#I am not a novice to fandom wars but Lord! some of those people on Twitter are a wee bit intense

[drivebyanon]

So I am new to the 911 fandom because we just started watching so I have not been committed to a “particular” relationship for years & years (Although I do think they’re adorable). So when Buck & Tommy started I was able to enjoy it very easily without all the history and happily dove back into Tumblr.

Then I heard that it was toxic on Twitter, I thought “How bad could it be?” and kinda pushed it off. But then I did a search on “911 finale spoilers” (Don’t judge me! Bobby & Hen got me in an emotional wreck) and Great Googa Mooga was it inundated with unsaid relationship! But with stuff like “Is Bucktommy bones?” “Tommy will be bones” “Lou is old” “Lou is ugly”. I was soooo wrong, because it is nuts 😬. Yeah, I backed myself out that and back to tumblr into safe tags so damn fast.

[tailsrevane]

hi! i’m robin, a 30something white enby elf (sometimes fox, sometimes both). my pronouns are fae/faer.

some cool things about me, probably!

i have four really amazing partners! i live with two of them and our adorable kitties.

i'm ace, but hella kinky & hella subby. please bully me. (consensually.)

i’m an extremely novice polytheistic witch.

i’m a furry kinda? i'm not really plugged into the fandom much anymore, but if you were to ask me if i am or am not a furry, the answer would be yes.

i work at a local comic/game shop, mostly as a magic judge :)

if it ever seems like i’m autistic or i have adhd, that would be because i’m autistic and i have adhd.

dnis/content warning/etc after the cut.

just for funsies, here’s a brief list of fandoms i gravitate strongly towards! some of these things might not be actually fandoms or might not have very active fandoms idk? i might write about these more often or have stronger opinions about them. or not? adhd! these can alternatively be read as additional reasons to bully me. please feel free to read them that way.

magic the gathering

star trek

dungeons & dragons (and, relatedly, the legend of drizzt books; and, relatedly, dimension 20, and, relatedly, basically everything on dropout)

avatar: the last airbender (i've only seen the shows though, need to check out the comics & rpg & etc)

pokémon

sonic the hedgehog

kaiju movies

anime and manga kinda?

cartoons kinda if that counts? (current favorites: the owl house, she-ra reboot, futurama, star trek: lower decks wait that should go in star trek not cartoons or should it go in both oh no)

comic books/superheroes kinda? (the archie sonic the hedgehog and dark horse star wars comics were a huge part of my childhood, i also got hella into batman, spider-man, and x-men at times.)

undertale

knives out? is that a fandom? whatever. i love those movies.

the matrix

the wachowski sisters’ oeuvre in general (speed racer is one of my favorite movies of all time.)

lord of the rings (the movies, not the books)

halloween. the holiday, not the movie. the color orange. pumpkins. etc. yeah, i’m weirded out that it took me until comparatively recently to realize i needed to be a witch, but here we are. (oh yeah i’ll also probably write about witchy stuff at times? maybe.)

but like, i like other stuff that’s not media too! like… organizing media on shelves? (why have i not been shoved in a locker yet what the heck.) okay, that’s another thing about me. i’m kind of an amateur librarian? i might also talk about theme parks i go to when that happens (a few of my partners are super into those so yeah!). and museums!

on a less fun note, please do not interact with me if you're transphobic/homophobic/racist/etc etc. just don't. i'm just gonna block you, it's really not worth either of our time. also please do not interact with me if you're a minor, and please do not flirt with me if you're technically not a minor but are significantly younger than me. i'm just not comfortable with it.

if you're an anti-shipper you'd probably consider me a pro-shipper? i don't super care about those kinds of labels but i know that's like... A Thing here, and want to be very clear. so if you don't want to interact with people who don't think fanfiction should be policed & criticized as though it were real life or general audience mass media, you probably don't want to interact with me. if i do write any fanfic i will tag it appropriately, but i really think everyone needs to calm down about this shit.

and last but not least, i will tag liberally, but a blanket content warning:

i frequently explicitly discuss themes of kink, sexuality, violence, mental health, and other mature themes in a manner intended for an adult audience.

also, i am a survivor of both childhood and intimate partner emotional abuse, as well as sexual assault, and these come up frequently in my writing. reader discretion is advised.

on a less serious note, i am unapologetically kinky, subby, and thirsty af and i’m going to include a lot of personal asides from that perspective. i’m also a furry and a monsterfucker. don’t say i didn’t warn you.

see you around, hopefully!

[araeph]

Hi, I finished watching atla. It's a good show with interesting characters. But I wonder why Mai is hated. I mean, she saved zuko and co. at the boiling rocks. She believed in him. The brief eye lock they had after zuko locked Mai says so. I just want to know your opinion.

Why Mai Is Hated

(Disclaimer: This is not an even-handed analysis of Mai’scharacter because that was not the question asked. The question was, Why is Mai hated? The following essayattempts to answer this question, and only this question.)

We’re introduced to Mai as abored teenager who hates being uprooted to Omashu. So great is her indifferencethat when a plague has reportedly struck the city, she merely offers her dadfire flakes and looks bored. Her little brother is kidnapped soon after, andshe casts her mother a disdainful glance when the latter breaks down in tears. Maithen joins up with Azula willingly, again because she is bored, and the princesstries to exchange Mai’s brother for Bumi before reneging on the deal, which Maiagrees to without even a hint that she is worried for her brother during orafter the fact.

At this point, Azula tells Maiwhat she needs her and Ty Lee for: tracking, capturing, and imprisoning GeneralIroh and Zuko according to the Firelord’s wishes as expressed in “Siege of theNorth Part 2.” Per the wanted poster Azula brandishes at the royal guard in“The Avatar State,” Zuko is wanted deador alive. Despite being teased for her crush on him, Mai shows no signs of conflictat her mission or trepidation on Zuko’s behalf.

Azula: (to her men) My brother and my uncle have disgraced the Fire Lord and brought shame on all of us. You may have mixed feelings about attacking members of the royal family; I understand. But I assure you, if you hesitate, I will not hesitate to bring you down. Dismissed.

Along the way, Mai also helpsAzula hunt Team Avatar to exhaustion and capture the Kyoshi warriors so thetrio can infiltrate the Earth Kingdom. Unlike in Zuko’s character journey wherehe learns to understand and empathize with the Earth Kingdom denizens duringhis time with them, the most Mai ever says about the people she encounters isthat their bright colors make her nauseous and it’s amusing when one of the DaiLi almost wets his pants out of fear. Eventually, Mai and Ty Lee help Azula andZuko topple the last standing bastion against Fire Nation world dominationwhile Iroh is hauled off as a prisoner.

Azula, who wants to make sureZuko is kept under control, decides to set him up with Mai in order to keep aneye on him. The couple catch on at a suspiciously timed dinner and decide toescape for a fun evening out on the town. They run into Zuko’s ex-girlfriend,which annoys Mai even though she and Zuko are not dating and, as far as weknow, were never actually together. So she pretends to be a knife thrower froma circus and flings an ice dagger through an octopus atop the unwilling Zuko’shead. Mai then encourages Jin, a complete novice, to throw her own lethalprojectile at Zuko, causing him to land in the fountain and endure publichumiliation. This is supposedly revenge for when Zuko knocked Mai into thefountain … as a child … to save her from being burned at the hands of Azula. Iam not sure why this warrants a payback, but it makes sense to Mai. Oncethey’re alone, Zuko understandably shouts at Mai that she could have gotten himkilled. Mai laughs loudly at this and brushes it off.

Once back in the Fire Nation, Maistarts dating Zuko officially. This mostly involves her ignoring or yawning atZuko’s inner turmoil and scoffing at the gifts he brings her, except for therare occasion when she tries to distract him from his problems by makingunreasonable demands on his servants.

They quarrel constantly untilZuko leaves the Fire Nation and Mai meets him again at the Boiling Rock, whereshe lambastes Zuko for ripping out her heart even though he pretty obviouslykept her in the dark for her own protection. She then says that she doesn’tknow Zuko, which is true, as he locks her in a cell moments later so he cansave the people in his life he has a genuine connection to—and who, thoughformer enemies on the opposite side of the war, have thrown fewer things at hishead than Mai has.

Suddenly Mai betrays Azula forZuko. Why? She loves him. Why does she love him? We never find out, since theonly things she ever says about his character are negative. Ty Lee saves Maifrom her impending execution and Mai later pulls some strings to get them bothout of prison. Once she makes her way to the capital, she announces withoutpreamble that she is Zuko’s girlfriend again, pokes him in the chest, and warnshim to never break up with her again.

In the comics, we discover thatthe “don’t ever break up with me again” rule applies only to Zuko and not toMai, since she dumps him in the very first series. However, let us be fair toMai: Zuko did keep the truth from her, twice, and the first time she sought asolution to the problem by getting the Kyoshi warriors to be his bodyguards.But going behind her back to talk to his evil father is the last straw for Mai.It’s such a deal breaker that she leaves the palace when Zuko is facingmultiple assassination attempts and is borderline suicidal.

Mai’s stalwart stance against notgoing behind your partner’s back to talk with an evil father will last untilher next comic series, when she goes behind Zuko’s back to talk with her evilfather. This and her refusal to turn her father in result in thenear-assassination of Zuko and his entire family, including his little sisterKiyi. Kiyi is later kidnapped because Mai’s father is still on the run and shehas refused to come clean. When Mai finally admits her aiding and abetting of amurderous traitor, she reacts to Zuko’s dismay by yelling at him and neglectingto apologize for endangering him and his loved ones.

Pleasenote that Mai’s redemptive deed in the show was her saving Zuko’s life from amurderous tyrant and that her actions here completely cancel that out.

Mai has meanwhile been dating KeiLo, a nice young man whose affections she uses in order to spy on her fatherfor Zuko. Why she used Kei Lo against her father for Zuko’s sake, only tobetray Zuko for her father’s sake, is never explained. The three of them andAang later wander the catacombs trying to find clues that may lead to Kiyi’smysterious kidnapper. But what isquite apparent is Mai’s utter contempt for Zuko during this journey. Shedeprecates Zuko’s dating style in front of her current boyfriend, insultsZuko’s ancestors, obliquely asks when Zuko will die by inquiring whether he’sreserved a grave for himself, and implies that Zuko has weird friends. Why shefeels entitled to remark on this, when she’s had a total of one real friend herentire life, is anyone’s guess. She caps it all off by saying that, thanks toZuko, she needs all future romantic relationships involving her to beemotionally imbalanced in her favor.

In the end, they fight againstMai’s father, he is captured, and Mai praises him for his bravery … even thoughhis actions consisted of hiding in the shadows and kidnapping children, whichseems like the pinnacle of cowardice. The comic ends with Mai and Zuko smilingat each other, Zuko holding his little sister in his arms (whom Mai hadendangered), and Mai holding her little brother in her arms (whom Mai had alsoendangered). Isn’t family bonding time great?

Where this intensely annoyinglove triangle is headed in the comics is uncertain, although to be honest, KeiLo/Zuko is the only healthy pairing that could result from those threecharacters. Certainly Mai and Zuko don’t resume a relationship after this, althoughthe fandom presumption is that, somewhere down the line, the pair willinexplicably marry.

Aside from Mai’s selfishness,hypocrisy, refusal to grow, and lack of compassion, the narrative around her isdisjointed and contradicts itself at several critical points. Mai is made outto be the goth girl who’s a wet blanket on her parents’ emotions, until “TheBeach,” where we are told that no actually, it was her parentsoppressing Mai’s emotions the whole time. Mai is willing to sacrifice everything in “The Boiling Rock” to save Zuko’s life, except that wait, she iswilling to throw that sacrifice away for her father in “Smoke and Shadow.” But holdon, isn’t that the father she implied was neglectful and oppressive in the first place? And wait, if it’s actually her brother growing up without a fatherthat she’s concerned about, why was she so blasé about her brother getting previously kidnapped in “Return to Omashu”? And which is supposed to be Mai’sredeeming character trait: that she stands up for love in spite of her better judgment (“The Boiling Rock”), or that she stands up for her better judgment in spite of love (“The Promise”)?

Mai’s motivations are muddled. Isher first loyalty to her father, her brother, Azula, or Zuko? The story givesus multiple answers, which it then doubles back on whenever convenient. Thisleaves herself as Mai’s only consistent priority, which is hardly a firmbedrock for constructing a heroine. Mai is not moving toward a fixed point indevelopment; the plot is dragging her along for the ride, while she exists asan afterthought. A plume, if you will, of smoke and shadow, that is fast losingwhat cohesion it possessed.

[pandoraspocksao3]

What Are You Reading? 04/05/2020

Hi folks,

Well, as of this date most of the world is on lockdown from the coronavirus. I hope you are all well and taking it seriously and practicing social distancing, wearing masks, and STAYING HOME! It’s a stressful time for everyone, some more than others.

So, let’s find some good reads to keep our minds calm and distracted from all the chaos, shall we? 

A couple of Reylo authors have made the leap to published authors now! I’m so happy to see this and hope it continues to be a trend.  So my first two recommendations are not free fanfic, but actual books written by Reylo authors!

My first recommendation: 

HADES AND PERSEPHONE: Curse of the Golden Arrow by @heidihastings​ !

This beautiful story has 44 stunning illustrations by the so very talented Ms. Hastings! I am in awe of her artwork, and it’s a delight to get to read her novel! It isn’t Ben and Rey, but as with so many AUs in fanfic, it’s not difficult to imagine them in the roles, especially with the 44 breathtakingly romantic art. This is well worth your money! 

I’ve linked it to Amazon USA, but if you’re in another country you might have to look it up where you can buy it. I got the kindle version, but I’m thinking about getting the paperback also because the art is so amazing. 

The Plot:

An illustrated fantasy romance novel featuring 44 original drawings. A Cursed Love...

When Persephone is forced into the Underworld, she fears the Dark Lord who rules the shadowed kingdom. A curse has brought them together, and the Goddess of Spring wars against Hades, the King of the Dead. But as time passes, she begins to wonder if he is truly the monster she fears or if he may be the very answer her soul calls out for. 

Lies, jealousy and betrayal combine to keep them apart. Together, they battle against an unknown foe, but is there enough time to reveal the dark truths of the God before his kingdom falls?

My second recommendation is by an AO3 author we know as Elwyngirlie. On Tumblr, she is @hauscrashburn​ I’ve read a lot of her stories and love her style.  When a friend told me she had published a book, I had to check it out, and I’m happy to say it does not disappoint! 

I love a good thriller, and this is a very intense suspense novel with elements of the supernatural in a modern setting. It kept my attention until the very end, and although it isn’t Reylo, again my mind automatically cast Adam and Daisy in the lead roles! 

The Devil’s Bargain by Ellie Jones is totally worth your money (and it’s free if you have Kindle Unlimited).

The Plot:

Justine Thatcher had it all figured out: graduate school, Ph.D, moving to New York. Her life organized to the minute. That is, until the night she escaped with her life, the only witness to the brutal murders. That same night she is thrust into a dangerous world, where magic is real, and toward a sudden discovery that, as a Thatcher, she is wanted as a valuable ally. That as heir to a witch tradition, others will do anything to tempt her to their side. And David will do anything to make sure she chooses his. David: the man from the restaurant who helped create the horror she relived daily. With her family in danger, she has no choice but to take his bargain. He will help her save her sister, kidnapped and held hostage by others who want her power for more nefarious reasons. But nothing is for free and he extracts a terrible price. A novice witch with a scientific mind, she marries the two to find a solution in a race against time to save those she loves. Even as she sacrifices all for them.

My last recommendation for this installment is a fanfic on AO3 which is a fix-it fic for TROS (Lord knows we need them) and it’s a long one-shot that is a feel-good romantic fic that I really enjoyed. Check out Atonement  by @stargazer1116​ and enjoy Ben and Rey as they were meant to be!

*If you want a longer fanfic than a one-shot, then I recommend Force du Coeur by the same author, @stargazer1116​. Fluffy, heartfelt, and suitable for all ages. A great “comfort fic!” 

The Plot:

"Force du Coeur" is French for "strength of heart"...and that it includes "force" makes it THAT MUCH BETTER!

Kylo Ren is the CEO of a successful corporation in NYC. In a power play, his board, led by his uncle, demand that he marry to makeover his dismal public image. Rey is an art therapist working with foster kids in Harlem. When she contacts Kylo for possible support, he proposes a business deal that can benefit them both. He has no idea how much this woman with a fierce heart will turn his world upside down.

If you are looking for a fluffy, romantic, Reylo love story, I'm your girl. The rating will not change. I'm the PG-13 gal of the Reylo fic fandom!

ENJOY!!!! Please reblog to support these authors, and feel free to attach your own fic recommendations. Tell me what YOU are reading! I always love hearing about what people are working on, although there are more fics out there than I could ever read! 

Reading, writing, drawing, chatting, and supporting one another is how we’re going to make it through this.  And if things are getting to be too much, please, please REACH OUT.  I will listen, as I’m sure others will also. My PMs are always a safe place, and I care about my Reylo/Tumblr family.