#fucking exhausted of the absolute bullshittery

[lynxgirlpaws]

havin' root beer for th' first time in awhile.... changig it up from bihtc beer... doign somethigm different...

[beanghostprincess]

God the idea of “every girls uncle ever”!Buggy is tickling me pink because of Crossguild and just how funny would it be to have Mihawk, who has a soft spot for Perona, much to his own dismay, suddenly having to be cordial to Buggy because his not quite adoptive daughter saw this weirdass clown ONCE and immediately decided that he’s her personal comfort older man? Mihawk sipping some wine while staring over the at the two disapprovingly, Perona getting Buggy involved in some bullshittery and Buggy being in hell, because I refuse to believe that even if he loves that girl to pieces he wouldn’t suffer every second he’s near her, but….. he cant do shit. He would absolutely LOVE to tell the clown what a pathetic excuse of an emperor is, getting bossed around by a teenage girl and her parade of misery ghosts…. but that would be a step to far for Perona who would immediately jump to Buggys defense and also be incredibly insulted herself. Mihawk would LOVE to bring his blade to Buggys neck as a warning for that little joke he made earlier at his expense, but Perona was laughing so hard she started to snort and he cant just do that right now for … some reason. He will drag Buggy away from makeup time to get actual work done, because he knows the only thing he will get from Perona is a pout and that she will call him a spoilsport, but his methods of intimidation towards the clown are starting to dwindle more and more rapidly.

This is incredible because I imagine Mihawk being extremely conflicted about his feelings for both of them. He cares about Perona, weirdly enough, and he isn't quite sure why, but he does. And on the other hand, he's kind of pissed she chooses to be with Buggy instead because that man is a fucking clown (derogatory) and doesn't understand why she'd be interested in him in any way. But he can't go against Perona's wishes because it's not like he's her father or, whatever- So he sits there trying to understand why he feels this way and trying to fight hard the urge of, you know, actually caring for somebody. But he does understand why they get along. They're both... Flashy. Flamboyant. He hates every second of it.

Buggy, despite absolutely adoring the menace Perona is, is still exhausted after being dragged around to every little one of her schemes. He has to suffer the consequences (spending time with her) of his actions (telling her he liked her once). She adores him and finds him incredibly interesting to be around because, well, he is the most interesting out of the three Cross Guild members. Also, she's always so harsh on him saying he's a loser and a depressed clown who needs comfort because I think the same thing that happened with Usopp (not being affected by her powers because of already vivid self-deprecating thoughts) would happen to Buggy. So she feels responsible for his happiness, kind of. She's actually a sweetheart.

It'd be really funny to turn this into something romantic between Buggy and Mihawk. Make it Bughawk. Turn Mihawk's fondness for Perona into a fondness for Buggy, somehow, and Crocodile notices he's been acting a bit softer around the clown lately. The funny thing about this is that Mihawk actively has no fucking idea why he's now so... Interested in not hurting Buggy. Seeing Perona and the clown together makes him feel things. He hates it. Make it stop.

[storm-cellar]

homecoming (570 words)

Casey learns the wonders of traveling while exhausted and gets sappy over Raph's general existence.

"You don't gotta come get me y'know? I can just get an Uber or somthin', it’s cool.”

“Aw, c’mon, Case, I’m not dyin’. What, you think I can’t handle a drive down to Jersey now?”

Really, Casey just didn’t want too many people holding them up at the airport because Raph wouldn’t (couldn’t) take off his helmet. He’s been stuck in Montreal for three days because he forgot to renew his damn passport before he left and the team had to leave for home without him. He is now down almost a thousand dollars with the combined cost of a new passport and plane ticket. He’d gotten covered in bruises from the actual damn game and busted a blood vessel in his eye stressing about the whole fuckin’ thing so safe to say he both looks and feels like shit.

When the plane finally lands at JFK he actually claps along with all the white people because goddamn if those weren’t the longest six and a half hours of his life. He’s absolutely wiped and almost eats shit on the jet bridge because the carpet’s lifting up but thank god for small mercies because he gets to skip the hell that is baggage claim since he sent his gear with the team. It's a good thing he did, he thinks, trudging toward the exit, clinging to the strap of his trusty duffle, because Raph’s coming for him on his bike and just thinking about fitting the both of them, his duffle and fifty pounds of hockey shit on it is actively giving him a migraine. 

The hum of the crowd waiting outside the terminal spills into the building every time someone passes through the sliding doors. Casey drags himself through them into the (fucking freezing) night, looking for his very short totally not suspicious ride.

And there he is, off in the corner near the street next to his bike, covered head to toe in black and still wearing his helmet like always.

Casey’s almost knocked flat by how much he’s missed him. The terrapin hasn’t seen him yet, shifting from foot to foot and scanning the crowd for his face, holding a piece of cardboard with ‘dumbass’ scribbled on it in chisel tip marker. It’s only been a week but he can’t wait to go home and eat greasy takeout with him and sleep for fifty years and wake up and watch him almost burn the eggs at breakfast like he always does and then watch that new slasher in their pjs while Raph catches him up on whatever mutant bullshittery happened while he was gone. 

He grips his bag and starts sprinting full tilt down the sidewalk toward Raph, who’s finally seen him (some ninja) and is yelling something or other but Casey cant hear over the blood pounding in his ears and the stupid fucking cackle that's started up in this throat.

He jumps at him like some demented kangaroo and of course Raph catches him and they spin round and round on the sidewalk in the cold on the sidewalk like idiots.

Casey slams his head into the visor of Raph’s helmet and listens to him laughing and grins so hard his face hurts.

“What the hell, dumbass, you tryin’ to kill me now?”

“Maybe. Ya miss me?”

“Fuck no.” 

But there’s a smile tacked on to the end of it, and Casey knows he’s home.

[alostlittleriverlotus]

me simultaneously loving the extremely flirty sexual characters as an outlet for self love while also occasionally being reminded I'm not the beauty standard cause I'm chubby and fat and trying to not hate myself for it and having delusions that my comfort characters wouldn't want me even tho theyre fucking fictional and who says they won't like fat/chubby people. Also the struggle of being disabled and feeling unlovable for that too especially since, again, most of my comfort characters are the flirty sexual type (Asmodeus Obey Me, Ozzie Helluva Boss, Valebtino Hazbin Hotel, Angel Dust Hazbin Hotel, more that i am too brain foggy to mention) cause feels lile disability can't be sexy cause of fucking ableism and beauty standards and shit and feeling like my needs and accommodations make me less sexually attractive.

★Minor eating disorder/ED mention, internalized fatphobia and ed-based thoughts, just bullshittery about thoughts I don't like★

Like I KNOW it ain't reality and they're fictional and can like whatever, but having the reality that me simply being bigger and fat or having to have needs especially with constant fatigue and pain is exhausting. It's rare this happens cause I am pretty confident about myself and have undone a lot of that internalized shit, but sometimes it creeps up during my narc crashes and depressive episode where I'm like "fictional character will never love me!" Because I'm not some perfect person that has everything an abled person could have.

I hate the internalized shit. I've worked so hard and it STILL creeps up on me with my comfort characters since I've internalized that stuff for YEARS. Lemme be happy and sexy and cute and cuddly. It doesn't matter if I'm fat, it's still beautiful and sexy and charming. It doesn't matter if I have needs, my comfort characters would love me and love means you want to help your partner!

The worst is when my comfort character is super problematic (Valentino 💀) but they're my comfort character cause trauma and so you get reminded they're a pos and would be a pos to u. Not cause they're abusive, just cause they might be really shitty about body stuff. I like to think they wouldn't care as long as you got shit done minus the abuse, but still. Brain, forget reality, let me enjoy my fictional characters to cope with the fact I have really fucked up trauma and sexual trauma.

Also adding on top of that, being fucking delusional about it too so your comfort character IS real to u to an extent makes it ALL the more terrible when that reality of how the general public sees you hurts. Cause then you just have the comfort character in your head turning against you and it hurtssss.

And then also the disconnect between where you won't think or believe this with OTHER people, but with yourself you do which makes you feel worse cause you're aware it is just placed in you by the world but it doesn't make the feelings less real.

T3T

I dunno, I'm tired and fatigued so I'm ranting. This was all cause I saw a pic of 19 year old me when I was still gaining a lot of weight and thinking "man I looked good" and my thoughts instantly were like "Do it. Go back to it." Cause I've had an eating disorder and I DON'T want to go back to that. I hate the inherent instant thoughts of it that pester me. I'm fat and happy, I love being cared for, I am in a good place and I resent the fact these thoughts still pop up.

Also don't worry, I'm at a good place where those thoughts don't last long and I don't relapse so it's MUCH better than it used to be, I'm just ranting cause it's frustrating.

Plus this is all worsened by my NPD and HPD demanding to be attractive, absolute perfection, and a need to be alluring for attention. Having to rework/rewire that line of thinking after years of it is so difficult. I'm doing my best TvT

[sirmartinindra]

Well, look who's back. So...

Lately I've been so engaged with the USA side of the internet about you guys' conquests and bullshittery that any small mention about the absolute CHAOS that IS happening on my own country I think they're joking, shit that I'm like "that can't be true, HOW THE ABSOLUTE FUCK DID THAT HAPPENED–"

But anyway, recently, the shitty president of my country is trying to make private social media corporations being unable to censor posts without a court order. He said "it's for the sake of our people's freedom."

Now if you can't understand why this is really bad I'll try to simplify it to you. Ahem:

As an example let's say criminal posts like hate speeches, someone telling you to kill yourself, pedophiles posting explicit images of kids, those dudebros that make posts harassing someone, fake news, basically deep-web crap being posted to everyone to see and the site, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and so on, can't delete those posts. Now do you have any idea of how much stuff the court has to deal with every day? How long do you think it will get to those platforms finally being able to censor those posts? How toxic their platforms will become since it'll actually be an land with no rules? And btw, all of the president's ally always posts stuff to harass someone who's against him, he is clearly not making democracy but trying to install a dictatorship in our country.

I'm exhausted guys... It's too much to deal with every single day.

Can anyone help me be somewhat happy again?

[thedarklordmegatron]

Consider: Blind Cor AU in which Cor loses his eyesight in an explosion when he's in his late 20s.

He notices a bomb hidden on one of Regis' vehicles and just manages to throw the King behind him when it goes off.

The shrapnel takes his eyesight and his left arm.

He spends weeks in intensive care as more complications arise.

Regis and Clarus are holding his remaining hand/arm when the dr tells him that he'll never see again.

They never tell anyone about his tears or the way he shook.

Being the ever stubborn man he is, Cor refuses help until he's sitting in his apartment and realises that he can't even find the bloody toilet.

Eventually he ends up moving into Amicitia Manor where the 3 Amicitias help him relearn how to move etc.

When he does finally get a prosthetic arm, it takes less than a year for him to have earnt himself a fearsome reputation once more.

He may be blind but he wields his blade as well as anyone with full vision.

Years later he's helping Iris learn her forms on the Lucian coast when Cid calls to tell him about Ignis' injuries.

He absolutely does not (totally does) steal a boat and set sail for Altissia with Monica in tow. Someone has to pilot the damn thing after all.

He knows how hard it can be to relearn everything, he'll be damned if Ignis has to struggle the way he did, and if he can help the boys in the process then all the better.

And when he finds out about the Ring and the deal with the Lucii, he spends 3 hours insulting said Ring.

Regis' ghost finally appears, looking utterly exhausted and Cor demands to speak with the 'bastards in charge of this bullshittery'.

Long story short, Cor and Ignis quite literally bully the Lucii into helping them save Noctis' life.

Fuck Bahamut and his Crystal.

[incarnateirony]

Terms and Conditioning and Meanings

Okay, so it’s something a lot of people heard me bang on about several times over the last few years, but recently I found a thread (x) by yet another lit professor -- this one in another fandom.

I’m sure some people will choose to reactively and malignly pick at parts of what they say without reading the heart of their body of work, in a blazing display of self-blind irony, but well-- I went off on my usual tear I go on ‘round these parts and unsurprisingly they went through and liked every single one while QTing other Typical Fandom Asshats to shoot them down, so let’s roll here.

I’ll start with the TLDR edition but then break down the actual content behind a cut -- because this? This is something this fandom DESPERATELY NEEDS TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCES OF, and how they DO and DON’T relate.

CODING = CONSCIOUS CHOICE OF CONSTRUCTION BY AUTHOR SUBTEXT = THEMATIC RESONANCE THROUGH MOST OF OR THE ENTIRE WORK THAT EMBOLDENS THE TALE INTERPRETATION = LITERALLY WHATEVER YOU WANT BUT STRONGER IF YOU KNOW WHAT THE OTHER 2 ARE AND WHERE THEY ARE. THANKS KIDS DEATH OF THE AUTHOR = NOT AN EXCUSE FOR EIGHTH-ASSED READINGS CANON = WHAT EXISTS WITHIN A WORK, OR AN AGREED UPON BODY OF ACCEPTED WORKS (episodes, books, etc not part of the ecclesiastical body) NO, it is not a MAGIC WORD for “NOW THEY KISSED” and there are MANY FORMS OF WHAT IS CANON WITHIN AN ACCEPTED BODY OF WORK.  QUEERBAIT = VERY FEW OF THESE THINGS AND YET CAN BE ALL OF THESE THINGS AND THIS IS THE MOST BUSTED WORD Y’ALL HAVE FUCKING RUINED.

(Edit: I saw someone reblog this with “really aggressive in an offputting way” before a tag of “but I agree” so I’ma put this out here: Yeah. It fucking is. Because this fandom is fucking exhausting. And I am tired. Of having to fucking repeat things. That are literal common sense. In a fandom that insists on flushing common sense. Of otherwise intelligent people sending themselves into destructive spirals. Of even friends losing friends to people sliding off into bitter pits these problems lead to. So if you’re someone that favors common sense, maybe you actually should feel this frustration in your soul. The lit folks reblogging this with commentary so far seem to.)

To quote the linked OP and give credit where credit is due for resparking this conversation in my mind and realizing I haven’t said this for a long time and new followers may not know, even if this is familiar to like 90% of people who follow me -- but I feel they touched aptly on parts I haven’t even really done more than brush over.

queer-coding is quite sinister in a lot of ways (though can be employed subversively to great effect) but also very interesting! studies have shown that children who like or identify with queer-coded villains are more likely to be lgbt, even if they don't realise what's going on.

during the hays era it was mostly a way to show that a villain was bad (because gay = evil), but it could also be a way for closeted queer creators to sneak lgbt representation into their work, which is why so many queer-coded villains are so damn *likeable*.

what's also interesting is that lgbt creators would sometimes explicitly *straight-code* their villains - gaston from disney's beauty and the beast is a great example of this. highly recommend that you read up on the story of his creation!

all of which is to say: queer-coding has a meaning, it's not the same as queer-*baiting*, and it DEFINITELY isn't the same as "I'm gonna read this character as gay because I wanna imagine him as gay" - the name for that is fanon, and some trek fans

there are lots of academic works on the history of queer-coding if you want to spend an afternoon down a google scholar rabbit hole! just, you know. terms have meanings.

that's the thing. coding literally is intentional. what you're talking about is an alternate or resistant reading, or a world-context-centred critical approach.

you're right that it's got nothing to do with representation, but unlike semiotics, which is text-centred but may or may not rely on reading into intentional authorial choices, queer-coding refers specifically to an authorial choice. it's a defined term.

I didn't just take AP and honours english. I *taught* AP and honours english. for y e a r s.

--by @jaythenerdkid who I just accidentally found the tumblr of by preparing to make a twitter link but I checked and it’s the same person.

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

Okay so let’s pick through this a little bit before people start spinning this up in their heads.

TO START: QUEER CODING

I’ve seen people say “This character has villain attributes or dark attributes ergo he is queer coded.” That is absolutely not the way to apply this history, this works in reverse. As handled here, villains were either malignly codified to make queer characters evil and/or were then used as a slip-in of representation. A villain being a villain is not in fact itself an actual queer coding point. A dark history is not itself a queer coding point. Addiction stories are not themselves a queer coding point. In fact, trying to apply itself in this order is like BLAZINGLY homophobic and gross as hell and if you’re doing this, you should stop now. Yes, I’ve seen this.

I fucking promise you Gaston wasn’t consciously “queer coded” in being a villain, being a villain does not give him a Magic Gay Point.

Are we good on that point? Have we figured out the direction these Magic Gay Points fly in and don’t? Cool. If the author consciously added elements that will harmonize with a straight audience as queer to make them seem bad, that’s malignant queer coding; if an author consciously added elements that will harmonize with a queer audience to make them somehow familiar or likable, that is subversive queer coding. 

An example of subversive queer coding: In the Legend of Korra, the creators had limitations on what the network would allow them to do. Later, they confirmed their intent was a WLW couple being portrayed at the end, but it hovers in the area of a hand hold that people can unfortunately choose to negotiate away into bestest friends despite all the other story flags for them along the way.

People have/can/will call queerbait about this. In this case, this is not queerbait. This is attempted representation to bypass restrictions and is not malign, but are authors doing their best to give their queer audience something, anything, in the case of it. Yes, it was post-air acknowledgment but it was what they were goddamn trying to give us gays out here. It’s not hiding their gays on the creator’s part -- it’s hiding their gays on the network’s part -- WHICH IS A STEP A LOT OF PEOPLE GET VERY CONFUSED ABOUT.

Hell, just because *one* show or property on a specific channel even allows X Amount Of Gay in it doesn’t even mean they’ll allow their other properties that amount of gay every time, and can and WILL step in and block creators. It happens even on premium networks like HBO or Starz. Because they have their ideas of what the demographic they dump a bunch of marketing money into is okay with, half-educated and half massive fiery balls of projection from whatever old white dude is reviewing the data. So no, never just bank on “well X network made the Gay Bar exactly This Tall To Ride here so all their other shows can be Exactly This Gay.” -- you do that, you’re gonna set yourself up for a FUCKTON of disappointment. 

Hell, LGBT aren’t even treated equally to other LGBT. Bi men have like 1/3 the representation of bi women because media is held in a largely male gaze corporately and well, bi women are sexy to straight guys, give them some of that lesbian action. But oh, nono, don’t put the bi dudes near their network, no homo. If you drape a rainbow boa on this lamp post though we’ll let you have a gay guy run around that is there to make other characters uncomfortable as a stereotype, that’s fine. LITERALLY do *NOT* simply assume for *ANY REASON* that because one kind of LGBT person cleared on one show that others will too, there’s so many ways that drops through the floor.

That small aside about network bullshittery handled, let’s get back to the terms.

Negative queer coding I can think of with things like, I dunno. Jafar. Honestly very few LGBT people will actively associate with most of these attributes because a great wealth of them are attributes in the eyes of straight creators villainizing gay people, rather than gay people making gay people that just happen to be villains, and this distinction *DOES MATTER.* The long, snaky body -- the coy, venomous tone, embellished gestures; I mean sure, some people are like that, and that’s fine, you be you, but it’s a stereotype most try to shed rather than play into. It’s not the sum of who we are but put into the wrong creator’s hands, they *make* that the perceivable sum of who we are, + villainy.

But queer coding CAN be suggestively used to paint positive role models in situations they can’t necessarily be written as Overtly Gay, and the list of those reasons is unfortunately Very Long. But they are always things that are active choice, and your interpretation of what is Active Choice is not the same as Proven Active Choice.

For example: “The wallpaper was green and blue in this scene so Dean is thinking of Castiel even if he isn’t saying it.” Okay. We’re gonna go to Subtext and Interpretation later, but summarily: no. Hell, maybe it even is, but that’s a huge vault you actually have to exorbitantly prove and you can’t just say “but movie lighting theory” because I promise Dean = Green Cas = Blue isn’t general lighting theory.

An alternate example: “Bobo Berens, the first LGBT author on Supernatural, affirmed that Castiel was written in place of Colette, Cain’s wife, in Dean’s mirrored life; this is recurring symbolism and reflects often in Beren’s work, wherein his first episode showrunner Carver opted them to act as jilted lovers, and made a vast wash of content involving bold partnership ideals such as ‘at the altar’, ‘secret admirer’, and more that mysteriously hit the cutting room floor, but resonates very loudly through several directly connected seasons and all future work by Berens such as classic romantic partnership gifts and ideas [mixtape, heart connect, etc].”

This is simultaneously coding and subtext. We could frankly make 200 page dissertations about this chain of text -- and most of us already have -- that doesn’t require loudly extrapolating interpretation of external elements or single unrelated lines. 

“But subtext is just QUEERBAIT. It’s JUST SUBTEXT, it’s NOT CANON.”

Okay honey let me stop you right there. This is like the most common bad hot take in this fucking fandom. Like every part of it is bad but everybody kind of strings it together into one big Ball of Bad.

Subtext is, summarily, a hidden body of text that is felt in the work. Beyond Who You Want To Be Gay, subtext is a lot of things. Subtext is the value of humanity above all powers and principalities, in Supernatural. And there’s all kinds of other subtext. Whenever you see someone blink and have black eyes in SPN without them saying “I’m a demon” and you know they’re a demon, that’s... kind of subtext too. I mean, we know textually demons have black eyes, but nothing ever said only demons have black eyes. So what if I wanted to say it’s the ghost of big bird? It’s MY INTERPRETATION and MY INTERPRETATION IS VALID TOO.

Shit you can even cobble together half assed unrelated extrapolations--some demons have yellow eyes and Jack had yellow eyes so he wasn’t a demon so clearly not all black eyes are demons and uh... the angel blade kills lots of things, that black eyed thing still wasn’t a demon.

See how easy it is to absolutely BULLSHIT around it with decontextualized BULLSHIT? It almost passes at a glance until held up to the smallest bit of scrutiny and following episodes.

Okay, so look, “It’s my interpretation, and my interpretation is valid” is only as far as it holds up soundly to *you.* As long as it is truly valid to *you.* And that doesn’t mean big brave faces you put on For The Twitter Stan Wars because you don’t want to lose digital clout when the newest episode falls through and blows your entire house of cards out of the water because you weren’t reading the actual subtext being hewn into the story by the authors -- or even forming a resilient resistant read of your own subtext that can hold -- but once that interpretation leaves your mouth to try to bounce off of other people’s viewpoints, you’re now indirectly challenging their viewpoint with theirs. If you stay in your cabal where you think the spirit of big bird has black eyes, and never subtweet or @ or whatever anybody else about this Hot Take, that’s fine, just don’t be surprised when you’re left defending that to whatever followers you pulled into the Big Bird Cabal. 

Or you all sit in angry silence with each other and then start helicopter swinging at the writers for ruining The Spirit Of Big Bird that was never fucking there. Because you’re trying to apply patchy, unstable, and generally very piss poorly founded readings to a still released work. 

So THAT lead in shoved off to the side about interpretation and keeping your interpretation to yourself if you don’t want to be challenged by far more solid interpretations, Because that’s how content discussion works,

SUBTEXT IS OFTEN A FORMULATIVE PART OF CANON, ESPECIALLY IF IT IS CODED, WHETHER WE ARE TALKING QUEER CODING OR ANY OTHER KIND OF CODING.

Subtext is a thematic undercurrent. Subtext is the unspoken soul of a piece, what lies in the blank space between the lines, but not just whatever you take the lines to be. If you sit down and write a lit paper, you’re gonna have to explain where you pulled your subtext out of. 

You can either go the “Death of the Author” route where you summarily erase any commentary ever made and build your own, but you still need to be able to read the sum of the text and present what it all is. And most importantly you can’t just present what it’s not. If your entire reading of a work is trying to explain away common sense bullshit and it ends up reading like All Work No Play Makes Johnny Dull Boy because you had to build 82 nonlinear explanations around what you don’t want, and those all lead to nowhere, that professor is going to flunk the shit out of you. And if you use Death of an Author DEFINITELY don’t simultaneously try to appeal to authority with other quotes convenient to you.

Not Wanting something to Be So and going completely over the river and through the woods in completely disjointed intentionally maladapted readings of refusal doesn’t mean you’ve found subtext, it means you’ve chosen to make a reading -- an interpretation -- that is not really thematically sound with the body of work but for whatever reason, you’ve chosen to make that the meaning it has to *you.* And that’s fine. Unless you’re trying to impress a professor. Or jousting your opinion off of somebody else that isn’t doing cartwheels around the content to avoid the parts they don’t like (and get mad about it later.)

Removing all genuine thematic subtext and disregarding it from any part of the canon discussion of a piece is, however, devastating and essentially rips out the foundation of a piece. This has become all the more common as junk TV gets junkier and continues to appeal to the lowest common denominator that need to be reminded that 2+2=4 every three episodes before they accept that 2+2=4 in their respective canon universe, because otherwise they’ll claim it’s just subtext or someone else’s opinion that it equals 4.

And that’s not what these words mean and I am left eternally climbing up walls, because in this fandom, like... subtext, interpretation, coding, queerbait have all become one amorphous blob that just gets hurled around like four stuck together balls of Gak at a grade school party and just seeing where they splatter.

It is entirely possible for content to be subtextual and canon, if it is thematically resonant with the piece and a loud and fundamental part of its storytelling that it can not operate without acknowledging. Discussion of queer content aside, there’s a lot of shit this applies to. There’s a certain sense of good faith most authors put in their readers/viewers/whatever that people will have an fundamental understanding of the spirit of a work they’re conveying. This good faith amount varies depending on their projected demographic, but let me assure you, if your respective creator essentially has the characters stop and do “today I learned” narratives, or interruption explanation inserts over everything, there’s one of two reasons: 1. It’s a literal parody/comedy 2. It’s either geared for kids or they think you’re all fucking idiots.

As I don’t tend to watch parody, comedy, or kid shows, I tend to favor shows that don’t feel the need to handhold me through every instance of the show. Because I am not nor do I appreciate being treated like an idiot.

Subtext is a valuable part of canon as long as we are talking by virtue of “coding” not “random unfounded interpretation.”

Now, to the topic of queer coding, is it fundamentally gratifying to our primitive lizard brain survival instinct if we see characters kiss or whatever your personal landmark for gratification is? I mean, sure. Does the romance leading up to the kiss absolutely not matter at all until the kiss, or was that early state of subtext, dance, and non-consummation itself a valid romantic journey? 

Because honestly this is something I feel current LGBT dialogue is missing. We’re so wounded from being caught in the subtext veil that we want confirmation, but everybody wants to skip the journey to the sweet stuff. I’m not saying every story needs to be a years long slow burn, but y’all. You know how we talk about het romance being boring as fuck because it’s like “dude/chick look at each other and they fuck and now they’re insufferable, hahahah is this what het culture is like is this what they call romance what kind of standards--”? Yeah, we’re rapidly snowplowing towards that.

I’m also not saying quick confirmation is bad either. There’s shows and stories where even pre-confirmed LGBT couples are GREAT to see, just existing in the population. Not every story needs to be THE grand romance, or THE great coming out adventure, some can have already had their adventures just like the Totally Het Neighbors Next Door and that’s... fine. That’s great, even. 

But we are approaching Absolute Bottom Barrel Trash Content at terminal velocity, mostly just being exploited and monetized by corporations that are virtue signaling us to give at best sub-par turnout. The amount of currently airing shows with quality queer content can probably be counted on your two hands.QED there’s hundreds of shows, thousands depending on which networks you’re counting in your numbers. Off the top of my head, Legends of Tomorrow has a fabulously queer cast that Just Is without being defined only by having a partner nor being a rainbow lamp with a sticky note of plot directions. 

But we are also signaling creators that it’s no longer safe *to* give us gradual, slow burns, or genuine romance either. And we’re ALSO signaling creators -- INCLUDING QUEER CREATORS -- that it is no longer safe to make subtextual or coded content.

“Well good!” you probably say.

NO, THIS IS BAD, THIS IS REALLY, REALLY BAD.

Because while you may live in a fantasy universe where X Network had Y show exactly This Gay To Ride, it’s in blatant disregard of inconsistent landmarks and limbo sticks different shows, creators, and products have to go through, and some people in some shows are trying REALLY REALLY HARD to give you resonant queer content and you’re just shitting all over them and yelling that it’s queerbait.

I mean, queerbait is the idea that someone is giving queer content without intent to follow through and generally to exploit a queer audience. The problem is, all queerbait accusations are launched in default bad faith. Some of that bad faith is earned. Some of it is not. Sometimes there’s a lesbian with a network executive breathing down her neck that just wants to let her girls be together so she has them hold hands, even if she knows The Straights will talk it away as best friends, no matter how many canonically romantic storylines they’ve wedged into the subtext through loudly recognizable tropes.

Queerbait is a VERY DANGEROUS CARD and MUST BE USED WITH EXTREME CAUTION. Because depending on the longevity of what you’re crowing about, without understanding of what’s going on beyond the production veil, you can very easily even get creatives and creators hard shut down on a network level for wanting to protect the product. I’m sure you think “make it gay!” is the one answer to that, but no, it isn’t always, not depending on what the old white guy network exec I mentioned a while ago has in his papers about what or who he interprets pulls his income and what they like via demographics or inconsistent marketing test groups.

That’s not to say never call out queerbait, but the internet desperately needs to be more conscious about when and where they fling it around. What if Korra fans started horrifically screeching about queerbait and blasting it all over the internet and @’ing production or even network people and making devoted articles to make it a shitshow that even hit GA impact zones? Do you really think Nickelodeon would look at their demographic paperwork and throw it in the air and go “Oh! Well we make it gay then.”

Or do you think they’d have left a hard feedback note to further divide those characters with a strong warning about limits and restrictions.

We are slowly moving out of the area of things like queer coded villains and have more migrated into an area of subversive queer coding, but a great deal of subversive queer coding has people lose their SHIT because Some Idiot On The Internet With A Shitty Take And Quarter Assed Interpretation told them “it’s just subtext so it’s not valid until they kiss”, setting out this roving goalpost everybody keeps running after like a goddamn donkey chasing a carrot on a stick, and in some cases completely unable to be reached, despite the LITERAL BEST INTENTION of the authors. 

I’ve heard “well if they can’t Bring It All The Way, they shouldn’t at all.” What the FUCK? What kind of UNBEARABLY STRAIGHT WASHED WORLD do you want to live in? What kind of world do you think we’re living in right now? I regret to inform you, Trump got elected to office somehow and reversed a lot of LGBT protections somehow and it’s not just “because Russia,” it’s because there’s still a SHITTON of assholes out there that make corporations that bankroll TV SHITTONS of money and whether we like it or not, TV is a BUSINESS and we’re all DOLLAR SIGNS.

Stripping subversive queer coding, especially from the hands of queer authors, sets us back into a weird offset of primitive ages and extremized content, where the latter becomes poorly packaged lesbians dropped as a marketing plan to upsell Trendy New Teen Show without daring to rattle the middle aged demographic of a split political demographic in another show. No. Absolutely fucking not. Use some responsibility and apply some critical thinking before yelling queerbait and figure out where a problem is in any given situation, that’s all I fucking ask.

Hell for all you know those queer creators could be pitching it again and again behind the scenes, or baited on that side with maybes, or being stalled out by being told to wait for test marketing groups, and generally tugged around on their own leash where corporate is summarily watching the feedback to the blatant but subtextual and coded queer content.

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Now, ALL OF THIS becomes a fucking mess in discussion when people don’t box off these definitions and issues.

If people don’t realize the value of subtext to canon, 

And people don’t understand the difference between coding and interpretation,

And people confuse queerbait with any of this,

You end up with some giant VAT of literally EVERYBODY sounding like dipshits because Anti A told Shipper B who loves queer author C and relationship D that It’s Just Subtext, and then Shipper B turns around and yells ITS NOT CANON YOU’RE IDIOTS FOR LOVING IT in their pained bitterness, but then Anti A brings Anti B back and they decide they optically prefer relationship Z that has no actual coding or subtext, but they’ve strapped together their own interpretation, but they confuse interpretation and subtext, and break out all interpretations are equal even if they are not in the body of the actual canon work, but now everybody is yelling it’s not canon because nobody even fucking knows what any of these words mean anymore, and then Shippers A-Z turn around and start yelling queerbait at a gay author just trying to write his little gay heart out-- you see the problem, right?

On the other hand, there’s fandoms where people confuse these same points and think their uncorroborated interpretation is subtext simply because they chose to interpret it that way, and with enough voices drawn into it in the vat of “all interpretations are equal”, turn around and yell queerbait at authors who are scratching their heads going “the fuck are you on about”

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Other bad takes: The opinions of actors really don’t fucking matter. I don’t care if they’re pro-relationship or anti-relationship or just pro/anti any idea other than a relationship. This is like taking the opinion of some dude who played Hamlet an eternity ago for Shakespeare while Shakespeare was still alive and writing about what Shakespeare’s writing meant. His opinion may be meaningful to him, but it is his own interpretation. If Shakespeare wrote Hamlet The Sequel the actor could turn out entirely wrong about what he was babbling about. 

Actors are just interpreting the art to screen like you are. Acting is an interpretive art. They’re just. Interpreting. Just like you. So stop whipping out statements of actors against each other. You might as well be quoting jared-uwu-cest.tumblr dot com as an authority for your bad fucking take. Stop it. If actors on the same set have conflicting opinions and are just talking about their opinion, their opinion doesn’t mean shit more than any other fan of the source content, unless they are hand delivering statements, cited, from specific authors they’ve communicated with about the work they’re interpreting from (coming to mind, the time Jensen Ackles went to showrunner Jeremy Carver confused about the romance with Amara feeling right, only to tell us that Jeremy Carver told us that Amara wasn’t his romance, she was his kryptonite). 

Now if you’re choosing death of the author NONE of this is relevant, obviously, because you shouldn’t be citing ANY of this, because then you’re just playing to discussion points for convenience. But if you are looking for actual intent, the actor’s interpretation is only as valid as any other dedicated interpretation, albeit possibly more or less sounded in awareness of the text, but is otherwise only as valuable for how direct of a voice box they are being for what authors said about specific scenes. Hell, most things are filmed out of order and many actors don’t watch the whole piece. It already consumes their work life, it won’t consume their home life, no matter how much they love it, they haven’t reviewed the full body of the piece externally as a finished product, just processed emotions out of sequence.

THERE WAS A NEW AVENGER THAT DIDNT EVEN REALIZE HE WAS ACTING A NEW AVENGER UNTIL HE TOOK HIS KIDS TO THE MOVIES AND WAS LIKE “OH SHIT I’M AN AVENGER.” Stop BANKING on actor statements.

This also gets more complicated in group writing projects such as TV shows with multiple authors. And MORE complicated explaining that complication to fandom when they get positive statements from the creator of a show who is the *only* author and then turn around and yell “WHY DIDN’T [OTHER FANDOM]” do that when like, IDK, 6/40 authors have over the course of however long it’s been written on, most have been radio silent and one other had a different opinion and then you just expect some group borg rising of everybody who’s ever written on the show to come and hand deliver you individual hand-fed statements about what they meant.

This entire thing also foregoes the import of directors and how they work with their set dressers as part of the creative process; they’re what manifest the text into a visual medium of the story, which may or may not be identical to the author’s intent. Again, to hearken back to Supernatural as my root fandom here, it’s been mentioned Sgriccia knew how to work with everyone and get what they were meaning to convey with how long he worked on set, so generally, authors and Sgriccia cooperated really well in a full art. Whereas that nightmare of an episode Don’t Go In The Woods was directed by a VFX guy as his first directing experience and we could see he barely knew how to work with actors much less the spirit of the text; he just had great understanding of environment. 

These things, these opinions, these takes also matter. Because TV is a different form. I generally don’t see people arguing Pride & Prejudice on twitter, it’s usually TV/movies. Lit theory is incredibly valid for understanding the pace and flow of a body of work but you also have to understand what authors are deeply plugged into that, what directors are deeply plugged in, who’s an experimental folly they’ll patch up the work of afterward, it’s not the same as just reading a novel by one author or, at most, a few co authors in immediate harmony.

Like I don’t know if people think I did my Crazy Pagan Magic to come up with the season 14 ending like I had a pages-long rant reel of direct quotes and shots that literally predicted that Jack was going to lose his soul, become faux-god, and Dean was going to be given an ultimatum of shooting him, probably after killing Mary, because getting the yellow eyed thing was the point right--but that the true scarlet letterman wasn’t their lost child, but the absent father. The Great Father who left all questions--the god of control. But dad told you to put a bullet in me, and you didn’t.

Like, anyone remember me spouting literally all of these things across different posts? It’s not magic. So while Christians in fandom are turning themselves into pretzels making shitbrained theories trying to explain why it Wasn’t Really Chuck Or Chuck Isn’t Really God, I’ve got a few hundred pages of thesises here talking about this being exactly where they were going because of SUBTEXT. Because it’s PART OF THE CANON AND BUILDING THE FUNDAMENTAL STORY. 

If it comes to a textual head like Chuck, great. But people have to recognize whatever landmark they set for what they consider a textual head is entirely subject to the creators or, worse, a network. The same way in season 11 they got told they couldn’t kill God, here we go on take 2, maybe the network changed it’s mind, we’ll find out. 

These things all interplay VERY IMPORTANTLY with each other and also, this issue goes WELL BEYOND Supernatural fandom. At some point in history a bunch of people in multiple fandoms started slinging these words around without understanding them and bounced them off of more people that don’t understand them and it turns into a goddamn hot mess because nobody’s using words like they mean anymore, just vaguely beating each over the head with it, and it’s driving me i n s a n e. Hell, y’all are undermining YOURSELVES half the time by the way people have taught you to misuse words.

ALSO WRT “CANON”

Most of the above covers what canon is within the way it’s abused in fandom, but I’ve seen some people take the idea of it being accepted into a body of work by the authors as meaning like, every reading of the material needs to be acknowledged by the authors. I already detailed what it means. It’s absolutely not that. 100%. I don’t give a shit how you choose to interpret that. Because there is literally no way on planet earth an author has made a full statement confirming every detail about every part of their book and that goalpost doesn’t just magically manifest when we’re talking about, say, gay shit. Or powers you don’t like. If it’s thematically there, it’s thematically there, you can’t hackjob it out of canon just because This Specific Idea doesn’t have a Canon For Dummies statement attached to it, or worse, one attached to it specifically to your liking, since people like interpreting away ones based on their preferences rather than reason.

Similarly it doesn’t mean there’s a magic goalpost of a vagueblogged percentage of people that must accept the content for it to be canon. Hell, like half the fandom still tricked themselves into thinking there was a reaper retcon in season 9 (x) that NEVER FUCKING EXISTED IN ANY DAMN CAPACITY. Large groups of people choosing to miss the point doesn’t mean the canon didn’t hold the point, simply that they chose to draw another point out of it. Generally, in a still releasing work, that also leaves them disappointed and confused later (such as when someone claimed they retconned the nonexistent reaper retcon, because I heard you like retcons.)

There is no magic percent, no magic statement. These things are nice, but they aren’t what makes canon. Canon is the actual accepted body of work such as seasons, episodes, books, movies, or whatever else as part of the universe. (Eg: Supernatural’s novels are officially noncanonical and not part of discussion of canon content. They are not accepted into canon. That’s what this means.)

Also if you’re talking about canon quantify it. You can be as tired as you want about bad rep, but bad rep quality has nothing to do with the canon source content. You can be as tired about lowkey gayness as you want but are you saying the canon material isn’t romantic at all, or are you saying the characters aren’t consummated yet. If the canon material isn’t canonically romantic why are you yelling queerbait; or acknowledge the value of queer unconsummated canon romances even if you aspire for more, but don’t bounce that goalpost around for convenience, fuck sake. 

DID U KNOW that things can be CANONICALLY ROMANTIC without being CANONICALLY CONSUMMATED? Or that even a queer author’s idea of what reads as consummated canon may not be the same as yours? Did you know that a MLM LGBT author in his 40s may have very different ideas of how to express an MLM romance than a bunch of WLW LGBT women of any age, because there’s intersectionality at play? If you don’t want bi men determining how lesbians should be represented we need to apply that all around, kids.

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So sure, your interpretation can be valid, for you. But once you joust others, or pin your interpretation on the show without careful exploration of the actual intentful themes, you’re gonna probably be disappointed as it releases and uproots your ideas. Now the question is if you are willing to hold mature intelligent discourse about other people’s potential interpretations and readings, or if you’re going to grapple onto your old, broken interpretation like Gollum with the Ring because it’s your precious and you’ll let it send you crawling into a moldy cave hissing at anyone happily walking by.

Is Your Interpretation worth your anger when it falls through Do you even WANT to like the show? Do you literally prefer staying angry over reviewing your take compared to people who are still happy with it? Why AREN’T you willing to figure out where you went left of canon?

And furthermore, is your anger and broken interpretation/expectations worth holding onto a damn ring/show that clearly isn’t what you thought it was, or can you toss your fiery stan rage into Mordor before you turn into a twitter goblin and find a place you can interpret differently that makes you happy?

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Lesson: Stop being fandom goblins

Also @tinkdw 

[doctormage]

hi i just need to be really dramatic and long winded bc if i dont get it Out im going to fucking explode

ive actually been trying really hard this semester with my thesis and its REALLY fucking difficult for me. my depression makes me catatonic and unable to complete simple tasks or be motivated to do literally anything; my anxiety paralyzes me at the slightest unexpected change and then obsess over whether everyone in my life hates me because of my anxiety; my sleep schedule is constantly fucked and my doctor is unhelpful; my bdd will sidetrack me from my work and responsibilities for literal hours or days, and sometimes if its feeling spicy send me on a full scale fucking breakdown; and my adhd makes all this shit worse on TOP of all the NORMAL adhd shit. like thats just!!! my life!!!! at all times!!!!! and there have been several times where i have genuinely considered leaving this program or not continuing school after bc i was so fucking overwhelmed and exhausted and scared but i didnt!!! like i make a lot of jokes about procrastinating and wasting my time and doing the least and whatever but in reality its really fucking difficult for me even when im medicated!!! but i dont like admitting that bc of all my exhausting childhood baggage and shit but that is not the point of this rant so anyway

this semester i made a specific effort to try and be a better student even tho all of this stuff has been exacerbated by grad school. i felt i owed it to my director and one of my committee members because theyve been so fucking helpful and put their faith in me and took a lot of their time to help me. i wanted to show them i was worthy of it and capable of being a good student who does all the shit she’s supposed to do, does it well, and does it on time. i overloaded my fall semester and nearly lost my goddamn mind JUST to have a lighter class load this semester so i could focus most of my time on my thesis (like for real that was actually incredibly stupid of me. i lost almost 30 pounds from september to december without conscious effort just because i was so fucking stressed. not a brag and actually kind of concerning bc that has LITERALLY never happened to me). it has been like....significantly taxing, but i wanted to show them how much i appreciate their time and effort and help by being responsible and respectful. my Trying Hard is a lot of people’s Barely Doing Their Best and i know that. turning something in 2 hours early is below average for some but for me, literally anything more than 30 minutes before its due is an actual goddamn miracle. but i wanted to work hard and do things right for my committee members because they deserve it

this christmas my parents asked what i wanted and the ONLY thing i asked for was help with my library dues. last year from like march to october i was significantly depressed and entirely out of my head, and i racked up some pretty bad overdue fees. i didnt even ask them to pay all of it, just some of it. less than $100. im really truly grateful for the gifts they DID get me, but i didnt ask for them for any of it, and my overdue fees were left alone. i was under the impression that they got paid and, like a fucking idiot, i didnt check up on it to confirm. ive been so hell deep in my thesis and teaching and grading and applying to phd programs and looking for apartments and shit that it really just slipped my fucking mind!!! crazy!!!!

today i was in crisis bc i thought i fucked up with scheduling my defense/exam/whatever the fuck. im going to call it defense and i dont give a shit bc everyone calls it some other shit and i dont CARE. anyway i really thought i fucked up but i went and talked it out with my director and it was all sorted out. i’ve gotten like 50% of her feedback on my thesis draft, which i’ve incorporated, and im waiting on comments from another reader (the other helpful person on my committee). we have to run some dumbass software before scheduling, so i ran it today and tried to schedule it but couldnt bc theres a hold on my account. i went on a fucking....ALMIGHTY QUEST to figure it out and i finally discovered that guess what!!!!!!! its my GODDAMN LIBRARY OVERDUE FEES!!!!!! THAT I THOUGHT WERE PAID!!!!!!! i had to pay them myself which is fine idc but it takes several days to process. this fucks up my life on SEVERAL levels

for one, its fucking impossible to get a hold of my third committee member. she is a vapor in the wind. shes like super busy and thats all good and well but the point is theres like zero communication there. i finally got confirmation on a defense date from all 3 members and had been literally planning MY ENTIRE LIFE around this date. after todays first scheduling crisis i was so happy i was still on track, but now this? now i have to wait 3-4 days before i can even SCHEDULE the defense. the super delightful part is that we have to schedule a minimum of 2 weeks in advance. so now i cant schedule my defense until tuesday at the absolute earliest, but that ALSO bumps my defense date several days ahead. i have no fucking clue if my committee is going to agree on another day that works for everyone bc theyre all busy as shit and we’d been working toward the original date for weeks if not months, and im so fucking upset because this is exactly what i DIDNT want to have happen. i havent tried to email them yet because im hoping beyond fucking hope i can call somebody at the university tomorrow and see if the hold is something else besides the fee, but it makes me sick to think of having to be like “oh sorry i know i constantly fuck up everything ever and im a piece of shit but can we change this date we’ve had set since january because i was an extra shitty piece of shit this time??” like OHHH MY GODDDDD

and the thing thats really fucking with me is that like, yes its my fault but this one time its not ENTIRELY 100% my fault. i asked for a favor and had the understanding that it was taken care of. yes the fees were my doing and yes i shouldve checked but oh my fucking god. i feel like all the effort ive put into being a better student this semester has been for fucking nothing because im going to have to email my committee asking for a different date and ruin all their fucking lives and theyll be so disappointed in me. i have like legitimately been crying on and off about it since like 4:30 today

it so shitty in and of itself but i especially dont want to do this to my director bc she is legitimately the reason im finishing this program AND that im going to a phd program. a year ago i’d barely spoken 20 words to her but she still agreed to be a reader on my committee just because she heard me explain my thesis for all of 30 seconds and decided to give it a try. she literally had not read a song of ice and fire at the time and she started reading them for me to help me with my thesis. in the fall when my original director basically threatened to leave my committee if i didnt change all my ideas, my current director stepped in and helped me and talked me through it and then offered to take her place even though my research is BARELY distantly related to hers. through all of this she’s been so insanely patient with me, super encouraging of my ideas both in this project and in others, helped me decide whether it was right for me to get my phd immediately after my masters, proofed and edited and helped me with ALL my phd application materials, and STILL is in the process of reading these goddamn books just to be a better director. i have lost my head so many times and shes always been there to help me figure my shit out, and i wanted to have it figured out for once. how stupid of me

like bumping the date isnt the end of the whole world but its really not just about the fact that i have to reschedule. i was trying real goddamn hard to be a better student this semester and i REALLY fucking owed it to my director and other reader, but especially director, and i still managed to fuck up this bad. i feel like such a DISAPPOINTMENT and it just will not leave my brain bc im so mad at myself. i tried watching shows and youtube compilations about game of thrones and shit but now my bf is asleep and im alone and its all i can think about. im so fucking tired of being the person i am honestly and i dont mean that in an edgy way its just like jesus christ i wish there was less shit wrong with me. i wish i had any kind of willpower or discipline so i couldve learned these skills and been a better student from the start. i wish i wasnt a giant piece of shit!!!!! 

and now im going to be up late being anxious about all this which means that i will, once again, wake up late but also still be really exhausted, which means i’ll do a shitty job teaching and get overwhelmed by everything and who the fuck knows what fun bullshittery will ensue because of it. i am so fucking tired of me and my fuckery and the fact that it fucks with other people even why i try so hard for it not to. tired!!!!!!!! fucking tired

[fooltofancy]

For the fandom thing - Dragon Age? (:

ah yes, hell.

Favorite Male Character

hnn, probably varric. story and storytellers are super important to me. also, ultimate bff.

Favorite Female Character

isabela, but it’s preeeeetty close between she and cassandra. 

Least Favorite Character

dragon age is the game of folk-i-wanted-to-love-but-ended-up-loathing, and it hurts. top of the list is probably anders, who internalizes his own abuse and turns it outward. like... the mass murder is secondary to the emotional bullshittery he puts hawke through to get to that point, not to mention constant verbal abuse toward fenris and merrill. my heart breaks for him, but god his language is so hateful and hurtful and damaging. emotional manipulation and abuse just doesn’t... i don’t handle it well.   

Favorite Ship

i am absolutely the least shippiest of shippers, but i’m kind of a sucker for isabela and merrill, even in just a platonic sense. LET MERRILL BE LOVED. 

Favorite Friendship(s)

hawke/varric, but hawke/aveline, fen/aveline, bela/merrill and... honestly da2 friendships in general are just. the very best things. 

Favorite Quote

“let’s show them our hearts, and then show them theirs,” is genuinely one of my favorite lines in anything ever.

Worst Character Death (if any)

i fucked up royally on fenris’s friendship the first time i played da2 all of the way through, and having to kill him at the end was The Worst Thing. close second would be alistair insisting on killing the archdemon after dumping the warden because he “couldn’t live without her” (except bro you literally just decided you were going to do that very thing, let my kid die with grace), simultaneously breaking my heart and ruining his character forever. 

This made me so happy you have no idea Moment

.... dragon age isn’t really composed of happy, my man. game-related but also.... not actually a game moment, finally making it to skyhold because my GAME KEPT CRASHING AND I’D WALKED THROUGH THE GODDAMN SNOW FOR LITERALLY THREE HOURS because the savepoints were that far apart. it definitely heightened the uh, the exhaustion, but hooboy. 

Saddest Moment

leaving hawke in the fade. having to tell varric that i left hawke in the fade. ALSO shade!tamlen. thanks for that little bit of misery, bioware. 

Favorite Location

the hissing wastes, but the emprise is waaaaaaay up there as well. also i love hawke’s estate.