#and there was barely any shipping with no real canon couples

[isitisitearlymichael]

I think there’s a mentality in the Stranger Things fandom, or certainly outside of Byler spaces, that Byler is just another m/m ship.

What do I mean by “just another” m/m ship?

We all know there’s a long history of shipping male characters together when the show they were in clearly had no intentional romantic subplot.

M/m shipping has existed since the days of Star Trek - and it’s existed for many different reasons. But over time, it’s developed a bad reputation because fans of those ships were reading into things way too much and had so much hope that something might happen to those characters, only for them to end up incredibly upset and frustrated by the end.

There has also been a lot of accusations of fetishisation.

Some of this is also because especially in the early 2000s/ 2010s, these shows used to play on those hopes and have a lot of fun exploring “bromances”, where the writing would be intentionally stirring the pot, but not crossing the line enough for there to be any real plan to take things further.

What’s really important here is that Byler are NOT that kind of ship.

There would never be this much animosity if Will was Mike’s female best friend from childhood.

Yes, there would be a Byler vs. Milkvan war. That would never change - but the excuses as to why Byler have no possible chance of being together would be entirely different. Because yes, their arguments can currently include that Mike’s in a long term relationship, or that the 1980s environment would make it difficult for them to be together, but that’s about as realistic as the arguments have been.

Compare the circumstances to other canonical unrequited love stories

Take away all of the analysis about why Mike might be gay or Bi or even interested in Will in the first place, and just look at the plot in its bare bones state.

Will is canonically in love with Will, and Mike is canonically unaware of this and in a relationship with El.

There are SO MANY examples of this sort of love triangle in fiction, and most importantly there are more scenarios than there aren’t of this love becoming requited. It’s so normal for an audience to see a scenario like this and wonder if this is going to be one of those stories.

What’s happening instead is a lot of heteronormativity.

And that’s either down to the environment that Stranger Things fans find themselves in (people still live very unexposed lives) or they are just generally ignorant about anything that isn’t really in their face or what they want to see.

So there’s a heck of a lot of fans who didn’t even recognise that Will is gay, or just disregarded their assumptions and played up the “slow to grow up” narrative because they were more comfortable with that kind of story, or could relate to it more.

And so from their point of view, because they didn’t see anything, it couldn’t possibly exist. Bylers were seeing things and making them up. Now, after the Duffers and Noah confirmed things, they’re finding a lot of comfort in instead taking some of this fandoms bigger reaches (don’t mean to offend here, sorry) and using them as ammunition instead, e.g. Finn glancing at Noah’s lips for a millisecond during a take.

But the main point I’m getting at is that people who are dismissing Byler are not recognising that this is a traditional love triangle premise.

Now compare the canonical story to previous m/m ships

So because there are some similar activities happening in this fandom to what has been seen in those previous famous m/m ship fandoms, many Stranger Things fans are dismissing Byler as an imagined ship.

But how many of those old ships were able to boast about actual confirmed feelings, albeit one sided, with time left to explore things further?

There is absolutely no reason why the Byler ship resembles any of those “bromances” or queer baiting storylines in previous franchises and fiction.

This isn’t me saying that Byler will 100% become a couple

What I’m saying is that if nothing happens between them in season 5, that doesn’t undo the fact that Byler are a legitimate ship. It doesn’t undo the fact that Will’s feelings for Mike are canonical and that their storyline follows the premise of a traditional love triangle story.

There are people out there who are already trying to make Bylers feel stupid or ashamed for even exploring the potential of the ship, and all they’re doing is showing us how incredibly ignorant they are.

But that’s not to say that lessons can’t be learned from those previous m/m ship disasters

The one thing you should take from them is that people did get really attached, and so being let down by the show really hurt. It’s fine to speculate about Byler, but please don’t set your heart on them and let it break.

If we start to get legit info or confirmation that the ship won’t be requited, please don’t let yourself fall down the rabbit hole of conspiracy and set yourself up for disappointment.

But we have no legitimate reason to rule out Byler right now

The set up is there, the filming looks positive and the Duffers haven’t said anything to dispute the ship’s potential. Speculation is more than allowed - it’s normal and an inevitable result of season 4. So let’s have as much fun as we can and know that we’re doing nothing “deluded” or wrong.

[poethebeloved]

It's so interesting that shipping/romance is such a big aspect of the qsmp. like of course it's a aspect of fan culture like with any other fandom, but it's also important to the storyline. these characters are motivated by their attraction, they make decisions around pursuing the one they love, and they are emotionally affected by rejection and flirting. and its not just fanservice, we have seen with guapoduo and fooligetta that these characters are forming meaningful relationships with narratively satisfying payoffs. idk how common this is in smps, but the fact that the creators have made it so important is so fascinating to me

[madamefeu]

Hi! Here’s what your favorite Hazbin Hotel ship says about you!

Radiodust: You're an old-timer who's been around since the pilot. One off-handed joke about Angel Dust wanting to suck Alastor's dick was all it took for you to start shipping them. You always ship the two most attractive male characters together in your fandoms, even if they have no real connection

Huskerdust: I’m not going to touch this one because I’ll probably get death threats if I don’t tell the Huskerdust fandom exactly what they want to hear

Radiorose: Hello, aro-ace community! You love this because they're the closet thing to a canon queerplatonic couple that currently exists in mainstream media, and as a fellow aro-ace, I’m in the exact same boat

Chaggie: You like the idea of forbidden love, but you're not interested in handling all of the social/political ramifications of it, and would prefer to conveniently gloss over both of those things just like in the show. This ship has the flavor profile of vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips, and so does your personality

Lucifer/Lilith: You only want one thing in this life, and that is for a powerful woman to step on your neck. You are a bottom to end all bottoms

Radioapple: Daddy kink, but in a voyeuristic way. You like watching two dads doing each other, but there is no way you’d ever let them touch you, no, all you want is to watch them go at it

Rosiemilla: Mommy kink, but in a voyeuristic way

Radiohusk: Oh, you would let a man do unspeakable things to you if he was hot enough. You read dark romances and you want a dark romance to happen to you in real life

Cherrisnake: You are absolutely terrible at handling your feelings for everyone you've ever crushed on, and will try to convince yourself that you hate the object of your affections because you lack the courage needed to make a move on them. It would take a life or death situation for you to tell your crush how you really feel about them, and even then you'd be more afraid of telling them than of dying

Guitarspear: Hello, Adam simps! You binge-read workplace romances and you fantasise about dating your boss even though he's a dick 90% of the time. Strangely, the fact that he's a dick makes you even more attracted to him

Staticmoth: Your ideal ship is two horrible people who deserve each other. You want what they have, but at the same time you don't

Zestmilla: Your preferred aesthetic is old married couple core, and I respect that. You binge-read found family fics on AO3, and your favorite tag is hurt/comfort

Radiostatic: You love the idea of someone being obsessed with you when you have no interest in them. You like to laugh at their, quite frankly, pathetic attempts to get you to notice them, and you're waiting for the day when the penny will drop and they'll realise that they are nothing to you, and never will be

Arackpentious: You have never cared about canon, and you don't intend to start now. You probably simp for Sir Pentious and use Arackniss as a self-insert. We know barely any canon information about him, so it's easy for you to project yourself onto him so that you can get doubly-dicked down by the Victorian snake man

Charlastor: You're all about the aesthetic. You got into this ship because there's an abundance of gorgeous fanart for it, even if there's no chance of them being together in canon. You don't care about that, however, because they look beautiful together and that's all that matters to you

Radiomimzy: You wish that the old canon of Mimzy being Alastor's girlfriend was still canon

Royalhalo: You hate Vaggie and you think that Charlie deserves better than her, and who better than the sugary sweet angel who was the first to hear Charlie out and argue in her favor when she found out the truth about the exterminations?

Cherridust: You are aggressively heterosexual and you believe that it is impossible for a man and a woman to be friends without one or both secretly harboring feelings for the other. You binge-read friends to lovers fics on Wattpad, and if a man so much as says hi to a woman, you will ship them

Cherrimoth: You like enemies to lovers, but in a bitch eating crackers kind of way. You either have a crush on someone that you love to hate from afar, or you want to fall in love with someone who hates you from afar

[karenandhenwillson]

I think I figured out, at least for myself, why the 9-1-1 fandom and part of the Buddie-or-Bust side of it feels so much more toxic than ever before when I know for a fact, those demanding Buddie has to become canon and who are looking for any tiny clue to be able to say it will become canon have always been this toxic. (I mean, with the exception of some people who came into the show because with Buck being bi the show was suddenly not queerbaiting anymore--lol, it hurts even just writing this as if it were really true--and then became die-hard Buddie fans or at least pretend to be to garner enough followers and clicks to make money out of fandom. But I'm not talking about them here.)

Before Bucktommy, there was no real opposition for them in the fandom. Buck and Eddie both had other LI and those had their fans (I know for a fact there are still people now shipping Buck with Taylor or Buck with Marisol or Eddie with Shannon). But those were very few fans and they created their own little spaces in fandom places and were barely noticeable. So the Buddie-or-Bust fans were able to mostly ignore them. And there have of course also been some small fanon ships for Eddie and Buck with other people, but those are barely noticed either.

But Bucktommy? That got huge in practically an instant. Because so many people were excited for bi story line with an established character and one in Buck's circumstances (not even Buck himself). And the Bucktommy fans were loud about their support of this new canon ship. So Buddie-or-Bust fans suddenly felt threatened and became much louder in their hate for anything not Buddie. Because now, for some reason, the fans of the other ship seem to be a threat to them. And also, for the first time for any of the LI of Eddie or Buck, they made an honest effort to set up Tommy and the relationship with him as something long-term. Which the Buddie-or-Bust fans recognize just as much as the Bucktommy fans, and so they try even harder to find fault in every single thing.

And that did change something in the behavior of the die-hard Buddie fans. At times, I've been neck-deep in Ana bashing, in Shannon bashing, in Taylor bashing, in Chimney bashing, in Abby bashing, in Maddie bashing. Because I enjoy a good bashing at times. It can be very cathartic. But you know what I've never seen there? I've never seen any of those characters being called derogatory names. Or their fans being called derogatory names and, in most cases, their fans didn't retaliate to the bashing either. (Though, at least for Chimney fans they sometimes very viciously go against people even just mentioning they don't like him and it came up a couple of times that Chimney fans found derogatory names for those bashing Chimney because that group of fans also seems to be unable to avoid content bashing their fav and instead sought it out deliberately to complaint about it.)

I can't even count anymore how many derogatory names I've seen for Tommy or Bucktommy or Bucktommy fans. They seem to come up with a new name every other day. And they enjoy trumping each other in their creations and using those names to get around the boundaries others try to set for themselves by filtering out the already known names.

And I already see people coming at me with "Oh, but Bucktommy fans started it by calling us BoBs." and just: No. Once more, you get an F in reading comprehension. It's always been made very clear that BoBs stood for Buddie-or-Bust and I personally don't see anything derogatory here but also, it's always been made very clear it's a specific subset of Buddie fans who behave poorly to separate them from the Buddie fans who don't care about Bucktommy. Because those people using that term are very well aware that there are really just a couple of very loud bad apples in the Buddie side of fandom and the rest of the Buddie fans don't deserve to be lumped in with them. While, on the other hand, all Bucktommy fans are always called names as a whole.

And I think their biggest problem is not even necessarily the "threat" they perceive Bucktommy to be to their own ship, though that's clearly a big part still. Otherwise, they wouldn't come after authors and artists and other fans who once shipped and created for Buddie and are now creating for Bucktommy. And otherwise, they wouldn't tag so many Buddie fics as Bucktommy, too, in some kind of strange hope to convince Bucktommy fans to ship Buddie again. (Without noticing that all they are accomplishing is to make everyone annoyed at them. And yes, that includes those Buddie fans who don't care for Bucktommy at all because they need to curate the Buddie tag very carefully now, too.)

I think their biggest problem is this belief that their ship is only valid if it's canon.

Which is so strange. Fandom has always mostly been about ships that are very much not canon. And no one ever expected their ships to become canon in the past, as far as I know. (Except if it was promoted and then didn't happen. Looking at Sterek here.) Canon ships barely get any attention. I mean, look at all the 9-1-1 ships that are canon, including Tarlos, and how little content there is for any of them, and also how little engagement there is for this content compared to Buddie. That's always been a trend in fandom, that's not new with 9-1-1.

It's not only strange, I also think it's honestly sad for these fans. Because they have deliberately set themselves up to be disappointed and dig that hole of disappointment ever deeper. Even if Buddie should ever go canon, which I honestly don't think will happen, it won't be at all what they expect. And they'll either leave the fandom or turn on the ship they were so toxically addicted to before.

[scoupsahoy]

i wanna talk about The Ship War going on right now in the 911 fandom (largely on tiktok and twitter) and i'm not a bnf especially in this fandom (and i wouldn't want to be) but i'm kind of hoping people on both sides are willing to read this post anyway because i cannot be the only one completely turned off by it

i finished writing this so i wanna clarify: this is officially aimed at buddie shippers (i am one of you) because i genuinely want to have meaningful discussion and also i'm not exactly defending tommy here. but! i think if bucktommy shippers were interested in reading, there is stuff in here for you too

i have to split this up into sections which is annoying but i won't be able to make any sense without sections so. sorry

1. pre-tommy buddie shipping

so like a lot of people i knew about 911 and buddie entirely through tumblr osmosis, and there was a general attitude of confidence: buddie WILL become canon. if it doesn't... something something. i don't really know the season 6 finale was hard for a lot of you. and after watching, i do really understand why. but.

from an outside perspective, this fandom attitude was nothing like i'd ever really experienced before. i stopped watching supernatural around season 11, several years before gaycas, when confirmed bisexual dean was genuinely outside the realm of possibility.

i was a tjlc believer. i was an episode 4 conspiracist. i have been delusional about gays on my television screen before. so i was really apprehensive at the way buddie fans were moving. not only was buddie GOING to happen, but if it didn't it would be a failure of the network and the showrunners and the actors and it could have been the greatest love story ever told and shipping was not ENOUGH. it had to be canon in order to matter. shipping anything else was fruitless and offensive. this was what i was seeing. and i was like. well there's no way that's going to happen

and then season 7 started airing and there was this reignited hope

and then 7x4 aired.

2. the birth of bucktommy

so i started watching 911 after 7x4 aired. a lot of people did. i'll be honest i did genuinely think that eddie was out and gay and i was like "oh shit is it finally happening??" and then i realized it was some other guy and spend like 4 straight days tumblr deepdiving into it

like i said i was almost exclusively following buddie shippers so my consensus was like. buck and tommy are cute but it's obviously (TO ME) a steppingstone for buddie. after watching the entire show i do still feel that way.

here's the thing though: shipping isn't about what is going to be canon. i'm a marvel fan. my first fandom was fucking icarly, okay, my track record of shipping non-canon couples that actually end up together starts and ends with nbc sitcoms and even then barely. shipping to me is about character analysis and smooshing barbie dolls together with my friends. shipping to me is putting some guy in a blender and another guy performing frankenstein experiments on them

it doesn't matter to me actually that a ship isn't going to end up together, even if i like them. i'm not saying some bucktommy fans don't overstep certain boundaries (that i'll get into) but a FAIR BIT of them know this. a fair bit of them were buddie shippers and a fair bit of them still are. and there's a reason theyre put off

3. social media discourse

the first real piece of morality discourse came from tiktok. i won't namedrop this creator but if you're on tiktok you know who i'm talking about.

this person started the tiktok talking about something that i genuinely do agree with: fans who love tommy but hated all of buck's ex girlfriends should probably perform some self-reflection on the very real misogyny problem in 911 fandom and fandom in general. this i am 1000% behind. a call-in of sorts: hey guys! check yourselves! it is really easy to fall into misogyny especially with gay shipping. though i will argue that buddie shippers could stand to do the same thing (looking at you, people who write fanfic where ana flores is ableist for no reason)

they went on, however, to say that bucktommy shippers Must only like bucktommy because they are a gay ship, And Also Therefore, these people Must Be gay fetishists, as the only reason you would like bucktommy over buddie is because you just want to see men make out with each other. You People don't like gay shipping in the Correct way that i do, you like to gay ship in a nasty fetish way (only slightly exaggerating). you saw that buck and tommy kissed online and you watched the entire show just to watch men make out with each other which is Bad And Wrong.

aside from the fact that this person also literally started watching the show after 7x4 aired (and like i said so did a lot of people. one would think this is a morally neutral thing to do), this struck a nerve with me. this take (which was repeated ad nauseam by everyone in their circle) is just plainly irresponsible.

it is inappropriate to suggest that someone is like. morally reprehensible for *checking my notes* shipping a canon television couple. is tim minear a gay fetishist for writing the bucktommy kiss? is the average viewer a gay fetishist for going "oh i didn't see that coming! they seem like a nice couple"? is my mom a gay fetishist? are you calling my mom a gay fetishist??

this is an argument that i've seen happen in a billion different ways over the past decade and a half of being in fandom spaces by the way. are women allowed to read gay fanfiction? what about gay porn? what if they get off to it? are they allowed to write it themselves? what if they're not straight? what if they're not women? was casey mcquiston fetishizing gay men when they wrote red white and royal blue? is the romance genre allowed to exist with gay men and straight women in it? do you have to check everyone's gender or sexual identity at the login page for ao3 and tumblr dot com to determine if it is morally okay for them to participate in fandom at all?

and then there was the comparisons between bucktommy and buddie fic stat breakdowns: bucktommy's are writing more smut And That's Bad and buddie fans are writing stories with plot And That's Good.

it. is. irresponsible. it is oversimplifying. it is judgmental and above all else it is irrelevant. people could like bucktommy because they think they're hot or because they think theyre interesting or because buck realized he was bisexual or because they think tommy has potential as a character. it is a ship. creating a dichotomy where one ship is the morally good thing to ship and one ship is the morally bad thing to ship is irresponsible and not in the spirit of fandom.

morality and purity conversations in fandom are like. an entirely different can of worms to talk about and this is going to be long enough already. but bucktommy shippers shot back with the same energy:

if you don't like bucktommy then you are homophobic because tommy is gay

i did see quite a bit of this argument because a number of people that id been following did get into bucktommy and i do still follow and like these people

i covered most of my feelings about this type of argument above but to reiterate: it is possible to like different ships without making it a morality competition. it's disingenuous and annoying.

especially that brief stint where people were saying that the bucktommy shipname was a slur against gay men. you can just not like it. you can just not like it and have it end there. it's an ugly shipname but you don't have to make it a moral issue.

especially because then buddie shippers pulled out the trump card:

4. the tommy problem

because these people just watched the entire show in like four weeks (again, neutral statement, i did the same fucking thing) they remember tommy from hen and chimney begins. and. okay

i'm not about to be taken out of context here. i watched bp's video when it came out, i think what was said was wrong, i'm not about to say that being racist was like. cool or excusable 20 years ago. i think there is a discussion to be had here about this though. there's a reason i'm typing this out carefully:

i want to say firstly that there IS a conversation to be had about the social landscape in 2005 and especially pre-obama america for the purposes of a bunch of 20 years olds who were not alive or fully conscious yet. people told casually racist jokes (casual in that they are told casually without intent for violence, not that they are not violent. all racism is violence) and there were fewer social ramifications for those racist jokes in 2005. that does not make them Magically Not Racist. they were. it was not okay. it was, however, Extremely Common. does that make it okay? no.

i'm saying that largely because it seems to ME that tim or whoever wrote that particular episode wrote that joke to paint a picture of where the characters are in the story. chimney is not under bobby. he is not being treated with respect. he is 15 years in the past (from when the episode aired. whatever) it is different. it wasn't supposed to matter who said it

(it did matter and it does matter that it's tommy who said it by the way. because that's like. the universe of the show)

(though my theory - and i'm just being stupid for a sec indulge me it's 3am - is that tim and ryan both LOVE writing in guys named tommy. seriously i've been rewatching glee and when i watched 911 i noticed this too that there are so many characters that we never even meet named tommy. abby's ex for one. my theory is that tim wanted to bring in some guy named tommy for buck's awakening and he realized he already had one. lol.)

SECONDLY. sorry that was longwinded. secondly, i am a person who believes that people are capable of change. 20 years is a long time to grow. even as an adult. again, this does not excuse racism, but it is important anyway.

this is all theoretical but i want you to walk with me: it is possible for a 20-30 year old closeted gay white man with a homophobic captain pre-obama to pick up and not experience consequences for inappropriate comments and casual racism and even be seeking out a parent-like validation from someone who encourages it AND THEN, after 20 years wherein he realizes he's gay, comes out of the closet, i believe it is POSSIBLE for him to unpack his internalized racism, apologize, and grow as a person

obviously these are fictional characters but it is important to my fucking philosophy of life that people are capable of change and having empathy or understanding that in fictional characters is so fucking baseline.

it is important that we as a society can agree that someone's behavior, ideology, and/or biases can change. that like. that just HAS to be possible.

caveat #1 that does not mean that any people of color who are fans of the show have to like tommy or even forgive him (or even like. hen and chim lmao it's kind of clear to me that at least hen doesn't) and i am not going to tell them to

caveat #2 i also understand that there is no explicit acknowledgment of this on screen (i think this is because tim forgot which i find funny but like i said. it still matters that it's tommy regardless of intent) and because of that there technically is nothing To forgive

ALL OF THAT TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT.

even if we are assuming that tommy has learned nothing and has not changed at all. the leap from "tommy is/was racist" to "shipping bucktommy or finding tommy interesting Makes You Racist" is heinous to me.

sometimes people like characters who are shitty people. some of you like tony stark. sorry

it's ridiculous to me because there are plenty of other reasons to dislike bucktommy that doesn't like. vilify random people on the internet. he's not even framed as a particularly good boyfriend! we don't even know if they're boyfriends, for one thing!

i've been complaining about buddie shippers for this entire time but i literally am one of you and that's what pisses me off. you threw the first blow in the morality competition and you are bigger - and you KNOW you are bigger because you are proud of the fact - and you are winning.

you are right about a lot of it: tommy isn't a good guy. there is an active racism problem in this fandom. there is a misogyny problem in this fandom. but by and large buddie shippers have been in the game longer and have much larger followings and there is nasty shit i'm seeing which brings me to

5. social media discourse 2 electric boogaloo: twitter edition

twitter is a cesspool in the best of times but i have seen some shit in the past two weeks that makes me never want to write fanfiction for this fandom or even interact with most of the fans ever again. and i'm serious

there is a big buddie fanfic writer who is like. beloved. if you read buddie fanfiction you've read their work for sure. they started writing bucktommy and buddietommy fics around april. and people are being so nasty about them on twitter it is actually fucking embarrassing.

AND LIKE. god. fandom etiquette is so simple.

when i first started reading buddie fanfic the first thing i noticed was how many fics are locked. and i was like "i wonder why that is"

just look at these tweets. i have kept the author's handle here uncensored but please be normal do not bother this person. i'm sure their ao3 comments are hell enough already

what the fuck is your people's problem i'm serious

i'm like actually appalled. this is embarrassing. this isn't even the most embarrassing thing i've seen buddie stans do recently and it is NOT uncommon. it is not small accounts. you guys are the majority. these tweets have hundreds of likes.

i don't give a shit what this person was writing. i actually don't care. their fics are locked. they write for free.

to take someone's fic outside ao3 is considered bad fandom etiquette. to talk about an author where they don't have an account is generally considered bad fandom etiquette. to complain about fanfiction openly is bad fandom etiquette. i don't care if this is y'all's first fandom. in what world are you going to take to twitter and openly complain about someone writing fanfiction for a ship you don't like.

if i were them i would delete all of the buddie fics or never write buddie again i'm so serious. this is so ridiculous.

and this is sort of the nail in the coffin for me, seeing this tweet the other day:

this tweet has over a thousand likes

this is a larger fandom issue as of recent with the use of like. mental health terms as insults but it actually fucking disgusts me!

i looked at mark's twitter. it's pretty clear to me that he's a troll/having fun/provoking people on purpose but on TOP of that his tweets get at most 35 likes. i checked and this tweet got 21 likes. and over a thousand likes calling him schizophrenic. 24 replies doubling down. 25 retweets. 47 quote tweets. 62 bookmarks. over a thousand likes.

and buddie shippers are the good guys

it is ridiculous to me that as a fandom buddie shippers have created a space where it is impossible to have a meaningful discussion about fandom misogyny, racism, of homophobia because everyone who disagrees with you is morally opposed to you, and yet it is this side of the fandom with enough traction and support to openly bully and mock these people that you have decided are morally reprehensible.

6. in conclusion i'm sorry i know no one read this

fandom in general post-covid has become less of a community based in sharing creativity and the love of something (and i know this intimately as a kpop stan lol). online spaces in general have become something i don't recognize or want to participate in. which sucks. i've been here for a long time.

i know there's not really any way for that group of like 5 or so tiktokers that complain about tommy ad nauseam to see this or even take it seriously. i know there's not any way for those people on twitter to magically understand fandom etiquette or just block the people they don't want to see.

everyone would be happier if they just. blocked and moved on. i know i would. and i have! in a lot of cases. there's a reason i blocked out the names on those tweets (note: i blocked mark's twitter handle. the person who screenshotted it so he wouldn't be notified and then called them schizophrenic did not. because they do not care) because it's not about THEM it's about the whole fucking thing.

and a lot of these people want to be mad. it's why they're so hung up on tommy. like i'm sorry if any bucktommy fan is still reading this but GOD TOMMY HAS BEEN ON SCREEN FOR LIKE TEN MINUTES TOTAL IN THE ENTIRE SHOW. HE DOESN'T EVEN MATTER. JUST ADMIT THIS IS ABOUT A SHIP WAR. IT ISN'T ABOUT HOW GOOD OF A PERSON YOU ARE OR ANYONE IS. IT'S JUST A SHIP WAR. and they want to be miserable. they want to sit in their little echochamber of morally upright big name fans and they want to provoke bucktommy fans into saying something shitty and they love it because they don't really fucking care about the show.

you know how i know? because tommy is the least important part of chimney begins. that is in the best 3 episodes of this entire television show and none of y'all have anything to say about it. because you're just as obsessed with tommy as they are.

[eddiediazismyhusband]

if they’re legitimately planning on hitting us with someone in the hospital within the first 3 episodes of the season that doesn’t scream good things to me….

that’s a midseason finale/season finale thing, especially when bobby was just in the hospital for 2 seconds

i could see it being used as them bringing vics to the hospital (also we know the hospital set from s7 was a staging area last season which could be the same for now) or someone being reckless on a call and one of the other firefam yelling at them (like maybe eddie gets hurt not too badly but enough to get stitches or something and maybe hen is the one to yell at him bc buck is too distraught over it and hen knows what he’s going through bc she’s lost a child before, but she knows that it won’t donsny good to get yourself hurt over it or something like that) but if they’re actively putting someone in a dire enough situation that lands them in the hospital already in the first 3 ish episodes (judging on how they’ve only been shooting a couple weeks they can’t be that far into the season yet) it doesn’t give me good vibes of where they’re going with stuff if they wanna waste time and resources on something so (imo) lackluster

i don’t want the front half of the season to be a coma dream/hallucination… being a season opener is such low stakes bc there’s no “are they going to be okay??” bc of course they are… they’re not gonna kill off a main in the first couple episodes. it’s why, for me, the cruise ship arc fell a little flat because there was absolutely no way they were going to kill bobby or athena in the season opener…. people would quit watching the show if they did bc that casts a pall over the whole season that people aren’t going to want to watch.

so if someone ends up in the hospital, not only are there low stakes, but it’s opening the possibility of a coma dream/alternate universe situation (which is once again just copy/pasting a past plotline rather than coming up with something new) and it only serves to delay them actually committing to buddie canon even more…

not to mention that IF it were something intended to lead to buddie canon…. like i said before it would be so low stakes and rehashing of the lightning strike arc which would, again, be so low stakes and wouldn’t make that moment much of a desperate moment of “i thought i was going to lose you” (like maybe it would to the characters obv but we as an audience wouldn’t feel that bc again NO SHIT THEYRE NOT GONNA KILL OFF A MAIN 2 EPISODES IN so it loses that tension at least for me) maybe if they had done something in earlier seasons to set a precedent of “there’s a real chance that we are going to kill off this person” it would have a different impact, but the backlash the show would receive from actually killing off a main character in the first couple episodes would be too much of a risk this late in the game; so again it loses all of the stakes

imo it would just basically be almost a mockery of all the previous near death experiences in previous seasons that had all the promise and potential of leading to buddie canon yielding no results and it wouldn’t hold the emotional impact that i would want to have from seeing these characters hurt… it’d feel like such a waste of my time to once again be subjected to watching them get put through shit with barely any catharsis.

and it also gives them this opportunity to dangle buddie over our heads again if they went the “coma dream” route and had them being a couple or something so they could be like “see we technically gave you guys buddie in the show so we don’t have to commit to it anymore!”

the thing with previous season openers (earthquakes, tsunami, damn break) there was a sense of urgency to those situations that made the characters feel like they were both in dnager while simultaneously being okay in the kong run bc they never actually ended up seriously injured— most of the narrative tension and drama came from the unsure feeling of how they were going to get around this, and from the amount of civilians dying in the disaster/the impact those civilian deaths have on the firefam. (Even in the tsunami, we knew Buck and Chris weren’t going to die, but the tension and the emotional investment cane from actually seeing them reacting to the tragedy rather than just… one of them gets hurt and gets put in the hospital and ohhh so sad are they gonna make it???) the focus wasn’t on if they were gonna die or not, it was on how are they going to make it out of this if that makes sense; and putting someone in the hospital immediately at the start of the season doesn’t carry that same weight that these season openers need, and it would leave me as an audience member feeling like i just watched a character i love lay in a hospital bed for a few episodes and then they were fine.

yes, we knew buck wasn’t gonna die in the lightning strike arc bc ofc they aren’t going to kill off buck, but the tension came in the form of how late in the season it was, and everything that had built up to that point so far in s6 in his development. If the strike had happened in the first episode, that arc would bot have had the emotional intensity it did in canon because there was no build up.

overall, i know i’m in a low percentage of fans w this mindset but i’m kind of over the random out of nowhere trauma they put the firefam through, especially when it goes nowhere… 7x9/7x10 are prime examples of thst where they built up this whole “is bobby going to be okay” thing around the last couple episodes and then he was fine within like 15 minutes.

i don’t want them wasting their time on throwing people into comas or life threatening emergency room visits (especially this early in the season) when they have too much they need to fix narratively after s7 fucked everything up in the last episode. the beginning of the season needs to be focused on getting gerrard out of there, breaking up bt, showing tommy getting some kind of satisfying comeuppance for his awful behavior, as well as getting eddie out of this mental rut that they’ve fallen back on yet again rather than giving eddie actual development (yadda yadd smth about s hamster wheel).

i don’t want them doing another coma dream bc we already saw that in canon and it went nowhere. i don’t want eddie getting hurt and chris coming back 2 episodes in bc then what the fuck was the point of 7x10? how is that going to be him growing and moving past this mental stronghold on his past if we’re just gonna have his son come back so quickly?

i don’t want them keeping eddie on this hamster wheel of being the mental unstable one when we’ve seen this focus on him over and over and over… what was the point of his “development” in s6 of moving on and saying goodbye to shsnnon and then ripping her back out of the grave to dance her body around again if it’s not gonna finally be over and done with? chris coming back so quickly and eddie getting hurt is not a solution to that problem and it’s shitty storytelling to try and backtrack on a plot that was so forced to begin with.

and doing that through a low stakes hospital stay with a possible coma dream within the first couple episodes seems like both a cop out, and an opportunity to delay the character development they keep insisting eddie needs before he is “ready” for buck (which i have feelings on that point of view but that’s a whole different post worth entirely)

anyway, sorry for the rant. i just had that sitting on my chest and needed to get it out there… i hope this all makes sense ik sometimes brain to words filter is ehh but 🤷

[heretherebedork]

Weird 2023 QL Awards (Late to the Party edition)

Couple That Made Me Feel Most Vindicated 2023

I was suddenly thinking of Weird Awards for 2023 and I'm just gonna be clear that the first one I thought of was 'Couple That Made Me Feel Most Vindicated' and that was Tanthai and Tee from Laws of Attraction where I saw multiple people comparing like them at the start of the show to supporting rapist characters and claiming that made everyone who shipped them bad people only for the ending to show us that they were completely innocent and trapped by an abusive and controlling father and it was the sweetest, sweetest moment because that post about 'supporting someone who hit a child with his car' turned out to be not only completely wrong but was never followed up to my knowledge by any kind of acknowledgement that they were wrong.

Most Punishing Show That I Finished 2023

The Promise. Nothing else could possibly win this award. And, no, it doesn't get a picture or a gif. Fuck this show. Second place in this category goes to A Boss and A Babe.

Not A BL But Still Loved It 2023

Midnight Museum took my breath away and made me so happy it should probably be illegal and, no, it wasn't canonically a BL but I want you to look at this gifs and tell me it wasn't one of the queerest thing to air despite itself. Midnight Museum 2 when?

I Loved It Way More Than The More Popular Shows Airing At The Time 2023

My Dear Gangster Oppa was a blessing of a show that should have gotten so much more love and, no, I don't care about the pacing it was so damn cute and so good and I loved it the whole time. What a perfect show and yes I still think it's better than Playboyy will ever be.

I Fucking Lost My Mind 2023

La Pluie's soulmate narrative and more specifically these two boys destroyed me, rebuilt me and drove me to write more meta than any other show that finished airing last year because this show was so good it probably should have been illegal and these two were just so perfect. The narrative of learning to like someone and slowly falling in love only to start questioning everything because of a soulmate connection and then realizing that your confusion hurt someone you love and realizing you genuinely have to make up for it and make choices and not just let fate decide!? My entire heart. I love them so much and I very much doubt many shows will live up to this because they truly did it all.

Japan Gets an Award 2023

Because dear lord did a lot of their shows make me go bonkers. This not a specific award, this is just for the entire country blowing my mind repeatedly.

I Actually Liked Both The Main And The Side Couple 2023

I mean, it had to be. Kiseki got me into both couples and, hell, even into the barely there couple of the boss and his man and I loved every single one of them to an amount unheard of. Every single boy was amazing, they all got good endings, everyone was together and we got love all around. My Dear Gangster Oppa could have been here if the secondary couple had gotten a real ending but the show didn't give me a kiss, damnit!

I will open this up, if you have any specific really weird awards you think I could give, feel free to send me an ask and I'll... award it?

Anyway, 2023 has been a wild, wild year in BL and I'm glad to have spent it here with y'all. Nowhere else I'd rather be.

[watchingyoufromthestars]

Finally cleaned this up so here’s my DnDads ultimate ship opinions list. I was waiting until after s2 ended to clean this up in case I had any final opinion changes with the last few episodes. Please don’t bash me for any of these. The DnDads fandom is generally very nice but shipping discourse is something that can get heated no matter the fandom.

Dads

Henry Darryl: very neutral. I understand the ship I just never fully got on the boat

Henry Glenn: absolutely fucking feral about them do not get me started on Glennry

Darryl Glenn: feral in a different way that I don’t know how to describe other than toxic yaoi in the way that they’re damaged but refuse to talk about it so they kiss about it instead

Loveeeeeeee polydads but only as Henry/Glenn/Darryl. Not really a Ron shipper I love him and Samantha too much. Ron and Glenn’s friendship is very important to me though

In terms of Jodie, I don’t really ship him with any of the main dads, ESPECIALLY not Glenn. Even if Jimmy didn’t play Jodie I’d still never ship them. Wish Scamster was real and not completely a scam because they’re literally a crackship become real except it was never a crackship before canon. It’s surprising to me that they weren’t really shipped beforehand

Henry Mercedes: THE T4T OF ALL TIME BABEYYYYY. Absolutely iconic couple, fate was in their favor with how they met they were destined for each other

Darryl Carol: After hearing how Darryl talked about his family in Heaven, I was actually really happy they ended up not getting divorced. They clearly had a rough patch as seen in s1, but they genuinely love each other and I love how devoted to her Darryl is. The little finger puppet he made of her in the time out zone… :,)

Glenn Morgan: GLORGAN!!!!!!!!! Oh my god these two tear me apart. I am feral for Glorgan angst there’s too much to work with. More people need to start calling them Glorgan instead of Morglenn please please please please pretty please indulge me in my silly ship name

Ron Samantha: sobbing. They’re so sweet. The distinction that Samantha is also a little silly is very important to me. They love each other so fucking much

Kiddads

Nicky Sparrow: didn’t realize how much I love them for a good while but when I did oh god I love them so so much. T4T it’s so real to me that they’re both trans

Nicky Lark: used to like it but yall mischaracterize Nicky so much in fics. If yall want toxic yaoi just ship Grant and Lark I’m so serious

Nicky Terry: sobs. They were best friends. I don’t personally ship them but the fact that Terry said he was his best friend… that line rattles around in my brain so often

Nicky Grant: recently learned this might get shipped and has THE coolest ship name. Crossfire I love you but for the ship name alone

Sparrow Terry: I think I’ve seen this shipped a few times but only in the context of Terry/Nicky/Sparrow. Not my personal cup of tea though

Sparrow Grant: I don’t see this shipped too often but they have the worst ship name ever /aff. Wtf is a spant lol. Also I’m too much team transfem Sparrow to feel comfortable shipping this

Lark Terry: do not know the appeal of Gun Control but their ship name is fun

Lark Grant: toxic yaoi central. They both need intense therapy but them both being so fucked up is what makes them interesting not that that’s healthy though

Terry Grant: I see them more in a qpr place than anything romantic. I have one fic of them that’s bookmarked on Safari because I think about a part from it from time to time

Don’t have any poly ships for them

In terms of s2 spouses I so desperately wished we could’ve seen more of them. We barely get to see them

Nicky Cassandra: Telling Taylor his dad was a good man and that she misses him every day makes me think they parted on good terms. But then Nicky disappeared because of FBI shit. In another life maybe they could’ve worked.

Sparrow Rebecca: more ugly sobbing. I’m unsure on my sparroace thoughts if they’d end up getting divorced post-finale but I know they’re not fully separating or breaking up. They really are in love but it��s unconventional and messy.

Terry Veronica: I think the reveal that Terry is infertile is a nice touch to their relationship. It sounds weird to say and I feel like I might word this all weirdly. Him being unable to have bio kids but finding love in someone who wants to raise a kid with him anyways. Veronica finding new love again after a supposedly abusive relationship. Both of those combined is something I really love.

Grant Marco: Canon gays ftw. The Titanic episode was so generous in letting us get to see their dynamic. Obviously Grant still has a long way to go in finding self love but I’m so happy he found someone who can support him and loves him back like this.

Teens

Normal Scary: ugly sobbing over them I love them so much. Cradling my madomagi and tma aus with them as madohomu and jmart

Normal Taylor: yearning for the early s2 days like when they went to Sonic and made some devious plan off screen I wish they had more silly interactions together. Was truly fed with the kareoke intro and them bonding over costume making for a minute. Tayloak could be so interesting if there was more material to work with

Normal Link: Childhood BFFs to Lovers; I wish they could’ve hung out more as kids but all that happened

Normal Hermie: I get the hype but I have personal reasons for feeling neutral on them that I wish I could get over. Good soup though /ref

Scary Taylor: see them too much as a sibling dynamic to ever ship them

Scary Link: respect to all y’all shippers but I do not gothcleats and will leave it at that forever. I can only accept the finale with my transfem Link hc

Scary Hermie: I love Scene Partners. These stupid kids and reflecting each other /aff

Taylor Link: one that I can’t believe I didn’t ship sooner they’re so silly

Link Hermie: I think this one is very funny (/pos) but not my personal vibe

Love love LOVEEEEEEEE Marloakworthy AUGH. A giant triangle of everyone paralleling each other

Polywagon I love you; cannot believe you’re real and genuinely canon. This is just Homestuck again when Hussie said all ships are canon (DnDads never beating the Homestuck allegations from me)

Scary Erica: wish there were more interactions I love Erica so much but alas she’s a guest NPC. “You awaken a lightness in me” sapphic ass Scary I know what you are

[10yearsatleast]

Yknow I feel like watching the world burn today so let's do some playful and not so playful jab at some AoT Ships >;}

Warning: THIS IS JUST FOR FUN- Don't be pulling a Reiner on me and feeding me to Titans cause they're your OTP we all just F-ing around right now and it's MY take. I haven't really been exposed to why some ships work or not I'm sorta ignorant.

Warning 2: I KNOW VERY LITTLE- These are MY GUESSES as to why peeps ship this and just my take on them. I kind of like some of them but some of them I'm side eying so let's all share and be chill like that.

Ready? Let's go!

ErenxMikasa: You ship this because it's the first ship/heteronormative couple Shonen writers always prop up and as a fan you accept whatever Isayama gives you regardless of chemistry and logic.

ErenxArmin: You ship this because you've seen these two grow together and notice they have a closeness the token Canon "Hetero" couple doesn't. History will say they were close friends.

ErenxHistoria: You ship this because you saw there was chemistry and feel it had the strongest ground to grow but got screwed over and feel bitter because the first ship always wins and logic be damned.

ErenxSasha: You ship this because honestly.... Why do you ship this? I mean I get it but I don't yknow??

ErenxAnnie: You exist?

ErenxConnie: You ship this because damn it they're both bastards and you love more chaotic bastards in your life.

ErenxJean: You ship this because you have the hots for a rival dynamic and you like to believe any call outs and aggression can be solved by saying it's sexual tension.

ErenxReiner: You ship this because you got a thing for bigger guys railing the scrub even if the tension isn't as prevalent.

ErenxBertholdt: You ship this?

ErenxLevi: You ship this because the bare minimum of emotion Levi showed to Eren was enough to get you riled and you haven't recovered from your Fujoshi mindset yet. Plus age be damned by your take.

Erenx[Minor Character]: You're a mad lad.

Erenx[Other]: You fight a battle not many would

ArminxMikasa: You ship this because you know deep down neither of them could function in a relationship without Eren so they're coping hard and so are you.

ArminxAnnie: You ship this because you saw the chemistry and love the malewifexgirlboss trope and also love that just like you Armin ignores real atrocities for cute guys/girls

ArminxHistoria: You ship this because.... Wait you ship this?

ArminxSasha: You ship this because you love the dumb girl x smart boy trope even though you're fighting a losing battle given their limited time

ArminxConnie: You love the straight man and clown dynamic

ArminxJean: You ship this because you feel like Jean is the only one who truly saw Armin but at the same time you also know Jean deserves better and probably ship them because it's the silver medal to JeanxMarco in your head.

ArminxReiner: You love the stereotypical jock x nerd trope and feel like it's pseudo ReinerxBertholdt since Bert had to die for Armin to live

ArminxBertholdt: They're underrated and you're obsessed because you feel like if they had a chance they'd be closer friends than Eren and Reiner were to them

ArminxLevi: You and Levi are both coping with the fact Erwin is dead and you ship it because you don't care about the age gap and know Levi sees Armin as the replacement.

Arminx[Minor Character]: You deserve more.

Arminx[Other]: You choose the nonsensical battles and consequence be damned

MikasaxHistoria: You ship them because you feel like they're too good for Eren and they're the equivalent of LevixErwin just fem and younger.

MikasaxSasha: You ship them because you recognize that Sasha is the first friend Mikasa had outside of her childhood friend group and you think if Mikasa touched grass she'd be better off.

MikasaxAnnie: You ship them because you love strong girls and have a strong thing for the short gremlin girlfriend and her tall handler. Plus you get scaroused by tension and they had a lot of it too

MikasaxConnie: Wait you ship them??

MikasaxJean: You ship them because you like Jean and you feel like he deserved a W even though you know the two have different values and he will always be the silver medal in Mikasa's life.

MikasaxReiner: I'm assuming you ship them because they both were top in their class and you love the perfect duo even though we all know one of them would end up dead in the street if we aren't careful

MikasaxBertholdt: You are a unicorn hidden in the rough

MikasaxLevi: You ship them because you feel they're practically the same person and as the token bad ass of their trio you want them together because "like attracts like". That and to you the age gap and genetics don't matter.

Mikasax[Minor Character]: You're a brave soul for assuming Mikasa would notice anyone else.

Mikasax[Other]: You are one soldier in a sea of teams and armies against you.

HistoriaxYmir: You ship them because you are desperate for LGBTQ rep in anime and don't mind it falls into the stereotypical token gay/lesbian ship because problematic representation is better than no representation.

HistoriaxSasha: You ship them because you like cute girls??

HistoriaxAnnie: You either like the tough girl x soft girl ship or you REALLY like blonde haired blue eyed girls.

HistoriaxConnie: .... You are a unique breed

HistoriaxJean: You think Eren doesn't deserve someone like Historia/Mikasa and you think Jean doesn't deserve/deserves better than Mikasa

HistoriaxReiner: You supported Reiner sniffing her letter.

HistoriaxBertholdt: ????

HistoriaxLevi: You live vicariously through her even though Levi choked the shit out of her that one time.

Historiax[Minor Character]: You think Historia is too good for the main cast

Historiax[Other]: You crave change

SashaxAnnie: You feel like Sasha could fix her better than Armin could.

SashaxConnie: You ship them because you think they're a fun dynamic and love their friendship and honestly they're the best two of the whole series so it felt natural to you

SashaxJean: You love that they're both idiots but one tries to be fake while the other owns their nonsense. You may also feel like Jean deserves more with someone he spends more time with

SashaxReiner: You feel like if given a chance they would be the sweetest couple and probably live out your RoguexWarrior through them

SashaxBertholdt: No really you people exist?

SashaxLevi: You ship it because Sasha is the only one with balls to tell Levi when he talks too much. Plus you don't mind ignoring age gaps.

Sashax[Minor Character]: You just want your girl happy

Sashax[Other]: You crave better

AnniexConnie: You love the Idiot Guy x Girlboss dynamic and you don't care if it don't make sense. Connie is the trophy husband.

AnniexJean: You feel like Annie's attitude makes Jean scareoused

AnniexReiner: You ship them because they're the two bastards who didn't deserve a 2nd chance at life and are probably both going to hell but at least it's together

AnniexBertholdt: You ship them because you think Bertholdt deserved better and would've loved to see it explored if a brunette didn't have to be sacrificed for it.

AnniexLevi: You don't wanna get shit for shipping Levi with Mikasa so you ship him with Annie since it's a decent substitute age gap be damned

Anniex[Minor Character]: You feel like Annie deserves better

Anniex[Other]: You believe if she had someone who was an outsider to it all she may have been better than what she was

ConniexJean: You ship them because you love that they're both idiots and can flip flop between bros and bros who experimented while being nonchalant about it

ConniexReiner: You ship them because you like how close he and Reiner were and you feel like despite the bullshit they would've been happier without pussy

ConniexBertholdt: You ship them..... Idk why??

ConniexLevi: NANI!?!?

Conniex[Minor Character]: You feel like your boy could pull random strangers

Conniex[Other]: You're a unicorn fighting a war

JeanxReiner: You ship them because you feel like their bond is strong and despite being oppositional they grew close. Plus you don't mind ignoring that Reiner killed Marco.

JeanxBertholdt: Seriously you exist?

JeanxLevi: Age gap be damned you like what you see!

JeanxPieck: You ship it because you don't want Jean and Mikasa together but you do want Jean to have his black haired beauty still

JeanxMarco: You ship them because you love their friendship and you feel like they could've been gay husbands with a pet cat if given a chance lol

Jeanx[Minor Character]: You feel like anyone outside of the main cast would've been better for Jean than what he got

Jeanx[Other]: You just want Jean to have better.

ReinerxBertholdt: You ship them because they were childhood friends and you feel like they're both pretty enough and knowing each other as kids is enough to let a ship sail

ReinerxLevi: No but like really why? Is it cause Erwin's dead and you don't care about age gaps?

Reinerx[Minor Character]: You feel like that minor character could fix Reiner's baggage

Reinerx[Other]: You feel like any character could fix Reiner's baggage.

BertholdtxLevi: What?

Bertholdtx[Minor Character]: You feel like he could bag them if given a chance

Bertholdtx[Other]: You want Bertholdt happy.

LevixHange: You ship them because with how small Levi's dating pool is you felt like it was the strongest and you're obsessed with the "Polar Opposites Attract" trope even though Levi has to touch Hange with three layers of gloves.

LevixErwin: You ship them because you like dilfs and you feel like Erwin shouldve become colossal titan.

LevixMiche: What?

LevixPetra: You ship them because Petra was the one female character who was close to him/in his circle and you love the SunshinexStormy vibes they give.

Levix[Minor Character]: You feel like this Minor Character could change things up with him

Levix[Other]: You're an intriguing creature.

AoT CharacterxOC/ OCxCanon: You're an awesome ass peep who wants these characters to have better than what they're given- And you're simping bad too

And there we go that's most of the ships I could think of- Some strong some not so much.

Remember this was just for FUN- If you ship them GREAT if not that's Cool. Let's all be chill and if you feel called out just know it's not that deep.

Anyways if you think I should do an "Anti Ship" Version lemme know. Fair's fair after all!

[hellonearthtoday]

3, 5, 7, 14

Thank you 😌I needed a break from this damn drawing

3. Who is your favorite character outside the main 7?

This is kind of harddd man 😭 born to say Cherry forced to say Curly. Cherry's a character that we actually saw more of, but I have this idea of Curly in my head that's so perfect to me...he's like half my oc...I'm superrr attached to Cherry but I do have to be real w myself cuz whenever I see Curly's name mentioned in any fic or any post it's like a wild lion sighting i get sooo hype

5. What are your favorite ships?

this is NOT hard. My favorite ship is purly I'm an evil purly shipper. I don't typically do shipping because I'm that aroace who is romance repulsed not just for myself but in the media I consume too, but idk something about their dynamic I've half made up in my head abt them...I guess I just really like the dynamic of 2 bros who are friends who might also fall in love We dont know

MARBIT. I really like couples who just giggle together. Couples who justtt rock w eachotherrr something about them....Also they got that forbidden love thing going on and idk the power of laughter could save them. But other than that I'm a platonic power ranger

7. What are your fave non-romantic relationships? (This can be close friends, familial, enemies or even just acquaintances)

This thang is about to get so long. I love non romantic relationships sooo bad I'm romance's biggest hater.

TBH can i say purly here too....they got a friends to lovers thing going on I'll shut up abt them for once this time though.

Johnny and Pony are really the best friends ever, and my idea of them might be fandom crutched more than what's shown in canon, but It don't matter anyway that book came out a bajillion years ago.

Johnny and Dally. I know the jally nation is huge and unstoppable and I can kindaaa see where you're coming from even w how I am...but in my head they aren't brotherly or romantic they're a secret third thing. No labels no nothing. They have something that none of us can touch and it's not romantic to me but they're tgt in every universe

Dally and Ponyboy idk they're funny to me. Like 2 cats put into a fighting ring and one is evil and one just want to sleep and go home idk

CHERRY AND PONYBOY I START CHEWING ON THE WALLS WHEN I SEE THEM PIT AGAINST EACHOTHER IN FICS OR WHEN CHERRY IS BARELY THERE goddd i msis them so much there's something so special to me about an opposite sex friendship that prevails even though it's not seen as a normal thing people do at the time.

14. Tell us five of your headcanons you basically see as canon

POC shepards. It's just kind of real man. I like seeing all the different versions the fandom comes up with but they're a black latino family to me <3

Johnny and Curly hating each other so bad. I think it's the funniest thing ever. Especially if they just don't like eadchother solely off of vibes ...or Curly doesn;t like Johnny bcz Johnny doesn't like him and he's like wtf 😕

It's never said outright but Johnny has anxiety disorder to me.

Ponyboy has low empathy and he just does things out of the kindness of his heart and not bcz "treat people how u want to be treated" bcz whatever LOL! he's autistic to me whatt who said that

PB talks really casually but also somehow rlly awkwardly, and u think he's just chill like that but he's just autistic. He could hate your ass but he talks like some unsocialized forest nymph so you dont know bcz he sounds so docile

[sparkanonymous]

Let me ramble about my ship opinions real quick. I gotta say something to somebody while my siblings procrastinate watching what's available.

⚠️ Total Drama Reboot Season 2 Spoilers ⚠️

We're gonna talk about the canon ships this time. It makes it easier to talk about.

Caleb x Priya

They might not have gotten together yet, but Millie said that Priya has a crush on him. I really don't see this one. She showed no interest in him the first season - probably didn't help that he was only in one episode - so the first sign of interest from her was when Priya had mentioned looking him up on social media. I don't like Caleb as a character very much; I think he's kind of boring. Plus, it still feels like the writers don't really know what to do with him since he's barely done anything yet, besides literally carrying his team in the third episode. The writer's paired them up as the strong couple and haven't really gone beyond that yet. I personally would've wanted Damiya because there was a more interest last season and because Damien is just a better character, in my opinion.

0/10

Raj x Bowie

This relationship is by far one of the more nuanced ones we've gotten out of Total Drama as a whole; Gwent and Duncney were great in their first season, but after that, they made it so painful for me to like them. If you look at my profile, you can tell Rajbow is one of my favorites. I think they're cute, and I hope that we get to see them be assholes to other people together at some point. Maybe even with Wayne included. Hell, I'll just take fanfiction if the writers don't provide. I like that they're spending more time together doing various things and that Raj isn't afraid to scold Bowie when he thinks he's doing something wrong. I think they have an easier time discussing things, even if Bowie is technically lying to Raj right now about not cheating. A lot of their bonding felt a little rushed last season. There was the scene where they were going to talk by the lake, right before Julia found out about the video posted on her social media account (does she still have that account?). That was only a ten second scene. There were so many quick moments, blink and you'll miss them. They're more obvious now, longer too. I like that.

10/10

MK x Julia

I know I said canon ships, but... but COME ON. This is canon. I'm not taking any other opinions. Anyway, I did notice when people started shipping these two last season, and I'll be honest; I didn't see it. This new season, though, has made me see a new light. I think the writer's felt like they had more leeway and like they had a better grasp on these two's personalities. MK was always a bit of a troublemaker and thief, and she would definitely take the easier way of winning than to actually try if she had the choice. Julia doesn't want to get voted off, so she'll take cheating to win, knowing that she's always on the chopping block when Bowie has both Raj and Wayne on his side. The writer's are really playing up their flirting, too, so whether they actually get together in the season or not, their relationship will not be forgotten.

9/10

Ripper x Axel

I'm gonna be so for real right now; this caught me so off guard. Out of all the characters they wanted to pair up, I didn't think Ripper would be an option. I do like him more this season, but he still makes me kind of uncomfortable, especially in the second episode where he butters himself up while only wearing his swimsuit. I cringe. Axel being into him? For why? I don't know what's going on up in that brain of hers, but this is awesome! I didn't expect to like their relationship as much as I do, and when I found out it was canon, I was buzzing. I don't know why I was so excited, but I was, and that's all that matters to me. I don't like poetry, and neither does Ripper, but the fact he put that aside to impress Axel is really sweet to me. Ripper has officially gotten himself good points and is no longer my least favorite character. I hope these two get along well and don't do the thing Emma and Chase did, where they constantly try to get a rise out of the other and break up every twenty minutes. I do believe we should've gotten more interest in them last season, but I think the only interaction they got was when Axel kicked Ripper off the ship.

7/10

I do feel bad for the Axel x Nichelle shippers, but just because it's not canon doesn't mean that you should stop shipping it. Both Axel and Ripper are a bit fruity anyway, so even if they hadn't gotten together, they would've been shipped with other characters by the fandom regardless.

[pumpkinsy0]

PUMPKIN I NEED YOU TO GIVE ME AS MANY REASONS WHY PURLY IS THE BEST SHIP!! MY FRIEND IS TRYING TO CONVINCE ME THAT IT SUCKS AND I NEED TO PROVE HER WRONG

-🍵🧊

this feels like the equivalent of giving the bat signal in the sky for me to come

ANYWAYS LETS GO🚨🚨🚨

shipping papercut is like making a sandwich at subway, u can say it sucks all u want, but my brother in christ, U made it that way, this ship is like one of thee “u can do whatever the fuck u want w these two and u can make it make sense” ship u can possibly have in this fandom, if u dont like papercut, maybe its just UR rendition of it u dont like, pick it up n try it again w different things added to it to see if u like it🙄🙄

this ship is literally at the VERY BASE of it, opposites that compliment each other attracting and high school sweethearts and ur telling me ur not at least a lil interested🤨🤨AND I WASNT KISSING W THE ARTISTIC LIBERTY U CAN TAKE W THESE TWO, they can literally be enemies to lovers, that aloof couple trope, fake dating that turned real, u can even make ur own way on how they got together, u can pick and choose its like an all u can eat buffet, ur not rlly “trapped by canon” here

these r literally two dumbasses together like all the time, just imagine the dumb but sweet things they find themselves doin, and the ppl they annoy, just have a heart

if u like angst, curly was in the reformatory for 6 months after ponys life was quite literally changed forever, curly doesnt quite understand his own emotions, pony tries to see the good in the world while curlys always in trouble, AND THERES OTHERS IF U JUST DIP UR TOES INTO SHIPPING EM, the angst potential is RIGHT there🗣️🗣️

at the very base of this ship, theres nothing wrong w it, theres no weird age gap, they wouldnt be abusive towards each other, and ik some ppl have issues w this but also, but its a rare “not dating within the gang” ship, so u would HAVE to go out of ur WAY to make it weird, literally nothing wrong w this ship

if u love the relationship pony has w the gang, this ship can definitely help u expand on ponys relationship w everyone as a whole and u can show off just how protective the guys can become when it comes to pony in his own romantic relationships, what other ship u know is doin that🤨🤨BARELY ANY OF EM IF U DID NAME SOME🗣️🗣️🗣️

honestly same thing goes w the shepards, theres no other ship where u have angela and tim’s relationships w curly being explored through any other ship

while pony and curly r friends during the outsiders, its obvious they arent THAT close to each other, and so what i find interesting about this ship is that u can imagine their own little relationship actually building up and the trust in each other growing, as time goes on, i just think its cool to see them actually flourish, just make something entirely new because of the other and with each other, in a different way from other ships in this fandom

im a literal suckerrrr for cultural hcs so i love when theres cultural aspects actually shown with this ship i think its so cool bc it can get pretty intimate, like curly showing and introducing pony to parts of his culture???? so intimate actually SO underrated, and thats rlly only something i see done w the shepards and it rubs off on this ship as well and i love it 1000/10 (while we here can i convince u of haitian shepards🤔🤔 /lh)

they have shared experiences!!! yes they r opposites attract but they r also just some guys who r put in the same situation, trying to navigate life and protect each other, together, and even in their personal lives, theres things that should push them away from the other but it doesnt, they r this fandoms ship equivalent of the indomitable human spirit and thats all bc they r stupid lil dudes together

are u not a sucker for a guy whos pretty much been closed off emotionally a good chunk of his life finding someone to share his life w and finally finding learning to chillax once in a while w that person and that person alone cause theyre special to em?? boooooo🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱thats such a good trope

this is like the only ship where u actually have “rival” gangs interacting w each other,,,WHERE IS UR SENSE OF ADVENTURE

every shipper of them is literally so cool, like literally, ive never met a shitty shipper of these two, shipping them is like having a vip pass, and its not even like a huge group of ppl, its a small community, we r like a quiet village, unlike SOME SHIPS HERE🙄🙄

ANYWAYS i rest my case, ur just bein a lil haterrrr

if this aint convince ur friend that they arent at least a lil good, the problem isnt the ship,,,its ur friend,,,drop em immediately, but if this did??? welcome to the cool club

[buddiebeginz]

I hear what you’re saying and I love and appreciate the positivity but I’m just tired at this point. It feels like Fox all over again where its roads leading to buddie until the end of the season when it’s suddenly *storylines drive off in a random unsatisfying direction for Buck and Eddie and their LI’s* as the network goes hahah you silly shippers. You’re insane for thinking that was happening. We have no idea what you’re talking about or why you would even think that was a possibility. (But please stick around as we gaslight you into thinking it’s happening again next season before we do this all over at the end. 😜)

I understand why you'd feel that way and trust me I've been around for all of it and been burnt by the show time and time again so I get how you feel but I do believe this time is different. I think we're closer now to Buddie than we have ever been before.

If Buddie wasn't happening I truly believe Tim would have handled Buck's coming out in a way different way. He's not stupid and he knows how much people ship Buddie. Yet he made Buck's bi awakening ep all about Eddie. He's also had Buck and Eddie more connected than ever this season. There's also been very little of B/T and T*mmy. That's not the way you get an audience to become invested in a new ship. If Tim was really all about T*mmy and B/T we would have had more development with them yet they've barely had any real meaningful conversations

I also think that there would have been so much less press about Buddie. We've had more talk about Buddie by major press sites (ones that never talked about them before) like Rolling stone and People mag than we've ever had before. Tim and ABC (and the actors) could have made the decision early on this season to answer the Buddie question a couple of times to be firm and make sure people knew it wasn't in the plans. Yet not only have they not shut Buddie down but they continue to talk about it time and time again and the response is always basically that they want to take their time and do the story right. Also remember that questions are preapproved by the network and the actors team. If they didn't want to talk about Buddie they wouldn't be like in previous seasons when most of the time they didn't.

I get being scared to get your hopes up and of being let down again I'm scared about that too. More than anything I just really want to see Buck and Eddie finally be together. Not even just because I ship them but because I know how momentous and important it will be when that happens. I'm also tired of waiting for 911 to finally bring them together but I think we just have to be patient for a little longer because Tim and the rest of them only have one chance to get this right. I know a lot of us have been waiting years but considering they just moved to ABC and Tim just came back in a way it's like we're starting over again. But that's been a good thing I think for the characters and the show and everything feels like it's on a good track for Buddie to happen way more than we were after seasons 5 and 6.

Another thing is that the closer a will they/won't they ship gets to finally coming together shows will usually up the drama so we think it's not going to happen so then when it does it's more emotionally rewarding. So whatever is in store for Buddie right now even if they have a falling out (like some of the spoilers hint to) and even if B/T make things official going into s8 that doesn't meant Buddie is off the table. S7 did the most to let us know that Buck and Eddie know each other and get each other and are there for each other more than anyone else is for them and that relationship will always shine through above any other.

Try not to let the drama in fandom and whatever happens in the finale get you down. We can and always will be able to ship Buddie and celebrate that relationship regardless of whether or not they're canon. Message anytime. ❤️

[punkeropercyjackson]

In general white queer Atsv fans seem to be under the impression the poc of the Spidercast have to basically be turned white personality and presentation wise to act queer which is very harmful at worst and really annoying at best.Sorry not sorry but Miles is never gonna have some Love,Simon shit going on with Hobie and he dosen't need a bi awakening considering that realistically he probably knows he's bi already by online things and extra not sorry but trans boy Miles is nothing like M.cu Peter who's the actual disgrace on the Spiderman legacy Miles haters think Miles is and if Miles needs a queer awakening by another Spiderperson,she'd be a trans girl egg that was cracked by Gwen and it makes way more sense than 'Hobie gives Miles his first gay panic' and i can't emphasize enough how much Punkflower is more like a lot of poc4poc m/f ships than they are any bland white gay ones and Miles dosen't even have to be transfem in the context for it to be accurate

Much like this,a significant amount of Ghostflower content has Miles acting white to make it conform to norms rather than a proper transmasc4transfem couple i.e existing completely outside of cisheteronormativity and Gwen is self-inserted into by certain people in the fandom who can't accept she's not a racist weirdo like them but a genuinely realistic and awesome trans girl who's good to the characters of color and that the jealousy scene was ooc and only existed to make Gwen look bad and screw over Margo even further and it's important to note she's never been mean to Margo nor expressed actual dislike of her as a person.Margo is magically not part of the poly Spiderband despite deadass being Miles' crush and when black queer women BUILT the lgbt community and Pavitr is basically had microaggressions thrown at him nonstop by feminizing him because white westerners don't know what actual positive masculinity instead of praising men for the bare minimum is or anything about indian culture that's not the chai joke

Spiderd*ds is so fucking gringocore and as a Peter B selfshipper since 2018 y'all've made it impossible to like the newer fan content of him and i feel so bad for Miguel because he dosen't even seem to like Peter B all that much seeing as their ONE scene was him being DIRECTLY annoyed by him and showing it unlike Margo and Gwen who don't have real beef but every fandom needs it's nonexistent in canon smut fest with racism injected into it ig.Jessica's canon trans in the comics but like Margo,y'all're no blacks and women dni in bio types

And Hobie.Good fucking GOD,white punks and white people with punk fetishises can't act right.Next mf to make a they/them Hobie joke is seeing stars,Prowlerp*nk is on my shitlist purely because Miles G is made into a violent tsundere by everybody who ships it and i never wanna hear about how the super darkskin black character should've been aroace instead of the center of romantic attention to BOTH mcs.Hobie is a black transsexual,not your papable lil trans gag character and the sweetest,gentlest person ever who's a consent king and that's right there in the text by his relathionship with Gwen and oh btw,yeah,they ARE dating and he has way more reasons to be into her than he does any white boys cause he stays having a thing for transfems and i'm giving major sideeye to black Gwen being nonexistent for multiple reasons too when it's so fitting and such a no brainer take

Point is:Be better.Stop acting like poc have to whitewash ourselves to be queer.You ain't slick

[princess-of-the-corner]

Random Miraculous Gaang thoughts

All are suggestions, feel free to take or leave whichever!

In no particular order:

(this got REAL long lmao)

1) Sokka is 16, Katara 15, but they are JUST close enough in age to be in the same class. Irish Twins, or whatever they call that. Everyone else’s ages to be decided in relation to them. So, Aang and Toph are 14, but got bumped ahead a year. Zuko is 17 but got held back. Suki and Yue are 16. Ty Lee & Mai are 15. Azula, I’m split on her being 14 or 15? She’s in Katara and Sokka’s year, regardless. Kuzon, Bumi Jr, and Teo are JUST 15, like barely. Haru is 17, but he’s friends with Sokka and Katara, so hangs out with them. Haru and Zuko used to be in the same class. (Please, someone who is better at numbers try this list)

2) Cabbage Man is here. He’s their version of Mister Pigeon. Is regularly Akumatized when his fresh produce stalls get wrecked. He’s either just generally unlucky, has TERRIBLE spacial awareness, or whoever makes his carts keep ripping him off, cause these things are so shoddily designed.

3) Uncertain musing, but. I think I said before, the night Zuko gets his scar, Azula calls Iroh in a panic, that’s how Iroh knows to go and look for him. I guess my question is, would this version of Azula do this? Like, Canon!Azula wouldn’t, but Canon!Azula had a whole bunch of other shit going on, that MG!Azula wouldn’t, so. Would she call Iroh, and straight up tell him “Zuko got his face burned, Dad threw him out” or more vague, “Zuko needs you to come get him”? Would she not call at all, worried about Ozai finding out?

Also, like

3.5) Like, If we are taking the “burned his face and tossed him out” literally, Zuko is heavily injured, in a lot of pain, probably disoriented - would he be able to find his way to Iroh’s? Assuming it’s late/nighttime - cause middle of the day, I’m assuming someone would, ya know, notice the injured bleeding kid stumbling around and call somebody - would he even be able to see? And what age exactly is this happening? Like, my general understanding of Canon!Atla was, Ursa leaves when Zuko is about 9 or 10, then he gets burned at 13, spends the next 3-4 years looking for the Avatar. But we’re bumping around the ages, and most of these kids go to school together, so if 13!Zuko got the burn and got pulled out, wouldn’t everybody be talking about it? Was Zuko out of school for A WHILE (say, a year or more), partially cause medical reasons, then trauma stuff, and is just going back to public school at the start of the series? Did Ozai even burn him with fire, or is this more of a “Shoto” burn, boiling water and ice? Just generally musing how this scene translates to MG-verse, I guess.

4) pure suggestion, but Sokka and Yue date BEFORE the start of the “series”, and “mutually” decided they were better off as friends. Reality being that Yue broke up with Sokka cause of family drama with her’s and Hahn’s parents playing matchmaker, and Yue trying to protect Sokka from Hahn’s folks possibly being … well, not sure WHAT she’s scared of, but that’s the general idea. And by the time that all gets hammered out, Sokka is dating Suki, and starting to get into a situationship with Zuko and Jin, while Yue has started falling for Azula. So, it’s not that they were bad for each other or anything, or even that they wouldn’t have lasted or been a good couple, but they kind of … miss their window? Cause my other thought is, if Yue and Sokka stay together, how does that work out with all the other ships? (I need a frigging chart for this)

5) Since I’m pretty sure Ty Lee’s parents are rich, or at least influential, how likely is it that she’s met Toph before? Actually, how likely is it that Toph has met Ty Lee, Azula, Zuko, and Mai? Did any of them help convince Toph’s parents to let her attend school? Has Ty Lee taught her all the insane stunts she does? Do Toph and Ty Lee share a love for professional wrestling?

6) Would Iroh have an actual shop, or a roving food-cart? Cause on the one hand, he canonically HAS a shop, while on the other, I’m really attached to the idea that Iroh has a roving food & tea cart, and seems to appear just when someone needs tea and advice. Also, I got an image of him getting into a fistfight with Andre the Ice Cream Man, and I kind want to see that?

7) What school do these kids go to, Cause Avatar Academy appeals in a very kitchsy kind of way.

8) Did we decide on Harmony City? Cause if Sokka isn’t using Harmonia, that could work too. I’m imaging a city that’s like, in a bay, or close to the sea, but also some mountains? Maybe, like. An hour or less from a desert, or large forest?

9) So, like. Ursa kills Azulon cause of Ozai’s machinations. However, since this setting and situation are different, thoughts on Ursa spending however long she’s gone working to get enough evidence to take Ozai down? Trying to figure out a way to contact the kids without Ozai finding out?

10) Someone mentioned Meng, the girl who worked for Fortune Teller Wu. ( Fun Fact, Meng and Toph share a voice actor!) But anyway, I suddenly have an image of Iroh and Wu dating. Zuko and Lu Ten are both, “ok, well. This happened.”

11) Do we still have “secret identities at all costs” and how long does that last for the whole team?

12) suggestion: Gyatso managed to track down the Butterfly, just as Ozai did, and the two duke it out, before Ozai yoinks it and vanishes. Gyatso was Miraculoused up, so Ozai doesn’t know who he is, but he knows the “Guardian” exists, and is an old man, while Gyatso now knows someone with likely less than noble intentions took the Butterfly, and that he couldn’t stop him even with a Miraculous of his own.

13) Aang has a large, fluffy dog called Appa, as well as Momo (cat or sugar glider?). Appa seems a … touch too smart to be a regular dog, but no one brings that up.

14) if the city is broken up into districts that mimic the Canon Four Nations, make it a harbour/port city, and Sokka and Katara live at the marina, on their house boat. Like, they have smaller boats that they use to give boat tours/clean the city rivers, but also their neighbours and everybody does a lot of fishing and transport of goods. 

15) Possible Akumas!

- “The Boulder”, wrestler who got pissed about something, and becomes a massive rock man; probably the debut of Tiger!Toph

- Zuko: gets into a fight with someone about [his dad/his scar/his status/whatever], becomes “the Blue Spirit”

- Rando gets upset because people keep calling him “bland and boring”, saying he “doesn’t have an interesting face”, becomes “Koh the Face Stealer”

- Kuzon gets mad about something environmental, turns into that Panda Spirit 

- Toph gets into a fight with her parents, Akumatized into the Blind Bandit

- Wu, gets upset when Sokka dismisses her fortune-telling (I mean, here, she might actually have some ability, but it’s also, like, her living? And when Sokka discounts it LOUDLY, IN PUBLIC, it harms her business) become Fortuna, Goddess of Fate

- Jet, Smellerbee, and Longshot are the first Unified Akuma, ie, the first time Ozai Akumatizes multiple people at once. They’re collective Akuma is called the Freedom Fighters. (Unless someone knows their ACTUAL names, I’m calling them Ren [Smellerbee] and Hao [Longshot]).

- Iroh gets Akumatized into The Dragon of the West, in a scheme to throw him off Ozai’s trail. Ozai has Noriko use the Butterfly to Akumatize Iroh, while Ozai is with him, so Iroh thinks it isn’t Ozai.

- Azula, the “Phoenix Princess”. Possibly Dragon Princess.

- Yue, the “Lady of the Moon”; other thought, have her be a dual Akuma with Sokka, as “Tui and La: Spirits of the Moon and Ocean”

Ok, this got longer than I thought it would! 

(thoughts, feelings, opinions, new ideas?)

-

Let’s go!

1.) We actually don’t have to change their ages at all tbh. Katara, Azula, Mai and Ty Lee are all 14. Sokka is 15. Zuko is 16. Aang and Toph are 12.  Yue is the only character with an on-screen birthday turning 16. I don’t think any of the other kids have canonical ages.

So we can have Aang and Toph skip a grade or two because homeschool-to-publicschool  placed them according to ability rather than age. And then Zuko and Yue are both a grade younger for various reasons (Zuko got held back due to all the missing class when he was kicked out. Yue would still have her health issues as a child so she started classes a year late on the whole).

Everyone else is in the 14-turning-15 range already and/or don’t have exact ages.

2.) Cabbage Man as Mr. Pigoen is fucking perfect oh my god.

3.) I think she would in like. For me, the reason Azula got as bad as she did in Canon is because she was exclusively around Ozai and/or people who agreed with him for three years after Zuko’s banishment. Before that she wasn’t perfect, but she still had the capacity to care instead of shoving it down out of fear for what her father would do to her.

Which continues with Azula being a bit better because, due to the change in circumstances, she hasn’t been able to be as isolated. There’s certainly still a lot she needs to unlearn, and she still would throw others under the bus to save herself from Ozai’s wrath. But she’s not fully loyal to him and will do things he doesn’t want if she thinks she can get away with it.

3.5) I’m still having it be when Zuko is 13 to keep with Canon. The exact ‘how’ is up in the air but a lot of household objects can cause burns. Unlike the Shoto thing though this was done 100% intentionally. (Though Ozai gaslights everyone and lies like ‘oh i have no idea how he got that!’). 

Zuko’s been back in school for a bit. But I think. I think we’ll go with American grades so they’re all in their first year of High School which is how everyone is kinda just now meeting. Like they all went to different Elementary/Middle schools but now for High School they’re together.

(side note, just having a mini crisis of ‘oh my god they’re BABIES’ because holy shit.)

Anyway! Night of the getting kicked out! I think Zuko even kinda half-there would be able to make his way over because at this point Iroh has the Jasmine Dragon so he’d know to go there. Combined with Azula calling Iroh so he’s out looking for the kid, they kinda meet in the middle. Iroh would take Zuko to a hospital and ofc the hospital calls Ozai who lies and is like ‘Oh we got in a fight and he decided he wanted to run away. You know how disrespectful teenagers can be. But sure if he wants to throw a fit and stay with an uncle who enables that behavior, so be it! Oh the burn? No idea how that happened nope not at all!’.

4.) Oh yeah the- the Sokka/Yue thing! I think it’s like. Yue knows her parents are kinda pushing her toward Hahn, and she’s not sure how they’d react to her dating someone else because of that. Eventually she weighs the options and decides to save Sokka the drama and do what her parents seem to want her to do. Which. Sucks.

And like later when Sokka’s in his situationship and Yue starts falling for Azula they kinda talk about it and like. He gives her advice to fight for it this time around.

5.) I’m not sure because knowing Toph’s parents, they’d very much keep her away from most people in general. Too fragile to really attend those galas. After all, she can’t see! What if she runs into someone! No if she must make an appearance, she must have someone Actually Capable™ holding her hand the whole time!.

Like seriously though. Reminder that in Canon the local townsfolk didn’t even know the Beifongs had a daughter at all. Not just ‘oh she’s reclusive and stays on the manor grounds’, just ‘they don’t have a child’.

Here it’d be harder to fully hide a child’s existence, but they’d keep her close.

I think Toph may kinda leverage the whole publicity thing of like. If she sneaks out into the school and makes it a public thing of ‘oh yes my parents just finally decided to trust me enough to let me go! Aren’t they so wonderful? Isn’t it so kind that they believe in my despite my disability?’ it’d kinda force their hand because they can’t go back on that and call her a liar without looking bad. 

6.) I want Iroh to have the actual shop but there can also be a cart as well. Like a combination of extra business and advertising.

7.) ‘Avatar Academy’ sounds so lame I fucking love it.

8.) Harmony City! Named for the most fucked Minecraft-looking terrain of chaos. I say this with all the love in my heart I love it .

9.) Yes and no and yes? So like. Here, Ozai has a lot less power than he does in Canon. He’s not ruler of a nation, he’s some rich asshole. But he does have some pull in the City Council and connection to shady people (he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty looking for the Miraculous). 

Ursa may have more of a chance to be able to do something if she can look into his dealings. But as much as she’d love to get in direct contact with her kids she has to wait. To act too soon could seal their fate.

Doesn’t stop her from low-key stalking their social media accounts and becoming very concerned about Zuko’s scar.

10.) Iroh/Wu is a fantastic addition. I’d imagine Aunt Wu’s shop is like right next to the Jasmine Dragon.

11.) Secret Identities are more chill. Like. Gyatso isn’t as paranoid as Fu is more of a ‘I respect the rules but I will break them if I feel necessary’ person. Sokka and Katara immediately clock each other. Since Gyatso was training Aang a little, Aang probably knows who is who. Toph accidentally connects the dots re: me replacing her Earthbending Sight with Magic Synesthesia. So they’re kinda ending up in a ‘the Gaang knows but don’t tell anyone else’.

12.) That works in an explaination for how the Butterfly ended up where it did and why Ozai would think that causing Akumas would lure in the Guardian. (Something ML canon never gave us for Gabriel).

13.) Appa is a big doggo! Also in reference to Something Else, I suggest the comedy of Momo actually being a Sentimonster that had been created back before the Order went to shit and Sozin yoinked the Peacock. He’s just stuck around since then.

14.) Oh yeah the districts being like the Elements and all works well!

15.) I love all of those Akuma Suggestions

[wenellyb]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel that people who say stuff like this are straight up lying? Or is there some important piece of information I'm missing?

It's unbelievable to me that some people would like that non-canon ships like Stucky or any other non-canon ships paved the way for representation in modern media. Unbelievable.

Destiel, maybe, because of how big the fandom is/was but even Supernatural and even Destiel started out small and got popular because of the fandom and the ship(s).

I feel like people who saying they started shipping non-canon couples because their wasn't any LGBT representation in the media at the time aren't being genuine. I say that because before joining Tumblr, I didn't even know shipping non-canon couples was a thing (I had heard of Destiel, but it was more of a concept to me, even though I unironically watched SPN).

I feel that was they mean is that there wasn't any representation in popular shows or maybe they mean they weren't enough main characters. But otherwise there was!!!

These are just the one I can think of on the top of my head, but there are much more and there is en more if you go outside of the US. And these are just the shows.

If we add the movies... well!!!

You want romance with a Happy Ending?

You want Murder Mystery?

You want Drama?

There are so many many more and, yes these weren't blockbusters but it's not "no représentation and Stucky and Destiel were the only options"

Grey's Anatomy started out at the exact same time as Supernatural and now has over a dozen canon LGBT characters and half of them are/were main characters (Callie, Arizona, Amelia, Teddy, Yasuda, Helm)

When I joined Tumblr, I never even for a minute thought shipping was about representation or activism because there were so many shows and movies I knew but they were barely talked about on here.

Not criticizing ships by any means but I feel like people are trying to pretend that shipping is something it isn't.

In my humble opinion, non-canon ships were never about representation. Shipping was just shipping

I wasn't on Tumblr at the time, but I was on Youtube (old school) and to me, the people who were doing edits of the canon ships, in shows and movies were the real heroes.

Some people might say : "but those characters are side characters or weren't in major blockbusters/popular shows".

But fandoms could have decided to make them more popular if they wanted. Because believe it or not, Supernatural was a niche show at the beginning and I don't think it would have been as popular or gotten as many seasons without the shippers. They chose to make the non-canon couple (at the time) popular. So the fans could have done the same with shows that have canon LGBT characters But they didn't, they focused on non-canon couples.

I have no problem with shipping non-canon couples at all, I do it too, but I'm really surprised by people who want to make it seem like it's some kind of activism... It's not.

And I know there wasn't enough representation that's true, but why focus your energy on shows with absolutely no canon LGBT characters and pretend it's activism??

You guys could have had Noah's arc or Hit the Floor renewed and you focused your energy on Marvel characters.

And some people will say they ship Destiel anyway because they want fantasy and paranormal... Well does nobody remember Dante's Cove? Was it a fever dream😂? I admit the writing was bad, but have you seen the writing in Supernatural (I say this as a SPN fan)???

And I know some people will say they ship Marvel characters because they have a bigger audience and there were no canon Queer characters in blockbusters, but I feel like that a lie too because when there were indeed Queer characters in those blockbusters, they were ignored as well. Like in the Eternals.

Fandoms can be so powerful when they want to...they can make or break a movie, so acting like the focus on non canon couples was the only option surprises me.

Shipping is just about shipping. It's a hobby.

Stucky or any non-canon Marvel ship isn't "History", it's just a ship.

Last exemple: Let's take a look at 2 popular couples from the same franchise: 9-1-1 and 911: Lone Star. Only one of the couples in canon, but Can you Guess which one is more popular on Ao3 and on Tumblr ?

The non-canon couple!

Almost 3 Times as much fics for Buddie than TK x Carlos who are an actualcouple and even got married!

Shipping non-canon couples isn't about representation but about finding a story to fantasize about, which isn't bad itself but it's bad when you pretend shipping is something it isn't?

TL:DR: Shipping non-canon couples isn't activism imo.

I would be happy to hear tour thoughts because as I said, I only joined Tumblr later so I don't have all the info.