#im actually not very clued up on that fandom

[mikichko]

y'all need to stop being lame.

it's getting very boring.

im not sure if you folks are suffering from lack of enrichment or vitamins because school is out or something but I need you to stop being so fucking weird to others in the fandom. idk if i missed an olympics category or something but i promise you that they're not handing out medals for being dickheads in people's inboxes.

I'm sure if you channeled that energy into something worth any value you'd actually be really good at something. right now all it's accomplishing is signaling you as a weird ass loser to the rest of us.

which reminds me: can you fucking freaks stop using the hostility towards poc in this fandom as a weapon to try and silence people you hate? i get it, it's hard seeing a bad bitch (gn) thrive and have a good time on here but damn bro, learn to overcome that. you sound stupid as fuck telling people with a platform that they shouldn't speak up on the hostility towards poc at all. do you know why they probably decided to make a post like that in the first place?

because they probably saw it happening first hand.

you coming along and saying dumb ass shit like this clued me into the fact that you're probably the same kind of white people that make this space so hostile in the first place 😭💀 it's either that or your hatred for someone who tries to uplift and bring attention to poc creators is so strong that you look past all that. which if that's the case, boo bitch get a fucking hobby or something.

speaking of getting hobbies, those of you that get bent out of shape whenever anyone brings inclusivity into the fandom should really consider getting some! i know that your one identifying personality trait is being a tiny white girl or whatever but i promise you that if you find a nice hobby to round yourself out, life gets soooooo much better. to the point where someone asking for inclusivity won't feel like a threat against your appeal! hell, you might even finally understand why people ask for such a thing :o (hint: it's something to do with default settings)

anyways, thats all i wanted to say. to the rest of you hot, fat, chunky, tall, short, thick thighed, buff, wide hip, wide ribcage, glasses wearing, tattoo having, sexy ass bitches: i hope you have wonderful night <3

[fireinmywoods]

Can you explain trauma Kirk has in the cheating scene? Im new to star trek

Welcome!!! I hope you stick around for a while and become fully assimilated into the strange, delightful glory that is Trek fandom.

I can only speak for myself, but when I talk about Jim’s trauma, I’m referring to two main components (under the read-more for discussion of childhood abuse and Tarsus):

1. Jim’s abusive childhood

There’s a deleted scene from Jim’s childhood in the first movie in which his older brother Sam is shown running away from home. It‘s made clear that the “man of the house” Frank is at the very least verbally and emotionally abusive to both kids, and based on baby Jimmy’s reaction to Frank getting in his face, I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that it had or would later escalate to physical violence.

[Note: Because AOS and especially the extended universe are a hot mess, some pseudo-canon sources describe Frank as their uncle (Winona’s brother) while others have him as their stepfather. I’ve gone with stepfather, because I think it better explains why they stayed in that situation as long as they did.]

Sam says their mom doesn’t understand how Frank treats them when she’s not around (i.e., off-planet with Starfleet), which makes the case for a certain amount of neglect as well. Then there’s the AOS tie-in comic Operation: Annihilate, which shows the aftermath of the car incident, and in which Winona is pretty grossly depicted as an enabler of Frank’s abuse, telling Jimmy that Frank just gets mad sometimes and that he basically needs to suck it up and live with it. For the record, this comic is not part of my personal canon, as I think the exchange I’m describing is lazily characterized and does Winona unnecessarily dirty. (“He’s given us a home” - motherfucker, it’s a post-scarcity economy and you work for Starfleet! Get a goddamn apartment!) That said, I do think Winona bears significant responsibility for leaving her kids in that situation, since the most charitable read is that she wasn’t paying enough attention to realize how Frank was treating them. (I know at least one of my fandom friends disagrees on this point, and I’ll acknowledge that I have a dirty lens when it comes to childhood abuse and the enabling thereof. Your mileage may vary.)

Anyway. In this version of events, Jimmy doesn’t steal the car because he’s some innately shitheaded out-of-control rebel like the final cut suggests. In fact, Sam’s exposition tells us that up until this point Jimmy has been an exceptionally obedient, rule-following, “good” child. Here, he steals the car because Sam leaving and his own realization that he’s never going to be good enough to make Frank happy makes something in him snap. It’s a powerful moment which greatly enhances Jim’s characterization, and if you ask me it’s frankly criminal that they deleted this scene.

2. Tarsus IV

TOS Kirk is a canonical survivor of a famine and genocidal massacre on the colony Tarsus IV. Here again canon is a bit of a mess when it comes to Tarsus IV, and fanon has taken that canon and gone absolutely hog wild with it, but it is firmly established that Jim was just 13 at the time, which...woof. That’s dark as hell.

Now, it is not official AOS canon that this version of Jim was on Tarsus IV at the time of the massacre, but it’s also not official that he wasn’t. My take, which I think is shared by many in fandom, is that AOS Jim was sent there to live with family after the car incident as a sort of “get your head straight” move, and also (in my opinion) because Winona finally started cluing in that it probably wasn’t a great idea to leave him alone with Frank.

The TOS extended universe further establishes that Jim was understandably pretty messed up after the events of Tarsus, and that his father’s intervention was crucial to helping him recover and setting him on the path toward Starfleet and the Enterprise. In AOS, of course, George isn’t around to provide that support, and Jim’s already learned that he can’t rely on his mom, and he’s maybe stuck living with fucking Frank again. All of this builds on his earlier trauma in really terrible ways, and he never has the opportunity to actually heal from any of it.

Aftermath: PTSD and the cheating scene

Again, the abuse and Tarsus IV are both semi-canonical at best. However, I’d argue that they should be considered canon, because Jim’s character arc makes a lot more sense when they’re included. This double whammy of unresolved trauma and the almost total absence of emotional support go a long way toward explaining how the boy who grows up to be TOS Kirk in one timeline instead grows into the Jim Kirk we meet at the bar in 2255 of the Kelvin timeline - a “repeat offender,” reckless, directionless, emotionally detached, quick to meet violence with violence, and so very, very angry.

That’s why the scene where Spock lays into Jim for cheating on the Kobayashi Maru is so painful to me. Jim is up on display at the front of this hall, being stared at by basically everyone he knows, and Spock is criticizing him for missing the point of the exercise - specifically, lecturing him about needing to experience fear and control his reaction to it. Imagine how that would land for someone with as much trauma as Jim is carrying, who endured all he did as a powerless child, and who (in my telling of things) suffers to this day from panic attacks as a result. It’s, uh...it’s not great.

[eviclair]

I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of your actual thoughts(tm) on khr, so what’s your constructive review on the series as a whole? Like some positives and negatives w/ the writing, characters, etc. If u don’t feel like answering, feel free to ignore this LOL.

 tl;dr because this is 800 words of nonsense. i think you should know i would not know a constructive review if it bit me in the ass.

my guy i have not done a full read of khr in maybe two years and i know that does not sound like a long time but i have the long-term memory of a fruit fly. please bear with me. luckily for both of us i liveblogged the last time i read so i at least have my own sparknotes jdflaksjddaf

first off! khr is a satire manga!!! i cannot stress this enough, i can and will fight you to the death about this!!! “oh but it gets serious later” it grows a PLOT, thats not the same thing. khr is stupid as hell and that is both on purpose and my favorite thing about it.

i fucking love shonen man!!! its all about FIGHTING and LOVING YOUR FRIENDS and HAVING EMOTIONS and. bro im a water sign. my mars is in gemini, there is nothing i can do about this, god made me and said “get that bitch some found family and also some incredible violence” and we all just have to live with that. 

khr is so much all of those things that i did not realize they were being made fun of until very long after the fact so my current opinions are very much not the ones i started with jaldkhjdfhd but man. once i clued in i both loved it so much more and became 100% incapable of interacting with fandom in any meaningful way L M A O

i just. the main conceit is that theyve weaponized the deus ex machina eleventh-hour shonen power up. the “my dead family came back to life to kill me” trope is used three separate times. the big bad student body president is a delinquent. theres an entire subset of above magic god powers thatre just

the tyl bazooka was just ripping on the Timeskip Arc until the Timeskip Arc actually happened?? like fuuta’s special thing is that he can communicate with the Meta Planet to divine Character Rankings, i dont know what to tell you!!! the truth is out there!!! 

like DO YOU EVEN REMEMBER that time tsuna experienced a villain’s flashback sequence FOR HIM because i fucking do, i think about it every day,

so in the sense of “please critique the writing”, i cant do that because im pretty sure 98% of all the tropey bullshit is by design. do i wish people like the kokuyo gang got more characterization outside of being ride-or-die villain sidekicks?? of course i do but thats my own damn fault for seeing cool side characters and losing all higher brain function. on the other hand, hibari being the person he is and having absolutely no backstory or motivation beyond “get out of my school” is really fucking funny and keeps me warm at night, so. win some, lose some.

(the 2% of the writing that isnt tropey bullshit that i CAN critique is whatever is happening with kyoko. Bad Female Cast is definitely a shonen trope but its a shitty one and i want it to die. within maybe four minutes of kyoko being introduced she tries to body a man and then thats just never spoken about again?? wheres that energy queen?!!! let kyoko say fuck!!!!)

((this applies to haru too in the sense that all she really does is make moon eyes at tsuna but the way in which she does so is honestly so fucking funny and unhinged that it comes back around to being great. like yeah yep yes ma’am thats 100% bonafide Girl Who Throws Skittles In A Puddle And Calls It Potion right there please may i have another))

If khr took itself even 4% more seriously it could be really deep and compelling and i think that frustrates a lot of people, but i think i like it better this way?? half the fun for me is reading in between the lines!! the subtext, however unintentional it may be!!

examples: yamamoto is one of my favorites just because theres SO FUCKING MUCH to unpack about him!! canon gives us a lot of information about him just by virtue of the fact that he’s a Main Character, but paradoxically he himself is never really the focus. he just Does Shit and you have to figure out why on your own and i LOVE DOING THAT.

i dont love mukuro because he’s a fleshed out and nuanced villain, i love him because he says shit like “i went to hell six times” and never expounds upon that or “i can definitely trust the information i got from this magic monocle called Demon Spade’s Super Evil Murder Eye or whatever the fuck” and then expresses surprise when daemon spade is an asshole. he goes and willfully fucks up the only job anyones ever given him (impersonate 80 year old leonardo lippi) because he Just Has to shapeshift into a young hot dude and hand deliver byakuran, the boss of the Flower Family, the Family that names all its members after Flowers, a bouquet that means “i am in disguise ;) cant catch me bitch ;)”

like WHAT THE FUCK!!

i dont know man. i just like puzzles and khr is a gift that keeps giving.

(sidenote that should’ve maybe just been the subject of the post but re:i cant shut the fuck up about anything ever, i love tsuna so much. so much. his personality!! his relationships!!! his growth!!! his growth!!!!! his growth!!!!!!! khr has its claws in me because i see tsuna do something cool or brave or even deeply stupid actually and my whole heart goes AAAAAAAAA bc thats him!!! thats my son!!!!! my baby boy whom ive raised since birth!!!!!! suit me up and call me a reborn kinnie, fuck!!!!!!!!!)

[warmthpdf]

immensely curious about ur thoughts on security breach. free ramblespace.

anon omg im currently cradling your face in between my hands and giving you a little kiss on the forehead THANK U i will now do a little rambling below the cut both bc spoilers(?) and hyperfixation rambling <3

ok so background !! the first fnaf game came out just after i turned 11? and i was and still am a little baby so i never played it myself but religiously watched markiplier and jacksepticeye so naturally watched them play through it (and all the other games) i was never like,, super in the fandom or the lore at all actually lmao ive spent the past week watching all of the game theory vids (i am 27/52 videos of the way through <3) and i can confirm. total hyperfixation this new game has been all ive been thinking about

first of all fav character.......glamrock freddy you are literally my dad. in the sb intro i noticed how he holds the whole microphone stand (i also love how he has no instrument. just a microphone. during a the intro song that has no lyrics) and his whole movements are very reminiscent of freddie mercury ?? which would make a lot of sense considering the whole 80s glamrock aesthetic so i thought that was just such a cool lil detail regardless of if it was intentional (and i swear everything in this franchise is intentional tbh) :)

BUT ALSO..... SUN. SUN MY LITTLE SCRUNKLE SUNSHINE BABY BOY!!!!!!! i want to cosplay him so bad man.... next halloween im gonna go all out,, his funny little spinny mask and balloony trousers and bells. i love his character sm :,) like he never intentionally jumpscares u !! he cant kill u ! he just has his one rule and he wants to keep u entertained bc hes literally made to entertain kids!!!! and he seems genuinely upset when the lights turn off and he turns into moon like HE DOESN'T WANNA DO THAT !! and mentioning moon. that mf is the scariest character in this whole franchise oh my GOD his jumpscare is so scary and hearing him creeping around. AND HIM FLYING IN THE AIR AND TIP TOEING AND WHISPERING BC HE'S MADE TO BE AROUND WHEN KIDS ARE NAPPING AT THE DAYCARE ???? YGHGUHH ... forever confused about how he kills u because its not like sun or moon have an openable mouth?

the game itself i mostly understand why a lot of people are disappointed with it? like its VERY buggy and the lore is so so vague and it just leaves more questions than i had before and thats as someone who isnt that clued in on the lore. like where does this fall in the story and what does it add or change to the canon and timeline?? like the involvement of vanny was way overhyped for how much she actually appears in the game and it makes me think they probably had more planned for her but didnt get to :/ idk if the game was rushed or not BC VISUALLY ITS SO POLISHED but the story im not so sure about ?? but im also just generally not a theory person. i dont like somehow interpreting something 'wrong' ??? so i never usually think up my own ideas lmao

i think the game is rly rly cool i just think they might have bitten off more than they can chew??? LIKE THE PLACE IS HUGE AND THERES ALL THESE ELEMENTS THEYRE TRYING TO COMBINE AND CHARACTERS AND JUST !! EVERYTHING, it's all a lot and theres so many endings yet theres also a true ending that leads to a lot more being unanswered and arhghgn idk if we're gonna be getting much more fnaf so its just ?? unsure what all of this adds up to but either way i am OBSESSED and thinking about it constantly

[likehandlingroses]

( hi so im just going to kind of put a hp opinion of mine in here bc i want your thoughts if you have the time) do you think that the way that Sirius's parenting is treated as bad/irresponsible is another example of how male characters are punished for having traits that are rewarded in woman? "mother's love" being powerful and important (more than fatherly love, or romantic) is a major theme in the narrative. so actual mothers are rewarded for it and viewed as hero's for their use of it. P1

(p2) but then characters who take after their mothers are treated as over bearing and annoying (see percy weasley) - so sirius is by no means feminine coded, but he does seem more motherly than fatherly. (ie: more like molly than arthur) im not articulating this very well but i guess i just think that sirius unjustly judged for being a source of love rather than structure solely bc of his gender.

Thank you for the question! It’s an interesting thought—that I am going to answer by first admitting that Rowling seems to explicitly WANT Molly and Sirius to be Mom and Dad in Harry’s mind. One being very maternal and one being paternal. I was just revisiting the interview she does with Melissa Anelli for Anelli’s book “Harry, a History,” and she spends some time illustrating what to her is a very gendered dichotomy between the two. 

I think fandom reads Sirius very differently than how he exists in Rowling’s Head. And I don’t say that to fault fandom at all! It happens to some degree with many characters…what an artist wants to do isn’t always what they end up doing. Particularly when you start accounting for different backgrounds and cultures and desires that readers have. 

Rowling thought that she’d crafted a Hot Dude with a motorcycle and a devil-may-care attitude…and that from that persona we’d infer quite a lot about Sirius: that he is masculine, certainly. That he’s straight. That he’s less emotionally supportive of Harry than Molly is. 

But the fandom broadly rejected that shorthand because to them? The logic didn’t follow. And there are MANY reasons for that—some of them due to fandom norms, some of them due to generational differences…but some of them are due to narrative discrepancies between what Rowling seems to WANT to tell us about Sirius…and what she DOES tell us. 

I do think Sirius—while he does have a *masculine* energy about him—also has an emotionality that is distinctive amongst the adult male cast. He is also very similar to Molly in key ways that have nothing to do with Harry. They like to play host, they are capable of great warmth and great coldness…they are not Super different temperamentally. Molly is more mothering, perhaps, while Sirius treats Harry as more mature. But I don’t think the distinction between them is as strong as Rowling maybe wants it to be…and I Definitely don’t think it’s as gendered as she thinks it is. 

Sirius isn’t different from Molly because he’s A Man. He’s different because he’s mentally unstable. Stunted. Grieving a life he can’t ever have. Molly is a relatively adjusted adult who has raised seven kids. All things that Rowling would also admit to! But in her mind, there’s just an added layer of Essential Difference fueled by their genders…and I don’t think that holds up as well textually. And culturally? It is on  its way out. 

So to your comment on whether Sirius is treated unfairly…I think he’s misunderstood. He’s caught in a place where the author wants him to be one thing…and the world has always kind of met him in a totally different place. And I think that has a lot to do with gendered expectations, and how those expectations differ from person to person and culture to culture. Molly is allowed to be—even supposed to be!—irrational and petty and not Always clued into what Harry needs. Because Moms, amiright? 

But Rowling says Arthur is the best example of fatherhood in the series, and Arthur is…not like Sirius at all. Sirius was never meant to be exemplary, and I think Rowling means to use him as a criticism of a lot of Masculine traits. But it’s not so neat as that, because Sirius is so much more than those things. In some ways, he contradicts those things. He is capable of great gentleness and sensitivity and emotional perception. Harry adores him and looks to him, not just for practical advice, but for emotional reassurance. And even Rowling admits that Sirius had to die because he gave Harry TOO much in the way of support.

So when he falls…what falls is a whole person. And a person Rowling doesn’t have full control over any more. I’m not sure that Sirius came off precisely how she meant for him to. 

(This is so long and I hope it makes sense! Thanks again for sending this: I LoVE talking about Sirius and authorial intent). 

[golgoterror]

Alright, this is ungodly long, but I just wanted to talk about something regarding Jake. 

A lot of this fandom -- at least, from what I’ve seen -- label Jake as stupid. Some may even say Jake and smart are antonyms. This could not be further from the truth. It almost irritates me how much the fandom places this mischaracterization on him. Also, I get to talk about The Lad™ for about ten pages worth of words on Google docs, which is always very, very fun for me.

Well, first things first, let’s talk about the child genius and multi-billionaire polymath that is Jake English.

Puzzle Modus.

Let’s begin with something small. Jake’s modus is of puzzlekind! This is described as:

It's quite a handy modus, allowing you to captchalogue objects of any size, as long as you can fit them all in a finite space by maneuvering the cards around like a big game of Tetris. You like it because it keeps you sharp for solving any puzzles you might find when you go out raiding hallowed tombs, which is never. (x)

He likes puzzles! This is a huge headcanon I absolutely adore that has a basis in the comic: He’s a puzzles guy! This is just sort of a neat little fact about him that I adore to the moon and back. Just the idea of Jake fiddling about with a Rubik’s Cube is kind of adorable.

This is how he goes about doing everything every day of his life. I think that’s just amazing! And incredibly smart of him, I might add.

Skaianet. 

Jake is shown in the credits to take over Skaianet after the game ended. For those unfamiliar, Skaianet made many things for the game, including but not limited to: the interstellar travel we see, transportalizers, the lab by Rose’s house, all Jake’s fancy-schmancy computers, and Sburb itself. In the beta timeline, Grandpa Harley founded Skaianet. In the alpha timeline, Grandma English did. I know Jake didn’t start it up and trying to pass off his alt-timeline self as him is a bit far-fetched at best, but he had the spoons to take it over. I think that speaks volumes for Jake’s intelligence -- this implies, at the very least, he can understand mathematics and physics at a high level. Remind you of someone we already know?

It is also important to note that Jake does, in fact, build the company back from the ground up, because it went to shit before his grandmother died:

GT: Pretty sure her company made a tidy fortune til it went belly up. At least i still have a few of her knickknacks for keepsakes. (x)

So he built an interstellar company back up -- using what his intelligent grandmother had once used -- to being very useful and practical once again. 

As someone with a degree in mathematics and about to finish a degree in physics, I can say this sort of work would for sure require at the very least a decent understanding of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, electrodynamics, calculus (vector and differential forms), ordinary and partial differential equations, and perhaps other things like topology. I don’t know about you -- and I’m probably tooting my own horn a bit by saying this -- but I think that’s pretty nifty, if I do say so myself. 

Actor.

Once again, I’m reaching into the credits to show that Jake has become a movie star after the game ends. Memorizing all those lines, slipping into characters... Being an actor is no easy feat. 

( Side note: This leads into my headcanon that Jake can imitate accents and voices on a whim. No more arguing about whether he has a British, American, or Australian accent -- you’re all right! )

And I would like to add he has two jobs! Skaianet and being a movie star! This guy’s a fucking polymath for Christ’s sake.

Reading People.

Let’s start of simple: Brain Ghost Dirk. I can hear the outcries now of Dirk’s powers being the cause for this. And, yes, I can’t ignore Dirk’s influence in this, but Jake’s hope powers were also needed for the projection to come alive. And the fact he was able to make such a startlingly accurate projecting of Dirk in his own mind is astounding -- even BGD himself thinks so!

TT: You could view me as a projection of the real Dirk within your mind, as expressed through all of your thought patterns about him. TT: So I'm kind of a splinter of his corporeal self who happens to live in your awareness. TT: I'm a startlingly close approximation to the real thing, for all intents and purposes. GT: Just how startlingly close are we talking? TT: I'm not going to give you a bogus percentage like the glasses cause that's not my shtick. TT: But pretty damn close. (x)

A very deep understanding of the other is needed for Jake to do this. That is pretty fucking incredible. He can clearly read people really well -- he had a few times where he was cluing in on Jane and Dirk have feelings for him:

TG: its one of those things jane likes about u so much GT: It is? TG: which TG: errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr im not supposed to talk about 2 u evr so nm GT: Talk about what? TG: nope GT: You mean how um... GT: Well a way in which i suppose... TG: no nope GT: Jane is prone to looking upon me with what i fathom to be more than just friendly affection? (x)

TT: I guess call it an extra birthday present. But instead of a present that's awesome, consider it more like a weird confession that may change the way you feel about me. GT: Whoa uh... GT: Dirk are you... uh... GT: Saying what i think? (x)

He’s not completely clueless on people! In fact, he seems to have a really good understanding of his friends. That’s something a lot of people seem to forget because of the incident that I will be getting to later on.

Fending For Himself.

I’ve already written quite a bit on this, but I’ll sum it up here: Jake is exceptionally good at living in the wild and taking care of himself. Sort of like a wild garden; he doesn’t need to be taken care of. Survival skills, especially around fighting and fending off things, aren’t something everyone has. This, once again, counts in his favour, even if it doesn’t line-up with “book smarts”.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

That’s five things! It’s clear Jake is, in fact, a polymath and incredibly intelligent. So, what’s with the fandom painting him as being dumb? What’s with people actually thinking he’s stupid? I think we can all take several wild guesses as to why that’s the case.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Takes things literally.

This is something that plagues Jake quite a lot. Case in point:

GT: Wow like the epic kevin costner film? TT: Almost exactly. Especially by the same degree of shittiness. GT: Oh man does that mean you have to drink your own pee?????? TT: You get used to the taste. Welcome it, even. TT: That takes about 15 days in a row of hard piss drinking though. GT: Ewwwwwwwwwwww no dude. No ew. :( TT: Relax, I don't drink any goddamn piss, ok? GT: Oh ok. Whew. (x)

But, well, let’s address the elephant in the room. The chat I laughed so hard at when I read it the first time due to pure, unadulterated second-hand embarrassment: Jake asking Jane if she had feelings for him.

Let’s analyze this, shall we? Jake starts off by being vague as all Hell, and I’ll spare those details, until finally...

GT: Just come out and say it. Do you fancy me? GG: No! GT: I see. GT: Very well then. GT: Jeez i mustve really misread that one! I feel like kind of a bone head now. (x / x)

Okay, she says no, and he backs off. That’s fine and dand--

GG: No!!!!!! GG: Oh my God, what am I saying here? GG: Jake, I didn't mean it! I didn't want to make you feel that way! GT: Now jane lets not backpedal here. GT: Youve spoken the truth and i greatly appreciate and respect you for that. GT: But now that i think about it you know what? GG: ... GG: No? :( GT: Please dont take this the wrong way but your answer is actually kind of a relief! (x)

... Oh, right. Yeah. It keeps going. It just keeps--

GT: Actually since youve made your feelings apparent and only see me as a friend that makes it a lot easier! GG: Haha, yes! GG: Friends!!!! GT: Maybe you could help me sort out some stuff that has been weighing on me lately? GG: Well what are friends for Jake!!!!! (x)

Sweet Jesus, Jake.

GG: Me? GG: HOO HOO HOO! GG: I'm just GG: Terrific! GG: I'm feeling so... GG: Friendly!!! GG: I clearly just want to be a good friend and bring all my AMAZING FRIENDLINESS to bear on your problems. GG: Friendlystyle! Ahahahah? GG: Shit I mean GG: Ahahahah! GT: Thats aces. Jane youre a sweetheart. (x)

Alright, alright, enough! You all remember the fucking chat. 

Regardless, it’s very apparent Jake takes things at face value. I also will cite him talking to Jane before her birthday, but not list examples, because what happened above will just happen once again. 

Okay, so he takes things at face value. What’s wrong with that? He trusts people to not lie to his face -- to not sugarcoat things or beat around any bushes. Perhaps I’m projecting a bit, but I do the same damn thing. I think a lot of people do! I don’t think reading things as fact over text is a good measure of someone’s intellect. All it does is show he has issues with communication. Okay, so he struggles with one thing. Sue me.

Doesn’t catch things right away.

Yeah okay I’m just gonna dump a few examples of this.

GT: Haha wow. Must have been a hell of a guy. TT: So... TT: You're not making any connections there? GT: Where? Huh? TT: Famous comedian, about the age of your grandma, inheriting the family name of the Baroness... TT: Not ringing a bell? GT: What are you talking about! Dirk stop speaking in riddles and keep telling the story i am on tenterhooks here! TT: Ok, well it's not like it's that important. Just a super obvious thing that'll probably occur to you later when you're looking in the fridge you don't have, at which point you'll feel like an idiot. GT: Oh my god you can be one opaque motherfucker just clue me in bro! TT: Nah, it'll be funnier this way. GT: STRIIIIIIDEEEERRRRRRRR!!!!! TT: Moving on. (x)

GT: Whats going on? TT: Took you long enough to figure it out. TT: Pages really are a slow burning class. Damn. GT: Figure what out! TT: You're asleep. (x)

This leads into the point above. His mind doesn’t work that way -- but that doesn’t mean he’s not intelligent. He needs everything laid out in front of him so he can make the connections and understand what’s happening, but there’s no real harm in this, and it certainly doesn’t dictate whether the guy is “intelligent” or not.

There are many, many more examples in canon depicting Jake as having difficulties with communication and you all can open most of his pesterlogs and probably find one. I’m not going to list anymore. But, hold your horses, I swear I’m getting to a point!

Difficulty reading.

A lot of the media Jake consumes is picture-based. Movies, comics, even the puzzles are most likely spacial and probably not riddles. It’s not far to imagine Jake might not be a terribly good reader, considering nobody was really around to make him read. Of course, his grandmother was around when he was little, so he can read -- and he can read just fine. But he probably isn’t very good at it simply from lack of practice. He also has terrible grammar, something Jane picks on him for, so it’s entirely possible that’s a contributing factor. He may just have trouble reading and writing.

Speaking from experience, I have dyslexia. As such, reading and writing are incredibly hard for me. I never read the books in my literature classes -- both in English and French -- but I did get the gist of the books (enough to get a decent mark in the class at least) by watching a movie adaptation of the novel. I don’t think it’s that far-off to think Jake may, indeed, do the same thing.

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NOTE: This next part is a bit hard for me to write, because I don’t want to vilify any of you. It might not have clued in on anyone or maybe you just saw Jake as a sort of comic relief and meant no harm by it. And I hope shining a light on this will make you all think twice about the guy. However, I can’t really avoid this next part, and I may get a bit emotional in it. Just a bit of a warning.

All of the above points are just me trying to say Jake probably has undiagnosed learning disabilities and perhaps autism. I don’t think I need to go into detail about how those don’t make someone “stupid”. If you think that’s the case, fuck you. I can’t argue with ableists, much less do I actually want to. 

NOTE: I wrote a thing on his speech impediments. That may be of interest too. I don’t really know, but here it is nonetheless.

My take-away message here is: just because someone struggles with socialization or other things doesn’t mean fucking anything in terms of their intelligence. Jake is very clearly smart and has the ability to read people incredibly well -- to the point of making copies of them! Perhaps it’s just a bit easy to underestimate the guy compared to other characters, though.

There are other things that muddy this up a bit, unfortunately.

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Trolling.

Jake is such a fucking troll. Jesus shitting Christ, does he get a kick out of acting stupid just to make the other person look silly. Or perhaps even to make himself laugh in the process. Case in point:

uu: I WILL JUST BE YOUR PATRON DUDE. uu: OR MAYBE. YOUR PATRON MANBRO. GT: Sounds pretty gay. uu: WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? GT: Whats what? uu: GAY. WHAT'S GAY YOU IDIOT FUCK. GT: Oh right. GT: Forgive me i forget you arent familiar with all of my earth lingo. GT: Its like... GT: How do i explain. GT: You know. Its a rather old fashioned term for being jolly and festive together. GT: Like "that rollicking time we had scrumming the other eve sure was gay." uu: I SEE. uu: THEN YES. YOU ARE CORRECT. uu: THIS IS GOING TO BE GAY AS HELL. (x)

Look at his goddamn face during this exchange:

That little bastard knows exactly what he’s doing. 

And these aren’t stand-alone events! Jake is very, very silly and will use the fact others see him as stupid to have a little fun. May as well, right? And, in the process, he makes others look pretty damn stupid. 

But sometimes it’s a bit hard to tell when he’s acting stupid against when he’s genuinely not getting something. I think he even fools himself sometimes! So you have to be a bit careful about fake-outs. I’m sure even the other alphas have trouble deducing when he’s doing this -- which only adds to the myth of him actually being “stupid” when viewed on first-glace.

He probably also does this with crushes, purposefully ignoring the signs because he doesn’t want to deal with it or may not believe anyone could like him that way. After all, if he’s wrong, he may think himself to be conceded and having a big head. So, he ignores the signs, thus convincing himself the feelings aren’t there. Then he gets absolutely fucking bamboozled beyond belief to find out they actually do like him. But that’s just a little side-note.

Thinks he’s stupid.

This one is just a bit... Sad. Very sad. Jake genuinely does think he’s stupid. Quite a lot, really. 

GT: I shoulda asked where he fit into the picture if you were raised alone. I can be dumb as a bag of penny candy sometimes. (x)

Just... Man, he’s been called and treated as stupid so many times, he’s at the point where he believes it. If you asked him, he’d say Dirk is a genius, Roxy is always smart and sassy, and Jane is brilliant. (I don’t have a source for that last one but... Come on. She lectures him about grammar. Don’t fuck with me.) But when it comes to himself? He can’t say the same. Of course he then acts that way. He sees himself as a burly adventurer who is also a gentleman and tries to live up to that. No where along those lines does he think he’s intelligent. And that’s just... a little heartbreaking, really, all things considered.

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Can’t believe this blog is just me going, “Wanna see how fast I can talk about Jake?”, and a shit-ton of people all nodding before I talk for six hours straight. Anyway, take-home message is: Jake’s smart. Jake’s very, very smart. He’s also a himbo, but he’s incredibly smart. Just because he has learning disabilities doesn’t mean fuck-all. 

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. There are drinks and refreshments in the back. Have a safe trip home. Remember to tip your waiters and waitresses. Jesus fuck can I run this gag any harder into the ground? Giving me language was a mistake. No but, really, if you read this whole damn thing, thank you! I hope this was as fun to read as it was to write.

[sineala]

Do you mind I ask about your love life？ How are you met your wife？I really need some good examples before I give up on find someone.

Aww, anon, don’t give up! There’s someone out there for you!

I found love and not only was I not, at the time, actually looking -- I also identified as straight. Because, yes, my actual romantic life is exactly the kind of plot that people think is unrealistic when it shows up in fanfiction.

Anyway. Here is the story of How I Met My Wife, which I am sure I have told before but it’s always fun to tell it again. It is a very long story because it is also the story of How I Figured Out I Was A Lesbian.

Okay, so the year was 2001 and I was twenty and I was a college student. I was also of the opinion that I was heterosexual; I had a boyfriend once in high school and it was kind of confusing and weird and left me with the impression that something was probably wrong with me because I was pretty sure that other straight girls thought guys were attractive, and I did not. At this time it did not actually occur to me that I might not, y’know, be straight. I figured that most people were straight so I was probably straight and therefore everything I felt was something straight people felt. And also many straight girls liked to talk about how women were objectively prettier and therefore this was a thing straight people felt. I was... kind of confused and really repressed and when I think back on that time I wonder what the hell I was thinking because, man, I did a lot of weird things that made a lot more sense once I knew I was gay.

Also I spent a lot of my free time being in fandom. This was back in the heyday of LiveJournal, and at the time I was mostly in Due South fandom. And so was @carminapossunt. I don’t even remember how I found her -- it might have been through the Common Interests list, and it might have been because we had friends in common (it turned out that one of her fandom friends was one of my RL fandom friends who I went to school with). I’m pretty sure I friended her first, though. She seemed cool and we liked a lot of the same fandoms and pairings (mostly Fraser/Kowalski in Due South) and also we were and are both big language nerds.

So I friended her and she friended me back and we spent a few months leaving comments on each other’s posts, like you did. And then I remember one day, checking my friends list, and she’d just posted just that minute, and she’d left her AIM screen name (note to young people: this is what we used before Discord) and said that if anyone wanted to IM her she was online. And I was online, and she was online, and I IMed her. (Much later on she told me that she’d been deliberately hoping I would IM her.) This was probably fall 2001.

And then we... kept IMing. We IMed each other pretty much every day. Talking about school, fandom, our lives, whatever. I just thought she was the absolute coolest person I ever met and I wanted to talk to her ALL THE TIME and she seemed to want to keep talking to me all the time too! Win-win! She was so great! I’d never liked anyone as much as I liked her and I was pretty sure no one had ever liked me as much as she liked me! 

At the time I lived in California and she lived in New Jersey and being as we were 3,000 miles apart, there wasn’t much chance of us meeting any time soon. We’d sent each other mail and exchanged pictures (she was really pretty!) and I think maybe we’d talked on the phone a bit, but long-distance calls were expensive. So after we’d been talking for maybe a year (this was maybe mid-late 2002), we started making plans to meet. And because we were both in fandom, we decided we’d meet at a con, so we made plans to go to conneXions, a now-defunct slash con in Maryland, the next spring. We were going to see each other! In real life!

And that, my friends, was when my poor, confused, extremely repressed brain just stopped being able to lie to me anymore.

See, @carminapossunt was a lesbian. Is still a lesbian, yes, but was a lesbian when I met her. Definitely a lesbian. Went to a women’s college. Had been out and proud ever since I’d known her. And I was fine with that. I was totally fine with that. Pretty much all of my friends at college were queer. (In retrospect, maybe this ought to have clued me in.) So I was absolutely, totally fine with her being a lesbian... and then she started talking about dating women and, like, going on dates with them. Currently, right then, dating women. And I became Extremely Jealous. And I couldn’t figure out why, and this was really upsetting. She was my friend! I wanted her to be happy! Didn’t I want her to be happy? Why was I so happy when she told me that she wasn’t going on another date with some particular woman? It didn’t make any sense! This was all very confusing.

You’d think maybe at that point I would have figured out that I had a crush on her. But no.

No, it finally occurred to me that I had a crush on @carminapossunt when I was sitting around daydreaming about how I was going to be meeting her (a totally normal activity that all straight people engage in, I am sure) and suddenly I realized that I was thinking about what it would be like to kiss her. And it was a really good thought that made me feel all happy and warm inside! Nothing at all like thinking about kissing guys! This seemed like a super-amazing idea and oh my God I'm gay and oh my God I have a crush on my best friend who I’ve never met. It was kind of a lot to take in. Yeah.

So then I spent some time trying to sort everything out in my head and realizing that so many things made so much more sense now and trying to convince myself that my friends and family weren’t all going to hate me forever. That bit was kind of unfun and I don’t recommend it. But I got it all sorted out eventually.

And then, uh, I told @carminapossunt that, basically, I thought I was gay and I definitely had a crush on her. And it turned out that she had had a crush on me this entire time and she’d been trying to get over me and date other people because, well, we both thought I was straight. (I am not sure I recommend this coming-out approach to other people but it definitely worked for me.)

So this was December 2002 and we were both like “okay, how do we do this?” and also “how are we going to survive waiting several months until that con to finally meet?” because, you know, what if I wasn’t really gay and none of this worked out and we hated each other in person. It was extremely wonderful and also terrifying.

So, uh, what I did was, I told my mother I thought I might be gay, because being closeted was feeling kind of terrible already. And she told me that she had basically already guessed years ago and that she loved me. Which, y’know, is good to hear. And then I told her about @carminapossunt and then my mother asked me... if I would like plane tickets to go visit her for winter break in a couple weeks. Which I was definitely not expecting and which was definitely going above and beyond in being supportive. So, uh, thanks, mom!

I flew out and met @carminapossunt on December 27, 2002 and it was a great success and it turned out I was definitely gay and we were definitely dating. I eventually came out to the rest of my family and maybe I shouldn’t have come out to my dad while he was driving along a winding cliffside road but, whatever, it worked out fine and he loves me.

We were long-distance for a couple more years, which sucked, until I moved to the East Coast for grad school and we moved in together and we have stayed together ever since. It took us forever to actually decide to get married (I mean, it wasn’t even legal when we started dating) but when we did we planned it in about three months and we eventually got married fourteen years later on December 27, 2016, so that way we only have to remember one anniversary date ever.

And that’s my story! I’m less confused now. I love my wife. She’s the best.