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#you can send me more than one character
broke-on-books · 11 months
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The live action Scooby-Doo movies?
I did not see this ask until RIGHT now (first time on desktop since crab day, second time since Nov 5 2020 [which was DOUBLY experience since I got my phone taken the same day]) so I'm going to assume this ask got eaten on mobile because tumblr, HOWEVER you poked a bear with this ask anon (as I'm sure you knew when asking) SO without further ado: my Scooby Doo live action opinions
So when you say 'live action Scooby-Doo movies' I'm assuming you're talking about the James Gunn films, starting with Scooby-Doo (2002) followed by Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, just due to like, generally popularity and also the fact that I have actually seen those films. However shoot another ask if you wanted me to include Curse of the Lake Monster in this (because I will if anyone cares and turn this into a live-action scooby dissertation, i'd just need to like. watch the movie first) But anyways where I'm going with this is that this post is about the Gunn movies aka the ones with SMG, Freddie Prinze Jr., Linda Cardellini, and ofc our #1 man, Matthew Lilliard.
Okay so my take on these movies is... complicated. I wouldn't say it's as complicated as my feelings towards SDMI, because I watched the live actions way less as a kid and generally care less about them, but still no matter how much shit I throw at these two movies there are parts that I generally like (even love) that stops me from totally condemning them wholesale. Like the fact that these movies are FUNNY! There's so many moments from this duology that are just beyond iconic "like, that's one of my favorite names!" the whole thing with Scooby in the dress at the airport, ET. CETERA (like I can go on!)
The Gunn movies are genuinely SO fun and I can 100% see and understand how they've stood so well in the public view as a representation of Scooby. HOWEVER, this is where you start to see my problems with them. For the general American, (because that is the audience I'm familiar with) ESPECIALLY millennials and younger, who happen to make up the majority of both people on this site AND people I talk about Scooby with in real life, these movies, and the elements they introduced as "quintessential scooby tropes" are the base of their understanding of the Scooby franchise, along with likely some miscellaneous WAY episodes and maybe SDMI.
Which is where I get pissed off. In the pushing of the narrative of "breaking away" from the Scooby norm, Gunn basically invents (aka totally makes up) an idea of what classic era Scooby was like, cementing an idea of classic Scooby into the public mind that is totally disingenuous and just straight up false. For example, in attempting to portray Daphne as having taken strides to be seen more seriously in solving mysteries and defending herself, it pushes the narrative that in the classic era she WASN'T taken seriously, and only existed as a damsel-in-distress prop of a character, which is just not true??? Like yes, Daphne is clumsy, that's a part of her character, and her friends (because, fun fact, the gang ARE friends) joke about it sometimes because that's what friends DO. Framing that in some kind of sexist "that's all she does" lens is just total bull, especially as gang members fall into secret passageways/get lost etc. in WAY ALL THE DAMN TIME because that's how the plot functions! Like are we calling Velma ditzy for losing her glasses every other episode? Of course not, and Fred falls into passageways all the time, not to MENTION Shaggy and Scooby and all they get up to. Also one last thing on the topic of Daphne, like this idea of her mystery solving skills not being respected by the gang is just so supremely bullshit it amazes me sometimes, especially when she was the LEADER (or leader adjacent) through pretty much all of her appearances in the 1980s [Not that James Gunn could look at '80s era Scooby without spitting on it, but I digress]
AND THIS IS JUST DAPHNE! Like the perceptions pushed towards Fred (and Velma, but mostly Fred) through these movies are just as bad! Like okay, with Fred---In these movies Fred is just an asshole. I hate Gunn Movies!Fred. I mean yeah he can be funny but it's almost always so mean! Almost nothing makes me madder than a mean Fred by the way. If he's putting other gang members down (even halfway, like with his whole "dorky chicks like you turn me on too" line, which... ew) then to me something has gone very, very, VERY, wrong in your basic understanding of Frederick Herman Jones as a character. Like he's the cheerleader! He puts himself in between his friends and danger! He loves nets, and traps, and Elvis impressions, and wrestling, and the trapeze, and cars, and most of all he LOVES sharing the things he loves with his friends! (Sometimes to a bit of an extreme. No one wants to hear about your net facts, Fred) And the live action movies just don't understand that at all. And I know there's maybe something to say I suppose in that some of those aspects of his characterization hadn't been "established yet" by the time "Scooby-Doo" came out in 2002. But it's there if you look. For Fred Jones, being the leader means being the caretaker, (he's the Mom friend what can I say) and any version where he's cruel and arrogant and just DOESN'T CARE about his friends in the way he's shown to in the Gunn movies is just so far from Fred to me it's not even funny. And what makes it even worse for me is that this (or at least something similar) is the idea of Fred that has really spread to the popular culture. Just the "leader", the jock that makes the rules, the one that [insert X adaptation here] finally gave a personality and made interesting (something that has been said more times than I can count for pretty much every gang member, save Shaggy and Scooby).
And I haven't even touched on Velma, and how they gave her a bit of a early 2000s smart superiority girl complex against Daphne, plus the whole makeover thing and etc. etc. The Gunn Movies are pretty much what would happen if you took someone who hadn't seen Scooby since they were 7 years old (and honestly had a pretty negative outlook against it then) and tried to "fix" it, only his memory was so bad he just made up problems (and threw in a good helping of early 2000s style sexism with it) convincing pretty much the entirety of the popular culture that said problems exist and that Gunn was absolutely brilliant for fixing them (and then bringing up said "problems" whenever anyone wants to talk about Scooby) and this entire rant has been without even fucking MENTIONING what is probably the reason you, anonymous tumblr user sent this ask in the first place, to I, Swishy "Scrappy Doo Redemption Arc" Broke-on-books (dot tumblr dot com), which is his HIGHLY SUCESSFUL and utterly sadistic character assassination of my number one man, Scrappy Doo.
And I am going to try my damnedest here not to get totally into my highly passionate opinions over what James Gunn did to Scrappy in the first of his Scooby movies and how thoroughly it has pissed me the fuck off because I have been writing this post for over an hour now and if we start to really get into my feelings on this topic it will certainly be a couple of hours more but like. That Fucking Bitch. I give James Gunn personally a solid eighty-five percent of the blame for making my life as a Scrappy Doo fan UTTERLY unbearable with this stupid fucking movie alone, and just his Scrappy crimes would honestly be enough for me to say that I hate this movie, not even considering the numerous Scooby crimes I've been talking about here for the past million paragraphs, but the part about this movie that makes me the MOST mad the most pissed off is that it's actually a good fucking movie. James Gunn wrote two hilarious and entertaining movies that have become beloved in the popular culture for their successes in that arena, while at the same time pissing all over the core themes and messages of the franchise of which it was based, that of friendship.
TLDR; The Live Action Scooby Doo movies (written by James Gunn) are highly entertaining and fun pieces of media to watch, and are widely loved by the general public and looked at with fondness and nostalgia because of that. However, as a hardcore Scooby Doo fan (writing that phrase sounds so ridiculous but oh well) the existence of these movies and their impact on the popular culture can be extremely frustrating (despite any personal nostalgia said fan may have) due to their spreading of a misinformed picture of what "typical Scooby Doo" looks like. This picture is especially frustrating due to the fabrication or exaggeration of problems present in classic Scooby (such as sexism in regards to the girls), as well as giving more ammunition to other problems in Scooby fandom (such as oversexualization, and sexualization in general, which no one wants to see in regards to their children's cartoons, like HONESTLY.) Discussions of sexism and sexualization in Scooby (both of which ARE present and are issues, although not at their worst in WAY) can often lead to an overlooking of the issues that are very present and clear in WAY and have continued since then with far too little resistance (I'm 100% talking about the racism here) HOWEVER that topic deserves at least a dozen posts of its own that I am no way informed or qualified enough to even begin to think about writing. The Gunn Movies are frustrating to many longtime Scooby fans because of these reasons, but for me, and fellow Scrappy Doo fans there is also the added aspect of the demonization of Scrappy Doo in the live action movies and the affects that has had on the popular culture as well, making it uniquely inhospitable to like or enjoy the character of Scrappy. End post.
#that last sentence is such a weird tone jump btw but its because the topic flowed one way and i had to jump it back to a summary to actually#finish this monster of a post#SO anon i hope you're happy with this and this makes my opinion make some more sense. and you or anyone else is more than welcome to ask me#questions about anything i said here or my opinion on any and everything scooby related (and not) so if theres a specific aspect of this yo#would like expanded on i can definitely 100% do that for you or anyone who cares#also there are many complexities towards my feelings on these movies that i didnt get to hit on despite the monstrous size of this rant (il#check word count later but im not gonna fuck with it now because im terrified of deleting this post by accident) one of which is my lasting#fondness towards all of the actors in this movie. YES including freddie prinze jr. i may have major issues with his fred but hes also playe#characters i really really like. for example hes the va in this tv show i LOVE and havent watched in like 10 months despite the fact im on#the last season because freddie's character dies in like 7 episodes and i am NOT AT ALL emotionally prepared for that on any level because#that is my fictional father goddamnit!!!!!#also every buffy the vampire slayer gifset that crosses my dash gets me closer and closer to watching it because oh my god daphne!!!!! that#sarah michelle gellar thats daphne oh my god!!!! also i went and saw guardians of the galaxy 3 with my friend (despite not having seen a#marvel movie in 2+ years AND holding a grudge over james gunn's scooby doo crimes)[the things you do for {platonic} love amirite?]#and the title sequence SAID linda cardellini was in it and i got SO excited i was looking everywhere for her it was like wheres waldo in th#discount movie theatre FOR REAL and i just could NOT for the life of me find her (turns out she was VAing the ferret) so in a way linda mad#me cry with that role. whatever. istg i get so off topic i forget what i was even talking about but ANYWAYS <<<1 of my fave english words b#dubs (my favorite spanish word is el amanacer btw. it means sunrise. also burbujas because its bubbles and saying it sounds like bubbles#popping) BUT. AS I WAS SAYING. SEND ME ASKS IF YOU WANT SCOOBY DOO OPINIONS. DEAR GOD I GET SCATTERBRAINED SOMETIMES.#scooby doo#answered#anonymous#blah
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babblingeccentric · 7 months
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KINKTOBER REQUESTS 2023 ARE OPEN!
I'm opening my inbox to requests for Kinktober!
Here's how it works: I will be writing ~17 small ~300 word ficlets about every 2 days for the month of October. I have a list of kinks I've picked out at the end of this post to use as prompts. I will be randomly selecting a kink to write for each day until I've written each one.
What I need from you: I need you to pick a kink from the list below and a character you'd like to see written along with the genitalia and pronouns you'd like reader to have and put it in my inbox. I will use these as prompts for the ficlets. When I pull a kink from the hat I will pick a request with that kink from my inbox and write it.
Rules:
I won't write female characters because as cool and interesting as the one piece women are I write entirely through the power of horny and they don't make me hard.
I reserve the right to refuse any prompt for whatever reason including that I just don't vibe with it (sorry but my motivation is fickle and I already burned myself out on another reader insert blog writing stuff I didn't like)
I'm only accepting prompts with One Piece characters at this time.
There is no guarantee that your request will be written, especially if there are multiple requests for that same kink with different characters
I won't write anything with Luffy and I won't write Zoro with a female reader (nonbinary reader, cis and trans male reader are all fine). No shade against people who like or write this stuff I just find it clashes with my personal headcanons for the them.
If I don't get any prompts for a certain kink I'll pick a character and reader myself.
You can request a kink at any time until it has been written and posted
Have fun!
Kink List
Kink's will be crossed off as they are written and posted
Heat
Wax play
Shibari
Pegging
Cunnilingus
Teratophilia
Spanking
Sounding
Exhibitionism
Praise
Virginity
Threesome
Tit play
Skirts/petticoats
Vibrator/sex toys
Piercing
Gender play
Oviposition
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blujayonthewing · 3 months
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well I just spent an hour digging through my own dnd notes and social media and also almost cried because I mentioned, in passing, something justin had said about one of his NPCs and he, completely lightheartedly, was like '?? I don't remember that at all. [I mean I'm not making it up?] I think you might be making it up 😏'
#me-- instantly stressed and near tears: I know you're joking and it's not even important but. that isn't funny. to me.#I really wish there was a term for 'gaslighting but they're not doing it on purpose'#this is distinct from simply 'being wrong' because 'that's definitely not what happened 🤨' is a key part of it#the other person trying to convince me that I'm wrong and I must be crazy-- not for manipulation purposes but because THEY forgot#and are MUCH more confident in the possibility that I'm completely full of shit than that they maybe can't remember exactly#this is an extraordinarily specific thing that nonetheless happens to me ASTONISHINGLY OFTEN.#I mean clearly often enough that I'm now hair-trigger sensitive upset about it#AND TO CLARIFY QUICKLY-- that's not what justin even did (this time) but 'well I don't remember that' is still...#OKAY WELL I DO. WHY DOESN'T ANYONE EVER BELIEVE ME.#trembling and crying searching for Receipts while explaining to my husband that it's not even that I don't think he believes me (this time)#I just. I just. I just. I'm not fucking crazy. I know you don't think I'm crazy. but I still feel like I Have to prove it.#my mom sending a package to the wrong address and then saying-- confidently and irritably-- 'you never GAVE me a unit number'#when I can scroll back up through texts to where I sent her our new address when we moved and it was complete and correct#my friend during our big stupid fight saying 'no one actually AGREED to that [dnd] plan except you and justin 😒'#going back into my audio recording to that conversation where everyone BUT him agreed#including his fucking pick-me 'yeah jay's being shitty right now' brother whose character said 'this sounds like a good plan' verbatim#like. I KNOW it's not just 'my memory vs theirs and we both assume we're right'#because SO OFTEN when this happens I have FUCKING RECEIPTS. that I'M NOT WRONG OR CRAZY.#no one ever wants to entertain the notion that I might know what I'm talking about.#I can't stress enough that I'm not mad at justin right now he was very much 'no I believe you! it's weird that I don't remember though'#which is fair! honestly! but I'm a LITTLE. sensitive. of the fact that everyone always ALWAYS automatically assumes I'm incorrect#and very often in a way that's a mark against my competence or character.#'well *I* couldn't *possibly* have gotten the address wrong so YOU must have fucked it up'#you know. it's like that. it's like that a lot.#maybe this only happens to me so much because I happen to be cursed with remembering things better than most people#or maybe I'm uniquely viewed as incompetent. who can say.#about me
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stellarwaffles · 11 months
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Please give me art requests for Lego Ninjago or Nexo Knights ships
(Or pride icons. I can make those too)
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cyndrastic · 7 months
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OK NOW THAT THE FIRST KID IN THE NEXT GEN AU HAS BEEN REVEALED ITS POLL TIME >:)
who should Asher meet next?? He’s new to South Park, but unbeknownst to Stan and Kyle, lots of their childhood friends are still in town with kids Asher’s age!
for the sake of mysteriousness (and because i want to), the poll to pick the next kid/kids will simply have a last name, not the names of their parents or how many kids are in the family. Some pairings in this au have multiple kids, and there are also some kids with parents you wouldn’t expect, so for fun im just gonna have you pick from a single last name.
(in case this still doesn’t make any sense cause i’m bad at explaining things: say Asher was in this poll. For him, the option would simply be “Brofloski,” cause it wouldn’t give away Stan as his other parent and wouldn’t give away any siblings he hypothetically had, it would just let you know that Kyle had a kid and the rest would be a surprise)
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warrior-cats-junk · 1 month
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Anyone want to give me a random character (fandom I’m in or not) and see me in their outfit
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fissions-chips · 11 months
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So-
I’m gonna try something in the hopes that maybe I’ll get a little better writing angst- after searching through several other whump-ish prompt lists, I’ve compiled my own, nice and tidy, to have some inspiration!
Restrained / Bound
Collar / Garrote
Manhandled / Forced To Knees
Caged / Buried Alive
Bruises / Touch-Starved
Helplessness / Blinded
Enemy To Caretaker / Rescue
Shaking Hands / Pinned Down
Laced Drink / Taken Hostage
Blood Loss / Internal Bleeding
Humiliation / Defiance
Struggling / Broken Down
Begging / Forced To Beg
Crush Injuries / Beaten
Muffled Scream / Trembling
Drowning / Trapped Underwater
Predation / Environmental
Bitten / Blood-Matted Hair
Poisoned / Drugged
Exhaustion / Collapse
Hunting Season / Left For Dead
Too Weak To Move / Hidden Injury
Recovery / Aftermath
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constantvariations · 1 year
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Adam was a cringy edgelord ever since the trailers, he simply got worse in different ways later on
How can people even like that character is beyond me
It's called "seeing the potential in a character that the writers fucked over from the start because they couldn't give the racism plot they started and refused to drop any nuance or compassion thanks to their 'violence is uwu bad' white supremacist politics"
Also, cringe edgelord is not inheritely a bad thing. Just look at Shadow the Hedgehog - he's cooler than you or I will ever be. Or my current hyperfixation husband V from Devil May Cry, who is 100% a cringe edgelord and I love him for that specifically
Kill not the cringe but the part of you that cringes and you will know freedom
#rwde#exactly what is the purpose of you sending this to me?#do i look like a confessional to you?#what even is the point of going up to strangers and declaring an opinion?#'ugh i hate the color green' cool. didnt ask buttface#and coming to me - a doylist analyst - w subjective shit is 100% a recipe for disaster#did you expect me to forget that the same guys who gave the face of the racism plot a LITERAL FUCKING BRAND#ON HIS FUCKING FACE#are the exact same people who were chill w calling their coworkers slurs? even modifying them to be said on air in a cutesy manner?#you really expect me to forget that these chucklefucks laugh abt stalking women from their cars#are the same ones who continually fridge or underwrite the female characters to spotlight the men?#and then have to backtrack bc this is supposed to be a ☆~female empowerment~☆ show?#do you expect me to forget how they have fucked over every character with trauma#traumas that thousands if not millions of people deal w every goddamn day#traumas like abandonment. dismemberment. alcoholism. ptsd. poverty. starvation. prolonged isolation. suicidal ideation#every character that dared to not be sunshine Sally was killed off or written out or harassed into silence#there are so many more things i can say here but if you don't get the point i will gladly find you for an in person lecture#it will be 15 hours w only 1 bathroom break so think wisely before committing#either way fuck off w your flaccid opinions that a monkey on a typewriter would send off in less than 5 minutes#say something interesting or shut the fuck up#anon hours
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quickhacked · 2 years
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>> wip day
was tagged a long time ago by @adelaidedrubman, @turbo-virgins and @shellibisshe to share a wip and was tagged by @morvaris and @aartyom to share six sentences from a current wip, thank you so much!! i decided to combine them and rather than sharing a wip, i'll share some information about the broker, a new character i recently introduced into the story of my cyberpunk ocs :) tagging @reaperkiller, @arklay, @steelport, @cultistbase, @faarkas, @swordcoasts, @ladybeniko, @necro-hamster, @strafethesesinners, @henbased, @coffeebucko, @awful-roffle, @bluemojave and anyone else who wants to do this!
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A powerful fixer in Night City, operating from the shadows and only known by their alias. Cold and ruthless, focused entirely on wreaking havoc in the existing mercenary world by planting seeds of distrust and paranoia, to pit everyone up against each other. While their interference is still minimal, the long-term consequences can be felt in every corner of the city.
Once a powerful Arasaka asset, the Broker has access to a tight network of assassins- a few highly skilled killers who serve as their security network, all ex-Arasaka as well. Through connections they also have an entire division of Militech in their pocket, and the NCPD tends to turn them a blind eye.
The Broker is a horrible fixer, presenting themself as "one of the good guys" and luring mercs in with eddies and empty promises. With their charismatic nature, they're able to use the backstabbing and corruption in Night City's underworld as a tool to manipulate mercs into thinking no one can be trusted and the entire network has to be destroyed for good, and they themself are the only person in the whole city they can trust; this way, their mercs end up developing a strange dependency on them, meaning they'll do anything they tell them to do without giving it a second thought.
Though once the Broker has lured the mercs in, they stop paying them well and give them little support while they do all their dirty work, uncaring about what happens to them and whether or not they'll make it out alive. The mercs are mere tools to the Broker to achieve their long-term goals, and they even take pride in killing those who dare to disagree with them- turning them into an example for others.
Some time after Vincent has been cured and is no longer actively dying, one of Vitali's cargo trucks is intercepted by a group of his old mercenaries- all people who felt betrayed and abandoned by him after his departure from Night City with Vincent about six months ago, when they left for Arizona in hopes to find a cure. The attack leaves Lauren, Eddie and Mikhail gravely injured and it can be traced back to the Broker; while it is still unclear what their deal with Vitali is, they now seem to be targeting him and his entire fixer network specifically.
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paimonial-rage · 3 months
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To that anon that just sent in an ask about Lyney, the first two questions about Lyney's insecurity and relationship weaknesses are gone over in the last ask I just posted. I can definitely answer #21 though! If you'd like to switch up your questions, please feel free to send in a new ask!
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t4tails · 2 years
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also it might take a bit because i have some final exams next week but! i want to do that 6 character fanarts thing reply to this post with character suggestions :)
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spirirsstuff · 1 year
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HRFEHEBEHSJFJEJNF I MUST DRAW A SILLY BUT I DO NOT HAVE MY TABLET
I CANNOT DRAW A SILLY WITHOUT MY TABLET GRRRRRRRRRR
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sparring-spirals · 2 years
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imogen being drained by her rudimentary hold on her psychic abilites vs resorting to mind reading bc she just has to get answers to any question that pops in her head and she has a hard time w frustration vs relying on what causes her immense pain as her only way to trust that they're being honest even if it means risking learning something she really didn't want to vs being repeatedly told to announce herself by ppl who unknowingly don't announce themselves on the regular vs so much more
and to add onto my messy "imogen vs" ask idk if it's the right wording and this is pure projection but: the way her relationship to her powers is transpiring kinda makes me feel the same way my ocd makes me feel like idk it's very very interesting and fascinating to me. i'm not sure exactly how to put it and which exemples to give (the character limit doesn't help my rambly nature) so this is a bit of an empty ask but yeah.... anyways keep sharing your thoughts it's always interesting! take care
First of all: thank you! You take care of yourself too. :D
Secondly: Hmmmmm. Okay. Gonna be straightforward here, I'm not sure my askbox/this space is the best option/conduit for this particular ask/line of thought, if only because. I think there is something specific in this you are resonating with/prodding at that draws from you personally, that you're trying to puzzle out.
Which! Is generally a valid and fine way to engage with media and is how some excellent metas are written. I think a lot of Imogen's struggles and characterizations resonate with a variety of mental/physical struggles, and there are so many goddamn layers to read it with. (This excellent post by @mysticalspiders comes to mind).
But also, I am not you, and so I don't feel particularly confident in interpreting something that is serving as a catalyst for your thoughts, in part because I'm absolutely going to interpret it differently, which can land differently if you're drawing from a very personal place when interpreting it.
(You don't have to feel bad about it, or anything, this is also a more general PSA so folks are aware before sending in headcanons/more indulgent projections/extensive theories- not because I dislike them necessarily, but because. I take asks for me to provide Opinions Or Analysis on things.
I definitely interpret things My Way, which can be different than intended, or even a more general "I have no thoughts about this, actually", which can land unpleasantly when people are invested or personally invested in their line of thought.
So, largely to play it safe, I'm going to say here, and also more generally, that I might not engage as much with what I understand as largely indulgent/personal hcs/metas that come through my askbox).
That aside, to the first part alone, I will say that: Yeah Imogen's brain is almost certainly going through a number of tug-of-wars and damage control at all times, and it makes her a very, very fascinating character to pull apart and poke. Definitely feel you on that. 👌
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kadoodles-on-ao3 · 1 year
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It seems like you have a vendetta against Shulk/Fiora. Like, not just disliking it and preferring Shulkelia but straight up hate the canon ship of the game. Why?
Thank you for asking this! It's an interesting question and I have a quite a bit to say about it (as usual with me aha). So I'll put the details under the cut, but yes, I personally do not like any aspect of the canon relationship/writing of it at all (although I don't go into that here since I talked about much more than I expected lol, if you're curious specifically about what my opinions are on the dialogue/choices in the game regarding Shiora feel free to send me another ask!). Also if you've read my fanfics (genuinely not trying to plug my work haha I swear) and see how I write Fiora and her friendship with Shulk, and especially the fic where I write from her pov for the whole thing, you can see I don't hate her and try to be respectful to her creators and fans! Anyway, for a TL;DR:
Aside from my personal history (which also is part of why I like Shulkelia as much as I do) causing the way Fiora's attraction to Shulk is written to not come off very well to me, and even ignoring what I've seen on the Internet about how people react to these ships and those who like or dislike them, it's just A Thing About Life that there will be parts of media you really like and parts of the same media you really don't, and that's what makes art engaging and impactful and personal and fun to talk about! I'm just someone who always has a lot to say about anything, so don't take my diatribes as anything more than me being passionate about analyzing stuff haha. I still love Xenoblade 1 with all my heart, and me not liking parts of the series such as Xenoblade 2 (very much) or Shiora (at all) doesn't affect how much I enjoy what I do like! It's just another fun facet to delve into for me, whether it's a thing I like or a thing I dislike.
And when all you see and know of me is from a blog that's specifically just for talking about a small facet of one piece of media, I can come off as more melodramatic about my liking of Shulkelia and disliking of Shiora since I don't talk too much about the rest of Xenoblade as a whole, nor anything else for that matter, on here. I promise I don't truly care that much about this fictional love triangle in my day-to-day life, and I'm sorry if I came off as rude about it! If you like their relationship then... I do want to say more power to you, and count this as me having said so, but also I don't feel like I need to because, as you said, it is canon so the Xenoblade devs have been (and probably will be!) providing plenty of enjoyment for you, and so no one should care what a silly singular stranger like me thinks at the end of the day haha.
But if you do, then here's what I have to say:
First off, I just enjoy really thoroughly dissecting everything I like, as well as dislike (as you will soon see!). I like delving into details and analyzing stuff, and sometimes that passion can be a little too obsessive, which can come off as me being passionate in my hatred of The Thing rather than passionate about analyzing why I hate The Thing (which is what's really going on). So it's important to me to say that when I talk about anything I dislike in depth like this, it's not ever meant to be hating on or attacking people who do like it! I just really find it fun to put things under a microscope, both when I really like them and really dislike them, because I enjoy discovering what, specifically, about them makes me feel that way.
I also think it's important to repeat that point about how this blog is both 1) meant to be near-exclusively about Shulkelia and 2) the posts I make here are pretty much my entire online footprint (outside of my fanfic account which is p much about the same topic aha), and as such these are the only things that strangers have to form an opinion about me (much like the common criticism brought up about parasocial relationships). When I log on to this blog I'm here to talk about my Xenoblade OTP or things related to it, and so that's all you see of/know about me. And even though the reason I made this blog is because of how much I like it (I'm kind of obsessive about the things I'm really passionate about, I've been that way my whole life, so that certainly doesn't help either haha), there are things I may like equally or even more, but because they aren't what this blog is for I don't mention them, and so anyone who doesn't know me won't know about them unless I talk about them. When you only see the fraction of me that I'm willing to share, then of course it'll seem like that fraction is the whole me if you never get to see the other 99%.
So much in the same way that I can seem super obsessed about Shulkelia (which, to be fair, I do get that way some days haha) it can seem like I really really hate Shiora too, since the only time I'm going to talk about it is on a blog that's dedicated to a different ship, and since I'm not really a multishipper nor do I enjoy the writing of it in canon, I won't ever have much nice to say about it. And because it's a canon ship that most people seem to enjoy, it's going to come up from time to time on art that either has Fiora/the love triangle involved or in the comments I see on it, and since I have something to say about it I do. Although I do genuinely not like it at all, I try to do it in a way where it's clear I'm not hating on people who enjoy it, either by trying to hammer home that it's just my personal opinion about it, or being super hyperbolic about disliking it in an attempt at humor. But tone and meaning can get lost from brain to text and I'm surely not the best at wording things sometimes, so I don't blame anyone for getting the wrong impression, and if that's happened I do apologize!
For example, if this blog was instead about my love of Mexican food (which is true!) and was meant for being a catalogue of recipes I come across, I'd probably talk in the tags pretty often about how I lament that so many recipes have cilantro in them because I have the weird cilantro-tastes-like-soap gene and so it tastes awful to me (which is also true!). When this happens over and over again on so many recipes that have cilantro, and when this repetition is all you ever get to see about me, it would probably seem like I have a burning hatred for cilantro, when in reality I barely think about it at all, and if something I want to eat has it I'll just politely ask for no cilantro or silently pick it off. I do think the weird gene is interesting, and I have a fun story about how I found out I have it which I enjoy telling, but I'm also just fine eating my food if no one wants to talk about it.
But that comparison isn't perfect, because there's a lot more going on in interpersonal relationships (fictional or not) and why people enjoy them or not. So let's get into that!
I did mention there were personal reasons why I feel the way I do, and to the extent I do, about these pairings, so it's only fair to explain what that's about. All throughout my life up until college I never had anyone show any romantic interest in me, even in high school, while in contrast all my friends as well as my sister had been in multiple relationships, so I felt rather lonely and figured there was something wrong with me if no one would want to date me haha. But I did of course have crushes of my own (that because of the aforementioned thought I had that I was unlikable I never acted on) and one of them was on a mutual friend that my best friend at the time also knew, as well as knew that I liked him. And all of a sudden one day they were going out and being affectionate all the time, including right in front of me even though my friend knew I liked him. That plus my loneliness from before obviously hurt really bad and made me pretty upset for a while haha.
Then on top of that later that year I would connect with someone like I never had before in my life and he "felt the same way", the very first person to ever tell me they liked me and I believed it. I honestly do still think he did like me... yet he would go on to get into a relationship with someone else and all the while repeatedly promise me that I was special to him and that she didn't get him like I did and he'd leave her for me but of course we can still have our deep talks about his personal problems and blah blah blah. There's a lot more to it than that but I'll cut it short and just say this happened for literally every single day for an entire year of my life, and it really deeply affected me for a long time, though I'm fine now of course. Well, it did change me as a human being, but you know what I mean haha. I don't say this to elicit pity (really, don't, I promise I'm fine) but to give you some puzzle pieces to help figure out the mystery of why I dislike Shiora.
So I'm sure you can see the parallels from my life to what Melia goes through, and that's precisely the mechanism that everyone uses to relate to and love fictional characters: they deal with horrible stuff that we can connect back to horrible stuff we've been through, and we empathize with them. That's one reason why so many people love Shulk (including me!), and Melia, and countless other characters. That's kind of what they're here for: to relate to. He just like me for real and all that. So, in the same way my life experiences make me relate so much to Melia, I can also relate those who I liked but never could be with to Shulk and relate their girlfriends to Fiora. And knowing how those real-life relationships ended up and why they didn't work out, I can really see parallels to how Fiora and Shulk's relationship is written, at least with the vibe I got from it on first and second impression. Therefore I both dislike it for personal reasons and the information those reasons gave me about good and bad relationships.
On a lighter note though, there's another aspect to the whole we-like-characters-we-identify-with thing with regards to shipping: I really do think the ships we like (if any) are based on and a reflection of ourselves and what we want in a partner (should we want to have one). Or in simpler terms, our OTPs are often made up of a character we can self-insert as and a character we would marry if they were real haha. And I don't mean that in a bad way at all! It's fun to make up fake scenarios with fake characters that you want to kiss, even when you're not writing direct-self-insert or xReader stuff (which I also don't bash)! I'm certainly guilty of this myself, even as much as I try to write them true to their character, relating so much to Melia and finding a lot about Shulk attractive for reasons that Melia also does means I'm just like everyone else haha. But on the other side of the coin, the fact that I cannot relate to Fiora in so many ways as well as do not vibe with how she treats her attraction to Shulk means I can't really enjoy the thought of them as a couple.
But outside of talking about the canon for just a second more, I think there's an interesting phenomenon(? idk what to call it lol) here that is in this ask as well as many other people's vocalized opinions regarding this game's love triangle: said canon. As in, the concept that someone could like Xenoblade 1 overall but dislike the canon relationship either confuses and/or upsets some people. Which is strange to me on its own, like do these people also get confused and/or mad when someone says they love hamburgers but hate when they have pickles on them? Everyone has their own tastes, and what you like or how much of it you do is just part of being an individual. (Plus I must say it's extra odd with regards to Shulkelia, as I've never seen the same comments/reactions to ships like Meliora, Shulk/Reyn, Shalvis, Dunban/Melia, etc, despite the fact that they're all equally as non-canon as Shulkelia. Maybe it's because the game firmly shoots down Shulk liking Melia so hard? But it also shows how much Fiora likes Shulk, so wouldn't Meliora [which is pretty darn popular as far as Xenoblade 1 ships go, at least from my browsing] be just as "anti-canon"?).
For extra context too, there are. SO. many friendzoned/"haha Shulk doesn't like Melia" memes and jokes out there (and if these people are so concerned with canon, it's weird how often they make Shulk and/or Melia act out of character super hard to push the joke!) which don't really exist to be pro-Shiora and more just anti-Shulkelia. I even came across a guy on reddit who would post Melia fanart every day, and so many of his posts were stalked by this one dude who would write a little rant about how Melia sucks and Fiora is the best, and would really go off if the fanart showed Melia's crush on Shulk in any way. Now he was super downvoted every time but... I've never seen anyone do that for Shulkelia. And yet I have seen quite a few posts of people complaining about Shulk/Melia fans shoving their ship in their faces and how much it sucks as a ship and I'm like i have been trying for MONTHS to find a single scrap of shulkelia content yet find barely anything and what i do find has SO many comments saying they still like shiora or that they hate the art since it's not shiora literally WHO are you talking about??? Like maybe I just am unlucky and have seen literally all 20 or whatever number of instances of Shiora fans being rude that ever existed but... they still do exist. I'm not making this up, in fact I encourage you to go out and search for Xenoblade fan content regarding this love triangle and see how people react to it! That's what I did and that's how I came across all of this!
Anyway, like was there a huge ship war in the early fandom days or something??? If so why can I find no mention of it anywhere except from salty Shiora shippers/Fiora fanboys, like barely any Shulkelia art even exists and I see zero talk from the supposed pushy Shulkelia fans? They have like 30 freaking fics in existence and half of them are Melia sulking about how Fiora is being lovey dovey with Shulk and showing they actually got together after all so don't even really count as Shulkelia fics!! In my searching for Shulkelia content I come across so many comments from people who like the ship trying to downplay their enjoyment of it and placate any potential Shiora fans reading their comments with "oh but Shulk/Fiora is cute too! i still like them together! i only like Shulk/Melia in a close friends kind of way, or just to make Melia happy idc about the ship i just like seeing her smile!" so like... What reality do these other guys live in where they got bombarded with Shulkelia over and over because I wish I lived in it!!! Something's up with some Fiora fans idk. Maybe I just had back luck in my searching, but try it yourself and see. I'm not crazy or making this up, I could just have been seeing all 20 or whatever number of Shiora's rude fans but... they do exist, and I have yet to see similar behavior from Shulkelia fans.
And this isn't all just me being a lurker looking at rando's comments as well. I even have a bit of a secondhand-experience story to tell about it! (The specific timeline of the initial details might be jumbled a bit, but I do remember the gist of it and still have the DMs to confirm some of the facts!)
I used to be active on Twitter, and I followed a lot of different Xenoblade fan artists on there. One day a certain artist posted a WIP of Melia and Shulk laying next to each other on a hill where Shulk was smiling at her, and although the artist deleted it (for reasons you will soon learn about) I think they wrote the Japanese ship name of the two on the tweet for it. Either way, I do recall before the WIP was posted they tweeted about liking Shulkelia, or rather ShuMeri as the Japanese ship name is called, (although in much the same "i like Melia so i like the thought of her being happy. Shulk belongs with Fiora though! i still ship them!" please-don't-be-mad-at-me way that I have never seen a Fiora/Shiora fan do) and wanting to draw something for it. Even though this particular artist posted in Japanese, a language I don't know 99% of, I was able to get the gist of their tweets through the translation feature and my knowledge of what the characters' names are in Japanese. And despite how hard this artist tried to be nice, tried to show how much they weren't trying to be mean to Shiora fans (they even had drawn Shiora art months earlier!), they got a wave of hate directed at them from Japanese fans which I saw in real time.
And if you doubt this because the tweets are now deleted, and because even when they were up I only read them through an A.I. translation, I felt so bad for this poor artist that I DM-ed them (regrettably in English, since I didn't trust my knowledge of Japanese to not end up making me say something I didn't intend or in a rude/informal tone) to show there was at least one other person out there that enjoyed ShuMeri and was excited to see their art. And they fortunately understood my message and knew English to message me back and told me direct quotes of what was thrown at them, which I still have in my DMs and will quote:
"'You are denying the original story. It's too unsatisfying and ugly' 'It's not right to make Shulk and Melia lovers.' someone said. At other times, people have replied to my art, complaining about Melia's behavior in the story, as I tweeted the other day. I've had a lot of negative comments about ShuMeri and Melia." (With regards to the whole "complaining about Melia's behavior in the story" thing, if I recall that was from people saying she had no right to have a crush on Shulk in the first place, which... I thought you guys said canon is sacrosanct? It is canon that Melia had a crush on Shulk, and if you don't like that then you don't respect the canon/story and aren't a real fan. Do you see how silly this sounds???)
So. Tell me if you have ever seen any Melia fans or Shulkelia fans ever behave like this. Because I sure haven't. (Like even this ask [which I am not upset about nor trying to be rude to the anon at all, on the contrary I'm super enjoying talking about this topic! it's just the dichotomy here is interesting to me!) is proof to me: how many times can you say you've seen comments on Shiora art or asks sent to Xenoblade fanblogs asking why someone doesn't like Shulkelia, do you hate Shulkelia, what's wrong with Shulkelia? Like I get one is canon and the other isn't, but like... have you seen shipping culture? Literally all of the most popular ships for any given media are non-canon, that's half the fun of shipping!!!
"Don't let mean fans sour the original work" (and again, just to make sure I'm clear, I do not consider the anon who sent this ask to be mean or rude in any way! I'm referring to other randos here!) and all that, but it's kind of hard for me to like a ship when it has fans that act like this... going around projecting by accusing fans of a different ship of their own behavior, or saying things that contradict their own points about how important canon is to them. Thinking back on how we like characters we can relate to, isn't it interesting how fans of a brash, headstrong, do-what-I-want-and-fuck-the-consequences character who gets everything she wants in canon act in a pushy or even rude way to fans of a reserved, self-reproaching, I-will-do-what-is-best-for-others-first character who has so much taken away from her, and the latter fans always defer to the former and feel guilty when they talk about liking their character even as they do so much to be nice to them? It's pretty interesting I think, it's like when dogs look like their owners or something haha.
To end this off, since even though I have more to say (which if you would like to hear please let me know!) I've talked for far too long now haha, I really want to post the rest of the DM that the artist I talked to (who to this day hasn't made another Shulkelia/Shulkelia-esque fanart again, and interestingly never gets hate on their Shalvis art which is again a non-canon "story-denying" ship, too. Maybe they just blocked the rude people and if so good for them, but it's interesting still that they haven't draw Shulkelia since):
"I think it's useless to argue about who is better, Fiora or Melia, and I don't want them to get me involved in that fight. However, I received words of encouragement from many kind followers like you. I now understand important things; 'Don't worry about mean people' and 'Draw what I like.' Fan art should be free, shouldn't it? If I draw ShuMeri, some mean people might appear again. But there are many more kind people like you. When I think of that, I'm not afraid anymore. I will try to draw ShuMeri one day. Maybe I'll get depressed again because of mean people, but then you can tell me, 'You draw fanart freely, right!'... Please tell me that. You made me feel better and made me cry with happiness. Thank you so much. :)"
-Mirim, who can be found here currently, and their old account where the drama happened is here. This is the piece of artwork they got so much hate for. Shulk and Melia aren't even touching in it and Mirim didn't even mention their ship name.
#ask#please support mirim they're a very skilled and underrated artist!!#anyway every time i get an ask i get so excited haha i really like talking to people about things i/we like#(well if i got a mean/''kys'' ask i wouldn't be excited but you get what i mean haha)#and to be clear i do not think this ask was hostile at all! and even if it was meant to be... so what?#i enjoyed answering it and i hope what i had to say was interesting and satisfied the anon's curiosity#also i *do* want to talk about other things in xenoblade i like because there's **so** much i have to say#like if you could see the size of my notes section in my voice line doc you would know. you would KNOW how much i like basically#every single thing about this game haha. probably too much. it's over 700 lines of text long#i just don't feel like there's an audience most of the time for me and it feels a little sad talking into the void haha#hence my enjoyment of getting asks of any kind!#so if anyone has any questions for me about literally anything at all please send me an ask!#in return i will write you a thesis paper about your question free of charge as you can see here lol#i really hope i didn't come off as mean or bitter here it's just there's a huge dichotomy going on with shulkelia from what i've seen#as i mentioned if it's about canonicity why don't shalvis and meliora get hate? i've literally never seen a single mean comment about them#unprompted on a random one-off comment or directly on fanworks of it#maybe it's more about melia than shulkelia since there's also a lot of hate towards her that i've seen too#in a ''ew melia fans are so conceited thinking she's the best-written character and fiora is shallow'' and it's like#congratulations! you have just encountered a ''different opinion''! perhaps they like melia because they think she is well-written and#not to spite you in particular! maybe they think fiora is shallow bc a lot of her character objectively revolves around her crush on shulk!#and it's okay to not like it! it's also okay to like it! this is what art is about: having your own thoughts on it!#it is fun to share these thoughts and i enjoy it! but i do not enjoy when people are mean to others because they like#Fake Person/Relationship A but other people like Fake Person/Relationship B! it's silly to get super mad about it and it's rude to be mean!
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kunekos · 2 years
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inbox call !
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backslashdelta · 2 years
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Hi! Could you explain your thoughts more on Klaine, I believe you said they’re (your thoughts) are complicated?
Hey anon! I’ll be honest, I don’t want to get too into the specifics, but I can explain my feelings a bit broadly, and hopefully this will answer your question.
I want to start off by saying that Klaine is a very well-developed relationship, especially for Glee, so there is a lot to consider there. I really like their story, I think they’re both interesting as individual characters, and their relationship with each other is also interesting. They’re in my top 3 ships, I’ve written fic and made gifsets about them, I just generally have a lot of love for them.
All that being said, because they have so much development and screen time, that also leaves more opportunities to find problems with their individual characters and their relationship. And I think we all know that the writing on Glee wasn’t always the best, so there were issues there, but there were also issues between Kurt and Blaine just by virtue of them being human and having flaws and those flaws sometimes clashing. That actually makes them more interesting to me, because complex and nuanced characters and relationships just give you so much more to think about, so I’m certainly not saying that I wanted their relationship to be picture perfect, nor am I saying that any relationship should be picture perfect, because everybody is going to have issues sometimes.
However. With Klaine in particular, I personally think that they were different enough to be ultimately incompatible – or at least, not compatible enough to make it worth being with each other. I think the effort they would need to put in to make their relationship work isn’t worth what they’d get out of it after all that time, they would spend most of their time being unhappy, and I don’t think they should have been endgame. And to be clear I think that this is on both sides; it’s no secret that Kurt is my favourite, but I’m not trying to put all the blame on Blaine here, I think there are reasons on both sides that make it ultimately not the best relationship for either of them.
Now, obviously canon disagrees with me, because they got therapy and they grew and learned to be happy together and got married and were having a child together five years later. They love each other and that is, canonically, enough for them to be able to make it work and it’s worth it. I’m not really interested in that argument because this isn’t about what is or isn’t canon, this is about my personal interpretation of and feelings about what’s presented on screen. I’m not here to tell people they’re wrong for thinking Klaine are meant for each other or anything, and like I said earlier, I love the ship, I’m a content creator and Klaine is the focus of a lot of the things I’ve made, so I’m not trying to say they’re a terrible ship. I just have complicated feelings about them because of how much screen time they have and what was shown to us of their relationship, and that’s not something that really becomes and issue for any of my other main ships since they aren’t canon and don’t have anywhere near the amount of screen time.
Another thing I suppose is that in general I’m not a huge fan of the “high school sweethearts” trope. I find it unrealistic. Obviously it does happen sometimes in real life, but I just think it would have been a more interesting story (to me personally, not necessarily objectively) for them to be each others’ first in so many ways, but then as they grow up they aren’t a good match anymore, and they move on to new people who are a good match. But at the same time, I also recognize that this is not real life, it is a television show, and sometimes you want to keep your characters together and have a happy ending, or you just plain don’t want to bring in new characters for something like that, or whatever other million reasons they could have for ending it the way they did. So, again, I’m not trying to tell anybody that I’m correct, it’s just how I personally feel about it.
I just have really strong, really conflicting feelings about them, and if I started getting into all of the details I would never post this answer, and even if I did I’d probably get hate for it and I don’t really want to deal with that. It’s actually the reason I got into fandom; I finished watching Glee, and I was so pissed off about Klaine that I started reading Klaine fanfiction to try to fix the issues that I had with them. And of course that led me to the larger fandom community, and I started writing, and well, here we are. So, maybe that will give you a hint as to just how strong those complicated feelings I have are!
#hiding the rest under a cut because I want to draw as little attention as possible lol#this really is just personal opinion I'm not trying to convince anyone they're wrong I'm just sharing my thoughts because I was asked#and so I'd like to ask that nobody tries to convince ME that I'M wrong either please#this is fiction and we are all entitled to our own interpretations and this is mine#the way I interpret this show brings me a lot of joy and that matters to me more than interpreting it the 'right' way#especially since there is no one true 'right' interpretation#anyway I guess I should tag this#it's not really anti but I would like to be safe so:#anti klaine#normally I would tag something like this with the characters but I don't really want it showing up in either of the tags#and it's not anti either of them it's just saying I don't think they should be together so I don't think it warrants anti character tags#so I guess I'll just not use any character tags. please let me know if you think I should for filtering purposes#glee#ask#mine#anonymous#my opinions#also I turned anons off again because I don't want to deal with potential hate for this even though I think I'm being pretty reasonable#if you genuinely want to have a discussion in good faith you can send me a non-anonymous ask#but I won't be engaging with anyone who is trying to change my mind#simply because I participate in fandom because it brings me joy and that conversation would not#this is a lot of disclaimers I'm sorry#but also when I originally started drafting this answer I had two paragraphs straight of just disclaimers so. I think I did pretty well
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