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brightblueinky · 5 years ago

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Long winded ramblings about a Bronycon video

So I’ve seen some hubbub about a YouTube essay going over the history of the Brony fandom up until the last Bronycon. (You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fVOF2PiHnc ) I just got around to watching it today and I was...somewhat confused by some of the stronger negative takes I was seeing floating around Twitter, and I’ve been in a “fandom discourse” mood lately so, hey, I thought...why not talk about it. The first part of this was originally going to be a Twitter thread until I realized Twitter wasn’t going to let me keep going on the thread so I gave up and decided to put it here instead (lol) so it’s probably going to be a bit choppy since I was trying to keep it readable for that format.

So first of all, my background, so I can be completely honest about where I'm coming from and try not to portray what I'm saying as like...an end-all-be-all take here, because I don't wanna do that. I was never really an MLP fan. I watched the first season of FiM and really enjoyed it, but I didn't really engage with the fandom because by that point I'd gotten to where I didn't spend much time in huge fandoms. So I can't come at this from the perspective of an MLP fan. When I’m addressing the fandom here, I’m coming at it as an outsider in the sense that I am not a MLP fan/brony. What I AM going to do is come at this from the perspective of something of a "native" to fandom. I've always been a geek. I've engaged in online fandom in some form or another since I was about 8, which was in the mid 90s. I've been around the fandom block. Actually, I can even say that I used to lurk on 4chan a lot and I saw a lot of the early Brony discussions there. I also watch @JennyENicholson's videos, and yeah, there's been times where I've been bugged because we had a disagreement of opinions and felt like it was a little harsh. She's got a dry sense of humor and sometimes it's hard to read when she's joking and when she's being genuine. So like, I wasn't surprised when I saw some hubbub from some people online about her doing the video about Bronies. Not at all. But I gotta say...I am really surprised by some of the more INTENSE takes on the video after watching it?? The LARGE majority of the video is @JennyENicholson covering this fandom from an INSIDER'S perspective. She was an MLP fan before FiM, she was active enough in the fandom to be a BNF. A huge, huge amount of the video is positive and nostalgic. In fact I now wish I HAD been in the fandom! It seems like it was a lot of fun! The only thing I felt was maybe harsh in the video is I think she gave the impression that being "furry" is exclusively a sex thing, but by the end she talks about furries being a community that's a very inclusive, kind community with a lot of queer people, so even then I think if you're really paying attention to the whole video you're not going to come away with the idea that the furry community is bad. Just maybe could've had more nuance earlier in the video? So from glancing through mentions of her in a Twitter search (which is definitely not going to be a perfect sample) from what I can tell there's like two things that people seem to be upset about with the video: 1, the idea that the fandom is "dead" and 2...just...Body Pillows. So let's talk about the dead fandom thing first. As I mention, I have been in fandom a long, long time. Although I (usually) shy away from big active fandoms now, I started off in bigger ones--Sonic, Pokemon, Digimon, LOTR, etc. The two fandoms I currently care about the most, though, are definitely fandoms that tend to be called "dead" and were never HUGE to begin with (Princess Tutu and Chrono Crusade). I think I can count on my hands the number of ppl who actively discuss or create fanwork for CC. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, I've been on both sides of the coin here. And let me reassure Bronies: "Dead", while maybe too strong of a label for what it actually means, does not have to be a negative thing and you don't need to defend your fandom from it, IMO. I think the "dead" label simply means that interest in the fandom has cooled, the number of active participants is significantly down from the heydays of the fandom, etc. And I don't think that's an unfair label for brony fandom from what I know. If there was a large scale replacement for Bronycon then maybe it'd be unfair, but...yeah, if you're losing your large hubs for the fandom community, if the flow of fanwork and discussion has slowed, I think "dead", as it's used, isn't an unfair label. But again, I don't think this is a bad thing! I'd imagine that even the current state of the brony fandom is larger and more active than the Princess Tutu fandom at its greatest heights. It's a pretty relative term. It doesn't mean nobody cares, or that you can't still enjoy it! All the "dead" label really means is acknowledging the change in a fandom. It's not a bad thing. I might be 1 of ~30 writers for Chrono Crusade on AO3 but I still have fun writing fic and I still get hits and occasional positive comments. It's not bad. Just different. Okay so now let's talk about the body pillow thing and oh man, is this going to be a minefield, lol. Let's first talk about my personal lens I'm going to come at here... I've created NSFW fanwork. Some of it taboo. I'm also (somewhat) a part of the "proship" discourse on Twitter which is basically a community of people that push back against another community of "anti"-shippers who feel that some ships are problematic (because of character age, power dynamics, etc) and shouldn't be shipped. (I think that simplifies a lot of the discussion on both sides but it’ll do for the purpose of what I’m getting at here, I think.) At its worse this debate has lead death threats and suicide attempts. I have seen people get treated abusively for fanwork (sometimes NSFW but not always). (And I also want to add that while I think the major component of the pro-ship discussions on Twitter are anti-harassment, there’s been some ‘edgy’ types who think that it’s fun to harass antis with NSFW fanwork and the like and I want to make it clear that is ALSO ABUSIVE AND NOT OKAY.) Basically, I want to say I'm sympathetic to a knee jerk defensive reaction over NSFW fanart. Okay? I can get why people might want to push against criticism of stuff they enjoy/create, and that there’s an element of possibly being harassed for fanwork you create. But the thing is, I don't think this is really the attitude Jenny is taking in the video. She lightly mocks NSFW stuff and body pillows, but often describes it as "harmless" and "fine". The only time she's critical of it is when she notes that sometimes body pillows with suggestive poses could be on display at conventions where young kids were present--at a con celebrating a show MEANT for young kids--and that probably shouldn't have been allowed. She's not saying you can't buy a body pillow, or create one. She didn't even say that while discussing body pillows of characters who were 10! She expressed personal discomfort, but the only restriction she really suggested was "keep this out of the sight of minors." And I don't know why that would be a controversial take. I read lemons when I was younger so I'm not going to sit here and act like it's going to completely ruin kids lives or anything. But I ALSO think it's appropriate to have boundaries for sexual materials for kids (or anyone who doesn't want to engage for whatever reason). I want my stuff to be clearly labeled as NSFW, with tags being clear about the content, so people know what they're getting into. I’ve grown to care about this even more as I’ve gotten older. I don’t really want to know about minors reading my nsfw fanfic or anything. I’m not going to, like, parent them and shame them if they do, but I don’t want to engage with it, I want my stuff to be labeled, and I am DEFINITELY not going to put it on public display at a place where I know kids are allowed, ESPECIALLY not when it’s work based on stuff MEANT for children! I mean, I grew up in a fundamentalist Evangelical household and I will rant at you for hours about how damaging I feel that environment was, and that I don’t think kids and teens should be completely shielded from sex, etc. But that doesn’t mean that having boundaries in place is a bad idea, especially when minors are involved. I also think that boundaries are good just for the sake of consent, too? I’m not saying that someone accidentally seeing suggestive art is the same as them being raped, please don’t conflate it like that, but if people don’t want to see it for whatever reason they should be given the opportunity to make that choice as much as possible. The stuff that Jenny mentioned brony conventions would do (requiring stuff to be sold under the table, or having late night hours for the dealer’s room where 18+ merch could be displayed and sold) seem like really good policies and pretty similar to what I’ve seen at anime conventions I’ve attended (although occasionally some stuff that was maybe a biiit more suggestive than I’d be comfortable displaying in public...but hey, my local con allows kids but also makes it clear in their rules that it’s mostly geared for 13+ attendees and that it’s up to parents to decide what’s appropriate for their kids, and I think that’s fair). And yeah, I know, nothing that Jenny showed in the video being displayed at Bronycon was 100% explicit, just suggestive. She notes this in the video herself, saying that yeah, it doesn’t show genitalia, etc...and as I’m writing this I think I’ve maybe rambled too much about NSFW fanart when most of the stuff we’re talking about here is more “suggestive” than straight-up porn, since that’s probably muddying the waters a bit. But I gotta, gotta, GOTTA address the sentiment I saw multiple times on Twitter in response to her video: “Dakimakura/body pillows aren’t sexual and to say that is orientalist.” I...what? What the fuck? Okay, again, I’m going to make it perfectly clear what my background is here so that I’m not claiming to have some expertise that I don’t have: I am white. I am VERY white. My parents did the DNA test thing and the most “exotic” thing that came up is that my dad is 3% Spanish. Not latin american, I mean from Spain spanish. I am sooooo fucking white. I’ve studied a LITTLE of Japanese culture in college classes but that wasn’t even my field of study (Communication major on a Broadcasing track, minor in Theatre) so I’m not going to tell you I’m an expert on Japanese culture. I’m just a weeby geek that grew up in anime fandoms and never really stopped consuming Japanese pop culture. I have a very limited experience with Japanese culture. I am NOT an expert on what is and isn’t orientalist. I know I’m really hammering in this point here but I think it’s really, really important that I make it clear that I shouldn’t be used as an expert on this subject. But what I DO have a background in is someone who has engaged in Western fandom of stuff from Japan from a young age, I did spend a lot of time on 4chan, this is NOT the first time that I’ve seen some form of an “this isn’t sexual at all and you’re just a PERVERT” discussion about fanservice and...okay first of all, I highly doubt anyone saying this is any more qualified to define what is and isn’t orientalist than I am. I think this is bullshit and it feels like an attempt to make your opinions more legitimate by implying people that disagree with you are some form of bigot. (And look, I was a sheltered, insecure, stuck-up teenager in fandom, part of the reason I feel like I can recognize this is I totally pulled the same shit. I am not going to act like I have never tried to pull this and that I’m a pure innocent woke intellectual who’s never said something foolish, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let it slide, either.)

While writing this I googled ‘dakimakura’ to make sure I was spelling it right and noticed that Wikipedia does note that the origins of this style of pillow are sometimes used by Japanese kids as something like a security blanket, which I’m guessing is where the justification for the argument is coming from, but let’s be intellectually honest here--body pillow covers being sold at a convention aren’t primarily meant to be a security blanket for kids. And, okay, maybe you have a body pillow cover with a character on it that isn’t exactly in a sexual pose, just laying fully clothed on what looks like a bedsheet background. But I don’t think it’s an unfair argument to say that even THEN it implies a sort of intimacy, right, possibly a desire for a romantic attachment? Like, sharing a bed with someone doesn’t have to be sexual or romantic, I used to share a bed with my brother in hotel rooms when we were kids, but I’m also not going to share a bed with my brother and then hug him closely to my body no matter how he’s posed or what he’s wearing??? And look, maybe a body pillow isn’t ALWAYS sexual but to say it’s NOT sexual, which kinda implies NEVER, is so disingenuous. The top result I got when I searched for “anime body pillow” is a shop that includes categories like “18+ body pillow” and “sexy body pillow” and also SELLS FAKE BREAST INSERTS FOR SOME OF THE PILLOWS SO YOU CAN SQUEEZE THEIR BOOBS (obviously, NSFW link: https://www.dakimakura.us/ ) Like, COME ON, I don’t think it’s orientalist to say that something is sexual when Japanese people are actually selling body pillows they label as 18+. The second result even has a second for pillows you can insert sex toys into. And yeah I saw the guy saying “masturbation isn’t sex!” and sir at BEST you have a very narrow and incorrect definition of sex as simply being intercourse and, again, at worst you’re just being straight up dishonest. In fact, I’ll straight up call myself out for this. There’s a fanart body pillow of a fictional character I’ve considered buying several times! (Not porn but still probably NSFW link: https://www.etsy.com/listing/701912275/dakimakura-hypnosismic-doppo?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=hypnosis+mic&ref=sr_gallery-1-4&organic_search_click=1 ) Is this porn? No. You can’t see much. But on one side of the pillow he’s got his shirt untucked, you can see a bit of his stomach, and his fly is undone and you can see the band of his underwear peeking out. This is sexual. I’m not wanting it to like, get off on it, exactly...honestly it’s maybe a bit ironic, and a lot of wanting a body pillow in general is I like sleeping hugging onto something but I have a different sleep schedule from my husband I find him too big to hold all night and too warm in the summer anyway. But I’m not going to tell you that me wanting this PARTICULAR pillow case isn’t at all sexual, I know what I’m doing, I like the character and think the drawing is hot. I’m not saying don’t buy body pillows, okay? I’m not saying don’t sell them. I don’t think Jenny is either (she literally OWNS ONE that she shows in the video!!!). But don’t act like there isn’t ever anything sexual about it existing to try to defend their existence, okay? You don’t need to be a fucking coward about it, and you especially don’t need to say it’s racist if people call out something as being suggestive when, well, it fucking is. And I think it’s totally 100% reasonable for someone to say “hey I don’t think it’s a good idea to display suggestive art around kids, especially if it’s depicting young characters.” TL;DR -- Chill, guys. CHILL. Your fandom is getting smaller and the term people use for this is “dead” but that’s not a bad thing, you’ve still got the fandom, you can still enjoy it, there’s definitely no need to take personal offense over it. And enjoy your body pillows, but don’t be disingenuous about the fact that they can be suggestive and try to act like anyone that calls it such is racist, that is such bullshit. Like what you like, other people’s opinions of it is not automatically a personal attack on you, there’s no need to jump to being defensive every time someone says something vaguely negative about it. Chill, fandom friends. Fandom ain’t bad but it also doesn’t need to be the center of your identity and you don’t need to lash out against people for daring to have opinions about a thing you like. You especially don’t need to act like other people are perverts for noting something being suggestive. Chiiiiiiiiiill.

#long post #fandom #bronies #my little pony #youtube #ramble #fandom discourse

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unproduciblesmackdown · 5 years ago

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let's see those Prime Numbers for the ask meme

2) favorite albums?

well i was Ready for kesha’s album Warrior to come out in iiii think it was the end of 2012 or early 2013?? i snuck out to that tour in dc that summer also. totally solid album and it was fun to have something so fun during a totally Not Fun period lol. i was also pretty into owl city at the exact same time lmao, that’s Blatantly for when you’re depressed lol...and i also eventually saw that guy on tour when a new album came out in 2015, and that was fun too, and was Enjoying Myself a factor in the tipping point of “ah jeez i gots 2 get outta here” that i had in the next month? maybe! and uhhh i listened a lot to the phoenix te amo album. that one wasnt tied to anything at all but i have heard it So much. super short and also rock solid and relistenable. and then here we are and the bmc obcr is a gift to the world b/c a) it exists and b) Cuz It All Slaps and c) it’s so fun to either sing or dance along, or cry along if it’s the agtikbi reprise and d) lgw... and e) all the eternal, well-mixed wroland vocals

3) favorite memes?

oh god lmao idk......real earlier 10s stuff was the I Say Hey he-man meme, and the “that really rustles my jimmies” meme which was real underrated......there’s been plenty of Memes where i’ve been like “this one is funny to me Every Time” but of course now looking back on it it’s like. what’s a meme??? Vine

(skipping 5 & 11 cuz that’s the Entirety of someone else’s ask and i don’t wanna just have to scrap theirs completely and i’ll get to it next!!)

11) favorite fanarts?

you know what, there’s continuously been a ton of amazing fanart where i’m like, i’m so glad i’m seeing this, & this is Artistic Fuel, and marge simpson anime has really been just this Standout Experience lmao like......idk for as Inspiring as it is, there’s only a couple things i’ve drawn that are Directly inspired, but i just flip for it all the time and like, it’s supremely expressive and like, comics that aren’t chronological but more like a Collage Of a Moment / Concept which i think is super cool and also i love when stuff reminds me that it doesn’t have to look ~super cleaned up~ to look great.

13) favorite people you know?

oh god this one really got out of control lol i started like, talking about everyone ever from this past decade. so for Convenience i’m interpreting this as “people *i* know, but they don’t know me” so that i can cheat and say will roland, voted person of the year 2019. by extension, essential supporting crew who helped us reach this point, like john simpkins or joe iconis. leave it at that!! it’s 5am and you know i’m not lying. who knew where going “wow, This guy” in late 2018 would have so much Value.

17) a fandom you wish more people were in/you had more people to talk to about?

oof hmm.......amnesia tdd didn’t really have a “fandom” even though it obviously got a lot of attention, it’dve been fun if it had though lol. it’s tricky to answer this one cuz i always prefer like, smaller fandoms and/or finding the Niche or some other way of just like, interacting with a small corner of things, so i’m never like wow god damn wish i’d been absolutely in the thick of it with this thing. i’ve been in Corners n Niches and it’s been fine by me, really

19) a fandom that you had the best time in?

HMM lol.........marble hornets sure was fun but like, a lot of that was just the content itself and not necessarily The Fan Experience, tho i sure got a lot out of it in a ton of ways. i mean tbh that’s true of each thing i’ve really Gotten Into majorly, i go hard af and then walk out the other side with these #connections or #experiences like whoa where’d these come from lol!! but really like, overall, i’m probably having the best time right now. the “fandom” is basically just our agenda lmao but like i said i’m always having the best time when it’s a pretty niche deal, And the sheer variety of Contents n Characters to draw from here is super nice, and the fact that it’s like, oh yeah and i’m finally recognizing this should’ve-been-obvious entire Passionne i’ve had since always, and that’s great too, and like, also just having the Variety Of Live / Current Unfoldings that go down.....like, everyone havin fun with the Joe Iconis Xmas Xtrav was entirely great. and just the Engagement level is basically the best, cuz like there’s the times where maybe i’ll get a zillion notes and that’s definitely fun in its own way but i always enjoy just the way smaller amount of ppl who are Particularly Enthusiastic, and like, there’s times where like, maybe i’m *technically* in this larger circle of ppl but like, totally more of like a Tangent or peripheral to that circle or whatever lol........this feels like a really solid balance of like, being sorta in this orbit of people in a chill way, but also definitely the direct interactions Existing, which is always important lol but hasn’t always been a constant throughout my Fandom Experiences at all

23) who were you at the beginning of this decade?

2009-2010 was a real distinct year lol i was in my second year of college in the middle of my teens, when i’d hardly really been getting to Explore My Interests Freely up to that point and still wasn’t, but all of a sudden it’s like goddamn i have to figure out my major???? and i’m like, obviously in the middle of only just now Really getting to figure out my identity in this deeper and more genuine way, thanks to being lucky enough to Live On Campus and be away from home like, 2/3 of the year, but i was just like, oh god i’m in Stress Hell now all the time cuz like. i’m trying to figure out my whole thing and what my ~Career~ should be and i just have no idea but am like, trying super hard all the time lol it was not successful and i was just really stressed about it all the time. i was def quieter back then.....pretty lonely at the time, i did not get into mh and gain the presence of any Online Friends until late 2010, and i hadn’t yet been sort of accepted by a small faction of theatre people via my roommate’s connections.....i wasn’t at all Out yet, and was def In Progress of figuring it all out.....i didn’t have nearly the Self-Esteem i have now lmao, it was Not a great time and in a lot of ways ‘09-’10 was the start of a downturn into Worse Than Usual Times, though in Other ways it was definitely an upturn lol like. the latter related to stuff that was important to me / who i am, the former tied to the situations i was in and the godawful morale that resulted

29) a time when the worst case scenario happened but you pulled through?

well by the end of 2012 i had my Wrath Parent deluxe mad at me big time, AND i was stuck at home all of thee time with that (not at all hours but. every day.) it was terrible!!! tf was going on in 2013, cuz that shit was definitely like, a gross blur of a lot of indistinct misery. and then, relatedly, when it was so shitty in 2015 that i was like fantastic, i am so officially sick of this i’m outta here. i revisited some Misery Posts from that period lately for someone stranger on twitter’s project or something, and boy i was having a bad time Summer Of ‘15 lol, things not getting better at home And a job that was so shitty that it was like..................bye. lol. and then i spent a year living out of a minivan. which was real lucky in ways b/c like. infinitely better than if i had not had that minivan. and when that broke down i was also then lucky enough to have this friend who was relatively nearby who’d also been willing to just like, set me up to Not have to ask the lgbt center where that trans-friendly forest zone a couple cities over was. nothing as dramatic as it could’ve been, fortunately

31) a time you were scared?

hmmm when leaving The Parents Home overnight, that was intimidating. bit of completely jumping into the unknown there, and also like, when you spend your lifetime assuming that Someone’s Arbitrary Wrath will be uponst you always, it’s hard to shake that sense of dread and doom, like ah jeez i am really potentially bringing hell on myself here........and like i mentioned with Start Of The Decade, there was just a ton of fear there all the time lol, trying to figure out virtually overnight The Whole Of Who I Am And What I Want when i’d only just even gotten to start......also i wanna say i maybe came out in 2011?? and i sort of also felt obligated to come out to my parents also (plus i think i was giving them like, one last chance to surprise me and be decent and kind of Grow Up themselves even tho i was the like, 16 y.o.) which yknow, kids you do not have to come out to anyone at all. someone was talking the other day abt how they didn’t think lgbtq “discourse” had evolved as much as you’d hope over the past decade, but idk about that, it's only a little bit of a wildly complex topic, and for starters Online Trans “Discourse” of a decade back was wayyyyyy in a vastly different place than it is now, leaps and strides really. so the way to ~really~ do it was presented kind of more rigidly i think. anyways i did it via email and was incredibly stressed to even open the reply a couple days later lol......which ended up being really weird and vague, and then there was a phone call where no one brought it up, and the only result was increased ire and resentment :( ........and then there was still like, cops encounters! near or not-as-bad-as-they-could’ve-been vehicular collisions! but tbh generally my reaction to the latter was underwhelming, except for one particular time when i was a passenger and also tense af for the rest of the ride. that’s it for Immediate fear really lol......oh wait one time i was at this decent sized Convention Panel Event and when i’m nervous i can Only talk more (it’s possible!!) and i snuck into line for the q&a and Right when i got to the mic (intimidating) they were like oop we’re low on time, lightning round!! :’] that was obviously more just a crapton of l’anxiete

37) a fashion that fell out of style that you wish would make a resurgence?

were Gladiator sandals this decade? the strappy deals that like, went up the ankles / calves? that was in fashion for a year or two and i’m into it. i like sandals and that kind of drama

41) something you learned a lot that not a lot of other people might know about?

i don’t know that i learned way a lot of anything that’s real in-depth knowledge and niche lore.........i have learned Nothing

43) an important relationship (of any kind) you had?

i had???? lmao well either way let’s say current relationships count and like, pretty much everyone in my Sphere i value a lot! i never like, have or have had a ~close~ ring of ppl around me lol like i thought it was lucky if i talked to someone Every Day (and not at all the Usual thing) and now it’s more likely that i talk to two people every day and maybe that sounds sarcastic but it’s not at all lol. i know my social stats aren’t impressive but i so appreciate what i get to enjoy and have. and other Connections might be way more like, we are friendly acquaintances, we talk on rare occasions, we haven’t talked at all in ages, we talk but only to trade cute pics of cats, Etc etc, but i seriously do appreciate all of everyone who’s cool who i get to interact with in any way and like, be in each other’s spheres and Not just like, absolutely on nobody’s radar. also obviously soph you are here in that list in case i wasn’t implying it good enough lol it is 5am and god knows deciphering what i say at any time can be its own challenge.....ur Epic Highs and Lows of bmc 3.0 is so good lmao

#hell yeah tysm now also i should go for Passing Outs #(where you pass out like knocking out)#thank you Three Other Asks i see and appreciate it as well #oh wait shit four!!!#lol #it's 5:20am bed time bitch all day hit the hay #i forget what i say here i've been on and off doing whatever for the past 5 hrs obviously lmao #nothingunrealistic1

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kendrixtermina · 6 years ago

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I haven’t played all four routes yet but from spoilers I do know that Edelgard has some feelings for Byleth regardless of the route. While the shipper in me likes that detail, objectively from what I’ve seen of AM/VW so far I’m not sure why El would feel that way. I don’t want to chalk it up to waifuism right away. Any thoughts on this, since you’ve played all the routes?

Comments on the premise

(Scroll down for an answer to your actual question)

First of all this “waifuism” thing is exceedingly cynical.

Male antagonists in huge classical words of art are given a tragic crush or adorable little daughter/sister them all the time so as to humanize them, give them internal conflict and expose some contradictions about them, and people get how it’s tragic and gives them dimensionality and no one ever says the only reason is so fangirls will think they’re hot. If anyone gets made fun of it’s the fangirls for “not getting the depht” as if that were mutually exclusive. Vulnerability, temptation, struggle for independence... you find that all over the best stories ever told.

For every damself in distress there’s one dude (her boyfriend) who manages to be a full compelling non-satelite human being despite having romance as a motivator the problem isn’t romance it’s bad writing. There’s certainly a problem if almost every single female character in a setting were entirely by romance but the idea that liking someone is to degrade, flatten and cheapen yourself is just as toxic. It can coexist with other more complex motivations and in fact lampshade them.

You might perhaps call bad writing if it were one of those situations where the villainess has no other motivation than dudes, brings it up constantly or is so defined by it that it keeps her from acting in any self-consistent manner or just isn’t taken seriously as an antagonist. Not saying she’s a villain at all but you oppose her on the other routes.

I pretty much all the characters like Byleth and express regret when they go up against them... They have a sort of heroic charisma that’s why they’re the main character. (not per se the other way around - you don’t point the camera where nothing interesting/extrordinary is happening. Few stories tell us about a sack of potatoes falling over or people sitting on chairs, and if they did they’d be about pointing out how potatoes or chairs are actually plenty interesting)

They’re described as accepting ppl just as they are with that having been an attitude impressed on them by their father who himself is cool with Byleth’s own oddities, and also described as one hell of a badass field commander. Also you DO run around all day bringing everyone gifts, their favorite snacks lost possesions and listening to their problems/lifestories.

It’s not like it’s super over the top in your face it’s like a handful of lines many of which you might not even hear if you’ve recruited certain characters or don#t trigger certain engage quotes, and it ties into her greater characterization as someone with consummate laserfocus dedication who has pretty much given up on anything that doesn’t further her goal even her own feelings. - having a crush is just one example, she mentions how she’d have preferred a more peaceful life doing idle fun things and did enjoy her time at the monastery where she got to be just another classmate sand fight alongside everybody else as a comrade.

Though she enjoyed her time at the monastery, her resolve doesn’t waver... but now it hurts a bit more to go through with what she had planned all along since it means losing some of the relative normalcy she had not dared to hope for anymore

You actual question (ie what does she like about them)

Crushes, by nature, are just something that randomly shows up and can produce quite a bit of a reaction in a short time.

Regardless of route you save her from a bandit and there’s all the explore time dialogue and basically lived in close quarters/ saw each other every other day. Even if theyd spend more time with their own class theyd still be around the place doing cool stuff. That would be explanation enough, I mean it doesn’t necessarily mean that something had to come of it, that she wouldn’t get over it or that you’re immediately soulmates or whatever, I mean you can pair her off with plenty of other peeps in her route.

Which isn’t to say that the whole thing is just any old youthful crush. Crush or no crush she really wants them to be allies.

First of all Edelgard has been describing as being drawn to/ sorta ‘collecting’ people she views as talented and exceptional so if you are a badass she’s gonna like you (just in general not even romantically), and if you’re a badass who’s also her ‘type’ that might manifest itself as a crush as well.

She says pretty early on that she thinks they have similar personalities, and she clearly looks for like-mindedness in friends and allies as well, of the ones that she gets semi-friendly with even before the timeskip the only one with a significant different outlook/temperament is Dorothea, and everyone likes Dorothea, since she goes out of her way to befriend anyone who doesn’t resemble an arrogant dunce.

Also, she probably finds the idea of having an ally who is “like her” very enticing. First because she’s used to being misunderstood and someone who is similar might “get” her and relate to her. (Conversely there’s a lot of dialogue where she’s like “I know you’re lying” or “wow you’re telling the truth”... she doesnt find them that opaque/unreadable compared to the other characters. so this also goes both ways... this occurs regularly enough that its even kinda used to hint at who the flame emperor is (”I can tell you dont actually want to join me”))

Byleth is just generally described in a lot of scenes dialogues and supports as someone whos pretty accepting of peolples weirdness and quirks. Leonie thinks they get it from Jeralt. That tends to be a selling point for most of their romantic options especially the house leaders

Likewise, due to various reasons relating to her natural personality, station and backstory she finds it hard to step out of business mode, and ppl tend to sort of flinch away from her because she’s uncommonly powerful and also the princess, and she doesn’t like that/tends to feel somewhat isolated because of it. Even ppl who know Edelgard well enough to have significant insight into her (like Hubert or Ladislava) still speak of her with a kind of awe.

Due to their upbringing away from mainstream society, sorta unphased slightly flippant personality and their own considerable power/competence Byleth is one of the few who isn’t daunted to approach her like any ol regular person. They’re powerful enough for her to approach them on an even level, or even rely on them/ take pointers from them.

You also see that to an extent with Lysithea (who is not just a fellow experiment victim but also has a similar ‘serious/focussed’ outlook and love of sugary things) with whom she also gets various “I wish you’d joined me/pity that we must fight” sort of dialogue. She’s Edelgard’s one inter-house support (suggesting a similar “I kinda can’t help wanting to get to know you even though I know we might become enemies” dynamic at play) the “free recruitee” on the CF route (whereas the other cases are in situations where they have incentives to flip - Lorenz is only with the empire out of opportunism so why wouldn’t he join the kingdom if they look to be winning? And Ashe was flat out drafted and is only with the Rowes out of obligation) and if you spare her she’ll say that Claude explicitly told her to waive the white flag if things get tough because he figured that Edelgard would be likely to spare her.

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bma-2020 · 6 years ago

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POST-SERIES THINGS, HOW MALLY GOT TO THE OYSTER WORLD.

(Notice for spoilers to Sy/fy Alic/e if you haven’t watched it and care abt spoilers or smthn)

WHICHEVER method of Mally during the miniseries we go with (Method one: She joins Hatter and Alice on their endeavors when Hatter goes to find her in the forest. Method two: She’s been trapped in the Casino for awhile, after Jack Heart finds out where she is, goes to interrogate Hatter, and she turns herself in to ensure he doesn’t get in trouble for it.) This is how it ends up.

As Bean pointed out in this one post from probably 2014 or so since I was already following bean by that point, that I will forever be linking to even tho Bean doesn’t write Hatter anymore n tries to hide the fact that Bean can do math better than basically everyone or at least me, before Hatter goes through the looking glass to find Alice, it’s at least three months in Wonderland time. That’s why he’s all healed up, has nicer hair, changed his hat, god better clothes, all that.

Whatever happened, I do have it where Mally was with him during that time. Whether it’s the healing period from being trapped for so long, or just her trying to fix him up because he’s a wreck and in denial of being a wreck, either way, she’s not the kind to ditch her friend. Especially when the new king is the same dude who she was forcibly engaged to before she ran away, gaslit her, tried to convince her to ‘work with him’ and he could ‘convince his mother to let her go’ before she was sent down to the asylum, she’s not happy about the current royalty. That, on top of how he’s treated hatter in the past (I know the series doesn’t go into it but I highly highly highly doubt Hatter was that antagonistic towards Jack just out of jealousy and because he was the Queen’s son, it seemed a bit more personal than that. ) she ain’t about that.

But, she notices just about everything about Hatter. Now, of course, as much as I don’t say anything bc I don’t want ppl to be all ‘oh you’re trying to force ship’ when a: i’m not. b: unrequited shit. c: this was canon for her when I wrote w other hatters throughout 2013 or so through 2015, I didn’t say anything, I avoided saying anything, but Mally definitely has always had some kind of love for him. It’s in her nature, she is in love with Hatter, and she won’t say anything, so I don’t either. We all know how I am, I don’t even tell people when I do ship the muses and would wanna write it out cause yknow, I have massive anxiety about that and scaring people away so if I let them come to me abt it instead its not my idea first and I can’t be ‘awful or terrible’ for being a person yknow how it is.

Anyways, she definitely would have noticed that he was missing Alice. And, while from how we know my writing goes, she has those reflections of the original wonderland, she has vague memories of the original alice ( which, in the version where she was taken by Jack and put back in the asylum, those memories expand a lot. Thus meaning, she remembers a whole lot more about the original wonderland because she can’t avoid it in that situation.) she liked Alice H, but she didn’t view her as the ‘legend’, she didn’t see her as an ideal, she honestly would have preferred if he wanted to go find the OG Alice, but long and behold.

She’d convince him to do what was best for him.

Even in the situation where he’d be trying to help her out of that trauma, she’d still tell him not to worry about her, because she only wants what would make. him. happy.

And yeah, that fucks her up when he actually goes.

I don’t think she said that with the belief he’d actually go, so him actually going definitely wasn’t expected. She wouldn’t have wanted him to go, she wanted him happy, but I think inside she actually thought he’d just choose her over someone he knew for three days. That’s her headspace, don’t twist my thought process on this bc I actually ship this specific version of h/attice but mally would still be like ‘you knew her for three frickan days dude’

so she’s extremely not okay during the first few weeks after he left. Jack tried to contact her during that time, he’s still trying to get her to work with/for him, she’s not about that. Even in a completely damaged state of mind, she ain’t gonna go with Jack Heart for anything.

But, during that damaged period, is when the Cheshire Cat comes back. She’s talked to him before, he’s the only one with complete memories of the prior world and the current world, he doesn’t actually tell anyone anything. He talks to her about the Wonders. She does wander off to try and find the Vorpal Blade, and she does. In the process, she comes across Necros.

Necros spoke to her for a few moments, and ultimately when she said she didn’t want to be around him, he left her alone. One of the first people since Hatter to show her any ounce of respect like that, tbh. She does have a moment of time where she ends up in the Court of Swords, learns her mom is a Queen, all that jazz, realizes her own mother wants to use her for something, nothing pretty comes of that.

But, within a few weeks, she ends up having a breakdown in the forest, she’s alone, she’s abandoned, nobody wants to help her, everyone she meets wants to use her, the one person she thought wouldn’t hurt her left her for a girl he knew for three days. and then Necros finds her, alone in the forest of Wabe, he doesn’t say anything to her, but he does offer her a hand, and she ends up going with him. That’s how she ends up coming to the underground.

Necros, Celeste, the underground just treats her nicely. She’s not used to it, she sees that nice treatment as a huge ‘what the fuck’ tbh, she’s just like ‘idk what’s happening rn but they arent hurting me so’ Necros has Monstrous Crow train Mally further, as Monstrous Crow can replicate others powers and helps them to fully achieve their ‘perfect’ status. From what she understood, they weren’t helping her to ‘use’ them, they were trying to help her not have to isolate herself anymore. With Monstrous Crow’s powers, they were able to develop a stronger version of her brother’s injectables that allowed others to touch her (as, March and Hatter were the only two that weren’t affected by her extremely cold temperature).

This was a lot stronger than the one her brother developed. They made one that she could take instead. Granted, if she takes it, it weakens her excessively for days at a time, so Necros doesn’t recommend she take it over convincing whoever else to do it, cause they only need one injection and they’re done, never have to worry about it again. She’d have to do it every few days and it hurts her, they tried finding a way outside of that, because she could get to the point of her own power where she can stop it, but she’s not there yet. She might never get there.

And, she chose to stay with them because the idea of completely getting rid of the Hearts family and bringing the true royalty back to Wonderland (the High Arcana, since the White and Red families weren’t around anymore, either finding a surviving relative fit to rule or convincing the court of fools to stop keeping away from it) and Mally actually made it go beyond that. She wanted Alice to come back and rule because nobody would be more fit to rule than her and Necros agreed, thus it seemed fitting to put her in charge of their operations in the Oyster land.

Now, a lot of the underground are magical and they’re scientists. They learned methods to transfer back and forth from the oyster world without the time shenanigans that happen with others. This basically means that they can use the looking glasses they made to traverse back and forth and the time they spend in oyster land, when they go back to wonderland the same amount of time still passed. They went beyond the study of realm travel to ensure they didn’t lose anything.

Monstrous Crow went with her, and the original idea was ‘saving’ oysters that... were better than average humans, and who were suffering in their realm and needed to be accepted, needed people to help them feel better about themselves, honestly because who better to convince to be on your side than someone longing for positive attention. Mally still helps with that, but she’s also going beyond that, and she’s trying to find out where Alice Liddell went. What happened to her.

She knows that after 150 years of their time, it could have been more for the oysters, and she knows oysters dont live that long. But she also knows Alice wasn’t all human, that there was something supernatural about her that gave her the ability to control aspects of Wonderland. Therefore, she believes that she can’t be entirely gone. Part of her had to be reborn into someone or something else and that’s who Mally’s trying to find, particularly hoping that she’ll be like Mally is and have recollections of the past. That’s her main goal.

But, there’s another goal she has too. She is actually trying to find Hatter. I think it’s more for closure on her end, to learn if he’s happy, see if his ‘ditching her’ made life better for him. That would lead to a lot more emotional spikes on her end cause, lbr, she’s gonna think abt the fact that he was only happy after leaving her behind, she acts extremely self confident but internally she’s a mess.

#out.#a. about. ( DARED TO STEP OUTSIDE THE LINE. )#i dont know why anyone would reblog this but #...... please don't reblog my verse stuff kthx

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thegayknee · 6 years ago

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That post is correct that many mainstream books contain content like that, but it still brushes aside that what ppl are upset about is when those subjects are shown as sexy and desirable. Like those books show that content as horrifying and disturbing while the fanfictions that ppl criticize show them as wank material. It's almost a strawman, claiming that ppl want all discussions of that content gone when ppl just want it to be handled respectfully

yeah that’s a thought i’ve had before! that’s what my tag saying “#some fanfics that deal with these subjects are just straight up porn tho” was referring to. but since I also... don’t really interact with “fandom discourse” (idk what to call it exactly) I was wondering if my perception that the majority of fics that deal with heavy subjects do so in a porny way was wrong. I honestly... don’t know, since I avoid fics about heavy subjects.

I don’t like fics that reduce heavy subjects to porn fodder, and I’m glad that there’s a movement happening that’s trying to deal with this. Well, “deal with it” is a relative term... there’s nothing we can do to stop people from creating these stories. All that can be done is discourage it from being accepted and cordon it off somewhere where people who don’t want to be exposed to it can avoid it.

That said, I’m a little... hesitant in giving my support to this movement, mostly because I’ve started to see people weaponizing it from the inside. Because “writes disturbing stories” had become a semi-serious accusation online, it’s in the interests of some people to levy exaggerated accusations at others in the attempt to get them blacklisted.

For example, there was a bnha writer (deafmic i think??) who wrote explicit fic about some characters from bnha. Bnha (or Boku No Hero Academia) has a cast of mainly high school-aged characters...MAINLY. The characters that the writer wrote about were teachers, grown men in their thirties.

The writer (still can’t remember if it was deafmic or not) received some asks accusing them of writing porn about underage characters, and since the fic in question involved a urination fetish, this was used as fuel in the fire against them. It was basically weaponized disgust. (x wrote an explicit fic about minors is good, but x wrote pissfic about minors? even better.) (Nevermind the fact that the characters in question were... grown men.)

Luckily, I think people realized pretty quickly that it was a bullshit accusation, so no harm came to the writer that I know of. Still, the incident was completely unfair and makes my blood boil to this day.

Funnily enough, writing my response to this ask has helped me figure out some of my thoughts on this issue!

Kids shouldn’t be exposed to age-inappropriate material, no matter the source.

And...

Adults don’t need other people to filter or censor the content they see. They can filter it for themselves, and choose the content they want to seek out (even if it’s disturbing in nature.)

Adults can also draw their own conclusions about disturbing content. They don’t need people aggressively moralizing at them.

Idk, maybe it’s just the fact that living in the US has inundated me with Christianity and its weird purity hangups, but I get really irritated whenever I see people preaching, moralizing, and censoring without regard for the audience’s ability to... come to the same conclusions by themselves.

Slap warnings on things! Blacklist people who forgo warnings or write for audiences composed of pedophiles! (Because the audience you write for is usually a reflection of yourself and where your sympathies lie.) (Although even that isn’t an ironclad rule. Sometimes you want to talk to/about people you don’t sympathize with, even people who disgust you.)

Wow this got away from me... anyway uh

tl;dr: Don’t expose kids to age-inappropriate material, but let adults decide for themselves what they do and do not want to engage with. Also internet discourse is toxic and ends up turning into a dogpile with an arbitrary victim at the bottom who is usually either innocent or guilty of something that deserves a WAY less aggressive response.

okay i think that’s everything i had to say. this is pretty disorganized but meh. i don’t get paid to discourse

#original post #this is pretty much the extent of what i will say/do about this topic #might reblog a few posts about it occasionally but otherwise??#bro people writing horrific things isn't my top priority in life #i can just... not read their stuff

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sarcasticlykaeon-blog · 7 years ago

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Caught Between Worlds

Stuck. Thats how it felt, every hour of every day, for as long as I could remember. Like i was some sort of freak, on the outside looking in. I can remember when i was small, barely old enough to really walk and talk, two and a half, three...and i hated dresses. I hated pink. I hated lace and frills. If i could choose or make my will known it was pants. Tshirts and sweatshirts. Childrens overalls. I hated games in preschool. The girls always wanted to play house, with husbands and babies in some sort of elaborate roleplay. The boys wouldnt let me play with them. "No girls," theyd say. "You wont know how," or "girls arent any good at this. Go play with dolls." somehow...just because i didnt have the same lower regions i wasnt good enough. So i played alone, with blocks or toys, making up elaborate adventures or stories in the process. My mother, my aunts, my grandmother...they all wanted me to be a girl. They tried to take me underwing in baking, playing with makeup, dressup, dolls...they tried to teach me about playing with hair. Me? I just wanted to test out the new computer, watch ninja turtles, and kick butt like she-ra. My one concession to female marketed programs was Jem...but honestly? I loved the story and drama, not the glamour, glitter, fashion, or fame. I was the oldest...five years between me and my brother meant i was dads son substitute until i was almost 11. I learned things like changing the oil in a car, ms-dos programming and how to kick ass in Doom, how to tackle and fight back if grabbed by a bigger opponent. Of course...the instant my middle brother was old enough to do son things....fwip! I was ignored. About the only thing i could get the old man to do was D&D. My grandfather insisted it was a phase i would grow out of, that id become a seeker of a strong man and an actual woman eventually. My mother tried to force me to conform to gender standards. My aunt was disappointed. My father only started caring about gender normativity when i hit puberty. I never told them things like "i want to grow up to be a boy" because even at three, i knew it didnt work that way, on some instinctual level. But i dod wail and growl about the unfairness. Why is x okay for boys but not girls? Why are girls expected to be like this but boys arent? And the answer...oh the answer just upset me and angered me. "Because youre expected to be a young lady." By puberty, the words "young lady" were guarenteed to trigger a huge emotional fit of rage...but i couldnt explain why. Just like the fact that i had to fight for my place amidst whatever boys lived in the neighborhood. I had to work twice as hard to prove i was worthy of being allowed to hang out...and still they sought to ditch me at every opportunity. School was even worse. I was overly tall, strong, and hyper intelligent. I was part of the "Gifted Program" (which in most school systems is naught but busy work or a careful way to set up classes in high school to fix the averages of a class.) I was, in every concievable way the outcast. And then puberty found me. Early. The first time i bled in sixth grade, i cried myself to sleep, hiding blood ruined underwear in the back of my closet until i could throw it away. I didnt tell my mother until i was sixteen--hiding this horrid, agonizingly painful thing that happened to me once a month. When i grew breasts i hated them. I hated bras. And of course, i have breasts that grew huge. I survive with super tight sports bras and tshirts because nothing else fits my fucked up frame: ive got broad shoulders, long legs, and huge feet (size 12 womens, which is impossible to find), and im like 5'8". Id be taller but my arms and torso are short, and ive got wide hips and huge breasts and butt. I hated my body and i still do. I feel like i was a crapshoot built out of the mismatched leftovers of several people. And the shit my parents tried to enforce for gender conformity to this "new identity of a young lady." first was acne management. I wasnt a pizza face, but i did and still do have a bit of an issue with blackheads (Glasses have that effect.) But my parents tried to force me to pop my zits...and when i refused because it hurt, they basically held me down and popped them for me. Then was "shaving my legs". Okay. Underarms i get because pits stink. I shave those because it feels less stanky when i do. But their issue? My legs. I refused to do it. "Boys dont, why do i? Thats not fair!" i fought. Hard. But...like the zits...theyd hold me down and buzz my legs for me from knee to foot while i thrashed and begged...all to force on me a title i never wanted, a mold i didnt fit. And i didnt understand WHY. Why was my behavior, my life and interests and hobbies and clothing all supposed to be dictated by something so unimportant? And then...when i was sixteen, i met a person i hit it off with. A sweet and funny youth my age with hair as long as mine and a goofy smile on his face. In a few months we were dating long distance and i suspect my family sighed in relief that i wasnt a lesbian. Our fathers got to be friends(which was useful, since 200miles between us put a crimp in relations.) But this had another side effect. You see, that next year i learned something id never heard before. Something id never considered until that day in 2002. His father...felt he was a woman trapped in a mans body. I was floored. This could happen? What? So i researched what i could to understand (there wasnt much, back then.) And...i began to wonder....because all I could find was for males becoming females. Even joked with my boyfriend that the universe "got us backwards" (he agreed, seeing as how he was girlier than me) And then it all crashed to a halt one night at dinner. His father, him, me, another mtf person and two other adults were at a restaurant, and the kne guy at the table with no knowledge on trans folks was asking questions. I listened, enraptured as the emotions and disconnects id always felt were described from the other side. Emboldened, 17, and perhaps seeking some form of connection or...validation for my feelings, i piped up, expressing how i felt the universe had gotten me backwards. That was the worst thing to say, as his father unloaded on me verbally for being mocking and insensitive and jumping on a bandwagon i had no business on. Treated me like i was being scum--damn near drove me to tears and made me feel small and useless. And i thought "if this is what trans ppl are like...i dont want to be like them ever." it crushed my desire to understand my gender identity and sexuality for years. It didnt help that as time went by ot seemed every trans person i encountered was one of two things: a dramawhore with the emotional stability of a 14year old girl, or someone like my bf's father who decided that i couldnt belong to his elitest club in a fashion that echoed years of "no girls allowed" from boys everywhere. The internets vast collection of professionally offended "keyboard warriors" who spew bigotry and hate and small minded idiocy while calling it "truth" or "just what X group deserves" is a steaming cesspit of shit I dont want to be part of on any level, and unfortunately many of them claim to be whatever "alternate" gender identity or sexuality is the fad this month. Its not winning me over at all, and made me shy further away from actual people i might be able to relate to...maybe who can help me. I finally did own up to something when i was 23--I was more sexually attracted to women than men. In fact...beyond a few emotion driven crushes as a teen, the only male i have ever found attractive was that same goofy, funny, smiling boy with the long hair...except these days hes my supportive, goofy, smiling mate with the softest heart of gold ive ever known inside a powerful and intimidatingly sized viking-esque exterior. But again...because on the outside, our relationship seems very "normal" im not welcomed much by the vocal minority and so im super wary of all parts of the lgbt crowd. I dont advertise or tell my relatives--my parents and their respective siblings are between 50 and 70 years old. They barely believe this stuff exists. I still dont want to be a girl. I dont want the societal expectations of it. I hate having breasts that risk knocking my teeth loose if i move too fast. And dont get me started on the fucking shit show that is my sex life. Its a complicated shit show that starts with the disconnect of parts and ends with kinks i can never actually engage in because, guess what? Im a GIRL. But at the same time, i stare at the only transmen examples and stories i can find, which seem to be rare and hidden somewhere, at places like fb and tumblr and twitter...at pride rallies and news stories...at stuff recounted by friends...and i dont want to be associated with people whose actions turn them into examples of literal human garbage. And so here i sit, caught between two worlds, never part of either one and feeling like im slowly drowning. It seems like one doesnt want me and the other i dont want... Im so tired of being stuck.

#Gender dysphoria #gender identity #emotional stress #confusion #feeling like a freak

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flauntpage · 7 years ago

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A Pro/Rel Column – Why American Soccer Can Exist Without It

I’ll start by saying that I don’t hate promotion and relegation. I can’t dislike a system that rewards success, punishes failure, and provides opportunity. Stripped down to the simplest of explanations, it sounds very American.

My stance has always been that domestic soccer has unique challenges and considerations that aren’t necessarily fixed by structural changes to the pyramid. There’s no magic bullet here, as some would have you think.

What we get is a noxious clash of ideas with a lot of shouting and idiocy on both sides. Pro/rel advocates froth and whine on social media while those of us on the other end of the spectrum, or somewhere in the middle, are guilty of engaging in the pissing contest instead of ignoring the trolls and seeking out rational thought instead. Just like Capitol Hill, moderate voices and measured takes are often drowned out.

So I think the premise of the column is this –

American soccer doesn’t necessarily need promotion and relegation. I think we can be successful in our current setup, with a closed league, steady growth, and a soft salary cap that promotes pseudo-parity in lieu of top-heavy foreign-framed systems. Let’s fix MLS before tearing the whole thing down and starting over.

The main pro/rel argument basically suggests that opening the pyramid will provide opportunities for smaller teams and result in widespread investment at lower levels due to the removal of the ceiling that limits those clubs. Would-be owners who can’t buy in to Major League Soccer can start a lower division team that has unlimited potential for upward growth. Lesser division one teams, like your Philadelphia Union, can’t be cheap and lazy, or else they go down.

Sounds good in theory, right? Fresh blood and motivation. Jay Sugarman, one of the worst sports owners on this side of the Atlantic, would be punished for his thriftiness with D2 relegation, which would have happened in 2015 after the Union finished with 37 points and a 10-17-7 record. Down goes boring Philly, up comes the exciting New York Cosmos. We punish the underachiever and reward success.

Nothing wrong with that on paper. My stance has always been predicated on four things:

1. There are organic ways to remove owners and executives in a closed system

During that 2015 Union season, the Sons of Ben marched to the gates of PPL Park carrying a coffin with an image of CEO Nick Sakiewicz inside. Painted on the casket were the words “serial franchise killer,” a reference to Sakiewicz’s time with the Tampa Bay Mutiny and New York Red Bulls, the former of which folded in 2001 and the latter which found little on-field success.

This was a grassroots protest from the same fan body that lobbied for an MLS franchise in the first place, starting with a group that gathered in McGillin’s Olde Ale House to discuss ways to generate interest in Philadelphia soccer. In a way, that 2015 protest was a natural extension of the process that started the Union, which was organic and fan-generated. Sakiewicz was removed at the end of the season and Earnie Stewart was installed as the club’s first Sporting Director.

Two years later, Union fans have come to realize that the failures were not entirely Sakiewicz’s fault, as the team continues to struggle after his departure. But the takeaway here is that fans were able to influence the front office even in a closed system with no built-in punishment for under-performance. And if they’re fed up with the team in 2018, they can simply stop showing up, stop buying tickets, and stop buying merchandise. The consumer always has the power, whether he or she realizes it or not.

Another point is that relegation doesn’t automatically mean that ownership and front office problems are solved. Take Hull City, for instance, who are currently in 19th place in the English Championship. Owner Assem Allam bought the team in 2010, saw it promoted twice and relegated twice, and tried to change the name at the same time, angering the entirety of his fan base with one weird decision. Here’s a team on its fifth manager in two years and now trying to stay afloat in the second division after seven seasons of turbulence.

How about Francesco Becchetti, who took Leyton Orient from the verge of the Championship to division five?

Or Ellis Short, the guy who oversaw Sunderland’s descent into irrelevance? What about Mike Ashley and Karl Oyston?

Relegation isn’t an auto-fix for ownership issues. There’s no guarantee that Jay Sugarman or Stan Kroenke would leave town if their clubs took the drop. They can drag it down even further into the mud.

As it stands, their franchises continue to increase in value with the addition of new MLS expansion teams, so they can simply sit on their rear ends and watch their investment grow. Sugarman paid $20-30 million in an expansion fee back in 2010 and that fee is now up to $150 million. I don’t know how much that value drops if Philly takes the fall. If anything, the asking price probably remains relatively high in a system where that franchise can potentially go back up. I think it’s a wash.

What the league can do is guide ownership from within. MLS can certainly pressure cheaper owners to add new partners or increase their financial profile, or run them out entirely ala Chivas USA. You can tweak cap and roster rules to price them out. Look for MLS to start turning the screws a bit once expansion finishes.

Trust me on that one, per sources that have been spot on in the past. I’ve spoken to numerous people who say MLS HQ isn’t exactly thrilled with Union ownership right now. Sugarman sits on the expansion committee and, theoretically, the value of his club should level off at least somewhat when we get to 28 teams.

2. Pro/rel creates top heavy leagues and alternative boardroom objectives

Look at the Premier League table right now, where Manchester City is 13 points clear with a +49 goal differential after 20 games. Might as well hand them the trophy.

They’ve been a pleasure to watch, a team with 18 straight wins and 0 losses this entire campaign. They’re having historic success this season.

Next up is the clump of Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool, and Arsenal, who are sort of jockeying for Champion’s League positions. Going into this season, I think those were the six clubs that really had a chance to win anything in the Premier League, which is usually the case every year.

What, then, are squads like Stoke and Watford playing for? 10th place? Moral victories?

The problem with a pro/rel setup that doesn’t have a salary cap* is that only a handful of teams can really achieve anything, while the mid-table clump is irrelevant and the bottom feeders are just trying to stay afloat. That creates auxiliary goals for smaller clubs who aren’t even necessarily trying to win, they’re just trying to remain in the division. And maybe that’s a success for a small team like Huddersfield, which is trying to make progressive forward steps after years in the lower divisions.

But the nice thing about American sports is that everybody, theoretically, is pulling a Herm Edwards. You play to win the game. Sure, teams like Toronto and Seattle are obviously going to be favored to beat New England and Colorado, but at least the lesser MLS teams still have a chance at the playoffs in September and October. This doesn’t turn into a two-team race between Barcelona and Real Madrid seven games in.

For starters, eight different clubs have won MLS Cup in the last 10 years. La Liga has three different winners in that time frame. Same thing in Italy, where Juventus has won six Scudettos in a row. Same thing in… Germany, too, where Bayern Munich has won the last five. In Turkey, only one non-Istanbul club has won the Super Lig dating back to 1984.

1984!

In the prem, it’s United, City, Chelsea, and… Leicester!

We love Leicester. What a story, right? It’s the prime example pro/rel advocates use when explaining why their system makes more sense than what we currently have.

Problem is, a story like Leicester only comes around once in a blue moon. Chapecoense doesn’t happen often enough. There’s a big gap between Eibar and the Spanish top-five. Go around the world and you’ll find that these “small club” success stories are too often drowned out in top-heavy leagues with oil sheikh and Russian oligarch owners. It results in some high quality football at the expense of table slots 5 through 20, which are ultimately pointless unless you care about the Europa League. What we’re trying to build here is not a three-team snooze-fest, but a league with parity and competition.

Let’s take a look at the last nine years of Ukrainian football:

See a pattern there?

I enjoy the MLS system, where every season 10-12 teams can win a trophy. Our league has plenty of ridiculous issues, which requires a separate column, but I like the idea that squads are playing to win hardware, or at least make the playoffs, as opposed to “just staying up” or being satisfied with a mid-table finish.

Let’s check in with the Crystal Palace boardroom:

“Well lads, we finished in 14th place and fired our manager, but at least we didn’t go down! Hooray!”

I don’t like the direction the Philadelphia Union are going in, but I can appreciate the fact that they don’t need to bring in Sam Allardyce to save themselves from the drop. They’re at least committed to a young manager and not going to bail after four months to bring in a “relegation specialist.” Say whatever you want about Jim Curtin, who isn’t the best example for this story, but we can’t be canning coaches at the rate of Swansea City. Caleb Porter went from 1st place in the west, all the way down to 6th, then won a title. Bob Bradley will have a chance to build something at LAFC, not get run out of town at a shit club after 11 games.

Honestly, a lot of this just boils down to preference. Do you like open leagues with unrestricted spending that results in three to four clubs having a real title-winning shot? Or do you like a closed league with restrictions that close the gap from one to 22? MLS, of course, is not the best product out there, but it’s certainly more competitive and interesting, and at least I know that there’s something to play for in October, November, and December. Truthfully, I’m just bored with the Premier League and Serie A and La Liga, where it’s the same shit year after year after year, save for one enjoyable season of Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez. I watch the games and enjoy them in a vacuum, but the title-races leave a lot to be desired.

Now, does pro/rel automatically come with the removal of the salary cap? No, I don’t think so. But are we going to open the pyramid and then tell Miami FC that they can’t spend more than Jacksonville? You can’t cap teams while asking them to be ambitious investors at the same time. The MLS salary cap is waaaaaay too low right now and that has to change. We haven’t even scratched the surface, and we have to get rid of at least 50% of the absurd MLS roster building rules if we’re going to keep moving forward. Again, another article entirely, but I can’t get behind pro/rel entirely until I feel like we do everything in our control to maximize what we currently have. It’s like tearing down a building that’s only half-way finished.

(*I put the asterisk there because, yea, you can go above the MLS cap with a couple of designated player signings. That’s why it’s a soft cap with pseudo-parity instead of a true cap like the NFL or NBA.)

3. We’re not financially stable, yet

Let’s say the Philadelphia Union take the drop. Say it happened in 2015.

Now you’ve got a division two team playing in a half-full, eight-year-old stadium in one of Pennsylvania’s poorest cities. Chester is under a state-mandated recovery program (Act 47) and already pulling from other revenue sources to cover for the $275,000 annual shortfall in county bond payments. The stadium lease doesn’t expire until 2040. The pending litigation over waterfront property (and its valuation) takes a turn. How many people are driving down there to watch the Union play the Richmond Kickers? Every painfully small step to improve that area goes straight into the toilet if Philly goes down.

In a perfect world of Capitalism, you let it fail, right? Just let the market do its thing, which is what our economy is predicated on. That sounds good in theory, but the cost is just too much here. People lose their jobs. The city loses money. Fans stop showing up. The Philadelphia Inquirer pulls Jon Tannenwald off the Union beat to go do high school football instead. 2,000 season ticket holders decide not to renew and the front office lays off 10 sellers. Academy investment is cut back and Bethlehem Steel hemorrhages more money in year number three. It’s like a devastating backwards version of Reaganomics, where nothing is really trickling in either direction.

We don’t have 75 years of history to create a diehard core of supporters who will stick with the club through something like that. If the Eagles go down, no problem. If the Union go down, I don’t know if they survive. This is a 10-year old team and long-term project that already faces incredible struggles, some of which are self-inflicted and some that aren’t, namely the construction of a soccer-specific stadium in a less-than-desirable area during the worst part of the economic recession. Good job by Ed Rendell on that one.

Furthermore, potential buyers know they’re going to take a short term loss on an investment that might not even pan out if the Union never make it back to D1. Sure, they’d probably slap around Charleston and Pittsburgh and remain in the top-half of the table, but there’s never any guarantee here. Portsmouth and Blackburn are where right down? League One? Where’s Charlton?

Here they are:

PROGRESS |

2013: Charlton finish 9th in @SkyBetChamp.

2014: Duchatelet buys Charlton.

2016: Championship relegation.

2017: 13th place finish in League 1.

December 17: Promotion campaign starts to falter, #cafc can’t fill the substitutes bench for a league fixture. http://pic.twitter.com/QqECqGFMeN

— Charlton Athletic {…} FC (@ParodyCharlton) December 26, 2017

People always talk about the rise of new clubs but ignore the fall of once-great clubs. Charlton has been around for more than 100 years and now languishes in the third division while their fans suffer:

“Next on 60 Minutes, it’s the side of pro/rel that they don’t want you to see. I’m Lesley Stahl and I’ll take you to Southeast London, where one of England’s historic clubs is now total shite.”

Is there enough money out there to provide a parachute payment that would sustain an MLS drop? I don’t know, but that same infusion is basically labeled as allocation money within our closed system. It’s all coming from the same source, I just don’t know how much you would need to keep these clubs afloat.

If Wall Street banks were “too big to fail,” then MLS clubs are too fragile to fail, at least the one that plays here. You’re trying to make inroads in the country’s fourth largest television market, not risk the entire thing falling apart. We’ve already taken major backward steps from 2011 until now, with local TV ratings dropping below 1.0 and a slight dip in attendance. The Union have become more and more irrelevant and demoting them to D2 ain’t gonna help.

For years, Major League Soccer’s success was built on the process of slow growth and steady expansion. Seattle came in. Toronto came in. Vancouver and Montreal came in. One or two teams every year or every other year. These are nascent and vulnerable clubs. The fallacy here is that every division one team is some established juggernaut, which is certainly not true. Philly is a venture. The club didn’t even have practice fields or a training complex until two years ago. They used to drive to a public park to train. Now we’re pulling the rug out and jeopardizing a decade of (slow) development in a difficult soccer market just so division five Traverse City can get a shot? Do we want Capitalism or Socialism? What exactly are we looking for here?

Overall MLS attendance has increased dramatically in the last 20 years. TV ratings aren’t amazing, but they’re better than they were. This league has grown by leaps and bounds, but don’t let the success of Atlanta and Portland fool you. There are a ton of challenges for numerous “big market” teams, especially on the eastern seaboard. Revenue needs to increase, our TV deals need to be stronger, we have to do a better job of attracting casual fans, and we have to keep improving the product and create some stability before we risk it with structural changes. 1,500 fans might work in Utica, but it’s not gonna work in Philly. We can’t start turning our attention to smaller auxiliary markets until we gain a foothold in places like Boston, Dallas, New York, Washington, and Chicago. That’s how we negotiate better broadcasting deals and get more eyeballs on the product. As someone who worked in television for nine years, I can tell you that division one Shreveport does nothing at the bargaining table. But if the Chicago market, with 3.4 million TV homes, tunes in to a Sunday afternoon Fire game against Seattle, then partners are willing to sign off on bigger and better deals.

On the bottom end, we need to get teams like Harrisburg (now Penn FC) out of baseball parks and into stable situations. We need to stop sharing college stadiums and we need to continue building on the positives at the USL level. A lot of lower level teams simply do not have the infrastructure and business setup to be viable at division one. MLS is only 22 years old, yet lower division teams that have played less than five seasons are ready for promotion? The cart is way out in front of the horse here.

We’re only just starting to find our feet.

4. You are not entitled to anything

You know what’s more American than a free market economy? Earning your spot at the table.

Sorry, but you don’t deserve a shot to play with the big boys simply because you started a division nine soccer team that plays in a borrowed middle school stadium.

“We want the shit we don’t have and we want it for free!”

It doesn’t work that way. I worked graveyard shift producing the 5 a.m. news in Augusta, Georgia before I earned the opportunity to work at a bigger television station and make more money. I didn’t come out of college demanding $55,000 and a nine to five gig at Action News.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some apologist for the GOP or the “one-percent,” but there has to be a modicum of respect for the owners that took a leap on Major League Soccer back in 1996 and got us to where we are today. Yes, that includes Bob Kraft, who is terribly absent in 2017 but played an enormous role back in the day. That includes Phil Anschutz and Lamar Hunt and everybody else who got this thing off the ground.

If you don’t like it, you work against it. NASL pushed MLS but ultimately blew it. Cross-league jockeying creates competition that forces rivals to up their game. That’s how our economy works. Don’t like Verizon? Go to Comcast. Don’t like Comcast’s horrendous customer service? Cut the cord and stream the game on your Chrome Book. Don’t like your Chrome Book? Buy a Mac.

That’s America. It’s not about free handouts, it’s about making a product that’s bigger and better and more desirable than the other person’s product. And when you fail, sue the shit out of someone! Minnesota and Montreal went to MLS because it meant financial and competitive stability. Carolina, Tampa, and Ottawa saw a path forward in a smarter and less bombastic USL. The NASL shot itself in the foot with a lack of focus and poor expansion strategies (among many other things), then pointed the finger at the USSF instead of looking in the mirror.

And if we want to go down the road of, “well, the U.S. Soccer is a corrupt monopoly that favors MLS,” then go out and lobby for one of the candidates currently running for USSF President. Go be a part of the democratic process and make your case. There are pro/rel candidates out there who can change the game if they win the job. This is your opportunity make your voice heard. We’re still a pay-to-play sport that caters to suburban white kids with money. We need a national team coach. The women’s team isn’t being treated the same as the men’s team. U.S. Soccer has a million problems, but not all of them are directly tied to whether or not we have pro/rel at the professional level.

Just don’t suggest that the American soccer media, which is basically a rag tag group of part-timers, is “in the bag” for MLS or U.S. Soccer. I made less than $25,000 in eight years of writing about soccer ($3,125 annually) and never received a paycheck from MLS headquarters. I think I speak for most writers when I say that my motives were to put something on the resume and do a bit to hopefully grow the game in this country. I didn’t spend Saturday nights in Chester to pad my bank account, I was down there to hopefully play a small role in pushing the Union in a market that traditionally only watches the “four major North American sports.” I’d be flattered to receive bung offers but they just haven’t come. There’s no secret conspiracy going on here, so enough with the accusations of “collusion” and “tyranny” and all of the conspiratorial melodrama.

People with truly productive pro/rel opinions are being done a disservice by the tinfoil Twitter personalities. These guys claim to speak for the movement but they’re really just faux guerrillas fighting a contrarian war against the “establishment.” It’s like Occupy Wall Street, which started out as a protest against, well, Wall Street, then slowly morphed into a catch-all demonstration for the grievance of the day.

Walk away from these people and you’ll see the conversation open up. You can’t make outrageous accusations and then act surprised when the vitriol is reciprocated by myself and others.

Can it ever work?

Sure, pro/rel could work here, but it’s a monumental project. You’re talking about 100+ clubs spread out over a massive geographic region that includes two countries. Are we doing single-table or playoffs? Spring and Fall seasons? FIFA calendar? Is Canada on board? MLS is already on a seven-month, 34 game schedule built to accommodate weather, travel, and the existence of competing sports.

With the partnership between USL and MLS, people talk about doing a controlled, two-division pro/rel system after expansion is completed. I think that’s a start, but the problem there is that a lot of USL clubs are farm teams for MLS squads. Bethlehem Steel exists solely to provide minutes for academy kids and future Union signings, not to win trophies and make money. The team plays in a borrowed college stadium that has no lights. It’s funded entirely by Keystone Sports and Entertainment.

Now, compare that to teams like Charleston and Cincinnati, who have no affiliate and are not owned by a parent club? What now?

If you’re going to do pro/rel, I think you start with these four clumps:

Major League Soccer clubs

independent USL clubs

NASL leftovers and folded teams

USL clubs owned by MLS teams (Steel, NYRB 2, etc)

I don’t know what you do with the fourth grouping. Bring back the MLS reserve league? No idea. I like the idea of playing double-headers where, for example, Bethlehem Steel can get a 90 minute run out against Orlando City B after the senior teams finish their game. That might be a solution.

Then, if you take the first two groupings there, throw #3 a bone, and split the country in half, you’d get something like this:

West

East

It’s arbitrary. I’m just flying by the seat my pants here. But you get the idea, right?

I like four divisions split into two halves of the country, because it cuts down on travel and creates more meaningful games in smaller geographic regions. You’d play a 30 game schedule from March to September, with two teams relegated and two teams promoted every season. You could hand out a trophy for winning your regular season, then do a four to eight team playoff in October between eastern and western teams and award another trophy there. This all coexists with the U.S. Open Cup and Canadian Championship, so it’s basically placing more value on the regular season while still throwing out two more trophies to claim.

Maybe NPSL clubs or new franchises fill the slots that say “team.” There’s room here to add more, but I don’t know where a squad like Reading United fits in. They play at Exeter High School and are an incredibly small operation. Even if that team is promoted to D2 or even D1, that market doesn’t move the needle. Are we closing this off at four divisions in two regions or going further down the pyramid? I don’t know, but I think we need 8 to 10 more years of stability before traveling down this road.

It’s a start, though. I think something like this could work. More rivalry games, easier road trips for fans and media, and single tables that could still theoretically operate with a salary cap. You’ve got possible expansion from 16 teams per bracket, to 18, then up to 20, with room for new blood in ownership. Existing owners will never sign up for anything that could harm their investment, so they give them a five-year window to cash out before we install the new system.

The biggest struggle I have with pro/rel is that I feel like there has to be bridge here to involve investors who want to play a role, people dissimilar from Riccardo Silva and Dennis Crowley, who just want a piece of the pie that they didn’t bake.

That’s the important thing here, we’re selling ourselves short by excluding people who have good intentions and something tangible to provide. I joke about 500 fans showing up to a division four soccer game in Altoona, but we want these people on our side. We have enough obstacles trying to attract the Philly tough guy who could give a shit about the Union but walks around wearing a Chelsea kit. It’s counter-intuitive to divide soccer fans in this country when we already face an uphill climb against NFL and MLB traditionalists.

Right now I think we have four competing factions:

MLS fans

pro/rel NASL types

white Americans who watch foreign soccer but not MLS

1st/2nd generation immigrants who watch foreign soccer, but not MLS (think Mexican-Americans and Liga MX fans)

It’s ridiculous that soccer in this country features multiple groups of fans with contrasting opinions and interests, and that’s the priority here. We need to pull these groups together and find some common ground before we start working on the 65-year-old Phillies fan. He or she is probably a lost cause anyway, but we’re trying to grow the game here with soccer people on entirely different pages.

I don’t like going to bat for folks like Bob Kraft, but I do respect what they did for MLS in the late nineties. And I don’t want to dismiss investors at lower level clubs with good intentions, I just want to weed out the leeches who want a free spot at someone else’s table. I think pro/rel provides opportunity and forces lazy owners to spend, but I also don’t like top-heavy leagues with a lack of true competition. I appreciate stories like Leicester City while also being concerned about the future of a Bolton or Blackpool.

Each system has its own merits, and a lot of this, as I said before, just comes down to preference. Right now, I think we can be successful by improving what we currently have and building on a competitive and interesting league, instead of taking a huge risk by tearing down 22 years of progress and starting from scratch.

A Pro/Rel Column – Why American Soccer Can Exist Without It published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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unproduciblesmackdown · 5 years ago

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40, 47, 59, 62, 76

lmao hell yeah thanks for All this support i love it!! quastions

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school?

really idk i feel like even our schools’s Antics were pretty par for the course and i was just sitting in the corner reading the whole time basically......trying to think if anything wild happened in college but even then it was p similar. well you know what, whatever donors covered the majority of the cost of the school’s black box theater being renovated apparently Stipulated that every other year a rodgers and hammerstein production be put on. absolute freaks. my roommate/friend and their then-boyfriend, the one mormon i have Knowingly Known in my life, were in pirates of penzance (sic?) together. hilarious

47. favorite type of cheese?

i like cheddar and like, parmesan, smoked gouda.....let’s get that shit Sharp!!! and hard lmao

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be?

idk i’d be like an npc just doing their weird thing on their own. i’ve never played pokemons unless you count pokemons Go but i think about the famed “i like shorts they’re comfy and easy to wear” npc kid. like, yeah. i feel the same. and would say similar bullshit nobody asked about

62. seven characters you relate to?

oh god.........recognizing the self through the relatable characters :|

well let’s just talk about the wrol roles right off b/c the characters that Most occupy my gay thoughts (which is to say: my general thoughts) will inevitably get priority when it comes to Remembering things

1) whom among us doesn’t relate to jared kleinman........will roland emerging from relative obscurity and coming for our entire fucking lives like the goddamn legend he is. it’s tough b/c it’s like, oh well alana is relatable too, so is evan unfortunately sorry evan, and in ways i might ~usually act~ like one of those two more than jared but. no. it is Jared who wins the relatability contest, and we all get to be beautifully haunted by it forever

2) leaning hard into winston even with the few glimpses of him b/c somehow will Cannot play an allistic cishet. and this is even More of a case where maybe i don’t much have winston’s demeanor.......even without winston being a beacon of confidence, he has more confidence lmao. and he has that ability to just Be Himself in a situation which, i wish i had that moxie lmao. i am a lot more [usually trying to be accommodating wayyyy harder than i should], booo......even though he’s clearly not great at conflict considering how it doesn’t take Too much to put him out, it’d be pretty impossible for me to be all “called them hacks and lame” or carry out a very irritated monologue in front of four people in the first place lmao. but who knows. and it’s more in the details of like, oh no winston’s the odd one out even though he hasn’t really Done Anything, but we all ~understand~ why he Deserves it.........his expectation / treating it basically as Fact that he will disappoint people.......the [weird] [offputting] behaviors and his way of speaking in What he Says and How He Says It seeming wrong to people.......like it’s only 15-ish min of content that we have here and we don’t have the least info about will’s own thoughts on the character but it’s like. how is this such an iconic Gay Autistic Quant b/c these vibes are so rare. and i appreciate that he can be ~difficult~ lmao. same with jared though i didn’t mention it. i can be difficult!! love it for us...

3) briony atkins from murder of bindy mackenzie as a character who Does act more like how i Usually Act Like lmao.....god we’re only on three i forgot there was seven of these. and yet i know there’s probably at least 2 dozen characters who could make this list and i just won’t think of most of them unless directly reminded......but anyways yeah i mean in person i mostly do Not want attention unless i feel comfortable enough / in my element or whatever. especially if it’d be some situation like “sitting in a group of randos” lol. i mean it depends b/c i also can sometimes be ~on~ in terms of Masking and trying to be like Haha I’m Social I’m Regular and i def engage in Nervous Chatter sometimes, but like, very often it’s like god don’t talk to me and i don’t want to talk either.....and then yeah people Will be surprised that like, idk, i’m opinionated as shit and idk that i Enjoy Things / Have Thoughts And Feelings coz the assumption i guess is that you must simply have nothing to say. so the dismissal of this person who seemingly has nothing to contribute and must be Boring rings true lmfao.....but then of course it’s also important that her personality Under that is the one getting mistaken for emily’s lol cuz yeah At Heart i am sure of that dramatic / intense / excitable type Sometimes. but it takes some excavation before i am like “oh i can engage in my actual self” and like weeks and months to get comfortable w/ people and i’m always suspicious that anyone actually would enjoy it and i’m not too much......i am a motormouth actually and have something to say about any and everything and like to Have Fun Here but like. idk i come off as boring and can be Notably Quiet lmao

4) oscar martinez from the office is weirdly [Haha Same] sometimes lmfao. sort of keeps to himself but also has to pipe up with Opinions and Pedantry and the kind of Drama of a restrained theatre gay. some deleted scene from an episode where during an interview clip of Jimothy in a theater lobby and you have oscar call from across the group in that [wearied Ugh God] way of ‘jim, they’re remaking ___’ while jim just kind of gives a cursory “wow gosh” or whatever and like, i sure don’t have lots of Theatre Opinions but that “oh jeez i have a Take on this and have to share it with someone” vibe is like hahaha yeah.....it’s funny in the “the gang goes to the ice rink for a third of the ep” bit where you just catch oscar doing [ice skating turn] with some solemn intensity.......the “here’s a question nobody’s asking: is this worth it” quote.........way at the end where there’s a whole deal with one of the indoor plants and he’s like “why is it a He” @ the collective gendering of the houseplant lmfao.......i love the one thing where he and pam and uhh toby right? have the Finer Things book club or whatever and jim wants to join just like ~ironically~ and pam has to tell him that oscar doesn’t want him to join b/c he’s not going to take it seriously and use it as a Jokes Vehicle. and then you get the scene at the end where jim Is basically doing that and they’re just like taking it out of him and oscar’s all very seriously like “did you get it all out of your system” lmfao like yeah, earnest members only lmao.....the thing where he gets mad at angela’s like Jazz Musician Posed Babies posters all “it’s kitsch it Destroys art” lmaoooo and in a totally different season all “this is the problem with debate” over the completely inconsequential “is [whichever actress, i forget] Hot” “”””debate””””.......the whole tendency to get involved and always have a take to get across.....opinionated-sometimes-to-the-point-of-petty central. also that he’s the canon gay, are there even any others? anyways and as the us office’s spiritual successor i’ll add on to this by uh what’s the name of billy eichner’s character on parks and rec? it’s craig right. that Self-Powered Intensity is very #me as well.

5) augh god........im like lmfao shit who represents my Hater Club side. hmmm. oh no wait you know what. totally different but i love Prof Beatrice Hotchkiss in the trt nancy drew pc game. she’s holed up in her room writing all the time and just is weird when you try to talk to her all like no i won’t open the door, bring me food, do this Research, bring me my Ski Boots i guess......and then when you do meet her it’s all at like post-midnight in the lounge and she’s all like, encouraging you as a Night Owl and your investigative curiosity and all and i’m like oh word yeah being up in the dead of night is the shit. she’s just weird and passionate and this is another character i might not Act hardly at all like but who i vibe with lmfao. hotchkiss was the supportive adult in my life

6) remembering how hotchkiss is a historian made me think of academia which made me think of like, once again with “these vibes are So So Rare” i really ought to put the wrol role of Nato on the list cuz like. that essential representation of “gets gr8 grades but isn’t really ~academic~ / doesn’t care about that and really just cares about Hanging W Friends and [real specific interests]” is like wow damn that’s the Mood. coz like to an extent i can always Relate to the ~overachiever~ types a la the [nerd character gets all-A’s and other nerd shit] deal, but there’s eventually the issue of like.....those characters like bindy mackenzies and alana becks Care about their achievements (not exclusively as some ppl would have it 9_9) and are Studious whereas i always hated school and was a godawful student in terms of Habits and always got good grades b/c the devil was with me or something and like people will think i must have tried real hard and dedicated myself to Academics and stuff and it’s like.........no................not at all hardly, sure i did my hw every night but at like 11:29 pm or studied for a midterm at lunch right before the class lol or flipped through a lil bit of the sat study guide the night prior.........the “low-effort dumbass who Academically Excels Anyhow” representation is so crucial like!! i run into a wall when it’s the Good Grades nerd character who is real studious and focused and stuff like. couldn’t be me. meanwhile the “naturally weird + probably some ‘deliberate’ weirdness” and “likes animals” and “most likely to just wanna Roll With It” and “shitty focus lol” and “non sequiturs” and “without [activity] i do nothing” is all like....ahahahohoho..........nato rly got to make this list. and honorable mention for Wrol Jeremy. again: whom doesn’t relate!!!!!!!!

7) damnit i know there’s So many answers to [characters i relate to] and whom cover like, more particular Facets here but i’m struggling lmao. Uh. like i’m like, who’s the Hot Mess / continually evolving disaster characters i vibe with......who’s the peak despresso detached Haters rep......who embodies the solo production lifestyle........dammit you know what lol i tend to Feel for like, the background ~nobodies~ who might just get like totally destroyed in some movie with life or death stakes just to like, show how much danger our heroes / Important Complex Protags are. same w/ jeremy not feeling like the Hero / the one who the story’s about / the cool guy / player 1 / etc etc etc i’m like oo i’d be the npc who doesn’t really do anything, i’d be the rando getting blown away in the background of someone else’s story. on a totally different note another shoutout / honorable mention to wybie from the coraline lmfao one of the best characters invented from thin air for an adaptation......tangentially relevant b/c he’s entirely here to support the protag / not his story at all, just here to help and prompt interactions / exposition really.......but love that [weird loner kid who’s best friend is a cat and annoys the other kid and doesn’t Get it and has specific interests and entertains himself and just is doing weird shit around here tf dude lmao killing it] like, #mood. #lifestyle. less dismal to relate to than the bg person who dies......his counterpart who totally dies is somewhat fleshed out / given Investment so it doesnt Really count as [background Nobody who’s really just fodder for “defining the stakes / threat level”] Character Concept

76. what’s your favorite potato food (i.e. tater tots, baked potatoes, fries, chips, etc.)?

latkes maybe......Yummy

#i expect to now just think of like ten dozen Other Characters who would've been great to mention #c'est la vie!!! c'est comme ca!!!! speaking of. thinking of the hc that winston jsut. drops french phrases into his speech sometimes #building on the moi....tbt ur benston fic w quelle horreur.....#nothingunrealistic1

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