#source: @i make fun of supernatural characters on tumblr

[neonswitchhouse]

PCWT: Communication, Confirmation, and Conversation

A question I hear come up a lot in PCM/PC Paganism circles is “how do I know I’m actually reaching out to (x)?” Given how well, sadly scarce info on PC Paganism or Pop Culture Magic in general is, I’d say that’s an absolutely valid question to have. So here’s just some of my tips over the years that have helped me out.

1). Source Research

As always, we fall back to the lovely home base of research. In this case, we’ll not only research the character, but the background of their source. Is the character familiar with magic and the occult to some degree? Would they at least be aware of things like tarot cards, pendulums, and the like? Is the supernatural even a “thing” in their source or are they somewhat skeptic to it?

Chances are, if the character(s) are at least somewhat familiar or aware of magic as a whole or the supernatural in general, they may be more apt to pick up on traditional divination methods like Tarot, Oracle cards, pendulums, scrying, etc.

2). Signifiers

What are some things that your character is associated with? Have you been seeing those fairly often in your day to day as of late?

This one in particular may get a little tricky, especially in the algorhythmic space of sites like Pinterest, Tiktok, and even Tumblr when it comes to “Randomly” stumbling across say, imagery of them or even curated blogs or pages for them. This may make discernment difficult to discern what is a “calling card” from them or not, but in general, look for things that you wouldn’t expect to come curated to you.

For example, say your character is associated with a certain number or even certain imagery or themes and you go out for a little bit and come across their number or imagery several times in places you wouldn’t have expected it.

3). Clair-’s

I put this method a little lower on the list because with some folks, clair-senses may not come naturally to them or maybe they have other things going on that may interfere with honing in or developing any sort of clair-senses. Hell, some practitioners may not really think clair’s are a thing at all and fair to them, to each their own and what not.

But if you do have some variation of them, try honing in on things relevant to someone your working with, whether that’s scents, sounds, sequences, anything in between, really.

I may come back to this post to refine it later, maybe do a 2.0 version, because at least in my view, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” for communication with any sort of pop culture deity/spirit/egregore/entity/etc. Each one has their own likes, dislikes, quirks, etc. and I feel like it’s honestly up to the practitioner to learn what those are and how best to work with them and what they prefer.

And please feel free to either comment or reblog with methods or tips that work for yourself that others may find handy too!

But as always,

Stay safe, have fun, stay spooky 💜🦇

#pop culture witchcraft #pop culture magic #pop culture paganism #someone I work with really likes to put shapes or hearts in the bubbles of their wickless candle #and honestly it’s cute as all get out 🥹

[shazzbaa]

I just found your blog and I really love both your art and seeing the world of Fallen London through a less experienced player! (And, as a fellow ex-Boatman, fond memories of that experience)

Aw, thank you so much!! I'm having an absolute blast, and I've been uTTERLY DELIGHTED by the response from the fallen londons here on tumblr; you guys are the best. I got so many tags on recent art of Sam that were along the lines of "this guy is always ending up in situations" AND MAN THATS IT ISNT IT, that's one of the things I love about Fallen London, it's just a place to put your guy in so many situations LMAO

LMAO IM SO DELIGHTED AT ALL THE BISHOP ENJOYERS COMING OUT OF THE WOODWORK, THANK U

Fallen London is a browser game you can find here! Basically, you go through stories, make choices, unravel the consequences of your choices, and slowly learn what's going on in this very strange world where Victorian-Era London has SUNKEN INTO THE EARTH and found a world of supernatural strangeness down in the 'Neath. The writing is sort of horror + darkly funny + very British, and the story/game is HUGE; I've been playing for a few months and feel like I've barely scratched the surface.

Samuel Ashman aka The Bloodstained Deacon is my Fallen London character, a wayward deacon of the Catholic church who ran away to London and immediately got involved in monster hunting and illegal fighting rings, as one does. I based him on Sammy originally because I thought that would be a fun character to explore this world through (and I was just in one of those modes where everything revolves around your blorbo), but I adjusted his name so that he could be his own character rather than just a silly fandom reference. Through the choices I've made and intriguing possibilities the game has presented me with, Samuel has become a completely separate guy to that source of inspiration I started with.

#askbox #ask shazz

[theseventrumpets]

A loud, trumpeting sound goes across the entire Plain. All cats are overwhelmed for a moment by an ethereal sense, something that they can't control and can't find the source of. The sky pulses white for a moment, but no one can tell if it was a hallucination or not.

♪ ♫ The Seven Trumpets Sound,   ♫ ♪

The cats of the Plain have experienced a lot of loss recently. With the Red suffering an attack from one of their own, the Pale discovering a monster in its depths, an illness finding its way into Black, and the White having its final battle with the raccoons, things don't seem to be going too well for them.

Trouble stirs, as Calandivaspade heightens tensions with the Red Face, Volcanicdiamond, bringing the two decks ever closer to war, while Turnclub suffers from losses after a war with raccoons, and his only ally, Aegisheart, is dealing with a mysterious disease with no cure. How will the canaries escape the coal mine when there's no exit in sight?

►► The First Trumpet Sings. ◄◄

This RP has been running for 10 months now, and after 3, I finally make the announcement that we are OFFICIALLY IN THE 1ST ARC!!!! THIS IS SO EXCITING!!! I have never run anything on this big of a scale before, and I hope so desperately to create a memorable experience for everyone involved. All of my members and moderators mean SO SO MUCH TO ME. It is truly amazing to me to see your creativity shine, and all the wonderful characters you've made so far. I'd love to see even more as time goes on!!

Now, of course, there's still room for those uninitiated. The current plot needs to be updated on the website, but if you hop in the server, you can get some pretty decent rundowns from fellow members if you're interested! You must be 18+ to join, there's no applications, and there's little to no restriction on the kinds of cat characters you can make in here.

If you’re interested, read below the cut to see more in-depth details about the server and story, or check out the links right below to get started on reading the lore, about the Decks, and so on. To join the RP, just go ahead and click the link to the Discord server! After you’re in, wait some time for our mods to check you over, and give you permission to join. I would love to see a batch of new members and potential helpers/mods in this first arc, so please please PLEASE take a looksie at my story, and I hope to see you there!!

♪♫♪► WEBSITE ► RULES ► SEND AN ASK ► DISCORD LINK ♪♫♪► SERVER ADOPTS ► ALLEGIANCES ► LORE ON TUMBLR

"We picture seven swinging branches, with seven swinging bodies--seven singing trumpets, with seven seals to come! We shall overcome!"

Here’s what you can expect from this RP:

► Oh god, there’s elemental magic built into the cats. ► It all takes place entirely in a world of my own, so there’s a shitton of worldbuilding! ► Paranormal and supernatural activities, including Gods and ghosts from the grave! ► Non-feline animals are allowed in limited quantities! ► There’s no Starclan, just Ad Infinitum and it’s subsections! ► A completely overhauled and hand-crafted Warriors ranking system! ► A mostly liquid time based RP, both in events, roleplay, and aging! ► Morally dubious and evil characters allowed in certain quantities! ► Neurodivergent/mentally ill/physically disabled characters are allowed with no restrictions or paywalls! ► Currency system to add rare traits to your cats, AND MORE! ► Occasionally fun games and events to earn you points for currency, as well as to bond with your fellow server-mates!

The Seven Trumpets is an 18+ horror Warrior Cats Roleplay based around the concept of a biblical apocalypse, inspired by the album 'Until The Horror Goes' by the band John Congleton & The Nighty Nite. It uses a lot of horror themes, though mostly focuses on psychological horror and the idea of unreality and fear, and how those can drive characters to survive, or cease surviving entirely.

This RP will focus on some darker topics, and gore will be featured from time to time. This RP may not be for the faint of heart, and I encourage you to make sure you can handle psychological horror before coming into this server! Although this RP is horror themed, it will not be purely angst and hardship. As the goal of the story is to stop an apocalypse, there will be themes of hope and light coming through the darkness, and characters finding the strength to keep pushing on even when everything is against them. Don't expect this server to be purely dark with no happiness, as that just wouldn't be fun for anyone to constantly deal with anxiety and pain and suffering all the time!

#wcrp #open wcrp #open wcrpg #open warrior cats rp #open applications #applications open #open warriors rp #wcrpg #discord wcrp #discord wcrpg #open discord wcrpg #warrior cats rp #warriors rp #discord warrior cats rp #theseventrumpets #warrior cats roleplay #the seven trumpets #the7trumpets #7t #important #pin #t1 #wc rp #wc rpg

[kristailine]

On Jun Kazama's personality

I have an on and off recurring tekken / kazujun phase ever since I shipped them when I was 7 years old lol. Whenever this phase occurs, I have the sudden urge to read and re-read all the kazujun fanfics and consume some canon content crumbs.

Besides this, a part of me still finds it difficult to conceptualize Jun's personality that is independent from all her ties with the supernatural and her relationship with Kazuya and Jin. The lack of information on the source material itself really allows for people to interpret her in different ways, mostly by making sense out of implicative instances and subtleties that's written in canon. I noticed the differences in interpretations mostly on fanfics.

Like I have read a ton of kazujun fanfics (fanfiction dot net, ao3, heck even tumblr and some on that dead tekken dojo website that was shut down a few years ago. You name it all) and almost all of them have in some way a very unique characterization of Jun.

Some older works stick with the orthodox, depicting her as like the purest and most tranquil person to have ever graced the Earth who also possesses little to no flaws. She's also often written as innocent and naive but has a strong willpower. I believe this kind of personality of hers was brought about thanks to the Tekken Motion Picture anime wherein Jun is very persistent about freeing Kazuya from his hatred and all that.

Other works that were made in the mid 2000s until early 2010s give her a little more dimension by making her a bit more playful and adventurous. Just like what a 22 year old woman would be (now I can somehow relate to this because I finally reached that early 20s age too and all I wanna do is explore and have fun in life).

It's not such an out of character kind of characterization to Jun when she's always been depicted as someone who's pure and tranquil. In fact, I do find this an interesting layer on her personality. Like imagine living in a remote island in Japan, learning martial arts, then probably relocating to the capital to study college (??) and get a job and become a wildlife officer then to join a freaking fighting tournament and become attracted to a man who's literally got the devil inside of him. Like if that does not scream adventurous to you then better read all that again. Miss girlie lived many lives lol. So I believe Jun being adventurous is not at all that oc, and it also adds to her fearless persona as it can be seen that she can manage change and foreign situations well (which also makes more sense how she even managed to bear with Kazuya)

Moving onto the more contemporary projections of Jun's personality as what I have observed in the mid 2010s to present fanfics. There's a theme in making her much more mature, kind of like someone who is very attuned to the ways of life. But despite that, they also show more of her humane side and her flaws (kind of like the opposite of how she's written in older fic works).

Now, I think this huge shift in how she's interpreted is because of the Tekken 6 monologue wherein Kazuya talks briefly about Jun. Then we also have Jun in TTT2. Lastly, I think Tekken Bloodline also played a role in solidifying this mature Jun personality (but to be fair tho, Jun's already a mother who's been raising her 15 year old son as a single parent on that show. I guess it's just appropriate that she becomes mature).

Anyway, I'm on this talk because all the interpreted Jun personality varies a lot and kind of clashes with one another. I only ever just realized how much I know nothing about Jun when I tried writing kazujun fanfics and realized how Jun's internal monologue keeps on having tone changes as if she isn't one person. Kinda felt like my interpretation of her is influenced by all the aforementioned personalities that I have observed in fanfics, but they all kinda clash so I need to straighten this out and try to flesh her out more so I can continue writing my drafts.

However, I do find it interesting that although the fandom really isn't given that much information about Jun, it's still very entertaining to see how different people would write and play her out in fanfics.

Tekken 8 better deliver a backstory about Jun hopefully, and also some good storytelling as well. Supporters of the franchise are long overdue with quality storytelling that provides answers to the many mysteries that surround Tekken. Most especially Jun because of her disappearance.

#kazama jun #jun kazama #kazujun #kazjun #kazuya x jun

[purlturtle]

Romance Tropes Bracket, Sweet Sixteen

In this round, we have:

Blue: Bodyguard vs. Workplace, and Second Chances vs. Nanny/Governess

Yellow: Mistaken Identity vs. Only One Bed, and Kissing Lessons vs. Forced Proximity

Red: Grumpy/Sunshine vs. Just To Get It Out Of Our System, and Holiday Romance vs. Soulmates

Green: Marriage of Convenience vs. Friends to Lovers, and Sworn Off Love vs. Supernatural

Find out tomorrow who's getting ahead! Tell me who your favorites are!

Under the Readmore I'll tell you why all of these won out against their opponents, and I'll link a few fics in which I've used these tropes!

Blue

Bodyguard was up against Love Triangle - and that was an easy choice. I don't GET love triangles; my first impulse will always be "porque no los dos? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" and most stories don't deliver that. It just doesn't grip me if someone feels themself drawn to two and "has to make a decision". (Am I poly? Probably. Am I happily married? Definitely. Anything else is between me and my wife. :D) (Have I been thinking for some time about a Bering and Wells Bodyguard fic? Most certainly.)

Workplace was up against High School: not quite that easy, especially since I wrote a High School fic myself! In the end it won out because (a) a lot more of my stories qualify as workplace stories and (b) there is just a lot more variation that's possible with a workplace story vs. a high school story. People can have so many different jobs, after all, which can inform the story!

Second Chances defeated Made A Promise (90s style) very easily - first of all, promises don't really hold my interest, especially when they are treated as set in stone for all eternity no matter how much the circumstances and/or persons involved might have changed. Second, and much more importantly: second chances are The Best. Let's face it, we all mess up, and sometimes incredibly badly. And you can do so much with that, narratively! It can move the plot, it can show the characters' character, it makes them change and grow, it is a fantastic source of conflict AND resolution! Top Tier, honestly (and a lot of my stories are that; most obviously the Strata/Commutata duology)

Nanny/Governess beat out Sibling's Best Friend only narrowly, because "employer/employee who's charged to care for employer's kids" is dynamic I just like ever so slightly better than "someone who's been hanging around our house since forever and teased me when I was a kid and ganged up on me with my sibling and now I ~like~ them". Just, nah. Both of them are pretty low on the list, though.

Yellow

Mistaken Identity *easily* vanquished Age Gap; I've never really been a fan of the latter. I like my protagonists to be in a similar place in their lives (which is also, by the way, why "Person A's first queer relationship, but Person B has been out for decades" doesn't grip me at all; at least not if the story focuses *entirely* on Person B helping Person A navigate this situation). I'd *MUCH* rather read Mistaken Identity Shenanigans!

There could only ever be one winner in the Only One Bed vs. Love Potion/Aphrodisiac fight: the latter is fun for a smut fic, but we're talking romance here, and I'd rather that does not start with overruling someone's agency. Although I have to confess I did write that 😅 (47K words of it, even! With not even all that much smut in it!) But nothing beats "there's only one bed" as a trope to get two characters physically, intimately close to each other!

Kissing Lessons won over Amnesia, even though I wrote a Tumblr fragment about the latter! But the thing is: that is fan fic about two characters we already know, so it hits hard; amnesia as a trope usually means that Person A starts out amnesiac or is only introduced with very broad strokes, and that just doesn't grip me. Whereas Kissing Lessons is something that I have done myself, so... *grins*

Forced Proximity also easily defeated Secretly A Celeb/Royal - one of my absolute faves, and thoroughly explored in my Road Trip Series linked above (Strata/Commutata). In all seriousness, though: Only One Bed is Forced Proximity too, just one specific instance of it, so that's a bit unfair - especially since the Green sector has yet another one (Snowed In)! But yeah, faced with this, what's a celeb or, sheesh, a *royal* (insert dripping snark here)...

This is getting so long that I'm gonna put the other two sectors in a reblog 😅

#romance tropes bracket #tell me your picks! #sweet sixteen #part one

[widowshill]

read me.

I. content advisory.

LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA, VOI CH'ENTRATE. this blog features violent content including (though not limited to) murder, suicide, and cannibalism/vampirism, as well as a narrative background of infidelity, period homophobia, questionable consent, and incest (among other staples of the gothic genre). graphic images will always be tagged. current warnings are as follows: gore tw, blood tw, noose tw, hanging tw, needles tw, nsfw tw. if you need anything else tagged, let me know and I will add it. I also liveblog my ds watch through here: the tag is "ds liveblogging." what I don't tag for: faceclaims, written descriptions of violence (unless extremely graphic), generally any supernatural violence (like vampires), or mentions of incest. this is the incestor vampire zone. blacklist any ship tag you want its free and I will never know. do not complain to me about a ship. do not pass go. do not collect $200.

II. source.

"Canon" is whatever to me and I'll be picking and choosing very liberally (as in: a box of legos, not a model ship). sometimes –– oftentimes –– I make decisions based on what is the most interesting /satisfying / fun to explore, rather than what I think is "right" or what the creators intended. that said, the og show and not the tie-ins –– audio dramas, comics, books, spin off shows and films –– are my canon for right now. I'm currently in the mid 700's of the show so I have quite a ways to go yet, I don't mind spoilers, and spoilers will be present here. (sorry!) I also won't remember every single detail and am liable to make a mistake now and then, don't feel bad about bringing it to my attention!

III. etiquette.

I don't mind personal blogs interacting and in fact cherish u. I ask that you please refrain from reblogging in-character writing between myself and my writing partners, but other than that, go crazy. I don't care if you practice reblog karma or not. send me 20 memes. send me 0. follow your heart. same goes for reblogging other stuff from me and not from the source. do not care, be free ♥ please, please, if you're going to block me, hardblock instead of softblocking. I am liable to think softblocking was a tumblr glitch or my own mistake. I promise I won't take a hard block personally!

IV. shipping

I love shipping a heck of a lot. I'm also multi-ship and I like to fill my plate by indulging in a little bit of everything. I ship Vicki with mostly everyone in some capacity except Jeff/Peter lmao (though I will keep her marriage to him as canon & its effects on her character) but by far, nearest and dearest to my heart is Roger & Victoria. to that point, I want to emphasize that I don't write her as Elizabeth's daughter. I have a longer write up in her dossier, but the tldr; is I follow the Hanscombe storyline with significant canon divergences.

#this looks so much longer and imposing when laid out linearly. im chill i swear i just wanna make sure we're all on Da Same Page.

[ivyial]

hii, how are you? I stumbled upon your page and I started to check it out, upon doing that I came across one of your eagleone posts, and how you view the ship or how you view people who dislike the shop entirely for no reason at all. and to be honest I couldn't agree more. your choice of words and how you describe just makes my heart feel hope again. hope that there's actual human beings that are using a gift called a brain for once.

it honestly drives me crazy to see people literally sending death threats and literal racism to those who ship a ship that isn't quite popular. another account just a few days ago that speaks alot about eagleone and analyses their scenes and dialogues, got literal death threats that would me a grown adult puke from how disgusting to know such human beings exist.

( didn't realize to be that long LMAO )

anyway I just wanted to say that I absolutely love all your eagleone content literally makes my day <3

i- 🥺🥺❤❤ omg thank you so much anon

i've never been one for ship wars. what bothers me the most about the eagleone discourse (and the current cleon discourse on twitter as well) is how likening characters to siblings (eagleone) or saying one views the other as a kid (cleon - insane take but anyway) eventually becomes "these characters are LITERALLY siblings, they are so sibling coded to me that it essentially makes them actual siblings" and creates a breeding ground for harassment and accusations of proshipping.

shipping has always been a matter of personal taste, and it's one of those few things in fandoms where there's no need to debate about conflicting ships. in the end, you can just agree to disagree. i like X for those reasons and you like Y for those. that's it. ships are usually better enjoyed with fellow shippers. it only risks becoming an echochamber when people start to take it so seriously that their group of shippers decides to hate on everyone else, and eventually, to harass them.

which is unfortunately what is happening right now. i'm very aware of the death threats and everything else, and it's sad and infuriating to realise that fandoms will never change. idk how old you are anon, or if you were around on tumblr when it happened, but a few years ago, the voltron fandom was a big thing around here (i apologise in advance to everyone who had to live through that lmfao). klance was arguably the biggest ship in the fandom (keith x lance), so the shippers were actively campaigning for it to become canon. it got to the point where klance shippers sent the show creators cupcakes filled with glass shards to convince them to canonise the ship. I WISH I WAS FUCKING KIDDING

this stuff's not new, bullying fellow fans isn't new unfortunately, and bullying actors or producers isn't either. if i remember correctly, when supernatural s4-5 (i guess) were airing back in the 2000s, dean's love interest jo was removed from the show supposedly because fangirls lost their shit and sent hate mail to producers. but that's all speculation, i can't find a reliable source for that.

i wish people would stop taking everything so seriously and get this nasty over fiction. however, it's unlikely that it will happen, because fandoms are filled with kids who don't know any better, are sometimes fully raised by the internet and then turn into immature adults. it's rare to find spaces in fandoms were you can genuinely have fun and create content without being policed by 12 year olds, but when you can, it makes the fandom experience a lot better.

i don't put much content out there, but i'm glad to see that the few posts i write are appreciated!! i'm working on an eagleone fic rn so it definitely makes me want to keep working on it regularly and create more content 😭

#resident evil #fandom #eagleone #leon kennedy #ashley graham

[ekanatsume]

Natsume Yuujinchou Rant!!!

Yes, I'm back on this again. I've been crying about natsume yuujinchou to my friends and decided to write long rants about this in tumblr to find fellow mutuals who are interested in ranting about natsume.

So, I've watched the anime when I was about 10-12 years old, and loved every bit of it. I loved it so much that I memorized some of the dialogues in Japanese. I've read the manga a few years ago and loved it even more. Lately, I felt so down probably because life felt too scary, so I turned back to one of my sources of comfort: Natsume Yuujinchou.

I think I have to thank Yuki Midorikawa for this masterpiece. I like how she doesn't treat Natsume as a "mere character in a manga" or as a creation. But instead, she treats Natsume as a human being. It's not "I'm making natsume to encounter new kinds of troubles in trying to fit amongst humans and youkais", it's "Natsume is trying to learn how to fit among humans and youkais", the latter being more powerful. I now keep rereading the afterwords because it's so interesting to see Natsume from the writer's viewpoint instead of my own viewpoint.

I don't know about you but I think the way Natsume Yuujinchou shows us how Natsume deals with humans, youkais and all his feelings is honestly very endearing. I don't mean the stories. Of course, the stories are very heartwarming and there's a tinge of sadness at how Natsume used to be in his past or how humans and youkai alike treated him. Not that. I mean, the thoughts. The feelings that Natsume has. The writing is so good that Yuki Midorikawa managed to express it all. The random moments when Natsume reflects on his current situation making parallels with his past is so very realistic. And the aftereffects of loneliness and the trauma he faces can't seem to leave him alone. The way he's healing after so long, after such a difficult past. The way he's anxious about losing it all. The writing and the art is magnificent.

The thing about Natsume Yuujinchou, what makes it so very different from other manga/anime, is that it's so realistic and mundane, a proper slice of life story even with its supernatural element. There is pain, there is sadness, there is fun, there is happiness, there is anxiety, it has it all. The reason why I always turn to Natsume might be because I can relate with it. I suppose a lot of people can. To understand and to be understood, I believe, is one of the things each and every human being desire. But often we lack that aspect in our relationships. To convey our troubles, our difficulties is sometimes too hard for us to do, which is why, often we are lonely, and resort to dealing with everything ourselves. But Natsume Yuujinchou teaches us that sometimes we can't do it alone. It obviously teaches us a lot of things but, there are moments where you feel understood when you read the manga. You understand Natsume and he understands you. A friendship with a character. I think there's no other way to express it. It makes you less lonely and more brave to create courage in yourself to move forward despite everything being too hard.

I grew up with Natsume. And I will continue to do so. Thanks to Yuki Midorikawa for producing this masterpiece and making it a long term manga, because in that way, I can see the world of Natsume changing and expanding along with mine. And that is one of the greatest feeling, to grow up with someone and see their growth alongside yours. Thanks Natsume.

Anyway, I'll end this rant here before I come back to start ranting about another aspect of Natsume Yuujinchou.

#natsumes book of friends #natsume yuujinchou #natsume takashi #nyanko sensei

[kasienda]

@steelblaidd - yes! For a whole second nursing session!! :)

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

Previously answered here.

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

Umm... I tried, but it didn't come out all that funny imo.

I did pull off a humorous story in Sailor Moon, but it's not to the level of crack.

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Previously answered here, but here's a second take.

If Alya could give me a lot of things that I need, I think I could give Kagami a lot of things that she needs. Someone who can listen, loves the bluntness, lots of patience, cooing over her art, just acceptance for exactly who she is, and we can geek out over manga together and how stupid everyone else is over boys!

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

There's a lot of adorable friendships in this fandom. The characters are just so human and wholesome. And the development of the miracu-class is one of the neatest things. Like watch origins or dark cupid and you can see they pick on each other, don't get involved, have their own cliques, etc. And then fast forward to like Guilt Trip. And they're just THERE for each other. There's adorable group hugs and love it any time they have a party of the Couffaine boat. I just love them as a community that grew into a really tight knit group.

The friendship I get most excited to see developed is still Adrien&Nino though, followed closely by Alya&Marinette and the four of them in general. And I also love the chaos of Marinette&Kagami.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 

I don't know about die to defend, but here's a few.

I hate the Luka & Juleka sibling retcon making them twins. I very much want them to be half siblings because their mom is into flings and not stable relationships. That moment when Juleka was filming Luka crying over his break up with Marinette, and doing nothing to make him feel better??? CLASSIC younger sibling!! LOVE IT!! Give it to me.

Similarly, with the huge spread of age differences in Alya's siblings, I need some of them to be step or half siblings. I headcanon Nora as a Alya's step sibling, and the twins as Alya's half siblings. I figure Nora is the daughter of her dad's second wife, and the siblings are the product of her mother's second husband.

I very much see Adrien as asexual or demisexual, especially when his love/attraction/admiration for Ladybug is contrasted with Marinette drooling over an ad. Haha! He could also be autistic, but he also doesn't necessarily have to be, but I enjoy reading autistic Adrien a lot.

Hardly unique to my head, but Marinette definitely reads as ADHD.

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

More than a few!

Fandoms that I am a fan of, but do not consider myself to have ever been IN the fandom and often love to see running across my dash and will even read fic for: ATLA, SpyxFamily, The Owl House, Dragon Prince, Good Omens, Harry Potter, Zelda - BotW

Fandoms that I have consumed at least some of the source material, but haven't been able to get into, but still often enjoy seeing art and reading discourse for: SheRa, Star Wars, Korra, Voltron, FF7, Batman, Superman, Invader Zim, Steven Universe

Fandoms that I am ONLY familiar with BECAUSE of tumblr: Dracula, Bat Fam, Julie and the Phantoms, Supernatural

I'm sure there are others in each category that I'm missing, especially that last one as I don't always remember the name of those ones.

This was fun ya'll! Thank you for all the asks!

Fandom Ask Game

#fandom ask game #miraculous ladybug #head canon #tangential fandoms

[vadergf]

exactly, EXACTLY! i feel like people in this fandom have no idea how fandoms work because you can literally do whatever you want. what do you think fanfic and art and aus and everything are for?? it's for exploring ideas about canon that you think are interesting/didn't get explored in the source material etc etc etc. and like. what happens in canon will never change that. like. supernatural for example. idk if u were ever into it but i assume you know about it because well. this is tumblr. but God it was so bad and the fandom's still kicking! istg like. you Have to be new here. if ur so mad about the ending make up your own! a bad ending to a series or piece of media or whatever is not the end of the world! i saw people doomposting sounding like they will never find another piece of media to love again because of this. like guys its ok. its fine because. again you can do whatever you want. i saw a post that said something along the lines of 'the characters are ours to use, you headcanons can't be decanonized now go wild.' like. YEAH. obviously. the characters have always been available to go wild with. they are characters. you can do whatever you want with them within reason obviously but like. i honestly don't get where all of this stuff is coming from in regards to taking characters away from the creators because you can do that no matter what. maybe i'm just so jaded and careless about it because ive been in fandom for a long time, but i think that some of the people on here are really uptight about aus and headcanons and stuff. like it's not real y'all. its fake so you can take any piece you want and make it real. just make shit up. its fun i prommy. and to get sappy for a moment, the fandom was always the life of the dsmp. ALWAYS. at least for me. all the fanwork and analyses and art and everything was the stuff that sucked me in and kept me here for so long. the creators have mirrored this statement over and over. and i feel like this goes along with the "dsmp is dead" idea that happened every couple of weeks a while ago. fandoms don't die the second the content stops. that's not how it works, a fandom dies when nobody is interested anymore. the fandom and the art and the analyses and the fic and the aus and headcanons etc are what gives like to a piece of media, not the other way around. at least for me. make fandom a living breathing thing with your work. just because you didn't like the ending doesn't mean it's all meaningless. people put time and effort into their art surrounding the dsmp and writing that off as a waste of time because of what is an unsatisfying ending to You personally is disrespectful and a slap in the face imo. some people really just dont get it i fear. BTW this isn't me saying the finale was bad lol im just repeating what ive heard others say about it. i havent seen it yet and im excited to!

so sorry to drop this massive ask into your inbox i kinda just started going and couldnt stop lol. been meaning to get a lot of this shit off my chest and i agreed with your post so it just happened to be in here! i hope it sort of makes sense lmao thanks for reading if you do

You're so right!!! I literally don't have anything to add

#long post

[deanfili]

Kili: WELL?? SAY YOU’RE SORRY!

Thorin: uhh

Kili: you can’t say it, can you.

Thorin: I can say it!

Kili: then say it!

Thorin: I’m...solly

Kili: did you just say you’re “solly”??

Thorin: I’m soggy

Kili: you’re “soggy”???

Thorin: I’m sarmy

Fili: —_—

#the hobbit #jrr tolkien #incorrect quotes #kili #lotr #thorin #thorin oakenshield #fili #uncle nephew relationship #incorrect hobbit quotes #source: @i make fun of supernatural characters on tumblr #tolkien #edit: ACTUAL SOURCE: looney tunes show

[mayihavethisdanse]

“What is this, the Dark Ages?”

Or, Arthurian themes and allusions in the Brotherhood of Steel mythos as seen in Fallout 4. (But that’s a lot of words.)

Yep. We're doing this. 

First, some obligatory caveats: there is no single Arthurian canon, just 1500 years of assorted fanfic based on the whims of whoever was writing at the time. For this extremely highbrow Tumblr meta, I have ignored most of it and drawn on my favorites. Also Wikipedia.

Also, I am not an expert in Arthurian literature (or Fallout lore, come to that), and I preemptively beg the pardon of anyone who is.

Finally, in no way am I claiming that all these parallels and thematic echoes are deliberate or even significant. In fact, I'd break it down into:

Clearly deliberate allusions, whether in or out of universe;

Probably coincidence, but could be someone deliberately capitalizing on a coincidental similarity;

Almost certainly coincidence, but fun to speculate about; annnnd

Blatant Monty Python references. (Because of course there are.)

I'll start with the big one.

Arthur Maxson, boy king and unifier

(source)

So across all the retellings and variations of King Arthur’s life story, there are a few consistent elements, particularly in his early life and rise to power. Some of these threads are echoed in the Fallout universe, specifically (and unsurprisingly) in the person of Arthur Maxson.

Both the legendary King Arthur and Arthur Maxson were born with a claim to power lying in their ancestry, both were fostered away from their families, and both proved themselves in combat at a young age. 

King Arthur united the warring kingdoms of Britain into a single entity, making them stronger against outsiders and receiving general admiration and acclaim. Arthur Maxson united the divided factions of the BoS after the events of Fallout 3 and is held in similarly high regard by his men.

The name Prydwen is a reference to the ship of the original King Arthur. Presumably, Arthur Maxson (or someone in the BoS who anticipated his promotion) christened the airship in a deliberate homage to the Arthurian myth.

King Arthur is associated with his legendary sword. I think it’s notable that Maxson’s legend is associated with a bladed weapon, too. ("He killed a DEATHCLAW with a COMBAT KNIFE!”)

Probably coincidence, but fun: the historical emperor Magnus Maximus, who pops up a lot in early Arthurian legend, was known in Welsh as... Macsen. (⌐■_■)

Round Table, but make it dieselpunk

(Continued under the cut.)

Moving away from obvious allusions and into some looser parallels:

Like the Round Table, the Brotherhood is an exclusive knightly order with its leader being the one able to open it up to his chosen few.

Like the Round Table, the BoS sees itself as defending human civilization against forces of chaos. (I’ll touch on their tech-hoarding tendencies when I get to the Grail stuff.) This idea of civilization in the face of chaos goes back to the BoS’s founding, even though the level of isolationism we see in most of the Fallout franchise is not exactly what founder Roger Maxson had in mind: “Notably, Maxson's ultimate intention was to establish the Brotherhood as an organization that works closely with people outside of the Brotherhood, as guardians of civilizations, not its gatekeepers.” (source) In a lot of ways, Arthur Maxson represents a return to his ancestor’s original ideals.

Renegade knights? Internal politics? Traitors within? We gotchu.

In both the medieval legends and in all chapters of the BoS we’ve seen, there’s a big focus on bloodlines (ew). Ironically, it’s probably Arthur Maxson’s unquestionable ancestry that allows him to be more progressive than either of his East Coast predecessors when it comes to boosting Brotherhood numbers by recruitment (even though you can still see a clear division between “born Brotherhood” and recruited soldiers, but that’s a topic for another day). Maxson sees himself as an Elder who "cares for the people"—however misguided and patronizing that attitude might be—and whatever else you might say about the guy, you can't say he doesn't believe he has a duty. Which brings us to…

Know Your Enemy: Danse as Gawain

Before I start this section, an acknowledgement of authorial bias:

Gawain, as portrayed in the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is my very favorite of King Arthur’s knights. (Other stories aren't always as flattering, but like I said at the outset: I'm sticking to the ones I like.)

That poem is my very favorite piece of medieval Arthurian literature. In this section, I'll refer to the modern English translation by Simon Armitage.

...that’s it, I have no other biases to disclose. 

What? 👀

(Art: Clive Hicks-Jenkins)

All right. So in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, you’ve got this himbo loyal knight of Arthur’s who finds himself caught up in... you know what, let me just paste in the Wikipedia summary. (The Toast, RIP, also did a pretty entertaining and more-or-less accurate recap.)

It describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who dares any knight to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him with his blow, at which the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head and reminds Gawain of the appointed time. In his struggles to keep his bargain, Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving the lord and the lady of the castle where he is a guest.

Don’t worry too much about the plot details, though; for this post, I’m more interested in the thematic parallels. The Green Knight story is full of contrasts: order vs. chaos, civilization vs. wilderness, mortal man vs. Other... but let’s start with Gawain himself. 

Some stuff to know about Gawain:

He was "as good as the purest gold, devoid of vices but virtuous and loyal". Gawain took his principles more seriously even than the rest of Arthur’s knights, not out of pride but out of humility: "I would rather drop dead than default from duty," he says. 

He’s faithful and honorable and never even tempted to betray an oath, even when offered every variety of seduction and riches, except for a single moment of weakness in a desperate desire not to be executed for random shit by powerful forces for reasons he doesn't understand.  

Even though he doesn’t really understand why he needs to die, he sticks to his oath. Gawain's one weakness is a moment of desperate, private, human desire for survival. He'll submit to the headsman’s axe if he has to, but he'd still rather live. 

Above all, Gawain is the ideal of a human man: he might be the bravest and loyal man there is, but he’s still fundamentally human.

You can probably see where I'm going with this.

A few more fun facts about Gawain that resonate with Paladin Danse’s story:

He’s got a bunch of really shitty brothers. (No comment.)

Gawain (SPOILERS!) doesn't actually end up beheaded, but he does willingly kneel for his execution and gets a cut on the throat as a reminder of his sin. And, uh, Danse can also get his throat cut! It doesn’t end as nicely but it’s, you know, a thing that can happen.

Gawain might be a really good guy, and he tries really hard to be one, but in the end he’s nothing more than that: there’s nothing supernatural about him, he has no special powers beyond his own principles and devotion. He’s just a dude doing his Best. 

Wait, why not Danselot?

Oh, that guy? Here’s the thing.

Lancelot personifies the continental ideals of courtly love that became popular in the High Middle Ages. Central to his story is the prioritization of personal relationships and romantic feelings in a way that you don’t really see in Gawain's, at least in the Green Knight tale. (Later stories hook Gawain up with an extremely delightful lady, but even that is a different flavor of romance than Lancelot's and has more to do with Gawain honoring his word and his egalitarian treatment of women (hell yeah). In the poem, Gawain is impressed by Bertilak's wife but resists her temptation; in fact, the biggest risk is not that he'll yield to her advances but that he'll be discourteous to her, i.e., violate his principles and cause dishonor to his king and his host.)

Lancelot is driven by passions over principles in a way that Gawain never really is (at least in the stories I’m talking about; later writers have committed character assassination to various degrees). Yes, you could argue that both Gawain and Lancelot betray their oaths, but Lancelot’s betrayal is never, um, blind. He knows what he’s doing and makes a deliberate choice to prioritize his love for the queen over his love for the king. It doesn’t make him a bad guy—he too is an ideal knight with one fatal flaw—but his character isn’t as comparable to Paladin Danse. 

Yeah, Gawain is (in most stories) a prince and a kinsman of Arthur’s, but he’s ultimately a native boy who doesn’t break the mold of a Knight of the Round Table. Likewise, Danse is portrayed as competent and valuable to the BoS, but not exceptional or breaking the mold of what a BoS soldier should be: he simply represents the ideal. Meanwhile, Lancelot is a foreign prince who was marked from childhood as special and fancy, and his storyline goes alllll over the place. (Much like this post.)

For example, Lancelot goes to absolutely absurd extremes to prove his devotion for no other reason than to prove it. (“I’ll do any useless humiliating thing you want. I’ll betray every oath except the one I made to you. That’s what love is!”) Gawain would never. Danse would never.

Ultimately, Gawain's tests are of his character and not of his love. And like Gawain, Danse’s devotion is to service and his principles, not to another person—even Arthur Maxson.

All that said, there are some similarities: both are beloved by Arthur, both are held up as the ideal of what a knight should be. And even if their fatal flaws are different, both make the point that no matter how good and brave and loyal they might be, no human being can be perfect. 

(Except Galahad. Who is, as a result, very boring.) 

I’ll conclude this section with a quote from someone else’s take on the Greek Knight poem:

I like Gawain. He’s not perfect, but he’s trying his best which is all any of us can do. He’s not like the other knights in the Arthurian legends who occasionally ‘accidentally’ kill women on their little adventures and then feel hard done by when they have to deal with the consequences of that. Gawain holds himself to a high standard – higher, it seems, than Arthur and his knights hold him to considering how hard they laugh when Gawain tells them how bad he feels about the whole thing.

I think Gawain is very relatable in this story. We all want to be better than we actually are.

And that, more than anything else, is Danse.

The Grail myth

What’s that? Lost relics of power? Better send some large armed men after ‘em!

The parallels to the BoS’s tech-hoarding ways are obvious enough that the games themselves lampshade them (albeit by way of Monty Python). But it also ties into the larger themes of “purity” versus “corruption” and the BoS’s self-image as a bastion between civilization and chaos. (See Maxson's line in response to the Sole Survivor’s quip about the Dark Ages: “Judging from the state of the world, it wouldn't be a stretch to say we're living in that era again.”)

But the ultimate futility of the Grail mission is also worthy of note. The BoS might want the power of prewar tech on their side, but they’re no more to be trusted with it than any other group of human beings. No matter how they try, the “corruption” of humanity can’t be overcome as long as they’re striving to harness power for their own ends. You can only achieve power by surrendering control of it.

The death of Arthur

The nature of gameplay being what it is, it's not guaranteed that the Arthur figure will be fatally betrayed, bringing Camelot down with him—but it's not unlikely, either.

Awkward.

Some final spitballing:

Outside the Brotherhood, there are some fun parallels of the Arthur myth with the rest of Fallout 4. Betrayal by one’s own son, for example.

The key difference between the BoS and the legendary Round Table: King Arthur’s knights, for all their flaws and human weaknesses, are usually presented as unambiguous Good Guys. The BoS is... a little more ambiguous...

...but damn if they don’t think they're the good guys. 

A-ad victoriam, fellas!

#fallout #fallout 4 #brotherhood of steel #arthur maxson #paladin danse #sir gawain and the green knight #sir gawain #gawain #knights of the round table #king arthur #elder maxson #fallout 3 #fallout lore #maxson #roger maxson #look mom I did a meta

[googledocsdyke]

Do you have any thoughts/recommended texts for Cas analysis? I genuinely love the dean gender studies and I just wanna know what people might apply to Cas.

yes absolutely!! while dean studies is my first love i also deeply love cas analysis (casnalysis?) and wanna strive to do more of it. here’s some stuff off the top of my head:

1. gender, sexuality, heavenly embodiment

this is much more theological and less psychological than dean’s whole Deal because there’s so much fascinating stuff around how the angels in general experience express and conceptualise gender (@autisticandroids has a good post about angel gender & lily sunder has some regrets) but for cas in particular there’s this fascinating kind of collective fandom agreement (which i DO also agree with) that cas’ own gender kind of is gay man, that he actively chose gay manhood, but also that he’s kind of..... lacking the Insane Genderishness that dean exhibits at all times, even though he actively chose to engage in male gendering and became so comfortable housed Within Jimmy that he, as some post i saw the other day that i can’t find anymore said, “became his own body” when jimmy died. 

like on the one hand there’s an almost-canonical transness to the whole process but it also never feels fully written-into because 1) the supernatural writers for all their insanity are sometimes very boring and *most* of the time only feel interested in narratively expressing angels As Their Vessels anyways and just like leaving convenient spaces around these questions (boldest thing they ever did was hot girl cas which i WISH i had the range to unpack) 2) there’s a vague inevitabilist shrug to the whole thing since they obviously weren’t gonna recast misha collins (though they HAVE tried to get rid of him) and 3) something amorphous about cas’ entire..... personhood? makes him Empty Of Gender as a contrast to dean’s Full Of Gender (i believe it was @deanwinchestergender who said this) and like is it just the juxtaposition to dean/jensen’s whole insane Deal? or something else? 

like he actively chooses the terms of his own embodiment and yet narratively it feels like a shrug. and we’re all like “well obviously even though he’s a celestial being he was always a gay man” and like WHY. i love it idk idk much to think about! and yeah just in general the theological questions of possession and cas genuinely Becoming a man as he iterates himself consciously towards humanity it almost feels like. by doing the most boring things possible with his gender they made it interesting? idk if that makes sense.

2. discipline, free will, metanarratives

cas is like a tool (“i am not a hammer, as you say”) held in constant discipline and surveillance by the system that enmeshes him and it’s really, really fascinating to watch the way the angels hold each other to conformity. especially pre-god they kind of produce each other as foucauldian disciplinary subjects (which i posted about here) in perpetual visibility through angel radio, generating their own and each other’s conformity rather than being directly ruled through like a single centralised source of power. only the spectre of a god. and obviously cas’ whole thing is that he has ALWAYS disobeyed and the narrative affords him this psychological interiority never given to the foucauldian subject, an internal will and desire for freedom in a way that fits more with the liberal subject (super roughly and not with the same pro-capitalist implications but he has this internal drive for self-liberation. 

and that’s also where the metanarrative comes in ofc! i think it was @dykecas who said that cas is a real person written by people who hate him, and there’s this crack in the narrative (mirroring the crack in his chassis) where cas gets in, over and over, despite all the order imposed by the show’s authorfathergod. like we’ve all seen the analysis about how it was Never supposed to be this way they DID try to fire misha collins in 2012 and yet this gay man literally cannot be stopped! i think actually his appearance in scoobynatural is a neat little distillation of this — he drops into this animated world originally with a singular purpose (Save Sam And Dean) the same way he dropped into lazarus rising with a single 3-episode arc (Save Dean). huge hammer behaviour. his “utility” diminishes within the narrative (he finds that he can’t fly in the scooby doo universe) and so he is no longer a tool/means to an end that salvation moves Through. and in the process (and huge creds to @lesbianyuugi for this) he does something ENTIRELY unrelated to his original cas-as-tool aim, and learns, like, the meaning of laughter from shaggy and scooby. WHICH brings me onto the third point

3. love, queer kinship, family-making

HE’S GAY AND HE’S A DAD! i feel like a lot of tumblr throws around the term “found family” in a very flat and tropey way (which is fine it’s cute and fun no matter what!) but like . GOD there’s so much specific stuff going on here. like the way that cas (unintentionally) obliterates the midwestern white christian nuclear family (made incarnate in the novaks) which like could be uniformly portrayed as an act of deep malice and villainy but instead grows to serve as a surrogate (if imperfect/complex, but DEEPLY loving) father figure for the gay daughter who has now escaped that nuclear family/seen it destroyed depending on how you read it? like he remasters the entire concept of fatherhood and it’s a very interesting (if DEEPLY) unintentional subversion of the homewrecking non-nuclear gay trope. cas is so good because his character arc doesn’t say “look, gay people can be normal and have perfect settled families just like you” it says “gay people DON’T have normal settled families actually and they are full of love anyways! or Because of the abnormalcy itself!) 

to cite ziz lesbianyuugi again he DOES queer fatherhood in his parenting of jack particularly because it really is one of the ONLY parent-child relationships in the show that breaks the incessant cycle of abuse and control and cold indifference perpetuated by the authorfathergod (a cycle reified in 15x20 lol). like god’s treatment of cas and his siblings mirrors john’s treatment of sam and dean (particularly dean) mirrors victor’s treatment of krissy and her crew mirrors dean’s later treatment of jack. there is a CONSTANT reiteration of the story of authorfathergod (often a father tightly entwined in biological kinship) treating a child as a mechanism or a tool or a means to an end. and cas looks at ALL that he has suffered and all that he is ever known and chooses constantly to reject it with every piece of love he expresses for his child. and not to sound like the kind of academic people make fun of on twitter but there is an INHERENT queerness to that. gay love will pierce through [the veil of death/the thick silence of abuse/the mechanism of godly control/hegemonic american masculinity] and save the day

anyways here are some very haphazard recs on everything above for further reading:

angels in america (tony kushner)

histrionics of the pulpit: trans tonalities of religious enthusiasm

the public universal friend: religious enthusiasm in revolutionary america

discipline and punish (michel foucault)

friendship as a way of life (michel foucault)

the genesis of blame (recommended by @pietacastiel who has GREAT theology content in general

all about love (bell hooks)

the chapter “when hated characters talk back” in anti-fandom: dislike and hate in the digital age (is actually explicitly about cas)

also cannot recommend enough following the ppl i tagged above!! most of the unlinked stuff is available through http://libgen.li/ and bookshop is a good alternative to amazon if ur american and want physical copies

#thank you so much for this ask it was a delight to answer #spn #casnalysis #making a tag officially #gendernatural #long post

[attractive-nuisance-esq]

Here’s the thing: After 15x18 - after Castiel’s confession - I will be devastatingly heartbroken with any ending less than a full, explicitly romantic relationship between him and Dean.

Let’s be clear: If they hadn’t had Cas confess, I wouldn’t be terrified about what they’re going to give to us on Thursday night. We’d all made our peace with Destiel never going canon. We never, ever in a million years expected to actually get it. All of us shippers were content to live with what we got on screen, determined to see it live on in our fanfiction, with faith in the fandom to tell the story of Dean and Castiel. We were fine. We were excited! The ending of any show is a momentous occasion, but the ending of this one? With this fandom family? After this long? No matter what happened, it was going to be something we’d cherish forever.

Instead, in the third-to-last episode of all time, Supernatural gave us a confession of love from one of its most beloved characters to the hero of the story. And we all lost our minds. Quite rightfully! We never, ever thought it would happen - no matter how much sub there has been in the text over the last 12 years. You know why? Because of Disney.

We’re used to the Disney version of LGBTQ representation. The kind where about a month before a movie comes out, we see a flurry of articles published about how there will be a “gay character” in it - somehow always for the first time. And the character is always gay; nobody cares enough to draw any distinctions within the community. All of human sexuality that isn’t purely straight is purely gay. *cue the eyerolls* And maybe the first time we got a little excited. (Probably not, but go with me here for a sec.) Maybe for Beauty and the Beast, we thought, “Oh, LeFou was kind of a fun character in the cartoon version. Maybe it’ll be cool to see him have a crush!” But always and inevitably, the “representation” is one of two equally hurtful things: 1) the character’s sexuality is bluntly on display, but it’s a source of ridicule for the person, and the audience is encouraged to laugh at it “with” the character (o hai, LeFou); or 2) the scene is less than two seconds long, or the character is unnamed, or the circumstances of the “representation” are such that they can easily be cut from the project for foreign audiences or swept under the rug in the minds of viewers who’d rather not admit that queer people exist (what up, Star Wars and Endgame?).

And that shit really fucking hurts. We’re told to shut up and be grateful, even enthusiastic that mainstream fiction media noticed we’re here at all. But we’re never main characters. Our stories are never told. This part of our identity is not only left unexplored; it is so exploited for woke points as to be made the single most defining thing about us. It’s offensive, over and over again, to have us included solely because of how we are different.

It fucking hurts.

Things are changing, slowly. We’re starting to get some deeper, three-dimensional representation in television and film. It’s not all starting out in 2005 on the same network that brought us 7th Heaven anymore. My niece is 14-years-old and out, and she will never remember a time when she had to scour the Internet to see queer versions of her favorite characters; she just has them. But all of us adults, well... chances are, our journeys have the potential to look a lot like Dean’s. We didn’t get to come out in high school. We didn’t let our younger selves think too hard about what we knew in our hearts would make us happy. It took us longer to arrive at a place of security and safety in order to be able to admit to ourselves and others who we are. Hell, the whole damn process of recognizing human sexuality is fluid might have taken us years!

Us queer adults - the ones who have been watching and loving Supernatural for longer than its younger audience - can now taste the possibility of seeing something that probably looks a lot like our very own romantic and personal experiences in Dean Winchester. We’ve been celebrating bi!Dean for years on our own, picking up the crumbs the writers give us and clutching them tightly, because what a gift it would be to see this good man, this hero as one of our own! And now... we’re so close to actually seeing it. On screen. For real and for sure.

These last two weeks have been incredibly difficult. We’re ecstatic! Wildly so! What other kind of reaction would we have to the writers allowing Castiel to admit these feelings we’ve all thought would only ever exist in our heads? But we are equally anxious, wary, and - quite frankly - battling hopelessness. Supernatural doesn’t have a great track record with these things. Everyone on Tumblr - even those that don’t watch this show - is well aware that this one is the master of queerbaiting. And then there’s Disney banging around in our skulls, a psychological trauma sounding again like an alarm. We’ve been burned so many times before, by other mainstream media and by Supernatural itself. It feels crazy to hope. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched the confession scene; I still can’t believe it’s real. A male-shaped main character said “I love you” to another male-shaped main character. It can’t be cut out and ignored, or brushed aside as platonic. It wasn’t a joke at the expense of queerness. It happened. It was big, and it was right there.

And now we are so, so close. Fuck.

That’s why if Supernatural doesn’t follow through and give us Dean and Cas unequivocally in love in the final 42 minutes of this beautiful, ridiculous, wonderful, preposterous, absolutely WILD show, it’ll just completely fucking break me. It will be the worst kind of tease, the deepest cut buried in the briniest salt. If they hadn’t given us Castiel’s confession, we’d have no expectations. But they did. And now, if they don’t deliver after all that’s been said and done...

...it will utterly shatter my fragile little bisexual heart into a million fucking pieces.

#supernatural #destiel #dean winchester #Castiel #spn #spn family #Misha Collins #lgbtq representation #lgbtq characters #lgbtq rights #spn finale #spn 15x18 #supernatural 15x18 #spn 15x20 #supernatural 15x20 #deancas #dean/Cas #jensen ackles #Castiel’s confession #fuck you disney #bisexual #bi!Dean

[kaypeace21]

Will’s fear of clowns

*Ps -not mine. this is a submission from an anon. tw: for s.a. It’s an interesting submission. ANON-please make a tumblr account already . I’m begging you XD

Hi! It’s me, Lonnie Meth Anon. Back with more depressing thoughts about Lonnie!

I just read your post on Jonathan’s ab*se at the hands of Lonnie, and I second it all. It breaks my heart. But it also got me thinking deeper about Will’s fear of clowns. I think you’re right that part of the horror for Will is that the clown attacks in bed. The bed is, obviously, like you say, a common site for s*xual assault. (Doesn’t El’s picture of “three legged Brenner” also have a bed in it? In a picture with not much else?) The fact that Will needed Joyce to sleep with him for a week suggests he was specifically feeling unsafe in bed, or at night. 

But maybe it’s not just the location of the attack in Poltergeist that Will found so harrowing. Maybe it’s the combination of that location with the fact of a clown being the attacker. 

I think Lonnie might have dressed up as a clown for Will’s birthday one year, and something happened. 

In this instance, I don’t think Joyce would know what happened. I think the incident in her mind would be something like “Lonnie dressed up and Will was scared of the costume”. She might even have thought it was cute. Just a typical little kid fear of something mundane. When she teases him about Poltergeist, she doesn’t actually say the movie was the START of his fear of clowns. Just that he was afraid of that particular clown. The general fear of clowns could have been an older one, going back to when Will was even younger.

Maybe Will even liked clowns, before whatever happened with Lonnie turned them into a source of fear for him. Will has a lion plushie (lions are commonly found in the circus) and the circus seems like the kind of vibrant, colorful environment full of outcast, that a young gay kid would really enjoy. If Will did like circuses and Lonnie poisoned that for him, that’s just another reason to hate Lonnie. But it definitely seems possible. 

Lonnie is a deadbeat dad in general, but we’ve seen before that he’s capable of faking the “family man” act in front of Joyce and their neighbors. We’ve also seen that even though he treats Will horribly, he would also try and keep Will on his side with father son bonding activities, like baseball. And Will’s birthday is one of the few occasions Lonnie makes a half-assed kind of effort, even when there’s nothing directly in it for him. He sends that card, even though it’s late. Maybe Joyce made called him up and made him send it, but she always seemed happy to keep Lonnie out of the picture. She didn’t even want to involve him when Will went missing. And we know Jonathan would never try and facilitate more interactions between Lonnie and Will. So it seems like Lonnie did this of his own accord, when he realized he’d missed the day. Kind of weird. And it’s classic abuser behavior, to make contact on an anniversary date, reminding you they exist and you can’t escape them. Reminding you to keep quiet. Or hoping you’ll miss them, remember the “good times” when they made an effort, and let them back into your life. (Ugh.)

So, anyway, back to my theory. Young Will likes circuses, and the Byers family are poor, so they can’t afford to take him to one, or throw him a party at an ice cream parlor or a bowling alley, like other kids. It makes sense that they would have a party at home instead, and that the family themselves might dress up. We know Joyce made Will’s Ghostbusters costume in season two, and a clown is a pretty easy costume. Most of it is just make up. It’s possible the whole thing was Joyce’s idea, and she made the costume, and Lonnie just went along with it to look like a good dad in her eyes. 

Remember how we see Bob (Will’s new father figure) dressing up in costume for Halloween? Joyce loves it. This is a thing good dads do, to have fun with their kids. That’s also the same episode we see Will scared by a guy in a clown costume, and Jonathan is hyper-protective of him that night. School is okay, but he doesn’t want him trick or treating. (Like he knows that school is a safe environment, but in other contexts, costumes and parties might be a trigger for Will.) Jonathan is convinced to leave Will and “let him have fun” and what happens? The clown attacks. Later that night Jonathan goes to a costume party himself, where he finds Nancy upset and takes her safely home.  Maybe this is how Will’s birthday party ended - with Jonathan finding Will upset, and trying to comfort him. The whole night could be playing out like a parallel to that birthday party, from Jonathan’s perspective. 

What actually happened with Will and Lonnie is up for debate. It’s possible there was a s*xual assault, and that’s why the clown scene in Poltergeist was such a trigger for Will. Or maybe Lonnie thought circuses weren’t “manly” enough for his son to like, and actively tried to scare Will, so he wouldn’t like them anymore. It’s hard to know. Something would have happened though, and probably something pretty formative, because the fear of clowns lasts a long time. 

Something else interesting is that when Mr Clarke is talking about the Upside Down in season one, he uses the metaphor of the flea and the acrobat. Acrobats are a main act in the circus, and, well … fleas. Flea circuses. That’s a thing. Maybe it’s a hint that the trauma that created the Upside Down was circus / clown - related?

Kali, El, and their gang wear clown masks too, when they’re going to confront their childhood trauma, and the child-like Alexei is surrounded by clowns when he is killed at the fair. 

Clowns are just so associated with birthday parties and little kids, that it doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me they’re Will’s biggest fear. Especially as the show keeps dropping hints about Lonnie and Will’s birthday. It feels like there’s more to the story. I have a horrible feeling SOMETHING happened. 

RESPONE (kaypeace):

I think it’s very possible-that maybe he did dress as a clown for Will’s birthday and something happened. We have alexi (paralleled to Will) playing carnival games with kids. Then he's attacked by the Lonnie-look alike : and alexi looks at his wound then stares at all the clowns laughing around him. Joyce and Murray find Alexi bleeding/dy*ng next to a clown statue. As joyce looks in horror and Murray says to her, he was “only gone for a second” (which sounds like something you’d say in relation to a kid you were supposed to watch-running off ). We also had sarah at age 7 die while wearing a gown with clowns on it (Will: it was a 7 the demogorgan it got me). Death of innocence symbolism? Hopper also describes his depression as a cave- he goes through the carnival ride where it mentions a "cave of horrors", which had decor of a tiger and a clown painting. So yeah... whatever happened probably isn't good. So- there may be some symbolism there in relation to Will’s past. Not only because (like I and you have mentioned before) Lonnie is highly associated with birthdays. And canonically we know he mentally scarred jonathan on his b-day. But also, s4’s ‘victor creel’ may be an easteregg to the xmen character victor creed- who had a tradition of tra*matizing family members specifically on their bdays

As another alternative:I could also totally see Lonnie “ruining” circuses for Will because it’s not “manly” to him. Like how Jonathan liked thumper the rabbit-from the film bambi. in the film, Thumper is bambi’s bff, and the hunters are the bad guys who k*ll Bambi’s mother and terrorize all the wildlife. SO yeah- making Jonathan become a hunter, and k*ll a rabbit ,despite this fact, is really messed up. And shows Lonnie has already tried to ‘ruin’ things the boys like. By mentally scarring them in one way or another…

I also mentioned how Will’s bday could even be a trigger for jonathan in a diff post.

if the s4 bts calender hinting it’ll be near Will’s bday and easter it could be relevant to Jonathan.we know in s1 el has tra*matic flashbacks when seeing certain things- coke, closet, cat, etc. And Will in s2 has his ‘anniversary effect’ where memories flood back based on the time of year.But like … Easter has bunnies - could seeing rabbits jog stuff up for Jonathan? El seeing a cat made her have a flashback of brenner trying to make her kill a cat. Would Jonathan seeing like Easter bunny decor jog up a flashback of lonnie making him kill a rabbit? (It happened on his bday too). So Will’s b day being around easter would only fuel that memory. (heck even popped balloons may trigger gunshot symbolism idk). And then for Will there is clowns that could be a tr*gger at a party.

The flea and the acrobat analogy (in relation to Will and circuses is very interesting) and could be foreshadowing- it’s even a title for an episode so I feel like it’s narratively an important hint to …something. similar to a s1 ep being called “the bathtub”.  Also, Will was compared to a circus flea- which were placed in an enclosed space, where heat was applied as they jumped  and tried to escape the increasing temperatures as they burned .Which could relate to my theory about Will having a se*zure due his body overheating due to Lonnie injecting him with m*th.

 If Will’s bday is in s4- I feel like Lonnie will come back in some capacity (flashback or literally). The ‘sorry, I forgot you b day’ card from Lonnie in s2, in Lonnie’s shed Joyce mentioning Will’s b day, the rainbow ‘happy birthday cup’ placed next to Will at Mike’s -while Will explains the supernatural, Lonnie already tra*matizing Jonathan on his bday, etc…

#submission #stranger things theory #will byers #lonnie byers

[lov3nerdstuff]

Hi Kay!

I just wanted to take a moment and say how deeply moving (and overall comforting) I find your writing to be! I've gone through almost the entirety of your masterlist twice in the past month alone and have found myself returning more often to the pieces of literature/poems your reference sometimes. (Especially that one poem by Benedict Smith! I've read a few more by him because of you and they're just wonderfully lovely 💛 so I'm eternally thankful to you for including it.)

I may be wrong in assuming, but I believe you may have studied/are currently studying a degree involving literature. I hope this isn't too foreward of me but I was wandering if you have any other works of literature that you'd recommend? (I'd love to read anything you recommend from poems to plays 💛) I'm slightly embaressed to say but the works I've read are quite limited to a highschool level and since I'm currently studying Pharmacy, there are very few people who can recommend me such moving works. :)

I also feel like I should apologise for writing such a large ask, so please accept this apology as well hehe 💕🥺

Sincerely,

Bek 🌻

Hey there Bek 💚💕✨

First of all... I'm incredibly sorry for how long it took me to reply to this ask, I know you sent it weeks ago and I'm honestly just ashamed of myself for only replying now! I've been taking a bit of a Tumblr break again, or rather a break from literally everything, and I guess not having written anything in a while made me feel guilty whenever I opened Tumblr, so... All I can say for myself really is that I'm sorry you had to wait so long! Again, I never ever ignore anyone, I promise! It just sometimes takes a while for me to reply 😅🙈

Now, I'm so happy to hear that you've been enjoying my writing! 🥺🥰 Hearing that it's comforting and inspiring to you is honestly such a relief and indeed does make me happy more than I can say 💚 It's so cool that you're checking up on all the references I make aaahhh 🥺🥺🥺 I love it 😁 You're always more than welcome, love! I don't think I could stop including references to literature, culture, history and the science around it even if I tried 😅☺️

And yeah, I did study classics and newer literature as a minor for my undergrad degree 😄 But tbh I still work with literally a lot even now (I'm in grad school for media and cultural studies) even though it's technically not something I've been properly taught ☺️ I'm just a nerd who likes to learn on her own, and with media and culture you can pretty much delve into almost anything you want 😂😅🤷🏻‍♀️

Now, it's not forward at all to ask me for literature recommendations! 😁😃 I truly love recommending stuff!!! I have a few up my sleeve, even though you've probably heard of a few already, for obvious reasons: A lot of what I truly enjoyed reading was something Tom Hiddleston has worked on in one way or another! It's truly a magnificent guideline for picking new literature... Just look up the literary origins of his films/shows/plays and you will be in for quality literature most of the time! I don't think I've ever mentioned it on here, but me reading High-Rise (JG Ballard) because I heard Tom would be partaking in the film adaptation was actually what sparked my love and passion for literature!!! Yep, it's that good. Now on to the recommendations though 😁(This... got rather long):

Plays

Anything by Harold Pinter really, but for obvious reasons you'll find a lot of additionally fun stuff for Betrayal, which is lovely and truly funny if you're in on the kind of humour btw

Medea by Euripides (a classic, but I love it nonetheless... You can find translations in almost every language) ((and pls stay away from Seneca's Medea, because ugh... Euripides is far better AND the og story, as much as anyone can say that for Greek mythology)

La Bohème by Puccini (I know, this is technically an opera, but if you read the libretto it's honestly just like a play... And if you're up for it, the og story is in prose and written by Henri Murger... It's better than the opera, but oftentimes more difficult to find) ((this one is hilarious and basically explains an entire cultural subgroup in the 19th century)

Faust by Goethe (many people hate it, but I LOVE this one!!! It's also been translated into any and every language, and it's so interesting philosophically!!! It's also referenced SO freaking often literally everywhere, and the operas and ballets based on it are always my fave) ((there's technically Faust I and Faust II, but you're good to go just reading the first one)

Anything by Shakespeare, obviously... Though I do love me my Hamlet like every other literature enthusiast (Yes, I can do that one famous soliloquy in act 3 scene 1 by heart as well...)

Poetry

Again, anything Shakespeare for the win, but I LOVE the sonnets and keep a copy of them with me most of the time (Yes, I own multiple copies of the sonnets...) ((My faves are 116 and 91, but there's always so much truth to be found in there!!!))

A lot of the stuff William Blake wrote is amazing, though you have to pick carefully with him if certain religious motives aren't your thing... I love The Tyger, which is an individual poem, and the collection of works called Tyger, Tyger which does have many good ones and a few ones that are a little more on the mediocre side

Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas (I know this one by heart as well... It's beautiful, and there's a version of Hiddleston reading it on YouTube, which gives you even more goosebumps than the poem does anyway)

Invictus by William Ernest Henley (same for this one, also read by the one and only) ((I love to read this when I'm feeling down or powerless))

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot (This is another wow piece with many quotable lines and truths... I love it a lot and keep coming back to it! It's also a great example of how literary modernism tried to condense the complexity and passing of time and history into a single frame that had to be intrinsically poetical in nature... As in, this poem could've been a short story in any other period, but modernists loved to make everything a poem so here you go)

Der Zauberlehrling by Goethe (This one sucks in all English translations I’ve found, poetically speaking, but in German it’s such a fun piece! If you’ve ever seen the Disney ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ with Mickey Mouse or listened to the orchestral piece by Paul Dukas, then this poem proves very useful in truly understanding either! But again, the English translation should only be taken for informational value... The German one is also worded hilariously)

Prose

Short edited by Alan Ziegler (This is a collection of short prose forms that honestly is a must for me... I love this book to pieces and have had it for years now! It’s an international anthology, so you’ll find more and less famous authors from all around the world represented with short stories, prose poems, short essays and just curious and interesting snippets of writing! I draw a lot of inspiration from this book)

High-Rise by JG Ballard (As mentioned above, I owe this book part of my personality... I don’t think I would be the same person without having read it. It’s not necessarily full of wisdom, but if you’re interested in a different kind of portrayal of the human condition, then this is the read you need to take a look at)

The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers (This is another piece that changed my perception of literature, even though this is a more ordinary and ‘fun’-value read... It’s one of my favourite books and it’s endlessly entertaining! So if the classics are a bit heavy for you, this one is perfect for casual readers as well! Its value really does lie more in the realisation of how fun literature can be, and the freedom you have as an author... So really, I could recommend everything by Moers, his style is amazing both in the German original and in the English translation. Yes, I’ve read both.)

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (This is comedic gold, stylistic gold and generally a bloody perfect book. Also a ‘fun’-value read, but it also does a magnificent job at showing you what you can do with literature, and how well-developed characters are supposed to be written)

The Penguin Book of the Undead (Penguin Classics) edited by Scott G. Bruce (This book is basically an education on fifteen hundred years of supernatural encounters and how culture wrote, used and perceived them. You get introductory texts for different periods and social groups, explaining how and why ghost stories were written and used, followed by passages of the prime source texts (eg. ancient necromancy shown on The Odyssey). Really, this book is just for cultural history nerds)

The Earthquake in Chile by Kleist (This isn’t necessarily one of my faves, but it has helped me understand what studying literature and culture can do for you. In case anyone remembers my insistence in Wicked Game that you gotta know what a pomegranate symbolises... this novella is such an instance where this knowledge would prove useful. Generally, it gives many opportunities to think about privilege and circumstance)

The Symposium by Plato (You’ll probably not want to read the entire collection of speeches tbh... But the concepts introduced mainly here and in some of Plato’s other work are well worth looking into! For example, the ‘double being’ introduces a concept that in modern fiction is called soulmates... Just sayin’)

#literature #lit rec #recommendation #literature recommendation