#so i can't be there because i don't think it's morally wrong to ship things that could be problematic if they happened in real life

[nostalgia-tblr]

"are people not into that?" i ask, after posting my weird niche shit to the internet, despite knowing it to be weird niche shit.

[smowkie]

i am so tired of people equating proshippers with people who think pedophilia and incest is okay. we don't, actually.

i know this may come as a shock to some people, but we actually can differentiate from fiction and reality, and just because we think something is fun in fiction doesn't mean we think it's fun in reality.

fuck, i constantly wrote Sterek as the clingiest fuckers alive and i hate that personally, i cannot fucking sleep if someone is clinging to me, but i LOVE the thought of Sterek not being able to sleep unless they're practically glued together.

so why should i think incest is okay because i ship Wincest? why should i think pedophilia is okay because i enjoy reading some fucked up shit from time to time?

[ricoka]

sometimes I wish you could post an opinion on a fandom blog without inviting a whole witch hunt or being accused of causing drama but alas

[starcurtain]

I wish everyone collectively understood aventurine’s character like you…things would be so much easier! I genuinely don’t understand how people keep getting his motivations wrong??? Could it be because some of the most popular Aven fanfics were written prior to his release? That could have contributed to some of the takes we tend to see about him…thoughts?

I struggled all day to come up with a concise way to answer this and couldn't think of one, so here, have a long-winded ramble:

I don't think early fic writers have much impact in the situation with Aventurine's character now, since most people can look at when a story was posted and go "Oh, this was before we had ____ information."

I think that Aventurine's problem is being a male character in a gacha game. Gacha game characters are designed to sell. Hoyo can sell female characters very, very easily. Give her huge tits and a visible underwear strap and you're good to go. I love all my guy friends, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: straight men are not the hardest audience to please. Hit a particular fetish (feet, spandex, dommy mommy), and you're gucci.

Nah, we all know why Jade's trailer is Like That.™

Male characters in gacha are harder to sell because women as consumers are a little harder to predict. Does every woman want a tall, ripped hunk? Shit, no, small cute boyish models like Aventurine are selling better now? Why?! Would a bad boy be more popular than a nice guy??? It's harder to account for women's tastes, especially because they are often (a little) less visually-oriented.

Hoyo is good at what they do though, and they've figured out that male characters sell very well when they possess at least one of two specific traits:

Endearing vulnerability/helplessness

Gay ship tease

Give a character both, like Aventurine? They might as well be printing money.

That sound you hear is Hoyo's stock prices rising.

So, from the very beginning, Hoyo is incentivized to create a character that appeals to people, a character people will want to crack their wallets open for. And they achieved this, first and foremost, by giving Aventurine traits that female players (in particular, but men too), find especially appealing: emotional and physical vulnerability.

We see Aventurine's pain. We sympathize with his grief. We identify with his struggle to make meaning of his difficult life. He's our woobie, blorbo, babygirl, whatever the hell they're calling it now.

He can't hide his suffering anymore. He's on the very edge. He's a dude in distress. He's surrounded by enemies! He misses his mama! He's been betrayed! No one understands him like you do, dear player!

The ultimate feeling evoked is: He needs to be saved.

When people talk about male power fantasies, I think they forget that women can experience them too, and "Emotionally vulnerable man that only I (or my favorite character) can fix" is actually a female power fantasy.

And from there it's really easy, right: the people who shell out cash to buy warps for their harmed-husbando feel like they've saved him; the people who are into mlm ships look for the nearest hot dude to be the savior Ratio was waiting for his time lol.

Morally and intellectually, this type of deep-down-golden-hearted, emotionally-wounded male character is very easy to digest. There is nothing to dislike about this type of character or role in the story: this character is a good guy who has just gone through so many terrible situations, whose victim status makes him endearing, and whose lack of agency means that any of the questionable or downright bad things he does are always the result of someone else forcing his hand, and never something he would have chosen himself.

His motivations are always clear and consistent: get free, heal, and live happily ever after.

Insert the Wreck-It Ralph meme: "Do people assume all your problems got solved when a big strong man showed up?" But to be fair, a big strong man did kind of solve Aventurine's problem, so--

Anyway, it's simple. It's straightforward. Morally, it's pretty cut and dry, black and white: Aventurine is our hero, which means everyone dictating the course of his miserable life is evil.

Hoyo is not remotely discouraging people from literally buying into this emotional appeal.

And trust me, I get it. I'll be the first to admit that hurt-comfort is its own entire genre in fandom because it is so appealing. People eat up Aventurine's tragic backstory like candy! The idea of watching a character go through hell at the hands of bad guys just to finally find a happy end is like the definition of everyone's favorite story.

In fact... people love Aventurine's suffering so much, they have invented whole new ways for him to suffer that aren't even in the game.

This is where we get all the headcanons that Aventurine was a sex slave, every single person he meets hates him because of his race, the Stonehearts are executioners holding knives to his throat, Jade enslaved him to the IPC with a lifelong contract, his material possessions belong to the company, the IPC is forcing him to take only the most dangerous missions where he is being required by his evil jailers to continually put his life on the line... You name it and I promise you, I can find a fanfic where Aventurine suffers from it. 😂

Bro can't even sleep in on his day off; life is so hard for this man.

Being serious: if the game is telling us that Aventurine is a victim... Why not make him the perfect victim?

Why not envision an Aventurine with no freedom, who bears no responsibility for any of the horrible situations he is in or any of the dubious things he does?

It's so natural to like that version of Aventurine, so appealing to see a totally powerless underdog use his own wits and charms to claw his way up to freedom. Or, if you're the kind who really relishes angst: It's even appealing to see Aventurine lose more. To delight in fics where he loses his wealth, where the IPC punishes him for past crimes while he's powerless to stop them... (I assure you, this is many people's cup of tea and the fanfics prove it!)

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with liking characters who are exactly this straightforward! It's completely fine to embrace characters that are intentionally written to be morally above-board, whose primary role in the story is to generate angst by being a good person who suffers, or those characters who never show unlikable traits, bad decisions, or contradictory actions.

The problem is that that's just not who the game is telling us Aventurine is.

Hoyo may be capitalizing off people who love to envision poor Aventurine still living his life as a slave... But the game also needs to tell a complicated enough story overall to appeal to people who don't care about this specific husbando--Aventurine's role in the actual game's plot has to be interesting enough for almost everyone to appreciate it, not just Aventurine's simp squad. (Don't get mad, I'm in the simp squad with you.)

So his character doesn't stop at just being a pure-hearted victim who is still waiting to be saved.

Aventurine is not that easy to label, and I think the biggest struggle in this character's fandom right now is between people who prefer the even-more-angsty, still-a-slave Aventurine versus people who want a morally grey, self-destructive character instead.

To me personally, while I greatly understand the appeal of fanon!Aventurine and the joy of a really juicy angst fic where characters lose it all, I think that missing out on the depth that canon is suggesting would be a real loss on the fandom's part.

The character motivations that Aventurine shows in the game are complicated. They cancel each other out. They're basically self-harm! He makes almost every situation he's in worse for himself--on purpose.

He is a good person, but also a person who has done unspeakable things. He does have morals, but he's not above allowing those who don't have them to use him to their advantage.

He's both the victim and the victor. He's his own worst enemy. He's a lost little boy who's been making terrible decisions for himself since he was like eight years old, and a grown ass man who is barely managing to fake his way through an existence that destiny is not letting him quit.

This kind of character is a lot harder to embrace. He's done things that most people would find appalling--like willingly joining up with the organization that let his entire race be massacred. He's invented a whole new peacock persona to frivolously flaunt riches he doesn't even care about (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 101). He actively plays into racist stereotypes about his people to manipulate others through their preconceived expectations. He's made a mockery of his mother's and sister's hopes and dreams by endlessly trying to throw his own life away.

He has flaws! He bet everything he had on a ploy without doing his homework to find out if the people he was risking his life for were even still around. (Maybe he already knew, and couldn't bear to admit it, even to himself.) He's intentionally off-putting and obnoxious to everyone he meets (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 102). He terrifies everyone who gets close to him by (seemingly) carelessly throwing himself into the jaws of death without the slightest provocation.

He knowingly allows the IPC to exploit his power and talents for profit. Did everyone forget that his role in the Strategic Investment Department is asset liquidation?! Like, his actual day-to-day job is ruining people's lives. Canonically, Aventurine kills people when his deals go bad.

His motivations change off-screen in two lines of story text. We're told in one line that his biggest reason for joining the IPC was to make money to save the Avgin, then in the next line we find out that's impossible. And... then what? What motivations does he even have now? The whole point of his character arc from 2.0-2.1 is that he was on the edge of giving in to utter despair and nihilism because he couldn't even perceive a single reason to stay alive. He has no purpose in life before Penacony, and that didn't start with the Stonehearts at all??

People keep saying Aventurine was held in the IPC by golden handcuffs, but how do you tie down someone for whom profit is meaningless? What can you offer to a man whose only desire is to bring back something already lost forever? How do you imprison someone whose only definition of freedom is, canonically, death?

Working for the Stonehearts is obviously not healthy. But that's why Aventurine was doing it--because taking dangerous missions allowed him to put himself at risk. The job that he originally pursued hoping to save his people became a direct means to self-harm, and the IPC's only real role in that was just happily profiting off the results.

The journal entries for Aventurine's quests are there deliberately to tell the player what is on his mind, and none of it has to do with escaping from his job:

Like... Work is the least of this man's problems.

At really the risk of rambling on too long now, he's also just a massive walking contradiction:

Aventurine is among the most explicitly religious characters in the game, yet he's one of the only people in the entire game that we have ever seen actively question his people's aeon.

You might be tempted to think Aventurine's risky gambles with his life as an adult are a result of giving up after finding out about the Avgin massacre... Butttt no, Hoyo makes sure to tell us that even at knee-high in the Sigonian desert, Kakavasha was already willing to risk himself in a fight to the death against monsters because even back then he found his own life to have less value than a single memento.

He's the "chosen one" who will lead his people to prosperity... except they're all dead.

He's explicitly suicidal... andddd also a pathstrider of Preservation.

He wants to die... He doesn't want to die. He wants to make it end, yet goes to staggering lengths to continually survive. (Every plan risks his life on purpose--but every plan's win condition is also to live.) He life is the chip tossed down, but his hand is trembling beneath the table. When faced with an otherwise unsurvivable situation, Aventurine literally became a winner of the Hunger Games. He beat other innocent people to death with his own chain-bound hands just to come out alive.

He knows the IPC failed the Avgin and left them to die... and he still willingly sought out a position of power in their organization. Maybe he really is after revenge... but maybe not.

He starts his journey in the IPC with a truly noble goal in mind: to help his people using his newfound wealth and power. He's a good guy who did genuinely want to save the Avgin and repay all those who helped him. But once it became clear he was too late, once it was obvious he would have no use at all for that monetary wealth and power he risked his life to get... What did he do with it? Unlike Jade, we don't see him over here donating to orphanages. (I'm not that heartless; I'm sure he does actually do a lot of good things with his money on the side, but the point is that the game does not show us that--it shows us, over and over again, Aventurine putting on a wasteful, over-indulgent persona toward wealth. We've supposed to feel how meaningless money is to him, how meaningless everything is becoming to him.)

He outright refuses to use underhanded tactics or to cheat at gambles, which is meant to show us that's he's more morally upright than his coworkers. There's an entire exchange where he says that he'll never stoop to using manipulation the way Opal does. But... he doesn't have any issue fulfilling Opal's exact agenda. He was never remotely morally conflicted about denying the Penaconians their freedom by dragging Penacony back under IPC control.

He's willing to risk his own life, which is one thing--but he's also willing to risk other people's well-being. Topaz accuses him of constantly egging their clients on into dangerous situations; we've actively seen him shove a gun into Ratio's hands and pull the trigger with no care for how Ratio would feel about that on their very first meeting... Dragging the Astral Express crew into the entire Penacony plan in the first place was exceedingly dangerous...

To me, I just think it's vital to understand his character through the lens of these contradictions because they demonstrate the extreme polarity of Aventurine's life: from rags to riches, from powerless to empowered by multiple aeons, from willing to kill to survive to killing himself... He has quite literally lived a life of "all or nothing," and while he is the victim of many terrible situations out of his control, his arc as a character involves facing the truth of himself and the future his own actions are hurtling him toward.

Frankly, the Aventurine that canon is suggesting is a little annoying. You want to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and say "Why are you like this?!" And he won't even have an answer for you, because he doesn't even know why he's still alive.

In the end, to me, this is so, so much more interesting. I can read an endless supply of hurt-comfort fics where Aventurine escapes the evil IPC and Ratio is there to fill the void in his life with the power of love and catcakes and be a perfectly happy clam online, but I want canon to continue to serve us this incredible mess of a man who constantly takes one step forward and two steps back.

Who is fully aware of his role as a cog in the grotesque profit-wheel of cosmic capitalism and still manages to say he never changed from the rags-wearing desert rat of the Sigonian wastes.

Who over and over again flirts with nihility but, ultimately, even if he has to wrest it from the grip of the gods themselves with bloody, chain-bound hands, chooses life.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

what people think pro ship means: dangerous people who want to harm children in real life and/or think taboo subjects in real life are justified

what pro ship actually is about: the belief that people are allowed to enjoy fictional thing however they want, as long as it's fictional and no one in real life gets harmed or harassed in any way, and as long as they tag their trigger warnings properly.

most pro ship folks I've come across are just "hey, you like this fucked up thing that is fictional? okay, cool. you do you, man. I myself don't even like this thing that you like, but hey, it's not real. and I trust that you know the difference between fiction and reality, so you do you. if it ever gets too much for me, I will just block or mute you and move on with my life, but that doesn't mean I think you're a horrible person in real life because of the fictional thing you like, it just means I'd rather not see or engage with this thing that can make me uncomfortable. I still want you to have fun doing what you love, and I still think you're cool as fuck. love and respect, dude"

meanwhile most anti ship I've seen are like "omg you like this fictional thing where fictional children are harmed??! Red Flag Red Flag. put this gross piece of shit behind bars immediately!!!"

and I'm just ????? I don't normally engage in fandom wars, but I think, as long as you don't harass anyone in real life and as long as no one in real life is in danger or is harmed, how you enjoy fictional things is none of my business. and I'm not gonna make any "call out post" where I encourage my followers to harass you because you like fucked up fictional things that I personally don't like or believe is wrong either.

I mean, from personal experience, I was exposed against my will to thing I didn't want to see from anti's screenshot of fanart or fanfic where they encourage their followers to harass this person whose fanart or fanfic, that was screenshot and spread by them, was originally tagged properly with all the trigger warnings so that people who didn't want to see it wouldn't get exposed to it. until anti screenshot it and flaunted it around in the name of being morally superior while also, at the same time, advocated for the witch hunt against someone who just wanted to mind their own business. so... the irony. lol

fandoms used to be more peaceful before Fandom Police starts their witch hunting, but it's a good thing we can just block these people and keep on enjoying our blorbos however we want to enjoy them.

and I'll always encourage every artist to write whatever they want, draw whatever they want. don't let people who think they're "morally superior" tell you you can't make art this way or that way. my best advice would be to block and ignore and keep on creating what you want. they may be loud, but at the end of the day they're just noises and they're not worth your attention x

[thecoolerliauditore]

Very Long Post about Flower Husbands, Interpretation and Character vs Content Creator

This is a toxic flower husbands post. Btw.

I'm not sure when or why it happened but somewhere between limlife and the 24th joelshipping discourse cycle, "flower husbands is toxic" became a mainstream opinion on both here and traffictwt, usually sourcing Scott's ingame words and actions as evidence.

This interpretation has existed within the fandom for a fairly long time, although the words "toxic" and "abuse" were often omitted. Here's one example of a popular post that implied FH was less than ideal for Jimmy.

This does not mean the interpretation was widely accepted, however - hell, I even put this under a cut and warning for a reason. For every toxic FH believer that comes crawling out of the woodwork there comes another post defending their legacy.

For the record, despite what some threads on twt I've read seem to imply: There is nothing morally wrong with liking a mcyt ship regardless of what discomforts other people see in it. There is no explicit "wrong" way to interpret the series. There is no canon. It's fandom shit. It's not that serious.

However, I'm unfortunately abnormal about this series and possibly mcyt as a whole. So I'm forced to grapple with the fact that most non-toxic flower husbands posts seem to either self-contradict or come off as purposefully trying to incite some sort of culture war. As such, here's a list of common arguments I see proposed against the toxic flower husbands interpretation and why I personally don't find them convincing:

The CC Side of Things

Alot of anti-toxic flower husbands posts will accuse toxic flower husbands fans of disliking Scott, the content creator IRL guy, and often imply the interpretation is born out of homophobia -- usually through some variation of the phrase that the interpretation villainzes "the only openly gay CC in the series"

I take issue with this. While Scott is the only homosexual CC in the series, Cleo and Martyn have both been here since 3L and are both very openly queer. Gem has also since joined. You could argue that Scott is The Gayest but that's opening a can of worms in terms of queer discourse I don't think I want to go touching anytime soon.

Even if he was the Only Queer CC In the Series, applying different standards of fanon to Scott just because he is gay feels.. wrong to me. In the same way it's often argued that Jimmy does not need to be babied from his friendship dynamic, Scott too is a grown man who can simply choose to not look at fanart/fanfic if it upsets him, which from what I have personally observed, he hasn't shown any sign of feeling "uncomfortable" by more intimidating or villainous portrayals in the past.

Here's an example of him liking my art that did not paint him in a completely morally good light.

Why can't gay people be calculating? Controlling? Abusive? Why are we applying a higher standard of morality to the gay CC when the rest of the fandom is having the time of their life calling Grian a homophobe, a murderer, calling Scar an arsonist, calling Martyn a loser and pathetic, so on and so forth. Is telling a story about an abusive gay relationship any more "problematic" than telling a story about an abusive straight relationship?

I don't want to imply anything about peoples intentions but it feels sometimes, to me, that the "homophobia" card is being played out of some obligation to protect Scott and his brand rather than out of genuine concern for homophobia in the fandom -- because then, I ask, where is that energy for critiquing the homophobic humour prevalent in CC circles?

I've certainly heard Jimmy make jokes about Scott's sexuality in videos before. Where's the breakdowns of the infamous "I am a straight man and would like to be represented as such" incident from Pirates? Where's that energy for referring to shipping as a "bit" or Etho "gagging" at fanart of him and Bdubs?

I'd even go to argue, in terms of homophobic caricatures, Martyn and Iskall are both often more akin to the classic "gay guy in love with you who won't take no for an answer" stereotype than Scott has been. Martyn at least we know is queer, does it simply not matter in his case? Despite the fact that Martyn is very much more villainized than Scott is, to the point where his Limlife win is often portrayed as maniacal and cackling rather than with the solemn acceptance of Scott's LL win or the heartbreak and regret of Grian's 3L win? Please know that I personally Do Not find these portrayals homophobic (although the Iskall side of things has peeved me in the past), I'm just questioning why homophobia in the fandom seems to start and end with one guy only.

In addition: "internalized homophobia" is certainly a thing, but the vast majority of toxic FH fans in my circle at least are very much gay. We're on Tumblr. Fork found in kitchen. I've seen more than one person express that Scott's behaviour in one or several of the seasons was reminiscent of a toxic or abusive ex, or reminded them of some other trauma. It just seems unkind to me to claim "homophobia" and then turn and tell very gay people talking about their very gay experiences that they are somehow The Problem.

Jimmy Likes It, Though

Often in response to toxic flower husbands posts, people will cite the many times Jimmy has said in the past that he actively requests to be bullied, as part of his youtuber persona, since he finds it funny.

I've always found this kind of strange, since unlike the homophobia claims which 99% of the time are unambiguously about the content creators, this is often said in response to people talking about the series as a story with characters first and foremost.

While the area of interpretation differs for all of us, most people do not choose to include behind-the-scenes youtube talk as part of their storyline, since this detail changes Jimmy's character drastically and impacts the tone of the series overall. So what, they were dropped into a death game arena and Jimmy... told everyone they should bully him, cus he thought it'd be funny? Offscreen, with no interactions or monologue in the series itself even alluding to it? It's kind of awkward to work in and there's really no reason to if what you are invested in is viewing the series as essentially an ultra meta theatre performance.

Now, I personally do work in some out-of-series material into my headcanons and interpretation, so let's say that Is a canon part of Jimmy's character -- maybe he knew the group beforehand and this was their established dynamic, or he simply offscreened it all. Now we have to deal with the fact that this is interpretation and the unreliable narrator aspect of the series.

Jimmy (the character) might've asked for this, but under what circumstances? Why does he want this? Is this really healthy behaviour or is it self-destructive? I never see this explored and instead "Jimmy says it's okay" is treated as word of god, which I find to be painful to deal with when it comes to this series (I'll get to this later).

Even if we throw out the character side of things completely, there are perfectly valid issues to have with this dynamic. I've seen people debating the ethics of presenting this type of humour to a young impressionable audience, I've seen people who find it upsetting because it reminds them of their own toxic friendships. CCs have no authority here, Jimmy does not decide where peoples discomfort starts and ends.

I admit this is a far reach, but indulge me and imagine for a second if the roles were switched and the homophobic jokes about Scott were what was leaned in to but Scott claimed he "liked being bullied". Would that be okay too?

People are Allowed to Dislike the Real Guy, it's Okay

There are plently of reasons to dislike CC!Scott that aren't rooted in homophobia, I can assure you.

Let's put it this way: Scott does not have to read this post if he doesn't want to. In fact, he'd have to actively go out of his way to see it in the first place. The fanfic writers are not calling him an abuser in his youtube comments section. This fandom bullshit is not clogging his notifications.

I don't dislike CC!Scott, I don't love him either but I think he's just kind of your average kind of a loser youtuber guy. But even if someone truly did find him to be the most abhorrent human being to walk the earth, talking about it on tumblr should not hurt him. You often see reminders that Jimmy is a grown man who can speak up if he finds things in videos hurtful, and I'd go on to argue that the same logic is never given to Scott who is, also, a grown man who can control his internet usage.

It's all just Minecraft and jokes

The most buzzkill of all rebuttals, in my opinion, is this argument that toxic flower husbands is "taking it too seriously" and that they are just "friends playing Minecraft".

Like when people bring up Jimmy's behind the scenes request, this confuses me because it is brought up 99% of the time to rebut posts that treat the series as a storyline rather than a youtube playthrough. You can't have the grief of Scott losing his husband and Grian's despaired suicide and Pearl's sanity slippage and still acknowledge that it is all "friends playing minecraft".

In fact I'd even argue flower husbands is pretty non-toxic if you look at it Purely from a friends playing Minecraft perspective, but that is never the case. Scott's grief over Jimmy's death is treated with utmost seriousness, but Scott hitting Jimmy for not listening to him or wanting to "whittle him down to nothing" never is. It's this pick-and-choose that drives me insane more than anything else.

In addition to this, while I might be mistaken, it seems like most FH fans are not super accepting of RPF so I wonder what the intent is in the first place.

Furthermore, I do find it odd when it seems like the issue is that abuse specifically is "taking it too seriously" in a series where murder is pretty much the main theme. Adultery is mentioned multiple times in Double Life. Martyn even says the words "toxic relationship" in Double Life regarding himself and Cleo. It's clearly something that is referenced directly in the series and not any darker than what is already commonly accepted in fanon, so I don't understand why it's such a taboo and gets hit with the "no fun allowed" stick more than Scar being a cannibal serial killer.

With the same logic, I could argue that Scott was serious when he said Jimmy was useless, redundant, etc. and joking when he said he was sad his husband died but. I don't do that. Because that'd be insane

But Scott Loved Jimmy

Onto the stuff that's more purely in-universe, the argument is more uncommon now but I used to see alot of claims that flower husbands couldn't have been toxic because Scott "loved" Jimmy, usually citing the positive interactions the two do have throughout Third Life.

I think this is kind of difficult to talk about because, to me, it comes from a genuine misunderstanding of how abusive relationships work and what they look like. I won't lecture the reader on the theory behind abusive relationships and the trauma bonding cycle but I will say that the good does not balance out the bad and sometimes, context is severely lacking.

E.g. the cake. Late in the series Scott bakes a cake for Jimmy and hides it for him to find. This is a moment that I think is fascinating because it showcases both Scott's genuine care for Jimmy and the sadism he gets out of Jimmy's suffering at the same time. Jimmy is actively afraid of the cake, says to Scott that he thinks it's a trap and tries to get Scott to try it instead because Scott was still on green. Scott simply laughs and pushes Jimmy to try it, later mocking Jimmy for being scared at all.

Scott not taking Jimmy's fear seriously in this scene always seems to get cut out, or is paired with the usual insistence that it's okay because it's a "joke", and the cake itself is what is focused on.

Long story short: Abusers can love and care for their victims, abusers can be romantically attracted to their victims, abusers can feel trapped in the cycle just as much as the victim (e.g. the classic "look what you made me do" wifebeater excuse).

"Home?" "Home." and Word of God

In a similar vein, lots of people point to Scott's Third Life ending as proof their relationship had a happily ever after. This is one example of a trend I see within rebuttals where Scott's word is often treated as canonical Word of God.

Word of God, for those unaware, is the concept in storytelling of communicating definitive, unbiased information to the audience. Some iconic examples would be the Star Wars intro scroll, or any of the "once upon a time..." set-ups in fairy tales. Sometimes a character will temporarily possess Word of God and lose it later, such as Katara's intro narration in ATLA.

The subversion of Word of God would be Unreliable Narrator, where the person telling you the information is, in some way, not to be trusted. Some media play entirely on this concept, the Stanley Parable being one iconic example.

My personal interpretation of the traffic series is that every POV is unreliable narrator, with some being worse offenders (e.g. Scar and Martyn). I feel like it does a disservice to other POVs if you simply take one as Word of God, since some characters really do seem different until you see their side of things (some poignant examples would be Last Life Joel, Last Life Scar and Double Life Pearl). However, I must say again, this is not Correct nor is taking one POV as Word of God Wrong. That's just the rules I'm used to operating under.

So first off, operating within my rules: the "home?" "home." scene only appears in Scott's POV and is never acknowledged outside of that one scene. Jimmy clearly remembers the events of Third Life but never says a thing about him and Scott's shared afterlife (more on Jimmy's behaviour post-3L in a bit) and neither does Scott himself. To me this scene has always been either a tragic dying hallucination or an outright lie Scott invented to cope with the events of Third Life. I don't think there's any reason for me to believe the Jimmy in this scene is really Jimmy.

With that being said: taking the scene at face value as something that actually happened and it being a real afterlife Jimmy and Scott were sent to, there are still sinister elements that go entirely unacknowledged. Scott specifies that the flower valley was decorated to his plans, never mentioning Jimmy's, the same valley he previously insinuated he designed specifically so that he'd be "over" Jimmy.

Including Last Life and beyond as part of canon: this is very much not the "happily ever after" for Scott and Jimmy as. Well. They don't stay there and end up getting thrust into another death game where, again, this scene is never spoken about again and Jimmy only acts more and more antagonistic towards Scott as the seasons progress.

Disregarding Last Life and beyond: there is so much ambiguity that it's hard to take it all at face value, are there any other players in this place? Are Scott and Jimmy doomed to die knowing no one and nowhere else? Can Jimmy walk 15 minutes westward and come across the home of the guy who murdered him? Or is this a paradise where all the players can remain? What about Scott, is he going to go back to treating Jimmy the same way he did when they were both alive? How does he deal with the fact that his dead husband is suddenly back?

I do think this last one (taking Scott's POV as word of god + disregarding everything past this point) is the closest you're gonna get to an entirely non-toxic reading of this scene, but even then you'd have to work with the previous episodes of Scott hitting and berating Jimmy continuously.

Finally, one last issue I take with the "Scott's word = Word of God" interpretation is that it is, once again, inconsistent. If Scott ever says anything to contradict his "good husband" persona it's written off as a joke, but him saying that Pearl "cheated on him" is treated as if she really did commit adultery. There's also things that are just ignored, such as Scott saying "You guys (the audience) are obsessed with flower husbands, when really it's just been me and Pearl," in Secret Life -- words that would imply he really did not care that much for Jimmy.

"Nuance."

I see people just saying the word "nuance" or "scott isn't abusive it's more nuanced" like that's an actual sentence with worth really often. I'm sorry this section is harsh but "nuance" is not an argument, abusers can have nuance, real people are always nuanced and real people can be abusers. To imply that abuse cannot be "nuanced" is a little insulting to me.

Please just say "idgaf" and move on this isn't politics we don't need flower husbands centrism

Jimmy is the Abusive One

This one drives me insane but I see it fairly often and I. honestly don't know what to make of it. Sometimes it's coupled with an insistence that you can make anyone in the cast abusive if you try hard enough which... yeah I, I agree. We're agreeing here.

Seemingly most prominent during Limited Life, there's some claims that people are unfair towards Scott and that Jimmy is the real abuser, but I find the examples of his behaviour weak more often than not because they are usually 1. in direct response to something Scott did, 2. using psychic powers to sense characters motives (such as claiming he is guilt tripping people when he apologizes when nothing suggests that is the case) or 3. behaviour that not only is not toxic, but is very much harmless

Examples of the third one include things such as him refusing to say "love you" back to Scott during Limited Life and Secret Life, which he is not obligated to do. Some people insist he "owes" it to Scott somehow for Third Life which I find not only overestimating how much Scott aided Jimmy during Third Life (Jimmy Did die first, after all) but kind of. Dangerous? To say that you can somehow "owe" another person love and affection if they perform enough chores for you.

Another is the claim that Jimmy acts overly flirtatious with other men which hurts Scott which. I feel like needs an essay or two on slutshaming to make my point clear.

What really does me in is that this point is often paired with the insistence that Flower Husbands Would Be perfect if Jimmy just stopped "acting out" and did what Scott wanted him to. I don't really know how to explain why I find that kind of bad.

To me, it seems as if it's almost an admission that the further away from Third Life you get, the more clear it becomes that Jimmy does not have the highest opinion of Scott and in order for the non-toxic interpretation to still apply you need to stretch things, which often comes with the unfortunate side effect of saying some historically not awesome things about people like Jimmy.

Why Only Scott?

This often comes in hand with the first point about homophobia, with claims that Scott is the only one accused of being abusive to Jimmy, when others like Grian and Joel are the same if not worse.

This is another take that's strange to me because.. It's just untrue? I think it might be the shock of the culture shift of toxic fh that's spearheading this, but most of the smallidarity stuff I've seen, for example, come with some level of acknowledgement that Joel is a massive bitch. Sometimes it's through bully x victim AUs or storylines where he learns the error of his ways, but he's a bitch to Jimmy like. Most of the time.

Solidarian is a much lower sample rate ship for a character with a way too high sample rate but Grian characterization ranges from "pure evil watcher who feeds off suffering" to "previous abuse victim with trust issues". Very few times have I seen Grian presented as purely good in interpretations.

MOST of the jausage stuff I've seen is straight up sausage being. Weird.

There was a hilarious confessions blog anon awhile back that tried to claim shipping scarian was somehow morally wrong because Scar(???) abused Grian(???). It happens.

To add to this: very few of Jimmy's other romantic interests were literally calling himself his "husband" while hitting and berating him. The only other "canon" couple I can think of that come close is Jizzie and the way Lizzie will sometimes hit Joel, but that is primarily outside of the life series and their crimes against eachother in the series are always capstoned by almost cartoonish antics of "still love you, tho" (e.g. Joel putting Lizzie's stuff in a chest after she gets killed by a zombie or them choosing to team up Despite it All near the end of Last Life) -- I have more thoughts regarding them but this isn't the toxic jizzie post so I'll leave it at that.

Very, very rarely will I see someone who believes flower husbands is toxic but thinks joel/grian/fwhip/sausage/etc. are Completely fine. I also think it might just be that people talk about Scott more since Flower Husbands is the Iconic Ship and that gets numbers biased into people Only thinking Scott is bad for Jimmy.

It could also be argued that some of the Double Life pairings have the same level of toxic married couple energy that Flower Husbands does, but I'd argue that the soulbounds have enough variety that interpreting them as wholly romantic is difficult to do. There was also less hype overall with some of the most "toxic" pairings in DL, such as Impdubs or Box Boys, which makes it hard to find content for them -- I did a whole little liveblog of it calling Impdubs toxic as fuck. Y'all just didn't see it. Most of DL's toxic relationship themes also come from divorce quartet but admitting that those four have romantic tension in-universe gets you sniped in this economy.

To end: I talk about Scott more than the other guys because. I like him more. I like talking about people I like.

Conclusion (AKA who fucking cares)

I feel the need to restate my intro: no one actually fucking cares.

I've been talking about inconsistency in the "rules" of interpretation throughout this and I stick by my word but I think I'd have to mention that, in order to view this series as a storyline in the first place, you'd have to make some exceptions. I don't listen to the lines about youtube or viewers or when Grian talks about planning the series. I don't think it'd be Wrong to view Scott's POV as Word of God, disregard everything that implies he's a bad husband, not consider anything past "home?" "home." canon, so on. It would not be an interpretation I, some random asshole on tumblr, enjoy personally but if you're having fun you really should not give a shit about me.

However that doesn't mean people can't be rude or just straight up wrong or hypocritical when they claim toxic flower husbands interpretations are "homophobic" despite being antagonistic towards the gay people writing them in the first place (I've seen a ridiculous amount of middle school level namecalling for like no reason??) or claim that the interpretation is for people who "haven't watched their POV" as if a certain takeaway of a minecraft series presents you with some sense of superiority for understanding the cube guy harder than those horrible, horrible HATERS who think Scott killing himself over and over is sad to watch.

Oh and don't mention Pearl's role in all of this the only time I've seen someone try to bring her up I had to read it like five times and I'm still not quite sure I understand

[blueteller]

Greetings oh wise one! I come asking for advice/analysis.

How would you describe the type of chaos Cale starts? Like, is there a play by play of Cale’s usual migraine inducing shenanigans?

"Oh wise one" - that's a new one haha! I'll try my best for you~! 💖

In the past, I made short joke posts on Cale's typical step-by-step MO, like: "scam, loot, destroy", or "fight with overwhelming advantage, run, smack them in the back". And while those steps are hilarious and quite accurate – since you've asked for an analysis, let's dive a little deeper into the subject.

First of all, why is Cale's personal brand of chaos so enjoyable? Simple; it's because it's always targeted at people who 100% deserve it. Civilian casualties? Not an option with Cale in charge. This man takes his 10+ years zero casualties record completely seriously.

And no, there are no exceptions to this. While at first it might seem impossible – for example there were times when Cale and his group attacked buildings with servants in them or destroyed whole ships with crew on board – and it can make you wonder, weren't any innocent workers there? But no. If you look closely, any time there were any civilians involved (any people who weren't onto the whole murder and torture thing the bad guys were doing), Cale made sure to either capture, evacuate, or leave them alone. From the first heist with Choi Han when they freed Raon, to the Unranked Monster battle at Puzzle City, or heck even robbing the Sekka estate, they always made sure to not kill the civilians. Even with the battle ship, I'm 100% certain there were only armed people on board, prepared to be the ones who would murder civilians without hesitation. Cale left no chances of innocent people getting hurt.

That's what makes his MO so wonderful. Because Cale only screws over those who deserve it. Of course, Cale doesn't see it like that. From his perspective, what he's doing is "vicious", so he must be the bad guy. And while his MO is definitely ruthless… It only matches the weight of the crime of his opponents. Cale only gets involved and makes a s***show when he is really pissed off. And by pissed off, I specifically mean innocent people getting hurt. Because that's what it all comes down to, really. He can delude himself and claim he's doing it for profit, but there's nothing wrong with profiting off well done work. He never cheats his allies off their right rewards, either. Despite him being so chaotic with his actions, he... never actually does anything that crosses the line.

(Yeah you could try and argue that torture crosses the line, but uh… At least Cale never ordered torture for personal pleasure? The first time it was to help a child heal from their trauma, and every other times since it was to extract information from particularly nasty and stubborn murder cultists. It might be morally grey of me, but I don't believe it was wrong of him. That's a matter of personal opinion of course.)

So, the starting point is always Cale facing people who pissed him off through messing with innocents in some way.

It can't be some petty political squabble either, Cale doesn't mess with those – remember how he reacted when the King of Whipper Kingdom wanted to agree and give up 100,000 citizens of his country to Adin, just to save his own skin? Raon offered to loot the king's safe… and Cale totally could have done that out of pettiness? But Cale left it alone, because it never came to that. So yeah, Cale only messes with those who already hurt people on a large scale, not just crooks or cowards. Even the bandits who messed with the Super Rock Villa entrance, he just had the leader beat up and made them work for him – he even had them formally employed and educated. Which honestly, probably improved their living conditions drastically, now that I think about it. …Cale is such a freaking softie, I swear.

But we're going off track – Cale and his specific brand of "migraine inducing chaos", that's the main topic here.

First, Cale always gets information. Who are his opponents? What have they done? What kind of powers they have? What dirt does he have on them? Where is their money located? Stuff like that.

Next, there's the planning & preparation phase. However, we rarely see that part because of the "no repetition rule" of storytelling. The only time we ever see characters make plans and explain them to their allies is when things are about to go south. In case of TCF, we only ever find out what kind of plan Cale has is when either 1) it's already ongoing 2) something went wrong and Cale wonders how it happened, for example when Cale set up the trap for the White Star in the Dark Elf city.

Then, with a solid plan and allies all prepared, Cale infiltrates the combat zone. Be it Real Arm uniform, priest get-up, pretending to work for some unnamed scary higher-up; you get the idea. Even during open-field battles like the Maple Castle, Cale made sure to have multiple hidden assets and key players disguised. It's a very important part of his MO; making sure he and his allies are as safe as they can possibly be.

Once everybody deals with their designated obstacles, be it simple head smashing or straight up scamming his opponents, Cale loots stuff. Sometimes the looting comes before the combat for the element of surprise, but usually combat happens as a distraction for looting anyway. Naturally, this is the part Cale enjoys the most, because according to Cale's logic, nothing feels as good as pissing off the people who pissed you off first. Not to mention how money is extremely useful, and Cale whole deal is that he always makes sure to take full advantage of anything and everything he finds useful – be it people or treasures. Classic Cale behavior, really.

After the looting stage, here comes the destruction! This part gotta be Raon's favorite, as he's usually in charge of it. Considering how his first destruction spree happened without Cale's input – the cave he was trapped in – I think it's a natural draconic trait lol. Everything that cannot be looted and can be still useful to the enemies must be demolished, that's the rule. After all, the revenge can only be complete when the enemies are left totally furious and powerless.

As for clean-up… pfff, what clean-up? Cale doesn't do clean up! That's the job for the janitor- I mean his dear Hyung-nim 🤣 I bet it's Cale second favorite part about making a huge mess; that he doesn't have to clean it up himself thanks to Alberu hahaha

So, a general play-by-play of Cale's chaotic shenanigans goes something like this:

Cale finds out there are troublemakers "messing up his slacker life", aka. people are getting hurt and his soft, squishy heart cannot ignore it

he gathers his team, info and gets down to planning

cue in hilarious scamming and Mission Impossible flavored undercover shenanigans

looting for fun and profit

destruction mostly for fun but also profit

when things go awry, Cale gets to overuse his Ancient Powers and spill blood like chocolate fountain spills chocolate at fancy events, it's just the same never-ending cycle really 🤣

retreat if necessary, but that rarely happens (I think couple of times throughout the whole series, really)

the enemies are left furious and/or utterly defeated

Cale's fam is left generally more worried over Cale being reckless again, than whatever epic chaos is going on around them, causing lots of delightful misunderstandings and comedic moments as a result

Alberu Crossman gets a headache once again

…aaaand that about sums it up! 💖

[sokkastyles]

I have a question, I know we know that shipping does not equal morality. And I get that, and I really like that. However, on my other blog, that should have been my main blog (yes I am that dumb). I have talked about Aang's non-consensual and criticized how Kataang is written, however, if you ship Kataang I won't come for your throat because that's not my style. I know the few misogynists/antis on here and on Twitter, and I don't want to let a few bad apples be my impression of a fandom, that's not fair, So now I'm side-eyeing myself over my past remarks. Likewise, I know shipping is not equal to morality, but I also want to criticize Kataang because of how flawed it is and how wrong that kiss was (and other things). I have no idea what I'm saying because at this point I'm rambling. What do you think?

Well, there is a difference between criticizing a ship and criticizing canon. I don't honestly care what people ship. I use the antikataang tag because I don't want to argue with people who do ship it, but that doesn't mean I won't be critical of what is in the show. I think expecting people not to engage critically with media is absolute nonsense. But there is a difference between engaging critically with the actual media and criticizing people's fanon or headcanons, which is where you get away from critically engaging with canon and move into the area of criticizing other people's opinions, which is how arguments start.

Like, there isn't really any actual concrete argument you can make to criticize zutara, because zutara does not exist in canon. It's all fanon and headcanons and speculation. And criticizing other people's opinions just makes you look like a dick.

You also have to take into account the intention behind something. The thing about the way Katara's relationship with Aang is presented is that we're supposed to root for Aang to get Katara, and every obstacle towards that end is just there to create dramatic tension for the male point of audience identification. That's the real problem with the noncon kiss, and people who are critical of it are right to point it out.

In contrast, when I say shipping isn't morality, I'm talking about people who write, let's say, dubcon zutara fics. Fanfiction as a genre is largely female-centered fantasy. Yes, even those lurid fics you're thinking of. People write and read these fics for completely different reasons and have completely different expectations than when watching a series like ATLA. Trying to say that someone can't criticize the way the show presents Aang kissing Katara after she said she was confused as a mistake to be glossed over (that is forgotten as soon as it happens) because they also happen to like reading darkfic is nonsense. There's also a long history of women's interests being policed that informs my views here, vs the fact that consent has only fairly recently become a conversation in mainstream media. You have only to look at the way the show itself portrays Katara having interests (especially in boys) outside of Aang as dark and dangerous to see this happening in ATLA itself. Or the way the creators got away with saying that zutara shippers are doomed to end up in abusive relationships while painting Aang as a typical Nice Guy stereotype who expects Katara to magically become his girlfriend (and gets angry when she doesn't) and seeing nothing wrong with it.

The thing is that zutara, if we look at the way it's written in canon as a metaphor for a romantic relationship, follows the same tradition of how fanfiction has historically existed as an exploration of romantic and sexual dynamics. Those conversations about consent are actually happening and being explored in fanfiction, even the dark stuff, whereas relationships that are presented as "wholesome" often push us to NOT have those conversations. So when I say shipping isn't morality, what I actually mean is that noncanon shipping and darkfic actually has more of a moral leg to stand on than uncritically engaging with relationships on the grounds that Aang is the hero so his goodness and worthiness to get the girl should just be assumed. Zuko has to work for his right to be in a relationship with Katara because he didn't start out from a place of goodness, and that, on its own, is very female centered because instead of starting out from the perspective of the male hero deserving a relationship by virtue of being the hero, we see the idea that a man has to work to gain a woman's respect and affection.

So it's not so much that I hate KA, but I hate the idea that we should engage in it uncritically. And that would be true even if it really was the most wholesome relationship in the world. The same thing cannot be true of zutara because even the darkest of darkfic are about women centering themselves in the narrative and engaging with power dynamics in ways that are subverting patriarchal norms about relationships by definition.

[goodluckclove]

Some Loose Thoughts on Queer Rep (Specifically Aspec Rep)

(Just in advance I'm going to dunk on Alastor from Hazbin Hotel like a lil' bit, as a treat. Mainly the team that made him and what he represents, but still. If that's rage bait for you, I suggest maybe dipping out now)

I have a theory that queer media needs both queer characters and queer genre characters. The difference is very important.

I think a queer character would be a character in a story about their queerness. For some reason the only two characters I could think of are the guy from Love, Simon (What was his name again?) and the protagonist from Rubyfruit Jungle, which should express the weird and complicated relationship I have with this particular archetype.

Queer stories centered around queerness are definitely needed, but at the same time I feel like we're just starting to come to terms with the desperate need for the alternative, which are queer characters in genre media that contain overarching plots larger than their sexuality. Not separate, necessarily (Their queerness certainly influences things), but just beyond. This is more accessible for a variety of artists, which is also the reason why it can be a flop or a massive success.

We get more of this than ever for gay and sapphic characters, as well as some trans folks and occasionally non-binary. It's definitely way less seen in aspec characters, and even less respected. I started thinking this way because the internet is flooded with references to fucking Alastor from Hazbin Hotel as an aroace character and - like - god, I don't get it.

Like you can have your serial killer comfort character, that's fine. But latching onto him as representation for the entire aspec community when he was only confirmed to be aroace through a reference in a livestream and the weakest joke onscreen is pretty disheartening. It definitely reads like this part of his identity was added pretty late in his character development, and by a team of people that didn't seem to consider what the response and reaction would be and how they'd handle it.

I also wish the newest aspec icon in media wasn't created by a team so adamant on encouraging shipping culture above actually respecting the identity they've decided to provide representation for. Like I see it means a lot to people to have an aroace character doing something cool in a fun TV show that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their identity. Then there's like four other people right behind that person who really wants that person to be romantic and fuck.

And like, yeah, aroace people can do that sometimes. It's a spectrum, I know. But can't we start with a baseline representation before providing proof of fluidity?

I just think we deserve better. Like a character who in the media is established to be aspec, and people are like "great" and move on to fight robots or do magic or whatever. And the person can be morally grey, or even a total dick, but like I'd personally prefer something with a little more depth than Hot Topic genericism.

Like don't get me wrong, I'll take some sort of eldritch horror as my representation, but...make him at all horrifying? Like everyone talks about how he has Eldritch powers, which I know to mean unfathomable and maddening. But I've seen everything he does in the canon of the show and it is both incredibly fathomable and makes me feel normal and sane. Yog-Sothoth this man is not.

But yeah, I don't think there's a solution here besides more aspec artists creating aspec characters in their work. That way people can still like Alastor if they want, but he's not like the only viable option in terms of representation in the media. Let me see lovingly-crafted cool guys and dipshits and chaos goblins and little babies and True Horrors, all of whom have varying degrees of distaste or indifference towards sex and romance.

Do it. We need it. Please.

[shaunashipman]

Why do certain buddie shippers feel the need to justify their hatred for Tommy by turning it into a "moral" issue. "He's racist and a misogynist" when he clearly isnt?? Obviously he was at one point but the show has made a point of showing that he's made his amends (and is not that person anymore) and is on good terms with everyone. We didn't see it on screen because Tommy's a side character. Like is hating Tommy simply because he's with Buck childish? Yes, but I would respect them a lot more if they just owned up to why they really hated Tommy instead of coming up with some fake moral justification for it. Not to mention I highly doubt anyone would call Tommy bigoted if he wasn't Buck's love interest.

so this is not actually specific to buddies or the 911 fandom. it's purity culture. no one is allowed to just dislike anything anymore, you need a Reason™ that the thing you like is morally wrong and bad, and other people are bad for liking it.

but specifically re: bucktommy, it's also because they see tommy as a threat to their ship going canon. like I said in a previous post, they think people showing support of tommy and bucktommy will "give tim and abc the wrong idea" and keep him, which means they can't get buddie. so they need to sway people against bucktommy in order to "send a message" to the show, and admitting that they just don't vibe with him cause they have a different ship isn't going to get people on their side. so they lie and say he's racist and treats buck bad and isn't actually interested in buck.

but it's not working, as evidenced by the overwhelmingly positive response to the pride post. unfortunately, said positive response just makes them double down harder

[wolfiwonderer]

Season 2 shows us Sahed's life is a series of cages and betrayals growing more constraining each time. That he hasn't given up is impressive (but giving up would not be in his character). Anger and magic is basically all he has to hold on to, and I think we have yet to see if his anger at Tonny was misplaced.

Cage 1: the concentration camp that he grew up in.

I'm not sure exactly how long ago this was, but I'm guessing 100 years, which means Ah'kon have not had freedom for over a century. And what's the first thing we see he's doing (other than being a cocky brat <3)? Building a flying machine to get out and see the wider world. He's enticed to leave peacefully because it comes with leaving. And so first betrayal of trust in someone offering an escape.

Cage 2: the research center. I think we'll learn a lot more about this, but clearly he started thinking about it positively, hence the happy picture. My theory is that the giant wave was made by Sahed, and when he implies he's killed before, that is the event he's referring to. We know that Steinheimer died young, but Sahed doesn't seem quite broken up about the guy. Since he says he was haunted, it just doesn't feel like that would be the haunt.

Cage 3: the circus

I think it's clear that Sahed was an addition after the circus started. For one, I can't see Sahed really confining himself the castle, but also it would be hard for him to live as a fugitive. So he manages to escape, but needs refuge and meets Tonny. Tonny promises to give him freedom from Kalgratt and that he'll support Sahed's cause. But Tonny continuously makes ill-fated promises that even a casual understanding of their situation is morally wrong. I want to write something about why I think Tonny is not good, even if he does not realize it. But suffice to say, Sahed didn't get what he thought he would get from the bargain.

Adding a cut because it rapidly passes into fast pass zone.

Cage 4: the circus but worse

Now he's alone in a cage. And when he gets out, it's not really freedom from the cage, it's just walking room. Because while in theory Tonny is going to help now, the circus is turned against him. They're morals have long seemed suspect - very selfish and disconnected with how their choices might affect people outside the circus. Sahed and Julia are really the only ones still concerned with anything outside the circus.

The third betrayal is Julia, but this is different, because he also let her down, and because he knew he was in a position of power over her. This hearkens back to when he was the leader of his group of friends and led them into the research center. He doesn't know, I think, about her 1 year limit, so he probably thinks he had even more influence on her decisions than he did. Honestly, I think he gets too much blame from others on her decision. She wanted validation that Tonny deserved it because she wants to live. But Sahed delivered when he should have realized the consequences. He feigned confidence in the plan that he didn't have. Her turning on him hurts but not in a way he can get angry at her about, although I think he has a right to be mad if she really doesn't support his takedown of the research center.

Julia can give up in a way that Sahed can't. The only person she has to save is herself, whereas he feels responsible for the Ah'kon's treatment (even if he isn't). Still, Julia and Sahed share a sense of righteousness, and I don't see meek Julia lasting.

I am totally here for the shipping too, but I really love Sahed's character. I love how we start with Sahed as a potential villain (okay we knew he wasn't but Julia def thought he was) and brat, but as we learn more about him, his motivation becomes clear as an activist -- he's still a brat (affectionate).

[bartypluto]

Everything wrong with the marauders fandom ── rant

Long rant about everything that I think doesn't make sense in the fandom since marauders TikTok is driving me crazy (I did not proofread this and I don't know how much sense it makes but I hope you get the point).

People in the marauders fandom ship characters and make friend groups based on tropes and the personality of the characters (e.g. Regulus being with James bc of the brother's best friend trope and because their personalities are cute together) instead of taking the characters' morals and opinions into account (e.g. James (canonically) hates Slytherins and blood supremacists, therefore he wouldn't like Regulus (romantically or platonically)). By doing this, the characters are reduced to stereotypes without morals. Everyone likes each other (the Death Eaters are friends with members of the Order) and there's no room for a plot. Why would blood supremacy exist if not a single Death Eater or member of the OOTP actually upholds their beliefs? What's the point of the Harry Potter novels if everyone is best friends with each other? (I'm not saying personality doesn't matter or that the tropes make no sense, but ignoring everything a character stands for is taking it too far).

Characters are limited to being "bad people" and not being allowed positive qualities or "good people" who don't have flaws (e.g. the Marauders being perfect (except for Peter) and Snape being irredeemable and the devil incarnate). Why is it always so black and white? You've already stripped characters of their morals and now you're also not allowing them to have both good and bad in them?

So basically friend groups and ships don't make sense, lore doesn't actually matter anymore, and talking about anything is pointless since everyone is arguing about headcanons (which can't easily be disproved, cause if you say someone's headcanon isn't realistic, they'll start talking about how "nothing is canon so it doesn't matter!!!" Which is just plain out wrong by the way).

The ideas of a good work of fiction and character analysis are ruined since no one cares about the canon things we know about characters. They are under the illusion of not having any canon information, even though there's actually quite a lot of info in the books. Character headcanons should be an expansion of said person, an elaboration of what they're like. Making random things up is not valid unless we genuinely don't know a lot about someone (e.g. Dorcas, but even in her case we still know she was against Death Eaters and blood supremacy, so saying she'd be friends with Death Eaters is a reach unless you're claiming she actually doesn't have strong morals or you think she was friends with them before they got blood supremacist beliefs).

Also please come up with better names cause what are "Slytherin skittles", "Partyvan" or even "dead gay wizards"? I'm sorry this might just be the hater in me but I cannot take this anymore. Being gay has become some kind of quirk and making every character lgbt is seen as a good fandom trait (the dead gay wizards name has been around for a while, but point still stands).

The fandom claims to be oh so inclusive because everyone is gay, yet they make Sirius a femboy because God forbid two masculine men are in a relationship. One of them has to be feminine, right? You're definitely not promoting negative stereotypes by doing that! Also Jily and other straight ships being seen as boring because "all heteros suck and only gay characters deserve a fandom!" You're literally setting us back under the false narrative of "being inclusive". You're perpetuating stereotypes (again) and you're acting like being gay is some special personality trait.

All the characters from the Marauders era are so interesting and the era has so much potential, but it's being wasted because of the fandom's poor understanding of fiction.

[whoishotteranimepolls]

Congrats on restarting uni! I think a lot of the dunmeshi discourse comes from people latching on to what they as an “unproblematic” or wholesome show w/respect to sexualization of women and then get jumpscared when the tone shifts - or at least from people with strong senses of “moral purity”. Like I saw someone talking about how shipping farcille was bad because it was sexualization of these characters and it essentially ruined the purity of the show and was counter to what it was written for, lol.

I'm pretty sure you're right. I just received an essay last night that says it's wrong for us to sexualize the female characters of Dungeon Meshi by putting them in these polls for reasons. I haven't read the full thing yet.

I went and looked it up but Dungeon Meshi is in the Seinen genre, I don't think most people realize that I didn't. I thought it was a Shonen. But now things make sense because remember what is the most iconic Seinen manga? Oh yeah, it's Berserk. So now do things make sense for everyone? Complaining about the wholesome purity of a show in the Seinen genre yeah things are going to get dark and if we use Berserk or Vinland Saga as the base lines since they're two of the most iconic mangas in the genre. Yeah it's going to get real dark. I can't believe they hid the fact this was a Seinen from us for so long.

I get that it's refreshing not to have an anime that doesn't overly sexualize the female characters and uses them exclusively for family service. But it doesn't give you an excuse to become the morality police. Because the fandom is beginning to act like all those little old ladies in the church who used to shame me all the time for what I was wearing. I don't know if they realize it, but it feels like that when all of you clutch your pearls and panic because how dare you sexualize the female characters? That's against the purity of the show.

Just a little FYI, I found another Manga/Anime that also refuses to sexualize its female characters. That exclusively does fan service with its male characters. It's just as refreshing. Like Dungeon Meshi, it's also a Seinen series, but it's a historical action-adventure series similar to Atlantis the Lost Empire called Golden Kamuy. It is incredible. Please watch or read it. It does not get enough credit for how good it is. When I say it exclusively does fan service with its male characters, I mean it. We have not seen so much as an ankle on the female characters, but the male characters are frequently shirtless, if not naked. Plus, they're all hot, and there are several types of hot, whether you like skinny, muscular, scarred, or various levels of hairy. Please go watch that show

[quantumshade]

Just so you know, you can’t ship NineRose romantically. Nine is canonically Aromantic.

sorry i don’t take things as canon if they’re written by the same guy who wrote river song sexually assaulting five.

partly joking but not really. the way big finish wrote this story has one episode call the doctor aro (by john dorney, mentioned above), and have him solve the problem of the episode with his lack of romantic attraction, and two episodes later (by tim foley, who i also have beef with) basically has nine and river call their relationship romantic.

i know being aromantic is a spectrum and something complicated and different to each individual, and i would love it if the show (or surrounding media) made an effort to explore this with the doctor, but i. don't think it's done super well here. like. on one hand it could be saying nine didn't love rose*, which i dislike and also goes against what we see in the show, or it could be saying he needed to just Meet The Right Person, which i also dislike for very obvious reasons. and either way you slice it, it confirms the doctor has feelings in the future for river (which i agree with) but it basically says the only reason the doctor doesn’t have those feelings Now is because he’s aro (with the implication of “aro For Now”). not because he. yknow. just met her. or he just got out of the time war and he hates himself. dorney just kind of bungles it, which is very disappointing because nineriver could be such an interesting dynamic, romantic or not.

i guess i just do fundamentally disagree that the doctor’s sexuality really changes all that much body to body so it really ends up feeling like “he just hasn’t Met The Right Person Yet”.

*if you personally don't think this love is romantic then that's totally fine! if you prefer to read them as queerplatonic partners or what have you then you absolutely should. personally i do think it's romantic love -- specifically allegorical queer romantic love, given how it's written in the show -- and i don't think it's a moral wrong to read it that way.

tl;dr i dislike this writer and how he handled nine and river's relationship and i think how he handled nine's romantic attraction (or lack thereof) specifically in Swipe Right really kind of sucks. that story alone contradicts the doctor being aromantic by saying that they feel romantic attraction in the future, and then the third episode in the set by foley also contradicts the doctor being aro in the present. i know stuff with sexuality can change over time, but that doesn't really feel like what was being done here. it feels more like the stereotypical thing a lot of media does that basically says aromanticism has to be fixed or is a temporary thing.

i also think telling people they can't say two characters were in gay love because of a pseudocanon side story most people have not listened to and costs a lot of money is a weird way to interact with people you don't know on the internet. i like romantic readings of doctorrose and doctorriver, sue me.

[maxzinn]

off topic but also on topic its so clear that the genshin/star rail (saying both cause theres a large overlap) have no capability of thinking.

there are so many fics where *reader* somehow becomes a (sex)slave or is forced to do horrible shit and just general dead dove behavior. the fact that the author used INGAME LORE, CANON BACKSTORY FOR THE CHARACTER proves how braindead so many people are.

like people try to free slaves/captors in media isnt a new thing. theres a lot of art of that angelhusk ship where one gambles for the others freedom (never watched it but its an example)

like having slaves/captors in media isnt new and never has been but the only reason people truely care is because its a hoyoverse game and cant handle anything darker or complex then a PG rating

(sorry anon, I got carried away with this one tee-hee)

YOU'RE SO REAL FOR THIS!!! y'know I was sooo confused when people started screaming for blood when the authors are using his IN-GAME LORE in their fics and then claims that the people who enjoyed writing those have "white-knight syndrome" like cmon sjsadhjg you're giving me a fucking stroke.

I'll say it again, wanting to give slave aventurine or someone a better life DOESN'T mean they have "white-knight syndrome" when they have good intentions!!! We were all were crying for him and his tragic past, we all wanted to comfort him, and we at some point also wished for his salvation and the betterment of his life. These people need to stop throwing these "white-knight syndrome" accusations cuz it's definitely not about that. And like you said, it was his IN-GAME LORE. I already expected some authors to write about reader saving him from his slavery and there's nothing wrong with that! Cuz please, don't tell me you won't help the guy out of his abusive owner, let's be fr here.

Like you also said, many have been writing yandere/heavy dark themes about reader being literally SA'd and R'd by said character (do not tell me you guys haven't read all those fics where Aven was our debt collector and in paying our debt, he noncon or manipulated us into sleeping with him 💀) and now they wanna talk about morals?

And please, don't even try bringing up Romania or irl people in here. IT'S A FICTIONAL RACE IN A FICTIONAL STORY. it may be "inspired" like they said, but it's not directly addressing Romania!!

I get their point alright, I truly do. Like I said in my other post, I do not condone the sex slave! aus about aventurine and the master/slave bdsm cuz his story truly hurt me and I'm uncomfortable sexualizing his slavery when I know about his story and what happened to him as a slave. But I won't go as far as to actually send death threats to those authors and act like a hypocrite💀 people can write what they want to write and I don't have to read those writings if I don't wanna.

Just to say, I'm a yandere/dark-content enjoyer as well, it's just that I draw the line when it comes to aventurine cuz I just wanna cuddle and dote on that man and give him all the love and affection in the world. but like I said, am no hypocrite as well. (sorry if I can't explain it very well but I hope you get the gist of it)

It's just funny and baffling how people are like "eww this person wrote a fic about reader buying slave aventurine so they can be a good owner to him".... this is leaving me speechless how they turned an act with good intentions into something malicious... that poor author doesn't even have bad intentions when writing that fic.

When you apply their logic, it's like saying "this person adopted an abused child so that they can be a good parent to that child, disgusting" do they even realize how stupid they sound??? 😭

[pupmkincake2000]

Funny how I keep getting comments like this

And it's not that it's harmful,it's that it's just not right whatsoever 💀 all your reasons for them being together are faulty and are things shared between friends aswell.

So, the dude called me and my ship weird while (and I'll keep saying it nonstop) HankCon is the most harmless ship in this fandom.

Okay, we are not saying that people can't ship whoever they want, are we? Especially in this particular fandom? In which most of the ships have no logic behind them at all, yet people are quite fine with those just because they fit into people's standards of beauty and how guy x guy ships have to look like, in their opinion.

So my questions are like those I've seen on twitter: "why do people find it so hard to be silent haters? like genuinely? why is it so hard to see something you don't like and think "ew weird" without feeling the need to tell the person who likes it that you think its weird/bad/gross/wrong ??"

And here's the answer: It's because they need to feel like they have the moral high ground. Actual virtue signalling. Ewww you like this, here's why you're wrong.

And nobody was able to give me an open answer why HankCon seems so offensive to them. And we do not talk about age gap here, it is too ridiculous to bring this up as an argument even. We are not talking anbout father & son issue because canon relationship is still friends, any father & son as well as romance are headcanons. So why those who like father & son are supported and those who love romance and fucking between the character are hated?

In a fandom (with no canon ships, except maybe Kara x Luther) where people literally ship characters with everyone they want?

Someone on twitter also said that the massive increase in self-insert, kinning etc. has created parasocial relationships with fictional charas. It's always happened but it's more now. Any perceived attack (moral or otherwise) on the chara equals an attack on that person's identity.

But I doubt that's the only issue. Although the theory has its place, given the general infantilization of Connor, which, however, is immediately forgotten when people need him to be an adult.

If haters are here to spread morality and justice, why aren't they doing it in other fandoms? After all, as I've mentioned before, there is the Rick and Morty fandom where people ship a grandpa and a grandson and I've never heard of people hating on this ship. Why these people are not among those discussing, for example, the laws of Japan, where a man over forty can marry a sixteen-year-old (correct me if I'm mistaken) if it is really an age gap that bothers the haters so much? But for some reason they chose as a victim a harmless pairing that does not harm anyone and is not even as popular as it was before? Or the goal is to errase it from the fandom spaces completely? If so, I'd suggest those to go outside and touch the grass.