#if you hate a fictional ship that much you might have bigger problems | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

calypso-apologist · 4 months ago

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okie dokie! things might be a little long to read, so get comfortable!

my main blog is mostly NSFW, and the community i come from is quite small compared to EPIC's. one of the first things i noticed when i joined the EPIC fandom was the fact that there were not only a larger number of people, but also minors, which immediately put me on the back foot and made me create a sideblog so i could interact without worries

another thing that really discouraged me was the discussion of the whole Antinous and Calypso situation (because y'know, the SA and noncon). now, i consume and produce stories and games that have themes like these, as well as other really fucked up stuff, i'm not going to lie. and yes, people have every right to hate those characters for the heinous acts they did, but there will also be people who will like them regardless of what they did (or sometimes precisely because of what they did). people have tastes, and some tastes are really going to be... peculiar

now there's all that discussion that appears from time to time in the EPIC tag talking about controversial characters and ships. and while i'd rather not get involved with that sort of thing to save myself stress, i'll firmly say that it doesn't really matter. people are free to like whatever they want and we should respect that, especially since they are doing nothing more than having fun

"ah, but those themes are noncon and fucked up stuff", well, yes, friend, there are people like that, and i am one of them. i'm very calm and laid back, and no, just because i like this in fiction doesn't mean i approve of it in real life. what we like is purely fantasy and kink, and we know how to differentiate fiction from reality, we aren't stupid or criminals

i know it probably doesn't just happen in the EPIC fandom, but i see a lot of hate. hate for characters, hate for ships, hate for anything. and look, while i give people the right to love and hate whatever they want, the impression i get from that is that anything slightly out of line is going to anger a lot of people. and guess what?? the hate is especially spewed upon those who can be considered "proshippers"

look, i really don't like the general antis vs proships discussion, although i am visibly pulled to one side because of what i like. i hate those labels and i hate how people judge what people like in fiction, because holy shit, how out of things to do do you have to be to judge people's tastes??

puritan culture is shit and marginalizes a part of the people who are targeted for liking things that are outside of normality, and i feel this quite strongly in the EPIC fandom. this makes me feel slightly insecure, and very frustrated with this kind of thinking

anyway, i'm sorry for the long text and anything wrong i said. please correct me on anything you think is necessary or add something else. i had this stuck in my throat and i wanted to talk about it for a long time

i actually put my book away just to read this lmao

so, let's try to respond to as much as i can-

paragraph 1:

Epic is a huge fandom, overwhelmingly so, honestly. i don't really consider it a bad thing, but the truth is, the bigger the fandom, the more weird people will get in it. it's a thing that ruins a lot of things, groups, organizations, all that. and with how fandom spaces are these days, i can't blame people for throwing away whole fandoms because of it. hell, i've abandoned a fandom before for this exact reason, and i was probably one of the biggest fic writers in the fandom at the time. and i get being cautious about minors, though i personally live by the old rule of not giving a shit about them as long as they don't talk to me. i am not their parent to monitor what they can or can't read online, so as long as they don't talk to me, they're not my problem.

paragraphs 2 and 3:

this is a general discourse i've been seeing about a lot of characters in a lot of fandoms. ever since covid suddenly there's Big Morality in fandom spaces because the (and i hate this word) normies decided to come in, take the space the weird kids made and changed it all into their space. you know those stereotypical american high school movies with the popular kids and the weird nerds and such? that's how it feels these days. the nerds make their own club and then the popular kids invade it and make it about themselves.

liking villains and fucked up characters is a thing that has always been around. it will always be around. and liking those characters doesn't make you a bad person. and i'm tired of this narrative that it does.

now, while it is true that many fucked up people will flock to evil characters, it should be noted that it's a matter of people, not the character.

to put it simply, while racists like ascended astation, liking ascended astarion isn't enough to call someone a racist. shout out to whoever played bg3 here.

about preferences:

i'm not gonna get into the fantasy and kink thing much, since yeah, that's pretty much my opinion as well. i view non-con fics as cnc where you, as the reader, consent to it by reading.

and i do get not liking characters or ships, but that's when we block tags and don't engage with the thing. for example, i genuinely despise the hannibal show and the whole hannibal lecter x will graham thing, but instead of going to them and screaming about it, i just block tags so i don't have to see it. it's that easy.

and of course, there are spaces for talking about not liking things, but those spaces are like... i don't know, a conversation with friends. a private discord server. shit like that. are you allowed to dislike people who do like it? sure, absolutely. but just fucking block them and move on instead of acting like a little bitch about it.

about the shipping discourse:

this is the thing i will have to correct you about because you... probably don't want to be associated with what the "pro-shippers" became.

obviously, the whole thing is absolute bullshit and on the surface levels, it seems obvious: pro-shippers are just silly little fandom people, antishippers just bitch at everyone. and in some cases, that is true and as far as i'm concerned, it is how it started out.

but, i have interacted with people who were in the pro-ship community and while the "antishippers propaganda" that pro-shippers are all pedophiles is absolutely fucking idiotic, there are cases and smaller communities where they do lose their fucking grip and there will actually be groups normalizing pedophilia or zoophilia.

with this in mind, i have absolutely zero sympathy for either side, because on one hand, it's probably a bunch of misguided teens, on the other hand, it can be a bunch of toxic and harmful people. on both sides of the argument.

it's like the skyrim civil war, there is no right option here, truly.

my general approach to this is that if you take part in the discourse, i don't want to fucking talk to you. you'd be amazed at how stress-free this approach is!

but yeah, puritan culture fucking sucks and i intend to cultivate old fandom traditions lmao

and of course, no worries, come again whenever you want! :3

#ask #anon

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brightlotusmoon · 4 years ago

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i think my other issue with lisa lucas' tweets acting like flowers in the attic is too traumatizing for kids to read is like. this is literally leading to anti racism books being censored in schools right now. including books like maus. anti rhetoric to that degree was already shaky being applied to fanfic, but it really shouldn't have been applied to literal necessary required reading. if you're that traumatized so easily by required reading books you might just need to get help. instead of using catchy "what about the kids!?" arguments to try to justify encouraging schools to remove the book. like i know people can have weird triggers and sometimes be legit triggered by a story but you're also not supposed to keep them. especially when you begin using them to justify banning common books used in required reading classes. what with how much arguments like tat fuel anti lgbtqia+ far right orgs that are gonna be using the same arguments barey repackaged if at all. and literally did when getting maus pulled from schools and given a grossly sanitized rewrite. (and this is coming from someone who's not entirely against rewriting stories but that's when it's FICTION not non fiction accounts of serious real world events.)

*hands folded, nodding with enthusiasm* Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Indeed. Yes.

"You are fully capable of deciding your own destiny."

#antis make the weirdest threats #do antis actually want to kill fanfic writers #let people have their headcanons #being queer in fandom was pure defiance #autistics and fandom #autistics made the internet #fandom was created by women and autistics #i was there gandalf #writing fanfiction in the early 2000s #the 1990s and 2000s were weird #thank you for putting this into words #if you hate a fictional ship that much you might have bigger problems #if you are that influenced by fiction you might have issues

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brightlotusmoon · 4 years ago

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A Facebook comment on Wil Wheaton's post about interviewing Star Trek Discovery cast members on diversity in Star Trek, in which he notices how fucking toxic the comments section is:

"There's a certain percentage of fans within every fandom niche that operates under the notion that they share ownership of those niches. They will react loudly and viciously to any changes or additions. They're basically spoiled brats who have control freak issues and they usually treat their relationships with other human beings the same way. Toxic is the perfect descriptor for them."

#i don't understand bullying in fandoms with nonhuman characters as none of it is real #i don't understand bullying over headcanons in nonhuman alien or mutant fandoms #i don't understand fandom purity nonsense #if it doesn't cause harm you're probably fine #if you hate a fictional ship that much you might have bigger problems

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sazandorable · 5 years ago

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About moderating and banning content on AO3!

Okay so! I haven’t had the spoons to do this for a while but I cracked and ranted about it on twitter which is... not... conducive to long rants, so!

This is a h u g e discussion part of the l o n g history that led to the creation of AO3, which older, more informed, and more articulate people have talked about at length and can be found around if you look (I reblog some of it in my AO3 and fandom history tags for the curious). So I won’t go into that here, nor into the practical reasons why it’s not even possible to put that system in place anyway.

Arbitrarily, or the purpose of this post, because it’s the biggest topic I’ve seen brought up lately, I’ll be talking about fic depicting underage characters in se*ual situations, but honestly I could hold the exact same conversation on literally any controversial content.

This is about why you, specifically, if you are a content creator and especially if you are marginalised and especially if you are queer and especially especially if you are sensitive to fiction depicting certain things... do not, actually, want a banning system on AO3.

What? Of course we do. There’s a lot of p*do shit on AO3 and p*do shit is gross. No one should condone that, wtf? It would be easy to do — just periodically delete the entire Underage tag!

What will happen if that is done is that people will re-upload and continue to write it, they’ll just stop tagging and you will run into it with zero warning nor ability to filter it out. Again, this is not a theoretical — we know this is what happens. When I was a teen, adult content (all adult content) was not allowed on FF.NET; it was everywhere regardless, and without tags. The exact same thing happened on tumblr when adult content was banned as well. It’s not a matter of “staff not handling it well” — it just doesn’t work.

To keep safe the people who need to be able to exclude that tag, that tag needs to exist and be used.

Well, shucks. A reporting system then?

A reporting system would operate in one of two ways:

-an algorithm, which would delete a lot of stuff we wouldn’t want it to delete.

-humans, which is... the bigger problem.

An algorithm sounds great. We do want it to delete everything.

Okay. What about the daddy k*nk fics between consenting adult characters? What about the fics featuring characters that are children in the canon but are adults in the fic? What about the fics about teenagers exploring their se*uality together, written by adults about the experiences they remember having or wish they could have had? What about the thousands of SasuNaru and Drarry and other shounen and YA fics that will get written, by teens or by people who remember being teens? What about the se*ually explicit fic written by teens who are se*ually active in real life? What about the fics about CSA as trauma, about healing from it? What about the fics written by survivors of CSA to cope about their trauma? What about the fics that clearly show that it’s evil and traumatic? What about the super dark, harrowing, but beautiful and artistic that I’m glad I read even though it fucked me up for days? What about the ones that were really shitty but also horribly hot?

Well, some of these are still not okay, but maybe some might be. It depends on how it’s written. We’ll have humans moderating content and deciding, then.

Okay.

The thing is, I don’t know which of the things I just listed were okay for you to be depicted in fiction and which were too much. Odds are I don’t agree with you. Odds are if I asked 10 people randomly picked off the street, not everyone would agree.

Odds are, even if AO3 arbitrarily decided on which of those are allowed and which are not, you would not agree with their choice, and you would still be unhappy with the decision. (Or you would be happy, but your friends wouldn’t.)

Odds are, different AO3 content moderators might not agree on whether a given fic qualifies or not — is it artistic enough? Does it show enough that these actions are evil and wrong? Can the author prove they’re a teenager? Can the author prove they are a CSA victim? Can the author prove that this is to help them cope with their trauma? The author seem to be functioning alright, they mustn’t really be traumatised!

You know what I mean! There’s absolute, objectively gross shit out there that is not artistic and should not be published.

I agree that there’s vile stuff out there that makes me sick and that I think is very clearly just ped*philic trash. But there is no way to, 1) stop those from getting published anyway, 2) take those down and preserve the safety of everything else.

If we start forbidding some things, there’s two ways to go about it.

One single, clear, arbitrary rule — for instance, absolutely no adult content featuring characters under 18 (leaving aside the fact that this would not even work for the reason cited above). So we lose all the stuff from teenagers, all the coming of age stories about adolescence, all the stuff from CSA survivors; people who need to write it can’t publish it anymore, and people who need to read it can’t anymore either (and as a cool bonus, they’re told it’s wrong and made to feel bad about it). Depending on whether the rules applies to characters that are under 18 in the canon, we lose entire fandoms.

Or, subjective moderation by humans, according to what they estimate to be gross.

Let’s assume all moderators can agree on what’s gross or not.

If there is a system in place to ban some underage works because “gross shit”, then that means other gross stuff can be taken down on account of being gross and harmful.

Yeah! Gross stuff should be taken down! Come on, surely everyone agrees on what’s gross and harmful.

Ah.

But the problem is.

Here is a list of things I have seen — with my eyes seen — called harmful to be depicted in fiction:

Murder

Non-con

Inc*st

Cannibalism

Torture

Self-harm

Mental illness

Drugs

Racism

K*nk

Non-negotiated k*nk, but healthy k*nk is ok

Spanking k*nk

BDSM where the woman is a bottom, but woman top is ok

Healthy depictions of BDSM

Unhealthy depictions of BDSM

Queer people doing bad things

Abusive relationships

Rival/Enemies to lovers

Redemption stories

A happy relationship between a 17 yo and an 18 yo

A happy relationship between a 20 yo and a 60 yo

A happy relationship between a boss and their employee, or a college teacher and a student

A happy relationship between a 14 yo boy and an older teenage boy, because that’s reminiscent of older men preying on younger gay boys IRL

Se*ual content featuring a character whose age is unclear in canon and some people headcanon them as being underage, some as being a young adult

Loving, consensual fluff between characters that are evil villains, because it romanticises them and their actions

Dark content shipping female characters

Fluffy content shipping female characters, because it’s misogynistic to act like lesbians are only soft all the time

Consensual s*x featuring a canonically asexual character, because it implies that all aces can and should still have se*

Fics about the same canonically asexual character hating s*x, because that erases the experience of s*x-positive aces

Shipping a character who is perceived by some fans as queer-coded with a character of a different s*x

The tendency to ship a black character with white characters

Fluffy drunk s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Sleep s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Trans characters not experiencing dysphoria, because that idealises the trans experience

Consensual s*x between adults that are not married

LGBT+ content, because kids shouldn’t see that.

I guarantee you: you, I, and 10 random people plucked from the street will not agree on what, in that list, is and isn’t okay to publish and consume fiction of.

So why should your taste be the one followed? Why should it be the taste of mods you don’t know? Why should anyone get to dictate? What if the mods think your OTP is gross and your NOTP is fine?

This is the slippery slope argument.

Yes, it is the slippery slope argument. Because we know it happens. Because we’ve been there, because I’ve seen it happen myself twice already and I’m not even thirty. Because we know people do complain loudly about all of these things.

And because the second there is a banning system in place, assholes will use the system to abuse it and get stuff they just don’t like taken down using the “it is gross” argument, and one day you’ll wake up and the beautiful fic that helped you come to terms with your abuse/trauma/identity/orientation/k*nk for feet will be taken down and wonderful vulnerable creative people will have been harassed out of fandom because they argued with 1 person who didn’t like their foot k*nk fic that happened to also feature, for instance, a CSA trauma backstory.

Again: not exaggerating. Not theoretical. It happens, we know it happens, AO3 was created literally because it happens.

I still fucking hate that stuff.

That is completely fine and normal. No one likes everything. Me too! Most of the dark stuff is niche and the creators know only few people will like it the same way they do.

(For the record, I get grossed out and triggered by fics about an asexual character who does not like s*x having s*x with their partner to make them happy. Deep in my gut everything screams that that’s fucked up, terrifying and harmful, how can people write that. But I recognise that there are people who love and need that, and I leave those people and their content alone.

OTOH, I read a lot of otherwise dark shit and I enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed, say, Hannibal, in the same way some people enjoy true crime documentaries, horror movies or r*pe fantasy k*nk. It helps me explore stuff that I like to see in fiction, in a safe, controlled way. I’m also asexual, 90% s*x-repulsed IRL, and, obviously, I would never abuse a child. For that matter, I wouldn’t kill and eat people, either, nor would I do 90% of the tamer k*nky stuff I read.

Of course, Hannibal was fucked up and lots of people probably think Hannibal was gross and should not have been aired — but as exemplified by the fact that it was created, aired and watched, lots of people thought it was fine, interesting and even fun to watch.)

You can and should curate your experience and protect yourself. The AO3 website now allows you to exclude certain tags, and people have developed tools to help with that such as plugins that save your filters or hide fics that contain certain words.

But no, it isn’t going to, and it shouldn’t, get banned.

#ao3 #fandom history #aaaaand that's all im going to tag

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amendments · 4 years ago

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Pro vs Anti-shipping opinions from someone who is Neutral...and will get canceled on both sides anyway

It’s fair and 100% ok to deem ships that are problematic, “problematic”, and be uncomfortable with them...and maybe even try to discourage people from shipping them, but you absolutely do not have the right to act like an authoritarian little sh!t and dictate what people can and can’t do. Block and move on.

Proshippers can effectively draw/write/create whatever they want. This is the internet and no matter how much you whine and complain, the internet isn’t going to adopt a pro-censorship stance. However, if you create content for an obviously disgusting pair, you’re going to get criticism, and people are going to find you creepy. You will be judged, even if you’re using your ship as a coping mechanism. No one is free from it.

Criticism, suggestions, and expression of discomfort are NOT BULLYING. If someone doesn’t like your ship, too bad. However, if you’re blatantly telling someone to kay why ess, hurt themselves, giving them some type of violent threat, or are doxxing them, you’re a disgusting person and no better than the people who commit said actions you’re against.

If you’re a proshipper and bullying kids, you’re also apart of the problem. Be the bigger person and block/report.

No, not all proshippers are creeps, some are just people who are anti-censorship, sick of PC culture and ship said ships out of spite, and/or don’t actually like anything bad themselves.

No, not all antis are annoying harassers, stalkers, or minors, some are people who are genuinely concerned about the questionable work you put out or may expose to minors/victims. Also, the lack of restrictions of minors in NSFW spaces is...sus -_-

Yes, there are predators in proship spaces, but there are also predators in antiship spaces, and literally everywhere else on the internet. This isn’t a ship problem, it’s a fandom problem.

Antis who claim that neutral people are just as bad as proshippers, actually push us away. You aren’t making us want to side with you. In fact, you’re doing the opposite. Most people who are neutral/position-less are actually people who really don’t care. Why? Because ships and fandoms don’t engulf our lives, and we actually have more important things to worry about than bullsh!t that strangers online are fighting about.

No, not saying anything or having a position on a topic is not inherently condoning it, it’s just not involving yourself in the problem. -_- It’s hard to really speak about something that’s not on your radar.

No, literally nobody in real life cares, or will care, about this debate. Most people (surprise, surprise) don’t really care about fandoms in general. (Amazing I know). Frankly, I’ve seen people on both sides that are waaaay to invested in this discourse and need to go outside. If you are super passionate about literal internet discourse, go to the park and touch grass.

Antis who are minors, I can genuinely tell you, that no, bosses in the real world really don’t care about what their employees do as hobbies outside of work. If you actually tried to contact employers about NSFW art (of fictional characters) that an employee drew on their own free time, unless you give them actual evidence of them acting inappropriately towards real people, they will ignore you. It is only a concern if that person has actually expressed illegal behavior which could put actual people in danger. (BDSM art of All Might and Deku isn’t going to get someone fired).

Antis, yeah, people will find problematic ships gross, if you tell someone about them. But, unless they are actively involved in internet fandom culture, which the vast majority of people aren’t, they’ll completely forget about it 5 mins later.

Proshippers, no, people in real life don’t care about what you ship in your private life, but if you make your whole identity about your ship, or proshipping, people will think you’re a creep. You’re chronically online. Get a hobby outside of internet discourse.

I will unfollow problematic people, and people who have caused harm, but if you tag me because I’m following a proshipper, simply because they are a proshipper, and have not actually been a perve to real children, I’m not unfollowing them. And if you pester me about it, I will unfollow, block, and report YOU. Who I follow is my business, and I will not tolerate being harassed over Twitter drama. Buzz off.

I will also not unfollow someone who identifies as an anti, or simply criticized your ship if you do not give me evidence of them actually harassing people. I am allowed to have an opinion and engage with people who have similar disapproving opinions. Who I choose to interact with is my business alone.

I’m not un-tweeting a tweet just because a self proclaimed “proshipper” or “anti” tweeted it. Good art is good art, and good takes are good takes.

Some of you overuse the word “p£do” in references to ships. I don’t care how you view it, a ship between an adult and a minor that has a 2-3 year age gap is not p€dop1llic. This age gap is completely common among teenagers in real life, and you’re honestly sheltered if you think that’s automatically predatory. A 16 year old dating an 18 year old is a LOT less worse than a 20 year old dating a 30 year old, and the latter isn’t any less predatory or weird just because they’re both adults.

No, ships between two adults with a very large age gap, are technically not p€doph1llic, either. They may be predatory in nature, and you may perceive them as wrong and gross, but if it ain’t already illegal in real life, then it definitely ain’t on paper.

It doesn’t matter if she’s 1000 years old, we all know what the underlying intention of that character design is, buddy.

Speaking of underlying intentions, there’s a lot of unspoken racism and xenophobia rampant in anti-spaces...like more so than in pro-ship spaces. Racism is everywhere in fandoms, but white, western antishippers are...a particular breed...oozing with arrogance and ethnocentrism.

Thanks for reading my rambling novel if you made it to the end, this is just a venting post. I hate discourse.

#pro ship #anti ship #pro shipping #anti shipping #ship discourse #pro shippers #anti shippers #fandom disk horse #haha #I don't care if i anger you #stay mad #don't like block #fandom #pro shippers aren't oppressed #but neither are antis #this is such a white debate lol #minors aren't oppressed either #boo hoo #oh pooor me

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imagine-your-love-story · 4 years ago

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Thank you for encouraging a safe space on Tumblr. It might seem like basic courtesy to leave people be, leave them their comfort and creative freedom, but apparently it's not. As someone who has very questionable self ship poly dynamics, it's.. nice not being scared of seeing "Don't interact if this- dont interact if that" and then in danger of harrassment.

Please keep spreading these vibes of comfort and love - you're a great person whom we need a lot more of in the world wide web

You're very welcome, lovely! :) :) :)

Hoo boy. I have...soooo many thoughts on like....ALL of this. And this post is gonna get LONG because I've opened the can of worms and I'm lettin' it all out :P

The amount of bullying and negativity I've seen in the selfshipping community lately is very painful and disappointing to watch. Tumblr and fandom has always been somewhat of a cesspool but I had hoped that selfshipping was a little better.

I'm not seeing a positive community on a large scale right now.

There are some people who are shining little stars out there of course! But there's more hate being spread around than I can stomach.

I've spent Y E A R S researching and unlearning and pushing back against the psychological and emotional effects of manipulative behaviors like: blame, guilt, shame, and harassment.

I absolutely 100000% believe you can speak to people civilly and state your reasons why you think their behavior is damaging. Without telling them, "You are wrong. You are a bad person." Or otherwise making them feel shitty about themselves.

And I also believe that you CAN allow that person to say, "I don't agree with what you're saying" and you can still have normal interactions with that person without immediately shunning them and labeling them as a terrible person.

People BLOSSOM when they are showered in love, acceptance, and understanding. People are MUCH more willing to listen and heed what you have to say when you give them SPACE to see your point of view (or disagree with you and still accept them).

This culture on social media where people jump STRAIGHT to, "You're a HORRIBLE person because you do something I disagree with!" is, frankly, horrifying and a little disgusting.

Does this mean I condone negative and damaging behaviors?

No. Absolutely not.

But there seems to be this loss of perspective on what is considered "negative and damaging behaviors".

1. It's fiction. Fiction has NEVER been "clean". It's a place of freedom to discuss EVERYTHING.

2. You don't have to feel comfortable with everything being discussed in fiction. I'm not. If I don't like a self-shipper's content because it hits some trigger buttons for me...I don't follow their blog. Because that's my boundary and I have every right to it.

Do I send them messages saying, "You're a toxic person!"

Nope.

Do I comment on their ship that they love and say, "This makes me uncomfortable!"

Nope.

It's not my business.

Also: it’s fiction and there are MUCH bigger problems that require my energy than whether or not I should correct someone’s fictional ship.

Go save the ocean.

Go save the rainforest.

Go save the planet you live and breath on.

Fiction should not be making you angry enough to send hate mail to someone else. Full stop. That should never ever be a priority.

3. Some people engage in selfshipping "negative behaviors" as a way to cope with their trauma. We have no idea what a person has been through and we have no right to tell them that they should stop what they're doing when we do not know where they are on their journey of healing.

It hurts my heart so, so much when I receive messages from selfshippers like you, dear anon, who are TERRIFIED to share their love stories with their characters because they're afraid of being labeled/attacked/harassed by the community.

That's the community letting you down. That should NOT be happening and I'm so sorry you're feeling that way, lovely.

The ENTIRE point of selfshipping was to ESCAPE the people who criticized for shipping yourself with a character that you love. The foundation of selfshipping is that ANYTHING is possible!!! You are limitless!!!

And now people are policing what you can do??? That's...that completely obliterates the point of selfshipping. That's WHY we escaped to our own community!

I don't know if this video is available outside of the U.S., but I highly recommend, the Crappy Childhood Fairy's Youtube video on Cancel Culture. It's a great listen when you're navigating the emotional turmoil of social media culture.

So, if you're still reading after ALL OF THAT :P here are some key points about this blog and my philosophy when it comes to selfshipping:

This blog will always be a judgment free zone

Of course I have opinions! Of course we may disagree on something! But I won't judge you for it. You're allowed to do your own thang! ;)

I will never have a DNI.

If I feel an interaction is crossing into territory that isn't appropriate or acceptable, I'll say so. And if that doesn't work, I'll block and report. But I will never have a DNI on this blog.

Yes, I am an adult. So if minors don't feel comfortable following my blog, it's okay if they don't! I understand!

But I don't have a problem talking with minors because they are human beings and they may need support. I worked in Youth Services at a library for over two years. I know sometimes kids just want someone to talk about cool books and movies with and I'm 100% down for that 24/7 :)

Because this blog is all-ages friendly, I will never post 18+ content because - just like IRL - I make sure that I am mindful of the people around me. I may post some suggestive content that is tagged, but I try not to get too explicit.

I also don’t really think a DNI is necessary for me personally. Of course if I feel threatened by someone, I won’t interact with that person. But if a shipper is into content that I don’t like???? I don’t feel the need to say, “I will never interact with you!” That’s....exhausting. Besides, there are plenty of other things we can chat about! :)

I will always share f/os.

I know some people don't like to share and that's their boundary they can draw if they want to (no shade here!), but I've found that if I don't share, it's a very lonely experience. So I always share and I’m happy to interact if we have the same f/o :)

DMs are always open if you need a shoulder to lean on

If you need to dump or vent or whatever, my DMs will always be open so you can chat! It can feel weird, and maybe you'll feel bad because you won't know what to say!!!

That's okay :)

Even if all you want to do is vent and never reply, I'm happy to listen and offer any words of encouragement and support you need to hear! :)

#asks #anonymous #penny chats #i hope that monster of a response was helpful! :P #edit: LOL i just watched my follower count PLUMMET after posting this #don't care #i said what i said #i'm gonna keep spreadin' love around!!! :D

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livcosmos · 4 years ago

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Chain of Iron BOOKTALK

I just….I….HOW…WHAT???? NOVEMBER?????!!!!!!…I can’t…What just happened???… I don’t even…OMG!!!!

I think there is nothing to say without spoiling anything sooo….

SPOILER WARNING

AAAAAAHHHHHHH I can’t believe how on earth am I supposed to wait till November??? NOVEMBER!!! I KNEW, I KNEW, I KNEW that it would end this way…this massive mess I knew it…I mean we do all remember how “Clockwork Angel” ended and don’t get me started on “Lord of Shadows”… I saw it coming but not like THAT!!! THIS IS BRUTAL!!!!!!

AHHHHHH OK alright I have to calm down and AHHHHH!!! This book was pure torture but in a good way, it hurt but I loved it! I couldn’t stop reading and I was screaming throughout the whole thing and you all know perfectly good why…. THE FREAKING BRACELET!!!! I couldn’t concentrate on anything else but the bracelet…. I WAS SOOOOOOO MAD and I still am…I am freaking out !!!!

NO but really, I have to start making sense and I don’t even know where to start…there is so much to talk about…but I guess I’m starting with the ENDING because helooooo what was that???

I can’t believe it…I was waiting throughout the whole book for that bracelet to break or for James to take it off or whatever and then it finally happened!!! It happened and I was like ‘OMG YAAASSSS’!!!! It’s finally happening James is going to realise that he loves Cordelia and they are going to be together for good…I have to admit the moment that wicked thing broke I was so grateful and happy, I was over the moon, but still I was sceptical, I wasn’t as happy as I should have been, I knew it was wayyyy to good to be true and that something bad had to happen… I felt it!

First I was afraid I was petrified…(sorry I had to), I thought the bad thing that was going to replace the bracelet mess was, what Tatiana The Lunatic told Grace to do… to make Jesse fall in love with her, because she couldn’t do it with James… and at that point I lost it!!! THAT WOMAN IS SICK!!! I saw the whole Clary and Jace drama from “City of Ashes” all over again running before my eyes … I know Grace and Jesse aren’t actually related but still that is sick!!!! I just can’t go through the whole thing, we got through with James and Cordelia because of Grace and the freaking bracelet all over again with Lucie and Jesse!!!! (I will get to the Jesse/Lucie thing in a minute!)

But of course that wasn’t the bad thing that was about to happen it would have been way to harmless… and when Grace went to James for “help” I was actually a little relieved, I thought ‘Alright she does have good sense and she is going to report Tatiana’….but oh no..oh no..oh no no no no no… ahhhhhhh!!!! James my love, I love you but what was in your head when you said “Thank God” and when you told Cordelia “I don’t feel about you the way I feel about Grace” ARE YOU CRAZY??? HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND??? But nevertheless, I have to give you credit for how you confronted her with her wicked power afterward, how you wouldn’t take her lies anymore! And you Cordelia darling, he said he has something important to tell, you don’t run away like that wait and see what he has to tell you or at least eavesdrop properly!!! And OMG I need to know what James wanted to tell her about the necklace he gave her, he said it has some story and I need to know it!!!

AHHHHHHH I was so happy that James figured everything out, it was my main goal for this book, my biggest hope and wish and I waited for it to happen the whole time, I couldn’t concentrate on anything else like LILITH?? WHATEVER, WHEN IS THE BRACELET COMING OFF???And then it finally happened and it turned into such a big mess! But in a weird way I love it, I am still very mad though and I need to know what happens!!! I need to know! I mean obviously things are going to turn out just fine but still!!!

Before going back to the James and Cordelia disaster we need to to talk about my love MATTHEW, because well he is very much a big part of the disaster! First of all, am I crazy or does he give off massive Harry Styles energy??? He is the fictional Harry Styles of the 20th century, if I may say so! His style… my God I’m in love! It’s not a secret that I love him very much, I have reread my booktalk for “Chain of Gold” (thank God I ramble so much in my booktalks because I was right back on track with every detail for starting this book!) and I called him my soulmate in there and he still very much is!! And ahhhhhh my hearth breaks for him, I hate to see him in pain!!!! The another big wish I had besides the bracelet breaking was, was for Matthew to tell someone what happened with Charlotte and OMG HE DID!!! I teared up at that scene, I was so happy, I was so relieved (and ahhh of course he knew that Cordelia is in love with James, of course he knew ahh bless him), he now has someone who knows and who watches over him more carefully and maybe Cordelia will convince him to tell the others too, especially Charlotte and Henry! It was such a big step forward and I am so happy for him! I have so much hope that everything will be fine with him but then…. We all know it… Cordelia will end up with James I mean that is more than crystal clear and I fear what will happen to him! I don’t want him to end up alone and oh my, call me crazy and I know I said this before but I do also ship him with Cordelia! Of course I ship James and Cordelia no doubt but still I would also love Matthew to be with her! I know, I know that would be a mess because he is to much like her father bla bla, but come on!!! He also needs someone and I don’t know who that someone could be, I don’t want him to be alone!!! (And also I need more scenes from his point of few, he needs to be more present, I don’t want our connection to fade!!!)

AAHHHH and he is going to Paris with Cordelia ahhhhhh I love that!!! I am all in for spontaneous trips and I know they shouldn’t run away from they problems like that but still, I think and also hope that they will have a great time there and that they may get closer? AH but that would be an even bigger mess wouldn’t it? I don’t know I’m confused, it’s the JEM-TESSA-WILL situation all over again. I mean I know Cordelia doesn’t love Matthew and that it would never be the same thing that she has with James and I know that all of this will backfire on Matthew, but even though I don’t want him to suffer I am still in for that, I am in for the drama!

Speaking of drama I loved that scene at the Shadow Market where James and Mathew where arguing, I didn’t liked that they were arguing but in some way it was a really great scene, I loved the tension and everything! It was really really good!

I also loved the trip scene, where Mathew took Cordelia to *couch* *couch* Wayland the Smith with the motorcar ahhhh it was lovely!!!

And hahah omg the scene at the end where James comes rushing to Matthew’s apartment and he talks to the Porter and he was like “Yeah that wasn’t his cousin, that was my wife” I couldn’t help laughing out loud! The situation was so serious and so full of tension but I couldn’t help laughing!

Another scene that made me laugh was the scene where I believe it was Thomas who said that James was possessed because he was writing in a book! And that is totally true James how could you?! HAHA

Alright so besides the bracelet/James-Cordelia-Matthew drama, what freaked me out at the end was what happened with Lucie and Jesse!!!

I still can’t get over the fact, that Cassie ended it like that!!! I mean Lucie is obviously still alive but OMG JESSE LIVES TOO!!!! I have to be hones that scene where he came back to life made me tear up, I was so happy, even though I know there will be consequences for Lucie. Ahhh and I fear crazy Tatiana but my God Jesse is alive!!!!!

And he and Lucie are soooo incredibly cute together I can’t! That scene where they were dancing in the snow….my Lord that was the sweetest thing ever I loved it so much!!!

But oh boy oh boy, as Jesse was possessed by Belail, I was so scared for him, that Cordelia would stab him with Cortana, the fear was there and it was over the top, I felt sick! Thank God things turned out fine! Crazy lunatic Tatiana how could you do that to your own son who you claim to love so much???? How could you let a Prince of Hell posses him??? Crazy lady you are awful!!!

Oh boy and if we are already touching the topic of rising up Jesse we have to talk about Malcom….goodness gracious I can’t believe the whole TDI drama is because of freaking insensitive crazy witch Grace!!! I can’t get over the fact that she is the reason why Malcom turns into a psychopath and kills so many people and basically causes all the drama in TDI!! If Grace wouldn’t have done that, if Lucie might have stoped her (or if she wouldn’t encourage Malcom into his madness my calling up Annabelle) things would have turned out so different!!!

And where in the world did he take Lucie and Jesse??? Ah I don’t trust him, because I mean it’s obvious why!

Oh and speaking of necromancy, I’m so frustrated, that I don’t remember what Ty and Kit did exactly to rise up Livvy, I mean now it doesn’t matter anymore because Jesse is alive but still, I want to remember how they did it or better say how they tried to do it!

Ah and before I go into a completely other direction I want to say a few more things about Grace… so first of all I can’t believe James left here there in the room alone I am scared that she will run away or something, that she wouldn’t tell Charlotte the truth without James there to force her… but hey we will have to wait and see what happens!

And then there is this other thing… learning her backstory in this book made me hate her a little less! I am not happy about it but I don’t know seeing exactly what she has been trough I felt sorry for her! I still don’t like her God forbid no way, she is still evil, she could have ripped apart that bracelet so many times!!! I get that she fears Tatiana but fjhfkfg, I don’t know I pity her now. And it makes me mad that I can’t be as mad at her as I was before! And then again I feel sorry for hating on her so much because it’s not her fault! I am glad though that we got this insights from her life, so that we can understand her a little better!

The other thing is, that I don’t know how I feel about her getting closer to Christopher, Christopher is such a cuty and I am constantly worried about him, because he is so pure and he trusts everyone blindly and Grace is an evil witch so…I don’t know let’s hope for the best! And then again on the other side they are both a little odd, I can picture them together, I can see that they could fit well together! Seeng it doesn’t mean accepting it though!

A few quick words about Alastair, before we go into the next big thing, I love how he cares for Cordelia, that he is so different around her and I love, that slowly but surely he is changing and behaving better and that he is slowly but surely getting the acceptance of the group! Lets hope things will tun out good, especially the bad blood between him and Matthew!

AH OH and Thomas, even though at first I thought that the whole thing with him being accused to be the murderer was a bit of unnecessary drama, I think things took a great turn! And my god I loved the the scene with him and Will and the Mortal Sword! It was absolutely hilarious, the question Will asked about the money, bless his soul!!!

Speaking of him, I loved to see him and Tessa, as usual, I can’t never get enough of them! And also Jem of course, the one and only love of my life!!! How are we kidding, I don’t think I have to tell anyone anymore, that I cried when he played the violin at James’ and Cordelia’s wedding! That got me! He gets me every time, he is my sensitive spot! And I also cried at the end when he came to talk to Cordelia and yeah…the usual…every time I think about him I cry…I just love him to much! (Speaking of the wedding, omg that was so beautiful and what Charlotte said oh my…that as so so sweet!!!)

But I have to say even though I love Jem, Will and Tessa and I love to see them every time I get the chance, I am also really happy that they don’t play that big of a role here in this story, I said this before but I love that it’s their children’s story where they are there but they are not the main characters. That is also valid for Magnus, I love that he is always there to save the day but still I like that the kids get to write their own story, if that makes sense!

OH Oh and the Italian girl?! It so ironic, that she died because I don’t know in the booktalk for “Chain of Gold” I was like: ‘Yeah omg there is this Italian girl coming I hope the group will accept her, and that she may be the one for my Math!’… well that turned out completely different!

Ohhh and her last name was di Angelo?! I love how Cassie thanked Rick for letting her borrow that last name, I love that two of the most amazing authors in the whole world are friends!

Ok but back to the serious stuff…. Lilith oh Lilith…. I was a little suspicious at the beginning of book at the bachelorette party when her name came up for the first time but I thought nothing of it, I was like oh ok let’s move on…and then her name came up a few more times but I still didn’t thought there was anything to it. Foolish little me, I should have seen it going but I didn’t!!!

I was suspicious of Wayland the Smith if I may quote my own notes, that I wrote down when he first appeared: “ Don’t trust Whayland the Smith, that was so wired, oh Cordelia what have you done, is he the killer?? Is he helping the killer??”. So deep down I knew something was up but I didn’t knew what and uhhhh….oh my and she pretending to be Magnus??? How did she dare to do it! Shame on you Lilith!!!

OMG and the battle at the end with her and Belail and everyone was so intense!!! I can’t wait to see how they are going to solve this whole mess, especial the paladin thing!

And the whole Wayland the Smith thing is actually so interesting like does he actually exists? Is he still alive?? We definitely need more informations about him!

Coming back to the paladin thing though, I can totally understand Cordelia, how she must feel and all but please gris don’t exaggerate you still have to be Lucie’s parabatai, you can’t give that up! It has to happen, it just has to! And what have you done to Cortana? Where is it? I need to know!

Oh uh uh but you know what else is suspicious??? That gift Cordelia got from her father, that sword hold thing, because first of all where did he get it from and second Lilith (as she pretended to be Waylande the Smith) made comment on it, that it was worthy or good or something, does that mean that thing is also enchanted, does it mean it has a spell on it or something? Did Elias get it from her? It’s very suspicious and I need more informations!

By the way, his death… I didn’t feel very sorry because I don’t know he was causing unnecessary trouble and even though I am grateful that he saved Jem all those years ago…I don’t know he was wired…I felt sorry for Cordelia, seeing her suffer so much made me sad but than again his death caused unnecessary trouble even if only for a short while between James and Cordelia so I don’t know…and Alastair suffered so much all those years because of him… we wasn’t very likeable!

All in all I had the best time reading this book, it felt so good to be back “home”, I love this world so much and it felt so good to be back! It made me miss London so much… it reminded me how much I love it and ah also the time period I love it !!! Unfortunately though it is now over and I have to face the real world again, and besides that we have to wait till November to find out how things will turn out!!! On the other side I don’t want it to end!!!

Thank you very very much for reading and please let me know your thoughts on the book!!!

P.S. Cordelia said, that if she loses a chess game she would tell James how she is in love with, do you think that is how they are going to make up? That they will play a game and she will lose and tell him that she has always loved him and then they will be together for real? By the way they still have to get those second wedding runes!!!!

P.P.S James’ middle name is Henry??? That is the sweetest thing ever!!!

P.P.P.S I hope that everything between James and Matthew will be ok, that they will stop forging, that Matthew will tell James everything and that everything will be ok regardless of whom will end up with Cordelia!

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brightlotusmoon · 5 years ago

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Maybe. I don't know. This is where my attempt to understand the whole concept gets slippery and I can't grasp it anymore. Maybe they think they're moralizing for a cause they think will get them good points somewhere somehow? I don't know anymore. And it scares me.

Good morning! I’m salty.

I think we, as a general community, need to start taking this little moment more seriously.

This, right here? This is asking for consent. It’s a legal necessity, yes, but it is also you, the reader, actively consenting to see adult content; and in doing so, saying that you are of an age to see it, and that you’re emotionally capable of handling it.

You find the content you find behind this warning disgusting, horrifying, upsetting, triggering? You consented. You said you could handle it, and you were able to back out at any time. You take responsibility for yourself when you click through this, and so long as the creator used warnings and tags correctly, you bear full responsibility for its impact on you.

“Children are going to lie about their age” is probably true, but that’s the problem of them and the people who are responsible for them, not the people that they lie to.

If you’re not prepared to see adult content, created by and for adults, don’t fucking click through this. And if you do, for all that’s holy, don’t blame anyone else for it.

#i've been in fandom for decades and bullying is worse now #stop blaming fandom creators for your morality problems #if you hate a fictional ship that much you might have bigger problems #fuck you for bullying over headcanons

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brightlotusmoon · 5 years ago

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Me: Oooh, this fandom looks shiny, let's take a peek-

Some Antis: IF YOU SHIP X YOU DESERVE TO DIE RIGHT NOW IN HORRIBLE WAYS because we have no common sense and can't distinguish fantasy fiction from real world people doing things, so let's pretend to threaten everyone with childish bullshit.

Me: *quietly* Hohkay, I'll come back later, when those guys are... less involved, hahaha. Let's hope they spend more energy on actual problems than on fiction.

#fandom history #remember when fans got along #don't like don't read #tag your fics #read the tags #look deeper #i don't understand fandom purity nonsense #i don't understand bullying in fandoms with nonhuman characters as none of it is real #if you are that influenced by fiction you might have issues #if you hate a fictional ship that much you might have bigger problems #antis dni #Whatever #Anyway #Sigh #wtf fandom

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wtf-is-going-on-in-this-shit · 5 years ago

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Okay, atla hc time: Zuko is actually really smart and no one never noticed, including himself.

More specifically, he is book smart and a book-worm.

Zuko reads a lot since he was little, because it was one of the few things that he was allowed to do as a prince and wasn’t used to diminish him. It also served a lot as an scape to the problems in his life at the palace. Reading books and scrolls allowed him to relax, so he grew to love it, but he always hid it from everyone with the exception of his mother, out of fear that he was going to be mocked or that Azula or father would burn the scrolls to punish him if they knew, and a bit out of shame, for resorting to it in the first place.

So he threw himself in books, and he eventually ventured to academics without even realizing because the palace’s library didn’t really had a section for children, and fictions weren’t that present. Those were times of war after all, so he just accepted everything he could find. Specially after Ursa left.

He liked the math books, that he discovered as something between curious facts and full of little puzzles and challenges to pass time. He read multiple history books with the help of a dictionary, then books about the other nations, books about animals and plants, books about spirits, books about healing and herbs.

books about war and peace.

Books that the Firelord said to burn.

When he was banished, the first year was specially bad. He couldn’t hardly walk around, and the damage done to his eye was what he hated the most about the burn. He couldn’t read properly for months. Everytime he tried, a gaping headache and nausea would invade him.

He was alone with his thoughts festering his mind.

Iroh was the first one to find out. He never told anything, but he noticed. He noticed how his nephew was hurting, how that was an extra blow in someone already down. So he started reading out loud to Zuko, until he could for himself. They never talked about it, but Iroh smiled as he saw the months going and the shelf in the prince’s quarters being filled. He frown when he realized how accepting that must hurt. He developed the habit of always getting some books for Zuko and place it on his chambers whenever he can.

The other hellish tension was their times as refugees. That time made it lots of horrible things visible, but there was this one detail that never stopped bothering him, even when he was too busy fighting his hunger.

There were never any scrolls or books anywhere, even in the bigger cities, even in Ba Sing Se, unless you broke into some noble’s house.The one source of written word was in the wanted posters, and if you found someone who could read it was a miracle on its own. There were no libraries on those cities. No schools. Nothing.

He remembers that when he ascends you the throne.

The Gaang started to notice after a while, that Zuko always knows things. Sometimes he shares these little factoides, that none of them knew before, sometimes it’s having answers to this questions that no one could really see coming, sometimes just an oddly deep knowledge about something. They ended up brushing it off as it being an effect of him growing in the highest nobility, being raised to lead and with tutors everywhere.

But it’s only after a while, after the war is over and they finally can stop and breathe, that people start to realize just how deep that goes. The first ones to notice are Zuko’s advisers and then ministers. Even though they had to exchange most of them for matters of loyalties, most advisers actually warm up to Zuko super fast because for once, they are working for someone who actually knows shit.

They don’t need to risk their heads and interfere every 15 minutes because the Firelord actually knows what plantations are from what season, how laws are created, how the taxes are distributed and how fire nation ships do their shipments. Half of the corrupt nobleman are arrested or fired in the first month, because Zuko keeps noticing shit that simply doesn’t add up. Then it becomes really clear to the court that they will have to treat him seriously. He might have relatively little experience, and few allies, but he is not an idiot.

The first one of the Gaang to find out (excluding Suki, because she is working in the palace) it’s actually Toph, because she complains once about people treating her like an idiot because she can’t read. Then Zuko created the habit of reading out loud when Toph was near. Toph would usually complain about being babied, but she allowed this one exception because she could feel how relaxed that made Zuko. Plus, he was actually a pretty good story teller, and even adapted some parts that described things only by sight. Eventually they call some academics and they straight up brainwash the idea of Braille.

The second it’s Sokka, when he starts to talk about an idea for an invention, basically monologuing until Zuko arrives, actually listens and gives some inputs. They talk about it for hours, and when Sokka asked how he knew about that, Zuko showed some of his books to Sokka and even lend him some. Sokka introduces him to Theo, and they meet every once in a while to nerd out.

The third is Aang, when he talks about a scroll that he really liked as a kid, and Zuko straights up sends a hawk to his book-dealers and gets a bunch of old but well preserved air nomad books that survived the war and gives them to Aang. Aang cries, like he hadn’t since the air temples, hugs him and refuses to let go for a hour. Zuko doesn’t try to make him and just hugs back.

Katara finds out when she decides to start writing. The thoughts keep flooding through her head, like the sea in a never ending storm, so she writes. She writes her memories about the journey, about the tales she was told about the water tribes, writes poems that sang in her head and stories that grew too much for her to keep them to herself. She starts writing, and even though all of the Gaang supports her, Zuko is the one who gets it. He proof-reads and gives insights, he helps her to develop her ideas by talking about it and incentives her to publish. He knows writing tricks and lends her some of his favorite books, and they chat about them later. They become book buddies.

One of the first big changes he makes, as soon as everything is stable again, it’s to invest. He invests in education, schools and universities, he works with Theo’s father to create the printing machine. Zuko makes public libraries and he makes them accessible for all. He makes so that all the man power that was being used in the war was turned towards education and internal development, that even the poor have access to knowledge, and he incentives the other nations to do the same.

The years pass and the analphabetization rates fall incredibly fast. The poverty and social inequality falls with it, albeit slower.

Years later, Zuko realizes that his name and picture, his history and victories were immortalized in thousands of the paper and ink that he loves so much. Hundreds of years later, he is still remembered as the man who brought peace, honor and dragons to the Fire Nation, and knowledge to the whole world.

#atla #atla au #fire lord zuko #Zuko #books #bookworm!Zuko AU #the gaang #uncle iroh #I don’t know what possessed me to write this #but here it is

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joyofcrime-elinorhigh · 5 years ago

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Hello everybody, my name is JoyofCrimeArt, and legacy can be an fascinating thing in regard to animation. Since cartoons are made with the intent of being seen years or even decades after they're created, it can be interesting to see how the general consensus people have about a series can change over time. One day you can be on top of the world, and your series is loved by critics and audiences alike. But then, something happens. Sometimes it's a specific episode. Other times a season. Maybe it's a controversy within the fandom. But whatever it is, something happens that causes peoples opinions to turn. And suddenly your show has gone from being universally praised to becoming much more divisive. And when something like that happens, it can be hard to recover. It happened to Steven Universe. It happened to Rick and Morty. And it happened to Star vs. the Forces of Evil.

Created by Daron Nefcy, Star vs. The Forces of Evil premiered on the Disney Channel and Disney XD in 2015, and quickly became one of the hot cartoons that everybody was talking about. It makes sense, as it came outright around the time where more continuity based fantasy series were really starting to take off, so it's natural that it became a hit. While the series was generally well regarded upon its debut, as time went on the series became much more of a "love it or hate it" type of show. And while that's not too uncommon for any show that amounts a large flowing, what makes Star vs. so interesting is that it seems like nobody can seemingly agree when the show got bad, if it did at all. Some people say the quality dipped after the first season. Others say the third. Some say the fourth. Others say that the show was good until the finale. And some say that the show was solid throughout. This divide among fans is why I feel confident calling Star vs. The Forces of Evil one of the most divisive shows of the 2010's, even if the debate around it isn't nearly volatile as other series. But now that the series has ran its course I have to ask, does it hold up? Did the show really go down hill, or is the hate undeserved? That's what I'm here to find out.

I feel like I'm in an interesting place to talk about this series because, while I tend to try to keep up with all the big name animated show coming out, I actually didn't watch most of Star as it was running. I watched the first season until my family cut cable right before the finale of season one (You know, around the time people started to care about the show.) And only caught up with the show in the last year or so while doing research for my "Top 30 Cartoons of the Decade" list. So I went into the series mostly blind with the exception of a few spoilers. I just felt like this was important to point out as I feel it may have an effect on my view of the show.

Also, while I usually try to go spoiler free when I do a general overview of a series, for this review I may have to go into some spoiler territory. Since this series features an ever changing status quo, as well as a lot of major characters who aren't introduced until late in the series' run, doing this review completely spoiler free would be difficult. So I'm going to be doing this review under the assumption that anybody reading this has already seen the show, and are just curious to hear my take on it, or don't care about being spoiled. So if you wanna go in blind I suggest you sign out now.

But to everyone else, let's dive in and talk about Star vs. the Forces of Evil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hJ5ecrpp8k

Star vs. The Forces of Evil stars (He, get it. I'm funny.) Star Butterfly. A princess from the dimension of Mewni who, upon her fourteenth birthday is given a wand of unbelievable magical power. However, after causing nothing but trouble with her new found powers in her world her parents decide to ship her off to Earth, where she can be somebody else's problem. There she befriends a human boy named Marco Diaz and the series mainly follow these two as they go on all sorts of magical adventures as they battle all sorts of evil monsters and ne'er-do-well who want to take the wand and use its power for themselves. Or at least that's how the series goes at first. As the series goes on it begins to focus more on the world building, as Star and Marco discover that the kingdom of Mewni isn't as great as they first believed, and are forced to battle political corruption, conspiracy within the royal family, and the generation spanning systemic racism against monster kind.

The best place to start when talking about the show are the characters. Lets start with the main leads.

We got Star, your typical fun-loving, ditzy, hyperactive action girl. Which seems to be a common trend in Disney Channel cartoons now that I think about it. But she does enough to stand on her own. She's a fun character, and an overall good lead for the series. I admit that her bratty nature and general stupidity could turn some people off, and there are times where it can get a little annoying, but I never minded it all that much. I think that's kinda suppose to be the point of her character. She's a royal, and spent her whole life with a silver spoon in her mouth. So it makes sense she would be a bit selfish and be unaware of the world around her. And she does improve over the course of the series, as she begins to take her job as a princess more seriously and spends much of the series actively fighting against monster prejudice. Though I'd be lying if some of these less desirable elements of her character don't continue to pop up every now and again, even later in the series and especially in the last couple of episodes. Also she's kinda a sociopath. Like especially early on in the show there are like...a lot of casualties to Star's antics. I'm kinda surprised Disney let them get away with that.

Also, can I just say that I am sick and tired of people asking "When is Disney going to include their first LGBTQ+ princess, completely ignoring the fact that Star is bisexual as fu*k. Like, come on now!

Marco is also a good lead. He's a neurotic, responsible, karate student who often acts as the straight man to Star's antics. However, I like the fact that he's not a total stick in the mud. Sure he's more cautious than Star is but he's still capable of getting in on the adventures as well. He comes across as a realistic teen with his own set of flaws. Namely his insecure nature and general social awkwardness. I also like that due to his expertise with karate he's able to hold his own in a fight even without magic. He always feels like Star's equal and never like a sidekick. He and Star have a great dynamic in general, and the two play off each other well. They contrast with each other and It feels like the two really cover each other's flaws. And it's kinda refreshing seeing two characters who are so different manage to genuinely get along with each other.

But of course, we also have the forces of evil that the shows title so clearly mentioned. Each season focuses on a different villain, and something that I really like is how all four major villains are introduced relatively early on. So the show doesn't suffer from that "Dragon Ball Z" type thing where it's like "Haha! I know you just defeated the villain, but now's there's an even BIGGER villain who we just haven't happened to mention until now!" They've always around in the world, and many of them even start out as joke villains only to become more serious later down the line. And they manage to do that in a way that feels very believable.

The best example of this is the shows first villain, Ludo. Who upon introduction is portrayed as a completely comedic villain who Star could easily take in a fight. But things change when a new more serious villain, Toffee, usurps him as the season one antagonist. Stealing his castle and army in the process. Come season two and Ludo is left alone, having lost everything, and is forced to toughen up in order to get back what he once had. He builds a new army, stronger than his first. He finds a new castle to form his base in, and becomes a genuine threat to our cast. Scrappy underdogs villains who lost everything might be one of my favorite tropes in fiction. Other examples of this trope used effectively would be Peridot in Steven Universe and Jamack in Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeast. However, while those shows use this trope as an opportunity to have these villains go through a redemption arc, Star goes the other way and uses it as an opportunity to make a character become more of a threat. That said, he never loses the comedic charm that made his fun to watch in the first place. Part of me honestly kinda wish that Ludo stayed the main villain of season two, instead of being usurped Toffee yet again. That said, the episode "Princess Quasar Caterpillar and the Magic Bell" does a good job giving his arc a satisfying conclusion.

Speaking of antagonist, let's talk about Tom Lucitor. Star's demon ex-boyfriend. While not a season spanning villain like Ludo or Toffee, he has several appearances early on as a recurring antagonist only to go down the more traditional "redemption arc" route later on. And I just want to say upfront, Tom is one of my favorite characters. Not in the show, but in fiction in general. It would of been so easy to make Tom your generic "toxic boyfriend" arch-type but even early on it's made clear that even though he's an antagonist, he isn't pure evil. His love for Star is genuine, but the problem is that he hasn't earned it. He tries to improve himself and become a better person but his own anger issues and jealousy keeps getting in the way. Specifically jealousy of Marco because he seems him as a romantic threat. But as time goes on, he does become better. He learns that he and Marco have a lot in common and eventually accepts that he can't make Star love him, and lets her have her space. And that, ironically, causes Star to becoming willing to open up to him again. They become friends and eventually get back together. But what I like is that while he has gone through efforts to improve and work through his problems, they still persist throughout the series. He's still very insecure and is looking for constant approval from Star. He still is jealous of how close Star and Marco are even though he has become friends with both of them. And it's shown several time that Tom tends to put his own problems above the problems of others. It shows that even though he wants to change and is willing to change, that doesn't mean that change come easy. It takes time and can be a long process. These are realistic character flaws that make Tom such a more complex and relatable character in my eyes. I relate a lot to Tom with his desire and constant struggle to improve as a person, and I feel like it's a struggle that's easy for a lot of people to relate to. Also...he's just such an edgy dork. He's...he is good boi.

Another fantastic character is Eclipsa. Introduced about halfway into the series, Eclipsa was a former Queen of Mewni who was imprisoned in crystal due to dabbling in dark magic and for running away from her arranged marriage and marring the King of the Monster, Globgor. The show builds up mentions of Eclipsa early on, with characters talking about how evil and dangerous she was. Eventually she becomes free from her prison (cause lets be real, whenever there's a villain sealed away somewhere you KNOW they're going to get out.) But surprisingly, when we see her she actually doesn't seem that evil. She's polite, kind, and is even willing to go through the proper legal channels to prove that she isn't as bad as people say she is. She is an excellent example of a morally ambiguous character cause for the first several episodes we the audience don't really know if she is actually a good person who's just been judged too harshly by society or if she is actually evil and this is all an act. As even as the show goes on and it becomes clear that Eclipsa is a good person at heart they still manage to keep the audience guessing. Much like Star, Eclipsa can be kinda selfish and impulsive, making her a bit of a loose cannon. Despite the shows title "Star vs. The Forces of Evil" Eclipsa goes to emulate one of the shows major themes. That life isn't that black and white.

The show deals a lot with shades of gray when it comes to its characters, as all characters have there own motives and backstories and relations with each other that can make them either allies or enemies depending on the circumstances. An example of this is the Magical High Commission, a group that monitors magic across all the dimensions. throughout the series it is shown that they stand on the side of Mewni. So in season two when Mewni is being conquered by Ludo and Toffee they're good guys. But just like most most people in Mewni they hate monsters and believe that Eclipsa is evil. Making them antagonist in seasons three and four. Their motives stay the same, but their role in the series changes.

However despite my praise not all the characters are great. In fact the show can be kinda hit or miss with their cast. The characters that are great are really great, but then you get characters like...

(Art by JelloApocolypse)

You know what, I have to be honest. I kinda like Pony Head. I know a lot of people say she's annoying and selfish and contributes next to nothing to the plot...and they're right. But I also just kinda like her. I think what makes her more bearable to me is that she's kinda disliked in-universe. Even Star, who is Pony Head's best friend, often times get sick of her crap. Real talk though, can we all agree that Pony Head is basically just a discount Lumpy Space Princess from Adventure Time? Like, they're nearly the exact same character.

A character who I don't like as much though is Glossaryck, the magical spirit guide that lives in Star's spell book. I never really got his deal. Sometimes it seems like he likes Star and genuinely wants to help her become a better magic user, while other times it doesn't seem like he really cares. He dies in the beginning of season three only to come back a few episodes later acting like a wild animal and yelling "Globgor" over and over again without any explanation as to how or why. Than at the end of season three it's revealed that it was all an act and he was fine the whole time. Like...why? We later learn that is a highly recognized historical figure in Mewni. Why is he yelling his name? And why does nobody question why he's doing this? I can buy that Star and Marco might not know who Globgor is but most everybody else seems to. I keep expecting that moment for his motivations to click. Where it's revealed how everything he's done was all an elaborate ploy to help Star or something, but it never really happens. Though my opinion of him does slightly increase in season four, but that's just because Keith David took over the role of voice actor. And adding Keith David can make anything better.

Some characters can even change in quality between seasons. Janna is this edgy punk girl who joins the main cast in season two as a new friend to Star and Marco. I liked her well enough in season two even if some of her more abrasive elements could be somewhat obnoxious. She's more or less absent for most of season three. Then come season four she returns and I found her more annoying. I don't know if her character got worse or if it was just the fact that her character didn't work as well in later episodes after the show had become more dramatic. But near the end of the season, they give her some long overdue character growth. Not a lot, but some. And I found myself liking her more.

There are other characters in the series as well, and they tend to vary. Star's mom, Moon is a BAMF and I like Buff Frog a lot. Jacki and Kelly are fine characters, though I admit there's not that much to them outside of being love interests for Marco, though they still have there own personalities. King River's kinda annoying but I've seen worse examples of the "dumb dad" trope and Alan Tudyk gives a great performance.

And since I don't have time to go over my thoughts on EVER character in this series, I'll do what ever online review does when they don't have time for nuance. Create a tier list!

If It's not apparent by now, the characters in this show run the gambit. With the best ones being some of my favorite characters of all time, and the worse one's just being generally annoying. However, if there's one thing that this show excels at is not painting things as black and white. No character is evil without a reason and all the heroic characters have un-heroic flaws to their characters with unique motivations that make sense for their characters. (For the most part anyway.)

The shows animation is also really good. Featuring thick outlines and a lot of nice coloring on the characters. (Even if some of the background colors can be a bit drab at times.) Most of the first season is done in flash, but it's good flash, which does well to accentuate the character expressions and the fluid action scenes. Part way through season one though the show's animation changes to more traditional animation. I think there is a bit of a divide on which style people consider to be better, but I personally prefer the look of the later seasons. The bouncy look of the early season one episodes look good, but I don't know how well that would of worked in the more dramatic and somber moments that happen later on.

I also appreciate the world building. The first two seasons are set mostly on Earth in the town of Echo Creek, but the last two seasons changes things up and focus much more on Mewni, allowing us to explore both settings. I know some people don't like the change as it resulted in several of the characters introduced earlier being written out of the show but I never really minded that. I think Mewni and the cast of characters who inhabit it are on the whole more interesting than the people of Echo Creek. (I mean does anybody really miss Sensei Brantley?) Plus the change in setting allows us to get a bit of a role reversal with Marco being the fish out of water, and Star having to show him how her world operates. And even if you do prefer the Earth setting we still cut back to it on occasion. And when you add it all up the total series runtime between the two setting is fairly evenly.

I like how characters can kinda come and go in this series, as it shows that the world doesn't revolve around Star and Marco. And it allows the writers to see which characters people gravitate to and focus on them while keeping less interesting characters out of the way. It also allows for character arcs to actually have conclusions, without the need for them to be drawn out just for the sake of keeping characters around longer.

Let's talk about themes for a moment. Specifically the main theme of prejudice and systemic racism in the show. It's handled...okay. It's kinda standard stuff and it doesn't go super complex on the issue, but for what it is it works though. That being said the show can be a bit confusing in terms of what counts as "monsters" and what are just regular races in this world. Which can make the metaphor a little muddled. I get that the idea is that there is no difference, and that monsters are only deemed as bad as an excuse for mewmans to justify their mistreatment of them, but it can still be confusing as to who's oppressed and who isn't and to what extent. I feel it would be even more confusing for a younger children watching who might not understand all the nuances of this stuff. However, the way the show tackles this isn't bad either. And the fact that the show tackles this element at all is admirable.

But who cares about systemic racism! That's not the real reason people are watching this show! We all know that everybody is really here for the shipping!

Yeah, as the series went on the shipping seems to become a much more major element within the series. So much so that to many the increased focus on the shipping is often cited as one of the main elements that caused the show to go down hill. However I never really minded it. I mean Star vs. has always been a bit of a love letter to the shojo/magical girl genre and romance is a very important element to those types of shows. So it makes sense that it would be used here. And I think it's used pretty well here overall. These are just kids struggling through these types of feelings for the first time, So it makes a lot of the stupid decisions that they make feel a lot more believable. But if this kind of thing isn't your cup of tea, it might end up bothering you. Because they do devote a good amount of time on it.

But you're probably wondering, who do I ship? Am I team Starco or team TomStar? And honestly, while shipping has never been something I've ever gotten too invested in, if I had to pick I would probably have to say team Starco. Which may be surprising as I previously went on and on about how Tom was one of my favorite characters of all time. But this is the way I see it. Tom's whole arc is about learning how to get over his jealousy and controlling nature regarding his relationship with Star. And it's shown that even after he's dating Star, and has everything he thought he wanted, he still couldn't fully get over his hangups. Even though he loves Star and Star loves him, it's clear that the relationship still isn't exactly the most healthy. And it's clear that they are going in different directions in their lives. Tom knows what he wants. To be with Star. But Star doesn't know what she wants. Not all relationships have to end because one person does something wrong or because one of the parties involved is a bad person. Sometimes two people just aren't compatible in that kind of way. And seeing Tom be the one to break up with Star shows just how far he's come as a character. Plus, like I said earlier, Star and Marco have great chemistry. And I do genuinely see them working as a romantic couple, beyond the fact that there the two main leads.

Besides, StarTom is technically incest so....

*record scratch!*

Oh wait, you didn't know about that.? Yeah, according to the official "Star vs. the Forces of Evil Magic Book of Spells" Star's Great Great Great Grandmother Rhina Butterfly was in a relationship with John Roachley, a second cousin to the Lucitor's. Now granted that would mean that Star and Tom aren't THAT related. But still. Incest none the less. Not that it even matters anyway since all of the Mewmans are descended from like five random people!

Seriously, this is some Ishigami Village levels of incest we got going on here.

But despite how heated the flames wars can be, I think we can all agree that Tomco is the best ship anyway. Like come on now.

So yeah, even the shipping elements didn't bother me. To be completely honest, while the show did have some problems here or there, I found myself enjoying the show well into the fourth season. But I knew it was coming. Since I was watching the show months after the series had concluded, I had heard things about the finale. A finale that figuratively "cleaved" the fan base. But in order to talk about the finale we have to go a few episodes back and talk about the episodes leading up to it. Obviously spoilers ahead.

To briefly recap, at this point in the series Eclipsa had become Queen of Mewni along with her husband Globgor after Star relinquished the crown to her. And many of the Mewmans are upset by Eclipsa's new "pro-monster" policies had left to live with the former Queen Moon. Meanwhile Mina Loveberry, a legendary monster fighter from generations far gone, had begun building up an army to invade Eclipsa's castle and take Mewni back from the monsters. A lot of people I hear don't like Mina as a final villain, but honestly I was surprised by how threatening they were able to make her despite how goofy she is. And her backstory about basically being a magically altered super solider driven to the point of insanity really helped to make her sympathetic. (Like I said, in this show everyone is painted with shades of gray. Even genocidal lunatics.) She invades with a Solarian Knight, a giant magic powered mech and it takes all of our heroes working together to barely defeat it. Until it is revealed that it was only one of many. It's an amazing twist that really leaves you wondering "How are or heroes going to get out of this one." Up to this point I was digging this final arc. But that's when I finally got to it.

To me, the moment where Star vs. the Forces of Evil got bad was the moment it was revealed that Moon was working with Mina to reclaim the thrown from Eclipsa.

It just doesn't fit Moons's character to do this. While it is shown throughout the season that Moon does not agree with Eclipsa more extreme policies, It was still shown that while Moon may be against Star's decision to give the crown to Eclipsa, she acknowledges that since Star was queen at the time and was within her right as queen to decide what was best for the kingdom. And in previous episodes she seemed generally happy not having the responsibility that comes with being queen anymore. But now she suddenly wants her kingdom back? If she wanted it back, all she had to do was say so from the start. At the start of the season most Mewmans still hate Eclipsa. It would not be that hard to stage a coup if she really wanted, especially since the magic high commission and all of Mewni would be on her side. Why would she work with Mina, who Moon knows is insane and racist even by Moons standard? Sure Moon and Eclipsa definitely don't see eye to eye on a lot of things but Moon still wouldn't want her dead, and Moon knows that Mina wants to kill her. I know she thought she could control Mina's army but that's still a big risk. It seems uncharacteristically reckless for a character as intelligent as Moon to make these choices.

So then, after it turns out that Moon can't control Mina's army, our heroes are basically screwed and are forced to hide out in a special tavern located at the edge of the universe to wait things out while Mina begins rounding up all the monsters in Mewni. They are all trying to figure out a plan on how to possibly defeat Mina's army when Star suddenly goes on a rant about how magic is bad. And this idea had been brought up a few times in the series, but overall had never really been portrayed as a major aspect. But suddenly the show treats this as if it's all the magics fault, and that everything would be better if it was gone. And that's when Star comes up with the genius plan to use go to the magic dimension to destroy all the magic. Thus making Mina's forces useless. And while I admit that yes, they are very much been pushed to a wall here, this has to be one of the most overkill ideas they could of possibly think of!

Now, I've seen a lot of people online saying that by doing this, Star would be committing mass murder on a multiverse scale, potentially destroying many universes. And I think that is a bit of a reach. From what we see in the series, it seems to me at least that magic is kinda a rare thing in the universe. That's why so many villains are trying to steal the magic wand away from Star. And I see very little implying that there are whole universes that are reliant on magic outside of Mewni. THAT SAID THOUGH, this would result in the deaths of a lot of innocent people. But Star really only seems concerned with the fact that once magic is destroyed, all people who come from parallel universes will return to their home universe, meaning she won't be able to stay with Marco. Which makes Star seem beyond selfish and generally pretty horrible.

Hekapoo, one of the high commission members, despite being made of magic and knowing that she will die from this, is totally on board for this plan because plot. And our heroes travel to the magic dimension to destroy all the magic. Which they do. Defeating Mina's forces and leaving her powerless. She still manages to escape however because nobody decides to actually, you know, try to arrest the person who just committed a political coup and nearly whipped out an entire race. They just let her walk off, because she's powerless now. I mean what's the worse she could possibly do, right?

So yeah, Mina is defeated, but everybody is sent back to their home dimensions. But somehow, through the power of love I guess, the universes of Earth and Mewni begin to merge. Thus allowing Star and Marco to be together. Happy ending, I guess? I don't know. Like Star and Marco being together is treated as a good thing. But we also see humans screaming as there world have now been overrun by monsters. Is this suppose to be a joke? A bittersweet ending? I'm not really sure.

In concept the idea of a universe merge is actually a pretty interesting idea. As it feels like a natural progression of the shows themes of racial tolerance and mutual understanding. Now that we've gotten semi-tolerance between monsters and mewmans we could now have an arc about trying to bridge the cultural gaps between the humans and the mewmans. Plus it would be a good way to appease both the people who enjoyed the earlier seasons focus on Echo Creek, and fans of the later seasons who preferred the stories set on Mewni. It's not a bad idea, but it needed to A.) be set up better and B.) needed more time to be fleshed out. I get that it's designed to be a sequel hook, but it's not like this is something that the series had been building up to to the point where we the audience can put together what happens next. As is, it's just weird.

So yeah, the last couple of episodes of Star vs. where a total mess. It's fitting that the finale to Star happened to come out the same day as the finale of Game of Thrones. While I'm not going to act like there weren't some parts I liked or some good ideas sprinkled throughout, this finale was pretty bad. How do you have a show that preaches acceptance and equality and end it with a genocide?! But hey, genocidal problems call for genocidal solutions am I right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ufmrn7BCuA

My God, It's Dragon Ball Super all over again.

And the worse part is that the series didn't have to end this way. Cause the show actually had a pretty good episode about half way through the season, "Cornonation" which would of acted as a great series finale! With the series ending with Eclipsa as Queen and ruling with Globgor by her side, with the mewmans finally accepting monster kind. You'd have to change a few things, like rap up Mina's plot and put Star and Marco together, but other than that it could of really worked. Admirably it may end up feeling more like a finale for Mewne as oppose to a finale for Star but it would thematically fit with the message of the series. Or if you really wanna keep this finale more in tack just don't have Star destroy the magic. Just have Star, Moon, and Eclipsa go off and do the one thing the three of them had never tried doing. Working together. And have them defeat Mina the old fashion way. They even allude to this idea in the tavern episode before Star goes on her whole "We gotta destroy the magic" kick.

It is a bit ironic to think that a show that's whole message is about unity could end up being so divisive with it audience. I genuinely believe that had the show ended on a better note, people would look back on the show more fondly. Despite the flaws. To the people who don't like Star vs. The Forces of Evil, I can understand where you are coming from. Even if you ignore the finale there are things to not like. A lot of things aren't very well explained and the show has its fair bit of plot holes. The series can be repetitive with its frequent shipping and "racism is bad" episodes. And some of the characters can be a bit annoying, including our main lead at times.

That being said though, I have to say, I can't bring myself to hate this show.

I don't know what it is, but I just found myself getting really invested into this series. Maybe it was due to me hearing so much bad things about the later seasons that I had low expectations, and while that may be part of it I don't think that's the whole reason. When you watch as many cartoons as I have, and for as long as I have, it becomes harder for things to impress you. Sometimes it can feel like your just checking shows off of a box, which is something that I've been trying to improve upon. But watching this show, it brought me back to the way I felt back in the early 2010's when I first started getting into these types of series. For all of Star's flaws, and trust me there are many flaws, it felt like it was doing something unique. Like it was in it's own little world that wasn't quiet Adventure Time and not quiet Steven Universe. And the series stuck with me after I finished watching it, which is surprisingly kinda rare. It's why I became interested in doing this review in the first place.

Star vs. the Forces of Evil is a flawed show. Very flawed. But I'd rather have a flawed show that's unique than a perfect show that's something I've seen a million times. And while I may not be a fan of how it ended, I don't think that should completely take away from all the good that this show has to offer. This show isn't going to be for everybody, and If you somehow made it this far into the review without seeing the show than I hope I've said enough to help you figure out if this show is right for you. But for me, despite everything, the series still has it's magic.

What did you think of Star vs. the Forces of Evil? I really genuinely want to know on this one. Did it go downhill and if so than when? Leave those thoughts in the comments down bellow. Please fav, follow, and comment if you liked the review. And have a great day.

#Star vs The Forces of Evil

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brightlotusmoon · 5 years ago

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The lessons I learned in the 90s and 00s need to be brought back in full force. Tag your writing and art for squick, trigger, and things that might be upsetting. At the same time, read the tags, be aware of warnings, because Don't Like Don't Read has been around forever. If I decide to read a story that I know will have themes and scenes that will bother me, that's on me, and the author is not responsible for my emotional reactions.

If I write or talk about something you find distasteful, block me. You don't even have to announce it.

Social media self-care includes blocking people who post negative comments about your favorite fictional characters. It’s not petty, it’s not uncalled for, it’s called “I engage with this content to feel better about myself and it makes me feel bad to see this character I identify with called all sorts of bad names.”

You really don’t have to have a reason to block people beyond “seeing their content makes me feel bad and I’m not here to feel bad, I am here to have fun.”

The biggest thing we get wrong about the internet is this idea that blocking someone is a sign of weakness or irrationality.

Sometimes you just don’t like someone’s content and don’t want to interact with them, and that’s fine.

#tag your fics #read the tags #don't like don't read #don't let people tell you what you shouldn't enjoy #let people have their headcanons #stop blaming fandom creators for your morality problems #look deeper #anti stuff feels like a cult #antis make the weirdest threats #if you hate a fictional ship that much you might have bigger problems

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violethowler · 5 years ago

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Whenever a post talking about why fandom should focus more on non-romantic relationships cross my dash, I always feel uncomfortable. Only a few present legitimate arguments instead of trying to win a ship war, and I’m still leery of reblogging those because they act as if the problem they’re talking about can be solved if only people could be less obsessed with shipping. It kind of annoys me because it feels like they’re completely overlooking the fact that fandom is not a monolith in favor of watering the issues down to a simple “shipping bad”.

I can’t speak for what the people posting these takes have experienced, but most of the people I know in fandom are entirely capable of enjoying fandom through a story’s non-romantic relationships and shipping their favorite romantic pairings at the same time. Shocking, I know. In my experience the reason shipping seems to dominate fandom discussions is primarily been because on sites like Tumblr and Twitter where controversy and arguments generate more user engagement, shipping tends to be the easiest thing to start an argument over. It’s hard to stir the pot over people enjoying Found Family or some other non-romantic character dynamic, but it’s almost guaranteed that there will be assholes who will send you hate mail and harassment if they don’t like the pairing you ship. And a lot of shippers respond to that by waving their shipping flag higher. They start talking about their ships more as a “fuck you” to the bullies who tell them to choke and die for shipping a different pairing.

And the most alienating thing to me, as a bisexual man in fandom, is when posts complaining about shipping zero in on queer ships and talk about the importance of representing emotionally intimate platonic friendships between men in fiction. Because only three times in as many years have I seen anyone bring up that talking point and actually present legitimate issues. Every other person I’ve seen talk about it has been using that phrase as a weapon against queer fans. And every single one of them is accompanied by comments like:

“Why does everything have to be gay?”

“They’re not gay”

“Stop making it gay”

“Please don’t make it gay”

And other variations of this sentiment.

My own fandom experience with conversations about “platonic male friendship” in fiction has been with assholes trying to win a ship war between an M/M pairing and M/F one. And the majority of the shippers of the M/M pairing in my two biggest fandoms that have these kinds of ship wars are queer people who look at the relationship between these two characters and see echoes of our own experiences. Yet rarely have my mutuals in one of those fandoms been able to go more than a couple of weeks without someone trying to bully us for not interpreting the story the CorrectTM way. I know that everyone likes to think that fandom is completely accepting of queer people, but fandom is basically a bunch of smaller communities in a trenchcoat. Not every fandom is the same, and some are aggressively heteronormative at best, or openly homophobic at worst.

In fandoms that draw lots of people from outside of the usual tumblr demographics, it’s taken as a given that a guy and a girl will inevitably get together with little or no buildup written into the story, yet the suggestion that two guys whose relationship receives so much focus in the story that their female love interests feel like cardboard cutouts might be or become a couple is met with laughter and scorn. In some fandoms the creator even mentioning a desire to include queer characters in future stories is met with cries of “Forced Diversity!” and “Pandering to SJWs”, as if no creator ever willingly chooses to write queer characters or relationships.

Fans who see and want those relationships to be romantic are told again and again that it will never happen. That we’re reaching for something that isn’t there. That any subtext we see only exists because the creator is from a different, non-western culture where physical and emotional intimacy between platonic friends is more common. That the M/F ship is the story’s inevitable endgame and the creator is just a shitty writer who doesn’t understand romance. That even if by random chance the queer subtext was intentional, the corporate executives would never allow it to be made explicit.

Back in March, one asshole spammed the ship tag on Twitter for my current OTP with the same screenshot of the fandom’s most popular M/F ship, and after his account was reported for spam, tweeted that one of the characters in the M/M ship, the deuteragonist of the story, should be killed off because, in this asshole’s words “he’s useless and only queer people like him.” When another fan of the M/F ship called him out, the asshole accused them of “siding with the f**s.”

The fact that so many people have proven incapable of talking about “platonic male friendship” in fiction without also insisting that the character must be cisgender and heterosexual sends a message to queer fans like me that “platonic friendship between men” is something reserved for straight cis men only. That there is no place for us to see ourselves in the stories we love even if it wasn’t the creator’s intention. That we should be happy with what little crumbs that mainstream entertainment chooses to give us. That any part of a story where we feel seen is never anything more than an accident. That people like me are not welcome in fandoms where the story didn’t include us from the start.

I’m not saying people can’t be critical of trends in fandom, but those who are need to be mindful of the fact that fandom doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Every trend and attitude in fandom is a reaction to something happening to people either in real life or elsewhere in fandom. Not everyone’s experiences are universal, and there are still fandoms where queer people have to deal with heteronormative double standards and homophobic bashing toward our ships. If people want to have a nuanced conversation about ways to make everyone’s fandom experiences more positive and welcoming, the bigger picture needs to be acknowledged instead of acting like shipping itself is the problem.

#shipping discourse #personal experience #personal anecdote #my thoughts #fandom is complicated

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destieltropecollection · 6 years ago

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Destiel Trope Collection 2019 Day 12: Enemies To Lovers

Mine | @dean-cas-in-the-impala Rating: Explicit Word Count: 5095 Main Tags and Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Romance, First time, Demon Dean, Angel Cas, Enemies to Lovers Summary: With his grace bound and wings injured, Castiel stumbles into a bar full of demons. Someone saves him from inevitable death, but at what cost?

Coffee Spills and Subway Sandwiches | @asexualcas Rating: General Word Count: 2710 Main Tags and Warnings: No Warnings Apply, College AU Summary: Castiel hates the cold. But not as much as he hates Dean Winchester. When Dean spills scalding coffee on Cas’s new bee shirt, that does nothing to help his dislike for the man. Spending an afternoon hellbent on inconveniencing him? That just might.

Scars | @lemonsorbae Rating: Explicit Word Count: 147565 Main Tags and Warnings: Hate at First Sight, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Domestic, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, From Sex to Love, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Drinking, Underage Drinking, Drug Use Summary: Dean Winchester doesn’t answer to anybody about anything. Not about his ever changing hair color or tattoos, not his music, and definitely not about all the fucks he definitely doesn’t give. Of course, then he meets pretentious, skinny jean wearing, ugly sweater buying Castiel Edlund who’s hardest lot in life is probably alphabetizing inventory at his uncle’s record store, and suddenly Dean has to answer for everything. Castiel, on the other hand, had long since accepted his fate as an anti-social, directionless, and misunderstood soul, with his cat, Meg, and a bottle of whiskey being the only company he needed. But then fate threw him Dean, the abrasive, infuriating punk who wears guyliner, and walks around like the chip on his shoulder is something to be proud of, and Castiel’s carefully constructed life was turned ass over teakettle. After a heated exchange upon first meeting, a mutual loathing afterwards, and the glaring opposites in their lives, neither of them sees the point of mixing oil and water. Which would be all good and well, except neither of them seems to be able to stay away from the other.

The Difference Between a Pirate and a Gentleman | @pimentogirl Rating: Explicit Word Count: 67739 Main Tags and Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, mentions of slavery, pining, slowburn Summary: The Righteous Man, feared pirate captain of The Black Impala, scourge of the Caribbean, is rapidly climbing the chart of The Royal Navy’s Most Wanted list. Although, it’s hard to get the message out: Woodcut wanted posters mysteriously disappear from the noticeboards as fast as they are posted, to be secreted in diaries and scrapbooks, and tales of his daring do are so popular in the taverns and brothels throughout the region, he’s rapidly becoming a folk hero. Lieutenant Castiel James Milton on the other hand is relatively unknown, but well-regarded by the crew of HMS Swallow. They should be sworn enemies, of course, but then being an anglo-french aristocrat born in Tortuga to parents who should never have been together in the first place, Castiel has never been very good at ‘should’, despite his best efforts to do his ‘duty’ to his domineering grandfather, the Earl of Northumberland. By the time his real enemy catches up with Dean, it’s pretty obvious to everyone that there’s very little difference between a pirate and a gentleman…

don’t go breaking my heart | @breathingdestiel Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2485 Main Tags and Warnings: au, past friends with benefits, misunderstandings Summary: Dean absolutely hates Castiel Novak. He’ll do whatever it takes to stop that asshole from getting the promotion.

The Galaxy’s Most Wanted | @saltnhalo Rating: Explicit Word Count: 10160 Main Tags and Warnings: Space pirates, enemies to lovers, sci-fi Summary: Dean had been the one always up to mischief, running around with his father’s broken laser pistol and constantly getting into places he shouldn’t have been. Sam, in comparison, always seemed to be the smart, studious one – until he reprogrammed the AI in their neighbours’ house to play ‘Happy Birthday’ at the loudest possible volume while keeping all the doors and windows firmly locked. It had taken two experts seven hours to undo the coding that Sam had managed to integrate into the house’s programming. So, yes. They had been exceptional even from the beginning. And when John Winchester crossed one too many people, his sons inherited his beloved ship, and took to the cosmos doing what they knew best: stealing. And they were damn good at it too. Almost unrivalled, across their own galaxy and even those neighbouring. Almost.

Shot Through The Heart | @peanutbutterjelly-pie Rating: Explicit Word Count: 156327 Main Tags and Warnings: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, UST, Slow Build Summary: As a hunter Dean finds himself more often than not relying on the help of the Men of Letters. Most of the time that’s not much of a problem - if it wasn’t for Castiel, the smartass bookworm with the piercing blue eyes, the messy hair and the rude attitude. Yeah, he’s been an annoying thorn in Dean’s side since day one - and nothing will ever change that! Seriously NOTHING!!

Dean Winchester is Not Afraid of Ghosts | @DesiraeLovesDestiel Rating: Explicit Word Count: 481000 Main Tags and Warnings: photographer Dean/Medium Castiel, paranormal AU, enemies to lovers, hurt/comfort, smut, fluff, angst, humor Summary: When photographer Dean Winchester is not capturing momentous occasions like weddings and graduations with his Nikon, he is moonlighting as the cameraman for the South Shore Paranormal; a ghost hunting series on YouTube, headed by his brother Sam, and Sam’s best friend Gabriel. Despite his brother’s adamance, Dean Winchester does not believe in ghosts. And no one is going to change his mind. Certainly not a scam artist like Castiel Novak. Castiel is a self-proclaimed medium… and Gabriel’s brother. When a member of the SSP team has to leave the crew, Castiel is the replacement, much to Dean’s dismay. But the more they work together, the more Dean is drawn to Castiel, the man stirring up protective instincts usually only reserved for family. What happens when Dean realizes that Castiel is not the fake he always thought he was, but instead, a generous soul that Dean is rapidly falling in love with?

Just A Gigolo | @sheinthatfandom Rating: No Rating Word Count: 1658 Main Tags and Warnings: escort au, escort service, escort dean, escort cas, mentioned clients, switch Dean, implied sex acts Summary: Dean Winchester is the one of the top escorts of his company and uses his charms and personality to steal clients from his friendly rival. Castiel is the top escort of his company and is known for being high class and able to network with politicians and many powerful men. So stealing Dean’s clients is just a bit of fun for him, especially when he gets to rub it in. But what will happen when Castiel decides to see for himself what the draw is to being with Dean?

Classroom Conflict | @galaxystiel Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 5616 Main Tags and Warnings: AU, Human!Castiel, Professor!Castiel, Professor!Dean, university, enemies to lovers, 5+1, Summary: Five times Literature Professor Castiel Novak and Physics Professor Dean Winchester clashed, and one time they didn’t.

You Shook Me | @braezenkitty Rating: Mature Word Count: 12317 Main Tags and Warnings: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Dean Plays Guitar, Singer Castiel, Singer Dean, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Frottage, Implied/Referenced Homophobia Summary: The Salty Demons are set to compete in a battle of the bands, but when their lead singer drops out at the last minute, they need someone to fill in. Bass guitarist Meg brings in her friend Cas to audition and Sam thinks he’s a good fit, but Dean is worried he’s too punk. With the competition looming though, they don’t have much choice, and Castiel is the best option they have. Dean has to come to terms with the new lead singer and the attraction he feels towards him before he ends up sabotaging the band’s chance at winning the competition.

For This Night and All Nights to Come | @thursdays-fallen-angel Rating: Explicit Word Count: 14554 Main Tags and Warnings: Game of Thrones Fusion Summary: Back in the southern castle Castiel once called home, cold was used to describe a bath that had sat too long and was no longer steaming, or a room with a draft. It was cold if one had to put on a tunic with sleeves to go riding. North of the Wall, cold takes on a whole new meaning. Here, cold means frozen rations and endless snow, frostbitten limbs and stolen breaths. Cold is steel biting at your throat in a wordless threat. Cold is when the dead rise again.

The Age-long Rivalry Between Pilots and Engineers | @cas-lost-grace Rating: Mature Word Count: 7786 Main Tags and Warnings: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Roommates, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Aliens, Spaceships, Engineer Castiel, Pilot Dean Winchester, First Kiss, Space Battles, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD Summary: Living on a space station isn’t easy. Especially when you share your quarters with someone like Castiel Novak.

Hot Men, Unmasked | @castielrisingabove Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 43195 Main Tags and Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, DC Comics, Nightwing, Red Hood, AU, implied past Meg/Cas Summary: Castiel’s a superhero who just wants to make his big break. When he stumbles upon an attractive anti-hero, he’s left with a choice: turn him in, or work together to solve a crime bigger than both of them.

It’s Affection | @funnywings Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 7711 Main Tags and Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Angst with a Happy Ending, AU, Enemies to Lovers Summary: After getting catfished by a federal agent, Dean is angry at the world and the world is angry right back at him. When one of Sam’s friends from Oxford comes to stay at Mary’s house, he’s determined to be as unpleasant as possible to the newcomer. However, being pissed at the world can only get you so far, and Dean finds in Castiel someone he can confide in truths he rarely likes to admit to himself.

Enemies Closer | @almaasi Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 5291 Main Tags and Warnings: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Teacher Castiel, Openly Gay Castiel, Student Counsellor Dean Winchester, Openly Bisexual Dean, Nerd Dean Winchester, Middle School, Vandalism, A.V. Club | Audio-Visual Club, Children, Doctor Who References, First Dates, One Shot Summary: A “You caught me keying the wrong car in our middle-school parking lot, but when you found out my motivation you wanted to help me… except now we’re both complicit in the same crime, and we have the power to end each other’s teaching careers – and as they say, keep your friends close but your enemies closer – sooooo is a nerdy date at your after-school A.V. club close enough for you?” AU

Drop Anchor | @almaasi Rating: Explicit Word Count: 42124 Main Tags and Warnings: Alternate Universe, Historical, Romance, Fluff, No Angst, Pirate Castiel, Sailor Dean, Domestic, Settling Down, Desert Island, Hate to Love, Grumpy Castiel, Dominant Castiel, Gardener Castiel, Bi-Curious Dean, Bottom Dean, Shipwreck, Storms, Sharing a Bed, Masturbation, Touch-Starved, Hammock Sex, Cuddling, Tickling, Rimming, Virgin Dean, Epistolary Summary: AU. A sailor and an enemy pirate are marooned on an island together, and while awaiting rescue they accidentally achieve domestic bliss. Or: Dean Winchester is lieutenant of the Royal Trading Ship Echelon. On a pleasantly sunny but particularly catastrophic day, he is marooned on an island somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with only one man for company. That man is Castiel, captain of the black-sailed Leviathan: a pirate, no less. Given the circumstances under which they are stranded, rescue seems unlikely, and it could be aeons before a ship even comes by. The two of them may as well make the most of their own private island, personal differences be damned.

We’re the New Romantics | @almaasi Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 8138 Main Tags and Warnings: Alternative Universe - High School, Summer Camp, Hate to Love, Bullying, Dean Has a Crush on Castiel, Charlie Bradbury & Dean Winchester Friendship, Smart Dean, Fanboy Dean, Smart Castiel, Hipster Castiel, Punk Castiel, Pierced Castiel, Fanboy Castiel, Aromantic Castiel, Smart Charlie, Star Trek References, Holding Hands, Cuddling, First Kiss, Long-Distance Relationship Summary: “He’s so pretentious.” “Who is?” “Castiel.” Dean sneered as he said the name. “Look at him. He only brought one bag, and it’s tiny. And orange.” “Maybe he doesn’t like carrying a lot of stuff,” Charlie said, shouldering her own rainbow-coloured weekender bag, leading Dean out of the crowd and towards the picnic benches. “Gifted-and-Talented Summer Camp is only four days. A change of clothes and a toothbrush, that’s all most people need.” “What about when he sleeps? Doesn’t he at least need a pair of jammies? And that freaking nose ring. Seriously, he looks like a bull. I wonder if anyone’s ever told him.”

The Law of Fire (WIP) | @katekarnage7 Rating: Explicit Word Count: 42624 Main Tags and Warnings: Western AU, Mentions of Child Abuse, Torture, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Main Character Death. Summary: When Castiel was young there was a fire, a fire which caused much pain and grief for many, however, there was one shining light, one good thing that came from it; Castiel’s adopted little sister, Anna, who had been orphaned by the very same mysterious fire. A year went by, it was relatively happy for the Novaks, but just like all good things, it had to end… It ended when Castiel’s mother died, sending his father into a downward spiral, which left Castiel alone to take care of Anna. Eventually, they were found and raised by the Sheriff of a small town in Kansas. Years later Anna and Castiel would learn that the fire that took so much from both of them wasn’t an accident, it was arson, and that the man who had done it has a bounty on his head, a man by the name of Dean Winchester. They start their mission to track down this man who ruined their lives and the lives of many others, however, when they finally catch up to him, they learn that when it comes to Dean Winchester, there may be more than meets the eye.

Close Up and Personal | @sternchencas Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 19358 Main Tags and Warnings: paparazzi!Dean, celebrity!Cas, Cas with cats Summary: To help his brother Sam to pay for law school, Dean Winchester works as a paparazzi. His current target, award-winning author Jimmy Novak, is so camera shy that most people don’t even know what he looks like, unlike Dean, who finds out when he literally runs into the man. When Jimmy confronts him about ruining his life, Dean tries to change his ways, and in a sudden turn of events, he gets to unravel the secret that is Jimmy Novak, or better, Castiel.

one thousand and ninety-four days ‘verse (Series) | @envydean Rating: Explicit Word Count: 8096 Main Tags and Warnings: Prison AU, inmate!dean, Inmate!castiel, Rough Sex, Mild Pain Kink, Come Marking, dubcon but mostly con, bottom!dean, top!cas, sassy!cas Summary: In which Dean and Cas are in prison. “Get in your bed.” “Make me.” He teases. Dean smirks, standing up and facing the man. Before Dean can even blink, the man is out of his bed and shoving Dean up against the wall with a deadly quietness.

#destiel #writersofdestiel #destielfanficnet #deancasfanficnet #supernatural #fanfic #destielfanfic #destiel trope collection #tropes #enemies to lovers #2019

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