#“arent you the writer” irrelevant

[mokadevs]

day 19: partners-in-crime

[lesbianralzarek]

boggles my mind how overused the term "playersexual" is. its useful for critiquing games where the devs had no interest in bi/pan representation, and refuse to work the characters attraction into it. "playersexuality" is the result of a writer's cowardice when faced with the task of incorporating any semblance of a queer experience into the actual game. it is NOT when a romanceable character is bi/pan for player convenience. of fucking course they are. theyre also willing to adventure with the player for your convenience. you can heal getting shot by going to bed for your convenience. welcome to video games. its also not when characters have preferences and talk more about one gender than another. thats actually, like, accurate to how most bi/pan people experience attraction. its fine. shut up.

ALL THAT BEING SAID, if you refer to any of the bg3 companions as being playersexual or "actually gay/a lesbian/straight" im killing you. no the fuck they arent. there is no run where wyll is straight and karlach is a lesbian. the player's gender is irrelevant. they are all bi/pan whether you like it or not. die about it.

[kvothbloodless]

As someone who’s followed you for a long time, and a fellow writer….do you genuinely support chatGPT? Even if it has been proven to scrape people’s writings without their consent? And the fact that its a soulless husk of what actual writing is?

So Ive done my best to avoid AI discourse, but I am bad at it. So to put it clearly.

I dont Support chatgpt specifically. Its a program made by a corporation because they can make a profit from it, and curtail its capabilities in line with their goals. I use it sometimes because its fun ans convenient, but I dont pay for it or anything. I think pretty much all legitimate concerns about AI are really just concerns about corporate ethics, at which point the AI specifically becomes irrelevant

I also dont really think the situation in general is one where "support" is the right word to use; its like asking if I support cameras.

I want to be clear im not trying to be vague though; i think in general AI is pretty cool, and that 99% of the arguments against it are factually incorrect, based on inconsistent or bad moral frameworks, or both. Im not going to get into all the reasons AIs are cool, since I dont feel up to doing a Big AI Post, but I do want to gesture vahuely in the direction of how much more accessible this makes artistic creation and experimentation, and all the insanely fun things people can use AI for. However, i do want to address the common arguments against it, especially since it feels like a lot of people are just misinformed and falling into the very easy tumblr trap.

1. Scraping fics without consent: if you post something on a public site for the public to read, and someone downloads it to read it, its not stealing. Tumblr is generally pretty firmly against strict copywrite laws, so its a bit weird that so many people are Very concerned about AIs "stealing" their work in a way thats even less direct than fanfiction. Like, "your writing is so in character" and "wow youre really good at imitating the authors writing style" are common compliments on fics.

To be clear, there are absolutely ways of interacting with free public content thats bad (like reposting). But AIs arent frankensteining stuff together, or copy pasting anything; they literally could not do that. The training/model files are so insanely tiny compared to the amount of training data that it would be impossible for them to be storing that sort of thing. An AI learning from your writing isnt really any different than a human reading your writing, going "oh I like that" subconsciously, and using that to inform their future writing.

Whats that quote about "to get better at writing, read more"? If you believe that statememt is accurate, then Im a bit confused how youd be upset about an AI "reading" your writing and learning from it?

All of the Actual ways this could be used badly (copying someones art style and then selling art cheaper, etc.) arent actually unique to AI (a person can also do that!), and also usually arent really a thing thats happening enough to be a problem (most people who want art from an artist enough to commission them, are going to want it to actually be done By that artist). Using AI to make an original work, or even to finish a fanfic someone else wrote, is no more theft than if you did it by yourself.

2. "Soulless Husk": im sorry im genuinely trying my best here to be gentle and respectful, but this talking point genuinely makes my blood boil a bit, so im not trying to get personal or insult anyone specifically. Claiming that art made by humans is automatically deeper, that art is all about Meaning and Struggle, comes off as extremely pretentious and just doesnt engage with the reality of art. Im having trouble articulating a good argument here, but like. Art doesnt have to be deep, it doesnt have to have a Message, and the necessity of struggling in order to learn about and create art is an unequivocable bad thing.

Many many people make art (visual, written, etc.) becuase they want to see or read something cool or because they think others will find it fun. Many many people who would like to create art do not do so because it requires talent/practice that they are not willing to put the time and effort into developing, and this is not a moral issue. As Ive said before, laziness is a virtue and self-indulgance is a goal we should aspire to. Using a tool to make the incredibly fun act of creating easier and more accessible is awesome.

Also, who gets to define what "actual art" is? Genuinely seems a bit arrogant and presumptuous to declare that something is or is not "actual art" based on your own preferences.

The posts that Really annoy me are the ones that are like "cant understand the people RPing or playing a TTRPG with AI becuz its soulless. I only ever RP with other people because the fun part is being social or collaberatively building story" or whatever. Cool. I rp and play tabletops because i like to have fun and I enjoy those activities. Im gonna be honest, i find it a bit offensive and kinda.. dumb, to act like its somehow morally superior to only enjoy oneself in a way that Builds Community or Has A Meaning. People do meaningless things because they enjoy doing them and so long as no one is being hurt, thats fine.

3. Replacing workers: This is the only argument that has Any weight, but its still a bad argument. Its absolutrly true that AI is gonna put people out of work. The fact that more people will be out of work and struggling is a bad thing. This is also what happens when literally any new technology is developed, dating all the way back to the industrial revolution (at the Very latest). Automation is almost always a massive net benefit to humanity (im aware this topic could be its own series of posts but You Know What I Mean, please dont start industrialization discourse here), and the fact that it puts people out of work isnt actually an argument against it. Lots of radio operators lost their job when telephones were invented, but that doesnt mean people should have never used the telephone and obstinately stuck with radios. When phone technology advanced, a lot of phone operators lost their jobs, but that doesnt mean people were Morally Wrong to use the new developments that made phones far more convenient.

As in all things, el problema es capitalismo; AI isnt preventing anyone from doing art, its just reducing how many people can get paid to do their art. The correct solution to automation putting people out of work is not to stop the wheel of tech development, but to change society so that one doesnt have to slave away in order to survive.

This also raises the adjacent point, which is that halting tech development like this is impossible. Once the cat is out of the bag, its not going back in. AI tech is going to develop and become more widespread and theres literally nothing you can do to stop that. If you want to be upset about that, its your perogative ig, but im gonna be excitedly waiting for the dam to break and we get an open source LLM that I can use without worrying about data privacy or corporate filters, so I can have fun and RP however much I want and finally be able to write the stuff I want to write but cant do on my own because I have adhd and chronic fatigue, and Id kinda prefer if people stopped trying to rain on my parade because they think im not having fun or creating art in the "right way".

EDIT: I did want to add one more thing! A US court ruled that you cant copywrite something created completely by an AI, and i think thats an awesome move and I hope it gets expanded a bit and spreads elsewhere. This isnt a position based on whether something produced in this way counts as "real art" or is morally bad or whatever, I just think that reducing corporate and IP grasp on anything is good, and that AI specifically is going to be most enjoyable when its free and open source.

[vonlipvig]

jules youre the only swiftie i know so i gotta ask: why is it that there are two versions of her songs like a normal one and then a taylor version didnt she make both?????? arent both hers

glad to be your trusted Swiftie Liaison lmao.

to explain, very briefly: in music, there are two types of 'copyrights'. you have the rights to the song itself (composition, lyrics, etc) and the rights to the specific recording of the song, what is called a 'master', from which copies can be made to sell and distribute, in cds, streaming, radio, etc. if you own the master, you can decide what to do with the song.

taylor signed to big machine records in 2005 as their first artist, had a deal for 6 albums with them (from her self titled to reputation), and made them a whole bunch of money. since her contract was about to end, she wanted to buy the masters of her songs from the company, but they said "it would happen only if she renewed her recording contract with Big Machine, agreeing to create more albums under the label for the next decade.". they also sold BMR to scooter braun, so he owned the master now too (he worked with k4nye to make 'famous', etc etc.).

taylor signed to republic records, said to BMR 'oh, so you wanna block me from using my music--from which you grew most of your fortune? no problem, i'm the song-writer, so i still own the copyright to my songs, i'll just re-record all six albums i made with you, own those masters, and make your acquisition completely irrelevant'. and so she did!

that's why we have the taylor's versions now, once again owning the masters to her own songs, rightfully so.

aside from my own involvement as a swiftie, it's such an interesting case that really shows how predatory the music industry and record companies can be, and how important it is for artists to be able to own their own art.

here's the link to the wikipedia article about the situation, with lots of sources to check if you wanna read more! (x)

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

grrr tysm for the happier snippets into the fushiguro’s family’s earlier days! Ive been starving for sth not so painful, and now i can happily dream about “fluffier” shit lol like the desperate scramble to tidy up toys, dvds, and candy wrappers before nanami comes over to pick up the kids for the weekend; or shoko being a total panicky hypocrite when tsumiki comes home one day smelling of cigarette smoke; or the kids absolutely sweating whenever there is a kiss/sex scene on tv during family movie nights (and they dont know if they should fight through the awkwardness or avert their gazes). Stupid but totally normal family behaviors that arent fluffy per se but just NORMAL.

that tsumiki getting hit on at the beach story? THANK YOU for feeding me that! Starving for more but im happy with the crumbs ❤️❤️❤️

I’m a chronic angst writer but I’m absolutely incorrigible with wanting fluff. The issue is so much of the fluff is not plot relevant to the angst and it gets cut. I talked about this in another post, but pez dispenser debris is my silly “bad writing” story where I have a shit ton of irrelevant asides because I just want to talk about the silly little situations that I imagine my blorbos in without regard to plot. The entirety of chapter 4 is unnecessary in that fic. I find it delightful.

[ursie]

dont take anything that person who's on your ass about mirage is saying personally 😩 theyve been adding antagonistic, asshole, classist, irrelevant opinions about stuff that has nothing to do with what the original post was about for a while. its their whole thing. it reeks of desperation for something to be a champion of and i maaaybe would feel bad for them if they werent such a douche about everything. totally worth blocking and moving on because they will just double down and make worse opinions on your posts (and then send anons after you block about why you arent responding, which you can then block after. speaking from experience)

No I know my friend sent me this and it’s like 😭

literally no one said that no one said she should be killed in fact I have multiple posts talking about how bad it is to use Miriam’s (also I used Mirage because most people do not know or remember her name like) history as a rapist (same w Catalina) to justify violent misogyny 😭 that just wasn’t the post you chose to respond to. Also like I’m sorry but a character can in fact be written badly and also written to be a rapist and also be a person of color. And whether the writer’s biases informed the decision to make them be a rapist or not does not make the rape not happen 😭 especially when it is quite literally what the character is most well known for like. Next you’re gonna argue Catalina being a rapist is ooc actually when that was quite literally what the character was invented for

Also conflating Talia and Miriam is wild Miriam is a minor character who’s most well known for being a rapist (that she was unapologetic about and made Dick uncomfortable before said fact) whereas Talia was nothing like how Morrison characterized her and her character was changed radically post 9/11 when she’s an Arab woman like. These are very different contexts 😭 I don’t like the fics where the writers injure or punish them I don’t like the torture porn I’ve said that before but that doesn’t mean I’m comfortable with the character like.. survivors are allowed to be uncomfortable with rapists it’s genuinely not complicated and multiple things can be true at the same time hope that helps!! Like 😭

[un-pearable]

season 7: the thoughts continue

i feel like the quantity and quality of brief stupid & irrelevant team exchanges went up and i am SO here for it. jay has redeemed his poor choices from last season purely by virtue of being part of 50 to 75% of these, for the record. this has been so extremely enjoyable i dont even know where to begin.

the concept of the "hands of time" being twins with symmetrical time powers is honestly. so cool and even if the execution was mid i am still so Extremely glad this exists. because its very cool. i do wish they had better designs though usually the ninjago designs are. well most of the time theyre not spectacular but they're generally fine. these guys are ugly tho.

the snake dudes / one dudette whose names escape me at the moment annoyed me. i dont like them. also why is it that 1) they gave the snake girl titties. real question. i dont think she needs tits made of snakes. stop it and 2) there was only 1 (one) girl. where are my useless female grunts !!!!!

so many time puns. too many time puns. infinite time puns. you can watch my sanity wear away in real time. NO WAIT I SAID TIME DAMMI

^ responding to a message unrelated to ninjago

honestly. okay im gonna be blunt i am very disappointed in this season mainly because i was hoping to get like. sibling foils and stuff COME ON WE'VE GOT THREE DIFFERENT SIBLING PAIRS HERE . WE'VE GOT TIME BROTHERS WHOSE NAMES ALSO ESCAPE ME. WE'VE GOT KAI AND NAYA. WE'VE GOT WU AND GARMADON. AND THESE TERRIBLE WRITERS COULDNT EVEN GIVE ME ONE PAIR OF FOILS. COME ONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

anyways yeah no i am very very disappointed. three pairs. Three of them. and not a single foil in sight. like man why'd you even bother. its like they wanted to do something with them all being siblings but couldnt think of anything past them all being siblings. yknow. its like "ohh wow kai and naya are fighting those time guys !! oh huh what? you mean we should have some thematic or narrative reason for this? ah screw that they're both sibling pairs thats good enough" NO ITS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. ITS NOT

regarding kai and naya it also annoys me because we didnt really get much of them bonding as siblings because 80% of it was about their parents, who i am ALSO supremely disappointed in, even if im not particularly surprised. like . ok . ok ok. head in hands. they just Left kai and naya because time brother #1 (whose name again escapes me), who, notably does not have any more elemental powers, said "haha im gonna kill them" despite the fact that BOTH of them were there and definitely could've taken him out, and instead decided to go help him build weapons for him to take over ninjago with. for real. really. Really . like MAN at least if they were evil that woudlve been INTERESTING. come ONNNNNNNN. come on. come onnnnnn screw that. and then all kai and naya got this season was "oh wow epic our parents are still here. ok well since the writers arent going to do anything interesting with that we're all gonna be buddy buddy now. tee hee"

really annoyed with wu this season btw. take this discord screenshot that encapsulates my thoughts pretty well

like okay i dont hold him not telling anybody anything at the beginning of the season against him too much because like thats the beginning of the next tacked on season that the authors had not originally had plans for and whats a ninjago season if it doesnt start with wu saying "there's something i havent told you yet" + usually they're stories that he could've reasonably thought wouldn't have become relevant again, but this is just unacceptable. bro get a grip if their master dies out of nowhere when they weren't expecting it then methinks it will distract them. just a little bit.

also this

the ninjago timeline is honestly a joke. its like . MAN it doesnt even begin to make sense its like wu and garmadon's dad is a sort of demigod who created the whole world but also they're only 80 years old and apparently ancient ninjago was 40 years ago and lloyd fits into this picture. somehow. (????????????????????????????) because to say it is terribly unclear when garmadon went full deranged is. well. an understatement of the century. and . yknow what why am i even bothering, honestly. whatever. who cares (me i do)

i didnt like. dislike the season but this one really suffered from a lack of a coherent vision. most of the season kind of felt like they did nothing and WAIT I JUST REALIZED I FORGOT TO TALK ABOUT THE DAY OF THE DEAD SPECIAL. IM SO MAD I THOUGHT THEY WERE GONNA DO SOMETHING ABOUT COLE BEING A GHOST NOW. AND THEN THEY DIDNT. NOT AT ALL. NOT EVEN LIKE A PROPER IDENTITY CRISIS OR ANYTHIGN. THEY FIXED IT IN A SPECIAL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A SPECIAL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE HECK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

okay that aside. im glad pixal has something to do now instead of just being inside zane's brain. good for her good for her.

im also SO glad they didnt just undo the whole arc with the reversing time blade. thank the lord above i was half expecting them to despite the fact that they literally just did that Last Season. also also i LOVE jay's mom she showed up for .4 minutes, was terribly annoying, and i love it. i love her. i want more annoying women in media please and thank you you can really tell she's jay's mom. i want them to meet so bad.

btw lloyd deserves such a break. he needs it. he should go on vacation or something let everybody else figure it out. they'll probably die without him but idk he needs it. actually speaking of, this was my takeaway from this season

also question about the reversing time blade. theoretically if you punch a recently deceased corpse with it could you bring them back to life?

and, on a final note, take this

THE THOUGHTS ARE VERY MUCH WELCOME

the goofiness the ninja deserve. if the show isn't at least 45% silly character interactions by runtime it isn't even ninjago anymore.

they are!!! they are such a great concept. execution mixed and yeah the designs are. lacking. but once again they knock it out of the park with the show's concepts. notwithstanding the snitties.

i see my pun riddled future. i live in excited fear of it. you are also the funniest person on the planet adksfjds

mhm. mhhhm. what i wouldn't give for this show to figure out what they're doing with the character foiling bc half the time its got a good start but fumbles bc time/medium constraints but 99% of the show's good potential foiling?? is completely squandered??? their reliance on the secret parent reveals over time only gets more frustrating as it continues but for a show that's so oriented on familial bonds BOY do they constantly ignore any and all actual meaning they could explore about them. comparing nya and kai w/ everyone else could be fascinating but that means confronting character traits and we've been. heh. watering down kai ever since he stopped being the main character so that's not allowed.

there is sooooo much to be said about their parents and while there is solace in it does get addressed a little. it is very much in ninjago's special way where they pretend nothing happened for multiple seasons. so that's fun. also now i want kai and nya to have to bond with lloyd over evil parents that'd be funny as hell.

glad you got your cardboard cutout parental figures guys. go ignore your potentially complex emotions about this experience over with jay in the lobby. it'll be your turn to be important again in 2-5 seasons and by then half the world will be retconned again <3

ahh yes. wu. tbh while i get its incredibly frustrating and purely a plot device i do think he's funny as hell for never telling them shit. 100% this guy never actually figured out what being a mentor was beyond how his god-dad treated him and his god-dad was omniscient and ominous about it so. yeah i get it. but any situation where misako can give you valid criticism is a bad one.

the infamous ninjago timeline... in one of the comics it fucks it up so bad that cole is born after lloyd. this place is a dumpster fire of time discrepancies this is what happens when you make time a manipulatable element. what the hell FSM. they have fuckin FOSSILS and also ancient history that the grandpa down the street lived through. either these legos have fuckin long ass lifespans or im just gonna keep blaming it on the fact that TIME IS AN ELEMENT. gravity is a fucking element. speed is a fucjin element. what's next is inertia an element. can their newest villain stop their spinjitzu in its tracks by sending them flying off in a single direction forever. mr self styled god what the fuck were you doing

everything about cole is a tragedy. and also confusing. obligatory return to the status quo i hate you.

I haven't even watched the entire season yet but oooooh jay's mom lives in my brain. she got her grubby little electricity master fingers on my synapses and i can't stop imagining melodramatic fic about her and her confusing as hell life. smthn smthn the lightning rod versus the storm that strikes it. miss child abandonment two, electric boogaloo, i would give you my house for an inch of your life story

the only takes on the ninja's braincell capacity I respect. people putting nya at the top of the list are missing out on her chaotic girl swag and the fact that she has recommended some of the stupidest shit imaginable. queen shit girl but cmon

yes. yes i believe it should and someone should go grab morros abandoned body to test it. this is a universally bad idea

lastly, tragically, i take back my earlier statement, zero offense meant but you have been dethroned as the funniest person on the planet

[shindidnothingwrong]

Im gonna say what nobody else got the balls to say.

Warning: Anti KawaSumi post, dont like dont read.

KawaSumi didnt grow in popularity because it had any basis or development or even a bond or good chemistry, despite what this fandom wants you to believe because unfortunately this side of the fandom has many silent voices and only a few brave handful of us actually speak up and speak out, despite what they wanna brainwash you to believe KawaSumi really doesnt have a leg to stand on and nobody genuinely joined the ship because there was actually any basis for it, the real reason ppl started pushing this pathetic keep away ship was because of big biased exposure.

1 SP is no stranger to making their biases known, nor do they make it any secret which ships and characters they favor more than others, for example the studio clearly has a great dislike for Sakura, Sasuke, and SasuSaku and clearly favored Naruto and Hinata, for a long while it was clear the studio REALLY wanted NaruSaku endgame up till a certain point they realized NaruHina was most likely endgame they started clearly showing excessive favoritism to Hinata and NH and suddenly pretending as if they never supported NaruSaku even tho it was revealed many of them did and were upset it didnt happen.

Long story short, history is repeating itself with now SP clearly having a strong bias for BoruSara, lets just not even pretend their not highkey pushing the ship cuz they are, that doesnt mean it’ll be canon tho but they ARE showing a clear bias towards it. Honda, a writer at the studio, is notorious for some of the worst written episodes in the franchise minus 2 episodes that were actually done well, hes known for writing things based on ‘his interpretations’ rather than whats established in canon, as such it often leads to horrible characterizations, inconsistencies, and just terrible writing altogether.

These details are important for this first point, KawaSumi growing in popularity due to biased exposure.

To sum it up, the first and arguably the biggest thing to kickstart this mess was SPs bias, rather than sticking to what was established in the manga they created a whole nother timeline and course of events which for some unusually convenient reason featured Sumire being the first person to care about and reach out to Kawaki before Naruto and Sarada, to be the first to see and understand and relate to his pain before Naruto and Sarada.

Keep in mind, put shipping aside for a moment, Naruto was Kawakis FIRST bond, the FIRST to care about him, the FIRST to understand and see his pain and relate to him and see HIMSELF in him, that is what made his and Narutos bond so special.

Even though nothing Sumire said mattered or got through to him at all, that didnt matter to that fanbase tho, the seeds were planted and now till this day ppl say that SUMIRE is his first bond, the first to care, the first to understand, the first to relate and see herself in him, his first friend etc. Guess who was the writer for those episodes? Honda of course, nuff said.

Those two episodes single handedly undercut Naruto and Sarada’s bond with Kawaki entirely, it put Sumire on this pedestal while Naruto and Sarada are beneath her, the fact that Sumire had to BEG Naruto to hear Kawaki out and give him a chance when in the manga Naruto instantly ignored everybody and already had his mind made up regardless of how they felt about it just made it that much worse, SP knew EXACTLY what they were doing with this, whether it had any impact on Kawaki or not is irrelevant, its the impact on the fandom that was the problem.

To put this into perspective I’ll give another quick example of another one of Honda’s ‘interpretations’ dividing the fandom when they otherwise shouldnt have been, in the episode where Kurama dies Naruto essentially says that he and Sasuke arent brothers and that Sasuke already has a great brother in Itachi, which completely contradicts what Kishimoto himself established for 15 fkin years, regardless the SNS fandom of course took that and ran with it as proof that Naruto and Sasuke arent brothers despite Kishimoto himself literally writing this from Narutos literal point of view how he sees Sasuke from beginning to now.

Naruto, from Kishimotos own words and writing, says blood ties dont matter and that there are stronger links than that, that love is all you need, that it doesnt matter if your family is real or fake as long as you CARE for them, so the fact that Honda’s words are given more validity than Kishimoto the creator himself is truly mind boggling but thats just how easily SP, Honda especially, can quickly and easily divide the fandom on certain subjects that have long been established for years by simply changing it on a whim and ppl just running with it.

So this situation with Sumire was no different, it didnt matter what was established in the manga, Honda rewrote otherwise and thats what ppl ran with, that was strike 1.

2 Biased news articles, thats right, after those episodes aired you even had journalists pushing the idea of the ship out there, implying that it was already being set in motion and making WAY more out of it than it actually was, it wasnt long before if you searched ‘Kawakis crush’ or ‘who does Kawaki like’ that would be the top result, which is something this fandom also use as evidence despite it being an unofficial source and entirely speculatory and opinion based, again the damage was already done, the seed was planted, thats all thats needed.

This CBR article says it all on its own, implying a love triangle that doesnt exist, claiming that Kawaki likes her and that shes his ‘light’ when neither such things have ever been confirmed by any official source nor shown anywhere in canon, despite that, this article paints this false picture of a love triangle that doesnt exist, at the moment there is simply one semi canon ship and that is BoruSumi, there is no love triangle confirmed at this point in time, Sumire is the only character whos feelings have been confirmed by official sources, nobody else.

3 Big youtubers and big twitter accs, youtubers especially, one in particular that REALLY kicked the ship into high gear was Naruto Explained, I shit you not, ppl actually took a youtubers words as law and evidence for why the ship is totally endgame, there were literal discussions being had that these ppl would bring up his videos as evidence, some random guy on youtube opinion is somehow a valid argument for the ship but not the manga itself or the many official sources that contradicts it.

He said he was gonna make videos for all the ships which he did but lets be real, he only made one video about InoSara and KawaSara while he made multiple videos about BoruSara and KawaSumi, there was an obvious agenda being pushed. Not assuming his ship preference because I dont know and I dont care, but its clear which fanbase he was pandering to, same goes for SP and Honda specifically.

These 3 things combined is what got the ship started, a key thing to note is that all 3 of these dont just push KawaSumi but push BoruSara as well, coincidence? I think not.

So whenever anyone tells you that ppl like/ship KawaSumi because its ‘obvious’ or that theres ‘chemistry’ or whatever other bs they claim between them that doesnt exist anywhere in canon, just know the only reason this ship is even known by ppl is because if got alot of biased support and push from high places, not because the ship itself was any good and ppl genuinely liked it for what it was, but because they were brainwashed into believing theres something there that really isnt.

KawaSara grew from a genuine like of the ship and the build up it got in the manga that drew ppl to it who genuinely liked what their relationship was and developing into, even without the Nue arc BoruSumi became semi canon in the manga first in chapter 19 when Sumire confessed, so with or without the anime BoruSumi had basis for fans to ship them since one side of it HAS confirmed romantic feelings for the other, neither KawaSara nor BoruSumi needed a boost from outside biased sources brainwashing them with lies, those ships thrived just fine with just what was established in the manga alone, the anime/novels was just a bonus, but the ships already had their own merits and basis on their own.

Of course I already know there will be ppl who’ll say Im just downplaying the ship cuz Im biased or jealous etc etc but really Im just tellin the truth, you cannot tell me at any point prior to 190-191 where KawaSumi had any significant amount of support, it was a crackship at most, it wasnt until the ripple effect from another one of Honda’s brilliant ‘interpretations’ that got this bullshit started and everything else just started falling into place from there. It was NOT because people actual saw a genuine appeal for the ship, but because of what they were lead to believe. 

If you look at the novels/manga its very apparent they are hinting BoruSumi and that they have a deep & special bond between them, Sumires love for Boruto is clear and visible, in the anime after 190-191 however they not only cut BOTH her confessions from the manga but they also make her feelings uncertain rather than being straightforward like the manga. 

If you look purely at how their relationship is in the manga its extremely distant, Kawaki gives no special treatment/care towards Sumire than he does anyone else, and Sumire gives no special treatment or care towards him than she does anyone else either, Kawaki is indifferent towards her and Sumire is just a kind and caring person concerned for someone she sees going through a hard time, theres nothing special or significant between them to justify ppl calling it the ‘obvious’ endgame already just for Sumire doing the bare minimum as his caretaker and Kawaki allowing her to because well, thats her job, she works with Katasuke and he allows him to work on him so why would he reject Sumire? again Im speaking manga only to make the point of the nonexistent basis for this ship. 

SP/Honda literally gave a horrible ship a false sense of weight that was so unnecessary that did way more harm than good for not just them but so many other characters by extension. They created a domino effect that fueled these few ppls fanon perceptions so much they perceive these ‘fanon’ interpretations as canon because big sources support it right? so it must be endgame, even the studios lowkey pushing for it so that must mean its canon. 

You may think its harmless ship teasing for now or that its no big deal but trust me, the same way SP had a huge influence on the perception of NaruSaku as the potential endgame ship and peoples reaction to it not happening, the same will happen with KawaSumi and BoruSara and I’d argue its gonna be worse this time around than in OG because back then atleast you could argue all the extra NS stuff was filler and non canon anyway, meanwhile you cant say the same for Boruto since its claimed to be ‘all’ canon even if it diverts from the manga/novels, so when and if their not endgame after all the bullshit false hope they were bein fed its gonna be hard to argue why they shouldnt be outraged, after all it WAS all canon so what was the point of all that if the endings something totally different? thats what happens when you divert off course from the source material and do your own thing based on your own ‘interpretations’ that contradict it, when the ACTUAL OFFICIAL canon happens ppl are left confused wondering how this happened when all this other stuff happened that seemed to be leading to somethin else. 

Even though objectively, personal bias aside, I see nothing that says BoruSara and KawaSumi are endgame and see far more in favor of BoruSumi and KawaSara becoming canon in the end, even if not KawaSara BoruSumi is definitely endgame atp based on whats been setup and established so far, even though I dont see anything to suggest Bsa and Ksu endgame I can understand WHY others get the impression that they are, its very clear their being pandered to and to be fair its understandable to a degree why’d they fall for it. Be that as it may, anyone taking a moment to look at everything objectively and critically would quickly see all the flaws and holes in these ships potential canonicity, KawaSumi especially. 

But unfortunately much of this fandom functions on whatever the biggest names say is right, doesnt matter if their an official source or not, if your someone big like a big youtuber, a big twitter acc, or a biased anime studio, then their right and everything and everyone else is wrong, which unfortunately means when the opposite happens they wont be able to accept it and claim there was some sort of foul play 🤦‍♀️ I’ve seen this happen many times...its always the same.

So no, Im not downplaying the ship out of bias, I dont even ship BoruSumi nor like Sumire, Im just calling it how I literally witnessed it all go down in real time. This ship is a friggin joke yet because of all that mess Honda and everything else after that caused it now has ppl believing in something THEY made up.

If you dont believe it just look at the arguments, whenever ppl talk of KawaSara they mostly speak of manga content, adding on anime content is just a bonus but most of KawaSaras development HAPPENED in the manga, however whenever ppl talk of KawaSumi they ALWAYS bring up 190-191, the only thing from the manga they bring up is Kawaki allowing her to give him a needle and calling her by name instead of class rep and Sumire just literally doing her job...couldnt make this up if I tried. Thats because most of KawaSumi’s ‘development’ happened in the anime, their relationship in the manga has been stagnant, it went from him rejecting her giving him a needle to accepting it, thats it, and Sumire is no more or less concerned for Kawaki now than she was when she first appeared with him, their just stagnant, meanwhile Kawaki has made significant progress with just about everyone BUT her. 

Its crazy, but ppl will really insist that their the obvious endgame and KawaSara/BoruSumi fans are the ones who’s delusional. I both look forward and dread canon day because thats gonna be one hell of a shit storm I can already see it comin.

[florenceisfalling]

is this ordeal with dream making you reassess rpf fandoms in general or anything?

edit i realize i went on a mostly irrelevant tangent bc of my posts where i said ive always disliked the dsmp fandom, but if you were wondering Solely because of the allegations, no. stanning a real person always comes at a risk and while it sucks when things go awry i do think i'm normal Enough about my parasocial behaviors that i'll be fine mentally regardless of the outcome and will leave if i must. ok now onto the rest of the post

oh i'm ok discussing the community, just not like. the details of the allegations.

and the answer is: not particularly. the dsmp fandom is a pretty unique case, not in terms of content (i dont wanna sound like the kinda person who thinks minecraft rp is new) but in terms of community.

this is not to say that other fandoms surrounding real people are better, much less perfect, but they're definitely a more comfortable thing for me.

for one, i've seen a lot of people having the dsmp as a "baby's first fandom" sort of moment. i think this is because its something really popular that is harder to enjoy passively - while you can watch stranger things with your family and get the whole experience just by watching the show, with the dsmp you need to keep up with cc twitter pages and stuff to be fully in-the-loop, and this leads into fandom pretty easily. this means you have a lot of people going around getting into their very first discourse All At Once. and people who get Really attached to one thing and feel lost when suddenly the fandom they literally learned to draw/write/etc for goes quiet.

for two, the dsmp is a category that is broad as hell. its not like i watch all the ccs. i think that would probably make my brain melt from my ears. but when you have a category that is Broad As Johnny Bravo's Shoulders, its more like a million little fandoms than one big one, and they all overlap but don't really Share A Space. u can like someone's tubbo fanart and then see in their bio that they like, have a really strong vendetta against quackity or something. or vice versa. you also have a lot of shit to keep up with, which is simply too much for me. i will continue just having like. three dudes to think abt from now on rather than 30

thirdly, the thing Above about there being so many ccs does make the fandom more Baffling for everybody, and the community seemed to repeatedly add to that. i am not going to be like "hari and every popular blogger is evil! what about people who ARENT popular >:(" bc that is downright ridiculous, but think abt stuff like duo names, oddly specific tags, referring to ppl solely by nicknames, spreading conversation back and forth between multiple social media sites rather than just tumblr, etc - all of those things had a purpose and were perfectly fine (anyone who tells you that you must refer to your friends by username only just to make Their online experience more accessible is an idiot) but they did make things tricky for newcomers. friend groups aren't inherently cliques, but some of the ppl ive seen claiming that its "super easy to pop in and join no problem!" are the Exact folks ive seen unintentionally exclude others. again, not a moral failing, just a consequence of What Its Like in the fandom, especially to people who havent been around forever. and if you don't like a popular blogger youre kinda fucked bc they're everywhere- like can u imagine if there were Multiple clones of isa in the jse fandom, and they were like. your Only window into updates and shit etc etc? not to compare isa to anybody else. sorry to anybody who feels like theyre being compared to isa even if u dont know who that is. sorry

there's also an age difference in the fanbase And in the content creators. some of my favorite fic writers in the jse fandom are young, but some are also literally in their 30s with children and jobs. meanwhile a significant number of ppl in the dsmp fanbase making art n posting hot takes n stuff are under 17. particularly with tommy, ranboo, etc. and when so many of the streamers themselves are young, it can cause Problems - a lot of the adult ccs are at my college level, peak time for stupid behavior. not to mention,,, when you look at the jse/markiplier fandoms and see a fan being really sexual, its just like, "oh, maybe this is a little weird, but relatively harmless as long as they aren't being invasive about it." when you look into the fandom of a youtuber who isn't even old enough to vote yet, and see a fan being really sexual, it's more of a "holy shit that is predatory and fucking disgusting" moment.

^ continuing off of that, or at least the cc ages, their fame skyrocketed after a much shorter time than a lot of other creators. they did not have a normal adjustment period to being fucking everywhere. i'm not even one of them, and i didn't have a normal adjustment period to seeing them everywhere. older ccs with more professional stuff going on don't make the same mistakes as the newer folks. they know when to step away, too - as much as i wish jack was back on tumblr due to the theory content here, i also get why he's gone and understand that the environment would be Shaken tf up by his return.

having them be such a trend also meant that while the fandom is big, the anti-fandom is just as prevalent. in the jse fandom we have blue and their pals (yikes!), as well as a group of people that have generally negative feelings towards sean but are normal about it. we do not have entire communities dedicated to stalking him for "crit" and the amount of people speculating on his personal relationships have pretty much dwindled. we don't have people casually dropping his address and information about his family every time they meme about him. i can talk about watching jack and mark around ppl ive never met without starting off with a disclaimer! in fact, i frequently have to do the opposite with jack and mark, because their discourse is so Out Of Sight from the majority these days that some people just fucking ignore their friendship with pdp or past transmisogynistic jokes or etc etc etc. literally see ppl calling them "unproblematic kings!" every 2 seconds and gotta be like what the Fuck are you talking about

u also have the fact that the dsmp fandom became Such an ordeal during a really shitty time of fandom discourse in general. while people arent like going batshit insane over steven universe or whatever so much anymore, the moral arguments about fiction right now are hell on earth. it is pedophilia to watch cartoons and abuse apologism to think a character who was mean one time is interesting and if you are personally attached to a character then your feelings can just override canon in theory discussions. literally the worst time for anyone to be in a fandom regarding very morally/politically funky roleplay. as evidence i present whomever the fuck thought up the idea of posting proship discourse on r/dwt2

lastly i am far more invested in the egos as far as hyperfixating goes rather than the actual creators (as much as i love them) and would have zero problem just taking anti and making him My Own Guy (considering ive already basically done that) in the case that jack. idk. killed someone and was promptly cancelled on twitter for murder.

so yeah no. my deepseated hatred of the fandom in general (despite my love for much of the art and the wonderful people ive met) does not extend to all real person fandoms

[tigerdrop]

44. i love ur passionate rants

44. Rant about something writing related.

okay. to my fellow writers out there. i am begging you: make sure the intro to your fic (or, you know, any project) is as free of typos or formatting errors as you can possibly make it. if i see any kind of formatting issues in the first couple of paragraphs, im instantly turned off! and im far from the only person who decides if im gonna keep reading that quickly. poor formatting is the #1 thing that throws me out of a fic. for me, personally, this generally entails:

“if im talking and i emphasize the last word, italicize the whole chunk of punctuation after it! it looks a lot nicer!”

“instead of, say, this?!” (it looks worse on ao3 than on here, i promise)

“or, god forbid, this .“

“ dont put spaces between the start and end of a quote in general. please. “

“please for the love of god punctuate your dialogue and make it clear who is actually talking. dont be afraid to use characters’ names frequently! the reader wont notice as much as you think!” insists mr drop

italicizing words too frequently makes them lose their impact. if you find yourself italicizing multiple words in a paragraph, consistently, across the entire fic, go back and take some out. most of the time, your readers can figure out the intended stress of a sentence without help!

seriously if youre out here spelling it “gorodn” and “benery” within the first few paragraphs, its obvious you dont give a shit. and your humble reader isnt gonna give a shit about what youre writing!

this also goes for the notes and the tags on your fic. theyre the first thing any readers gonna see, and if you have blatant typos, or a massive wall of irrelevant tags, or you lead off by saying shit like “no beta readers we die like men!“ and “everybodys out of character in this one, hee hee”, people just arent gonna wanna read it. sell me on your work! make me want to click your fic! dont make your first introduction to people one thats all about your poor self esteem, whether were talking about fic or your actual real life. if you dont have anything nice to say about yourself, just dont say anything at all! let your work speak for itself

[shadowfiredemonwolf]

bumbleby was a forced ship I have seen people claim that calling bb forced is somehow homophobic or claiming that we wouldnt say that if bb was a het ship 

( which ignores how a good number of blacksun shippers or people saying bb was forced are members of the lgbt community and ship other same sex ships  in rwby show or out like narusasu ( another series)  and freezerburn ( in rwby)

but saying you shipped a same sex ship shouldnt have to be stated  as a defense against homophobia accusation if all of a persons ships were het that doesnt mean homophobia same applies to people who only ship same sex ships

if sun was a chick and yang a man would you still have shipped bb actually if yang was adude would you still have shipped bb from the start so passionately because to be frank I think a good portion of the shipping for team rwby was motivated due to desire for lgbt rep and shippers trying to take saying there will be lgbt rep as meaning team rwby would be lgbt . if say every last member of team rwby was decided to be straight and they never budged on that decision just because of popularity of white rose and bumbleby  that would be fine  the idea that because there were feasible same sex ships  doesnt mean the writers had to make it  happen ( 

I shipped blacksun because of the years of teasing , mutual attraction and development blacksun  with v6 goodbye scene coming off as romatnic goodbye scene rather then a ship sinking a statement that they will see each other again in vacuo and its then that blacksun will happen  ( sun stated he didnt go there just to get with blake not that he didnt want to )  sun left the group  because they needed to lessen the cast bloating )

it can be argued that the teasing for bb only began in v7 you can argue that they intended on v6 finale moments to be romantic but they werent inherently romantic ( I find it funny whne people try to hold adams line as gospel when he was called delusional and wouldnt understand why she values her friends and he has a hate for humans ) but leaving adams line aside  none of the blake and yang moments in v6 finale were inherently romantic not the hand holding scene not the hug scene not the plane scene ( the argument that since renora got a plane scene that was read as romantic we have to see the bb plane scene as romantic ignores the differences in those scenes)  ( I had faith in crwby that they wouldnt throw away the years of teasing , buildup and development they gave blacksun during which there wasnt anything that hinted at bb being more than friends 

sorry but  any argument that amounts to but  yellow beauty and black the beast lines  or well blakes aura is purple which is the color of yangs eyes and yangs aura is gold and blakes eyes are yellow etc is thrown out as worthless for one it relys on meta  reasoning  like yellow and purple meshing well and sorry  but its irrelevant when it comes to writing of the story  that was actually put in and the whole purple and yellow argument could easily be stated to have just been done because of how blake and yang are partners with each other like putting two guys with matching  color themes as evidence

besides the fact that crwby statedf they arent looking to replicate the stories of the myths

remember the oldest form of cinderella story is rhodipus who was saved by the brother of sappho of lesbos ( the inspiration for jaunes sister who appeared in v6 ) by that logic cinder could fall for jaune )

so the argument that since they used the lines beauty and beast for the theme songs they cant just stay as a sister like relationship is nonsense ( the teasing for bb only began in story in v7  nothing in v6 was inherently romantic

I mean beasts real name was adam you could easily use the name as evidence for taurodonna or sun going after blake and being a big part of her development as evidence for  him being the beauty

 you could make the argument for

blacksun as romantic with references to beauty and beast

bb being platonic

and taurodonna as beast fully becomes a monster

 the argument that bb was planned from the start because they use the words beauty and beast in theme songs is bs and blacksun had aCTUAL ROMANTIC  songs

(  If sun and yangs genders were swapped alot og the bb shippers who insist that bb was planned from the start would be going queerbaiting many of the bb shippers only shipped it due to a desire for lgbt rep which is a shallow reasoning (shipping just because of genders involved is shallow  good writing and interactions is more important ( it doesnt matter that there are more shows with het ships canon good writing is more important )

if sun and yangs genders were swapped people would have been bringing up how crwby stated they werent planning to repeat the myths

speaking of which the argument of but team jnpr included 2 m/f partners and they got together  or romantic hints  is a bad argument it goes since something happening with team jnpr the same thing should happen with team rwby by that reasoning do you want a member of team rwby to die 

there is nothing wrong with members of team rwby all being platonic relationships while arkos and renora become canon)

and I could easily make the color argument for blacksun

and second black the beast and yellow beauty arguments  

 for one they stated that   they had no intentions on copying the storys you could easily make the point that since they did that they would use the black the beast and yellow beauty lines for two friends 

I mean cinderella is now a villain in rwby and jaune represents her prince charming ( the oldest version ofcinderella story was about a greek slave girl rhodopis who was rescued by the brother of sapphos of lesbos )

but I doubt they are getting together

heck adams inspiration was the beast   and his relationship with blake was former friend/lover turned antagonist

it can be argued the beauty and beast  relationship was referenced in three ways  with yang and blake platonic,  blake and adam antagonistic ,  blake and sun romantic ( sun had a bigger part in blakes development then yang did and the yin and yang motif fits better  ) 

not to mention saying they planned it at the start or they had the idea for it at the start isnt the same as saying it was built up fro mthe start 

the claim that bb was planned from the start can easily be refuted by  if it was why was it set up so badly why did it take so long for actual teasing at them having romantic feelings or attraction to eachother why give blacksun so much teasing and development

there are two ways we can say this blacksun was the original plan but they threw away the years of development and teasing for blacksun to change direction for marketing purposes or just because of the popularity of bb ( popularity doesnt mean there is actual buildup )  a bad writing move it doesnt mesh well with the years of teasing and development

and 2 they did originally plan for bb and for blacksun to be a red herring but they ended up giving blacksun years of teasing adn development  and rather then throwing out the old plan for bb  and stayed   with blacksun  to fit the actual story  a good writing move    they kept to the plan even though the story pointed in a different direction

the argument I have seen by some that we only ship blacksun over bb because of the genders involved comes off as projection thats their reasoning for shipping bb over blacksun and seeing evidence where there is none 

I have seen people try to go there are tons of shows where het ship becomes canon  go watch one of those as if the reasoning for shipping blacksun over bb was just due to genders involved that we are mad about bb due to it beign a same sex ship which is irrelevant 

I would love to imagine to see that person complain about there not being any lgbt rep in a show or that none of main characters or lgbt like say if the show s protagonists are all women and they saw it as a feasible opportunity for same sex ships pairing them with each other and they all ended up straight and someone went there are other shows where there is lgbt rep.  and there is fanfic or shows in the future which will have lgbt rep

( its irrelevant that there arent that many shows with lgbt rep or canon same sex pairings invovling the mc good writing is more important  same sex ships are no different from het ships so they deserve criticism  saying one ship should have happened over another is fine.

do you know how many times I have seen people try to call a het ship forced when its not like how during v3 someone claimed they were forcing het ships on us when all they did was tease blacksun and not bb

( to the people who would go if bb was a het ship you would have shipped it  over blacksun or seen the moments as romantic no I wouldnt for they were teasing blacksun more while nothing bb had hinted at romance until v7 arguably v6  finale  

the you would have shipped it if it was changed from a same sex ship to a het ship thar could easily be flipped onto them if say blake was a man instead of a girl ( to keep the black the beast line )   you would have shipped blacksun 

and would call it queerbaiting how they thew the years of development for blacksun to go with bb 

while I would still have shipped blacksun .

all that matters is  the  writing the whole but lgbt rep is irrelevant good writing is more important 

if I like the pairing I will ship it  if like the characters interaction I will ship it 

if the ship I liked doesnt get the  romantic evidence  or teasing I wanted  if they dont decide to put it into a romantic angle    then I am fine with that ( lets say I was a bb shipper at the start I would have changed to blacksun and say that there wasnt any showings that they were going in the direction for bb)

 but if they do give the ship years of teasing, mutual attraction and development ( which is why I liked it )  but throw it away for the popular ship that didnt get any romantic buildup or teases beforehand that is when I would have a problem

or throw in a ship in the last minute as a publicity stunt and last minute retcon  breaking the narrative. when the narrative pointed to another couple while the two characters involved in the forced ship barely interacted and were barely friends and were incompatible it required one of the girls to be ooc ( reference to another show lok  to people who try to go but its the only canon same sex ship so what good writing is more important  then a political statement at the cost of the narrative     stop focusing on genders involved )

I have seen people make the oh but there arent many shows where there is lgbt representation involving a main character one  that is unimportant we are talking about rwby not a statement good writing is more important then a statement 

 second of all even if bb didnt happen its not like there werent other same sex ships that were feasible like freezerburn .

someone could 

 ( the argument that since team jnpr were all paired to eachother rwby should be is a bad argument  and relys on something done with a different team .

by that logic I can say since one of team jnpr died one of team rwby should

“Maybe i am the only one but freezerburn would have been such a good ship to make canon. You dont throw out Blake and Sun's development (that took almost 5 seasons) out of the window and you deliver a nice lgbt ship to the fans! Yang and Weiss have such good moments in v5 and before that too! (planing the ball together and fighting in v3). Like the reunion between Weiss and Yang, the hug, the music, the hushed voices- this is the most romantic scene ever, no bb scene can compete. I just- local biker girl dating the atlas princess is such a missed opportunity for a wholesome ship in which the two parties talk and trust each other.“

s

[pastelpaperplanes]

Hey there! I really like this AU of Cops and Mobs its interesting but kinda all over the place. Can u give just a general summary for the content so far? Like storyline wise because we go from Optimus to Knockout and Breakdown, to Shockwave having an emotional breakdown (pun intended) to megatron throwing bulkhead's baby? Like some chronological points/summary would be awesome. If you dont want to, no worries! Again awesome AU.

😂😂😂😂

yes ofc context is needed I agree

FIRST OF ALL,,,this is VERY IMPORTANT

Megs throwing bunky around in NOT part of cops and mobs AT ALL,,I’m just messing around and shit posting it’s completely irrelevant to my au

In nutshell, Optimus works at a nightclub that is owned by Megatron, who is a writer/poet but also the leader of the Decepticon Mob. Cops arent albe to plant anything on him bc he’s smart enough to cover his tracks.

Sentinel sent Optimus undercover with a new name ‘Orion Pax’ to infiltrate the nightclub and try and get mob secrets, no one is the Elite Police Force knows about Optimus’ extremely dangerous undercover work other than Sentinel.

Knockout also works at the Nightclub, he’s a burlesque who has a tragic history with his late lover, Breakdown, who died due to him getting drawn into a failed quick cash drug bust. Knockout has had a hard life, he resents any and all Mob influence. He shows  Orion the ropes on how to properly ‘woo’ the crowds, Knockout DOESN’T KNOW that Orion is undercover, but Optimus eventually cracks and tells him.

Shockwave has those ‘breakdowns’ sometimes, he’s just a little over emotional when it comes to his own ego and feels like he’s a bit underappreciated (only rly admits that when he’s hammered)

[bigskydreaming]

Height discourse confuses me so much, because I, a 4'9 21-year-old Asian perceives anyone taller as tall. But reading international posts saying 5'6 is small makes me double-take, like, "Wut?"

LOL, ahh yes, the infamous “How Tall IS Dick Grayson Actually” discourse. I feel you. And I can definitely see how it would be bemusing as hell given your perspective, lmao.

And I mean, its definitely up there on the list of “Things I Can’t Believe There’s Actually Discourse About” buuuuuut I’m not really judging because I know damn well there’s a fuckton of shit I’ve Discoursed about on pretty much everyone else’s “Things I Can’t Believe There’s Actually Discourse About” list. 

*Shrugs* But I also do get why it exists, if you scratch beneath the surface - as is often true of a lot of seemingly inane discourses. Its not really about height so much as it is about the why’s of writers specifying certain heights for him, and stereotypes associated with height.

On the one hand, you’ve got the fans who look at writers who make a point of writing Dick as particularly short, or the shortest of the Batfam once all of them are adults, and think: this is because of fandom’s fixation with writing Dick as effeminate or the least ‘manly’ of the Batfam, and thus I dislike it and do not trust this writer’s take on him.

Then on the other hand, you have the fans who look at objections like this and think: this is because of bullshit fostered by the toxic masculinity and sexism that’s so present in society, even women can be guilty of perpetuating the idea that there’s anything TO object about there, that a man being effeminate or less ‘manly’ than his brothers is some kind of insult or slight against him in the first place.

But then go back to the first hand.....

And on the one hand, of those fans, you’ve got the fans that don’t actually think there’s anything insulting about a man being effeminate or less manly themselves, but given that the bullshit fostered by the toxic masculinity and sexism in society is so everpresent, even women can be guilty of perpetuating the idea that ‘shorter = weaker’ etc, etc.......its not him being written as short that’s objectionable to them, its what they believe the writer is implying by making that distinction that they’re objecting to, like that it reads to them as though its being used as a smokescreen to create associations in readers’ minds, with the idea of him being weaker or softer or whatever the fuck compared to his brothers, without those writers actually having to SAY what they’re getting at there and spell it out. Plausible deniability kinda thing.

And then on the other hand, you have those fans who object to writing Dick as short because they actually DO buy into that bullshit and they ARE simply objecting to the idea itself because of toxic masculinity and sexism and etc etc.

But then go back to the original second hand.....

And on the one hand THERE, you have the fans whose responses to people objecting about writing Dick as short are based on exactly what they say they are......pointing out that its only objectionable if its viewed as insulting and the only reasons its viewed as insulting are toxic masculinity and sexism which they’re calling out as being perpetuated here.

And on the other hand there, you have those fans who DO buy into the associations between ‘shorter = weaker’ and actually ARE writing things that way with the intent of hoping to form that association in the minds of any readers who similarly buy into those lines of thought or are susceptible to it......and are simply using ‘arent you the REAL misogynist here for thinking shorter equals more feminine which equals weaker or frail or whatever’ arguments that are simply typical flipping the script tactics and hiding behind buzzwords they don’t actually believe in themselves but know are effective in getting people to back down, etc, etc. The plausible deniability thing.

And I’ve been out of hands here for awhile now, obviously, but you get what I mean. Round and round and round it goes, with the true point always hidden juuuuuuust beneath the surface, and more than a little tedious to have all unpacked and catalogued like here, which is a major factor in why so many people rarely dig beneath the surface of a seemingly inane discourse to get at what people are REALLY arguing about but nobody wants to ‘lose ground on’ by being the first to admit to.

As for me, again, this really isn’t a dicourse that I spend much time on because I’d rather cut straight to the point of an argument in general, and this isn’t an discourse that’s particularly amenable to people doing that, obviously. 

And also, I honestly just don’t care that much. LOL. Yeah, I often read works where Dick is singled out as being distinctively shorter and feel an author is trying to ‘imply’ something and its the implications of that which are the source of any ‘Not Good, Scoob’ feelings rather than because I agree with what’s trying to be implied. But y’know......when an author IS playing that game and they actually do buy into toxic and sexist stereotypes.....I mean, there’s literally always other indications of this in their work, giving them away all over the place. So there’s honestly never really a time when his height itself is actually what that hinges upon, y’know?

So my big takeaway from all of this is: headcanon and write Dick as whatever damn height you feel like and if you want to imply something about him just fucking say it directly and if you want to accuse someone of something just fucking call it out directly.

*points to the above unpacking of this particular discourse and how fucking tedious and unnecessary so much of it is and all just because people won’t just say what they actually came to say or lay claim to what they actually said*

ANYWAY.

Personally, regardless of how Dick is written in a fic, I will always headcanon him as somewhere between 5′10″ and 6′1″ for reasons that are entirely irrelevant and meaningless to anyone but me, pretty much. LOL.

In my head, Dick obviously has to be that height because he’s walked a runway as a model before. That’s it. That’s the whole reason my mind automatically goes to that span when picturing him or reading something about him.

(As most people who have followed me for a bit know, I spent a number of years working in the TV industry. There were a couple years there where I did a little bit of print modeling too, nothing major at all, but enough to know that the fashion industry has a Very Definitive Thing about male runway models and height: If you are a male runway model, you are between 5′10″ and 6′1″. If you are not between 5′10″ and 6′1″, you are not a male runway model and you never will be. Its a Thing. And not one the industry is shy about. 

Because of the fact that the fashion industry is mostly centered around women models with name recognition, and very few men who model have star power specifically in terms of modeling, rather than because of crossover/overlap with acting, there’s a major difference in how designers tend to approach designing for models. Most designers designing runway looks for women do so with specific models already in mind. Most designers designing runway looks for men do so without specific models in mind because there simply aren’t enough male models with the kind of branding/name recognition that does a designer any good. 

So designers literally JUST design runway looks for men in that height range, and anyone outside that range would require tailoring that could feasibly throw off an entire runway look. So they just don’t do it, to the point that an agent or manager sending them someone outside that height range to consider for a job means that agent’s not getting called back, because they just gave themselves away as a clear amateur by not knowing better.

Of course, keep in mind that my experiences with modeling are based on the industry re: ten years ago, so it could be that things have changed in this regard since. But that was the status quo then.)

So yeah. Dick Grayson walked a runway for Cheyenne Freemont, thus in my mind he’s obviously between 5′10″ and 6′1″ lolol, because any up and coming designer trying to make a name for herself would absolutely know better than to send out someone shorter than that and still think anyone in the industry would take her seriously.

LOL. I told you it was inane. But in my defense, plenty of people headcanon that Dick HAS to be small because he’s a gymnast, and uh.....that is not how that works. Anyone can be an amazing gymnast, its just that smaller body types lend themselves to gymnastics better than bigger, bulkier bodies. And thus the competition oriented gymnastics SPORT heavily favors cultivating and training gymnasts on the smaller side, because coaches and endorsers are looking for literally any advantage possible.

(Being shorter means you have a lower center of gravity which is a help when balancing, or stabilizing yourself. Its easier for a shorter gymnast to keep their balance or to stick a landing. But it doesn’t become impossible just because someone’s hit six feet tall. It HELPS to be shorter. It doesn’t determine whether or not you can do a trick at all, much like being short and having a lower center of gravity by no means GUARANTEES you have good balance.)

And of course, though Dick excels at a ton of gymnastics, he is not and never has been a gymnast per se....he’s an acrobat. From a family of acrobats. Who have been doing this as a family business generationally, thus.....why would they have future height requirements when training their son in the family business? And being from a family of acrobats doesn’t ensure you’re going to be short, if your family members are not already short to begin with. Evolution does not give a fuck about future employment opportunities when selecting which gene sequences to flip on while in utero.

The correlation is ‘most gymnasts who excel at gymnastics feats are small,’ not ‘to excel at gymastic feats, you must be small.’

I am absolutely and completely just rambling now and have been for awhile so I’m gonna go beat up my insomnia until it caves and lets me go the fuck to sleep.

[fucktheroyals]

What is up friend, I love your blog and have been using you as my main source of spn stuff since the last episode so I just wanted to ask: how are we feeling about tomorrow's episode? I'm terrified, I don't get to see it until Friday and I just want to be happy. Anywho! Bye😘

HIIIII FRIEND THANK U FOR SAYING THAT, THATS MAKES ME HAPPY! I'm feeling not very worried but also I'm kind of preparing for disappointment tomorrow (but not the last ep), personally I think Cas might be in tomorrow's ep, but I am preparing myself for him not being in it. But I do think he will be in the last ep if not tomorrow's.

My only worry is the writers for this ep, they have been troublesome with Castiel related things (almost every damn time we've had something important happen with Cas & Dean in an episode previous to their episodes, its just glossed over 😒). I wouldn't be surprised if we arent given much, if any, of Dean's reaction to Cas dying. Obviously Dean won't be acting normally (thank you Jensen) but I'm not gonna be shocked if we get put straight into the action. However there is a possibility Sam will get Dean to talk about his feelings. So. we can only hope.

Honestly if we see Cas I'll be like "oh thank God everything is ok". In times of important Cas & Dean related stuff these writers do surprise me on occasion. Maybe this'll be the buckleming redemption we're all hoping for, but 🤷‍♀️

I'm kinda of the opinion that they're going to deal with God first and then the empty. (and they will be dealing with the empty because that's what they keep hinting on through the last few episodes specifically but also since s13) And if they deal with the empty.... Ya know, they get Cas.

And then there's us finding out if Dean does reciprocate. This is the hardest peice of info to get grasp on. I dont trust the cast or the crew for a damn second so whatever they say is irrelevant to me. The worry here is mostly about the CW company. Being a big company and on network television they aren't going to take risks unless they are TRULY persuaded so seeing something like Cas just did (a whole fucking 3 minute confession, absolutely incredible) makes it very unlikely we will get something from Dean thats just as outright, if anything at all (and that is what everyone I've seen talk about this is saying). HOWEVER, there are shows that have far outdone previous expectations of their companies, due to their showrunners and creators efforts. I think if they're giving us Cas, they're giving us Dean, and Dean's narrative, in my opinion, feels like it's supposed to be more outright than Cas' was due to how much Dean goes out of his way to push Cas away. The writer's have set it up to possibly be a detrimental part of the story, so hopefully they knew they were going to be able to follow through (and from what i've heard they would've had to get approval earlier than when this season started so they are just going along with the story for it to get cut off). There's no way to tell what's going to happen, but those are my hopes. I'm going to prepare for something very small but confirming but it would honestly be wise to prepare for the worst. also I'm thinking if we get Dean's response to Cas its gonna be in the last episode not tomorrows. BUT if they give us more than we could possibly dream of (in consideration of all the circumstances) we ALL will owe Dabb, Berens, and the rest of the writers our lives because we can't imagine how hard they fought for it.

Basically I have no clue what we're getting with Dean because it's either old territory and we're disappointed or ENTIRELY new territory that no would see coming. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

[sometimesrosy]

first of all i want to say i love your blog and i love reading ur analysis because they're amazing so this is not me being an anti i just want to clarify something about the fandom. its not that they dont believe those bellarke scenes arent romantic, they believe it is 100% they just dont trust jason or believe that he will make them canon after all that. and i know ur going to say they already are but i mean canon like confessing feeling/kissing cuzz they're can be a build up for so long (1/2)

(2/2) before it gets to dragged on. it already feels organic for them to already confess their feelings but they still dont. and thats what the fandom's problem is they think the writers had a lot of opportunity to make them canon already in an organic way but still havent so they think they will never deliver. even now bellamy and clarke are separated still. we prob wont see bellamy himself until ep 7 or something (thats speculation though)

+++

Well I don’t have any patience for people who think what’s on screen isn’t happening.

That’s the story.

It’s not baiting.

It’s story.

Bellarke have ALWAYS had separations and that’s not new and it’s not different, it is the pattern of their relationship.

And these people who are just bitter are simply no fun to be in a fandom with.

They don’t trust JR? So what? He might not follow the story. Some showrunners don’t. And when that happens it’s not the end of the world. you find a new show to watch. They act like he’s public enemy #1 and that’s not fair. To condemn a person BEFORE he’s done the thing they imagine he’s going to do. 

Because so far he HAS followed the story. The people who felt betrayed by CL weren’t paying attention to the story. Those of us who did KNEW what was coming down to the the episode she would die in. And now, he’s wrapping up storylines and bringing ships into their endgame territory and reuniting the delinquents and we’re finding out about all sorts of sf stuff, and he’s going to answer all the questions and tell us all what it means after all.

But they don’t trust him because he didn’t follow through on promises he NEVER made. The CL stuff was NEVER the story. It was NEVER going to be endgame and she was always going to die. Whether that was a good decision or not is irrelevant, that’s the story he set up. And they ignored it for their imaginary Lxa Show. 

I have been called delusional so many times in this fandom for the very great sin of sticking to the text.

Meanwhile, a large part of fandom makes up a story out of whole cloth and tells everyone that what’s on screen isn’t happening and because it’s not what they predicted, it’s bad and JR is evil. And then they accuse him of not doing what he’s doing on screen. 

I never understood this, that people can point out where Bellarke is shown on screen as romantic, and THEN say JR isn’t making Bellarke romantic.

I mean. If you SEE it on screen then he’s making it romantic.

But they want the money shot, right?

They don’t want to put up with the story that builds the romance, they just want to jump to the end.

AND

They harass everyone who still believes in bellarke, still loves the show and thinks JR is a decent writer. 

I know you’re defending fandom because you have warm fuzzies for them, but a lot of those people are the ones who send me those nasty anons and talk about me in group chats and stalk me for their queen bees. 

So I dont’ give them the benefit of the doubt anymore. I used to. 

and that didn’t work out well for me.

You know what? I think fandom is too obsessed with JR. They have really made him enemy #1 and this has affected how they see the show, but to be honest, JR shouldn’t come into play at all. He’s irrelevant to our experience of The 100. All we need is the actual show to know what’s going on.

Instead, they’re making it all about JR and how evil he is.

It’s a game that is dumb.