#yeah vagueing about it

[zeawesomebirdie]

Girl help, it's now morning and I'm still fixating on this ship in a fandom I'm not even in, I still do not actually go here and I genuinely don't know how exactly I got here, but I'm having the time of my life

[uncharted-constellations]

The Princess and Hero of the First Great Calamity

The orange snoot is very important to me….

[noodles-and-tea]

There is a joke implication that he's Phineas' dad

(From the Book of Bill)

The monster's gone

He's on the run

And your daddy's here

[lucabyte]

siffrin starts the game with oddly empty pockets for a rogue who has a habit of stashing away every little trinket that isn't nailed down

and a hardy pocketwatch is an indispensable tool for oceanic navigation

[shiineru]

reading chainsaw man and trying to piece together theories makes me feel like an insane person. like no yeah totally pochita is actually the birth devil and reze is coming back and aki isn't actually dead and its all because of this one slight detail in the background and its all going to culminate in one big story about trauma. meanwhile no one has fucking mouths in the manga right now

[yardsards]

do people who have listened to taz balance but not graduation Know that it was HEAVILY IMPLIED that lup and barry eventually adopted a lil sorcerer child who got disowned by his family for his natural necromancy magic, and they taught him how to use his powers for good and were overall great parents that he looks back on fondly

(and said child grew up to be a dimension-hopping lich, caretaker of the dead, and very sweet adoptive father of a major npc)

[teddybearty]

Using an Oral Hygiene Product 💀

[recurring-polynya]

It has been 14 hours since I found out that, according to Kubo, Byakuya calls Renji by his given name "because Rukia does" and I am obsessed with this information.

This is both the best and worst possible answer to this question. I feel like if you asked Byakuya, this is exactly the reason he would give. However, if Rukia were present, she would lose her damn mind. While I do think Rukia's assertion that Byakuya didn't look at her even once in 40 years is hyperbole, over that time I can imagine Renji's name coming up in conversation once, maybe twice tops.

Like, two weeks before she goes on her fateful mission to the Living World, B's been shortlisting Vice-Captain candidates, and over dinner, real casual:

B: Rukia. You know your friend?

Rukia: My who now?

B: That friend of yours who shouts too much. The boorishly tall one. With the red hair. Is he in Squad Eleven now?

Rukia (wracking her brain frantically for people Byakuya would consider 'her friend'): You mean Renji?

B: Yes, him.

Rukia: What about him?

B: Is he in Squad Eleven? The Sixth Seat?

Rukia: ...maybe? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The next day, Byakuya's office, Renji shows up for his job interview.

B: You must be Renji.

Renji: uhhhhhhhh sure why not?

[theminecraftbee]

so a thing this fandom does that remains FASCINATING to me, as a function of the fact a lot of this fandom is people's first fandom or only current fandom, is just... assume a lot of things it does is a scourge that this fandom has invented or doesn't exist outside of it? or like, is uniquely bad here? and i won't deny that sometimes mcyt fandom is a bit more intense by virtue of numbers, but like...

duo names: confusing fandom-injokes to describe duos and groups tend to be an anime fandom thing specifically for many historical reasons, but they're not uncommon. hey quick--if you haven't been in KHR fandom, can you guess what 1827 is? no? i'll give you a hint: that's actually a ship name. or, ygo fans, tell me the difference between puppyshipping, prideshipping, violetshipping, and rivalshipping. my hint is that they're all kaiba ships and two of them are actually the same ship. good luck!

reducing characters to a specific trait: have you read fic in another fandom before? i would recommend you go do so and come back to me. my example here is "sasuke likes tomatoes", for the record.

common au fanon that's confusing to outsiders: my deep cut here is "when i got into certain tv fandoms i was baffled by the existence of sentinel/guide fics", which is a slightly older tv fandom thing so many of you probably don't know what i'm on about. but trust me: in certain fandoms it's ubiquitous and unless you've watched a completely different tv show you're gonna have to entirely pick it up from reading fic. oh hey, hybrid aus and watcher!grian, nice to see your relative here,

fanon being treated as canon: did you know there's this whole bnha character, naomasa, who is treated as canonically having a lie detector quirk? did you know that, best i can tell, that's not in canon anywhere, it just got echoed through fanon enough that everyone treated it as canon? 'fanon trait becomes so ubiquitous everyone assumes it has to be there' is not a new thing. also, batfamily fans, i have been lead to understand the tim and coffee thing is also this.

characters being treated badly to make a different dynamic look better: the fact we have the term 'character bashing' tells you all you need to know, here. if anything my one complaint on this front isn't even that it's happening--it's that i wish bashing and/or "not [character] friendly" was tagged a little more frequently, haha.

characters being reduced to their family dynamics: tale as old as time. "even the family dynamic thing" yes even that. just because this fandom tended to be particularly ship-adverse in the past didn't mean it didn't do basically the same behaviors as any fandom with shipping did with those dynamics, just gen. and other gen fandoms also do that. yes, down to the "and shipping reduces them to a ship, unlike my gen dynamic, which is very in-character; why can't people just be friends?" thing. some of you have to have been marvel fans right.

characters being reduced to their ships: some of you have to have been marvel fans right.

The Discourse: yeah this is an "actively running show" fandom thing, but also a hiatus fandom thing. ask a homestuck about vriskourse sometime. as much as i hate to say it, it probably made doomsday discourse look cute.

and those are just like... some things i've seen people complain about on my dash recently. idk it just hit me there are probably fans in mcyt fandoms who are assuming that some things (like hybrid aus or duo names) are the kind of things that only happen here, so i thought i'd offer some examples of other places they happen! i also have even more examples if you'd like.

to be clear: this isn't shaming anyone for complaining about any of these things. lord knows i go complain to my friends about it all the time, just the other day i was complaining in the category of 'they keep bashing my guy'. it's more of just... a gentle reminder that maybe we're big, maybe we're loud, maybe we have problems... but these problems aren't always unique.

so uh. we're all suffering together i guess...?

[blighted-lights]

"It's alright, Aid. Get some rest. I'm not going anywhere, I promise." -Ravage when he is a weasely little liar all of the time

---

what originally started out as just a practice sketch of first aid evolved into like. first aid becoming a prominent side-character in the long fic ive been working on for months. everyone say thank you to @cmofirstaid for posting about first aid, which made me think about him more than i usually do, which made me do THIS. some sad first aid for the soul, and some admittedly ridiculous spy shenanigans ravage didn't get to have in canon. all without any context whatsoever!

[myfairkatiecat]

every time someone dislikes a kotlc character for being immature my head falls into my hands if you want maturity go read books that aren’t literally about children

[kagoutiss]

kittyfies them i guess,,,,

[a-sketchy]

persona misogyny is so fucking wild. ignoring literally everything else about the entire rest of the games, every single s.link with a female character is like “entirely for having been born a woman i have had to work twice as hard for a fraction of the benefit. even now, i am stripped of my agency in a position i never wanted in the first place” and/or “i’m put on a pedestal by the people in my life because of my looks. men see me as an object to be conquered, women hate me for ‘stealing’ ‘their’ men. if i’m withdrawn i’m a bitch, if i’m friendly i’m easy. because of this, i’m alone” and/or “because of my personality or hobby or lack of cooking skills, i feel like i’m failing at femininity. if being a woman is something i can fail at, then where does that leave me? i’m scared at the loss of my identity and place in society”

like very consistently they present female characters with complex thoughts towards their place in society as women, femininity as a whole, and facing issues stemming from misogyny, and then the payoff is always “my problems were entirely my own fault. i wasn’t strong enough, i was a coward. but now, i’m gonna work hard to be exactly what society expects me to be (which is what i want to be)! i’m gonna do better at femininity (which is still something tangible i can fail at)! i’m going to try hard at making friends (which was my fault for not doing)! all my problems are solved through personal responsibility (that im totally culpable for), effort (which i previously was not putting in), or you, a man! i am Happy and Satisfied with this outcome, can i be Your woman?”

and like hello? why are we here. what the fuck are we doing. why do we keep doing this every single time. can we not do the constant lukewarm attempts at criticizing misogyny so you can jerk off to your own thoughtfulness, while ultimately reinforcing patriarchal systems and brushing off any deeper misogyny-bred issues as a lack of deference to one’s rightful place in society? like maybe don’t do that? for fucking once? just an idea

[aurosoul]

me and my bf spent last night in the desert and I discovered I could make art in the sand

[grox-empire]

Would you guys believe me if I said this was Sims spec bio. Because this is Sims spec bio.

Preemptively begging you guys not to be weird about them being parasitoids please.

Anyways! Meet Daybreak's newest sophont species, The Sixamites! Native to... Well... Planet Sixam, Of course! They are the product of immense amounts of Autism and my hyperfixation on maxis games extending from Spore to The Sims.

These insectoid sophonts are Parasitoids and rely almost entirely on other species to reproduce. Back on their homeworld they have specialized hosts meticulously GMO'd to care for their young, But recent developments have lead to them expanding their horizons. They are extremely friendly towards other alien species, And due to this they tend to form relationships with other aliens. To a Sixamite, Offering someone to bear their young is the ultimate form of affection.

Sixamites cohabitate very well with other species and are found all across the galaxy, Often on planets not colonized by them, But by other species.

[fernsnouveau]

I actually disliked the direction where I'd recently seen a bunch of the more reasonable S5-critical ML fandom people going. Those discussions and analyses were spiraling increasingly towards demonising Marinette over time, as we were left hanging with the s5 ending for a long time, and the fandom had nothing new to talk about.

I actually liked her flaws.

But then the canon does... this...

And I do admit, it's an in-character way to push Marinette towards a villain arc. Like, if I had to construct a darkfic scenario where Marinette goes evil and try to keep it as close to her canon personality as possible, it would look something like this. Which, I guess, means that it's theoretically easier for me to accept than, for example, S5's occasional incidents of Edgy Murderboy Chat Noir (how is that the same character who had TWO guilt-based mental breakdowns about accidentally cataclysming someone completely out of his control, including the main villain??!). I'm sure there are in-character ways to turn Adrien (or anyone else) into a villain, but Murder-Noir was Not It.

Of course another reason why the writing of Murder-Noir gives me extra heebie jeebies, was how it felt like an abuse apologia excuse, validating Gabriel's accusations for Adrien to not "deserve" autonomy, nor to experience or express any negative, inconvenient emotions. Murder-Noir feels like it's a writing choice directed at child abuse victims in the audience, who related to Adrien. "See, your abuser was right, you're horrible and overly emotional and out of control, so you NEED to be rigidly controlled for your own and everyone else's good!

Anyway.

While I admit that Marinette taking up Gabriel's mantle this way is technically in character, I cannot claim to enjoy the writing choice at all. I liked Marinette's flaws. I wanted to explore them. I did not want her demonised to this extent. She could have been meaningfully flawed without becoming better at being Gabriel, than Gabriel himself was!

After this, the only justification for the lovesquare to stay together, would be as a wish-fulfillment or "reward" for Marinette, and that's not enough for me. When I think about, if there was a real-life abuse victim in Adrien's position (minus the supernatural elements), and then they were friends with, and/orstarted dating someone who repeatedly treated them the way Maribug has been doing (and "repeatedly" is important here, it demonstrates unwillingness to learn from mistakes and be sincere about apologies – S4 was brushed under a rug as soon as Chat Noir superficially forgave!), ESPECIALLY but not only siding with the abusive parent and lying to the victim that the abuse they experienced was "not really abuse" and For Their Own Good, and demonstrated this complete infantilisation and lack of respect for the abuse victim, wanting to see them only as a palatable, innocent fairytale being who's not allowed to be inconvenient, express negative emotions, make informed choices mor generally be a complete person...

Obviously the right thing to do, for the abuse victim, would be to get the hell away from that person.

It does NOT mean that the person is irredeemable. They're just... not owed the abuse victim's forgiveness and continued presence in their life.

And I can't ignore that anymore.

We failed to get an arc about Adrien surviving and escaping Gabriel and healing. He has now been put into a position where, in order to ever be okay, he would have to survive and escape Marinette in order to heal.

I don't like this. It feels very hopeless and bleak and unenjoyable. I don't even think the story is gonna go there and free/heal Adrien (Astruc made it clear that Adrien isn't supposed to be his own character or have agency, he's supposed to be Marinette's accessory and that's never gonna change).

But as far as I'm concerned, any excuse for the lovesquare relationship to get back together after this, would have the unpalatable aftertaste of propaganda to make victims return to their abusers.

I don't like this trajectory!!!