#shipping wars actually suck

[ahleezeruinavt]

Anyone who uses Undertale as the base measurement for "bad fandom" I swear has never experienced what an actually bad fandom is like. I have made an icerberg picture to sort of explain what I mean.

Undertale was kind of a victim of a really bad game of internet telephone. Where it was "Some people are being weird -> The community is weird -> The community is a cesspool of toxicity" which was just really strange given the fact that Undertale was mainly just an assortment of AUs with a few very entitled people in it. People's personal issues just got made public and since they were involved with the fandom that suddenly meant the whole fandom was like that. FNAF similarly had it's rotten people in it and like- one AU is all it got popular for in terms of its bad rep. Then we move down a level to more "ship war" type of places. RWBY and MHA are NOTORIOUS for their ship wars. You can breathe in the direction of someone who ships something like Bakugo x Deku and all of the sudden your twitter account is gone because of mass reporting. Some of you may not remeber Google+ but oh man. The RWBY fandom there? It was something. If you didn't ship Bumblebee get ready for a world of hate. I personally never shipped it and oh boy if I voiced that it was war in my notifications. I thought the relationship felt out of place.

Moving to Overwatch and Soulsborne, it's a lot of pretentiousness. Not necesarrily horrible but a lot of pretentiousness. Overwatch is also full of a lot of sexism and racism in its communities on top of the pretentiiousness. No one can agree on anything when it comes to balancing heroes. If you're a woman in high elo you're boosted, if you're in low elo then you're just a wannabe e-girl. Soulsborne suffers from people conflating "accesibility features" with "Easy mode" which tends to drive people away from the games. Moving down another level, you have Anime Power Scalers and Warhammer. Power scalers are kind of the bane of the existence of any community. They suck the fun out of a lot of things and tend to spread their way into other communities. Everyone knows of the "who would win Goku or Superman" and the fights that break out over it get oddly extreme sometimes? Warhammer (and this is coming from my friend who is in the fandom who helped me make this) tends to be very stuck up about figurines. And a lot of it is complaining about not having figurines. Also from what I've seen from one of my other Warhammer mutuals is the lack of self awareness about the subject matter and bigotry is often ignored in the community. Lastly we have the "your home address, work place, and family photos are now on the internet" type of fandoms (idol includes corporate vtubers, and kpop and jpop fans). If you disagree with ANYONE or criticize anything, get ready to lock all of your social media. Not only do they suffer from general bigotry but also the fact that any sort of differing opinion will get you harassed. DC's is anything about Synder. Marvel is anything about literally any woman character. I have seen the nuclear fallout of the aftermath of kpop fans or vtuber fans doxxing people for breathing near their fave. We're talking locked accounts and everything.

[galactic-rhea]

More silly Luke Skysilverfoxwalker doodles

in my mind, almost nothing of the sequels is canon, but Luke is still grumpy and somewhat depressed, his dad tries to help tho

[parchmentknight]

realizing that i am an outlier in fandoms because i do not ship anyone with anyone

[jewishcissiekj]

And what if I said Lesbian flag color picked from pictures of Mon Mothma and Asajj Ventress. Would my crack ship sound implausible then.

[falthiere]

the internet + fandom’s inability to perceive relationship dynamics beyond the triangle of “romantic/platonic/familial” is so draining sometimes

really it’s more like “romantic/familial” bc people never give a damn abt exploring platonic dynamics anyways and platonic is just a word ppl throw at two characters as an excuse to not think abt them before yapping abt their fave ship

[armoralor]

my favourite irony of the current shipping discussion is the folks who allege WolfWren enjoyers sent “threats” to people who enjoy cishet ships (I have asked for ANY examples or usernames of anyone doing this multiple times), have also been calling for Filoni to suffer & die if he doesn’t make their ship canon. but don’t forget, it’s definitely the sapphics and queers who like WolfWren that are the problem

[lord-squiggletits]

It’s always very weird to me how much hate IDW OP gets in comparison to characters that are as bad or worse. Like, if hate for IDW OP was just “he’s an asshole and does xyz things,” I would get that, but the vast majority of the hate I see for him is just calling him an asshole with no particular explanation as to why. More puzzlingly, I see “IDW OP is an asshole” coming from the mouths of people who simultaneously stan characters like Pr/owl (also a cop, committed war crimes, constantly manipulates and uses people) and Mega/tron (genocidal dictator, racist against organics, generally violent and fucked up) so like???

It doesn’t seem like the problem is that IDW OP is an asshole, it seems to me like the problem is very specifically that it’s Optimus. For some reason people are just absolutely allergic to the idea of Optimus being morally gray to match a morally gray continuity. Somehow Optimus and Optimus alone is a horrible asshole who doesn’t ever deserve to be acknowledged even though the same people have no problems liking characters from the same comics who are as bad or worse? And it’s quite disappointing because it seems like in that case, it’s less about IDW OP being an asshole and more about the fact that people haven’t actually read the story and don’t care about the context/reasoning for IDW OP’s actions.

That or they just want every Optimus to be a happy silly dad or a depressed uwu dad (but only depressed in a cute and palatable way, never depressed in a way that leads to lashing out and bad decisions and social isolation), so they hate IDW OP for not being the cardboard cutout they want him to be. Instead of just... reading the OP that’s on the page and judging him based on the standards of IDW1 and the type of story IDW1 is.

[mahoutoons]

there's nothing more entertaining than watching shipping wars in a fandom you're not in.

[shidoukanae]

I would like to make an addendum to this piece with the new chapter out and say that I was wrong about Phillip, he's great, 10/10 he went from being a giant red flag of a character to being genuinely relatable and man do i feel bad about side-eyeing him for that line he said last chapter

Also this chapter finally wrapped up another plot thread I was waiting for it to return to and waaaaaah seeing someone else's POV on Helene is so nice (and we finally got another flashback of OG Helene for like,, the first time in literally forever). Helene being called out as a lonely person who hides her kind feelings behind a cold expression...man suddenly my fondness for Helene is increasing thousandfold

Like literally how the fuck does this manga keep making Helene better and better there's literally nothing disappointing about her character and im STILL shook about it

[2024skin]

I haven't eaten a pizza lunchable since I was 16 and I threw up an entire undigested one (3 distinct pizza crusts) while I was on acid

[thestarmaker]

Thinking about how the show I can genuinely say I grew up with, at the very least for the first ~6 years of my life, didn't have any main romances. Maybe an episode here and there dabbled in it, but even then it was usually with side characters and not the main ones. The show was about friendship more than anything. It wasn't necessarily a kids show, more an all-ages affair.

Then once I started watching Teen Sitcoms and romance started becoming more prominent in them, I didn't care so much. I'd always like the first season or two when it was too busy establishing the world and characters and friendships to focus on romance. Looking back, I never realized it, but almost every show I watched "started to go downhill" once those relationships became more focused on than the friendships. Whether or not the shows were actually made worse by shifting that focus, I can't say, but it happened with almost every show I watched. I'd like the beginning, but I'd fall off by the end bc relationship drama was not something I cared about.

Anyway the show about friendship was SpongeBob SquarePants and I think I've always been on the aro spectrum even if I know I haven't always been 100% aromantic like I am now

[tell-them-the-north-remembers]

When you think about it Euron Greyjoy is actually the villain of all time, GRRM's magnum opus. He opens his eyes to the world and decides sibling abuse is gonna be his thing for a while. He fucks his brother's wife, gets exiled for it, fucks off to god knows where. Then allegedly finds a dragon egg, tries to get a wizard to hatch it, gets mad, randomly throws it into the sea. Commits war crimes, captures warlocks, makes them cannibalize each other for shits and giggles. Steals a dragon horn. DEMOCRATICALLY GETS ELECTED KING. Raids a man's castle, ties up the man, sees his daughter who goes "hey my step mom and step siblings suck strip them naked and make them serve dinner to ur men like that" and he goes "ok." and then is like "hey that was fun im gonna like kinda marry you and make you my salt wife". But she will be his SALT wife (she actually wont he will literally CUT her tongue bcs he evil) bcs he literally thinks oh yes i will marry daenerys and then tame a dragon using my dragonhorn and conquer westeros on dragonback aegon-style. He gets fucked up on shade of the evening daily, sees hallucinations and visions and plans on summoning eldritch horrors. He is an edgy pirate with a ship called "silence" bcs he fucking tore out the tongues of his entire crew and the ship is painted red so it conceals the BLOOD. Martin went "i have enough morally grey antagonists" and then created euron fucking greyjoy.

[stickandthorn]

I was thinking about that post about redemption I just reblogged, and I think it’s worth pointing out just how difficult and time consuming it would to de-radicalize or “redeem” Lilliana. And I think Essek’s redemption in campaign 2 is actually a really good example of what I’m talking about.

First of all, what the Nein did to redeem Essek was not slowly and politely talk him through why what he did was wrong. They didn’t even know he did anything wrong. What they did was continually reach out to him and give him a support system of friends he did not have before. Notably, friends who he could be comfortable sharing his worldview around: he was an atheist* in a theocratic society who had to hide his worldview in order to have any social, academic, or governmental standing. The mighty nein were probably the first people he could be himself around, and creating a change in his personal life is what led to a change in his ideology. Notably, he did most of the actual deconstructing of his ideology on his own, some before the big betrayal reveal and a lot after. The Nein helped with that directly a little, but the main thing they did was offer him a personal connection he had stakes in, and a people in his life with different world views he hadn’t seen up close before.

This is pretty true to life, in the real world, most people who leave radical or bigoted groups leave at least partially because of a change in their personal life. Even if they do leave because of someone directly challenging their worldview, it’s usually someone they care about who challenges them in a non-aggressive way. It’s still personal.

Secondly, this took a lot of time. I can’t remember exactly how long they spent in the Dynasty, but they befriended Essek over a really long period of in game and out of game time. The cast spent actual real world hours talking pretty much one on one with Essek, and the party spent weeks, maybe even months slowly getting to know him and bringing this support structure into his life. Essek spent even longer actually thinking through and deconstructing on his own. The change in his worldview between the ship and the outpost really shows this, he did a lot of the thinking that led him to change by himself over a lot of time we weren’t there for. They could not have gotten him to actually change his mindset, fully realize what he did was wrong of his own free will, in anything approaching a short amount of time. This was a time consuming process.

All this to say: this is the kind of effort it would take to legitimately de-radicalize Lilliana. She has been in the Vanguard for ~25 years, she most likely joined when she was in her early to mid 20s, and she gave up all personal connections, even her daughter and her husband to join. Not only has her entire ideology been built around this being the right thing to do, her entire personal life is contained within the Vanguard. It’s most likely where she gets any housing or money or really anything from. It is her whole life, and she believes wholeheartedly in it. The level of time and effort it took to get Essek to organically change his mind is most likely the level it would take to get Lilliana to change hers, if not more.

And they don’t have that time. Lilliana is actively doing harm now, she is helping the Vanguard release Predathos right now, they simply do not have the time to redeem her. It sucks, but pragmatically speaking, it is simply not worth the time and effort. Essek gave away the beacons in the past, but also, the Nein did not know he did that for their early friendship. If the Nein had known, they probably would not have put in all the work it took to get him to change. They probably couldn’t have. Lilliana might be able to be redeemed in theory, but so can a lot of people who do very bad things. Focusing on that redemption process is prioritizing Imogen’s complicated feelings over the harsh reality that this is a war, and Lilliana is a key figure in that war doing a great deal of harm. It sucks, but I do think it’s time to move on, and I think Imogen is now leaning that way.

*atheist is a loose term here, it’s hard to be an atheist in a world where gods are proven to exist, but it gets the point across

[conarcoin]

ok twitter people coming over bc of elon fucking everything up with the tweet view limit ive said this a million times before but i will again, some basics to know about mcytblr:

we don’t do stan war shit it’s stupid

we don’t do callout posts unless they’ve actually done something that puts others at harm

minecraft isn’t real

leave ccs alone, there are several on tumblr, do not bug them. they’re chill with us because we are chill with them

nobody give a fuck about shipping cubitos sorry.

unless you can provide a clip or other source of a creator explicitly saying “don’t do this” no one’s taking your boundary disk horse seriously

fighting to defend grown adults is stupid

nobody cares about schlatt fans, fundy fans, etc. nobody give a fuck. the only cc people are really hostile to is dream

seriously minecraft is fake and not real

bi/pan lesbian discourse sucks and you guys should grow up

idk did i miss anything if i did add it ig

[sophia-sol]

Every year at about this time (...very approximately) I post a reclist of 10 short stories I particularly enjoyed reading in the last year, all of which can be read online for free. Here's the latest list, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

1. Sestu Hunts the Last Deer in Heaven - MH Cheung Beautiful and odd. A story of what happens after you've killed the gods, the unexpected realities and the things you have to live with. I love stories about after the climactic things traditional fantasy narratives are about, and this one excels!

2. If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You - John Chu Two butch Asian weightlifter dudes bonding with each other and then dating, and one of them happens to have superpowers, but the superpowers aren't the focus. This is SO charming!!

3. Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold - SB Divya This is a really cool retelling of the classic fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin from the Rumpelstiltskin character's pov, building out the world and his background and making him a sympathetic character with a specific history. Haven't seen a fairy tale retelling quite like this before and it's great! And I say that as a connoisseur of fairy tale retellings.

4. A Farce to Suit the New Girl - Rebecca Fraimow A troupe of Jewish actors in Russia, in a time of political upheaval. This story has such a good and powerful feeling of activity and forward momentum, and of the way a community supports people even if things are weird or complicated! I love every single character and how firmly they are themselves.

5. Sheri, At This Very Moment - Bianca Sayan The sacrifices you make to spend time with the ones you love - a snapshot of one brief visit together, out of two lives that only rarely get to align. Made me teary the first time I read it!

6. Spirochete - Anneke Schwob An engaging second-person pov story about possession and identity. It has such a great sense of timing! And the last line GOT me even on second read when I hypothetically knew what was coming!

7. To Embody a Wildfire Starting - Iona Datt Sharma Ahhhhhh this story is so good at embodying the horrible complexities of the choices people make in the worst of situations, that good and bad and divine and evil and just plain personness can all reside in one being. Also it's about a dragon society and the revolutionary humans who tried to make everyone into dragons, and also about parent-child relationships, and also about a bunch of other things. God it's good.

8. Obsolesce - Nadine Aurora Tabing Is it really me if I don't have at least ONE story about robots in my rec lists? (actually I just went back and checked and in multiple previous years I inexplicably didn't, maybe it wasn't me writing the reclist in those years lol) ANYWAY who wants to have sad feelings about robots again! I know I always do! In a world where anyone who has a physical body instead of having their consciousness transferred is more and more obsolete, no matter if your body is human or robot, what do you hold onto? This one has a real good melancholy tone.

9. Letters from a Travelling Man - WJ Tattersdill ....does what it says on the tin. Letters to a dear friend, from a man travelling for the first time to the unfamiliar part of the world that friend comes from. I love the sense of place you get from the letters, as well as the deep and abiding importance of this friendship in both their lives. Another one I cried over!

10. Texts from the Ghost War - Alex Yuschik Another epistolary one, but this time in text messages instead of letters, and between characters who start the story antagonistically! About mech pilots in a ghost war, and making connections, and finding things to care about, even when stuff sucks. I love them!! (also, I am inescapably me, whoops, it took me until I read some fanfic of this story to realize that almost certainly the story was meant to be canonically shipping the two leads, I never notice romance unless there's anvil-sized indications.) Anyway this is a really good story!

[zapernz]

Okay get this

Giving TCW!Ani the best handjob ever

Like at first it's slow and barely touching him and he's a begging and moaning and writhing mess because you tease his dick so much (e.g. flicking the tip, running a fingertip up his length to watch it twitch) and this goes on for a few minutes until you unexpectedly start jerking him off faster than the speed of light and he starts screaming and crying and lasts like 20 seconds before coming all over 😫

(Lil gift for your plane trip cause why not)

⋆shadow moses⋆

MOANING AT THIS GOOD GAWWWD

nsfw; handjob, use of “baby”, teasing

lowkey kinda hate this but whatever 😜

currently you’re sitting on the couch of your quarters of the ship you share with anakin, the clone wars has been absolutely gruelling on him, even though he would never actually admit it.

these days you never know what time if at all anakin will come home, its stressful for all involved and you just try to do anything to keep your mind occupied.

you got up off the couch to walk to your shared bedroom to grab a hoodie, you didn’t get further than the door when anakin came rushing in towards you, you couldn’t even get a word in before he crashed your lips together heatedly, you pull away, looking at the man before you, blushing, pupils blown wide, the curls of his short hair stuck to the nape of his neck, and forehead with sweat. “ani? you alright?” to try and help ground him you run your fingers through his hair and scratch the back of his head.

he closes his eyes and sighs at the motion, he eventually mutters out an “m sorry i just-“ he looks at you, and you tilt your head letting him speak, “i just want you to.. help me” you look at him, “help you? what do you need help with?”, avoiding your worried gaze he bites his lip and takes your hand from his hair moving it to his crotch, revealing the obviously uncomfortable situation in his pants.

“want me to make you feel good baby?”, he mumbles “please”, wordlessly you take his hand and take him to your shared room, you sit with him on the bed and he is immediately all over you, kissing you hard and passionately, tongues exploring each others mouths.

you tap on his chest to signal him to take the armour off. he gets back up and strips his armour off, then his robes, leaving him in his underwear. he sits back on the bed with you and you lightly push his shoulder to get him to lie down, you straddle him on his lower thighs so you have access to his dick. you run your fingers lightly over the bulge in his underwear making him groan and reaches out for your other hand to hold it.

looking at him, flushed, red and vulnerable, you lean down to kiss over his stomach softly, and then a quick peck to his lips. you take your hand out of his with a chuckle and a whine in protest from him, you hold your fingers at the waistband of his boxers looking at him, he nods frantically as you lift yourself off of him to pull them off.

you straddle him again, in the same area you were before, and retake his had into yours. looking at the amount of precum gathering on his stomach, you gather it in your hand and stroke him once with it using it as lube, he lets out a high pitched whimper “fuck”. you lightly rub your thumb over the tip making him shiver.

you move down so your lips can make contact with his upper thighs, lightly kissing and occasionally sucking to leave your mark. he squeezes your hand and says softly “please”, you bite his thigh, making him groan “patience ani”. you look back up at him and then softly run your finger up the prominent vein on the underside of his shaft watching the way it twitches at the action, he moans “ohmygod”.

“please, please i need to- cum” he stutters out, sentence broken by whines, while you continue teasing him. “need to? or you want to?” you tease. he throws his head back and groans in frustration.

after running your finger over the tip watching him shiver one last time you spit in your hand and start jerking him off at a quick pace, at this his eyes start watering up at the amount of pleasure and he’s letting out those loud moans that are just music to your ears. “fuck fuck fuck” he chants. “yeah? gonna cum ani?” he’s so close, he can feel himself about to go over the edge but has no time to announce it before he’s cumming all over your hand.