#felt really uncomfortable because like. fans want their fave to know they exist i guess which is fair

[ragsy]

My infinite respect to creators and personalities on the internet who set clear boundaries between them and their audience, both in a "there's an obvious power dynamic at play here" way and in a "that's a human person, please don't be weird at them just because you like their stuff" way

[volfoss]

how about ranking bucciarati's team?

regret to inform you that ur gonna get a very long answer bc i have passionate feelings about them all! also trish is in this bc she is part of the team and no one will tell me otherwise and will also include some rambling bc it is me and i have so many feelings towards these characters and none of them r cohesive

under the cut just in case (post writing yes it was long)

Giorno Giovanna:

way way more complex than ppl normally give him credit for (i will not go into feelings on how a majority of the fandom treats him unless ppl want me to then i will in fact make a very long ranty post and will not be stopped)

mildly op (esp at the beginning with how hes kind of able to just use his stand really well w no problems altho i think thats true of most of the jojos that we have seen animated?)

i am emotionally attached to him and want to give him a big hug

hes just a kinda goofy kid and is maybe a bit not good with figuring out hey this is a semi dangerous situation maybe i shouldnt be taunting him (leaky eye luca for example)

has the actual best theme

i love how he works off the rest of the team so well (even w members who do not like him)

is in my top 3 jojos i love this kid sm i would adopt him if he was real

7/10

Bruno Bucciarati:

the fucking way his character develops from licky man to best dad material is my favorite thing

his outfit is so so so good i would die to wear it

in general this man is one of my fave jojos characters and i get a lot of comfort from him

hes just really neat and has a good taste in music

he did his fucking best and i will always love him for that

imo the way that his death was drawn out was genuinely one of the most heartbreaking deaths in the entire series and fucks me up each time i think of it

i feel like he really is the one to hold the team together in a way that everyone feels cared for and saved

def has a savior complex tho for sure

dilf but im ace

also manga superiority bc he either makes the stupidest faces or looks very nice (anime has a lot of weird animation in regards to his face) and also because its lingerie there instead of a tattoo that changes thickness and placement every second

10/10

Leone Abbacchio:

guilty pleasure liking man

i am obsessed with his vibes and wish to become him

i cannot physically express just how much i love him but hes one of my faves of all time (not obvious by my theme at all wdym)

i miss his manga palette but also the colored manga isnt my beloved but also black lipstick abba

hot take maybe but anime abba looks better than manga minus the lipstick debacle

hes so so tall and i will steal his height in a nice way

his past man his past it fucks me up

his death fucks me up normally but when i was rewatching recently, i saw he gave this tiny lil smile after helping the kids get their ball and i could not take it anymore

him and brunos relationship (canonically and out of canon too) is one of my favorites in the series

also fandom hot take as i guess i am doing those for everyone- but ppl either have him as cosntantly trying to murder giorno or being like good son and v out of character, and it is really weird? not sayign that ill do better when i write them but also like im convinced some ppl havent seen the show or smth

i will steal both him and bruno and marry them both <3

this man is beloved i love him to death

10/10

Pannacotta Fugo:

i cannot spell his first name to save my life

also fandom take- ppl make him constantly only angry boy all the time and it really irks me. ik araki did not give him 2 much to work w in terms of canon personality but its frustrating

the light novel purple haze feedback is so so so good and adds sm to his character and i really like it for that!

fugo is one of those that imo deserves a lot and didnt get that

genuinely the vibes between how he treats narancia is v interesting to me, like its clear he cares about nara but nara not doing great w math really frustrates him

i love their interactions and how he is genuinely a kind person at times

the manga colors r superior here, my strawberry boy <3

i just really love and appreciate him a lot and wish that ppl gave him more love

i keep getting assigned him on kin quizzes

very smart good boy

ALSO ok fugo did not do any wrong by leaving

unsure if thats a hot take but i genuinely dont blame the character one bit for leaving and again purple haze feedback really delves into that and why he did it

if ur a fugo fan go read it

his past is really upsetting esp in the anime i will cry over it

his stand is adorable and i wanna hug it

his vibes r fun and i wanna gift him strawberry dangly earrings

8/10

Narancia Ghirga:

this boy i am also adopting (i am adopting most of them sorry)

i really hate how ppl act as if hes stupid bc bad math skills do not equal stupid like did ppl not see the fight w formaggio??

the way he just fucking dove into the water after the boat and how brunos face went all soft and happy it will never not make me cry

he is constnatnly making me wanna cry if i think too much about him for 2 seconds i love him sm

how can anyone not adore him when he set an entire street on fire yk

hes just happy despite his past and it makes me sad i love nara sm

torture dance is one of my favorite memes from the show

ALSO ok the way he died so suddenly absolutely broke me bc the remaining team members r really just seeing everyone die in front of them so quickly

his goofy and laid back moments r my fave

i love just how loyal and caring he is to his friends

his stand is really cool and again the fight w formaggio was so fun to watch

8/10

Guido Mista:

probably my least favorite member of the team for a semi good reason:

the jokes towards trish are really really uncomfy and how fugo doesnt wanna be involved but he is pushing him to do something that makes him uncomfortable did not make me like him a lot

hes goofy but not goofy enough for me to be ok with the repeated jokes about that esp in the body swap episode (ik it was supposed to be funny but it just felt off)

his vibes r good but i wish we got to see his hair

the fandom interpretation is normally pretty good of him overall?

despite not loving him a lot, i really enjoying writing for him (one day might open up headcanon requests or smth but unsure)

hes someone id wanna watch movies w but his taste in movies and mine r very different

love how he and his stand get along

honestly has very very good comedic potential

i really like how he and giorno interact as the series goes on (in a platonic way i need to clarify that i love their friendship)

again him in purple haze feedback was really interesting

probably a 5/10?

Trish Una:

beloved and deserved better

her first outfit in the manga > outfit in the anime

actually in general i believe in manga trish superiority like her hair in the manga looks so cool

her stand her stand her stand i love sm

if u dont include trish in the group i am murdering u <3

HER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!!! IS SO GOOD!!!!!!

fandom gripe is how people either pretend she does not exist or has the trish first introduction thing where shes using her defense mechanisms and acting a bit spoiled

OK but her in purple haze feedback!!! mild spoilers but how bruno was taking care of her post the ending of vento aureo makes me so happy each time i think of it

very mad that she canonically didnt really get an ending and yet again PHF my beloved actually gave her that

how spice girl starts out as a stand thats helping her thru a very stressful situation is so cool and i love it

DAD BRUNO DAD BRUNO DAD BRUNO *frothes at the mouth*

but more seriously how she leans on bruno and begins 2 trust him and nearly point blank is referring to him as a father figure always fucks me up

esp because of the resulting fight afterwards

and the very ending of the arc that ends w bruno being like bye gonna go in the clouds and look ethereal now, oh man it makes me so sad

bc giorno is the only one that knew what happened and people that were closer to bruno due to knowing him longer didnt

i wanna see how trish coped w that personally

despite being introduced not at the beginning i think her arc and character in general were as well paced as it could be!

9/10

finally done! sorry that took so long but oh man i have so many feelings towards these guys its not even funny

[fromtheplanethexagon]

the robot problem: a critical look at tobecky, 5 years late

hello wordgirl fandom i am back :) and i have a lot of thoughts that i never got around to expressing before i moved on from the show. so be aware that everything i'm saying is based on my experiences during the 2012-2016 era of the fandom & state of tumblr in general, and i am not familiar with more recent fan content.

it's been over five years since the show ended, and @ifbrd​ reminded me (along with some great analysis) that while tobecky was super popular since before the show technically started (thanks to the play date shorts), it's pretty unhealthy in a lot of ways that tend to be excused or flat out ignored in fanworks. i'd like to reflect on that a bit (a lot); specifically, how both the show and the fandom approached this enemies-to-lovers ship, and how easily this ship can slip into uncomfortable territory if we're careless about how we interpret the ship and create fan content of it.

i will admit, i'm mostly writing this as a response to past me and my old creations - though i moved on from the show as a whole years ago, i do like taking the time to reflect on old interests once in a while, and reevaluating my thoughts on them. and this ship is probably the biggest one that still lurks in the corners of my mind once in a while, so let's go.

cherish is the word: a short positive note before a much longer negative one

i wanted to start this essay off with some positivity, because i am going to be very negative after this. tobecky was, in some ways, cute. it's obvious from the very beginning that these two characters are on pretty equal ground, even if one of them isn't aware of it. and that's part of the fun - the irony of how unaware tobey is that his nemesis/crush/person that pretty much always wins against him is someone that he completely dismisses as incompetent. i want to point this out because honestly, in general i don't like enemies-to-lovers because a lot of them use a power imbalance within the dynamic, and i hate power imbalances, especially when it comes to actual life-or-death scenarios (at least, as much as cartoons can do that). in most episodes, becky is never actually forced to go along with his wishes. she's not held in a 'date' against her will, nor is she ever really outwitted by him. i bring this up because there is one huge, uncomfortable exception, which i will get to later.

another big plus to the ship is the fact that they just... get along? even when fighting? of course we get brief moments where they just hang out and talk about paintings or whatever, but i'm talking about how much they get each other, even if they don't realize it. like the word banter, for example. been there since day one. becky loves words, and while most other people in her life don't really care (ranging from 'eh, that's cool i guess' to her brother calling it annoying), tobey gives her a chance to show off and thus treats her as a worthy adversary as herself, not because of her more generic superpowers - something that we've seen in canon that she feels self-conscious about (see: her motivation in patch game). one of the less noticed examples, to me, is "it's your party and i'll cry if I want to", because it's just - okay. they both are excluded from a social event, and while it's obvious that tobey deals with it by destroying the city, it's also pretty obvious that becky also deals with her frustration by fighting in that battle. like, yes, realistically it's just objectively bad that he's destroying buildings. but they're also providing each other with a way to work through their frustrations, first by fighting and then by talking things out, and finally by hanging out together instead of dwelling on being excluded from the party.

so it makes a lot of sense to me that many tobecky fans gravitated towards writing far-in-the-future fic, usually by implying that some growth had taken place before starting to write the ship. (there are, as far as i'm aware, 2... maybe 3 exceptions, that take the time to attempt a real redemption for him, at least when i left the fandom.) because if you take away his worst moments, either by reasoning out that he was 10 years old and a mess, or that he was a cartoon character in a cartoon world where everyone's actions are over-the-top, or by just flat-out pretending that certain episodes never happened, there's some pretty solid ground to start a ship on.

go gadget go: we all do not see it, we simply close our eyes (review of canon)

when the show began, i was the same age as the characters. a lot of other people were, too - at least in my cohort of the fandom. i think it's pretty safe to say that many of us have fond memories of the show's earlier seasons, and held on to that interest as we got older, for whatever reasons. so like, not to be all 'as an OG fan...', but i remember seeing the shorts air for the first time in 2006. i have a diary entry in july of 2009 about how i, a 12yo with no concept of the idea of 'shipping', was disappointed in the new tobey episode because i wanted more tobecky interactions. (that was robo-camping, btw, lol.) and so i remember how exciting their rivalry felt, watching them as someone literally their exact same age, and then watching that again as a nostalgic 17yo, and then uh... growing up, to put it frankly, and realizing just how unhealthy most of their interactions were.

okay what i meant to say was, this section is an overview of the relationship's canon portrayal throughout the years.

first, we have early tobecky: this includes the shorts and the first few seasons. this is their classic relationship: he likes her and takes robots on rampages to get her attention, she majorly disapproves and has fun taking him down. we've all seen the show, you know what i'm talking about. his backhanded ways of trying to find out her identity often feature prominently in the episodes, which - sigh, i've mentioned this whole issue before, but it's kind of a grey area in the whole uncomfortable-factor thing, because while trying to find out her identity is VERY invasive, it's something that like... everyone in the show tries to do, even her canon crush (scoops). on the one hand, it's really not a great look, but on the other hand, this is a cartoon meant to parody a genre in which this trope is extremely common. so i just wanna say that i have Issues and Thoughts on this aspect of their relationship, but there are other things i find more important to discuss here.

second, we have late tobecky: this is seasons 7-8. this is... a very strange and huge shift from the previous dynamic, though it's not necessarily obvious. what i mean by that is that for some reason, the show writers made it so that half of tobey’s rampages have nothing to do with his crush on wordgirl, even though that used to be the sole reason for his villainy. seriously. we have the birthday episode, where he's upset because he feels left out; wg vs tobey vs the dentist, where he's mad that he has a cavity; and trustworthy tobey, where his robot goes on a rampage... after becky accidentally makes it malfunction. the two outliers are ‘guess who’s coming to thanksgiving dinner’ and ‘patch game’, but they still differ from previous seasons because 1) his destruction is isolated to a forest far away from the city, and 2) his motive is still to impress wordgirl, but his methods are relatively tame. also he completely gives up on the secret identity thing??? i may have missed some things but i think he straight up tells her 'yeah there's no way you're wordgirl, lol' and the subject is just dropped for the rest of the show.

i also want to include 'the robot problem' here, because it's one of two season 6 tobey episodes, and follows the 'doesn't destroy buildings to get her attention' pattern: in fact, he teams up with her to try and stop someone else from going on a rampage (even if his reasons are selfish, lol).

and finally. the other season 6 episode. we have go gadget go, the bane of my time spent in the fandom. because GGG is the single episode where tobey truly manages to take away her autonomy, and proceeds to abuse that power for an extended period of time, for his own amusement. it's bad. it's Very Bad. put in the context that it's a white boy doing this to an (ambiguously) brown girl, it's REALLY REALLY BAD. and the more i look back on it, tbh, the more weirded out i am that the show not only made it seem like she wasn't affected at all within the episode, it just... forgot about it (which is not unusual for shows and especially children’s shows, but WG does make some efforts to either retain continuity or create canon reasons for why things are forgotten about). it's the kind of thing that you can't excuse and honestly you can't redeem (like at this point, you gotta ask yourself why you're spending so much effort trying to redeem this guy when becky has several other possible ships that are nowhere near this unhealthy - violet, scoops, honestly even victoria if you want another hero/villain ship, my absolute fave rarepair rose, etc).

so if you want to still ship it you have to just pretend that it never happened. (i remember trying for weeks to write something exploring the aftermath of this episode, to try and make myself feel better about it, but the more i wrote the more i realized just how traumatic this event should've been, so i eventually just dropped it.) and i brought up my own timeline of experiences earlier to point out that this episode aired eight whole years after the show started. which means that when i saw it, even though i was a huge stickler for canon at the time, i'd built up my own idea of the show and characters strongly enough to go 'yeah, no, this episode sucks and i am going to pretend that it doesn't exist'. and i think a lot of other people did too, because i really saw like... no one mention it, ever, except for some rogue fanfics over on ff dot net that already liked dynamics like that.

because here's the thing, and i don't know if people nowadays are aware of it? but i'm 80% sure (cannot find a source, so the other 20% is that it was just a rumor) that the show was originally supposed to end after season 6. and even if it's a rumor, it makes a ton of sense, because we get 1) an 'ending' to tobecky, which is a bad one, 2) a permanent wordgirl identity reveal that significantly changes one of the major dynamics in the show, 3) an episode where TJ gets to work with wordgirl and get a nice potential ending for their sibling dynamic, 4) an episode where we see Two-Brains explore life without his henchmen... the list goes on, and idk how many of these are just major stretches. but the point is. if the show had ended there, that would've been a pretty solid ending for many things, including their relationship: aka, it would prove that it was only ever heading somewhere bad, and when tobey finally has his moment of triumph, he is truly evil about it. and this provides us fans who HATE go gadget go with an easy reason to dismiss it - we can say that it was an attempt to conclude things in a way that wouldn't have happened if the writers had known they'd get more time. but despite that... it is still a canon episode.

it is odd to me how dramatically the dynamic shifts after that, though, because we seriously go from 'worst case ever, tobecky is toxic, your ship is dead' to 'no actually they get along and hang out and get ice cream together and tobey isn't even pressuring her into it, she's happy to go along with it :)' like, immediately. i never knew much about the show writers, so i don't know if the writers changed in between these seasons, but i would absolutely not be surprised if they did.

the earlier episodes are definitely problematic as well (though they pale in comparison to GGG) but i think everyone who ships it is aware considering that tobey is, yknow, a villain. from memory, he destroys buildings to get her attention, lies to her about the level of danger that people are in to trick her into spending more time with him, blackmails her into reading his poetry, and he creates a robot based on her that’s supposed to be devoted to him (but of course, all of these things backfire). not great stuff of course, but like... he’s a villain, that’s the point of his character. and considering that he’s a child these are things that can be redeemed, if done thoughtfully.

anyway, to sum up this section, the show starts off with a pretty standard 'enemies with an unrequited crush' setup, takes a really dark turn for a single episode, and then for the rest of the show takes their dynamic in a direction that makes it much, much easier to ship. as long as you ignore a lot of previous content.

wordbot: where's becky's autonomy in all of this? (misogyny)

we've finally gotten to the fandom. i recognize that a lot of this is going to come across as hypocritical considering how active i used to be re: this ship, but like... i'm a very different person now. anyway. disclaimer i guess - i don't write this to accuse all tobecky shippers of being like this - i know a lot of us aren't/weren't! but boy do i have things to point out, so without further ado:

it is very hard to ship this without allowing some bit of misogyny to slip into it. very, very hard. the entire premise of the ship involves a girl falling in love with a boy that repeatedly pressures her to date him via threats to the safety of herself and people she cares about, which... it's 2020, i shouldn't have to explain why that's terrible & a terrible example to set for children (which is why i am glad they never made it canon, tbh). best-case fan content has tobey stop pressuring her and start working to redeem himself out of an actual change of heart, which leads to becky seeing him in a new light. worst-case fan content treats his incessant pressuring and sometimes outright threats as something romantic - and even worse, romantic to the point where he deserves her attention and love as a reward for not giving up or whatever. i did see this pretty frequently for a while, especially in the earlier 2010s (didn't read much, Not My Thing At All), but i don't feel like going into detail here because of how obviously problematic it is. one medium (but still bad) case is where the fan content makes him start his redemption, but treats her liking him back as a reward for not knocking buildings over anymore. another not great case is where she tries to fix him with her love, which is a very common and very dangerous romantic trope. both are just... so incredibly unfair to her.

in content where she tries to 'fix him'... yeah i feel like it's really obvious how misogynistic that is. girls and women should not feel responsible for the evil actions of men, plain and simple. idk what else to say here i just really hate that trope and hated it back then and it just sucks! so can we not do that anymore, thanks.

in content that treats her like a reward for good behavior, there really isn't much of an explanation for what she sees in him. if she just goes 'oh wow, you're good now, i am going to fall in love with you for it' the whole thing falls flat because it makes NO sense whatsoever. we get to hear so much about tobey and his feelings and why he likes her and how he feels about it, but where is that energy for becky? why does she choose to trust him, to spend time around him, what does she enjoy about his presence? where is her getting over scoops in the process of falling for tobey? where is her telling her friends about this, confiding in them, asking them for advice? where is her choice in the matter?

win a day with wordgirl: do you guys even like becky or do you just like the idea of her (misogyny... 2!)

it was pretty standard for all fandoms the early-mid 2010s, but that's still not a good excuse for why so many tobecky fanfictions centered specifically around tobey's feelings while refusing to give becky the same level of empathy and nuance. it is true that to ship them comfortably you have to redeem him to some degree, which means spending time figuring him out and trying to find ways to pull him to the light without feeling super OOC. but ships take two people??? and there was so much potential for fanfics to explore becky's complex feelings on the matter - because she is! complex! she's heroic and kind but she's petty and has a competitive streak, she easily befriends villains but also doesn't trust them and doesn't believe they can ever really change, she's the savior of an entire planet but has feelings of inadequacy as her civilian identity and struggles with feeling like she can be successful without superpowers, she's great at the straightforward meanings and uses of words and loves reading but struggles to write passages that aren't dry as hell, it can be easily headcannoned that she's neurodivergent (special interests, issues with fitting in with her peers, taking things very literally, etc)... seriously there is SO MUCH to explore about her character, and a lot of it comes into play when you add tobey into the mix (literally ALL of the things i mentioned are explored at some point using tobey as a parallel or foil), but i rarely saw fanfiction that explored her thoughts on things further than 'he's evil but... maybe good?' or 'he's evil but... i kind of like him anyway?'.

if you want her to fall for him while being a villain, explore it!! why does she go against her morals? does she lie to herself about it to feel better? does she feel like she has to 'fix him' as part of her superhero duties to the city, and if so, how does that affect her as she tries and fails to help him? does she fall for him when she believes that he's turning good, only to feel betrayed when he starts acting worse because he feels like he can get away with it? it's such a shame that fanworks spend so little time even considering these questions, and it is absolutely a product of how deeply misogyny is/was baked into how we approach media (especially back then).

tobey goes good: but wait, i thought this show was progressive (a conclusion, i guess)

ifbrd wrote a great meta recently about how the show is a bit misogynist, despite being progressive in several ways. honestly i don't have much to add, but i'd really recommend reading through this; it makes a lot of great observations about the ways that male and female characters are presented differently through the show

i have little to add, so i'd just like to conclude with a reflection on the ship from my current viewpoint. i do think part of the reason so many of us latched onto the ship, despite how obviously problematic it was, is that the show treats a lot of things that would be serious in real life as normal or even comedic - which is fine lol, i'm not going to pretend that it's not a show for little kids, so they have to keep the tone light.

but if we, as teens/adults, decide to engage with this content in a more realistic manner, we have to be prepared to confront how messed up so many of the things going on really are. and if you still want to ship it, there's nothing inherently wrong with that! there's a lot of interesting things to explore in this ship, no matter what stage of enemies-to-friends-to-lovers you write them at, and it can be really helpful to have a space where you can explore a dynamic such as this in fiction. (speaking from experience here tbh, writing some fic for them helped me deal with complicated feelings about some ex-longtime friends.)

so to write this ship at all means that there are canon issues that you need to deal with if you want to have them end up in a healthy relationship in any manner that makes sense (unless you create an AU where none of that is applicable, which, power to you then). and i’m not saying ‘write them with a healthy endgame or you’re Bad’, not at all lol. but at least please, please take a step back once in a while to examine the dynamic that you’re writing, and please be careful about whether you mean to be romanticizing whatever behaviors you end up portraying as good.

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

Fandom meme: Star Trek DS9 (or another Trek if you'd prefer!)

@portraitofemmy please also accept this as my general Star Trek Opinion offering, because I like many Treks, but this is the one I love.

the first character i ever fell in love with:  Okay, bearing in mind that I started watching this show in 1993 and memory is a Strange Beast, I'm going to guess it was probably Sisko.  I tend to gauge Treks by the quality of the captain first and foremost, so I was probably more focused on him than on the other characters when I was getting a feel for the show, and I'm definitely sure there was no point at which I wasn't All In On Ben.

a character that i used to love/like, but now do not: I'm in general more likely to soften up toward characters than get over them.  I would say possibly Kira Nerys? Not that I dislike her now, especially, but I think at the time I was more excited just by the existence of a female Trek character who wasn't defined by her femininity, and looking back I find her...fine, but less interesting than most of the other characters.

a ship that i used to love/like, but now do not: Yeah, usually ride-or-die on ships, too, but I will say that if you'd told me early on that they'd be doing kind of shippy O'Brien/Bashir by the end of the series, I would have found that pretty exicting, except that when it actually happened, they'd already done a very embarrassing-to-watch Gay Panic, and they managed to use the idea of O'Brien/Bashir in the dumbest, most misogynistic way possible, so the reality of it was a Super Nope With a Side of Yikes.

my ultimate favorite character™: Oh, Garak, for sure.  Garak – unless it's Jadzia, but it's probably Garak.  But also maybe Jadzia. ...No, Garak. (Jadzia.)

prettiest character: Jadzia Dax.  Like, Bashir tries, he really does, and he is a pretty dude.  But this one is Jadzia for sure.

my most hated character: I'm a soft touch and I don't usually hate characters (except, like, in the way you're supposed to hate people like Gul Dukat, who are marvelously hateable), but I will say I prooooobably never gave Ezri Dax a fair chance, and I'm kind of not sorry about it and do not plan to revisit that decision.

my OTP: Garak/Bashir.  Honestly, Trek is traditionally pretty shitty at romantic arcs, and it's not surprising that the most compelling one they ever wrote was entirely accidental.  Bless their hearts.

my NOTP: Ezri/Bashir.  A lot is wrong with this pairing, starting with the fact that I Just Don't Like Her, but primarily the fact that while I know she's not Jadzia, she also absolutely is Jadzia, and Bashir's thing for Jadzia was always uncomfortable as hell, and it's weird to reward it in any way.  Also I don't like her, and also Julian should've been gay.

favorite episode: God, well, it's probably The Wire, but also it's hard not to pick Trials and Tribbilations or The Visitor, both of which just knock my socks off every time, obviously for completely different reasons.  I don't know, I keep thinking of other episodes that completely deserve it, but – The Wire is my heart-of-hearts favorite.

saddest death: Jadzia, right?  Who would pick anyone else, I will fight them!

favorite season: Honestly, probaby 6, which is wild because very few shows are not starting to run out of creative steam by season 6.  But I love the whole Time to Stand arc, and I love You Are Cordially Invited, and there's so much good Julian stuff, Far Beyond the Stars, In the Pale Moonlight – like, just pound-for-pound, season 6 was so damn good.

least favorite season: I don't think 7 really holds up, but I'm not sure if that's because it's really weak, or just because I never rebounded from Jadzia's death, or because it looks weaker than it is because of its proximity to 6.  I just feel like it never came together.  Maybe the writing was on the wall about the ending, and the writers had kind of checked out by then?  I don't know, there are definitely good episodes, but it feels sloppy.

character that everyone else in the fandom loves, but i hate: Again, I wouldn't say hate by any means, but I think I'm not as into Kira as most fans are.  I don't love Visitor as an actor, and I think Kira's stories always felt very – external to me, like she's the lens through which we view Bajor and Cardassia and the occupation and all the political issues, but her reactions to that always feel like she's there to give The Bajoran Opinion, you know what I mean?  Like, I don't feel like she's so much an individual person with individual story drives, so much as she's emblematic of Bajor, which is fine as a story device, but I think I don't connect with her as a person in quite the way I would've liked to.  She's fine.

my ‘you’re piece of trash, but you’re still a fave’ fave: I mean – Garak, I guess? He's a piece of trash but he's also a fucking hero, and that's my catnip, that's  what I look for.  It's not like “*but* he's still a fave,” that's why he's my fave.

my ‘beautiful cinnamon roll who deserves better than this’ fave: Nog.  Like, objectively, the answer is Nog, right?  What a dearheart.  But also I think Julian counts; he's not uniquely picked on by the narrative or anything, but he is a true Cinnamon Roll, and he deserves better in, you know, the way that living in a tv show is always low-key a karmic punishment.

my ‘this ship is wrong, nasty, and makes me want to cleanse my soul, but i still love it’ ship: I don't believe in guilt, but can I use this moment to plug a fic called A Light In the Mirror by Seraphtrevs, which is on the short list of fanfic I've read that is so compelling it transcends canon and genre and everything else and just becomes like a life-altering reading experience.  It's relevant here because I probably should feel incredible guilt about how deeply I wanted MirrorUniverse!Garak and Enslaved!Julian to just, like, work things out, man....  That's bad, that's a wrong impulse, and the story is way too good to indulge my bad impulses, so it's definitely not a romance, but.  I don't know, dude.  I was into them, and the whole thing is brutal and gorgeous, as are the sequels.  I think people should read it even if they aren't Star Trek people, because I think it holds up on its own! Read it, it's so, so bleak but also profound and good and compelling!

my ‘they’re kind of cute, and i lowkey ship them, but i’m not too invested’ ship: I don't know if it counts because it's canon, but I do dig Jadzia/Worf.  I'm happy they made it!  I would've been, like, fine if they hadn't, but it felt really satisfying that they made this sweet odd-couple Klingon-adjacent romance work.

[lori-hime]

I haven't written much about what I've been up to lately, so here's some word salad updates~ 🥗

NijiGaku Anime

So I started watching the new LL. I hadn't been keeping up with SIFAS' story, but I did read some of it when it first came out. I gotta say, I'm really enjoying all of the changes they decided to make for the anime version of the story, to both the characters and story. It's starting to feel like something coherent. The story in the game was ok, but the main thing that interested me was the interactions with Muse and Aqours, overshadowing the actual "plot" and even Nijigasaki themselves. But the anime really made me interested and excited about the story and characters again. I would be a little annoyed about the personality and dynamic changes, but honestly, I'm used to it by now. LL always ends up doing this sort of thing, and the personalities only seem to become solidified after the anime airs.

A little disappointed in Kasumi's change in some vague ways I don't really feel like describing, but honestly it balances out because Ayumu is fantastic now (previously one of my least cared for of the group.) Yu's personality is surprisingly super gay fun and I'm really excited for her and Ayumu's dynamic in particular. They're so cute. Seriously feel like I'm gonna ship them hard.

I also really like Rina's initial personality in this. Not only is she bad at expressing emotions through her face, but she also seems bad at expressing them through words too. I feel like this is gonna be much more interesting than her already being cutesy and genki like in the promo stuff and SIFAS.

When Karin was first shown, I had mixed feelings. At first I was like oh god I'm gay and she's beautiful. But the whole sexuality flaunting thing kind of put me off for several reasons I don't really wanna get into explaining. I really didn't know how to feel. I started liking her a little more during SIFAS, when she competed against Muse in DDR and lost... started feeling like I was getting a glimpse of her real personality without the whole sexy idol persona. Although not much has happened in the anime with her yet, she's giving me Nozomi vibes and I love it. I actually think if I had gone into this without previous knowledge of the characters, I'd be betting she'd become my fave for sure.

My list has gone from Kasumi > Rina > Kanata / Emma > Karin > Ai > Setsuna > Ayumu > Shizuku to Yuu > Ayumu > Kasumi / Karin > Rina > Kanata / Emma > Ai > Setsuna > Shizuku

Still biased a bit towards characters that have shown up more in the first two eps, so it'll undoubtedly change. But It's really interesting how much the characters I already felt I had good placements for changed so much.

Edit for episode 3, because I didn't post this fast enough. Student council speedrun was fantastic. Yu continues to be incredibly gay. I wonder how this episode will affect the ships people will gravitate towards. LL has always been a fairly monoship fandom, heavily gravitating towards specific pairs. Of course that's largely the fault of canon itself, often pushing and developing single ships. Well, I suppose we saw a big change with Aqours, though, especially with season two. But even then, the ships tended to stay at least between girls of the same year (aside from my rarepair, shout-out to YohaRiko.) Now, I wonder. From the very beginning, before Yu even had a name, it felt like they were really pushing the shippy stuff @ the viewer. I wonder if that’s still gonna be the angle. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet. I really want to see more YuAyu rather than YuSetsu, but I can't really be mad at more gay content unless they try to make it a DEEP story and then fail to resolve it but haha they'd NEVER do that, I'm sure!!

As for the others... I'm guessing they're gonna push RinAi, KarinEmma, YuuKasu, and maybe YuuShizu? My original guesses were that AiKarin would be a thing, evoking NozoEli v3. But I guess that'd be too predictable a third time. KarinEmma sounds like it could be cute and sweet, RinAi feels like it has adorable potential, and YuKasu vs. YuAyu sounds like it could have some good comedic rival-y potential, given they don't make Kasumi super serious about it and make it really angsty. Not that a cute idol show would ever do such a thing haha!!!!!

Higurashi Gou

Also started Higurashi. I doubt many people know this, but I used to be a major Higurashi fan before I got into Touhou. It was my main "fandom" I guess, even though there wasn't really that much of a fandom to interact with comparatively. Anyway, despite that, I didn't think I'd get into this remake super hard... but I'm really loving it so far. The art style is really pretty and eye candy, and it turns out it's a direct continuation of the story rather than a remake. Very excited to see where it's going, and also to see a lot of my baby Rena again.

An interesting difference to me as I'm rewatching are my feelings for Keiichi. While I don't hate him, over the years I've really grown tired of the generic male leads (especially in harem anime) like him. Of course, he's definitely not AS generic as they come, or maybe perhaps that's just my bias from when I used to really like him. The me back then found him unique enough to stand beside the girls. Nowadays, I definitely can't say the same. At least he doesn't grate on my nerves as much as most other harem anime protags do, however. I feel like despite lacking the quirks that make the girls so likeable and unique, he still has something going for him... perhaps the fact he's framed as inherently different from everyone else, because he comes from the city, and the way he acts a bit more realistically to the scary things that are happening. Although those things are obviously explained away later, at least for now I still accept him for what he is, old bias or not.

Genshin Impact

Been playing Genshin Impact religiously and loved every second of it. Though I've caught up with the main story content, so sadly it's slowed down. I'd never heard of this game before it came out, so I was absolutely wowed that such a game was f2p. I've heard a lot of people criticizing it because they added gacha in at the last minute, and I definitely understand being annoyed through the pov of someone who was anticipating it. But part of me is still really thankful that the game is free at all. I suppose that full but paid 60 dollar game would still be a better experience, but because of my non-existent budget situation, I may not have ended up playing it at all.

Aside from the arguably shitty monetization practices, however, the game is fantastic. It really is as similar to BoTW as people have mentioned, and I really appreciate that. BoTW, from a gameplay standpoint, is absolutely my favorite game. It's exactly what I want from any given game. So I really appreciated this. The story and characters of Genshin are also really interesting. I really like Qiqi, Venti, Fischl, and Xingqiu, among others. I spent a while rerolling for Qiqi or Venti 5*s, and eventually got an account with Qiqi. Venti on the other hand I've been trying to roll for but sadly haven't gotten. I have 1 roll left before the banner ends, so hopefully.. My friends whaled him for me. I swear I tried to stop them! I owe them my soul...

HoloLive, Pikamee & Vtubing

I briefly started getting into HoloLive a little while ago. After the Aloe stuff, I started worrying a bit about how the company handles these situations as well as the girls' freedoms and how much of their donation money they actually get.. (I made a post about it a while back.) After a while my worries died down a bit, but then came back full force with the Coco and Haachama situation. After that and one too many uncomfortable sexual jokes, I decided to just distance myself from HL. It's a shame, because I really enjoyed their personalities, but it was making me feel uncomfortable more often than not.

I told myself it’s fine, I’ve got Pikamee if I ever feel like watching vtubers again. And then like a week later... Well, it’s not really something I wanna talk about here, but she made some posts on twitter that made me too uncomfortable to continue watching her either.

On a much lighter note... A friend of mine showed us how to use prprlive and facerig to use the Touhou CB Live2D models, and Asa and I played around with Mokou, Kaguya, and Lyrica’s. It was quite fun, and I do look forward to using the Kaguya one for private streams on one of my servers. I’ve actually always wanted to try out vtubing stuff myself, but not really publicly. Of course, the costs for getting a model drawn and made specifically for me are too much for something I’m not really committing to, so this is perfect. I’m excited~

Touhou Cannonball & Kagura Thoughts

It’s been a long time since I talked about Touhou CB on my blog, and I’m pretty sure I left things on a pretty bad note. Mainly dissatisfied with Mokou’s portrayal for pretty shallow reasons on my part, despite they game having just started and having a lot of room to grow. And grow it did. While I quit pretty early in because of that, Asa decided to take over my account. She realized that it was pretty easy to upgrade any given character you had to a 5* without having to rely much on the gacha. She ended up playing a lot with the goal of upgrading everyone we had. I came back to it around July and actually had a lot of fun with it. The cast had gotten much bigger and we really enjoyed playing on multiplayer. It wasn't the best game ever from a gameplay standpoint, but it definitely had it's charm. The announcement of its death, although unsurprising, came at the worst time. Asa and I actually cried a little when we saw the announcement, ngl. The game had such good, wholesome, Touhouy vibes to it. Nonetheless, we made the most out of the last month or so after the announcement. We played a LOT of multiplayer and had a lot of really cute and good interactions with other players. Near the end, we realized that Lyrica was the only character from the normal banner we were missing, so we grinded like crazy (mostly Asa) to try to get her... we ended up getting a number of 5*s but none Lyrica... she eluded us to the very end. It was quite sad, but how hard we worked for it still felt satisfying somehow. We were able to max out our multiplayer level and complete a ton of goals we wouldn’t have otherwise.

So after this bittersweet experience with Touhou gacha, and all the scummy things I've been hearing about Lost Word, I've been thinking like... I'm done with Touhou gacha, at least for now. Don't wanna hear anything else about it for a good while. And then the 25th anniversary hits and they announce Kagura. Ugh. Please, give me a break. Needless to say, I'm gonna have to give it a try. Touhou is my life, I love rhythm games, I love Touhou music, and I love character collecting games. And I've been waiting for something to replace SIF gameplay in my heart for a long time. I'd banked my hopes on SIFAS but it's really barely a rhythm game so.... at least now that I've gone through CB's death and seen how cruddy LW is, I'll have lower standards and not get my hopes up too high.

If you got this far, thanks for reading my rambles and have a good day~

[shinrasfirst]

11, 14 and 19 gimme your salt, deliver it to me yum

SALTY ASK MEME

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

I mean.. Heidegger? Haha. And that is mostly your fault. Like I said, I liked him because I always like a good villain (and a tall guy in a uniform) but YOU really made me love him. I keep surprising random people by mentioning him in the same breath as canon characters. Why?? Because he’s super interesting!! And I love that dichotomy of him being all scary dangerous powerful man and pathetic broken lapdop at the same time. You made him such a multi-faceted character I learn new things every day <3

I’m not sure I know the fandom well enough to be able to tell who is unpopular and who isn’t. Outside the RPC I always felt that Rude was a bit unpopular and I really love him (before Remake came out, I suppose). I just love this bad boy with a golden heart thing he’s got going on. And I absolutely LOVE his relationship with Reno. This partners now and forever / parabatai trope always gets me. And he’s so mysterious too! I wish we knew more about him. At the same time I enjoy making up my own ideas about him :D Roche seems unpopular actually??? And I absolutely ADORE him. I’d pay extra money to have him in the Remake Part 2. I love everything about him; the way he talks, the way he just goes fuck my job I like this blonde boy I’ll help him because he’s MINE to fight? He’s straight out of One Piece and I’m so here for it.

Can’t really think of anyone else!

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

You know what seems to be an unpopular opinion around here? That everyone’s really good at their portrayal and at writing. I see so many posts by people being anxious about their writing and their particular portrayals EVERY DAY and I just sit here not getting it at all. You’re all so fantastic and talented and dedicated and passionate. What’s stopping you from seeing it yourselves? Sorry if that wasn’t salty enough for you, but wait for the next question, Han.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

The same I hate in all the fandoms I was in: the ship hate. It’s kind of subtle here, compared to other fandoms I’ve been in, but it’s there. Everyone is entitled to an opinion on any ship, everyone is free to hate what they want, I honestly don’t care if you hate all my OTPs. As long as you stay polite about it. I’m a little worn down from my previous fandom and probably extra touchy I suppose, but I just find making public posts calling people strange / sick / deranged because they ship something you don’t ship, really fucking unnecessary and rude. ESPECIALLY when you then tag it with the characters and/or ship. Just, don’t do that, bro. Don’t be like that. Don’t like it? Don’t follow those people. Don’t look at the tag. Blacklist it. Maybe stop being a baby. I understand if a ship makes someone genuinely UNCOMFORTABLE (because age gap, familial relation of any sort, dubious con/sent, you name it - there are plenty of things that make people uncomfortable) that they want to really not see it. But if it’s just something you dislike I find it a bit dramatic to treat it like the demon plague that needs to be exorcised from existence.

Actually I find the shipping culture here (and in other fandoms) wild in general at the moment.

I grew up during a time where fandom meant watch canon, ignore canon and write your own stuff inspired by canon. The ships we loved were never the canon ones and no one had delusions about them ever becoming canon. Ever. We all knew Harry would never bone Draco; we knew Aragorn would marry Arwen and not Legolas; we knew Naruto and Sasuke kissed because fanservice but they wouldn’t end up a couple. Therefore no one was weirdly offended when someone wrote a non-canon ship (in RP or fanfic), as if it was suddenly competition for the canon one?? Like, what world do you live in? This is FANON, RP, FANFIC. It’s not REAL. I mean none of it is real, but this is even LESS real than canon. Nothing that happens here is in any way a threat to canon, so why get offended over it? Also let’s put a general ban on hating m/m ships because they’re “erasing female muses” - no, they don’t. They all exist in our bullshit plane of fan creation, on the same level. Let’s stop hating f/m ships because they “get in the way” of your fave m/m ship - this makes no sense. The existence of one ship does not make another one less valid. I can ship Rufus with Tseng, Reno, Scarlet, Reeve and Heidegger in 5 different verses and love them all equally and it literally has no impact on anyone except me and my rp partners. And if another Rufus decides to ship Ru only with female muses, that has no impact on me and my ships. Neither of us have any impact on canon. Please just stop.

Let’s stop acting as if older characters/people can’t fall in love or have sex. Let’s stop as if age gaps are a wild bizarre thing that never happens anywhere ever. Look at your grandparents (or even parent generation I guess) generation - I bet you’ll find a LOT of at least 10 year age gaps. Are you disgusted by your grandparents/parents? [That being said, let’s please normalize women dating younger men as much as it’s normal if an older guy dates a younger woman. But that’s not a fandom problem, that’s a general society issue.] Let’s stop calling someone homophobic because they choose to play their muse straight. Not writing everyone as queer does not equal homophobia. Let’s stop acting as if people who write a lot of smut are somehow worse rpers than people who write little or no smut. At the same time let’s normalize not wanting to write smut. It’s not a requirement and not everyone likes it !!! Just talk to your partners and make sure everyone is comfortable and having fun with whatever you’re doing !! Stop judging each other and being so mean to each other, it’s awful.

Stop hating so much. Focus more on what you love and less on what you hate and you’ll immediately make life easier for you and for others.

It’s just shipping. Fictional fantasy shipping. It’s not worth getting so hateful over.

[bubblegumstardust]

i havent bombarded you with questions in a long ass time so here i am (feel free to skip some if its too much): 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (i know you probably won’t even have to google), 16, 17, 18, 24, 27, 29, 33, 36, 41, 47, 51, 58, 59, 61, 66, 71, 74, 75, 76, 79, 80, 90, 95 and finally 100🥰🥰

Dear God Chelle 😂😂💕💕

So sorry this is so long but I can't do read more on mobile

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk?

I try to have more cereal generally but I just chuck milk in randomly and if it ends up being more then it ends up being more 🤷‍♀️

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books?

I generally just use an actual bookmark, but some things I've used in a pinch are: receipts, a pen, sunglasses, some mail, another book, debit card, a hairband, my purse

4: how do you take your coffee/tea?

I don't drink coffee and I just have a teaspoon or 2 of sugar in my tea

7: do you name your plants?

Yep, I have 2 in my room called Ellie and Nyah. I even named their pots because they're cute and shaped like a sheep and a hippo! The pots are called Pippa and Mimi and they're girlfriends

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings?

Generally writing I guess. I do a lot of painting/drawing too but that's less feeling expression and more just fun.

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself?

Yep, and I'm probably very annoying to share space with because I do it a lot

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach?

On my side and I have to switch like every 10 minutes when I'm trying to sleep or I get uncomfortable

11: what’s an inner joke you have with your friends?

Literally cannot think off the top of my head. @wonderfilledness, remind me please. Also Chelle tell me any of ours I might have forgotten.

12: what’s your favorite planet?

In our solar system, Pluto because fuck science, it's a planet! Other than that there's a planet I can't remember the name of that, because of rotation speeds, always has the same side facing the sun so like most of the planet is uninhabitable except a thin strip on either side between the two

13: what’s something that made you smile today?

The pup. Also I was helping my mum make masks and I completely fucked up and it was really funny

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like?

Ngl it would be a mess. Also probably covered in books and art stuff and it'd probably be light and airy with lots of plants and cute pastel colours

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is!

Oh where to begin! Okay so for one NASA had to design a special pen for use in space because due to the lack of gravity, normal pens don't work. Any liquid in space will form itself into a sphere due to surface tension. Sunsets on Mars are blue. There's a planet where it's constantly raining glass sideways because wind speeds are so high. There's a (I think) dwarf planet in our solar system that they nicknamed The Goblin. Planet 9 is something we can observe exists but no one can find it and it might not be a planet at all. It could be a black hole or something. The moon is slowly drifting away. I'm gonna stop here but I could go on for ages.

16: what’s your favorite pasta dish?

Fucken love a good spaghetti bolognese

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair?

Kinda want it pastel pink or purple again but also really wanna dye it like a deep turquoise colour

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up.

Excuse me how dare you assume I've done anything dumb! Tbh I definitely have but again my memory is really bad for stuff like this so I'm gonna turn to @wonderfilledness and @mooncloudsea for this again

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets?

Tbh, you Chelle. Also I'd definitely trust Alice with them but it's somehow easier to tell you because admiting stuff face to face is horrible and I can only talk to you online really

27: what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor?

I don't like gum

29: what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing?

Everything all you guys do is cute 😘💕

33: what’s your fave pastry?

C r o i s s a n t s

36: which band’s sound would fit your mood right now?

Hmmm. I don't know what my mood is right now so like idk?

41: what’s the last book you remember really, really loving?

I mean I'm pretty sure the last book I actually read was Aurora Burning so I gotta say that

47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe?

Well there's plenty of foods I don't like but I'm not sure I'd ban any of them because there's always people who do like them.

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them?

Okay it makes no sense but I always think of Alice when I here B0$$ by Fifth Harmony because it's one of the songs we always end up screaming along to in the car

58: who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why?

I feel like Alice is a vodka aunt and maybe I'm the wine mum?

59: what’s your favorite myth?

Idk actually. I quite like the echo myth though

61: what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received?

Honestly I have no idea 😂

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like?

Small little delicate one with lots of small cute flowers like daisies and other pink white and purple ones. Also it would be full of forget me nots because they're my favourite flowers.

71: what’s your favorite kind of tea?

Peppermint all the way

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns.

They have short brown hair and give some of the best hugs. They're a couple inches taller than me and will not let me forget it. They also steal all my old clothes and would probably steal my dog if given the chance. They need to learn to fucken drive already and it's been too long since I last saw them

75: tell us about your pets!

He babey. He also a little shit but I adore him

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t?

So many things. Probably most importantly, applying for uni

79: what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you?

Lol no one likes me enough to do something cute for me

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why?

Light purple. I chose it when we first moved here but painted it even lighter a couple years in

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities.

I'm generally not the biggest fan of cities but I actually really loved living in Nottingham. It was super developed and you had like everything you could need and want there but also really kept its historic feel and it never felt so overcrowded like places like London do and idk, it was just a really nice place to live

95: what are your plans for this weekend?

I don't really have any in particular. Probably do some more art and writing and stuff but idk really

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why?

I usually pick future no question but like I'm a little concerned as to what such a near future will actually look like. Maybe the past so I can redo some stuff and make a few better life decisions and get help for my mental health sooner and also maybe find a way to do something to prevent some of the awful things happening right now

[roominthecastle]

I can't help but think you're being a bit too hard on Eleanor because of ship bias. I mean, why would you called her 'her worst self' and 'selfish' when she's always been one to throw stuff to get in heaven (even with the character development)? But suddenly she's being sappy and depending on someone who isn't Michael and the whole M/E fandom is at her throat. I'm as unconfortable as the next shipper with all the C/E scenes but is it really Eleanor and her characterization that's at fault?

Yes, of course I am biased (to a certain degree). When the show caters to my preferences, I’m more docile and much less likely to nitpick and complain, when it doesn’t and it drops the ball to boot, I get grumpy. So I’m your garden variety fan, basically. But I don’t believe I’m “at Eleanor’s throat”. Her and Chidi being together doesn’t make me uncomfortable bc it’s her and Chidi and not her and Michael (+ I often see things popping up in the C/E dynamic that can have potentially interesting implications for Michael’s development and for M/E, too. Generally speaking, the three of them make up a curious whole for me).

I know the chances of (2-sided) M/E happening are somewhere btw zero and never, so I’m not exactly eyeballing C/E as some kind of obstacle to my personal shipper nirvana, jumping at any chance to “punish” Eleanor for choosing the “wrong” partner. But I do feel uncomfortable with the way the C/E romance is written this season. “They are sidelining my no. 1 dynamic”, while frustrating, is not the reason for this, it’s not why I’m not crazy about Eleanor’s behavior and Chidi’s OOC-ness.

Eleanor + character development always resulted in stuff like her being emotional and vulnerable w/o getting aggressive and demanding, her accepting it when Chidi turned her down w/ dignity despite feeling heartbroken, and her being considerate of others to the point of volunteering to go to the Bad Place to save them. This is where she was a year ago and the year before that at the end of each season. This is not where she is now. I’m not saying being selfish and throwing stuff is not in her character make up or her problem-solving toolbox. Her overcoming these impulses, however, is the very point of her character development (made blindingly obvious last season when she lied about passing the Judge’s test and refused to go through the portal to TGP). What we have (currently! so it can change any time) in S3 is the opposite (see the in-your-face door to TGP that won’t open for her), it’s her completely giving in to these impulses to the point of seriously endangering everyone, meaning that she has, in fact, regressed. I suspect it is a point the show is trying to make but we’ll have to wait and see.

In “Janets”, all Janet asks is that they stay put until she and Michael deal w/ accounting. Eleanor works herself into a state over Chidi not opening up to her on command, putting Janet through hell and almost erasing her friends from existence while her own self is also disintegrating. Despite the serious consequences, this harmful behavior carries right over into the next ep where all Michael asks is that they lay low bc folks in TGP are so rule obsessed, they can send all of them right back to TBP. Eleanor immediately smashes stuff at the door to TGP bc it doesn’t open up for her when she demands it. It’s her bullying of Chidi from the previous ep all over again, only in a vase-meets-door form. Even Chidi has to be all about her now as he magically turns into a grossly idealized version of himself (see in S2 how she rejected a similar “fake Chidi”), spending the entire ep trying to prevent her from blowing up again while the rest of the team is cleaning up the mess in the mail room and Michael is away trying to fix the calculation issue. Despite the crazy-intense circumstances, everybody is trying to do something for somebody else except her - she is still hyper-focused on herself and it stands out to me bc this is a version of her I’ve never seen before and it’s def not the best one.

Again, it’s not because she is w/ Chidi but the issues become especially apparent within that dynamic since the second Michael showed her those memories, she just latched onto Chidi, expecting him to fill the void left by her screwed up upbringing that’s been freshly dredged up thanks to her not-dead mother. They made her lurch from “I’m incapable of love” to “I’m madly in love and nothing else matters”, hand-waving determinism while failing to provide any other reason why these 2 are suddenly together again. They are trying to play it as romantic/funny but it’s not romantic when someone’s whole identity has to be propped up by another person and it’s not funny how that other person has to repress his own identity/issues to be able to do this. It’s a suffocating, unsustainable interplay. Or if it’s meant to be interpreted as “love cures mental illness and erases every character flaw in 5 minutes, so you can finally be the proper romantic partner”, then it’s even worse. You don’t have to be a shipper of another ship or look too deep into this story to see these (imo) legitimate problems (but it helps, yes, since it’s natural to be more critical of sth you’re not emotionally invested in and gloss over stuff to preserve the fun potential when it’s your OTP or sth, I do give you that).

Eleanor having to coerce love and attention out of Chidi will never be cute, either, or proof that those feelings were there all along. People pushed some quotes from WJH into my face about how Chidi calms down bc he finally has what he always wanted - interesting choice of words, btw, given the pin Michael gave Eleanor - but 1) an actor’s opinion will not automatically replace my own (no, not even if it’s Ted’s or some other big fave’s) and 2) how exactly were we supposed to glean that Chidi wanted to be with her so much in this reboot? Was it when he went steady w/ another woman despite Eleanor being an option all along? was it when he refused to give private lessons to her bc he was just too busy? or was it when he - despite witnessing her meltdown - sent her packing bc they already had enough material for his study? For some reason the writers missed every opportunity to build this up properly and make this extremely syrupy display stick, but I’ve already said everything about that in another post.

This whole idea of “he felt this way all along, he just didn’t actually show it, so we can skip actual development” is a lazy, corner-cutting approach which reminds me of the worst kind of fanservice attempts I’ve had the misfortune of experiencing with several of my favorite shows recently. I have very low tolerance for that stuff now bc it never ends well. I did not expect to see this particular brand on this particular show, but here we are, I guess. Or if it’s a case of creative exhaustion/boredom where this billion times rebooted couple is concerned, then maybe it’s time to park them and give a not yet over-explored dynamic some attention instead to keep things fresh and fluid as opposed to stale and forced - again, not an unreasonable request, even if it comes from someone who is invested in another dynamic, given the lack of care that was apparently put into developing C/E this season.

I don’t like not liking things on this show (and it’s not Eleanor I don’t like, it’s the way they deconstructed her in order to write her back into a relationship as if she couldn’t exist w/o it), and I am sorry if I disappointed or offended bc it was not my intention. I hope they flip things or introduce a new angle that will make me re-evaluate. I am always open to that whenever new material arrives and I honestly hope they will make me eat my words soon. I will merrily absorb the suckerpuches. But for now, this is my opinion and “you just don’t like that she is not with your fave” - while a natural factor - is not the main reason why I made my comments.

[iampikachuhearmeroar]

band rant:

okay, so. i never get involved in band drama nowadays bc like who has the time for that? but i felt like i had to say something on this topic.

today i woke up to being tagged on a fb article about how absolutely disgustingly creepy and inappropriate fans are being at p!atd concerts, when brendon urie does a big walk through the crowd during the song death of a bachelor. the thing that disturbed me the most about the people that lick or kiss him or do other creepy/concerning things (without his consent) is that they’re literally adults in their 20s, or at least that’s what people were assuming in the comments on the article, who should know that this stuff is creepy asf.

like don’t get me wrong, it took me literal years in my teens to realise that my attitude towards brendon and other band members (who I won’t mention by name here, but y’all know who they are by now) was creepy. 

 I’d make jokes about turning up their shows naked under a trench coat or how if i ever lived in the states they’d all have restraining orders out on me bc i’d follow to them to their houses and shit. hell, I even made a joke coming home from a concert once that i wouldn’t wash my hands for a week bc i touched one of the guitarist’s guitars and their hand at a show in 2009 (y’all can all guess who that was). i cried for an hour on the way home, bc i did actually wash my hands after that show. seriously 13/14yo me was a fucking freak when it came to her fave bands. 

but the difference between me and these creepy presumably 20something women who should know better is that i was a kid who didn’t know any better and thought these jokes and other ones i made (like tagging a particular band’s members on my crotch and my very non-existent bewbs (*teenaged sniggering*) at that point, on my myspace with sexual tags) were funny and not creepy. when on the contrary, they were really, really fucking inappropriate/creepy and NOT FUNNY (bc these guys were in their fucking 20s (!!!!!!) and i was a literal goddamn child in high school). 

it wasn’t until I was about 15/16 however, that i realised that i wouldn’t like some random kid turning up on my lawn to scream at me or turning up to my shows naked etc. but younger me thought her fave celebs owed her their time and stuff.... when they don’t. at all. in any sense of the matter. and yes, when I found those mentioned myspace tags at 18 when I went through my MS before it got deleted: I WAS FUCKING MORTIFIED. DO NOT DO THAT SHIT ON SOCIAL MEDIA. EVER. PERIOD. 

finally, to finish this part of the post, the topic of consent wasn’t as openly discussed 10 years ago, back when i was doing this shit. if it was ever was discussed, it wouldnt’ve been like it is now, and I would’ve been to selfish and young to care about it tbh. bc after all, teenage me was an asshole. it’s only recently, (meaning like 2013), that I started to better assess my behaviours towards famous people (especially my faves/idols/role models) and my ignorance of their obvious non-consent in these scenarios.

the very same goes for these incidents. like, who the fuck wants a completely random stranger (and especially one that should know better by now) randomly kissing them or licking them???? what the fuck????? and then other weird things like intentionally grabbing their face etc??? i don’t fucking care if you’re inebriated (bc it’s a concert and if you’re over 18 in aus or over 21 in the US, why wouldn’t you have a couple of drinks? but this is currently happening on p!atd’s US tour) while you’re at p!atd shows. i don’t fucking care if you think that brendon urie is “my (your) baby! <3 *sigh* 😍😍😍😍😍😍” (girl he ain’t your baby, let me tell ya.) and “oooh my ovaries!!!” 🤤🤤🤤😩😩😩 (idk what constitutes as a swooning emoji lol) or any other weird fangirl nonsense speak shit you want to throw at me, because:

THIS SHIT IS CREEPY ASF. IT. NEEDS. TO. STOP.

like for the women apparently doing this, think about it this way: if some creepo dude in the club starts kissing you when you’ve repeatedly told him to fuck off or whatever.... or just randomly approaches you for a hug; you’d be grossed out and uncomfortable right? now stand in a famous person’s shoes, at their shows meeting fans and having them doing this to you. how do you feel? surely you feel exactly like you do when that creepy fuckwit dude gives you an unsolicited/unconsented kiss at a bar. or when someone touches you in general without your consent.

brendon has literally told the p!atd fan base on multiple fucking occasions about HOW UNCOMFORTABLE, UNEASY AND FUCKING CREEPED OUT HE IS when random fans kiss/lick him or do other creepy fucking shit like grabbing his face without his consent. just because he’s famous, and you love him soooo much XDDDD, or just bc you’ll probably never see him again after the concert or whatever other weird bullshit justification(s) y’all wanna give, DO NOT GIVE YOU THE GROUNDS TO DO THIS SHIT.  I REPEAT: THESE REASONS/JUSTIFICATIONS DO NOT GIVE YOU THE GROUNDS TO DO THIS SHIT.

he has told you stop again and again. pls just stop. just because brendan urie is famous, it doesn’t mean that his safety and personal space should be violated in this twisted manner. obvs you could say that “hey he should expect this when he interacts with a crowd bc he’s famous. he should just deal with it. 🤷🏻‍♀️ but why should he? he should not have to deal with this, when he has requested again and again for it to cease. just grow the fuck up and respect his boundaries, yeah?

anyway the point of this rant is that you should fucking respect your faves boundaries, safety and requests to stop any fucking behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable y’all. just be decent human beings yeah?

rant over.

an addendum: if you’re a woman or just generally a person who condemns and considers entitled male fans who scream things like “HEY SEXY WANNA MARRY ME?!” or “I WANNA FUCK YOU!” at female solo acts/female lead singers like idk lady gaga or hayley williams (paramore) etc or any other weird shit that happens to female acts as creepy... but you don’t think literally grabbing someone’s face or even licking your finger before you touch a stranger (which was another weird thing a fan did at a p!atd show).... all because it happened to a man; then take a good long hard look at yourself in the mirror and look at your fucking hypocritical bullshit. because this is the exactly the same shit as what happens to female acts.

so in short, you’ll stand in solidarity with female acts and agree that this is unacceptable behaviour (bc feels as a woman, right? and women are TIRED OF THIS Y’ALL), but you won’t stand with a guy when it happens to them? that’s fucked bruh. y’all need to sort out your priorities and shit STAT. learn that this behaviour is fucked up and unacceptable etc from both genders (or all genders if you’re non-binary or trans etc) and on all fronts. again, I’ll assert that you just have to be a fucking decent and normal human being in this instance. and *elle woods voice* is it really, like, that fucking hard?