#damn i really reblog a lot of stuff for keeping it fandom only lol

[doublegoblin]

A year and some change in retrospective

Okay so technically It’s like a year and 2 months and like a day. While I made the account and started posting things in November of 2022 I made my intro post on the 23rd of Jan last year so that’s when I’m going to count myself as having officially joined lol. I got thinking about this on my way into work today and I got a little reflective. I’m going to be kind of rambling (what else is new lol) but it dawned on me that, damn dude, a whole year is still like 300+ days and life can go wild directions. I also figured this may be nice for the newer people who have started to follow me (hello and thank you btw). Things won’t necessarily be in chronological order, I mean they might, but, I’m also liable to jump around.

So let’s start with some backstory, all good stories start with backstory yeah?

Me and my -at the time- bf(we’re still together lol just fiance now) were on our way to my aunt's wedding…running late actually because I had the day wrong and blah blah blah. To kill time on the 3hr car ride I started to spit ball this idea for a story I had brewing, that would then become Rituals and Red Tape. I was writing it for myself for a while as a way to deal with being let go from my last job. Well I then had the silly idea to maybe share this with people, so then we get to November and I make a profile and start posting.

That’s right, I started my path on here to be someone putting out original works of writing. I mean, if you go to my profile and check out the pinned post you’d know this but let’s be real, nobody really does that lol. And as those of you putting out original stuff also know, it can be pretty quiet at first. I had in my mind that I was just going to have my stuff on my blog, maybe reblog writing stuff only; that uh…didn’t last long. I’ve met some pretty cool people on here, even if we never really talk I’m happy to see your stuff cross my dash. It was the whole song and dance of you follow me and I follow you, support network stuff. Took part in tag games, an OC fighting tourney thing, and just some other fun things. All the while I’m posting little one-offs, a new WIP here and there…that I eventually just kinda stop working on in favor of my first child. 

I make a Wattpad and start posting what could be considered the 1.5 draft of the story. Things are fun, quiet, but fun

I start to engage in more fandom related things, because why not?

Then something happens, something that I didn’t think would take me in the direction I am going now.

I buy a $30 mic.

Voice acting and acting in general were always a passion of mine as a kid, and with a new stable job and comfy living I thought it was time to revisit some old joy. What was even better is that an artist I was following had a “casting call” for an animation she was working on. So with my little microphone and audacity(the program lol) I do the thing that changed my blog, I tried out…and I got a little part! I’ve never really been one to yearn for the spotlight but I took a chance and it worked out, and I was hooked after that.

So I started to use that mic more and more. First recording a short story of my own, recording a short story by a pal, then…well I guess you can call it doing some dub work.

Now in the past I had people follow me just out of the blue, but, with the first Five Pebbles recording it started to happen more and more. And those posts, well, they were getting some attention. Not a lot mind you, but like, more than the original works. Now I don’t say this with anger or bitterness, it’s just how stuff like this works out. So with what I thought was going to be a one-off thing, I knew I wanted to keep doing it. Yes the notoriety was fun, but more so, I was making something that was bringing people joy. So I recorded more, and more people saw it and liked it, reblogged it too.

Then I had that funny little idea. Something new to me that scratches a few itches at once. If you’ve followed me for THIS you know, the Kel Logs. Not only was I playing a game that I really enjoy(btw if you haven’t you should go play the game it is fun and but I won’t bog this down with info dumping), but I was doing some original writing and voice acting. It was the perfect storm.

Now I know I’m not the most well known person out there and this little fan fiction project isn’t like super famous, which I’m very okay with lol, but like the comments and stuff show I was having an impact on people in a small way. And it was having an effect on me, I was becoming more comfortable with my voice. Not going to sour the mood too much but I’ve struggled with voice dysphoria for a while and the joy I am able to bring people is so important to me, which I know sounds selfish.

So now here we are in the present, I know I’ve missed some stuff and simplified others, with people following me for fandom things and all that jazz. I thank every single one of you. Whenever my stuff get reblogged I do try my best to say something in the comments to those who say things in tags lol, sometimes tumblr won’t let me @ you but know I try. You all have no idea how much it means that I can bring joy to you and I don’t feel I can pay you all back other than to keep doing what I’m doing.

I haven’t worked on my original stuff in a while but I don’t think I’ll be tossing it to the side. In fact I know I won’t. I have a story I want to tell and it will be. So if you have any interest, please check it out and let me know what you all think. I want to always improve but I can’t know where to patch things up if I don’t hear about a leak lol. I’m getting super rambly so I’m gonna stop this here.

1 year later and I’ve gone from solely original writing to a strange hybrid of that and fandom stuff, and I couldn’t be happier with where I am.

So once again, thank you all so much for liking what I do and I hope to keep bringing you things to make you feel emotions.

[theirloveisgross]

For my part it all started here on tumblr. I had one where I used to reblog sporadically about my favorite tv shows, pictures of cats and nature and such. And then one day, around the beginning of 2021, a picture of Harry in that beautiful blue dress from the vogue photoshoot came up on my dash and I was like 'damn he's so fucking pretty, who is he??". Imagine my surprise when I realised he was harry from 1D, aka the boyband my little sister was a fan of when she was 13 (it was around 2012). We're 6 years apart and didn't get on that well at the time so she stayed away from my interests and me from hers. Imagine my surprise when discovering that the pretty boy in the blue dress was the same as the little curly boy I remember from my sister's bedroom posters. Anyway from here, I watched a lot of youtube videos starting from 1d mvs and then compils of 1D funny moments which made me fall in love with the boys and finishing with fimq's videos which made intensified my curiosity and growing love for louis and harry's bond. I still rewatch her larry crackvids sometimes, never fails to make me smile. At the same time after following a bunch of people and only lurking, reading masterposts on all blogs ect. for a few days, I finally started a new blog to join the fandom. Needless to say from then on I wasn't just "sporadically" on tumblr anymore lol Half my free time is split between tumblr and ao3 because of these two and I regret nothing. 😌 The sad thing is my sister was thrilled when she learned I'd 'finally' (to quote her) become a fan of 1d and even more of louis and harry but I quickly discovered that I couldn't rejoice that much myself? Like she loves the boys but she's a much more casual fan than I am. She doesn't do her own researsh so she easily believe stunts stuff if she comes across it on twitter (she's on twitter user and tumblr feels like an obscure concept to her while I'm the total opposite). She's like "louis and harry were/are really cute together" but that's all, they must be finished since they don't ever interact and we never see them together. Freddie is louis' son for her and 'look they are so cute'. I don't have the energy to argue with that and it's not my job to convince her otherwise anyway. Anyway it was a bit frustrating at first as I had hoped to be able to share my fandom experience with someone irl through her but I've made peace with it. On the positive side, I'll have company to see louis in october! She was the one to offer me tickets to see him for my 30th birthday~ And that's was for my origin story! Keep them coming people, I'm enjoying reading them!!

Hi!

Oh my, this is so soft! The fact that you found Harry in a dress first. 😭 Reminds me a bit of me watching the music video for Lights Up back in late 2019, because a friend showed it to me, and I knew Harry was in 1D, and I simply saw his queerness and gave him props and that was it. IF ONLY I had looked further then... *sigh*

The relationship with your sister sounds a lot like mine. Sadly, she was a fan of the Jonas Brothers and not 1D, so I barely knew about them. We get along better now and we're both queer af so that also helps, hahaha.

FIMQ's videos are forever! They're gold! I need to rewatch soon... it's been a few months.

I love that you found them on tumblr, so to say, and stayed here as well. It is my favorite community, for sure!

I'm so glad you're here! And yeah, I wish I had people that get it irl, and I went through the phase of wanting to tell everyone close to me, but it just gets tiring, the side eyes, the polite smiles, which is FINE, but I need you to get. it. Hahjasha. Because if you don't care, you won't get it. Like, you have to care so much to do that amount of research and stick with them. It's fine, there's always people here that get it, and when you finally meet some of them irl it's like... it's euphoric! I hope you get that soon!

Also, have the best time at Louis show! I'm so excited for you! This tour is INCREDIBLE! Like I always say, nothing will beat what LTWT means to me... but FITFWT is bigger, better and he's so much more relaxed, and happy and just... it's such a joy seeing him grow like this. Hoping to get a job soon and maybe I can be crazy and also see him in October.

Anyone who sees this and has joined the fandom in the last year or so, send me a message if you want. I’m so curious what was your starting point, what made you go “Larry?” and then “OMG LARRY!”, hajdhahs.

[crowtrobotx]

Man, I know you shouldn’t do this. But I was staring with increasing bitterness at the kudos/hits on Chrysalis and sinking further and further into the whole “what even is the point” mindset I’m so prone to. Probably this was triggered by having come to expect a handful of kudos with each new chapter and this time I didn’t get… any.

I think Bri is probably the only person who knows how personal this fic is to me and how much of myself I’ve poured into it. And I don’t really want to divulge what that means to everyone - maybe one day - but just rest assured this fic isn’t just the manifestation of an irrational love of a video game character (which it is, of course) but it’s… somewhat healing for me. And a gift to myself. And it took a lot, and I mean A LOT, for me to even put it out there.

I’m not saying everyone needs to shower me with praise and affection at all times, or that I think I’m uniquely incredible at what I do, or that I need validation to keep going - I am much more motivated by spite anyway lol. And I for sure don’t want to minimize the folks who have been devotedly commenting on every chapter, have texted me outside of here/AO3 to talk about it, have made FAN ART (which is crazy!!!!), have reblogged every chapter and sent me asks. I appreciate it so so so much and it means more to me than I could ever verbalize.

But like, damn. Sometimes the sadness has hands and sometimes it’s the absence of folks you thought would be there that’s all you can see, y’know?

And then I decided to look at the other Heisenberg/OC fics, and the ones that are purely platonic, and basically anything that isn’t 2nd person w/smut or part of a popular canon x canon ship. I looked at ones that came out right around the game’s release, ones that came out last week.

And like, damn. Chrysalis has a staggering amount of engagement in comparison, especially when you consider I published it two years late. I didn’t have an AO3 account at all until fucking February 2023. And that makes me feel sort of good, but now I’m just mad again lmao. You should not have to jump into things at peak popularity or have an established following or include popular pairings/tropes to have your work get noticed. I mean, logically, I know this is just how media and art works to an extent - and I’m not saying people who do write/create in the popular fandoms for popular ships are doing something wrong - but it really shows how unwilling folks are to step outside their comfort zones and read things that they think they’re not interested in or won’t like.

There are platonic, x oc, rarepair etc fics that are so stunningly beautiful that it feels criminal for them to only have a handful of commenters and kudos. And honestly the people writing these are doing so with an insane amount of passion because you HAVE to in order to keep finding the strength to publish that next chapter when you know you’re explicitly going against what people insist they want. Again, this extends to more traditional art forms too - how many fucking brilliant books and paintings are out there gathering dust because the creator didn’t have the right connections or they didn’t make something that had mass appeal?

I always try to do the “what advice would I give to someone in my position” exercise with stuff like this. And of course I would reference the reality that if you have ONE person who is cheering you on, it’s a whole complex person you’ve made happy and that’s a miracle in and of itself. And some folks don’t WANT to be noticed - they are much happier with small circles and good for them! But also - I don’t think people are wrong when they start feeling crummy from seeing their work get steamrolled or comparatively ignored.

Idk. Idk where I’m going with this except to say I really wish people would expand their fic libraries (and their media/art consumption in general) to include more than just whatever the current hyperfixation is because it gives them serotonin. Take a chance on something different, within reason. (I know someone will try to respond with OH SO YOU’RE SAYING I SHOULD TRIGGER MYSELF or something like good god, no.)

There are some truly awesome popular works and creators out there. Please don’t interpret this as me being some bitter small platform blog ranting because I’m not being elected prom queen. All I’m doing is thinking out loud and sorting through my own spaghetti brain. I think I’m gonna spend part of this weekend sorting fics with the least engagement/popularity first and leaving some comments on them.

It’s a brave and beautiful thing to make and then share art, no matter the form it takes. People deserve to be reminded of that. Frequently.

[stevethehairington]

I watched stranger things s1 way back when it aired and thought it was pretty good but then couldn’t be bothered to keep watching when s2 came out and haven’t paid it any thought since and yet now after seeing gif after gif of Eddie fucking Munson and reading headcanons and ficlets about steddie on tumblr I’m suddenly in a position where I’ve read at least 300k worth of steddie ao3 fics and I can tell I’m not about to stop any time soon. I still haven’t watched any more of the show. What is this strange power Steve and Eddie hold

omggg i feel this in my BONES. only difference is i have watched all of it (some seasons multiple times hskgsd) BUT. i totally get what you mean. like there is just SOMETHING about eddie goddamn munson. like, they put fucking CRACK in that boy or something lol.

i was a VERY casual fan before s4, like i watched s1 when it first aired too and i really liked it! but it was definitely one of those this is really cool i really dig it but i'm not like obsessed kind of likes. and i got excited about the other seasons too and i binged them all when they came out, but again, super casual!! like once i watched that would be it. i wouldn't really think about it all that much after. i didn't seek out any fan spaces for it, didn't really discuss the plots or analyze it or anything outside of like very general predictions with family and friends who watched too, and i certainly didn't create or write for it at all.

but then season god damn 4. season goddamn 4 and eddie goddamn munson!!!! i fell in LOVE. i got SUCKED IN. i was pulled DEEP. the obsession set innnnn, that funky little dude sunk his claws in deep and dragged me headfirst into a full on stranger things fixation - dedicating my blog to it, reading a million fics, writing a million fics, joining discords, signing up for zines - and i am STILL hooked, 4? 5? months later?

there's just something SO good about eddie and something SO good about steddie!!! steve and eddie just FIT so goddamn WELL it's insane, truly, how complimentary they are to one another. i reblogged a post about it earlier, where it pointed out how steve and eddie so clearly want the same things, how they have plans for the future but those plans are not set in stone, they're flexible, and all that really matters is if they're together and are able to get and give the support they need to. also i feel like they're both SO easy to put into any sort of situation - ESPECIALLY eddie. because like as much as the show gives him plenty of interests and traits and all, he is still SUCH a malleable character, still SO easy to project onto and relate to and to shape into what you want him to be. and that makes for a WONDERFUL canvas to work from.

and honestly, i am SO glad that this did happen, because like i've met so many incredible people through this fandom already and i've had such a good time, and also steddie has sort of like reignited my love for writing too? like, i didn't not love writing before steddie, but i felt like i was sort of in a writing slump for a very long time. like i wrote for other fandoms and pairings but i would never make it past 10 fics (barely even made it past 5 for some!!) and it just wouldn't stick, and i just wasn't coming up with ideas or getting that spark of inspiration. but with steddie ohhh my god!!! it's been FANTASTIC!! i've been writing more the past couple of months than i have the last like 2 years. i've broken the under 10 fics curse with them haha and i have sooo many ideas still. and the response to the fics i have posted has been insane!!! like so good! and i am blown away!!

so yeah, basically i owe eddie munson my goddamn LIFE sjfdhksf

(also, i totally do recommend you watch the rest!! like the show has it's issues and some rocky narrative choices, like all shows do, but overall it is a very enjoyable show and there's a lot of good stuff that comes out of the other seasons too!! ESP season 3, my beloved. scoops steve?? YES. scoops troop team up?? YESS. robin buckley introduction!!! YESSS!!)

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

Hey everyone Dragonfly's back! Had to stay away for a while due to a 2 week-focused on the national exam here in Brazil and- OH HOLY FUCK WHAT'S GOING ON Sees all the JC stans overcrowding our tags Fuck I gotta weed out these people wait a sec.

Proceeds with a blocking spree

Now that that's dealt with, how have you been Ava? I feel like things were honestly awful with the huge amount of flux from twitter JC stans in here.

I usually woulnd't mind them if they weren't filling the tag with hate for the people who view JC as the villain he truly is and just how much of a babie sad character he is. Specially when they throw hate at WWX for it too and it just makes me sad.

I even saw someone who said "Did we even read the same book lol JC sacrified so much for WWX" and "If I were in JC's position I would do the same too" And I'm like: DID WE REALLY READ THE SAME BOOK???? Like- they're willing to do genocide? Supporting the death of fucking innocents?????? How little empathy can you have for others just to put a villain in a Pedestal?

Don't get me wrong, I love villain characters (Sauron's my favorite villain of all time) but, yknow, I'm not calling him a babygirl and trying to justify his actions because, guess what, they're wrong.

Anyways, I'm sorry about this tiny rant but i REALLY needed to vent after seeing some nasty ass comments and everyone just posting CQL and Merchandise stuff which is CLEARLY meant to paint JC in a greater light, to, yknow, sell stuff.

And if they keep appearing I'll just block these new people, if we don't interact with them, then they'll start losing interest (I hope). Sending lots of love and hugs for these tiring times in the fandom, damn Twitter for giving people this much spite. Dragonfly out! - 🐉🦋

This too shall pass, little dragonfly... I am also glad to hear you have passed your exams, I hope you treated yourself well during it and can now focus on something nice.

They can very easily enjoy their own takes as far as I'm concerned, I'm not stopping them. But if they can insist they can make Jiang Cheng a babygirl submissively breedable mary sue, I can mock that same thing as well. Fandom interaction is 50/50 now isn't it? There's the nice little feature of being able to block, as I do since I'm petty and anything Jiang Cheng UwU annoys me enough to block even if it's a reblog and tag only comments (｡･ω･｡)

And my little bubble is the same as always and treating me well, I can only be grateful for the opportunities that make it better! And sitting here in sad withering as I have yet to see Qi Ye get translation news (eyes sevenseas in judgement again).

[thatonesongyouretryingtoremember]

If I were a mutual who would like to befriend you, are there boundaries that come w that?

Fun thing about tumblr is that settings allow anyone to set boundaries within the app and website.

For example, I allow everyone to send me anonymous asks using the app settings because thus far I am okay with them :3

I don't really have anything against DMS, but I don't start conversations and I don't Isuzu hold them well, which is part of the next things.

Alot of my boundaries with social media are things I set for myself. Things like "I can set down my phone whenever I want if the vibes are off", etc, but also

I do not share personal details about my life. Pretty much the only things people know about me are that I'm a white queer from the USA and other shit they've gleaned from my posting about experiences as an [insert identity] person. I don't share things like the events of my day normally, because I like to compartmentalize tumblr and keep my safe persona here seperate. I can spend some time in this little pocket reality.

And I never ask those questions of other people either, because I consider it invasive to want to know more about others than they know of me, [but of course what people choose to share on their own blogs is their own choice <2] so I don't ask more than follow ups (eg. If they say their sister was cool in the orchestra I ask what instrument but that's it. Fake example btw)

Most of my mutuals are people who either I've spam reblogged until we started legit interacting and I've said based stuff about the niche I followed then for, or people who spam reblog me and like my art n shitposts.

Anyone can tag me in stuff regardless of whether we're mutuals or not. I might not always answer, but that is not personal it is part of my personal boundaries. "I only have so much energy to give to this app and website" and "I can block hashtags if I don't wanna see my mutual's blorbo who's source material I don't care about, it's my own damn dashboard" and such.

And I answer specific question anons like this pretty easily, but I have a more difficult time with statements like positivity anons.

I love positivity anons ["if you're getting this it means we appreciate you", etc] but I find it hard to answer these because they are statements and because they sometimes come with instructions on how to pass them on because they are chain anons. Both of these take more energy than I am willing to spend, but I never delete them and I always enjoy getting them <2

I post a lot about Stranger Things and miscellaneous fandoms, and I welcome interaction there. Additions that add more insight or context to a post, etc. This type of conversation is easier to maintain, is something I am comfortable with, and is typical for the website and what I do here.

Of course, I usually don't shy away from conversing with others about what they choose to discuss on their own posts, with the understanding (the hope) that they will tell me if I am overstepping. And I also can drop it off someone appears to lose interest by not adding in case that is then wanting to end the convo.

Going back to asks, I accept asks of pretty much any topic, so long as they are well-intended and something I can answer well, as well as keeping with my blog's sort of "quota" (not getting too personal, relatively "family-friendly" as they say, and these are just my personal preferences, obviously, other blogs have different things going on that fit their own valid and swag preferences)

I also get asks on my sideblog @threesongsinatrenchcoat which is a music blog or either of my sthings rp blogs.

Basically, invade my space and if I haven't blocked you or confronted you just assume you are fine /hj

I hope this answered your question :3 hopefully you are already following because I don't think you as an anon will get notified so you might not even actually see this lol.

UM notice for anyone else who wants to send me anons and find them later: they are tagged as #anons, #asks, and #song spouts bullshit, which is my personal tag.

And since we're on tagging, if it is not anonymous, I tag as the full url or as their nickname and a heart. Fake example #the-real-spiderman-official-not-fake-not-flash-thompson, #petey <2,

[palimpsessed]

I posted 4,475 times in 2021

178 posts created (4%)

4297 posts reblogged (96%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 24.1 posts.

I added 5,390 tags in 2021

#simon snow - 1066 posts

#baz pitch - 1013 posts

#tyrannus basilton grimm pitch - 1008 posts

#snowbaz - 734 posts

#awtwb spoilers - 534 posts

#coc 2021 - 223 posts

#wings and tail - 220 posts

#simon’s wings and tail - 220 posts

#coc2020 - 190 posts

#fic rec - 182 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#there is such pressure in the narrative of being queer i feel that places so much importance on labels and it’s nice to see a different take

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

@carryon-countdown 2021, Day 17: Decorating

🎵Don we now our gay apparel🎵

(Full size under the cut because he is looooong)

Click for best quality.

See the full post

218 notes • Posted 2021-12-12 16:18:29 GMT

#4

Thinking about Simon biting Baz, on his neck, over his old bite, and Baz asking Simon to be gentle. And how this mirrors Simon wanting to embrace Baz’s vampirism, and Baz resisting. And Simon wanting Baz to bite and drink from him and Baz refusing.

And how Simon biting Baz must have been particularly hard for Baz to sort through because of the way it inextricably ties to his vampirism and the monstrousness he struggles with so much.

Thinking about Simon trying to talk to Penelope in WS about coddling him, and Baz’s tentative touches, and Simon not wanting to feel like Baz thinks he’s going to break. And wanting to be touched harder and trying to touch Baz harder.

Thinking about how Simon was treating Baz the way he thought he wanted because of his own experience, and Baz treating Simon the way he thought he wanted because of his own experience.

Thinking about them asking each other for what they really want and need and finally being able to be intimate.

Thinking about Baz trying to decide if he wants Simon to stop being gentle or never stop. Thinking about Baz trying to figure out his relationship to his monstrosity and Simon’s relationship to Baz’s monstrosity.

Thinking about wanting to consume and wanting to be consumed.

340 notes • Posted 2021-07-08 16:11:15 GMT

#3

Ebb, CO:

Agatha, AWTWB:

Someone finally brought the nannies home. 😭

410 notes • Posted 2021-10-19 18:14:57 GMT

#2

He hides his face in my T-shirt. “It’s too much for me.”

I set the violin on the floor by the bed, then rest my hand over his on the hilt of the sword. He lets go. For a moment, I wonder if I’ll be able to lift it, but I can. I set it by the bed, too.

Simon crawls half into my lap, burrowing his face into my chest.

I lay my cheek on top of his head and hold him behind his ears.

“It would be too much for anyone,” I say.

—Chapter 91, Any Way the Wind Blows

@rainbowrowell thank you for this wonderful series and these characters that mean so much to me. It was such an absolute joy getting to see them get to this point together! ❤️❤️❤️

(Please click on the image for better quality.)

Notes, close ups, and process shots under the cut!

See the full post

552 notes • Posted 2021-08-07 17:39:07 GMT

#1

Hey. You post a lot of great stuff about Carry On. Can you talk about the biting in AWTWB. The Baz/Simon scenes.Trying to wrap my head around it to understand why Simon did that. Why he bites Baz and keeps biting. Bites his fangs through his cheek. Is it because Simon wants to be bitten? That he wants Baz so much and Baz can't be harmed? I'm really trying to understand it but . . . what do you think?

Anon, thank you for this ask, and also for liking whatever I'm doing on my blog.

Can I talk about the biting? You bet I can!

Why does Simon bite Baz? Is it because he wants to be bitten? In a word, yes! But of course, there's a lot more to it than that. And this went off in another direction than I thought it would, so I hope you can stick with me on this journey! Under the cut because it’s a bit long.

There is a motif running throughout the trilogy of love being a consuming force. So much of Simon and Baz's identities are tied up in hunger very early on: Baz, as a vampire, constantly craving blood; Simon, as the Humdrum, constantly sucking up magic; both of them starved of love and intimacy. There's also a lot of fire imagery, going all the way back to when they first met, and fire is another consuming force.

Simon and Baz are obsessed with each other. The only thing they think about is each other. ("Trying not to think about you…S'like trying not to think about an elephant that's standing on my chest.") They are consumed and they want to consume, and, at least in Simon's case, they want to be consumed.

In WS, Simon reflects on misunderstanding his feelings for Baz prior to eighth year, and the way he does it has always stuck out to me: "I thought about him all the time. I missed him so much in the summer. (I thought I was just lonely. I thought I was hungry. I thought I was bored.)" The second item on that list is what catches my attention. Simon missed Baz and he thought he was hungry. I think it says a lot about how Simon's love for Baz feels if he mistakes it for actual hunger.

In the biting scene you mentioned, Simon says to Baz: "If it were me, if I were you…I'd drain you fuckin' dry, Baz, and it still wouldn't be enough." That's intense. And it's absolutely Simon. We know how much hunger he's capable of; his hunger was so potent, it became a whole other being! I've long maintained that his hunger for magic is a metaphor for his hunger for love. Because Simon is so full of love, and just utterly bereft of people to give it to, and once he has people to love, he doesn't know how to do it without also hurting them. He's never had good relationship modeling. (He thinks Baz should know he loves him because of how many things he's killed for him.—He thinks about teaching Baz how to break someone's neck like it's a fun couples' activity.—He gets turned on by killing things and watching Baz kill, too.—Date night is helping Baz hunt down rats.) Simon is a mess. He wants to love so badly, but he just doesn't know how to do it. ("Is this what people do?")

Simon loves Baz so much, he can't fathom ever getting enough of him. Ever being able to consume enough of him. He can't stop biting and smelling and grabbing because he wants more, more, more. He fits his teeth over Baz's old scars because he needs to claim him—make his own mark on Baz, possess him.

Part of this, as you said, is the fact that Baz is a vampire. Baz can take the roughness (which is not to say that he should just because he can). Simon's fixation on Baz's vampirism, which used to play out as paranoia, has changed into a desire to be bitten. Simon is thinking about Baz's vampirism, thinking about draining Baz dry if he were the vampire, and Baz, the human.

The other part of this is that Simon is unfettered, but really only in the aggressive, physical sense. He's long hidden his desires behind aggression without realizing that's what he was doing. (In CO: "I just want to run him down and knock him over and figure it all out." In AWTWB: "I wanted to jump on you, I didn't really think past that.") He doesn't know how to be unfettered in the vulnerable, emotional sense, and that's what keeps him from being able to be intimate with Baz. ("I don't know how, Baz…To get enough.")

Simon desperately wants to have sex with Baz. Which is what he's trying to do in the biting scene, but all of his desires are warring for control, and he can't sort out what he wants, and what he should be doing in that moment, with Baz.

What this is all leading me to may be a bit off topic, but I think it's all tied up in Simon's head.

Simon doesn't know how to be gentle.

His hunger and his desire for Baz have never been gentle. It's aggression, it's violence, it's possession; it's a forest fire, it's not a hidden waterfall.

Simon has never learned how to be at peace. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Rainbow said she made Simon "fight of flight"—literally, he has wings! There's a reason that Simon couldn't handle the inaction at the beginning of CO and before the events of WS. There's a reason that Penelope thought that they were "being lulled" because there was no war actively being waged. There's a reason Penelope tells us in WS: "Lesson learned: Relaxation is the most insidious humdrum." These are characters who are so traumatized by childhoods being foot soldiers in a war waged by the adults they trusted, they don't know how to live without fighting! They don't know how to live in peace.

We all have "I can touch you less gently, but I won't love you less kindly" burned into our eyeballs by now, but let's move earlier in that conversation to what sparks this: "What if I asked you to be less kind to me?" —What if I asked you to be less kind to me?— Simon doesn't feel comfortable with Baz's kindness or gentleness, because it "makes me feel like I'm being turned inside out. Like I need to get away." Let's sit with this for a bit. Baz's loving touches make Simon want to run because they're kind and gentle and he doesn't know what to do with kind and gentle. His mind isn't programmed for kind and gentle.

It makes complete sense that Simon would show Baz affection in a way that Simon understands, considering, as I said before, that he hasn't had anyone in his life to show him a healthy way to do this. What does Simon most want from Baz? Love. What does Simon understand love to be? Consumption. He wants roughness and aggression, he wants the inferno, because these are things he understands.

Simon wants Baz's teeth, so he gives Baz his teeth.

This is how Simon feels comfortable. I made this post while processing my feelings about AWTWB. It talks about Simon trying to love Baz the way he wants to be loved, and Baz trying to love Simon the way he wants to be loved. They want to give each other everything, but they haven't actually communicated their needs to one another, and that's what keeps them from being able to work through their problems. It isn't until they voice their needs that they're able to be intimate. This is what I'm really trying to get at here.

"Is this what people do?" Simon asks, over and over again. When Simon was in therapy, he learned a technique to break up "life into bites you can swallow". He tells us he's doing this again in AWTWB "because [the future] is too terrifying. Too uncertain. There are parts of it that are too bright." —There are parts of it that are too bright.— Simon doesn't know how to be happy. He doesn't know how to cope with happiness. "Is this what people do when they're in love? Do they just keep touching and talking? And then what? Like what is it all leading to? I don't mean sex, I mean… If I knew what I meant, it wouldn't be so frightening." When Simon is having all these overwhelming feelings about his future with Baz, they're on the Tube, and Simon sees a guy giving him and Baz "a dirty look". He interrupts his introspective on therapy to tell us that he wants the guy to cause trouble "because I would dearly love to punch something right now. That's a decision I could wrap my brain around." He can wrap his brain around punching someone, but not around a bright future with the man he loves.

Simon doesn't know how to be at peace. He doesn't know how to be in love. He doesn't know how to be happy. I think this is what we're seeing at play when he bites Baz. He wants something so badly, but he doesn't know what it is, can't articulate it, can't get at it. In a way, when he bites Baz, Simon is trying to ask for what he wants, without words, and without really knowing what it is that he does want.

He can't figure out how to let himself be happy and feel good while being happy. He can't stand gentleness, or softness. In his head, he can't give that to Baz, because he can't handle it himself.

So, yes, Simon bites Baz because he wants to be bitten. And he bites Baz because he knows Baz can handle it. And he bites Baz because there's an emptiness inside of him that he's still trying to fill, and he doesn't understand how to do that. Someday, he will fill it. He and Baz are going to figure that out together.

I hope this makes sense. With your indulgence, Anon, I'm going to tag in @theflyingpeach who is all around brilliant, and I know has their own thoughts about this scene (and demon Simon 👀👀👀) that I would like to see more of. 🥰

A follow up to this ask can be found here.

Further reading on the relationship between consumption, food, and love compiled here.

691 notes • Posted 2021-07-19 03:05:10 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[bigskydreaming]

Also because I’m a lying liar who lies and is still up, I would ALSO just like to add real quick like a rabbit or whatever, like.....

People say a lot of the time like....”well not everybody knows the real canon” but see the thing is, the thing IS, like....if you’re familiar enough with my posts to be complaining about ME complaining about certain key trends like this.....then you’re also familiar enough with my posts to be aware that I and other Dick Grayson meta blogs have blogged the fuuuuuuuuuuck out of actual play by plays of Dick and Jason’s entire canon interactions, with sourced panels and everything.

The truth is out there. Mulder said so. But also I did, and also a bunch of other people. And like, you don’t have to reblog anything you don’t want to, but like.....some of those posts are damn good. And thoroughly researched, the results of a lot of time and effort....and while posts about the whole Batfam might circulate through the whole fandom, the In Defense of Dick Grayson posts with actual canon descriptions of the greatest hits that fandom tends to levy against this character....these ones ONLY get reblogged by people who are already in the Dick Grayson stan corner of the fandom. While the fans of multiple other characters, even when following a lot of these same blogs that blog and reblog extensively cited posts laying out the actual canon of the very events assholes like me complain about being misrepresented and twisted so much in fics.....juuuuuust pretend not to see these particular posts.

But meanwhile, they definitely manage to see the posts I make complaining about stuff like this. Y’know?

So its like this thing where like....again, you don’t have to reblog anything you don’t want to, but “not everybody knows the real canon” kinda stops mattering when the fact of the matter is if YOU know the real canon, and YOU know there are all these blogs passing around already existing metas about the real canon of these controversial moments, and YOU know you have tons of followers who follow you but not Dick Grayson centric blogs because you’re a blog aimed around one of the other Batfam characters - and thus followers who would be likely to see stuff reblogged by you while totally missing stuff that stays locked in the Dick Grayson stan circles and never let past those gates, lol....

Like....for the third and final time, like, you don’t HAVE to reblog those posts too, buuuuuut I’m not gonna lie, I kinda side-eye the fuck out of some of you for choosing not to. Ever.

Because for all the big talk about wanting peace and unity and harmony in the fandom.....if you know that there’s these major divides around certain characters and certain key plot points or dynamics and how those are depicted in fics.....and you ALSO know that the people complaining about these not being based in canon have actual points and you ALSO keep claiming that its just not valid to criticize those depictions because not everyone knows the real canon.....well then, you’re basically making the case that one of the major sources of conflict in at least this particular issue.....comes from a lack of information.

Information that like....you absolutely know where to find already existing metas laying out all the information anyone could ever need to be informed on the subjects in question.

So the ‘not everyone knows the real canon’ line just doesn’t quite cut it, IMO, if you’re actually all about fandom harmony and positivity and NOT just about having fandom just the way you prefer it and with the major trends catering to your particular preferences above all else.

Because then I think that kinda just begs the question.....”well why don’t you ever pass along the real canon any time one of these Correcting the Myths About Dick Grayson meta posts gets put out there by a Dick Grayson-centric blog?” Not even saying it has to be mine, lol, I really truly don’t care about that.

But you see what I’m saying?

I hear a lot in the way of complaints about my complaining lol, but like.....sorry not sorry, you’re part of the equation if the only reason that these stories exist in such quantities - ACCORDING TO YOUR OWN WORDS - is because “not everyone knows the actual canon”....and you’re simply....choosing to keep it that way by just being like “oh this isn’t relevant to me or my blog or interests” every time a particularly relevant meta post gets created.

Because umm. No. Sorry. I think those posts are absolutely relevant to you and your blog and interests.

I think they just don’t happen to say what you want them to say, so you’d rather say nothing so that fics keep saying the stuff you want them to say while you keep saying “oh that has nothing to do with me. I’m just a major source of information for a ton of the non Dick Grayson corner of fandom, and like. I don’t see why that’s anything anyone outside of DG fandom would care to know.”

But heeeeeeeey, nobody’s ever achieved more harmonious interactions by being proactive about communicating and sharing information instead of pretending it doesn’t exist, am I right guys? Looooooooooooool.

[ilikemcdanno]

Cipher here!

Throwing in my two cents in the tangent that Beast made.

The way I sort of grew up with the mentality of hope for the best but prepare for the worst...while also understanding more than just what's on screen. LGBTness is becoming common enough that it's not as coded as it used to be, but we still have a long way to go in many remarks. Which is why I think that a lot of people need to remember to appreciate the fanfic writers and fan artist who made content for the ship you love so much, because fanon is where we'll find what we love, sadly not canon.

Even if you take away the age, though age might still have a lot to do with some of that...expectation/hope. Sometimes some fans only know/see the show during those 42-ish minutes that it's on. They might not know ALL of the behind the scene stuff that goes on and who truly has power.

It's sadly why a lot of actors/actresses get hate for stuff their characters did/didn't do when they had very little control over what the script tells them.

There are writers, producers, directors of the show itself. Who may also have to answer to the bosses/owners of the network they're on, who have to abide to the desires of their investors who bank them.

I don't think Beast is jaded. There were so many clear moments that McDanno could be read as canon to the point that so many of the side characters in canon assumed them to be married. It was all there, perfectly laid out, and you can probably find dozens of 'fix it' fics regarding the finale and how it 'should/could' have gone if the network had the balls to, while not fearing the likes of people like PL.

I can still rant and go feral over those damn last three minutes, so I won't start this is long enough already xD

I will say that with each so after H50, the chances of a main m/m couple the likes of McDanno happening grow. So let's keep going and keep hoping. While carrying the reminder that the choices being made aren't those of the actors necessarily(sometimes the show goes on long enough that the actor does get SOME say but even then it's limited).

Encourage content creators of the fandom so they can have their fix of the ship they love. Let them rant when it doesn't happen, reblog shippy moments with them, remind them what a good community fanon can be and it can be curated to the things they want and like. It could be better, it might be getting better, but sometimes we gotta do with what we got.

It's kind of like a rite of passage most fans have to go through. The understanding of how the show in relation to their network works, and learning to seek out what they want to see. Recommend blogs and artist they may enjoy...

This got long, I'm sorry. I also rambled so I hope I made sense. Telling people their ship won't become canon isn't a battle I think many would like to take on. We become very attached to characters and dynamics between characters. So really, just being someone in that fandom who is there is the most you can do. Help those who are new to this experience with your own, and if they truly loved that fandom or that ship, they will, like many of us, still be posting about it even after it ended.

-Cipher.

Hi there! 💜

Honestly the part where you mention fic authors and everything of the sort. I agree of course! If anything, I know that we as fans appreciate or even (dare i even say?) understand the characters more? For example, Danny’s character slowly losing what made him Danny. Things like that? I don’t know. Ive seen authors keep characterization in check; where the writers couldn’t. And things along the lines of that. (And I appreciate your positivity overall, cipher. That’s what I want to emphasize the most.)

Ultimately I’m happy that we can all get together and complain a bit, lol. I know it’s negative, but at least we’re doing it as a community. Along with that, making fix-it fics and such is another way we can bond over things we don’t like. XD

I really think what you said is important. Everything you said is. I really dont have have much to add/respond to what’ve you said. But i enjoy your insight. And I appreciate you sending an ask!!

I hope that you kinda feel like you could come to my blog and talk about things with anonymity. And if not, that’s okay too. I appreciate everything people respond or ask me. Like I said, we’re a community who typically want the same things. I hope that we can continue to try and keep the show alive. Talk about it, make gifs, fic. Whatever it is. We all have a common ground. Which is the love for the show.

[silkylious]

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!

I'd like to dedicate a post to all the wonderful people that I've had the absolute privilege and pleasure to befriend this year! I feel very thankful for having the chance to talk to each one of you and I just want you all to know that I love you so, so much, you've helped me get through this year and make it that much more bearable. So I'd like to say thank you to:

@lady-bakuhoe I still remember in May when you replied to my message and reblogged my first fanfic, I almost went into cardiac arrest. You're one of the very first people I knew of and admired on here, way before I even started this blog. You kickstarted my blog in more ways than one, you first inspired me to share my writing out there and you helped me gain my footing when I first started out. Idek how I can explain how grateful I am to you, I honestly wouldn't even have this blog without you.

@sassi-sunflower i hopped into your dm's almost exactly five months ago, and my god that is the best decision I've made all year by far. I never, ever would have thought that that first time I slid into your inbox and said "you're cute" would spark such a beautiful friendship but holy shit I wouldn't trade it for the world. We just clicked so well in our first conversation and I still remember it very vividly, I remember gushing to my older brother about this adorable, hilarious friend that I made online, I remember messing up my already shitty sleeping schedule so that our time zones sync up and we could talk. You literally make me so happy whenever I get to talk to you, I'm so fucking glad I decided to check out the blog that kept popping up in my notifications, so fucking grateful I sent you an ask that one time, because fuck you're such an amazing, close friend to me.

@dimplesum and @tamasoft y'all are my very first mutuals fr you're my day 1. I remember when 'tsunami' first blew up and I was so overwhelmed with the positive feedback, I get this dm from ellie and it just warms my fucking heart, and then I see faye's reblog and almost faint. your words meant so damn much to me, you gave my the courage to keep writing and posting, you gave me this security that even if my shit flops, if I'm overwhelmed with my personal life I'd still have two phenomenal mutuals to turn to if I needed guidance, especially since I was so fucking new to tumblr. Your writing on its own has brightened my days in so many times it's crazy. I'm so happy I had you guys to support me when I first started out, it means the world to me.

@sugacookiies I hit you up in dm's back when your url was still bnha-homeroom, and I don't regret it one bit!! You're literally the sweetest person ever, it made my whole fucking day when I saw you on my dash or in my dm's. You're one of the first people I reached out to on here and I genuinely get so elated whenever we talk. Your writing is some of the fucking best I've ever read like sometimes I just go back to specific pieces of yours to read them for the nth time and still be in awe of each word.

@fanfic-me-up and @vannahfanfics I love you guys to the moon and fucking back. Both of you are so fucking supportive omggg Bria whenever I see you in my notifications or dm's I beam. your comments on my writing literally mean so much to me, they fucking boost my mood into the stratosphere, I love love love every conversation I have with you babe. And vannah I admire you so. Fucking. Much. The way you manage to always put in so much hardwork and consistency in your writing while balancing a heavy academic life is fucking unfathomable to me. And you deserve all the credit for it, like you're so damn underrated it hurts. You're such an inspiration to me dude, I strive to be like you fr.

@keeijiakaashi (edited in later bc tumblr hates me and didn't save my first draft 🤡) Clio my online sister, I'd like to thank you for unknowingly stopping so many breakdowns I almost had. Your advice is absolutely priceless, I'm so fucking happy you stumbled upon my blog a couple months ago because you legit make me feel like I have a cool older punk rock sister that I can talk to about anything and everything. Just seeing you in my notifications makes me smile, even if I'd been crying over biology two seconds before lol

@marilags uh hey hi hello goddess of writing I'd like to first say that I grovel at the feet of every piece I read from you. I just... How is it so good??? I legit spend SO much time analyzing why I like each work of yours and honestly that inadvertently makes me improve too. I've loved your writing from afar for a while now but then I started interacting with you recently and ??? You're such a sweetheart???? Like ma'am this isn't fair, you get to pick one, either be super talented and hardworking or be the most adorable person ever, not both. Hands down my biggest writing inspiration, immaculate immaculate immaculate.

@honeykeigo Erika please you're like my main source of serotonin at this point. Your writing is so fucking good, and seeing your character anon interactions in my dash makes my day. Every now and then when I'm hit with a depressive episode, reading your stuff or just seeing you on my dash elevates my mood a lott you don't even know. Please keep doing what you're doing because it brings a smile to my face.

@khionne ❗❗ UNDERRATED WRITER ALERT ❗❗please if you haven't read anything from khione yet, I'm telling you right now: go do yourself a service and binge her entire masterlist I'm begging you. There are so many gems in this fandom it's unreal, and khione is one of em. Bro I love talking to you so much, we share the exact same academic pain LMAO I've only known you for short bit of time and I'm so excited to get to know you better. Also our first interaction almost made me cry lmfao

@mypimpademia @sophie-writings @todosweetheart @burnedbyshoto @miriossunshine @mrs-atushiro @raes-ramblings I am not so close with any of you guys but reading your works has helped me get through this year in some way or another, either by inspiring me to write myself, or just being my comfort when I needed it, thank you for putting out such great content <3

@chitziburn @lucyheartfilias-wife @bluemonochromes @howcanibreathewithnozaire @msngyu I see you guys in my notifications frequently! Thank you for supporting me it really means a lot <3

[strawbeebo]

~♡ Shio, Shoyu, Miso ♡~ [2/3]

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Pairing: Megumi Fushiguro x Fem! (She/Her) Reader

Warnings: None

Words: 1.2K

Genre: Fluff

A/N: Just reposting in hopes this’ll show up in the tags. :(((

TAG LIST: @minnieminnie00-got7 (leaving some out since most of you got it the first time I posted lol)

As always, if you enjoy this and would like to see more of my work, PLEASE consider reblogging as it’s the best way for my works to get around and to keep me motivated to keep writing stuff for y’all!

PART 1 | PART 3

The familiar ringing of the bell above the front door alerted you to a new customer and you quickly shoved your phone back into your pocket, having been preoccupied since weekday afternoons had the shop slow and, for once, without a single customer.

“Good afternoon! Take a seat wherever you’d like- Oh!”

You cut yourself short as you rounded the wall that seperated the kitchen from the dining area, your shoulders slouching as comfort replaced any need to look particularly poised or professional as your eyes met a pair of darker ones that you had grown to love.

“You’re here early, what’s the special occasion? Miss me that much?”

You were joking, he knew that, but while he had an airtight control of the words he spoke, there was little that kept the immediate mental answer of ‘Yes’ creeping up on him before he had the chance to shove that thought down.

“Not really, was in the area, figured I’d stop in. Itadori said he wanted to cook tonight so I’m preparing for the worst by eating ahead of time.” He said, already making his way to his usual spot as you trailed behind him, a short laugh emitting from your lips that lately he’d been having to force himself not to pay too much attention to.

It had been about three months now that the two of you had known each other, but with how often he was on your mind it felt like so much longer. Hell, even knowing each other for that long, Fushiguro only came in two, maybe three times a month, yet that didn’t stop you from falling far too hard and far too quickly. You knew that too, that you could only get to know someone so much in such a short period of time, especially when most of the time he wasn’t alone, but knowing your feelings were ridiculous did nothing to stop them. Every time he’d lean over closer to you so you could show him something on your phone, every accidental touch of your hands, every assurance that he’d ‘see you next time’ was enough to send your heart fluttering almost out of your reach before you came crashing to your senses and quickly stuffed it back into your chest.

You’d laugh, nervously avert your eyes and not-so-casually lean a bit further away from him to give yourself some room to think. Then just like that, you’d go back to laughing and talking about whatever came to mind or listening to him grumble about his annoying sensei and loud mouthed friends while you pretended as if you thought nothing more of him than a good friend. Everyone enjoyed spending time with their friends, and this was simply no different. You knew that was a lie too, but what else could you do? From what he had told you he always seemed crazy busy and he was always so cool, so collected, you couldn’t bare to embarrass yourself by asking him out somewhere. It was pointless, so you decided to keep it at that and hope your pining never became more visible than you already thought it was.

“So, what’s it gonna be today then? Salt, soy, or miso?” You asked, leaning an elbow on the bar top and resting your chin in the palm of your hand before looking up to meet his eyes once more as he sat down.

Damn.

He really thought he had a better hold on…whatever this was, but all it took was mere moments of being with you and you looking up at him with that friendly smile and he was hooked before he could even say “Miso”.

It hadn’t started like this, but with how things were going he couldn’t really remember the time where all he had was a fleeting thought of ‘Yeah, she’s cute.’ before he ate his meal, usually accompanied by at least one of his classmates, chatted a bit, and was on his way. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to think nothing more and nothing less of the cute girl at the ramen shop like he had before. To not have to struggle to push down the heat that would creep up his neck every time he managed to make you laugh, to be able to enjoy a simple bowl of ramen without his idle eyes drifting to you, always to you, as you bustled about the small shop. Hell, even that fake, enthusiastic smile you would put on for other customers would make his heart feel a bit left behind, as if it couldn’t handle your attention being anywhere else but him because he already got to see you so little as things were. Well, maybe that’s what his heart felt, but he was rational. Level headed, sensible, and indifferent to the whole lame idea of romance. So rational that he found himself making his way towards you during his free time even when he wasn’t that hungry, that he’d see a couple on the street doing something grossly cute and catch himself thinking ‘What would she do if I did something like that?’, and so rational that all you had to do was look at him or say his name and suddenly his chest felt like it was on fire.

Yeah, he was far past ‘rational’.

He didn’t like to think about it, in fact he had never before even really considered dating or romance of any kind, but no matter what unbothered and casual face he could pull, he knew that with you he just really couldn’t seem to keep his head on straight. It was frustrating, had him caught up in thoughts of ‘What if’s’ and ‘Maybe’s’ that he knew realistically didn’t stand a chance of fitting into what his everyday life was, and probably would be, until the day he died a most-likely-early death. He was pessimistic, and not just about this predicament of his, but in this situation his pessimism did a hell of a job trying to beat down any ounce of happiness his little fantasies brought him. Though when he was actually with you like he was right now, hearing you talk about a little thing that happened during school or laugh until you cried at the goofy pictures he’d show you of his classmates or any number of the plethora of minuscule things about you that he had grown to adore, he was ok with letting himself dream. To live in the moment and at least try to enjoy the way you made him feel despite not seeing each other that often or even knowing one another for that long.

‘This is fine.’ He told himself as he once again had to say goodbye, that weirdly dissatisfied feeling settling into his stomach as he began his walk back home. That’s really all he could do, assure himself that all of this would pass and surely someday soon he’d be able to visit you without even a second thought about the possibility of him having feelings for you that were a little bit more than platonic. ‘Maybe the next visit would be that time’, he’d think to himself, ‘or maybe the one after that’, though if he had known the events that would happen in the upcoming week would lead to him not seeing you for much longer than a week or two, he would have thought things through a lot more thoroughly on that walk home and, if you were being honest with yourself, that presumably final goodbye would have been a lot different for you too if you knew there was a possibility that you wouldn’t see him again.

[dawniebb]

Face reveal bc yes

So, guys...especially from the Renegades fandom bc i’m the most active there: you saw the title lmao. This will...barely get notes (i wonder if it’ll get notes at all) buuUUUT YEAH LET’S GOOOO (If you’re gonna reblog pls be respectful bc i have issues and btw reblog ONLY if we are mutuals)

THIS IS ME! <3 HELLOOOO!!!

Now, if you want to stop here, do it. If you don’t...well

I’m going to tell you a story about myself and why I decided to post this.

First of all, I’m not celebrating anything. I’m just celebrating me, I guess (?) and in fact I’ve been wanting to do this since my parents got me a She-Ra cake for my 20th birthday back in May, because I loved that thing and felt the physical need to shove that thing into everyone’s faces But I didn’t because I didn’t feel ready enough...then that thought left my mind, and it came back like two weeks ago.

I’ve had mental issues since I was in like...elementary school. I’m sure I had felt depressed before I turned 12; however, the first memory I hold of feeling so, it’s when I was already 12. Because it was then when I realized that I wasn’t just a dumb kid who didn’t know how to make friends xd To this day, I genuinely feel like I was suffering from isolation bullying; you know xd my classmates purposely excluded me from activities, they would find any excuse for not letting me join their work teams and stuff like that; during my last year at elementary school, I only had like one friend, and that one friend and I shared a sort of abusive/toxic relationship, as in: manipulation, “we’re best friends. you should only talk to ME”, and then this friend turned her back at me too, because she decided to join the rest of the group and ignore me.

lol.

And I remember wondering what was I doing wrong. Like, why didn’t people like me; why didn’t they want to hang out with me; why did everyone seem to have friends except me. And then I got trapped into a very...dark place, and I remember being overthinking one day, because I tend to overthink a lot...and I remembered this specific kid who was in the same class as me.

I was in the line for the teacher to check my homework, and this kid, a boy, was behind me.

You see. I’ve always been chubby xd I don’t think I’ve ever been skinny since I was 2 years old or so, because by the time I was in kindergarten my classmates’ moms were already calling me a ‘little meatball’ thinking it was a fucking adorable nickname because Mexican moms can be pretty shitty sometimes don’t let the media stereotypes fool you not all of them are all cheerful and upbeat and when I was in elementary school, for some reason, besides being chubby, I had a really bad posture. And this boy who was behind me started imitating my way of walking and his friends were laughing, so I turned around and asked him wtf his problem was xd and he turned around to his friends and asked “Do you see how hunchback she is?” like I wasn’t even there xd and I genuinely tried to slap him but I couldn’t, and he said “Yo, stop moving because you’re going to cause an earthquake”

And my mom has always felt personally attacked for the fact I’m...u know, fat. She has always been very insistent on the fact I need to lose weight and stuff like that. And her, mixed with my experiences at school, made me feel like I wasn’t enough.

But my mind started saying things like “And u know why you aren’t enough? Because you’re fat”

Because, like, the day of the hunchback insult, when I told the teacher, who was a very shitty teacher btw but i’m not talking about her again today (i’ve already talked about her in MANY of my university papers, because I’m studying to be an English teacher), she turned around at him and said “Don’t listen to HER” and to this day I still don’t know why xd

But it made me feel like I wasn’t enough. Because I was fat.

Lol x2.

To this day, I still don’t know if I have an ED. Like, I genuinely don’t know. But I can safely say that, if I have one, it’s more likely BED... because, through the years, I managed to lose weight when I turned like 15 and I had my quinceañera party, but then first year of high school came and I had a relapse into depression...like, this might come off as a very unpopular opinion, but junior high school was dope for me x’d I remember it as one of the best years in my life, right after my second and third year in high school (high school in Mexico lasts only three years) and so...when I started my first year in high school and got fucking depressed again, I gained ALL that weight back, and even doubled it. During my second year of high school, I met my friends. The friends I still keep with me to this day. And they accepted me like the fucking train wreck I was, failing math like three times in a row and crying about it every single one of those times  because I’m pretty sure I have dyscalculia but my parents won’t listen to me they think i’m just lazy when it comes to math even though they know i cant even read a fucking clock . And them, along with my another very close friend who I met via fanfction when I was 12, helped me go through it. Like, I did have some issues with my body during high school, but not as much as you would expect. They were getting pretty bad in my first and second semester, but during the other four my friends managed to stop me from losing my mind, even when it all went to shit in my third year again for different reasons.

Then I graduated from high school, and I made friends there too. Although my best friends are still my friend from fanfiction, my friends from high school and just one of my university friends. And you know...I was left...pretty scarred from the shit that happened during third year of high school, and even if I didn’t feel like I was *that* depressed, I did gain a lot of weight.

Like, the highest I’ve ever been. Then my dad got sick during October from last year, then my two doggies were murdered god i fucking hate my neighbors the same day my dad was released from the hospital and my mom went kinda nuts during December and I wanted to just...yeah.

So I did a lot of emotional eating. Like, y’all don’t understand.

It was like...I would go to uni and eat a brownie. Then chocolates on my way home. THEN a “a snack” like...fucking rice krispies. Then a huge ass meal, with soda bc why not. Then I would have either cookies or hot cheetos as a treat after my huge ass meal,

I’m a short person xd carrying that much weight was making my ribs and back hurt, as well as my legs and feet; my breathing was freaking awful, and there were some days were I got SO paranoid I just said things like “i’m gonna die today” or “out here trying to get diabetes like the rest of your family, aren’t you??” :’) but i didn’t tell anybody. My parents are not really an option in this case, BUT I didn’t tell my friends, because then I would have to explain that I ate a lot and that was something I was EXTREMELY ashamed of.

When February came, I was scared of going out, because I knew I would have to choose what clothes to wear and nothing fit me anymore and, the things that did, looked super stretched on me and, u know, I was sore. My health was getting bad. But I didn’t like to feel that way.

AND I MUST CLARIFY HERE. I’M WORKING ON THAT. I’M ACTUALLY A BODY POSITIVY DEFENDER, I JUST DIDN’T LIKE HOW *I* LOOKED AND, BESIDES, I WAS GETTING SICK. I GENUINELY THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE AT SOME POINT. I’M NOT SAYING BEING FAT OR CHUBBY IS DISGUSTING. NO. I BELIEVE ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE EXTREMELY BEAUTIFUL. AND IF I’M WRITING THIS IS BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO KNOW RECOVERY IS DISGUSTING AND DIFFICULT SOMETIMES AND THAT IF YOU’RE GOING THROUGH SOMETHING LIKE THAT: I’M SORRY. NOBODY SHOULD EVER FEEL LIKE THAT. I SUPPORT YOU. AND I HOPE THINGS GET BETTER. AND NO MATTER WHAT OTHERS SAY, YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL. YOU ARE TO CHANGE ONLY IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE. BECAUSE IT’S YOUR BODY. KEEP HOLDING ON.

But going back to the story...

My friends used to tell me I looked pretty all the time, which I appreciate a lot to this day. But my parents were like

Me: I’m fat and I look deformed.

Them: I agree.

Because yeah.

Just before the pandemic madness happened, I went on a school trip with my uni friends and one of them triggered my isolation trauma in the worst way possible...and that, somehow, ruined ALL the photos I took throughout the trip. Because I wasn’t enough. Because I was deformed and fat and I looked like an apple. Because nobody wanted to be seen near me. And my personality was shitty.

Like, I should’ve known I was worth it. I’m still worth it and I know that. But I wasn’t less worth it when I was chubbier. And maybe I didn’t look as bad as my head made me believe. But at the time my mental health was extremely awful.

Now, covid happened.

Not gonna lie. Quarantine fucked me up as much as it fucked everyone else, but for me...by not going out, I stopped being near trigger foods, and I was even able to consult a dietitian.

I’ve lost 15 kg since March. And I’ve managed to love my past self, but I love this one because changing it was my decision. Sure, my parents didn’t help a lot, but in the end it was MY decision. I’ve come to accept I was worth it even when I felt disgusted by myself, and all of those awful things people said or did to me, like my friend during that trip...

I didn’t deserve any of those things. Because NO ONE deserves to be treated that way.  No one deserves somebody else making fun of them. No one deserves somebody else doing awful things to them that they know damn well that they trigger their childhood trauma. No one deserves to be judged for the way they look.

I was in a very dark place, and sometimes I’m still inside there. And like...during all those times, I kept posting in here.

I remember being next to my dad in the hospital, telling him “Guess what? Supernova drops this week” or “We’re going to watch TDP together, right?” or “Let me talk to you about She-Ra...” ....those were things that like...saved my life for a while, though mostly Supernova. Because, actually, Marissa Meyer has helped me in my fucking darkest years x’d from my third year of high school until now.

Her books didn’t take my depression away, but they did make things a little lighter for me, even when I felt like dying.

And I know this fandom is like..full of minors, so...I don’t know if any of you need to hear this: But you’re worth it.

If you want to change anything in your body, do it because YOU want to.

Because YOU’LL like you better.

Because it’s YOUR body, and it’s the only part of yourself that you and other people can touch.

Nobody should ever tell you you’re worthless because of your weight and your physical appearance. And if they ever do, then they’re the ones who should apologize, not you.

Nobody has the right to mistreat you, abuse you, or use your own body against you.

As for me...my ribs don’t hurt anymore. Nor does my back or my feet, and my breathing is getting better; I took the conscious decision to lose weight but, like I said, now that I’m not in such a dark place, I’m staring to realize that the past me wasn’t as hideous as my mind was making me believe. She was okay; she was broken inside, but she didn’t deserve anything that happened to her, nor did she deserved to treat herself that badly.

I posted my photo just to celebrate that I can finally said I’m not disgusted anymore. I can finally see myself in pictures again. And see my own reflection. Or go through my closet. Or do my makeup, because I LOVE doing my makeup and I was even ashamed of that. I’m not fully okay yet, but I’m healing.

So, if there’s any little Dawnie around here: I hope you give yourself a chance and realize you’re beautiful.

I hope that, if you change, it’s because you wanted to do it.

I hope you know that it’ll get better even if the healing process it’s not that easy.

I hope you know there’s people who love you.

I hope you know that you are beautiful. You were always beautiful and, no matter what path you choose, you’ll always be beautiful.

And worth it.

And human.

And important.

Take care of yourself, because you’re wonderful, no matter your size <3

[bellamyblake]

Hi Iva! First of all I would like to say - thank you for loving Bellamy so much, it means so much to me to read your posts and feel the same love I have for him. The way I wholheartedly with your every word... about his tragic life, his immense love, everything. On the other hand, you must hurt a lot judging by myself - I honestly cannot stop crying multiple times a day. I do not know how to make the pain stop. I dont know how much more I can handle, its not getting better but actually worse p1

P2 when I think about in details about his life like you did – his life had no happy beginning, or middle, and certainly not the end. Maybe only as a baby boy before O was born. I don’t know how to deal with the fact the character that I genuinely believe had it the worst ended up with the worst possible ending as a reward for honestly trying to do better. Like if he at least experienced love and understanding from O or SOMETHING… but she never got to tell him sorry for beating him up,

P3 that now she understands what he did for her… I am gonna go crazy over this, honestly. I wanna stop crying and enjoy fanfiction with much better ending for him. Where should I find solace? Was his death at least quick, maybe he did not have time to think about what happened? Is there an afterlife where Aurora waited for him? Was that what I can hope for when Aurora was NEVER explained, she was not an alien so what was she? But he also sow Cadogan in the same scene and he was alive then?

P4 Should I watch 5x13 on loop to get in my head this was the ending? Should I teach myself to edit and do some manip for the ending? My only way of coping is seeing other people, blogs like yours that love him just as much. But I keep crying and feeling utterly miserable ☹I am 27 I never spend so much time loving any character (fun fact, It must be around 3 500 hours for me reading ff, watching the show and fan edits and tumblr posts). I know Bellamy will always and forever be the one beloved

P5 one beloved character of mine and no one will ever come close. Bellarke, the same – they were my OTP. The only one. I need to do something about this cause I am loosing my damn mind… I could handle almost anything, I would cry, yes, but I was absolutely sure of one thing - no matter their ending, sad or happy, in some sense they would do it together… and we got THAT. Does anything help you? I am so sorry for dumping this on you but reading your posts - its like hearing my soul.

Hello!

First of all thank you for the kind words and for enjoying my blog so much. 

I really do love Bellamy Blake a whole damn LOT. Like a damn LOT hah. I think that’s pretty obvious by the posts I make even if they’re not as many lately because I’m mentally not doing well right now. But that same love you feel, I feel it too and I’m glad I’m not alone in this.

I also get angry too and I cry a lot still about the way things ended. I also have not spent that much time in my life invested in a fictional character before so this is a lot for me as well and I get how you feel.

You asked me if something helps and for me it helps a lot to write you know? Be it meta or fanfiction, I indulge myself a lot in writing. 

It’s funny that even when I write fics I don’t write happy fics, you’d think that I’d make him absolutely happy in what I write but I don’t. But indulging yourself in a world of your creation with this character helps a lot. And it’s fun too, to do this, to build a world for him, a different one-be it with Clarke or with a family of his own or Idk just with anyone. Giving him love that he never had and joy he never felt. I think that helps me a lot and it helps me forget how he died and how much it hurts (I wanna say that even typing this makes me cry hah, so...).

I also like to rewatch some episodes that were more about him as a character and then meta in my head. That usually gets me sad too but it’s also exciting to think about some of the stuff that happened and dive in the psychologity of his character (which I do a lot) LOL. But that’s mostly painful. I don’t get many asks about him and meta stuff so I mostly do it in my head on my own and dive into the world of direction and how things were done and love making sense of them. 

Headcanons are something I love doing too though I haven’t written (or posted) much lately. In fact I haven’t posted anything lately because Idk...I’m not sure that sharing everything you create is good these days. people got so judgemental over time, the way actors and cast are threated is horrible but it extends to the entire fandom and its participants so it’s ugly and dark and horrible and I think stops a lot of people from posting gifs or fics or anything at all. But that’s another subject.

So yes writing helps me a lot. Reading fics helps me a lot. I’m not sure what the recipe is here because honestly I am in the same boat as you. I love this character more than anything and any other that I’ve loved and been in a fandom before so...this is hard for me too. And it’s fucked up. 

I also love making gifs for him though I don’t make anything good or special. Gifs I think can be lots of fun but also pain too-fun cause when you go to gif a moment you can rewatch half the episode (at least I do) and sad cause it can bring you some pain but at the end giffing is really Idk..rewarding. Except when people don’t reblog shit so that’s discouraging too hah.

I’m sorry I don’t mean to be a debbie downer.

To tell you the truth after years of being on here and in fandoms I realized this-I can create to soothe my soul from the pain, like from losing Bellamy but I don’t have to seek validation from people and post it. I can do it just to heal myself and not share it. When you share it what? You just get disappointed. That’s why I have 230 drafts. Half of them are unpublished headcanons. some of them are published fics with few readers or readers who yelled at me for writing sad stuff. the other half is stories i’ll never post. So I guess my advice is-

find something to get your hands on, to create, be it editing, giffing, writing, something to let the grief out, to soothe the wound inside you. and then you can decide if you want to share it or not. and even if you don’t it was inspired by the best character ever. 

He was loved, he deserved more, he did. But you can create worlds where he has more.

He can be held by his mom as a baby, he can be tucked in, he can be climbing up her leg and reaching for her arms, he can be cranky when he had his first tooth, or sad when he had to go to day care, he can be scared before his first exam and anxious as he grew up. He can be having nightmares and not sleeping when O was born, he can be terrified and feeling alone. He can have friends and be hugged and loved and have a first kiss, he can live in a house by the ocean with clarke with two beautiful kids and a dog and a cat for her cause she loves cats. Or he can be alone curled up in his bed just crying his grief away.

He can be anything that you wished for him, anywhere you wished for. 

Hope I helped some! 

[wainwrightjakobshammerlock]

finally. i decided to do this. anyways hello there, i am jake and today i want to talk about something; you see, if you are in the tf2 fandom, you probably know about heavymedic. Wherther you are a hardcore gamer who resents f2p’s or a person that never played the game but has trillions of notes on their art- you know heavymedic exists and most of all you probably ship it.

And I find that weird. In the few fandoms in my life I have been in I had never seen a single ship be so widely if not shipped, then accepted. Sure, maybe everyone in the GF fandom knows what Billdip is - for better or for worse. Sure, maybe the HS fandom is 70% shipping.

But I have never ever seen such a phenomenon in a prominent multiplayer game fandom. A fandom, sadly, oftentimes filled with toxicity. Overwatch is very similar here - yet ships are either a hot topic of discussion or straight up ignored. But TF2? In here for whatever reason we ship these two mercenaries. And in this essay I will try and find a reason or two why is that.

Apologies for any mistakes or incoherency. English is not my first language, I need to ramble, and my vocabulary is all over the place.

Content warning: mentions of homophobia, blood, death, mentions of WLW fetishization, nsfw mention. Also MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE TF2 COMICS.

Part 1: Canonical Evidence and Interactions

Let’s be honest: I could ramble about this one for days on end. But I’ll try and keep it short.

First and foremost we have the official videos. And of course the first thing that comes to mind is Meet the Medic.

At the very start of the part where Medic himself appears, we see him telling a joke about a particularly gruesome situation to Heavy.

He laughs along with him, visibly enjoying his company. He even smiles as he waits for another joke. Heavy only shows genuine fear a lot later.

And of course this damn scene always cracks me up. Medic slightly pinches Heavy’s cheek and strokes his lip gently (the other part is almost not noticeable unless you play the video at slow speed).

Of course we all know about the Hand Hold that happens somewhere halfway in the vid. I don’t think I have to explain the gayness in that. The fact their hands stay interlocked even after Medic helps Heavy up. The deep breath Medic takes because even he cannot handle the emotions. That few seconds is unresolved sexual tension manifest.

Overall the short shows a strong feeling of trust between these two. Medic confides in Heavy and reverse. Yeah he puts a baboon heart into his friend’s chest cavity but the fact (as proven at the end of the video) that Heavy was the first one to have an Ubercharge implanted into him shows that Medic at the very least considers him a lab rat.

I treat End of the Line as non-canonical, as do many others, and as such won’t discuss it here. But it will forever crack me up that Valve endorsed such levels of homoerotic subtext.

These two have some short moments in other videos, like for example in Invasion Heavy helps Medic up (CINEMATIC PARALLELS) but it’s nothing major so I guess I’ll skip forward.

Second is their interactions ingame. You might call me a weirdo for trying to find stuff in there but holy shit I have things to say and I’m going to say them.

You thought I was going to fanboy over the “i love this doktor” voiceline huh? Well not really. I wish these two had unique lines if they assist one another.

Heavy is literally listed on the official wiki as the “ideal medic buddy” and multiple pages on that exact wiki say some pretty interesting things.

I have to say something about the Gentleman’s Ushanka and/or Pocket Medic. They are both community cosmetics - but the fact they both got accepted by Valve says a lot. Above is text snipped from the actual wiki.

Last but not least: The Comics. Darned comics. The pair of mercenaries has basically no interaction - unless you count issue 6.

Heavy getting absolutely PISSED when Medic is killed by Ch*avy. Their reunion. Medic referring to Heavy by “my friend” in a totally straight way. Kind of sad Valve wasted an opportunity for them to hug. Maybe they knew their comic artist ships them and wanted to avoid having to answer the Question™.

Part 2: Dynamics

This part’s a bit trickier, mostly due to the reason that I’m new to this whole dynamic analysis thing. Yeah I’m good at spotting canonical evidence but very specific shipping dynamics often escape my gaze.

The most obvious one is Big Guy, Little Guy. Quoting the TVTROPES page:

[…] This trope describes a pair of guys who always fight together, are best friends forever, and quite often have a very obvious hierarchy: The little guy is often in charge […] The little guy is usually listed first, since he’s the leader, and they are always listed together, as if they are one entity. In fact, some episodes may center on the fact that they can’t live without each other. […] If this is a case of Brains and Brawn, the Big Guy is usually the Brawn, and the Little Guy the Brains. It’s almost never the other way around, but in some cases the Big Guy can be rather smart too. […]

A sub-type of this, a common favorite here on Tumblr is known as “small chaotic big calm” and hoo boy if that isn’t these two. I don’t really have much to say here - again I am not an expert.

Part 3: Fandom Impact

So you don’t think Red Oktoberfest (as Heavymedic is sometimes called) is super popular on anywhere else than Tumblr? Wrong.

It’s hard to find TF2 fics on Archive of Our Own not tagged with Heavy/Medic. Of course most of them only contain hints to their relationship but go in the main tf2 tag and I can guarantee you, you’ll gonna see “implied heavy/medic” all the time.

But these two go further than AO3 or Tumblr or Instagram or whatever. They are recognized even within the wider circle of the fanbase. Take this SFM, for example. (I am using the Saxxy Awards version of Secret Lives here mostly due to the fact that the Heavymedic moment is much gayer. In the normal version, the dialogue isn’t changed, but they simply hold hands.)

But it gets deeper. (WARNING: THE GAY MOMENT IN THIS ONE IS NSFW. NOT EXPLICITLY SO BUT JUST A HEADS UP TUMBLR PLEASE DO NOT FLAG ME)

And the best part? The comments are extremely positive. You’d expect hoards upon hoards of homophobes screeching but no, the comments are supportive. Even on places such as Reddit or Youtube, comments like “yeah they’re gay and in love” do not get downvoted/disliked to hell; in fact the opposite.

Part 4: Canon Status

Let’s be real. Most ships are shipped because people want to explore the dynamics in fanfic, fanart or something else. But Heavymedic is shipped because… well, I have no idea.

Actually, I kind of do - but only theories. You see, while the canonical evidence is here, the creators have never said anything about them. No confirmation, no disproval, no hinting, nothing.

But the ship is so prominent! There has to be something causing this!- you say. And to that I present you 2 theories on why Heavy/Medic is so popular.

Theory number 1 states that we simply all choose to interpret their interactions as homoerotic. And this is very easy to disprove - there’s simply no way we just collectively agreed on these matters out of nothing. There has to be something bigger.

And theory 2 states that, well, our interpretation is the desired interpretation. But this is even more ridiculous than theory 1 for a number of reasons. If they are in fact gay, why hasn’t Valve made them canon yet?

A Theoretical Scenario

I am going to ramble big time on this one, so buckle up lads. I’ll discuss a theoretical scenario in which, well, if that was not obvious, Valve confirms Heavymedic as canon. Maybe then we will see why they will probably never do so.

TF2 is considered by typical capital G, alt-right Gamers as a “non-political” game. This means no women (in the game itself, at least, and if even, sexy women only), no queer folk and no minorities (for some reason they accept Demoman but throw a fit if someone draws any other merc as not being pearl white). Team Fortress 2 was around before Gamergate and other things like Gamers Rise Up. It’s a classic and Valve is regarded as the good guy to Epic Game’s bad guy. If Valve did anything to confirm doubts, wherther it be clearing up popular fanon or confirming ships, these people would throw hands. (Although they seemed to ignore when one of the writers confirmed Miss Pauling is a lesbian. Huh.) Even those that don’t play TF2 would come to the aid of their bros.

Let me illustrate with two very similar examples. In both cases these confirmations were the first made by the company as a whole, both are fairly recent and both confirm a character as gay.

First we have the confirmation of Tracer from Overwatch as a lesbian. It was done in one of OVW’s comics. Tracer is the FACE of Overwatch as a whole and while most of the fanbase accepted it (thankfully the Gamers are reluctant to infest ow), some people threw what I can only describe as a hissy fit. At least her girlfriend’s a background character.

Second is Neeko from League of Legends. Unlike Tracer she was added a while before it was confirmed she was gay. LOL is much more toxic and filled with Gamers than OW and holy shit people smeared LOL so much.

Of course these are not accurate to Heavy/Medic. In both of the cases I listed it was girls being wlw and we all know how much cisgender heterosexual gamers LOVE yuri porn. Apparently only girls can be gay because they can jack off to it - if it’s two guys then it’s disgusting. Nevertheless I think these are good approximations - in every case the company gets “shat on” on social media and other sites. With the community that Valve has, I think even if they wanted them to be gay, they would never ever confirm it.

Conclusion

I’m sorry for that ending. I had to theorize a bit. Regardless I’d love if you shared this on other sites, reblogged or whatever - I wasted at least 1 and a half hours of my life on it. Feel free to cite this as a source if someone asks you why you ship the big heavy weapons expert and the feral battle medic.

[aproblematicpanda]

2, 3, 12!

Hi Tee! ♥ First let me just say: GREAT URL CHANGE. I FULLY SUPPORT IT AND I LIKE THE WAY YOU THINK.

2. Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP? To be quite honest I don’t really know what counts as “popular” so I’m just going to go ahead and name ships that I’ve seen people ship, whether they’re considered popular or not I’ll leave that up to you. Raven x Murphy is one that comes to mind. I don’t know if a lot of people still ship it, but I think it was gaining quite a bit of popularity in season 5 (I believe there even was a cut scene of Raven kissing his cheek but that could’ve been in season 4, honestly I’m such a terrible addition to this fandom, half the time I barely even know what I’m talking about). But I don’t see anything romantic there. If anything, I see Raven as sort of like Murphy’s big sister - she’ll tease him and call him names and he’ll give her a hard time but if it comes down to it, they have each other’s backs. So a sibling dynamic or just really great friends. There used to be a lot of bad blood between them and to be honest I’m still not entirely comfortable with Raven being best friends with the man who permanently wrecked her leg albeit not on purpose. But the show is terrible at addressing stuff like that so 99% of the time I just ignore it I guess? Anyway, I think they have an interesting dynamic and I always enjoy their scenes together, but never in a romantic way. Then, and Nicole is going to kill me for this but I’m going to say it anyway, there’s Octavia x Gabriel. Again, I don’t know if a *lot* of people ship it, but quite a few of them do and I don’t know, they just don’t do it for me I guess? I mean they’re both hot and they look amazing together, but in season 6 I feel like Gabriel only looked at her like she was a piece of a puzzle he was trying to solve, not a woman, and I just don’t get a shippy vibe when I look at them. That being said, I do think they make a good team and I could get on board with them having a great friendship. I just don’t see a romantic relationship blossoming there because honestly, this man will never look at any woman the way he looks at that damn anomaly. Also, I have not forgiven him for mentioning his friends in 7x07 and then only calling out “Echo! Hope! I’m sorry!” because Octavia should’ve gotten a mention there. Yeah, yeah, he spent five years with them but if I’m supposed to ship him with Octavia, then he should’ve said her name, too, and that’s that. And then obviously there’s BeIIamy x CIarke. At least I know for sure there’s a popular one LOL. I don’t ship them romantically, I never have. But I also don’t think they make a great BroTP, I’m just mentioning them in my reply so you’ll be absolutely positive that I don’t see any kind of TP whatsoever when I think about those two. Other than that I guess I’m pretty down with most canon romantic ships I guess? Wouldn’t have turned anyone into a BroTP instead, and I don’t think there are any (popular) ships left that I feel strongly about so here you go! 3. Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? Oh my god, so many times. Usually it’s because they have a very, very *wrong* opinion about Octavia or because they ship B x C and reblog them far too often. In the past I would’ve replied to those wrong opinions or made anti-gif sets to prove my point about the ship I mentioned but then I grew up so nowadays I just unfollow (and when they tag their shit incorrectly I even block them when I feel like it - I also have two people who I blacklisted via XKit so their posts and edits won’t show up on my dash, I don’t want to block them because it’s not that they tag incorrectly and I do want to allow them to keep reblogging stuff I make because sometimes they do, it’s just that they have such terribly wrong views on Octavia and the gif sets they sometimes make make me want to throw my computer out the window so I figured it was best to just make sure I don’t see their stuff on my dash, *ever*). 12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? Ehh... This is a hard one, because I think sometimes fandom tends to disagree on what does or doesn’t count as an arc. But for the purpose of answering this question I’m going to go with Echo’s... I’m not going to call it “character development” because that makes it sound like she used to be a bad person and then she changed and that’s not what happened. She was never a bad person. Let’s call it Echo’s journey. She started off as an antagonist (which is why it bugs me so much when haters like to call her out on “trying to kill Octavia”: she was on the opposite side, of course she was going to do shit that the protagonists don’t like, that’s what happens when you’re on the opposing team, it’s called story-telling). There’s our group of “heroes” (god I hate it when the show calls them that) and then there was Echo, on the other side, siding with the people who wanted to harm “our heroes”. But then those people cast her out after she did everything she could think of to keep them safe (I’m not saying she did the right thing by cheating in the conclave but she did have noble intentions for doing what she did) and she had nobody anymore, until Spacekru took her in and her loyalties shifted from her former clan to Spacekru. We don’t have a lot of information about what went on on the Ark, but I like the little bits and pieces we did get. I like that it’s canon that she didn’t tell anyone much about herself, that she’s not an open book at all, that she’s closed off, distant, doesn’t let her true feelings surface because it makes her vulnerable and if there’s one thing she learned from life at a very young age, it’s that she can never appear vulnerable, ever. And I like that in season 6 and especially in season 7, she is forced to deal with what happens when she can no longer repress her feelings but instead has to let them out. Is she coping with them in a healthy way? No. Of course not. Not at all. But what did you expect from a woman who saw her parents die when she was just a little kid, who was forced to murder her best friend in self-defense and then use said friend’s name as her own and who was from then on trained and used as a (child) soldier to do someone else’s dirty work? Do you honestly expect someone who carries around that much trauma, who has this many wounds that she could never allow to heal, to deal with losing the man she loves in a healthy way? I think it’s fascination to see her wrestle with those feelings, feelings she can no longer repress or ignore, and I honest to god hope the show will allow her to work through that grief eventually without turning her back into the coldblooded woman she used to be or, god forbid, give her some kind of sacrificial death to "make up for all the bad shit she did”. Echo’s not a bad person, in fact, she’s a far better person than most of our “heroes”. Being able to do what needs to be done doesn’t make her evil, because most people on this show would be evil then. Echo is a severely traumatized young woman who hasn’t had a sense of home in decades and then, when she finally found it, when she finally learned to open up and let herself be soft and vulnerable again with her new found family, it was ripped away from her again. And I think that her journey is one of the most compelling ones of all characters because she goes through so much and yet here she is, ready to fuck shit up to get shit done. I can only hope she’ll get to soft epilogue she deserves, after a lifetime of being at war. Salty Ask List

[avenger-hawk]

(1/3)HELLO! It's me, Anon who loves you again(lol). But you can call me Zera since I feel like we are going to interact more now (if u want to of course). But Damn, I just went back to finally read your response and I agree so much with what you say. I have an entire essay to write back and this shitty ask will not let me express myself lmao. Anyway, those past few days I felt so shitty just because of how degratory people can be on the internet because they think they are anonymous.

(2/3)Tumblr at this point is so…f*ucked. Constant slandering denigration, muckraking and aspersions. Some people try to negate the toxic and keep it alive but this platform is a breeding place for mob mentality. I’ve seen so many people bullied out of the place just for having a differing opinion. And so many people being all woke trying to “spill tea”, “expose” real people. They tarnish people’s feelings and reputations all behind their safe anonymous cocoon.

(3/3) And they justify this abuse/slander with “I am allowed to express my opinions so gtfo if you don’t agree bitch”. They play the victim when people tell them that opinions do not mean denigrating real people for bullshit reasons with no real proof. At this point sweetie, I am just ranting. Sorry if I am bothering you with those negative thoughts but I felt so shitty those past few days and you are pratically the only one I can get behind in this hellhole tumblr shit. Also, I am writing out-

(Last Part) As I was TRYING TO SAY before the limit bullshit cut me off, I am writing out a response to your previous response to my previous ask. It’s way too long already so I will either need to send you through dm or cut it out into pieces after I have fully written everything out. Thankkk you so much for talking to me despite me being so sudden with you. I appreciate you so much and I hope you are taking care out there (both physically AND mentally). Also, loving those art reblogs

Hello Zera and nice to meet you by your name (or nickname, it’s cute anyway~) and I’m glad you like my fanart reblogs.

I am sorry that you are feeling shitty…it’s frustrating, to say the least, to see people hide behind anonymous and slander blogs, names, real people who are behind them, for an opinion, a taste, whatever. I find irritating even the words/expressions they use, maybe because as a non native English speaker I saw them for the first time used in this bad context so they are only associated to tumblr fake woke idiots and their ‘that’s the tea’ shit. And it’s ironic that they can talk shit about people however they want but when people do the same to them they justify with not only the reasons I listen in my last reply but also with this thing you mentioned, that they are allowed to express their opinion…like, what about the person they slandered? oh but they are not ‘valid’ (I hate this word too) because their opinion is wrong. Says them, ofc. Then ofc they start playing the victim because poor kids, everyone is a bully to them.

It’s ok to rant, I understand your feeling well and I’d like to tell you that if you ‘stop paying attention’ to this it will be ok, but I do fall into the frustration & irritation pit too sometimes. But it happens less often, cause I channeled my fandom time and interested on positive stuff instead and so I want to stay. I don’t want to be preachy or belittle this problem because I know how hard it is (and you can see in my blog that I struggled with these problems directly too, both from dumbasses like those you describe, and from a different kind of creep lol, and even in my other fandom there is slandering and calling out and horrible things), but recently even more, all this coronavirus lockdown (my country is in quarantine since more than a month now) and something horrible that happened to the person I love, made me reconsider certain things. At least for me, at least for now, their importance is dulled down now…Even more than before where I was already detached from fandom dramas.

And since I can see things from a detached perspective I might try ‘suggesting’ something to not let this shit get to you…because life is a b*tch and you can’t allow yourself to suffer for f*ckers who don’t even show themselves, hiding behind an anonymous, or running a shitty blog where they just shit on people, it doesn’t matter.

I don’t engage in fandom discussion (or, like they call it, ‘discourse’, another word I hate) anyway, and I recommend everyone to not engage in anything with those f*ckers. Not because you (not just you Zera but you guys in general) are scared of them but because what they want is attention, and receiving replies, reblogs, attacks, everything, is what they want. blocking them, even making fun of them like they do to others, is ok, cause it’s repaying them with their same treatment. But cut communication. Block people, everyone. These idiots, their friends, those who put likes on their shit, those who put likes on their shit but also to your stuff because they can’t pick a side and maybe they’re good people who don’t think much about these things. Block every single person who irritates you even just a little, and everyone around them. Unfollow people, but mostly block them. The fanarts I post now has little notes compared to the ones I had in the past when I posted them, because I blocked everyone who annoys me, everyone whose opinions annoy me, everyone who starts shit even though I don’t want to speak to them, like every SN/SI/canon stans and puritans and more. I unfollowed friends who followed one of those fake woke b*tches, who reblogged their stuff I didn’t want to see, and made them unfollow me. Marie Kondo my a** lol

And make it clear, so that those who’ll see these people shitting on someone who clearly said they blocked them, will realize who’s bullying who. Maybe it won’t change anything in the short period but in the long run it will, because these assholes have their same behavioral pattern, being overt or even more, covert narcissistic b*tches in need of attention, so if their target ignores them they’ll move to another, in the same ‘area’.

The temptation to check their blogs and see if they attack you, your friends, or what they do in order to protect yourself is strong, but it won’t help getting over this. I know it’s hard and I fell into this a lot, but we all should use fandoms in a positive way to get distracted when we feel like shit because of fandoms…like looking at fanarts, fanfiction or using some private chat group that you know it’s a safe space, even though I read that a dischord chat became moralistic hell unexpectedly, for some the people who joined.

Anyway, sometimes we (and I include myself) fall into this ‘addiction’ where we consider fandom things so important, and we neglect real life people and things…and negative shit like bullying, slandering and all this makes us feel horribly and it’s not different from real life bullying. Sometimes it’s even worse because we join a fandom as a distraction, an escape route sometimes for real life problems, and instead we end up feeling like shit because of it. But, as someone who spent a whole year trying to expose a very bad person who did bad things to me online, and as a person who was slandered many times and always fought back, I can say that letting this affect our real life is bad. Because real life is even harder and we don’t need more weights on our shoulders. And if something like illness or death get close to your circle of people, you realize how all this is pointless, how these f*ckers have no purpose in their pathetic lives other than making others feel bad, and how we can and must fight back everything, but not let it get inside our heads and hearts, where we must keep things we like, our fave characters, ships, dynamics, kinks, people, whatever.

Because, and really everything I say I tried and try on myself first, there will come a time where you’ll look back at this and you’ll realize you might have missed something more important in your life, real or online it doesn’t matter, both are important…Life, I was saying, sometimes is cruel in big and small ways, taking something or someone away from you when you least expect it, making it hard to do the things you like because some a**holes decides it’s wrong, online and offline (like, try feeding crows in my area and see how much hate you can get, and being hated for something so harmless is really horrible, and it’s like the real life representation of online shit imo) is too short to worry about shitty blogs run by shitty people or shitty anons~

I really hope you’re feeling better Zera, and if you celebrate Easter I wish you a happy one!