#i really can't with this fandom sometimes

[dragonrider9905]

Before TBB Ends...Regardless of HOW it Ends...I've Got to Say Something...

In 2021, TBB was released, and over the last few years, it's grown to mean a lot to me. Not just the stories, the storytelling, the characters whom we've fallen in love with and hope to see more of someday, whose stories we've learned important lessons from, but how it profoundly affected my life.

And it is something I am incredibly grateful for.

Regardless of how the show ends, if it's something I'm going to love or be totally heartbroken over and hate, I'm so glad it happened and went on this journey.

For one, it gave me the plug to start writing. Writing was always a dream of mine but it wasn't until I discovered fanfiction, because of TBB, that I actually realized it. I had this idea of writing and thought I'd never really be able to accomplish that. The show enabled me to move past that and I've been able to be enflamed by my love for writing. It brings me so much happiness. No other show pushed me to write like this one.

Secondly, my writing has allowed me to touch and interact with people. I can't tell you how much it means to me and how thrilled I am to hear and learn my work has touched you in some way. I'm humbled by your words and taking the time to actually read and appreciate what I've written.

Thirdly, I've gone on so many adventures, crazy amazing adventures because of what other brilliant minds I met through the show have written. There are SO many great stories that just hit me so.....I was touched by your stories that you wouldn't have written if you hadn't watched the show!

Lastly, but CERTAINLY not the least, I have made SO many friends and writing buddies because of this show. It has connected me to so many cool people that I otherwise may never have found. I've grown really close with some of you, while others, though we may not be friends per say, I hope we can someday. In the meantime, I will admire your work from here. You guys mean so much to me and I can't even begin to express how wonderful it's been getting to know you over the past few years. The fun experiences we've shared, the theories, the stories, all of it. I am not putting this as well as it was in my head so please forgive that.

This includes but isn't limited to: @eclec-tech @photogirl894 @apocalyp-tech-a @lizartgurl @jedipoodoo @arctrooper69 @carolinetano7567 @trapezequeen @ghostofskywalker @masterjedilenaaa @ladysongmaster @moonstrider9904 @klmwrites @techs-stitches @ovaa-bi-bia @frostycatblr-fandom-files @imabeautifulbutterfly @sverdgeir @oceansssblue @marvel-starwarsfangirl @jedi-hawkins

How about you? What are you guys grateful for? Reblog and share what TBB meant to you!

Copy and paste the red as your header and let's see how many people we can get so share their stories!

I will end with no other quote than this!

"With love comes loss; it's part of the deal. Sometimes it hurts, but in the end, it's all worth it. There's no greater gift than love."

[lynnieos]

Hey is it just me or do certain fans complain about how much they hate the other groups instead of loving theirs.

I don't think calling out the misogyny in this fandom is wrong, not in the slightest (my most popular post is calling out the way people treat ena versus akito because of their gender), but most of the time these call out posts just result in more negativity and arguments rather than any like. Productive discussion.

I don't wanna hear about how minoharu and anhane are more canon than ruikasa and akitoya and are Therefore More Valid And Liking Ruikasa More Is Wrong And Bad (exaggerated but most of the time people do insult a ship in order to promote their own) (also sometimes implies that rarepairs are less valid which is a dick move). I wanna hear about the interesting (and I mean very interesting) relationship that an has with kohane, her feelings of inadequacy and slight envy, I wanna hear about how minori (and the rest of mmj) inspired haruka to get back on the stage, and how minori finally got to "repay" haruka in a way.

I didn't start liking ichika because of people endlessly complaining about how underutilized she is and how You Guys Just Don't Get Her, Read The Stories And you'll Discover That She's Actually Perfect Actually (this one isn't an exaggeration but it was on YouTube not Tumblr so in it goes), I started liking her because I learned about her character, her sheer determination and love for her friends, and her want to resonate with people's hearts from people who really like her.

I'm not gonna pretend the Ruikasa fandom and akitoya fandom can't be annoying, a lot of them are toxic and have a habit of making everything about Ruikasa/akitoya while reducing their relationships with other characters to push their shipping narrative. It pisses me off. A lot. I could write (and probably will write) an entire essay on how entitled and bitchy Ruikasa/akitoya fans can be, and I definitely understand how it can build up resentment towards a ship, and how their mass popularity is most definitely attributed to the fact that they are men (which results in an extreme lack of understanding of their actual characters and overall dynamic, reducing them to "top tall sexy one" and "bottom cute feminine one" which upsets me to hell and back). And calling this out is not wrong in the slightest.

but needlessly attacking a ship that someone likes is not a call out. calling Ruikasa and akitoya "a stupid ship" is not a call out. Actively insulting people for liking it is not a call out. Adding Ruikasa and akitoya tags to your post bashing them is not a callout. It's being a dick. You are not doing anything productive by calling Ruikasa and akitoya shippers idiots or stupid or insulting their taste you are only going to piss people off and you know that you are going to piss people off.

Acknowledge but do not attack. Be civil. And if you cant be civil then save everyone some time and keep it private.

Oh yeah. And be annoying about your blorbos. Make KING kanamafu art. Put shizuairi in Fragile. Talk about how much you love your girl ships and your girl characters and don't event mention the guys, make fanfiction and fanart of the girls, I really really want you to, genuinely, because they do get less rep in the fandom than their male counterparts, so more content of the girls is always great. It feels a lot better than complaining about a ship you don't even like, I promise

(Btw I mention this in the tags but if anyone wants to add input or correct me on something you totally can. My words aren't law and this post is just me stating my thoughts, and I invite you to share yours if you want.)

[twelvemonkeyswere]

Brienne and Femininity (and Masculinity)

I’ve been musing how one of the most important topics in Brienne's storyline is femininity, and even though her story isn't finished, we can fairly see what some of her major themes are around this—particularly, how performing or failing at performing femininity affects her both internally and externally.

Often I see people pointing out that, in spite of all of Brienne’s traditionally masculine ways—her clothes, her skill set, her body shape, to name a few—she does not fully reject femininity. That she likes little cute animals and fairy tales and wears dresses, and is shy and blushes frequently. This is an important point because, very often, fantasy settings made the assumption that a woman can only be taken seriously if she goes beyond “her womanhood” and acts and thinks “like a man,” as opposed to other girls who are too busy mending or wanting romance. Brienne challenges those tendencies that GRRM saw in his contemporaries. Things have changed a lot since (hello The Locked Tomb, for example), but you can still see where he is working from, and how many of the aspects of Brienne's story still resonate with more modern audiences because, well, sexism hasn't stopped existing. It's also important because the larger asoiaf and got fandoms often refuse to see this side of her, reducing her to a walking sword or a cardboard cut out of a pushover.

Now, my main issue here is that I feel several interpretations of Brienne have now gone on the other direction, and focus so much on Brienne PERFORMING traditional femininity—wearing luxurious dresses, using make up, accepting lavishing gifts, or wondering if she can be desired, for example—that we've gone sometimes on the opposite direction. I feel like many times we’re afraid or do not know how to approach characterizing her as someone who rejects aspects of femininity without making her into another “not like other girls” stereotype.

My two cents on the matter is that if we focus too much in what Brienne can't but "wants" to perform, we forget that she is, in fact, gladly rejecting some common impositions of femininity in her society.

Beginning with swordplay at a young age, for example, she was very glad to ditch a more traditional education in order to learn how to fight the way we know men are taught in asoiaf/got. She is also explicitly more comfortable in men's clothes. We all like the scene where Jaime makes an effort to give her a dress and she appreciates it, but we don't even find out what happened to the dress, because, presumably, the dress itself is not THAT important, at least not as much as the fact Jaime gave her gifts as a form of appreciation. Dresses have been used in Brienne's past to mock her (the event with the bear being the most recent one), and the important part is that Jaime is the only one who has given her one without that ulterior motive. The point of the scene is that where everyone undermines and underestimates her, he is acting the opposite way. We’re seeing how the relationship between them has evolved and that he is doing his best to mend what has happened and what he has done. She is given a dress and a sword as symbols that someone else in the story is beginning to appreciate her for all she is.

Beyond that, we even get details on the old shield Brienne got at Harrenhal, but not a word about the dress. Brienne explicitly doesn't really like being in dresses, she prefers mail and breeches, and feels more at ease in them than anything else. This is not her hating dresses because she is above them. I can’t remember well but as far as we know it’s just her preference: I don’t recall her saying she hates dresses, just that she prefers trousers. She must have been wearing dresses her whole life! It’s not likely she is unused to them. But we do know the act of being given a dress is important in Brienne’s story. The problem is not that they can’t make dresses for her, the problem is that everyone who forces her to wear a dress wants to signal how lacking she is as a woman, trying to fit her in a box too small for her real shape and then mocking her because she doesn’t meet their standard. The problem is they want to make her uncomfortable and they want to humiliate her, because she dares to exist in a way that doesn’t conform to patriarchal ideals. And the problem is that she likes to wear trousers and mail. She likes to wear masculine clothes, and they want her to be very aware of how much they disapprove.

And we also hear a great deal about marrying and having children out of duty. There's a certain loss she feels there because she believes that, at that point, all those missed opportunities will never present themselves again. All her life, she grew up with a dichotomy that dictated that the chance of having a family or children was through duty or none at all, because she is her father’s heir and—they kept telling her—nobody would want an ugly, masculine, temperamental girl as a wife. They could only want her for the money she brought. The point of the story is that, once again, failing the standards of femininity has forced her into a mentality where she thinks she can’t be loved because nobody would like who and what she is. But even then, even with that thorn in her mind, she still feels relieved she didn't have to perform these particular duties. The only thing she’s sad about is that she thinks she's missed any chance at having a family at all and will never know what that might be like. She doesn’t actively want babies or even to be married. She is still young, and at least to me, she seems to view these things in hypothetical rather than explicit goals or wants. She thinks that, at 20, there is no opportunity for her to experience these things because of how her society works. It’s the lack of choice that she mourns, down the line. But she rejects that particularly role that femininity imposes on her now. She didn’t want it, and she is happy it didn’t go through. She literally fought an old man to prove how much she didn’t want those impositions.

All this is interesting to me because Brienne also sort of thinks of herself as her father's son as well as her father's daughter. It almost slips her mouth once or twice. She is aware, I think, that many times the differences between a son and a daughter boil down not really to gender but to the sort of duty they perform. And she wants to do the sorts of things sons do, too. Men regularly learned to fight and wore the clothes she liked best and used hard-earned skills in a way she wanted to use them. There are layers to this (we’ll get to that in a bit) but she is, I think, very aware of her masculinity, and, if left to her own devices, she seems comfortable in it. The problem is she is NOT left to her own devices.

Most of Brienne's self doubt comes from outside forces. As a woman, they underestimate her. As a woman, they think she is stupid. As a gender non-conforming woman, every jape uttered goes directly to her womanhood. As a woman, if she looks the way she does and dresses the way she does and fights the way she does, when she expresses any vulnerable emotion, any shred of “femininity,” she is mocked for it. She likes dancing and beautiful things and pretty boys but a woman as masculine as she is is not the sort of person who gets to express those preferences without judgment from those around her.

The point is Brienne’s world wants her miserable either way: being unable to be a woman the way they demand of her, because she is too much “like a man” for it, or being unable to be a man, because she is too much a woman for that. The point is she can’t win regardless of what she does. Because that’s how sexism works.

But Brienne’s story is, I think, one about choices. The thing is that the world makes it harder for her, but she shouldn't have to be one thing or the other. She shouldn’t have to be defined by one or the other. If she wants to fight in the mud and smell roses and wear chain-mail and talk to charming men, she should be able to choose all of those things. I think it’s easy to focus too much in what aspects of femininity Brienne likes or dislikes instead of looking at what the story is proposing, which is to look at what Brienne,as a person, likes or dislikes. What she wants. Her parallel story to Jaime is about how the world will always try to put folks in boxes, especially those who, for some reason or another, do not easily fit in those boxes. The question is not “what feminine/masculine parts of Brienne is she happy performing” but rather “what does Brienne want, and why does she feel like she cannot get it and doesn't dare ask.”

This is also what drives her to servitude. There’s a phrase out there that says that if you don’t think you can be liked, you try to become useful, so at least there’s a reason to keep you around. It’s heartbreaking to see how Brienne’s vision of herself has been so skewed by the emotional abuse, parental neglect, and bullying she’s experienced since a young age. She doesn’t think anyone will grow close to her, so at least she can be close to people by serving them. She wants to put her skills to use, she wants to find a place where she fits, where she can be more herself, but she isn’t sure what that looks like or how to find it. She’s still searching, and learning many things on the way.

And Brienne is still very young. We can see her confidence growing and her worldview challenged and she is beginning to see the realities of herself and of the world around her through various trials by fire. Misogyny makes her feel incomplete, but we know the things she trusts about herself while simultaneously seeing the way she constantly doubts others. How she can't never express all of herself without constant judgment or mockery.

I feel like yes, the fact Brienne doesn't reject all traditional femininity is really important to her themes, but by extension, it's as important that shedoes reject some of those traditional expressions of femininity. What she is truly rejecting is imposition, not femininity. What she truly needs to embrace is freedom, not masculinity. She's making her own vows, breaking her own promises, going through her own mistakes. She is learning the hard way. Agency in a world of limited choices is one of Brienne's main themes too. There are moral issues that go deep within her story as well as examinations of the effects of war and the struggle to find authenticity and connection in a community that refuses to acknowledge yours, a community drenched in pretense and lost in performance.

And I think it’s easy to get too caught up in her wanting to be a girlfriend or a mother or wearing a dress that we bypass the whole conversation around why that matters at all. I feel like Brienne's success isn't going to come from her fully embracing all her feminine traits or fully accepting all her masculine traits but from being able, down the line, to be exactly who she is.

[thedarkmongoose]

i'm probably going to make several posts about c2e2 bc there was SO much going on. but overall, it was an incredible experience meeting all the fannibals! i was overwhelmed (in a good way) by the kindness and generosity of the fannibal fandom. i've never been part of a fandom and esp not one so amazing.

but to recap: i got mr. dancy to sign my tempo dvd LOL. the idea was all thanks to the brilliant @bodysnatcherrrr (tysm❤️)! by the time my autos rolled around, hugh looked too exhausted to really look at the patrons bc it was RIGHT after the chaotic panel. but we did catch eye contact a couple of times.

he was SO NICE and friendly from the start. when i gave him the tempo insert to sign, he literally shouted, "WHOA! A BLAST FROM THE PAST!" it was the most i've ever seen him emote. then i joked that "it was a classic and i liked the twists and turns" and he laughed his sarcastic hugh laugh and said sth like, "it sure does have those." lmfao. afterwards, he sweetly asked, "where would you like me to sign it?" and i said sth like, "wherever your sharpie compels you" and he smirked and signed it right above his portrait.

you can see the tail end of the "y" in his name run off the page as he marked the table so i decided to land one more joke, "leaving your mark on c2e2 as an extra gift" and he laughed and said sth like, "that's exactly right." we made some other jokes in between but it all happened so fast there's much i can't recall. i was also v careful to keep things lighthearted/comedic bc he looked pressed after the panel. but as soon as he saw the tempo dvd he came to life and looked so refreshed after that - so sometimes "doing it for the lulz" can be a good thing lol. he was much more lively for the duo photo ops with mads that were after the autos as well.

hilariously, hugh's tempo co-star was also doing autos/photos at c2e2. perhaps i should have gotten hers to complete the circle.

gossip girl signing off, xoxo

[tsams-confessions]

We're coming off anon with this one boys. It's long and I apologize but it's been weighing on my mind for quite some time.

There are three things people tend to know me for in this fandom. My art, my fanfics, or my thread on TSBS server. Said thread is a place where I talk about the psychological aspects of the show, as well as do character analyses and sometimes even analyze entire lore uploads for the kicks and giggles. I'm a psychology major, I also have ASPD. I made the thread so I could talk about Eclipse, who at the time I suspected had the same disorder I do and which was later confirmed less than a week after I made the thread. Since then Ruin has also been confirmed as an ASPD haver, which I personally deeply enjoy. It's fun for me to talk about my disorder and relate it to the show since ASPD is really hard to understand. 99% of people are inherently capable of empathy, and about 2% of that 98% lose that ability during childhood. So it's understandably not a very well-understood disorder. It's also a very scary and dark disorder, and I can say that honestly because I live with it. Due to this fact, it tends to be villainized in media, and I am very refreshed by the fact that TSAMS does a good job of not making their ASPD havers raving lunatics with a thirst for blood. 

Anyways, that's just background information. So far I haven't met very many weirdos about ASPD in this fandom. Almost everyone is very chill with the fact that I am a sociopath and I haven't received a ton of weird comments about it. It's a relief since I deal with a lot of open stigma and harassment irl because I refuse to pretend to be something I'm not. However, there was an instance in my thread when I was actively talking about ASPD, and a new member decided to. . . I don't even know. It was creepy and weird, and really uncomfortable. They basically told me that I'm 'too nice of a person to be a sociopath' and that they could tell that I wasn't a sociopath because they see the good in people. They also said that they were surprised that there are sociopathic people and inferred that sociopaths are pretending, whatever that means. They kept going to keep making weird and stigmatized comments about the disorder, as well as continuing to compliment me in a very unnerving way. I think about it a lot because it was very uncomfortable to be interrupted like that in the middle of talking about ASPD. There was the new mod online and participating in the conversation, but they didn't say anything to the person who was actively making me uncomfortable, even though I expressed such in the chat. 

I deal with a lot of stigma and ableism in my day-to-day life, where people tell me that I can't be a sociopath because of really stupid shit. Like the fact, I get along with people or want to help people in the medical field. Or the time-tried 'but you're a woman' comments. I don't understand why the mod kinda just left me to fend for myself and ignored the person causing issues, and while I don't hold it against them, I do have anxiety about this situation repeating itself in the future. It's not easy to talk about a disorder that the average person could not even dream of understanding, and it's even harder when people who don't know you are trying to tell you that your disorder is fake based on flimsy reasoning. It's really invalidating of the actual hellscape I had to survive to be able to even turn 18, and it rakes up my anxiety to a 10 just at the thought of it. There's not a lot of safe spaces for someone to talk about having a dark disorder, and even less for something as rare and misunderstood as ASPD. It's hard enough as it is being a high-functioning sociopath, and I just needed to rant, I suppose. Haha, could make it a "tl;dr even I get offended sometimes."

Anyway, not dropping names, but it wasn't a private matter. Nor am I upset with the mods, it's just a thing that happened that I think about a lot because it's a very rare thing for me to be offended. Glad that the majority of this fandom that I've interacted with has been willing to hear me out ASPD, but I just worry about having a repeat situation like this. It's a very sad thing to witness in this fandom that talks about inclusivity. We can't pick and choose our disorders, and where there are canon sociopaths in the show one would think the fans would try to be a little more educated on the disorder (not directed towards anyone and I appreciate the people who are willing to ask me things about it instead of making assumptions).

.

[leandra-winchester]

So. There's been a lot of speculation, and a lot of hot and lukewarm and some honest and valid takes about the new trailer and the potential of what might go down next ep.

I've been thinking thoughts, and I have my own personal stance on the matter. And no, I will not be 'taking criticism', because this is the way I view things in general, and it won't change. So this isn't me opening up a debate about this, this is just me sharing my personal views, which you absolutely can agree or disagree with. (So if your views on cheating are vastly different from mine, don't come at me telling me how wrong I am, I'm not doing that at you either)

That being said, here are my thoughts and beliefs.

Kissing isn't (automatically) cheating. For me, it highly, highly depends on the accompanying circumstances. There are kisses for shits and giggles that are not cheating. There are kisses happening under heavy influence of whatever substance - something that can render you legally not responsible for a lot of things, so how does it make you responsible for a moment's poor choice? There are kisses that are done deliberately with intention and feelings/high physical attraction involved, and THAT is cheating. When we look at the Buck/Lucy kiss, I didn't see it as huge a deal as many of the fandom did. The kiss itself somewhat fell into the second category. But what made it at the very least borderline cheating was the fact that Buck made a secret of it afterwards. Had he said "Look, something happened last night. I was drunk, then Lucy kissed me, and I didn't instantly pull back, but I didn't want to kiss her again or anything. I have no feelings for her whatsoever and I will watch myself in future a whole lot more to notice any signs of flirting, which, in hindsight, there were. I'm sorry." - then I think that's still grounds for a partner to be mad, sad, disappointed, but it's not really full-on cheating. Not in my book, by my definition.

Emotional cheating is much worse than physical cheating Being in love with someone and knowing it, imagining yourself to be with that other person, THAT is much more cheating by my definition than a fleeting kiss. And sometimes, depending on the circumstances, maybe even more than a drunken fumble or one night stand, but that is a very complex question. However, emotional cheating means you're not really in it with your current partner, pining for someone else but settling for what you can have out of convenience, fear of being left behind or some other highly egoistical motivation. That really sucks. (I've seen that take expressed on my dashboard as well, though with slightly different nuance to what I feel and believe, but pretty close)

So, taking these two of my underlying beliefs as the basis, what can I see happen in the next episode that would leave me feel okay with it, or happy about it, and what would make me feel iffy about it?

Let's start with the iffy.

Buck:

If, at any point in their drunken Hangover-movie escapades Buck and Eddie kiss, full on kiss (with maybe a little bit of tongue), and that kicks something lose in Buck, I would utterly hate that. Not that I wouldn't find it plausible that a kiss like that would trigger him realizing romantic feelings for Eddie, but that it happens now.

Someone else made a long post about negative stereotypes about bisexuals, and I agree. This is the promiscuity/bisexuals can't be trusted to be faithful stereotype, and I don't want Buck to ever be seen in that light.

Also, Buck JUST (and that post mentioned that too) convinced Tommy to come with him to the wedding, that he's ready for something... only to emotionally cheat (because it's that aspect for me rather than the kiss itself) on him the very next opportunity?

"But Tommy and Buck aren't in a relationship yet," I heard someone say, and well, yes. But this isn't REAL LIFE. It's writing. Things are crafted in a certain way to form a story, and stories have a purpose. The narrative gave us an arc where Buck seemingly wasn't ready for a relationship with a man yet, where he fucked up and had to fix that, had to take a leap and take some courage to make it work.

Just purely from a narrative standpoint, it would be so inconsistent to reverse that healthy step forward just one episode later.

From what we know about the episode, it also doesn't look like he's breaking up with Tommy in that episode. A lovely, potentially dramatic moment where Buck kisses Tommy in front of everyone as a means of 'coming out' is highly implied/likely. So that would mean him being aware of some feelings towards Eddie and still going through with that. And yeah. No. I'd really, really fucking hate that.

Eddie:

If they kiss at some point and it kicks something loose in Eddie, and he then goes back to Marisol... I'd have much less of a problem with that because it could still be explained and justified with him just being in utter panic about coming out. It would match the catholic guilt arc, and all his previous attempts at conforming to heteronormativity... BUT, if the relationship just continued as is and he'd actively use her as beard that would be shitty, even for poor confused, repressed, closeted Eddie.

The Not Iffy

On with Eddie:

If that kiss brings something to the surface in Eddie and he then breaks up with Marisol one episode later I would not consider that cheating or poor morals or anything of the sort. He wasn't aware of it until that moment, and as soon as he is aware of it and has had a little bit of time to process it, he draws the right consequences from it and breaks off a relationship he's not fully in.

So this would actually be fine to me. This could be the kick starter for a potentially long and complex arc for Eddie to a) come to terms with his sexuality and b) pine for Buck from a distance, because Buck is with Tommy and c) eventually, when the time is right, for Buddie to go canon.

Buck:

The kiss itself wasn't a serious or real kiss. I'd be okay with it, if it was some silly, exaggerated "MWAH" smack of the lips kiss, prompted by someone or something around them - I dunno, maybe one of the women there saying "Aww you're such a cute couple" and they going in for it just for shits and giggles; or Buck gushing about Tommy and what a great kisser he is and Eddie drunkenly, outwardly jokingly saying "Hey, I'm a great kisser too!" and them jokingly leaning in for a smooch, again, for shits and giggles.

Buck afterwards doesn't even remember it because it meant nothing in that moment, and so he's neither seriously physically nor emotionally cheating on Tommy in the slightest.

"But Buck has deep feelings for Eddie. How can he kiss him and not realize them?"

Well, see, Buck has been around Eddie for almost 6 years now and not realized them. They are so, so far past that getting to know and falling in love phase that it makes it a bazillion times more complicated to distinguish those deep platonic feelings from deep romantic feelings (because, what it comes down to in both instances is a deep bond; the bond of love you feel after years of dating isn't that different from a deep platonic bond. Again, Eros vs. Pragma and all that).

But Buck is *in love* with Tommy, he's just entered that exciting, chemically turbulent process of falling in love with someone which, with all the newly formed neural connections and all those hormones overrides anything else that has long since been present and is only now presented with the opportunity to take on a new nuance. Of course he doesn't get it, and he likely won't get it until much, much later, when he's falling out of love with Tommy again for whatever reason, or they break up amicably for whatever reason.

And THIS again is something that could easily go into the iffy, because I would really fucking HATE the implication that Buck needs to break up with Tommy to be with his One True Love. I don't want this to be a difficult and painful choice.

IF (when) Buddie goes canon, I want them both to be ready and free for it and not accidentally pushed towards it, or struggle with a guilty conscience for it, or hurt someone else about it. (Marisol wouldn't count in that context as Eddie would have broken up with her months ago and gone on his own long self-discovery trip).

So yes, even if for slightly different reasons, and even if my views on what constitutes 'cheating' may differ from a lot of yours, I agree that any actual MUTUAL feelings realization right now, under these external circumstances, would totally tarnish the beginning of the Buddie relationship.

Which also makes me hopeful it won't happen in such a way. Up until now, the writing has been extremely solid, and Buck's coming out arc has been done with so much care. I doubt they'd do something that ruins it. (But I'm not 100% sure of it either).

[demodraws0606]

You know the only real negative to being a WxS fan is to sometimes have people just push the easy "actually uhmm you're overthinking it and WxS should be allowed to be Happy yknow ☝️🤓" because there are a few younger fans who overexagerate certain aspects of characters.

Obviously that's not really a super big deal cause obviously people who have been in the fandom for like more than a week would know about WxS's story and it's more dramatic moments (like every unit has this nobody is excluded).

But it's just a Really easy button to push for some people when they are put off by something.

Especially with characters like Tsukasa because people will go out of their way to explain how he's got No Issues because they got mad that a few people on Twitter/Tiktok think he's depressed. Like going the opposite way is just as shallow, Tsukasa is just a Dude.

Like pointing out that "huh, this play in this WxS event is about a dude who wants to drown himself, that's really dark, i wonder why they'd do that" or like "Mafuyu and Tsukasa really are similar in certain ways".

I'm talking about Tsukasa a lot but he's the one who gets the most butchered by the dumb discourse even though he's not my fav.

Obviously WxS are silly but so is 25ji or Leo/need or MMJ or VBS

You can't spell silly without the first letter of sad

[mysaldate]

Why Vil’s overblot matters and why the fandom was wrong

With chapter 5 coming to twst en, there will inevitably be people who completely misrepresent what the overblot is about (again) and people who will call Vil shallow and undeserving of compassion (again). So let me try and explain why Vil’s overblot matters so much more than a lot of the fandom gives it credit for, what makes it different from the other overblots thus far, and why the start of chapter 6 was such a massively harmful gut-punch.

Obviously, there will be Twisted Wonderland spoilers up ahead. Not only for chapters 5 and 6 but for overblots in general as well as the Halloween event. I won’t talk much about Idia’s overblot, or anything beyond the start of chapter 6 though since that chapter is very uncomfortable for me to talk about. If you want sources for any of what I’ll be saying here, feel free to send me an ask or a dm. I will not be linking them here because Tumblr hides posts with links from the search.

Let’s start with the obvious fact we’ve known since chapter 1: Overblots happen as a result of overwhelmingly negative emotions and a build-up of magical residue known as blot. They are often rooted in deep childhood trauma and shattering of one’s deeply-rooted beliefs about the world or people around them. Riddle’s trauma itself doesn’t push him to overblot, it’s when he realizes Trey has been lying to him the whole time. Leona doesn’t overblot because his plan to get attention didn’t work but because Lilia openly mocks him for his efforts. Azul’s memories of being bullied don’t cause him to overblot until he believes the twins have abandoned him and won’t help him out anymore. Jamil doesn’t overblot because his plan didn’t work but because he believes his true intentions have been broadcasted to the world and while trying to protect himself, he doomed his family.

Vil doesn’t have this in the typical sense. The people in his surroundings are largely supportive of him, albeit very creepily so in some cases. Through-out the chapter, he even manages to get Epel’s support and the two of them come to see eye to eye in a very lovely set of scenes. All seems to be improving for Vil the further into the chapter we go. So why the sudden overblot? Why didn’t Vil lean on the support that he had and which had been his obvious edge over all the other overblotees? Vil’s world shattered as well, but it wasn’t because of the people around him. What truly shattered was Vil’s belief about himself.

Up until the last minute, even though Vil’s blot is gradually building up, he manages to keep things under the wraps extremely well. He’s calm, metodical, optimistic even. It’s only after the trial runs of their songs that he really starts to doubt himself and his group, and it’s for a good reason. Vil and the NRC group have slaved away at this performance for a fairly long time. They have their own original song written out, they came up with their own choreography, and they tried their very hardest to polish their dancing as much as they could. And it wasn’t enough. After the first trial, Vil saw some success. He was finally coming out on top for the first time in his life – only to have it immediately snatched away. By a nursery rhyme remix no less. And from the comments the other characters gave, that’s not even the worst part. The dwarves couldn’t dance. Instead, they kept bumping into each other on stage and weren’t in sync at all. By all objective means, the performance was largely inferior to that of the NRC group, and yet they easily overtook their standing in the eyes of the public.

But don’t get me wrong, it’s not this that pushed Vil over the egde. What ended up ruining everything wasn’t even the fact that Vil got caught trying to poison Neige – at least not in the way you would expect. Unlike the other overblotees, Vil never, not once, defended his actions. This, in itself, is very unique. It wasn’t Riddle abusing his dorm “for their own good,” or Leona trying to kill and injuring dozens of people because he “deserves to be the best,” or Azul stripping a bunch of people of their talents, abilities, or even selves because he “needed that power more,” or even Jamil hypnotizing Kalim for “the dorm’s good and for freedom.” The moment Vil was stopped from the momentum and realized what he was doing, he owned up to it immediately – and that, ironically, is what doomed him.

For those of you who didn’t read chapter 5 yet or don’t remember the whole backstory anymore, let me walk you through it before I go on. Vil’s father is a famous actor. We know nothing about his mother but given his father would usually take him with to movie sets and all over the world when he traveled, we can assume she was probably not around much. Vil’s father, Eric Venue, was, for all we know, a wonderful dad. He was always supportive of his son and made sure the time spent together was cheerful and happy. It was him who made Vil want to become an actor as well. And Vil started, like many children, with school plays... where he would quickly fall into a routine that would follow him into the professional industry as well.

Vil would always get cast as the villain. Be it the protagonist’s rival or a cruel bully, his characters would always be evil in one way or another, and never get redemption or their own happy ending. Dreary already but once Vil joined the industry, this became so much worse. During a shooting when he was still in elementary school, he overheard two of the movie staff talking about him. They did praise his appearance (and to those who say being called a “beautiful child” is predatory or SA, please shut up) but they immediately followed it up by calling him “too perfect” and stating that he would never play a protagonist because nobody could relate to him. He would never get his happy ending because he was not who the audience wanted to see succeed. And in a way, they were right. Even off-screen, Vil would get bullied for what happened in the movies and tv series he played in, because it was easier for people to believe he was just as much of a scumbag in real life as he was on tv. Vil called this out, clearly showing he had more brains in elementary school than the average Twitter user has in their early 20′s, but that doesn’t mean it never affected him.

In fact, the exact opposite is true. It affected Vil so much that as soon as he had the luxury of choosing his roles, he would vehemently refuse any villainous role he was offered, even when they were extremely lucrative offers. He even went off at his agent when she signed him up for one such role without consulting him first. Vil also changed his last name and while the officially stated reason was so that nobody could account his success to his father, it more than likely was also to put his past behind him. Because he was better than that, because he was not a monster, because he was not a villain.

Except once. During VDC (and I refuse to call it SDC because twst en versions of names are poor at best), Vil did become the villain for a moment. He let his own goals and desperate wishes get the better of him and was ready to seriously harm an innocent person to get his way. And yes, Neige is an innocent party in all of this because although his performance was poor and kind of pathetic when compared to Vil’s, it was not his fault that he was put on a pedestal. And Vil knows that too. So when he was snapped out of the moment and he realized what he was about to do, he crumbled.

Now let’s talk a bit about coping mechanisms and trauma responses. There’s no doubt that Vil is traumatized. Not in the same way as many of the other overblotees, and his trauma manifests differently as well, but overall, Vil didn’t overblot because of the trauma but because of his response to it. Vil lashed out against the trigger of his trauma, and acted in an objectively incorrect way. That isn’t unusual with many trauma victims. More often than not, victims of physical abuse begin to strike back at their abusers, victims of mental abuse have a hightened risk of becoming abusive themselves (not saying all of them do, put the pitchforks away, they just have a hightened risk of it), and so on and so forth. Vil’s response, though inappropriate, is still understandable. His response is human. All the more hurtful it is that he felt as though this response meant he was just as bad as all his evil roles painted him out to be. THAT was the real breaking point of Vil’s overblot. What shattered wasn’t his view of others, it was his view of himself.

Even with his overblot starting to set in, Vil’s first instinct was to plead with the people around to not look at him, to not watch as he becomes something ugly, something he never ever wanted to become. His pleads went ignored, and even purposely disregarded in one case and it only pushed him further in. This is just speculation, but I firmly believe Vil would’ve been able to pull himself together, did his wishes go followed and had people given him the time to calm down. Instead of, you know, going on and on about how what he did was so terrible and how you were there to see it and would purposely look as he turned into that ugly thing he absolutely hated. But that’s going off the topic a bit.

Personally, I have a lot of gripe with how the chapter ended. But it got even worse when chapter 6 tried to address this. At the start of chapter 6, the rest of the NRC group tries to confront Rook about his final vote. And full disclaimer, he is free to vote for whoever he wants, that is not the issue here at all. What IS the issue is Rook defending his vote by saying it was all Vil’s fault for not being beautiful enough, in regards to his overblot. It is Vil’s fault that he lashed out after years of continous trauma, and Rook is actually the good guy here for putting him in his place, never to be seen as a hero, never to be seen as someone deserving of praise, because of one trauma response that was less than desirable. There was no need to say that and yet, he did. Just like on numerous other occasions where he purposely puts Vil down for no reason. But that is material enough for another post like this. The take-away from chapter 5 and the start of chapter 6 somehow stopped being “when you break down, your friends will help you overcome it” but it instead became “if your trauma response is not morally unambigously correct, you do not deserve fair judgment” and that bothers me.

Chapter 6 then proceeds to completely skip any character development Vil went through and instead just hits us with “Yeah he’s fine and made peace with his share now” with no build-up so that’s not even worth talking about. But Vil’s overblot is a total stand-out among all the others and I wish more people actually paid attention to it rather than disregarding it as “first-world problems of a spoiled movie star” when there’s so much more to it than that.

I could go on for a while, talking about how dehumanizing Vil’s experience in the movie industry has been (not the world of child actors irl but just his personal experience) or how the society put Neige on a pedestal because he was born poor and how he’s always had support of his community unlike Vil, but we would be here for far too long if I did. So I leave you with this, I hope you enjoyed the read, and I’ll be back some other time with another long ranty brainrot analysis.

[qalrey]

🦋🦋🦋

[draconicsplendor]

The Hetalia fandom is like "they're literally immortal patron deities with supernatural healing abilities lol of course none of them are disabled! And if they become disabled they'll all eventually heal obviously!"

Meanwhile Odin has one eye, and Thor has chronic pain from shrapnel being lodged in his brain.

Meanwhile Tyr had his hand bitten off during Ragnarok, and it never grew back.

Meanwhile Hephaestus was born disfigured and kicked out of Olympus at birth.

If ancient civilizations portrayed some of their gods with disabilities, then we can do better now, guys. Come on.

[yzafre]

Roxas: Had the Halloween town kids throw bombs in his face for multiple missions in a row before finally breaking down and smacking them around a bit.

Ventus: The dwarves were rude and refused to talk to him, immediately resorted to chasing them down and whacking them.

Characterization I see frequently: Ah, yes, Roxas is the one always willing to throw hands and Ventus is a smol sunshine boy.

[i-am-become-a-name]

Was having a wee think about five, (what's new, you may ask) and ruminating on why I am so very peevish about his semi-recent designation as 'the (single) dad' doctor. Like, yes, he travels with a young-ish cohort - a boy who never gets the chance to grow up, a girl who does and begins to chafe under his wing. But then Tegan has studied, moved to a different country to start her job. Turlough was a soldier, exiled from his own world.

And five is young too (at least at the beginning) - he's exuberant, he jumps in feet first and expects the best of everyone. He also loses almost as much in his short life as eight does in the audios and books. And it's such a short life.

Just pointing at five and going 'dad!', to Nyssa and Tegan 'daughters!' and Adric 'son!' ignores all those cultural differences, all that tension that it's because of five Nyssa's family, her whole world is gone. Tegan's aunt is dead, and he can't seem to get her home. Adric went off with someone he admired but who is now a completely different person, and (I'm starting sense a theme) can never go home. It smooths over all the fascinating interplay between a crew where none of the characters quite seem to fit together, where all of them are lost, and have lost such vital things because of the doctor.

It's boring, and it's reductive, and I've noticed it a hell of a lot more since polls were added on here. Maybe it's easier to point at a character and go 'chanel boots', or 'single dad', or 'doctor I would want to smoke weed with', but it also feels like a massive dumbing down where people don't want to see complexities in fiction anymore, they only want to nice fluffy bits and that's all that the fandom is becoming. Like people have been raised on a disney adaptation of a fairytale where suddenly everything has a simplistic happy ending and that has to be applied to everything else now too.

And obviously it's not just the fifth doctor and his companions where this is happening, they're just ones close to my heart, but this simplification diminishes us all. Reach for those vnas, edas, early big finish audios. Absorb those complexities, think about those consequences. Get more fucked up about it all.

[ghostoffuturespast]

I'm half-tempted to just nuke my discord.

[straycalamities]

I hope this is okay to ask but are you still pals with other mods ever since or just with some? Or just still mutuals but don’t talk much? You don’t have to answer if you’re not comfortable with it!

well, it's been over a decade and relationships ebb and flow all the time and people change, or situations change. and you can't keep the exact same relationship with someone for that long i don't think. at least not in my experience.

so yeah i've had my positives and negatives with fellow mods. they've come and gone. some of them have stuck around, and others have moved on. it's just how it goes.

some of them i'm still on good terms with, we just don't keep up. others we're comfy-but-quiet mutuals. and others i'd say we're still friends, even good friends. and then there are the ones where it happened to go real sour, unfortunately. it's just a lot of different folks from a lot of different strokes of life and a bunch of things have happened. i feel like it's to be expected.

[tea-earl-grey]

Threshold Day is ending in my timezone and I just wanted to say that it was such a blast! I became a Voyager fan and started Trek posting in the past year and while I knew that Threshold Day was a Thing, I genuinely didn't think that so many people would earnestly participate. It's a silly fandom thing but it was so great to see so many people's wonderful art and memes. It really did cheer up a dreary winter Monday and I hope everyone carries the warp 10 salamander energy forward!

[anneapocalypse]

One of the downsides of a fandom with so much Deep Lore (which overall I do love) is that it is just not possible for anyone to know all of it, full stop. And that makes it really easy for fanon to slip in and become accepted as canon, not in the way of people just liking the fanon, but in the way of a post gets circulated either saying outright or strongly implying that it's canon, and people go, "Oh!" and don't ask for a source and from there it's a stone rolling downhill.

And if you say, "But that isn't confirmed canon," half the time people just say "No you're wrong it is canon actually" even though the only sources for it are a fan-made post or an out-of-context tweet.