#they completely acknowledged that majority of their fandom NOW would not fucking like that ending.

[insanesonofabitch]

Kind of funny. SPN was supposed to end in s5, with Sam in Hell, Cas in Heaven, and Dean on Earth, living with a wife and a son. But it ends after ten more season later with Cas in superhell, Dean in Heaven, and Sam on Earth, living with a wife and a son. Like some fucked up game of musical chairs. Except the chairs are never taken, the song remains the same, and they’re just going in circles. Anyways, Happy November 19th.

#remember that video where Jensen expressed dislike towards the finale #and they basically told him “look at it from the fan perspective” you mean like fans from 10 years ago??? #they completely acknowledged that majority of their fandom NOW would not fucking like that ending. #they brought back Becky just to tell Chuck that it fucking SUCKED. #[sigh] #supernatural #spn #spn meta #spn finale #spngate #spn 5x22 #swan song #spn 15x20 #carry on #chuck won theory #chuck won #team free will #tfw #sam winchester #dean winchester #castiel #destiel #reiotalks

[stupidrant]

RANT INCOMING!

I have to talk abt this as this has been in my mind for months and this i think is the only safe space to talk abt the fandom and their weird antics towards the characters/actors and overall games.Im not against criticism but theres a line between criticizing and going overboard with hating.

One thing i dont understand abt the god of war fandom is that they complain about alot of things not being “accurate” and thats doesnt make sense to me bc when has gow ever been accurate? I thought it was obvious from the beginning that SMS wasnt going for that and never truly will. Its always their own interpretation. They also have this weird hatred / ignorance towards atreus that i also dont understand? Yea he was a little annoying in the first game but thats understandable as hes… a kid. Ragnarok expanded his character pretty well imo and i feel like alot of these people for some reason cannot get past him in general? Maybe because they are afraid of him taking over the series and “forgetting” kratos (idk why thats in their minds LOL) or they just hate him just because. I feel like the fandom wants kratos to forever be this god who destroys things and whatnot and its all so weird. like they never gave him a chance. thankfully he has fans but majority hates him. Dont even get me started on how they treat angrboda. Its really so ridiculous to me that they can be so hateful for no true reason. they call her a bitch for yelling at atreus when all the women in the game get annoyed or disappointed in him atleast once. And they dont understand that she has only known this prophecy shit for her whole life and she couldnt do anything outside bc of the threat. ofc shes angry bro LOLL its also in her name like i dont understand 😭.  Atreus helps her get out of that mindset and assures her she can do whatever she wants now. Laya is so strong idk how she does it :( I also noticed they treat thrud as this “replacement” of angrboda bc they dont like her either cuz shes black or bc they hate her and everything related to atreus but as long as he has a character they can like thats not angrboda its fine. Its all so weird bc theres no competition between the two. There never was. I dont think they actually like thrud for her character they just want to be weirdos and i feel kinda bad for her and mina bc they really dont give a fuck. Im so shocked chris sunny and others even INTERACT with this bullshit of a fandom they are all really strong bc id say fuck all of you and go 😭 im not against criticism at all and i try not to take this shit seriously but its hard when you see a insane group of people take alot of this shit to the next level. this fandom is a bunch of whiny babies who hold onto their precious destroyer too much. The hate everyone has gotten recently is just so stupid and they often times try to make it their goal to hate. I see that SMS is trying to diverge their fandom to a broader audience and they are taking a bit more risks esp with atreus and i love that despite the backlash against him, they continued with his character regardless. I hope they do the same thing with the other characters as well and expand them no matter how much these people want to hate and act all high and mighty. I can understand certain critiques like the ending being too fast or maybe they couldve done blah blah better and whatnot but i think alot of people are overreacting and being ridiculously nitpicky with alot of things when it comes to ragnarok. 

Last thing and also kinda random thing SMS is very wrong for what they did to TC Carson and i acknowledge that completely and i hope they never do smth like that to any of the current cast either bc i would be fucking pissed if so LOL

#God of war #god of war fandom #Gow #kratos #Atreus #angrboda #freya #thrud #thor #sif #yall are some fucking assholes #fandom #bullshit #gowr #god of war ragnarok #my stuff

[utilitycaster]

i've never had to 'curate my internet experience' with the speed i have today, blocking so many bad-faith takes on mercer and cr as a whole. When I saw one arguing cr fans shouldn't be surprised, because the 'big dog' is always hated, then actively compare CR to both the yankees and star wars in terms of size and vibe of the fans, i had to let it go. Apparently cr is made up 'wildly successful voice actors' like ah yes. the clout of the VO. Gonna silo myself for this damn show, too old for this!

Hey anon,

I completely support doing this if it's right for you but might I recommend laughing at the bad faith takes? Because here's the thing. The vast majority of what I've seen is from two specific places that are probably directly next to each other:

Former CR fans who are really mad that Beau got into a relationship with Yasha, and decided this meant Critical Role was homophobic, sexist, and racist for having an interracial lesbian relationship because [footage not found] and left for Dimension 20. Unfortunately, they forgot that Dimension 20, which had Matt in the very first sidequest as well as "Sidequest for which we need people who we know are talented, dependable and very comfortable with D&D Actual Play because it's our first remote filming", does not as an institution hate Matt Mercer in the slightest, and in fact likes him. Anyway they're throwing a hissy fit because in the end, this was always an extended hissy fit. Would you like some popcorn bc I personally prefer Chicago style with the mixed caramel and cheese.

Some absolutely bonkers tiny circle of people who are fixated on an unconfirmed ship between an NPC and the character she killed two decades before the narrative. Anyway they say they're mad because Matt isn't plugged into the fandom but the thing is most of the D20 fandom was also not plugged into this particular circle, which is but a speck of dust in an uncaring universe. So they're actually secretly DELIGHTED Matt is DM-ing because they can hide their entitlement behind the fact that they can call the DM of a very popular show an interloper, but they're also terrified because Brennan does still exist and is in fact playing the character most tied to the NPC in this ship, and like...if Matt contradicts their fanlore, that means Brennan did not confirm their fanlore, which means not only is it debunked now; it was never canon to the world in the first place. Which you'd think would be fine because fanlore has no need to be canon, right? It's fanwork! Go nuts! Except these people are kind of dumb.

Anyway for what it's worth I'm neither a Yankees nor Star Wars fan but also I acknowledge that most of the time when people are mad at the popular thing for being popular it really is kind of a "you want to fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid" sort of situation. They desperately want their thing to be the biggest fish in the pond except they'd also hate that. They are a big orange cat stuck in a cat flap and they're acting like it. And as with a big orange cat that doesn't belong to you stuck in a cat flap but ultimately unharmed and perfectly capable of getting out on its own, I recommend taking a picture of it and laughing about it on social media.

#answered #Anonymous

[puppercupboard]

I was going to leave my say on the current state of things with regards to MW3 and it's ending (major spoilers ahead) to one post but i am notoriously bad at keeping my mouth shut so like....

let me preface this that i am not telling you that you have to comply with canon. i am not a cop. if you want to make an au where soap lives go ahead. my friends and i already have. this is just a vent post and i don't expect anyone to give a shit what i have to say.

but genuinely the response that i've seen from some of the ghoap shippers with regards to his death? it's giving.... complete tone-deafness and total unfamiliarity with the characters that they are proclaiming to love.

which i suppose shouldn't be too surprising, considering that i have seen people admitting to not engaging with the source material because it's military propaganda (and it is!) and saying they don't want to promote it... as people who are creators for the ship. The ship that has been one of the biggest driving forces for funneling new people into the fandom. y'know. the fandom for the military propaganda game.

the number of people i've seen people say that they've only watched soap's death scene in one sentence and then say it was done for shock value in the next. that it came out of nowhere. that it had no reason to happen. as if there isn't foreshadowing to it sprinkled through the entire game... it boggles my fucking mind. like. i cannot imagine skipping to the climax of a book and complaining about how it didn't make any sense and had no emotional impact.

which is another thing, cause like. i have absolutely seen people complain that the death wasn't emotional enough. straight up seen people say that it would be better ghost should have been crying and screaming and cradling soap to him. ghost... yall gonna act as if ghost, who is present basically from the moment that we see him in MW2 as closed off and guarded and unshakable no matter the violence happening around him.... rushing to soap's side to check on him the instant that the active threat was gone and kneeling in a pool of soap's blood so shaken up that he couldn't help with anything, couldn't talk and could barely move..... is not an emotional reaction?

like... for real, yall have lost the plot so bad. saw someone go full on "we deserve a soft epilogue" with the ship as a response to the ending and that is genuinely fucking hilarious(derogatory). like... none of these men want one. soap went down swinging. soap went down saving the life of his friend. soap got a quick death in a fight to prevent countless civilian casualties. that was the best case scenario for him.

yall are acting like this isn't a military game about a special operations group made of war criminals in a franchise that has never once hesitate to kill off characters. they did not kill off soap because of homophobia. they did not kill off soap because they don't like ghoap and want you to stop shipping. they killed off soap because killing off soap made sense.

you can cry about it all you want but when you go complaining about how they killed off the blorbo you adopted based on his appearance from a series who's canon you don't actually engage with. and talking about how now that he's dead you're never going to even ACKNOWLEDGE the canon going forward........ bestie take off the fucking blinders, what you are holding in your hands is an OC.

#just a dog with a bone #cod mw3 #mw3 spoilers #pupper salt #drama cw #vent

[trixstriforce]

hello :) i saw your posts about lu and idk if you were gauging interest in people hearing your opinions. personally i would be super interested in reading what specifically about every lu character is ooc! i am similarly frustrated with the current dominance of lu characterizations in fandom as a ww fan. ive been following for a while i just logged into this side account because i am scared to ask on main :( i hope you do not mind the somewhat bare blog. thank you!

oh my god oh my god oh my god someone wants my opinion??? do u wanna make out???? u do not understand the power u r giving me rn u do not understand how annoying and nitpicky and very passionate i can get specifically about lu bc i care so much about link its unreal and also bc i just like things like linkedmaze, dimensional links, and minaslinkverse better characterization wise bc to me they have shown the "found family links meeting up" thing a lotttt better than lu when i still read it

but to be fair i STOPPED reading around the part where four split due to the way the lu community reacting to the person with DID, a very stigmatized disorder who genuinely just wanted Jojo to acknowledge they messed up in the past and present and didnt like the vauge ass apology she gave making me actually disgusted. ppl talk about accountability then rallied against 1 tumblr user who was uncomfortable bc ppl liked Jojo's comic so she doesnt have to explain that now she respects nonbinary ppl and understands how past things were wrong for her to say we just infer this bc lu good :/ like hey maybe Jojo owned up to it afterwards or something bc she made 2 apologies that would make a YouTuber blush so i was done w/ the community and it was only rlly after that and after i played a few of the actual games + read some mangas i realized wow actually i do not like lu as much as i thoguht i did they butchered my boy, also i feel i should say it literally wouldnt matter to me do what u want in ur au but lu is now a fandom of its own and its influenced a lot of other aus and interpretations of link so i do take issue w/ how ooc these guys end up being

OK HERE R THE MOST BASIC ISSUES W/OUT GETTING INTO EACH LINK RN:

for one i dont know for me having link as a secret hoarder who would rather DIE than use the full scope of his abilities around OTHER HEROS is just no bc thats fucking stupid levels of wanting to appear normal around OTHER HEROS possiblly the ONLY other ppl to ever understand what u r going through

for me having every single link act like a frat boy/standard teenage white boy who is emotionally constipated is a no??? have u SEEN link he is so sociable and kind and understanding to other ppl WHY r the links like this, so many fics just...make them stew in their issues for angst and not trust the others and be incredibly insecure about the other heros(which is lu canon for at least hyrule and wind i think?) and like ok that is definitely fine for 1 link but why r they all like this in the games link is clearly not like that he wouldn't be this closed off and wouldn't hesitate so much like my dude he just inserts himself into other ppl's lives to make them better than leaves he wouldn't pussyfoot around other heros like what

also another major issue is the mergings just lead to certain characterizations or important backstory for certain links(FOUR. LEGEND.) being completely erased and the nuance of their journeys lost like when u merge links who r canonically 100s of years apart not just in the timeline but in the GAMES? yeah u lose things that make that link special

also bc u mentioned wind waker i found it kinda fucked up that wind waker link was delegated to The Kid TM even tho his entire journey was about moving on from the past to a brighter future and he took on the mantle left behind by the hero of time on his own volition and did what Time COULDN'T do which is kill Ganon but he is constantly underestimated and made into the Kid Who Wants Approval trope specifically around Time which sucks ass ngl he deserves to be an equal him still being a kid while the others got to grow up, including Four who's first journey arguably would have been a better fit for this archtype of wide eyed kid, is just side lining one of the most interesting links especially considering most of the other links were YOUNGER than him when they started

this is all general stuff plus 1 of my issues w/ Wind bc ur a Wind Waker fan bc as a Spirit Track fan i feel a kinship, im gonna make another post for specifically each link breaking down my issues w/ how they r portrayed later bc rn it is 8am and i ment to just say haha ty for the permission but then my inner ranter came out i am INCAPABLE of being normal about lu especially after i actually experienced zelda games bc lu was my FIRST introduction to zelda outside of smash bros lol

toast if u r reading this say rip to ur dms bc i am once more gonna talk to u about a comic for a videogame franchise u only know about due to my rambles and forcing u at gunpoint to learn about link...godspeed comrade

#trix posts #linked universe #rant #kinda? #ask #toast's dms r were i go to complain about lu bc they also do not like it bc i keep complaining about it #also bc from what they have seen of lu they just do not like it

[neonnoir-ao3]

Some Words of Comfort.

Recently, I’ve seen a lot of people (especially those who have read spoilers/are actively searching for leaked content) lament about their future reactions to the deaths of our beloved characters in-game.

We all knew this was inevitable, and that them living was not an option for the plot of the game, but the time has finally come to face it head-on.

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I understand that someone outside this community might be like “it’s just a game”, but I know it’s way more than that to many: the concept of a female villain that, to many, can be seen as sympathizable and even endearing, is a bit of a new concept— especially on such a large scale as this instance.

In addition, Lady Dimitrescu and her daughters have become a bit of a comfort item for some (with an emphasis on sapphics/wlw, from what I’ve seen personally) in the form of a large, protective, and caring hypothetical partner, or even just a maternal character one can appreciate simply because of her love for her children. Regardless, most of us are here due to some desire for comfort.

Take my own story with this community, for example:

(tws for death, covid, suicide, and general medical emergencies)

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Frankly, 2020 and the beginning of 2021 have ruined me. I lost two men who were the only two positive father figures I’ve ever had. The last of the two tested positive for covid and deteriorated within days, to the point where less than a week after testing positive, my family was making the choice to pull the plug. This all occurred days before Christmas and my birthday. On the first day of the spring semester, having not had the time to properly mourn my grandfather, my mother is in the ER for multiple days with an internal infection that doctors said likely would have turned septic if she had waited to come in any longer. This led to three surgeries throughout the next few months. (Oh, and one of my relatives quite literally dropped dead on that first day of class, too). I am also estranged from one of my parents, and they have been trying to contact my family: they have multiple untreated mental illnesses (severe NPD, bipolar, and more) and they are extremely aggressive in that state of mind and they are agitated extremely easily. That only brings more stress, along with resurfacing trauma and related emotions. Every moment of every day has been a struggle. So much so that I failed half of my classes voluntarily simply because I couldn't do them anymore.

To be perfectly honest with you, I didn’t expect to be here right now. I expected that the pain of simply moving forward would have finally overridden my fears of death and that I would have already ended my suffering by now.

Then, in late January, I saw something trending on Twitter. About a new female villain in an upcoming horror game. And it went from there.

As cheesy as it sounds, this fandom and its content seriously saved my life. In the darkest of days, I’ve come to this tag for comfort. The oddest way I found said comfort was through those who were attracted to Alcina aesthetically. I have extremely long-term trauma related to being bullied and being the victim of a hybrid catfishing/'Oreo Game' on early social media by peers in middle school to the point where I do not think of myself as being able to be loved, let alone being worthy of it. Finding this community not only provided a great form of escapism (and opened a door into a fantasy world where I could imagine my own person vampire milf gf), but also gained a little bit of self-esteem (as many of you know, I share a lot of visual qualities with Alcina. -yes, I'm still kinda freaked out about it-) via seeing people where features/attributes like mine were actively praised and desired rather than insulted and pushed away like they have been until now.

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(okay sorry that kinda turned into a trauma dump but I needed to emphasize the fact that this community has seriously helped me during a really dark point in my life, and I know I can't be the only one with that sort of experience)

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What I’m trying to get across here is that, like many others, this community and its content have been comforting and therapeutic, and it really is more than just a game to us. It’s entertaining and even a form of escapism in these extremely trying times. We all have some degree of PTSD from surviving a literal mass plague— and this is something we're using as a method of coping. a distraction. a coping mechanism.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With that being said, here are some ways to hopefully assist in lessening the emotional stress:

(please note that I am not a mental health professional and these may not be healthy coping mechanisms for everyone.)

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Understand that it’s just a game.

I know, this sounds completely counterintuitive, but it’s more or less about keeping your level of immersion down. Personally, I can’t do scary shit in general: I have to listen to music on low volume while watching dark ARG vids at night or when I’m alone because I get too into it, and then my paranoia kicks in. Sometimes just pausing for a moment and grounding yourself/reminding yourself that this is a video game: a jumble of code and 3D rendering that doesn’t have to affect your views/headcanons if you don’t want it to. Did your favorite character just get slaughtered? Nope, that 3D rendering of them just got un-alived, that’s all.

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Ignorance is Bliss/We are the Captain Now

Simple: Capcom can’t even pronounce Dimitrescu right, or even acknowledge the way it’s correctly said in Romanian culture itself. How can you trust them to give you a perfect canon? That’s the thing: with that logic, you can’t. What they say is true means little (if anything, for that matter) to your headcanons and preexisting ideas of the Dimitrescus. In short: fuck ‘em.

I’m currently seeking a double major in pop culture, and one of the cool things I’ve learned so far is affirmational vs transformational fandom. Affirmational is where official canon is seen as the law of the land, and followed to a T. Transformational is seen as much more inviting for audiences, allowing them to bend canon as they wish to fit their own creations. This fandom is obviously transformational, so take that game canon, rip it up, and get back to whatever you were doing.

Capcom’s canon is not the end-all, be-all. Far from it, actually.

Want to still acknowledge canon? Godmod your way out of it.

Character A died? It’d be a shame if they emerged from the rubble they 'died in' a few hours later, very beaten but alive nonetheless... how awful would it be if they sulked away, nursed their wounds, and continued to live... (/s)

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Ignore it completely.

Remember: give it time. Once the game drops, there w be a wave of grief, but eventually, we as a community will recover, and get back to business as usual. Think about it like the in any way. Stay with the version in your head that makes you happy.

Get Creative!

If you're into creating fanart, writing fics, or even just posting a list of headcanons, take some advice from the late Carrie Fisher: "Take your broken heart, and make it into art". Make the fluff oneshot of your dreams! Draw the fanart you've been wanting to! dump lighthearted headcanons into the tags! Not only will it cheer you up, but sharing it with the community will spread the love!

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I know a lot of people are struggling with this emotionally (especially with the pandemic making entertainment like this even more important sources of escapism and coping mechanisms) and I hope that, at the very least, I was able to help comfort one person who reads this.

Remember: give it time. Once the game drops, there will be a wave of grief, but eventually, we as a community will recover, and get back to business as usual. Think about it like the flowers that bloom after major wildfires: after a period of loss, some beautiful can still come of it.

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💙

#tall vampire lady #lady alcina #lady dimitrescu #daniela dimitrescu #castle dimitrescu #alcina dimitrescu #dimitrescu daughters #dimitrescu family #dimitrescu sisters #cassandra dimitrescu #countess dimitrescu #house dimitrescu #resident evil #re: village #resident evil village #resident evil: village

[darlingbudsofrae]

idk... my issue is that these tweets are about 10 years old. i know i thought and said and posted things over 6 years ago that i wouldn't stand by today, and i too would delete them and ignore them. now, if he still stands by those tweets today, that's a whole separate issue. but 10 years is a long time, and i think if he said anything publicly at this very moment, he might end up fucking over shadow and bone. also, he doesn't seem very active on social media, so he may not feel like he's under any obligation to explain himself to the general public, even though it is in his best interest to do so.

hmmm i didn't consider that tbh,, cuz the criticism against him i'm kind of considering valid is that "he had the time to delete the tweets within seconds but never addressed them" altho i do think it's harsh to say never because for all we know, and thanks for reminding me,, he could be taking the time to collect the words to appropriately address the situation because it is a grave matter. either that, or his management told him to stay put or something. or we have the third option where he does still uphold these views which hopefully isn't the case. one thing i'd disagree on tho is the obligation part, i feel like as a professional slash public figure and feel free to correct me on this but i think he knows he has the obligation to explain himself regardless of how inactive he is in social media. i do wish he could address this really soon because yeah,, it's looking really bad for him the more he puts it out but until then, i hope the fandom can be less toxic and at least reserve their judgments until he addressed the tweets.

i didn't really want to spoke about this but the thing i hate about the internet is how most of the times, the culture and time isn't considered at these cases. i think we've come so far as a society towards this social issues that we easily forget that this wasn't the case at times back. also, a decade and a year is a pretty long time, there's a chance for growth there- lots, i just hope he took it.

i saw a lot of people on twt saying "he was famous for a while now (since he was on a big show or something) and if he really regretted it, he should've apologized long ago". the thing is tho, these tweets only resurfaced because majority of the fans were so unhappy with the casting that they managed to miraculously dig up tweets that he made a decade ago when he was in his early/mid teens. for all we know, he'd probably forgotten about it as he grew up. i honestly felt bad for him on that regard, although it really would be on his best interest to respond asap cuz while there are some of us that can give him the benefit of the doubt like that, most people on the internet aren't really forgiving. of course, again- regardless of the words whatever he has to say there will always be people that'll hate him, but a bit of acknowledgement would be nice.

i am all for holding people accountable but most of the grishaverse fandom, at least on the side i've seen about this issue, confuses accountability with life sentence. everyone is so set on subjecting him to the tweets and not giving him the space to at least clarify himself, and i saw a lot of people sending him death threats and people making fun of his looks and people joking about organizing a murder and it's just so sick?? like,, that's just as low as the tweets he made those years ago, altho i'd push that the condemnation against him now is worse than what they're condemning him for because we're at a time and height of the internet were majority of us know this is wrong, this is vile and sick and it just reeks of performativity. at least give him a chance to explain himself before condemning him completely to his past.

i'd clarify that i think it's valid to be offended and hurt by those tweets, but to stoop down below to the level of decade-old tweets that were likely influenced by his surroundings, this isn't a defense this is to give understanding to what probably made him tweet those things but here's a serious question— what's the excuse of everyone in the fandom jokingly plotting on killing him/sending him death threats/and other insults?

the sad thing is, i honestly don't think those tweets would've resurfaced if most of the fandom didn't hate him so much (or at least they would've resurfaced at a much later time or sum). they just tried to find an opportunity to hate on him and sadly for patrick gibson's part, they found one. i would clarify again that these tweets did offend me, still feels a bit off for me, but as someone who had similar thoughts way back because of my surroundings,, i can't help but feel bad for some of the hate he's receiving rn (we can do both people) and hope that he changed.

this is pretty long and lowkey kinda preachy (also i derailed a lot lol it's the adhd lmao) so sorry for subjecting u to that anon, but thank u for this ask ♥

#patrick gibson #nikolai lantsov #shadow & bone #shadow and bone netflix #shadow and bone #grishaverse #s&b show #netflix #cancel culture #asks #raeraegoaway

[michaels-blackhat]

thoughts on evil Forrest 😈

We are going to start out by apologizing. This is very very late. I’m sure when you sent this ask, you meant it to be in the same joking tone that I approach all of my other propaganda posts. Sadly, this is actually going to be a deep dive into a few Evil Forrest related things, including the moment I feel they changed directions, the perfect wasted build-up, and the implications of the change/how it then negatively impacted the story. As I’m sure you already know, by being on my blog at all, I don’t think the story was good to begin with, so we are going to focus on the weird hoops they made themselves jump through to make that story still work. Additionally, I am only going to mention once, right now, how much of a waste it was to not have Forrest ‘fall for his mark’ and complete one of my absolute favorite tropes. Honestly, I think “because I want it” is a completely valid reason to like Evil Forrest. But, the question was “Thoughts on Evil Forrest” and these thoughts have been developing for over a year and a half. So, I apologize in advance.

The majority of this is under a cut, with highlights in the abstract. If no one wants to read this, I understand completely. Go ahead, skip it.

Note: it pains me greatly to not actually have full sources for this essay. Just know that in my heart I am using proper APA citations, I just absolutely do not feel like digging through tweets to find sources to properly cite.

Abstract:

Previous research indicates that Roswell New Mexico has a history of repeating excuses to explain mid-season changes to plots. This essay explores how those excuses are not only loads of crap, but how they hinder the show’s ability to tell a coherent story, misuse the multiple-plot structure to enhance the themes being explored, and lead to decisions that mean the show continuously goes over budget. This also means that characters are not used to their full potential and has led to what some fans consider to be “out of character” behaviors. While these behaviors are not universally agreed on, evidence can be shown that these behaviors directly contradict emotionally important character arc/plot points in the show.

The author of this paper acknowledges that the show took some strides to mend this problem. However, once again no consensus could be found on whether Forrest was a low-level member of Deep Sky and thus just allowed to fuck off on a bus, or his job was recruitment because he did a piss poor job of making Alex not join.

The concept of Evil Forrest has been with the fandom as early as New York Comic Con (NYCC) in 2019, when it was revealed that Alex had a new “blue-haired love interest”. Speculation abounded within the fandom, with some people, including the author, going “yeah, he’s evil” while others rejoiced in the concept of Alex having a loving partner. Speculation increased as fans discussed Tyler Blackburn’s seeming disinterest in his new love interest, prompting some once again to scream “EVIL” at the top of their lungs to anyone who would listen. Very little was revealed, beyond the fact that the new character would show up somewhere around episode 3 of the second season.

Episode 2.04 aired with some commenting on how he barely interacted with Alex- prompting more evil speculation- and others excited to see the characters interact more. The character appears again in 2.06, where he invites Alex to dubious spoken word poetry (which Alex attends); 2.08, where they have a paintball date and go to The Wild Pony; 2.10, where the two are seen writing together briefly at the beginning of the episode; and 2.13, where Alex performs his song at open mic night, tells Forrest his relationship with the person in the song was long over, and they kiss. Forrest was not revealed to be evil during season 2.

Amidst the season airing, Word of God via Twitter post announced that yes, Forrest had originally been planned as a villain, though not the main villain, but it was changed as filming progressed.

The Word of God Twitter post revealed that Forrest had originally been planned as a villain, but they decided that they could not make their “blue-haired gay man” a villain. This mirrors a similar situation and excuse used the previous season, where the character of Jenna Cameron was originally planned to work with Jesse Manes against the aliens, before it was changed because they just “loved Riley [the actress] too much”. Both of these examples occurred while already filming and reflect on a larger problem with the show. Though not the topic of this essay, it is important to note that both characters are white, both in the show and by virtue of being played by white actors. The fact that they couldn’t be villains for one reason or another is not a courtesy extended to the male villains who are all the most visibly brown, and thus ‘other’, members of the cast.

This also highlights the fact that, via Twitter, it has been revealed two other times that occurrences that were reported in season 1 also occurred in season 2. During the airing of episode 1.02, it was revealed that the single best build-up of tension in the show- when Alex walks to the Airstream not saying a word to Michael after a dramatic declaration- happened because one actor was sick at the time and they had to go back and film the kisses later. At the point of airing for episode 2.08, it was revealed that one of the actors were sick and unable to film a kissing scene. Allegedly, this caused the writers to retool the entire scene and deviate from the plan to make that subplot about Coming Out. The execution of this subplot will be explored later in this essay.

The last occurrence revealed via Twitter also revealed larger issues within the show: lack of planning and poor budgeting. During the airing of season 1, Tyler Blackburn was needed for an extra episode beyond his contracted 10. A full explanation was never given, but speculation about poor planning and to fill in because Heather Hemmens had to miss one of her 10 episodes due to scheduling conflicts for another project. During the airing of season 2, yet another tweet came out saying they made a mistake and Tyler would once again be in an additional episode. No explanations beyond “a mistake” were given, though once again speculation occurred. It is the opinion of the author that this was due to changing plot points over halfway through writing, while episodes were already in production. It has been speculated by some that these changes occurred during the writing of 2.08, which was being finished/pre-production was occurring roughly around the time of NYCC 2019.

Previous Literature:

A brief look at different theories of plots and subplots

Many people have written on the subject of plotting, for novels and screen alike. The author is more familiar with film writing than tv, but a lot of the concepts carry over. Largely, the B- and C- (and D- and E-… etc) plots should reinforce the theme of the A-plot. This can be through the use of a negative example, where the antithesis of the theme is explored to reinforce the theme presented by the A plot, or through other examples of the theme, generally on a small scale.

A movie example of this would be Hidden Figures (2016), where the A-plot explores how race and gender impact the main character (Katherine Johnson) in her new job. The B-plots explore the other characters navigating the same concepts in different settings and ways- learning a new skill as to not become obsolete and breaking boundaries there (Dorothy Vaugn) and being the first black woman to complete a specific degree program and the fight it took to get there (Mary Jackson). A TV example that utilizes this concept of plot and theme is the 911 shows. Each of the rescues in a given episode will directly relate to the overall theme of the episode and the overall plot for the focus character. This example is extremely blunt. It does not use any tools to hide the connection, to the point you can often guess the outcome for that A-plot fairly quickly.

This is not the only way to explore themes within visual media. Moonlight (2016) looks at three timestamps in the life of Chiron. Each timestamp has a plot even if they feel more like individual scenes or moments rather than plots as some are more used to in films. Each time stamp deals with rejection, isolation, connection, and acceptance in different ways. So while there is no clear A-, B-, or C-Plot, each time stamp works as their own A-Plot to explore the themes in a variety of ways, particularly by starting out in a place of rejection and moving to acceptance or a place of connection to isolation.

Please note that there are many ways to write multiple plots, there are just two examples.

While there are flaws within season 1 of RNM, overall the themes stayed consistent throughout the season, mainly the theme of alienation. The theme threads through the Alien’s isolation/alienation from humanity which is particularly seen through Michael’s unwillingness to participate and Isobel’s over participation. There is Rosa’s isolation from others, how her friendship with “Isobel” ended up compounding her existing alienation from her support system due to her mental illness and coping mechanisms. We see how Max and Liz couldn’t make connections. This theme presented itself over and over in season 1. While this essay is not an exploration of the breakdown of themes in season 2, it should be noted that there were some threads that followed throughout the season. The theme of mothers/motherhood was woven throughout season 2, with some elements more effective than others. Please contact the author for additional thoughts on Helena Ortecho and revenge plots.

One of the largest problems within season 2 was the sheer number of plots jammed into the season. These plot threads often ended up hindering the effectiveness of the themes and made the coherence of the season suffer. Additionally, a lot of them were convoluted and difficult to follow.

Thesis:

Essentially, season 2 was a mess. To look at it holistically is almost an exercise in futility. Either you grow angry about the dropped plots and premises, you hand wave them off, or you fill them in for yourself. Instead, this essay proposes to look at individual elements to explain why Forrest should have stayed evil.

We first meet Forrest in 2.04 when he is introduced on the Long Family Farm, which we later learn was the location where our past alien protagonists had their final standoff. He’s introduced. He’s largely just there. The audience learns he has more of a history with Michael. In 2.06, we meet him again with his dog Buffy (note: poor Buffy has not been seen again and we miss a chunky queen). There’s mild flirting, Alex is invited to an open mic night, which he attends. For the purpose of this essay, the author’s thoughts on the poetry will not be expressed. Readers can take a guess.

It is after this point that the author speculates the Decision was made. This choice to make Forrest not evil- paired with the aforementioned ‘can’t kiss, someone’s sick’- impacted the plot. We have Alex have a scene with his father- which the author believes could have been pushed to a different episode- and then have Alex go on a date and then not kiss Forrest at the end of the night. Here, the audience sees Forrest hit Alex in the leg, allegedly not knowing he had lost his leg despite ‘looking him up’, which parallels the shot to the leg that happens to Charlie. Besides wasting this ABSOLUTELY TEXTBOOK SET UP WTF, it also takes Alex away from the main plot and then forces a new plot for him. Up to this point, Alex’s plot was discovering more about the crash and his family’s involvement. Turning Alex’s date from a setup for evil Forrest to a Coming Out story adds yet another plot thread to a packed season. It is also the author’s thought that this is where the convoluted kidnapping plot comes in. With Forrest already in 2.10 for a moment, a plot where Alex is evil has Forrest attack him for Deep Sky rather than Jesse abduct him for a piece of alien glass Alex was going to give him anyway and then for Flint to abduct Alex from Jesse. It’s messy. In a bad way. Evil Forrest would have been a cleaner set up: no taking back a piece of alien glass Alex gave to Michael in a touching moment. No double abduction. Instead, there is only Forrest, who Alex trusts, breaking that trust to take him as leverage over Michael.

Implications:

Now, Alex has two plots (Tripp & Coming Out). The Coming Out plot is largely ineffective, as they are only relevant to scenes with Forrest and have the undercurrent of there only being a certain acceptable way to be out. This could have been used for Alex to discover his comfort levels, mirroring Isobel’s self discovery, but there was not enough screen time for that. Additionally, Isobel’s coming out story was about her allowing herself the freedom to explore. Alex’s story was about the freedom to… act like this dude wanted him to. Alex’s internalized homophobia played out often in the series but it was also informed by the violence he experienced at Jesse’s hands and the literal hate crime he and his high school boyfriend experienced. With that in mind, the “kissing to piss off bigots” line comes off poorly. This is a character who experienced what a pissed off bigot could do- reluctance to kiss in public is not the same as not being out. There is more to be said on this topic, but as it is not actually the focus of the essay, it will be put on hold. To surmise: Alex’s coming out is attempted to be framed as being himself, but it is actually the conformity to someone else’s ideals. It does not work as an antithetical to Isobel’s story, as the framing indicates that the conformity/right was to be out contradicts Isobel’s theme.

Further Research:

MAKE FORREST EVIL YOU COWARDS

Author Acknowledgements:

The author of this paper acknowledges that the show took some strides to mend this problem. However, once again no consensus could be found on whether Forrest was a low-level member of Deep Sky and thus just allowed to fuck off on a bus, or his job was recruitement because he did a piss poor job of making Alex not join.

#anti forrest long #i guess #evil forrest propaganda #I asked and no one said don't post it so... #here it is #I started writing this roughly 7 months ago

[kamuisthoughts]

The Actual Rant:

I’m going to begin by saying that I think the ABO dynamic is interesting.

That being said I’ve noticed some recurring and very disturbing themes that are attached to this type of AU, regardless of what fandom you’re reading in. It makes sense to me that a universe where people have secondary genders and are more susceptible to animalistic instincts would have different types of societal issues. This being the disturbing themes I mentioned. The disregard of rape, the gender oppression, the objectification of certain genders, and various forms of dysphoria.

Obviously these themes are extremely dark and unsettling, but what’s worse is how the people that take it upon themselves to write about these things romanticize these horrific issues. Using them as a tool to build a parallel world that would cause the reader to think or reflect on our own society is one thing. That’s what I would like to read. But instead I come across these ABO AUs and find authors downplaying these abominable problems, making it seem as if it’s okay to have these sorts of things happening.

If you tell me beforehand what you intend to do okay, I can just avoid that.

But anyway there’s a difference between building a world with dark elements like these and presenting it as something that is truly disgraceful, but many people in the world do not care or fear fighting against it, and creating a world where it’s obvious that the writer is fetishizing these elements. You can completely change the tone of something depending on how issues are presented, how the characters react to their circumstances.

I hate to see rape happen in a story. I honestly feel it’s the most unforgivable, egregious thing you could do to a person beside murdering them. It’s a form of torture, and I honestly believe this, so it turns my stomach to see people writing stories where characters go through this awful thing, sometimes repeatedly and it’s not accurately addressed. There’s rarely lasting trauma if any. They just kind of take it, they don’t fight, they might even accept it just because the character doing it to them is objectively attractive and that is nauseating to me.

I also hate to see kidnappings and forced marriages in this type of AU, where the author tells you the main character is a “BAMF” or “Strong” individual but this is never actually displayed. Not mentally which I often respect to see in characters and not even hinted at physically either. They’ll maybe have a sassy mouth but still won’t really do anything when their abuser is hurting them. And this is usually moot since the main character oftentimes just simpers for their alpha abuser in the end. They’ll either be too scared to continue to mouth off or be too enamored by the alpha’s physical appearance and scent.

I also noticed Stockholm Syndrome is really common in these stories as well, (should the author actually deign to touch upon the immense trauma rape would cause a person), despite how rare this condition is in reality. This I find maddening. Now, I understand sometimes reality is so painful that someone needs to escape it through delusion so that they can function somewhat coherently. But the fact that there are so many stories where a character is kidnapped, ripped from their life, forced to mate with someone who doesn’t respect them as a fellow human being, raped, forcefully impregnated, and then somehow still falls in love with their abuser is utterly repulsive.

And the thing that really upsets me is the fact that I deliberately exclude tags in my search that denote rape/non-con, underaged, and major character death yet still I come across stories where these things are mentioned. Are happening. They’ll be in the story but not in a story’s tags and just glossed over. I’m not sure if this is deliberate or if some of the writers just don’t understand the magnitude of the themes they’re pushing but regardless I find this unacceptable.

If someone says no and you stick your penis inside of them anyway, that is rape. If you lull them into a false sense of security due to pheromones after they’ve said no and have sex with them, that is rape. If they give up fighting because they know it’s hopeless it’s still rape. I don’t care how physically desirable you are, or how good you smell, or if you feel it’s your “right” to take the other person because you managed to pin them down and you’re stronger. They said no, and even if they didn’t say “no” they didn't say yes .

If someone didn’t say they accepted your advances, that is not dubious consent. That. Is. Rape . And women can be rapists too. Let’s stop pretending that’s not a thing and that it’s not just as bad no matter what gender the attacker is. Can we not try to sugarcoat the horrible things people are writing about and call it “dubious” so people can feel better about romanticizing sexual abuse and getting off on it? Because even if you don’t call a spade a spade it’s still a damn spade.

Now let’s talk about fetishes. I hate when male characters are forcefully feminized when they don’t want to be. Like seriously, a male omega in this type of ABO story could literally say, “I’m a man, don’t call me a wife or a mother” and the other characters will just brush it off, they won’t even address it. They’ll continue to label him incorrectly, continue to treat him in ways that make him uncomfortable, and eventually he’ll just stop getting upset or annoyed and go along with it. This is NOT okay. This happens when a writer likes writing about feminine men.

There’s nothing wrong with a feminine man, that’s not what I’m saying. What’s wrong is when a man is overly sexualized because of his physical appearance and incorrectly labeled by others despite him stating what he identifies as. If you want to write about a gender fluid male omega, do that! Do not write about a male omega who identifies as male and call him a wife just because he can give birth. He is still a husband. He is a man and the other characters should be respecting that.

Then we have the fetishizing of birth or breeding in these AUs. This element of this AU has always been so creepy to me. (And I’m talking about FORCED breeding. Edit added because I didn’t specify this at first).

Omegas in these AUs are seen as the lowest of the low because they have heats, are softhearted, physically weaker, and motherly. Yet despite being chained to the bottom of the societal hierarchy they are objectified by other secondary genders. They are desired just enough for alphas and betas to want to breed with but they aren’t worth equal rights such as choosing their own “mate”, their job, or even walking down the street without fear of being forcefully mounted.

Seldom do I see this issue actually portrayed as an issue. The omegas in the story bat their eyelashes at alphas, and even manipulate them because they know that they are objectified. They aim to get claimed by “strong” and “virile” alphas and to have “beautiful pups”. Like, what?

But okay, I can see that.

You live a certain way you can get used to almost anything, but the fact that it’s rarely more than the main character who wants for more is astounding to me. I guess this is a writer’s way of hammering home how different and “before their time” they want their main character to be but it just comes off as forced, and the main character becomes a novelty. Alphas just want the main even more because they want to break them so they can force them into the role of a “good little omega”.

It angers me to see this type of world building with no consequences. There’s no simmering rage at the lack of justice and equality, there’s no conflict. It’s just, “omegas are cute and sexy and they smell nice”. This just makes all of the characters seem like morally bankrupt sex addicts who’re all some form of insane and I can’t stand it. But I’ll digress.

The true reason I decided to write this rant?

A story.

Yes, I came across a story and for some reason despite the harmless looking tags and my knowledge of how misleading this AU can be I clicked on it. I just wanted to see if I was being too harsh on the ABO AU, if someone could write a story in this type of universe that I could actually bear to read that wasn’t extremely hard to find. (Most of the fics in this AU I come across are the really dark ones).

So, I tried to read an ABO AU for MHA, and I'll tell you now I couldn’t even get beyond the fourth chapter. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Izuku was of course a rare male omega, born in a fantasy world where All Might bestowed upon him the powerful magic of One For All and then dipped. Of course despite having this power Izuku was still a weakling, even though the author tried to say he was strong willed and “unlike most omegas”.

Izuku had to hide his secondary gender. He lived as a quirkless beta with his mother. One day he stumbled across Katsuki, who declared Izuku his “true mate”. Despite Izuku saying he didn’t want to mate with him, Izuku was abducted and forced to be with him simply because it was what Katsuki wanted.

Izuku repeatedly said he didn’t want to be there, that he didn't want to be with this literal stranger, and that he didn’t have any desire to be a baby factory for him but was of course ignored. Long story short Katsuki got his way and Izuku eventually was down with it. Because Katsuki was handsome, well built, and smelled nice Izuku didn’t even bother to stay angry at the injustice of his own situation.

This is one of the many stories in this type of AU I personally find problematic. I don’t care if people write these fics, I just wish they were more responsible about it.

I’ve seen stories where alphas threaten to kill an omega’s family or the omega themselves to force them to mate with them, and are forced to comply. Instead of acknowledging how horrible this is the other characters just sort of treat it like the omega is misbehaving and that they’re cute for being “annoyed”. Like, what? Literally what the fuck. And this is sometimes never brought up again.

Alphas could burn down a whole village, slaughter everyone and take the omegas as sex slaves and still in certain stories this could be romanticized. I can’t get with that. Especially not when the victims aren’t even upset for more than a few days. What the heck!? That was your family!

But what really makes me uncomfortable? When an author makes sure the reader is aware of the fact that an abuser is extremely physically attractive so that people will be less inclined to be disgusted by their atrocious behavior and mentality.

I get it.

Sometimes the inevitable fall is due to true mates and all that. But at the same time, that is absolute bullshit. I wouldn’t give a damn if you were Jesus Christ himself, if you threaten to kill my family, or me, DO these things, disregard my feelings because of what you want and what you have to gain I am not giving you the time of day. Or at the very least if I have no choice I’m gonna utterly despise the person harming me. Come on!

True mates/Soulmates could be so freaking cute. It HAS been. I’ve seen it. There’s good fics out there, I just wish there was more of a selection where certain tropes are implemented in a way that isn’t toxic.

I don’t care how objectively attractive someone appears. I don’t care what “fate” says or what “instincts” denote. What reason do some of these characters have to love their abusers? Let alone be attracted to them? Especially if they never get a heartfelt apology and the alpha doesn’t bother to change significantly to be a tolerable human being. But okay, ABO instincts. Lack of control. I know, okay? But come on, can we switch it up a bit?

Out of morbid curiosity, sometimes when I come across stories I just can’t read because the Non-con is there but it’s not portrayed as traumatic and the author doesn’t even TELL you it’s in there... out of some masochistic need to punish myself I scroll down to read some of the comments and no one, I mean no one addresses how skewed and warped the themes in these stories are. The readers eat it up. And it’s honestly sickening.

But you know what? That’s kind of a lie. Some people do complain but they’re usually just straight up hateful flames and I don’t support those. I wish people could be more constructive when commenting on people’s work.

But anyway, since it was the MHA ABO AU fic that set me off I’ll just continue to use Izuku and Katsuki as examples for my griping. With Izuku as the omega and Katsuki as the alpha.

Many fanfic writers set up their worlds as a means to impregnate Izuku. That’s what I believe. Not ALL fanfic writers that write about this AU do this. SOME of them do! And I’m not saying this is always problematic, but it is when they put certain elements together because they want to write about BakuDeku in a sexual form and don’t bother to note how dark the story elements they’re implementing actually are.

I’m not sure if this is because some of them don’t understand how serious and damaging these things are and can be (rape/sexual coercion/forced pregnancy) or if they just don’t care and find them cute and sexy.

Either way, the things some authors have alpha Katsuki pulling on Izuku are wrong and downright perverted.

Now, I’m not opposed to smut. Sometimes I read stories with smut, that doesn’t bother me. Sex is a natural thing and people do it to show how much they like someone, or even just because it feels good. Whatever, that’s fine. But putting two characters together and saying “this is how it is because fate and forget gradually becoming attracted because I want that sexual tension now!” is something I find greatly unsettling.

If I could see this idea displayed differently maybe I could be equally disturbed, but could grow to accept Izuku and Katsuki (or whoever are the focus of the story) as a pair. Why? Because if the things the alpha is doing are horrible they should be acknowledged as horrible.

A lot of stories could be more interesting to me if the author wrote the things I mentioned above as they actually are, despicable. Instead things a lot of the times are sugar coated, treated as a joke, or downright wrongfully sexualized. Sometimes all three at once! A lot of these fics could have been something I could stomach if treated soundly. Say, Katsuki for example decided Izuku belonged to him and he forcefully mated with him, not allowing Izuku to be with anyone else without serious backlash. If he began to realize that his outlook on life was entitled and morally bankrupt I could totally get with that!

The author in this fake scenario could take the steps to better Katsuki as a person. Izuku of course should rightfully hate this man but could grudgingly begin to see and acknowledge Katsuki trying to change for the better. Then when Izuku manages to let go of his anger for his own sake, (not Katsuki’s) I could probably accept him beginning to notice Katsuki romantically. NOT sexually.

Now if Izuku just has to notice Katsuki’s physical body from the beginning and finds him irresistible because you know, ABO AU instincts and all that jazz—but hated this about himself, the juxtaposition of physical desire but mental and emotional disdain could be fascinating, engaging. It would make Izuku seem more like a person in these stories and less like the idea of a mentally strong omega. (Again, not saying all ABO fics lack good storytelling or compelling characters or any of that).

I could accept this eventual forgiveness and romance scenario because it could be amazing storytelling wise. Allowing the reader to experience a range of emotions due to world building, characterization, character growth, and plot line.

But anyway, I’m not trying to bash the specific story I used as an example above. I realize a lot of people love it and a lot of my language was crude and even rude but I just felt the need to express exactly what I was feeling, and above is what I felt. (I had to cut some things because it was way too obvious which fanfiction set me off and that’s not what I wanted. Didn’t want to throw shade, just wanted to prove a point).

If people want to read those types of stories that’s fine, at least they’re not going out into the world and doing what they’re reading about. Or at least I hope that’s the case.

But anyway, if people are going to read these types of things I think the reality of the content should be aptly acknowledged. No rose colored glasses, because that just makes it so wrong. And no, I’m not talking about being partial to any kind of kinks. I’m talking about a type of ABO fic that is problematic for me. I wrote a whole damn rant, if you can’t glean what I’m saying here I freaking give up.

But more presently, I guess it really comes down to what you prefer. Other people like things that come off as more sensual and carefree.

Personally I make it a point not to read those types of fanfictions because it’s just not my preference. I prefer to read things with dark world building with what I perceive as realistic consequences and real justice. Or maybe just downright cold blooded revenge sometimes. That’s nice too. Everyone is different, and I think I’ve just become frustrated because I’m not finding many stories like that in this AU.

That being said I’ve decided to write a story that I could read. A few, actually. You know what they say, “if you don’t do it, nobody else will”.

#ranting #I’m butthurt #read the whole thing #Kamui’s ABO Rant #my hero academia fanfiction #Problematic Portrayals of Trauma Complaint

[makeste]

the mortifying ordeal of being known... and rejected

or, how to create a self-fulfilling prophecy and get yourself stuck in a hole you’re too scared to try and pull yourself out of (by Bakugou Katsuki).

here is an observation: Bakugou often processes/hides/disguises fear...

uncertainty...

and even grief/guilt...

as anger.

the why, obviously, is because like most humans, he’s afraid of opening up and being vulnerable. but this post isn’t really about discussing the why. rather, it’s about the natural conclusion we can draw from this: that if the majority of Bakugou’s anger is in fact just his way of covering for his “weaker”, more vulnerable feelings, his doubts and fears, then that says a ton about Bakugou’s relationship with the one person he has always displayed the most hostility and aggression towards throughout his life.

so let’s talk about Bakugou’s actual feelings towards Deku.

disclaimer: I am not a therapist, or someone with any kind of psychology expertise; I am just a person that likes to read manga and think too much about fictional characters. so please keep in mind that even though I might not preface every single sentence here with “I think...” or “in my opinion...” obviously these are still just my guesses and interpretations and they may very well be wrong! the only one who knows for sure is the guy over in Japan drawing doodles of sentient flowers in his spare time, and I can’t very well ask him, so for now this will have to do.

so Katsuki and Izuku were childhood friends. let’s take this all the way back to the start. here we have two very young children who are introduced to each other at an age when they’re still young enough to have absolutely no secrets. they’re young enough to have not yet learned to be shy or self-conscious, or to downplay their enthusiasm so as not to let others know they care. kids that young don’t hide anything. they don’t lie or deceive. they don’t have agendas, and they assume that others don’t either. it is, in short, a very pure type of relationship in the sense that it’s honest and uncomplicated, that it is exactly what it appears to be at face value. their personalities are fully out there with no attempt at reining anything in. Katsuki witnesses the full force of Izuku’s boundless hero-worshipping energy and enthusiasm. Izuku witnesses the full extent of Katsuki’s relentless confidence and Peter Pan cockiness. both boys see each other for who they are in their entirety, and accept each other.

this is a fundamental bond. there is trust built between the two of them at a critical, formative age. it’s a relationship formed so early on that it’s likely that neither of them can actually recall a time before they met the other. they are and have always been a constant in each other’s lives. they’re a lot like siblings in terms of that kind of closeness and complete understanding of the other, both the good and the bad. in fact I’d say that Izuku’s use of “Kacchan” (and Katsuki’s automatic acceptance of it) isn’t that different from a younger brother’s use of “Niisan” for his older brother. it’s very revealing of the type of relationship they have. and that includes the typical sibling squabbles as well. it’s very much a relationship that’s taken for granted; there’s no filter, no effort to hold back, no attempt at trying to tone down their behavior around one another. there is whining and bragging and squabbling and name-calling and tears, just as much as there is cooperation and respect and trust. because at the end of the day, the assumption is that the relationship will endure no matter what, so they can go at each other as hard as they can and it doesn’t matter. the other one’s presence is just a given. that’s the kind of relationship that this term “childhood friends” really encapsulates, I think.

what I am trying to say here is that although it’s often viewed by fandom as an imbalanced relationship at best, and a toxic/broken one at worst, I think this is an incredibly important bond to the two of them. this is a relationship that has deep, irreplaceable value. the value lies in being known without having to suffer through the whole mortifying ordeal part. in the absolute, taken-for-granted surety that the other will always be there; in the constant, reassuring, and familiar presence; and in the security of knowing where they stand.

and what that in turn all means is that when four-year-old Bakugou Katsuki is struck by the thought that this relationship is being threatened, that the status quo may not always be quo, that the bond he’s come to rely on may have been built on a crumbling foundation, the emotional response which we are actually seeing here is not anger.

it’s fear.

this is the person who knows him better than anyone else does, and who, knowing all that, has always seemingly found something to admire in him. this is the person who’s always followed him no matter what. this is someone who looked up to him and believed in him, and whose belief and admiration perhaps more than anyone else’s filled him with pride and confidence. so the sudden fear, however ridiculous or unfounded (because at the end of the day he was just a preschooler, and that’s important to remember -- the fact that this fear, misplaced as it is, was based off of a scared four-year-old’s logic, and was incredibly real and overwhelming to said four-year-old), that Katsuki might lose this relationship -- or worse, the fear that the relationship was never real to begin with and was based on a lie and was unreciprocated and he was being strung along and laughed at behind his back the whole time -- is absolutely crushing to him.

because what he realizes in this moment is that in some ways, Izuku is already better than him at being a hero. and this realization, along with the fact that Izuku tries to help him and Katsuki misinterprets that as a gesture of pity or scorn, leads to a sudden cascade of other disastrous fears, including (1) the fear that Izuku is a sudden obstacle to his dream of becoming the number one hero, (2) fear that Izuku is looking down on him and not taking him seriously, and (3) fear that he won’t be able to catch up, because he doesn’t understand this mysterious quality that Izuku has, because that something isn’t physical strength, and that’s the only thing he’s ever considered up until now. and the one thing he does understand is that whatever it is (hint hint, it’s actually heart, and the determination to save and protect others), it’s something he himself lacks.

these are the fears which rise to the surface in this instant, and the fears which Katsuki is on some level at least aware of, and subsequently these are the fears which actually get confessed during Deku VS Kacchan Part 2 and are finally addressed. so all this is stuff we more or less already knew. 

but here’s another thought: I believe that this whole time, there was actually a fourth underlying fear which has actually been at the core of all those other fears from the beginning, and which has stayed with him this entire time, and which is such a profoundly upsetting thought to him that he refuses to consciously acknowledge it at all, and yet at the same time also reconstructs his entire personality around it. and that fear is simply this: that Izuku is going to leave him behind.

that’s it. he fears being left behind and discarded by the one person who has always been there. and yeah, okay, I do realize that this is a particular take that will probably have some people going, “uh, what” and gesturing towards THE ENTIRETY OF BAKUGOU’S BEHAVIOR TOWARD DEKU THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE SERIES and raising their eyebrows. and look, yeah, I get it. the fuck kind of fanficcy, melodramatic “deep down the two of them were closer than anything” take is this. “you’re telling me Katsuki’s absolutely reprehensible behavior toward Izuku for a full ten years of their lives had less to do with him being full of himself and hating on Izuku for being quirkless, and more to do with him being sad and fearful and upset over the thought of losing his closest friend?”

but... yeah. that’s exactly what I’m telling you. because for starters, his reaction is about 50 times too over-the-top for it to be anything else. but because also, his reaction to this one fear is so starkly different from the way we’ve seen him react to all of those other fears. usually, when Katsuki is faced with a challenge, he has a very specific response:

so why, then, would his reaction toward Izuku throwing down the gauntlet be any different? hell, we’ve seen how he reacts toward people that are stronger than him (Todoroki), and towards people he thinks aren’t taking him seriously (again, Todoroki), and it’s completely different from how he treated Izuku. his entire personality shifted from being cocky and confident and nearly always having a grin plastered on his face, to him being hostile and defensive and antisocial and almost never, ever smiling. in fact he doesn’t ever really seem be happy at all.

so yeah. this is my take. he fears being left behind. it’s not just that he fears losing to Izuku; it’s that he fears losing Izuku. because of course he does, because given the significance of that bond as explained above, that’s the natural thing to fear. the two of them have always been together. he’s never not had Izuku there. and so he might bitch about it and act like he doesn’t care about it, but in truth it’s because he fears the loss of it so much that he lashes out defensively -- no you can’t push me away, if you even try I’m going to push you away first so you can’t hurt me.

because that’s what it is, isn’t it? bullying Izuku every time he gets too close. telling him over and over again to stop following him, and to not try and get into UA. Izuku, from his perspective, is looking down on him, so at the end of the day it’s just easier for him to convince himself that he doesn’t even like Izuku, that he’s just someone who’s in his way, and that Izuku isn’t the one leaving him behind, fuck that, he’s the one who’s going to leave Izuku behind. that it’s his choice. it just hurts less. fear as anger, because anger is just easier to deal with; anger gets you fired up and helps motivate you; and anger doesn’t leave you feeling as hollow inside. or at least it can help distract you from that feeling.

so. this is all pretty goddamn miserable, all things considered. and so it goes for the next decade of their lives. except Izuku never does go away. and then one day he goes and saves his life, and from there on out we basically know the rest.

fast forward to the present! or I guess technically three months ago, since as of chapter 257 the present is now Late March/DAWN OF THE FINAL DAY (24 HOURS REMAIN), apparently, and what I actually want to talk about now is the internship, and its impact on their relationship as seen since then.

I’ve already talked about the internship’s general impact on Katsuki in a previous essay, so I won’t really get into it at length again here, but basically the short version is that I think (or am at least hoping) that over the course of this whole thing, Katsuki finally started to broaden his perspective to be a little less self-focused. and as a result of that, I think that seeing Endeavor’s broken relationship with his family, and in particular watching Endeavor apologize to Natsuo and tell him “you don’t need to forgive me” (and Natsu being all WELL YEAH, I WASN’T GONNA) was kind of a much-needed kick in the pants for him as far as making him realize that his relationship with Deku, newly renovated and given a fresh coat of paint after the whole Ground Beta fight, and finally starting to look a bit like its old self again after all this time... maybe isn’t actually quite as sound as he thought it was.

and isn’t that a fun thought. because here they were finally starting to fix that shit after all this fucking time. after a decade of constantly worrying about Izuku surpassing him and passing him on by, he finally realized that this fear was unfounded the whole time... only to subsequently realize that there’s another reason now why that relationship might still be in jeopardy. that being the small fact that, oh right, Katsuki has been a straight up dick to him for the past ten years. oh shit.

this is something he never once thought about before. because previously he was too blinded by his own fears, and his conviction that he was the one being looked down on, and that Izuku was the one who instigated everything. and then once he finally realized he’d gotten it wrong, I think there was a delay before it finally hit him just how much hurt and harm he actually caused, simply because he’s not used to examining things from anyone else’s perspective other than his own. and then there’s also the fact that this entire time, Izuku has never once really shown any kind of lingering bitterness or hostility toward him in spite of everything. in fact he’s been seemingly overjoyed to finally have that friendship rekindled again, and he’s been more admiring toward Katsuki than ever.

in short, I’m pretty sure that up until very recently, Katsuki has just sort of been taking Izuku’s forgiveness for granted. just assuming that he already had been forgiven, even though yeah, okay, he was pretty bad. he just had no reason to think otherwise, because Izuku’s personality is so kind and accepting and understanding that he never even showed a hint of harboring any kind of bad feelings toward him over it. not to mention that all of the really bad stuff happened so long ago -- going on two years now! -- and Izuku has never once said anything about it! and so Katsuki, being the dumbass he is (and also subconsciously wanting to avoid the guilt, no doubt, because hoo boy, that is not a pleasant emotion at all), just sort of assumed that it was all right. that they were past it.

but... is that actually true? are they, really? or is he just telling himself that because it’s what he wants to think? after all, he did recently learn that he interpreted every single one of Izuku’s actions pretty much 100% wrong for about a dozen years. so fair to say he might not be so good at reading him. and, well... what he did to him was really bad. he was really fucking awful. regardless of how generous and kindhearted Izuku might be, Katsuki really has no right to just expect forgiveness, actually. he has no idea what kind of feelings are actually lurking there beneath that freckly surface. just look at all the resentment Endeavor’s kids have bottled up toward him for what he did. and maybe Izuku is only trying so hard to get along with him now because of what All Might said, about how the two of them are supposed to try and learn from each other. and isn’t it possible, and maybe even likely, that deep down he actually hates him as much as Natsuo hates Endeavor?

so there’s the bitter irony: Katsuki spent a dozen years believing that Izuku spited him, and trying his best to push him away so as not to feel the hurt of being spited, only to finally realize that the enmity between them was all in his head, and that in truth, he was the one driving the wedge in between them and chipping away at the cracks the entire time. that in reality he was the one doing the damage. that the thing he was so afraid of was never actually a real possibility until he brought it into existence, but that it does exist, now -- the possibility that their bond really might have been destroyed. and that it’s entirely his fault. that he created his own demons and dragged them into the light.

so now he’s afraid all over again, except that this time, he has absolutely no idea what to do. if he tries to push Izuku away again, he’ll only bring about the worst-case possible outcome that much faster. not to mention that he already played that song for more than a decade, and if there’s one thing it taught him, it’s that he hates that tune almost as much as the alternative.

so then what he should do, clearly, is apologize. that’s the right thing, obviously. the heroic thing. and I don’t think he’s incapable of moving past his pride in order to do it. and on top of that, I think he probably wants to apologize because he actually is sorry! but I do think there is something else that’s currently holding him back. and that something, once again, is fear.

Katsuki is normally one to face his fears head on. in fact, I’ve previously gone on record as saying that he would apologize without hesitation once he realized how badly he fucked up, because he’s not one to shy away from accepting responsibility no matter what the consequences. but now, though, I think that I was wrong. it’s not that he doesn’t want to take responsibility, or that he doesn’t think an apology is owed. rather, I think I underestimated just how great this one, last, biggest fear of his is. the fear of that possible rejection. the idea that Izuku might not accept. that he might say no. that it might simply be too little, too late.

it’s the one thing Katsuki has never been able to face. the fear that started this all to begin with. it’s the one fear that has shaped him since his childhood, and the one fear that he stands frozen and powerless against. the fear of having the one person who’s always admired him no matter what revealing that in truth, he doesn’t. the fear of having all his deepest doubts and fears confirmed. if he isn’t seen as redeemable or worthy to Izuku, who knows him best, who’s seen him at both his highest and lowest and understands him to a degree which one else does, not All Might (whose approval, by the way, also runs through Deku and which he also stands to lose) or his parents or teachers or his other friends... if he’s seen as beyond forgiveness by him, then that’s a blow he can’t recover from.

so now he’s stuck here in this precarious position with Izuku where he doesn’t want to take a step backwards again, but is too afraid to try and move forward. which brings us to the current chapter, where for the time being it seems like he’s decided to simply embrace the status quo, which in his mind is “rivals.”

so he’s leaning hard into that now, and simply pretending like things between him and Izuku have already been fixed, without actually taking the steps necessary to really move past it, because in the end it’s just easier. and I think that he will continue as is until that status quo either becomes too difficult or painful to maintain (i.e. the guilt becomes too much to bear), or until something happens to finally trigger a boost of courage in him, or a realization that he needs to stop being selfish and own up to his actions.

but eventually that will happen. and I think he knows that deep down. if nothing else, this is something that’s currently standing in the way of him becoming the number one. he has no right to ever call himself a hero if he can’t even muster up the courage to apologize, and to accept whatever consequences may come with that, just as Endeavor did, even if it potentially means being shut down and cast aside. he has no right to expect or demand anything else.

but at the end of the day, Katsuki is still only human, and still a young one at that. and he has only just gotten his friend back. and I can tell you right now that Izuku is not the only one who feels relief and even gratitude at being able to have a “normal-ish” conversation with the other after all this time, regardless of whether or not Katsuki might deny it. and really, there’s no rush. he’ll have to face it soon enough, and he knows.

but for now, this is nice.

#bnha 257 #bnha meta #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #bakudeku #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #bakugou meta

[shirtlesssammy]

Anger and Love

I can tell you this. I still hurt over the ending of this show and the reasons roll into each other, like tangled yarn tossed in a bin. (In this metaphor, I am the bin.) 

Castiel

The BURY YOUR GAYS trope. My GOD when will this show learn. (The answer is never. Never, because it’s over.) In 15x18 Cas confesses his love and then dies. Guess who else dies in this episode? Charlie and Stevie! The writers said, “Who will hurt the most to lose? Ah, yes. Charlie in the new and terrified bloom of love.” We can ASSUME that Charlie and Stevie come back, but we don’t get to see it or hear about it. And we get the barest throwaway line that Cas comes back in 15x20, but not seeing him physically return after over a decade on the show feels like a blow that just won’t stop. 

More EMOTIONS below the cut.

On Thursday, I said to Boris that it would have been better if we’d never been tossed that crumb about Cas’s love. Why give us this FEAST and then take it away like Chuck poofing away a dog? Many people have pointed to network cowardice, and that’s certainly a possibility. Some people have put forth the theory that exposing Cas’s love for Dean was simply a season-ending ratings move. Either of those could be true, or some mix of them. Listen, I can spin myself around that stupid knot for days and we’ll probably never get the whole story. Instead, I have to look at the core of what Castiel coming out means for me. And the truth of it is, it means A LOT. It means I love him a whole lot more. Cas is mine, he’s ours, he’s one of us. And I’m angry as hell at how it went down, but I’m still glad we got Cas’s side of the story. I have a pride pin on the lapel of my Cas trench, and it’s never felt more perfect.

So I’m angry, but I’m also incredibly glad. Ugh. Knots.

Boris: We’ll never know what actually went down during the production of this season and the hiatus changes or the show’s narrative arc, but I have to believe that Robert Berens was given some kind of go ahead and planned for a lovely and beautiful ending for Dean and Cas. That his story was taken from him at the end (much like Wayward’s eventual ending), is so unfair. Because Cas’s story wasn’t completed. Dean and Cas’s story will forever float out there for us to ponder. Like Natasha, I will cling to Cas’s confession and see it as a beautiful coming out moment for a character I love very much. I’ll be forever despondent that we didn’t see Dean’s story play out on our televisions.

Dean

I didn’t come out as bi to more than three people until my late 30’s. It was something I was first in denial about, and then it just seemed “not relevant” for a large swath of my life (married for 18 years now). Talking about that with my family and friends surprised me - how relieved I felt. How free. As I was working through this, I was also slipping into Supernatural fandom, and watching a show where Dean COULD BE bi. Reader, I projected myself right onto Dean Bean. Maybe he was like me. Clueless, then in denial, then thinking that part of himself irrelevant. So giving us Cas without Dean, given the scenes we watch on the show, feels like a personal affront. I know I’m projecting here, so I’ll acknowledge those feelings and move on to the next…

I am also PISSED about Dean’s story. All his life he’s been “daddy’s blunt instrument” and ready to die bloody on a hunt. It’s spoken about so often that we think surely - at the end - we’ll subvert that. SURELY he’ll survive. The last couple of seasons, he’s fighting for control - freedom from Michael, freedom from Chuck. He finally achieves that freedom and then loses everything anyway. There are no rewards on Earth. He died solving one last case from John’s journal. Daddy’s little soldier to the end. It’s disgusting to me to take this beautiful, complex character who is textually SO FULL OF LOVE and then take a pass on imagining what he might do with a real life on earth. It’s lazy writing, used for a cheap, fast, emotional reaction. The more I unpack Dean’s fate against the rest of the series, the angrier I get.

Boris: I think so many of us confused and discovering things about ourselves later in life see Dean as a character that matters. His story, had it been told fully, would have mattered. I don’t buy his death or his peaceful afterlife. It’s still too raw to process because he deserves happiness in life!

Billie

“I know Supernatural has a history of killing off characters of color,” I told people, “but Billie’s a main character now!” W O W 15x18 is the kick that keeps on kicking. I did actually enjoy Billie’s arc quite a bit, but losing her still makes me angry, in the broader context of the show.

Women

“Supernatural isn’t great with women,” I said. “But we have Mary now! And Billie!” Please picture me as Olaf when I say. “Mary DIES. Billie DIES. Only sad men remain.” Sure, we get some throwaway lines. We know Donna’s alive in 15x20 because of the call to Dean’s phone. Actually, scratch that, we know someone talked to Donna…because this show didn’t want to address that literally no other hunter knew about or mourned Dean’s death so they had a random stranger call Dean’s “Other other phone” for help. Great. Now I’m mad about Dean again.

We can probably blame some of how the final episode shakes out on COVID. Presumably, the final scene in Heaven would have been a party with Mary, the roadhouse crew, original Charlie, maybe Eileen? Kevin? etc etc. Instead, it’s an empty, lonely end on screen.

Which brings me to Eileen. Sam’s romance was laid out carefully throughout season 15, so what the fuck happened here? We assumed we’d at least get some confirmation that Sam ends up with the woman he brought back from the dead and then dated as recently as a couple episodes ago. Instead, there is literally NOTHING. No attempt is made to say that Eileen’s the one Sam ends up with other than his son having dark hair. There are no family portraits. No sign language to the faceless mother by the house. (Standing in a floral dress, like a good housewife.) Is she dead? Did Sam end up with someone else? Even without dialogue, there are ways to show Eileen’s presence that weren’t used. I’m so angry that she was an element of the season and then…hand waved away as irrelevant. The faceless wife MY GOD, SHOW.

Boris: Yikes, I cynically see the reason to not include Cas in the end because homophobiaTM but to not even give us Eileen and Sam? Clearly, they wanted to erase every person that mattered to the brothers from the end. Ugly.

Heaven

The funny thing is that I’m constantly trying to write a “happy eternity in a now-free Heaven” in my own fan fiction. If anyone should like 15x20 it should be me! I’m always trying to argue that it isn’t major character death, because their souls are infinite and now free, blah blah blah. So ultimately, my problem isn’t with peace in Heaven. It’s with Dean’s EARLY DEATH, and how empty Heaven feels. How desolate and devoid of life. Dean leaves the Roadhouse and drives alone until finally Sam dies and joins him. It reads like the ultimate fuck you to the “family don’t end in blood” storyline. If COVID filming got in the way of filling Heaven with life, then we have all suffered a great loss. It should feel ecstatic and full of community. Instead, it just feels wide and lonely.

Ultimately, boiling the season finale into an intimate portrait of brothers should work on paper. It SHOULD, but the show leaves so much unsaid and unshown about the community and family they’ve built along the way, and tells us to be happy with the scraps we’ve gotten instead. It tells us they were never that important, in the end. 

The Future

I’m still going to watch the show. I’m still going to enjoy the show and the characters. There are reasons I have watched all along, and they don’t have anything to do with needing the show wrapped up in a neat bow. I’m angry with Supernatural’s conclusion, because I love it. And I’m okay with that.

Boris: I love this show so much, and I know I’ll continue to love it. I need time to lick my wounds and forget about this episode. This show is about the characters and the journey and that’ll never end.

#spn spoilers #supernatural season 15 #spn 15x20 #carry on #spn 15x19 #inherit the earth #spn 15x18 #despair #spn thoughts #about us

[maldito-arbol]

Let’s talk about the GP zodiacs (Part 2)

HOLSY HSIT I LOVE THE GP KIDS SO MUCH AND THEIR SIGNS ARE SO INTERESTING

Thank u to puff-poff for shooting me with an ask about the gp kids, I think our brains just assimilated

One more note: I should’ve mentioned this in my last post but compatibility between signs doesn’t only apply to romantic relationships, it applies to any kind of relationship like friendships, family relations, etc. It’s just that when it comes to more platonic relationships, wholly incompatible signs are more likely to be able to work something out together. As an example, I’m a Gemini, and I’m about 300% certain I could never ever in my life date a Pisces, but I do have a few Pisces friends that I get along well enough with.

Okay same drill—sign, element, infodump, GO

Violet

Birthdate: June 12th

Sign: Gemini

Element: Air

Overview: SQUEALS GUYS ITS VIOLET MY BELOVED. WE’RE BOTH GEMINIS THEREFORE WE ARE THE SAME PERSON. I’m kidding but no, Violet being a Gemini makes her 100x easier to project onto. So I mentioned before that Air signs are the least in tune with their emotions, are the thinkers before they act, are horribly indecisive, and these very much apply to Geminis as well. However, the most iconic trait of a Gemini is the ability to switch personalities at the drop of a hat whenever it services the group of people they’re in—what most people call the ‘two-faced’ part of Geminis. Hey, I promise you that being two-faced is actually a pretty cool and useful asset when in the hands of a decent human being. It means we get along well with a lot of different people, and if we don’t, we can act like we do as if it’s nothing. This asset, however, can turn into a curse of sorts in that a lot of us have...NO IDEA what our actual personality is. We reshape and remold ourselves and copy traits from other signs to fit in so much that we lose sight of who we are as an individual, and therefore we have a very hard time figuring out what we truly want. This is where the indecisiveness comes into play—ask a Gemini what they want for lunch and you’ll get a “what? Huh? Oh, you pick. I’m fine with whatever.” I know Geminis best because I am one, pls forgive me for rambling so much more about them than the other signssss.

Okay so first of all, let’s talk about Violet adapting to other characters to ‘fit in’. It’s not as obvious because Violet DOES seem to have one very fixed personality, but Violet prefers to speak through actions rather than words, so I would call her following Emma to help the children at GP a Gemini move. She could’ve simply dragged her to Lucas—she’s probably strong enough to do so, but instead she decided to go along with her. This isn’t to say there’s no pushback of course, as Air signs Geminis aren’t idiots, so they’ll often try to reason with others (particularly fire signs cough cough) to try to bring logic and critical thinking into the conversation. However, when that fails, they can still be counted on to support their friends even if they disagree. This is why Geminis and Leos are soulmates you heard it here, the stars said Violemma is the way. BUT ALSO CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW VIOLET’S THE ONE ADAM LISTENS TO DURING THE LEUVIS BATTLE. YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT BEING ABLE TO GET ALONG WITH A LOT OF PEOPLE, THERE YOU GO.

Anyway it’s also very much worth noting that while Violet can seem very harsh at times (bc Geminis will put you in your PLACE), bringing her logical kind of advice into conversations can be a very helpful comforter.

On another note this scene is so gay?

Compatibility and ships: hellooooooo Air sign Violet you are compatible with other Air signs (Aquarius, Libra, and Gemini) as well as Fire signs (Leo, Sagittarius, and Aries). Usually you’ll see Aquarius and Sagittarius as the most compatible with Geminis but I disagree with that because I have never met a Sagittarius I like so I’m still pointing fervently at Leos and the fact that Emma is a Leo. Listen. Violemma is the way. I am determined to convert all of you to Violemma if it’s the last thing I do. Geminis simply cannot help themselves around Leos they fall like a fucking anvil for that bright, golden-hearted dumbass energy. If there’s any Leos in the tpn fandom let me know I might just propose to you.

Oliver

Birthdate: October 25th

Sign: Scorpio

Element: Water

Overview: the first time I looked up Oliver’s birthday I went “Scorpio???? REALLY????” but then this is another case where the more I think about it, it does indeed make sense. If Leos are the natural leaders of the Fire signs, then Scorpios are the natural leaders of the Water signs. Where Cancers and Pisces will often lose themselves to their emotions, Scorpios have a very strong handle on them. I mentioned before that Water signs are at the highest emotional level, but Scorpios are a bit of an interesting case because you oftentimes won’t even notice that they’re very emotional people. They try to act like Air signs in that way, but their true colors are always there, waiting to be coaxed out.

For Oliver, you can clearly tell that his emotional bond with his friends and especially with Lucas is very high—but even so, he doesn’t let his emotions cloud his judgment or his ability to adapt to the situation at hand. Where earth signs are very fixed and difficult to move, water signs are always moving and changing to find solutions best suited for new circumstances. The best example I can give is the part where the music plays early, and despite internally panicking about it, Oliver is the one who naturally steps up to calm everyone down.

Scorpios are great at handling others’ emotions as well as their own, which makes them marvelously empathetic leaders. We stan.

Compatibility and ships: as a Water sign, Oliver is compatible with other Water signs (Cancer, Pisces, and Scorpio) as well as Earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn) so speaking broadly that makes him compatible with Pepe (a Pisces) and Zack (a Cancer) but narrowing it down, Scorpios are usually best with Tauruses and Cancers. Idk if I’m the only one who ships Oliver with Pepe but I know there’s a few people who ship him with Zack—so congrats to you guys, you won the stars’ approval.

Lucas

Birthdate: November 28th

Sign: Sagittarius

Element: Fire

Overview: yall,,,, when I found out Lucas was a Saggy Titty I legitimately guffawed out loud. Lucas and Sagittarius is so funny.... because it’s so wrong. Saggy Titties are the definition of chaos, they’re brazen, impulsive, and constantly changing. Like think of a frat boy in a house full of beer and pool tables and hot girls and you get Sagittarius. This is why I have never met a Sagittarius I like—because they have frat boy energy, and even non-male Sagittariuses require wayyy too much energy for me to handle. I guess the only time Lucas really does act like a Sagittarius is in his childhood with Yuugo, and the way he’s a lot bolder and outgoing versus the quieter older Lucas we have now.

It is important to note that Lucas has been through a lot of trauma and lost a lot of comrades which could very well change the a person’s entire outlook and turn their personality 180 degrees—that could be a large factor, although on the flip side, Yuugo still fits his Capricorn sign even after going through what he’s been through. Different events affect different people differently. Lucas was most likely knocked entirely off his Sagittarius high-horse very quickly when he arrived in Goldy Pond. But if I had no prior knowledge of who he was beforehand, I very well might’ve pegged him a Leo like Emma or even another subtle Aries like Norman. So yes, he does indeed have fire energy, it’s just generally very lackluster and farrrr away from Sagittarius’ level.

Compatibility and ships: okay so I know the only Lucas ship with any weight to it in this fandom is Yuucas, and here’s the thing,,, A Sagittarius and Capricorn combo is the most horrifying fucking couple imaginable and I’m stan so hard. Realistically speaking, your Capricorns would try to put a leash on their Sagittariuses because man. I forgot to mention how childish Sagittariuses can be (though the frat boy comparison should’ve been a clue), and holy shit that poor Capricorn is gonna get ripped to shreds by their Sagittarius. Imagine like a super pompous cowboy trying to ride a furious bull that’s trying to buck him off like there’s no tomorrow. Capricorns are people who want complete control over themselves and their partners, while Sagittariuses,, Saggy Titties just want to see the world burn. Put them together and you could probably cause the End Times Apocalypse. But you know what? Good for them. I think Yuugo and Lucas love each other enough that the toxicity that comes with typical pairups with these two signs is about nonexistent between them. But I fully believe they could still destroy an entire planet and that’s valid of them to do so. Anyway moving on!

you wanna talk about another Sagittarius that makes absolutely no sense?

Paula

Birthdate: December 9th

Sign: Sagittarius

Element: Fire

Overview: My authors I am begging you, stop putting character birthdays in the Sagittarius zone you clearly don’t know what a Sagittarius is.

Since I refuse to acknowledge Paula as a Sagittarius, let’s talk about what sign she actually acts like because I said so. Paula’s a Virgo. Fight me Shirai. (Also im sus that shirai is virgophobic because where the fuck are my virgos. There’s like zero major characters that are virgos, and the characters that ARE don’t even act like virgos. I’m coming for your small intestine Shirai) so as earth signs, virgos are generally pretty resourceful and of course level-headed. They’re kinda shy and reserved, but they’re also very hard workers you can count on when you need to get a job done. Nary will you find a Virgo that procrastinates or attempts to weasel their way out of a mission they’ve been given. The unmovable earth in virgos shows through in how committed they are, and we can see all these traits in Paula. Though she’s a quieter member of the GP resistance, you can tell just how much of an asset she is to them. She doesn’t run, doesn’t lose her cool, and she’s good at pointing out important details.

Pls let me decide your characters’ birthdays for you Shirai I promise I am good at it.

Compatibility and ships: I guess, astrologically speaking, as a Sagittarius, Paula does fit pretty well with Sonya because she’s a Gemini. I actually know next to nothing about Paula ships but I do know she’s lesbian and her and Sonya are cute but I also ship her with Barbara because reasons don’t ask questions I WILL bite you anyway they’re compatible too because barb’s also a Gemini.

Lot of Geminis, don’t you think? Yes I do. Let’s talk about them.

Sonya and Sandy

Birthdates: June 3rd and May 22nd respectively

Signs: Gemini

Element: Air

Overview: these two are what I call the gemini twins bECAUSE THEYRE ALWAYS HANGING OUT AND ITS SO TRUE GEMINIS LOVE EACH OTHER BUT ALSO ITS SO WEIRD THAT WE GET ALONG. imagine like two of those one way mirrors facing each other where it just goes on and on and on for infinite mirror and that’s what two Geminis hanging out is like. Look, they’re literally thinking the same thing and it’s so great

Anyway there isn’t a whole lot of Sandy and Sonya content to go off of in the first place, but them being Geminis seems reasonable to me—at the very least they are indeed meant to get along well and they’re so in sync I could cry. Plus they’re pretty intuitive and able to think right on the spot as they’re facing Nous and Nouma (at least at first) My man Shirai also.. really likes Geminis for some reason because they keep popping up. So instead of one Spider-Man meme it looks more like this,

Compatibility and ships: not gonna dwell too long on this section because from previous ones you may already recall they’re compatible with each other and I guess with Paula as well as I must begrudgingly accept the fact that shes canonically a Sagittarius.

Pepe

Birthdate: February 19th

Sign: Pisces

Element: Water

Overview: so I mentioned before that water signs are at about the highest emotion level, which makes Pisces a very sensitive group like Cancers. But Pisces in general are known for being the kindest and most accepting people as well, which means they’re able to make a lot of friends very easily. They’re basically that one person you sat next to in class who started a conversation with you just to be nice. Now again, there’s not a whole lot of Pepe content to go off of, but we can tell he’s kind and loving to his friends and the other kids in GP. One thing I can mention is that Pisces usually are the one of the nosiest of the signs, and they get very bothered by lies and secrets (this is true for a lot of water signs, but Pisces are the worst in my experience) so we got this single piece that may have a little bit of the Pisces in Pepe showing:

Compatibility and ships: So as a Pisces, Pepe is only compatible with Oliver and Zack considering they’re also water signs. Everyone else is Fire and Air, funnily enough, but the Pepe ships with those two are super cute I think so it’s ok.

Zack

Birthdate: July 7th

Sign: Cancer

Element: Water

Overview: so do I think Zack fits his sign? Yes, in a way I do. I already went into Cancers when I explained Don, so quick recap: Cancers are some of the most sensitive and empathetic, so their loyalty to their loved ones is pretty close to on-par with an Aries. And while Zack isn’t as outwardly emotional as someone like Don, the Cancer in him shows up well in that he’s constantly taking extremely difficult missions he doesn’t want his friends to risk, and he shrugs off any injury to himself.

This might just be a me thing but almost every Cancer I’ve met has a habit of doing That. I am so concerned for their safety. I guess though, if I hadn’t known his sign beforehand, I 100% would’ve pegged him an Aries.

Compatibility and ships: I already went over this with Pepe, but Zack is compatible with Pepe and Oliver. Y’all ok listen to me. OT3. Make it happen. Between them they have every sign in the element of water. They’d be unstoppable.

Gillian

Birthdate: September 30th

Sign: Libra

Element: Air

Overview: here’s a fun one. So as I previously stated, air signs are usually out of tune with their emotions, but where that causes Aquariuses and Geminis to repress or hide them, Libras,,,, just dump them everywhere. Listen I know Libras are supposed to be the sign of the balance scales and they have a thing about the world being perfectly balanced which makes them more prone to revenge bUT ALSO. MY first and foremost takeaway from Libras is that they all suffer from Rich Bitch syndrome, in which they obsess over material items and every Libra has a thing about cute girly stuff change my mind. HOWEVER, they’re often very chaotic as well, the kinda Sagittarius of the Air signs. So like a super cute and seemingly fun girl who will probably murder you in your sleep.



I’m sorry I can’t take it I’ve been laughing at this for the past fifteen minutes it’s too funny. Anyway, Gillian’s Rich Bitch Syndrome appears through her fashion statement. Her PINS. omg. Gillian your Libra is showing.

Compatibility and ships: as a Libra Gillian is compatible with other Air signs (Aquarius, Gemini, Libra) as well as Fire signs (Aries, Sagittarius, Leo) but she’s most compatible with Aries and Sagittarius so—— Paula yes, but also Nigel because he’s an Aries! Speaking of Nigel,

Nigel

Birthdate: March 27th

Sign: Aries

Element: Fire

Overview: Aries Nigel doesn’t come as a surprise, let’s be real here. I delved into Aries before with Norman, so just as a recap: Aries are so intensely loyal to the ones they love and would do absolutely anything for them even at the cost of their lives, and this can make them prone to outbursts of anger and/or impulsivity. Here’s your one image of Aries Nigel, I don’t even have to explain:

Compatibility and ships: so I already said this but Nigel is at his most compatible with Gillian. Are there other Nigel ships?? Pls let me know I’m very curious.

Aw, it’s over now :(

I loved talking about the GP kids they fill the void in my heart. Now to move onto talking about the demons because the silliest idiot requested it and I am beyond ecstatic to spout pure headcanon bullshit. If you’re feelin excited then feel free to keep sending characters my way I will be happy to ramble about their canon zodiac or my headcanon for their zodiac

Edit: i forgot to link part 1 to anyone who wants it and doesn’t want to stalk my profile to find it

#the promised neverland #yakusoku no neverland #tpn analysis #tpn #goldy pond #you have no idea the trouble tumblr put me through attempting to put only ten images in this giant post #fuck u tumbley for having a limit #but i also took the extra effort to make unnecessary memes so that ones on me #hope y’all like #ugh this made me think about GP ships and how much i wanna draw them #especially the new OT3 I can hyperfixate on #also can we talk about Sagittarius erasure in media #the only Sagittarius I know who actually acts like a Sagittarius in his respective show is Shou from mp100 #but he’s also one of my favorites so I guess not all sagittariuses (derogatory) #what was i talking about #tpn manga spoilers #mal rants #man I wanted to wait a little longer to post this but I’m literally on the brink of passing out I’m so tired #so here ya go take it #idk if I’ve made errors I was like half-awake when I proofread it #but anyway g’night I’m gonna go into a coma

[meggannn]

shepard/garrus?

oh boy, sorry for the late response! I always end up posting these things and then going to read/take a nap/play a game or something. anyway writing this up took two hours, i hope it is even slightly interesting to read. cut because this is looooooong

What made you ship it?

I think I was interested in this ship before I even played ME. I was just like “I know Shepard is a character and an alien named Garrus is a character, and people draw porn of them together.” because I think it’s reasonable to say it’s one of, if not the most, popular ship in the fandom, or at least in ME’s tumblr fandom? and the way people talked about it, I knew their tropes were #banter, #battle couple, #partnerships, and... and as we’ve learned from royai, I am a bit weak to those tropes (assuming I like both of the characters). the way people talked about them also from a “best friends” angle—which is sort of forced in-game in a way that seems strange to me now—was also a plus in its favor at the time. (if they get together, I do see their friendship/companionship, in whatever form, in some ways integral to their romance—unless you’re playing full far-right renegade who’s like a xenophobe and hate-fucking Garrus, I guess?—but Bioware also kind of shoehorned Garrus into that best-friend role and that’s a topic for another day.)

What are your favorite things about the ship?

(my friend will hit me if I say “partnerships” again) I’m gonna talk about the way I play my Shepard now, because so much is dependent on the unique Shepard. for Lydia’s journey over the series, I see a large part of her journey as basically a study of her (often self-inflicted) loneliness. and she never entirely breaks her habits of self-isolation, but the events of the series force her to be vulnerable in a way she would prefer not to be in front of a crew, or, y’know, ever. Garrus becomes an integral part of that story to help her break her out of these bad habits (all of the crew does, particularly also Ashley for my Shep), but to my eyes, the story of “Shepard and Garrus’s relationship” is also one of mutual respect, burden-sharing, and sanity and morality checks.

I don’t think of their “mentor” relationship in ME1 very often mostly because I don’t think it was done particularly well, but for all its faults, I do like how naturally the jump from “subordinate” in ME1 to “ally” in ME2 felt; once you meet Garrus on Omega you feel more on the same footing as two friends greeting each other because you’ve both recently been through trauma and the sight of a friendly face in a station full of hostiles is so unexpectedly welcome that it lets them both hope things will be okay for a minute. starting from that moment, Garrus becomes one of the few people who can see “under” her mask, I guess: partly because he’s one of the few combatants from the SR-1 who knows Shepard well and sees who she is both on the field and onboard the SR-2, with the ability to compare both to the times of “before you died”; partly because he has trauma response training and recognizes it in others even if he doesn’t in himself; partly because his loyal personality makes him sensitive to wonder how she’s dealing with being resurrected; and also partly because they’ve both gone through similar things. namely, getting your squad killed and blaming yourself for it, and it possibly being your fault (BioWare is inconsistent on what Shepard’s role was on Akuze, but in ME1 she has the chance to reply that she was responsible for getting them out safely, and failed).

necessity forces Shepard to adapt to things like being effectively forced to work for terrorists; being isolated from her support system; being resurrected and feeling like a stranger in her own body; later, getting decommissioned for making an incredibly difficult call to save the galaxy; watching your homeworld burn; being forced into a political role negotiating high stakes you don’t know how to play; being told you’re the spearhead of a galactic war; doing all of this without a full crew complement; the list goes on. those are all, on their own, incredibly isolating, traumatic experiences, and my Shepard’s not emotionally sane at the best of times. (emotionally stable, perhaps, only in the most literal of terms, at least on the surface. she’s like a rock when shit hits the fan. emotionally sane, no, for that reason and more.)

the tables have turned, and Garrus ends up becoming a large part of helping her regain agency in most if not all of those things: in ME2 he was a former crew member she trusted, and he was eager to work for her and be distracted from his failures on Omega. over in the battery, he is himself recovering from a major injury (like Shepard) and going through the aftermath of a bloodbath he feels responsible for (like Shepard), working on a crew that holds him at arm’s length, that he also... arguably... didn’t have much choice in joining (like Shepard—I’m assuming he wasn’t held hostage and joined voluntarily after waking up, but lbr this is unconfirmed). their reasons are different and varied, but they don’t realize until much later that they have found each other at the most opportune time, providing a sense of stability for each other, and also, frankly, sanity and morality checks.

in ME3, he steps into this role more fully because he’s become more disciplined, is doing work firmly in his wheelhouse, and paired up against Shepard struggling with their positions somewhat reversed from ME1: him more confident and her now completely out of her element, floundering with her place on a galactic scale. without Garrus—and Chakwas, and Joker, and Tali, and later the loyalty of the entire SR-2—the story of ME would be a tragedy, and it would end shortly in ME2; it’d be the story of how my Shepard slowly went insane being forced to fight boogeymen under a terrorist banner. Garrus isn’t, like, the keeper of her sanity, but their ability to check each other, and see themselves in the eyes of each other, provides stability and occasionally a bit of a wake-up call to both of them. when they’re both vulnerable, they both feel most seen, and most understood, by an alien that listens.

one angle of this ship that highly interests me at the moment, along with the above, is that while it’s not illegal for them to be together, it’s still... a really bad fucking idea lmao. (I could make the argument that it’s a bad idea for Shepard to be in any relationship with their crew but I think there are a few ships—Garrus, Tali, any Alliance crew at all—that realistically would be huge political clusterfucks.) so overcoming personal insecurity and fear of the unknown to acknowledge interest in each other, and the desire to become an item, getting roadblocked by a reality wake-up call with the fact that 1) she’s his boss, 2) Garrus comes from a society where station matters, like, sort of a lot and it even determines your job and how much legal power you have, 3) the potential political blowback (which would be ENORMOUS because lbr the hierarchy may not care about what turians do in off-hours but they WOULD care about the superior/subordinate thing, the human thing, the fact that they’re doing this while a war is going on. basically one of their best agents is on the Normandy to negotiate their interests and they’re basically at the whims of their relationship the whole time)... it’s a lot! all of that sort of makes it tragic, but I’m curious to see how they’d overcome it.

anyway, all of that is where I’m coming from when I think or write about this ship, but there’s a lot more I’m not mentioning here. there are a lot of juxtapositions that in my head that I’ve either added or extrapolated from canon that also interest me about this pairing. Garrus is a former cop, as is his father; Lydia is a poor kid who used to be in a gang out of necessity. Garrus is a turian with often traditionalist thinking; Shepard is a human who has much less sociopolitical power than him, even if she is his superior on the Normandy. both of them are roughly as old as the First Contact War, when their people were at each other’s throats not thirty years ago. Garrus idolizes Spectrehood while Lydia hates it, feeling it was forced on her. they can’t eat the same food. and yet despite all of that, and the fact that they need translators to communicate, they manage to understand each other when a lot of the world around them doesn’t.

god this is not even the full list of it. anyway I could go on but I’ll stop there lol.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

oh jesus, so much. I’m a grouchy and picky shipper, be warned.

pining can always make my ships more interesting, and imo it’s a consistent part of any ship of Shepard’s, considering it’s wildly inappropriate and unprofessional for her to be fucking any subordinate, so I think more consideration could be given to shakarian in the “we shouldn’t be having a thing and oh also you’re an alien and I’m kind of scared of both your government and your body” angle! I hope to explore that a bit with a fic I’m writing (if I ever finish it, god).

I hate the flavor of fandom!shakarian where Shepard romanced Kaidan in ME1 then felt “betrayed” when he’s confused and hurt on Horizon, so she gets with Garrus as like... revenge? idk. and then Garrus usually develops this bias against Kaidan as a sort of author mouthpiece (which is inconsistent with his characterization cause Garrus is nothing but pleased to have Kaidan back on the SR-2 in ME3!) and takes up the anti-Kaidan crusade cause K ~questioned the commander~ (since when does Garrus fall over himself defending a superior from criticism?) like, idk. I think Garrus can be sensitive to the fact that that reuniting must’ve been painful for Shepard, but also be aware that it was also really painful for Kaidan because all of Kaidan’s complicated feelings about Shepard’s resurrection were, realistically, things Garrus should’ve felt too! this trope is very popular but just feels like manufactured drama for drama’s sake, idk, I’m also not big on love triangles so. I would much rather people just rescue Ashley on Virmire and avoid the whole thing rather than have previously-romanced Kaidan around in ME3 for the sole purpose of forcing him to watch Shepard/Garrus being happy together tbh.

I think full goody-goody paragon Shepard is too preachy to make a good partner for Garrus and full shoot-anyone-in-my-way renegade Shepard encourages and emboldens his worst tendencies (and Castis Vakarian is right to disapprove of them). most people end up playing some combination of both, or if they do settle in one camp or the other, usually there is some sense of realism where Shepard doesn’t play nice/naive or play mean all the time, so it’s rare I see either of those kinds of extreme Shepards depicted, but in general if there is a Shepard that is so far in one direction it seems illogical to me that they ever stay together.

I think wanting a mShep romance for Garrus is a pretty welcome idea in fandom, but adding onto that, I think Garrus should’ve been romanceable in ME3 for players who changed their minds on other romances or want to play slow-burn romances! we had it for Kaidan—and should’ve had it for Ash—so (pounds fist on desk) Garrus too imo!

I hate the canon get-together because Shepard walking into the battery and asking “do you want to fuck” feels very tailored to the players who want to romance Garrus, not to who Commander Shepard is, imo. it lacked all of the subtlety and depth of some other romances—until the scene of Garrus coming to her cabin with a wine bottle, at least, cause I do like that scene, but anyway, I dislike the actual get-together.

just in general, I’m a stick in the mud, so my favorite iteration of this ship is where Shepard is resolutely professional, and the challenge of it becomes him getting her to open up, not the other way around. like, I think on some level every iteration of Shepard is a bit of a lunatic/eccentric, because you have to be to do the things they do, but I like to see their flirting with less of her calling him “big guy” (not sure where that came from, is that in canon? I must’ve missed it, but personally I don’t like it) and more of Garrus making wisecracks in the canteen while he’s talking to Joker, but he’s looking at her out of the corner of his eyes and he really said his joke with the aim of making her laugh, and as she’s reading her datapad she hears him, and even when she wants to chuckle she stops himself and just smirks cause she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a laugh, but he sees her lips twitch and feels his heart flutter. that. I want more of that.

oh lastly, I hate “Shepard takes Vakarian clan markings” in any iteration. there is no canon relation to turians being poc—in fact I’d argue they have sociopolitical privilege real-world bipoc do not—but the concept of social face markings, face tattoos, etc., is rooted in non-white cultures and with the fact that 1) turians had a literal civil war over the territories those markings represent, 2) we don’t even know if marriage is how markings are shared or if non-turians are ever invited to wear them in the first place, 3) most of the art of this trend, lbr, is of mostly white Shepards in wedding dresses and blue face paint... all that combined just makes me frown and scroll faster every time I see it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bipoc Shepard with Vakarian face markings in fic/art, and that to me is very telling (not because they should have them, but because bipoc fans who make bipoc Shepards usually recognize when a racially-coded trope is uhhhhh not so great to appropriate for someone not of that group).

#megan does memes #marisjellyfish #shakarian

[bigskydreaming]

Couldn't the thing with Jason thinking Dick is infallible from Truth and Justice story come from how he is compared to his brother from Bruce. Even when he was Robin with Dick and Bruce fighting, he was told that Dick was better by Bruce. Then he comes back and is a cautionary tale of what not to and how not to be while Dick and Bruce are now getting along.

I mean yeah, you could go with that take, but I’m always gonna argue that even that is more fanon based than anything else, at least before this issue. We’ve seen a lot of that take in the past already, but truth is, there really isn’t that much basis in older stories for Bruce comparing Jason to Dick. And like I’ve expanded on in the past, younger Jason looked UP to Dick, he certainly didn’t resent him. 

With this being true even when he first came back - Dick was the only one he didn’t target at ALL during Under the Red Hood, and when he did finally meet up with Dick a year later, during the Brothers in Blood arc, it was more to fuck with him than any attempt to take things out on him. Like, that arc gets a lot of shit and deservedly so, but I really do wish more people would at least takeaway from it the fact that in it, JASON referenced still thinking of Dick as family. Which just doesn’t mesh up with all the ‘they barely knew each other/they resented each other’ takes.

Pretty much all the times I can think of when Jason was compared to Dick pre ADITF, it was actually not at all what its usually represented as by most fandom takes, such as the time Jason teamed up with the Titans. For pretty much Jason’s entire tenure as Robin up until the Felipe Garzonas arc, Jason was actually portrayed as perfectly secure in his position of Robin and wasn’t threatened by anyone else’s perception of him at all. Even the arc where he loses it on Two-Face has been kinda amplified to make more of it than it was, like.....Bruce was worried about the anger he expressed there, but that was more out of concern FOR Jason and it wasn’t the “Jason was on the verge of getting fired as Robin all along” kinda narrative we tend to see referenced. 

Jason was only made out to be the angry Robin or the less competent Robin or whatever AFTER his death, which is all kinds of shitty, but like......there’s no real basis for any kind of extended history where Jason resentfully suffered under his big brother’s shadow while Robin. The angry/less competent Robin stuff was all DC retroactively railroading him after the fact to justify their choice to kill him off (which was still their choice no matter the existence of a poll), and its the narrative most people have run with because it amplifies Jason’s existence as the misunderstood and unfairly judged underdog of the family.

Now to be 100% clear, as I’ve said in the past.....there is absolutely no reason you CAN’T go with this take if you don’t want to. Nobody has to abide by canon, or a particular canon and I’ll never argue otherwise. My main point has always just been that the thing about fanfic is that its a transformative process, it enables fans to take canon and transform it into something else.....but here’s the thing....those transformations ALWAYS happen with INTENT. People are deliberate in how and in what ways they transform canon, even if they’re not always CONSCIOUS of that deliberation.....it still exists. None of these transformations just happen, they happen for a reason. Because fans want an end result that’s different from what we saw in canon.

So my thing is always just.....yes, transform canon as you like, for whatever reason. But don’t pretend that those reasons don’t exist, and understand that when people look at a canon to fanon transformation that really only results in one major difference.......they’re gonna assume that this difference, achieving this difference, was for whatever reason, the POINT of the transformation.

And here’s where I also want to express something else: my take has never been that most of fandom just hates Dick Grayson. That they’re consciously, deliberately out to smear him or make him look bad. I think there’s a lot of elements in play with how I perceive fandom’s interactions with him compared to other characters, but more often than not, I think one of the bigger issues with how his character is TRANSFORMED from canon to fanon, is just.......he’s collateral damage. I don’t think in most cases the point is even to make actual transformations of his character or characterization......its to apply these things to people he’s in scene WITH......and he just ends up transformed as well, by proximity.

Take a look at some examples:

1) Dick firing Tim

Except as we’ve gone over multiple times, Dick didn’t actually FIRE Tim. He didn’t neglect him, he didn’t turn his back on him, he could have handled that situation differently, sure, but he had none of the ill intent people assign to him when they typically ramp up how bad this period was for Tim. Dick actually called him his equal, begged him to stay, said he was too GOOD to be Dick’s junior partner........but this is not at all how this moment in canon is generally viewed by a lot of fandom. He comes off looking a TON worse, like he just chose Damian over Tim and discarded Tim first chance he got, he didn’t care how Tim was affected, he kicked Tim out of the manor and out of Gotham.

But the thing is.....I’d argue that none of this TRANSFORMATION from canon really had anything to do with Dick. I don’t actually think that tons of fans were just waiting in the wings for the perfect opportunity to make a villain out of Dick and just seized upon this moment as the perfect opportunity. I think it was just all about Tim. It was about accentuating his misery, his aloneness, heightening the whump factor of his character and amplifying the feelings of insecurity, rejection and alienation he was feeling and that people related to.

What happened to Dick’s character in most peoples’ eyes as a result of this transformation, was the symptom, not the point. It was the collateral damage, not the aim.

2) Bruce firing Dick

In contrast, we have more than one canon interpretation of Bruce firing Dick as Robin, with this leading directly into Dick leaving the manor at a fairly young age, keeping his distance from Bruce until he finds out about Jason, Bruce giving Robin to Jason without acknowledging or apologizing for the fact that he was giving away the identity that someone else had crafted and poured their heart and soul into, not him.......but this isn’t how a lot of fandom outside of Dick stans and people who are specifically predisposed towards Bad Dad Bruce like to treat that part of canon.

Here, the transformation is the reverse from what happened with Tim and Dick. Here, the feelings of rejection and alienation and insecurity Dick realistically would have felt during that time are overlooked and even outright invalidated by TRANSFORMING the canon so that actually, this period of extended estrangement is completely disconnected from any version of events where Bruce fired Dick, which he did not do here. And in fact, Dick gave up Robin, he and Bruce had a falling out, and this was mutual and two-sided and thus Dick’s refusal to come home earlier and reconcile with Bruce was not actually him standing up for himself and refusing to settle for being taken for granted and dismissed when convenient but rather just Dick being immature, stubborn and a little spoiled.

But again.....I don’t think that’s the aim so much as a byproduct of the intended end result. Once more, I think that had very little to do with Dick himself, wasn’t about making him look bad specifically....but rather, it was about making Bruce look better. It was transforming the thing he had done in canon which was so hard to defend, ie ignore all of Dick’s feelings on the matter much in the way people accuse Dick of ignoring Tim’s later, and passively rejecting him and refusing to be the first to reach out unlike Dick who actively sought after Tim when he left. Those moments in canon definitively make Bruce look pretty bad, and are hard to reconcile with Good Parent Bruce Wayne, so that is what people are trying to transform. Once again, the way it makes Dick look in contrast is just a symptom.

The further examples are honestly pretty endless.

The aftermath of Forever Evil and Spyral is ignored, transforming Dick into the true villain of that period not because people just want an excuse to hate him, but because they don’t want to or can’t reconcile what Bruce actually did in order to get Dick to act so out of character, or they want to justify Jason and Tim and others’ anger at Dick later rather than have them appear to be inconsiderate assholes just piling on a guy who just had the worst year of his life to date.

The instances of Bruce outright abusing Dick after Jason’s death and at other times like Night of the Owls are ignored, transforming Dick into an impetuous, overly aggressive asshole who isn’t reacting to Bruce’s initial aggression, but rather just popping off the handle because he isn’t being received or treated just the way he likes.

Dick reaching out to Jason and making an offer to be there for him as Robin and later times they interact in Titans as well as any actual bond they build, even if mostly just hinted at off the page....all ignored in favor of transforming Dick into this bitter, jealous jerk who can’t see past his own feelings long enough to realize he’s taking things out on an innocent kid who doesn’t deserve this, even though that’s exactly what he realized and motivated his actual actions towards Jason in canon. And again, its not so much about making Dick worse, its about overlooking the WHYS of Dick’s hurt, turning the focus from what was done to him that justifies him being upset in the first place, to some greater mistreatment he enacts on Jason and thus drowns out any sympathy that people might otherwise have for Dick.

Dick’s periods of brainwashing like under the Church of Blood being overwritten or ignored in order to transform his deliberately out of character attitudes towards his friends and teammates there into just normal outbursts that were part of his characterization rather than signs that something was abnormally wrong with him. Thus turning everyone else’s treatment of him during that time period into again just their part of a two-way street and nothing they had to feel bad about rather than acknowledge that he’d literally not been in full control of himself while they had no such excuse for their behavior.

To be clear.....this kind of thing is NOT limited to just Dick. It tends to happen any time people want to transform a canon event into something more one-sided, to accentuate a particular character’s position as the victim or the misunderstood or neglected party.....or to turn a one-way street into a mutual antagonism, to lessen a particular character’s culpability in some argument or feud. You can absolutely find examples of this same effect applying to every other character in the Batfam as well.

But the reason it happens so often with Dick, and thus every instance of it happening tends to be amplified by the sheer volume of similar situations......is because of convenience. Because ironically, the reason Dick so often looks so bad in fanon’s eyes when it comes to his treatment of his family....is BECAUSE of how Dick is so much more integrated into every one of his family’s lives (and his friends’) than pretty much any other character. He’s the collateral damage to other characters being deliberately transformed in some way purely because he’s the one who almost always is THERE to some degree. Because there’s no one else in the scene that’s being transformed.

And so to bring it all back to your question......I think you absolutely can go with that take. There’s an argument to be made for it, especially now given that this canon issue has actually established a precedent for Jason feeling that way rather than fanon just running with the idea because it makes Jason more maligned. Its still not something that’s ever going to interest me though, even if I can see the reasoning for it, because its not just the fact that this particular dynamic between Dick and Jason has played out thousands of times before in fic, as I said yesterday. Its also because like I laid out here......my bigger issue is that take has absolutely NOTHING to do with Dick himself, says nothing about his character, but his character is inevitably the one who will suffer fallout from that particular take. That dynamic, as you described it, makes sense.....but its entirely, 100% on Bruce or others for raising those comparisons, not because of anything Dick did to Jason himself.....and thus it makes Jason’s dynamic towards Dick MORE a product of other peoples’ reactions and attitudes towards him and his brother respectively.

And that dynamic IS perfectly understandable and valid. But even if its slightly different this time because of more of a canon basis, it still for me falls into the same pattern of Dick being collateral damage to something that’s largely focused on another character entirely, with him and how he’s impacted by extension being kinda an afterthought. 

*Shrugs* And that’s just......a story I’ve read so many many times before, I’m just never gonna be all that engaged by it. 

[shatteredatthealtarofwinchester]

You know while watching that Jensen and J*red panel and listening to jackles talk about Jack bringing Sam and Dean back and not even mentioning Cas, I thought of something. Because what is he going to do if he ever does do a reboot? Because as far as I know the hellers are the ones mainly interested in a reboot,since w*ncesties and b*bros were all happy with such ‘perfect and circular storytelling’. So what’s gonna happen? Is he going to acknowledge Castiel at all? Because as much as I hate to say it,if he goes through all the trouble of doing a reboot without Cas, I can just tell it’ll end badly. Dude will be raked over the coals, all those accusations of homophobia will rear their ugly heads again, we all saw what happened with S*mantha and Ch*d, hell even Misha isn’t safe, and the poor guy was only making a joke. So what’s he gonna do? And I don’t think it’d be possible to bring Cas back and ignore destiel,since Misha said he was actually happy with Castiel’s story arc and he probably wouldn’t stand for such erasure.

This is why I am not sure if there will be a reboot at all. Sometimes I tend to believe that the actors are like: It’s extremely fucked up, but it’s dead and done now. Leave it, as it is: Buried. Also what Jensen said seems to have left a bitter taste in a lot of mouths. Back in the old life with Sam because Dean would miss it, huh. For what? Continue hunting? Old-school again? J2, back on the track? You all see what happened with exactly that. 30% B*bros and W*ncesties are happy, 70% are pissed as fuck. No need to reboot 1:1 what pissed off the very majority. This is a blunt tightrope walk now. If they would do it without Cas, it would fail on a level I don’t even have words for. If they would continue Cas’ erasure and would just mention him in a short sidenote... Uhhh... Uhhhuhuhuhuh... I can’t even think about it. Look what trended since the finale aired and Cas’ blunt erasure happened. The fandom is fierce. The fandom is raging. I read in countless tumblr posts that a reboot without Cas will definitely fail and wouldn’t be accepted, and this is true. Make a reboot without Castiel and no one except the W*ncesties will talk about Supernatural ever again. This would be the moment where it simply wouldn’t exist anymore. If you want to lose 50-70% of your fandom forever, this is the perfect way to go. Same with Destiel. Destiel trended worldwide at #1! It trended over the fucking US election results! You can’t bring Cas back and don’t face the love confession. Last night I thought about it, and I was like, hmm, you could manage to rescue Cas with a kind of timetravel arc, you know, endgame style. But then I was like, no way, this would erase the confession and canon Destiel completely, the fandom would snap. From “Here, Destiel is canon now, the angel is gay and he’s madly in love with Dean.” to “Whoops, hahaha. Nothing happened!”

I mean, idk. Accidentally or on purpose, it’s the fucking greatest lovestory ever told. If you do a reboot, have the fucking balls to make it both-sided, make it the fucking greatest and deadliest hunting couple ever. Badass angel, badass hunter. Boom! We don’t wanna see them kissing or banging. Give ‘em sassy lines and tender glances. (Like before?!) Just admit it and say you love him, too, Dean fucking Winchester. Or don’t say it, just wake up in the same bed and finally keep him from leaving. Tell him he had you the whole time. Whatever. The possibilities are endless. We don’t want Destiel in the focus! We just wanna see, ahh, they’re finally together now, we all knew long time ago, great, let’s move on.

There is SO! fucking! much! potential! I would love to see it kinda Deadpool-like? Sassy, bitchy, confident. Irony, sarcasm, some little, weird superpowers, fighting scenes that leave me like OUUHHH DAMN! WHAAAAT!? You have the fucking greatest witch, angels and literally GOD in your squad! There is nothing you can’t do! No fucking limits! Do something!

#spn #spnfamily #supernatural #spnfandom #misha collins #jensen ackles #castiel #cas #dean winchester #dean #destiel #deancas