#Also I get that many writers just use the redeemed tag to mean there is no jgy hate in the fic and I appreciate that but still

[evilhasnever]

Thinking about why “redemption” plots for JGY don’t work for me, I feel like it boils down to this: redemption implies that one needs to 1) understand what they did wrong 2) atone for it through suffering and/or selfless actions

But JGY has already done both of those things in canon. He both understands very well and dislikes most of the things he had to do, and as soon as he gained a measure of power he used it pointedly to help others (actually, even before he had power he was saving sect leaders and winning wars)!

You want him to redeem himself through suffering? He’s already suffered more than just about anyone else in the book! You want him to redeem himself through public service? He’s been doing that for well over a decade!

In short, redemption arcs don’t work for me because I read JGY as someone who, as long as his life is not threatened (and sometimes even then) already chooses to do good. So I don’t think he needs to learn or discover in himself the will to do good (through a redemption arc) - he only needs the chance and relative safety that allows him to act on it.

#Jgy tag #shhh shiome #Jin Guangyao #Jgy wants to 1) survive 2) do good 3) have quality time with lxc but that is unrelated to the content of this post #Like if you really must use a western redemption narrative at least recognize that he is already going through the required steps as is! #Also I get that many writers just use the redeemed tag to mean there is no jgy hate in the fic and I appreciate that but still #mdzs meta

[nobodysdaydreams]

11, 17, 20, 21, 33, and/or 74 for the WIP Ask Game!! Whichever you're most comfortable answering :)

I hope you are doing well, and no pressure in getting this answered!!! (Also remember to drink water!)

Thank you so much Sophie! I have drank water, but I appreciate the reminder. 🥰

11. Link your three favorite fics right now

Well, well, well. If it isn't another mutual fishing for compliments when you know how much I love your Sticky OCD fic (/j /lh). Seriously though, it is amazing. But, in the interest of giving recommendations, I'm going to tag and recommend three fics by authors that I didn't mention in my response to Katie's ask about favorite authors so I can spread the love around a bit. I don't know if I have a set "top three" but one good SQ centered fic I like is @kneeslapworthy's "someone only you could want". Criminally underrated, great interactions between SQ and a redeemed but struggling Nathaniel that I wish the show could have given us. Another fic I really like is @mvshortcut's "Lifeline" , another fic that I think deserves more attention. It blends book and show elements in a really great way, which I love to do in my own writing, and it gives us a Constance and Curtain sort-of-team-up that would have been great to see in the show. The fic also does a lot of really cool stuff with Constance's powers and provides some great mental visuals of what Curtain is going through. Speaking of psychics, @acollectionofcuriousreblogs's "The Psychic File", which, no, I have not finished, but what I've read so far is really good. It expands on an AU plotline of the book that I'm not as familiar with because I haven't read ROA, so I've really enjoyed it and there's some great OCs in there as well.

17. What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

What I'm doing right now. Procrastinating on writing fic by doing stuff on tumblr, even though I was already procrastinating on irl responsibilities by writing fic in the first place. Honestly, the problem is less writer's block and more "I have a point in the plot I'm excited to write about, but I gotta write other stuff first" and that's where I'm at right now in my fic writing process. It's not that this stuff isn't interesting and that you as the reader won't enjoy it, it's just not the part I want to write right now. But I've been getting some more motivation and I will get to it. Eventually.

20. Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

Words and expressions? Oh yes. I include stuff like "I mean," "Um," and "Well," waaayyyy too often, and I need to stop. And for some reason, whenever I needed Garrison to exit a scene in the first half of SOS, the only thing I could come up with was having her go back to her apartment to go to bed. I'm shocked no one has left a playfully passive-aggressive comment calling me out on that yet. I think I did that at least three or four times. I guess it is rather in character, the poor woman just wants somewhere to cry in peace. I've also gotten a bit braver on expanding my neurodivergent head canons and writing them into my fic. I say "braver" because even though I'm neurodivergent, no one person can be neurodivergent in every way (at least...I don't think so. Some disorders in the DSM directly contradict each other so I'd be fascinated if someone can claim literally everything and so would a good many medical professionals), and I want to make sure I'm doing it accurately and well. I mostly stick to writing (or hinting at, or allowing for) neurodivergencies that either I have, or irl friends and family members of mine have, which works really well in MBS, because the disorders the characters are hinted at having are the ones I'm the most familiar with, and it allows me to "write what I know" so to speak.

As for common themes, I'm a sucker for redemption stories (if that wasn't clear between my Martina Redemption fic, my redeemed Nathaniel Benedict was once a semi-good person fic, the one where Curtain has some regrets, the one where the Benedict siblings believe they're monsters who don't deserve love). I just love the idea that no matter who you are, or what you think you've done, or what you have done, destroying yourself or trying to erase yourself because you think what you've done is too terrible and the world would be better without you, is wrong, because you, today, can chose to be better and do better, and you shouldn't deprive the world of that goodness because someone out there might really need it, and it's never too late in the game to decide to start putting that goodness back out into the world. I'm sorry that I overdo it, but I just love that theme. It gives me so much hope not just for myself, but for humanity, and it reminds me to be kind to and forgiving and understanding of others and patient with myself (though I'm still working on the "myself" part). I also just wanna say that since writing these fics, especially SOS, I've gotten a lot of messages that say things like: "as someone who has done really bad things and is ashamed of who I once was and is trying to make up for what I did and become a better person, this was a message I needed to hear so thank you for writing this". And I want you all to know that that means so much to me, because me too guys, me too 💕 you're definitely not alone in that. It's a message I think we all need to hear sometimes. (Although I will add that based on your ask game responses, some of you all are pretty young, and as someone in their 20s who has made her fair share of mistakes, I will say that you guys are way too young to be thinking you're beyond hope at this point. I don't care what test you got caught cheating on, I don't care if your entire school hates you because of something you said without thinking, and I don't care what personal friend group drama you were involved in. You are still a loved and wonderful kind person, and you still have plenty of opportunities to be a good person going forward).

21. Would you ever collaborate with another writer for a story?

I would love too! I’m not sure how that normally happens, but you all have great ideas and if you ever were like “can you write this part for me?” or “I don’t know how to get from this point of the story to this point, do you have ideas or can you come up with something?” I would try my best to help and would love to write a story with you (time permitting). DMs are always open!

33. Do you want to be published some day?

Technically, I’m already published. It’s nonfiction I’ve written for my job, and I don’t make money off it, but it has my name on it (my real name so sadly I can’t share it with you sorry). As for my fiction, yes, I would like to be published someday, though right now it’s more of an impossible dream. Unfortunately, while I seem to be able to generate a surplus of ideas based off of books and television shows, (especially when I get hyper fixated on it) I have quite a bit of trouble applying what I've come up with to a 100% original idea. I would like to someday, I'm just not sure how. It would certainly help me out financially to have writing I could make any amount of money on, but again, I'm not sure how, and for right now, I'm content enjoying the hobby.

74. You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it?

For fic, I’d say you could tell pretty easily based on themes and tropes. I love redemption fics, I love neurodivergent head canons, I love found families. Really, any fic that goes to really really dark angsty places, but ultimately has a happy (or hopeful) ending. I tend to gravitate towards that "no situation is too hopeless, no one is beyond redemption" theme. I know I just talked about it, and yes, it's overdone in my writing, I know, but you guys seem to enjoy it, and if it's not broke, why bother fixing it?

Thank you again for the asks and please have a lovely evening! 🥰🥰🥰

#Long post #Sorry #But thanks for the ask! #Bods Answers #mbs fanfic #the mysterious benedict society #mysterious benedict society #mbs #mbs disney #tmbs #tmbs disney

[vicstmichael]

Author Ask Tag

I was tagged by my amazing writeblr pal @scribe-of-stories! Read their post here, because Fleshtown sounds as fascinating as it does horrifying and I can't wait to read it someday! Also, I LOVED their writing advice for the last question. Definitely check it out!

I think I'm going to focus on 2 WIPs for this tag. My (STILL untitled) 90s rock band novel--click the tag to see more of what I've posted about that--and a dark marauders era fanfiction I recently started working on.

What is the main Lesson of your story? And why did you choose it? For my novel, I'd say the main lesson is that blood isn't a prerequisite for family. And that when you've found them you know... because together you can overcome any obstacle and rise to the top against all odds, and because when you truly see someone as family you love them despite their flaws and the mistakes they make. For the fic, I'll be honest, I haven't thought much about it yet. It's VERY new. All I was thinking was "DARK JEGULUS DARK JEGULUS" and... vibes? So, yeah. I'm a mess. But if I had to think about it I'd probably say it's that most bad choices are redeemable if you're willing to put in the work to change.

What did you use as inspiration for your worldbuilding? NOVEL: Oooh, this is a good one. I took inspiration from other works like Almost Famous and Daisy Jones and the Six for the rockstar vibes, and High School (the Tegan and Sara memoir) for the 90s vibes. I also wanted the general atmosphere to be very moody, so I took advantage of the setting (Seattle) and used the weather to manipulate that, which feels very Twilight if I'm being 100% honest. FIC: Well, I mean, that's fairly obvious. I took inspiration from the original HP source material. I also wanted to give it a very dystopian worst-case-scenario feel, so for that I took inspiration from another great fic I've been reading called As the Worm Moon Dies. Highly recommend it!

What is your MC trying to achieve, and what are you, the writer, trying to achieve with them? Do you want to inspire others, teach forgiveness, help readers grow as a person? NOVEL: This project has multiple MCs, so I'll focus on my boy Jamie. Jamie's goals are interesting because while most of the others in the band are looking to make it big and be super famous, all Jamie wants is to play music with his friends for the rest of his life. Also, he DESPERATELY wants to sort out his feelings for River and live an authentic life by his side. As for me, I'd say my goal is to show people that growth isn't necessarily lateral, and either is forgiveness. But no matter how bad things can get, as long as you're willing to put in the work and lean on your people for support, almost anything can be overcome. FIC: Regulus is just trying to survive, man. He's going through it. He's also trying to live with the choices he's made and (though he doesn't consciously know it yet) find ways to make up for them. Meanwhile, James is quite literally trying to save the world. Which is very him. He's also trying to overcome the cognitive dissonance he's experiencing when it comes to aligning his feelings for Regulus with his own personal goals and values. I don't know what I want as the writer yet, my dudes. Like I said, right now I'm just here for the vibes and the angst.

How many chapters is your story going to have? Unknown for both WIPs. Although my novel is currently up over 40 which I worry is too many. Mind you, it's still in the first draft stage so that will likely change as I cut and edit.

Is it fanfiction or original content? Where do you plan to post it? I'm HOPING my novel will be picked up by my pals at NineStar, and the fic will be up on Ao3 when it's ready!

When and why did you start writing? I started writing when I was 9 or 10, when I would make kids books (illustrations and all, haha) for my baby brother. All I had was printer paper, crayola markers and a dream baybeeee. Then I started writing short stories for youth magazines and contests, then in high school I moved onto fanfiction, and so on. As for why... I don't really know. It has always just felt natural to me. I've always known I was going to be a writer. It's what I feel best doing. I could never give it up.

Do you have any words of engagement for fellow writers of writeblr? What other writers of tumblr do you follow? I don't know how to follow Scribe's advice because it was just so damn good. So everything they said! I'd also like to add that there's nothing wrong with working at your own pace. As a neurodivergent author who goes months at a time without writing a single word only to suddenly and without warning embark on a three-week writing hyperfixation where I block out absolutely everything and everyone around me, I'm here to tell you that it's FINE. It's fine to take breaks, it's fine to take ten years or ten weeks to write a novel, the important thing is that you're writing it. Like Scribe said, don't let other people tell you how YOUR process should go. Deadlines are one thing, but all you can do is your best. What that looks like to one person may look completely different to you, and that's FINE. <3 Oooh shoutouts! I love shoutouts! Some must-follow writeblrs: @scribe-of-stories, @idgie-stark, @dewiwrites, @artcoffeecats, @rachaellawrites and @brieflyinfatuated!

Open tag! Any and all writeblrs are encouraged to play along!

#untitled rock band wip #fanfiction #marauders fanfiction #writeblr #tag games #author ask tag #my wip #vicstmichael #writers on tumblr #writing community #tag game #writers corner #am writing #writblr tag game

[saintobio]

for everyone that wants toji and y/n endgame imma need yall to read the tags under the fic and remind yourself that it is a gojo satoru x y/n fic....

and to put a long ramble short by you all wishing that toji and y/n are endgame you kinda are ignoring the hard work saint went through to develop both gojo as a character in their own writing (and making his go through a villain arc you could say but also currently redeeming himself in current chapters as well) but also dismissing y/n's character development or how they are as a character in general as well since it is showed since the beginning she has loved gojo even if that love was tested at some point during the messy part of the relationship and it has been stated countless times (even in the character interviews) that toji respects y/n to the greatest honor, even if he believes he could be a better husband for y/n he knows y/n wouldn't let it happen cause she is loyal to gojo to the end of time even now....and yall ever think that man still loves his dead wife like he goes to say in a way that there would probably be no one like her again and why would he want the possibility of putting y/n through the shit his own wife went through with his family

overall it seems like some of yall are ignoring the character development of certain people in the story and the carefully tied and put in place relationships saint went through to make throughout the story if you want a toji x y/n that bad go look one up there is tons of them but please just respect saint and their choices especially if it ties to the story

Anonymous said

Y’all, if you want to read a toji x reader smut then please go search else where on this hell site and stop trying to force Saint to change the way they are telling THEIR story that they are literally writing for free!!

It’s so frustrating and people be wondering why so many great writers are leaving. Y’all can never appreciate a story for what it is. Saint told us from the beginning how the tone of this story was going to play out and yet, half of y’all are expecting this big “gotcha!” Moment from the author and it’s annoying.

Enjoy the story, trust the process, and have faith in Saint. If y’all can do that and be respectful of their work and boundaries then stop reading and go find the stuff your craving and let the rest of us continue to enjoy this amazing authors work because I would be damned if I see another talented writer leave because they’ve be drained of motivation and felt under appreciated for their hard work.

Anonymous said

Yikes😬 did the toji x y/n asks get too much and demanding😔. At the start I get it, gojo was being horrible to her and toji was like a refuge from all that but now he's trying at least? Still has a lot to make up for but he's taking steps and he'll get there.

Anonymous said

nah bc y'all are getting a lil too confident in the asks w anon on, telling saint how you think the story should go . i get a lot of us want yn and toji to get tgt but this is literally a gojo x yn fic ??! you can be a toji x yn shipper but telling saint what to/not to do with her own story ? go read a toji fic instead . y'all are not the author . just rude & disrespectful at this point . saint doesn't have to entertain what you want just because youre reading the fic . 😐

sdjs i don’t rly mind toji simps but asking me to write certain things simply bc they wanna see yn x toji smut is just 🥲 i mean you can always just read a toji x reader smut out there

#saintobio.asks #series: sincerely not

[logo-comics]

For a bit of a meta twist...

Fortune lover DLC: "WHY DO YOU PEOPLE LOVE KATARINA SO MUCH?!"

(You don't have to make this if you don't want to. Just a joke based on how many of your 'DLC's have fans requesting a Katarina route to the point that the developers give in.)

I'm delighted that you picked up on the dev team's confusion and surprise, but couldn’t come up with a DLC for it, so I'm going to take a step outside of things and present some content regarding the Katarina Route Situation in the world that Monkey Girl lived in. Content below the cut for length reasons:

Tumblr

maria-stan24601 asked: Why do you guys vote to have the DLC ship Maria with Katarina? Katarina's nothing but cruel to everyone and you want to ship her with Maria? marikata9430 answered: I just like villainess/heroine ships, idk. Why do I need a reason marisofilove2020 plus, katarina's not all bad. i mean, her maid has to be sticking around her for a reason. marydeservesbetter I mean Maria is trying to steal her fiancee so it's not like she's innocent in this and Gerald's hands aren't clean in this, either geomaria-stan1123 Geord doesn't even want to be with Katarina. The only reason they're still together by the time he's fallen in love with Maria is because Katarina won't let him leave her marisofilove2020 it's a medieval kingdom. having the engagement suddenly cancelled wouldn't exactly do great things for her marriage prospects...

fortunelover4ever So, I'm playing Fortune Lover's Golden Sands DLC for the first time with no spoilers. Yeah, I know it's been out for a while, but I've been busy with things and I've blocked the tag this whole time, but I've got to know: Is the Captain romanceable? The game seems to be implying they're the same age as the rest of the cast. Also, are we actually going to see Pirate Katarina, or is it just a fakeout? magicalministry-defender Yes and yes. fortunelover4ever I'm betting that she's romanceable too, given all the memes about getting her route added to pretty much every DLC. magicalministry-defender Yep! fortunelover4ever What does she look like as a pirate? magicalministry-defender Very familiar. fortunelover4ever How so? fortunelover4ever I know now. You are an evil person and I can't escape this ship... magicalministry-defender I told you... marikata9430 We got another one, gang!

Interviews

Excerpt from an Interview with the lead writer for Fortune Lover and the DLC.

Interviewer: So, what's the most interesting thing that you learned about writing dating sims while working on Fortune Lover?

Developer: Honestly, the biggest surprise was something I learned while working on the DLC stuff. People always ask us to add a Katarina route.

Int: That was a surprise?

Dev: Absolutely! We wrote her to be this mean girl with no redeeming qualities. We had even cut content that made her seem too sympathetic, stuff that some of the DLC put back, like the entire thing about Anne actually having good reasons to be loyal to her and some lines that we felt made her feel too sympathetic.

Int: And the fans still wanted to romance her?

Dev: Yes! We've put the cast through so many strange situations, and we think to ourselves "Surely, surely no one is going to want Katarina in this route!" And then, of course, we wind up with Katarina route requests. She's even more requested than Sophia for routes! *chuckles slightly* Want to know something that never made it past the first draft?

Int: Can you actually talk about that?

Dev: I wrote the baseline game and this is the anniversary. You'll actually find this among the other facts in the databook coming out this Friday.

Int: Then I'd love to hear it.

Dev: In the first draft I wrote, Katarina was going to be the secret route.

Int: Really?

Dev: Yes! But then the editor suggested we make Keith her brother and we couldn't use her as the secret route anymore without undermining both characters!

Int: Keith was almost not Katarina's brother? That's actually pretty surprising. I can't picture them without the sibling rivalry.

Dev: Keith wasn't even originally his name. He was going to be Noelia's brother, Noel. Since Katarina was already a solid character that we were beginning to love to hate as it was, when the editor suggested that he be made her brother Keith, we basically tossed Noelia into the background and put Katarina in her place in his backstory.

Int. That does explain the difference in how she treats him in the game versus the backstory.

Excerpt from an Interview with Katarina's Voice Actor

Interview: So, they've called you in for Katarina's speaking parts for every single DLC?

Voice Actor: Yep. And the patches. After the first couple times, I've asked them when the DLC's getting released and make sure clear my schedule for the next couple days after that. It's actually pretty fun. I usually get good girl parts. I actually auditioned for Mary, but the casting director asked if I could try the Katarina line.

Int: And you obviously nailed it. So, you mentioned the patches. I'm guessing you mean the infamous Katarina Route patches? What are your thoughts on Katarina and Maria as a couple?

VA: I ship it.

Int: Really?

VA: Absolutely. I actually incorporated it into my performance in the main game. She's kind of obsessed with Maria in a way she doesn't fully get, so instead of confronting herself, she decides to bully Maria.

Int: So what about when she tried to stab Maria in the bad endings?

VA: You know, I asked the head writer about it. Apparently there was going to be a scene where it was revealed that... spoilers for those of you who still haven't played it for some reason... Raphael had actually been making her a worse and worse person because of the Dark Mage's ghost.

Int: Really?

VA: Yeah. his voice actor and I even recorded some of the lines together, but they got cut before they even started making the concept art for the scene.

Int: Ouch. So, do you have a favorite DLC out of the set?

VA: Pirate's promise. I've always loved pirates, ever since I was little, so playing Katarina as a pirate captain was one of my favorite experiences.

Int: Any that you didn't like as much as the rest?

VA: Honestly, Kindergarten was a bit of a strain on my voice early on, but I managed to find a happy medium that worked for me. That said, I loved the premise, and I thought it was cute...

Memes

#hamefura #bakarina #my next life as a villainess #fortune lover dlc #fortune lover meta post

[sunfoxfic]

I have been seeing a lot of takes saying that Gabriel will be redeemed using sentiadrien, and even more takes saying that the writers don't realize that Gabriel is actually abusing Adrien and that to the writers, he's 'just a misunderstood father' and stuff. Which, tbh really seemed like a bad faith interpretation for most part, but then...there are also things like Winny saying that he related most to Gabriel because he was a father and he loved his wife on Twitter and I....GET why one would think that, even though canon hasn't really convinced me that they will redeeem gabriel (and it is also to be noted that said tweet was tweeted before season 2, the hawkmoth reveal. For all we know they could just have been trying to avoid spoilers).

And then there's where people are annoyed that Gabriel has his 'sympathetic' moments and think that the show isn't constant with his character. Which is really kind of bizarre to me since abusers ARE inconsistent in real life too, and I just don't really think that the narrative isn't aware that Gabriel is an Abuser?

Now, back to the sentiadrien redemption thing,what really bothers me with people talking about it is that they most certainly DON'T want it to happen, but then are like almost Certain It Will Because Sentiadrien Is Bad And Wrong? It's just super bad faith engagement and really saddens me:(

Honestly at this point I'm on a pretty short leash with people who don't like sentiAdrien so I see almost none of the positivity (though it does royally piss me off that most proponents of the theory have continued, at least up until the finale, to tag their posts, while people who dislike their posts seem to have forgotten about when the entire fandom agreed to divide it by "adrien agreste is a sentimonster" and "adrien agreste is not a sentimonster." You're telling me I can filter out most to all content about sentiAdrien, which increasingly just looks like canon, but I can't filter out the negativity about it, which is getting increasingly more and more bad faith as time goes on? okay then).

That said, things to keep in mind:

A TV show is a large, huge, big, gigantic, complicated thing. Anyone who boils it down to "there is a bad writer on the writing team, therefore the story is bad" is almost always, in my experience, equating the actual writing of the show to fanworks, and they're just not equitable. Fanfics have usually one, maybe two or three writers on them, and maybe 3-4 beta readers. Even a published novel will have a numerable amount of people working on it: Writer, publishers, editors, the agent, and possibly sensitivity readers, and while that's a lot more than fanfic, it's still not that many.

TV shows are huge. Every TV show that you've enjoyed or hated has had someone working on it that you hate. I guarantee it. And I don't just mean Bill the Lighting Guy, I mean one of the producers, writers, storyboarders, animators, directors, etc -- someone who makes impactful decisions about the show. There's no moral purity.

Did Winny say that he relates to Gabriel? I'm not gonna verify, but I don't doubt it. Whether or not that's unforgivable I'll get to in a sec, but you can't decide whether or not a show is Good and Moral based on a tweet one of the writers made, no matter how genuine and terrible that tweet is. If you decide that one tweet is enough to sour the entire show, then you're likely discrediting the many other writers that work on this show, who may or may not agree with Winny on that front. Don't let two guys be the face of everything on this show, because it's way bigger than two guys.

As for whether that tweet should be taken at face value.... I mean, you're right, if it was pre-Collector then take it with a grain of salt. But even if it was 100% genuine, the truth of the matter is that villains are human. Real life villains, anyway. You can't take their humanity away from them just because they do bad things. Writing them as humans will help you understand better what it takes to fall so low (and how to avoid that), and what it takes to make someone better. I haven't spoken on this but I personally sometimes see takes about Gabriel that just take punitive justice too far. I don't like him, I don't want him to be redeemed, but.... I don't think punishing him is going to do any good, and in a real world situation, I don't believe in anything except restorative justice. (Given, this isn't real world, so I'm not going to make the blanket statement that people should want Gabriel to be better... but it makes me feel weird when people explicitly don't want him to get better.)

It's not immoral to humanize villains. Not even child abusers and terrorists.

As for everything specifically sentiAdrien, just ignore (and block, if you must) people who will not look at the argument that sentiAdrien can do good. There's no proof that sentiAdrien will be used to redeem Gabriel beyond conjecture. And frankly, even if you don't think it will be used to redeem Gabriel, I'm not a fan of people who are sort of on the train of "sentiAdrien has the potential to make people feel invalidated and therefore it is unimportant that sentiAdrien has the potential to make people feel validated." It is true, some people see Adrien in a situation where he's forced to do something against his will, and they'll be reminded of less than comfortable facts about how they were raised. But this plotline has the potential to show Adrien breaking free of those constrictions on him, which could be so empowering for people who feel debilitated by what they've gone through.

But yeah, that's my take. I don't see any excuses, at this point, for anyone to be fully convinced that sentiAdrien is Bad and Can Only Be Bad. I'm not gonna give the time of day to those people, and I suggest you don't either.

#asks answered #anonymous #ml fandom salt #sentiadrien

[captainpikeachu]

I’ve said this more than a few times before but I guess I have to say it once again: I am really sick and tired of the discourse and fanfic portrayals of John Walker as simply a mix of every single bigot stereotype there is.

The hate this character receives is honestly overblown and exaggerated to the point that I honestly don’t think fandom can even see the actual character anymore except for the fanon version that they’ve created in their heads that’s somehow just the worst monster ever. This version of Walker is dumb, violent, uncaring, disloyal, mean, cruel, selfish, nationalistic, white supremacist, domestic abuser, cheater, homophobic, transphobic, and every other type of bigot under the sun. 

I get that the show used the character to portray a symbolic message of “the bad side of America”, I get why fandom associates him with bad iconography, but it literally does not mean that every single aspect of this character is 100 percent bad/evil with no redeeming qualities. Hell, even the show itself took great pains to show that John is complex, nuanced, and that while he doesn’t always make the best decisions but his heart is still in the right place in wanting to protect people and do the right things. And I’m sorry, last time I checked, a whole bunch of MCU heroes are all just like that too, and some ones that people love have done worse than John Walker.

I don’t understand why fandom is so focused on erasing any complexity of the character just so that they can use him as a one-note bigot punching bag. And for all the talks about him being a horrible white dude who murdered a character of color, this same fandom practically ignores Lemar and Olivia, his best friend and his wife, two Black characters that I’ve barely seen anyone talk about or even write fics about, meanwhile characters like Zemo is practically elevated to likeable quirky funny hero status despite the fact that this white character murdered the Black king of a Black nation.   

Dislike and/or hate the character if you want, but the way this fandom has retconned this character into something he is not and then try to turn this into some moral war is just ridiculous and downright hypocritical. You can literally just dislike a character without having to make up some moral justification for it. Yes, the show used him to shine a light on systemic racism and white privilege and micro-aggressions, but it doesn’t make him some outright evil racist who wants to take the shield away from Sam just because Sam is Black, especially when we literally saw Episode 6 with John letting go of that shield and accepting Sam as Captain America with a nod. Just because he was emotionally and mentally unstable after watching his best friend being murdered in front of his eyes and reacted badly does not make him a domestic abuser who’s gonna hurt his wife, a woman that we literally never saw him do anything to but show his love toward. And just because he had animosity with Bucky does not mean he’s going to be a violent jealous rapist who “wants what Steve has” and hurt Bucky, when literally Episode 6 had them working together perfectly well and John being friendly as he’s consistently tried to do since the beginning.

I’m not saying everyone must fall in love with John Walker who is a perfect angel. He’s not perfect, he’s not an angel, and he is flawed. But he’s also not this “evil horrible unreasonable insane monster” that fandom seems all too happy to make him out to be and strip him of any nuance that the writers and Wyatt Russell worked hard to bring to the character. And quite honestly, some of y’all are fucking ableist in how you talk about (or or rather dismiss) his trauma and mental issues.

The fact that almost every new fic that pops up on the character’s ao3 tag is basically a “John Walker is a rapist” fic is honestly disturbing and alarming in its frequency, especially when many of them try to make John the monster versus Zemo who is practically a woobified victim, as if I’m supposed to have forgotten that Episode 6 ended with Zemo blowing up all the Flag Smashers??!!

And like I said, I’m not saying that the character is beyond criticism or that we can’t have discussions about what the show is trying to say with his character, but how about we judge him on the things that he actually did instead of the things people want him to have done, and his actual motivations instead of the ones people seem to want him to have. 

How about we give him back his complexity and treat him like a human being instead of just some one-note evil monster who can never have anything positive or good.

Sam literally gave a whole speech about empathy and stop using labels to dismiss people, so I don’t get why this fandom seems to have ignored that lesson and continue to only operate in a black or white view on John Walker as if he’s not allowed to have any humanity.

#i am so tired of this #if i never have to see another john is a rapist fic it'll be too soon #john walker #the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws #marvel #mcu #the falcon and the winter soldier meta #tfatws meta #marvel meta #mcu meta #fandom discourse about john walker is exhausting as fuck #most people are so fucking biased they can't ever judge him objectively #tw: rape mention

[rubyneo]

Making a new pinned post bc I lost my other one. Basic info can be found in my bio 🥰

I'm Cherry/Cj/Sage (they/them) and I'm your friendly local artist/writer/editor/general nuisance.

I post a lot about R/WBY, but you'll also be able to find posts about a lot of other stuff (S/PN, Ha/nnibal, 911, M/DZS, DC comics, etc)

I use tags for my mutuals and friends! Generally by name, but if I'm talking about multiple or in general I use the tag my internet mutual polycule is better than yours.

Bastardmance tag is for my wife Daisy/Rose moonedknights <3

I also have an untagged queue running with mainly aesthetic posts. (Sometimes I tag these, and you can find them under cj.aes, words, and poetry)

I tag vent-y/annoyed posts with cj.vent and salt tag, so you can filter those if you don't want to see those posts.

CHERRY BRANWYNS R/WBY FANDOM INDISCRETIONS:

if you're here because of the fallout between blaire tran/sjnpr and i last year: yes im still a big meanie who hates fun and popular ships, yes im still a nasty "panphobe" who thinks pansexuality and bisexuality are the SAME THING and pan people owe bi people $30 every time they say otherwise. here's my venmo for that :)

if you're here because of my past bmb/lb edits, posts, stories, headcanons, or the bee bible itself: im not a bee shipper anymore, though i can occasionally be convinced to make edits of them for friends or nice anons.

if you're here because you want to see if im a mean nasty little anti: bro i genuinely do not care anymore if i dont like you im gonna block and move on. if i dont like the content you produce im gonna block and move on. its very simple. dont bother me and im not gonna bother you. im 21 i dont care about pro v anti discourse anymore i just wanna make my blorbos kiss

if youre here because of ladybug: hiiii <3 please go pre-order the zine <3

if youre here because of the ECM weirdo freak post, yes i still think he is.

I DO unironically ship Qrow/Tyrian now. Cry about it <3

I think Sno/wfall is boring. It was cool at first but y'all had to make it a bland ass ship.

I've had this particular blog since November 2018, there's opinions on here that I don't hold anymore. I'm now a Cinder and Mercury fan, I think Cinder AND Salem are getting redeemed.

I still view Roman and Neo through a platonic lense and I don't take Roman Holiday as "canon" because of the stuff outlined in those linked posts.

Subsection of the above: I still think Neo is roughly the same age as the rest of the protagonists. (So 19-21)

I am a big meanie who hates popular ships. BB is boring, NND is interesting through a lense of Salem/Ozma's pattern being repeated and perhaps the issue of whether to bring Penny back or not giving the heroes sympathy for Salem's tragedy, FG was boring, WR is cool when my friends talk about it but too many of you are weird about it.

OTHER:

If you're here because of my donation post for my kitten: hi! Bumble went in for his surgery on 03/03/2022 and is healing at home. My mother loaned me $1k to pay it off and I'll be paying her back as I can.

I'm mainly a mobile user, so I may not notice if I've reblogged from someone nasty, so please feel free to send me an ask with a description of/link to the post and I'll happily delete it.

Trigger tagging: I TRY to remember to tag stuff, but I'm often using the fast reblog and queue functions so I'll probably miss things. Please let me know if you need something specific tagged.

Bi vs Pan discourse: I'm panphobic now.

Slurcourse: Stop trying to gatekeep slurs from people who are targeted by them 😭😭😭 Bi women are called the d slur, any flavor of gay person is called the f slur, cis people arent going to ask if im transfemme or transmasc before calling me the t slur when they find out i'm trans. The q slur is a slur as much as it's an identity.

Subset of the above: Use whatever identifier makes you feel comfortable, don't call ME q***r. Posts with it are tagged "q word" for blacklist usually.

Just...show respect and compassion for other people and don't call people slurs without their permission.

#cj.txt #don't rb

[darlingpwease]

OMG I JUST NOTICED THE “when he got older I imagine him more mature and confident and charming and a gentleman and a pleaser and with a deep voice and dilf and with a huge dick and railing you in bed” 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 PAIN. LIKE WHAT YOUR TAGS SAID; they (subby crybabies) destroyed the characters’ personality hdjsjs THAT’S BASICALLY THEM CREATING AN OC WITH SLAPPING THE CHARACTERS’ FACE ON IT 😭 i’m sad.

And i see you and your anon discussed about it with a character from jjk djdkks whomst I unfortunately did not know dhdjs i dont delve deep into jjk dkdjd BUT any other characters that fit the rant??? 👀 wait talk about a whole ass clown behavior........... the clowns in genshin community wrote Venti as daddy dom 😭😭😭😭😭😭 like.

Babygurls......... h o w. He’d definitely do the “oops i dropped something on the ground let me beeeend down even though i’m wearing a short shorts to get the thing!” and suddenly his ass on your face🧍‍♀️

content warnings: RAWR

upd: sorry I lashed out like that I'm really ashamed </3 /ser

YES.

listen, I'm not saying that dom writers never do that, but the subspace are so huge, like a legion, that 90% is always them, and it's always some strange oc with a name like a character from the canon and which for some reason goes with a fandom tag, but why do they do it what if it's not a character?

is it something like clickbaits like with "gender neutral reader" / "male reader"/ "dom reader" or do they seriously think that "well, I see him like this when he becomes an adult" is some kind of excuse? you can't break their personality and make excuses like that, mark them as oc and go in peace, don't get into the general tag.

I'm not interested in reading about not only beating and forcing, but also having nothing to do with the real personality of the character; calm down 'daddiesthole😈🍆💦🥵' and start marking pieces normally, I'm not asking for much — if they had the brains to write all the tags that the fandom only has, then let them find among their 8k words about "he beats me and then calls me his cute kitten😳👉👈 don't @ me" a few more words about the sub!reader tag, or I will @ you and definitely not like your "big dick ceo daddy" who can only be a good boy and get stroked but I won't disturb other people's fantasies.

content warnings: venti my beloved gosh my tiny squishy hubby---

your words were an absolutely perfect description of his personality, because that's exactly what it is <333

I definitely don't want to have anything to do with genshin fandom, and even if you saw that post, let's pretend you're not, but- I somehow saw "why are there so few dom top venti?" and I almost spit out the tea because, um- he's a bratty sub???

listen, everyone has their own preferences, and I have no right to judge anyone, but "mean huge cock dom top venti" is some completely suspicious behavior. you look at this twink who loves pranks and being annoying and think about how he has at least some power at all? his only power is the power over the wind so that his clothes are pulled up or when he is busy seducing, and the wind does not blow too hard. does he use the wind to pick apples? no, he prefers to ask you for help to either make you lift him up or look up to you.

Venti literally “oh what a piiity I'm stuck in a tree what should I doooo” or “I need to climb the stairs but I'm so small and I can easily fall help me secure me from below” or “oh I'm so clumsyyy what can I do to redeem myself?”

come up with the shoddiest excuses and Venti will use them, because he hears the wind and he does not try to be unobvious — especially when accidentally sits on you again or his wagging ass is too close to you again and he comes out with this “uuuuu sorry I dropped an apple and can't find it”

no, you don't understand — yes, there are many trees with apples around you, but it was a special apple, stand behind and help him find it! but when you actually start looking, he slightly pouts, because what are you doing huh???

even the keyboard agrees with me

settle down with these headcannons, which have nothing to do with the personality of the character, or mark the tag "ooc [charactername]", because 'sub reader' marks only very rare instances of submissive writers and these are the only writers who have rights among their own kind.

#.spicy♡ #❖.my jewelry #🥮 — genshin impact #🧸.huge essay #in fact #I am gentle and affectionate and do not like to fight and scold and in general I am a tiny squishy uwu baby litte one #whose CEO daddy moans under me every night because he is tired of sub ones who only want his huge dick but he only wants a gentle domlove #/j #thank you sweetpie I felt happy that you paid attention to my words <33333

[organic-guacamole]

I've got a lot of thoughts on this finale.

starting with the length.

27 minutes? really?

I'm not asking for a 2 hour episode but cmon, at least give us something closer to 40 minutes.

next, the characters

the characters just didn't feel like themselves, especially portwell.

all season long we saw how much potential they had, how well communicated they were, how good they were at being a proper, healthy couple, and now they just can't talk to each other?

it doesn't feel like them.

portwell had arguably the best set up of all the other ships, they showed us how good they had the potential to be only to throw in a cheap plot to wrap it up? I would understand that they want some angst to make the ending all the more satisfying, but this was pathetic.

there I said it.

of all the ways to add drama in a ship, don't use the one that completely contradicts their entire development.

paired with the length of the episode, it seemed even more poorly written.

here I made a lovely, handy dandy homemade graph to represent how I see portwell's storyline:

as i said before, we saw the build up being nearly perfect. they peaked during episodes 9-11 because they just had the chemistry, the communication, and the most potential to be the endgame couple.

they just got eachother.

then we get Jamie popping in for 10 seconds and erasing a lot of that, only for mediator Ashlyn to jump in and solve their problems.

then there's the "kiss".

I know that Sofia is underage and that even if she/her legal guardians consent to the kiss, the writers can still decide not to show it, but still. In my opinion, if you're not going to show the kiss, then don't bother.

there are other ways to establish a relationship that would work better in this situation. Of course if they get together they'll have to kiss sometime, but one way they could postpone it is by having Gina be a bit more reluctant to give away her first kiss like that. it could also show how accomodating EJ is.

I like to think that Gina is very meticulous when making decisions so she'll probably want to be very sure of the relationship before giving him her first kiss. perhaps she'd stick to cheek kisses until she's ready, and then she kisses him and he's surprised.

that would've been, in my opinion, a sufficient way to hold off the kiss while still wrapping up portwell until season 3 when Sofia would be 18 (assuming they get picked up for S3 this summer then start filming fall-winter. Sofia will be 18 in January).

as my friend @rtcosley (idk why it's not letting me tag them, so their page is linked) said,

"They created like 10 plots

And instead of wrapping it up

They added 4 more"

there's just so much more they could've done...it's the season finale for crying out loud.

I get that seblos already had (what I assume is) their storyline for the season, the fight and resolution. Ignoring the fact that that only lasted for 2 episodes and didn't have anything to do with what we were expecting, (i.e.the financial differences between their families, as mentioned in episode 1, the fact that everyone treats seb like he's stupid, this being carlos' first show and the drama that the stress of that caused, etc.), seblos had to purpose this episode than to stand next to eachother and be gay.

I get that they're not part of the core four or anything, but the poster for season 2 has all of them, as opposed to season 1 just being the core four.

They deserved better, just like redlyn and kowie.

redlyn's arc was pretty early in the season compared to the other ships. they had Ashlyn confessing her insecurities in episode 3, antoine stirring the pot of confusion and causing a bit of distance between them briefly, and then big red confessing his goals and plans for the future in episode 8 and for the rest of it, we just see them getting closer and more comfortable with each other and caring about each other more and more.

they had a good arc together.

but that's just it. I wanted to see them have their own arcs. but then again, this show can't seem to balance multiple storylines. I think it is possible, but not when they keep adding new characters that don't contribute anything much to the story(more on that later).

kowie's storyline is... confusing.

I really like their dynamic, how carefree and happy Kourtney gets around him, how she's remaining true to herself and managing a million and one things, plus a relationship in her own without losing herself to it all.

but the main issue I have is that the entire development was never shown.

we went from strangers, to coworkers, to friends that flirt, to lovers that text constantly and went on numerous dates (and Howie met her mother at some point). but all of that, was off screen.

it's like the writers made every episode with them in it kind of thrown in at a new stage of relationship progression and said "here, accept this, no questions asked because we don't have answers"

I just wish we could've seen more of howie trying to get in her good side again after episode 7 because it seems like that's when a lot of it happened.

I appreciate the Rini scene in this episode, seems to be the very end of them, for good this time.

i'm happy about that.

Ricky especially deserves to be free for a while to focus on his development, and Nini has the chance now to really shine through her talents and make a name for herself.

The Rini storyline is the only one I'm fully satisfied with.

now, that being said;

what the heck are they trying to pull with Lily and Ricky rn???

just like that.

after lily being the villain this whole season, they're just gonna not redeem her and then have her confess her feelings to Ricky, a guy she barely knows and only talked to to harass and intimidate, and for him to reject her publicly then call her afterwards?

please I hope it's just to say "you dropped something, here it is and never contact me again, thanks." /hj

speaking of the villains, this season was promoted as the season of rivalry between North and East High right? so why did that plot idea only progress in about 3 out if 12 episodes?

we got Zackey Roy in there for a few episodes then he disappeared, Lily just caused Gina to stay true to her friends in episode 2 and 7 and then basically did nothing else?

this is what I mean by the new characters providing nothing to the show.

the writers can't manage having so many characters and plots at once so they start so many promising arcs, only to kick them aside later on.

we already know that the first half of the season felt like filler episodes, so I think they could've cut those down to leave room for the more important plots to take root, rather than have them pop up and get rushed at the end of the season.

all that, and they just add 4 more plots at the end of the season.

this post sounds very negative looking back...but if I'm being honest with myself, I'm just very very disappointed.

I love this show so much and I really expected better for the season finale, especially if they don't know if it's getting renewed or not.

given the IMDB ratings of this episode so far, I don't have very high expectations for the renewal, but I'm still hopeful because this show is a great thing, one of the best things that happened to me over the course of this quarantine. I've become so attached to this show, the cast and the friends I made through it, that I don't know what I would do if it just ends like this. writing these reviews and posts about this season has been so fun for me to do and thinking that this may be the very last one is a painful thought.

I'm sorry if you were expecting this post to be as light-hearted as my other posts about the episodes, I just had a lot to say about this episode in particular.

all my episode posts are tagged with "#guac's episode text blocks :)" in case you wanna read through and reminisce the simpler times🥲

#it got kinda cheesy at the end there oops #i love this fandom so much #i cant imagine if we dont get s3 #hsmtmts #hsmtmts s2 #hsmtmts season 2 #hsmtmts season 2 finale #hsmtmts spoilers #guac's episode text blocks :)

[trainsinanime]

Zoé can never replace Chloé (and she’s not meant to either)

There’s still quite a bit of dialog in the Miraculous Ladybug fandom about the question: Is Zoé supposed to be a replacement for Chloé? I felt like examining that a bit further. The key to figure this out is to look at what Chloé’s role in the story is, and how it does and does not overlap with what we’ve seen from Zoé so far.

For example, is Chloé’s role to be the mayor’s daughter? I would argue no. Being the mayor’s daughter is how she gets her (considerable) power over the class, and thus, a large part of her ability to influence or create stories. You could just as easily imagine her getting that power from elsewhere, e.g. by her father being Monsieur Damocles or some school superintendent, or just a really rich political donor, and it wouldn’t change Chloé’s role at all. Alternatively, there are characters who are in similar positions of power and privilege, but don’t actually use it. Adrien and Kagami are both rich, and Gabriel seems to have at least an indirect connection to André, so you could easily make stories about Adrien abusing that power and privilege if you really wanted to - except it doesn’t fit his character and his role in the story at all.

Is Chloé’s role to be the carrier of the Bee Miraculous? Again, I don’t think so. The bee miraculous is a result of how Chloé acts. Its power of telling people what to do is tailor-made for her personality, and by that I mean pre-possible-redemption-arc personality if that makes a difference. The story does not really need to her to have the bee miraculous specifically. Any would do. The bee was created for her because it fits her established personality best. This is in general how the show works: It’s ultimately never that Marinette has a certain miraculous and has to find a wielder for it; it is that the show wants to highlight a certain character, and gives them a specific power-up that matches their established character and the plot of the episode (except arguably for Alya, where the only link is “orange”, but that’s a different post). The story works just as well if Chloé got a different miraculous, or a different way to get a glimpse into the superhero world, because the point of her getting this is to tell us more about who Chloé is as a person, what she really wants, and how she acts when she both gets and loses it.

Is Chloé’s role to be a close friend of Marinette’s? Clearly not. That may change in the future, maybe, who knows, but so far, when Chloé is important in a plot, it is often specifically because she dislikes and resents Marinette.

Ultimately Chloé has a very simple role. It is literally the same as Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter, Cordelia Chase in Buffy, Libby in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and many, many others like them. Almost every teenage TV show has someone like them. Chloé is here as the school life antagonist, as a counterpoint to Hawkmoth. Some author (I remember it as being Marjorie Liu, but I’ve never been able to find the quote again) once said that the fun the thing about writing teenagers is that everything has equal importance: Tomorrow is the big dance, and also the world is going to end, and both things are equally important. Miraculous Ladybug follows that scheme strictly, and in it, Chloé’s job is to make the „big dance“ part of this challenging.

A fun thing is that the show generally tries to link the problems she causes to the superheroics, because that makes for a better story. The obvious case is when she is the akumatized villain herself. But there are also for example things like Darkblade, where the show uses the situation with Chloé to draw explicit parallels even though her situation isn’t really linked with D’Agencourt’s at all. A few times Chloé’s role is to literally just show up, upset someone for no reason until they become Akumatization material, and then leave again, such as in Frozer, Stormy Weather 2 or Frightningale. And sometimes the superhero plot is all about Chloé’s actions and also a hilarious homage to every single zombie movie trope ever (Zombizou). Either way, Chloé exists to cause problems - and by extension, episode plots - on purpose.

Another aspect of that is that she helps Marinette grow. Sometimes she is simply motivation for Marinette to go out and be a better person (Darkblade), but she can also appeal to Marinette’s darker instincts so that Marinette can then reject them, or at least feel bad about her actions, such as in Animaestro.

Zoé, who is friendly and passive, and whose stories are all about her relationship with Chloé, is as far from a replacement as you can possibly get. Yes, Zoé has taken over the bee miraculous, but that was part of a plot that was all about Chloé as a person, and not at all about Zoé herself. And it doesn’t really matter, because Chloé isn’t here to get the bee miraculous, the bee miraculous is here to tell a story about Chloé.

Now, yes, Zoé may seem like she has taken over from Chloé if you look at it from a hypothetical end point: Throughout parts of season 2, it looked like Chloé might do a standard grade 1 redemption arc, become nice, a friend to Marinette and a member of the team. There were hints that Chloé might be interested in that, and hints that Marinette might be open to the idea, and then the show went very hard in another direction. Zoé is indeed very, very roughly the kind of person that Chloé and parts of the fandom thought she deserved to be. 

But that isn’t actually a replacement of Chloé, because the role of Chloé is not to become redeemed as quickly as possible. The point of a redemption arc, or in fact any arc, isn’t the endpoint, it’s the way there. That’s why people read 100,000 word enemies-to-lovers stories despite the fact that eventual result is already literally there in the tags. Miraculous Ladybug doesn’t need "mayor’s daughter who looks good in yellow and is nice" and takes shortcuts to get there; it needs - and most importantly clearly wants - an interesting story about Chloé specifically. You can’t replace Chloé in a story all about her personality and her relationships with people with anyone except literally Chloé herself, and certainly not with someone who is noticeably nicer.

(This does not mean Zoé is pointless; it means Zoé’s role is something else entirely. Maybe someone who pushes Chloé to be better? We’ll see.)

Now, will this story be told well? As of right now I’m honestly giving it 50:50 odds, and my guess is that it will both feel drawn-out and rushed at the same time in the end thanks to the "occasional large dumps of plot" technique of storytelling the show generally uses. We’ll see. But I am certain that the story will be told at all. If the show writers didn’t want to, they could have literally sent her off to America, that was literally a plot point in the season 3 finale.

So: Zoé as a replacement for Chloé? That’s ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.

And final thought: Once more, I want to point out that literally all Chloé-related salt is true if and only if you insert Lila instead at the right place. First, she is the obvious replacement for Chloé. She makes Marinette’s life more challenging when not in costume, and she is very good at that because she’s specifically designed to push all of Marinette’s righteous fury buttons. Lila is literally an explicit counterpart to and partner of Hawkmoth. And finally, she’s the character the creators don’t seem to like at all, or at least don’t seem to know what to do with, considering how little she appears and how she’s gotten no development whatsoever. We really need a "justice for Lila, turn her into the meaningful dastardly villain she deserves to be" movement in the fandom.

#miraculous ladybug #mlb meta #Chloé bourgeois #zoé bourgeois

[langernameohnebedeutung]

I’m probably parrotting to the wrong choir here, but at least part of the truth about liking villains vs. condemning villains is...I don’t consume villain content in order to find healthy coping strategies and genuine life advice. I don’t look for healthy coping strategies in sci-fi films and fantasy books or on ao3 in the first place, because 99% of all that input is not produced by people that a) intent or b) are qualified to give meaningful life advice.

 Sometimes things we read or watch can be detrimental to our mental health or can make us happier or mean a lot to us. And that is also why it is important to tag, warn, and summarise content: So that people can avoid things that are bad for them and find things that comfort them. But what popular fiction never is, is a clear, intentional, professional, and universal guide.

 We already talked about how even the most horrible people will read novels where they resemble the bad guys and identify with the good guys instead rather than reflecting their own behaviour. That is, because narratives need stakes. The hero needs to be David, not Goliath. And we too see ourselves as Goliath, in our lives. Because there are always things that are bigger than us. And because we know that David will win.

 But sometimes...sometimes it is quite nice to feel like the giant. Especially when we’re used to feeling small.

 Sure “I like this villain because villains get to do things we want to but can’t” might seem like a tiny brained answer, but if you expand a little, there is truth to it: Sometimes I want to see someone go bloody ape-shit in response to trauma, injustice, being underestimated or forgotten. Sometimes I want to see someone just care about themselves and burn the whole place down and look fabulous doing it, because I know, that in real-life, very often it is sympathy and empathy holding me back for even insisting on minor and very rational things, simply because I don’t want to be a burden on others and because I prioritise other people very highly. There is catharsis in that; in seeing someone getting it out of their system in the most violent way possible just like there is catharsis in going for a run or punching the hell out of a punching bag when you’re frustrated even though you would never chase down and beat up a person.

Because even when see characters standing up for themselves - think of the infamous internet rage over Captain Marvel stealing that bike from the dude that harassed her – their actions are usually centred around punishing the culprit, not the emotions of the party that was wronged. But people got angry. Not because she stole a car, or because she stole it from a men even – but because her acting in response to sexual harassment connected the scene with deep roots of social context and political opinions and expectations.

And, despite hundreds, maybe thousands of films in existence where a white male protagonist steals a car or bike or anything else to save the day, she is read as a villain here simply for doing the rational thing. Much less could she have killed him and burnt down his house, because she is a hero and it doesn’t serve the plot and that would not be the thing a hero does.

A villain burning the whole joint down because someone looked at them funny is acting selfishly, self-centred. But what are you going to do, call them a villain? Duh. Complain about how what they’re doing is wrong? Well, yes.

 The lane of their actions is not narrowed by the actions of the culprit on the one side (heroes have to react appropriately and proportionally) and the expectations of the good-guy on the other (they have to act in accordance with forwarding the plot). Which means putting up with an asshole sidekick or apologising if they undergo character development that makes them a ‘better’ person and requires them to forgive someone). You might have your odd Logan who will throw a punch when he’s pissed – but here we already venture into the territory of an anti-hero.

And personally, our anger, our disappointment, all that will always be much more contained than any fictional space - by our financial situation, the people we depend on, our job, our studies, or family, our social circle. We live in a web of social expectations that we depend on every moment of our life.

Fiction itself also exists in a web of social context: What influence does it have on the audience? Will it sell? What implications does it have? How does it present its characters? Who is the author and what do they stand for? - but the fictional space, aka the world constructed in a novel, is wholly separate:

If I write a novel where I state that every Canadian person likes the colour blue and wears funny hats, then this is true in the universe of that novel, no matter what any Canadian reader might feel about it. This means two things:

1.       As writers, producers, and even as producers of fan-content, we have to be critical about what we put into the world, because by creating a fictional space, we create characters who cannot stand up against the things we say about them or make them do. Just like the superheroine in the skimpy outfit who gets her powers through the sun shining down on her nipples cannot have an authentic discussion about her body. And when young girls read our comic and see that all the male heroes are clothed and the heroine isn’t, then we are the one that came up with the sunshine-nipples.

2.       Our very own, personal interpretation of the novel – even our own - and the way we relate to it is our own. The feelings we project on the characters are individual, personal, and shaped by us.

And yes, villains usually see their comeuppance. And the thing is, many people argue here: “Well, it’s okay if the villain does x, as long as they’re punished for it.” But...that’s a difficult subject. A piece of fiction can condemn the actions of the villain without seeing them lose – the challenge to the writer is to still form a satisfying narrative, because the villain winning is the ‘likely’-seeming thing that every narrative subverts when the hero levels up and returns with her new friends to kick the villain’s ass. But even if you sympathise with the villain, seeing them win would still be an unsatisfying narrative, most of the time.

Because the whole point of an actual evil villain - and sympathising with an actual villain - is that what they’re doing is unjust. Malicious. Selfish. And projecting your desire to strike back or stand up on a villain and seeking catharsis through seeing them go wild and tear down the city needs the pushback. For them burning down the house to be satisfying, you need to see the house burn. For them to blow up the house of parliament to be satisfying – you must see the explosion.

And watching them lose provides the ultimate, necessary gravitas. Watching Team Rocket fly off with Pikachu and live happily ever after on Team Rocket money would not be satisfying. Watching our super-villain burn the world to a crisp with their death-laser would not be satisfying if they just end up getting their rocket and flying off while drinking space-mojitos.

Whether they end up being redeemed or not: The initial moment that someone fights back and defeats them at the height of their immorality and prevents the suffering of innocents is the moment that their willingness and readiness to commit violence is put to the test.

 We know the hero goes through a journey of their own - one that requires sacrifice and steels their commitment until they are ready to take on the villain. And knowing that someone is willing to make sacrifices to be able to take the villain down is the ultimate acknowledgement of the transgressive act the villain committed. Without it, it would be empty. Like watching someone punch the air.

But the truth is also that when you recreate the fictional space in another, secondary space – fanfiction, fan content, fanart – you decide what to focus on. Like, we all enjoy hurt/comfort stories, but they have a different intention than something focussed on action or the growth of the hero – because that requires for us to see the villain go down. The focus is no longer the transgressive acts of the villain – but to lay bare the pain that caused them. It is no longer about beating them down for the sake of justice.

Like, when I make a post about Frankenstein’s monster living happily ever after and people tell me that hey, the monster killed a lot of people - then we have a different premise. Because me not adding a line about the evil things the monster did to my post was based on the premise that you knew that random tumblr user langernameohnebedeutung does not condone the crime of murder because she posts about a 200-year-old book. And the #fact that my point doesn’t construct an ending where the monster stands in front of a judge and is sentenced to a certain time in jail or punished by a more heroic person is because I have daddy issues and seeing a giant creature go on a rampage through Europe to get back at its asshole Dad in a way I never could makes me quite happy the novel focussing on its acts of violence already did this and my post clearly had a different intention.

#long post #fandom

[bellatrixobsessed1]

I think the bad reputation of Azula stans is an effect of the ones making her out to be an innocent angel and excusing her actions being the most visible,this is of course not exclusive to the Azula fandom the same is true of most villain fandoms. People find a villain fascinating get conflated with those who can't handle their fave being a villain which leads to annoying things in fandom

I can see that and how it’s annoying. I’ve seen this myself and it kind of bothers me when people take up the ‘Azula did nothing wrong’ mentality. To a degree it makes me wonder if these people like her for the character she is or if these people only like her for the character they have in their headcanons. However I do think that this  is a little bit of a strawman as I feel like most of Azula’s fans don’t do this and actually say that they don’t like when stans try to make her out to be a cinnamon roll. 

I also feel like ‘Azula did nothing wrong’ is very reactionary (at least for some people). I fell thrice as inclined to try to justify her actions when people are constantly dropping ‘sociopath’ as the hot new insult. People constantly demonize Azula and that puts her fans on the defensive. There’s so much ‘Azula is a sociopath’, ‘Azula was born evil’ that the opposite end of the spectrum was bound to come up eventually. People constantly post hate in the tag and make her out to be 100% irredeemable so people bend over backwards to defend her.

Tbh I feel like this is usually the case in fandoms. The way I see it is that fans with bad reps (usually these are fans of antagonists) are part of a cycle; people keep posting hate in the tags and antagonizing the fans, the fans feel inclined to swing to the very opposite end of the spectrum in an attempt to defend their character, and then they get slapped with the ‘bully fandom’/’annoying part of the fandom’ label.

Similarly I think that people feel like they have to try to justify her actions or downplay them so that they aren’t seen as abuse apologists. If that makes sense. It’s easier to say ‘Azula did nothing wrong’ than to acknowledge that she did but that she can still be redeemed. I think that most Azula fans just want to see her humanized. They don’t want to make her out to be a cinnamon roll, they want to make her out to be humanizing. They don’t want to justify, they want to sympathize. 

All of this said, I feel like the Azula did nothing wrong crowd is a very small but vocal portion of the fandom. In my other ask I mentioned that Zukka fans tend to get really nasty in people’s inboxes and have a rep for sending hate. But I also stated that I think that these people are in the minority. Across every fandom I’ve been in people, for some reason, tend to look at the vocal minority and generalize the entire fanbase on those people when they should be looking at the more silent majority--the one’s whose voices are often buried under the screeching of the bad apples of the fandom.

It isn’t fair to write off every single Azula fan, Zukka fan, Zutara fan, etc. because of a handful of people. I just hate generalizations. 

I also think that that’s no excuse to deliberately try to bully Azula fans out of the fandom/make them feel so uncomfortable and unwelcome that they just start leaving. And the fact that writers like Yang have enabled/encouraged this behavior is just mind blowing to me and not in a good way.

But yeah I think that Azula fans (like Zutara fans had been) are now caught in a cycle of people accusing them of being awful, so they get defensive or lash out, and then that is used to demonize and isolate them further. 

And all because of a handful of people who seem to speak louder than the rest. Again, this goes for so many fandoms and so many parts of this fandom. The Zutarians got it first. The Zukka fans are starting to get a rep as the fandom bullies and so on. 

The bottom line for me is that just because some fans are ‘annoying’ doesn’t mean that it’s okay to send hateful, patronizing, or antagonizing anons to members of the fandom who haven’t done anything wrong. Like I’ve seen some anons that @bezixx has gotten that are clearly trying to bait this user into saying something mean so that they can use it as an “AH HA GOTCHA!” I’ve gotten several of these asks myself that are clearly bait/someone trying to get a reaction. 

EDIT: I’d also like to mention that it’s not okay for Azula fans to send people hate for no reason. And it 100% doesn’t help make things any better to give into the bait. My solution is to just delete the patronizing ask if you don’t think that you’ll respond well to it and to block people who post anti stuff in the tag. Even better, if you are able; try to respond to patronizing asks with kindness! Literally don’t give them the reaction they want and just explain why you disagree with said hate as though you are having a perfectly peaceful discussion lol. They can’t call you a bully if you literally don’t say anything mean back. For the most part that has been working for me.

EDIT 2: Another thing I noticed that doesn’t help is when Azula fans demonize Ursa, Zuko, and Iroh to uplift Azula. I actually see this one quite a lot and I can see why outsiders would get annoyed with it. They get annoyed with it for the same reason that it annoys me when Zuko fans demonize Azula to uplift Zuko. It’s very off putting to fans of x character when fans of y character constantly demonize character x to uplift character y. 

#Avatar The Last Airbender #Azula #Azula Discourse #Fandom Discourse

[humanwheatleyslefttoenail]

Number 15 :o)

NUMBER 15 BURGER KING BURGER-

Ok all jokes aside, unpopular opinion time. 

- It’s cool if you just personally don’t like ChellDOS, but shipping aside, I think they are coded as a couple. I mean, GLaDOS sings her Cara Mia and Don’t Say Goodbye, which are objectively love songs. Want You Gone and You Wouldn’t Know are breakup songs. There’s deleted content where GLaDOS passive aggressively gets mad at Chell “cheating on her” by talking to other cores. GLaDOS begins to use “we” in old Aperture and starts treating Chell like an ally, then saves her and lets her go, all while revealing the humanity she’d promised not to reveal to anyone else. The ENTIRE FOCUS of the series is on their changing, dynamic relationship be it as friends or enemies. Their arc is also literally just... an enemies to lovers set up lol. Again, I’m not saying it’s canon per se or that you have to ship it or like it, but I am saying there’s a lot of canon subtext there. (Also btw I heard somewhere “cake” in Argentinian Spanish is slang for lesbians so maybe the cake isn’t a lie-)

- Wheatley is very flawed, and throughout the whole game. I don’t think he was always evil and I definitely think he got corrupted just like GLaDOS, but I also don’t think it was a case of “Corrupt The Cutie.” He’s never been a cinnamon roll or whatever the fandom calls it - he’s shown having some implicit sexism, he’s cowardly, he’s flighty, he’s so obviously a show off because he’s so underconfident. People seem to gloss over these things, especially his actions in the mainframe (which, btw, he is at least partially responsible for), but I feel like if you do that and then justify everything he does... you don’t have Wheatley anymore. Wheatley’s flaws make him *more* sympathetic imo, not less - like I see fics and art where people insist Wheatley doesn’t need to redeem himself or grow in any meaningful way and just want him to be forgiven. I really don’t like that because A) It’s just not true and B) a flawed but likeable character struggling to be better is so much more compelling and relatable. 

- Chelley is. Not a good ship. But. I still like it out of nostalgia and because Blue Sky lol. I think it could work post-canon but first Wheatley would need to do a lot of work on his end and actually prove to Chell that he is worthy. Unfortunately, a lot of Chelley content doesn’t actually do this and has Chell do all the emotional work for him which I don’t like. I consider myself a fan of this ship and I think if you search it up, I’m one of the blogs that comes up, but I don’t like it as much as ChellDOS and I wish people put more consideration into their fanworks when portraying it. 

- Cave dying was actually kinda sad - like he was a bad person and everything but his last few intercom messages still really get me after everything he did. He made so many fucked up decisions but like, I think it’s very relatable - this idea of getting so caught up in your own ideas that you hurt everyone around you and don’t realize until it’s too late and you’re going down with them. It’s sad because like... there were so many chances for him to stop and they never happened, and with the lemon rant he’s still struggling against everything. He still never gave up. And like... idk it just makes me emotionally because he was a bad guy for sure but he’s very human. It doesn’t make me sad in an “oh he didn’t deserve that” way, but more like the way you’re sad after finishing a Greek tragedy kinda way, if you get what I’m saying. 

- I wish I saw more content for the P1 cores because they’re adorable. I want to give the Curiosity Core and the Cake Core hugs. They are babey. 

- Wheatrat and Chellmann aren’t that popular rn because Doug never actually shows up in the game, but both these ships are seriously underrated imo (maybe that’s just the multishipper in me lol). ChellMel and Chellyx are also good and I wish there was more content for that, too. 

- It’s 2020. Can we stop acting like Wheatley did nothing wrong. Can we stop acting like GLaDOS is Only Mean And Has No Other Traits. Nuance is a thing, and the Valve writers didn’t spend hours meticulously creating these three dimensional characters for the fandom to turn them into UwU Cinnamon Roll and Mean Evil. 

- I think Chell is actually a pretty kind person - the fact the game gives you the option to save companion cubes and the oracle turrets, the fact she still tries to stop Wheatley from going to space, the fact that she allies with GLaDOS despite everything, the fact that you physically cannot let go of Wheatley in the first half when you’re holding him - Chell really only does bad things when it’s a literal matter of life and death. She’s a good person just looking out for her own survival, and I don’t like how the fandom has decided she’s mean, angry, or just as bad as GLaDOS and Wheatley when she’s pretty clearly not.

- We as white portal fans need to do better and think critically about the way we’re portraying Chell, be that drawing or writing her. Stuff like not portraying her as an angry stereotype and not whitewashing her. It’s really sad to see the amount of implicit racism in the fandom. 

- Blue Sky is still good although GLaDOS being the bad guy again was a bit OOC. I think it still serves as a good study of Wheatley and I like that it acknowledges his flaws and ultimately makes him responsible for his own redemption, not Chell. Also, “Prove it” was a raw line - I still can’t get it out of my head. 

- He’s unpopular for obvious reasons, but I really like Nigel from Aperture Tag. He’s so charming and quirky and then when he betrays you, he’s such a fun and charismatic villain. I love to hate Nigel and I wish Wheatley had been more like that when he turned evil. Nigel is a good combination of weirdly cute, intimidating, and frustrating. He’s a really well written villain and I wish more people knew about both him and Aperture Tag. 

- GLaDOS didn’t delete Caroline. I don’t think she physically can, and I think she was just lying so that Chell wouldn’t come back or think GLaDOS had feelings lol. I think even Ellen said she thought Caroline wasn’t deleted. 

#portal #portal 2 #chelldos #chelley #meta #long post #cave johnson #glados #wheatley #chell #fandom racism #racism #death mention #unpopular opinion #asks #faebiie #nigel #aperture tag

[redxblueihateloveyou]

Actually i don't get Reki at all. Like even in the first ep he was worse even than Shadow and i'm not talking abt Cherry, Joe and Adam. And he was ok and loved skating. But like... if your friend is better than you, then you get depressed and making your friend feel guilty abt you not being good enough? I didn't even ship Reki and Langa, they are just giving me only friendship vibes, but i'm still sad, wtf writers did with his character?

Yeah, same. Like, sorry, I just don’t think Reki’s character can be redeemed for me personaly at this point.  

Like what should I even stand for in his character? I do not respect his life position at all. Like I dislike Makoto for being a shadow and not wanting anything in his life, but hey, at least he’s genuinely happy for Haru’s success. I adore Rin who never gave up and dove into the hardest challenge possible from the start to get on Haru’s level, cause he wanted to swim with him for the rest of his life and he got there. And then there’s this..  it’s like.. he loves to skate, but apparently not enough, cause his doesn’t want it, if he isn’t the best at it, so he’d rather... not skate at all? He wants to be as cool and on the same level with “naturally talented ones” and wants to compete with Langa, but he doesn’t want to do anything for it or search for his own unique style or smth to beat them in another way? And on top of that he’s also sad about seeing Langa succeeding? The whole thing is... like.. no, thank you?

Like are they really gonna go with the “you made me want to be great at this like you, but if only you are great at this, than screw both you and this?” lolz. Even if they will go with the psychological block bc of his friend’s injury, it’s gonna be lousy af now. It’s like is there even a route left which could make him look...ahem... presentable at this point? Idk.

I also was right about the fact that he’s the type who prolongs the whining instead of doing things, unlike some other characters who were in his position too; realistic maybe he is, but I don’t want it, honestly, like I see such things every day and I do not like it.

From what I’ve seen in the tag some are already trying to apply here like 50 mental disorders to excuse him and stuff like “it’s realistic” and at this point I’m honestly used to people on the internet using mental disorders not for spreading awareness, but bc they’re thinking it’s “trendy”, which is a cringe galore and shame on you. But it still makes me kinda sad all the time. Also there’s nothing unrealistic about not giving up and getting where you want, it’s just harder for, to say, “ordinary” people, that’s why most rarely choose this option (although it’s for you to decide if you’re ordinary or not, cause everyone can be extraordinary, you just need to find it in you). Anyways, drowning in a self pity is not the trait I’ve ever found appealing in people, along with the constant comparing yourself to others.

Sadly many prefer to use these excuses to get out of everything along with being lazy or jealous, esp the young generation. At this point, it’s like the same thing as with this other fandom. Like, sometimes when someone is trying to hit someone because he saw that he’s more talented than him, that just means that he’s an asshole, there’s no need to come up with ridiculous excuses to justify this and try to make him a hero. And sometimes ppl are just jealous, as simple as that. And no, not everyone is like that. At this point ppl on social media are like... fuck your hard-working characters, who are inspired by talent and do not give up on trying to prove yourself even if the whole world is against them. Let’s promote being emo and how it’s okay to spend your life on walking around telling everyone how you’re a useless trash, like this will help you in life.

Also if seeing someone succeed, esp your best friend, makes you sad, might want to reconsider the way of living your life. Just saying.

Also since when you have to be the best just to enjoy doing what you love doing? I’m like... personaly I do not get it. Looking at my vids 10 years ago they look like utter trash, but I tried and tried and yeah, I might not reach some levels of mega talented ppl, but hey, I’m still trying and searching for stuff I can improve all the time and watch talented ppl tutorials like “holy fuck, you can do that?”.

But hey, at least he doesn’t want to only make boards, he wants to compete... (or does he? I’m honestly not sure at this point lol)... I mean, there’s... that. but I thought, when he’s gonna realize it, he’s gonna be back on track, but n.o. xD back to self pity. ok then. Some go like “its only been 3 episodes” and I’m like “this... ain’t a 24 episodes anime tho..(?)”.

So far I’m just confused about what are writers intentions with some characters are. Like the most interesting ones at least for me are technically a background for some reason idk. I was literally sad about the wasted amount of screentime on Reki being.. well, nothing new.

Sad part about this is that people like this also need a constant reassuring to the point of them just sucking your life out of you, too, so I honestly do not know how to deal with this life position. Ppl like this have a tendency to never be happy, so Langa would just have to run after him and feed him with compliments for the rest of his life to water his tiny self-esteem or say smth “don’t give up, don’t give up, fighting”? It’s like... well, ok. Friendship, yeah, but ship? Nah, not for me. Also I do not smell any huge romance there tbh, and from Reki’s side this is all just a mess tbh.

The saddest part was that he saw that Langa won after his yelling and he didn’t care for that. Like Rin was mopping bc he wanted to swim with Haru, so when he saw that Haru wanted to swim with him, too, that was it for him. And that’s the problem all the viewers who watched Free! got hit with while watching this. My DMs are literally all about “why do I not feel anything about them?” or “sometimes cute, but smth doesn’t hit me shipping wise”. Cause I think most expected for some reason that he would also put Langa first, but at the end, they’re not on the same track, bc their priorities are different.

I actually think it was just mistake for all of our Free! hommies including me to go at it from the wrong point of view and from the beginning expecting it shipping wise to be like that one other Utsumi’s work. I mean, she’s just a director there, not also on the storyboard or anything else. Should’ve gone watching it with a clear head. The main ship just does not hit any spots for me either. And my heart does not lie there at all. I do blame Free! for this, cause it’s like impossible to compare bc of those our scenes, I keep seeing, but at the same time, they do not hold up not to the dynamic, not to anything at this point. Like I do not know where they’re going with them, but this is just not my type of a ship in general and definitely not the one I can go crazy about. I honestly do not think 3 episodes can change that. It’s says a lot if at this point I do not even care much for their reconciliation, I’m like.. tell me about the seniors’ drama tho xD So I’ll stick with my side ships.

Also, unrelated to the question, but did Adam seriously just went and hit Cherry with a board in the face?!!!! (THE FUCK DUDE?) Like, this was definitely not how I thought this was gonna go. I also kinda felt like Cherry was in love with Adam in the past. All in all this was like a... strange episode, at this point I just feel sorry for my baby Langa, Joe and Cherry were very cute (esp at the end) and my god Cherry is hot, but like I also want something complex pls, so idk I’m  still waiting for the Adam/Tadashi shananigans.

At this point I’m like “I love watching this, but what am I watching?” haha supernatural skating soup opera it is then. 

Also I just love Langa my dude, my man. How he’s such a puppy in real life, but so freaking hot when he skates??!!! T_T 

#answered #anonymous #sk8 #sk8 the infinity

[sinnabonka]

Hey Hun! Lots of love to you. For starters I wanted to say that there should be no cell in your body blaming yself in any way. You and your blog were hope for so many people. You were the "you are not crazy" of the final weeks, and I'm forever grateful to you. Instead of dying of anxiety I managed to have a blast in this time of waiting, thanks to you. I passed my master thesis, because you gave me strength to see past the fear. I laughed in those weeks more than in last 5 years, and all of it because of the hope you gave me.

The rest of the msg is going to be pretty emotional rant about the awfulness of it all, and I know my opinion doesn't matter to anyone but I wanted someone important to me to hear my thoughts, if that's ok. It's also ok if you don't want to read it ofc. It's like my breakup letter to the show.

I hear many people cheering for the finale and i find it really hard to deal with. I always considered myself an open person who fights for healthy love as the only redeeming quality of the universe. I could see people's point of view, even if it didn't sit well with mine, and I would always try to hear them out respectfully until they weren't being respectful themselves. That said, I'm fully unable to understand cheering for this type of spiteful content and hearing those cheers makes me feel like the entire world is listening to "this is how you treat your fans, this is how to abuse your power over naive sheep, this is how to keep dumb, hopeful minorities in check" and taking notes.

It also upsets me that the people who gave this show all of themselves and tried to understand it to the core are given no resolution, are spitted on and buried under the rug for doing their best to appreciate the art and the story it was telling. Yet people, who just hang around and watch the show doing the dishes, with no consideration to it's story or characters, got as nonsensical ending as their whole idea of character development in SPN.

I know people say that it was good enough, because it leaves space for guessing and own interpretation, but I feel it's really undermining the extend to which the finale was awful and hurtful to the fans. There is no end that realistically could stop fanfic writers from finding way around it in the world of Supernatural, so saying it was thoughtful of them Is like excusing abusive partner because "they could hit me harder, but they didn't. That means they care"

Lose ends, characters being written in a way that is totally not true to them and their development (personally my biggest allegation), dismissing years of story development, proving that it was all 'queerbaiting' in big part in the end (hell, even the whole "Cas is in heaven so do with it what you will" is a shameful way of appalling to LGBTQ community after using them so hard.

In the pie scene, the roles should be swapped, it's Dean who should say that Cas is on his mind and Sam explaining him that it's only right to keep on living doing good in their name. That's what Dean told Sam at the beginning of the season, when Sam lost Rowena, so it would be at least a bit poetic. This would at least give us some truth from Dean for once, but he died how he lived, in shadow of his fear to be true towards his feelings and needs. And as he died, he bound his little brother to the hunting till the end of his days, by guilting him into it on his deathbed. Guess Dean took after his father.

Have you realised what that emotional "love speech" from Dean to Sam resulted in? It was writers taking back Cas' confession after they didn't need our viewership anymore.

They basically gave us love confession to get us to follow the finale and when they didn't need us anymore, not only they didn't commit to the confession, but they undermined it by having Dean's speech to Sam go the way it did with obviously higher emotional charge, successfully taking back the value of Cas' confession and making it about a bait for "Tumblr idiots"

Finale killed my feelings towards Destiel, not because it wasn't confirmed canon, but because from what I see in the episode, they canonically confirmed that

- for Dean, Cas was only means to an end, which is such an awful way of ending Cas' character arc. They gave him everything he was scared of and nothing close to consolation price and they dare to tell us he had a happy ending, "because they said so". Well, I didn't see him being happy, and knowing what i textually know i can empathise enough to say that he faced a miserable finish. Even Chuck got an end that was better than Cas' fate.

- Dean, given power to do anything he could dream of, chooses to not even greet Cas, after Cas gave his whole life to Dean, told him he loved him and died for him. I know some people consider the little smirk of Dean confirmation of his feelings, but let's be real for just a second. If someone you deeply loved for years confessed to you, told you they thought you don't love them back, you would be freaking running to see them and tell them how much you love them. That smirk to me reads as "I'm relieved to know you're not going to spend eternity in mega hell that i left you in" and we really need to stop giving credit to writers for scraps like this when it's the last episode ever and we know this isn't going anywhere.

Not to mention that by having Jack bring Cas back behind the scenes it just highlights the fact that Dean didn't ask him to do that in episode 19.

As result, I'm unable to look at any Destiel scene and not think "in here Cas already loved him and in here Dean already abuses the power he had over Cas, because of his one-sided love"

And yet, the episode and endgames for everyone (maybe not Sam, but he was seriously pinning for Dean his entire life. Wincest much?) managed to be so bad, that not even bringing Cas back or following up on Destiel would make a difference in my eyes. I know you believe that Destiel would save it, but for me as much as it would be a redeeming quality, it wouldn't be enough to save this awfulness that writer doomed characters with.

And all the Wincest scenes in the finale... I low key expected them to make out and it made me feel physically sick. Also, cutting Misha out because of coronavirus is a cheap excuse. We all know better than to believe that, so let's not fall for the self pity play from the abuser.

If you managed to stay with me till this point, thank you so much for hearing me out. I hope i didn't anger you with my monologue. I will always think of the lamp when i think of you. The reality is that you were the lamp for so many of us in this darkness.

Love you so much, wish all the best to you, take care of yourself and stay safe!

Oh my god, if I didn’t cry with the final, I definitely am crying now. And now I have to explain my partner why I’m staring at my laptop and sobbing ugly. What have you done? 

First of all, I hear you pain, my friend! I share it! I didn’t spend a second after the final without the feeling of my heart being shuttered into million pieces, being stitched back just to break again, and so on and so on. 

I had my first panic attack in two years yesterday, when I kept thinking about the message the show sent to the fandom via Dean’s fate. I have a few posts in my draft on the matter, but I am not sure I will ever share them, because it is one strong depresso, and I don’t think people following me should see how fucked up it really is (if they didn’t get it by themselves, of course). 

I want to remind you, my gentle soul, that the story belongs to us. We know Dean, we know Cas, we know Sam and others. We know that the final is not who they are! I know it’s hard to ignore the text, the canon, because it’s kinda godsent, but the truth is essential. And the final is not the truth.

The truth: 

Cas loves Dean, he sacrificed himself for him, he saved his life on multiple occasions, he told all those beautiful things and he meant every word.

Dean loves Cas, he was on his lowest every time he lost him, Cas was his “big win”, his best friend, his brother, his white light that lead him out of his anger, hatred and despair. He took a dog and called it Miracle, he was looking for a job to retire from hunting, he didn’t kill Chuck - all of that, because the sacrifice Cas made was not in vain! The message was clear. 

I choose to ignore the “Carry on”, the only attention it is going to get is me creating 20 more mails just to put a one star review there and to drop some more salty or bitter comments with it. Maybe I will read through some reviews, too, add them to my collection. 

Maybe I will one day write here an article from scriptwriting perspective how fucked up in was, because that’s what I can do about it, without throwing up. 

If you can’t ignore it, I understand it. It is painful, it is disrespectful, I hate it as much as you do, probably. 

If there’s anything I can do for you to feel better, just drop me a message, we can talk about it. I am on the lowest, too, but maybe we can help each other.

You say I was your lamp. Let me lead you our of the darkness one more time <3 

CW can suck my metaphorical dick (I’m tagging every angry post with it), but Supernatural is not just the show on CW, it’s a big family. 

And you can’t give up on it! You can’t give up on Dean and Cas, you can’t give up on Destiel! It’s so much bigger then the show itself.

Rediscover the show for yourself, remind yourself that Dean and Cas are real, it was never one sided, it was always something amazing. 

What is real? We are.

Don’t you ever change.

I rather have you, cursed or not.

It’s love, hun, and love always wins. 

#the15yearshow #spn #destiel #cw #can suck my metaphorical dick #sinnabonka answers