#btw when i say white-lead i mean canon characters

[strangefable]

2, 3, and 5 for the salty fandom opinions asks XD

2. Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?*

I don't know if there's any OTPs in FC5 that qualify. I mean, I brotp Sharky and Hurk Jr. but I feel like most people wouldn't ship it? I can't personally ship with Joseph, but I have no hate in my heart for anyone who does.

In TOW, I uh... Millsoto makes me see red like Jake's playing Only You for me. (To mix my fandom metaphors whoops.) I'm not trying to stop anyone, by all means you do you! I just do not want to see it.

For Horizon, I have some reservations about Elisabet/Tilda and Aloy/Tilda, though I understand where others are coming from with it.

3. Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?

No. I don't mind having people around with different opinions as long as everyone's respectful about it. That's part of the fun, tbh, hearing perspectives I haven't thought of or don't hold myself. It's just fandom, it's all in good fun, and I respect people having fun differently than I do with the same source. We're all here for a good time.

4. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

Oh my god, yes, many many many times. Not as much in my current fandoms, as those are mostly OC x canon ships, and I'm not going to hate on anyone's OCs. (Not even ones I personally dislike, because again. People are allowed to have their own fun.)

In general, I'm mostly over white-lead mlm ships in any and all fandoms. They simply get too much of the attention pie. I've had my fill of typical slash after so many decades.

If you want some tea, here's some ships from old fandoms I'm sick of: Lassie/Shawn in Psych (why is there no Shawn/Gus, seriously wtf.), Destiel. Destiel. Destiel. I'm glad it was never made canon, y'all can stay mad about it. Nathan/Duke in Haven. It's not valid unless it's an Audrey sandwich. The OT3 is the only valid ship. They're both too in love with Audrey to see anyone else. McDanno in H50. I loved them until that was all that existed. :/

#salty asks #fable rants and rambles #fable answers #thank you for asking! <3 #setting myself up for some anon hate i guess lol #or possibly people unfollowing me #¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #btw when i say white-lead i mean canon characters #i don't hate mlm oc ships at all #just felt i should add this caveat

[alphinias]

That bridgerton sneak peak had some good chemistry they might make me tune in idk, I usually agree with you on most things ship related but I have a problem with this specific ship, Colin is the least interesting of the siblings so far but that's okay I didn't care for anthony either before his season, my bigger problem is Penelope, I think they tried to go for the drama and the twists too much and made her seem kind of awful? They're trying to pretend racism doesn't exist in that era but the way she outed Marina in s1 ( who was not doing a good thing at all but I don't she had much of a choice given her other option was abject poverty) and the way she talks about her friends in her column and outs everyone's shit, things that have really serious consequences on people's lives. The writers literally called her a villain which???? They're doing something I feel a lot of shows have a problem with lately, trying to girlboss women doing shitty things, same with their brand of white feminism for Eloise who spends all her scenes lamenting her fate and being "quirky" with no actual depth or confronting her privilege or trying to help other women or really anything at all, all she does is talk like a "not like other girls" girlie circa Tumblr 2012 and they're thinking omg we're being such feminists right now 🤣😅🤣

Girllll you better tune in anyway so we can get more seasons and other ships you might like better! PRESERVE OUR LIMITED ROMANCE GENRE.

In all seriousness, I totally get where you’re coming from! I personally love polin and I’m very excited for them, but I don’t think the writing has always been the best. Obviously a lot of polin fans don’t agree with me, but I still think this season not being Benedict’s is so strange and a mistake. The general audience adores him and I think both Colin and Penelope could’ve done with another season of personal growth (and slow burn) to help them win over the rest of the audience more. I like Colin and I think he’s actually really funny when they give him a chance, but he’s done nothing to scream leading man like Benedict has yet. I guess S3 will tell us how much is on the writing so far vs Luke Newton. I want him to be so amazing, but I get the doubts because I still have some nerves about it too. I think the sneak peek looked great and is a great start so I’m gonna go in with optimism and positive thoughts!

Gotta defend Eloise because I think her thinking she’s ranting and valid but actually being more out of touch than she realizes is mostly purposeful! I like that as a character flaw and I think it’s realistic for someone in her position. Or maybe I just love Eloise lol. Penelope is a bit of a more… complex case. I see why people hate her, although I personally mostly like her even though I think she sucks for what she did to the Bridgertons. She’s just treated so polarizing one way or the other by the fandom and the producers are obsessed with her and I think that’s part of the problem.

I have doubts any of the Bridgerton ships will beat kathony for me but overall this fandom is so weird! I don’t get the ship wars amongst the ships because they are all canon and they’re all meant to have their spotlight and be enjoyed. I don’t mean you anon when I say this btw, I mean more the hardcore Bridgerton fandom. It’s why I don’t engage with them a lot lol. I just want to enjoy a cute ship every season.

#polin #ask #bridgerton

[harleyification]

that swamp tribe korra au idea sounds g e n i u s

JSAIDOJSAJIODAS THANK YOU ANON!! YOU JUST MADE MY NIGHT!! here, have some more of my thoughts since I've been thinking of this AU non-stop and have been researching a LOT:

Korra's animal guide is still Naga, but I'm changing her species to fit Korra and the Swamp Tribe more! Here's a sketch I made a few days ago of Naga, the Wolverine-Deer!!

+ Some other sketches of animal guide ideas!

Naga's deer side is more inspired by the Sika Deer, since their adults tend to keep their spots! I chose the wolverine rather than the badger because wolverines are typically loner animals that can take down both predators and prey DOUBLE the size of them, which I think fits Korra's character more!

I've also been doodling around with Korra's design a little bit, since I don't think it would be a 1-to-1 copy of her canon design. Still, I haven't been able to settle down on anything just yet - especially since I've been trying to give the Foggy Swamp Tribe more of a culture rather than just being the Water Tribe's hillbilly cousins. I'm trying to combine both Native American tribes that lived in Florida and other wetlands with the obvious Vietnamese inspiration their tribe has! It's...taking me a bit, though, since I am researching multiple things at once while also being A Responsible Adult, skldjaldaja

So far, I'm settling down on these facts for my fic (cause I WILL BE WRITING THIS - SOMEDAY!!):

Senna is from the Foggy Swamp Tribe. Tonraq is still from the NWT. After his banishment, his ship veered off course and ran into the Swamp Tribe's delta, where he met Senna and decided to stay! He's not the chief, however, as I'm thinking that the most enlightened elders of the tribe are the elected leaders (maybe one has to meditate at the Banyan-Grove tree first before leading the FST?), and it is someone else at this current moment in time.

Sokka isn't dead! I headcanon that he died due to injuries in the Red Lotus attack, and..well...I don't think that goes exactly as planned in this AU, sjadkajdlade. Due to this, and thanks to him figuring out first that the water avatar was most likely Swamp Tribe, he has a bit of influence in Korra's life!

(Zukka will be in this btw, since I Love Them, but they won't take priority.)

Korra wasn't taken by the White Lotus when they discovered who she is. The Foggy Swamp Tribe is very protective of their own and who they see as family, loyal down to the bone, and when the White Lotus says that Korra has to go to their Southern Water Tribe facilities to be taught bending, they REFUSED it. I like to think that the family unit and community is INSANELY important to the Foggy Swamp Tribe, and just because Korra is the avatar doesn't mean that she needs to be taken away from her home.

So, basically, Korra grew up with her community and has childhood friends rather than being isolated like in canon! This changes a bit in how she approaches Mako, Bolin, and Asami when she meets up with them eventually. (AKA, fuck the romance triangle, I ain't doing that)

The entire plot of Korra has changed - due to Sokka being alive, Korra's stance on non-benders is different. Due to growing up in the Foggy Swamp Tribe, who teaches the ideals of everything and everyone is connected and that connection is important, Korra also goes about defeating Vaatu differently. Due to Tonraq never making it to the SWT, almost everyone thinks he's dead (mail can't exactly get through tall trees or extremely vicious animals), so Korra never even met Unalaq either...

That's all that I have thought of for now! Thank you for the ask, Im so SO HAPPY that you like my silly lil FST Korra AU!!!!

#The Legend of Korra #The Last Airbender #ATLA #ATLOK #Foggy Swamp Tribe Korra AU #My Art #Anon #I can't help it. Theyre gay and in love. #Like u are MORE than allowed to not envision Zukka in this AU #I dont claim FST Korra as my own #I just like Zukka!! And they'd be elderly in this fic!! It's a win-win!! #But this AU has completely rotted my brain it is all I think about #I have 23 saved Wiki pags and articles to research + 2 books I checked out from the public library #I want to go all in on this #Zukka (mentioned)

[ulfrsmal]

2 & 22 & 24 for the violence ask game

Hello! This is for the fandom in my pfp; I'm not naming anything to avoid maximum violence.

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

Welp my fave is the Main Character and his Pretty Boys, and I think they all switch... BUT. I can give an argument to why the Sickly King never doms (as opposed to never tops, given that he has children and has therefore Topped. But I don't think he was leading the fun let us say).

Powerful as he is in his day-to-day life, at least in matters of war and state, the bedroom is another story entirely. He wants to please his wife the Queen, and she's a force to be reckoned with; folding under her desire is both easy and pleasurable. His illness spares him from flare-ups because he's not exerting himself, she's right at home over him -- figuratively and literally --, and any sin he incurs in by letting her top can be prayed away. Most often with her on her knees at his side in front of the cross in their palace's private chapel. It is simply the perfect arrangement!

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

A fact I wish more mlm Main Character writers could incorporate into their work: Big Tall Surly Englishman was Main Character's first real male crush back in the first season. They're as canon as can be in the books too!

Though I have to say that my corner of this fandom is blessed in this regard, we don't tend to forget important bits!

24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

OHOHOHOHOHO. This is the question that, had you asked me on reddit, would have prompted me to go on a literal neon*zi hunting spree. By which I mean blocking and reporting if it applies. Anyway, it's the Heathenry history part. Especially when tied to "historical accuracy". This type of show tends to attract a very specific type of asshole, and I can spot them at first glance. For those unaware but curious, the checklist goes something like this:

white man

norse pagan ("odinist" and "folkish" are literal neon*zi terms; "asatru" is one that should be examined more carefully)

really into viking history

the valknut symbol. thor's hammer and the helm of awe are the only other valid symbols

Odin Thor and Freyr are the only gods and if you worship Loki you're evil and if you worship any other god (eg Baldr) you're weak. Freya is there to be the goddess of love but never of war and she's always placed below Odin Thor and her literal twin brother Freyr

"the show can't be accurate because it must be politically correct for people to like it", "there were no black people in viking scandinavia" (factually wrong btw)

Also check any and all numbers in pfps, profiles, discord number IDs, etc. There are some associated with n*zism, eg eighty-eight & fourteen-eight eight.

On a more general note, if you suspect someone but aren't sure, other common themes are:

fan of Skyrim whose fave in-game race is the Nords

likes historical figures for their war achievements. even if the figure did civilian things, eg improved agriculture or made trade deals. even if the figure isn't well-known for the war efforts. if there is any military connection, they will like that and see value in only that

interest in military history and ONLY that (the biggest red flag is WW2 but I've also seen WW1, north-american wars, etc.)

metalhead super into black metal who won't accept any "posers" (aka metalheads who aren't into the same subgenres/bands). may or may not condone and/or agree with the likes of varg vikernes (who has done some truly vile things I'd have to Trigger Warning in here. look that up with discretion. there are MANY real-life horror stories in the history of black metal).

When in doubt, block preventively!!

#anyway. i ranted A LOT in that last question. sorry to whoever asked me this; I realise this is most likely not what you had in mind #i am simply sick and tired of those types getting a platform. so if i can spread the checklist i go through. i will. #the discord id point will be moot once they introduce the change they are announcing i think; but as of the writing of this answer it appli #anonymous #thank you for asking me #(oh and. yes. i realise i am a norse pagan metalhead into viking media who knows a bit about military history. i know i seem a red flag. #up to you if you wanna block me too. i do NOT condone or share those views in any way but words only go so far so feel free to block me too

[hood-ex]

while the casting looks great, i am slightly wary of the fact that tim's character is asian- i know that's been a headcanon for a lot of tim fans in recent times, and it's frankly weird and disrespectful (coming from the perspective of an asian person) that they're (those select fans who do this) stereotyping tim as the "uwu smol asian boy" when he is, canonically and always and forever, a white boy (man? at this point? god he's still 17 isn't he?). him being white IS NOT A BAD THING and it makes me upset that fans feel the need to make him into a different race than he actually is in order to almost justify their like of him or better "fit" his personality and skills as a character

so, not harping on the live action too much since they got all the other casting members really well done, but it does worry me a bit that this is only going to increase the popularity of that weird headcanon

Yeah, I get what you're saying. This is a conversation I've seen people have about Tim being Asian as well as Jason being Latino.

Like you said, people will headcanon Tim as Asian and that could possibly play into the Asian stereotype of being really smart. I think people need to evaluate their headcanon to make sure they're not consciously or subconsciously playing into that stereotype.

I'm not sure how many people racebend Tim because they think it makes him more interesting/they think he fits the Asian stereotype vs fans who are Asian and want to view him as Asian because they relate to him or see themselves in him.

Canonically, he's always been White. There's maybe one panel from the DC Bombshells series where I believe Tim was meant to be depicted as an Asian boy. However, that doesn't erase the fact that he was created as a White boy, has always been White in the main continuity, and only has life experiences as a White man.

Cass, on the other hand, is an Asian character who is often pushed to the side. It does get problematic when a character like her who is canonically Asian is forgotten in favor of racebent Tim being seen as the main or sole Asian representative in the family.

Things are a little more complicated when we're talking about taking these characters and having them be portrayed by actors across different forms of media. There is most definitely a need and desire for more POC actors to be cast in movies and TV shows which leads us to Peter playing Tim. (And I don't mean that Peter was cast because he's a POC btw. Obviously, he's skilled in various areas and is being recognized for said skills.)

As for the headcanon becoming more popular in the fandom, I think the only advice I can really give is to either not engage with any content that you feel is disrespectful or to create a dialogue between you and other fans where you can discuss this topic and share your point of view with them.

#i personally don't come across that headcanon often unless there's talk of tim being in live action stuff #it also probably helps that i don't go in the tim tags or read tim-centered fics alsdja #Tim Drake #racebending #headcanon #anon

[mcnuggyy]

I don't understand how, besides being a character named after Tacos who really wants to make a Taco (which Justin admitted was racially insensitive on his part), and that being kind of a gag, how exactly is Taako racially coded at all? It kind of seems like it's all just based on his name being a joke by a white creator who wasn't thinking of the racial implications. I just don't understand why he can't really be any race anyone wants him to be (including latine btw) 1/2

2/2 The blue thing I get, btw, and I'm definitely not suggesting that as an alternative, or that we should whitewash a latine character for the sake of it-- I just don't think the McElroys have ever said he's latine. And I think judging people for being uncomfortable with their version of Taako being a representation of latine characters by assuming they have ill intent when they draw a non-latine coded Taako is maybe wrong.

-

Hey! So I actually kinda talked about this before, but I had a REALLY BIG thought about this in the morning actually, so hopefully I can shed a bit of light on this. (I am ignoring that canonically Taako is a Sun Elf for this)

Okay so, overall because of the McElroy's decision to keep the podcast as “race neutral” as possible, purposely living things up to interpretation, (except for the few canon characters of color (which is like 3 lmao)) This means that any slight deviation from this “neutrality” has very serious implications when it happens. It is NO coincidence that both Jewish people and Latine people have found themselves heavily relating to Taako, hc him as Jewish and/or Latine, etc. It would be foolish to think of this as simply coincidence when the text itself kind of gives us reason to. And in this “race neutral” world, that little bit is all you need. 

(i may be reaching a bit but again, i want to emphasize how BECAUSE, this world is MEANT to exist in a “race free” world, LMAO whatever the hell that means, any bit of reference to culture or ethnicity is a very big deal)

Taako says stuff in Yiddish, and one of his big character arcs, is looking for the lost connection of his sister (whether he realizes it or not) and reconnecting with those lost bonds through tex-mex food. He navigates the world through food, that’s kind of his thing. Which to me is a VERY first generation, second generation, child of mexican immigrants, etc. narrative to me. Like that is1000% a Tejano/Chicano narrative to have. Having a nickname/name like Taako, Lup, Tostada, etc. IS SOMETHING we MEXICANS DO TOO LIKE A LOT, I have cousins who are nicknamed Brownie, Dulce, Coco, Guayaba, and Manzanita, and other people have name’s like Concha, which is both shell and a type of bread that looks like a shell, like honestly whether Justin realizes it or not, SILLY NICKNAMES LIKE THIS ARE KIND OF A CULTURAL THING.... White people have nicknames sometimes sure, but for us, it is like a right of passage, it is a big part of who you are, and you can even end up with many different nicknames, some are just PLAIN MEAN, like Chachalaco (someone who never shuts up), Gordita, or mine being Guero (white boyyyy) Like I RELATE TO THEIR NAMES, and that might not make sense to you, but as someone who literally has oc’s named after Mexican food from when I was a kid (Takito, Flor, and Churro) ... well.... sorry but that’s Latine culture babeyyyy

(also own personal hc but like... i can totally picture these little Latine kid’s fucking choosing their own name’s / nickname’s cause that’s like exactly what me and my siblings were like as kid’s smh) 

( also Lup.... Lupita... Lupe.... Guadalupe.. Lupes.... Maria Guadalupe.... smhhh

it’s literally the most common name, it’s SO funny to me, that ALONE is enough in my opinion LMAO, you can’t name a character a common short hand for a name like Guadalupe and NOT expect me to gravitate towards her smh 

-respectfully, a fellow Guadalupe) 

I get what the brothers were trying to do by letting fans hc and come up with their own designs and stuff, but when it comes to race and ethnicity it can become kind of an issue... And as I said in the beginning, because they tried to keep the world as “blank” as possible (which often times really just means white lets be honest here) that means any small instance of a character breaking this neutrality, becomes very difficult to ignore. And I really think, ignoring how many Jewish and Latine fans relate to Taako and Lup, seems like a disservice .... there is clearly something going on here, and I don’t think we should ignore it.

At the end of the day, it is what it is, and there isn’t much else besides this, and Taako canonically being a Sun Elf, and his relationship to food, that to me feels very cultural and important, especially when it comes to trying to reconnect with something you lost (whether it’s family, or traditions), it’s all very metaphorical, but I think it does have some very strong references there that I and many others see themselves in. 

(and ofc Latin America is very diverse so there’s that too) 

Also I think it’s important to acknowledge that my biggest issue with blue Taako has always been the way the issue went about and what occurred. White peoples opinions on the matter were prioritized, and instead of LISTENING to poc, the McElroy’s let their white guilt take the lead... I would just like for them to have some creatives of color on their team at this point, is that too much to ask?

I think I am very much aloud to remain bitter and upset about this... I don’t want white people getting offended on my behalf over something that isn’t actually offensive, and would actually be pretty awesome representation in my opinion. But again, white voices, feelings, and opinions have been prioritized, and I just have to accept that lmao. 

#also feel free to disagree with me #but ya know #that doesn't mean i'm gonna shut up about it anytime soon lmao #taz racism #about it #lmao #long post #anonymous #replies #callate guero

[vickyvicarious]

idk if this is controversial or not but, i don’t think it’s all that important to meta analyze media to death. like if it’s fun i think that’s great but analyzing all the ways a show may or may not be problematic seems pretty silly to me. i mean it’s a tv show? not activism? (this isn’t me saying you shouldn’t analyze stuff btw if that’s what you enjoy, more in response to some of your statements saying that it’s important/a responsibility)

(to be fair though i’m just kinda upset that people seem to spend so much more time talking about problematic tv content than about the real life issues happening)

(also not saying you need to talk about irl issues on your fandom blog, just that grouping them under the same umbrella makes it seem like they’re equally important when stuff in media isn’t as big a deal as the stuff happening irl you know?)

I agree with you to an extent, but not completely. When I was saying it's important or a responsibility, I didn't mean quite for everyone to meta in depth or have these big long discussions I've been having lately. It's totally fine to just want to enjoy media without getting into what's problematic about it, and it's not as important as any real life events. I mean, I personally don't really like to talk politics and real world stuff on this blog just because that generally is a stressor for me, and I come here to destress. I actually don't even get into critical meta myself very often either, for similar reasons at times. So I'm definitely not throwing any stones here if individual people don't enjoy metaing or dissecting the media they consume. Having a break from that kind of stuff is important.

(And like. If you only ever worry about problematic stuff on TV and never ever real world stuff, then that's not the best priorities obviously. But people online always have personas and compartmentalize. I mean, Vicky isn't my real name. It's my fandom name and I answer to it as well as my real name and have for years, but I have a real-world life that's mostly separate from my fandom life, and I personally like to keep it that way. So I always assume that even if I only see people online talking about media, it doesn't mean they don't care about RL concerns. This may just be where they take a break from that.)

At the same time as all that is true, I do think it is important to recognize themes in media that we're exposed to. Critical thinking is a skill that has to be actively taught (which it isn't as well lately, it seems, which I know I ranted about like last year or something on this blog) and it's one that can be applied all over the place. For example: double-checking sources on news articles; noticing the ways an ad tries to manipulate your perspective; spotting logical fallacies in arguments; noticing propaganda in media. There's no such thing as a person totally immune to propaganda or manipulation, and a lot of corporations actively try to use stuff like color theory and certain phrases etc. to manipulate consumers into choosing their product or associating it with a certain thing. Food, technology, medicine, toys- pretty much any industry you can think of I'm sure it happens. There's also a lot of propaganda and tropes in media that can absolutely inform your opinion if that's all you see and you just accept it at face value. There's all sorts of levels of extreme to that too - blackface or straight up slurs in older films, or the tendency to only ever depict Africa as a monolith/small villages instead of many different cultures with different identities and levels of wealth, or even stuff like the cast of mostly guys and one girl or primarily white/straight casts with only one or two other identities represented. Dolls being primarily white-skinned, or the marketing of "boy toys" and "girl toys" affecting representation and consumption in children. I've been watching a lot of youtube essays lately on colorism, and have seen a good number of people cite negative body image directly to the kinds of things they saw represented on TV and in toys not matching their skin as they grew up.

I'm not saying all of this stuff is deliberate propaganda. Some things are, for example if the army sponsors a war game then uses a tournament for it as a recruitment strategy their motive is pretty clear there. But a lot of the time it's simply the media reflecting and perpetuating the culture in which it was created. Maybe it's something like the Hayes Code, which among other things didn't allow for heroes to be shown as gay-coded but didn't have all the same restrictions on villains, so there were a lot of gay-coded villains cropping up. Which may be better than no gay-coded people, but also associates those characters with certain other negative traits that can actually influence peoples' opinions in real life. Or maybe it's just something like all the cop shows that are popular for their serial mystery/monster of the week format, but which always hail their cop heroes as being honorable and good even if they have to break the rules/law sometimes. This reflects a society, and can reinforce it also, where cops get away with a lot of awful stuff because the bias is always in their favor. Or maybe even the trope where you give a villain a reasonable stance to begin with or at least a sympathetic background (movie Magneto was a Jewish kid put into a Nazi camp, and then as an adult people start talking about registering and restricting mutants) but have them go too far and their methods be deplorable enough (he decides that mutants are the superior race and all normal people should be killed or turned into mutants against their will) that they must be defeated - and their reasonable point is never actually addressed.

So I do think that it is important to be at least aware of stuff like this, even if you don't want to talk about it. That's more on a personal level, it's good for an individual to know how things may be affecting their own opinion beyond the obvious. On a larger scale, racist tropes that go unaddressed in canon and are just blithely accepted and perpetuated in fanon can lead to a fandom experience that locks out people of that race. Or really that goes for any minority.

So... I don't think people have to discuss this stuff to death or anything! But at the same time, I do feel being at least aware, even if it's not what you focus on, is somewhat important.

#anonymous #replies #fandom #my meta #i guess? #hopefully that clarifies my stance! #not saying everyone has to agree with me but this is how i look at it

[facepalming-since-chernobyl]

Umm I’m a bisexual I don’t ship SC because that fandom blatantly ignores canon lgbt ships on the arrowverse. A POC who sees them calling two poc actors apes which is just racist. Let’s not forget you called the actress who first played batwoman not gay enough. Even though she is lgbt in real life. Not to mention the fact they joked on murdering actors and even hoped the super girl lead child’s death. This is not lgbt activism, this is just showing the same insanity levels of qanon.

Erm, I guess when you said "you called the actress who first played batwoman not gay enough" you meant scs, not me, right? ^^' btw, were they screaming Wallis is not gay enough too? Or maybe because she is white and pretty, no one said a shit? Just asking.

I mean, real talk, I was wondering about this kind of stuff for some time.

Maybe I should not talk, because I'm asexual so of course I'm not part of lgbt+, because I'm hetero or don't exist (scs words, not mine), but I will talk anyway, feel free to correct me.

Them screaming we should not assume Lobotomizer or Kara's sexuality- what is correct, I can admit that, it was never openly said (minus Kara's "I'm not gay") - while calling the characters gay and calling all people who don't see that homophobes.

I mean... aside of the fact I think, correct me if I'm wrong, having sex and enjoying it is the last thing on the list-to-do for lesbians, aren't scs ERASING Lobotomizer and Kara's sexualities themselves? They could be lesbians (if they suddenly decide, out of nowehre, they didn't enjoy riding dicks and sex with males is gross), bi, pan, straight or anything else, but scs force one sexuality on them? Like? Isn't it what straight people do with this whole heteronormative ideology?

Minus the fact there are "some" nasty biphobes in the fandom *cough* redkryptoo and her drones *cough* but that's story for another day.

Secondly, I don't get and think it's a total BULLSHIT, their "we want more rep!" while, as you said, they completly ignore canon interracial couple in the show or use it only to prop their not canon ship.

They say that it doesn't matter if Alex is a lesbian, Kara could be too, because the more rep the better.... Ok, but Kara suddenly lusting for Lobotomizer in the last 13 eps would downgrade and diminish Alex's coming out story that was nicely developed since s2. This whole "Kara can be this or that" is a bullshit that shows the writers and producers, they should not care about writing lgnt characters ans ships, because the fans know better and are NOT INTERESTED in them. Dansen is used by scs or to prop SC or to shit on the show, because they have no screentime. The screentime that is WASTED on Lena and her Luthor drama. And they of course don't see a problem here.

Thirdly... controversial thing, probably, but I'm going to say it anyway. I don't get how shitting on all male actors (minus Jesse who very smartly stays away from the dramas and Jon Cryer who patted their heads), sexualizing and fetishizing smeltie, treating females like sexual objects and barbie dolls, calling all people who don't see/want sc homophobes, calling all people who like Mon-El female haters and slave owner excusers (while still having no problems with Lobotomizer being a slave owner), saying all other obstacle ships are toxic (while Lobotomizer manipualted Kara, tortured her and hurt every way imaginable), treating other fans like shit and basically behaving like they stand on some higher moral ground, because they ship two white women, that gives them rights to trash other people - i don't get how it supposse to help lgbt community? Because sorry not sorry, basing an opinion on their behavior (I mean, the toxicorps, not all scs, obviously, but toxicorpses are the group that is actitve and visible under official SG accounts), if I would want to create an opinion about lgbt community on the things they are doing, then you know ..... :)))))))

And yes, all of what you have said happend and is still happening. And they still use the victim cards and use their identity for doing the most horrible shit you can imagine.

And they are proud of themselves.

#anons #anti sc fandom #toxicorps #smelties #shitstorm incoming

[ciceroisthefamilycat]

The conclusion to the VA/BL reread with Silver Shadows and Ruby Circle (here’s the post on FH, here’s the post on the VA closers SB and LS)

I think I forgot to emphasize this in the last post: it is bullshit that Adrian still had the Alchemist-paid-for apartment after the events of “TFH” and only becomes more unbelievable that Trey has it still in “SS”... I do not get it

Like with SB and LS, I would make a lot of plot changes in the adaptation.

Silver Shadows

Fun fact: her golden lily on this book cover actually flashes a little gold in the right lighting, and I love that

This one, especially the majority of Sydney’s stuff in the first half or so of the book, was much better than I remembered.

Adrian’s stuff had me far less forgiving. I realize he’s struggling with a fictionalized elevated form of bipolar disorder and he developed addictions in trying to self-medicate over most of his adolescence/early adulthood so far, but as far as his actions go... the part where he blackouts for something like three weeks while in Sydney’s chapters she’s so certain he’s going to rescue her... it really frustrates me. Especially because Richelle writes him as self-flagellating over it, but Sydney immediately reassures him “oh, no, I just got the gas turned off, you couldn’t have really done anything...” as if those three or so days weren’t a big deal with the way the time crunch worked out later... it’s one of those heavy-handed things where I don’t feel like Richelle ever actually makes Adrian own up to his errors in the same way the rest of the main characters have to. Including: Wesley Drozdov and his motley crew show up again, and Adrian plays big hero and outs their dabbling attempt on Sydney, and then with Keith later on thinks to himself “at least I’d taken no for an answer from girls” as if he hadn’t insistently pursued both Rose and Sydney (including the scene at Alicia’s Victorian inn in IS) and been revealed to have dabbled at least once. Like, good that he’s trying to make up for past behavior, but again and again it comes off to me as glib or insincere (in the way it’s written- that he’s some model that is exempt from causing harm). This especially pisses me off in the way he treats his mom for sticking in a loveless marriage to his dad (did Adrian forget about his mom’s affair with Ambrose btw?) for financial security, and even with the hypocrisy being pointed out to him and him begrudgingly admitting it in his mind, or he drags Nina to Sonya’s to try and get her compensated for her work and she’s all googly eyes at him, but his acts of chivalry feel empty. And this extends to Marcus, too, to a lesser extent. Look, I love Carly (all the Sage sisters mean the world to me) and I’m glad that she became an advocate for fellow survivors and I get what Richelle was trying to do in empowering survivors with Carly’s character, but Marcus’ star-struck admiration of her (being made speechless by her strength) felt weird and make me uncomfortable.

On to Sydney’s stuff, holy hell her side of the story is dark. And this conversion therapy nonsense in it is part of why I desperately want canon queer leads in the adaptation (preferably Sydney herself, which would yes mean Adrian and probably Rose... that’s my prerogative). Is that potentially triggering? YES. But Richelle took that step when she laid it on so thick with the allegory. In the meantime, I love the supporting characters that Richelle drew up to be in the center with Sydney. Emma, Duncan, and the rest (the fellow detainees- not Sheridan... she can burn) and I want more of them (seriously, Richelle made some great underexplored groups with the Unpromised, the Keepers, the Merry Men, and then these additional Rebelchemists). There is a weird mention of Sydney having arranged some supply closets on one of the floors, despite whatever scene she did that in seemingly having been cut (there was also a line Rose ascribed to Victor at the end of Last Sacrifice about sending Jill away, so it’s not unheard of). When I first read the book (with a long break before), the degree to which Sydney was using magic in there felt illogical, but rereading directly from the other books, it is more justifiable. I think the Detainment, and Sydney’s struggles there, is some of the best writing Richelle managed in the books, and I don’t have any changes to that part.

But the escape... is actively worse than I remember it. There are glimmers of some great stuff in there- I mentioned in the last post how much I love when Sydney wakes up Hopper and sobs over him, and that still is powerful. But omfg Sydney (and Adrian) hold up the stupid stick so many times in these chapters. To be clear, first-off: Adrian should have gotten blood before they ever went into the desert. In the worst case, he and Eddie (the night before the infiltration) should have gone off to the side and done a feeding (doesn’t have to be Eddie, since I imagine he actually has a bad reaction to them since FB, but it does have to be someone willing). Eddie would have enough time to recover, especially with adequate food. Setting that aside, the actual events of the escape work for me. So I guess it’s more the after. Sydney and Adrian should have driven straight to Las Vegas (if they wanted to stop in the other town and change clothes and switch cars that’s fine with me- I even like the senior citizen tour they were on; p.s. we never learn if the Ivashkinator was shipped back to Palm Springs or anything, which is very surprising to me). Their decision to stay in a hotel overnight, even as much as Sydney did deserve that kind of relaxation, was stupid beyond belief. I would have preferred they got to Vegas, were spotted by Alchemists but made it to the Witching Hour without issue, and then Adrian got them a room, and that was the point where Sydney relaxed and slept. Consolidate some of that. Let Sydney have her luxury bath, and a haircut from Adrian, and other stuff there. Let her mention to him that the first photo she saw of him was taken near there, and hey, did he know Rose had bought a car in Russia that Sydney loved. And when Adrian goes down to make some money to further their escape, that’s when he realizes they’re being watched- there are too many yellow and orange auras. Let them have a less exorbitant wedding than in the book- no ridiculous mermaid dress that Sydney can’t expect to move in and that is ridiculously expensive (she can still have a beautiful stunning white dress). Let her start with the blue sneakers. Let Adrian find a place to get the ring made, if that’s necessary (or just use the dang cufflinks as are for the time being and pin them to the fancy attire). And Jill sends the chopper directly to the Firenze for an “Italian” wedding. They can still have the showdown with Sheridan on the roof- just simplify everything.

And then when they get to Court- let Sydney do more of the talking. Let her (righteously) call out the conditions in the reconditioning- the torture because she showed empathy to Renee who couldn’t even eat on her own, the torture they inflicted on Emma to break her- she didn’t betray her own kind, the Alchemists are repeatedly betraying their own kind, pushing them into the darkness of an empty hole. Oh, and this necklace around her neck, that Sheridan took for her own before Sydney reclaimed it, the morning glories were painted by the man she loves. And she rejects the Alcehmists having any authority on her. She’s a witch of the Stelle coven; she’s Sydney Sage Ivaskhov damnit. And when her dad tells her that if she doesn’t come with them, these will be the last words she ever gets to say to him? She gets to ask him if he knew what happened to Carly, if he let it happen under his own roof because he wanted a son like Keith more than the daughters he was blessed with. I want Sydney arguing her case, having her real communion. I said the same for Rose and Spirit Bound, and Sydney deserves the same here.

p.s. there are a lot of structural parallels between this book and BP/early SB- Sydney’s reeducation being like Rose’s time in Novosibirsk, the Tasarov escape from SB (which Eddie directly mentions) immediately followed up with a Vegas trip

Ruby Circle

Dang it. Look, I no longer hate the idea of Sydney and Adrian raising a kid. Their ending in RC was a lot better built-up (and a lot less bitter for Sydney) than I thought the first time. But the road to get there...

I hate the Jill being kidnapped by Alicia part (and I don’t buy the Warriors working with her). Honestly, just let them deal with Alicia during the events of Fiery Heart (when next to nothing else is going on). Like, Adrian and Sydney come off really badly in my head for “causing” her kidnapping because of a personal vendetta against them, when they came there to protect her in the first place (I realize the actual fault was with Alicia, but the feeling stands). Also the pointless scavenger hunt leading them from Pennsylvania (so conveniently, even though Alicia would have had to go there to set her traps after abducting Jill in the first place?) a month after the fact to whatever castle (then to Michigan) then to Palm Springs and the infiltrating the Warriors mission... it’s all too much (also I refuse to believe Sydney cast those stinging demons... that’s so dangerous I can’t even). Given the introduction of the Stelle in FH, and the unnecessary Malachi stuff, it works better to do that all then anyways. (I still want Jackie involved somehow of course) Instead of sidelining Angeline at Amberwood, she should get to be involved in the hunt for Jill (same as Eddie was for Sydney).

In other parts... Wesley Drozdov was never a good character. I really didn’t need even a mention of him in this book. I also... don’t buy how stigmatized Adrian was for marrying Sydney. I can see it being a scandal, or a laughingstock, the source of snarky asides and derision, but Richelle never built it in VA or the earlier BL books to being as heinous as she then tried to make it (so that Adrian could feel suffocated by Court, just like Sydney). I would have been much more interested in trying to see Sydney blend in, and take a stand in the Moroi world (and seeing her try to ally with nonroyal Moroi, but that also still not going super smoothly because they don’t like being on the same level as a human), and maybe her trying out her magic with the Moroi fighters that Mia and Christian had formed (that beautiful, blessed little moment), and then if it integrating there didn’t work admitting that it just... wasn’t going to. Rather than not even trying.

I understand that Richelle was building up with Adrian’s fears of completely losing it with Nina, but she just got screwed over in both of these books. (We’re acknowledging that it was wrong of her to kiss him in SS when he wasn’t even conscious, and moving on). And then Olive got screwed. And Neil got screwed. I said before that I don’t mind Sydney and Adrian raising a kid. But I mind a whole heck of a lot that Richelle killed (essentially) Nina and Olive both (in bullshit, tragic ways) and then wrote Neil off so that Sydney and Adrian would have to raise a baby. Let Sydney be pregnant. Let her be recovering from the most traumatic event of her life, she and Adrian forewent protection on their hectic honeymoon/escape, she’s going to be a mom to a Dhamphir and wow that’s going to be weird for her... and meanwhile this allows her to get through to Olive. To promise Olive and Neil that Sonya and everyone else will not use their baby as a test tube. Nina can still go up to the brink (maybe she passes it and the spirit trio of Lissa, Sonya, and Adrian have to heal her), there can still be a Strigoi attack at the Refuge in northern Michigan, but ffs cut the crap treatment of those three to pass on a readymade kid to Sydrian. It is a trope that I loathe. I also dislike the “ohmigod” fangirl characterization of Mallory, and while the Rand stuff was better than I remembered (that is to say, he is terrible and everyone acknowledges that and no one makes light of it the way I misremembered), I could do without it (especially since I’d prefer that if they keep Dimitri and Adrian cousins, they addres it much earlier).

Honestly, I would do the following:

the start of the season for RC (which doesn’t match its name??) has Sydney and Adrian locked down at Court and they can’t help like they want to, so they try to adapt and do what they can there, including Adrian trying to get Nina to calm down; their friends from Palm Springs and Marcus team up altogether and get an infiltration squad with the Warriors of Light; Eddie gets to participate; they rescue Jill, and get some of the data on the Alchemist/ Warrior collaboration

the Moroi Court finally gets into action on the age and family laws in earnest; meanwhile, Sydney is helping carve out a niche for the rebel Alchemists to work with the Moroi, especially for Strigoi hunting groups like what Mia and Christian wanted to organize; Jill and Sydney are helping each other emotionally recover from their respective hostage ordeals; Sydney realizes she’s pregnant, which helps Adrian realize in a dream with Olive that she’s pregnant, and finally sees her location marker

it’s “rescuing” Olive time; Neil gets to go too- with his presence, things don’t all go to shit; there is a Strigoi attack in retaliation for the new hunting groups, but heroes persevere and protect the commune; the data on the Alchemist/Warrior collaboration, and the Rebelchemists work with the Moroi, gives the perfect leverage now to get the Rebelchemists their freedom and establish Sydrian’s future together

SO, after rereading Bloodlines

I dislike Sydrian less than I did, though I still think Adrian could be vastly improved if adapted as a woman

the second half gave Eddie more to do, but still not enough emotional focus on him

man Amberwood and its supporting characters disappeared; I get that Adrian isn’t likely to settle in California long term, but can I please get more resolution to those characters, whether it comes from more focus in IS, or a graduation ceremony or something?

Abe also disappeared which is strange

man, Sydrian have a lot of daddy issues. because their dads are both abusive jerks. but why oh why did Jared end up collaborating with the Warriors for tattoos? was it because of anger over ‘losing’ Sydney or just greed? I’m glad that Zoe and Sydney at least started to heal things, and that Zoe is ok where she is

we still never got answers on who restored Lee... Clarence only showed up for deus ex machina money and shelter and I guess blood (did Marcus ever get to speak to him again?)

minor grievance: Richelle described the Warrior recruits as being almost evenly distributed between men and women, with a slide toward men, before two pages later saying there were 30 potential guys and 13 potential ladies, and remembering that, oh, yeah, the Warriors didn’t really use women on the front line; I don’t want any of that subplot adapted I just... editing?

#DoBetterByOliveAndNinaAndNeil2030 (who gets to name their kid Declan?), #LetSydneyUseHerBeautifulBrain

#I'm a VA girl #long beneath the cut

[incarnateirony]

i think there’s a distinction that needs to be made. i think those with power over dabb & co are the ones who are exuding more habits of queerbaiting, while dabb and co aren’t. and because those execs are more or less invisible, the blame/fault is put on dabb as he’s the perceived figurehead of everything in the show when he’s not. anything he may want to put in the show can be easily vetoed by a higher exec so

Okay so I said I wouldn’t touch related issues facing wanky-side, but while this runs the line this is such a genuine, and valid thought process it feels worth addressing.

So in short: Yes. But no. But yes. But no. But we’ll see.

What do I mean by that? I’m going to put this behind a cut. But first of all I want to thank this Nonnie for at least trying to critically think about where the problems lead to. This is FAR BETTER CRITICAL THINKING than I see in this discussion most of the time and this. More like this. Nuance, discussion, idea trade, history. Let’s do it.

Okay, so.

How can it be yes no yes no maybe eenie meenie miney mo?

Because it really depends on what part of this 15 year legacy show we’re talking about.

What I’m about to say isn’t going to be popular, but I’ve said it before, I just can’t find the ancient ass post discussing it.

We’re going to rewind. Like, a fucking lot. A lot, a lot. This is going to be a history ride, and you’re probably going to wonder how it connects to the conversation at first, but bear with me.

Ignoring any personal frustrations I have with the casting of season 4 – frankly a chapter of this FUCKING show that haunts me somewhere in the ballpark of, “If my friend wasn’t dismissed as not white enough and got the role, would we have Misha, Destiel, any of this, would the show be on, would she have been chased off as the other actresses?” – and frankly these are the things people don’t even fucking *think* about.

TLDR a bajillion years ago CW made a casting call and we got this super cute character named Anna that Dean was slated to bend over in two seconds flat, as old canon used to be before modernly growing. The actress expressed discomfort, and frankly went over with the audience about as well as wet cardboard. And like, while I agree that a lot of women were hated for misogynistic reasons in this show, she really was about as interesting as a plank of plywood to me once she got past her first performance or two.

At the same time, this handsome bastard named Misha Collins auditioned for a bit role originally intended for 3 episodes and quickly extended to 6. But, identified as lightning in a bottle and with on-fire chemistry, while Anna waffled for *several* reasons, summarily, their story ends swapped. That’s… not like *exactly* what happened but it’s *basically* what happened. Anna became the herald and contagonist instead of Cas, and Cas quite frankly took on the role of the goddess.

With Lisa already entered before Anna, there���s no evidence whatsoever she was intended as endgame. Story flip. Thank you for everything last night on earth fall by angel banishing almost like this was foreshadowed woohoo! But… don’t lend towards a relationship. No point. Given, they made a few jokes on set at that point, but it wasn’t really an idea *they thought anyone took seriously*. 

Coming from a phase where most of the leads were introduced to “slash fandom” by Wincest, which they literally used to torture and prank each other, the idea of this being anything serious really wasn’t on their radar. The one I remember most was Misha choosing to sit on Dean’s side of the bed as Cas in the famous “What were you dreaming about?” and Sgriccia being like “that’s kinda gay” “nah keep it”

I mean, is that… queerbait at that point? I don’t think it’s fair to really call it that. They respectfully tried to scrub out the leading romantic edges from what would have been Anna’s story, but ultimately, the human psyche kind of recognizes 8000 years of storytelling history subconsciously when using the Hero’s Journey narrative, so it was resonant. Nobody was crazy for seeing it. That didn’t mean it was right, that didn’t mean it’s what they were consciously leading anyone for.

Hell, Jensen didn’t even know what the fuck Destiel WAS until season 7 (”Deathstiel?”) due to the way cons, circuits, and fansites kept the conversation force-muted at that point. Anything they had floated somewhere in the area of “hah that is kinda gay I guess”, and even that there’s no evidence of being frequent.

Kripke left, the show petered, social media was new, and summarily, Sera Gamble was a dumbass and listened to the wrong crowd that seemed super big back when big accounts were a whole 10K followers and you had 50 asshats screaming as a coordinated group about Ruining The Show™. Ratings tanked, somewhere between Misha being fired and the show turning into a parody of itself with dick jokes that made it seem like Gamble was trying to target 11 year old boys for her audience, and like, that’s it, that was the season. 

Until that nosedive spiral essentially turned into a shorthand apology reversal, a panicked and roughly written script that was *SO GAY* that *EVEN MISHA FUCKING COLLINS* couldn’t seriously choke out the dialogue. It was cheap, it was out of character, and as Jensen put it, the dialogue might as well have had him petting and sobbing into Castiel’s coat while essentially being like I SLEEP WITH YOUR COAT EVERY NIGHT TO REMEMBER YOUR SCENT UWU and shit that just LITERALLY vaulted from alien fascinated staring into desperate teenage gay drama in the body of a 30 year old man.

So yeah. Did I consider it reasonable to change that? Fuck yes I did. 

Was what Sera Gamble did queerbait? Yes, actually. And she did it again in the Magicians. You see, Gamble had fucked over an audience, and then tried to exploit that audience in reverse when she realized she fucked over the *wrong* audience, but had zero intent of fulfillment.

And then magically, Sera Gamble didn’t fucking work there anymore after a whole like, year and a half as showrunner.

Now, at the same time, Dawn Ostroff was leaving the CW. Jensen’s had some pretty fierce words about Dawn Ostroff not understanding the show and how to manage it, but whatever. Bye, Dawn. Hello… MARK FUCKING PEDOWITZ. But at the same time, WELCOME BACK CARVER and most of all HOWDY DO NETFLIX, so nice to make a guaranteed deal with you (that ended as of this year due to a CBS merchandising meltdown).

When Carver came back, he said a lot of things. He… very tactfully called Gamble’s era trash by phasing it like “:) Watching the show :) since I left :) I realized :) a lot of our mythology :) has been difficult to follow :) so I went :) back to basics :) please help”, and others, like mentioning he had a three year plan on his desk. So 3. Season 8, 9, 10. He had notes for his S10 finale in mind and everything! Great stuff.

Now the fandom, at this point, generally didn’t pay attention to the network or production. In fact, the actor worship around here is some other kind of wild and I don’t know how after 15 years people haven’t figured out that it isn’t how to go about paying attention. Either way – plot switches, showrunner switches, author switches, and NETWORK LEADERSHIP SWITCHES. 

Now, this little part here is speculation – but I am 99% sure that when Carver was pulling SPN out of the cancellation toilet, he had bigger things to inform the new execs about than “btw I might make it gay.” Like “Hey, since CW just got its netflix deal, if you give us another year we can import fresh demographic while bringing back Collins’ old fanbase by setting him back as a regular.” SURE, SOUND GREAT, MAKE MONEY, THX.

Cool. Cool. Make sense so far, you still with me?

Because at this point, S8 into early S9, fandom had gotten itself into all kinds of a stir. It was about to go canon, rite nao, said a bunch of bloggers, who at that point WERE pretty much chasing wallpapers and Tshirts and making the most bizarre uncorroborated parallel interpretations like “IF U PARALLEL IT TO MOBY DICK-” WHAT WHY WHERE– ??? BUT cAS = fISH

Okay, my fucking annoyance at what counted as lit crit in those days aside, we’ll get back on track. Everybody started vibrating for this shit because, you know what, S8 did resonate pretty strong, almost like authors were toying with ideas. I’m not gonna get into stuff about Robbie, I THINK fandom knows the statements he’s made and I don’t just mean the whole Destiel being canon tweet both antis and bitters descended on him to eviscerate him about. About what? Calling it queerbait!

So here we go, the great advent. About a year after a dramatic network shift, a CW exec was like :))))))))) I’D LIKE TO LEARN ABOUT THIS FANDOM THAT IS SUDDENLY MAKING ME MONEY!! WHAT SHOULD I DO??? TO TWITTER! HASHTAG TALK TO THEM!

[logs in]

Beep boop. “Destiel?”  “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” “Destiel?” the FUCK is a Destiel? Wait what no I don’t know what you’re talking about representation isn’t our intention with these characters. “QUEERBAIT”  “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT” “QUEERBAIT”

And then the network exec got so slammed he deleted twitter entirely and everybody popped confetti and felt accomplished and did NOT realize how fucking BAD that was. And frankly, anyone that did kinda didn’t want to admit it, because taking responsibility for that tire fire was… not… attractive. In fact, several folks are still around to this day, bitter blogging or making weirdass meta or accusing other people of wallpapers and Tshirts because that’s what they did so *YAY, PROJECTION!*

My own frustrated bitterness aside, I’m going to place some questions down, and not so much answer them as, now that the reader has really taken history in, let them decide:

At this point… is this queerbait?

Because this is when the queerbait yelling began. It’s when every fan with even a moderate platform or site blasted it out there. 

It’s when the fandom made DeanCas a big problem.

And it’s also literally the same time Carver left his very first recorded, known direction with a romantic tilt, “The note I got from Jeremy Carver was to play it like a jilted lover, so that’s what we played there,” on LGBT author Bobo berens’ very first episode. Everyone runs circles around that modernly, or goes “SEE??? QUEERBAIT!” without realizing what the FUCK just happened here.

So, SPN went from cancel rating line to their most successful show between 7 and 9. Suddenly corporate sees their successful product *ON FUCKING FIRE* so do you know what happens?

Fuck it this IS one line I’ll break: Corporate panicked. They changed their press packets. If you noticed a bunch of media-adjacent people and their friends suddenly get bitter as FUCK in season 10 after still surviving the S9 mess, here’s fucking why. Because now that everybody spent the last YEAR trying to burn down the product yelling about shit that corporate had been literally blindsided by, they added temporarily a new section to the packet that included sexuality. They were, at that moment, suddenly listed collectively as heterosexual men. SEE, WE AREN’T QUEERBAITING IF WE TELL YOU THEY’RE STRAIGHT *will smith pose*

Congrats fandom, you have now officially made Destiel A Huge Problem™ to the corporate behemoth behind the shiny pictures. The iron curtain dropped. This is what you could call “Protect the Product Mode” if you will. 

Now again, at this point: Is it queerbait?

Because at this point, S9-10 was rolling out. We all know it, Cain, Collette, *gestures off into infinity* But let’s fall back to Carver’s statement. 3 years. 8, 9, 10. You know what else happened season 10?

A bunch of shit, including shit Carver *wrote himself for the season 10 finale* got filmed, then cut. Coincidentally, it was all very gay shit. Things that pulled forward the Crowley/Abaddon Cas/Colette Sam/Abel parallels, arguing over who was who’s boyfriend, Rowena mentioning about them both being shattered at the Altar of Winchester (15.3 is calling), the secret admirer dream, I could go on. I mean, this shit literally would have shifted the entire storytelling arc to full-frontal taking that  parallel and addressing it right up in your face. First you’ll kill your mistress but you’ll get it done, and then you’ll kill your wife. He’s your boyfriend no he’s YOUR boyfriend. You’ve BOTH been shattered at the Altar of Winchester. Really, this is what you dream about? Your secret admirer Cas?

K? K. K?

Is it queerbait for Carver to have entered with a plan? Is it queerbait for Carver to have been interrupted on that plan despite attempting to pursue it? And is it queerbait for the network to still lock down on that plan so close after the event?

You see why this conversation gets increasingly complex.

S11 rolled around, Carver was half in half out, Dabb was stepping in, big gay heart songs, take what you will out of that entire mess, and by S12 Dabb entirely took over and we started entering the era we are in today.

So let’s address where we’re at today. 

Now :) I can’t say anything for sure :) because anybody that’s been to or worked on marketing stuff definitely has an NDA :) but let’s play for a minute. Let’s say with the stone wall up, a set of creators still wanted to actually *go somewhere* with this story. 

“But!” remembered the network, “Remember the tire fire?! And all the people that hated the gay?! What about our profit?!”

“No,” a creator might say, “Tides have changed.”

“We’ll see,” a network might say, “Take it to market testing.” At which point, one would enter a few years of polling how the general audience reacts to this.

Now, if they were seeing promising numbers, they might be given a bit of rope. Why, let’s … just pretend. Totally. Totally pretending. That Dabb pitched this idea to take up Carver’s mantle. Let’s say that started S12ish when he took over. Let’s say they ran through hiatus. And then… authors might be given a little bit of a line. “Looks good, but we’re not sure,” said a network quite fond of its split conservative/liberal demographic, “Try it out a bit and see how it goes.”

And so an author room that would be full of LGBT creators fed out good faith groundwork. They might even be like YALL ITS NEVER TOO LAAAAAATE TO START ALL OVER AGAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN and just throw their whole boy howdy cowboy into that shit and get great ratings.

What if even if the results came back positive leaning, the network ho’ed and hummed and stayed noncommital? Might the creators scale it back while still writing it lowkey just in case they got flashed a greenlight? I know I sure would, woudn’t you?! Or I guess would you prefer we drop the whole thing cold and stop writing anything vaguely in the direction?

Difficult question, in reality, isn’t it?

So in this TOTALLY HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION, this leaves the authors holding the bag, waiting for a sign, and being held with limitations. And just in case anybody thinks “BUT AUTHORS CAN DO WHATEVER THEY WANT!! AND!! OTHER SHOWS!!!”

K have we come down to reality yet? So, sure kids, try the gay, we’re interested, but you can’t like, go Full Gay Frontal with it. You gotta imply the gay. Wouldn’t want to offend conservative america! Besides! We’re totally exploiting marketing making this LGBT content for you over here! *jingles a carrot on a stick* LOOK AT HOW MUCH WE’RE FLEECING ADVERTISING PROMOTING ALL THIS GAY STUFF FOR YOU AREN’T THE RAINBOWS GREAT?

Some creator of limited LGBT content: How’s the marketing looking?

Some network: EH! We’ll see!

Some creator of limited LGBT content: K guys we’ll scale it back to not upset them but don’t drop it.maybe we can have them hold hands at the end or if we’re lucky maybe they’ll say we can do the whole thing

Some LGBT creators: K

Making sense still? STILL WITH ME?

So at this point… is this queerbait, or is this business?

Put aside the emotional reaction. Realize this really only hit scale in S9, hit front line S10, and hit potential corporate discussion in this TOTALLY theoretic universe around S11-12. We’re talking 3-4 years. Not 10. And we’re talking only a few of it really being tested.

So again I ask, history minded: Is this queerbait, or is this business?

That’s where the nuance and complication comes in, and let it be said I am in no way defending the CW. I fucking hate the network. They have literally personally screwed over real friends of mine and I hope they choke on a whole bag of dicks with their bullshit, but honestly, the shit I have seen and heard would make people stick their heads in the sand like scared and ashamed ostriches for every time they trumpet “BUT OTHER SHOWS” – you don’t know what’s going on in those shows. You don’t know how they’re getting hardballed on budget decisions, you don’t know what that show’s marketed demographic is about, you don’t know what they demand cast how, you literally don’t have a fucking idea unless you’re up in that disaster zone.

And even IF you’re in that disaster zone, unless you’re truly in the upper echelon, you only know so much.

Now let’s pretend, again, totally metaphorically, and absolutely not inspired by a real person at all, that someone worked with the crew for a while and, because they saw support inside creeping upward siiiiince mmmm gosh we’ll say season 12 since that’s our advent and totally not when anybody specific started working there and telling fandom ladder fans what they thought they saw going on, only to get sad and bitter and angry and eventually leave, and all those friends, still abiding old bitterness from S9~, now get angrier because of somebody else’s burnout on their ITK level and perspective, even if that was *probably* aggravated by other work stress conditions as well, but hey! WHO KNOWS!?!?! :)))) What a weird hypothetical though and I’m getting weirdly super specific on it aren’t I so LET’S MOVE ON.

We’re in S12-13 discussion category now.

So my question is, from this perspective… when do you call queerbait? When not swept up in misguided hysteria… at what point do you say “Yeah, you know what, yup, that’s all queerbait”?

So we’re gonna take a bit of a break here for a second and really process all of that hypothetical world, where a creator pitched going for it, and got it put into market testing, and was given enough rope to hang themselves on if the network changed its mind.

After only a few years of conscious thought on it… do you even think the network is truly consciously misguiding specifically those fans, or do they see it as giving the fans something they want while testing the idea of possibly truly giving it to them?

Because here’s what fandom misses – the corporate perspective. And again, I’m utterly not fucking justifying the CW as a whole, but people look at this from the angle of fans, and then argue what they think is representative dialogue from the angle of fans, often while missing all of this history. All that history up till S9? That’s all very real.  But looking at history in perspective… who are you going to blame for that? Is it fair to hold S4-9 to that five year stretch of queerbait when that was… pretty much fandom manufactured from blissful ignorance to begin with? I mean if you want to go yell at Sera Gamble Specifically okay (please don’t) but beyond that like– that shit? Is that anybody’s fault? Do you blame a company for actually shutting DOWN the talk of it on a press angle? Can we call that and S10 queerbait then? Was Carver’s attempt at writing through it queerbait? Was trying to continue the story in S11 after theoretic shutdown queerbait? These are all genuine questions that are not asked enough. Most people don’t even realize they need to be asked.

So back to Totally Theoretic Land, where S12ish market testing would have been going on to see if people really thought it was Gay N Shit. Like a lot of people in an overwhelming majority after the amount of apprehension the straight old dude running the network has ever since the goddamn tornado of horse shit that happened like a year after he took over. Probably not the fondest fucking memory for him either. Probably also why he dismissively called most of that demographic “casual fans”, because in Smug White Guy Brain, “tru” fans would have all known, I guess, exactly the shit I’m telling you in history backtrack so, look at the silly girls wanting the gay shit :) Ahhhh girlllllls

Okay so, my impression of douchebags aside, let’s give it 12-13 hiatus to give the first test rope lead and 13-14 hiatus for the next, only to have at best noncommital and uncertain numbers and authors, theoretically, cautiously pulling back while writing it as generally established and implicit, as if it might, I don’t know, go from BIG GAY DRAMA to DEADASS DOMESTIC all of a sudden despite ITS NEVER TOO LATE TO START ALL OVER AGAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN cuz get it, they started over, after he came in his room and played him. *elbows* You all get it right?

K. So maybe numbers changed. Maybe they don’t. Maybe I’m not comfortable talking in this hypothetical, maybe I don’t have access to this hypothetical AU’s current marketing data as of this year, I just don’t know! We don’t know where those cards fell.

But if, at this point, after 2-3 years of market testing, and leading authors on, and giving them enough rope to hang themselves with to get themselves accused of queerbait just for trying to lay good faith groundwork for a cohesive narrative, because fans don’t care that 2 open closet LGBT authors are on deck or that there’s totally theoretically probably and in no way fingering anyone at least one closeted author on deck, or at least publicly so, their coworkers would probably know. But I mean. That’s just. :) statistics. Right?

K whatever moving on. If at this point they’ve been boggley bounced around… you know, I gotta say. At this point… I might actually call queerbait if the network stonewalls it. At this point, they’ve had a few years to really get their shit together, and if they’ve just used it to play yo yo with LGBT creators trying to make content then yeah, go suck a whole bag of dicks.

The problem being with the lack of nuance in this conversation, you’re right, Dabb and co would catch it rather than the guilty party, which is why I HATE faux activism culture. If you’re going to be an activist pay the fuck attention to what you’re being an activist in, don’t bite the hand that’s feeding you just because it was a PBJ and not filet mignon, go after the bastard 1%’er that’s eating all the goddamn filet mignon. But nobody will. It never works like that. And then everybody wonders why this continues – be it in this show, or on other networks.

But hey. Maybe this theoretic network got enough material to change their mind. Maybe another executive got promoted that might help one of the other creators argue it to corporate with their new shiny title. Maybe they can convince someone. Convince them of what and to what level, who knows. Maybe just continue telling the established story, give them a divorce, mention marriage, divorce, dead wives, breakups every 0.2 seconds while they go through a classically framed dark point in the romance everybody with brains and eyes understands because, again, historic storytelling we literally all recognize, but pretend we don’t when stomping about personal representation lines? Or hey! Maybe it’ll go further. (Don’t hold your breath.) Throw in some other shit that even a straight guy would look at and be like “two dicks one chick that shit’s gay bro” because WE LITERALLY ALL FUCKING KNOW WHAT IT MEANS EVEN IF IT’S IMPLIED BECAUSE THE NETWORK IS A BUNCH OF PUSSIES.

…*stops, breathes*

If you can’t tell this is a very long term topic of frustration to me, because nobody, absolutely nobody, wants to introspect and think, you know, maybe it wasn’t queerbait back then, maybe we SHOULDN’T have set a corporate exec on fire about it, that might have been fucking bad.

There are other ways to be an activist than to scream queerbait into the void at whoever is unfortunate enough to cross your paths. One of the best examples I can remember is Exorcising Emily collecting demographics on fandom, and testimonials from LGBT fans about resonating with the content – no fanfic, no fanart, no attacks – and sent copies of this to several powerful creative names.

Now… if with this history… if, from season 9 to 12… one of those names became a creator. If, by some FLUKE of imagination… he still had that book around… and even gave it to his freshly joined new employees like 2 weeks after they started working there–

oh wait and i oop

The mentions would be much as you expect, antis screaming and demanding her job (QUICK, somebody tell Andrew Dabb that she’s READING ANDREW DABB’S OWN BOOKS THAT HE CHOSE TO KEEP AROUND FOR THREE YEARS).

Has Dabb’s era seemed… more plugged in? More resonant? Better and stronger in its storytelling? More hooked into fandom? 

See, that’s what well thought activism can do. Well thought activism can structure an entire movement. Poorly thought rioting thinking itself as activism can cause the literal opposite effect of what it wanted. That is how these things contrast each other. And that is something fandom needs to DEEPLY consider. 

…but is it queerbait for him to try to continue the story? Even if, say, we drop the marketing talk, because TOTALLY nobody can ACTUALLY know because AGAIN anyone that DOES would have an NDA so we DEFINITELY can’t say anybody knows anything for sure, because anyone that said jack shit would probably get sued so hard their descendents down in whatever homo superior evolution 1000 years into the future would feel it, so you know. We’ll put aside this totes theoretical shit and ask

…If he just was told no– would you prefer to just drop the storyline entirely at this point?

Again. Genuine question. And difficult. And something poorly thought queerbait screaming can actually cause, too. 

So here we are in the land of the final season. Whether you consider it network queerbait or not – again, they can choke on the whole bag of dicks at a network level for all I care for ANY number of reasons, even well beyond the domain of Supernatural, and may all their bacon burn from here into the next life – it’s a lot more complicated than fandom has ever let it on to be, because letting it on to be what it really is, in full perspective, also demands a lot of introspection and acceptance, and we all know nobody in this fandom can ever make a mistake ever and they’re all fucking perfect darlings.

It’s a complicated answer to a simple idea… and unfortunately I don’t think this fandom will ever really sit here. They’ll yell “VICTIM BLAMING” because it’s buzzy, they’ll yell “HIDING YOUR GAYS” which I mean, yeah, but let’s talk about what led us here. They’ll yell a lot of things. But they will rarely quietly think, and study, and hone down to what’s going on in the world out there beyond what they have, at this point, become obsessively hotlocked on. 

Supernatural, as of 15.7, has already taken several steps further than it ever is before. No, that’s not a signal of me saying [Your Personal Goalpost] is going to happen. But it’s a sign that if they have a line, they’re testing it with every strength they have.

Going back onto the Fateful Advent: Cain. The mentor– who was never going to stop; I can’t stop samuel; he was never going to stop; I will never stop; Rowena, the mentor, never going to stop, shattered, at the altar of Winchester. Long ago, when Cas was human, Dean sealed him away, and now, he’s doing the same to him. So Shirt Of Bad Decisions Deanmon basically karaokes with his friend like the Crowley days, REPEATING the Crowley dialogue but infinitely harder to dodge, as if some sort of calculated method of cat’s cradle of How To Write The Gay was discussed. Man, whoever wrote that kind of shit would probably even publicly thank whatever big gay mastermind helped them map out THAT level of stuff. Wouldn’t it be funny if most of that shit had been written by a gay dude that’s still around and it’s still popping back up in the show louder and harder to dodge than before? That’d be fuckin’ wild, man. Oh, fucking WAIT.

And this is why I hate the way shipping culture thinks it’s doing activism. Most of the time it’s cosplaying as an activist and at this point it’s become more of a furry convention than it has any kind of organized rights movement. Nobody’s out here fighting for the rights of these LGBT authors this year, nobody’s helping them get a voice, and in fact, often scream at them or bury what voice they’ve had as not enough.

And I want to fix it.

Desperately.

And frankly, I don’t know how anymore.

But what we’re not talking about is some 3-5 year show that came in early and started intentionally fucking at you. We’re looking at happy coincidences, so let’s check with our gay king, the father of Wayward that everybody coincidentally accepted as canon with far less because of a (meaningful) third party line DeanCas had elsewhere but hey it didn’t have antis so suddenly it counts; let’s check with him about that.

That’s my king. That’s my king that wrote the first recorded episode to be intentionally directed as jilted lovers. My king that gav eus Colette. My king that gave us the mixtape. My king that gave us the PR framed breakup. My king that gave us Cas leaving Dean. That’s my King. That’s my gay king who has been fighting his ass off, only to be hung out to dry by a fandom that doesn’t even care to look where or how to scream, or maybe consider that perhaps screaming isn’t the option.

Is he yours yet? Have I broken through to a single soul on this?

That’s my king who wrote about the necessary evils in 2003, before the youngest in this fandom were born and while many were still in diapers or kindergarten; about the unfortunate necessary evils that he loathes and acknowledges about moderate queer content gaining exponential amounts of platform compared to whatever is considered hardline aggressive at the time, about how that incrementalization is what helped our media landscape evolve to this day.

And he isn’t wrong.

And he’s getting roasted for doing just that.

And I really wish I could just psychically make everyone fucking stop.

But I will say one thing.

“It’s network queerbait!” I mean

Yeah

That

Because… realistically? like 99% of modern queer content is queerbait, even stuff with canon queer content.

ESPECIALLY on the CW.

If you’ve noticed CW panicking the last year and trying to slap rainbows and DARE TO DEFY on everything, it’s because their entire fucking ecosystem just got fucked over by CBS wanting 100% merchandising profit like it already took 100% digital profit and Netflix was basically like “miss us with your bullshit” and broke the CW contract which was *HOW PEDOWITZ BANKROLLED MOST OF HIS NETWORK*. Now? Now CW has to carve a niche. So LOOK AT ALL THE FUCKING PRIDE COLORS ON– OUR– STRAIGHT–CHARACTERS??? BUT WE HAVE GAY ONES LIKE LEGENDS OF TOMORROW AND *flips notes* THAT SIDE CHARACTER LESBIAN ON SPN. 

*gets a whisper* What they killed her? Shit. Maybe bring her back. AND THERE’S THIS PERSON OVER ON JANE THE VIRGIN oh that just got cancelled uhhh VAMPIRE DI-wait fuck. Well we’ll just make one of the chicks in this shitty charmed reboot CBS just forced down our throat and killed Wayward over, that’ll fix it *jazz hands*

TV is a business. Businesses make money. The entire LGBT battle is basically us industriously proving we can make money. It’s about rights and visibility on our end, but on their end it is *always* about money and I really don’t think anybody really groks what that really means. 

So “it’s the network! Queerbait!” 

…yeahhhhh.

…welcome to working in television. Now you just have to sit and think about how many other times this has completely missed your radar.

The network will never get a shit about you, they give a shit about your money, and that’s just the reality of capitalist america whether we like it or not. When it’s 2143 and bernie sanders’ floating head in a jar is president and andrew yang’s base income shit is in effect and we’re all a socialist country and the world has figured out how to run high cost businesses like TV on the power of unicorn farts, they might actually give a shit. But they don’t. There may be a few advocates WITHIN the company that do, but as a whole body, the network will never give a shit. They don’t care if you’re black, white, straight, gay, disabled, male, female, beyond what, explicitly, that totals to in dollar signs depending how they feed you, when and where. 

So it’s not like... *just* a queer rights issue, it’s an “Anything Trump’s America may consider offensive on their television” issue. It’s businesses weighing who they think pays their bills while making it and beyond that who they think is the safest investment to make the most money.

As a side note: Personally, I’d consider it dumb as fuck to not do it. SPN will taper within a few years down to just trekkie-esque addicts unless they find a way to get a new burst of viewership and boy howdie do I hope so, but how much Pedowitz overvalues the conservative US demographic, or certain international markets, I don’t know. I’m not in his head and I don’t have this year’s marketing numbers beyond basic live, +3 and +7 ratings, and digital calls. And just general nielsen released demo. But how he’s added that all up? Can’t say. And I sure ain’t gonna bank on him not being a dumbass, when he’s famous for it, so don’t go get your hopes up either.

#supernatural #representation #queerbait #intersectionality #business #corporate #marketing

[gritsandbrits]

The OFFICIAL Jora Holiday Bio 🍄🌟

While far from complete here's an bio for my OC! Visual ref coming soon!!!

Full Name: Jora Ladybird Holiday

Age: 9; 15 in Omniverse

Species: Human

Hometown: Anneville, S.C.

Current Residence: Bellwood

Eye Color: Deep brown/blackish

Hair Color: Black

Skin Color: Very deep brown

Appearance: Jora is tall for her age, chubby and often wears her hair loose in a parted styled held together with bobby pins. She has a wide and round face, nose, and short uet very thick eyebrows. She wears very little makeup, and always seen wearing lacy pink gloves.

Attire: Varies by seasons and series but she typically wears vibrant or pastel hues with floral and animal motifs, cutesy designs, or polka dots. I'll make an outfit ref soon!

Personality: Jora is described as a super sweet if timid and shy young woman with a deep respect for life. However she bottles up a lot of her negative emotions which sometimes makes her a doormat or she ends up being really icy. She learns to beyter express her negativity, though she does retain emotional sensitivity time to time.

In the OS Jo had to overcome one of her biggest flaws, Bystander Syndrome, in order to protect herself and her friend. Throughout thr series she becomes more assertive, though she dislikes sounding too mean.

While she adheres to the theme of second chances, she has little tolerance for faking and betrayals and wants people to actively work on making amends or changing their ways. She knows that some people can't change, so instead of active revenge she would rather let the person's actions catch up to them, or hold them accountable. She despises assumptions that she's evil just because of her powers. She admits to harboring some resentment, but over time she learned to accept her condition and adapt to it rather creatively.

Likes & Hobbies: Designing her own costumes, watching trashy TV programs, reading, mycology, nature walks, flower pressing, DIY projects, casual/virtual pet gaming, fashion design, Green Cleaning, apple pie, chocolate and strawberry milkshakes, tea with sugar and cream, travel, meditation, quiet time

Dislikes: False accusations and slander, being picked on, people touching her hair without her permission, senseless destruction of nature, animal abuse, forcing someone to tell the truth if they're not comfortable, being pitied for her condition, spicy food, arguing and being made fun of for girly traits

Powers and Abilities

- Rot Inducement

- Fungi Manipulation

- Poison & Toxin Immunity

- Self Regeneration

- Minor Chronokinesis/Acceleration

- Athleticism

- Empathy

- Self Defense/dagger fighting style

Items: Amanita Staff & Pixie Daggers; handmade costumes

Strengths: Can regenerate limbs, slow the rate of decay, empowered by Phoenix Element, controls intensity of powers, incredibly strong against plant/nature elements, tenacity

Weaknesses: Powers are incredibly weak on glass, metals, rocks and minerals, and generally any type of syntheric or inorganic material. She also cannot complete shut this power off

Relationships

Family: Jeremy (father), Mavis (mother) Latasha (sister) Pattibelle (cousin) Ginger (family friend); Kendrix & Kenny and Belle (future kids), extended family

Friends: Team 10, Cooper, Substitute Plumbers (future), Zak, Wadi, Rex

OC Friends: Myra Hopewell, Azura, Kelly Arbol, Richard Mortis, Temika, Mama Gia, Shadé

Enemies: Pretty much the canon villains XD

OC Enemies: Kudzu, Mara Winters/Ice Queen, Cinnabar Rojo, Forever Princess, Mycopath/Cora Holiday, Guardians of Light, Supernatural/elemental threats

Love Interests: Ben Tennyson

Ship Name: Cosmic Toadstool or BenJo

Ben Tennyson is her major love interest, starting from a brief tense rivalry from their first meeting. Over time they began to see they had common ground and developed more friendly relations by the end. The Ben 10000 episode is particularly amusing in that BOTH of them were quite disgusting at the implication that their older selves dated each other. Ironically it was their older selves watching their example that lowkey led to them getting back together.

They restarted their friendship in Omniverse albeit clumsily as both hadn't seen nor heard from each other in several years. Not to mention new problems: Jora hadn't quite got over her shyness and was socially awkward, and Ben swore off romance after too many failed relationships ego and wanting to focus on his hero career. Layer seasons would see the two began to grow a romantic attraction to each other, with them getting together post series. I kinda didn't want them together right at the end of s8 to drive home the point of them navigating a romance and not just "fighting fate" or what not. So they'll get together on THEIR own terms.

Backstory: Jora appears in the original show as a recurring character and ally to the Tennysons. The joke is that her family, who were also on a cross-country road trip, would often show up at the exact same city or town the Tennysons would be in.

Original Series: Unlike Ben and Gwen, the timid Jo was born with her powers but was afraid of them as she could barely keep it in check. She also didn't start out friendly with the two having been put off by their constant quarreling. It wasn't until an encounter with Kevin Levin (hint: KIDNAP) where she tried using her powers to defend herself and Four Arms for the first time. It didn't exactly work out leaving her ashamed for being a bystander, and decided to remedy this by practicing her powers for better use. This leads up to the Camp Fear event where she played a huge part in containing and eventually purifying the corrupted Mycellium (and yes corrupted; there's something bigger going on).

There were a couple of more adventures: goinf to Chicago to meet up with her cousins Patti and Ginger for a music fesitval; time travel shenanigans, fighting Rojo and her niece Cinnabar, & battling the the Negative 10. Her relationship with Ben and Gwen also greatly improved to the point where they became genuine friends near the end of the show.

UAF: After the road trip ended, she parted ways with the Tennysons and headed back to her hometown of Anneville,S.C. While not fully copinf with her powers she had a rejuvenated sense of self confidence and decided to find more uses for her powers. This included clearing away invasive plant species around town, going into homes and clearing away toxic molds, and dabbling into the scientific side of her powers. She maintained contact with the Tennysons until a few years when life started to get too busy for any of them to remain in contact.

It was also at this point Jora would learn about the scorn "dark" elementals would face, as well as a conflict between dark elementals just wanting to live their lives in peace and a group called the Temple of Light. The Temple's goal was to rid the world of all evil but took rather underhanded methods to do it. Jo would also briefly battle a faction of Forever Knights led by her contemporary Forever Princess, and villainous entrepreneur Kudzu.

Omniverse: Six years passed and Jora got a request from Max Tennyson to join a new "initiative." She turned it down, feeling that she wasn't suited for actual superheroics and wanting to focus on her studies. She was also afraid of seeing her old friends; a small part of her wondered if they'd still recognize her after so many years.

A few weeks later Patti planned on moving to Bellwood for her new job. Jora came with her to help her move in, & it was that trip where she and Ben reunited, and met his new partner Rook Blonko. Ben mentioned about his grandfather picking out new teammates to protect Bellwood. Jora admitted that max sent her a letter but she turned him down for personal reasons. Feeling rather disappointed Ben states that there's always an open spot for her.

During her stay Jora and Rook were taken around town to get familiar with each other and the sites. Rook was curious about her relationship with Ben which she replies that they go way back but hadn't really talked to each other in years. Much of season one and two is spent with her and Ben awkwardly reconnecting. Eventually she becomes a bit of a consultant for the Plumbers and a major member of Team 10, further developing her friendship with Rook, and something much deeper with Ben.

Post Series: Jora's experiences leads her to try to form a villain rehab group, succeeding by forming the Substitute Plumbers. She also begins to use her status and fame to raise awareness on multiple issues from gentrification to widespread Plumber corruption. After a brief breakup and working solo, She and Ben 10000 reconciled and within a year of two married and had three kids over the span of ten more years. Jora became a consultant specializing in Earth customs.

Trivia

- Voice Claim is Kimberly Brooks

- Her theme is nature to contrast with Ben's aliens and Gwen's magic

- Also a bit ironic: she's a good character who protects and values life yet has a power linked to death/dying.

- Doesn't really have a signature color though she does wear a lot of white accents as white symbolizes death in some cultures

- She was made 1) because I'm salty B10 didn't have a named black girl character & 2) to give Ben a compelling/fleshed out love interest

- Jora has a Reboot counterpart! Largely the same except now she's a main fixture right from rhe beginning and has a slightly different power set

- She's not present in every single episode of the original; those times she'd be off with her family doing their own thing

- Her verse is called the Joraverse since it's a complete rewrite of the OS and OV as a whole (not strictly related to her btw but I'm also salty at more than a fee b10 things)

- Her alternate counterparts has different elements, personalities and even designs!

- If she existed her theme song would be the Japanese cover of Say So by Rainych

- Much of Jo's character is based on Card Captor Sakura since I've always been a fan of that show

- Just like how Ben has different aliens Jora has different costumes with different themes.

- In OV her costumes signify each color of the rainbow and has a pun of some sort. She even earns special items with different properties (elemental spells, alien tech, token of peace).

- While Jora appreciates all of Ben's forms she has a certain fondness for Four Arms and Grey Matter (he rescued her as Four Arms and she finds Grey Matter adorable)

#character bio #ben 10 #ben 10 original #ben 10 original character #ben 10 oc #oc x canon #jora holiday #ben 10 ov #ben 10 omniverse #long post #joraverse

[avauntus]

Supernatural - a retrospective

This is super self-indulgent, and I have so much else I’ve promised-- I owe a long-fic rec post, and ao3 comments, wip work, and that’s just my fandom stuff I’m behind on. *sigh*

But it’s late on a Saturday and now I’ve finished Supernatural, I want to share what I think are my top few eps, and a few other comments. I promise some of this will be different from the “greatest hits” you probably usually see, and I’ll try to make it worth your time. *wry smile*

Look, we have to have categories like: “Most Likely to Live in My Head Rent-Free for the Rest of my Life” and “Most Likely to Inspire Unnecessary Fanfiction” that are different from “Favorites,” because that’s just the cursed energy this show has. ;-)

My top five

#5 - 13.01 - “Lost and Found”

Written by: Andrew Dabb | Directed by: Phil Sgriccia

In fandom, this is most often referred to as the start of the “Grieving Widower” arc, tongue-in-cheek. Also has Alexander Calvert (Jack) walking around completely in the nude for the first third of the ep. (Neither of these are why this is in my top 5, but he has a good story about wardrobe for his ‘first day.’) 

I didn’t expect much out of this episode the first time I watched it, but I’ve gone over this ‘section’ of the show maybe 3-4 times in my Netflix catch-up, and I watch this one in full every time. From Jack being...not at all what anyone expected and an unsteady vindication, to the stunning cinematography (there’s a post that compares shots to Brokeback Mountain, but I think the shots here might be better), to the sheriff who takes the time to remind her deputy that “...there’s no such thing as ‘weird.’ Everyone’s normal in their own way,” to the slow reveal of exactly how hard the events of the previous night (12x23 - All Along the Watchtower) are hitting Dean and Sam and in different ways...(how long the episode takes to reveal to you how Dean fucked up his hand, and what he was saying when he did. Augh!) The Winchesters are trying to rally, but they have been taking hits for a long time, and the cracks are showing.

 #4 - 15.06 - “Golden Time”

Written by: Meredith Glynn | Directed by: John F. Showalter

Supernatural  has a terrible track record with representation in all stripes. It is infamously consistent in killing off anyone minority, female, or non-White. One of the interesting things about the chaotic meta-narrative of season 15 is you can see the lack of fucks some of the writer’s room had to give about not even being subtle about tearing down that type of ‘White-male-hero-journey” now that they were in a literal “what will they do, fire me?” situation.

I’m a Cas fan, and this episode, which gives him an actual, ‘case-of-the-week’ hunter’s narrative where he gets to save the day on his own, successfully, was wonderful. I love that for him! But more than that, for me, this episode is emotional to me for other reasons-- the way Dean and Cas circle around each other on their angry phone call (with the body language! They are broadcasting so LOUD and neither can see because they’re on the phone!), Sam’s story here, where he’s inheriting things from Rowena that allow him in turn to save Eileen, to Cas’ speech and quick anger at the lake when you reflect on his entire journey of self-realization from a soldier of blind faith to an agent of free will... “You selfish little men in your positions of authority...” I just... *clears throat, grabs tissue* 

#3 -  6.20 - “The Man Who Would Be King”

Written & Directed by: Ben Edlund

Speaking of Cas’ journey... I know some folks don’t like the angst and drama of the ‘Heaven and Hell’ plots of Supernatural, but I am here for it. Oh, did we need another reason to include this episode? This has some of the most metal quotes I have heard from any TV show. Ever.

I mean, look at this:

“If I knew then what I know now, I would have said: Freedom is a length of rope. God wants you to hang yourself with it.”

“Explaining freedom to angels is a bit like explaining poetry to fish.”

The delivery of: “It's not too late. Damn it, Cas! We can fix this!” “Dean, it’s not broken!” is one of those Supernatural bits that will live in my head until the end of time. All of Edlund’s episodes are among my favorites, but this (along with “5.04 - The End”) was on another level. 

#2 - 5.16 - “Dark Side of the Moon”

Written by: Andrew Dabb & Daniel Loflin | Directed by: Jeff Wollnough

I think of this episode every time  I hear Bob Dylan sing “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” This is kinda a giant montage episode, but the connecting concepts are so...satisfying. 

“Heaven is your favorite memories.” “ It’s called the axis mundi. It’s a path that runs through heaven. Different people see it as different things. For you, it’s two-lane asphalt.” “This is your idea of heaven? Wow, this was one of the worst nights of my life.” “I don’t think I realized how long you’ve been cleaning up Dad’s messes.” “It’s awesome to finally have an application—a practical application—for string theory.” “Everyone leaves you, Dean. You noticed?” “Why is God talking to me? Gardner-to-gardener, and between us, I think he gets lonely.” “You son of a bitch, I believed in... ” Whoosh.

#1 - 4.01 - “Lazarus Rising”

Written by: Eric Kripke | Directed by: Kim Manners

So...this is the episode where Castiel, angel of thee Lord, shows up. And that’s primarily why it earns the no. 1 spot, because 80% of my enjoyment of Supernatural from this point on was Cas-adjacent. Plus this entire episode just hits. ALL OF IT. Dean’s homecoming. Ruby, my darling. Bobby’s entire vibe. Pamela Barnes, easily one of the most interesting women Supernatural ever introduced. Cas being so hot to say “Hi” to Dean he forgets he wounds people. 

But beyond that-- the way the show writes their ‘oh, by the way, angels’ narrative! If you haven’t seen this episode, would you believe me if I told you that THIS EPISODE, the episode where Supernatural said “canonically, Judeo-Christian Heaven is real, btw” involves no churches but does involve a séance, a soulmark handprint brand, and a himbo angel that “gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition”...but they were all “no homo, guys” for years?

Truly no one was out here doing it like Supernatural even back in 2008.

Others--

15.18 - “Despair” 

“Most Likely to Live Rent-Free in My Head for the Rest of my Life”

Written by: Robert Berens | Directed by: Richard Speight, Jr.

You know why this episode is here. It broke reality. I could be wrong-- but I’d put good money on this episode being the subject of academic theses in the future. That doesn’t automatically make for interesting story, but...

Has there ever been a case, in a mainstream US TV show where a major lead character (Cas) came out as queer so late in the game in a narratively-important way? I’m not aware of it, but I might just be behind on my television.

This episode has great writing, and (blessedly) amazing direction and blocking anyway. Check out the above gif - that is some next level foreshadowing going on in the cinematography, and this isn’t even the most remarked upon shot in this episode. (Seriously, I had to search for 40 minutes for this gif, please respect my game, lol.) Everyone who was involved in 15x18 is giddy talking about their investment, from the costume designer to the actors to the director to the writer...

...And then a bunch of them steadfastly have avoided posting much Supernatural-related since. So that’s...loud. There is a bunch of subtext in this episode that is screamingly loud; there is a bunch of text in this episode that makes several things clear fandom has been chattering over for years and years. The meta-commentary around this episode continues, months later. There are over 700 fics on AO3 with this episode tag.

I have more to say about the themes of ‘free will’ and ‘love’ and ‘identity’ tied to this episode, but seriously-- you’ve probably read 17 versions of it on Tumblr already, so.

This is the last time we see Cas, and the last time Supernatural can claim anything close to narrative consistency. For that alone, it’d earn free head-space.

Runners-up: “4.20 - The Rapture”; “5.04 - The End”; “7.21 - Reading is Fundamental”; “8.21 - The Great Escapist”; “9.06 - Heaven Can’t Wait”; “12.19 - The Future”; “14.08 - Byzantium”

6.17 - “My Heart Will Go On”/8.07 - “A Little Slice of Kevin”

“Most Likely to Inspire Unnecessary Fanfiction”

Written by: Eric Charmelo & Nicole Snyder (6.17); Brad Buckner & Eugenie Ross-Leming | Directed by: Phil Sgriccia (6.17); Charlie Carner (8.07)

Usually the show kills off it’s “one-episode” female characters, but do you know one time it didn’t? When the Moirai (the Fates - specifically Atropos, the shearer of the Threads of Fate) showed up in canon in 6.17. She was posited to have “two older sisters that were bigger than her- in every sense of the word,” ...and Castiel had to back down when she challenged him to a cosmic game of chicken over the Winchester’s lives.

Then they never returned to that idea again. 

“A Little Slice of Kevin” is on here for the opposite reason -- an amazing idea that was really underwritten in the episode it showed up in. Dean Winchester has been dragging himself across the fabric of universes; the literal Word of God is in play in a warehouse in Middle America; Cas is back from Purgatory, but what does that mean, micro and macro? As a person on the street, what would it mean, or feel like, to learn you were a Prophet of the Lord, uncalled? That what you are, everything you are, is a cosmic contingency?

Maybe Fate has an opinion on all these shenanigans?

Perhaps all that doesn’t make sense, but it certainly made an impression on ~2012 me. To this day, it remains the WIP I can open up and fool myself with the ‘twist.’ I wish I remembered where I was going with it so I could finish it.

Runners Up: “2.20 - What Is and What Should Never Be”; “5.04 - The End”; “6.15 - The French Mistake”; 12.12 - “Stuck in the Middle (with you)”; “13.05 - Advanced Thanatology” “14.03 - The Scar”; “14.10 - Nihilism”; “15.15 - Gimme Shelter” ... and “15.20 - Carry On” (obviously)

Fifteen seasons. There were plenty of other episodes I loved that didn’t make these limited lists. But overall -- thank you, Supernatural, for the run. Even if I’m upset at the ending, I can appreciate the game. If you watch the show, what were your favorite episodes?

#spn #supernatural #meta #review

[witcher-ot3]

Sims 4 (Im)Perfect Strangers Characters

Okay, probably no one cares, but hey, may as well share. So, I’ve been making some folks from (Im)Perfect Strangers, and I figured hey, maybe someone else cares enough to want to see lmao

Triss So, obviously we know what Triss looks like in canon. But because I started with Netflix!Triss, my version is a bit of a combination of game and netflix canon. Also, because I have the mods that make it possible, yes she has hairy legs and arms and no, she is not ashamed of it. Idk if her eyes are quite so noticeable, but I like the idea that mages feel ever so slightly Off to lay folk.

Adda the White Adda the White is Foltest’s daughter niece and in my version of things, she was raised by the Priestesses of Melitele with Triss and Roche looking in on her/mentoring her over the years. She’s had pretty limited contact with Foltest himself. She wears the traditional headcovering of the Priestesses (aka a hijab). She also has sharper than normal teeth, a lingering result of the striga curse, along with slightly heightened senses.

In her priestess garb, I think she looks a bit like this:

Anais La Valette Yeah okay, she has a game model, but the Witcher 2 kid models are creepy. SO, Anais, as we know, is a rowdy, rambunctious kid. She likes fighting and rough playing and she is not afraid of demanding what she wants. Loudly. 

Boussy La Valette Unlike his sister, Boussy is more of an introvert. He likes his own company, but mostly, he likes to keep busy doing something that makes him think. (I doing my best to portray him as autistic, btw). He also does not believe in casual clothing. If you’re gonna get dressed, you should put effort into it, that’s his philosophy. He probably learned to tie his own bowtie at like 7 just so he could wear it without other people getting in his space to tie it.

Rinn Originally created by the wonderful @franzwantscoffee​, Rinn is our favorite Scoia’tael spy. She’s pretty young as elves go - well, most of the Scoia’tael are, honestly, but Rinn is around teens/early twenties in the human equivalent. She wears clothing that helps her blend into the forest and is so good at sneaking that it takes inhuman senses to be able to detect her when she doesn’t want to be seen.

Sylvar Amongst the Scoia’tael, no one has worse scars that Sylvar. He typically wears a red mask over the lower half of his face to help cover them, but the burn scars he bears are extensive. He joined the Scoia’tael after the house his mother and he lived in amongst humans was set on fire - with them inside. He managed to escape, but his mother did not. Only elven medicine was able to save him and help him regain mobility after the incident. Because of this, Sylvar, unsurprisingly, does not trust humans. He wants to believe in the Free Pontar Valley, but it’s difficult when trying to sleep with humans in the vicinity leads to nightmares and panic attacks.

Taredd Taredd is remarkably short amongst elves, to the point that he was often teased about being a dwarven bastard. He does not enjoy reminders of his height (which, of course, means that Sylvar has to remind him every so often, just because). Anxious and clever, he took a page out of Cedric’s book and self-medicates with alcohol to keep his mind from being too overwhelmingly busy. He’s probably the best tracker in the Scoia’tael.

Maeral Maeral is punk as hell, the cleverest commander in Iorveth’s Scoia’tael, and an all around badass. Her squad is all women and to be honest, she doesn’t have much time for men. Iorveth is an exception because he lets her utterly destroy him at chess. She trusts him unequivocally, but her team is also a strike force. They’re the ones who go in first, the ones who play the distraction, the ones most likely to die. She trusts Iorveth because he trusts her to do what she needs to on the ground to bring as many of their people home as possible.

Imadia Imadia is old, even for elves, and unlike most elves humans have seen, she shows signs of her age. That’s how old she is. She is also old enough to take no shit whatsoever and she likes a nice pop of color in life. Things are bleak enough without wearing drab and depressing clothing. Besides, as a medic, she is typically removed from the fight and doesn’t have to scrounge for “gently used” armor like the rest of the Scoia’tael. In addition to serving as Iorveth’s medic, Imadia and Iorveth have known each other since before the Conjunction of the Spheres. When he attended the elven university equivalent, she was his thesis advisor. His faith in her advise has survived since then, and even though her biting tongue might bruise his ego, when he’s in over his head, she is the first person he goes to.

Kythaela (also known as Ky) Ky is a very upbeat and bright person, rarely ever seen without a beaming smile. She came to the Scoia’tael with her father, Ayluin, but he eventually turned traitor, trying to sell the Scoia’tael out to the Temerian guard. When he was discovered, he fled, and Ky attacked him in anger. In the scuffle, Ky managed to stab her father through the heart - and then broke down crying under the weight of everything. That was how Iorveth found her and came to believe in her innocence. Of everyone in the Scoia’tael, Kythaela and Rinn are probably the closest. They’re of a similar age and despite their very different demeanors, they make a terrifying and effective team. Ky is part of Maeral’s all-women unit.

SPOILERS FOR (IM)PERFECT STRANGERS!!

Zeda In Between Two Fools Chapter 4, we discover that Kythaela is pregnant with a dwarf’s child. Epic sex ed fail in the Scoia’tael, btw. Zeda hasn’t actually been born yet in what I’ve written so far, BUT he’s going to play a significant role in the future. As a half-dwarf/half-elven child, this baby is TINY and came out with a full head of hair. I think as he grows up, he’ll also probably grow body hair, unlike elves, because dwarves are very, very hairy because I say so.

Because this was super fun, are there any characters that y’all would like to see visualized? Maybe I’ll do Luka next...

#don't cry for me temeria #character design #sims 4 #the witcher #the witcher 2 #my fic

[lycorogue]

Holy smokes guys, if you’ll indulge me, I want to tell you about the dream I just had. (*EDIT: I wrote this right as I woke up from the dream before I forgot most of it. However, I had to get ready for work, so I was only able to finish/polish/post just now.) Mostly because I only have dreams I can remember about twice a year (and I used to be one of those people that remembered dreams nightly when I was a kid. OTL), so I want to jot down as much as I can remember before I lose it. Plus, it has a lot of Miraculous Ladybug elements, and some of you might find it amusing.

My dream started off with my husband and I having a day off together, shirking our adult responsibilities for the day, and just having a date day. We drove into the nearby city and just had a day of goofing around as we window shopped (remember when it was safe for people to do stuff like this? *long sigh*) One of the places I distinctly recall us stopping was some sporting goods store where we checked out kayaks (they’re super big in our area; practically everyone owns one).

But then, as we were checking out the kayaks, my husband wasn’t my husband anymore, and I wasn’t myself. At some point my mind converted both of us into 18yo versions of Adrien Agreste and Marinette Dupain-Cheng from the show Miraculous Ladybug.

We were just friends; hanging out; simply spending the day together. Just the two of us. We were still goofing around and window shopping, just as we were when we were still myself and my husband, but now there was this sort of unsure sexual tension????? Like, Adrien was very much Chat Noir flirting, but in a way that Marinette couldn’t quite tell if it was supposed to be flirting, and Adrien didn’t seem sure himself if he meant it to be flirting??? But there was a LOT of chaste touching of upper arms, lower backs (mainly to direct Marinette), and hand holding (mostly to pull her in a particular direction).

I can’t recall if it was a canon character or if my mind made someone up, but I do recall a random second 18yo boy kind of following us around. It could have been the show’s canon “Adrien Agreste’s #1 fan” Wayhem, but it also felt like it wasn’t supposed to be him? You know how dreams are like that? Where you can’t quite pin down who someone is supposed to be in them? To make life easier, though, we’ll just say it was supposed to be Wayhem. 

So, the dream became a sort of aged up version of the episode “Gorizilla” where Adrien (formerly my husband) and Marinette (formerly me) are running around Paris (formerly a US city nearby me IRL) just trying to have a good time window shopping together and goofing around while Wayhem is semi-stalking them? Now, canonically, after the incident of Wayhem chasing Adrien around Paris during “Gorizilla”, Adrien became Wayhem’s friend and was indeed willing to hang out with the kid, as long as Wayhem treated Adrien as a normal kid and not a celebrity that Wayhem was star-struck over. In my dream’s canon, this was still semi-true. Wayhem was more of an acquaintance of Adrien’s than a friend the blonde would hang out with regularly, but Adrien still made time to hang out with his fan. However, Wayhem in my dream could not wait his turn, apparently, and when he saw Adrien “in the wild”, as it were, he wanted to join in the fun. So a large portion of the dream was Adrien (Hubby) and Marinette (me; I saw the dream through 1st person via Marinette’s eyes, but I KNEW that’s who I was supposed to be) trying to ditch Wayhem. 

We ran around department stores, riding bikes through the toy aisles, and had shopping cart races where Adrien was pushing me (Marinette) around the store in the shopping cart with Wayhem behind with a giant stuffed animal in his cart. We snuck into movies at the cinema, only to try to sneak back out to lose Wayhem. I can’t recall what else we did, but we had a grand old time hanging out and screwing around in various stores while also trying to shake Wayhem (and, to be fair, Adrien did try to tell Wayhem that he was trying to have a day just hanging out with Marinette and will set up a time to hang with him, but the kid wouldn’t leave us alone. He was like a kid brother just following us around trying to play with us when we just needed our own time). 

Eventually, we did lose Wayhem, and we were back inside a department store. When we noticed we were alone, Adrien had this cheeky grin, and asked me if I’d be willing to go wait for him over in the women’s clothing department for a couple of minutes; he had something he wanted to do privately real quick. Shrugging off my curiosity of what he was up to (I like to be surprised), I agree and go wandering through the clothing racks. 

There’s this whole thing about a group of older teenage girls trying to pick out outfits that best accentuate parts of their bodies that they like, but other girls are debating that the first ones are just sexualizing their own bodies to be on display for men, and it was this whole thing about whether you dress sexy for yourself or because you want someone to find you attractive. @_@ Not sure why my dream got super philosophical in the middle there.

Anyway, Marinette (me) navigates around this crowd of girls debating and finds this cute white t-shirt dress with Jagged Stone’s logo (for those who don’t know, Jagged Stone is a canon rock star within the Miraculous Ladybug universe). While Marinette canonically wears almost exclusively clothing she designs herself, in my dream she also occasionally buys clothing with trademarked logos on them that she likes (because she can’t legally recreate them). So she (I) goes into the dressing room and puts the dress on. 

Then, wearing the dress as a tunic over the normal pink capris Marinette canonically wears, and carrying my (Marinette’s) shirt and jacket in my arms, I wander the women’s department some more to make sure Adrien can find me. As I do so, my cellphone rings, and my IRL uncle is calling me to see if my sister-in-law would like a DVD set of the show Lost, I believe? I can’t quite remember which show he was asking about. The odd thing is that my uncle is about 25 years older than me. My sister-in-law is about 2 years older than me. I don’t think they talk on Facebook, and I’m pretty sure they only met at my wedding. So I have absolutely no clue why my brain connected these two in a manner where he’d want to double check with me on a birthday gift (belated Christmas gift?) for her.

Anyway, I get off the phone with my IRL uncle, and my IRL job calls me with some sort of crisis that I can’t recall. It was a quick phone call as the owner of the store ended up in some sort of car trouble, I think, and the woman I was on the phone with had to quickly get off to help the owner. It was a bizarre intermission within my dream. Anyway, my IRL husband shows up (I’m still picturing myself as 18yo Marinette, btw) and checks in on the phone calls. We joke around a little bit, and POOF Hubby is magically Adrien again, and we’re back to the main storyline.

So Adrien gives a little “wow” and holds out a hand for me (Marinette) to take. He then has me do a twirl to show off the dress. He talks about how lovely it looks on me, but then kind of scrunches his eyebrows. He then kneels in front of me, like RIGHT UP on my left leg, and clicks his tongue disappointingly. He points out this huge stain along the hem just above my left knee. It’s about the size of an American half-dollar and almost looks like a blood stain: a dark reddish-brown center that fades into an off-white/light-yellow along the corona of the stain.

As Adrien plays with the hem to get a better look at the stain on the dress, his fingers brush against my knee (I mean, I still have the capris on, but still), and it almost looks like he’s worshipping me, and my heart CANNOT deal! I can feel it RACING and my cheeks starting to warm up. That’s when Adrien starts, like, HARD CORE flirting with me by again commenting about how good I look in the dress, and how well it fits my body shape, and how disappointing it is that this dress has a stain because he’d love to see me wear the dress a few more times. And he just slowly stands up, but doesn’t really move back before doing so, so I have to take a small step back so he’s not just sliding up my leg as he stands. And my heart is about to EXPLODE as he looks at me with those intense green eyes.

I swallow hard, and Adrien just kind of puts on this cheery smile like nothing just happened, and he suggests we look to see if there’s another dress in my size that doesn’t have the stain. I lead him to the rack and we riffle through it quickly. We do find another one of the Jagged Stone t-shirt dresses in my size, and Adrien takes it to fully inspect it. No stains. No loose hem-work. The print of Jagged Stone’s logo seems well done. The dress itself isn’t all that expensive. We got a winner. Adrien then suggests I go get changed back into my normal clothes, so I leave him as I enter the changing booth to put my shirt and jacket back on, and that’s where I wake up.

But I do so with the lingering knowledge that Adrien 100% bought Marinette that dress while she was changing, and his initial surprise (why he asked her to go to the clothing department to wait for him in the first place) was a little pastel-rainbow tie-dyed teddy bear that he wanted to get her to commemorate their day-long hangout. 

So.... yeah... that was my dream, and it was so intense at the end there that I legit woke up because my own, physical, IRL heart was RACING from all the Adrien flirting towards the end.

Just wanted to share that. Thanks for indulging me and reading all the way through.

(*EDIT: I’ve been lowkey thinking about that whole brushing Marinette’s knee while inspecting the dress thing all day. So guess who has yet ANOTHER plot bunny to try to wrangle. Thanks, Brain! 9_9 Care to actually help me WRITE any of these plot bunnies, or are you just going to plop more unexpectedly onto my lap and then just wander off? Oh! The latter? Great. >3>)

#LycoRogue writing #LycoRogue original #LycoRogue ramblings #dream #random dream I had #ML #Miraculous Ladybug #I think I have a new aged-up story idea #and it may come with some soft-core smut #>3>

[janiedean]

Well congratulations. Your fandom has successfully erased the woman of color main character and love interest and replaced her with a white dude. So much for Yen mattering. You won.

… listen, I don’t know what lann/incest shipper are you out of the usual bunch of extremely sad people who are trying to make sure I end up arguing with either yen fans or yen/geralt shippers when I have absolutely no bone to pick with any of them, I make sure I don’t tag anything but the ship in my witcher posts, I have written 10k of threesome with all three of them on top of that and I absolutely don’t want drama for this fandom ffs but honestly, you’re ridiculous.

one: idk what this is about but if it’s that post I reblogged this morning about joey b/atey being billed like a main in articles about characters returning to the show in S2 when he’s the first billed of the not-mains you honestly need to fucking chill because wow, a fan favorite character is mentioned in an article written to inform fans of who’s coming back next season? AFTER, in order, henry anya and freya? like. fucking chill.

two: as much as you presume I don’t know that, do you realize that saying ‘my fandom’ erased successfully a female character who is second-billed in the show, definitely co-main in the books from what I’ve read so far, the canonical love interest of the MAIN CHARACTER that she’s obviously BOUND to CANONICALLY (I’ve read the last wish, did you?) and who is most likely fucking going nowhere in the show? like pal until netflix comes out with a statement saying ‘according to fan reception we decided to fire anya and make geralt and jaskier stick their tongues in each others’s throat in the first five minutes of 2x01 you’re welcome’, which is obviously never going to happen because that’s not the plot and we all know that, no one has fucking erased anyone from the narration or from the show, like wow what power would I have if just by being in a fandom with a lot of people in it I could wish things out of existence! then 8x05 of GOT wouldn’t have happened and I’d have been spared dnd’s boner for c/ersei lannister ruining the entire damned series, but that didn’t happen now, did it? *shrug* and guess what I’m here writing fic and waiting for grrm, not up in your fucking blogs trying to make me stir drama with a fandom I’m not even in 100% of the time and where I just want to have fun with my ONE goddamned ship I like and without getting into shipwars idc for. so like, you have eight books of canon material plus you’ll have the show canon material, and we ‘erase’ her?

newsflash, my genius anon, indulging you even if I know it’ll be useless: it’s the way of most major fandoms that the largest ship is usually m/m and if it’s people who are friends in canon that’s usually also a thing, and I’ve been in very few fandoms where the majority of shippers were m/f, which is another discourse we could get in but I absolutely have no patience for it and we all know how it is. most of the fandom content being m/m is about typical for 95% of the fandoms in existence and that does not negate canon nor does it mean that most people into m/m actually are batting for it to be canon or want the female characters to bite the dust for the m/m ship and the fact that a few idiots do in these tiring times where your shipping preferences apparently = your morality doesn’t mean that the majority agrees or expects the female character to drop dead. good fucking grief. people will ship geralt and jaskier in fandom until their fingers fall off while geralt and yen have their canon romance that no one is gonna protest because it’s canon and if you can’t handle even that basic thing then it’s 100% obvious you’re from jc fandom and never shipped a popular m/m pairing in your damned life, because most of us who do know they’re never going to be canon.

also, fyi, yen is nonwhite in the show but she’s white in both books and game so you can take that ridiculous racism nonsense out of the window because it’s not a case of ‘we’d ship it if they both were white but the moment she’s poc we don’t anymore’. also ‘not mattering’ pal some of us like yen and have absolutely nothing against her but also, consider it, a tiny bit, just like, as an option, some of us like jaskier as a character more than yen or find him more relatable than yen regardless of whether he’s white or a dude or not, which happens because we all relate to/like characters for our own goddamned reasons and if I, a woman, have more fun writing jaskier pov than I’d have writing yen’s pov and I find geralt/jaskier a dynamic I’m way more interested exploring/writing than yen/geralt because of reasons I don’t owe you (and also because geralt and jaskier is the first fucking time my ideal m/m dynamic almost to a T is to be found in a popular ship differently from the other ship I have with that dynamic that’s stuck at nineteen fics on ao3 so excuse me if I’m a bit starved for content), then it’s my fucking business because the only people who could successfully erase yen from anything witcher-related are a) andrzej sapkwoski, b) the netflix showrunners, c) the videogame devs and guess fucking what, neither me nor anyone in this fandom is, WOW, either sapkowski or the netflix team nor works for the videogame company, so excuse me if no one is erasing fucking shit.

if you really are this invested into the character - which again I doubt because I know y’all are jc people and I have plenty of proof of that so you can go tell that story to someone else - you can do an interesting thing named write your fucking own fanfic, which btw you didn’t do even in jc fandom and it shows because you wouldn’t bother other people if you were busy creating your own content, and fyi I think yen would really fucking hate the guts of your favorite leading lady considering how she treats her goddamned children but I guess that’s beyond the point.

tldr: stop trying to make me argue with people in a fandom you’re not in, stop with this nonsense and stop being this pathetic because honestly it’s been a year and a half by now and you’re here stirring drama over a show that’s not even your main fandom? please get some help already.

#Anonymous #ask post #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #jb wank #because oH THIS IS FUCKING JB WANK AND I KNOW IT #witcher drama for ts #only slightly less toxic than chernobyl's ruins #anti-cersei lannister #anti-cersei #anti-lannincest #anti-jaime x cersei #va bene va bene va bene in verità #gesuddio quanto avete rotto il cazzo oh #ma proprio pesantemente #v'apro forziere e cassa va #ma non ce la posso fare porcatroia #ma se può #siete di un patetismo veramente incommmensurabile

[somniumoflight]

Crossover Idea #11 – My Hero Academia/Minecraft

Izuku has a Quirk that lets him transport himself back and forth between the real world and the world of Minecraft.

So, I’ve been on a Minecraft binge for a week or so at this point. I was bored and I was suddenly struck with the urge to re-watch an MC role-play series I haven’t watched in literal years, and then I started watching Game Theory’s newest Minecraft theories, and later, somewhere in the middle of building something in Creative, my brain suddenly spat out the idea of hey what if Izuku had a quirk that let him enter the MC world?  Like, you don’t need powers to be a hero there, you just need to know how to learn/craft.  This was the result of that thought spinning wildly out of control.

So, here’s the idea I’ve got in my head so far.  Somewhere around, oh, the ten-to-twelve-year range, Izuku’s getting really depressed.  The bullying he’s dealing with is worse than it was ever shown to be in canon, the teachers are even worse, and he’s just having a generally hard time.  After a particularly bad day, Izuku doesn’t feel like watching any hero vids for once, and instead looks around for some other vids to watch for something to do, and finds a Minecraft YouTuber in the process and falls in love with the game.  It basically becomes his second major obsession, and his mom gets him a copy of the game for his birthday (secretly glad that Izuku is interested in things other than Heroes now.)

When Izuku installs the game, though, and goes to make his first single-player survival world, the Quirk he never knew he had activates, and he’s dragged into the computer screen and dumped straight into the MC world – or, rather, a real world similar to the game, complete with the same game mechanics but a lot more meat to its lore and history and the creatures living in it.  This is no longer just a game, it’s a real world he can explore in all its blocky glory.  Izuku ends up surviving on his own for several Minecraft days, slightly terrified but able to hide from the mobs well enough, and when his Mom comes in to tell him dinner’s ready and finds the game apparently running on its own, she pauses it and the screen spits a shocked Izuku right back out at her.  

So yeah, Izuku’s quirk is Minecraft-based.  He, personally, thinks this is really cool, but since all he can do is jump back and forth between IRL and the world behind the screen, not even take anything with him as he comes and goes, it’s pretty useless for Hero work, and the people in his school still treat him the same because they’re stupid and prejudiced.  He retreats into MC more and more as time goes on, because after the initial scare it became hella fun to live out a life there, and its a good way to escape his normal life’s torment.  He meets Villagers, who are actual people capable of speaking and being friendly to newcomers and stuff, and makes a few friends in the first village he finds.  He explores a LOT, and encounters Illagers as well as normal unfriendly mobs.  He starts learning how to sword-fight, because clearly he needs to lessons after that encounter with Illagers.  He starts getting more and more invested in the MC world, but is conflicted about it, because he still has dreams of being a Pro-Hero.

Then Izuku meets All Might, and has his dreams crushed.  He doesn’t get a chance to impress All Might by saving Bakugou, because instead of sticking around he just goes straight home immediately to dip back into the MC world, as its his go-to-comfort at this point.  At that point, his Villager friends help him finally figure out that his world really isn’t a good place for him – and so he talks to his mom, and they make a deal.  If Izuku can’t find something he feels is worth sticking around in their world for (other than his mom, of course) by the time he finishes high school, Inko’s okay with him basically moving into the Minecraft world full-time if it will make him happy.

So, while Class 1-A at Yuuei gets into villain-related disasters and misadventures, Izuku’s having his own misadventures, both in the MC world and his non-Yuuei high school.  In the high school, he’s mostly trying to find something he wants to do with his life that isn’t Hero-related, and trying to make new friends.  In the MC world, though, he’s helping his Villager friends and getting into misadventures that would probably make class 1-A balk, even while slowly building up that world into something magnificent without realizing that he’s sorta become a hero in his own right.

Details for this Crossover include:

Izuku’s quirk basically works by taking him through the screen into whatever Minecraft world he previously logged into.  This does work on servers, btw, though Izuku avoids almost everything to do with PVP once he figures out that shit hurts for real and leaves him with injuries irl.

He mostly prefers to stick to his first survival world as a result, or to do stuff in creative in a different world.  He may or may not sometimes dive into multiplayer servers, though, mostly minigame servers, and in the process accidentally make friends with some of the regulars there.  (He also may or may not sometimes encounter the Minecraft-playing Class 1-A members and the occasional villain from the League that way, not that he realizes it until Bakugou of all people turns up and one of the villains, Toga, tells him cheerfully who she is.)

Izuku gets turned into a blocky version of himself while in MC, mostly because Izuku’s freak-out about turning into an MC player character would be fun to write, but also because there’s no way that the Illagers wouldn’t do something to him if he was walking around as a normal human AND as a Player.  See MatPat’s vids about them, and assume the Illagers are up to that kind of shady shit.

At first Izuku just explores the world and wanders between villages once he finds them, helping people out (he’s useful!  He’s not useless here!)  Up until All Might crushes his dreams, though, that’s p much all he’s doing.  He’ll, like, fight off mobs and save villagers, and make friends in the process, but his mind’s still set on being a hero while MC is… possibly a way to go about being one?

He makes friends with several Villager children/teenager equivalents in the process, and this friendship with them makes it clear to him that his “friendship” with Bakugou is pretty fucked up.  It takes a while, but he gets there eventually!

When his dreams of being a hero are crushed and he doesn’t get One for All, Izuku ends up spending more and more time in MC when not in school or working on school stuff, because the “real” world just doesn’t seem like a good place for him.  He starts helping the villagers fortify their villages against mobs and Illagers, helps traveling merchants, and starts learning more about the history of this world in the process.

After an incident in his new school leads to him begging his mom to let him be homeschooled or do stuff online, he starts getting more ambitious.  He starts building cities for the slowly growing Villager population of the world, fighting off hordes of mobs, exploring ancient ruins Indiana-Jones-style, and starts helping the Villagers deal with the Illager threat for good.

He goes on that whole “defeat the enderdragon” quest and may or may not end up hatching a baby ender dragon as a pet by complete accident.  (I like the dragon rider mod in MC ok, and come on, Izuku’s slowly turning into an MC badass, he NEEDS a pet dragon like I need to breathe.)

… He also may or may not encounter a very unusual stranger in the wilderness, one that almost looks like another human, who helps him out during this time.  (He SAYS he’s Steve, but there’s something a little off about him, and he’s not too keen on interacting with other people for some reason?  And doesn’t seem to understand them all that well?  And seems to like acting like a bad guy, to an extent?  Izuku clues onto the fact there’s something p weird about him soon after meeting him.  But hey, he’s not going to judge, and isolation can really mess with your head, right?  He read that somewhere.)

… Steve may or may not be possessed.  By someone who is supposed to look very similar to him. (Wink wink.)  Who may or may not be intrigued by Izuku when he first meets the kid, because this kid is clearly incredibly smart, and he’s bored and kinda wants to see what this kid will grow into before he tries messing with him.

Izuku catches onto these shenanigans eventually, but the person that Steve may or may not be possessed by is trying to be subtle, and Izuku can be kinda oblivious sometimes (not to mention he’s always been interested in playing Minecraft and has read about Herobrine’s lore like, once, and since “Steve” never has white eyes he never really figures it out.)  He DOES catch onto his pseudo-villainous attitude and general dislike of “Players” though, and is suitably wary of him as a result.

… Izuku may or may not also figure out that at least part of the villainous attitude is because H just doesn’t understand people in general.  The dude’s a former computer virus who got into Minecraft and accidentally became a part of it.  There’s no way he knows about emotions in the same way that humans/villagers do.

Years pass in the game very quickly (I mean, dude, one Minecraft month is like, 10 hours.  The days are 20 minutes long, he’s in there for a VERY LONG TIME) and Izuku’s basically considered a hero by the villagers, something which makes him very happy because hey, it’s almost like he’s fulfilled his original dream, even if it’s not in a way he would have expected.  He’s also got some p good friends in other servers he dives into sometimes after visiting his mom, and of course, the H-possessed Steve who pops up sometimes. (His relationship with HIM is complicated.  Like, almost as complicated as his relationship with Bakugou was before he graduated into full-on bullyhood.  He considers the guy a tentative friend, though.)

Then a new patch comes out, complete with a “Removed Herobrine” line in the text, and things go to shit, because the MC game can affect the real MC world to an extent, but H is kinda there for good.  And he’s sick and tired of having his code/existence torn apart with every update, and oh would you look at that, there’s a player he can take the blame out on right there, along with entire cities of his villager friends.  

Cue a sudden war as the mobs in the world go crazy under his influence, and Izuku and his villager friends are suddenly in for a fight for their lives.  It’s practically a full-blown war, and it may or may not follow him to a server he retreats to to try to get some advice from his online friends (friendly reminder that at least a couple of them are Heroes or Hero students, and at least one of them is probably a villain.  He’s got a wide range of advice.)

Izuku does eventually figure out that at least part of the problem is that Herobrine is sick of being removed, and makes a deal with the guy – if he leaves people alone, then Izuku will find a way to contact the game developers and force them to stop removing him from the game.  H doesn’t accept this at first – but then Izuku leaves the game long enough to talk to his mom, and send the MC game developers an email explaining his quirk, and what’s going on, and can they please stop removing Herobrine from the game, even as a joke?  It’s hurting him every time they do this and he’s trying to take it out on Izuku and his friends.

… This actually works, to Izuku’s shock.  The game developers contact him about this whole thing for more details a couple IRL days later, and though they’re extremely uncomfortable with the fact that Herobrine exists, they’re also decent enough people that they don’t actually want to hurt someone, even if that someone is digital and only able to be talked to through Izuku’s quirk.

(Izuku tells H this the next time he sees the dude, and what the fuck, Herobrine wasn’t expecting the kid to be SERIOUS about this. He may or may not calm down a bit after that, and stop warring against Izuku and Co. though his relationship with the kid stays very firmly in the “complicated” category.)

This event, however, leads Izuku to realize that hey, the “real world” can still affect MC even if he lives there full-time, so he should probably stay in the real world so he can keep an eye out on the developers.  After all, he can still visit his friends in MC.

… may or may not include bonus content after the main story where Izuku starts recording what he does in MC for other people to see. Not sure.  But I kinda like the idea, so it might be a thing, just a post-canon thing.  It would also probably be excessively shenanigan-y, by complete accident, because it would be funny (and I DID say Izuku’s relationship w/ Herobrine would be complicated, right.  Yup, I did.  Couple of times.  Well, that’s VERY IMPORTANT okay.)

#crossover ideas #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #minecraft #my hero academia/minecraft #boku no hero academia/minecraft #MHA/Minecraft #BNHA/Minecraft #izuku has a quirk that lets him jump into the MC world like its a real place #which it is #he makes lots of friends in the MC world and in MC servers #most of his friends are villagers #plus one Steve who's around #who's not actually Steve #sort of #he may or may not also be Herobrine #it's complicated #anyway Izuku slowly saves the whole MC world one bit at a time and may or may not accidentally create a peaceful kingdom of villagers #and becomes a REAL hero in the process #cue tears of joy from Izuku because he's still a crybaby even if the tears are weirdly blocky in MC #also at first he wants to move to MC full-time because the MHA world is kinda shitty to him when he's living in it ya know #but a minor war that may or may not have been caused by Herobrine being pissed about being removed again #makes him realize he can't really leave his birth world behind if he wants to protect the MC one he calls a second home at this point #also remember the it's complicated thing #that also applies to Izuku's relationship with Herobrine #because while I like stories where Herobrine is actually just misunderstood I also like stories with him as a genuine villain #so I decided to compromise #also there may or may not be post-story shenanigans because Izuku has to make a living somehow so might as well do it by recording MC vids #and his MC world is VERY different from most people's