#I want to tag this as gay but idk if his existence is inherently gay

[nostalgiahog]

Adam painting thingie whatever

I love that guy

I sure hope he doesn’t rot away 😁

[no-psi-nan]

8) common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

That Saiki is MEANT to be aroace representation / is CONFIRMED aroace (which then people use to harass anyone who ships Saiki).

Throughout the course of canon you can easily argue that Saiki is SOMEWHERE on the aroace spectrum— personally I see him as demiromantic gray/asexual or somewhere thereabouts. He's clearly not impressed by human bodies but is not immune to offu once he respects Teruhashi enough, and based on the Chiyo/Kaido love letter situation he thinks that dating is just a step beyond best friends.

HOWEVER......... There is pretty much a 0% chance that Saiki as a character was meant to be 100% aromantic asexual.

While it's certainly possible to headcanon him as full aroace (especially easy in the first season), unfortunately it's pretty obviously not the author's intent.

Think about it this way: if you wanted to create explicitly gay male representation (especially if you were not allowed to SAY he's gay, remember that this series was made for Shonen Jump lol), would you also create a female character that he's immediately obsessed with, blushing at the sight of her and spying on her and sighing that he can't be with her? So much so that people often think he's in love with her, both in canon and IRL?

Obviously not, that's super counterproductive... So if Saiki was MEANT to be full aroace, Satou Hiroshi simply wouldn't exist. Or Asou would have made Saiki react to him in a completely different way, like make him try to study Satou like a labrat in an attempt to copy or steal his normality / normality powers, without blushing or putting him in a romantic crush chain diagram.

It's just way funnier throughout the series for Saiki to NOT be interested in dating anyone 99% of the time, which then makes it EVEN FUNNIER when he INSTANTLY falls for Literally Just Some Guy, even if it's left unclear what the exact nature of his obsession is (again... this is Shonen Jump lol, and he's literally the protagonist).

So yeah there's literally nothing wrong with shipping Saiki even if you have the bizarre puritanical belief that playing dolls with imaginary little guys in certain ways is Wrong and a Sin. It's just cringe at worst tbh, and that's never inherently bad.

No need to attack people for shipping something you don't like... just block the tag and/or OP if you hate the content and move on....

18) it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

Matsuzaki. Myself included </3

He's a fantastic dilf who deserves the world...

23) ship you've unwillingly come around to

Ummm... IDK...... usually if I accept a new ship it's because I've analyzed it and have decided that it works well. I don't think I've ever been convinced by a 3rd party to ship something that failed the analysis, though I've definitely been convinced to consider something in the first place (kubosai, aikechi). There are some ships I want to like but just can't though </3

Thanks for the asks @bravano! 💜💜💜

[jakowskis]

Day 15 - Are there any ships you dislike?

alrighty so. there are only rlly four i ‘dislike’, and the first three… it’s more complicated than anything, it’s not entirely utter pure-n-simple disdain. it’s less about the ships themselves (in two of the cases, anyway) and more about how they seem to be perceived by the fandom + how much they dominate everything. other ships exist, guys! the other characters exist! anyway ill try not to be mean but i am gonna be petty, lol

so for starters, yeah, jack x ianto. i have a very specific view of it, that i do enjoy, but the fandom seems to be doing something else entirely and i've developed some resentment despite myself. especially bc it’s overrated as fuck. don’t get me wrong, it’s iconic, as far as being culturally significant gay rep, but if im honest idk how well they hold up in 2024? i thought their relationship in s1 and s2 of the show was lackluster at best. poorly written bread crumbs. and yeah i know it was big for 2006 but im just personally kind of offended that they could show them sucking face but not show the intricacies of why the hell ianto would fall for a guy who shot his girlfriend down?? like, their relationship is inherently dark and angsty to me and im interested in exploring that, bc the show certainly doesn’t (initially) bother to, and a lot of the fan content i see is either fluffy (??????????), or angsty in a Tragique way, or is just kind of… fetishy and whumpy? people slot them into a Specific Kind of Dynamic and it grosses me tf out. so the fandom culture rubs me wrong, and then it’s just… such a bummer to like owen and tosh and gwen in a fandom that only seems to prioritize this one ship. there are 22k fics in the torchwood ao3 tag, and 13k of them are janto. now, all that being said… they do intrigue me and endear me, just a bit. but it took the audios to make me give a fuck about them, which is sad. 

on that same note - i have the same relationship with tosh x owen, but i'm significantly less fond of it, cuz it just plain rubs me wrong. i like them in theory, so i spent months trying to figure out how to make them work and what other people are seeing that they think is so endearing and cute - i just can't find it. owen's treatment of tosh is just about the only thing i can't stand about him. he treats everyone poorly, but most of the rest of the cast defends themself (or even hit back, like ianto and gwen, and thats why i ship them with him! it’s spicy! i love balanced unhealthy dynamics in fiction hfdsjkf i can’t lie) - but tosh just lets him, creating an unhealthy power imbalance where she’s just getting hurt over and over again, and it makes me wanna fucking punch him cuz she does Not deserve that. i want him far away from her lmao. except under certain circumstances, cuz i have written fic about them, and i’ve read like three rlly good ones (and the main link between them is tosh stands up for herself and puts him in his place! i HATE how he walks all over her in canon ughhhhhhhhh). additionally, i do admittedly enjoy the angst of their canon arc. i just think fandom throwing them together and making it cutesy is lazy, uncreative, and an injustice to both characters. i think the SHOW throwing them together was an injustice to both characters, especially tosh’s. they're tragic and compelling, ill give them that, but theyre not sweet, and i don't think they'd be good for each other. 

(also worth noting on a show where everyone has tension w each other, imo barrowman & gareth and naoko & burn pull it off the least convincingly and have little to no chemistry. like every other duo just kind of sparks in some way or another, and neither of those duos do. which SUCKS bc they’re the canon ones. but it’s also heavily poor writing like they were doing the best w what they had. grr. like i still dont know what the fuck ianto likes about jack or what tosh likes about owen 😭 that’s ridiculous!)

the other ship i’m petty about is jack x john hart. i just think it’s far too popular for what it is. idek why that is, do we have a substantial amount of buffy fans in the fandom? don’t get me wrong, i liked john in the show + i liked their relationship as well, but i'll always be annoyed when a minor character gets more attention than the fascinating main ones. 

and lastly i hate john x ianto, because i respect ianto, lmao. i can’t lie, if he was my fav i’d probs ship it HJFKDSHFK i love putting my favs in awful situations. but as is it just grosses me out. get him outta there!! 

tldr: i don’t interact w the john hart side of the fandom, and if a fic is tagged 'jack/ianto tosh/owen gwen/rhys' i probably won’t read it 😷

[firelxdykatara]

gods, ok, apparently i’m not done.

atla fandom? we need to have a chat.

(....ok that made me sound pretentious as fuck. and maybe i am, but this needs to be said, cause i’m getting....real, real tired of a Certain Corner of this fandom and as a result, this is gonna be a discourse-heavy post so feel free to scroll past if that’s not your bag. as always, my salt posts all carry the catch-all #salt for ts tag, which you’re free to blacklist/filter at your leisure. i’m Very Annoyed at the moment, which will probably come through in the following post, so just. yknow. be prepared for that. or ignore it, that’s perfectly valid too.)

under a cut bc i do care for my followers and their sanity i swear lmao

there’s a real serious issue in this fandom with not understanding what queer terminology actually means or implies, especially when applied to a fictional narrative.

i’m specifically talking about ‘coding’, here. (if i were in a more meme-y mood, i might have said ‘the atla fandom found out about the term “gay-coding” and haven’t shut up since’.)

to the people who say ‘zuko is gay-coded’, i have this to say: you keep using that word. i do not think it means what you think it means. because he isn’t. i’m sorry, but he’s not! and the fact that this is such a prevalent claim in this fandom is distressing, bc it says to me that none of y’all know what gay-coding is or when and how to apply it! please, i’m begging you, go and look up these terms and what they mean and when they should be used before actually trying to plug them into your critical analysis, because when you misuse them and then call other people delusional for disagreeing with you it casts a pall over the entire fandom and is, i think, the root of some of the worst toxicity this fandom has to offer.

and the thing is, there are cases where gay-coding would apply--for instance, a couple series that are famous for queerbaiting their audience by coding their main characters as being attracted to one another (sometimes even despite their openly stated sexualities) come to mind, but those shows bare no similarities at all to atla and how zuko was written and portrayed! (and it would be funny, if it weren’t so obnoxious and infuriatingly wide-spread throughout the fandom, because the only queer couple we actually seen on-screen in either show wasn’t even queer-coded in any respect, and they’re canonically bi! [yes, i’m shading korrasami, or more accurately i’m shading bryke for refusing to give ka the build-up and development they deserved].)

this absolutely isn’t to say that headcanoning zuko as gay is a bad thing or invalid in any respect. (although the tendency for zukka shippers to do this specifically to keep zuko away from katara and/or invalidate his canon relationship/attraction to girls is more than a little eyebrow raising. especially since sokka is usually allowed to be bi, bc fans have no problem letting sukka stay in the background bc it’s no real threat, while jetko shippers are happy to have both boys be bi. [possibly bc katara is less a threat to jetko bc jetkotara is every bit as valid as any single ship between the three, but zukka can’t exactly let katara join in, and if the potential exists for zuko to be attracted to her then canon giving them the far deeper emotional bond becomes a threat to zukka’s existence? idk for sure--you be the judge.]) i prefer to hc zuko as bi (and always have, long before the atla renaissance), bc i don’t think zuko being attracted to boys is outside the realm of possibility, and it isn’t a threat to my ship since zuko&katara had a deep and emotional bond in canon that is very easy to develop further into something that becomes explicitly romantic--but the headcanon itself isn’t really the problem (although what it’s often in service to can be).

it’s the strange insistence that this is the only way to read his character, bc he was coded that way and so anyone who doesn’t see it must be too straight to understand--and i really shouldn’t have to say why and how that is so incredibly fucking insulting. (the ‘hetero lenses’ comment wasn’t cute when it came from bryke six years ago, and the same sentiment being repackaged and delivered by zukka shippers ain’t cute now.)

calling zuko gay-coded not only demonstrates ignorance as to what the term actually means, and how to usefully apply it in critical analysis, but also validates the frankly bullshit insertion of institutionalized homophobia in the world of atla where it was neither needed, nor wanted, nor ever hinted at in canon. as a queer woman i’m still infuriated by one fucking comic panel shoving institutionalized and systemic homophobia into a world where it was entirely unnecessary (and doing this in the first installment of the franchise showcasing a queer relationship??? making korra and asami worried about ‘coming out’ when they could have just gone on to have cute adventures together and tell people ‘hey we’re dating’ and have everyone else be ‘that’s awesome =DDD’ [because it is, in fact, possible to just have a world without homophobia i promise!!!!!] double yikes, i’m still pissed at bryke about it), and i doubly hate that ‘zuko is gay coded’ has become so widespread that ‘ozai hates him bc he’s gay’ has become a staple in that part of the fandom.

not only does making zuko gay and implying (or outright stating) that ozai hated and abused him because of it completely undermine zuko’s character arc by making his abuse about his sexuality rather than ozai’s toxic pride and anger at seeing himself reflected in his ‘weak’ son, but it comes very close to outright stating that abuse and trauma are inherently gay experiences, and they aren’t!!! they really aren’t, i promise!!!

abuse and trauma narratives exist outside of ‘my dad hates me because i’m gay’. and, quite frankly, there are MORE THAN ENOUGH queer trauma narratives out in the world. we do not need to start trying to retroactively make them canon in a series where they didn’t exist! if you’re gay and see yourself in zuko and project your own experiences on him, that’s understandable and valid. that does not make zuko gay-coded. and honestly, the insistence that he is makes very little sense to me, because you’re essentially trying to give the show credit for work you put into interpreting the characters! why would you want to do that? why not own your own headcanons and take credit for them, rather than insisting they are canon and everyone else is wrong for not seeing them??? like, i’ve said before that i’ve always headcanoned zuko (and katara) as bi, and even support it with my interpretations of evidence from the show, but the difference between ‘i think zuko is bi’ and ‘zuko is definitely gay-coded’ is that i know that bi zuko is my interpretation of canon, and that it is work i’m putting into the show that wasn’t actually intended by the creators/writers, no matter how much sexual tension i read into the jetko swordfight.

and like, zuko’s character arc doesn’t actually parallel a queer one all that well to begin with. it’s easy enough to do the work and twist it sideways just enough to make the general points fit, but the fact is, zuko’s arc is not one of self-discovery. it’s not one of coming to understand something fundamental about himself that he can’t change, that he was hated for, and coming out to his father in a dramatic confrontation where he shows that he understands himself and doesn’t need his father’s acceptance to be fulfilled.

zuko’s arc is actually one of trauma and healing. and those can (and often are--like i said, there are more than enough queer trauma narratives in the world, atla really doesn’t need to be one of them) be part of queer narratives, for sure! but they aren’t uniquely queer. and zuko’s confrontation with ozai during the eclipse doesn’t read like a ‘coming out’ at all. (yes, i’ve seen that post. yes, i rolled my eyes and moved on, bc unlike some people, i’m capable of not clowning on correctly tagged posts i disagree with.) zuko is specifically confronting ozai over his abuse, because his arc wasn’t about discovering anything fundamental about himself (and therefore realizing that ozai was hating him for something he couldn’t change)--it was about realizing that he was not at fault for the way his father treated him. it was also about realizing that the fire nation was broken and corrupt at its core, and that his father was an aspect of that he needed to break away from so that he could help the world begin to heal.

he says it himself:

Zuko: No, I've learned everything! And I've had to learn it on my own! Growing up, we were taught that the Fire Nation was the greatest civilization in history. And somehow, the War was our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world. What an amazing lie that was. The people of the world are terrified by the Fire Nation. They don't see our greatness. They hate us! And we deserve it! We've created an era of fear in the world. And if we don't want the world to destroy itself, we need to replace it with an era of peace and kindness.

making this about zuko being gay and rejecting ozai’s homophobia, rather than zuko learning fundamental truths about the world and about his home and about how there was something deeply wrong with his nation that needed to be fixed in order for the world to heal (and, no, ‘homophobia’ is not the answer to ‘what is wrong with the fire nation’, i’m still fucking pissed at bryke about that), misses the entire point of his character arc. this is the culmination of zuko realizing that he should never have had to earn his father’s love, because that should have been unconditional from the start. this is zuko realizing that he was not at fault for his father’s abuse--that speaking out of turn in a war meeting in no way justified fighting a duel with a child.

is that first realization (that a parent’s love should be unconditional, and if it isn’t, then that is the parent’s fault and not the child’s) something that queer kids in homophobic households/families can relate to? of course it is. but it’s also something that every other abused kid, straight kids and even queer kids who were abused for other reasons before they even knew they were anything other than cishet, can relate to as well. in that respect, it is not a uniquely queer experience, nor is it a uniquely queer story, and zuko not being attracted to girls (which is what a lot of it seems to boil down to, at the end of the day--cutting down zuko’s potential ships so that only zukka and a few far more niche ships are left standing) is not necessary to his character arc. nor does it particularly make sense.

(and before anyone brings up his date with jin--a) he enjoyed it when she kissed him, and b) he was a traumatized, abused child going out on a first date. of course he was fucking awkward. have you ever met a teenage boy????)

anyway, uh, that was a lot of words, so have a tl;dr: zuko is not gay-coded. there is nothing uniquely gay (or even uniquely queer) about his character arc or characterization, and he was certainly not coded gay in an attempt to sneak a queer character past the censors. if anyone involved with atla was gonna try that, it would’ve been in lok, and as established, they didn’t even manage to queer-code the actual queer relationship before the last few minutes of the final episode. headcanoning zuko as gay is absolutely fine (though if it’s only done to keep him away from female characters he may otherwise be attracted to, that smells more like misogyny than anything else), but insisting that this reading is the only one that makes sense, and anyone who doesn’t agree must be straight (hello, queer woman here making this insanely long thinkpiece) is very much not.

ship what you like, but stop trying to invalidate other ships and other interpretations of characters just to make your ship seem more plausible. it’s really not a good look.

[grittyreadsfic]

very curious about the new brand of homophobia but also totally respect you not wanting to elaborate?

time is a circle and everything always comes back to people reinventing the wheel except this time the wheel is just homophobia

and you might be asking yourself: grits, we're largely here reading and writing queer stories, how could that be homophobic?

well!

it's not every fic, and it's not every ship, and it's not every writer. you might read what i'm saying and recognize an action you've done and maybe that means what i'm saying applies to you, or maybe it doesn't. this is the internet and it's full of nuance and this isn't a clear cut thing about someone just straight up using a slur (though hrpf did make me read the r slur with no ableism warnings in the last year, so honestly i wouldn't be surprised)

anyway: there's a trend i've noticed, in writing and just in how the community treats the player overall, that if a player displays any "feminine" trait-being on the smaller side, dressing in a nicer outfit, doing more than just basic hygiene, basically anything that distinguishes them from the stereotype of your basic bro-they take that player and make them a bottom. they turn it into an identity that is basically their whole identity and reduce the character to just that one trait.

and you know, there's a time and place. i've said it once and i'll say it again: if something exists, there's porn for it. if it's just porn? whatever, tag it appropriately, do what you gotta, i'm not here to kinkshame anyone. you wanna write force fem porn? sick, go for it

however, when it goes past that-when it's not just porn but it shapes how characters are written, how it influence the perspective on the players-or because this isn't unique to hockey fic, the characters in general-that's where my issue lies

because it's reducing queer identities down to a stereotype. this is inherently homophobic. it's worse than that, actually, because of the issues that arise with that stereotype too when you look at it through an intersectional lens, but that's a whole other can of worms that is for another post.

right, so, this stereotype: the "feminine" guy is a bottom (and like, not to be crude, but i'd argue that for some characters it reduces them further to simply a hole) and it turns the ship into a caricature of queer representation that reminds me way too much of the really limited mlm ships we saw in media ten, fifteen years ago-it feels like someone's about to ask who's the man in the relationship, and who's the woman. and sure, plenty of queer people have preferences about topping and bottoming, and i'm sure for some people it is a part of their personality, but like. i'm seeing characterizations of players getting reduced down to that and nothing else and it just makes me tired.

this becomes a problem when it's widespread. when it shapes entire views of characters or players or, fuck, carries over to how you view the real live gay people in your life.

anyway i was told i should give actual examples of what i mean so here are some of those:

-every smaller usndtp kid is automatically written as a slutty, bratty bottom, generally because of the kind of derogatory side of the stereotypes around twinks. these ones gets reduced to just a hole pretty quick, and like, again, if you're just writing porn, sure, go for it, but it's starting to become to full personality that people are giving them

-i've actually stopped reading tknp fic that isn't by authors i trust or is a fic i've read and liked previously because hrpf people took all the trans people projecting their gender onto summer nolan and essentially force femmed his character both like. in sex and outside of it? i don't know how else to describe it except i kept reading it and it just felt homophobic. it felt reductive and insulting, honestly

-some of you are here just to fetishize mlm and that's really not my business but you might want to unpack that idk

anyway the tldr of it all is that y'all turned top and bottom into secondary genders and there's a lot homophobia (and honestly, some transphobic implications as well lmao) because of it

[dear-wormwoods]

Someone truly in the reddie tag saying Myra was not abusive and that she wasn’t like Sonia. Even saying Bev and Eddie don’t have similar arcs bc their abusive situations were entirely different and that people just reach to bend arguments in order to prove reddie. Biggest bs I have read in a while ahdhd

I’m assuming you are new to my blog, because uhh, I’m sorry to burst your bubble anon, but I am also someone who doesn’t consider Myra abusive. Idk what post you’re talking about specifically but I’d sure like to know what ‘proving reddie’ has to do with it, lol. But anyway, I have said before that I consider Eddie’s marriage to be toxic, but not abusive. These two people should not be married. And not just because Eddie is gay and doesn’t love her. Beyond that, they are definitely bad for each other. The entire marriage is a conduit for misery and deception. It’s a codependent circus of projection and enabling. It’s unhealthy as hell! But it isn’t abusive. And here’s why I think that: 

Stephen King wasn’t trying to make a point that Sonia and Myra are exactly the same. He was, however, making a point that when people enter into adulthood and adult relationships while carrying a bunch of baggage from trauma they never properly dealt with, the cycle will continue in one way or another (this is why Eddie and Bev are ‘parallel’ characters, not the surface-level abuse interpretation). Eddie suffered from emotional abuse for most of his life; Sonia was very calculating and intentional about it and made sure that she always held sway in Eddie’s life to suit her own needs. The result is that Eddie is a very inexperienced and sheltered adult who believes in all of the lies his mother told him. He tried to move out three times and failed each time. Sonia controlled him until the day she died. It’s all Eddie knows. So in his mid-thirties, alone in the world for the first time, he doesn’t know how to take care of himself and, more importantly, believes he can’t learn. Because of his history of abuse and control, Eddie can’t fathom taking the reins in his own life and instead seeks out someone who will take care of him the way he’s become accustomed to. 

So, Eddie meets Myra and latches onto her because she’s inexperienced and malleable, like him. She physically reminds him of his mother, so it’s easy for him to project onto her all of the abuse Sonia inflicted on him. And because that life was all he knew, it was also what made him feel comfortable, so he nudged Myra into the role he wanted her to fill - a replacement mom. He did this subconsciously at first, but he was able to recognize it before they got married… and then he decided to go through with it anyway. 

Eddie brought a lot of baggage into that relationship, baggage that Myra was most likely completely unaware of. Obviously he’s a repressed gay man, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Eddie doesn’t love Myra, but it’s not just because he’s gay, it’s also because he has created a maternal figure in her and, since he (rightfully) resents his mother, he also resents Myra. She conforms to that caretaker role and enables everything he’s learned from a life with Sonia, and he in turn enables her bad habits too. Enabling is toxic behavior, but it isn’t inherently abusive. 

But then, when he leaves to go back to Derry, it all comes to a head. She freaks out because as far as she knows, he’s very sick, and he’s leaving her without an explanation, this man who she is married to and financially dependent on. She has no idea how to communicate, so she resorts to panicky, emotionally manipulative attempts to get him to talk to her and stay. On the flipside, Eddie has no idea how to communicate with her either, so he withholds information, deflects, and snaps at her in moments of frustration. They both have irrational thoughts about hurting each other and they both do and say things that make the situation worse. They are both VERY bad at communication. Because they’re both grown adults with almost no relationship experience outside of each other and are therefore emotionally stunted. 

That whole chapter reads, to me, like “bad breakups 101″ - one person can’t articulate how they feel so they’re deflecting and coming off as cold, and the other person is so over the top emotional that they end up making no sense and coming off as hysterical. And it’s no wonder! If you make it to your late 30′s without ever having much of a social circle or relationship experience, you’re not going to know how to act in a situation like this. And this applies to both of them. If what Eddie says about her is true, this is probably the first time Myra has ever been left by a partner, and it’s happening suddenly and with no explanation. So, she’s hysterical and resorts to manipulation - not out of habit, but out of desperation (Eddie makes the distinction that this isn’t typical behavior for her!!). For Eddie’s part, this is the first major decision he’s made in probably his whole life, and he doesn’t know how to explain himself, so he just… decides not to. And because he does not love Myra, he is completely emotionally detached from her. Their individual reactions to the situation just make it worse for them both - Eddie shutting down makes Myra more hysterical, and her hysterics cause him to shut down more.

People like to cite a couple of damning quotes about Myra as proof that she’s exactly like Sonia, but making that argument requires you to actively ignore the damning quotes about Eddie. There are also quite a few quotes that highlight the differences between her and Sonia, things Eddie himself acknowledges, as well as quotes about the guilt he feels for knowingly projecting his own baggage onto this woman. (Note: see the posts linked at the end of this for a breakdown of all those quotes) The text makes it clear that this was never a happy marriage. Neither of them are better for being in each other’s lives. They don’t help each other become healthier people. Rather, they both actively enable each other’s toxic habits. The marriage is, in a lot of ways, a form of self-harm for Eddie, and he knows it - upon Sonia’s death, he exited the cage his mother built for him and then built a new cage for himself and threw the key at Myra’s feet. For her part, I believe Myra began as an unwitting enabler but ultimately realized that she gained a “purpose” from the relationship (being a caretaker, being “needed”) and subsequently turned a blind eye to all the ways it wasn’t actually a healthy marriage. 

This is such a long post already but I want to make it very clear that Eddie’s cycle of abuse continuing does not actually require Myra herself to be abusive - rather, it is Eddie’s projection onto her that exacerbates the toxic environment. It’s the ghost of Sonia that haunts him in that chapter and throughout the rest of the novel. Myra is not a villain in Eddie’s life - he hardly even thinks about her after he leaves. This is one of the main points that make Eddie and Bev’s parallel arcs different - Bev very clearly has a secondary villain in her life, Tom, and she gets the closure of him dying in the end. But Eddie doesn’t need closure about his marriage, because Myra is just an extension of what Sonia did to him. 

The one time he does think of her unprompted is during his walking tour, and it’s such a great example of what his marriage actually means for him: when faced with the leper offering him a blowjob and other IT manifestations, he wishes he was home with Myra. He doesn’t think of her badly - he’s not afraid of her in any way. But she represents his comfort zone. IT is forcing him to confront things like his repressed sexuality, and he decidedly does not want to do that. That’s the only moment he “misses” Myra. But he doesn’t actually miss Myra. He misses the way her enabling allowed him to escape from having to face himself. And that’s really what it comes down to - Eddie’s marriage is toxic because it’s an escape, a way for him to avoid having to grow as a person and face the hard realities of who he is and what his mother has done to him. Myra isn’t evil, she’s not a calculating abuser like Sonia was, but she is toxic because her very presence prevents Eddie from reaching his full potential and being happy. 

Sonia’s abuse permeates Eddie’s entire life, even well after her death. Her actions dictate how he sees himself, as well as how he acts in relationships. Sonia is the reason Eddie’s marriage is the way it is. Hell, Sonia is the reason Eddie’s marriage exists in the first place. It is Sonia’s ghost that continues to manipulate him throughout the book and it is Sonia’s voice he needs to overcome in the end. If Myra were truly abusive, she would matter more in the overarching narrative of Eddie’s trip to Derry. But she doesn’t matter and because of that, she’s never really given a personality or motivations. She’s truly a blank canvas for Eddie to project his issues onto, and then he simultaneously berates himself for projecting and resents her for existing within his projections. Through all of this, everything always comes back to Sonia. Due to the vast disparity between their respective levels of influence, placing Myra on equal footing with Sonia is, in my opinion, a form of downplaying how bad Sonia truly was. 

Finally, and it’s wild that this even needs to be said, people need to recognize that saying ‘Myra isn’t abusive’ is NOT the same thing as saying she did nothing wrong. Myra was an enabler and that’s not okay, whether she meant to be or not. She also had moments of manipulation, terrible communication skills and poor emotional regulation. She was a toxic presence in Eddie’s life. Saying she isn’t abusive doesn’t mean I’m excusing her actions. But it’s also important to recognize that the chapter in which she appears has a lot more nuance to it than some people realize, and it’s necessary to hold Eddie accountable for his part in making that night so difficult. On that note, holding Eddie accountable and recognizing his harmful moments is not the same as calling him abusive either (fsr that’s become some kind of urban legend, but literally no one ever said he was! ever!!). There does not always have to be an abuser and a victim - sometimes bad relationships are just… bad.

Eddie is obviously a lot more sympathetic than Myra because we know about his past and get his POV. We know that he’s a good person. We also know that Sonia is the root of all of his issues. But the fact is, he has some shitty moments in that chapter, just as Myra does! His past experiences are not an excuse for that, they’re just an explanation. And, because I know there are people out there who equate accountability with victim blaming, being able to recognize where Eddie went wrong and why he entered into this marriage to begin with is NOT the same as saying he deserved any of his misery. There’s a huge, huge difference between accountability and blame. Holding people, even fictional characters, accountable is a good thing. In the end, Eddie is a very damaged person - an inherently good person, to be sure, but sometimes damaged people who are inherently good can, and often do, create, foster, and contribute to unhealthy relationships. It can’t all be unquestioningly pinned on Myra. 

Anyway, if after all of that you’re still confused as to why some people choose not to use the abuse label, here’s some additional reading:

An amazing breakdown of the entire chapter, using quotes, by @tossertozier

A more recent & shorter breakdown using quotes by @richietozierhateblog 

[pirateshelly]

Time for more complaining about the Magicians Bullshit (which I will henceforth be tagging as “magicians bullshit” so anyone who wants to ignore me can). It always made me uncomfortable that the main characters who do the most casual sleeping around (Eliot, Margo, Quentin) also happen to be the only queer main characters (even though with Margo I still maintain that they didn't make it explicit enough for it to actually count). Or even beyond main characters, you've got Alice's parents with their three way relationship with whatever his name was, who are also presented as these vapid, sex obsessed, crazy people who have orgies on a regular basis and emotionally neglect their daughter. There ends up being this weird implication that regular romance=heterosexual love and queerness is inherently sexual and slightly ~deviant. Like being into the same gender is just a symptom of being ~sexually liberated~. It's just one of those little patterns in the show that always bugged me but I was ready to overlook when I though they were actually building up a legit romance with Q/El, but now it just looks gross.

And for the first two seasons every relationship Eliot has either involves him being manipulated and used or is framed as being in some way selfish/irresponsible (like sleeping with other peoples boyfriends). And I really think the angle of El being unable to open himself up to a real, genuine, loving relationship because of his own insecurities and growing up in a homophobic environment is a genuinely interesting and relatable as fuck thing to explore (there’s a reason Escape from the Happy Place was probably my favorite episode), and I was super interested in the idea of that contrasted with Quentin being perfectly chill with his sexuality and the two of them getting to kind of learn from each other/balance each other out. But with the writers downplaying Quentin's bisexuality and then fucking killing him, now it just looks like they just kind of hate El and have no interest in just letting him actually grow and be happy. He’s back to being the token gay who never gets a real chance at happiness.

I saw a quote from Hale Appleman somewhere saying that he really wishes the show would explore Eliot's sexuality unapologetically (also, hey showrunners, maybe, idk, listening to the suggestions of your actual queer actor playing your queer character might be a good idea?), and "apologetic" really does feel like a good way to describe how they often treat Eliot’s sexuality. It's never something that gets to just exist, and be freely expressed without tragedy or endless ridiculous obstacles being thrown in the way. Like he has to pay some kind of price and earn the right to just exist and be gay, but never actually gets anything in return.

And semi related but the fact that Marina is the most prominent explicitly not straight woman, and her relationship with her girlfriend is framed as something kind of manipulative. And all of the season 1 moments where she's clearly hitting on Julia and Kady are, considering the power she has over both of them, definitely also creepy/predatory. It's all just... really not great.

Between that and the Margo/Pirate Lady scene, it feels like 'being into girls' is just an edgy personality quirk they give to their snarky bad girl characters, and not something they have any real interest in exploring in a genuine emotional way. And I hate it because healthy, emotional, healing wlw love would have fit SO perfectly with characters like Julia or Kady or Alice's stories (or ANY of the women, the options are endless, there are SO many interesting women in this show and ALL of them are shoved together with men). 

I know people have pointed out all of this before, but it just. Keeps. Bothering me. I feel like an idiot for wanting to think this show was better. I hate that I was ready to overlook all of this because I thought they were doing one (1) thing right so I told myself that if they were smart enough to actually follow through and give their two male leads an actual beautiful slow burn romance they would also be smart enough to correct their other early season fuck ups. But it turns out they are not, in fact, that smart. At all. And it sucks because this story had so much endless potential, and I think that potential is really what I fell in love with and it’s depressing that the actual people running the show didn’t see any of it.

[astro-break]

Right back at you: shipping, idol games, and Saint Seiya. :p

Ho boy i have opinions. I have so many opinions. Especially on the idol side lmao.

Shipping:

obligatory shipping is fiction and tag all your things correctly. Write what you want and ship what you want bc again shipping is what you think would look good together not what is canon or healthy. what you ship is not reflective of who you are, yeada yeada

1) shipping slash parings as a fixed pairings isn't a sin. yes irl the concept of fixed top and bottom is kind of ridiculous as an attempt to heteronormalize queerness and many couples switch but shipping is fiction. you're allowed to break away from reality as long as you're aware that gay couples irl don't conform to one set role

2) Shipnames like spiritshipping was cute even if it was hard to tell who was being shipped. confusing as all hell yes but still cute

3) Idk if this is unpopular or not but shipping is not inherently romantic? Its relationshipping, relationships come in all shapes and forms. You can absolutely pair characters together in platonic, familial, whatever manner you want. Shipping is not automatically romantic! (though please do tag your shit properly... i don't want to read a platonic relationship when im browsing the slash tags)

4) Polyculing a ship definitely doesn't solve every problem but it sure makes them more interesting!

5) My absolute favourite shipping trope of all time is when person A is head over heels obsessed with an oblivious person B, full on stalker, possessive, and pining so much you could probably grow a whole forest from it. What person A doesn't know is that person B is equally obsessed with them. God i love that so much, just two people so obsessed with each other that they don't care about morality, they are each others morality.

A slightly different but no less tasty flavour is that person B knows and enables person A for non-malicious reasons.

Idol Games:

1) idol games don't need to be dark to be fun please stop making everything dark and edgyTM sometimes we just need good fun songs and thats it

2) on the same vein but idol games with dark themes doesn't automatically make them good. I7 succeeded because it touched upon how fan culture is inherently toxic and the pressure that idols face both on a corporate and public front. Enstars was good because it tackled very real themes like self belonging, the aftereffects of bullying, unresolved trauma and the many many vicious cycles that arise from it, and capitalism. Just inserting dark themes willy nilly without care for what topics you're addressing will get you nowhere and just makes you seem silly and an asshole

3) The plot of forming an idol group to save your school is cheesy and overdone. Forming an idol group to save anything is just such a dumb plot point

4) a very enstars specific gripe: the sakuma's are vampires or at the very least use vampirism as a coping method to deal with a dominant genetic illness. They aren't human, never have been never will be.

Otherkin/copinglink in my hot takes? inconceivable

Other character hot takes include: Kanata is a fallen god who has lost his followers and those who try and worship him are doing it in a fundamentally wrong way thus never restoring his power. Only Madara knows how to properly worship Kanata but refuses to do so as he wants him to live as a human. Kuro is absolutely a dragon youkai and simply didn't want to think up of a convincing name and named himself dragon oni to throw everyone off. Mika is a discarded doll who is learning to be human. Sakasaki practices modern magick and does incorporate science in his magick, yes those two can exist together. The idea that flowers rejuvenates Ritsu actually makes sense? Flowers contain sugars and water which can be accessed through biting and are known to have herbal properties which would theoretically combat whatever genetic ailment they have. Rose petals specifically are associated with collagen and skin care which would be a perfect option to use in order to combat sunsickness. Flowers are also equated with youthfulness so yeah. it makes sense why flowers could act as an emergency store for vampires

5) idol game fandoms suck. plain and simple. you either get fanwars, character discourse, or kinnies and neither of them are things i have energy to deal with

Saint Seiya:

1) saint seiya was good in the sense that it was quintessential shounen. There is so much shounen gumption stored into those bronze boys its not even funny. Makes for a great template tho (its why every new StS series keeps adapting/remaking the 12 temples and nothing else...)

2) Poseidon and the Marina did very little wrong. Most of the Poseidon arc was kickstarted by Kanon who had a very valid reason for waking up a grumpy primordial (possibly cathonic?) god from his sleep. The other marina were protecting their home and following orders much like the bronze saints. It just so happens that their goals didn't quite align

3) Kuruma really doesn't do justice to any of the characters. theres so much potential in everyone to be really interesting but he just... doesn't deliver.... Silver saints, the secondary bronze saints, female saints, just those alone carry so much potential but nope. nothing is ever done with them. Marina and Spectres too. Even asgardians have so much going on that it is fascinating just to speculate on what they could do and what they could bring to the table.

4) Half of the StS experience is creating a whole cast of OCs for the universe. I feel like its a rite of passage at this point and its half of what makes staying in the fandom fun

5) If you don't treat the netflix adaption as an adaption and just as a standalone show its actually not that bad. y'all just want to hate

[bibbleboo]

Could we get some headcanons/more background on Abbey and Doyle’s kids? 🥺👉👈 I love the premise of this AU

YEEEEE (im just gonna ramble a bunch about the backstory i have so far but ill put it in bullets so its easier to follow lol i apologize for it being long as fuck-)

OKAY SO,,, first of all,,, doyle and abbey timeline,,,, [i am looking respectfully]

in this au, they get back together and have a sort of ‘lovers pretending to be enemies’ chaotic on again/off again hookup thing off to the side just between the two of them thru like Most of the final season, they try to keep it a secret (especially doyle who doubts the saturdays would be hAPPY if he was seeing her again) but in the end, saturdays ofc find out, probably are unsure about it at first, but she gains enough of their trust to be there for the big finale battle in the weird world mansion.

when shit goes down and argost becomes the vessel for the two opposing kurs (regular kur, and the anti kur from zak monday) and they like. explode his matter or w/e, i imagine instead of kur just completely disappearing, the ‘anti kur’ gets shot back to its universe, while original kur gets forced into a new vessel in this universe... the closest of which happens to be the unborn child abbeys unknowingly carrying. basically, what if the two kurs just LOOKED like they evaporated but actually did what happens when you try to like tape two same sides of a magnets together and they YEETED-

So thats how we have Parker, their firstborn daughter! and this... also implies ‘Parker Monday’ exists which. 8^) i havent thought about yet so forgive me on that but hoo, 

they dont know parker is kur, they got no idea and rly just assume kur is gone for good. but after they find out abbeys pregnant (which is a huge emotional trip for both of them in its own right) they do eventually sort of agree they dont want their kid exposed to that whole world of mystery. like, ik its a vital thing to the whole family, and ik these two people were probably voted least likely to ‘settle down’ in high school, but i cant imagine they didnt escape the kur/zak situation without a LOT of trauma, so while the saturdays stay in the cryptozoology field, doyle and abbey slowly pull away from the mystery and mercenary stuff, and also instead of going for big dollar lifestyle settle with ‘independently wealthy’ parenting.

also, neither of them really . grasp the concept that theyve even started a family, and are ‘together’, and that this is REAL, until around when she gets pregnant with their second daughter, Kendall. and then theyre like. oh nooo wait are we actually like boyfriend and girlfriend EWW-

when kendall is born parker is 3, and the next like 10+ years are pretty smooth sailing. as far as what the kids know/see, they probably know the cryptids when theyre little but. (tw animal death sORRY TO BE DARK I JUST??????) idk,, how long komodo dragons live/how old komodo already is and i definitely dont know Anything about giant prehistoric birds and am not even sure if science knows that lifespan, so. im not sure how long they could really be in each others lives??? i almost imagine parker would have memories of them that she assumes she remembers wrong, like “oh yeah they used to have a lizard and a bird... my imaginative little kid brain thought they were a komodo dragon and a dinosaur”, and as for fisk im still working on it but i . actually kind of imagine he might have a much longer lifespan (since lemurians are like ancient or w/e? and also if hes by dna like a gorilla cat or w/e gorillas at least live long af) and also feel like once he got older and settled down a bit he might live somewhere in the woods, maybe even his old tree? and the saturdays see him ALL the time obviously, but hey zaks gotta go to college eventually, a gorilla cats gotta eat bugs in forest, we all have to grow up and leave the nest sometime,

so idk the last time parker has actually seen fisk and she might assume he was an imaginary friend or smth but, 1. if i do write a fic they absolutely have to meet again, 2. overall the vibe is they know the saturdays are cryptozoologists, like, the same way josh gates does destination truth, seeking answers and studying, they dont really. know that theyre REAL. to them its like, a hypothetical science. (this is also part of why they dont realize parker is kur, she isnt around cryptids and therefore whenever her powers would actually show up they wouldnt be recognized) anyways parker isnt embarrassed or put off by it but just thinks its a little wacky, meanwhile kendall is obsessed with the world of mystery/paranormal/cryptic lol

speaking of the girls personalities;;;

parker is like. not really normie/preppy, even if she seems it at first glance, shes nice and has a good head on her shoulders but also is a teenage girl (inherently unhinged) and shes THEIR teenage girl (+5 feral) so despite her success and charm shes also very witty/crass when she wants to be, and deep down shes closer to the kind of person that would on pure inexplicable instinct put something random in your mouth when you’re yawning so you bite down on it afterwards. or like. that video of the girl singing in the bathroom while her friends curl their hair and she grabs the curler to use as a microphone before realizing its burning hot??? shes. the voice of reason, but the voice is usually shrieking in fear, making a cursed joke, or half the time whatever shes saying is actually smart. she kinda wants to go to college and travel, but struggles with indecisiveness and anxiety, so she has no idea where to go, what to major in, etc. and is again kinda just livin thru the typical teen life in that regard

kendall on the other hand is like. weird kid culture, the kind of kid that believes they are secretly a new supernatural creature each year (mermaid phase, werewolf phase, alien phase, etc), probably completely accidentally starts cults or witch covens at school (didnt realize teaching peers how to become ‘blood brothers’ and ‘make potions’ from puddles and stolen school supplies would be taken so seriously by parents) , very into emo/scene/punk/alt culture but not rly in an overtly dark/edgy way, more of a having fun and expressing self way. she wants answers for everything, really loves mysteries and being open minded, and definitely a rebel/adventurer at heart, even if she gets naive or in over her head sometimes.

the girls get along well! parker is not dismissive of kendall she just. isnt really into the same stuff/is more freaked out by it most of the time, but she would tag along on certain adventures, especially if it was to keep her safe. and kendall definitely directs gentle mockery towards parker a lot but does see her as a good role model and guiding figure, their bond is really strong!

other details !

doyle and abbey prob decide to say fuck it and get married after kendall is born, they probably have a few rough patches but nothing is more important to them than the kids now and in the end they understand each other better than anyone else so . canon tension idk her! family ftw! power couple! they intimidate the teacher during parent teacher conferences together hand in shady little hand !

their parenting style is exactly what one would imagine, 70% fun and sass and controlled chaos where theyre the bigger children than their children, 15% ‘this is how you hack the government and dual wield swords-- i was not supposed to teach you that im sorry’, and 15% actual guidance / emotional depth / etc. flaws might be overcoming their own immaturity for the first few years, and then being lowkey overly protective (while claiming they arent, but just bc you semi jokingly tell parker she should join the football team doesnt mean you dont actually hide 60% of ur life from her and check that her bedroom windows are locked every night and have 24 people listed in her school emergency contacts and used to cut up her food till she was 7 and-)

so abouT THE BABY BOY (Phoenix), 1. his middle name is leonidas bc im gay and i love emotional turmoil babes , 2. fully unironically the idea behind such a late pregnancy is abbey would be mid fourties when hes born right. so like. [has two kids] ‘ok birth control time’ [when theyre teens many years later] ‘ok im old enough to stop taking this’ [the hyperfertility curse that plagues many women rears its ugly head with one last hoo-rah]

and finALLY a very quick elevator pitch of what id write an actual fic to focus on;;; kendall sneaks into the attic to look for old shit bc they BOTH know their parents have been hiding stuff over the years, she finds things like a cryptopedia (now offline), the claw, maybe even a piece of the kur stone, and ropes parker into the long haul of figuring out what all this stuff is. and ofc the second they ever find the naga relic and parker comes face to face with it, [rest in rip] time for mom and dad to find out and all this kur shit to start ALL over again-

[janiedean]

"you just about described every other twilight/50 shades" No no. I'm talking here about very specific gay history. Like "what if my faves were gays but in the 80s so they can have AIDS". Or using homophobia as an excuse to have your fave isolated so another one can save him. It sounds like a romantic/common trope but for gay/bi people it's a reality that we live. Just like the bad mafia AU, it's not cute when it's ill-informed. What's fun for some just really isn't for others.

okay listen I have a feeling we’re not understanding each other but again

the one time I wrote fic about someone having aids (in the 2000s and curing it) I spent three days researching current aids cures and the likes and I ended up talking to three different people in the medical profession in the UK to ask if I was writing idiotic things or not, and when I checked the tag on ao3 half of that was RENT fic and idk about the other half, but not discussing *me*: I’ve never seen aids fic put that way. like, ‘but in the 80s so they can have aids’, and if you ran into it it was obviously bad and out of line and yes, that could be somewhat akin to mafia fic even if mafia fic is a lot more specific and at that point we can say that every bad fic including rape/noncon in existence is insulting to rape survivors, and anyway aids fics aren’t really such a high percentage anyway (and you can’t know if a straight person wrote it anyway while I can be sure that whoever writes the romantic mafia au has no idea what mafia is regardless of their sexual orientation), and that said in that case no one stops you from gently telling the person to get educated on the subject;

‘using homophobia etc’: .... it’s.... the plot of half of the lgbt movies made by lgbt people I’ve seen? especially if it was kids in high school? I mean especially old school stuff, most of that was about isolated people because of homophobia who end up finding love, or people isolating themselves because of homophobia. I mean, maurice was written by a gay man and the movie was made by a gay man and producer and it’s... about... a guy who ends up very much isolated because he’s gay in victorian era and then ends up finding love/being *saved*/put out of his shell by his former boyfriend’s gardener and they live happily ever after and that was written in *1914*. it’s a TROPE. and it’s in straight stuff too, except that people get isolated because they’re outcasts in other ways. straight people haven’t came up with it nor have been the only ones using it. I mean, like, obviously it’s bad but then I should be angry with grrm because he had an ugly woman being asked out on a bet by a bunch of idiots for *plot reasons* when irl that happened to me and hurt me to a fairly deep level? it’s stuff that happens? obviously if your protagonist likes men and he lives in an homophobic society that’ll happen. like it’s basic romance plot to have someone isolated and getting rescued/finding love with someone who likes them. also a lot of lgbta+ movies have a horrid ending and are about horrid real life stories (ie boys don’t cry) but that doesn’t make them any less valid and if it’s in lgbt movies it can also be in stories with those themes. then they can be well-written or not, of course, but still, it’s tropes. idk what to tell you but it seems to me like you’re somewhat exaggerating here;

again: yes, it’s a romantic/common trope, but it has been done to hell and back by everyone with everyone. it’s really too much of a generic discourse to go and say that it’s just straight women doing it in fanfic, which isn’t a thing anyway since it’s done by anyone in any media;

then if you inform people nicely and educate them you probably have more hopes they’ll hear you out than the mafia au tbh, since we’ve been trying for years and no one ever listens to us;

I mean, I get what you’re saying but if people write fanfic about that it’s also because they already saw that in media (if they aren’t people in those situations who write coping fic and we can’t know) and because it’s tropes that everyone has done *including lgbt people* so like... I think you’re isolating a small phenomenon applying to it a very wide category and it’s not inherently correct imo but again, if you don’t like it, don’t read it. last time I saw fic about one of the few atheist characters around the shows I watch with a plot ‘X is desperate and turns to god even if he’s atheist’ I seethed for five minutes and didn’t even open it because it’s one of those things that makes me want to tear my hair out, but I didn’t read it and if that person doesn’t get why it’s insensitive their problem. I won’t go at them also because it’s because all atheists end up converting in 90% of the media around so what do I expect? it sucks. it’s still their right to publish it.

but it doesn’t mean that the majority of a category does things out of disrespect.

[janiedean]

I never thought I'd be this person but I legit said"what hetero nonsense is this" when Rose said love and kissed Finn lol

okay anon this is not against you and I know you didn’t mean this seriously and I know this reply might be overreacting, and you probably didn’t see that I previously posted about hating how this fandom (especially *my* subfandom technically) is reacting to finnrose so you probably didn’t know, but: no.

specifically:

it wasn’t random nor nonsense. she had a fangirl crush on him, she got to know him better and she liked him and she thought she was about to bloody die. if I was in her place I also would kiss the guy I like if anything to know I’ve done it.

on the other side, he needed to talk to someone he didn’t know already and to show him a different side of things and who made him realize that the resistance was more than single people he might have cared for or not going against the big bad evil, which was what made him finally stop running. he didn’t kiss her back but it’s nice that he gets it from someone who likes him genuinely, especially coming after a life of dehumanization.

so it wasn’t nonsense, it was a plot decision you can like or not but saying it was out of left field or made no sense or was nonsensical is not a thing I can agree with because imo it was very well-developed and like in a life or death situation I would probably try to kiss the guy I liked, and rose liking finn was already introduced from the moment she showed up and then she just got to like him as the person he was rather than the supposed *legend* or whatever, which... is... nice. it’s normal. it happens. why the hell should it be nonsensical?

ah, because it was heteronormative and apparently if het ships happen it’s bad because they’re heterosexual, which is like, typical tumblr drivel and sorry but nah.

(now, before I go into it: if it had been rey kissing finn, would people be crying about heteronormative nonsense? idk. just a thought. and guess what, for me finn/rey is like, the most platonic shit in existence and I can’t see the two of them kissing romantically and it making any sense so we all see it differently, but if it had happened I’d have shrugged and moved on with my life. anyway.)

listen, guys, let’s be freaking real, as much as tumblr likes to think the contrary, straight/heterosexual people make up 90% of the demographic. heteronormativity is normativity because nine people on ten are straight. the problem is when heteronormativity is seen as the only default. the point is that if you want to counteract that you have to push to normalize relationships that are not heteronormative and make sure they’re seen as a valid alternative to the norm, but you can’t honestly go and say that heteronormativity is in itself statistically wrong because it’s not, nor that it’s in itself inherently wrong because then you pass the message that if you’re straight you’re *wrong* and honestly from a website where the message that people think they’re passing is that *you aren’t -wrong- for your sexuality I’m really tired to see that it’s valid for everything except straight people. because it’s really fun to go online and wade through posts on posts of people joking about how if you’re straight you’re Bad, you have no tastes, you’re not a good lay if you’re a man and should date women anyway if you’re a woman and everything bad in the world is the fault of you horrible straight person and ah, wait, being straight is also boring and who would choose to be straight -

except that you don’t choose your sexuality. no, I didn’t choose mine either. (yes, I’m straight if it wasn’t clear, and I’m getting progressively pissed off at this attitude. actually I’ve gone past the point of pissed off, but never mind that.

so like, now apparently if a heterosexual ship happens it’s all because they wanted to cater to the straight crowd and it’s all nonsense just because it’s a man and a woman locking lips!

and like, fuck, no. this idea that finnrose is inherently nonsense because it’s *heteronormative* and they pushed finn on a WOMAN THAT’S NOT REY is.... sorry, I know you didn’t mean it like that and I don’t wanna sound like an asshole, but if you say that rey would have been cool and rose isn’t then WHY, I mean isn’t rose okay enough? good enough? I mean I’ve read some stuff on *my ship’s* tag which was reeking racism because rose was apparently a downgrade and rey was the only option they could accept *if finn had to be with a woman* and honestly, no?? that’s... like... no??? I find it really rich coming from people who ship... a pairing.... made of nonwhite people.... at least for US standards (yeah I ship finn/poe mainly and this movie has made me block half of the tag for the finnrose vitriol IMAGINE HOW NICE). and IT ONLY HAPPENED SO THEY COULD CANCEL THE GAY COUPLE is like... a) it wasn’t gonna happen in the MIDDLE movie anyway esp. a franchise that gets distributed in countries where the gay couple would mean a ban/the movie not getting released (like, we do remember the beauty and the beat wank over damned lefou for what, ten seconds of him dancing with a dude??), b) means that finn’s sl would have had any worth just if he and poe made out (and same for poe) which basically means reducing their storylines to them making out? like, that’s... really.... sad? they only have worth as characters if they make out? sorry, I can’t really rally behind that. I care about them as characters and I loved their sl this movie and if they don’t kiss WHATEVER, 99% of the m/m couples I shipped in my life stayed not canon and it never changed my life, even if they were in relationships with women. that’s why fanfic exists. maybe next movie we’re getting it (because anyway rose kissed finn, he didn’t kiss back or anything so it can go there or it can’t and whichever way it goes I’m okay with it) maybe we’re not, but saying that their existence is useless if they don’t kiss or bang or aren’t *gay* just reeks of tokenism to me and the fact that finnrose is being described as heteronormative bullshit made to appease the r/eylo people or to deny people finn/poe is really not a thing I can rally behind either.

like, again, there’s nothing NONSENSE behind it and the fact that you attached heteronormative to it again means that the problem with it is that it’s an heterosexual ship and given that it had all reasons for existing and that, again, I’m really fucking tired of every straight relationship in new media getting thrown at the wolves just because it’s straight and being straight on tumblr is Very Bad TM so... sorry. it’s not. and like, if according to you it was just *nonsense* fine, you didn’t like it, legit, but heteronormative nonsense? really? can we just.... not... frame it as if anything heteronormative or heterosexual or straight is The Worst especially since on top of that finnrose is actually pretty progressive as a thing? I mean, when was the last time you saw a main black lead in an immensely popular scifi franchise that everyone and their kids watch in a relationship with an asian woman? never. like, it’s progressive, too, not the same way finn/poe is but progressive nonetheless, so... like... can’t we just let this goddamned ship live and be the cute thing it was without splitting hairs?

because sorry but again the fact that the main objections I’ve seen were a) IT’S STRAIGHT AND NOT GAY, b) he’s kissing rose and not rey IF WE HAD TO HAVE A STRAIGHT SHIP, c) IT’S PROREYLO AND ANTISTORMPILOT which.... uuughhh. like, can’t y’all take things the way they are? (nvm that I could rant for three hours about how r*ylo was like, written to happen and the fact that people don’t want to recognize that a villain has a personality is another entire problem but never mind.) it’s a cute ship. it happens to be straight. it’s also fairly progressive in itself. it was put on a good (imo) storyline which made sense and everything poor rose did was kissing the dude she liked after saving his life and thinking she was about to die. lay off her, pls?

last thing: since - we all guessed it by now - I happen to be straight can... y’all... please... not send me asks about how shitty heteronormative ships are and the likes? I mean, I know it’s a problem in a lot of cases and I’m more than willing to call it out if it’s obviously done maliciously but this wasn’t the case and I’m honestly tired of this STRAIGHTS ARE TERRIBLE drivel and HETERONORMATIVITY IS INHERENTLY BAD drivel and so on. especially when it’s about a thing I don’t actively ship but liked (finnrose) and then I have to go into my ship’s tag (f/p) and see it trashed to hell and back and read posts over posts about how they fucked up f/p for THE STRAIGHTS when I’d be the first person to offer the entire cinema a beer if it actually was canon. like, I’d be overjoyed if it was. but not at the cost of being assholes to other people who ship other things or at the cost of trashing on this movie for things that don’t exist or deny both of those two’s character arcs because at the end of it THEY AREN’T GAY. (as if they couldn’t be bi or pan, but of course anything that implies that someone could be in a rship with someone of the different sex is okay just as long as the relationship isn’t with someone of a different sex. like. please guys. no.)

last thing: don’t take this rant personally anon I’m sure you meant well, but you just touched on a thing that is really irking me lately and my hand slipped. I’m really meaning no ill will I’m just really tired of this HORRIBLE HETERONORMATIVE complaints thrown around like candy because of course everyone has feelings and shouldn’t be insulted except straight people because they are the majority so they can go die in a fire as far as tumblr cares. peace.