#these are fucking basic level fandom engagement things

[the-kipsabian]

saw a take so fucking rancid on twitter i almost deleted the entire app from my phone jesus fucking christ

first of all ao3 is an archive site. this is like going to the library and saying "oh i dont like this" on every piece of media you find that you dislike and thinking they should be stamped with some sort of a marker just cause you didnt like it

you can always click back and leave. fic writers owe you nothing to explain themselves and their creations. if they have mistagged or miscategorized fics, then i understand, however there are report tools for that instead of yelling at the artist tbh

im not saying free works arent necessarily above criticism. but this is just. fucking wild. its common courtesy to just enjoy stuff (or fucking leave if you dont, the back button is free) and if the artist specifically asks for critiques, then give one - constructive that is, shitting all over someones work is not proper criticism, mind you

i just find it fucking wild people are treating art and archive sites as social media these days like this and everything needs to be policed and ~catered to the algorithm~ like. no. ao3 doesnt have an algorithm. you should be able to fucking tell what you like and what you dont like and steer away from that kind of content and let people fucking be with their art. they dont owe you anything (except trigger warnings i'd argue, but i know some people disagree with that as well for some reason), and imagine how much more energy you'd have if you only engaged with things you liked and spent time looking at instead of going to places where you dont enjoy yourself. let alone spending time telling other people you dont enjoy what they enjoy. what a fucking life

#like what the fuck #where is the common courtesy of fandoms these days im just fucking asking. its ridiculous #the back button is free. shutting your fucking mouth is free. constructive criticism when people ask for it is nice but only then #these are fucking basic level fandom engagement things #am i old or are people just this fucking awful now that these guidelines dont exist anymore #im just. ough #sorry i had to get this out. idk as someone who has never left unsolicited advice for anyone and never gotten it back it just #it fucking grinds me that people are like this now. like fucking wow #ive been here for almost two decades soon and i still know how to behave. yall better fucking learn #im gonna go back to video game sorry i really needed to yell for a hot fucking second #if you choose to reblog this dont fucking clown on it okay. god #night is an absolute mess on main

[saintsenara]

if you are still doing ship game, thoughts on jily?

thank you very much, anon - i am always taking questions both on romantic ships and on characters' platonic vibes, the more unhinged the better.

although jily can't really be described in those terms, not least because their narrative purpose in canon is to be little more than blank canvases onto which harry can project as he goes through his series-long character arc, shedding his initial hero worship of james when confronted with the reality of his father's behaviour in order of the phoenix and starting both to fully appreciate lily's centrality to the course his life is taking and to see his dad with nuance as a real and fully-rounded person, flaws and all.

this narrative role means that the glimpses we get of them in canon feel kind of superficial - their bantering during snape's worst memory is basically high-school-teen-movie level, the snapshots of their life under lockdown in deathly hallows lovely and bittersweet but also just colour to a storyline which is already all of those things.

and this is not to say that i find jily uninteresting as a ship - i completely reject the common anti-jily position that they didn't really like each other, that they had nothing in common, or that their backgrounds made them incompatible [i'll expand on this below, but while i do think that their respective blood statuses and the impact of these on their relationship are worth thinking about, i loathe fics which portray james as chafing against his marriage because, as a pureblood, he'd be more comfortable with someone 'of his own kind'. this is bullshit, and there's far, far too much of it in this fandom]. my views on one of james' most frequent non-lily partnerships are well known, and i share the outrage many jily fans have for the way lily in particular is treated in a subfandom increasingly dominated by rigid fanon which prioritises giving depth to male characters [even if those characters are, in essence, oc's] and slash relationships over exploring the canon female characters, partnered or not.

but i do also find that a lot of jily falls into the same trap as much of the hinny i dislike - that is, a tendency to present as a sunshine-and-roses fairytale a relationship which is much more interesting if the things which canon implies [and which can be reasonably inferred outside of canon scenes from a canon coherent engagement with the text] might have introduced an element of dysfunction into james and lily's partnership are taken into account.

the shadow of the war is obviously one of these things. what role lily actually plays in the resistance is something which preoccupies me [she is never mentioned in canon to have taken a combat role - and i find it considerably more plausible that any attempt voldemort made to recruit her was at snape's request and connected to her potions prowess] particularly because, as we see in the way her death is memorialised in deathly hallows, the series regards the defence of the integrity of the nuclear family as a key aim for the good guys. how does she interact with james and his wartime role when she's pregnant, nursing, or in hiding for the vast majority of her time in the order? how does she feel about her husband being a soldier if she's behind the scenes?

indeed, what role james [and sirius] plays in the order is also something i'm obsessed with thinking about - not least because so much of the inherent tragedy of the marauders' storyline is caused by the fact that james and sirius think they're fucking invincible and that their plans to keep the potters safe are foolproof. it's entirely reasonable to read james and sirius as being pretty gung-ho about being paramilitaries - and my headcanon is absolutely that more battled-hardened order members didn't like them very much [moody does not, after all, seem massively fond of sirius] - and lily seems affected by this too [she's not holding her wand either!], and what they thought they were doing as 1981 rolls around is compelling to me.

james and lily's divergent backgrounds is also something i'd like to see explored more in fandom - not, as i've said, in the dull 'james should have married a pureblood' way, but in a way which deals with the fact that their relationship follows wizarding norms. molly weasley can blame the war all she likes, but [although i doubt this was jkr's intention] the evidence of canon is that witches and wizards marry and have children extremely young as a social standard, that couples generally don't live together before marriage, that divorce doesn't seem to be common, and that married women tend not to work. lily - a mother at twenty and, therefore, presumably married at nineteen - is coming of age, then, in a magical world which thinks about gender very differently from the muggle world of the 1970s, and i think that tension is worth exploring.

[similarly, the way in which her marriage is self-protective - lily gains a pureblood name and the social cachet which comes with it at a time when she's in rising danger on account of her birth - is something i think it's worth looking at when considering the pairing.]

there are other flashes of dysfuntion which i adore thinking about in relation to jily - lily's relationship with the other marauders [you can pry the reading that sirius resents her for stealing the love of his life - and i certainly don't mean lupin - away from him from my cold, dead hands]; how much of his misbehaviour at school james conceals from her; the fact that lily becoming more overtly interested in james from her sixth year onward must have a little bit of attempting to make snape jealous mixed into it - and whenever i stumble upon them in fics i say oh ho like horace slughorn and kick my little feet in the air.

i care rather less about 'we're so hot and flawless and not doomed' as a trope.

but i do stan james for beefing with vernon dursley even though lily told him to behave. the man really is just that annoying.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #jily #james potter #lily evans #is this an 'i'm in danger' one? #only time will tell

[ladyluscinia]

OFMD fandom has me thinking about Protagonist Centered Morality, like, in general.

I feel like we only call it that when we think it's been handled wrong and are criticizing it, even though - let's be honest - we have all bought into some degree of protagonist centered morality in our favorite show. Like. It's the beating heart behind the very idea of a Mook - the faceless darkside minion that your heroes can destroy without any moral consequence for that action because who gives a shit? It's basically inescapable in every cop-show (or reskinned cop show like spn), chosen one story, action movie, revenge quest, underdog tale... we fucking love it when the universe agrees "yeah they earned that" and will generally just roll our eyes at people going "ok but you know your fictional murderers are doing bad things, right?"

Until we don't.

And, like, as an offshoot of this... 99% of the time, when you're criticizing a show for its protagonist centered morality, the most straightforward way to get your point across is complaining about whatever happened. "X did Y and then we're just supposed to forget about it?" Or "X is being such a hypocrite about Z!" And then someone else (real or hypothetical) pushes back with some point about how the story / other characters / etc. don't treat this as a problem and that kicks off the framing criticisms. But is it really about what they did?

People will object to the protagonist centered framing of actions they don't consider that serious, and be satisfied or unconcerned with the framing of actions they find borderline unforgivable. Protagonist centered morality can casually handwave (or seriously penalize) the whole spectrum of morally questionable actions from being a shit in high school to committing massive war crimes. Sometimes the primary complaint is that the protagonist already took a stance against this action, so now being fine with doing it themselves is hypocritical and out of character, and the problem with protagonist centered morality seems to be more that it's letting the OOC part slide.

The concept engages with genuine criticism of a characterization or character's actions as a shorthand, but the part it's actually complaining about is closer to feeling the narrative failed somewhere on a meta level to calibrate how much the audience should care about this event (and what level of in-universe caring would then satisfy).

It's not (at least usually) a fancy way of putting forward character crit of the good guys - most people who want to do that are just going to do so directly. If anything it has more in common with being upset at a story for breaking your Suspension of Disbelief (usually in the arena of character relationships).

#media #tropes #analysis #fandom culture #suspension of disbelief #protagonist centered morality #i'm mostly just rambling here after seeing lots of back and forth flame stuff just bounce entirely off the points being made #like you can't argue someone around to your pov on this by doubling down on how there's no issue until they make one #or defending your fave from perceived attacks. it's not *about* blorbo it's about the meta narrative #see: criticizing the fact the spn universe treats dean winchester's pov as divine law is not really deancrit #in fact my poor blorbo is actively denied character growth because he's fundamentally no allowed to be wrong #ladyluscinia

[jacksgreysays]

Hiiii how about a prompt for Further Down Road One, political marriage!Shikasuke, maybe something from an Uchiha's POV on the Shikabane-hime's meteoric rise in power, international acclaim, and political capital? And how it ripples out onto the clan as a whole?

I mean, the point of Road One is that the arranged marriage itself already does SO MUCH to change the trajectory of the Uchiha clan’s fate for the better that, basically, everything else after that is kind of a bonus. The fact that Shikako’s smart and powerful and a good person is NICE, yes, but just being engaged to Sasuke already earned so much approval from the clan as a whole that it’s just kinda… ehhhh…

Although… and this somewhat of a tangent to the prompt… it would be funny if… okay, let me set this up by saying: I don’t necessarily like Itachi as a character. When he was kind of a psychopath and apparently just murdered his entire family to test his power, that was at least a… strength of will or conviction that kind of resonated thematically. Like, what if Will of Fire goes bad kind of thing. Or the pressures of being clan heir, of being pushed too hard and too fast, would lead to a genius of violence snapping and using said violence. Then when it turns out he was given orders to murder his entire family and his one condition was that Sasuke would get to live is like… what the fuck dude. It’s both backtracking to make Itachi weaker as a character and also, somehow, even more of a psychopath in my opinion. And, like, sure, Danzo maybe used Shisui’s Sharingan to unbreakable genjutsu him into it, but I don’t think that really absolves Itachi.

All that being said, theoretically in this kinder world of Road One, we never get to that point. Additionally, there’s less pressure on Itachi to continue to excel SO OVERTLY since the clan isn’t getting isolated and also because Shisui is still there and alive to share the burden.

BUT, I do still… the idea that the Uchiha elders have been wanting one of the clan to become Hokage is something that I hold to be true unless proven otherwise. I do think the clan elders would push more for Itachi to be Hokage—because he is clan heir and so has the pedigree, while Shisui (just as powerful, literally Flee On Sight in the bingo books at such a young age) I think we’ve fandom agreed is an orphan or at least a lesser branch of the Uchiha clan.

Anyway, all of the above leads me to: Shisui and Itachi trying to PR campaign for their sister-in-law Shikako (who WILL be an Uchiha once the marriage actually) to be the new “best candidate” for an Uchiha Hokage. Like, really just them listing off all of her accomplishments to not only the Uchiha elders but the rest of the clan (who, again, already quite like her).

I also think, in this universe, that Shikako would DO SOMETHING about Sora-ku once she feels a little more comfortable making decisions—or, at least, making proposals with attached logistics—for the Uchiha clan. Like. It’s a huge chunk of territory that seems to be an abandoned city. But it’s apparently functional enough to have a community of sorts of black marketeers and a support system. Like, it’s not so out of the way of things that nobody bothers with it, which implies that it could be rejuvenated with the time and resources. I think I read a theory once that it’s because Senju used their skills to desertify the area so there just wasn’t enough food to support a city of that size. BUT, now they’ve got Shikako. And Shikako’s connections. Whether that is the ANY clan alliance or Tenzo/Yamato or upper echelons of Hidden Mist’s administration (Haku is an ice user, yes, but like he and Zabuza wouldn’t throw a squad of Mist nin with water nature to help with irrigation at Shikako’s request for free) or even the literal oasis creating ancient god Gelel.

So, you know, she’s more than proven herself to the world. And with the Sora-ku rejuvenation, already brought a level of prosperity to the Uchiha clan than they could ever imagine. “Shikako for Hokage” is not a hard sell for Shisui and Itachi whatsoever (and also, they do think Sasuke would be so happy as her First Gentleman/trophy husband)

Yeah, that’s kind of all I can think of for this prompt in terms of it being different than how the Nara clan or DoS canon clans for that matter would view her meteoric rise. Hope you enjoyed, anon.

#jacksgreyson #anonymous #ask box advent calendar #down every road #dreaming of sunshine #shikako nara #itachi uchiha #shisui uchiha #character analysis #meta analysis #brainstorm

[inbarfink]

OOC Discourse is always a complicated topic, cause on one hand it IS reductive to go like... there ARE instances where the fans have a better grasp on a character than the actual canon writers do. Especially when you consider bigger creative projects with multiple writers, and especially especially the long-running ones where the original creators are basically uninvolved and everything ‘canon’ that’s being made right now is basically copyrighter-holders-approved-fanfiction. And even in the smaller-scale projects, sometimes the creator writes in something kinda OOC for the sake of pacing or plot or a stupid joke, or maybe they’re just not very good at it and they fucked up. There are cases where fan complaints about canon-material being ‘OOC’ is valid and should be considered.

But on the other hand, there are far too many fans who throw in the “OOC” claim when, like, canon just happens to contradict their favorite not-actually-textually-supported-headcanon, or contradict a version of the character that has kinda mutated through a fandom-wide game of Telephone. Or just like, refusing to engage with the idea that the character might contain more than the surface-level we were initially introduced to, or that people might react Differently in Different Situations, or that Character Development is a thing. And I feel like the folks who are complaining that the Deltarune “The Newest Girl Girl” blogpost is “OOC” for Kris, Susie and Noelle are really a case of the second thing?

Like, first things first, trying to authoritatively label anything Kris does as “OOC” is, in my humble opinion, aboslutely friggin’ clownshoes right now. Kris is the most enigmatic character in Deltarune’s main cast. Because we’re controlling them, we can only can only infer what they are like from the glimpses of their true personality and behavior slipping in through the cracks and from stories told to us by their friends and family. There’s a lot of cool interpetation and analysis work done by the Fandom about Kris’ personality from the little info we have and a lot of it is well-reasoned and well-argued-for but... 

When we get one of the first canon scenes descriptions featuring a (probably?) not posessed Kris, and their behavior in some way happens contradict your Kris Interpetation? I think the correct reaction is less “this so OOC” as much as “hmmm, maybe I need to reconsider some things in my personal interpetation of the characrter?” We’re still in the early stages of the process of assembling the puzzle pieces of Kris’ personality, this is not really the time where we can throw away pieces cause we think they won’t fit?

And Noelle, she felt very consistent with her character so far to me? We already know that freezing up during scary situations is a problem for her - her inability to actually stand up against jerks was, like, her whole character arc in the second chapter. Mostly the focus was about how folks kept overriding her desires and forcing her to do things, but there’s also an undercurrent to how it’s stopping her from meaningfully defending her friends. Espacially when you consider her dynamic with Berdly and his dynamic with Susie and Kris... Honestly, if she behaved better through that whole encounter that could have somewhat diminished the importance of her Big Moment in the climax of Chapter 2. 

And as for Susie.... Yeah, right now we all love and appreciate Susie as the most Wholesome Delta Warrior and the bestest friend of them all - but you remember what happened in Chapter 1, right? She did start out as a bully. She slammed Kris against a locker, threathened to eat their face, constantly insulted them and then spent a good chunk of the Chapter just beating up everyone and everything in the Dark World. These actions stand in contrast to the sweeter side that she shows later on in the game, but it doesn’t negate them or negate the idea that she might’ve done more stuff like that before.

I think you can argue that what Susie did in the blogpost is worse than what she did in Chapter 1, just in the sense that “your mother WILL abandon you and will be happier without you!” is crueler in a much more personal way than “I will eat your face”. But not really in the sense of “Susie would have NEVER said something like this!” as much as “what would prompt Susie to say something like that?” Was she going through a praticularly rough time after moving into Hometown, causing her to take out her own frustrations and insecurities on Kris much more than later on? Was this a spesifically Bad Day? Did... whatever Kris told her in reply really shook her emotionally that much? Did she end up regretting her words and deeds on some level and started mellowing out even before Chapter 1 start? There are a lot of interesting possibilities!

I guess that’s what frustrates me the most about a knee-jerk “OOC Writing” reaction for every time a character catches the fandom off-guard. A sort of refusal to really engage with the text and it’s implication for the characters before you just chuck the text in the grabage. I think this is very much supposed to be a ‘how far they’ve come’ sort of thingie, contrasting the characters as they existed in this blog pre-character development with the better-adujsted post-Dark World Adventure versions we experienced in the game. We’re supposed to to feel some sort of emotional vertigo from how Noelle, Susie and Kris interact here to how they interact by the end of Chapter 2 - but that’s not because of Bad Writing, just cause these kids are changing and growing!

#deltarune #kris #kris deltarune #kris dreemurr #Susie #susie deltarune #noelle #noelle holiday #noelle deltarune #spamton sweepstakes

[rainbowgod666]

Welcome to the Multiverse

The rules are simple: you want to send an ask? Its either me or some blorbo of yours. Its my Multiverse but there are so many fandoms in it. Holy Shit. If you engage in RP with me specifically rember that my entire "thing" is being The Author. I sill have to figure out of what tho (you would think the Foundation would know that. Well guess fucking what.)

To let you get started, here are some of my best posts. Remember that the Ourple ones are KINDA mandatory if you want ANY background on wtf is this blog.

List of my powers / Its the end of the world as you know it (and i did it on purpose) / an admin kicked me off the island lmao / Mental Health Time / You Absolute Buffoons / The Numeron Game / Well thats a thing that happened! / Out of touch: leap yeap / 🅱️usiness / Magnus did nothing wrong, except its steven universe / welcome to the internet, SCP edition / #HALLOLLAH# / AMERICA IS FASCIST HEAVEN BECAUSE FUNNY / Lost Childhoods / please save those poor gay americans / Free Disco Elysco / Bone to the bad / Priting Wrojects / the True Range of my abilities / the fuck's an apocalypse knight anyway? / @punkitt-is-here fucked Geronimo Stilton and i think its a good thing / Alex goes batshit insane and forces everyone to do as he says... again 🙄 / Screaming in a Pattern. / wizardposting: because powerscaling needed fuckign Zeno Dragonballsuper apparently / BEN 10 BUT LANCER? FUCK YEAH! / High Geology / fantasy settings on tumblr are really fucking cool actually / RIFLE. IS. FINE. BUT YOU FUCK UP DESIGN YOU UROD. / i technically claimed ownership of Dr. Bright and Betty from glitchtale do you seriously think im NOT gonna do that for homestuck? / XenasOuch / SCP-8000 contest, OR: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUC- / LEMMINO but like, 8 years ago / Hazbin Hotel: a necessary... something i guess. / research attempt: the wizardposting wine aunt /

Below is who i am, and also the tags you can (and should) search for

Hi, name's Alex.

Born on the first ever day of 2005 and also having aspergers, i am a guy from italy trying to make it impossible for anyone to spend a day without knowing who i am. Also i literally trascend powerscaling so hard the only things that can even put a DENT on me are... decided by me. Welcome to the multiverse i guess.

DNI: people who support genocide, people who tolerate corporate bullshit, racists, and terfs.

The following list is ALL THE TAGS USED TO NAVIGATE THIS BLOG. Seriously. This masterpost is an explaiantion for the "portal hub" i placed in the search bar

Lore Post: sometimes the lore of the multiverse, sometimes my personal life.

Welcome to the multiverse: sometimes MASSIVE textpost telling everyone "oh yeah right, this dude has autism", usually me existing. tHE MAIN TAG.

Alex's Answering Machine: literally my asks

The magical workshop: turns out the wizards of tumblr are the reason the phrase "some of y'all have gotten too comfortable saying stuff without getting punched for it" exist. And its up to my autistic, protagonism-fueled low self-esteem high self-awareness ass to... fix shit up.

Belowstory: undertale but REALLY FUCKED UP: so basically frisk falls down and is greeted by a feminine voice that calls itself chara (it becomes slightly visible after getting out of the ruins) and like the good boi undertale character he is he proceeds to save the world. This entire thing exists because one time I was like "how fucked up OP can a sans be before its My Immortal levels of wtf?" And uh yeah here we are uuuuuuh sans greets you by pointing a .44 magnum at you so thank the head of the guards (papyrus) for saving you. Everyone here is broken and just wants A Fucking Break. Also you gain levels in pacifist because LOVE is Level Of VirtuE. Fuck you lmao

Undertale.exe: so I looked at Camilla Cuevas being an awful person. Then i looked at the beautiful anime that is @jakei95's underverse... then i smushed it all toghether to basically create the perfect AU. Frisk is a pansexual fuccboi that Has Game, Chara is THICC and powerful, Betty is built like a ballerina and is 1000 years old, and Asriel is a Streemur. All of them live in this house far away from the city thats literally a larger version of sans' house. All charachters can legally drink (prepare for Drunk Chara shenanigans where its Betty Glitchtale the drunk one instead) and the only one who (probably) isnt gay is Asriel (even though frisk covets the Dreemur Dong) (one day soldier, one day...). Many chatachters from many AUs sometimes come to visit cause, you know. Its a nice place.

Curseworld: massive writing project of mine which is just "adventure time shaped mass of autism". The world is cursed and fucked over, and everything is colorful. Its also part Owl House because fuck you the magic system is FUCKED here.

Internet friends: basically internet stereotype-shaped people. We have a furry thats normal, a reddit/discord mod that just wants to work in peace, and the protagonist is Just A Guy but a-ha! He has both an xbox an...d ps5 thus fucking over any CAD reference. The last sketch i made was a mr.monopoly shaped guy who really wants youngsters to actually AFFORD shit who is married to a very obvious reference to Meru the succubus. Also i 100% intend to put a gag about mr beast living in an ATM when he isnt making videos

Im looking respectfully: look. Back then tumblr was basically Rule 34 with twitter users. Now its way better at the cost of a fraction of their value. Have fun looking at attactive women!

TOH:NEXT GENERATION: not even @moringmark's comics are safe! Enjoy the adventures of ayzee commented by me... telling everyone that shes STRONG strong. Like holy shit girl inherited will much?

Warhammer 50k: listen. This is just me looking at games workshop and fucking emperors tts and going "fuck that. Heres mine". This is a project where my "shard" assegned to this universe basically copies the imperium because, and im not joking, "the emperor is kind of a baka, but then again tzeentch is a thing so...". Also btw TTS is canon as SHIT. Like fr its all canon. Yes even the shadowsun fling, let kitten rest.

Pluripotent Impotence: an scp canon of mine thats basically "the foundation is so cold and clinical they MASSIVELY misunderstood shit". 6140, 6500, 5500 and 7000 are canon. 2718 and 5000 are in the files but they basically might as well not exist. 3812 is living tech support. 166 is in her early 20s and 239 is 19 and they fuck nasty (theyre also childhood friends. Girl Love i guess~) because fuck you clef love wins especially yuri go snort telekill dust. 2317 loves humans and thins theyre cute and squishy and when its seventh child turned out to be fucking JoyBoy? Yeah get this: he DID condemn the fortune teller that was like "dude your sevent child is one of those prophecy children that are so in vogue these days" but also messed with fate so that her death ended up being the coolest and most inspiring shit ever because he was like "considering the average Evil King story, i might as well just... let this happen! Maybe i can convince my literal offspring to spare me!" And it fucking worked. Also a bunch of shit is canon. @i-am-dado looks like a Kpop star and is somft. Dr Jack bright is my character and mine alone and also elias shaw is there i guess. My OC bangs the first one of these 2 amulet boys on a regular basis and the second one occasionally, dont ask why is there a gay polycule when im straight, there are some things that escape my mind. I have been in SCP for a long time and regardless of me making my account 6/1/2024 (LA BEFANAH) i have been here longer than you believe in. From my perspective it took a year before a 5000 contest was announced, so fcuk yoyu

Earth-ℵ₀: the best way to take care of the DC and Marvel universes is... let an autistic dude fix damages done by money-hungry idiots in hollywood. The joker is unimportant. Dr.Manhattan is Done With This Shit. I made a squad with random charachters i like. Lmao suck on uranium rods UwU

ytposting: (Funkdela Catalogue: Encounter starts playing)

Omni-shit: ben 10 is actually a good series guys, and the reboot is an interesting way of showing what would Ben 10 Classic look like if it was made Now

1% enhancement: basically i look at something and go like "hey what if the charachters were basically part me but not in a Knights of the Apocalypse way"

Tumblr italia: aò sono italiano che cos'altro vi aspettate

components: basically i use tumblr as image hosting. LoL.

Items: images turned undertale items. For reference, i have 2³¹-1 HP and my stats are ATK 100000 and DEF 65535. Yes the attack is a yugioh zexal reference. NOSTALGIA IS PTSD BUT GOOD.

Mungeon Deshi: dunmeshi is a good anime and marcille is italian

Full Nelson Analchemist: if FMA exists in my presence im going to give the 20k mg weed gummy to Truth

Evangelion 4.0: look, hideki anno has gone insane. Every time he makes evangelion as the most brain damaging version of telling someone to go touch grass people inevitably miss the point. I take it upon myself to give the @jakei95 treatment to the poor creatures (also fun fact: KAWOSHIN CANON. THEY KISS ON SCREEN. FUCK YOU AMERICA.)

The hoes are stuck: homestuck. What you thought they were safe from my grasp? 人間 you havent seen sheiße.

FeeF the BeeB: minecraft mod bullsheiße

Side effects of reading this blog can vary between true insight into the inner workings of the universe and self-defenestration from the top of the burj khalifa.

[[Nothing Is Worth The Risk]]: lets just say that sometimes, the multiverse isnt that "cool and good"

Ultimate Sonic: i have a Sonic AU where... uhm... just. If i have a post about that. Just look at it. LoL.

Anyways welcome to the multiverse

Do yourself a favour and dont go out without a loaded gun.

#Lore Post #welcome to the multiverse

[unhinged-jackles]

As someone who joined the fandom way later and don't know the lore behind the letter(especially regarding his abusive ex??) this was a trip. I screamed when the letter turned negative.

oh boy, the ex of anthony's they're referring to was a fucking time. basically anthony was in a relationship with a woman named kalel smith from 2010 to 2014, and the two of them were actually engaged for a bit. they had a daily vlog channel together, but even from an audience pov things seemed off? ik fans of smosh and anthony got the vibe that she was using anthony for views, but who knows how bad things were behind the scenes. anthony also mentioned in his (now edited) second draw my life video that he felt kalel has manipulated and used him throughout their relationship, which caused her to go on a twitter rampage.

it was really interesting to hear how that relationship impacted ian and anthony's friendship. i know i've had close friends be in shitty relationships, and i've brought up my concerns to them when they weren't being treated the way they deserve to be, because i want what's best for them. since ian and anthony had lost that level of trust with each other, it really must have been a shitty time where ian saw that things were off but couldn't talk to anthony about it, and then anthony saw the messages and then didn't believe ian was coming from a genuine place.

#smosh #ian hecox #anthony padilla #ianthony #(besties) #☀️🔍 #ask tanoo #coralizedbug

[three--rings]

So I was thinking last night about the FTH charity binding I offered, and why I didn't put any restrictions on the content it could cover, other than very basic restriction on underage explicitness.

And I realized it's because I know from experience that I could list out a whole bunch of restrictions and STILL get something I didn't foresee and which might bother me. I've been around fandom enough to know that when you try to foresee all the potential weirdness, someone will always outweird you.

So I gave myself a personal safe position, which is if I disliked the content in whatever someone wanted me to bind, I would just not read it. (I don't have the kind of triggers where just glimpsing a topic is going to leave me shaken and upset, other than like a momentary shudder.)

(I ended up with a very nice fic that I never would have encountered but enjoyed reading and therefore am making an extra nice typeset for, btw.)

But anyway, I think it ties into the entire idea of antis wanting to censor content because they think they can somehow prevent themselves ever getting upset if they Just Restrict Enough Topics. If they make everything that could possibly be Wrong illegal, they will be Safe from Upsetting Things.

And I can just tell you, from experience, that's not how humans work. Someone will still slip the most disturbing content imaginable through your carefully considered limitations. People are freaking WEIRD MAN and the sooner you just accept that and see it as beautiful the happier you'll be.

(Which again, doesn't mean you have to personally expose yourself to upsetting things, that's what tags are FOR, but also know there are tags out there you are never going to THINK of restricting that will hit you upside the head.)

And I'm not even talking about Weird Sex Stuff necessarily. Like, you could end up encountering a fic that just...upsets you deeply because of the tone or the mood. It could send you into a depression or something just because of the plot, it could remind you of something from your past for random reasons, like engaging with stories isn't SAFE on a fundamental level. There is always a risk of it DOING SOMETHING to you. That's what is awesome about stories.

Like I recently read a fic without looking too closely at tags and went in for some BDSM smut and ending up sobbing my eyes out repeatedly. It fucking knocked me for a LOOP emotionally. And wow, that was AN EXPERIENCE that I'm glad I had. I had been feeling kinda emotionally dead and this shook something LOOSE.

Anyway, yeah. If you try to make fiction (or life) Perfectly Safe you'll just end up drawing boundaries smaller and smaller until you find yourself backed into a tiny empty corner.

#purity culture #fandom meta #my meta #censorship

[clonehub]

The risk of being forcibly labeled as pro or anti something is why discussions on racism in works on both of a character and meta and textual and literal level get shafted so easily.

Also personally i do despise pro/anti divides for every damn thing, it juvenile as nick said, it's needlessly polarizing, and in all honesty what the fuck does it mean to be "pro" a show ship or character or "anti" a show ship or character? Those labels make sense for being pro and anti abortion, for instance, because that is a real phenomena with real impacts and material harms and means of being actionable about them. If you're pro abortion you march, you legislate, you organize in favor of abortion rights. It's a legitimate position with legitimate philosophy to back it up.

But when people apply something like that to fandom, it becomes not about ideology but about frankly very trivial things like ships or characters or groups in a tv show. The neverending pro/anti Jedi debate comes to mind, along with a worrying lack of nuance and painfully obvious lack of a "solution" to the stance that doesn't negatively affect the interpretation of every other event in Star Wars or outright justify/deny genocide (or that doesn't baselessly accuse the "other side" of believing the Jedis genocide to be okay).

Now that basically any and all critiques about fandom get shoved into oversimplified positions of being pro or anti fandom (or the things within fandom), people (especially Black people) get forcibly labeled as activists of varying types, especially by racist white people who then want to criticize our activist actions as if they're in any position to be doing so. What also happens is that people think critique for something = outright hatred for the thing, to the point where if hypothetically given the power, the assumption is that the "anti" would zap the thing they don't like from existence.

Ive had this issue with tbb stans who take my critiques of it's racism as a personal issue that can only be resolved by destroying the show -- basically, I'm "anti tbb" even though I think that's a weird way to position anyone's opinion about a text when the critique in question is about racism. I've joked about just cancelling the show before of course, but I've also quite plainly stated that if the series wasn't super whitewashed and wasn't ableist and wasn't antisemitic, I'd be a fan of it (mediocre writing aside). For years my position hasn't been "cancel the show" it's been "change the show".

This difference isn't taken into account by people who can only view any opinion through strictly black and white lenses of supporting everything something has to offer (and thus seeing no issues in it, at least not serious ones) and hating everything something has to offer, and thus thinking it needs to be scrubbed from memory rather than fixed. This has led to even hardcore tbb stans being terrified of critiquing the writing in the show (not the racism) because people so frequently leave no room for critical analysis of any kind that doesn't reaffirm and support what's being presented in the series (or what's support by the fandom, even if not by canon).

I've been flipping back and forth between racism and gen critiques. For the record, me personally I'm not pro or anti anything. I have my opinions, i understand nuance, and there's definitely shit that i hate that I'd rather not see. I've never once subscribed to that model of fandom interaction outside of maybe (MAYBE) tagging something anti tbb, and that was more for engagement and for the sake of the tbb stans who somehow keep following me.

#ch posts #its all over the place but itll do

[ziskandra]

what do you mean a female hawke shifts the power dynamics? sorry i know you said you can't articulate why m!handers makes you uncomfortable, but it sounded a bit... 😬 you know?

assuming you're referring to this answer i gave for the ask meme I've been doing:

oh also, while i’m being salty (the name of the game i SUPPOSE), i fucking love f!handers but m!handers leaves me cold (especially in canon-verse fic, i don’t mind it as much in like, modern AUs and the like?) idk i feel like them being the same gender changes their dynamic in a way i can’t articulate–probably that hawke being female shifts the power dynamics a bit and. yeah

basically, m!handers doesn't make me "uncomfortable", i just find it less engaging. this is because i mostly write and read ships with at least one female character, and while i do have some m/m ships that i enjoy, it's based more on other character traits other than the fact that they're both men. in terms of 'power dynamics', i simply mean that in how m/f relationships inherently come with a power imbalance due to gender roles (notwithstanding that there can be other factors involved), and this is one of my favourite things to explore in fiction. more specifically, i'm fascinated by how anders's actions and behaviours might be viewed differently through the lens of a female hawke and her friends as compared to a male hawke and his. (it shouldn't matter, of course, but we all know 'men and women are treated equally' is as fallacious a statement in thedas as it is in real life.) also, acknowledging this answer comes across as very binary, i'm also very into the idea of nonbinary hawke/anders (and nonbinary headcanons in general). my (extremely mild) frustration is more levelled at m!handers because of subsets of fandom that act like male hawke is the only valid option, which in turn is just reinventing bisexual erasure tbh. hope that clarifies matters for you, nonny.

#asha answers #anonymous #if anyone reading this is new here this is your reminder that i am a tired nonbinary bisexual i guess! #also this reminds me that i would love to read more nonbinary hawke/anders fics so #if you got recs sling them my way #this was also very funny to me because the only times i have written anders ships have been... a mhanders fic #and a nonbinary inquisitor x anders fic #just bi things

[markantonys]

I figured the show would probably make Rand more traumatized than he even was in the books but this is another level. I'm scared to watch his other trauma unfold. The Box is gonna be 10x more brutal, I can feel it

agreed! and i have to say, i'm here for it! because honestly, i was kinda underwhelmed by rand's arc in the books. don't get me wrong, it WAS really good, but it was one of those Fandom Perception things: before i started reading, i saw EVERYONE hyping his arc up as The Most Painful Thing In The Entire History Of Literature, so, you know, it was kind of inevitable that it would end up falling a little short of the vast amounts of hype i was given haha

and it really was just the slog that killed it in the books. bc books 1-7ish and TGS were just as devastating as i'd expected, if not more so, but then in books 8-9 his plotlines were boring to me and so my engagement in his emotional arc suffered accordingly, and then in 10-11 he was basically completely stagnant in both plot AND emotional development. he just hung around in a mansion fucking min for 2 books! it defs felt like rj got lost in the weeds and/or didn't really know how to finish up rand's arc, so ended up stalling it and thereby sucking out a lot of its emotional impact. (also, of course, as a Certified Min/Rand Hater, i naturally spent the majority of rand's second-half-of-series screentime feeling extremely annoyed and unable to appreciate anything else that was going on in his scenes haha)

anyway, all this to say that the show being much tighter and faster-paced with rand's arc AND amping up his trauma on top of that? boy oh boy, it's going to hurt like hell and i am READY for it! plus, there's also the natural effect of seeing things in a visual medium with real people often being a more emotional experience than reading it as words on a page (at least for me; i cry watching shows/movies not infrequently but i never ever cry reading books)

#anonymous #answered #wot book spoilers

[bookofmirth]

i know fandom drama is always talked about to death and i'm probably not adding anything new to the discussion, but i feel like the way this fandom treats lucien and mor in comparison to elain and nesta and azriel is very representative of white feminism. i'm growing very tired of fandom discussions that center around uplifting elain and nesta because of girlboss feminism and azriel - their favorite bland man to project a personality onto - while ignoring the struggles of non-white, non-straight characters who are also victims of abuse.

sooo many people in this fandom fall back on choice feminism when discussing nesta and elain - like if you don't support their "choices" (despite being fictional characters with no agency of their own), you don't support women's choices, and thus you are a bad feminist. not only is this a logical fallacy, but it also doesn't allow female characters to be multi-dimensional, to make bad choices, to not just be morally "good" all the time. idk if this happens with feyre too or not, but most discourse i see is around nesta and elain.

whenever certain people in this fandom see sympathetic discussions of lucien and hopes for him to have a happy ending (sometimes with elain, sometimes not), they complain that you care more about a man than a woman that he "inflicted trauma on." they only see the social divide in terms of gender, never examining how race also plays a role in the struggles lucien has faced - never even considering that a male poc could also experience abuse at the hands of tamlin and his family. and so many people hate mor for not being a "girl's girl" towards nesta, because they believe feminism is only about women uplifting women, never considering the way that mor's past struggles with abuse because of her gender and sexual orientation have shaped her to be wary of people that are (in her eyes) unnecessarily cruel.

i do recognize that the feminism in sjm's books is fairly basic, so maybe that's to blame, but it's unfortunate the fandom can't take a more intersectional approach

Anon, I totally agree. Have you read @gimme-mor's posts about this? She did a great job of outlining some of the issues with the ways people talk about female characters in the fandom, and the surface-level feminism that is used in this post and in this one.

It makes sense that the fandom would engage with discussions of privilege and gender (and race and class etc.) on a rather surface level, since, as you pointed out, the flavor of feminism that is featured in the series is very focused on gender and rarely takes other identities, marginalized or otherwise, into account. It's #girlpower with no thought about individual differences that those women might be experiencing that actually have a huge impact on what "choices" each of them can make.

With Lucien, there is also the issue of his disability, but it's quite easy to dismiss him as a villain when all people are looking at is his maleness. It's not as simple as "woman = good" and "man = bad", but that's how people act.

The fact is, none of these characters have a choice because they aren't real people, as you also pointed out. There is no such thing as supporting a fictional person's rights because those rights literally don't exist. They do not have agency or autonomy or.... literal fucking existence in the real world, and so it's absolute malarkey to act like we need to be respectful of a fictional character, and to bully and shit on a real person in doing so.

I remember when I said that Elain is privileged it pissed some people off, but I think that also comes down to a misunderstanding of what privilege actually is, hand-in-hand with this Feminism Lite. There are a lot of great potential conversations to be had about these characters and the world they live in and how they interact with one another, the ways in which they are limited or have access to power, but it's kinda hard when people are more concerned about being right in the ship war.

#acotar fandom #ask #anon

[dats-hq]

You can tell that Shuuji fans are more literate and not just “animal abuse apologists” because the majority of them don’t have a wild hate-boner for Lopmon. In fact, as we learned from a certain character popularity poll, while Lopmon fans are only 43% likely to like Shuuji, Shuuji fans are 95% likely to like Lopmon.

I’ve had this thought in the back of my head since the Shuuji discourse started like, “I really hope this doesn’t lead to Shuuji fans resenting Lopmon for being used as a reason to hate Shuuji.” I’ve seen it happen in a thousand different fandoms. A relatively inoffensive character gets hated on because they are so often praised by fans in contrast to a different character. And here we have Lopmon being the third-most popular character in the game, partnered with Shuuji, the least popular.

Obviously I’m a cartoonishly big fan of all the characters in Survive, so in that way, I don’t want to see Lopmon get any hate. On another level, I find the “grr fuck this cute thing” shtick very tiresome.

The biggest reason I was worried about this was that it would reflect very poorly on Shuuji fans. The concept of his character is that he rejects Lopmon due to misplaced feelings of resentment instilled in him by others. It would be very ironic in a sad way if Shuuji fans ended up doing basically the same thing Shuuji does at his worst.

But no! Shuuji fans love Lopmon! Because while to like Lopmon, all you need to do is enjoy a cute bunny, to be a Shuuji fan, you need to have the critical reading skills necessary to understand him. If you were engaging with the story on pure vibes, you probably wouldn’t like Shuuji. You have to be willing to understand the way he was raised and the lies he was taught about himself. You have to engage with the metaphor of the Digimon as reflections of the human’s true heart. And if you do all that, I genuinely don’t see how you could possibly hate Lopmon, the representation of all the kindness and warmth that Shuuji is capable of and the great things he can accomplish if he’s willing to embrace his authentic self.

#digimon #digimon survive #shuuji kayama #kayama shuuji #lopmon #analysis

[the-music-maniac]

I was thinking about Bingliushen today, y'know, as you do, because of this awesome (and true) post here and was abruptly reminded of the complaints I've heard about Bingliushen on this basis, mostly that they can't see it happening between Binghe and Qingge and that it's unrealistic.

First of all, valid! People absolutely don't need to ship it, or think it's plausible tbh, fandom is fun because there are differing opinions.

But I still did want to talk about why I find the ship so compelling, since part of the reason I love it so much is BECAUSE it's so unlikely.

I want to preface this by saying first that I don't actually think LBH and LQG falling for each other is impossible, as some people do, since I think that's the biggest protest with this ship. People don't seem to have as much of an issue believing LiuShen. Anyways, I just think that LBH and LQG ending up as a thing is only merely difficult. That's kind of an important distinction.

And the reason is because I really don't think Luo Binghe is only capable of truly loving (in a general sense) one person as an adult (specified adult because we do see that he loved his mother as a kid. He's also fond of Ning Ying Ying as a child but we see that they're not as close when he comes back cause of the murdery demon thing). That does appear to be the case in the story because the man is VERY intense when it comes to Shen Qingqiu, but I think that's more of a result of all the trauma he experienced as a kid, and the abandonment issues. He fell for Shen Qingqiu as an impressionable child - through no fault of Shen Qingqiu obviously because he fully viewed Luo Binghe as a disciple and wasn't grooming him or anything (also they're cultivators so they're technically immortal? How does age differences work in that case?). Shen Qingqiu in that instance was the one person in his world as a teen, the first person outside immediate family to ever tell him he's not a monster for being a demon - and also someone who's considered more valuable than Binghe - a lauded, accomplished authority figure I suppose. Someone important who sees value in Binghe when he's been told he's worth nothing. The instances of being left behind by his mother (cause she died obvi) and then by one of the only other people who cared for him - pushing him off a cliff to die because he's a demon (or so he believes) has to fuck with your head. And if you love the person the amount Luo Binghe appears to, well I understand being intense once you finally get them back. To an unhealthy level tbh, but then again this man needs so much therapy in general 😅. Get you some healthy coping mechanisms and healing, good sir! Also it's just occuring me as I'm saying all of it that it sounds like I'm calling Luo Binghe out for having daddy issues (parental issues?) but like. I'm sorry but he kinda does.

So, I don't think anyone is only capable of loving a singular person, but, as I mentioned before, because this is their (LBH and SQQ's) love story, we only focus on them. LBH does have the capacity to rebuild a support system, to make friends, expand the amount of people who care about him and who he cares about. Basically my point is that I believe even though he doesn't have other close emotional relationships with people by the end of the book, that he potentially COULD. I also want to mention that the concept of polyamory for Binghe to me, in terms of only as sexual relationship in the beginning at least, is also not outside the realm of possibility, just cause of the existence of Bingge. We know he doesn't love anyone in that version of him, and it could be argued that matters change because he does love SQQ, but regardless, the fact is there that a version of Binghe does engage in polygamy. He is okay with multiple partners, that's not some huge hang-up or random morality issue for him. So the idea of LBH agreeing to a threesome with LQG and SQQ because he thinks SQQ would like it, isn't remotely impossible in my books.

It's hard to say if LQG is open to a relationship with multiple partners, we don't see much of his relationship preferences beyond the fact that he likes SQQ, but I can regardless see him being the type of person that grits his teeth and hangs around just to see SQQ and tries his best to get along with LBH cause it makes SQQ unhappy that they hate each other. I can see him noticing despite himself, LBH who, now that the situation is no longer so dire, challenges him and is on par, can defeat him over and over, merely because it's been so long since he's had a real challenge, has hit an immovable wall. Tbh LQG doesn't really give the time of day to people who haven't either helped him in some way (SQQ) or people who can match him in a fight. What is it like to find someone who actually gives him a run for his money? And what is it like seeing the downtime of LBH while he's there for SQQ's company, enough to realize that this man on top of being a demon that everyone in the sects laud as evil, partakes in those ordinary domestic things that every person does? What is it like to slowly be able to see that SQQ really isn't in any danger from LBH, and ending up on random errands with him in the name of peacekeeping, realizing they might actually work together well as a team? The hilarious thing is I'm pretty sure one of LQG's love languages is literally just. Violence. Fighting for SQQ's body back. Protecting those he cares about with force. Hunting for rare monsters to bring back. Shit like that. And y'know what? That's a language both LBH and LQG speak fluently. Very fluently. They can understand each other so easily. And I think that's something that LQG would be taken aback by in a good way.

Also if I'm going to be honest, as weird as it sounds, I'm pretty sure LBH is going to be the hold up in the getting along thing. Because at where canon ended: he had already won. He's with the person he loves. There isn't much incentive for him to be nice to LQG beyond not wanting SQQ to be disappointed. SQQ married him, chose him, regardless of what happens, SQQ is probably not going to leave LBH out of the two. Harsh, but solid logic. And his dislike of the other man is entirely connected to the fact that LQG likes SQQ and LBH has abandonment issues for days (for good reason tho I will say).

LQG on the other hand has acknowledged that LBH has won, and so he likely is also thinking along the same lines - I have more at stake here because if SQQ were forced to choose, no way would he choose me over the man he married. He really does have more incentive to get along with LBH. Not only that, a large part of his animosity also appeared to stem from worry about SQQ. Like he seemed to have fought LBH for SQQ's body back cause he thought LBH was doing some fucked up shit, being selfish etc. LQG doesn't seem the type to hold grudges. He dislikes LBH because it repeatedly and actively hurts to see him with SQQ - it's an anger and hatred that stems from softer emotions like the knowledge that he lost the man he loves, that he wasn't good enough (and here is where I cry btw). It's to protect himself from the emotional hurt. One that could potentially be alleviated by growing closer to both SQQ and LBH. Meanwhile at the beginning LBH is a kind of cold, smug dislike. So he really is the hold out. But again, the previous things I have said about how LBH doesn't only have the capacity to care about one person, coupled with his previous chill attitude towards sexual relations and polyamory and his rather obsessive need to please SQQ - I can very much see LBH agreeing to a threesome to make SQQ happy, and to taunt LQG, and then being slowly surprised at how much he doesn't actually?? Hate this??? SQQ doesn't love him any less or appear to have any thoughts of leaving him, and meanwhile he has this hot dude in his bed sounds like a win for everyone lmao

So anyways, that's kinda point one: I think it's very improbable, not impossible. It takes a very specific sequence of events. But it can happen.

Two:

I fully believe LQG and LBS are not soulmates or anything of the sort, since it does tend to be the general assumption within stories like this (xianxia and even wuxia), that there is the existence of soulmates, the red string of fate, a predetermination that these people will eventually care for each other, something more set in stone, or even of 缘分 (Yuán fen) where it's not fated in the sense that it's set in stone, but fated in that there is a high probability or an affinity for a relationship, or a meeting and event.

The point is that, certainty in a lot of stories, the concept of falling for each other no matter what, over and over, is a theme and viewed as romantic. And it absolutely is! I love stories where people end up together - in any capacity, doesn't have to be platonic - in every conceivable scenario. Hell, that's why I love reading AU's. And while it's not canonical that Binghe and Qingqiu are fated, while if anything their relationship is also a one in a million chance, people in the fandom still seem view BingQiu as soulmates. Or at least probable in the story. Valid. I mean it's hard to argue with the fact that they did indeed canonically fall in love against all odds - that is in character for them because this story is their love story.

But here's what drives me absolutely crazy in the best way about Liu Qingge and Luo Binghe's relationship: within the premises of canon (where LBH is damn possessive about SQQ and doesn't like LQG for that reason, and meanwhile LQG doesn't like LBH cause he thinks he's immoral and also cause he loves SQQ) they are the most unlikely, out of the left field, came out of absolutely nowhere to blindside you with the sheer depth of your emotions, type of love. They are the relationship that peak lords gossip about - "SQQ made sense, he was always fond of LBH, but LQG???? He was always the most vocal about his hatred. Well I never-" etc. Etc. They would be the relationship that shakes LQG and LBH's understanding of themselves and how the world around them functions to the core: because neither of them could've imagine in a million years that they had the capacity to view their greatest enemy with the tenderness of love. The sheer audacity of it, of suggesting these bitter romantic rivals could grow to love each other to match what they feel for SQQ - that's the good shit.

After all, while SQQ and LBH were also unlikely, they were only that because LBH was a fictional character up until Shen Yuan died. Even as a disciple LBH knew he liked SQQ, this man fully saw that one coming. And SQQ may be oblivious as fuck romantically, but even so he did acknowledge that he was already fond of LBH. They most certainly did go through hardships and obstacles to get where they are - but always with the acknowledgement that loving each other was never the hard part. It was always everything else.

So there's point two of why I like the unlikeliness of BingLiuShen - because loving each other is the difficult path for LBH and LQG. With the bitterness of everything that had passed, falling is not the part that is easy. And it shakes the laws of this universe. It makes LBH and LQG question everything. It makes them wonder what they know about the world, the rigid lines of black and white they've lived in, and their stubborn ideas that love can only ever be a finite source that will run out if you spread too widely. And not only that, it may help with LBH's abandonment issues - to have two people willingly choose him against all odds - one who actually started off hating him. And in the process, his level of attachment to SQQ might become a little healthier. Like I get that it is a story so no judgement here, but it can't be good for LBH to place his entire value of the world all in one singular person. That's hard on both SQQ and LBH. In making LBH question his worldview and viewpoints on love and relationships, it may be the thing that kickstarts him letting other people in in a platonic capacity as well. And as for LQG's worldview, it would be nice to show him that there can incandescent happiness in this life, not merely just contentment with his usual rigid routine. To give him a happy ending, truly. This is just a fancy way of saying he makes my heart hurt so I want to give him two boyfriends the end.

The enemies to friends to lovers trope also ties into this and is so compelling because it also requires so much character growth to occur for it to work. Like not only is their worldview shaken, but both LQG and LBH need to change as people (for the better) for them to even consider making a relationship with all three of them work out in the long run. People don't hate each other for no reason, there is almost always some Bad Thing™ that occurs to make them dislike each other, be it rivalry (love rivalry in this case) an outside force (their respective groups are enemies) or because they hate some aspect of the other person. It involves acting on their worst instincts - pushing someone away from jealousy, hurting each other because they let anger take over. For that to become love, requires WORK. It requires each character to actively notice their own biases, choose of their own volition to correct themselves, to change and possibly become better as they get to come to understand their "enemy". They have to choose to lay down their arms, every single step of the way. That is so difficult to do. So unlikely. So improbable. As I said before, it's the harder path. And yet they walk it, and if they succeed, I think that's something so precious because it was so quietly and fiercely fought for.

Anyways this is getting long as fuck so while I have some more to say about BingLiuShen as a whole, I think I'll end this here. Thank you so much for reading!

#bingliushen #liubingshen #liu qingge #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #meta #talking about ships #ot3 #svsss

[melrosing]

I genuinely think Jaime and Brienne may marry by the end of the books and that there is plenty of foreshadowing for it but (like you? I think?) I feel a bit stupid saying so because it is seen as a shipper theory instead of a normal theory based on what’s presented in the books. I think both JB are romantic characters and would want to marry, then there’s Brienne’s dreams and so on. It won’t be a Disney wedding but a perfunctory marriage in the woods makes sense imo.

Honestly I think the only thing that would necessarily get between JB and marriage is logistics. I think their actual romance won’t be fully realised till ADOS (sorry to everyone who thinks that book’s never coming), at which point plenty else will be going on and GRRM will probably need to strip back some storylines. Otherwise, I think everything about their respective narratives points in that direction.

But yeah lol we’ve been here before, asoiaf theories as pertain to romance are generally treated as being shipper stuff where the audience basically might be right by coincidence, not because they actually understood where a story was going and what certain components might mean. Which is irritating because romance is as much a part of these stories as anything else, and the idea that GRRM wouldn’t treat his love stories with the same complexity as he does his other storylines just strikes me as shallow and reductive, and a bit…. well you know lol

Also I think there’s a notion that you can’t actually properly comprehend a text if you engage in shipping on any level, which I also find frustrating…. like 100% I ship JB! I like the pairing, I like sharing and engaging w fanworks about them, I like discussing them w other fans! And sure, that means I’m more invested in them than many other aspects of the series. That still doesn’t make me incapable of understanding the text as a whole or of interrogating my own readings. I know my biases and I consider them in light of everything I believe about where the series is going, and whilst I think there can be fans struggle to do as much, the notion that you can’t is generally a pretty derogatory one thrown at shipping communities as a whole. I’m making us sound like fucking dpd lol but you get me

Idk ultimately I’ve actively pursued credible counterpoints to what I already believe about the text to test whether it’s what I genuinely think or only what I want to, and sometimes that shakes me from particular ideas - which is fine, that’s why I do it - but the rest of the time it just reaffirms my own confidence in my own ability to read lol. I think you can and should do that as a shipper if this kind of analysis is part of how you engage w fandom, and I think it’s a mistake to think that most don’t.

anyway that’s how I arrived at the conclusion that JB will fuck and might marry idk

#ask

[heymacy]

Could you say more, ifyou want, about how it feels better to be over your Shameless hyperfixation?

I have been thinking for months that it might greatly improve my mental health if I could get over my Shameless and Gallavich hyperfixation because sometimes it brings me joy but sometimes it causes me to spiral downward.

of course! this got long winded because of who i am as a person so my thoughts are under the cut 💛

first of all, i don't want anyone to think that my opinion on fandom has changed whatsoever. i still think fandom is beautiful and transformative and inspiring and all the lovely superlatives. this is not me talking down about fandom at all, this is just me talking about my personal experience. i will definitely continue to engage with fandom in varying capacities as i have since i was 14 years old. that won't change. i think the main difference is that i no longer feel consumed by the show. it used to be that i would plans my days around fandom activities, think about the show/characters constantly, and spend (i shit you not) 90% of my free time engaging and creating. but it just isn't like that anymore.

i didn't necessarily do anything to make this happen, it just did. but there were definitely catalysts. for example, a lot of the shameless content we consume and engage with is pursuant to ian's bipolar storyline which, to me, is very personal and intense. being bipolar myself, it became very difficult to be constantly surrounded by content about my disease - especially when so much of that content was full of really bad takes or insensitive jokes that hurt me on a very deep, personal level. i realized that if i were to embrace my waning interest fully, to step back and give myself some space, i wouldn't be inundated with that kind of hurt anymore. i wouldn't spiral like i had been and instead i could focus that energy onto maintaining my own mental health and wellbeing. so that's what i did. and it WORKED. so because of that, i feel better.

i also feel better because now i have more time and energy to engage with new and different things. for so long, shameless was one of the only shows i watched. shameless fic was one of the only things i read. shameless gifs and metas were almost exclusively the only things i posted and shared around these parts (which made sense, me being a fandom blog and all). yet somehow, in light of it all, i wasn't enjoying myself anymore. i wasn't engaging because i wanted to engage, i was engaging because i felt a compulsory need to do so. i mean, it had been my entire life for three years, what the fuck else was i supposed to do? so i made the decision to stop, even if it only lasted a week or two. i stopped watching my favorite episodes on repeat. i stopped reading fics and deleted the ones i'd downloaded from my kindle app so as to resist temptation. essentially, i cut myself off cold turkey. then step two, if you will, was to push myself to engage with new content and hobbies, even if only to cleanse my palette. so i read new books and watched new movies and fell down random niche YouTube rabbit holes. and wouldn't you know it, it felt SO GOOD. i discovered new blorbos and watched some delightful films and started doing practical, real-world things like learning to cook and organizing my apartment. i went from feeling flat and one-dimensional, like i was only made up of one basic component, to fully formed and three-dimensional, a well-rounded human being. believe me, and please don't misinterpret what i'm saying here, i am fully aware than 98% of people that engage in fandom activities are fully formed, three-dimensional, well-rounded individuals that can engage with variety of content while maintaining that fandom/life balance. that just wasn't MY reality. still, i managed to break the hyperfixation off at the roots and i feel 5000x better for it. sometimes it's what's necessary to get to a headspace where if you wanted to engage, you could, and you could do it in a healther, more well-balanced way.

i think that if you feel your interest waning even the slightest bit, or if you feel like you're too consumed by it, or if it's not sparking joy anymore, or you're concerned about your mental wellness - take a step back. try engaging with something new and different. ask for recommendations from friends. give that new show everyone is talking about a try. pick up a hobby that's completely removed from media (i've started drawing again) and throw yourself into it entirely. or just sit there! allow yourself to be bored and aimless for a little while! it feels weird but i think it was a necessary thing for me to do. what worked for me and got me to this place definitely won't work for everyone, especially because everyone's levels of engagement and consumption are different, but i think for me it was always an inevitability that this was just a season for me. and a necessity, because i was Not Doing Well near the end of things.

lastly - and if you've made it this far i am genuinely sorry i'm so long-winded and Like This - i love you. i'm sorry that your hyperfixation has you feeling this way. i relate and understand completely and if you ever need someone to talk to about it, you can always come to me for a chat or a vent or even just a different perspective on things. i wish you all the best and i'll be here as a friend and a resource while you figure it all out!

#i hope this makes even the slightest bit of sense and isn't just a long-winded mess of gobbledygook #and i hope i communicated these feelings accurately #if anyone can relate to this please find comfort and solace in knowing that you're not alone #not even just in this fandom but in all fandoms and all levels of media consumption/hobbyism/life #love you guys immensely #macy babbles #anons