#but that’s like. very realistic young adult behavior and it is fun to read and watch unfold

[furox]

I finished ASC: Sky last night and uhmmm whoa mama those cats can warriors. What I’m trying to say is this was hands down the single most enjoyable book published since the original series. Like don’t get me wrong the actual writing sucks ass but the plot is actually engaging for once. It’s predictable but still refreshing for warriors.

[olderthannetfic]

I always see people who have never been antis, talking about/questioning how some antis even ARE antis when you look at their taste in media - ie the ever famous joke of "Hannigram is #problematique" "but it's a show where he eats people" or whatever.

I thought I'd weigh in as someone who could, hypothetically, be called an ex-anti (which, thankfully, nothing ever really came out of it - it was just very 2014 keyboardwarrior-esque behavior of me being a chronically online young adult who would share posts in a group chat making fun of certain shippers, or reblog posts about how 50shades is The Most Problematic Media Ever to exist -- basically I was an anti with anti-lines of thoughts, but i never, like, a ran a Shipping Discourse Blog or whatever)

For me, personally, it was a few different things. I can now see how it's incredibly hypocritical that teenaged me shipped Light/L, while still thinking that Dramione was Bad And Abusive. It ultimately boiled down to a) being pretentious, and b) just not understanding media or what proshippers REALLY believed, with a side of c) not realizing that nuance exists. like i was pretty late to join tumblr, I think I immigrated here during PEAK "yourfaveisproblematic" era which definitely did have an impact on my opinions and my tastes.

to elaborate, a.) being pretentious. i mean this one just kinda goes without saying. "I engage in media in a way more intellectual way than you do, don't you know that? You're a filthy and disgusting person who writes Snape/Hermione because you're an actually disgusting pedophile IRL who would probably date your own student that you're abusing if you could. Meanwhile, I'm a very smart, good, and pure person. When I read Uncle Vernon/Harry, I'm doing it in a G-d honoring whump way that clearly condemns abuse, incest, and rape. Unlike YOU who only writes harmful stuff as a way to get people off :/"

(as an aside, i think this line of thinking will ALWAYS be present in fandom and popculture in some way, sadly. ie the recent trend of people hating on booktok bc the books are 'trashy' and how these porn addicts should read real classic literature instead.)

as for b.), not understanding media - i cannot emphasize enough that i was GENUINELY stupid and disconnected enough to think that proshippers REALLY WERE pro-All Of The Degenerate Dead Doves That They Wrote.

why did i feel this way? why did i understand that Lolita clearly isnt pro-pedophilia, but for some reason i thought that someone shipping weecest was? well, first of all, i think that fanfiction is (generally) seen as Less Serious than classic literature, and fandom is a fun place, so i guess i somehow thought that every fanfic/fanartist who wrote Problematic Things, especially Problematic Things that they portrayed as Sexy, really DID enjoy the thought of that Actually Happening To Real People.

and i think THIS is the bulk of why antis ARE antis. i'm not calling them all stupid - i do think BEING an anti is stupid, but at the same time, there are people who are truly smart and good-intended people who just have some really off color opinions about, like, homestuck ships or whatever. Lawlight is okay because notebooks that kill people don't exist so it's IMPOSSIBLE for the Harmful Aspects of Light/L to be romanticized! but schoolyard prejudiced bullies DO exist and are a REAL problem so Drarry is BAD (*truly completely unaware of the fact that there's 'realistic' aspects of the Light/L dynamic and 'unrealistic' aspects of Drarry - such as, for example, Hogwarts arguably being even MORE of a fantasy setting than DN is.*) I know that media literacy is the hot buzzword of the year to throw around in 2024, but, like, i really did not have media literacy.

as for c.), not realizing nuance exists - ok "nuance" might not be the best word here, but i dont know how else to describe it. like, each time ive typed the word "problematic" out in this ask, i've done so in a very tongue in cheek/ironic/retroactive way, but, like, those posts about how Everything Is Problematic, Including Your Fave ARE true. and i didn't like the fact that my favorite media or favorite person might've Made A Mistake! i need to Talk About Its Issues Because I'm So Betrayed That My Dear Sweet Comfort Media Would Do This To Me. I Need To Prove I Clearly Condemn It.

like, i legit morally could not justify reblogging a twilight post without adding in the tags '#this is my guilty pleasure it sucks that the books were so racist though' or whatever. Most people were lucky enough to avoid that line of thinking, but there was an actual group of people who felt a genuine need to virtue signal all the time, partly bc, hey, they WERE passionate about talking abt #issues in media, but also bc of a subconscious fear of If You Reblog A Singular Piece Of Hetalia Fanart, You're Literally A Nazi And Will Get A Callout Post Written About You.

and during all of this i was at the tail end of my high school experience (yes i know im younger than most of your audience, ha). i was going through A Lot emotionally, going through a lot of life changes, and lived in a very . . . interesting household/place where i couldn't do ACTUAL good in the world that i was passionate about. so to make up for the fact that i was genuinely in no place to do legit activism, clearly i had to save the gay community by arguing about johnlock queerbaiting or whatever.

^ and honestly i do think that is the position of most antis. theyre isolated and cant seem to do Enough in the Real Scary World so they have to resort to talking about how bad of a person someone is for "shipping abuse", bc theyre not in a situation where they could, for example, ACTUALLY fight the good fight to end abuse or raise awareness for it.

There was way more to it and way more that I could say, if I wanted to, but this post is long enough as it is and probably doesn't make much sense.

I feel bad for antis, honestly, or at least the ones who are antis in the way I used to be.

--

Oh yes, passionate young fools who think they can at least fix the internet if not their lives make up most of the cannon fodder. Some of the ringleaders are just mini dictators and wannabe cult leaders, but most anti-leaning types are just traumatized or clueless, even a lot of the ones who do serious damage and don't just mock shit in private with their friends.

[aanglican]

I actually find the relationship between Aang and his children super interesting and complex, in ways the fandom rarely explore, it usually just falls into the "LOK is BAD because they made Aang a bad father" when that is not at all what was intended with that. Aang was a complicated person struggling with balance and what rubs me wrong is people dont read into his children either, they just focus on Aang. For example Kya, who now older and on her own, seems to crave a sense of spirituality and connection to the world, yet rejected it in when she was young as she herself admits, is she trying to connect to her father's beliefs now that he isnt around due to feelings of loss or loneliness, guilt, etc? does she feel separated from the others? or how Bumi chose a life of adventure and "heroics" due to feeling inadequate next to the legacy of his father and still year after his father's passing, doesnt really know if his father noticed this or even approved.. Aang clearly loves his children and they love him but there is so much here that lays in subtle readings. It feels very real, like this is how families actually behave, with so many unclear and complicated feelings.

i love your suggestions for each child’s behavior. kya with her waterbending could have shunned her air nomad half in response to (or to cope with?) her not being an airbender like tenzin & bumi could have used sokka or suki or any other prominent nonbender in his childhood as idols due to having neither ability of his parents and siblings. there’s a lot of expectations and insecurities in this family that couldn’t be solved even if aang was present 100% of the time.

as for aang alone, i never got the impression he was a bad father either— if he were then we would hear of it from katara but she never says anything bad about him. instead she’s understanding and knows exactly what it’s like to have one’s culture ripped from you: the air nomads were wiped out but so were southern waterbenders. that is their most tragic link together. kya and bumi clearly felt alienated from aang and tenzin as they were not airbenders, which may have also resulted in a conscious choice to step back from embracing their air nomad heritage. clearly aang had too much duties for one man— he is the avatar and the only airbending master both— so he could not devote equal amount of time and attention to all his children.

tenzin has gone on trips with his father alone but the fact that he conflates these memories with those he’s spent with his siblings means aang included kya and bumi in trips as well. it’s not like kya and bumi were dead to aang the second tenzin came out looking like an air nomad. i even think those fun memories tenzin has with aang were rewards after aang had dragged him to boring events and diplomatic trainings & whatnot. i can totally picture aang taking a tour of kyoshi island after introducing tenzin to the fire nation court or something. “before we get home to your mom, why don’t we let loose for a bit at XYZ?” et cetera.

i love aang’s relationship with his kids as well as toph’s. sometimes i wish we knew about zuko and izumi more, even. i love it when our child heroes aren’t always the most squeaky clean adults. it happens, the circumstances make the outcome realistic, and it makes their dynamics interesting. no one growing up with child soldiers-turned-world leaders for parents are going to have perfect outlooks on themselves nor their ancestors.

[lavend-ler]

you're literally so real and based about the misogyny in the onceler fandom like none of the plot would've happened without audrey or norma (although i am a bit biased when it comes to norma cause she's my fave), and mrs wiggins helped A LOT and everyone just ignored them. also the vitriolic hatred towards the onceler's mom (yeah she sucked but still) is kinda weird where is that treatment towards the rest of his family

thank u dear anon 🙏

I posted my post out on a whim from my drafts but lemme elaborate - the lorax/onceler fandom is incredibly misogynistic. from the fact that ppl make fun of younger often girls having fun and being attracted to Once-ler. I was also a young girl when I first joined this fandom and I could completely feel the mockery over the years. all bc I dared to have fun abt one of my fave characters. and over the years I feel like the nature had become even more so hostile against fans, esp abt women who just join

my another glaring issue is with the fact that this fandom completely overlooks female characters. as u've said, the plot wouldn't have happened without Audrey and Norma. and when u join the fandom discussions u see ppl complaining abt how thinly they are written, the fandom does nothing to expand on them

I'll start with Norma bc she's my absolute fave too - u can barely find anything with her these days. yes I love Normaler but it doesn't have to be all there is to her. if u don't like Normaler, why can't u make Norma be Once-ler's friend? why aren't u exploring her life as a young woman, single mother and then a kind and upbeat old woman? why can't u pick up the pieces in canon abt her spunky but lighthearted nature, love for stories, enigmatic but understanding personality, nostalgia towards different times but still living in the moment, even affection towards things as gentle as nature and as extreme as sports? she fckin drives a crane all by herself! Norma is such a fantastic character to explore but this fandom just doesn't want to. and then when ppl DO explore her character it's dismissed as a self-insert fantasy for girls. even if so, so what? are we circling back to hating young girls for having interests?

Audrey is a similar case. she's either used as a mouthpiece, side piece for Ted or fucking shipped with an adult. why don't u explore her life beside this? why won't u talk abt her being an artist, softspoken dreamer and an introverted character who has to make choices? I love when ppl make her more active but she can also be passive, not everyone has to be an adventurer. and if u make her active, she could make a fantastic protag. all I'm saying is, do better

I'd argue the story of The Lorax also couldn't have happened if it wasn't for Mrs. Wiggins. she's such a fun character too, lovable and sweet and energetic, but also no nonsense and stands up for what she believes in? when I read this ask to my bestie they looked at me and said "Mrs. Wiggins has more personality than Ted" and I AGREE. she deserves more spotlight as a single woman who tries her hardest and balances her life all around. she's so so good

as for Once-ler's mother, she is a total bitch but like........so is his whole family. yes, she's the abuser but everyone else enables her abuse so they're also guilty. like fuck them. I do totally get hatred for Once-ler's mother but she's also a pretty good antagonist. her manipulative behavior and mood swings are very well written in a realistic way. why can't we even say that a woman is a good antagonist? besides, she can also have her past (which does not excuse the abuse ofc, just makes her a deeper character). I see a lot of potential and it's just wasted a millionth time

can I also say that female OCs in this fandom are super scarce? I remember there were a lot of times when fem!Once-ler blogs got deactivated bc they were relentlessly bullied. all for the sake of shipping two mildly different flavors of the same guy. and u don't have to make them side pieces to ur Once-lers. women deserve their own stories to tell. when I was developing my Lorax OC Felicia, her relationship with Once-ler was the last thing I thought of

anyways, it's a total tangent at this point but I wanted this to be an ode to female characters of the lorax/onceler fandom. they deserve their stories and they deserve to be treated with respect. do better

[isfjmel-phleg]

Why I like it: Psmith in the City

After I read and enjoyed Mike and Psmith, I interlibrary-loaned the rest of the series and read them in rapid succession.

And honestly, my greatest appreciation for this book came during rereads and the need to overanalyze the text for annotations and conversations with a very longsuffering Allie.

Mike and Psmith's friendship comes about in the first book, and we get to see how much Psmith is willing to sacrifice for his friend, but their connection really comes to the forefront during Psmith in the City.

There's something delightfully escapist about these two friends rooming in Psmith's luxurious flat, braving the drudgeries of their shared misfortune of working at the bank by day, and living it up in Edwardian London by night. It's a setting that feels very real--and it was! Wodehouse peppers the narrative with real locations, and when I was in London, I was able, using this information, to take a little private walking tour of Psmith's part of town and experience it. Even with the reality of the locations, though, there's a certain glamorization. Thanks to Psmith's father's money, the boys are able to afford an experience of young adulthood and a first job that isn't available to most people, either then or now. And perhaps there's some glamorization of the friendship too.

Because it isn't easy to be Psmith's friend, and this starts to be evident. Psmith is a jerk in a lot of ways in this book, more so than in the others--even in his interactions with Mike. But these moments are easily brushed aside, and the friendship never really suffers. This is a Wodehouse novel, so we can be confident that when things get really bad, Psmith will come through as the good friend that he really is, and he'll find a way to save the day for Mike. The worst of his behavior vanishes by the last part of the book, never to be seen again in how he treats his best friend. Not especially realistic, but it is compelling. A real-life Psmith would be absolutely dreadful to put up with; the page, however, allows us a distance that assures us that despite it all, his intentions are good and he himself is good at heart.

And on the whole, he is. We know this because he really does care about Mike, because he's capable of dropping the flippant mask to show compassion when the situation requires. He's just...a complicated mess here. He's under a lot of stress that he hides most of the time. He's angry at his father and taking that out on his awful boss. He's an arrogant rich kid with more money than is good for him. He has one (1) and only one friend whom he's clinging to like the only thing keeping him afloat in life. (Psmith's got attachment issues, I'm starting to realize. That may be another post.) He's a very complex character, not just the comic relief or the trickster archetype, and because of that, he goes beyond hilarity to being interesting, even if he's not always easy to like.

Mike is still the everyman, perhaps even more so because his story is such a relatable portrait of what it's like to be eighteen, fresh out of school, and having to take on for the first time an adult world that you're unequipped for. Mike's classical education and cricket skills aren't particularly useful now that he has to make a living. The former class clown and jock is now an awkward mess of social anxiety. Wodehouse pokes as much fun at Mike as he does anyone else in the story, but he also takes Mike's struggles and pain seriously--because much of it was probably his own. Mike's grief at losing the glorious future he was promised, his increasing frustration and despair at being trapped in a dead-end job that stifles his talents and personality--they're very real, and poignant.

Mike and Psmith may inhabit a glittering dream world in their version of London and maintain a desirably close friendship that would have probably fallen apart eventually if it existed in the real world. Their shenanigans are sheer comedy with no grounding in reality. But the heart of the story is two eighteen-year-olds on their own in the adult world for the first time, with no support system but each other, trying to figure out life and often failing--and this is what makes the story resonate, because we've all been there.

And sure, their ending is a fairy tale, down to the final lines in which Mike imagines his future as pretty much perfect from now on (which will not turn out to be the case!), but...well, when you're a twenty-something in your first non-college job, taking the bus, feeling incompetent, dealing with difficult coworkers...a fairy-tale ending alongside a true friend is pretty appealing.

[g-gurokisses]

Ahh it's a fairly embarrassing crush. Celebrity crushes on adults as a minor is perfectly normal, ask a parent and they'll tell you something like Johnny Depp or Leonardo Caprio. Thing is, a little toxic trait of mine is me genuinely thinking I can get with him.

He's four years older than me, a streamer, and goodness is he my type. What's absolutely infuriating though is there's an entire sub genre based off of crushing on him. I know some people reading this might know exactly who I'm talking about, and to that, no snitches 'til I feel confident to say lol!!

The reason why I genuinely think I can get with him is considering he moves around America a lot, so it'll be no surprise if he lands at my state. Hell, one of his famous friends was at my city!

He also knows who I am.. barely. But to me that makes it more exciting. He laughed at my chat log once, it was literally just 'eat the soap' when he was playing a game about a girl who's pretty traumatized and would eat anything. She ate one of those fake cherries on Christmas decorations once.

My auntie (not actual aunt, I don't have one. I call my friend my auntie) even made some sort of subliminal for me to see if it'll attract him in any way. I still use it, and whenever I use it he flies closer and closer to my state. Once I was painting him and I smelt brownies and clean clothes, which is a sign it's working!

Thing is, is that he's a gay man. No, I'm not a woman, I'm a transmasc, but there's a bug in the back of my mind screaming that I'll never be with him because I'm so feminine. I'm nearly two feet shorter then him, overweight, etc.

He was in San Diego recently doing meetups, which was closer then his last meetup. I won't say exactly where I am, but it's closer.

I have polariods of him, art prints of him, I have personal fanfictions my auntie wrote of me and him.

But then reality hits sometimes. I can't and will never be with him. He's a legal adult, four years older than me. I'm feminine. When I am the AOC he'll most likely be dating someone.

Which just drives me to become more obsessed.

I say the thrill of him not knowing me is fun, and that it's romantic, but it's insufferable. It's one of those cases where you go, 'not to self diagnose but something is definitely wrong here'.

It's horrible, but I love it.

Don't get me started on his close friends and the person he's in contact with the most.

I already made a promise to myself that if the day comes he's with one of them, things will happen. And I will make it known why.

-🍄🌸

Thank you for sharing this with me!!

My my... What a long confession this is!! I don't really understand how you feel, these behaviors are quite foreign to me. But I can somewhat understand where you're coming from. Parasocial relationships like this can feel very realistic.

However, as the responsible yandere enthusiast I am, I will still make some remarks about this. I'm sure you love him very much, but I think it's just nice to remember that you probably don't know the real him. Whatever he displays on social media and the internet does not reflect who he really is. Not only that, but I really don't think you should be putting yourself down for being too feminine. Cis men get away with being pretty boys all the time!! The issue is not your gender. If anything it would only be your age. Be careful with interacting with adults like that, you're putting yourself in dangerous situation. It should always be on the adult to not initiate something, but young people who show active interest in adults often get caught in bad positions by people who take advantage of that.

If I'm truly honest I think this is a bit much. I hate to be like this, but I personally think it's important to separate this level of obsession from fiction/hobby to reality. I have obsessive tendencies, I get jealous, I require constant reassuring, I have anxious attachment and I get clingy often. But there's a limit I put to myself and I only ever display these behaviours with people I know, trust and are okay with it.

But this person is an adult who is probably in a relationship. Maintaining an obsession will most likely just end up with you doing things you regret. I'm not sure what you mean with "things will happen" but I don't believe that's healthy for a young person like you to be saying. And I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this friend of yours is not a legal adult as well. Because if so was the case, I don't see why they would be encouraging you to take meassures against this public figure being with someone else.

Hopefully you take this well. I do not mean ti offend you or disappoint you. But this seems a bit much to me. I enjoy yanderes, but I do not consider myself one. And furthermore, I am an adult. I know what I'm doing, and I know how to act. As a child, you should probably not dive into these topics just yet, and maybe not with such aggressiveness.

If you'd like to talk about this more or if you believe I misunderstood something, let me know!! But I'll mantain my opinion about this until then. Remember, all I've said is with the best intentions and I hope you understand me. I love you. :)

[itsclydebitches]

About Bakugo, I actually think his original characterization is partly why his arc doesn't work for me: it seems like his contempt for others and desire to hurt them is innate, because he was already insulting and humiliating Deku for fun when they were in kindergarden, and at this age I'm not sure it makes sense to blame the adults around him for this behavior. This is also why I don't buy the "childhood friends" narrative, even before the infamous river scene Bakugo was toxic to Deku.

Hard agree, anon. I'm willing to give some wiggle room to the "Bakugo had a messy childhood and that's why he's like this" argument just because I'm not caught up (and thus might be missing some flashbacks/revelations), no one's life is ever perfect, and there's a subjective line between what we read as innocuous tropes vs. realistic traumas (example: is his mom hitting him something we take seriously, or just classic anime "comedy"?), but honestly I'm... not persuaded by that stance. Largely due to what you've said about this contempt being around since the very beginning. Bakugo's cruelty is the introduction to the entire series, the very first thing we see:

First, they're young here. Maybe not kindergarten young, but as we see in the above narration, it's at age four that Bakugo acquired his "I'm the best" thinking (more on that in a second). They're kids. This is not something that developed slowly over the years until Bakugo crossed some kind of line, he's been like this since the very start. Since a kid is capable of forming thoughts, opinions, and making decisions: like attacking another. In what way does this establish them as friends? Izuku literally shaking as he tries to protect another kid Bakugo is has hurt? Bakugo calling him worthless? Gleefully attacking and punching Izuku in the face? They were never friends! Izuku followed Bakugo around because he was paid some kind of attention by him and Bakugo poisoned the well — no one else in class will befriend Izuku. We see this both by the two willing to help beat him up here and, later, when Izuku says he wants to got to U.A. the entire class laughs at both the idea and Bakugo blowing up his desk in response. The bullying is the only kind of "friendship" Izuku has, so he embraces it with a smile and a nickname. Meanwhile, Bakugo allows Izuku to tag along because he makes him feel good in comparison. All Bakugo needs for an ego boost is to look at Izuku. He's the useless, quirkless nobody whose name can be read as "Deku." What's not to like? Izuku makes Bakugo feel good because Bakugo will always come out on top — always win — when pit against him. Did they have a few good moments gushing over All Might? Yeah, but anyone who has been bullied knows that it's not a clear cut "They were consistently awful every second of every day." Sometimes, those moments of pretend or conditional friendship make everything worse.

(As a side note, I keep hearing the more intense fans of Bakugo saying that those who criticize him identify with Izuku "too much" and it's like... yes? He's the protagonist. You're supposed to identify with him. To say nothing of the question of why you'd include such an explicit bullying subplot — arguably at the heart of the narrative in regards to characterization — if you didn't want readers who had experienced bullying to relate to this story. So it's all about victims like Izuku, you're allowed to care, just don't care in a way that holds Bakugo responsible?)

"But Izuku cares about Bakugo. He tried to help him out of the river." Yeah, because Izuku cares about everyone. Overlooking his warped idea of what friendship is due to having no one but Bakugo, Izuku is the kind of person who is going to extend his hand to anyone who needs it, just like All Might would. His extreme compassion and lack of other friends is not good proof that he cares for Bakugo in any true, healthy fashion, let alone that Bakugo cares for him.

As for when this all started, yeah, it was when they were even younger than in the scene above. Toddlers when Bakugo realized he had a strong quirk and Izuku was told he had none. Bakugo's reaction to these events — deciding he's better than everyone else and that justifies harming those "lesser" than him — is instantaneous. That desire was there all along. He just needed an excuse to act on it. After the conversations about the adults' influence on him, I went back to the anime scenes of Bakugo showing his quirk to his class and it's... pretty normal? I mean yes, there's praise, but in what world wouldn't there be praise? A bunch of other kids are going to ooh and ahh over mini explosions and the two teachers, unless they're entirely heartless, are going to tell this kid that he'll indeed make a wonderful hero someday. Those are standard responses for very young kids who aren't going to understand something like, "That is a powerful quirk and you could be a great hero... just don't let that potential go to your head!" There's nothing in those scenes that imply an excess of praise, at least so much that it would totally warp a kid's perspective of others to the extent Bakugo has going on. If I recall correctly, Bakugo's parents are quite disappointed in his behavior, but that never had an impact on him. And as I mentioned previously, we have incredibly talented characters like Momo (getting into U.A. on recommendation), people like Ida who come from families with other heroes they want to impress, Todoroki dealing with a crazy legacy to live up to, tied up in his abuse... yet none of them turned out like Bakugo. All of that didn't kill their compassion, but adults telling Bakugo he has a strong quirk made him into this person? Bakugo wanted to be that person, right from the start.

Honestly, I think a lot of fans latched onto Bakugo — which is awesome! — but didn't want to admit how horrible he actually is. So they took moments largely out of context and repeated them enough until they became fandom staples. Bakugo and Izuku were close childhood friends who just had a falling out they need to come back from. Bakugo was only like this because the adults in his life drove him to that behavior. Izuku loves Bakugo because he can see how good he is, deep down inside, and definitely not because he's been stuck with him since they were toddlers, unable to escape him even at U.A. It's a very sanitized look at their relationship, embraced because fans want them to be friends or lovers. Which is fine! God knows I'm into a ton of "problematic" ships, I just like acknowledging that they're problematic, not trying to sweeten the situation because fandoms have made others feel guilty for liking anything that's not squeaky clean and pure. Bakugo tormented Izuku for their entire childhood. He encouraged him to commit suicide. He tried to keep him from achieving his dream, both by undermining his confidence and outright threatening him (remember burning his shoulder?). He then reworked that obsession when they both got into U.A., trying to prove Izuku's uselessness, failing, and continually struggling with the thought that he's actually a great hero. And it's like... why do I care? This guy is a horrible person, he's been a horrible person since he was a kid, and his greatest challenge for more than half the story is acknowledging that other people aren't worthless trash. His improvement still hasn't gotten him to the standard of an average person, let alone a hero. If Bakugo were a villain, great, or if the story was going to really highlight the corruption of the hero career as a whole (we take anyone with powerful quirks, no matter how awful they are), great, but as a main character hero whose behavior is supposedly just a cover for a fantastic guy, please overlook everything he does and assume he's worthy of your respect anyway? Ehhh. Why do I care about him as a good guy when there are characters like Ida and Uraraka I could stan? To be clear, I'm not saying other fans can't enjoy whatever characters they enjoy, just that from a storytelling perspective I think it's a failure to introduce Bakugo as such an extreme, make him one of the heroes, give him such a selfish struggle, and then expect a lot of the audience to care. Bakugo either needed to be more balanced from the start — regular flaws instead of such an intense adoration for cruelty from the age of four — or the story needed to unpack his behavior in a way it never bothered to.

[betelguwuse]

I’m starting to think maybe I don’t want to get married. Hypothetically I’d love to be in a godly marriage with a man who respects me and sees me as the person that God does (and not only me but women as a whole), but realistically do christian men like that even exist? Mainstream christianity, especially gender discourse, is so watered down and twisted into something that’s more political than biblical. I feel like this is gonna piss off both the christians and feminists, even though I’m both (though some might say I’m not a real feminist, whatever idc lol). Might also tag as Side B because I feel like this is also maybe a Side B mood? But here goes.

Color coded by vague topic, bolded so it’s easier to read.

Like I recently heard of a pastor being criticized for saying it’s a woman’s duty to look good for her husband, and the boomer conservatives were acting like criticisms of this pastor was the end of christianity. There’s no way “looking good” in a biblical sense was anything more than basic hygiene, nowhere near the beauty standards of today; and that is if the idea of looking good for your husband is even in the bible. These people siding with the pastor were saying that any woman who doesn’t shave or hide her “flaws” with makeup or basically completely embody the tradwife meme are bad wives. Like what the literal hell.

Honestly the entire tradwife aesthetic seems to be the goal for a lot of young christian couples, when it’s not inherently biblical. I used to be into it myself because heck yeah staying home, housekeeping, taking care of children, and wearing cute flowery dresses sounds like a dream. But my goals aren’t universal! Some women don’t want kids. Some women want to work. Good and God-honoring women of the bible didn’t all have kids and stay home. I mean the timeline of the bible spans so long, so yeah maybe there were times when most women did. But that doesn’t mean women who didn’t were bad wives or lesser women. Not to mention there’s such a blurred line currently between cute tradwife lifestyle and creeps who fetishize the idea of a traditional (and by traditional they mean submissive) wife. Gross.

Another thing too many christian men do is say women can’t be in any position of power in the church. There is the whole specific issue of whether or not women should be the highest up actual pastor of the church, and I don’t know enough about that whole debate to validate or debunk it, but I’m not talking about that specifically here. Aside from that one position, a lot of christians think women can only teach other women and girls but not guys, even like literal child boys. That’s so weird, like imagine thinking a little boy has more authority than, or even equal to, a grown woman? Couldn’t be me. And this whole idea comes from an out of context “I do not permit women to speak in the church” from a regular human guy. And the reason he said this was that the women around him were spreading heresy. I still think it’s flawed logic to exclude all women from speaking in that situation just because most of them were wrong, but again, this wasn’t a command from God. This was just a guy recording his church experience and doing his flawed human best to manage it. Various women throughout the actual bible outside of this one leader’s timeline held positions of power in various churches. And modern day american christian men think biblical womanhood is all about subservience? Bro what bible are you reading?

I just want to make it clear that these are all just generalizations, but having been in various actual biblical communities and conservative christian communities, I can kinda pick up on the general sexist behaviors of the latter. But unfortunately in today’s political climate more and more young christians are only being exposed to political opinions that are surface level americanized good christian morals, but not actually biblical.

Even on top of that, even if a man knows of these biblical misconceptions, we live in a society. Like we’re constantly exposed to women’s sexualization, and it’s pretty impossible to escape that. I don’t want to spend my life with someone who’s grown up in a world where women are seen as weak, objects, pleasure machines, etc. And yeah we can unlearn these biases (honestly I hate the word unlearn but I can’t think of a substitute rn), but it feels like a hassle to casually figure out whether a guy can make an effort to understand what women go through, and if I were to just bring it up I’d scare them away. And that’s not to say I’m some perfect person who’s never sexualized men, we are all sinners after all and we live in a fallen world etc etc. But a whole society where women are so objectified that it’s normal for little boys to be watching porn, that just doesn’t really happen with little girls. I can’t speak for all women, but when I started seeing men sexually it was in my late teens when I realized like ‘oh I can sexualize men too? wild. ok I’m an adult lemme check it out’. Still sinful, but not ingrained in me from porn ads as a kid the way most young boys have been since like the creation of the internet.

Even the men currently in my life who genuinely want what’s best for me are so incredibly misogynistic it’s baffling. My male family members see any woman who breaks an imaginary dress code or ideology is some kind of deviant. I just want to make it clear that this is MY family and I’M the only one who gets to complain about them. We all love each other here even if the males are horribly wrong.

So I shaved my head for halloween and my dad could barely look at me, not because he was exactly mad or anything but just because I looked ugly to him. He always says ‘close the windows in your apartment because men will spy on you changing’ but after my hair was gone he was all ‘actually don’t bother because nobody will look at you looking like that’ like wow I wasn’t aware men only sexualized women for their hair. Like you really think a gross creeper is gonna be turned off by a fully naked oblivious vulnerable woman just because she’s bald? That’s not how any of this works. And just today my sister was watching a goth youtuber egirl or something, I didn’t see her makeup but my dad said stuff like ‘ew why does she look like that, maybe it’d be cool as a costume but how is she going to get a job’. Like, I’m not one to go ‘women don’t wear makeup for men’ (because most women who only use makeup to hide their insecurities and follow beauty standards very much just do it so they don’t get backlash from others, if not directly to please men), but when it’s a fun crazy look that’s not meant to be pretty, I’m all for that shit and generally I hate when men lose respect for a woman just for wearing something they don’t like. Like fashion isn’t real and your appearance should be as costumey or weird as you want without people losing respect for you. Also like...do men know that makeup isn’t permanent?? Like if she wanted a job that required no makeup she could easily wipe her face off and get one?? Not only that, but people can work from home and/or be self employed. Maybe youtube itself was this girl’s job. Who the hell cares man. And the worst thing here is my brother outright said one time “the root cause of feminism is pride”. B r u h. And this was back when I considered myself an anti-feminist, even then I knew that feminism started for good reason and I was absolutely furious. I think I kept it to myself like a coward lol, but if anyone said that to me now I’d tear them apart. In a debate I mean, not like literal violence.

Tldr: I’m not trying to say men are inherently more evil because there’s evil in everyone, but the way it takes shape in men in most societies is so insidious and inescapable. I love my family and guy friends, but I don’t want to deal with one in a romantic/sexual relationship because I don’t know if even the most educated and goodest christian boi in this world can see me as a true equal. It sucks because I want sex and children, but when the mainstream idea of hetero sex is female submission, it just makes me shrivel up and contemplate becoming a nun. I’m not even catholic. But even nuns are sexualized and degraded in coomer’s disgusting brains. In conclusion I’m going feral and starting my own woman-only church in the woods let’s go ladies.

[alewyren]

I dislike redemption arc culture.

I hate seeing arguments over which characters are “irredeemable,” and this notion that every villain story has to be a morally didactic narrative in which the bad guy gets punished, the end.

I’m almost tempted to say we were all spoiled by having Zuko as a formative experience, because he’s really just the picture perfect redemption arc. He started out as a legit villain, but he never did anything too atrocious, had a tragic backstory that explained why he was like that, and went through three whole seasons of gradual character development. Like, Zuko was an amazing character. That’s the problem, though; he set our expectations too high for what “the perfect redemption arc” should be. Everyone expects their “reformed villain” characters to follow those same beats, but not every story is that cut and dry. There are lines between redemption and reformation, reformation and rehabilitation, rehabilitation and just... continuing to exist but no longer hurting anyone, and there’s a lot of nuance lost when people try to cram all that into the box of “redemption arc.”

Gonna be bringing a lot of different examples to the table here, but let’s start with Azula for ease of transition. She went through the same abuse that Zuko did, but she never got a redemption arc in ATLA proper. Some people say this isn’t fair. I disagree. This is not to say I don’t think she should be afforded the opportunity for post-canon character growth, because I absolutely do. I fully think she is capable of Getting Better, and spinoff media has consistently portrayed her as a sympathetic character. But like... she’s done some shit. She was a straight up war criminal, and emotionally abusive towards basically everyone in her social circle. I understand why. She was a 14 year old raised in an environment that rewarded that behavior, and never given a healthy outlet for her aggression.

The difference, in my opinion, is this: Zuko was fundamentally a good person from the start. Far from perfect, but he has a strong sense of values even as a child. Azula is not. Redemption for someone like Azula would look much different than it did for Zuko. Besides, in ATLA proper she was already filling an important villain role. She’d need her own show. (Which would be awesome, actually.)

But I think that’s where you have to ask the question: what even is a redemption arc? Is it any story where a villain stops being a villain? Is there a scale for like, “must do X amount of good deeds equal to Y bad deeds to qualify for redemption”? Must they be sufficiently punished for their bad deeds? What if reformation is possible without punishment--is punishment for its own sake truly justice? The focus people have on penance and atonement feels very baked in Christian moral philosophy. People don’t work like that. There’s not a cosmic scale of right and wrong, or a cosmic sin counter, there’s just... actions and their immediate impact. Bad people being let off the hook too easily can leave a bad taste in your mouth, and there are of course things with unfortunate real world implications which can’t be divorced from real-world context which are... irresponsible to allow in the hands of Certain Groups, but I hate this notion of “villains must be punished appropriately for their crimes, always, even if they have extenuating circumstances, even if they have demonstrated the capacity for personal growth, because that personal growth will never negate their misdeeds.”

In real life, it’s different. In real life, you can never be sure what’s going on in another person’s head. But the prison system of justice is fundamentally broken. People are rarely fundamentally evil, but there are some people who are too twisted and dangerous to society to be allowed to live without, at the very least, constant supervision. True evil is banal, rooted in social systems, not individual “bad people.” People have individual will, but ultimately they’re just the products of the environment and systems that fostered them. Setting aside the questions of whether people can be born evil or at what age you become personally responsible for your actions, you will get bad apples in any sufficiently large group of people. If someone has to be punished and removed from society, that’s not a success of justice. The fact that they reached that point in the first place is a failure of society in and of itself.

In fiction, technically everyone is redeemable. You can get into the heads of the bad guys and do basically whatever you want with them. Fiction should be responsible when dealing with real-world issues that affect real people, but it does not have to be morally didactic. Sometimes there just... isn’t an easy, morally didactic answer for dealing with morally complicated characters or situations. And more importantly, sometimes the morally didactic answer isn’t the narratively interesting answer. 9 out of 10 times, what’s more interesting to read about? A horrible villain being put to death, or a horrible villain being forced to live and grow?

Some hypothetical examples to ponder, purely in the context of fiction.

Horrible war criminal villain with a body count in the millions has all memories of their crimes wiped, or is forcibly brainwashed into being a better person. Setting aside the ethics of brainwashing: are they still required to “repent”? Would a victim still be justified in seeking penance from this guilt-free shell? Would this change at all depending on who was responsible for the mind-wipe?

More realistic: horrible war criminal villain with a body count in the millions straight up retires. Gets older. Bloodlust, national zeal, whatever once motivated them to do such evil loses its edge. They fall in love. Start a family. As they grow as a person, learn the value of life, the weight of their crimes starts to sink in. They atone in little ways, through little random acts of kindness and helping the people around them, but for one reason or another (not wanting to risk harm to their family, knowing they’ll be tortured for information? you decide) don’t turn themselves into the proper justice system and are never punished. Should they be punished, or allowed to continue existing? Would this change at all depending on the surrounding political circumstances, i.e.: whether their public execution would hold any symbolic value, whether affected groups are calling for their death? Does it matter at all in deciding justice whether this hypothetical villain feels personal guilt or regret over their war crimes? Why or why not?

Child villains. IRL there are documented cases of violent crime in children as young as grade school age, not all of whom had violent backgrounds. Should they be held to the same standards as adult villains, even if the scale of their crimes are the same? What’s the cutoff age? Are all villains under 18 capable of rehabilitation, no matter how horrible their crimes? How about 16? 14? 12? What about villains whose ages aren’t really clear, ie Cell from DBZ being like, six?

How much does backstory matter? Should it matter if there’s a good reason someone is Like That, or should their actions be judged as-is? It doesn’t matter to the victims whether or not the villain had a bad childhood, right? Moreover, does it matter at all whether someone is “fundamentally a good person,” at least insofar as genuinely caring about the people around them and caring about a moral code? People do evil things for reasons other than “being evil people.”

Morally bankrupt person who regularly fantasizes violent harm on the people around them, wholly selfish with no love for any other human being, fundamentally incapable of meaningful self-reflection or growth. Just a complete piece of shit all around. But they never have, and never will, commit any crimes, either due to some divine ordinance or just plain self-preservation/fear of getting caught. They might, at worst, just be a toxic asshole, but not one who holds any power over others. Should they be punished solely for their moral character, rather than actions?

There aren’t always easy answers. It’s okay to acknowledge that, and it’s okay to tackle hard moral questions like this in fiction. And I hate seeing this boiled down to “stop trying to redeem villains who are Actually Horrible People” or whatever. Especially in kids’ media which takes an optimistic stance on people being capable of change in the first place. Y’all gotta stop holding it to the same level of moral realism as gritty stuff for adults.

On the whole, I think we should do away with the term “redemption” in the context of morality entirely. Like redemption arc, redemption equals death, what does that mean? It implies one has sufficiently made up for their past deeds, that that’s the gold standard, but is that really ever possible? Like I said, there’s not a cosmic good deeds | bad deeds counter for every person, or at least not one that living people have any way of knowing about. And that’s a flawed way of thinking to begin with. Those bad deeds can never be erased, ever. There plenty of examples of villains who commit crimes they can never realistically atone for. Regardless of whether they want to atone in the first place, it’s like I said: in fiction, it’s often just... more fun to force them to live and deal with the consequences. But on the flipside, there are so, so many people who see themselves as “good” and use that to justify their own bad deeds. Which ties back into what I said about the whole discourse reeking of Christian moral philosophy, because lmfao @ corruption in the catholic church.

The point is. There are shades of grey. Not everything has to be a full-blown bad guy to good guy redemption arc. You don’t need to “properly atone for your sins” to be worthy of life or love.

Here are some better questions to ask than “is this character redeemable”:

Is it believable, from what we know of this villain as a character, that they are capable of becoming a good, law-abiding citizen?

How about capable of love?

Guilt?

Are they capable of any personal growth whatsoever?

Are they capable of being a positive impact on the lives of the people around them?

Is it actively harmful to leave them alive, even with clipped wings?

Is it interesting to leave them alive?

How morally didactic is the narrative as a whole?

How much forgiveness are they offered, versus how much could they possibly ever deserve?

How abstracted is this character from reality, ie: are there any real world parallels that make it uncomfortable to frame this character in a sympathetic light? (be careful not to fall into a black and white abuser/victim dichotomy)

Would further punishment or suffering be productive? (Productive, not justified, that’s a key distinction--punishment for its own sake is just pointless cruelty.)

Even the most vile, irredeemable bastards can still be dragged like... an inch. And that’s still a fun and valuable story in and of itself, even if it’s nothing remotely approaching a redemption arc and they’d very much still deserve to rot in Hell by the end of it. I don’t believe Hell is real, as much as I personally wish it were sometimes, but like. If it were, or in fictional universes where it is.

But also, there really are some characters and botched “redemption arcs” that just come off insanely uncomfortable. And there is a subjective aspect to that as well, but more than once I’ve seen people say “X villain did not deserve redemption/forgiveness” and 9 times out of 10 I’m like “that’s... really not what they got, though?”

It’s complicated.

[prodigiousvisions]

Headcanon/Divergence? [1] (Yosano): Childhood, The Great War, and life after the war.

Initial disclaimer and semi-related note(s)–

So if part of this looks familiar to you, that’s probably because you read it before in its original, rudimentary state. I have quite a few regrets of impulsively deleting my Yosano blog (vivificamortem) tbh due to having an episode, and one of them was not saving the original post of this when I first wrote it. That being said I still think it’s important enough to warrant a rewrite even if I don’t exactly recall the specifics. As this eventually becomes very Fukuzawa and Ranpo orientated/centric, I just want to make it clear this will not apply to your respective muses of these two unless we discuss it. These are considered backstory supplements and characterizations of Yosano and Yosano’s main verse. She does not have mains for Ranpo or Fukuzawa at this time, and I usually... don’t do mains? But for specifics like this, this would probably apply to potential, future mains and warrant mains of these two. If that makes sense. Anyway. This will also include a bunch of new HC details I didn’t have before.

I was going to be mean and not put this under a cut lol but I’ll be merciful since it is extremely thorough and lengthy. 2,300+ words lengthy, and that’s not including this disclaimer. I know I asked people to read this once finished but realistically I cannot ask that in good conscious unless you are genuinely interested/care and actually are into BSD lol. Fleshed out details+conceptualized explanations/characterization below. Content/mention warnings for suicide ideation + attempts, and neglect.

CHILDHOOD

Yosano was an only child. She was not a beloved child, a planned child, nor a wanted child. Her parents would have been inclined to give her away instantly had they not compromised to raise her as a sort of... ‘help’ for the couple’s wagashi shop. It was a regret far before the first sleepless night when she was a baby, but they decided to grin and bear it. Raising Yosano was an arduous task and they made it very clear in how they behaved toward her as she was growing up. Saying that she was simply neglected wouldn’t even begin to describe it. In response to this, as a young girl Yosano developed a loud, brash personality that would more often than not get her in trouble both at school and with her parents. Being punished was never fun, but at least it garnered their attention for a little while before they went back to essentially ignoring her presence. Her adapted personality would not lead to any fruition for her lonely soul at school either, most kids finding her annoying, scary, or would simply view her in scorn for being so outspoken and strange. She began to believe the outlook of her parents: her only use was to be a shopkeep of the family business. The girl debated with herself often what was the worth of life, what was the point to live, if not to live and be frowned down upon at every other moment. Troubled and depressed, Yosano tries her hardest to cope, keeping her chin up but her eyes glued to the floor when in seclusion.

At some point or another Yosano and her parents find out about her ability and the extent of it all. It freaks Yosano out at the start, thinking about how ridiculous it is that someone who contemplated on a daily basis what they truly benefited out of being alive could potentially alter the fate of someone’s life and grant them a second chance. Then for once, she finds worth in herself. It wasn’t something she could actively go and show off of course, but it gave her a purpose. Her dramatized exterior of self-entitlement and loudmouthedness proceeds on of course, but her outlook begins to shift. She has hope. She can do something good for people. And have a (figurative) place doing so. 

This new purpose was an open door opportunity not only for Yosano, but her parents as well. At the first opportunity to do so as they are tired of taking care of this child, they’re quick to send her off, knowing how valuable that ability and its potential was. In this case, it was the military (either catching wind of her ability or deciding to now call on her due to the necessary role in their war strategy) demanding for Yosano to take part personally. It was a ridiculously easy feat to get their permission to send her away. She was technically no longer their responsibility while she was away. Hell, they hoped she would never come back.

She wouldn’t. And that was that. That was the last time she ever saw and would be in contact with her parents.

THE GREAT WAR

It’s worth reminding everyone that Yosano was a child, and the gravity of her new circumstances didn’t quite dawn on her before it was too late. At the start, she was excited to show that she could have worth and be surrounded by people that would appreciate her for what she did. It would be the first time in all of her life that would happen. And it is for these very reasons that she has such strong, genuine, sincere reactions during the chapters/times she is midst the war. While maintaining her semi huffy and self-imposed air, she was also able to allow it to falter a little because for once, she didn’t need to resort to that to be paid attention to. In their initial praise, it did freak her out at first, the foreignness being so strange to her. But she appreciated it, she truly did. (Note: this obviously doesn’t apply to Mori lol.) The unnamed soldier that Yosano interacts with at this time especially strikes a chord with her. His kindness makes her think that maybe if she was fortunate enough, she would have liked to have someone like that as a brother. Maybe someone like that could have stopped the pain she’d endured with her parents. But that was in the past! He was lending her more toward the perspective of hope just as he told her that she was doing for him and the other soldiers. The creation of the butterfly clip, again, freaks her out because she’s unsure how to react to kind gestures. It is the first of its kind– a present, meaningful in its weight and sentiment in a way that she would learn later would continue to influence her life in various, monumental ways. His present interest in poetry is also something that Yosano would find herself enjoying, too. At the time.

Honestly, I really don’t even think it’s worth elaborating on Mori cause. Well. That whole ordeal speaks for itself. His manipulation and obsession grosses her out at its minimum / start and would later be the colossal trigger and collapse of her mental stability and lead to lasting trauma even as an adult. But anyways, back to other details worth note in this timeframe.

The war efforts proceed and we reach the point where things are looking grim and soldiers are getting near fatally injured faster, and coming back in droves. She realizes rather quickly that she bit off more than she can chew; to have to bear witness to these men being on the brink of death and quickly ‘revive’ them like some sort of automated robot would, naturally, mess up anyone. Her haughty behavior drops quickly as she becomes more quiet, tired, horror creeping up her body gradually in the form of slowly raising goosebumps. She’s wondering when the war will be over, and starts to second guess her purpose. Is what she’s doing right? But she’s not hit rock bottom, not yet at least, as the unnamed soldier reassures her the second instance. He relays how her saving him would bring him back to his family. He tells her: “I’m glad that you’re here.” And it makes way for Yosano’s first instance of ever crying in front of someone, feeling an overwhelming amount of gratitude to being seen and the need to trudge forward to protect. Protect those who had a life to return to. He’d been living proof of the importance of life– that life wasn’t always so cruel to others, that she had a chance to be surrounded by those who cared about her too. She cries in her vulnerability.

Things turn for the worst. Every day is a living nightmare. She can wipe away blood from her body, others’ body, but she will never be clean of the endless pools of blood that stained her hands after her treatments. Even at the age of 11, she comes to the realization that she is the single force that shackles all these people to the torture of having to throw themselves into battle again and again for futile efforts. She’s on the brink of a nervous breakdown constantly, but consoles herself with the thought that the unnamed soldier will be able to tell her it’s alright, maybe even help her figure out a way to get them all out of there. Yosano doesn’t want her ability, hell, she’d opt to having no purpose over this. She would trade her life for all of these people. She just needed this to stop. It’s all her fault. 

The person who was the embodiment of her last shred of sanity and piece of hope commits suicide and dubs her the Angel of Death, and that was her final breaking point. The sliver of belief that providing good for people and having a purpose is ultimately gone. Her worldview that she started to have hope for shatters. It was a cumulative, gradual raise of hope for a better life to have it all smashed to the ground. This tied in with the actual events she lived through, clearly, do not help. Trauma blocks it out of her memory later on, but there are plentiful, deliberate suicide attempts from the young girl afterward, wanting out of this hell that her own hands allowed to bear fruit, but for various circumstances and reasons, her attempts would not work and/or she would simply not be allowed to die at Mori’s hands. She is a hysterical, screaming, crying mess until she is no longer able to cry anymore. If not suicide, then alternative methods. Yosano would attempt to blow the ship up with the explosives that were stored at the bottom – it would have been a far crueler end than prolonging everyone’s destined death, but ultimately fails at that as well. 

LIFE AFTER THE WAR

She is apprehended and taken away to an institution where she spends three years in a void of a space, living on earth as if her spirit has long been faded. She is a shell of a person, succumbed to her own despair and doing the absolute bare minimum. Humanity only ever makes itself present in jaded eyes that blink sometimes and the agonizingly slow rise and fall of her chest to indicate that somehow, she was breathing. Living, but not alive. Not really, anyway. She may as well be rotting away, unkempt, unpure, and wishing life would simply put her out of her misery. Devoid of any hope, feeling death would be a start of repenting for her crimes. But it was never that easy. Why would it be? 

Ranpo and Fukuzawa rescue her. We all know how that goes. Let’s touch on some details of after that. 

After rescuing her, the duo have Yosano reside with them in Fukuzawa’s apartment. While Ranpo and Fukuzawa managed to recover a glimmer of hope in Yosano by rescuing her alone, the hope is discarded as she feels she is unworthy of it and they essentially are put in a position where they have to rehabilitate her. These two people cared enough about her to try to help her– she can see it, despite going about like a walking corpse some days. But guilt is overbearing, suffocating, and it shakes her down with constant night terrors that she is too drained to scream at as well as frequent moments where she blacks out without prompting. At this time, the butterfly clip she dares not to remove from her person is a reminder, a grim heavy burden she forces herself to carry on her shoulders that she was not a good person and that this was her karma and hers alone. She should not forget that no matter how good intentioned Ranpo and Fukuzawa were to her. There was absolutely at least one more time she attempted to take her life. Needless to say, it’s a painstakingly slow process, taking about a full year before Yosano can even start to really improve outside of talking to them here and there. 

(I feel like this behavior / state is EXTREMELY similar to how Kyouka starts off as, too, so my Yosano would definitely take to Kyouka more strongly than some others. But that is an entirely different conversation for some other time.)

Once she gets to a point where she can process things again and forcing herself to come to terms with the fact that these two will simply not allow her to remain dormant, Ranpo takes to tutoring her to help get her back on track to where she left off in her schooling, as she was getting stable enough to where Fukuzawa had confidence she could get better. This process was also slow, but Ranpo is quite the good teacher when he wants to be! The endeavor is a success, and she is able to enroll again in public school, where she is still piecing together why she was granted this second chance at life. It feels pitifully ironic, all things considered. As time does, it also grants an opportunity for growth and change. Eventually, she gradually shakes her way out of her shell at snail’s pace. Some days were still harder than others, of course. Getting poetry assignments would make Yosano have full on anxiety attacks where the only solutions of getting her to calm down were to have Ranpo or Fukuzawa at her side, or if at school and neither were present, to be sent home. These instances lessened over time, thankfully, and the episodes would turn to bitter, depressing moments where Yosano would tense up and try to pass it off to Ranpo if she was able in a way that while seemed lukewarm in how she expressed it, certainly held its weight of obvious trauma. 

(She never liked to talk about her issues. Never. And instead almost always opted for distractions as her method of coping. It is a major flaw of hers that you can absolutely call her out for even in present time.)

Yosano will never truly return to being 100% normal, but that’s fine, as she really was never at 100% anyway. Schooling in its own right helped her cope with things and served as a distraction from negative thoughts, and she found herself enjoying it and studying harder than ever before. Assisting in the preliminaries of helping around the detective agency also allowed her to grow into the figurative seat that Ranpo saved just for her. No longer did she have to be abrasive to garner people’s attention, either, becoming more comfortable with an occasional snarky tongue when the situation allowed it, and slowly being allowed to live as herself for the first time. It was truly shocking to see that people liked her for her and not the potential of weaponizing the dangerous ability that she had. Once more was her ambition to help people reignited, but it would be done on her own terms. Compelled by her convictions as schooling was coming to a close, she decided that she would go to pursue higher education at a university while formally getting a degree to become a doctor. It is then when she got accepted that her new self would truly shine, becoming as close as she could to be at peace. This endeavor was sped up to lightning fast speeds because of her drilled in skill of being all the more studious and essentially holding the knowledge of what it entailed already.

Not necessarily integral details, but while in university, she did pick up the hobbies of taking up Kickboxing Classes as well as Dance Classes and are longstanding interests of hers that she maintains even after finishing her schooling. These, too, serve(d) as time slot distractions to keep her thoughts at bay when her mind decided to be a little cruel to her at some moments. Poetry no longer leaves a bitter taste in her mouth and is now a newfound interest of hers. She even writes poetry of her own at times. As of present time, her butterfly clip is still a symbol of burden she chooses to carry and a reminder, but it is also representative of metamorphosis, a chance at a new beginning– a new life. That there was value in life, and that you should live on for those who could not.

[camelotcinematicuniverse]

About Harry and Maple

Well, this is gonna be a really strange little thing that I write, but I'm still excited nonetheless.

In a Mario Golf 64 Twitch stream clip, the awesome speedrunner MetalYoshi ProGamer (yes, that's his alias. No, it's not lame, shaddup) asked the following question to his chat:

"Do you think that Maple has some kind of relationship to Harry?"

And that got me really thinking to the point that this very blog was made. So thanks, MetalYoshi. If you ever read this, I really needed that boost to put my thoughts out there.

Anyway, I actually have a few headcanon theories relating to Maple and Harry, but first we need context. Both Harry and Maple are the final characters from the Camelot OC bunch to be unlocked (without the Game Boy Color Mario Golf save file), thus making them the "best" of the Camelot OC golfers as character progression is measured through how far you get in the various modes of Mario Golf 64. Harry is the final Camelot Character unlocked through Get Character, while Maple happens to be the first character unlocked through earning 50 Birdie Badges. Technically that makes her the weakest of the four final characters (Maple, DK, Bowser and Metal Mario), but out of every Camelot OC she's probably the best alongside Harry.

Metal Mario may topple everyone else in stats and control alone, but don't let that discourage you from checking Harry and Maple out either. They have their own little quirks and low points, but they're still really good choices if you want something different from Bowser and Metal Mario.

Now for the fun part: my headcanons! I have three ideas to throw out in the ring, so you can decide for yourself which headcanon you'd like to go with. Hell, make your own and let's see what we can all come up with! Now then, let's begin!

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Headcanon #1: Maple is Harry's daughter/little sister/family member:

This is an extremely cute idea to me because both of these characters look similar in a way, but they definitely have a difference in behavior with their mode select screen idle poses. Here we see Harry, with his alt colors, doing a semi serious crossed arms look. Like he takes himself a bit too seriously, but you can tell he loves the game of golf:

As for Maple, the screenshot wouldn't be enough, but she's dancing and just generally being cute:

Do you all notice anything about these two? How they have almost the exact same alt colors, how Harry's older, more seasoned presence kind of trickles down to Maple's eagerness (due to her dancing)? They're both blonde, and even the small things like the structure of Maple's nose kind of seem like a natural feminine version of Harry's being smaller and a lot less prominent, but it's still more than Plum's to me.

All this to say I have the theory that Maple could be Harry's daughter or even younger sister. It's just something about Harry that gives me this "older and wiser" vibe to Maple, and with some of the similarities pointed out, I like to imagine that Harry is a proud dad or brother to a young lady (honestly have no real idea of Maple's age, but I go with young adult/older teen vibes) who is as interested in golfing and competing to get even farther drives than before -- Maple. She looks up to him heavily and even starts to wear some of the same things as him but in her style. Note the first (1st) and third (3rd) alternate colors on the pair: the former is an orange shirt, and the latter is a red shirt. Hell, Maple goes so far as to change her shorts color to red as well, instead of the usual blue/purple. Look also at the hair color from Maple to Harry's hat color. The second (2nd) alt on Harry has an auburn-esque color, and Maple has her hair color changed to Auburn too!

I know that the more practical response would be "that's just how the game works in alt colors," but in universe, why else would Maple go out of her way to change her hair color and wear similar color coded outfits to Harry? Could she be extremely happy to emulate his behaviors and style from the extremely healthy bond the two have shared? Could he have been the closest thing to an exceptional male role model she had in her developmental years, so she trusts him and loves him to the point of having the same colors as an alt? That's something I like considering. Imagine if we had Harry console Maple on things that she's going through in her personal life, giving her a man's perspective on relationships and friends, and them enjoying their time together and being super close. When it comes time to golf, though, they are both competitive!

Headcanon #2: Harry is Maple's mentor:

A lot similar to the dad/brother one, Harry still is able to give Maple advice and pointers on her life, but it's about as much time spent as an average evening of golfing practice, typically a few hours at most. This is really the one I spent the least amount of time thinking about as it's not as interesting as the other two points, but I still thought this would be cool to share alas.

Headcanon #3: Maple and Harry are dating:

Ok, ok, here's the one I think MetalYoshi was hinting at with the way he worded his question. "Do you think Maple has some kind of relationship with Harry?" is probably something I figured he meant as a romance thing...well, I'll explore this one here.

From the first headcanon, we can see they have things in common physically and hobby wise, but what else do they like to do? Maybe Harry secretly likes cooking and Maple does too. Maybe he takes her out when she's upset. They would cuddle every night with a glass of wine (dare I say...Sherry?), and for Harry, Maple is what he needed in his life to keep him from taking everything too seriously. Loosening up to let her in after he puts up his own barrier to his emotions and probably has some puppy eyes thrown in.

Maple really likes Harry in this case because it gives her a sense of security, safety, a feeling of trust and realistic love that no one she had ever been with had before. She's unafraid of letting her walls come down and being more social and being herself around Harry. Her cute, tomboy, dorky self is what he truly cares about.

Hell it even goes through to golfing. Maybe the fact that they foil from each other and compliment well together is what makes them strong as golfers with a good drive and above average control. (Clearly not the best, but for them, that's ok)

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When it's all said and done, I do really like the idea of Maple and Harry together in some way. I think it's all too coincidental for them to nearly match in their alt colors, have some of the best stats of all the Camelot OCs, and how much they really do seem to mesh well together. In my eyes, the headcanon I do like the most is the familial one, but the romance option is such a cute option as well, and not to mention in my personal fanfics all three headcanons are interchangeable. The mentor/family friend one is used more often in my writing blurbs, but I liked the other two so much more that I'll have to implement them a lot more!

Ay, thanks for reading this. I really appreciate the traction since I don't usually share a lot of my headcanons on Tumblr...ah well. Enjoy!

[soren-bleu-kun]

BnHA Fics I’ve Read This Week 2

Here are my notable stories that I found and read this week. Some of these contain manga spoilers. 

Confined By My Own Mind (I’m Not Fine) - This is a Dadzawa fic that, despite the title saying that it must be, takes place from Aizawa’s perspective and not Midoriya’s. During this fic, the homeroom teacher of 1A realizes that something is wrong with one of his students and pulls him aside during class. 

Aches and Pains - Another Dadzawa fic, this time from Midoriya’s side of things. Unable to sleep because of the old pains in his bones caused by misusing his Quirk, Midoriya heads out of his room and runs into his teacher in the dorm kitchen. 

Disowned - This is not the most realistic Shouto Todoroki fic that I’ve ever read, but I like the idea of him losing control of his power and himself after being kicked out of the Todoroki family. I wish this fic went a little more into the “why” of things, and the aftermath, but still a good little story. 

Angel’s Egg - THIS IS NOT COMPLETED YET! Usually I don’t read, much less review, incomplete stories, but this one - only at three chapters so far - is a great story so far. Basically, what if Izuku was left on All Might’s doorstep, but instead of a baby, he’s an egg that has to be incubated? It sounds weird but it’s actually really cute - and baby Izuku has little wings. Honestly, give this a read and encourage the author, it is so good. 

Day 10 - Wait No, Aww Crap, Here We Go Again - This long titled fic is the first Kaminari Centric fic that I have read, but it will not be the last. In this story, Kaminari gets upset about something that Monoma said to him, and his friends make sure that some adults takes care of it - like they should in canon but don’t. 

Pretty - This is a fic where Monoma and Shinsou are an established couple, and Monoma goes off to visit his boyfriend in the middle of the night. No smut, I don’t review any of that. Honestly, this was cute, even if I don’t really ship it. 

Spare Scares? - This is clearly going for ShinDoriya, and they really make this a cute story, but this is more or less before any relationship that they could/will have. Basically, Shinsou only came to this UA Halloween party to find Hatsume and pick up something he needs for training, and runs into Midoriya, who is here dressed as a ghost. 

The Road That Went Forever - Would you like to utter despise Hisashi Midoriya? I know that I wasn’t planning on it when I read this fic, but that is what happened. Basically, after he finds out that Izuku is Quirkless, he starts trying to find a way to get rid of him and he does. 

A Routine Affair - This is the second Huyumi fic that I’ve ever read, and I still see it as a bit of a crack ship more than anything else, but this story is cute. Basically, Hawks brings Fuyumi coffee before work every day and it takes her a very long time to realize that he likes her. 

Float - Now this is an interesting one. Basically, Midoriya is trying to unlock Float, which is Nana Shimura’s power. It turns out the only way that he can do that is to let go of the things he’s been feeling that are weighing him down and talk about them. This is very much a “fuck Bakugou” fic, which is my favorite. I love that Midoriya finally gets to feel and talk about all of the things that were done to him in this one. 

Savior - Basically, what if everyone told Bakugou to stop being an asshole to Midoriya on the first day of school instead of condoning his behavior? 

Uraraka’s Guide to Crushes - This is a TsuChako fic, which I think is a cute ship but don’t read about often. In this one, Uraraka is so sure that this will be a quick crush and then it’ll be over. The thing is, it doesn’t go away, which means she might actually have to confront her emotions... terrifying. 

The Sparkling Hero : Aoyama Yuuga - I have never seen a fic entirely dedicated to Aoyama, which made this an interesting read. Though not canon to the few things we do know about his background, it is still an interesting take on one of UA’s most sparkling future heroes. 

The Second Prince - This is a “what is AFO were Midoriya’s dad” fics, in a royal fantasy AU. Although some of the characters are OOC, this is a look at what Midoriya’s life would be like if he lived in a little castle where he can’t get hurt and still tried to help people anyways. I was surprised by how much I liked this fic. 

First Try (Not the Last) - In this fic, Midoriya has a Quirk, something that he only discovers when he tries to launch himself off of a building like Bakugou told him to. This is the first fic in the series, and I haven’t read it all the way through yet. Pretty good though. 

Like Light Through a Window - In this Aizawa and Hagakure Centric fic, the teacher finds the young hero in training after she’s been almost crushed under a building. He’s able to see her face for the first time, but only because it’s covered in blood. 

The Deaf Hero: Deku -  Basically, what if everything were the same but Midoriya was losing his hearing during it? Forty chapters, worth the read. 

I See You - In another fic where Midoriya is missing one of his senses, this blind successor of All Might wants to be able to see his mentor. The only embarrassing part is asking him if he wouldn’t mind Midoriya touching all over his face. 

Remember From Here on In - This is a fic where the author comes up with the six Quirks that Midoriya is going to get because of OFA. Although not canon, it was very good and fun. 

Remembrance - Throughout the course of these three chapters, Midoriya gets blasted back through time and lands in a world pre-All Might. Or at least, not the All Might that he knows, since he’s still at UA. 

Shout & Mute - In this EraserMic fic, the two of them are stuck in each other’s bodies throughout the course of the fic because of a villain. While staying at Hizashi’s apartment in his body, Shouta realizes just how much he loves him and knows that he’s going to end up confessing even if the feelings aren’t reciprocated. 

How Not to Enjoy the Weather, an Article by Kaminari Denki - The story toys around with the idea of this electric boy getting overpowered during thunder storms and him isolating himself so that he doesn’t end up hurting anyone that he cares about. 

A Deadman’s Gun - Throughout ten chapters, we get to see what would happen if Midoriya never got a Quirk and instead fell in league with Stain. 

See No Evil, Hear No Evil - A Bakugou and Kaminari friendship fic. Turns out that on the day that Kaminari forgot his contacts that he hasn’t told anyone about, and Bakugou forgot his hearing aids that he needs because of his Quirk. They decide to depend on each other throughout the day. 

Pictures, Posters, and Tender Beauty - During this fic, we get to see exactly what Midoriya thinks about his mentors weakened state. Dad Might fluff ahead. 

Electric Connection - This is a story where Kaminari can’t sleep - thanks ADHD - and so the entire BakuSquad comes into help. Shinsou is his boyfriend in this one, but it isn’t the focal point of the story. 

Caught Up - This is a Shinsou Centric fic where he fights through all of the not-quite-comments about his Quirk, and is thankful for having Aizawa in his corner. The last scene is Shinsou and Aizawa working together with the capture weapon. 

How To Ask Out a Guy in 2000 Words or Less - This is a ShinDoriya fic, and it features exactly what you think it does based off of the title. A very cute little story. 

Ghost - This is a story that actually features Shinsou and Shigaraki, the two of them having met at a toy store when Shinsou was just a little kid. Honestly, I wish there were multiple chapters of this because the idea is really interesting. 

Eyes On Me - Throughout three chapters, we see how Aizawa deals with his own panic attacks and the reasons why he feels the need to help his students through theirs. 

For Blood and Wine are Red (and Blood and Wine Were on His Hands) - Despite having a very long and Oscar Wilde inspired name, this is a short one-shot about Vigilante!Midoriya breaking into Aizawa’s apartment, looking for a first aid kit. 

Schrödinger’s Cat - This is a an extremely beautiful and painful story where Midoriya is found, months after going missing with a new powerful Quirk, white hair, and no memory of how he got there. This story was translated by the author from it’s native German, where is got less than five hundred hits. I think that everyone should read this fic and give the author a lot of love. 

Around and Around We Go - One of those “Five Things + One” things, this time with EraserMight and hair ties. A very cute story. I don’t get the chance to read a lot of EraserMight but I’m glad that I took the time to read this one. 

Playlists - Useless lesbians Momo and Jirou pine over each other and don’t realize that their love is requited until Jirou makes her crush known via a playlist. 

Nothing Cuts Like a Mother - In this Inko Midoriya Centric fic, we have the mother going to UA to tell Aizawa about the troubles that he has, with his Quirk. She also tells him about the bullying that Izuku Midoriya went through, and tells his teacher that these mistakes cannot be repeated. 

Team Player - This is a fic about Dabi not wanting to be redeemed from his sins. That was for Touya, an old him. He isn’t that guy anymore. 

Helping Hands - Primarily from the perspective of Kirishima, this is a fic that deals with an AU where Midoriya never got into the Hero Course, and is instead a Gen Ed course student at UA. Cue Bakugou attacking him on the second day, telling him that he doesn’t even belong at the same school as someone like himself - and then see all of Class 1A get angry for Midoriya because “Dude did you just fucking attack a dude because he’s Quirkless?” 

It’s Hurt Denki Hours - Now, I don’t really like the way that this one ends, but in this story the BakuSquad is convinced that Kaminari is the traitor and refuses to talk to him. This really hurts Kami, because he was actually really, really worried about his friends and this hurts him deeply. There is also a bit of a misunderstanding about how Shinsou’s Quirk works, but I will overlook it for the angst. 

Optimistic Friendship Association - This fic features Midoriya accidentally texting Shinsou instead of Yagi, asking how to get OFA to stop breaking his bones. When he’s asked what that is, he panics and says it’s a school group. Now he just has to find a way to explain why a group around optimism is breaking bones... 

Lichtenberg Figures - Another Kaminari Centric fic. In this one, Kaminari accidentally hurts a civilian after panicking during a villain attack. Not wanting to hurt anyone else, he starts refusing to use his Quirk, which does nothing but hurt him in the end. 

Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll - This is a fic that has nothing to do with intercourse, drugs, or music. No, this is an ADHD Kaminari fic, where his RSD makes him not want to fill out a test that he doesn’t remember any of the answers to and he draws all over it. As someone with ADHD, this hit close to home but was really good. 

Kiss Away All These Thrills - A short ShinKami fic about the two of them playing the Pocky Game. Spoilers: it ends with a kiss and a confession. 

[sirsparklepants]

On Abuse, Anger, and Control: Billy Hargrove

The next chapter of In a Day or Two opens with an explicit scene of child abuse. It’s been there from the initial outline. There are other scenes of abuse prior to this, but this is the first (and probably the only) one where it gets physical. I was working on it last night, and I had some Thoughts about how the Harringrove fandom as a whole deals with writing Billy’s canonical abuse.

Below the cut: explicit descriptions and discussion of child abuse, some mild criticism of fandom trends

Here’s the thing, so I don’t get a bunch of messages and replies questioning my bona fides: I’m the survivor of a childhood probably best described as “cartoonishly abusive”. I don’t talk about it a lot, not because I’m ashamed or whatever, but because it’s honestly so much ridiculous bullshit that I sound like a soap opera character. I definitely relate to Billy, but what’s depicted on the show I tend to see as comparatively mild on the “bad parenting” scale.

But I do relate to Billy. I see parallels in our upbringing. I want him to stop being such a fuckhead teenager and grow up to be a decent adult who left his past behind him, as much as I can. That’s really why I started reading Harringrove fic: no one in the fandom is shy about saying “yes, Billy’s a fuck, but probably a big chunk of it is that he’s an abused kid.” It’s a big part of his character, and even if authors understandably don’t want to deal with on-page abuse, I’ve read very few fics that don’t acknowledge this. Which is great, honestly, there’s a ton of fandoms that don’t do half as well. But I have noticed a trend that’s been niggling at me. A lot of stories paint Billy’s abuse as extremely, and only, physical. To an extent, that’s understandable - he is hit and shoved around in canon, and media and society in general tends to paint physical (or sexual, but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms) abuse as the Most Serious Abuse There Is. I think it does a disservice to both Billy’s canon situation and many abuse survivors, though.

I don’t doubt that those authors are coming from a very good place. It’s fucking hard to get into the mindset of an abusive person so that their actions have internal consistency, whether you’re an abuse survivor or not. It can feel like you’re doing something wrong. It can be incredibly upsetting. It’s understandable to go for what’s been presented to you as the worst thing and leave it at that. The thing is, though, that for the most part? The actions of an abuser are not random. They’re very calculated to fulfill the abusers’ goal: keep their victim under their power. In my experience, physical abuse was just one tool my abusers used very judiciously to express their control over me. 

Yes, Neil does absolutely physically abuse Billy. That’s onscreen. It’s canon. It’s undeniable. But I seem to have taken away something different from that scene than a lot of other viewers. The physical abuse is bad, but the way his father acts? It’s an act of control, of expressing his power over his son. Billy is clearly physically larger and stronger than his father, but he never fights back. In my opinion, that’s because his father has somehow made resisting him seem useless or futile - either because he’s abused Billy from a young age, as we see in s3, or because he’s manipulated the situation so that if Billy does physically resist, he’ll be the one in legal trouble. He also only gets physical when it seems like Billy will do something he hasn’t mandated - go out and have fun. The thing that absolutely cements this for me, though, is how his father used Max.

I have four stepsisters who I love dearly. They’re my sisters as much as the ones I have who are blood related. However, we did not have the easiest relationship growing up, mostly because our parents manipulated us into seeing ourselves as extensions of my father’s first and second wives and therefore natural adversaries. They did this because if we stood together against them, their control would slip. And I see this very much in Billy’s relationship with Max. His father has placed him in a role of semi-parental responsibility to her, something Billy clearly resents. Max often defies his authority, and this clash between them serves to make their relationship bitter. Billy is a bucket of fried assholes to Max, clearly, and she doesn’t deserve it, but I don’t see his behavior towards her as coming entirely from himself. Given the fact that Neil uses Max as an excuse to push Billy around and make him cancel his plans, making Billy see Max as an extended instrument of his abuse, it’s pretty clear to me that Neil is driving a wedge between them on purpose.

Because here is the thing: as a child abuse survivor, you are counting down the days. High school graduation, college admissions, turning 18, that military recruitment date - as you get into your mid-teens, there’s something you see as an out. It’s the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a rope you’re holding onto with both hands. It’s something you absolutely are keeping secret from your abuser, or if they must know, it’s something you frame so it seems like their achievement, something you did because of them. Season 2 Billy is clearly fast approaching that date, whatever it is for him, and that date? It means he’s out from under Neil’s thumb. And being out of their control is the worst case scenario for abusers. If Max and Billy have an alliance against Neil, much more things can get done under his nose to try and get Billy out of that house. And Neil probably knows it.

To my mind, Neil is all about control. Even in his physical abuse scene, he slaps Billy and pushes him up against things - nothing likely to leave suspicious marks. Clearly he knows his son is often shirtless or otherwise unclothed. The type of physical abuse he engages in isn’t a loss of control on his part at all. He wants to make it seem like it is, like Billy made him lose control with his “bad” behavior, but he goes into Billy’s space, so that anything broken will be his. He uses his physicality, but only to an extent. He never crosses a line that would have anyone asking any questions. He doesn’t do anything “bad enough” that his watching wife, who clearly doesn’t approve, would feel she’s forced to intervene. (Although I have a whole essay on The Narrative Role Of Susan, that’s not for today.) And, most notably to me, he stays away from any windows. To me, these are all signs that Neil is perfectly in control, just choosing to make Billy believe he isn’t.

The other thing about Neil and that scene - he clearly wants to make Billy believe that he is at fault. That there’s some imaginary standard he can reach where his behavior will be satisfactory enough that he won’t suffer his father’s wrath. That, somehow, what Neil does to him are the consequences of Billy’s actions. In reality, of course, that’s just not true, but it is a classic abuse technique. If an abuse victim truly believes that what they’re trapped in is a no-win scenario, then most of the time, they figure what’s the point in trying, and stop engaging completely with what the abuser wants. And that kind of behavior is a loss to the abuser. So they have to make their victim believe that there is something they can do to “fix” things, therefore putting the onus of the abusive behavior on their shoulders as well. The fact that Neil talks about standards of behavior Billy is expected to meet - the classic “respect and responsibility” is proof to me that that’s what his intent is with that scene.

So, is the physical abuse Billy endures from his father horrible? Yes, absolutely, and no child should be treated like that. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s the symptom of something larger - the control his father tries to exert over many aspects of his life - rather than the absolute worst part of what he suffers. And when I see his abuse reduced in fiction to primarily the physical, it feels... like a reduction of what canon gives us. The Billy I see depicted in fic sometimes has experiences that I have trouble relating to at all, as opposed to the Billy onscreen.

And again, I understand why people depict his experiences that way. I’m not trying to be an asshole, just speaking to my personal experiences. But I’d like to see a little more truth in television, so to speak, about his abuse.

If you’re interested in writing more realistic abusive characters, a book I can’t recommend enough is Lundy Bancroft’s Why Does He Do That, a book written by a therapist who’s made a career of treating both abusers in the hopes of making them no longer abusers as well as domestic violence victims. It’s a difficult read, and intended as a self-help book for domestic violence survivors, but it digs deep into why exactly abusers act the way they do. It’s often available as a free pdf online - I’ve seen several links floating around on tumblr.

[notbigondoors]

This blog is amazing! Vision seems like a really difficult character to write because he's not even human (even tho I love him as if he was one haha) but you nail his personality and manners! I would like to know some of your headcanons about how he learned how to understand humans better and the way socializing works. For example I headcanon that he watched The Breakfast Club and was fascinated by it and then he observed Peter Parker because... teenagers being weird humans! Vision is so cute xD

{out of equations} Thank you! ^_^ Vision is a difficult character for me to write, more so than a lot of my other muses. Most of my muses I write either because I identify with them somehow, their personalities are very simple for me to understand, or I know everything about them in the case of OCs, but with Vision... his personality is far from my own, and he has an entirely unique perspective on the world. That combined with his equally unique biology and “birth” makes for a significant challenge when attempting to make him sound realistic with regard to what was in the canon movies.

In some ways, though, it’s no different than trying to write an elf or a vampire or angel or some creature who is not human, may be either very old or have been brought into existence as an adult, and who may not be from this earth/plane/time/realm. You have to really put yourself into their shoes and think okay, would they know about this? Would they ever have encountered this, and if so, how would they process it given their perspective? What things would they notice first, which would be most significant to them, and how would that different from how a human views the world? You really have to approach everything with either the eyes of someone who has never seen it before, or the eyes of someone who has, but only a few times, and may not have drawn the same conclusions as a human who grew up with said things.

As far as Vision learning about human socialization and how to socialize himself, there were four basic ways he eased into this whole process: 1) observation, 2) information, 3) imitation, 4) conversation.

Observation simply means that, in interacting with humans at the Avengers compound, Vision quickly picked up on patterns of behavior. Tony made a comment and everyone in the room laughed. Well, Vision didn’t because he doesn’t understand why what Tony said is funny... but he did notice that every other human in the room had a similar reaction. Likewise, if Tony says something and everyone balks at it or tells him it’s inappropriate, well Vision now knows that what Tony said was largely considered inappropriate in some way, even if he doesn’t understand why himself. So he watched, listened, and remembered the reactions of others, some in groups and some one-on-one, and then took it to the next stage of learning...

Information. Vision has access to the internet anytime he wants. Because of this, he can watch any movie, read any book, study anything he wants. So he remembers various human responses to things throughout the day and proceeds to basically do searches for “why is this funny?” or “why is this offensive?” From there, he can learn about certain events in history, certain phobias, certain types of jokes, or even certain personality types of humans... all things that might contribute to general societal reactions to some topics of conversation. After Vision had spent a lot of time just trying to navigate generalized reactions to things, he then took on more subtle ones, such as a reaction Wanda had so something somebody said that no one else in the room shared. Or a reaction Steve had to something Vision said when they were speaking one on one. Those reactions are more complex or deviate from the norm or might be rarer and more convoluted to understand. But in doing a lot of reading on human psychology, learning about their history, the differences between makes and females, the different focuses of people born of certain races or during different decades... he learns why people react the way they do to a somewhat predictable degree... inasmuch as he learns that even the most predictable reactions may not always happen 100% of the time.

Imitation. Alright. Now he’s learned informationally-speaking about how human beings react to things, as maybe he has studied some of the subtler points of human psychology and socialization. Now it’s time to put it to good use in real-life situations. At this point Vision can begin making small jokes of his own. He can start smiling or nodding or furrowing his brow at things when others do. And some of this is pure imitation, in that he is only doing it because he has learned that it is appropriate. That’s more in the beginning. But as he continues to do this, he develops his own emotions, his own preferences, his own sense of when something offends him or makes him amused, and then he is able to employ those reactions not because someone should in that situation, but because it is the proper reaction for what he is feeling. Unfortunately for Vision, he needs to more actively and directly connect emotions to reactions, because he never gradually learned this from being a small child and taught by parents. So very early on, he needs to actively think, I have been paid a compliment, this makes me happy and appreciative, the proper reaction for being happy and appreciative is to smile and say thank you. And then he does it. It happens very fast, so it seems natural, but it doesn’t become truly natural for him until at least a year or so after he’s “born.”

Conversation. If all else fails and Vision truly does not understand something, he will outright ask. Well, with some people. He is comfortable asking people like Wanda, Steve, and Natasha. Tony... it depends on the man’s current mood. People like Clint, Sam, and Rhodes seem a bit more standoffish with him and so he chooses not to engage them as often, but that doesn’t mean he never does. Anyway, if Vision’s reaction is taken as surprising, if he offends someone, or if he does not understand someone else’s reaction to something, he will ask, especially if he’s with someone he feels comfortable with. He tends to feel less comfortable around those who seem unsettled around him or who have made it clear that they think of him as a machine. And those who distrust him because of his link to Ultron. But it is not uncommon for Vision to ask things like, “Have I said something incorrect?” or “What makes you say that?” or “To what are you referring?” This is a big part of how he learns in general, not just about socializing, and frankly, Vision loves it when someone is willing to spend time with him and entertain his questions about the world. He is, by nature, a very curious and intelligent being who loves to learn and expand his knowledge of things. He also gets adorably excited when introduced to new concepts, places, animals, objects, etc. The first things he wants to do is go have a conversation about it. XD

Yeah, so... that’s basically my big ball of headcanons with regard to Vision’s learning process and how he came to understand human socialization. His goal is not to completely mimic humans, for he is not human and nor does he wish to be, but rather to use how humans socialize as a jumping-off point for him to then develop his own unique form of socialization. Kindof like a child learning math, and learning an equation for something from a book or someone else, only to then later refine and shorten that equation once he understands it. Or for a young doctor to learn how to perform a type of surgery by the book, but then coming up with a much better way of doing it after years of practice and expertise. Vision is the same way with socialization. His starting point was how humans relate to themselves, but the more he learned, the more he developed his own personality... until he no longer needed to imitate what they did and said.

I hope this answered your question and thanks for sending this in! I love when people send in “sandbox” asks that are basically like “rant about this for a while,” heh. That’s the most fun for me as a writer, to just explore things for no other reason than to develop the character and flesh it out.

[ctl-yuejie]

My thoughts on the conflict between TangYi and ShaoFei, the tone of HIStory3:Trapped  and how conflict and reveals get presented

Disclaimer: I love this show, I think the acting is great and I am very excited that the production team challenged itself with a more complex story than past HIStory seasons, upped the production quality and overall seemed to pour all the heart and hard work into this. Never forget that I love this show even though this might come off as very critical. Me nitpicking at a piece of media however doesn’t mean that I don’t like it (I seldom waste my breath on bad-mouthing something I didn’t enjoy unless it personally offended me), it only means that I enjoyed it so much that I spent hours thinking about the plot and the characters and generally had a lot of feelings.

        - spoilers up until episode 16 -

Now that the show has only 4 episodes left to air I wanted to take some time to sort my thoughts and feelings.

Overall, I really do enjoy this show, especially the acting, the chemistry between Chris and Jake is stellar (not to leave out Andy and Kenny, I just don’t think I’ve seen enough of their story to comment too much on them yet) and the  brilliantly written romance of TangYi and ShaoFei.

In the beginning the premise sounded tropey and fun and I didn’t expect them to seriously tackle the issue of a cop falling in love with a criminal because the trailer, while being action-packed, looked too light-hearted.

The show however took a surprising twist.

Sure, much of what happens is not realistic: the crime rate in Taiwan is famously low (we had one too many shootings and violent deaths on the show to match with the statistics) and I am pretty sure ShaoFei drawing his gun at TangYi every chance he gets in the beginning and not facing any backlash doesn’t comply with police protocol at all.

However, when they introduced the whole background story of TangYi I started to take the set-up more seriously. Prior to this I thought that I just had to suspend belief in order to enjoy the cop/gangster romance aspect of the show and to be able to ignore any ethical issues that might arise with such a dynamic.  But introducing him as this young adult who’d grown up into a life of crime and no choosing of his own, who tried to cut ties with the criminal world because of a promise he gave to his foster father made me rethink the tone of the show and I started to believe that they would honestly tackle the ethical issues of the relationship between ShaoFei and TangYi.

Trying to live an honest and upright life doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to stop committing crimes on your way to achieve that goal (and I am pretty sure that HongYe setting up that business is textbook money laundering) but I liked to believe that revealing TangYi’s motivation would mean exactly that. Because this promised a challenge, suspense and a struggle worth watching.

Refraining from committing crimes and dismantling his organization while upholding his front as a stone-hearted mob boss would result in much more difficulties when interacting with gang members and trying to not get overpowered by enemies. TangYi would be too powerful otherwise. Most of the problems he has encountered on this show were connected to him trying to protect people that are dear to him, a task that is much more complicated to accomplish when you cannot resort to violence. 

Additionally, I don’t think I could root for TangYi and ShaoFei as a couple if TangYi doesn’t try his best to not hurt other people. Not only because ShaoFei is a policeman, there are enough corrupt or misguided policemen around, but because ShaoFei is introduced to us as someone with strong convictions and an even stronger sense of justice and upholding the law. And to me it didn’t seem like his character arc was set-up for him to delve into a moral grey-area or even to switch sides with TangYi. I thought that his journey would be to fall for TangYi and accept that not everyone is necessarily entirely good or evil and having to grapple with his senior being not the person he thought she was. This does fit in with the latest revelations that the police chief with whom he has a kind of father-son relationship is indeed not the good person we thought he was.

I have no idea how ShaoFei could deal with the idea of TangYi being capable of hurting people when it isn’t done in self-defense and if there are other, albeit more difficult, ways in which he could’ve taken action.

Especially because in the reality this show creates the problems a cop/gangster relationship entails don’t get entirely glossed over. Yu Qi reminds ShaoFei in the hospital that him and TangYi cannot be together, not because they’re both men, but because of their professions. (To be honest the only real beef I might have with this show so far was the weird “love is love” analogy that they freely applied to a gangster/cop relationship. I don’t think it was in any way intentional but reversing that thought might lead the viewer to the conclusion that you are either born into a certain profession or you can choose your sexuality...which is definitely not what the show wants us to think, I hope.) Even earlier on ShaoFei denies that he could have developed feelings for TangYi on the basis that they’re playing on opposite teams. So we have to assume that the show acknowledges the ethical problems of this romance in general but somehow conveniently forgets about this conflict when it should have an impact on the characters behavior. This is especially bizarre because the only function of those scenes then is to act as a tool to not make as forget how cold and ruthless TangYi can be. Because he is a gangster boss.

After revealing TangYi’s backstory on the mountain top I got more excited about the show because I thought I’d understood in which direction they wanted to take the main romantic plot and what kind of tone they wanted to set. The show would be slightly more serious and solemn than I anticipated but I welcomed that approach because it would make for an interesting show while not excluding any possible humour.

However, immediately in the next episode I had to start and rethink my assumptions. By now the low respect for rules on the police’s site and dilettante approach to their job started to stand out, however I was willing to not head those details that much attention because most tv series, even mainstream crime shows, mess up the actual technicalities of the jobs they’re trying to portray. ShaoFei’s fever dream on the mountain however took the disconnect with the previous episode a little bit further. The scene overall did fit in with the humour of the show but the way it was acted out and shot didn’t make it look like an organic part of the rest of the series. However, the scene just left me with a small nagging feeling and wasn’t anything that really bugged me.

My feelings for the show however got tested a bit when TangYi beat up that henchman. I was so convinced that the main conflict of the show would be TangYi trying to maintain is image as a gangster so his gang wouldn’t find out that he is trying to dissolve the organization while having to abstain from using any violence. Something that is made even more difficult by the police getting involved and the mystery from 4 years ago looming over him.

I truly believed that TangYi being left alone in that room would turn out to be a ruse to shake up Ah De (whom, as we later find out, he was already suspicious of). It also made me hope that Wang Kun Chen might have not actually died but that his death was faked in order to go after both the criminals and any corrupt policemen (I will come back to his death later on). But afterwards in a talk with Jack it gets confirmed that TangYi indeed beat up the henchman. This course of action didn’t surprise me that much but to be honest I was just disappointed with how straight-forward and unexcitingly TangYi dealt with Ah De and possibly some other close people going behind his back.

The intention of the set-up with Old Tang’s wish was only based on my assumptions so I can’t really feel that let down by it, but TangYi beating up that henchman threw me because I thought we were supposed to read more into Old Tang’s request and conclude that TangYi would have to live through a constant internal struggle.

In general, I don’t mind when unrealistic things happen in a series, however there has to be an internal set of rules that gets followed and scenes and characters have to make sense within the reality the showrunners created.

To me it is curious that TangYi doesn’t think that he has to adjust how he acts in order to disentangle himself from a life of crime in some scenes but in other scenes suddenly cannot take action in a certain way because of the same reason (mostly when it becomes urgent to eliminate direct threats). It is always up to ShaoFei to actively stop him from committing crimes and we never see an internal struggle. Sure, the task got imposed on him by Old Tang and TangYi doesn’t seem to be propelled by intrinsic motives but due to his emotional connection to Old Tang I’d have thought that he would really have to constantly struggle mentally and physically to refrain himself from using violence.

That does, in no way, mean that I wanted this show to be less dark. I think there’s still a lot of room for even more cruelty and angst even if the main character tries his best not to use violence. The whole set-up is very sad, the element of corruption could also lead to emotional distress at how hopeless ShaoFei’s investigation is, drug trafficking in particular comes with many victims, the betrayal inside the gang and every parental figure in this show either not living up to expectations or being outright abusive are also heavy subjects they could lean into even more. Heck, ShaoFei’s whole investigation and the police’s involvement raise the stakes because there is the possibility of capital punishment for drug offenses in Taiwan. We also have to deal with the fact that TangYi most definitely committed heinous acts in the past, the same might go for Jack. All in all, there are still many options left to make this show even more grim and bleak.

In the end it is up to the writers how they want to spin TangFei’s romance but to me it seemed like they were laying the ground for a different approach to the story then what actually played out. While I am not mad at this show (as I said before this is me nitpicking at a series that I highly enjoy) at this point I don’t know whether I can trust the hints I pick up because I don’t know if it was the intention of the writers to built-up a storyline or if what they did was totally arbitrary, or if they indeed simply forgot what they established in earlier scenes (this is where I had my problems with Hong Ye’s attack on ShaoFei and Ah De’s assault of TangYi. HongYe was introduced as more intelligent than that planned attack was and Ah De’s premeditated assault didn’t fit with his goals and the way he crossed the line earlier on).

This back and forth on characterizations, storylines and tone does confuse me quite a bit and is the only thing so far that made the show fall slightly short of what they could’ve accomplished with more consistent writing.

- - - - - -- - - - - - - -- - - - -- - - - - - -- - - - - -- - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Which leads me to how the show is dealing with its reveals. So far, we have the mystery from 4 years ago that still needs solving, TangYi’s real parents’ identity which got revealed in episode 16, Ah De not only being in love with TangYi but selling drugs behind his back, Jack’s identity and real motivation, who really killed Wang Kun Chen, Ah Zi being up to no good and finally the police chief being dirty.

I enjoyed/am enjoying all of these plot-twists, some were more obvious than others but again, the writing of how these things unravel or got revealed is very inconsistent.

I will start with our mystery men. The reveal I enjoyed the most was the police chief being a dirty cop. It pretty much came out of nowhere but now a lot of his actions do make much more sense, especially how he didn’t give much support to ShaoFei and how he was mocking about with his work which I initially wrote off as missing motivation instead of passive sabotage. It also gives us enough room to guess his motivations and to whatever conclusion we might come to, it fits perfectly into the story so far. He might have needed money, or averting his eyes might have led to bigger consequences than he expected, now he is scared to lose his job because his daughter is marrying, or he worked too long in the force so he decided to side with what he felt was the most harmless kind of corruption to be able to focus on the big fish. What is important is that regardless of his motivation his past behavior fits with the reveal and added excitement to the show (to behonest at the moment I kind of lost interest in what happened 4 years ago because it is both obvious and confusing at the same time). Ah Zi was an okay reveal and the general topic of corruption in the work force and presumably good characters turning out grey or bad is pretty interesting but how his identity got revealed with those taunting shots of a man in a jacket were somewhat lackluster. They only spanned over two episodes before the reveal and were pretty on the nose. I would have loved it if they’d built-up his betrayal over more episodes with secretive shots of money and drugs exchanging hands where we couldn’t be sure if we were just shown the inner workings of TangYi’s gang or outsiders trying to get their hands on some extra cash.

Again, two similar reveals came about very differently and with a different kind of depth and detail to attention as well as being tied into the show organically and not so much.

This change in style doesn’t do much good in my opinion. Jack remains much of a mystery even though we need at least some hints in order to root for him and ZhaoZi. Instead their scenes are sweet but not that telling and they never just appear in the background to tie in their romance at all times. There were missed opportunities and many scenes that they could’ve been in finished without them and we went two whole episodes without them. Hong Ye and DaoYi had the big advantage to be present in many of the main couples’ scenes so their romance felt very well written and satisfying. I wish they’d spend even more time and attention to detail on Jack and ZhaoZi because with the added mystery element to Jack’s persona I really need more to get emotionally involved.

Again, I am confused as to how deep the show wants us to analyze its characters’ actions and how tricky the story really is. Ah De selling drugs behind TangYi’s back was mentioned only in a throw-away line and we are to believe that TangYi wouldn’t act more guarded or cautious around Ah De? Are we supposed to question that Jack killed Wang Kun Chen? If so, why was TangYi supposed to get fraimed for his death when it was a set-up by possibly the police? If it was as straight-forward as it’s presented I have my problems with rooting for TangYi/ShaoFei and ZhaoZi/Jack because it would be the first kill since the start of the show and setting up TangYi and Jack as unredeemable in ZhaoZI’s and ShaoFei’s eyes (see my huge paragraph about violence above). If we are supposed to scrutinize the show on the same intricate level as the police chief’s betrayal, some of the other reveals fall flat and are just not on the same engaging level.

The same goes for the messaging: are we to believe that Ah De’s actions were despicable? Wouldn’t we have to apply the same rules to Jack kissing ZhaoZi?

Overall I wish this series was written more tight-knitted, intricate and consistent in tone and message. Because I believe that this otherwise very entertaining story could’ve only benefitted from that.

[migleefulmoments]

lmao Abby is losing her shit because Darren is gonna be singing White Christmas with Lea on her new Christmas album. Apparently that song is "sacred" and can only be sang by Darren and Chris. She seriously needs to get a grip.

Anonymous said: "I can be upset, I think it is a complete slap in the face. there are like 3000 christmas songs, there are THREE that are sacred.   And yes, D should have sad no." Oh look Abby doesn't approve of something Darren is doing AGAIN. Seriously she claims to be his biggest fan but yet complains about everything he does.

Man, I didn’t see this coming. I’m amazed at how deeply emotional they are about a scripted, tv-show couple and a really old song! I might understand  if Abby was a lesbian teenager and this was 2011. It was empowering for gay, lesbian and bisexual kids and young adults to turn on network tv and see people that looked liked them. But times they have a changed. Klaine and Brittana pushed boundaries, but in 2019 there are LGBTQ characters on many shows, Netflix has LGBTQ programing and Ryan Murphy continues to create shows that specifically tell LGBTQ stories-ie Pose and he has created LGBTQ characters for all of his shows because that’s life. He’s continues to normalize LGBTQ characters on his shows: 911 has a main character who is a married lesbian, The Politician has gay characters and its been reported that Rock Hudson will be a character in Hollywood. 

So here we are in 2019 and Abby is devastated that the sacred White Christmas will be covered by Darren and Lea on her new Christmas album. First off, why is the song sacred? Abby mentioned the “Bryant Park riot”-a riot we know never happened. The people “holding the fandom together” were not in the cc fandom when Chris and Darren filmed in Bryant Park. Their “memories” of that day have all been created by watching a few moments of the 11-hour day. I’ve come to realize that the cc theory is built on slowed-down gifs and screenshots. Reality looks nothing like cc so they manipulate the facts to fit their needs. It’s a powerful method because it is so easy to con people into believing inane facts. I am sure that Abby and Flowers and Cassie and Leka fully believe everything they hold near and dear about CrissColfer.  It’s all a lie but they fully believe they are throwing out tried-and-true proven facts. Abby in particular is really baffled why we can’t see what she see. The difference between them and us is that we don’t listen with our eyes. We don’t get information about Darren and Mia by piecing together gifs. That’s it-gifs and screenshots from videos! Can you imagine if a lawyer a police officer  used a gif as evidence? 

Nobody set out to con the tinhatters into believing a fantasy that doesn’t exits-in fact, nobody is conning the fandom-they are conning themselves. They don’t look at the  evidence and form an opinion- they literally create the evidence. Zoom in a photo until you can crop out what you need or clip 1-2 seconds from a longer video, slow it down, add some text and suddenly *BAM* you have proof! Proof with all the drama and emotion to make it feel so much more important than it was. 

How the shit hit the fan:

Leka:

jaci3

I will definitely be purchasing this album! So much talent! Cynthia!! Darren!! Jonathan and Lea!!

notes-from-nowhere

I’m going to take this as a good news👍🏻

ajw720

But no, no, no no. Do not get me wrong, I am thrilled D is on the album, but no, no, no, not a K/laine song. Why?  There are so many Christmas songs out in the world and they chose a K/laine song?  

I have no interest, it can never live up.

I hate 2019.

DRAMA MUCH?

Thanks, but it’s a hard pass for me.

ajw720

I actually have tears in my eyes. This feels like a complete slap in the face. Sorry, but it is and it should not have been this song and I don’t care what you believe, Those songs are sacred to the K/laine fandom whether you think he is married to her or with C or something completely different.  

How many Christmas songs are there to choose from? If she wanted WC, she could have sang it with someone else.

With you @cassie1022 hard pass.  It may seem silly to be this upset about something, but this actually makes me angry.  I feel like K/laine fans are being discarded. That is his LEGACY, something he should be proud of, through that character and that pairing, he and C made a difference, and I do not understand why it needs to constantly be chipped away.  

I have to say the thing that strikes me the most is how obtuse she is about what Glee was the end. It was a mess. I loved Glee but most of the fun by the end was the amazing fanfiction, Fanon Klaine and fandom itself. It was fun to get the song sneak peeks and BTS photos and videos. It was amazing to be a part of a fandom of people who loved what I did. It is amazing to be part of the Chris and Darren stanclub.  But Glee...it was a disaster. .

Leka proves some context for “White Christmas is Sacred” and notice how how many are gifs: 

leka-1998

Excuse you.

WC is so much more than just a song.

undefined

(She does know this is a scripted moment right? Darren didn’t actually travel to NYC from Lima with Chris’s dad and someone told him when to skate, what to say, what to sing.). 

“It’s been a whirlwind, but amazing. We got to film at the ice skating rink in Bryant Park, which was just incredible. It was one of the best filming experiences I’ve ever had.”

- Ch/ris Col/fer

(Yes, Darren laid down on the carpet and took a picture of Chris which was  about the most cc thing that happened in 11 hours)

(I have no doubt that these three gifs were created from 1 or 2 seconds of real-time video. These images created the false impression that they spent the day together, gleefully skating and being intimate. Not too long ago, I read a cc post that claimed “Darren spent the day taking care of Chris”.  No, not true- see the videos below for a more realistic representation of the day). )  

#truly this really upsets me

(I guess she is reminding us of how much they mean to the world- eye roll.)  

I tried finding a long video on YouTube-ideally much of the day or even just big chucks of the day but *surprise* nobody bothered to upload that snooze fest. If the day was actually the cc riot the posse believes it was, there would be an 11-hour complication video.

I did find some video that accurately represents what I remember. Basically just imagine 11 hours of the following: 

undefined

Chris was pretty shaky when they started skating but by the time they filmed, he was much better. I cannot imagine being on skates for 11- shaky- hours.

undefined

undefined

Chris skating alone, trying to get more comfortable with skating before filming.

That’s it! That s the totality of what is posted on YouTube from the “Riot”.

The conversation continues; 

Anonymous asked:

White Christmas is literally one of the most cliché christmas songs. The album is just Lea's favorites. Darren has sung White Christmas before and he sounded amazing so it's only natural she would invite him to sing it with her. I get the a lot of things can be frustrating, but good god you all being THIS upset about it is the reason why everyone mock our fandom. It's not even baby it's could outside. At least we know for sure chris is going to be mentioned at some point during the promo.

ajw720 answered: (in victim mode)

Why do you care if I am this upset?  Seriously, let them mock me, they have blogs dedicated to hating me and posts multiple times a day.  I am over it, they are the ones with the sad lives who actually give me power.  

(Nope, not dedicated to “hating you”, I simply debunk your “facts” and “proof” beaus they are not evidence of CrissColfer; Yes, this is unfortunately a negative side effect to disproving your lies- you don’t care if the attention is negative or positive- you just like the attention. But pointing out the lies and misinformation is more important to me ) 

I can be upset, I think it is a complete slap in the face. there are like 3000 christmas songs, there are THREE that are sacred.   And yes, D should have sad no.  We sit here and swallow everything, including having “D” himself mock and yell at our fandom on SM.  And I virtually defend everything he does, probably to a fault, including holding out that person as his wife. This was easily avoidable.

(well at least you acknowledge that Darren calls out your fandom for their bad behavior on social media. Now would be a good time to really analyze why you think that is. Really sit down and think about why Darren would mock your fandom without a gif or a screenshot to zoom in on. What would drive him to be angry at a ccer?) . 

Sorry, not sorry, don’t like, post on your own blog and stop reading mine if you don’t like the way i represent. Happy to pace the torch. 

(Wow she is happy to pass the torch? Right. ) 

notes-from-nowhere

(Notes comes in and tries to soothe Abby’s fragile nerves).

So, I feel the need to say something. I’m not that much upset for the song mostly because I think it may be the song D picked out if those presented to him so I don’t fully like the idea but it could have been worse. At least all of the involved knows the meaning of the song.

What bothers me though is this kind of attitude, anon. This urgency to come here and to tell to another person what/how/when she should feel about something. Trying to put a weight on it or to dismissed the rightfulness of her feelings.

If this is how she (and everyone else) feels about this, she has the right and the freedom to say it out loud without having to face someone else’s judgement because maybe she has another opinion.

(and the anon has the right to say what she feels-see how that works?)

There are different ways to approach a person to communicate so please next time, think better.

ajw720

Thank you @notes-from-nowhere, hard to believe, the above was at least more respectful than this anon:

This is why I left the fucking fanbase. I still very much agree with the same views and ideas that all of you have, but jesus christ, it’s a SONG. Calm down. I’m just happy whenever D does something that doesn’t envolve PBB. Getting so upset because D is singing a song that he sang with C. Maybe he’s doing it because it reminds him of the Bryant Park shoot? Maybe? Good god, everything is the apocalypse to you guys. Leaving was the best thing I’ve ever done.

I want to remind everyone, I am the one, with a handful of people, keeping this fandom alive and supporting D&C daily,. And just like i can praise them, i can tell them when they hurt me.  This hurt. Maybe I am being overly dramatic and if this was isolated, i would say yes. This is not isolated, it is a continued effort to erase K/laine and CC.  As has been pointed out, not only did they offend K/laine fans in general, it is a knock at our fandom who still to this day celebrate the skating riot.

(Oh lord, she reminds us she is the HBIC, sacrificing everything to keep the fandom together. I love that she believes this is “supporting D&C daily”. Nobody needs to be told the suck everyday.  She support them and so she can criticize them but nonnie cannot criticize her. That makes perfect sense) 

Again literally THOUSANDS of songs to choose from.  Not even sure why L would EVER want to compete with C, but in this case, the fault doesn’t lie with her.  D should have said no.  

(I don’t think Lea is too worried about putting up her vocal chops against Chris’.  The both have great voices)

I am not going to say anything else and just accept that yet another of D’s 2019 projects is something i won’t ever see or hear.  

(once again it’s all about her and her hurt feelings. But this response is at least rationale-if you don’t like the project- skip it. It isn’t Darren’s responsibly to provide 100% Abby approved content)   

I really hope things are going to change, I really, really do.

(But they aren’t..they really aren’t.  This is Darren’s life and I know it’s super stressful because you are trying to hard to make his life work with yours and it just won't You both have very conflicting and opposing goals for Darren’s life. Here’s a protip: Go on a gif-free and zoomed-photo-free diet for a few months. Analyze the information at face value. Learn what PR really means and see how things look.If for no other reason than your own sanity. Stop trying to shove the square peg in the round hole 

#please do not send any more asks on this topic

#i am very upset

ajw720

My feelings aside, WHY in the world would LM EVER want to compete with this? Sorry, but it won’t be half as good. Stupid move and that is trying to remove my bias.

(Her thought processes never ceases to amaze me. Abby and Trump- they start criticizing and they just can’t stop. Lea gets to make her own decisions about what songs she sings, who she’s competitive with, whether she wants to take a chance and put herself out there or not. It just isn’t anyone else’s business. Chris has a beautiful voice but Lea has a stunning voice-she isn’t worried. This is right up there with her criticisms of TSG’s air conditioning, drink names, theme nights and every comment she’s made about a bar she will never go to.