#i am not going to publicly show attraction to fictional characters but just know i'm looking as his waist

[penxil]

pain

[wheeler-beretta-harwood]

I answered your get to know me 20 questions and I want to get to know you better too! So I compiled a 20 list of some questions I thought were interesting (some are from the list you sent me because I liked them too). If you don’t want to answer them or answer them publicly that’s okay!

1. What’s your go-to guilty pleasure?

2. What’s your favorite quote from a tv show/movie/book?

3. What’s one thing that can instantly make your day better?

4. If you could have any exotic animal as a pet, what would it be?

5. What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to?

6. What are you most proud of in the last year?

7. A place you want to visit?

8. What fictional character do you relate to the most?

9. Top 5 wrestlers?

10. Favorite book?

11. What fandoms are you part of besides wrestling?

12. Favorite movie?

13. Non-wrestler celebrity crush?

14. What did you want to be when you were a kid?

15. Favorite singer/band?

16. Favorite holiday?

17. What’s your favorite story trope?

18. What do you find most attractive in a person?

19. Sunny days or storms?

20. Cutest kiss? (Forehead, cheek, hand, etc.)

1. I honestly have no guilty pleasure so to speak. In real life, I am known as the nerdy book lover who knows every Disney movie by heart and has a collection of almost 500 Funko Pops. I am a walking guilty pleasure. BUT not many people know I love wrestling, mostly because I dread the "two talks":

a) But do you know it's fake?!?!?

(And because I'm a girl)

b) So you watch it for the hot naked guys?!?!

That being said, I am currently outing myself as wrestling fan because all I wear are my FTR shirts on repeat and people ask me about it.

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2. One?! You're killing me! Okay, I can do a top 4:

“You're mad, bonkers, completely off your head, but I'll tell you a secret... all of the best people are.”

Alice in Wonderland

"Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart."

The Last Unicorn (I actually have this tattooed around my wrist)

"Curiousity is the strongest force in the universe because it can overcone the two strongest braking forces in the universe: reason, and fear."

The City of Dreaming Books (losely translated by me)

Never cowardly or cruel. Never give up. Never give in .

Doctor Who

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3. Our dogs greeting me when I come home, the smell of freshly mowed lawn, and having some comments/notifications on my writing.

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4. I am not that much into owning an exotic animal. I like fluffy cute ones that I can pet and cuddle...so, if you want to count it as exotic, definitely a fennec. Those huge ears. And they're foxes 🤩

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5. Decaydance Fest 2007. My three favorite bands at the time in one evening: Fall Out Boy, The Academy Is, and Cobra Starship. I was in heaven. And at the end of it, I got to meet the singer of CS, Gabe Saporta. Such a nice guy, and to this day, the only celebrity I've met.

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6. Oh my...a tough call. I am generally never proud of anything, because I am a rather mediocre person. Okay at a lot of things, but not good at anything specific. If you're calling me out like this, I'll say this: I am proud I finally started writing (again). Is it my anchor in stormy weather.

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7. The Holy Trinity of places I want to visit: Chicago, Ireland, Iceland.

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8. The first that came to my mind is Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter. A weirdo, a loner, but a dedicated friend. I love her so much.

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9. No. 1 will forever be Cash Wheeler/FTR. Because these two little shitheads helped me so much with conquering my depression. For years, I haven't done anything I've enjoyed in the past. And they got me back into writing and drawing. And I've met some of the greatest people because we share the love for FTR. I basically owe them every good thing I have in life right now. ( I always get so freaking emotional when it's about these two)

No. 2: Christian Cage. My first real wrestling crush, and I still love him today

No. 3: Trent Beretta. He's just so criminally underrated. I feel like everybody is sleeping on him. And he is so hilarious. And gorgeous.

No. 4: MJF. Everything he touches turns to gold. And he's still so young. It's only gonna get better from here on. And I can't wait to see what he can do.

No. 5: Kenny Omega. I have said it before, but there is just something about the way he moves in the ring. It's almost poetic. I get mezmerized every time he wrestles.

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10. RUMO by Walter Moers. It's just so beautiful. Everything about it. But literally any of his Zamonia books are wonderful. I could ramble on about it forever it, but I'm biting my tongue right now.

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11. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Marvel, Batman, and Disney are my main thing. And the Zamonia fandom mentioned above.

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12. It's either Edward Scissorhands (first movie that made me cry because I connected so much with Edward) or V for Vendetta. And, of course, the Lord of the Rings movies.

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13. Chris Evans.

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14. First a vet, until I realized I had to put animals down. So no, thank you. Then a lawyer, but I'm too stupid for that, then a profiler. But that wasn't a real thing in Germany back in the day.

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15. Fall Out Boy. I've loved them since I was a teenager, and I've grown up with them. I will (hopefully) never get sick of them.

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16. I wish Halloween had been a thing here in Germany when I was younger. I would've loved getting all dressed up. In my heart, I just know it's my favorite holiday, even though I've never REALLY celebrated it.

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17. Hmmm, I don't know. Pining? What I do love are slowburn stories. Because although I can imagine crushing on someone right away, it will forever be a mystery to me how people can fall in love so fast. I'm such a slow person with this... probably why my ass is still single, noone has enough time for slow me.

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18. The two sexiest traits in my opinion: humor and intelligence. There is nothing hotter than a guy that can make me laugh and have a deep conversation with me about anything. That's borderline orgasmic.

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19. Storms. I'm not sure if one can tell by my writing *cough*, but I am not a summer, beach type of Person. I get a sunburn so easily, I even once had a heatstroke. No fun. The sun just doesn't like me all that much.

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20. An ex always kissed the tip of my nose. It was so intimate and innocent at the same time. And I am such a sucker for temple kisses. I love these so much, that's probably why they're in almost every fanfic I ever wrote.

[wowsoboring]

Deconstructing baseless Harry Potter arguments #1: Harmony Edition

There’s a very helpful account on instagram (this instagram page merely gathers toxic harmony shippers, they don’t ship Harmione or hate all Harmione shippers, please don’t send them hate, show them love and support) where you can essentially find stupid fucking bashers who make baseless arguments. I’m all for Harmione shippers, as long as they don’t denounce Romione, bash Ron and just peacefully co-exist. To my pleasure, such people are out there: they just dont seem to be seen as often as the ones that are not nice. Maybe all I see is the mean people and the majority is nice, but in this post, I am attacking those who make baseless claims and bash Ron/Romione/Hinny/Ginny. I don’t myself hate all Harmione shippers. On top of that, as a Romione/Ron fan, i do acknowledge Ron’s character flaws along with Hermione’s and I hold them on the same pedestal.

This is copied directly from my own instagram page, granger.weasley_ on ig.

Anyways let's get deconstructing

1)

rebuttal:

Yeah okay mf; maybe don’t compare real-life relationships with fucking fictional ones. Your relationship going wrong has nothing to do with Ron/Hermione. It has everything to do with you and your ex: the *real life* people involved in it.

2)

rebuttal:

The weird subreddits and discord servers also seem to have a lot of die-hard Harmione “non-canon” shippers. They bash Ron and Romione (along with Ginny and Hinny) with a burning passion without any objective sense of remorse. They ignore all the merits of Ron’s character and bash him to push their agenda. They can’t even do so much as fucking acknowledge any of Hermione’s character flaws but still somehow manage to fixate on that one time when 11 year old Ron just shit-talked one line while Hermione had just publicly humiliated him in front of the Charms class and practically shouted at him for doing the spell wrong just before. I personally don’t because Hermione was 11 too and wasn’t that good at social cues that early on, which is more than okay. Neither am I.

Only a few people in the Romione fandom bash Hermione. And it’s not like Harmione shippers (most, not all!) don’t bash Ron and Ginny remorselessly, right? The fucking hypocrisy.

If someone considers Ron as the best member of the trio, it is their own opinion and not a fact. I do that. If you consider Harry and Hermione as the best member of the trio or in the whole wizarding world, most people don’t give a flying fuck and probably won’t argue with you because it is simply an opinion. That will only happen when you pass that off as a fact.

Statistically speaking, most (not FUCKING all) Harmione moments are in the movies. The weird dance scene especially. The passionate kiss that happens in Ron’s vision, shit like that. Ron is pushed to the sidelines in the last set of movies while Harry and Hermione show each other endless love and support. “I’ll go with you”. The books on the other hand, describe Harry and Hermione as siblings multiple times, with very little Harmione references.

3)

rebuttal:

So you don't want us to fixate on the large majority of Harmione shippers who do the exact same thing, just kissing Hermione's and Harry's ass and hating on Ron. However you will fixate on people who are most likely not EVEN bashing or hating but pointing out a few character flaws in Hermione in a fair and unbiased way. I would know, I'm a huge fan of Hermione as an individual character (in the books). The only criticism I've seen of Hermione to this day has not been bashing. In the comment section of my own fics (shameless plug) I've seen some Hermione bashing. On an ao3 comment section. And I've seen so damn fucking many people bashing Ron, Ginny, the Weasleys etc. and garner tens and thousands of upvotes on quora.

What does Ron even need excusing for? The running away incident and Krum. What does Hermione need excusing for? Canaries, contributing to Ron's insecurities by making him jealous through Cormac and Krum even though she didn't even like them (especially not Cormac, she fucking hated him). Ron wore a locket that literally highlighted his fatal flaw (insecurity) in an echo chamber. Harry kept getting annoyed when Ron wanted to check in on his family. Harry asked Ron to leave; Ron didn't say that shit in the books about Harry's parents being dead: that was plain shock value.

And sorry for repeating myself but I have seen quite a few Harmione shippers bash Ron and Ginny and excuse every single thing Harry and Hermione have done.

4)

37 upvotes on this weird comment that makes no sense? Echo chamber alert! You know what us Romione/Ron fans all have in common? We have never experienced such an echo chamber. I made a pro Ron/Romione post on reddit and got a considerable amount of people who bashed Ron and Romione in the comments.

The amount of Hermione haters is very few compared to Ron bashers. Nobody hates Hermione for being independent, determined, etc. We dislike perfect movie Hermione who’s an unrealistic image of females and seems like some sort of agenda than a real woman. Most Romione shippers/Ron fans and book fans in general (except for you apparently) dislike movie Hermione and still are fans of realistic book Hermione. Most, not all. In general, we do not claim anyone who does the exact same thing to Harry and Hermione that these sorts of Harmione shippers do to Ron, Romione, Hinny and Ginny. I say this on the behalf of all Romione shippers and Ron fans.

Ron's not a bitchy lay-about drama causing loser. That's Steve Kloves's movie Ron. In the books Ron is realistic and simplistic and apologizes whenever he causes problems. He acts up substantially twice in a span of 7 years where he is also a hormone-fuelled teenager.

This is so contradictory and juxtaposed to the point of near delusion. First you talk about how Romione shippers bash Hermione and then you bash Ron as a Harmione shipper. Mate, fighting fire with fire will get you called a hypocrite. Fix yourself.

5)

So the movies are fine when they work according to your agenda? And yes how dare he add such a (fake) chemistry fuelled moment between Harry and Hermione while defeating the entire purpose and groundwork for Romione, the sadness caused by Ron leaving and so many more things? Those Harmione moments you mention seem friendship -esque more than anything else.

Steve Kloves's moments ruined many things while just paying fan service to the Harmione fans he'd birthed through years in the course of 6 movies where he showed Ron as a, how you so eloquently describe it, lay - about drama causing bitchy loser, Harry as one dimensional and Hermione as a zero - dimensional Mary Sue who might as well be the main titular character. Obviously Harmione fans such as yourself don't see the problem with it as it fits your narrative

6)

We do care about Harry and Hermione at large. Most Romione shippers rightfully bash Draco, Pansy, etc. not particularly Harry and Hermione, that's quite rare. Harry and Hermione can get along without Ron as friends. Ron and Harry can also get along without. Hermione as friend. So can Hermione and Ron without Harry as friends or more. I don't understand your point and how what you said is any different than Romione or Ronarry’s friendship.

7)

Constant arguing is not what they do. They bicker, they apologize, and sometimes they just do it for the heck of it. They are argumentative teenager. Opposites attract doesn't work in the sense of fire and ice, it works in the case of Brownie and ice-cream. Ron is passionate, laid back and insecure. Hermione's passionate, a workaholic and not as insecure. Ron can help her get calm and composed and get her to give herself a break. Hermione can motivate Ron and re - enforce his confidence.

It wouldn't be step incest. Harry and Ginny do not regard each other as siblings. They do not look similar whatsoever. And a Harmione shipper also bashes Hinny and Ginny along with Ron and Romione? Checks out

" that fucked up Harmony" hahaha. What?

8)

Are you literally going to date someone on the basis of what Harry Potter ships they prefer? That is so shallow end depraved. Your Harry Potter ship preferences should not be the groundwork for your dating life. Please understand that. Harry Potter is a fictional world which is not real. Hogwarts doesn't exist. Magic doesn't exist. I sound like a Dursley but that's what it is: a fictional realm with fictional character. I would personally not give a fuck if my best friend or significant other was a Harmione shipper. In the case of them being a Ron basher, I would ignore it as if it was just a minor inconvenience and something we wouldn't be discussing and that's how it should be with you. Fuck BuzzFeed, your opinion on what Harry Potter ship / character is your favorite says squat about your personality and relationship with others in a romantic or platonic context. But who cares? Live your life however you want. I'll be stoic.

9)

It's not opposites attract rubbish or high school opposites attract. Ron and Hermione aren't polar opposites like I said, they are a bit different but similar too in many ways. They have a lot more in common than Harry and Hermione. Ron and Harry have the most in common. Both Ron and Hermione are passionate, loving, argumentative, caring, etc. Your argument lacks substance. It's biased trash. And what does “obhwf " mean?

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at the end of the day, i’m just an annoyed teenager. I try my best to be open-minded to people but only as long as they are too. I tried to use my brain more than my feelings for this post. 

[cavehags]

i realize this will probably bring up old drama so you might not want to answer it. but do you ever regret, however on purpose or on accident, bringing all that unnecesary hate towards Katara? i'm really sad and dissapointed tbh. i'm a woman of color and katara was so important to me growing up. my favorite animated woman ever. and then this resurgence comes and theres so, so much unnecesary hatred for her and everyone ignoring everything that makes her a good character.

(2/3) 2- and you know, i expected this from the male side of the fandom. they were misogynistic to her and the others even back then so i would expect it to be even worse with how internet culture is more mysogistic now that ever. and i wasnt wrong. male atla fans had some truly horrible takes and views that just came across as racism and misogyny. but, i expected these circles to be better. to be a safe space for us woc who love this character. but i found the same weird hatred for her.

(3/3) 3-i just, i cant believe i feel less welcome now that i did even back then. and back then i didnt even paricipate really. but at least i could enjoy fandom content without stumbling into misogyny and racism every other post. also sorry for sending this to your personal blog b i just wanted to let you know you controbuted to that too even if it wasnt your intention. at least you realized that and arent contributing to it anymore right? cause honestly the hate has only gotten worse not less.

hey anon. thanks for asking this question, because i hadn’t addressed this topic previously and this gave me an opportunity to do so. 

no, i don’t regret publicly interpreting a character whom i love through a nuanced and human lens. and i don’t regret combating the one-dimensional interpretation of this character, which posits that she’s merely an vaguely defined object of attraction for some boy or another, and a singularly gentle, mature, maternal figure whose sole purpose in life is to nurture others. those interpretations suck. they rob her of the humanity and complexity that make her character unique and they stem from misogynistic tropes that reduce women to the services they can provide to men. the thing in the world that matters most to me is fighting misogyny, and this trend to diminish a proud and powerful and angry teenage girl by exaggerating only her most socially acceptable traits is misogyny. 

unlike you, i did not grow up watching avatar: the last airbender. the shows i watched growing up did not have a lot of girls who felt real to me. the girls i saw on tv growing up were simple. they were the main characters’ crushes. they were simple, desirable, usually sweet and loving, and not much else. if they had a flaw, it was that they were, at best, “awkward.” whatever that means. or if they were the protagonists, which was rare, they were nice enough and tried to do the right thing, but they never had strong feelings like resentment and anger. they weren’t allowed to be unfeminine which meant they weren’t allowed to be bitter, angry or in any way flawed. they didn’t look like the version of girlhood i knew to be true for me personally, which included a lot of anger and frustration and powerlessness. 

that crappy representation left me with internalized misogyny that chased me for longer than i’d like to admit. i did not learn to think of girls as humans who could be as interesting and flawed and messy as the boys were. i did not value myself as a girl, and later a woman, because i thought the best thing a girl could be was... bland. boring. pretty, but empty. passionless.

it would have meant the world to me to see a character like katara. 

because katara is angry. she has every right to be: she’s had so much stolen from her, including her mother, her people, and her childhood. katara has a short fuse. she yells. she snaps. she fucks up. sometimes she makes mean jokes! i never saw a single one of those dreamily perfect cartoon love interests make mean jokes when i was a kid. she is extremely idealistic--it’s her defining character trait--but we see the bad side of that as well as the good. we see that her need to help others  leads her to act rashly, to get herself into danger, to put others in danger too. 

and she has her very own arc. it’s not about her love for another person, either (what a snooze of a storyline); it’s about growing up and learning to break down some of that stubborn black-and-white thinking that we all indulge in as children. it’s a true coming-of-age arc and it belongs to a fourteen-year-old girl. 

when i, to use a phrase i find crass, “entered the fandom,” i quickly realized that other fans’ perceptions of katara did not line up with the things i valued most about her. other fans seemed to valorize her most socially acceptable feminine qualities: her generosity, her kindness, her dedication to helping others. and of course i love those parts of her--i love everything about her--but what is really remarkable about avatar: the last airbender is that katara’s many important virtues are also counterbalanced by equally significant flaws. a good character has flaws. katara is a good character, and a deviation from the characters who made up my formative media landscape, because she has flaws. her temper, her idealism, her stubbornness--these are flaws. flaws make her seem real and human and challenge the mainstream sentiment that girls are not real or human.

it simply did not occur to me that celebrating these aspects of katara that make her a realistic and well-written teenage girl would spark ire from other adult fans. it absolutely did not occur to me that i would then be blamed for somehow causing misogynistic interpretations of this character, particularly given that misogynistic interpretations of this character are the very thing i sought to correct when i began to blog about this television show.

i’m told there are “fans” on instagram and tiktok who think katara is whiny, annoying, and overly preoccupied with her trauma. i do not use instagram or tiktok, so i wouldn’t know, but i’ll take your word for it. respectfully, however, they didn’t get that from me. misogynistic takes on katara have existed since before i came along. i have never, ever called katara whiny. and seeing as i have been treating my own PTSD in therapy for nine years, you can safely conclude that i don’t think anyone, katara included, is overly preoccupied with their trauma. that’s not a thing. do i think she’s annoying? of course not! as a character, she’s a delight. does she sometimes find real joy in aggravating her brother and her friends? yes, because she’s 14. i, an adult, am not annoyed by her. sokka and toph often are, because that is katara’s goal and katara always succeeds in her goals. she’s not “annoying.” 

if there are “fans” who are indeed following lesbians4sokka and somehow misreading every single post and interpreting them to mean that we hate katara and they should too, i don’t really know what you want me to do about that. l4s has over ten thousand followers and we have already posted so many essays disavowing katara hate. our feminist and antiracist objectives in running the blog are literally pinned with the headline “please read.”

furthermore, you cannot reasonably expect my co-blogger and me to control the way our words will be received. we should not have to, and are not going to, add a disclaimer to every post saying that when we critique or make jokes about a teenage girl we are doing so through a feminist lens. our url is lesbians4sokka, and we are clearly women. if that alone doesn’t make it obvious, then refer back to that pinned post. 

it is indescribably frustrating, and really goddamn depressing as well, that people are so comfortable with the misogynistic binary of Perfect Good Women and Flawed Wicked Bitches that they perceive any discussion of a woman’s flaws to be necessarily relegating her to the latter camp. if that is how you (a generic you) perceive women, then i’m sorry, but you’ve internalized sexism that i cannot cure you of. and it’s unjust to expect my friend and me to write for the lowest common denominator of readers who have not yet had their own feminist awakenings. we do not write picture books for babies. we write for ourselves, and with the expectation that our readers can think critically. reading media through a feminist lens is my primary interest; i have no intention of excising that angle from my writing.

as i go through my life, i am going to embrace the flaws of girls and women because not enough people do. as long as the dominant narratives surrounding women are “good and perfect” and “unlovable wh*re,” you’ll find me highlighting flawed, realistic, righteously angry women in the margins. and for what it’s worth, it’s not just katara. i champion depictions of angry girls in all sorts of media. that’s sort of my whole thing. my favorite movies are part of the angry girl cinematic universe: thoroughbreds, jennifer’s body, hard candy, jojo rabbit, et cetera. on tv, in addition to katara, you’ll find me celebrating tuca and bertie, poppy from mythic quest, tulip and lake from infinity train, korra, and more. i adore all these women and see myself in them. i hope you find this suitably persuasive to establish that i have sufficient Feminist Cred, according to your standards, to observe and write about these very flawed and human fictional women. 

what i’m saying is this: i decline to take responsibility for the misogynistic discourse orbiting a children’s cartoon. as someone who writes about that series from a perspective that seeks to add humanity and nuance to the reductive, one-dimensional, overwhelmingly sexist writing that already exists, i am pretty taken aback that i am the one being blamed for the very problem i sought to address. except not that taken aback because i am a woman online, haha! and this is always how it goes for us. 

finally, i think it sucks that you’ve chosen to blame me for a problem that begins and ends with the patriarchy. i can’t control the way this response will be perceived, just like how i can’t control the way anything will be perceived because i am just one human woman, but i do hope you choose to be reflective, and consider why you’ve chosen this avenue to assign blame. 

[catmiration]

if you were a fictional character in a movie, TV show or book, how do you think the audience would feel about you?

I think

ok im gaining confidence and contentment with myself as the days go by, so actually-

I think that an audience would actually like me a fair amount?

im sure some would disagree with some of my actions, and others would find me annoying or boring or lame, but hey. let me romanticize myself for a second:

im a fat girl who's learning to love her body, i talk a lot, I'm animated and I express a lot. i crochet and i attempt art and i ramble and i love music. i try so hard. i sped through my degree and i LOVE what i do and i get at least 5 hugs every day i work (cmon, who wouldn't love free hugs??). i love kids so much that even when I have a bad day im so excited for when i teach next. i really want to make my dreams come true (which are! really close to happening actually). i have a crush that's been reciprocated for over a year now, and we have so many cute moments that the audience would just be screaming at us to just date already! and we'd just be blissfully oblivious to their desires and keep finding excuses to hug each other or make out in our free time. i have a sort of social life with a small collection of people i really love having in my life. my internet friends aren't half bad either. there would definitely be some shipping wars between me and the mutual crush and me and one of the internet friends and no you don't get to know the details of why i say that. i am 1000% neurodivergent and i'd offer some sort of adhd representation (probably positive!) And normalize stimming bc it's second nature to me. im also queer and even tho my current crush is a cishet man and i don't plan on publicly coming out, i'd offer some fun moments of gay panic and also be nice to watch bc im comfortable in being attracted to other genders - I just don't feel the need to put a whole statement out about it? oh and I've been through shit that'd probably be Relatable AF (daddy issues, struggling mental health, disordered eating, etc.) And people would love to see my evolution and growth?

anyway yeah I think even if the audience doesn't like me, they 100% should. i also have 3 cats and can be a sassy lil shit who believes there's good in everyone.