#presented as though it's fandom discourse

[wanderer-of]

Things I did not expect to see today:

A drawing of Femboy Odysseus with seemingly no knowledge of the existence of The Odyssey

[starryjkoo]

ARMYs are really just burnt out and I don’t think the rapid fire pace of releases has helped anything. It’s amazing as a fan to get all this music, but the expectation to chart everything I think is unrealistic and kind of overwhelming. People just don’t have that kind of time, energy, or money to go all out for every comeback when they happen every other month, sometimes several in a single month. It especially doesn’t help if ARMYs aren’t feeling the song, and I don’t think they’ve felt quite a bit of CH2 music.

I have longer thoughts on all this, but I just have so much annoyance towards some chart ARMYs and their unrealistic expectations and their refusal to acknowledge that the current organized fandom streaming power isn’t what they think it is. Another big wave of HL victimization (but sometimes TH is also included??) from ARMYs and it just opened the doors for so much resentment and hatred to be thrown towards jkk but especially Jimin. It was really disturbing to go and block these people & find I had 5-10+ moots following each time. It’s really out of control.

I’m just tired of this RL discourse while they ignore the twenty elephants in the room that explain why the streams are where they are (and no it’s not because “ARMYS hate RL”.). Instead they just throw these tantrums that further divide an already deteriorating and toxic fandom. I don’t know what it will take for them to understand that a fandom that doubled with Dynamite is going to prefer pop music, and that the majority of ARMYs are in fact not zombie streamers but fans who casually listen to the music that appeals to them. Not to mention the fact that a lot of ARMYs aren’t even active right now, so many of them have been dropping off and waiting for BTS to return as a group.

It really just keeps getting worse and worse in ARMY spaces. I’m pretty sure active ARMYs are about 90% diet solos at this point. It’s extremely messed up what a lot of them can get away with saying and not get canceled or called out for. It’s also just this hyper-fixation on drama, shooter accounts, NewJean’s, MHJ, raging against whatever fandom approved villain of the month, trending pointless hashtags for random reasons, and then being shady and resentful because of these arbitrary goals they set that are often influenced by using Jimin as a goalpost.

[sunlitmiracle]

smashes my current interest together with my old interest (aka yet another "what Dungeon Meshi but Gamers?" AU)

Once when I was a child I had a complete crying meltdown over Creatures, because the manual insisted that the complicated AI of the Norns made them truly alive and 10-year-old me was freaked out at the idea of being solely responsible for making sure these real animals wouldn't die. The funny part was that this was the Playstation version of Creatures, which has no biochemistry and very basic AI compared to the PC/Mac games where players actually were debating whether or not it was true artificial life. A PSX manual gave me existential dread and it wasn't even telling the truth.

Anyway, kid!Marcille would also have a meltdown over the Creatures series, especially if she had the computer games and got to see how vastly different some breeds' lifespans are. Like in C2 where you have Norns that live for around 5 hours and Norns that live for 10, both of which are vastly more than Ettins who don't even live for 1.5 hours (and usually less due to radiation or starvation).

Lucky for her, having the computer version means she could download modified genomes made by other players that make creatures live longer or even outright remove certain death triggers. However I think she'd have more fun learning to read and edit the genomes herself, to get a better understanding of how the game works and how to change it to suit her own tastes. And because she could pretend she's one of the mysterious ancient Shee who created the Norns, Grendels, and Ettins and then vanished, leaving behind relics of their old society.

(Speaking of Grendels, she would unfortunately dislike them because they're the Designated Evil Species and she'd hate how they harass and attack her Norns. I think she'd also pity them though, because they get sick a lot and have short lifespans. Likely she'd just end up downloading/creating a genome without the aggression towards Norns. Ettins she'd like except for in C3 when they dismantle her meticulously-placed gadget setups, so she might mod out their hoarding compulsions too. Both of them would of course also live for however long her Norns would live.)

Also. While standard creatures' lifespans are counted in hours, if you modify the half-lives in the genome editor you can increase it to centuries. Or even just over a millennium if you set the half-lives to their max length (assuming you also leave the old age death trigger at its vanilla value).

and I like to think that elven Creatures players would pass around copies of what they consider a template genome that's appropriate to their own lifespans. Something that would make their creatures live for weeks or months of continuous play. I also like to think the Creatures DS Warp is still active in this AU because of the hilarious frustration when these long-lived Norns travel to worlds run by short-lived players whose Norns have vanilla lifespans, and vice versa.

(Most of the time in Creatures, offspring of parents with different lifespans will just have one or the other, but there's a chance the genes cross over right in the middle of the various age triggers and cause unstable aging rates. Like a Norn that goes through the childhood stages in hours but then has a very extended adulthood. Or a days-long childhood followed by suddenly dropping dead of old age once the vanilla adulthood genes kick in. Or, if the child has one parent's half-life decay rate and the other parent's age triggers, all sorts of odd things could happen. I once had hybrid Norns who lived for 20 hours and would die of organ failure before reaching the old age threshold!)

(Now that I think of it, Marcille would absolutely hate fast-agers. The first time she watches a creature hatch, turn old, and die in just one brief minute of life, she would be sobbing for days. One of the first things she'd learn to mod out would be mutations that cause the Ageing/Life chemical to decrease unusually fast.)

On a lighter note, while I don't know what her favorite designs would be I think she'd love choosing cute breeds to use in her world. Once she figured out how to give her creatures the comfortable life she wants them to have I can see her redirecting all her gene-editing efforts into changing color expressions. She might even learn to sprite or model her own custom designs.

[the-cloudwatcher]

I loved the show, but I did not expect a shipping war to be going on in 2024.

Bonus:

[juniperpyre]

lily evans potter: womanhood, motherhood & morality

lily as the dream girl in canon and fan spaces

i want to talk about this while there isn't a current upsurge in the discourse

Lily Evans Potter is introduced to us as Lily Potter, the dead mother of Harry Potter. Lily and James potter, dead, leaving their poor, miraculous son to live with the dull, horrible Durselys. We only ever see her through, with the exception of her sister, the memory of men.

I've said before that I believe James and Lily are the ideal masculine and ideal feminine, both to Harry and in a metatextual way. parents are our introduction into gender roles, the "correct" way to be a man and woman. since Lily is dead she cannot disappoint Harry. she can be imagined as the perfect woman, which is, of course, a wife and mother. the dream girl!

Lily's death makes her a silent, ever-loving, beautiful young mother, for both Harry and the reader. James is slightly deconstructed in SWM, but Lily is not. She is a fierce protector, brave, clever, and only emotional (angry) once James, her future husband, provokes her enough.

in the text Lily is not truly presented as flawed in a meaningful way. the moral choices she makes: to build a relationship with Severus, to defend Severus, to break their relationship when he refuses to reject bigotry, to join the Order, to die for her child, are all the correct moral choices. these are the choices the narrative is telling us to respect.

women have, for the past 200 years or so, been conceived of as the moral center of the family.* Lily Evans Potter is the moral center of the series. her choice to die is mirrored by the main character, Harry, and sparks the beginning of victory. Harry's sacrifice is enabled by another mother, Narcissa, making the correct moral choice because the power of her maternal love urges her to this choice. finally, Voldemort's most powerful follower, Bellatrix, is killed by a housewife and mother, Molly, in a maternal rage at the idea of her daughter being murdered.

Lily's sacrifice and the emotions behind it are mirrored multiple times in the final battle because it and she are the moral center of the series.

that Harry is frequently told he has his mother's eyes, and that Dumbledore points out how his essential nature mirrors his mother's, further highlights Lily's character and her choices as implicitly good.

women, especially mothers, as our moral authorities, is an unconscious cultural belief we can see play out in the fandom and subfandoms that Lily is discussed in. we can all recall the characterization of Lily as the goody-two shoes that James has to change for, the characterization of Lily as "not like other girls", the BAMF characterization, the current near mommy dom to James characterization.

the characterization of Lily changes with our view of the best kind of woman. but she is, always, demonstrating a most "correct" way to be. maybe it's 2007 and she's telling James off—not fun, but right. or it's 2012 and she's not preoccupied with boys like her classmates. or it's 2019 and she always knows the right thing to say to Remus when he's down on himself. or it's 2025 and James is trailing after her like a puppy while she contemplates what size strap to use on him after she beats up a bigot.

We don't see a lot of moderate views on Lily. Above, I've discussed how Lily lovers tend to portray her. Lily haters, a smaller group from what I can tell, do not utilize these common fanon characterizations. They disparage her as an immoral, selfish, bad woman. The wholesale rejection of Lily as the moral center based on her perceived immorality is the other side of the coin.

I'll refer to people with this perspective as "Lily haters" though I am aware there are people who dislike her outside of the topics I'm discussing.

I rarely engage with Lily haters, though I am aware of their arguments that Lily was a bad friend to Severus, a social climber, a gold digger, or boring. All grave sins for the woman who's supposed to save everyone.

This perspective doesn't reject Lily as the moral center or the perfect woman, it is an argument that she's not fulfilling her role correctly. Her unwillingness to give Severus more chances is selfish, stuck-up, classist. Her desire for James is an further betrayal of Severus.

She's supposed to be the Madonna, why is she being a whore?

I believe Lily hate comes from a belief she failed at being the perfect woman/mother, and therefore she is worthless. A bitch. Weak willed. Oversexed. even by haters her role as the moral center is not questioned.

in both the og text and in the fandom supertext Lily is the moral center because of her role as mother. her status as the moral center is inextricably tied to her motherhood. since Lily being a mother is the point of her character, divorcing her from her motherhood often changes the foundation of her character.**

when her literal motherhood is removed from a depiction of her character, her metaphorical status as the perfect woman/mother is often still intact. this is seen in the characterizations I described earlier, and, I argue, in the belief that she's too good for James when it is used as a "justification" for shipping James with someone else.*** thereby, she is further purified, not even having been touched by a man. she's put on a pedestal, where she can't be touched, and is rarely noticed.

it is also frequently seen when she is written as a side character in a relationship with James, and the pair become the dual moral guides for the main couple.

this reflects James and Lily as the ideal masculine and feminine, as they are a perfectly harmonious couple when a side pairing. their implicit canonical roles are subconsciously reflected in fanon with little critique or commentary on the canon text.

Lily's entire character is crafted to be The Perfect Mother™️. whether she is literally a mother in her fanon depiction or not, she is still The Perfect Woman™️—and is still affected by the biases our culture has towards women and mothers.

thus, Lily is the dream girl in the text, the moral center only seen through a nostalgic veil, and a dream girl in fan spaces, as the moral guide for the men in her life who pegs her husband or is too pure for the touch of a man.

for more on gender in the wizarding world, based on gender in early modern england (pre the cult of domesticity) see this post

*see the cult of domesticity if you'd rather not read the article

**please like fucking do not fucking act like I'm saying you cannot do this. I swear to fucking god

***you don't need to justify your ships

[theglassesgirl]

The Ithaca Saga: What IS a Monster, how it’s presented, and when fictional S.A is integral to the plot.

So -

This was originally a response to @ / anniflamma which you can still find on my page unedited. But with the new discourse surrounding the suitors, I figured I could retool it as a standalone essay to express a topic I’ve been trying to pin down for a while now; What exactly does the mean when they call a character a monster? What do they do, do the reasons matter, and how does the subject of rape affect how the fandom consider some monsters more unforgivable than others? When IS rape in fiction “necessary” and why such questions defeat the purpose of exploratory creative works.

In this post we will discuss all the major antagonists of the Epic Musical, Penelope’s agency, the label of Monster and the types of moralizing one might do when faced with uncomfortable subjects in fiction and how to prevent these feelings from blinding is about what a story is trying to say.

For those who read my original response; there’s new content to read here and posts that will be referred to, if you’d like to give it another gander!

Thank you,

Let’s begin;

I think making the threat of rape explicit was very much needed, actually.

It’s come to my attention that there are people here and on tiktok who are so uncomfortable with the subject matter in this CENTURIES old tale that they’re both refusing to accept that it plays an important part in the original poem and musical, AND are bizarrely insisting that Jorge should have magically done away with it to make more palatable.

This is beyond juvenile - it’s a clear sign of media illiteracy.

What, if I may ask, do you think it means when you say that the suitors are going to force Penelope to choose one of them to marry.

You may respond that they want to take over Ithaca. That they want to be king. But take a moment to consider what forcing a woman to marry one of them will entail. I wonder if you think that one can divorce the idea of sexual violence in this plot.

It would be…unfathomably difficult to do so. Because you CANT. There is an implicit threat of Penelope’s will breaking and having to have unwilling and reluctant sex with any one of them in the event she just gave up and picked one.

This isn’t a storyline that depicts Penelope of being willing to marry any of the suitors. She is WAITING for her husband’s return. Even if he doesn’t, she doesn’t WANT to marry someone else. Her consent is being violated by the very merit of them being in her palace, eating her food, and threatening her son.

They’re doing ALL OF THIS in order to bend her will in the HOPES of raping her as a bonus to becoming king of Ithaca.

My contention is the use of “unnecessary” when it comes to this trope in media - though themes of rape can be uncomfortable, to call them unnecessary HAVE to meet certain criteria. Which this specific instance doesn’t.

By observing various responses, it’s clear that the threat of rape went completely over many’s head in this instance of the story. So I very must appreciate Jorge making it SO clear that it’s upsetting.

This part of the odyssey, and the musical, is very much about Penelope suffering under the threat of assault for YEARS. In the same way Odysseus was (a thing I touched upon in my calypso essay, in terms of his ambiguous situation in the musical) - it’s a parallel that works as both Antinous and Calypso were introduced (regardless on your personal interpretation of what Calypso did or did not do, but that’s neither here nor there).

It has taken an emotional and psychological toll of either spouse. And the kicker is that neither of them are freed of this situation on their own - they are both rescued by outside forces. Athena/Hermes helps free Odysseus; Athena/Odysseus will help free Penelope.

The looming threat of rape is SO necessary that it helps the catharsis factor we feel toward PENELOPE’s story - it’s nothing to do w Odysseus who by now is a force of nature as big as Poseidon, his actions happen TO her, and it’s up to her to decide (per “would you love me” ) what she feels about that. She can very well reject him! She’s suffered under male violence for YEARS. Odysseus’s violence and those of the suitors toward her are basis enough for the comparison.

Do all men, including her husband, become violent? Does she want to put up with that? We know from her song snippets that she is NOT a woman that simply succumbs to the Rape Rescue trope as suggested by ignorant consumers of media - and I call it ignorance and consumerism because there’s a clear lack of engaging with the material in an intuitive way. It’s just blind consumption - as if one bites into a burger and find a pickle, which you personally don’t like, and having it removed - you can’t treat ART that way .

Penelope is a very intuitive and emotionally intelligent queen. Stop infantilizing her. Her own husband suggests that like the suitors, his actions make him just as bad as they are and presents his hope as being understanding if she rejects him on those grounds. But those ARENT her grounds. She has full autonomy and can make a distinction FOR HERSELF whether she considers her husband equal to the monsters who have harmed her.

So let’s talk about the “Monster” label as it is presented on the entire musical.

Some have erroneously suggested that Odysseus has been given an out to commit cruel and ruthless deeds with out “good justification” - he does it for his family,, after all!

Which is a misunderstanding of everything every antagonist of each saga has done.

Let’s start with the Troy Saga: Odysseus has killed a BABY. He made the choice to put his family over this child. Everything he has done and lost would be for literally NOTHING if he hadn’t, as even if he had killed the suitors and regained everything - the GODS themselves would make sure that child would come to an aged Odysseus and slaughter him, Penelope, Telemachus and his entire kingdom when he came of age.

Odysseus STARTS as a monster. We have been rooting for the man who laid Troy and its children asunder. As such, the label of a monster is NOT so much a morally subjective label - it simply a thing that IS. Or rather. It is what ALL the antagonists ARE, but it’s hardly a condemnation of any of them.

(Peep that one of the first lines Ody says refers back to in the Vengeance Saga is what he did to Troy - he STILL views his actions over there as unforgivable, so not even HE will ever see himself otherwise, the problem was that he felt so guilty over it that he became a detriment (a different kind of monster) to his friends and family when they were all guilty of the same thing and trying to get home.)

ALL of the antagonists have a “good reason” to kill ALL the soldiers (who again, have looted and slaughtered the Trojans) Odysseus and his close friends included. Whether your AGREE is almost irrelevant…because the story itself proposes that it’s irrelevant.

The next saga introduces the cyclops: his motivation is primarily that his FRIENDS the sheep have been slaughtered. You can argue in the scope of things, you can’t empathize with this but it’s his good reason. He’s the son of a god, and these sheep are all he has. His friends, who matter to him as much as Polites does to Ody, are being taken and slain, he is being drugged, attacked and maimed. VERY much was Ody goes through in the final saga. And even so.

The Cyclops is antagonistic to the party, he’s a monster who feels justified killing to avenge his killed sheep. A monster is a thing he IS.

As Poseidon’s son, he asks his father to kill the 600 men who have ransacked his home and beat on him. He doesn’t view his father as being wrong for this. In the same ways Ody and Telemachus don’t waste any time addressing the slain suitors later on. Poseidon is a monster of a god - it’s just a thing he is. Not even being stabbed 100 times is enough to repay the harm he’s done - to most everyone, not just Ody, but we are not asked to quantify that. Just live with it.

Circe has killed NUMEROUS men over the years. HER “good reason” is that something bad happened to her nymphs when she let a stranger in her islands. She doesn’t even promise that she WONT kill in the future - her song ends w the suggestion that the world may continue to need her to puppeteer! Because she does not exist to be “redeemed” - she is somewhat more reasonable and capable of empathy than even the likes Athena, who being a greater and more powerful god, does not have the one on one affection to her follows as Circe does. She’s a monster! It’s a label, a thing she IS.

So here we begin to ask; is it LOVE that gives people the capacity to do monstrous things? Because the cyclops loved his sheep friends, Poseidon loves his son, Circe loves her nymphs.

And by now you’re saying now wait a minute didn’t the Underworld Saga go over this? Why yes it did! And Odysseus decides to “become the monster” - he already IS one by the standards of the cyclops, Poseidon, Troy - they all see him as a monstrous being. But he accepts that, after being one in Troy, he held back and ruined the lives of his men, making him a monster to THEM. His “good reason” for being so!

He attempts very hard to be the General he was in Troy and prioritize them going home, sparing no sympathy towards his enemies - but in the Thunder Saga we see the gods further push him to be completely self-serving like they are. The sun gods cows are harmed, he sends Zeus in relation - his “good reason” being his friend were personally harmed.

Odysseus’s “good reason” is ultimately decided to be the same good reason he had to slaughter the Trojans - to get back home to his wife and son.

Like with the Cyclops sheep, Circe’s nymphs, The Sun gods cows, and Poseidons son, WE are shocked and made to feel some type of way about Odyseuss’s reasoning. Surely HIS personal suffering shouldn’t cost the lives of “innocent” men…but it does! It surely does.

He is a monster. It’s just a thing he IS.

Now, Odysseus spends the next seven years under the thumb of ANOTHER monster. And through calypso own reasoning, despite her tragic backstory, her “good reason” she IS a monster. She’s incapable of understanding why she wasn’t reciprocated. Incapable of empathizing with a human because as a god who has spent eternity alone, it stands to reason she, like all the other monsters mentioned before, prioritizes HER personal suffering over everyone else’s. In some versions she either kills herself or does spend the rest of eternity alone. She’s a monster. This is a thing she IS.

Now what the HELL does all this have to do with the suitors?

Odysseus started the musical a MONSTER. He’s worn different hats, but it is what he IS. It’s a label, not a moral critique.

ALL of the antagonists of every saga have a “good reason” NONE of them are ruthless for ruthlessness sake! It’s immaterial whether you agree with them or not, but to understand them for what they are.

Odysseus is the antagonist of the ithica saga, md while the suitors are the antagonist to him and his family, we see their fate form THEIR POV

The suitors could not have been depicted as “rude youthful men” like Telemachus. That Odysseus killing them should be shocking - a frightening condemnation of everything he’s done and became. But I ask once again - in what world are the suitors not implicitly set up as monsters?

Because again. They aren’t being rude for rudeness’s sake! They aren’t JUST eating Penelope’s food and sleeping in HER house. Them threatening Telemachus, as you propose, isn’t “enough” of a reason because they didn’t wake up one day beefing w this boy. Everything they do is for the express purpose of sexual violence towards the Queen of Ithaca, who upon assaulting, will make it so any one of them will be King.

You can’t separate the one from the other. You get a nonsense scenario. The whole REASON they’re there in the first place.

Even if you create a fanfic where 108 men wake up one day and raid the palace to slaughter the royal family with no intent of sexually assaulting either (because remember Telemachus is also the subject of Hold Em Down) and then fight amongst themselves to be the next king, but then isn’t that STILL a “good reason” for Odysseus to slaughter them?

Now I hear what you may be asking: but if all the monsters of the sagas, Odysseus included, have a “good reason” even though we might not agree with it, what kind of monsters does that make the suitors? Surely and clearly THEY aren’t doing what they’re doing for noble reasons.

I consider them akin to the 600 men who died under their captains command.

Because, as stated before. Odysseus views his actions in a Troy as his start of monstrosity. He did all that to finish the war and do back home. He ruined the lives of all Trojans.

So did his soldiers.

The only moment in time (even in the deleted songs) that the bulk of them repent about the war is in terms that it left them without food.

But glasses! They were just following orders!

Which is what one of the suitors suggest in song 38. Their serpents head is dead, THEY were just going with Antinous’ flow, they are innocent.

Like the 600 soldiers, the 108 suitors sacked a home that wasn’t theirs and harmed a wife and child - does them being the queen and prince pale in comparison to the hundreds of wives and children slain in Troy? Homer is a genius to ask us to see these parallels for what it is.

The suitors ARE monsters. That is simply what all 108 of them are. In the context of the story itself, their intent is to break Penelope’s will, commit martial rape, and become king of Ithaca. They aren’t there for kicks, they aren’t ignorant boys, they’re socially accepted adults abusing the hospitality rule with an express purpose.

So a GROUP of monsters are slaughtered by ANOTHER monster, and though in this instance we can argue it’s morally justifiable, it doesn’t take away from Odysseus’s fear of being rejected by his family. He has ruined the lives of the Trojans, his men, AND multiple gods! To get to this point. He IS a monster. And the story asks US, through Penelope, if he is still worth loving.

Seeing Penelope as merely his reward is so backwards and bizarre. It’s very clear that bad faith interpretations of her are based on objectifying her erroneously, when the narrative presents her as a fully developed character.

In the story both in the poem and the musical that the suitors ARE NOT her guests. She is being sequestered against her will.

In what world could the suitors be “just” murderers and not….very clearly rapists? It’s BUILT into their motivation. You would have to change the very FOUNDATION of the Ithaca plot line and Penelope herself??? To say nothing of Telemachus’s role!

What’s the proposal here? That Penelope invited these suitors? That’s she’s actively looking for a replacement husband? Okay, again, that changes literally SO MUCH of the story, but wouldn’t that put Telemachus in a position where he too has to change? Does he resent his mother for doing this? Is he helping his dad out of spite or because he wants him back? How are we meant to view Penelope in this radically new and hip Epic the Musical? Is she savvy and in her right to choose a new boo? Okay…okay, so then….you want Odysseus to be the only one unchanged and go axe crazy because….hes jealous? He kills these upstanding men….curtain call. That’s all folks!

Absurdity at its finest. You throw Penelope’s agency out the window. Her weaving and unweaving her loom is meaningless or simply doesn’t happen. Or maybe it’s that she wakes up one day and goes hey yknow what I WILL consider marrying one of these guys with no sense of dread and fear. Oh wait Oddy has killed then all! Never mind me feeling unsafe a week ago, he’s done a Bad.

Crazy.

It’s just…not going to end up making Penelope look like a well written female character if Jorge has done what you wanted! THAT would make her a mindless prop. You seem to think she is one, and that’s not the case. Historically, in fact!

She is a whole person in the poem and musical whether you understand it or not. You would have to argue so thoroughly why she sucks and let me assure you - there are entire DISSERTATIONs on why you’d be incorrect.

So, no.

No, you CANT take away the rape in Penelope’s storyline. It matters ALOT. It’s the ROOT of the matter! Could old school vegetales make something up that’s more to your sensibilities? Maybe at its peak but god, I couldn’t possibly come up with a draft that could reflect that. I won’t even try.

The rape aspect of the Ithica Saga isn’t unnecessary - it’s INTEGRAL to the plot. It can make you uncomfortable, but it’s BUILT into the royal family’s suffering whether it’s explicit or not! And it SHOULD be explicit! Because you seem to think because it usually isn’t, that the rape aspect isn’t there!

I cannot imagine coming to this kind of conclusion.

They are not random men going on a siege of the palace one day - you cannot “sanitize” the SUITORS because by the very merit of them calling each other THE SUITORS there is an implicit threat of sexual violence. Because Penelope doesn’t WANT suitors. She rejects them. They’re already violating her consent.

How the FUCK to do you censor the rape when it’s in every action they take? And I know what you’re saying: but didn’t Jorge censor the rape aspect that both Circe and Calypso commit towards him?

Further reading: suggests that ALLUDING to it is not the same as censoring, that it still FITS the PURPOSE of these characters in regards to Odysseus’s suffering under them. That after ambiguity, it is NECESSARY to make the rape aspect CLEAR in order to create both catharsis and MEANING at the end of the narrative. The THEME is still respected and present, it is not REMOVED. Please consider reading the linked follow up that answers this question.

In short.

It’s truly a matter of using one’s goddamn head when it comes to view fictional depictions of rape as “necessary” - because though some depictions can be presented BADLY, to suggest they should not EXISTS lends itself to rape culture. It silences the voices of victims. Its representation denied. Don’t talk about it, don’t even suggest it, because rape is bad.

It’s an action that happens to people. It’s a crime in civilized society. It’s a physical and psychological trauma that has always been. It happens daily, in fact. Though epic the musical is a source of entertainment for you, it doesnt exist solely for that purpose.

When Homer included it within his original oral story, he did so as a storyteller trying to get his audience to philosophize, not simply have fun.

I think we’ve come to some abysmal conclusion that men can’t write about these topics when we have historical evidence of at least one man knowing what the hell he’s talking about. And Jorge has done a phenomenal job even when he hadn’t depicted blatantly.

If you’re uncomfortable to the point of not wanting to see it at all, that is entirely on you, art and creative works allow us to explore these topics safely. Whether it’s from the POV of the assailant or one of the victims commenting on it, fiction is one of the only places we can talk about it and learn about ourselves in a way it doesn’t harm real people.

I don’t even want to BEGIN discussing all the losers who are still harassing Antinous fans or people who genuinely enjoy his song despite/BECAUSE of the subject matter. Its purpose in the story matters more than you policing how it’s presented and how it’s consumed. No amount of people enjoying themselves will take away the foundational POINT of the character and song. It’s perfect the way it is.

Like with the chaos that calypso discourse wrought, you cannot control how people treat a NOT REAL CHARACTER or the songs they sing - if it bothers you that one type of fictional villian is treated one way or another, it is on you to find likeminded people instead of going into others faces and pretending to be a self-righteous prick. You can throw whatever buzzwords you want, the CONTEXT these characters live in has nothing to do with how others want to play with them. If you don’t understand the difference between the two instances, fandom is certainly not for you and will not be changed to suit your sensibilities.

To end this post, I want to thank those who further asked me questions and bounced ideas off with me, and wow, what a phenomenal ending to a grandiose musical. I hope I can see it live, animated, streamed, developed into a game etc whatever form it takes now that the concept albums are published

Thank you all for engaging w my work💖

[loredrinker]

Could Solas Kill Inky in Place of Varric?

I saw a poll making the rounds days ago asking the age-old question: could Solas have killed the Inquisitor if they, rather than Varric, had approached him during the ritual? I voted no - and now I’m driven to explain why.

I’m not claiming any kind of authority here. Fandom discourse can be sensitive (especially around headcanons), so let’s just agree this is one interpretation among many. And no, this isn’t denial or wishful thinking (though I’m sure some will roll their eyes). I’ve tried to keep this grounded in what the games present and build a case based on narrative structure, context and character logic.

I’m also not saying Solas couldn’t ever harm the Inquisitor. Under the right conditions, it’s possible. But the question is would he have done so in that moment - at the ritual site, in Varric’s place? And for me, the answer is no. Based on where Solas is emotionally and narratively at that point, I don’t believe that outcome fits. 

This post focuses on a Friend and Romanced Inquisitor - those the story frames as emotionally significant to Solas. (I’ll address the low-approval path at the end.)

For this, I want to start with the progression of Solas’ relationship with the Inquisitor as shaped by the events of the games and supporting material. (And of course, the prerequisite disclaimer: these are just my thoughts and interpretations.)

Apologies, it's a bit long.

Emotional Bonds: Solas’ Relationship with the Inquisitor

In Inquisition, Trespasser and Veilguard, we see Solas emotionally compromised by his bond with the Inquisitor - whether friend or lover - through a series of consistent narrative beats.

With a high-approval friend Inquisitor, the connection is built on deep respect. Solas says, “You show a wisdom I have not seen since… since my deepest journeys into the ancient memories of the Fade,” and adds, “It means that I respect you deeply, Inquisitor.” That word - deeply - is important. Solas doesn’t offer praise lightly, and considering what we know of his guarded nature and history, that line should be read as significant.

After Trespasser, he refers to revealing his plans as a “moment of weakness” (The Dread Wolf Take You), yet chooses to confess anyway because part of him wants the Inquisitor to know. When he meets with Charter, it's because he's learned the Inquisition is involved and knowingly risks exposure by appearing in person. And his message: "Tell the Inquisitor I’m sorry" in a faltering voice further underscores that the Inquisitor has a sort of hold on him.

He admits to Rook that during his rebellion, it took him centuries to build bonds with others - but within the Inquisition, he formed bonds within a year. This is yet another beat that tells us that what happened during the Inquisition was exceptional to Solas - it had immediacy, intimacy, and impact.

Strong evidence of the unique role of the Inquisitor comes from the romance path. Solas prepares to reveal everything but retreats in fear. Yet even after ending the relationship, the connection lingers through multiple narrative beats: dream visits, refers to never forgetting her, his letter, cherishing their time more than his victories. The Crestwood scene is most telling: “You are unique... I never expected to find someone who could draw my attention from the Fade. You have become important to me, more important than I could have imagined.” For Solas, the Fade is his sanctuary - where he finds clarity, control, and truth. That a romanced Inquisitor could pull his focus from it is the narrative explicitly telling the player they disorient him. Their emotional gravity is strong enough to draw him away from the only place he’s ever truly longed for. That’s why he runs. So when players ask whether he would have reacted the same way to a romanced Inquisitor at the ritual site as he did to Varric, I feel that dialogue reveals a lot. If they could pull his attention away from the Fade, then it stands to reason they could break his focus mid-ritual. Their appearance could have destabilized him again, just as it did before.

But perhaps what I find to be one of the most compelling pieces is what Veilguard itself tells the player: “The Dread Wolf could not foresee what it would mean to fall in love.” Note the use “the Dread Wolf” here - not Solas. The Dread Wolf is the myth, the feared manipulator. He is supposed to be above mortal emotion, detached and resolute. And yet, the Dread Wolf - not the man beneath the name - is the one undone by love. (How interesting the cut dialogue from Morrigan aligns with this: “And so the Dread Wolf is stopped by, of all things, love.”)

Solas’s Actions Toward Varric Were Not Premeditated 

When Varric approaches Solas at the ritual, Solas doesn’t strike him. He disables Bianca, which Varric has pointed at him - choosing non-lethal intervention - and turns back to his ritual. He speaks to Varric, is composed, focused. There’s no bloodlust or intent to kill. It’s only after Rook topples the statue and Varric lunges at him that Solas stabs him. It’s fast, instinctive, defensive - his control breaking in the middle of a complex, high-stakes spell. And while it’s clear Solas was prepared to incapacitate Varric if necessary, I don’t believe his intention was to kill him (if he truly wanted a fatal outcome for Varric, he would have turned him to stone). I interpret his expression afterward as much: he tilts his head down, his eyes/face fall. This wasn’t premeditated or cold-blooded - it was a response to immediate, physical interference in a moment where precision and focus were everything. Unfortunately, his aim was fatal.

The Inquisitor Would Not Approach the Way Varric Did 

Okay, maybe this part is more subjective, I can admit that - but do many players believe their Friend/Lover Inquisitor would have charged Solas the way Varric did? The Inquisitor is not Varric. Across the games and extended media, they’re portrayed as strategic, influential, and focused on the long game (as I write about here). Varric made an impulsive choice - physically lunging at Solas in the middle of an intense, years-in-the-making ritual. His reaction triggered a defensive response. That’s who Varric is: brave, loyal, emotional - but not really all that strategic. 

By contrast, a friend/lover Inquisitor would most likely approach differently. Look at the atonement ending in Veilguard: they approach slowly, hands out, knowing exactly how dangerous the situation is, yet still choosing to reach him emotionally, rather than physically. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that the same Inquisitor, placed at the ritual site, would do the same? 

And really, we only have one canonical example of an Inquisitor confronting Solas directly: Trespasser. Just the two of them. And even when the Inquisitor is angry or feeling betrayed - not even a low-approval one is harmed. What that shows me is simple: when the Inquisitor is the one standing in front of him, Solas responds differently.

Solas Had Already Changed His Strategy Since Trespasser 

By the time of Veilguard, Solas is no longer fully committed to the most absolute, destructive version of his plan as originally told to the Inquisitor. In The Missing, he tells Varric in a note that “what must be done, will be done cautiously, and I will limit the damage as best I can,” At the ritual site, he again tells Varric that he has taken precautions to minimize the damage, In the Fade prison, he confirms to Rook that he had a host of spirits ready to help minimize loss of life. And while some players may dismiss this as manipulation or self-delusion, it’s worth noting that Emmrich affirms the spirits still think highly of Solas and continue to support him - suggesting he hasn’t lost their trust. Taken together, these are not throwaway lines. They form a consistent pattern.

This isn’t about excusing Solas - it’s about acknowledging the material the game presents. Across multiple sources, the narrative signals that Solas’ internal direction has shifted. He’s no longer blindly pursuing a path of total destruction. Since Trespasser, he’s made a conscious decision (however flawed) to try to control the outcome - to do less harm. Whether or not he’s lying to himself is a valid question, but the story shows that he believes he’s acting with restraint. That belief defines the version of Solas we meet at the ritual site: conflicted, calculating, and trying - however imperfectly - not to repeat past catastrophes.

The Killing of Felassan Is Not a Useful Comparison 

Some players point to Felassan’s death as precedent for the idea that Solas could kill the Inquisitor - but in my view, the circumstances are entirely different. At the assumed time of Felassan’s death, Solas is either still in Uthenera or has recently awakened from it into a world made tranquil by the Veil. He was still reeling from Mythal’s murder and the consequences of his own actions. His psychological and emotional state was unstable to say the least, shaped by disorientation, grief, and urgency. Felassan, by contrast, had centuries to adapt to this changed world, to mourn Mythal, and to forge new connections. Solas had not.

If we look at Solas’s perspective, Felassan didn’t just disagree - he disobeyed a direct order at a critical time, likely seen as a betrayal not only of Solas’ plan, but also of Mythal’s memory. I also don’t believe Felassan’s death was premeditated, it fits a pattern of how Solas reacts when he’s desperate and his control is slipping. (And don't take this as me agreeing with Solas, I'm simply attempting to provide context.)

I think it's worth noting that Felassan’s death may have changed Solas. One of the regrets Rook confronts in the Crossroads is The Betrayal of Felassan, suggesting the moment haunts Solas. It was a personal failure that may have contributed to the caution and restraint we see from him later.

The Flemeth/Mythal Scene 

Some players also cite the end of Inquisition - when Solas absorbs Mythal’s fragment from Flemeth - as proof that he’d kill the Inquisitor, because he kills Mythal. But that reading feels overly simplistic and overlooks what the scene actually depicts, both in Inquisition and its altered version in Veilguard. And maybe this is where I’ll get the most eye rolls, but here it is: Flemeth is not Mythal - she carries only a fragment of her. And in both versions, the visual and narrative cues strongly suggest she anticipated this outcome.

Yes, it does seem cold that Solas has to kill Flemeth to gain Mythal’s power - taking the life of this powerful woman who has influenced and shaped Thedas. But that’s precisely what makes her lack of resistance so fascinating. She doesn’t fight or flee. She reaches out to Solas, touches his face, and calls him “old friend.” So I have to ask - why? If Flemeth or Mythal truly objected, would someone of Flemeth’s immense power (especially when Solas is still regaining his strength) have allowed it? The most reasonable answer is that she didn’t make this decision alone. As the vessel of Mythal’s fragment, it’s entirely plausible that Mythal’s will/memories/essence - her understanding of what must happen - guided the moment. That doesn’t make it easy, or even ethically clean, but it reframes the act as one of grim necessity, not aggression as it wasn’t positioned as theft, but a sorrowful transfer of power.

And we see this tension captured in a single line of dialogue from Mythal: “While the prison is important, it is not the only goal you seek.” She doesn’t reject Solas’ reasoning - she acknowledges the prison’s importance, and by extension, his need for power to do it. But she also makes sure to take this moment to challenge him. She allows the transfer, as she calls him out about why he wants it. Again, Flemeth’s death doesn’t serve as precedent for Solas using violence against the Inquisitor.

The Atonement Ending Reaffirms the Inquisitor’s Unique Emotional Bond

By placing the Inquisitor alongside Mythal in Solas’s path to atonement at the end of Veilguard, it felts like the writers made a deliberate narrative choice. Mythal - the immortal who shaped Solas and his ideology - and the Inquisitor - the mortal who affected his heart - stand together because both are essential to who he’s become. This pairing is symbolic in my eyes as the Inquisitor is framed as Mythal’s equal in emotional and narrative influence over Solas’s fate. They speak before and after her, effectively bookending the moment that changes everything.

A character granted that level of symbolic and emotional influence in Solas’ arc is not someone I feel Solas would plausibly kill at the ritual site.  

Conclusion 

All of this has been my attempt to lay the groundwork - to trace the story’s emotional and narrative architecture - behind why I believe Solas couldn’t have killed the Inquisitor at the ritual site at the beginning of Veilguard. Could he hurt them later, in a moment of desperation or collapse? Yes, there is the possibility, but I don't think intentionally, likely through an accident scenario. But in that moment at the ritual site? I don’t believe he’s in that place yet.

And there’s also this: Solas never kills Rook. Even when he manipulates them in the Fade and tries to use them to take his place, he doesn't physically harm them. At the end, he tells Rook he doesn’t want to fight them and only attacks when Rook strikes first. So to suggest he would kill a high-approval/love Inquisitor - someone he has a deeper, longer, and more emotionally complex bond with - while sparing Rook doesn’t hold up, narratively or thematically in my mind.

Call it delusional or coping - but nothing I’ve presented here is headcanon (if anyone feels it is, please point it out, happy to expand!). I’ve done my best to stay rooted in the material the games and extended lore provide. And as always, I’m open to counterpoints, things I've not considered and happy to keep the conversation going!

..........

Low Approval Inquisitor

Ok so what about a low-approval Inquisitor? The one who rarely brought Solas into the field, frequently antagonized him, or made decisions he fundamentally disagreed with? That doesn’t mean they were a bad leader necessarily. In fact, it’s entirely possible this Inquisitor maintained high approval with other companions and made principled choices. But from Solas’ perspective, that relationship never deepened into an emotional relationship. In Veilguard, he remarks that such an Inquisitor was "useful" - a cold assessment - before shifting focus to bonds that mattered to him, like his friendship with Cole.

Without shared understanding or personal rapport, this Inquisitor might register to Solas as someone capable of interfering, but not capable of reaching him. If they had approached him at the ritual in a moment of volatility - the outcome could have been very different. I can’t speak broadly, as I’ve only played a low-approval Inquisitor once, and even then it was more of an across-the-board low approval run. But I do think it’s more plausible that this Inquisitor would have been at far greater risk of sharing Varric’s fate.

That said, there’s a counterpoint worth considering. By the time of Veilguard, Solas has made efforts to minimize harm - he even helps to stop the Qunari invasion in Trespasser to preserve some peace in Thedas till the veil comes down. In that light, killing the Inquisitor might risk triggering unrest, something he seemed to want to avoid until his ritual. Whether that restraint would hold in the heat of the ritual is debatable - but it’s a possibility. I’d love to hear other perspectives on this as I know I'll think on this one further.

[stromblessed]

jayvik shippers need to understand that non-jayvik shippers are annoyed with you not because of not shipping jayvik, but because there is no escaping you.

you clog every tag on every social media platform. want to look at caitvi? jayvik posts tagged as caitvi for some reason. want to look at viktor posts? jayvik. jayce posts? jayvik. want to look at mel posts? jayvik. anyone talking about mel and viktor in the same sentence is obviously secretly talking about jayvik. (and by the way here's why every mel scene is secretly about jayvik and every viktor scene is secretly about how all he thinks about is jayce and why mel is inferior and jayce was a good boy and was right all along). you dominate the discourse and don't give room for criticism of jayce or viktor's writing and don't tolerate other interpretations. every theme in the show was about jayvik all along.

on my main blog, i write fic and make arcane posts - not complaining, staying in my lane, making my own content for me and my friends - and my tags, comments, and replies are full of people talking about jayvik and asking about jayvik when the ship is not tagged or present in my posts or fics, and jayce usually isn't even tagged because i just don't have fun with him as a character right now, and all people want to talk about or comment on is him or jayvik. so here i am, venting on my sideblog

this is a curse i specifically bear and cannot escape because as a fan of the writing of these aforementioned characters SEPARATELY, any and every algorithm is gonna shovel piles of jayvik posts 10 feet deep right up against my front door, and everyone on tumblr is "tagging for visibility" or whatever so there's no escaping it here either. blocking and muting does not help because either jayvik isn't always tagged, or jayvik is tagged at random and i end up hiding swathes of posts i actually do want to see. and there is also the fact that i WOULD be into jayvik because i do think it's fun, i WOULD have more fun discussing jayce specifically as a character who i think is a very fun hot mess, if social media wasn't making me despise both with a burning passion right now, which sucks

the only haven is Ao3 because people are still slightly sane when tagging their fics - at least with the relationship tags. jayvik shippers you do need to stop tagging mel though along with any other character who doesn't affect the plot of your story and i am dead serious

this is a vent post but i am also declaring - the reason why people are frustrated and annoyed at jayvik at large, as a concept, even if you yourself are a chill shipper and you don't see why we all can't just get along, is because the collective has poisoned the well and it's not fun for other people to be in the same space as you right now. there are a lot of you - be glad of that and happy, not every fandom let alone ship gets this large and energetic a following - but don't be surprised that people like me are gonna be mad because. it is irritating. and you're everywhere. and unfortunately there's nothing that any one person can do about it. it is an environmental thing and you just. need to come to terms and be aware, idk

[inkpotsprite]

Okay, so, I've noticed a lot of discourse between canon and fanon for the DC fandom (particularly the Batfam) and I agree with elements of both sides, disagree with some too, and understand but don't necessarily agree with certain things.

Like Romani Dick Grayson for instance. I agree that the canon portrayal of it was utterly appalling, mostly because it was written by someone (Devin Grayson, if I'm remembering correctly) with clear biases who had done very little research, as what was written was almost completely based on harmful stereotypes.

As someone who's not white (or straight), I know what it's like to be misrepresented in media like this, how confusing and hurtful it can be. So what I'm writing next isn't coming from a privileged place of 'suck it up and stop being a snowflake.' It's just my perspective which may be flawed and I'm open to being corrected if I'm missing anything.

Also, disclaimer, while I'm not white, I'm also not Romani, so I'm definitely not an authority on any of this.

So, let's get started:

A lot of people say that fanon shouldn't make works with Romani Dick Grayson due to it's origins. While I understand that, I also disagree.

Because most works I've read where Dick is Romani tend to be well researched and coming from a place of love and respect, unlike canon. They also do what they can to avoid falling into tired tropes or harmful stereotypes, again, unlike canon.

Of course, any work where the person who's creating it isn't the race/ethnicity that they're representing may not be perfect, because respect and understanding don't always go hand in hand. But I think that so long as they're willing to listen to constructive criticism on the issue from those with the perspective they lack, then it shouldn't be too much of an issue?

If fanon were doing the same thing as canon did with this representation, then I'd be against it. But instead, they're trying to make something good out of canon's mess. Though I could be missing something so please feel free to comment or message me if I am.

To me, fanon presenting Dick's Romani heritage with the love and respect the original author should have is similar to when fanon explores the sexual assault storylines that occurred in DC with the gravity and care the original writers failed to.

Now, in cases where they write Cass as a glorified prop, Duke as a generic background character, or Damian as a feral creature in need of "domestication," I totally get where people are coming from with wanting to shut that down. It's lazy, harmful, racist and gross as hell. I don't fuck with any of that.

But with Romani Dick I don't see (again I could be missing something so please tell me) many, if any, harmful stereotypes in the majority of fanon works.

Which is why I think Romani Dick Grayson can be a good thing when in the right hands. But, as someone who's not Romani it's hardly my place to say what the right hands are, this is just me saying what I've seen, if I'm wrong, then that truly is my bad and I apologise in advance.

[sairenharia]

Why Chloe Deserved A Miraculous

Its a thought that's been stewing in my head and the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was true. Chloe was entitled to a Miraculous.

From a Doylist Perspective.

When there is conversations of if Chloe was entitled to a Miraculous is always presented from a Watsonian perspective. For those who don't know, Watsonian means the perspective of someone inside the story. A character. Doylist is the perspective of those in the real world. The author and audience.

The problem I see from fandom discourse is how often people don't actually consider the tools in a story. Often they take a Watsonian perspective, talk about what is right and sensible and should be how things work if this was a real situation. But the thing about stories is they have messages. They have tools and metaphors and themes to help display these messages. Sure, shows are about entertainment, but a story always has some kind of point. It may not be a moral lesson, it may not be some grand philosophy, but any story worth telling says SOMETHING. It takes a stance. The Fast and the Furious is all about doing cool stunts with cars, but it also has a message of doing things for family because if you just want to see cool car stunts, just go watch cool car stunts, but no, people want at least a little humanity in the car stunts, so there is a message of family. Sharing is caring, do your best, the heat death of the universe comes for us all, the messages can be vast, but there's some point of emotional reality to invest us in this specific media.

If we talk about Chloe and the Miraculous from a Watsonian perspective, no, she is not entitled to a Miraculous. No one is entitled to an object of power. Not even Marinette nor Adrien are entitled to their Miraculous.

But superpowers aren't real. Superpowers have always been a tool to emphasize a point. The stories of superman only focused on his powers are boring, but when you tell stories of how he tries to fit into a world that is not made for him, stories of how much he loves this world despite how easy it could be to be cruel, it gets interesting. The reason superhero comics started is there was a want to show that there can be incredibly powerful people who choose to be good. To choose to make the world a better place.

Superpowers made just to be cool and show off are boring. There is only so much you can watch a fight with a cool power before it gets dull and repetitive. But you relate the powers, the struggles of using the powers, to the person wielding them, the story has a lot more staying power. The powers say something about the person, and is part of their development.

And honestly, Miraculous is a good case for why this is important.

Because good god, most of the superhero team is boring.

And I don't just mean because they're good people, so there's no spice, though that's also true, but because the powers aren't really used to emphasize anything about the character. Max has portals. Why? His mom wants to be an astronaut, but we never really hear about Max wanting to travel. Doorman is a better example of a portal hero because he loves going to other places and learning about them.

Now portals are good for a tactician....except Max is never the tactician despite the fact we know he's brilliant and is good at video games. He just does as he's told by Ladybug for where he should put his portals. Its so close, but its not utilized.

And that is the case for most of the superheroes. Like the bones are there, but nothing is properly utilized. Sabrina is definitely a dog, good at getting things, and is in fact well practiced in recognizing what things may or may not be important. But we've never actually gotten to focus on her BEING a superhero, she only had a small cameo with the power, basically. Same with Ivan, really. They're pretty perfect for their powers and it suits their personalities, but none of it is EXPLORED. And that's the case with most of the heroes.

Juleka and Rose were pretty good at using the Miraculous to develop more of someone's character and emphasize a strength about another in turn. These are good hero episodes because we learned more about them and their journey.

Kagami's first episode with the dragon showed off more of her, such as she could be reckless, which is new information, but we learn a lot about her without it, and nothing new beyond that.

Luka could have actually been incredibly good because the snake both emphasizes a big part of him, and something he needs to work on. Luka is someone who steps back and watches. He observes. However, he has a problem where he often is too willing to step back. But with the snake needs someone who can observe AND act. So its a Miraculous that uses an important part of his personality, but could have also helped him grow.

And the rest are just...nothing.

There is a little for Nino and Alya. Nino is definitely more bold about defending his friends than he was at first, and Alya learns to be better about secrets, but these are the primary secondary heroes. We should have seen a ton of impact and development due to them having the Miraculous.

Here is the stance Miraculous should be taking in their story.

The desperation of those trapped and the power of being given good options.

Most of the Akumas are people who are trapped. They feel powerless. They are desperate to escape their problem and feel like they have no proper recourse with things are they are. How accurate this is varies, but this is how they feel in the moment, and that is what Gabriel preys on. These people agree to the deal because they don't feel like they will be helped any other way.

Ladybug and Chat Noir are meant to bring hope to those who felt hopeless and chose a terrible way to try and escape. They are support. They are a hand people desperately need.

So by that same token, the Miraculous should be a good way for people who feel trapped to be given an option, OR give those people the ability to extend their own hands to help others.

While it doesn't have to every time, it should often be the case those who are given a Miraculous; A, dealing with a huge problem and the Miraculous helps them solve that problem, regardless to the Akuma being related. Like if Juleka was working on trying to speak up even if the Akuma wasn't her parents and the Tiger still helped her do that. B, they are related to the Akuma and why they feel trapped, so they are working through their own issues with the important person. Like Rose when Juleka felt guilty. Or C, the person wants to find a way to help in general and kind of go how it went with Nino becoming Carapace. Where they were trying to be that hand a person needed, and earn the Miraculous, and that helps them on their journey to provide more support and help.

But its often it is someone they know, but them being the hero doesn't REALLY matter. Penalteam, the people were just there, these specific people didn't matter. Why did Zoe need to be Vesperia? Anyone could have taunted Chloe and she got turned into a banana real fast, her being the Bee didn't really bring a lot, to the bee, to her, or even to Chloe, and then she proceeded to just not bring much as the Bee, to the story, or herself.

Now part of this problem is that Marinette is not allowed to not learn a lesson, and has to be the one to save the day. These heroes do have skills. They have things they could be good at. But often....the plan is just what Marinette says. These heroes are not allowed to have agency.

They can't make decisions on their own.

Often times, they're just bodies being told to do the power without the ability to make the decision how and when. Sometimes they let the heroes do things and make decisions, but nine times out of ten, its Marinette who says who does what and when and her mental health is degrading because of it.

The Akumas are stories that always at least tell us something about the person because we see what problems hit them hard. There is something to learn, a bit of conflict to develop from.

The Miraculous should be following that trend, but in a positive way, but...doesn't.

All that being said.

Chloe was entitled to the Miraculous.

Because here is the stance Miraculous takes.

Someone is trapped in a situation and chooses to lash out violently and while that violence can not be permitted to continue, the heroes offer their support so the victim can feel like they have another option.

This is the story of Miraculous crystalized. People who feel alone and helpless are easily convinced to hurt others until someone is willing to help them despite this harm.

Chloe is the story of Miraculous.

Akumas are a metaphor.

And Chloe is the reality.

A child who is alone. Who feels trapped in her situation. Who doesn't know what else to do. So she does the only thing she knows how. She lashes out. She hurts people. She keeps them distant because then it doesn't hurt as much when they leave, or when they treat her like dirt.

Chloe is an Akuma personified, but her problems are brief moments. They're not a bad day that someone took advantage of. They are ever present and continuous and more over, reinforced to continue.

Chloe knows being a brat gets her what she wants from her father and was never taught to not be like that. Because he didn't discipline her, because her mother acted like that, because all adults around her was staff. Making demands is what she was TAUGHT and learned, through observation and guidance.

A behavior she continued to do with kids, and she found out teachers responded to the same threats and was never properly stopped. Other kids, reasonably, didn't want to deal with her, or submitted to her like Sabrina.

Chloe was not never taught how to be good. She was, in fact, very much taught to NOT be good. Her parents both set a terrible example. Her father is a corrupt politician. He may spoil her, but he we know he bribes and blackmails people, plus, you know, abandoned his daughter and technically kidnapped Zoe. This is not a paragon of a man. Then there was her mother. But she had a choice, listen to the man who had to weasel and cheat and play back handed games to get what he wanted, or the woman who got anything and everything she wanted...of course she would try to be the woman who seemed to get everything her way.

Because if her mother got everything she wanted, if Chloe was like her, maybe she could get everything SHE wanted.

Except it wasn't working.

But Chloe wasn't taught it was because she was cruel. She just started to believe she wasn't GOOD ENOUGH.

Maybe if she was as great as her mother, it would work.

By the time she would be old enough to recognize that wasn't how the world worked...well, by then, most of her peers hated her.

And here is something I think goes under the radar about Zoe.

Zoe knows how to act like Chloe. Audrey didn't blink at it. Zoe defaulted to the same behavior as Chloe. Zoe said she put on an act and she was tired of it.

Zoe WAS CHLOE.

And we know what happened with Zoe. Zoe stopped acting like Chloe. And then she got bullied. People were mean and cruel and put cockroaches in her locker and she only had one friend.

I'm sure that's why Zoe moved to Paris. Zoe went to her mom because she wanted a clean slate. She wanted the bullying to stop.

Even then, she struggled to stop. She defaulted to her habit, and we see that she CONTINUED the act around the hotel for some weeks after, because it was a hard habit to break.

But then...

Zoe got support. A hand was held out to her. Marinette gave her a chance, and so did everyone else, and Zoe took it because she wanted to be herself and she wanted to stop being cruel. Of course she's nice. She was given the space to be so.

Chloe is never given that support.

Chloe doesn't know how to be kind. She doesn't know how to be nice.

But the greatest tragedy is Chloe does know how to be GOOD.

Out of all the heroes, besides Chat, to a lesser degree Alya, and Alix and Luka by nature of their Miraculous, Chloe shows the most agency as a superhero. All the other heroes have their hands held by Ladybug. She tells them what to do, to an overly specific degree, and they are just bodies to use a tool. Chloe? Chloe acts on her own. To good and bad effect. Discounting the whole Queen Wasp break down, just when Chloe is actually acting as a superhero, she doesn't wait for Ladybug to tell her everything all the time. She calls out to her father, which was a mistake, but then there is every other time she's Queen Bee...

And she's fantastic at it.

Miraculer, she almost had Mayura's Miraculous.

Star Train, she gets people away from the Akuma.

In Bakerix, she's the last the to leave the train car.

In Ladybug, she's defending Sabrina.

In Style Queen, played Style Queen in an effort to find a way to save Adrien.

In Heroes Day, she is a great teammate. Keep in mind, everyone on the team knows who Chloe is. Ladybug was desperate and doesn't fully trust Chloe as a general rule. Rena Rouge and Carapace definitely don't trust her at all. Chat Noir is the only one who believes in Chloe as a person.

And yet, throughout the entire fight, Chloe is keeping up and picking up the slack with everyone else. She fights, she keeps civilians from being hurt, her synergy is on fire despite the lack of trust. When Rena Rouge and Carapace go down, she is quick to try and protect them and even after two EXTREMELY dangerous Akuma show up by way of her parents, who are both gunning for her real hard, she holds her own for a while and even then, she had to be mind controlled to stop and to feel negative emotions. It took FOUR AKUMAS gunning for her specifically to corrupt her, akums who are made to mess her up mentally to boot. When they confront Gabriel at the end, she prepares venom without being asked, to have a back up for taking him down. She makes decisions and when she was trusted to act as a hero, they are largely good ones.

And she never once complained about the mental hardship of what she went through. Because that's the thing, all her times as Queen Bee are super intense. They are her loved ones she's fighting, they are incredibly powerful Akumas. She fought a frickin' army.

And everyone...

Just insults her.

She risked her life for people and no one cared.

She fought her family and no one cared.

Chloe doesn't know how to be nice. Nor kind. But she was so good. And while the next day, people appreciated her, it was only a day.

And the tragedy is Chloe didn't immediately go back to being a bully. After Despair Bear, Chloe's bullying habits took an extreme nose dive. We only see her being unreasonably cruel a few times. After Maledikator, the only time is when she bullies Aurore and when she teamed up with Marinette, but also Marinette was with her and they were both doing it for fear of losing Adrien reasons. Not reasonable, but also not just to be cruel and honestly, her plan was fairly benign. She wanted Kagami to leave, not even humiliate her. And even Aurore is because Chloe was reaching the point she did in Miraculer where she was doubting Ladybug's trust in her and as she is want to do, she lashed out.

Most of the time when we see Chloe, what we see is her bragging about being Queen Bee. Which, sure, isn't a great thing...

But better a braggart than a bully. And when things go wrong, she tries to use her status to help reassure and guide people, which is actually a pretty good idea. Akumas are attracted to negative emotions. If she can reassure them, then less likely of them getting akumatized. It may be bragging, but it could help.

Chloe may not have been picture perfect nice, but we literally have an entire classroom full of perfectly nice people. She may not be humble, but bragging is not a damnable offense. But Chloe was legitimately trying to be a better person. She put herself in between others and danger. She had faith and belief that there were solutions. Even without the Miraculous, she tried to help people.

She may have wanted appreciate and gratitude for it, but what's even sadder is she didn't require it.

Chloe believed in Ladybug for a long time. She believed Ladybug would trust her again. She believed she could be given a Miraculous again, and all on her own, ALL ON HER OWN, she was trying to be a better person.

Its actually amazing how good Chloe was being despite the fact no one was helping her.

Because that is the thing.

Zoe got support and help.

Chloe didn't.

Every. Single. Time. Chloe tried to do something different, something not cruel, she is rejected. She tries to join the art club and she's mocked out of it. She tries to be class representative, a job no one else wanted for years, and she loses it as soon as someone did challenge her. She auditions, legitimately, for a music video, with eight years of practice, and she loses it because she isn't nice enough.

She stops bullying, tries to be a reassuring presence, and she is treated with suspicion and derision.

And still.

And STILL.

That isn't what breaks her.

What breaks her is the realization the only time where her efforts were appreciated was taken away. And even then, she holds onto the pieces. Holds onto hope that maybe she would be given a new chance.

Her parents are in danger. The reason she was given she couldn't be a hero is because she and her loved ones would be in danger.

Except her loved ones were in danger.

She was in danger.

Not having a Miraculous didn't change anything. It didn't keep them safe, it didn't keep her safe.

And its only then, after months of no one believing in her for more than two days, of no one holding out their hand, helping her, supporting her, believing her, with the one person she thought DID believe in her proved that she didn't believe in her, and couldn't even give her the safety that not having a Miraculous was supposed to bring.

For months, Chloe only thought Ladybug believed she could be good.

Adrien wanted her to be less cruel, but Chloe knew her being good wasn't necessary for him.

Nor was it for Sabrina.

But Ladybug?

Ladybug needed her to be good to believe in her, and she thought Ladybug did.

Chloe was able to largely bite back her desires to lash out at people based purely on the fact one person, ONE SINGULAR PERSON, needed her to be good, and believed in her ability to be so. It got her derision. It got her suspicion. It got people comparing her to villains. It got her dismissal. But she still tried. She still believed.

A person who didn't really believe in Chloe very much.

And there is also the Watsonian argument that Marinette doesn't owe it to Chloe to help her improve AND THIS IS INCREDIBLY VALID and honestly, in a perfect world, it would be great if it was Adrien who helped Chloe improve.

Or you know, Zoe. Someone who has a clean slate with Chloe and understands where she's coming from and could help her.

But no, this is the Marinette Has To Solve Everything Show.

So from a Doylist view, it IS Marinette who has to help Chloe, but also the Watsonian problem could be helped if it was CLEARLY ESTABLISHED that Marinette knows she doesn't HAVE to help Chloe, and people aren't pressuring her to do so (coughBustiercough) because that is a bad message...

But Marinette can CHOOSE to help her and make that clear.

Because Marinette has seen a lot of Chloe and could understand that she really does just need a little more help. That Chloe needed just a bit more support and help. And, you know, didn't actively encourage Chloe to please her abuser.

But we're going from the Doylist view and we can solve the Marinette being the one to help Chloe problem by not having it be Marinette, but LADYBUG.

And this?

This is why I say Chloe was entitled to a Miraculous.

Because Chloe is the reality of the stance of the show, and so helping her problem with the metaphors would go a long way.

You see, Chloe doesn't know Ladybug is Marinette. And Marinette knows being Ladybug means being the bigger person. Ladybug believes in people. Ladybug helps everyone she can. Its not about the victim helping their bully, its the superhero choosing to help someone who NEEDS HELP.

Chloe is stuck in her situation. Her mother will always be emotionally abusive. Her father will always be an enabler. She can try to change, but no one will BELIEVE in her change. She will be derided and mocked and treated poorly because no one is willing to give her the chance to grow, and they certainly won't help.

Frankly, its a miracle that Chloe's Akumas are so merciful.

Because Banana Queen is the most destructive of Chloe's Akuma forms. Most of Chloe's Akuma forms don't care about HURTING people. They care about WINNING. She either wants to win or for people to just listen to her.

But give Chloe the Bee Miraculous, and suddenly things change.

Chloe feels like she has OPTIONS as Queen Bee. She doesn't feel she has to meet her mother's expectations as much if she's Queen Bee. She has people who trust and depend on her. At least right after she saves people, she gets a little praise, a little belief.

And people may say being a hero for glory and attention is a bad thing, but the thing is, Chloe's need for glory and attention is about being ACKNOWLEDGED. As feeling like people value and care about her. This is a BASIC HUMAN NEED and she doesn't know another way to get it. Its not like she's demanding physical things for her heroics.

She just wants to be appreciated.

By giving Chloe a Miraculous, she is given the tools to try and be good. She is given an escape from her situation. She is given SUPPORT in her efforts because the other heroes have to support her.

And over time...

That trust will grow.

Because what Chloe doesn't know, all her classmates are the other heroes.

And suddenly, all her classmates will see her as a different person. They will see what she's like when the chips are down. How much effort she's willing to put in. How seriously she takes the job.

Is she still a braggart? Sure. Is she still rude as hell? Absolutely.

But she will risk it all to help people, without asking for anything in return except a little faith.

Chloe is entitled to a Miraculous.

Because her story without a Miraculous is a story of a little girl who no one wanted to help, who were unwilling to offer her help because she lashed out while trying to survive a situation she couldn't escape, and because it wasn't super charged by a terrorist, she was deemed unworthy of it and instead deserving of isolation and constant emotional abuse.

But with a Miraculous?

Chloe is a girl who, when given a little faith, a little trust, a little help, returned it tenfold. Who puts her all in trying to be the best hero she could be. Is she imperfect? Sure. But she's giving it her all. (And frankly, she's spicy and it makes for entertaining character dynamics. You can have a character be a jerk and good, tsunderes are popular for a reason.) And as she gets more trust, as she gets more help, as she is offered that hand of help over and over again, she would continue to improve.

And as she's given power, she uses that same faith to figure out how to offer her hand to others. To help them. To spare them the same pain she suffered.

Because that is what given to the Akuma victims. They are given a little help, and a little power to break free of their magically abusive mindsets.

To have someone go from the continuing the cycle of abuse to someone who would save other people from that?

That is a real superhero story.

Chloe is undeserving from a Watsonian perspective.

But she's so very deserving from a Doylist perspective.

[randomness-is-my-order]

Do you think if jc had an adult like wwx around him while being a teenager he would've turned out different? I absolutely LOVE your takes, so I am very curious as to what your thoughts on this topic are

i mean, the trivial answer would be: yes. he would be different, in some capacity, in some small way at the very least, granted here that the influence the wei wuxian-like adult would have on jiang cheng would be noteworthy and long lasting to begin with. we kind of see it happen with jin ling who has a caretaker who is sort of like madame yu in the form of jiang cheng (less emotionally abusive) and is spoiled and so, he’s a brat when we are first introduced to him but wei wuxian’s influence on him is pretty noticeable by the end—remembering of course, that the revelations and truth about how his parents actually died also played a role in his change of heart. but the key thing to remember here is that jin ling had the inherent will to change, to do better, to absorb the better behaviours he was being subjected to and mould them into his personality.

i’ve worked with kids of various ages (5-15 years) and i’ll draw from my experience there a bit: teenagers have already (usually) reached a stage where they have developed their self-identity to a large extent. they’re all susceptible to influence and capable of change (this never stops, no matter our age) but they learn more by observing and responding and going through consequences than direct inculcation of values. this might seem obvious, maybe, but the change in jiang cheng would hinge on how much this hypothetical wei wuxian-esque adult figure is involved in his life, how much jiang cheng is willing to learn through this influence, and how deep a connection he shares with this person.

in a way, jiang cheng already did have this influence in the form of wei wuxian himself. though they were peers, alot of the values we see wei wuxian imparting to the next gen—he exposed jiang cheng to in his first life. standing up for what’s right, even if it is difficult. not letting convention impale jc with doubts about his future leadership. to not say things thoughtlessly (something even jiang fengmian tried to teach jc), etc. though, i completely accept that these kinds of teachings are much easier to digest when coming from an adult figure than someone you consider to be your future subordinate.

the most important avenue for me here would be to consider whether this wei wuxian-like adult was able to step in between madame yu’s verbal and emotional abuse directed towards jc. and if we really are being literal about the “wei wuxian” inspired individual, then they would be able to shield jc from that vitriol, which does play a significant part in shaping jc. but the other significant parts are his innate nature, his social standing which would provide him certain privileges and world views regardless and his upbringing up until teenagehood.

honestly, i have considered these sorts of questions in variety of other fandoms. particularly, in the percy jackson fandom, one of the common discourse points is whether percy and luke would flip roles were their upbringings swapped and one of the conclusions of it that i will always stand by is that: a character is not a sum of their backstories, wherein you can replace them block for block and recreate the same character twice. irl, people under the exact same situations react in drastically different ways to their circumstances (the multitudes are present in mdzs itself, in how jc, jyl and wwx respond to madame yu’s abuse). there IS an element of simple innate nature playing a role which makes me believe that jiang cheng’s trajectory with a wei wuxian like adult would not follow jin ling’s because they are different people within.

jiang cheng would be have to be receptive to the more positive influence but he canonically does fixate more on the negatives he is being exposed to and he would have to make a fundamental change to benefit meaningfully from the wei wuxianish figure. he would change, of course, perhaps be more mindful of his words and process his emotions more healthily but i cannot with surety say that it would be a significant change, even though i would hope for it. wei wuxian is a GREAT role model, lol. and teenage jiang cheng was not a lost cause just yet.

that said, this hypothetical adult would not handhold jiang cheng through the way he reacted to the collective tragedies that occured pre and post sunshot campaign. if we say that this influence would make jc act differently in major ways (not be irrationally hostile towards the wens, not lead the genocide, not hold onto his grudges vehemently), are we saying this as a merit to the wei wuxianish adult’s ability to change jc so completely or is it a merit to jc for learning and changing himself passively over the course of his relationship with this person? because if it is the latter, i do not think it would happen—because we then do not have jiang cheng’s character and his characteristics in the equation to begin with. it is just another character entirely sculpted by the values of this wei wuxian like person.

this was an interesting question though, and i may have meandered a bit off the lane but i would actually love to hear your thoughts about this as well! and anyone else’s too, whoever stumbles on this post.

[mikkeneko]

Have been pondering, following the latest round of "But why don't authors LIKE it when we leave unsolicited concrit on their stuff? :|a Don't they want to IMPROVE?" discourse:

How do fan authors improve? Because it's not, by and large, through concrit. Some authors have never gotten any kind of concrit, and still improve. I've gotten some in the past, and it definitely was not helpful towards improving my growth as an author. Some authors never have a beta, and yet they still improve.

So. If not through a workshop devoted to the process, or a classroom style series of lectures, or a dedicated editor, how do authors improve over time?

I would say, based on my 20+ years of experience and observation, that improvement as a writer comes in three ways: Practice shaped by self-observation, practice shaped by non-critical feedback as positive reinforcement, and observation of other authors.

Fandom has always been a space where people of different ages and skill levels interact. How it works, generally, is that a new author comes into the scene and presents their work. Readers -- some of whom are authors themselves -- will leave feedback praising the parts they like. Writers will then adjust their style on the next piece geared towards eliciting more of the things that readers said they like. However, in a vacuum, they won't necessarily know what to adjust towards, or what new things to try that they aren't already trying.

But at the same time, these young authors are usually (though not always) reading works by more experienced authors in the fandom. They can see, based on popularity stats and feedback left by others, what people like. If they want more of that attention themselves -- or, just generally, if they want to be part of the community -- they will adjust their works to incorporate more of the parts they perceive as successful with the audience.

They will also -- the more they read, and the more they write -- come to internalize an understanding (often, not even a conscious understanding) of the moving parts that go into a story, of what makes the work work. How to pace a scene, a chapter, or a longer work. How the characters talk, and how different characters talk in ways that distinguish their voices. What sort of language works well to describe an action scene, and what is confusing and uncertain. What words are sexy and what words will jar you right out of the mood. They will pick up these tools by observation, and hone them through practice.

The down side of this, of course, is that sometimes the authors they are observing and imitating may have... less than ideal writing habits themselves. Certain tropes, flanderization, headcanons divorced from the original canon, or various other things can become endemic in a fandom due to this -- but also much simpler and more straightforward writing quirks. (The infamous oh is an example of these.) Sometimes things that I won't necessarily say are bad, I will just observe that they are not correct.

And this is how you got an entire generation of fanfic writers using strong endings on verbs that, in modern English, take the weak ending.

[switcheddieweek]

INFORMATION & FAQ

Hello, welcome to paradise the place where you'll have your questions answered!

PROMPTS LIST

Why? WHY? I wanted to complete the set! We have sub Eddie & Dom Eddie week, and I participate in both, but I'd say a great majority of my stories him end up with him—and his partner(s)—as a switch.

What is a Switch? A Switch is someone who enjoys more than one kind of role or dynamic within BDSM play. (Please be aware: this is separate than enjoying the sexual roles of both topping and bottoming. The word you're looking for is Versatile! Topping/bottoming can mean similar things in BDSM, such as a Rope Top or a rope bottom, but that's still not the sexual roles.)

What are the rules here? First of all, this blog is 18+ only. This is a BDSM themed challenge and therefore the whole blog should be considered as for adults only. Other than that, the only thing I ask is that you write about Eddie (and his partner(s) if you'd like) being a switch! You don't necessarily have to write at least two scenes, one where he subs and one where he Doms, but his thoughts and feelings about being a switch should be present. It should be a part of his life experience, or of the POV character's experience of him. Any Eddie pairing is allowed. He can even be by himself, if you want. Any kind of writing and art is allowed. Any prompt is allowed on any day of the week, I just have them for specific days as a guide. You don't have to use the prompts either, though I'm interested to see what people come up with for them. You can combine this with other events. You can post late too, I'll still reblog it. You'll just miss getting added to the masterlist at the end of the event. Posts are due by JUNE 28TH, 11:59:59 AKDT (UTC/GMT-8) to be included! Posts will be reblogged on a queue, first come first serve, and not based on which prompts are on which day! And lastly, anyone being an asshole will be blocked, because I don't want to ruin the experience of everyone else trying to have a fun time here! (This includes top/bottom or Dom/sub discourse. This is not the time, not the place, and I'm so not the person for that.) As you can see, the rules are very lenient with the timing/creative side of things, but this is something I take seriously. With that said, I'm sure there'll be no problems, this fandom has a lot of really good people in it!

How should I format my post? First, if you want me to see it and reblog it, you have to tag me. Otherwise I'll miss it unless you happen to know a very speedy carrier pigeon. Then please include Pairing, Rating, Prompts, and any Content Warning Tags. Other than that you can do what you like! If you don't have a tumblr but want to participate, post on AO3 and send me an ask on here, anon is open. I'll create a post on here with a link to your AO3 work!

Do you have an AO3 collection? Yes! Once I reply to your post with a 🪢 you may add it to the collection (switcheddieweek2025). If you've got more questions, send me an ask!

[yingdu-lover]

Vortex We Took Every Breath to Follow : Shiguang and Their Companionship Through Life and Beyond

Hi, *awkward giggling*

First, a few words from me :

Even though I love engaging in fandom spaces and enjoy ship fanarts, fanfictions etc, till today my heart truly belongs to a very few ships. Shiguang is one of them. As long as one is not blinded by homophobic delusions, I enjoy discussing any kind of interpretation of my OTPs, be it 'Platonic', just friends™, romantic or whatever. But I have a fixed category (which very ironically is not quite fixed if you read the whole discussion) that fulfills my idea of true love.

for me, Love is a dialogic discourse with your existential other.

The terms I used are very loaded terms; 'dialogue' and 'other' come from the Bakhtinian philosophy of ethics, 'discourse' is a Foucauldian term and existentialism has a long postmodern and post-structuralist philosophical tradition. The reason I LOVE Link Click is because of their postmodern lens and the narratives of the characters, not only the protagonists fundamentally question what is the real purpose of life? Why do human bondings matter? The answers reside in the simplest vignette of everyday life. Grief, trauma, hope, memory, reconciliation, remembrance, love, family - these are the central themes of Link Click. Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi's separate existence and their interpersonal dialogue thematically and structurally complements the main ethos of Link Click.

When asked about the nature of Shiguang relationship Director Li Haoling answered : 是生死之交咯! (Shì shēngsǐ zhī jiāo gē! - It's a life and death relationship!)

source :

Fate, mortality, death, remembrance are the building blocks of their relationship as we perceive it.

Now let me talk about something. When I first watched Link Click on September 17th, 2024, the first Intertexual connection I drew was with another text called Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Funnily enough, early in this year I wrote a crossover Hamlet adaptation (and won the second prize in a competition hehe) interweaving a few elements from Godot. Time loop, fragmentation of time and space, panopticon with no exit - all these elements featured in that. I recommend Waiting for Godot to you all, you'll understand why it resonates so much with Link Click.

Now,

Lu Guang is a person who is shown to be a character who has some mysterious powers to manipulate time and space. Even from the very beginning, he has this dominant (and sometimes seemingly monologic that feels problematic to new viewers) voice with which he guides Cheng Xiaoshi through the dives. He is apparently headstrong and has acquired all kinds of praises ™ like hypocrite, selfish (lol) and what not. Again quoting Li Haoling "Lu Guang is a complex and delicate character." But after the release of 'The Eye' and 'The Lull', I think we are pretty sure that Lu Guang has been trapped in a rewind, like a Sisyphus figure. A friend of mine told me the other day, "Superficially, Lu Guang is presented as an archetypal strategist, the one who guides, the one who keeps things in control, but in reality, he has no agency whatsoever." Lu Guang lacks the fundamental agency in life (we all do but we have to accept it one day or other) and that mortifying realisation comes to him with the death of Cheng Xiaoshi. What is unacceptable to him is the most obvious outcome of a mortal life : death. Lu Guang's tragic flaw stems from this unacceptability of Cheng Xiaoshi's death and him attempting to manipulate time, very Sisyphus of him. Till now, we are yet to see Lu Guang's character traits without any reference to Cheng Xiaoshi but this does not reduce his character depth. His denial is actually very delicious ( I almost wrote a paper on this, taking the popular sci-fi trope of time travel as an allegorical and symbolic means of resistance and subversion but anyway, it's not relevant here)

Lu Guang's character makes me fall in love with the song Flash by Gorilla Attack. It is from Lu Guang's character, no one can convince me otherwise.

Just a loop A bored 'n loop Should I do this now 'til the end? Into the story As just an extra You are the reason I live But you don't remember me? Oh, can I be with you?

And

The only thing that I got, just like a little lamp I gotta go in one-way smoke Resist the lifeless scenario Become the person The person I wished for that day The room like a coffin, too bright A groove that I lost faraway Blanket, I need a blanket Not a synthetic one Notice the regret engraved so hard

And the line that keeps coming back as a haunting refrain :

Flash me, flash me Gotta get the power to rewrite I just wanna deny, I just wanna rewrite, yeah

Every time I listen to this song, these lines send a chill down my spine. But Lu Guang's obsession with 'rewrite' echoes with what my professor said to be Hamlet's constant meta-theatrical discomfort with the script, role, play he has been provided with. He does not comply with the playwright's words. Apart from time and death, I think Lu Guang's most wretched enemy is Li Haoling himself. That's why he constantly wants to 'rewrite', but all he has got till now is 'rewind'. Now whether his 'urge to rewrite' will turn into a successful 'write back' is the central play of the plot we are looking up to. What is my personal opinion on the ending?

The ending which is so dryly plausible in our real world is Lu Guang accepting his defeat and carries within him the remembrance of Cheng Xiaoshi.

But my question is, my brother in Buddhism Li Haoling, why the fuck would I watch your Link Click to know that death is the node that can't be changed? Is it not the given fact? It's a cultural text, however modern or postmodern a text might be, it ultimately uses the plot to defamiliarise and convey well known concepts and emotions with a critical engagement. A plot is just a vehicle, a crucial one, to help us have a greater and more nuanced vision of life. Due to non-linear narrative and active subversion of chronotope, complex plot will have plot twists and cliffhangers BUT it still has to perform a crucial, non negotiable role - the arc. If the beginning point and the ending point have the same temperaments, what kind of significance will it even achieve?

If Lu Guang can't write back at the end of Link Click, the structure of the plot will be like this :

1. Exposition, rising action : Cheng Xiaoshi died at the very beginning, Lu Guang is fucked.

2. Climactic stage : shit and shit and complex quantum physics, hallelujah hot villains, 'I am a great writer I can kill any character TeeeHeeeeHeeee', backstories, parallel narratives, foil characters have no relevance and rendered completely meaningless,

3. Falling action and resolution : Cheng Xiaoshi is still dead to the very ending, Lu Guang is still fucked.

No catharsis, not a milimeter of displacement from the beginning point.

What is the fucking point?! From the perspective of a writer and a critical reader, I can say it will be a sheer waste of money, time and potential. I would rather watch... whatever.

The friend I mentioned before told me, " You know why Emma or Chen Bin die? They had to die. Emma had a loving family, she got the job she wanted, she had her hardships but she didn't begin with tragedy. And when tragedy came, she was so not ready to negotiate the problem and considered self-annihilation as her first choice. She actively erased the possibility of dialogue with herself. If Emma were an orphan, struggling with unemployment and other hardships from the very beginning, I don't think Emma would die that easily. Emma was denied the conflict of life which very ironically tests human agency itself."

And for Chen Bin...during my first watch, the moment I saw him my instincts told me he was going to die. He had a loving wife, a daughter, he loved her, she accepted the proposal and they married soon. Conflict where? To bring his story to a full circle, he had to die.

I can say every parallel story in Link Click can be judged from this lens. People who had a point of conflict (the noodle lesbians, the couple who lost their child, Xu Shanshan, that old man) engaged in dialogue with themselves, others and social forces ultimately got a happy ending. Even in the earthquake episode, it's a story of reconciliation with the past, the man got his mother's photos and it's plausible and satisfying (and bittersweet resolution). He got his (absent) father back.

Another thing, we as a fandom have a collective amnesia about....*drumrolls* Cheng Xiaoshi's character! Congratulations! The man, the freaking protagonist just dies at the beginning, accepts his death, and remains dead. Doomed yaoi allegations are just nonsense. Link Click is doomed if Shiguang doesn't get a happy ending. Link Click is NOT a dramatic monologue told from Lu Guang's perspective, engaging with his perpetual trance of melancholy and him holding onto Cheng Xiaoshi's memento mori.

If Lu Guang is attempting to write back to Li Haoling and the doomed yaoi allegations, Cheng is attempting to write back to Lu Guang himself, not in confirming his own death, but saving Lu Guang from the loop of eternity and by being together. Cheng Xiaoshi is always seen to be guided by Lu Guang, he has to witness repercussions of his actions. Even with all this knowledge I will say, Cheng Xiaoshi has way more agency than Lu Guang has. During my first watch, I could feel Lu Guang has this barrier of guilt and unsettled emotions wrapped around him which denies Cheng Xiaoshi access into the deepest core of his subjectivity. Even though he achingly wishes to be together with Cheng Xiaoshi, the burden of his past actions and PTSD holds him back from being together with him, as if his existence is antithetical to Cheng Xiaoshi's existence. Cheng Xiaoshi is that glitch in the matrix that messes up Lu Guang's plans of withdrawing himself from Cheng Xiaoshi. Cheng Xiaoshi should not listen to everything Lu Guang orders. In season 1, he mostly conforms to Lu Guang's ideals, but in season 2, when Lu Guang was hospitalised, Cheng Xiaoshi became more active and you could tell a layer of barrier melted away. He was less of a stone statue, showed more emotions (the S2ep1 lmao when he said "would you prefer if I die?" abhimaan we call it), then the unique high five that feels like Lu Guang accepting Cheng Xiaoshi's proposal or something :

(LMAO ignore my comments, but what I said is true)

My point is, Cheng Xiaoshi is Lu Guang's existential other and vice versa. They cannot live without each other. They cannot exist without each other. If one dies, the other will die and I want them living happily ever after in heaven. Cause 'Break' clearly depicts them as soulmates. I personally take Break as the ultimate canonical ending

Do you see? each of them has one wing missing, meaning that it's their cumulative effort that will make them fly successfully. FYI, there is another Haoling directed, Haoliners Animation League animated canonical queer donghua called 'Beryl and Sapphire'. A separate episode, episode 13 just explores this 'one wing soulmate trope'.

Now take them as friends, platonic friends with no erotic feelings, pure familial feelings or whatever, they are like Yin and Yang, like Shiv and Shakti, and Yin changes to Yang and Yang changes to Yin actively as they interact. You will have a hard time pointing out who is who. I have watched TGCF and Beryl and Sapphire and a tiny bit of Spiritpact - all three directed by Li Haoling and I am well aware of his narrative strategy to represent soulmates and Link Click seems to be the one of the greatest (and my favourite) product of that genius mind.

I began with team Lu Guang cause he is a scorpio, I understand him, his birthday almost coincides with mine, we share some identical issues. But the fandom's often yeeting Cheng Xiaoshi out of the narrative phenomenon brought back my due attention to him. Is Cheng Xiaoshi so willing to be doomed? Does he not yearn to be with Lu Guang? Let me whisper to your ear...he yearns for him too.

so he

does understand that the person who dies...dies, death affects them the least who dies, it's the people, the family and loved ones who actually suffer. This man will leave his Lu Guang on his own volition? eh.

Also I wanna talk about Link Click's strategy of deliberate misdirection. The first and second seasons are so deliberately crafted (manipulation of narrative you can say) to actively erase Lu Guang's subjectivity and nuance. We are just denied access his perspective. He is mysterious but not that aligns itself with a viewer's emotions. In fact, during my recent re-watch, I felt "wtf Lu Guang, why are you interacting with Cheng Xiaoshi like a straight dudebro?" He is a menace, the kind I usually don't like. But there also seemed to be a critical undercurrent which I couldn't really grasp, but it was surely there. It was adding up to my increasing discomfort and made me question - "was it just my wishful projection? they do not share that bond at all." I was so pissed at that thought that I almost decided I am not gonna abandon Link Click. BUT BRO, BRO

'The Eye' and 'Lull' just blew my mind. I was not that affected by Cheng Xiaoshi's corpse advertisement agenda (that corpse is drawing people's attention who is suddenly aware of Yingdu release, great tactic, Haoling) what pleasantly brought me out of despair is Lu Guang's love for Cheng Xiaoshi was acknowledged in these songs. You will read between the lines on your own in season 1 and season 2 if you have that critical method to engage with a cultural text, but the silencing narrative was also very prominent. I very much felt that the Shiguang story is actually the central action, and not the creative sci-fi archtexual exercise of genres, which again, is just the vehicle. But The Eye and Lull focus upon them, them and them. Their emotions are acknowledged, they are no longer behind the veils of symbolism, parallel narratives, intense defamiliarisation; their emotional dialogue now not only demands a voice of their own but also has the potential to reclaim the central part of the stage as they struggle and negotiate power and agency. And I am here for it.

@guangshi-091305 I present to you my rubbish.

[davidtennantgenderenvy]

Addressing The Tinhatters: A Statement in Solidarity With @dtmsrpfcringe And Others

I've been active in this fandom for a little over a year, and in my time here I've kept my slate pretty clean. I try not to involve myself in drama and discourse, and when I see something I don't agree with online, most of the time I keep it to myself. I've been aware of the blogs I refer to in this post basically from the onset, but I've stayed quiet, partially to not come across as disrespecting others' opinions and preferences and partially to protect my peace and my own life as a creator. But what started as mostly harmless, if a bit unhinged and delusional, behavior, has turned on some fronts into unimaginable cruelty the likes of which I never imagined this fandom to be capable of. As someone who it seems people in this fandom have come to respect, I think it would be unfair and selfish for me to stay neutral any longer.

Fanfiction has been a genuinely transformative force in my life. It has helped me discover so much about my own relationships to love and desire, and I would never want to tell anyone that it is wrong for any ship to be that source of inspiration for them, including RPF. Nor do I think, as I've said, that it's inherently wrong to have speculative thoughts about David and Michael's sexualities. As someone who has been lucky enough to interact with David several times now, and probably will again, I choose not to do so myself in a public forum out of respect, but curiosity doesn't have to be invasive, and David and Michael being in loving partnerships with women certainly doesn't mean they can't be attracted to other genders too. There's nothing wrong with liking the idea of a relationship between David Tennant and Michael Sheen, or even, really, with believing they might have feelings for each other. If that's all you're doing, this post isn't about you. What I absolutely cannot excuse is the proliferation of hypocritical, nonsensical, and nasty rumors about the women in their lives.

Nothing Georgia Tennant or Anna Lundberg seems to do is ever good enough. Every expression of positivity is curated and phony, anything that could be perceived as negative vile and mean. I see these women attacked on a daily basis as partners, as mothers, as actresses. Georgia is simultaneously presenting a false ideal of a perfect, happy family for her own gains, while somehow at the same time being too irresponsible and incompetent to be a proper parent. Anna, a still young and up and coming actress herself, is expected to perform the ideal of an affectionate partner on social media, is perceived as unsupportive of Michael when she doesn't, when in reality she may simply be trying to make a name for herself in the industry without people solely associating her with the man she loves. Both of these women share in David and Michael's advocacy for marginalized communities, sometimes in different, more or less obvious ways. David and Michael are always brave and sincere, while Anna and Georgia's actions are always self serving and performative, though no evidence is ever given to indicate that the things they post or charities they support are any sort of cover or deflection. Nor are there ever any reasons given for their perceived lack of onscreen talent, other than that they're "boring" or don't have as many jobs as their husbands- never mind that both of them are in an extremely competitive industry and get perfectly respectable amounts of work, especially for mothers of young children. Worst of all, I've seen them accused of things as awful as child abuse and rape, all for the crime of simply being married to the wrong men. It's all so horribly gendered too, David and Michael often referred to as the "men" while Georgia and Anna are reduced to negative stereotypes of nagging, shallow gold diggers. As a fandom populated with so many queer people, many of whom, myself included, have found freedom from gender roles with Michael and David's characters' help, I thought we knew better.

I've been lucky enough to meet both David and Georgia now, and have witnessed firsthand the easy, joyful affection they have for each other when no one of consequence is watching, the way they giddily hold hands on the street and make each other laugh while tenderly looking into each other's eyes even and especially after sixteen years together. Georgia when I met her was incredibly kind, down to earth, and approachable, and my partner, who's met her several times more than I have, gushes about her constantly- how funny, authentic, and intelligent she is, and of course, how much she and David love each other, how they look out for each other and adore each other's flaws and quirks. David of course still gushes about Georgia every chance he gets in speeches and interviews, her strength and brilliance as well as her beauty, and Georgia, while maybe not always as effusive, shows her love for David in plenty of ways, the beautiful candid photos she takes of him, for instance. There's such a soft, painterly tenderness and fondness in them, for the man, not just the dazzling star everyone else gets to see. Her David, gentle, devoted, goofy, aging, melancholy, imperfectly perfect David. Where would we be without Georgia giving us these little glimpses of him? I suspect the same people who deride Georgia's social media presence as try-hard, cringeworthy, artificial, would feel a bit differently if one day they stopped coming.

I can't speak as clearly on behalf of Anna and Michael, but the accounts I've gotten of her and Michael's relationship from eyewitnesses have presented it as no less loving than David and Georgia's, albeit in slightly different ways. Even then, why should I have to? She doesn't owe me anything. I doubt anyone who's made the posts accusing Anna and Georgia of being nasty baby trappers has ever had children. There's no such thing as a perfect mother, and even one child is a massive task. It's normal to not be a shining ray of affection all the time, and Georgia I know more than makes up for it with her fierce love and support for her children in all of their endeavors. Georgia is also a diagnosed neurodivergent woman, and so many of the remarks I see directed at her are clearly discriminatory and often directed at women with her diagnoses. Everyone coos over how charming David is when he shows signs of being AuDHD, but the second his wife does too, she's careless and cold. And don't even get me started on when photos of Michael and David looking anything less than beatifically happy get interpreted as them being miserable due to their wives treating them so poorly. THEY'RE HUMAN BEINGS!!! NEUTRAL FACIAL EXPRESSIONS EXIST!!! WOULD YOU BE A SPARKLING RAY OF SUNSHINE IF YOUR DISNEYLAND RIDE GOT STUCK!!!

I say all this now not even because I think I have any hope of stopping the people in question, but because one of the main fighters on the front of the opposition, @dtmsrpfcringe, has been both a wonderful online friend to me and dealt with even worse abuse than that which gets hurled at Anna and Georgia on the daily. When my blog was briefly overrun by TERFs in light of the Tennant/Badenoch/Sunak drama, Tori was the first person to stand up for me, and as she recieves more vitriol in one day than I've ever experienced in my entire life online, I think I've taken far too long to do the same for her. This woman has dealt with doxing threats, attacks on her character, and most horrific of all, wishes of death upon her and her baby. No one would blame her for stopping, but she has remained steadfast in her mission to call bs where she sees it, and she shouldn't have to do it alone. Tori, I think you are so brave, and I am proud to stand in solidarity with you against the misinformation, meanness, and misogyny that threaten to corrupt this fandom we call home.

Even after all we've been through over the past couple of months, I still believe the Good Omens fandom and David and Michael's individual fandoms to be places of kindness, empathy, and inclusivity. Which is why such cruel behavior (because there's no other word for it) is utterly disappointing and baffling to me. You should be utterly ashamed of yourselves. You're the exact kinds of people David and Michael speak out against on a weekly basis, and I guarantee that if you engage in the kinds of behavior I've highlighted here, they would be disgusted with you. Or maybe they'd simply pity you, because your lives are so empty that you've decided the only way to fill them is to sacrifice the reputations and peace of innocent women on the altar of a relationship that in all likelihood takes place solely in your own heads.

And if you read all this and find you still ship David and Michael, which even I do sometimes, well, there's always polyamory.

I'm sleepy! good night and kindly fuck off! - Lauren

[maxdibert]

I think the difference between marauders and harry potter fandom as a whole is just the difference in demographics. most of the marauders fandom is teens and young adults, queer, and kinda distanced from the larger fandom in a way. like, you mention that the current marauders fandom doesn’t like canon and sticks to fanfic and “delusion” and well. yeah. for a lot, that’s the point. if that’s not your cup of tea, that’s great! fandom is for everyone, and there’s definitely a mix of everything in a fandom so large as the hp fandom. it’s not really a bad thing that this specific subsection of the fandom is more detached from canon though.

i definitely agree there are some issues with marauders era characterizations, like severus being completely demonized for no apparent reason (i’ve never been a severus fan, but that’s bc i didn’t vibe with his character as an adult. young sev was just a kid) and a big thing with the fandom is the rise of jegulus and people changing the DE characterizations. but the entire fandom isn’t a cesspool full of dull characters and atrocious headcannons, it’s just very different from the canon. and that’s something a lot of people don’t like, which is valid, but there are those who do like jegulus and slytherin “skittles” content, which is valid too

Honestly, this idea that JKR was always obviously a misogynist because she loved Snape and made him a romantic hero is such a chronologically confused take that I can’t help but assume it comes from someone who was either a child or not even born yet when the books were at their peak because LOL. Like… no. In the 2000s, absolutely nobody in mainstream discourse was calling JKR a misogynist. In fact, she was widely held up as a feminist icon. Hermione was seen as a symbol of girl power, and people genuinely cited her as a positive role model. Feminist discourse wasn’t nearly as accessible or viral back then, it was mostly confined to academic or niche spaces. There was no generalized critical lens on popular media like there is now. So let’s not rewrite history pretending people were dissecting internalized misogyny in Harry Potter on fórums and Fanfiction.net in 2005. They weren’t.

Btw saying JKR loved Snape and wanted him to be a “romantic hero” is… bizarre to me. If anything, I’d argue the opposite: I don’t think she liked him much at all. Yes, she wrote him as a complex and pivotal character, but she never treated him with real compassion. Severus is never given the benefit of the doubt in the narrative. He’s constantly described through Harry’s lens in deeply unflattering terms, physically and emotionally. The way his appearance is picked apart, the language used to present him as greasy, sour, bitter… it’s intentionally dehumanizing. And it’s relentless. She frames him almost exclusively through his worst traits until after he dies. That’s not what it looks like when a writer has a soft spot for a character.

Compare that to how James, Sirius, Lupin—even Dumbledore—are treated. All of them are given redemption arcs without having to earn them in the same brutal way Snape does. His suffering is constantly diminished or brushed off, even outright mocked by the same characters the narrative wants us to admire. His abusers are romanticized. Their worst actions are glossed over with nostalgia and cheeky boyhood charm. Meanwhile, Severus is dragged through the mud, left to rot, and only given his flowers in the last fifty pages after he’s dead and can no longer challenge the narrative. So If Rowling had a “crush” on Severus, she had a funny way of showing it.

That said, I do think Severus arc evolved over time. It’s totally plausible that he started off as a more caricatured antagonist—your classic bitter teacher—and then Rowling realized midway through the series that there was more depth to mine in him. That happens to a lot of writers, especially with long projects. Characters take on lives of their own, and initial plans shift as you grow, as your writing evolves, as your own worldview changes. So maybe she didn’t know what to do with him at first. But by the time she figured it out, she still didn’t frame him with the narrative care she offers her actual favorites.Because let’s be real, JKR does have clear favorites and Severus isn’t one of them.

I write too. I’ve created characters I adore, and sure, some of them have tragic ends, but if I love a character, you’ll feel it. Even in their downfall, you’ll know they were precious to me. With Severus, you get the opposite. You get disdain masquerading as complexity. You get narrative punishment with just enough nuance to keep him interesting, but not enough to make him feel truly seen.

So no, she didn’t “love” him. She tolerated him. She found him narratively useful. But she never gave him the softness or reverence she gave to her golden boys.