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#i was literally about to post this when my blog got put in jail

fountainpenguin · 1 year

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If you were given the opportunity to reboot FOP from the ground up, what would you change, shake up, or put your own spin on?

I'll have to give this a short answer, I no joke spent over 2 hours replying to this, then added a Read More and Tumblr told me that my post was too out of this world and it broke the editor. It kicked me out in a split second without any opportunity to save. Sorry to everyone who has to scroll past my stuff in the future, but I'm not living through this again. Read Mores have no place on my blog.

I'm furious because 1) I tried to copy-paste out of this editor like I always do and save in an external place, but the new editor is busted and only copies one paragraph when you do CTRL-A so I gave up, and 2) literally the last sentence I wrote before typing that was "Before my hiatus, Read Mores broke stuff, but I'm willing to give this another try." It's not even the same error it used to be. I can't. I can't.

At least we're friends and I think you know a lot of my thoughts anyway. Sorry it took so long to write an answer to this message, but I've already let it sit for so long that I HAVE to get it out of my inbox now or I'll never go back to it after losing everything :/ I can't believe that just happened. How ironic that one of the main reasons I went on hiatus was because stuff kept breaking and then it's worse when I return. Bleh.

So... Here's the short version of things I can remember talking about:

Update world lore, especially regarding Anti-Fairies. Anti-Fairies debuted in Season 2 and didn't reappear until Season 5; Anti-Fairy World itself made its first appearance in Season 6 because the Anti-Fairies were only seen in jail before that. Anti-Fairy World is kind of barren and stereotypical, and the general vibe of Anti-Fairies is that they are all evil because their magic revolves around bad luck. I'd prefer some gray area. I also feel like the characterizations for Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda were rushed and we should say it.

Logically I know that Anti-Wanda can be said to parallel Wanda's high-class mafia upbringing, but I doubt that was planned since Wanda's family only showed up in Season 5. In another universe, we could have had a classy evil queen. I love the grubby gal, but there are so many cool aesthetics she could have had instead. The Anti-Cosmo and Anti-Wanda vibe doesn't bring anything to the table that Cosmo and Wanda didn't already have unless you take creative liberties.

Maps. Maps would have been great.

Designs. Cosmo, Crocker, and Dad really don't need the same shirt. Wanda's outfit is pretty bland too, and it's honestly a shame that Anti-Cosmo got a unique outfit but Anti-Wanda's is just a recolor of Wanda's. See also, classy queen.

Also I've never liked Timmy's Channel Chasers adult design; I just don't think it's in character. I feel like his body type would be much closer to his parents, and the existing one is just too extreme for my preferences. Doesn't say "Timmy the average kid" to me.

"Fairly Odd Baby" - As much as I enjoy the idea of Fairies placing a ban on babies because they're destructive and Fairy World likes to push away its problems, I'd have introduced Poof as part of an announcement that Cosmo and Wanda had been expecting a baby for 100 to 1000 years. Their lifespans are so long, it wouldn't be out of the question. A reveal episode could have been fun.

I also don't think I would have chosen to leave Poof a baby who can't speak for that long; I think he has a fun personality (Sasses Foop, deliberately puts Foop in harm's way, but also he's super chill and nice and likes sports) and I would have liked to see more episodes where he talks. I don't love how he was shipped to boarding school as soon as he was able to talk and dialogue was needed.

Vicky takes Mark back onscreen. She canonically decided she wanted to start dating him again, after she found out he was an alien and she broke up with him. She made the choice to take back her alien boyfriend and she loves him and we should talk about it. I'm obsessed with them and will forever treasure the deleted "Foul Balled" scene of them holding hands at the senior home while Mark is in his squid form. I support Vicky becoming the shapeshifting queen of a violent planet and being extremely in love with her squid husband.

Chloe / A.J. friendship. A.J. ended world hunger in Season 2 and he built a time machine a few seasons later, I feel like those two would have really hit it off.

More episodes of Timmy playing soccer. I will not re-elaborate.

More of side characters I love, like Molly and Kevin. I love them. I love Kevin falling farther and farther behind his uncle when they walk together, I love Timmy introducing himself to Molly's fairy by shaking her hand... They might be side characters but I feel like they add a lot more to the world and character dynamics in their few scenes than many of the characters do.

Sharing fairies. Timmy sharing fairies with Chloe (or Kevin) as part of a temporary program (like she was just here for one school year before her parents moved again). I think one of the issues people have with Chloe is that it feels like she's here for the rest of Timmy's fairy-related life, and I think a few months of hanging out with her would have been plenty and then there would have been a reason for her to leave the canon afterwards.

Make Chloe Dinkleberg's niece. My favorite headcanon. Also a perfect explanation for why Chloe's family would move to Timmy's street. Also a hilarious parallel of Timmy seething with frustration at his "perfect" neighbor despite spending the entire series making fun of his dad for doing the same thing.

More Timmy/Chloe "step-sibling" interactions. I support Timmy "I will sit with you while you have an hour-long panic attack" Turner in "The Booby Trap" but I cannot emphasize enough that I equally support Timmy "Will take a call from Chloe, listen to her explain that she vaporized a juice box, then hang up and go to bed" Turner. They are step-siblings...

Timmy, Chloe, and Kevin. I support Timmy - Chloe - Kevin trio interactions in general. They're a comedic trio and I want them to support each other.

Gary and Betty. Unironically, we need to talk more about Gary and Betty canonically being aware of the magical world. Or at least they adjusted really fast to being teleported from California to Florida and back again. Also we should talk about that time Gary rang Sanderson on his cell phone, which gets funnier the longer you think about it. Also I love them and we should talk about the deleted "Totally Spaced Out" scene where they tried to flee to Mexico together.

Ending the series with a proper send-off. I'm not a fan of Timmy keeping his magical memories after losing Cosmo and Wanda. Being the protagonist doesn't make him immune. I feel like there are so many ways this could have been done in a sentimental way that people would have loved... I'm sad we didn't get a proper send-off.

On the list of things we don't need to change - Imaginary Gary, Norm, Mark, Molly, Jorgen, the Pixies, Flappy Bob, Foop, and Ed Leadly. They are flawless, 10 of 10. We also do not need to change Chloe casually swearing, but meanwhile Timmy will call you out for saying "Moron" on the radio, and we definitely don't need to change "This isn't a fancy French restaurant- this is a black hole!"

I love the Pixies. If they didn't exist, I would have come along and prepped some worldbuilding about characters who maintain magical paperwork. I love my snarky monotone wasp boys.

Also I just want to shout-out Chloe and Kevin and their personalities being hilarious. I think there are several Chloe-centric episodes that have flawed storytelling, but I do genuinely enjoy the character you're left with after brushing off some of her exaggerated perfectionism.

Kevin has some of the best dialogue in the entire series, and those two just seem to write themselves when you pit them together. I like the mental image of Chloe venting to Timmy about how unfair it is that Crocker shows him favoritism and then it slowly dawns on her that she also has a history of getting a lot of favoritism.

Thanks for the ask! I'm sad I lost the full responses, but I think I've learned my lesson and will draft in an external doc first. Please learn from my mistakes, I will not take back my venting >:(

Even if I lost it, it's nice to take some time and think about some answers to these things. I'm also pretty satisfied that I was able to make this post long enough to feel like a good answer. Yay.

#FAIRIES!#ridwriting #asks #I am so so paranoid now that if I edit an old long post Tumblr will decide to kill it yiiiiikes #Perfect pink beaver boy #Bat cube and associates #Little Crock #Gary and Betty #Rebellious golden child #The best bat queen #The bat with the hat #We're Pixies!#Sanderson is neat #I'm wasp dad trash

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the-director · 1 year

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I posted 10,036 times in 2022

That's 99 more posts than 2021!

81 posts created (1%)

9,955 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@salad-says-hi

@artistically-gay

@jonah2145

@wizardhimbo

@goopy-amethyst

I tagged 2,891 of my posts in 2022

#art - 501 posts

#video - 227 posts

#gif - 135 posts

#encanto - 127 posts

#toh - 115 posts

#mash 4077 - 108 posts

#favorite tag - 93 posts

#dc - 83 posts

#ofmd - 82 posts

#tma - 68 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#literally the only reason why its conveyed so plainly on the internet is because on the internet theres all kinds of people! strangers you d

My Top Posts in 2022:

I hate the mcu so much I hate it so fucking much. Why did they remove such an important part of Bruce banners backstory. Why did they take planet hulk, a great comic storyline and turn it into ragnorak. Like that movie was good but why on earth would you take that specific storyline for that movie it doesn't make any fucking sense. Why make peter Parker and remove the things that make him spiderman (Uncle Ben, being poor) and turn him into ironmans Robin. (Actually I know why, cuz of that sony bullshit)

I hate the mcu it's a soulless cash grab and every time it actually has artistic direction the movie gets fucked over by producers and the fact the cgi people aren't union and are overworked and underpaid and I want capitalism to die I want Mickey's head on a fucking pike.

16 notes - Posted July 22, 2022

With every book of dune the impact of Lady Jessica fucking off from the bene gesserit to be with Duke leto and giving birth to Paul increases. Like the first book is like: oh well Paul defeated the harkonnens so the whole prophecy thing isn't so bad. And then you get to God emperor and it's like fucking leto had to sacrifice his life for that bullshit and the whole bunch of ghola Duncan's got fucked over and like. Lady jessicas decision changed the fucking course of history forever.

18 notes - Posted January 2, 2022

It's just really astounding how good arcane was with demonstrating how the conditions in the undercity affects each of the characters who lived there. Either from viktors lungs being fucked up from the pollution, to vi having so much pressure being put on her to be the leader and then being put in jail unjustly, like so much of the struggles of these characters simply have to do with trying to survive and live in the terrible conditions, to try and have a life. But then we cut to piltover and the only thing concerning the characters we see are their own ambitions, their whole "making piltover the symbol of progress" ignoring the potential of the undercity and looking towards technology as if that is the only thing that can be advanced in society. And of course it is natural for characters to have goals and ambitions of a more personal grandiose nature, but it is striking, piltover residents have the luxury of a future set in front of them, the only risk is what avenue it goes down. For people from the undercity the future isn't promised.

23 notes - Posted January 5, 2022

Due to my being aro and [insert neurodivergency here] I can't tell when characters fall in love, nor see their supposed "chemistry". Most of the time this is the case, though sometimes the writing is good enough that I can see the love (romantic, platonic, queer platonic, etc)

These include

Three thousand years of longing (the new movie by george miller). The story was about love and loss and other things and throughout the movie there was various cues in body language and other framing devices that made it easy for me to tell that love was happening.

Ofmd, when its queer it just hits different. It hits harder.

Good omens. It's inexplicable.

The sandman, the romance is past tense but I can perceive it was once there and passionate and now it is cooled and withered.

The exact opposite of all of these are what we do in shadows. I know it's a comedy, I know it's romantic. Logically I know they're all gay for eachother. Logically I know that jokes happen. Nonetheless I am unable to perceive these things happening. Wwdits is in shrimp colors and I am a mere human.

69 notes - Posted September 1, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I find it odd how some in the sandman fandom make Hob Gadling out to be the embodiment of goodness. The point of him is that he is human. yes he loves life, so much so that he doesn’t die. But he still falls into the traps of human cruelty. He has human greatness and kindness. But he also has human flaws and ignoring that would be missing the point of him

1,632 notes - Posted September 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review

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away-ward · 9 months

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You know, the more i read your posts and anons' messages, the more i find kai mori annoying, hahahaha! To me, he never really stand out as a character and his annoyingly moral righteous standards are just really laughable to think about after everything he did to rika and banks, and when he keeps friends like michael and damon around knowing the kind of hurt they do to others that are not them (even if he never witness them himself, because he couldve just ASKED, but he didnt). What i find interesting too was your take about the horsemen not really caring about anything as long as it doesnt serve them in a way, and this alligns really well with what emory said in the train and its so true. Theyre not the "good bad guys" that they thought they were, and i feel like to continue living like that for the rest of their lives, they must have live their lives with a certain amount of consistent delusion because they seem to genuinely believe that they were RIGHT all damn time.

When Kai found out the secret behind banks being mysterious background (relating to not wanting to expose damon), he called her "loyal". But emmy did the same, and alone too with no contact, but she's a traitor? I know the degree and seriousness of banks and emorys situations here are different but idk, its the same concept no? Idk idk, kai who was already dull to me, became even more unappealing after he said that, because aside from will, he was literally the second most privileged guy in the group who's issues were just daddy's expectations (which wasnt even so big, katsu just wanted the best life for him, but he goes around befriending alleged rapists???) and depression after jail. Even in jail, they got premium seats, unlike damon, so i honestly cant take kai seriously even more now. Idk, maybe i am being a hardass towards privileged characters like kai, but he's so icky and whiny to me (almost as much as will) and it turns me off. Dont get me started with damon and michael though, they were already at the bottom of my list from the start, but at least they got something going.

This might also be one of the reasons why millionaire or billionaire romances just dont hit it for me, because these men are so annoyingly whiny! They solve everything with their money or reputation, so we cant get a deeper insight of their characterisations because "oh yeah, money can solve it". They dont have a solid personality outside of dollars and fame, and its just not something that i wanna read as an escape for a romance. Idk, Ana Huang, Sophie Lark, Rina Kent, Lauren Asher, sports romance authors, theyre all writing their stories with this formula, and while i have no problem with others enjoying stories like these, i wish once in while, we get an amazing rich x poor or rich x rich characters' romance stories. If you do have any, other than the Addicted and Calloway Sisters series, please do recommend us some!

At first I found this sad and then I just found it funny that this blog had the potential to ruin the perception of Kai’s character. The idea that it can take someone from neutral to “wait. Actually I find him really annoying” is so hilarious to me. I didn’t mean to do it, I promise.

I think for me, a lot of it comes from my disappoint about how his character was revealed. I had such high hopes for him going into Hideaway and was just left feeling so irritated with him all the time. This was not the intelligent and thoughtful member of the team I’d built him up to be; the Heart to Michael’s Brain to balance the crew. The source of wisdom and principles to guide them when they went too far off course. And maybe that was putting too much on him, but I really felt he could have carried it. My fault for building him up so big and putting him on that pedestal; it’s not fair to PD or to the character to be mad about not getting what I wanted, so I don’t really go there with it.

Of course, I liked Kai more in the past scenes that the present. Obviously, prison changed him and I’m not arguing that it shouldn’t have, but I didn’t like the direction he changed in. He is morally righteous, and I think beyond any of the others, his double standards are the most offensive to me because of it. Kai always wanted to be the good guy with a bad streak, but because of this blemish on his record, he felt that it’s all anyone would see when they looked at him. And I get at first, it can be painful to accept how things got out of control. He was a teenager, or at least young, when all this went down. But after a while, I wished he stepped back and considered, “What have I really lost?” and realized that he didn’t lose all that much, in fact. He still had his friends, the town was still on his side, he had the opportunity to finish his education (though not in the manner he would have liked), he owned his own business, he married a woman who understands him on a deeper level, who doesn’t expect him to hide or control his thrill-seeking inclinations but will indulge with him. By NF, he has a beautiful son and is well on his way to rebuilding his relationship with his parents. Five years on from prison, and by all accounts he’s exactly where he should be and probably would have been if his life hadn't been interrupted. And yet, what do we hear about when he gets upset? Prison. It all comes back to that for him. He’s stuck there, and it made me wonder if all of those accomplishments weren’t enough to help him reconcile with what happened to him, what would be enough?

I still don’t know.

Yeah, because Banks didn’t send him to prison. It’s really that simple for him. I was really disappointed that it was Damon showing all of the wisdom and understanding in this instance. That not an ounce could be found in Kai is what really sent me over of the edge of tolerating him.

I’m not going to minimize what prison was like for him. His story about paralyzing someone because he let his fear of what would happen get the better of him, and then lost control would be difficult. I bet he lay awake at night, think about what could have happened if he went just a little further. He could have killed that man because he was scared and lost control. That’s would be a dangerous line of thinking for anyone and it makes sense that he came out of prison with his fist so tightly wound around his self-control that he couldn’t relax. And then nearly losing Will and his fight with Damon – I’m sure he had to quickly process that if it came down to it, he’d have to kill Damon. He’d have to kill one of his closest friends and one of the two people he feels understands what he went through. Like, Kai went through a lot. And I don’t want to minimize that. But he’s so exhausting sometimes.

Theyre not the "good bad guys" that they thought they were, and i feel like to continue living like that for the rest of their lives, they must have live their lives with a certain amount of consistent delusion because they seem to genuinely believe that they were RIGHT all damn time.

They would have to live in a state of delusion to think they’re right all the time, and part of me thinks they do. But I also don’t think they care if they’re “wrong” as long as it’s what they want. Which is the bigger issue of them thinking that doesn’t make them corrupted.

That line from Rika really irked me. If they had just admitted they were criminals, I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. I can’t critique what they freely admit, but since they want to believe they’re right for all they’ve done and are doing, and doing it in a less that legal manner doesn’t make them criminals, then I can sit here a nitpick all I want.

When you say the second privileged next to Will, do you mean in terms of home life? Because I always understood that Kai was the least wealthy of the four? And he certainly understands that his parent’s money is not his money, except for his inheritance. (Side note – I never understood what he meant in Kill Switch when he said “Rika has money,” implying the rest of them don’t? Where is he getting the money to buy properties and start companies, if not his parent’s or his inheritance? And if it’s that’s the case, where is the rest of it? Will still lives off his parents, Rika has her inheritance and income from the diamonds, and Michael is a professional athlete, so that answers that. What does he mean, they don’t have money??) If you meant in terms of his family, compared to the Crists' and Torrances' home life, then yeah. He had a really good home life. And his dad had reasonable expectations of him. So… yeah.

Also, what did you mean by this:

when he keeps friends like michael and damon around knowing the kind of hurt they do to others that are not them (even if he never witness them himself, because he couldve just ASKED, but he didnt).

Because even if I were in Kai’s position, I also wouldn’t be asking my friends “hey, did you commit any felonies or seriously injure anyone today?” Or maybe I would, but I would be joking. Like, I wouldn’t care if they did either… if I were Kai. I don’t know. The friendship between the boys was very “birds of a feather flock together” and I don’t think Kai was interested in changing their dynamic enough to care. Plus, I think for the most part, their pranks were probably painless to the community. It seemed that what we witness in the narrative was probably some of the worst things they came up with, since they escalated each year. Yeah, it probably cost the community money, but the Thunder Bay is wealthy enough to deal with it.

As for recs, I probably don’t have much to share. I’ll point again to the Crowne Point series. The series itself centers around this wealthy family that’s framed as basically American royalty. They have money in a big way, but I enjoyed how that was only a variable to their problems, and neither the reason nor the solution, so that might be something you’re looking for.

I’ve only read Heartless Hero and Stolen Soulmate. The tropes for Heartless Hero are friends-to-enemies-to-lovers and body guard. Abigail is the youngest of the Crowne family and the one who gets into the most trouble in public. She has a penchant for scaring off her body guards until her grandfather and head of the family assigns her the perfect one to keep her in line – her ex-best friend and crush who is not excited to return to Crowne Point to cater to Abigail. Things went sideways the last time they were together and he also has plans for revenge for a perceived wrong, so similar to Devil's Night in that way.

The tropes for Stolen Soulmate are… enemies-to-lovers, maybe? I actually don’t know what to file it under. Grayson mistakes Story, a member of his household staff, for someone else and kisses her in a dark room… and confesses some secrets as well. When her identity is revealed, he wants to remove her from the house, which might as well be the country for all Story knows and cares. She strikes a deal with him that she can restore his relationship with the person he intended to kiss, his childhood friend and arranged fiancée, and things to awry from there.

They’re both dark romances, and while Story and Gray’s story continues on, I chose not to continue the series since I didn’t like where it was going, but I enjoyed the first half of the book and if you’re looking for a billionaire romance where the billionaire can’t just throw money at the problem, then this would fall into that.

Unfortunately, I do think a lot of romance books right now are formulaic. I don’t read too many that I remember pass closing the book for that reason. They all sort of blend into each other. ‘Sempre’, which you might have seen me rb some of, is one that’s stuck with me since I was younger. Some of the writing is dated and cheesy, but I do love it. Like the others, there are many problems the characters deal with and very few of them would be solved by money – which the main family does have. It’s also a mafia romance, so there’s that also, if you’re interested.

Sorry, I wish I had more. If anyone has some they'd like to recommend to other readers, feel free to share. And if you guys are interested in knowing more about what I’m currently reading (when I’m reading, that is), let me know. I’ve tried to keep this pertaining to DN with a few things on the side because magpie brain demands it so.

Thanks for the message! Hope you're having a wonderful day. Let me know if you decide to check out any of those books.

#asked and answered #devil's night series stuff #kai mori #character analysis #book rec #asked and answered 67

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what-do-1000-swords-look-like · 2 years

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I'll try to address your points. It's gonna be long and might sound confrontational but I'm just sharing my thoughts, which are evidently very different than yours.

Ideas are not crimes. I'm not American but afaik, USA doesn't jail you for thought crimes. Nevermind for the "crime" of shipping a relationship between fictional characters. So while incest is illegal in states, shipping wincest is not. Even wanting to see wincest onscreen is not a crime.

You will be jailed in my country for having same sex relationships. The society will shun you. And while new gen is changing, majority are still against lgbt. But even in my country, people will not prosecute you for shipping gay ships. By that posts logic, they should start doing it, coz being gay is illegal and anyone who ships gay ships are committing a crime. That's what the post you re-blogged implied. Just with fictional incest(which you think is morally wrong) but not with fictional lgbt(which many in my country think is morally wrong).

1) Shipping is a fanon activity. Shipping is not activism, it's not about forcing the creators to make your ship canon. Its about personal interpretations, about creative expression. So your point about rules of spn universe is moot. Wincest shippers aren't out there harassing creators and actors to make their ship canon, they aren't using fake activism to make incest mainstream, they are just shipping a "scandalous" ship. Even then, I'd like to point that rules of spn universe allowed a possessed father to kiss a daughter so if Sam or Dean were female? They might have put a kiss between them to show some horror.

2) Supernatural started as horror with gothic elements. Incest is a horror trope. Spn consists of unhealthy dynamics, codependent bonds and obsession that blurs lines. It's also got a lot of covert/emotional incest going on, and there were deliberate choices made both by actors and creators.(remember Kripke had Mary kiss her Father) I'm not invested in wincest. But if you say the writers wanted to make them healthy then I have got to disagree.

You can't apply real life situations to Sam and Dean's unique case. None of us have sold our souls for siblings, none of us have our siblings as our soulmates, none of us have gone through hell trauma. Because it's a made up story which has no counterpart in reality. It's something a lot of ppl miss.

I'll also have to disagree with you about Dean. Dean's obsessed with his brother. He crosses all kind of boundaries and violates Sam's consent, even his body autonomy. His Siren is literally a submissive, agreeable little brother. You can avoid the implications or falsely claim it validates bi dean(it doesn't, or conversely if it does then it also validates wincest, perhaps one sided) but doesn't mean that rest of us will do the same. Heck, for all the "growth" he's gone through, Dean literally waits in heaven for Sam. Doing nothing until he's reunited with his soulmate. So pls don't give any credit to writers because they didn't dismantle the codependency.

3) Destiel doesn't have moral high ground if we're talking about power imbalance. Cas is billions of years older to Dean. He's also so much more powerful to Dean. He's been abusive to Dean, he's beaten Dean bloody, he's manipulated Dean, he's encroached on Dean's personal space. I can write a 10000 word essay on why destiel is also problematic(or send you links from Destiel shippers who write excellent meta about the same). Sure, it's not incest so it doesn't have the "yikes" factor but when you want to enforce your ship on others (which is what destiel shippers essentially do when they argue it is canon), you'll have to acknowledge it's flaws. If wincest glorifies abuse then so does destiel. If there are wincest shippers who get off on abuse then there are destiel shippers who get off on Cas beating Dean. There are posts with thousands of notes if you wanna check.

I acknowledge the unhealthy relationship dynamics between Sam and Dean(I hope you do for Dean and Cas). But unlike you, I blame the show for glorifying abuse and not the shippers. The show literally put Sam and Dean together for eternity, had Dean wait for Sam like he had no other purpose even after his death. But that's what the show chose to do so there's nothing I can do. What I won't do is to police other ppl for shipping things that make me uncomfortable. As long as they don't force me to believe their version (you know like hellers do) I don't care.

4) I'm a woc. I'm from a poor, ultra conservative country. I don't get or understand or agree with all of western ideas. Not to shade anyone, but a lot of ideas and identity's west pushes are ridiculed by our society and will only set lgbt community back. When you are dirt poor, when you have bigger, more life threatening problems you don't care about a myriad of identities. Things like QPR or n number of genders are essentially first world problems. Its one of the reasons why I don't interact with spn fandom much, it's like walking on egg shells when you aren't coming from a westernzied perspective. Which is hilarious coz it shows that for all the talk of inclusiveness, diversity of thought is shunned the moment you say things that go against the narrative. I hope I don't get cancelled for saying this but I won't be surprised if I do.

5)I don't ship J2. I find RPF a slippery slope. It can be ok if ppl keep boundaries but they don't. Fans today are very entitled and have no shame about blasting their personal jerk off fantasies in actors face and I find that culture distasteful. Hence you won't see me defending J2 shippers.

Initially Jensen wasn't comfortable with wincest or J2 or destiel or cockles. He's learnt to tolerate them. He had to. He wasn't comfortable with the poses destiel shippers asked in photo ops. He said no plenty of times and eventually he stopped saying no. He admitted that in last panel, you can check the video. The fans called him homophobic when he said his character was straight, when he said he didn't play Dean as bi, when he said destiel doesn't exist. I find it really sad how he's been treated and how his boundaries have been disrespected and eroded over the years. But it's what it is.

What you need to understand is this. J2 aren't anti wincest or destiel. As in, they don't care if you ship either. J2 joke about wincest. Send wincest fanfiction/art to each other. Prank Alex. They don't even care if you ship J2 or cockles. They might have in early years, but like I said, they had to get used to it. But they care when you blast your ship in their face and ask them to validate it. They didn't play wincest or destiel. Jensen didn't play a bi character. Didn't play Dean as in love with Cas or Sam. It's exactly why Jared talked about platonic love in Denver con. They are graciously allowing you your interpretation but asking you to not impose your views on them. Think about that.

Personally I'd be much less gracious in their shoes. If people disregarded my words about a character I played for 15 years and said I'm homophobic/in-closet if i dare to say my character is straight? I'd loss my cool. Like imagine the disrespect. And yes, it's disrespectful coz it invalidates an actor's portrayal of his character. It's one thing if bi dean or destiel was explicitly planned or written, which it wasn't. Bi dean was never written or acted, and destiel wasn't written or planned for 14 seasons. There was one ambiguous confession in last season which means J2 (or anyone else) have all the right to see it as platonic.

These shippers have sent Jared death threats. Creation found these threats credible and has recently increased his security because of them. They have tried to cancel Walker. They have spread baseless rumours about Jared(like he's a sexual harasser) and these posts have hundreds of thousands of notes. Jared, who has mhi, who wanted to quit in S10 but only stayed coz he didn't want the crew to loss jobs, who literally cried himself to sleep everyday coz he couldn't handle the pressure. This man who donates millions to LGBT charities and who suffered so much during supernatural, they bully and harass him because of a rpf ship. They send him death threats. When shipping has real life impacts like this, it needs to be called out. You talked about a fictional ship(wincest) hurting real life people and here I have given you the real hurt caused by cockles shippers/hellers.

I don't have the energy to respond to your last paragraphs but I just wanna say that Jensen has repeatedly enforced boundaries, has expressed discomfort about aggressive RPF shipping, about being asked to make poses with Misha. But cockles shippers have never respected his boundaries. They have asked him to sign sexual pictures etc. Just this con a Jared hater got a J2M op and asked Jensen to dip Misha, which Jensen refused. They might as well ask him to kiss Misha for photo ops in next con. Sadly it seems like his boundaries have been worn down. In his own words, he's given up. And I get him, it's exhausting. You eventually learn to do shocking, uncomfortable things coz saying no becomes exhausting after a 100 requests. That too when you are a man and women are asking you. Or perhaps he doesn't want to be called homophobic. God knows cockles (or destiel) shippers have done that multiple times, even had articles published on news sites.

I feel like you're low key victim blaming Jensen for not being firm with his boundaries even if that's not your intention. I do have counter arguments to those points and about Misha's baiting but I don't have time now. I might send a separate ask later if i find the energy but for now I'll leave you with this one.

Have a nice day.

Alright. Anon, I am going to respond to this but under the cut so it doesn’t clog up any dashes. Like you stated in your ask, my reply may come across/sound confrontational, or at the very least like I’m kicking off a debate, but I assure you, it’s neither. I will make one point here, though, that I do feel I need to address first and foremost:

I'm just going to get this one out of the way quickly before the cut. I must admit I am rather exhausted by the topic of Jensen these days and my supposed intentions regarding him as an individual. (which is a shame because it's not the man himself, just his stanbase/”fans” aka AA’s that are the ones to blame for my current feelings on the topic) It’s to the point where I don’t even want to see any content come across my dash that has anything to do with him. (I’m not talking about Dean, the character obviously is different) Whether that be him, Danneel, Jared, Misha, Rob, Radio Company, etc that has anything to do with Jensen. And I cannot tell you how much that irritates me because I am a fan of his and want to continue to be but I can’t help how I currently feel. I am tired of my words about this man being taken out of context, misconstrued, distorted, and then thrown back at me as if it’s damning evidence that I am victim blaming the man in a situation or rooting for him to be treated badly by past co-stars. For someone who has experienced similar things in their lives to what I have and to be told these things as if they are facts and that I should be ashamed of being such a “horrible person”, I cannot even begin to tell you how demoralizing this is and just how wrong and toxic these types of responses/statements are. I know you are just stating your perspective on my statements, but man am I tired. I am NOT victim blaming Jensen at all when it comes to the Cockles topic and his interactions with his fans. I believe I even said that specifically in my response to your previous ask if you go back and read through that section again. And I also mentioned Misha as well. I wasn't victim blaming him or Danneel or Jared or Gen or anyone. I said that specifically so I have to say that I am rather surprised at that being your takeaway from my statements. All I said is that they should assert stronger boundaries if they truly feel uncomfortable with any fan interactions they are having (in this case, you mentioned Cockles as a specific example). That’s just common sense. Jensen is a grown man and his own person; he can make these decisions for himself. Same goes for JP, MC, DA, GP, the SPN cast, and any other individual walking the planet.

Now, that being said, onto below the cut:

TLDR; wincest is still harmful when it glorifies abuse, I don’t care about J2 or Cockles, destiel is a lot healthier than wincest for many reasons, Jensen can handle himself as can Jared and Misha (the latter two who I am rather indifferent towards, the name of the blog is jackles-coded after all), destiel is indeed canon, the show did not canonize wincest and they were never going to — I think that about covers it all

Now, anon, I am going to respond to each point you made in the following breakdown (and it's going to get long which is why I put the TLDR section above) but let me start out with two very important points:

1) I appreciate you stating that you are just posting your thoughts. That helps set the tone and I am grateful you did that. I think that is super important when having civil discourse where there may be different parties disagreeing.

2) I have been in the SPN fandom close to 2 years now but that's it. I have not been in the fandom before then. I watched the show, sure, and I knew who J2M were but I had no idea of anything fandom-related. I have absolutely no idea as to the history of what Jensen has dealt with previously (except infamous examples that are either still being talked about on this site by fans, i.e. topics like Kelios, or that people have posted about specifically), nor do I know what Jared or Misha has dealt with previously, separately and together. I am a Jensen fan but that does not mean I know every single detail or facet of every encounter that he has ever had. Only he does, as well as maybe Danneel, his representation, and his possible security team. If he has stated his discomfort with the materials he has been presented with before by fans at photo ops and they still don't respect it, then they're obviously not real fans of his. And you can think I am victim blaming him again should you desire to do so, but I will say this point again because this is absolute truth: if they continue to make him uncomfortable, then he has the right to assert stronger boundaries. He is in a position that he can do that, Anon. If he wants to say no to a photo op, he can do that. If he doesn't want to answer a question, he can do that, too. It's all within HIS power, Anon. Just like any individual, but even more so because it's related to his actual safety and comfort levels. Any trained mental health professional, any communication and/or social interaction/relationship expert, anyone walking around with common sense, will say the same. Because that’s just a basic fact. If you don’t like something, say no. That’s not sitting there in judgment about it or saying this individual is bad if they don’t; it’s telling someone that if they don’t like something or how they’re being treated to stand up for themselves, to lay down boundaries and to be assertive when doing so. That’s not victim blaming; that’s good and important advice. And it’s advice that is given throughout the world to all different people in all different situations/industries. Advice that trained professionals give repeatedly whether that be a business coach to a CEO or a counselor to a patient or a parent to a school age child or a relationship expert to someone who is dating/in a serious relationship. It applies in various ways. So to look at this common knowledge as victim blaming is just beyond the scope of rationality in my opinion. It’s communication 101 in various types of interactions and relationships worldwide. If you do not know what I am referring to, then please research it and you will see what I’m speaking of.

Now, onto your ask:

I’m going to state this up front: I appreciate your perspective and I appreciate even more that you are sharing information about your country with me and the perspective there. As you probably surmised from our exchanges, I do live in the US so I don’t want to assume anything about your country or the laws there or respond to any part of that because I don’t feel that I am educated enough on that topic or I don't want to make any assumptions of knowing how things are like there from your perspective and your experience. I only know what you tell me. So please don’t take offense but I’m not going to respond to the US vs your country on the LGBTQIA matters or any differences between the two.

Having said that, I am going to respond to your other points that involve the fandom, the ships, and the actors, though: I never said shipping wincest or any other incestuous ship is a crime. I stated that incest itself is a crime in the US. Between real people. As a reader (and reblogger) of that post, I did not see the op stating that all wincest shippers should be put in jail for the crime of shipping a fictional incestuous pairing. I saw them referring to incest being a crime as a general point because not only is it illegal here, it’s also taboo. To be honest, I think you are taking what they said too literally. But that’s your perspective. So at this point, like you said, we have very different thoughts on this, and I think if you have anything further you’d like to discuss about that particular post, you should take it up with the op. I cannot speak to their intention or implications when they stated their opinion, and it’s not right for anyone to hold me accountable for that one part of their statement because I'm not them and I didn't type it and that also wasn’t the reason I reblogged it (which I elaborated on in your previous ask’s response). I have never posted here that I feel anyone shipping wincest (or any other fictional incestuous pairing) should be put in prison for shipping that ship and I honestly think you are taking what that op said way too literally, as I stated before. Perhaps it’s time for you to share your thoughts with that op in the comments section of said post. I myself will no longer be responding to any discourse/asks/replies/messages about this particular reblogged post.

I am genuinely confused by this part. How did we get onto the topic of activism? Who said that anyone, destiel or wincest or any other pairing, attempted to force the show to make their ship canon? And whoever said that shipping wasn’t a fandom activity? It always has been? It’s the very core of shipping and all that activity entails.

Allow me to remind you, Anon: I have only been in the SPN fandom for close to 2 years now (I want to say it was Summer 2020 when I took a dive into the fandom?) so if you’re referring to things in the past for either ship (or any other SPN ship), I have no clue what you’re talking about.

Wait a minute, you just said: “Shipping is a fanon activity. Shipping is not activism, it's not about forcing the creators to make your ship canon. Its about personal interpretations, about creative expression. So your point about rules of spn universe is moot.” So how are universe rules a moot point then? There have to be rules when creating a universe because it all goes into the structure of the story telling. For example, the White Walkers in GoT wouldn’t be a threat to Westeros if Westerosi people could just look at them and melt them with their minds without breaking a sweat. It’s a rule that White Walkers can only be destroyed by fire. Thus, comes the conflict/issue of how dangerous the White Walkers really are en masse and what a threat they are to the world if they overrun it. And Jon Snow and Co have to figure out a way to stop them. Rules are very much an essential aspect of world building. If you are a writer who creates worlds for stories you want to tell, then you know this to be a very important factor in the creative process.

Okay, I’m sorry, but I am going to say that you are incorrect, or more appropriately, maybe you misunderstood what I said. Trust me when I tell you that I know what I am talking about on this topic. It’s all about narrative sense. For example, as GRRM said, if spaceships landed in Westeros and aliens popped out to say hello to Daenerys or the Starks, it wouldn't make any sense because aliens are not a part of the universe. Because that rule was not applied when the universe was created. Rules are a tool that writers utilize when creating a universe to tell a story within that universe, regardless of whatever medium they are writing the story for.

Some examples of the SPN universe rules:

if someone is cursed by a witch due to a hex bag, the hex bag needs to be found and destroyed in order to lift the curse.

Salt is a protective material that assists in ghost hunting, as does iron.

Chuck and Amara do not have power over The Empty because that entity is older than they are.

When angels and demons die, they go to The Empty.

When monsters die, they go to Purgatory.

Heaven was a collection of a person’s memories until Jack and Cas change it before Dean gets there so everyone can be together.

Dean and Sam cannot be possessed by demons due to their anti-possession tattoos. Angels cannot track them after Cas marks them with specific sigils on their bones. As long as the guys continue to have both, they cannot be possessed and/or tracked by the common angel.

These are all examples of universe rules. Dean dating, sleeping with, and/or marrying Sam would not make sense within these rules because the incest-is-acceptable rule was never applied. And the incest-happens-anyway-even-if-it's-taboo rule has also not been applied. (look to stories like Flowers In the Attic for example) And the writers also did not introduce this at any point in the story. There has never been any romantic or sexual tension between Sam and Dean. The two have never been romantically interested or sexually attracted to one another. There has never been anything remotely suggesting that the brothers are more than brothers, at any point, in their history or their story throughout the show.

Here’s what I mean about the incest-is-acceptable rule that I mentioned: Going back to Game of Thrones (I’m going to keep using it as an example since that book series also has its own show, you can see what was adapted rules wise into it from the books), for example, the rules have been set up for acceptable incest, hence the romantic pairing of Jon and Daenerys (in the show), and Jaime/Cersei. Hence the ships for Jonerys, Jonsa, Jonrya, Jaime/Cersei, etc. Because GRRM had put that rule in place when creating that universe. The Targaryens married brother and sister for centuries. So even though the Targaryens’ way of life was acceptable in Westeros while they were in power up until Robert’s Rebellion, once they were no longer in power, sibling incest was no longer acceptable, because that had been exclusive to them. Cousin incest (or other kinds of incest like uncle/niece), however, was acceptable in that world, though it was becoming less and less because marriages were used as transactions if you will, in order to secure powerful alliances, wealth, and to gain power. Just like in history, which GRRM has said he modeled some of that universe after. The rules were set for that universe so when people ship Jonerys or Jonsa or Jonrya, it’s within that framework. Jonyra is a showverse fanon ship, but the fans know that, and from my limited perspective, I do not see them insisting that by Jon hugging Arya at the end, inviting her to The Wall to visit, that that moment was confirmation of their ship going canon or that they were soulmates. Obviously, things remain to be seen in the books for all of the Jon-involved ships and what becomes canon vs what remains fanon in the end. But back to the incest-is-acceptable rule: even when people ship Jaime/Cersei, it’s still within that framework because it’s a part of the story within that universe. While that relationship was framed as immoral, unhealthy, and to be the antithesis of other “sibling” relationships and in comparison/contrast to the Targaryens, it’s still within the rules of the universe because GRRM wove it into the fabric so to speak.

In SPN, Kripke and the writers never did that. So, yes, while wincest might be a fanon ship that people can choose to ship, acceptable incest (or unacceptable incest) is not an actual rule that was set up/applied in the SPN universe. I understand what you’re saying about the elements of horror but again, they never chose to go with that particular element (the incest) that I can remember in Dean and Sam’s story or any other story in the show for that matter. And that example you gave of Samuel Campbell kissing Mary, that actually is not incest for two reasons: 1) Samuel was dead, and was possessed by the YED & 2) that is how demon deals (up to that point in the show anyway) were sealed in the universe (another rule) - remember Dean and the crossroads demon sealing their deal with a kiss in order to bring Sam back in the end of season 2? Or Crowley kissing Bobby and taking a picture which he gleefully shows the boys? Those are events that are playing within the rules of the SPN universe that Kripke and the writers set up. Sam and Dean as a romantic pairing or having sexual contact in any way for whatever reason is not within those rules.

Um, yes, I can? Because Dean and Sam’s story stays mostly within the US, that means US laws apply to them. Because they are in a modern society, that means rules and norms of that very same modern society apply to them (which means incest is taboo). Which is why we see the guys needing to dodge the police, being sought by the FBI, and committing all kinds of credit card fraud in order to keep themselves afloat as they hunt.

Actually, yes, I can. You can apply real life morals and ideals/belief to Sam and Dean’s story, absolutely. Regardless of the fantastical elements you listed as events people on this planet will never go through, reality still applies. For example, I’ve never fought a huge drooling alien on a spaceship but that doesn’t mean I can’t sympathize with Ellen Ripley in the movie Aliens and identify with the feeling of doing whatever I need to do to keep my child safe and putting my fears aside in order to protect them. It also doesn’t mean that we all cannot identify with the feeling of wanting to do whatever it takes to keep your loved ones safe or doing whatever you can to keep them that way or in much more tragic cases, bring them back.

Don’t forget, there is some reality grounded within fantasy. Lord of the Rings may have elves and orcs and hobbits, but that doesn’t make the realistic elements within that fantasy story any less real. Same for Game of Thrones, or more appropriately, A Song Of Ice and Fire. Same for The Chronicles Of Narnia series and the His Dark Materials Trilogy. Even stories like the King Arthur legend and even Greek mythology. Fables even. There are lessons/morals for the readers as well as some elements of reality within the grand framework of fantasy such as emotions, situations, relationships. An even better example is the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer where the vampires were meant to represent all of the hardships adolescents go through in their journey through high school and on their way towards adulthood. Obviously, we will never know what it feels like to be the Slayer and to be patrolling cemeteries every night in order to engage vampires in battle to keep Sunnydale (or our hometowns) safe, but that doesn’t mean her emotions, the relationships she went through, her growth, and even what she experienced when her mother’s death occurred and her grief any less real. Realistic elements within a fantasy universe. Otherwise, how would we, the viewers (or readers) ever possibly relate to the heroes? The antiheroes? Have sympathy for a villain in a certain moment? Etc.? How would we be able to connect to the characters? To the story being told?

As for Sam and Dean being sibling soulmates, that is purely an interpretive statement, not an official part of the story or an SPN universe rule. While the idea of soulmates (platonic or not) is a fantastical element within a story, it does not belong within the group of examples you gave because, once again, the other events happened within the universe; they are official parts of the story. And the concept of soulmates is not reality-based, not in the way a mother will sacrifice herself to protect her son (like Lily did with Harry in the Harry Potter series) because of how much she loves him and wants him to live.

You are certainly free to disagree with me on this and I appreciate you explaining that point, but I must also respectfully disagree with you here. Dean was not obsessed with Sam as you claim. If you read up on parentification and trauma (i.e. abuse, abandonment, neglect) or speak to someone who is proficient in these types of matters or even has experienced it themselves, his relationship with Sam is very on brand for Dean and his characterization/story line. Sam even utilizes this realization he has in season 9 (I think it’s 9, if not it’s 10) when Sam tells Dean that Dean is afraid to be alone and uses that fact against him. We see this play out time and time again: Dean making the demon deal in season 2 to bring Sam back, Dean taking the overdose of pills so he can speak to Billie when Sam is killed by that werewolf, and yes, the one you mentioned, Dean tricking Sam when it came to the Gadreel issue in season 9. That’s not him being obsessed with Sam; that’s him being afraid to be left alone as well as what I mentioned in your previous ask: Sam is his responsibility, he will always overcompensate to save him and protect him. That’s what he has been programmed to do and he and Sam have a toxic codependency. (something the show kept trying to get both brothers to realize when they had other characters throw the fact of how both brothers would unhealthily sacrifice themselves in order to save the other brother in their faces) And of course boundaries between them get violated and often; proper boundaries were never set up between them in the first place. They had to learn and work towards that. Again, another consequence of the abuse (more specifically, the parentification and codependency). Not only did John do his work well with the parentification (and spousification) that he forced onto Dean but also through the abuse (which again, is confirmed in 15x17 by Sam’s own words) which fostered that toxic codependency.

And yes, they did break the codependency. 15x19 was the found family finale, the finale that Dabb and Co. was leading towards with the mythology and characters and later season fans. 15x20 was meant to satisfy the GA and the fans from the first few seasons (while also pushing that core audience towards Walker). This is why Dabb said there were two different finales. 15x20 is literally an alternative episode to 15x19 (should fans continue to watch past 15x19). Dean and Sam have two different endings. While Jensen and Jared may not acknowledge that publicly (I doubt they’re allowed to, tbh), that is the case. I believe that is why they and the show still continue to straddle that fence to this day. “I was in both camps” - that’s literally from Jensen himself in the podcast interview when saying both groups of people who liked the finale and those who didn’t like it, that all of their feelings were valid. If you take what Dabb and Jensen have both said about the finales, and about Dean’s death, it’s all right there. It’s the reason the found family montage was done in 15x19, why the initials were carved into the table in the bunker, why Sam and Dean drink to those they’ve lost, and then drive off together in Baby, on the open road. Conversely, it’s the reason why in 15x20 it’s brothers only, it’s a milk run hunt or a meats and potatoes case (pick whichever analogy you prefer), the OG-Winchester only mantle in Sam’s house, why Sam’s son is named Dean, Blurry Wife, and Dean and Sam end up in Heaven together. Two. Separate. Finales.

And I would just like to make this point: if I lost someone that I loved, no matter who they are to me or what our relationship might be, if they were able, I would hope that they would wait for me in Heaven, too, while being happy and at peace, doing something they loved. That doesn’t characterize or equate to obsession or the concept of soulmates. How many people have near death experiences where they claim to have seen and/or spoken to their loved ones in the forms of friends who have passed or family members or children or even siblings? How many people talk about wanting to see their loved ones again in Heaven? People who they normally would not characterize as soulmates. Again, the concept of soulmates may be a fantastical element (it is) but reality applies here as well (once again, there is always reality mixed in with fantasy). You can interpret Sam and Dean as being soulmates but it’s not something the show confirmed or spoke officially on. By having Dean meeting Sam in Heaven, that’s not a confirmation. It’s simply a brother waiting for the last person in his family to join him where he is, since Cas and Jack are somewhere there already, and so are John and Mary.

About Dean driving, listen, Dean chose to go do something he loved while he waited for Sam (again, the last part of his family that was living) and that was to drive in Baby. Had he enjoyed golf or watching horror movies or fishing (which let’s face it of course he loves those last two but not more than driving in Baby) or to go hang out with his parents, he would have done those things, too. Had the actors been available, I’m sure we would have gotten that Roadhouse scene they talked about with everyone in it. He would have spent time with his loved ones in the Roadhouse while Kansas performed and he drank beer and that’s how he would have waited for the last person in his family to join him. Had Sam already been there and let’s say Jack was human and not God!Jack, you can bet he would have waited for him, too, and it was never confirmed either that he and Jack are soulmates.

This is the problem (well, one of them anyway) with the 15x20 finale. While there were some beautiful brother moments for Sam and Dean, and it was a celebration of the brothers and the ending to their long journey (again, 1st season fans were meant to enjoy it more than any other group), that was not the appropriate ending narratively, not based on the story they told for those two characters the last two seasons. It completely undid all of their character development and regressed them back to their season 1 characters, while also regressing the story back to season 1 (and undoing all of the story development). And even more troublesome, some (such as yourself based on your ask) see it as confirmation of a somehow soulmate connection/relationship between the two brothers. While some might believe in the possible phenomenon of platonic soulmates or kindred spirits even (which siblings could be, for sure), that still is not what happened here. Dean loves Sam and Sam loves Dean, as brothers. They were each other’s family (outside of the found family they created over the years). Their bond is purely familial with an underlying friendship between the two that formed over 15 years. (in 1x01, they were brothers, not friends; by season 15, they were both)

Of course I’m not going to claim that this somehow validates bi!Dean, falsely as you claim or otherwise. Dean and Sam’s relationship has absolutely zero bearing on Dean’s sexual orientation and romantic orientation because it affects neither of these things. (same goes for Sam) Dean and Sam’s relationship was never romantic or sexual in nature.

The siren was a man. Was that whole dynamic Dean shared with the siren meant to illustrate the growing chasm between Sam and Dean in their relationship as brothers at that point in the story? Sure. But that was it. There was nothing romantic or sexual about it for either brother. The Siren even makes them fight at the end of the episode, after using Dean’s issues with Sam to be able to get close to Dean and entrap him. As a matter of fact, if you even look at the details Dean and the Siren discuss when “bonding”, the Siren actually sounds like more of a best friend that Dean is looking for (that is similar to himself) rather than Sam himself. The Siren appears to their victims in the form of what they desire. When the show began, the only outside connections that Dean looked to make were casual (except for Cassie) and to keep to the Winchester only group. Sam was the one who had expanded outside of this frame of mind, not only by going to school and making friends and dating Jessica, but also we see him continuing to attempt to make those connections like with Sarah, etc. How many times did someone pop up from Sam's school days/past? With Brady being that last link? As Bobby and the Harvelles came into the story, Dean’s sticking to the Winchester club (very) slowly started to change. Not only do we see Bobby’s relationship with the boys that slowly starts to be revealed as him being more of a father figure to them as well as a guide and they have history, but it’s slowly expanded outside of the Winchesters only club, but still kept within the hunters only group parameters. With each new season, the boys continue to do what they have to do but they also expand slowly outwards (again, all part of that breaking the toxic codependency while also making narrative sense for their journey together). And thus you get the found family as well as all of the fan favorite characters that came and went in the SPN universe over the years. Dean was always looking to connect to someone that this Siren exemplified. He may have had Lee when he was younger but they obviously had lost touch with one another for a long time before 15x07. Cas, Benny, and Charlie were the only friends he had (outside of Sam) that connected to him on a level that he had been looking for. My whole long point being that the Siren was not meant to represent anything about Sam except for how alone Dean was feeling, and I’m not even talking romantically or sexually, I mean just in general. He had just been to Hell, an experience that he couldn’t even talk about for a while to Sam. He was resurrected (which waking up in his coffin and digging out of his own grave is another traumatizing experience in itself), he has no idea what the real reason is why he was brought back other than what Cas and Co have told him, they just got angels and all that entails dropped into their laps and angels are not the self-proclaimed good guys everyone has been made to believe over time, and now Sam is keeping things from him and working with a demon (one that he specifically doesn’t care for). Sam, the one person he always expected to have his back no matter what because they’re family. But that is all the Siren was meant to represent. If it was meant to be indicative of what you’re suggesting, the Siren would have been Sam himself or more like Sam in personality or using details about Sam to entrap Dean if Dean really desired Sam romantically and/or sexually. Which as we know did not happen.

Oh boy. Now we are onto the alleged imbalanced/abuse of power dynamics between Dean and Cas. How did we get onto the topic of destiel again? I honestly can’t even remember. Alright, let’s do it.

I personally think that yes, the relationship between Dean and Cas can be imbalanced at times, but it comes from both sides. Cas (thank you for not using two ‘s’ btw, I will never know what persuaded the show to do that lol) may be billions of years older than Dean but that does not mean that Dean does not sometimes hold the power in the relationship between the two. For example, Dean is able to hold Cas back physically when we know that should Cas choose to disregard him, Dean could either get hurt or at the very least, be easily brushed aside. This happens quite a few times in the show. Not to mention that Dean sometimes utilizes this bond he has with Cas to his advantage. And when I say utilize it, I’m not talking blatantly. He doesn’t want to lie to Cas or trap him in the ring of Holy fire in 6x20 but it’s a necessity so they can get to the bottom of what is going on with Cas and to figure out if he is working with Crowley, to find out why Cas is spying on them. For all of the points you made about Cas, please know that the same could be easily said about Dean. We saw Dean beat Cas up in 10x22 and while some like to claim it’s the Mark of Cain making him do it, it’s not. Dean’s theme plays when Cas asks him to stop and Dean comes back to beat him up more and grab the angel blade. Dean purposely doesn’t kill Cas and warns him to stay away from him (and also for Sam to stay away from him, the two people he feels he needs to protect from himself), Dean feels guilty over it which we see in 11x03 when he doesn’t allow Cas to heal him (after Cas beat him up while under a spell, because it truly wasn’t Cas while Dean was himself when he beat up Cas and Dean knows that), and we see that Cas allows him to do all of it. While Dean gives Cas a moment’s opportunity to take his hand off of his shoulder and to back off, Dean knows Cas will allow him to do whatever to him (because, again, Cas has allowed him to before and Dean is not ignorant to how important he is to Cas with the whole profound bond thing) and that enables him to go as far as he did in that fight. But to be fair to Dean, Cas also does take advantage similarly which we also have seen happen. A great example is Cas using his knowledge of where Dean hides the Colt in order to “borrow” it as well as Cas using his knowledge about the Winchesters (as well as Lisa and Ben’s unexpected kidnapping) to clear the way for him and his objective of getting the souls from Purgatory to defeat Raphael. They both did it, time and time again, but by the end of the series, I will say that I think they were evened out or more appropriately balanced out, as much as they could be, while still remaining a billion year old angel and a forty something human hunter. And what was the final catalyst in that balance? The 15x09 apology confession done on Dean’s knees, an earnest prayer when faced with the possibility that Cas might be stuck in Purgatory once again or possibly die again. From then on, if you watch their story closely, it’s fairly balanced between them up until Cas’ death in 15x18.

If you would like a great example of abusive/imbalanced power dynamics in a relationship outside of the SPN universe, may I suggest that you look at Jon and Daenerys in Game of Thrones, especially in episode 8x04 in the bedroom scene? As well as the fireplace scene in 8x05? Pure, solid examples of abusive power dynamics and imbalance in a relationship. Then compare destiel (and even wincest) to that.

Okay, allow me to state this distinction: destiel does not glorify abuse, wincest does. Here’s how: wincest itself does not glorify abuse as a standalone; the celebration of the codependency the boys have in response to what happened to them as children does. When people make posts and/or comments and tweets stating how much they love the codependency both brothers have and how it’s proof of their “love” for each other while being aware of how toxic and unhealthy it is and how it formed between them, that’s glorifying the abuse. You don’t see that with destiel (or at least I personally haven’t). You just stated yourself that you have read destiel meta with thousands of notes where the meta writers have discussed the imbalanced/abusive power dynamics between Dean and Cas and how that’s problematic. Thus, they are aware of the problem and not celebrating it. Do you see the difference? It’s not the ships themselves that glorify the abuse, it’s the shippers. And I don’t want to generalize obviously, there are some wincest shippers that don’t glorify the abuse and just want both boys to be happy. But trust me, there is definitely a difference when it comes to both ship groups when it comes to this topic. And the show/writers must agree (on the DeanCas front), because Cas’ romantic confession in 15x18 was prefaced by the words that Dean needed to hear and process about himself, to release himself from his anger, and ultimately contributed to leaving him in a healthier place by the end of the series. It also helped him to make the decision not to kill Chuck. “See, that’s not who I am.”

Which then brings me to my next point, destiel is canon. Say it loud and say it proud, folks. By what happened in 15x18, by Cas telling Dean “I love you” with romantic intention, that brings destiel as a subject matter into the universe and into canon. Dean didn’t have to respond or reciprocate. Even if he had responded and said “thanks dude, I’m flattered but I don’t feel the same” that doesn’t negate destiel as a principle becoming canon. Because Cas being in love with Dean is now something that has been brought in-universe to both characters’ attention as well as the audience’s. Therefore, it is canon.

A lot of people get hung up on the canon vs fanon discussion but they miss one of the most important and basic points of that topic. Canon means something that is an official part of the story. For example, John and Mary were set up by Heaven and fell in love after Cupid shot them with his arrows. That’s canon. John went on a revenge quest after Mary was killed by the YED and he raised both of their sons to be hunters. That’s canon. Dean loves his car. That’s canon. Jody lost her husband and child. Donna’s ex-husband Doug treated her horribly. Bobby possessed a maid from a hotel in order to try to exact vengeance on Dick Roman. Cas likes to visit the Heaven of a man who relives a calm Tuesday afternoon over and over again. Jack copies Dean’s movements to try to be like him in the beginning of season 13. Werewolves can be killed by silver. Blood sigils can banish angels. All of this is canon. So if Cas is telling Dean he loves him romantically, even if Dean himself didn’t hear it or wasn’t conscious when Cas said it, it is still canon. What it is not because the show chose to remain ambiguous on this topic after Cas’ confession and it wasn’t confirmed one way or the other, is the canon romantic relationship between Dean and Cas. They didn’t go on a date, Dean didn’t respond, they didn’t buy a house together or kiss on a bench in a park, etc. The mutual romantic relationship is not canon.

For example, we see Kaia return from The Bad Place and she is ready to go with Jody back to her home. She asks if Claire will be there which Jody confirms, but ultimately we never see Kaia or Claire say “I love you” to each other or go on a date or do anything romantic, but a lot of people accept that relationship as canon. Why? Because of what Jody says before Kaia appears, about her being Claire’s first love and how much Claire is still affected by losing Kaia. And it’s obvious it’s requited because of Kaia then later asking if Claire will be at Jody’s. That is a canon relationship because both sides were shown, though Jody was used in proxy of Claire speaking for herself.

Another example outside of the SPN universe is (SPOILER ALERT) Ryan and Sophie in Batwoman. This is now a confirmed canon relationship. But before it launched into the actual romance itself, there were flirtations, romantic tension, and all that entails. Wildmoore (as they are called) was already canon on principle because of Luke asking Ryan if she was flirting with Sophie on a mission, and then of course everything that happened after that. The relationship itself just hadn’t become canon yet (until it did). Another relationship that exemplifies canon vs fanon is the one between Sophie and Alice or aka Sophice. A lot of people noticed the chemistry between the two when they started to interact more once Ryan appeared on the scene, but this is a fanon relationship. Nothing wrong with it at all (I like the idea myself tbh though I am Wildmoore all the way) but the idea of that pairing has not been introduced into the story as an actual idea. There is no romantic tension, no flirtation, etc. You never had Mary commenting on how Sophie was flirting with Alice or Sophie and Alice acting like fake girlfriends in a situation while checking each other out and commenting on each other’s appearance. It’s currently a fanon relationship. Luke and Mary, sure, there’s been a lot of hints but it hasn’t officially been brought into the universe romantically as of yet. It looks like they may go that way, but as of right now, it’s not canon, in principle or in relationship. There is a distinct difference in canon vs fanon, and how canon actually happens.

My whole long point is that once something is brought to the characters’ attention in the story and thus the audience’s, it is canon. Because it’s an official part of the story. It could be anything from an idea of a romantic pairing between two other characters to how a character felt in a scene (like Ryan did with Jada and Marquis) to what a character prefers to do on a Friday night even (like so and so like to go bowling at this particular alley every Friday at 7pm sharp). No matter how big or small the detail, if it becomes part of the official story (on screen or in a book), it’s canon.

Listen, I applaud you for reading destiel meta when it’s obvious that you don’t care for the ship. I really do. And 99% of the time, I would be like you, interested to see all sides to a situation (or a ship) and take whatever resonates or that I find interesting while leaving the rest. However, when it comes to wincest in particular, I cannot do that. It’s not because of any hatred or disdain I have for the pairing or its shippers/meta writers. It’s because the idea makes me extremely uncomfortable. And it makes me extremely uncomfortable because Dean is essentially Sam’s parent, up until they are able to place proper boundaries on their relationship and restore it back to a brotherly one by the end of the series. Parent/child incest is horrifying and absolutely disgusting, even if only fictional, I don’t care who that statement offends. You want to talk about abusive power dynamics and imbalance in relationships, there you go. Going by what you said above, am I saying that fictional parent/child shippers should be in jail? If the children are underage, then yeah. Because that’s indicative of a whole other problem and even more disgusting while also being incredibly worrisome. If the children are of age, no. But either way, I want nothing to do with that topic and I don’t care who is offended by that or who thinks of me as being judgmental or critical about it. It 👏 is 👏 disturbing. And in no way will my mind ever change on that.

So, essentially, wincest makes me extremely uncomfortable because it is very close to that line. Had Dean not been Sam’s parent at all (and if it also hadn’t been a byproduct of abuse both boys suffered), I probably wouldn’t even bat an eyelash. I wouldn’t say I would ship it, obviously not based on the topic of incest and universe rules that we discussed, but it would just go into the pool of several other ships that I don’t ship but have a very ship-and-let-ship attitude about, like Chestervelle or Megstiel or Dean/Lisa or John/Mary, etc.

But unlike you, I blame the show for glorifying abuse and not the shippers. The show literally put Sam and Dean together for eternity, had Dean wait for Sam like he had no other purpose even after his death. But that's what the show chose to do so there's nothing I can do. What I won't do is to police other ppl for shipping things that make me uncomfortable. As long as they don't force me to believe their version (you know like hellers do) I don't care.

Well, I already discussed above how the shippers are actually the ones who do glorify the abuse so I won’t repeat myself. However, I’d like to address the points you made here. How is Sam and Dean being together for eternity 1) confirming them as a romantic pairing/soulmates and 2) glorifying the abuse? Once again, wouldn’t you want to be with your family for eternity once you have passed on? Or would you prefer to be alone and never see them again? I truly don’t understand how if a family member waits for you in the afterlife that this is then seen as they can’t move on without you or indicates that their soul is tied to yours or that they are somehow in love with you. Look at the series finale of The Vampire Diaries, do you also believe that Damon and Stefan are soulmates and that Stefan couldn’t move forward without Damon being there? That Elena’s family couldn’t either? Like…? Why wouldn’t you want to be with your family and your loved ones for eternity if given the option? The show didn’t have Dean waiting for Sam like he had no other purpose, not the way you’re implying. Dean was doing something he loved (driving in Baby) until Sam got there, because everyone else in his family both OG and TFW 2.0 was already in Heaven with him. Not to mention, it goes hand in hand with the point I made above about how important Sam is to Dean, because not only is he his little brother and his friend, but he also still feels responsible for him and cares for him. Of course he was going to wait for Sam until the latter got there. Even if he and Sam weren’t that close, let’s say. Sam is a part of both his family of origin and the family he chose/built for himself. Nothing about that screams romantic or soulmates, I’m sorry. That’s just a basic idea of everyone being together, which is exactly what Bobby says to Dean in 15x20 when talking about how Jack and Cas had changed up Heaven before he got there. “The way it should have always been.” That’s all it was. So in essence, that’s not the show glorifying the abuse or even wincest in general.

Anon, I have to be honest. It seems like you have a lot of gripes with individual groups in this fandom and that’s totally fine. But I kind of feel that you’re coming to me with all of said gripes, not for the sake of discourse, but to make me have to answer to them all. Whether that be destiel, Cockles, Jensen critics, anti-wincesters, or anti-J2ers, SPN itself, etc. And ultimately, I’m not responsible for any group or anything to do with each of them. I am only responsible for how I choose to conduct myself on this social media platform we’re on. And I can tell you 100% that I am not a heller in the derogatory sense that you are implicating me (and essentially my followers) to be. Do I ship destiel? Absolutely. Do I write meta about them and showcase how the show was going there even before 15x18 and celebrate the fact that destiel is indeed canon? Yes. In no way do I travel around this site trying to enforce my beliefs on others. The most I’ve done is respond to some of the bullying and harassment I’ve seen others be subject to over the last 2 years (specifically since 15x18 aired) by commenters/posters where they very much are shoving their opinions and beliefs down their throats while also invalidating not only others’ thoughts and feelings they don’t agree with but also invalidating their identities and desire for representation and devaluing them as human beings in general.

You say you don’t care but do you realize that you are technically doing what you said you don’t want people to do to you? I’ve been very open on this blog about what I ship and what I don’t, what I am in favor of and what I’m an anti of. I’ve even made anti-wincest posts as a matter of fact. I tag appropriately and I reblog content along those lines. While I understand and appreciate that you are just sharing your thoughts and we are having a civil discourse, I do wonder why you feel the need to keep trying to impress upon me through these 2 asks (and particularly this one) that essentially, destiel is bad and wincest is good. I’m glad if you felt my ask box was a safe space where you could share these opinions, I think that’s important, but you are stating them in such a way that I do feel like you are trying to police my beliefs and what I choose to ship, etc. I have no idea who you are (obviously you’re on anon) so I’m not sending you any asks obviously but you do not see me going to pro-wincest blogs to state my beliefs in a similar manner to how you are stating things here. Just some food for thought.

I actually agree with you here, Anon. I don’t ship J2, Cockles, Jenneel, Jarevieve, Kimilia, Bennifer, or any other RPF pairing, actually romantically involved or not. It’s just not my cup of tea. I don’t judge others who do, the ones who like you said, maintain appropriate boundaries. The rest of it? I’m not a fan. Those who are super pushy and disrespectful about it, completely disregarding the fact that these are human beings who have personal lives along with marriages/relationships and/or families? That is not only distasteful but also very disturbing. And that is where the point I made about Jensen and Co needing to assert boundaries comes in. Should the fans automatically respect them? Absolutely. But those guys also need to enforce them. For example, I now have better context on what you mentioned about the supposed Cockles kiss request. I know now that Misha and Jensen talked about them giving up and giving in to fan requests at photo ops, in separate panels. This is exactly what I was talking about in your previous ask. Jensen and Misha should have kept saying no and maintaining that boundary. But they didn’t and chose to indulge (or at the very least, keep from declining) some of the more specific requests brought to them that might have made them uncomfortable at some point. That’s not victim blaming; that’s stating that the person who has the power in the situation (ultimately J & M) should have enforced the boundary if they didn’t want to ever acquiesce to a certain type of photo op request/have a certain type of fan interaction. While people shouldn’t ask them to kiss, for example, they also shouldn’t give in and kiss if it makes them uncomfortable. They shouldn’t give in or be worn down is my point.

Jensen is not in any way homophobic that I’ve personally seen. To be fair, I don’t know the man, only the public persona he presents (and even then our knowledge is limited), but based on what I’ve seen and read from the guy himself, I don’t see that. Not only has he been involved with an outreach program for the LGBTQIA community but he also has a family member that is a member of that community that he appears to be close with. Not to mention that there have been reports (from either people who knew him back then or himself) that he defended a classmate back in school who was gay, from what I'm not exactly sure but I assume it was bullying. The man is constantly evolving and growing/learning (like any other human being) and he has a come long way from his younger days and a time period where the idea of someone being gay was okay but was still treated as “the other” and something you didn’t want to talk about or focus on too much. It took years for society to start evolving past this (and we obviously still have a long way to go) and media helped with that in the forms of films like Brokeback Mountain and television shows such as The L Word and Queer As Folk as well as same sex marriage finally being legalized countrywide in the US. Gay, Lesbian, and LGBTQIA characters were always kept on the outskirts of the main story in any film/televsion show/book (if they were there at all), but now they were (and are) being moved to the forefront (as they should be) as the mains. Now, today, we have not only a Black Batwoman but also a Black Lesbian Batwoman. We have Henrietta Wilson in 9-1-1 who is a Black Lesbian firefighter. That was all unheard of even five years ago. We also have Clarke Griffin in the 100 who is a Bisexual Female main character. We have Love, Simon. We have TK and Carlos in 9-1-1:Lonestar or aka Tarlos as a main couple of the show. We even have Crowley in SPN who was confirmed (by the story events) to be Pansexual. And we’re continuing to get more and more representation as each day passes, not just for LGBTQIA but also the Transgender community as well as for POC and Women. Jensen, Jared, and all the rest have also evolved as has everyone else that works in the industry with how they approach certain topics and how they address things publicly. I don’t pretend to speculate or know what Jensen and Jared think in their heads obviously but it appears that as individuals they have also grown with the times.

The fans who do call Jensen homophobic are obviously not real fans. They don’t listen to what the guy says or what his actions speak louder than any words of his could. They’re simply saying that because based on the context you’re giving here in your examples, he didn’t say something they wanted to hear. Saying destiel isn’t real isn’t homophobic, it’s invalidating. There’s a difference. Of course people were going to be upset when he said that (I wasn’t around then myself) because it invalidates their reading/interpretation of events going on in the show. Which you yourself stated above that people have the right to, which let’s face it, is just basic common sense and all fans/viewers should understand that not everyone will see things in the show the same way. But it also probably upset some because by those words, Jensen just unintentionally gave ammunition to certain hateful sections of this fandom that do jump on destiel posts and hate on said poster, that keep insisting Dean is straight and only likes women, and that there’s something wrong with those people (yep, I’ve seen a TON of this the last two years on here myself, especially after what Jared said at Denver Con 2021). And speaking as someone who is LGBTQIA, that shit is tiring to say the least. It’s exhausting, it’s hurtful, and it’s toxic. So naturally people were going to be upset when he said that. I think he’s learned from it (and possibly other examples), though, and that is why he is so careful to keep saying now that people can interpret the DeanCas relationship and Cas’ “I love you” how they want to. (even though Misha did say it was intended to be romantic and Berens wrote it with that intention)

Here’s what I think when Jensen says he didn’t play Dean as bi:

1) That’s a genuine answer because he is the actor who read the scripts, got noted by directors, and most likely discussed his character’s progression with not only the writers but also Kripke at one time or another. Not to mention, he has lived inside that character’s skin for 15 years and has gotten to know him pretty well. So if he didn’t assimilate a possibly different romantic or sexual orientation into his performance, he didn’t. It doesn’t take away from the edits or scripts that the show had, but he as a performer, did not come from that place in his performance. That’s fine. It’s his personal read on the character and his interpretation, and obviously this carries weight because once again, he had inside knowledge of the character and the story, being that he played Dean himself.

2) This does not take away from anyone’s interpretation of Dean being bi. Once again, the show chose to air certain takes of scenes/edited shots and include lines of dialogue that very much implicate that there is a strong possibility that Dean has a slight interest in various male characters. It may be unintentional most of the time but there is absolutely queer coding in there, and at the very least it produces the possibility of had destiel become a canon relationship in the show (with non-binary Cas obviously not being really male, only in a male presenting body) or Dean had been with another male character for either a sexual encounter, a flirtation, or a date, that it would be possible and not completely out of left field. If you don’t believe there is queer coding in how Dean was written, allow me to give you two examples. A) Do we ever question Sam’s supposed romantic or sexual orientations? Are we ever surprised when Sam gets involved with a woman? Whether that be Eileen or Amelia or that diner waitress or even Blurry Wife? Was him being romantically and sexually attracted to women ever doubted? No. And why? Because Sam wasn’t written with queer coding. B) Kripke has talked about in the past how Dean was not only to be the Hans Solo of this universe but that he also gleaned slightly from On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Dean Moriarty is based on Neal Cassady who not only was sexually promiscous but also reportedly had an on again/off again sexual relationship with Allen Ginsberg for years. It’s not much of a stretch, especially with the things/hints that the show chose to include in their final edits and air, for some to interpret Dean as bisexual or at the very least biromantic. Subtext is very much a thing (look at Buffy and Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer for example, look at Brooke and Rachel in One Tree Hill, particularly the scene where they join the Clean Teen club aka subtext) and it is peppered throughout the show, particularly when it comes to Dean and Cas, especially in season 8 and beyond.

3) Even though I stated above that Jensen has grown, there is one actor who I would love to quote, as his attitude towards it all is the right one and should be the model that all actors should follow moving forward. That actor is Oliver Stark from 9-1-1. He himself replied to a comment left on one of his Instagram posts, where the commenter was telling people to stop forcing a gay ship (i.e. Buddie) onto the actors and to quit making them uncomfortable. And here was his response:

Pure perfection. And you know why? Because this is exactly how an actor should look at a character that they’re playing. The romantic and sexual orientations may be key components to the character just as much as say what happened to them in childhood, what their relationship with their parents is like, did they get their heart broken in high school or college, did they ever try drugs, did they ever go to jail, what kind of job do they have, how do they respond when in a situation, etc., but that’s all they are. They essentially make up the character. It’s not something to be feared or that would make someone uncomfortable or the other. That narrative of LGBTQIA being the other needs to stop. Love is love and that’s it. Any actor worth their salt knows this to be true and doesn’t let it hinder their performances or prevent them from taking a role (unless they are truly uncomfortable and decline it instead but if they take it, then they should not be surprised and uncomfortable should something develop in the character or within the story line, especially if they discuss it with the writers/showrunners). Each different character they portray that is human is just that: human. And last I checked, we have 7.9 billion different versions of those running around the planet.

As for Jensen’s own discomfort, I am willing to bet (though tbf like I said above I’m not inside the man’s head) this had more to do with how he sees the character and plays him, his own interpretation of the material he was presented with when filming the show, based on the discussions he had with Kripke, Singer, and the writers/showrunners. I don’t think he was uncomfortable with the idea of Dean being bi or being in love with Cas or any other male character for the sake of being uncomfortable about the character’s purported sexuality or romantic orientation. He played a bisexual character in Blonde after all, and had no issues with it. I believe he even stated at some point when asked by a fan should they choose to make Eric Brady gay in the show, that he would be okay with it. (tbf, I’ve never seen the show so I have no idea what the context of this fan ask was) And like I said above, he’s not homophobic. I think he was initially uncomfortable when people suggested Dean might be bi and that he might be in love with Cas because that’s not how he was trying to play the character. I think it all comes down to his performance for him, as it does for any natural born story teller. But that’s just my opinion. I obviously don’t know him personally and can’t 100% speak for him on that.

As for the nude fanart and his boundaries, it all goes back to what I’ve been saying all along. He needs to assert his boundaries and people need to stop bringing that stuff to him. It’s my understanding that these guys have handlers at cons that they do and from what I’ve read (I’ve never gone myself nor will I to be quite honest), everything they sign in autos needs to go through the handler first before being passed to them. If Jensen truly didn’t want to see a Dean dick pic for example or Dean and Cas getting it on in a painting, then he could refuse to sign or better yet, he could tell the handler 'if you see this, tell them thanks but no thanks'. Honestly, I have no idea if he ever signed anything that was nude for Dean or destiel or wincest related. But again, he has the power to do that, to say no. And do I think fans should be bringing these things to him or to Jared or to Misha to sign or to show them? No, I don’t. Once again, I’ll use the example of reverse roles. If these guys were bringing this kind of art to actresses to have them sign, that’s not appropriate. Say if male fans brought a painting that was NSFW and/or sexual for WildMoore to Javicia or Meagan to sign, that’s not appropriate. NSFW artwork should remain in the fandom imho. However, if the painting is a SFW kiss between two individuals or them holding hands or hugging or laying down together or on a date, I don’t see the harm. At that point, it becomes again about Jensen’s (and these guys’) boundaries and what he feels comfortable signing.

And while I agree with you about how sad it is how Jensen has been treated over the years, once again, it’s up to him on what he allows in a fan interaction. He can’t control what people tweet or say about him online or in videos, but he does have the power to curate his interactions with fans at cons, for photo ops or autos or even how he chooses to answer a question in a panel (or not answer if he doesn’t want to answer). That also goes for Jared, Misha, the rest of the SPN cast, and any other celebrity/performer. Boundaries, I will keep saying it until the end of the time. And anyone who doesn’t respect those boundaries once they’re asserted and keep being asserted doesn’t belong in the convention centers. That’s the bottom line. It's a basic truth.

What you need to understand is this. J2 aren't anti wincest or destiel.

I do understand that and while I don’t think it was your intention to come across this way, that statement is slightly condescending. But yes, I agree. Actors are not their characters. I don’t know how many times I’ve said this in the past two years as have others on this site, the ones who have a clear distinction between fantasy and reality. For example, Jensen is a bit of a sore topic for me right now (not the man himself but what I mentioned above), but I have no aversion to Dean content whatsoever. Why? Because I can compartmentalize and I know what’s real vs what’s not. So please don’t assume that I or anyone else you interact with here that may be a destiel blog or even a cockles or J2 one don’t also have this understanding.

As in, they don't care if you ship either. J2 joke about wincest. Send wincest fanfiction/art to each other. Prank Alex. They don't even care if you ship J2 or cockles. They might have in early years, but like I said, they had to get used to it. But they care when you blast your ship in their face and ask them to validate it. They didn't play wincest or destiel. Jensen didn't play a bi character. Didn't play Dean as in love with Cas or Sam.

Yes, and they also don’t care if you ship destiel. Despite what Jensen may have said in the past, he also has made jokes with Jared and Misha about it. As a matter of fact, after 15x18 aired, Jensen himself stated that he and Misha were exchanging fan reactions to the confession scene (which if you think about it, it's very interesting because if Cas’ confession wasn’t romantic, then why were they so interested in the reaction to the confession itself? Makes you think, doesn’t it? Because if it was just about Cas' death/ending, Misha may have shared those with Jensen but Jensen didn't need to remark on it publicly. Hmm 🤔). Jensen did watch a few of those reactions. He stated as much after that episode aired.

I get what you’re saying about fans asking the guys to validate their ships but I do have to ask, do you think wincest shippers haven’t done the same? (does anyone remember when this person Kelios supposedly disagreed with Jensen on how he and Jared performed a Sam and Dean hug? I think it was at a Jibcon?) I’m not saying it’s appropriate. I do think some of them are honestly looking for validation for their reading of the show because it matters to them and they want to know they are on the right track or to have hope for either ship to come down the line. I also think some of them (namely destiel shippers and bi Dean fans) are looking for validation in representation which is even more important to them. Especially in a show that exuded toxic masculinity to a tee in earlier years and it was lacking in main LGBTQIA representation. Where the show in earlier years treated the idea of being gay as a punch line to a joke every single time it came up.

It's exactly why Jared talked about platonic love in Denver con. They are graciously allowing you your interpretation but asking you to not impose your views on them. Think about that.

Okay, number 1) It’s not gracious to allow fans to interpret the story and/or characters as they do. No one can tell you how to interpret something. Which is why wincest still goes strong even though the show has never confirmed them as canon, in principle or in relationship, but people refuse to hear the whole “They do know we’re brothers, right? Oh come on, that’s just sick” line in 4x18 that Dean said as well as Dean’s line in 10x05 “You know they’re brothers, right? Why don’t you take a substep back there, ladies?” along with Dean telling “Dean” and “Sam” to stand as close as they want but then also saying “I want you to put as much sub into that text” to “Cas” while she nods in response. They refuse to acknowledge that while the actors and show may not have a problem with people shipping the brothers together, it’s not somewhere they ever intended to go in that universe. The relationship was purely familial/brothers. Hence why Dean and Sam are not confessing romantic ILY’s to each other ever in the series, even in the end. Their ILY's are familial only. "I love you, my baby brother." It's right there. But regardless, people still see what they see and interpret how they interpret. Like Jensen said, he likened it to an analogy of two people looking at a painting. Person A may see something different than Person B and he is not going to be the person to tell either of them what they saw or invalidate their interpretations. So to use the word gracious for them allowing to happen what has been happening with art for decades, in all different forms, is incorrect. People will see and interpret no matter what the actors say, no matter what the show does or says, and no matter what some of the fandom says, even when presented with solid evidence that would hold up in a court trial with judge included and Jensen and Co testifying to prove to them that hey, this is what the show was trying to get across to the viewers on this particular subject/part of the show. And when people are asking for validation, that does not equate to them imposing their views on the actors. Imposing their views would be to cancel Jensen for example for saying destiel isn’t real. That’s imposing your views. Asking for validation is very different.

Number 2) Do not even get me started on what Jared said at Denver Con last year, please. That was not a validation for platonic love. That was homophobic and acephobic rhetoric that was actually harmful to the LGBTQIA community. Listen to those words again, pick them apart if you need to, break it down but for the love of the planet, that is NOT validation in how you or any wincest shipper/Jared stan thinks it is. That speech even superseded the topics of destiel, wincest, and even SPN. I’ve already spoken at length on this topic and just how harmful it was and also from a destiel perspective. I’m not diving back into it again. It took me quite a while to put that out of my mind and come back to my love of SPN on this site, and it also made me anti Jared. Not anti in the sense of I hate the guy or keep digging at him repeatedly, I don’t. I just don’t support him and really don’t care to see content of him come across my dash at all if it can be helped. I wish him well and hope he learns, but I’m out when it comes to him. You disagree? That’s totes fine but I won’t be discussing it further here, I’ve already said what I needed to say on this topic.

While you are correct that each individual viewer has the right to interpret the 15x18 confession scene how they interpret it, one thing that is not up for interpretation was the intent with which the scene was written and performed. You can still certainly see it as platonic if that’s what makes you feel better when it comes to this topic, but you can’t debate what has been said by the actor of the scene on not only how he tailored his performance to the written intention of the scene but also the discussion he had with the writer of the episode. (again, if not romantic, why the line 'Dean can't reciprocate' in the script? If it was just platonic or brotherly?) Jensen had to give his approval on it in order for the scene to even make it to production. (and again, if the confession wasn’t romantic, why did Jensen need to approve it? To use your words “think about that”) So if Misha says he acted that scene with romantic intention, then that’s it. Because you can’t make the argument about Jensen not acting Dean with bi intent or romantic intent when it comes to Cas and we should respect that, but then dismiss what Misha is saying about the 15x18 scene being intentionally romantic and that's how he acted it out. You just can’t. It’s one or the other. You can’t have both. Either we take what Jensen says at face value about Dean and what Misha says about Cas, or we don’t for both. That’s it.

And just a bit of background for you, the CW did do market research for destiel in 2016. They only decided to go through (halfway) with it in the final season. Feel free to look for those receipts on this site. They would have never done market research for that particular subject if there wasn’t a simple thought or discussion about it going on behind the scenes, just saying.

I brought up cockles shippers coz they're currently everywhere. J2 ship is almost dead. Cockles isn't. Cockles shippers are also notorious for stalking and harassing Jensen and even Misha. For getting their medical records, utility bills. Look up occamshipper person. They stalk Jensen's location. There are plenty more who do the same. These shippers have sent Jared death threats. Creation found these threats credible and has recently increased his security because of them. They have tried to cancel Walker. They have spread baseless rumours about Jared(like he's a sexual harasser) and these posts have hundreds of thousands of notes.

It’s interesting that you brought up occamshipper. I did not know who this person was until recently. Regardless of whether they ship Cockles or J2 or aren’t shippers at all, stalking, harassment, threats, and doxxing are NEVER okay. Obviously. I think that goes without being said really. I’m glad Jared has increased security. All of these guys should be safe at these conventions. Unfortunately, there are some people out there that are disturbed and resort to disgusting tactics like death threats or threats of violence upon a person. It is good that CE is taking it seriously and is stepping up security.

Once again, I don’t know anything about alleged sexual harassment claims made against Jared nor do I know anything about Walker or its run. I refused to watch Walker after the finale aired and have kept true to that. The only thing I’ve heard about Walker recently on this site is that Lindsey Morgan left the show. That’s it.

I don’t really know anything about the J2 ship fandom nor do I really care. That isn’t the circle I travel in so to speak. Same goes for Cockles. I enjoy Jensen and Misha’s friendship and their interactions and even some jokes on here (like ‘Jensen, do you know your husband is traveling around the country eating food on camera?’ which are innocent and harmless when they’re not sent to the actors or disrespectful to Danneel & their family or malicious in intent; same goes for Jared and Jensen and their panels/interviews) but that’s where it ends for me.

Once again, Anon, I feel that you are holding me personally responsible for the Cockles fandom as well as destiel, that you're holding my feet to the fire, and I will tell you again that not only is it completely unfair to me, but you need to bring these gripes to the appropriate groups you have issues with. Like I said above, I don’t mind civil discourse and I don’t mind my ask box being a safe space for those who just want to have said respectful discussions or to vent, but how on earth could I possibly answer for all of the Cockles fandom when I’m not even in that section of fandom myself? I feel that you are just venting your frustration and that’s fine, but continuing this particular part of the conversation I don’t feel would be productive for either of us. Nothing I say for or against these shippers and that fandom could possibly shed any more light on the subject or be helpful to anyone including yourself. So this will be the last time I touch upon the Cockles topic.

Jared, who has mhi, who wanted to quit in S10 but only stayed coz he didn't want the crew to loss jobs, who literally cried himself to sleep everyday coz he couldn't handle the pressure. This man who donates millions to LGBT charities and who suffered so much during supernatural, they bully and harass him because of a rpf ship. They send him death threats. When shipping has real life impacts like this, it needs to be called out. You talked about a fictional ship(wincest) hurting real life people and here I have given you the real hurt caused by cockles shippers/hellers.

Once more, let me reiterate that I have no idea what you are referring to. I have no idea what Jared endured during the filming of SPN in earlier seasons. Let me remind you, I only dove into the fandom as recently as 2020, which obviously season 10 and anything occurring around that time was way before that. I only know of Jared’s initiative/campaign of AFK that he started. That’s it. While I didn’t mind Jared and I liked Sam as I watched SPN over the years, I wasn’t a fan of him so to speak and so I didn’t follow his career at all. I was a fan of Jensen and did follow his career but I didn’t know anything about his personal life or who he was as a person or anything pertaining to that until I got involved in the fandom. Before that, I had no idea who he was married to, how many kids he had, how he spoke at cons (I hadn’t watched a single Jibcon video for example), that he could sing, that he had a brewery in Austin, etc. So, if I didn’t know anything about Jensen like that before 2020, imagine how little I knew about Jared and Misha.

And also let me remind you that while you speak of what Jared has suffered (who shouldn’t be forced to endure or suffer any of this horrible treatment he got that you’re referring to), do you really think that Jensen and Misha have not received the same type of treatment from disturbed groups of fans at one point in time or another? Despite the good things they have done in the name of charity? Despite their positive interactions with their fans? I’m not saying any of it’s right, of course it’s not, but they all have gone through it. Should they have had to? No, ofc not. But they have all been through it. If you ask me, Jared seems to be doing better now and appears to be happy. (I’ve only seen him in con photos/videos with Jensen) So despite the increased security threat he may currently be under at cons, he is still living his best life and doing well and isn’t that all we could want for the guy? Same goes for Jensen and Misha. In no way am I saying any of this treatment or behavior is okay, I just want to clarify. I’m just saying the three of them will be okay and hopefully the people who are doing such abhorrent behaviors are caught and then be subject to the consequences of said behaviors.

Okay, I only said that wincest is harmful to people because it glorifies abuse (which we determined up above that it’s more the shippers that do that, not the ship itself). I think you’re either misreading/misunderstanding or misconstruing my words. I even gave you specific points in that previous ask that prove what I said. As an abuse survivor myself, I absolutely can recognize and point out how abuse being glorified is harmful. To dismiss the fact of abuse being glorified as harmful is not just dismissive but also deeply concerning. I’m not saying you’re wrong with what you’ve said about the extreme behaviors of a select few when it comes to Jared or Jensen or Misha, but it doesn’t negate the point that a ship, fictional or otherwise, having abuse glorified within it is harmful. To imply that the harm this does is not “real” because it’s a fictional ship vs RPF ships is absolutely hurtful itself and very cold and apathetic. Please keep that in mind when going forward and interacting with others on this site. You never know who is an abuse survivor and who is not (unless they specifically tell you or speak on their experience), and you never know what someone has been through. So please, if nothing else, please hear what I’m saying to you here.

Have a nice day.

You say that you don’t have the energy to respond to my last paragraphs on the previous ask but you keep expending energy to keep making the same point over and over again. I’ve already said what I’m going to say about Jensen and his boundaries up above and due to the energy I’ve expended in replying to your ask here as well as the harassment I received from AA’s for having the audacity to criticize two things Jensen said in his podcast interview with MR, I’m not going to keep repeating myself and I’m also not going to continue to touch upon the topic. As I said above, if you feel that’s victim blaming, that’s how you choose to take it/interpret it. I know for a fact that it isn’t and many experts in different fields would agree. Because it’s basic common sense. We as a society obviously have a longer way to go in our understanding of boundaries and all they entail, especially when it comes to enforcing them and teaching other people how we want to be treated. That’s not victim blaming, Anon, but like I said, your choice on how you interpret it.

Personally, Anon, while I feel that you made a lot of good points here, it’s obvious to me that you’re very frustrated on some of these topics you mentioned. For example, you apparently have a lot of anger towards the Cockles fandom/shippers and even seem to have a distaste for destiel. That’s all fine and good, it’s your prerogative, but I myself don’t have anger or frustration towards either group. I am a self-professed destiel shipper; I’ve never pretended to be anything else. I don’t ship Cockles and while I may not care for some of the content clogging the Jensen tag recently (tho tbf I stopped looking at his tag after all of the AA harassment I received a couple of weeks ago), I don’t have any anger or ill will towards the group itself. As in any fandom, in any section of it, there are good and bad apples. And just like in any other group, the bad apples tend to ruin it for everyone else and/or go to the extreme. Cockles, J2 - both have similar good and bad experiences. While I may not agree with the bad’s actions in either group, I don’t hate them or feel anger towards them or wish them ill in any way. I do hope they stop exhibiting any bad or extreme behaviors, especially if they make the actors uncomfortable, but I can’t control them or what they do or say or think. If you want to speak up to them on Jared’s or Jensen’s or Misha’s behalf, by all means, please do so. I myself, however, am not getting involved. If I was in charge of Jared’s or Jensen’s security or married to either one of them or they were my brother or good friend, then obviously that would be a different story. But I’m not and they are not. Alas, I am not stepping up to the plate to take on the world for them, sorry. I doubt they would want me to anyway, even if they were aware of my existence and/or just how much the fandom fights on here. If you want to take up that mantle and defend them against the Big Bads in the Cockles fandom and the SPN fandom in general, go right ahead. Bring all of your valid points to their doorsteps and duke it out with them. I’ll be here in my little corner of the Tumblrverse rooting for you.

Anon, if you ship wincest, then more power to you. I personally am anti wincest and I ship destiel, so I’m not sure how much more of a continued discourse between us would be productive here on this topic. We can agree to disagree because obviously, neither of us are going to change our minds.

I wish you well, too, Anon. I hope you are enjoying your weekend. Btw, I did get your other ask that you asked me not to post and I just want to say I hope you’re feeling better now and that you’re no longer sick. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and perspective, even though we disagreed on a lot. But thank you all the same.

I hope you have a nice rest of your evening. ✌️

#ask #ask answered #anti cockles due to content of ask #J2 mention due to content of ask #anti wincest due to content of reply #destiel #anti wincest #jackles #putting jackles tag due to content of ask #antiwincest

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liquidstar · 3 years

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I feel as if many people, myself included, have been having problems with the way “critical thinking” is conducted in fandom circles more and more. Which I’d say is a good thing, because it means we’re thinking critically. But still the issues with the faux-critical mentality and with the way we consume media through that fandom group mentality are incredibly widespread at this point, despite being very flawed, and there are still plenty of people who follow it blindly, ironically.

I sort of felt like I had to examine my personal feelings on it and I ended up writing a whole novel, which I’ll put under the cut, and I do welcome other people’s voices in the matter, because while I’m being as nuanced as I can here I obviously am still writing from personal experience and may overlook some things from my limited perspective. But by and large I think I’ve dissected the phenomena as best I can from what I’ve been seeing going on in fandom circles from a safe but observable distance.

Right off the bat I want to say, I think it's incredibly good and necessary to be critical of media and understand when you should stop consuming it, but that line can be a bit circumstantial sometimes for different people. There are a lot of anime that I used to watch as a teenager that I can’t enjoy anymore, because I got more and more uncomfortable overtime with the sexualization of young characters, partly because as I was getting older I was really starting to realize how big of an issue it was, and I certainly think more critically now than I did when I was 14. Of course I don’t assume everyone who still watches certain series is a pedophile, and I do think there are plenty of fans that understand this. However I still stay away from those circles and that’s a personal choice.

I don’t think a person is morally superior based on where they draw the line and their own boundaries with this type of stuff, what’s more important is your understanding of the problem and response to it. There are series I watch that have a lot of the same issues around sexualization of the young characters in the cast, but they’re relatively toned down and I can still enjoy the aspects of the series I actually like without it feeling as uncomfortable and extreme. Others will not be able to, and their issues with it are legitimate and ones that I still ultimately agree with, but they’re still free to dislike the series for it, after all our stance on the issue itself is the same so why would I resent them for it?

Different people are bound to have different lines they draw for how far certain things can go in media before they’re uncomfortable watching it and it doesn’t make it a moral failing of the person who can put up with more if they’re still capable of understanding why it’s bad to begin with and able to not let it effect them. But I don’t think that sentiment necessarily contradicts the idea that some things really are too far gone for this to apply, the above examples aren’t the same thing as a series centered solely around lolicon ecchi and it doesn’t take a lot of deep analysis to understand why. It’s not about a personal line anymore when it comes to things that are outright propaganda or predatory with harmful ideals woven into the message of the story itself. Critical thinking means knowing the difference between these, and no one can hold your hand through it. And simply slapping “I’m critical of my interests” on your bio isn’t a get out of jail free card, it’s always evident when someone isn’t truly thinking about the impact of the media they consume through the way they consume it.

I think the issue is that when people apply “Critical thinking” they don’t actually analyze the story and its intent, messages, themes, morals, and all that. Instead they approach it completely diegetically, it’s basically the thermian argument, the issue stems from thinking about the story and characters as if they’re real people and judging their actions through that perspective, rather than something from a writer trying to deliver a narrative by using the story and characters as tools. Like how people get upset about characters behaving “problematically” without realizing that it’s an intentional aspect of the story, that the character needs to cause problems for there to be conflict. What they should be looking at instead is what their behavior represents in the real world.

You do not need to apply real-world morals to fictional characters, you need to apply them to the narrative. The story exists in the real world, the characters and events within it do not. Fictional murderers themselves do not hurt anyone, no one is actually dying at their hands, but their actions hold weight in the narrative which itself can harm real people. If the character only murders gay people then it reflects on whatever the themes and messages of the story are, and it’s a major issue if it's framed as if they’re morally justified, or as if this is a noble action. And it’s a huge red flag if people stan this character, even if the story itself actually presents their actions as reprehensible. Or cases where the murderers themselves are some kind of awful stereotype, like Buffalo Bill who presents a violent and dangerous stereotype of trans women, making the character a transmisogynistic caricature (Intentional or otherwise) that has caused a lot of harm to the perception of trans women. When people say “Fiction affects reality” this is what they mean. They do not mean “People will see a pretend bad guy and become bad” they mean “Ideals represented in fiction will be pulled from the real world and reflected back onto it.”

However, stories shouldn’t have to spoon-feed you the lesson as if you’re watching a children’s cartoon, stories often have nuances and you have to actively analyze the themes of it all to understand it’s core messages. Oftentimes it can be intentionally murky and hard to parse especially if the subject matter itself is complicated. But you can’t simply read things on the surface and think you understand everything about them, without understanding the symbolism or subtext you can leave a series like Revolutionary Girl Utena thinking the titular Utena is heterosexual and was only ever in love with her prince. Things won’t always be face-value or clear-cut and you will be forced to come to your own conclusions sometimes too.

That’s why the whole fandom-based groupthink mentality about “critical thinking” doesn’t work, because it’s not critical. It’s simply looking into the crowd, seeing people say a show is problematic, and then dropping it without truly understanding why. It’s performative, consuming the best media isn’t activism and it doesn’t make you a better person. Listening to the voices of people whom the issues directly concerns will help you form an opinion, and to understand the issues from a more knowledgeable perspective beyond your own. All that means nothing if you just sweep it under the rug because you want to look infallible in your morality. That’s not being critical, it’s just being scared to analyze yourself, as well as what you engage with. You just don’t want to think about those things and you’re afraid of being less than perfect so you pretend it never happened.

And though I’m making this post, it’s not mine or anyone else’s job to hold your hand through all this and tell you “Oh this show is okay, but this show isn't, and this book is bad etc etc etc”. Because you actually have to think for yourself, you know, critically. Examples I’ve listed aren’t rules of thumb, they’re just examples and things will vary depending on the story and circumstance. You have to look at shit on a case-by-case basis instead of relying on spotting tropes without thinking about how they’re implemented and what they mean. That’s why it’s analysis, you have to use it to understand what the narrative is communicating to its audience, explicitly or implicitly, intentionally or incidentally, and understand how this reflects the real world and what kind of impact it can have on it.

A big problem with fandom is it has made interests synonymous with personality traits, as if every series we consume is a core part of our being, and everything we see in it reflects our viewpoints as well. So when people are told that a show they watched is problematic, they react very extremely, because they see it as basically the same thing as saying they themselves are problematic (It’s not). Everyone sees themselves as good people, they don’t want to be bad people, so this scares them and they either start hiding any evidence that they ever liked it, or they double down and start defending it despite all its flaws, often providing those aforementioned thermian arguments (“She dresses that way because of her powers!”).

That’s how you get people who call children’s cartoons “irredeemable media” and people who plaster “fiction=/= reality!” all over their blogs, both are basically trying to save face either by denying that they could ever consume anything problematic or denying that the problematic aspects exist all together. And absolutely no one is actually addressing the core issues anymore, save for those affected by them who pointed them out to begin with, only for their original point to become muffled in the discourse. No one is thinking critically because they’re more concerned with us-vs-them group mentality, both sides try to out-perform the other while the actual issue gets ignored or is used as nothing more than a gacha with no true understanding or sympathy behind it.

One of the other issues that comes from this is the fact that pretty much everyone thinks they’re the only person capable of being critical of their interests. That’s how you get those interactions where one person goes “OK [Media] fan” and another person replies “Bro you literally like [Other Media]”, because both parties think they’re the only ones capable of consuming a problematic piece of media and not becoming problematic themselves, anyone else who enjoys it is clearly incapable of being as big brained as them. It’s understandable because we know ourselves and trust ourselves more than strangers, and I’m not saying there can’t be certain fandoms who’s fans you don’t wanna interact with, but when we presume that we know better than everyone else we stop listening to other people all together. It’s good to trust your own judgement, it’s bad to assume no one else has the capacity to think for themselves either though.

The insistence that all media that you personally like is without moral failing and completely pure comes with the belief that all media that you personally dislike has to be morally bad in some way. As if you can’t just dislike a series because you find it annoying or it just doesn’t appeal to you, it has to be problematic, and you have to justify your dislike of it through that perspective. You have to believe that your view on whatever media it is is the objectively correct one, so you’ll likely pick apart all it’s flaws to prove you’re on the right side, but there’s no analysis of context or intent. Keep in mind this doesn’t necessarily mean those critiques are unfounded or invalid, but in cases like this they’re often skewed in one direction based on personal opinion. It’s just as flawed as ignoring all the faults in the stuff you like, it’s biased and subjective analysis that misses a lot of context in both cases, it’s not a good mindset to have about consuming media. It’s just another result of tying media consumption with identity and personal morals. The faux-critical mentality is an attempt to separate the two in a way that implies they’re a packaged deal to begin with, making it sort of impossible to truly do so in any meaningful way.

As far as I know this whole phenomena started with “Steven Universe Critical” in, like, 2016, and that’s where this mentality around “critical thinking” originated. It started out with just a few people correctly pointing out very legitimate issues with the series, but over time it grew into just a trend where people would make cutesy kin blogs with urls like critical-[character] or [character]crit to go with the fad as it divulged into Nostalgia Critic level critique. Of course there was backlash to this and criticism of the criticism, but no actual conversation to be had. Just people trying to out-do each other by acting as the most virtuous one in the room, and soon enough the fad became a huge echo-chamber that encouraged more and more outrageous takes for every little thing. The series itself was a children’s cartoon so it stands to reason that a lot of the fans were young teens, so this behavior isn’t too surprising and I do believe a lot of them did think they were doing the right thing, especially since it was encouraged. But that doesn’t erase the fact that there were actual real issues and concerns brought up about the series that got treated with very little sympathy and were instead drowning out people’s voices. Though those from a few years back may have grown up since and know better (Hopefully), the mentality stuck around and influenced the norm for how fandoms and fandom people conduct any sort of critique on media.

That’s a shame to me, because the pedestal people place fandom onto has completely disrupted our perception on how to engage with media in a normal way. Not everything should be consumed with fandom in mind, not everything is a coffee-shop au with no conflict, not everything is a children’s cartoon with the morals spoon-fed to you. Fandom has grown past the years of uncritical praise of a series, it’s much more mainstream now with a lot more voices in it beyond your small community on some forum, and people are allowed to use those voices. Just because it may not be as pleasant for you now because you don’t get to just turn your brain off and ignore all the flaws doesn’t mean you can put on your rose-tinted nostalgia goggles and pretend that fandom is actually all that is good in the world, to the point where you place it above the comfort and safety of others (Oftentimes children). Being uncritical of fandom itself is just as bad as being uncritical of what you consume to begin with.

At the end of the day it all just boils down to the ability to truly think for yourself but with sympathy and compassion for other people in mind, while also understanding that not everyone will come to the same conclusion as you and people are allowed to resent your interests. That doesn’t necessarily mean they hate you personally, you should be acknowledging the same issues after all. You can’t ignore aspects of it that aren’t convenient to your conclusion, you have to actually be critical and understand the issues to be able to form it.

I think that all we need is to not rely on fandom to tell us what to do, but still listen to the voices of others, take them into account to form our opinion too, boost their voices instead of drowning them out in the minutiae of internet discourse about which character is too much of an asshole to like. Think about what the characters and story represent non-diegetically instead of treating them like real people and events, rather a story with an intent and message to share through its story and characters, and whatever those reflect from the real world. That’s how fiction affects reality, because it exists in reality and reflects reality through its own lens. The story itself is real, with a real impact on you and many others, so think about the impact and why it all matters. Just… Think. Listen to others but think for yourself, that’s all.

#see i told you guys id find that essay and post it for real. i wasnt kidding.#good luck inbox of mine :praying:

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reddeadreference · 2 years

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Blog Progress Update (Travel Blog Style #17)

Pearson is drunk, Grimshaw is screaming at Mary-Beth for looking in a mirror, Karen is screaming at Grimshaw for killing Molly, Dutch is screaming at Grimshaw

I HATE IT HERE

This whole time.. I never realized the gang DOES know Arthur is sick… like … Strauss says something when you start the last Money Lending mission. And he says it like he KNOWS Arthur isn’t just sick. Like he knows Arthur is terminally ill.

And I just tried to talk to Javier.

A: ”Can we talk?”

J: "I don't have much to say to you right now."

Okay Ouch..wtf did I do to you?! is this cause I just threw out Strauss???

A: “Guess I’ll leave you to it then.”

J: "You just worry about that cough."

BRUH

Like… ik he's 1000% loyal to Dutch but like… that HURT. Like my eyes actually started tearing up. How dare you, Arthur doesn't deserve this kind of treatment…

Jack just said "I don't like waking up in this place" yup now I'm crying. Me too bud..

"I wish people would stop being mean." ME TOO BUD T_T

I get so upset in this chapter because Arthur literally has known Dutch the longest out of anyone there, John second, and people are doubting both of them like they don’t know Dutch better than everyone else… but I mean I get it cause Dutch saved most of them and they feel like they owe him but… fuck man…

Did Marko’s second mission, Charlotte's first and second mission, All of Edith's, Finished Jim Boy Calloway’s, and I did one of Hamish's and I’m about to go fishing with him (Arthur is so happy to have a friend...). Before that I went and got that Legendary Bear that I honestly just forgot about… I did it for you Hosea (#1 dad. Miss you man…)

I’m going to get through the rest of the game tonight… it’s 2am… okay I’m gonna TRY… I wanna at least get to the build a house montage. (and then stop Immediately after O_O)

Okay that above paragraph did not happen and was written two days ago…

Got a lot of other stuff done though... Now time to get John outta jail.

DONE. and now Micah and Dutch are out of camp! WOO!

Helped Beau and Penelope one last time. Now I just need to finish all the other strangers missions that I can (Charlotte, Hamish, Mr B& Mr W, William,)

I almost have Doverhill’s post done, and I’m excited to post it cause I edited gifs (really I just put filters over the video and made them into gifs… but still! I think they look nice..) just need an outside shot which I swear I had but must’ve deleted…

I also wanna see about making more gifs cause it’s fun.

Damn it I tried in vain to kill the boar before it could get Hamish… Arthur was so excited to do stuff with Hamish. I’ll take care of Buell... (I just wish John could get him...)

I’m hoping that in a few hours I’ll have finished Doverhill, Willard’s Rest, Hamish’s House (I’m pretty sure I can go inside now), Catfish Jackson which I never got the outside of, I’m gonna see if I can get a few Lake/Pond posts done to. I’m also working on Outfit posts of the outfits you can get in the stores (like I list each part that you can change on them and which parts are exclusive to the outfit, etc.)

(I do also have to finish the rest of the legendary stuff cause I need Arthur’s drawings of those.)

I’m also working on a master list of audio clips from @scarfacemarston ‘s blog (I asked and they said it was okay ^_^ thank you again) I’m sorting through them all, separating them on a google doc so i can make the page and posts for them. There’s clips from April 2020 to now(March 2022) and going backwards I’ve gotten to mid June 2020 lol so that’s a bigger process of this project but I’m excited for it (Cause I also get to listen to a bunch of audio from the game ^^ and I can do it on my laptop anywhere as opposed to just my room)

#rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #blog progress update

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nuggsmum · 3 years

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Why you're flagged again? 😱 Stupid Dumblr

My blog was released from pixel jail yesterday only to have an ancient post dredged up and flagged this morning, resulting in my blog being marked as explicit again. This one was due to a gif a user before me had used that the image had already been removed due to community guidelines. I’ve spent the better part of the day deleting every single post from the inception of my blog up to to the purge date in December of 2018. I’m up to august or September of 2017. I’m tired and I’m pissed. I’ve deleted everything except the text posts of my own stories. Cute animal photos because I got a flagged one a few weeks ago of an adorable little duck that was reversed when I appealed it but. Can’t be too safe now can we????? Fucking duck. A duck. Memes. Tag games. Shit posts. Everything. I’ve deleted conversations with people who are no longer here. Their stories that you can’t access anymore because they’ve deactivated their blogs or they were dusted. Some of these people were such a huge influence and supported me in starting to write and I wanted to cry as I removed them from my blog history. All because tumblr can’t get their shit together. I’m mad that something from before the purge can result in my blog getting marked explicit when 1. I didn’t even post the offending article 2. It was already removed 3. It was prior to the change in service. It should be hidden from view and move on. @staff needs to rethink this system. I don’t post adult content. I scrubbed my blog before the purge and removed the like six offensive things there were. I went through and removed anything that could have even been thought nsfw the last time this happened (for a picture of fucking Hiddleston’s back. I get it. Too hot for you, huh staff?) before they would release my blog. Then it happened again even though I’m very careful about what I post. And then again. I know it’s seems like I’m whining but this is absolute bullshit and I’m tired. It’s not worth my time and effort that I put into my writing if I can’t reach my fucking audience because my blog is wrongly flagged. It just makes it seem like it’s not worth fighting when it happened within 24 hours of it being corrected. Sorry. I’m rambling. I’m just literally at my wits end due to personal reasons and I know this is such a stupid thing to get upset over but my blog is my escape and my safe place and this is making me hate it here. I don’t have an escape right now. I don’t have a place that I can relax and just Fuck off.

TL/DR : tumblr fucking sucks and needs to rethink their flagging system and nuggs is losing her shit. 😒

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criptochecca · 2 years

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(wrt antifa/facist suicide post) I have really conflicting feelings on it that make me feel like I'm being pulled back and forth between literally wanting all fascists to fucking die but also feeling weird when anyone kills themselves 😕

like when it happens, I'm glad that they're gone and can't harm anyone else, but just kinda melancholy about suicide in general. i get a similar feeling anytime i hear about suicide that just feels kinda hollow (and honestly probably mostly stems from my personal history) it's an uncomfortable cognitive dissonance that I'm still trying to work through idk, but i have a wonderful therapist and, since I'm only 22, plenty of time to make impactful change in my way of thinking

also feel free not to respond to this or to delete it, I'm not trying to say your post didnt have a point because of my experience (part of why this is an ask and not a reply), i just thought about it again when I saw your post and felt like I needed to say it to someone so i could keep it from bouncing around my head (plus i find the whole conversation kinda interesting 🤗)

thanks for having anon on lol and the balls to call people out on their bullshit, following you (and other people/things obviously lmao) for the past few years has (subconsciously i think) helped me get into the habit of some casual forms of self reflection that I think have helped me a lot just in general

sorry this got kinda weird and sappy towards the end, but i do mean it so i felt like i should just go ahead and say it while i have the confidence to send an ask at all 🙃

i hope the rest of your day goes well!

hello anon :)

I'm gonna reply mostly because I wanna elaborate a little on what bothered me so much about this whole ordeal (putting this the disclaimer that i am very cynical and i dont think this guy actually killed himself but lets pretend he actually did)

I do think, despite everything, that everybody can change. Especially if they are still young. That said, when I think about fascists who made a 180 and became antifascists or even full out communists 98% of the examples that come to mind are people who grew up during fascist Italy and later joined the resistance or had something happen during their lives that changed the way they see the world (one example that comes to mind is Giulio Salierno, born in 36, who was a fascist during his teenae years, was jailed when he was 18 and in jail he read Marx with other inmates and became a communist).

But then, there is a HUGE difference between someone growing up in a fascist society, in a fascist school, later in life realizing fascism is bad and a 20 years old in the 2020s making an entire twitter blog on how Mussolini was actually a good guy and signing his *suicide letter* with "fascism will always live on*

But again, apart from that, what bothered me was how liberals were immediately jumping on the bandwagon of 1) deciding, completely arbitrarily, that this guy was just a naive teenager (again, 20/21 is obviously young but NOT *that* young) who was 100% groomed into becoming a fascist (how do you know that? how do you know that?) and 2) deciding that death is bad, always bad, doesn't matter who it happened to. And that to rejoice for the death of a fascist, a nazi, a racist, was actually even worse than being a fascist, a nazi a racist (there are also probably the same people who post daily the same meme of putin shooting himself but whatever)

Ok so, theres a young fascist and this young fascist decides to take his life, allegedly. Okay. Whatever. A part of me thinks that change is possible for anyone but also a part of me sees a guy talk good of the actions of Mussolini in Eritrea in 2022 and really does not care of what happens to them.

But it's this rethoric of "doesnt matter your belief, I will always support a fascist/a nazi/a racist because thats what good people do" abhorrent. This new generation "I will die to let you express your opinion" or whatever. I do not care about it, I do not care about the "right" of fascists to express their opinions. Like

this is not *twitter politics* this is a guy making an account just to revalue the life of Benito Mussolini. Idc.

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whatisgoingonpaul · 3 years

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My ideas of past David -

A ramble headcannon sort of thing , and images

So to anyone who knows me or follows this blog knows how much I talk about pre vampirism boys and the never to be prequel. How I made designs , redid designs for how I think they’d look and I have the revision au fic where I write them more as they were when human. I made a post on this a little bit how my past/human David would straight up be keifers charecter in young guns, that was purely from a appearance standpoint but now that I’ve seen the film... holy shit it’s just past David. Let me explain

Prequel-

So the prequel is 1906 San Francisco/ Santa Carla blah blah I talked about this way to much the script is flawed but I love the film(if you want the link I got it-). I think the scitpt is also very young guns inspired and was said to be as its a buncha young boys speaking in the “I don’t know nothin’” speak and stealing etc. Doc is David If he could actually shoot his fucking gun

Shoutout to David being the only one of them to have a weapon and he can’t shoot to LITERALLY save his life, the one time he can shoots it’s god damn Dracula and everyone dies because of it. Thanks David.

He’s a lot more gentle in the prequel and also a extreme softie to the point he falls in love so hard within 2-3 days he asks the lady to be his girl.

My idea on past David and how it kinda lines up -

I swear I never once knew of this film before I discovered it via mutrals a few days ago but I swear, appearance wise it’s how I see David. His hair is longer, naturally darker and it’s not like he has a place to shave so that too. Always a liking to leather and dramatic overcoats. These soft eyes that are somewhere between I’m sorry and I love you.

Human David I see as a lot more open to emotion, he has his boys and nothing else. He doesn’t want to live like he does but he has to , he’s sorry but hey what can you do? Them or us. There’s not really a choice in anything no matter how much he wants to push for it, he’s thinking for the other boys, constantly.. how they get out, how they keep more money then they have to steal etc. At the same time there’s a part of him who just wants to leave, somewhere, anywhere. He doesn’t have to kill anyone , thank god, so at least that part of his morals is not constantly put into question. Yet.

David and love had never been a simple thing, he is the kind of guy to tell you “ I love you” even if not in those words, from the moment uou first meet and he means it. He is one of those at first sight kind of people, give him a kind young woman or a cowboy and he is GONE. He’s had relationships and they all end horrifically for some reason or another and half the Time it’s not his fault like she’ll say I Love you but a earthquake happens that god damn moment levels of bad luck. They theres Micheal ... who fucking kills him so no luck for love even undead.

He is gentle yes, but he’s not so soft to the point he doesn’t have a brain. Like I said he’s always thinking and planning and worrying , for threats such as jail and gangs. He’s not above attitude, he’s sarcastic and petty and blunt, if he doesn’t like you... you will know.

Again it scares me how much Doc looks and acts like my idea of past David. So looks 100% gonna model... soft pretty boy smh. If I didn’t follow the 1906 idea I would still see David having been turned around the same time, maybe make him a little older and it having been in 1880s- 1890s? Who knows

should i do a ramble thing like this for the other boys?? Just headcannons and rambles about they were?

#the lost boys #lost boys 1987 #lost boys #tlb #david the lost boys #lost boys the beginning #lost boys prequel #young guns #doc scurlock

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eyeless-cunt · 3 years

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Hi! I was wondering if you could write something with EJ or Toby. I'm down to read whatever you feel like writing honestly. I'm sort of new to your blog and so far I really enjoy it! The randomness is so amazing. I never know if I'm gonna be surprised by Rasputin, slightly disturbed/confused by sand up someone's ass, or feel warm and fuzzy after reading a fluff and I love this. - Blue💙

hi yes i screenshoted this and put it in my drafts to answer later but i wanted to answer this last part nOw because it made me laugh

okok so i CAN TELL that you’re new because you’ve only mentioned like two things that happened these past two weeks and THEYRE NOT EVEN THE WORST THINGS TO HAPPEN ON MY BLOG

So I’ve taken this opportunity to list some of what I personally think are the FUNNIEST worst things that have happened within my three years of running this blog

Except they go from awe cute to what the actual fuck

This was maybe about two years ago? Could have been 2018/2019 dno but someone came to me with the headcannon that animals just naturally liked Toby and migrated towards him which was cute but !! THEN SOMEONE DREW HIM AS SNOWWHITE AND IT WAS SO FUNNY FOR NO REASON

People used to send me memes they made of the creeps (which is partly why I made @eyeless-cunt-art because I got like twenty a day and didn’t want to flood my blog) and they were THE funniest shit I literally used to sit on my bedroom floor as my phone charged and laugh my fucking ass off. This was when I had about 500 followers so I was still pretty new. There were a lot of Masky=daddy ones

The fucker wars. I don’t even know how to explain this one but if you search up ‘BEN fucker’ ‘Ej fucker’ ‘Toby fucker’ ect in my tags then you should...find some stuff on that. This is was before I tagged my nsfw stuff as pp warning so minors beware

Psp telling us about two trucks which is about two trucks having a loving relationship including having sex. Also has takes on toxic masculinity. A true masterpiece.

Laughing Jack sucking off Mr Krabs. They are lovers.

Me and Carrion pissing on each other in the shower

Another incident with PSP in which they introduced the cum house to me. That was fun. Look up ‘cum house’ in my tags if you’d like to learn about the house of coom

BEN owning a garfield fursuit

People saying they were going to use Ej’s cum as a face mask

People saying that they wanted to be Ej’s cum jar

That time the Jeff fuckers rose up and decided that we needed a new religion. It was hell on earth. Horny posting in my ask box led to things I’ll get to farther on this list. Look up Jeffism in my tags to see for yourself

Someone off anon saying that BEN probably has a USB stick for a dick. Then a debate breaking out about whether or not he had a usb or water rotted normal dick

Yet again another incident with Psp—they went on to explain about how BEN and Jeffery were murged furbies in an AU

Someone said that BEN and Jeff do nsfw roleplay as garfield and jon

There was a time where someone in my server said they shoved a cockroach up their ass when they were a kid and so it somehow became bug fucking and then that leaked into my blog as well. Anything in my server just can’t be contained. Also J posted bug porn in the horny jail art room so that was fun.

Peter griffen x jeff x herobrine love triangle. This is what truly turned my blog into a hellscape. If my followers weren’t sure what I was ok with before—at this point they knew they could send me the grossest shit and I’d only sob. I got literal writings of explicitly explained smut scenes between these three. Or just two of them. Cock vore, the word cummies, ect all became words I dreaded. I think there was one which included a piss kink? I can’t remember thankfully.

But yeah. My blog is a hellscape and this is only what I remember off the top of my head. Feel free to come in my ask box and talk more about what cursed stuff I’ve forgotten to put in here.

#creepypasta #eyeless jack #jeffism #jeff fucker #ben fucker #ej fucker #ticci toby fucker #creepypasta imagines #mun post #ben drowned #jeff the killer #creepypasta headcanon #nn #anon ask #ask #anon blue💙#shitpost #cursed #pp warning

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gesternchen · 3 years

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Just randomly reviewing scenes from the movies no one remembers now. This week: Avatar (2009).

It’s not like everyone forgot James Cameron’s Avatar. Since we’re still getting some footage from behind the scenes of the sequel and news about the cast, at least someone takes pains to remind themselves of this cinematic experience from the year of 2009. It’s already been 84 (just kidding, 11) years and I’m still looking forward to at least watching the teaser (fun fact: I was 11 when Avatar came out, I’m 22 now). I even bought the Darkhorse comic book on Tsu’Tey’s backstory to, you know, investigate one of my favorite characters a little bit better (spoiler: the backstory wasn’t very much eventful but I noticed a nice detail there which I may talk about briefly a bit later).

Throughout the years Avatar has received a lot of backlash and more or less justified criticism, mainly for the plot and its problematic packaging. I believe, it depends on the perspective one watches a movie from. Of course, I wouldn’t call it an absolute gem of exciting storytelling, even though I truly enjoy it, as in majority its twists are undeniably predictable. However, I always disagreed with people saying relations in Avatar aren’t deep at all. Well, romance between Jake and Neytiri, which, let’s be honest, except for the scene of telling the truth, went too smoothly, and this is why I strongly believe clash of interests is inevitable in sequels. Their interaction remained the key one for the whole movie, and nothing is bad about that, people enjoy a nice lovestory, so do I. But 11 years after I’d like to focus on the disturbing conflict everyone prefers to ignore for some reason when recalling Avatar. For me it’s always been Jake versus Colonel Quaritch.

You guys may have already guessed which scenes I wanna talk about. Those really important ones that I consider climactic to the pace of narration. And what is more about them, they give us crucial details in character development and actors’ play to think through. The main message: Quaritch knew it was coming.

Let me firstly touch upon the scene of short conversation between Jake and Quaritch prior to Sully presumably leaving Pandora. While Jake is awating Quaritch in a large empty hall, he hardly seems to be calm about the talk, every nerve in his body is trembling, but why?

The way Jake’s drumming his fingers on the table makes me wonder if he’s okay.

Then Colonel enters the hall, grabs a chair and reminds that it had been more than two weeks since he got the latest report on how the misson was going. He knows, Sully is questioning reality, and no, he’s not ‘doubting his resolve’. He knows, the right moment to ‘terminate the mission’ is missed. He knows, he lost Jake. He knows, he’s talking to the deserter. Yet Quaritch speaks indifferent. He praises Jake’s effort and rewards him for that. With real legs he promised to him when they first talked. Quaritch hoped they’d trigger the realization in Jake. Which doesn’t happen. How sad he looks when Jake openly refuses to accept the reward.

In just one sequence Stephen’s face demonstrates the shift of all four feelings Quaritch goes through: dissatisfaction, melancholy, shame, disgust.

Quaritch sensed the moment when Jake expressed superiority to the mankind. Jake grasped that Quaritch knew everything, he played with fire, and that’s why he felt anxiety. And it lasted all the way until Quaritch stepped back for leaving the hall. But did Colonel really surrender? I doubt that.

The tension between them both feels electric, so it’s explainable why Jake’s transient smile is so awkward. Sam then heavily staring straight at Colonel's back suggests that up until now Jake regarded Quaritch as his enemy. The enemy he knew he would not be able to defeat.

I remember when watching this scene, I couldn’t get myself the answer to one question. The question was: which report did Quaritch refer to? ‘That report from two weeks ago’, but such information wasn’t satisfactory for me. To be honest, this small discovery became the actual reason why I decided to type this study. Let’s assume that this particular report which Quaritch mentioned was the videolog where Jake confessed that Omaticaya wouldn’t leave the Hometree. Here’s why.

The general audience is used to perceiving Quaritch as a cruel short-tempered military man who just waits for the starting pistol’s shot to destroy everything in sight. Again, nothing is wrong about this, the fact that his character was simply meant to be a generic personification of such type doesn’t leave us with any alternative impression of him. Let’s say, if he was given the order to ignite the operation of the Hometree’s destruction to screw the tribe out of the site, he would absolutely go for it (and so he does). He’s a man of his word after all. Let’s also say, if he was pissed off by Jake’s betrayal, he would transport himself to the mountain site in a blink of an eye, turn off the link and put Jake in jail right after the talk in the hall. Instead, Quaritch decided to wait and give Jake the last chance. Jake preffered unearthly wings to those more tangible, so Quaritch chose not to cut them so abruptly.

We’re moving to the next scene, taking place right before a toned down fight between Tsu’Tey and Jake (I’m saying so, because it’s actually one of the deleted scenes that got edited out of the final cut, and believe me, the pressure between two rivals there is way too intense). Quaritch is watching the record of Jake destroying bulldozer’s lenses with a stone. After that Jake’s face is zoomed and we watch Selfridge get frustrated, Quaritch looks pretty annoyed as well but doesn’t seem to be much surprised. What he’s feeling, is bitter disappointment in himself and knowing that he totally failed to persuade Jake to change his mind.

Just observe Stephen Lang’s performance here. He absolutely nails cold-eyed look, the fire burning slow inside of him is so palpable, and guess what, in a flash he flies off the handle.

Now, shall we check the ultimate scene, preceding the destruction of the Hometree. Though Grace versus Parker juxtaposition is central to this scene, the last time Quaritch confronting Jake face to face in his human body is essential to consider for making things clear.

When it comes to revealing to Selfridge the vainness of further negotiations with Omaticaya, isn’t it just interesting how fast Quaritch manages to find the correct videolog? It literally takes him not more than a couple of swipes to produce the proof. Here is why: he’s already watched the record and is completely aware of the Jake’s values having deteriorated.

You can tell, Jake knew he was under control, but he would rather like to ingnore this fact. His pathetic glance at Quaritch, who’s almost impending above his head, causes to think Jake would guess that Colonel could have watched this videolog. Rather, it was a mutual secret between the two of them until a turning point. But the moment of truth came, and Jake didn’t change his mind. Quaritch made sure of that and finally it was his time to triumph.

So how was it even possible to assume Quaritch may have watched the videolog I’ve been talking about for so long? Well, my explanation may be too easy to believe, but still: we can tell by Jake’s appearance and the date of the record that it is the vlog we need.

This telltale videolog was recorded 16 minutes after the another one, when Jake says that he’s uncertain, who he is anymore (LST abbreviation stands for Local Standard Time). Jake might have suddenly felt depressed and hopeless and got back to the camera while being too emotionally instable, and so must have forgotten to delete the final record.

I have one more note for you. If you check the videolog library Quaritch is swiping through, you’ll see that the latest important record, which he actually needs, is made in the interior of the mountain site block and dates back to August, 13. Other recent vlogs’ covers look nothing like Site 26 sequence. Jake may not have done any of these records at the mountain site. I still wonder though where those three or four ensuing videologs were recorded, the location seems to be red lighted, which means it isn’t blue lighting at Site 26. I may even assume he recorded some pieces at Hell’s Gate. Why would I think so? Probably because in those two scenes (dialog with Quaritch and confession at Parker’s office) Jake looks ten times better than before, he gained some weight at least and doesn’t resemble a living sceleton.

Selfridge gave Jake an hour to relocate the tribe, while gunships led by Colonel’s Dragon were already on full alert. Quaritch had no doubt that Jake’s peacekeeping mission would fail. He knew it from the beginning. Hence he sounds so sarcastic seeing Sully’s avatar tied.

Now Quaritch sipping his villain’s morning coffee tasting like fresh genocide doesn’t feel so cringy: he’s celebrating his victory over Jake (still I should agree with critisism on this point, it really is a stupid cliche and wasn’t intended to carry a deep meaning).

Now I should admit, it’s been a long journey to run this investigation and bring it to light by finally posting it. It took me around a day to collect my thoughts and express them by means of more or less readable English. Just would like to make a little side note: English is not my native, so I promise I did my best! Thanks to James Cameron for making a movie, which woke me up in the middle of the night to start reflecting, and to all the fans out there who still exist and remember this movie and so can read this essay. @avatarmovies I found your blog not so long ago and you guys say you enjoy headcanons (and movie reviews probably?..), so it would be nice if you reblogged this but I’m not insisting!!

#avatar #james cameron #james cameron avatar #movie reviews #avatar movies #colonel quaritch #jake sully #characters in conflict #gesternchen reviews

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unpackitwithashleigh · 2 years

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Post-Partum Taboo

There is some weird taboo about talking about post-partum struggles. This is my third kid, and I'm just now comfortable with sharing my stories that I have accumulated throughout the years of carrying children.

With each child, post-partum presented differently. Faith was anxiety attacks and fear of driving with her. Zakk was extreme depression to the point of an incident that I almost couldn't take back. Arabella has been paranoia.

Faith was an easy baby, she is the apple of my eye, and is who made me a mother. She molded me. She was always cheerful, never cried, and just all-around fun. My delivery with her didn't go without its faults. Their dad's birth mother came to the hospital and caused a very large scene after finding out that we were married, had she been active in his life, she would've been a part of it. The scene she caused was so large that security had to put a passcode on my room for ANY visitors. I was in a good place mentally when I had her even though I was 18. My marriage with her father was good, and we were in love. He was present for the first three months until he left for basic training. On March 11th, 2014, is when things would change. I had gone from just graduating, to a mother, to a full adult with responsibilities, to a military spouse and parenting alone. Having to prepare to move on our own was a whirlwind that I had unexpected. I had so much I needed to do with the government including going on base to DEERS for my ID, enrolling our daughter and myself into Tricare (shitty insurance btw). It all became too much, and I started to have routine panic attacks especially over driving. I talked to my doctor and was put on Zoloft and Xanax. Things were getting better and weaned myself off. I was doing amazing.

Zakkary was very difficult from the start. I had severe hyperemesis which resulted in issue with my thyroid. In between having Faith and getting pregnant with Zakkary a lot had happened. There will be a separate more in-depth blog post for those things surrounding my first marriage now that court is over, and I'm free to speak freely. Long story short, their father got involved with drugs while in the military and I had no idea until it was too late. He went AWOL from the military, and of course my dumb ass protecting him, allowed him back into the home of my family's. During my pregnancy, he wasn't there mentally although he was physically. He was working multiple jobs; getting fired one after the other. The military caught up with him and he was gone during the delivery of our son. My delivery with him was so traumatic and he almost died from shoulder dystocia. He was stuck in my birth canal for 5 minutes before they could get him out, stating it was either my hips or his clavicle they were going to break. He was so traumatized that he nursed for three consecutive hours. I had to go through this on my own. It wasn't until after Zakk was a few months old that their dad was released from the military jail/military. He came back and I thought he had been clean, he was not. Here I was raising yet another kid alone with a baby that cried around the clock. One day when their dad was off at work, I mentally had enough, and I grabbed the blanket to begin suffocating my helpless son. After a literal second, I snapped out of it, and sobbed for hours rocking and apologizing to my baby who didn't understand. I swore that it would never get that bad again, and I immediately went to my doctor for help. I was suffering from post-partum depression. It was after that I realized that the issue was not my baby, it was my husband.

Arabella has been by far the missing piece that I have needed. She is the light of all of our lives. It's crazy that after leaving my ex-husband 5 years ago that I didn't want any more children because I cannot picture my life without her. My pregnancy with her was only rough because of the hyperemesis. During my pregnancy, I made the decision that she was it, I wanted no more biological children. IF we wanted more, we have discussed adoption or fostering children. Due to the shoulder dystocia, I had to have a c-section, although it was planned, I found it traumatizing. During the entire surgery, I cried. I cried because it was new, I was scared I wouldn't make it off the table, that I would bleed out due to my severe anemia. All these thoughts rushed my brain while I was gutted like a pig on the table. My fiancé was great throughout the procedure, before and after, he was my calm during the storm. He was reassuring, and supportive. Everything I needed during the delivery of Zakkary. Yet, I still bawled the entire time. This was it, there were no more after this. Due to her being a c-section and not vaginal, she wasn't lucky enough to squeeze the fluids out of her body naturally in the birth canal. She would choke randomly sending her father and I flying out of bed to suction it out of her. The nurses reassured us that this was normal, however they don't know how vast my fear of choking is due to the loss of my baby brother. I was great with the idea of her being our last until after we got home, and I was constantly paranoid that something was going to happen to her. Silent panic set in, and I knew I needed help. I contacted my doctor right away, and we moved quickly. I've been on Zoloft for a few months, and although the panic is still there, it doesn't keep me up at night anymore. I'm not as scared to drive with her in the car, even though I still won't drive at night. I'm not as scared that she will die of SIDS or choke. I don't have this cement block sitting on my chest, and it feels refreshing.

Please, if you are experiencing any symptom of post-partum anxiety or depression, reach out to someone for help. It saved my life, and all three of my children lives. I urge you to force those words out of your mouth. Don't brush it off and assume it will go away. Don't think it's not a big deal. Don't not talk about it because for some reason you are shamed for doing so. Take my stories and see how it can almost end. I'm alive to tell my stories, and I want so badly for you to be also. It is okay to be on medication for the rest of your life, and it is also okay to wean off when you're ready. Pair you medication with an outlet to get it out, whether that be journaling, therapy, blogging or vlogging. I am a better mother because of my postpartum struggles, and you are also.

#postpartum #unpackitwithashleigh #take care of yourself

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haleigh-sloth · 3 years

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i’m not completely mad about the last ten chapters of mha, but i feel like some of the more minor details could’ve been handled better. there’s been a time skip and dekus obviously grown a lot in strength and power (it would be weird if he didn’t) and now is the time to showcase that, but trying to revert the story back to endeavor and hawks is a little weird. what’s the point of them being there? you would think that the manga would show them facing repercussions for their actions, but we’re getting NOTHING. it’s been revealed to the public that endeavor beat his wife and kids, and yet nobody cares?? man said “just watch me” once and hori was like ok that’s enough. like no??? it’s not enough??? and what about hawks??? he literally KILLED somebody and no ones bothering to do anything about it??? man said “i’m sorry i made a mistake :(“ in front of the cameras and was like yup that’s good. what’s the point of them being there if you aren’t even gonna show them facing the consequences of their actions?? are they just going to get a free pass or something?? cause if they are then that goes to show that literally nothing has changed. it’s nice to see more issues being brought to light (lady nagant), but what’s the point of that if the people causing some of those issues never face repercussions?? i feel like horikoshi is trying to give everyone a redemption arc, but that’s not possible; you can’t redeem every villain/character out there. the LOV deserve redemption arcs, but that doesn’t change the fact that they killed and hurt a lot of people. it’s obvious that the LOV aren’t just going to be able to walk free after everything they’ve done, so why should hawks and endeavor? the villains are probably going to go to jail (if they don’t end up dead) for the things they’ve done and the people they hurt, so wouldn’t it make sense for endeavor and hawks to be punished as well?? idk i’m just ranting at this point sorry.

You're giving Hawks too much credit. He didn't even admit he made a mistake he backed up his decision and justified it.

Also I'm gonna stop you right there.

The villains aren't going to go to jail. That's stupid. How can they? What jail? What heroes are going to do it?

I know you're ranting and you have a lot of the same complaints I do anon, but on this blog--we don't condemn the villains to jail. Nope.

I literally just wrote a post explaining why putting them in jail is not the acceptable ending and why it would send the wrong message to do just that.

I've also written more here, here, and here.

Hawks and Enji aren't going to jail either. Obviously. Here's the thing:

Enji got a get out of jail free card because it was conveniently around the same time that ALL OTHER HEROES quit their jobs when he confessed his crimes on TV. Also he probably wouldn't have gone anyway because of his position.

The villains will get their get out of jail free card by defeating AFO and literally saving the world. Society isn't going to care what happens with them, they'll be too busy making sure all their loved ones are still alive.

I don't know why people still think that after everything, all the talk about saving, understanding, and changing that needs to happen people are still saying that the author is gonna say "ah fuck these characters and all my development of the story" and just throw them in jail and act like nothing in the story ever happened. Because that's what that would be. What would be the point of putting this

in the story at ALL if he just ends up in jail anyways with no life to live? No, fuck that.

I understand you were ranting and again, I feel the same about Endeavor and Hawks--but don't come and say you think/expect the villains to end up in jail. That's not the ending I'm willing to discuss on my blog. If it happens then the villains weren't saved and redeemed, and therefore I consider the story a failure. Until I have a reason to believe that is the case---I'd like to carry on like it's not. I don't think it will be so don't put a damper on that here please.

#bnha #bnha asks #anonymous

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jcmorrigan · 3 years

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I saw the tag- I am gonna ask you about the crossover universe- (omg I’m literally gushing about this)

OH, IT IS TIME!

So you can find a lot of this on the “What is the WHAM ARMY?” page on my blog – I’ll try to remember to link it; I’m drafting this in a word processor first so I don’t use it. Essentially, this is the universe I’ve created for my fanfic “Taking Back the Crown,” which is about…basically my favorite villains all moving into the same house and trying to take over the multiverse. And then it got lore. And more lore. Because I cannot write anything normal. The fic is nearing its 150th chapter and I’m nowhere NEAR exhausted of all the ideas I want to put in it – it’s just my big playground for hyperfixation fun. Anyway, here’s a rundown of the major points of it!

THE CAST

The main characters are the eight villains who are the founders of the WHAM ARMY. The faction name is an acronym of their first initials. They’re my ultrafaves, the villains I always get fluttery heart for, and probably the biggest collection of losers you can imagine. I’ll put them in order of the acronym and give you some background on how each entered the team.

Wuya (Xiaolin Showdown) – So the connecting factor between these people is that Mozenrath (his name is a few slots down) is their team leader and the one who decided to build a team in the first place. Wuya was recruited when Mozenrath found her puzzle box in an ancient vault. This is set post-series for XS (and Chronicles is not at all canon), so what had happened is in the big Showdown right after Raimundo was named team leader officially in the finale, the Xiaolin Monks won ALL the Shen Gong Wu to their side and stuffed Wuya in the box. So Mozenrath found her and let her out so they could be pals. A magic potion let her regain human form fairly early on, and her power isn’t even nerfed either the way Chase Young would’ve done.

Huntsman (American Dragon: Jake Long) – ADJL is also post-series in this timeline. Mozenrath has the power to resurrect people from the dead at will because he’s memorized an ancient and incredibly complex ritual that he can execute mentally (note that this means you can remove this ability from him by tampering with his memories). The Huntsman was resurrected so as to show Mozenrath around the old Huntsclan vault (which is where they found Wuya’s puzzle box). No other Huntsclan member survived the purge except Rose (and 88 and 89, but they don’t count and aren’t in this story), so the Huntsman is starting from square one.

Ayam Aghoul (Aladdin: The Animated Series): Basically just got sick of losing. He’d teamed up with a few other rando Aladdin rogues to try and pick a fight with Maleficent, and she sent him packing. So he ended up finding one of the few residents of the Seven Deserts who was powerful enough to match him AND had a similar grudge against Maleficent.

Mozenrath (Aladdin: The Animated Series): The man of the hour and the creator of the entire team. He starts the fic by crashing Maleficent’s KH Disney Villain alliance and trying to add himself to it, but…ends up being such a disrespectful nuisance that Hades just drags him straight down to the Underworld. That moment inspired him to get his OWN band of friends and start making a name for himself.

Archibald Snatcher (The Boxtrolls): Met Mozenrath in the Underworld after his death in film canon. Annoyed Hades one too many times by claiming that he wasn’t actually supposed to die, seeing as he isn’t allergic to dairy (he is), so Hades threw him in the same cell as Mozenrath and…

Roman Torchwick (RWBY): I started writing this fic in 2016, immediately post-V3, so it’s canon-divergent after the last episode of V3 (but I got all the later-game characters to show up eventually). Which means Roman is ALSO dead at the start of this fic. He ALSO comes storming up to Hades insisting he’s not even supposed to be dead. At the same time as Snatcher is already pestering him. Which is how Mozenrath, Snatcher, and Roman end up in the same jail cell in Tartarus and get the idea that maybe they should break back into the world of the living and try to build something BETTER than what any of the three had beforehand.

Mad Madam Mim (The Sword in the Stone): Mozenrath, immediately after breaking out of the Underworld, attempted to take over Arthur’s kingdom by just walking in and throwing magic around. It backfired horribly when Merlin showed up. But then Mim showed up to counter Merlin and realized that maybe she had a potential friend here who was as blackhearted as she.

Yzma (The Emperor’s New Groove): Post-TENG, no KNG or TENS (but I reference things from TENS every now and again). Merlin turned Mozenrath into a rat, so Mim brought him to Yzma’s Secret Lab to change him back. There, they found Yzma as a cat, and she so desperately wanted out of her living situation that she added herself to the team. She was also restored to human form shortly thereafter.

There is a potential ninth member of the core in the form of Vexen (Kingdom Hearts). KH is canon-divergent after DDD and basically ignores almost every game that comes out after Fragmentary Passage. Vexen, as Even, was trying to integrate into life as a hero in Radiant Garden, except everyone annoyed him way too much, so he decided to go be with people that would give right back any insults he dished out. And then realized he was much happier being on the evil team and doing mad science with no ethics. However, he will not be promoted to the upper ranks because 1. it would spoil the acronym and 2. he is unanimously agreed-upon to be the biggest wet blanket of the group and nobody wants him at the founder parties.

(Imagine my disbelief when the actual canon arc for Vexen was THE REVERSE ONE IN WHICH HE JUST DECIDES TO GO LIVE AT RADIANT GARDEN AND NOT BE ANNOYED BY ANYTHING and that’s why JC doesn’t like Kingdom Hearts III)

Anyway, this crew is a bunch of silly friends who enjoy partying, singing, dancing, drag, indulging in vices, causing mayhem, taking over cities, arranging for mass murder, piecing together smear campaigns…but they’re all pretty much ride or die for each other. And that goes double for the ships of the set: Mozenrath/Huntsman, Mim/Aghoul, Wuya/Yzma, and my favorite ship to end all favorites, Roman/Snatcher (RedHatBlackHat is the ship name).

From there, you have a B-Squad of, like, seventy other people based on my faves. Nonnie, I know you saw this because of Vincent Edgeworth, Victor Blake, and Albert Krueger, and they are three of COUNTLESS examples. It’s a found crime family that keeps getting bigger as I get more fave villains and there’s hardly a rhyme or a reason. Currently, they live in a floating fortress designed when they stole Terra Cyclonia (Storm Hawks) and hefted it out into the aether between worlds with crystal technology.

They have a rival hero faction in the form of the Cinnamons: a gathering of people who they’ve wronged who turned out to make pretty good friends themselves. While the WHAM ARMY are the villain-protag team that you feel slightly bad loving the escapades of, the Cinnamons are the rainbows, fluff, sunshine, (secret crippling depression and anxiety), and pep-talkers of the multiverse. They’re the deuteragonist team as opposed to the “villains” of the story. They also have eight “leaders,” but they were picked up a little less quickly than the WHAM ARMY founders, instead coming together over the span of a much longer quest. These people are:

Sora (Kingdom Hearts): Heart of the team and the person who pulled them all together, because Sora loves everyone. He, Riku, and Kairi witnessed the WHAM ARMY wreaking destruction on both Radiant Garden and Disney Castle, and Sora decided no one gets to treat his homes-away-from-home like that and get away with it! Between Mozenrath and the still-looming threats of Maleficent and Xehanort, he’s now collecting pals from all worlds to fight against evil and do as much good as they can do! (While having sleepovers.)

Ruby Rose (RWBY): Before she, Nora, Ren, and Jaune could get into Mistral, Sora interrupted them on their path and directed them right back around to Vale with the news that Roman Torchwick was back in action. After an incident involving the Destiny Trio and Team RNJR having to team up and actually kill the massive Grimm unleashed in the V3 endgame, they all headed out to Radiant Garden together to continue their mission.

Papyrus (Undertale): Sora found him while exploring worlds and they clicked immediately as pals. Then the WHAM ARMY, who was living in Mt. Ebott at the time, sparked an anti-monster racist sentiment through the town, and Papyrus was advised to leave the world for his own safety, so he went traveling with Sora.

Stork (Storm Hawks): Maleficent, who is also an active player in this game, made a power play by destroying the Condor with the entire Storm Hawks team onboard while they were on the Far Side of Atmos (post-series). Stork, believing himself to be the only survivor, attempted to take his own life – only for Sora to show up just in time and offer him something better: hope that his friends survived, and new friends to tag along with until they could prove either way.

Jasmine (Aladdin): The Cinnamons came looking to Agrabah for more information on Mozenrath. When Jasmine heard he was causing chaos, she decided to get personally involved.

Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender): Post-ATLA, no LoK. Sora made a trip to the Fire Nation to see if he could head off the WHAM ARMY’s latest scheme, and ran into the Gaang along the way. After helping Katara, Aang, and Zuko protect the Fire Nation from a very near miss, Sora invited them to come travel with him. Only Katara accepted at first, the other two wanting to clean things up on their homeworld.

Kazuichi Soda (DanganRonpa): Post-SDR2, no DR3. Xehanort requested Izuru Kamukura be used as a vessel, and Kazuichi went in Izuru/Hajime’s place so his buddy didn’t have to. But the first chance he got, Kazuichi turned and ran from the Castle That Never Was…where Sora had just crash-landed. Kazuichi patched up Sora’s ship, and immediately became part of his crew. (Worth noting: in this AU, the Remnants of Despair were never brainwashed and were completely aware of what they were doing. Kazuichi is basically a redemption story, trying to be a better person to make up for the hell he caused. Also, while on the Despair side, he’d hacked off his leg to sew Junko’s in its place, disabling himself – that leg goes through an arc regarding what prosthesis is in its place.)

Rapunzel (Tangled): After the Vardaros arc of S2 of Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure. Rapunzel was targeted by the WHAM ARMY because she was essentially a living MacGuffin for one of their spells. Sora showed up, and Rapunzel decided to go along with him for safety AND fun, leaving Cassandra to continue the pilgrimage to the Dark Kingdom. (Wrote this before KHIII was out. And before the Evil Cass twist.)

And just like the WHAM ARMY, these folks have a huge B-squad that lives in the Radiant Garden castle and helps them deal with the various tragedies they have to clean up after. Riku, Kairi, and Jaune Arc in particular get a decent amount of stage time.

As you can see, Maleficent (Sleeping Beauty/Kingdom Hearts) and her forces are another big set of chess pieces on the board! After she sent Mozenrath to gay baby jail and it didn’t stick, she’s been trying to continue plans for domination as usual but ALSO wipe the WHAM ARMY off the face of the multiverse. She, Jafar (Aladdin), Ursula (The Little Mermaid), and Hades (Hercules) all came straight here from KH. But I’m working to model that team’s inner circle on the team in “Quite a Glittering Assemblage,” the sister fic by gavillain (it’s basically this premise but Maleficent gets a team to start instead, but similarities end there, his is a whole different, fresh, and fun flavor). I’ve just gotten all these characters intro’d instory, but the other biggies are Loki (Marvel – I based him in the Cinematic Universe but he’s kind of just an amalgamation of Lokis), Dr. Doom (Marvel), Captain Hook (Once Upon a Time), Russell Edgington (True Blood), and Fish Mooney (Gotham). Currently, they operate out of the Forbidden Mountain in the Enchanted Dominion.

There’s also a very new addition as of the 140’s chapters: the Heathens. This is a squad of villains with moral lines in the sand (and some antiheroes or corrupted heroes). Basically, these aren’t your killers for fun. These are the people who steal candy from the gas station and think they’re slick, but the point is they’re enjoying themselves so just let it happen. The four founders of this one are Harley Quinn (DC – based on The Batman but an amalgamation of Harleys that leans sympathetic), Yang Xiao Long (RWBY), Giovanni Potage (Epithet Erased), and Velvet Crowe (Tales of Berseria). Currently, they operate out of the old mansion in Twilight Town.

The Xehanorts are here, and that team is largely who you think it is – though I stripped away Vexen, Demyx, Marluxia, Larxene, and Luxord in order to replace them ALL with Xaldin. More crossover shenanigans to come on this front. This team isn’t very active – they’re waiting for the Keyblade War – but they’re operating out of the World That Never Was.

There’s also another side villain faction: the Morbians, led by Mirage (Aladdin: The Animated Series). These are the demons of fear, the stuff that lurks in your nightmares, and…the villains I really like but who I don’t quite think fit in with the WHAM ARMY or any other more prominent group. But to give you an idea of what the flavor of this team is, she’s recruited not one but TWO Boogeymen – Pitch Black (Rise of the Guardians) and Oogie Boogie (The Nightmare Before Christmas).

There will be more villain factions to come, and I kind of want to splinter the Cinnamons to multiple bases as well. Obviously it’s easier to split villains up because they’re fun to write at war with each other – when I have hero teams come up against each other, usually they end up becoming best buddies instead of fighting, and that’s how I like it, but that’s why there’s just ONE BIG HERO TEAM as opposed to the many villain squads rattling around.

THE SETTING

So as you have probably gleaned, the multiverse setup is largely based on Kingdom Hearts, which is one of my favorite things (in the KH1 through Fragmentary Passage era anyway). There are many worlds that can be visited either by Gummi Ship or Corridor of Darkness. Basically any evil-aligned sorcerer can use Corridors in this ‘verse – they’ve opened their souls to Darkness and have magic, so they can do so.

The implication is that every world represents a separate “story” or part of one. As in if it’s a work of fiction HERE, it’s a world THERE. Some characters are actually savvy enough to know they’re fictional (e.g. Megavolt from Darkwing Duck, Xayide from The Neverending Story). Most of them aren’t built to handle the news, though, and just shrug it off if told. (No, really, the cosmic order prevents them from taking that news seriously if they’re not from something that regularly leans on the fourth wall anyway.)

But sometimes, things get AU’d in without their full worlds. I was inspired by how Final Fantasy is treated in canon KH, and once I started bringing in more FF stuff by the same method, I felt motivated to do that with MORE fandoms if I felt the characters could be divorced from their settings and histories easily. I’ve done it for most Disney Channel non-animated properties as well as Satellite City (ain’t that the worst combo you’ve ever looked at). I’m planning to do it for Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn because I’m coming up on a location I want to delve into the civilization of but don’t have many canon characters for, so guess what, you get the FE cast now.

Major worlds or relevant locations in play are the Cyclonian warship, Radiant Garden, Twilight Town, and occasionally the Enchanted Dominion, but we move from plotline to plotline with journeys to many, many, MANY worlds of things I want to play with the settings and casts of. Also, the Cyclonian warship is about to get replaced with another WHAM ARMY base; we’ll get there.

THE STORY

For the first major “book” of TBTC, the WHAM ARMY has found a spell that they think will let them conquer the entire multiverse by giving them control over Kingdom Hearts itself. All they have do to is collect a bunch of MacGuffins that correspond to twelve elements: fire, water, earth, air, light, darkness, life, death, time, space, entropy, and aether. In order to do this, they visit the worlds of KH, RWBY, Avatar, Storm Hawks, Okami, Undertale, Wakfu, The Legend of Zelda, The Neverending Story, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and many many more. The Cinnamons catch wind of what they’re doing and start assembling. Meanwhile Maleficent is on the hunt for the Book of Prophecies and starts hiring villains on her team as well. After many madcap adventures and some devastating tragedies near endgame, the Cinnamons accidentally put the Book of Prophecies in Maleficent’s hands at the same time that Maleficent finally captures Mozenrath and gets him under heel. The WHAM ARMY and Cinnamons both launch attacks on Maleficent’s forces, and each walks away with what they came for. This is also the part where we slowburn up to the four major WHAM ARMY ships and many Cinnamon ships. In the end, the WHAM ARMY actually gets all the ingredients for their spell, but what they don’t know is it will actually cause the DESTRUCTION of the worlds. So an outside force intervenes (Discord from MLPFIM, who later joins the WHAM ARMY because he wants friends who actually appreciate him as a villain and won’t make him change) to stop them, and the next thing they know, they’re starting from square one.

We’re now in the second “book” of this story. The Cinnamons are gathering up all lost friends – the rest of Team RWBY, the Gaang, the Storm Hawks (who did in fact survive the explosion), the lost KH characters. The WHAM ARMY, on the other hand, is gathering up more villains to bolster their forces for a new evil plan: to conquer the worlds one by one, starting with Atlantis (Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire) and using portals to link to other territories of interest. While the WHAM ARMY is essentially working through a to-do list of what they need before they can launch such a massive invasion, the Cinnamons are finding strength in numbers because the writing’s on the wall that between Mozenrath, Maleficent, Mirage, and Xehanort, things are going to get worse before they get better, and as evil builds, good will need to rise to protect the innocent. As for Maleficent, she’s no longer able to chase the Book of Prophecies, and so, because she’s got Hades, Loki, and Salem (RWBY) there and they’re all like “Even though we’re pretty godlike, we are not that happy with how the gods we knew have run things,” Maleficent’s new goal is to slaughter the gods of all pantheons (minus those in her care) and replace them with her allies.

Anyway, as I had said in the post you saw, Anon – I basically take everything fictional I love and shove it into this AU for daydreams because it lets me imagine my faves having CROSSOVER INTERACTIONS and doing cool epic stuff on a multi-world scale. (But as much as I’ve talked up the epic aspect, a lot of it is just…like…people fucking around and hosting karaoke nights.) Anyway, I hope this gave you a good sense of the madness, and I hope it serves as a reminder to everyone that they can and should just. Make a daydream and/or fanfic universe that’s indulgent as hell. Just do it.

#wham army #tbtc #long post #i considered a read more #but i hate the tiny text on my blog #i need a new blog theme

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oneweekoneband · 3 years

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I’m slightly nauseous already with knowing I’m going to say this, but what does “self-awareness” even mean? In modern parlance, as a descriptive phrase, as a comment on art? I’m asking in earnest, like, I’ve been Googling lately, which for me is basically on par with doctoral study in terms of academic rigor. The self is king, anyway, tyrant, so where is the line of distinction between material that intentionally is nodding at some truth about the artist’s life and what’s just, like, all the rest of the regular navel-gazing bullshit. I mean, I’m all self, I am guilty here. I can’t get it out of my poems or even make it more quiet. This is the tenth time I’ve invoked “I” in the space of six sentences. Processing art has always necessitated a certain amount of grappling with the creator, but the busywork of it lately grows more and more tedious. Joy drains out of my body parsing marks left behind not just in stylistic tendencies and themes, but in literal, intentional tags like graffiti on a water tower. This feels an age old and moth-holed complaint, dull, and I am no historian, or really a serious thinker of any kind. I’ve now complained at some length about self-referential art, but didn’t I love how Martin Scorsese nodded to the famous Goodfellas Copacabana tracking shot with the opening frames of last year’s The Irishman? Didn’t I find that terribly fun and sort of sweet? So there’s distinctions. I’m only saying I don’t know with certainty what they even are. I’m unreliable, and someone smarter than me has likely already solved my quandary about why self-knowledge often transforms into overly precious self-reflexivity in such a way that the knowledge is diminished and obscured, leaving only cutesy Easter eggs behind. Postmodernism has birthed a moralizing culture where art exists to be termed either “self-aware Good” or “self-aware Bad”. Self-referentiality in media is so commonplace, so much the standard, that what was once credited as metatextual inventiveness often feels lazy now. In 1996, Scream was revitalizing a genre. Today, two thirds of all horror movies spend half their running time making sure that you know that they know they’re a horror movie, which is fine, I guess, except sometimes you just wanna watch someone get butchered with an axe in peace.

This is all to say that in 2020 Taylor Swift looked long and hard upon her image in the reflecting pool of her heart and has written yet another song about Gone Girl.

“mirrorball” is a very good piece of Gone Girl —feels insane to tell anyone reading a post on a blog what Gone Girl is but, you know, the extremely popular 2012 novel about a woman who pretends to have been murdered and frames her husband for it, and subsequently the 2014 film adaption where you kinda see Ben Affleck’s dick for a second—fanfiction. It would be a fine song, a good song, really, even if it weren’t that, if it were just something normal and not unhinged written by a chill person who behaves in a regular way, but we need to acknowledge the facts for what they are. When Taylor Swift watched Rosamund Pike toss her freshly self-bobbed hair out of her face and hiss, “You think you’d be happy with some nice Midwestern girl? No way, baby. I’m it!” her brain lit up like a Christmas tree, and she’s never been the same. If you Google “taylor swift gone girl” there waiting for you will be a medium sized lake’s worth of articles speculating about how Gone Girl influenced and is referenced in past Swift singles “Blank Space” and “Look What You Made Me Do”. This is not new behavior, and if anything it’s getting a bit troubling to think that it’s been this long since Taylor’s read another book. Still, while the prior offerings were a fair attempt at this particular feat of depravity, “mirrorball” has brought Taylor’s Amy Elliott Dunne deification to stunning new heights. And most importantly, Taylor has done a service to every person alive with more than six brain cells and a Internet connection by putting an end to the “Cool Girl” discourse once and for all. By the power invested in “mirrorball”, it is hereby decreed that the Cool Girl speech from Gone Girl is neither feminist or antifeminist, not ironic nor aspirational. No. It’s something much better than all that. It’s a threat. I ! Can ! Change ! Everything ! About ! Me ! To ! Fit ! In !

Gone Girl (2012) by Gillian Flynn

“mirrorball” (2020) by Taylor Swift

When the twinkly musical stylings of Jack Antonoff, a man I distinctly distrust, but for no one specific reason, whirl to life at the beginning of this song I feel instantly entranced, blurry-brained and pleasure-pickled like an infant beneath a light-up crib mobile or, I guess, myself in the old times, the outside times, three tequila sodas deep under the disco lights at The Short Stop. Under a mirrorball in my head. I know very little about music, as a craft, and I really don’t care to know more. I’m happy in a world of pure, dumb sensation. I’m not even sure what kind of instruments are making these jangly little sounds. I just like it. I am vibing. We may not ever be able to behave badly in a club again, but I can sway to my stupid Taylor Swift-and-the-brother-of-the-lady-who-makes-like-those-sweatshirts-with-little-sayings-or-like-vulvas-which-famous-white-women-wear-on-instagram-you-know-what-I-mean song, pressing up onto my tiptoes on the linoleum tile of our kitchen floor and can feel for a second or two something approaching bliss. “mirrorball” is a lush sound bath that I like a lot and then also it’s about being all things to all people, chameleoning at a second’s notice, doing Oscar worthy work on every Zoom call, performing the you who is good, performing the you who is funny, performing the you who draws a liter of your own blood and throws it around the kitchen then cleans it up badly all to get your husband sent to jail for sleeping with a college student... Too much talk about making and unmaking of the self is way too, like, 2012 Tumblr for me now, and I start hearing the word “praxis” ring threateningly in my head, but I’m not yet so evolved that I don’t feel a pull. Musings on the disorganized self—on how we are new all the time, and not just because of all the fresh skin coming up under the dead, personhood in the end so frighteningly flexible—are always going to compel me, I’m afraid, but that goes double for musings on the disorganized self which posit that Taylor Swift still thinks Amy Dunne made some points.

Because on “mirrorball” Taylor is for once not hamfistedly addressing some “hater”, in the quiet and the lack of embarrassing martyrdom it actually offers an interesting answer to the complaint that Taylor is insufficiently self-aware. This criticism emerges often in tandem with claiming to have discovered some crack in the chassis of Swift’s public self, revealing the sweetness to be insincere. My instinct is to dismiss this more or less out of hand as just a mutation of the school of thought that presumes all work by women must be autobiography. And, regardless, it is made altogether laughable by the fact that anyone actually paying attention has known since at least Speak Now, a delightful record populated by the most appalling, horrible characters imaginable, and all of them written by a twenty year old Taylor Swift, that this woman is a pure weirdo. To accuse Taylor Swift of lacking in self-awareness is a reductive misunderstanding, I think, of artifice. Being a fake bitch takes work. Which is to say, if we agree that her public self is a calculated performance—eliding the fact that all public selves are a performance to avoid getting too in the weeds yadda yadda— why, then, should it be presumed that performance is rooted in ignorance? Would it not make more sense that, in fact, someone able to contort themselves so ably into various shapes for public consumption would have a certain understanding of the basic materials they’re working with and concealing? Taylor Swift, in a decade and a half of fame, has presented herself from inside a number of distinct packages. The gangly teenager draped in long curls like climbing wisteria who wrote lyrics down her arms in glitter paint gave way to red lipstick, a Diet Coke campaign, and bad dancing at awards shows. There was the period where she was surrounded constantly by a gaggle of models, then suddenly wasn’t anymore, and that rough interlude with the bleached hair. The whole Polaroid thing. Last year she boldly revealed she’s a democrat. Now it’s the end of the world and she’s got frizzy bangs and flannels and muted little piano songs. Perhaps this endless shape-shifting contradicts or undermines, for some, the pose of tender authenticity which has remained static through each phase, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been doing it all on purpose the entire time. I’ve never been a natural, all I do is try, try, try...

In the Disney+ documentary—which, in order to watch, I had to grudgingly give the vile mouse seven dollars, because the login information that I’d begged off of my little sister didn’t work and I was too embarrassed to bring it up a second time—Taylor referred to “mirrorball” as the first time on the album where she explicitly addressed the pandemic, referring to the lyrics that start, “And they called off the circus, Burned the disco down,” and end with “I’m still on that tightrope, I’m still trying everything to get you laughing at me,” which actually did made me laugh, feeling sort of warmly foolish and a little fond, because it never would have occurred to me that she was trying to be literal there. I suppose we really do all contain multitudes. Hate that.

#taylor swift #folklore

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