#like the fact that the fandom mostly ignores those themes in the story makes me feel like :( :

[kaladinkholins]

i know I've mentioned my interpretation of mizu's gender a million times on here but i don't think i ever fully elaborated on it.

so on that note i just wanna ramble about that for a bit. basically, it's my reading of the show that mizu is nonbinary, so let me dig into that.

putting the rest under the cut because it ended being pretty long lol. also here have a cute mizu pic of her being happy and most at ease with herself, symbolised by her letting her hair down. <3 ok let's proceed.

okay note that nonbinary is an umbrella term, and applies to a vast range of gender identities, but it's my personal preference to use it as is, simply because i'm not a fan of microlabels. more power to you if you are though, but anyway.

essentially when i refer to mizu as nonbinary it means that i interpret mizu as a woman, but not ONLY a woman. not strictly a woman. she is also a man. she is also neither of these things, she is something in between, while at the same time she is none of these at all. i've said as much many times, but i just don't want people to think that by nonbinary it inherently means a "third androgynous gender" that essentially turns the gender binary into a gender trinary. not only is that going against what the term nonbinary was crafted for (to go against rigid boxes and categorisation of gender identities), but also, not all nonbinary people fall under that category or definition, and that's definitely not the way i interpret mizu.

also, before anyone fights me on this, let me clarify further that gender means something different to everyone. it's not your biological sex or physical characteristics. but at the same time, gender is not mere presentation. you can be a trans woman and still present masculine—either because you're closeted and forced to, or because you just want to—and either way, that doesn't take away from your identity as a woman. same goes for trans men. if you're a trans man but you wear skirts and don't bind or don't get top surgery, that doesn't make you any less of a man. because gender non-conformity exists, and does not only apply to cis people! some lesbians are nonbinary and prefer using he/him pronouns while dressing masculinely, but that doesn't mean they're a man, or that they're any less of a lesbian. neither does this mean that they're a cis woman.

the thing about queer identities in general is that, like i said, they mean something different to everyone, because how you identify—regardless of your biological attributes and fashion or pronouns—is an extremely personal experience. so a nonbinary person and a gnc cis woman's experiences might have plenty of overlap, but what distinguishes between the two is up to the individual. there's no set requirements to distinguish you as one or the other, but it's up to you to decide what you identify as, based on what you feel. either way, by simply identifying yourself as anything under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, you are already communicating to the world that you are not what a conservative, cisheteronormative society wants you to be.

which is why i find all this queer infighting on labels to be so ridiculous. because we're all fighting the same fight; the common enemy is a societal structure that divides us into set roles and expectations purely based on our biological parts. that's why biological essentialism in the queer community is a fucking disease. because by arguing that women are inherently weak and fragile and soft and gentle and must be protected from evil ugly men, while men are inherently strong and angry and violent and exploitative of women, these people are advocating for the same fucked up system that marginalises and abuses women as well as effeminate and/or gay men.

anyway. i'm going on a tangent. this was meant to be a blue eye samurai post. so yeah back to that— the point i'm trying to make is that there's no one way to identify as anything, and everyone views gender in a specific way.

so with that being said, yes you can definitely interpret mizu as a gnc cis woman and that's a totally valid reading. however, interpreting her as nonbinary or transmasc also doesn't take away from her experiences with misogyny and female oppression, because nonbinary and transmasc folks also experience these things.

me, personally, i view her as nonbinary but not necessarily or always transmasc because i still believe femininity and womanhood is an inherent part of who mizu is. for example, from what we've seen, she does not like binding. it does not give her gender euphoria, but is instead very uncomfortable for her both physically and mentally, and represents her suppressing her true self. which is why when she "invites the whole" of herself, she stands completely bare in front of the fire, breasts unbound and hair untied. when she is on the ship heading to a new land in the ending scene, she is no longer hiding her neck and the lack of an adam's apple. we can thus infer that mizu does not have body dysmorphia. she is, in fact, comfortable in her body, and relies on it extremely, because her body is a weapon. instead, what mizu hates about herself is her face—her blue eyes. she hates herself for her hybridised identity, hates herself for being a racial Other. hates that she has no home in her homeland. these are not queer or feminist themes, but postcolonial ones.*

* and as a tiny aside on this subject, i really do wish more of the fandom discussion would talk about this more. it's just such an essential part to reading her character. like someone who's read homi k bhabha's location of culture and has watched this show, PLEASE talk to me so we can ramble all about how the show is all about home and alienation from community. please. okay anyway—

nevertheless, queer and feminist themes (which are not mutually exclusive by the way!) are still prevalent in her story, though they are not the main issue that she is struggling with. but she does struggle with it to some extent, and we see this especially during her marriage with mikio, where we see her struggle in women's domestic spaces.

on the other hand, though, she finds no trouble or discomfort in being a man or being around other men—even naked ones—and does not seem stifled by living as one, does not seem all that bothered or uncomfortable navigating through men's spaces. contrast this to something like disney's mulan (1998), where we do see mulan struggle in navigating through men's spaces, as she feels uncomfortable being around so many men, always feeling like she doesn't belong and that she's inherently different from them. mizu has no such experiences like this, as her very personality and approach to life is what can be categorised as typically "masculine". she is straightforward and blunt. her first meeting with mikio, she tells him straight to his face that he's old while frowning and raising a brow at him. she approaches problems with her muscles and fists (or swords), rather than with her words or mind. compare this with mulan, who, while well-trained by the end of the movie, still uses her sharp wits rather than brute strength. this is a typically "feminine" approach. it's also the approach akemi relies on throughout the show—through her intelligence and persuasive tongue, she navigates the brothel with ease. mizu, in contrast to someone like mulan and akemi, struggles with womanhood and femininity, and feels detached from it.

thus, in my opinion, mizu is not simply a man, nor is she simply a woman. she is both. man and woman. masculine and feminine. she has to accept both, rather than suppress one or the other. her name means water. fluid.

as a side note, while i do believe mizu is nonbinary, i also primarily use she/her pronouns but this is a personal preference. i find it's easier, plus it's what the creators use, and because, in general, being nonbinary simply doesn't necessitate the use of they/them pronouns. nonbinary is not just a third gender. it's about breaking the binary, in any which way, and that's exactly what mizu does.

also, i'd also like to mention that one of show's head of story even referred to her with the term "nonbinary", rather than simply "androgynous" (see pic below). and it's possible this could be a slip up on his part, in which he believes the terms are interchangeable (they're not btw), but regardless i find it a very interesting word choice, and one that supports my stance.

so anyway yeah that's my incredibly long rambling post.

TL;DR nonbinary mizu rights 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 congrats if you reached the end of this btw. also ily. unless you're a TERF in which case fuck off. ok i'm done.

[wilcze-kudly]

I really want to see your post about how Katara is forcefully matured by the fandom, please!

Ok, while I wasn't ready to make that post in earnest, and frankly never might be, here's some of my cursory thoughts on the topic. I'd gladly talk about it in detail more but also ✨️fear✨️

So, let's get the obvious out of the way. Katara is a 14 year old. A child, barely a teen. In fact, the entirety of the gaang is made up of children.

Now, I haven't been fully active in the atla fandom in quite some time, mostly lurking on the peripheries, because the fandom is a shitshow. One of the reasons being the fact that most fans cannot, for the life of them handle the Gaang's inherent childishness.

This isn't just a Katara problem. Other than her, Aang suffers the most for the egregious crime of being a 12 year old survivor of a genocide. Suki is, of course, mainly ignored. The interpretations of Toph can vary wildly, from her being horrifically matured to being dissmissed as a chaotic, rude child. Zuko and Sokka's immature moments are looked at more permissively, being an angsty boi™️ and a goofy goober respectively.

I do find it odd that Aang doesn't get the "boys will be boys" pass, but ok, we'll blame it on him being... bald? a nice boy? not concerned with his own masculinity?

As for Katara, her maturity is treated like... a given. She's the mom of the group, the proverbial love interest, the feminist icon, the badass fighter, the trailblazer filled with feminine rage. The trophy wife to Aang, the (Lore Olympus style) Persephone to Zuko's Hades.

And true, she is, or at least can be, a lot of these things.

However she is, first and foremost, a child. This fact is presented to us on a silver platter in the first episode, when her and Aang are penguin sledding.

Katara : I haven't done this since I was a kid!

Aang: You still are a kid!

Katara is a child forced to mature. Her circumstances forced her to try to fill her mother's place and to fight for those who couldn't do so themselves. The fandom brands her as a mom friend. Sees her purely as an icon of empowerment. Or worse, degrades her character to being a love interest.

(im talking about both sides of the kataang/zutara debate. I have my biases, but I'm sure there are kataangers who treat her like this as well. I simply have encountered very few of them.)

Her story, while yes, has many themes of female empowerment is in huge part, a tragedy. The tragedy of a young girl forced to grow up much too soon.

Sadly, this is rarely spoken about. It's not spoken about directly and therefore a lot of the fandom doesn't see this. (Or simply doesn't want to see it)

This is not to say that Katara's more mature aspects should be dismissed or buried. She displays a lot of maturity for her age, to the point of being able to go toe to toe both intellectually and physically with the (admittedly usually incompetent) adults of the show. Additionally, she evolves as a character through the durtation of the show.

But a huge chunk of her maturity being forced and therefore unhealthy is a key aspect of her character.

I think what upsets me the most is that while the critiquing the idea of Katara being treated as the mom of the group in fanon is becoming more and more common, the treatment of her as something akin to a YA protagonist is on the rise.

Both these interpretations are so insulting to the character of Katara, what is wrong with you people?

I'm currently rewatching atla with a focus on Katara as a character (while also trying to give zutara a chance I am doing my best guys) and her childishness is an integral part of her. It's sad to see her treated as an adult by the fandom. And honestly unsettling, especially with how much of like a child she acts.

I wanna finish my rewatch before I give my full ramble on the topic. I also wanna look more into the many different opinions people in the atla fandom have on Katara's treatment by the show. Though even trying to skim the surfce was like injecting lemon juice directly into my tear ducts. Also I really, really don't wanna get sent death threats again.

I want to give the topic of Katara my full attention. However I don't think I'll ever make this post, actually. The atla fandom is a rabid horrid pack of creatures and I'm not sure if I wanna engage with all that.The post would probably bash a lot of things considered key arguments for Zutara, since, looking at Zutara through a child's doesn't exactly scream 'romance' and do I really want that on my blog?

Katara's role as a child isn't valued as much as her role as a woman and I just don't want to deal with people calling me mean names for talking about a little girl being traumatised.

I'd be glad to have a discussion but I made this blog mainly to have fun and enjoy a piece of media I like. I met some truly amazing people whom I can have really great discussions with, even if we don't agree. I don't want to jeopardise that by being a pretentious dick on a soapbox.

Call this and the last few posts I made on Katara me testing the waters.

[beevean]

Ah man i really dislike fandom's general behaviour regarding canon vs not-canon (shoutout to the ff7 fandom for not being normal abt the compilation :) ) There is this belief that canon means good or is some sort of prestige, and that's why some ppl insist so much on placing their favorite spin offs or side stories at canon level, or try to "downgrade" some canon story bc they didnt like it. And in the end canon in terms of quality means nothing! I acknowledge that, for example, metroid other m is technically more canon than the metroid prime trilogy (including how it went out of its way to make the mp games explicitly not compatible w the main canon 🙄), yet i also will say that mom sucks horribly and will ignore its mistake of an existence while the mp trilogy is Peak. Heck i personally like the lore introduced in AM2R despite it being a fan game (aka def not canon). Or for a diff example, the CoD manga could be said to be less canon than PtR, but both are beautifully written and introduce plenty of interesting elements and themes to the main CoD story (plus Hector look at Hector the he hes so- ).

Canon doesnt equals quality, but rather it means what was an actual event in a series, and is mostly relevant in terms of analisis, putting together what happened, and trying to predict what events will be mentioned again in the franchise and their influence (and also retcons exist, for good and evil). If you like canon, good! If you like an spin off, good! If you like the fanon/headcanons, good! You can try to mix up elements from both into your own version or interpretation, to do fanfics or fanart, etc. Something being canon or not is an objective (if debatable in certain cases) fact, but that doesnt means you need to like it or not

Thank you for putting it better than what I've been trying to say fdhsjhfdskhfks

Ohh boy the OM example. I would rather. Not touch that :) I am aware of the backlash after Dread dared to include an image of that game's events... (but speaking of AM2R, I really believe it shouldn't be mentioned in this conversation lol. I suppose you can say that we can accepts its ideas like headcanons!)

The CoD mangas are an interesting example. PtR was written by Ayami Kojima, who had a hand in creating at least Hector and Isaac, so it's technically a more "official" product than the MF manga which was written by a hired writer; but Kojima herself considers the MF manga more canon, likely because it's more detailed:

Although there are some restrictions on representation when accompanying a game, there is a comic in Japan that can be freely established as a story and can be thoroughly enjoyed, by Kou Sasakura ("Castlevania: Curse of Darkness'', published by Media Factory). It was written by hand, so I apologize for the inconvenience, but please read it as well. This is how I ended up with it this time, and it may be confusing for those who worry about the story. Each person's setting, interpretation, and representation are different, but I'll leave it to you as the true story... Hector is also cool and handsome! ... How should I say it? It's like the child I gave birth to as a surrogate mother (wow!) is now doing even better with their foster parents, and I'm crying tears of gratitude behind the telephone pole.

(this quote is so wholesome I wanted to share, even if badly translated <3)

So who is right? And speaking about that, how much can prequel mangas be "canon" in a videogame series? I never mentioned the Sonic promotional material, now that I think of it lol. (admittedly that's another issue, the one of accessibility for newcomers, which oh man oh man do the CoD mangas suffer from :'D)

Anyway, I have nothing smarter to add, so let me emphasize this:

Canon doesnt equals quality, but rather it means what was an actual event in a series, and is mostly relevant in terms of analisis, putting together what happened, and trying to predict what events will be mentioned again in the franchise and their influence

[blubushie]

Monsieur Blu, your blorbo opinions on Sniper are very accurate, and I would like to add on to the discussion of why mischaracterisations are so common.

I do apologize if my wording in this makes me sound like a pretentious cunt, this is simply how my brain uses words when writing something thoughtful.

Preface: your opinions, although very good and accurate, are not canon, for they aren't explicitly depicted or shown or mentioned within canon. So I won't be calling them canon, but rather, canon-compliant. That is, your characterization of Sniper as a bushman, who is a strict proffesional hitman, who lives in a modified Land Rover series 1 with a cabover camper, is not wrong. In fact, all of that is literally canon. But there are few things that are genuinely, no ifs and or buts about it, rigidly canon. And, because of the nature of tf2's story, so much of what we can gather about the characters outside of the rigid canon is simply that- gathered assumptions. Like, we can gather that Sniper has absolutely spent time alone in the bush, and that he prioritizes thinking of things in a logical and practical mannor, rather than prioritizing thinking about what counts as "civilised" and "appropriate", especially in social contexts. He does what he has to, and is comfortable in doing those things basically shamelessly. For example: He abruptly headshot csniper, point blank, completely starkers. And proceeded to walk about, completely starkers. After sitting down next to spy and casually having a smoke with him, completely starkers. But none of what I wrote before the example is explicitly said, it's all gathered info. Sniper isn't shown skinning a rabbit and sorting through its meat and bones and viscera in order to eat and save the extras for later. He isn't shown tracking and hunting game. He isnt shown drinking the bitterest coffee to grace the earth, or smoking pot. And although some things seem obvious and make the most amount of sense, or seem incredibly accurate to his character, to the point where that thing is basically canon, my autism does not allow me to ignore the distinction. And so, I call it canon-compliant. Mostly for my own peace of mind. Yes. Rant over. Onwards.

I think the whole uwu blushes madly gulps loudly and stutters like a broken record thing comes from the Basic Knowledge you gain of Sniper's character. Through either playing the game and interacting and consuming canon content like the comics and whatnot, or through interacting with and consuming fan content through tumblr or twitter or fanfics, etc.

The latter being much more likely to lead to mischaractarisations of characters. In fandom, folks obviously have their own interpretations of literally everything, but there are some common themes that I suppose would be called fanon (an implicit collection of concepts and ideas that are often used in fan depictions of characters, but don't explicitly exist (or often don't exist at all) in the real storys canon.), that have become very common over the around 12 years that tf2 has had a storyline.

Now, there was a poll conducted a bit ago on tumblr that asked about the tf2 fandom's interraction with canon. How many people actually played tf2? How many people read the comics? How many people do both? How many people do neither and only interract with tf2 through fandom and fanfiction?

And that last one got a surprisingly large percentage of votes. So it's safe to say that fanon definitely has quite a bit of significance within the fandom, and it's not just an insulated thing that gets shared around a group of people. I'd say, in fact, that newcomers to tf2 are far more likely to be exposed to fanon than they are to be exposed to canon/canon-compliant ideas.

And oftentimes, the Basic Knowledge one gathers about Sniper upon consuming fan content, is as follows:

- Reclusive and quiet

- Awkward

- Tall and lanky

- Deep voice

- Speaks strine

- Lives in a camper

- Pisses in jars

- Cherishes proffesionalism

- Hates spies

And most of that is not... technically wrong. Although it is a very shallow, uncritical, reductive analysis of Sniper's character, it's not wrong. But because of how much time all of that has spent marinating within fandom, parts become exagerated or ignored. And what was once a very basic understanding of the character, becomes the understanding of the character, alongside a myriad of added tropes and ideas. All of it becomes further and further removed from canon.

It's like trying to draw something from memory 20 times over the course of 2 years. You spend a good hour studying what you're about to draw, but after that, you never see the thing again, you never reference the original source material again. It's completely from memory now. You're going to forget some parts, you're going to add on new parts, you're going to explore new ideas, you're subconsciously going to be influenced by the media and content you consume, which tends to change over the years. Your drawings will likely start to resemble the source material less and less.

And every once in a while, you may catch a glance at the thing you've been drawing from memory, and you get a refresher as to what it actually looks like. And maybe from then on you'll draw it more accurately to the source material. Or maybe you'll ignore it, and continue drawing the thing your way, because you've come to like the changes and additions you've applied to it over the months.

Or, you'll see someone else draw the thing in a different but intriguing way, a stylised way, and you find yourself adopting aspects of how they drew the thing in the intriguing and stylised way. You'll adopt the way they make things more angular and rough. Or the way they crosshatch meticulously to indicate shadow. Although these changes seem minute and insignificant, they add up, and eventually you are left with something entirely unique to what your source material is.

And I think that's what's happened with our beloved bushman. He has undergone so many interpretations simply because of the sheer size and age of tf2. And there are eras to it all, and the most common fanon depictions is often dependent of where you consume your tf2 content from; whether its from tumblr, twitter, deviantart, instagram, reddit, or the game and the steam community itself.

Not all artists use references in the same way as eachother. Some do browse the tf2 wiki and refer to the comics in order to get as accurate of a depiction as possible. But some use other peoples' depictions as references. And maybe there's a popular fic that many people read, or a drawing that many people saw, that influenced other artists to also borrow and use and base their own drawings and writings off of.

Shy reclusive clutz who doesn't know squat about intimacy or how to People is simply a popular trope, and having Sniper be all of that clashes in a funny way with his professionalism in a way that a lot if people enjoy. Like, you're telling me this worldly survivalist assassin, man who has slept in the corpse of water buffalo tougher than all of us, happens to also be a pathetic wet cat of a human being who can't sustain basic conversation without being irked by the Anxieties? This man, who will shag you silly, unflinchingly and confidently, but when you wake up the next morning in his bed he's as red as a robin and stuttering about clean clothes? That's silly. That's amusing. I can see why it's popular to make him like that.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with fanon or ones own interpretation of a character. There's nothing wrong with adhering to canon as closely as possible. If someone claims Sniper as their wife and makes that their own fanon, so be it. We can all coexist. Mmmmyeah.

Ok thank you for reading this thumbsup

Good morning!

(And I don't think you sound like a pretentious cunt. It gives me "theorising over cigars and Scotch with old English bloke in a 1930s smoking room" vibes. I like it!)

I try to keep as canon-compliant as possible. Sniper is confirmed to be a former hunter of dangerous game turned assassin, and he's shown drinking his coffee black, the rest is merely speculation both on his canon characterisation and my own experiences and assumptions on my life. I rarely comment/speculate on the canon incarnation of a character for this reason. On this blog for example Sniper is Sniper and Mundy is Mundy. My characterisation and interpretation of him is Mundy, if I say Sniper I'm referring to him as he's depicted in canon.

Also I don't think he smokes hooch because, again from my own experiences, bushmen develop a very delicate sense of smell and the smell of hooch is overwhelming and disgusting to me. Smell like decomposition in a way.

And I do think a lot of the mischaracterisation issue is because of people not consuming everything they can from the fandom. The comics teach you that Sniper can be cold and bloody calculated, that he always felt like an "other" growing up, that he has no qualms walking about in the nuddy when he's on the hunt, that he treasures his family and seeks his parents' approval over everything, and that his mantra of "be professional" is sometimes taken to the extreme, for example when he's raised from the dead and his first thought of all things is "Being dead's the longest holiday I ever took. Time to get back to work."

Fanon often infects people's interpretation of canon characters. I see it a lot with Pyro, where he's always chipper and upbeat and uwu soft boy and never goes absolutely apeshit like we see in his very own Meet the Pyro video or even the comics (The Bear Scene, cutting off Soldier's hand, burning Ross and Greg alive).

I reckon a part of that is why my characterisation is good? That makes me sound like I have tickets on myself, but I was told once that I have one of the best characterisations of him a reader's ever seen and I will carry that compliment until the day I die, damn it! I was never involved in the fandom until I started writing. And I came here to kind of promote the fic I guess? I never consumed fandom content outside of art, and I don't usually gravitate toward "domestic" art but instead the mercs in action as mercs. My interpretation of him is strictly from what I've seen in canon (be it in-game dialogue and items, the Meet the Team videos, Expiration Date, the comics, the Sniper vs Spy update, etc). I never really consumed "fandom" media and I can't count how often my immediate response to something is "Canon Sniper would not say that."

But I keep my mouth shut about it, and I move on. There's no point in arguing, especially over something so petty.

I think he can still be anxious and professional, especially since I'm anxious and professional. I get nervous when people approach me, but I don't get red in the face or flustered or stutter. I mask and keep it under wraps because I have a certain image I have to uphold in the name of professionalism. No one will hire someone who's a fumbling, stumbling mess. They want someone bold. Sniper wouldn't have gotten any clients if he was actually the way he's often depicted in fandom. He can hold a conversation, but he can also be made more and more uncomfortable the longer it continues on. It's a careful balance and something he'd suffer through for the sake of professionalism until he couldn't take it anymore and politely excused himself.

And he'd never do it with a client.

And yes, he's absolutely the type to be keen on a confident root and then be a mess the next morning because he usually leaves before his partner wakes up and now he has no idea how to handle the Aftermath.

And I reckon a lot of it is also my own experiences? I'm a bushman who lives in the Australian Outback like Sniper, and a hunter of dangerous game, like Sniper. One of the last, really, and I reckon a part of me does feel I have a sort of... authority, I guess, on certain aspects his characterisation? On what this kind of life does to you and makes you feel as a person, of how it changes the way you act and think. Maybe that's why I write him the way I do? I relate to him as a character better than most can, I suppose.

And sometimes I even take offence to certain assumptions about him, especially ones that aren't really thought through in fanon? Like the idea he smells like piss, or he's always dirty. Sure, there's some dirt and dried blood on my clothes, but I wash up every day because hygiene is very important out here. Maybe the reason I'm so stingy about his depiction in fandom is because I'm a lot like him. I don't want people saying I'm a dirty bushman or that I smell like piss because I don't.

I suppose it just hurts sometimes to see people's interpretation of what Sniper must be like and see that reflected onto me because I'm so much like him. I'm not shy, I'm introverted. I don't panic when someone approaches me, but I do get a little nervous until I know what they want. I'm strong and capable and I wouldn't have survived this long out here if I weren't. I'm level-headed. I'm quiet, because that's what the job requires. When you're alone long enough, eventually you just stop talking entirely.

People talk about representation a lot and I've never once felt "represented" until I found out about Sniper. There's I suppose a mild exception for Crocodile Dundee, but he's largely made out to be a buffoon and doesn't really get to show off his actual bushman knowledge until the second movie. Sniper is the first character I've actually felt represented by and "clicked" with who's been treated seriously by his own creator, and I enjoy that. I'm used to being the butt of a joke (bogan, short, etc) but with Sniper? He's respected as a hitman, as an assassin, as a hunter. I envy that respect that other characters in canon show him.

But I don't typically comment on things I think people get intrinsically wrong since I feel like an arsehole doing it. I just judge silently.

[mdhwrites]

Ruby Gillman Trailer

So... This trailer has theoretically been living in my brain for the past day and I want to talk about it. My first thought was just “This is cute. Looks neat. I’ll keep an eye out for it and maybe see it if I get the opportunity.” Theeeeeen someone made art of the mermaid and kraken kissing and I mean that’s just perfect. There’s even a lot of good potential for shipping there with the person who is defined by their powers and what they are and the person who doesn’t care about any of those things. The attraction from the mermaid to the kraken is immediate and obvious and filling in the gaps could be fun. Which actually brought me to stage two: This trailer is bad... but in a good way? It fails in just making an audience interested as it also defeats the purpose to watching it for people who mostly care about the big plot points rather than the journey. After all, we know her powers, see her first accidental transformation into full kraken mode, see the villain’s super mode reveal, get it confirmed that it ends with a kaiju fight, see how superfluous the love interest will be, etc. like that. When people talk about trailers showing the whole movie, this could actually be used as a textbook example of it... With one exception: How it does it also easily facilitates fandom interaction. The main designs are shown fairly clearly, with their variants being shown as well so artists don’t have to fill in the gaps left out by lack of references, the plot of the movie is clear so you can take educated guesses on what they’ll do so the movie won’t as easily contradict fanfiction made before it, etc. like that. Hell, you could just try to write a fanfic that’s effectively the movie with those guesses. It’d be like those cheap knock offs of hyped up movies like “Atlantic Rim” that you would find in old video rental places. I... I swear I’m 26 (one month away from my birthday to the day actually which is actually pure coincidence). So... Here’s the multiple levels of thought in full: This idea is neat. I like monster girls and monster girls trying to fit into human society is something I’ve enjoyed enough to write multiple times in multiple ways! The last book I released had a dryad in it even. Oh! Yeah, this antagonist and protagonist actually have great potential for a sapphic romance and we KNOW how much I love those. My first proper length novel, instead of novella, was based on a popular werewolf girl falling for a nerdy human girl after all. You do know so much though that you could try to take the same premise and flip it in time for the movie to come out. Books would have a way easier time with a deadline of ‘this Summer’ than making a movie yourself though. You’d have to be able to pump out a whole book’s worth of chapters in like a week, let alone if you don’t have practice with mermaids. Of course, I am well documented as having experience writing mermaids, and even more hostile ones at that. With all that said... There’s MORE than enough differences between Ruby Gillman and the story percolating in my head right now. There won’t be a race based rivalry, it’ll be focused on a romance rather than shoving it in there because apparently it needs one (that’s really how the trailer makes it feel for Gillman) and just the shift from the two being entirely against each other from go to actually working together and getting closer inherently requires a very different story. As well as the fact that a book can’t get away with the main character being blue and people just theoretically ignoring it (I’m curious what the explanation for that will be) and the fact that a kraken might be hated while a mermaid is loved in the world has already led to worldbuilding that will play into the romance, the climax, themes and character arcs. This also isn’t me trying to say “I’m gonna outdo Dreamworks!” It’s more my silly way of announcing a new project I’m going to try and focus on and try to get done in like two-three months. I know I can more than easily do it if I can get my mind to work with me so... we’ll see but my mind is excited and I think it’s a fun, silly experiment. I am a little sad that it means I likely won’t be writing fanfiction for the movie before it comes out though like I did with Wenclair and Wednesday. Again, I think Ruby and Chelsea already have a good possible dynamic together but my job as a professional writer takes precedence unfortunately.

[vispero]

So, about previous Genshin and Luckae or Kaeluc ship.

I need to clarify some things. (Also don't mind mistakes, English isn't my first language.)

To me fictional content isn't some "example" you should follow irl. It's more about experiencing something you actually -can't- do irl. And as far as you not doing something bad/illegal, you free to like, create and enjoy any character and ships. There is actual laws about content which is allowed or now, and if someone just don't like something but it's allowed by site rules, then by no means anyone should blame, troll or hate people who create -allowed- content. Block button is a thing and it's better to use it than make "fandom" "hatedom".

All my life I was playing games, mostly Jrpg (final fantasy, tales of etc.). And in my childhood translations usually was bad or awful :') Years later I finally was able to check original scripts and yep, there was a lot of "new" facts. So even now, while I playing with Japanese audio and English or other subtitles, I often compare what I hear and what I see, and there sadly a ton of differences, some major, some minor (same goes about just text without audio, and it's more difficult to compare sadly). Should localisation team change facts to make it more appealing for their audience? Idk, honestly. To me original script and ideas always come first and translations and adaptations second, it shows what authors meant initially and I'm here for that. But even if someone prefer translations/localisations, then they shouldn't be arrogant and going so far as telling that only their opinion valid while ignoring Original (in Genshin case - Chinese) version and it's enjoyers.

Now about Kaeya and Diluc. I didn't know anything about them when I started playing. And after some of first quests I actually catched myself thinking "Damn, there is so nice chemistry there, I'm all here for that!" Muuuch later piece by piece I learned about their story. I also found post about Chinese version about their relationship, it was really educational. (I need to clarify that incest isn't my cup of tea, I'm not judging or anything, just not my thing. Idk if I'm bad person because of that but honestly I don't think I should tell anyone what they should like/ship. Also see 1th paragraph.) But in Kaeya and Diluc case I don't see them as actual brothers, adoptive or not. There is more interesting and complicated situation and I'm here for that, I like difficult relationships in media. And if Chinese players explained about "sworn brothers" trope, then it's clear why Genshin creators went with it. Western fandom can accept it or not because of English translation, but they honestly shouldn't force their opinion on those who don't see them as actual brothers. I don't think it's that hard?

I'm not really caring about what some people think about me online. I'm not drawing anything shocking (I hope xD), so people can like or don't like my opinion/artworks, but it's more about preferences than anything else. Most of my works very SFW or with some R rating (because of blood/dark theme), but I strongly support all artists and writers, sfw of nsfw.

And yep, I ship Diluc and Kaeya. In more Chinese trope style (perspective), so if someone don't like it just ignore me. I'm really glad I found this ship, they have complicated and dramatic story and I'm here for that. So "Hi" to all fellow shippers <3

P.S. I'm more Luckae person but you probably won't notice it in my artworks, they mostly G-PG13 anyway.

[sneezemonster15]

I am new to Naruto fandom. Even newer to SNS fandom. I observed the shipping wars, and frankly, participated in it a couple of times. Just to see what it's all about. And I have come to one conclusion.

It's bonkers how far one will go to convince oneself about one's shipping whether it makes sense or not. At the end of the day, it becomes not really about the content itself, but one's comprehension and understanding of content. Which helps me understand why SS, NH, or NS stans exist. Their projection (which it certainly is) almost seems delusional and definitely inconsistent with the content itself.

When I first started watching Naruto, I wasn't aware of Naruto fandom. I am a cinephile and I am used to analysing content involuntarily while I am watching it. I wasn't expecting much from Naruto, I definitely underestimated it and wasn't expecting any emotional impact given it was shonen and I am very hard to please (yes, I am a film elitist). But as I kept watching it, I had to grudgingly change my opinion. By the time I reached Shippuden, I could tell that I was almost fevered with excitement and looking forward to more emotional impact.

I didn't watch it with any romantic lens, I was mostly interested in the fighting sequences initially. Hell, that's all I was expecting from a shonen show about ninjas. But at the end of vote 1, I was like, hmmm. What?? This was so emotionally wracking. Are they really just rivals, or friends? Now, I am a fully fledged cinephile and have watched a lot (a. Lot.) of LGBTQ films, given my interest in shows about emotional and sexual repression. And throughout my first watch of the first part, I kept picking up on the subtle sns moments without actively thinking about them. I was really into the story and wanted to see what will happen next. But at the end of vote 1, I had to stop and think, wait what, are they in love with each other? They are definitely not just friends. Or rivals. The language of their interaction in vote 1 is so fraught with underlying currents of repressed emotions that it just made the cinephile in me ask, what am I watching exactly? Like isn't it shonen (I am also relatively new to anime/manga) where gay relationships are a strict nono? Like why does it have all the tropes of repressed homosexuality in men, just like all the films I had seen. The way Naruto and Sasuke constantly gravitate to each other, their interactions at times feel like a borderline attempt at just staying close to each other, their violent, strong feelings and devotion for each other (land of waves arc) and then denial of those feelings (after the land of waves arc), their contant physical fights for no apparent reason, Sasuke goading Naruto for no apparent reason especially when Sasuke is not the type to talk without reason which had been made abundantly clear. Sometimes, it literally felt like he was flirting with Naruto (during the chuunin exams) while rejecting Sakura. Sasuke constantly appears to be caring and attentive towards Naruto while treating Sakura like trash. This was even acknowledged by Naruto who asks Sasuke to be nicer to Sakura. But Sasuke doesn't even think about it. He instead flirts (?) with Naruto. It made me think, why did the writer choose to do that? Why make it clear that in hierarchy, Sasuke keeps Naruto much higher than Sakura, so early in the show (when there hasn't been so much development either, we were mostly shown how they keep fighting and arguing with each other)? If they are supposed to just be comrades or friends, why pinpoint this? Why use this trope at all if it's about friendship, especially in a show that can't include a gay relationship.

And this kept happening consistently. The writer made the interaction between Sasuke and Naruto to be major turning points in the plot. Vote 1 fight made it clear to me that there was something more going on, but I didn't want to be presumptuous, so I kept it on the side and kept watching.

After watching Shippuden, I was convinced that none of it, was accidental. The writer painstakingly wrote a gay love story and was even obvious about it in a very clever way. Like he fucking got away with writing a gay love story in shonen. I know Naruto is basically a kids' show meant for entertainment purposes, but it touched so many important, dark and adult themes. I knew that it would be difficult for the writer to actually give a proper conclusion to these themes because they really aren't that black and white or even appropriate for children. So I wasn't surprised that he couldn't actually show peace being achieved after the war arc or slavery abolished in Hyuuga clan.

But one thing I was sure of. He wanted to show a gay love story, maybe out of a twisted sense of humor, I don't know. But that's what he did. He could not have made it clearer. He flagrantly used all the related tropes, visuals, sound, dialogues, hell the story. The fucking story...

He was so shrewd about it too. He made it so that people can take away whatever they wanted to take away from it as long as there was some plausible deniability about things that weren't made clear in the show itself. That fucking minx! But he knew that anyone who watches shit carefully, will be able to see what he actually did. He knew that at least some of us will be able to connect the dots. He went out of his way to make sure we connect the dots. There is no other way to explain why Sasuke repeatedly kept asking Naruto why he cared for him so much. There's no other way to explain why he concluded everything with the dialogue where Naruto explains that he hurts when Sasuke does. There's no other way to explain why that affected Sasuke to such an extent. Kishimoto went out of his way, like seriously, to tell the audience that they are Not just 'friends'. He basically used this friend thing with so much saturation and intent in such a twisted way that he made it into something else entirely. In that sense, the concept of 'friend' changed its meaning. Like you can try, but you can't change my mind about it.

Whether I approve it or not, but my takeaway from content depends mostly on the content itself. I do believe that more often than not, the simplest explanation is the right one. And this applies to the phenomenon of Naruto as well. Of course, as a viewer, I can't ignore that my suspension of belief relies on my own understanding of the external world and how I perceive visual language. But that is something that happens anyway, in tandem with consuming the content, while I was pretty much consistently objective about it.

I believe I have a pretty good understanding of how cinematic language works, and I know every creative or narrative choice has a reason and meaning behind it. Absolutely None of it is random. Cinematic language may not be universal in terms of styles, but all the styles definitely have a common ground. And any creator worth his salt knows it, he knows how his content will be perceived and what it is exactly that he wants to show or say. Do not delude yourself that it was accidental or on a whim.

I know for a fact that Kishomoto wanted to show a gay love story. I know for a fact that he wanted to show that Sasuke has feelings for Naruto and he knows it. He also wanted to show that Sasuke not only had feelings for Naruto but also knew that he couldn't show them openly. He wanted to show that Naruto has feelings for Sasuke as well but is confused and naive, like he is about so many other things. He wanted to show us that Sasuke is not into Sakura, that he doesn't even respect her. Any enthusiast of visual/cinematic language and narrative can tell all the above things without going into headcanon or deluded explanations (like SS, NH stans), with just on the basis of content they consumed.

At the end of the day, I don't ship SNS because it's in my head. I was forced to see and believe SNS by the creator. Not forced literally but forced to notice and acknowledge the emphasis and meaning of the twisted/manipulative ways of the creator.

Kishimoto, hats off to you, you sly bastard. You succeeded in trolling people endlessly, you had a lot of fun pitting people against each other, didn't you? Hahahahaha. Well, I call your bluff/or non bluff in this case since you obviously knew what you were doing.

[hellyeahheroes]

Robin(2021) #1 Review

Opening this comic with an assessment of a character that I have no choice but to agree with is a cheap way to score points with me.

Anyways, we caught heat for being unfair to this story since it was announced because all of us wanted it to be a Cass story since forever. And it became yet another thing Damian absorbs. I mostly ignored it because I’ve always been open about my disdain for the character and his fandom for nearly a decade. I never liked Damian because put these characteristics on a non-white passing character, they’d be dead inside of year. Then again I hate almost all of Grant Morrison monstrosities.

Regardless, new story who dis is in full effect here. We open this bad boy up with Damian gone missing and the Batfamily searching for him. Nightwing tried asking Damian’s old Teen Titans team and they obviously don’t know and probably hope Damian is dead. Tim checked Arkham Ruins(???) and Damian wasn’t there. I honestly don’t think Tim was trying to find Damian. Steph and Cass checked Damian’s farm and Steph concluded Damian has been there at least because while Damian may be a little shit, he loves his dog and pet bat dragon. Barbara checked facial recognition pings and his transactions and dude is an IRS nightmare.

Damian is missing. Bruce is worried that maybe making a violent murderous preteen Robin raised in a cabal of killers to be chief murderer was a bad idea and is worried. Barbara ensures him that they will find his son and we cut to Damian fighting Snake guy in some musty ass fight put somewhere. Because of course it’s a musty ass fight pit because while the story is well drawn, it never claimed to be not cliche.

Damian hands the scrub his ass and it turns out Damian is trying to earn a marker to participate in some tournament. I liked this panel.

Not because of the artist flex of changing the art style, but it establishes Damian with a relatable hobby, reading manga. And not just a Shounen as you expect him to read but a slice of life manga which kind of puts his life in perspective. Also the lesson in the manga is reflective of what happens in the comic. Damian’s mastery is reflective of how he sees Hana. Hana decides to go beyond what her masters taught her. She decides to innovate and make her art her own. And that’s indicative of another flaw of Damian: Damian leans of the prestige of his teachers. He is the student that replicates the style 1:1. He wants to inherit Batman’s mantle, but doesn’t want to shed his teachings that he is proud of. And it comes down to this idea that Damian refuses to innovate and adapt because he is hiding behind his masters.

This panel saved the story so good job.

And after a talk with dead Alfred, it’s revealed that Damian is on this journey as a way to mirror Bruce’s journey into becoming Batman. It’s his way to iron his resolve without a catalyst to find a need to. It highlights his naïveté. He thinks that he can just simply copy the steps and get the same results.

Regardless what happens next simultaneously undermines the story or the impact of it.

Okay, when you think of Martial artists in DC, you immediately think Batman, Shiva, Deathstroke, Black Canary, Bronze Tiger, Richard Dragon, and Shiva. Why I said Shiva twice? Because Shiva is the pinnacle.

So to reveal that three premier martial artists in the universe are not only not participating but they were paid off to not participate, cheated out, or were subbed in as an entry replacement, it undermines the promotion. It’s like going to a Beyonce Concert only to find out that between the words in small print Beyonce and Concert was ‘s Sister’s and now you are watching Grammy award winning Solange. Sure, it’s an unique experience but it ain’t Beyonce.

And also, there is no amount in the world that would keep Shiva away from this tournament if it’s as prestigious as it’s led to be. Let’s be real. If anything, it’s far more likely that she saw the roster of scrubs and decided to make some scratch.

There are two characters that I recognize: Connor Hawke and Rose Wilson. I am not familiar with Connor so I am not sure if he is out of place. Rose is fine but y’know, scrub. I’m sorry Rose Wilson got her ass handed to her by Cass in the previous universe. There is no universe where I take her seriously in a fighting tournament to crown greatest fighter because the ass stomp was so thorough that Cass was beating Slade’s ego by proxy.

Back to the comic, Damian interrupts the host and basically is the fighting tournament trope of overly confident disrespectful guy with too many accolades which he will proudly tell you about them. What I like about this is the nice nod to the previous manga panel. Damian is not a great fighter. There I said it. Damian’s ability hinges on the idea that he was trained by the greatest killers and Batman but the issue is that name prestige doesn’t make great fighters. Too many times, comic books overly rely on this idea of fighting being a what you know and not being a game of not getting hit and getting hits in. It does not matter if Damian is trained by the League and Batman and it’s questionable as to how much Batman taught him in the first place. Hence why we see Damian with a sword or staff to compliment his lack of range. Damian can’t read muscle twitches like a Cass or Shiva so he has a normal reactive response and comics never highlighted his ability. The most impressive thing I’ve seen Damian do is catch a Batarang which is something I’ve seen Tim do. Damian overly relies on the idea that his teachers taught him to be the best when they simply taught him to survive in a fight.

“But why does Cass get away with it?,” you ask. Cass has this broken hax that is reading muscle twitch and immediately knowing the instant of what you are going to do before you do it or decide to do. Cass doesn’t need range because to her, you are screaming your intentions. She doesn’t need to block an attack when she can just parry. She doesn’t need to step back when she can just step forward while slipping all attacks. She is an autistic savant at fighting with an absolute defense. Damian is just another badass teen in a world of badass adults.

And the humbling of Damian begins...again.

Pros:

-Damian’s new costume. I like that he is branching out and starting to own his own colors. It’s nice.

-Using a character flaw to make it a theme. I like Chekhov’s gun via teachable moment. In tournament arcs, what separates the good ones and the bad ones is the idea that the hero simply must overcome their opponents and not their own self. This is why Yuyu Hakusho is awesome.

- Great art and nice continuity. It’s nice that Damian’s past wasn’t ignored for once and they didn’t just throw his Teen Titans characterization down the tubes. Say what you want, but it was arguably Damian’s longest run in spite of his fans hating it. And contrary to what they believe, it was very much in character for him. My fear going into this that Damian would not face any fallout and lo and behold he ran away.

- it’s a good start for a Damian story. Say what you want, but it’s unique in that the little shit gets his comeuppance immediately. And not that just by losing, but by dying. Damian has killed before and readily justifies it because he never realizes the weight of taking someone’s life. He’s been killed before but those were painted in a way that he is valiant. Here, this is death caused by his own arrogance. He mocks a fighter for talking shit and gets murked while talking shit. He spouts names of his own teachers and expects people to care or be weary as if Rose Wilson and Connor aren’t there. It’s a tournament sponsored by the League of Assassins, Damian. They have been taught by the league too.

Cons:

-Look I get promotion. No promoter is going to undermine their product but the fact that this tournament reeks like ABA is killing my interest to give a shit. It’s a convenient caveat to say that, “Well, a character won this so they can have the title but the title doesn’t mean anything.” I know of regardless of whom wins this, they aren’t the best. Go ham or don’t at all.

-not enough emphasis of the importance of this arc. Why even have this tournament? What’s the prize? What’s even the point?

-While the art is nice, the action is framed poorly. I like physical action like this to be nearly choreographed in a way I can see and piece movement in my head. The two fight scenes we get are somewhat disjointed in that it’s just poses. For example, Flatline’s first kick makes no sense at all and I don’t get her follow up. Trying to picture the movement hurts my head and in an action concept like this, it’s best to frame action scenes as more than doing poses. Here is a good example:

This only emphasizes the action and gets the reader to acknowledge that this a tournament of great fighters or at least a great fighting story.

All in all, do I think this story is off to a good start? Yes. Is it going to change my opinion on Damian? Hell no. My reaction to Damian getting his ass handed to him was this.

The issue is that it never sticks. Damian can learn and be a better person but the development never sticks. It becomes a cyclical series of events because whoever writes him next will just keep writing him as this shitty entitled murder rich kid who never learns anything and gets validated somehow. It’s been over a decade and I’m tired of the same excuses of his shitty behavior. I am tired of writers validating it or excusing it.

Damian losing isn’t an outcome I care for because it’s wasted on him. Honestly I am more interested in Connor and Rose being there. I have no faith that it will stick nor does it undo the shitty idea of the character. I have never wanted to see Damian fight. It’s never been fun to read about nor has the impetus of his character emphasized the ability or style. Placing Damian in an Enter the Dragon style tournament lacks the pizzazz of Cass doing the same thing. For example, let’s try Marvel.

Let’s say someone pitches an idea of a tournament arc styled after Game of Death. Immediately you think Martial Artists non-powered. Danny Rand, Daredevil, Elektra, Shang-Chi, Pei and Colleen Wing. Okay, instead of giving those characters the honor, you give the story to Black Cat. Honestly, I’d read it because Felicia could sell me a documentary on grass and I’d buy it but the point stands, why does Damian have this Bruce Lee inspired Martial Arts story versus the actual Chinese or East Asian Martial Arts focused member of the Batfamily, Cassandra Cain?

But this has nothing to do with what could have been. It’s a fun beginning of a possibly fun arc. In that regard, it delivers but what’s the point?

Like I said, fun story.

@ubernegro

[maliciouslycreative]

How I played damage control to an anti in a small anime fandom and may have led to her ultimate downfall

I know I had a really nice write up of this at one point but oh well. I’ll spill more of the tea in this one because honestly the tea was so hot.

There are a few things that I have to give context to first. Gaia online was like THE mega forum of the 2000s, you made a little avatar and through posting and doing other activities on the forum you made money to buy clothes for your avatar. There were forums for everything but the fannish portions were really what drew in most of the people. The anime I was into was Beyblade. It was a shonen anime about fighting with tops that were possessed by the spirits of magical creatures. The story was honestly pretty average but the characters were fantastic and the fandom is to this day still one of my favourites. The series had a primarily male cast and didn’t even have a female lead until the second season. This led to the fanfic for the English fandom being about 70% canon/OC, 10 % canon m/f, and 20% slash. The most popular character in the English fandom was by far Kai Hiwatari, the loner badboy of the team.

Also before we get started I would like to add that one of my best friends was neck deep in this and the two of us were more or less fandom married. This is the same friend that I fake dated, had feelings for, and she nearly got me into kpop in 2011 so like if you haven’t read that story please read it too because it will give you a good idea of how stupid I am and how much of a fanfic I have truly lived. 

To set the stage I was 16, soon to be 17 when I joined the fandom and it was 2004. In September of that year I wrote a humour longfic that became an absolute smash hit and I found myself somehow fandom famous. It was around this time that I joined Gaia online. I made my little avatar and immediately went looking for the beyblade thread so that I could make new friends. I found the main thread, made my little introduction and at the end of it mentioned that I was a slash writer but I supported all ships. This is where I met C. She had declared herself the authority on Beyblade in these parts and I had just committed the crime of mentioning slash which was very obviously not canon and we did not discuss in this thread because we only discussed canon things. I was like well that’s a bit severe but like sure whatever I just want to hang out and have fun. 

Oh boy did I have no idea what I was in for. 

C was a year older than me and unfortunately that made her older than the majority of the fans at the time. Her favourite character was Kai, and she was not shy about talking about this fact. She stanned Kai above all other characters, and often at their expense. She was also a fanfic writer of a popular canon/OC series. Actually, she was so full of herself that she didn’t even call herself a fanfic writer, no her stories were in fact novels and were apparently very good. I never read them. But more on that later. 

Eventually the slash fans got tired of her being rude to us in the general thread so we made a Beyblade slash thread. There was a core of like 8 or so of us and we honestly had sooo much fun. When C would be too unbearable in the main thread the people from there used to come over to our thread and we’d chat with them about non slash stuff because we were honestly all multishippers and just wanted to have fun. We’d get comments like “wow, I’ve had more pleasant canon het ship discussions in the slash thread than the regular thread”. We never worried about C coming over and getting upset about comments like this because she refused to be associated with anything related with slash lmao. 

I tried my best to keep the peace between C, myself, and the rest of the fandom because ultimately I hate being in fandom drama. I just want everyone to have a good time. I’m a people pleaser. Unfortunately my newfound fame put me in the awkward position of being the most fandom popular person in our small community aside from C. Virtually every fan that read fanfics that came into our thread knew one of us or the other by reputation and C HATED this. Especially because people would come in to the thread, recognise me and go “oh my goodness I love your fanfics!” and I’d be super sweet with them and it’d lead into “I can’t believe how nice you are, I love you” which would lead to us crying at each other. This was not the kind of fan interaction that C got, no her fans were more kind that were there to praise her and worship her like a deity that had blessed them with some gift. Rarely did they tell her how kind she was. 

Back in the mid 2000s there were really commonly those commercials (usually by Christian organisations) asking people to sponsor say children in Africa or to help build schools or provide drinking water. You all probably know the ones; know the language that they used in those commercials. My fandom wife, who I suppose I shall call wifey because yes we were THAT couple back then, once said that C described her fics like those people described donating money to save the lives of Children in Africa. So we used to joke that her fics were so good they’d save lives in Africa. Looking back at it all, she almost had a very fundamentalist Christian approach to bringing people into her fanfics. She of course tried to get all the slash people into reading it. None of us read canon/oc fic mostly due to our poor treatment at the hands of their fans and creators. Getting fed up I one day told her that if she would read any one of my fanfics that I would read the entirety of her novels. Yes, I was willing to commit to read a couple 100k of canon/oc fanfic that I’d never touch normally if she would even read one of my 1k 1 shots. Heck, I had a fic even that shipped 2 minor characters so she didn’t even have to sully herself reading about one of the main characters. It was honestly a good deal in her favour. I kept this up until the day we all left the fandom. Sometimes I do wonder if her fics were even ¼ as good as she claimed, but I will never know because she refused to read my fics. 

She wasn’t all bad and a tyrant all the time. As long as people kept the conversations on track and didn’t come in to the thread saying things like “KAI IS SO HOT ND T3H BEST N I AM GUN 2 MARRY HIM” she stayed mostly civil. It was always hilarious watching InuYahsa or Naruto fans try to come in and bad mouth Beyblade because they’d unleash the dragon and C was great at chasing off undesirables in the thread. 

The real apex of goings on though on Gaia was the guild drama. So guilds were like exclusive themed mini forums within Gaia. Anyone could buy one and run it however they want, as long as it still adhered to Gaia’s ToS. C of course was the owner of the only Beyblade guild. The fandom wasn’t really big enough to support 2 guilds so we just kind of let it go. Technically she allowed people to post slash fanfics but like everything had to be explicitly tagged and there was absolutely no slash RP. Wifey and I controlled a handful of minor characters together in the forum RP and definitely used to try to push the boundaries a little bit. Some ambiguous flirting here, a stray comment there. It was such a fragile balance though because C was heavy on the ban button. The active portion of the guild was just people that were in the cult of C and worshipped her writing. 

Understandably the other slash fans and myself were getting disheartened by this. So we pooled our funds together and decided that we’d open a second guild that though it was run by slash fans we would welcome anyone into our ranks. We just wanted to have a fun place for everyone to hang out, and to hopefully run a few events out of. In hindsight, we should have seen what would happen. When we opened the guild, with me as the guild leader, it was like somebody blew up the whole dam protecting the delicate ecosystem we had cultivated. Every single person in the Gaia fandom that was not a zealous follower of C applied to be in our guild and left her guild. We of course figured that we’d attract some of the gen population but we did not expect to accidentally poach all of it. All of the moderators were getting messages from people thanking us for giving them a place where they could say whatever they wanted without fear of getting their faces ripped off or banned. 

C lost her shit. She was so mad that we went behind her back to ruin her guild. We literally had to show her posts in the very public slash thread that we had been planning this in public and that it was not to ruin her life. We just wanted a place where we could freely post slash. The two of us had some spicy comments back and forth and then she dropped an absolute bombshell on me. Since Gaia’s mail system is terrible I unfortunately no longer have exactly what she said but it was something along the lines of “Ok, you win. I’m going to close my guild.”. Us slash fans had never been doing this to win anything. We had never been competing. We just wanted a safe space to be ourselves. 

C never joined our guild. The fandom slowly faded out within the next year anyway. We weren’t getting new content so naturally people just drifted into other fandoms. C kept up with the main Beyblade thread for a lot longer than most of us but eventually that eventually faded into obscurity too. 

I learned a lot about fandom bullies from those days. But honestly the thing that stuck with me the most out of everything was that if you provide a positive safe space for people they will flock to it. It may seem like there are so many hostile people out there, but there really aren't. They're the minority but they just make sure that their voice is the loudest. The best way is to ignore them and just do your own thing. The bullies just want attention and if you don’t give it to them and prove to them that their opinion doesn’t matter to you then they’ll move in and find something else to yell at. 

[camilliar]

recs for someone new to omgcp

[February 2021.]

Reading, or not reading, OMGCP fics has come up in a couple of conversations I’ve had recently with artists newish to the fandom (ie. @jovishark; @decafffff), who are making OMGCP art (!!!) but haven’t started exploring fic -- but maybe want to? Which of course reminded me that I’ve never bothered to make an actual, concrete recs list for this fandom. So, I mean. Here is one.

The approach is, what do I think about when I think about OMGCP fanfic? What comes to mind, what stands out to me? I have excluded some very popular fics. Some of these I just don’t think are very good, and others I do think are good, and/or I enjoy them, but I don’t see why you’d need me, specifically, to recommend them. I am thinking of a story like maybe i’m waking up, which I discuss below because I link to a podfic of it. It has a lot of merits, to be sure, but it’s the second-most-read fic in this fandom by hits, and it’s got thousands of comments, and it’s by an author whose work is relatively widely praised and circulated. I am not sure what telling you more about this fic will add to the conversation; if you want to find and read it, you inevitably will. I’m happy to, say, answer asks about these kinds of fics, or talk more generally about them via DM or whatever. Feel free.

Also, I don’t think there’s a point to pretending to be objective about fanfic; this list has a perspective and that perspective is mine. In this fandom I largely read stories that navigate the tension around Jack, Bitty, and Parse, in various permutations. This is not to say that I’ve never read fic about the frogs, or that I have no interest at all in other pairings, but I am by no means an expert on Dex/Nursey and can really only speak to the one fic about them that sticks out to me because it goes beyond being merely Dex/Nursey and does something else. This is just to say that I am sure there are great and interesting fics about other things and ideas--but I’m not the person to hear about those from.

Likewise, I’m not super interested in stories that really reproduce that which is already in OMGCP. I like Zimbits--albeit maybe not in the ways or for the reasons most fans would--but I do not really need to see endless iterations of the same story about them falling in love and being cute together. I don’t think these stories are bad or they shouldn’t exist or that they have no merit by default. Still, I don’t need fanfic to give me more OMGCP. I need fanfic to complicate, to comment on, and to transform OMGCP. Many people don’t work like this! Totally okay! But I can’t rec you fics that do that.

What I have noticed, however, is that over time there appears to have been a shift in how people do write fic for this fandom. (Other than, you know, increases and decreases in activity pending the status of the comic, pairings going in and out of vogue, and so on.) Early on, say during Y1 and Y2, the comic was about the group of friends having a cool time at college together; about whether the burgeoning attraction between Jack and Bitty would manifest and, if so, how; and, especially, Jack’s past coming into fuller view for Bitty and how it would have to be dealt with in order for a relationship between them to work. YMMV on how great the comic executed there, but as Y3 went on these themes increasingly disappeared from the story. I think this means a lot of fic written over 2015-2016 or 2017 has one kind of tone, and was written mostly around these questions; after that, it feels like a new crop of writers and a new crop of ideas started circulating, that is, either embracing Jack and Bitty’s canon relationship and accepting its relative straightforwardness in text--or deconstructing it, imagining what readers aren’t seeing, or how problems not dealt with in the comic would manifest later. People who have read my fic know which of these I’m mainly interested in exploring.

All of which is to say, looking at what I’m reccing here, when the fics were posted or when I first read them probably has a lot to do with why they stick out to me so much. Because there’s no real culture of fanfic criticism--and I mean that in the positivist sense of broad evaluation not explicitly for fault and merit but rather, for context--I think it’s really hard to keep this in mind. But I’m obnoxious and I can’t just be easy about things.

Fic recs

In alphabetical order, somewhat unsorted; if a stand-alone fic has a summary I’ve included it, but in other cases I’ve recced a couple of conceptually related fics or series, which I’ve tried to just describe or explain as opposed to copying the summary off AO3.

There are so many more fanfics I think are great and worth reading! In an ideal world I’d come back and add more later, or create a secondary list that’s more along the lines of “if you like this, read these,” or whatever. But, being realistic, this is a starter kit. I’m open to talking about fanfic.

- - - - - - - - - - -

7-0-2 by Idday; Friends in Low Places and Sorry for the Blood in Your Mouth; I Wish it was Mine by blue_rocket_frost | I’m not sure it would be correct to say that I don’t like Parse/Tater, or that I’m not interested in Parse/Tater. I’m not interested in Patater a priori; I think it could be interesting, with teeth. These fics stick out to me when I think about this pairing, because they feel different. Accusations of a preference for just linking any two white men who happen to be hanging around have validity, but because of what hockey is and how it works and who’s hanging around it, it’s not exactly a leap to imagine what kind of gritty spark the friction between two closeted NHL players would create. A little violence in your sex? A little sex in your violence.

A Sight Worth Seeing by sadtomato | A four-fic Jack/Bitty/Shitty/Lardo explicit BDSM series. Either you want that or you don’t. It’s nothing hardcore, and not properly a four-way, really; more properly a kind of voyeuristic round-robin. There’s a more open and egalitarian view of sex here than I really get from the characters in the back end of the comic. It’s an expansive, propulsive view of sex and relationships that’s really nice to see. I love Lardo's detached coolness, and Bitty as a smooth operator; if you’re looking for some kind of Dom/sub dynamics world, this really isn’t it, but it’s a lively exploration into the sexual dynamics in a group of friends that’s super close to the good-times vibe you get from Haus scenes in the first couple years of extras.

call me son (one more time) by Summerfrost, Verbyna, and blithelybonny | This is a series, incomplete, and you will love it or be massively put off by it. I mean that as a compliment. I love it. The premise is, Bob Zimmermann and Kent Parson have been having sex since Kent was, like, 19. Everyone in this story has been chewed up: by themselves, by each other, by hockey. Plainly, this is a pretty bleak view of what OMGCP, as a story, is supposedly offering. If you want fic that is dark and glamorous, treading the toxic melange of substance abuse, sex-as-sublimation, and so much money you can’t possibly throw all of it away without trying, this series has that sick-inducing shimmer to it. But, again, its strength is its examination of Kent Parson, textually and meta-textually, as someone to be projected onto. Bob, Alicia, Jack, and Bitty all impute certain feelings of their own onto him, displacing their own issues to a character who’s centralized in every fic but defies neat or total comprehension. Some critiques I’ve read of this series feel it’s too dark, and I’ve also seen it argued on FFA that an overwhelming amount of praise heaped onto these stories has made it tough for other writers to make headway in writing Bob/Kent fic. But I’m also not sure you could engage with Bob/Kent fic without going down this road at some point? I’m sure there are ways to scale it back, but ultimately it’s a story about how hockey’s violent, homophobic, old-guard gatekeeping has continued to set the terms for a younger and ostensibly less toxic culture. I fully embrace PWP fics that tread on the power dynamic without fully excavating it, but buried within any PWP is the fact that a 53-year-old man is ensnaring a 19-year-old, no matter how much the latter is, realistically, into it, and legally empowered to consent. Not to mention the dynamics of it being a 53-year-old man who is the father of the 19-year-old’s ex-boyfriend, and a 53-year-old man who is an eminence grise in the field the 19-year-old is trying to make a career in  The sexual element--the vaguely incestuous nature of it--is making textual the subtext of how hockey works, actually: objectification of teenage bodies as older men’s capital.

Coach Z by thistidalwave | Just before the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, tp prospect Jack Zimmermann overdoses on his anxiety medication and is admitted to rehab. His future turns from a clear-cut road to the top into an uncertain path filled with therapy appointments, ignored text messages, a group of boys who aren't there to teach him a lesson about himself, and, of course, hockey. | I keep reccing this fic because it has 360 comments on AO3 but nobody, as far as I can tell, has ever read it; it never appears on rec lists. This isn’t the kind of fanfic I usually go in for, but I can’t help being charmed by it. This is a character study in the truest sense, a kind of Mighty Ducks-but-better view on what Jack’s time coaching peewee hockey might have been like. I have no interest in kids and my own aesthetic is maybe a little darker than this, but I admire this story because it injects vibrancy into a period of Jack’s life that OMGCP has left largely unexplored, and so has the fandom. We know nothing about what made Jack want to go to college, nothing about how he spent his days in between juniors and Samwell. It posits a very sympathetic and patient Jack/Parse dynamic, showcasing the exact kind of ragged teenage push-and-pull that would have led to the circumstances we see in Parse I-III. The outside perspective Jack needs is largely present in an OFC who’s not a love interest. Super unique, somehow both engrossing and low-key.

#dirtbags by angularmomentum | A series that is a Kent Parson/Claude Giroux fuckfest with feelings. I’ve long suspected that Parse is popular in part because he is the character who most easily elides OMGCP with the actual NHL, or rather, NHL fandom; I think he made it appealing to write OMGCP fics where the NHL is a factor. Case in point, this series, which is basically “what if Kent Parson was a real hockey player and therefore part of NHL RPS”? I have only read some NHL RPS, so I’m not the person to assess accuracy, but what I do know is superstar IRL hockey players take turns here as the caricature fanfic versions of themselves, and since Kent Parson is already that, it’s great how seamlessly he integrates into their social fabric. Rambunctious energy peppered with regret and loss, but ultimately this series is farcical, and it doesn’t take its sentimental ending too seriously--which, good.

fated to pretend by nighimpossible | 5 Jack/Kent fics that Ransom and Holster dramatically reenact for the Haus + the truth. | As a fic format, 5+1 doesn’t usually work for me, but this one isn’t just front-loaded with five too-knowing vignettes; it then wraps up by using its +1 better than you might expect. Sometimes I talk about economy of fic, and this one exemplifies it. A zero-waste fic.

go ahead and move along by originally | "Leave, Parse," Jack says. Again. Or: Kent finds himself stuck in a time loop. | Kent Parson is trapped in a Groundhog Day scenario on the day of Epikegster. I’m sure you can imagine, just from that, what happens. And yet I think this fic is super entertaining, reserving some key surprises. What this story is doing is something a lot, and perhaps even the majority, of great Jack/Parse fic wants to do: digging into the question of just why this can’t work in comic canon. Most often this is approached from the past, by writing teenage Jack/Parse deep-dives that examine their lives mid-juniors, or by writing AUs where enough circumstances are shifted that it does work, or via future fics that posit enough growth has happened, and enough things have changed. But this fic makes Parse live the same bad day again and again, testing multiple theories about just how dependent on circumstance and incident real life actually is. Another day, another tone, 10 minutes sooner, not at all--you just can’t know why it didn’t work until you exhaust every possible variable. I worry that this rec has sucked the life out of the story, though--it’s so fun!

I Saw a Life and Strange Lovers by @bluegrasshole | Most AUs in this fandom seem to retell the story in a new setting or with some big detail change, following OMGCP’s rhythm beat-for-beat. I think of this as, “It’s the plot of Check, Please, but” -- they’re doing high school football? They’re acrobats? They’re a/b/o? They’re in a DIY punk band? And so on. These two stories are not that! They’re both 1950s AUs, each deeply felt, and yet hugely different from each other. I Saw a Life is about displacement and fragmentation, two sides of a similar but incongruent social critique; Strange Lovers is a finely wrought social drama about coal mining in Nova Scotia in the 1950s, centered around historical events. I suppose a theme on this rec list is something like, “I don’t even like this, but” -- yes, okay, I don’t even like Dex/Nursey, but--! This fic is so overwhelmingly complete, the AU laid out so carefully that the story breathes with all the background details informing the writing that aren’t actually, in the story; you just know they’re below the surface. (With the exception of one investigation of Jack’s character in a short, separate fic.) I Saw a Life, meanwhile, really tests the limits of the notion that Jack and Bitty are soulmates--not by calling it into question but by asking, rather innovatively, how the setting and place of the comic itself activates that.

Les Hivers de mon enfance by staranise | What do you do when hockey is the language of prayer for your soul, and also the toxic thing that almost killed you? 2009: Jack Zimmermann takes a mental health year. God knows he needs it. | Here’s a fic by someone who’s no longer around so much, but she felt ubiquitous in 2016-2019 OMGCP fandom. Before any of that, though, she wrote this one lovely fic about Jack’s pre-Samwell recovery. The author is Canadian and really irritated by hockey culture, and I think this fic benefits greatly because she is clear-eyed about Jack’s being caught in an exploitative system; it’s hockey he’s in recovery for, in a way. There’s an epistolary element that works for me, too. I read this early on in my time in OMGCP fandom and it really stuck with me.

Lysistrata? I Hardly Know Her! (by which I mean everything) by @tomatowrites | It feels somehow like cheating to recommend OMGCP fanfics by my OMGCP BFF with whom I make an OMGCP podcast where we talk about OMGCP. You know the fics I really want to rec, like truly the ones that speak to some kind of shared depravity, are the ones where Jack is miserably mpreg for the second time and accidentally lets his kid see Kent Parson’s Long John Silver’s shrimp scampi promo spot, which obviously would get twisted into a self-hating three-way. How many times do I have to rec this fic? As many as I need to, is my feeling. If you don’t know, Long John Silver’s is an American fast-food chain that sells, like, fried pollock sandwiches; it is nautical-themed; I have never eaten there; I don’t know where there is one; I don’t eat fried fish. (Shrimp, on the other hand?) All of which is to say that it takes a real genius to investigate a premise that far out. And while a lot of people almost certainly will start reading this humanity’s depths-themed sex scene and back the fuck out, readers with refined taste will note that Kent, the point-of-view character, is right there with you, despairing that he can’t help himself. And so long as you’re in that story collection, honestly, you’ll love petite gems like Jack is transmasc, Jack and Shitty play hockey in 18th-century England, and oh, right, he’s from Georgia. Tomato holds the distinction of being probably the gamest author I know in this fandom, just really like fearless in her pursuit of any range of concept she’s pushed to. (I can push her to?) See, for example, a sublime bandom AU; Bitty is cancelled for buying a maybe-unethically exported Roman fragment of a youth’s torso; or, god, the masterwork that is this future fic series where Jack keeps relapsing and Bitty exiles him to their guesthouse. Do I think you need to read a fic where Bitty is snide about the teen prostitute whose baby they’re adopting? Yes, I mean, he would be snide, don’t tell me he wouldn’t. I could go on, but my main thing here is, if I have to pick just one, I’m going to pick this Lysistrata fic. The premise, literally, is that Bitty reads the Lysistrata and it gives him ideas. Like most of Tomato’s OMGCP fic, it’s a stripping away of the comic’s polite fiction that Jack and Bitty could possibly attain the ideal it reaches in the comic without some kind of messy, efflusive breakdown. Life is like that, you see! Tricky. Like a lot of people, although it’s tough to say precisely how many, I have always intuited that maybe Bitty is kind of a natural top? But obviously when you meet him, as a literal virgin, it’s hard to see how he’d go from zero to self-actualization so neatly. This fic floats a theory, and it has a fun little side plot for Whiskey, something I never thought about or needed before Tomato built it out herein. In conclusion, BONUS: Dex’s gay lobster novel.

only fools rush in and the light of all lights by decinq | This person wrote of the nature of the wound, one of the early, formative Jack/Bitty fics that was oft-recced when I was getting into the fandom in 2016. It forms part of a larger series that deals deeply with how Jack has been shaped by his struggles (? I hate this word) with homophobia and his own mental health. It’s a picture of the character as you might have imagined him much earlier in the comic’s run. The formatting is atrocious and he author’s flair is what Tomato would call “AO3 house style.” It’s a voice that works great for her writing. I think it’s at its best in these shorter fics; the former is about Parse and Shitty stumbling into a relationship almost accidentally; the latter, an eerie PBJ vampire fic. I had begun writing a fic where Parse is a vampire early on in this fandom, only to read this and immediately quit, because you only need one, and this one’s all I need. The Parse/Shitty rare pair fic shares its exuberance with hockey RPS when it’s good: here’s how fun it can be when you’re young, rich, and jocular. And I don’t even like accidental marriage AUs, they’re usually boring, so that says a lot. By all means, read the wound fic; read the entire series. But these are highly unusual.

OVERDOSE and Oomph and a little spin-o-rama by jedusaur | None of these are long, or plotty, and they’re all a little experimental. OVERDOSE is an AU set in a world where you know how you’ll die, but no details; Oomph, a little fic where Jack hears hockey pucks talking to him. This is the kind of stuff I used to think I’d find in fandom forever, coming out of Lotrips lurking in the 2000s: short, zany bursts of energy that surprise and delight. a little spin-o-rama peers at Kent’s character through the grim reality of being the hypertalented superstar stuck on a dead-last team. All three are sparse and stylish in a way that’s really smart, practically economical.

Sowing Season by @agrossunderstatement | Parse and Zimms, Zimms and Parse. Kent Parson's life, from the Q, through his early years with the Aces, to Jack's senior year. Canon divergent. A story of love, loss, moving on, regressing, hockey, and found families of all kinds. | Effectively a novel, digging into Kent’s personal history, mostly concerning his life in juniors but expanding into his present, overlapping with the plot of OMGCP. I think there is room enough for endless speculations on what went down pre-canon; this one offers a fuller life for Kent than nearly any others, digging into him as a whole person rather than as a satellite to Jack or the plot of the comic. Which isn’t to say that the Kent/Jack stuff isn’t dealt with here; it explicitly is. But the fact of Kent Parson’s life, if we can begin to imagine it beyond mere text, would exist before, after, and alongside Jack; he gets to juniors without Jack, presumably, and he is the captain of a hockey team without Jack, and Pinkerton lays the foundation of Parse’s character within a junior hockey that Jack also inhabits, more so that Parse existing for Jack, so to speak. And I’m not implying this latter tactic is wrong; I have certainly employed it, and others have employed it to great impact and effect. But, still, the title of this series tells you what you ought to know: Kent and his story are the potentiality of OMGCP, up to a point; seeds being planted. Young hockey players, similarly. The question implied there is, what will be reaped? And the answer to the latter, in a sense, that reaping is a sort of violence. Which makes this series sound pretty heavy, but it’s not -- more like, realistic.

(tell everyone) you were a good wife by @queerofcups | The biggest problem with pretending that he doesn’t know that Kent Parson is fucking his husband is that Jack can’t tell Kent how grateful he is. | The ne plus ultra of PBJ triangulation; I’ve been squealing to the writer about how good it is since August, begging for behind-the-scenes insights, and I’d only do that if I really meant it. The precarious social fabric stretched across these three chapters is fraying before the reader’s eyes. The details are delicious, and I don’t want to spoil them, but they sing in chorus with the plot. My favorite OMGCP fics, honestly, remove the romance narrative guardrails that keep things in the comic itself humming along. I think Dann’s take is to ask who in this comic has power and what they would end up doing with it. (Or not doing, from another angle.) At one point, early on in its telling, OMGCP looked like it was going to be a story dealing with the compounded traumas of hockey’s discontents. Then, of course, it wasn’t. This is a fic that steps back and asks what the fallout of that oversight would be. But that’s just the moldering core of this fanfic; it’s actually embroidered, like I said, with glittering detail. The color of the suit Bitty wears to his wedding is burned into my brain. The gray manicure of a woman Jack knows. The ingredients in a cake. This is one of those fics I still haven’t reviewed because the thought of stacking everything I could say about it into mere AO3 comments is inadequate.

when you’re ready by megancrtr | The Aces’ director of communications gets the call at 3:13 a.m. Jack Zimmermann has withdrawn from the draft. | “What happened at the draft” is so mythological it gets asked in the comic proper, and I’ve never counted how many fics attempt to answer this question--from Kent’s point of view, even--but it’s gotta be, oh, hundreds. This story replays the situation from the perspective of an Aces staffer who just wants to do her job, and gets at the jarring discordance between the plot of OMGCP in its quest for social justice and the business of actual hockey. Important context is that this story was written around the time the comic was playing out the end of Y3 and start of Y4, and Bitty pointedly asked Jack the question, “why can’t we?” This story reframes the question as literal, rather than rhetorical. A sterling example of fanfic being a gloss on its source.

BONUS, podfics

hockeyed up | There are many things on Jack's mind. Namely: hockey, hockey, Bitty, hockey, anxiety, hockey, hockey, anxiety, Bitty, hockey, hockey, anxiety, and hockey. | A fic read aloud by its French-Canadian author. Also a relatively early OMGCP fanfic; composed while the first semester of Y2 was posting, the story suggests a version of OMGCP that was in some ways more and in other ways less complex than what it would turn into not long after. The real power of this podfic, however, is that it’s read by the writer, so you can hear the intended emphasis in every line. Also, because she’s French-Canadian, Sophie’s intonation is what I picture when I read or write dialogue for Jack.

maybe i’m waking up | It’s almost funny. All he ever wanted was to play hockey, to play in the NHL, to win the Cup. This—Samwell, the team, the Haus—was supposed to be just a detour, but now it feels more like a destination he failed to realize he’s already reached.(Or: Jack signs with the Falconers, graduates, and leaves. It's the hardest thing he's ever done. What comes after is even harder.) | Don’t get too excited; this isn’t finished. A podfic of probably the best-known, most-recced fic in OMGCP fandom. Striking for its use of metatext woven into the story, this is one of several early longform Jack/Bitty fics that posits that maybe Jack has a lot more development to undergo before he can really, truly, be okay--or be okay enough to be with Bitty? To be honest, this story strikes me now as too long, but the parts in it that work are effective beyond that which fanfic demands. Meanwhile, this audio version only covers six chapters, but it’s so slick, so well-realized, so true to the story. Podfic as art.

my own dear friends | Ever since the day he met Jack Zimmermann, Shitty has seen it as his solemn duty to aggressively love him. (He just didn't know how aggressive the love Jack needed would be.) | There’s previous little Jack/Shitty in this fandom and a lot less quality BDSM,

the city’s ours until the fall | Kent has been, historically, good at this—forgetting about things until suddenly he doesn’t, and then it’s like the scar has never been there in the first place, just the wound. (Or: Kent Parson lets himself be happy, after all this time.) | I’ve never read this fic and I never will. I cannot imagine how, no matter how good it is, it could compare to the version that lives in my head, with Kent’s voice so totally realized. Vocal fry and pathos, a languid energy that I still think about when I think about Parse.

the model home | It’s going to be better, and that’s great, but sometimes Jack thinks, why can’t it be good right now? | j/k j/k, this is a self-reminder to finally one day review this.

[wonda-cat]

You mentioned rewriting that one analysis post on Tommy’s revival stream and I’d really look forward to it! I never got to read the full og post and that’s the only place I saw these takes. Especially the one about the afterlife being too depressing. It’s not even just about Tommy, the implication that even if every character is safe and happy by the end, this is their inevitable fate is messed up. It’s not “a neat subversion” it’s just depressing and doesn’t add anything.

Hey, anon!

I sorta decided to not rewrite it? I feel a bit differently about the essay in the end, although I still believe in most of my points. I’m also just not nearly as passionate about it as I was when I wrote it (I finished it in a single sitting, which was... interesting.) However, yes, the afterlife stuff still bothers me just the same, as well as the odd changes to Wilbur’s characterization... post mortem.

But—just for you, anon—here’s the entire meta-analysis essay anyway, with some minor edits to the stuff I don’t agree with anymore!

My Many Narrative Issues with Tommyinnit’s Revival Stream

I want to preface this by saying that I dearly love the Dream SMP and understand it isn’t exactly comparable to other mediums like TV and film. With this being the case, most criticism against it is generally in bad faith or strange in foundation. Complaining about streamers for bad acting is the best example that comes to mind. 

These aren’t professional actors. Most have never acted in this sort of setting, or even at all. Quite a few have admitted to never roleplaying before. Which is why it’s warranted to praise Tommy, Dream, Wilbur, Ranboo, and others when they deliver stellar performances. The same applies to criticism of music choice, dialogue delivery, focus, tone, etc. 

However, one such category I cannot overlook is in regards to its writing. The writing of a story is its entire foundation. It encompasses many things—conflict choice, character development, themes, and morals. The author creates the blueprints for the architect, who then expresses the story with light, sound, color, pacing, and music. It is in its execution that we see if this connection is made or broken. 

The reason I find poor writing mostly inexcusable is because it is one of the most available skills to practice and perfect. I don’t mean to say that it’s easy, I mean to say it is something anyone can attempt to cultivate. Whether they do it well or not depends on their methods and experience. If anyone can self-publish a novel and be criticized online for its quality—and even compared to the works of Mark Twain—then I find critiquing the writing of the Dream SMP to be perfectly reasonable. 

However, since the Dream SMP script is a set of loose bullet points, tearing apart dialogue and scene continuity—which is nearly all improv—is rather useless. It doesn’t exactly have a clear focus as the plot plays out. The characters talk in circles until they hit the story beat required, and then they move onto the next. Thus, when criticizing it, one should generally critique grand events and narrative-specific shifts, more so than small-scale character interactions. 

Which brings me to my main point: The broad narrative choices taken in Tommyinnit’s most recent livestream, ‘Am I dead?’ may lead to disastrous writing pitfalls in the future. 

I’ll be outlining each of my issues below, in hopes of creating a better understanding as to why I feel this way. 

This might become quite lengthy, so please bear with me for a bit.

Tommy’s relationship to Wilbur has flipped. This change is jarring and seems out of character.

Tommy and Wilbur’s friendship is rather complicated. While Wilbur does care for Tommy immensely, especially during the L’Manburg Revolution and the Election Arc, his mental spiral during exile put a massive strain on their relationship as a whole. Wilbur brushed off Tommy’s feelings and wants, while clinging to him and pushing everyone else away. He was simultaneously distant and suffocating. 

Tommy, on the other hand, has an unclear view of his mentor. Since the beginning, and even long after Wilbur’s death, Tommy held him in especially high regard. He saw him as a brother-figure and a wise leader. He followed what he said and did everything he could to impress him. Yet, Wilbur still hurt him while the two were together in exile. 

When speaking of him, Tommy tends to flip infrequently between remembering Wilbur the way he was before his mental decline and thinking of him as a monster. Both of these images conflict with each other, but they weren’t nearly as extreme as what Tommy described Wilbur as when he was revived from death. The fear Tommy displays to Wilbur is beyond intense—it feels as if the audience may have missed a month’s worth of character development. 

This can make sense, especially since it was stated that he’d spent what felt like two months in the void. However, this shift is still deeply at odds with Tommy’s previous impressions of Wilbur, which is both disheartening and confusing. The fact that Tommy would agree to stay with Dream—his abuser and murderer—over his past mentor is simply head-reeling. It paints a very different picture of Wilbur’s character, somewhat conforming to the fandom’s ableist impression of him—the idea that Wilbur is insane and irredeemable, and always will be. 

It also ignores Dream being the driving factor in Wilbur’s downfall, as well as the double-bind deal with Dream which required him to push the button, no matter the outcome. Others have pointed out that Tommy may be lying to get Dream to bring Wilbur back, and there’s compelling evidence for that. For one, Tommy and Wilbur’s conversation seemed uncomfortable, but it was certainly nothing like Tommy implied. (Unless this fear comes from something Wilbur said off-screen.) 

Tommy also begged Dream to not bring him back multiple times over, which he should know would make Dream even more tempted to, simply because he likes seeing Tommy in pain. Tommy is also a known unreliable narrator. He may be making Wilbur out to be worse than he is by accident (even still, I’d argue this is a bit of a stretch.) 

However, there are some issues with this theory. Tommy offered himself as payment to Dream if he chose to let Wilbur rest. This is a deal Tommy knows Dream is extremely unlikely to refuse. Tommy is what Dream has coveted all this time. If Tommy genuinely wanted Wilbur back, he would not offer this. This sort of compromise is Tommy’s greatest nightmare—something he would only do in response to his friends being threatened or his home being destroyed. 

To add, Tommy is not great at lying. Unless he was taught by Wilbur for those two months* in the afterlife, there’s no chance Tommy would be this good at it. Thirdly, Tommy is terrible under pressure. He uses humor to cope. When he can’t, he cries and shouts and spills his heart out. While cornered, Tommy will tell the truth about anything, especially if Dream casually debates killing him again, just for fun. 

For now, it’s too early to tell how the relationship shift will play out. In the grand scheme of things, this issue is rather minor.

Season three’s writing is needlessly bleak. The portrayal of the afterlife is a nightmare. There is no rest, not even in death.

I adore the Dream SMP storyline in its entirety. I believe the first season is fantastic, and while the second season has some narrative clarity issues, I enjoyed it just as much. Although, I would argue season one had a more concrete understanding of its Hope-Conflict balance. 

To briefly explain, the Hope in stories are its ‘highs’ and good moments. These appear when a character the audience is rooting for is narratively rewarded. They happen during character building in the text—it’s the downtime and peace that allows for connection and relatability. It’s a moment for the viewer to breathe easy. 

The other half is Conflict, an obstacle in the story that gets in the way of the main characters’ goals, beliefs, and motives. These are the ‘lows.’ They give the narrative focus and weight. They make the highs feel even higher. They establish consequences and force the characters in the story to change in order to adapt and overcome them. 

I bring up the Hope-Conflict balance because a traditional hero’s journey would have an appropriate amount of both. Their highs and lows are generally equalized, as the name suggests. However, this balance has been awkwardly skewed in the latter half of season two and in the current plot of season three. To clarify, it is perfectly reasonable, and even common, for some stories to tip the scale more to one side. 

But a common mistake for amateur writers is to create their stories as either hopelessly dark to cause the audience continuous distress for the sake of distress, or to keep everything entirely conflict-free for most of the plot. What do these both have in common? They each make the story boring and predictable. 

Season three has taken this concept and thrown a monstrously heavy weight onto the Conflict side and flipped the scale so hard it has crashed through the ceiling. The viewers are hardly given time to find any joy in Tommy’s character, as he’s thrown into yet another abusive situation, just barely after his first narrative reward. The world is painted as relentlessly violent and traumatic. 

Every person Tommy meets is morally grey, unhinged, or out to hurt him. Everything most of the characters love is taken from them by those in positions of power. Ranboo cannot even grieve properly because it scars his face. Puffy, Sam, Ranboo, and Tubbo all blame themselves for what happened to Tommy. 

The audience watches lore stream after lore stream with the same depressing tone (with the exception of Tubbo’s, but I assume that’s unintentional.) Tommy is revived after being brutally beaten to death by his abuser, surrounded by all of his greatest fears. The afterlife is revealed to be akin to inescapable torture. It’s a colorless void that wraps the individual like fabric. 

Time moves thirty times slower within. There’s nothing—nothing but the voices of others who’ve passed on before him. Dying in a world already devoid of happiness takes the characters to a place worse than hell. When a narrative delivers unfair suffering to the entire cast without a moment of joy to speak of, the story will feel simultaneously overwhelming and pointless. 

Why watch characters suffer when there’s no light at the end of the tunnel? What happiness could they strive for when we know they’ll never get to keep it? How can I be satisfied with a good ending, if I know that an afterlife too terrible to name is what awaits them, truly, at the end of their story? Death isn’t even a white void that offers rest—it is eternal torment. 

Obviously, it isn’t a good message to send by making the afterlife seem like a quiet, perfect place or an escape from pain. But making it an unspeakable anguish which awaits, assumedly, every character who will die in the future? I deeply hope Tommy was only being an extremely unreliable narrator. 

More likely, I hope the place Tommy was taken to was a Limbo of sorts, not an end-all-be-all destination for everyone.

The degree of Tommy’s narrative punishment continues to escalate, to an almost absurd degree.

Tommy is one of the most tragic characters to exist in the storyline. He was sent into war at a young age and experienced two traumatic events during it. He was exiled by the newly elected leader and witnessed his mentor Wilbur spiral and break down with paranoia. Tubbo is executed publicly in front of him. When expressing rightful anger at the person who murdered him, he’s beaten nearly to death and never receives an apology. 

Schlatt dies right in front of Tommy, after his initial refusal to hurt the ex-president. His brother-figure and mentor is killed in assisted suicide on the same day his nation is blown up. His best friend exiles him from his home for the second time. He routinely self-sacrifices to protect his country and those who live there. His most treasured possessions were taken from him and he was called selfish for trying to retrieve them (although his methods were self-destructive and volatile.) 

He was pushed to the brink of suicide after being relentlessly abused and isolated in his exile. He was horrified when he thought he was responsible for drowning Fundy. After making an objectively good decision to stand by his old friends and change for the better, his country was obliterated by the man he once idolized, his father-figure, and his abuser. 

He was left scattered and without purpose for many days. Then he fights against Dream and loses, while also reliving his trauma. He watches Tubbo almost die at the hands of someone he once thought was his friend. He doesn’t tell a single person about what happened to him in exile. The day he tries to sever his connection to Dream and heal, he’s trapped with him for a week, surrounded by everything that terrifies him. 

He threatens to kill himself, speaking about his own life as if it were an object—something to hold over Dream’s head. He blames himself for everything bad that’s ever happened to L’Manburg and his friends—internalizing a mentality as a scapegoat for everyone around him. He is forced into the role of ‘hero’ despite the title being unfair and distressing to him.

As if that weren’t enough, he’s then beaten to death by his abuser and spends what feels like two months in an afterlife that is worse than hell. When he returns, his senses are excessively heightened. Dream can cause him excruciating pain, just by pinching him. He can send Tommy into an instant panic attack, just by raising his voice. 

The punishment Tommy’s character receives is a thousand times worse than everyone he has ever met, or ever will meet. And it shows no signs of stopping, as Dream now has control over Tommy’s very mortality. Tommy now fears the slightest damage and feels as if he’s losing his best friend all over again. He is also forced into a position where he has to kill Dream out of necessity, to protect everyone he cares about.

Characters need fitting punishments in relation to their actions. Not always, but in order to be satisfying? Yes, they do. It is preferred that a main character deal with unfair situations and difficult conflicts, but this is borderline torture p*rn. Putting Tommy in these distressing and abusive situations on repeat and punishing him for doing objectively moral or healthy things is exhausting to watch. 

To quickly add, I find the general insinuation of Tommy going to hell distasteful, especially considering the contents of his storyline. I know this may be hard to believe, but Tommy is one of the most moral characters in the plot, besides Puffy and Ghostbur. He’s also the only character, followed by Ranboo, to recognize that they can be wrong and make mistakes. He changed himself in order to heal and be a better person. He was in the process of paying people back for the things he’d stolen. 

He’s learned to be hard-working and less violent through the guidance of Sam. He has apologized to everyone he’s ever hurt (with the exception of Jack Manifold, because that man is allergic to communication.) He puts himself in harm's way to protect others. He doesn’t set out to purposely hurt anyone. He goes out of his way to make connections with people and maintain them, even if others don’t reciprocate. 

He’s hopelessly optimistic, despite his outwardly bitter façade. He loved so much and put meaning into the smallest things. The thought that a person like him—a suicide and abuse survivor—would go to hell after being beaten to death by the man who took everything from him; it makes me sick to my stomach. 

The only thing more morbid than Tommy’s afterlife being different than everyone else’s, is the concept that everyone will end up in this same eternal torture, no matter what they do. Take your pick: Tommy is sentenced to anguish until the end of time for no reason, or everyone will receive the same disturbing ending, regardless of their actions.

The narrative weight of Ranboo’s character is potentially out the window.

For the past few months, I’ve watched all of Ranboo’s lore streams faithfully, curious to see what role he would play in the future. His ‘hallucinations’ of Dream seemed to be sowing the seeds for a plot that has Ranboo taking the fall for every single insidious thing Dream has done. It would also be a tragic parallel to Tommy’s trial. 

Ranboo being convinced he was the one who blew up the community house, when Dream himself admitted to doing it, was one of the bigger indicators for me. This is just one of many other unexplained occurrences. Dream seemed to be making an effort to trigger and control Ranboo, especially after Sapnap’s prison visit. It appeared, from the way he went about this, that Dream had some grand use for Ranboo as part of his plan to be freed from Pandora’s Vault. 

However, after Tommy’s stream, the way Dream explains himself makes it seem like there was no plan besides seeing if the book worked on people. And if he didn’t after all, then what was Ranboo for? Was Ranboo unimportant? Was Ranboo just some weirdo who happened to phase out when seeing smiley faces and imagined conversations that may or may not have happened? 

I bring this up more as a worry, and much less so as an active problem in the narrative. They haven’t actually thrown Ranboo to the way-side or written themselves into a corner yet. In future streams, this could very easily be explained away or developed as more information is revealed. 

Only time will tell.

The potential for Wilbur’s future development and importance to the plot is unfeasible.

I feel as if I am the only person on earth who doesn’t want Wilbur Soot or Schlatt revived. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is not a dislike for these characters. I especially adore Wilbur, as he’s one of my all-time favorites. I don’t want either of them resurrected because their stories have already been told. They each had a fitting conclusion that ended their involvement perfectly. 

Bringing Wilbur back would especially cheapen the impact of the War of the 16th. It’s the end of a man who was brought to the absolute edge and out of desperation, shame, and self-hatred, he destroyed himself alongside his creation. Bringing him back would leave the climax of the previous story hollow. My biggest issue, however, is that a lack of story importance would likely follow his return. 

The only real impact I’d like to see is through a healing arc with Tommy, an apology to Fundy, or a confrontation with Phil/Niki. But that’s really all the potential I can realistically see. While I don’t doubt Wilbur as an agent of chaos, able to create plot out of thin air; what is he going to do now? His country is gone, his friends and family are scattered about, and his mission from the 16th is already accomplished. 

What is a well-educated, charismatic politician supposed to do in a world already broken and without nations? Read poetry to himself and cry evilly? However, this is working off the assumption that Wilbur would be returning as his old self. 

If Wilbur is resurrected as a ‘villain’ of sorts, then what? He’s not good at fighting in the slightest. He would have no materials. There are no real allies he can make, other than the arctic group. On top of that, there are already more than enough villains to last a lifetime. 

We don’t need any more, I promise. Quackity seems to already be shaping up as another antagonist, alongside Sam’s slip into darker and darker shades of moral ambiguity. We also have Philza and Techno, which are already overkill. But then we have Dream who, despite being in a prison, has the ability of selective revival. This is mercilessly overpowered, especially if he makes many allies. The dude could just bring his dead friends back so they can keep fighting forever. 

Then there’s Jack Manifold and the Crimson followers; Antfrost, Bad, and Punz. That’s not even including characters who are refusing to get involved. How are Tommy, Tubbo, and Puffy expected to do literally anything to fight back?

Dream’s experiment on Tommy implies he had no backup plan to begin with. This makes his character seem both short-sighted and foolish.

When Tommy woke up after being brought back to life, Dream sounded surprised that the revival worked at all. This instantly shatters the perception that Dream was highly intelligent and thought ahead. With just a few lines of dialogue, it’s implied that Dream killed Tommy, unsure of if the resurrection would even be possible on humans. 

Which, to risk something that important, seems unbelievably stupid. Dream needs Tommy, from his perspective. Tommy is his ‘toy,’ the one who makes everything fun. If he lost him and couldn’t get him back, what then? Oh well, everything Dream was doing was all for nothing, I guess. 

Why not attempt this experiment on literally anyone else first? Like Sapnap or Bad or, hell, even Ranboo. I suppose it could be that, as soon as Dream got the book, he experimented with it after the 16th. This appears to be insinuated with Friend and Hendry’s revival, although this is uncertain. But even then, he was still unsure of the book’s effect on a human being.

Also, this means, hypothetically, Dream’s entire plan of escape hinged on the experiment working, to begin with, and also on bringing back Wilbur if it somehow did. I find this even more ridiculous. Why Wilbur? That man couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag, let alone get through the traps in Pandora’s Vault. Even if he is intelligent after years* in the afterlife, that’s also a strange assumption. 

How do people learn things in the void? Where do they even get this knowledge? I’d honestly argue Techno is a far more competent choice than Wilbur. And even if Dream did bring him back and tell him he owed him his life, what’s to stop Wilbur from just killing him permanently? Or killing himself, continuously? 

No way would Wilbur want to be controlled by anyone, ever. The dude would sooner fuck off into the mountains and become a nomad than help a neon green bodysuit cosplay as Light Yagami.

Dream’s discussion about Sam implies that he wasn't playing any part in Dream’s plan, making Sam appear entirely incompetent and neglectful of Tommy.

Dream talked about Sam in a way that seems detached and unaffiliated. He also mentioned him being broken up about Tommy’s fate and not being aware he’s still alive. Dream not being partnered with, or not using Sam in his plan leaves many plot holes. I’ll go through each one. The initial incident was an explosion, coming from the roof of Pandora’s Vault. This did not affect the Redstone mechanism for the doors or dispensers. 

Meaning, Sam could’ve had Tommy leave the way that was expected for visitors after he investigated and found no issues. This likely couldn’t have been done in less than a day, but it would be better than an entire week. If Tommy was required to stay for longer, due to protocol, he could’ve gotten Tommy out and then placed him in one of the minor cells for the remainder of the time. 

Also, no one else lost a canon life for leaving via the splash potion of harming and returning outside the maximum-security cell; why would Tommy? To add, Sam being uninvolved means that the explosion could have only been caused by Ranboo or Foolish. That, or it was placed long before and timed for the moment Tommy entered the main cell. (I’m going to ignore how ludicrous it is that someone would know the exact time Tommy would’ve entered the room with Dream.) 

If Ranboo was the person behind the detonation, this implies he was necessary for Dream to kill Tommy to test the book. But that makes it even stranger. If this was Dream’s goal all along, why not kill Tommy the instant he was trapped with him? It makes no sense for him to wait so long. 

Sam is also directly at fault for not letting Tommy out, even after the week was up. There was no reason not to. He already knew there were no issues with the prison at that point. Although, to be fair to Sam, his character may have been paranoid and checking everything more than necessary, just in case. But this still isn’t a good excuse for him ignoring protocol in this one instance, and yet, not in any of the others. 

All of these plot holes or inconsistencies would be removed if it was revealed that Dream was blackmailing Sam in some way, or Sam had been working with him since the get-go. That Sam was the person who set off the explosion in the first place to trap Tommy inside. It would also explain Sam’s refusal to let Tommy out and by keeping him in there for longer than necessary. 

This can also coexist with Sam’s attachment and care for Tommy. He probably wasn’t told about Dream’s plan to test the book and genuinely believed Dream wouldn’t hurt him. On top of that, Dream is known to be a pathological liar, so his statements about Ranboo and Sam could be entire fabrications. 

Who knows?

The Book of Revival invalidates death entirely. The narrative now lacks both tension and consequence.

Another way the Dream SMP differs from other storytelling media is in the way it goes about its character deaths. In a TV show, for example, there will be characters who die just because, or when it’s important to the plot. However, it seems as if the Dream SMP is hesitant to commit to killing its characters. And there are many reasons for that. 

The most important one being, killing someone’s character excludes them from the story and some of their livelihoods depend on them regularly streaming on the server. There is also the issue of the cast becoming extremely sparse if characters keep dying. Typically, in stories, when you kill a character, you should introduce another. 

This keeps the cast from dwindling as the storyline goes on. This means the writers would have to find new streamers to join, who will develop their own characters and relationships with the plot’s continued momentum. This can be stressful and daunting to those who may be newly added in the future. 

Keeping this in mind, the Book of Revival is annoying from a writer’s perspective. When death is no longer an issue for a story hinged on its characters’ mortality, then what do you have as a consequence anymore? We’ve explored every kind under the sun; from abuse, to betrayal, to loss, to destruction. 

In stories, traditionally, death is a finality. It’s a conclusion. Whether it’s good or not depends on the character’s actions, its build-up, and the event’s execution. Without this lingering sense of danger, tension evaporates from the story. 

Why should I care if Tommy loses in a fight to someone, if he’ll just come back a day later? Why should I care about what happened to Wilbur, if he just returns as if nothing happened? The answer is simple: I won’t. I will no longer care if Tubbo or Ranboo or Sam die in the story, because the idea of revival even being a possible outcome leaves me unenthused and uncaring. 

The Dream SMP likes to flirt with death. It teases the demise of its main characters many, many times. More so Tommy’s than anyone else’s. Wilbur’s failed resurrection, which had unforeseen and unfortunate outcomes, is now strange in comparison to Tommy’s, which happened without a hitch. 

To be fair, we actually don’t see how many attempts it took. But here’s the problem; Dream could do it without the book being physically present. He’s trapped in a prison with nothing on him, meaning he doesn’t need any materials either. It’s also implied he could do this as many times as he feels, for anyone he wants. This would be exceedingly overpowered, if not for one thing—Dream himself is mortal (at least, I fucking hope he’s mortal.) 

If someone kills him one last time, that knowledge is gone forever. And I’m glad they’ve established at least some way for Tommy to win. Because at this point, I was losing faith. 

There is also the bare minimum establishment that Dream can refuse to bring back those he doesn’t care for. He can also use it as a shield, holding this power over other people. If Dream is gone, death is permanent. But isn’t that how death is supposed to be, anyway? 

What a bleak premise—the afterlife is pure eternal torture while life is cheapened by a lack of consequences.

Conclusion

All this to say, I am cautiously optimistic for the future. I hope dearly that every single one of these can be disproven or developed in the coming livestreams. Obviously, there’s not enough information to really determine what the end result will be, or how everything will fall into place. 

Every time I have theorized about the story, it has done something completely different and pleasantly surprised me. I want this trend to continue. 

Surprise me again—I’ll be here to see where it goes.

[morethanonepage]

what would you say are the dynamics and themes that interest you most? Also frankly I'm surprised you read any star wars fic still, I agree on just wanting to read some good finnpoe but that has gotten increasingly futile.

i mean the thing i potentially like so much about finnpoe is that they BOTH have very specific, in some ways very different traumas (finn being a child soldier and growing up in such a highly regulated way where he had basically no bodily autonomy VS poe being mind-raped AND seeing his inability to stop it as having betrayed his own people AND seeing so many of his friends & comrades die in quick succession AND still recovering from the loss of his mother as a child and Muran when he was commanding Rapier Squadron) but they both have a tendency to compartmentalize that and continue to function on their own while being loyal (Finn’s devotion to Rey, which gets a lot of flack in fandom but like -- that’s one of the first people he’s been able to form a connection with!! AND I think he lowkey feels that it’s his fault Rey got dragged into -- everything, so he feels a great deal of responsibility for protecting her) and passionate about a cause (Poe basically killing himself to keep the Ideals Of The Republic Alive, be it through trying to hunt down the FO before he’s even part of the Resistance, to doing everything he can to keep the Resistance afloat once he is). 

like they have those similarities -- a real sense of duty and responsibility toward their friends and those they’re fighting with -- but they have fundamental differences in approach that the movies did a shitty job of extrapolating on when it could’ve been such an interesting conflict: Poe is the idealist and thinks of duty to a higher ideal first and foremost (like Leia and his mother, tbh) whereas Finn is more of a pessimist and a cynic and believes protecting your friends and loved ones from the substantial evil is hard enough without setting up to FIGHT ALL OF THE BAD IN THE UNIVERSE like Poe wants/believes he has to do. and both of these things are based so much on their upbringings! Poe grew up with those ideals and freedoms and parents who fought, successfully, to protect them, and believes he owes it to them to live up to their example and protect them as well; Finn has SEEN the evil of the FO firsthand and seen everyone around him subsumed by it, believes it to be omnipotent bc for him and his squad mates it literally was. escaping all of that was an act of powerful resistance on its own!

idk i just think a lot of the fandom’s take on this is, if you focus on finn ~running away~ in canon or not wanting to join up with the Resistance just ‘cause it’s ~the right thing to do~ you’re feeding into this idea of black men being cowards and/or selfish when it’s like no! that’s the consequence of his trauma: he’s running away from an abuser who controlled every aspect of his life, who’s set up to hunt him down and destroy planets and take over the universe in a way that’ll mean he’s NEVER safe, and he knows every single person he grew up with and had some affection for are a part of it too, which on the one hand he might be reluctant to fight them, but on the other they 100% won’t be reluctant to fight him AND they know him well enough to know his weaknesses. 

all of this is A LOT and it’s heavy and dark stuff, which i GET can be hard to work into like, light fluffy fic about finn finally being happy or learning what sex is or w/e, and not everything about fanfic has to be a ~deep exploration~ of character’s inner turmoil but like -- idk. there’s ways of dealing with these elements of finn’s backstory without making the whole thing drudging tragedy porn (which is ANOTHER fanfic trend i can’t stand -- neither Finn nor Poe are characters entirely without hope and fics that treat either of their tragedies [lbr it’s mostly poe’s that get dealt with] as the focus or main characteristic of either also bum me out) and I just really wish fandom had more interest in it. 

Another factor that KILLS ME is how Poe has (justifiably) developed OBVIOUS distrust for the force and force users, and would have such a fundamentally hard time dealing with the fact that Finn is one. Canon didn’t even let Finn be explicitly force sensitive, and fandom is like YAY FINN IS FORCE SENSITIVE, NOW HE CAN USE THE FORCE TO BONE (POE), and any fic that does touch on it makes Poe out to be ~unreasonable for not trusting Finn, or having his distrust be a consequence of his PTSD alone, and a sign he has to deal with his shit VS a very real issue that Poe might genuinely not be able to get over: the force CAN be creepy and is too easy to abuse, and a lot of what Poe’s seen it used for WAS bad. 

the other dimension of all this is, accidentally or not, these dynamics take on all sorts of real-world implications given both actor’s identities -- the explicit parallels between Finn’s upbringing and chattel slavery (taken from his family at an early age, losing all connection with his birthplace and culture, seen as useful but dispensable by an oppressive, mostly-white empire)  & its legacy for Black Americans (that lack of connection with a historical homeland and the loss of a cultural connection that came from it) VS the first generation latinx immigrant narrative that Poe and his family embody (the sacrifice for and long separation from a child in the service of giving them a better life, the burden that child takes upon themselves to make that sacrifice worth it by excelling in certain spheres, the drive to be the VERY BEST representative of their new culture, the embrace of that culture’s ideals bc they don’t want to think their parents sacrificed everything for a lie [with the creeping knowledge and experience to know many of those ideals are flawed and not always lived up to]). 

and the canon ignores that bc addressing it would require world building that couldn’t center/come back to the Skywalkers in some way (and the only family dynamics it’s interested in is DADDY ISSUES, fucking Free Fall), and fandom doesn’t care about it bc it’s mostly white girls who, AT BEST, decide to focus on the potential ~sexuality conflicts (coming out, family rejection, etc) when writing real world AUS, without dealing with the intersectionality of a black and a brown man, their respective cultural context, and the resultant conflicts those would create beyond, idk, “POCs are always homophobic so finn and/or poe’s parents kicked them out or w/e”.  and like I really don’t WANT these people trying to grapple with the complexity of a queer, interracial relationship where neither participant is white (i’ve seen enough just watching them grapple with either character’s sexuality tbh). 

but idk, that’s what’s interesting to me: finn and poe’s backgrounds and how those set up fundamental conflict points for both of them, both in canon (Poe’s devotion to the cause of liberty and democracy for the whole galaxy VS Finn’s duty to the people he loves over anything else) and in a real world au (Black people have a fundamentally different relationship to the American Ideal than Latinx immigrants do, for very good reasons). And I want those things to be significant elements of the characterization for both, but not the ONLY elements of characterization for both: stories should, in even some small way, be about what characters WANT (even if it is just “to fuck,” as it often is when I write [ok it’s usually “to love but be able to show it without saying it, hence the fucking”]) and so few fics, these days, give me any sense of what finn and poe want besides, vaguely “each other” (”because the author feels like they have to write them bc the actors are hot/for woke points”) and that is just -- boring to me. 

also god i would just love to read some dialogue that isn’t just twitter/tumblr memes and/or mcu level mean quips. like, just in general. 

[roselightfairy]

On the topic of hurt/comfort fics, do we have any Gimli/Legolas hurt comfort fics where Legolas is the one that needs comforting? Like dealing with his sea-longing and needing snuggles or he's pushing himself too hard and Gimli needs to remind him to sleep/take care of himself because even the tireless have limits, or Legolas crying over anything in general and Gimli coming to the rescue?

All right, so there are a lot more of these out there than the Gimli ones. We as a fandom do love our Legolas whump, and it was tough to cut down this list – but I tried to go for more the emotional side of h/c, which is a favorite of mine for the two of them. (Gimli physically injured; Legolas in emotional distress – that’s where it’s at!) A physical h/c fic or two did slip in, though, so I divided these into three main sections: one that deals with sea-longing, one that deals with war-related trauma, and one “other” category. As a reminder, this is not a catch-all list – again, Legolas might well be the whole fandom’s favorite whumpee – but these are some of the ones that first popped up in my mind at your request.

Sea-longing:

and yet the sea calls (series) by Laura JV (jacquez)

Summaries: [Gimli/Legolas] loves, and yet the sea calls.

…

This is a set of lovely vignettes (two stories, one from Legolas’s perspective and one from Gimli’s) about learning to live and love with the sea-longing between them, and to find comfort in one another as best they can. These stories make me feel so very many feelings and are constant rereads when I want to feel the bittersweet (but mostly sweet!) that is their love.

A Beloved Ballast, an Untethered Soul by katajainen

Summary: Gimli has spent long months on the new gates of Minas Tirith, all the while waiting for Legolas to return to him from the North.

But when he does, it's clear the year has not been altogether kind to his husband.

…

This is one of my favorites of a lot of things – a wonderful, gentle reunion in Minas Tirith after their separation after the war, Legolas worn from sea-longing and finally finding home in his husband’s arm, warm comfort and some very romantic smut. Please read it; you will not regret it.

Everything That Mattered Is Dust by SerStolas

Summary: A decade ago, the One Ring was destroyed. A decade ago, Gimli and Legolas traveled together first to the Glittering Caves and then to Fangorn. A decade ago, both of them failed to admit their deeper emotions for each other. Now they meet again in Minas Tirith during renovations on the city. But not all is well with Legolas.

Inspired by Through the Ghost by Shinedown.

…

This is another lovely story with a similar theme to the previous – but without the established relationship, so we get a very sweet love confession instead. Very gentle and loving and satisfying; this gets me right in the hurt/comfort feelings. <3

Where You Go, I Will Go by UnnamedElement

Summary: Lady Galadriel's message was a riddle too twisted for a Wood-elf and a Dwarf to initially unwind... This is a story of a friendship fraught with mutual ignorance: the concessions a dwarf makes to an elf, and the choices that elf makes for their peculiar friendship. It is how Legolas and Gimli pass through the threat of death to find, together, a better truth. (March 2016 Teitho)

…

Look, I don’t know if this is hurt/comfort as such, but it certainly comforts ME to read. This is a lovely little exploration of the sea-longing and how it changes Legolas and Gimli’s friendship – and in fact brings them closer together. It’s gen, nominally, but it’s so tender you won’t miss the romance (and I feel comfortable saying that because of multiple conversations with @unnamedelement on the subject!).

The Language of Power by Thewriternumber19238478356

Summary: It's the night before the march on the Black Gate. But sea-longing won't let Legolas sleep. Gimli offers him a secret dwarven practice that might just be the solution…

…

This is an underappreciated and really wonderful story, but contains some non-sexual BDSM, so be warned for that. It’s extremely tender and plays with the notion of power in dominance/submission with respect and love for the practice and the characters. It’s archive-locked, so you’ll need an account to read it, but I really do have such love for this story and I highly recommend it.

War-related:

A Night Beclouded by katajainen

Summary: Night falls after the fighting is done on the Pelennor Fields. For those left alive, it should be an hour for respite, for catching one's breath.

But there is the kind of darkness that seeps under one's skin, the kind not born of mere absence of sunlight, and this is not a time to be alone.

…

This is such quiet, atmospheric tenderness – comforting someone after a nightmare is such a wonderful trope, and @katajainen does it with all her usual sensitivity and care. A bit of pre-relationship sweetness and warm comfort – and honestly, it was a struggle to keep it to two fics by katajainen on this list; please go read all her stories!

Shared Spaces by mssileas

Summary: I know you think I'm a little different But I'm still somebody's son.

The night before marching on the Black Gate, neither of them can sleep.

…

Okay, so I adore this fic. I have a soft spot for any fics that focus on how Legolas must feel about Sauron and the origin of orcs, and this is a wonderful fic that deals with those ideas, as well as pre-battle anxiety, and Legolas and Gimli taking comfort in one another. Lots of lovely hand-touching and some very sweet kissing, too. <3

A time and times and half a time by Honesty

Summary: AU. Legolas, imprisoned by Saruman, discovers *exactly* how Orcs were made .... While Gimli keeps a vigil he will never forget.

…

Similar themes as the last one, though taken WAY over the edge past hurt/comfort and into serious hurt territory. Be careful with this one, because there’s a lot of pain for Legolas – warning for physical and psychological torture - but the love between him and Gimli is so powerful and all-consuming, it carries the story and provides the much-needed comfort at the end, though you’ll probably still be aching.

Comfort after Endurance by spinel

Summary: The battle of Helm's Deep takes its toll on Legolas. A stolen moment between the end of the battle at Helm's Deep and riding to Isengard.

…

Pre-relationship sweetness, comfort after battle. This one skirts the lines of physical and emotional hurt/comfort, combining the two with the soothing effect of touch and closeness after great trials. Lots of tender handling of one another – no explicit relationship content, but definitely little hints of more to come here and there. ;)

Other:

inkstains by apricae

Summary: Legolas isn't much good at reading, and an attempt at a learning his letters with Gimli turns into a revelation.

(Or: The one in which Legolas is dyslexic and sad, Gimli is a very good husband, and Dwarves are a lot better than Elves at handling disabilities.)

…

I am very big on neurodivergent Legolas in all its forms, and I love this dyslexic-Legolas headcanon a lot. Emotional distress and childhood trauma – but luckily, Legolas has a very kind, loving dwarf husband to talk him down and help him through.

Tainted Meat by lynndyre

Summary: On the road between Helm's Deep and Isengard, mistakes are made with supplies.

For the BloodyValentine prompt: someone feeds orc food to an elf, making them really sick.

…

This is one of my favorite underappreciated fics out there – I find that it really gets the way Legolas and Gimli are portrayed once they start meeting up with armies and other men: they are a bubble of two, responsible for one another’s comfort and supporting one another without question. In this fic, Legolas (and half the Rohirrim) are struck with food poisoning, and while the men deal with the aftermath, Legolas is so very much Gimli’s charge, and it’s so tender and lovely and wonderful. Gen, nominally, but it gets the particular something between them in canon that I so love. (It also fits with a line Gimli says in Two Towers about refusing to touch any orc supplies!)

 Teeth Like Knives by Evandar

Summary: Gimli wasn't expecting to have to stitch Legolas back together after their first attempt at lovemaking, but now that the initial shock has worn off, he can't say that he's surprised.

…

This is part of a larger series that involves half-orc Legolas, and all of it has some very wonderful emotional hurt/comfort. But this is my favorite of the series because of how good and gentle and wonderful Gimli is with Legolas’s existential crises and hurting himself on accident. Please do mind the tags, since this subject matter may not be for everyone, but I adore the sensitivity with which these topics are handled and reread this for comfort. <3

…

As always, if you enjoy any of these fics, please let the author know with a comment if you have capacity! Also, I encourage you to reblog this list so that we can spread the good word. :)

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Would love to hear about your beefs with Lucas because I have beefs with Lucas

(Sorry it took me three thousand years to answer this, anon.)

They mainly fall under a few headings, with the third being the most serious and the thing that I am genuinely irl furious about at least biannually (and feeling unable to adequately sum up The Problem with it after yelling about it so often is a huge part of why this post has been in my drafts for such a long time):

1. His self-mythologising and the subsequent uncritical repetition of his bullshit in the fandom. Obvious lies like that he had some master plan for 10 films when it’s clear he did not have anything like a plot outline at any point. We all know the thing was written at the seat of various people’s pants, it’s blatantly self-evident that’s the case. There’s also plenty of public record about how the OT was written. Even dumber, more obvious lies, like that Anakin was ‘always the protagonist’ and the entire 6 films were his story from the beginning. This is preposterous and every time someone brings it up (usually with palpable smugness) as fanboys ‘not understanding star wars’ because they don't get that ‘the OT is not Luke's story’... Yeah, I just... I cannot.

Vader wasn’t Anakin Skywalker until ESB, it’s a retcon. It’s a brilliant retcon and it works perfectly, it elevated SW into something timeless and special it otherwise would not have been, but you can tell it wasn’t the original plan and there’s proof it wasn’t the original plan. Let’s not pretend. And Luke is the protagonist. No amount of waffling about such esoteric flights of theory as ‘ring structure’ is going to get away from the rigidly orthodox narrative and the indisputable fact that it is Luke’s hero’s journey. Vader’s redemption isn’t about his character development (he has almost none) and has no basis in any kind of convincing psychological reality for his character, but it doesn’t need to be because it’s part of Luke’s arc, because Vader is entirely a foil in Luke’s story. It’s a coming-of-age myth about confronting and growing beyond the father.

All attempts to de-centre Luke in RotJ just break the OT’s narrative logic. It’s a character-driven story and the character driving is Luke. Trying to read it as Anakin’s victory, the moral culmination of his choices rather than Luke’s and putting all the agency into Anakin’s hands just destroys the trilogy’s coherence and ignores most of its content in favour of appropriating a handful of scenes into an arc existing only in the prequels. The dilemma of RotJ is how Luke will define ethical adulthood after learning and growing through two previous films worth of challenge, education, failure, and triumph; it’s his choice to love his father and throw down his sword which answers the question the entire story has been asking. Vader’s redemption and the restoration of the galaxy are the consequences of that choice which tell us what kind of world we’re in, but the major dramatic conflict was resolved by Luke’s decision not the response to it.

And, just all over, the idea of Lucas as an infallible auteur is inaccurate and annoying to me. Obviously he’s a tremendous creative force and we wouldn’t have sw without him, but he didn’t create it alone or out of whole cloth. The OT was a very collaborative effort and that’s why it’s what it is and the prequels are what they are. Speaking of which.

2. The hubris of the prequels in general and all the damage their many terrible, protected-from-editors choices do to the symbolic fabric of the sw universe. Midicholrians, Yoda fighting with a lightsabre, Obi-wan as Anakin's surrogate father instead of his peer, incoherent and unmotivated character arcs, the laundry list of serious and meaningful continuity errors, the bad storytelling, the bad direction, the bad characterisation, the shallowness of the parallels which undermine the OT’s imagery, the very clumsy and contradictory way the A/P romance was handled, the weird attitude to romance in general, it goeth on. I don’t want to re-litigate the entire PT here and I’m not going to, but they are both bad as films and bad as prequels. The main idea of them, to add Anakin’s pov and create an actual arc for him as well as to flesh out the themes of compassion and redemption, was totally appropriate. The concept works as a narrative unit, there are lots of powerful thematic elements they introduce, they have a lot of cool building blocks, it’s only in execution and detail that they do a bunch of irreparable harm.

But the constant refrain that only ageing fanboys don’t like them and they only don’t like them because of their themes or because they humanise Anakin... can we not. The shoddy film making in the prequels is an objective fact. If you want to overlook the bad parts for the good or prioritise ideas over technique, that’s fine, but don’t sit here and tell me they’re masterworks of cinema there can be no valid reason to criticise. I was the exact right age for them when I saw them, I am fully on board with the fairy tale nature of sw, I am fully on board with humanising Anakin- the prequels just have a lot of very big problems with a) their scripts and b) their direction, especially of dialogue scenes. If Lucas had acknowledged his limitations like he did back in the day instead of believing his own press, he could have again had the help he obviously needed instead of embarrassing himself.

3. Killing and suppressing the original original trilogy. I consider the fact that the actual original films are not currently available in any form, have never been available in an archival format, and have not been presented in acceptable quality since the VHS release a very troubling case study in the problems of corporate-owned art. LF seizing prints of the films whenever they are shown, destroying the in-camera negatives to make the special editions with no plans to restore them, and doing all in the company’s considerable power to suppress the original versions is something I consider an act of cultural vandalism. The OT defined a whole generation of Hollywood. It had a global impact on popular entertainment. ANH is considered so historically significant it was one of the first films added to the US Library of Congress (Lucas refused to provide even them with a print of the theatrical release, so they made their own viewable scan from the 70s copyright submission).

The fact that the films which made that impact cannot be legally accessed by the public is offensive to me. The fact that Lucas has seen fit to dub over or composite out entire performances (deleting certain actors from the films), to dramatically alter the composition of shots chosen by the original directors, to radically change the entire stylistic tone by completely reinventing the films’ colour timing in attempt to make them match the plasticy palate of the prequels, to shoot new scenes for movies he DID NOT DIRECT, add entire sequences or re-edit existing sequences to the point of being unrecognisable etc. etc. is NOT OKAY WITH ME when he insists that his versions be the ONLY ones available.

I’m okay with the Special Editions existing, though I think they’re mostly... not good... but I’m not okay with them replacing the original films. And all people can say is ‘well, they’re his movies’.

Lucas may have clear legal ownership in the capitalistic sense, but in no way does he have clear artistic ownership. Forget the fans, I’m not one of those people who argue the fans are owed something: A film is always a collaborative exercise and almost never can it be said that the end product is the ultimate responsibility and possession of one person. Even the auteur directors aren't the sole creative vision, even a triple threat like Orson Welles still had cinematographers and production designers, etc. Hundreds of artists work on films. Neither a writer nor a director (nor one person who is both) is The Artist behind a film the way a novelist is The Artist behind a novel. And Lucas did NOT write the screenplays for or direct ESB or RotJ. So in what sense does he have a moral right to alter those films from what the people primarily involved in making them deemed the final product? In what sense would he have the right to make a years-later revision the ONLY version even if he WERE the director?

Then you get into the issue of the immeasurable cultural impact those films had in their original form and the imperative to preserve something that is defining to the history of film and the state of the zeitgeist. I don't think there is any ‘fan entitlement’ involved in saying the originals belonged to the world after being part of its consciousness for decades and it is doing violence to the artistic record to try to erase the films which actually occupied that space. It's exactly like trying to replace every copy of It's a Wonderful Life with a colourised version (well, it's worse but still), and that was something Lucas himself railed against. It’s like if Michaelangelo were miraculously resuscitated and he decided to repaint the Sistine Ceiling to add a gunfight and change his style to something contemporary.

I get genuinely very upset at the cold reality that generations of people are watching sw for the first time and it’s the fucking SE-except-worse they’re seeing. And as fewer people keep physical media and the US corporate oligarchy continues to perform censorship and rewrite history on its streaming services unchecked by any kind of public welfare concerns, you’ll see more and more ‘real Mandela effect’ type shit where the cultural record has suddenly ‘always’ been in line with whatever they want it to be just now. And US media continues to infect us all with its insidious ubiquity. I think misrepresenting and censoring the past is an objectively bad thing and we can’t learn from things we pretend never happened, but apparently not many people are worried about handing the keys to our collective experience to Disney and Amazon.

4. The ‘Jedi don’t marry’ thing and how he wanted this to continue with Luke post-RotJ, so it’s obviously not meant to be part of what was wrong with the order in the prequels. I find this... incoherent on a storytelling level. The moral of the anidala story then indeed becomes just plain ‘romantic love is bad and will make you crazy’, rather than the charitable reading of the prequels which I ascribe to, which is that the problem isn’t Anakin’s love for Padmé, it’s that he ceased to love her and began to covet her. And I can’t help but feel this attitude is maybe an expression of GL’s issues with women following his divorce. I don’t remember if there’s evidence to contradict that take, since it’s been some time since I read about this but yeah. ANH absolutely does sow seeds for possible Luke/Leia development and GL was still married while working on that film. Subsequently he was dead set against Luke ever having a relationship and decided Jedi could not marry. Coincidence?

There’s a lot of blinking red ‘issues with women’ warning signs all over Lucas’s work, but the prequels are really... egregious.

[duhragonball]

I was curious to hear about what you think of the anime splitting DB & DBZ into separate shows. Personally, I get Toei’s logic and find it ridiculous how some extremists & purists act so hostile/resentful about DBZ being treated as a sequel to DB, especially since Akira Toriyama didn’t have any problems with it.

I agree, anon, there's really not much to the name change. The way I understood it, the manga kept the same title, "Dragon Ball", from start to finish, while the anime changed to "Dragon Ball Z", mostly to put a fresh coat of paint on the series, I suppose. I always understood the "Z" was a reference to Toriyama's intention to bring the story to a close, which turned out to be ironic, since the Z portion lasted so much longer.

But yeah, that's basically all it is. There was a clear division between one and the other. Z has Gohan and Vegeta, and OG Dragon Ball does not, for example. But you can make a similar case for other parts of the story. The division between kid Goku and adult Goku, in the Piccolo Junior Saga. I've long maintained that there's a very clear border around the halfway point, when Goku fights Recoome. Before that moment, everyone was worried about Dragon Balls, and after that moment, it became all about Super Saiyans. And you could make a case for the post-Frieza stuff being a very different story from what came before. I watched the opening theme to the French dub of DBZ once, and the visuals kept emphasizing Goku for the "Dragon Ball" part of the song, and Buu-Era Gohan for the "Dragon Ball Z" part, like the Buu stuff was Z alone. So there's plenty of other candidates for places to draw the line if you wanted to cut the story in two.

Ultimately, "purist" fans are going to do what they always do, and a lot of them use these artificial divisions to arbitrarily declare the point where the show stopped being "good". It's the same bullshit as the myth about Toriyama wanting to end it with Frieza. There's no truth to that, beyond Toriyama considering it and eventually deciding to continue. A lot of people think he planned to keep Goku dead after the Cell Games, and was forced to bring him back to appease the fans, but that makes no sense either. Goku returned *very* soon after the chapter where he died. Fans act like he was absent from the comic for seven years, just because he was dead that long, but it was more like a few months. But a lot of fans like to perpetuate that myth, because they think it justifies their dislike of the Buu Saga. "Oh, it could have been good if Toriyama hadn't been hijacked by Goku stans, so now it's terrible."

As far as I'm concerned, the post-Frieza stuff is the best part, and I think the Saiyans and Frieza are good but overrated. I also really dig the run from Mercenary Tao to Piccolo Junior a lot. This is probably why I never tried to play the whole "It was great until X," because there's ups and downs for me. And the ups are very long, and the downs are still pretty good, so I don't try to convince people that my opinions are facts. "Oh, well Toriyama got a new assistant after General Blue, and then he left around Raditz and came back when Trunks showed up, and that guy was the one who made it kick ass." That's dumb.

Like, with JoJo, I can understand preferring art styles and characters, which change over the course of the series. Part 8 just looks different from Part 4, and some folks like one more than the other. I mostly dig Part 7 for the horses and the scenic views of the continental U.S. Not everyone would agree. But I don't see a lot of folks saying things like "Oh Part 6 is terrible because Araki overdosed on Bad Comics Pills in the early 2000's." No, just say you don't like it, and move on.

But Dragon Ball is pretty damn consistent, other than the art style getting more angular over time. People will talk about the shift from fantasy to scifi, but Z ended with the boys fighting a genie in Superheaven, so how scifi is that? You don't have to like the later stuff, but it's not so easy to put it in a box like that.

But the fandom snobs love to act like their opinions are objective truths. "Oh, the Saiyans arc was better because Goku and Vegeta's hair actually moves." Really? Is that what this show is about? Hair animation? I like the Cell episodes because he's a fucking monster from the future, and that's rad as hell. I guess I was too busy having fun to notice that the *hair* isn't as well animated.

Actually, let me flip that around. The Androids/Cell/Buu episodes are superior because everyone is jacked in those. Early Vegeta's costume was all baggy, but after Namek he had the big horseneck and Bulma made him a uniform so tight that you can see his entire asscrack. That's *better*, as far as I'm concerned. Tien always looks swole as hell, but he's extra jacked in the Cell Saga, and that's the way I like it. Everyone who disagrees is a plebian.

It sounds pretty dumb, doesn't it? But that's what these elitists do. They pick on some minor infraction and tell you it's unlovable beyond this point, and if you do love it, there must be something wrong with you. Well, I'm here to say there ain't, folks. Toriyama's still making this stuff, so don't try to tell me he regrets the later material. If the Buu Saga is so terrible, why does everyone keep making sequels to it? Toriyama could just ignore the parts he doesn't want to use, the way he apparently ignores GT.

It's like the Terminator movies. I bought a box set recently because I never saw 4 or 6, and I thought it'd be fun to watch them all in order. But I already know the later movies have nothing to do with each other. T3 killed off Sarah Conner off-screen, but she's alive in T6. Basically, every movie after T2 is trying to be a direct sequel to 2, without bothering to acknowledge the others, because different people made 4, 5, and 6, and I guess they all hated 3. So they just did their own thing. Toriyama could do the same thing whenever he wants, but he always seems to make an effort to acknowledge his older stories. He doesn't de-age Gohan or change Bulla's name. Because he remembers working on the Cell and Buu stuff and he still respects it enough to keep it. I know people don't like how Videl turned out in DBS, but that process started way back in 1995.

I'm not saying people shouldn't have opinions, but acting like the letter Z ruined 60% of the story is kind of reductive, to say the least. Sometimes, things change, and they may not change the way we want them to, but that doesn't mean they're "ruined" or that other people can't enjoy them.

[whetstonefires]

Do you think the DC fandom maybe, Infantilizes Tim a little too much? Like for a rich kid character who's main trauma for a long time was a getting left home alone too much there's an oddly amount of meta abt how much how much his parents hurt him~ compared to, y'know the two poor characters who grew up with physically abusive dad's+druggie mom's, or the two that were raised assassin cult's, etc

…well, yeah, I do kind of think that? His whole schtick for so long was being too old for his age in ways that didn’t sacrifice his jokey, relatable teenager energies. It’s weird how little of that we see anymore, sometimes.

And then DC broke him and discarded him and he’s sort of awkwardly hanging around getting reimagined as more woobie with every fan generation. It is weird!

But tbh I do get it. And I think the reason his parents’ failure of him and his vulnerability get played up so much, and Jason and Steph’s sufferings (while used a lot for things like motivation and context) not dwelt on quite so much in the same lugubrious style, are kind of the same reason.

Which is that canon didn’t commit to it. Jason and Steph’s experiences with bad parenting were foregrounded and retconned more dramatically awful several times. (There’s some definite classism in how that was approached imo, and I’m never budging on being mad about DC retconning out Catherine being sick and then ignoring her forever in all Jason characterization because a drug death invalidates a person ig, great message during the opioid crisis guys.)

They engaged and coped with it–Steph (and Cass, our #1 canon batfam parental abuse victim) pretty directly, Jason a little less so because of the dubious and fluctuating canon status of most of the content more specific than ‘poverty, homelessness, theft, parental drugs and crime in there somewhere,’ so most of his parent issues have been focused on Bruce. He sure has dug into them tho. 😂 Rarely well or productively, thanks DC, but it’s explicitly part of his character, is my point.

Whereas upper-middle-class Tim was always treated by the narrative as fortunate and unharmed by his experiences with his parents. Even though they were clearly behaving badly in several ways, and Tim showed signs of being harmed by it.

Tim outside of immediate moments of frustration always was of the opinion he was Fine, and Very Fortunate Actually.

Therefore a huge chunk of the numerous everyone who’s got parent-related mental and emotional harm, but has struggled to have that validated and hasn’t responded with a lot of anger toward the parent, identifies with Tim. The only one who’s never really lashed out at his parents for fucking up with him. The one who still needs it explored, because canon ultimately didn’t.

[editing post to put in a readmore because lol it’s long, post otherwise unchanged]

(Dick obviously didn’t ever have any Issues with the Graysons, but he Angry Teenagered at Bruce so hard it changed Bruce’s characterization permanently, rip.)

The things Jason, Steph, and Cass have been through are dramatic, obvious, and fit stereotypes because that’s what they’re based on.

That’s important content to have, but because it’s right out there in your face even people who identify with it quite a lot are less likely to feel the need to work all the way through it again in fanworks. That part’s there. It’s text.

(Well actually Jason having been physically abused kind of wasn’t? I think? It was mostly assumed on the basis of stereotyping and Jason’s not caring about the man much even as he felt possessive of information about his death, which is valid. I don’t actually know what’s up with Willis now, Lobdell did some weird shit that lacked emotional resonance or staying power because he’s Lobdell and has no soul.

Cass’ wandering years are also ludicrously underdeveloped. But very very few comics fans or writers can personally relate to being amazing child warriors with no grasp of language living feral under bridges. That part of her life is consistently represented in terms of absences, in terms of its deviation from the norm and the deficits of normality it left her with, which is typical but unfortunate.) 

-

The interesting things to do with these characters are often informed by the bad stuff in their childhoods, but there’s relatively rarely that much more to say about the fact that those things were bad. They know they’re bad. They’ve had a lot of on-panel rage about it, as discussed above. Steph and Cass both beat the shit out of their dads.

Jason is, in fandom especially, a sort of Platonic ideal of a kid who’s mad about his bad childhood and really bad at figuring out where to point that rage.

(Damian is a whole other kettle of fish, because he’s been lumbered by so many detailed retcons coming so fast no two people can seem to construct compatible models of what his early childhood was like, and even more because he’s still ‘a child’ enough that he’s necessarily in a different stage of processing than someone who’s officially only a few years older than him at this point, but still functionally 8 and also 20 years older, and whose parents are no longer in the picture to continue screwing up.

Also there’s no question that if he brings up an abusive thing the League did, he will be validated by his current environment about his realization that it was in fact bad. There’s a lot of fic on that theme! But it doesn’t have the same tone precisely because it is usually understood that that support will be there if he wants it. Realizing that his previous context contained things that were wrong keeps being made the focus of his arc.)

The badness of Tim’s childhood, on the other hand, was mainly in subtext. Even when we were clearly meant to understand Jack was fucking up, like when he canceled plans with Tim at the last minute to go on a date with Tim’s stepmother, or that infamous time he came to apologize for not being a great parent and got mad Tim was distracted by a crisis on TV so he flew into a rage and took the TV and smashed it and was like ‘that’ll teach you,’ it wasn’t leaned into.

The story didn’t treat Jack as a minor villain to be overcome but like a sort of environmental hazard of childhood, like homework, to be endured and coped with. Tim said things like ‘it’s fine’ and ‘at least he left the computer.’

(And like. It’s not about having a TV and computer in his room. It’s about not letting a child have boundaries, pointedly not respecting a child’s possessions, creating an emotionally insecure environment, punishing minor infractions in proportion to their momentary impact on your own ego, physically lashing out at a proxy for the child…)

Rather like Tom King later didn’t understand about the punching from Bruce, whoever did that story (probably Dixon? I don’t care enough to check) did not understand how serious a case of bad parenting that scene was. That is most definitely textbook abusive behavior. (It’s a hell of a lot more common abusive behavior than being a lame supervillain or shooting you when you screw up, and a lot more specific than ‘was a thug, might have hit me, dead now.’)

And Tim was never allowed to be mad at his parents about it. It was fine. He needed to be ignored so he had the freedom to be Robin. He deserved his dad being mad at him because he was keeping secrets. He complained too much, although objectively he did not.

The universe punished him for ‘complaining,’ more than once. We cut straight from him shunting aside his disappointment that his postcard from his parents was just to say they weren’t coming home yet after all with ‘if it will stop all the fights they’ve been having lately it’s more than fine’ to them getting kidnapped.

He agreed not to come on the rescue mission. His mom never made it home, and his dad was in a coma for a while. And then ultimately Jack died as a result of Tim’s decision to be Robin, immediately after finally deciding to accept it.

So Tim walks around feeling a huge burden of responsibility for his parents’ deaths, and completely unable to process any hurt they did him as real or valid, especially in comparison with the far more blatant awfulness other people have been through, and canon is clearly never going to address it. Or even acknowledge it properly.

Let me repeat that because it’s kind of my main point:

People are fixated on getting Tim’s emotional abuse validated because that’s an incredibly important step in recovering from emotional abuse, and it’s one canon consistently denied him.

How ‘bad’ things are ‘in comparison to’ problems other people have is a bad and unhealthy way to engage with trauma. Okay? That’s just a really harmful framework to apply to pain.

It’s also a way that both Tim and people with experiences similar to Tim’s are encouraged to engage with their own experiences, compounding the existing problems.

So. Not a form of relatable DC was ever actually aiming for when they tried so hard (and pretty effectively) to make him a relatable character as Robin, but an enduring one for a lot of fans.

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So Tim’s childhood is a natural target for fanworks in a different way than the traumas that have been made explicit and taken seriously by the text. And then a lot of that got compounded by the way the introduction of Damian as Robin was handled, and the lack of resolution that got. And his current status as not quite having a place in the family anymore.

So between the level of projection encouraged by that context and how relatively difficult to access Tim’s Robin run has become ten years after the fact, this has led to a lot of fanworks on these themes that are based mostly on other fanworks, and stray further and further from the original content.

So at this point there’s an entire wing of Tim’s fandom wherein this side of him has expanded enormously, and he primarily exists to suffer, frequently in ways that 1) escalate to a point that is inarguably ‘valid’ and hard to dismiss and 2) set him up to rebound from it in whatever way the writer finds emotionally satisfying or useful–being ultimately cared for and reassured by people who value him (the most infantilizing option but like, popular for obvious reasons), or unveiling his brilliant scheme that was causing him to pretend to be passive in the face of mistreatment, or turning around and using his genius ninja skills to wrest power back from his abusers, or just laying down some sick burns about being treated fairly.

But not that many of the last one, because that’s mostly done with other batfam members.

Tim’s become a vehicle for a lot of vicarious coping that Steph and Jason just aren’t appropriate for, because they get angry and they get even. And those are stories that exist already, so there’s less scope for telling your own.

And because Jason’s reaction pattern is ultimately so masculine (i’ll make them all sorry! with my guns! blam blam!) while Tim’s is pretty gender-neutral, the demographics of fanfic mean that the bulk of the people using Tim vicariously in this manner are female-aligned, which has over time feminized this archetype of him a lot. Sometimes in ways I find really uncomfortable, like there’s a lot of forced pregnancy stuff which activates my panic buttons. x.x

But, ultimately, it’s fandom. People are going to do what they’re going to do, DC in their perpetual fail has hung Tim out to dry in narrative terms, and I’d rather the people who are using Tim for victimization narratives over the people who can’t dismiss or discredit him fast enough now that his position has been filled. 🤷‍♀️ What we gonna do? Fave’s in an awkward spot. DC hates us. This is the life in this comic book pit. XD

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Also if you’re the same anon who left me a callout about op of that weird Steph post in my inbox, or if you aren’t @ that person, 1) I refuse to get involved so I’m not answering that ask 2) those aren’t even particularly dramatic fandom crimes? That’s pretty normal? That’s just…Caring Too Much About Ships And Disagreeing With Me.

Do I also feel those opinions are kinda bad? Yeah. But I disagree with everyone about something. Chill.