#currently my biggest issue is getting like. examples of fandom behavior

[watery-melon-baller]

If you want to talk about the way people erase characters’ main traits in service in shipping (I call it paper doll syndrome) for your video essay I would be DELIGHTED to help you come up with ideas/write a script or whatever I love making videos and this topic is so interesting to me

that would be so awesome! paper doll syndrome is such an apt name for it and it really is a fascinating (and frustrating) fandom phenomen

fair warning though, im specifically focusing on the owl house fandlom/shipping stuff mainly because ive been in the fandom for a long time and have watched the fandom change over the years. but this kind of thing definitely isn't exclusive to owl house it's a very common fandom phenomen so most of my points can apply to fandom in general. ive never made a video essay or anything but ive been thinking about this for months so i figured i would give it a try. currently im just collecting evidence rn but i would love to chat if ur offering!

[the-ghost-king]

Interestingly enough the fandom isn't always rational with their criticism. Take Percy and Rachel for instance. A perfectly healthy cute and functional relationship dynamic, but people really hated it because it got in the way of Percy/Annabeth.

I think it can also come down to the fact that not all situations are exactly equal if that makes sense. If you have a character dynamic in couple A, that often playfully bully of fight with eachother that's a different dynamic than relationship B, where one person has trauma resulting from bullying and the other parter behaves in roughly the same way as couple A do. In that case the behavior may be seen as inappropriate. Not that this example has anything to do with the ships at hand, but I think a long form meta examining the different paralleling issues from both relationships and their validity would be easier.

Also I haven't seen anything about about Nico/Will being called toxic. Yikes, what are people saying exactly, because I don't doubt a lot of people might be projecting unconcious bias.

Oh absolutely, I may seem young but I remember the Rachel vs Annabeth ship wars all too well... I do not want to go back 😅

The rest is under a read more though, I got a little carried away talking! Also this isn't my best post on the issue by far so please feel free to check out the tags I mention later on!

(AN: I use nblm alongside mlm in this post because some nblm individuals will consider their attraction to men as gay, or queer, while others will not and those individuals are often closely connected to mlm experiences and they also deserve to talk about their thoughts and feelings if they wish. I am aware nonbinary people are not a monolith and not all nonbinary people will categorize themselves or their attraction this way, it's up to nonbinary individuals reading this to determine where they fall on what)

As for Solangelo being toxic some of the conversations revolve around the ableist nature of the ship, this is definitely most obviously a dynamic in BoO, and it's a more than fair point about the ship I don't have anything negative to say there in the slightest!

(The above parallels with the idea that Will is introduced as a "healer character" for the "sad gay kid", which is a fair criticism as well but one that's often left rather one sided, because while that is true- if it's a way Nico likes being treated (watched closely for injuries and cared for) then it's not wrong, and in ToN Will is seen overstepping Nico's boundaries which causes a healthy argument about Will doing so and he stops, so if Nico doesn't tell Will "no" or some variation he's obviously not horribly uncomfortable with the situation, or from the way it would be interpreted alongside previous text, there's fair reason to think he likes it)

The thing with Solangelo I see often is "Nico is still processing trauma, and internalized homophobia and isn't ready for a relationship" which is a huge misunderstanding on how trauma and internalized homophobia work as a whole, because the experiences can be different for everyone. You can absolutely date someone while processing internalized homophobia, you may struggle with certain things but it is absolutely doable for some people. And trauma is such a varied thing, and it's not like he's solely relying on Will either, he is seeing Dionysus for therapy and getting the help he needs! Your life doesn't have to go on hold for therapy no matter how much trauma you are sorting through! (Not disclosing my medical history or anything but I have struggled with both things and my life didn't stop for me to deal with them, I made new friends, went on dates, etc- it is possible depending on the person so the very narrow view of "this is unhealthy" and "this is impossible" rubs me wrong when it's treated as fact over opinion, because it's an opinion).

There's also constant discussions about how fandom (in current) fetishizes both Nico and Will, which I, and other mlm and nblm have spoken our own thoughts on multiple times to be largely ignored by the biggest perpetrators of this "they're overly fetishized narrative". There's also fairly consistent discussion of how fandom treats Nico and reduces him to uwu small gay boy, which more often than not seems to mean "effeminate" rather than actually harmful stereotyping (yes queer men are allowed to be "girly" especially considering there is some canon text that could be interpreted with that meaning, if there wasn't a plausible way to determine canon that way I wouldn't care if people were going after others feminizing Nico a bit- but the issue is again, fact and feeling aren't the same and fandom seem to conflate the two rather often).

(Some of that ties into nonbinary Nico head canons which are common as of current, and that argument quickly becomes transphobic is people don't watch themselves... Even without bringing nonbinary Nico into the equation, headcanoning Nico as femme isn't bad or wrong, and to say otherwise becomes gender policing which is bad).

There's also this weird obsession with there being a "correct way" to ship mlm ships (specifically solangelo), which when considering it's not mlm or nblm saying those things, it becomes really uncomfortable. Especially because the wording of some posts is less "hey this is homophobic" and comes off more like people are more upset at seeing an mlm couple than at the fact that they're being shipped poorly.

All of this in combination with the constant, talking over of queer guys (specifically mlm and nblm) comes off really messed up, and yeah homophobic.

It's not something that can be pinned down to one specific thing but rather a series of smaller microagressions (which in sure most of are intended in good faith but are being filled with subconscious bias) that build up over time- which is why my concern is that solangelo is facing harsher criticism/different treatment that percabeth simply for being a queer ship.

I can't be 100% sure on that like I said, because that's something that is hard to gain tangible evidence for, or maybe even impossible :/

If there wasn't so many other small things going on alongside the harsher criticism of solangelo, I would honestly just ignore it... But the weird policing of "how to ship solangelo" while proclaiming it's "overly fetishized" all while speaking over a not insignificant number of mlm and nblm who have agreed with certain opinions, or taken time to write their own (+ some of the rhetoric that can be found on he blogs of people commonly expressing these opinions) is super uncomfortable and definitely homophobic... Even if they were treating the ship kind of weird, but treating the queer guys talking about it well and actually listening (because the current solangelo fandom probably has the highest proportion of queer guys in comparison to any other fandom I've been in with an mlm ship as of right now) I wouldn't be so bothered... But sadly that's not the case..

(I'd also like to note out of my posts criticizing the current conversations happening around the issue my post saying "listen to mlm voices" got a lot more notes than some of the other ones, which I can't say is specifically anything, because like solangelo perhaps being treated unfairly to percabeth, I am willing to acknowledge there might not be an issue- but it's weird how often mlm and nblm's posts on "listen to us" will be uplifted but never any actual criticism... Just a thought)

I detail things a little closer and in more detail in some of my posts tagged #fandom homophobia, #mlm fetishism, and #gender policing in fandom, it's not a full or comprehensive list (I've only really started speaking up in the last month or so), and it is largely solangelo specific. However I am always interested in listening to the voices of other queer guys about the issues and hearing out their thoughts as well (people aren't a monolith and I'm interested in trying to be as nuanced as possible!) and I acknowledge that although I am mlm and am going to be a little better at recognizing issues and calling them out (although I like every person am not perfect of course)

So yeah! That's a bit of the current ongoings, again not a full comprehensive list, and definitely not my best explanation ever but I think the point gets across well enough? Definitely check out my other tags if you're interested in more, there's also definitely more posts I need to make on some of the things I've seen (maybe not all of them so solangelo fandom specific, and maybe some of them even more solangelo fandom specific) but it's rather slow work in progress!

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Dark”

Welcome back, everyone! Can you believe it's been six weeks already? I can't. Something something the uncomfortable passage of time during a pandemic as emphasized by a web-series.

But we're here to talk about RWBY the fictional story, not RWBY the cultural icon. At least, we will in a moment. First, I'd like to acknowledge that shaky line between the two, growing blurrier with every volume. A sort of good news, bad news situation.

The bad news — to get that out of the way — is that we cannot easily separate RWBY from its authors and those authors have, sadly, been drawing a lot of negative attention as of late. This isn't anything new, not at all, but I think the unexpectedly long hiatus gave a lot of fans (myself included) the chance to think about Rooster Teeth's failings without getting distracted by their biggest and brightest production. There's a laundry list of problems here — everything from the behavior of voice actors to the quality of their merch — but as a sort of summary issue, I'd like to highlight the reviews that continue to pop up on websites like Glassdoor, detailing the toxic, sexist, crunch-obsessed environment that RT employees are forced to work in. A lot of these websites requires a login to read more than a page of reviews, but you can check out a Twitter thread about it here. 

Now, I want to be clear: I'm not bringing this up as a way to shame anyone enjoying RWBY. This isn't a simplistic claim of, "The authors are Problematic™ and therefore you can't like the stuff they produce." Nor is this meant to be a catch-all excuse for RWBY's problems. If it were, I'd have dropped these recaps years ago. I'm of the belief that audiences maintain the right to both praise and criticize the work they're given, regardless of the context in which that work was produced. At the end of the day, RT has presented RWBY as a finished product and, more than that, presents it as an excellent product, one worth both our emotional investment and our money (whether in the form of paying for a First account, or encouraging us to buy merch, attend cons, etc.) I'll continue to critique RWBY as needed, but I a) wanted fans to be at least peripherally aware of these issues and b) clarify that my use of "RT" in statements like, "I can't believe RT is screwing up this badly" is meant to be a broad, nebulas acknowledgement that someone in the company is screwing up, either creatively (doesn't have the skill to write a good scene) or morally (hasn't created an environment in which other creators are capable of crafting a good scene). The real, inner workings of such companies are mostly a secret to their audiences and thus it's near impossible for someone like me — random fan writing these for fun as a casual side hobby — to accurately point fingers. Hence, broad "RT." I just wanted to clarify that when I use this it's as a necessary placeholder for whoever is actually responsible, not a damnation of the overworked animator breaking down in a bathroom. Heavy stuff, but I thought it was necessary (or at least worthwhile) to acknowledge this issue as we head into the second half of the volume.

Now for the good news: RWBY has reached 100 episodes! For any who may not know, 100 is a pretty significant number in the TV world because, when talking about prime time programming, it guarantees syndicated reruns. Basically, networks don't want audiences to get burned out with a show — changing the channel when it comes on because ugh, I've seen this already, recently too — and 100 episodes allows for a roughly five month run without any repeats, making it very profitable. RWBY is obviously not a television show and doesn't benefit from any of this (hell, modern television doesn't benefit from this as much as it used to, not in the age of streaming), but the 100 episode threshold is still ingrained in American culture. Beyond just being a nice, rounded number, it is historically a measure of huge success and I can't imagine that RT isn't aware of that. Regardless of what we think of RWBY's current quality, this is one hell of a milestone and should be applauded.

All that being said... RWBY's quality is definitely still lacking lol.

Our 100th episode is titled "Dark" — keeping with the one word titles, then — and I'd like to emphasize that, as a 100th episode, it definitely delivers in terms of plot. There's plenty of action, important character beats, and at least one major reveal, everything we'd expect from a milestone and a Part II premiere. The animation also continues to be noteworthy for its beauty, as I found myself admiring many of the screenshots I took for this recap. There are certainly things to praise. The only problem (one we're all familiar with by now) is that these small successes are situated within a narrative that's otherwise falling apart. It's all good stuff... provided you ignore literally everything else surrounding it.

But let's dive into some examples. We open on Qrow starting, awoken by the thunder outside. Robyn has been watching him and makes a peppy comment about how none of them will be sleeping tonight, followed by a more serious, "Sounds bad out there." Yeah, it does sound bad, especially when they all know — thanks to Ruby's message back in Volume 7 — that this is due to Salem's arrival. I think a lot of the fandom has forgotten that little detail because people often discuss Qrow as if he is entirely ignorant of what is going on outside his cell. Even if we were to assume that he's forgotten all about the pesky Salem issue (the horror of Clover's death overriding everything else, perhaps) he still knows that Tyrian is running loose in a heat-less city with a creepy storm going on and, from his perspective, the Very Evil Ironwood is still running the show. So it's bad, which begs the question of why Qrow (and Robyn, for that matter) hasn't displayed an ounce of legitimate worry for everyone he knows out there. Thus far, their interactions have centered entirely around Qrow's misplaced blame and Robyn's terrible attempts to lighten the mood, despite the fact that a war is raging right beyond that wall. It's another example of RWBY's inability to manage tone properly, to say nothing of balancing the multiple concerns any one character should be trying to juggle. Just as it rankles that Ruby and Yang don't seem to care about what has happened to their uncle, Qrow likewise doesn't seem to care about what might be happening to his nieces. When did we reach a point where these relationships are so broken that someone can be arrested/chucked into a deadly battle and the others just... ignore that?

So Robyn's otherwise innocuous comment immediately reminds me of how badly the narrative has treated these conflicts and, sadly, things don't improve much from here. We are thankfully spared more of Robyn's jokes when Qrow realizes that what he's hearing can't be thunder. A second later, Cinder blasts through the wall — called it! — and Qrow instinctively transforms. 

The only downside to this moment is that the whole ceiling falls down on Qrow and the others because APPARENTLY these cells don't have tops on them. Seriously. As far as I can recall we don't see the stone breaking through the forcefield somehow and this looks pretty open to me.

If it is... you're telling me these crazy powerful fighters who practice landing strategies and leap tall buildings in a single bound —

— can't just hop over this mildly high electric fence to get out? Qrow can't just fly away?

We're, like, two minutes in, folks.

We transfer to Nora's perspective as she wakes up, seeing Klein giving her the IV. He tells her not to worry, that "you and your friend are going to be just fine." What friend? Penny? Klein went upstairs prior to Weiss hugging Whitley or Penny crash landing outside. I had thought them bursting through the door with another unconscious friend was the first time he learned what the big bang outside was, but apparently not.

Penny is, obviously, a mess. While I now understand the choice to make her blood such an eye-catching color when that's crucial to the Hound's hunt, I still think it looks strange visually. Like someone has taken a copy of RWBY and painted over it. It doesn't look like it fits the art style. More than that, it implies some rather complicated things about Penny's humanity, especially in a volume focused around her being a "real girl." Real enough for Maiden powers, but with obviously inhuman blood that isn't even referred to as "bleeding." Penny "leaks" instead.

Toss in the fact that she's literally an android who is made up of tech — recall the running gags about her being heavy, or it hurts to fist-bump her, to say nothing of keeping things like multiple blades inside her body — yet Klein says that her "basic anatomy" is the same and he can "stitch up that wound."

I'm sorry, what? Whatever Penny looks like on the inside, it's not going to resemble a human woman's anatomy, and Klein might be able to stitch the outer layer of skin she's got, but that won't do anything to fix whatever metal bits have been broken underneath. Penny isn't a human-robot hybrid, she's a robot with an aura. Penny has knives in her back, rockets in her feet, and a super computer behind her eyes. When our clip introduced that Klein would be the one to help Penny, my initial reaction was, "Seriously? He's a butler and a doctor and an engineer?" But RWBY didn't even try to get away with a Super Klein explanation, they just waved away Penny's very obvious, inhuman anatomy. Yeah, I'm sure "stitching up" an android wound is just like giving Nora her IV. I hope the surgical sutures he used are extra strong!

In an effort to not entirely drag this episode, I do appreciate that Whitley is allowed an "ugh" moment about the non-blood covering his shirt without anyone calling him out on it. That felt like the sort of thing the show would usually try to make a character feel guilty about and I'm glad that, for once, he was just allowed to be frustrated without comment.

Then the power goes out and May calls, which raises questions about what state the CCTS is in and when scrolls are available to our protagonists vs. when they're not. But whatever. She's checking in because she just "saw another bombing run light up the Kingdom" and —

Wait. Bombing? Salem is bombing the city? I know we've seen explosions in the sky, but I'd always just attributed that to evil aesthetic. Why does this dialogue sound like it's from a World War II film and not a fantasy sci-fi show about literal monsters launching a ground attack?

May looks pretty against the sky though. I like her hair color against that purple.

I'm admittedly grasping at positives here because we finally return to her "You have to choose" ultimatum and — surprise! — May has pulled back completely. Ruby says that once they've helped Penny, "We'll...we'll do something!" which is once again her avoiding making a decision. Ruby still refuses to choose, instead falling back on generic, optimistic pep talks. They'll figure out how to stop Salem later. They'll think about the impact of telling the world later. They'll choose who to help later. Ruby keeps pushing these problems into the future where, she hopes, a perfect, magical solution will have appeared for her to latch onto. When that continues to not happen, others pressuring her to actually do something and stop waiting for perfection — Ironwood, Yang, May — she panics and continues stalling for time. Wait an episode and the narrative supports her in this.

Because initially May was forcing Ruby to decide. Now, May enables her desire to keep putting things off. "Don't beat yourself up, kid. At this point, I don't know how much is left to be done." That's the exact opposite of what May believed last episode, that there was still so much work and good to do for the people of Mantle. This is precisely what the show did with Yang and Ren's scenes too, having people call Ruby out... but then return to a message of, 'Don't worry, you're actually doing just fine' before Ruby is forced to actually change.

None of which even touches on May calling her "kid" in this moment. That continues to be a convenient way of absolving Ruby of any responsibility. When she wants to steal airships or Amity Tower, she's an adult everyone should listen to, the leader of this war. When the story wants to absolve her of previously mentioned flaws, she becomes a kid who shouldn't "beat herself up." I said years ago that RWBY couldn't continue to let the group be both children and adults simultaneously, yet here we are.

So that was a thoroughly disappointing scene. Ruby gets her moment to look sad and defeated, listing "the grimm, the crater, Nora, Penny" as problems she doesn't know how to solve. Note that 'Immortal witch attacking the city I've helped trap here' isn't included in that list. Ruby is still ignoring Salem herself and no one in the group is picking up where May left off, challenging her to do more than wring her hands over things others are already trying to take care of: Ironwood is fighting the grimm, May has gone off to help the crater, Klein is patching up Nora and Penny. Ruby, as one flawed individual, should not be expected to come up with a solution to everything, but she does need to stop acting like she can come up with a solution to everything when it matters most (office scene) and rejecting others' solutions when they ask for her help (Ironwood, May).

If it feels like I'm dragging the flawed, traumatized teenager too much, it's not in an effort to ignore those aspects of her identity. Rather, it's because she's also the licensed huntress who wrested control from a world leader and violently demanded she be put in charge of this battle. Ruby, by her own actions, is now responsible for dealing with these problems, or admitting she was wrong and letting others take the lead, without purposefully derailing their plans. She doesn't get to suddenly go, "I don't know," cry a little, and get sympathetic pats.

But of course that's precisely what happens, courtesy of Weiss.

During this whole scene I kept wondering why no one was celebrating Nora waking up, especially when Ruby outright mentions her. Have they just not noticed given all the Penny drama? Because Nora absolutely woke up.

Aaaand went back to sleep, I guess. What was the point of that POV shot? No worries though, she'll wake up again in a minute.

Willow arrives and announces that they can fix the power (and Penny) using the generator at the edge of the property. I'm convinced RT doesn't actually know what a generator is because the characters are acting like it's some super special device that only richy-rich could possibly have. Whitley says that it's the SDC executives who have their "own power supply" and that it's "extremely unfair." Now, don't get me wrong, a good generator powering large portions of your house can run you 30k+, but you can also get one that plugs into your extension cord and powers your fridge for a couple hundred. There's absolutely a class issue here, just not the one Whitley and Weiss seem to be commenting on. They make a generator sound like the sort of device that only a politician-CEO could possible have and it's weird.

Likely, it sounds weird because it's a choppy way of getting Whitley to bring up the wealth disparity so he can then go, 'That's right! We're crazy rich with a company housing tons of ships! We can use those to evacuate Mantle.' Awkwardness aside, I do like that the Schnee wealth is being used for good purposes, but... evacuate where? To the city currently under attack by a giant whale? In a RWBY that wasn't determined to demonize Ironwood, this would have been a great plot point during the office scene instead, with Weiss offering her services to Ironwood, even if the group decides that a continued evacuation still isn't possible.

Instead, we get it here from Whitley. Do I need to point out the obvious? That Whitley is the MVP of this episode? He's done more good in an HOUR than the group has managed in a year. Give this kid some training and make him a huntsmen instead.

We're given a (very pretty!) shot of the shattered moon because it wouldn't be RWBY if we weren't continually reminded that gods once wiped out humanity before destroying part of a celestial body... and absolutely no one talks about that lol.

Blake's coat might not make any sense for her color scheme, but it does make her easy to spot as she and Ruby run across the grounds. Oh my god, they're actually doing something together! It only took eight years. They even get a lovely talk where Blake admits how much she looks up to Ruby, despite her being younger, and once again I'm struck at how much more I would have loved this scene if it had appeared elsewhere in the series. It is, indeed, as sweet and emotional as all the RWBY GIF-ers are claiming... provided you overlook that this is the exact opposite of what Ruby needs to hear right now. She doesn't need to hear that she's more mature and reliable than her elders when she's functioning under a "We don't need adults" mentality. She doesn't need to hear that not knowing what to do is totally fine, not when that led to her turning on Ironwood, despite not knowing how to stop Salem. She doesn't need to hear that "doing something" — doing anything — is a strength, because Ruby keeps avoiding the big problems for smaller ones she's comfortable with, like standing by Penny's bedside instead of deciding between Mantle and Atlas. Blake's speech is heartfelt, but it's a speech that suits a Beacon days Ruby who is having some doubts about her leadership skills, not the girl whose impulsive — and now lack of — actions is having world-wide repercussions. Everyone is babying Ruby to a staggering degree. It's like if we had a med show where the doctor is standing by the bedside of a coding patient, fretting between two treatments. 'Don't worry,' their colleague says, patting their shoulder. 'I've always looked up to you. You'll do something when you're ready' and then they continue to watch the patient, you know, die.

Also: who does Ruby look up to? Everyone talks about how much they depend on and trust Ruby, but who does Ruby look to for guidance? A number of her problems stem from the fact that she has rejected the advice of everyone who has tried to help her improve: Qrow, Ozpin, Ironwood, even Yang. Ruby is presented as the pinnacle of what to strive for in a leader, rather than a leader who has only been doing this for two years and still has a great deal to learn.

Anyway, they get the generator on and the Hound shows up.

I am begging RT to just make RWBY a horror story. All their best scenes the last three years have been horror I am bEGGING —

Anyway, while Ruby waits to be eaten we cut to Willow and Klein, the former of which is reaching for her bottle, pulling back, reaching again, all while her hand shakes. This is good. This is what we should have gotten with Qrow. Which isn't to say that their (or anyone's) addiction should be identical, but rather that this is a far more engaging and complex look at addiction than what our birb got. Willow tells us that she doesn't drink in the dark despite bringing the bottle with her; tries to resist drinking when she's scared and ultimately fails. Qrow just decided to stop drinking after decades of addiction, seemingly for no reason, and that was that. Why is a side character we only met this volume written better than one of the main cast?

Blake manages to call Weiss about the Hound and she asks if Whitley can handle the airships without her. I mean, I assume so given that Weiss is looking at the bookshelves while Whitley does all the work lol. He makes a teasing comment about how he can if she can handle that grimm and she comments that they still need to work on his "attitude."

No they don't. Weiss stuck a weapon in her kid brother's face. Whitley made a joke. Even if Weiss' comment is likewise meant to be read as teasing, it's clear that we've bypassed any meaningful conversation between them. That hug was supposed to be a Fix Everything moment even though, as I've laid out elsewhere, it didn't even come close.

We cut back to Ruby getting thrown through a wall into the backyard and the Hound creepily coming after her. She's freaked out by this clearly abnormal grimm and Blake is weirdly... not? "It's just a grimm. Just focus!" Uh, it's obviously not. Have we reached the traumatized, sleep-deprived point where the group is sinking into full-blown denial? I wouldn't be surprised. They've been awake for like... 40+ hours.

Because the Hound knocks Ruby out with a single hit. Just, bam, she's down. "Focusing" is not the solution here.

Weiss calls to warn the others about the grimm, telling them to stick together. Willow (understandably) starts freaking out and flees the room (classic horror trope!). Klein is left alone when Penny wakes up with red eyes. Oh no!

Don't worry. You know nothing meaningful happens.

She shoves Klein before (somehow?) resisting the hack, her Maiden powers going wild in the process. Just when it looks as if Penny might cause some serious damage, Nora wakes up, takes her hand, and says, I kid you not:

"Hey... no one is going to make you do anything you don't want to do... It's just a part of you. Don't forget about the rest."

Okay. I want to re-emphasize that I love hopeful, uplifting, victory-won-through-the-power-of-love stories. Istg I'm not dead inside, it's just that RWBY does this so badly. I mean, what is this? It has similarities to the character shouting, 'No! Resist!' to their mind-controlled ally, but this is not presented as a desperate, last-ditch effort by Nora. She just speaks like this is the most obvious truth in the world. If you don't want to have your mind taken over... just don't! It's that simple. The problem definitely isn't that Watts has changed her coding and has implemented a command she can't override, it's that Penny has forgotten about the "rest" of her personhood.

And this works. Granted, not for long, but we leave Nora having successfully calmed Penny down and until her eyes unexpectedly go red again scenes later, we're left assuming that this is a permanent solution. That, imo anyway, is taking the Power of Love too far, overriding the basic reality of Penny being hacked. It’s not a personal failing she must overcome, it’s an external attack. I would have rather had Nora react to the scars she saw on her arm, or have a moment with Klein, or get some love from the group. Not a wakes up, falls asleep, wakes up again to save Penny with a Ruby level 'Just ignore reality' pep-talk, then back to sleep again.

So Penny isn't attacking her allies, or mistakenly hurting her allies with wild Maiden powers. Not that the group doesn't have enough to deal with, but still. Weiss arrives to help with the Hound and attempts a new summon, only to fail when two minor grimm burrow up into her glyphs. I really enjoyed that moment, both for the wing visual and the knowledge that Weiss' glyphs can fail if you break them somehow (which makes sense). Also, I just like that she failed in general? Weiss is, as per usual now, about to demonstrate just how OP she is compared to the rest of the team, so it was nice to see her faltering here.

The Hound tries to make off with Ruby and Blake does an excellent job of keeping it tethered. Ruby finally wakes, only to realize that the grimm is actually after Penny since it's staring at her power up through the window, no longer trying to escape. Moments like this remind me that there's someone on RT's writing team that knows what they're doing, at least some of the time. The assumption that the Hound is after Ruby as a SEW, the surprise that it's actually Penny, realizing it holds up because Ruby is covered in Penny's blood and Blake is not... that's all nice, tight plotting. More of that please!

The Hound drops her and Ruby's aura shatters when she hits the ground. I want everyone to remember this moment as an example of how strong the Hound is. The group may be tired, but unlike YJR they've been sitting around in the Schnee manor for a number of hours, regaining strength. We saw the Hound hit Ruby twice — once through the wall and once to knock her out — and then she falls from a not very high distance for a huntress, yet her aura is toast. That's the level of power and skill the Hound possesses. Decimating YJR, knocking Oscar out, same for Ruby, avoiding Blake and Weiss' hits, soon to treat Penny like a ragdoll. Just remember all this for the episode's end.

Blake tells Weiss she'll take care of Ruby, you go help the others. Yay breaking up the duos more! Bad timing though as the new acid-spitting grimm pops out of the ground and Blake is now left alone to face it.

Weiss re-enters the mansion, knowing the Hound is somewhere nearby, but not where. Suddenly, Willow's voice sounds through her scroll with an, "Above you!" which... doesn't keep Weiss from getting hit lol. But it's the thought that counts! Willow has accessed the cameras she's set up throughout the manor, watching the Hound's movements, and I have to say, that is a WAY better use of her separation from Klein than I thought we were getting. I legit thought they'd have Willow run away in a panic, meet the Hound, die, and then Weiss could be sad about losing her mom.

It does say something about RWBY's writing that this was my knee-jerk theory, as well as my surprise when we got something way better.

The Hound runs off, uninterested in Weiss, and she asks Willow to keep tabs on it. It heads for Whitley next (also covered in Penny's blood) and very creepily stalks him in the office with a, "I know you're here." Whitley is seconds away from being Hound chow before one of Weiss' boars pin it against the wall. He runs, then runs BACK to finish deploying the airships, before finally escaping assumed death. Goddamn this boy is pulling his weight.

I assume all these ships are automated then? I hope someone takes a moment to call May. Otherwise it's going to be super weird for the Mantle citizens if a fleet of SDC ships just show up and hover there...

I don't entirely understand how Weiss saved him though. She's nowhere to be seen when Whitley leaves and he runs a fair distance before he and Willow encounter Weiss again. We know her summons don't have to keep right next to her, but are they capable of rudimentary thought, attacking an enemy — and an enemy only — despite Weiss being a couple corridors down and unable to see the current battlefield? I don't know. In another series I'd theorize that this was a deliberate hint, a way to clue us into the fact that Willow, someone who we currently know almost nothing about, had training in the past and summoned the boar herself. Weiss and Winter certainly didn't get that hereditary skill from Jacques. Hell, we might still get that, Weiss reacting with confusion next episode when Whitley thanks her for the boar, but I doubt it. That scene with Ruby and the Hound aside, the show isn't this good at laying groundwork and then following up on it.

Case in point: Weiss says, "I didn't forget you" to Whitley after he gets away from the Hound, the moment trying to harken back to her promise to Willow. Key word is "trying." Because she absolutely forgot him! Weiss threatened and ignored Whitley until he proved his usefulness. I also shouldn't need to point out that, "Don't forget your brother" does not mean, "Don't let your brother die a horrible death by abnormal grimm." Weiss acts like her saving him is a fulfillment of her promise, rather than just the most basic of human decency. And also, you know, her job.

So that part is frustrating. The entire Schnee dynamic is a mess, from Weiss making a joke of her father's arrest, to Willow (presumably) fixing their relationship by putting a hand on her daughter's shoulder. Okay.

Then Weiss cuts off the Hound by summoning a giant wall of ice. My brain, every time this happens:

YOU COULD HAVE FIXED THE HOLE IN MANTLE'S WALL.

Moving on, Blake's fight against the acid... thing has some great choreography, including Blake using her semblance which we haven't seen in AGES. 

I really like the fight itself, just not what Blake is shouting the whole time. "I need you, Ruby! We all need you!" This has really gotten ridiculous. Ruby is presented as everyone's sole savior despite failing time and time again. It's not that I don't think Blake as a character should have faith in her leader, it's that I don't think the writers should be crafting a story where everyone puts their unshakable hopes in an untrained, disloyal, impulsive 17 year old. I mean, Ruby is currently unconscious, yet Blake is acting like if she doesn't wake up — she, as an individual, if Ruby Rose does not re-join this fight — then all is lost. If Ruby doesn't save them, no one can. Which is, of course, absurd on numerous levels. Blake doesn't need the passed out, aura-less Ruby right now, she needs the still very healthy Weiss pulling out multiple summons and an ice wall! Use your scroll and call for backup again.

But of course, Ruby wakes up and kills the new, terrifying grimm with a single hit. It's a preview of what's to come with the Hound and it's just as ridiculous here as it will be there.

Speaking of the Hound, am I the only one who thought this was... cute?

I can't possibly be the only one. That head-tilt is exactly what my dogs do and my brain instinctively went, "Aww, puppy!"

Murderous puppy.

The Hound realizes none of the Schnees are who it's looking for and runs off. Penny, meanwhile, has been fully taken over because, well, that's just what's convenient now. She resists long enough keep Amity up, then succumbs, then resists to apologize to Ruby, then succumbs, then resists because Nora asked her to, then succumbs once it's time to knock her out. If RWBY was willing to commit to consequences, Penny would have been taken over and that was that. The characters would need to deal with whatever outcome happens as a result. Instead, the show very carefully avoids any of those pesky consequences by having Penny successfully resisting at key moments, despite no explanation of how she's managing that.

She shoves Klein again (Klein is having a Bad Time) and starts walking down the main steps. When Whitley wants to know where the hell she's going, Penny mechanically responds that she must "Open the vault, then self-destruct." I suppose the change Watts made was the self-destruct order? Ironwood obviously wants the vault open, though not necessarily Penny's death. Think what you will of his moral compass, she's a damn powerful ally — a research project, perhaps — and a Maiden to boot. At the very least, her death may give the powers to someone even worse.

God, please don't let them have brought Penny back and made her a Maiden just to kill her again.

The Hound arrives though and, as said, knocks Penny out. We're back to square one with her, then. Note though that this attack is near instantaneous. She grabs its hands one second, is hanging limply the next. Wow, the Hound sure is a terrifying antagonist!

Not for long.

"That's enough," Ruby says and one-shots it with her eyes.

Now, I want to talk for a moment about the implications of that line. "That's enough." Obviously Ruby is #done with this situation and emotionally unwilling to let the Hound kidnap Penny (congratulations, Nuts and Dolts shippers), but there's a meta reading here as well. Not intentional, but glaring to me nonetheless. Basically, the idea that the Hound has, from a plot perspective, done enough. It has served its singular purpose. It kidnapped Oscar and now it dies. Never-mind how insanely powerful we've established the Hound to be, never-mind how Ruby's eyes also work or don't work according to whether anything of actual import is on the line. From a plot perspective "that's enough" and the Hound can be disposed of instantly. It got Oscar and gave us an episode of filler creepiness. Move along now.

The idea behind Ruby's eyes isn't bad, but the execution absolutely is. RT has undermined a huge portion of the stakes by giving their protagonist an instant kill-shot that always works precisely when she needs it to. Starting with the Apathy, we have yet to get a moment where Ruby's eyes fail to save the day when she really needs them to, no matter how incredible the challenge. The Hound was very intentionally written to be a grimm outside of the group's current power level. It thinks, it talks, they literally can't touch it. This creates the expectation that the group will need to grow stronger — or at least become smarter — in order to surmount this new obstacle, yet Ruby's eyes undermine all of that. The group hasn't grown in years, the show just makes enemies weaker as needed (Ace Ops), or has Ruby pull out her eyes as a trump card. It wouldn't be that bad if we'd at least gotten a good battle out of it, one where the group gets close to defeating the Hound on their own, but needs Ruby's eyes to finish it off. Instead, she literally walks up without any aura, announces to the audience that this antagonist's time is up, and blasts it out a window.

Granted, Ruby's eyes don't completely finish it. The Hound pulls itself to its feet and we see this.

Yup, that's a guy and yup, those are silver eyes.

I would like to issue a formal apology to the "It's secretly Summer!" theorists in the fandom. I mean, I still think it would be ridiculous (and at this point highly improbable) that Ruby's dead mother has actually been a grimm mutant this whole time, just hanging out in Salem's realm while she waits for the plot to start before attacking the world, and then sends some no-name faunus dude after the group instead of their leader's mother for extra, emotional torture... but you all were definitely right about the “It's a person” part! I... don't know how I feel about this. Admittedly, it seems to be a logical continuation of the other grimm-human hybrids we've seen — namely Cinder and Salem herself — and it finally explains why Salem wants Ruby alive (even though it actually doesn't because WHY did she want more SEWs for Hound grimm when she wasn't even attacking back then? And already has all these other insanely powerful tools??), but at the same time, it feels like it's complicating a story that doesn't need further complications. The group fights monsters and has an immortal enemy. You don't need to add 'Some of those monsters are secretly human' to the mix.

It doesn't hurt that this twist is giving me Attack on Titan vibes, which, ew. A dark time in my fandom life, folks.

The Hound staggers a few steps before Whitley and Willow dump a suit of armor on it. That's all it takes to kill the most dangerous grimm we've ever seen: a single flash of silver eyes and some heavy metal. This also wreaks havoc with the implication that Salem wants SEWs alive because they create such powerful grimm. Obviously not. I mean yeah, normal huntsmen are going to have serious  problems, we’ve seen that this volume, but any other SEWs nearby will take a Hound out instantaneously. For a villain with so many other powerful abilities — immortality, magic, endless normal grimm, her nifty soup — Salem would be much better served just killing SEWs straight out. Clearly, creating Hounds isn't worth the effort.

The Hound leaves some bones behind and Ruby collapses to her knees, overcome with the knowledge that this was once a person. Again, uncomfortable Attack on Titan parallels.

We finish our premiere with Cinder clearing away rubble to reveal Watts. Honestly, I like that we ended on this because her rescue is hilarious. She just slings him over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes and blasts off with her magic fire feet. Fantastic.

Note though that with this scene we've seen almost everything from the clip and the trailer. What's to come in the rest of Volume 8? No idea. Outside of Winter leading the charge with the bomb, we got it all here.

Time to update the bingo board!

I'm crossing off "Introducing new grimm that are quickly abandoned." Between the Hound and acid-dude both falling to a single blast/cut from Ruby, we've more than earned this square.

It doesn't look as if we'll get another Watts-Jacques team-up now that he's left, but you never know.

Maria's got me worried. I feel like her Yoda fight against Neo is the one thing she'll be allowed to do this volume, but given that we didn't see anyone except Ruby's group this episode, we don't yet know whether the story is now ignoring her and Pietro, or if they'll re-appear in another episode like YJR.  

Qrow is free. Will he get a drink before trying to murder Ironwood? Perhaps.

Still no bingo :(

All in all, the episode was by no means horrible. I think there were lots of horrible parts, but also some legitimately well executed moments, fun action, and scenes that I can easily imagine as squee worthy if you lean back and squint. Everything is comparative and in the growing collection of bad RWBY episodes, this one isn't securing a top slot. Which doesn't mean I think it's good, just... not as bad as it could have been and primarily only bad due to long-running problems, not things this specific episode has done. That's my bar then, so low it has officially entered the underworld.

Still, RWBY is back and a part of me is eager to see where this volume takes us, for better or for worse.

Until next week! 💜

[Ko-Fi]

[disenchantedfaerie]

So many things to say and so many things not to say.

Fandom: This fandom is toxic. There is no other way to put it. It’s toxic from top to bottom, left to right, diagonally. My partners and I discussed this today because we were bored. We whole heartedly believe it starts at the top and by top I mean her majesty of the written word. Of course, now that’s she’s dropped the self diagnosis of “somewhat autistic,” you really can’t say anything because then you’re a horrible person. But she uses that as an excuse for her snark and condescending attitude. Hey. Whatever lady. I don’t follow you, I don’t read your books and aside from the few things I see, you’re no better than the leads. The difference is you’ve been milking the fandom for 30 years; people are waiting for you to finish and you can’t even complete the one that was supposed to be done last year. Yet you continue to yak about this side thing or that side thing and really, I don’t need a JF origin story. We’ve gotten that enough in the 9 other flipping books. You see the pattern here tho folks?

The female lead: She has done her share of being flippant and rude to people on her SM. She becomes sweet as pecan pie on Thanksgiving when she wants to want to launch something though. She was the one who wanted to end the shipper rumors and so IFH happened but sadly when you skirt around a subject and don’t say your partner’s name or take photos of them/with them and only take photos with your male lead in what could be construed as compromising positions - yeah. People will continue to buy what you sell to them. I’ve said it time and again, they are the biggest trolls in the fandom and do more to fuel the ship, even now that she is married to another man who is not the male lead, than anyone else. That’s all I have to say about her. She doesn’t owe anyone anything, none of them do actually, but sometimes being kind goes out the window with the lot of them.

His highness: Where to begin? His “fans” come all the way over here to our little corner of tumblr to hide behind Anon Asks to spew their hate and vitriol to those of us who seem to have opinions that differ from theirs. Namely, he is not a god. He is not someone we worship. We simply come together over coffee and tea and trade stories of current events and talk about the what if’s. My opinion of him is based on his own actions. Maybe all these “fans” want to blur the timeline of events and take it as gospel from his highness that he went on his luxury vacation before the travel ban while the rest of us cancelled ours and many lost jobs and incomes. Well that’s simply untrue. When he was called out, knowing he was wrong, instead of being the sweet, humble, normal guy that everyone says he is, he doubled down, became rude, flippant, went on a blocking spree, posting articles about COVID being no worse than the flu. Did his traveling companion get serious threats. I believe so. I believe he has as well from the same kind of people that come here to our little corner of tumblr, keyboard warriors that hide behind their anonymity and spew hate and vitriol. I also believe that people have gone to Glasgow and stalked his flat, which, come on people. That’s wrong on so many levels. I lived in LA for many years. It never occurred to me to drive to Malibu, Hollywood Hills, Laurel Canyon to actually stalk the celebs. Why? What’s the point? So I can see them in their grungy clothes looking like real people? No thanks. I don’t have that kind of time or energy. Thus the 4 page rant. Hey good for you dude. It’s about time you grew a pair actually but what did it accomplish? Nothing really except people stopped talking about his covidiocy. Why? Not because he wasn’t a covidiot and quite frankly still is (remember, he’s the king of “it’s not worse than the flu”) but because he pulled the mental health card. I think he does have mental health issues. I still have high hopes that some day he will realize this himself and seek the help he needs.

Now these Anons come to our little corner of tumblr and drop their comments saying things like “I hope you get COVID and die. It’s because of you he did his 4 page rant. The people you call mommies are his real fans.” Mmmkay. I used to blindly defend him. I used to buy into his shilling and his ever so sweet exterior, I even bought into the “best fans ever” bullshit. You want to blame us who never name him, her or the one who “writes” in any blog, never hashtag him, her, or the other one or the show, never interact with any of them on other platforms of SM for his 4 page rant, his mental illness, all of his flaws and accuse us of not being fans - fine. He who is without sin, cast the first stone. Perhaps you need to sit back and take a long look at yourself in the mirror as well. Wishing a deadly disease on people, making threats, spewing hatred - isn’t this the exact same thing that was done to his highness and you were all up in arms about it, yet you come here and do it to others and think that’s okay. What makes it okay? Because you’re defending your favorite star? If this is what it means to part of this fandom, part of his fandom specifically, no thank you. When y’all can walk on water, then you can judge me. Until then, judge not lest ye be judged.

I walked away long ago but I’m still human and still have an opinion, everyone does. If he’s your favorite celeb then perhaps you should follow his advice the next time you see something you don’t agree with - suggest you ignore. He’s the one that started the entire “be kind” campaign right? Or does that only apply when it’s comvenient? If you think this is the sort of behavior that will get you on his Christmas card list or the top of his potential list of never ending “girlfriends” - well, good luck. At some point this man (again, he’s a man, he’s flawed, he makes mistakes and he’s not perfect) will fall from the pedestal his fandom have put him on and then where will you all be? He has been unapologetic for all the things he’s done. He continues to shill his swill and all his other crap when a lot people can’t make ends meet. He continues to ask for donations to HIS causes instead of asking people to take care of themselves or their own communities. I love Scotland as much as anyone but my money right now is better served in my community. I ignore most of what they all do, following his own suggestion of ignoring, but things cross my dash and I do not condone or appreciate threats. I didn’t condone it when the threats were directed at him, his traveling companion, or anyone else nor have I ever made a threat against anyone.

I wish to be treated the way I treat others and if you can’t do the same, if you can’t engage with me in a calm, adult manner, I don’t have time for you. You can have a differing opinion than me. It’s okay. We don’t have to agree but we can respectfully disagree and discuss, not argue, about who’s right and who’s wrong. It isn’t cut and dry, black and white. We can agree to disagree and still be civil and still be friends.

My Scotsman added this: When will the games end, when will the games stop? I had high hopes for his highness to lead by example and be better but he’s a follower and he followers her majesty’s lead. He follows his business partner’s lead. He sees her milk the fandom, so why can’t he and he does an excellent job of it. His fandom vote for meaningless awards until their fingers bleed, buy all of his merchandise, buy anything he sells up to and including the ship. Is there an ounce of him being a genuine person left? Yes. He gives us a glimpse now and again but make no mistake, he will take you for what you’re worth. Maybe one day he’ll change and we’ll follow him again. Until then, I’ll be watching like my partner. I’ll be around.

I guess at the end of the day my point is this, the fandom made itself toxic and I highly doubt at this point it can or will turn around. Why would it? All we can do is choose to be part of the toxicity and contribute to it and pass it forward like these precious anons have been doing or we can choose to walk away, scroll on by, try to make the world or at least our little corner of it better.

I’m still disenchanted. I hope one day my wings turn white again with the promise of a better time and place. Until then, take care my friends. I’ll be watching and I’ll be blogging.

[skeletorific]

(Sorry if it’s already been asked)what’s your interpretation/view of the quadrants? What in your mind makes an healthy and unhealthy quadrantship?

*distant drumbeat* I’ve been WAITING for this one! Turn it up!!!!

So, a few general notes about quadrants before getting into a breakdown. First, I don’t think there’s a hard and fast definition of what makes, say, a healthy kismessitude, any more than there’s a hard and fast definition of a healthy human relationship. What would be toxic and terrible for one couple may be exactly what keeps a different relationship together. Meowrails is very different from pale Vrisrezi, because Equius and Nepeta are different people with different wants and needs in a relationship than Vriska and Terezi. As with all bonds, it’s important to look at a broader trend of behavior and the individual mental health levels before you can say “this is unhealthy”. I DO think there are certain things to watch out for, but ultimately I probably have ships in that quadrant that may violate one or more of those “no-nos” just because of how those characters bounce off each other. 

Second, I think there’s more fluidity in quadrants than the fandom typically allows for, because human relationships are also by their nature fluid. We’ve all seen a set of best friends who act like a couple even if they aren’t romantically interested, and we’ve seen couples who bicker and squabble despite being deeply in love. How you choose to identify your relationship is ultimately nobody’s business but your own, even if red love for you looks like pale love to someone else. Alternian troll culture is romance obsessed and this can lend itself to an obsession with defining the attraction, but this doesn’t mean that’s necessarily how it HAS to be.

Finally, I’ll be listing ALL confirmed canon examples of each quadrant to provide a context for what I’m referencing. This should not be taken as necessary endorsement for any of these ships, or even that I think they were a “good example”, simply that how they chose to identify influenced my own definition of these quadrants. I will also be leaving out a lot of ships that would seem to fit a particular quadrant (noteably Rosemary and Arasol) because their own status is complicated in-text (Rose explicitly refers to wanting to be in all of Kanaya’s quadrants and their relationship has tended explicitly pitch at points, Sollux is referred to as Aradia’s “boyfriend” and yet there is apparently no issue between either of them when his flush quadrant becomes occupied)

With that, let’s dig in

Matespritship:

Successful/Actually Date(d) Examples: Dad/Mom, Latula/Mituna, Meulin/Kurloz, Aranea/Porrim, Mindfang/Summoner, Meenah/Vriska, Sollux/Feferi, Konyyl/Azdaja (currently vacillating), Stelsa/Tyzias

Crushes (unrequited, vacillating, or thwarted): Eridan/Feferi, Kanaya/Vriska, Nepeta/Karkat, Equius/Aradia, Tavros/Jade, Gamzee/Tavros, Sollux/Gamzee, Jack/PM, Lynera/Bronya

What it means to me: Matespritship tends to be an opt-out quadrant for a lot of people, I think. Most seem to stop reading at “closely analogous to human conceptions of romance” and turn off their brains. However, as with all things troll culture, I think there’s more to it the deeper you go, especially considering the fact that your moirail is expected to do a LOT of what we would consider standard s/o stuff: caretaking, comfort, intimate knowledge, closeness. I absolutely refuse to buy that the only thing distinguishing the two is that matesprits have sex, especially since that stumble into some VERY UNCOMFORTABLE territory in regards to troll asexuality. So then, if it’s not that, then what is it?

Ultimately I keep coming back to the idea of passion. Your matesprit I think is the person who you genuinely see in the best possible light. Unusual for Alternian society, you’re unable to ignore the depths of your admiration of them, or to let their flaws filter into your perception. Moiraillegiance is about total honesty and unflinching recognition, but matespritship to me is about that kind of fairy tale passion. Its a person who, even if you know on an intellectual level they are not perfect, that you genuinely have a harder time seeing the darker side of because you are so consumed by this passion for what you see in them, your unfiltered awe and appreciation for who they are. 

Additionally, I see matespritship as on some level inherently possessive. You not only admire that person, but you fundamentally crave their attention in a way that is probably a bit on the selfish side. Its not enough to want good for them, it has to be good alongside you. This is typically where it’s more prone to flipping caliginous. 

Warning signs: Matespritships seemed to vacillate pitch FREQUENTLY on Alternia. This is not necessarily a sign that something is wrong. As Karkat says, it’s often a matter of communication and timing. However, it does have the potential to explode in everyone’s face if not carefully managed, in no small part due to the passionate emotions involved. Some things that tend to go bad fast:

-Admiration is key to an effective matespritship, but pedestalling your flushed partner too much can be dangerous. Once the flaws do become apparent (as they will in any relationship) they can become increasingly hard to ignore, and that can be SHATTERING if you don’t prepare.

-Especially on Alternia, matesprits are the quadrant I see as most likely to neglect the communication aspect of their relationship. Safety isn’t a factor for them like it is for more caliginous quadrants, and the expectation is usually that feelings jams are for moirails. Especially for younger trolls, there’s an idea that we’re in love and thus should just know what the other person needs/wants. If you don’t pick up on it, then maybe we aren’t meant to be. This is a trap. ALL relationships need communication in order to function on a day to day basis. Opening up to your matesprit about something that’s bothering you isn’t a sign of fading passion, but of maturity and your own changing needs.

-Despite a fondness for fate pairings I think matespritships are usually expected to fade out, in no small part because they’re founded on a level of passion that can be hard to keep up long-term. This is actually fine. Not all relationships are meant to last eternally. However, if you know your matesprit is a person you want in your life long-term, part of that is learning how to cope with periods of low passion. Its normal to not always feel an all-consuming desire to keep your matesprit in arms reach. It’s normal to need space. What’s important is that YOU know that you still love them, and that they have the confidence to know that’s true even when you can’t always express it.

Moirallegiance

Successful/Actually Date(d) Examples: Kanaya/Vriska, Eridan/Feferi, Gamzee/Karkat, Nepeta/Equius, Kurloz/Mituna, Meulin/Horuss, Terezi/Vriska, Kuprum/Folykl, MSPAR/Polypa, Xefros/Dammek

Crushes (unrequited, vacillating, or thwarted): Eridan/Karkat, MSPAR/Chixie, MSPAR/Stelsa, Tegiri/Polypa

What it means to me: To start out with, I haaaaaaaate hate hate the perception that moirails are just BFFs. To me, there’s too much evidence to suggest otherwise, not the least of which being that after Feferi ends their moirallegiance she tells Eridan she still wants to be friends with him. How many of you break up with your best friend and then tell them you can still be friends after?

To me, moirallegiance on Alternia is as much a coping mechanism at it is a romantic entanglement. In a society where there’s no such thing as therapy, your moirail ideally functions as a release valve for you, to help you exercise softer feelings in a safe, sanctioned environment. Two things are key in that dynamic: honesty, and selflessness.

There’s no pretense in a moirallegiance, but an unflinching embrace. The successful moirails we’ve seen (Meowrails, KupFol, arguably GamKar) have always been rooted in banter that may come off as pitch at first glance. This is partly due to general Alternian socialization practice, but I think it also stems from the fact that pale love is founded in knowing every inch of your partner. You know what they are, body and soul, the flaws and the highlights, and while you do not uncritically accept it like a matesprit might, some part of you fundamentally identifies with. Your moirail is that person who you feel like you’ve known for years after talking for a few hours, because something about how they’re wired clicks with you in a way most don’t. As such, there’s less need for posturing. A feelings jam is one of the few places on Alternia where you are allowed to admit to vulnerability, to fear, to frustration, because you know that the other person will have your back unquestioningly without letting you get away with bullshit.

This mutual support stems from the other half of pale love: the desire to see the other person flourish, no matter what. If the matesprit wants you to be happy at their side, the moirail wants you to flourish even if they do not stand to benefit. You experience your moirail’s success like it was your own, and want as good for them or better than you want for yourself.

Some warning signs:

-Burnout. We see this in most clearly in Eridan and Feferi’s case (and a bit in Gamzee and Karkat’s case), but its a genuine risk in moirallegiance. The caretaking HAS to go both ways or the relationship is doomed to fail. More often than not, burnout indicates a failure within the relationship. Your moirail has not been caring for you to the degree you need, and quite possibly you have not been communicating HOW you would like that behavior to change. As I said, honesty is essential, and things ideally should never reach the point of burnout because you are in constant complete openness with your moirail about how you need taking care of.

-Fucked expectations. Romance is a dominating subject on Alternia, for obvious reasons, and one of the biggest hits a moirallegiance can take is a person questioning too far into pale desire until they mistake it for something else. The two are very close, but they are not exactly the same thing and often times the relationship can be sunk by one person getting in their head about that intimacy until they try to make it something it isn’t. Moiraillegiance is not a stepping stone for matesprit or kismesis, and most importantly it is not a consolation prize quadrant. You should never “settle” for moirail, or pale date someone who will accept you as a moirail only if they can’t get you as anything else. You need to want a moirail for a moirails sake, or its just a crush with extra levels of fuckery and expected free therapy.

Kismessitude

Successful/Actually Date(d) Examples: Spades Slick/Sn0wman, Jack Noir/Black Queen, Eridan/Vriska (now broken up), Karkat/Karkat, Mindfang/Dualscar, Terezi/Gamzee, Tagora/Galekh, Bronya/Elwurd.

Crushes (unrequited, thwarted, vacillating): Eridan/Rose, Vriska/Tavros,  Karkat/John, Gamzee/Dave, Sollux/Gamzee, Eridan/Sollux, PM/Bec Noir, Terezi/Vriska, John/Terezi, Konyyl/Skylla, Daraya/Lynera

What it means to me:

I want to structure this as a dismantling of two very common misconceptions I see for this quadrant. One, kismesis is NOT the inherent abuse quadrant. This I believe is working with a faulty definition of what abuse is. Abuse is not simply being mean or engaging in a physical manner with somebody. As has become something of a mantra for this essay, its about expectations. Abuse requires someone to be taking advantage, exploiting a particular vulnerability (or creating it if none inherently exists). What makes a relationship abusive is a situation where someone you SHOULD be able to trust or care for uses those expectations to hurt you, either for personal gain or simply to make themselves feel better. A kismesis is not that, because a healthy kismesis goes in with the expectation of rivalry. For some kismeses, this looks like basic sniping, insults, and jabs. For others, it looks like actual fighting. In either case, its the difference between a boxing match and assault. As long as the rules are being respected, both parties are consented, and someone is checking in to ensure that no one is hurting themselves (sometimes your partner, sometimes your moirail, sometimes your auspitice), then there is nothing inherently wrong with having a circumstance in which you are allowed to work through some nastier feelings without fear of consequence or hurting someone who can’t take it.

The second misconception: kismesis is not just a relationship with some bitchier dialogue. As we’ve seen, being a little bit rude is not restricted to pitch feelings. We have many examples of it in relationships that would be considered unequivocally red or pale on Alternia (KupFol, MeenVris). I go back to the Karkat dialogue constantly. Your kismesis is not just a person you make fun of, but something closer to your true rival (in the shonen anime sense). Its a person who you see so much good (or potential for good in), but who is brought down by some kind of fatal flaw that just grates at you. And so, you fixate on the idea of pushing them out of that flaw, through whatever means necessary.

Its from this fatal flaw that I believe the benefits of kismesis come out. Your kismesis, like your matesprit, has intense passion for you, but doesn’t idealize you. In fact, at points your kismesis may be incredibly aware of the WORST possible version of you. What distinguishes it from platonic hate, though, is the fact that you at your worst doesn’t make them flinch. It makes them want to provoke you, to see how you can change. Kismeses sharpen each other, which is something that rarely feels good but is so often necessary. You should never let your kismesis sit back too far on their laurels, because it is your job to be consciously aware of their faults and call them out on it. 

Additionally, while the hatefucking aspect is often overestimated, I think its not surprising that passion in these kinds of relationships tend to get intense, which is part of why it so often requires some kind of ashen intervention. Once harnessed, though, that passion can be turned to powerful ends for both yourselves and the world around you. 

Some things to watch out for (unsurprisingly there’s a LOT for this one but I’ve distilled it into two broad ones because this thing will be long enough):

Power imbalance: As I said, kismesis is not inherently abusive. However, it DECIDEDLY has the potential to become so, in particular in a society like Alternia where the power strafes are often so significant. This is particularly the case in pitch relationships involving a highblood and a lowblood, especially when the highblood is “steering the ship”. Vriska/Tavros is a good example. If summarized, her feelings for Tavros pre-Sgrub are very straightforward and healthy pitch ones. She admires his potential and envies his kinder relationships while despising his indecisiveness. All fine enough groundwork. However, three factors collaborate to make it a hot disaster: Tavros’s disinterest in her (meaning the pitch advances are unwelcome and in some real sense nonconsensual), Vriska’s own lack of restraint (meaning she takes things too far even for a kismesis), and the inherent caste imbalance (meaning Tavros has no meaningful way of fighting back and nothing in Vriska’s rearing has taught her to care if a lowblood gets hurt by her actions). This isn’t to say a highblood-lowblood (or any humanly imbalanced relationship) can NEVER work, but it requires both parties to put the work in to even the playing field. The highblood needs to actively show restraint, both physically and situationally. This is also where an auspitice generally comes in handy, ensuring things never get to a point where the action becomes one-sided.

Misdirected Rage: As I said, kismessitude is a Space, much like moiraillegiance, that gives you the opportunity to work through some less-than-palatable emotions. Using a pitch date as a way to burn off stress is not inherently invalid; in fact, its often expected and as long as your partner is willing can be one of the better ways to cope with something without having to address it directly. However, this CANNOT be built into the foundation of the relationship. Your kismesis is not a punching bag, but their own person, and the focus always needs to eventually return to that. You cannot effectively sharpen someone else if your anger is never about them, and it is ultimately unfair to constantly ask someone else to consistently bear the brunt of your bad days. This is (debatably) where pitch Gamrezi went wrong. Ultimately that kismesis was never really about each other, but about both of them projecting their self-loathing onto the other person when they were both at incredibly low place, thus making their anger unproductive and meaningless for both of them. As such, any kind of empathy was impossible and they were not able to self-regulate. 

Auspiticism

Succesful/Actually Date(d): Vriska/Kanaya/Tavros, Karkat/Jade/Karkat, Spades Slick/Doc Scratch/Sn0wman, Liv Tyler/Courtyard Droll/Wizardly Vassal, PM/Jade/Bec Noir, Kanaya/Vriska/Rose

Crushes (unrequited, thwarted, vacillating): Vriska/Kanaya/Eridan, Gamzee/Rose/Terezi (look I know this one is practically canon but Rose kind of implies she never really used those auspiticism lessons), Rose/Kanaya/Horrorterrors, Eridan/Feferi/Sollux, Gamzee/Kanaya/Karkat, Dave/Kanaya/Karkat, Konyyl/MSPA Reader/Azdaja.

What it means to me: Ahh the bastard child of quadrants. I’ve got a lot of unpopular opinions on auspiticism (most notably that Kanaya isn’t actually that good at it), but let’s start with defining some things. I believe there are two kinds of auspitices. 

One is the “breakup” auspitice. This is the version described in the infamous romance pages of Homestuck. This version is meant to prevent a black romance from breaking out where one shouldn’t occur, either because one or both parties already has a kismesis or because there is some other mitigating factor that means neither can afford to get bogged down in this crush. A breakup auspitice should ideally be a figure that both parties trust, even in the midst of heated feelings. They should also have the strength of will to continually interfere, and a clear enough head to cut to the root of the issue. Its a thankless task, often, but a very vital one, and most importantly, short-lived. This auspitice’s job only lasts as long as the feelings last. Once both parties have had the chance to cool down (or the circumstances creating the rivalry are at an end), their job is considered over.

The other kind is the version that we arguably see more of in canon, what I call the Third Leaf. This is less an intercessary party and more the third member of a particularly tempestuous kismesis, who will act to ensure the other two leaves don’t cause serious harm to themselves or each other. This relationship is far more long-term, and thus has more requirements. To me, your auspitice is someone who has pale potential with both you AND your kismesis. They know and care about you both on a very deep level, to the point that they are willing to put themselves in the middle of your bullshit very consistently. This means that you trust them enough to call it quits even in the heat of your anger, and you also believe what they tell you about your own pitch partner when their actions need greater contextualization to keep things on the level. This task is often equally challenging, but (hopefully) not as thankless or as pragmatic.

I’ve previously referred to the auspitice as a personified safeword, and I believe that’s very emblematic of the Third Leaf. Even healthy kismeses may reach a point where one needs a day off, or something hits in the wrong way. In a rivalry, though, admitting that isn’t necessarily easy, as its both breaking kayfabe and has the potential to read as more weakness that needs to be excised (”it hurts because its working”). The auspitice is privileged to go between and be believed every time. If your auspitice says its a no go then you better have a pretty damn good reason to ignore them. For some kismeses, overriding the auspitice is grounds to break up once and for all. 

Some warning signs:

Burnout: As is the case with the previously discussed concilliatory quadrant, caretaking can be exhausting. This is especially the case in auspiticism, where the care is often expected to be very one sided, and usually involves dealing with a lot of vitriol, anger, and even physical violence. Obviously its more prevalent in Third Leaf dynamics, but even breakup auspitices can reach a breaking point if they’re not careful. Its important as the ashenmate to understand your own limits. For better or for worse, the focus will not be on you. If you are reaching a low point, then you need to be vocal about this with your other two leaves, or disaster is almost inevitable. The trade-off for this is that (according to my headcanons at least), your ashenmates are expected to drop everything to care for you if you need it. The kismesis will not be safe to proceed until you are back in fighting shape, and as such a truce is declared until they have both done “aftercare” of a sort for you. What this looks like is different for every auspiticism. For some, its alone time. For others, its blanket burritos, movies, and forehead kisses. No matter what, though its IMPERATIVE that you find a method that works for you, because the relationship crumbles without self-care.

Doormatting: As I said, auspiticism is a concilliatory quadrant. As such, there can be a tendency to over-forgive or overwork, especially if your other two leaves have stronger personalities. In particular, ausptices who are closer with one leaf over the other need to be vigilant for favoritism or bowing down. It is your job to contextualize the actions of your ashenmates. It is not your job to do apologetics for them or atone for their actions. Hold them all accountable. They need to be putting in at least as much work as you do to make their relationship work and not just offset the emotional repair to you.

Controlling: The inverse of this is the power-tripping auspitice. This seems unlikely, but its more of a threat than one might think, in my view. Because of the trust auspitices command by virtue of their position and their relationship with the other two leaves, their word is in some sense law. This can be addictive to some people, and lead to an abuse of power that can be just as toxic as in any other quadrant. It can look like scolding your ashenmates far too much, placing yourself at the center of their issues, or even punishing them for annoying you when what they’re doing is perfectly acceptable within the context of a kismessitude. As I said, self-care is important for an auspitice, but selflessness needs to be at the core of concilliatory dynamics. You are here because you genuinely want good for the people you are mediating for. If the relationship has become all about you, then something has gone horribly wrong. Avoid the urge to power trip just because the role is sometimes a Lot. 

[animerunner]

What Happened Is Not Right And That’s Okay (Chapter 2)

Ao3

Link to Chapter 1 Fandom: The Owl House Rating: T Warnings For this Chapter: Dehumanization, ableism, possible borderline gaslighting, and parental ignorance/neglect possibly bordering on child abuse.  Relationships: Eda Clawthorne & Lilith Clawthorne, Eda Clawthorne & Eda Clawthorne’s Mother, Eda Clawthorne & Principal Bump (additional relationships to be added as the story progresses. Summary:Living with a curse was never a simple task. And really from day one Eda knew it was going to be complicated. But she can't help but wonder at times. Just why hers has to be this complicated.

In short: An Exploration of what life might have been like for Eda growing up with the curse. AN: Hey there so what story is basically what it says on the tin. With some creative liberty of course.

Something to keep in mind is that this story progresses: 1. Explore Eda's character and others in response to the curse 2. Help myself explore and come to terms with my own Chronic Illness 3. Help educate others who aren't as familiar with disabilities on the realities of the situation. This one is important to me since the fandom can have an ableism issue. And I would like for readers to maybe take away why the use of certain tropes is a lot worse than they might realize. 4. This story is not meant to be either tragedy or inspiration porn.  5. I've only really begun interacting with the disability community in the last few years. So if I do a misstep its unintentional ignorance. Which I realize is not great either. I just want to make clear my intent is not malicious. If someone else who is in the community in some form be it Neurotypical, disabled, chronically ill, etc. sees something questionable within the story that comes off as unintentionally ableist please tell me. I would be happy to clarify if the plot beat was unintentional (and fix it) or somehow deals with the story itself. Which will happen sometimes. 6. Some of this is based on my own experience. Some of it is not. The parents issue this chapter is a good example of it not being based on my own experience. 

This story will touch on some topics that might be sensitive to some readers. I will include warnings . If your sensitive to the topic please keep that in mind before starting it. Also please bear in mind that not all chapters will have the same element. So while one chapter might have one issue, the other might not. A good example of this is an arc I will be exploring later in the story involving ableism in sports. 

For anyone who wasn’t around for the first chapter. This was originally inspired by @beckyarteest​‘s fic before it went off and became its own quasi multi chapter AU (I am bad at sticking to canon compliance): I'm getting old and I need something to rely on.

Anyways Actual story is under the read more. Ao3 link is at the top. Please let me know what you think!

One day turned into two and two turned quickly into a week. And after that with no real sign of the ‘curse’ resurfacing, Eda had actually started to think that maybe everyone else was right.

Maybe whatever had happened that day was just a one off thing. 

Unfortunately, reality had made that hope come crashing down just over two weeks after “the duel that wasn’t” with Lilith.

                                                  =============

Eda wouldn’t remember the moment that would properly change everything about her life.

Though, she guessed that wasn’t entirely accurate. Considering the biggest moment had happened a week prior was when she had been supposed to be vying for an Emperor’s Coven spot against Lily. The day of her first transformation.

However the incident in potions class, the moment they now knew this was almost certainly not just a one off incident like they had been hoping? That was the moment it became all too real for Eda. 

Even if it would be a while longer before it became real for the rest of the family. That was the day reality started to sink in for Eda. As it was the day that she knew at least to an extent that her life wasn’t going to ever be the same.

It would also be her first gateway into the many, many issues that came with the curse. Whether it be other people’s treatment of her cursed form, right or wrong, or just still having people take her seriously in the beginning. 

Something that would be a recurring struggle she would have to deal with in the coming years.

Much like the duel, she would only be told what had happened afterward. The entire time she was transformed she wasn’t even aware of what was going on. 

It was something that would over time become  associated with fear and worry. At the time though, for an Eda who was still in denial, it was more of a source of annoyance. 

Eda didn’t like that she had to rely on other people to necessarily do ‘the right thing’. Especially since in both instances so far it nearly hadn’t ended in her favor.

Thankfully of all people it was apparently Principle Bump who came to her rescue. Seeing reason when one of the other teachers had tried to suggest handing her off to the head of the Beast Keeping classes for the time being... 

Bump scowled at that not particularly liking the way this conversation was going, “She is still a student. A transformed one but one nonetheless. Unless she starts attacking someone there is no reason to be summoning Arden.”

Sure, he may not be particularly fond of Eda’s antics at times. Sometimes he wished that the entire Clawthorne dynamic wasn’t like how it was. It was a source of many of his headaches.

But that did not mean he supported putting Eda in a cage.

Even if she wasn’t in her right mind currently, she was still a student. And she wasn’t being aggressive. Honestly, this other form so far hasn't been aggressive at all. Though who was to say that wouldn’t change?

He was more than a bit concerned with how little they knew. However, there was one thing he was certain on: that forcing her into a cage would make things worse, not better.

Not that he particularly liked the idea even before you factored in the fact that they’d be caging a student.

“So what do you suggest we do with her then, sir? Leaving her out could cause property damage.”

Which, arguably, was more Eda than anything else. 

“Put her in my office and call a healer. Hopefully someone will know what to do to get her to transform back.”

“Sir, I must protest. Putting her with you could put you-”

Bump cut the other teacher off before he could continue. “I didn’t become the principal of this institution by sitting on my thumbs Marcus. I am more than capable of handling an unruly student. Even if she has been transformed into another creature.”

Not that he genuinely thought handling would be an issue.

                                                 =============

“So what your saying is neither of you can help.”

 Bump had ended up summoning both a healer and grabbing DeFrost anyway. Hoping maybe one of them would know how to solve their issue. 

 “I apologize, sir. But I’m used to dealing with minor curses. Things of inconvenience mostly. Under normal circumstances, I would refer this student to a specialist. This is way beyond my own capabilities to treat.”

 And of course, they couldn’t do that without involving the Clawthorne parents. Who he had tried to alert when Edalyn had transformed again. But they had both been busy and he had yet to hear anything from them yet.

 “And I’ve never seen a creature quite like this. Cursed or otherwise. I could possibly see if I have anything discussing something similar to Ms. Clawthorne. However...”

 “Most likely Edalyn will have transformed back by then.” Bump concluded.

 So apparently they were dealing with not just a curse. But a rare curse. Great. 

 Why was it that nothing involving the Clawthornes was just plain and simple?

 “At the very least can you tell me if she’s any sort of danger?”

 That way he could have his staff stop bothering him.

 DeFrost adjusted their glasses. “Well it's hard to say without knowing the curse or how it impacts her mind. But based on normal cursed creature behavior most likely she won’t be a danger to anyone unless she’s provoked. However there’s still a lot of questions there...”

 “Like what could provoke her.”

“Exactly.” DeFrost  nodded. “Sir, I know you said you could handle if anything happened but-”

“I can handle myself just fine Arden. I appreciate your concern but if I need your help again I will ask for it.”

“Understood sir.” DeFrost agreed reluctantly. Before taking their leave.

“Am I dismissed as well sir?”

“No. Actually I wanted to ask. I know you can’t help her return to normal. But I imagine the transformation back won’t be easy on her. Is there anything we can do to ease that at least?”

“Well yes. But that would normally involve the family…”

“I’ll handle anything that might come if they protest. This is already a difficult time for Edalyn. Let's not make it worse.”

                                                =============

Thankfully time really was all they needed for Eda to transform back. 

Though rather than answering his questions and possible suspicions. Eda’s return to awareness just raised even more of them in their steed.

“Welcome back Edalyn. How are you feeling?”

“Like an icicle is trying to drive a hole into my skull,” Eda said, wincing again rubbing the right side of her head. “What happened?” 

“I believe that you will probably want this, then.” Bump rather than answer the question slid the potion that the healer had left for Eda when she finally returned to normal. “The healers figured you might have one after you transformed back.” Bump explained as Eda downed the bottle.

Eda frowned as she put the bottle down again. Now that the pain was receding she could think a bit more clearly. And realize that she couldn’t think of a reason for why she would be in the office in the first place. “Back? Wait was I-”

“Transformed into that creature from the duel? Yes.”

“I didn’t even realize it,” Eda noted with a frown. Much like the last time everything was just a giant blank from right before she transformed. Which worried her on another level. Why was she unable to remember anything from when the spell, curse, whatever it was took effect?. “I didn’t hurt anyone did I?” 

“No everyone got out of your minor escapade without a scratch.” Bump assured her. Deciding to leave off the near incident with DeFrost and the cages for the moment. It wasn’t like he hadn’t specifically told them not to get the Beast Keeping professor involved. 

Eda sighed in relief. “That’s good at least.” 

“So you really aren’t aware of what happened after you transformed? I take it?”

“No, the last thing I remember is being in the potions classroom. And then waking up here. Everything between the two is a blank.” Eda’s face scrunched up in a frown. There was a bit of a tangible residue of some sort of memory. But she still didn’t know the relevance of it. “Mother’s going to kill me for missing class.”

“I would have thought you might be somewhat pleased by the new attention.”

After all that had been a reason behind some of Eda’s pranks over the years. Though sometimes Bump wondered just how much Eda realized this herself.

“Not like this.”

“Either way I’ll write a note. In the meantime you really should have a specialist check you.”

Eda winced. “That’s probably going to be easier said than done.” 

“If it comes to it, the same offer I made to your sister when she was being given difficulty by them I’ll extend to you. If you need someone to help you get seen about this curse then I can try to help you find someone that your parents won’t cause problems with.”

Eda winced remembering the fiasco that had been trying to get her sister her glasses. There was an unfortunate high probability history could repeat itself. She really hoped her parents had maybe learned. “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you Principal Bump.”

“Your welcome.”

Eda’s unusual politeness wasn’t lost on him. Go figure the most polite conversation he had ever had with Edalyn was because of a curse.

Maybe he should have tried a different tactic with the youngest Clawthorne?

Too late to fix that now he supposed.                                                 =============

Any small hope for Eda that maybe her parents would take it seriously when she got home. And not try to toss it again under ‘something else’ didn’t last longer than five minutes after her mother got home. 

“Clawthornes don’t get cursed.”

“But-” Eda began to try and protest. Absentmindedly scratching her wrists. While most of the pain had subsided with the potion Bump had given her, there were still some residual aches and pains from the transformation.

Just like last time in fact. 

“End of discussion. I will not entertain this absolutely absurd discussion. Let alone the idea of taking you to a specialist.”

Eda scowled, not ready to back down without a fight. “If it's just a spell then why did it happen a second time?”

“I don’t know Edalyn, maybe someone thought they should continue the lesson.”

Eda opened her mouth to try and continue the argument. Only to have her mother disappear through the door, slamming it shut behind her. 

“But I haven’t even done anything this past week.” Eda muttered to herself.

After the first idea of it being a curse had gotten into her head. She had decided to try and be better. The transformation had hurt! She hadn’t wanted to go through it again. 

So as difficult as it had been she had hung up her pranking supplies. For now at least until whoever was angry with her cooled down.

If this really was because of a prank. Then someone was really vindictive was all she could say.

Either way whatever caused it wasn’t really the problem anymore. It was figuring out what to do next before the curse resurfaced a third time.  

Normally she would have turned to Lily for guidance. But her sister was away at training. Meaning it was her against her parents. And she had no clue how to handle it from there.  

It had always been them against the world. Even when that world sometimes included their own parents. 

With the one person who may have understood their complex family dynamic gone. With her having no idea when she would see Lily again. She had no one to turn to. 

Sure, Bump had once said that if she needed help to come to him. But this felt like a bit of a reach. 

Maybe it was for the best to leave it alone for now. Maybe if it happened again her parents would take it seriously.

She knew that the likelihood of that happening was probably small, but what else could she even do at this point?

Her parents' reaction, while infuriating, was not entirely unexpected. And it was even less likely to change if her childhood was anything to go by. Since, if it was something that made the Clawthorne’s imperfect, then it was not to be acknowledged. Even if it impacted their own children. 

And if there was anything that indicated an ‘imperfection’ it was having a curse on a child. 

Titan knew how it had been a fight to get Lily her glasses. Eda couldn’t even begin to imagine how complicated things might be if this was something far more sinister than getting your sight corrected.

She guessed if she needed too she could try looking for care on her own. She was old enough now that she didn’t need her parents there at a healer’s appointment. But then again the fall out from going to a doctor when she didn’t have her own source of income.

Well it would be a mess. 

Why did this have to be so complicated?

[theliterarywolf]

So... Let's talk about Hetalia. Controversies, Specifically.

Tagging @apply-force-too-begin since they’re the one who was interested.

Hetalia was one of my first big fandoms outside of 'The Big Three' anime (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece) and outside of video games (mostly whatever wee babby weeaboo me could get on the Gamecube).

And, you know what? It's a dumb, silly anime about stereotypes, poking fun at the absurdities of History, and one's relationships with clashing cultures. It's dumb... But, remember, we all need our daily thirty minutes of dumb. And some of the characters are cute.

And, you know what? Most of the most engaging aspects of the fandom were those who used the initial shallow splash of history that the anime gave them to actually research and make engaging, well-written, culturally-sensitive content.

Of course, I'm not going to ignore how... Over-the-top some members of the fandom have been. We've seen how, whenever recent political conflict or natural disaster have occurred, we have to remind younger members of the Hetalia fandom to not cutsiefy it with the Hetalia characters. Examples that come to mind are: when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was surging up, kids kept trying to draw art of 'Russia just wants his big sister back~!', and the last major earthquake that hit Japan that had people making fanart of the Japan character which, while some was tasteful and was meant to bring awareness and donations for Disaster Relief, not... all of it was...

Hell, that’s not even bringing into account the last time I went to Anime Expo (way back during Hetalia’s hayday), I was walking around and saw a bunch of Russia and Baltic State cosplayers being interviewed by the news and the one dressed up in a USSR uniform was holding up a Communist flag and shouting ‘Whoo! SOVIET TAKEOVER!!’

However, one thing that I have noticed, while researching for this write-up, was this:

Most of the controversies and pieces of fandom-wank that have surrounded Hetalia and its fandom... Aside from one instance... Are the results of the Western-fandom and Western-localization of the anime  via Funimation.

Aside from one... Most of the issues surrounding Hetalia are due to the West and not even the source media in of itself.

So, with that in mind, let's talk about the main controversies of both Hetalia and its fanbase.

Controversy 1 – The South Korea Controversy/Protests

As I recently answered a question about this, so I'll just pull that answer for this segment:

'To summarize it: there’s a Hetalia character meant to represent South Korea. As every Hetalia character has a gag related to them (America gorges himself on fast food and constantly proclaims himself to be the Hero, Italy is cowardly, Germany is constantly angry, China constantly builds Chinatowns wherever he goes and sells bootleg merchandise, etc), so did S. Korea.

His gag was calling all the other Asian countries ‘big brother’ as well as groping the chests of male characters (China and Japan mostly), proclaiming ‘these mountains belong to South Korea, da ze!’

Of course, people would draw pictures of S. Korea doing his thing but one day during a meeting between a bunch of South Korean politicians and representatives, someone brought out a piece of fanart that depicted S. Korea groping Japan’s chest with the latter looking embarrassed and what not.

They interpreted the character as being an offensive, lecherous stereotype that was somehow belittling S. Korea’s worth as a country.

There were a bunch of small protests until, finally, Himaruya Hidekazu (the creator of Hetalia) just decided to say “you know what? Fine! I’m not getting rid of the character but he’ll never appear in the anime adaptation, okay?!’

So… Yeah! Fun times…'

Magnitude of Controversy – MAJOR

Like... In what universe is 'this meme hurt my feewings, we need to take VALUABLE TIME DURING GOVERNMENT FORUMS to talk about it RATHER THAN OTHER PRESSING ISSUES' a good response? And the fact that people took to the streets to protest? Come on, guys! There's so much more to worry about in this world...

Controversy 2 – Emperor Heliogabalus and Himaruya's 'Transgender Erasure'

There was a section of time where Himaruya Hidekazu, rather than focusing on the nation characters of the series, made chapters and updates about certain historical figures. They were all done for laughs while interspersing various bits of trivia and facts about them.

One of these updates centered around the Roman emperor Heliogabalus (or 'Elagabalus'). And this is where certain portions of this hellsite got soooooo upset...

You see, Himaruya titled the update centered on Heliogabalus as 'The Emperor Who Tried to Live as a Woman... Even Though He Was Really a Guy'.

Almost immediately people were typing up callout posts about how 'transphobic' Himaruya was for the title and 'how dare he misgender my precious trans baby~!' or 'this just goes to show how ignorant Japanese people are to Western history' and so many more, all because Himaruya didn't use out-and-out female pronouns for Heliogabalus.

Now. Mm, two things!

One! This was during the time when Himaruya had an open blog where, not only did he post pictures and updates about where in the world he was traveling and what he was researching, but it also had an inbox that was open for people to send insight to him.

So, if people were really incensed by this, you would think that they would use such a means to let a creator know 'hey, this is kind of problematic; can you edit it to show this information', right?

Right?

NO ONE tried to inform Himaruya of their upset; they literally didn't want an answer, they just wanted to be upset!

But, here's the kicker: the guy that all of these people were stanning for? Emperor Heliogabalus?

WASN'T FUCKING TRANS!!

The real Heliogabalus was a sadistic little shit who was connivingly put on the throne by his mother via a bunch of espionage and assassinations... Who, as thanks, had his own mother murdered once he was emperor. Other wonderful exploits of this 'icon' that tumblr kids decided to stan was:

Getting politicians and countrymen drunk and then, while they were passed out, brought in lions to kill and eat them

Deciding 'fuck Jupiter, Helios is my husbando – We're all going to worship him now!'

Completely wrecking Rome's monetary system

Promising favors to his lovers (whom he called his 'husbands' despite not making anything official) that strictly contradicted favors to his other lovers

And just generally being a hot mess

So... why were tumblr children so insistent on him being a transgender woman?

You ready for this?

Okay.

Because he occaisionally dressed in women's clothing and called his male lovers his 'husbands'.

Yeah.

One of the earliest case of tumblr children trying to ruin someone's life because they didn't follow their headcanons.

Magnitude of Controversy – Honestly, this was just fandom-wank. But it was one of the earlier instances of fandom brats using serious terms (transphobia) to justify being upset at a creator not following their headcanons.

Controversy 3 – The Passover Photoshoot

…

…

I'm sorry, just...

Everytime I remember or have to go over this one, I have to stop and reflect; maybe grab a drink.

…

Okay.

So, pretty early into the Western reaches of the Hetalia fandom, a group of friends and Hetalia fans decided to meet up together at a mall for a cosplay photoshoot.

Okay. Cool. Fine.

They were all dressed up as their favorite characters from the series! Germany, Austria, Hungary, P-Prussia, Holy... Roman Empire...

Ahem. Okay. Cool. Fine.

So, they get to the mall and start taking pictures. But then someone in the group gets the amazing idea for everyone to do certain poses.

I... You know, why did I start this, I could have just not done thi--

Nazi salutes. You had a bunch of dumb kids dressed up as Germanic nations. Performing Nazi salutes and shouting 'Heil Hitler'.

Now, as bad as this was... you could have just drawn it out as shitty edgelord humor; we still have plenty of that going on today.

H-however. There were two factors that made this photoshoot 50 Shades of Tasteless.

Number one. This photoshoot took place during Passover.

And number two. The mall that this photoshoot took place at...

WAS JUST A HOP, SKIP, AND A JUMP FROM THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MUSEUM!!!

This is the one, THE ONE, instance where, anytime someone talks about 'lol, young Hetalia fans are so cringey', this is what pops into my head.

Those of us older members of the fandom can never fucking forget this. Yeah, the perpetrators were called out; yeah, they learned their lessons, yeah it opened up a conversation about appropriate behavior in fandom. But this one event will always remain as the big 'Ooh, baby, nooooo! What are you doing?!' moment in the fandom.

Even moreso than what the current batch of hatedum is about.

Magnitude of Controversy – Huge. The South Korea controversy was discussed on a governmental scale, but the Passover Photoshoot is what remains as the biggest mark on the fandom.

Controversy 4 - FUCKING FUNIMATION!!

Okay, I... 

This one is so infuriating because it’s the result of Funimation just not giving a DAMN.

So, Hetalia got popular enough to be localized! Yay... And it was going to be handled by Funimation. Yay... They do quality work... Sometimes.

*kicks the Black Butler dub into the sun*

So, they dubbed Hetalia. And, you know what? So many questionable decisions went into this fucking dub. 

You have Vic Mignogna! You! *clap* Have! *clap* Vic! *clap* Mignogna! You could have easily put him as one of the Axis characters or the Allied characters and you...

Don’t use him...

Until three seasons down the line...

And then you have him as Greece. 

A character who barely says anything.

... And this was WAY before the clusterfuck of KickVic, so they really had no excuse. 

Oh, also! For China, who is a main character, maybe we should have an actual voice-actor?

Pssh! Fuck that shit, let’s just have some random chick from accounting voice him. 

... They literally had some random-chick from accounting do an overly stereotypical Chinese accent and said ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

And she gave us such... wonderful line-reads as: during the Hetalia movie Paint It, White! --

“SUCK BALLS! I knew za fortune cookie today was bad ruck~!”

But as bad as the dub got sometimes (Oh God, I’m having war flashbacks of Russia...), the exchange from the dub that people constantly point to as ‘see! This show was antisemitic all along!’ were these: 

Exchange 1 - 

S. Italy/Romano - ‘Hey asshole, I have a surprise for you~!’

Germany - ‘What is it? Another Jew?’

And, you know what? As asinine and idiotic as that brief exchange was... 

IT WASN’T IN THE ORIGINAL MATERIAL!

Funimation, in their infinite wisdom, wrote that in and thought ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

So, there goes another issue of ‘problem that only existed because of the idiocy of a Western presence’.

Magnitude of Controversy - Well, people are still talking about it, despite it literally being because of Funimation’s laziness, so...

'Controversy' 5 – The Civil War fanart

So, this segment will be short because it doesn't even need to exist. But, you may have noticed an upsurge in people hating on the series again; even going so far as to raid Discord servers for fans of the series with gore.

Hell, I even scrolled past one person doing a 'call to arms' for people to spam any server that has to do with Hetalia as a big 'gotcha'.

And you wanna know where this fandom-wank started?

Someone on tumblr re-posted an old piece of... questionable chibi fanart of Confederate!America and Union!America. Union!America is hiding a slave woman behind him while shouting at Confederate!America to 'Pick your own damn cotton!'

(deep breath... okay)

And, while the art in of itself is... not great, the fact that it is an old piece of fanart and that someone posted it onto tumblr for the 'lol, look at this cringe' lolz, is what rallied some people to start shitting on fans of the show and raiding servers.

There also may have been some drama over on picrew by some teenage LGBT user lashing out at the whole 'stop spamming Picrew with gay shit' sentiment and then some edgelord over on this hellsite screencapping their game and talking about 'lol, of course it would be a cringey Hetalian to post some dumb shit like this; get off the site, queer' but, honestly, this last one, while being the reason why people are acting dumber than usual, is the most inconsequential.

Magnitude of the Controversy – It would be minimal at best, especially compared to the other ones in this write-up, but like I said, it does have some trickling into the current hatedumb.

So, yeah, here was my little write-up/mini-dive into the madness. You guys can let me know if you want more insight or if you have any questions, and I love you and buh-bye!

[codenamesazanka]

I know this is a really vague thing to ask, but do you have any tips for writing Shigaraki? I know Echodrops made a whole meta about fanon Shigaraki vs canon Shigaraki but do you personally have anything in particular you'd want to mention yourself about the portrayal of Shigaraki in fanfics?

(Here’s the link to @echodrops‘s post! It’s really, really good, and helped me figure out Shigaraki a lot in the first place. thank you!)

oooh! Not at all a vague thing, this is a great question. I started all this meta because I wanted to figure out how to write Shigaraki as well. A word of caution tho, because this would be my personal interpretation of Shigaraki, though I’ll try to use as much manga examples as I can. As always, super long post. 

Note: images are edited to fit exact quotes to relevant and reasonable sized images, instead of a whole manga page

Here’s some hand man characteristics/traits that I think are overlooked:

Shigaraki Tomura, in his beliefs/values, has a tendency for all-or-nothing thinking, to be extreme in his actions. In all three of his incarnations - the oneshot Tenko, the draft Sazanka, and this current one - a core of the character is 1) finding something flawed/bad/had hurt him somehow 2) completely loathing it 3) vowing to destroy it. 

Tenko despised samurai and their warring, and wishes to rid the world of swords. Sazanka is on a quest to kill quirk-users with quirks he deems too dangerous for society. And Shigaraki has decided that the Heroes and justice system is a farce, and is out to destroy it. 

Kinda fitting for a guy with his quirk - he either doesn’t destroy something, or destroys it completely. The moment he makes his decision, it’s fast and permanent. 

For Shigaraki, murder is murder, destruction is destruction, violence is violence, no matter how you dress it up. That’s why he couldn’t see the difference between him and Stain. That’s why he can’t see that Bakugou, as aggressive and vicious as he is, still wants to be a good guy. 

Now this is my take, but I think his mindset is: Because All Might can’t save everyone, he’s a fake, he’s trash; because everyone will say they condemn murder yet go about their lives carefree even though they know logically someone is out there getting killed, morality and justice is an illusion; because justice is so fragile and flimsy, I will expose it and destroy it. 

Not in any goodwill or for a better society, mind you. He just hates it. 

He also has no illusions about himself or his actions, he knows he’s evil.

Shigaraki is a lot more sarcastic and sardonic than usually portrayed in fanon. He’s very rude and can be foul mouthed, but the real insult comes from his tone and behavior. He condescendingly calls Eraserhead cool. He calls Stain the ‘Great Senpai of scoundrels’. He points out to Overhaul how a wakagashira/underboss like him should be more polite. Just about half of everything he says is dripping with mockery, and he’s very breezy and irreverent. So a bit less ‘I hate you, fuck off’, and more cheek.

Adding to that, if I’m reading my Japanese right, Shigaraki can change how he addresses people depending on the person and situation. His default speech is rude, but he’ll talk somewhat (barely) politely-ish if needed; it’s just it’s very obvious he’s not taking it seriously. 

Related, I feel like Shigaraki says a lot of things he doesn’t really believe. He tries out concepts, half-heartedly, on a whim. There’s that infamous speech at USJ about Heroes and Villains both using violence - which does seem to have some semblance to the actual ‘two sides of the same coin’ that even Best Jeanist talks about. 

And here’s him considering Stain’s effects on heroes, with gusto, before ditching it.

I know it’s Smash!, but here’s him reciting some sort of pseudo education philosophy he picked up somewhere??? to Kurogiri to get out of exercise. 

He’s a total smartass 

Of course, this brings up the question, is he genuine in his speech to Bakugou, or to Toga and Twice? 

 Like Echodrop notes, he can be in a good mood. He can be (seem?) happy, he can smile, he will acknowledge when someone does a good job of something. 

Sure, it’s got a manic edge to it, it’s probably not coming from a place of good, fluffy, innocent feelings, but he can laugh, enjoy the moment, be psyched about something. 

I really like this scene because he actually giggles a bit. He squeezes Midoriya, and he really does seem excited for a chat. 

He’s quick to go back to being default cranky tho. Quick to enjoy, quick to get irked.  

Shigaraki is a weirdo and I love him.

 My boy is smart. Really, Shigaraki is smarter than he looks. In the Ultra Archive, his profile lists his intelligence as ‘A’, ranking him above most characters, including Midoriya. I get that Deku’s whole thing is being the strategizing main character, but Shigaraki’s just as analytical. Even the Smash! Comic points this out. 

His room is filled with books, so either he reads a lot or he hoards them to look smart. I think it’s the former. Well, it’s not mutually exclusive, I should know.

He thinks and reflects and questions. He was super pissed about Stain, but he realized Stain was right and tried to figure out why. He went on a walk to calm down and just ruminate. He sought out Midoriya just to get second opinion. Afterwards, he quickly sees the bigger picture and realizes the issue is systemic and he’s gotta attack the structure. Of course, kinda shaky on the specific details and it’s not endgame long term, but still impressive. 

There’s a lot of Villain!Deku fanfics - and I like them a lot! - that turns Deku into the criminal mastermind or makes him the brains behind Shigaraki’s operations. Which is fair, Deku could totally be one! And also a lot of fics where Shigaraki is dismissed, with everything he does being AFO’s machinations. Again, fair. But Canon Shigaraki is AFO’s successor and leads the League for a reason.

This also means, I think, that Shigaraki isn’t as clueless to the fact that All For One is manipulating him. This point is entirely debatable, though. All I have to back this is how Shigaraki wondered if he was lied to in the USJ.

Even tho he’s facepalm crusty boi neet, Shigaraki is still a very dangerous S-ranked villain. I feel like sometimes people forget this. 

 He’s not that childish. He can be immature, he’s still learning the ropes of being a supervillain, he’s got an irritable and sullen disposition, but he’s not a five-year-old. He’s also not completely unhinged. 

When things don’t go his way, his first response usually isn’t to shriek or whine or immediately snap. He’s got a clear head and a good sense of what he can and can’t do. Kurogiri is down, All Might escaped their grasp, but Nomu’s still active? Cool, we got this. It’s only when Nomu gets team-rocket-ed that he panics. Stain stabs him? Doesn’t start a fight right there and then, asks Master for some Nomu, is patient enough to wait until he decides he really can’t stand Stain, then finally gives the go ahead for a rampage. 

Shigaraki knew from the start he can’t handle All Might. That’s Nomu’s job. As much as he hates All Might, he doesn’t jump at the chance to kill the hero personally. He’s not ruled by impulse or easy distractions, not really. And he will back down if Kurogiri reasons with him - see accepting Stain as a party member, see letting Toga and Dabi live. And after he got his motivation, he’s been very restraint since. 

He doesn’t immediately destroy his things in anger - we only see him destroy only few items pre-mall talk. He decays binoculars, a photo of Deku, maybe a newspaper, all quiet and deliberate. Kurogiri’s bar is intact and clean, despite being the long-time hang out spot of the destructive Shigaraki Tomura. Would he decay a controller after losing a game? Maybe, but also just as likely maybe not. 

Shigaraki will complain and bitch and sulk and hold a grudge, tho, yeah. He will lose it after a series of stressors/things gone wrong. He can be moody, cruel and sadistic, bloodthirsty and mayhem-loving. But he’s got himself under control more often than not. 

Finally, video games: My biggest pet peeve about portrayal of Shigaraki in fanfics: He’s super obsessed with video games, to the point that he plays them all day long, and he can’t stop using video game slang for everything - or so a lot of the fandom believes. 

I’ve pointed out before that we’re more likely to see him reading the newspaper and we’ve never actually seen him use a console ever in manga or anime. True, he likens scenarios to games frequently, but not all the time - the USJ fight was when he did that the most, then in his other appearances only once or twice during the whole scene (Doesn’t want Stain as a ‘party member’, none at all when meeting Dabi or Toga and then at the mall, camp arc has him seeing himself playing a Sim instead of an RPG, calls All Might ‘last boss’ during the raid, then nothing for his next appearances). At least not out loud. As fun as it is to imagine him as a geeky gamer, and he is, but he does more than just that. 

I think Shigaraki uses video games and media to create mental scripts for himself to understand/interact with the world, but it serves as a skeleton. He fleshes it out, always adding to that mental model to create a more complex one. He calls his change of strategy as playing a Sim game, but it’s a good analogy that works for him, and we see how layered his plan is - dealing a blow to UA that works whether the Vanguard succeed or not, kidnapping Bakugou and Ragdoll, in order to bring about the media and public criticism of UA/heroes, and had it not been for the raid, something would’ve happen to Bakugou that would’ve demoralized everyone. 

He def is grounded in reality enough to know what he’s doing is more than just a game. 

And that’s all I got for now! There might be a part two. idk, but I hope this was helpful! 

[forestwater87]

Would you want Gwen and David to become a couple at the end of CampCamp? And adopt Max as well? Cuz' I do...

Gwenvid becoming canon is one of those things I simultaneously love and feel is unnecessary. The show will never let it be as pure and fluffy (or emo) as the fans will make it, anyway, and there is no force on earth that will stop me from shipping this ship with every ounce of my shriveled little heart, so I’m kinda ambivalent on the whole thing. (Besides, I know at least one of the showrunners is not at all into it, so I don’t see it happening no matter how much we may want it to. As long as they keep giving us little ship nuggets we can read way too much into, I’ll be good.)

Also I’m not convinced CC is the kind of show that needs an end, so “at the end” is one of those things that … eh, whatever. It’s an endless summer existing outside of time. Does it ever have to end, as long as they keep having new ideas?

As for the other part of this question … oh, boy. Anon, you did not ask me to go the fuck off on this question, but I gotta because I’ve been holding all this inside for literal years, and I don’t even care that this will make me hemorrhage followers because I’ve been very good and very quiet about it for a long-ass time and I just gotta –

I fucking hate Dad//vid.

And you know? I didn’t used to. My feelings, much like those regarding Cute Waitress, went from “how cute!” to “eh, not my thing but whatever,” and now we’ve circled all the way around to my entire soul lighting on rage-fire every time it’s mentioned, and just … I hate it so much … it’s just …

I feel like this deserves an explanation. And I think the people who’ve already blocked me or whatever aren’t going to read it, so let’s put it under a cut just for the sake of scrolling. But here’s the cliffs notes version:

1. It’s #NotAllDad//vid. There are some iterations of it I don’t hate, and even quite like.

2. David adopting Max, as a general concept, blows. There are exceptions – see #1 – but 99 times out of 100 I hate it with all of my hate. (The short reasons why: David is baby and Forest has Issues, it’s kiiiiinda racist?, and it’s lazy, boring, and way overdone.) 

3. The fandom will not fucking chill about it – at the expense of all other explorations of David and Max’s relationship. And that makes me highkey annoyed.

That being said, anyone who’s worried my blog will become a cesspool of dad//vid hate, please don’t be concerned. This is like lancing a boil of something (I’m bad at metaphors). All the garbage pours out in one massive textblock, and then I go back to being more or less chill about the whole thing. We’re dealing with years of repression here. Shit’s gonna be a lot more intense than it needs to be, and then we’ll settle back down to our regularly-scheduled CC fluff times.

I’m hoping this doesn’t make the fandom hate me forever … but given #3 up there, I’m pretty dang scared it will.

(And hey, I don’t want Cute Waitress to explode in a pit of fire and snakes anymore, so maybe my opinion on dad//vid will change eventually too. Always hold out hope, right?) 

1. #NotAllDad//vid

Like I said, I didn’t used to totally despise the whole Dad//vid thing. Like, I love the idea of David having been a counselor for so long that he just has ingrained Dad Instincts (see S4E14 for the most recent example of this). David as the Dad Friend? Good shit. David as the mother/father hen of his little cabal of campers? Very good shit. Nonliteral interpretations of dad//vid are usually really cute and fun and have some solid basis in canon, and I’m all about it.

Even some of the more literal David-adopts-Max AUs aren’t … the worst. Some of my friends have written versions of it that are original or at least were at the time and really compelling, and usually they found a way of skirting past the majority of the issues in #2. It can be done well.

It just … usually … isn’t.

And for that we gotta see #2.

2. David-Adopts-Max Sucks as a Concept

There is nothing good about the idea of David adopting Max, at least based on what we’ve currently seen in canon. 

(Yes, I am aware that I should couch statements like that with “in my opinion” and “with exceptions” and the like, but that’s a lot of work for this and a bunch of the stuff I’m gonna say in a second, so please just assume for the purposes of everything I put on this blog that it’s in my opinion. I’m not out here dropping Cold Hard Facts about Camp Camp of all things; I’m just spewing my feelings. 

I have lots of feelings.)

I don’t really have a cute little opening segment for this, so let’s skip the hors d’oeuvres and hop right into the meat of it:

David is Way Too Young to be a Father (According to Forest, Who Has Massive Emotional Baggage About These Things)

David is 24 goddamn years old. You know who shouldn’t be put in constant legal charge of a 10-year-old? Someone who is only 14 years older than him. If he’d had Max the old-fashioned way he would be too young to go on 16 and Pregnant. 

That is too fucking young.

I know that some people become parents that young, and even younger. I’m not saying your experiences are bad or invalid. I’m just saying, from the standpoint of being 26, that if one of my two-years-younger friends told me they were adopting a kid they knew from work, I would tell them they were fucking bonkers and to hand that child over to a grown-up immediately. This is especially true of David, who has remarkable emotional maturity but is also mentally about 8 years old. Gwen is the adult at that camp, and David is such a baby. 

Please don’t give the baby a baby.

Also, I’m terrified of having children. I never plan to, I’ve only recently accepted the fact that I don’t have to (grew up religious; it was kinda a whole thing), and get knee-jerk defensive over the idea of anyone my age or younger having children. It freaks me out, and that’s not a good or right emotional reaction to have but it’s mine, and I lowkey panic every time I think of David having children because if he should have a child at 24 then I’m already late.

Yes, I get the feeling that I’m running behind. For something I don’t actually want, ever. In comparison to a fictional character. Whose fatherhood decisions are not even remotely canon.

TL;DR I have issues and my other arguments are decidedly more valid than this one

So How About That Racism, Huh?

I know this has been a matter of some debate in the CC fandom for a while now … but you know what? It’s not nearly enough of a debate. People should absolutely be talking more about the potential problematique aspects of having a way too young white kid take a child from his immigrant parents on some pretty shoddy evidence (which I’ll address in the next section). There’s some White Savior stuff going on there, some negatively-stereotyping-poc-and-immigrant parents going on there … I’m not saying these should completely disqualify any dad//vid AUs or speculation or anything, but it should absolutely be much more of a conversation than it currently is.

(This is why one of the few David-adopts-Max concepts I like is one in which his parents have died. Not only is it more interesting – again, see the next bit – but it neatly sidesteps some potential gross stereotyping, and that’s just always rad.)

I feel like the common counterargument to this is that there are not-great parents of color and not-great immigrant parents IRL, so wouldn’t it be dishonest not to portray that in fiction as well? 

I mean … I dunno. 

I’m not here to tell anyone how to write the One Pure Dad//vid AU or anything. But I will say that I don’t think most people in love with this concept have done anything resembling due diligence in considering how best to sensitively portray the complicated familial, racial, and other implications of this particular AU or concept.

Besides, it’s not real life. It’s fiction, which means any decisions are being made deliberately. It’s a choice to depict Max’s parents as abusive and neglectful monsters who immigrated to America to give their son a better life but that’s for the next section, and it’s not inherently a bad choice, but it’s one that should be made thoughtfully, with an eye to the history of negative stereotypes that already run rampant in fiction. That’s just part of the writing process, and not one that should be shunted aside because it’s more work and less dramatic than creating the biggest of big bads for David to make grand speeches at and/or punch in the face.

Just Not Very Interesting (And Done to Death)

Regarding the overdone thing: Reading a David-adopts-Max AU most of the time is just like reading every other David-adopts-Max AU; I’m pretty sure I could put all these fics on transparencies, overlay them on top of one another, and still have a legible story because they differ so little.

Now to be clear: This – along with the rest of my points in this section – are about personal taste. Some people love reading the same story over and over again, and it brings immense comfort to them. That’s okay, and you shouldn’t feel bad about reading (or writing) these stories and not wanting to break your back trying to find a new angle for it. Cringe culture is canceled, and my personal tastes should not dictate the fandom. You do you.

That being said, I’m also allowed to be so bored by almost all of these fics that I nearly fall asleep scrolling the AO3 feed.

And the frustrating thing is, it would take so little to make it different. All it would take is asking: what if it wasn’t that simple? What if his parents aren’t all bad? What if they’re trying their best, but aren’t able for whatever reason to care for Max the way he needs to be? (I’m thinking Deja’s mom from This Is Us, for a cool example.) What if they later come to regret whatever behavior is making them so sucky, and reconcile in some fashion with their son? What if David and/or Max have fundamentally misread the situation, due to being on the outside and a kid, respectively, and it turns out his parents are actually making the best decisions they can in this situation and David doesn’t need to literally become Max’s dad, but integrates into the family in another way? (Seriously, even “what if they’re dead instead of evil?” would blow my mind in terms of originality. It’s been done, but not nearly enough.)

So that’s the overdone thing out of the way. What about lazy and boring?

It just seems to me that, based on the evidence we’ve been given in the show, there are infinitely more nuanced and creative alternatives to “Max’s parents are canonically abusive and neglectful and deserve to have their child ripped away from them by the guy who sees him at his job like 2-3 months out of the year.” I, in fact, refuse to believe Max’s parents are bad people based on the current evidence, and won’t do so unless canon forces me to see no other option.

Because as of right now, I just don’t buy it.

Didn’t show up to Parents’ Day: Well, we know they immigrated from India to escape “menial labor” (S1E4), and we know capitalism stomps all over the kind of people stuck doing menial labor, so what if they were unable to get away from work or they’d be fired? Hell, what if they couldn’t afford it for whatever reason – car broke down, they don’t have a phone or were out of data, they got hurt or sick or something came up that was interpreted by a small child as a lack of interest because he’s been shown that he doesn’t fully understand either adults’ motivations (all of S1) or the complexities of living in adult society, though he thinks he does (S1E4)?

Didn’t give him an activity: What if their grasp of English isn’t great? It’s a damn hard language to learn, and I sure as hell couldn’t pick up a second language if I was working to the bone to support my family. I’m exhausted trying to get through my 5 minutes of French on Duolingo, and I have a relatively cushy job and the benefit of an owl harassing me every few hours. Maybe they looked at the absurd camp activities and assumed they were misreading something, so they handed it over to their son (who is clearly fluent) to pick something he likes. Maybe they wanted to give him some responsibility and a sense of autonomy in deciding what he wanted to do for the summer, and he was so annoyed at being sent off to camp that he refused to do it and interpreted their hands-off nature as not caring. Maybe they were tired and just told him to pick something and it’s as simple as that, because parents are allowed to be exhausted sometimes. Just strikes me as pretty bizarre that they’d bother sending their son to a summer camp (and those things aren’t cheap, even one as not-awesome as Camp Campbell) but not be invested enough to give him the activity. Saving all year to scrape together enough money for a summer camp, sure, but filling out one line on a piece of paper? Pfft, who has time for that bullshit? 

(I recognize that assuming they’re poor based on a single line about “menial labor” might seem like a bit of a stretch to some people. But honestly, to me it’s no more of a stretch than assuming that they hate or don’t care about their son, or any of the other wild theories thrown around about Max’s parents all the dang time. At least this one is relatively new.) 

Sent him a sweatshirt and a short note: Again, maybe their written English isn’t great. Some people are better at a spoken language than a written one. Or maybe they didn’t have enough time to write a long note, or they knew Max wouldn’t read it (he doesn’t seem like the type to be all that into long emotional letters). Regardless, they knew to send him something he’d like that would likely be worn down by constant wear at camp. And sweatshirts aren’t cheap. Neither is mailing a package. Just seems like a surprising amount of effort to go to if they don’t care about or love him.

Sent him to Camp Campbell for the summer: Let’s say they’re poor, based on the evidence we have. It makes sense to assume that they work relatively “unskilled” jobs, or are in school, or both. Because those jobs don’t offer benefits or a lot of money, we can also reasonably assume that they either work multiple jobs, long hours, or both. They probably don’t have family in the area or even the country, and it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect neighbors or friends to take their son in all day, every day, all summer so he’s not home alone while they’re at work (especially considering he’s not all that easy to get along with). He’s familiar with the city (S3E11), so we can assume he’s grown up in an urban environment, which means he’s probably to some extent a latchkey kid. Sending him to a summer camp would get him out of the city, around people his own age, where he’d be supervised and kept busy while his parents are at work until school starts. Camps are expensive, but I imagine Camp Campbell might be the best they can afford, and they’d assume it’s better than him sitting in an empty apartment all day.

Max’s insistence they don’t care: He’s … ten years old. Not only has he made it clear that he assumes the worst of most people, including adults, but it’s also relatively common for kids whose parents worked a lot while they were growing up to interpret that busyness as a lack of interest in them. It’s hard to understand things like expenses or financial security as a kid and view it as “my parents are never around and so they don’t love me.” Hopefully when he’s older he’d appreciate everything they’ve sacrificed for him, but at 10 years old it’s expected he’d feel neglected.

I’m just saying, maybe a borderline emotionally unstable child isn’t the most reliable source, is all.

This isn’t rock solid, I realize; I’ve made a lot of leaps of logic and assumptions extrapolating from what we’ve been given. But I don’t see it as any less plausible than his parents hating him or whatever the prevailing fan theories are, and more importantly: it’s a fuck of a lot more interesting (yes, yes, in my opinion). I think adding nuance and sympathy to Max’s parents will always end up more interesting than “good David vs evil parents.”

Of course, we’re in a bit of a limbo since we don’t know necessarily where RT is going to take this. There is every chance they’re going to drop the bomb that Max’s parents are literally as bad as everyone has made them out to be – and worse. Maybe they’re actually Xemug. Fuck if I know. And if that happens, I’m gonna call it out for being the cheapest and least-interesting of the possible options. Bad, lazy writing that pits pure good against pure evil is always gonna suck, even if it comes from the writers of one of my favorite shows.

I really, really hope they don’t go with that (to finally, I guess, answer Anon’s question fully). And I’m pretty forgiving when it comes to things people hate CC for: Dolph doesn’t bother me, most of the problematic episodes don’t bother me (that pee one is still pretty rough though), but if they go the “Max’s parents are the devil and that is why Max is the way he is” route, I’m gonna … well, just be so profoundly disappointed that the showrunners could’ve done something interesting and decided instead to go for the lowest-hanging fruit, that’s all.

FINALLY:

3. This Fucking Fandom

So here’s the thing. Dad//vid is unique among the “ships” in the fandom in that it is deliberately placed as “the anti-Max//vid.” And I understand why that was done, and I appreciate it holding up that particular vanguard; max//vid has no place in dad//vid, and vice versa. 

But the problem with dad//vid being set up as the not-max//vid is that everything that isn’t dad//vid is suddenly viewed as “max//vid-lite.” Even when that makes literally zero sense.

See, even when I was briefly into dad//vid in its very literal “David adopts Max from Max’s evil parents” form, what I was really drawn to was the idea of David being Max’s older brother. Back when the fandom was like 100 fics on AO3, I had started planning out this long plot involving David taking on a brotherly role to this kid I thought really needed one. Admittedly I’m just a sucker for sibling relationships, but from the beginning I’ve been all about this brotherly bond, and so when a popular artist came up with the term “bro//vid” and it started gaining traction, I was all over that noise. There was finally a version of this relationship that wasn’t either “Max and David fucking” or “David literally adopts Max and becomes his literal father,” and I couldn’t be more excited.

And then … I found out that apparently “bro//vid” was becoming synonymous with “max//vid but secretly.” And … man, it really sucked to suddenly be treated like I was supporting pedophilia because I didn’t like the idea of David-adopts-Max as much as the whole big brother thing. I can’t even imagine how much it must suck if your favorite iteration of Max and David is something along the lines of mentor/friendship, without some sort of buffer of “well they’re basically (or literally) related.” Because if “these two as brothers” is max//vid-lite, then I can’t fucking imagine what that would be called.

And even when it’s not specifically about max//vid, it just keeps cropping up. I posted about the Season 4 premiere and expressed how much I saw a cute, brotherly relationship between David and Max, and someone immediately replied saying that they thought it was more like father-son. Which … yeah, fine, I don’t care if you see it like father-son, go nuts, but I am getting really sick of the fact that father-son is the only acceptable “ship” and everything must lean in that direction, no exceptions. (I know, it’s not a ship technically, but I don’t know what else to call it. Don’t read anything weird into me calling it that.)

I don’t think “please just let me enjoy these two and their relationship dynamic without making it pedophilia or insisting David adopt Max from his terrible evil parents” is that tough an ask. 

Or at least, it really shouldn’t be. But somehow it … kind of is.

And that sucks.

(Also, I hate the whole “Max is David’s favorite camper” thing. It’s not technically tied to dad//vid, but it does often come hand-in-hand with that and it just irks me to no end. If David has such blatant favorites, he is terrible at his job and kind of a douchebag. I think he gravitates towards the camper(s) who need attention the most, because he likes feeling like he’s made a difference, but I don’t think David would just straight-up pick a favorite like that, not when he has a full camp of kids who need him. Just saying.)

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

Regarding my post recently about how annoying I find anti-Reylo petty!posting, I want to make it absolutely clear that like, I don’t have an issue with people wanting to have serious discussions about the problems they have with it or with Kylo, Particularly because Kylo painfully reminds some people of current real-world behaviors. 

Just as an example, within my own ships I’ve had serious issues in the past regarding the implications of how certain characters and storylines were handled. I shipped Rumbelle from OUAT for a long while. I was super into the concept during Season 1. But then Season 2 changed a lot of things for me. It was revealed that Rumple systematically manipulated Regina for many years. It was revealed that he also murdered his first wife out of anger and jealousy (she was his emotional abuser, but the framing of his motives made his major reasons clear. Also emotional abuse doesn’t justify murder but I digress).  He repeatedly lied to Belle in order to selfishly keep her with him and blind her to what he did to his first wife.

Belle spent the entirety of their relationship basically denying his darkness and insisting that he change. It was probably one of the ugliest renditions of a Beauty and the Beast tale there is, because it managed to pretty much intentionally have the messages some people criticize BATB for having (even though it never did).

I still like the concept of Rumbelle in theory, because Robert Carlyle’s performance in that first Season was phenomenal and I loved the idea of the character initially. It would have been awesome to see a well written romance for him.

But as you can see, this ship inherently has serous issues, and many of those issues involve racism and sexism and abusive behavior. I would still enjoy shipping Rumbelle, but personally I feel like too much of canon’s poisoned storyline has permeated it’s fandom and fanfic, so I just can’t really invest any energy into picking out the stuff I don’t like anymore.

While the height of my OUAT fandom days didn’t really occur during the height of the anti-villain stanning days, I certainly still had people assume a lot of things about my feelings regarding Rumbelle, many of which reduced me down from a complex human being with ethics into a braindead icky fangirl who didn’t care about the ship’s problems because I was too busy stanning Rumpelstiltskin/Mr.Gold.

Over the years on this site I have had people treat me and others that way over characters and ships like Loki and Labyrinth’s Sarah/Jareth, and any number of villains or villain/heroine ships I’ve had in my time here. People who engaged in this kind of behavior rarely interacted long enough to ask what my (or anyone else’s) actual nuanced opinions were, because it was easier for them to create an immoral target out of us. The purpose was to make themselves feel superior over someone they could not humanize, not to spread awareness or engage in actual discussion with peers.

The most frustrating part of this is the blatant hypocrisy involved with this kind of behavior. I’ve seen Loki fangirls I’ve known who seem to enjoy trashing Reylo, as if Loki had significantly cleaner hands or ideologies than Kylo. As if the Loki fandom hasn’t churned out a boatload of Abuser!Loki fanfiction, as if they hadn’t mostly turned me off of my own ship (Loki/Darcy) because of how toxic they could depict it. As if I didn’t see a sizable percentage of Loki fangirls make Nick Fury the biggest villain in their fanfics, making him essentially an oppressor figure. 

If you are a Loki fangirl you are certainly not automatically better than a Kylo fangirl. You don’t get to pretend that you are cleaner than the Reylos. If you like any villain at all, your hands are not necessarily cleaner.

But if you’ve never liked a villain at all, your hands are not necessarily cleaner, either. How many Rose/Doctor shippers who hated on Martha, or Clara/Doctor shippers who hated on Danny Pink, are anti-Loki or anti-Reylo, I wonder? I’m really not at all convinced that people who behave this way care about abuse, sexism or racism when it’s their own ships or favorite dudes.

The problem with these mean spirited petty jokes, bitching and bullying posts about Reylo that get passed around on this site is that they give away the hypocrisy of (predominantly) white fangirls who only half-bother to bring up serious issues when it’s convenient and safe for them, when it looks good for their SJ cred and social media reputation, and when they can hurt others with it without any consequences or repercussions for themselves or the things they personally enjoy. 

And honestly I’m done with that. Have the courage and maturity to be critical of your own spaces, while respecting other people’s ability to do so within their spaces. If you are going to be critical of something, actually be thoughtfully critical and leave the petty bullshit behind you, because it just makes you look like a dick at this point.

So in conclusion, if you’re a marginalized person who had negative feelings about Reylo and expressed that thoughtfully, that post was not directed at you. If you are a Reylo who doesn’t have a single critical eye for what you consume or how you yourself engage in fandom, particularly when it comes to how you might alienate marginalized people, that post did not exist to protect you.

That post was me not giving a single fuck about anybody’s bullshit anymore. I don’t care about anybody’s online reputation or ego or petty mocking anymore, I don’t care how much SJ talking points and banners you list in your blog descriptions. I’m tired and getting way too old for this obnoxious high school shit.

[commodorecliche]

I'll be honest I'm not into He Tian/ Mo since so much of it from early on has been very physically abusive and i get that most of the fandom disregards that as "boys will be boys" but for me personally it's not an appealing relationship. But honestly you do you @ the people who are into that. I'm just gonna stay 10 miles away from it.

like... my biggest issue isn’t even that it’s such a toxic relationship (and let’s be honest here, it is toxic and unhealthy as it stands right now). my real issue is how so many fans reacts to the ship and say that clearly unhealthy behavior is cute and romantic. 

(buckle up kids, this post got long. i ramble a lot about them as characters and their relationship and their motivations) If you wanna skip all that, just read the last like... paragraph. 

like there’s literally nothing wrong with shipping and enjoying a toxic ship. nothing at all wrong with that. we are allowed to like things that are less than pure. we all have things that we like that are wrong/dark/problematique/whatever. but at the same time, i think it’s important that we are able to recognize that toxicity and not romanticize it just because we personally like it. i think it’s important to go “hey, I like this ship. It’s not healthy right now, it’s pretty toxic, maybe it won’t be in the future, maybe it will improve. but I recognize right now that it is unhealthy, and I still like it. and that’s okay.”

again, there’s nothing wrong with that!! human beings like dark things. it’s just how we are. but just because someone likes horror movies doesn’t mean it’s okay to go out and murder people. it’s important to go “wow, i love this fictional murderer! but i know that murder is still wrong.” just like we, as a fandom should say “hey, i love this fictional ship! but i know that they’re dysfunctional, toxic, and very unhealthy right now!”

but this fandom doesn’t really do that. in fact, it would seem that many aggressively don’t do that. many in this fandom will be outright rude to anyone who dares to say that tia/nshan’s behavior isn’t cute/romantic, will argue aggressively with anyone who says that mo is obviously uncomfortable and not just blushing cause of ‘gay panic’ or whatever. and that’s really unfortunate. because like i said, just because something is unhealthy doesn’t mean you can’t like it??

every single unhealthy, toxic, abusive thing he tian does to mo is seen by many fans as “cute” and just he tian “showing how much he cares”. mo’s constant discomfort at the things he tian does is, at best, ignored, and at worst, misconstrued. for example: a while back someone posted a picture set of the times mo was “blushing” because of he tian - but really it was just a picture collage of all the times that he tian has done something weird/unwanted/creepy and has made mo aggressively uncomfortable. 

and the things that are abusive (like the physical violence) just get swept under the rug by many fans. like, holy hell, he tian threw mo off of a bridge and into a creek. and the fandom just kind of ignores it and INSTEAD decides to focus on the panels after that scene in which he tian jumps down into the water and lifts mo out of the water as if it’s the cutest thing in the world he could’ve done. nevermind that he tian literally threw him off a bridge. he tian going down to ‘help’ mo doesn’t change the fact that he tian was the one who threw him off the bridge in the first place. (and let’s be clear of the reason why he tian threw mo off a bridge: it was because mo threw his phone and bag into the water. but the reason mo threw he tian’s phone and bag was because he tian had tons of creepy photos that he had secretly taken of mo.��that’s not cute. that’s creepy and stalkerish. it’s a huge invasion of privacy to just take tons of secret photos of someone and mo is visibly unnerved by it. no wonder mo threw his phone and bag off the bridge! if it were a girl that he tian had done that to?? he would have been CRUCIFIED by fans. but because it’s two guys, somehow it’s cute now? 

my point is that... he tian and mo have a lot of problems. a LOT. but the fandom just doesn’t want to acknowledge it, opting instead to pretend that this relationship is okay and good as it stands right now. and what really sucks about that is that because of the fact that they are so dysfunctional right now, that means that they, as characters, have a huge opportunity for growth. they’re in a pretty bad place right now, but that means that they can only really go up. but we need to recognize that we’re sitting at the bottom of the barrel right now with this ship. and this fandom needs to recognize that they have to grow out of what they currently are in order to ever progress into something better.

there’s nothing wrong with liking this ship. i want to emphasize that again. because seriously, i mean that. i like tia/nshan. i have high hopes for the ship (even though OX continues to disappoint me. always one step forward, ten steps back with their progress it seems. that gets extremely frustrating when you think some progress has been made in their relationship and it just reverts back to toxicity but i digress). but i recognize that just because i personally like this ship and want them to eventually be happy/normal, that doesn’t mean the ship is without problems. it’s got loads of problems. and i’m just not sure why so many fans elect to ignore that fact? it’s shocking to me what this fandom will call cute or romantic. and maybe that’s my age speaking. i know many fans of this manhua are younger and just might not realize that this unhealthy behavior and not “cute” and don’t realize that this behavior will eventually have to stop if he tian and mo are ever to become something healthy.

now for some character analysis that no one asked for but that i am gunna type up anyway: 

right now, he tian and mo are 15-16 years old. they’re bratty, angry teenagers dealing with a lot of crap in their lives and neither of them have really had... great role models or easy lives that would lead to them being well-adjusted human beings. i think, given those circumstances, some of the unhealthy behavior they show makes sense. a lot of it can, i think, be chalked up to 1) their age and 2) their backgrounds. 

he tian is aggressively (and i mean AGGRESSIVELY) possessive and protective and i think it stems from the fact that he grew up learning that if you wanted something and wanted to keep it safe, you had to physically demand it and cling to it. but at the same time, he tian also grew up rich. let’s be real here: he’s spoiled. and he’s very accustomed to getting what he wants. it’s not a stretch to see that mentality extend to people he wants. and what he wants right now is mo. and he just kind of... does whatever he wants and whatever he thinks is necessary in order to exert control over mo and keep him close by. because he wants him, he wants to “protect” him (in his own weird way). and so he goes about showing this heavy affection in an extremely unhealthy and abusive way, complete with unwanted sexual advances, stalker tendencies, physical aggression, and manipulative behavior. i think... he believes his motivations to be good (because in his head he definitely cares for mo and wants to help him), but the way he goes about it is literally awful. again, if this were a girl instead of mo, we’d all be telling her to RUN. 

mo is a little harder to peg just because we still only know snippets of his past. but obviously, he’s had an absent father, he has had to become extremely self-reliant, has never wanted to depend on anyone or “owe” anyone anything. he was ostracized by his classmates when he was young: after going through an extremely traumatic experience (the restaurant scene, and then his father going to jail), his classmates branded him “bad” and not someone who could be trusted. mo then found friendship in the only place he could - with the other outcasts, and fell into the gang. every friendship mo has ever had has been toxic and physically aggressive and controlling. i mean, fuck, she li stuck dirty, dull thumbtacks into his earlobes as punishment for him standing up for another gang member. mo seems like he’s aching to have an actual sense of Self. he tian is... just another ‘friend’ who’s hurtful to him and is controlling over him. not to mention, we have no idea about mo’s sexuality. he obviously seems to have some deep rooted self-hatred and homophobia (the kid freaked out about getting a shot at the hospital in his buttcheek for god’s sake and then had a nightmare in which bullies at school said sexually aggressive things to him because he got a shot in his buttcheek). but at the same time he’s also obviously got some kind of... weird... i don’t know how to say it because it’s not affection, but... perhaps fascination with he tian. i’m not sure. because in his dream, he tian is the one that comforts him. and later on we see that mo even goes to help and ‘comfort’ he tian when he’s having nightmares too. but he’s also still aggressively uncomfortable with the things he tian does around him and the things he tian forces upon him. 

it’s just... it’s complicated.

and because of that, right now you can’t say that their relationship and the things they do to each other are cute... or happy... or well-adjusted... or even a relationship. right now, really all we have is a deeply dysfunctional acquaintanceship that is being progressed by... control and manipulation. and yes, i have high hopes that... mo will find his sense of self and will discover what he feels and what he wants. and i have high hopes that he tian will realize how he’s behaving and will come to understand that the things he does are not... good or kind... especially to someone you supposedly like and want to protect. and i mean, maybe we’re seeing a little bit of that? i mean, in the last couple chapters, we saw mo willingly asking he tian for a pair of black studs, that’s a pretty big forward motion, and mo being willing to tag along with he tian to go get them. he tian didn’t force him to climb the wall and skip class (definitely a departure from his usually forcefulness), mo went willingly. so... maybe right now we’re seeing a little development. but... like i said, OX tends to go... one step forward and ten steps back with them, and i’m afraid that the next time we see them interacting it’s going to be something violent or forceful or insulting or stalkerish. so, i just don’t know. 

but... really the long and short of it is that i wish more fans would look at tia/nshan and say “i like this ship but i recognize that it’s not healthy currently”. because that’s the truth. 

[notrey]

i been meaning to get this out so im going to finally:

so my ocs. i make backstories for them, bizarre stuff happens to them, etc etc.

but before them i would do something different, to be more specific i would make an au of my current hyperfixation. Fnaf was a big one. and the way i made them was, well, lets just say that if the characters didn't LOOK fnaf-y then no one would have known it was an au of fnaf!

i felt really embarrassed of this but i absolutely ADORE it when other did it. I admired their creativity, and i still do!! somethin about people mixing fandoms together, pouring all their heart and creativity into it, it amazes me and inspires me! i used to have a "fandom mash self-insert" thing before fnafsl haha (fnaf2 was included in it! fnaf sl didn't come out yet.)

so first i had the private thing,

then my second hyperfixation (fnafsl) i started with aus of the characters in that fixation!

years later (just before covid hit) it was bfb that took over, and boy was that an unexpected twist.

but..i never felt complete with these aus. and i never realized it until just recently. i did realize it recently tho. and now i know enough to be able to put it into words (well, just barely put it into words..ill try as much as i can!)

dark backstories are interesting and I absolutely love creating them. obviously that doesn't mean i like seeing people go through that stuff in real life. but the affects it has on people, the healing journey, that is what intrests me.

backstories was the big thing in my aus. a pattern i had was giving my favorite characters the "physical abuse" backstory. first Ennard, then Four, now my oc Siren. i was able to relate/self-base this one the most, which is why i gave my favorite characters that kind of backstory! (also making it a lot more brutal for them-)

but thats..it. physical abuse is a common backstory idea, and...also a rather common issue in real life unfortunately. but i limited my backstory ideas to just that.

i had so many other ideas,, but i was to embarrassed to use them haha.. and not just using them publicly, i was embarrassed to use them even if i wouldn't tell anyone else.

thats where Finley comes in. my second main oc! the protagonist of my oc world. at one point in my au.

I think Fin is the biggest/perfect example, so im going to use him to explain!

circus baby had an abisive boyfriend who would try and do dirty things to her, but i scraped that. i didn't wanna use rape as a backstory for a fandom au. i felt uncomfortable using it. i never (and still dont) feel uncomfortable when other did tho! (unless they were romanticizing/glorifying it, that is obviously wrong)

Fin has a backstory regarding rape and sexual abuse/assault. i was originally gonna just have him neglected until last year we read a book in school called "Speak" it was about a girl, how it affected her, anf her behavior. everything about her reminds me of Fin. I've always wanted to use factors other then only physical abuse trauma, such as sexual abuse trauma and religious trauma (Bonnie). the affects and the healing journey are things that i love working on aswell. but im getting off topic, and this is getting long so im gonna wrap it up

i never felt this free with my ocs before, when giving Fin this backstory, i knew i would never have been able to comfortably do this with a fandom au character. and thinking about it, same with Bonnies backstory.

i never loved ocs like i do with these, even THEY were a fandom based thing (among us ocs) but now i was able to find a way and put everything i love into one big fixation. fantasy, diffrent species, nonhuman + human interactions, the list goes on. so yeah

the point is, i feel so free with these ocs, and this oc world. idk how to fully explain it, but yeah. i have never felt this way before.

[aeon-wolf]

Reasons why you don't like Mon-El? Just wondering.

Wow. Okay then. *cracks knuckles* Let’s just get to it. 

So let’s preface this first. Please refer to this post/rant regarding my feelings towards the Supergirl fandom. Because my feelings towards Mon-El are an entirely different entity than my feelings towards the fandom. 

That being said, let me also address another thing that is relevant to this post and then I set it aside. My feelings towards Supercorp have nothing to do with my feelings towards Mon-El. And because I know if a Karmel fan reads this, I’ll get at least one rude message in my inbox. I know Supercorp will never be canon. I do not dislike Mon-El because he’s getting in the way. I’ve noticed over the last year or so in fandom that people have been invoking the “My ship is canon and therefore yours don’t matter, get over it,” and the “My ship is canon and therefore more important than yours,” arguments. Both of those are bullshit and if anyone sends me those, your message will go ignored. 

And this is me setting Supercorp aside. 

So. Mon-El. He’s probably the single most controversial character introduced this season, perhaps the most controversial character the show has ever produced. I believe, if social media is any indicator, there are more people who dislike Mon-El than like him. 

Which to some degree does make me sad. Because I think his character could be really complex and interesting. And while I don’t think I would ever ship Karmel, I think if Mon-El was written differently it could be a ship I could support wholeheartedly. However, with the current way he’s written, I just can’t. I really want to like his character, but the writing is so poor that it’s basically impossible. Also, take note that I don’t have a thing against Chris Wood and this fandom thing of going after actors is immature and needs to fucking stop. 

There are a lot of small-ish (or big-ish depending on how you look at it) things that I dislike about his character, but the baseline problem is really the cause of all of it. He doesn’t actually seem to understand why Kara is annoyed at him for doing what he’s doing. He doesn’t truly listen to her. That’s it. In my mind, that is the single biggest issue with Mon-El’s character. And if that were changed, his character has the potential to turn into something that I think most people could at least tolerate, if not support. 

Because think about it. Many of the biggest criticisms, well deserved in my opinion, of Mon-El has to do with his treatment of Kara. Especially regarding things that she has reprimanded him for multiple times. And he seems to not understand why she’s angry at him. For someone that claims to love Kara as much as he does, he doesn’t show it very well. They are fighting about 85% of their screentime while the other 15% is dedicated to their physical relationship (kissing, sex, etc) and Kara actually building an emotional relationship with him. 

Look, no relationship is perfect. At all. Fights are inevitable and expected. But for a couple that spends the vast majority of their screentime arguing, I can’t see how that relationship is expected to last very long. Especially when the fights are originating from Mon-El inability to listen and apply. 

He is relearning. I agree with Karmel fans on that point. He is most likely the prince of Daxam and I expect him to embody the culture of objectification of women and slavery. That’s not really the issue. The issue is lines like “Things were so much easier when I objectified women and didn’t care about anyone.” Yes, that was supposed to be a cute line about his dedication to Kara to change himself to order to be with her. And I guess if you like Mon-El/Karmel that’s probably how you interpreted it. But that’s not at all how it comes across to me. At best it comes across as basically saying that Kara’s expectations of him to change are a burden and he wishes he could go back to his life on Daxam. And at worst it says that he doesn’t care that by Earth standards (the standards we’re all judging him by) he’s doing things completely wrong and that everyone should just accept who he is trying to be and get over it. And pretend he’s actually making significant changes to himself. 

His inability to understand why Kara is angry and his blaming it on relearning is a problem. Relearning is one thing. You can give a person the benefit of the doubt once, maybe even twice. But when Kara is continually having to berate him for the same things three, four, five, etc times it’s no longer him actually trying to relearn. It’s him making excuses. 

Picture this: Mon-El actually listens to Kara. Mon-El seriously listens to her. Kara teaches him why his behaviors are wrong. And because he loves and trusts Kara, he believes her and listens to her. And because he loves her, he makes a genuine effort to change, instead of insulting her, lecturing her, speaking for her, playing with her emotions, doing things completely opposite of what she asked of him because he thinks he knows better, and all the other unhealthy things that happen in their relationship right now. Especially when Kara herself has yelled at him it not do those things to her, multiple times. It’s Mon-El’s inability to actually listen that is the problem. It’s not his race. It’s not his gender. It’s not even his relationship with Kara. Rather it’s the nature of his relationship with Kara. It’s that he doesn’t trust her enough to make her own decisions. It’s that he doesn’t listen to her. It’s that he doesn’t seem to actually put forth the effort to relearn, rather seems to be using that as an excuse for his actions. 

What I believe is the root of Mon-El’s problem is his inability to really listen. Most people will know what I’m talking about. When your parents tell you to do something and you say “Yes mom” or “Yes dad” but it doesn’t really resonate and you completely forget the thing they told you ten minutes later. This seems to be what Mon-El does. He just takes Kara’s words, brushes them aside and forgets about them. That line “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. That is two strikes on me. Now let’s just let it go...” is a perfect example of what I’m talking about. It’s like he didn’t even listen to what she just said. Rather was listening to the tone of her voice, realized she was angry at him and said “Okay, okay. Whatever you say. I’m wrong, you’re right, now let’s have makeup sex.” He doesn’t acknowledge that what she’s saying has any meaning. If he did he would most likely say something like “Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t listen to you and that was wrong of me. Let’s work this out. Together.” 

Look, whether you ship Karmel or you don’t, like Mon-El or don’t, he’s not perfect. And no one expects him to be perfect. But I do expect him to put forth a visible effort. And while he is different than he was from the beginning of the season (but let’s be honest, that bar is so low since he was kicking Kara across the floor at the beginning of the season), for as much support and acceptance that he’s gotten from Kara and others for that matter, I would have expected even him to be further along in the relearning process. 

And while I cannot support Karmel myself and these are the reasons I don’t like him, I don’t hate people who do like him. It’s their right to do so. What annoys me about fandom is that some of those people are going far out of their way to pick fights and find arguments. Freedom of speech means that you can say what you want to say. It doesn’t mean that people have to agree or listen to you. And it doesn’t mean you can stop people from expressing their own right to freedom of speech and telling you why they think you’re wrong. Karmel fans and I will have to agree to disagree. And that’s fine. I don’t care if people want to have an adult conversation with me about the issues. But if we’re going to devolve into petty arguments and baseless personal attacks, just keep it to yourself. Because it’s a waste of your time. And a waste of my time. 

[westwingwolf]

Yes, I agree they really rushed Hacy and made it all about them. They listen to certain fans and took away what made the show good to begin with. A great example of taking time to develop the relationship and not rush is Tim x Lucy on Rookie. The fans wanted it but writers took their time and develop them together and individuals. The Charmed writers just dropped the ball completely on all the characters. And look I'm not naïve, I never thought Haggie would happen( though someone should have

I wanted to put these all together before I answered. This is going to be long so I'll put it under the cut so others can scroll past.

I may joke about the fact that Tim & Lucy aren’t together yet, and I may be in the minority but I’m perfectly happy with the fact that they aren’t together yet. They’ve got a natural progression to get them at this moment. And I can even wait it out a little more to see it developed well. I’ve commented before that it seems like TV audiences in general don’t have the patience for the will they/won’t they like they used to. Now some shows in the past have milked the storyline for too long, but shows like Charmed rushed in without proper planning and it shows. I think it even annoyed Harry & Macy fans with how they didn’t know what they were doing and how much they’ve ruined both characters, especially Macy. She was a much stronger character when Galvin was her love interest. That storyline never overwhelmed her own individual storyline. Whereas Harry has become the same problem that Parker was for Maggie in season 1 in that her storyline was basically all about Parker and almost nothing about herself individually.

I knew Haggie would never happen either. It’s part of the reason I resisted hard core shipping it until midseason in season 1. Oddly enough, Haggie is the reason I resisted shipping Tim & Lucy. Both shows were on their first season, and I wasn’t sure if Tim & Lucy ever had a chance at being more than friends or mentor/mentee (and I wasn’t sure if I even wanted them to). I knew shipping Haggie would be putting effort into shipping a non canon ship that had no chance, and I didn’t want to put my heart through the heartache of shipping two non canon ships at once. Now it is almost 3 years later and Tim & Lucy are an almost certainty while I’m begging for scraps of scenes where Haggie is friends or are at least in the same scene.

But yes Sarah & Rupert have a natural chemistry that, no matter what the Harry & Macy fans think or the writers want us to believe, is better than Rupert & Madeleine’s. Theirs is not bad, but is not amazing or compelling enough to suffer through all the unnecessary reasons to purposely keep them apart. Or to make me believe Harry & Macy as a good couple. Rupert even has better chemistry with Melonie. And I think that is the reason there are so few scenes with Mel & Maggie. The writers had to limit Harry’s relationship with Mel & Maggie to make Harry’s relationship with Macy look different and therefore better. When if we’re all honest, the biggest bond Harry created with any of them in season 1 was with Mel. Then with Maggie, thanks in part to Tartarus which they should have explored more. And lastly Macy. Then suddenly in season 2 he has to spend more time with Macy. If he is ever with Mel & Maggie, it’s usually with both of them. Season 2 was all about separating Mel & Maggie from Harry & Macy most of the time. Which did a lot to mess with the original idea of this show being about 3 sisters because it was very rare for all three of them to work together for an entire episode. 2 episodes come to mind in season 2 when they all worked together for the majority of the episode, and it’s really difficult for me to remember a third episode. But back to my point, the writers couldn’t build Harry and Macy up in way that compare to how well the friendships Harry had with Mel & Maggie compared in season 1, so they had to tear those down and not show them as much. Now obviously, Mel is not an issue as a competitive love interest if fans notice better chemistry. But Maggie is. Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind that Harry & Maggie went to having the most hugs in season 1 to having zero in season 2. I know because I am the one who gifed them all. The only hug Maggie has in S2 is with Jimmy thinking he is Harry. And let me tell you, that scene where Jimmy is trying to kill Maggie, still more chemistry than anything Harry & Macy have had in 3 seasons. It’s safer for Harry & Mel to have scenes alone together than Harry & Maggie because Maggie & Harry’s chemistry is better than Harry & Macy’s. And I don’t even mean that in a romantic way, if people don’t want to see it that way. It’s better even in terms of friendship. But I think it could have gone romantic. Where I think Harry & Macy’s is best when it stuck to friendship. It reminds me of Nolan & Lucy who scenes got a lot better to watch when the show accepted that friends is all they should be. But the few scenes we did get of Maggie & Harry alone, namely the attic scene and the book nook scene felt so domestic and intimate that I found it easy to ignore the dialogue and create my own dialogue based on body language. The chemistry lends itself to that.

It also bugs me that I got so much shit for shipping Haggie because of age difference when we find out that Harry & Macy actually first met when Macy was probably Maggie’s current age. And we’re supposed to buy that as the beginning of Harry & Macy’s destined love story. Plus all they are doing now with Harry feeling too old for Macy and wanting to be mortal so he can grow old with her. So it was problem when I shipped Haggie, but now that it’s suddenly Harry & Macy it is seen as okay or a storyline for them. I see you, Charmed writers. I see you.

I had to think about which Darklighter Harry/Jimmy fics you were talking about because I only posted a few to my tumblr. I’ve had a bunch more I shared with a fellow Haggie fan. Even more I’ve probably thought of and forgotten by now. I’ll be honest, I don’t know how much fanfic I’m interested in writing for Charmed. The show is only barely keeping my interest to keep watching. I usually wait almost a week before I watch the latest ep. That is not typical TV watching behavior for me as I usually don’t wait more than a day if it’s a show I like. Combined that with the fact that there isn’t much interest in Charmed fanfic, even less so for Haggie, I just don’t see my interest in writing it returning anytime soon. Plus, I usually stick to writing in one fandom at a time and all my interest is in writing Tim & Lucy at the moment. Now, I do believe if there was any character who still thought Jimmy was redeemable, it was Maggie. Not by much, but she at least tried to give him a happy ending even it didn’t work out. So if I did see my interest coming back, I could still see writing a Maggie/Jimmy fic which ultimately becomes a Maggie/Harry fic. But about 98% of my fanfic ideas remain just ideas. For an idea to become a fanfic I have to write, I have to imagine a significant amount of dialogue first that refuses to leave my mind until I start writing. That’s true of any fandom I’m in.

The worst think the writers ever did was get Harry & Macy together. They should have kept Harry as just a whitelighter and friend for all the sisters. Let fans stick to fanfic if they wanted more. I probably would have liked fanfic more than anything by they could have given me if I’d they did write Haggie romantically. I think Charmed will forever be one of those shows I look back on and think: that could have been a really great show if they had just done everything differently.

[squadron-of-damned]

For the fanfic ask: 5, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 30

5) most popular fic this year

Both by hits and kudos, according to AO3, it’s The Many Deaths of Me.

12) favorite character to write about this year

That would be Ricin “Raven” Korbie. Although, only one of his stories (it’s an original story) is on AO3 so far and most of the writing has happened in text DnD.

13) favorite writing song/artist/album of this year

Hmm... Ben Kaplan.

17) fics you’ll continue next year

Cosette Chapeau, The Many Deaths of Me, and The One in which He Didn’t Make it Home, hopefully. If I kick myself in arse, there might be an update on Present Perfect too, but I don’t count on it.

18) current number of wips

10

19) any new fics to start next year

There certainly is going to be something, but I don’t know what. Downey/Vetinari as old retired gay couple of clever men who are the Disc’s biggest idiots, ft. dogs not named Emma, like I have one started, but there is going to be more of that. Maybe something focused on Constantin and Twinklemon. I am planning to make a backup of WoWHQ to my AO3. If I am lucky to receive prompts, I’ll do the prompts.

21) most memorable comment/review

“I started to read this story because there are so few Bolvar fics, let alone Bolvar the Lich King fics. Finding another is always exciting. I am happy that you are writing this. We need more Lich King Bolvar and it always nice to see more of Kel'thuzad, the second in command that seems to keep outliving the master(s).I love on all the OC and minor canon characters that present the Scourge in a more interesting light. It was also clever having the lichs being able to cosplay as themselves. It would avoid the otherwise unavoidable 'Lich sighted... attack' issues.I love on how you create multiple potential story lines such as Bolvar concerned about the switch of loyalty but Kel'thuzad is too important, Bolvar struggles with the change of leadership styles for the Scourge is vary interesting to see for him to accept certain behaviors and expectations that while common in the Scourge is very out of place in most other armies (including Stormwind's), not to mention that rampant PTSD for the undead that can think, plus the background of what is happening in the rest of the world.I agree with the critic that descriptions is handy for mood. A good example is in chapter 2 with '... but Bolvar was lost in thoughts and when Kel'thuzad noticed it, which was quite soon, he went silent too. The cold chamber of the Icecrown Citadel was filled with echo.' Throw a few more of those into the fic and that will help with ambient mood of the story.It is interesting on Bolvar and Kel'thuzad relationship as reluctant King and professional second-in-command. They are also both are affect by memories that they both inherited. I wonder on how the Cult of the Damned fit into this. It is weakly suggested that Bolvar does not care for them. Care to elaborate? I am generally curious about Bolvar's opinions. I also agree with that critic on having more of Bolvar's opinion. It is the reason I am reading this fic. Especially once you veer off of canon.I am curious on what abilities that Bolvar have. He was a paladin-warrior, fused with life based magic, with that memories of a shaman and necromancer. It would be ironic if the Lich King, the King of the Dead having the ability of bring plants (and maybe animals) to life. Or be able to somewhat feel the land like Kel'thuzad did in chapter 5.Oh... and more mention of the numerous cats. Cats are awesome. Maybe have a kitten start sleeping on the rather warm Lich King. Much to Bolvar's surprise.Keep writing -Ra.“

(Seshat-ra on Chapter 6: Thorough the Valley of the Dead of The Many Daths of Me.)

23) fics you wanted to write but didn’t

I wanted to write Author’s Foreword/A Foreword from the Author, I have it WIP, but just... didn’t manage to get past the first part and it’s now in the “uh” file where are stored all WIPs I am going to finish eventually, just so they don’t occupy space at the front of my mind. It is eventually going to be a continuation of the It’s Quiet in Basketville series, and flips views from present to past and back. In the present Vetinari is being melancholic and lonely during May while Downey is on business trip in Glitz, and the former is offered different points of view on the later by Lucius “Lus Twinklemon” Twinkle-Clement-Monger, as well as there is made a parallel betwenn Constantin and Twinklemon, and Vetinari and Downey and their respective relationships. In the past we watch young Downey more or less managing in Snapcase’s Ankh-Morpork. One of the things it should have featured was young Madam July, I wanted to include Offer Littlegood and his immaculate machine which stood behind Verbo Incooperativus Testis, and most likely than not letters to Ludo.

30) favorite fandom to read fic from this year

A tie between Les Misérables and Discworld. Sadly, other fandoms had too few things I’d like to read in he quality I was willing to read, and haven’t read yet at the same time.