#(doesn't include my issues with crew or fandom)

[canonizzyhours]

I'm a professional screenwriter. I know nobody reading this has any reason to believe that, and I work pretty hard to keep my fandom activity separate from my professional identity, so I'm not going to offer any proof that would doxx me here, believe me or don't. But it's true and I don't just mean I'm trying to get hired as a screenwriter, I mean I am pretty well established in the industry and I've worked on some stuff big enough you've probably heard of it. I've also been active in OFMD fandom for about two years now, since nearly the beginning.

The canyon really freaks me out because seeing it up close makes me worried I've drastically underestimated audiences' empathy gap around characters of color and tendency to sympathize with and excuse the actions of white characters. I've always tried to be conscious about that sort of thing in my work but now that I'm seeing the whole process up close it's so much worse than I always thought.

I think a lot about what I would have done during season 1 of OFMD, if I were in the writers' room and I'd wanted to make sure it would be clear to the audience that Izzy was Ed's abuser and wasn't acting out of secretly sympathetic motives and we're supposed to be genuinely horrified by his actions. I'm in writers' rooms workshopping issues like this all the time. I know the kinds of suggestions I'd make.

Like, if we were worried that the audience would think Izzy's hostility toward Stede was about class instead of homophobia, I might have suggested we make sure Izzy's dialogue never has any reference to Stede's class at all, and that we might do a subplot in one episode where Izzy is equally hostile toward Lucius, since Lucius clearly isn't rich but is extremely gay. But that already happened, and it didn't help.

If I wanted to make sure the audience understood that Izzy is bossing the crew around and screaming at everyone to work harder because he's a petty little bully on a power trip and not because the work actually needs to get done, I might have suggested a scene where Izzy deliberately makes a mess on purpose just so he can order the crew to clean it up. But that already happened, and it didn't help.

If I wanted to make it clear that Izzy has always been awful toward everyone around him -- especially his colleagues of color -- since long before the show started, I might have suggested we repeatedly emphasize throughout the season that while Fang is willing to work with him, he doesn't like or respect Izzy and this is because Izzy has always treated Fang very badly. Have him pull on Fang's beard for no reason and have Fang explicitly say he hates that but knows it wouldn't help to complain. Have Fang tell strangers jokes about times Izzy humiliated himself in public. Have a scene where everybody unanimously VOTES TO MURDER IZZY and someone explicitly stops to ask Fang if he's cool with this and Fang explicitly says yes this is absolutely fine with me and then he actively participates in the murder plan while smiling. But all of that happened and I still see the canyon insisting that Izzy was a much nicer person before the events of s2 when he wasn't under so much stress and has always been liked and respected by the PoC around him, including specifically Fang!

If I were worried that the audience might take seriously the idea that Izzy is motivated by "loyalty to your captain" -- well, honestly I don't think it ever would have occurred to me to worry about that, since he says that in a scene where he's in the middle betraying his captain and I'd probably assume people are capable of picking that up and understanding that when someone says they're abusing you for your own good you should not believe them. But if someone else insisted we address the concern, suggestions I'd make would include: make sure some of the first interactions we see between Ed and Izzy involve Izzy complaining about how he doesn't want to do the job Ed just gave him, then half-assing the mission and lying to Ed's face about it. Show Izzy deliberately undermining Ed to the crew by telling them he's half-insane, then insist to Ed that he's the only one keeping the crew loyal when they're worried about his judgment. But they did that stuff and we still have people thinking Izzy's central motivation throughout season 1 is selfless devotion to Ed.

The show did every single thing I would have suggested, and none of it worked. So what does it say about all the stuff I've already worked on, whenever I've written a scene where a white guy was being a dick to characters of color? Have I just been embarrassingly naive this whole time? Have I undermined my own work by not getting this?

You can't control audience reactions, I know that, that's part of what's great about art, you have to let go and accept that people will interpret things in ways you never intended, I get it. But if it's THIS impossible to choose words that will create the kind of feelings you meant to, what's the point? Is it even possible to write about the kind of abusive relationship Ed and Izzy have, where the white guy thinks he's entitled to control a brown man's life "for his own good" and that the brown guy is obligated to be grateful and reciprocate his "love" and not have a huge group of people creating elaborate justifications for the white guy? What else could they have done? What else can I do, when I'm writing about characters of color? I'm seriously asking. If anybody reading this has advice I want to hear it. What could I do?

#408.

[kinardsevan]

even with the rhetoric being put out in the article, maybe i'm living in a pink cloud right now (not maybe, i definitely am), i am over here with the mindset that this is not the end. i have zero problem believing that these articles are fully intended to sew seeds of doubt for us because of course they are. the couple broke up. lou is not a main cast member at this point. we know this man does not want to give spoilers (as he's referenced for us before, specifically with how we were given the access hollywood interview). to that end, mentioning that he has other jobs on the docket also doesn't surprise me. given that he's not a main for 911, he needs more forms of income than just that, obviously. but also, SWAT is ending after this season, and they're also halfway through the season (roughly) for filming.

to that end, i think with the way things have been teed up with the show, this is far too easy to do the breakup AND have lou just be gone. we have far too many lines that lead in the direction of it, including:

"my boyfriend" being said ONE episode before "its beautiful having a crew like this" "ESPECIALLY when everything goes wrong" (i know i'm butchering the lines) "transformative until you" (again, i'm butchering this) -buck's continued determination to not just let this relationship fall by the wayside. I think if we all truly thought that there would be a long-term version of this relationship WITHOUT having to face this hurdle, we'd be fooling ourselves. oliver literally told us that buck would have a deeper understanding of his bisexuality. he doesn't want anyone else. i have zero issue believing that all of this is intentional angst put onto us as a fandom (alá Sheldon/Amy in TBBT) to bring around the point that Buck has always just "let" things happen in his relationships. if we're truly meant to understand that this relationship is different, this breakup tees that up in a prime way (even though i know a whole bunch of the squad wants Tommy chasing Buck).

again, with the teeing up of so much information (moving more toward Tommy lore, etc), storywise, this does make sense. (also, peep the relation to a romcom timeline by @sugdenlovesdingle here.

that all said...maybe i'm wrong. maybe i'm going to fall on my face with this hope and we're all truly fucked.

but i seriously hope not.

[diaryofageekgirl]

Cross-posting more of my meta/ranting from the Helluva Boss subreddit. Originally posted June 25, 2024 (here):

He might get something, I just don't think it will be enough to balance things out, the show has invested a lot of time in 'Blitzo sucks' and 'Stolas is sad'....a lot of time.

That's exactly what I've been feeling. Like, we got three back-to-back Sad Stolas Songs™ (Just Look My Way, his part of When I See Him, and All 2 You), all about how much he loves Blitzø and feeling sorry for himself and all that. With how biased a big part of the fandom already is towards Stolas, it really feels like they're laying it on too thick. Like, when I was watching Apology Tour for the first time, it took everything in me not to roll my eyes when Stolas started singing. Which sucks! I love him, I love Bryce's singing, I love this story, but another Stolas song? Already? The same thing happened at the beginning of the show - people were put off by how weird and creepy Stolas was in the pilot and Ep1, but it took one nice lullaby to his daughter in Ep2 to make people love him.

The closest we've gotten to any of that for Blitzø is stuff like the hallucinations in his own mind tormenting him in Truth Seekers, or him self-destructing at Bee's party.

Pivoting from that point, I've seen a lot of people's reactions to Apology Tour include stuff like "Blitzø needed this wake-up call", or "He needs to know that his actions hurt people other than himself", or similar sentiments, and I COMPLETELY disagree. He hates himself. He hates himself. He already blames himself for people leaving him, and thinks they're better off without him. He already scribbles his face out of every photo. He's already convinced he's going to die alone. You think putting him in a room full of people that throw an annual party about how much they hate him, filled with pinatas and knife-throwing games and bonfires destroying representations of him is somehow going to HELP?!

And sure, Stolas can claim that "There is a crowd full of people here, who cared so much", but that's categorically false. Dennis is there, who Blitzø made out with at a party one time. Wally Wackford is there, and their only on-screen interactions are just a running joke of Wally's business ventures getting fucked up by Blitzø/I.M.P. All of Verosika's succubus crew is there, and there was zero indication in Spring Broken that they knew Blitzø or vice-versa.

I genuinely believe that there was a grand total of maybe 5 or 6 actual exes at that party (including both Verosika and Stolas) - everyone else was either a) a friend of one of the exes who showed up as solidarity; b) someone who had been "hurt" in some capacity by Blitzø in the past but had no romantic or sexual connection with him (like Wally Wackford, for example); or c) just demons excited to go to a party thrown by Verosika Mayday (who I believe to be the vast majority of people there).

I mean, we saw Blitzø's hallucinations in Truth Seekers. We saw his camera roll at the end of Ozzie's. We know who the people that matter to him are: Fizz, Verosika, Stolas, Millie & Moxxie, Loona, Barbie. Everyone at that party were nameless, faceless background characters, and I cannot imagine a single one of them actually having a meaningful relationship with Blitzø, because if they did, wouldn't he have also cared about them in return, at least a little bit? Wouldn't we have gotten some kind of foreshadowing that a new character from his past would be showing up? Wouldn't there have been some meaningful interactions between Blitzø and someone other than the already-established ex-girlfriend and the current bungled situationship?

I also can't imagine that someone who hates themselves as much as Blitzø does, who openly states that they don't do romantic relationships (which we know he's lying to himself about, but consider: self-hatred and self-worth issues), would then go on to have that many long-term relationships. That just doesn't add up in my mind.

(Sorry for the super long and only tangentially-related reply... I am incapable of being succinct, lol 😅.)

[seaweed-water]

OKAY

i'm gonna say this final thing on anti-stereks and hope you read through this despite your hatred for the ship.

the number one reason i hear about anti-sterek is: pedophilia/grooming/statutory rape, etc.

my answer to this: when the show first aired, derek's age IN THE SCRIPT was 19 (nineteen... notice how the word 'teen' still exists in that age') by the time the timeline and derek's age got all fucked up, sterek was already set in motion and it was too late. i'm not gonna stop shipping a couple just because the showrunners fucked up.

that means a three-year age gap if stiles is 16 in the pilot. california does not have romeo and juliet laws, so you would be correct that it's technically still considered statutory rape. however, let's not pretend it's uncommon to date someone three years apart anywhere in the world. you're really telling me if you were sixteen and nineteen-year-old derek hale was barking up your tree, you'd say no??

even if it still bothers you, remember: these characters are fictional. just because people enjoy this kind of dynamic in fandom media does not mean they support it in the real world. with this kind of logic, watching silence of the lambs or that one episode of it's always sunny would make a lot of people cannibals. that's just not how art works- it reflects real life, it does not perpetuate the issue. if you disagree, you have bigger things to worry about than a popular ship from a 20-teens young adult television program.

another point anti-stereks like to bring up is they don't believe the sterek fandom was queerbaited.

please see this video and tell me this isn't queerbaiting? this isn't even the worst part of it. when the show was gaining traction, nearly every cast and crew member was on board and used sterek for marketing the show online. no, it wasn't in their official marketing campaigns, but we all know about parasocial relationships at this point and the power they have on a willing audience. this is actually a really great unbiased take on sterek that includes said receipts and it's a very enthralling video, especially on double speed.

another anti-sterek point i see is: i just don't *get* it. y'all are literally feasting on breadcrumbs.

and to that i say: and? let people ship who they wanna ship. is it really hurting anyone? like, an actual human being? no. (also, i disagree with you, because from our side we're feasting at the last fucking dinner mate lol)

in any case, just because you don't agree with something doesn't mean it should be censored. the great thing about the internet is YOU decide what you want to see. it is your responsibility to filter tags or click the X button when you don't like what you see, and it costs nothing, i mean absolutely nothing, to just... not say anything.

[zahri-melitor]

Recent Reads Roundup:

Annnnnnnd caught up.

Catwoman (Tini Howard): This run definitely had its ups and downs (Valmont's...everything, sending Selina to prison, a bunch of the gang drama), but I thought it pulled itself together better in the back half than I anticipated. True, Howard dropped essentially the entire supporting cast that Jones and Ram V. had been playing with, including sending Maggie off into who knows where for the entire run. However, Howard also clearly has a soft spot a bunch of the ethically dubious women of DC in general, and that shone through.

Eiko Hazigawa is all over this run. Scandal Savage is used with better skill than it appears to someone who has only picked up the Catwoman issues for The Gotham War. There's all sorts of drama entwined with Punchline and the Royal Flush Gang in the front half. Nine Lives drops Rose Wilson, Lori Zechlin, and Jeanette in to join the fun, and creates several peripheral women (another assassin, and someone who could work as an Aquaman side villain) into the mix.

It's not my favourite run, and it did some weird stuff that I expect will never really get followed through with (Selina getting gifted the power of Shazam from Egyptian cat gods? What was actually going on with Bastet and the resurrections? Why does Duchess look like that?) but Howard definitely had fun writing the title.

Nine Lives in particular was a lot more fun than I anticipated it to be, in a madcap 'send Selina into weird environments and make niche references' manner. I got the sense that it was a bit of a directory to runs and characters Howard likes (Suicide Squad, Secret Six, Black Adam, Aquaman 2016, she dug up DC's ripoff of the Wrecking Crew, the Demolition Team, from old Green Lantern, etc). She likes her antiheroes and villains.

And Dario Tomasso, as a character, just feels like a useful part of Gotham's mafia world. I want to dig into his connections with characters like Helena Bertinelli or Kitrina Falcone.

Nightwing (Tom Taylor): this run is the comics equivalent of a 90s tv show season. It's trying to do the longform story arc but doesn't quite have a solid handle on how to balance that against being a title that people can drop in to read. It's got a lot of stand alone short stories that in retrospect can be seen as building up towards the overall arc. It's got award season bait issues (both the single panel comic and 'see through Dick's eyes' are obvious Eisner bait). It's got fanservice (both Taylor's habit of writing scenes to be shared on social media, and stuff like the pirate interlude). It's got downtime beach episodes that let off the steam.

It's not how they make tv shows anymore (and there are reasons for it - the format can drag, especially as the overarching plot arc gets slowly salted in in little references that aren't necessarily essential to the story being told, and the threads often only get gathered up at the very end to make sense of things, so you're often drifting in a sea of serial seemingly unconnected incidents or monster-of-the-week) but when it's pulled off well it can be super memorable, and even when it's not quite there it tends to deliver a bunch of individual stories within the run that people are fond of.

It's good. Not great, definitely best read in about trade sized chunks interspersed with other stories, so you can put it aside when it's getting too samey, a tendency towards incorporating light and fluffy views of characters and tying plots off neatly, but it's engaging with a lot of Nightwing lore, it's familiar with who and what and how it's playing with the canon, and Taylor clearly gets the appeal of Dick's relationships with various of his family members among others.

It's at its best when Taylor's telling short complete stories.

Poison Ivy (G. Willow Wilson): I get why this such a popular run. It has so many of the vibes that the Moore Swamp Thing run had, but also modern, queer and in a character with an existing fandom.

The opening six issues are a beautiful reflection on nihilism and Pamela making an active choice to live, not just to sacrifice herself on a pyre of her own goals. And then it goes from there

It's a worthy inheritor and use of the complex lore of the Green, the Parliaments, the intertwined narratives written by the British Invasion, and decades of stories about Ivy's pivot as a character and the layered versions of her backstory. It centres Ivy's humanity by showing it against how wild and alien the lore she's inherited can become, compared to how she's so often been the alien figure in Bat stories.

And it's remarkably accessible, for all that. Absolutely a gateway drug into the weird shit end of DC, for fans who would never otherwise have branched out into those corners.

("Stick to your already-considerable gifts. Don't throw mushrooms into the bargain.")

The Penguin (Tom King): this isn't one of Tom King's hits.

I actually didn't mind Killing Time as a story, and this draws a bunch of characters and background from it, but I feel like the story ends up going nowhere very fast.

It also, just generally, contains a bunch of characterisation notes and retcons that I don't like as much as other versions. We've got people-eating Killer Croc here. The Cobblepot family aren't founders of Gotham and Oswald's not from inherited wealth. Bruce has apparently been using Penguin as an informer and letting him get away with all his smuggling and black market operations in payment. Oh, and it's one of those dull 'all the major villains know Batman's identity but don't say anything about it because...reasons' tropes.

It also contains a lineup of characters mined out of the back catalogues, and none of whom seem particularly interesting or like they were worth resurrecting? Okay, I'm sure SOMEONE reading this had a "omg it's the Force of July!" moment but it's just so predictably King a pick to pull from obscurity.

[ellouchi]

maybe this is problaly the stupiest thing i'll be asking and it is okay if you absulately refuse to answer this, absulately no pressure!

So uh, how do i cope with seeing tulpar crew art espacially happy ones that doesn't include jimmy, often because the artist is too uncomfortable with engaging his character

like i get it, i respect their decision however it still pains me so bad.. those type of artworks becomes a constant reminder that, people will only view jimmy as this super mega evil oppressor tyrant causing nobody wanting to acually explore his character and he doesn't deserve to be free from his own trauma, he deserves to suffer by it like a karmic punishment

And sometimes, those happy mw crew artworks without jimmy, blow up gets like thousands of likes and encourgement, and it feesl hurtful to a point of tears. like it like a knife stabbed to chest... There is so many words to describe but i want to stop i think i embressed myself enough..

i know i should get over it. i should learn to move on, but i can't help it, it's just agonizing it feels lonely..and trapping..

i am sorry. please as i said in begining you don't have to answer this, i just wanted a place get these feelings out of my chest

i apologize if i sounded really foolish, you can delete this from your inbox

Have a nice day, ♥️

Anon my dear, I've been unreasonably hostile towards the most inoffensive things ever since I was a pre-teen an even now in my adulthood, what you feel is quite normal. You're are not stupid, immature or wrong, you are a human. It's unfortunate, but a lot of things impact how we perceive things and how we end up feeling about them.

Truth to be told, I relate to your issues. I severely dislike art that features Jimmy getting abused in any way (unless it's for fetish reasons because I'm fucked up like that). I don't like when he's made fun in a degrading way (again, unless I know for a fact that the author actually likes Jimmy). And when I see "crew art" without Jimmy or with his model, his face obscured, or drawn dead, I roll my eyes, especially if it's captioned with something like "everyone here except for j*mmy he should eat cement lol" like hooray congrats you've just earned a prize of high moral.

How to cope with your reactions, feeling and emotions....well there is no solid solution out there without any sacrifices. From your words I've gathered that you really do like and care about Jimmy for your own reasons, I won't speculate what they are. I advise you to focus on Jimmy, block blogs which are heavy on hate for him, and seek out blogs which favour him. That's what I do, instead of getting continuously hurt by what I see and read. Good things aren't always popular, widely known or even accepted by the general public. It's in your hands to leave likes, reblogs, comments and tags for the art you love because otherwise it won't exist. If Jimmy lovers didn't push for him, he wouldn't even be talked about. People are slowly coming around to tolerate him and even like him, so it's not all that bad.

I hope you find a way to enjoy staying in mw fandom. Try to distance yourself from it when you feel overwhelmed or try to switch to something which definitely will bring you positive emotions. I hope my words made sense, stay safe anon~ 💖💖💖

[chaos-and-recover]

#you guys don't know how software development works and it Pains Me

Could you expand on that?

I think the post sums it up well, that there are physical servers that need to host the platform and that costs money so there's truly no way to have a totally free website (that's why AO3 has fundraising drives, because the alternative is ads and nobody wants that on the Fandom Porn Site).

But also in the recent announcements about restructuring and large parts of the Tumblr team being reassigned to other teams within Automattic and Tumblr essentially being left with a skeleton crew is... not great? Like everyone is celebrating the fact that Tumblr Live is probably going to die soon and ignoring the part that they also won't be shipping many if any new features but instead focusing on the ones they have. And when that part is acknowledged the reaction seems to be that they're gonna fix a bunch of shit and like... they probably aren't.

Development is slow and it requires people and direction. I don't know the details of what staff currently looks like or who's going where but in my experience, "we're focusing on improving the features we have" means "whoever is left will be focused on keeping the lights on." Like, maintaining vital infrastructure and maybe fixing bugs here and there if they have the capacity for it.

Plus not having shiny new features as often if at all makes it really hard to drive new users to the platform, and that makes it less enticing for investors and/or advertisers.

I work for a SaaS company with a significantly smaller userbase than a typical social media site would have, even a relatively underused one like Tumblr (bc we're B2B so our customers are other businesses in a niche-ish field) and just one of our platforms has two distinct product teams, with each team consisting of a product manager, a designer, a handful of developers and a QA team, and that doesn't include the site reliability team who keep the whole thing running and solve database and server issues.

And it'll be hard to attract or retain top talent in any of these roles if your company just isn't putting the resources into the platform.

It takes a lot of people to keep a website functional, and I don't want to be doom and gloom because it might all be fine, at least for the foreseeable future, but it takes a lot of people to keep a software platform running.

I'm just glad it seems like no one at Tumblr is actually losing their jobs at this point.

And lbr I'm still gonna be here til the wheels fall off.

[autobot-ratchet]

MTMTE 31-33

MTMTE 31

I love how often we either flash back to or talk about Drift. I remember when the comics were coming out, it felt like forever between Drift's exile and his return, and I wasn't even here from the start, in fact I think I had first caught up with the comic as it was still being released like. Around here lmfAO either this issue or the next one. Whichever issue has Rewind's return was the one I caught up on, I vividly remember that. Anyway, it always felt like Drift got kicked out super early and then wasn't relevant again until Empire of Stone, but that's not quite right. Rodimus has mentioned him multiple times, we've got this flashback, and we're gonna talk about the alternate Lost Light in a bit, so he's been here in spirit the whole time. I think it was mostly just Dark Cybertron that made it feel so long since he was relevant lmfAO sorry, that arc wasn't bad, I don't even dislike it, but it did take forever

“Seriously, Pipes- Don't make me put my foot down.” hfjdk never mind get off my fuckin screen immediately lmfAO

He named the ship, too... It is extremely funny how much this quest depended on Drift to get it started, my man bought and named the ship, gave us our objective, and did everything in his power to make it go as smoothly as possible, including taking the fall for something he didn't do. This quest is his just as much as it is Roddy's, though he doesn't care if he gets any credit for it. It's like Rodimus wants to find the knights to prove his worth to everyone else and Drift wants to find the knights to prove his worth to himself. Kind of like Megatron, he wants to do something substantially good for Cybertron so that his time as a decepticon doesn't feel like such a waste, so he can finally feel like he's made the difference he's been trying to make this whole time... I'm fuckin five pages in and I've typed all this shit about Drift hgdsfjak I LIKE HIM A LOT IF YOU COULDN'T TELL

aww I'm glad Nautica fit in so quick on the Lost Light, she's sweet

Megatron and Rodimus are so bitchy to each other, I love it lmAO

I'll be real though, I guess that Megatron's trying to captain the Lost Light like he would a Decepticon ship what with the light jabs and the haughty attitude but the dude's way too comfortable just saying shit lmfAO I fully understand why the crew is so pissed, if I was an Autobot for x-million years and the Leader of the Motherfucking Decepticons was barking orders at me and criticizing my work ethic I think I would tear my own skin off out of pure rage lmAO

“The commodification of knowledge. I find that offensive.” based Cyclonus

ooh, I do love Tailgate getting called out for being a Cyclonus apologist lmAO I love this whole altercation, honestly. Even though everyone's just kind of swinging at anybody, I can't say a single one of em is wrong

eeyyyy it's Ravage

oouugdfhsd Cyclonus gets so mad out of worry and Getaway swoops in to soothe Tailgate's bruised ego, I fuckin SEE you

honestly I barely have anything to say about the latter half of this issue because I'm just thoroughly enjoying the world and character building, this is just pages and pages of good-ass dialogue lmAO

I remember learning that the panel of Magnus adjusting the size of his holomotter avatar of Verity is a direct reference to a panel from an earlier comic where Verity first meets Megatron, but with their positions switched

yeah I think the next issue was the one where I'd first caught up with the comic because it was the one where everyone's fucking dead

MTMTE 32

I like this issue for two reasons. One, I love alternate timeline fuckery and two, I like this as a way to get to know all our new guys better

god. Seeing all these dead characters now is just kind of morbidly fascinating but I vividly remember freaking the fuck out when I first read this because I had no idea it wasn't permanent lmfAO I think that's another thing that made the fandom insufferable when the comic was still coming out, nobody really had any genuine faith that the comic wouldn't do something cheap and disappoint them so there was just a constant stream of posts like “ugh of COURSE [fake out moment] happened and is totally permanent, it's a comic book so it's gotta do stupid comic book tropes” and “welp [plot point] didn't get resolved in this issue so that must mean the author has forgotten about it and we'll never get closure, figures” every single month. That was another thing that made me feel stupid for sticking with the comic, I can't say I didn't often steel myself for disappointment, but you can find many posts in my initial liveblog tag that were like “there's no way this is what it seems to be/is totally resolved and will never be addressed again because that would fucking suck and this comic doesn't suck” despite constantly seeing posts telling me otherwise. And I was fucking right lmfAO I was right the whole time about everything

I forgot how cute Brainstorm and Nautica are

love this conversation between Megatron and Ravage, love this much needed talk between Megatron and a bona fide Decepticon where he can be truly open about his feelings

oooOOUGHDGFSJ SKIDS... I know he was definitely freezing up simply because the DJD is scary but like. I wonder if some buried part of him stirred a little at seeing some of Tarn's handiwork

oh Rewind... man how scary must it have been to watch literally everyone around you die horribly and then the first person to find you and pull you our of your hiding place is fucking Megatron

MTMTE 33

this was the first issue of this comic I had to wait for to be released. Man, for as much as the fandom sucked, it was a special experience to have been there while this comic was being made, I do kinda miss it lmAO

fdhasjk Rewind just pointing at Megatron like “????????”

god that panel of Rewind whimpering after being asked what happened breaks my heart

Tarn just 360 no scoping Cyclonus's head off

something intensely fucked about Chromedome refusing to erase Rewind from his memory despite all the physical pain he had to endure from the DJD but he was fully planning to erase him from his memory after he had died because the emotional pain was too much. He can endure anything as long as Rewind is alive...

fucking LOOOOOOOOVE this conversation between Skids and Megatron, fucking GET HIS ASS SKIDS

ooh, and here's where we find out Brainstorm was a Decepticon spy. Poor Nautica, she's so shocked... that must mean the time travel arc is right after this because I remember Brainstorm kicked that off before anyone could confront him about being a secret Decepticon

also something intensely fucked about Rewind being willing to erase himself from existence because his Chromedome is dead, “Which is just another way of saying I am...” your honor they fuckign love each other........ they can't live without each other, do not separate........................

YUOR HONOR........

yeaaaahhh here we go, it's briefcase time

[tomyo]

Maka Supplementals

Hey welcome to my "Maka Supplementals" post aka when you become so obsessed with an anime character, you start to treat any other character that looks like them as that character. I've been in this fandom and ancient amount of time and for some reason, I'll just notice a very Maka like quality in them.

Neiro from Kaiba

I'm probably ruining myself by starting with the best. Kaiba (2008) is really a series you can easily project not just Maka AND Soul but the rest main cast onto. I stg I thought Bstar and Popo had the same VA (they definitely have the same god complex). Naturally the pigtails and droopy eyes were a huge connector and the orange/green color scheme is frequently used to represent our fav duo. As for the story, it's mostly around Kaiba and Neiro being just out of reach of each other and a new technology that allows people to store and transfer memories to new bodies. Neiro also makes a good Kaiba type as a stern person in the present but soft and kind in the past/later on. She also has family trauma which may be a theme. On its own it's a masterpiece but I actually made my first SE friend in part due to us both separately coming into SExKaiba au art.

Mikan from Gakuen Alice

I only ever read the series but I figured anime art would pop more. Mikan, the mc, our classic lightish hair color in pigtails and you could possibly call her eyes droopy shaped. Tbh I can hardly remember this series since it's been 11+ years since I last read it but I do remember Mikan having mother issues. If I remember right it's a magic academy shoujo and I probably wouldn't have included it but I wanted to show off that cute angel outfit she's wearing.

Shizuku from Tonari no Kaibutsu

When I watched this series in 2014, this was the first time I said "Oh, this character is just Maka" and thus this list was born. Did you ever want to experience Maka in a Shoujo where her love interest looks like DtK but acts like Bstar? Here you are, the most frustrating romance ever. Shizuku Mizutani is a pretty perfect Maka type, she's quiet, serious, extremely studious, and constantly annoyed by everyone else's shenanigans. One day she's sent to deliver socially maladjusted Haru Yoshida his homework and naturally a classic nightmare romance starts. I'm not kidding when I say every episode one of the two confesses to the other who then turns them down. Honestly, that's the plot. The first confession is right at the end of episode one and it doesn't stop. Can't lie though, I love high school tropes and aesthetics so it's a fun way to reimagine the crew's life going.

Kirin from Gakuen Babysitters

Absolute baby. If you want to imagine was toddler Maka was like then Kirin is pretty good for that. She's not really a main focus of the story but Gakuen Babysitters is still surprisingly good. Kirin really feels like the tiny Maka we saw in Chrona's soul, very outgoing and friendly to those who aren't as confident. She often fights with a Black Star like nursery mate and has an aggressively doting dad that aligns perfectly with Spirit. One small story arc with her is wanting to be a witch. Not really a lot of anything but a cute detail to point out.

Marnie from Pokemon

She has pigtails and 2011 me drew Maka in the exact same outfit. Ngl, this is a real head empty one but I'm still not over that happening.

Nino from Fukumenki Noise

Sorry this is actually just another kind of annoying shoujo. Outside of the hair, Nino is pretty much nothing like Maka. Unlike most series where the story is a string of misunderstandings, Nino's naivety is often a major problem where she cheerily sings over listening to her best friend/crush's home problems and doesn't reflect on the ways her actions could be affecting others. So why is she on here? The music segments. There's this raw and unpolished nature to the singing that really just brings something special to it. Honestly just watch the singing proportions, ignore the bad cgi (in 2017 no less) and pretend its Maka "I don't get music" Albarn singing it.

Sana from Kodomo no Omocha

Probably the only series I've watched before Soul Eater on this list. I recently rewatched and kept feeling weird about the Maka vibes I was getting off of it. Sana does start the series pretty annoyed her schooling is being interrupted and her middle school uniform looks like the Sparoi uniform but her more core characteristics is being a child star and is extremely hyperactive because of it. So what was it? She's voiced by Laura Bailey. It's very interesting to hear her distinctive wobble in Sana's voice. Of course that isn't all, Sana has family issues and her genki personality is related to people pleasing so it's interesting to see when that facade drops. While the manga leaves a stronger impression, the end of 17- start of 18 has a few particularly beautifully scenes of animation.

Also something I want to point out is Sana's amazing wardrobe. Despite being 90s, the bright colors work great for Y2K looks that feel right for Mala's style sense. I wish I could use more than 10 photos to show them off. The anime uses a lot of long sleeves and skirts and the manga has some more trendy fashions like the fur trim cardigans that are popular right now so I'd look there for some outfit Y2K revival references.

[sun-marie]

xoti for character breakdown <3

How I feel about this character: I like Xoti a lot!! With all that goes down with the Gods in PoE1, I think it was very bold of them to feature a very faithful cleric in the second game and explore how she keeps her faith to Eothas/Gaun despite.... All That. I also like how she contrasts Edér and shows a darker side to the Eothasian faith, and the game never feels like it's out to "prove her wrong" for her belief, just to push her to explore it. Her design is also very good, it bridges the gap between monk and cleric very nicely!

All the people I ship romantically with this character: She's real cute with Maia imo, even if it sometimes veers a little into "manic pixie dream girl" for me (sometimes). Their relationship feels like they're finding a calm in all the storm and I really really enjoy that. And Firefly is an adorable nickname <3

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Honestly, with the exception of the obvious no-go's like Maia+Tekēhu and Xoti+Pallegina, I feel like the entire Deadfire crew could fit this spot for each other. For Xoti specifically, I think Edér is an obvious choice, I like how her infatuation evolves into genuine respect once they learn more about each other. In addition, I also love her friendships with Serafen and Aloth, I love the moment when Serafen looks into her mind and is like "uhhhhh HEY, watcher?", and the mentor-esque role Aloth fits into feels so cozy. She and Tekēhu also give me huge sibling energy, for better and for worse lol.

My unpopular opinion about this character: Again, no idea how popular/unpopular this is in the PoE fandom, but I personally really hate her accent. Like deeply. Like it's an issue I have with all of Deadfire actually, because in that game they decided to give nearly every Readceran a rural/southern American accent (including Adaryc who definitely did not have one before) and for me it dips into stereotype territory that I could really do without. Like, "oh the group of people with a strong belief in their "dead" god, who's all about forgiveness and redemption, and who are generally seen as uninformed suckers except when they're seen as sleazy religious cult-leading con-artists? yeah let's give them American Southern accents" like fuck offfff fr. At best it feels just kinda lazy when nothing else about Readceras really reads as "southern" (Xoti's name for example more brings to mind Chinese than Texan), and at worst I find it kind of offensive! It doesn't help that almost none of their accents sound very natural or well-researched, just kinda generic hollywood "cowboy accents" and that I've already heard plenty of that from CR's Imogen and FCG

It specifically bugs me with Xoti bc she can be both naive and super flirtatious, which imo is fine on it's own but those two traits + the accent rub me the wrong way soooo bad.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I hope we see her again, either in Avowed somewhere or in a future Pillars game <3

GIVE ME A CHARACTER: and I’ll break their ass down:

[drinksglue]

hi i hope you don’t mind me coming into your inbox to rant. you just seem like the most reasonable person in the proship side of the TMC community.

anyway, i’ve been lurking in this community for a while (mostly because i’d rather not get involved in drama and just watch from afar) and overall i think the only issues i have with people in the proship side is how it’s mostly made up of minors and how they often treat crewdela more like fictional characters than the actual fictional characters themselves. you guys can ship mark and cesar all you want, why do you have to ship alex and andrew too?? ik RPF is a thing but i feel like theres a difference between shipping celebrities with each other and shipping some white boy who makes spooky videos with his best friend (maybe thats just me tho idk)

No, I pretty much agree.

To start, yeah, there's a huge issue with this side of the community being overrun by minors. To be honest, that's the case with the entire fandom, so it just sort of bleeds into every aspect of it. But the minors on our side of it can just be plain disrespectful.

Several have lied about their age to talk to me directly or even join my 18+ only discord server. A lot of them get really pissy when you point out that 18+ means 18+, and that someone under 18 doesn't belong in the 18+ side of the community.

I'm neutral on RPF, there are ways that people go about it that doesn't inherently bother me, but things that do bother me is when they start actually treating the crew like they are high-profile celebs, as you said. Someone drawing art of them is a little weird, I can't say I like it, but it's... whatever, I guess.

What does distress me though is the fact that now there are kids on Twitter posting photos of Alex and Andrew that they had to dig for because those pictures weren't meant to be spread publicly by randos on Twitter. It's super weird and invasive. They're literally just... guys. 19-year-old guys who became popular practically overnight. If you want to ship the characters or make smutty art/fic of those characters then by all means, but it would be nice if people would have some decorum when it comes to real people.

Hell, one of the minors who lied about their age to access adult accounts on Twitter is also responsible for a catastrophically shitty callout post on Alex that leaked tons of tweets from his private account that had nothing to do with the situation at hand, including several tweets where he is clearly struggling with his mental health. There is absolutely no reason why those tweets in particular needed to be exposed, and the only reason why you'd screenshot such a tweet is to use it to hurt someone.

To make a long fuckin story short: The TMC fandom is largely made up of minors, and regardless of whether they're on the proship side or the anti side, they've made a distasteful habit of being disrespectful little shits.

[fallloverfic]

I have no idea how this popped into my head but may I ask your opinion on. well.. how alnst and ennead characters would interact perchance.. (one random thing i want to include here just for funsies is that hyuna and hyunwoo by extension and ivan bare some resemblance to horus and anubis!.. i feel like ivan is a bit more creepier then anubis though)

ALNST AUs are pretty popular right now, so if you're into both fandoms, that was probably why! The first way I heard about ALNST in a way I can recall is seeing Jungdok Ivantill fanart (I saw like two and thought they were a random new meme, but had no idea for what). I've been working on one myself here and there ever since I got into ALNST in April (I've just been busy with other things), and I finally posted it today (been distracted by a dozen things). If you follow me, it's possible you've seen posts on both fandoms (I've written multiple fics for both and reblogged a lot for both), and maybe that inspired the idea. Or you just like both and sometimes they mix and that's how crossovers happen! They're also both Korean fandoms, both dark fantasy, and cover the topic of boundary violation, assault, slavery, and violence against children.

I'm not precisely sure what you mean by "interact"? Especially because I'm not sure which characters in particular you're talking about, or under what circumstance. I think Seth would disdain just about all the main ALNST cast because they're human (he has a very small exception for young children in his immediate vicinity who are explicitly in danger and/or necessary for something he's doing, e.g., he needs info from them), and if he interacted with any of the extra aliens, he'd probably kill them. The ALNST stories also aren't in Egypt (or don't seem to be, assuming Egypt still exists there), so he'd probably not be around any of them anyway. Horus wouldn't care about any of them unless it was diplomatic. Anubis would only deal with them when they die. FG might want to sleep with anyone willing. Osiris only cares about Seth. Isis is focused on ruling Egypt, not what some alien-run Earth is up to (I mean maybe she'd get along with Hyuna and Mizi, but that's a maybe, and assuming Egypt doesn't exist anymore so Isis is doing her thing somewhere else). Generally, though, I think all the god characters wouldn't care much about what some random humans and non-allied non-humans outside their territory are up to. The human cast of ENNEAD would... die or end up in cages. I think. And the ALNST crew would probably stay far away from the deities. They have enough issues in their lives.

I can kind of see the adult!Hyunwoo v adult!Horus resemblance (and was thinking of it last time I was looking at his wiki page), but I don't really see the Hyuna v Horus resemblance, other than Hyuna looks similar to her brother (when he grows up in the Off the Record AU), and they're both dark-skinned in a way that sometimes matches Horus' skintone (though he's typically drawn with darker skin these days). Hyuna is way too skinny in comparison to Horus, who's kind of a wall of muscle. Horus also has black (or at least very dark brown) hair, while Hyuna has kind of warm brown hair. They also just have very different faces.

I honestly don't see the Ivan v Anubis resemblance, other than they're both pale-skinned, lithe, and have dark hair and eyes (and both at one point had short, dark hair). But Ivan has kind of... turquoise tinting to his hair, too, while Anubis' is fully black/very dark brown. Anubis also shows off his wavy hair in his adult/god form, while Ivan's hair is straight, and his bangs are longer. Also, Ivan has red pupils/eye dots. Anubis' eyes are fully black/dark brown. Ivan also has way more confidence than Anubis ever does.

I think this is the closest I got between them? And while some differences are style-based, Anubis doesn't have the tooth thing, either. Also this was one official pic of Ivan that got closest, while most of what I found didn't work at all (mostly cause Ivan is very smirky), and it works less when Anubis physically ages up.

Even if everyone did resemble each other, though, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything...?

I'm not sure I'd say Ivan is creepier than Anubis, but I don't know the standard of comparison being used and don't particularly find either of them very creepy. Ivan is an enslaved human who sacrificed everything for the one person he truly cared about, and whom he was a bit obsessed over (to be fair his owners sucked at teaching boundaries, particularly when the goal was for Ivan to not have any and/or not have an expectation of them being respected given he's, you know, enslaved). Anubis was a demigod raised in the lap of luxury (like a prince, as Horus calls him) who was later abused by his father, killed himself, and then returned as the servant of his uncle/bio-dad, and later ascended to become a god of death, shepherding souls to Duat. Also, in part due to all his issues with Seth and Osiris' orders, he has an obsession with Seth.

The creepiest I can think of Ivan being is that Ivan licked some of Till's blood once, but I mean Anubis has kissed his father on the lips a few times at this point, so your mileage may vary. They've both physically assaulted and forcefully kissed the objects of their affection. Anubis is just... still alive (kinda), and filled with so many issues (mostly from Osiris). Ivan also died in his 20s. Anubis died when he was hundreds of years old. They've developed very differently.

[fireangel]

Unfortunately it won't do anything to help save or revive his career in the slightest

The primary issue is that his PR team has been vehemently snapped at manipulation, intimidation of several members of the fandom, and essentially outed for the clean up crew they have running on the sites where they pay mods to run things in order to generate traffic and pay those websites to remove unwanted content that does not contribute actively to the narrative they want to portray

Since we haven't heard from the Teacher or Maddy, actively for a while and they were both stateside I'm going to presume they went after them legally to shut them up otherwise they'd be freely speaking online

I'm going to presume that the only people who had the motivation to attempt to frame me as a Trump supporter and harass my daughter would be the hackers inside my phone whose only reason to target me would be to remove me from the fandom since I did pretty much nothing else online at the time

Chris Evans is responsible for me being hacked, and scammed, and for what happened to my daughter

The man is a psychotic sociopath if he thinks he deserves to recover a singular thing from this PR nightmare, including his career or his reputation

I have absolutely zero sympathy for everything this man is going to lose, his money, his career, his friends, his reputation, after people he paid to go after me has done to both myself and other members of this fandom

I refuse to be gaslit into believing that this man is a victim of anything but his own poor decision making and his incessant need to blame someone else because he doesn't have a spine or a personality of his own that he needs someone to write a constant fucking script for him

He does not deserve to have a fandom, a platform, or a career

They can attempt to use my narrative of political sabotage all they like, it's only him using yet another fan generated theory to hide his spineless ass behind

All he's ever done is hide behind his fandom when things gets rough

Why after 20 years of consistently doing so people think he would suddenly change such an ingrained behaviour is mind boggling

No one is crazy for noticing patterns and the obvious. Honestly, I find it quite insulting to assume one has to be delusional because they are stating the obvious.

Fame might distort reality, but it doesn’t erase body language, tone or inconsistencies!

Something is off here and it’s definitely not just in our heads, we see this shit for what it is and I be damned if I’m gaslit by Hollywood or Chris and team.

It’s beyond insulting especially since many of us supported his ass for so many years.

Yes, he doesn’t owe us his personal life, he doesn’t owe us shit outside of his movies and entertainment.

But many of us never cared about who he dated, screwed, etc. I was focused on movies, but to learn of the racism, type of person he chose to “marry” and who her closest friends are aka racists, it’s like damn Chris show us who you really are!

Were we scammed all these years or did your job, agency, management, etc put your ass in a situation that was supposed to start as one thing, but spiraled and fans are noticing and you have concocted this entire narrative to the world and it’s falling apart or close to ending soon?

Truth always comes to light. If we’re wrong about PR then we’re wrong, not the end of the world, but if we’re not, geez this is a lot of shit to deal with as a human regardless if he signed something or had to do this for roles or business.

I also do wonder if this is just him escaping an image and deciding to branch out and he just chose the person he happened to fall for, but again look at HIM his actions and inactions, the repeated phases, the nervousness, the masking…… over three years of observing things……we’re not crazy, the people believing this is real are crazy for falling for this bullshit. 💩

Like they want to make her and Chris this happy couple, yet he’s been miserable months at a time and she literally said she was sad the year she got married. Do these people honestly think a real, happy couple would give a shit what people on the internet say. They’d just live life do some standard PR if they wanted to help each other out and brand together, but this shit here, nope it’s too obvious.

If Chris was really married people, his fans/stans would be over the moon happy for him, he’d look and act like his usual self and there’d be absolutely NOTHING TO EVER QUESTION!!!!

……look at the reactions to him and Dakota. 😏🥰

So here we are. After years of watching, questioning, researching, side-eying, screenshotting, and connecting dots that somehow always form a “WTF”… we’re still asking: was this all just bad PR, or did something go very off-script?

Maybe this whole mess started out as a calculated image move — a contract, a cover, a career thing. Maybe the agency, PR, or whoever thought they were being slick. But what if it spiraled? What if it turned into this tangled mess that even he can’t get out of cleanly without looking like a fool or facing legal/industry consequences?

Because look at him. Really look. The energy shift. The nervousness. The recycled phrases. The awkward, distant body language. The masking. The absence. The weird-ass timing of everything. Not to mention the woman in question — sad during her marriage year, PR behavior so obvious it’s practically its own genre, and no genuine connection in sight.

And yes — maybe we’re wrong. And you know what? That’s fine. We’ll survive. But if we’re not wrong? Then holy hell, the manipulation, the gaslighting, the years of fans being made to feel “crazy” for seeing the obvious? That’s a whole different level of messed up. 🧠💥

Here’s a wild idea: happy, real couples don’t do this.

They don’t stage awkward photo ops that look like hostage situations. They don’t spend months apart. They don’t give cryptic, robotic interviews or pretend to care about online noise. If it’s real love, they don’t need to “convince” people — they just are. End of story.

You want to see fans genuinely overjoyed for him? Look back at the Dakota days. The vibe? Pure joy. No confusion. No PR scavenger hunts. No mental gymnastics.

But this?

This current saga?

Nah.

This is a circus. 🎪💩

Truth always comes to light. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But it always does.

[kitausuret]

hang, Flash is actually a Star Trek fan?

He sure is! In Amazing Spider-Man #203, boys' night out included going to see possibly the gayest of the Star Trek films (the first one!) and it's heavily implied it was Flash's idea. It was a big premiere, but it's very funny that Flash seemingly schmoozed up to an ex of his to make sure they would be able to get in.

(ASM #203, Wolfman & Pollard)

Unfortunately, this happy affair was interrupted by a fight between Dazzler and Lightmaster destroying the theatre, so it's unlikely Flash even got to see the handholding scene between Kirk and Spock. Which is a shame, because it's very moving. I think we deserved Flash pretending not to be emotionally moved by it and Harry awkwardly trying to comfort him. (Peter fell asleep during the long scene where they pan around the Extra Gorgeous Model of the Enterprise NCC-1701 for ten minutes.)

Even funnier though, is that yeeeeeeeears later during Venom: Space Knight, when Flash and his motley crew "acquire" a ship, guess what he names it?

(Venom: Space Knight #7, R. Thompson & Olivetti)

NEEEEEEEERRRD ALERRRRRRT!!! (affectionately)

Like, okay, yes, the Enterprise is one of the most famous ships in sci-fi media, but the fact that he took the effort to make sure it was spray-painted on, not to mention the symbol below it does largely resemble the pattern of the windows on the saucer section of the iconic starship.

Throughout Space Knight, though, he makes a lot of funny references to a lot of different sci-fi/fantasy properties. It's kind of incredible. Here are some of my favorites:

(Venom: Space Knight #1, 2, 3, 7, all by Thompson & Olivetti)

The first 6 issues of Space Knight really are "Flash Thompson living his space opera dreams with Venom" and then #7-13 are "okay fun's over let's get serious now". It's an absolutely phenomenal series for Flash content though and I love how peak nerd he is.

My personal HC is that he liked Voyager a lot. His favorite films are probably the II-III-IV trilogy, though, because who doesn't love those?

It is probably some kind of Hot Take™ to say that Flash might be a bigger sci-fi media/fandom nerd than Peter is but. Here we are.

Aaaaand as a special bonus, let's not forget Flash playing some kind of TTRPG with the Guardians in Guardians of the Galaxy & X-Men: The Black Vortex Alpha (W: Sam Humphries, A: Ed McGuinness). I wonder how much he argued with the symbiote over their character's class? Anyways, it seems like this might have been a regular thing on the C.I.T.T. At least in my heart it was!

[rocket-sith]

So I got a few asks and messages about WTF this was even about. Since this isn't the first time I've encountered an issue like this in fandom, and vague rants aren't particularly helpful, here goes.

IMHO it's extremely important for a writer to be able to differentiate between their own POV about a character or thing, and an in-universe character's POV of another in-universe character or thing. Specifically, a character or thing who the writer (an IRL person on the outside looking in) might love, or hate, or be mildly intrigued by, or just not give a crap about could be viewed ENTIRELY DIFFERENTLY by a different character within the fictional universe.

IRL, you have ST and SW fans who think the Borg or the Sith or whatever are interesting or even cool, and sure there are some characters in those respective universes who feel the same. But there are plenty of in-universe characters who would very much emphatically beg to differ. And the same holds true for individual characters and their views on other individual characters - including themselves (I mean, how many times have you as a fan in any fandom absolutely adored a character who had major self esteem issues?)

The point being - one character's view of another character, or of a concept, or of themselves, does not necessarily reflect a fic writer's view of those characters/concepts.

In S3 of Picard, Seven seemed to have an EXTREMELY rocky and complex dynamic with Shaw, underpinned with equal parts mutual grudging respect, mutual desire to storm off and seethe, and mutual urge to go outside and fight each other in the proverbial parking lot. Sometimes all at the same time, as long as the crew stays alive and well.

Going all the way back to Voyager and continuing all the way through Picard, Seven has major self esteem issues stemming from how people view/treat/react to her appearance, plus her own guilt over what she was forced by the Borg to do during her time in the collective.

Shaw was a Wolf 359 survivor whose "old fashioned grease monkey" pragmatism was at odds with his unaddressed trauma, and he seemed to handle this by recruiting a hyper-capable XO who was also an Ex-B and putting incredible amounts of faith in her while also frequently treating her like shit - to the point of deadnaming her and calling her a Borg while she's also the only one he trusts to be in engineering with him during a crisis when keeping his crew safe is a top priority.

From my POV as an IRL person on the outside looking in, BOTH of these characters need more therapy than can possibly ever be had in a lifetime, but we all know neither of them gets it, and both have already developed so many unhealthy coping mechanisms they'd probably do everything in their power to avoid therapy even if offered (see also: Seven trying to flat out delete the La Sirena EMH's therapist programming, and Shaw admitting out loud that he'd substituted being a jerk for charm as a way of coping with his shit.)

Also from my POV as an IRL person on the outside looking in: Seven is a Chaotic Good full-tilt superhero, Shaw is a Lawful Neutral bordering on Lawful Good captain with unparalleled levels of grit, both are still flawed humans, and both are extremely complex characters who've been through unimaginable levels of hell and ended up coping in different ways - some healthy and some not.

If I write something primarily from Seven's POV, and I write Seven as thinking of Shaw's personality (not his mechanical skills, or his skills at keeping people alive - but skills at approachability and personal interaction) as being that of a total dick, while I also write Seven as thinking of herself as appearing frightening, unapproachable, or Borg-like to others - that doesn't mean MY opinion of either character is anything remotely like that, or even that all in-universe characters would share the same opinion of these characters.

It's the exact same reason why, in the SW fandom, if I was writing something primarily from Anakin's POV (even if it was genfic) - an extremely idealized version of Obi-Wan was often presented because that's how Anakin viewed Obi-Wan. And then I'd come back here and unleash some capslocked screed about how Obi-Wan was the biggest villain in Star Wars, because that's how I view Obi-Wan.

So the other day, I got some (sorry, but it was pretty damn funny) extremely ranty and borderline nonsensical anon comment on this tiny-ass ST fanfic I'd written, accusing me of random BS that I couldn't make heads nor tails of, and also accusing me of bashing Shaw because the fic had a mention of Seven thinking Shaw was a dick. She was also thinking of herself as looking too Borg for others to realistically find trustworthy - and therefore sarcastically commenting to herself that Shaw must really be an ass if half the crew felt more comfortable approaching/confiding in a Borg than approaching/confiding in Shaw.

It was sort of a Seven character study on my part, not a bash at Shaw, so the magnitude of anger in the comment seemed almost Donald Duck levels of disproportionately left-field hilarity. But it also got my brain churning super hard on the topic of character POV vs author POV, and how one impacts the other, and how reader POV also plays into it, and this post (plus some apparent confusion over how nebulously vague and silly the first one was, lol sorry) is the resulting mental vomit.

tl;dr - If you're reading a story, and a fictional character has an in-universe reason to talk shit about another character, or to idolize another character, it doesn't mean anything about how the author personally feels about either character. Similarly, if you ARE the author, and one of your characters has an in-universe reason to talk shit about or idolize another character, letting the character express the sentiment doesn't mean you as a writer share it.

This has been a message from the Emergency Overthinking Writing Rabbit Holes System. *bleeeep*

Y'all. Y'ALL. I got anonymous hate on one of my fics for the first time since 2016. *sniffs* I feel so special!

Dear anonymous wanker:

Half the shit you said didn't even pertain to the fic, and the other half showcased your tragicomic inability to differentiate between the opinion of a story's author and the opinion of a fictional character within the story. *insert Shame Bell here*

tl;dr - Go spank your Twelve Monkeys to Shaw someplace else. There are plenty of amazing Shaw x Seven fics out there. I know because I've read them. I was also trolling an anti in your tags like three days ago on general principle while looking for fics, so once again - please learn to differentiate between the opinion of a writer (real person) and the POV of a fictional character (not a real person, whose feelings and perspectives we can only speculate about, especially regarding a dynamic that's clearly quite complex).

In conclusion, yo mama's so fat, Kirk broke the temporal prime directive by doing a slingshot maneuver around her ass. Also in conclusion - go touch grass. I may or may not be referring to cannabis. No stolen pots were harmed in the making of this post. This has been a message from the emergency GTFO system. *beeeeeep*

[itsclydebitches]

I am not sure if Shion has confirmed pronouns yet, the Japanese Bio's have screwed up characters pronouns before, like with Penny

Yeah, there seems to be a lot of conflicting info so far. Two articles I found say that Shion uses different pronouns in Japanese and English, though not what they are. Fans are claiming he/him is correct. Talk CRWBY apparently confirmed that Shion is non-binary, but not pronouns? Meanwhile, the fandom wiki is using they/them while the Ice Queendom website has he/him.

Not sure what I'll be using for my recap yet, but I'll make another note of the confusion there. Honestly, until we get confirmation either way (or, just as useful, confirmation that Shion uses multiple sets of pronouns), I think the important bit is just for the fandom to acknowledge that Shion is non-binary (yay!) and make an attempt to use correct pronouns based on whatever current information they have, whatever that may be.

Not that I think any of this is done maliciously - I'm very happy when people correct me and work to spread what they believe is correct info around our spaces - but there is something to be said for fandoms making things WAY more complicated than they need to be in the name of being respectful through what I think of as black and white activism. Specifically, I'm thinking about an issue the OFMD fandom has been dealing with lately where someone tweeted about not shortening the character Oluwande's name to Olu because it's disrespectful. That info spread like wildfire - because who wants to be disrespectful, yeah? - only for people to start pointing out that this isn't always the case, I know friends with that nickname, they literally call him that in the show, isn't it more disrespectful to doubt what he wants (considering he doesn't react badly to the nickname), the actor and the producers wouldn't have included that if it was a problem, etc. It's become a whole Thing that might have been avoided if we'd just acknowledged the ambiguity from the get-go. I literally heard about Shion's identity an hour ago (or whenever I edited my post), so maybe we will get a solid confirmation, maybe it already exists and I just haven't found it yet... or maybe Shion will remain in an ambiguous space where crew info, fan info, and dub/sub dialogue leads to different people using different pronouns. And that's okay! For simplicity's sake, I'd like trustful confirmation one way or another - including of the "Shion uses multiple pronouns, so any of these go" variety - but if not the fandom should be wary of coming down hard with a "I'm right and you're wrong" mindset. Which again, hasn't happened yet. But I literally just saw something similar go down, so this is a general, fandom-wide reminder that RT isn't great at communication, especially lately, so if Shion's pronouns remain confusing in a few days/weeks/months time, please don't start crusades against fans who ignorantly use the wrong pronouns, or the "wrong" ones based on different, but arguably still canonical information.

REGARDLESS I like Shion so far. I'm a sucker for white hair, purple clothes, and a very big hat. The queer rep is a bonus 😎🎩