#if you heavily disagree with me that's ok I don't mind

[phatkochi]

They are sooooo siblings

[btsqualityy]

BTS Dating Series #17: Pet Peeves

Members x Reader

Genre/Rate: 18+, fluff

Summary: Little things that just....annoy you or him about each other.

Warnings: None to note.

Kim Seokjin

You threw your body into a chair in the corner of your bedroom, folding your arms across your chest as Jin stared at you incredulously. The two of you had been in a somewhat heated disagreement and once you started to feel yourself becoming overwhelmed, you chose to just...stop talking in an effort to calm yourself.

"Are you really gonna not say anything else?" Jin wondered, huffing harshly when you only responded with further silence. "You know, that's another thing that you do that I hate."

"What?" You couldn't help but to ask.

"Any time we have an argument or even a hard conversation, you clam up and stop talking," he explained. "That makes it almost impossible to fix anything and it also makes me feel like some type of villain."

"Oh," you murmured, looking down at your feet. "I didn't realize that it made you feel that way. I just..."

"What?" Jin encouraged as he stepped over to you and bent down so that he was looking up at you.

"In past relationships, whenever I would get chastised or yelled at, I found that not saying anything helped to not escalate things," you admitted, finally looking up at your boyfriend. "I don't want things to escalate with you, Jin."

"Oh baby," he murmured, grabbing your hands and bringing them both up to his mouth, pressing soft kisses to them before he pulled them away to speak. "You never have to worry about that with me. Whenever we're disagreeing about something, it's never me against you. It's us against the problem, ok? It doesn't mean that I hate you or that I don't want to be with you because that would never be the case, ok?"

"Ok," you nodded. "I'm sorry for shutting down on you. I'll do my best to work on that."

"Ok," Jin agreed. "I love you."

"I love you too," you replied before leaning down and kissing him softly.

Min Yoongi

"Are you fucking serious right now?" Yoongi chuckled in disbelief and you barely spared him a glance from your spot on his living room couch. You and Yoongi had planned to spend the whole weekend together since it was one of his rare ones off. However, he got called into the studio at the last minute and had to go handle it before you two headed out on your planned date for the day.

Now, that wasn't a problem for you whatsoever because Yoongi said he'd text you when he was heading back home. One hour went by, then two hours and by the time the third hour rolled around, you were throughly pissed off. Once he did finally make it back to his apartment where he'd left you, you had become resolute in giving him the silent treatment.

"Do you know how childish you're acting right now?" Yoongi wondered. "I know that I told you it wouldn't take me long and I'm sorry that it did but you can't be this upset over that!"

"You cannot tell me what I can and cannot be upset over," you finally spoke up.

"Oh look, she speaks." You glared at him, throwing him the middle finger before you folded your arms across your chest. All Yoongi could do was groan loudly as he ran his hands over his face, becoming more irritated as time went on.

"Listen, I do not do well with the silent treatment and I hate it when you do this so if you want me to fix it, you're going to have to cooperate and talk to me or else I won't be able to," he shrugged. "Up to you." You sighed heavily then, knowing that you were being petty and that your boyfriend was right.

"I'm sorry," you murmured. "I just got upset when you took longer than you said you would. Made it feel like you forgot about me."

"I could never forget about you," he cooed, bending down so that he was squatting in front of you as he took your hands in his to hold. "I'm sorry that I didn't keep you in the loop. I'll make sure to be more mindful of that, ok?" You nodded with a smile, surging forward and throwing your arms around him in a hug.

Kim Namjoon

"If you would just listen to me, I'd be able to explain it to you!" You exclaimed angrily as you stared at Namjoon, who was standing on the other side of the island in your kitchen. The two of you had been cooking dinner together when you made what was intended to be a light hearted joke about his cooking skills. However, Namjoon didn't take it that way at all which led to a full blown argument.

"You can be so flippant when you say certain things to me, you know?" Namjoon pointed out.

"Me, flippant?" You scoffed, throwing your hands up in immediate surrender. "And on that note, I need some space." You turned around and began to walk out of the kitchen but you realized that you could hear footsteps behind you.

"And that's another thing," Namjoon snapped. "Anytime we get into an argument or fight, you insist on walking away."

"Because I need space!" You shouted as you turned around to look at him. "I literally just said that or were you not listening?"

"We're not gonna fix anything if you keep doing that."

"But we're also not going to fix anything if I can't take the space I need to calm down so that I'm not escalating the situation," you explained. "I know you wanna talk it out but just....give me a little while."

"Fine," Namjoon relented and he turned around and walked away before you even had the chance to say another word.

Jung Hoseok

"It was so good to see you!" Hobi smiled to Juhyun, who grinned widely as Hobi gave her a gentle hug.

"It was good to see you as well, Hobi," she replied before turning around and walking out of the store. Hobi walked back over to you then, where you had been pretending to browse the store's selection of shoes but you had really been eavesdropping on their conversation.

"See anything you might like?" Hobi asked you and you shrugged noncommittally, biting your lip before you decided to just take the risk and ask what was on your mind.

"Can I ask you something?" You wondered.

"Anything."

"Are you still friends with all of your exes?" You questioned and Hobi rose an eyebrow.

"Well, I don't know if friends is the word I'd really use to describe it," he began. "Even if we broke up, none of them were necessarily on bad terms or anything like that so it's not hard for me to speak to them whenever I might see them."

"Hmm," you murmured and Hobi couldn't help but to smile at you.

"Jealous?"

"Don't know if jealous is really the word I'd use," you replied, echoing his previous statement. "But it does make me feel weird that you're.....so friendly. I don't like it."

"So, should I keep it to a hi and bye?" He asked. "And no hugs?"

"That actually would be nice," you nodded.

"Done," Hobi grinned. "Now, come on. I wanted to check out another store while we're here." You smiled to yourself as Hobi grabbed your hand and led you out of the store.

Park Jimin

You were laid out in Jimin's bed, waiting for him to get home from rehearsal. You had had an extremely long day at work so needless to say, you were more than excited to see your boyfriend so that you could get all the cuddles that you could handle.

As you were browsing the internet on your laptop, you heard the front door open and close and not long after that, Jimin was pushing open the door to the bedroom.

"Hi Jimin-ssi," you greeted him happily, watching as he threw his bag down and instantly walked over to the closet.

"Hi baby," he muttered as he worked on changing out of his dance clothes and into more comfortable ones. As he did this, you closed the laptop and set it on the bedside table before you laid down on your side. Once Jimin was done changing, he walked over to the bed and laid down on his back, shutting his eyes and not saying a word.

"How was your day?" You spoke up and Jimin just shrugged, eyes still closed.

"Same old, same old."

"Did you guys finish learning the choreography to that new song you showed me?" You wondered and Jimin nodded. "Aw, I'm sure it's amazing. I can't wait to see it." Jimin still hadn't said a word and you sighed heavily. "Jimin, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," he deadpanned. "I'm fine."

"Baby, you're obviously not fine," you replied gently. "I'm willing to listen if you want to talk."

"Well, I don't want to talk," he grunted. "Just leave me alone."

"You know, I was really looking forward to you getting here because I had a long day too and all I wanted was to cuddle with you but if you're going to be a jerk just because you're in a shitty mood, then I'll just go home," you snapped and just as you moved to rip the blanket off of your body, Jimin gently grabbed your arm.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "It was just a hard day and I didn't mean to take it out on you."

"And that's fair that you didn't feel like talking but don't clam up on me," you murmured as you turned around to face him. "I'm here to help, always."

"I know," he smiled gently. "Come here." He opened his arms and you moved closer to him, allowing him to wrap his arms around you as he held your body tightly to his. "I love you."

"I love you too," you whispered, smiling to yourself when you felt him kiss your forehead.

Kim Taehyung

"Oh my gosh, you know what we should do tonight?" Taehyung asked you and you looked up at him from your spot next to him on his couch. The two of you had planned on just having a date night in but apparently, Taehyung had other ideas.

"What?"

"We should get dressed and go to that new jazz club that just opened last month," he suggested and you instantly grimaced. "What is it?"

"I don't know about that," you replied. "I was kind of looking forward to staying in."

"But we've been doing that for so many weekends now," he pointed out. "It might be fun to get out, have a little change of scenery."

"Hmm, I don't think so," you shook your head and your eyes widened when you heard Taehyung sigh heavily.

"Why don't you ever want to go out?" He demanded to know. "I could probably count on one hand how often we've been out together, just to do something fun."

"I'm a homebody," you shrugged. "I've always preferred to be home to than go out to some club or something like that."

"And I fully respect that but couldn't we do it sometimes?" He suggested. "Just occasionally?"

"You know what, yeah," you agreed. "I promise, I'll try to make sure that we do more of the things you enjoy too, ok?"

"Thank you," Taehyung grinned widely before leaning over and kissing you firmly.

Jeon Jungkook

"What the hell?" You muttered as you picked pieces of clothes up off of the living room floor. "Has a man been staying with me or a fucking animal?" In an effort to spend more time together, Jungkook had been spending more time at your apartment and he had definitely made himself comfortable in your space. Maybe even a little...too comfortable.

"Baby, I have lamb skewers!" Jungkook exclaimed as he stepped through the front door of your apartment, one bag in each hand as he shut the door with his foot. He stopped right in his tracks though when he saw you standing in the middle of the living room with an unamused look on your face. "What's wrong?"

"No, the problem is what's wrong with you?" You demanded to know. "Have you never seen a hamper? Do you not know what it looks like so that you can put your clothes in it?"

"No, those are my clean clothes," he told you.

"Why are they on the floor then?"

"Because I didn't want them to get mixed up with my dirty ones," he shrugged, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why not just put the dirty in the- you know what, no," you cut yourself off. "I'm not even gonna attempt to understand male logic. Just give me my skewers, please."

"Here you go," Jungkook smiled, waiting until you had dropped the clothes in your hands before he handed one of the bags off to you. "I love you."

"Yeah yeah, love you too, messy animal," you grumbled, making Jungkook laugh out loud.

..........................................................

Tag List: @addictedtohobi @brittneymccray @cursedcursives @arata18nanami @leftieaquarius @devilsbooksworld @starmyy @werewolfbanshee-love @li-moonchild-il @kpop-servant @cheysjimin

[penelope-kat]

So I'm a little dissatisfied with the ending of F&C (btw totally fine to disagree, this is just my opinion. Also it's just a show ok let's all be mature here).

Let me be clear: I don't hate the ending; I think the rest of the show is amazing, AND while I LOVE the message of Simon and Betty moving on from each other and being able to be ok without each other, it felt really disingenuous for the show to say that Betty was more obsessed with Simon when they're clearly both complete freaks for each other?

Simon's whole thing in the original show whenever he was lucid was about how much he missed Betty, how fixated he was on her, and how he'd do anything to get her back, or at least be able to talk to her one more time. Marceline is always talking about how Simon was constantly obsessed with finding Betty again when she was little, and Ice King's whole character and obsession with kidnapping princesses stemmed from Simon desperately wanting to find Betty again.

All relationships have flaws, but I feel like this wasn't the right flaw to give their relationship. Simon and Betty's relationship was flawed because they were super obsessed with each other, not because Betty was more obsessed with Simon than Simon was with her. I guarantee that Simon would have done all the same shit Betty did if the roles were reversed and Betty had put on the ice crown instead, like I have not a single doubt in my mind.

It also makes Simon look a lot less emotionally intelligent and empathetic, which is like yeah, people don't always see how they hurt their loved ones, but you're really telling me he NEVER ONCE did anything Betty wanted to do? Never?? And Betty is a strong-willed woman, we always see that. She's unhinged. I love her. I feel like Simon would have picked up on her wants, too, especially since they were implied to have been together for a long time given, you know, they've co-written books and explored the world together and all. Simon ADORED Betty, and he's always been shown to be very empathetic and insightful, even at his worst during F&C! I highly doubt after all that time with Betty he would have never even considered doing her stuff. Do you really think Mr Semen Peggtricock over here, the final-boss of pathetic submissive twinks, took the reins on every aspect of anything they did together? I know that man gets his bussy destroyed three nights a week by Betty's 12 inch strap and whimpers under her weight m'kay there's no WAY he never ever once listened to what she wanted to do.

I do appreciate that the show doesn't make Simon or Betty out to be monsters or bad people or anything, and I do think in the context of Simon and Betty's stories, them going different ways makes the most narrative and thematic sense since their obsession with each other did end up severely negatively-impacting both their lives. Also, it was heavily implied that Betty reincarnated after blowing Simon sending Simon back to Ooo, so she won't be fused with Golb for all eternity in infinite loneliness. Uh that also makes me feel way better about the ending too lol.

But the specific point of "Simon didn't appreciate Betty enough".. it just doesn't sit right. That man spent collective decades mourning the loss of Betty, his princess, and all he really wanted was to be with her. He understood how brilliant she was, he loved her for it. Yes, he almost gave up her sacrifice that made him Simon again, but can you really blame him for that? He was super depressed and genuinely believed it would be the best thing to do in order to protect the little gay people in his head. He wasn't doing it to punish Betty, he'd never do that. Tbf I haven't seen many people claim he did it to punish Betty, I can just see that being a reachable conclusion for someone watching who already wasn't too keen on how their relationship had been portrayed thus far.

Betty was right: they did make their choices. And that means her choices too, choices that she literally took ownership of in the same breath, so it's weird for the show to imply only she would have gone to the lengths she did in their relationship.

Honestly the topic of overcoming obsession makes perfect sense to explore for BOTH of them. Betty having had time to think about it for 12 years as a chaos god, and Simon still being hung up because he blames himself for everything that happened. They were both equally obsessed with each other, and that mutual obsession destroyed both their lives. Now they need to be able to move on and, in Simon's case, keep living, even though Betty isn't around anymore, because his life as Simon Petrikov MATTERS.

Also before anyone brings up Temple of Mars that episode SLAPS it's GREAT and yes it is about Betty's obsession with Simon, but I always found it to be more of a "wow things became so screwed up. It's a shame Betty didn't go on her trip but the happiness she had with Simon was clearly worth it to her, it's just crazy how something like her missing a trip to be with him evolved into her time traveling into the future and losing her mind trying to save him". It wasn't really an episode about how bad Simon was for her in the beginning, it was like "holy shit girlie we need to get you on mood stabilizers ASAP cuz this shit is CRAZY".

Yeah I dunno how to wrap this up. Didn't mean to make anyone upset: I'm still shaky about how I feel on all of this and just wanted to get my thoughts out there. Opinions are valid! Even if you don't agree, I hope you can see where I'm coming from :)

Have a good night!

[omegalomania]

no ok like. like i have to break this down i am actually losing my mind. whenever i visited my grandparents on my dads side as a kid theyd put on field of dreams like, constantly. it would just be running in the background, sometimes multiple times per day. the background radiation of that movie is just kinda in my dna and it awoke something in me today.

field of dreams is about faith. it's a guy who had a strained relationship with his late father because they were both BIG baseball buffs, but the main character's personal hero was shoeless joe jackson, a chicago white sox player who was mostly known for his participation in the black sox scandal despite being an incredibly gifted batter. mc and his father disagreed heavily about jackson, with his father calling him a criminal but the main character idolizing him as a hero.

a little while after his father passes away, main character gets these voices telling him if you build it, he will come. he decides to mow down a huge chunk of his cornfield and build a baseball field in its place, which basically everyone in his life considers a really fucking terrible move since that means he's massively dropped the sale value of his property and also is gonna lose all the money he shouldve gotten from corn. but he did this all on faith - building it, so he will come.

the field gets inhabited by numerous ghostly players from the past, all of them legends, and among them is shoeless joe jackson. there's almost this expectation that he is who was supposed to come - the main characters personal hero. but by the end of the film, he learns that one of the players on the field is actually his late father. he will come. the one defining relationship in his life that the main character was never able to reconcile.

in the final scene, he asks his father if he wants to play a game of catch. and as they pass the ball back and forth, we pull back and see that a line of cars has started to form. people are coming to see the game between father and son. people are gathering around to watch them play.

its a movie about faith. tear down your whole life and build a baseball field. build it, and he will come. build it, and they will come. in the emptiness of some random cornfield, there is magic, and there is a way to reach back into the past.

and people will watch you do it. people will gather around from all over the world to see this small, intimate window between two people they don't actually know.

its a movie about faith. i will defend the faith, going down swinging. and fob had to have such faith in us for this to work, didnt they? they planted a single, cryptic ad in a newspaper in chicago. no media hype, no socials, nothing. just one ad, in one newspaper, in chicago.

but thats the thing. it worked. we spread it like wildfire regardless. we all latched onto it. they did this small thing on the faith that we would know what to do with it and it fucking worked.

because crowds are won and lost and won again. but our hearts beat for the diehards.

[k-s-morgan]

Hi K. I’m sorry the war rages on and that things haven’t gotten better. It does seem like the world has completely gone to shit, permanently. I wish I could do something to help. I’m sorry I can’t.

If it’s ok, and if it’d help get your mind off of things for a bit, I wanted to ask a hannigram-related question.

It’s not clear on the show (if I remember correctly) whether Will dismembered and did the museum tableau of Randall Tier by himself or with Hannibal. It was my understanding that him and Hannibal did it together, however, in the script, Hannibal asks Will something along the lines of “why didn’t you get rid of the body (Randall’s)?” [instead of displaying it?]. So the script implies that Hannibal wasn’t present and didn’t do the tableau with Will, and that Will did it all himself, instead of disposing of the body. (I do think though that this scene from the script was deleted). But on the scenes we actually saw on the episode, it does give the impression that they did it together because later, when they’re on Hannibal’s study, Will says “we’re going to get caught” when they’re discussing Randall and the tableau, so again we’re made to believe they worked together. What is your view? Did they display Randall together or only Will?

Hi! Thank you so much for your ask. The world has indeed is becoming a darker and darker place - or maybe, with the Internet, it's just more obvious now. It seems like people can never just enjoy life, there is always horror and suffering and the indiffrence.

And yes, of course! I think Will staged Randall's body by himself, and while the scene that definitely proves it remained only in the script, I think there is still enough text in the show to heavily imply it.

It starts with Will admitting:

WILL GRAHAM: I don't think I've ever felt more alive than when I was killing him.

HANNIBAL: Then you owe Randall Tier a debt. How will you repay him?

This sounds like Hannibal wants to Will to mutilate Randall himself to repay him for becoming the sacrifice on the altar of his transformation.

Later, after Will, Hannibal, and Jack are watching the body, Jack and Hannibal present different theories, and Will disagrees with them both almost defensively:

WILL GRAHAM: He isn't mocking him. This isn't disdain. He's commemorating him.

To me, this means that positioning Randall like this was his idea, his way of expressing his feelings, and it's important for him to make his unique meaning clear to everyone, including Hannibal.

Then Will moves to the space of his own head, and he and imaginary Randall have this conversation:

RANDALL: You made me a monument.

WILL GRAHAM: You're welcome.

RANDALL: The monument is not to me. It's to you. This is pride.

WILL GRAHAM: I gave you what you want. This is who you are. What you feel finally matches the reality of what I see.

RANDALL: This is my becoming. And yours.

Will shakes his head, this is not his becoming.

Will: This is my design.

Randall says that Will in particular made him a monument, and Will speaks only about himself when explaining that he gave him what he wanted. The idea behind this monument is to show that Will is developing his own unique design - Hannibal shouldn't be involved in this because it's a deeply intimate thing that's unique to everyone, and while Will and Hannibal are absolutely soulmates, they still have different MOs and preferences. At this moment of time, Hannibal fully mastered his, but Will is only starting to spread his wings. The deleted scene from the script elaborates on this notion:

HANNIBAL: Why didn't you dispose of the body? It was the prudent course.

WILL GRAHAM: Randall deserved to be seen.

HANNIBAL: Randall, or your work on him?

WILL GRAHAM: You called it "artistry." Is that how you see your own efforts?

HANNIBAL: I also called it "savagery." You mutilated the body. Displayed it.

WILL GRAHAM: The bird is leaving the nest, Dr. Lecter. Spreading his wings.

HANNIBAL: How did it feel? To manipulate what was a living man into a message all of your own.

WILL GRAHAM: Like I wasn't finished till I had.

Hannibal absorbs this.

HANNIBAL: Did you take a trophy too, Will?

WILL GRAHAM: A memento of my first rodeo? What do you think?

HANNIBAL: I think it would be the act of a serial killer.

WILL GRAHAM: By definition, one body doesn't make me a serial killer.

Also, if Hannibal was there, I think he would be interested in what Will did to Randall's meat, and probably where he took his costume, which would lessen the impact of Will bringing this meat to him later on, passing it for Freddie's.

As for the "We're going to get caught," maybe you meant the scene in E12? Will says this to Hannibal after Mason and Freddie in the hope to bait him into killing Jack and escaping. This is not directly about Randall, Will meant their crimes in general.

HANNIBAL: Jack Crawford already suspects you killed Freddie Lounds.

WILL GRAHAM: If Jack told you he suspects me, it means he suspects you.

HANNIBAL: I know.

Will considers their options a moment, then:

WILL GRAHAM: You should give him what he wants.

HANNIBAL: Give him the Chesapeake Ripper?

WILL GRAHAM: Allow him closure. Reveal yourself. You've taunted him long enough. Let him see you with clear eyes.

So, I think the display of Randall was entirely Will's doing.

[claudiasescapesubmarine]

hiii for the ask meme, how did you discover it or get interested in the show? an unpopular opinion? and/or have you read or watched anything because it was referenced in the show? :)

Hey!!! Finally getting around to answering this haha.

How did you discover it or get interested in the show?

It was actually @minim236 who inspired me to watch it back when I had my old blog! Anyway, the trailer had Jacob Anderson in it and I was like Greyworm ok let's go! And although I had not read the book or watched the movie yet, Claudia the child vampire is so well known I already knew about her, so was interested in that concept. Naturally, she became my favourite character :)

An unpopular opinion?

I feel I have soooo many unpopular opinions haha, but I'll say what I think is my most unpopular one, just because I feel like I'm following the right people here who won't mind:

Lestat as a character just does not compel or interest me in any way. I don't care about Loustat, about Lesmand, or any other relationships that involve him. Sam Reid did an amazing job, and got me drawn to him initially, but by the end of episode 3 I was getting a bit, well, and by the end of Episode 5, all sympathy for him went out the window, as did my interest. And full respect to other people who are still invested in his character btw! But I feel like because they made the abuse blatant rather than just brushing over it, many book fans were pissed, so now had to argue contend with a whole bunch of people not liking their special boy whom they've cherished for years. I disagree. I feel like the writers did a brave thing by not brushing over the negative impact Lestat has throughout the entire series. They, in a way, made the relationship more human and real, as this type of abuse is unfortunately still very normal today. They're not showing him through rose-tinted glasses, they're asking you to really look at it, so it'll be much more of a writing challenge to make him likeable and redeemable again to the general audience. It's an interesting concept, but until then, I just don't care at all about him! I don't feel anything when it comes to the romantic scenes between him and Louis either now, and I'm not excitedly waiting to explore his side of the story in the future seasons. The appeals to 'them being vampires' and 'this is supposed to be a gothic romance' has no affect on me, not because I 'can't handle dark subject matter', but because.... Lestat's not really imo the complex character everyone makes him out to be. His behaviour is actually pretty predictable and there's not that much there for me to work with, even as a villain. It's just: sad boy with tragic backstory ends up repeating cycle of abuse that was inflicted on him. Is extremely lonely with an ill temper. Uses dominance to feel in control and to hide his massive insecurities. Is "bad" but secretly has a heart of gold. Mommy/daddy issues. Loves usually only one person more than anything and it's seen as his salvation, but struggles with that relationship because he's emotionally stunted and can't communicate properly. It's something you've seen a million times already. It's what makes the much more layered and harder to grasp characters like Claudia and Armand so much more interesting to me, the vampires who are the most vampire-like of them all, yet ironically get a lot of hate and are mischaracterized from the same people who shout 'they're vampires!', but that's another discussion for another day.

Have you read or watched anything because it was referenced in the show?

I have! I watched Nosferatu, and read Madame Bovary and Marriage in Free Society, although I was going to read Madame Bovary anyway because my little sister heavily recommended it (she massively likes 'unlikeable' female characters and compared her to Anna Karenina, which she didn't like as much due her being too likeable. Which is funny because apparently Tolstoy originally wrote Anna to be an ugly, evil, conniving character who hurt her completely innocent husband and lover and son, but as he was writing, the character became more and more beautiful and sympathetic, and the husband and lover became more incompetent and unkind). I currently have The Doll's House and Nausea next on my list! (I really need to read The Doll's House, it's been on my list since I watched Bojack Horseman lol).

Although this probably doesn't count, because of the after show podcasts, I was inspired to also read The Gilda Stories because they had Jewelle Gomez make an appearance. I ended up being a bit mad afterwards because I soooo wished I read this book in high school, as I was an angry teenager still in the closet then, and this book might have helped me calm down a little lol. There's just something so different and radical about the way Gomez writes her vampires: in a lot of other media, the vampire/monster finally obtains the ability to have cathartic releases of rage due to their isolation/repression and/or abuse, but here, her main character opts for kindness, compassion, and community each time (she still uses violence and murder if needed to defend herself and others, but doesn't let violence consume her entire being). That was very refreshing, having the character be able to do so much damage and take revenge without consequence, yet instead find more fulfillment in the bonds they make with others and refusing to let other people bend her right to actually, well...live.

[ladyluscinia]

Ok one last dip into "the Izcourse" before I take my own advice and pivot to rewatching S1 in prep and posting about what I love!

We get a lot of trolls, and harassers, and staunch antis looking to pick a fight with the "bad fans" who either drop bait or jump on people's posts to be annoying. That's the flame war part of all this mess. But we also get a fair number of posts from "neutral" people that I want to gripe about for a moment because at least the antis are misrepresenting "what Izzy fans believe / discuss" because they are actively against my take on the show for whatever reason. But it's more annoying to me personally when it's just... a lack of effort.

(And I've mentioned this before)

Like... a "neutral" observer weighing in on "The Izcourse" is a member of the general fandom who doesn't care enough about Izzy to really be an anti. Their perspective on the matter is coming from directly or indirectly following people in the antis' main meta circle. We know this, because just about every neutral person who was not from this background got classified as an Izzy apologist / problematic Edward thoughtcrimer and they are counted as in "the Canyon" now. We watched it happen a lot over the past year and a half. So the observer is not neutral, not really, but they probably aren't heavily blocking / blocked if they don't care and don't talk about Izzy.

Which makes it so frustrating when they feel the need to bring up "concerning" trends among Izzy fans and their interpretations and then they don't know what those interpretations are.

Like - in the most patient tone I can possibly manage - scrolling a bit of the Izzy Hands tag and taking fans squeeing about their blorbo as evidence there is no nuance in meta and too much babygirlifying here is dumb as fuck. Hell, even isolating a recent meta post and going "well I don't agree with this because XYZ" is still very much a "so what?" situation because that one person is not representing all Izzy fans? And also you still have a huge blind spot.

Because meta is - at its core - a collaborative structure.

You can't experience a particular branch of meta primarily through people vaguing or screenshotting and dunking on whatever looks the worst, then skim a little bit of a tag and be able to confidently call out what the "problematic trends" are. You can't even understand where the random meta you singled out is coming from, because you don't know which posts they've been looking at for over a year. And this is all really highlighted by the fact when you go to dissect that post you disagree with, you'll do it by just saying things that you understand to be established, well-defended facts from your own circle of meta and not back them up at all. Because in your mind you don't need to! And yet the post you're disagreeing with won't make sense because they are just assuming things and talking about this fanon version of Izzy you don't recognize. 🤷‍♀️

(This is why my typical meta post is linking to three separate discussions, lol. I'm building off of things said before like basically every meta writer, but I want those things referenced.)

If you aren't going to actually put in the effort to identify which blogs are the "major players" and then go back through tags or their popular posts or whatever to get an actual idea of what the meta structure Izzy Canyon has spent over a year discussing contains, then at least don't disparagingly comment on those people and discussions while lumping them into one "problematic" hive mind??? You don't know what you're talking about because you didn't care, and that's whatever. Just please stop confidently conflating random blog #7's generally happy post about how "i can't wait for my fave little guy to have friends 💕" with a concerning lack of discussions on Izzy's relationship with the crew.

My "#ofmd meta" tag - among others - is full of almost exclusively Izzy Canyon blogs writing complex posts about all sorts of things from romcom genre conventions to POC fans' takes on Edward's cptsd, and it's beyond annoying to see them repeatedly insinuated to have the depth of a puddle because the antis prefer to pile on a headcanon about Izzy reading and turn it into an insult to Edward's intelligence, and all the "neutral" blogs take it as gospel.

[pudding-parade]

OK, I'm sorry for posting about politics. Truly. I'll post something sims-related later to make up for it. But for me this is local politics, and Ken Buck -- a man with whom I vehemently disagree, politically, but whom I respect for his commitment to democracy and his stance on the 2020 election not being stolen and for his continuing denouncement of the January 6th insurrection despite things like death threats made against himself and his family by MAGA loonies -- has made my day today. I have literally (and I mean that in the true sense of the word) been spending my afternoon/evening periodically chortling from sheer schadenfreude, so I just have to memorialize this and hope that I don't have to eat my words in November.

For context, or for non-USians, or for just the (slightly) shorter version if you don't want to look at the article....

Lauren Boebert, a super-"MAGA" fascist, is, depressingly, my current representative in the US House of Representatives. She only barely won reelection in 2022 despite the fact that, while I live in a very blue, hippie spot of it, the district has historically leaned heavily conservative because most of the district is made up of very Christian rural ranchers, who are conservative, yes, but in their case, generally speaking, traditionally so. They're mostly not the weird, Trump-flag-waving, MAGA-cult breed of it. So, Bobo only won reelection in 2022 by a few hundred votes and, since then, Adam Frisch, the centrist (which, by non-US standards, is right-wing) Democrat who opposed her and is running again, has only gotten more popular, as the House has proceeded to get absolutely nothing done, despite having a majority, precisely because of the shenanigans of MAGA idiots like Bobo.

So, Bobo decides that for the 2024 election, she'll instead run for the district east of mine, which was Mr. Buck's and which is even more conservative. She announced this decision right after Mr. Buck announced that he was retiring and would not be running for reelection. It was obvious that Bobo figured that that district would be a much easier win than the traditionally conservative district she very nearly lost.

But just today, Mr. Buck announced that instead of staying in Congress until this coming January, he's out as of this coming Friday. Which forces a special election in his district to fill his seat until January. Our (Democrat) state governor announced that that election will on the 25th of June, which is by law the longest delay possible, thus leaving Mr. Buck's seat empty until then, thus eroding the Republicans' majority until then. And if Bobo wanted to enter that special election, she'd have to resign from her current seat immediately because you can't be a sitting congressperson for one district and run for and be elected in another. Bobo has announced that she's not going to give up her current seat. And, for various reasons, all of this means that her chances of winning Buck's district in the regular election in November are now worse. And, she can't change her mind and run for reelection in the regular election for her current district, even if she wanted to, because the deadline for entering that election has recently passed.

So basically it's (probably) bye-bye Bobo! (And probably hello, Mr. Frisch for me, and while I'd be happier with a progressive, I'll take a centrist over a MAGA idiot any day.) And also? Mr. Buck, who has publicly stated that his party no longer aligns with his values, has not only screwed Bobo with his well-timed decision to "spend more time with his family," but also Mike "Christian Nationalist Fascist" Johnson, the Speaker of the House -- who, as the icing on the cake, was not informed of Mr. Buck's decision in advance of the announcement of it -- as his parting gift to MAGA.

Why? Because the Republicans now have a majority of just four or five seats, and, from next Friday until July, when Mr. Buck's (most likely Republican but perhaps not MAGA) successor will be sworn in, they now have one less, with the next election only eight months away and at a time when the Repugs need all hands on deck, so to speak, if they have any hope of getting anything at all done and, therefore, of having anything "positive" (by the conservative definition of that word) that they can talk up and run on from now until November. I'm pretty sure this big "screw you" was Mr. Buck's intention before he announced even his original retirement plans, so...Well played, Mr. Buck. Well. Played.

The question is: Will other House Republicans with integrity (there are a few left) follow Mr. Buck's lead? Could we see the House change majority before the 2024 election? It's not likely, but it's possible! And either way, this one conservative man dealt a blow to the MAGAs today, and I, as an extreme leftie, am here for it.

[aprofessionalwithoutstandards]

On the topic of fem fortress, I agree and disagree. For the record I fall under the trans umbrella myself as well and I used the have the same opinion. You are entitled to your opinion of course but calling gender swapped art transphobic is a little too much. My problem with gender swapped art is if they make the female version without wrinkles or without the same body type. If you want to draw the mercs as trans that is totally fine and awesome but again calling people transphobic for drawing vid versions of characters sounds like a little bit of projection no offence. If someone were to draw me as a gender swapped version of me as cis personally I wouldn’t care. And again I’m only talking for me here but calling someone transphobic over something as small as this is taking away from actually transphobia that us real living people have to deal with. I don’t think I’ll change your mind and that’s ok with me. I hope you’ll at least consider this point of view. Love your blog and I hope you have a nice day.

Anon I genuinely do not want to be mean but like. do you know how to read? Nowhere in that post do I say "all genderbent art is transphobic" and I specifically disclaim that I do NOT think that because I KNEW this was the kind of reaction I would get. I can't help but feel like you are either intentionally or unintentionally misrepresenting what I said in order to make my critique sound more outlandish and unreasonable and craaaaaazy and thus easier to disagree with than it is, which is something that Always fucking happens to me whenever I talk about transphobia as a trans person, biphobia as a bi person, racism as a Latino person, etc, someone misrepresenting my argument to make me look like an oversensitive "triggered" idiot for even daring to see bigotry in something "small". I understand that YOU might feel comfortable with people whose genderbent art is like "the thing that makes this character a man is that he was born with a penis and ascribes to all cis standards of 'masculinity' and the thing that makes my new genderbend a woman is that she was born with a vagina and ascribes to all cis standards of 'femininity'" but I don't! I would not want someone to "genderbend" me and make me cis! I do not think it "takes away from 'REAL' transphobia" (whatever that means, transphobia in media and fiction is still transphobia and still affects people in real life) to say that "associating the gender of a character with the 'biological sex' of that character is cissexist" and/or "showing that you have 'genderbent' a 'male' character by making them ascribe more heavily to 'female' beauty standards is not just transphobic but misogynistic" (MASSIVE FUCKING PROBLEM with "fem fortress" designs, since when is Medic tf2 thin and petite or since when does Sniper tf2 wear makeup and a crop top and since when do either of them not have any wrinkles), that's like. completely normal media critique. I know that a lot of my followers enjoy "fem fortress" and I have tried to be as nice as I can about my critiques of SOME VERSIONS of it because of this, but like you need to be able to take critique of things that you enjoy. Nowhere do I say "all genderbend art is transphobic" but it seems like people are rejecting that for "no genderbend art is transphobic" which is just objectively untrue. I enjoy tf2 and I am able to make and take critiques of it, especially things like its portrayal of women characters (or lack thereof), but not everyone can. I would like to be able to talk about misogyny, biphobia, racism, or transphobia within this game and/or its fandom just once without someone inevitably coming to tell me "it's not that bad and you're just overreacting". I guess I'm not saying you have to agree with me but maybe try actually listening to what I say and not knee-jerk react like this bc I lightly criticized something you enjoy (which I have even praised in other posts, wouldn't you know! I think fem fortress is fun!)

[fandomshatepeopleofcolor]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like since The Little Mermaid live action is very different from the original and kind of its own thing, we could say that in this specific version, Ariel’s race does have a special place even though it doesn’t affect the plot at all? I mean, I’m pretty sure that the change from a European setting to a more Southern American one (where there’s plenty of Black and Brown people) was heavily influenced by the casting of Halle Bailey (which is absolutely not a bad thing)! And it fits perfectly with this specific version of Ariel!

Because I don’t think it would have happened if they had cast a white actress? And I feel like either they had planned the change of setting way before casting and already wanted a Black or Brown girl before auditions even started (and I remember seeing an article that said they were looking for a woman of color) or when they picked Halle they had the idea to change the setting to make something new and make it stand apart from the original?

I’m not sure wether I’m being clear or not but what I mean to say is that this specific of version of Ariel was made specifically for Black and Brown children and if they make, like, a stage adaptation of it, a white woman as the lead wouldn’t really fit? Same way that if they had decided to set it in South Asia, having a white actress playing her wouldn’t really fit, you know what I mean??

Ok so I totally agree with you but I only disagree on one point: I don't think that we can legitimately say that Prince Eric's mother the queen was queen of a south american country. Like geographically yes I know what you mean about it being tropical and surrounded by coral which only grows in a certain temperature. HOWEVER, I find it hard to believe that the live action little mermaid was based on any country in our history with the engrained chattel slavery.

Like let me see if I can give an example. So black panther is set in a similar earth to ours but the way they isolated themselves with technological advances means they weren't victim to slavery. but that history of slavery globally still impacts them and the fandom was very adamant about not shipping white women with T'Challa a Black king of an African country.

Whereas Prince Eric was the adopted son of a Black queen who I suspect didn't feel the need to only adopt a black son. The Queen didn't even seem to mind that the previously hostile mermaids were changing. Like King Triton overcame his prejudice for humans and made a solid show of mending their relationship. So I don't think its a similar setting wrt race relations to our history.

But I'm not black so I defer to other Black bloggers. Like Ariel's race matters to us because we see her in our context but that racial barrier is removed from the Queen's viewpoint because she herself is Black. So yeah if they ever cast a white Ariel taking it from the movie it would be whitewashing.

mod ali

[bxrtycrouchjr-is-a-theatre-kid]

marauders but queen songs

OK I HAVE BEEN BRAINING THIS FOR AWHILE BUT PLEASE DEBATE IF YOU DISAGREE

james potter- good old fashioned lover boy

the title itself matches

the lyrics work SO well

james loves so much and he's there to woo and to be wooed and i love it.

sirius black- fat bottomed girls

ok so i heavily debated don't stop me now for pads, but the vibes of fat bottomed girls just worked well

its just hard to explain ok.

remus lupin- bohemian rhapsody

obvi his favourite would be something different but bohemian rhapsody works perfectly

the constant fear of hurting people

the poor boy imagery and his belief that he doesn't deserve love

THE FACT THAT FREDDIE MERCURY WROTE THIS SONG AS AN UNOFFICIAL COMING OUT SONG- the man he kills is the 'straight' him

the somewhat mad lyrics and the 'nothing really matters to me' especially hits with ATYD remus, the drugs business and then the later lack of care

peter pettigrew- we are the champions

originally thinking i'm in love w/ my car or bicycle race but i felt this worked better

the irony of canon peter being a champion with friends, and fighting to the end

fanon peter actually caring for people and fighting despite often being ignored. this song is considered really popular but when you think of popular queen songs, this doesn't always come to mind.

OK SO THATS MARAUDERS BUT I'LL ALSO DO THE SKITTLES + VALKYRIES

[rollercoasterwords]

hi, i think i’m the anon from earlier more so meant the people looking up explicit mlm fics don’t see their own hypocrisy in complaining about lesbian fetishisation?

idk. as an mlm myself i think some marauders fics revolving around mlm relationships are heavily sexualised for authors that, yes are queer, but don’t identify as men. and there’s absolutely no problem with writing queer smut, i want to make that very clear. but it’s when it becomes something that is done in every chapter and so explicit despite the fact that the author would have never experienced that type of sexual relationship.

and these fics are more so consumed by women. again, no harm in that. but you have to ask why they’re specifically looking for explicit mlm fics.

i more so see this type of behaviour on tiktok, specifically regarding sweater weather (me and a lot of my mlm mutual found it very uncomfortable to read) and it’s a very popular fic.

anyways, i agree that queer sex shouldn’t be a taboo topic but i think there should be boundaries or lines (whether they be messy or not) drawn on who can consume that media. there’s no harm in explicit queer smut but i think it becomes problematic when it is written by and read by cis women.

men consuming lesbian smut and porn is uncomfortable and disgusting, i think the same opinions should be applied when women do the same to explicit gay media.

i also want to outline this is not an attack towards you or anyone else, it’s simply my opinion, i can be quite blunt in my delivery but i promise there’s no malice in this.

much love :)

hi! i appreciate the clarification and i appreciate the desire to engage in a conversation about this. i don't think you were too blunt or harsh, and i am also sending you much love! there's a lot to unpack here, so i'm gonna go ahead and respond as best i can, bearing in mind that i think our opinions on this topic might just differ.

so, this is me wading into the weeds on the fetishization conversation. my response is gonna get long and considering the nature of the topic i'm going to be talking about sex, so if that's something you don't want to see then just keep scrolling!

ok so before i even start this conversation, a few ground rules since this is a sensitive topic -

this is a conversation. i am not presenting my thoughts here with the intention of saying that i am absolutely 100% correct or that everyone needs to think the way i do. i am also not presenting my thoughts here with the intent of engaging in any sort of debate or argument. this is a subject on which my own thoughts have changed and could change again, and i value perspectives and opinions different from my own that challenge me to consider why i think the way i do. so if you've read this far - please only continue to read if you are capable of engaging with this post as a conversation. thanks!

i am only speaking about the marauders fandom here. everything i say is being said within that scope. that is because it is the only fandom space that i am plugged into. what i say here may not apply in other fandoms, and it may not apply to fanfiction as a whole in broad, sweeping terms. that is because i am only talking about the marauders fandom

everything i say here is being said with the premise that i do not think either gender or sexuality are fixed, inherent identities. this is part of my own personal worldview, and it is not something that everyone will agree with. if anyone is curious about why i think that way, i'm happy to explain further - but i won't right now, because that's not the purpose of this post. suffice it to say that if you disagree with that premise, you may disagree with a lot of the thoughts building off of it, but what matters is that we are all operating from the same premise for the purposes of this post. and since it's my post, i get to choose the premise! fun :)

i am defining "fetishization" as used in this essay as the reduction of someone's sexuality to a sex object; essentially, viewing homosexuality as nothing more than a means by which to get off, rather than a complex experience and identity.

okay if you've made it through the ground rules and are still here, great! let's get into it. first, anon, i'm going to try to summarize your point - if i'm misinterpreting or misconstruing anything, please let me know! but from what i understand right now, the gist of what you're saying is:

it's uncomfortable/problematic when cis women read and write highly explicit/graphic sexual content about mlm because they themselves would never/have never experienced those types sexual relationships

and your final sort of "conclusion" seems to be this part:

"...there should be boundaries or lines (whether they be messy or not) drawn on who can consume that media."

so bear with me, but i essentially want to push back a little and ask some questions about assumptions that might be underlying that viewpoint. again, i'm not trying to argue or debate; i am not saying that this opinion is wrong and you shouldn't have it. i'm just saying hey! i don't entirely agree, but your points challenged me to think about why, so let's talk about it!

first, i want to do a little thought experiment. you draw this conclusion that you think there do need to be some boundaries and lines, and the boundary you seem to be suggesting is that "the author would have never experienced that type of sexual relationship." so, let's run with that - let's say that writers should only write about the types of sexual relationships they've experienced.

i'm a lesbian. i've written about two gay men having sex. does that create the same discomfort?

"well, rae," you might say, "obviously not. obviously you aren't fetishizing gay men. you're gay, too! you understand homosexuality, and it isn't just a fetish to you."

ok! cool. lesbians get the green card to write about gay sex. awesome, love that for us. what about a bisexual woman?

now here, this conversation can go one of two ways. either you say - yeah, of course, any queer person can write about queer sex. in which case i say - cool! sounds good. from what i've seen, the majority of sexual content in the marauders fandom is queer people writing about queer sex, so this whole conversation about fetishization just doesn't really seem like an issue here to me.

OR you say no, that's where i'm drawing the line, because bi women experience attraction to men, which means that if they write about men having graphic sex with each other they are reducing those men to sex objects. to which i just kind of say...really? like, are you sure?

you use the fic sweater weather as an example. and i have read that fic, although it's been a while, so it's not entirely fresh in my mind, and i also do not know anything about the writer's gender, sexuality, or the types of sex they may or may not have had. based on your ask, it seems like the writer is a woman, which, ok. trusting u on that one. you said that the explicit sexual content made you and some of your mlm friends uncomfortable when you read it, and my very first initial thought to that is - then why did you read it?

like, the thing about fanfic is that nobody has to read it. and even if it's popular, there's nobody profiting off of it. i actually went to check in ao3, and sweater weather is not only tagged as "Explicit," but it also contains the tags, "smut," "sexual content," "blow jobs," "anal sex," and "semi-public sex," which means that before even reading the first sentence, you would have known to expect all of that explicit sexual content. so right off the bat, if that type of explicit sexual content makes you uncomfortable, i am genuinely asking from a place of confusion: why read it? or if you thought it wouldn't make you uncomfortable but then you got to it and it did, why keep reading? why not simply close the fic?

regardless, we have both read that fic, and although like i said, it's been a while, and it's not exactly fresh in my mind, i personally did not come away from it thinking that the explicit sexual content was fetishizing. we may just have a difference of opinion here, and obviously we're going to have different perspectives, so maybe this is just something that i need explained a bit more to me to understand (and i would value the input of any gay men/mlm who would like to talk to me about this!). but from what i remember, there's a lot more to the story than just the sexual content, the characters are fleshed out beyond their sexualities, and the sexual content was actually relevant in the context of the broader story being told in the ways that it deepened the characters' relationship, explored the ways in which they related to each other, and was situated in a larger story involving homophobia amidst hockey culture. at the end of the day, i just didn't get the sense that the writer was reducing gay men to nothing more than sexual objects.

and so this might be getting back into that limit you set earlier - "the author would have never experienced that type of sexual relationship." like, currently, that seems to be your baseline for fetishization - that if an author has never experienced a certain type of sexual relationship, they cannot write about it without reducing it to an object of fetish. but the reason that i just can't get behind this is that at the end of the day, you have no way of knowing what kinds of sexual relationships a writer has or has not engaged in, because a person's gender and sexuality tells you nothing about what kind of sex they have. identity can change over time, and just because someone identifies a certain way now doesn't mean they always have. something that was interesting to me about your ask is later on when you specify, "there’s no harm in explicit queer smut but i think it becomes problematic when it is written by and read by cis women." the specification on cis women here interests me simply because...cis women can have queer sex. additionally, i want to challenge you to pause and think about why you're placing trans and cis women in different categories here. what assumptions might you be making about the types of sexual relationships trans women and cis women have, and why might those assumptions lead you decide that one type of woman is more qualified to write about certain sexual experiences than another? again, i will reiterate: a person's gender and sexuality does not actually give you any information about the types of sexual relationships they have had, are having, or may have in the future. this is why i think "only write about sexual relationships you have had" is an impossible boundary to set.

furthermore, i actually think that fanfiction should be a safe space for people to explore types of sexual relationships they maybe haven't had! gender and sexuality are not static or fixed; they are identities that can change throughout a person's life, and they are identities that i think people should be encouraged to explore. a cis woman writing or reading about gay sex may be exploring some things about her own gender and sexuality, and because of the nature of fanfiction (outside the profit economy, tagging system that helps protect people from being forced to see things they don't want to see, etc) i actually think it should remain a safe space for her to do that.

and so here you might say -- ok rae, i'm with you on most of this, but surely there must be some aspect of fetishization going on? why else would explicit mlm fics be so wildly popular when explicit wlw fics are not? and the thing is, i've talked about that question at length in this post, so i'm not gonna say it all again -- but essentially, i think a lot of it has to do with the ways in which people taught to be women are systematically alienated from their own bodies and desires, making it easier to explore sexual desire through the medium of fictional men.

so like...when you say "you have to ask why they’re specifically looking for explicit mlm fics." there's a lot of possible answers to this question! maybe they're questioning their own gender or sexuality. maybe they have some complicated internalized feelings surrounding their own sexual desire that make it easier to read something the feels a few steps removed. maybe they're curious about a type of sex they've never had before. or maybe they are just reading it to get off--and we might have a difference of opinion here, but i do not think that that in and of itself is problematic, because there is a difference between "somebody gets off to x thing" and "somebody views x thing exclusively as material for getting off." one is fetishization, the other is just...human sexual desire.

and the thing is, there is no way to know the reasons behind why every single person who is reading mlm fic is reading it. there is no line you can draw in the sand that will ensure everyone is always reading it for "the right reasons" without in some way excluding queer people from access to what should be a safe space to explore sex and sexuality. and that's why i tend to be wary anytime i see these conversations about fetishization popping up within the marauders fandom.

one last thing i feel the need to address: you say that "men consuming lesbian smut and porn is uncomfortable and disgusting, i think the same opinions should be applied when women do the same to explicit gay media." and i'm going to disagree with you here, for a number of reasons.

we're not talking porn as a whole (or at least, i'm not). we're talking about fanfiction, which is a unqiue form of media and should be treated as its own thing.

i agree that all fetishization is bad, but the fetishization of lesbians by men versus the fetishization of gay men by women are two entirely different situations. like. the power dynamics at play are very different, and the ways each group is affected looks different, and the ways in which that fetishization happens look different and just...idk, this feels like a simplification of a much more nuanced conversation that i do not have time to get into right now.

WITHIN this conversation we're having about marauders fanfiction and explicit sexual content there though - i actually do not agree that men consuming explicit sexual content about lesbians is always going to be uncomfortable and disgusting. in fact, within the context of marauders fic, i'd say that everything i've already said about women consuming mlm content could probably be applied to men consuming wlw content. like...i don't mind if men are reading and enjoying my lesbian sex scenes. obviously i don't want anyone fetishizing them, but i sincerely doubt that that's what's happening in a majority-queer space like the marauders fandom--if there are men reading and enjoying the sex scenes i write, i think it's far more likely that they are probably finding some common ground in our shared queerness. and even if there is a cishet man out there reading my work -- i don't mind him engaging with a portrayal of lesbian sexuality, and maybe it's even a good thing for him to venture outside the heteronormative bubble and get an idea of what queer sex looks like to queer people. is it a risk that someone might read it and fetishize it? sure. but lesbians are going to be fetishized no matter what boundaries i try to set, so i would rather my work remain a safe space for queer people of any identity than try to cherry pick who can and cannot read it. also, i have read fic with lesbian sex that was not written by lesbians or wlw, and was still done well, and was still not fetishizing. at the end of the day, it's the actual content that matters to me, and not the identity of the writer. obviously, the identity of the writer will inform their content to a certain extent, but that doesn't mean writers should only be limited to writing experiences that they personally have had. especially in fanfic, which i view as a safe space for exploration.

anyway, as i warned at the beginning, this got very long, but i wanted to take the time to flesh out my thoughts and really address the points you were making. hopefully this provides some food for thought on the conversation about fetishization within the marauders fandom, and hopefully it helps to explain why i'm wary of trying to create boundaries around who does or doesn't have a right to read or write certain types of fanfiction!

much love <3

[reiverreturns]

the woman the myth the legend eivor varinsdottir herself for the ask game!

MY SWEET CHEESE, MY GOOD TIME GIRL

a song that reminds me of them

in dreams by ben howard really hits those eivor vibes for me, from odin's voice in her head (always a riddle inside my head) to her adventuresome spirit (it's a big old place for me, yeah, it's a big old world indeed) to her loneliness and displacement from her home (i live alone without you here)

what they smell like

honey and woodsmoke if you ask ship writer me. if you're not then dried blood and horseshit probably (i love her but i am CERTAIN she would have to be convinced to bathe sometimes)

an otp

eivor x vili now, then, and forever. if you could custom design a ship dynamic exclusively for me it would literally be theirs. i love them so much that i don't even mind them eventually parting ways canonically because. like. the love doesn't fade. no matter who they are, where they are, how long they're separated, they will always love and understand each other like nobody else in their lives does. i lose my mind over that

a notp

eivor x tarben. fuck that white bread tasteless man. NEXT.

favorite platonic/familial relationships

sigurd but only when eivor punches him in the face

ok my obvious answer is hemming (and its the answer my heart desires) but thinking about it i actually really enjoy her friendship with valka. eivor seems to really respect her and is so happy when she makes the crossing for norway to england!

a headcanon that is popular in the fandom but that i disagree with

i'm not certain i've seen any eivor-specific ones that i thought were exceptionally dumb tbh. i think some readings of her character in the fandom lean too heavily into the softer parts of her nature. like eivor is helpful and kind but only to people she has motivation to help (like children), or when she thinks she or the clan can get something out of it. there's a general fanon dulling of her sharp edges that i don't always agree with

the position they sleep in

starfished on her belly with a different animal under each limb

a crossover au i’d love to see them in

PACRIM PACRIM PACRIM. give me eivor and vili bicker-flirting in a jaeger or give me death

my favorite outfit they’ve ever worn

i am terribly boring but i really enjoy just the plain/not upgraded ravensthorpe armour!

send me a character and i'll tell you some things

[flustersluts]

Ah, original anon here, I just needed to get this out there bc I saw I upset you, so I don’t mind if you don’t publish this or if you even don’t believe me that I’m the OG anon but um. I was in a bad headspace when I sent that ask, I had gotten 3 of your posts recommended underneath a post I liked about biting (playful) and I just kinda saw red because a couple of the things posted reminded me heavily of my abuser. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, I shouldn’t have sent it, I should (1/2)

(2/2) should have kept it to myself and like, vented in private, not on anon in a stranger’s askbox. That was weird as hell. While I still don’t like, agree with BDSM (triggering) I don’t. Like that people are calling it “puritanical” because puritanical beliefs aren’t just ‘sex bad’ they’re incredibly misogynistic, racist, horrific beliefs. Somebody not liking a particular kink isn’t being a puritan and that minimizes religious abuse. Anyways um I’m sorry for upsetting you. It was shitty.

hey anon, i rlly appreciate u sending another ask(s) to clarify, u didn't have to do that so yeah thank u. anon hate obviously sucks almost always but i did initially get the sense that it was coming from a personal / emotional place and. the notion that some of my posts cld be used to enable or normalise abusive behaviours is genuinely n rightfully rlly upsetting to me and so im glad u told me directly.

like yes maybe u cld have done it in a better way but thank u for sending me the og ask and. yes triggers work in weird ways but posting content that reminds ppl of abusive dynamics (esp when i don't tag my content precisely bc i honestly didn't consider it wld require trigger warnings) is not smthn i ever wanted to happen and i'm going to watch out for that a lot more closely in future posts like. ignorance is not an excuse n im gna be better

on the use of puritan as a descriptor: i know v little abt religious abuse but what ur saying seems accurate and i disagree w/ the general approach of responding to a criticsm by just attacking someone back anyway

(ok i just wrote a bunch of shit in the tags bc i got carried away but i cba to move them to the actual post so yeah read those too if u want)

like yes u cld have done it in a different way but srsly thank u for sending me the og ask and like, im gna be better in future

[marawrder]

          to continue the train of thought from the tags on this, i want to clarify ( / offer my hot take ) that sirius does not have any tattoos. those prison tattoos on old man gary in the movie were given to him by a.lfonso c.uarón and were never mentioned in the books. while it might fit with his rebel boy personality to get some before that, here’s a bunch of reasons i think he didn’t ( not even out of spite ):

1. he’s from a very very proper rich background, where muggle tattoos are probably frowned upon. we know he despises this background, for sure, but it’s hard to grow out of every single misconception and bias you probably don’t even know you have. my point actually is that sirius didn’t make a full 180 turn when he removed himself from that environment; the potters were still rich purebloods. probably less judgemental, but i doubt they were encouraging him to have an open mind about tattoos of all things. 2. it’s the 70s. tattoos are not as taboo as they were and becoming more mainstream, hurray! but to this day people can’t get jobs because of visible tattoos so uh... stigma? definitely a thing. and seeing as the wizarding world lags behind in many aspects.... well.... 3. it’s likely that sirius would have gotten over the stigma and his personal prejudices and all, sure, but he had very little to nothing to do with muggles. that’s it that’s the point. no development possible if nothing is initiated. 4. maybe one of the most important points so maybe i should have mentioned this first but: the only magical tattoos we really hear about in canon is literal fascist branding. i don’t think that is the cutest association when you dedicate your life to fighting those who wear it. 5. welp. when would he have had the time? at school? in the middle of the war? not my strongest argument against it on this list but if you regard all these other points and then add that there’s no time to even reconsider them..... ? 6. would james get a tattoo? nope, probably not. need i say more 7. imagine..... sirius....... committing to something for life i-.......... 8. i have said it once i’ll say it a million times: homeboy 👏 is 👏 vain 👏 as 👏 FUCK 👏👏👏  making a permanent alteration to that adonislike body of his? not bloody likely mate

          ( that being said: would he have gotten one had he lead a normal life? perhaps. would he get one in a modern ( / muggle ) universe? one hundred percent, yes. several. yolo. )

          tl;dr: i will fight fanon with tooth and nail. thanks for coming to my tat talk

[incorrect-quotes-from-she-ra]

Morning! I hope you don't mind if i give you yet another She-Ra thought I'm too damn lazy to post on my own. Also, it's long again. I WILL find that character limit some day.

So, we know the way Shadow Weaver raised Adora resulted, among other issues, in her being selfless to the point of self-sacrifice, which came to a climax in the Heart's failsafe business.

And it's been suggested that this was basically intentional on Shadow Weaver's part. Basically, selflessness is a very beneficial quality for others to have. My theory is that <b>her plan for Adora had always been specifically for her to someday use the failsafe and release all magic</b>.

(i will admit i am also curious how formatting works in this app. thank you for your help with these experiments)

So, evidence. Let's start with her name. I know this is a remake and they were stuck with the existing names, but there's a scene where Scorpia complains about it ("yeah i GET it, everyone LOVES you"), which constitutes the writers acknowledging its meaning, which makes me think it's fair game to analyze.

First, I'm obviously assuming Shadow Weaver choose it, as part of her ongoing parenting plan. It's also possible it was her original First One-given name, we don't know. Neither quite works because either she or Light Hope should have had some issues knowing what the name was and they clearly knew automatically. Really the entire series is weird in that everyone communicates with everyone else way too easily, and i will definitely rant about that someday.

For now let it stand that Shadow Weaver is the parent figure, it makes the most sense for her to pick the name, both in-universe and narratively, so i shall assume so by default. I have two things to say about that choice.

First, as we all have noticed, most of the princesses have names ending in -a. All of them, if you count "Glimma". It's never said to be intentional, but it would make sense. And then IF such a tradition exists among Etheria's royalty, it's not unreasonable for Shadow Weaver, a notable and moderately respected member of the land of knowledge, to know about it.

And then if she knew, of course she would take it into consideration when looking for names. Admittedly it's a little weird with the anti-Princess propaganda that the Horde has, but she doesn't really need to explain or justify this. Hordak has a very [i]laissez-faire[/i] attitude, and everyone else she clearly doesn't care about.

And if she knew or suspected that the princesses' powers were related to the Heart of Etheria, which i will argue for later, then giving her a princessy name is also adequately ironic.

The second name bit is that Scorpia clearly knows some Latin, but not enough. True, <em>adorare</em> means to worship and/or to love, but Latin verbs are more complex than that. _Adora_ specifically is 3rd person singular present indicative active. The translation would be "she loves".

Names aside, i want to talk about how they (we) learned about the Heart of Etheria. Castaspella doesn't know what to do, Shadow Weaver suggests they take a road trip to research, which she's reticent about but concedes is probably the best use of her time, and they find success. We don't know how long it took them, but i had the distinct impression that it wasn't very long.

Naturally, I'm suggesting Shadow Weaver knew all along, and led Castaspella on the trip to have an excuse for the inevitable "how do you know?". Also tricked her into thinking it was /her/ discovery, and maybe even that she was succeeding where Shadow Weaver had failed before, if necessary.

That's why she's so excited to share their results with everybody, and Shadow Weaver cuts her off, apparently just to antagonize her for fun, but I'm suggesting it was also because for her this is the culmination of a decades-long plan, and she wants to Get On With It.

It's also interesting that there was a mural depicting the Spell of Obtainment in the hallway leading to the failsafe. It was a reminder of Shadow Weaver's past, and an opportunity for her to show she regrets her results but doesn't repent from her choices, which i quite like actually. But I'm also saying that, meta-textually, it was a signal that she'd been there before, literally.

And then there is the potential in-universe connection, since we don't know what exactly the spell was meant to be obtaining. Power, for sure, and from what happened we're probably meant to assume it's tapping into some sort of demonic entity or dimension.

Fair enough, except that it never comes up again. And it's kind of a big plot point that Etheria is isolated from the rest of the cosmos, which may or may not conflict with it having a contactable "hell". Meanwhile there's the Heart of Etheria Project collecting all that magic, which Mara's allies (and their descendants) would know something about, have access to at least one backdoor to, and may well have tried to tap into its power at some point.

And then what went wrong may well be one of the defense mechanisms of the Project, though I'm admittedly veering into unfounded speculation.

So, a rough timeline. Light Spinner was always motivated to excel and craved power. She was probably always envied the princesses, who command greater magic than most sorcerers with apparently none of the study and practice.

She took to researching everything she could that might lead to power, eventually discovering the chamber with the failsafe, and presumably other information left by Mara's Friends, either in other chambers or in documents she's since removed. She would have learned a lot of things from this.

As i suggested, i believe she knew there's some connection between the princesses at large and the Heart of Etheria. Incidentally, i don't know exactly what that connection is, and in particular whether princesses were created by the Project or an existing phenomenon that the First Ones co-opted. But it doesn't matter, exactly.

What's important is that there's clearly a connection, more specifically a control system for the princesses and their magic, which is presumably related to how Shadow Weaver was able to tap into the Black Garnet's power. With Hordak's help, obviously, since she clearly believed it when he claimed he could cut her off at will, but he's later shown to have basically no understanding of First Ones' tech, so the knowledge must have come from her.

For the record, i would guess she thinks princesses are artificial, empowered both magically and politically to keep the planet in check, and that they would be depowered once the failsafe was fired. I also think that may be true, actually, since it almost happened when Entrapta was messing with the system, and if i recall none of them were shown to use any magic after Adora did fire it, while she clearly used Perfuma's power. But anyways!

Back to what Shadow Weaver learned, she would know some of what the failsafe does, namely disrupt the system that's hoarding most of the planet's magic, thereby spreading magic to all (most notably her), and some of how to use it, and the fact that she couldn't do so and hope to live, and some of the criteria for who can. That part is important.

But first, she also learned the Spell of Obtainment, deemed it more likely but didn't think she could do it herself, despaired of getting help until she thought Hordak's rise to fame would give her #casus belli#, lost her patience when the Mystacor leadership disagreed, etc etc etc. Pretty uncontroversial in this part, i think.

After she'd joined the Horde, when Hordak showed up with baby Adora and wanted to lump her with the rest of the orphans they have, Shadow Weaver pleaded to have her get special treatment. She even said that she's special, and it couldn't have been her leadership skills or good heart, since she didn't have either yet. It's heavily implied she could recognize her as a First One, but it's not clear why she would care, since they were known for leaving behind advanced technology, which a baby also doesn't have. Unless, of course, she knew there are devices only a First One could use, and maybe has plans related to that.

So I'm pretty sure she learned the criteria that the failsafe requires, devised some spell or technique to check people for them that she pretty much used all the time, just in case, and was very surprised when a newborn tested positive. She was also surprised when Hordak made her personally responsible for the raising of the kid, but her reaction is pretty much "ok, that could work, i guess".

Also also, i suspect she can read First One script. Not perfectly like Adora, but better than Bow's parents probably. Mostly because when she puts Adora's hand on the crystal and says "i think you know the password", that seems like a very transparent attempt to pretend she knows it too when she doesn't. But that seems irresponsible at such a crucial moment, she and Castaspella should really have researched it earlier. Or at least her line there should have been "you can read this, right?" or somesuch.

So I'm thinking it's a double bluff, hoping everybody assumes she doesn't know so she doesn't have to reveal how and why she knows, again.

And that's all i have, i think? This is not nearly as well laid out as i would like. But then, nothing ever is, right?

Also it's not even close to morning anymore. Thank you if you even got this far, and have a good evening!

hi!!! this took me a while to answer, i'm so sorry about that <3

i'm very low on energy today so i cannot summon up the brain energy to respond properly to this, as much as i want to, i'm really sorry for that as well

i love this theory!! it actually fits in really well with canon and makes, like, a LOT of sense now that i think about it. i definitely wouldn't have thought of this on my own, so thank you for sharing this with me!! :D