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esther-dot · 2 years

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I actually don't understand those Jonsa shippers who stan Dany. They claim that we who believe in Dark Dany only because it comes between our ship. We hated Dany irrespective of our ship. Yes she did come between Jon and his relationship with his family and friends and tried to alienate him from them. Then they mock us for thinking Pol!Jon is true. It's not us who are petty for believing in Jonsa and Dark!Dany but them for creating false perspective of our fandom.

I’m going to assume a few things are going on there, anon. The most important being, people engage with ships in a lot of different ways. Some don’t care at all about a ship being canon, they’re only here for fanon content. For Jonsa specifically,

some shippers never thought or wanted Jonsa to be canon in books or show

some thought Jonsa would be a political arrangement with no romantic feelings between the two (at least initially)

some thought Jonsa wasn’t a show thing but would be a book thing

some thought it was a show thing and not a book thing

and then with each of these you had the additional elements of Dark Dany/PolJon:

some were Dark Dany/PolJon/Jonsa truthers for the show

some were Dark Dany/Jonsa truthers, but not into PolJon

some people hung out with Jonsas even thought they didn’t like Jonsa but they did believe Dark Dany and PolJon

some never thought any of it was real but enjoyed the theories

You get the idea. Lots of ways to subdivide our corner of the fandom. I can understand that if you didn’t buy into Dark Dany, like, if you didn’t see it coming at all, and then you watched s8, it would be easy to get sucked into thinking it was a last minute twist and sexist in nature. I mean, most of us hate having a man kill his lover. It’s gross. As an advocate for curating your fandom experience, I know just how easy it is to be insulated form opinions you don’t like. So, it’s a real possibility that they didn’t read any of the good meta and assumed the worst about those of us who liked Dark Dany/PolJon etc. And the last season, especially the last episode, was so bad, people didn’t have much motivation to revisit different interpretations, so for some people, we were living in parallel universes, theirs more influenced by Dany standom.

Now, we have a wealth of Dark Dany meta, we have the predictions for it in the show and the fact that it happened just as predicted, but, even so, a lot of people don’t accept it. This post which shows the Nazi imagery in Dany’s scenes across several seasons to me ends the discussion about it being a last minute thing, but for others, it doesn’t. Not believing it is likely correlated with being involved in the fandom early on, when Dany was unquestionably a, if not the, hero, and the accepted endgame was a Targaryen restoration. So, Jonsa kinda had to be a non canon ship for them. After s6, there was an influx of people who thought it was real, because of how show Jonsa was clearly, intentionally, paralleled with NedCat, and the Dark Dany thing had really become more widespread so it didn’t conflict with the accepted endgame (there were a lot of different ideas then!), so it seemed like a possibility. But if you’ve already created your bubble, you aren’t necessarily open to new interpretations. And, it has to be said, as much as I believe that Jonsa was implied visually, the same way Dark Dany was communicated visually, Jonsa was never acknowledged. So you and I were wrong too. I mean, I still think it was a thing, but if I’m gonna say that, I can’t be too angry other fans don’t want to admit they were wrong. I’m technically wrong too!

As for PolJon, if you’re a person who believes Dany is a hero, that there was never a chance for show Jonsa, then a theory like PolJon could seem like a desperate attempt to get what you want. “Why would Jon be using Dany (a hero)? That would be awful of him!” I agree with you that that’s a misunderstanding of us, and there were a lot of people who weren’t Jonsas who thought PolJon had to be a thing, but they all believed Dark Dany too. I can understand that if you think of Dany the way I think of Sansa, it’s a theory that would seem disgusting to you. I’m disappointed that people didn’t/won’t acknowledge the main motivation was that we knew Dark Dany was coming and we were trying to figure out how Jon fit into that and we figured he was the betrayal for love so 2+2=4. But again, if you never consider Dark Dany as a seasons long story, people can’t accept it.

Anyway, I hate it when people willfully misunderstand me too, but try not to let this get to you. It’s annoying to be mischaracterized, but the main people who say that are angry Dany stans who hate Sansa—not Jonsas. Among the active Jonsas now, we have a blend of all the possibilities I mentioned and it makes no difference to me what their personal interpretation of GoT is. I enjoy their metas, edits, fics regardless!

#ask dot

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peemil · 1 year

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i saw a post earlier today about how the meaning of “ship” in fandom has shifted over time, from previously meaning “this is a dynamic i am interested in exploring in fanon” to becoming “this is a relationship i need to become canon.” (readmore because i don’t really want this post to gain traction, just want to see what my friends/mutuals/followers think about this since i’m open to hearing different perspectives on this)

part of me wonders if the shift in question is partially responsible for a huge portion of modern fandom d*sc*urse, because we have two generations of fans using the same word very differently: one meaning that it’s your “one true pairing” and need to get the creators of the work to canonize it and show their support for it, and another not necessarily meaning you believe in it or support it or even like it, but are intrigued by what other people have to say about it.

i generally think there’s some romantic or sexual dynamics between that are... kind of weird for you to be overly explored, like if you’re writing smut of underage characters from bluey please please please stay away from me. but there is a difference between saying, “i think it would be interesting to see what other people have to say about this” and treating relationships between fictional characters as like, some sort of fanatical religion, that by being interested in it you see no issue with any aspect of it, that you are genuinely attracted to all aspects of it, and that you need other people to “convert” to your ship and support it too (and what better way of getting people to do that than the creators making it canon).

like, let’s take krisnix for example. i don’t want them to be endgame. that relationship would be toxic and disgusting and miserable (and miles is LITERALLY RIGHT THERE) and i don’t want to see phoenix living with the man who ruined him for the rest of his life. but i think saying they never had sex even once during the 7 year gap is also... just factually incorrect lol. i think the idea of hating someone so much you have to have sex about it, like fucking bonobos, is worth exploring in fiction, i think the idea of them fucking to get “closer” to each other to get more intel is so spy movie, and also i’m Very Fucking Nosy and want to know if it was completely impersonal, treated like a business deal, and done only under the harsh fluorescent lighting of an office bathroom (which is kind of a fetish in itself), or did they have their own idiosyncrasies and sexual quirks that were employed consistently and intentionally? and these aren’t questions i really have the answer to, so i look to other people’s interpretations to see what they have to say.

again, there’s no interest here in the two as a romantic couple. there’s no desire to see anything happening here long term. but i’m an adult, they’re both adults, and adults do stupid things sometimes for kind of crummy reasons. and saying that matter-of-factly is very different from saying, “ah, yes, this is a good thing that should continue for the rest of eternity, because i believe this is fundamentally good.”

on the other hand, you have s*f*kuras (censored because i don’t want them finding this), some of whom are just like “i see a lot of myself in cl*ud and i think seph*r*th is hot and i want to fuck him.” i don’t really have the energy to unpack that/don’t care enough to form an opinion on that because i have like, actual responsibilities in real life. i’m also not gonna sit here and pretend s*ph*roth isn’t hot.

there is an obvious canonical power disparity between s*ph*roth and cl*ud that makes me... generally uninterested in, if not outright opposed to, the pairing. but i’ve seen people shift that dynamic in new ways, and create differences in perceived power that (or, at least, weren’t initially, before basically backtracking on that and making shit gross again) aren’t necessarily bad: perhaps cl*ud is a newbie in a leather club, and s*ph*roth is a long-time member who shows him the ropes (no pun intended). there are going to be newbies in leather clubs, and there are going to be longtime members, and they are going to have sex—this is a difference in experience that could actually be healthy, because a veteran who knows what they’re doing, who knows the safety rules, who knows how to be responsible, is better than some middling member who maybe doesn’t have everything down potentially mistreating the new guy.

but the thing is, the majority of stuff i’ve seen between the two (because i am, in fact, a hater and a hate-reader, and a pretty salty person overall) is... not that. it gets weirdly defensive about how their canon power difference isn’t actually all that bad (it is), how cl*ud is a consenting adult and can do whatever he wants (he wasn’t when they first met), how other ships can be equally as toxic (if we’re aiming for canon-compliance, they really can’t), how everyone else is just interpreting their relationship wrong and oh my god why can’t everyone just fucking agree with the author for once (because—and hear me out—the author’s entire premise is wrong). there are a few s*f*kura fics wherein z*ck realizes, “hey, this is kind of weird, actually, maybe we should get you out.” and he’s right lol but it always turns into this weird thing where like, z*ck becomes the actual manipulator for playing the “he’s x amount of years older than you” or whatever other card because he wanted cl*ud all to himself, and blah blah blah. like are we for fucking real. and it just feels like such a dig at z*kkuras, of all things, like why are you getting so defensive about this. if it’s “just fiction,” as you say, then why is someone disagreeing with you and saying “i don’t want to read that kind of story” such a threat.

and that’s where i have a problem, is when the “ship and let ship” crowd, of all people, gets so moralistic about it. like if you really were just playing with a dynamic and treating characters like moldable putty, and not treating it as “i’m right, i’m right, i’m right and this is Good and everyone else should Like It and Support Me” it’s kind of hard for me to believe you don’t actually support the things you’re portraying in your work and seek out in others. if you don’t actually support the things you’re portraying, why are you treating an unhealthy ship like it has to be endgame and you will destroy anyone who gets in your way. like... dude. do you hear yourself right now

i guess part of me wonders, if people see shipping d*sc*urse and are members of the former category could potentially mistakenly be aligning themselves with the latter category, because they don’t realize the word “ship” as a verb has shifted in meaning. do people see folks in the first category and lump them in with the latter because they’re young and that’s the only context they’re used to seeing the word used in. are people aligning and misaligning themselves in this debate all because we’re using two very different definitions of the word that lies at the center of this d*sc*urse.

#forgive me for using tumblr like an actual blog it's literally not my fault #he scream at own follower #DON'T REBLOG THIS comments and dms are more than welcome though #OBVIOUSLY there are limitations like even if you're just looking at it casually there are some things that should NOT be in your field of vi #*vision. i don't CARE that you don't want b*k*d*k* to be endgame you still shouldn't be drawing 14 year olds fucking #what's not clicking #but like that is NOT what this post is about. this post is about adults bc fuck them kids

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river-bottom-nightmare · 4 years

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The Nightwing Suit

There are some absolutely incredible artists out here on tumblr, and seeing their fanart makes me cry tears of joy. Dick Grayson, one of my personal favs, is always a wonderful contender for fanart. His innate grace and agility and flexibility translate beautifully on the artistic spectrum. Bottom line: I love all the Nightwing fanart. However, there is something I want to address with his suit. I’ve been an aerialist ever since I was 7 years old, and I’ve taken gymnastics since I was 3. Now, I specialize in Lyra, while Dick obviously specializes in Trapeze, but when it comes to costume, we’ve got many very important similarities.

DON’TS

When it comes to aerial, we want as much mobility and flexibility as possible. So here are some things that absolutely will not be on his suit.

1. Shoulder Pads. I will scream it from the rooftops if I have to. The Nightwing suit WILL NOT have shoulder pads!! Red Hood? Definitely. Red Robin? Those shoulder pads are important for bo staff strength and support. Robin? Damian probably doesn’t need them, but they won’t hurt. Nightwing? No way. To me, one of the most important parts of my body when practicing and performing are my shoulders. They pull me into hangs and holds, let me rotate myself around, and basically support the rest of my body. This is partially due to user preference: I prefer arm-based stunts and hangs rather than leg based. But it honestly doesn’t matter that much. Nightwing will absolutely need 100% use of his shoulders. Him being able to freely rotate them can be the difference between life and death with his style of fighting. Shoulder pads will just hamper that flexibility. I will admit that shoulder pads look badass, but in this one hero’s scenario? Shouldr pads are a no-go.

2. Sleek Arm Braces. Nightwing, while being well recognized as a solo hero, does often work with a team. And on a team, he isn’t the type to huff angrily and say he can do this by himself. Emotionally? Yes, of course. Physically, and in a fight? He takes all the help he can get, with absolutely no would to his pride. When performing his flips and tricks and such, the other partner will grab hold of him by usually his hands or his arms. I’m just going to straight up say: catching someone by their hands is a Bad Idea. You will not believe the speed we travel when we go through the air, and catching by the hands will lead to dislocations and pain. For a few stunts it’s okay, mainly for the visual aspect of a performance. But when it’s life and death combat? Hands are a last ditch effort if you can’t catch someone by the arms. Because that’s what really counts. The forearms. When Dick is fighting with someone, and that other person has the strength to catch him/throw him from a drop or a flip, they will catch him by the forearms. If Dick’s wearing sleek ‘n sexy arm braces, he’s going to slip right out of their grip. I prefer to keep my forearms bare, but in regards to protective armor, the fabric around the arms better have a grip.

3. Extra Fabric. This one is a given. However, I want to get into the specifics. When you’re in the air, momentum is your most powerful ally, and if there’s anything opposing or hindering that momentum, that spells trouble. Extra fabric can sometimes be good, such as around the legs. Not too much, obviously, but wearing loose or baggy pants while fighting with Nightwing’s fighting style works (as long as you can, you know, actually fight in them and not trip over the extra cloth). Around the middle? Nuh-uh, nope. Anything looping around your waist, hips, or rib cage is a liability if it’s not skin tight. The belt that Robin often wears is okay, as long as it’s wrapped pretty tight around him and doesn’t move. For the kind of stunts that Dick pulls off on a daily basis? I don’t think anything but a skintight bodysuit will help. For arms, extra fabric is ~okay~ but not preferable. And anything strapped to his back, as long as it’s securely in place, will actually help his momentum (so his escrima sticks or any other weapon/item you want to put in there is fine). Nothing around the neck, at ALL. That one issue in Batman where Dick wears a scarf is hot as hell, and sort of makes sense because they’re in the desert. But on missions, at the speed Nightwing fights and flies through the air, anything around his neck will choke him. This entire section definitely wasn’t an excuse to say you should just keep Dick in a skintight outfit, nope, not at all.

4. Spandex. While we’re on the subject of skintight outfits, I just want to point something out that isn’t necessarily important or anything. It’s just a general preference for me. I prefer costumes with a little weight on them. The adrenaline rush is intense for some of my more advanced stunts, and those are things that I bet Dick would consider basic. I prefer something with a little substance/weight/texture to it. Nothing too serious, and nothing too restricting, just something to keep me grounded and focused. We all know how much Dick likes being in the air, but I’m willing to bet he also needs a little extra touch to keep his head in the game. So if you’re designing a serious Nightwing suit, not for crack or fun headcanons or anything, I would steer clear from the spandex, gauze, and showy-light-gossamer fabrics. They do provide extra mobility and flexibility, but that’s because they’re one drop away from naked.

5. Joints. Okay this may seem a little contradictory based on the last point, but around the joints, especially hips and shoulders, the protective padding needs to ease up. It’s one of the hardest areas on the body to injure, after all, even for a professional. And second, I know I’m sounding like I’m repeating the obvious, but flexibility is of utmost importance. If the fabric doesn’t bend with Nightwing, then there’s no point. It can’t chafe, it can’t grind against itself, it can’t break. The material around major joints needs to be malleable.

Dos

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about what you can absolutely add to Nightwing’s costume to give it either a little pizzazz, or just your own personal touch.

1. Boots. Yes yes yes, boots are an absolute must! And it’s not just me thinking thigh-high boots are cool. Coming out of a big drop and other major stunts requires rolling on your back and then onto your feet. But Nightwing doesn’t fight with the one-hit-and-done style. (That’s more Jason’s thing. He plants himself like a tree and puts power behind a punch, kinda like Bruce, which is why boots-especially boot soles- are important for them.) Nightwing gets in a punch and flips away, then bounces back and gets in a kick and flips away, then bounces back and gets in another kick and flips away. You see where I’m going with this. Dick is constantly on the move, constantly on the verge of flipping back. The main way he does this is with his feet: landing lightly on the balls of his feet to absorb momentum before using that to hit back. Boots with fricion-specific soles are important, he cannot slide or skid. Also, ones that go higher up aren’t bad either: extra support is always welcome. As long as they don’t cover his knees and allow for ankle flexibility, they’re good to go. They may even help stop ankle dislocation. Anything you want to add to the boots? Go ahead. As long as it’s not gauzy ribbon or something too extra, or something that can easily get caught in something else, it’s good to go. In my performances, I like to cover my shins with something, it can range from simple high socks or performance boots to go with my costume. I particularly like Damian’s long lace up boots, especially in Super Sons. It’s a cute outfit, and it won’t hinder his fighting at all. As long as Dick double knots, he can wear those, and any other variants of boots.

2. Gloves. I’m not actually sure if Dick has ever been called “Fingerstripes” in canon, but I’ve seen it in fanon plenty of times. Regardless, it’s one of my favorite nicknames for him, and it does have a basis. The stripes on his gloves are an awesome artistic choice, and useful too. Assuming they have a different texture than the rest of his gloves, those fingerstripes could help with grip. Grip is one of the most important tools an aerialist can have. I have had grown men look at me with shock when they shake my hand because of my firm grip (and the calluses, ugh). I firmly believe that Dick Grayson has one of the strongest grips in the DC non-meta world, and I bet you he surpasses even a good amount of metas. Having a good, no-slip grip is essential, even if you’re just swinging from the surface for a second, or if the surface is another partner’s hand. Gloves, once again as long as they’re not too restricting, would be awesome with helping with that.

3. Wrist Braces. I said before that Dick can’t have arm braces because of the whole partner-grip thing. But with the amount of force and pressure Dick exerts on his hands on a daily basis, dislocations and sprains should be as common as a bruise. Hell, I’m sitting here typing this and my left wrist is sprained. Fanfic writers, here’s a helpful tip: you can write Dick with a sprained or dislocated or just a plain sore wrist anytime at all, and having him rub his hands with a grimace, rubbing lotion onto them, or doing wrist exercises in his free time is a go-to for if you need anything filler. Or, you know, it could even be part of the plot. Wrist braces help with this, they keep the joints in place and add a little extra stability to his movements. As long as they’re not interfering with wrist mobility, wrist braces are a very very good idea. When you think how long, think about the length of Peter Parker’s handmade web shooters. Long enough to be there, but not immediately noticeable. Also, make sure the material is something cloth, wrap, or gauze based. Anything too hard could scrape against the skin, cause cuts and bruises, and even cut off circulation. Unless it’s armor, it’s not comfortable or easy to do aerial maneuvers with.

4. Back Harness. To be honest, I have no idea what the official name for this piece of equipment even is. But the thing that holds Nightwing’s escrima sticks to his back. The thing that holds Deadpool’s katanas (in the movies, not the comics). The back-strap-harness thingy. That’s a go-for-it when it comes to costumes. Not only does it look badass and hot when it’s on your costume and you draw your weapons from it seamlessly like a boss, it’s practical and doesn’t interfere with your fighting at all. As I said, a majority of Nightwing’s moves rely on momentum. The back harness thingy won’t harm that at all. As long as it’s strapped to your back, unmoving and steady, it stays out of the way and may actually help you with your momentum. Drawing weapons from it is easy and seamless, and one of the quickest moves you can perfect, aside from drawing your weapon from thigh/calf holsters. But as I said before, Dick would probably stick to the back because, once again, momentum.

Okay this got much longer than I thought it would. But regardless, I hope this helps if you’re ever drawing or writing about the Nightwing suit and need specifics. Or hell, if you’re a cosplayer and need some information on how to make an accurate costume, here you go. Now I need to take a breather and chill, because while I considered myself a pretty recreational comic reader and not much of an analyzer, I had no idea how much I picked up about Dick’s individual fighting style and how that fits in with my own aerial experiences.

#i have no idea what to tag this #suit analysis???#superhero costume dos and dont's??#nightwing #dick grayson #meta #dc #nightwing meta #dick grayson meta #dc meta #nightwing suit #river thinks too hard

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marselzeen · 3 years

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“oh shoot they wrote another essay”

its been a little while just. bear with me okay? this was originally going to be like, just the first paragraph. um. >>

you’d figure that for a kids show a lot of the content would be fanon rather than canon (Rowdyruff content even more so). But something i like about this fandom is that the characters are simple enough to build off of, but ‘developed’ enough for every little headcanon to make some sort of sense.

to expand on this, the Rowdyruff boys are something similar to evil counterparts. or clones. or, whatever. So they are basically just,, portrayals of the girls in a more negative light? I think its really interesting to think about what the boys would do if they were put in some of the situations the girls were in.

the girls aren’t the most fleshed out either, but they have basic traits and behaviours that i guess any 5 year old would have. and keep in mind, 5 year olds are far from being ‘developed’ in real life. But it still kind of sets a (very rough) blueprint for the rest of your life, and we are shown how they react in different situations, which may still apply when they grow up. Of course, behaviour can drastically change based on certain experiences which i think is what makes this fandom all the more interesting. everyone has slightly different ideas of how they would grow, so our perceptions of the characters are all slightly different.

I’m gonna expand on this !! (upbringing and relationships) >>>

while the puffs and ruffs share the same traits, a large difference between them (other than the whole ‘Good vs Evil’ thing they’ve got going on) is their upbringing. Generally, the way you grow up (and cough the people around you cough) reflects a lot on how you turn out. not necessarily the kind of person you will be (in the sense of Good and Bad), but again, how you act. Behaviour can actually mirror nothing about how you feel and your morals (Brick and the trouble with internalising), but it can simply shed light on how you were raised.

okay, i start to get a little vague here. this isnt a headcanon post which means i cant get too specific, but lets talk more about Him. Or, if its more to your fancy, Mojo. Or both, or neither. I’ve seen and read a lot of stuff from this fandom, and I’ve never really seen consistency between pieces on how they were raised, and who by. And while i have seen the rrb portrayed roughly the same throughout (with the exception of boomer, i made a post about it a while back) there are these little things that change. Whether theyre ruthlessly evil or have kinda mellowed out, whether theyre forward and confident, or not so much so. Headcanons for the boys behaviours most likely reflect a little about how you imagine them to have grown, even if youve put little thought into it. And because they could have grown up in so many different environments and circumstances, the amount of character interpretations are endless; but they could all make sense.

Now, back to the concepts of ‘Good and Bad’. Or rather, Good and Evil. Something common throughout this fandom is the idea of an rrb redemption. Some people see this to be due to influence of the girls, and some believe it to be due to something else. (vague, sorry!.) but if we focus on the girls influence, this begs to question something else entirely; did they grow up together? If the ppg can influence the rrb so much (and vice versa) surely this plays a huge part in their lives? And this is disregarding romantic relationships completely, as to simplify things.

but see, any relationship with anyone can have an influence on you. And this is where the ‘upbringing’ and the ‘relationships’ arguments clash. How will the rrbs relationship with their parental figure(s) influence them? and how will that coincide with the ppgs influence? And, well, the questions keep piling up, because were they even with their guardian(s) by the time they met the ppg? and was their relationship with their guardian(s) good or bad? (i could go on for ages when it comes to this question...)

Every single interpretation of the boys is, at the end of the day, not too far from canon. It sounds pretty crazy because, lets face it, theyre not even remotely relevant. But because their ‘parents’ are, and their ‘counterparts’ (or whatever the fuck) are, theres a lotttttt we can infer. Its like a fill-in-the-blanks game.

#really very long #shit its an essay D:#the ppg #ppg #the powerpuff girls #powerpuff girls #the rrb #rrb #The Rowdyruff Boys #rowdyruff boys #blossom utonium #Him ppg #mojo jojo #bubbles utonium #buttercup utonium #ppg x rrb #brick jojo #boomer jojo #butch jojo

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ectonurites · 3 years

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Okay, so I kinda wanna know your thoughts about how weird the fandom portrays the bat characters. Canon is ... not my favorite, but it actually offers a lot of nuance to the characters that I think makes them all interesting. Unlikable, but interesting. I noticed fanon tends to boil the batkids all into these superflat caricatures. Like, cereal obsessed manchild Dick Grayson or bad boy who's literal crimes are only because of the lazarus pit Jason Todd. Its not really a major problem, just weird

Oh I have a LOT of thoughts about this. I try so hard not to shit on how other people interact with content because like, it’s comic books! We’re all just here trying to make the best out of a mess of stuff and have fun, but admittedly a lot of fanon stuff drives me fuckin’ nuts as someone who reads a ton of comics.

Like, I like memes, obviously, I draw tons of memes with the batfam (+ yj) characters and make lighthearted jokes etc etc, and honestly if it’s just for jokes then I don’t mind people having whack interpretations of the characters quite as much. The thing that drives me up a wall though is like... when serious works and analysis and discussion are very clearly based on just the fanon interpretations without any bearing on canon aside from what you could skim from a wiki page, and it’s spoken like it’s fact! There’s ‘having fun with jokes that aren’t taking things that seriously’ and then there’s ‘blatantly mischaracterizing based on misinformation’. Way too often I see things fall into that second category.

Now, a lot of people in the batfam fandom don’t... actually read comics (or at least not frequently) and that’s not even a bad thing necessarily, like you’re 100% allowed to enjoy content however you want to! (I don’t wanna be gatekeepey, especially since comics are confusing to get into)

But the problem is that when a lot of people aren’t reading the comics, then the people who do’s opinions have a lot more influence if they’re loud enough. All it takes is one person who read something and interpreted it a specific way that might not even be correct, and then it can echo chamber and suddenly half the fandom thinks it’s 100% canon that way because ‘oh so and so said that and they actually read it’.

I also think that’s a problem with the popularity of out of context panels/blogs, while they are super funny sometimes, when people make assumptions about characters based on just a few things without context... it can lead to problems. If enough people say something enough times people just... start to think it’s true, even if it exists entirely devoid of context which changes the meaning.

Like, for example, according to canon there’s no actual confirmation Tim stalked Batman on foot for an extended period of time! We know from Lonely Place of Dying that he followed him once to get a picture to convince DIck that he still needed a Robin. Otherwise his ‘stalking’ & how he figured out Batman’s identity was more through media appearances (like newspapers and tv). This is wildly different from the common fanon idea that little Timmy was sneaking out regularly to follow Batman & Robin around with his camera.

I primarily blame Geoff Johns for this misconception because of these panels in in tt 2003 (from issue 29)

But like, think about it for a second, literally how would Jason know that? This is one of the first times he’s ever interacting with Tim, and he was dead/catatonic when that would have been happening! He is either making a wild assumption or perhaps Talia told him this when she told him about Tim, whichever of those it was it’s secondhand information not something he witnessed. Taking his word as fact here makes no sense, he was just trying to get under Tim’s skin while fighting him. But seeing those panels out of context if you haven’t actually read Lonely Place of Dying/only read a vague summary of it, and don’t necessarily know the details of the Jason situation, it could absolutely lead you to believe otherwise!

Dick as a cereal manchild is a weird one because like... okay yeah sure he likes cereal, I can think of like two panels I’m too lazy to find right now off the top of my head of him having it, but... that’s not something we see all the time! Its not like Ollie & his chili (which IS a running joke- seriously I have not read that many Green Arrow comics but the amount of times I’ve seen that man bring up chili in just in the few things I have read is wild. there’s even an official recipe. his chili has it’s own dc wiki page). Then, because Dick isn’t quite as emotionally closed off in the same way the rest of the batfam tends to be, people project literally all the pent up feelings onto him, making him this hug-crazy crybaby manchild... again it’s just very clear people who perpetuate those ideas (outside of like, maybe as jokes) haven’t actually fully read that many comics with him. I’d also even blame the Young Justice cartoon version of Dick for some other traits fanon Dick has, bc that version of him is def a bit of a Hot Mess™️ once he’s Nightwing

Jason I understand misconceptions about probably the most because of how wildly inconsistent his writing was before the new 52 and how consistently Not Great it was once Lobdell took over. Jason’s one of the few characters I have read like, 90% of appearances for so I’m speakin’ from experience here. But still... acting like Jason as Red Hood is just a ‘bad boy rebel’ that could have a relatively happy connection with the whole Batfam is fun but unrealistic. You can not blame everything on the lazarus pit... he still has killed people! Lots of people! Willingly! Yes he has reasons and when he’s being written well it’s clear that he’s not just ‘random murder happy’ but rather ‘I kill when I feel they deserve it and that it’s necessary’ which is what keeps him an anti-hero rather than a full fledged villain most of the time, but that still keeps him so at odds with the rest of the Batfamily! Writers in more current continuity have had him compromise by only using rubber bullets in Gotham so they can have him interact with the family, but he’s still killed and will do it when he deems it necessary.

Also like... at the time of Under The Red Hood in the comics... theoretically... he hadn’t even been in the lazarus pit for well over a year. Go read Lost Days (it’s short! And except for the thing with him & Talia towards the end of the last issue it’s pretty good!), he spends a lot of time traveling the world and learning things/training before the events of UtRH. Yes you could interpret there still being some Lazarus influence going on there but I think the movie version of UtRH especially leads people to believe there’s a lot less time between his dunk in the pit and his first actions as Red Hood.

Fanon also has a lot of ideas about pit madness that vary wildly from what we have seen in canon, like yeah it’s been said to be a thing to some extent, but there’s not really the Danny Phantom Glowing Green Eyes™️ or anything like that... it’s fun to explore cool new ideas for sure but I just think it’s important to recognize the distinction between things that are actually canon and things that are popular fanon. (Also there are things that fall somewhere in between, there’s definitely stuff that isn’t 100% confirmed canon but could still be plausible/has been hinted at by some writers/is only canon in some settings)

Other things that drive me nuts are ‘quiet does-no-wrong angel Cass’ and ‘the Normal One™️ Duke’ because those just make literally no sense if you’ve read any comics with either of them... but fan content either does those versions or just completely ignores their existence a lot of the time! So! That’s a whole bigger problem!

In general though, this is fandom it’s not like this... matters that much on the grand scheme of things in life, we’re just people on social media talkin’ about comics. And this kind of misconception/flattening of characters does happen in literally every fandom ever. But it still does suck to see characters that have a lot of nuance and interesting history to play around with get reduced to a few traits that aren’t even actually that relevant to who they are.

#batfam #pls dont kill me for sayin al this again im not telling anyone how to enjoy stuff JUST my thoughts

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i-did · 4 years

Note

wait id love to hear your rant about how fanon deals with the race in tfc fics/fanon's of everyone else’s race :0

I would like to start this response with the fact that I do not believe anyone is being intentionally harmful in their race head cannons, simply that people tend to follow Fanon blindly and I believe people should not do that, and remember Fanon is only Fanon and we should make our own ideas and stray from the pack more often.

Okay, my thoughts on common race headcanons for the foxes and how they are often accidentally racist:

I know @bloodydamnit has spoken up about this before, but people specifically portraying Seth as black falls into a lot of unhealthy anti-black stereotypes of black men, especially the lack of development people tend to give him. She has written him and deconstructed these issues from her perspective and me a non-black person don’t think I could ever achieve such a thing and therefore do not headcanon him or will write him as black.

I personally headcanon him as hard Vietnamese and half white and made a long post about him before, I love Seth.

Matt and Dan are also often written as black, this isn’t inherently problematic necessarily, but it does often overlook the issue that people see this likely because of Matt’s history with drugs and Dan’s sex work playing into anti-black stereotypes without a tally going into race theory or redlining or any of the following issues in a way that gives them any development.

I like to headcanon Matt as Filipino, his straight hair is perfect for spiking, and dan as 75% black and 25% Oceti Sakowin (commonly known as Sioux), I want to write about how her leaving the reservation was a big deal for her, especially at the 25% mark which means if she is with anyone who isn’t of the same tribe her kids would not be considered a part of the tribe since the US minimum to register is 25% and this was part of her hesitance to be with Matt as well as other pressures. I like to think the baby her aunt had in the EC she ends up adopting from the foster system and that baby is 75% Oceti Sakowin and Matt is super excited to learn about their traditions and bring in both indigenous Filipino culture that he got disconnected with as well as Oceti Sakowin culture that she got disconnected with into their lives with their unexpected kid.

Renee is often headcanoned as Asian, but typically just generally Asian without nuance or explanation and also this plays into the passivity stereotype of Asian women. I headcanon her has African American, with very dark skin and Stephanie Walker was the first black foster mom she had and they hit it off really well, also Renees hair is a wig, no one can bleach their hair to white that’s just… it melts before it does that usually.

Again I’m not saying Renee can’t be Asian, It can be done right and written well, but overall I think it’s important for people to remember why they headcanon things and not accept Fanon blindly. Fanon often plays into harmful ideas. While people of color don’t have to have a reason for being people of color, I think it’s important to notice why you think charters who aren’t described at all are whatever race you headcanon and think critically. Our cultures and races make us experience the world in a certain way that contributes to who we are outside of blanket diversity, and it is important to think about that.

I often see people saying they headcanon Womack as Native American to make him having the tribal tattoos “unracist”, and to make Nora not racist, but Nora wasn’t being racist by saying Womack has tribal tattoos, Womack having shitty Tates in tattoos, which faux tribal was a huge cultural staple despite how cringe it is from the 90’s to mid 2000’s in America. It’s important also to not just say Native American but to do research on specific groups because each culture is unique and different.

That being said, I bounce back between Wymack just being some 70’s looking dad with cut off shorts to Maori where the swirl tattoos are very significant, and Kevin is white-passing but discovered he’s not white like he thought he was, and becomes an AOA history major (Africa, Oceana, Americas, aka indigenous history major).

Also considering Neil and Allison are supposed to be significantly attractive I don’t like them being white because of that, so I headcanon Allison as half middle eastern, (or maybe Indian I have more research to do before I decide), she was told she was adopted as a kid and often her mom would buy her whitening cremes like fair and lovely as a kid, but later found some papers when she was older finding out her dad actually got a woman pregnant and to keep her quiet took Allison and pretended he was such a good philanthropist and adopted a brown kid. She has a lot of problems with this, and bleaches her hair blond to try and fit in with her family without even realizing it. She never finds out who her birth mom is

I am a bit annoyed at white fans constantly calling Nora racist, while also using the lightest skinned headcanons every time for black characters playing into colorism and Spanish Nickys instead of darker toned people. Also, I think people should really try to critically think about their own ideas before calling out someone else. Do I think Nora is perfectly woke? No, no one is, but Fanon is just as bad but in a different way. There is a lot of colorism I see in both headcanon photos people use for the foxes as well as people tending to draw looser curls and thinner noses for characters they headcanon as black. Not every black person is half white and darker-skinned rep is very important. I’ve also seen people use Reece king as a Nicky face claim before and I wasn’t even surprised.

I've also seen people almost always have Erik be “Aryan” some even using the word to describe him unironically, and as a Jewish person this obviously doesn’t sit right with me. I would like to see less straight passing blond haired blue eyed taller than Nicky Erik sometimes.

Again I’m not calling anyone racist, I just think that people should go outside Fanon and think of their own ideas on who they want the characters to be in their headcanons and why. I'm tiers of the same 4 Instagram model photos being used for every Aftg edit, the same light-skinned Dan’s, Matt’s, and Nicky’s. Also while I’m at it, add some body diversity, they’re athletes all playing different positions, I think all the defense players are at least chubby if not plus size. Aaron, Andrew, and Renee are all fat and proud, Nicky and Matt are bulkier with their bodies good for blocking, while Seth is an awkward string bean, an offensive striker who can slip through people quickly despite his height.

Again I know discussions about race can be tense, I am not trying to sound like I am attacking anybody, and I'm not calling out anyone in particular, I didn't even touch on how nicky is written in fanon or canon and how it can often be both racist and homophobic coming from my prospective as a gay latino.

Okay I'm tired sorry this took me so long to respond lol

#aftg #all for the game #fandom politics #tfc #the foxhole court #ask #mailob

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goblinconceivable · 4 years

Text

All The Feels

Random bulletpoints of Annie/Jeff analysis because I am overcome with shippiness. :D Also more like bullet-lengthy-paragraphs. You tried, self, you tried.

Pascal’s Triangle (PT) is not a love triangle.

Sure, look at the top two rows and you’ve got a binary split, ie, choice between two women. But PT is row based, your current row based on the one above. It’s complex. Look below the binary surface of choice to row 3, where it actually becomes PT, where the complexity begins (and Community is about complexity.) 1, 2, 1, a total of 4. The 2 is the merging of the two 1s from row two - Ie, two women who get lumped together. And beyond them is a 1 that springs out of nowhere - Annie. Surprise!

Kiss at the end of S1

Jeff’s major deal is being afraid of expressing caring/vulnerability, while desperately craving/needing it. Britta and Slater were both saying they loved him, and he does want to take that, but runs scared because they are challenging him to admit his feelings in public, which no one who really knows and cares about him would do. His scene with Annie is private. And she isn’t asking him FOR anything, she’s just asking what’s up, because she cares about the answer. He feels safe, he opens up, it’s intimacy, which is both giving and taking. Notably he admits he’s glad she’s staying after his share, this is him saying he cares about her too.

His explanation of the situation is a perceived choice between being the New Year’s guy (who he wants to be) and the Three Weeks Later guy (who he is.) But the thing about New Year’s is the initial momentum always fades, and you have to put in the work, which Slater doesn’t help him with. And he WON’T be able to sustain it on is own. The guy he IS isn’t who he wants to be, it’s just giving up, rather than striving, even if imperfectly, to reach those goals. Annie falls into the sweet spot: she understands what his default is, but shows him that he CAN be the man he wants to be, shows him what those steps ARE, encourages him to take the steps to be that person, and rewards him when he succeeds. Which he does, with her behind him.

And she kisses him first. Which is an offering similar to Britta and Slater’s public announcements, but through action, not words. Jeff uses words as shield and weapon, as did the other two. Bypassing this essentially shortcircuits his brain. His brain will warp and analyze and question, but she kisses him gently, an invitation not a demand. He’s already put aside his sword and shield during their talk, and doesn’t feel the need to pick them up because he feels safe and cared for and is okay accepting and reciprocating that.

Play

Jeff is all adult and aloof and beyond such petty childish pursuits such as play, which is the scoffed at domain of Annie/Troy/Abed. But he actually really wants it. It likely stems in part from his loss of a proper childhood, but it’s also just who he is. Imagination isn’t just for the young, the loss of the ability to play is an oft-bemoaned feature of adulthood, one the learned remind us we ought recapture. (And a joy of parenthood is getting to do that through your children.) But look, he literally was playacting being a lawyer. It’s how he engages with the world. He just justified that as a means to an end and did it for power and profit, rather than for enjoyment.

We see this, I argue, when responding to Annie’s playacting they were married. Annie anticipates a bad reaction, but he doesn’t give one. No judgment. He then establishes it’s not a deeper issue (”do I have to worry about this” ie, is this real/insanity). When he says “I can tell you one thing your fantasy got wrong...” he’s not challenging her, or even taking offense, and while he’s not entering into her fantasy world (which is over anyway), he’s offering fodder. He’s involving himself in the narrative process for her benefit. And in the couched language of daydream he’s reassuring her -if- it was true, he would be devoted. IF is a super important word in play, because you don’t have to believe, for example, you ARE a pirate. You just need to act as IF you were a pirate.

Also cute, I take as justified fanon the deleted scene where he orders her appletini. He was whining to her about it but it was relaxed because they both know he’d do it anyway. And when the bartender turns out to be a believer in Annie’s created fantasy world, Jeff stops himself from correcting him and destroying the world. Instead, he lets it persist just far enough to let himself glance at Annie as if it was true, and in that moment he sees her through the eyes of fantasy, and sees a beautiful woman, rather than all the complexity of their relationship.

Then there’s basically all the giant Greendale instances of play. Which one way or the other, he gets roped into and ends up jumping into with abandon. (Paintball, lava etc.) And they’re often paired, because he enjoys playing with her, and the “if this” acts as license for them to explore their compatibility. And their capers, when they pair up in the “real world”, is really just a sophisticated form of play. As brought up pointedly when they were searching for the ASB, there’s a dual nature here. They aren’t just buddies, like Troy and Abed, who are also very fantasy oriented (cardboard submarine!). There’s a level of daydream beneath the fantasy world where they can set aside the complexities of their relationship, and say “if we’re solving this crime, then we can live in this bubble and just be together.”

I also really love the whole Professor Professorson episode because of course the layers are just so intricate and delightful when they unfold. He tackles her which was total overreaction, he’s in a heightened world and committed to it. They plot out this crazy intricate play to teach the Dean a lesson together, where they involve real emotions. Many of which are Annie’s, but that means they’re creating a world in which it is safe to amplify her feelings which they are both aware of but are usually repressed, especially by Jeff. And he praises her for that later (she went off book and deceived like a master) rather than being uncomfortable. They exit play safely because they trust each other while playing and can leave that permissive world as an if. And it ends with the blanket fort collapsing and cocooning them. It is a play space literally being broken, begging the question of how much impact our play can have on our real selves.

Season 6

So basically I think I missed fandom the first time around and just binged on meta and there’s (fanon?) that Jeff spent the season looking for her attention, but Annie had pulled back? I zipped through a bunch of scenes they were in together, and heartily agree. Also I think I went a little nutty but What I see:

Annie doesn’t ignore him or anything, but where she might have previously inserted herself in his life, she starts to let him fend for himself while she diverts her attention to other relationships, and treats him more like she does the others. I don’t think she really does anything like taking his class so she can evaluate his teaching and bludgeon him into being better? But when they’re in a situation, like City College’s ad, she stands up to him as normal, challenging him to be better and do the right thing, as she always has. Rewards him with approval when he does, and his whispered “thank you” is the cutest thing ever because it’s an intimate choice in a rather boisterous exchange.

Meanwhile Jeff does seem to spend a lot of time and energy trying to get back to a place where he’s first in her eyes. There are a lot of shots in S6 a the Table and group scenes that involve him looking at her disproportionately, first, last, or only when speaking, esp when they’re all at the table. When I went back and tried to do the same to S5 those scenes are set up a bit differently and I saw less of it but I think there’s just fewer group scenes in general though?. In S6, he often ends a comment directed at the group (non table) by looking at Annie, indicating he wants her response, and thus her attention and engagement. And often, she is the next person to speak. Which is her personality as a leader, which supports the idea that while he’s seeking her out, she isn’t necessarily responding to that but just being her.

Finale

I’ve sort of run myself dry thinking through other things. And great analysis is plentiful and most recent. So not even bullet points just ramble But:

Oh3, so when Garrett proposed and Abed noted Jeff had a funny look, he’s been daydreaming marrying Annie for that lone plus longer? That took me a long time to put together as an actual literal thing.

Oh2, it’s all canon that he has issues with prolonged eye contact because he doesn’t want people to see him broken and he doesn’t break eye contact through any of this. He knows she knows he’s broken already and is quietly fine with her seeing everything and this is a moment for *sobs*

Oh wait hey, so callback to that bit where she’s like “your words don’t mean anything” and he’s like “That’s what conversation is, people saying things to get stuff.” Because he’s 100% not trying to get anything by telling her he’s let her go. And he means a lot by saying it. And if he said “I love you” there’s an implied sense of obligation to say it back and since he means romantically he can’t do that. So this is just him letting her know, no pressure, no expectation, that he loves her and has loved her but it’s okay because she’s free and he wants her to be free because he loves her. And he means it so hard when she says “kiss me goodbye” he’s all “you don’t owe me anything.”

But she does love him too, except she knows she’s in a different place emotionally and professionally. And it’s sweet and a gift because she doesn’t make this about her but about him and his feelings. So she preempts his regrets because she knows he WON’T kiss her goodbye unless she invites him to. There’s something I’m reaching for and can’t find here. She doesn’t admit to anything because there’s no point? It would just hurt him either way? Sharing her feelings through action rather than words?

And so much squee thinking how far everyone’s come for this scene to be a thing which could happen.

Callback to Annie’s marriage fantasy when Jeff has his own. Hers was external, by her personality (esp at the time of her maturation) and thus public and psychologically working out a reasonable feeling of abandonment as she gave their fictional selves marital difficulties. His is very internal, and occurs after Abed, always so reliable as a gateway to fantasy, turns the tables on him. He’s experiencing reasonable feelings of abandonment, and while he runs, it’s to a safe space of “what if,” a coping mechanism he has learned, and which allows for working out of psychological issues.

It’s dual: in that the larger issue is his need for a sense of stability. Though he’s staring at the table the scene doesn’t involve Greendale at all, he already had that fantasy. This is about wanting a life outside of the safe zone of the college. And while he suggests a dog as an option he imagined a kid because having one represents stability for him - it was his father who left, and he won’t leave. If there’s a kid, this is a life, Annie can’t leave. But he offers her imaginary self complete editing powers, because all he really wants is to be able to love and be loved. It’s indulgence, a desperate grasp at balm because while he let her go, he can’t let her -go.- He was okay with being close friends, they do love each other as friends. See his pitch. But faced with losing that, he’s stripped bare. He indulges in his supressed hearts desire and is faced with the reality of what he already knows: it’s not in the cards.

And he’s stripped down to insecurities that aren’t limited to Annie. It’s cute how they jive over Marvel, though it’s weird to me and takes up more time and weird dramatic looking around that doesn’t feel playful enough to be justified. The tone of their voices is too serious, it’s a mismatch. I like how he admits the huge thing that he let her go as far as he has control, and suddenly a time pressure is on their alone time. Everything is immediate right now, everything happening fast. I wonder what Annie would have said if not for the text. But that’s the thing, it’s the wrong time for them and this is a goodbye. It’s too late but just under the wire all at once.

In this chapter at least. In the safety of the group Annie brings up a season 7, which we all know could happen years down the line. Would have been more fitting if she said movie though. Still, he takes that as the comfort in which it was intended.

WTF with his all coed season 7? Yes, we cut to it so it totally isn’t happening, but has he put his issues to rest and is just fantasizing crap or what? It makes no sense to me.

I love that he not only puts her first after she invites him to kiss her goodbye by asking “what about you,” but is -asking for consent.- He doesn’t even move towards her until he gets it, he’s literally just standing back. What’s up with the penis thing? Meta reference to shortcut arguments that it’s not true love but lust? Is it Jeff acknowledging his own cynicism and how he’s dropped it? Since he’s so clearly not in a lust mode here. Is he adding a tiny bit of his usual pointed add ins to his speeches?

I guess it’s like... this is one of his speeches, but it feels out of place because of his delivery? Which is beautifully subdued and resigned and honest and just defeated, but defeated in the sense that he defeated all the barriers he still keeps around himself.

and goodbye hug and kiss at the airport.

#community #jeff x annie #meta

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fitchersvogel · 4 years

Text

my only comment on fanfiction vs literature

The most useful distinction between “fanfic” and “literature” is MEANS OF CIRCULATION AND DISTRIBUTION.

As many people have been pointing out, the basic fundamental act of “using pre-existing characters/narratives to tell a new story” is really fucking old. In Western lit, the idea that originality was a virtue (never mind the highest one) is fairly recent: it really takes off during the Romantic period (late 1700s-early 1800s). This is also, NOT COINCIDENTALLY, the time when modern ideas about copyright/intellectual property ALSO start getting codified.

Prior to that, a general attitude was that any assclown can write something ~original~: what takes REAL SKILL is tackling the Great Stories and bringing something new to them. (Note: GREAT stories--writers like Chaucer got sneered at for reworking “low” genres like smutty comedies.) Dante, Milton, etc. were responding to Biblical and theological narratives, and putting their own twists on them--and in Dante’s case, self-inserting.

(Note: I have zero problems describing what Dante did as “self insert” or using fanfic terms in general to describe similar literary concepts: AU, hurt/comfort, whump, etc. Because a) it’s funny, and b) fannish terms are often both accurate and accessible.)

And it’s not just fanfic-ish stuff either: there’s a basic lit-crit concept called “intertextuality,” which states that ALL literature refers back to other books--as Barthes said, “all writing is rewriting.”

However, there are certain types of literature that are much more specific and directed in their intertextuality. This whole category of storytelling can be called “recursive literature”: any story that is extensively and explicitly intertextual to an identifiable pre-existing source, and expects the reader to understand it as such. You don’t pick up Paradise Lost or Ulysses without being immediately aware that they’re retellings of the Book of Genesis and the Odyssey. Likewise, you don’t click on an AO3 link without knowing that you’re getting a reworking of The Terror or whatever. It all falls under the category “recursive literature,” because that category is about specific relationships between texts and the audience’s understanding of that relationship.

Fanfiction is a SUBCATEGORY of recursive literature: it is recursive lit that circulates unofficially, outside of the formal mechanisms of commercial publication. Sometimes this is due to copyright reasons--there’s a fuckton to be said about the relationship between modern commercial concepts of intellectual property and the development of modern fandom--but there are other reasons.

Fanfiction is like a giant slush pile for recursive lit: there’s no barriers or quality controls. While this means that the My Immortals of the world can traumatize us all, it also means that you don’t have to bound by commercial publication’s notions of genre, length, saleability, etc. @seperis once said that great fanfiction is often unpublishable: not because it’s bad, but because it’s so niche, and so deeply embedded within specific microfandoms and friend-group headcanons and fanon that it’s incomprehensible to more than, like, 5 people.

It’s also worth noting that recursive lit in general has often been created by people who were and are marginalized by mainstream literary cultures: women, ethnic and religious minorities, LGBTQ+ people, young people. Not surprising: while wanting to respond to stories is pretty much universal, the people for whom the need is most urgent are those who are ignored, condemned or stereotyped within those narratives. And fanfiction--because, again, fanfiction is recursive lit that circulates UNOFFICIALLY--is far more accessible as an artistic medium for marginalized groups.

As for “but but but Riverdale a/b/o mpreg is NOT the same as Paradise Lost!!!!!” Like, no shit? But both of them are recursive lit, because recursive lit is a category defined by relationships between texts, not quality or importance.

On that note, those of us in actual professional literature academia don’t really sit around contemplating whether a given text is ~great literature~ or not: if you’ve ever read academic articles on, say, Shakespeare you’ll notice almost no time spent blowing smoke up his ass for how great his writing is. “Great literature” is subjective, because taste is subjective. What we do care about: is it INTERESTING? Like, does it reward further study? Does it use language or symbols in a distinctive way? Does it tell us something about its purported subject matter, or the context in which it was written? Is it by and/or aimed at a particular audience? What does it tell us about its author, the audience, their priorities and concerns and tastes? And on and on. Stuff can be INTERESTING without being necessarily good! Likewise, it can be interesting without being “important.”

And it’s ALWAYS worth asking questions as to WHY certain texts get considered “good/important,” and why others do not: often, the gender/race/sexuality of the author, the purported “importance” of their subject matter/narrative, and the makeup of the audience affects these things: we ALL know how “stories about straight white men are IMPORTANT and for EVERYONE, while stories about not-straight-not-white not-male people are ONLY for members of that group, and are automatically of lesser quality and importance.” It’s also worth asking why so many assume that “fits into models designed by commercial publishers” is the same thing as “guarantee of quality,” and “circulates informally” means “not good enough.” (As a folklorist, official vs. unofficial, and how those differing circulation models function and impact us, is 100% my wheelhouse.)

A note on the ~Western literary canon~: when those of us who aren’t Harold Bloom (or Harold Bloom-adjacent, like whoever decided the St John’s Great books Program should be a thing) talk about a “canon,” we’re generally talking about literature that was IMPORTANT and INFLUENTIAL. Stuff that broke new aesthetic ground in some way, or became a major cultural touchstone, or had a huge impact on later works. These are texts that people keep returning to, over and over through the years, because they say something meaningful--even centuries after their own time. The “canon” is always in flux, and always being adjusted to reflect social and cultural changes, and changing tastes. It’s a canon because enough people have found meaning in these specific texts to keep returning to them for insight. That doesn’t mean everything in it is going to fit your or my idea of “good” or even “readable,” because it’s more about impact. Taste is subjective, influence can be documented.

TL;DR: recursive literature is a category that includes literature (including Major Classics) and fanfiction; fanfiction is recursive lit that circulates unofficially; Great Literature is stuff that we have defined as meaningful and important for the development of literary storytelling; it’s always worth asking questions about why we consider certain things more or less important, based on their perceived authoriship/audience/method of production.

#literature #fanfiction

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threelivesthreeworlds · 3 years

Text

Anonymous asked: Hello sorry if I was unclear. What I meant to say is that most people have a superficial view on intimacy of any sort, and so while I love Tang Qi's portrayal of romance, I hate most people's physicality-obsessed interpretations. Dunno if it's a western thing, but fanfiction is so out of alignment with canon romance themes that the characters are barely recognisable anymore. (1/4)

Secondly, Most readers/viewers do not give characters like Yehua or Lian Song a chance before making stereotypical assumptions about them. I love their real personalities, flaws and all, but I hate the sheer hyperexaggeration the fandom makes out of it (e.g. hating on Ji Heng). People just cannot see a character as a whole but put them into one category or the other. (2/4)

Thirdly, I just added that I relate to Lian Song(depression etc) because I kinda share his views on romance/love and don't really care for physical aspects that much. I'm aware he's a playboy, but he's also not a stereotypical one (which is unfortunately how most people interpret him) so it's a relief that your blog instead backs up my interpretation of him with facts. (3/4)

Lastly, I'm so sorry for ranting in the Q & A section. Making several points with a word limit really compromises what I'm trying to say 😆. But the bottom line was that fandoms' misinterpretations of your favourite characters makes it hard to see them in an objective light again. (4/4)

(this 4th one came in after most of our answers were done, so we apologize if it comes off a little ??? we weren’t aware of the end goal for the anons received. We mean no ill-will in how we come across, just elaborating on things and we hope that’s alright with you. <3)

(Admin Lin): Hey! Thanks for sharing your opinions, though these anons are starting to get a little haughty for our own comfort to continue addressing. Both admins have our own grievances with the fandom / how it views particular characters (Ji Heng being a prime example here), however the fandom still offers plenty of good things from it. This is not only a western fandom “issue” (I say as this physicality isn’t necessarily an issue), it can be found in the eastern fandom as well for not only this series but others as well. Both admins are in fact western fandom despite Admin Ro being Asian.

As for when it comes down to interpretations - Peach Blossoms is written in first person and hard to find on the western side of the internet; Yehua has an extra from his perspective but that’s the only direct contact we get with him that isn’t through Bai Qian’s eyes. Qian isn’t a romantic person nor does she necessarily find what he does romantic, she’s been engaged to him for so long she kind of considered their engagement troublesome due to her past experience with his Uncle Sang Ji. When it comes to the drama’s take of Yehua, we get a clearer idea of him but at the same time it’s easy to see where others can’t grasp him in his entirety or simplify things when in a fanfiction. Or, for the likes of me, knows what he’s like but can’t formulate a more articulate summary or introspective version of him because of his extensive complexities and in some ways, the knowledge of a Chinese household of some fashion to express the intricacies of his upbringing. It’s merely harder.

In the case of Lian Song - the Western fandom doesn’t have access to the information that can be found on this blog as easily because Lotus Step is in the middle of a hiatus but will continue serializing by next year. So, it’s no one’s fault for misunderstanding what kind of playboy he is since that was only addressed in the fall of last year and the dramas both make it clear he’s a playboy / amorous person but never elaborates on it. So it’s an easy assumption to make that he may be a typical playboy by fans of the other available media because he’s not featured beyond Yehua’s uncle or Donghua’s best friend with touches here and there of his connection to Cheng Yu. It’s only in his novel that we get to see a different side of him that will ultimately have a shift at some point to what we see 50,000 years down the line. So, I’m not actually bothered by this myself, personally. It is bound to happen because no one on the western side of the fandom has as much access or want to read an untranslated novel.

With TQ’s stance on romance writing, I will say the concept of eternal love or a love that lasts 3,000 lifetimes is a very Chinese one that unless one digs through it with patience and interest in Buddhism / other Eastern religions, that it can be a harder nuance to grasp for those unfamiliar.

(Admin Ro): We’re sorry you’ve had bad experiences with “fanon” material. We’re thankful that you like the content on this blog enough to comment on it! These are my opinions on the whole affair: as a Chinese woman who reads Chinese novels, from a perspective of writing tropes, hyper-exaggeration is already frequently utilized...in canon. And - from a personal standpoint, when the tropes hit right, I - don’t necessarily mind. Depth can be dug out of the text, but it’s understandable for people to simplify when they’re simply writing or analyzing for their enjoyment.

I’m ace, so maybe I understand, Nonny, when you say that you don’t care for the physical aspects of love. I personally, in my life, don’t necessarily want or need that kind of intimacy, and I don’t find myself straying into the smut tag too often to read about it as it stretches my comfort limits. Granted, I am not sex-repulsed, and it takes a great deal to upset me - however, if everything is in layers and someone enjoys writing smut, then they simply enjoy that layer. Romance isn’t less good and interpretations aren’t less good if there’s a degree of physicality in it. Heck, Admin Lins and I have discussed extensively the physicality of these books - we keep it off the blog 80% of the time because tagging, but it’s a present theme. And, all of us enjoy different things. At the end of the day I think we can’t say the tropes aren’t good when the tropes are the lead-ins that drew us into the more extensive stories.

Furthermore, a lot of what is on this blog is “read,”and I will never say my read of a character or a part of canon is “right” - or that it's “right”-er than someone else’s. Yes, there’s room for passionate debate as evidenced by many, many essays, but I’m not upset when I can’t change anyone’s mind. People are not automatically wrong when they disagree with me - even if there’s textual evidence, there is difference in interpretation of that textual evidence. I understand why fandom thinks the way it does - though, you’ll have to forgive me, my brain is 90% of the time focused on Pillow Book. Regardless, whether you walk out of a book thinking “this character has this much depth and this many flaws” or “this character is just a flat out antagonist” is very much dependent on you. Yes, we as a blog synthesize textual evidence to make that synthesis easier, but ultimately we are no better judges of anyone’s personality than anyone else out in the fandom.

Rather, I think sometimes for the sake of finding reasons or understanding, or when we look for evidence fitting our own assumptions about characters sometimes we lean into a softer read, maybe entirely without realizing it. This is a big no in the world of analytical writing for the sake of, ironically “objectivity” - but this is for enjoyment and not academia. There are times when textual evidence is untouched by the author's tone in terms of connotation and so when we take it for our reading and we have our pre-formed opinions we fall a little more between the lines. Admin Lins and I obviously differ in where this happens as we each have our own, minutely different vibes for characters in question. We know where our confirmation biases in interpretation might lie. Everyone has those.

Up till about February or March this year, I, like a lot of the rest of this fandom, wanted to roast Ji Heng on a spitfire. That is my bias. We are humans, and I think we are perhaps incapable of reading something and staying entirely objective to each character. I clawed my way out of my bias (I say ‘clawed’ because it was difficult), however, by looking at the book, looking at my own opinions, looking at other people’s opinions and asking myself: which parts of this is most likely to be true? I think the only way of striving toward objectivity in terms of portrayal is to consider other people’s portrayals, even if you don’t like them - and see if there’s any truth you can see past your bias. And to accept that truth, even if it’s a hard pill to swallow.

I guess what I have been trying to say, for this entire time, is that we are not the authority on what is and isn’t objective, on what is and isn’t right in these characters, interpretations, and this blog. We are glad to be an interpretation you enjoy - but that doesn’t mean the rest of the fandom who have different opinions are wrong or misinterpretations. I realize we can come across like that sometimes because we make salty memes and because we write long paragraph essays when we have opinions, but ultimately, no one is wrong. Our bubble of enjoyment is our bubble, and no one has to agree with us.

#three lives three worlds ten miles of peach blossoms #three lives three worlds the lotus step #Yehua #Lian Song #admin lin answers #admin ro answers

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thejudgingtrash · 4 years

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I wanna hear the Dom/sub discourse!!! Also love ur blog :) (I personally am a proponent of dom percy just bc I like that idea but I’d love to hear yours!!! I didnt even know there was discourse!) love to hear your thoughts and again super cool blog!!!! :’)

* ALSO WOULD LIKE TO CLARIFY IF IT WASNT ALREADY ESTABLISHED BUT ONLLLLLLY IF THEY ARE LIKE IN THEIR OLDER 20S!!!! ppl doing that in the context of teens is *gross* (previous anon who sent in the ask before) :)

Oh! Thank you for the compliments. I’m still not used at being so visible now to people 🥺😥😅

Good that you’ve added your points because that essentially brings down my issues with this whole spiel. I guess I’m going to play the other card. My main issues with this whole thing are:

A) the fandom sexualizing kids

B) people not understanding that looks/behavior in or outside of a (romantic) relationship don’t necessarily have to correlate with sexual behavior, especially when powerplay is involved

Of course Percy is easier to grasp for us. We have five whole books where we hear his every thought, follow his every move and think we get to know him (that automatically makes Percy not a reliable narrator, just saying).

For every book quote that puts Percy into the „Dom“ slot, there’s also a book quote that would be fitting for Annabeth (the dance from TTC comes to my mind). I can see both going either way. Despite them having mostly different personalities (Percy internalizing his thoughts and motives, whereas Annabeth is doing rather the opposite), they are very similar when it comes to leadership and end goals. Annabeth can range from emotional to bossy in a similar way Percy does. They just express themselves on different levels and get seen by outsiders in different ways.

Did you catch that? Did you see the hypocrisy that I just committed? We are using book quotes to justify placing characters that are in that context and in overall canon minors/teens/essentially fucking children in sexualized categories. Tbh, as much flag as you can give Riordan, I can’t blame him for blocking people who do this. Not every author is a fan of fanfiction and fan theory and what not.

People throwing these BSDM terms around without a second thought makes me cringe (tbh, I’m too lazy to explain the psychology of power play and kinks in that regard, just know that the instigator is not automatically the top/dom and there are many, many, many layers in a pp relationship). You cannot base sexual behavior from the canon itself. We know nothing about Percy and Annabeth in that regard to even justify the slightest. Ripping actions out of context to give them a label doesn’t work like that so easily unfortunately.

The only way to settle this question for once and all would be by simply doing this:

The whole debate that happened months/weeks ago (quarantine makes everything blurry in my memory) was just fucking stupid?

Imagine being a 15 year old, anxious, frightened girl. You’ve been deeply traumatized since you’ve been seven years old, you’re scared to death because you have a crush on your best friend and think he might perish (newsflash: of course you as the reader can foreshadow that in that context the series goes on. The characters can’t as they lack that specific insight. Percy didn’t have to wind up dead in the books, but he could have been severely mutilated, gone missing (guess he did later), bruised, etc. apart from his mental struggles. The super power part is essentially the only thing that’s keeping him alive), you give him a kiss because you’re too shy to admit your feelings for him and he’s being an awkward cheeky bastard before looking for a fight and then some adult asshole has the caucasity of calling you a bratty sub. Literally what.

Some anon (or a group of anons, don’t know which) contacted a bunch of people with that Dom!Percy and Sub!Annabeth stuff. Anon, Liebste, homegirl, my love, mija, if you see this please slide into the DMs because whaddefuck? Your thought process hotdamn. Where did you pick this up? Let’s be open about this discussion. You didn’t go from A to B, you went from A to Z and robbed Jeff Bezos on the way out. I mean what???

People using canon to justify their headcanons is simply something I can’t get behind in this matter. The main issues is that they are children/teens/minors in canon. There is no way around it. Trying to justify/back up some of your thoughts in that regard with actual quotes only makes it worse because you aren’t only sexualizing them in your fanon, but you are also automatically transferring these thoughts to the actual books and thus fore sexualizing them in canon. You’re changing the basis and narrative.

I honestly don’t get the obsession that some have with their teenage sex life? This isn’t a personal attack on people but I’ve seen this throughout several group chats and social media platforms like Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest even and of course Tumblr. And popular stuff like Riverdale, Euphoria, 13 Reasons Why and New Adult Twilight rip-offs á la Shades of Grey and that Harry Styles fanfic honestly don’t help with the portrayal of „curious“ teens.

This also isn’t a strict PJO phenomenon, it happens across all fandoms. The odd trend with sexualizing kids/teens or things intended for kids has been going on for ages. I get it, you grow out of the related audience but that doesn’t justify the means? Canon won’t change simply because you do.

Percy and Annabeth are awkward teens that have never dated anyone else and had barely half a year between pjo and hoo before getting caught up in another mess. I’m not saying that teens aren’t curious and don’t experiment, some do drugs and/or have sex (let’s be real the probability of something happening in the stable scene in MOA is very high) but still? Putting dom/sub labels on them is sketchyyy. Also throw your fucking sex god headcanons out of the motherfucking window. They are 17-ish, if you need the mental image of some weird kids flopping on top of each other for two whole minutes for some odd reason, good for you but I’m side eying the fuck outta you.

You can’t really blame Riordan for not being more explicit. A) the series is for middle schoolers (aka kids), so it’s not strictly Young Adult and there’s only so much you can do B) publishers/editors interfering is a thing (especially with society’s views of sex = bad and violence = just fine) and c) the probability of sexualizing the characters of his own creation in that sense might have made him uncomfortable. Better to play safe, than end up with a bigger mess, just saying. I’m all for the sex talk in a non-berating, (slightly) educational approach when it comes to that in non-adult literature. Or even just stating a sex scene in a mere sentence. (Karen M. McManus did an amazing job with portraying struggling teens with a right approach in One of Us is Lying. Stating it or making it very, very, very clear between the lines. Then again, not everyone can pull that off or wants to go in that direction).

In addition to that, seeing stuff like the infamous ”the sea doesn’t like to be restrained“ or ”Percy has handsome features which shifted from humor to anger“ quotes getting constantly shredded is so… Meh. One simple question: what does Percy having a mean resting bitch face to do with his sexuality/sexual behavior? What does him being annoyed and on the moodier side have to do with it? For me absolutely nothing. The correlation isn’t really clear and out there. Pissed Percy doesn’t translate into Percy automatically being the dominant (in Percabeth’s sex life)?

I mean I get it. We all grow up. Erotica is a wonderful genre and art form (if you waddle through the trash). You will never be able to get that out of fiction and fanfiction. That’s also neither my goal nor my place to decide. As cheap and stupid as it is, I’d rather have people intentionally aging the characters up and stating their headcanons in that regard rather than people attempting to abuse canon where the characters are minors in order for sexualizing them. There’s no good way to prevent this from happening unfortunately (unless you really want to abolish all explicit fanon stuff).

Whenever you post a sexy headcanon just hold on for a second. If you have abstract future headcanons sure, go ahead, personally don’t see a problem with that. But if you use source material to fixate your thoughts on minors in canon to give them sexual labels… I urge you to seriously rethink that.

Stop sexualizing minors. Please. Pretty please.

Peace

#if you want to know my honest opinion about adult percabeth‘s sex life: they have the blandest whitest most boring sex going on.#Tank‘s Coldest playing in the background would be a highlight and they‘d stop a minute in because the harmonies are too tight #like i said i don‘t see any of them being the dom or the sub. they‘re both and neither so I‘d say they are switches. still spiceless sex ngl #also if you think that hickeys going down on someone handcuffs dirty talk or having a red ass are kinky you are 100% vanilla. it is what it #also damn. all of these rants keep me productive af? this is like my fourth in three weeks? whut lol #pjo #my rants #percabeth #annabeth chase #percy jackson #hoo #anon #ask me

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mydearjonah · 4 years

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The Magnus Archives & MBTI Part 1 -- Jon & Martin

Hello. When I was a depressed 19-year old, I hyperfixated on the Meyers-Briggs personality typing system in an effort to solve all of my interpersonal problems.(1) It didn’t work, but ever since then I have been cursed both with deep, useless knowledge and searing, useless opinions. In the hopes that sharing my terrible burden with others will allow me to one day find the rest I so desire, I would like to introduce you today to what is, as far as I can tell, the first dedicated MBTI typing post in this fandom.(2)

The hyperfixation ran deep, so I am trying to make this as intelligible as possible. If you so desire it, this is a great general resource for typing. If you have opinions or thoughts, PLEASE share them. Much like a fear avatar slurps up people’s trauma, I am sustained in part by healthy, albeit occasionally heated, debates over MBTI types. You should have seen the time I typed Kanye West on Reddit.(3)

Jonathan Sims -- INTP Confidence Level: 90% Certainly (at the very least): IxTx

It is easy and tempting to type Jon Sims as an INTJ. After all, he certainly fits many of the stereotypes: bookish, awkward, out of touch with his feelings and his environment, with a tendency to come off as overly critical. I am not saying that this typing is necessarily wrong, but I do not think that it should be taken for granted.

Jon is clearly an introvert and a thinker (IxTx). It is tempting to type him as an intuitive as well, but I caution against this and suspect that it is an example of intuitive bias. Certainly I do not believe that he has the kinetic knowledge and energy of an ISTP – he hasn’t done a single damn thing in this entire podcast to make me think that he has any higher-level grasp of Extroverted Sensing (Se), the function an ISTP uses most confidently to interact with the outer world – but, if INTJ is in consideration, ISTJ should not be written off.

ISTJs and INTJs use the same auxiliary function, Extroverted Thinking (Te), to interact with their environments. Te is often characterized as being cold, clinical, unfeeling, and pragmatic: essentially, how Jon comes off in the early series, especially S1. The difference between them is their dominant function, or their primary way of existing and processing information. ISTJs are led by Introverted Sensing (Si), which is best conceived of as a “web” (haha) of past experiences and sensory details that a user can access when making decisions. INTJs are led by Introverted Intuition (Ni), which is a largely unconscious and abstract style of pattern-sensing which feeds a user insights about the world around them. For Jon, I think that fair arguments could be made either way for dom Si or dom Ni. Does Jon rely more on what has come before (ISTJ) or what may come next (INTJ) to guide his thinking? It could be either, in my opinion, and it is especially difficult to tell because the Beholding itself is an EXTREMELY Ni domain. As the series progresses, Jon’s choices and behavior are colored so thoroughly by his patron that it is difficult to separate evidence of natural Ni intuition from plain old Beholding intuition.

So, with this in mind, why have I typed him as an INTP of all things? It all comes down to the INTP’s inferior function, Extroverted Feeling (Fe). Your inferior function is the thing that you use but aren’t very good at – it tends to be what gets you into trouble. Fe is best understood as a natural awareness of other people’s emotions as well as the privileging of group values over individual values, so inferior Fe users tend to be sensitive to other people but not super great at actually interacting with them. It is tempting to type Jon as an IxTJ because he comes off like a high Te user at first, but it’s pretty well-established at this point that he’s projecting that persona due to his insecurities. This, in my opinion, is classic inferior Fe. He knows that there is a broader group expectation for his behavior in his new position, but he is (a) too out of his depth to project it naturally and (b) not savvy enough to find a middle ground so he overcompensates and comes off like an asshole. So many of his interpersonal problems stem from this same issue. He clearly cares deeply about group values, other people, and their opinions of him but he struggles to read social situations well and is then caustic as a defense mechanism.(4) So much of his emotional growth has been about him being softer and kinder, even as he grows more monstrous, and to trust others, especially Martin… that’s an inferior Fe narrative.

Once you’ve nailed INTP as his type because of the inferior Fe, I think that everything else falls into place. INTPs lead with Introverted Thinking (Ti), which is a logic-based, internal system of categorization, and they interact with the external world through Extroverted Intuition (Ne), which is a creative, abstract, “idea machine” approach to environmental analysis. In essence, INTPs are logical, systems thinkers (Ti) who basically try out new ideas by throwing them at the wall and seeing if they stick (Ne). I think that describes Jon far more accurately than the IxTJ approach, which tends to be far more reserved and calculated.

Martin Blackwood -- ISFJ Confidence Level: 70% Certainly (at the very least): IxFx

I have found Martin to be a particularly challenging character to type. After a great deal of thinking, and some helpful input from @twinliches, I have gone with ISFJ.

Martin is an introvert whose primary mode of interaction with the external world is through Extroverted Feeling (Fe). He cares primarily about the group and is sensitive to its dynamic, he has a good read on other people’s emotions, and he is able to easily maneuver through interpersonal situations to his own benefit and the benefit of those he cares about. But what is this Fe working conjunction with? As a prominent Fe user and an introvert, Martin’s only two options are to have dominant Introverted Sensing (Si), which would make him an ISFJ, or dominant Introverted Intuition (Ni), which would make him an INFJ. So, does Martin rely on a “web” (badumtssh) of past experiences to connect with others (Si), or is he using a more unconscious, forward-thinking intuition to do so (Ni)?

It is extremely tempting to type Martin as an INFJ, but, honestly, I think that do so is an example of intuitive bias. His actual choices – how he moves through the world and comes to conclusions, the way that he relates to others, the things that he fears – strike me far more as dominant Si than dominant Ni. Although he may not always broadcast it, Martin is shrewd and observant when it comes to interpersonal relations, and his grounded, real-world knowledge of how people are acting, how similar situations have played out in the past, and what details others are missing is what allows him to so consistently outmaneuver the big bads. A Ni user may come to similar conclusions, but they just don’t get there in the same way. Martin is also invested in maintaining social harmony by providing a sense of stability, which is a classic ISFJ move. INFJs are more likely to promote social harmony by using their Ni insights and Fe people skills to actively influence group dynamics for what they believe is the better. Martin doesn’t really ever do that – instead, he works to make sure that everyone is taken care of, whether that means bringing them tea, dragging them out to lunch or for drinks, or sacrificing himself to the Lonely so Peter leaves Jon alone.

I anticipate that one potential criticism of my Martin typing will be in regard to the inferior function. ISFJs and INFJs have different inferior functions: ISFJs have inferior Extroverted Intuition (Ne), which means they can struggle with open-endedness and have a tendency to catastrophize, and INFJs have inferior Extroverted Sensing (Se), which means they struggle with being in touch with their physical environment and can overindulge in sensory activities. People with inferior Se often have difficult relationships with their physical forms, and Martin’s canon and fanon body image issues certainly fit the bill. But inferior Se users are not the only ones who struggle with their bodies, and, overall, I don’t think the INFJ’s broader function stacking fits Martin as well as ISFJ does. Plus, I think there is just as much, if not more, evidence for manifestations of inferior Ne from Martin.

To wrap it all up, here is my final Martin take: Martin is an ISFJ who, if he knows anything about the MBTI, thinks that he is an INFJ. He was probably accurately typed on whatever popular test he took, but he read some anti-Sensor bullshit that included a hackneyed portrayal of Si, thought “I’m not boring and conservative… I can’t actually be an ISFJ! I must be an INFJ.” For a time, he even has “INFJ” in his Twitter bio. Sometimes he wonders if he’s mistyped because he doesn’t totally relate to the stray descriptions of Ni-Se that he comes across… but he figures that, if he is, he’s probably actually an INFP. He really likes their whole aesthetic… artsy, sensitive, caring, intuitive, and his favorite poets are INFPs. What he’s really vibing with here is their Si-Ne, which he can relate to… because as an ISFJ, he also uses those same functions! If post-series Martin is alive (and living happily with his husband, Jonathan Blackwood-Sims, of course), I bet that his increased self-knowledge and confidence will allow him to solidly write “ISFJ” in that online bio. I want that for him. And for all of you ISFJs out there, too!

On a personal note, I also really love ISFJ Martin/INTP Jon in the context of the ship. ISFJs and INTPs use the same functions, just in a different order! They can connect by sharing their Ti and Si thoughts and insights. Jon can help Martin develop his Ne, and Martin can (and already has!!) help Jon develop his poor inferior Fe by giving him an example of a much stronger, far healthier one. It is just *chef’s kiss*

Up next: Jonahlias, Peter, and Gertrude!

(1) The actual answer to my interpersonal problems was therapy and life experience. Who knew!

(2) If I’m wrong, let me know. We all know how useless the Tumblr search function is, and I also couldn’t find anything indexed on Google besides the Personality Database.

(3) Kanye West is an ESTP, btw.

(4) I’m not saying that Fi users don’t do this, but I think you tend to see more & genuinely meant “I don’t give a fuck” from them because they’re operating a little more on their own wavelength. I’m not sure if Jon knows himself as well as a Fi user, even an inferior Fi user, does.

#the magnus archives #tma #martin blackwood #jonathan sims #jonmartin #my stuff #my boy #martin #mbti stuff #intp #isfj

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theharlotofferelden · 3 years

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Tbh I think fandom’s fixation with canon is frustrating for a number of reasons, but my main beef with it is that the stuff folks assume is canon is actually fanon they’ve personally (and inadvertently) convinced themselves is canon. Which wouldn’t be so bad if there wasn’t this culture centered around repeatedly (and even aggressively) validating it.

To me, this is frustrating when it comes to how other ppl write/depict these characters because the more universally accepted ideas get more traction than the stuff that bends/subverts/reinterprets canon. And while no one is obligated to write those kind of works, I just feel there’s a kind of pressure around conforming to those popular fanon takes vs. more “controversial” interpretations.

Especially when you consider how many people are vocal about folks who write their supposed “hate” of a character into their fic with the assumption that they’re specifically doing so to uplift their favorite ship. Which imo makes a lot of assumptions about why someone would supposedly write “negative” traits into a character that (presumably) doesn’t have those traits in canon, let alone assuming what the person writing the fic personally sees in that character that others don’t (which is usually based on their personal life experience or their understanding of the world).

Speaking personally, I just don’t see the point of these kinds of arguments, because when it comes to my writing I prefer to be flexible with characterizations in canon. I wouldn’t argue anything I write is “canon compliant” specifically because of this. Sure there might be indications that I’ve read up on canon and studied enough of a character’s voice to duplicate it in fic. But there’s some things I’ll write into a character that others didn’t see, and arguably don’t even like, and that’s valid because we all have different understandings of these characters and why they’re meaningful to us.

I get that much of the >need< to validate personal fanon as canon stems a lot from “antis”/people who see only the negative traits of the character and feel the need to pressure/shame others into not liking the character. But I kinda miss how, back in the day, this sort of behavior wasn’t so commonplace (let alone insular) enough to affect how people engage with media because it resulted in a lot of diverse and interesting fanworks.

This isn’t to say that folks thinking critically about media is bad, but the culture around what people think is “critical thinking” feels counterproductive to creating a community that encourages diverse fanworks regardless of how problematic, controversial, or subversive said fanworks are. Like, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, but I feel that in a lot of ways that’s what goes on regularly because someone with a modicum of a following and issues with how ppl engage with media has enough sway in the community to pressure people this way.

And as much those people gripe about the more ~problematic~ stuff (and the “this representation doesn’t agree with my headcanon” crowd) I feel that as a result of all of this crap, it’s sanitized how people engage with the media (whether it’s coming up with safe headcanons or creating fanon-compliant works).

Again, this isn’t to say this is bad or that people >need< to create diverse or “controversial” content, but rather this sort of stuff tends to discourage others who have interesting perspectives on canon that aren’t fanon and are not canon-compliant from participating in fandom in ways that diversifies the fanworks that get posted online.

(Note: when I say “controversial” it can mean anything between the most squicky content you can possibly imagine [that isn’t necessarily triggering, but it can be] or someone writing negative traits into a character that others don’t agree with. Or otherwise just generally writing them “OOC” which, again, comes with a lot of assumptions about why someone would do that. Though also positions the person making said accusation the supposed “expert” with the most authority and understanding of the character. Which is not only pretty arrogant, but also just plain disrespectful and just completely undermines [or misunderstands] why people create fanworks in the first place.)

#personal: meta #thinking about this in relation to that post i rebageled #on how Harry Potter fandom conflates personal headcanon with canon

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thattimdrakeguy · 4 years

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Even so, romanticizing a fictional character's abuse doesn't necessarily mean condoning the act in real life. A fan's interpretation of events can be different, or portrayed in any way they want regardless of given content and context. While I agree that sometimes, the 'fanon' things that run rampant are a little annoying - I can't really do anything to stop people from embracing these concepts. Sometimes it's so far removed from the comics that it becomes its own separate entity. (1/2)

I find that fanfiction, fanart and shipping in general can deviate greatly from the source material. I think that’s why people like it, because it’s fun to explore topics like this, and others. It’s not so fun when it’s taken too seriously, but I do believe there is genuine merit in not being completely in line with ‘canon’ portrayal. (2/3 - my bad)

As for those who do ship JayTim because it is specifically abusive; I’m sure they’ve heard justifications as to why it’s gross, but they ship itanyway because they enjoy it. I don’t think that’s harmful if it’s properly warned so people aren’t exposed to it unwillingly. (3/3)

Then it just goes back to me not relating to it and not caring.

(Not intending to sound rude, because I’m actually been appreciating how you’ve been kind. It’s just hard to word myself well and accurately sometimes.)

I’m not honestly all that concerned with JayTim, it doesn’t provoke anger in me. I don’t get pissed each time I see it. I don’t normally ramble about it.

I don’t understand why someone would bother wanting to ship an abusive relationship between two adopted siblings, but at this stage I just don’t care.

I’ve been an active part of this fandom for like 4 years now, and I’m used to JayTim.

I blocked the tag and moved on. Like I get I originally brought it up, but it’s not legitimately something I get fussy about all that often.

Rarely ever does someone explore the topic of a sexual relationship between Tim and Jason as it would happen because it just wouldn’t happen. There’s not a legitimate depth to it, like it’s just a thing people made up and ran really far with, because they don’t care. It’s just a thing people apply tropes to.

Regardless of interpretation, Tim was abused by Jason, and they’re still adopted siblings. Ignoring that isn’t interpreting it, it’s just ignoring it. If they’re going to ignore large parts of the characters I don’t see the point in writing the characters.

I’m not going blog to blog to yell about it. I just think it’s gross, don’t understand it, and don’t like it.

Bothering to read something and write fan fictions that are nothing like it isn’t anything I can relate to in order to understand it, and at this point I’m used to the feeling and moved on as far as it being something I care about goes.

As far as me and typical fandom stuff goes, I just ignore it unless it becomes a problem I can’t escape from. Since I’ve blocked JayTim there’s been no problem I’ve had because I’m not a major fighter in shipping. I just think what I do about what’s gross or forced and move on.

I might’ve actually said it before on my blog, but I don’t especially care about sibling ships because I know people don’t take it serious. Of gross ships I find gross, it’s low on my list of what I’m concerned about.

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ckret2 · 5 years

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IDW Starscream!

How I feel about this character

Oh, he's a good Starscream. Probably like, a top three Starscream. He's like the platonic ideal of what a Starscream can and should be. Even G1 Starscream doesn't reach "platonic ideal" status—he's just a rough draft of the fully realized Ideal Starscream that is IDW Starscream.

He's not necessarily my favorite Starscream—that's somewhere between TFP Screamer and Armada Screamer for me—but TFP and Armada I both recognize and enjoy as "interesting alternate interpretations of Starscream," whereas IDW is the Starscream.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I've got two ships for IDW Starscream, but like, only in very very specific circumstances:

Starscream/Wheeljack, but only if it's one-sided. Mutual Starjack is like, it's all right—I've even written it, and had a lot of fun writing it—but the thing that really does it for me is the idea of Starscream just endlessly pining for chipper nerd, with no relief and no resolution. Just pining. Forever.

Also Starscream/Rattrap—mostly the same dynamic, except that one can be mutual, just as long as it starts out with Starscream being wildly attracted to this gross rat and very angry at himself for it. Like in ships with unbalanced levels of attraction there's one side that's the primary desirer and one side that's the primary object of desire, right? Starscream's gotta be the desirer. It's easy to make the gross unpopular small rat have a huge crush on the tall elegant beautiful cunning charismatic winged emperor that isn't returned; it only really gets interesting if the rat looks at All That and goes "eh," while the brilliant beautiful ruler of everything is obsessed with this totally disinterested rat and has to figure out how to win him over. That's fun. I dig that.

And Starscream/Prowl for the "disgruntled SIC who disagrees with everything his leader does, is hated by his own faction, and who dances back and forth across the very middle of the moral shades-of-gray spectrum but for opposite reasons." They detest everything about each other but also very desperately want to bang.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

I really want to like Starscream & Windblade and Starscream & Bumblebee because like, this dude needs some friends who are nice people, and here they are, two nice people who are deeply invested in his life; but they spend all their time with him either saying "you're a terrible person" or "you have so much potential to be a good person, why are you wasting it on being terrible?" And—to be clear—they're both absolutely, 100% correct, and for his own sake and the sake of everyone around him he should listen to everything they say; but who would wanna hang out with that? Why would you wanna be friends with someone who does nothing but tell you you're rubbish until you change enough to meet their standards? The fact that they give him great life advice doesn't mean they're making themselves appealing friends.

So like—them, but only in a context where their interpersonal dynamic is completely different.

I have trouble with friendships for Starscream. My desire to see him surrounded by people who like him wars with the fact that I feel like almost everyone around him either doesn't deserve that honor or doesn't deserve that aggravation.

Starscream & Wheeljack and Starscream & Rattrap are both good options as well, if they're not being shipped. And I'm tentatively interested in Starscream & Skywarp & Thundercracker, but only if they're actually written like their IDW selves, not like the vaguely-G1-ish fandom-melting-pot Seeker Trine fanon version of them that, while fine characters, aren't what I want to see when I say I want to explore their IDW versions.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I'm not a fan of Starscream's True Body. Not because I think it looks bad or because I dislike the idea of Cybertronians having True Bodies—I love the idea of True Bodies, actually—but because it was tangled up with the idea that he's so immoral/imperfect/flawed because he doesn't have his perfect body. Unintentional though it was, I'm not a fan of the "if you experience body dysphoria it will turn you into a bad person" message.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

For the longest time, it was "I hope Starscream will die, so that he can come back as a ghost, because I love ghost Starscream." And then he did! So I'm content.

The other thing I wish is that he'd had an opportunity to face down Megatron and verbally rip him a new one. His speech during Megatron's trial was beautiful, but disingenuous, and mainly served to make Megatron get petty and self-righteous about how mean everybody's being to him when he's already said he's sorry for all that genocide he did. What I would like to see is a private conversation where Starscream isn't talking to Megatron about Who's Right or Who's Better or Who's Going To Lead Cybertron Into The Future—no talk of politics or tactics—a very personal, very short, very angry verbal evisceration for all the things that Megatron did to Starscream.

It's not even like I hate Megatron, I just think it would be very satisfying to see Starscream get that.

#starscream #transformers #meme #anonymous #ask

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natsubeatsrock · 5 years

Text

The Rewrite of Fairy Tail: Bonus (Gruvia)

How will I handle Gruvia in a romantic sense?

Well, I've lived long enough. This might be one of the most contentious parts of the series. I alluded to this earlier, but there's no way I won't upset someone by posting this.

I feel the need to reiterate an important point I've made many times before in this series. My interpretation of how Fairy Tail should be changed is not the only way to change the series or even the best. Everything I'm writing is based on my own interpretations of the series. Even as that interpretation is filtered through multiple readings of the series and about five years of interactions with the Fairy Tail fandom, it is still only one person’s interpretation. I try not to apologize for having the biases I do and, at the very least, do my best to explain how I got to the conclusions I have come to.

I want to start there because there are a lot of interesting ways to deal with Juvia and Gray's relationship as it happens in canon. While I've been an outspoken critic of Gruvia's handling in the series, the possibility for change is not lost on me. I even mentioned a while back that I'd be more apt to make Gruvia canon over Nalu if I were behind Fairy Tail. Heck, I started typing the second draft of this post not long after the chapter in the sequel that implies Gruvia being more possible in the future. I could take any number of routes with Gruvia and find reasonable justification within canon to do so. However, I can only (seriously) go with one interpretation of the ship for rewriting Fairy Tail.

With that said, I want to divide Gruvia's development into three sections: Phantom Lord to Edolas, Tenrou to the Grand Magic Games, and after the Grand Magic Games. How do I want to change what happened during each section?

To be honest, I don't think there's much of a problem with Gruvia in the first section. If anything, I may smooth over some of the more contentious parts of this section of the series. However, I don't think that it would be a good idea for Juvia to not resemble her canon self in her over-the-top displays of affection for Gray. That feels like too much of a drastic change.

Though, as I mentioned before, it's after Edolas when things get interesting as Juvia starts to make more active attempts at a relationship with Gray. Even then, I don't want to do too much different before the end of the Grand Magic Games. Considering I want Juvia to have more interactions with her friends, she may get talked out of some ideas.

Some, of course, being the operative word. Like, does she decide to drug Gray into liking her and almost “destroy the guild” in the process? Probably not. Does she decide to go follow Gray and Erza on their mission? Probably, but not because she isn’t advised to do otherwise.

And then we get to the rejection scene at the end of the Grand Magic Games and we have a real decision to make. There are three ways I see this can be handled: a weak option, a hard option, and a soft option. As I like to remember them, they are interpretations from canon, fanon, and no one I know. (I tried to make them rhyme.)

The canon interpretation, as you may remember, is that Gray tells Juvia that he doesn't reciprocate Juvia's feelings for him. (Choosing a translation for that would be fun.) However, Juvia effectively rejects the rejection Gray has of her. In the original, Juvia sees it as a way to make Gray like her more. In Fairy Girls, this is clarified as Juvia interpreting Gray's rejection as him being shy with his feelings.

Frankly, it's hard for me to want to do this. The issue is not that Juvia likes Gray despite being rejected by him. Even if you want to argue that Gray isn't necessarily being sincere in his rejection, I don't think Juvia should act like his rejection doesn't matter. And if that actually was how he felt about Juvia, be it for the time or the rest of the series, it's incredibly disrespectful of Juvia to act this way. Effectively, it's a weak way to keep the Gruvia song and dance going along until Mashima decides to end it for all of us.

By the looks of it, a lot of fan writers seem to think the same way. Their attempts to write a Gruvia rejection scene have evolved into what I consider to be the hard option for a Gruvia rejection. For the uninitiated, allow me to ruin any Juvia x [not Gray] story you may ever read. As you can expect, Gray decides to tell Juvia that he doesn't like her. However, he does so in a way that makes it very clear that Juvia was not and will never be able to make Gray like her. This usually results in Juvia being in a state of emotional availability (to put it lightly, in some cases) for [not Gray] to sweep Juvia off her feet and make her forget about Gray. Often with, and/or leading to, sex.

While I don't terribly mind this in fanfiction, I don't love this as a reflection on Juvia's ability to be in a romantic relationship that doesn't involve Gray. Nor do I think that it's possible to do this and keep Gray as a sympathetic character, let alone in character. If you're writing a story not bound to the rules that I am, these aren't bad things, in my opinion. But considering I am writing the rewrite with the rules I’ve put on myself, I can't do this.

The third option is one I haven't really seen done by anyone trying to put Juvia in a ship that isn't Gruvia. Some writers may skip the second option but they'll just cut to Juvia in the relationship they're writing for or ignore Juvia liking Gray and not liking him entirely. (Again, that's fine but not for what I'm trying to do.) The idea is that Gray still rejects Juvia but it doesn't break her or their overall relationship. They are still friends and can work together, but Gray is not, at that moment, interested in pursuing a relationship with Juvia.

I don't even think it's wrong for her to still want to be with Gray or even continue to work towards making Gray like her. However, what needs to happen is that, from this point on, she should be more subtle about it. This means that the dynamic changes from arguably willful ignorance towards Juvia's feelings to an actual sense of misunderstanding between them where Gray thinks that Juvia is content with his answer even though she is not. This state shouldn't be terribly hard for people to spot out. I have ideas for how this can look but I don't want to spoil too much.

However, we get to what may be the most important question I can deal with: do they end up together? While I wouldn't call this a hard answer, I'm currently leaning towards no for at least three reasons.

First off, they didn't end up as canon. While Mashima seems to be pushing them towards a trajectory of canonicity, he didn't keep them together at the end of 545, my cutoff point for considering canon ships. While their conversation in that chapter has been interpreted by many to be a romantic on Gray's part, I can't say they're canon considering he left Juvia at the end of the chapter. At best, it means he's genuinely willing to start a relationship with her when he returns. At worst, he's only entertaining the idea. Only time will tell how Mashima goes with this. (We don't call the man Trollshima for nothing.)

Second, I don't really need them to be a couple. I don't know that anything is lost by Gray and Juvia not being a romantic couple. Much of the good about their relationship, as I interpret it, wouldn't be lost if they decided to stay friends and ended up in romantic relationships with other people. In addition to that, I'm not as invested in making them be a couple as I am for other smaller ships in the series I could also work with to make canon.

But more than either of those arguments, there is the big elephant in the room: Juvia's death. (What? Thought I forgot what day it is?) I don’t have a definite stance on whether or not Juvia should die around the same time she does in the original in my rewrite of the series. There are a number of factors going into my decision based on how it played out in canon that I can easily spend a separate post about why it's not an easy decision. However, it's obviously impossible to make Gruvia canon if I decide to kill Juvia.

Based on Part 19

#the rewrite of fairy tail #anti gruvia #ish? i guess?#it's more like #not really pro gruvia #but not as hard as i've gone on it in the past #also...#happy august 31st!#i need a name for this day #5 years in a row #i talk about juvia dying

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