annoys me:

I havent read anything in nearly a year (currently suffering from readers block as i try to write my own fic) but does seem like a prevalent fanon is that Gojo is...uh, how to put this delicately.....rapey? (As far as smut fics go anyway, i dont read anything else lol). Not judging if thats what youre into, but anyone who knows me knows i have a mutual respect kink so its hard for me to invest in those kind of fics. Im a whore for my stupid soft simpy himbos :D

Also with Utahime 30+, i like to think that a) shes old enough to be comfortable with who she is as a person and wouldnt be insecure around an idiot like Gojo b) not a virgin/wasn't waiting just around for him. Mainly because im not into the "purity" culture or the whole notion of remaining a virgin makes a character objectively "pure" or "good"- it reeks of misogyny/patriarchal social conventions and i just cant vibe with it

Things I look for in fanfic:

hardcore smut duh (with explicit consent of course!)

My wishlist:

I'm not sure what this is referencing, but at the very least more canon interactions!!!

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

this question does not compute

My happily ever after for them:

My pragmatic side says just for them to be alive by the end given how the manga is progressing, but again being familiar with shounen mangaka habits its highly unlikely Gojo/their most popular character will be killed off unless Gege really goes full mad lad on us. And i dont see Utahime dying based on how shes handled in the manga so far but this could be a little white lie i tell myself??

As for my delulu brainrotty side: For them to be married with dozens of dozens of little gojos and utahimes XD

Anyway thanks again for the ask! Happy to answer more (and will try to be more timely in responses this time sorrrrry)

[itsclydebitches]

so ironwood was confirmed to be dead by Miles in a $42 cameo session, where the person who bought it had asked for "comforting words to soothe our anguished souls" bc she was an ironwood fan and wanted a pick-me-up after that devastating finale. miles' response was to essentially mock his fans (it really sounded like that, especially since he ended with "thank you jimmy, may you rest in pieces, crushed beneath the weight of the kingdom you tried so hard to hold up above your head."

apparently the VA, jason rose, confirmed it in DMs w the same fan who sent in the cameo ask. so like, quite apart from how rude and disrespectful it was of miles to make a mockery of james in a cameo where he'd been specifically asked for comforting words regarding the character, ngl but i think that if you have to confirm a MAJOR CHARACTER is dead outside of canon bc you failed to actually show it on screen.....you've failed as a writer. and also that kind of thing shouldn't be confirmed in an expensive and exclusive interview lmao like how hard would it have been to just talk about good aspects to james' character instead of calling him a dickbag and saying 'don't do a genocide, guys!!'

it reeks of unprofessionalism and also it just makes everything surrounding ironwood's character arc even worse since apparently 'his fate was sealed' from the moment he was introduced to the show.

Me, who received the first Moderna shot yesterday (🎉 🎉 🎉 ): Ugh I feel too crappy to answer asks today

Me, upon hearing this news: You know, I have suddenly found an untapped source of energy

Okay, all joking aside, I watched the vid and it’s definitely a lot. I don’t have any information about the request itself except for what Miles mentions in the recording, so I can’t speak to what the fan may have been looking for outside of that, but some highlights include: 

“This is for the filth in my degenerate discord server” - Yeah, that’s how a lot of us (fans) talk about ourselves. It sounds like someone who really enjoys Ironwood and makes joking, self-deprecating comments about their love of a character. That’s familiar to me and speaks to the expectation that they hoped for something other than what they got. At least, if I’d sent in a request like that I wouldn’t be happy with the vid, but that’s obviously my own perspective and not this fan’s. I’d be very curious to know their own thoughts though... 

“Sometimes a character we like doesn’t make it, does something we don’t agree with... or both!” - That is indeed how characters work! The real question is whether their death/actions make sense within the story, which is not addressed here. Many fans who enjoyed Ironwood don’t have a problem with him dying or turning into a villain  — I’ve been honest about my acceptance of either/both, regardless of personal preference, provided it was written well  — and that was always the issue. Not what happened to Ironwood, but how it happened. 

“James Ironwood’s fate was sealed the moment his character was conceived many years ago.” - Personally, I don’t believe this. RT makes a lot of grand, sweeping statements about what’s been planned “for years” or “since the beginning” and too often we’re faced with writing that directly contradicts that. Though it’s unlikely we’ll ever know the truth, neither option paints the writing team in a good light. Either they’re straight up lying about what’s been planned (or twisting tossed out possibilities into assurances after the fact. For example, someone once suggested Ironwood might become a villain somehow at some point and now that’s presented as, ‘We’ve deliberately been working towards this specific ending for years’), or they’re being truthful and just... can’t write what they want to write. It doesn’t sound good when a writer says, ‘I’ve planned this the whole time’ and a good chunk of the fandom responds, ‘Then why couldn’t we see that planning this whole time?’ 

“When James was introduced we intentionally made him look like kind of a big dickbag, but then we realized that dickbag had a heart and was also half metal, and that was pretty cool!” - I don’t even know what to make of this. I’ve deconstructed his introduction before, but to summarize here, he’s presented as no more of a “dickbag” than Ozpin who may not be doing enough to protect the people, Winter who allowed herself to get taunted into a fight on campus, or Qrow who deliberately started that fight while drunk. Glynda is the only one who is arguably innocent here. The implication seems to be that obviously Ironwood became a villain because “we intentionally made him look like kind of a big dickbag” but then... does that mean Qrow will become a villain too someday?? 

The comments about them realizing he had a heart and was half metal just speak to that lack of planning. No, you obviously didn’t plan this downfall from the start if you “realized” something as basic as him caring for others partway through writing him and then allowed that care to drive his character for so long that the decent into villainy read as OOC, rather than inevitable. You obviously weren’t writing him with a backstory that influenced his character  — of which his semblance is a major part  — if you “realized” he was half-metal... whenever that happened. The fact that we never saw that backstory, or the semblance on screen, or returned to his half-metal nature outside of a ‘That’s coding for evilness’ theme again speaks to the fact that either a) none of this was actually planned or b) the execution is seriously lacking here. 

“Let us all take a moment to thank General James Ironwood for his service to the Kingdom of Atlas, but... at the end of the day, don’t do a genocide [laughs]” - I’m having trouble articulating why I dislike this. I’m really too tired to be unpacking this right now (lol), but it has something to do with  — as you say, anon  — that mocking tone. Something else to do with the surge of purity culture in recent years. The tone feels like it’s tied up in an unsaid, ‘You like the character who tried to commit genocide?’ accusation when, you know, he’s a fictional character. People can like characters who do bad things. More significantly, he’s a fictional character Miles wrote. There’s something particularly distasteful about writers who feel like they’re laughing at fans for liking something when they created the thing with the intent that we would like it. And many did. So they gave attention, time, money, passion, etc. to the work and then when that part of the work finished, the creator appears to make light of that investment? Idk, I’m speaking about more than just this one line  — the tone of the vid as a whole, really — but it feels much less like “You enjoy Ironwood! 😄” and more “You enjoy Ironwood...  😬” Like yeah, fans enjoyed the character that you wanted them to enjoy who you wrote to have a heart and then suddenly commit genocide instead. There’s definitely nothing complicated in all that. 

“Thank you, Jimmy. May you rest in pieces crushed beneath the weight of the kingdom you tried so hard to hold above your head. Amen.” - All of the above x2 with the added issue that this was never shown on screen. Miles presents Ironwood’s arc like this seven year long plan when in fact they couldn’t even manage the basic move of telling the audience what happened to the character in his final hour. The fact that a fan had to pay to find out whether Ironwood is dead is not a gold star for the writing. 

Every time the RWBY crew speaks about the story in supplementary material the canon itself gets worse. Hyping Clover/Qrow on social media pushes the canon closer to queerbaiting. We’re way closer to that with them hyping Blake/Yang. Long ago comments about Ozpin’s cane suddenly make Volume 8 a retcon. A Q&A about Ironwood’s semblance makes his arc a thousand times more confusing about how we’re supposed to read his character  — to name just a few. Now this. When a friend first told me this info had dropped I thought, “Thank god. He’s not coming back then. I don’t want them writing Ironwood’s character anymore,” but really... can we believe anything the crew says? “Crushed beneath the weight of his kingdom” doesn’t mean Ironwood won’t show up in Volume 9 if it’s a spirit world type adventure. It doesn’t mean he won’t show up three years from now with even more metal in his body and a, “We said he was crushed, not that he was dead ;)” explanation. Hell, it doesn’t even mean he won’t show up with no explanation at all because, as established, what’s said in supplementary works and what happens on screen are two entirely separate things. Iffy as the vid may come across to those who did like Ironwood, I was initially happy that it at least gave us some closure... but now I’m not even sure about that. 

[butterfly-winx]

Things about each other’s cultures that the girls find most difficult to understand/cope with (pt2)

Zenith

Musa and Stella: National gene bank

Being mixed children, Musa and Stella find it very difficult to reconcile the existence of one unified central library of genes that all babies are born from on Zenith. For one there are people in both of their cultures who would have objected to either of them being born (the Rai/Selenite conflict on Solaria and Musa being human/elf mixed) they find the gene bank to be a huge risk for cultural feud and eugenics driven bad intentions. Zenith claims not to filter for disabilities aside from congenitally lethal ones, but with little independent control of their proceedings, the purity of their actions is often hard to control

Layla: Religion

Everyone believes Zenith to be such a proponent of science over everything else, it is often forgotten that the majority of the planet’s countries are religious monotheists. But monotheists of different singular gods! Layla coming from a culture based on natural religion finds the concept of a “one man show” strange to begin with, but when you tell her they all have a different one true guy whose precepts they follow she is out.

Bloom and Flora: Public information channels

In theory, whole dedicated channels or airtime slots filled with facts and scientific information rather than mindless ads is an excellent idea. It aids the education of the population and reduces the amount of populist or fearmongering misinformation taking root. Flora and Bloom are just a bit apprehensive about how easy it is to slip half-truths into a stream of factual truth, seeing as the information stream is ever so slightly different between the Zenithian countries, each finding some other aspect of a scientific discovery important, or advocating the involvement of their countrymen in a project over everyone else’s.

---

Andros

Bloom and Tecna: High mortality

It is not that mortality rates are very high, it’s just that the proportion of /water/ related deaths among them is high. Technically this is not that unusual, seeing as 90% of the planet is water, but maybe exactly because of this, Bloom and Tecna would expect people to be more careful around the elements. Androsians, like any regular god fearing nation, respect the Sea over everything else. Their hubris mainly comes from an overall acceptance that the Sea can claim about anybody if it wants. People don’t tend to struggle against it when they think their times has come. (See King Teredor and Niobe just huddling in the flooding castle instead of escaping) What adds to it is also that the royal family are of course not the only ones with mer cousins, and especially young people will overestimate the capacity of their lungs while playing in the waters. 

Stella: Animism

In Androsian cultures objects made from natural resources retain their soul stemming from having been living things once, even after they are shaped into an object for human use. To Stella this is difficult to comprehend. Like sure wood is wood, it has been a plant once and its origin should be respected, but for her once wood becomes a bowl it becomes a thing, with no spirituality attached.

Musa and Flora: Blood feuds

No one is a stranger to historical conflicts, sure. Androsian blood feuds however have morphed into conflicts that are still “honoured” in modern days. Local kingdoms can claim feud rights to claim land and people from neighbouring regions, functionally enslaving residents. On a personal level people still get ostracised from communities for marrying wrong, upsetting elders or for the ever effusive reason of doing gender wrong. (Neither of them really understands this part of Androsian culture.) Musa is solidly in camp “you owe your parents piety” while Flora is a general opponent of the sentiment, they both feel that this goes a little bit too far. People need a community that won’t self-destruct over to their eyes minor infractions.

---

Domino

Layla and Tecna: Horse culture

Dominians love their horses and elks they keep for riding, select animals are kept as revered pets even. Coming from an island world, Layla never really saw a purpose in those animals. What does weird her out about this is that a good 40% of Domino’s population are centauri, who are - no matter how you look at it- half horse essentially. So how can Dominians be that enamoured with their equines while their neighbour could be equally hooved?

Musa and Stella: Cultural homogeneity

It goes without saying that all girls, including Bloom, stagger at the thought that the Dominian Empire enforces unity through extreme measures, not having shied away from extermination wars in their past. Once one dares to descend planetside despite that, the most staggering thing is that Domino truly... is like that. You get the same language, same customs and same products from one coast to another. It is staggering for Musa and Stella, whose homes have also at some point been empires encompassing several planets even, but the former members 

Flora and Bloom: Military culture

Domino operates on a dual leadership structure in which has legal head of the state and the leader of the military reigning beside each other with equal power. Complicating the situation, the Vazul, head of the armies is also the spiritual leader of the Church of the Dragonspirit, melding religion and military culture into a dangerous mix. Flora has never encountered anything like this before, while to Bloom this reeks like the worst parts of her adoptive home. It doesn’t feel like a good combination, less so seeing as in the current generation both positions are filled by Bloom’s parents, which isn’t really supposed to happen and is a rightfully criticised controversy.

Special mention: Earth

So many countries! 

That is probably what all the visiting girls were hung up about. Earth is unique even within the wide breadth of the Magic Universe, having an enormous habitable zone that spans almost the whole planet. The only other place that comes even near that title is Lynphea, but Lynphea is several times the size of Earth and houses slightly fewer inhabitants. The girls loved spending time visiting different parts of the planet and learning about the different cultures and languages spoken, (tho if you asked them, neither could name more than 5 countries from the top of their head. This also made assimilation and staying under cover in Gardenia difficult, bc Bloom, conscious of the girl’s home cultures and habits has given them different fake home countries. The other five of course got immediately confused, which resulted in situations like Tecna proudly claiming they were Chinese and Stella inexplicably saying she was Roman)

[southslates]

a rant about the saturation of zvkka fandom

as a tyzula shipper i get really surprised by how the most popular lgbt/wlw atla ship before the renaissance fell off when it started; to the point where tyzula fandom still exists but it’s much smaller and constantly made fun of for being abusive 

and i think this is in part because of purity culture, where there can’t be nuance in anything and therefore tyzula is abusive and we can’t ship it! but i also think that as @army-of-mai-lovers outlined in this amazing post ty lee and azula aren’t love interests for any of the boys in the show, especially sokka and zuko, so content for them doesn’t need to exist because they simply don’t need to be sidelined. most tyzula content that exists is tyzula centric; not maiko or sukka or kataang or zutara centric, but tyzula centric. it explores ty lee and azula as characters because their chemistry is seen

you can see that most of the popular wlw atla ships in the renaissance are at least partly characterized by their relationship w zvkka, and clearly i have a lot of problems with that fandom, least of them all being the times i’ve been called a homophobe for disliking it. and one really large issue i have with zvkka fandom in general is its saturation of atla content to the point that it’s sidelined into a different au, that so many shippers see zvkka in atla when it just . . . isn’t there. it wasn’t the most popular ship before the renaissance because for fourteen years there just wasn’t . . . anything there. and i don’t know why it’s gotten popular, likely the help of some big name blogs (including the one that came up with homophobic katara) and the fact that fandom has started to really tend towards mlm ships more and more, and honestly good for zvkkas, the ship is cute, but uh

essentially just that even though zvkka has been the largest atla ship with the renaissance, it is not the most popular atla ship and it likely never will be because of that lack of longevity. there’s a lot of issues with misogyny and migratory mlm ships in fandom and i really, really see it here. zvkka fandom =/ atla fandom, atla has always and should always be more than about ships. of course i stick to mainly zutara/tyzula corners of fandom, which are super far removed from zvkka fandom in general for obvious reasons, but it’s almost sad to be entrenched in twitter and general tumblr fandom where people who’ve joined with the renaissance characterize zvkka as such a large feature of atla when atla as a fandom has always been surprisingly great with its characterization of women (atla specifically, ignoring lok etc). i’d never thought that the subtle misogyny would increase in the year 2020? and obviously as a zutara shipper i know that our fandom has had its issues with mai before, i am the last person to deny that, but i think that we are growing past it and trying to be better

one thing that i really hate seeing here is the idea that zvkka shippers “solved the ship war” by making zvkka larger than the kataang/zutara ship war. and i ship both zutara and kataang and one reason i absolutely hate this take is because i am in love with the fact that for fifteen years, whatever side you were on, atla discourse was about katara, what the brown woman in the show deserved. you can’t solve a ship war by shoe-horning her into kataang because that’s easy for your ship, because you’re just throwing away her agency and the entire point of the ship war. i actually pity a lot of people who mainly ship kataang because kataang; a ship between an asian monk and brown woman, which is canonically good representation, which is canon, is being pushed aside and made a sideship for a completely fanon mlm ship

maybe there’s a fetishization aspect in there? like i hate to make broad claims but the amount of zvkka nsfw for one, and then all the incredibly racist tropes i’ve seen there; the infantilization and feminization of zuko and the way sokka is supposed to be a big strong man or something just reeks of racism, especially when written by white people. it just strikes me as mischaracterization and the input of certain characters into boxes, because people don’t want to ship sokka and zuko, they want to ship mlm insert one and two. and i hate this because their dynamic is super interesting, canonically! i’d love to see how sokka with a plan and on-his-feet zuko work together :)

i mean fetishization is kind of prominent in internalized misogyny presenting itself as wanting two men to have sex to exclude women from the narrative, and in the post i mentioned above the op’s point was that atla fandom’s misogyny presents as unique because they don’t hate women, they just treat them like they’re really one-dimensional, and at the end of the day everything must come back to the dynamic between two guys who were intended to be cishet (i headcanon zuko as bi but i’m not stupid, this show is from 2005, it is what it is)

anyway i don’t know where i’m going with this! but i absolutely love atla wlw and i wish that the female characters could be analyzed further in depth than they are, and i’m still at a total loss to why fandom-- made by women, for women, and often queer women-- is willing to maintain so much misogyny in the guise of upholding queer rep in fanon ships with gay men. 

[the-ghost-king]

Pls just ignore this if you’d rather not talk about it any more, but you are so right that some people are weirdly obsessed with only allowing a very small group of the ‘right’ people to ship mlm and only in the ‘right’ way.... it often reeks of homophobia to me, particularly when they’re so focused on never portraying sexual elements of mlm relationships

Don’t get worried! I don’t mind if people send asks, I can always just choose to not respond if I’m not interested! I know "minorities aren't expected to explain their marginalization to you or educate you" and stuff are common things, and I support those things because it's true, but I personally don't mind being asked things. But thank you nonetheless for your concern!

I want to state this issue is not queer men vs. women (putting two marginalized groups up against one another is the exact thing that the system would want), also nonbinary is a huge and vast term that contains a large number of different identities, so I'll try my best to discuss nonbinary people on both sides of this situation, but not all nonbinary people fit all categories while some nonbinary people will fit all categories. I may also rely on terms like mlm more often than nblm because the two are not always comparable, not all nblm will view their attraction to men as queer/gay.

Also this is a very nuanced discussion which can be hard to word properly, considering the fact that lots of lgbtq+ individuals use fandom (and therefore mlm relationships) as a way to explore their sexuality outside the mainframe of mass media. However, it’s important to note that the feelings of non-mlm/nblm (or similarly identified individuals) can not be swept under the rug in order to favor that idea, mlm/nblm deserve to also feel comfortable and safe in fandom spaces without constantly having to be subject to microaggressions.

I think fandom sometimes is viewed as this space in which the outside world doesn’t exist, which creates a false sense of safety. People’s false internalized perceptions of the world do bleed into fandom spaces, and because of this nobody is exempt from perpetuating those harmful ideas either.

In general desexualization of mlm in fandom tends to be less common, but I have seen a rise in it over the past two or three years alongside the rise of purity culture. In response to the previously hypersexualized idea of mlm, people saying that it was bad for a large variety of reasons- some of which are fair and some of which are not- more modern fandom takes of mlm in fandom spaces focus around desexualization which presents its own issues, especially considering this hits closer to home with the type of homophobia experienced by gb/queer men throughout history (X)(X).

On top of that though this idea of shipping mlm a "correct" way rarely involves actual queer men being the ones holding these conversations, and when queer men do try to hold conversations about these issues some individuals take this as a personal attack on the infringement of the sexuality of other individuals who participate in mlm shipping as non-mlm/nblm/etc. The issue with this is that people seem to forget that lateral oppression exists, and they also seem to forget that queer manhood is not the same as cishet manhood- and that gbtq+ men are oppressed as well. If someone who is mlm/nblm/or similar discussing their attraction to men, or their relationship to their attraction to men, and you or someone else who is not-mlm/mlm aligned, is disgusted, bothered, made uncomfortable, or made angry by it (provided that his attraction being discussed is not racist, pedophilic, or incestual)- that's homophobia. If it's you doing that, you need to work on that, and stop being homophobic.

The other common issue that comes up in response to this idea of holding conversations about the way mlm/nblm/etc are treated in fandom, or the way mlm/nblm/etc are treated in general by leftist lgbtq+ spaces is that all of these men are being misogynistic. And yes, while queer men can be misogynistic wanting spaces to discuss the specific ways homophobia and transphobia (in fandom or otherwise) effect them specifically, in a space where they'll truly be listened to about the type of oppression they face, that's not misogyny. Also why is it that gbtq+ guys discussing their experiences with oppression or discussing specific ways they've been oppressed within the patriarchal system always shot down so quickly? What is it about the fact that marginalized men or masculine people experience an intersection of issues between their socially oppressed identity and manhood within the patriarchy that upsets others so much?

But to go back to the full idea of this post in regards to male attraction to men, or nonbinary attraction to men, or anything similar, but sharing the idea that a gay relationship between two men isn't allowed to do certain things because that means it's fetishism is weird and if you add intersectionality into this issue, like the commonly found desexualization of disabled people, and people of certain races, or people with certain mental illnesses... This idea gets questionable quickly, and becomes extremely nuanced not only requiring analysis of the individual identities of the character you're shipping in an mlm relationship, but also how his attraction to men ties into and is impacted alongside other oppressive systems he might be under. For example in the Yuuri on Ice fandom a common head canon for Yuuri Katsuki (a queer Japanese man who struggles with mental illness canonically, and is known to have a fluctuating weight) is that he's asexual. Of course asexuality and head canons surrounding it are 110% acceptable and stuff, but it's weird that the male Asian character (X) with mental illnesses (I struggled finding good articles on this but it is an issue- X) who is sometimes overweight (X) is the person everyone latched onto asexual head canons for, when all of those are common things people are infantilized for. It's not that asexual characters, or that asexual head canons are bad, it's just a bit weird who people decided was asexual in fandom.. Especially considering what Yuuri's character arc is about.

But people will do this with any ship, even if there's no real reason to desexualize them- sure, it's a less common issue even still than hypersexualization but it does still happen, because people see the opposite extreme as the solution without acknowledging that can also be homophobic. It's not a perfect rule, and I'm open to other ideas, but I think a good way to check if you're being homophobic over mlm ships via desexualization and you've already checked to ensure that you're not doing this in a racist/ableist/etc way, a good rule of thumb (for some spaces) may be to compare the ship to a straight or heterosexual one. This is flawed because there's issues that effect mlm/nblm ships that won't effect cishet ships, but it might not be a bad vague/general way to sort through this.

For example, if a teenage heterosexual couple is allowed to kiss and hold hands in fandom spaces or whatever else, and nobody says anything negative or contrary about that depiction- why does it become fetishism, and therefore bad when a same gendered teen couple does the same thing?

Of course like I said, it's not a perfect model, because it doesn't counteract the issue of hypersexualization of queer couples when it happens. I will also admit that since this is such a nuanced and large topic I still have some ways to go in thinking through a way people can easily check if they're being homophobic, if there even is a simplified process for such a thing. Any list I've seen about the issue so far ends up being misogynistic, racist, and queerphobic- often demonizing mlm/nblm/etc themselves and westernizing the issue to an extreme.

I also don't like how it could be further used to shut down gay ships or to try to shame that fandom into changing the way they interact with content in addition to the already current situation :/

Look, I get it, most fandoms aren't composed of many if any mlm (depending on size and content of fandom) and people will want to speak up to "be helpful" but if you can't truly understand the issue you're discussing, or if there's queer men right there who have been trying to talk about issues and you're still talking and you're not a queer/gbt+ man or nor aligned with queer/gbt+ men (not as an ally but as someone who identifies with the community, for example someone who is bigender bi/pan/omni/poly/+ deserves space in both mlm and wlw discussions, and that individual or similar individuals should not be kept from the discussion as nonbinary people considering it also effects them.

Also when the issue mlm/nblm/etc in fandom are calling out is no longer what the fandom is doing problematically with the ship but instead having to callout the way people are problematically trying to enforce rules about a certain ship with mlm characters, or the way people who are not mlm/nblm/etc are talking over those voices which need to be loudest in this particular context, this means the fandom has a problem with homophobia. And yes, people who are lgbtq+ can and sometimes do reinforce homophobic ideas, and they do need to be called out on that- you are not exempt from being transphobic because you are trans, you are not exempt from being homophobic because you're achillean/sapphic either, and nobody in the lgbtq+ community is exempt from participating in or spreading lateral oppression.

How much an individual cares about queer men is showcased not by how much they care about the treatment of a fictional pairing, but instead by how they respond to the voices of real mlm/nblm/etc. about what they're doing- if they uplift vs if they ignore, I don't care how much someone cares about a fictional pairing if they don't care about the real people behind who they say the fictional ship represents. The idea that "fandom isn't activism" definitely applies here, you're never going to get anywhere relying on shipping (or another aspect of fandom) to showcase how "woke" you are- you're going to showcase what type of person you are by how you deal with these issues in real life, and how you handle criticism about what you're doing. If you scroll by posts and you don't bother to read them or actually internalize them because "that's not me, I don't do that, I don't need to worry about that" you might be part of the problem.