#i feel for the buddie shippers who have been nothing but kind and supportive but... yes.

[lemotmo]

Well, THAT happened last night…

First time for everything, right?

I have a couple of things to get off my chest, but once this is posted I’m moving on to regular fandom stuff again. I’m not going to come back to any of this, because frankly it isn’t worth my time or energy.

So without further ado:

Thank you so much to all the lovely people who have been sending me and the other people involved in this mess non-stop kind messages in support. I appreciate it. I won’t be responding to each and every one of you, because there are just too many at this point. But know that you helped me a lot. It’s great to see that no one actually believes any of these terrible accusations.

Negative comments (very few of them) have been read, taken note of and deleted, with the sender blocked. I’m not engaging in fruitless discussion and arguements with anyone who is only here to cause trouble and rage bait. You won’t get any kind of attention from me.

I’m also not going to accuse any side of any fandom of this garbage posting. Mostly because I have no idea who is responsible for it and I don’t feel comfortable accusing a group of people or a person of something I’m not sure of. I wouldn't want to do what has been done to me yesterday.

As of this moment, I am done posting about anything else but Buddie or Tommy in function of Buck’s narrative. I will of course also post about all the other characters and the show as a whole. I have always tried to maintain respect when it came to Tommy and the BT fandom. I never used any of the tags this fandom frequents, because that would be disrespectful. Yes, I sometimes gave my opinion and talked about the more radical aggressive stans who for example, harassed other people over many platforms, but I have always maintained that there are a lot of BT fans and multi-shippers in fandom that have nothing to do with this toxicity and I still stand by that. Case in point, the two kind anon messages I got from BT shippers who didn't buy the lies either. Thank you by the way. I appreciate your support. I don’t care what anyone ships or doesn’t ship. Just like I expect other people to not care what I ship or don’t ship. Ultimately, the characters we ship are not real. They are fictional people in a fictional world. It's fun to ship them yes, but they aren't worth all of this insane drama. Drama that affects REAL people in the REAL world by the way!

Yes, I am aware that there are also radical aggressive Buddie stans and yes, I have a lot of them blocked as well. I don’t discriminate on what fandom you’re in. If I see someone suggesting to someone else to do harmful things to themselves, I react by blocking that person instantly, no matter what fandom they are a part of. We are all still living and breathing human beings behind our blog. No one should get things like that thrown at them.

I will continue to post Ali’s posts (anonymous blog I love), but I’m going to ask the anons that send me her posts to only send me messages that have to do with either the show as a whole, other characters, Buddie, Buddie speculation or Tommy and Tommy speculation as a character. He is still a part of Buck’s narrative for now, so I can’t ignore him, even when I really really really want to.

I won’t respond to any asks about any part of the BT fandom and more specifically about those radical stans anymore. So far I have been polite about all the drama, but I am tired of all of it. I don’t wish to spend one more second giving attention to these stans. If you want to still send me something related to that topic, you are free to do so and I will certainly take a look at it, but I won’t respond publicly to anything.

The fact of the matter is that the insane levels of toxicity that have popped up in this fandom have only been here for a couple of months. There was always some level of toxicity, but not to this amount. Like Tim said, it got ugly. I know because I have personally been in this fandom for years now and things have never ever gotten as bleak as what me and two other fans were subjected to yesterday. Do with that information what you will.

Finally, I wonder what drives people to do something like this and I fail to comprehend this kind of behaviour. I sincerely hope that they see the light and put all of their energy in doing something more productive in life, because this is not a healthy way to live their life. I wish them only the best.

All right, now on to normal fandom stuff:

I predict Buddie canon in season 8! 🤞😉

[thegoldheartlocketandkey-blog]

It’s been made pretty clear by the fandom, not just Buddie Shippers, that we aren’t really fans of who Buck and Eddie end up with in the finale.

The biggest issue I have with the pairings is that they weren’t worked up, they kind of just showed up and we have no reason to care about them.

If these women are supposed to be endgame, at least give us ample reason to support the choice.

Natalia: They really screwed up her character because there was so much potential in making her interesting and someone we would like to get to know. She’s a death dula and Buck died. Instead of having her tell Buck that it’s so “cool” that he died they could of had her play an active role in having him process his death. I mean they still have the opportunity to do that but after they gave us a cringe date, a recycled story line, but with less depth, they gave us too many reasons to dislike her as a character for me to even see that play out.

They made the same mistake they made with Lucy. Instead of having Natalia be a friend to Buck they force her to be a love interest which adds nothing new to bucks character.

But imagine Buck’s character development if Natalia was a friend. He would have gone from Buck 1.0 ( The guy who only does hook ups), to Buck 2.0 (the guy who just ends up in relationships) to Buck 3.0 (the guy who chooses himself and is able to be friends with a woman).

We can also address the fact that there is a lack of chemistry between Buck and Natalia. The kiss in the finale was awkward and not in a cute endearing way. I will say, I love that she doesn’t look like she could be related to Buck. I’m willing to see their relationship play out during season 7, but I just can’t see it being the end game.

Marisol: Where did she come from. What do you mean this is the girl that has Eddie acting like a middle schooler. She came out of nowhere and we know almost nothing about her, besides the fact that she fixes her brother’s mistakes.

I rewatched Season 6, Episode 5: Home Invasion, where we are first introduced to Marisol and after watching the episode, I believe the fan theory that her brother’s rescue was originally written as a boyfriend being rescued. But after the scenes where already filmed, the writers decided she’d be the love interest so they re-recorded the audio of the scene. I’m serious go back and watch her emergency, there is something off about it.

Marisol to me feels like another Ana. No substance, no reason for me to care about her. They both barely interacted, so their phone call makes less sense the more you think about it.

The same episode where Eddie is told he can’t look for love, he finds what he’s “been looking for”. This feels like Eddie is again only doing what he thinks he is supposed to do. Instead of processing his feelings of loneliness, he’s doing what he thinks the world expects him to do and date someone. He married Shannon because he felt like he had to. He stayed with Ana because he thought it was best for Christopher. And he’s settling for Marisol because he doesn’t want to be alone. None of those reasons are good reasons to pursue someone for a serious relationship.

It’s one thing to have Eddie date because he wants to be outside his comfort zone, meet people, and have fun. It’s a completely other thing to have him date because he feels like he needs to.

The only way to make Marisol a good character is by having her be a person that helps Eddie figure that out. She helps him realize that it’s not just about the end game, but his ability to just enjoy her company and not so worried about what the end result. She can just be someone he dates because she was fun to date. A relationship that shows him that you can have someone be an important part of your journey, but not your end game. Like a summer fling.

Given the fact that the actress who plays Marisol recently reposted a transphobic meme and couldn’t even attempt a sincere apology, I hope we don’t get to see her at all in season 7. She can be explained away by Eddie mentioning her once and just saying it felt promising but she just wasn’t the one. I have no interest in see their relationship play out.

Buddie: In my opinion, the best match for Buck and Eddie will always be each other. The writers have their relationship set up as the perfect slow burn, friends to lover scenario. And even though they screwed up the finale a bit, they can easily correct their wrongs. Buck and Eddie’s chemistry is undeniable and having them end up together would play into their individual story lines so perfectly.

I need this relationship that has developed organically to flourish in Season 7.

I will continue to manifest Buddie and let me use this moment to state couch theory is not dead. Buck will just need to get rid of another couch.

[owmylasagna-blog]

So, what's the real appeal in Ed/May? I see that this popular, but over all the show I see aproximately zero positive moments/development between them, including in the finale. Nothing positive, I can't think of anything that wasn't one-sided or outright negative. And I think Ed deserves faaar better than her; I don't see him just forgeting all she made and sudenly falling in love with her (fanfics where they're just dating out of nowhere specially irks me) without any explanation or development.

The appeal seems just ''pair the dumb/goofy ones'' (why not Ed/Nazz? Or Ed/Rolf? Or even Ed/Jonny?)

Honestly, I'm under the impression people only ship it as a Beta Couple for Edd/Eddy, and nothing else more. Your reasoning?

Wow I’m actually pretty glad I got this question because I’ve had a half baked post on this very subject that’s been sitting in my drafts for weeks. Now I have a reason to actually share it.

And from the jump, no I don’t ship Ed and May solely because I’m an eddeddy shipper. I actually see some interesting potential here! I also ship Ed wildly because he’s just a lover boi in my mind. Perhaps even most wildly out of the entire cast of the show: I have the receipts for dabbling in edrolf and ednazz but I can really only imagine those pairings as little flings.

So what is it about edmay that works?

Of the three Kanker sisters, May actually seems to be the only one to genuinely have a crush on her preferred Ed. It goes beyond the typical taunting and harassing her sisters subject the other Eds to. The intro to Hanky Panky Hullabaloo is a prime example of this: May makes a mushy valentine and Marie and Lee make fun of her for it. Afterwards the two talk about May behind her back: “Now we know who got mom’s genes.” “Hormones”. I think it's an interesting summary of how the sisters have differing perspectives on relationships and how they think about boys/men. While Marie and Lee are more disenchanted by romance, they see May as more naive and prone to getting emotionally attached in the same way their mom probably falls for one disappointing man after another. Anyway, the point is that I think May cares whether Ed reciprocates those feelings while Marie and Lee don’t with Eddy or Edd.

CUTE!

Now we have Ed’s reactions to May. In the earlier seasons, he doesn’t seem as averse to the Kanker harassment. Honestly sometimes he’s sort of enjoying it or just not bothered at all. I don’t think Ed generally would show his interests or feelings in a very typical way. Actually the most damning evidence that he might actually be attracted at all to May or just girls period are the moments where he is acting the most repulsed by them. We are talking about a 12 year old after all, probably a bit panicked by some new hormones and feelings about “icky girls”: to me, it reads as the early stages of immature boyish attraction.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t include at least one reference to the Ed-cyclopedia that is Kevin Lordi (as per usual), who got the scoop that the writers toyed with the idea of making Ed and May canon in the earlier seasons, even scraped S2 episode where they are caught kissing in the bushes being the basis for HPH (Lordi 2017, 2018).

So what is in this ship for them? I really like exploring this ship because of many of the parallels I see in their characters. I think it’s safe to say that Ed and May are respective outliers in their trios: May being the younger punching bag to her older sisters, Ed sort of being off on his own planet or plane of existence from Edd and Eddy most of the time. I could see both naturally branching out on their own while the remaining two are prone to buddying up. Other similarities, as you mention, also make them a cute pair: they are goofy, a bit ditzy, naturally kind hearted, a bit off beat, a tad (or a lot) gross. Nothing wrong with that!

Both come from pretty bleak home lives, lacking in support or parental nurturing. For this reason, you see them often compensating by being the nurturing types themselves: Ed being the protective big brother to Sarah and his two best pals, May often playing out a maternal fantasy (more than once she plays mommy and baby in the show; coddling Jimmy in BPS). Now just think of a relationship where these two get together!!! Having an outlet for compassion AND on the receiving end of it. I think they have the potential to have a very sweet relationship ripe for healing and personal growth.

I see them coming to appreciate each other with a bit of time and maturity, maybe striking up a friendship first before actually dating later in their teens or early adulthood. Oddly enough I make lots of parallels between Edd and May as well and could easily imagine some aspects of Edd and Ed’s friendship manifesting in edmay. The biggest factor being what I said about May having this maternal care-taker drive. Seeing as the Kanker sisters just about raised themselves and had to grow up really fast, you end up with a very “parentified” child. And if Edd isn’t the poster child for being a parentified kid I don’t know what… Anyway, in the same way that Edd acts as a stand-in parental figure to Ed I think May would quickly take on a similar role. I’m NOT endorsing this dynamic as 100% positive!!! I think it would be complicated! But it’s an interesting ship dynamic nonetheless and I’m trying to explore that in my aged up AU now.

[theclaravoyant]

(nothing will change) if you never choose ~ 911 buddie (Rated T)

AN ~ Prompted by @exhaustedpigeon on Tumblr. Thank you! I had a lot of fun writing this, I hope you like it!

Prompt #962 for @911actions Gotcha For Gaza event. The prompt period is now over, but you can still show your support for a good cause! MASSIVE thank you to the incredible galaxy brain G4G chat members without whom this fic would simply not be what it is x

Title from Who Do You Love - Marianas Trench

Relationships: Buddie, Eddie & Christopher, Eddie & Maddie, Eddie & Karen, Eddie & Dispatch Crew, Buddie & Christopher.

Shippers on Deck, Feelings Realisation, Feelings Confession. Set post S7. Past mentions of Maddie/Doug and Buck/Tommy.

Read on AO3 (~4300wd)

Summary:

It's been a long time since Eddie Diaz has had friends. Even longer since he's felt like he knows who he is, and what he wants. The Dispatch Wine & Whine crew are here to nudge him in the right direction.

(nothing will change) if you never choose

Wine & Whine nights were a Dispatch thing long before Eddie came along. They persisted once he'd left as well, and he'd removed himself from the invitation. Recently though, when Christopher had left and Buck had gotten involved with Tommy and he was feeling so desperately lonely, more than he dared look too closely in the eye, he'd begged back in. They'd taken pity on him enough to have him, and let him start turning back up with barely a word except to heave a sigh and let as much of the weight of the world as he dared fall off between them.

He didn't share everything of course – far from it – but it was a plus that they were all either parents or first responders or both. Maybe they hadn't been shot out of the sky but they'd all been through their own shit and he kind of knew parts of it; enough to know that they got him, enough for him to start to trust it. They understood that there'd be landmines inside him, and rocks under which they shouldn't be too keen to look, and they all had their own too. And sometimes they talked about them, or around them – about the rough calls, about the struggles of being so close to those who threw themselves at danger every day, and yet so far. Sometimes they just talked about what was going on with Jee and Mara and Josh's new boyfriend Leon (most recently, they'd got a cat). It was nice. Eddie had even managed to convince himself to stick with it as the world turned right side up again around him. He was starting to figure there might be something to Frank's advice after all, about talking to someone who understood, and about spreading his identity eggs – or something; he's sure he's mixing Frank's metaphors - between more baskets.

Change of plans. W&W at the Wilsons tonight, Maddie sends the group chat.

Trading your husband for a decent pinot? Can relate, Josh sends.

Maddie sends a laugh emoji. Karen prefers Epicuro.

I can bring a decent pinot, Eddie offers. He's still got a bottle of Rodney Strong unopened and gathering dust on top of the fridge; it's been stting there since he and Marisol were dating. The offer is met with several little heart reacts and an enthusiastic series of red wine emojis from Josh and maybe it's silly but it makes him smile. It feels like such a long time since he's had friends.

Out of the corner of his eye, he feels Christopher watching him. He's smiling too.

“Are you texting Buck?” Christopher asks. Eddie chuckles. “Actually, no.”

“Uh huh. Are you sure?” His eyes narrow.

“Sure I'm sure. Don't you worry, Buck has clear instructions to leave you alone for the night unless you contact him. Message has been received loud and clear. But if you do need him, his phone number, and Uncle Chim's and Hen's are on the fridge, okay?”

“I have Buck's phone number,” Christopher reminds him. “And Uncle Chim, and Hen, and Bobby. And Abuela, and Tia Pepa, and Mrs Hudson from two doors down.”

“And the emergency services?”

Christopher groans and throws his head back. “Come onnnnnn. Aren't you going to be late to something?”

“That's for me to worry about,” Eddie retorts, but the attitude only makes his heart soar further. He's back, and so Chris, and he'll gladly suffer that glare every day for the rest of his life if he has to. He grins. “Why? You're planning on throwing a party the second I walk out of here, aren't you.”

Christopher shakes his head. “I want to order pizza and use the big TV for my channel launch.”

“Right, right.” Eddie grabs his battered wallet, and tries to remember which one of these folds still has some cash tucked away inside it.

“It's okay, Dad,” Chris says, matter-of-factly. “My fans will cheer me the bits for it.”

Eddie's not sure if he's serious or not about the terminology. But the concept? Christopher's eyes are steady, confident. His jaw is set. As much as when he'd insisted on skateboarding, or horseriding, or the Tower of Terror. Only one of those he's pretty sure Chris regrets.

“You're serious about this, huh?”

“As a tsunami.”

Eddie holds back the urge to pull his son against him and never let go. He holds out a twenty instead.

“Consider it an investment in your future.” He sighs. “Alright. Off I go. Phone's on the counter, first aid kit's on the bench. Don't burn the place down, alright?”

“No promises,” Chris teases, by which he means, of course I won't, you idiot. But he has a fond smile for his dear old dad, and he doesn't object when Eddie scoops him in for just a moment and presses a quick kiss to the top of his hair. Then Eddie picks up the wine in one hand and his keys in the other, and manages to force himself out the door.

-

“My pinooot,” Josh sings, opening the door for Eddie and brushing past his – completely unnecessary, per the rules of W&W – apology with a teasing smile. “Ooh, hello Rodney. Get inside me. And hello to you too, I guess.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “It's nice to be missed. And I'll have one too. Since you're offering.”

“Done.”

“So, how's Chris?” Karen asks as he drops his bag and moves further into the room. She, Maddie and Linda are already half a bowl and some change deep into a bag of chips and some pickle-sausage-cheese hors d'ouevres. “This is his first big night alone, huh?”

Don't remind me, Eddie groans silently.

“Not his first,” he insists. Though he's not sure that time he rounded the corner to the Taco Bell and watched his phone like a hawk for fifty nine minutes and fifty seconds technically counts.

“Mmhmm.” Karen nods. She meets eyes with Josh and gestures, make it a heavy one, and Josh adds a little extra to his pour before handing it over. Eddie draws a long, deep, grateful sip and sinks into the seat they've left open for him.

“He's so grown up,” he laments. “I feel like I've missed it all of a sudden. He's tall. He's shaving. The other night he came to me asking for help to get a job!”

“Ooh, been there,” Linda sympathises, waving her own glass in the air for some of the newly-arrived red. Josh obliges. “Ben's off to college, it feels like yesterday! He's what, fifteen though, right? Didn't you have a job at his age?”

“Yeah; had my first paper route when I was twelve. But he- he gets pocket money and stuff, you know? He shouldn't need it. I provide for my son.”

“Nobody's saying you don't,” Josh points out, “but there's more to a job than the finances. Schools and jobs are pushing for experience more and more these days. Maybe Chris wants to get his foot in the door. Or maybe just a bit of independence, you know?"

Eddie groans. Out loud this time.

“Ahhh, the i word,” Maddie sighs with a groan of her own. “On that, I can relate. There's nothing wrong with not wanting Christopher to live the life you did, Eddie. I mean, here's to hands-off parenting. But there's got to be a balance, right? Otherwise... Jee will never learn to tie her own shoes.”

She pouts, as if the very prospect of either path forward troubles her, and the others nod in commisseration. Eddie only wishes that was the entirety of the problem at hand.

“Oh, he's being plenty independent about it,” he explains. “He's decided he's going to be a Twitch streamer, apparently.”

“Oh.” Karen scoffs. “So the problem isn't just that he's being independent, it's that you don't like what he's doing with his independence.”

“Which is kind of the point of independence, no?” Josh finishes for her, one sharp eyebrow raised at Eddie.

“Look, it's not that I don't like it -” even though I barely have a clue what it is - “it's just that... I'm not sure it's going to go anywhere for him. It's not, you know. Sustainable. Successful.”

“What are you talking about?” Linda objects, and points a finger before Eddie can do more than open his mouth again. “You sit down, Mr HILDY Hater Fan Club. I think Christopher would rock a Twitch. He totally helped me beat Tomb Raider! And Among Us? Please. He's already getting clipped on Tiktok. I just know a series on Baldur's Gate or something would go wild. That kid's hilarious. You never know. He could make bank.”

Eddie blinks. He's still catching up with the image of Gamer Linda and how this somehow didn't manage to come up earlier. Between that and cheering bits, everything feels like jibberish.

“That was English, right?” he jokes, and peers into his wine glass. “How much have I had?”

“Come on.” Linda laughs. “He's just being creative. Plus, this way he doesn't have to deal with a lot of the constraints of a minimum wage junior job. Me, I worked a deli counter at fourteen, and it sucked ass. You're always standing for too long, lifting stuff you probably shouldn't be lifting. Got held up a couple times.”

(“Ah, the road to Dispatch,” Josh cheers, raising his glass to the room.)

“You don't have to risk him getting held up, though,” Maddie interrupts, before Eddie can jump on that particular point and spiral. “Denny coaches Little League, right? And I know Harry – Harry works at that skate shop. Or was it a surf shop? That might be a bit outside Christopher's wheelhouse but I'm sure there's something more... conventional out there for him, if you want.”

“I do want,” Eddie agrees. He takes a deep breath. “But right now, no thanks. I made a promise. He gets a month to try this Twitch thing and we'll re evaluate after that.”

“Aw. Look at you being all normal about your kid's choices,” Karen praises. “The first time Denny came home in new shoes he bought himself I'm pretty sure I cried for an hour and then called all the local engravers to have a trophy made.”

“So what I'm hearing is, you have a hook up.”

“Oh God.” Maddie cringes. “Don't tell Chimney. We can't afford the storage.”

She's joking. Mostly. But nevertheless, in the chat there appears a link to Solas & Sons, Pasadena.

“Seriously though,” Karen repeats, “let me know and I'll ask around. I'm sure we could use a mind like his at the lab. Priya has a series of lectures on the evolution of deep space photoimagery coming up she'll need transcribed.”

“Thanks, Karen,” Eddie replies. “He'd love that – he's on a real astrophysics kick at the moment. I'll keep you posted.”

His phone buzzes. He jumps for it.

It's Buck.

Are you SURE you don't want me to call in on Christopher?

Thanks, but no. He's got this. Eddie looks at the clock. It's almost been half an hour since he left and he hasn't quite lost his mind yet. Maybe he's more ready for this than he thought. Throwing his phone through the roof at the mere prospect of a message just now notwithstanding.

Ok, Buck agrees.

Then: [Frowny face]. [Clock] [Clock] [Clock] [Clock].

Eddie can't help smiling even as he tries to turn his phone face-down again.

“What about you, Linda?” he asks. “What's going on in the Bates' sphere?”

Somehow, already, he's looking again. He can't help it.

I'm nervous, Buck says. I feel crazy. Do you think I baby him too much since he came back?

You're fine, Eddie sends back. I started it.

Did you know about this, btw?

Buck sends a link to what is, apparently, Christopher's newly launched Twitch channel. 'CYBERTSUNAMI [Cool Guy Emoji]'. He's got what appears to be a live feed of Fortnite playing, the screen dominated by his own avatar leading through the game. There's a chat window in the corner and – well, by Eddie's expectations at least – it is blowing up. One particular message catches his eye.

Caligirl0404 writes: wtf is your 'Buck'?

In their own chat, Buck sends: He's talking about me?? [Star eyes emoji]. BRB I need to find something for this kid to sign to prove I knew him before he made it big.

Eddie barks a laugh. He immediately covers his mouth, but can't quite obscure his smile, and he knows it's just embarassingly luminescent because of the way they're all looking at him. They've been looking at him like that for a while now, especially when the topic of Buck comes up. It's this soft, sparkly sort of look like they're waiting for him to figure out something they know that he doesn't. But he does know, and it has something to do with that warm feeling he gets whenever he thinks about him. Since Buck came out – since Tommy – he's been sort of wondering. If someone like him... if those feelings could be... “How is my dear brother?” Maddie asks, swirling her chardonnay like she knows something. Which she definitely does. “And how's Tommy? I haven't seen much of either of them since the break-up.”

“Buck's fine,” Eddie says. “Tommy's – also fine, sort of. I think. They left things on good terms, as far as I know. No harm, no foul. They just wanted different things.”

Karen nods. “Buck wants kids.”

Josh snorts into his wine glass. Eddie's hands freeze on his own.

“What?” Josh all but splutters. “Our Buck? As in, Evan James Firehose Buckley?”

But Eddie asks - “How did you know?"

“Oh, please!” Karen cries. “Uncle Buck? He lives for them. Plus, he already kind of has one, and you know he loves Christopher more than life itself. I know it sounds crazy, but – and on pain of death, he can never know this, alright? – I see myself in him, that way. I know. I know. But he has this passion. And it's not something fleeting, it's this drive. You know when it's something you really want, and if there's one thing I've learnt about Buck over all these years it's that that man wants to make a family more than anything else in this world.”

Eddie closes his eyes. It's too much to think about, and Karen's steady gaze is boring into him like she can see straight through to the supercut of Buck, and Chris, and Buck-and-Chris that plays at all times in his heart. He can still picture Buck telling him about the break-up like it was yesterday. Too close in their kitchen with his eyes doing that very solemn sort of shine like they did the night he'd told him about he and Tommy being he-and-Tommy in the first place.

-

“Hey. What's W&W?” Buck had asked. “You and Tommy going to some new extreme sport I don't know about?"

“Uh, no.” Eddie had shaken his head. “Tommy and I are... taking a break, for a while.”

“Oh.” Buck had frowned. “Not 'cause of me though, right? I told you: me and Tommy are cool. We just want different things.”

“Wasn't my idea,” Eddie had promised. “He's still a little sore about you guys, and apparently, me starting every other sentence with 'Buck' isn't helping.”

A quiet blush had crept onto Buck's cheeks at that and he'd bitten his lip. Eddie knew that meant he was holding back something he felt he shouldn't say. He was probably thinking, he's sore over me? and not wanting to admit it was kind of flattering. Eddie had wanted to tell him that anyone would be. Well, anyone should be. It was just Tommy's bad luck that he was apparently one of the first who understood that.

“It's not all bad,” Buck had said, and it must have been the truth: he'd never been one for the stiff upper lip approach when he could help It. Yet he'd smiled. “Feels good, actually. Even though it sucks. You know? It's like these pieces of the puzzle of my life are falling into place. Tommy helped me find some of those pieces. But he knows kids aren't part of his puzzle and I've decided... for me they are. Does that make sense?”

“It makes perfect sense,” Eddie had assured him. “You're a great dad.”

And Buck had looked at him with this face like – like he didn't quite believe it. Or at least that he was surprised at Eddie's choice of words. That he is. Not that he will be, or would be, or could be. He gets that face a lot, and more and more lately, Eddie wants to kiss it off him. That's another thing that's been lingering on Eddie's mind of late. The pieces of that puzzle of his own.

-

“Penny for your thoughts?” It's Maddie and her big, brown, powerful Buckley eyes who knocks Eddie out of his reverie.

He sighs, and drinks, and drums his fingers on the bottom of his wine glass, until the words come to him.

“When I was at Dispatch,” he says at last, “May and I had this talk. About the future and if she wanted to stay on and all that. And she said to me this thing about how when she was younger, she'd had this vision in her head of who she wanted to be – 'a very specific person,' she said - and she felt like she'd lost that.”

There's a hush around the room. They watch him softly, nod quietly in their own recognition.

“And I thought yeah, me too,” he continues, down the path inside him precious few others have ever tread. “I had this idea of myself, when I was her age. Hell. Not even. About what a man was and how I was going to be one, and a soldier, and a husband, and now I'm none of those things. I don't really know what I am.”

Maddie nods.

“I remember,” she says softly. “I had an idea of who I thought I was going to be before Doug... The family I thought we'd have, the job, everything. Even myself. I was going to be a nurse. After him I never could.”

“Can you believe,” Karen adds, “I might have been an honest to God astronaut?”

These are their landmines.

Eddie takes a deep breath, and finds his eyes are suddenly burning. In the quiet, it's so obvious. He hates how his voice sounds when he gets upset, all choked and shakey; it brings his father's scolding to his ears and it's one of so many things he thought he'd be over by now. He'd always thought he'd be stronger.

“I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm happy for him,” he manages. “I'm proud of him. For knowing who he is and what he wants and standing up for that. I love that for him. I do. But honestly, I'm kind of jealous. I wish I could do that too.”

“Eddie,” Maddie breathes, like his words have hit her square in the chest.

He tries to laugh it off, and shrug, like don't mind me, bawling my eyes out and I'm not even half a glass in. But he's in a room full of people who listen for a living. Who spend their days, their lives – who are called, if Linda is to be believed, with the same passion and instinct that's brought him to firefighting – to see people through moments just like this. He's never felt so simultaneously exposed and supported.

(Except maybe that time when Buck had broken down his locked door. Listened to him cry I'll never feel normal again and helped him tape up his walls anyway.)

Linda bumps her shoulder against him.

“It's not too late, Eddie,” she assures him. “For everything there is a season. Remember, it wasn't too long ago you weren't even sure you wanted to be a firefighter? Trust. In God, in the universe, in yourself. Have faith, and it'll come to you.”

“May did end up going back to school,” Karen continues. “She's figuring herself out. Me, I've got a family I love and no regrets. And as for Buck? Please. It's not like he hasn't had a long and winding road to get where he is either. We all have. So go easier on yourself, will you? You're thirty. Not ninety. You've got time.”

Eddie nods, but he still curses his hands for shaking. Can Christopher call now, please, he begs – God, the universe, himself. Can someone talk me off this ledge before my heart does it for me.

Josh catches his hands, takes the glass from them and puts it on the table, and then chases his eyes until he surrenders to the contact. For all their petty rivalry, the man does have a surprising amount of gravitas about him when it comes to the moment of crisis.

“Eddie,” he says. “Tell me about that man you want to be.”

He wants to be funny, he thinks, and he's not sure why that's the first thing that comes to mind. He wants to be loved, and feel safe. He wants to raise Christopher to feel the same. He wants to be brave and strong, but more than that: he wants to be vulnerable and soft and needy and silly. Things he never really got to be as the man of the house, or the soldier, or the husband, or the widower. Or the father, even, really – because as much as he loves Christopher, he can't share his whole self with him. That's the sacrifice of a father. A good one, anyway. And maybe, now that he thinks about it, therein lies one of the greatest struggles he's had with his own father and even with his faith. Above all else a father should shield his son from the worst the world has to offer, even if said father has done it, seen it, struggled against it. Yes, he wants that, of course he wants that, but he wants someone to share it all too. He wants to be able to be his best self and his worst self, his strongest and his weakest, and to know there's someone in his corner and it's all going to be okay. He wants a partner, and to be one in return.

And he opens his mouth.

And nothing comes out.

Because everywhere he looks in this little revelation, there's a startling amount of Buck. Everywhere his favourite self is, is Buck, Buck, Buck.

There's that sparkly look in their eyes again.

Linda smiles knowingly. “He's telling you something, isn't He?”

Eddie looks at her. At Josh. At Karen and Maddie, who have moved closer together now and are holding each other's arms like they know what's coming.

“I- maybe,” he confesses. “But I can't- I'm not ready.”

There's still that voice, his mother's voice, that says, Don't drag him down with you.

And Buck, breaking down a locked door and patching up his walls anyway.

“Oh, ready,” Maddie scoffs. She must be catching the tears off him, but she waves a hand dismissively. “Nobody's ever 'ready.' You think I was ready when Chimney asked me to watch Mission Impossible the first night I officially moved here? Or when Buck called us out about Buffridays and made us see our relationship for what it was? I still jumped every time I dropped a plate in front of him for years. And Doug came for us anyway. And we survived. If I'd waited until I was ready we might both be dead. And we wouldn't have Jee-Yun. We wouldn't have any of this life we've built. So I have no regrets. Maybe not everything happens for a reason, but it still happens, and we still have to make a life out of it, don't we? When you find the right person, Eddie, they get down in the trenches and make a life with you. And I promise you, there's nothing better than that.”

Josh looks up at her. He still hasn't let go of Eddie's hands. “If I didn't know better,” he jokes, “I'd say you're trying to set Eddie up with your brother.”

“I said I liked you too much,” Maddie jokes back. She hasn't taken her eyes off Eddie. Her lip curls up into a smile. “Eddie and I, we were never that close.”

His phone buzzes.

He takes a deep breath, and pries a hand free off Josh to check it.

It's Buck. He's sent one of those meme videos captioned: guinea pigs when they get petted be like and Eddie just knows he's got that stupid, smitten Buck Smile on again. He can't help it.

“Call him,” Josh whispers.

“Oh my God, call himmmmm,” Karen urges, shaking Maddie's arm in anticipation.

“What if he says no?” Eddie asks. Because that feels like something he should prepare himself for. Even if it feels strangely impossible, honestly, he might not survive it.

“A wise man once told my husband,” Maddie advises. “That life is short and we're not promised tomorrow. If you love him. Tell him.”

It rushes through him in an instant. Shannon, the helicopter, the car crash, the lightning strike. If you love him, tell him.

He swipes his thumb across the screen and Buck picks up almost instantly. Because of course he does. Because he's Eddie, and this is Buck. He gets up and Karen herds him outside for some privacy. Before he can let himself second guess - again - he clears his throat.

“Hey man. Have you got a minute?”

[supercalime]

I always think some of these buddie shippers never had any friends or a best friend. They say they have been in love all this time but there were really no signs. They point at moments (often vulnerable ones) where they look at each other with “hearth eyes”. Like of course they are flattered to hear reassuring words from each other. They are best friends, they love each other platonically. Buck has the same reaction when maddie or bobby say those things to him. If they actually were in love this whole time, there would’ve been so much more signs. Of course they love each other and maybe they’re even platonic soulmates but they’ve never been IN love whith each other. Not once where they bothered or jealous when the other one had a girlfriend. They don’t touch or hug each other weirdly often and if they do touch each other it’s clearly the exact same way every friends would do. Never longer than necessary or weird or underlying sexual or romantic. Some stans are so deep into this, that they turn every clearly platonic moment between them into something kind of secret love confession. They watch their scenes with glued on buddie shipper goggles. Saying eddie looked disappointed after buck tells him about his date with tommy or buck looked disappointed after eddie tells him that nothing is gonna change between them, is actually insane crazy. All I’ve seen were two very best friends who support each other unconditionally. Eddie even told buck to call tommy. Not once but twice. He looked happy for him.

You said it all anon!

I don’t think the writers had any intention to place eddie and buck together romantically at least so far. I tend to keep my ships in canon, so this whole discourse between buddie and bucktommy is very strange to me.

Like, I totally understand shipping characters that aren’t canon, heck, I have my own weird little ships too, so wanting to two characters to get together and thinking fondly of them as couple through wishful thinking and fanfic is really cool!

But the second an entire piece of the fandom decides to bring that OUTSIDE the fandom space, that’s where the problem lies.

Could we, bucktommy shippers, be very wrong about the interactions between buck and eddie meaning only friendship?

Yes, even though I don’t enjoy the story going on that direction. It could be a big plan that’s been brewing for years to have the ship become canon.

However, I feel like b*ddie shippers are being disrespectful on how they are approaching this entire situation, as, like I said, the shipping thing left the fandom space and now infects those on the inside (actors, network, writers, etc). So now we are in this strange blend of what’s on our side and what’s on the show’s side. There’s no wall separating the creators and the fans, and while that can have a lot of positives, it also taints the side that’s doing the creative part.

In fact, writers and actors are advised to not engage with fanfic and fan theories because it can affect the original work, even in a subconscious way. Of course actors can have head canons for the characters they are playing to help with the motivation, but that is also not canon, so it shouldn’t be taken at face value as well.

This whole situation is very tiring because there’s no real win here. If tommy and buck become endgame, the b*ddie shippers will say that it was rushed and made no sense because he had more chemistry with eddie, blah blah blah. If b*ddie does become canon, they will say they were always right and will most likely think that they got their ship to be canon because of their behavior on social media.

Shipping is such a harmless thing. It should be “I think these two would make a cute couple, I’ll explore that by writing about it on my own little story”, not “these two have to be together because like them together and if it’s not that way there’s something wrong being done by the creators”.

[rimouskis]

i want a way to find other ppl who’re into (or at least willing to consider or talk about) smaller, weirder/more situational ships. nothing against the big ships, but it’s way easier to find ppl to talk about big ships with than someone who’ll even consider listening to ideas about rarepairs—and yeah that’s kind of the deal with rarepairs but there used to at least be some. in pens fandom specifically it feels like smaller ships died off after the 2018 collapse—there was so much fic about the young callups during the 2016 and 2017 cup runs, but now there isn’t even a single fic for po joseph/drew o’connor on ao3 even though the wedding car prank would’ve been enough to spawn a good dozen back then. and whenever i do see a new rarepair fic crop up on ao3 it’s almost impossible to find the authors elsewhere, and in other fandoms ppl seem to have forgotten what crackshipping even is almost entirely. where did all my old rarepair buddies go? there’s gotta be some of them out there somewhere but i don’t for the life of me know how to find them again, and it’s so damn lonely without them

That's really interesting; I wonder if rarepair-interested people left hockey entirely or shifted to other team fandoms; I feel like I see a fair amount of "ship anyone with anyone" activity for a few other teams, but I also think those teams lacked a "big" ship, meaning fans were sort of starting from scratch, as opposed to working within a team that had a ship with more (sub)cultural weight or history.

I also wonder if different people are drawn to different teams for similar reasons. like, if you're into an established couple's dynamic (like sidgeno) you might be more inclined to become a pens fan if. you're entering through shipping, but on that same bent if you're into a different dynamic (rivals to lovers, young guns, whatever) you might just become a fan of a team that visibly offers that! I think, too, with multishipping/multi-team-supporting being very common these days, some people might say "why should I ship two fourth liners from pittsburgh when I can get a similar dynamic on this other team?"

I also sometimes worry that in pens fandom specifically we don't foster rarepairs enough because there's a healthy handful of us (myself deeply included) who don't ship that many other pairings. like... if you're interested in doing a lot with a big cast of characters, you might look at pens fandom (and its relative dominance by sidgeno shippers) and be like... nah, I'll just go somewhere else. that's sad! it's not the energy we should really be fostering, but as someone who isn't deeply inspired by, say, poj/doc, I don't know how to help bolster that side of fandom when I'm not going to be creating content for it.

I think about this a fair amount... you know, just wondering if the way I've chosen to do fandom (I write what I want to write for, I just keep focused on that) is good for me but maybe not great for the fandom environment entirely. like, I'd love if more people read sidgeno *and* other penguins pairings, and supported the team and were involved, but it's always the question of "where do you find people to get interested?" and then "how DO you get them interested?"

it's a sticky situation. I feel for you, anon, and I hope we can see more crackshipping and rarepair delight in the near future!

[firelxdykatara]

Katara hated Zuko. It was a plot point. Sokka never did--and their "friendship" in the show was close to becoming something more--so they were on equal footing and had hinted romance. Zutara is misogynistic--why are you forcing Katara into a relationship with someone she hates? Choose Toph or Suki if you really believe Zuko isn't gay.

there’s so much to unpack here, and i know i should really throw out the whole suitcase, but i just can’t help myself

and please, i beg of you, picture someone laughing so hard that tears are streaming down their face because that’s me right now, reading this ask. i about choked on my eggnog, so thanks for that!

point the first: sokka hated zuko every bit as much as katara did in the first two books. it was a plot point. sokka wanted to leave zuko to die because saving him wouldn’t have been worth the trouble--he was pragmatic and deeply distrustful of anyone who wasn’t in his immediate circle, and that went especially hard for anyone from the fire nation. including the birds!

point the first part two: sokka’s easy acceptance of zuko into the gaang had less to do with any budding friendship or caring for him (since there was none to speak of until the boiling rock episodes), and more to do with a lack of any personal grudge. aka: there was no tension there. nothing to really dig into--no true development of feelings. because aang needed a firebending teacher, zuko was around and willing to take on that role, and also he was a prime roasting target, so sokka was happy enough to let bygones be after he helped them take down combustion man.

which, of course, isn’t to say shipping them isn’t valid. there are plenty of ships that have little to no canon basis but a lot of fandom support, and that’s usually fine....until the fans start getting uppity about it and insisting that there Is Canon Basis Really, and then insisting that the ‘rival’ ship is misogynistic when their alleged ‘canon basis’ requires stripping everything meaningful from the girl’s relationship to the boy and giving it to her brother instead. which is exactly what you’re doing here, but i digress.

point the second: how on earth was sokka and zuko’s ‘friendship’ in the show (and why the scare quotes? were they not actually friends? are you really sitting in my inbox right now devaluing their platonic relationship because you don’t think it exists outside of your belief that they really wanted to fuck the whole time, despite sokka being in a happy relationship with someone else?) ‘close to becoming something more’? when did they ever have a single, solitary conversation that hinted at any ‘deeper’ feelings? sokka spent most of their buddy cop adventure to boiling rock mooning over his girlfriend (heh, get it? mooning? because he- oh, you get the point), to the point where he had literal hearteyes the instant he saw her--and zuko’s purpose there wasn’t to deepen his relationship with sokka so much as it was to reunite sokka and katara with their father, and to see an example of what a healthy paternal relationship actually looks like.

(one of my favorite shots in the show is zuko’s soft smile when sokka and katara are hugging hakoda)

so already your claim that they ‘had hinted romance’ falls incredibly flat, because there was absolutely nothing in the show that was ‘hinting’ they had romantic feelings for one another--in universe or out of it. sokka was happily in love with suki, and even the one scene that i can imagine might make shippers scream--when zuko popped into sokka’s tent late at night--sokka was about to have sex with his girlfriend, and when he asked zuko ‘what’s on your mind’, the first words out of his mouth were your sister.

(and then, as soon as zuko left, sokka was calling for suki again. the next morning, he was making a flower necklace--or a lei. because he got lei’d. it’s amazing the things you pick up when you rewatch the show as an adult lmfao.)

point the third (and this one is really where your argument blows up in your face): your insistence that zutara requires ‘forcing katara into a relationship with someone she hates’ reveals your own ignorance, because it’s demonstrably not true--unless you’re trying to argue that katara hated zuko all the way through to the end of the show, which??? i suppose makes it make more sense that you think zuko and sokka had a hinted romance in the text, because viewing comprehension clearly isn’t your strongsuit.

why are yall so quick to dismiss katara’s own feelings in the name of calling a fictional, noncanon ship ‘misogynistic’? because katara said, in the text, ‘but I am ready to forgive you’--and then she hugged zuko, called him into a group hug with the gaang later, joked (and even flirted) with him on ember island, helped talk him through his anxiety about facing his uncle, and happily agreed to go with him to face his sister, where she saved his life after watching him take a literal bolt of lightning to save hers.

if any of that had happened with sokka, yall would be calling it demonstrable evidence that zuko and sokka are in love. and yet when we use that canonical buildup and the deep bond of friendship and trust zuko and katara have by the end of the series to imagine them getting into a romantic relationship because of feelings developed during these events......you call us misogynistic? really? because we’re ‘forcing’ her into a relationship with someone she ‘hates’....except she didn’t hate him by the end of the series, they were very close friends and had gotten over and had closure from their personal baggage, and that’s the kind of stuff that provides excellent fuel for envisioning a romantic relationship developing!

so what was your argument again?

ETA: i was so busy deconstructing the bulk of your argument that i forgot to address that laughable last line--toph or suki? who had much, MUCH less relationship development with zuko than katara did?? ‘if you really believe zuko isn’t gay’???? im sorry that you can’t recognize a whole bisexual when you see one, but as a bi myself, i know that zuko’s dual-wielding ass couldn’t ‘pick a side’ if his life depended on it. and he had more romantic coding with both jet and katara than he ever had with sokka--that’s just a fact. sorry if the truth hurts, anon!

[arcturus-ish]

I think it's pretty obvious who I'm talking about specifically, but if you're still confused: yes, this is partially about the ProtectAnaFlores blog, but also at anyone who's going after people for not liking Ana Flores (particularly people with CP who have a valid reason not to). I didn't like Ana Flores. While I am disabled, I don't have CP and so I wanted to listen to the input of people who do and since they all spoke about her being ableist I was able to recognize her ableism myself and decide that she wasn't a character I should support. If you don't have CP, you don't really have the authority to say whether someone who was ableist towards a character with CP was actually ableist to them because of it or not- even if you are disabled, because it's different. I will never know what it's like to have CP or how people would treat me because of it- I am physically-abled passing anyway, so I don't experience that kind of ableism much; I will never know what it's like, so I trust people who do when they talk about it because THEY are the only ones who WOULD. "If you don't like Ana Flores you're a misogynist." If you're a cis gay guy- you're not really qualified to lead conversations about misogyny, considering you have never-and will never- experience it; you actually thrive off of it, like any other cis man. Should you be an ally and call it out? Definitely. Do you know more than afab people, who experience it every single day? absolutely not. Not liking Ana does not make me misogynistic, just like liking/defending her does not wholly absolve you of not being misogynistic. If you group afab people who don't identify as women (i.e, nonbinary people) with women in your mind, purely because they're afab and not because it's what they identify as, then you kind of suck. Cis gays have been known to be almost as (if not just as) transphobic as cis straight people and I'm tired of seeing it. While I agree that there are a lot of women in fandom spaces that fetishize mlm relationships (I've been fetishized a LOT for being a trans and queer person- I know how disgusting it is), labelling every single Buddie shipper as "a white woman or afab enby who fetishizes gay men" is... wrong. I'm afab, transmasc and agender, but I label myself loosely as mlm and so being grouped in with women purely because of what I was assigned at birth, and not because of my actual gender identity, when it comes to appreciating mlm relationships feels borderline transphobic. Non-binary people can be gay for men too, and even if they're not, maybe they see themselves in Buck/Eddie and so their relationship means something to them? The other (canon) couples, whether they be straight or queer, mean a lot to me as well- literally every person I follow or have interacted with about 911 loves the other queer/BIPOC representation just as much and more often than not is queer and/or BIPOC themselves. (this is NOT dismissing the fact that A LOT of the 911/Buddie part of the fandom is racist, ableist, misogynistic and has people who fetishize queerness as a whole. I acknowledge that and hate those people just as much as most of us do-same for the cishet people who make spaces like this unsafe for us queer people- but I'm not addressing that right now.) Call people out on their bullshit if it's spreading harm and/or misinformation, absolutely, but don't harass and bully a bunch of people (some of which are literal MINORS) for finding comfort in Buddie when there's no reason to other than they like these two together. You've called me "pathetic and 100% the worst" for doing absolutely nothing before, simply because you caught onto the fact that I enjoy Buddie. Aren't you doing the same exact thing you hate Buddie shippers for? Seems fairly hypocritical, but I guess you're the only person who gets to call people out on that... because you're a gay guy.

[popculturebuffet]

OK K.O.! Let’s Be Heroes!: You’re Everybody’s Sidekick Review

OK KO was easily one of the best animated series of the 2010′s and i’ll stand by those words. The brainchild of Ian Jones Quartlery, voice of Wallow in Bravest Warriors and more importantly former head writer for Steven Universe, and current longtime romantic partner of that series creator Rebecca Sugar. That part isn’t AS important, but I still find it sweet.  Anyways OK KO was the story of K.O., a 6-11, not my own laziness for once but the show’s own way of doing age, year old boy who wants to be the best like no one ever was. In this case i’ts being a hero in a world that’s basically like if someone took the marvel universe and smashed a retro game collection and a pile of manga on top of it and then blended up the result and shot it full of gamma rays. Full of heroes of all kinds ranging from those fighitng crime to those who just want to loiter outside strip malls or cut hair.  To achieve this goal KO gets a job at Gar’s Bodega, the combination of your average bodega (for those unfamiliar with the term, i’ts a convience store) and a video game item shop, so the slurpee machine is right next to the power ups and ninja stars, and everything from skateboard polish to Spread Guns is avaliable. The bodega is owned by Mr.Gar, a mustachiosed muscle man whose basically a shoutier mexican version of MIke Haggar but with shades and a mustache. So a somehow better version of him, though with him being busy watching over the plaza itself, doing secret hero missions and what not the day to day operations are left to two teens: Rad, a muscle bound dude bro alien with telekenisis and a secret heart of gold and Enid, a cynical, slacker ninja whose also bilogically a witch because her parents are a vampire and a werewolf. So the series follows these three as they run the boedega, grow as people and fight the robots that frequently attack the plaza sent by the evil Lord Boxman who hates the place literally because it’s there and it’s existance annoys him. This is the canon explination and it is utterly hilarious.  The series was funny, had great character work, decent ongoing stories, great jokes and a fun tone that could go from meaningful and well thorught ot utterly batshit from episode to episode and was sadly canceled after 3 seasons because Cartoon Network is kinda stupid right now and dosen’t know how to handle a superhero show that still makes action a priority, but it did get a solid ending, a slew of great crossovers and a decent amount of representation under i’ts belt.  WHich brings us to today and the start of RED ACTION WEEK: A week dedicated to the series most prominent gay character and the bisexual ninja witch who loves her. I’m covering all 5 of Red’s more prominent apperances... I was just going to do the red/enid episodes but decided this was a better introduction to the series itself, as well as the fact it allows her character arc to better tie together by her final episode, which directly uses this one as a major plot point. I also threw Plaza Prom in there since, even if she’s only a supporting character, it’s still one of her few major apperances, is part of her final major episode, is one of my faviorites, and the climactic dance fights is one of the most intentionally homoerotic fight scenes i’ve seen in some time. With all that out of the way, let’s do this after the cut. 

We start at Gar’s Bodega, just after the opening two parter, with KO starting his first day of work, part of the reason this episode is a fairly smooth introduction into the show. Not even in the door he accidently shoryukyn’s joe cuppa, a stand up comedian with a cup of coffee in the big time for a head... I told you anything goes and I meants it.  After that accident, we find Enid at the counter, ignoring the customers before shooing them away and when KO asks for work, plays along with his enthusasim and tells him to clean the store.. which he does in minutes, before being told to sort the penny dish, and while he does the two discuss KO’s love of helping people: KO just genuinely thinks that’s part of his job, the right thing to do and feels good while Enid.. dosen’t feel it’s worth the effort and people are just generally ungreatful and not worth it.  I really like this scene for showing off their character dynamic beautifully: It starts showing that while at this stage Enid is largely an asshole, she does care about K.O. and while he’s cleaning, despite usually turning customers away, still let’s Ginger, an elderly patron and one of KO’s mom’s dojo customers, not only check out but pay in freaking pennies. It shows that try as she might, Enid really isn’t a cyncial or heartlesss as she claims. It’s also nice setup for later in the season as, and as i’m sure Ian Jones Quartlery and crew were preparing for, we later DO see why Enid hates people so much: her best friend, possibly more, Elodie, who i’ll certainly be covering eventually, betrayed her for a spot at Point Prep, basically UHA or Xavier’s for this world and claimed their friendship was just a ploy (It wasn’t, but again, story for another time), while her one date with Rad went terribly due to him acting like a huge jackass at the advice of his even bigger jackasses of friends. It’s easy to see why she stopped carring: When she opened up in the past it only lead to her being hurt and alone. K.O.... is the opposite. He genuinely belivies in everyone and tries to help them because, as said above, it’s just what he does and what he belivies a hero should be... he hasn’t been hurt or influenced by assholes like his friends, and thus is able to get them to open up. It’s a wonderful dynamic and I love it.  And naturally, KO is determined to help Enid see the light, with Enid responding with the wonderful line “You’ll never melt my icy heart”... give him a few more episodes Enid, give him a few more episodes.  So K.O. Decides to set out helping people, shouting about it to enid back at the store as he does because he’s 6-11 and kids in that age range are many things, but subtle is not one of them. He starts with Geoff and Nick Army, a monk and gay duke nukem reflectivity who despite having polar oppositie personalities, are both a couple, as confirmed by the creative team and then the finale, and a crime fighting duo who are having a dispute over opening a pickle jar with the good old ultra violence or non violence, which KO solves by letting both do it once, which results in a pickle jar explosion, both men in their underwear and everyone happy, especially the shippers.  KO continues his quest, going to Logical Cuts where we meet Mr.Logic, a robot who has a rather moving and well done backstory we’ll certainly get to, and is voice by James Urabanik, aka the voice of Rusty Venture on the venture bros, to my utter delight. And yes i’ll be covering the venture bros eventually, and might be this month. His customer, another one of KO’s mom’s regulars, is upset because her haircut isn’t right while Mr.Logic is upset, well as upset as a monotone robot can convey, that his usually 100% mathmatically perfect haircuts are off. KO pitches in and the new result is perfect, with both being greatful. 

KO’s next stop on his good will help people crying for help tour, after the above bit of wonderful art shift as that version of ko moveds like a south park character for some reason. Anyways, it turns out best friends, co workers and the dante and randal of this show, i.e.two best friends working a dead end job who despite arguing a lot need each other, A Real Magical Skeleton, self explaintory and Greg, a bear, are having an argument because RMS is trying to do their job and frame a baseball for a guy while Greg is being a dickhead and playing the drums constantly. As you can probably wager, I do not like Greg, probably more than rusty, partly because a future episode has him making KO doubt his macaroni art gift for his mom so he can eat it, yes really,and partly because he’s less intresting than his buddy and yet the two are shipped frequently despite my honest assumption they’d kill each other.. much like if dante and randall finally banged. However if you do ship them, I have no hostility with you. Unlike say loudcest or shipping sam with lincoln over at the loud hosue, there's nothing wrong with RMS X Brandon, it’s just not for me.  Anywho KO solves it in the hilarious and awesome manner of just putting Brandon inside one of those baseball cube things... it’s a shame he apparently gave him air holes but whatever. Proud of himself, K.O. plans to head back when he runs into the Ally Teens: Red Action, rude teen warrior from the future who just had a bad haircut, Drupe, a sentient strawberry because of course, and Greg, Drupe’s nonbinary best friend and combination of one of the bone cousins and Woodstock. K.O. offers to help and , with the trio being huge steaming bowls of elephant piss at this point, they instead trick him into waiting in a lava flow and then have drupe whip him every time the lava causes him to cartoonishily jump in the air.  Yeah despite both Red Action and Drupe going on to having supporting roles, like our good pal tom, who I will get back to this month, there isn’t nearly as much wiggle room in their first apperance. With Tom Lucitor, he was a dick.. but you could make the case, even just off that ep that he genuinely dosen’t know HOW to be a good person or that what he’s doing is sketchy at best. Here, it’s fairly obvious the ally teens know setting a child on fire and using vine whip on him super effectively is wrong, that’s why their doing it. Red, being that special brand of asshole, posts it on social media. I mean posting a video of yourself hurting a child, that’s Tucker Carlson level’s of dickery right there. Stone cold. Enid sees it and is understandably concerned, and goes over to see if KO’s allright when he returns and is forced to explain to him that no they weren’t laughing with him, they were laughing at him and were just being dicks. Also he wasn’t in lava, it was magma. It was above ground. 

K.O. glumly wonders why and Enid reitrates this kind of shit is why she dosen’t help people. K.O. also wonders how she saw it and we find out Enid is basically facebook stalking red action on her social media, as you do, and that Red’s been on a bit of a tear lately, smashing up shit and farting in Geoff’s face all because she got a bad haircut, with K.O. , likely going thorugh more of her posts, realizing theirs a pattern: When bad things happen to her she lashes out at others.. just like Enid. I do like the parallel there: Enid likely has a crush on her because the two are fairly similar.. but Enid runs cold and tens to be standoffish as a result of her past, while Red tens to take out her anger and frustration on everyone else and runs red hot. But they come together because opposities attract... it’s what noble laurite MC Scat Kat taaught us after all.  K.O. however, having Steven Universe level’s of empahty and an equal sense of wanting to help, and just as few boundries as he had as a tween, decides that it’s clear the ally teens have underlying issues to adress and gets Enid help to look at their social media. Returning to the ally,and seemingly unphased by earlier, K.O. sets out helping them, starting by helping red get her haircut fixed by Mr. Logic. Red is adorably delighted. Moving on K.O. notes that Drupe basically just follows Red’s lead but has a fashion blog and clearly an identiy of her own and we soon learn she believes no one reads it. K.O. showed it to the not at all ambigiously gay duo and Geoff and Nick thank her> That’s two blushes and two wins in K.O.’s court.  Finishing up, K.O. realizes Gregg stays quiet because they have low self esteem and feel they have nothing to be proud of. K.O. however found lots to be proud of and framed Gregg’s valdectorian certificate for him, again with some help from earlier.  Instead of graditude red just calls him weird and leaves and KO slumps back depressed. I’ts a good lesson though: people DON’T change just because you did one weirdly kind thing for them. That takes time.. as we’ll see with Red and as we see with Drupe, who has less of an ons creen journey but is far nicer after her next apperance. While Enid is grossed out over having helped someone, Gregg comes in.. and after some great deranged animation thanks K.O. and Enid admits after some prodding that it does feel good to help, and K.O. is happy to have helped her int he process. The two playfully mess around as the episode ends. Final Thoughts: This was a really good one. Reaching back this far into the series, I didn’t think it’d would be nearly as good as it ended up: It serves both as a good proper introduction for a lot of the plaza regulars, a good setup for Enid’s character arc, and was also really funny with great animation. LIke Tom, I don’t think the creators knew exactly what they were going to do with the Alley Teens and thus take the two they end up focusing on in opposite directon: Red keeps her assholishness for her next apperance and grows from it, while Drupe’s drops off by the end of this season, likely due to her fashion blog taking off, but we’ll get into Red more in a review or so and Drupe more later this month.For now this episode was good and next up we have their next apperance in Plaza Prom. Until then, follow this blog for more reviews and nonsense, like and reblog it if you enjoyed this, hit me up with asks for review suggestions or comssions and until next time, later days!

[starfaring-princelotor]

Ranting anon. I have a lot. I’ll try and split this into pieces. I wouldn’t say that Lotor was my absolute favorite character, but he was an enjoyable and interesting one. He was a more refined antagonist (not necessarily a villain) who had every capacity of being a great ally and friend. I won’t lie, I liked the idea of Allura and Lotor together, (1/?)

As a parallel to Zarkon and Honerva by being a Galra/Altean power couple that fought for good instead of evil. Lotor is clever and diplomatic and poised, so I honestly thought that he could help Allura cool down her impulsive nature and rash temper and help her become a good leader through example. (2/?)

But in the end, all we got was Lotor giving her an ego boost that in the end didn’t even matter because she dropped him like a hot potato in what feels like a forced “girl power!!” Moment. And I feel like that’s a big problem with how Allura’s character was handled. (3/?)

She’s meant to be this wise, kind, but fierce leader lady, but unlike say, Zelda (another warrior princess,) she doesn’t display the patience or level-headedness that Zelda does, despite people making numerous comparisons between the two. The argument that she’s inexperienced falls through halfway through the series at the very least. Allura never takes any steps to curb her temper or his pushy nature. (4/?)

And somehow no one calls her out on it! A big red flag for me was her reaction when Keith was revealed to be half galra and she just…turned fucking mean for no reason. And while Keith felt guilty for something he shouldn’t have felt guilty for, everyone else was…taking her side? (6/?)

And basically the matter is resolved by him mostly apologizing and her kind of mumbling a half-assed sorry. She was literally being racist to someone she called a friend right until she found out about his heritage. Despite him having done absolutely nothing to her. And no one called her out on it. That pissed me off. It feels like the paladins personalities suffered in order to make Allura look good. Like their moralities and personalities got tossed out the window to revolve around her. (8/8)

A forewarning to Lotura shippers, I never liked the ship in the first place, so if you are looking for validation about Lotura or even Allura herself, this rant is not for you. Allow me to pitch in my own two cents about myself, Allura, the Paladins, and the comparison referring to Zelda.

Anon, let me just say this first, I adore reading the asks you sent because all of it was basically the biggest problem I had with Allura the second she was revealed in Voltron. And the main reason for that? Was how she introduced herself by being a glaringly-obvious Princess-brat trope that does not think before she decides to speak. This was her first rash and impulsive act as a “royal” Princess.

This is why I have a hard time believing those who say Allura’s racism towards the Galra is valid because, I do not know about you, but being cryogenically frozen during the heat of war then waking up and thinking the main important thing to do is call someone’s ears hideous? What happened to “the war is still fresh in her mind”? And no, suddenly opening up a journal to remember “Oh, yeah, the war! Zarkon evil! I should be angry!” does not fly with me. 

I am not saying her trauma is not real, only her reaction to it is slightly misplaced. 

In any case, let us move on to the comparison of Allura and I being similar to Honerva and Zarkon. Oddly enough, I did not see this clicking at all in the show. Mostly because, in terms of what happened between them story-wise, Allura and I are more like Alfor and Zarkon. And this is just based off their relationship. Maybe I am a man who strives more for platonic relationships in shows aimed towards children, but I really did not feel the romance at all in Lotura. 

Not even with the sickening way she suddenly started pining after me at the realization that I am half-Altean.

And this is the big point in the show. Zarkon and Honerva loved each other not because of their race, but because they just do. Alfor and Zarkon? They both use their power as royals to achieve a greater good. Except, in the case of Allura, she chose to commit unspeakable acts of betrayal based on feelings. Sounds oddly familiar to Alfor, no? Sacrificing all of Altea to ensure she lives? Because he is such a good father, pure of heart who must protect his daughter at the expense of not one, but two entire planets. 

He loves her so much, he sacrificed his own people for her. That is why Allura is more like her father in that aspect. Both rulers let their feelings control their actions. Throughout the entire 8 seasons of Voltron, Allura has constantly gone either completely irrational or completely poised for the public, never in between. She does her self-sacrificing bit way too many times and, when she coincidentally lives afterwards, she puts herself on a pedestal as if she was right in her self-indulgent martyr actions.

Which she most certainly is not, because it is common knowledge that if you want to help people, you should be actively staying alive to do so. It is as though once she believed all “her” people died, she has no real purpose to stay around after her grand plan of eradicating all the “evil” Galra from space gets completed. I am sorry to say, or perhaps not, but she really does remind me of a terrible Mary Sue who can do no wrong. Alive or dead. 

And this shit? Gets brushed aside or ignored by a majority of the Paladins. I will go ahead and blame it that most of them are all very, very young and lack the experience to speak out against those in charge. In fact, the only two who spoke against her in any sense were Shiro and Keith, even Pidge for family reasons. Shiro when he wanted to support putting myself on the throne and Keith? Well, that is a bit more complicated. 

Anyone remember the scene where Keith kept telling Allura that he does not want to hear a lecture from her, and she does it anyways because she is just looking out for Voltron and emotionally guilting him is the best way to go about it? No? Oh, right, maybe it was because she acted like a mother admonishing him for “shirking” his responsibilities. I do not even need to go on about how much I heavily dislike one of the two female members mothering her teammates.

You know what would have been a great development here? If she supported him instead of “disciplining” him as if he stayed out past midnight. Maybe not even support him! Just be like “Okay, I know this is important for you, so tell us what we need to do to help you. We’re a team and as a team we will help you however we can.” 

In this sense, Shiro was trusting Keith and doing the right thing by giving him the space he needed to find himself. Allura, on the other hand, was pushy and ultimately did not care at all for him as a person, but him as a useful Paladin tool. If he was so revered as the Black Paladin, then should she not be, I do not know, following his orders by the T? Or is her role as a royal, Altean Princess whose spirit is connected to Voltron more important?

And even before all this, she believes her and Keith are supposedly buddies now since she gave a half-assed apology for being a racist cunt to him. No one, I guarantee you, no one forgets racist comments, regardless of repaired friendships. Especially when her cold-shoulder and outright blatant ignorance is being seen as “Oh, it’s okay for her to feel like this! What do we know, we’re just humans from Earth who have apparently never read a history book.”

Before I get into the nitty-gritty details about why comparing Zelda and Allura are the same people, let me just say this concerning Allura’s hot-headed temper and unchecked racism involving a relationship with myself. That shit does not work and Allura should have taken the time to sort herself out before mixing in a “loving” relationship with an Altean and Galran man. I am all for equal support in a couple, but she did nothing to support myself as a person because she never saw both sides of my heritage. 

Allura only saw Altean blood and hyperfixated on that alone. Which, do I even need to spell out how terrible it is to judge someone based on their appearance? Based on their race? Whether in a good or bad light, she once again goes from “I will not have some quiznaking Galra on my ship” to “Your mother was Honerva? You’re Altean!” mode. It is fine to be prideful, but she should have already known the dangers of being too prideful of one’s race. 

Considering she is a royal, considering she was raised with political knowledge, considering her father and the Emperor of the Galra Empire worked together, Allura should have been aware of her Achilles Heel and understand her responsibilities. 

Okay, now, Allura being like Zelda? 

Alright, I only played a handful of LoZ games, but even I know that Allura is absolutely nothing like Zelda, even with both of them having the Princess title. 

We already established that Allura is way too rash and irrational when under any duress. Even when shit is not going down, her way of thinking is very straight forward and linear, disregarding the bigger picture as a whole for her own closeted judgements. Allura has even ignored her royal advisor’s advice too many times to count, excusing her reasoning as “It’s the only way, Coran. I must do this.”

Zelda? Zelda does not, at all, follow Allura’s way of thinking. In fact, OoT has a similar plot to Allura and myself. Link skips 7 years of his life, wakes up to Hyrule being controlled by Ganondorf, and the Princess is MIA. Though, if any of you have played the game, then you know that the Princess was actively trying to save the kingdom. Not just Hylians, but Zoras and Gorons as well. 

And the way she accomplished this was by disguising herself as Sheik. Not because she was a coward, but because she knew the importance that came with being a Princess, the next heir to rule, and the one who has the Triforce of Wisdom under her control. Key word here: WISDOM. Something Allura did not display at all in the show. 

If we are comparing Zelda to any character, she is more like the exiled Prince than Allura herself. Both Zelda and myself have the wisdom and first-hand experience of suffering under active war. Both actively saved, or tried to save, those they came across. And both understood the political discourse that hurt everyone, not just one specific race. Everyone.

But if that is the case, then Link would be similar to Allura in the sense that they both woke up to disaster. The big difference between Link and Allura? Link would not have killed Sheik once he revealed himself to be Zelda. Not even because Sheik was being deceiving. Link would understand why Zelda had to hide for her own safety, because she was vital to the plan to restore balance to Hyrule. 

Even if Link was miffed about Zelda not being truthful? He knows that, under no circumstances, can they chance the risk to kill her over his own personal feelings.

“But that doesn’t mean Zelda never curbed her temper!”

In Twilight Princess, when the kingdom was already starting to fall under evil clutches, Zelda teams up with Midna, an exiled Princess of the Twilight world. I can not imagine how helpless Zelda felt in the face of Zant overthrowing the kingdom, but did she go off and leave the citizens to suffer for all of eternity? No. She accepted aid from those who were willing, even the Princess of the other world. 

And, on top of that, Zelda understood that Midna’s world and her own were like two sides of a coin. They must coexist with each other to achieve peace. In fact, I vaguely remember Zelda sacrificing herself to help Midna. Imagine that. Using your powers to help the “enemy” for the greater good. Tell me when Allura helped the Galra out of her own free will? Her own understanding that the Galra need her help just like every other race in the universe?

No, the BoM does not count. Not with her attitude shining through after her “Zarkon is in power because you guys are cowards!” spiel. Not when she begrudgingly helped save Warlord Lahn while simultaneously profiling him out of spite with “Did you buy those weapons or steal them?” And no, not when she built Sincline with myself with the intention to harvest unlimited quintessence then immediately turn around and aid in murdering me, the Emperor of the Galra Empire, over a weak accusation. 

Overall, Allura really is the type of person to barge into other people’s problems, claim “I am here to help you all!”, then throw a hissy fit when people ask for specific aid rather than follow her “My way or the highway” attitude. Terrible writing or not, she was always like this since the very beginning. It is kind of like…she had many chances to improve, but she just made her own situation worse and refused to stop to reflect upon herself.

[dracimexidae]

@lives-ruined-and-bloodshed replied to your post “@lives-ruined-and-bloodshed mentioned you on a post “You wanna try and...”

Yeah, I think May would definitely win in a real fight but I think they have so much fun just sparring, they know each other so well and probably sparred plenty of times so they know most of each other's moves and well, it's just really hot to imagine them going at it lol of course AoS couldn't give us that. We even saw Coulson fighting but ofc not with May, that would be giving too much to the shippers.

OF COURSE RIGHT, GOD FORBID THEY GIVE US EVEN JUST A FLICKER OF CONTENTMENT LMAO, WHO CARES ABOUT THE FANS ANYWAY... Sorry for the capslock, but I couldn’t express this any other way than shouting it because I’ll always be annoyed by this! Yeah, they don’t owe us anything, they should be able to tell the story they want without feeling obliged to indulge in the fan-service, bla bla bla, don’t care, I’ll stay pissed off, I’m sure the writers won’t mind, and at this point it’s the level of resigned annoyance that doesn’t ruin my day, so I can stay “fueled” without feeling miserable about it like I was some time ago, when I was more invested (not that I’m not invested in the ship now, but I made peace with the fact that I won’t get the satisfaction - and there is no “compliance” involved here :p - I need from the show so I’m looking for it elsewhere)!

I am convinced it would have been so amazing seeing Phil and Melinda spar because I found adorable (ok, maybe it’s not the best term to describe sparring sessions, but I have big family feels about it because Philindaisy obviously so for me that adjective stands) the sparring scenes Daisy had with both Phil and Melinda so yeah, it was a huge waste of potential, but what’s new when we talk about Philinda’s treatment in the show...

I do see their relationship as a bit unbalanced. There are so many times we saw May showing in words and actions what Coulson means to her, even her freaking robot was out there declaring her love and willing to die for him and the team. I think you're right that Coulson being the director is one of teh reasons for that difference but I think who they are is another.

For Coulson there is Humanity, SHIELD, Daisy and ofc May cares about that too but I mostly see her putting him ahead of pretty much everything, she's so ridiculously loyal to him, even Garret knew that about her, it wasn't follow SHIELD to the grave but Coulson. Watching gifsets of S1B was actually making me ship them less lol, he believed she was Hydra up until she was about to be killed too and then he was a raging dick, to hurt her, and not even an apology after.

Nothing much to add here, I agree with you, let me just underline the awful treatment Phil reserved to Melinda when he thought she was Hydra... All right, I get it, he must have felt overwhelmed discovering such huge betrayal from people in his organization to the point he felt he couldn’t be able to trust anyone, when he was raised in SHIELD with the “trust the system” drill in his head, valid for him until he died and was brought back, at least, not to mention the fact that he was kept in the shadows about this goddamn GH-325 secret by his closest (at least that’s what he thought she was) friend and ally, but just because he seemed to rely on Melinda so much that he decided to choose her as his “right-hand” for the task he accepted, I was flabbergasted that, after the first (comprehensible) moment of shock, he didn’t give her just a glimmer of benefit of the doubt, straight up assumed that she betrayed him and all... So was there nothing at all to be saved from their relationship until that moment that he could just pause just a second and consider that that was Melinda May he was crucifying, and I’m aware that it all happened so fast that there wasn’t a moment to breathe, let alone the chance of having a proper, lenghty conversation with her, but it took him too long, in my humble opinion, to realize that he couldn’t just throw whatever they had out of the window so rashly... Anyway, after the “epiphanic” Audrey episode the writers OBVIOUSLY never addressed the situation again, making us believe that between them it was all good again just by magic... mumble mumble... Thankfully there is fanfiction to fill in the gaps, because there is not a chance in the world I’ll be convinced that that evening, after Melinda brought Phil the infamous pendrive with the video about the TAHITI project, didn’t end up with them spending the night discussing everything and both apologizing AT LENGTH (in my universe there would have been also moments gradually and steadily reaching the R rating, but I would have been perfectly fine watching a scene with just them talking and making a real effort to clear things up and it would have actually made more sense considering canon, but they gave us nothing so whatever, I consider myself free to imagine whatever it pleases me :p )

I remember watching all of that some months ago and thinking he's going to to redeem himself by showing she the same kind of loyalty but then S2 and May was again with that massive devotion of hers, with the alien illness and the "real" SHIELD but what I got was Coulson lying to her repeatedly for no good reason. 3A was weird, I don't mind they had LIs, I actually really liked Andrew but they barely felt like friends imo. When Andrew/Lash was happening *Mack* was the only one who thought that maybe she could use a friend, that was bizarre. 

WHEN HE ASKED HER TO KILL HIM IF THINGS GOT OUT OF CONTROL (and just that, my god, I understand that he trusts only her with everything at this point, not only SHIELD but even his life, but it’s rather a terrible thing to ask anyway), AND SHE INSTEAD HAD ALREADY PLANNED TO SPEND THE REST OF THEIR LIFE IN A GODDAMN CABIN IN A PLACE SHE KNEW HE WANTED TO VISIT, DECIDING TO STAND BY HIS SIDE AND SUPPORT AND HELP HIM UNTIL THE VERY END... AND BY S5 SHE HELD UP TO HER WORD AND DID IT, EVEN IF IN A DIFFERENT PLACE... 

“NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, I’LL TAKE CARE OF YOU, THAT’S MY PLAN”  

EXCUSE ME WHILE I GO DIG MYSELF A HOLE IN THE GARDEN AND CURL UP IN THERE FOR THE NEXT DECADE IF THAT ISN’T LOVE I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS??!?!!!!! That sentence and her actions show her love for him more powerfully than any “I love you” voiced out, but ok, let’s carry on...

I could even let the fact that he didn’t tell her about Theta Protocol slide because of all that classified crap and such, even if she called him out brilliantly about him not having the right to know that as well him not being Director anymore (HA, sorry Coulson but take that!) - I’m not really sure it was that a valid reason the fact that he should have told her because Andrew was involved, I mean, idk, they were not even married anymore, I don’t think that officially it should have been her business to know, but surely, as his best friend, Phil maybe should have felt more of a moral obligation to inform her, also because I can’t really recall if Phil started seeing Andrew before he confessed Melinda about his writing impulses, but at some point she knew, so what was the harm on letting her know? Where was the logic in keeping at least that hidden from her? I’ll be damned if I know! 

Anyway, what I seriously would have kicked Phil’s ass for is the fact that he, TWICE (as far as I remember at least) affirmed that he didn’t want to go to Melinda after the whole Andrew/Lash debacle because “she wouldn’t want me to go after her right now” “she’ll talk when she’s ready”... Phil... pal.... buddy... what the fuck???!!! I mean, ok, Melinda would have assured you that she was fine, especially if you approached her in public, but... you know... we know... THE WHOLE WORLD knows she wasn’t, how could she???!!! One fucking sentence, one “you know I’m here if you want to talk or anything” like she said to him, more than once, would have killed the writers to insert it?????!?!?!?! But no, not only he doesn’t reach to her (at least, we don’t see it and it isn’t even implied in the show)but in the meantime he proceedes to go out and have drinks and slEEP WITH ROSALIND AND START A RELATIONSHIP WITH HER WHAT THE HELL KINDA BEHAVIOUR IS THAT?????! His best friend is anguished, tormented and in pain, he should have at least stood by her bunk’s door all night just to reassure her he was there for whatever she needed, or at least stay at base, work, go to sleep, idk, with what spirit you go out and go on a date and everything???!! Why is that, to distract yourself?? Oh yeah, but he’s also working an angle here, yeah all work and duty and no play, eh, Coulson?! MELINDA NEEDED YOUR SUPPORT AND FRIENDSHIP FFS!!!!!!! Damn it, at least find time to show a scene in which he makes an effort to reach for her, then she is free to do anything she wants with his support and if she asks he’ll be considerate enough to leave her alone, but show us he tries, because that’s something I think Coulson would do!!!! Instead he apparently just straight up assumes that she doesn’t want anyone close in that moment so he doesn’t even bother to assure her that if she needs it, he’s there for her... I get it, we all know she closed off after Bahrain and all and she’s the kind of person who tends to keep things for herself, but it doesn’t hurt to at least let her know he’s available if she needs help, especially because she’d hate to bother him knowing well that he has a lot more to think about than just her? Listen, Coulson in certain instances could be a little dense, but I think he’d make such a reasoning, idk? Or am I assuming too much about him? But, as you said, even Mack voices his concerns about leaving her alone, someone who is not particularly close to her, but not Phil 

3B was better but still too little. It's funny but two of my favorites scenes of the show were the one about the boundaries, SO much to unpack there and when called him on it when he said she was too quick to the trigger and Daisy wasn't Andrew, the murder vest was bad enough but damn he still went the extra mile, but if he's going to be a bastard, at least have May fight back because I don't think I could take more of him being a dick and May just taking and getting no apologies like in 2B. 

Oh my god, OH MY GOD yes, that was the peak of the idiocy!! “You’re always so quick to the trigger” JESUS CHRIST PHIL HOW COULD YOU EVEN CONCEIVE TO SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO HER, TO MELINDA, HOW THE FUCK DOES YOUR BRAIN WORK????!!?!?!!? I seriously tend to erase all this stupidity in s3, I know it’s not fair to the show but I’m sorry, I really can’t stand that Phil could say shit like that to Melinda, I can barely recognize it as canon... Maybe it’s me who has created this version of Phil in my head that actually got things wrong about his character, maybe I’m misreading him and don’t really understand him fully (not that I have ever claimed that I do, anyway), because no matter how stressful this moment is for him and no matter how much pressure he is under, I can’t for the life of me accept that he would say those things and behave like that... S1 behaviour I understand even if it still pisses me off a bit but it’s definitely more comprehensible, but these aspects no, just no, no way... The writers kinda saved it with May taking no shit from him (thank god for that, at least) and him apologizing, even if that was still pretty mild according to me, but oh well, better than nothing at all I guess? Let’s try to convince ourselves of that...

S4 was kinda funny to me because they just turned it up to eleven but I appreciate we actually saw him showing love/devotion/loyalty, without S4 I don't think I could ship them as much and since S5 was also disappointing in my I need to believe Coulson loves her as much as she loves him thing there was little Philinda, but still we had May showing in actions and words her love for him and Coulson, well, I believe he loves her and I guess he kissed her, said he didn't want to leave her and invited her to spend a few days together before he died in front of her. Her SL in S6 was about how much she loved him but I knew that already lol and then emotional torture and death. 

Definitely, I seriously don’t know what happened during s4 writing that convinced the writers to suddenly push on the accelerator with their relationship, but I’m actually grateful (see? I can also say good things about them lol ), even if in terms of continuity for their dynamic I’m not sure how much sense it makes unless you take for granted that interactions must have happened in between the seasons, things we obviously weren’t witnesses of... As you pointed out, otherwise it would have been pretty hard to root for them to get closer, because May deserves the world!

It’s kind of ironic in a way to see, despite her being not openly vocal and expressive in her affections, how much more Melinda has said and done to and for Phil compared to him for her - again, as it has been said, he had far more things to worry about than her, whose mission was mainly Phil from the very beginning, so he obviously was more preoccupied to allow himself the luxury of devoting himself to just one person, but still...

S6? What is that? I really have no idea what you’re talking about here... :p

And that's why I appreciate so much how the fics do the work on Couson's part because I don't think I would love the ship as much without it either. And I just find confusing why AoS decided to go for the ship if they didn't care much about committing to their relationship on screen.

Yes! And ah, at this point, especially after S6, I’m so deflated about some choices that were made that I hardly care about trying to understand what goes through the writers’ heads, so again, I’ll just take what I want and run away quickly before they catch me and throw me in the pit of misery again (lol, look how confident I seem, as if I firmly believe that I won’t be affected at all by S7... Mh mh, yeah, sure, stay tuned to find out how much I’ll fail despite me training myself not to get involved with the show like I used to be...)

[withinevening]

The Dynamics of Friendship + Romance or Why Clint and Natasha are freakin’ important.

Personally speaking, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff share not only one of the most important relationships in the MCU but in media in general. Why? There are TONS of characters with dramatic, close, friendships.  Friendship? SHIP! FRIENDSHIP! SHIP! Well hellllooo fandom.

That’s what’s so quirky about these two. While I’ve never been truly active in any ‘ship war’, even in its ‘glory days’ I never really saw a ship /war/ when it came to these characters. I’d like to say that when The Avengers first came out Clint/Natasha had its fair share of supporters, of which I was one, but you had your side ships, and that list grew. (Clint/Coulson and Nat/Bruce were the two I saw most frequently as alternatives.) The real debate to this day is so ‘are they friends or lovers’ line of thinking. The shipper’s position is quite obvious. Those on the friends’ side lean more towards the argument that we’re in dire need of more buddies, less beddies. (Okay, I tried people.)

Now, yes, I ship the heck out of them. But you won’t hear me arguing about that point. We DO need less sexualized relationships. It’s valid and I can see their dynamic being read that way. You won’t hear me arguing about this. But here’s where it gets tricky for me and where this post gets a little personal in order to explain. There will also be endgame spoilers and unpopular headcanons.

As someone who identifies as asexual panromantic, I have a firm sense of love not being connected to sex. They can exist together or separately. Sex and intimacy are also different. You might ask then, well, what makes the difference between a strong friendship and a romance. To me? Well, not a lot. The strongest of friendships have a level of dedication and fondness, even physical closeness. But to be ‘in love’ is something different. Yeah, you’d do a heck of a lot for your best friend. You might give then a kidney or a huge loan. A select few of us might even put yourself in harm’s way. But have you ever felt devastated at the idea that they might want to spend their lives with someone else? Have you ever craved that friend’s attention on a greater level than: I’d really like to tell or experience this with them? See a bit of a difference?

Which is why you can make ‘that scene’ in Endgame work. The problem is ‘that which you love’ beyond all else. These two can fill that spot for each other interchangeably. These two have been through hell as individuals and as a team. They are the sole keepers of every secret. They have a bond that extends beyond friendship. They are quite literally willing to die for one another when it comes down to facing the loss as THE VERY factor, not an external enemy. They’ve both encouraged one another to do things that are best for them even if it’s uncomfortable. That level of commitment, intimacy, and desire is nothing BUT romantic.

This doesn’t mean you have to ignore canon, or can’t enjoy these two as friends. As before, romance does not equate sex. But there is no question that Natasha is a part of Clint’s family in canon. Yes we know how close her and Clint are, but Laura has also seen to be quite perceptive of Natasha. They even named a child after her. She seemed right at home in their home.  We love our family. And no, of course, we don’t love our family romantically. But a form of love IS there if you prescribe to them being friends. ‘Cause lets face it. A secret agent’s life is not typical. As such your dynamics with others are not going to be standard. As far as Bruce goes, Natasha is starting to trust herself. She’s starting to open up. Clint has his family, but here is someone who’s broken in a similar way as she is. She sees this as an opportunity to try to connect with someone. She wants to reach out, but she hasn’t met many people who could even BEGIN to understand her special kind of special. So sure she’s going to be curious. But it’s still a gamble. It has the potential to be something instead of just a fun little distraction. That’s scary and they’re both cautious. But he might be able to get her and maybe it could work. Doesn’t mean she loses the other connections she has, but you never saw her falling madly in love/lust either. Canon Bruce/Nat was more about potential.

So yes, friend-shippers are perfectly valid. But you know what? Shippers are too—without having to ignore canon. It’s important to remember that these two have their own trauma. Natasha has always seemed a bit self-sacrificing. She wants to make up for her past and has had a LOT of trouble opening up. Her walls are always up. Clint’s been pretty through the wringer himself. I see them at a crossroad. They realize how important they are to one another, but Natasha realizes that the best thing for Clint is for him to have a piece of ‘normal’ that she never can/never feels worthy of. So enter his family. I feel like there’s an understanding. Clint’s family will always come first. But he isn’t who he is without Natasha. She is a part of him and vice versa. Headcanon, Laura isn’t stupid. She knows this, sees this, and pretty much has the attitude of: You come home, you stay honest to me and don’t lie about things that aren’t classified, and we’re okay. Because this life I’ve signed up for isn’t normal. I respect the person this other person helps you to be and they respect the boundaries I set. And when she visits she gets laundry duty.

So where does this leave us beyond being a “let’s all get along!” post. At the core this is one of the strongest representations of a debate in which each viewpoint isn’t mutually exclusive. They are completely compliant with one another. As someone who usually prefers her ships not be canon as so few people can write romance reliably over an extended period of time, this is so rare. Because these writers have manage to depict a truly deep relationship in BOTH ways without HAVING to declare flat out one way or another or to define a connection by sex. Natasha and Clint are textual proof in media of a relationship that doesn’t neatly fit into a box. It’s a sign of character complexity.

And that’s what our media needs. We cry about ‘diversity’ when we mean race, gender, or sexuality. We’re slowly getting those things. But instead of having token representation and stereotypes, can we start considering the extent of which we depict variety and individualism? Yes there are other characters that emphasize this point better than these two. But as time went on, this is the reason I realized they will always be embedded in my fannish heart.

[violetrance]

I'm seeing a lot of people annoyed that Klance shippers are downplaying that recent Allurance moment in the clip & to compare it to the bonding moment is a reach etc. So I feel the need to explain/clear up why that moment is possibly hinting at A LOT, and why so many people are making a big deal out if it.

1. Lance has a crush on Allura. This has been known since day one, it is obvious. He has a clear infatuation with her and it has been shown throughout the course of the show. So some people immediately assume that he will end up with Allura. That’s fair, because what we’ve explicitly seen in canon is that he likes her. But what about Allura? We’re always talking about Lance’s feelings towards her and they’ve had some nice, genuine moments together, but she still as of now has not showing any romantic interest in Lance. If you compare her growing development and interactions with Lotor, they are very different to what she portrays towards Lance. Every time Lance makes a move on her, she’s either turned off or has no reaction to it. Now I’m not saying she can’t develop possible feelings for him as they go along, but it’s been five seasons going on six and we still have seen no indication that she feels that way. Which brings me to my next point.

2. In the most recent clip, Lance is clearly acting flustered towards her, saying ‘We make a great team.” But what is Allura’s reaction it? Nothing. She literally just brushes it off and says “Let’s go Lance.” So they can proceed with their mission. It’s obvious, even now, that Allura is not interested in Lance like that. Also, going back to my first point. Yes, Lance does have a crush on Allura, you can tell he genuinely likes her. That’s normal, it makes sense. But why does that make everyone immediately assume they’ll end up together? Crushes are apart of life, they come and go. Unless he’s in love with her and she feels the SAME WAY towards him, there can be no established relationship. Lance has literally said in his vlog, that even though Allura is great he’s not ready to settle down just yet because there are plenty of fish in the sea. Well???

3. No matter what you choose to believe, that scene and the scene Lance has with Keith during their bonding moment are meant to parallel each other. It’s just the truth. But you need to analyze the blatant contrast of the scenes and how they’re set up, the aftermath too to understand their impact. It was purposeful, it was done to show how Allura and Keith feel towards Lance, but how he feels towards them too. It doesn’t matter which way you look at it, the bonding moment was meant to be intimate, it was romantically coded. It literally parallels a scene shared with Hunk and Shay only a bit before, it’s PURPOSEFUL. If Lance says “I think we make a great team.” to Allura to show affection, what is making people believe that he didn’t do the same thing towards Keith?? If you compare Allura and Keith’s individual reactions to these moments, you will blatantly see what the show runners are trying to display. 

Lance blushes and get’s flustered towards Allura, claiming they make a good team. Her response is not really acknowledging the advance like she usually does, but instead continuing to go about the mission. 

Keith and Lance are holding each other’s hands, exchanging soft smiles and looks basked in purple mood lighting w/ slow music in the bg. Lance claims they are a good team, Keith smiles obviously happy. When Lance says he forgets the bonding moment, this intimate moment between them. What is Keith’s response? He’s offended, says that he held him in his arms like that’s supposed to change something? Not to mention how impatient he was to get Lance out of the pod before. Are you really trying to tell me he didn’t develop a crush on Lance after that moment??? Don’t even get me started on s3 and other past moments that further proves this. Also the head writer of the show literally saying Lance pretended to forget the bonding moment because he wasn’t emotionally ready to face it?? If that was just a platonic moment between two buddies, would they really make it that deep? No, not at all. 

Lance using those lines as a way to show affection towards both Allura AND Keith, literally shows he has feeling for the both of them. He has shown the same infatuated expression for Allura towards Keith before. They are literally similar to each other in many aspects, so he has a blatant type. Jeremy has hinted at his milkshakes bringing EVERYBODY to the yard, meaning he most likely is not straight. He’s said that something happens between two characters in terms of LGBT rep. So that means a relationship, who has been basically confirmed to have an end game romance? Lance. And if he has feelings towards both Allura AND Keith, you can basically do the math towards who he’ll possibly end up with. 

The only difference between them is: Allura does not have romantic feelings for Lance, but Keith does. Now I’m not saying this about Allura to pin her as some sort of bad guy, because this is normal behaviour. You do not always have to reciprocate someone’s feelings, she still obviously genuinely cares for him as a person and a friend regardless. But it is obvious, that she does not like him like that.

3. To go further, there was a newer review for season 6 that mentioned Allura and Lotor’s closeness and growing relationship has more than one consequence over the course of the season. It leads to some REVELATIONS for another character, which feels like a natural step forward on their personal journey. It’s extremely obvious they are talking about Lance. The creators also emphasised that his personal journey has something to do with respect, and rather than being a ladies man and obsessing over flirting etc, it’s about being a good team member & appreciating a person. 

Unless they’re mentioning something else, I would not be surprised if the consequences coming between Lotor and Allura’s growing relationship, is Lance’s one sided crush on Allura. Allura likes Lotor, Lotor likes Allura, it’s obvious that they have feelings for each other. Their interactions are probably the most blatantly romantically coded I’ve seen on this show. Last season you could tell this affected Lance a bit and he was kind of having trouble coming to terms with their relationship. This season, I do genuinely believe that Lance is going to officially move on from his crush/infatuation w/ Allura. He is not very fond of Lotor, but if he sees or knows how Allura feels about him, that perspective will change. He cares a lot about Allura, he wants her to be happy. Lance is the type of person who will go out of his way for others so they can be happy or comfortable, even if it affects him. We’ve seen this side of him more as the seasons go along, because he’s starting to mature more. That’s why he supported Keith so much when he became the leader, even though it was difficult for him. That’s why he comforted and supported Shiro a lot last season, even though he was probably afraid/nervous since he’s been changing so much. 

Him accepting the fact that Allura has feelings for Lotor instead of constantly flirting with her or being jealous, will be a step forward for him. In the end, she’s just a crush not the love of his life. There are other people out there like he said. If they do decide to make him confess his love for her though, it would not make any sense for his personal journey. It would not help him grow as a person, because in the end she still would not have romantic feelings for him. So he’d probably get rejected and be forced to move on anyways. Also if the consequences for Lotura and Allura’s relationship is different, I honestly do not believe or hope that they don’t, write her character to turn around & jump ship to Lance if she gets her heart broken. I personally do not think they will make her character that way, because she’s had so many different love interests but so far she’s only found a connection with one. Her immediately falling in love with Lance if everything possibly falls apart with her and Lotor, would be poor writing in my opinion and be very cliche. Allura and Lance are both strong characters, and they deserve to be written as such in terms of their characteristics. Lance making the decision to put his crush on her behind him so that she can be happy and he can grow as well, will be a really amazing and important lesson for kids especially watching.

4. This is just my opinion on the parallels of those scenes and where I possibly think Lance’s storyline with Allura is going. Honestly all that I’ve written could be wrong, because we have no idea what’s going to happen in the future. But if you look at this from a realistic stand point, it just makes the most sense. I also don’t like seeing people downplay Allura and Lance’s relationship because it is very sweet, but at the same time to assume that they’re going to end up together just because Lance likes her alone is unrealistic. And people might think I’m being Klance biased or that I shouldn’t be assuming Allurance’s relationship if I don’t ship them. But you don’t have to be a shipper, to see the probable direction that this show is going in. All of the facts and info are right in our face, we just need to pay attention. The show paralleling those two scenes, is showing us something really important and it isn’t a reach to assume so. Not to mention, this is not the first time they’ve paralleled scenes in this context towards Keith and Lance. It isn’t an accident anymore, it never was, everything that they’re doing is intentional. 

[itsediadmlove]

JONSA; the instrumentality of R+L=J

I must admit, as a jonsa shipper that I really like most of your metas on the subject. First of all, I would like to apologize for my use of english; I am not a native speaker and I know my use of such language to be far from perfect so please, if you finally take the time to read the post I am about to write and the reasons to write it, feel free to make any reference to any mistake you can find, it will be in my personal interest.

As I implied before, this is a jonsa post, but i believe it to be kinda different from the rest because I won’t be using foreshadowing from the books ( I don’t even know how to do it properly) nor the show. Anyone can find that on other amazing posts there are around which were made by people able to do them far better than myself. What is really important here is the structure of the story and how I’ve come to understand ASOIAF (books and show). The second reason why I will do it this way is because I agree with a full lot of people out there that at the end, every ship, from Jonsa to Jonerys it is nothing else than a whish, and when we hope something strongly enough we begin to project it under every light, for any excuses, seeing any quote or any passage as foreshadowing something. Please don’t get me wrong, I’ve learn from a full lot of metas; some of them are amazing and have brought light to some events. But the point for me is that no one at this point (except the obvious ones) know how this amazing story will end, that doesn’t mean that they’re not right: I’ve found around there people posting about R+L=J in the books for years, and then asking jonsa meta creators to find a quote that proves their theory to be true. My answer for such arguments is that nowadays, as long as the books go, there is not a single solid proof that R+L=J, just foreshadowing, and as the TV show confirmed, that never meant they were wrong.

At the end of season 6 I was quite hyped about Jonerys options. Dany was finally moving to westeros with her army, dragons, Dorne and High Garden at her back and Jon had just be named King in the North with the Vale bonded to him to some extent. Dany had left Naharis behind in order to be able to forge an alliance through marriage, but there were just 3 bachelors politically worthy of her hand: Euron, Sweet Robin and Jon Snow. Euron was out of question since she choosed to support Asha’s claim, and Sweet Robin... Well... Jon Snow was the remaining and perfect match allowing her to become Queen in the North by marriage, and tie The Vale to her claim along Dorne and The Reach; leaving Cersei with the ravaged Riverlands which are not really loyal to her nor the Freys, Casterly Rock and its bannermen who had fought several battles and lost a huge amount of men since the war begun, the Iron Islands (which are poor and divided) and some support from the Stormlands. It seemed good, yet Dany suddenly forgot why she let her lover behind and started to make demands as a stupid and spoiled teenager. I never got to understand why the idea never came to her or Tyrion’s  (who should be smart enough and keen to Jon Snow) minds, it was stupid at best.

When season seven came to an end I was extremely dissapointed with the season and needing more I started to read the books, and I’ve come to read them all 4 times since then. Then I started to wonder about the endgame, coming to a vague yet huge realasation: it’s all about R+L=J. Some would say it is obvious yet most of  people don’t come to fully understand such a statement. It is not about Jon becoming King because he is the true heir of Aerys Targaryen, ASOIAF is not this kind of story (Stannis was right about his claim from the beginning yet no one gave a shit) in fact your best buddy and your crippled ‘’prophet’’ brother saying you are and then your father’s best friend (Howland Reed) confirming it doesn’t make it a claim, but a rumour: it is people accepting it which makes it a claim (like Renlie’s, who never really had one). The point of George foreshadowing R+L=J it’s not just poetical, it must be instrumental for his story; useful for the endgame, and what makes me feel that way is the fact that GRR Martin has been spending time on this plot from the very Ned’s first chapter (I mean Robert’s quote about kings hiding under the snow  in the crypts of winterfell). We all know how long George takes to write a book and it would be useless to develop such a plot for no reason and spending years trying to show and hide the truth at the same time, chosing the right words, where to put them... R+L=J is essential to his story and that feeling is what made us aware that Jon would come back from death.

If Dany and Jon were about to rule together it wouldn’t matter whose claim is better; she holds the true power and not even the claim would matter if it isn’t his it whould be hers, so, if this was the outcome of all, why has GRRMartin spent his time in R+L=J’s plot; just to add drama to this couple? Just to add a little problem that they will eventually solve and live happily ever after? Sounds shitty and a waste to make it just a detail because if with this outcome you took R+L=J out of ASOIAF, there would be almost no difference but preventing an incestous romance.  

After realising this I started wondering how would it play out with Jon’s claim  being accepted. There are two possibilities: everyone respect him enough after the long night not to give a shit, or people would prefer him rather than the alternative. Right now, in the show Jon Snow is King in the North, but he is weak, He does not hold men of his own, nor a castle (Sansa is lady of Winterfell not him) he is king by deference, not by power but the wildlings and they were few enough before the battle of the bastards, he is a weak king and a king under the pretension that he is Ned’s Stark son, who he is not. R+L=J can do nothing but jeopardize his authority and once this happens he will be useless to Daenerys (even if she loves him). Then we have the southern lords, whose rights will be at stake if a military strong ruler would end at the Iron Throne (after all feudalism meant the power struggle of the local noblemen against the crown for their own rights and privileges). For them, someone like Dany is not a dream but a threat (she even admitted she wants to break the wheel). R+L=J gives them the chance to deny her claim in exchange for a king who holds nothing but respect instead of a foreigner who doesn’t respect anything but her own power and entitlement. You may think what you want but for me R+L=J being actually important makes Jonerys impossible, or better, making Jonerys the endgame makes R+L=J nothing but such a pairing creepy as hell.

In the other hand; King Jon could marry a lot of women (at least in the books); Margeary, Val, Cersei (I know it’s almost impossible but I am just listing), Myranda Royce, Arianne Martell... But King Jon being a weak king will need a strong political engagement in order to get support and strength, and those kind of fiances are not  common: Myranda Royce is from a minor branch of Royce family and doesn’t exist in the show, Val is not even a princess just a free woman who doesn’t exist in the show, Margeary Tyrell would make a great option as long as she lives and is unmarried (not in the show anymore) as Arianne (a crybaby more concerned for her own rights than for Dorne itself who doesn’t exist in the show). As far as the show goes there are just 2 women that are not Daenerys that fit the role: Cersei and Sansa (Lyanna Mormont is not a valid option since her house is to little and unimportant and she is a child).  Just those 2... 

Lot of people would say Sansa is his sister (to some extent), but the truth being said she is not, they’re cousins: why? Because R+L=J. If Jonsa would be endgame, a possibility no one can confirm nor deny, R+L=J would have a double instrumentality and this is why Jonsa is my ship instead of Jonerys, because it makes the most important hide plot of ASOIAF essential for 2 reasons instead of completely useless. Some can say that it is unlikely GRRMartin to write such a farytailed story, but from my perspective, no matter how cruel, cynical and unfair the world of ice and fire is, his story is still a song.

[heloflor]

A Matter Of Principals : why Discord feels regressed

After the episode “A Matter Of Principals” aired, a lot of people complained about how it regressed Discord's character to his old self, and I won't hide that I told myself “This episode would have been awesome...back in season 4...”. But for those who don't understand this point of view, here's a personal list of things that make Discord feels off in this episode.

Note : This is just a personal opinion that you have all rights to disagree with. Also, be aware that, despite the way Discord is in this episode, I still found it very entertaining with good jokes and with especially a Spike who was on point in his supporting role, especially by not defending one character because of his affection but because he felt like the person is in the right (the best example being before Starlight banishes Discord because we actually see Spike defending both of them). Finally, this post will contain spoilers for this episode but also from previous Discord episodes and from the comics.

Now, without further addue, here's a list of things that gave me the feeling of a S4 Discord :

WARNING : VERY long post ahead !

1. Fluttershy : Remember when in season 6 Discord was ready to go in a changeling hive without magic just to save Fluttershy ? Remember how one season later he was ready to act completely normal because he feared for his relationship with the pegasus; and that behavior almost destroyed him ? Remember how Spike mentioned the possibility of Discord being in love with Fluttershy, and the draconequus barely defended himself ? Well here, Discord sends the mane 6, including Fluttershy, on a fake map mission; and in the end, Pinkie talks about worms that may have been deadly, meaning that Discord was ready to put Fluttershy into deadly danger just so he could run a random school he never showed interest into. I think you can easily understand what's so off here.

Heck, to add even more into this, when you think of it, in “Discordant Harmony”, Discord was ready to be completely normal, which means giving up his chaos, the thing he had been doing all his life, just for Fluttershy. In a way, it could mean that Discord loves Fluttershy more than he loves his own chaos, which is again what he always did and what defines him (let that sink in for a moment...yes I'm a Fluttercord shipper; just ignore that remark if you don't care about shipping or dislike this one). But in “A Matter Of Principals”, he's ready to put her in danger. I mean, sure, the others are here; but she could still be hurt, so his behavior doesn't match with his over-protectiveness from the season 6 finale.

2. Spike : This one hurts even more with “The Breakup Breakdown” being only four episodes ago. Thing is, in “The Breakup Breakdown”, Spike and Discord are shown to be like best bros, being all snarky towards each other with even Discord not getting mad at some of Spike's comments (like when after Discord fails to make Big Mac feels better and Spike calls Discord's methods off; all the draconequus does is rolling his eyes). But in “A Matter Of Principals”, there literally is some Spike abuse. I mean, he gets hurt by the thunder-bees bugs (sorry I forgot their name), splashed by a giant smelly cheese, is the one to get rid of Discord's mess (in the background for example with the fire extinguisher or the paper bin while Starlight is talking with Discord), gets the artifacts falling on him and gets “hugged” against his will. And I swear, thinking of previous episodes, I only remember two times in which Discord was a jerk to him, excluding the murder attempt in “Dungeons and Discords” (the two times being putting him in a bubble that goes up in “Twilight's Kingdom” and putting dirt on him in “What About Discord ?” but it's possible that I forgot another moment). And the worse with this point is probably the fact that, throughout the entire episode, Spike keeps being nice to Discord and even defend him at some point. But on the other side Discord couldn't care less about him, which really feels OOC; again, especially after an episode like “The Breakup Breakdown”.

3. Children : I know some people refuse to see them as canon, but since there are the only thing I have for this point : in the comics, there had been some stories featuring Discord with the CMCs (Friends Forever 2; Main issue 24; Friends Forever 20 and a mention in the main issue 50) and in those, he really shows a friendly side, being kind of a goofy uncle (and heck, in the friend forever 20, he even says at a point “Fluttershy and the kids”, the kids probably being the CMCs; and considering some people believes that by “the kids” he means that in his dream he has some kind of fantasy in which he's married to Flutters and they have children, it shows that Discord can act kind of like a parent for the trio). So in short, in the comics, Discord is good with kids.

Now, in the show, he barely interacted with the CMCs (sadly) but from the little we have : in “Make New Friends But Keep Discord”, the worse thing he does to them is scaring them and two seconds later it's Applebloom who's being kinda rude with him (although he should have seen it coming); and in “The Breakup Breakdown”, when Big Mac yells at Sweetie Belle, Discord is as shocked as the others, which may show he knows there's a line not to drown when it comes to kids.

But in this new episode, Discord is ready to put children into direct danger to get his ways. And these children have nothing to do with his problem ! And yet he lets a bugbear attack them and put two of them in quicksand (although I guess it can be debate whether or not the quicksand was deadly; the same way I didn't include the ursa Major because it only scares the students off and then Discord makes it quickly disappear). Reminder that this is supposed to be a reformed character who, even if he's not perfect, is still shown to have some standards; and if you base yourself on the comics, he would never bring himself to hurt innocent children when he knows what it's like to spend time with some.

(by the way, unrelated note but where were the CMCs in this episode ? I mean, didn't Starlight say that they are better teachers than students in “Marks For Effort” ? Then why weren't they the substitute teachers ??)

4. Behavior and evolution : I kinda started this point in the previous one but when you think of it, Discord have been mostly less deadly with time. I mean, the last time he tried to actually kill someone was in season 6 (in “Dungeons and Discords”), and even so he had to get truly mad before starting to hurt (after all the first thing he did before getting to death was to show what was a guys night to him. Also here I say “season 6” because let's be honest, if it wasn't for the ex-machina throne, Discord would have gotten on a changeling rampage considering his rage when he learns Fluttershy has been captures). Then, in season 7, he gets mad at two shopkeepers but in the end he remains relatively polite and doesn't do anything drastic (and for the firth one he even comes back saying “I'm sorry do you validate ?” or something, showing he really started to learn).

For this part, I would also like to point out two other details : Twilight and the people Discord hurt :

- About Twilight : she had always been the one that Discord seems to like hurting the most (“Three's a Crowd”, “What About Discord”, “Celestia Advice”) but with time, when you think of it, he went from “giant murdery worm” to “terrible feeling of rejection all day” to “stress for a few hours” so yeah, he chilled quite a lot here.

- About his targets : when you look at previous episodes, aside from “The Return of Harmony”, Discord has always targeted people who actually bothered him. I mean, sure, in “Princess Twilight Sparkle” he let people be put in danger but he wasn't really reformed before the end of the season; and in “Three's a Crowd” he did wished to piss Twilight off and also led Cadence into danger, I won't deny it. But after season 4, he stopped hurting random people : in “Make New Friends But Keep Discord”, he only targets Tree Hugger, and the Smooze being all over the room was only an accident (that he did take use off to try blaming Fluttershy for not inviting him, I won't deny it); in “What About Discord” he apparently didn't mean to make Twilight feel that way but it's true that he used the situation to have fun; in “Dungeons and Discords” he only aims at the duo annoying him; in “To Where And Back Again” he only gets mad at Trixie because she's provocating him (and like someone mentioned : in the end of the episode, he actually admits that Trixie earned his respect but she's the one telling him that she still doesn't consider him much);...in “Celestia Advice” he's again being a jerk to Twilight (seriously the episodes with her are the only ones in which he's an ass just to be one), in “Discordant Harmony” he only gets mad at the shopkeepers telling him how weird they feel about thinking he's friends with Fluttershy and in “The Breakup Breakdown” he doesn't get mad at all.

But then comes “A Matter Of Principals”. And in it, not only does Discord put people into a deadly situation; but he also hurt people who did nothing to him (and children nonetheless). Not only is this a regression to S4 from how he's acting towards others in term of his ways to handle magic (since in season 4 he couldn't care less about other ponies' lives) but it's also almost OOC for him to aim at innocent people like that.

5. Apologies : Alright, here, I won't talk about his ways of apologizing (like how he has no trouble when it comes to Fluttershy but when it's to Tree Hugger and his O&O buddies he feels way more awkward) but about why he apologies. Alright so, if I'm not wrong, Discord apologized in four episodes : Twilight's Kingdom; Make New Friends But Keep Discord; Dungeons and Discords; Discordant Harmony.

In “Twilight's Kingdom”, it's not much of a surprise. After all, he kind of hit rock bottom, betraying Equestria, making Fluttershy cry...Furthermore, the “bubble” scene is not only the moment for Twilight to find her key but also Discord's true redemption moment (which is probably why when we see the mane 5 Fluttershy is shown alone at the center of the screen when we see the bubbles at first and we they are put down; because it's both Twilight's and Discord's point of view, and the latter is more focused on the pegasus) so it's no surprise to have him apologizing to Fluttershy and later on giving Twilight the necklace (that I see as a way to apologize too)

In “Make New Friends But Keep Discord”, not much to say. Fluttershy is the one telling him to apologize, although we can see him not understanding at first that he has to say it to Tree Hugger.

In “Dungeons and Discords”, things get more interesting in terms of character development. Indeed, I rewatched the episode some time ago and realized how the scene after the murder attempt was made : the three guys have a small talk about why Discord was invited, followed by Discord feeling bad and deciding to go, with the other two being happy about that. Then, after he exaggerate his exit, Spike and Big Mac start to feel bad for him and call him back, and that's when Discord apologies to them. What's interesting about this scene is that, when you see Discord's behavior towards others, it's obvious that he sees himself as superior to all of them, at the exception of Fluttershy (and possibly the other mane 6 ?) and he clearly states it in his apology. But despite feeling superior, the point is that he apologies, but not because someone asked him to. If you watch the scene, you'll see that neither Spike nor Big Mac asked him to do it; and that's a big improvement ! Again, in season 5 (title too damn long...), he was asked to apologies by Fluttershy; but in this scenario, she's not here and doesn't tell him anything; apologizing and saying what he is sorry for, showing that he knows what he did wrong, was his own choice. And that's some major improvement  coming from him (and that's also the reason why I consider this episode to be the last one in which Fluttershy plays the role of a guardian for Discord since she was the one behind him being invited. After it, she becomes just a friend).

Finally, in “Discordant Harmony”, as said before, after getting mad and mocking the pony at the tea shop, Discord disappear, only to come back one second later and actually saying “I'm sorry”, showing again that he knows what apologizing really is and when to apologize.

But in “A Matter of Principals” ? Not only does he not apologize, but Starlight apologizes for not considering him, while he was the one who started to change the school the moment he arrived. So again, this kind of throw off a character development that may feels rather important considering Discord is a reformed villain.

6. Karma : The final point (considering the last one is more of a bonus), aka probably the reason why the scene with Starlight blasting off Discord feels so satisfying. If you look at every other Discord episode (with the exception of “Celesta Advice” but we can't really say he was much of a pain in it), each time Discord do something bad, karma strikes him. And to prove my point, here's the list (yes I'm that kind of person who needs to justificate everything; if you haven't noticed the wall on text that you already read...) :

- The Return of Harmony : Discord turns the world into a chaotic mess; he gets turned to stone (although yes I know he was a bad guy and needed to be stopped).

- Keep Calm and Flutter On : Discord uses Fluttershy's kindness to get his way through; he ends up realizing that she does matter to him and feels terrible when she rejects his friendship.

- Princess Twilight Sparkle : Discord is happy about the situation and clearly wants Twilight to go back in the Everfree forest to get killed with the others so he could be free from the elements (I'm sorry but that's how I interpret him waving as Twilight goes back); Discord has to keep being a “good” person despite the elements gone and has to help cleaning.

- Three's a Crowd : Discord ruins Twilight's and Candace's day by faking an illness; Discord ends up being truly sick.

- Twilight's Kingdom : Discord turns against everypony including Fluttershy that he started to really consider as close; Discord is betrayed and has to face Fluttershy's sadness.

- Make New Friends But Keep Discord : Discord spends the episode trying to get Fluttershy attention; he gets her attention at the worse moment (aka while about to get rid of Tree Hugger).

- What About Discord : Discord makes Twilight feels like shit for an entire day; he has to face the same feelings for a short time.

- Dungeons and Discord : Discord puts Spike's and Big Mac's lives in danger; he feels terrible and gets rejected for a while (and feels the need to apologize).

- To Where And Back Again : Discord gets all boastful about his abilities at the beginning and screams in the hive, leading for the group to be detected; he gets captured by changelings disguised as Fluttershy while he felt unable to do anything (btw, not related but when you think of it, if he hadn't scream her name but something else, the group may have been detected and able to find their way like in the episode but as a bonus the changelings wouldn't have known how to capture Discord so neither him nor Trixie would have been captured. Because yeah let's be honest here if it wasn't for him Trixie wouldn't have had to sacrifice herself).

- Discordant Harmony : even though he was trying to be a good person for once, Discord completely changed himself; he almost disappeared/died.

- The Break Up Breakdown : Discord claims not to believe in love and encourages Big Mac to break up with Sugar Belle; he sees how sad the others are when they start thinking love is a lie and he has to help fixing things.

But in “A Matter Of Principals”, not only is Discord not punished for trying to murder children but he also got awarded for it (even though it doesn't last) ! I suppose some could argue that it's because he's dealing with Starlight who never got punished for anything so she wouldn't see the point of acting differently towards him but still, it just feels weird to have him awarded for such acts.

7. Episode could actually never had happened : Yes, you read that right, there were actually easy ways to have this episode differently, if not not at all. For the difference in episode, let's just say that, if Discord and Starlight had talked at the beginning of the episode about how Discord could help and improve the school, instead of having him doing shit first hand, we could have had a completely different scenario and, to be honest, even though I have no idea how this could have been in terms of enjoyment, I have to admit that seeing the end of the episode with Discord putting the stuff back but still leaving “a few surprises” makes me feel a bit sad because an episode with Discord making stuff more interesting while remaining harmless would have been great (and could have lead to some cute interactions with the students; heck, this could have been more focused on the students. Also, come on ! Seeing Silverstream react to meeting Discord properly would have been adorable between her excitement over new things and his high self-esteem !) !

As for the episode not existing at all ? Remember the arguing scene between Discord and Fluttershy in season 5 ? When you think of it, in addition to the lesson Fluttershy taught him about multiple friends, Discord probably also started to learn to open up with good friends to avoid bad situations. And when you look at “Discordant Harmony”, if Discord does put some kind of mask with his new personality, in the end, he really easily opens up to Fluttershy and their relationship, which is clearly a big deal to him (also the beginning of the episode shows that he has no trouble showing her his emotions so, personally, I don't consider that he refused to open to her but more that he was trying his best to stay in his new character in hope to please her more, even while disappearing). So if you think of it, why would Discord have trouble telling Fluttershy, the element of kindness, the one he seems to know he can tell anything to, that he feels left out with the school ? I mean, I guess Fluttershy sometimes talks about her new job during their tea parties. Also, yes I know Discord is a prideful character but again, he accepted to open up about his relationship with Fluttershy, which seems to be one of his biggest concerns considering how he behaves in the S7 episode. So mentioning the school shouldn't be too much trouble to him, which would lead to a situation in which the episode isn't necessary.

So here's my way too long rant about this episode. And again, I said at the begging, I overall liked the episode. If you forget about characterization, it's still a fun episode to watch with one pretty powerful moment (not only Starlight blasting him off but also Discord calling her “power hungry”)

Now, if I had to say two last things : the first one would be to make the promotion of a fanfic from FIMfiction which is an rewriting of the episode and that I find really interesting and that really brings a different view on Discord's actions while still keeping a part of the main picture. It's called “Entropy Arc : A Matter Of Principals”. And please, for those who don't like episodes rewrittings (that this person wasn't the first one to do), please don't go look up for this story just to insult it, this is just a dick and useless move to do.

And finally, I wanted to say that maybe another reason why I wasn't that much invested into how the episode turned out was because I read the synopsis of it (yes I spoiled myself the entire season...) and expected a very different kind of story so, for those who are interested (for those who aren't, know that this is the last part of this post so thanks for taking time from your life to read such a long post and I hope it wasn't too much of a waste), I imagined that :

- The point of view would swap between Discord and Starlight

- Twilight would be called to go to Canterlot for some Princess reason

- Spike would either go with her or stay

- Starlight would be put in charge with the mane 5 staying as teachers (because I didn't know if there would be substitute teachers in the episode so didn't know how it would work without these five in; although the episode did turn out to not have other teachers and having Starlight find some)

- Discord would probably hear Twilight's leave from Fluttershy during a tea party or something

- Discord would want to make a mess at the school for some reason (to be honest I haven't really put much thought into that...but hey ! I was just basing myself on a synopsis so...)

- Instead of doing big, because the mane 5 and especially Fluttershy are in the school, Discord would do small changes that could disturb the class without being to obvious to be him (like making stuff fall for no reason or scaring the students off or changing gravity for a short time, this kind of discreet stuff)

- At one point, Starlight would realize Discord is being the fuss and would call him (like Spike in “The Breakup Breakdown”) to ask him about it. He would probably either plays innocent and later on make a bigger mess to make it clear it's him and piss her off or he would taunt her and make a bigger mess (and by bigger mess I mean something he would do while the mane 5 aren't around)

- Starlight would probably get tired of it and go in Fluttershy class, pulling her out with her magic while being like “Excuse me can I borrow your teacher for a minute ? Great ! She'll be  back in an instant !” and explain her the situation

- Fluttershy would call Discord and ask him about it. He would play innocent

- At that point, I gotta admit, I didn't really know how to end things up so it may not be much of a great scenario and goes away from Starlight.

- After a short time of thinking, Fluttershy decides to believe Discord, thinking it may just be an misunderstanding but Starlight insists

- There would be an argument between Starlight, Fluttershy and Discord that would lead into Fluttershy getting upset and running away, out of the building because she doesn't know who to believe since she trusts both

- Starlight and Discord feels bad about it, especially Discord since he's the one causing a mess

- Starlight would probably be called to do something at that moment, leaving Discord in his thoughts

- Fluttershy is sitting outside, maybe half crying, and Discord suddenly appears and talks to her

- She tells him about how she panicked because didn't know who to believe and he confessed to be the one at fault and apologies to her while probably saying while he did it. She accepts to forgive him if he promises to behave himself. He promises (possible Fluttercord shenanigans)

- Fluttershy says that they both need to apologize to Starlight and that after it she needs to go back to her class

- Either apology here plus moral told or the apology isn't told and the moral is in a conclusion scene

- Conclusion : Twilight comes back and sees that things are good in the school and probably that Discord is helping Starlight while Fluttershy is proud of both of them (+ moral time)

Soooo...pretty sure this sucks but at least you can see why this episode was quite a surprise for me considering how different it is from a perspective made of a single sypnosis (and also of how I kept repeating “oh no come on !” when I saw that all the mane 6, including Fluttershy, were called by the map...the magic of being shipping trash ^^;  )

[kopfkinoes]

I’ve been a Naruto fan for like 13 years now but after the manga ended I pretty much left the fandom because I anticipated the vitriol that was going to follow after the ending. Every once in a while I stumbled upon a Naruto post that made me realize I had been right and I didn’t interact. But at the end of 2017 I came back and…nothing has changed. I honestly think this is one of the worst, most immature fandoms out there. I feel like so many of the people in the fandom are perpetual twelve year olds. And it kind of bothers me that Sasuke and Sakura, my absolute favourites since day one, are still disrespected as fuck. Now, mind you, I’m not talking about the ship, I’m talking about them as individual characters although I do ship them. I’ve multishipped for a long, long time but not anymore.

They are the first ones I shipped because I had a feeling stuff was bound to happen between them but then I discovered the wonders of the web and instantly moved to ship Naruto and Sasuke. I never once hated Sakura and Hinata though and even in the later years when “feminist” rhetoric moved into fandoms, I took the “these women are strong and powerful and I love them, they don’t need no man” thing to be good. But after the ending, and now seeing how many of the people who ship Naruto and Sasuke are downright anti-Sakura and insult and disrespect her in so many ways I realized “Wow! I had been an idiot all along. These people never gave a shit about Sakura, they were saying all of that stuff to get her out of the way.” I don’t see people talking about how Naruto and Sasuke’s bond diminishes their battle abilities, I see none of the shippers implying that their development would be flushed down the drain if they ended up in a relationship. Yet, that is apparently true for the women. Right.

Sasuke is a character with a lot of potential. But he was never able to evolve. And do you know why? Because of Naruto. Sasuke was created in order to be the opposite of Naruto and, for the most part, that is all remains to be. I’ve been staning Sasuke forever but this is the truth. He exists in order to be Naruto’s rival and in order to be pissed that he, a guy coming from a clan of prodigies, keeps falling behind the class clown and loser (who is anything but that when you think of it, Minato was anything but a weak guy and Kushina, while we don’t get a good look at her abilities, has loads of stamina and healing powers and her abilities were considered exceptional even among the Uzumaki, not to mention how easily Naruto masters everything new he tries). In the end, he is subdued by Naruto and the Will of Fire.

Even after all of this, he is still not allowed to be around his family. Why? Simply because he needs to be the opposite of Naruto. He needed to point a sword at his own daughter and it was Naruto who had to comfort and reassure her. Sasuke will never be an overly affectionate person, I don’t think he will ever realistically go back to his pre-massacre personality (he wasn’t exactly super bubbly as a child either, he was reserved around other people but very happy around his family) and frankly, he doesn’t need to. He wouldn’t ever be a husband who does grand romantic gestures or a super cuddly father but he’s loyal and devoted and these things shouldn’t be brushed away for some mission or for creating angst just to prove that Naruto is a better, more understanding person that he’ll ever be, even when it comes to Sarada. Like, for fuck’s sake, does everything Sasuke does need to happen right before Naruto waltzes in and puts him in his place by being a better person? Can Sasuke not be a person in his own right without the constant comparisons to Naruto?

What I also find interesting is how often I see Sasuke becoming completely OOC when paired with Naruto. Of course everybody says Sasuke is OOC when paired with Sakura but frankly I’ve rarely seen Sasuke presented as lovey dovey around Sakura, people usually want him to be proud of her but he stays his usual tepid self. Because that’s Sasuke’s personality, he’s not a conventionally affectionate person and there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s why it bothers me when I see Sasuke made to be a soft, sensitive, pastel boy aesthetic. He’s not that and he wouldn’t be that even if he were gay. I mean, I understand headcanons but don’t root them in the “seme and uke” dynamics, please.

Moving on, I have a particular kind of contempt for people suggesting Sasuke cheated on Sakura with Karin. It makes absolutely no sense character-wise and it just shits all over Sasuke by assuming he’s a disgusting fucker who would cheat. Are you telling me that the dude who didn’t even consider taking advantage of even a single one of the girls who were fawning over him would have a face-heel turn and cheat? Yeah, right. I don’t understand how you can call yourself a Sasuke fan and genuinely support cheating. Why would Sasuke wait to be with Sakura in order to have sex with Karin when he and Karin had so many opportunities to bang prior to this while they were travelling together as a team? Why would he have a child with Karin and just dump the child on Sakura’s head? I don’t even want to hear superiority arguments that go along the lines of “Karin is an Uzumaki so she has superior genes compared to Sakura who doesn’t come from a clan” because…arguments like these are disgusting. I don’t think it was ever even slightly implied that Sasuke (or the Uchiha for that matter) held beliefs like this. If anything, these guys didn’t like being othered and set apart from the rest of the village. I don’t think Sasuke ever implied that he believes some vaginas are not genetically pure enough for him to get into so please don’t put these shitty beliefs on him. Sasuke was described as “pure”. It’s simply the way he is. I really don’t care that you think he’s not a “True Hetero Guy” unless he cheats and/or has sex with loads of women.

I always see people saying fans who ship Sasuke and Sakura are “disgusted” by the thought of Sasuke having sex with someone else. But do you know how many people I’ve seen saying how grossed out Sasuke must be by being around pussy (specifically Sakura’s) and how he probably cries and is traumatized by the experience? I’ve yet to see people talking about how Sasuke must be super disgusted by dick.

Moving on to Sakura, pretty much 100% of the vitriol I’ve seen thrown at her comes from misogyny. People always like to say it’s not misogyny and yet it always is. It comes from Kishimoto himself and his ideas of women. He constantly described Sakura as “not cute” and “a hard woman”. And it’s true, Sakura’s not demure or submissive and doesn’t appear to be very suited for domesticity.  I don’t believe that just because she is loud and outspoken she would make a dreadful wife and mother. She was very shy as a child (mostly because she was insecure) but she grew into herself. About her not being cute, I’d say that’s debatable. Kishimoto said she’s not cute in the beginning and I see a lot of haters talking about “that ugly bitch Sakura” but let me tell you this, Naruto and Rock Lee had pretty intense crushes on her and Jiraiya compared her appearance to Tsunade’s (although the man’s trash when it comes to women but you get my point). What do people base their opinions on when they say she’s ugly? On her exaggerated anger expressions? Because Sakura is not drawn as prettier or uglier than any of the other female characters. Is it based on the fact that people love to bring up time and time again, that she doesn’t have big breasts? Yeah, she doesn’t have breasts as big as Tsunade’s or Hinata’s or even Ino’s but what does that have to do with anything? Nope, this is rooted in misogyny because, just like in real life, when you don’t like a woman you insult her based on her body and appearance because you believe that’s where all the worth of a woman is. Besides, don’t you think there something wrong with focusing so much on the body type of a girl aged 12 to 17? Because I think there is.

I always feel like laughing at people who call her stupid because Sakura is a nerd. This is why she was paired with the more battle prone Naruto and Sasuke because she was too much brains and not enough brawn. I know that it was Ino, Shino and Sasuke that graduated top of the class but, according to the Databooks, none of them beat Sakura in intelligence, she is equal to Shino and higher than Ino and Sasuke. People love to say that her being able to do the written part of the Chunin Exam all by herself doesn’t prove that she’s actually smart, buddy, it does. The fact that she’s smart doesn’t make the rest of the students who cheated idiots. That was the point of the test, the questions were too difficult for 12 year old genin to answer. The fact that Sakura could, however, isn’t bullshit. You wouldn’t call an exceptionally gifted kid who can answer really advanced academic questions “not that smart really, it doesn’t prove anything”. Freaking Sasuke commented on her analytical abilities, she’s an extremely skilled med-nin, she is able to put pieces of information she’s previously learnt together in order to form a present opinion, her hobbies are trivia games and memorizing medical ninjutsu material for God’s sake.

I definitely don’t think comparing her to Hinata achieves anything. Hinata does represent the ideas Kishimoto seems to have about women. She is soft-spoken, she is never confrontational, she never wants to offend anybody. Sure, Hinata also has her insecurities and doesn’t place much value on herself (we have her father to thank for that) but even after getting out of that shell and discovering she has some iron at her core, she is still mostly soft. That’s not a bad thing at all, it’s simply who she is as a person and it doesn’t make her better or worse than Sakura. I know that Sakura fans have always been bullied online, from forums to YouTube to tumblr to any other comment section of blogs and stuff, people have always thrown shit at Sakura, saying she’s useless, a whore, an idiot. The amount of times I’ve seen people wish violent, horrible deaths on Sakura (for the sole reason that she didn’t spread her legs for Naruto being the catalyst in pretty much 100% of the cases) is immense. The amount of times I’ve seen people wishing Hinata would kill Sakura “for what she did to Naruto” is huge. So based on this, I understand why Sakura fans feel the need to get defensive. I don’t agree with putting Hinata down but I understand why some people might do it. I’ll never put down someone’s fav (especially when the fav is as unproblematic as Hinata who honestly did nothing wrong) but I definitely understand why some people will do it.

Naruto is a shonen, battle manga. We will never get 100% healthy relationships in this because the manga is not focused on romance. It is why the relationships between Sasuke and Sakura and Naruto and Hinata were not greatly developed and why there was an overemphasis on Naruto and Sasuke’s bond which is basically “we’re forever competing to see who’s better”. Kishimoto based it on his relationship with his brother but I’m pretty sure he took it up to eleven in the manga. Because Naruto is a manga for whom the target audience is boys, female characters will never be 100% appreciated. Most of the boys watching identify with the downtrodden outcast, guys such as Lee or Naruto. It’s a thing, associated with the stereotype of the Western man who watches anime, a stereotype that is proved to be correct in most cases, sadly. How many of these guys think they’re gems, that they’re precious souls to have around and girls just don’t see them for what they are? Both Naruto and Lee are very loved among male fans and they are both rejected by Sakura. (I could also say something about the stereotypes Western anime watching men place on Japanese women, namely “the pliant, submissive wife, who would do house chores all day, would never say no to sex and worship them as the much better versions of Japanese men that they are” but I’m not going there.) Never cruelly though, she remains friendly with both of them. Her bond with Naruto is very strong and they’re actually a pretty rare example of a good male and female friendship (the violence that is played for laughs doesn’t really mean much to me).

However, for the male fans that is never enough. How many times did I see stuff like “She chose Sasuke although Naruto never left the village” or “Naruto did so many things for her yet she still chose Sasuke”. Dude, there was never a competition. Sakura loves Sasuke, plain and simple. You can disagree with that if you want, you can disagree with how she expresses her love for him but there was never competition. Sakura has always loved Sasuke, what she feels for him is true love. Many people don’t believe it exists but it is what it is. I find it funny (and by funny I mean idiotic to the heavens) that people always say her development was crushed because she didn’t give up on Sasuke but Naruto’s was improved by not giving up on Sasuke. This is bias and misogyny at its finest. Sasuke is not just a crush to Sakura. People always want to say Sakura was a fangirl to Sasuke and nothing more and that she simply needed to get over her obsessive crush. She wouldn’t have said all she wanted was for him to acknowledge her if he were just a crush, she wouldn’t have suffered so badly over him. Many of the village girls had a thing for Sasuke and I doubt all of them cried over Sasuke at night after he left. Only Sakura anticipated when he was going to leave. People always say that Sakura maturing would have meant her understanding that her and Sasuke are just not meant to be a thing. The thing is, she wasn’t holding on to the idea that her and Sasuke would be “a thing”. Kakashi made it pretty clear (to Sasuke and to all fans who just can’t get it in their heads) that Sakura only wanted to help him, not to get into his pants.

People are also super quick to judge the relationship between Sasuke and Sakura as abusive. Why though? All the times they were violent towards each other (and there weren’t even that many times) they weren’t dating, they were combatants on opposite sides of battle. There is nobody in this series that Sasuke is more violent towards than Naruto and yet I never see this relationship classified as abusive, instead it is considered romantic and heartfelt that he wanted to sever his bonds with Naruto in order to make a martyr out of himself and be consumed by darkness. Like, yeah, that’s super healthy. I see the same thing being said with Karin, that Sasuke impaled her simply because he wanted to cut all of his bonds, not because he actually wanted to kill her. Which is…stupid to say the least. Like, cool story, still murder. He knew that impaling her would result in killing her but damn, was he willing to make that sacrifice. The reasons why Sasuke wanted to murder the people in his life are not important. In truth, all the murder he wanted to commit was because people were getting in the way of killing Itachi and, after killing Itachi, people were getting in the way of his goal to be completely alone in order to destroy/reform Konoha. Sasuke is not a psychopath who murders for fun but that doesn’t mean he was in a good place.

I shipped Sasuke with Karin but I never saw their bond as overly emotional or true love. I’m not saying Karin doesn’t care about him but I do think her feelings for him are more in the realm of sexual than the romantic. She does care for his well-being, she wants him to be happy, she is impressed by him and wants to be around him but it’s not romantic. Does she suffer when she thinks he’s dead? Naturally. Because she cares about him and she does love him but, again, not romantically. Karin’s sexual feelings for Sasuke are not bad, they don’t make her a whore or whatever. But it’s quite silly in my opinion to mistake them for some sort of pure, true love. They’re not that and it’s fine that they’re not. We see Sakura wanting to be alone with Sasuke but she never thinks of how she’s so excited she can barely stand it and how she wants to “ravage Sasuke like crazy”. We don’t see Sakura’s reaction, upon seeing Sasuke arrive on the battlefield to be “I want to lick Sasuke all over right now”.

People always like to remind everyone that Sakura ended her friendship with Ino over Sasuke. However, we never see Sakura and Ino be hostile to each other. Compare their rivalry to the one between Sasuke and Naruto to understand what I’m saying. They had a mild dislike going on but we see them quickly overcome it in the Chunin Exams. Sakura and Ino never really gave up on their friendship, their rivalry was mostly played for laughs, I never took it seriously because I don’t think it was presented in a way that was saying “you need to take this seriously, this is the real deal”. Mostly because it dealt with who has prettier hair and who can get the seat next to Sasuke first. Nope, not serious.

Back to Hinata, this is the reason why so many of the fanboys prefer her. Look at the opinions Shikamaru, another character the fanboys adore, has about women. He is downright misogynistic but that gets overlooked in fandom time after time because of his 200 IQ. Instead, I see people saying it is Sasuke who hates women when there is no indication of that, except, you know, people who think he’s gay and because he’s gay he MUST hate all women and consider them absolutely gross (except for the, sometimes OC, self-insert in fanfiction). Just like his father, Shikamaru has this thing that women should be sweet, soft and tender not headstrong, demanding and even harsh (women like his mother, Yoshino, Ino, Temari, Tayuya). He hates receiving help from women, he is frustrated when he has to fight women. He sums up his views of women himself by saying “C'mon. You know what they’re like. You can never figure them out. You never know where you could stand with them. The smallest things could put you in their bad side. Always playing little mind games with you. Trying to make you do what they want. They’re just a big pain basically.”

For the most part, many fans linked Sakura to Kushina because of her fiery personality. Minato kinda sealed this comparison when saying Sakura reminded him of Kushina. So a lot of people, while calling Sakura an ugly bitch and a whore who needs to be raped and die, still wanted her for Naruto and believed she will ultimately change her mind and go for Naruto. Personally, I don’t care about that because so many characters in Naruto are carbon copies of people who came before them, enough similarities are enough. This idea that a guy should marry a woman just like his mother is weird for many reasons to me. It’s only men that have unhealthy relationships with their mothers that want a woman exactly like their mothers. Then the ending came so Hinata, being the embodiment of what a woman “should be” became more appropriate for Naruto in the eyes of so many fans. The fact that she fits these patterns doesn’t take away or add to Hinata’s character in any way. It just is. However, fanboys will use it in a sexist way. I definitely don’t agree with the criticism for Hinata that it’s wrong her motivation for becoming strong is Naruto. The motivation of pretty much all characters in becoming stronger is in order to protect others and there's nothing wrong with wanting to improve yourself because you feel that would put you on more equal grounds with the one you love. This manga places great value on the power of unity and community and people who seek power for power’s sake, for revenge or for evil don’t do well. They are either defeated or they change their minds. Great emphasis is placed on the “you only become strong when you have someone you need to protect” mentality. And women are allowed to make connections in this life, they don’t have to live “lone wolf” lives in order to be “truly strong”. Loneliness is an enemy in and of itself in Naruto.

Kishimoto’s views on women are not necessarily progressive but they’re not exactly bad in my opinion. It all has to do with how fanboys twist his ideas and make them bad. Because I don’t think he ever blamed Sakura for not hooking up with Naruto. I know there are people who believe that he’s holding onto the belief that people (and women especially) must forever be with their first love. I think it just so happens that Naruto and Sasuke were Hinata’s and Sakura’s first loves but, more important, they are their true loves. Ino moved on and I see people saying she shouldn’t have. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t I guess. To sum up, I’ve yet to see dislike for Sakura that’s not misogynistic. I’m not even talking about people who think she’s weak. She is the only one who’s not from a clan and yet she managed to surpass Tsunade, a Sannin. She was impaled by Madara and shook it off immediately, she saved Naruto’s, Kankuro��s, Hinata’s and Karin’s lives, she saved Sasuke from an infinte desert, she saved Obito from a sea of acid, she punched an alien all-powerful goddess in the face.

People saying shipping Sakura and Hinata with the guys they’re canonically in love with proves their fans are selfish because they just want them to look cute next to Sasuke and Naruto amuse me. That if you really cared about them you’d ship them with guys who “actually” care about them like Lee or Kiba or whatever. Dude, people love who they love. And a woman has no obligation to be with a man who was friendly and nice to her, not even a man who has a crush on her if she’s not attracted to him or doesn’t love him.