#you can argue that their interactions are shallow & not thought out BUT I ARGUE DIFFERENT

[spinnysocks]

the frenemies of all time

it was so hard to find pictures of them in the same shots 😭 they're in the same scenes all the time but not the same shots- i think it's actually a purposeful choice by the animators to show they're not actually allied, which i think is cool

[themattress]

Re:Celestia Ludenberg, GOD DAMN IT!

So this happened again over 5 years later, this time on a short video centered around Celeste's character. And while I am glad that we're at a point where damn near every commentator is able to say "No, that's wrong!" since Character Perception Evolution toward her has become widely spread toward what I said also 5 years ago, I also wanted to spare some thought as to why the misunderstandings even occur among people. Whose fault is it?

The answer: half Kazutaka Kodaka's fault and half the people themselves' fault.

I think Kodaka writes Celeste in the original Trigger Happy Havoc game wonderfully. But you know what he didn't write wonderfully? Chapter 3. It started "Chapter 3 syndrome" and why I'd argue it's the best of the lot, that still doesn't make it good. And this sadly extends to how he ended up depicting Celeste's role in it. Beyond leaning way too hard into her not being as competent as she would like to be to the point where the case itself is too easy to solve and thus frustrating to go through for players after the legitimately spooky set-up, there's the matter of the girl behind the facade. We have seen glimpses of Taeko Yasuhiro in the prior chapters and Celeste's FTEs, but now when it really needs to shine through to clarify how twisted yet tragic a character she is, it mainly just comes through in her raging breakdown. Thus while we do also get her humbled acceptance of defeat and her whole parting words that hint at deeper reasons than greed for her turn to villainy and buried affection for her classmates despite trying to get them killed, it's overshadowed for many by how pronounced the crazy side of her was, and so the impression that makes + her lies as she tries to remain in-character as Celeste to the end = the "she's just a fucking psychopath" misinterpretation. Tellingly, the manga, anime and stage show versions all pronounce the true sad reality of Taeko more, and all without losing the fun of her crazy side, so I definitely prefer those here.

But as for how it’s the people themselves' fault? Beyond many of them just being dumb?

Umineko's motto fits perfectly here. Celestia Ludenberg is egocentric, condescending, and all-around off-putting, and that's before she becomes a villain who tells some truly heinous lies and works some insidious manipulations in a plan that leaves two dead and with more intended just to achieve a ridiculous, shallow dream. Her design, voice and manner of speaking are all pleasant, but otherwise, let's be honest - she's a difficult person to love.

However, almost every other character in the game is the same. Chihiro and initially Sayaka aside, all the students have truly glaring personality flaws that can easily turn people off of them...heck, three of them (Byakuya, Toko, and "Junko" once the truth about her is revealed) are even worse than Celeste. But the game still invites you to love them; to learn to love them through FTEs and interactions during trials, to say nothing of School Mode (which btw wasn't in the original Japanese PSP release of the game and is thus an absolute God-send.)

You really do have to love Celeste, or at least want to, in order to be motivated to put in the work of uncovering the truth about her. Makoto gets halfway there, but the rest is on you. Kodaka has been open about that: as the Queen of Liars there is almost always different thoughts and feelings that contradict her words and actions, and you have to actively engage with her as a character in order to sort those out, with the end result being a regular, introverted, socially awkward and somewhat childish teenage girl with no self-esteem who desperately wants to live as what she believes to be a more interesting, important and memorable (even if bitchy) character, and whose fears and insecurities surrounding the environment she was trapped in did more to push her into villainy than the allure of money.

Without love for Celeste, flaws and all, Taeko cannot be seen.

[bibibbon]

Hey, since we all agree AM, in canon, never gave any indication Izu is his heir and any "special treatment" (if we can even say am gave anything to Izu) is more bc people think am is Izu's dad (well shoto did and that makes sense) the scene of am saying you are next....lose a bit of its impact. I guess.

We the readers know who am is thinking.

The rest of the world don't.

So BK jump to the conclusion am was taking about Izu was...ass.

On besties, people are shocked bc the idea of am being Izu's father and a abusive one( for those who don't know my au. Am never abused Izu! But to the public...the story of a girl who breaks bones and has going to the hospital a lot is Sus) gives a reaction out of people.

And is this what is missing in their dynamic. No one reacts, hell, Shoto thought Izu is a love child but...never does anything. No one seems to care.

Am is incompetent mentor. Courtesy of Hori.

In Besties, people do react to that and his popularity takes a toll even when is proved he never hurt Izumi...he is a bad mentor and missed many red flags. Now, am will react to the obvious.

I know people like to defend am saying he is a novice teacher and I get, I do. But am is still an idiot in my eyes, he shouldn't really waste time with the others students and focus on his heir WHO IS STRUGGLING WITH THIS QUIRK.

"that would be favoritism" not really, that would be an being sensible. Even if it is favoritism...no one in UA can say anything as Aizawa has favorites

So my ask here is:

How can I make the whole heir thing matter in besties?

In canon, bk had no reason to think Izu is the chosen one of anything yet...still goes out of his way to hurt him...and we are supposed to be on his side! (Hori please!)

Btw in besties, dabi is repulsed by the idea am is a bad teacher and father. Yes, am never hurt Izumi but he, as a powerful man, never tried to help....how angry and dissapointed would dabi be?

Hi @mikeellee 👋

That's the point, even in the narrative it was pointed out that only izuku midoriya understood the implications and the true meaning of that message whereas society just interpreted it as all might fulfilling his role as the symbol of peace and decaring that any villain who act out of line will face a fate of AFO's harsh beating.

Personally, I disagree bakugo never necessarily jumped to the conclusion that all might was talking about izuku but he did connect the dots and wildly jump to the conclusion that Izuku got his quirk from all might. Those are two different things and izuku in the beginning of the story dropped a hint that he got his quirk from someone, then bakugo saw all might and izuku interacting (which isn't weird but like I said it is a bit strange from Japan's social norms and the issue of nepotism), bakugo then saw all mights last fight, he also asked all might Personally what that was all about and all might refused to answer. All of these factors as well as bakugo losing it over what happend to him made him go and make a wild conclusion which resulted in a huge fight and all might and izuku telling him the truth.

I think rereading the chapter where bakugo confronts izuku would help show how he came to the conclusion.

Now while you have characters like shoto who don't know izuku since childhood think that all might is izukus dad you have bakugo who already knows that it isn't possible and simply resorts to another theory.

Personally, my main question is how and where the idea of all might being izukus dad came to play. Sure you can argue that it's because they have very similar quirks but at the same time I just don't really see it and I wish we got more of izuku and all might since yes all might is a bad mentor and their relationship is incredibly shallow with izuku and all might never developing since the moment they meet.

I think it's interesting and a good thing that you're going to deleve into both fan culture within mha, how infuelntial of a person all might is and the public relations of all of this. Having theories around all might the top hero in Japan but also a very secretive person whom people don't understand the nature of his quirk or know his full name it would be hella interesting to have a freshly retired all might get all of this bar reputation and how that particularly would effect the hero society.

Would this theory of all might being an abuser have people come up and show their solidarity for izuku whom they think is an abuse victim, would the endeavour agency try and use this to their advantage and prop up their number one hero? Or what would happen to the market? The all might products, merchandise and maybe all might having to deal with future lawsuits?

Japan is a country that takes honour, pride and reputation as a big deal so all might going through a huge public scandal like this would definitely effect him and I hope you explore that way more in depth.

[the-larxist-manifesto]

GameGirl28 ~ Alone in the dark: The new nightmare

Check out that dramatic box art! It evokes such deep mystery and fear of the hazy unknown... that you truly cannot believe that a game on the GameBoy is capable of delivering on this promise. Were you right?!

~Well, were ya?!~

Yes. Allow me to explain.

The basic premise of this game is a fixed-camera survival horror a la classic Resident evil, focusing on ammo and health management, pursuing the killer of your best friend, and searching the reclusive Shadow Island environments for clues. Of course, the mission convolutes when you discover supernatural, undead forces riddle the places that you traverse—forests and ruins and laboratories that you investigate to eventually catch the true culprit. Sounds like a fairly promising story. The problem is... well... this game is on the GameBoy. You can imagine that dynamic interactions with the environment, combat with monsters, and a strong horror atmosphere would pose quite a challenge to a developer on a dot matrix screen the size of your watch.

I am disappointed to report that THQ Nordic did not quite live up to the challenge. When you encounter a zombie or a spider or, actually, ANY kind of enemy, you are transported to the exact same top-down combat screen. Here, you are expected to maneuver your heroic Carnby to spam the shoot button; and when five shots somehow isn't enough, he turns around so sluggishly that you end up taking damage from the back. There are three different weapons to choose from... they each have different ammo and deal slightly different damage, but otherwise there is no difference in fire rate or effectiveness. So the resource management is a bit superficial, too. The combat feels so much like a cheesy arcade game with no suspense or horror at all that I dreaded every single encounter... not the good kind of dread, in this case. -.-

This is a shame because, to be honest, there was one aspect of the game that impressed me and I continuously looked forward to (and was probably the only thing keeping me going through this three-hour excursion).

~The visuals~

When it was revealed that GB games were coming to NSO in that fateful Nintendo Direct, Alone in the dark immediately caught my eye as a game I wanted to play. You might argue that it was THIS GAME ALONE that motivated me to even attempt this challenge; to see what the GameBoy is truly made of.

Take a look at this.

THIS GAME LOOKS REALLY GOOD WTF?!???! I mean, yeah, it's a little crunchy because of the resolution. But are you seeing what I'm seeing?? Fully 3D environments to explore. Painted with the complete spectrum of the GBC color palette. Dynamic camera angles that set the mood for every scene. I caught just a glimpse of this visual style in the trailers and knew that I may have underestimated the capabilities of this console.

Of course, this excitement was quickly cut short by the sluggish controls and monotonous gameplay loop. In a way, I judged a book by its cover two times in a row. First when I thought all GameBoy games had to look ugly and primitive. Then again when I thought a good-looking game also meant a fun game to play.

~Conclusion~

By the end of the 2 hours and 37 minutes I spent on this game, I still felt somewhat enriched by the experience. The graphical feat accomplished here isn't to be disregarded; props to the developers for that. However, I also enjoyed almost none of the gameplay. It was either really boring and quiet moments of figuring out which background object to press A on to move the story forward, or these sudden combat sequences that forced me to reset over and over again as Carnby was devoured alive by beasts that his little legs couldn't outrun. The dialogue and story, by the way, were quite shallow. Dialogue in GB games show a pattern of suffering from the limitations of text legibility and memory. I hope a future GB game will prove to me one day that a competent story can actually be told on this thing.

Anyway, playing this game was maybe a half hour's worth of exploring these gorgeously creepy 3D paintings of a spooky-ooky mansion, and the rest of the time wading through overly simplistic gameplay drivel.

Recommend? No X

[sahonithereadwolf]

I don't think most folks will argue in good faith that Breath of the Wild is a bad game. I do however think that it's shaping to have this wildly misplaced legacy even among the context of it's own franchise.

Breath of the Wild distinguished itself because the named recognition of Legend Of Zelda, but also it solved one of the innate issues of the AAA map game.

I am a big believer personally in that the thing you do the most in a game should always be interesting, if not actually fun. And the thing you do the most in map games is travel. Sony's spider-man solves this by making movement feel kinetic and just fun. You can use the fast travel, but it's invested a lot of effort into making that swinging engaging so you don't want to use it.

But Breath of the Wild took a very different approach. It wanted to take the act of navigation itself as a thing of consideration. You are constantly reconsidering and assessing your path based on any number of factors, including but not limited; weather, monsters, supplies, the environment itself, that fucking stamina bar. And there is a lot of thought put into that, from how they plan the map itself, to using a hang glider as a sort of release of tension.

It's very easy to see the small leap of logic it too them to shift from a sort of puzzle based space exploration to going "we're going you a small collection of tools, but really focus in on systems. We're going to build all these different iterations and interactions and see how you use them to solve things. This folds into our everything else."

But the shallow surface level thing every money guy in the industry took from this was not "we can make out moment to moment gameplay when bald ass head craig ubisoft has to go from Point A to Point B to Point A engaging and interact with the surroundings, consider our spaces maybe, but rather the "people love HANG GLIDER and STAMINA WHEEL" it is their favorite toys.

The take Nintendo came away with however is "Zelda is systems." which is an entire shift in genre? And I don't think they realize it yet. Or at least, the implications of it. They want to put more tools in because it means more interactions. And the people love the interactions. It's a new game. do these parts fit together in the same game?

P.S. That shitty little glider made spider-man 2 feel worse to swing in too

I've basically come to the conclusion that Tears of the Kingdom is a hugely impressive piece of technical work that's held back at every turn by the fact that it's a Breath of the Wild sequel. You can see the clear outlines of the game it's trying to be, but in order to actually engage with that game you constantly have to dig through this heavy cruft of mechanics that worked great in the context of Breath of the Wild, but have mutated into annoying distractions in the context of Tears of the Kingdom. Ironically, for all the complaints about TotK playing fast and loose with BotW's narrative, from a mechanical standpoint its problem is that it's too faithful to its predecessor.

[katyasrussianaccent]

i don't wanna be your friend, I wanna kiss your lips (corpse x reader)

Summary: Corpse suggests you flirt with each other to mess with the fans. What happens when you suddenly catch feelings?

Authors Note: This has been in my brain for so long so I decided to write it. May or may not write a part 2, im not sure. Lemme know what you think! My requests are open for fic/headcannons aswell 💖

It should have been simple.

Flirt, mess with the fans a little, sit back and relax.

It should have been simple.

You remember Corpse coming to you with the idea.

“Why would we do that?” you had asked, frowning at your phone screen. It had been another late night phone conversation with him; something that was starting to become a regular occurrence.

You pictured him shrug as he answered. “Fun?”

“Are you so bored you wanna make a fake relationship with me?”

“Not a relationship. Just do what we do now, but like, more.”

You had agreed before your brain had even registered it. On paper it was straightforward. You already flirted a little anyway, you were naturally a flirtatious person, and so was he. It made sense; or at least you had told yourself that it did. You knew the fans already shipped you together, you saw the things they tweeted as you occasionally lurked the ynhusband tag on Twitter. It was just innocent fun right? No-one was going to get hurt.

For a little while that was true. For a little while he called you baby and you called him darling and it meant nothing. Your face didn’t feel flush when he commented on your latest Instagram post and your heart didn’t do a little flip when he would call you just to see how you were. The phone conversations were your favourite; curled up in bed with the phone on your pillow, trading secrets into the night. He had suddenly become this constant in your life, this almost routine familiarity like brushing your teeth or going to get milk.

You weren’t sure what changed, when it had gone from being innocent fun to meaning something. It was like someone had flicked a switch, and Corpse was no longer a warm glow but this bright, blinding light that hurt your eyes to look at too long. It was almost cruel, the way you wanted something so unobtainable; the universe’s idea of a joke had no humour in it. The thing with Corpse was he was so unaware of the power he had. He was mysterious yes, but he was faceless among a sea of faces; of course people were drawn to him. And you were just another.

You started to pull away. You played different games with different people, you ignored his tweets. It was easier, if you never interacted with him, you could pretend there was nothing but shallow feelings instead of the crashing waves that threatened to pull you under. The fans had started to notice; your streams were filled with questions that you refused to answer.

“Where’s Corpse?” you read aloud as you scrolled down the chat. “Probably in his house? Go ask him.” Your tone was bitter even to you and you inwardly cringed. He hadn’t contacted you in 2 weeks, and while you were thankful, you were hurt by it. It was stupid and hypoctritical of you to be upset by something that was your own doing, and you weren’t sure what you had expected from him. He had other friends, other people to talk to, why would he have cared about you anyway?

Your phone lit up next to you, and you ignored the pang of disappointment at Rae’s picture flashing up.

Rae: Among Us???

You hesitated for a second. The likelihood of Corpse being there was high, but you knew deep down he wouldn’t say a thing to you, not on stream or in front of your friends. You could just ignore him, like you had been doing and it would be fine. You weren’t sure you believed yourself anymore.

“Guys, you want to watch me play Among Us? I’m not sure who’s playing, other than Rae.” You looked at the fast flowing stream of affirmatives and emojis. Guess you had to do it now. You opened up the game and joined the lobby.

“-yeah she looks really fucking cute,” you heard Corpse say as you logged in. You looked down at your outfit,; he definitely wasn’t talking about you in your oversized t-shirt and sweatpants. You had been on stream for a few hours now; your eyeliner was smudged a little and any lipstick had worn off with the constant drinking and licking your lips. No, he definitely wasn’t talking about you.

“Hey guys,” you said tentatively, swallowing down the feeling of jealousy at Corpse’s previous words.

A chorus of greetings hit you, and you smiled at their enthusiasm. You had played with Rae, Sykunno and Toast a few times before, but Felix, Jack and Ash were new to you, though you knew of them.

“Hey Y/N,” Corpse said. You had hoped after 2 weeks he wouldn’t still affect you so much, but the way your stomach turned said otherwise.

“Hey Corpse,” you replied, hoping your tone was casual.

“I haven’t seen you in a while, how are you?” he asked.

“Oh. Uh yeah, I’ve been a bit busy I guess, how are you?” You looked down as you answered, picking at your nail polish. You glanced at the chat that was filled with messages.

corpsesbaby: You can always tell when someones lying coz they look down” llamadelrey: why is this so awkward lmao arent they friends??” simpsforrae: This is like is a breakup i swear

“I’ve been okay, thanks” Corpse answered, drawing your eyes off the chat and back to the game. You nodded as you muted your mic to go back to your stream.

“I hope I don’t get imposter, I always suck at that so much.” You watched as the screen counted down and the word IMPOSTER flashed up alongside Corpse’s name. “Guess I jinxed it guys.”

Great. Not only were you imposter, you were imposter with Corpse, which meant you would have to actually speak to him. Maybe you wouldn’t have to.

You both followed Rae as she walked up towards Greenhouse, and you cornered her while she did her task, killing her quickly.

“Everyone seemed to go right, so we should vent back towards cafeteria to avoid suspicion,” Corpse said.

“Okay,” you answered. You vented together, and you muted your mic to laugh. “This is kinda cosy guys.” You said to your chat. You briefly imagined what it would be like in real life to be so close to him.

You moved to Admin where Toast was doing his task. Before you could say a word, Corpse had already killed him and you both vented outside Cafeteria. “Fuck, that was so close,” you muttered, chuckling a little.

“Don’t worry, I got your back,” he replied, making your heart sing a little.

“Oh my hero,” you said, making a point of swooning to your chat, your voice high and airy. “How will I ever repay you?”

He chuckled, “You shouldn’t ask questions like that.”

You flushed at the suggestive tone he had taken, and you hoped it wasn’t noticeable but judging by the comments in your chat, it clearly had been. This was another issue you had with Corpse; he always made these type of comments with you and it was really annoying. You knew there was no chance he was being serious, and sometimes you wished he would stop it purely because it got your hopes up.

delilah: shes BLUSHING dreamofme: uWu yn uWu

You opened your mouth to respond when Dead Body Reported flashed up, bringing your thoughts back to the game.

“Toast and Rae are dead,” Sykuuno said. “I found Rae in Greenhouse and Toast in admin.”

“I was in balcony, I went there from the cafeteria,” you said confidently. You hated being Imposter, especially being teamed with Corpse, who was so good at the game, you had a lot of pressure to do well.

“I was in MedBay, I didn’t see you YN,” Ash accused.

“You only see if they enter through the left door. She entered through the other door,” Corpse answered for you.

“And how do you know that?” Felix asked.

“I was in Cafeteria,” Corpse replied.

“You could’ve vented YN,” Jack said.

“No I couldn’t have, if Ash was in MedBay, she would have seen me. Unless she wasn’t in MedBay,” you suggested, smirking to your cam as you muted. “It’s not going too bad I don’t think? Always feel like I’ve been arrested when I’m Imposter.”

“Little sus of you Ash to say you were in MedBay when you weren’t,” Corpse said. You gaped a little at how easy it was for him to manipulate the situation, it was almost scary.

Ash argued as the other players began to agree and discuss among themselves. You smiled in success at the text on the screen.

Ash has been ejected.

You split up this time, and while you hadn’t really spoken during the game, you kind of missed Corpse’s astronaut next to yours, and you said that to your chat. “Haha, our colours did look cute together, I agree.”

Any previous trepidation you had had disappeared as soon as you had heard his voice; and you realised how much you had missed him. You would simply just need to deal with your feelings; they would go away eventually anyway. You just hoped it wasn’t too late for you to start again with him.

You walked to MedBay with Skyunno, making small talk as you did.

“I’m glad to see you playing with us, it’s been a little while,” he said and you felt bad that you would have to kill him. As you turned towards him, ready to kill as he did his task, Jack walked in. You mouthed oops at the cam.

“What’s going on here?” Jack asked, suspicion in his voice.

“I was just saying how nice it was to have YN here,” Sykunno replied. You stood and faked your task, watching the green bar fill as you did. It would be too risky to kill here.

“Ah yeah, Corpse has been asking after you constantly,” Jack said. You blinked at the response, it had caught you off guard.

“Oh?” you replied simply. You mentally shrugged it off. Of course he would have asked about you, you were friends, that was all.

DEAD BODY REPORTED

“Felix was dead in Reactor,” Corpse announced. “Oh Corpse, you’re taking a risk here” you said to your chat.

“I was in MedBay with Jack and Sykunno,” you replied, smiling as they agreed. “Where were you Ash?”

She sighed sadly. “I was in Labs, but I was doing a task, I swear!” You all agreed quickly that Ash would be the next voted out.

“2 to go,” you said triumphantly. “I thought I was gonna drag Corpse down, but it’s going okay!”

The round started again and you could feel yourself getting tired. Hopefully this wouldn’t be too much longer to finish the game.

You circled round Corpse a few times, hoping that he would understand your signal. Luckily he did, and you both vented to Decontamination where Skyunno and Jack were. The room had already started to emit steam, making it extremely easy for you both to vent unnoticed and kill them both.

You grinned at the Victory message that flashed up.

“Good game guys!” you said. The others congratulated you and Corpse on your win and you smiled at the sound of your names together. You had it bad.

“It was all YN,” Corpse said.

“Pfft you ssh being humble, it was all you,” you replied, taking your hair out of your ponytail and running your hand through it.

“Your hair looks nice,” Corpse commented and your eyes widened. Your heart started to beat a little quicker. How long had he been watching your stream?

“It’s bad to watch someone’s stream without telling them,” you replied, making a show of pouting for the camera.

He laughed a little. “What can I say, I’m a bad guy,” he said, singing the last words. You laughed at the sudden Billie Eilish.

“Guys, either play another game, or get a room,” Felix interrupted. You blushed a little and rolled your eyes, the chat going crazy from the corner of your eye.

“And that’s my cue to exit,” you said, yawning. “Bye guys, have a good night!” You wished everyone and your chat goodnight before closing the stream and leaning back in your chat. You couldn’t believe Corpse had been watching you. You hadn’t said anything too incriminating, but still.

You prepared for bed, settling back into the softness of your pillows as you grabbed your phone - a terrible habit you really needed to stop.

Corpse: Can I call you?

You gulped at the message that appeared on your screen, a gnawing feeling of nervous clung to your throat as you typed yes. His name came up almost instantaneously and your hand shook as you pressed to accept the call.

“Hey,” he greeted.

“Hey, what’s up?” you asked, trying to keep your voice even while your heart beat erratically in your chest.

“It was nice playing with you again,” he commented.

You sat up a little as you held the phone against your ear. “Did you call me to tell me that?”

“I haven’t spoken to you in a while.”

You sighed a little. “Yeah, I’ve been a bit busy, sorry - “

“You’re lying to me and I don’t know why,” he replied. You had never heard his voice like that before; so angry and hurt. You tapped your foot against your mattress as you thought what to say.

“I -”

“Did I do something?” he asked. You had been so selfish; blocking him out to avoid being hurt, but you hadn’t thought about his feelings. He was more popular than you were, you had assumed he would be fine, that he wouldn’t care if you were around or not.

“No, you didn’t do anything, I swear -”

“Then what? Because I thought we were friends, close friends and then suddenly you pretty much disappear. But you’re still streaming with other people. It’s pretty shitty of you.”

You chewed the inside of your cheek and looked up, the sting of tears threatening to fall. “It was really shitty of me, I’m sorry.”

“What happened?” he asked. “Please just tell me.”

“I don’t know what I’m meant to say,” you replied softly.

“What do you want to say?”

You blinked, the anticipation of unspoken words caught in your throat, making it hard to swallow. The taste of them was bitter on your tongue. “I...I have feelings for you.”

There. You had said it. There was no taking it back now, and you felt like your heart was about to shatter with every single second of silence that passed. You could hear him swallow on the other end of the phone. “Are you saying you’re in love with me?”

You bit your lip, taking in the meaning of the question he had asked. It wasn’t something you had thought of, you hadn’t conceptualised your feelings for him, not put them in a box labelled love or anything. “I don’t know. I feel something for you. And it kinda sucks being your friend and having those feelings. So I pulled away.”

“Why does it suck?”

You laughed bitterly. “Why wouldn’t it? Feeling something for someone that doesn’t feel the same is fucking shitty.”

“I asked you to flirt with me YN -”

“Yeah, for fun,” you interrupted.

“No, I said for fun, but really I just wanted you to,” he replied. “I feel something for you too. How could I not? Has anything I’ve ever said to you sounded like it was just for fun?” You smiled at his response, your heart no longer on the fit of breaking, but suddenly doing flips and soaring through your chest, radiating warmth through your body.

“Oh,” you said, your brain was overloaded with thoughts, and was apparently no longer capable of coherent sentences.

“Oh? That’s a great response, thanks,” he teased, but you could tell he was smiling as he spoke.

“I wasn’t expecting you to say that, I don’t really know what to say honestly,” you replied.

“Well, baby, how about you say yes to a date?” he asked.

“Yes.”

[loving-bucky-is-easier]

this is an 18+ blog only. minors do not interact.

☾ indicates potentially triggering themes (e.g. panic attacks, ptsd, sexual assault)

+ indicates significant violence

* indicates smut

fics are listed in alphabetical order within their section

one-shots

ain't it a gentle sound +

“I can’t hurt you,” he sobbed, his hands gripping your wrists.

“Добросердечный.”

“You’re not,” you soothed, your breaths growing shallow in an effort to control the waver in your voice. “It’s not you.”

black coffee ☾+

He looked down at the drink in his hand, at the little smiley face she had scrawled on the cup. Was he selfish enough to put her in the position of being in his life for more than an hour? He looked back up to her dazzling smile, her twinkling eyes, her scrunched nose.

Bucky didn’t think he could stay away.

calm waters if that serves you best

“I have to get better. I have to fix it, so I’m not broken. So I’m not doing the same thing over and over again because it’s fucking exhausting and I don’t want to exhaust you.”

in the right hands +

Bucky couldn’t tear his eyes from her lips, from the frost melting into teardrops on her eyelashes, from her slack face that seemed like the life was being drawn straight out of it with every wavering breath. 

Blue lips were supposed to go with twinkling eyes and sticky fingers and half a headache from being in the sun too long.

straight through the heart ☾

Before you could answer him, offer any explanation for your presence in his bathroom, the reflection of his eyes dropped to the reflection of your chest. 

Or rather, it dropped to the reflection of crimson spreading across your bra, coating your fingers, beginning to trace down your stomach like dripping candle wax.

the key turns slowly ☾*

“I’ve seen you with a mark more times than I can count. I know what you look like when you’re afraid, when you’re disgusted, when you’re annoyed with them, even if they don’t have the slightest idea. This was different.”

bonus drabble: setting pins

the sound of me not calling

“On the house,” Bucky promised with a soft smile when you met his eyes. “You okay, gorgeous?”

You managed a grin. “‘Course. I got you giving me free drinks.”

Bartender!Bucky variant

we can fight the rain ☾

Bucky found it easier not to think much about what came next. Too many sins to atone, he thought. Not your fault, she promised. But still his hands, he argued. 

She’d tell him that didn’t matter, and someday if he believed her, he thought he might imagine heaven to be something like this.

two-shots + mini-series

leave what’s heavy, what’s heavy behind

deadweight +

His heart dropped clear through his stomach when he saw her. Strapped to a chair in the far corner of the room that hadn’t quite been visible from his spot on the wall, head lolling to the side, a small pool of blood forming at her feet. Bloodied wrists and ankles held fast with shackles to the arms and legs of the chair. Her face so ghostly pale it was almost translucent.

deliverance ☾*

Almost three months to the day since you’d woken up in the med bay with his hands wrapped around yours, since you’d finished your first kiss in a hospital bed and he’d stayed with you until Helen shooed him away. Almost three months of dating Bucky Barnes, which was lovely and confusing, because how many couples got together because of an accidental confession of love mid-argument post-torture in a terrorist facility? 

drabbles

and honey, i

the one with Bucky’s truck and a bottle of strawberry wine

chest infect me, waste my days

the one where Bucky tries to make it home in time for your birthday

couldn’t we just have one more

the one where you were left behind

for years or for hours, your hand in my hand

the one where Bucky climbs through the window

have them play it again

the one with a dance from a long time ago

slipped from your mouth into mine

the one where you have pneumonia

the fields are painted gold

the one where she helps him remember and then she lets him forget

[mrsbsmooth]

BRO life has been so damn (aggravating) crazy this past month, anyway tell me your thoughts about 'ex in the villa' before i update the app and go play it 🥺🥺❤🙏

Hi beautiful! It's not a full season like S1/2/3 were. It's a mini-season which gives us a different scenario to play. If you play it with this in mind... it's actually not bad, so far at least.

Side Characters:

💎Alfie's a sweetheart, and I think it's actually nice that he's a little unsure. @amalasofmonterisso did a great post about this, but the more 'unsure' he is, the more I like him. It makes him seem like a real person, with real doubts about his feelings. I'm looking forward to seeing where things go with him.

💎Kat is a walking tantrum, and I love her for it. She's got some of the best one-liners, and is quite upfront about what she wants, so I'm interested to see if they boot her early or not.

💎Dana is a LI, and is pretty clearly on MC's side early on, and I like how she seems like she's a little more chill. I hope they give her a bit more depth though, especially if you're not on her route. I don't want her to fade in to the background like Najuma if you're not romancing her. She's also quite honest and seems like she'll be a good friend if you're not pursuing her. Angie vibes.

💎Suresh is.... eh. I'm not vibing with his writing yet, mostly because he doesn't seem to be very good at arguing for someone who's supposedly a corporate lawyer. Although, I'm not a lawyer, and that could just be my perception of him haha. I'll be going into this a bit more if/when I write a fic for him. However, I love his story arc and I'm looking forward to it.

💩Eddie is... also present? Even in the spoilers up to Episode 13, I haven't seen much in way of a personality for him yet. We'll see.

MC Design:

💎The outfits are cute compared to the ones we got at the start of S4, especially the sleepwear.

💎There are a lot more character design options, including more hairstyles and a bigger body type.

💩This might just be me, but I cannot for the life of me make my MC look the way I want her to. I miss the characters from S2/S3, where it was almost impossible for her to not look cute as fuuuuuck.

💩There are a distinct lack of features for non-white players. I've heard a lot of concerns about the eyes, noses, and hair, and I hope they rectify them. Hopefully we get more customisation options in future updates.

💩 We have almost zero choice over our backstory. We don't even get to decide our own secret! We don't get to decide our own ex, either, so WLW players... yeah, no.

Gameplay:

💎Drama central. I'm currently icing Suresh out - playing it cool and turning him down at every opportunity, but there are options for both a 'fuck you' playthrough and a ' please fuck me' playthrough, which will be cool.

💎With all the characters, they started off very sunshiney and shallow, and then started showing negative traits. I love this. I love my characters to have a little complexity. I hope they continue this and make the characters really deep!

💩It's really hard to earn gems.

💩There's a long, interactive ad after every episode and it's really annoying.

💩They recently moved from three episodes each week to having mostly two

💩 They're ending episodes MID-CONVERSATION to simulate drama. Which I hate.

Overall

As a standalone game? 5/10? 6/10 if I'm being really generous?

Compared to earlier seasons? I don't know... a 3/10? It's really not the same game.

If it wasn't for the fandom/community, I would've given up already. I'm personally not that engaged by any of the LI's so far, but I'm sure that will change. God, look what happened to me when they introduced Bruno omg.

But I love the community and I'm looking forward to reading the fics that come out about the season. So I'd encourage you to play it anyway, even if it's just so you can do fix-its with us :)

Thank you for the ask!

[councillor-roland]

Aneirin clearly didn't want to look at him and Roland supposed he couldn't blame him. As angry and conflicted as he was about all this it was becoming quite clear that Roland was the one who had made a mess of things. He'd invited Aneirin here, goaded him, flirted and taken him to bed and then when he'd tried to insist on certain boundaries...it had messed everything up. It was his fault. But how could he not take the opportunity to see Aneirin, to be with him, when it was the first time that had even been truly possible with him in his right mind in centuries? Still, he followed him into the living room, quietly following suit and pulling his clothes back on as well, or at least some of them. Roland always saw an argument through to its end, no matter the result.

"She's a very secure woman, then." Roland's words were quiet but Aneirin would hear them. It wasn't like he didn't know that, Sophia was his friend, after all. It wasn't that Rhys had asked him to give up his feelings for Aneirin, time had done that. It was a different situation. He had his underwear back on and was pulling up his pants when Aneirin continued and his eyes narrowed. "Until today I hardly realised there was something to have with me. And yes, I bind myself to him. I do belong to him, my heart is his. How is it fair to either of you to let you call me your love when I'm his and cannot be yours?" He shook his head. "There is no limbo there are just certain boundaries." That was apparently the thing that made it all impossible. Roland's expression soured as he did up his pants.

"Don't insult him." It was sharp, probably because emotions were already high, but Roland couldn't help it. Jumping to Rhys' defense was second nature at this point. "I privilege my love above everything else, yes. Why is it so unreasonable to expect the same in return? Even now I wouldn't be first for you would I?" Roland interrupted and shot back but that was often how he argued, though he'd abandoned getting dressed any more than just his pants, his lip curling. "You insult me with these insinuations that my affections are fleeting or shallow. I loved you with all of myself and that's now how I love him. That's how I love! The same obviously isn't true of you." Meeting cruelty with more cruelty would only get them into trouble but Roland always fought back hard, it was just his nature. The last words metaphorically knocked the wind out of him though and he felt them like a cruel lash. "Nothing?" There was clear pain and hurt as he repeated the word, stepped closed in spite of himself. He'd had eight centuries of nothing with Aneirin and he'd go back to what small communication he'd had through Sophia and brief occasional interactions over that nothing again. "'Rin...don't say that. There must be something we can do, some way we can make this work, maintain....something, at the very least." Just because Roland couldn't come up with anything at the moment didn't mean the way forward didn't exist it was just that he hadn't thought of it yet.

Aneirin rubbed a hand over his face, humiliated. Normally the sensation would get him off, but in that moment he was far too emotional to connect to it physically. It felt like an out of body experience, the white hot flash of his feelings numbing his extremities. He couldn't bare to look at Roland. Instead, he walked through to the living room, began picking up his clothes and getting back into them. He pulled his underwear on over his legs, glancing over his shoulder at Roland.

"That's different. She knows. She knows that there is a part of my heart that belongs to you. And she has never once asked me to give it up." It was difficult for Aneirin to comprehend how Roland operated. His own feelings were immutable once they existed, impossible to shift. He'd thought he would always belong to Roland. The feelings for Sophia had side-swept him, but hadn't erased his feelings for Roland. Now they existed side-by-side, no matter how much he'd attempted to starve them. "Everything I have with you it is not just with her blessing but her encouragement. You bind yourself for Rhys. You cannot even allow me to call you my love without insisting you belong to another. If you belong to him, then belong. This limbo is intolerable."

Aneirin had his t-shirt back on and was working on his jeans. "Either he's a jealous little man or you have made him one in your mind. This is the problem with you, Roland. One thing must be privileged above everything else. You screamed at me that I did not hold you first in my heart like it's some kind of podium. Is that what it is for you? That I will always be beneath your latest shiny bauble?" He could feel his words becoming crueler still. Aneirin usually reveled in his own sadism, but this time it came with burning shame. He did up his belt. "I don't see how this can continue. We should have nothing further to do with each other."

[transmalewife]

Alright, let's talk about attachment

I can’t find clear information on when exactly the non-attachment rule was added to the code. It was either soon before or soon after the great sith war. Either way, for the VAST majority of the existence of the Jedi, it wasn’t a thing. Jedi got married and had families for over 20000 years, then added the non-attachment rule, which ultimately led to their destruction. And before anyone tries to tell me I believe they deserved to be genocided, I don’t. I have never actually seen anyone say that, but I see people argue against it constantly, and imply anyone who doesn’t think the Jedi were perfect and blameless thinks that. I don’t think they deserved to die, I think they needed to change. And Yoda says that himself, many times. The Jedi weren’t prepared for the return of the sith, or the war. They had separated from the military 1000 years before, and the galaxy was in relative peace all this time, so the order’s role changed to one that worked very well with their rules. Detachment meant they could be impartial when overseeing political disagreements, lack of possessions meant they would be focused on the mission at hand and not prone to taking bribes, and distancing themselves from the general population meant they were more or less uniform, and could be trusted not to side with someone for personal reasons.

All of this falls apart once they become an army again. Impartiality is a flaw when they have to defend one side at all cost and not even allow themselves to consider compromise. Lack of possessions and attachment to people means they are prone to taking unnecessary risks, because they have nothing to lose, and do things like send 14 year olds into battle, thinking of the “greater good” over the safety of children. And the order being a monolith, with set rules and philosophy distinct from the rest of the population meant the Jedi trusted Dooku long after they should have stopped, because he used to be a Jedi after all, surely he still follows the code.

Now, I am not saying non-attachment is always bad, I think it served a very specific purpose in the order, and to some extent worked for many years. However.

Humans are a social species. Human babies NEED physical contact and affection to develop physically. Children need a stable, strong, and supportive relationship to their caregiver to properly develop psychologically. And after last year I don’t think anyone will argue that adults don't need connection with other people just as much. And not just shallow interactions, but open affection and love. Love of any kind, because claiming that the Jedi only forbid romantic love is just untrue. I think people tend to forget that "Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is essential to a Jedi's life. So you might say, that we are encouraged to love." isn’t the actual doctrine, it’s a literal pick up line that Anakin uses on Padme.

Ahsoka and Obi-Wan both get criticized by other Jedi for their entirely platonic attachment to Anakin, and vice versa. Now, humans are the most common species in the galaxy, and in the Jedi order. Many other species are near-human, so it’s safe to assume at least some, if not most of them also need that companionship and affection to develop and live happy and stable lives. I do believe that non-attachment is a valid philosophy and chosen path in life if done carefully and within reason, I just don’t think we have a single major character that actually applies to. And chosen is an important word here. Jedi don’t get much of a choice. I’m not trying to start the baby-stealing debate here. I hear the argument of ‘force sensitives are dangerous if left untrained, and said training should start as early as possible’. I think finding a way to deal with that problem was an insanely complicated decision, and taking children into the temple as young as possible is not a bad solution. I don’t entirely agree with not letting them see their families later, (especially since in legends Obi-Wan was allowed to visit his family, which implies Anakin couldn’t go free his mother specifically because he was already too attached), but the idea is sound. I do also understand that no one is forcing Jedi to stay in the order and they can leave for whatever reason at any time. But that isn’t exactly a free choice either. Leaving the order means leaving the only home you remember, the only people you know to make your own way in the galaxy, and staying with those people means you can never fully love them. It’s a difficult solution to a complicated question, and for the most part, it worked (not always, and not exactly as intended, but I’ll come back to that.) Children grew up in the order, were trained to control themselves and the force, and became Jedi who were impartial, patient, and balanced. But everything falls apart when you introduce someone who wasn’t raised in the temple.

In The Rising Force, 13 year old Obi-Wan had barely been off Coruscant in his life. He describes himself as sheltered and unaware of all the pain in the galaxy, and says it was done on purpose, so younglings wouldn’t have to face the dark side before they were ready for it. But Anakin had seen nothing but darkness, pain and injustice before he joined the order. He was severely traumatized, and while the temple might have had some ways of dealing with trauma and PTSD in adults, they had no experience in treating the same in a child, because their children were kept safe and protected. The idea of letting go of your pain and fear only works if you know you have a safe place to come back to, if you’ve spent the first decade or so of your life in the most protected place in the galaxy. Anakin spent the first decade of his life as a slave. He couldn’t let go of his fear, because fear was what kept him alive. Fear is not irrational if you are constantly in danger, it’s what protects you, keeps you aware of the limits you can push before you get punished. And that mindset doesn’t fade just because you’re out of that situation, especially if your only family, the closest person to you, is still facing that danger every day.

I’ve seen people use every excuse possible to explain why Anakin didn’t see his mother again to avoid blaming the council, including, and I shit you not, “He just didn’t have her comm number”. But to me that seems disingenuous, when we see in his first meeting with the council that they already consider him too attached. It's one of the main reasons they don’t want him to be trained, so it seems logical that they wouldn’t allow him to see her once he became a padawan. I also want to mention that what Yoda says, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” Is just… blatant catastrophizing. Right? Like we can all see that the escalation is not rational there at all. Maybe it could apply to something else, but not to a child who just left his mother for the first time in his life and went from a tiny dustball in the middle of nowhere to the most populated planet in the galaxy, and is now being tested by a bunch of old people with the power to decide his future. Obviously he’s afraid, and obviously he’s not dealing with it the way Jedi younglings do. That, in and of itself doesn't doom him to fall. Also what Yoda misses there is that suffering leads to fear. This is a closed loop, and one that has defined Anakin’s entire childhood.

Let’s come back to how the system doesn’t always work. The way I see it, most of the characters we see are attached. Obi-Wan is considered one of the greatest Jedi of his time. Windu describes him as “our most cunning and insightful Master—and our most tenacious”. And yet, he was not insightful enough to look past his love for Anakin, his attachment, and see how close to falling he was. Ahsoka was so attached to Anakin she refused to listen to Maul on Mandalore, refused to even consider the posibility he could fall. She was arguably the person with the best shot at preventing the empire forming at that point, and she loved anakin so much she doomed him and the entire galaxy. Aayla admitted to thinking of Quinlan as her father, and also, apparently in legends had a long relationship with Kit. Even Mace didn’t follow the code when he decided to kill Palpatine, which directly led to his death and the empire. He also indirectly caused the war to start. According to wookiepedia “Windu viewed Dooku as the shatterpoint of the entire Separatist movement, which meant striking Dooku down would theoretically end the imminent clone war before it even began. However, Windu's prior attachments to Dooku clouded his judgment.” I’m not even going to mention Kanan and Ezra, who are obviously family.

So basically everyone is attached and lying about it. How has no one thought that maybe this isn’t the healthiest way to live and tried to change the code? Well, I have a theory, and it’s Yoda. He was 900 years old when he died, and was on the council for the vast majority of his life. I can’t find when exactly he became grand master, but it’s safe to assume he held some degree of power over the entire order for most of a millennium. At the end of TPM he tells Obi-Wan “Confer on you the level of Jedi knight, the council does. But agree with your taking this boy as your padawan learner, I do not.” Then he reverses that decision by himself. So either he has the power to veto the council’s word, or who gets trained is entirely up to him. Either way, not great, considering his lifespan is so much longer than most Jedi, and therefore his approach to life is vastly different. Humans need love and closeness to live. However, while we don’t know much about Yoda’s species, it probably isn’t a social one. You could count all the characters of this species on two (human) hands, and Yoda lived in complete isolation for 20 years on Dagobah, and only went a little bit insane. They are naturally rare, and therefore probably lead solitary lives in nature. Moreover, Yoda outlived every master who trained him, and almost every padawan he trained himself, (there’s a great post about that here) so even if he wasn’t naturally predisposed to non-attachment, he would have had to learn it to deal with all the loss he had to live through over the years.

A lot of people think that Anakin fell because he had attachments, which is not true. He fell because of how his attachments played out and/or ended. The most obvious example being Palpatine, who used Anakin’s trust and friendship to groom him for over a decade and actively undermine Anakin’s trust towards anyone else, especially the order. (more on that here). Obi-Wan refused to take on the role of a father figure that Anakin tried to shove him into, so he turned to someone who did accept it. It’s not Anakin’s fault that it turned out to be the worst person alive, nor can we expect him to notice when he’s known Palpatine since he was a child. Another failure of jedi non-attachment, because a loving parent or guardian would not let their child be used as a bargaining chip when the most powerful politician in the galaxy blackmailed the order into allowing him to meet Anakin regularly, but a distant teacher and detached knight thinking of the greater good might. The other attachments Anakin had were taken from him (Shmi and Ahsoka, the last orchestrated by Palpatine who was fully ready to give her the death penalty to make Anakin more unstable), or he was forced to lie and hide them, compromising his vows as a Jedi (Padme) or refused to choose Anakin over the order/their principles (Obi-Wan, and again Ahsoka, and to some extent Padme, but he’d already fallen then). All these people had every right to make the choices they made, but it wasn’t the act of loving them that made Anakin turn to the dark side, it was how those attachments played out.

I think everyone agrees that Yoda is as detached as a Jedi should, if not can, be, and that didn’t prevent Dooku from falling. We see that explored in more detail with Barriss and Luminara. Luminara is detached and distant, she’s fond of Barriss, but their relationship is not familial in the slightest, and she repeatedly shows her willingness to put the greater good and the mission before Barriss’ safety and even life. And yet Barriss still falls. A complex combination of events and choices caused each of those characters to fall, not the simple presence or absence of attachment.

And lastly, just as attachment can make you unstable if your relationship with that person is unstable, it can also make you stronger. There is a reason Anakin and Obi-Wan were the face of the army. Not only did their obvious attachment (the strongest between two jedi we are shown) make them more relatable to the public, but they, when working as a team, are shown repeatedly to be more or less undefeatable. They spend half of aotc flinging themselves off great heights because they know the other will be there to catch them. They know from years of experience that they have backup and they know each other well enough (or force bond communicate) that they can trust the other will be where he needs to be to help/save them. Contrast that to how Windu and Palpatine fight in rots once the window breaks- very carefully, clearly holding back to keep themselves safe. Neither of them has backup until Anakin arrives, but until the last second they can't be sure which one he will choose. Anakin and Obi-Wan fight the same way on Mustafar, especially when balancing on that thin bridge. No acrobatics, swinging arms to keep balance, keeping their distance, being almost uncharacteristically careful compared to how they treated heights in aotc, in tcw, and on the invisible hand in rots, because they both know the other won't catch them if they fall this time.

[thevalleyisjolly]

Ok, I’ve rewritten this post several times because I really want this to be a productive and respectful discussion, but this is a conversation that does need to be started.  I’ve been thinking about the whole cultural appropriation story line in this season of The Unsleeping City so far, and of course I think it’s great that Cody is starting to realize why that’s wrong and that Murph is making it explicitly clear that it is wrong, but I want to reorient the conversation away from Cody now and talk about Ricky as a Japanese-American character.

Because when Zac went “Just to paint a picture for you...” during the museum fight episode, there was quite a bit of surprise from non-Asian people in the fandom that this was really a serious issue, and one that Ricky would be bothered by or speak up about.  But why wouldn’t he?  I mean, the character is Japanese-American, and so is the player.  Doesn’t it make perfect sense that he would at least be a little bothered by a white person appropriating Japanese culture?  Asian fans certainly noticed and pointed it out before that episode aired.  Ricky/Zac certainly noticed - go back through the episodes and observe how every time Cody pulled out a kunai or threw a shuriken, Ricky was cringing or facepalming with an uncomfortable laugh.  Even with seven different camera perspectives to watch at the same time, it should have been pretty clear in the fandom that this was an ongoing issue that would bother and was bothering Ricky.

And I think there are several different facets to this, but the one I want to address is how there’s a tendency in fandom to ignore or erase Ricky’s Japanese heritage.  Not literally (although there is a particular sting every time I see another Ricky fancast where the actor is of another Asian heritage than Japanese - Asian people are not interchangeable).  But especially prior to Season 2, there was a general trend in the fandom that liked to simplify Ricky’s character and overlook him as a complex player character because of traits that are very common in East Asian immigrant cultures.

Perhaps it’s because my heritage is East Asian and I’ve had more exposure to general cultural customs and behaviours among East Asian immigrants, but Zac’s portrayal of Ricky has always read as a very obvious Asian-American child of immigrants to me (and, y’know, Zac and Ricky are actually Asian-American children of immigrants).  Not expressing negative emotions out loud, not verbally articulating thoughts and feelings but expressing them through actions, deferring to other peoples’ needs first instead of expressing his own wants because it’s not about him.  With the caveat that I’m Chinese and not Japanese, these are common practices that I’ve observed in my own family, among friends and acquaintances (of various Asian heritages including but not limited to Chinese), in broader experiences with other East Asian immigrants.

(Asia is not a monolith and I’m not familiar with the immigrant cultures and experiences of people from other Asian heritages.  I specify East Asian here because that is broadly what I can speak on and because Ricky is Japanese, but other Asian people please feel free to discuss your experiences as well)

And obviously, these are not monolith traits observed at all times, I’ve definitely met plenty of East Asian immigrants who did express their emotions loudly, who used their words, who were assertive about their own needs and wants (this is not the post to be getting into different generations of immigration and the culture differences between those generations).  And it also depends on the context - from my own experience, in private within families, both emotions and words can get extremely loud (if you dare to risk the wrath of your elders by arguing with them!)  But my point is that the habits I pointed out above are still relatively common in East Asian immigrant cultures, even if not all individuals follow them at all times.

Particularly prior to Season 2, there was a common perspective in the fandom, usually couched in “uwu, I love that Zac is playing a hot dummy!!” that would go along the lines of “Ricky doesn’t have a character arc, he doesn’t get into conflicts with other people, he doesn’t say anything and is just happy to be there, he’s a shallow character who’s just a himbo.”  All of which I’d dispute, (*insert post here about Ricky as a character reclaiming Asian masculinity*), but I want to focus on how the main traits -refraining from overt emotions, remaining reserved in speech, not bringing up his own needs and wants- that were brought up and used to simplify and dismiss Ricky’s character were traits which are commonly found in East Asian immigrant communities.  The whole “remaining reserved/trying to avoid conflict” is something a lot of East Asian-American kids pick up at home because what you say or don’t say isn’t as important as what you do or don’t do.

And I mean, so much of Ricky is about doing things for people, showing his feelings through his actions, not his words.  Just because he wasn’t getting into PC conflict in Season 1, or expressing his emotions in the same ways as other PCs, doesn’t mean he was just a silent, cheerful himbo.  Which there’s nothing wrong with being a himbo, and it can be particularly empowering in Ricky’s case as an Asian man (see above linked post about Asian masculinity), but that’s not all there is to Ricky’s character!  And don’t get me wrong, I personally love that part of his ongoing character arc in Season 2 is speaking up about his feelings and expressing to other people what he wants (because there’s the “American” part of the Asian-American experience that’s not just about having Asian heritage but is also about negotiating that relationship in a place with different norms and customs).  But it doesn’t negate the “Asian” part of “Asian-American” either, which does impact and shape the way Ricky interacts with people and the world.

In hindsight, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that interest and meta in Ricky skyrocketed once he did start being more vocal and assertive in Season 2, which are common traits in many Western cultures.  And it’s not the only reason that there’s a deeper interest in Ricky now (shout out to all the Asian fans and allies who’ve been really diving into Ricky’s character this season!) and I choose to believe in good faith that it isn’t intentional or malicious (audiences do tend to gravitate more towards tangible moments of conversation and conflict rather than background acting).  But I think we as fans need to start questioning why as a whole, we really didn’t start giving deeper thought to Ricky until he began displaying more typically Western traits, because I think it’s emblematic of how, very subtly and unconsciously, we are used to privileging white “American” behaviour and ignoring or glossing over Asian (immigrant) traits.

In many ways, Ricky prior to Season 2 (and very arguably up until the museum fight), has been perceived in the general fandom as a sort of post-racial American-melting-pot character.  Fans don’t wholly ignore that he’s Japanese-American, you can’t really do that when his family name is “Matsui” and when the Season 1 finale showed that his interactions with the American Dream pretty strongly involved his parents’ immigrant experience.  But knowing intellectually that Ricky is Asian doesn’t always translate to actually perceiving him as an Asian person with all the implications and racial dynamics that entails.

An example of how this manifests: Ricky and Esther become a canon couple.  Numerous posts begin to appear (and periodically still do) that express opinions along the lines of Ricky/Esther being the only tolerable “het” couple.  Ignoring the fact that we don’t know Esther’s sexuality and we only have an offhand Ztream comment for Ricky, Ricky/Esther is a canonical interracial relationship between two non-white people, a Japanese man and a black woman.  Interracial relationships are already extremely poorly represented in media, to say nothing of interracial relationships between non-white people.   Yet we overlook the racial dynamics and only focus on the perceived queerness (or not) of the ship.

Or, for another example, taking the discussion on cultural appropriation and making it all about Cody’s flaws and character development, rather than considering how it affects Ricky as a Japanese man to see a white man disrespecting a part of his cultural heritage.

Anyways, I really urge D20 fans, especially if you’re not Asian, to start questioning and challenging how you really perceive characters, what kind of characteristics you tend to privilege and be drawn to and why, and what kind of fandom environment you shape in your interactions with the show and with other fans.  This is not to say that Ricky should be everyone’s favourite character or that you can’t dislike him, but it is important to think about why we have the preferences that we do.  I especially urge you to remember that Ricky Matsui is a Japanese-American character, that this was a deliberate choice which has been repeatedly brought up by Zac (who is a Japanese-American actor), and that you cannot and should not ignore Ricky’s heritage when you think and talk about him. 

(And if you think Ricky is being an “asshole” to Cody just for being, frankly, mildly perturbed in his direction because Cody spent most of the season so far being very offensive to Ricky’s cultural heritage, I really encourage you to think critically about your opinions and why you hold them.  And if, after thinking critically, you still don’t see why they’re wrong, please don’t let the door hit you on the way out.  Your conscious racism is not something that is welcome in this fandom, and Asian fans are not here to teach you better)

((White and non-Asian people can and should reblog this, but don’t clown around.  Productive, respectful discussion is welcome.  Asian fans are more than welcome to add their perspectives/agree/disagree, especially people with Japanese heritage))

[gallavictorious]

bottom!mickey nonnie here, i had some more thoughts in response to your reply, if you don't mind? :) i can see where the trust aspect might come into play for mickey re: bottoming and i understand your thought process. the only thing that makes me doubt that is how quickly that trust must have been established between him and ian if that is the case. they haven't been fucking for that long when kash walks in on them (which is the first instance we actually know mickey bottoms). i suppose that there could have been a lot of off-screen developments and interactions, but it's too quick imo. their relationship in season one seems more puppy-love to me rather than a deep bond (which i see as starting to form in season two). the way i see it, the only level of trust that needs to be established is "i know you won't tell anyone because you're also closeted and you won't treat me like a bitch because if you do, i'll beat you tf up and just never fuck you again" which is pretty shallow and something mickey could probably have reached with other guys, too. idk, i just don't see their relationship in season one as deep enough for mickey to start trusting ian with things he's worried or insecure about. it makes more sense to me that he lets ian fuck him because it's not that big a deal, rather than because he's already let ian past his walls. we know that ian is all in by that point, but i just don't think mickey is. he likes ian, is drawn to him (probably against his better judgement), but that's as far as it goes, as i see him. since there are such few scenes between them in season one we have no choice but to make our own interpretations, and those are bound to differ. i've just never seen mickey indicate that he thinks bottoming = being a bitch, or even that it's something he worries about. the only thing to support that would be his attitude to prison, but like i said before, i don't think mickey views sex in prison the same as he views sex on the outside. he probably views everything in prison differently. on the outside, with guys who share his secret? i don't think it's too much of a stretch that he would just do what he wants. the danger is the same either way. just my interpretation of him, of course :)

Hiya, Bottom!Mickey Nonnie No. 1!

I don't mind one little bit; in fact, I'm delighted! Apart from enjoying the fun discussion, it's always gratifying to hear back from anons: you usually never actually know if your answer has reached them.

First off, you're damned right it's quick! I personally don't subscribe to the idea that Mickey knew that Ian was gay or had a crush on him preceding their 1x07 tryst (nothing wrong with that notion, btw, it just doesn't appeal to me), so when they suddenly start tearing off each other's clothes that's very sudden. I tend to assume there might have a tiny bit of vague interest prior to this, the proximity and tussling triggers mutual attraction, they both spring boners, and yeah, off they go? You're also quite right in (implicitly) pointing out that we don't know that they had penetrative sex at that time – maybe they moved up from mutual handjobs or just plain grinding to something more a few trysts later. Either way, you make a good point about the danger of sex outside of lock-up would be the same regardless of whether Mickey bottoms or not. I'd never really thought about that before, so thank you for pointing that out!

However, it's probable that the reason I haven't thought very much about it is because when I speak of Mickey's easy trust for Ian I don't primarily mean him trusting Ian not to reveal his secrets to anyone else, but trust him to know Mickey in a way others are not allowed – and here we disagree and that is fine. :) If you see Mickey as unbothered by being into bottoming, you can certainly find support for that in the narrative. We do have the famous ”liking what I like”-line, which absolutely can be taken at face value! The fact that I tend to interpret it as (partly) Mickey being deliberately unapologetic because he feels a bit uneasy about his preferences and is somewhat defensive about Ian's brief allusions to common prejudices around bottoming, has more to do with my assumption that – given Mickey's circumstances – this is something that Mickey's likely to feel insecure about. He's internalized his father's homophobia to some degree; it just seems reasonable to me that he'd have internalized Terry's strong conviction that Milkoviches don't bottom too. (He certainly seems ready to embody that when he attacks Ian's army fuck buddy in season 3, citing the need to kick him straight because he's the one taking it up the ass. However, that could also totally performative or seen as him making a twisted kind of in-joke, so it's hardly conclusive.) Furthermore, I feel that it's not unreasonable to question Mickey's sincerity in regards to the line mentioned above, since we do have instances of him acting seemingly geuninely dismissive even when we know he probably cares quite a bit. I'm thinking primarily about his reaction to Ian's sex strike in season 11; I just don't buy he was unbothered by that, but there's nothing in the way he expresses his lack of concern that suggests it's insincere. This doesn't mean that I think my reading of the line is the correct one, though, just that it's a possible reading given what else we know of Mickey.

But of course, this really is just my assumptions and interpretations. It's very possible to infer from his actions onscreen that Mickey is totally unconcerned about bottoming, and always has been. After all, Mickey is in many ways a genuinely confident person, and I think this extends to his sex life. (I just think there's insecurity and concern, too... Basically, I think Mickey's relationship with his own sexuality and preferences is complicated, a paradoxical tangle of confidence and shame. I find this complexity is fascinating, and if we're being honest that's probably one of the reasons why I'm not so eager to let go of the notion of it.)

That said, though, and regardless of whether or not bottomingrequires any particular trust on Mickey's part, I think we dohave some concrete evidence of Mickey letting Ian past his walls already in 1x07. Not the sex – because we don't know anything about that – but the return of the gun after. That look on Mickey's face just then? That's vulnerability. He knows that by giving the weapon back when he doesn't have to, he shows hint of a softness he can ill afford people to know he possesses at this point. It's walls dropped, if only for a moment, and I just don't see him allowing that with many – if any – other people. While it isvery quick and while there's no telling whyor how, I firmly believe that there is an immediate trust between them that goes beyond just sex. It might not be logical, but I think it's there, and that this easy, natural understanding is a huge part of what has them coming back to each other again and again in spite of the odds being stacked overwhelmingly against them. Like you, though, I don't see this as a deep bond or anything, not this early. Ian falls in love quickly and easily; for Mickey is a much slower process, because he fights even the possibility of it tooth and claw.

And ah, I'm aware that in my first response to you I promised to elaborate on my thoughts on Mickey's stint in Mexico in my reply to Bottom!Mickey Nonnie No. 2, but I ended up cutting that because it got absurdly long in comparision to my notes on what they were actuallyasking about, and that didn't seem fair or relevant to them. However, I now have a third (and a fourth... apparently this is a subject dear to your hearts, sweet followers) Bottom!Mickey Nonnie in my inbox, so if this is something you're interested in, despair not! We'll get there!

Thank you so much for getting in touch, both with your first ask and with this follow-up. I've enjoyed reading your thoughts, and developing my own in response to them, immensely! I highly value being able to civilly disagree and argue viewpoints without either side feeling the need to convince the other, so this has been a real treat. <3

[deeplyshalllow]

If you think that all Fiyero has in terms of characteristics in wicked, then I would encourage you to re-watch the musical because you've missed quite a lot! I'll give you that some of it's a bit subtle because he's not in very many scenes but we get quite a lot from him

- as you said he presents like he doesn't care when he does - I don't think that's that shallow a personality trait though? It leads to quite a lot of questions about why he is that way, what has made him, a boy who has come from even more privileged than Glinda, care so much more about the Animals and generally making the world a better place than her? Why has he felt the need to hide it? Is it some degree of childhood trauma (the San Francisco previews of the musical has him state that before Elphaba he didn't believe that love was real)? Is it an inability to make a difference? Does he have some learning difficulty like ADHD or dyslexia which has made him not very book smart so he felt better pretending not to care? It's also so wonderful to see how his interactions with Elphaba inspire him to make this change.

- he's incredibly smart, somewhat ironic given he becomes the scarecrow, but I think he's the most intelligent of the group! He basically runs act 2. If it was not for him, Elphaba would have been captured in the throne room (possibly Glinda too as she tried to help her escape), Elphaba would have been captured in the cornfield and Elphaba wouldn't have had the plan to fake her own death. Honestly, his girls would be lost without him! Elphaba inspires him to do good, but Fiyero is needed as her calm, to help her think before her actions and to keep her safe.

- he's the best politician of the group, he's the only one with any degree of impulse control, while both Elphaba and Glinda tend to react and think about consequences later, Fiyero takes a step back, works out what to do and what best to say to people to get what he wants, even if it means appearing on the wrong side. It's sort of sad that, after doubtless driving his parents mad by flunking school, he would have probably made an excellent king.

- morso in the movie than in the musical, but he's just incredibly kind! Unlike Glinda, he doesn't judge Elphaba by her skin colour, works out remarkably quickly that she's wearing a mask too and tries his best to get her out of it. He doesn't want her to change, or temper her feelings to fit with what is normal (like literally everyone else in her life) and loves her for exactly who she is. This is why he works so well with Elphaba, here's the only person, who will sit and tell her to be herself and mean it, he is the person who can tell her that she is valuable and is allowed to do stuff for herself, rather than just trying to help or please others. We also see in the musical, a concerted effort to make it up to Glinda after running away with Elphaba, he expresses straight after "as long as your mine" that he hopes someday they'll all make up and apologizes to her in the next scene.

I don't really think you get much less personality from Fiyero than Glinda really? I mean when you boil down Glinda's traits you get privileged and spoilt, somewhat spiteful but not overly unkind (though I would argue her initial befriending of Elphaba is almost as rushed as Fiyero's love for her), a very set plan of what she wants in life, a little impulsive, and cares a bit about doing good but not enough to uproot her own life.

You have to look slightly harder, but it's all there in the text, Fiyero is a nuanced character, with his own personality, ambitions and goals. They just tend to align with Elphaba's, as the two of them share such similar morals.

Also, I think it's a little unfair to say that Elphaba longing to be with Glinda as well, makes Fiyero any less important to her, considering she sung a whole song about how terrible her life was and that she was going to give up, when she thought Fiyero was dead!

Fiyerabas love to get on Twitter and tumblr and say stuff like “well fiyero would’ve went with Elphaba in a heartbeat” and act as if that’s a groundbreaking statement. We know what happens in act 2. We know he leaves everything behind for her. The reason why Glinda can’t do that is because she’s an actual nuanced character that has depth to her. She has something to lose. We see how she was brought up in the world. We know that she is a coward. Why WOULDN’T fiyero go with Elphaba? Nothing about his character is complex enough for that to be an option.

Fiyero’s whole character is built on a single characteristic (pretending not to care when he actually does) that is so underdeveloped it’s actually laughable. Why does he pretend not to care? There is not a single thing about him that actually tells us why he acts like that. It just comes out as him being an annoying jerk, even in the movie. His whole character arc is pretending not to care and then caring because of Elphaba. OF COURSE he’d go with her. That’s what his whole personality is based on.

Not to mention the fact that even with him being Elphaba’s ride or die, he’s still boring and his decision to be with her is incredibly unmoving. No one would expect anything else. And even with them ending up together, Elphaba still longs to be with Glinda. She still longs to tell her she’s alive. Fiyero is a boring annoying consolation prize that is a flat and undeveloped “what if” twist on Glinda if she wasn’t as much of a coward as she is. Idgaf

[telaraneas]

im still in the process of PROPERLY reading all of Detective Pony because dirk im sorry but i have adhd i cant sit through all of those words at once. its not even that the concepts are too advanced, its just that im p sure he deliberately goes out of his way to be as obtuse and pretentious as he possibly can be (which is pitch perfect characterization sndjej)

ive read it in chunks out of order by skimming and then going back and forth, which is almost definitely cheating but also the only way i can actually digest everything going on here. detective pony is a masterpiece on about 5 different levels, it captures a very specific type of metafiction silly-to-crushingly-serious rabbit hole that i have seen over and over and which i'm struck by and fascinated with each time, even the most shallow and un-self aware of these kinds of works fascinate me (...so yes including stuff like the overbloated disaster mess that are the nostalgia critic movies)

detective pony is just unironically very engaging tho no matter how deep it goes into embarrasing dialectics and struggles with the admission of responsibility about the things you create and about how the entire book IS an extension of his psyche no matter how much he frames it like a struggle against him. the whole thing reads like a microcosm of his whole mental state and especially the fact that as he says. he set out to make a birthday present for jane and ended up just making a whole thing thats about himself and his ego and his struggles with that ego and the terrifying fact that no matter how much he says hes ashamed of it and that no one should read it, he is STILL in the active process of creating it and putting his feelings out there and arguing with himself in the form of socratic dialogue and that, in the end, he DOES end up giving it to jane

and i cant stop thinking about how jane DID READ IT. like i fully 100% believe she read every word

dirk and jane have one of the most interesting relationships in homestuck i think because they honestly care about each other and can be honest with each other in a way they struggle to be with the rest of their friend group, but in a way that's BECAUSE of how emotionally detached they tend to be. like, dirk has his whole mass of issues, but jane's deal is that she tries to be very Nice and conscious of other people's feelings, but because she's, yknow, not a perfect human being, she doesn't ACTUALLY believe everything she says, and she doesn't say most of the things she thinks, because she doesn't want to hurt others and doesn't realize this, too, is a selfish impulse, maybe moreso than actually saying what she feels

i mean. jane was SO committed to only saying what she thought was the most socially nice and appropiate thing to say, that she blew her chance with jake in the dumbest way and then kept digging her hole into the depths of the earth akdnsknd and then she dug in her heels and kept being A Good Friend against her actual wishes until her passiveness turned to passive aggression and then blew up into ACTUAL AGRESSION

I think jane and dirk kind of have similar yet opposite problems in a way, where, like... dirk doesn't want to burden others with his feelings and so tries to hide behind a billion layers of detachment and masks (to the point jake spends the entire story up to entering sburb interacting with dirk without ever actually TALKING to him directly much to his frustration), but despite that stated goal, his feelings and authentic self STILL wind up as the most overtly everpresent fact of the friend group's lives, because moderation just escapes him, so it's like the faucet is at full blast of dirk all over everyone while he stares at it wondering why the fuck he's like this

and then there's jane who is like... she WANTS to connect with others. she WANTS to understand others and be understood in return. she wants to be a good friend and a presence in their lives that they find worthwile. so with her the faucet is closed completely, other than the inescapable droplets that make her support come across as transparently condescending or passive agressive when her heart just isn't in it. jane has SUCH massive trouble expressing her actual, genuine, unironic 100% from the heart Feelings And State Of Mind to other people, and yet she's so miserable when people don't automatically KNOW where she's at

so... i think dirk would write that whole thing, which is esentially a static version of AR in that it's an encapsulation of him that is very much authentically him including the parts of himself he hates the most and never wants anyone else to see, but yet he puts it out into the world ANYWAYS because he can't bring himself to ACTUALLY hide any of himself no matter how much he wants to

and jane would 1000% read the whole thing, from the goofy violent doodly beginnings to the philosophically self-destructive metafictional cathartic end, and she would read it and absorb it and gain a clearer understanding of her friend's issues and what weighs on him, and she would definitely cry while reading it and feel deeply for her friend's situation... and she wouldn't say anything about it

she wouldnt reach out to him like HEY UH ARE YOU OKAY THIS BOOK IS KIND OF UHH CONCERNING, which is ABSOLUTELY what roxy and jake would do... and in my opinion, that's probably WHY dirk went through with it and gave it to her after all that waffling back and forth. because he can't handle honest confrontation about his mental state, but on one level or another, he WANTS to be understood

so like, i think thats why jane and dirk's relationship is so interesting to me. they Understand each other and find comfort in that passive understanding. i think it's also part of why they both went steadily downhill when they... well they never fought over jake, because again these two idiots are too avoidant to have a direct confrontation about it, but they certainly let that whole situation drive a wedge between them which resulted in both of them feeling even more isolated despite roxy's desperate efforts to hold the entire disaster gang together

man.... i just think about the alpha kids a lot........

[kitkatopinions]

Seeing how this pairing is usually in Freezerburn fanfics, what are your thoughts on Ladybug? Is it as bad as Bumblebee?

I feel like Blake x Ruby is better in some ways than Bumblebee, around the same level in others, and worse in some. PLEASE NOTE: This post is meant to compare one ship I don't really like to another ship I don't really like. And while I'll be talking about merits to both ships, I'll also be talking about things I don't like in both ships. So if you don't want to see that, this post isn't for you. I'm not trying to ruin these ships for anyone, just giving my opinion on them.

Pro: Ruby was clearly drawn to and interested in Blake during their first meeting, laughing when Blake called out Weiss's company, saying "that girl..." in nearly a whisper when she spots Blake again later, acting nervous, but also nice, and is interested in hearing about Blake's book. You can compare that to Yang and Blake, where Yang talks to Blake for Ruby's sake, quickly dismisses her as a lost cause, and then winds up paired with her later out of a coincidence. In terms of 'interest from the start,' Ruby and Blake as a ship wins this.

Con: I complain that there isn't enough development for Blake and Yang in the early seasons, and that gets so much more prevalent in the relationship between Blake and Ruby. They barely talk after introducing themselves. They mostly interact with the team at large, or other people, with their emotional conversations and connections being formed with others. This carried on to the point where it's a meme that Ruby doesn't really know Blake, and when they did have an emotional moment in volume eight, it felt really out of place and shallow. Compare that to Yang and Blake, who have had significant and meaningful interactions a couple different times, who spend time together due to the fact that they're teammates, who spend a lot of time together in volumes six, seven, and eight, and started having more casual interactions with each other during that time despite it generally feeling a bit forced.

Pro: They share interests and have similarities despite being very different people, both things that can fuel an interesting ship. They're book lovers, they're action driven, they're both more introverted, they're justice driven, they both came to Beacon for similar reasons... And yet Ruby is meant to be the optimistic opposite of Blake's more pessimistic tendencies, she's vocal and out there while Blake is more pragmatic and contained, she's openly affectionate and trusting (for the first five seasons,) while Blake is hesitant and takes a while to open up to others. While Blake and Yang also have a lot of similarities and differences, they don't have a lot of interests in common. Ruby and Blake could probably talk about morals for ages, or they could talk about their favorite movie adaptions of books... Idk, they don't have a lot in common, but it's still more than nothing. Compare that to Yang and Blake, who are very different people who don't share many similarities.

Con: Blake has seriously conformed to Ruby's wants and desires and morals more than she's conformed to Yang's. Yes, Blake and Yang's relationship is unhealthy and co-dependent, but Blake hasn't conformed to Yang's morality and her leadership. In fact, she's disagreed with and argued with Yang, specifically to go with Ruby and do the things Ruby wants to do. the doylist reason for this; Blake's character has been hugely altered, she's barely recognizable to the character she was for the first five seasons, and she's now being used as one half of a ship and Ruby's cheerleader. But trying to look at things in a watsonian way, it feels like Blake is over-reliant on Ruby, depending on her to tell her what she wants and even what she believes in. She's willing to go against and argue with Yang, but not because she believes in something; because she's following Ruby's lead. Add onto that that Blake was specifically written to be fine with a lack of action in the face of a literal warzone because she thought Ruby would eventually decide what they should do and she also can't defend herself anymore and must beg Ruby to save her. To add onto that, Ruby clearly doesn't need more pressure on her shoulders and having her friends reliant on her every step of the way is clearly helping to wreck her mental health. Canon Blake and Ruby are a recipe for co-dependency and unhealthiness too, it's just of a different sort than Bumblebee and... I might consider it worse. Idk, it's a toss up.

Pro: Ruby is consistently upset when Blake isn't around or is hurt or self-destructing. She's literally, visibly angry at Weiss and snapping at her after Weiss's behavior and fighting caused Blake to run away.

During this exact time, Yang did challenge Weiss, but seems more casual about the entire situation. Ruby also explicitly says she's not mad at Blake, though she's clearly sad that Blake didn't talk to her about what was going on. She's also very concerned about Blake in the dance arc, to the point where she's clearly not interested in what her other teammates are doing or about the dance at all.

And yes, Yang is confident and casual because she thinks she can convince Blake to go to the dance, and is clearly bothered too in her conversation with Blake, but she still does seem to be a bit less personally impacted? And also, I'm having trouble finding a screen grab of the exact moments, but Ruby is clearly distraught and really missing Blake in volume five. And again, Yang has a reason for acting dismissive and cold, and her circumstances are different than Ruby's, but it's still worth noting that Blake and Yang have these big conflicts that don't get addressed that give roadblocks - like Yang having tried to force herself to not care about Blake - whereas Ruby has always cared about Blake and wanted her around and never tried to convince herself otherwise.

Con: Ruby feels significantly less mature than Blake. Ruby feels naïve, untested, and younger than her age, whereas Blake feels more adult, weathered, and older than her age. There's not anything wrong with shipping them, obviously, but it does make a romantic relationship between them a little bit harder for me to like personally. Yang and Blake feel like they're more on each other's level.

Pro: Ruby has made microaggression statements about Blake's faunus traits before ("She does like tuna a lot," "She has kitty ears and they're actually really cute,") but her statements feel less mocking and less pointed than Yang trying to lure Blake around with a laser pointer. It doesn't feel as mean spirited. It's still hard to get past as a ship and I prefer shipping Blake with people that haven't been anti-faunus without an apology, but I still consider it better than Bumblebee and less of a hurdle to get past.

Con: They didn't have anything going for them as a ship if I remember correctly for season three, season four, season six, and season seven, and the shipping moments in volume two, five, and eight were few and far between. They were at their prime as a ship in volume one, and that was eight years ago. Blake and Yang's first significant moment was in volume two, they had a bit in volume three, volumes four and five heavily included them dealing with being apart, they started being easily read as romantic in volume six, and that's continued up to volume eight. I know I've already touched on Ruby and Blake’s lack of content outstripping the lack of Bumblebee content, but Blake and Yang as a potential couple has just been more consistently included as well.

Pro: Ruby has not canonically reminded Blake of her abuser. No, I'm not trying to say that Yang is the new Adam and I do think that Ruby and Blake's dynamic in the current canon is also unhealthy. But Blake would be hard pressed to not be reminded of Adam when standing next to the explosive, passionate, aggressive, anger issues ridden Yang who's eyes turn Adam's central color when she lets her temper overtake her - which is often. And the show writing did not fully address the problems there, by having Blake swear to never leave and Yang being happy with that and then them disregarding the growth Yang had gone through in terms of working on her anger issues and had her explode for very little reason and snap at everyone in the recent seasons. Ruby - despite being rose themed and sharing Adam's color scheme - still doesn't get close to being the temperament of Adam.

In short... It's a really big toss up. Because I think that I find Bumblebee much better in terms of concept and potential, but Ladybug - while still having major problems - might be better currently as far as canon goes, yet that might be because of their lack of content, and they're... Boring for me personally. XD So yeah, both ships have major flaws, but also upsides.

[sulkybbarnes]

I just saw your post about misinterpreting characters. It was tagged with Adam and Bucky (two of my favorite fictional characters) and though I feel like that when I sometimes read fanfics, I can never just put my finger on it and I'd love to read your take on it!

Oh lord where do I even start... alright, this might get long so apologies in advance, but I have nearly a decade’s worth of thoughts on this. The short answer is: both characters often get severely over simplified, stripped away from essential characteristics, and their understandable reaction to their respective trauma gets overlooked in order to make them more “palatable” and to favor other characters in fics. 

The long answer: 

Let’s start with Adam Parrish. We meet Adam when he’s only 17 years old and we learn that he is an abuse survivor who comes from severe poverty, and along the way we witness trauma that leads to Adam having a disability, and later on learnt hat Adam is bisexual. Adam’s character is very realistic to someone in his position, so that he’s flawed and has issues to work through as the series goes along. These issues are presented at the start of the series through two unreliable narrators: Gansey who is proud and often self-victimizing, and Adam himself who is very introspective and lives in fear of turning into his father. Thus the characteristics the text gives us is that Adam is “cold and calculating” which is courtesy of Gansey, and that Adam is lonesome and prone to anger/arguing with his friends which is Adam’s own worries and insecurities manifesting in his chapters. And yes sure Adam at the start is -understandably- angry with the world at large and feels as if he’s ten steps behind everyone and playing catch-up, but he’s also visibly self-aware and constantly trying to curb any anger and moderate his reactions (even when they’re justified). The book also shows us through actions that Adam is sweet and thoughtful from how he acts around Blue, and shows that he develops as the books go on to be more aware of his actions, more confident in his own goodness, and more willing to show love and allow himself to be loved in return. The later books (BLLB, TRK, Opal story, CDTH) all show an Adam who is kind (his interactions with Opal), thoughtful (his constant thinking about Ronan’s feelings and not wanting to act before he knows he’s as serious/sure about them as Ronan is), a good friend (I’m just gonna.. gesture at the whole Blue/Gansey thing and how gracefully Adam handled it when they didn’t even deign to give him the benefit of the doubt), and a very loving person (which we see in his every interaction with Ronan from TRK onwards). So that’s Adam Parrish, complex and flawed but inherently a good person and a good character. 

However, Fanon Adam Parrish is a different story all together because he is often stripped to whatever bare essentials would serve the fic he is in. SO, in fandom you see an Adam who is either cruel and cold, as to serve some infantilizing hurt angsty version of Ronan. You see an Adam who is angry and prone to lashing out, to serve posts about Gansey being an angel who’s faultless and constantly hurt by his friends. You see an Adam who is disrespectful and hurtful to serve posts about why it was okay for Blue and Gansey to behave the way they did to him. Or on the complete opposite end, you get an Adam who is demure, shy, and almost disgustingly helpless to serve in a fic where he needs saving or some misguided hurt/comfort thing. Adam also often gets stripped away in the latter fics from any rightful anger or sharpness that relates to his trauma. Said anger is treated as something that makes him an unlovable or annoying character (you can find these takes everywhere in trc fandom), and therefore people need to overlook it to make him more palatable to them. Adam’s anger, as we see in CDTH, is often turned inwards and is an on-going struggle for him because it still feels at times as him against the world. It’s one of the best things about his character if you ask me, because it is what he grows out of the most, and what he continues to face and develop against. This trait makes him human and shows his vulnerability. Adam in canon is touch starved and loves fiercely, but in fanon the anger he displays gets used to paint him as unfeeling or constantly angry. Even though Adam shows anger only as much as any other character in the series, and often in a way less explosive (Ronan) or hurtful (Gansey) or entitled (Blue) manner. And so the point is that fandom takes away the complexity that makes Adam Parrish who he is, and molds him into whatever is easiest to digest and shove into a box that works better for the other characters. Adam’s development and arc get completely overlooked most of the time. He is often misinterpreted as one shallow thing, when he is a beautiful mix of emotions that make him Adam Parrish, and make him endearingly and painfully human and real.

Bucky Barnes, my original fave guy, follows strongly along the same lines. All you have to do is change names and events from what I said before and you’ll get how fandom treats Bucky. What I adore about Buck’s character is that he was established instantly as fiercely loyal, loving, fun, a good friend, and someone who is so important to Steve that we see Steve take on a suicide mission to get to Bucky. The progression of the other movies deals with Buck’s trauma and shows all the new aspects to his character that stem from said trauma, while maintaining the undercurrent of goodness and humor that we saw from pre-war Bucky. But once again, the complexity of Bucky’s character and his storyline; the trauma, the PTSD, and the fact that m*rvel never lets him heal, all boils down to fandom only choosing what they find palatable about Bucky and leading with that. I have less to say about this only because I’ve been a fan for too long, and have learned to conduct myself so that I don’t run into upsetting posts anymore, and read fics with a tone and characterization that works for me, but there’s a lot of content out there that strips Buck of his characteristics so much that he might as well be an OC. I will say that you might get more leeway with content based on a movie, than you do with content based on a book (where everything is glaringly obvious in the text), but I still have to roll my eyes at most content I see for Bucky, where he’s either helpless and waiting for someone to save (did we watch the same movies??), innocent and naive in how he conducts himself (...did we watch the same movies?!), or he’s unflinchingly cool and cold and unfeeling (seriously, DID WE WATCH THE SAME MOVIES?!). So once again the endpoint is that Bucky’s misinterpretation comes from a shallow understanding of his character, or complete lack of care about how he’s portrayed so that only one trait -whatever is needed for a fic or a post- is central and amplified while everything else he is falls away. I’m not pretentious enough to say that people can’t just have fun with a character and write whatever they want about it, because they absolutely can.. I’m just saying that it’s not my cup of tea and I wouldn’t read it. In fact, I only made a couple of attempts years ago at writing Bucky myself and then decided that I would rather read well-written things about him, than try and get it right myself because I’d get all in my emotions about his character. 

Tl;dr The theme of having your autonomy taken away and fighting like hell to get it back, and remaining good along the way is what makes both Adam and Bucky so close to my heart. Their respective trauma and complexity is what makes me love them both a lot, and I wish fandom didn’t often strip them away of their complexity to make them easier for fandom to digest.