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gragrace · 3 months

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"Fractured Bonds: A Profiler's Promise"

Summary: In "Fractured Bonds," Spencer Reid and Y/n find their connection tested in the crucible of a perilous case that leaves Y/n in a hostage situation. As the BAU team races against time, Spencer's realization of the depth of his feelings for Y/n becomes gut-wrenching. The story delves into the fragility of relationships amidst danger, weaving a narrative of resilience, vulnerability, and the promise of love emerging from the shadows.

Word count: 906

AN: Third day posting, third fic, hope you enjoy🩷

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The BAU headquarters hummed with tension, a palpable anxiety that hung thick in the air. The team gathered to discuss their latest case, unaware that the unfolding events would shake the very foundations of their close-knit unit.

Y/n, an integral member of the BAU, sat among her colleagues, her gaze focused on the whiteboard detailing the intricate details of the case. The sense of camaraderie that had developed over shared cases and late-night profiling sessions felt comforting, but little did she know that the day's events would test those bonds in ways she couldn't have imagined.

As the investigation unfolded, Y/n found herself in the perilous crosshairs of a dangerous criminal. The situation escalated, leading to a harrowing hostage crisis. Panic seized the team as they worked tirelessly to negotiate her release, each passing moment increasing the weight of the unknown.

Amidst the chaos, Spencer Reid, the normally composed genius with an analytical mind, felt a growing unease settle in his chest. He couldn't shake the gut feeling that something was horribly wrong. Y/n's safety had become a priority that eclipsed the intensity of the ongoing case. His mind, usually a fortress of logic, was now a battlefield of anxious thoughts.

A sudden shift in perspective occurred as Spencer watched the events unfold. The atmosphere in the BAU headquarters became a blur of tension, each phone call and update a dagger to his heart. As he exchanged glances with his team, the gravity of the situation dawned on him, and a sense of helplessness crept into his soul.

In that moment, Spencer's world shifted. The woman he'd grown close to, shared laughter and profound conversations with, was in imminent danger. A sharp pain gripped his chest as the possibility of losing Y/n became an agonizing reality. He found himself standing on the precipice of a profound realization – his feelings for Y/n ran deeper than he had allowed himself to acknowledge.

The ticking clock echoed the beats of Spencer's racing heart as he desperately sought updates on Y/n's condition. The weight of responsibility, both personal and professional, bore down on him. The rationality that usually guided his every move was drowned out by a surge of raw, unfiltered emotion.

Hours passed like an eternity, each minute stretching the bounds of Spencer's patience. He found himself caught between the harsh realities of their profession and the fragile threads of hope that kept him anchored. The world outside the BAU seemed distant and inconsequential as the fate of someone he cared deeply about hung in the balance.

Finally, a breakthrough came. The news of Y/n's rescue brought a wave of relief to the BAU headquarters, but it was short-lived. In the chaotic crossfire, Y/n had sustained injuries that required immediate medical attention. The relief turned to a renewed sense of urgency as the team rallied to support their injured colleague.

At the hospital, Spencer's anxiety reached a crescendo. His usual stoic facade crumbled as he entered Y/n's room, the sight of her battered but alive form rendering him breathless. The hospital room became a space where the façade of logic shattered, revealing a man grappling with the depths of his emotions.

"I was so scared, Y/n," Spencer confessed, his voice a fragile whisper as he took her hand.

Y/n managed a weak smile. "I'm here, Spencer. Thanks to you and the team."

The vulnerability in that moment broke down the barriers they had carefully built around their feelings. Spencer couldn't hold back any longer.

"I can't imagine my life without you," he confessed, his eyes filled with a mix of relief and newfound courage.

Y/n's gaze met his, mirroring the same sentiment. "Spencer, I've felt the same way. I just never knew how to say it."

In the quiet of the hospital room, surrounded by the echoes of a life-altering ordeal, Spencer and Y/n acknowledged their feelings for each other. It was a raw, honest exchange that transcended the confines of the BAU and the dangers they faced daily.

As Y/n recovered, they made a promise to each other – to embrace the connection that had been forged in the crucible of danger and uncertainty. The team, understanding the gravity of the situation, gave them space to explore this newfound chapter in their relationship.

Days turned into nights as Y/n healed, and the hospital room became a cocoon where Spencer and Y/n could be vulnerable without the shadows of their profession looming over them. They shared stories, laughter, and, in the quiet moments, lingering glances that spoke volumes.

Finally, as Y/n was cleared to leave the hospital, Spencer took her hand, his eyes reflecting a depth of emotion that words could not capture.

"Let's go on that date we've been putting off," he suggested, a genuine smile playing on his lips.

Y/n nodded, squeezing his hand. "I'd like that, Spencer. It's about time we embraced the life we've been given."

And so, against the backdrop of a tumultuous case, Spencer Reid and Y/n emerged stronger, their connection deepened by the trials they faced. As they stepped into the world outside the hospital, hand in hand, they carried with them the promise of a future filled with love, understanding, and the unwavering support of a team that had become more than just colleagues – they were a family bound by the threads of shared challenges and enduring bonds.

Their journey continued, a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of adversity. Spencer and Y/n's connection, once threatened by the shadows of danger, had emerged from the crucible stronger than ever, a beacon of hope in the vast expanse of uncertainty that defined their lives.

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#spencer reid x reader #mgg x reader #matthew gray gubler x reader #matthew gray gubler #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds #spencer reid

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masterjedilenawrites · 1 year

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Hi! Are you still doing these Star Wars Dates? I'm very curious, it sounds like a ton of fun, but no worries if you're not!

My MB is apparently INFP-T, the "Mediator."

I consider myself to be a romantic, artistic type. I write, draw, 3D model stuff for games, and occasionally make spacey-ambient meditative music. I'm basically always making or doing something. I'm an unconventional, analytical thinker with a strong personal emphasis on empathy and understanding. I am considered a good listener.

In SW terms, I'm particularly drawn to the idea of understanding the Force more holistically; seeing it less as of a binary division between dark and light, and more about finding peace through compassion and understanding of ourselves as whole beings. Our darkness provides depth and definition to our light. If we don't open ourselves to understanding how to deal with that, we'll stand no chance against it when it challenges us.

Or something.

Looking for that one special fella for spaceflix n chill, to have a proper goof about with, travel with, maybe achieve enlightenment together, let's see how it goes? ??¿

Yep, still setting strangers on the internet up on pretend dates with fictional characters 😄 Your request is an interesting one, but I think I have just the person for you...

Your date is...

✨Mace Windu!✨

Balance in the Force and philosophical enlightenment? Say no more! Mace is your guy. He has made a name for himself by studying all aspects of the Force and balancing on the thin line between dark and light in order to perfect Form VII. He would love to discuss the topic further with you, listening to your questions, sharing his thoughts, and never once crossing the line into debate or hostility. He knows that meeting others with different opinions helps him grow individually, and finding similar opinions with others helps them grow together.

Outside of the deep discussions, Mace is also mindful this is a date and wants to treat you well on it. He'll cover the tab, give you his jacket/cloak, hold your hand down the stairs, and many other small, attentive gestures. His way of showing he cares is by looking out for you.

He'll be open to another date if you asked. He would be down for either traveling or chilling, he's comfortable in both settings. Whenever you're apart, he would listen to any music you recommend, and he'd also like if you showed him your art, too. It'd him see so much more of the real you - a person who is so alluring and makes him feel so comfortable, so hopeful. He hopes you see him the same way.

✨

Want to be set up on a blind date with a Star Wars character?

#star wars #blind date #match game #blog-versary celebration #i hope you enjoyed your date!#the clone wars #jedi #mace windu

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st0rmyskies · 2 years

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Hi Stormy!

I want to preface this with how much I love and enjoy all your work. Seriously I love your words so much I could eat them for breakfast lunch and dinner!

but one of your recent asks kind of made me uncomfortable. It was the one where you and witchy anon were talking about FourTime and you said "Four would be SUCH a challenge for Time. He's got a hard facade to crack, and Time is going to have to pull out all the stops to get Four to bend"

I know you didn't mean anything bad by it! But it kind of weirded me out. Saying someone would have to "pull out all the stops" to get an asexual character "to bend" is just a little too close to the age old acephobic anthem of "If you just got some good dick, then you'd enjoy sex."

Refering to Four's sexual indifference as a "facade", as if his disinterest was just a cover and not his orientation, is also kind of not good. You might have been refering to his general demeanor ( you probably were) but in the context of the ask it didn't sound that way. And calling an ace character a "challenge" in the bedroom gave me bad vibes.

Honestly, and I'm really really hesitant to say this because I don't want to dictate what you write but, having your only ace character sleep with the house bicycle feels a little bit like ace-erasure: where Four is ace except for this one time where he isn’t.

I know you said Four is sex-neutral but I can't think of a single good reason they would ever get together. With Shadow it at least makes a little sense since they're in a QPR and Four might do it to make Shadow happy. But I don't see that ringing true for Time. And I can't see Four approaching Time either, since you already said he doesn't understand sexual appeal in the first place. IDK maybe I;m too sensitive sorry

Now you obviously didn't mean for this to come off this way! It might even be me reading too much into it! But sometimes your portryal of your aroace character squicks me out a bit. Sorry if this makes you upset! I really don't mean to offend or attack you! I just really love your work and wanted to let you know.

Sincerely, an aroace who really respects you and your creative liberty and who would devour a TimeFour story if it took place in the omega verse or the poly verse or any series that didn't have Four as an aroace

I tend to forget that not everyone is on the server with us having these LMTCOY discussions, so there’s some background information here that you’re not privy to. Under the cut for length.

Four is an inquisitive person by nature. I can only imagine that at some point, he’s going to become curious enough or fed-up enough or what have you about what the fuck is up with all his weirdo allo roommates. On the server, we were theorizing over whether that curiosity would end up with him darkening Time’s door at some point.

Before I answered Witchy anon's ask, I caught myself and cleaned up some problematic language in the initial draft, but clearly I didn’t think critically enough. I’m terminally allo, so I miss these things sometimes, not out of maliciousness but just because it's outside of my sphere of understanding. I am trying to be better, but I'm not perfect. What would be a fun “challenge” for Time would be to see if he can break Four’s facade of academic curiosity surrounding the act. He’d probably have to pull out all the stops - from the extremes of being gentle and complimentary to stern and harsh - to find something that Four seems to enjoy, if he even can find something. To try and make Four “bend” from his analytical approach and relax into the situation, enjoying it for what it is, would be fascinating to explore. But at the end of the day, no matter what they get up to and how much he does or doesn't enjoy it, Four would still be ace.

I was also considering it a fun challenge for me as a writer. I’ve never written an ace character in-depth before and I was considering how fascinating that perspective would be to explore. However, there’s always a risk that I’m not going to portray a given character or situation or scenario to someone’s liking, especially when the identity of the character is not my own. If I'm too worried about getting things "right" or "wrong," it's not going to be very fun for me to write at all, so maybe I just shouldn't.

Finally, if I’m putting out content that squicks you out, you should go elsewhere, full-stop. I don’t pretend to be perfect, nor do I aim to be. You should always seek out the content that aligns better with your needs and preferences.

#stormy asks #lmtcoy #hsh four

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mochi-marie · 3 years

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Hello, How are you? Hope your doing well!

If it isn't too much, Can I request headcanons of how Oikawa, Osamu, Suna, and Tsukishima will react when someone hits on them when their s/o isn't around?

Thank you, Have a great day and Take care!! ��

˗ˏˋ 𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐊𝐘𝐔𝐔 𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐒 + ��𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐈𝐓 𝐎𝐍 ˎˊ˗

author’s note :: this was such a good idea, tysm for the request! 🤩💛 this was kinda fun to write ngl! didn’t have much to say for suna and tsukishima, so their’s are a teensy bit shorter.. !

perspective :: here

characters :: oikawa toru, miya osamu, suna rintaro, tsukishima kei

⊰ 𝗢𝗜𝗞𝗔𝗪𝗔 𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗨 ⊱

♡ … because of oikawa's many fangirls, it isn't a strange occurence for the pretty captain to be hit on or complimented throughout his week.

♡ … honestly, it has happened in front of you before, where a fan would shyly walk over and gently shove a card or some sort of gift to you both before running off. sometimes they will just straight up walk over and start complimenting him as well.

♡ … when you're not around though, i feel like he may chuckle nervously and scratch the nape of his neck in the effortlessly charming way that he does.

♡ … "that's very sweet of you! but, i'm in a relationship!" is what he'll say in that sweet voice of his. his fans would either respect it or interrogate him.

♡ … but it doesn't matter -- in fact, it gives him a chance to talk about his lovely s/o more!

♡ … the more they question him, the more they see the adoration grow in his eyes the more he talks in depth about you and your relationship together -- hell, he'll even start to brag a bit!

♡ … when he find you again? oh ho, you best believe that a cheeky smirk will replace the soft smile that greets all of his fans. all you really need to see at this point is his hands clasped behind his back, foot swinging with the smug look on his face.

♡ … "(name)!~" he sighs in a sing-song voice. "guess what happened today?" with a playful grin tugging on his lips, he runs a hand through his utterly soft hair before continuing : "your super-talented, handsome boyfriend got hit on!"

♡ … "but don't worry," he says, wrapping his arms around your hips and pulling you to his chest loosely, looking down to you through his fluffy hair that flopped into his view.

♡ … "I'd never leave my (name), never in a million years!"

⊰ 𝗠𝗜𝗬𝗔 𝗢𝗦𝗔𝗠𝗨 ⊱

♡ … osamu, while cool and collected on the outside, gets a bit shy and bashful when confronted with someone so forward like that, glancing away awkwardly.

♡ … i feel like he's just so used to atsumu getting all of that kind of attention, that he dosen't consider the fact that hey, other people might find him utterly attractive as well!

♡ … so, getting a rather bold compliment in passing, he might go silent with an awkward blush rising, ears burning a pink color.

♡ … "uh, uhm, e-erm, yeah-" will kind of just stumble around until he finds the correct words to respond -- but by then the mysterious flirt has already walked on.

♡ … i feel like he just wouldn't say anything about it unless it came up in conversation? something about osamu just strikes me as the type of person to not mention a whole lot of things that happens with him unless someone asks about his day, or if he knows its something that needs to be discussed.

♡ … so knowing osamu, atsumu would probably find out one way or another, and then mention it.

♡ … "you got hit on?" "w-well i, ya see, er-"

♡ … osamu may not show it, but he gets a little nervous at the questioning look on your face after atsumu's mouth just had to blurt out the little tid-bit of information.

♡ … honestly, it's adorable to watch his ears grow more red with every passing second as he tries to explain what happened, though an involuntary smile grows on his face as he watches an identical one grow on yours.

♡ … now, whenever you compliment him, you just say "are my compliments better than their's?" teasingly, and his ears burn but a grin washes over his face as he presses a kiss to your forehead -- "always."

⊰ 𝗦𝗨𝗡𝗔 𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗔𝗥𝗢 ⊱

♡ … would not expect it, and probably wouldn't care all too much. he seems very analytical, chill, and laid-back, so it wouldn't surprise me if he kind of just.. shrugged it off?

♡ … nods to the person respectively before wandering off to continue whatever it was he was doing before they had interrupted his train of thought.

♡ … you would probably never knew it happened until weeks later, when suna was having a conversation with someone -- perhaps atsumu ( he seems to be a bit of a chatter-box when it comes to gossip ).

♡ … at the confusion on your face, he'll probably just shrug before looking back down to his phone; "yeah, some person just kinda said some things to me i suppose,"

♡ … he looks back up to you from the corner of his eyes, shrugging again, "honestly? i wasn't really paying attention."

♡ … suna doesn't see it as a big deal, especially since he truly didn't care what they had to say about him, or what they thought. the only opinion that matters to him is his own, and yours.

⊰ 𝗧𝗦𝗨𝗞𝗜𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗠𝗔 𝗞𝗘𝗜 ⊱

♡ … if someone were to ever casually hit on him when you were not around, i also believe that he wouldn't really care all too much on what they had to say.

♡ … i mean, he'll be polite about it -- nodding his head with the thank you, maybe if he's caught in a good mood he'll give a small little half-forced smile that will either be painfully obvious or be so obvious that they believe it's a genuine smile -- but it doesn't matter all too much to him.

♡ … if you ask about his day, that will be in his little run down of things that had happened to him, otherwise, you could go weeks or months without ever hearing about this.

♡ … he probably wouldn't tell anyone else, so the only people that could possibly know would only be you or yamaguchi, unless others were around to witness it.

♡ … it may give him a little confidence boost, but other than that, he'd rather be showered in your praise rather than some flirt's off-hand compliment based on his appearance or assumptions about his personality.

♡ … if you were to get jealous, he would just sigh and after enough time or talk about it, he'll pat your head and place a small kiss to your hair, rolling his eyes with a simple; "meant nothing, doesn't matter now," or something along those lines as a little reassurance.

#👒 — posts #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu!! headcanons #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyuu x y/n #haikyuu x you #miya osamu #tsukishima kei #suna rintarō #oikawa toruu #oikawa x reader #tsukishima x reader #osamu x reader #suna x reader

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hysteriamodes · 3 years

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Alucard thoughts (spoilers for Castlevania S4)

So to preface, I have a sinking suspicion that Alucard was a very solitary little boy and that perhaps his parents kept him close and were very over-protective of him. To me, that would make sense if that were the case; a dhamphir/vampire hybrid would be a rare occurrence in this world and we do have unofficial confirmation of that when Carmilla brought up the fact that Dracula never turned Lisa and they had a son together.

I’m sure not even Dracula would know what they were getting into having Alucard and then Dracula had to teach his son how to hone in on his vampiric side to keep it stable. So, it’s not to say Alucard doesn’t have people skills, he clearly does. I’m only mentioning this because--

-- I’ve seen others make a comment how Taka and Sumi’s betrayal didn’t make much of an impact on Alucard’s development. And I strongly disagree -- it did.

Alucard does take after his father quite a bit.

- He’s analytical and meticulous, very thoughtful in what he does, like his father. - I’ve noticed that Alucard’s candor when he talks he’s exceptionally soft-spoken like him as well. But he’s not above swearing or making smarry comments. - He is also very dangerous like his father but that’s not a character trait. We’ve seen if he’s hurt enough, he’ll turn to what he knows scared people away (i.e. impaled corpses) but that also shows that, at one point, Dracula had to have discussed his human life with his son and what profound affect that had on him. No one’s going to know how that panned out, but this is in reference to “Lament of Innocence”. - Obviously Alucard is very intelligent, like his father, he’s very educated, so he has a passion to learn like his father. He even makes the comment to Sypha and Trevor how much his father enjoyed learning and lamented how much of a waste it was to see his father turn the way he did instead of using his knowledge to help people. But over all, I’d say Alucard strongly takes after his mother more than his father. He is another facet in Dracula’s long life to remind him of Lisa’s humanity, possibly to the point when his son tried to reason with him that he was so disgusted and hurt that he injured his son. Alucard has a strong sense of compassion and sympathy for others, so much like his mother, and he clearly tends to follow more in her footsteps than his father.

So, not only did he act out of loneliness when Taka and Sumi asked for his help, he was taking after his mother in doing so. The games go the same direction, Alucard does what he does because of his mother and how much of weight she has on him. But this is going back to how Alucard was brought up, that he was sheltered, in some sense, his parents very protective of him, so I think a lot of naiveté was involved when he crossed Taka and Sumi. They spoke to not only that depression and loneliness, but they also spoke to how his mother was a constant reminder of good in the world.

He did want company, but he also wanted to continue his mother’s good will and helping others. So, he didn’t understand the implications of their desperation and didn’t see their betrayal coming. In my opinion, not only did these two exploit that, but they also coerced him into sex. I though that not only Hector’s sexual intimacy with Lenore was uncomfortable, but I thought Alucard’s was especially so, like his heart wasn’t in it. It’s not to say that it was dubious consent, but they used it as means to break him down and killed them.

So, when they betrayed them, he is so devastated, he goes back to where his father died and curls up to the remainder of his father, because you know at one point, Dracula was always emphasizing caution, vigilance, and that not everyone can be trusted, the opposite of what his mother taught him. He went to the closest source to what he knew best as means of strength and how to handle with being betrayed. His mother likely never experienced as much betrayal and cruelty as much as his father did. And, well, he doesn’t have physical connections to his mother’s remains.

We see Alucard shift further into his depression as season 4 comes up. You see a few more bodies outside of the castle but I highly doubt that Alucard did this to random people without provocation. But more importantly, he just looks absolutely disheveled.

He’s unkempt, filthy, and looks worse for wear. We know he has guilt in doing what he’s done but also the affects of Taka and Sumi’s betrayal made him feel so awful that he let himself go to a complete, literal mess. Before then, Alucard was a clean, well-kempt man. Alucard stopped taking care of himself because what was the point if they were seeing him as someone to be used (not feared, even) for his knowledge and home. The bodies outside were used to ward people away, but even Dracula managed to stay clean and well-kempt, not like his son.

I think this touches the depths of Alucard’s shatter of self-confidence and how lowly he thought of himself after being used by Taki and Sumi. He would have shoved himself further into that pit, but the note and the man that died along the way was a nudge into the right direction. It spoke to his good nature and gave him purpose once more. Innocent people that were 20 miles away that desperately need his help.

Not like people approaching him in the one place he felt secure, a metaphorical invasion of his personal space. Again.

So it makes sense that he felt more secure going out to assist people and once how he saw families being tormented after losing his family, he couldn’t sulk in the castle. He wouldn’t sulk in the castle, because that’s not him. He’s not his father, he can’t do what he did, because ultimately, he’s more like his mother and his mother’s virtues are stronger in him. He is the literal antithesis of his father, he is his mother’s son.

I feel that Alucard always wanted an interaction with the outside world and he certainly had that with the refugees he helped. He played with the children, he happily gave them food, and he was doing what his mother did and you know that’s what he wanted to do in the end: Do what his mother did and used his father’s knowledge for good, like she did. I feel like in the end, Alucard’s quiet inner grief from season one where he shut down from the world (not only just to heal his wounds) after his mother’s awful death, he was coaxed to open up and find a sense of community and love that he wouldn’t have had and had to limited degree after his mother’s death.

He didn’t see himself worthy of it, not only on the account of his father’s blood, but what he did in reaction to being betrayed. I’m not going to say Alucard’s reaction was completely awful: what Taka and Sumi did was wrong and it hurt him more than he let on and more than what’s seen on a surface level. But not only that, Sypha and Trevor had such an impact on him as well, reminding him of his mother’s good deeds that was easy for him to feel comfortable in his skin again, or perhaps, the most he’s ever felt comfortable as his own person ever did.

From a man that was so deeply traumatized, hurt, alone, and exploited from the very first episode (you know Dracula would have used his son as a tool in his revenge if Taka and Sumi didn’t use him) to a man that’s finally found purpose and it’s the best way he can coumarate not only his father, but especially his mother.

And maybe that’s why he looks “weirdly happy”, the poor man has been limited so much in his life. So in retrospect, his development makes sense. He didn’t necessarily transform -- he found himself again and he found an even better part of himself he never knew he had. People like him for what he is: witty, compassionate, intelligent, and sympathetic.

#alucard #castlevania

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kurtstinypurse · 3 years

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what do you think of s2 blaine? just curious because i’m not the biggest fan of how he acted in season 2 but everyone seems to adore him in s2 (there are people who ONLY like him in s2) and i wanted to hear your thoughts on him! also, since were here, what is your favorite season for blaine?

hey, great q!

blaine’s characterization/character development is a strange beast to me because he wasn’t originally intended to be a regular character or have such a prominent role. it was strange having his personality and backstory retroactively applied to him - he was made to be a dependent character who wouldn’t have existed without kurt, and in a lot of ways, even though he takes the spotlight a lot in later seasons, he never quite shakes that.

I think we can all agree that blaine becomes a lot different than we might’ve expected of him in season 2, which I think starts with him being established as a grade younger than kurt in early season 3. that just seems so...surprising because in a lot of ways, he presents himself as this mature, wise mentor figure, and now suddenly he’s almost knocked down a peg.

of course, you can headcanon this as a mask he wears to protect himself and fit in at dalton, but obviously that wasn’t intended. I think throwing blaine into season 2 was instrumental for the show’s long term impact and success - kurt & blaine’s relationship was so, so groundbreaking a decade ago. he represents this safe haven that kurt needed and deserved so desperately.

but I think as time goes on, we learn his eccentricities and flaws and oddities nearly alongside kurt, and it’s like we follow kurt on this mental journey of taking an intense crush on someone who you barely know, who is on a pedestal and flawless in your mind, to learning who they are as a real and flawed human being and coming to love them anyways. kurt’s crush in s2 is moony-eyed and sweet and teenager-y, but it becomes something deeper as blaine becomes more of a character and their relationship becomes more real, especially in s3.

I guess that’s where the breaking point is - whether you also come to love who blaine eventually fleshes out to be, or if you don’t. I think it would have been so, so different if blaine were intended to be a permanent character and had come with more of a backstory outside of kurt, but of course it was darren & the blow-up popularity of teenage dream that got him a main role in the end. there are still so, so many blanks to fill in about him that were never addressed, things about him that don’t quite add up unless you think about it really hard, and aspects that had so much more potential than they were given.

all that being said, I do love blaine very much. but it’s so hard for me to pick a favorite season of him as an individual character outside of klaine’s relationship. in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about it before. the bulk of his individuality is in season 4 & 5, but it’s still so heavily anchored to his cheating and to trying to rebuild his relationship with kurt - which often frustrated me in s5 because of their lack of communication and genuine understanding/willingness to grow longterm.

overall though, I think my favorite season for blaine is season 3 - we finally start getting to see him as a more multifaceted character, and his relationship with kurt has a good balance between realistic conflict for a teenage relationship (their first time, jealousy, preparing for college) and sweet happiness, which gives them depth beyond a fleeting high school love. it’s fun seeing him interact with everyone at mckinley, and I think he earns his spot as a mainstay but isn’t used as a puppet (no pun intended, ha ha) for conflict later on like he is in s4-5.

this is a huuuuuge ramble, but blaine totally scratches the itch in my analytical brain in the best way. if anybody has anything to add/discuss, let me know!

#blaine anderson #klaine #kurt hummel #glee #blaine meta #klaine meta #my analysis #glee meta #dalton blaine #mckinley blaine

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mudkept · 3 years

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Ok so like I was hesitant about writing in-depth Arturo meta because if you're not familiar, his shtick is that he's got an SCP style memory-fuck effect that means he's impossible to document, etc. In Teddy Duende's words, "There are many things we don't know about this world, and one of them is Arturo Huerta." I say this bc I personally find it fucking hilarious and fitting that there is so very little fan talk about him which is partly on purpose but also because he's very easy to forget despite being on the Garages since S1.

THAT BEING SAID, I miss the OG (cerca s3-4, before the big theseus' ship situation w the feedback) Garages and sometimes I get emo about people that don't exist so here's some thoughts about him anyways. It's going to be so so fucking long sorry I hate making posts 💕 /j

CW for blaseball-typical angst and discussion of death

Okay so obviously, Arturo Huerta as a character concept is genuinely very very funny and VERY blaseball. But y'know what else is very blaseball?? Getting sad and stupidly analytical about funny absurdist humor (I say this with so much fucking love like yeah me too </3). Like, being a killjoy and thinking about what it would really mean for no one to know anything about you the moment you leave their sight, that shit's horrifically sad, but it could also be More.

Here's some thoughts, all of them from my funny little brain aka pure headcanon

1. Arturo Huerta, and this weird relationship he has with death in blaseball. Getting into like sub-meta and I do not want to make this even longer than it already is but essentially the only way most people really really "die/unbecome" is through being forgotten. Arturo Huerta was never afraid of incineration, because in blaseball? If you're forgotten, you've already got one foot in the grave.

2. Arturo Huerta, and this weird relationship he has with his team. Of course he loves them, and they do love him (in return, per se? It's hard to parse that). But his team loves him as much as they reasonably can, given that to them, Arturo Huerta is just a name that's been on the roster for a while. On his part, it's hard to build a really strong attachment with anyone that's, y'know, going to forget everything they know about you the moment you leave their sight.

3. Arturo Huerta, and this weird relationship he has with guilt. It fucking sucks that he's never going to fully understand how other people perceive him, or don't. Would they remember conversations with him if they tried? Would they remember more than his name if he himself tried harder to...what, BE more of himself? Exist so hard that it would be impossible to undefine him? For all Arturo knows, they could be under the impression he's just not a people person. So there's always that little doubt that if he reached out more, played better, practiced harder, someone would grasp him. How can he be so much of himself that he's unforgettable? So real they can love him without it being granted? To earn something like affection entirely his?

4. Arturo Huerta and the weird relationship he has with Derrick Krueger and Jaylen Hotdogfingers specifically. Might let the Jaylen part be it's own post lol. There's something about them that can't help but feel personal. Derrick— unremarkable. He wasn't remembered, simply because he wasn't a very good player, and not much outside of that. That's, as horrible as it sounds, a wasted opportunity, right? It's worth something to just have a chance to be seen on the field, and be someone NOTABLE even if it isn't for your skills (citation: mike townsend). Maybe Arturo feels almost jealous; maybe he could accept being forgotten for something as simple as being an unremarkable player.

And then, Jaylen... Twice-dead, and quite literally dragged out of the Trench by her popularity, she was never meant to be forgotten. The moment she became a casualty of the game, the entire goddamn garage was named after her. But she played the fame perfectly, even when she was hated she was never insignificant, even when she was powerless she was never inconsequential. But, he admits, Arturo doesn't want to be famous. Not really. Jaylen's story, Mike's story, hangs over his head as a reminder that you'll lose yourself in fame as well. He would like to be mediocre. Maybe even above average, just part of the team, pretty damn good at pitching.

5. Arturo Huerta, and You.

So, remember his Weird Relationship to the team? It's weird because it's almost one-sided. One-sided in a very familiar way, if you've ever been yknow, emotionally invested in a fictional character. Canonically speaking, blaseball players have to be SOMEWHAT aware of the fans that vote and idolize and fill their stands, aka, us, but it's definitely not a mutual level of Knowing. That's the situation between the rest of the league and Arturo Huerta. He knows his teammates' answers to conversations they don't remember having, and their habits and messy breakups and their senses of humor. They knew his, at one point, before forgetting.

Arturo Huerta is in a unique position as a Blaseball Character, because he's so stuck in the in-betweens. One foot in the grave, so to speak. Halfway between spectator and player. Halfway between no one and someone.

Ok! So essentially I went crazy over Arturo Huerta because while characters are not people, he is a person character (?) and I'm giving him a desire to be known. Again, it's fun not doing unnecessary deep dives into player shticks but also my favorite cognitohazard deserves some love.

#the last part does not get into vague realm of possibility that is Arturo Huerta Could Be Writing The Blaseball Wiki if you want an idea of #how fucking batshit this post escalates lol #GAASRHRRHRH THIS POSTED AS I WAS READING IT OVER FOR EDITS I HATE TUMBLR BUTTONS #WGATEVER FINR GRRR #blaseball #arturo huerta #seattle garages #meta #ask to tag!#up next is who is fucking mcdowell karim and why am i obsessed with them as an arturo foil

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gayregis · 3 years

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boppinrobin replied to your post: “Question. Part 1. Hi. I like your blog and your analytical analysis of books,”

aauuuughhh tysm for ur analysis as always

thank you for reading and liking it!!

arinasassymessi replied to your post: “Question. Part 1. Hi. I like your blog and your analytical analysis of books,”

Thank you again for your response! I wrote anonymously because I was a little embarrassed by my English, but to be honest, I've been reading your blog for a very long time, and I've always wanted to discuss some topics with you. Thank you, I feel more confident now. First of all, I apologize for the fact that I considered this scene pro-life.

The thing is, I've reread the witcher books countless times (mostly because of Regis, lol). And if in the first times I was so fascinated by the plot and characters that I did not notice any obvious sexist/homophobic moments, then after rereading the books more consciously, I caught very unpleasantly, conservative motives, which Sapkowski is not shy about.

I remember that the first time this scene, even though it caused a bit of misunderstanding, still touched me with its warmth and how Geralt emotionally supported Milva, helping her make a rather difficult decision. And the way Regis was pleased with his actions, smiling at him, awww.

But after studying the books in more detail and the messages that Sapkowski puts in them, it seems to me that I began to see a catch everywhere. At first, I was also delighted to learn about Ciri's relationship with Mistle, wow, progressive author, LGBTQ+ representation! But after seeing this relationship "live," I felt cheated, and since then, I have returned to this scene with Milva.

I thought, oh no, isn't everything here the same as I believed? Most of all, I was afraid of Regis because he is my comfort character, the voice of reason, and a progressive medic. Does Sapkowski put pro-life ideas in his mouth?.. After a couple of discussions with friends, this fear only took root.

However, after reading your in-depth analytical analysis, I agreed with it, looking at the facts in a new way, and was glad that my first guesses and feelings from this scene were close to the truth. Now I can rest in peace, lol.

About "medicament/medicine" and "agent." I have read books in Russian, and now I am rereading "Baptism of Fire" in English to practice. I think the difference between the words "medicament" and "agent" in English is somewhat unclear, and it is impossible to say precisely which of them has a negative connotation.

Both of them sound entirely neutral and normal to me, but again, I'm not a native speaker, correct me if I'm wrong. In Russian, instead of the word "agent," we have the word "snadobye" (the closest translation is 'potion,’ and in Polish, it is 'ziola’). And while "medicament" means only medicine, a remedy, the word "snadobye" can also mean medicine, but has more folk properties (?).

It is brewed from herbs and a synonym to a potion/drug — a poisonous, magical, and forbidden drink, usually attributed to witches and wizards. For me, Geralt's refusal to use the word "medicament" — neutral and scientific-medical — in favor of a word that has a more magical/negative connotation seemed rather strange. But again, this is just my guess.

I consider the Russian translation closer to the Polish one because it belongs to the same language group, but I don't have access to the original to check what words were used there. In any case, I think that since Geralt decided to use one instead of the other, they should differ in some way, but it is not known in favor of which word this works. I also like your version.

I also had a lot of questions about Milva and her actions. She's probably my second favorite character after Regis, and I didn't understand her actions until a certain point. She was not satisfied with a woman's position in her society, so instead of the usual role, she decided to participate in Geralt's journey?

I was also not very clear about their conversation and Geralt's conclusion: "someone else's child for your own, life for life." Why? After all, she could stay in Brokilon and give birth, but if she didn't want a child, she could have an abortion (for example, she rather cruelly compared her child to young wasps that eat caterpillar alive).

Recently, the Russian Witcher community posted a short theory that Milva was in love with Geralt and therefore went after him. Milva's thoughts in Brokilon speak in favor of this — she finds Geralt attractive (although she felt something similar for Cahir when they were waiting for Geralt and Buttercup to be released from prison at night).

*not Buttercup (have no idea what is it), JASKIER

Also, their conversation outside Regis' hut at night, when Milva bitterly remarked that Geralt needed another woman — a scholar, a wise one, a beloved one (Yennefer), desire to get emotional support exactly from Geralt and and insisting on his presence during the miscarriage, her further refusal to marry the baron, and perhaps Sapkowski's sometimes ANNOYING idea that any woman should go crazy in Geralt's company. But again, these are just guesses, and I would be interested to hear your opinion.

I also didn't know that tumblr has a word limit in comments, so my replays look pretty stupid now, lol.

yes!! i also read the books first just for the plot and then went back and later, when my mind was clearer, noticed a lot more of political views in the writing. it’s the fact that a lot of sapkowski’s other takes are shitty (re: feminity, lgbt individuals and relationships), or at least come off as shitty because they are not explicit enough to actually be a progressive opinion, compounded with the fact that the scene with milva is not very clear on exactly what regis is asking geralt, why he is polling them, why geralt is upset, or what they even intend to do. i think also, because the subject is so important and people have very intense opinions about it, it makes you nervous to see it come up in a fictional story, even if the author is promoting a good message - it’s the feeling you described of, “oh no, isn't everything here the same as i believed?”

and yeah, you’re right, in english i’d say medicament and agent both have neutral connotations, “agent” to me sounds more scientific, somehow? like it would be used in an experiment? i think i have usually heard it more in descriptions of products, like “cleansing agent” in relation to something dealing with chemistry... but then again, i am not a scientist, doctor, beautician, etc...

and about milva - agree, i love her too :D!! these are my personal opinions and takes on her character motivations but:

i think her ‘not being satisfied with a [traditional] woman’s role in society’ extends beyond not being satisfied, it’s being disgusted with it - in tower of the swallow, she describes how she as a teenager experienced sexual assault at the hands of her stepfather, and her mother didn’t do anything (assumedly because of the societal roles involved, and you can (unfortunately) see this occur in real life as well, mothers don’t protect their daughters from the men they stay with). milva beats him to death and runs away, and never goes back to that life. additionally, in baptism of fire, she talks about her name - milva, and why she changed it, and she says that her original name, maria, along with a lot of other “feminine-sounding” names beginning with M (this is at least what i got out of it, they sound like sweet names given to peasant girls), get your ass pinched in taverns (this is my best recollection of the quote).

it’s clear that she has not only experienced discomfort, but really just blatant violence at the hands of “traditional feminity/women’s societal roles,” and so she goes to rely on only herself at first, hunting in lower sodden, and then finally being ‘adopted’ (kind of) by brokilon and eithne, becoming affiliated with them and working for them and the scoia’tael. this makes sense to me, because of course brokilon is a matriarchy, and the elves are mentioned to raise (and thus, treat) male and female elves the same way.

i won’t rule out that sapkowski intended for milva to have romantic interest in geralt, but i think that even if he did, it wasn’t interesting and i disagree with that direction for her character. my takes continued are that:

re: "someone else's child for your own, a life for life." in this conversation, she talks to geralt about the differences between “milva” and “maria,” her two identities that seem to be at ends with each other. she didn’t want to stay in brokilon to have the child, because by societal means, she is no longer a “woman” in the traditional sense - she’s milva, not maria - she kills, she laughs as she pulls out the arrowheads from corpses, etc., like her chosen name, ‘milva,’ she is a red kite, a bird of prey.

she doesn’t fit the societal expectations of a woman, and was never trained in being a mother (she ran away from home as a teenager, she hasn’t done ‘traditional woman things’ like keep house and cook, raise and deal with children, weave (?) and work in a house since she was 16, and she is older than that now (i’d say she’s at least past her early 20s, because she is described as a “young woman” compared to angouleme’s “very young woman” in lady of the lake, and angouleme is approx. 18-19). but since she doesn’t fit these expectations, how can she expect herself to raise this child? thus, she likely wanted to drop the baby, but since she was raised in a conservative rural society in which women are expected to bear children and not have abortions, she may have felt guilt and shame for wanting to do so. thus, she wanted to follow geralt - although she would have intentionally lost her child, she would have intentionally saved another, absolving her of her guilt. it’s like as regis described to geralt in the middle of the book, about penance and running up debts, this is a large theme of the book - a baptism of fire, fire which not only purifies, but burns (a challenge which absolves one of guilt, but it is painful).

these are just my takes, i think sapkowski’s intentions were more along the theory that milva had a crush on geralt, but as i said i think that’s just boring and the “easy way out.” he also did that with cahir and ciri, making heterosexual love the motivation for a noble deed, and it’s just like... these characters have so much other depth and serious individual issues, and you want to reduce their motivations to just simply “they were in love”? okay... so yeah i don’t think sapkowski really may have intended any of the above, or if he did, it was to a lesser degree, but this is my interpretation of it.

#arinasassymessi #replies

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archieimagines · 5 years

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Five Hargreeves being in love with you would include:

requested by: anon. i think i got a little carried away with this - he’s one of my favouritest characters ever. thanks for the request <3 warnings: this may seem a little... well, you know. but i promise, there’s nothing inappropriate here! besides, he is an old man.

At first, it’d be very uncomfortable to be around him at all. He’s like thirteen but speaks with a certain maturity that’s just very… odd. What kind of thirteen year old can have in-depth discussions about the Vietnam war and nineteen-forties politics as if he were there?

But then the Hargreeves would take you aside and explain that although he’s thirteen, and although he was born on the same day as the rest of them, he’s actually fifty-eight. Again, it’s odd and a bit scary at first, but when you think about it, it’s entirely logical.

You’d build a quick friendship when you finally understand him, and it’d catch fire quickly. You’d love to hear all his stories, his thoughts and terrifying knowledge of the apocalypse. But coming from an animated young man who had the patience of a grouchy old fogey, it was hilarious.

He’d get annoyed at you the first time you start laughing while he’s talking. He’d demand to know why, call you childish, and walk off. The irony would just make you cackle harder.

But soon, he’d begin to see your point. He’d crack a smile when he could see you trying to keep your laughter in, and although he’d get annoyed at your OAP jokes, he’d shake his head and let you have it.

But only you. If anyone else were to try the same, he wouldn’t have it. That’s when he’d know you were different, that he felt some type of way about you.

Soon it would come about that when you’re least expecting it, he’d randomly pop up by your side. Making dinner? You’d have to cook for two, just in case he showed up in the middle of your eating. Gonna take a shower? You gotta leave a note on the fridge, just in case he shows up and can’t find you.

Sometimes you’d get home from work and find a note on your fridge that you didn’t put there. It’d tell you to check the oven - and you’d find that he’d cooked dinner for you.

You’d never know, but he’d charge his siblings with making sure you’re okay when he’s off doing Five-things. You’d find that you’d have lunch dates with Allison more than before, and more than once you’d wake up in the night because of a fistfight outside your house. You’d lean out the window and tell Diego to go home.

Klaus would tease the both of you - it would rub Five the wrong way when he calls out “cradle-robber”, knowing fully it could apply to the both of you. You’d think it hilarious, which is just lucky because otherwise Five would grill Klaus for days.

You’d find yourself fitting into the dysfunctional family rather nicely, and you’re actually appreciated there - perhaps you’re a glint of that normality that they all miss out on. Perhaps its also because they’re glad someone can understand Five, and help him adapt to his weird situation.

Eventually, he’d have no choice but to tell you how he feels, lest he wants to suffocate in his feelings. He’d have tried to keep them in, not wanting to make you feel uncomfortable or -god forbid- chase you away. But when he crashes your dinner and finds that you have a guy over for dinner (a guy your own age, dammit), his temperament would sour so quickly. He’d ask questions he didn’t want to know the answer to, and you’d be able to tell from how cold he was that he wasn’t alright. When he zaps away, you wouldn’t see him for another week. No notes, no random appearances, he’s not even around when you visit the Academy. Nothing.

It’s only when Allison talks to him about how hard he is to be around that he decides he needs to fix it. Well, she blackmails him. “If you don’t do it, I’ll hear a rumour and you’ll do it anyway.” He may or may not have thrown a coffee cup or two in frustration.

So he appears one evening, but this time, he only appears on your front step. He’d have to check from looking into one of the windows that it is where you live, because he’s never actually been stood outside it before - he just zaps right in. So when you answer the door, he’s both relieved and absolutely devastated.

You’d invite him in, very confused, and make him a cup of coffee. He’d drink it all and ask for another one before he even says a word about what’s on his mind.

When he does, it’s blunt. He explains why, and although you find it tremendously cute, he approaches it like a math question. Logical, systematic, trying to keep emotion out of it. But you can tell he’s nervous and upset, that this means a great deal to him. His voice is his typical explaining, analytical voice, but he clutches the coffee cup until his knuckles turn white and he struggles to meet your eye.

Understandably, you’d feel a little uncomfortable with his confession. On one hand he’s thirteen, but on the other he’s fifty-eight. Either way, it’s... uncomfortable.

But, you’d lean across the table, take his coffee cup, and place your hand over his. Clearly he’s suffering, knowing it can’t happen. But that doesn’t mean you have to be cold.

You’d smile at him, and he’d give a blue smile in return. You’d explain to him that it can’t happen, and of course, he’d nod. He knows.

You’d propose waiting for him - when he’s older, maybe you can give it a shot then.

He’d be so salty. “When I’m twenty-five I’ll be seventy, you know.”

You’d laugh at that, and he’d crack a smile at the familiar situation. You’d kiss his forehead before he goes, knowing it’d mean something different to him than it did to you. But what can you do in that situation?

Before long, things would be back to normal. He’d be irritable, though charming, and your best friend, though simultaneously a child and old man. He’d will himself to push through the days, waiting for the day he’s ‘older’, and would spend each of those days reaffirming you that you mean so much to him, dinner in the oven and sweets left on the table with a note. You mean the most.

written by: archie

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kingofthewilderwest · 5 years

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I totally get what you're saying about fandom and canon (or at least I think I do) and that what's really important is a love of the material, and I agree to that respect, but personally, reading the words "canon doesn't matter" kind of rustles my jimmies, because for some people (like me) and in some spaces, canon is extremely important. 1/?

People will find importance in canon for whatever reasons that are individual to them, and I think it’s important to consider that. There are also spaces where discussion of canon IS important, like when it comes to issues of representation. I think you’ve read my post about the phrase “there is no heterosexual explanation for this” and my rebuttal of “not every emotionally intimate relationship between two characters of the same gender is inherently gay” in response to people claiming that 2/

certain same gender pairings are “obviously” “gay for each other”, when there’s nothing in the canon that points to anything beyond an emotionally intimate relationship. One of the people who commented on it made a really good point that while it’s fine to ship something regardless of canon, it’s a different thing entirely to claim that something IS canon when there’s no evidence for it, or evidence that’s up to too much interpretation, because claiming that such a relationship IS canon 3/?

when in fact it’s barely hinted at and interpretable at best, it means that it’s much more difficult to call for better representation, when someone who is against representation can go “see? look at all the people who say [interpretable pairing] is canon. they don’t need anything more explicit!” 4/?

I think that there ARE spaces in fandom where that’s an important discussion to have. So I disagree with you that canon doesn’t matter, because there are places for it, and for individual people, it’s very important. But I agree entirely that there shouldn’t be arguments in fandom about what is or is not canon that basically involves gatekeeping “canon” or being mean to others because of what they think is or is not canon. 5/?

In a perfect world, people would be willing to agree to disagree about what is or is not canon and accept that other people have different opinions of how far canon goes. Unfortunately, that’s not the case, so I definitely agree that it’s bad for people to assert that their view of canon is the “correct” view, and - if I may be so audacious as to assume intent - is really the point you’re trying to make. 6/? (I think?)

I think that not caring about canon has its place in certain fandom contexts, but not all of them. It’s kind of like it’s a different analytical framework, one that’s useful sometimes but not other times. 7/?

And certainly, I think canon has importance in places that exist at the boundaries of fandom, like when canon is considered in historical studies or in literature reviews. Though that’s also getting into discussions of where fandom ends and other disciplines begin, so it’s probably a moot point, and probably depends on someone’s perspective and intent. 9/? (or 8?)

I’m gonna stop myself here from going into literary theory/criticism/whatever about when and where canon matters, but I think I’ve made my point that while I agree with the sentiment of what you’re saying, I disagree with the statement that “canon doesn’t matter” in fandom. Because I think it does, but just not in every context. 10/10 (or whatever number)

From this.

As always, you’ve got a wealth of thoughtful and well-worded discussion here. You’re a brilliant human being, and one of the reasons I love talking to you is because of your deep analytical perspectives. I think another reason I jive with you as a friend is because we tend to hold similar perspectives. It’s fun, because we both entertain creative or emotional discussions extrapolated from source materials, and we both acknowledge what canon objectively contains.

I apologize: I thought I’d been more clear with the context of what I was criticizing regarding fandom’s relationship with canon. I think I also banked on followers knowing I’m a logically centered individual who cares deeply about facts and not just heart. I suppose not, and I’m sorry if I were misleading. My mistake! How you disagree with my phrase “canon doesn’t matter” is not what I was intending to suggest and it’s not the values I have regarding canon. That one sentence wasn’t meant to stand on its own that much. We do in truth consider canon’s importance the same way!

My critique intended to be about the discussion of “What are the canon materials?” rather than “What information is in the canon?” As I read it, your response goes through both, and where you say you disagreed is mostly when you looked at the latter (but I was intentionally honing in only on the former). Maybe it’s a good idea for us to separate these concepts rather than conflate it into a large debate of “what is canon?” from too broad an angle.

My critique was about how fans police others’ engagement for things like Watsonian interpretations, headcanons, speculative meta, and fanfiction writing. If people want to analyze Edward Elric’s personality only from FMAB, or if they want to include minor tie-ins (ex: Prince of the Dawn, Sacred Star of Milos, omake, etc.), either perspective provides interesting analytical angles. They’re both valid ways of handling the character’s personality.

Especially since I experience the “What is canon materials?” conversation with the HTTYD fandom, I tend to see the debate centered on continuity and OOC/IC interactions. Also, at times, how “big” a material is - like video games being “less authoritative” than the films. These conversations are more about how people do or don’t emotionally reject RTTE for their personal headcanon/discussion space. These are people who acknowledge the show’s implications rather than deny RTTE’s existence or the implications of the content. It’s exactly because people engage and examine its contents, that some people might like to talk about Hiccup through RTTE lenses, and others will never entertain such speculations.

(You know this stuff, I’m sure, but I’m spelling it all out to be clear, and for other readers to follow.)

What I’m saying is that in angles like these, what is or is not canon doesn’t matter, because we have the right to recreationally interact with Hiccup through some of the officially licensed materials, or through all of them. We have the right to completely ignore ALL canon and imagine him as something else, too!

That discussion that I focused on is about what people accept as “the most official materials” versus “unofficial materials.” Your focus for the majority of your message looks to me like a nuanced angle on something else - the other “spaces,” “places,” “frameworks” you bring up. That’s about whether or not people acknowledge what’s inside those materials. It’s about whether or not people are able to acknowledge that things happen in official materials, or are able to correctly discern objective versus subjective information within that media. That’s not something I was covering in that conversation because it wasn’t contextually relevant, but yes, you’re absolutely right that these distinctions are important!

The viral post you mentioned is one I’ll never forget from you, because I agree with it 100%. It’s the same frustration I hold, so it was so enthralling to see it put to words. It’s poor thinking for fans to subjectively interpret canon materials and try to push it as The One Truth… when it is not objectively what the source material contains. Feel free to tie things together how you want for funsies, that doesn’t make it what the source ACTUALLY says.

This is why I mentioned, at the start of my discussion, that I get uncomfortable when people dismiss officially licensed materials as “fanfiction” or “not real.” These exist whether we like them to or not. The reason it’s important to distinguish fandom from canon is because canon is what feeds us, and is what provides authority for what the franchise is. Whether or not you like the materials or engage with them for things like headcanoning, they’re there, and you have to be able to acknowledge: these materials exist. The companies gave them to us.

Because a product exists, you can’t say “bye” to the consequences of its existence. You have to know it exists, and what it does/doesn’t contain. It’s poor thinking for individuals to extrapolate materials from canon that were objectively not intended by the creators, but fans still try to push it as “the true story.” What the source material objectively contains cannot be replaced by emotional wants or denials. That’s where things like representation or romance come into play, as you mentioned: it’s (usually) fine to relate to and interpret the characters as you want, so long as you can separate that from the objective reality of the source material. You have to be able to acknowledge what the source material contains.

I want to make it very clear:

There’s an enormous difference between emotionally deciding which canonical materials you engage with for your creative frameworking…

…versus denying the existence of what officially licensed products contain, or insisting that your subjective interpretation is objectively true.

For the former: canon doesn’t matter. That’s my discussion of the previous post. Policing fans by telling them one source is canon and one isn’t… when it’s all licensed materials… is forcing people to engage with canon a certain way. We all have the right to engage with all licensed materials to the depth we want. If I want to accept RTTE and analyze Hiccup from RTTE to GOTNF to THW… let me enjoy that! Don’t tell me to quit analyzing RTTE!Hiccup because it doesn’t feel like he’s IC to you (and ergo, outside of your own mental “canon”). It’s fiiiiine! I can write analyses about RTTE!Hiccup!

For something like the “what is canon materials?” discussion you mentioned as far as academic documentation of a body of works, that is a REALLY interesting discussion, but yeah, as you pointed out, a little outside the boundaries of this current conversation. But I’d love to talk to you sometime about it!!!

For the latter: you better be able to know what the licensed materials actually contain. You shouldn’t deny something exists. Whether or not you call it “canon,” you should be able to acknowledge it’s an official product and not something a fan put on AO3. You should be able to objectively understand what’s in officially released products. If the books have problematic elements, if a show lacks explicit queer representation, if there’s a racial stereotype that’s handled poorly, that’s a truth that you can’t imagine your way out of! You can reinterpret characters for fun in your fandom discussions, but you can’t deny the reality of what the creators produced. Ignoring the truth of these issues, or making your interpretations “reality” you force on others… is dangerous illogical thought that has severe consequences for how you interact with the world and its issues.

As you say, there’s value in all these discussions. We’ve known each other a long time, so I know you know I’m a logic-oriented individual, someone who isn’t going to say “everything is okay!” and let subjectivity fly over objective information in source materials. When I say “canon doesn’t matter,” it’s not about subjectively letting our feelings erase what is objectively presented on screen / on paper. When I say “canon doesn’t matter,” it’s about whether or not someone wants to talk about tie-ins, or only select portions of officially released products. But when I say “canon doesn’t matter,” it is also with the assumption people are smart enough to distinguish subjective interpretation from objective observation, the angle which you brought up with the nuanced discussion we’ve seen. Thanks for speaking with such finesse again on why we can’t lets fans’ desires get in the way of what they call “truth.”

I love to both discuss things from a creative speculative angle and let my imagination wander or reinterpret characters… or discuss materials from a Doylist acknowledgement of how something gets sociologically presented. Hell, I hold such a huge value to official products and canon materials that I engage with almost no fandom content (fanfictions, comics, etc.). So yeah! I also believe that canon is very, very important, and is something to be talked about!

I think it’s important to understand the impacts that official materials have, and I get frustrated when people pretend something DreamWorks or Disney officially sanctioned is “fanfiction.” I think it’s important for fans to discuss back and forth about what they think objectively happened when there’s a lack of clarity. For the romance thing, again, as you said, it’s a good discussion to have of “what is WITHIN canon?” when looking at whether or not it’s obviously queer, or if you’re reading into it.

I also love to create synthesized interpretations for what characters are like and I get frustrated when people try to police me on what I can/can’t include into my canon analyses.

I just have no patience for laypersons who debate “what is canon MATERIAL?” when looking at whether or not a video game should be considered “okay” to synthesize with a movie, and gatekeeping in the sense of what fans can include in our creative engagements. Whether or not X is “as canon” as Y doesn’t matter at the end of the day if you disagree with [insert username here]. It’s your recreation. It’s still a franchise product. Know it exists, know the objective materials, and move on. Do with it as you will and let your friends do with it as they will.

#peachdoxie #long post #it's getting way too late so I'll call this response good enough XD #hope that clarifies #fandom #analysis #my analysis #ask #ask me

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tonightinthewasteland · 5 years

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(Almost) all my Fallout OCs

because I can

Casey Lee Loomis

Location: Appalachia, Vault 76, Forest Region

Age: 35

Casey is outgoing, hyperactive, a social butterfly and sexual liberated little minx. He entered Vault 76 with his parents at the age of 10. (Rumor had it that Casey had his way paid but Casey passed the examinations fairly and properly) However, he never performed exceptionally in the vault career programs and was remained childish in personality in the close-knit village environment. Life was comfortable in the vault and the outside it seemed a million years away. Romantically, he had multiple partners. Bordem, a perpetual need for attention, and raging hormones had him starting his exploration at 15 with the vaults library intern and he experimented from then thereon. He married the head physician, Robert Covington, at 29. They separated at Robert’s request one month before Reclamation Day and left Casey stunned and hurt.

The Vault doors opened in late October, Casey left alone and met Nate Cortez mid-November by sheer accident. Being his first human interaction outside the Vault, Casey sticks to this half-feral man like Wonderglue and regales him with cheerful word vomit day and night. One way or another, they spend the rest of their lives together. They rejoin the Brotherhood in the west and eventually abandon it for a life similar to what they had in Appalachia. Casey leaves behind his two children and their mother.

Canonically, Casey kills Robert early 2103 out of unexplored hurt and rage then conceals the crime in the nearby river.

Senior Scribe Grise

Location: Commonwealth, Prydwen, Citadel

Age: 38 (yikes)

Grise is a cryptic, zealous, and eclectically perverse snake of a man whose sees both his existence and eventual death as plights of a martyr. He is a direct descendant of Casey Lee Loomis but, as with the entirety of his family line, has disowned his name. Grise is the last in a long line of scribes with little over 150 years of generational dedication to the cause. He has no children or spouse.

He’d always been an outspoken fundamentalist and loyal Maxson-line supporter, earning him the chance to join the transport party that escorted the young Maxson to the highly-respected Lyons. At the Citadel, he faded int the background of a well-established hierarchy, slowly making a name for himself by fair means, waiting all the while the day the young Maxson might take control.

His slow descent into madness began after Squire Maxson’s encounter with the Deathclaw. Feeding off the buzz over this seemingly impossible victory, he discreetly shared his views on the dynamic purity of the Maxson line and its necessity for a successful future. Under the cover of back-door think tanks turned sermons and coded radio chatter, the Cult of Maxson grew. Grise did not directly influence any political maneuvers but cultivated a volatile environment.

His views of Arthur Maxson had gone from respected prince to indomitable diety, unable to see Arthur Maxson’s true moral code and regards the Elder’s distaste for him as a test of loyalty and passion.

Anita Stallworth

Location: Appalachia, The Mire, Cranberry Bog, Watoga

Age: 39

Anita is confident, sharp-witted, hard-boiled by necessity, and hungry for control of her future. She was born in Maryland but moved with her family to West Virginia while she was still young. Appalachia was an up and coming area that attracted her family with its scenic landscape and lively political circle. The bombs dropped when she was fourteen and home alone. Her father was away on “business” and her mother was having spa treatments done at Whitesprings. Neither one was heard from again.

While ransacking her mansion, members of the Free States found, took her in and raised her into young adulthood at Harpers Ferry. Despite her dispel of them, she grew to respect their tenacity but hated the isolationist life. She left them for an exhaustive journey to investigate Whitesprings for info about her mother and found the place clean and empty. After that, she spent a decade wandering in and out of Appalachia, mostly sticking to the Mire and Cranberry Bog, assisting the various groups for a quick cap and never committing to any one creed. She worked as a hired gun at Fort Defiance until orders got too expensive for their taste.

Out to find the next bigger and better thing that might give her the edge, She finds her way into the Enclave after Robert(who is supposed to be dead but I can have AUs okay) has already established his position and quickly rises past him in rank to General. She remains in power with Enclave.

Robert Covington

Location: Appalachia, Vault 76, Enclave Bunker, transient

Age: 47

Robert is cold, analytical, immensely reserved about his predilections, and cares more for prestige and security than anything. He entered the vault at 21, not entirely finished with medical school but flash trained at the last minute by VTU for the role of Physician in Vault 76. His parents: Mother being an investment broker and father a steel mogel with a military contract, did not make the cut for entry. Leaving them behind, and their constant pressure for acceptance, was a small relief to Robert.

In the vault, he was private and kept to himself in downtime. Interacting briefly with others only at social events and holidays. An occasional drink and rare sweet were his small pleasures, along with old westerns and jazz music. Casey and he met by way of a routine eye exam with Casey complaining of poor vision. Casey’s impulsive energy, bold speech, and flash-bulb eyes attracted and excited him. Going against his limited morals and instead of recommending Casey’s to another doctor, he forged records to reflect necessary medical treatment to allow for extended private time and constant access to his patient, much to Casey’s enjoyment. At the peak of their secret affairs, he placed Casey on a homebound quarantine with access restricted only to himself. The Overseer caught wind of the quarantine by word of mouth and demanded an explanation as to why the quarantine was not reported. When she seemed unconvinced by his excuses and suspicious “records”, he attested that Casey and himself were in love and feared they’d be judged too harshly for their relationship. She believed him only after speaking with Casey directly but, only barely so.

To keep up appearances, Robert remained with Casey as a husband for six years until a month before Reclamation Day, considering Casey a liability to his survival in the wasteland. Canonically, he is killed by Casey within a year. Nonconically, he joins the Enclave after failing to be a successful wasteland doctor with Nate as a hired bodyguard and becomes Anita Stallworths personal chew toy.

Horace Beaufort

Age: 58

Horace is an ex-resident of vault 51. How he managed to escape the vault continues to be a matter of discussion and debate. I speculate that his role in the vault was to stir the pot or take advantage of chaos. He killed several of his fellow vault dwellers before leaving the said vault.

His prewar life was not glamorous. He enlisted young and was dishonorably discharged for fighting a fellow soldier in a bar. He called it “working out their differences” and they called it misconduct. The whole thing became a monkey he let sit on his back his whole life and refused to come back from. He saw pockets of brief jail time for more public disturbances and drunken disorderly, “dabbled” in drugs and tried his hand at married life. He has two adult children he barely knows and an ex-wife that hates his guts.

A post-vault world led him into an equally unglamorous attempt at raider life. He fell in with the Gourmands for a brief period as a “hunter”. He abandoned them all as the gangs began feuding. Somewhere in there, he met his best friend, Duke. @avaleon

He now lives in the forest region in an old shack selling old armor and eating anyone that happens to come around when he is hungry. Did I forget to mention he is a cannibal?

Milo Orson

Location: Commonwealth, Spectacle Island

Age: 36

Milo is career-minded (Elder Maxson’s favorite flavor of solider), a dry-humored freelance mercenary turned passionate Knight. His hobbies include killing undesirables on and off the clock and building secluded settlements for R&R.

While Paladin Danse had tank-like capabilities, Milo was more stealthy and the two complemented each other’s styles to make for a powerhouse two-man team. Sharing similar past times, the men enjoy each others company outside the battlefield at Milo’s personally designed Spectacle Island settlement for fishing, sparring, reading, and in-depth discussions. Milo designed and built a top floor suite for the Elder in the Airport, complete with its own shooting range and full bathroom. The Elder politely refused the gift and repurposed it for storage.

Despite his odd and indirect advances, Milo was the mastermind and main supporter of a black-body-suited shadow squad that gained Elder Maxson’s approval. Unofficially consisting of Paladin Danse, Knight-Commander Alton, Elder Maxson himself, and Senior Scribe Grise, this squad was loosely inspired by and created to emulate the disbanded Lyons Pride. The mission remained constant: eliminating hostiles seemingly overnight when no other squad would prevail. The shadow squad was titled Purity Control.

Senior Scribe Grise was forcibly removed from the squad after being caught taking night watches on missions just to stare at the Elder while he slept.

Vance Ainsley Alton

Location: Commonwealth, Citadel, Prydwen

Age: 38

Vance A. Alton is fiercely loyal, gentle in all things but war, cautiously private and confident in his skills as a soldier. He is a second generation Brother that has three constant loves: his Elder, his parents, and jogging.

Full bio here.

Jacob or “Jay”

Location: Commonwealth, Prydwen, Sanctuary

Jacob is somewhere between a blown fuse and a Furby with dying batteries that cheerfully declares your impending death from the closet you tried to suffocate it in. He is immensely charismatic and flawlessly disarming with the best of intentions. Until you have something he wants, of course.

After surviving the end of the world to wake up childless, spouseless, and alone, he became numb to consequence and moral choice. Joyfully, he played all factions against each other, bringing them together at the Battle of Bunker Hill at the cost of lives, intelligence, valuable resources, and relationships. He was commanded to choose his loyalties and he chose the Brotherhood for it’s unapologetic adherence to its duty to humanity. He attempted to continue relations with the Minutemen and lost their respect after participating in the killing of innocents in the attack on the Institute. He became Elder Maxson’s first Sentinal and drinks with Proctor Teagan in his downtime. As a side project, he oversaw the creation a tavern just outside the airport with the Brotherhood reaping benefits from the small economy that surrounds it.

“Jelly”

Location: Commonwealth, The Castle

Jelly is known only as thus and was previously married to Jacob. She is trusting and fair in her judgments and has a strong sense of justice for both the human and nonhuman. She survives the cryogenics unbeknownst to Jacob and joins the Minutemen after the fall of the Institute and the Brotherhood assumes control of the Commonwealth. Provoked to rage and hurt by their narrow-minded views, she attacks the Prydwen single-handedly, separate of any faction or companion. She massacres the entirety of the ship, sparing only children, and takes the Captain’s hat and Elder’ s Jacket as trophies. She is appointed the new general of the Minutemen and wears her trophies boldly as proof of her conquest. She finds new love and comfort with Preston and long-lasting friendship in Curie and MacCready.

#fallout oc #fallout ocs #fallout 4 #fallout 76 #my new vegas kids aren't here sorry

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saltyfilmmajor · 5 years

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FROM RECKLESS MEN TO EMOTIONAL DISASTERS

AN ANALYTICAL EVALUATION OF THE AESTHETIC QUALITIES OF A FEW FAMOUS TOM CRUSE CHARACTERS

To start off, yes, I’m doing another essay on this. (Mel, this doesn’t change the fact that we are fighting because you know I’m right. So, write a paper or admit that I’m right.) This was requested by @sweetbouquetartisane because she wants to hear my thoughts on why I find Mr. Tom Cruise attractive, on a physical level anyway. And I am very inclined to write this first in the series of essays that will come out soon. But I digress, the main point is that Tom Cruise is a very good-looking man and that characters he plays from movie to movie bring out very different responses from me. So let’s dive head first on the characters of Barry Seal, Jack Harper, Ethan Hunt, and Danny Kaffee. This order corresponds from least favorite to most favorite. I don’t hate any of these characters. In fact, I love them. A little too much. But l Digress.

American Made, for me as a film, was something I wished to watch for the historical nature of it, given that it sort of documents the situation surrounding the Iran-Contra affair (look forward to that essay soon). And so when I watched it the very first time this week, I was excited. I had never watched a film that directly talks about this stuff, especially with such a big-name star like Tom Cruise. He plays Barry Seal, a very crazy man irl who worked for the CIA and The Medellín Cartel and ultimately died before the Iran Contra Scandal went public. Now I’m supposed to hate this character very much cause of his involvement with said cartel and CIA, but from his very first words, he grabbed my heart and never let go. GOD, he’s so fucking charming it is insane. He speaks in a slight southern accent, he flies like a mad man. HE SPEAKS FUCKIN SPANISH, I JUST.

So, a bit of context about why that is important. Before I watched this film I was away in Guatemala visiting family for two weeks. Because of that, I was limited to Spanish only conversation. It got me thinking. Mel and I had a discussion on this about how great it would be if Ethan Hunt would speak Spanish on screen. We never get to hear it in a movie, and it was a very fun conversation. So I watched American Made the day I returned home, not knowing that Tom would be speaking Spanish. I FUCKIN LOST MY SHIT. I just couldn’t FUNCTION. And he starts off with very limited Spanish and over the course of the movie he gets a bit better. MEL AND I JUST LOST IT. I showed it to her the second time I watched (but she does not like Barry, she likes Schafer and she hasn’t watched to the end of the film.)

The outfits they put Barry in this movie, like in every scene almost, he has the Sleeves™ and Mel and I LOVE THE SLEEVES. Tom Cruise with rolled up sleeves, very good yes. Also, Mel, I know you appreciate when Tom is wearing a uniform and he wears a pilot uniform for a good portion of the beginning of the movie.

HE LOVES HIS WIFE SO DAMN MUCH. AND WHEN SHIT HITS THE FAN THAT’S THE ONLY THING HE CARES ABOUT, HIS FAMILY’S WELLBEING. THE VOICE KINK IS STRONG IN THIS MOVIE FOR ME. (yes Tumblr I have a voice kink, the least Extra™ of any kink I’ve ever admitted to, shut up. Well, that and the Sleeves™.) Also, he fucks his wife in a plane and it just stresses me the fuck out but also makes me feel things. I’m very conflicted about it.

Jack Harper, The Softest™ Man. I can’t thirst over him, it breaks my heart too much. BUT THAT WON’T STOP ME. Look, he just wants to live a peaceful life away from this bullshit. And HE JUST LOVES THE EARTH SO FUCKIN MUCH. AND VIKA IS JUST A STICKLER FOR THE RULES. LET HIM KEEP HIS FLOWER FOR FUCK’S SAKE. PLEASE DON’T HURT HIM HE JUST WANTS TO BE HAPPY AND LIVE LIFE ON EARTH. (also, he does have that scene where he’s restrained and its…. fuck)

Ethan Hunt. Ethan Fucking Hunt. THIS MAN DRINKS RESPECT WOMEN JUICE FOR BREAKFAST LUNCH AND DINNER. He is such a badass and he cares so much about his loved ones it’s crazy. He just wants to protect the world and he fights his government to do the greater good. He clings of a plane, free climbs the side of mountains, marries Julia in the hospital before the mission (and then proceed to fuck in the medical supplies…JULIA YOU ARE A NURSE WHAT THE FUCK.) He looks damn good wearing a tux and riding a bike. He has the sleeves in fallout. I just love him a lot.

Like ok look, not to go too in depth about Ethan’s character (Look forward to that essay as well) but he is an Extra Spy who cares too much and risks his life because ultimately he cannot let anyone die. He won’t allow it. The mission is all he has left, he has no life outside of that because he learned early on that the risk is too much for his loved ones. He’s always ready to die for the sake of a mission, and he speaks French and Russian. So, in turn, he dedicates himself to being the best agent, not for the sake of his government, however, (because the government is shown to be very sketchy.) It’s the embodiment of the thesis posited by James Bond in Skyfall. In Skyfall, when Bond is meeting Q for the first time they have this conversation of Technology vs Old-school Tradecraft

Bond: Oh, so why do you need me?

Q: Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled.

Bond: Or not pulled. It's hard to know which in your pajamas.

Ethan Hunt is the embodiment of the critical thinking in the espionage trade. By that I mean, after his first mission gone wrong, he thinks about the decisions he makes. And it’s nice that people consider the consequences of their actions and don’t go shooting everyone who crosses their path. Ethan Hunt Certified Badass and Respecter of women. (also he has the scene in with the pole). He has an engineering degree and he was in the army. He DOUBLE MAJORED IN ENGINEERING AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS! HE’S A SMART BOI AND I LOVE AND RESPECT HIM VERY MUCH! JUST LET HIM LIVE A HAPPY AND NORMAL LIFE. (also he has those scenes...)

And lastly our last candidate for evaluation. You know who it is, THAT’S RIGHT. LT. DANIEL ALLISTER KAFFEE SMARTEST SMARTASS TO EVER SMARTASS IN THE HISTORY OF SMARTASSERY. (Did I ever mention I have a thing for lawyers?) This is different from all the others I’ve mentioned here. Like Kaffee is not the Tom Cruise Action Hero™ he is a quietly intense drama boi. He’s insecure and masks it with a layer of cockiness because he is afraid of the shadow of his father’s legacy. It’s just so sad. He’s a very smart Boi who doesn’t apply himself because he understands that litigation is an artwork to itself and he’s trying to make sure his clients get the best deal possible. He knows that if his case goes to trial he cannot control the outcome, he can present his case but at the end of the day, it is up to the jury to decide whether his clients are guilty or not. I could discuss Kaffee, my actual husband, all day. He has some certifiable looks in this movie.

HE HAS HIS REGULAR NAVY UNIFORM.

HIS SOFTBALL OUTFIT

THE JOCK OUTFIT

THE WHITE NAVY UNIFORM

And my absolute favorite HIS CLASS A UNIFORM.

HE HAS EVERYTHING I LIKE. ROLLED UP SLEEVES? CHECK! TOM CRUISE IN JEANS? CHECK! SMARTASSERY? DOUBLE CHECK! UNIFORMS? CHECK FROM HERE TO COLOMBIA! ISSUES WITH AUTHORITY? CHECKAMUNDO! (also his reluctantly subbish tendencies, but not everyone is into that. BUT FUCK YOU MEL, I’M RIGHT JUST ADMIT IT)

LOOK MY ACTUAL HUSBAND DANIEL KAFFEE

This man is such a disaster, he doesn’t know how to eat apples, he gets sick on boats (Jesus Christ Kaffee, You’re in the Navy.) All he has in his house is Yoohoo and Coco Puffs, He has a baseball bat fetish (not the sexual definition, the witchcraft one.) He fuckin walked in the rain drunk af and then proceeded to drive a few blocks looking for Joanne, while still drunk (Sam WHAT THE FUCK, WHY DID YOU LET HIM DRIVE???) When he tells Jessup to return to the stand and he drinks water, he’s fuckin shaking. He swears when he’s frustrated. His voice, oh my fuck, HIS VOICE. He gesticulates a lot in court as well (I’m thinking about his cross-examination of the doctor specifically) I don’t know why but I find that endearing. The way he speaks in court is so smart, and when he whispers, It just. IT’S Like ASMR but I like it instead of being creeped out. He just, GOD HIS VOICE. I LOVE IT. He never has a pen on his person, like Danny, sweetheart, please. He just. GOD I THINK I’M IN LOVE.

So that’s essentially my Deep Dive™ on Tom Cruise characters that I’ve watched this week. He’s just so charming in all these roles and they all have something different to offer. All are distinct people: Barry Seal, the most fucking reckless man ever. Jack Harper, the softest soul who just loves earth please just let him keep his flower. Ethan Hunt, the most badass Extra™ spy who consumes gallons of respect women juice. Daniel Kaffee, my Harvard educated smartass who is very fucking stupid. Each of them just provides me with a very different experience emotionally, but they all have their merits and I love them all.

(Mel, fuck you. I’m Right.)

#tom cruise #a few good men #tom thirst #or Tomrst™#ethan hunt #american made #jack harper #deep dives #supergeekytoon #essays #my essays

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housmania · 6 years

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In Defense of TJLC

A response to this Slate podcast and to general misconceptions.

Hello! Call me soe. I like cats, BBC Sherlock, and friendly online communities. I hope you do too.

I also blog about TJLC. So, when a Slate podcast came out this week portraying TJLCers in a jarringly negative light, I was dismayed. What I heard was not the community I know.

This post’s aim is to tell the other side of the story. I’m writing both for people who support TJLC and were shocked to hear of the podcast, and for people outside TJLC whose initial impressions have been skewed by the podcast or other outside sources.

I’ll address four of the most common arguments against TJLC through the lens of the argument presented by Willa Paskin, the podcast’s creator:

TJLC, as a theory, is “far-fetched” and merits no serious consideration.

TJLCers are dogmatic, ideological, and close-minded.

TJLCers have hated on people outside of TJLC to an unusual and appalling extent.

TJLC has brought more harm into the world than good.

I intend to refute these points. In the process, I hope to represent your run-of-the-mill TJLCer: not a hateful extremist, but rather someone who supports a theory, enjoys discussing it, and is happy to let those who don’t live their happy lives.

It also means adhering to the standards of a good TJLC meta writer: going through the podcast thoroughly, addressing Ms. Paskin’s correct insights as well as her failings; reading and acknowledging critics and downright opponents; citing all sources; and remaining civil and open-minded. I wish Ms. Paskin had afforded us these privileges.

I genuinely believe that Ms. Paskin meant well. Nonetheless, the biases of her sources, combined with several misconceptions and imperfect research, result in a piece that portrays TJLC inaccurately.

To understand what the podcast got wrong, we first need to cover:

What is TJLC?

TJLC is the theory that the characters John Watson and Sherlock Holmes will end up in a canonical romantic relationship on the BBC show Sherlock. People who support this theory are called TJLCers. TJLCers write analyses of the show, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and numerous other sources known as “metas”.

TJLC is short for “The Johnlock Conspiracy.” I must immediately clarify that this name is a joke. It began humorously and is always, always used tongue-in-cheek. Keep this in mind: Many misconceptions about TJLC arise from the fact that we take very few things seriously, as I’ll discuss later.

What isn’t TJLC?

TJLC is not the same as Johnlock.

Johnlock refers just to shipping John/Sherlock—thinking they’d make a cute romantic couple, without necessarily having any expectation of that happening on the show.

More fundamentally: Johnlock is about creating transformative, creative content. It’s about making something new. In essence, it’s fiction.

TJLC is about analyzing evidence that’s already there. It’s nonfiction.

Ms. Paskin frequently blurs the lines between the two and mourns TJLC for not having the same level of creativity. She explains, for example, that fandom reads into tiny elements of a show to create a transformative space. But TJLC is not transformative. That’s Johnlock.

Neither is TJLC based on wanting the show to “bend to [our] desires”—i.e., Johnlock shippers projecting wishful thinking onto the show. I’m happy to serve as a counterexample for that! I actually didn’t ship Johnlock at all before discovering TJLC. Rather, I found the theories plausible and loved the idea that a show centered around deduction and analysis could also be the subject of deduction and analysis.

Of course, people who already ship Johnlock are more likely to be attracted to TJLC. But the basis of TJLC is not to “see in the story that you have, the story that you want” (46:40)—that’s shipping—but to analyze the story you already have.

I cannot stress this enough: TJLC is analysis, NOT shipping.

TJLC and the “Great Game”

As the podcast explains, TJLCers aren’t the first analyze Sherlock Holmes. Fans of the originals have been analyzing the stories since the 1880s. These early theorists actually gave the name to two kinds of fan analysis: Watsonian and Doylist.

Watsonian fans played the “Great Game,” treating the stories like a real world. Doyle didn’t exist, so every detail had to be explained in-universe rather than attributed to author techniques or error. They’re closer to your modern shippers, creating headcanons to fill in gaps.

Doylist fans acknowledged that (no duh) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a real person, and therefore analyzed the stories as works of literature. They are essentially literary analysts and critics, the kind that wind up on JSTOR.

TJLCers are Doylists. Obviously, someone made the show. That means we analyze character arcs, cinematographic techniques, and rhetorical devices in the dialogue like a researcher in film studies or literature would.

Ms. Paskin warns that in the Watsonian Great Game, people kept “tongues planted firmly in cheek; TJLCers, not so much.” And yet, that’s the point! You wouldn’t expect a literary analyst to go “lol maybe The Great Gatsby criticizes society but like who knows” any more than you’d want Watsonians to really believe that because John Watson’s wife called him James, his middle name is Hamish (Scottish for James) rather than acknowledging that Doyle just forgot. A ridiculous premise entails a humorous approach. A reasonable premise entails a rational one.

TJLC isn’t quite the same as highbrow analysis, however, for three reasons:

First, we use our analyses to speculate about the future of the show. We don’t have the privilege of analyzing a complete work. In that sense, the closest analogy I can think of is that of political analysts: examining what’s already been said and done to predict what will happen next.

Second, we evolved from a fandom space. That means that the barrier between TJLC and Johnlock, between nonfiction analysis and creative fiction, is never as solid as it would be in academia. Furthermore, a significant number of TJLC meta writers also engage in fictional fanworks, making it more difficult to distinguish where hard analysis ends and transformative work begins. I’ll go into some of the nuances of meta in a bit.

Third, the people in TJLC are generally queer women and often young. And we can’t discuss biases against fandom and TJLC without acknowledging sexism and homophobia. When a film critic writes a theory, it’s deep; when we do, it’s ludicrous. Paradise Lost is fanfiction just as much as AO3, but only the former is treated as legitimate literature. Theories about straight couples are plausible; ones about queer ones are suddenly delusional or fetishization. Adult fanboys are mature content creators; fangirls are hysterical.

Conversations about the implicit biases in media depictions of fandom aren’t my focus here. Nonetheless, it’s crucial to bear in mind that highbrow criticisms of fandom that focus only on its ill effects and ignore the complexity, depth, community bonding, and social change that fandom (analytical and transformative) creates often denigrate fans as immature and delusional without considering whether that accurately represents even a significant minority of a fandom. It’s a bias that we should all keep in check.

As progressive as Ms. Paskin may be, the podcast also falls into this trap. In particular, she emphasizes sensationalist depictions of TJLC theories—highlighting far-fetched theories and glossing over deeper points—and the contemptible actions of very few TJLCers while glossing over the far more plausible mainstream theories and kindness of nearly all TJLCers. As a result, we naturally look hysterical and delusional.

So let’s tackle each of those issues: TJLC as a theory and the behavior of the TJLC community.

TJLC as a Theory

If you don’t support TJLC, I’m not asking you to be convinced by a few paragraphs. The aim here is simply to explain why TJLC is plausible.

Ms. Paskin asserts that (1) TJLC is completely unsupported by the original Sherlock Holmes stories, (2) that romantic coding in the show is simply “a knowing wink,” and that (3) TJLC “is based on an unfalsifiable premise: that the creators are lying to you.” In fact:

1. TJLC is supported by the original stories.

The Sherlock Holmes canon contains significant, documented evidence of queer coding similar to other works of the same time period. It’s also reasonable to theorize, based on biographical data, that Doyle himself was bisexual.

The extent to which the stories were deliberately coded is a matter of debate. Yet Ms. Paskin simply asserts that “Conan Doyle wasn’t trying to create a homosexual subtext when he wrote the characters, but he did write a deep and committed friendship.” As @one-thousand-splendid-stars put it:

How on earth can anyone possibly know if the homoeroticism was intentional or not, when ACD could’ve been persecuted for admitting it, or making it more obvious?

Ms. Paskin’s assertion, which does not acknowledge any evidence to the contrary, again conflates Johnlock shippers with TJLCers. Johnlock is about transformative fiction; TJLC is about nonfiction analysis.

Ms. Paskin also suggests that TJLCers are “queering” the text, except that queering generally implies a queer theory approach to something that wasn’t queer to begin with. Our whole objective is to reveal that the text was originally queer.

2. The basis for TJLC is the show itself.

Ms. Paskin supposes that TJLC is “is based on an unfalsifiable premise: that the creators are lying to you.”

But TJLC isn’t based on anything the creators have said. It’s based on analysis of the show itself.

There’s a whole lot of analysis; good summaries are here and here. Essentially, we argue that given the level of coding on the show, the most probable outcome is that there is deliberate subtext meant to foreshadow that John and Sherlock will become a couple. Elements like Sherlock being indifferent to women, yet “romantic entanglement would complete [him] as a human being” suggest that the subtext isn’t just a “knowing wink,” as Ms. Paskin asserts: it would be poor writing (not to mention queerbaiting) to complete such a setup and not follow through.

3. The creators

Ms. Paskin finds it alarming that TJLCers believe Moffat and Gatiss are deliberately lying when they say that Johnlock will not become canon.

And normally, I would agree! Except that Moffat and Gatiss have a long history of lying through their teeth about plot developments. For example, they vehemently repeated that The Abominable Bride would be a stand-alone episode completely independent of the show, but it turned out to be a drugged Sherlock’s theorizing about Moriarty’s plan. And before Series 4, they said that Mary would become a long-running character, then killed her off in the next episode.

So it’s not a stretch to think that they could be lying about one more thing, particularly when TJLC relies on independent evidence from the show itself.

In fact, Paskin argues that TJLCers, like Watsonians playing the Great Game, base their theories on a “contradiction”: “On the one hand the author might as well not exist, but then on the other hand, this person who doesn’t exist has made this perfectly explicable logical thing.”

Except that unlike Watsonians, we do acknowledge that the creators exist. We analyze the show as a work of fiction, with narrative techniques that can be analyzed just as much as plot elements.

Furthermore, the fact that the creators lie constantly doesn’t mean we don’t pay attention to what they do say. They have large incentives to keep upcoming plot twists secret, but that doesn’t mean they can’t reveal their motivations and influences. A lawyer questioning a lying witness can still gain information from what they do say.

Take a closer example: Say I went back to 1897 and asked Bram Stoker if there’s queer coding in Dracula (which is now well-documented). He would probably respond along the lines of “I’m not a sodomite; also, what???” But he might wax poetic about homoeroticism in Walt Whitman’s poetry and mention that his charismatic but domineering idol Henry Irving was the basis for Dracula.

So no, there’s no contradiction between analyzing the show and the creators’ influences while still believing that they don’t want to reveal upcoming plot points.

The Behavior of the TJLC Community

How Theories Work

Ms. Paskin rattles off several far-fetched TJLC theories that make TJLC as a whole sound ridiculous. Furthermore, she implies that TJLC is a monolithic community with a “dogmatic” belief in all of these theories, such that criticism and discussion don’t exist.

Guess what? I’m in TJLC, and I don’t believe half the theories she mentioned. That’s because TJLC is much less uniform than its detractors would believe. Furthermore, the general level of confidence that people have in a given piece of evidence depends on its strength. In other words, the more evidence for something, the more likely that TJLCers agree on it. The less evidence for something, the more likely we are to treat it as just something cool that could turn out to be coincidence.

We can divide TJLC meta into five basic categories:

1. Foundational meta

These are well-respected analysis of character arcs, dialogue, and other clearly deliberate plot elements such as this one. Pretty much all TJLCers agree with them. These are your best-researched, most widespread meta; they form the true basis of TJLC. Here are some examples. And yet they hardly show up in Ms. Paskin’s discussion, because they don’t make TJLC sound too far-fetched.

2. Circumstantial evidence

TJLC can stand on foundational meta alone, but there’s also secondary evidence to support it. This includes the “drinks code” (the theory that beverages serve as symbols on the show, supported by subsequent creator remarks) and similar theories that can’t hold up TJLC by themselves, but do provide extra evidence and add nuance to theories about character arcs and plot development.

3. Accessory meta

These are analyses of elements that could well turn out to be coincidence due to scarce evidence. If true, they allow us to establish character arcs in greater depth, but it’s perfectly possible that any given one is coincidence. These include the theories on wallpaper and lighting that Ms. Paskin reports as though they were the pillars of TJLC. They’re theories that I read and go, “Hm, interesting; maybe.”

4. Spinoff theories

These are theories that deal with specific paths the show might take. They generally have groups of supporters within TJLC, but each spinoff theory usually only has a smaller group of supporters within the larger TJLC community.

It’s important to note that many major theories don’t have to do with Johnlock at all. Take M-theory, the idea that Mycroft and other characters are under Moriarty’s thumb, or EMP, the idea that some episodes take place in Sherlock’s mind palace. If, as Ms. Paskin asserts, TJLC is about wishful thinking and wanting Johnlock to be canon, what would be the point of these? Furthermore, if TJLC is monolithic and dogmatic, why do we constantly discuss and critique these theories in constructive discussions? I had to make a whole table of theories after Series 4 because everyone’s opinion was so different!

5. Crack theories

These are usually clearly labeled “crack” and are never meant to be taken seriously. Again, TJLC contains a lot of humor. So sometimes, we goof off and write theories like this one that are clearly ridiculous, usually with an exaggerated conspiratorial tone, to have fun in the spirit of the Watsonians. Unfortunately, some people outside TJLC think we actually take these theories seriously and accordingly treat us as crazy people. Guys… Ctrl+F “crack” first.

To summarize:

TJLC contains theories with varying levels of evidence that are treated with corresponding levels of seriousness.

TJLCers are far from dogmatic. Different people have different views, and that’s OK.

TJLC is founded on criticism and discussion (here’s an example). By disagreeing on meta, we gain better insight into the characters.

Addressing Ms. Paskin: The theories she dwells on are EMP and M-Theory (40:04 and 10:37), both spinoff theories. They do not form part of the main body of TJLC, and fans are far more flexible about that stuff because it’s not nearly as firmly supported as foundational meta. She cites a clip analyzing Mycroft’s theme in the score, which is accessory meta that could well turn out to be coincidence. (By the way, I have serious doubts about all three of these theories. And TJLC is perfectly accepting of that!)

She also talks about loudest-subtext’s meta on the 2009 BBC queer representation report, whose objective was to demonstrate that it was possible for TJLC to happen from a production/permission standpoint, not to prove that TJLC was happening on the show. In that sense, it’s closer to circumstantial evidence.

She also fears that TJLCers “try to find order and logic and reason in every detail.” Again, sane TJLCers treat less solid evidence as less likely to be true. Caveat: Some TJLCers do go overboard. But they do not represent the overwhelming, sane majority.

TJLC Culture

Confidence and Criticism

Ms. Paskin finds it alarming that many TJLCers regarded TJLC as far more well-supported, even certain, than “an opinion or a possibility” or “just one ship among many” (14:50).

And yet, in an academic setting, isn’t it normal to think that the theory you researched and support is correct? Again, we hit the boundary in how the public perceives highbrow research and fan analysis. TJLC was not “just one ship among many” because (again) it’s not a ship, it’s a theory based on research and analysis. So naturally, we had a higher level of confidence in TJLC becoming canon than a shipper with an unsupported ship would.

Ms. Paskin implies that this confidence led directly to TJLC being unable to take criticism and therefore hating on people outside the community, since “denying [TJLC] was denying the truth” (14:55). But—first off—confidence does not directly lead to thin skins. Again, we debate everything. If good meta writers couldn’t change their minds given new evidence, TJLC wouldn’t exist.

Yet even when some TJLCers were more certain about TJLC than could be reasonably expected, the overwhelming majority was perfectly nice. We can, in fact, agree to disagree with others.

But this brings us to the most painful part of the podcast:

Fandom Toxicity: The Broad Picture

The podcast, having painted TJLCers as delusional, dogmatic crusaders, goes on to argue that TJLCers hated on people outside TJLC to an unusual and deplorable amount, such that TJLC’s main effect was to increase toxicity in the Sherlock fandom.

For starters: Yes, a few TJLCers did fit this despicable mold. I universally condemn people who went out of their way to attack people outside or inside the community. They are an insult to TJLC’s values of inclusivity and rational debate. And my heart goes out to the people who suffered as a result of them.

But guess what? All the TJLCers I’ve talked to agree with that. Because the fact is that awful people form an incredibly small minority of TJLC.

Most of the TJLCers who listened to the podcast found this to be the most insulting and painful part. They’ve reiterated time and again that the community as a whole is not a toxic place. @artfulkindoforder put it best:

So many TJLCers were never mean to anybody.

You can think we’re unrealistic, immature, delusional—fine. But at the end of the day, the overwhelming majority of us stuck to our circles of courteous people and just had fun.

In broad terms, there were several inconsistencies between the podcast and what I found. First, the podcast attributes toxic behavior to large swathes of TJLC, when in fact it tended to be a small group of repeat offenders, many of whom would attack people inside TJLC as well as outside it. loudest-subtext, a longtime TJLC blogger, discussed this here.

Secondly, the podcast makes absolutely no mention of the hate that TJLCers—often perfectly civil ones—received, which makes it easier to paint TJLC as engaging in vicious, one-sided attack. TJLCers, especially at the beginning, received shocking quantities of anonymous hate. Like attacks on people outside TJLC, I’m sure that the attacks on TJLCers were also due to a tiny minority of toxic people. But to gloss over them entirely is to paint an incomplete and biased picture. As @one-thousand-splendid-stars put it:

I’m not going to pretend that there was never nasty behavior from TJLC, but I’m also not going to say her description of us was accurate. She presented the TJLC fandom like it was a toxic cult.... She talked about fandom bullying as though we were never on the receiving end of it, and weren’t ever ridiculed, or called stupid, or sent anon hate, or harassed. To imply that tjlcers were only dishing it out is just flat out inaccurate.

The anonymous attacks on TJLCers had several results. First, TJLC developed a culture that stresses avoiding confrontation with outsiders: leaving other shippers be, unless they seek out TJLC posts. For example, some of the first things I learned were to misspell other ship names on TJLC posts so they wouldn’t show up when people wanted content promoting that ship, and not to reblog posts from outside shippers’ blogs with TJLC-related comments. Far from attacking outsiders, the whole point is to let people who disagree with TJLC do their own thing.

Second, the vast majority of TJLCers despise anon hate because they receive it unusually often. I’ve never seen a community with so many posts reminding people never to resort to it because they’ve seen how it hurt TJLC bloggers.

Third, a handful of TJLCers who got repeated and unwarranted hate did get more combative. But when looking at their later behavior, it’s important to understand that many of them became less willing to compromise on TJLC because they’d seen toxic fans remain unwilling to compromise or debate with them. And most of the conflicts I’ve seen as a result came from anti-TJLC people coming specifically to comment on TJLCers’ posts, not from TJLCers going out of their way to fight non-TJLCers.

Specific Incidents

I didn’t want to rely on secondhand knowledge about hate to write this response. In the spirit of TJLC, I wanted to be fair and impartial. That meant looking through the blogs of people who had received hate inside and outside TJLC. So here’s what I found out:

First off, it was awful. I was looking 4-5 years back to find the worst instances of hate in the community, and I wasn’t used to it because the bloggers I interact with are universally inclusive and civil.

Ms. Paskin discussed three specific incidents on the podcast: top/bottomlock, the 2015 221BCon incident, and post-Series 4 anger.

When top/bottomlock came up, I was baffled. First off, that discussion is ancient. It’s so old that by the time I joined TJLC in late 2015, it had practically died out. More importantly, a “debate” that Ms. Paskin describes as “very specific and dogmatic fanon” was—as I’ve understood—never taken seriously. Again, TJLC is not a very serious place, and people outside it are bound to misinterpret inside jokes. 99% of TJLCers saw top/bottomlock as nothing more than fodder for crack theories, and yet Ms. Paskin’s sources on this issue—none of whom are actually in TJLC—describe it as a debate of monumental importance.

The 2015 221BCon, on the other hand, was a serious conflict. As far as I can tell, people like Emma genuinely suffered, and the fact that neutral fans received anonymous attacks is shameful. But the results of this stretched to TJLCers as well as people outside TJLC, something that the podcast conveniently neglects to mention.

The end of Series 4 disappointed people throughout the Sherlock fandom. I’m not talking about Johnlock: plot inconsistencies, weird characterizations, and plot pulled from a horror movie resulted in its lowest Rotten Tomatoes rating ever. TJLC is too small to have that kind of clout, so to say that TJLCers were the only ones disappointed is clearly inaccurate.

Ms. Paskin claims that Series 4 “seemed straighter, not gayer, than before” and yet John telling Sherlock that “romantic entanglement would complete you as a human being” is uh…pretty gay. For many TJLCers, the problem wasn’t that there wasn’t Johnlock; the problem was that the quality of the show seemed to have drastically decreased.

TJLC immediately split into two groups. One group left TJLC, believing that Moffat and Gatiss had been queerbaiting. Many of them began constructive anti-queerbaiting discussions. Unfortunately, a few took their anger out on the creators.

The resulting hateful messages do not represent the views of the vast majority of former TJLCers, let alone people who still support TJLC. The fact that Amanda Abbington received a death threat is disgusting; and yet in TJLC, she’s always been regarded as a sort of beloved “fandom aunt”. In addition, Ms. Paskin cites an article that claimed that fans “dampened [Martin Freeman’s] enthusiasm.” But that interview has already been revealed as a clickbait-seeking misinterpretation—by Freeman himself.

The second group—those remaining in TJLC—were a bit desperate, and I’ll be the first to admit that several theories with scanty factual basis became more popular then than they would have in calmer times. The Apple Tree Yard theory, for instance, is clearly ridiculous in retrospect. But even I was willing to consider it. (Not my finest moment.) As a side note, however: the far-fetched “China cancelled Johnlock” theory she mentioned is by someone who’s not only outside TJLC, but also notorious for hating it

But regardless of the quality of these theories, 99% of the remaining TJLCers were certainly not hating on people—because who was there to hate, if there was no queerbaiting?

Ultimately, the podcast’s descriptions of hate related to TJLC are one-sided, distorted, and do not reflect the conduct of the overwhelming majority of TJLCers.

Podcast-Specific Errors

There’s a reason why the podcast comes off so different from reality: its research is seriously flawed.

For a podcast about TJLC, Ms. Paskin interviewed a whopping one (1) actual current TJLCer, whom she apparently interviewed after building much of her argument. Every other interviewee was outside TJLC and specifically disliked it. That will hardly make for an unbiased final product.

As a result, she culminates with several remarks that are genuinely insulting. She likens TJLC to “any other standard conspiracy where you have a Judgment Day,” suggesting that we’re irrational and fanatical. She summarizes the entire community as “people being cruel to one another because they disagree about how a fictional TV relationship should turn out,” combining every misconception of (1) TJLC being a ship instead of hard analysis, (2) blaming every TJLCers for the actions of very few, (3) TJLC being a silly fan thing rather than a starting point for meaningful research into queer representation and literary analysis, and (4) ignoring TJLC’s vast contributions to TJLCers’ lives while overemphasizing those who were harmed by it. Both remarks are in keeping with standard media portrayals of fans as irrational and immature. I expected better of her.

Ms. Paskin says that she “had a dream about…digging deeper, talking to more people, ones who could perfectly explain the allure of TJLC to me.” She had the opportunity to interview more actual TJLCers, but didn’t take it.

But the offer still stands! Come talk to us! Learn about what we’re actually like! Criticize our theories, if you think we’re dogmatic. Ask us what we think of TJLC, if you think it ruined our lives. Our ask boxes are wide open!

What the Podcast Left Out

Swimming in descriptions of TJLC as a source of hatred, the podcast glosses over one tiny little detail: that TJLC genuinely improved the lives of the vast majority of TJLCers.

I came out because of TJLC. I learned how to analyze literature because of TJLC. I discovered new parts of history and the queer people who have always been part of it. I found a community of curious, passionate, funny, and kind people who I could talk to.

And I’m just one person. I know people who found lifelong friends because of TJLC, wrote books because of it, became students of gender and sexuality studies, found a community of support when they had mental health, financial, or other personal problems, and had a blast theorizing about the possibility of landmark LGBT representation. Heck, Rebekah of TJLC Explained filmed hours of people talking about how much the community meant to them. And I even know former TJLCers who, though disappointed with the show, still appreciate how much it taught them about queer theory, queer history, and themselves.

Evaluating TJLC as a whole, it’s not far-fetched, dogmatic, or primarily a source of “darkness.” It’s a legitimate theory, supported by debate and rational analysis, that improved the lives of far more people than it ever hurt.

You’ve read this. Now what?

If you’re in the media:

This Slate podcast is now the #1 result when I search The Johnlock Conspiracy. Thousands of kind and logical voices on Tumblr and other sites are immediately silenced by well-known publications. So yeah, I care what the media thinks. Few voices have widespread effects. I want people trying to find out about TJLC to get a well-researched, less biased view of it.

Please, take your research seriously when discussing fandom. Interview actual members of the community. Be aware of the public bias of fans as unworthy of serious attention and unable to construct rational, legitimate arguments. And fight against it.

If you’re inside TJLC:

Researching for this meant a trip into the darkest parts of TJLC. We need to acknowledge that not everyone in this community is nice to everyone all of the time, and this resulted in incidents that seriously hurt some people. Remaining civil, especially when faced with disagreement or outright malice, means we keep this community friendly for everyone.

If you’re outside TJLC:

Thank you for taking the time to learn about a topic from someone you don’t necessarily agree with. We need more of your open-mindedness in the world.

If you completely disagree with me, please don’t send me anon hate. Constructive criticism is cool. Anon hate is lame. Be cool. But I welcome questions, comments, and constructive debate. My ask box is always open.

Thank you for reading.

-soe

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@thesaltofcarthage @devoursjohnlock @waitedforgarridebs @one-thousand-splendid-stars @garkgatiss @shinka @witch-lock @jenna221b @sarahthecoat @inevitably-johnlocked @the-7-percent-solution @artfulkindoforder @warmth-and-constancy@marcespot@whtboutdeductions@tjlcisthenewsexy @bluebluenova @heimishtheidealhusband @tendergingergirl @sagestreet @ebaeschnbliah @221bloodnun @marcelock @watsonshoneybee @victorianfantasywatson

#tjlc #slate #johnlock #sherlock #bbc sherlock #soe #slate podcast

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des-shinta · 6 years

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Discussing this publicly as...Y'see, me getting comments like this DM'd and Emailed to me? That's why I even keep bringing Zi-O up or have stayed even tangentially involved. it’s not to keep sniping at it, it’s putting out there that you can choose another target, as this horse is out of this race until it is all said and done. Hell, that was the entire point of the last post about it. I’ve been through this song and dance and want people to stop bringing it to me. Though I am not calling out KaijucorpsTokuandrobots and his opinion of my work or in any way attempting to publicly shame him. Frankly, his is the most civil DM I’ve received on this thus-far and why I have chosen to cite it. They have otherwise escalated to Death Threats for me not wanting to watch a show that It’s clear I won’t like. I just...I’m seriously just done with this fandom. Marzgurl’s two twitter threads on the missed concept of the ‘Ally of Justice’ are so on the ball for how bad it’s been getting. I WANT to do and have been doing exactly as KaijuKorpsTokuandrobots is demanding and leave it alone for others to hate or enjoy as they wish to, and as I stated my position and bowed out weeks ago I would like to leave it be. I mostly have kept silent on my commentary since outside of...what, a handful of posts in the time it’s been running, not counting repetitions of the same subject such as the show being predictable, expanded reply threads, or snarking at crap? Though That’s part of why I format my videos and reviews the way I do, to better explain the positions I take. The extended in-depth length is for those unfamiliar or familiar with the media to see more of it than is present in shorter-length ones that's just the opinion piece, with my perspectives and analysis set between the recap. Doing this allows it to be more objective than others, and provide a better explanation for my perspective. It is not done to lead them to a subjective conclusion that ignores facts on a matter simply to make others opinions align with mine. That’s just manipulative and arrogant and...well, if you knew me or paid attention to my conduct, you’d know that isn’t me. If I did and was, in the Kyoryuger videos I could’ve just said “you’re all wrong about Daigo”, instead of addressing how there were legitimate grievances one could have against him due to his character archetype being one that grates on a lot of people and super sentai overuses, and also ones that had been blown out of proportion in the face of those who have legitimately erred in the same fields Daigo was blamed for but didn’t actually do. I could’ve just ignored the fandom complaints instead of acknowledging the reasonable ones and providing evidence against the ludicrous or exaggerated ones. For if you notice, I always supply evidence of why I have the perspective I do. For It has not nor has ever been about my opinion being the right one, it's about putting thought into one’s entertainment and seeing if it holds up under scrutiny. That’s what a reviewer’s job is. I’m an analytical and introspective person, I THINK about things. I LIKE Informing people about things, I believe facts and trivia are neat and fun to share, and media content regardless of genre, age or demographic that put in that extra effort to have all these big allusions to other work seamlessly woven into them and work for their story gives them a whole new layer of depth that is absolutely wonderful, especially if it is to other things I have enjoyed. And conversely, when I see something that has held itself to higher standards in the past acting as if it could not care less, I am compelled like many to call it out for that, and explain why that is. To paraphrase Linkara, “By teaching you how something is Bad, you learn how something is good, and if you are a creative type yourself, these are then tips to avoid creating something horrible.”

I don’t see how that can be viewed as being smug or any different than anyone else that does the reviewer thing, as my presenting of facts and the evidence supplied from interviews, analysis, data, records and what-not in the video content I make (and often these large blog posts) is always divorced or set separately of my Opinion or snark about something so it is uniquely distinguishable on which is which. My opinion does not superceed all of that, my opinion is a result of knowing and being aware of all of this, seeking out this information as I love to learn facts and trivia about stuff I enjoy, and presenting them all in a condensed collection of content. Analyzing the common themes, tropes and plots the writers on a show make use of in their original works (the Toshiki Inoue Drinking game, anyone?), and the conduct and statements they and the producers have made over the course of their careers inform the direction their work can take, as all of that can play a factor in the final product that results. And it’s not like I’ve never been wrong as a result of my research being erroneous or the knowledge I’ve gathered being faulty, and I’m more than capable of admitting it and have done so when told. if you’ve seen my videos on the Garo Franchise, I’ve had to do so a number of times because there are Not a lot of good, Reliable sources on it, and some of them have misreported information or treated Fanon opinion as if it were canon fact without verification. In example I had believed that Shou Aikawa and Toshiki Inoue were the writers to The series Garo The Crimson moon because it was originally reported they were the only ones writing on it. That turned out to not be so, and I was unaware of that as no-one had written differently in any of my usual resources. That wasn’t malicious ignorance or smug self-assurance, but operating off of the information that had been provided. Since that new information corrected me, I haven’t repeated something that wasn’t so.

But It is NOT about people lying to themselves about what they enjoy. To cite the specific gripe, I don't think Kyuuranger fans are lying to themselves in liking it and have never at ANY point said that about THAT show or any other media, I think they didn't see what others, including myself, disliked about it or didn’t find it disagreeable themselves. That’s not lying, that’s having a different perspective on it and what angers/annoys/frustrates others they don’t have a problem with. Everyone has a different perspective, I just put a lot of thought into explaining mine, why I have the gut reactions, revulsion or love I do for something. That doesn’t make me automatically right, that’s giving you all the evidence to why my perspective is the way it is, and the reasoning of my own instincts. Hell, in the entire year Kyuranger was Running, I only discussed or made mentioned of it around a dozen times in any significant manner in that period after I dropped it. Most of them? When it was Relevant to discuss it or refute something that had been spread in the fandom which was a factual Lie or blown out of proportion. I otherwise left it alone for people to enjoy or hate on as they wished and stayed out of it...until people kept berating me to give it a second chance. After MONTHS of this I finally caved and watched more of it.. and proceeded to predict every episode of the series simply from the ‘next time’ trailers. One of the bigger things I called before it happened? Revelations of Quervo’s betrayal and his related possession by Don Armage. Why could I? Because it was a cliche. Raven’s and crows by Proxy of Tengu (quervo’s creature themes) in Japanese Literature/mythology are most commonly used as either Divine Messengers or traitors to their cause; the latter often from selfish, self-serving motivations or malevolent corruption. Quervo ended up not diverging from that latter interpretation. And I saw them as taking that route with it (as opposed to Just Redoing Utsusemimaru's story from kyoryuger with Tsurugi as...well, Kyuranger redid a lot of stories from previous sentai), because of the derisive and flippant manner the show treated Death as both a consequence and tragedy before making it reasonable that they would do so. All that informed because of my experiences with Japanese storytelling tropes, mythology and the Eastern take on The Heroes Journey Monomyth. But I dropped it in the first place because it was clear it was not going to be something I would enjoy and I would be spending the whole year bashing it, but I didn’t want to do that. I went and did the ‘don’t like, then don’t watch’ thing people often want from those in the detractor camp of series people like when they don’t want to hear a dissenting opinion, and instead went to watch “wander over yonder” and other series I did like which did many of the same things Kyuranger did in ways which were more appealing to me. As That Pointless hate and bile was not something I wanted to spread or have infest my life. I did not want to rally a crusade of bloody vengeance against the show for every perceived slight. For That’s not the person I am or want to be. And with how horrible 2017 was for me personally (including my Stepfather withering away from an incurable disease before dying and relatedly being thrown out of my home), it was something I could do without. I decided I was done with it, and made my exit calmly and rationally as a Mature adult would when they decided they didn’t like something, and only brought it up when it was relevant to bring it up after that, until other people dragged me back. Would you honestly have preferred it if I spent week after week angry at something and pointing out every single way it was messing up? ‘cause anyone can do that. Many people still did. it’s not like I was ever a deciding voice, just another sharing the same perspective. I would’ve just done it with the framing device of explaining the context of why people disliked it, as opposed to bashing it on the principle of it existing. So why Should I be the guy that Goes onto every blog, every forum and lambasts any person that ever said something good about it with a bulletpointed list of reasons? Hell, I avoid the Tokusatsu forums in their entirety because OF my experiences with that fandom Toxicity. And The reason I ended up predicting the content as I did when I finally gave in? It was Because I am very well-versed in Science fiction and space series tropes Kyuuranger as a series called upon (star trek, star wars, babylon 5, farscape, gundam, Battlestar galactica...the list goes on as I prefer sci-fi stuff to fantasy series) alongside super sentai ones due to me having watched over half the franchise and the afore-mentioned mythology awareness, and thus could ask myself ‘From what I’ve seen before and this show has been doing thus-far, how could they go about doing this plot they’ve teased in the next episode?’ Watching the first Five episodes of the series was more than enough to provide that. And Five these days is considered lenient now, many Reviewers have reached the point of doing it in One, depending on their familiarity with the general signs of poor execution in the genre, medium or premise of the related story. Once more, it wasn’t about being right, it was about thinking on and applying the experiences I have had to the subject matter, and speculating on where it’s going, only to find it was as I had Guessed. My continued dislike of it being because those predictions included ‘what are the bad ways they could do this story’ as well, and finding more times I guessed that to end up being true. And I do this with...basically everything. My roommates and family are astounded by how often I call plot twists in advance of the story’s seeding of it. One of the reasons I don’t like M Night shyamalan movies (besides all the other reasons people cite) is his twists are ridiculously transparent to me. I literally had the response to the twist that Bruce Willis’ character in the Sixth sense is dead of “yeah, and?” because I didn’t think that was what they were building up to, I just thought that was the quirk of the movie’s story. the same with the old lady being the Devil in “Devil”. Months ago My roommate showed me the movie “Cabin In The Woods”. I had never seen nor heard of the movie beforehand. AS I later learned, It is Notorious as a movie where people do not see the plot twist coming. In the first few minutes of watching? I guessed the plot twist. It is actually a very good one that I do not wish to spoil here and was pleasantly surprised at how they went about executing it, but I Figured it out because I’d seen a lot of the works of The movie’s Writer Joss Whedon. If someone were to propose I had a superpower? That’s basically it, I predict narratives from precedent of their content, it’s genre, and their creators. I am VERY good at doing this once I know where they’re going. That is, after all, how I guessed the entire second half of Kamen Rider Ryuki’s story without having seen it beforehand from making a Phoenix Down Joke. My roommates and I love the Venture bros, Season 7 is currently Airing, it has been wrapping up a number of it’s previous hanging plot threads and story seeding. Of them I guessed from the watching of previous seasons: Vendata being the blue Morpho and the Monarch’s Dead “Father”. The Monarch and Rusty Venture being Half-siblings as Jonas Venture Senior had Sex with The Monarch’s Mom. And Rusty being a clone. There are others, but there’s spoilers involved.

I was excited about all of that, because the series had been building up the suspense about answers to those questions for years or seeded paralleling stories to them previously in the series (I.E Hank, Dean and Dermott’s relationship). I was elated to learn I’d been following the deeper lore of the show as they’d intended from their intermittent seeding of the story, that I’d connected the clues as they’d wanted them to be connected. And for all of that to add up? That’s Good storytelling.

And it’s not like I’m always right about that stuff either or desire media to bend to how I predict it would go. if I’m not experienced with a certain story engine, I’m less likely to be right and more willing to go with the flow to explore it, and conversely really open to things that defy my expectations.

I’m a huge fan of .Hack and the Megaman battle networks series, and other stories using Virtual settings for storytelling (though Not SAO, I’m in the camp that dislikes SAO), thus was very experienced with the tropes, storypoints and themes Kamen Rider Ex-aid was making use of. I played this same ‘game’ with it...and It proved me wrong very often with how it was taking things. I didn’t see where it was going, as the show was not Predictable nor following the expected formula’s. Sometimes I disagreed with or was critical of what it was doing, such as the lacking focus on Hiiro Kagami’s relationship with his lost Love Saki and her impact on him. For how important it was to the series and his Character it was very poorly grounded, established and explored even with the Later Snipe miniseries going back to her death to further flesh it out, as it was something that needed more than the show was able to give for it to fully justify where they took it and all the connected links in the story it chained together. Or, say, Kiriya’s Death in how Toei tried to make money off of a character death by selling commemorative shirts to it, as that’s a scumbag thing to do and made it seem like they ordered his death just to sell merchandise. it wasn’t true and was just a bad marketing decision, the reaction to it being so hostile as Toei had pulled crap like that before and had shown itself tonedeaf to that conduct.. But for the most part, I adored how original a lot of it was by it’s end, most of my early criticisms they took the proper steps to mediate, and at the end it used all of it’s assets very smartly. I enjoy it not because it conformed to some pre-scripted narrative, but because it defied and exceeded my expectations of it, and tended to blow up my expectations in the best ways possible. whatever nitpicking that’s applicable to it doesn’t negate the overall good it did and quality it put out week after week.

And even with those nitpicks and any other criticism I voice, it wasn’t about me being personally right and the show wrong about how it did it, but areas in which the product was flawed and the areas in which it could have been improved. Pointing those out? That’s what a reviewer does.

But To bring it back to Zi-O as this is ultimately what this is all about with people wanting me to shut up about it despite me already having done so for the most part...with the extensive experience concerning the Writer and Producers I have had in almost everything they’ve worked on, how Negative that experience has been, Time travel stories being something I really adore and read/watched/played a lot of, awareness of how easy it is to screw it up if you don’t care about addressing contradictions or think of how to do it without such, and the first episode and the ones I’ve been dragged into commenting on since by people sending me messages Just like this one, I’ve done this ‘how would they likely do this from everything that’s been presented’ exercise with them and ended up being mostly spot-on with the predictions Thus-far. I’m not going out of my way to do it or bash every little thing, I’ve been trying to do what I did with Kyuranger and Leave it be unless there’s something relevant to say, or someone drags me back.

Again, the post I linked to up top? That was another attempt to do that, showcase what is the standard expectation I have for a series using a time travel story device so you see where I’m coming from on this. And yet, half a dozen people instead shot me angry messages and death threats, some of them telling me ‘Beast Wars Transformers is Shit and makes no sense and zi-oh was already doing it better than that because it intentionally decided to not play by any rules, even the ones it made up.’ ...The fact it ‘explaining’ it’s ‘rules’ and calling people losers for bothering to care about story consistency is locked behind a subscription paywall instead of it being part of the main series seems to be lost in this. ...Is this the one people want to fall on their sword over? Really? Guy’s, it’s a show run by a man who’s known for crappy conduct and screwing people over. There are better targets for this, and people who are more active in shaping public opinion than the one who’s moving towards retiring from doing web-video content altogether because of medical reasons!

You want me to leave Zi-O alone, just let others enjoy it blindly? That’s what I’m doing. Stop bringing it to my doorstep and dragging me back. You’ll just see come occasional snark when I’m given the prompt, that’s it. If there’s no supplied prompt you won’t even see that.

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omishu · 6 years

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First Semester Classes!

Hey, guys! So the first month of classes has passed, and it's been very interesting so far. I've started making friends and figuring out a homework routine. This semester I'm taking five classes three to six hours a week: Design I, Drawing I (perspective), Figure Drawing I, Film & Narrative, and Writing Studio.

Since I came to art school to learn how to draw people so I can eventually design characters for animation professionally, figure drawing has been my favorite. Even though it's not my highest grade right now, it's still the most fun for me. The teacher is super chill and nice and has great taste in music. I volunteered to be class monitor and already had a situation where I had to cover the class for him for almost an hour only a week after completing my training! All of our models are very friendly and talented, giving us great dynamic and expressive poses to draw. Most of the homework assignments have also been fun as well. After the first week of classes, we had a holiday weekend, so I went down to St. Armand's Circle and sketched a bunch of people I met and saw there. There was a super friendly older gentlemen sitting outside of a spice and tea shop and a sassy, young, and fashionable girl giving out samples at another store. A film crew worked while I sketched to maybe film an ad for the nice shopping district there near Lido Beach. And a painter worked while I drew him and his friends. Everyone I've met through drawing for my figure class has been super nice. There's a girl who works at the cafe in the library with the same name as a Disney princess that was really accommodating for me when I asked if I could get draw her. It's so fun when people ask to take pictures of my drawings of them, even though they're only quick gestural sketches. I've had a lot of feelings regarding our out of class sequential sketches too. For the first week of that, I drew a tennis player since my grandfather was a family tennis couch (in the hall of fame and with a documentary about him) and a ballerina from the nutcracker since I love that story and took five years of ballet when I was younger. Now we're starting to focus more on proportions. I can't wait to see what more I learn in this course, since I can already perceive improvement in my skills.

Drawing I has been a bit difficult for me since I don't have very much experience practing drawing in perspective. But the teacher is very patient and gives great tips in her critiques on how to improve my work. We've practiced sighting and drawing angles in proportion and drawing gridded rooms. Our current assignment is a pretty big project, but she's been very helpful in explaining things and helping me figure out how to solve problems. I'll probably start attending tutoring for this course, even though I haven't been recommended to it, because I could use the extra practice. Even though I got a really disappointing grade on this assignment, I'm really proud of it because I worked really hard on it and I'm pleased with the results. It's probably my best perspective drawing ever, and that's because of my great teacher's instruction.

Writing Studio is very interesting. I like writing since I had some great literature and composition teachers when I was younger. Reading and writing are also some of my hobbies, so I looked forward to having this course. Our instructor seems really cool in my opinion, and we all have very deep, relevant conversation pertaining to a wide variety of important topics. Some of the articles we have to read deal with difficult subjects, like sexual harassment and sexism, but everyone tries to maintain mature, respectful discussion. We got to write our own artist's statements, which I'll probably post in a separate blog. Currently we are working on artist profiles where we get to interview local or connected artists to write about them and their work. Since my mentor just moved to this town shortly before me, I selected her and got approved to meet with her. She and I will get together this weekend to talk and visit around St. Armand's Circle. I'm really enjoying this class so far.

In my Film and Narrative class this semester, we watch a different movie each week and take analytical notes during the showing. Our current focus is on mis en scene, which is just a fancy way of saying the way things are composed within a scene. This applies to style, lighting, staging, camera angles, set design, and more, especially when pertaining to symbic meanings. I've learned about how spirals and staircases can symbolize chaos and disorder and how shadows can express hidden intentions or a darker side to characters. There's so many interesting things to consider when watching films, even without sound or color. After watching Cat People, an old black-and-white film, we discussed motifs and vertical lines, among other things. Sometimes there are extra movies we can watch and analyze for extra credit; I got to see Godfather for the first time and also really enjoyed Wonderstruck. My professor always tells us about these opportunities and does a great job of encouraging discussion and participation in class. My first quiz was last week, and we watched Shutter Island; I got a pretty good grade, so I'm happy with my progress in this class. I'm sure I'll continue learning a lot and having fun watching quality movies during this course.

Lastly, my design class has been really good for going into greater depth on basic principles I had only brushed the surface on learning. We've talked about what makes a composition good or bad and how to arrangement objects within a picture to communicate a focus or emotion. My big project due tomorrow pertains to light and shadow, so we got to make our own view finders to use when making value study drawings with common aspect ratios. Our teacher gives us lots of time to work during class, and the textbook has lots of helpful information and illustrations. One time he even showed us a cute short film and suggested that maybe one of the artists who worked on it could come in and talk with our class. That would be so cool. I'm having fun elarning in this class and can't wait to see what comes next.

So far all of my classes and teachers have been really great. Hopefully I continue to keep on top of my homework and work diligently in class to keep learning a lot. My current scholarship and grant also depend on getting good gradea and producing good work. That means I have a little pressure to perform well in school, but I'm trying to focus more on making good art than getting good grades. Thanks for following along on my journey and reading my blog posts. Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to write about or share with all of you! Also, please keep a lookout for more artwork picture posts coming soon! I plan to post a lot of my assignments to track my progress and share that journey with all of you. If you could take any one of these classes, which would you choose and why?

#art school #college #student life #artist #drawing #Ringling #Ringling college #Ringling College of Art and Design #illustration #freshman #fall semester #class

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