#are those like...pretty basic? especially when it's a het ship?

[baby-prince-oppa]

I've read all the Max/Vinh fics there is to read on AO3. The fact that there's only 10 atm is a fucking CRIME. 😭

Every one of those fics is so good and I'm already feeling withdrawals. Please feed me again! 😫

[olderthannetfic]

So, you mentioned low standards of research in podcasts. I don't listen to podcasts or watch a lot of videos about fandom analysis, but I have seen error corrections happening in the wild for what I have listened to, so I can only imagine how annoying it is when you know your shit.

Do you have any resources that come to mind as things everyone who likes fandom should be comfortable with, or specific essays on uniquely important fandoms (such as Sherlock Holmes or Star Trek) that everyone should read? Obviously the OTW resources are up there; what else?

Aside from resources, do you think there are any skills that are especially vital for getting to the bottom of fandom trends? Interview skills are probably pretty high up there.

Any pitfalls you see a lot of young fans falling into?

(I do a lot of fandom history research. It is the thing that gives me joy in fandom; other people like shipping or AUs, I like my little mini-anthropology sandbox and watching how ideas spread. I'm not necessarily good at it, but it's fun!)

--

Well... it's the usual things.

For example, a lot of fans claim to love fandom stats, but the ones that get passed around come from like three people. The people doing those stats, including me, don't usually have a statistics background, which doesn't automatically make them bad, but it really seems like people are just trusting anything with a pie chart.

We've recently seen people discover that those year-end AO3 ship stats have a seriously weird methodology. They don't show the thing their fans are actually trying to find out. People were pissed. But most of the time, they don't even bother asking what the methodology is or trying to do anything themselves.

There's far too much sitting back and waiting for some BNF to spoon feed one publicly-available information.

--

The big failings aren't usually the math itself but, of course, not knowing what question to ask, so it pertains to history research, not just stats.

You'll see a lot of stuff on shipping that looks at AO3 because AO3 shipping numbers are easy to pull... But AO3 shipping numbers don't just happen to be easy to pull: that is both an effect and a cause that is directly related to AO3's content. Someone interested in meta shouldn't be asking "What do AO3's numbers show?" as their first question. They should be asking "Why is this metadata available or not available and what does that mean on a sociological level?"

--

Thing two is the eternal I Have Apparently Never Heard of Anime problem. A fuckton of people theorizing about fandom trends seem to know fucking nothing about whole massive sectors of fandom or treat them as afterthoughts. This is okay if you're writing a history of Media Fandom. It is criminally stupid if you're trying to talk about what makes a piece of media have fic when another doesn't, what kinds of websites make fandoms take off, etc. Those kinds of broad questions need a broad understanding of what's out there.

It's not anime-specific, and I'm not asking for a high degree of knowledge.

I have routinely had people tell me that best friend ships and mystery/crime as a genre aren't popular, and that's why AO3 has this or that pattern... Meanwhile, buddy cops are the bedrock of oldschool slash fandom and make up basically all of the longest-running Western m/m fandoms that aren't Star Trek. CSI slop tends to have legions of future canon het shippers, and they make plenty of fanworks. It's just that some of this is more visible on FFN or older places, not AO3.

I'm always seeing things like someone speculating about how this and that anime fandom thing or bit of mid-00s FFN community drama led to this other thing on AO3, not realizing that AO3 came out of LJ Western fandom slash culture. To them, FFN is so central that it must be the main reference point, not the bajillion and one archives AO3 founders ran or Usenet or mailing lists or LJ.

I once saw someone asking on twitter about where a prominent Ranma fic might have been posted in the mid-90s. People claiming "My professor is an authority!" came out of the woodwork in droves to blither about K/S zines and then LJ. Not only was this entirely wrong, but the right answer was blindingly obvious if you knew enough to interpret the google results. I can only assume that the person tweeting had never heard of Usenet and didn't recognize the acronym for the big anime fanfic group that literally everything like this was first posted to.

I'm talking people insisting that fandom only goes for white characters when it's very obvious that fandom goes for majority leads who are not othered. All the bawwing in the world about "People assume anime characters are white" won't get rid of The Untamed or Kpop thirsters or whatever.

I'm talking sweeping pronouncements about gender and fanfic writers where the person hasn't even heard of FIMFiction or SpaceBattles or Dark Lord Potter cheesefests.

I've been in fandom for a long time, but I wasn't in all these parts, and I wasn't around for 80s zines. You don't need deep knowledge until you pick a research topic. But it's shocking how little shallow, broad knowledge a lot of people have when they're writing their Theory Of All Of Fandom History.

--

People are stupid as shit about survivorship bias, and fandom history is no exception. They're also dumb in the opposite direction, assuming that the thing they like now has always existed in this exact form.

For example, someone got mad at Fanlore for supposedly not documenting the history of f/f zines. Others have searched and searched for the zines of their old show they got into last year and are bewildered to not find any. The reality is that Fanlore editors are attempting to document every Media Fandom zine and have combed through old adzines looking for any mention of anything. Because of the methods of distribution—because it was expensive—small fandoms often had no zines at all.

Femslash fandom doesn't seem to have gotten enough critical mass to do much until Xena. The internet has really democratized things, but even the early internet was still somewhat in that old mindset where only certain popular things have a fandom. I think Yuletide itself, which started in 2003, really helped spread the idea of rare-but-existing fandoms being a thing. FFN and perhaps some other multifandom archives like Media Miner played a huge role.

Nowadays, we think of fic as just how you respond to media, any media, even if there are only two fics for that one car commercial, but that isn't how people saw things in every era—or at least it's not how fandom infrastructure worked. A lot of the time, the big hosting spots were single-fandom archives, often with restrictive content rules. Finding somewhere to post a m/m/f OT3 fic used to be hard. Never mind early zines when photocopiers didn't even exist yet and you had to sell out your print run of 500 to make a go of it.

All good research starts with a lot of preliminary investigation to figure out what you're even trying to look for.

Actually bothering to look for fans talking about their own history or casually chatting with your interview subjects before the formal interview will put a person miles ahead of many of the cringeworthy fandom ~papers~ I've seen.

The biggest mistake people make is going "Okay, these numbers aren't perfect, but some numbers are better than no numbers".

Bullshit.

As soon as there's a pie chart of the false numbers, everyone's brain turns off and they never look at the chart subtitle, never mind the research notes.

Bad numbers are often worse than no numbers.

Look at the logic behind the methodology first. Look at the social context. Basic understanding of human nature and familiarizing oneself with the shape and hangout locations of a community will get you most of the way there before you sit down for a specific interview or try to collect any specific numbers.

--

None of this is a fandom thing. Research is research. It's just that most people think "research" means watching a tiktok that the algorithm likes and were never taught how to evaluate a source for reliability.

Evaluating sources is a skill. I had explicit lessons on it in school. Lots of people don't, and that sucks.

Honestly, watching the more thoughtful debunking content on non-fandom topics, like Miniminuteman's stuff on pseudo-archaeology or Dan Olson's... everything, is a good window into critical thinking, and that's most of what's missing from bad fandom history.

--

But more than any of that, more is more. Not the crap stats, but the narrower, more personal accounts, the interviews. The more fans who investigate their little corner that isn't the same old AO3 site-wide "Why is there so much m/m?" ship stats or the same canned "Everything comes from K/S" history, the better.

What I object to is not amateur efforts but efforts that pull from the same small pool of data or that just reblog a tiny handful of supposed authorities.

--

If people are going to read just one thing... hmm... go try to look up a history of rec.arts.anime.creative, not because I think it's the most important fandom history out there but because it's at the nexus of things a lot of current fandom history work miss.

[mel-tokio]

finished hbr chapter 4 part 2 last night!! miscellaneous disorganized thoughts behind the cut, beware of massive spoilers

first of all i just wanna say fuck the bonerattler. seriously, fuck the bonerattler. as a person who's mainly playing the game for the story, doesn't really know what she's doing in terms of battle strategy, and is fairly underleveled (both of my teams were around 13.5k), that shit was so hard it wasn't even enjoyable, even on -3 difficulty. by the time i got to the other bosses after that (which were thankfully much more manageable), i was so fatigued i didn't even feel like battling anymore and just wanted to get to the damn cutscenes already.

the game is definitely starting to get a lot harder (and at a very fast rate for the global version since everything is getting released so quickly), which i guess is nice for people looking for more of a challenge since the earlier chapters were pretty easy. but like. this is a game from a company that has historically specialized in visual novels. it's only natural that a big chunk of the target audience is going to be there for the plot first and the gameplay second. seems kinda silly that there isn't a lower difficulty setting that's 1. actually easy and 2. accessible through the main menu rather than forcing the player to lose boss fights multiple times.

those complaints aside, though, i did enjoy this chapter a lot, especially megumi's side! it was some cool worldbuilding to see how the dome residents live, and while i was initially worried that they'd try to shoehorn in a generic boring het ship for megumi now that male characters are a thing, this is still very much a yuri game and that did not happen. in hindsight, i should have trusted jun maeda to deliver on the quirky male side characters; he's done a good job with them in the past.

lots of fun new game mechanics in the dome, too! i'm looking forward to going through and replaying each day to catch all the fish and complete all the taskbroker's quests!

i saw the plot twist with aki coming a mile away, but that didn't make me cry any less at the jungle gym scene. i think on some level she knew who "eri" was, and her words to megumi were basically her way of indirectly saying "when peace is restored and you don't have to fight anymore, i'll be waiting for you, so come back to me." that interpretation might just be wishful thinking on my part though lol

megumi and tama's reunion was really sweet, too! felt good to see tama finally get a well-deserved hug. god knows she needed it!

all in all, i was very happy with everything except the massive battle difficulty spike, and the chapter 5 preview has me super excited to see what comes next!

[cabeswaterdrowned]

For the character ask: Piper McLean 🩷

How I feel about this character: I adore her, she’s probably my second favorite riordanverse character, or at least in my top 3 with Nico and Reyna <3. I relate to quite a bit about her between some of her paternal issues hitting home and the internal cultural confusion and internalized misogyny/ compulsory heterosexuality blend, and I’ve always admired a lot of qualities she has such as her ability to draw strength from her emotions and the love she has for those around her, while she’s also genuinely a really resourceful character who is very adept at thinking on her feet and problem solving. Yeah I love that girl Piper shooter since day 1

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Reyna and Annabeth primarily, low key Rachel. I am a little intrigued by Piper-Medea in a toxic yuri way, and I like when fanon actually gives Shel a personality. Pipeyna is definitely my favorite Piper ship though

My non-romantic OTP for this character: was going to say Leo but then I remembered how much I actually love her relationship with Tristan and how it contributes to So Many of her issues so. Yeah Tristan and then Leo. I also enjoy her interactions with Meg in TBM quite a bit.

My unpopular opinion about this character: The more I thought about this question the more I realized that I honestly just have a lot of gripes about mischaracterization with fanon Piper, for instance she’s a more introverted character in canon whereas I think fanon makes her overly bubbly and outgoing maybe because she’s emotionally-oriented and people associate that with extroversion? In a similar vein I think her resourcefulness and capacity for problem solving are underrated, when you look at a lot of events in TLH / MoA / Boo especially Piper is actually very cunning in situations like the two different quests she goes on with Percy and Jason where she’s the one who saves the day (the cave scene especially is a good example of this), the mall with Medea etc. I remember reading someone say that Annabeth is a logic-oriented character who is actually much more erratically emotional than at first meets the eye and Piper is a feelings-oriented character who is actually much more covertly strategic than first meets the eye and I think about that a lot because I think it’s on point for both chars and honestly explains why they compliment each other so well. But I do think Piper’s intelligence gets dismissed a lot. And I think the level to which her Dad’s experience with media scrutiny and it’s impact on her childhood effected her is underutilized in fanon portrayals because I do think it explains A Lot about her, especially in terms of her internalized misogyny which is something that exists but also I do think some of what people identify as internalized misogyny with Piper is actually a sort of.. image consciousness / dislike of materialism due to her childhood, and then there are things like the implication she partially feels the way she does about certain *types of girls* because they were often white girls who bullied her for her heritage (which doesn’t make it not internalized misogyny, but does make it a more nuanced form) and then there’s the comp het of it all, I lost the thread a little bit but basically while I agree that she has a lot of internalized misogyny she’s working through in hoo I feel the nature of it is sometimes oversimplified / exaggerated as opposed to canon but then that is not something specific to Piper I think it happens pretty frequently with female chars tumblr gives the nlog label to. Oh and I despise fanon versions of Piper that make her ultra conventionally feminine and remove all conflict about this from her char.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I would have liked more development of her relationship with Hazel because I enjoy the idea of them as close friends a lot and do feel like it would make sense based on their personalities, but I don’t think canon did enough work to make that feel earned.

[lurksunderthebed]

Hi, I saw that you had a discussion about the queerness of our beloved characters. I really hope you’re not tired of that topic, because I wanted to add another point.

First of all I don’t really care. I really like the dynamic between most of the characters, especially Ghost and Soap, but I don’t care if it’s interpreted as besties or lovers. I think both is fun.

I just wanted to add that maybe all of the MW story feels so fucking gay, because we lack cool women? We have Farah and Laswell, but let’s be real Farah is basically married to Alex (I thought they were a couple at first) and Laswell is married to a woman. Now people go great lengths to ship the male characters with female villains, who only appear in a small fraction of the story and have no real chemistry. I mean they can do whatever floats their boat, but I don’t really see the point here.

Which leaves us with a bunch of man ‘flirting’ with each other vor comedic value. I think given this and the points you already said on your account, I think it’s even a bit intended that most of our characters might not be the straightest.

Sure, a bunch of straight men can exist without women and still be straight and the military still might not be the most women friendly institution, but I think having more girlpower would have been an easy way to make everyone appear more straight and the devs didn’t go that route sooooo… (I still would love to have more cool women, but that’s another topic)

Anyways, I hope you have a good day and I wanted to add that I really enjoyed your character analysis posts <3

Ahh thanks for enjoying my analysis posts. 💞🥹 Honestly, I'm still surprised people are reading them lol. (And asking me about it haha)

But yes, I don't think I'll ever be tired of the ol' queerness discussion. It's a fun topic to debate especially with these characters in this particular game.

Controversial take, but I actually don't think adding any extra female characters would've been helpful in making the 'gay' go away.

(gonna be a long discussion here, settle in if you want to read it haha 😅)

What we have to put in mind, is that this game wasn't made for the female audience. The vast majority of the people buying and playing it are going to be male. That's the facts. It's going to cater to men.

A game made for men is going to have a majority of those characters be male. Adding new female characters in a REBOOT series is a delicate task when a good chunk of the population playing have played the OG and want to see legacy characters back (which are all male—the OG was all men).

That means that when we look at why certain things are framed and why there aren't many female characters, and especially why there isn't much of any confirmed (het) canon romantic ships between any characters, it's because the game itself isn't focused on it.

That same vast majority of men don't actually care about ships in general and with people trying to be more progressive, any female characters introduced are painstakingly written to omit any overt possibility of romance. In one sense, it's a welcome change from the action movie style plot line where man + woman = relationship with the women being just side characters/window dressing to the MC.

Women here are shown to be tough, that they don't need a man at all. They have their own agency. It's pretty nice actually that they did that. None of the female characters are infantilised nor is there a sense of them being there to "check boxes" in the minority bag. They make sense in the framing the game has placed them in.

But we do have this interesting dynamic whereby removing the romance factor, but having female characters in a setting that most are conditioned to read as man + woman = relationship, it de-emphasizes heteronormality and actually emphasises the relationships between the core characters.

And with a game full of men, that means the relationships between men are going to be the focal point.

Adding extra female characters, wouldn't have changed any of this, because the writers have gone out of their way to not make romance a plot of any sort. (There's a whole other discussion on the flaws of trying to give women agency/proving strength of character, but by doing so, taking away their sexualities by removing any sort of romance, but that's beside the point)

I think there's also an argument to be had that meaningful relationships with others don't have to necessarily imply romance between characters. It's totally fair to be sick of always having romance injected in to these sorts of relationships. That's an extremely valid take.

But there most definitely is a double standard that everyone is operating on. And we see that when we compare Alex/Farah's relationship with Ghost/Soap's.

Alex's most meaningful relationship is with Farah. He sacrifices himself for her cause and loses a leg for it. He comes back and stays by her side. Most people assume to take it as Alex is in love with Farah. We never see any type of flirting between the two. In fact it's mostly Farah testing Alex and looking at their dialogue you can tell there's respect between the two, but anything more is undefined/up for interpretation.

Yet it's just assumed by virtue of Alex and Farah being man + woman, that they must be together because of how much Alex had sacrificed. Completely ignoring the possibility of Alex doing so because he believes in Farah's cause and was sick of being jerked around with no choice by higher ups who largely didn't care about the suffering of Farah's people. Suffering that the man had personally witnessed. But no, he must be in love with her. (If Farah was a man, their whole relationship would be read as platonic with Alex's beliefs as a focus, not him being potentially in love)

Ghost's most meaningful relationship is with Soap. Soap has changed Ghost's whole MO as a lone wolf, and has challenged his very notion of trust. Ghost tests Soap and is proven wrong when Soap survives despite the odds. We even see them have plausible deniability flirting/snark. They are framed as a unit and on the off times (off of missions in cutscenes), they are always physically together. There's definitely respect between the two, but anything more is undefined/up for interpretation.

By itself, their relationship seems innocuous, but looking at the context we see a very different picture. Context matters heavily in seeing how this relationship has changed Ghost/the importance of it to him. It's assumed that Soap is the first person in god knows how long, that Ghost is emotionally attached to. What constitutes a normal, albeit flirty and snarky, friendly relationship for most, is amplified for Ghost in the glaring fact that he really doesn't do this for anyone else ever. As far as we can tell for a man that appears to live his job, Soap is Ghost's most important person.

We can even arguably say that Ghost and Soap had a flirtier, friendlier, more emotional relationship than Alex and Farah ever had, yet it's assumed (by the male audience) to be completely platonic by virtue of them both being men.

For all those people who argue to stop shipping characters, those same people turn around and are completely implicit in the notion of Alex and Farah being a thing.

It's a really annoying take, because you and I know that it's not the romance they're bothered by. It's the idea of having a character that exemplifies the silent male loner badass archetype as anything but the pinnacle of masculinity. IE, totally and utterly straight.

I feel I could go on about all the ways Ghost surprisingly subverts his archetype, but I'll leave it there. This is prob already too long 😅

But yes, having new cool female characters is always good, but it still wouldn't settle any sexuality debate since they would most likely be written without any hint of romance between the core 141 group and that potential new character. Just like how Farah and Laswell, as you said, have been both removed completely from the romance/sexuality debate, any new female character would also be put under similar framework.

I suppose it would just make them appear more straight (and get rid of all the speculation) if they had a new female character added into 141, but I don't see the point of adding a new character for that sole purpose. And tbh, it would come across as insulting to women if they did for that one reason.

Given how little character development we had in the latest game, I heavily doubt they would introduce new characters at all when they barely showed anything of the current ones we have already. We need more development of the characters we have, adding someone new would arguably take away from building proper relationships/dynamics between the characters we do have currently.

But yeah, heh. I'll stop for real now. If you got this far in my latest Ted Talk™, kudos to you good sir 🫡, you have all my love ☺️

Hope you have a great day too nonny, and I hope this helps with the discussion. Feels like I went off on too many side tangents. 🤔🤔🤔

[doreyg]

7, 11, 33.

7. What kind of common romance tropes do you enjoy and what kind do you dislike?

I feel like my tastes in romance align very well with my tastes in fanfic and fandom shipping on the whole. I love a good enemies to lovers plot, and grumpy/sunshine. Not so much a fan of instalove, and also not generally a fan of how BDSM is done in romance novels (especially het romance novels, where it contains a lot of femsub which I am not at all into). Oh! And I HATE secret baby plots, although those mercifully seem a lot less common these days.

11. Favorite historical fiction.

Lol it's basically all crime novels combined with historical fiction, but that totally counts! The Blake and Avery series by MJ Carter is probably still my absolute favourite. But I also have a big soft spot for the Frey and McGray Series by Oscar De Muriel. And I am currently actively making my way through Benjamin January by Barbara Hambly, which is VERY good.

33. How often do you read by listening to audiobooks?

Pretty much never, tbh! I'm lucky enough to be able to walk to work, so generally just listen to music if I am listening to anything, and I work a form of customer service so I don't have the time when I'm there. And when I go on longer walks I'm either with someone, or listening to podcasts. I'm glad it's an option, though! I mean to check it out one day, it's just finding the time...

All for the Bookworm Meme

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

There's a funny thing with het guys getting angry at fujos for shipping any v close male characters, often with the phrase "Why can't they be friends?" I sorta see three reasons for this:

1) Het guys often don't understand shipping, and also don't understand non-canon understandings of works. Like the point of shipping is often not "this is how the work is" or "this is how the work should be", but rather a fan expressing their own feelings about the thoughts and characters. A lot of guys don't get that (I didn't either a while back)

2) Homophobia, internalized homophobia to be more precise. This one's pretty easy to see. Het men are particularly uncomfortable with the perception of gayness, especially when it's being applied to something they identify with. It makes them self-conscious and lash out.

3) 'That's my friendship, not some romance'. With how difficult it is sometimes for het guys to socialize and express themselves, they can get very attached to their closer male friendships in a way that they can kinda become idealized in their mind. So when they identify those feelings about their real life with those in a male friendship and someone reads that as romantic love, it makes them self-conscious and uncomfortable about this idealized relationship in their life and how it's perceived by others. It makes it feel like the thing they treasure is being devalued (a friendship could never be as close as a romantic one). These guys are bros, why can't they see that?

And you can see how the first 2 points also play into the 3rd. They add a lot to the lack of self-awareness and the shame.

Obviously these three points won't be true for all het men, but I found them relevant to me growing up as a het man and even into my bi-awakening. Particularly on the idealized relationship thing. I ended up being insanely close with my college friend I roomed with years 2-4. We were so close, in sleeping habits, hobbies, eating habits, classes; we basically spent 95% of our time together. Mutual friends, even women, got actively jealous of how close we were. We had an underclassmen who was basically third-wheeling us the last year and a half. When school was over, I got hit with some really hard depression and I attribute a lot of it to the loss of that closeness with him.

And, like, looking back on that, I would be v unsurprised if our female friends with fujo tendencies shipped us. I was closeted bi by then, but I can say now that we were kinda cishet faggots. But also I would be deeply uncomfortable and ashamed if someone thought we were for those exact 3 reasons above.

lel also as a sorta disclaimer, I do know that non-internalized homophobia and misogyny can play into these things, especially with het men, I just wanted to get into the reasons that weren't those.

[tuttle-did-it]

Nostalgia specifically for cis-het middle class middle-aged white men. Nostalgia wankery. Fuck all of them for it.

Those of us who are not those things noticed how often the women only existed to sit in silence whilst the white men monologued about their agony.

We noticed how Picard's relationship with Laris is never mentioned again, like she never existed at all. Like most of the characters from Picard, they were obliterated. And that they massively fucked up the time line with the Borg with Agnes, and that storyline is just obliterated like it never happened.

We noticed how the queer women were separated for no fucking reason at all because apparently we had to go back to 1980s sex and gender roles because fucking nostalgic wankery. We can't let the women actually be together and be a happy, stable couple. No, we'll separate them so the cis-het white men can still wank off at the thought of it, but the conservatives in the audience don't have to see a queer relationship.

We noticed how the one woman on that ship (Seven) who can pretty much do anything and everything was basically handcuffed the entire season, and her"storyline" (lol if you call it that) revolves round being verbally abused and dead-named constantly by a misogynistic prick. Oh, and when that got old, sometimes she got to sit in the dark listening to men (especially the 40 year old Jack) talk about their tiny, pathetic little woes and offering support and comfort-- when she's allowed to talk.

We noticed how the entire subplot for the established woman of colour (Raffi) is, "you need to get control of yourself, you're too volatile, too angry" -- something that historically is a disgusting stereotype in television and film in general, but was also seen with B'Elanna Torres. So the kick-arse queer Black woman is taught to Behave by a man, good for her, now she's fixed. And still not allowed near her lover until the very end because.... excuses?

In fact-- let's note here that the primary storylines for the two men of colour (Worf, LaForge) revolves around FIXING WOMEN. Worf has to fix Raffi, and LaForge is constantly trying to fix his daughter. How disgusting is that? Not just for the Black women being criticised by the men, but how gross is that storyline for the men, too?

We also noticed how much of a priority is given to the new 40 year old 20 year old (lol as if) nepo baby whose only quality is being the absolute worst character in Trek to have ever existed.

It was honestly offensive that they ended it with Q appearing to Jack Crusher of all people like 'hey, I'm curious about you.' If Q had been paying attention, he would NEVER have any interest in someone so unbelievably, unbearably boring as that horrible character.

And ending the show by giving him a position of power as "special counsellor to the captain" when he has no experience, no personality except manic pixie dream girl with the personality of poundland toilet roll, and no qualifications because god forbid a fucking bad ass queer woman is allowed to captain her own fucking ship without approval from a cis-het white man. And how his storyline is chasing another nepo baby with no personality.

I can just see Janeway visiting Seven on her ship, seeing the 40 year old 23 year old, and then him introducing himself as ‘special counsellor to the Captain.’

And I can see Janeway's face of disgust as she looks at him and says 'Seven has spent her entire life in space, and has been on starships for over 20 years. She is more qualified than most to be a captain on a starship. So tell me, little man. What can you possibly offer Seven? Why would she need to consult a 40 year old 23 year old for decisions? What special skill do you have that is so crucial that gained you this role-- aside from your father's name?' Obviously, Jack would have nothing to say because he has no special skill. And then Janeway looks at Seven and says, 'You’re better than this, Seven. Put him in the galley, he can make some soup. If he knows how.’ And I would really like if this happened, actually, because he has absolutely no qualifications or qualities that would make him valuable enough to be a ~special counsellor~ to someone as incredible as Seven. Not even sure he's qualified to work in the kitchen.

Oh, also, let’s talk about Jack. He’s The Chosen One because his father had Borg sperm, right? (WTF WRITERS WORST PLOT EVER). Well, B’Elanna had been turned into a Borg. So she must have had a Borg Egg and her daughter with Paris must be One of the Chosen Ones. Which means that Jack (also nice naming your son after your former husband when you got pregnant with your former husband’s best friend, classy) was NEVER necessary. If they were so set on this absolutely horrible storyline, They could have done the gross Borg DNA by baby with Mirral Paris.

Or, hey, you know, we spent all of last season dealing with the Borg with a storyline that retcons the entire history of Star Trek, and have conveniently pretended that never happened even though all we’d really need to do is call Agnes and she could pretty much sort everything, so why the fuck did they do any of this at all?

Fuck nostalgia. Fuck the white cis-het middle aged men they were pandering to. Fuck Patrick Stewart for going back on his word that his condition for the show in the first place was because it was about his new adventures that had nothing to do with the TNG crew.

Them recreating the TNG ship was absolutely ridiculous-- aside from the fact that it made NO sense narratively speaking-- and they clearly just did it so they could get the original TNG crew back at their original positions because of nostalgic wankery-- they have time to find the exact carpet to replicate, but not fit the main systems like, I don't know, WEAPONS in the middle of a battle? But thank christ we got that fucking carpet right.

And in 'Remember Me,' Crusher made it very clear that the Enterprise— which usually has more than 1000 people to run the ship— cannot function with such a small crew. Yet they’re easily able to manage the whole ship with two people at helm and con, and one person at the battle stations. Everyone else is just sat there waiting to see what happens. The ship cannot function with so few people running it, they established that on far better episodes of TNG. So them trying to retcon that they can control this ship that normally takes a small city to run it, fuck them and fuck the fuckery.

And Geordie just happens to have a whole ass ship that he’s recreated in its entirety? They just wanted to get the main crew back on that fucking Enterprise D ship for nostalgia, to get all the old TNG fans to cheer. There’s no logic for it, there’s no sense to it, there’s absolutely nothing about it that works. It’s just fuckery. Tom Paris and the entire Voyager crew had to work in 24 hour shifts to build a new SHUTTLE and that took several days. And even then, it barely worked and had to be refit and fixed. It's just great that Geordie happened to have the entire fucking Enterprise D in his pocket. Is Geordie a Q now? Because that’s the only way that would have worked.

The Data/Lore stuff was just… wankery. Nostalgic wankery. None of it made sense, it was unbearable. Just keep throwing more and more and more Brett Spiner in there. ALL of the Soong shit was nostalgic wankery. Never made any sense narratively, and it was all just unbearable nostalgic wankery.

And how the fuck are you going to assimilate a changeling?! That doesn't even fucking make sense. They're liquids. They can just gloop out of the assimilation chamber, and goop back into a stronger or bigger creature to beat the shit out of them and escape. No sense. wankery. Wankery that poisons the originals. They should have kept their filthy hands off anything and everything from DS9.

They massively under-utilised all the women, including the legacy women. The same women who saved the universe the last two seasons are suddenly cardboard cut-outs with absolutely no action, rarely any dialogue. They just stand in the dark, the whole time. We’re not even allowed to see their faces most of the time. Gates McFadden said she literally could not even see Patrick Stewart on set during filming because it was so dark. Crusher just fucking stands there with long looks, that’s it. That’s all she does. Troi spends most of the show crying because she lost a child, held hostage, sitting in the dark, or occasionally being allowed to say a single sentence. Seven just sits in the dark listening to the 40 year old 23 year old monologuing. And Raffi stands there as Worf tells her how to fucking behave. Because we're back to 1980s sex and gender roles, so these women are not allowed to even be seen or heard. For NOSTALGIA.

You could digitally remove Jeri Ryan, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis and Michelle Hurd from 85% of their scenes and no one would know the difference. And none of the women have independent storylines for themselves— EVERYTHING they do revolves around Picard, Jack Crusher, or the women being told that they need to behave-- too emotional (Raffi), not human enough (Seven) or get over their trauma (Troi). Even Ashley Sharpe Chestnut’s storyline-- the only other woman of colour-- involves having a thing for Picard’s fucking nepo baby kid. Her existence revolves around arguments with her Legacy cast father, and a hard-on for another Legacy cast father's child. Who the fuck even cares if she exists?

Oh, and they FUCKING FRIDGED RO LAREN - one of the very few women on TNG to have a personality at all-- after one appearance and I hate them.

Remember how angry everyone was on the finale of Enterprise when the TNG characters hijacked the finale and made the entire show all about them? Even Frakes has said that that was a massive mistake, and that it was a nasty thing to do to the cast of Enterprise because they weren’t even allowed to finish their own show.

Picard s3 did the same thing, but instead of just one episode, it was an entire season. All of the established Picard characters are thrown to the side (most of them are just deleted completely) all for a nostalgic wank of white cis-het middle aged/older men.

Fuck nostalgia. Fuck the cis-het white middle-aged men they were pandering to at the cost of the women, people of colour, queer people, and anyone who has even a modicum of taste. Every single woman on that show deserved better; every single original member of Picard the show deserved better; the fans who were betrayed deserved better.

In going back and assimilating the TNG crew, the nostalgic wankery of the 1980s gender and sex politics, for lack of a better metaphor, for ST:Picard, they have retro-actively poisoned every moment of TNG, every TNG character, and, honestly, severely weakened my love and affection for DS9 and Voyager. They were so dedicated to pleasing the cis-het white middle-aged men that they did it at the cost of the queers, women, and people of colour.

Nostalgic wankery. That's all it was, and I will never forgive them for it.

For bonus points share one thing you wish would have happened in that extra season

[averagepoet]

I would like to talk about How I realized that I’m aro and then about how I could’ve realized it sooner, because I never saw posts like this until I went on tiktok and when I saw those I went straight to denial because “I’ve been in like 6 relationships, I can’t be aro!” Be prepared for a long post. I will be bolding important phrases because that makes it easier for me to read, and also I’m putting a tw for a brief mention of abuse, and a cw for talk of sexual attraction.

I did start questioning my romantic orientation because of tiktok, though. It started with my one friend showing me a “put a finger down” video that I found Very relatable that ended up being about experiencing comp het. For those who don’t know, that’s compulsory heterosexuality, when someone, typically a lesbian, believes they have attraction to men because of how enforced and assumed heterosexuality and heteronormativity are in our patriarchal society. Even though I’m a guy, I was socialized as a girl growing up, so I was like “Oh my gods, do I not like men??” And for one week I let that marinate in my brain. I want to say at this time I was like 2 months into dating my best friend of three years (regular friend of 10 years) who is non-binary but generally femme presenting. So after a week of thinking, I felt like something was off. “If I felt this way about guys the whole time, did I feel that way about women? I’ve always considered my attraction equal, leading me to call myself bi for so long.” I realized then that I was in fact aro. At the time, I didn’t understand why younger me didn’t know and why I had the urge to be in relationships so much, but I knew that at least now I identified as aro. I won’t go into detail, but even tho we’re not dating anymore, my best friend and I are still besties and very close. As I type this, they’re sleeping in my room. The only reason I’m not typing this in my room is because they hogged the only outlets that are easy to access, and my phone was gonna die.

Alright now onto what the heck younger me did that could’ve been signs that I’m aro. First off, I remember actively choosing who to have a crush on in elementary and middle school (and kind of recently, too, just not so much in high school), and I would always just pick the boy I thought was the cutest or sometimes the easiest to approach. Then I found out that people could like guys AND girls in 7th grade and was like “well I’ve thought girls were pretty this whole time!!” And that’s when I started mostly getting “crushes” on my friends or people I wanted to be closer friends with. In 8th grade and into high school I started having my own hyperfixations and special interests in media (typically as a kid they were just nature documentaries and the occasional fantasy book that no one else in my grade had read) and THATS when I started letting my Pattern Recognition get the best of me. See, even tho I’m aro, I love watching media with romance. And when there’s no official out there romance in the media, I ship. So, starting in 8th grade, I would relate myself and my friends to characters or sometimes to tropes (especially the red and blue gay trope) and then Ship Myself With People. Because obviously having a crush on someone is the same as shipping your favorite pairing from your favorite show. All of this led to me getting into very superficial relationships that I ended in a month or two. That only speaks for 3 of my relationships, though. One that lasted longer was when I was 14 and I was grounded a lot, so most of the relationship was just chatting over text, which was basically just friendship but we would kiss when we saw each other in person. Another that lasted 4 and then 8 months separately was with someone I became friends with who then tried to isolate me from my friends and abused me. And the other was with my best friend, we dated from August to December, but were in a qpr right before that. We might eventually get back in a qpr; we both have things we’re working on right now, but they’re the only person I’ve ever felt fully comfortable being that close with.

One last thing, being aromantic but bisexual definitely made it hard to figure out, because I would be sexually attracted to people and then feel like shit when I “lost feeling for them” right away. This only happened like once because I hadn’t actually done anything with anyone until him but god I felt like shit. Not realizing the distinction between platonic, romantic, and sexual attraction lead to me having like a 3 year long “crush” on one of my best friends, when it was really just my brain going “you care for and trust him, and he likes being physically affectionate with you, you could totally lose your virginity to him, it would be safe.”

So yeah, if your questioning whether or not you’re aro I highly suggest using introspection and like thinking back to what you were like when you were younger. Thanks for spending your time reading this.

[souyaf]

do you think it’s possible to read yaoi purely for enjoyment and separate that fiction from reality, realizing that it’s not a representation of real gay men but is instead a genre aimed for women by women? i like to see it this way- if you are a woman who likes men, yaoi is just double the man. for this same reason i don’t see an issue with men reading yuri. as long as that doesn’t lead to fetishization of gay men, especially real gay men. personally i used to read yaoi (dojuins not fanfiction) with anime guys i liked bc that was the only smut available and they were pretty good, but that never led to me fetishizing or comparing them to real men. like i’ve never ‘shipped’ real men or anything of the sort. I understand there’s a culture around yaoi that is often fetishized but that’s not all people.

my main point is- do you think no woman can ever read/watch it ever, even if they don’t compare it to real life?

i think the main problem is that a cishet woman cannot read yaoi with the intent being inherently sexualized.

there's a whole other category of BL/shounen-ai whatever u wanna call it that you can find actual storylines. plot and relationships that you can read about and get into. and i rlly don't care if cishet women read things that are actually meant to be read with storylines and plots and real relationships, by all means, go for it. when i say yaoi i mean the PORN, the hentai.

there's a fundamental problem in that yaoi isn't just "double the man for straight women"...they're two gay men. a straight person should not be thinking of two gay men as being just double the man for the straight person to consume that's not what mlm should be watered down to

it's porn and i just can't grasp why straight women automatically want to get off to gay sex. more than anything, they can relate more to het hentai so why is yaoi the one that's specifically enticing to them.

there's no argument in yaoi for "but i like their relationship" because there's very rarely any real, healthy relationship beyond mentioning in it before it jumps straight into the porn. do they just find the fact they're two men fucking hot? do they find that they're gay hot? if you say "well it seems more realistic", as a straight woman.....what would they know? if it's more "relatable"...again, you're straight how would you know?

there's no way a straight woman can relate to gay porn without it just being based on their perceptions and ideas of what being gay is or looks like. straight people don't experience being gay. you can relate to the problems that happen in relationships of mlm couples or things like that but out of straight up yaoi? porn? you don't get anything but just the most basic sexualization that is inherently there. and i feel the same with cishet men reading yuri.

like i'm not by any means saying that i don't think straight people can't read yaoi or trying to stop them. it's just something that makes me personally uncomfortable and i decided i don't want to rlly interact with those people.

this is all /nm btw

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/753405110589259776/note-spoilers-on-this-ask-for-anyone-who-hasnt

I’m this anon, and using your anon box to reply to a bad take in the reblogs of it lol.

1. aO3 treats the show and book series as separate fandoms for Bridgerton. My friend’s genderbend fic though is based on the books — thought I made that clear here. And yes book fans were being genuinely homophobic in her comments, not just her interpreting them not shipping it as “homophobia.” It was full of “get out of OUR tag” and claiming just writing a female character in a male version or shipping her male love interest with a guy was “misogyny,” exactly as I said. It’s a huge problem in the fandom. The main Reddit sub is so full of homophobia that queer fans had to spin out a separate inclusive sub called r/bridgertonlgbt. I’ve heard of people on TikTok being called “bourgeois degenerate” and “groomer” just for questioning why it’s supposedly such a dramatic and horrible change to make Michael into Michaela in the show.

2. Can we finally fucking retire the really tired, knee jerk “book is always better” attitude that has never been universally true anyway lol. The books Bridgerton are based on are pretty middling het histrom that repeat plots so much between them that that’s one of the big changes the show has had to make — just not have seasons 1 and 2 follow the same plot beats like books 1 and 2 did. The show has had to make a lot of changes just because it has a bigger audience than your average het histrom reader and while I haven’t loved every shift, it is overall better for it. Or just like, focusing on more than just each season’s main couple like the books only do — also better! The subplots are some of the most fun parts of that show, but also, it makes sense that people are going to continue to want to follow their favs from season to season and not just zero in on each couple. Yes I’ve read all the books. They simply are just not that great, TV is a different medium than books anyway and so certain changes are necessary, and frankly most of the loudest parts of the “book fandom” online who complain about the changes are people who read the books because of the show anyway. They’re all wildly inconsistent in what they consider acceptable changes: they’re largely on board with making the universally white books more racially diverse, but not adding queerness and gender diversity. Why is one ok but not another? Especially when a lot of them are ok with sad or bittersweet queer stories in subplots like Brimsley’s but not happy stories for main characters. Why is that, I wonder? A lot of people are pretending to be “book snobs” as a mask for bigotry, or just have bad taste, but regardless I think we need to get over the idea that stalwart defense of some mediocre and overly tropey romance novels is more elevated or intellectual and like the show isn’t an improvement in being less lazy about the cliches of that genre than the original author. (Seriously, I read a lot of romance novels, so this is not a knock on the genre as a whole or its readers — but the Bridgerton books are SO lazy and SO repetitive. Honestly I think a lot of the book defenders need to read more histrom themselves. Then maybe they’d see how weak and lazy those books can be compared to what else is out there.)

Fandom please learn basic things about how adaptation between different mediums works 2k24 also stop assuming that consuming a story in text form over another is an inherently intellectual activity

--

A pretentious friend of mine who loves Shonda Rhimes was going on at me a while ago about how she ~always reads the book first~ and then waiting for applause as if that's unusual!

She then tried to launch into how shocked she was by the books being... well, lowbrow trash, but she had some complex and boring way of explaining this.

I was like "Honey, you do know what a regency romance novel is, right? Right?!"

I mean, there are adaptations that are nearly exactly like the middle tier of romance novels. They're movie length and they air on Lifetime. This was a change not only of medium but of overall target audience and vibe.

[kukuandkookie]

Haha no problem! Chinese media is admittedly basically my hyperfixation and I know it’s both underrated and difficult to access for foreigners, so when I stumble across a post in the “donghua” or “manhua” tags asking for recs, I try to help out a bit. 💪

And phew, I’m glad you do like danmei!!!

In fact…I actually have an entire list of just danmei and baihe (Chinese girls’ love) manhua here, where you may also stumble upon some other amazing stories:

(It is admittedly also a kind of archive to keep track of titles, so I do a bit less quality control, although I do still leave out manhua I don’t personally vibe with. It is way less comprehensive than my donghua and manhua recs list though, but it’s still divided by genre, with links to posts about danmei and about baihe etc!)

But yeah, danmei and baihe are definitely in pretty unique positions when it comes to romantic tropes! There is the differences in dynamics perhaps between heterosexual romances and gay ones already, although I think some Chinese het ones are also pretty cute and soft…

But while censorship is bad, obviously, I do think it’s neat seeing how danmei has grown into its own unique thing because of censorship, specifically in the grander and heavier stories it tells that don’t solely focus on the romance (I rewatched some of the Pixiu’s Eatery vomic lately, and it remains quite funny, like this scene I subbed here, which differs so much from the seriousness of Bing Xing Xia Deng, which focused on unreliable narrators and undercover police at a gambling island, or Blazing Armour, which was about cops and firefighters working on a case involving an arsonist cult and a past murder mystery—this last one stressed me out so much ALFJSKS). In comparison, a baihe may be able to get away with more, especially in a cdrama adaptation when it comes to physical touch, yet many also have their own complex, grander-than-life stories.

Though of course, when a danmei or baihe does solely focus on a romance, such as the adorable I Ship I Rival x Me, like any romance from anywhere in the world that does the same, that’s also perfectly okay for the people who do vibe with pure romance. 😆

And there are certainly a lot of manhua adaptations of some pretty cool historical and more action-based stories, including Tian Guan Ci Fu, which is neat to learn that you’ve enjoyed!—it’s definitely done quite well for itself—or like Qiang Jin Jiu…but some are definitely more underrated than others!

And because of the underrated ones, I’m happy to be of help for finding these Chinese media as a result hehe. I wish you happy reading!!

This was removed by Reddit's shitty AI bots so reposting here.

Lately I've been wandering around in search of new titles, so I'm hoping that you can help me! Do note I'm kind of really picky lol so be warned.

But as a few points, here's some preferences of mine:

I don't like romance or hints of it in general and I despise harem. The "first girl crushes on male MC who is so dense he doesn't know but theb second girl is also crushing on male MC so the girls fight behind stupid MC's back" and "girls whose entire reason for living is MC" are really things I don't want to read, I'm tired lol

I don't really care as to what setting the story is in tbh. Can be Murim, can be mo.dern day. But there has to be some kind of action, not entirely slice of life

I tend to dislike magic schools/academies (bc it's so easy to get the standard tropes like "haughthy bitch with magic", "sexy teacher" and "one-dimensional bully") but I'd like to be proven wrong for once

No real life gods/"constellations" involved please

I love an atypical MC. Kind of like Lloyd who is only out for money and easy retirement but ends up helping everyone as a side-effect, or just a good villain

The following list is not full but just a small pick of the more known titles to give the idea:

I've read and enjoyed the following:

Greatest Estate Developer (bloody amazing)

Pick Me Up (don't like all story beats but it's generally good)

Reincarnated as a Legendary Surgeon (like medical themes, plus no romance)

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint (this one gets bonus points for not dressing its girls in riduculous armor, only thing I'm not fond of are the gods)

I've also read and finished:

Solo Leveling

I liked but kind of stopped with:

Nano Machine (story is good, just disliked the romance)

I really hated:

999+ Reinforced Stick (except the one arc about the little girl)

[ghcstvalleychief]

To be quite honest I'm done with BLs, if these past years have taught me anything about that industry and specially from Thai culture is how toxic it is. Most of their fans are usually under 20 so important matter will pass by them but still I've notice a pattern where this genre protects abusers as long as it let fans sexualize m/m relationships. I mean, nowadays it seems like the basic to have attractive men on any show so het girlies can wet their underwear and give money but in BL wolrd is an every day since forever but not just that as well THE ACTORS are whore'd out for fan service so girlies shipping them spend money on them while they are abused by the industry as well. What Apo said once about leaving the industry ain't no far fetched of reality many actors are not as outspoken about the issue but surely have left Thai to live anywhere else literally the second they are out of contract. Fans, both thai and korean, are so self entitled of actors lives that would harrassed any companion they have but when sexual assault, abuse or any kind of misstreatment the actor is involved with they go deaf silent. The reason the authors act untouchable and BoC as company won't move a finger is because their main target is Thais and they literally only care about shipping, the industry is so fucked up that even the media can make any comments or touch you and face no backlash. Mark my words Apo will leave again the second his contract is over because the industry has barely change from 5 years ago and especially Thailand has no issues with sexual abuse or sexual harrassment especially in the industry that's why Daemi has done in out and live and fear no repercution.

I hate to use the age argument, but I can't (in good faith) ignore the fact that age and maturity play a huge role in the current fandom shenanigans. It plays a major role, and it just proves that you have a lot of young people in this fandom. Their unwillingness to be sympathetic to the trauma and plight of people affected by all of this sexual harassment is extremely telling. I'm not saying that older people can't fall victim to this behavior, but most young people genuinely don't care about other people and it shows. It's why they're completely fine with rape jokes and the sexual harassment of minors.

I have less than 6 months of experience interacting with the BL fandom and I was able to figure this out pretty quickly. That's sad when you think about it though, because that just goes to show that it doesn't take long for all of the toxicity and bullshit to seep out of the fandom. In the beginning, all seem to be going well and it changed at the drop of a dime. These fans are rabid but ignorant as fuck too. It's a strange dichotomy because they're well past passionate but they're also very unaware of the consequences of literally anything. They don't realize what kind of real world consequences any of this can have, which will eventually end up touching them too at some point. Just by statistics alone, it's unfortunately going to touch them at some point. The reason Daemi were able to make money off of those gross novels and harassing these actors is because the industry created an environment where it's completely fine for this to happen. The industry created this monster.

They're using these actors for their own personal gain and allowing things like abuse and harassment to happen behind the scenes just as long as they get their money's worth. They don't care about the well-being of these very real people going through any of this. Unfortunately, the fans don't make it any better. The fans play a part in all of this too. Instead of calling for justice to prevail, they're supporting actors who have the audacity to make fun of rape and support authors who sexually harass actors and minors. The fans don't care about any of this, and the industry is just taking advantage of the lack of morality and values these fans have. It's a damn shame that the industry is essentially the reason why a lot of talented actors, like Apo, are going to fall through the cracks. I hate to see his talent go to waste but I can't blame him for doing what's best for him, his peace of mind, and his mental well-being. With everything that's happening, I wouldn't be surprised if he makes that decision for a second time at some point.

[autumnrory]

this is random but I wanted to tell you I enjoy how unapologetically anti steggy/endgame you are. i’ve never bought into that whole love story, because it‘s literally just a couple of interactions with no greater depth to it. when I point out they barely got to know each other people will say ´well in the old days people who barely knew each other got married all the time!’ but that’s just an excuse for poor writing, cause i hear this same excuse in other fandoms to defend every boring het ship that barely talks to each other....we’re a modern audience and we deserve better than that kind of lazy writing. a relationship without genuine development is not going to connect and will only fall flat when there are clearly better options.....(anyways sorry for coming into your inbox to rant, i‘m just a casual fan who sometimes has opinions)

thank you haha i know i repeat myself a lot but it's just bc i'm so mad!!! and every once in a while i will be like AND ANOTHER THING that shows why it's all bad and illogical for the characters

yeah and it's such a silly argument because......sure things were like that back then, where if he'd not crashed into the ice, they might've gotten married real fast, but that's not how things happened? and sure, steve grew up in that world, but by endgame he'd lived a long time in a world where that's just not the norm. and as i've said, even if you DO believe steve and peggy had known each other enough to have fallen in love, he had moved past that relationship. like basically the entire point of catws is showing him moving forward and making a life in this century, even if he is (naturally) struggling with it. i think part of the reason buy into it is because 1. endgame hit them over the head with the peggy references to be like see! he loves her so much! when they just did that to convince the audience it was believable, because looking at previous movies, the endgame ending is decidedly NOT believable. and 2. because age of ultron basically ignores catws entirely so people see all the discussion of family and a normal life and steve's nightmare scenario but instead they don't recognize it as a nightmare scenario and don't recognize that he's not the same person he was in the forties. like. i don't think joss whedon was TRYING to prove anything because avengers 2012 really shows he just doesn't understand steve's character at all and just views him as an old man even though he's like 26, BUT i think ppl just misinterpret things from aou to be like "this is the life he's always wanted actually! he finally gets to have it!" when it's all just unhealthy and not at all true of steve's character

not to be all "you're not a real fan if" but i just think it's not that ppl who liked the endgame ending don't really like steve, i just think they don't really GET steve

in fairness i think a lot of marvel fans pretty clearly don't care that much if the relationships don't have a lot of depth, because let's face it, a lot of the canon romantic relationships don't AND a lot of the supposed friendships don't - for example, people think civil war was this tragedy with this fight between steve and tony, but let's face it, they were never close friends, they didn't get along from the start, if not for joss whedon i imagine avengers 2 would've shown a better dynamic between the whole team, but we get the nice party scene at the beginning and then it's back to their regular arguing (which hey creating ultron WAS tony's fault so like. it should've been called out lmao!). but yeah, like. i get that marvel is supposed to be fun and not that deep or whatever, BUT they have their emotional instances and near-criticisms of government (i mean........the whole point of catws is that they cannot be trusted! and people think steve should've signed the accords! yeah right!) and then they just don't follow through and especially recently, and ESPECIALLY with endgame, they chose not to follow through on anything they'd built up to that point (look how it ignored catws, aou, civil war, infinity war, ragnarok, it contradicts all those movies), they chose to go for the exact kind of garbage superhero movies are accused of being, instead of telling a cohesive story. it's embarrassing.

but yeah like you really have to think that steve probably knew old peggy better than he knew peggy during in the forties.....so how do they think it's acceptable or logical for him to know about the life she had, to know she wanted him to have his own life and to go back, ignoring all that. not even getting into what it does to his friends, what it means to have all this knowledge of the future and whether or not he would mold the timeline into something else. it all just specifically makes steve's character look bad in pretty much all regards and he would just......never do a single thing he did in endgame. he would not have sat around and not tried to do something to undo the snap or at least help out his remaining teammates for FIVE YEARS he just wouldn't. that's why for me i have to ignore the whole movie, not just the ending.

[ryuichirou]

Hi, Ryu❤️ Hope u’r doing well❤️

Since u’r talking about ships lately, I’m really curious to hear your opinion about Aru//Ani, its execution, development and progression throughout the whole plot👀, if it’s not a problem and especially if u have the time to. Its shippers claim Isym has been doing a great build up since FT arc (???) and that, despite the lack of development onscreen, the dynamic makes sense (???) cause they “complete” each other and they learnt how to “love and respect” each other throughout the past 4 years (???!!!).

And... I don’t know, Ryu: I really tried to consider their pov, even reread the A/A interactions and look at the dynamic with shipping goggles on, but I really failed to see and understand what they claim. Actually, I keep seeing this dynamic as insulting not just for Armin and Annie’s characters in first place, but also for Eren, Mikasa, Hitch and Berthold. Moreover, it seems nothing but an addiction made out for fanservice, cause it serves absolutely nothing to the plot: if u cut their interactions post 131ch, the story wouldn’t change in the least. Also, their interactions weren’t even that romantic and weren’t focused at all about their supposed “crush” for each other. I personally believe Armin is using Annie as coping mechanism and/or just a mean to substitute Eren; whereas Annie is substituting Armin with her father, cause she feels adrift and desperate, and seeks for someone who cherishes her and appreciates her for the person she is no matter the harsh things she did in the past (I’m crying for Hitch in the mid time....). Other than that, I’m believing also in Berthold’s influence on Armin, cause it’s the only explanation for the sudden interest of boy towards girl, that happen to begin exactly after he ate Berthold: it can’t be just a coincidence imo.

So yeah, at the end of the day, I’m pretty sad cause I used to love both the characters and now I’m much conflicted atm, cause I see nothing but a huge derailment for both and a waste for Annie’s one, who’s developing literally over a love interest... And it’s a very huge pity to me.

Sorry for the big ask, lol... I have this weight on my chest and I confess it’s actually ruining my love for SnK: I feel like everything after 131ch started sucking pretty hard... Plus, the fandom became more toxic than ever😔😔😔

I was waiting for someone to ask me about them eventually, and honestly... Anon, you're such a big mood lol

You’ve guessed correctly: I don’t like AruAni. Not because we personally don’t ship it, but because it doesn’t make sense and (for now) it’s unclear what it the purpose of this storyline and if there’s even going to be a purpose. I don’t recommend anyone shipping them reading my reply.

Basically, Anon, you’ve described everything perfectly, so I’m just going to agree with all your points. I also don’t see a reason for Armin to have this type of love for Annie. I see a coping mechanism, I see something to escape to from the Eren problem, I can even see a self-punishment of sorts, but I don’t see that sweet crush we’re led to believe is there. See, Armin didn’t even know Annie that well. They talked like twice, and then the Female Titan thing happened, and then… he was talking to her for years, but he still never learnt anything about her. How can he love her if he doesn’t even know who the fuck Annie is? And yeah, it’s convenient Bertold timing, I wonder if it’s going to come up later.

We feel like it’s unfair to other characters. It’s also extremely unfair to Hitch that’s also been here for Annie for all those years but didn’t get the special treatment for some reason. Like... their reasoning would be pretty much the same, they could’ve made Hitch her love interest for all the same reasons.

It’s unfair to Annie herself, because, based on what we know about her, she’s drawn to stubborn idiots going against the flow. Because she herself could never do that. This is the point of her character: she could never stand against what people asked her to do, even when she knew it was useless or wrong. This is why Eren intrigues her, this is why Marlo intrigues her.

Of course I’m biased here, and don’t get me wrong: I don’t see EreAnnie becoming a canon thing either lol and I talked about how I don’t care about ships being canon in general a bunch of times already. I’m saying this as an example of a dynamic that actually... works for her type of character. But all the development Annie’s got was kickstarted by Eren being interested in her fighting style and being the first person who legitimately interested her on this island (and who was interested in her too to some extent, at least interested in something she was proud of and deeply loved). She also deeply appreciated it, they had funny dialogues together, and he was the first and only person she had flirted with, which is a huge step for a character as shy, distant and serious as Annie. Seeing her now blushing for Armin looks like a joke when you keep these things in mind. You can listen to his stories all you want, but it’s strictly one-sided. And, like I said, Hitch can also have the same chances with this type of logic. Their pie-eating scene has more chemistry than all AruAni moments.

The “good person/bad person” dialogue with Armin doesn’t feel like a development to me because they were just mirroring each other’s thoughts, so it’s like talking to yourself…

Ok, that was a little bit off topic lol. But yeah, this is why for now we think that either there will be a twist of sorts (i’ll take killing Armin as a twist) or the editor just made Isayama push this narrative, since Isayama doesn’t strike me as a type who likes romance that much or ships his own characters, plus he used romance for proving the cruel world motif so many times already. Or this is just exactly what it is, a last minute het romance, and we’ll end up sitting there like bitter losers being all upset, Anon haha

The fandom’s always going toxic and pretty feral as soon as het couples pop up, and in general huge fanbases mean nothing good unless you want that sweet clout to make money or get attention, so the only thing I can advice you is to distance yourself from them so that it won’t ruin your SnK experience even more. I don’t know you or your feelings, but I think you’re just upset about AruAni thing, this is why the manga sucks to you right now (well, you basically said it yourself, if I got you correctly). And that’s fine and we’re annoyed by this thing a lot too, so we can definitely understand this sentiment. Personally, we pretend like this bs romance never happened so it won’t ruin our experience, and we’ll see what to think about it when SnK is over. Like, what if it’s just a plot device and we get ourselves worried about nothing? I wanna believe that... :”)

And can I just… use this chance to say how frustrated I am that the majority of Annie content there is is either AruAni or BerAni (or the trio)? It’s like she isn’t important when she’s not in the context of those relationships… It upsets me a lot.

Let me just say this… Reiner had more development with Annie than Armin and Bertolt combined. There, I said it. And Reiner’s fucking gay.

Overall, we’ll see how everything plays out, and then you can come again to us and we’ll bitch together lol

[booasaur]

I haven’t watched All Rise in a really long while but based on the gifs, I thought Emily and Ness were exes and Sam was the new flame? In the last gif it definitely seems like Emily is wingmanning for Ness? I read your tags so I know that’s not what’s happening but still, it seems like they could be adding a second f/f ship on the show which is unexpected. Especially for this network!

Haha, definitely not exes, but that was kind of a wingwoman moment! 

Basically, Ness, Lola’s clerk, was shadowing Emily for the day so we got a lot of scenes where those various earlier interactions happened and the hints piled up, and then Emily’s case had a brutal outcome so Ness cancelled her plans (with Sam) to stay with Emily but Emily invited Sam along anyway when she saw it was her.

And yes, it is unexpected! Though of course Ness wasn’t even in tonight’s ep, they’re never gonna get that much screentime, not as much as the hets where we see them play out in full detail in successive episodes, but it’s something. I think it was also made easier for them by the fact that while Sam was initially with Luke, it’s pretty clear he’s Emily’s endgame so she was available and they already have Sara and Sherri for new m/f.