#maybe it's just being old enough that all my formative fandom experiences were for media with a 0.00% chance of a queer ship going canon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ardwynna · 5 years

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Saying “children should not be exposed to sex” is not “infantilization” it is common sense, and has been agreed upon by society at large. And them being exposed to it doesn’t help them “learn and grow” it is traumatizing. It does the opposite of that. Please step outside your bubble and learn more about this before you do something harmful.

Let’s talk about my bubble. I was a health counselor in college. A high school biology teacher for a stint after that. I am a doctor now. Human biological and psychosocial development is a thing I actually have a bit of learning and experience with, if you can imagine. And I have given ‘The Talk’ in quite a few varied forms.

Now, by “children”, do you mean prepubescents only, the way people generally do? Or are you including adolescents as well, like fandom police? Either way, there is a level of sex talk you can give to prepubescents, they do often want to know where babies come from. Some of them even get the Penis-In-Vagina bit of The Talk and handle it pretty well.

Adolescents on the other hand, well, maybe you’re a fan of US-style Abstinence Only education. I am not. So not. Comprehensive sex education all the way. No ifs, ands or buts. They’re literally going through sexual development. How can you stomach keeping people ignorant about what’s happening to them? It’s dangerous, and in my thinking, unethical. They need to be prepared. You ever explained to a class of thirteen year olds what oral sex and dental dams are? I have. You ever described vaginal secretions and ovulation changes to sixteen year olds? I have. And for the record, they brought it up. Curiosity is normal at that age and they had questions. Some of them were already experimenting and putting themselves at all kinds of risk from ignorance. Lucky I have the actual schooling and certification to answer those questions, eh?

Now, lets talk about fandom. Fanfic is entertainment. Fanart is entertainment. Fandom content creators are for the most part a bunch of marginalized amateurs chucking out works for their own amusement and any friends they can make with similar tastes in this rapidly wildening internet. Fanfic is not The Talk. Fanart is not a How-To. You have a better chance getting a decent version of The Talk at PornHub. You don’t expect people to learn sexual behavior from Game of Thrones, do you? Why would you expect them to go learn it from fandom? Why do you think fandom is such a huge influence? Because I promise you, as huge a part of your life as it might be right now, it’s a drop in a bucket compared to the rest of the world. It just doesn’t have the reach or the capability to serve as an ‘educational’ source. Nobody is saying kids should come to fandom to learn about sex. But if they get an eyeful, honestly the stuff they see here isn’t going to be much worse than Cinemax on a Saturday night.

Now, we have established that adolescents have sexual interest, even if it’s just the academic kind for some of them. We have established that knowledge is better than ignorance. We have established that fandom is not nor should be the source of that knowledge, or sure as shit not the only one.

Now let’s talk about exposure.

To sign up for social media sites, and frankly most online accounts, you have to be at least 13. Adolescent. An age of sexual development and curiosity. At 13, you are deemed old enough to leave the kiddy pool and start swimming with the rest of us. And that means learning how to operate in the wider world. It means sharing space with a wider age group than you’re used to. It means learning how to decide what is for you, what is not for you, and what is not for you yet. Same way you pass the cigs and alcohol in the convenience store before you’re old enough, you can bypass a tagged, age-rated and warned-for fic and stick to something more age-appropriate. But you do have to get used to seeing these things, and passing them by, and saying “Not now.” That’s part of living in a society. If you opt to use a fake ID to bypass the barrier, if you opt to lie about your age online, that’s on you. Only you. The adult world does not stop just because minors exist. The protections of prepubescent childhood are not meant to last forever. Adolescence is a training stage.

So if ‘children’ are being exposed to sex in fandom, they’re exposing themselves. And that’s on their parents and caregivers for not giving them proper guidelines, not enforcing those guidelines, or not giving them enough proper education to satisfy their natural curiosity, or counteract whatever fantabulous imaginary sexual escapade they go looking for online. You can’t leave kids’ welfare up to distant strangers on the internet. Distant strangers, I must add, who have EVERY RIGHT to freedom of expression and living their adult lives to the fullest. The presence of teenagers does not change that. The teens have the tools now to protect themselves. They have the tags and the warnings. But they insist on acting like actual children, prepubescents, and not people who should be practicing their basic life skills. The teenagers on social media and fandom sites need to step up and meet fandom halfway. They cannot be babied forever.

So either the ‘children’ hike off to go ask Alice, if Mommy and Daddy completely dropped the ball, or they start practicing some self control. Because wherever the adults go, the kids follow. They follow despite lockdowns, they click despite warnings, they read despite age recommendations, and that’s entirely on the kids. Because nobody put a gun to their head and made them click.

#such dull people #fandom police #purity patrol #cue mrs. lovejoy

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ailuronymy · 3 years

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I doubt you'll remember this, because it happened such a long time ago, but it's been bothering me for years now and I wanted to get some closure on it. Many years ago, when I was 14, pretty new to roleplaying and completely new to Tumblr, I sent you an anonymous ask laughing about ridiculous unrealistic things that people were having their cats do in a roleplay I was in. Building blanket forts, among other things, and being transgender. At this point in my life I thought transgender only meant someone who had undergone gender affirmation surgery, and the idea of cats doing surgery on one another was hilarious to me. I shared it with the hope that other people would find it hilarious too. Instead, you told me that I had said The Wrong Thing and called me a bigot. I was confused, I was horrified, I didn't understand at all, and I more or less fled from tumblr for about two years. It was a formative experience for me.

Hello there. I do actually remember that post, although obviously since you were anon then as well, I didn’t remember you specifically. But I do remember.

I thought about how to answer this ask for a few days. I’m not sure exactly what it is you’re looking for from me, but I’m going to give you the best reply I can and I hope that’s good enough for the both of us.

When you wrote in to me, about eight years ago, I was younger than you are now. I was nineteen and I’d only been on tumblr for a bit over a year at that point, I think. I’d never had social media before, of any kind. It was all pretty new to me as an experience too, and I’d never expected this blog to get the attention that it did. I never even imagined that was a possibility. But it happened and I learned how to run a relatively popular ask blog on the job, as it were.

There’s a lot I regret when I look back on that early era of this blog. The humour and jokes I allowed and sometimes encouraged and said myself here was often not kind, and that’s something I really regret. Eventually, I put an end to that because it just wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted any of us who have fun here to be doing. But I absolutely allowed it to happen for a long time first, and that’s on me.

Also at that same time, there was a particular way of interacting on tumblr that was very popular. It was a lot of exuberance and hyperbole and insults, and being rude for fun, and overall very over-the-top and often harsh or just plain uncaring that there was someone else at the other end of the message. For everyone who was here in 2012, I think you can probably remember what it was like. It wasn’t a nice mode of communication, but it was popular and got great responses and a lot of people found it fun to read. For a couple of years after I started Ailuronymy, I was absolutely guilty of buying into it and acting this way, until I finally hated it enough to stop. It wasn’t who I wanted to be, in general or on this blog specifically. It felt mean and inauthentic and I wanted to be better. But I did act like that for a long time, and that was a choice I made.

I’m not saying any of this because I want to make excuses for myself. I’m more aware than anyone else of the problems early on in this blog’s history, and it’s something I regret and wish I could go back to do differently with the knowledge and experience I have now. Unfortunately, I can’t change the past. I can only own up to it and do better going forward.

I’m sorry for the tone I often used, including to you in that post, and I’m sorry that because of that behaviour, you felt scared and unwelcome here. That’s a failure on my part. I shouldn’t have used the tone I did, or assumed I had to take a defensive, intense stance the way I did. It’s very sad to me to know that because I did that, you were frightened and decided to leave.

However, I would like to share my context too. Because at the time, I was nineteen years old (which I know probably sounds ancient to younger teens, but it’s not, really), and a bisexual guy (which I still am, obviously), and Ailuronymy was already a place that people (especially queer people) in the fandom were looking to for support and education. Insofar as this blog was developing a niche, that was it. I felt a significant amount of responsibility to champion and defend the people this blog was made for.

2012 was also a time when the Warriors fandom on tumblr was genuinely very homophobic, and also quite volatile. It was common for people to be very angry (in general, and often at me) for saying that ableism isn’t okay, or that Warriors characters can be trans, or sometimes just “canon naming doesn’t make much sense.” I got quite a lot of hate mail--also sometimes just... confused, angry mail, for this naming system or any of the political things I talked about--and I was doing the best I could with what I had to give. A lot of what I learned during my years of running this blog came from making mistakes, but I always did my best.

The reason I’m bringing this up is because what you actually said was: “these cats can be homosexual, asexual, bisexual, pansexual, and transgender--don’t even ask me how that’s possible. I don’t want to know.” You came to me, a queer man, running a blog that in no small part is about how queerness is allowed to exist in this fandom and is in fact not implausible, during a time when the fandom as a whole was solidly anti-queer, with something like that. Like you said, you shared it with me--and the readers here--because you hoped we would find it hilarious and unrealistic too.

But I didn’t, because, to me, that’s just what a lot of the fandom already was. It was a hostile environment that regularly argued that queer characters, or people, had no place here. That was the kind of things people on anon fairly often came to yell in my inbox about how I’m wrong, etc. etc., and how I’m bad, etc. etc.

I reacted defensively, which I wouldn’t do now, because I’m much older, and I have experience and confidence I just didn’t then. At the time, though, what I heard in your ask was “queer characters are absurd and don’t belong here, don’t correct me,” and that is what I reacted to. I’m sure for you, it felt scary and disproportionate, and as I said before, I wish I had handled things differently, and gentler.

But I don’t disagree with what I said. The points I made weren’t wrong. And my response--although not how I would respond now--was not wrong, even though it hurt you. It genuinely is horrible to know that because of my lack of tact, you were scared. It was also horrible to receive your ask at the time, just like many of the rest. It wasn’t hypothetical to me, because I’m queer. It was about me, and other people I care about very much.

The fact I’m queer is probably news to you, and you were new tumblr and probably didn’t know what was going on in the fandom, and maybe you would have said something different if you knew all this.

Likewise, though, you were on anon and I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know you were fourteen. I didn’t know you were asking in good faith, and not just another one of the homophobic fans thinking you’d found a friend in me, which frankly felt a bit insulting. I didn’t know you were and, again, although I wish I did more back then and was kinder in my approach, I didn’t have insight into your intentions. I also didn’t have the maturity for that not to matter.

That said, even in my very imperfect answer I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt. I specifically said:

“Before you think I’m victimising you - I’m not. This is not personal right now; currently, this is a mistake on your part, and I understand that mistakes are incredibly easy to make. If, by the end of my post, you get where you went wrong here, then it will be like this ask of yours never happened and I will forget you ever said it. I don’t like to hold any kind of grudge if there’s any way to avoid it, and an acknowledgement of where you went wrong here would completely fix everything about this.”

“So what you’re saying when you say that you don’t believe that “homosexual, asexual, bisexual, pansexual, and transgender” cats are possible in the context of Warriors is, basically, that you’re a bigot. I am really sorry to say that, because the chances are - I sincerely hope - that you aren’t. You’re a good person. You’re a good person who said something bigoted by mistake. And if you don’t believe what you’ve said is a mistake yet, let me show you some interesting true facts about our world.“

Because I know how easy it is to make mistakes and how hard it is to get everything right all the time, and know everything, and never do something dumb or hurtful. It’s easy to fuck up. I’ve done it a lot. The answer I gave you back then is just one example.

That what you took from my answer was only fear and confusion isn’t something in my control, however. I hate that that’s what happened, and I regret not being who I am now back then, but even though I did fuck up back then, I still did what I could at the time to mitigate the damage and reassure you that a mistake doesn’t define you. I am sorry it wasn’t enough for you to feel okay coming back. But I can’t say I’m sorry for telling you that coming to me on my blog with that kind of mentality is something I’ll tolerate at all.

Ultimately, I’m sorry that our experience of each other was not a good one. I’m sorry that your memory of me is someone scary and mean, and that you felt you had to leave this site entirely for two years because of it. I regret that my actions left you with such a negative experience, because that was never my intention, even though the way I handled things with you was very poor.

I hope you’re able to find the closure you’re looking for and I genuinely wish you all the best.

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ooc-but-stylish · 3 years

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freezedive:

I think I said it in one of your other beautiful posts, but I thought I’d mention it again. All of the ridiculous cutscenes did give us a golden nugget of information on Luna that most of us who are brutally critical of her (like you and me), suspected all along: Luna openly admits to Gentiana that she doesn’t think she has anything to offer Noctis outside of being an oracle. And Gentiana makes it worse by speaking in fancy words by saying some bullshit about her being the oracle is her being human or something and that she is fulfilling her true calling and that is what Noctis needs? Idk but it reeked of emotional manipulation.

I hold little to no regard for Ravus because there’s evidence Luna was being brutally beaten right under his own nose while he was busy being the Emperor’s lapdog thinking it could maybe give him the power to save his sister? The man should have opened his eyes and defended her against the men that kept them jailed

I happened on this reply to roxainn’s post while trying to recapitulate all my other FFXV critical posts and reblogs on the way to making new ones.

Crawling back to find anything about this point, I find that it was posted 3 years ago. But at least I reblogged the reply to it.... and missed that it was literally @ ME. Goddamn did I slack.

But here’s my reply, 3 years late, which should elaborate on where I stand on this.

Yes, the flashback that gets triggered by a random creepy little girl in Tenebrae is about Luna and Gentiana. Somehow the little girl knew about that conversation even though she wasn’t there to witness it first-hand? Or maybe Noctis was imagining what the conversation would be like between Gentiana and Luna off of the vague suggestion from the girl, and it’s just him telling on himself that his imagination of Luna says all that? Otherwise the not-altogether-tinfoil-hat theory says it’s Gentiana in the form of a little girl, telling Noctis something that IMO should piss him off but just makes him sad and guilty because Luna loved him so much, don’t you see. She loved him so much that after wrapping her entire life around him, she’d just want to keep that going for the rest of their lives!

Gentiana opens the conversation with, “At first, the father had mourned the fate of his chosen son. Yet in Tenebrae, the two found solace. It was not the Oracle who assuaged their fears. But the girl…she holds…the true power.”

Then Luna replies, “I have little to offer a king, other than the voice afforded the Oracle. Nevertheless…” She turns to look at the wedding dress. “And—I’m afraid he might find this foolish… But…to be together with Noctis again, even if only for a short while… It…would mean the world to me. I do not seek to guide him, merely to stand beside him.”

The exchange is all types of fucky.

First off, she was twelve. What comfort could she have offered Regis and Noctis? What comfort was she capable of when Sylva was right there, an adult with experience of an Oracle and a personality thanks to a presumable full life not hampered by grooming of the gods?

Second, every other scene of Luna as a child is of her telling Noctis his duty, and that it was her duty to see it through. Did that assuage his fears-- the fears he didn’t have at the time since he never knew the entire meaning of his fate and was being told a saccharine, embellished version of it by Luna right there? Did that comfort Regis, knowing a little girl would also die to protect his son if the gods wanted it, but that she wouldn’t have the will to avert their fates whatsoever?

Third, even she thinks Noctis would think her desire to be with him is foolish. So... was she expecting that Noctis himself didn’t have feelings for her or want to spend time with her of his own volition for reasons outside of her job? She was looking forward to a marriage with no emotional security, where her desires are one-sided and unreciprocated, and the man she cares for think she’s worthless outside of her powers? She would’ve been willing to put herself through that, given a choice?

We know what we know and think what we think, but the fact that this was placed right in the vanilla game and no one thought that was wrong, and instead they doubled down on it in patches, is pathetic on their part.

Moreover, what does The Girl have, that was separate from The Princess and The Oracle? Every facet of her being wrapped around Noctis since age 4. She was nothing but her duty by the time Noctis met her; they had no scenes where they acted as children would. Even supplemental/promotional art for other XV media and related locales cement that. Little Luna serves Little Noctis pastries, she’s not seen eating with him. Luna teaches Noctis how to play piano, she’s not playing with him. Dawn of the Future came out with its own art, and Noctis is afforded the liberty to sit in a chair, and his son(?) sits on his lap, while Luna and her spitting image child(?) are both on their knees, looking up at the dudes.

In most of their art together, Luna and Noctis are either not meeting each other's gazes, she's bending or kneeling to him, or he's supposed to be holding her close but he hover-hands her, or there’s that one time where they took a selfie and the picture was of their Pocket Edition versions. They’re still not looking at each other in that one. And it’s not canon.

Anyway yeah, any conversation Gentiana has with Luna about Noctis is emotional manipulation on Gentiana’s part, but the writers manage just enough to make everyone involved seem creepy and reprehensible in their own way.

In DOTF, Luna has a death soliloquy that confirms she sunk into the water at the end of the game’s Chapter 9, but the soliloquy is about how she was prepared to die even at the age of 12, and she put on a smile and resolved to be strong for Noctis’s sake, so that he wouldn’t remember her having a look of despair. There’s a line there about how she would cry herself to sleep but Gentiana would wipe her tears. Gentiana does nothing else except allow her to cry and wipe her tears afterward, and makes no effort to save her from her fate or at least take her out of terrible situations so that she would cry fewer tears. But there is cut dialogue from the game, and used in the novel, where Gentiana revealed herself as Shiva when Luna was <16 (probably still 12 at the time), when she thought she was being held back from forming the covenants, so there’s that. And Luna still somehow ignored that this meant Shiva allowed Sylva to die, and thanked this useless goddess for her nonexistent generosity.

For whatever reason they had to add a passage where Luna superimposes the image of an eight-year-old Noctis onto the adult version-- quote, "the image of him as a child, burned into my eyelids, overlaps with his now-grown face"-- even though Noctis has canonically sent her photos of him as a teenager (15-16, around the time he met Prompto in high school, see: Brotherhood). Granted, that's a translation from Luna's voice actress reading an excerpt as if it were first person POV. The English version says she sees the child image first, then the adult version is superimposed. Then not much after that there's a passage where Noctis smiles as his child self and it was "that smile she loved that had been in her heart all these years, giving her strength, always and forever".

So she was groomed and turned into a shell since age 4, believes she has no value outside of her job and turned her grooming on a similarly vulnerable child, and her strongest image of him, the one she fell in love with and kept in her heart, is of the helpless boy that promised her the world without knowing the cost. The smile of the carefree boy that didn't know his journey would end with his soul annihilated. It couldn’t have been that hard to have her see an image of him as the 30 year old True King of Light that he would become. At least she'd sound a little less like a weirdo who continually places herself (and is placed by the narrative) as below him, unworthy of him, etc. but also has strong feelings and memories toward a goddamn child.

Re: Ravus: you already got a reply to that, but for real? Ravus was also shafted by the plot and beaten down by terrible, amateur writing. The narrative shits on him as if it’s written by a high schooler or otherwise emotionally arrested adult trying to push a Mary Sue Protagonist. The modus operandi for those stories is that everyone who disagrees with the protagonist in any way has to suffer tremendous humiliation including but not limited to death, because the Protagonist Is Just So Good And Perfect And Always Right.

Nothing Ravus does justifies his treatment in-game or in-fandom like he’s a one-note out-and-out villain who wanted nothing but to kill Noctis and disrespect his sister, to the point where his corpse is defiled multiple times in Chapter 13 and he’s twisted into a perversion of himself that begs to die.

Chapter 13 has Noctis land next to Ravus’s corpse and all his letters to Luna, and Noctis has piss all to say about it, either out loud or to anyone. He looks at the Sword of the Father, glances at Ravus, and without a word takes the Royal Arm and lets the Magitek arm-- still dripping, still gross-- fall onto Ravus’s body and doesn’t even move it.

He had no way of knowing beforehand that Ignis and Gladio knew of Ravus being killed. WE didn't even know they saw security footage until Ch13V2 was added in. Noctis happening on his late fiancée's dead bro sounds, I don’t fucking know, like something you’d want to tell everyone else about later. Along with the letters he wrote evidencing that he intended to return the Sword of the Father to Noctis!

An aside: The Letters from Ravus are just weird to behold; it isn't 100% clear whether Luna ever received all of those letters. She had to have received the first one, at least. But the idea that Ardyn intercepted even one other letter so that Luna never heard from her brother between Tenebrae and Altissia is farfetched. He shouldn’t be able to intercept those messages as if they were delivered conventionally. Luna has a pair of magic space-bending Shiba Inu that send letters instantly across continents. If she’s sparing their use to send Noctis one-liners and stickers but can’t afford that for Ravus to send her discrete updates on Noctis’s status, she’s a piece of shit.

They do meet in Tenebrae as Ravus wanted her to, and they have the conversation where he gets on her case about her “throwing [her] life away” for Noctis. So chances are higher that Ardyn only got a hold of all three letters after Luna received them and no sooner, but then he shouldn’t be tossing letters from Ravus at the dude’s body when it makes more sense for him to toss down letters to Ravus, since the writers wanted to make a point of Ardyn having a vicious streak. It makes way more sense for Ardyn to deprive Ravus of Luna’s writing, then insult him with them post-mortem, unless Ravus’s notes were really all he could acquire, meaning Luna never once wrote back to her brother.

The Doylist explanation is that the writing team sucks and couldn't be assed to think of anything for Luna to say because they didn't think of her at all. The Watsonian explanation is that Luna’s a piece of shit and that tracks with her in Kingsglaive watching her brother burn alive in response to the Ring, but ignoring him and running to Regis’s aid instead, but then the rest of the plot presents her as morally pure through her white clothing and “unconditional, self-abnegating love” for Noctis.

Back to the topic: I don’t know, maybe I’m being old fashioned, but Noctis should’ve given more of a shit that his dropping the Magitek Arm on Ravus’s body was probably what turned him into a mutated abomination begging to die, and he thought so little of Ravus that the dude isn’t even in the glimpse of "people who helped me get this far" in the Beyond. Ravus doesn’t even get a spot to wish Noctis and Luna well on their afterlife wedding, not that it makes any sense for any of them to have words to say since Noctis is already dead, no one was there with them, and none of the bros expressed any sign that they knew that Noctis was bound to get married after his sacrifice (he sure doesn’t mention it in the final campfire scene and that’d be a better place than any). But anyway, Regis is in the Beyond at Noctis’s side even though he never told Noctis a damn thing and still never spoke to him from within the Ring, but Ravus? Nah, he’s the real asshole somehow and doesn’t deserve any recognition whatsoever.

The only other characters I know of that have a remotely similar dynamic to Noctis, Luna, and Ravus (lovers, but the girl has a straight-edge protective brother working for the bad guys) is Nero, Kyrie, and Credo (see: Devil May Cry), but as much as I think the writing in that series is hokey as fuck, at least the writer(s) for DMCs 4 and 5 had enough sense to make the love story simple and based it from a line from Amagasaki City-- “I love you, so I love the city that you love.”-- and opted against portraying Credo as an outright villain because if Nero killed him, Kyrie would resent him for it even though she knew Credo was working for the same Order that threatened her life.

Shouldn’t Noctis care about the shit Luna cares about even if he has no personal investment in it or it’s inconvenient to him? Shouldn’t he care about Tenebrae and its prosperity? or about Ravus? Nah, it’s okay, Noctis doesn’t have to respect Luna’s love for her brother or her kingdom because for all intents and purposes, she doesn’t care for Ravus or for Tenebrae as much as she loves Noctis. Her love for Noctis and her looking forward to the wedding is what matters here.

The yaaaas queen vicious clapback from Kingsglaive!Luna about how Ravus is the Empire’s dog is especially rich coming from her when she’s fellating the gods all through the game even though Eos’s equivalent of The Holy Bible says the Hexatheon’s Revelations destroy cities and that undoubtedly means people are killed by the gods, and their summoner is complicit, because there’s no such thing as a perfect evacuation. See: "Revelations left great devastation in their wake, with entire cities being laid to ruin," noted in the Cosmogony long before the True King even exists.

Luna herself didn’t see a problem with this and helped in the effort, with no regard to the collateral damage she would cause with the summoning: bonus points for the part where Leviathan is hostile to humanity and threatens to eat every living being if Noctis fails! She had even less regard to the damage Niflheim would cause in their attempt to kill the gods even though she was first-hand witness to them sacking Insomnia. Waking and defeating Titan deprived Lestallum of the meteor they derived power from. Waking Leviathan destroyed Altissia. Luna’s refusal to leave Insomnia when told to by Regis led to her being used as bait and taking the whole of the Kingsglaive out of Insomnia in time for their Face Heel Turn and Insomnia being destroyed. Everything else leads to the eventual World of Ruin where people also die.

All because she killed herself prematurely from the covenants and didn’t hold back the longer nights as she promised to the public’s face and on her honor as Oracle she would do. Her dying words in Chapter 9 were her being completely satisfied with her fate because “[her] prayers were answered, [her] calling fulfilled”, even though the calling requires that she dies and she should’ve known better than anyone that her death, even if it was for Noctis’s ascension, would endanger the rest of the world for 10 years and helped the Starscourge spread. But instead of fighting for her own life to stem the plague for as long as possible, she let herself die under the belief that "Noct can handle this" to give him the chance to be the revered King of Light. She also didn’t make a single appearance on the world of the living in her spirit form during those ten years until Noctis needed help with a piddly imitation of the Magic Wall, only then does she come down in her ghost form with seemingly all of her power intact, and summons five of The Six as if Noctis can’t easily do it himself.

But Ravus is the lapdog? Luna’s the one with her “ends justify the means” behavior and what looks like general neglect for actual human beings.

Anyway, Ravus stabs Caligo in the back and kills him, and that move only makes sense in light of the idea that Caligo was manhandling Luna as seen in the Dawn trailer. Ravus was 16 when Tenebrae was overrun, and there’s no reason to believe he was magically immune to institutional abuse, so there’s a high chance that he was abused by the Empire too, held resentment of that, and waited for the time he’d be able to retaliate with no repercussions. Gentiana as a goddess is 1000000% more on the hook about letting Luna be beaten than Ravus is, since he saw his mother die in front of him while Regis ran away. Regis had the power of the Ring and could have used elemancy to put out that fire, or void magic to banish Glauca and his MT army, didn’t do that, but he totally spares enough magic during the treaty signing to toss around Thunder spells straight from his hand, cast barriers, and summon some Royal Arms straight at Iedolas, and that’s bad enough. Gentiana who’s been the Fleuret family attendant since Luna was born and also is Shiva who can freeze people with her fingertip had even less excuse to let that fire rage, to let Sylva die protecting her son, and to stand by and allow her ward(s) to get thrown around by some random Imperial soldier.

#freezedive #ffxv critical #ffxv criticism #lunafreya critical #gentiana critical #regis critical #lunafreya nox fleuret #ravus nox fleuret #regis lucis caelum #ravus deserved better #long read

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dr-fumbles-mcstupid · 4 years

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Happy pride month everyone! A friendly reminder that I identify as asexual aromantic. There is a lot of bullshit discourse in the Lgbtqia community about a lot of things. One of those things is that Aro & Ace people don't belong, they aren't discriminated against. Or they aren't "actually queer."

Fun fact #1. I first heard the term asexual as a 22 year old. I found it through a fanfic online, it was so underrepresented I didn't know it was a thing. No form of published media had ever told me about it, no person I knew had ever used the word. To this day

in popular media, off the top of my head I can think of 3 asexual characters, only one of which identifies as aromantic. Jughead from Archie comics (but not in Riverdale, because aro/ace isn't part of LGBTQ+ so it isn't erasure right?), Todd from BoJack Horseman, and apparently there was an ace character in the SYFY channel series lost girl.

Fun fact #2, I went on a few dates with a guy at the age of 20, it didn't go any further. He apparently told people I slept with him. I found out my older sister was close friends with a mutual friend of his, and when Briana (my sister) spoke up to that friend and said that was 100% a lie because she knew I did not (we didn't talk about a lot of sex things, but I think she had an inkling about me being ace even then), her close friend said that I had obviously lied to mysister becuase no one got to the age of 20 without having sex.

Fun fact #3, our whole society is really based upon the ideas of cohabitation and romance in particular. Almost all forms of media portray romance, and it often shows that a person isn't happy, or that their life hasn't really started until they find their perfect romantic partner. Leaving out how toxic that is to people romantically inclined (the need to constantly be with a partner, making it seem like you need to find 'the one', bad portrayals of what a relationship should actually be) it is incredibly disheartening to an aro person, and it makes it much much harder for non aro people to relate to, or even comprehend aro people.

Fun fact # 3b, a number of years ago a close friend of mine started a new relationship and had been in the "puppy love" phase where They dropped everyone but their Significant other for almost 7 month. I asked Facebook what the normal timeline for 'puppy love' or what they thought it should be was. Almost 99% of people said that when they met their significant other, or when they got married they dropped Almost all of their non familial aquentences including friends. People argued that this was normal and expected. They believe that once they found their romantic love that no other relationships were needed

Fun fact #4, I don't identify as sex repulsed, talking about sex or even engaging in sex with others, doesn't disgust or trigger me. Despite this people often treat me as ignorant of sex, and sexual urges, Sex Ed in general, and even if I was, like so what? Where this gets worse, is there is a perception that I am inoocent, or infantile becuase I haven't had the experience of sex, or have no desire to. This goes to relationships as well. I did have one serious relationship, and I dated people casually as well. Even if I didn't I am a smart person, romantic relationships are built on the foundation of compatability, honest open conversation, and friendship. I know this Even though I don't want a romantic partner. 😱 I still like movies and books with romance in them!!! 😱 I understand the concept of romance!!! 😱 You don't have to treat me like an idiot, or think I can't have advice for you/somone who is in a relationship!

Fun fact #5, I experience multiple micro aggressions every day, even from friends and family members. Every time I go to a new therapist I will mention being asexual, and their response will be "well that is probably because of your medication." I know some medications can erase your libido, but I have been on over 20 different medications over a period of 15 years. I still have a libido (sexual desire does not = sexual attraction, look up sex favorable and sex repulsed asexuals). I will explain this to them and yet every therapist I have ever had has still tried to persuade me that I was wrong about this.

People in my life will make jokes about me going on dates or meeting the mother of a friend becuase you know, I'm obvs gonna fall in love! People can't be friends, and "I don't think aromanticism is a thing." On the other side of the spectrum I have a few friends who say they support me, but then whenever I say "Chris Hemsworth is so attractive" or "She-Hulk is Bae, 10/10" , they automatically use it as ammo for discourse on why "maybe you are confused?". Being able to tell that someone is aesthitcally pleasing does not = sexual attraction. Even aro and ace people talk in this manner a lot becuase of fandom and online discourse, and how people Interact in general.

And finally, if I was wrong and I am just confused and not "really aromantic or asexual becuase it is just a mental or physical disease" (it's not) how does this hurt me or you? I am happy without sex or a romantic partner, I would be fine living the rest of my life without it, friends are enough! (although a queer platonic partner would be 👌👌👌). Even if I was misinformed and misguided (I am not), It isn't hurting anyone.

TLDR, #Aromantic and #Asexual people are #LGBTQIA, we are discriminated against, and it is a valid identity. The more you know #Pride2019

#pride month #asexual #aromantic #gay pride #pride 2020

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chloelucia13 · 4 years

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To Dream

Pairing: Spencer Reid x reader

Prompt: After a case takes a turn for the worst, Spencer can’t help the doubt of your future riddling his brain. But when he closes his eyes, everything is okay. If only for a moment. Based off the song “Epiphany” by Taylor Swift

Warnings: angst, a little fluff, mentions of death, language, violence, gore, it’s just a ride y’all (italics are memories, words in bold are dreams)

Word count: 4.1k

A/N: So I’ve gotten sucked into the Criminal Minds fandom, and now it’s time to do what I do best: write sad fan fiction. I hope you all enjoy! My requests are open 24/7 and so is my taglist!

Tags: @sojournmichael

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

You’ve done this a million times. The case was so simple, so easy to dissect.

Maybe you got cocky. Maybe you underestimated the unsub. Maybe this was all your fault.

Nausea churned in your stomach as you screeched to a halt in front of the old auto body shop. You knew that you would find a house of horrors as soon as you stepped inside, but the adrenaline in your veins told you to ignore your hesitation and the breakfast from this morning that was crawling up your esophagus.

“I’m going in,” you announced, unbuckling your seatbelt and nearly throwing yourself out of the car.

“Y/N, wait, you need backup,” Spencer shouted after you as you hurried to the entrance.

You stopped in front of the building, turning to give him a look. “Spence, you heard his message.”

This man, this murderer, seemed to be infatuated with the media coverage of the case. You caught on to the fact that he was following along closely with the case after he sent a haunting letter to the precinct, detailing where he was and that he would give himself up to the police, as long as his legacy would not be forgotten.

Turns out, the media coverage wasn’t the only thing he was infatuated with.

It was realized at the beginning of researching this case that you fit his type to a t, but you never expected that it would become this.

His other request? That you were the only one to capture him and take him into custody.

Spencer opened his mouth to argue but you cut him off. “If anyone goes in there but me, it’ll be a bloodbath,” you reminded him.

He gulped, weighing his options for a moment. “Fine. The rest of the team is on the way. As soon as you’ve got him, radio to me and we’ll send everyone in,” he instructed, worry marring his features.

“Everything’s gonna be fine. I promise, doc.” You gave him a gentle smile before turning on your heel and entering the building, your gun drawn.

The smell of coagulated blood and decomposition hit your nostrils the moment you stepped inside, making your stomach lurch. You bit down on your cheek so harshly the taste of copper tinged your tongue.

“Randy McAllister, this is the FBI,” you announced your presence, edging around the corner into the main part of the garage.

“Ah, Agent Y/L/N, I thought you’d never make it,” a voice hummed to the right of you.You turned your head to see him standing with a gun in his right hand, a woman on her knees in front of him.

“Let her go, Randy. She’s got nothing to do with this.”

He chuckled. “Oh darling, she has everything to do with this. She’s my replacement for you, can’t you tell?” He glided the tip of his gun against her forehead, brushing a strand of hair from her face.

“Then give me her, and you can get what you want.”

“You really thought I was gonna be that easy?” He clicked his tongue. “Take off your vest.”

You scoffed. “I’m not taking off my vest.”

he clenched his jaw, hovering his finger over the trigger. “Take off your vest or I’ll blow her fucking brains out!”

You knew not to question him. He’d done it five times already, so what’s stopping him from doing it again.

You slowly slid your gun into your holster before ripping the velcro apart, pulling your kevlar vest off and setting it on the ground. “There, are you happy?”

He grinned, baring his teeth like a rabid dog, before pushing the girl forward. You bent down and helped her up before directing her to run, waiting until you could no longer hear her footsteps before you drew your gun once more.

“Alright, Randy. I did what you wanted. Now drop your weapon and put your hands above your head.”

His grin slowly fell, letting his gun clatter to the ground before he rose his hands in the air, surrendering.

You stepped behind him, yanking his hands behind his back and holding them together with one hand while you searched for your cuffs with the other.

Everything moved so suddenly.

A sharp crack echoed through the garage as he slammed his head back into yours, shattering the cartilage in your nose. You stumbled back, clutching onto your nose as you tried to regain your balance.

He grabbed you by your shirt and threw you to the ground, climbing on top of you and wrapping a hand around your throat. You clawed at his hand and kicked with all your might, finally landing one solid blow to his groin.

He swayed, and you gathered enough strength to roll him over, pinning him to the ground.

But you didn’t account for his hands.

As you held his shoulders against the concrete, a shot rang out.

Your abdomen felt warm as the rest of your body felt as if it was stuck in a freezer. Slowly, you rolled off of Randy and laid on your back, staring up at the ceiling.

Voices began to echo around you, a muffled sound that mimicked the effect of your head being held underwater. “Agent down, we need a medic!”

Your eyelids fluttered open and closed at a snail-like pace, eyes flickering around the room to try and figure out what was going on.

And then they shot open wide as the burning sensation began, a feeling as if your organs were being shredded apart with red hot knives.

“Y/N, what happened?”

Your eyes finally focused on Spencer’s face hovering above you, tears in his eyes. “Tis just a flesh wound,” you whispered, your lungs burning.

He glanced between you and the bullet wound in your chest. “Are you quoting Monty Python right now?”

You let out a chuckle, feeling tears begin to sting your eyes. “It’s what I do when I’m panicking. You should know that by now.” Slowly, you reached your hand down to where you felt the pain resonate, eyes growing wide when you felt something wet soak your hand. “Oh my god.”

Tears began streaking down his face, his lip caught in-between his teeth to keep from crying out.

Without thinking, you reached your hands up to wipe away his tears, a look of terror residing on your face when a dark crimson smeared across his cheeks. “Oh god,” you gasped out, moving to pull your sleeves over your hands and try to wipe away the blood. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” The blood smeared around his cheek, and you felt the room spinning around you.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Just breathe for me. Calm down.”

You nodded, desperately trying to gasp in a solid breath, but to no avail. A sob left your lips, and you felt a rush of blood pour down your sides. “I-I can’t.” You shook your head. “I think... I think I’m bleeding out, doc.”

“No, no, don’t say that. You’re gonna be just fine.” He pulled away from your gaze for a moment to search around. “Where the fuck is the medic?!”

“Spence.”

His eyes fell back onto your face, hazel irises boring into yours as tears dripped down his face. You dedicated his face to memory, trying to remember the way his skin felt under your fingertips, the gentle scratch of his stubble, the way his hair would glide between your fingertips, worried that it you would never be able to experience it again.

“I love you,” you choked out, sniffling. “I love you so much.”

He nodded, a crease forming between his brows as he tried his hardest to contain his sobs. “I love you too. So much.”

He felt as if he died when he watched your eyelids slowly flutter closed, and then stopped moving altogether. He continued applying pressure to your wound, feeling your blood soak through his windbreaker and onto his hands.

Suddenly he was shoved away, and he watched in a daze as a group of medics quickly checked your vitals before lifting you on a stretcher and rushing you out of the building. He pushed himself to his feet and stumbled behind them, clambering into the back of the ambulance.

They attached an oxygen mask with a bag valve, attempting to pump oxygen into your lungs. He watched as your chest rose and fell, wishing it wasn’t being controlled by someone else.

The tips of your hair twirled between his fingers, a dazed look on his face as his eyes tracked each breath you took. Breathe in, gentle rise. Breathe out, gentle droop. He felt the soft rush of air against his skin, making his heart race under your cheek.

He didn’t dare move, too worried that if he did, you would wake up. It was rare that he would see you in such a peaceful state, so fragile and unguarded. He wouldn’t dare ruin it. He never knew when it would be the last time he could witness it.

“Her vitals are crashing, she’s going into V FIB!” an EMT shouted, startling him back to the present. “Bring me the AED.” He watched as they applied two wired pads to your chest and turned up a dial, signaling before delivering an electric shock. Your body flinched from the shock, only for it to collapse back down and lay flat.

He felt like he was going to vomit. His hands were clutching onto your free one, unable to tear his eyes away from your ashen face.

He couldn’t decide if it would be better if you were in a black void, unaware of anything that was going on, or if you could feel and hear every single thing that was occurring. He mostly just hoped that you weren’t scared.

But the only thought on his mind, when they finally arrived to the ER and he watched you get rushed into the OR, was that he couldn’t live without you.

*** “Spence, you can head home. I’ll take over,” Emily instructed as she stepped into the waiting room, nudging his shoulder slightly.

He just shook his head, staring at the glass windows in front of him that peered into the hallways of the hospital.

“You need to get some rest,” she persisted, sitting down next to him. “Just go lay down for a few hours, I’ll call you if anything happens.”

“I-I can’t just leave. If something happens...” Spencer mumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. He couldn’t tell if he was being defensive, or if he was trying to desperately hold himself together.

“She’s gonna be just fine. She’s a fighter.”

He let out a shuddering breath, his eyes falling closed for a moment. “The survival rate after going into V FIB is 50%.”

“Well, 50% seems like a pretty good probability to me.”

“That doesn’t account for the blood loss or oxygen deprivation. She lost over four pints of blood. The body goes into hypovolemic after losing only two pints. Any more than that, and the body will most likely fall into a coma.”

Now he understood how everyone else felt when he spewed out facts. It was torturous, unwilling to allow him to slip away from the predicament for even a moment.

The image of your body bleeding out on the dirty floor was imprinted in his mind. Even if he didn’t have an eidetic memory, there was no way that he could ever forget it.

Emily pursed her lips. “But she’ll be alive. She might be banged up, but she isn’t gone. She’s not going anywhere anytime soon.” She squeezed his shoulder. “You know, if Y/N were here right now, she’d be yelling at you to go and take a nap.”

He let out a watery chuckle at that, sniffling slightly. “I can’t leave, Emily. Not until I hear something from the doctors.”

She sighed. “Fine. I’m gonna set a timer on my phone for 20 minutes, and you will sleep until that timer goes off. If you get up any time during that, I’m restarting the timer. Deal?”

“Emily-”

“Spencer, you know better than anybody the effects of sleep deprivation on a person. You’re not going to be any use here if you’re tired.”

He clenched his jaw, already feeling his eyelids begin to droop. “Fine. But only 20 minutes.”

***

He never thought that golden could be a feeling, until he met you. His whole being, his whole soul felt as if it was dripping with the warm yellow hue.

He may have felt golden, but you were golden. You were the sun to him, something that he treasured with his whole being but worried he would be blinded by your beauty, turned into mush from your warmth. He still risked it, staring at you for so long so he could memorize every aspect of you before his sight left him.

Your scent of sunshine and sweet morning dew lingered on everything he owned, and he was addicted to it. He could smell it now, swooning over it.

“Your hair’s getting shaggy, doc.”

Spencer hummed, fluttering his eyes open and seeing that his head was laying in your lap, the two of you perched underneath a tree in the park down the road from your shared apartment.

“Yeah? You want me to cut it?” he teased, shifting slightly to look up at you.

You grinned, ruffling his hair slightly before leaning down and pressing a kiss to the crown of his head. “Never.”

His eyes flickered over your face, taking in every small detail. “You’re so beautiful.”

You scoffed, gently gliding your finger along his jawline. “I can say the same for you, pretty boy.”

“I’m serious.” He huffed, sitting up and taking your hand in his, staring directly into your eyes for a moment. He mimicked your ministrations, taking his finger and tracing along your collarbone, against the angle of your jawbone, down the slope of your nose, and down the dip of your cupid’s bow. His eyes followed his finger, a small wrinkle forming between his brows. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

A grin settled on your face, gently pulling his fingers from your skin and pressing your lips to his fingertips. “What’s got you being so sappy?”

He let out a chuckle, shaking his head slightly before touching his lips to yours. “I’m so in love with you.”

A pleased sigh escaped your lips, and your eyes searched his. “I’m so in love with you too. Now will you please tell me what’s going on?” You shifted into his lap, entwining your arms around his neck and playing with his hair.

“I...” He gulped, his eyes squeezing shut for a moment. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

“Spencer.” The corners of your lips crooked into a frown and you rested a hand on his cheek. “What makes you think I’ll ever leave you?”

“Y/N, you’re dying.”

“What do you mean? I’m right here. And I know you’re not a medical doctor, but I know you’re smart enough to know when someone is alive.”

He shook his head, sniffling. “No, you-you’re laying on an operating table right now. This isn’t real. None of this is real.”

“It’s real enough, isn’t it?”

He shot up with a gasp, immediately burying his head in his hands and letting out a shuddering breath.

“Spence, that was only eleven min-” Emily began.

He ignored her, pushing himself to his feet and propelling himself towards the bathrooms. He stumbled into the bathroom and gripped onto the edge of the sink, sucking in deep breaths until his lungs burned. Bile rose in his throat and he willed himself to keep it down, gaining enough strength to turn on the cold water and splash his face.

A hand touched his shoulder and he stood up straight in a panic. “Calm down, man, it’s just me,” Derek consoled, holding his hands up. “Are you okay?”

Spencer shook his head fervently, running his hands over his face before pulling them through his hair. “I can’t lose her.”

Derek reached forward, grabbing Spencer’s shoulder and tugging him into a tight hug. ‘’You’re not gonna lose her. She’s strong, and she’s stubborn as all hell. If she’s gonna die, it’s gonna be by her own terms.”

And Spencer sobbed.

***

It had been over four hours, and the entire team still had yet to hear anything from the doctors. The sun had already set, and almost everyone had headed home for the night.

But Spencer was still sat in the waiting room, eyelids drooping lower and lower with each passing moment of silence.

He wanted so badly to sleep, to go back to that peaceful moment in his mind where he could lay with you and forget anything bad ever happened, but he couldn’t let himself. He couldn’t let himself succumb to a fantasy when in reality, you were laying on an operating table with multiple surgeons working to keep you alive.

“Mr. Reid?”

Spencer rose to his feet at once, all feelings of exhaustion fleeing his body and being replaced with pure adrenaline. “Yes?”

The doctor gave him a curt nod before directing him into the hall. Spencer followed behind him and stood in a nervous silence as he watched her flip through a clipboard.

“She’s alive, and she’s in stable condition,” she explained, looking away from her clipboard.

He felt as if he was floating, a high he never even imagined was possible.

“But she is in a coma, and probably will remain that way for the next few days.”

And there it was.

“But-But you think she’ll wake up?” Spencer rushed out, shifting from foot to foot.

“Definitely. Her body needs time to rest, but she’ll wake up as soon as she’s ready.”

Spencer let out a sigh of relief, a small smile residing on his lips. “Thank you, doctor.”

“You’re a lucky man. We almost lost her, but she fought with all she had. She wanted to stay here.”

He knew that her claims were impossible, but there was an inkling in the back of his mind that maybe she was right. So, instead of responding, he just nodded. “Can-” He cleared his throat. “Can I see her?”

The doctor pressed her lips together in thought for a moment before nodding. “Right this way.”

He followed her through the hospital halls, leading him through the winding maze until they stopped in front of room 112. She gestured to the door before retreating, leaving him alone.

All attempts to catch his breath were futile for the moment he stepped through the door, all the air left his lungs. He couldn’t tell if he was staring at your sleeping form in horror or fondness as he inched towards your bedside, settling into the chair next to you.

“You’re alive,” were the only words he could formulate, repeating them like a mantra while he took your hand in his and pressed feather-light kisses to your knuckles.

Finally, he let his head rest against the thin blanket on your bed, and his eyes drooped closed.

Poppies were your favorite flower. They symbolized peace, something neither of you were familiar with due to your jobs.

Spencer never understood how a flower could symbolize something so complex until he opened his eyes.

He was completely, utterly at peace.

You stood in a field of bright red poppies, a white dress cascading around your frame and a megawatt smile on your face.

Sunshine. Golden.

As if out of a scene from a romance movie (one that you probably forced him to watch), he ran through the fields, coming towards you. Once you were within reach, he wrapped both of his arms around your waist and clung onto you like a vice.

A breathless laugh fell from your lips as you returned the hug, letting your arms hook around his neck. “Hi, my love,” you whispered.

He knew none of this was real. He knew that every memory of you was being pulled from his brain all at once and letting him feel a moment of peace.

But he also knew that he wanted to stay here, at least for a little while.

“Hi, my love,” he echoed, burying his face in the crook of your neck.

“Are you alright?” You pulled away slightly, searching his eyes as you brought one hand to cup his face. “You’re crying.”

“I’m just fine.” He gave you a smile, gently taking your hand from his face and placing your hand in his own. “I’m perfect.”

“Are you sure? Did I do-”

“Y/N,” he interrupted, squeezing your hand gently. “Everything’s fine. Don’t worry.”

You took a deep breath and nodded, letting your shoulders drop. “Sorry, I just... I know you’ve been feeling sad lately. I just want to make sure it isn’t because of me.”

His brows furrowed together, worry lines settling on his forehead. “Of course not. Why would you think that?”

“Because every time you look at me, you cry.”

Those words made his heart drop to his stomach. He knew that this was all in his mind, but it was still your voice. He felt all the hurt, all the guilt.

“I...” A small sob bubbled in his throat, and he pulled you back into his tight embrace. “I just don’t want to lose you. I’m not ready yet.”

You nodded, gripping onto the fabric of his shirt and holding him as close as you possibly could. “Well, right now, you have me. Is that not enough?”

“But it’s not real. I need the real you.”

“Then you have to wake up, my love.”

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up

“Spencer, wake up.”

His eyes flew open, a hand immediately coming up to rub at them. “What?” he grumbled, holding back a yawn.

“God, I’ve tried waking you up for the past five minutes.”

His eyes flickered up to see a pair of Y/E/C eyes staring back at him.

“You’re awake.”

“I can say the same thing about you, sleepyhead,” you teased, weakly patting his hand.

“Oh my god. You’re okay.” He pushed himself to his feet and hovered his hands over your face, fearful that if he touched you, you would disappear.

“I’m okay, doc.” Your words were slurred, but that was expected. He still knew what you were saying, and even if he didn’t, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that you were awake, that you were alive.

He let out an incredulous laugh as he bent down and pressed a gentle kiss to your lips. “I thought I lost you.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” You hands slowly reached up, letting your fingers graze along his cheek. “Hi, my love.”

“Hi, my love.” He grinned at you. “I thought you weren’t supposed to be awake for a few more days, at least.”

“I guess I just had to wake up. I couldn’t stand being gone from you that long.” You pulled your lower lip between your teeth. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I-If I wasn’t so cocky, none of this would have happened. You all wouldn’t be wondering whether I’m gonna live or not. I wouldn’t be stuck in a hospital bed with a hole in my chest. You... You wouldn’t be crying.” You gestured to the tears on his cheeks as tears began to stream down your own. “I wouldn’t be crying.”

“Y/N,” he sighed, taking your hand in his and pressing his lips to the back of it. “None of this is your fault. Don’t you ever blame yourself for this.”

You nodded with a sniffle, pulling his hand to your lips and reciprocating his actions. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The two of you sat in a comfortable silence for a moment, letting yourselves take in everything that was happening.

“Once you get released from the hospital and you’re healed, do you want to get married?”

Your eyes widened in shock at his words, searching his face to make sure that he was being honest. “Are you proposing?”

He shrugged, feeling his cheeks begin to burn. “I-I mean I don’t have a ring yet but... I think I am.”

“Well, if you think you’re proposing, I think I’ll say yes.”

Both of your cheeks ached from how wide you were smiling, that smile never faltering when he pressed his lips to yours and let them linger.

“Can we have poppies at our wedding?” you mumbled against his lips.

He chuckled, nodding.

Pure sunshine.

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #criminal minds #spencer reid angst #spencer reid fluff #tw: violence #tw: blood #criminal minds x reader #criminal minds writing #fan fiction #fanfiction #fan fic #fanfic #taylor swift #folklore #spencer x reader #emily prentiss #derek morgan

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palmett-hoes · 4 years

Note

how do you think this fandom deals with "measuring" trauma? i've seen a couple posts detailing aaron's reaction to trauma/nicky's reaction//seth's/etc and it seems like some people have a tier list of trauma responses in regards to the foxes? like what's "acceptable" versus what isn't, and who's trauma was "enough" to make their actions excusable versus others. this doesn't make much sense but i hope you get where i'm coming from?

no no i get you don't worry

i think it’s something i used to see more said explicitly than i see it now. like i definitely remember a point in the fandom when ppl were very openly mad at aaron for the way he acted in the books and especially him not being “grateful” enough for all that andrew had “done for him.” additionally seth used to be used as a minor villain or an abusive ex in fics a lot more than i see now. then of course there was a period of calling out these trends and reminding ppl that these are books about trauma, not books about ethics, and that you really really can’t read them without attempting compassion for every character. they’re not books about who’s right and who’s wrong, they can’t really be read in terms of theory or ideology. they’re about survival and recovery.

i haven’t really seen those sentiments in the past few years tho, at least not as openly as they once were, nor have i seen the old posts recirculating. at the same time, i think that there’s less meta and character analysis being written in general so there’s also less debate in general. i don’t see the whole fandom tho, just who i follow and the stuff from the tags that shows up on my tl. if this stuff is actively still going on idk about it, though i’d like to think we as a collective have moved on from seeing trauma as a zero-sum game

additionally, because of the discourse period over them it seems like aaron and seth in particular are treated with extra care not to invalidate that they came from abusive situations and were shaped by that. i’d say it’s now seen as bad taste to openly denounce what a character has been through as “not enough”

however

measuring trauma isn’t always angry, it isn’t always saying to a character “you didn’t go through enough” or “he went through more so shut up.” measuring trauma can also be dismissive. it can take the form of simply choosing not to include it. of removing character traits or actions or topics that make us uncomfortable or are maybe complicated to approach. by removing them or replacing them or avoiding them and simply writing like they’re not there, you essentially get to the same place as saying “get over it” but instead you write them as having, well, gotten over it

so i do still see people measuring trauma it’s just not as outright anymore. instead it’s paring certain characters down for ease and digestibility, and simply not engaging with their trauma and circumstances

i would say i see this most often with the upperclassmen, dan, matt, and allison especially (and nicky even though he’s not an upperclassmen) (ik i mentioned him but seth content is still pretty few and far between) (renee’s trauma has the “rule of cool” so it still gets in there). i’ve mentioned before how sidelined the upperclassmen are in fan works and some of the unfortunate implications of that, but another dimension is not acknowledging or considering their individual backgrounds. they all come from some pretty fucked up circumstances and more than that they’re all SHAPED by those circumstances

in the books, they are all wary isolationists with attitude issues. they can be mean, they can be nasty, and they can be violent. they come from poverty, abuse, neglect, drug addicition, gang violence, and sex trafficking. they are treated with extreme suspicion by their school, the media, their classmates, and their fellow athletes, and they respond with suspicion right back. their relationships with each other are often on thin ice. they treat neil the way they do - tolerate his puzzle pieces that don’t fit together right without questioning - because they can all recognize themselves in him. and on the flip side, neil is able to relate to them for the same reasons, because they are also wary dogs used to being hit

but then i so often see the upperclassmen used in ways that mostly imply they’re like,, mostly normal, chill, often quite woke. goofy and cool. they all grew up watching disney movies and going to carnivals. they get used as a contrast for neil and andrew to highlight their traumatized behavior and the extremity of their circumstances, and if their trauma gets mentionted at all it’s in passing and it doesn’t inform the way they act. their trauma isn’t sufficient to inform their actions so it just,, doesn’t factor in or get mentioned really and they’re all nice, friendly, happy-go-lucky neurotypicals who are trying to teach poor traumatized neil how to be normal. tell me that isn’t measuring trauma

it’s annoying, in all honesty, especially since it now seems to come in a form that’s hard to call out because it’s no longer content that actually states a bad opinion so much as it is a lack of content or consideration for certain characters, pushing them further and further into the background and giving them increasingly more vague, palatable, and relatable characterizations.

in fact, it often comes off as praise, by ascribing them positive traits like nicky being a good guardian for the twins or allison being super knowledgeable about lgbt stuff or dan being a “queen” or matt being a “himbo” and because this is all good stuff it’s fine, right? it’s better than canon actually, right? except actually what it is is dismissive of their trauma and individual experiences. it’s a series of easily digestible filler words used to make the messy, ugly, complicated characters of canon softer and easier to swallow

also this is by no means restricted to the upperclassmen it’s just the one that slips most through the cracks. i definitely see this happening to andrew, too, but it works in slightly different ways and is a whole other discussion

#txt #the upperclassmen #dan wilds #matt boyd #allison reynolds #fandom #my posts #im talkin #ask #nicky hemmick

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lilydalexf · 4 years

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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Dreamshaper

Dreamshaper has 54 stories at Gossamer. Her stories often feature Mulder and Scully exploring their feelings in ways you really, really wish you could’ve seen on the show. I’ve recced some of my favorites of her stories here before, including Found in Memory, Just By Existing, Purpose, and Promise. Big thanks to Dreamshaper for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I'm not at all surprised people are still reading X-Files fanfic! There's a deep catalogue of good and interesting fiction there, and the X-Files still has cultural significance. And of course there were the recent seasons to bring it back to mind. I think if you had asked me in 2000, I might not have supposed that it had this kind of staying power. So now I'm thinking of this interview as a time capsule--what will my answer be in 2040?

My own fic was not designed to have staying power. If anyone is reading it now, bless them, they are kind and patient. I would only recommend probably reading the first and last things I posted just to see what kind of growth is possible. The first time I ever posted fic, someone told me to never write again. I was a teenager. I was crushed but I went on writing anyway, and I worked hard to improve.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I think of two things. As for the show itself, I still think of Mulder/Scully as the ultimate in romance. I can still picture certain moments from the episodes, from the movie. I look for pairings with tension that reminds me of theirs--an almost-regency level of UST, but with a modern element of danger.

As for the fandom itself, I grew up in it. My entire online life and the core of how I participate in fandom was formed here. I was 17 or so when I started writing and posting MSR. I was 18 or 19 when I started meeting fans in real life. I was fortunate enough to fall in with people who were equal parts gracious and nerdy, and while my own nerdiness is innate, I remember and emulate the kindness which was shown to me.

I have an entire side post to this question about how strongly I disagree with the current age stratification in fandom--this idea of not interacting across artificial age divides is tragic to me.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

ATXC, and mailing lists. I don't actually remember the names of all the mailing lists! I can picture myself sitting in my kitchen on my computer, and what the emails looked like--the font, the signature lines--but not the names. I can even remember specific conversations we had! One of them must have been Scullyfic, because I remember the first meetup being planned. Is that right? Was it the Scullyfic meetup? [Lilydale note: Probably was Scullyfic. There was a big email flurry when the first Scullyfic mailing list meetup was being planned.] My mind was absolutely blown by the idea of a fan con. Now I've led panels at a dozen of them.

I remember some of the arguments, too. It's funny that some of them are the same arguments I still see here and there, like whether or not criticism of a fanwork is valid. Real Person Fic being this unbelievably shameful thing you had to ask to be shown, and the doyennes of the fandom would have given you the cut direct at Almack's if they'd found out, you know?

This was also the era of AIM and ICQ. mIRC too, right? I spent a lot of time in channels. I absolutely loved when people started to be more open about themselves in chats. I was always so interested in how fandom fit into people's lives. Some people I talked to were moms, college students, people who had interesting careers, and they all just found ways to make fandom work for them. They had a need and were meeting it, despite the pressures of their offline life.

I don't know how to explain the impression that made on me, but--it normalized fandom. That seems obvious, maybe, but I hadn't known this was something you could integrate into your everyday life.

It also normalized the idea of women taking their own needs as primary, in a way that went beyond what I was exposed to in my home life, or through the feminism of the 1990s. There was this wild intersection of the--the domestic and intellectual life of women, and the playful life of women, just making itself known to me in a way I'd never seen before. That was enormous. Absolutely a foundational experience for me.

My experience was that ATXC and email lists were like, these surface-level interactions where people figured out, roughly, if your mind ran on a similar track to theirs, and then you were invited to make deeper relationships in more private corners of the internet. Social media filled both functions at once, I think, for a while. But the privacy was missing. I'm not surprised that Slack and Discord are starting to fill that private corner gap--everything old becomes new, etc.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

UST and monsters. This is still an unbeatable combination for me!

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I loved romance novels--I read so many of them. Somehow, before we even had a computer at home, I started to tell myself romance novel stories with Mulder and Scully as the lead characters. This was how I talked myself to sleep--I wasn't a good sleeper. Then when I got online and did whatever search led me to ATXC, I was just shocked. Shocked! Can't do the surprise justice, in this era where fanfic is relatively mainstream. Other people had also independently invented this thing I loved! But they wrote their ideas down! I jumped on the bandwagon immediately.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

It's like my relationship to my childhood, frankly. Foundational, but I don't think about it all that much on a daily basis, right? I smile and reblog gif sets. I get nostalgic. I get embarrassed by social mistakes I made. I feel the way many of us do about memories from our teenage years. I wouldn't be who I was without it, but I'm not still in it.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I was. I've spent 20 years in fandom! I did some beta work for someone who'd started writing slash--The Sentinel. The actual Sentinel, not just an endless loop of Sentinel AUs based on Sentinel AUs based on etc. I had some idea at the time that I was queer, but this was my first real exposure to romances that weren't straight. So I tore my way through the early 2000s slash fandoms as they developed: The Sentinel, Due South, Stargate Atlantis. Popslash, where a mix of good writing and absurdity ruled. Bandom, where I met my wife. Since then, many smaller fandoms.

It's hard to compare any of these things to each other, let alone to the X-Files. In each one, I was lucky enough to find a circle of women who were strong beta readers and good friends. I never wrote as much or for as long as I did in the X-Files.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I watched the new episodes. I've shown friends important episodes--I remember that a few years ago, another friend and I tried to hook a third friend on the show by binging some favorites--mostly shippy MOTW, so it was like, Arcadia, Triangle, Bad Blood. Fun stuff!

We finish watching and I'm like, well? And? And she says, that was fine, but I'm more of a man-pain, secret babies kind of person? I'll never forget it. She had no idea but she'd hit the nail on the head! We were wheezing with laughter. We went back and watched mytharc episodes, which was much less fun for me, but much more interesting to her.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don't read X-Files fic often. I look at new things sometimes, and I've reread a few old classics, but my reading taste has changed so much. I still love straight romance, but it needs to be fast and sharp in a way that is hard to find.

I read fic in other fandoms when I have time. In the past few years, I've finished a degree, had a daughter, renovated a small Victorian and then sold it and bought another one during this pandemic--so time has been short. Currently I read some Untamed fic, some Good Omens fic, Magicians, Schitt's Creek...a sampler. Whatever friends are writing, whatever they recommend.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I never have a favorite of my own fics. I'm never satisfied. The second I post something, I'm always full of regrets. I've written fics that did very well and still hated them a month later. People have asked me over the years to move more of my stuff off Livejournal and onto ao3, but I do it really reluctantly and only by specific request. Everything's ephemeral! Let the old works diminish, and go into the West!

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I have no oldies to dust off. I do periodically think of X-Files stories I would tell, but I don't have enough time for current interests--and so it goes.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I do. I was most recently writing in The Magicians fandom. I posted a couple new stories in an old fandom last year--I'd written Good Omens fic fifteen years ago, and then again for the Amazon adaptation. I have a pile of original novels in various stages of completion, but I'm never happy with them. One day I'll figure myself out, perhaps, or I'll just keep writing myself this and that and leaving it all in a drawer.

What's the story behind your pen name?

So AOL had a character limit for user names--I think it was 10. I was a teenager at the time I was coming up with the one I'd use for fandom, so I went with Dreamshaper. It was kind of literal, in the sense that I was going to share the stories I'd been telling myself to help me sleep. But the character limit meant I went with Dreamshpr, which I later liked because of the alternate reading of Dream*shipper*. A reminder to the younger fans that we were the original shippers!

I would also come up with new pen names when I wanted to experiment with a fic that didn't fit my usual style. I don't remember any of them. I probably did that a dozen times, so, sorry to those poor completely abandoned stories.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Giddygeek on tumblr and ao3. I'm most active on twitter, but largely about my domestic life with dips into fandoms or original writing; message me on tumblr if you're an old friend who'd like to reconnect elsewhere.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Just gratitude--I'm so glad that I found people to share an obsession with, and that they were good people, at a time in my life where that made a significant difference to me. I don't know where I'd be now without my time and my growth in this fandom!

(Posted by Lilydale on December 22, 2020)

#new post #old school x #xfiles fanfic #xf fanfic #xf fanfic author interviews #dreamshaper

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hellyeahheroes · 4 years

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Let Molly Punch Wolverine: Why I’m worried about X-Men appearance in Runaways

I want to preface this by saying that I have strong trust in Rainbow Rowell and while I am behind her series due to financial and pandemic related reasons, I trust her to deliver the best story she is allowed to. The worries I express below come from the fact I do not trust X-Men editorial and Jonathan Hickman enough to believe they will allow her to tell the best story.

The way I see it, Runaways are the quintessential Millenial comic in that it perfectly captures Millenial generation’s disillusionment with world and society built by Baby Boomers. A disillusionment that was to be expected in face of failiure of American defenses to prevent 9/11, the government and mass media wholeheartely embracing islamophobia and homophobia in it’s wake and American war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, on top of myriad other problems that were already present in the 00s and only got worse as we went ahead.

This is not seen just in the core premise of the original series, the idea that the parents kids are taught to respect and look up to are actively evil and damning the world for their own benefit. But also in the general potrayal of adults and adult superheroes in the series, who are mostly useless or outright malicious in case of Doc Justice. Sole exception being somewhat Spider-Man, who himself is portrayed as having gone through what Runaways have and so having insight and empathy other adults lack.

While that theme has become more gray over the years, as Runaways managed to gain a good footing with teachers and students of Avengers Academy alike, and Nico and Victor were on Avengers offshot teams, even then it was clear that the older heroes are not these perfect ideals too look up to, but flaved in their own way. Entire Avengers A.I. is about fixing one of Hank Pym’s screwups and A-Force’s premise is the team doubles as a support group, every member having gone through traumatic experience in the past and being on different stages of healing process (not to mention how it crashed and burned due to mistakes made by Carol in Civil War II). Even X-Men themselves started as outright antagonistic to Runaways under BKV. And then uder Yost went into the mutual “MAYBE they aren’t THAT bad” relationship with Runaways. Every meeting so far had Molly punch Wolverine.

In current series most of the team moved from teenagers to young adults and their experiences still reflect those of late Millenials. There is this feeling in current series of powerlessness, Runaways making it to the adulthood only to find all it gets you is more problems and all ability to fix the world have been systematically wrestled from your hands by the very people who broke it just so that you cannot fix their mess. It is a story about trying to live in a messed up world with that realization and how your found family can help you carry on whatever it will throws at you. I think in this way is why I can turn a blind eye on things like Nico in Strange Academy - it makes sense she would want to at least try to help kids who are going through what she did to not have as much a hard time. And, you know, Strange didn’t invite A NAZI WHO ACTUALLY WORKED AT AUSCHWITZ WITH MENGELE to help him run the school.

I do not beleive X-Men editorial can play along with that. Right now X-Men and their fandom are at the height of drinking their own kool-aid, portraying their stupid sex island as the msot perfect and best thing ever, to the point they ignore the blatantly fashy things happenning like making up new minority groups (precogs and clones) to oppress, or abovementioned inviting of Nazis, mass murderers and islamophobic crusaders who want to “take back Jerusalem”. They are so into the “mutants are a minority” metaphor that they outright demand that every other book touching on it portray negatively anyone who does not immediatelly bows down at their feet. Something we have seen in X-Men interactions with Fantastic Four, where Sue Storm’s legitimate complaints about X-Men’s current position are caricaturized to cast her in a “uniformed homophobic mom” stereotype just to keep the metaphor working. Even in Fantastic Four’s own book. In wake of this I can somewhat see why the infamous “Franklin is not a mutant” retcon took place.

I cannot beleive that current X-office could allow X-Men to be shown in a way that adheres to themes of Runaways. I mean for Pete’s sake, look at their treatment of New X-Men Academy X - another Millenial at heat series. And another one that tackles disillusionment of that generation with Baby Boomers’ run world with its own 9/11 equivalent in form of a terrorist attack that killed many of its students and traumatized the rest. It is a known secret editor Jordan White considers this a “mistake” because it made old X-Men look bad. And under him in particular X-Books had a history of undermining and derailing NXM kids to show them as inexperienced, dumb kids who never had any hardships and do not know what it really takes to be an X-Man, who see it as all the glamour and no work. All in spite of the fact they may have suffered more than all their elders except Karma, writers’ favorite punching bag. Now the books are outright lobotomizing the surviving kids while bringing back dead ones not to explore any stories with them or how such return could affect the ressurected and their friends alike and maybe allow a possibility to heal. No, this is done solely to erase that massacre from ever happenning because it make Jordan White’s heroes look bad.

I’m supposed to believe this editorial will allow Cult Sex Island to be shown as imperfect or not a place that would “obviously” be much better for Molly? That it will allow Runaways to not be cast as “bigots” for not wanting to handle Molly to “real family” (as determined by genetics) same way X-Men treated Fantastic Four? As things stand now X-Men, a franchise and fandom that is ever entitled to special treatment to the point it cried Marvel wants to bury them when having “only” four books a month. One that has demanded for Kamala Khan to be handed over to them and made a mutant just to spite Inhumans over some perceived slights. A fandom that has wished death members of every superhero team with a mutant who refuses to hand the mutant over and celebrated brutal murder of a kid with a reprogrammed Sentinel. This blind entitlement is not jsut a fandom thing but also infects creatives working on it. Need I remind you how Jason Aaron made a big deal out of making Firestar join the X-Men? He took a character who canonically didn’t care much for the team and wanted to do her own thing and retconned her to be a total fangirl who dreamed of joining but was never before truly “worthy” of this “honor”. Right now we have more and more evidence every franchise interacting with X-Men needs to bow down and play a secondary role to it. but the respect here is a one-way street, Jonathan Hickman outright complains about having to adhere to work of other writers. I have absolutely zero trust that editorial will not try to force the story in Runaways to also be worshiping the ground X-men walk on. Worst case scenario they insert themselves like they did with Fantastic Four, becoming recurring plot thread and casting rest of Molly’s family as evil for not wanting her to join what is effectively a cult.

I wish I’m being wrong here. I do not want Runaways to become a glorified advertisement to a bigger franchise that has become souless and vile and whose fans turned into bullies. I have faith in Rainbow Rowell but that faith is outweighted by my distrust in Jordan White and Jonathan Hickman and their egoes. I hope I’m wrong. All I want is a story that ends with X-men fucking off and Molly staying with her real family, the Runaways. And of ocurse, her punching Wolverine. Which I do not trust White and Hickman to allow either.

PS: Some of you are probably already typing some sort of “if you don’t like the X-men, just don’t read them” response. To you I say: I would be glad too. Too bad they keep forcing themselves into things I actually like. Like a mold. Which is a good metaphor for what this old, gross thing the franchise has become.

-Admin

#Runaways #X-Men #Molly Hayes #Marvel

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aprito · 4 years

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hello <3 since i got these asks at the same time i decided to combine my thoughts on them in this post. yet another annoying sjw essay from yours truly on this blog

before i get into these i think i need to preface why im like. i guess overly hyperfocused on a certain unproblematic base (same age au / platonic canon) for them and avoid the ped0philic content like the plague lol

tw for pedophilia ment, rape ment if that makes you squicky. ALSO THIS IS LONG AND RAMBLY

as i’ve mentioned a couple times already, ive been into the ship since i was 12, back when it was very very common to not only post untagged (nsfw) canonverse content of the two in writing and in drawing but also non con and the like, so you can imagine how bad my first impression online was. thinking back on it ...as a child i found it disturbing but didnt really register how problematic it really was?? (i know, but i also lived in the middle of nowhere and had no one explain this to me)

skip to 2014 aka me coming back to naruto at 17ish and i had kinda become hyper aware of the fact that there was an increasing amount of people online who had come forward with explaining how fictional problematic content, mostly pedophilia, had been used to groom them into starting relationships with adullts. it was also a time where a lot of people didnt believe these victims, not registering how common it was for minors to be online friends with adults who had no boundaries and no qualms exposing them such content. not gonna get into my personal life here but i was lucky to not having gone through this myself. like... it kinda was my first time truly realising how fiction can EASILY be used to manipulate others irl (and yes i will not argue this, if you dont think fictional media can form and manipulate people’s opinions on attitudes, countries, cultures and virtues, pick up a book about the effects of propaganda media at least once please)

i, being young, still liking the dynamic but not really the romance, would point this out here and there in the fandom and get into fights with grown adults in their mid 20s who assumed i automatically hated the ship(s) and tried to restrict their freedom of speech or whatever, heard everything from the “age of consent doesnt exist in naruto” to the “sasori looks like a child what does it matter” despite people clearly playing on him being older and experienced. it made me so upset that people were just consuming all this content uncritically and exposing children to it tbh?? not really just sos but a lot of minor/adult ships in naruto in general. and thats where i sat down and thought, i do not want to be a grown adult talking down to children that point out how unsafe the fandom is. theyre absolutely right in drawing these boundaries and calling out adults who defend the uncritical consumption and creation of this content. i do not want to consume or create content that predators could use to groom minors, and i absolutely do want to let younger people in fandom know that i am respecting their comfort zones and want them to have a safe and fun experience. after all, naruto is not an adult show and i think a lot of people forget that!!!! i am not perfect in that regard but its something that i, at the age of 23, am very passionate about and strive towards to.

and i guess thats where same age au was born for me and i have been sticking to it ever since.

so finally we can move to the first question

aside from the fact that we both dont like canon sos, i dont think it would work out even if i wasnt prejudiced to it anyways. in all honesty, 35 year old canon sasori is not a redeemable character to me, given the fact that he’s easily amongst the cruelest villains in naruto (torturing and killing and taxiderming people for his own fun personal gain, never for a goal that served anyone but himself. how do you redeem having over 300 corpses in your backpack that you felt absolutely no remorse for killing). sasori was legit one of the only cruel villains that didnt had someone else pull the strings, which sends a clear message on kishi’s part, who absolutely loves to redeem villains LOL.

being that old, he obviously had already been very manifested in what he believed in, even if it was shakey, to the point where the first crack in that world view (sakura and chiyo protecting each other) immediately had him give up on his life all together. that, in my opinion, is not a man who’s going to know what healthy relationships would look like, regardless of it being romantic or not. 35 year old sasori to me has the same appeal as an expired can of tuna and he’s probably very happy 6 feet under. he’s supposed to be a failed gaara in that sense that he had no one to look out for him and therefore was never going to experience anything but a bad ending in life. its fine that hes dead honestly, it wraps up his short character development the best IMO.

adding to that, seriously, sakura was obviously interested in knowing why he was that way, and called him out for being seriously fucked in the head, but it’s weird to me that people assume she had any interest in actively rehabilitating him, let alone starting a serious romantic relationship with him. sakura who’s not only very, uhm, immature and straight forward when it comes to her romantic viewpoints also, as a big bootlicker, wouldnt soil her standing in the village by starting anything with a disgraced and far too gone criminal like sasori. shipping that version of sasori with sakura intimately is still going to set her up for a huge power imbalance that would be difficult to handle imo, even if she was the one in the fight ultimately exerting her power over him. i would still look at it and think damn she deserves better than having to play therapist for man like that lol.

additionally, even if you ignored all of this, you cant really ignore that sasori had already known her as a child, and that had been his first and most impactful impression of her. i dont think that sasori would look at 35 year old sakura and see her as a grown woman and not the little green girl she was in the fight. plus, you easily fall into predatory comparison territory between the “childish” and “womanly” and i have seen way too often in fic just being boiled down to her now being fuckable. a lot of of ships do this and i would just like to remind yall thats it not normal for adults to want to start relationships with children they have seen grown up or known as a child when they themselves were fully grown adults. therefore, maybe if sakura hadnt met sasori before it would be less of a problem? but that also obviously defeats the point of the dynamic and the reason he died in the first place. so yeah, it sounds kind of doomed especially if you were to make it romantic.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE SECOND QUESTION

let me preface this that im not fundamentally against age gaps, even if im not super interested in it. after all, colorblind had a 5 yr age gap (with sakura being 21), even if, say, i wrote similar fics today i probably would make it smaller lol. i think it can be handled well if both parties have enough life experience to deal with it, and the author is cautious of where the age gap starts, i think a 10+ year age gap would be fine in a scenario where the younger party (i guess sakura) was at least 25-27ish, meaning she has completed most of her most formative life stages and probably had been in relationships before, meaning she would be able to handle it without having to fear a huge power imbalance. the older the younger party is the less the age gap is going to matter tbh .TsukiHoshino and AngelOfDeath10 both handle age gaps in their fics really well imo, so i do not mind reading about them.

unfortunately, a lot of people in this fandom think making sakura barely "”””legal””””” (18, not even 20 which is hilarious to me because the source material is obviously japanese) because they both cannot stand her being past her “prime years” of being young fertile and fuckable to much older men as well as thinking a 20 year old is automatically old enough to handle that type of relationship. ive seen a lot of unironic takes that believe it will absolve them of callout posts if they throw around age of consent and “shes 18 now suckers!!!” enough lmfao. absolutely hilarious. aging a minor up without aging the adult down seriously reeks of predatory “cant wait until youre 18″ narratives and thats why i find it similarly disturbing as straight up pedo shipping.

ultimately, sasosaku is and will always be a inherently problematic ship in canon, which is why i think it should always be handled a little more responsibly in fandom spaces, ignoring or outright excusing the main problem factor, which is sasori, isnt going to convince anyone that the dynamic in itself is well written and interesting enough to explore in aus, like giving sasori the redemption most of us wanted him to have by aging him down to a point in time where he was still realistically going to allow being positively influenced, similar to gaara.

so really, what i think is well handled age gap and how most people handle age gap in the naruto fandom are two different worlds at times lol

tl;dr

canon shippers have never been anything but gross when i was younger and i didnt wanna be like that, even if youre “smart”enough to differenate, actual creeps dont really care and might use your content to blur the lines, sasori isnt rly redeemable so romantic canonverse realistically wouldnt make much sense and is still iffy, age gaps are fine if they are handled well, but given that the dynamic doesnt really need the age gap to still work im not that invested on making that an essential part of my shipping experience.

thank you for reading and hope this makes sense!

#nonitxt #meta #another hot take from me #but seriously if you're offended over these #unfollow me lol idc #defending predatory content is not a hill im gonna die on in this life

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soulvomit · 4 years

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This conversation in a major mainstream celeb culture group on FB, about the author of “Love, Simon,” is really making me despair that a majority of younger people may not really believe that authors should be allowed to be private citizens, because they weren’t alive at any point when those authors *were.* And I really feel like this is a case where the young people are going to get their way just by numbers, and older LGBTQ people and younger ones will just end up talking past each other. *Most* people in that thread (huge number, and in a group with huge membership) seemed to believe that anyone not willing to be “out” as an LGBTQ person, shouldn’t profit from anything pertaining to LGBTQ culture. And I have a problem with this! So... only very deeply privileged people from liberal families, who either can afford to not have a day job or who work for companies that aren’t going to fire them for being LGBTQ, get to write LGBTQ material?? Only people under 30, for that matter, get to write LGBTQ material? (Because I really feel like something most people don’t understand and most fucking zoomers don’t care about, is that older people in the same marginalized categories as them *may move predominantly in older circles* and may not experience as much broad acceptance as they take for granted. It being more accepted for a 20 year old to be gay, doesn’t make things automatically better for a gay 50 year old.) This is useful representation HOW?? How does it represent a lot of actual LGBTQ people if the only works they get to read are written by the LGBTQ equivalent of Lena Dunham?? And how are we going to vet people for belonging to the right group, having the right representative experience, before they are qualified to write LGBTQ material... is there some kind of Gay Police or something that’s going to check this out? At what point are you Gay Enough? This is actually a generational issue for me because of the degree to which LGBTQ writing, when I was younger, was underground, and the degree to which even mainstream authors were still private citizens. A huge majority of the material you formed your identity to, when I was younger, would’ve been authors who at the time were only well known within the very, VERY subcultural spaces of LGBTQ community. Even fanfic was an underground space. Many authors were pseudonymous, there were small imprint niche publishers, there was stuff that was only published in underground mags and zines. (Alison Bechdel is from *my time* but... if you’re outside of LGBTQ culture or you’re under 40, then you may not have even begun hear about her until the 2010s. There were lots of authors well known within LGBTQ spaces who weren’t well known outside of those spaces. And there were also lots of pseudonymous authors.). Basically there seems to be this attitude where you should only be able to write LGBTQ material if you are a Very Online, 20something “professional queer” who is willing to be totally transparent about your life on social media. Or to even write LGBTQ characters at all. Will we at some point stop even seeing works that have diverse ensembles? Do all books have to be written by committee now so that you have the proper representation, unless you’re willing/able to write a totally monoculture book? Who gets to be on those committees? Do you have to go to a specific university to qualify? Do you have to have the right degree and belong to the professional-managerial class or the academic elite to acceptably write material pertaining to any kind of marginalized identity? And are we seeing the end of individual authorship outside of the self-publishing market and/or the individual authors who were already grandfathered in? Don’t you see how this just feeds into EVERYTHING BEING CORPORATE FRANCHISES and just makes writing MORE privileged and elitist? Then there were generational assumptions wherein somebody who’s been in LGBTQ culture for a long time wouldn’t know about anyone who’s not the same letter of the LGBTQ. I know it’s generational because of having been in LGBTQ culture in the 90s. As if there is absolutely no history of adjacence between communities. As if there aren’t trans people who formerly identified as gay and were part of the male or female gay communities, as if there aren’t bi people who’ve been in the community and involved with gay people, as if all trans people or gay people or bi people came out in high school or college, and as if members of the LGBTQ don’t ever, ever socialize with each other or share the same spaces. (Which is some ahistorical bullshit.) And all of this has led me to believe, with this preciousness around narratives and there being ~The LGBTQ Experience~ vs ~the Cis Het Experience~, what do they think *straight* people live like? If you’re hetero, you necessarily live in the suburbs and have 2.5 kids, or something, and don’t EVER know LGBTQ people and have zero experience with that community whatsoever? How far are we going to take this, should we just go full horseshoe and say that LGBTQ people aren’t qualified to write cis het characters (and thus LGBTQ people excluded from most writing except for the heavily elitism-based token positions we’ll be allowed?) Plus, are you assuming that every person who presents the optics of being in a hetero relationship, is a heterosexual, and or is cis and or their partner is? These assumptions about how social worlds work, don’t actually describe even one social space I’m in, or have EVER been in. Maybe they describe your social world if you grew up in a totally homogenous, utterly heteronormative (and probably religious) social space and then came out into LGBTQ culture on an upscale college campus in a college town, then managed to socially bubble up with the other cool queer kids in either your upper middle class hipstertopia town, or some corner of fandom culture, or you bubble up so hard that you only interact with a handful of handpicked people online in your specific handpicked spaces that only, only ever match you, and match you 100%. But they don’t describe the experiences of even most LGBTQ people. Like... the discourse I grew up with, was, “you have the right to write this, but damn, maybe I’m not going to read it.” But now we’re in a space of... who has the right to write at all? And I’m sorry but that’s just fucking dystopian.

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scharfkugel · 4 years

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What your average person who’s favourite Blazblue character is (insert char here) is like:

(Read-more because this is a looooong post)

Ragna: 50% chance of being a Blazblue giga-normie who’s only played cross tag battle and who’s only knowledge of Blazblue comes from abridged Alter Memory parodies on youtube. Other 50% chance of actually being a giant fan of the series since the old days and a chill guy.

Jin: Almost certainly a giant edgelord and if you’re unlucky, a big-time role-player who’s cleaned out the RagJin tag on AO3 and Fanfiction.net dozens of times. Approach with great caution.

Noel: Twitter resident who’s feed is full of pictures of Noel and whatever other half-obscure anime girls they’re obsessed with. Overuses the word ‘waifu’ and likely has a fightstick with a Noel decal on it.

Mu-12: Same as above except with a slight added hint of edge.

Rachel: Similar energy to the Noel fan except probably an even bigger weirdo. Has gotten into countless twitter wars that probably go something like “but she’s actually a thousand years old!!!”.

Taokaka: 50/50 chance of either being a horny furry who doesn’t even know what game Taokaka is from, or a really chill person who likes Tao for her cute and funny personality. Even if they’re the second type, they probably don’t know or care much about the ridiculous story of the series.

Iron Tager: Giant shitposter who’s only here to do epic funnies on netplay as Tager. Spends at least 50x more time labbing obscure tech and combos than actually playing the game. Likely a hardened and punished war veteran of Blazblue if they actually played Tager back in the Calamity Trigger days.

Litchi: An enormous tournament tryhard who’s success in locals half comes from the huge amount of time they spend on the game, and half from the deafening clickety-clackety-ass noise their custom fightstick makes that tilts the opponent to hell and back.

Arakune: They remember what was taken from them since the days of CT and CS. They will still beat your ass anyway. Extremely powerful person you must treat with caution and respect.

Bang: Absolute legend with god-tier taste. Bang fans are the chads of the Blazblue fandom that while small in number, are great in heart and passion. On a side-note, they probably kinda suck at the game.

Carl: An obscure person, but one who knows a lot about the series and only wanted the best for Carl. 50/50 chance of either being a god at the game, or being unable to do a 236 input.

Relius: A bastard but in a sexy way that makes you kind of respect them. They probably just like his aesthetic and playstyle, but that doesn’t stop them from making jokes about his robot wife.

Hakumen: Probably only ever got into Blazblue in the first place because Hakumen looked badass and they wanted to main him. Knows Hakumen’s entire monologue off by heart; doesn’t know when to stop pressing drive.

Nu-13: Highly volatile and dangerous being. I strongly recommend you stay as far away as possible from them, because whether they’re an enormously horny weeb or someone maniacal enough to main her, nothing good can come of interaction with this perilous partitioner.

Lambda-11: An actually normal person unlike the Nu fan, they’re just here for the cute girls and a good time. That said, if they main her then prepare to get your ass beat just the same as if you versed the Nu main.

Tsubaki: An underdog of the Blazblue fandom, they understand and appreciate greatness where the rabble of the fandom cannot. Probably sick to death of everyone saying Tsubaki sucks and is annoying. Probably can’t play Tsubaki.

Izayoi: Same as above except they’re also a giant tryhard. Netplay monster that messages “anyone wanna play cf?” on discord except no one replies because they play Izayoi and have a 80%+ winrate.

Hazama: Horny. They’re so horny. Hazama fans are an extremely dangerous and extremely horny subsection of the Blazblue community that I fear more than anything else.

Terumi: Exact same as above except unlike the Hazama fan who can at least be somewhat tasteful and reserved about their horniness, the Terumi fan is completely shameless and doesn’t care if anyone knows.

Makoto: They’re like the Taokaka fan except they actually play the game. Some are weird, but most are cool people with good taste.

Valkenhayn: idk has anyone ever seen someone who’s favourite character is valkenhayn? please pm me and I’ll add whatever you say here.

Platinum: Doesn’t know what a Blazblue is; just here because Platinum is cute and looks like a magical girl. Either into Pretty Cure, Madoka, or both.

Amane: Extremely respectable person of good taste, but also basically an extinct species. Wishes Amane got into cross tag battle, even though they know it will never happen.

Bullet: Horny. They’re like in a middle-ground of shamelessness between the Hazama and Terumi fan, except their twitter feed can’t be flooded with Bullet images like the Noel fan’s because no one else’s favourite character is Bullet.

Azrael: Extremely powerful and kingly aura, the Azrael fan strikes a primal fear into my heart that no other person can. Whether or not they’re horny for Azrael doesn’t matter, their energy is mighty enough to make all respect them.

Kagura: Horny, but tastefully so. They’re like a toned-down version of the Azrael fan, with another notable difference being that they actually have to use their brain when they play the game.

Kokonoe: 500 IQ Blazblue genius who needs to alt-tab out to a google doc showing them the optimal combo for their current position every time they land a 5B. Also likes catgirls.

Celica: Like the Lambda fan, they’re just here for cute girls and a good time. Was excited about Celica getting into cross tag battle even though they don’t play it.

Nine: I don’t even have to say it. You already know why people like this character. Let’s just go to the next one.

Jubei: Person most likely to like Nine for an actually good reason, they love the ninja grandpa cat because they have good taste and love kitties.

Izanami: No one calls Izanami their favourite character unless they’re REALLY good at her, so if you see the Izanami fan, watch out. Like the Izayoi fan, no one wants to verse them because they’ll get their ass beaten 100-0 and will get a freshly filled salt shaker while they’re at it.

Es: Have they actually played Xblaze? Do they really like Es for non-superficial reasons? Could it be that their love of Es is one deeply rooted in her characterisation and storyline? Yeah probably not.

Mai: See above but replace “played Xblaze” with “read Remix Heart”.

Hibiki: Do not be fooled. Although the Hibiki fan seems innocent enough, that maybe they just like his design and playstyle, these people are horny as HELL. Bonus points if there’s a clear pattern of them being horny for twinks in other media too.

Naoto: Unlike Es and Mai, this person most likely actually DOES know something about Bloodedge Experience and is a big Naoto fan because of it. However they’re sad because no one else does and when they say something like “Spinner Superior is such a cool villain” everyone else says “Who?”.

Susanoo: As if it were an ancient evil uncovered after dozens of millennia, Mori unleashed Susanoo on us. and subsequently, the horniest and scariest form of Blazblue fan to date. I fear them twice as much as I respect them and their complete audaciousness to be horny for Susanoo.

#blazblue #shitpost #long post #if you don't fit any of these #then that's probably a good thing #also don't take this too seriously I'm not trying to offend anyone ksldjf

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felineincognito · 5 years

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Just A Tentative Theory

So I'm new to the Larry and 1D fandoms -brought in by Harry and Loui's solo careers- and I've just binged so many proof videos in literally the two months I've been a part of this thing. Along with all of those I've seen a fair few proof vides of other ships within the fandom, some really biased and others that almost make sense.

Not hating on or discrediting other ships!! This is all just based off my own observations and what I’ve been able to piece together from all of the content I’ve gone through. And I'm sorry it's so rutting long and rambley at bits, I am running on so little sleep I wanna cry and caffeine fumes.

So... this is my babyfan theory and feel free to comment or run with it just remember I'm new to all this and had to get this idea out?

So what if in the beginning, when Louis and Harry met on X-Factor, you have these 2 sweet young boys who like each other but don't really have a lot of hope of anything working out because they're both contestants shooting for the same prize so they harbor these innocent little acquaintance crushes like you'd get on someone you sit down the row from in class in highschool or something right? But then they get made into a group and all of a sudden they're all up in each other's space and they're bunking together and they realize they really do like each other but neither have much experience in relationships yet or more intense emotions so they keep it fairly quiet. They figure that with the press they're getting with the show and the stress of wanting to do well and everyone feeling each other out as a group they really would rather their little romance be just theirs for a little while longer. And of course people in charge of publicity encourage this mindset, telling them that if they come out as a new/forming couple or let it be known they like each other (or just boys in general) that way there would be more attention on that (not all of it good either) than their actual talents or performance(s) and the other boys would be pushed to the sidelines in favor of them and that's just not fair to the other 3 now is it?

Then they don't win X-Factor and they think that's it until they get brought in to make a boyband even though they didn't win because they're just that f-ing popular. But this thing between them is still new and fragile and they haven't had time to work out just what it is or if it's something that's going to last and the label swoops in with a legal gag dressed up as a temporary fix. They don't tell anyone about them, don't do anything overt in public, maybe be seen/paired off with a girl or 2 as a red herring for the press, giving them time to just figure this all out and see if they really will work. And they take it because they're young and this is the chance they've always wanted and there are 3 other lads who will suffer if the two of them turn this down. So they sign and they try to follow the scripts and listen to what their handlers and managers tell them but they're cheeky kids in puppy love and it's almost like a game to see how far they can push it and just what counts as too much when all of the boys are so tactile and affectionate with each other.

And they really do fall in love. In the whirlwind that is the first couple of years, the song writing, the tours, the hours put in at the recording studio and every single press conference and public appearance in between, they fall in love. And it's great and it's good and somewhere along the way they think this might be it for them and they're ready to come out but then the label hits them with the gag they signed and they realize just what it means. They realize that they basically signed away their rights to talk about it or show their love or share it with their fans because it might hurt their image, affect their popularity and hurt their profits. But that's okay, because they have each other and they're in love and the girl Louis is 'dating' isn't so bad and she's cool about the whole thing.

But then it gets hard. The press is making Harry out to be this womanizing sex symbol and pushing for Louis and the girl he's with to start getting serious because supposedly they'd been together while Louis was on the show and really it's about time isn't it? And during all of that the Larry Stylinson fandom has been born and they're putting the pieces together and the lads are cheeky things who are hurting because they can't tell the world they're in love and while Niall supports/ships them (at least from how he acts in proof videos I've seen) Liam agrees with management about not being open about it while Zayn is an odd mix of the 2. So they push it and they let things slip and they give the fans enough to put it together without violating their contracts and yeah management pushes back and takes measures so they don’t seem as close and to hopefully quiet the rumours but overall it's okay again for a while.

Then Harry starts figuring parts of himself out. And he wants to start wearing pretty shirts, bright colours and flashy patterns and painting his nails but they tell him he can't because those are girl shirts and it's too femme to paint his nails and wear bright colours and pastels and it hurts because he just can't be himself. And he wants out. He's tired of being scared he's going to mess up on stage or people won't like their songs enough for the label's liking and he just wants to be able to love Louis without worrying about what everyone else thinks and their little codes and touches just aren't always enough anymore.

So they start to fight. Louis is too scared to leave because he doesn't think he's good enough without the band and they're both still so young and have only been in this world for a few years how can they be sure they'd make it? How do they know that they won't just crash and burn and that will be the end of it? So they fight and they hurt each other and they're already living apart and barely seeing each other outside of work related or group functions because of management and Louis kind of lets himself fall into the illusion of the relationship he's being made to partake in and Harry finds himself growing closer to the other lads and pushing his limits with his wardrobe and public persona.

Now the next bits are where my theory starts to get a little more wobbly because like I said I'm new and my info digging skills are not as good as others in the fandom. A lot of it is based off of videos by freddieismyqueen (before she took them down), larrystylinson 28, Larry Stylinson's Utopia, s e p t e m b e r 2 8 and FireproofLarry.

So in the midst of the fighting and the hurting and both being so scared for so many different reasons they kind of fall apart. To Harry, Louis has chosen his career over their relationship and Louis is hurt and upset that Harry can't/won't see where he's coming from on all of this. And this is where Zarry comes in.

Throughout the Larry jealousy videos one of the things that stuck out to me was that there were a lot of Zarry moments and they seemed closer to the end of the 1D timeline. Before that most of them were just the references to Harry with girls, him being 'flirty' with interviewers or fans or just general cheeky sort of passively possessive moments probably played up to irk management and give the fans more to go off of. But then we get to the points where Harry and Zayn interact more on stage and Louis starts to look right pi**ed and just watches without doing any sort of possessive holding or touches or cheeky little looks and whispers like we're used to. No, Harry and Zayn start flirting on stage or being closer during interviews and Louis is angry and passive aggressive. And in the background Niall looks like he has no idea what the heck to do about all of this and Liam is just done with their cr*p.

So Louis gets his head out of the dirt and tries to make it up to Harry. And it works because this lad is head over heels for Louis and Zayn is left behind. But maybe Harry doesn’t realize that things were a little more on Zayn’s end. Maybe it hurt a little more than expected when the two lads finally figure themselves out. Or maybe Harry and Zayn really were just friends and the ‘Zarry’ moments just ruined his friendship with Louis and he felt it ruined his friendship with Harry too because Louis sees Zayn as a threat now so there’s bloody tension and such all over the place. (personally I’m leaning towards the last and that Louis’ jealous streak probably came out and he had a few a**shole moments because come on guys, he’s only human and they went through a lot as performers in the public eye and if you listen to a lot of his interviews there’s a lot of insecurity issues he’s dealt with over the years)

Then that blessed September 28th happened and it helps their relationship because honeymoon phase yo. But that’s 2013. Life goes on and it gets hard again and they’re pushing it again and life happens. Zayn leaves and it hurts the band because they’re in the middle of a tour and from what I’ve gathered he kind of just shut them out of his life. And so Harry is hurting because losing a friend is hard and Louis is upset that the band is falling apart and the media is having a heyday with the story and they’re in the middle of a blasted tour and that good old jealous streak comes out with Harry being so upset over Zayn leaving. So he’s scared and hurting, and mistakes are made.

Now we know that Liam confessed to a drinking problem at one point and there have been references of Louis having his moments as well. And Louis and Harry still have to ‘date’ girls and Louis is always the long-term one so it would stand to reason that he would have a decent rapport with the girls he’s seen with, that these would be people he learns to be comfortable with. And overindulgence in the presence of someone you trust or are familiar with when you’re hurting can lead to lapses in judgement. Which is probably how we got little Freddie. (And that is all being said of him because we don’t need to drag a child into all this drama people)

Louis being unfaithful, even if it wasn’t intentional, right after Zayn left would put a strain on their relationship and would cause another off period. But they’re still fools in love and married at this point so they try to make it work and they kind of come together again and they figure out how to move forward. But Louis is going to be a dad and their contracts are almost up and Harry still wants out.

So the band splits and Louis is so scared of what comes next and he’s trying to make it all work and the songs he’s released get good responses but not as much as he’d hoped and X-Factor doesn’t pan out and the other 4 are off living their lives. Zayn’s music career is a success and Niall waits awhile but his music is popular fairly right off the bat as well and Liam at least is still in the public eye and Harry is making waves. He’s wearing clothes he couldn’t before and he’s wearing all of the bright prints and flashy colours and those pearls happen and he’s in a movie ya’ll and he’s good at it.

And it takes Louis awhile but he finds his sound and he starts to make music he’s happy with and proud of and he’s finding himself. But he’s still with that old label and the same management.

So here’s where it gets closer to the present. Harry has a thing with Kendall but they part on good terms and I’m guessing it has to do with he tried for appearances sake and she gets it and probably low-key ships them but understands being discreet and giving them time to work it out.

So Louis wants Harry. Harry wants Louis. Louis is probably bound by another form of that dratted legal gag. So Harry waits. Because Harry isn’t scared anymore and he’s figured himself out and he’s happy with himself and he’s in a place where he can be himself and can encourage others to do the same. He gets it now that he’s older and seen more of the industry outside of their 1D bubble and he’s had to handle stuff on his own and he’s killing it.

Louis writes songs about them and being young fools and how love hurts and you have to be either young and dumb or just f-ing brave to go through with it. Harry writes songs about the stages a relationship (specifically theirs) goes through and they have their little rendezvous and Harry fosters this community of love and acceptance of others and Louis talks about finding yourself and being happy with yourself. And Harry has found himself, is happy with himself and Louis is almost there and he’s got that pesky legal gag anyway.

So Harry waits and he’s okay with that because in the end they love each other and he knows where Louis’ heart is and no matter what they have each other, He’s waited this long he can wait a bit more to tell the world just how much he loves this stupid wonderful man.

#larry stylinson #larry is real #larry theory #larry stylinson theory #harry styles #louis tomlinson #treat people with kindness #only the brave

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