#and basically came out going 'really? there was that much discourse over that?' and i couldn't agree more

[weedle-testaburger]

if i had magic powers, one of the pettiest things i’d like to use them for is swap around what media has hellish discourse so nothing i like has it

[friend-of-a-cat]

So... I'm doing research for a piece of creative non-fiction (a personal essay) I'm writing for one of my uni assignments about the fact that I'm asexual and demiromantic and think that we, as a wider society, have gotten the concepts of love and attraction all wrong, and I've been researching more into the split attraction model because, well, I see it as something that's important and relevant, and this came up in my Google search:

The initial red flag of this article is the fact that it's on BetterHelp. I didn't see this at first, and did a double take.

Anyway, the first thing I would like to ask is: what are these 'cons'? As far as I'm concerned, there are none. I understand that, for many people, romantic and sexual attraction are intrinsically linked, but, for many, they're not, and the split attraction model existing doesn't harm the former - it helps the latter. The latter includes people who are on the asexual and/or aromantic spectrums, as well as people who are, for example, heteromantic and bisexual, panromantic and homosexual, biromantic and heterosexual, etc. - basically anyone whose experiences differ between their romantic and sexual attraction.

I do find it a bit annoying that, when many people talk about both of these kinds of attraction, they lump them into one 'label', which is mostly [something]sexual (e.g. heterosexual, homosexual, etc.). But, for them, the two are linked, so referring to themselves as [something]sexual to cover both seems fine and dandy. Which... it is. However, I find it wild that people don't realise that, despite the fact that the two may seem linked to them, they are actually two different experiences. People who are both alloromantic and allosexual should be able to see this, right? They can think someone is sexually attractive yet not be romantically attracted to or want to date them. That is a thing that can happen.

Anyway, I decided to read through the article. It isn't bad, per se - much of the information is useful, and it seemed to be quite positive. Until I got to the 'cons':

Now, I'm not really into the discourse surrounding the split attraction model - in fact, I didn't realise there was discourse surrounding it. This is because I tend to, either accidently or on purpose, avoid discourse in general. But... 'oversexualisation'? In what context? If anything, not using the split attraction model would be considered 'oversexualisation' (even though I don't think that that is, either - I honestly don't know why this word has been brought up here) due to the fact that many people focus on sexual attraction over any kind of attraction and use it to cover romantic attraction, too, when they talk about it. I genuinely have no idea what they are referring to here.

In regard to the second point: what? Attraction is complex. That's the whole thing. The split attraction model makes it less complex for many people. It allows people to figure out who they are and have the terminology to be able to voice it. Attraction is a spectrum and so is gender. Of course both of them are going to be complex. Society made both of them rigid in the first place, so breaking out of those rigidities is going to be confusing for everyone. The split attraction model helps people understand themselves, and I would like to think it helps them understand others. Everyone benefits.

I don't know if I can speak much on the third point, as I'm not familiar with the discourse, as I previously mentioned, and don't really know what it entails. Though, in saying this... what do they mean? When has asexuality - or aromanticism, for that matter - ever been prioritised over other queer identities? There's a severe lack of discussion and education surrounding both of them. That's just a fact. People who are asexual and/or aromantic are oftentimes even shunned by the wider queer community they are a part of. I don't really have much more to add on this point because I'm so confused by it. By the way, this article barely talks about aromanticism, despite the fact that it's an important part of this model, too.

The last point is just a rehash of the second point. If I was told about any of this stuff growing up, I would have realised I was ace and demiromantic from the start. Instead, I realised I was ace a few years ago after watching Jaiden Animations' video about the fact that she's aroace (I don't want to use the term 'coming out' here because, frankly, I hate it - I'll save that rant for another time). I only realised I was demiromantic in the past month after... realising that people getting romantic crushes on and/or falling in love with someone when they barely know them is actually a thing that happens and isn't fake. These two terms fit me best at the moment, and explain everything. If I had've known these terms as a teenager, that would have been great. The split attraction model helped me so much in breaking down myself and my identity, and offered me the foundation I needed to ask myself questions. Yeah, attraction and gender are confusing - I said it before, and I'll say it again. But why would you cast something so helpful aside? That will only hinder people - both those who are struggling with their own identity and those who are trying to understand the identities of others. Education surrounding the complexities and spectrums of attraction and gender are so important, and this model will help people teach other people about attraction.

I also read a bunch of hate comments, as one does whenever they go on Reddit or Twitter or literally any social media platform ever, regarding the split attraction model. This didn't surprise me. These specific people seem to hate this model because... well, I don't really know. They were mostly spewing aphobia. I don't think a single one had a constructive point. Also, most of the search results for 'split attraction model' on Google are actually critiques of it, or articles talking about critiques of it and being on the fence. Come on, people. Do better.

Anyway, the split attraction model is important. Education is important. Allowing people to figure out who they are and express it is important. This should all go without saying.

That is all.

[queerly-autistic]

You really can't engage meaningfully with Ed's story in S2 without firmly centring his mental illness and suicidality, because that's inherently what the story is: it's the story of a man having a severe mental breakdown and going to increasingly erratic extremes in order to achieve his end goal, which is to not be alive anymore...and then it's the story of his recovery from that.

And so much of my frustration with the way I see this being talked about (or, in many cases, not being talked about) reflects my more general frustration with how we talk about mental illness and neurodivergence, so buckle in because this got long (also I am going to be discussing suicide here, as well as very brief mentions of psychosis and ocd, so please take care). There's this trend when we talk about mental health: we go 'oh mental illness isn't an excuse' or 'mental illness doesn't make you do bad things' or variations thereof. These are, in my opinion, some of the worst things to ever happen to the discourse around mental illness. It's reductive. Absolutely mental illness can lead you to do things that you would not have otherwise done, even things that you would be absolutely appalled by, if you were mentally well. What do you think mental illness is if it's not something that impacts your brain and how your brain functions? If your mental illness doesn't directly lead to problematic behaviour, then that's fantastic, but that experience is not universal. It's not an 'excuse' - it's an explanation for certain behaviours that's vitally important to acknowledge and understand in order to try and mitigate harm.

There's also this thing that happens with discourse around mental illness where we assume that what you do in the grips of mental illness is reflective of something that's innate inside you. You were violent whilst in the middle of psychosis? Oh, it's because you're an innately abusive person and this just reveals who you really are. You have Tourette's and one of your tics is a racial slur? Oh, it's because you're an innately racist person and this just reveals who you really are. Your OCD is rooted in a fear that you're going to murder your family? Oh, it's because you inherently do want to murder your family and this just reveals who you really are. It's bullshit. What you do in your mentally ill state is not some deep philosophical reflection of your true character, and the idea that it is is something that causes really deep, dangerous harm to mentally ill and neurodivergent people.

So, now that that's over with, back to Ed.

Ed was behaving in ways that were acknowledged in canon as being extremely out of character whilst in the midst of a severe breakdown. Fang himself said that he'd 'never' seen Ed behave this way; even Izzy, who actively pushed for Ed to embody the extremes of his Blackbeard persona, ended up concerned because it became so extreme and out of character that it was impossible not to be concerned by it. The crew who mutinied on Izzy within a day didn't mutiny on him for months, not until their lives literally depended on it, because it's heavily insinuated that they were hoping he would get better. Because this wasn't the Ed that they knew (the Ed that we came to know in S1 - an inherently soft man who is caught in a culture of violence and is tired of it).

The show wasn't subtle about this. It didn't bury the lead. As well as the constant reminders that he was acting out of character in increasingly alarming ways, this was very clearly depicted as a breakdown, an almost total collapse of Ed's mental health. We saw Ed detached and numb and completely dissociated from the world around him. We saw him in private moments of despair, breaking down. We saw him behaving erratically in the grips of mania. We saw him display absolutely textbook warning signs of someone whose made the decision to die by suicide. We saw him smile and say 'finally' at the moment when he knew he was going to die.

The show basically painted a giant neon sign over his head flashing 'THIS MAN IS EXTREMELY UNWELL' in bright lights, and if you miss that, then it's because you're deliberately avoiding looking properly.

(And, important to note, that most of the people that I've watched the show with outside of fandom discourse absolutely took away from these episodes what the show was intending - they saw how unwell Ed was, they were devastated for him, and they desperately wanted him to get better.)

When Ed steered the ship into the storm, and threatened to put a cannonball through the mast, his clear goal was to create a situation where the crew had no choice but to kill him. I've seen people describe this scene as Ed 'trying to hurt the crew', and I think that's very much a misrepresentation of what the show was depicting. It was very blatantly a suicide attempt. He wanted to die, and he didn't care what he had to do in order for him to achieve that goal. That doesn't make it good behaviour, and it doesn't mean people didn't get hurt, but it does make it a very different situation than if causing harm had been his main intent.

There is a fundamental difference between 'he is doing this because he explicitly wants to cause harm to the people around him' and 'he's doing this because he's suicidal and beyond the point of being able to rationally consider who might be getting hurt in the process of ensuring that he ends up dead'. One of those is a bad person who enjoys causing pain - and the other is a deeply unwell person who can be supported and helped to recover and be better (and should be, for the good of themselves and the people around them).

And on that note, the failure to engage with this as a mental health story is also, I think, why I've seen some people get so upset about the show not doing Ed's redemption arc 'right' - because this isn't a redemption arc, and it's not trying to be. One day I'll do a separate post about how much I love that the show explicitly rejected a carceral approach, opting to essentially put him through community rehabilitation rather than punishing him, and even mocking punitive prescriptive measures (that rubbish youtuber apology speech was supposed to be rubbish and unhelpful), but that's one for another day.

The fact is that the show is telling a story about mental illness, and that inherently means that Ed's arc is a recovery arc, not a redemption arc. And if you're expecting a redemption arc, then you've fundamentally misunderstood the story that they're telling (and the revolutionary kindness at the heart of the show).

I have a lot of feelings about this because I genuinely believe that it was one of the best depictions of mental illness and suicidality that I've ever seen. Within the confines of it being a half hour, eight episode comedy show, they told a story about mental illness that was surprisingly realistic (with the obvious fantastical over the top elements of it being a pirate show - and piracy is explicitly depicted as a culture where violence is heavily normalised), and that didn't shy away from the messier, darker, more complex elements of mental illness (particularly of being suicidal).

And then, most importantly, after all that, the show took me gently by the hand said 'you are not defined by what you do in your lowest moment - you can make amends, you can recover, you are still loved, and you are worth saving'.

[cerulean-crow]

Twicord my beloved <3 Using my redesigns this time!

Fun fact! This was basically my first real ship, basically ever! I was never too into shipping growing up and I was very confused about just how much discourse surrounded it and how absolutely feral some people got over their ships.

But Mlp was what would open me up to stuff like multishipping and crack shipping and how to enjoy a good rare pair- so at one point I just decided I was going to ship something I didn’t see anyone else really shipping. Thus! Twicord!!

At a certain point it stopped being a “joke” and this pairing has since owned my heart for the last decade <3

Sketch and flats under the cut because why not- I tried rendering this a bit differently and I like how it came out

[piosplayhouse]

Hi! I came across a post complaining about the guy yuri poll and discourse aside, I vaguely remember you made a post about what is yaoi and what is yuri? I dunno if I dreamed this post up, but I've scrolled and scrolled and I can't find it. So, I wanted to ask (if you don't mind answering >.<), what is yaoi/yuri? (beyond the basic definitions) What counts as guy yuri and girl yaoi?

Uwaa ok so I will say Im planning to actually write a paper on this but I haven't done much research yet so ask in a few months and you'll hopefully have a better answer with cited sources. But here is a bit of what I'm conceptualizing at this point (corrections and additions very welcome!)

What set me down this path really was of course the fantastic Yaoizine hosted by tshirt3000, which includes a rather poignant author's note about broadening the definition of yaoi in public to the abstraction. Indeed, the actual origin of the term "yaoi" is an acronym for "yamanashi, ochinashi, iminashi" (plotless, climaxless, meaningless) from 70s doujinshi spheres wherein it was used as a somewhat self-degrading term to define a specific type of porn-without-plot self-indulgent indie fancomic. These were of course, mostly of the male-male variety. However, as the Yaoizine makes clear, there's not really an inherent gendering within the word in any sense but genre expectation-wise. This becomes particularly salient in the case of perhaps one of the most famous wlw romances out there, Revolutionary Girl Utena. Tshirt cites an interview with the creator of the anime, Ikuhara Kunihiko, where he refers to the relationship between the two main female characters (among other things) as yaoi, recontextualizing the term from merely a mlm genre into a statement on the dynamics of power and consumption as they relate to gender-- an act of sexual passion paired with a reversal of societal norms = yaoi in this case, which is why utenanthy fits perfectly within the term.

Conversely, yuri (lily) is a bit more difficult to analyze from a gender-neutral perspective as it originated not as a counterpart to yaoi, but instead as a counterpart to bara (rose, a term used to refer to erotic gay male content) used when lesbians would write in to gay magazines trying to hook up and whatnot. However, it's pretty agreed upon that the genre grew out of Class S literature, a type of literature based on girls, often senpai and kouhai, going to an all-girls school together and experiencing a connection that straddles the thin line between romance and homosociality. Homosociality like this among women has historically been and to this day remains somewhat under the radar and perceived as a "phase" or an amateur attempt at romance before a woman eventually marries a man. This is where we see significant overlap between pre/early modern Japanese male homosexual literature and lesbian literature, where homosexuality is seen as a youthful phase that will inevitably be grown out of (as in the case with the chigo system, LUG (lesbian before graduation), etc). Essentially, it was very common for the characters of early modern queer literature (mostly written by queer authors btw) to have brief and passionate schoolyard flings before graduating onto "normal" sexuality. Of course, these narratives fell out of style and are considered dead today, but their remnants can still be seen in the subsequent shojo and modern gl manga boom. The yuri that grew from this in the beginning was usually explicitly erotic, but still somewhat held onto the predominant themes of schoolgirl innocence and youthful beauty. Over time, meanings and terminology shifted, and the "yuri" we use today is more interchangeable with "gl", meaning it's not so much of an indicator of explicit content as "yaoi" is. However, I would still argue that one of the largest indicators of a story's "yuri factor" (if you could say that) is its ties to the establishing homosociality progressed into homoromantic relationship genre expectation. Of course, there are many wlw stories that subvert this, (as there are many mlm stories that subvert the yaoi or even bl template) but to me, if you were to compare yaoi and yuri's theming, yaoi's focus tends to skew more towards the intimacy in explicit eroticism, while yuri looks more into the implicit eroticism in intimacy. If that makes sense.

Of course, when looking into "boy yuri" there's also a transfem-coding factor to consider, which I think is what the majority of people have in mind when they refer to a couple as "boy yuri". Historically, there is massive precedent for feminization between male queer couples in historical Japanese literature, as well as in early modern relatives of bl, mainly Inagaki Taruho's work, so it would be somewhat disingenuous to say feminization is a purely modern, female-created phenomenon. But anyway, those are my (somewhat messy and likely inaccurate) thoughts so far, let me know what you all think. Have a happy yaoimas and merry new yuri, as they say.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for arguing with someone over ships?

🧀⛵ so i can find this later

Yes, this is ship discourse AITA #294729472 you can scroll away, english isn't my first language, my apologies.

So I (16M (But 13-14 at the time)) am in a very niche fandom. As in, we didn't have any new content for the past 5 years and media is old af (2013), very few fans, most of us know each other already.

I used to have these mutuals Cheese (Not their real name) (around my age i think?? I can't remember) and Breadstick (Not his real name) (18M).

We all had our little ships, ok? I like the little (dumbass golden retriever boy) x (badass traumatized man) ship, Cheese liked the little (badass traumatized man) x (literally the same thing but evil and abusive) and Breadstick liked both ships.

I met Breadstick before meeting Cheese so we were already friends before i met Cheese. I thought "Cool, another person likes this little niche thing i'm hyperfixated on!" So we became mutuals.

I didn't anticipate that we would argue about ships, but oh well. So, i'm a very chill person regarding ships, literally any, although i do have NOTPs, i'm not really toxic about my hatred, i just go "Ah, not my thing" and scroll away not without blocking the person, but really nothing personal and no hard feelings, i can perfectly be friends with someone who loves my notp.

In fact, that was the case with Cheese. They shipped my NOTP, like A LOT. But I was okay with it, i mean these are just characters and all we're doing is being silly. I didn't take this THAT seriously. However, when I seemed to talk about my ship, Cheese seemed uncomfortable in some way.

When I was talking about my fankid (call me cringe idc) of my OTP, Cheese got very confused and asked who was i talking about. Breadstick came in and introduced my fankid to them, since he knew about it before. Cheese just started being rude, literally saying swear words (Not against them but, the context didn't really call for it? No one was being mean or mad), saying, and i quote as best as i can, "I don't know what the fuck made you think i knew who the hell [Fankid] was".

I got very mad about it, so i privately dm'ed Breadstick about Cheese's attitude. We began trash talking about them, which, i admit was a very trashy thing to do and definitely asshole material™.

Reason why may i be the asshole: over time, Breadstick just started complaining a lot about Cheese, and I could honestly agree, it came to the point of us disliking them to some degree but not telling them and not breaking the mutual, that could be considered two faced behavior.

This was partly influenced because of another incident. So Cheese and Breadstick where rambling about an OT3 (3 person ship) they had in common, basically sharing ideas and stuff. I thought it would be fun and went "Hey, I have an OT3 too, maybe i should post about it too". So I went and posted about it, but Cheese felt very uncomfortable with that, since basically my OT3 was exactly like Cheese's OT3 but one character is different, "basically".

They said "You have your thing, let US have ours". Felt bad and honestly, maybe i shouldn't have intruded their ot3 rambling. I didn't expect such negative reaction out of them.

In other occasions they complained about me posting a little too much about my ship, even though they did the same thing with theirs. And they also had a mutual that said "If you ship [this character] you suck and i fucking hate you. [character] is too abusive to be shipped with anyone and you can't just make an AU, that would just change him as a character completely" which, dear god, that language wasn't needed, right?. And despite that crazy person saying that, Cheese agreed with their take, despite literally shipping the character in question with another one. And abusively too, which like you do you, lord knows i do that too, but agreeing with a take like that while doing exactly what it is complaining about is weird. On the other side, that person wasn't my mutual, so it's unrealistic of me to expect Cheese to control their mutuals over me, Cheese can mutual whoever they want, but i can still be weirded out right?

That is without including them telling other people to kill themselves over shipping, so it was clear that Cheese took this shipping thing seriously while me and Breadstick to some degree didn't. Honestly another reason why i might be an asshole, clearly they felt their otp was personal and me not liking it + ignoring it caused a bad environment, mala mía, but what else could i have done?

So, clearly Cheese is kind of an asshole to some degree. But i think what makes ME an asshole too is when I trash talked behind their back and cut them off way later than i should've. And also, i guess i shoved my ship down their throat taking by how mad they were about it? I didn't do it intentionally though and i could definitely say they did the same thing too when 80% of the fandom and character tags was them posting about their ship. Again, small niche fandom for old unpopular media, we are keeping it alive ourselves.

What are these acronyms?

[celluloidbroomcloset]

So there was a positive Taika thread on Twitter, basically saying 'its nice so see so many positive posts about him for once' and people commenting that they were scared to post positive things about him because of harassment. Very nice vibes.

Then I accidently clicked on the quotes and well.. So many misery dwellers spouting the usual BS 'he's a zionist, he celebrates genocide, these people are pathetic for even associating him with positivity' etc.

The post didn't have a lot of traffic, which pretty much confirmed what the other blog said, they're searching his name in order to dogpile. They can't stand that other people anywhere mightn't hate him, they're obsessed with him lol. They can't even ignore him they just have to show their asses.

One guy even called him 'a waste of space'. You're right, it goes WAY beyond just not liking his work or mistakes he's made, it creepier than that

There's so much to unpack and I absolutely do not want to even glance into Twitter to figure out what's going on, but...this shit is Nazi tactics. Twitter is full of actual Nazis and people who are very easily yanked into fascist discourse. It has always been thus, but it got worse after Musk took over and basically let the Nazis run free without oversight.

Stopping others from expressing positive opinions about an indigenous, Jewish filmmaker/actor lest they get piled on for it is Nazi tactics. They don't want to ignore him because he's a good target. They're using fandom and media to spread what's basically fascism.

Ancillary to this: I was on Twitter when Ghostbusters: ATC came out and I remember the shit that went down, the absolutely unhinged fanboys screaming, the attacks on anyone who said "hey, I liked this movie." And it all started to focus on one person: Leslie Jones. Of the entire cast, all of them white women, somehow the online hate campaign focused on the one Black woman. The whole thing was led by Milo Yiannopolous, who is - wait for it - a fucking Nazi.

This is not about fandom, really, but it's using fandom and media as a way to control the narrative and spread literal fucking propaganda that makes it dangerous and exhausting to even mention a not-white artist in a positive light. And there are people who very easily buy into it.

[solaariia]

going on a short break + psa about success stories

hi everyone! i’m going to stop posting so much on this acc, but i’m not leaving ofc. 🥹

there’s two reasons, but the main one is because these next three weeks are where the last exams, last assignments, and presentations are due before finals, so i really need to focus on that. if i get tagged on something i’ll still reply, and i’m gonna turn on notifications for my mutuals so i can still check out every post!

the second reason is more tricky, and it has to do with a confession i read yesterday. in short, there was a post where a person basically said that people migrating from amino and shifttok (like me) were lying about their experiences.

i joined in 2023 and have liked every success story that i have come across since then. that argument reminds me of 2021 amino where every new person that came out with good news was instantly shunned and harrassed, and it led me to leaving the community because it was discouraging to see so many people fighting.

i’ve read many people say that this is turning into shifttok with the discourse, but discourse is bred from confession accounts, not new shifters or whatever that person said.

posts i see on my dash are just people talking about their drs and interacting with their shifting mutuals by sharing things like their scripts and stuff. and in my opinion, that’s what a community is. so yeah, maybe there’s a few people arguing about misinformation, but that happens in every learning space. best we can all do is block whatever we don’t like and move on.

but i’m going on a tangent lol. how would people know if a success story is real or not? imagine if you had an experience and someone commented on how that’s not true because the way it’s written makes it sound like a wattpad fic? or because it’s unrealistic?

yeah, there’s fake stories around (this is tumblr y’all i was here when the weed smoking girlfriends guy was a thing) but why does that matter? sure, they may be instilling false hopes. but shifting is real, even if some stories are not.

there’s hundreds of good blogs with information on here. if there is one you think is lying, then block or don’t listen to them. including myself.

it should be encouraging to see so many people succeeding, not the other way around.

regarding my own success story

before i continue, i wanna put this out there first. i am not backtracking on my own posts. but i wanna clarify something because i actually shifted this morning. (not to my dr, but i shifted). and it made me understand more about the experience i will talk about below.

a while back, i made this post about my own shifting experience. it truly did feel like a shift to me, so i made a post thinking it would be nice to share. everything i said on that post is true, but it did not occur to me that i could be spreading misinfo by writing it down before i could reflect on what happened, and for that i am sorry.

that confession i mentioned at the beginning of this post said something about people having really vivid lucid dreams and passing them on as a shift, and i think that’s what happened here. i’ve been thinking about it for a while and it’s been eating me up whenever i wonder if my post would count as a fake success or not.

anyways, the point i’m trying to make here is that i’m taking a break from this site for a short while. i noticed i’ve been over sharing(? a lot, so i wanna stop and focus on my own journey instead of over consuming information. and i don’t wanna post things that might ruin other’s journeys either. we are all master manifestors, and we don’t need outside sources to shift.

i don’t wanna leave this community. i’ve met so many good people in here, and i even found a mutual shifting to my same dr and- hello??? that’s never happened to me before! i love hearing about other people’s drs, and that’s my favorite part about the tumblr community. i think the constant interaction is something we should value.

we are all unique and that we all learn at a different pace. so let’s not overthink whether or not a success story is real, and instead put that energy into shifting. see you in two-three weeks!

[hot-take-tournament]

ngl kind of breaks my heart to see you used one of those ai bot things after the entire vocaloid debate. i really don't like that you did that and i'm a little disappointed. can you please not do that again?

I know - I do need to address this before anything else, because I fucked up

Please read the whole thing

If any of you don't know the context of this ask;

Basically, a while back I used the program AI Dungeon to generate a hot take for fun;

That's the program they use for those chaotic AI videos you find on youtube, like the ai ace attorney clown case and the sonic destruction scripts, which has some absolutely wild moments like these

I just put in a couple one-sentence questions to see what it would give me, not really expecting anything. But the take it did finally give me was not only completely depraved, but also felt like such a weirdly personal attack on me specifically that it left me genuinely speechless.

So, even though I didn't originally intend to do this, I decided to secretly make a poll for it claiming it was a submission, because I thought it might be fun to see if you guys could guess which one of the polls was the fake one, Blade Runner style.

I generated the take on the same day that submissions originally closed, but I only came clean about it last night because I started to feel super guilty about it after reading the vocaloid discourse - but the way I did it was vague, shitty and insincere.

I know it was 4 in the morning and I said I was going to get some sleep when I made the post last night, but after I saw the asks I immediately got about that post - like this one - I instead deleted it after like 2 minutes and spent the next 4-5 hours scouring the internet for as much information about this as I could find so I could get the full picture. This isn't the first time I fucked up on this blog because I didn't do my research, so I think I massively overcompensated - I really didn't want a repeat of that time the master post accidentally triggered multiple people's OCD; I still feel awful about that.

And as a result, I ended up passing out on my bathroom floor, which is why you haven't heard from me in a while.

I did genuinely read all the vocaloid discourse (asks, replies, notes, all of it) - but since I pulled this stunt ages ago, and the secret poll is already up, it was already too late. And it was because of that vocaloid discourse that I felt like it would just make me a hypocrite if I just swept it under the rug and kept quiet while everyone else was talking about the exact same subject, so I decided to just tell you guys as soon as possible because I'd feel shitty if I didn't - but I still phrased that post in a more light-hearted way because that was what I originally intended this whole thing to be, which was definitely a mistake, and I can't apologise enough for that.

And I know I didn't clarify this in that original post, but like I said, the program I used was AI Dungeon, which was something I remembered having fun with back in 2019/2020, spending hours generating unhinged Ace Attorney cases; and I remembered I still had an account from back then when it was still free to play, even though I hadn't touched it in 4 years - and I realised I would still be able to bypass the paywall using it.

I'd also just watched those snapcube Sonic Destruction videos that I linked above and it reminded me of that. And I dug up those old AI Dungeon Ace Attorney cases that I had generated and then recreated in objection i.o. back when I was 17/18, and had been sitting on my old computer's hard drive for ever since - and they still made me smile a little. So that's how I got the impulse to do this.

And that's also why, even though I knew about the writer's strike and do fully support it, it just didn't occur to me that the AI that gave us that same insane Sonic Destruction script that I'd just watched would be one of the programs the writers were striking over - I just assumed that it was only programs like ChatGPT, that can produce coherent scripts based on the accumulated information users feed into it; because those are programs that could definitely potentially be used to replace human writers. That's something AI Dungeon can't do, because it doesn't retain user input after you shut it down.

So I just saw AI Dungeon as that goofy ass confused AI that I loved as a kid, the one that provides insanely weird responses out of the blue as it desperately tries to cobble together a narrative, and it was used in videos that I still really like. And I thought it would be fine.

That was how I justified it at the time - but in hindsight, given how much I hate other GPT programs like ChatGPT, as well as AI art and all other generated content overall, it just makes me even more of a stupid hypocrite for making an exception for this one simply because I was blinded by nostalgia, and not bothering to look it up back then like I should've done. Because at the end of the day, a GPT program is a GPT program.

SO - Here's what I found online while reading up on it last night:

Because of the outdated GPT model AI Dungeon runs on, it isn't possible from a technical standpoint for it to learn like ChatGPT does. Even though it still uses a dataset, as far as I can tell it genuinely can't add to that dataset from user input except for when it explicitly asks for feedback (rarely, it will generate two responses instead of one, and ask you to pick the best one so it can learn - but you can turn that feature off.) And while it does try to learn while you're using it, it can't carry that information over between sessions. So even if you reload the same page again, it won't retain what it learned last time.

(Here's some information I found while combing ancient reddit threads that explains this better than I can)

But even if all of that is true, it doesn't matter.

Latitude, the developers of AI Dungeon, are super fucking scummy, and you shouldn't support them.

If you want to look up all of the many, many controversies surrounding AI Dungeon, you can - but I won't link them here, because serious content warnings apply.

Do not use this program.

I really hope the anon who sent this ask - and everyone else who called me out on this - stuck around, because I am so, so grateful that you all sent these, otherwise I probably would never have known.

I deleted the post almost instantly (because like I said, it was too light-hearted), and I'm really glad I did. And I swear I won't pull this shit again.

I know a lot of you hate the fact that I did this - that original post genuinely got me blocked by more of you guys than every single one of the polls combined - which is totally fair, and I wouldn't blame any of you for doing the same now.

I really just want to move on from this - but I can't just pretend that it didn't happen.

Support the writer's strike, don't use any AI programs.

I'm really sorry about this, and the fact that I didn't take it seriously enough - like I said, I promise it won't happen again.

</3

[ssaalexblake]

Hot take but the kneel scene in spyfall is literally Tame for the doctor and the master, and I could provide a multitude of examples why and how (but not, I have to get ready to go out), but if This is your deal-breaker in context with All of their crap in general then it says far more about you than the show or the doctor and master's relationship on the whole.

I've seen people whine she's being submissive when no, she was threatened, if you want a submissive doctor look at ten who had the spinal strength of a wet strand of spaghetti when It came to the master. I've seen people use actively racist rhetoric around the whole situation. I've seen people use actively misogynistic rhetoric over the situation. Less seriously, I've seen the most media illiterate takes on the situation I can fathom that would have actively involved literally ignoring whole parts of the sequence to justify. I've seen some utter bullshit, basically.

Because as I said, for these two, him saying she kneel, her looking like she was planning a murder and doing it and then him immediately sinking to the floor with her and her immediately gaining the upper hand is the tamest of the tame. She then grinned like a shark bc he got injured, btw.

And I guess the question is, if you have an issue with this, and did Not with the two of them before this casting. Why not? This for them is tame, it was objectively bad, yes, but if this is bad then why isn't anything with the last two pairs on the shitlist? The master is a bad guy, first and foremost, to want him to behave well is naive as hell. To claim they'd not do this stuff to a white male doctor is patently false cuz we've seen them do it before.

The doctor and the master's characterisations have not changed here, the casting has. Any attempt at toning it down because the doctor is a poor waify blonde woman now would have been actively offensive in the kind of way you can't explain by saying this guy is a bad guy doing bad things. He does bad things. Of course it's offensive. It would actively be playing into sexist stereotypes narratively if you changed their dynamic bc the poor lady doctor can't handle the mean man.

I'm really sick of this discourse. If you're mad at chibnall era for making the master all Awful and Horrible bc they made 13 kneel at his feet, I have some bad news for you about how disgustingly simm treated ten. But most of the people saying this Do know that he did that and think it was a super cool plot.

Just because your clocking of abusive and toxic dynamics depends solely on the gender and/or race of the participants, doesn't mean it works that way for the rest of us. They've always been like this! Maybe use it as a learning experience. How about 'wow abusive dynamics are bad in any configuration' instead of 'this is obviously So Much Worse because the mean Asian man victimised the poor helpless white lady'.

The scene is not meant to portray something good. Literally even baby shows have characters do bad things to teach you how not to do things and to show how much they suck. Beyond that, it's not actually media's job to teach you morals anyway. You are not supposed to view a clearly bad scene as an endorsement of bad things, and if you missed that in lit classes, I'm not sure anybody can help you here.

[sanjiafsincedayone]

SaNa is enhanced by Toei? Filler vs manga and a shipping narrative + SaNa in new arcs and Nami's feelings

Sorry for the long title, but I decided to answer two asks in one post since they are in the same ask... And I also wanted the topics to be clear. Anyways, let's get to it because this will be a rather long one. :)

Hi @trompas-kun :) Thank you so much for liking my blog and my "Why SaNa over other ships" post. I apologize for it taking me so long to answer, but I kind of wrote more than I planned, and then I got sick for 3 weeks. I’m so sorry. T-T I hope it will be worth the wait.

I also want to say thank you for your questions! I find them very interesting, though I first hesitated to answer the first one due to the SaNa vs Lu/Na nature of it. But considering I still get random hate from Lu/Na shippers despite being fairly civil I suppose it doesn’t matter what I do. Besides, this is my view on the whole thing and I think it’s important to maybe add a counter to it since this concept of Toei being pro or anti various ships seem to have spread more and more the last couple of years, basically all of it coming from the Lu/Na shippers. Sadly the Sa/Na fandom doesn’t have as strong a voice as the Lu/Na one so this might go unnoticed to most, but I hope this view of Toei having their own secret agendas can die down at least a little as time passes.

Regarding Toei adding or changing things, they do it all the time to all kinds of moments. I personally think that the “Toei enhances Sana but downplays Lu/Na” is an exaggerated discourse that has spread because the Lu/Na shippers read the same analysis and spread some examples and trust it blindly instead of actually watching the anime and reading the manga with unbiased eyes. Not to mention when you have a bias you tend to notice “negative things” or things that go against your belief more. So because of this negativity bias and it being spread and talked about it has become “accepted” in the Lu/Na fandom that SaNa being pushed by Toei (at the expense of Lu/Na) is how it is. And because the Lu/Na fandom is loud and big it spreads even outside of their echo chamber to some degree, but from what I have seen this is mostly something that Lu/Na shippers claim and talk about and not the general fandom. So to begin with I wouldn’t say it’s “people saying” this, but rather fans that are Lu/Na shippers or anti Sa/Na.

I think it’s very convenient how the Lu/Na shippers ignore when the Toei makes things that highlight Nami and Luffy’s bond but say they favor Sa/Na when the truth is that Toei adds a lot in all kinds of moments, to fill out and make the anime longer than the manga. We for example have the whole Nebulandia thing which they praised to no end when it came out.

Not to mention in the WCI arc (around when this whole discorse started to spread) where they added a full moment of Nami going to Luffy and crying first after his fight with Sanji, though in the manga she goes directly to Sanji and has no interaction with Luffy until he wakes up again.

But I suppose Toei’s added moments are only “good” when it benefits them. For example how they love Nami wearing Luffy’s hat in Skypiea despite it being filler. She carries it in the manga, but she doesn’t wear it. It’s a small change, but one could call it “pandering” since Lu/Na shippers love to bring up Nami wearing his hat.

I could say in the same arc Sa/Na is “downplayed” by Toei making Sanji give flowers to both Nami and Robin when he only is shown wanting to give one to Nami in the manga. Of course over such a long show you can find various examples both for or against most ships being favored or “downplayed”. I do think these small changes can in some cases change an anime only watcher’s view, but most of the time it’s not really any huge changes that are being made.

They also forget that many of the “negative” Sa/Na moments are enhanced in the anime for gag purposes, something that makes many see Sa/Na in a worse way than they are portrayed in the manga. (Actually gags in general seems to get kind of overused in the anime.) For example showing Nami having to physically stop Sanji at times.

Sometimes Toei adds things that, though small, might change how the watchers view the characters but in no way do I think they are doing this to push one particular ship over another. I think this view that Toei pushes SaNa has more to do with recency bias and negativity bias in the shippers that don't like SaNa. They focus on only what they consider bad for their own ship, especially after having this theory being presented to them, and make it into a bigger thing that it likely is. Then they more easily remember these examples rather than things that in contrast might be “bad” for Sa/Na as a ship.

I’ve spoken about Sa/Na and fillers before in Hidden SaNami - Manga and filler, and I am not going to lie and say we don’t get really good fillers at times. But I am also of the belief that what Toei does is add things mostly based on what they think fits. And it just so happens that Sanji is very much specifically attached to Nami and their dynamic works well both for gags and in some cases even “romantic looking scenarios” when there is real drama going on. The writers at Toei see that and so they fill out scenes that already exist or create new ones that are in their opinion in character for the strawhats. For example, they know Sanji is a heart-eyed pervert, and so they added more moments for him with the mermaids in Fishman Island as an example. During WCI he had a romance focused storyline and thus they also added moments between Sanji and Purin that were not in the manga.

Sanji saving her from falling and San/Pu holding hands is one example of something that never happened, which to me clearly shows it’s more about adding what they think they can in regards to the characters and the current story, rather than having some secret agenda for certain ships.

Another San/Pu example is this tiny panel where Sanji is carrying her being zoomed in and changed to a bridial carry. It happens to many ships and moments so the "Toei loves SaNa" simply isn't true in my opinion.

Pandering to ships happens in most anime, and even Sanji x Zoro has gotten some rather obviously shippy moments. But the Lu/Na shippers don’t focus on or care about these other things, because Sa/Na (and to some extent Lu/Han) is their main target.

What I think Lu/Na fans might have a hard time accepting is that Luffy and Nami don't have a relationship where you can add shippy types of moments as easily. Not that it hasn’t happened, just look at the Nebulandia special again. But Luffy in particular is simply ill-fitted for shippy moments. For Hancock they added a “shippy scene” with Luffy but that was of course a dream and a gag, because it would be weird to see Luffy act like that towards anyone. The whole joke is that it’s out of character for Luffy.

Toei saw a chance to be funny and took it. Similarly we have seen Sanji “dream” of having a child with Nami in filler, which is also more in line with Sanji but would be really weird to see coming from Nami.

From what I recall this whole idea of Toei being pro Sa/Na was born in the Lu/Na fandom after the Zou scene with Nami running after Sanji. Then they just looked for older moments to add to their already decided hypothesis that Toei is biased (while still being happy about whatever added Lu/Na moment Toei has made and saying things like “they got it right this time”). 

Granted that scene between SaNa in Zou is very dramatic and even slightly romantic looking, but Nami during all of Zou was very much highlighted as the most worried about Sanji in the manga. Thus Toei likely took the chance to add this scene. Likewise Nami was hurt by Sanji in WCI and thus they added the corridor walk scene (which I’ve seen anti Sa/Na people use as an example of Nami hating Sanji by the way). It’s extra drama added based on similar previous moments and the feelings they expressed in the manga.

There is actually a particular post from a Lu/Na shipper that I suspect made this viewpoint more widespread through their community, and in that post they even use Sa/Na examples that aren’t correct. For example, they claim that Nami’s reaction in the moment in Skypiea when Sanji saves Nami and Usopp is exaggerated in the anime. (And that Toei stole/copied the moment from a Lu/Na scene). Let me just show you a piece of that post here.

But, it isn’t really the way this post describes it. They excluded some manga panels in their “analysis” post, making the change seem more dramatic than it was.

Maybe they read this very incorrect old translation and trusted it? (Personally I don’t understand how this translation could happen to begin with.)

I don’t know, but Nami is saying exactly the same thing she did in the anime, asking why Usopp is accelerating and mentioning Sanji before Usopp interrupt her. The scene is longer than the small panel, but that is literally the purpose of making an anime based of a manga. But the dialogue is the same in the manga and the anime, and thus the whole point of the anime changing this "move or be toasted" moment to be more pro SaNa is simply false.

I remember seeing this post when it was new, and admittedly I have not checked all comparisons and I am sure some are legit changes/filler additions, but the Skypiea moment in particular made me annoyed because I know they described it incorrectly and it’s a moment from the manga that I really like, where Nami is showing a lot of concern for Sanji. I won’t share the link or full original post, because I don’t want people to go there and comment and make a fuss, but I also wanted to mention it as I do think it has affected the Lu/Na shippers view a lot.

More than anything though I think that Lu/Na shippers forget how many Sanji x Nami moments Oda himself has written in the manga. Then they use the fillers as an excuse or even anti-SaNa propaganda to lift their own ship and downplay SaNa. This is the perhaps radical opinion I have about it at least, because honestly when going through a manga that is 1000+ chapters and adding filler moments to that you can probably find a lot of inconsistencies that align with whatever agenda you try to push. You just have to use the right angle and ignore examples that might go against your point. (Which the Lu/Na fandom clearly has done) "It's Toei's fault SaNa looks like a good ship to some" is such a weird rhetoric to have considering how many great SaNa moments there are in the manga.

For me Sa/Na in the manga is a good ship that has had a lot of great moments. I feel like Lu/Na shippers tend to ignore or downplay how much Oda has given Sanji and Nami time to have their own relationship development and that Sa/Na is far from a shallow gag ship that’s promoted by Toei as some of them try to claim. Luffy himself said in WCI to Sanji that “Nami and the others worried about you more than anyone” and Nami and Sanji had their own storylines with serious interactions in many arcs despite Sanji not being the main hero.

In the end, maybe Toei’s image of the manga and the characters simply doesn’t fit with what the Lu/Na shippers want it to be? Maybe they have read too much into things that don't really suggest what they want it to? And then consequently get angry when other pairs get more shippy moments than their own.

Also, in general I find the filler excuse kind of funny, because they imply that Oda has no influence over the anime whatsoever and that Toei animation are the bad guys going against his will on purpose. Yet Toei also makes the movies, and some of those are extremely well-received, praised and used as “proof” amongst the Lu/Na fandom. So the movies are just this big exception when Toei does what Oda actually wants, while when it comes to the canon story being adapted they totally ignore Oda’s wishes and story? I very much doubt it. It’s simply Lu/Na shippers needing a villain for why things don’t look the way they want in the added anime moments, which are supposed to be extended filler based on the manga material and characters’ personalities. Of course they might not get it all right when making the anime, but I very much doubt they are adding things for some targeted reason towards shippers. (Though, again, pandering does exist to some extent where it might work in line with the characters).

In my opinion there are fillers added that are both positive and negative in regards to most fans’ views of the characters. But they are there to fill gaps, and to prolong the anime. Some are extensions of scenes Oda wrote, others are complete AU’s like the Edo Historical Special fillers. But it’s still going to be based on how the writers, producers and directors have interpreted the characters in the manga. Often that will mean things like more exaggerated gags or rehashed stories with new filler characters or the existing scenes getting more “flare”. 

Of course at times the anime does very stupid additions that doesn’t always make sense, but even so the manga is still their source material. Though of course they only know what already is and not what Oda is planning to write. Hence we can sometimes see things lean more into what is going on in the current arc sometimes. Like in the 3rd movie when Sanji says he wants to be a prince, likely because of his Mr. Prince portrayal in Alabasta happening close to the movie being made, despite this clearly going against canon now years later when we know he is a prince and doesn’t like his heritage at all.

If Lu/Na shippers say Toei adds more shippy moments for SaNa than Lu/Na then it’s likely because Toei thinks it’s more in line with Sanji and Nami as characters compared to with Luffy. In the end though, filler is filler, and what Oda writes is what truly matters.

Personally I think the portrayal of Sanji and Nami is better in the manga compared to the anime (as most things) and never has filler been a reason for me personally to ship them or think they could become canon. It’s simply added moments, sometimes they are nice and other times not so nice. I know many other SaNa shippers are the same. I wanted to say this because too many times I see anti SaNa fans say those that ship them together must not read the manga. Trust me, we do.

But who knows, maybe I am the salty and biased one and Toei is actually pro Sa/Na against the will of Oda.

As for your second question I touched on it veeeery briefly in THIS POST speaking a little about SaNa in Wano. But I must admit this question is a lot more difficult to me than the first one. Especially since you ask about Nami’s feelings manifesting in particular and also asking for a prediction. 

Honestly I don’t think we have gotten anything major from Nami herself except her worry and involvement in Sanji’s story during Zou and WCI. We got a few moments in Wano as well, like Sanji carrying her again, protecting her and of course the “Take care of my Nami-san” line. For me it’s the possible changes in Oda’s writing of Sanji and Nami and some of Sanji’s interactions and reactions to Nami that makes me think feelings from Nami’s side might be slowly developed and could appear in some form further ahead.

I know you said “recent arcs” but I hope you will allow me to go back a bit to other arcs as well to explain what I mean.

In my opinion I don’t think it’s impossible that Oda has escalated Sanji and Nami’s interactions and highlighted their interest and worry of each other for a long time now. Of course it’s always been there, even back in Arlong Park, Drum Island, Skypiea and of course Enies Lobby and Thriller Bark. Often Oda has paired the two together or at least made one chase or help the other. As Oda once put it, after he draws Nami it’s simply natural that Sanji follows (Watch video at 46.40). And this might be partly a joke, but we also know it’s true and we have many good interactions between them in most arcs.

What I think is that during Fishman Island, Punk Hazard and Dressarosa Oda started the more obvious set up with Sanji for Whole Cake Island and what was to come with his family and backstory. What Oda did before WCI with Sanji was to set up and remind the readers of four things in particular; his kindness, his doubt in his value to the crew as more than a chef (as part of his sacrificial nature), his chivalry and lastly even his character's “chance” for romance. I think Oda brought back these things to remind us clearly who Sanji is and what he is about before his fate during Zou and WCI was revealed. The fact that Oda has used Sanji in two romantic plots with first Viola and then Purin and with both of them ending up liking him despite their initial goal and them turning to the aid of the strawhats because of him says a lot on its own.

So why does this matter for the development of SaNa? Well, first of all Sanji was clearly seen leaving both these women behind for Nami in particular. We even saw Purin’s reaction to SaNa specifically. Of course one could say it’s simply to foreshadow Purin liking Sanji and it being read as jealousy, but in the end it’s still Oda drawing Sanji with Nami happily in his arms after everything they have been through.

I’ve said it before but I don’t think Oda keeps making moments like this at random. Nami has been there in several pivotal moments for Sanji, and she and Sanji have in many instances been placed together to add to the other’s story or highlight the other’s character traits. For many of the plot set-ups with Sanji prior to WCI Nami was there to explain or show it to us readers.

For example saying Yonji is nothing like Sanji or through her doubting the Sanji clone is really him due to him not helping them.

Other characters also mention often how kind Sanji is and honestly I think people need to remember that this is a trait Oda sees in Sanji and keeps mentioning. I say this because in the WCI arc in particular Oda portrays Sanji as a good potential love interest and a very good person in general. A lot of anti-SaNa fans seem to think Nami sees no positive traits in Sanji, despite Oda writing Nami saying good things as direct opinions from her that she has about Sanji. Clearly she sees a lot of good in him despite his flaws and Oda had her point it out clearly.

We also know Sanji has risked or straight out sacrificed himself for Nami many times, but she has most times not seen it or even known about it. Of course she cares about her nakama and Nami has been used in this way before (and with other crewmembers as well), but even so I think Oda’s focus on Nami in particular is there to clearly show us her image of him before everything unfolds in the Zou and WCI arcs after. He is someone she can trust and depend on, a savior and protector, and she doesn’t want to see him get hurt.

We even got Nami coming out of hiding in Zou because she was worried. Not to mention she willingly goes to a Yonkou territory for Sanji’s sake, and actually she is insisting on following despite being told no at first. She also defends Sanji against Zoro and gets offened on his behalf and is in general the main driving force behind going to save Sanji.

Another rather subtle change from Oda (though noticable amongst SaNa shippers for sure) is the increased amount in touching between Sanji and Nami. Something that has been seen through several cases in WCI, and that continued on to Wano as well though most of it was Sanji carrying many people at the same time.

I also think WCI could have been a turning point for Nami’s feelings even though she isn’t showing it openly yet. Maybe she will keep being tsundere about it until the end, or maybe she isn’t really aware of her own feelings herself yet. I could also be reading things wrong. But I don’t think we should underestimate Oda adding one sign of Sanji seeing mutual affection, one joke about a proposal and a possessive claim of Nami being “his”. Because Oda likely won’t write something like this for no reason, and though two of them are hidden behind gags, it’s a change compared to earlier moments that are similar. 

I am actually writing a small theory on this and how Sanji might sense Nami’s feelings slowly changing for him through his observation haki. I would love to talk about it more because I think this could be Oda’s way of changing things very slowly without making it obvious, but I kinda think it needs a post of its own.

I think that either Oda will keep adding these small types of moments but not really commit to making anything official until the very end, or if we are lucky, he will write more to build on the conflict in WCI and what Nami knows about Sanji to add some bigger moments between them. But I doubt any of it will be any type of confirmed relationship as I don’t think Oda will want to change the strawhat dynamics until the series is ending.

(Though Purin coming back is also likely happening and I think that is definitely going to show us if Oda has intentions for San/Pu to develop to something more or not.)

Anyways, to sum it up I think Oda’s way of writing SaNa and adding more touch and things like that between them is a sign for SaNa to possibly happen further ahead. But I think Nami is still either tsundere or maybe even unaware of her feelings, and Sanji is sensing them but letting things stay the way they are. I think Oda might be stalling so he doesn't have to write actual romance or change their interactions too much. Does that make sense? So Nami’s feelings are right now mostly manifesting through Sanji sensing them change slowly, basically. Hence comments like “My Nami-san” only happening in Wano despite Sanji being the way he is since the very beginning. At the very least Oda has definitely given SaNa a lot of great looking moments in the New World and I hope he will keep it up.

I could probably go into more details or examples, but I hope I kind of answered your question at least. I know I wrote a lot more about the first topic, but like I said that was a lot easier and more straightforward.

I hope this was all an interesting read for you. Either way I want to say thanks for asking it though, because I had a lot of fun writing this.

[lewisvinga]

There was massive discourse yesterday because a guy had entered all of the f1 x reader tags bacalao demanding that woman write for m!readers and basically guilt tripping at the end. It asked asks then said it male men fell short when no one writes for them. Then, a few seconds later, he answered one of his ask and said he’s not comfortable with writing for anyone except for men and ftm which is fine. Everyone has their preference.

But we got everyone upset is the fact that he’s saying that it’s not fair that women are only writing for women when men in the fanfiction community barely get representation. And then he turns around and says he’s not comfortable writing for women. Can you see the hypocrisy?

And then, a few hours later, he decided to address women as “females” and one of his ask that he also put in all of the F1 X reader tags. And said that “females act like they’re the only ones in the world and act, like only females, read fanfiction”

First of all, referring to women, as females is kind of gross. Even if that’s what they are, it’s gross, referring to people as males and females. I don’t know why, but it feels so gross.

Second of all, someone, another m!reader writer, came out of the woodwork saying that everyone was being dramatic and he wasn’t being misogynistic or asking anyone to write for m!readers. He said that they were just complaining, and everybody in the comments decided to go tell them to write it themselves.

Everyone in the comments was telling them that women might not feel comfortable writing for anyone outside of their gender and if they really want something then they have to write it themselves because they aren’t gonna get it by complaining

Bro, it was a whole entire thing. And then the one who decided to jump in all of us sudden said that it wasn’t that serious, but he and the other guy were the ones who made it so serious 😭

I’m pretty sure all the stuff is still there if you really wanna see it. You’re probably gonna have to scroll for a bit in the tags now, but the ones I recommend using is f1 smau, I think. That or f1 x reader.

No one was being rude, everyone was just trying to tell them that, just like he doesn’t like writing for women, some women don’t like writing for men. We were also trying to tell them that when women tend to write for men, men come into their ask, and Berate them for doing so, so they want to refrain from doing that so they won’t get hate sent their way

It was a whole thing and honestly so entitled of the m!readers. Here’s the thing, you’re allowed to be upset that there’s a lack of stuff representing you and your community, but to come into the tag, where people want to write and say, “I request for some people to write for m!reader because it’s not fair, we don’t get enough representation and I can’t do it myself because I don’t want to, and I’m not good at writing”

Let me just tell you, that man has written before, and seemed absolutely fine with it. He also had the goal to say that men don’t get Much representation on social media at all. Especially the fanfiction community. Which is blatantly wrong. There is a huge community of people just for male readers on this app. On Wattpad. On archive of our own. I just don’t think he wants to look for it, or be a part of it.

The person that randomly said that he meant that he’s just sick of seeing people right for male reader, and then women come and say, “can we get that but in Female reader” that’s exactly what they’re doing to us.

I just wanted to catch you up on the all the drama if you didn’t know. It’s over now, I think. But it was wild. His post reeked of entitlement, so people rightfully called him out for it, and then somebody act like we were attacking him is basically the td;or

omg i saw that and felt SO MANY THINGS ABT IT🙃🙃

like i kinda understand where he’s coming from😕, like sometimes i wish there was more latina rep on this app, but yall don’t see me putting the blame on non latino writers ???? i write that stuff myself and don’t guilt trip others 💀

and women aren’t entitled to write for male readers just because they’re underrepresented. just like non latinos don’t have to write for latina reader etc etc.

i know that i, as a woman, don’t feel comfortable at all writing for male reader because guess what? i’m simply not a man! i don’t feel comfortable writing for male/masculine aligning reader ( but that’s just me, perhaps other women are fine w it 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️)

but it’s very hypocritical to come at women for not writing for male reader just to turn around and say you don’t feel comfortable writing for fem reader when the same applies to a lot of female writers like myself 😕😕

i already write all my fics for free because i like to write and this app lets me have a way to let my creativity go. i’m not going to spend my free time writing something i don’t feel comfortable with. 😕😕😕

i understand they’re frustrated but they can’t put the blame on other female writers, esp if they criticize the ones that do write male readers 🤷‍♀️

but so many of us are doing this for free and we’re doing it for fun, and it’s fanfiction! of course we’re gonna write about what we relate to the most! 😩 and sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands if you wanna see more representation, 🙁 like how i’ll write latina reader bc simply i want more latina rep and i don’t mind taking matters into my own hands !

( also, men referring to women as ‘females’ is SO icky. yeah it’s the scientific name or whatvr but whenever i see a man use the term ‘females’ it’s always followed by something misogynistic so it just always feels icky and gross )

[boysplanetrecaps]

Build Up Ep 8, Part 2: 💖Guilty 💖

Hello and welcome to another Build Up recap in the series! In the previous one we saw a team rock out! In this one, we’ll see a team get sexxxy. I have a lot to say! Let’s do this! 

We start off with the team coming out on stage as usual and greeting everyone. They joke that Donghun and Jeup are the parents and that Woong and Bain are their sons #1 and #2. 

Left to right: Bain (Just B), Donghun (A.C.E.), Jeup (IMFACT), Woong (AB6IX)

Their name is transliterated Dongupjadur, I think? It’s written in a really stylized way and my hangul reading skills aren’t quite up to it. 

As they’re coming out, the other teams backstage wonder out loud if the guys will be showing their abs -- specifically, if Jeup will be showing his abs. When I was watching this episode for the first time, I didn’t know that Jeup showing his abs was that a thing that could happen. I was like… What? Jeup? Abs? Tell me more!  

Ohhh.

등 부시러 갑니다 = “I’m going to break my back.”

So you’re telling me that he just looked like that? Under his s w e a t e r s? THE WHOLE TIME?

Anyway, the team is going to… perform? A song? Something like that. What? Yeah, a song. This is a singing competition. I remember now. 

The judges say that the combination is unexpected, and yeah, it kind of is. They’re all good, but aside from Donghun and Jeup singing one song together, no one in this group has performed with anyone else from this group so far on this show. So… what is the unifying concept? Why did Jeup pick them? You guys. YOU GUYS. I have so much to say. More on this soon. 

We flash back to them meeting… on a… I don’t know, staircase. A big wide staircase. 

Just like, a good staircase to have a meeting on, you know? We’ve all had meetings on big indoor staircases, why am I even explaining this?

Woong asks Jeup why he chose Bain and himself. 

s w e a t e r

Jeup basically answers that Bain and Woong are good singers and he wanted to work with them and make a team that can do anything. Hmmm. 

On a first watch, I wondered if maybe the real reason was that he wanted a group full of debuted idols? Bain is from Just B, Woong is from AB6IX, Jeup is from IMFACT, and Donghun is from A.C.E. But that just doesn’t seem convincing, does it? Ok, like I said, more on this soon. 

The guys do a little skit where they pretend to be choosing a song together, but it seems obvious when you watch it that they already know what they’re doing, and what they’ll be doing is Guilty, the song by Taemin. That’s a ballsy choice! A choice full of balls! 

Ok, a little bit about Taemin, in case you don’t know him well. He’s a member of SHINee, the same group that was once home to Jonghyeon who we talked about a lot during the 2x2 round. Taemin was only 13 when he debuted, and at the time, he basically couldn’t sing. At all. Like, at all at all. He was there to dance -- and boy can this guy dance -- and to be a cute maknae.

Over the years, a combination of a lot of hard work and some really good vocal training has made him a quite good vocalist. He also absolutely, positively drips with charisma -- both as in the sense of “star quality” and in the sense of “sexiness”. If you have never listened to Move or Want, you’ve been missing out, so rectify that ASAP. 

Guilty came out in October of ‘23, shortly after Taemin came back from military service. He’s said in interviews that he drew inspiration for the album from a book called Erotisicm by a philsopher named George Bataille. A summary of the book: “Bataille challenges any single discourse on the erotic. … Investigating desire prior to and extending beyond the realm of sexuality, he argues that eroticism is ‘a psychological quest not alien to death.’” Well, ok then! So that’s the book that inspired him. What about the song itself? Well, the lyrics could be summarized: You know you want me, baby! 

In other words, my friends, the song is a fuck song. And boy, do fuck songs do well on shows like this. Consider Boys Planet, if you will. Songs like Love Killa were always going to beat songs like Home. Team Over Me was always going to place ahead of Switch. 

In addition to being a fuck song, Guilty is a good song, but I don’t know if it’s fucking good, if you feel me? Something about it -- I don’t know, I didn’t fall in love with it the way I did with Move and Want. In fact, the day I first watched the episode, I had actually skipped Guilty  when it came up in my shuffle. Twice. Don’t get mad at me sometimes I have to hear some EXO or I’ll die okay? 

Alright, back the episode. Where were we? Oh yeah, the guys were pretending that this was the moment that they chose the song. The show reminds us that Guilty, with its attention grabbing choreography, is a popular “challenge” right now, for idols and just anyone who thinks their belly is flat enough. (Hwang Soyeon, where are you?) 

Woong points out that they really have to do the up-the-shirt-neck-grab move -- and he’s right, I mean imagine doing Gashina and not doing the finger guns? Some choreography is so connected to the song that you can’t take it away without missing it a lot. They also know, though, that they have to prioritize good vocals. 

Next question -- should they all show their abs? The immediate answer is yes, but -- and this is really interesting to me -- Donghun gestures to his ab area and says “I’m going to wear Heattech in here.” I did some research and can’t find anything on singers traditionally keeping their abdomen warm in order to sing better, though it doesn’t seem completely crazy. I have a chronic illness (endometriosis) and I know that heat is really great therapy for a lot of things, but I just have never heard of singers doing this. 

Plus, go with me on this -- even though in their little skit Donghun is the one who appears to suggest Guilty as their song, he apparently hadn’t thought through the necessary ab exposure or he wouldn’t be bringing this up now as a possible issue. See what I mean about it just being a skit? I’m pretty sure that Jeup had already picked out the song when he put the group together and then for some reason had to make it look like someone else was suggesting it when they filmed this scene. 

And poor Bain is like, um, guys, I don’t *have* abs. Bain isn’t skin stretched over muscles like most kpop idols, it seems. That’s ok, Bain, I still love ya! I sure as hell don’t have visible abs. He says he thinks he needs to work out, as if it’s possible to go from not having abs to having abs in like, two weeks. Sorry, dude, that is not happening, or at least, not without doing something super dangerous for your health.  

Anyway, luckily for the team, they have a leader who can also lead them in personal training.

The show gives us some good shots of Jeup’s bod, and in the interest of thoroughly covering this topic, I’ll take a screen shot.

What can I say -- I’m a hard worker. (That’s what he said!)

Then the guys go work out with Jeup and he does fucking leglifts hanging from a bar the way you’d lift a single finger.

“It’s easy,” he says. “Just hang on. And just put your legs up.” Sure. Just do that. Just. Do. That.

They all take a turn doing this incredibly difficult advanced move. Woong asks Jeup to hold him up from behind and says “I feel like I’m going to die,” but he can do it. He has abs already, anyway.

Donghun also needs Jeup to hold him up, but he can also basically do the move. 

It turns out that Bain absolutely cannot do the move -- he can’t hang there and he can’t lift up his legs. So the whole team helps him.

I think it’s supposed to be funny? It’s a weird combination of horrible (because Bain is the butt of the joke) and oddly wholesome (because they’re all approaching it with kindness), but it’s also kind of wrong, because “abs start in the kitchen,” meaning, that it’s much more about whether you have abdominal fat than whether you have abdominal muscles. So all this work will not actually give him visible ads unless he, IDK, does this for two hours a day and also doesn’t eat, which is a bad thing to do. 

They also do some rehearsing at BR N  W MUSIC, whatever that might be! 

And that brings us to performance day! Right before they perform, Yeo One backstage says that Donghun drew his abs on with a marker. Hey, man, don’t blow up his spot like that. 

It’s time to perform, which means it’s also time for a commercial! 

Full version without reactions

Alright, I want to talk about the performance itself and believe me I will but first, get your tinfoil hat ready because I think I know why Jeup picked out this group. It became clear to me as I watched the performance and did some thinking.

It’s because

Jeup is very smart

Jeup knows what a mostly-female survival-show audience loves best is sparkles in their pants

Jeup selected the other three guys on the show that can pull off a sexy concept most easily. 

Look, I am not saying that I find any of these guys besides Jeup particularly sexy when they’re just goofing around. But they’re all sexy when they perform! Or rather, I should say, they create a sexy mood. Let me explain.

Have you ever listened to a sad song that makes you tear up a little, even though you’re not actually sad about anything in real life? Or maybe a song kind of makes you feel inspired and lifted up? Into the New World by SNSD does that for me. Or maybe a song makes you feel snarky and sarcastic, like Wife by G-Idle. It’s like that, but with sexiness. You get to live in a sexy world for a few minutes, without it being focused at anyone or anything in particular.  

To put it differently: it’s like they emit the smell of baking cookies, only instead of baking cookies, it’s sex. You breathe it in instead of actually… having it. 

Woong, Bain, and Donghun can all do the sexy concept. Not everyone can do sexy. In EXO, for example, I’d argue that Xiumin and D.O. struggle with sex appeal in performances, despite their beautiful faces; that’s part of why a comeback like Obsession was only possible when those two were away in the military. Suho can kind of do sexy on stage, but that’s helped by the fact that to me he seems the sexiest off stage. I don’t know, I guess it’s all subjective of course, but “doing sexy” is different from “being sexy” and both are different from actual sex.

So yeah, Bain can do sexy, abs or no abs. That’s why his whispering “like a river!” in River worked. 

Woong can do sexy, as you can tell if you watch AB6IX perform. 

And Donghun can do sexy, despite being kind of not sexy at all in real life. 

Jeup knows that he’s a Kai/Hyunjin/Kang Daniel/Baekho/Wyatt type, and he knows that he has to give the ladies sparkles in their pants. That’s why he had to ditch Suhwan, despite Suhwan’s strong vocals. He needed a group that could be his backup sexies as he hit us full bore with the force of his sexiness. 

And boy can this boy do sexy. I actually learned how to make gifs in order to make this one:

Just Park Jeup stroking his mic stand lightly all the way down, while Donghun hits a high note. Jeup is a fucking genius, and yes, I mean that. He knows exactly what he’s doing. It's funny because I later on noticed that all of them are doing the microphone stand stroke, but Jeup is the one who the editors decided to highlight, and I mean, come on. Yes. He does it best. 

The ab reveal was fine. I think Jeup is sexier just staring into the camera, but that’s just me. Here are some gifs to delight you:

Did Woong tear his shirt?

As to the song and the performance itself. 

I am now the world’s foremost expert on this song as I have listened to it approximately one million times in the past few days.  I listen to it the way I listen to an EXO song -- noticing each new voice (“ooh, that’s Jeup! Ooh that’s Bain!”) and enjoying it. 

And in my expert opinion, this was PERFECT -- the perfect choice of song, the perfect group, the perfect performance. There were high notes for Jeup to croon, whispered parts for Bain to whisper, emotional parts for Donghun to emote, and sassy parts for Woong to sass. And they all did their jobs. 

I almost don’t even want to analyze their various vocals because I just love this so much, but I also do want to because they were so good. First off, if you listen to the studio version that was released and compare it to the live version, the live version is actually better. Seriously. There isn’t a note out of place here. 

GOD but my Bain is SO GOOD. I am so proud of myself for picking him out at the start of the show as my main pick. He’s so good. His voice is just perfect. His adlib at 3:16 in to the Youtube version is so gorgeous. His technique is so clean, with no closed throat sounds or a feeling of being out of control of pitch or anything like that, ever. No nasality that I notice. Just the perfect amount of vibrato. It’s just perfect overall. His vocals are my favorite on this team. 

Woong’s vocals are obviously not powerful and perfect like the other three’s but he adds this sassy contrast to the others. I wouldn’t swap him out for anyone else. He slightly reminds me of Woongki from Boys Planet -- offstage, not sexy at all, in fact kind of feminine seeming. And then give him the right concept (Supercharger for Woongki) and you see what he’s capable of. 

Jeup is an absolutely top tier vocalist in addition to being a gorgeous man. I don’t know if I have anything more to say than that. It’s just like, yeah. Did you hear it? You heard it, right? I’m getting used to his vocal color and liking it more and more.

Donghun does a great job here too, obviously, especially in providing harmonies with the lightest touch imaginable. That’s a real talent. In fact, I think my favorite part is from :39 to :47, when Jeup and Donghun climb up that lazy scale together. It’s like a hand moving up your leg to your thigh. It’s really something. 

See, Jeup is a genius. Everyone else kind of leans forward, like Donghun on the left. But Jeup keep his head up and just looks to the side, while leaning back slightly and tilting his pelvis up. He GETS it. How can someone look as tasty as Kai while also singing as well as Chen and not like, be the most famous person in Korea? I don’t get it. 

I think I’m going to be cheering for Partners at this point. I just want this team to release a whole cover album with them singing like, IDK, Taemin’s entire catalog. I want this team to manifest. Just more singing like this. 

EDIT: I just showed this performance to My Fella and he said, "So that won, right? That had to win. That made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up." My Fella is the best, isn't he?

Counter offer: I don’t really have one. This was the right song. Hoo boy. But if they had to pick out a song for next week (and I don’t think they do, based on what I think its next), I’d recommend Touch by NCT. There are lots of kinds of sexy, and they’ve already done the vaguely menacing kind of overt sexy, so next is the “boyfriend in jeans” sexy level to conquer. Alternatively maybe they could do Playboy by EXO (another song written by Jonghyun). It’s overtly sexy but in a jazzy flirty way instead of in an aggressive dangerous way. 

Ok, so in the MNET edit the focus seems to be mostly on the shirt lift moment. There was a cute bit where Jeup the Genius gently strokes his collar bone area, as if to remind everyone of what’s under his shirt, and backstage, Wumuti is like, “hey! I was promised abs!!” 

Wendy is impressed with Bain’s vocals

Jaehwan needs an adult!

So when they’re done, of course the audience goes batshit while the judges applaud. Jaehwan stands up and Wendy gives a thumbs up. 

Backstage, the other guys have mixed reviews. They seem to think that this was pandering to the audience, but I think that’s unfair. I have been *listening* to this performance for days. Just on repeat while I’m on the plane or driving my stupid rental car around. If I could listen without watching or watch without listening, I’d much rather listen. I love this performance vocally, truly, I do. I respect the sexy cloud they generated, too. That’s not easy to do. 

VCG compliments Woong and he lets out the cutest, goofiest grin. 

The judges vote, and the highest score is revealed: It’s a 95 from VCG. 

Seems like they’re pretty surprised by that. 

Backstage, Haram says to his teammates that he’s not surprised by that high score. “You can’t ignore the sense of presence,” he explains. That’s the name of my next Jeup x reader fanfic -- “The Sense of Presence.” 

VCG explains his grade. “I felt that the skills of reading the song for singers who have been on stage was different.” He also says that Donghun really understands the stage and how to change up his voice based on the flow of the performance. 

Eunkwang says that the team had good teamwork -- that they divided the parts properly and worked well together. 

Solar praises Woong, and he grins again. 

Wendy asks about the killing part -- “Did you all work out together?” Ha ha! 

VCG asks how they feel the ab reveal went -- did they get the response they were hoping for? I mean, if they were hoping from high pitched squeals from all the women -- and most of the men -- in the audience, then yes. Hilariously, Jeup can’t help but be honest and say that they had difficulties with that in rehearsal because their abs weren’t being revealed properly. They had to really work at it. I find the idea of them conscientiously making sure that their abs showed when they lifted up their shirts to be so funny. It’s this sensual move, and here they are like, “Is my shirt lifting properly? Let me adjust the angle. Hmm, I might need a different shirt. I think cotton slides more easily than poly blends.”

Solar’s like “it showed really well, don’t worry.” I mean, we know she was looking.

”Hey Solar, I know you do a bit of pole dancing. I do that too, on the side. It’s great for the abs. Want to hang out and work on our abs together? I know a lot of cool moves that will improve your balance and control. And abs. We can do ab lifts and drink supplement smoothies and then take pictures of each other for Instagram.” -- Jeup, probably 

Backstage, Soomin wonders if his team should also show their abs, and Seohyung continues to be everyone’s favorite when he says:

“It’s kind of weird to reveal abs while saying MILKY UP.” 

Dude, it’s kind of weird to do anything while saying MILKY UP. In fact, it’s weird to just say MILKY UP. I hate it. 

And with that, we reach the end of this segment! We didn’t hear a single word of praise for Bain or Jeup’s vocals. Fuck that shit, man. 

In the next post, we’ll visit with Waterfire, Wumuti’s team, who are doing a cover of Aespa’s Drama. See you then! 

[jaeheewillalwaysbemyfav]

How Obey Me Shot Itself In the Foot: The Better Version of Obey Me That Lives In My Head

MASSIVE WARNING FOR DISCUSSION OF RELIGION. Specifically of Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) and their shared God. I am doing this in a media analysis context, not to shame any particular religion or anyone’s particular beliefs. If that makes you uncomfortable, feel free to not read this post, stop reading at any point, and/or unfollow/block me. DO NOT try to start religious discourse on this post or in my askbox/DMs, I will clown on and block you.

Also spoiler warnings for a ton of different Obey Me lessons.

Intro (X), Michael (X)(X)(X)(X), Conclusion (X)(you're here)

aka The Part Where I Actually Talk About Why Raphael Should Kill MC

Why Raphael Should Kill MC

I've thought for a long time about how I'd handle writing Bible fanfic, so I have many ideas about how I'd portray Heaven and Hell. This section was originally going to be an in-depth deep dive into my Celestial Realm and Devildom worldbuilding, but that would take too long and potentially reveal some stuff I might use for my longfic that's in progress.

But the essence of it is:

The Celestial Realm is a militaristic and very protective/insular realm as a result of Father/God's paranoia over his loss of control over his creations. The Devildom and many parts of the human world are formed by rejected "imperfect" creations that were banished from the Celestial Realm. Only humans with "pure" souls are let into the CR, while the others are reincarnated or sent to the Devildom to face punishment.

There are three basic types of angels: the original extensions of God responsible for helping to create things, the warriors who fight off demons and protect the CR, and those who look after different aspects of creation, especially humans.

The Devildom is the product of a fucked up version of the island of misfit toys, as previously described. They are the rejected creations of the CR, sent to die in the void at the edge of existence. But they didn't die. However, adapting to this harsh environment created harsh and vicious creatures that came to be known as demons. The original Demon King earned his title by figuring out how to siphon power from CR and human-world beings, a practice that lead to most of the Devildom being divided into 7 courts of the 7 deadly sins.

Human souls that get sent to the Devildom don't face any organized punishment: they're fair game for any demons that find them though. If the human has a pact with one or more demons, that/those demon/s have dibs and can do with them what they wish.

There are many types of demons in terms of form, but nearly all are aligned to a sin. Only the very oldest ones are not, or aligned to multiple. They have a wide range of jobs much like any earthly civilization.

The Human World is largely unaware of the supernatural forces that shape it, but two primary groups who are aware are witches and sorcerers. Sorcerers are more organized: they have a strict code to follow vis a vis how they use their magic, are registered with the Sorcerer's Society, experience formal training, etc. Witches are more freelance and unstructured, though they may form covens who may occasionally meet up. Sorcerers tend to be more aligned with the CR, while witches tend to be more aligned with the Devildom. That being said, it's not unheard of for a sorcerer to deal with demons in the form of pacts.

Solomon is famously an exception to how sorcerers are expected to behave, having 72 pacts and a more experimental magic practice. But he's old as fuck and the best at what he does, so no one can really tell him not to.

Diavolo's exchange program is a genuine effort to unite the three realms, to bridge the gap that was created so long ago. The CR reads it as a front to gain better access to their magic, or even to attempt a takeover. But they refuse to truly strike first and restart the war, so they're at an uneasy stalemate.

Until the stuff with MC happens.

In the version of Obey Me that lives in my head, seasons 1 and 2 are largely unchanged. I'd probably remove/alter how our connection to Lilith works (and in fact Lilith's role would be very different overall), but the basic plot beats stand.

As I mentioned 800 posts ago, I lost my account at lesson 41, so I don't know much about how the human world arc goes, and honestly I don't really care. Because for me, if we're gonna put s3 in the human world, we're gonna learn about the human world's magic scene. Which means if MC's initiation into the sorcerer's society doesn't happen there in canon, that's where I want it to happen.

But I also want the Sorcerer's Society to be extremely suspicious of MC. Yes, they're Solomon's apprentice, but... they're Solomon's apprentice. They're a rogue element, and the beginnings of a legacy of rogue elements. A very powerful one too.

Something should be done about that.

S4 starts with the expanded roster of exchange students, Thirteen and Raphael. We were already introduced to Thirteen in s2 as a somewhat antagonistic force, but now we get to meet her in full. Yay! Unfortunately this isn't about her, so let's move onto Raphael.

Raphael was sent to the Devildom to kill MC. The CR was tipped off by someone in the Sorcerer's Society that they're too dangerous, too powerful, the cause of all the mess from s2, and they need to be iced. But the thing is, they're closely bonded with the demon prince, as well as the seven traitors lords, so he needs to make it look like an accident.

Throughout season 4, MC experiences a variety of strange and increasingly dangerous mishaps, culminating in an encounter where a group of hardline traditionalist demons accost them. MC has plot armour though, so they kick their assailants' asses, only to find out they were encouraged to action by none other than Raphael. MC is shocked to learn this, because other than being a weirdo, Raphael hasn't seemed all that threatening.

They're so shocked, they don't notice him behind them, spear in hand.

They're captured and taken to the Celestial Realm, alive but bound in manacles that restrict their access to their pacts and powers. They meet Michael, who exposits the trouble they've been causing him. He then lays out their choices for them:

Break their pacts, have their memory wiped, and return to the human world to live an ordinary life.

Break their pacts and be accepted as an honorary member of the Celestial Realm's ranks (read: get a pair of mind control bangles slapped on them forever)

Use their pacts to bring the brothers back to the CR so they can be "purified"

Die lol

So if I was straight up writing a game plot, this would be the point that the brothers and co. show up, there's a big showdown, maybe they resolve things peacefully in the end, maybe the war starts up, idk, but for the purposes of plot bunnies, I like leaving it here because there's a lot of things that could happen from this point.

(Bonus: after this is resolved the Demon King wakes up and then we have a whole 'nother problem to deal with)

[anghraine]

A few bad but fairly typical P&P takes got me thinking about ... Mako from Legend of Korra, actually, and also, just fandom dynamics.

Many of you weren't in that fandom (or perhaps any fandom) back when LOK aired, but I was very active in it. I actually liked—and still like—some aspects of LOK better than ATLA, and I certainly liked the fandom better than ATLA's.

That said, LOK fandom was still less a dumpster fire than a landfill explosion. To this day, I couldn't even identify the single character who got hit the hardest by LOK fandom's approach to discourse, which like most fandoms today, painted a thin veneer of social justice over good old-fashioned stanning/ship wars, but did it much more transparently.

In any case, if I were going to try and pick the character who got hit hardest by the LOK discourse truck, Mako would at least be in the running. The later days of LOK fandom can give the sense that the basic ship war from Day 1 was Korra/Mako (Makorra) vs Korra/Asami (Korrasami). But my strong impression back when the first book aired was that the ship war dynamic was much more Korra/Mako vs Korra/anyone-but-Mako.

There were plenty of not-Mako options. Korra/Bolin was pretty big for awhile. Korra/Tahno had a substantial following during/after Book 1—Tahno was the waterbender from the rival pro-bending team who got curb-stomped by Amon. There was, of course, Korra/Asami (seemed like no chance in hell at the time, but sweet). It was even a good fandom for hero/villain shippers like me.

I think a lot of this activity ultimately coalesced around Korrasami. But at the time, it hadn't quite happened yet. The fandom was wanky (sorry, discourse-y) about virtually every character, but a lot of people really, really, really hated Mako in particular—Mako haters could encompass people who liked or hated the first season, people who loved or hated Korra, people still mad about Zutara, whatever. I didn't like him at the end of Book 1, myself, though I couldn't buy into the screeds about how abusive and exploitative and otherwise problematic he supposedly was.

Since I didn't actually have much of a stake in the main ship wars, I've always found this dynamic more interesting than anything else in terms of fandom behavior, because I've seen it happen many times, but I hadn't often seen it at the level that Mako hatedom took it to back then. So I was thinking about how this happens, and the particular way it happened with Mako back in the aftermath of Book 1.

Early in Book 1, Mako is revealed to be a tragic, brooding orphan with a slight edge trying to support his sweet-natured younger brother and himself through a mixture of industrial work and magic sports. He gets swept off his feet (literally and metaphorically) by a beautiful, very cool, very rich girl (Asami) and enters a romantic relationship with her, only to feel increasingly drawn to his beautiful, very cool, very powerful friend Korra, our heroine.

Some people pointed out that "which awesome and hot girl do I choose :( it's really hard :( :(" is not the most sympathetic quandary for a character to be in, and for the target audience, particularly unsympathetic coming from a young man. And the choice to repeatedly cut from shippy Mako/Korra moments to Asami looking upset didn't help (especially since Asami lost almost everything when she chose to stick with them and turn on her father). And Mako's eventual apology to Asami was genuinely a bit underwhelming—it's basically "mistakes were made."

And, yeah, those things are true. But fandom is not always so OTT hostile about the man in that kind of love triangle taking awhile to get his shit figured out, even when the man is much older than Mako, a literal teenager. Like, I never thought I'd compare Avatar to Bridgerton, but the Edwina-Anthony-Kate dynamic seems roughly similar and most of the fandom came away from it really invested in Anthony/Kate and sympathetic to them. It depends on the fandom and on the depiction.

It's not that Mako didn't screw up in Book 1. It's that the reaction—he's an awful person for pretty ordinary missteps and some poor relationship choices, he's an abuser, he's the worst character in the show, whatever—just seemed wildly disproportionate.

And also, yeah, overreacting to minor misdeeds and reducing a character to ultra-exaggerated versions of their worst selves out of sheer annoyance is a fandom staple (especially when the misdeeds take up as much air as the early LOK love triangle seemed to for many people, with other aspects of the story crammed into limited space). But the extent of the hatred still struck me as rather extraordinary, especially since he seemed to go from reasonably well-liked to feverishly hated in a short period of time.

My theory after B1 aired was that this really came from the intersection of a fandom that was very prone to this kind of exaggeration and poor faith readings with the actual structure of his characterization in B1. We quickly discover his tragic past with his parents being murdered, and that he's been struggling on the streets, and has to look after a cuddly but clueless brother who doesn't seem to get the urgency of their problems. He uses his prodigious lightningbending abilities to make just enough money in a sort of magic power plant to get by in combination with pro-bending successes. Essentially, we're given far more than the minimum required to sympathize with him and tolerate the occasional asshole moment.

But later on in B1, a lot of his characterization and scenes are directly tied up in the love triangle, and many of his original, somewhat more ... pressing concerns, end up getting pretty much resolved in one way or another. So a lot of those original sources of sympathy that were so concentrated in his early scenes are no longer a concern, while others are no longer being emphasized by the narrative.

And it's certainly the case that Mako was much less widely and disproportionately hated later on, at least in my fandom experience. Some people still hated Makorra with a passionate fire, but Mako himself seemed much more endearing to many people once the narrative dialed down the love triangle, explicitly paid attention to his loyalty as a friend, his basic heroism, his close yet sometimes difficult relationship with his brother, and a certain adorkableness that was not absent in B1, but which wasn't as heavily emphasized.

I don't mean to argue that this later narrative treatment was necessarily better, but I do think the more even distribution of sympathetic qualities or revelations about him alongside his flaws made him much more palatable to a lot of the fandom. It's like people ... just kind of forgot why many of them originally liked him unless the narrative went out of its way to remind them.

This is really long, but I did feel that B1 kind of overplayed its hand with Mako early in the season, and then underplayed it in the later parts of the season, and fandom being fandom, people enormously overreacted to their sense of what was going on in that phase of the story (for many: ARGH!!) and not all the information they actually had.

This isn't a hill to die on for me, exactly. It was just how I saw what was going on—this kind of toxic mix of fandom bullshit with some peculiar choices in the structure of his characterization and what got emphasized (or even mentioned) where. That is still my general impression, though—that the fandom's response wasn't coming from nowhere, but that we were getting this kind of intersection of a fandom even more prone than most to over-reaction and poor faith assumptions + some genuine oddities in structure and emphases in his characterization during that first season.

What does this have to do with P&P? Well, I'll get to that. But this post is honestly long enough already, so I'll do the follow-up tomorrow, probably.

[doyouknowthisgame]

What do you mean by "pro-shippers"? I feel like everybody uses that term differently and I can never tell which one it is

This is a genuine question by the way, I really do struggle to find a universal definition for that word since the ones I see range from like "anyone who ships anything other than canon pairings" to "someone who actively romanticises CSA" and basically everything in-between because different people draw the line at different points, like some people apparently count the enemies-to-lovers trope as going too far? Not to mention all the discourse over kink and RPF

I mean I assume that people who have it in their DNIs probably aren't using the "any non-canon ship" definition but how do I know? I've met some people who are really passionate about messing with the canon ships and consider it to be an insult to the author

I never know how to react when I see "pro-shipper" so I tend to just avoid anyone who has it in their DNI just in case, because that's easier than asking every single person individually to define it, but I already submitted a game months ago so I kinda wanted to follow at least until that poll came up so idk

Sorry if this is too much of a bother, if you don't wanna respond I can just wait a couple of days and then unfollow by default, or you can just block me (I think you can block anons, I'm not sure)

I mean I guess it's one of those "if you have to ask, the answer is no" cases, and like I said usually I would just assume the worst and leave, but.. idk, I guess I'm just being selfish because I want to keep following

do people really say that? I haven't heard of anyone using it in that way

Anyway by "pro-shippers" I specifically mean people who get their rocks off on CSA/abuse/incest/otherwise nasty shit. Specifically people who ship characters that depict those things, but it could go for anyone who uses it for wank material.

There is a massive difference between using heavy material in a story to explore those topics and using them as some kind of sick fantasy. The intent is pretty easy to suss out when you're looking at it.

I'm not going to delve very deep into my opinion on this since this blog is meant to be E for Everyone but basically, nobody wants to read that shit, keep it to yourself.