#Established and Important Headcanons and i think about it all the time. i should write something about it but i have lost the ability to

[sneez]

victor kain chronic pain nation rise up (credit to @transdankovsky for this idea :-D)

/ id: two digital drawings. the first image shows victor kain and daniil dankovsky sitting together; daniil is taking victor’s pulse. inside a speech bubble above victor’s head is a screenshot of a question from the duolingo russian course, in which the sentence ‘я – хороший пациент, у меня всегда всë болит’ is translated as ‘i am a good patient, i always have pain everywhere’. the second image shows daniil looking politely horrified. end id. /

[spidey-x-male-reader]

Could I ask for a Rolan with a GN reader who's a human, but is very interested in tiefling biology and constantly asks random questions? Like Rolan is just reading or smth and the reader pops up behind him all 'CAN YOUR TAIL WAG LIKE A DOGS???:00'

Pairing: Rolan x human!reader (no gender specific pronouns used)

Summary: You're questioning your boyfriend about tiefling biology while he's just trying to enjoy his book >:(

A/N: Honestly wasn't sure in which format I would write this and just stuck to easy headcanons. Hope you like it :) (holy shit i'm thinking about nothing else than baldurs gate right now. help)

REQUESTS ARE OPEN

MASTERLIST

Rolan surely has a lot of...feelings for you

He loves you. Of course.

He just sometimes asks himself why exactly

Sure you always were very energetic. You thirsted for new knowledge. That’s how it started.

One day he was peacefully reading a new book you got him when you suddenly showed up behind him

“Quick question. Can your tail like…” 

You made a weird gesture with your hand

“...what?”

“Like…wag. Like a dog. When he’s excited. Imagine just excitedly wagging your tail when you’re excited. You should try.”

“You have to try getting me excited first.”

You pout for a few seconds but immediately get back to your question

“Have you never tried?”

“Why would I?”

You don’t leave him alone until he shows you that indeed, he can manage to wag his tail a bit

He thought he was able to keep you happy with that

He was wrong

He had peace for about 10 minutes until you showed back up

“Your tail”

“We already established that it can wag”

“It’s not that this time”

You sit down in front of him and look at him like you’re about to ask him something extremely important

“Can you feel it like a normal body part? Could I tickle it? Would it be ticklish?”

He looks at you without saying anything

Why did he love you so much? Why?

“Please refrain from tickling my tail.”

“But that doesn’t answer my question!”

For a few moments you just sat there and Rolan hoped he would be blessed with silence 

“Can your horns glow in the dark?”

“What? No”

“...boring”

“Sorry my body isn’t more interesting, darling”

“Your body is plenty interesting”

He looks at you, clearly unimpressed

“Will you let me continue to read now?”

“Fine”

You sigh dramatically but just move over, half lying on top of him

“Really?”

“You can still read”

He sighs but continues to read, moving his hand through your hair, stroking it softly

[nesquiiksstuff]

✎ ❝general relationship headcanons!❞

syzoth (feat. ashrah), baraka, raiden

love languages

fluff

thouple (syzoth + ashrah + reader)

thank you guys for so much support! im just going this hc thingy while I think up this for the raiden story (which hopefully won’t take too long). please enjoy!! ᰔ

ᰔ syzoth :: quality time and gift giving

he is not uncomfortable to talk about his passed family, honestly syzoth would enjoy if his partner was interested in that part of his life. whether it’s recommending visiting their grave site, or sharing his grief—is something that he greatly appreciates.

the reason ashrah and syzoth work so well is because they’re both trying to right their sins, having you be there and being supportive means the absolute world. he shows you that through small thoughtful gifts (mostly trinkets that he finds at markets or on his walks).

idk if anyone is actually interested in a thouple with them…but hear me out 🤲. I genuinely think ashrah and syzoth would be so well rounded and loving. date nights either in Shaolin’s gardens or mileena’s palace (probably in the library), always romantic with stereotypical candle light and a nice dinner. syzoth thinks it’s important to make it special as possible since there’s only a few times when you’re all together.

. . .

ᰔ baraka: acts of service, words of affirmation, physical touch

what baraka truly needs is another leader. there is so much responsibility placed on his shoulders with the colony—but of course he would never truly ask you to help, he’s stubborn and well…has a guilty conscience. you would need to insert yourself without needing to be prompted. assertiveness and responsibility is something he finds extremely attractive, as well as being compassionate, gods knows that it’s also something he needs.

physical contact is foreign to him, after years of being alone once his family passed and being ill. he adores it when you bring some type of normalcy to touching him, though he’s the first to pull away. baraka knows the risk he puts you in everyday, if he can limit the chances of tarkat spreading to you—while still indulging this relationship, he will.

like asking for extra leadership—he wouldn’t pursue you. baraka wouldn’t ever expect another chance of love, in all honesty he would think that his pining is one sided. Though once you’ve established a relationship with him, he’s open with you. private moments with you are filled with him thanking you for the work you put in the colony, and how you treat not only him but others. even though he’s no poet, he makes sure you know he cherishes you.

. . .

ᰔ raiden: words of affirmation and quality time

usually he pursues people that he highly respects. you don’t have to do something exceptional, but having passion for your own beliefs is what he values in a person and especially in a partner. also it would be admirable if you were interested in his own goals and aspirations, after all raiden’s prospective has changed much once the events in outworld has passed.

raiden is humble…but he likes showing off to you—not exactly out of place of smugness but he enjoys when you are impressed at his talents. he smiles so brightly whenever you compliment him on his achievements or on his hard work in general. it’s probably one of his top motivation besides him genuinely enjoy what he’s doing.

if you two ever got the chance to go back to fengjian his first goal would to introduce you to his family, he has to be a mama’s boy. he cares deeply for his family and he wants you to feel included in that circle. besides visiting them, he’s taking you to see the sites and old hang out spots. leading you along by holding your hand keeping you close (I love him he’s so sweet ugh). it means everything that you’re willing to listen to his childhood stories and just with him in general to visit his hometown.

sadly i’m trying to keep his to minimum since my own little headcanons for him should show up in the story i’m writing for him :]

thank you for reading!

[salty-croissants]

Hi again, It's me Spark

I got Another requests for you. I think it would be cool if we get a headcanon about training with bullfrog. It would be pretty cool :D

(Thanks again, And Take care of yourself sometime :))

Thank you for the request !

I really , really like this concept , I had so much fun writing for it :D 

Hope it turned out okay !  Imma fall asleep now :,]

Details : use of gender neutral reader ; 

established relationship ; 

no warnings needed 

Okay , we should probably start by saying that Bullfrog is excellent at motivating you when you’re exercising together , which shouldn’t be a surprise considering how much of an encouraging sweetheart he normally is … 

< That’s it my dear , you’re doing great ! > 

< Just one more , you can do it … ! > 

Though he definitely makes sure to respect your limits , cause if there’s one thing that this frog doesn’t want is for you to hurt yourself while trying to please him . 

Bullfrog definitely gets quite serious when teaching you something combat-related … however , the two of you inevitably end up getting playful with it while training .

< Ohh … playing dirty , are we mon amour ? 

Then I suppose you won’t mind it if I … > 

< Ahh - nooo , that tickles ! ~ > 

< Heh , feel like giving up yet ? >

< Neverr !! > 

Your smile and the sound of your laughter manage to successfully distract him , at least for a few minutes … 

Can you blame him ? How is he supposed to resist you when you’re being so cute all the time ? 

Bullfrog is able of immediately knowing when you’re starting to feel a bit too tired , and he will instantly stop what you’re doing and quickly walk away to get you something fresh to drink .  < Here , now let’s just sit for a bit . Take a deep breath … >

< I’m sorry Bullfrog … I didn’t mean to interrupt our session … >

< Non , please don’t apologize about that y/n : you’ve already done so much today , and I don’t want you to be too tired later …

I did promise you some cuddles after all , n'est-ce pas vrai ? ~ >

Your health is of first priority for your boyfriend , and he always makes sure that you don’t overdo it … it’s the most important thing for him .

Since he loves to cherish your every victory , no matter how small , you can imagine how proud of you Bullfrog is whenever you manage to best him in a fight when you train …

He adores to see you succeed , he knows you deserve it and it makes him very happy to see your hard work pay off . 

< Très bon travail , mon chou … You did well ! > 

< *pant* … you really think so , love … ? > 

< Absolutely ! You should be proud of yourself y/n , you’ve come so far from the first time we tried this … 

Now come , you deserve a nice break . > 

< Yeah , a break does sound nice … > 

[itsclydebitches]

With all the talk about Blake's bisexuality lately, I wanted to revisit the stream where this is "confirmed." I think it's really important not only that Blake's sexuality hasn't been confirmed in canon yet -- a fact which RWDE fans have explained ad nauseum and I won't rehash here -- but that our external "confirmation" is so tentative that it still leaves room for doubt. And that right there is the problem.

That video includes:

Arryn initially ignoring Blake's sexuality as a similarity between them because she "wasn't sure she was allowed to say that." If this were a 100% confirmed, established, 'We planned it from the beginning' bit of characterization, there wouldn't be any hesitation about what they're "allowed" to discuss in a stream. I'd understand the hesitation a little better if Blake/Yang were getting confirmed in the upcoming Volume and the crew was avoiding spoilers... but that wasn't the case.

"I think it's pretty obvious." You're either confirming a fact or you're not. Why the emphasis on what the audience should "obviously" be taking away? And as established, after the Golden Age of Queerbaiting there is no "obvious" reading when homophobic writers and executives can dodge a confirmation at any time.

"I confirm nor deny canonically, but in my headcanon? Oh, that's a whole other story!" This is LITERALLY dodging a confirmation. We are told outright that the crew cannot confirm that Blake is canonically bisexual, but they do support it in their own, RWBY imaginings. That's great! That's also, as explicitly stated, not canon.

The video link I could most easily find is attached to a RWBY Reddit thread titled "Arryn has basically confirmed once and for all that Blake is bisexual." There should be no "basically" in that sentence.

This is why so many fans are wary: because these kinds of "obvious" implications without an explicit confirmation is the definition of queerbaiting. That's what you do if you want your audience to stick around without actually producing a queer relationship. You put a blush here, a forehead touch there, a nudge-nudge-wink-wink from a VA, a comment about bisexual bobs, a ship-inspired song, a "Wait and see ;)" and, and, and ... and then you end the show with nothing ever coming of it. Or, it's a last moment addition so the writers never have to actually write the relationship. This is why Supernatural was (and in many ways still is) the most overt example of queerbaiting. It's not because fans saw the potential for a relationship between Cas and Dean, but the writers never capitalized on it; it's because the writers LOADED the story with "obvious" references and innuendos, spent YEARS having Misha, Jensen, and other cast members talk about the "obvious" love between them... and then just continued on their merry way for fourteen years, doing nothing with it, before throwing out a one-sided confession + death in the final hour. Fans were taught precisely how "obvious" a queer character can be without actually existing.

As a bisexual woman watching RWBY, I want confirmation of this relationship and, furthermore, I have more hope for one than I would have a decade ago. I'd be more willing to put my money on these "obvious" references amounting to something in 2023 than I would have back in 2005. But those of us who are old enough to have been active in fandom during that time know that just because many shows have gotten better about their queer rep doesn't mean that every show is going to follow in their footsteps. I do wonder how many fans who take a "basically" as undeniable confirmation are on the younger side, with "younger" meaning... under 25? Because I can't imagine anyone who was immersed in popular media back then coming in with such confident takes built on so very little, or having such faith in a company with RT's reputation. We've been blessed with the likes of She-Ra, Owl House, Steven Universe, The Last of Us, and a wealth of other stories that have fought for and/or introduced queer rep, and I wonder if those raised on that bounty literally can't picture a show that would tease a popular ship so extensively and not bring it to fruition. The unexpected downside of getting more canonical rep is that there's a generation of viewers who are ignorant -- or at least appear ignorant -- of the history that gave us shows like Supernatural, Sherlock, Teen Wolf, Buffy. And if you're older still, you're familiar with the age of television when a canonically queer character wasn't even a possibility, but that didn't stop writers from both building the show around fans' desire for representation. Sometimes that was done kindly with coding that, legitimately, was the most they could hope to air and showcased the writers' own desire to diversify television... and sometimes it was cruel.

I've said a hundred times that I hope Blake/Yang shippers aren't hurt in the way so many older fans have been, either due to deliberate queerbaiting, or RWBY getting cancelled before a relationship can truly develop. We all deserve to have such prominent confidence in writers treating their queer characters well. But we can't allow hope or personal certainty to blind us to reality, not when that's resulting in a completely unnecessary antagonism within the fandom. And the reality is that no, Blake hasn't been confirmed in the show and her "confirmation" outside of it does not meet many fans' standards -- for very understandable reasons. I can say categorically that I have never seen anyone erase Blake's bi identity because that identity doesn't truly exist yet. The ambiguity of her attraction to Yang is precisely why queerbaiting is a problem and why RWDE folks call so loudly for a 100% canonical relationship: it's too easy to shrug off such moments as a "sisterly" thing, to use the unfortunate words of Arrowfell. And if you scoff and go, "What? Sister don't act like that!" then you don't understand queerbaiting. You don't understand the history of shows writing THE most "obvious" coding you've ever laid your queer little eyes on and then going nowhere with it. That's the point. That's the point! The entire point is to make the relationship as "obvious" as possible so that fans will stick around, praise the show, celebrate rep early, push everyone else to watch it...

...and then fall apart when the relationship never happens.

I hope to god that's not RWBY's future, but after three years of just a single hint each (hand-holding, blush, Blake's fury over Yang's "death") and the lack of hints in the Volume 9 trailer, please don't go after fans who don't have unwavering confidence in the girls' queerness being canonical. Posts that acknowledge Blake's attraction to men, ambiguous attraction to Yang, or point out the comparative wealth of straight confirmation compared to the queer coding aren't attacking queer fans. Those posts are written by queer fans who know precisely how quickly the "obvious" ship can get tossed aside. Or worse, the queer character never really confirmed as queer in the end.

RWBY can ditch Blake/Yang. They can shrug and say that a bi Blake was just Arryn's headcanon -- weren't you listening when we said it wasn't canon? They can make sweet apologies and explain that they never intended the animators to make that so romance coded. You know, just like they never meant for Clover to wink at Qrow. Real talk: I personally can't imagine having this much faith in the show after that fiasco. We got the EXACT same kind of coding (wink + bashful look + "obvious" romance tropes like their opposite semblances) and the ending was Clover dying a bloody death, Qrow hating him, and the writers backpedaling from the idea of an attraction like nobody's business. That set off SIREN alarms in every RWBY fan I know who understands queerbaiting history, but so many others appear ignorant to the warning signs. I'm not saying examples like this means we won't get queer rep in the title team, I'm saying it explains others' hesitation. RT has made no promises, is not beholden to their fanbase, and does not have a good history with its queer rep or its queer employees. If you're a queer fan who has confidence in bi Blake in the face of all that, fantastic, more power to you, but those who are wary aren't your enemy. They're also queer fans, just those who have been burned enough in the past and have learned not to put their whole heart into what they might not get. What we're likely to get? Probably, but you know what they say about counting chickens...

I just wish fandom was better about learning from these past experiences -- listening to older fans and acknowledging that history with an open mind -- rather than learning through another awful, first-hand experience. Though I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that this never happens, I wonder how many RWBY fans might be fruitlessly warning others someday if their queer rep crashes and burns.

[muffinmonstah-art]

Tell me why and how SasoSaku. Sell me the ship.

Oh, that’s an interesting challenge. I’ve made a post a few days ago about how freaking weird it is for me that there’s a new audience following me mainly for my western comics’ fanart, but those of them who are also familiar with Naruto and it’s characters, don’t know my SasoSaku headcanons, or don’t care about the ship in general. I have had an established fanbase for so long that followed me for this ship that I guess no one ever asked me “why and how” about the ship. But I think this is the perfect time to introduce new audiences to my vast, long SasoSaku lore. They are the core ship of this account. They are the main topic of the only longfic I own. They have their own month dedicated to them. I’ve made a vow to myself that no matter how tempting it is for me to write my first fanfic in English for other fandoms, I wouldn’t do that until I can translate Definiciones Torcidas to English.

So, welcome to my first essay attempt. Why do I ship SasoSaku, and why it’s so important to me. -Feel free to throw rotten tomatoes at me if I fail at explaining myself-

I think I should split this explanation into two main points:

The canon material that every SasoSaku fan quotes to showcase the ship’s potential. And in second place, my personal story/headcanon/established universe for the ship that exists separately from other people’s headcanons.

The canon material

To be honest, this part is kinda boring to me after so many years. The base it’s always the same since these two characters only interacted on one arc of the story. Quick summary for everyone reading this introduction and it’s not familiar with the source material: There’s a two-year timeskip. The main characters got split during said time skip and they have a rescue mission right after they get back together (Three of them get back together, Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi. Sasuke has left their village before the time skip on bad terms. He follows his own path of revenge, and when Gaara’s rescue arc happens, his location is still unknown).

Side Note # 1: I’m very much a Naruto hater. I think after this first arc, the quality of the story does nothing more than go down and down to the very bottom. I’ll try not to fulfill this essay with my complaints and rants about Kishimoto as a writer and his creation, and will try to focus on the task at hand, which is Sasori and Sakura and their canon interactions. But I think my overall critical perspective adds some context to my analysis.

 Back to the story, we are introduced to Sasori as a genius puppet master, the greatest one the Sand Village have ever given to the world. But he is a member of Akatsuki, the terrorist organization that kidnapped Gaara (The Sand Village’s leader - Kazekage - ). In fact, it’s both Sasori and Deidara who are given that kidnap mission. Deidara fights against Gaara and wins. Sasori does nothing during these first events. In fact, Sasori is presented as a mysterious, monster figure that just lies in the background while Deidara kidnaps Gaara. Basic trait of them both: they are artists. Sasori believes art is eternal, that’s why he created tons of puppets that can endure through time. Deidara believes art is ephemeral, that’s why his techniques are based on explosive clay figures of all sizes and forms. He blows things up, he can even blow himself up if the situation requires it. We see them fight a lot about their visions of art. Sasori threatens to kill Deidara a few times.

By the time Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi arrive at the Sand Village to help, they team up with Chiyo, a wise elder who is also Sasori’s grandmother. She has some other background story involving Kakashi’s father, who killed Sasori’s parents in the past but that is never explored. It doesn’t matter. She learns her grandson is a criminal that is behind this terrorist act so she goes with the group to help. 

This is the important part. By the time they track Gaara, they find him already dead. Akatsuki wanted the Racoon beast that was sealed inside Gaara’s body. These things are called bijuus. There’s nine of them. Naruto has the Kyuubi, aka the Nine tails fox beast sealed inside him. Once they extract the bijuu from Gaara, he dies. The encounter happens, the heroes learn they were too late, Naruto is furious. Deidara decides he’s going to take down Naruto so he leaves the scene flying above one of his giant clay birds with Gaara’s body. Naruto follows him, Kakashi goes too. 

So… Chiyo stays with Sakura and they are going to team up and fight against Sasori.

I forgot, Might Guy’s team is also present on this arc. They go as reinforcements to help against the Akatsuki. But they don’t matter. You could cut them and little to zero would change. I don’t think they are well integrated into this arc.

I think the fight is pretty good. 

See, Sakura suffers from being a main female character in a story written by a male writer who has NO CLUE how to write female characters. For that, she’s very unlikable during part one. Superficial, selfish, and with little to no focus on her. Besides of that, much of what she does is related to one of the most nasty romantic subplots I’ve ever read in fiction. Her rivalry with Ino (her ex-best friend) which should serve to create some empathy with the reader and make her a deeper character, achieves the opposite result when we learn early in the series that Ino was her role model, the one that saved her from bullying, and Sakura chose to cut ties with her after she discovered they both had a crush on Sasuke. None of them have had an actual conversation with him, they just think he’s hot. 

But hey, much of this can still be forgiven when we consider Sakura is 12-13 years old in part one, and she is one of the few characters living in the ninja world that has living parents. We are shown through many characters on this series that being a ninja = dying on a mission and that results in many traumatized orphan children left behind. And the last time we saw Sakura before the time skip, she promised to Naruto she was gonna get stronger. I think this arc FINALLY delivers on that regard. Chiyo and Sakura make a fantastic team against Puppet Boy.

She has super-strength now and has medical abilities like her teacher, Tsunade. (Another thing that annoys the shit out of me is… Why does Kakashi ignoring Sakura in favor of Naruto and Sasuke, to the point that she had to learn from another teacher is never brought up in the story? Anyway, moving on.)

Chiyo explains the Sasori we see is not the real one. That’s Hiruko, one of his many puppets. The real one is hidden inside Hiruko. So, they make a plan to take him out of Hiruko:

He’s all cute and young, hasn’t aged a day since he left the Sand Village 20 years ago. (Meaning, Sasori is 35 years old by the time this fight is happening. Sakura is 15).

How can it be? No time for answers. Sasori summons his most lethal weapon: The Third Kazekage.

We are told the Third Kazekage disappeared a long time ago, no one has any idea what happened to him. It’s implied Sasori may have kidnapped him and killed him, turning him into his human puppet. The thing is, Sasori’s real technique and the reason why he is considered an ultimate genius is that he created this grotesque, unique process to turn humans into puppets, preserving the bloodline special powers they had in life. In this case, the Third Kazekage had the natural ability of Iron Sand. Meaning he could create metallic sand and form metallic giant geometrical things to use as weapons. Badass, am I right?

This is when the fight really happens. Sasori mentioned he was Orochimaru’s companion in Akatsuki before Orochi left the organization. Sakura associates Orochimaru with Sasuke, because the latter left the village to gain power and knowledge from Orochi himself.

This little interaction right here picked many people’s interest back in the day. Including me. Sakura’s goal is not just to defeat him. She wants him to tell her what he knows about Orochimaru. Yeah, she’s thinking about Sasuke but finally having her interacting with other characters beside the nasty crush is fresh for her. Finally we got her on a serious and committed mode, and the Sasuke thing is not even romantic here, because the main theme of the arc is her promise to Naruto about being stronger and useful. It’s to give closure to her little arc.

The fierceness in the way she talks here is just something we didn’t get to see to this point. Kishimoto just did not use her for anything else than a pairing fodder and crybaby for so long that it’s gratifying to see this warrior face of her without the other two annoying boys around. It’s great that a character like Sasori makes her be the best version of herself she has been so far, and without even trying. It’s also hilarious how he ignores her in a bored way and throws kunais at her.

Chiyo stops his attack by summoning Sasori’s parents puppets. They’re not human puppets. Sasori created these puppets back when he was a child to not feel lonely.

Side Note # 2: We’re not shown anything more than this about Sasori’s background. Everything else is speculation, including if he was a baby when his parents died, or if he was already old enough to understand what happened. 

Moving on.

Side Note #3: The way he grabs Sakura with robes to keep her trapped on a poisonous cloud while Chiyo tries to pull her back with her chakra threads looks hot to me, lmao.

“Oh, how can you say that when he’s trying to kill her?”

Number one, he does not care about her. He doesn’t know her. He just fights her because of circumstances. He’s just being practical. Number two, it’s only used to make her look badass one second later:

She makes an explosion of her own to dissipate the poisonous cloud and free herself.

Look at his face though. He is impressed. They’re enemies, he is 20 years older than her. He has tons of experience in combat. And him complimenting her skills continues to happen during this fight.

Side Note # 4: Even if I like this fight and personally consider this arc to be the end of the series, lmao, I have a problem with THIS

He makes iron spikes to crush them both separately, TWICE. Until they cannot use the chakra shields from the puppets to protect themselves. The shields get useless after one use because the iron sand invades them from the inside by contact. So… why doesn’t he use the same technique a third time? Just throw spikes at them again. 

But he can’t do that because he would have won. The end.

So what does Kishimoto do instead?

He makes Sasori create geometrical giant things for Sakura to crash with no problem. For no reason. Why? Why does he change his strategy so suddenly? Because is plot convenient.

Dumb. Makes me angry. Moving on.

The cave crashes because of the constant hitting, so they are now fighting in the daylight. Sasori creates a giant web of iron sand, that covers everything so they cannot escape. Sakura gets hit, Chiyo ends up trapped under a rock and it turns out, the iron sand was poisoned too this whole time. Sakura falls on the ground, Sasori laughs, feeling like he already won. He commands the Third Kazekage to give her the killing blow and…

She used an antidote she crafted during her time on the Sand Village, while she was curing useless Kankuro from Sasori’s poison, and faked being about to die so she could be close to the puppet to crash it.

I didn’t mention it, but this doesn’t come out of nowhere. Kankuro, Gaara’s older brother, tries to fight Sasori first to rescue his baby brother. Sasori kicks his ass and leaves him to die from his poison. Sakura cures him when she arrives to the village and keeps some antidote with her the whole time.

SHE DESTROYED HIS MAGNUM OPUS AND LOOK AT HIM. HE IS JUST IMPRESSED LMAO.

This is the moment we learn why he looks so young. He has turned himself into a human puppet, with the exception of one compact living tissue he keeps on his chest.

I’m gonna speed up from now on. The fight is still good. He uses 100 more puppets he controls with chakra threads from his chest. Chiyo uses 10 puppets, one with each finger of her hands. Sakura uses her punches. In the end it seems they could trap Sasori inside one of Chiyo’s chakra special tools but it was just his body. The living tissue escaped and migrated to another body at the last moment. He uses the confusion to try and stab his grandma from the back, but Sakura saves her by putting herself on the line of the blow.

I think it is hot how he is just that careless and continues to mess with her, like he isn’t almost out of resources at this point. Again, they’re fighting a fair duel. Everyone is giving their best and this whole scene is just to portray Sakura in a heroic way.

He continues to be impressed with her skills. Nothing to add, it’s just great.

Speeding up to the resolution of the encounter.

Chiyo and Sakura are both fighting against Sasori’s poison by this point. There’s just one antidote. Chiyo gives it to Sakura and Sasori laughs at his grandma for this.

Look, if there’s one spiteful, resentful reaction from Sasori during this fight it’s not against Sakura, but against Chiyo. We’re not shown their history together. We just know Chiyo raised him after his parents’ death and taught him to be a puppet master just like her. He created a lot of puppets while he lived in the Sand Village and, at 15 years old, he left. We know his mind became twisted enough that he started turning humans into puppets so I think it’s easy to assume Chiyo was a terrible parental figure and failed to keep him from following a dark path. And I like Chiyo, she’s easily the best female character Kishimoto ever created.

When Sasori tries to make the killing blow against Sakura, Chiyo uses Mom and Dad to stab him on his living tissue. 

Sasori now is about to die. Chiyo does not have an antidote, so she’s also agonizing. This is when a bullshit plot convenient moment happens. Despite having an antidote for Sasori’s poison, Sakura is about to die from the blood loss. She falls to the ground and Chiyo cures her with a forbidden technique she has been developing over the last years to turn inanimate puppets into living beings. She tells Sasori she planned to use it to give life to Mom and Dad as a gift for him. You’re still a terrible caretaker, but this is cute. 

Chiyo explains the price for reviving someone with that technique is to lose her life, but since Sakura is just unconscious, this is not enough to kill her. The reason for this technique to exist is to revive Gaara at the end of the arc, a happy ending for everyone except grandma Chiyo. It 's not subtle.

His indifference towards life moves her, makes her angry. Makes her care. He’s about to die, she knows that. But she still cares enough to have an emotional reaction to his words. To question his views in life. This makes me frustrated to no end. Why put an effort on making these characters have some type of exchange about their views on life if this is not going to matter? This had potential.

I must repeat myself. This is personal to Sakura, she is angry but she is almost trying to understand why he thinks that way. It’s alien to her but she has empathy. Sasori just answers honestly, like he doesn’t understand the human aspect of the question. It’s one of the last times the dilemma between Ninjas are tools vs Ninjas are more than tools makes itself present in this story. Like many other themes, it gets abandoned eventually because the writing of this series is dumb, and this interaction, while interesting, does not mean anything in the long run… 

BUT SO MUCH POTENTIAL. To me it looks like Sakura would have tried to make him change his mind or show him what she learned back in the Land of Waves on the Zabuza arc, that ninjas are more than tools. 

Chiyo stops the yelling by telling her Sasori is this way because of the traditions and culture of the Sand Village. So, these ninja villages are fascist places that brainwash their citizens to make them heartless tools that serve the interest of feudal lords and rich warlords. Sasori is not a deviant, it’s a product of the system… Another topic that will never be addressed again. Pathetic.

This is the last thing we see that can make us see the potential on the ship. Sasori is the one to bring up the information about Orochimaru to Sakura. He says “I'll do something pointless for you” just as earlier he was mocking the emotional impulse of Sakura as “Women like to do useless things.” The phrasing is curious.

And like that, he gives her information as a gift. Just because he felt like it. He had to be moved by what she did or said in any way to make this decision. Even if he only respected her as a worthy rival. It 's great.

As a last information before we jump to Deidara, Kakashi and Naruto, Chiyo says this: "Sasori saw my last attack... but... Somehow, he couldn't avoid it. It gave him a small opening..."

Sasori chose to die. I don’t know why Kishimoto did this other than to show Sasori as hyper-competent until the end. Even after all these years I’m still not sure if I like this or not. I guess this proves he really wasn’t that interested in remaining on Akatsuki and finishing his task. 

So this is the canon material. I think I covered most of it. But as I said before, this is just the base of everything. With the years, I have built my own thing from this. So I’m not your devoted fan that continues to revisit this fight over and over again. Far from it. For me it’s just the starting point.

Side Note #5: I stopped caring about this series from this point on. Starting with the next arc, I consider Sakura to be nothing more than a disappointing piece of filler, and sometimes just a plot device to showcase her male comrades as more competent or more virtuous/evil when Kishimoto needs it. She has very underwhelming “shining” moments from here and there, but she is not a main character anymore. She doesn’t have another arc or motivation after this either. What a perfect point to deviate from canon and build my own thing, right?

My personal story/headcanon/established universe for the ship

Now I can dive into the juicy part.

Back in the 2012’s, my boyfriend and I were going through a tough time in our relationship. He moved to the capital city, in another province to start university. I started university too. We were so young, so full of doubts and fear.  It’s natural to feel intimidated and anxious when you move apart from your loved ones for your studies. Being together long distance was the only option for us, really. We had been together since we were in school, in the same class and we were very close. Still the fear of a break up was latent because long distance relationships are hard as hell. Statistics say the majority of long distance affairs do not last.

I came up with the idea of writing a story together when we had our Skype weekly reunions. To pass the time, to have something to entertain ourselves and not miss each other even more than we already did. I already was a SasoSaku shipper so I said “let’s write a SasoSaku fic together, you write Sasori, I write Sakura and we take turns to write the rest of the characters according to what the story needs”. He accepted and like that, Definiciones Torcidas was born.

The fic is in Spanish, our mother language, but back in 2017’s SasoSaku month, I made a short fan-comic in English that serves as the prologue for our fic. You can check it out here.

The premise of the fic was basically this: “What happens if Sakura, following an irrational impulse, does not let Sasori die at the end of the fight?” and more important than that, “What if we try to exploit the age difference between them to develop every single one of their dynamics and interactions?” 

That was the start, and we took the project very seriously. We wrote Sakura as an inexperienced girl who had little to no experience on making difficult decisions and seeing the complexity of the world. There’s little to nothing explored about her in canon to know her views on anything, but we worked with the pro Konoha propaganda the author seems to spoon feed us constantly as a start. Konoha does terrible fucked up shit like murdering children from a clan to avoid a coup and using other villages with little to no military force as war zones for money and power. But still they’re depicted as the good guys. Sakura starts the story by being a Konoha brainwashed tool on her speech and actions.

Sasori and Sakura have a second encounter in the wilderness around Konoha’s territory after she saved his life, and canonically after she and her team came back from Orochimaru’s hideout and Sasuke walked off again. During that brief encounter, Sasori just asks what she wanted from him and she cannot answer. She gets nervous and defensive pretty fast. Sasori demands to know if someone else gave her the order of sparing his life but does not believe her words when she tells him that’s not true. It’s a tense start. Sakura leaves telling him to piss off and use his second chance in life to not start trouble, knowing he is not part of Akatsuki anymore. Sasori is very frustrated by his new status as a fugitive from the nations and Akatsuki, he even threatens to make some public terrorist attempt to make the public know he is alive, out of desperation because the irrationality of Sakura’s actions do not make sense in his mind. 

Sakura does not believe him, because that would alert Akatsuki that he is alive. But still, she leaves feeling terrible because she believes Sasori is mentally unstable.

She keeps what she did a secret, and cannot stop thinking about how her actions may put Konoha in danger. She ends up making up her mind that she needs to find him before he leaves the territory, and finish him for good.

My boyfriend put a lot of effort by crafting Sasori’s mind and views as pragmatic and not resistant to changes. He decided Akatsuki was not a safe option for him anymore, so he left. He has no weaponry, no way to contact his spies, no purpose in life, but he can recover. Start again. Evolve as an artist. He just sees Sakura’s resistance to listen to him as stupid and a waste of potential. He also leaves feeling frustrated. A few days later, when Sakura finds him again, by following the clues he left behind while trying to create a poison arsenal again (cut herbs, a dead opened snake, etc), he is not that surprised about hearing she comes to finish him again.

It was a fun combat to write. Sakura is out of focus, she tries to hit but she really does not show the templance and cold mind she demonstrated in their first fight. Sasori messes with her constantly. He says she is a stupid brat, she could accept his offer of an alliance or working together at Konoha’s back. But Sakura is fully committed to prove herself she’s loyal to Konoha. Nothing else matters. His mind games are starting to affect her, though. She becomes more aimless, more distracted, more confused. Sasori does not waste the chance he had created and uses his poison and the cutting blades on his disposal to make her lose the fight. The intention is very clear, he wants to see the broken will in her eyes. Something that reads as “I should have accepted his offer”. In the deep of his mind, he is resentful because he couldn't have an eternal, unbreakable will. In their first fight, he could have won but he had a weak mind and instead chose to die in the last second. He wants to prove she is not different from him. That people are all the same, they all show their will is not unbreakable at the doors of death. Only eternity matters.

But that doesn't happen. Sakura spits on his face and tells him to go to hell. She tries to hit him one last time but she’s really hard on drugs by that point, so she fails. Sasori is really, really impressed by the end. He won, but still it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel right because he just saw an eternal will being showcased in front of his eyes. And according to his definitions… that’s art… that’s beautiful.

Sakura opens her eyes, hours later. She finds out she is bandaged and there’s no more poison nor drugs on her body. She was treated, by who? She sits on the ground and she sees Sasori watching her. He answers coldly that indeed, he saved her.

It’s pure irony that now, Sakura is the one that demands answers and Sasori is cold honesty by saying he couldn’t let her die because she carries beauty with her. He does not give it more importance than that. “I allowed beauty to exist. The end.”

Sakura feels disgusted, she cannot understand those motives. She tells him he should have let her die, so she shouldn’t have to face her defeat with her village. Sasori just laughs and says if she wants to die, she can try by herself, he’s just not going to help with that. He considers himself to be an outsider of the system by this point, a player that uses the system in his favor. So he cannot stop mocking her for her nationalism.

Sakura starts crying and tries to step up to hit him but she falls against his chest. She cannot make herself look him into the eye. She 's furious, humiliated. Sasori does not do anything other than lean to her ear and say “This is why I let you live”. 

So he leaves her to cry and defeat. He believes he did the right thing. He’s at peace with his personal values… for the most part. From this moment there’s gonna be what he describes to be a “losing piece” inside his mind, that he cannot name nor accommodate. He’s going to meditate a lot, and try to find himself again on his artistic path.

During her loneliness in that remote forest, Sakura realizes she woke up in a smoother place than the dirty ground. She goes back to her waking point and discovers Sasori’s black travel tunic. He just left her another clue to find him with one of Kakashi’s ninja hounds. They’re gonna meet again. And the chaos of their interactions and getting to change each other’s perspective on things has just begun. The story is +60 chapters so it’s a slowburn construction of their relationship.

We started publishing it in 2013 on ff.net and not only we put a lot of effort and hours of our lives into crafting that story. But the publication process also coincided with a turbulent time in our relationship. We had to adapt to being apart for most part of the year. Seeing each other on vacations, dealing with communication issues while we were apart from each other, emotional problems and tough shit. We were still growing into mature adults. We had many childish behaviors that were hurting ourselves and each other. So, while Sasori and Sakura’s relationship progressed on paper, our relationship grew and matured in real life. We ended up putting so much of our experiences, thoughts, fears, learnings on these two characters, that, even if they are fictional creations separated from us and that have their own arcs on their own fictional universe, have become like a reflection of our relationship. 

Sasori ends up calling Sakura by her first name in chapter 17 for the first time. They are having a heated argument for the 10th time about how Sakura does not trust him to not go into a murderous rampage while trying to understand what’s different about himself, when she suddenly says “How can I believe you see me as a person, when you have never called me by my name? I have a name, you know?”

He shuts up, tries to cool down a second, and says “Sakura Haruno… that’s your name.”

She starts trusting him a little more after that.

My partner also wanted to add his piece to this essay. Quoting his message from last night:

“If I were to explain it in a short version.

We wrote a fic in which we contrasted a young Sakura with little experience in the real world, who lived her entire life being fed only by pro-konoha propaganda and we made her share time with a supposedly dead Sasori, who is without any ally but who has a lot of experience about the world. There’s not a romantic context between them initially.

We made Sakura learn from the grays of morality and reality, and from there we progressed the characters over a long time in-universe to the point where Sasori is giving space in his existence to things other than his art (because he can't practice it anymore) and Sakura is becoming a Root spy (because the Konoha tale is no longer bought by her).

And from there, the ship happens.”

Side Note #6: My boyfriend and I are working together on a BruDick fan-comic. So the BruDick fans, and DC fandom are going to have a first hand grasp of our cooperative work in English!

[longclawshilt]

Me seeing the ask game: *cracks knuckles* Let's go.

I hope you don't mind answering all of these 😅.

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Have a nice day!

I won’t answer all of them haha. I had no time to write that much plus I wanted to actually give hOt TaKeS.

8 common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

I’ll start of by saying that I’m not one who wants to police other people’s interpretations of the text. BUT I will say this: Jon is not a below average swordsman! He’s not even average. He may not have many on page feats, but he’s only been in less than a handful of serious fights and they were against middle aged men with decades of experience over him. People like to bring up his loss to Mance, but this fight was against a man who managed to unite the wildling tribes under his rule; Mance is a highly skilled warrior.

Remember, Jon is 15-16 years old when most of these fights are happening. So he’s still young and growing. People will also say “oh, but Jaime Lannister was a god at that age”. Honestly, who cares? How many characters are comparable to Jaime at any age? It’s such a dumb comparison. I’ve even seen people argue that a 13 year old Peck is better than Jon and huh? Jon hasn’t won over any knights….because he’s not encountering them in the first place.

It’s clear that GRRM holds Jon’s skill in high regard. I mean the first Jon POV chapter established him as a noted swordsman. It also clear that Jon isn’t meant to be the warrior type. He’s a deconstruction of the archetypal fantasy protagonist. GRRM has chosen to build his political skills, so he’s not putting much of a focus on how well he swings his sword. That doesn’t mean though that he doesn’t have any skill at all. Just that it’s not the main focus of his character. But I think this fandom generally has the most wretched discourse when it comes to this stuff. Like people on Reddit this past week tried to argue that Brienne is overrated…Brienne, of all people. It’s just insane to me that people think they know more than the guy who wrote the damn books.

13 worst blorboficiation

Has got to be Kevan Lannister. Not so much on tumblr, but it’s a disease in some of the other communities. For whatever reason, he’s quite beloved. And this is rather strange because he is very much complicit in the corrupt Lannister regime. And as far as we know, he’s also fully supported Tywin in everything (which includes legitimate war crimes). He has his moments where he is shown to actually care for family members (e.g., Lancel, Tyrion), and that makes him a delightfully complex character. He’s also really funny. But we shouldn’t ignore his really bad traits. I’ve had to suffer a bunch of “Kevan Lannister is the best guy ever” posts on Reddit, and it’s absolutely maddening. That’s not to say that we can’t like “bad” people! Heck, Cersei is one of my faves. But it’s weird how certain characters get a pass for doing problematic things (e.g., Kevan or even Bobby B), and other characters get lambasted for the most tame things imaginable. It’s just the hypocrisy that’s annoying.

16 you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Powerscaling lol. It can be fun, but the people who engage in these discussions can be so tedious and boring. Tiktok and Reddit are full of this. “Who is the greatest fighter”, “who is the best warrior”, “this is why prime Robert low diffs Barristan Selmy”, and it’s the same old arguments every time. I think we should get more creative with powerscaling if we have to do it. Like “who has the best 🛌 skills”. Let’s at least argue over something fun, damn.

22 your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

This is going to be twofold:

- On tumblr? Easily Jon’s relationship with magic. In fact, people on here will go out of their way to argue that it’s actually not important to the plot, which is absolutely bonkers. Beyond warging, there’s a lot of weird magical stuff going on with Jon that should be put under the microscope. And I’d even argue that Jon’s a pretty special warg and cannot be compared to the other Stark kids (even Bran) because of how his powers manifest. Ghost is also obviously one of the most special animal familiars in the series (maybe even THE most special one), but no one ever talks about how special he is. A lot of people seem to believe that Jon will be KiTN, but it’s insane how we don’t talk about why it’s magically important for him to rule the North, considering his deep connections to Northern mysticism, religion, and lore.

- Elsewhere: the parallels between Jon and Bran. They’re essentially the same character base split into two (Seoman Snowlack, Frodo, King Arthur, Paul and Leto Atreides, Odin, etc). Both arcs parallel each other and are heading to the same destination, but the details will be different. This is getting to my last point, but I firmly believe we’re getting an ending with both King Jon and King Bran. I like to think of them as two competing but complementary sides of King Arthur’s tale. Jon is the one that is true to legend, as he follows the archetypal hidden prince-to-king trope. Jon is essentially “what if Arthur actually went on his hero’s/knightly quest?”Bran is the subverted one, where young Arthur gets a little detour; so “what if Arthur didn’t go on the hero’s/knightly quest but instead had to take up a job as a part time wizard?” Both will end up kings, just as Arthur did, but it will be different versions of the legend.

- Also: WTF is up with the Watch/Wall? What magic was used to build the Wall and who built it? Why can’t dragons cross? And why can’t wights cross either? What magic dictates that? What’s up with the Nightfort? Why does one only need to say part of the vows to open the gate? And what’s up with the NW vows? Why do they give Lightbringer vibes?! Is the NW Lightbringer? The NW is directly credited with the ending of the Long Night so was the last hero a member of the original group? Who was he? What happened to him after? If the last hero inspired AA then did the NW (and their vows) inspire tales of his flaming sword? And why did the relationship between the Watch and the CoF fizzle out? When did it fizzle out? And who are the LCs whose tenures have not been recorded? Why did they only start recording in the 600s (iirc)? What other history has been lost over time? Who was the Night King? Where did his half-human children go? Need that old man to answer these stat

25 common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

Several people will block me for this…but King Bran. Look, I get that Bran isn’t the most popular character out there. But so many people convinced themselves that he would die in that cave or he would amount to nothing which is very, very strange. And it also doesn’t help that a lot of the complaints reek of ableism.

GRRM obviously considers Bran to be central to this series. He is the first viewpoint character (and potentially the last one). He is the most magical character in the story. The scene that birthed ASOIAF came about because of Bran. It’s also said that GRRM considered writing the books through Bran’s POV but decided against it pretty quickly.

Anyone who paid attention to Bran’s story would know that we’re going to get some huge payoff to his story. In fact, I think it’s safer to assume that kingship has always been in the cards for him. I think most of us Bran stans thought he’d be KiTN (actually some of us over at Westeros.org thought he’d end up as the final Lord of Harrenhal). I never once considered King of all Westeros but I’ve had time to think about it ever since the show ended and I’m like, “duh!”. It’s thematically relevant and sound for Bran to end up king. We’re about to enter into a winter apocalypse but Bran’s direwolf is called Summer. Not only is he the representation of summer (which means renewal, rejuvenation, etc.), but he’s also fashioned after the Fisher King. He is also the second coming of Brandon the Builder - who constructed castles all over Westeros, not just the North; and if legends are true, this happened after the Long Night. He’s following after the footsteps of the Last Hero, and is the only other character apart from Jon who is actually fighting in the front lines against the Others. He’s going to be super important!

I can understand some of the questions people having regarding King Bran, mainly those of a political nature. But we’re left with two books. And two books is plenty to move the necessary pieces for Bran’s crowning. Hell, did people expect that Dany would be Queen of Meereen as they started reading ASOS? Most didn’t. A lot can happen in two books. A lot can happen in a singular book. GRRM has enough time to set up a scenario on which Bran is the only one left to rule.

I personally think that the apocalypse will essentially destroy Westeros as we know it, leading to the creation of a new kingdom(s). D&D botched the GoT ending so people have a hard time seeing the thematic weight of a boy who represents summer rising to kingship, but the books lay enough groundwork imo. And I think ACOK shows us that Bran, despite his age, would make a wise ruler. So I’m all for King Bran. Not only is it thematically sound, but I love the idea of a disabled kid rising to power at the end since we don’t see that in a lot of fantasy.

[deafknell]

Reading your answers from that ask meme and I've thought about trans Anastasia before too! It's a good hc. I wonder if there's any other ideas related to that hc that you'd like to share, cause I'm all ears

And if you ever write that fic I'll be there to read 👍

Hey hey! Thanks for the ask, I'm really glad to hear I'm not the only one thinking of it :D Apologies for the delay in getting back to you, I've been away on vacation all week haha.

This will be a lot of rambling rather than direct points, but I'll go over the main areas my headcanon falls under:

Her establishing her own identity/role as a hyena/parallels to the boy in Kararagi Girl Meets Cats

Clinging to a very feminine presentation/insistence on being a maiden

For the first one, we know from her side stories that Ana was a hyena, a poor orphan in the streets of Banan in the Kararagi city states. Most kids there grew up fending for themselves, with no discernable identity, name, or even any hope of climbing out of "the hole" they dwell in. With Kararagi law being incredibly vile as well, the most common fate for a hyena was either starvation, dying of illness or injury from other hyenas/unsavory people, or becoming a slave.

Anastasia is a very unique case. Not only was she able to eventually get a job after being saved from slavery (with Ricardo's help) but Ana was also able to actually name herself - Anastasia (coming from "Anagura" or "the hole" in reference to where she came from) Hoshin (from the most well known man of Kararagi, Hoshin of the Wastelands) This is very significant as, to my knowledge, we have not seen any other hyena reach anywhere near the level of importance that Anastasia has.

You can draw a lot of parallels between Ana in "Kararagi Girl Meets Cats" and the hyena boy she encounters. The boy, while bearing no name or relevance beyond his background, is probably the earliest example of Anastasia's morals being shaken up. When seeing the boy stare at her eating, she directly thinks of how stupid it is to rely on charity that doesn't exist, all while knowing she would have nothing if not for the charity of Ricardo and the bartender who took her in. It's made clear several times that Ana sees a lot of herself in the boy she encounters, even as she directly refuses to help him or do anything.

The boy, of course, steals her wallet and as a result causes her to be brought into slavery temporarily, but there's a lot in the boy's short appearance that leads you to think about the parallels between them. It's said a few times that Anastasia as a child fared stunted growth, but the full implications aren't as clear as they probably could be.

Anastasia's first meeting with Ricardo in "RIsing in Life Memorial Day" has her described as an untidy human child dressed in rags and filthy from head to toe, with very little trust in humanity. After seeing several men trying to grab her, Ricardo steps in to stop them from collaring her and marking her as a slave.

The very first thing she says to Ricardo after he offers her a bite of his pastry is this: "I’m no brat, I’m a girl. Don’tcha you call me that again, old man."

Interesting that's the thing that sticks with her - that her priority after nearly being made a slave for protecting two demihumans was to make sure she was addressed as a girl, right?

Later in that same side story, she seems enamoured with the clothes Ricardo picks out for her and it's mentioned about her wanting to grow her hair out. She's thrown out of her element, looking actually presentable, with Ricardo telling her she'll be starting work soon and it'll be up to her to sort her future out. Ricardo nicknames her Ana-bo, something confirmed in the Q&A to be because he thought she was a boy when he found her.

(Little side note: One of the Hoshin Sayings Ana sticks by goes as "Women should be courageous, and men should be charming." Which definitely adds to it, imo)

Something that Ana does repeatedly in the stories of her as a kid (both the translated and untranslated ones) is insist constantly shes a fair maiden or that she's a woman. Tappei has a habit of writing it a bit creepily (very weird comments made about a teen girl's body) but for the most part, she gets mad whenever Ricardo doesn't quite treat her as a normal girl.

One strong example is in one of the untranslated SS, "Bonds of Ice/Seven Years After/Anastasia Part", where Ana gets mad at Ricardo for not giving her a cute nickname and insisting on calling her Ana-bo or treating her as a kid. To be fair to Ricardo, he's been looking after her for years at this point and she's barely grown (due to prior reasons of malnutrition) but it definitely upsets her being seen as a kid and not treated as a cute girl.

The last point comes at a stretch, and very much headcanon, but I think a big element as well is how Anastasia really values and is attracted to Julius - somebody who frequently goes out of his way to treat her like a precious lady at every opportunity. He's the face of chivalry and will always engage with her teasing comments on her looks or behaviour, which always makes her happy. Where Ricardo will treat her like a daughter and the triplets call her their boss, Julius gives her that fairy tale fantasy treatment that she's probably longed for all throughout her years hating humanity and struggling to even eat at times.

I don't think I could do the headcanon justice in my own writing to the standard it deserves, but if I had the time to do so, I'd focus lots on that yearning part of Ana's childhood being explored through meeting Julius and spending time with the Iron Fang. Having the money for pretty clothes that she couldn't even look at, being able to hold onto coins that never fit her hands before... there's an unmistakeable amount of tragedy built into her, that never overpowers because her mindset of "you have to make your story your own" stops it from truly holding her back.

If you want to discuss more about trans Ana or Ana in general I'm all ears and would love to see it!! Happy to answer asks or dms, whichever you prefer! ^^

[victoriadallonfan]

ok, last ask before I go to bed.

I don't really care about wildbow's intentions? I know that sounds kinda uncharitable, and I do agree he probably had good ones, but that didn't stop him from accidentally writing something homophobic, or arguing with people when they tried to point it out. Again, I can see how you think his intentions are important, but I don't really thing it is?

I don't see "Tristan was being an asshole and crossed a line" as something separate from his desire for sex- they are irrevocably interconnected. The book conflates Tristan violating Byron's bodily autonomy with his sexuality, and as something motivated by his (again, whether wildbow intended this or not isn't really relevant? I'm talking about what the book does, not what wb wanted to do).

To be clear, I do understand your point. It's possible for a real life person to be an asshole, to cross lines, and to violate people's bodily autonomy without it being motivated by their sexuality. It is possible for a gay teenager to do all these things in real life, without it being because they're gay.

(I could also sort-of see this happening in fiction, even if "gay person violating a straight person's bodily autonomy" is a well established trope/stereotype.)

However, Ward doesn't seem to know this:

The only times when Tristan is an asshole, the only times he crosses the line and violates Byron's bodily autonomy, is when he is trying to access gay sex. He's an upstanding guy 90% percent of the time, it's only when he's acting on his gay attraction does the story swerve to him being an asshole in a clear, obvious way.

When you look at other characters, there's a clear correlation between gay main characters trying to be gay with people, and those characters violating other people's bodily autonomy and crossing lines. Amy, March, even Kenzie threatens to blackmail Candy. The message (intentional or not) is that these things are connected.

If these things aren't connected, Ward doesn't show recognition of it.

Like I said, I would agree with you if there was a strong counter example, or a character who was gay, who was allowed to chase gay sex and stuff like that, without acting like Tristan, Amy, March, etc.

Victoria isn't a strong example, as much as I also like that headcanon/interpretation. She has sex with Anelace, and the story frames this as something good, something that is ok for her to want, but the story never frames a protagonist's gay sex in the same positive way. Victoria's speculative bisexuality is never more than subtext.

Anyway, I'm sorry for blowing up your askbox, this whole thing has just been incredibly frustrating. I know this is a contentious topic, but it just doesn't feel like you were really listening to me? Or it feels like your mind it too set for this to be a real conversation, and it doesn't feel like if I presented my arguments well enough, or mentioned something you hadn't considered, that you would be open to changing your mind on this. It's just really upsetting.

It would be nice if you at least apologised to melancholy-jouissance or lakelesbian at least? You were really rude to them.

I have a lot of things I would disagree with in this post, but I think you are giving me the vibe of wanting to make this final? So I’ll address the part about the apologies:

Firstly, I already did apologize to Melancholy for being hostile to them (and honestly they kept a cooler head than I ever could), even though I think they were wrong in their argument. I even said they had the right take on Byron being homophobic (subconsciously).

I won’t apologize to lakelesbian because quite frankly, they were just an arrogant asshole who didn’t like the fact that I pointed out the flaw of them A.) Admitting to having no context or knowledge of Ward and B.) Ignoring when I did give them context for a snide remark.

I may feel bad about being a dick sometimes, but never about mocking people who just assume things without any context. They should learn to read instead.

[captainseamech]

//I mentioned a few days ago that I had some things going through my mind and that I was building up courage to tell you guys that and... I think this is finally the appropriate time for such. It's nothing against anyone here, I promise you that. It's more about myself, really.

This post is written with small text font to make it faster to read (since I typed a lot), but if you want me to leave it all on a regular font feel free to tell me so and I'll fix it. And if there's any misspelling or grammatical error bear with me since I do be a bit sick still and... I might fix later (if I remember to do it) so my English might be worse than ever in this post. I'm sorry in advance.

.... for the past couple days since New Years hit us in the face I've seen my mutuals just... moving blogs and all that to start fresh aside from ships, relationships and the like and honestly, that kind of motivated me to do such since I'm... frankly unhappy with how this blog is looking recently, but I'm also in quite a big dilemma since I hate making choices and I wanted to be more open with you guys for a moment. Again, I've been thinking deeply on whether making this post or not but I think it will be worth it in the end (or I just wasted some of my time typing, who knows.)

On one hand it'd make me feel better and refreshed to move from here, starting with a theme, carrd and all that fancy stuff; especially with a better organization of my tags from the beginning since I feel my tags are... all over the place as of currently in comparison to my other blogs; as well as I'd have a way better sense of making my verses since I just... well, kind of hoarded lots of them with some that I barely dont use (if not straight up abandoned behind one starter call and/or headcanon post since I made them specific to one 'dead' fandom or whatnot). And also that I, somehow, get some quite mean/meaningful intended anons here for things that I did or not so hopefully moving places would make them disappear or even just appease them.

But on the other hand... this blog of mine has so much memories!! This is my oldest blog (November 2017!!) on this website, old peeps that were mutuals with me that still lurks in my followers list because the good times!! I had with them in the past!! before my hiatus are just!!!! And like, recently a few old mutuals of mine have been coming back to this site on a way or another with their older tumblr blog, or even just!! Keeping them there!! For the memories!! I put so much hard work on this blog and my writing over the years, especially with Cat (@/faultfindingfirebot) being such an old mutual of mine and developing our characters together!! All the memories with that ship is just!! Lurking here!! Everything is here!! With a simple mouse scroll through their blog tag!!

I know that moving blogs doesn't necessarily mean having to delete this blog, but still!! All the memories (even the cringe ones) are here and I just!! Don't want to lose this treasure y'know? I started on tumblr with this blog and I hoped to die on this hill still here! Maybe I'm just unnecessarily being emotional over this clusterfuck of a messy blog, but still! There's development from both me and the way I write my character with so much joy and not carrying much about fancyness! But apparently fancyness has become a major point in every rpc, to the point of really making me feel legitimately scared and/or hesitant to approach because some writers really despise mobile writers somehow... and it doesn't do wonders to my anxiety honestly.

So... Again, it might sound stupid of me to be emotional over this blog instead of quickly moving on like normal people should but as I mentioned repeatedly before... The memories that lures around this blog are one of the most important things that I could've asked for and this is why I'm opening up to you guys because I want to establish more communication with my mutuals publicly since I always sucked at keeping a stable conversation with each and everyone.

I reckon it might sound straight up weird for me to feel attached and just not do it like a normal person would and move blogs already without letting one's mind out but... I really, really cant help it at all. And I just couldn't stop it from happening too, even though I tried my best to avoid it. But scrolling back on this blog sometimes to see all the good and bad things me and High Tide has gotten through is just... developmentally nostalgic in a way, and sometimes I like to relive the old times no matter how cringe it seemed with both new and old time mutuals.

TL;DR: Should I just stop whining around and move on to try new experiences or stay here where I always belonged?

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super Super Hero (again)

Okay, I watched the dub this afternoon, and I stand by my opinion that this is a darn good movie. 

Some stuff I missed from the first viewing

The Goku/Vegeta match turned out to be a lot longer than I remembered.   I kind of had that bit scouted from the start.   They’re training off-world, and when Whis had them start fighting, I figured they would do a post-credits scene to show them finally wrapping up their battle.   And they did, but even though most of the fight happened off-screen, the part we did get at the start was pretty generous.   Like, maybe five minutes?  I mean, they could have made it much shorter, or cut it from the movie altogether, and the movie would have been just fine, but it’s a nice treat for the fans.   Just take a break from the main plot and watch those two put on a clinic for a bit. 

Last night, I couldn’t remember if Videl was wearing her Battle of Gods red dress in this movie.   Turns out, she was, but only in the still shots in the credits, where she comes home to find her house in a crater.  Earlier, when she calls Piccolo on the phone, she’s wearing something more like her casual pink outfit from the DBS anime.  

The point I’m driving at with this is that Videl was coming home from some sort of tournament involving her martial arts class.   I’m beginning to put together this whole headcanon surrounding Videl’s school.  The reason Pan has that “GTH” shirt is because it’s the name and logo of Videl’s school, the Go To Hell Dojo.   She wears the red dress with the devil on the front because that’s her work outfit.   Imagine you’re some other combat group and you show up for a tournament and the other team is a led by this badass in a red leather dress, and all of her students are wearing GTH shirts.  

Meanwhile her husband’s holed up in his study writing about butterflies and ants and whatever.   Before, I wondered why he never took off Piccolo’s training outfit, but then I realized he would have to tear himself away from his important moth research, and that was never going to happen.  I think Piccolo may have only changed his outfit just because the one he was wearing was starting to smell funny.

I watched the TFS review of the movie, and they wondered what the point was of having Dende upgrade Shenron when they could have just established Shenron had that power from the start.   Well, it’s because they needed to explain why no one ever used Shenron to get a power-up before this.   But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. 

What struck me as odd was that Dende had to go and get the model of Shenron himself.   Then I remembered the last two times the model was shown, and it was when Mr. Popo brought it out for Kami and Dende to reactivate in two separate episodes.  And for a second I was like “Hey, why isn’t Popo in this scene?” and then I remembered there’s an extremely important reason why Mr. Popo isn’t in any of these new movies. I have a feeling we may never see the guy again, and that’s probably for the best, but it’s still kind of weird to have Dende fetching his own stuff.   He should hire Lemo to do it for him.

I like how everyone was giving Krillin shit during the fight, but then when he showed up to help them attack Cell Max all at once, they were like “Fuck yeah, it’s Krillin!  He really saved our butts!” and they were so happy to see him because he’s so cool. 

[tokiro07]

Since @buhbuhlmao guessed five of my blorbos, I'm going to write up an analysis on one of theirs!

Since they revealed their method for guessing mine, I'm not going to answer their message directly, as I don't want anyone to just copy them

They decided to be generous and go with characters they know I'm familiar with, and gave me the option between Undead Unluck's Creed Deckard, Medaka Box's Momo Momozono, and Cipher Academy's Iesuno Nohime. They suggested that I roll a D3 to decide, but to be perfectly honest, of those three, I'd really like to analyze Momo! I've already analyzed Creed and Nohime a little bit in my 4Y1A Reviews, and I anticipate that I'll get the opportunity to do so again in the future as new information arises, but I'll probably never get much opportunity to analyze Momo again. Hope that's okay!

Now let's go!

Pretty much right from the beginning of the Jet Black Bride Arc, Momo establishes herself as the defacto lead antagonist; she isn't the first one to speak, but she is the one standing furthest forward when the six real suitors arrive on Aircraft Carrier Black (with Nienami just slightly trailing behind, subtly suggesting her ongoing importance to the plot), and she's the one to make the most impact through the chapter that they're introduced

Not only is she making the most notable statements ("males are useless," "we just have to prove we could have beaten the doubles all at once ourselves"), but she also is the most striking visually, being the only one to be a child rather than a teenager, drinking black coffee straight out of the can, and then subsequently eating the can like a goat. Everything about her, from her design to her demeanor, makes a huge impression that allows her to stand out from the rest of her contemporaries, which is what makes her the most fitting to be the final boss at the end of the arc. Even Tsurubami explicitly calls her "the one that looks like the last boss" (I swear I didn't remember that when I wrote that last line, it just lined up like that)

In her next appearance, we see that she continues to act as the leader of the group, deciding the rules for how the Jet Black Wedding will proceed all on her own and providing the ante of the identity of Fukurou's murderer. We of course know now that the answer was actually "Fukurou himself, using the Gehyoukai representative as the weapon," but her knowledge of it serves as subtle foreshadowing that she and the other suitors have a connection to Fukurou, as we confirm once we learn that Fukurou is the creator of their Styles. I think we could argue that Fukurou's manipulation of Medaka's life was foreshadowed as far back as the Minus arc, but I think this is where we really start seeing it in real-time, as there isn't any reason why Momo should know the culprit or that Medaka cares about it if she hasn't been told by Fukurou directly

Aside from Tsurubami, Momo is also technically the first Stylist to be shown using their Style, though we wouldn't know it until later. I don't think I actually noticed the star that represented Label Style's usage at the time, and I certainly didn't notice that it was the transition from the JBW to Hitoyoshi's student council setting out to help Medaka and co. It's a fun little detail! I wish that she had gotten to use her Style more

I always had a bit of a headcanon that Label Style could be used on objects and that her fighting style would be similar to Munakata's hidden weaponry, except she'd be able to pull out even more absurdly large objects like a tank or an elephant. Given her small stature, I figured she'd throw the cards and have their "ammo" appear just in front of or above the target so that she could stay at a distance. But alas, Medaka Box is not about the power system, the power system merely helps to illustrate the themes, and we didn't get to see much beyond simply sealing her opponents. I'm starting to wonder if she could have manipulated the labels once placed, like perhaps changing the "Dead Hitoyoshi" to "Alive Hitoyoshi"? Probably not

Speaking of Hitoyoshi's death, Udou's murder of Hitoyoshi is clearly meant to parallel the murder of Fukurou, as she proclaims "this is just like what happened three years ago." It's at this moment that the remaining suitors, Momo, Kakegae and Joutou, all turn to look at Udou, as if to acknowledge that they all know that her predecessor was the one technically responsible for Fukurou's death. Momo then seals Hitoyoshi to prevent Kumagawa or anyone else from reviving him. "You went far too easy...you should seal off any hope of revival." The way she says this, I think one could have concluded that Fukurou was similarly revived after he was impaled as well; it might have seemed like a stretch at the time, but with all of the suitors having Styles just like Tsurubami, knowing Fukurou's murderer, and reacting to Udou's statement about his death, that was definitely enough evidence to build a solid theory about his survival. Shame I wasn't much of a theorist back then!

Then there's the bit where she refers to the other suitors as "my dear friends." At first it confuses Sui and Nienami, giving the impression that she's saying it sarcastically, and this assumption seems to be confirmed when she later betrays Kakegae and Joutou, but I think there's more to it than that. Sure, she's cutthroat and goal-oriented, but that doesn't mean she doesn't think of the other suitors as her friends. Once we learned that they all learned their Styles under Fukurou's tutelage, it wouldn't be hard to fathom that they formed some kind of bond. Plus, bear in mind that while we don't get to really see them interact much, there's one more character that Momo has a fairly close bond with: Naze, whose mother was the prevoius Momozono clan representative!

Naze was introduced to us as Koga's best friend, but the kanji that she would use to talk about Koga was "experiment," giving the impression that she didn't really feel that close to her, only for us to later learn that Koga was in fact a dear friend to Naze. Momo could well be in the same boat, acting aloof but in fact feeling greatly attached to those she spends time with. The Momozono family all have crazed, sunken eyes and morbid personalities, so it's easy to assume that they don't form attachments, but Naze most definitely does, and we can assume that her mother does too considering that she agreed to marry a polygamist, so it should come as little surprise that Momo did as well. I really would have liked to see more of her interactions with the group, perhaps a flashback to them all training together? It would have been nice for sure

I didn't really touch on it much in my previous Medaka Box posts, but it's odd that none of the Stylists aside from Tsurubami are established to be either Abnormals or Minuses. They clearly have abilities on par with Abnormals and extreme personalities to match, but not one has an Abnormality? Well if only one of them could, it would definitely be Momo. At the beginning of Delete Shiritori, of course Medaka made a good draw to allow her to go first because fate is on her side, but Momo drew the card that made her go last, which is to say "before Medaka in the cycle." Kumagawa notes that the luck she had in drawing that card was "abnormal" suggesting that she has the same kind of favorable fate as Medaka. It's pretty common for Abnormals to awaken their abilities in adolescence rather than childhood, so it wouldn't be at all strange if Momo turned out to be an Abnormal who simply hasn't gained her Skill yet. Or maybe she does have a Skill and Nisio Isin just doesn't want to share that information with us. That's a very him move, after all. Bastard...

This is further supported by her stating "how do you know my Project Name?" when everyone was reacting to her tricking Kakegae and Joutou; though CXC's translation doesn't make explicit note of what said Project Name actually is (thanks again, guys, you continue to do a bang up job...), the fact that she has a Project Name at all suggests that she's already been identified as an Abnormal. Of course, since I can't find any mention of this in the character dictionary or on the Japanese wiki, it's possible that this itself was a mistranslation on CXC's part, but until we get an official translation, we may never know. I could probably write up an entire analysis based on this fact alone if I could only confirm it...

I've jumped around a lot and been at this for a few hours now, so I'm going to wrap it up by talking about the conclusion of Momo's storyline: her becoming the student council president of the 111th class of Hakoniwa Academy. The fact that she was able to match Medaka in a battle of wits at only 5 years old is proof that she's something of a genius, so it only makes sense that she would be able to follow in her footsteps as she grew up. I'd really like to see what kind of students she surrounded herself with, and honestly could see her being the protagonist of a short spinoff. Ostensibly she became the student council president by staging a coup against the previous president, which lines up pretty well with how assertive she was in the JBW

I think that's really the best way to summarize Momo's character: she's extremely assertive, forcing herself to the front of the line to achieve her goal and pushing others out of the way in the process. She ousted the previous president, and she tricked the other suitors after she proposed an alliance with them. Her Label Style exemplifies that surprisingly well, too, as it's an ability that allows her to get obstacles out of the way with ease

...Ah, since her Style requires that she know peoples' names, and her character has the subtle implication that she's surprisingly friendly despite her gruff exterior, I would imagine that a story revolving around her could use that as a way to obfuscate whether she's good at remembering people because she's legitimately interested in them or because she's just being prepared to be able to use her power properly

I'm sure there are other things I could have said or picked apart, but honestly I was able to wring a lot more out of this than I thought I would or could, so I hope this is satisfying, buhbuhlmao!

[thegirlwhowrites642]

I’m going to keep this post Anon because of the amount of hate I got previously. I use to write fanfics but because I didn’t pair the following: Wolfstar, Drarry, Linny, Jegulus, Scorbus, and Snarry I’m apparently homophonic. Even though none of those ships are canon and I stated I like canon pairings on my page. I stopped writing for almost over a year and a half now because when I defended myself I got more and more hate and negative comments. I did have representation of LGBQT in my stories but because I’m not pairing the above I’m labeled as a homophobe. If I made a gay character straight for example Dumbledore, yes they could call me a homophobe, but I didn’t. This one reviewer said it was ok to turn straight people gay and but it wasn’t ok to turn gay people straight (which I never did in my stories), and I should have at least 40-50% of LGBQT representation in my story. I just got frustrated because there was no winning with these guys so I deleted all my stories for good. Honestly, fandom and TikTok has ruined HP for me.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. This is absolutely awful and honestly, the way the people who claim to care about the issues of the LGBTQ+ community in this fandom just carelessly throw around such accusations is disgusting and detrimental to the cause they preach to defend.

Writing straight characters as straight definitely doesn't make you a homophobe.

It's also interesting that, apparently, it's so important for these people to write no-sense against canon pairings just because they are homosexual that it's better than writing about healthy relationships. And let's remember how a great part of these pairings comes with the bashing of female characters. But as usual, misogyny is the last thing people care about.

I personally headcanon Albus as gay because I think it's hilarious that the only child of Harry and Ginny that is named after a Slytherin and a gay man is the one everybody decided is in Slytherin and gay. But I don't ship him with Scorpius. And you are not obliged to write Albus as a Slytherin or gay.

The only thing you need to worry about is if the character who is offering the point of view for the story knows about the sexualities of an enough large number of characters that it would be unrealistic to not have a certain percentage of characters who belong to the LGBTQ+ community (which is definitely not the 40%). Honestly, even in the original series, the only characters Harry had any business knowing the sexuality of are himself, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. It's not unrealistic for four characters to be straight. There certainly wasn't an agenda on the author's part about having that kind of representation in her story (and the social and historical context in which the books were published should be taken into consideration here) but there's nothing unrealistic about the lack of openly gay characters (I do still think she could've hinted at the Dumbledore/Grindelwald business in DH).

And mind you, I say this as someone who once wrote a book where the main character was the only straight person in her family.

Personally, I am a firm believer in buying, reading and discussing books that have actual representation instead of trying to change already well-established characters, because you are always going to mess up. Case in point: Tonks is a surrogate for Remus and Sirius, because apparently, Teddy Lupin needs to exist, even without his mother.

The majority of the books I read don't have romance, they are mostly obscure pieces of Scandinavian crime literature, but in the series Red Queen my favourite character is bisexual and my favourite ship is an f|f one (and the bisexual character is not part of the ship just to clarify). And all that stuff is canon. Because I've actually read other things besides Harry Potter in my life.

I'm really sorry about what happened to you. I hope you keep writing, because it's a beautiful, even if at times frustrating, art. Regardless of if that writing is original or fanfiction. Regardless of if you'll go back to publishing it or you'll keep it to yourself. That book I was talking to you about? It took me six years to write it, I'm the only one who has ever read it but I had the best time writing it and it was a beloved companion throughout most of my teenagehood.

[thehandwixard]

for the character ask thing: jake the dog perhaps ?

YAY jake my friend ok

First impression: im gonna pull from 11 year old me for this i didnt think about him often but he was like. you know. cool presence like spencer from icarly. very funny character very chill guy

Impression now: hes probably the single most generally important character to understanding the overall Vibe of adventure time holisitcally. hes so important. he sucks. hes incredible. he struggles intensely with the fight between his spirituality and denial of pleasure and his fleshly desires. and he has so much flesh

Favorite moment: How to fucking pick. gut reaction is just most of the episode 'No One Can Hear You' because while that episode is famous for the deer with hands its famous to me because during my most recent rewatch of the show it was really where i went. oh. thats a psychotic break. this is a noticable pattern with him where he decides to not confront reality when its scary to him. its so fascinating. i think its the most frightening he ever is in the show, partially cause we are having this realization at the same time as finn is. that jake may not always be stable. second choice is princess cookie, as it comes well before jake's criminal past is strongly established and yet his empathy towards someone unstable in a rough situation comes Full Force. ill talk about this more in relationships because..

Idea for a story: I want to put him in resident evil 7 and 8 situations ive talked about this before. i want to put him in ethan winters situations. my current largest story idea for him is him slowly losing his sanity over a period of time trying to find finn while playing both sides in a war and losing sight of trying to stop it. I also want to write my own story kind of exploring his like. gestures vaguely unresolved feelings about his alien form. i dont think he should have ever gone back to complete normal it feels cheap.

Unpopular opinion: im the only one on this goddamn earth who understands the point of why he was kind of a deadbeat dad. i.e HE WASNT it was a messed up situation with no true irl counterpart. he wanted to be a mother. he has fantasies of being a mother up through the twilight of the series, and the fact that he was not present in his children's life while they were children is something that was completely out of his control because they grew up so fast. the fact he was not Allowed to nurture them is the tragedy of it!! ocarina is as much about kim kil whan reconciling the idea of his father being the way he is as it is jake trying to reach out for any connection that anything he cares about means anything

Favorite relationship: Finn and jake's relationship is quite literally the most important thing in the show and its so easy to flatten but its so so so so so so so complex and also. they love eachother. the depths of that love are unfathomable. simple as that. its a kind of undefinable relationship i find so compelling.. its. jake and finn rely on eachother so much youd think itd be unhealthy but it ISNT and its because they never expect anything from the other that they arent. jakes feelings about finn though related to that are so fascinating because he has a kind of consistent.. discomfort? whenever faced with the fact that finn can hurt people in a meaningful serious way. he doesnt like it. he doesnt like when finn, panicking in the water, attacks him. it makes him wanna shut down and not deal with the situation and its so interesting to think about. and this doesnt detract at all from how much jake depends on finn in a real, loving, genuine way. he loves that kid. hed get sick and die if he thought finn was turning out bad/like him. they protect each other (I AM FORCEFULLY DRAHHED OFFSTAGE WITH A CANE

Favorite headcanon: he loves any depressing indie game protag he has a plushie of mae from nitw and brad lisa at LEAST. I am also incredibly fond of jake and his fam being jewish but i consider that less of a hc given that in one title card art hes literally wearing a kippah

[kitausuret]

Why do you hate agent anti venom? (Also thanks for always reblogging my art and leaving nice comments in the tags <3)

Hi there!! Yes, I do love your art, and you're very welcome. (Everyone, @bean-ii has made some very lovely pieces, particularly of PeterFlash! Y'all should check that out.)

Let me preface this by saying: everyone who's ever drawn or written about Agent Anti-Venom as a form of transformative fandom or as a fanwork, this is 100% NOT directed at you. My frustration is not with any fan creations, it is totally and completely with regards to what the people crafting canon have done.

Ahem, but to answer your question... put simply, Flash taking on the Anti-Venom alias is antithetical to his character and his character growth, and furthermore, I think it does a massive disservice to Eddie Brock's history with the alias, as well.

But since you asked... let's start with where it all began, in Venom Inc. Alpha #1 (W: Slott, Costa; A: Stegman):

I'll be honest with you, this wouldn't sting so much if the last time we saw Flash interacting with Venom (barring 10 pages in Venom #150) wasn't Venom: Space Knight. It's pretty common knowledge for people who know me that I loved Space Knight, flaws and all. It was, in my eyes, some of the best writing we'd gotten for Flash in a long time. We got a great look at his charisma, his leadership, but above all, his willingness to do literally anything for the Venom Symbiote. Including jumping into an execution pit armed with nothing but his... uh... wits, I suppose.

(Venom: Space Knight #7 and #10, W: R. Thompson; A: Olivetti, Jacinto)

The whole point of Space Knight had been, in fact, to develop the relationship between Flash and his partner! Sure it was also a pretty fun rollick through space and all that good stuff, but we hadn't seen this kind of development between the symbiote and a host since... what? When the symbiote and Eddie got back together after Finale? And even that was kinda ehhh...

All of this is ultimately to say that Flash is vehemently not Anti to Venom by the last time we see him. Why is this important? Well, let's take a look at how the Anti-Venom alias actually came into being.

By the time Amazing Spider-Man #568 (this story, "Fifth Stage", was written by Mark Waid and illustrated by Adi Granov) rolls around, Mac Gargan has been well-established as the latest Venom for a good minute. Eddie is haunted, quite literally, by his last days with the symbiote. Now, I recognize that the writing for a lot of that was not... great. And to this day it's still not really well-explained why it was decided to turn Eddie and the symbiote's relationship sour. My personal headcanon is that Anne's death was the beginning of the end of their honeymoon phase, but regardless, things went south.

There are actually some interesting parallels between "Fifth Stage" and Venom: Space Knight #6, but that's another story for another day. In ASM #569 (Slott, Romita Jr.), we finally see the appearance of Anti-Venom:

Good or bad, the Anti-Venom era was a huge part of Eddie's character and it was very specifically tied into his perception of what their bond had become. But he took this thing that happened to him, the amalgamation of how Martin Li cured his cancer and then its unpredictable interaction with the Venom Symbiote, and (for the most part) tried to do something good with it. Sure, as is usually the case with Eddie, that strayed into morally grey territory most of the time, but his last act as Anti-Venom was saving all of Manhattan. That was pretty huge for him.

But needing an arc of finding himself again? Needing to regain his self-identity because he felt he'd lost it as Venom? That's not something that was ever the case or even relevant to Flash. Now, in the context of Venom Inc, did Flash ever know exactly how Eddie had even become Anti-Venom? No, but the writers did (especially Slott - he wrote both arcs for Anti-Venom as well as headed Spider-Island) and tagging on a cute new alias for Flash isn't doing any of the characters any justice given their histories. You can't call Flash Anti-Venom when he's never been Anti to Venom. He was, in fact, desperate to have his partner back. None of this makes sense!

And last but certainly not least, making Flash Agent Anti-Venom and then keeping him that way up through his death and even through the current run with his resurrection is... weird? Don't get me wrong, I love seeing him again. Like, this moment from Venom (2018) #33 (Cates, Coello) was beautiful:

(Flash is legitimately gorgeous here. I just kind of wanted to share the panel I'll be real with you.)

But it doesn't even make sense that he would still be Anti-Venom. If his codex went to the Hive, why wouldn't he be... literally anything else? There's also the little matter of Flash having been described as still needing prostheses but there's a panel in Extreme Carnage where he literally has ankles. When was the last time we saw him using mobility aids?

At this point, I don't even want him to have an alias. I just want him to be Flash. I want him back in the Spider-Man comics as a supporting cast member; I want him acknowledging his friends and family and loved ones; I want Flash being himself to be good enough. Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing him in Savage Avengers but I'm so tired of seeing him in white.

Just want my beautiful boy back.

[bidonica]

Do you think Alicent regrets marrying Haelena to Aegon rather than Jace after seeing what both boys turned out like? And likewise do you think Viserys after seeing how happy Daemon and Rhaenerya were, he regrets not letting them marry?

Finally getting around to answer this! Honestly for both these questions I need to premise that a lot of the second half of the season hinges on us accepting that characters' decisions were discussed and pondered offscreen, because of the time jumps. While I liked the show, I think it suffered a bit for not having more room to let the character development breathe, because while there were things they succeeded at communicating with only a few scenes (i.e. Harwin and Rhaenyra; I would have loved to see more of them together, but honestly those two scenes really told us everything we needed to know about the kind of rapport they had), others could have used a bit more focus. So I can only answer based on quite a bit of speculation and headcanoning, and forgive me if I take the long route because I'm brainstorming out loud here! This is still all very fresh in my mind and I haven't set in stone opinions except that I will die on the hill that Larys Strong deserved better writing in the second half of the season

1) I've read the take that the Aegon/Helaena match was Viserys' idea, but I don't think the show wrote it that way, and also it seems inconsistent with his character. I believe it really was Alicent who pushed for it, because it would reinforce that her children are True Blue Targs ™ down to the dynastic incest, unlike Rhaenyra's dubious heirs. This said, I also believe (and this is mostly speculation on my part) that it required a lot of compartmentalization from her. It's one thing to rationalize that Targaryens marry brother to sister, it's a "them" thing, and another to marry your own children to each other. Also, with the way the timeline is set up in the show Alicent didn't really witness dynastic Targ incest as part of the establishment: she was about 6 years old when Jaehaerys died in 103AC, with Alysanne dying three years before. Viserys' parents were also brother and sister, but Baelon had died in 101 while Alyssa died even earlier. It was probably very theoretical to her up to that point. What I'm saying is: Alicent comes into the royal family at a moment where the family tree is tentatively branching out instead of going down in a straight line, so my guess is that it would have taken her a bit of self convincing in order to go "we should totally marry Aegon and Helaena to strengthen his claim." Ironically the Jace/Helaena match Rhaenyra offered was not only very sensible, but would have also strongly diminished the inbreeding factor given Jace's actual parentage... well, we might not even have had a Dance if Alicent agreed or Viserys put his foot down and made her accept the match. But I just think she saw the legitimization of Aegon as a worthy heir as too important.

Honestly, I think that if she ever came to regret not accepting the match it would happen further down the line, and not really because Jace has a better character than Aegon, but because of the bloodshed it could have prevented (or maybe not; there were still many ways for things to go awry). But as things stand now, I think that no matter how she comes to despise Aegon, making his claim as a Targaryen king as airtight as possible is of paramount importance to her, and just like she sacrificed by marrying Viserys, it makes sense for her that Helaena has to occasionally endure Aegon. I'm sure she doesn't like it for her daughter, but she also thinks that's the way of the world, duty, sacrifice, all that jazz.

And let's not forget how she knows Jace is a bastard, and how she belongs to a culture where that carries a HUGE social stigma; see how Catelyn felt about Jon Snow. Marrying her daughter to him would be super dishonorable in Alicent's eyes, even if Jace is legally legitimate, since his real parentage is an open secret. So yeah, no matter how nice and well adjusted Jaceaerys is, it's difficult for Alicent to consider him a good option given the context and her own biases.

2) I don't know about this; I think it becomes a bit of a non issue for Viserys, because they still got around to marrying each other eventually, and he goes out thinking peace is finally reigning in his family (oh Vis.). He's characterized as someone who has the occasional flare up of dragonlike rage, but he forgives and forgets just as easily. There's nothing Viserys wishes more than for things to fall into place by themselves, and that's pretty much what happened with Daemon and Rhaenyra in his eyes, I bet.