#some of the people listed are people who exist canonically for some characters but have made no tangible showing

[necrotic-nephilim]

I started in DC by reading fanfics, but as I began to read actual comics, I started to be unable to read the actual fanfic that got me into it in the first place because it's so out of character.

But there are still some stories that I love to read because I love the found family trope so much, even if it isn't really accurate to the source material.

As a comics purist (sometimes), are there tropes that you like enough that you'll still enjoy a fic even if it's not accurate to canon?

oh my god this is SUCH a fun question. bc while i started with the comics, there were certain characters and/or character dynamics where i was exposed to the fanon before the canon (just bc it's hard to read everything when you start out just to read some fanfic) and so i've definitely experienced the fanon to canon transition. (*especially* with Jason Todd. i had only read 80s/90s stuff where he was already dead or the New-52 bc that was on-going when i got into comics and man. the fanon misunderstandings i had about him before i got frustrated and sat down to read all his pre-Flashpoint stuff were absolutely bonkers.) and aside from that, whilst i tend to prefer canon over fanon, i'm not past giving fanon its flowers for occasionally having really interesting insights. occasionally. so some of my fanon "guilty pleasure" tropes would probably be

Morally Grey Tim Drake - this is one where if you try to back it up with canon, i *will* get salty about it. of everyone in the Batfam aside from maybe Bruce and Cass, Tim has the *most* black and white morals. often his internal conflicts are routed in such an inability to compromise his moral views and it can cause him to clash with other characters. he's *very* stiff and rigid in his beliefs and is *rare* to compromise in even the smallest ways. i mean, DC has repeatedly used Tim Drake of Tomorrow/Savior/Gun Batman!Tim for a reason. it's to demonstrate that of everyone, Tim *cannot* have his morals compromised. there's no grey area for him. he's zero or a hundred, so if he tips over the edge of "too far" he tips *all the way*, and doing so is one of his worst fears, how he could go "too far" if he let himself. a couple panels out of context from Red Robin (2009) (which was a grief spiral for Tim to begin with) don't change that. now that said. if it's done *right*, i sort of love Tim being morally grey in fanfic. it takes a specific flavor for me, and it's incredibly important to include that mental spiral along with it, of him struggling to justify it. i don't have any interest in "Tim Drake is loosy goosy with Bruce's morals and has the highest kill count and no one knows teehee" bc it doesn't play with the interesting parts of making Tim morally grey, which are fracturing his psyche. but all in all, i think it's fun to put Tim in a morally grey area and i will read it in fanfic and i enjoy writing it a lot

Joker Junior!Tim Drake - i've not written it on this account (yet) but on my main ao3 account one of my biggest fics surrounds this concept. this is one of those "well *technically* it's canon but only in a specific very divorced from the comics universe and would not work at all in the main timeline" so, i categorize it as fanon in that 95% of fics exploring the concept are not doing so within the Batman Beyond universe, but the main timeline. i just love it. I'll take any excuse to whump Tim, but this concept is so fun. psychologically breaking Tim will always be my favorite pastime. there are so many ways to explore the long-term effects this could have on him, how it could affect the Batfam. i'm not a fan of it being used as a "gotcha" to Jason or Babs' trauma with the Joker to paint Tim as the Ultimate Victim, but it is fun to see how their relationships would be affected by being mutual victims of him. (i have a vague JayTim idea where TIm fully retires from being Robin after being Joker Junior and killing the Joker, making Steph Robin for most of his typical Robin era and Jason still tracks him down out of curiosity bc he wants to know what happened and all. very underbaked but i've got thoughts.)

Renegade/Apprentice of Slade!Dick Grayson - this is another one where yes, this happened *sort of* in canon, but i highly doubt most people writing Renegate!Dick have read or are actually pulling from Nightwing: Renegade. it's just an exploration fo the concept fo Dick being Slade's apprentice and i will always eat it up in any capacity. whether Dick grows up with Slade from a young age, or chooses Slade for whatever reason later in life. it's not anything that works in canon bc it compromises Dick morally (similar to the above with Tim) and therefore will always come across incredibly fanon in most fics. but i can't say i don't enjoy it. it's fun to make Dick a little morally fucked up and see what you can make him under Slade's tutelage.

Jason & Damian Meeting in the League -there's no world where i believe this could work in the canon comics. (maybe in the Young Justice cartoon i suppose, but even then i think it's iffy) i would go as far to say it's wildly unrealistic. i don't see a world where Ra's would let Jason anywhere *near* Damian, bc Jason was Talia's pet project that he didn't approve of. that all said, there's something very interesting about how they *could've* met and them potentially bonding during that timeframe. them being somewhat brotherly during this time because Jason sees Bruce in Damian and sort of latches onto the kid and Damian is full of wonder hearing real stories about Batman and Robin, then that getting violently ripped away by Jason leaving the League is fun to me. it's fun how that could affect them within the Batfam and all. it's super fanon to me, but i do not care. i will eat it up

Bad Dad Clark Kent/Good Dad Lex Luthor - i will admit as a late, i've been less and less kind to this particular fanon bc of everything i've argued with people about, *this* one seems the most pervasive as misunderstood fanon. i don't mind when fanon exists, my gripe is when ppl try to claim it's canon. and the *arguments* i've had over this with people who can never seem to cite an actual comic are... frustrating. but that said, i think there is something fun to this strictly in fanon. the duality of who you expect to accept Kon and who you expect to hurt him being flipped is just sort of fun for the occasional guilty pleasure fic. it can make Kon's internal conflict a bit more interesting. the same goes for the Jon favoritism from Clark, it's not a canon thing (and i rlly wish ppl understood how complicated the timeline of Kon and Jon is and any distance from Clark toward Kon isn't malice, it's that Kon is from a timeline that Clark does not remember in the current canon so Clark just straight up doesn't know the poor kid.) but it's sort of fun to give Kon that complex of being overlooked and forgotten sometimes. making Kon just a *bit* more Luthor than Kent will *always* appeal to me in fanfic, especially if he *knows* it's wrong but craves approval from anyone who will give it.

Good Dad Bruce Wayne - i'll die on the hill Bruce is canonically a shitty father. maybe not to the extreme some people write him as, but he's not great at it. that said, i enjoy it in fanfiction. sometimes, i just want silly fluff or hurt/comfort where Bruce finally gets it right and manages to comfort whatever Batkid is in the fic. one of my favorite fics of all time is hinged on Bruce being a good dad, so i think it's just fun to explore how good the relationships *could* be, if Bruce was slightly less of an asshole. i usually prefer him as an asshole, but there are times i want low stakes nonsense.

Gotham Rogues Having Soft Spots for Robin(s) - just about every Rogue in Gotham has done something absolutely irredeemable, and most of them don't like or care about anyone in the Batfamily. but if there's a fic where one of the Robins inexplicably is sort of close with a Rogue and they have a cute silly relationship out of it? I'll eat it up i fear. Steph and the Riddler are besties? I'll believe it. Tim and Scarecrow get along pretty well? give me ten of these. Rogues protecting Robins just hits a spot. the unexpected nature of the relationship, as well as the fact they see each other regularly, can make a lot of good fodder.

[biasbuck]

BiAsBuck’s ficrec Fridays

Less that a week to go!! Happy fraturday, and a very happy birthday to Mr Guzman. Here's another round of the fic I've been reading this week, you can find previous rec lists here.

21 September 2024

ice cream before dinner by cloudydaisies is a pitch perfect Eddie POV fic as he babysits Mara and Jee-Yun following 7x10, winning them over with icecream tuesdays, love and support. I saw so many people loving on this and then caught my eye even more with some gorgeous cover art by @walkingonawire and yes, everyone was right, it absolutely melted my heart. Just a beat for beat joy of a fic, Eddie's internal journey and the sweet bond of trust and love built between the trio, as he awaits Chris' return, and allows himself to open his heart up to Buck along the way. Beautifully written and delightful!

all you're giving me is friction by @henswilsons ahhhh such a wonderful 5+1 buddie fic in which Eddie joins the 118 and Hen is a little worried that Buck's flirting with him will cross a line...seeing as he's wearing a wedding ring. This is such a fun fic with the elephant in the room...because you know what she doesn't know you know, right? And waiting for the reveal and watching it dawn on them is so brilliantly funny in execution.

wherever you roam (you'll always want me) by @buddieism canon divergent following 7x05 in which Eddie would rather 'go to his grave repressed and miserable than ever take away from Buck’s happiness.' But in unpacking what would make Eddie himself happy, he comes to realise with some help and a look at what brought him to this point in his life that that might not be up to him. Aching and painfully cathartic and ultimately full of hope.

the cat's meow by @exhuastedpigeon GIVE. EDDIE. A CAT. (Do it for me!) When Eddie finds a box of abandoned kittens at the side of the road, he takes them to the shelter...but falls ass over teakettle for little calico Pinto (like the beans). Reluctant to let on to the existence of his new furry little friend, he keeps her close to his chest. When Buck finds out, he's unable to resist falling under the spell of her charms...or her owners. Sweet, romantic fluff...with such great character voice....and whiskers!! So freakin' cute.

glass on the pavement under my shoe by @doitbuckley a Buck POV fic under Gerrards command, taking a risk that puts his life on the line to save Eddie. But all these years later, he's not sure he's so readily okay with having to say goodbye for real, even in the line of duty. Some lyrically written introspection and growth from Buck here in the way he understands and embraces life vs death situations.

Hot Ghost Problems by @ebjameston in which Eddie is a natural born witch in a world where magic isn't a secret though he keeps it close to his chest. But on joining the 118 he meets Buck...only Evan Buckley is the firefighter who died that Eddie was here to replace. Tethered together by magic, Buck refuses to move on, and in staying around he saves Eddie along the way. With some excellent Diaz sister cameos, a brilliantly intriguing mystery, and a whole heap of magic, they race against time to save the day and might just get to keep their happily ever after. I had such a great time reading this one from 2023!

the tortured poets department by @colonoscopys more magic! 'The first time Buck touched him, Eddie blew an ambulance up.' Magic sparks under his skin, and falling in love with Buck feels a lot like when it overwhelms him with feeling. Eddie thinks he's doing a good job keeping it secret, but somethings are obvious to those who know what signs to look out for. This one felt like a little bit of magic shared, sweet, sexy and full of all sorts of sparks!

Okay let's leave it there for this week. Next week we'll have a new episode to play with! Can you believe it? I'll be on a little work trip and then a vacation so looking forward to joining you all in the sandbox soon. So excited to be back with the firefam again.

[isaacathom]

my friend pondered a highschool au for their ttrpg ocs, and then i went 'hmm. interesting. what if my ocs?' and then, well,

[loveless-arobee]

Loveless/heartless aros: "I wish there was some more books (or other forms of media) that don't center around love..."

Some other aspecs: "Don't you mean romance?" "Here's books about platonic love!" "Reminder that romance=/=love! Aros can still love!" "I think you should switch "love" for "romance" there, OP! :)"

And:

AlloAros/AroAllos/other non-ace aros: "I wish there was some representation for us anywhere :/"

Some aspecs: "Here's ten-thousand characters that I headcanon as AroAce!" "I think all characters should be AroAce :)" "You should read these AroAce/Ace books!"

sigh

Maybe, just maybe, learn to listen to people different from you, and stop making everything about yourself. I know there's also very little AroAce/Ace representation, but that doesn't mean you can make every post about non-ace aros about yourself.

Especially when you come onto post by people who have even less than you. You can make lists of AroAce characters, while I can't even think of one canonically AlloAro character who wasn't only confirmed via word of god (and yes, I'm counting my boy Vargo into that, I love him and it was obvious for me what the authors were intending, but overall his aromanticism is completely ignored by almost everyone who read the books because it "wasn't obvious enough in the text"), and even those who were only confirmed via word of god I can barely think of any besides Vargo who actually show that in any meaningful kind of way in the text, while I know multiple canonically AroAce characters.

And loveless characters literally don't exist outside of villains who don't feel love because they're evil, and are evil because they don't feel love.

[daydreamerwonderkid]

Me, after doing 15 minutes of excessive googling on every Batfam member's birthday only to then realize I've accidentally missed the majority of them this year, and then also finding out that people are still aggressively debating over whether Bruce's birthday is April 7 or February 19, Dick's birthday happens 3-6x throughout the year, and Stephanie might have just popped into existence for all that DC cares:

Batfam birthday dates btw for anyone who needs them are listed beneath the cut:

DISCLAIMER: DC is notorious for being super inconsistent with everything and I am a mere tadpole caught in the tidal wave of DC's ocean. This post will be regularly updated with edits and corrections so please do not use it as word of law, I am begging you.

Update (8/24/23): To keep things more simple and easier for everyone I am going to start categorizing the birth dates I've collected into 3 categories.

-Most popular: Self-explanatory. These are the birth dates that have been canonized and confirmed by DC and are also more wildly celebrated by the fandom. Typically, this should be the first result you see when you google the character's birthday. But not always because DC sucks ass.

-Other date(s): These are the additional birth dates I come across that have been canonized in some form with multiple sources, but are not as wildly celebrated or popularized by DC and/or the fandom. Why am I including them here? Mostly because I don't want people coming in saying I forgot a date. But also because if I have to see this mess, then y'all have too as well.

-Potential but unconfirmed date(s): This is where I will put all the other additional dates I find, but specifically those that are lacking in complete sources or seem to be highly debated and scrutinized.

Also fun emoji ranking guide for me and me alone:

👑👑: Queen Shit. Characters with a consistent and simple birth date(s). Can absolutely do no wrong.

👑😮‍💨: In the Running. Characters who don't have a set birth date, but the mess is minor and completely DC's fault. They shouldn't have to be punished for DC's crimes.

🤡🤡: Gtfo. Shit is so inconsistent and stupidly messy that it's making me lose my shit. I'm putting DC and the characters on trial for this bullshit.

👑Alfred Pennyworth👑

Most popular: August 16

Other date(s): April 8 and March 31

(I think it'd be hella cute if Jason and Alfred shared a bday. But if you keep scrolling through the rest of the list, you'll see that August is kind of an overcrowded bday month for the Batfam.

Depending on what you prefer, though, I still think Alfred's worth being celebrated. Lord knows he deserves a special day for himself)

(Update ((8/24/23)): No big inconsistencies between these dates. I just thought it would be fun to provide some info on why Alfred has two canonical birthdates.

So the reason August 16 is viewed as the most popular is for two main reasons. One, obviously, is that he shares a birth date with Jason Todd. So many fans latch onto this date because of how sweet it is for them to share a birthday together.

The second reason has to do with the origin of the birth date. This is because of the more recent retcon that was made by the prequel comic to the Injustice: Gods Among Us video game that was published in 2013. There is a panel in the comic that shows Alfred's birth certificate in full detail from his full name, his place of birth, etc.

As for April 8, this specific date technically has more history compared to August 16. Fans will cite that April 8 was the official date selected by DC according to their Super DC Calendar back in 1976 (which btw was made in 1975).

Compared to August 16 and April 8, however, March 31 oddly enough isn't that popular or recognized by DC or the majority of the fandom. The reason March 31 does come up is because March 31, 1943 was the date when Alfred made his first appearance in the comics, one day after Bruce/Batman)

🤡Bruce Wayne🤡: Hey. Hey, DC, look at me. Bitch.

Most popular: February 19 or April 7

Other date(s): April 25, May 27, March 30, "October," October 7, and "November"

(It looks like most people go with February 19, but don't come at me if you're a April 7 truther. I'm just existing)

(Update ((8/20/23)): I'm gonna shoot somebody. So after doing a little bit more research, I came across-you'd never guess it-even more conflicting info on when Bruce's birthday is supposed to take place.

While April 7 and February 19 are still popular days for fans to celebrate Batman's bday, March 30 is also considered a popular date due to March 30, 1939 being the day Detective Comics #27 ((the issue Batman debuted in)) was put on shelves.

HOWEVER, even Batman's debut is contested to actually be May 27, 1939 because despite the fact that Detective Comics #27 first appeared to the public on March 30, 1939, the cover issue depicted May 27, 1939 instead.

This is because it was a popular practice for comics publication houses to falsify their cover dates as a way to give the impression that the latest issue was newer than it actually was. So if you really, really wanna get super fucking technical about it ((and I know there are some of you out there who do)), Batman may have debuted on March 30, but the cover-issue date was May 27 so, yes, I guess Bruce could have been a May baby instead.

I hate it here.

Oh, and to make matters more complicated, let's discuss the issue of April 7 vs April 25. So the reason April 7 is a popular bday for Bruce is because the original 1930-40s run just outright stated that April 7 was his birthday. Simple enough.

So what does April 25 have to do with this? Well, that's because technically-I think I hate that word now btw-Batman didn't get his own solo comic until April 25, 1940. If you want to go by April 25 because of this logic, however, that means that you'd have to share Bruce's birthday with the Joker. Because guess what? That's also the exact date that the Joker debuted.

I'm personally not a huge fan of Bruce and the Joker sharing a bday. Mostly just because the dates are clearly already complicated enough. But also I feel like April 25 is just known as the Joker's bday at this point, at least in the DC fandom. And Bruce has so many options at this point that it'd be kinda silly to make them share a bday.

As for the "sometime in October" and "sometime in November" additions, we have Batman The Animated Series and Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One" to thank for those extremely vague options.

BTAS Bruce states that his birthday is "sometime in October" and "Batman: Year One" Bruce is responsible for "sometime in November." I repeat: I hate it here.

So when is Bruce's actual birthday? Well, the latest change that DC has "officially" made was the February 19 retcon during the 1970-80s. When a fan sent a question into Detective Comics about Bruce's birthday, the answer given was "February 19" in the letter column. Issue #494, to be exact.

And the reason this answer was given? Because the Super DC Calender for 1976 (again made in 1975) said so.

However, there are still people who prefer to celebrate his bday on April 7 or March 30 instead. And there's also a question floating around if the New 52 run could potentially retcon Bruce's bday AGAIN at some point in the future.

I. Hate. It. Here.

Personally, I liked February 19 because then Alfred could maybe have the month of April to himself. But after seeing all this new info, I'm just sort of resigned to whichever date that the fandom prefers. Y'all can decide. I don't have any energy left.

Also, I can't believe I have to accuse Bruce of having possibly taught Dick his bday scam. Just .... wow).

(Update ((8/24/23)): Well, DC did it to me again. I found this extra little tidbit while googling the Super DC Calendar for Alfred, actually.

So Issue #10 of the 2021 Legends of the Dark Knight decided to give the BTAS's "sometime in October" an actual sometime.

How do I feel about yet another Bruce Wayne bday retcon? Honestly, I think I'm moving closer and closer to just a bland state of acceptance at this point. Tbh, I don't think all these retcons actually matter that much in the end. DC is gonna keep being DC.

Which is annoying. But Idk I'm personally gonna stick with February 19. No shade to you if you prefer any of the other dates. I just like February 19 more than the others)

👑Kate Kane👑

Most popular: March 21

Other date(s): January 26

(So ... where to start to with this one?

Well the official DC canon birth date for Kate Kane is listed as March 21. That being said, if you were to google Kate's birthday right now, you might be confused because that's not the first result that comes up.

Instead, you'll be greeted with January 26, 1990.

So what gives? If there's already an official DC approved birth date, then why the fuck is January 26 coming up all of a sudden?

Well, folks, you have the CW's Batwoman to thank.

Tbh I was very confused as to how I completely missed that there was an entire Batwoman TV show in the first place.

Apparently the show is considered a part of the CW Arrowverse (in reference to the CW show Arrow featuring Oliver Queen, for those of you who need extra info) and ran for 3 whole seasons before being cancelled on April 9, 2022.

And they gave us actual canon lesbian Kate Kane rep. I mean, she is a lesbian. But yeah. CW actually acknowledged her sexual orientation. So kudos for doing the bare minimum?????

Anyway, I guess the showrunners just decided they wanted Kate's birthday to be on January 26 instead of March 21??? Idk if this was supposed to be a reference or an homage to Cassandra Cain's birthday. I doubt it, but who knows?)

🤡Dick Grayson🤡: Greedy bitch who keeps lying about his birthday so he can scam people into giving him more presents jk jk

Most popular: "On the first day of spring" (bruh) or March 20/21

Other date(s): March 6, "April," October 24 (aka "the week before Halloween"), November 11 and December 1

Potential but unconfirmed date(s): June 24

(Dick's canon bday seems to be influx. March 6, March 20, March 21, November 11, June 24, December 1, and so on. I did see multiple sources state Dick was born "on the first day of spring." I'm unclear atm about whether this is a fanon take or if it was actually stated in a particular comic at some point.

As far as I'm concerned, Dick just keeps lying about his birthday for the lols)

(Update ((8/24/23)): Well, guess what I found, folks?

It's a return visit from our favorite friend, the Super DC Calendar of 1976. And according to it, Dick's birthday should be November 11.

You can also thank the Young Justice comic for the confusion surrounding Dick's bday being on December 1.

Also, I found this post by @theflyingwonder that helps clear up a LOT of the mess surrounding Dick's ever changing birth date. Honestly, amazing work and extra kudos to them for putting all the work in and finding all the sources. I just wished I had found their post earlier, holy shit.

And if you have some extra time, please give some love to @inkydandy for their hilarious and very sweet comic about all the confusion that comes with Dick's bday)

(Update ((8/25/23)): Many thanks to @poisoned-ivy for clearing up even more of the mess surrounding Dick's bday. I went ahead and took a screenshot of their response to my old "Which date is Dick's canon bday?" poll.

They also provided a link to the DC Universe Calendar which was lovingly compiled from the original 1976 Super DC Calendar and then put together by the people who run the Five Earths Project .

Also found out from them today that October 24 is one of Dick's bdays ((at least for Post-Crisis Dick Grayson)). So that was a fun new discovery!

They were also very helpful in helping me realize that the original article I had found that stated "sometime in April" was actually in reference to Dick Grayson's first appearance in the comics, which was April 1940.

So, yes, "sometime in April" is technically--again I hate this word so much now--still a valid candidate for Dick's bday. And before you ask: Detective Comics #38 was actually published on March 6, 1940.

Hence why people will cite March 6 as Dick's canon bday instead.

This project got a lot bigger than I ever expected it to ... god)

👑Barbara Gordon👑: September 23

👑Jason Todd👑: August 16

👑Cassandra Cain👑: January 26

👑Tim Drake👑: July 19

👑Stephanie Brown😮‍💨: She emerged from the void with the sole purpose of dragging Bruce's ass to hell and back. Nothing can stop her. We all exist in her world now.

Potential but unconfirmed date(s): June 23, "August," or August 11

(For real, though, some peeps will say June 23 since the month she officially debuted in the comics was June 1992.

But I've also seen August 1992 listed as her bday month as well--lot of August babies in the Batfam, huh--but I haven't found June 23 specifically listed as her canon bday, either. It honestly feels like the fans are putting in more work than DC at this point. Which, like, I'm not surprised. Just disappointed)

(Update ((8/24/23)): Someone mentioned August 11 as a potential birth date, but I have yet to see an actual source that specifically states this. If I do find one, I'll edit this section. Figured I should put it here just in case, though)

👑Duke Thomas👑: August 13

👑Damian Wayne👑: August 9

👑Terry McGinnis😮‍💨

Most popular: August 18

Other date(s): June 27 or August 10

Potential but unconfirmed date(s): September 19 (fml)

(Yes, I'm including Terry, fuck you lol

Also SERIOUSLY WTF is up with so many of these August birthdays!!!! Fuck, was everyone just getting crazy BUSY in November!!!! What's going on in the DC universe that is making November of all months the HORNY MONTH????!!!!)

(Mini update ((8/18/23)): Well, I just found out that apparently June 27th 2023 is also a highly debated birth date for Terry. As is August 10 2023/2024 and August 18 2023/2024. I even saw a mention of September 19 2023, but I don't know how credible that source actually is. I'm just putting it here because I'm losing my mind and I don't want someone to pop in and say I forgot it omfg I'm dying

I'm just ... why? Why is it so hard to just commit to one month and one date. I'm not even concerned about the exact year. Just commit to ONE, man.

Excuse me while I march over to DC HQ and burn the whole place to the ground iswtfg)

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of these. I have a massive headache now and am open to any suggestions or clarifications y'all have to offer.

Also, I'm going to fist fight Dick in a Denny's parking lot.

Update (8/17/23): So a mini post that I meant to use as a way to vent how insane Dick was making me somehow blew up way more than I ever expected it to, and now I feel obligated to clarify again that I am open to any corrections and additional info that anyone has to offer.

I'm saying this because I've noticed people reblogging this post for actual Batfam bday references and someone already pointed out I fucked up Tim's bday and now I feel bad for everyone who reblogged this post prior to that edit.

It's probably just the anxiety talking, but yeah I just wanted to put that out there.

Also justice for Stephanie Brown! She deserves to have her own special day and if I have to bully DC into giving her a canon birthday, then you bet your ass I fucking will.

(And to all of y'all who are encouraging Dick to keep running his side scam business, I just have this to say: There's an empty Denny's parking lot somewhere out there just waiting for you, too lol)

[mister-tom-a-dildo-lover]

I think a certain amount of etiquette is lost on people in fandom nowadays.

Just in general, but specifically I'm focusing on Tomarry/Harrymort right now because it's relevant my present issue.

I follow Tomarry/Harrymort content on here and Twitter. I am not always active, and I'm not always reacting to every single thing I see. But I see a lot of things and I keep my mouth shut most of the time.

In these past couple of months on Twitter, it's become really annoying to witness this particular subset of the fandom because people make posts that are not-so-subtly shading Tomarry/Harrymort writers every day.

People are so obsessed with how much they love the character and how much they love fanfiction that is true to the character, where they sound just like their canon self and don't seem any different, that they spend their days tearing down depictions of Harry Potter in fanfiction, that dare to stray away from abused, snow-white-angel, Quidditch-obsessed jock.

Many people seem to have forgotten that in the actual story, Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort would not get together. We ship two crack ships. They are things that have no hope in hell of ever happening in the canon story. To even write for Tomarry/Harrymort, we either have to change a few details, leave out a few details, or try to rework the existence of some details so they hit differently and make the pairing make sense for each individual fic.

This fandom purity nonsense has ended up with a lot of recent posts dogging on different kinds of HP tropes over the years and affecting authors.

A few weeks bacl it was 'the era of creature fics was cringe'. And then it was followed by a long list describing certain scenarios in certain stories that used these tropes, and I could immediately pick out which fics inspired these descriptions. There were people in the replies and the quotes land people who took screenshots to post to their own accounts to say shady things(including naming fics specifically!) without others being able to easily access them from the OG post itself.

I, personally, have outgrown creature fics in HP, and I'm not interested in reading them anymore. But I'm not sitting here making lists attacking the tropes involved in them. I'm not sitting here saying that they were stupid and corny, and they were the most unHarry Potter-like writings ever. And I'm not the one out here making the people who wrote those stories and get to see these kinds of comments coming from people in their fandom, feel bad.

IDK, but when So-So sees people bringing their 6-year-old fic up in a post dragging tropes in Tomarry/Harrymort fics, and they suddenly get the urge to just delete their fics entirely and not bother with the fandom anymore... maybe y'all need to learn how to word things better. It's really not that hard to say you're not into a specific thing anymore without having to drag other people down.

[tokutaiseichan]

List of Tokyo Debunker Fandom Tags & Yume/MC Ships Guides to Help You Navigate Twitter

Since the fandom is growing, I feel like it'd be handy to have a list like this. Please note that some of the tags below don't actually exist yet! I just compiled it using my knowledge from previous fandoms.

#東ディバ絵札 (toudiba efuda) - General fanart tag. It's usually frowned upon to upload shippy art on the main tag (no matter what kind. Yes, yume included) so please be careful!

#tkdb夢 (tkdb yume) / #東ディバ夢 (toudiba yume) - General yume tag. Scopes including both Character x default MC and OC x Canon.

#tkdbプラス (tkdb plus) - Often used interchangeably with #tkdb夢. Yume works posted with this tag have the general "sweet romance" feel.

#病みのtkdbプラス (yami no tkdb plus) - For yume works where the canon character is depicted as a yandere / harboring some kind of twisted love for the yume MC. Sometimes used together with #tkdbマイナス tag if the scenario fits.

#tkdbマイナス (tkdb minus) - For yume works that deal with more niche, darker themes generally unsuitable with the positive vibes of plus yume works. Themes vary including but not limited to: forever one-sided feelings, angst, character death, break up, domestic violence, cheating, bad / merry bad endings, gore, etc. Basically if you see works tagged as this, that'd be your Dead Dove: Do Not Eat warning.

#夜のtkdbプラス (yoru no tkdb plus) - General R-18 yume works.

特待生ちゃん (tokutaisei-chan) - Honor Student / The MC. Since Tokyo Debunker MC doesn't have a default name, this is usually how the fans refer to her when talking about her. The canon MC, if you will.

創作特待生 (sousaku tokutaisei) - Original rendition of the Honor Student. Visual design, personality, gender, and backstory may be different to the canon MC.

創作寮生 (sousaku ryousei) - Original (Darkwick) Student that's completely separate from the Honor Student. This term isn't exclusive to Tokyo Debunker so if you only put "創作寮生" on the search bar you'll get OCs from other franchises too (Twisted Wonderland & Harry Potter, to name a few).

Some character x canon MC ship names

冠特 (kamutoku) - Jin x Honor Student

伯特 (hatoku / hakutoku) - Haku x Honor Student

翔特 (shoutoku) - Sho x Honor Student

Those three are currently the only ones popular enough to have people using a dedicated ship names when making works about them. If you want to see the other characters x canon MC ship works, you'll have better luck searching "#tkdb夢 / #tkdbプラス + (character's name)" instead.

As for canon x canon character ships, usually a fandom would create specific 腐 tag for it (like #ツイ腐テ for twst) but since the fandom is still pretty small, I don't think anyone has came up with a proper 腐 tag for Tokyo Debunker. I could've just missed it tho, since I only follow people who post yume and general non-shippy works so feel free to let me know!

For now, you can try your luck by combining the first kanji of two characters' given name. Keep in mind that Japanese fandom is usually much more strict about ship naming tho. AB ≠ BA!

I think that's all of it for now. Thank you for reading! I'll leave a kitty Rui here so you can stare at how cute he is~ ;3c

[jadeacereigen]

Why I see Reigen as asexual

This is a very self-indulgent post, but it's his birthday today and I wanted to compile all the things about Reigen that make me see him as a fellow ace.

Please don't take this list too seriously! None of these are This Is Canon signs and some of them are just jokes. Also, it's pretty hard to find evidence of asexuality barring a character explicitly saying "hey i never feel sexual attraction" so bear with ne here.

1. That Scene With Dimple

Yeah, we all know the scene.

"But does love always have to come with sexual desires?" -Reigen Arataka

This is what almost asexual person asks at some point. It's just such an asexual quote. Society often conflates the two things as inherently hand-in-hand, but that's not true for everyone!

2. He never shows attraction to anyone

Now of course, the story is not primarily focused on him, and he's usually with Mob so he probably wouldn't be flirting in front of him. But there aren't even MOMENTS of him showing a smidge of attraction to other people, even when we see his life without Mob's presence. It really stands out in comparison to other goofy mentor figures in manga/anime who are commonly portrayed as hopeless flirts.

3. He's never been in a relationship before

When asked about his past romantic experiences in the official fanbook, he pretends he's had plenty of passionate romances and then describes a scene from Titanic before saying "Marriage is one of the countless types of lifestyles you can choose. It's best if everyone does whatever they want." So basically, despite being 29 years old at the time of the fanbook, he has had no significant romantic experiences and doesn't see himself getting married. (Even if he might be interested, as I'll explain in the next point.)

This is not exclusive to asexuality of course but it's a very common sentiment for ace people imo

4. He doesn't think he can be in a relationship

In Confession Arc, he has no idea how to ask someone out and has to cheat while giving advice to Mob. He also tells Serizawa afterward that if anyone saw him for who he really was, they'd turn him down right away.

But then, at least in the manga, he says that he hopes he can be in a relationship where he and his partner "can exist without distorting each other". So I think he does want to be in a relationship, he's just way too insecure about himself for many, many reasons.

I like to think one of these reasons is because he is asexual. It's a struggle for allo aces to find someone whose sexual preferences are compatible with ours, and yet it remains important to maintain our boundaries (aka not distort ourselves).

5. His anime outfit has ace flag colors

I mean. Gray, white, pink purple...

6. His reaction to a porn virus

Look at the face of this poor asexual man who spent an entire night trying and failing to get rid of a porn virus...

7. He is asexual

He is just asexual hope this helps (:

[chenya-my-love]

Fictional Yuu

I see a lot of people basing Yuu off of characters on TV and in games. They'll have characters (usually Idia) make refrence to this fact but usually in just a throw away line. But nobody really leans into the idea of Yuu actually coming from some fictional media in Twisted Wonderland.

Like imagine some character like Cater, or maybe Vil while advertising the VDC, posting a photo with Yuu in it. Only for some random account to comment "That's an amazing cosplay, it looks so much like the character". And of course they're confused, they keep looking for who in the photo is cosplaying but nobody is there. Eventually just asking the commentor who was being cosplayed. The comment is simple.

"Right next to you. That's Yuu from (insert anime/game name here)". They don't believe it until they look up the listed media and sees the character they think Yuu is cosplaying and are shocked. They look identical to Yuu (except animated). Their name, looks, and personality are all identical to Yuu. It is Yuu.

I see two (techincally three) routes this could go. A RomCom route and an angst route.

The romcom route revolves around Yuu having a canon love interest making the boys jealous (regardless on whether they entered a relationship yet or the plot was still building it up) and trying to imulate them.

Like all the wikis say that Yuu's feelings blossomed after the love interest nursed them back to health when they were sick, so the moment Yuu gets sick the boy is just rushing to Ramshackle to take care of them. Or if Yuu caught feelings first and it was some romantic moment, the boys try to emulate that scene so Yuu will fall for them too.

But than we have the angst routes.

A scenerio where all the boys decide to watch the anime/play the game that Yuu is from. Only for Yuu to catch them, quickly learning that they're fictional.

Yuu realizing that all their memories were made up, and if their a playable character all their actions were being controlled. That all their suffering was pointless, that it was done simply to make them more interesting or to entertain a bunch of other worldly beings that Yuu didn't know existed.

Yuu having an breakdown over everything. Their life isn't even their own.

Or

While learning about Yuu's world and story, they learn Yuu dies. And not just a shock value death that could be removed from the plot without care, their death is important. Their death leads to the ending whether that be Yuu sacrificing themself for the greater good or Yuu's death motivating the protag to take down the villain.

All that matters is that Yuu dies and Yuu needs to die. The story can't progress without Yuu there.

The boys realizing that if they send Yuu back to their world, their pretty much signing Yuu's Death Certificate. And Yuu doesn't know. The boys now know that Yuu is doomed by the narrative and is destined to die in the end, but Yuu doesn't. They can't even tell Yuu cause Seven only knows how Yuu will take the news that not only are they fictional but they're also destined to die.

[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

[pan-withnoplan]

@lakewillowmerewraith let me tell you something about boundaries.

I run a confession blog for a different fandom. It's mostly a positive environment, but as with most fandoms, there are also ship wars, people who thirst for "negative" characters, and occasionally rotten takes. Since the first day, I knew I had to set boundaries, but I also knew that I couldn't let those boundaries be about me and my personal preferences and dislikes. It wouldn't be fair if I deleted positive confessions about my notp/criticising my ships/depicting nsfw headcanons/shipping a beloved character with a hated character.

Because that was a blog that I made, but I made it for everybody in my fandom to feel welcome, not just those who I believed shipped/held the "correct, pure, unproblematic" ships/opinion, and it isn't fair to police real people because of fictional characters. What confessions I could reject, were those who actively hated on real people. For example: “This female character whom some people see as a transfem allegory canonically had a brief relationship with a black woman, so people who ship her with this white male character who was mean to her and "deadnamed" her are all racist, homophobic, and abuse apologists”. And “All X shippers are racist/misogynist/homohobic/etc etc” and “people who say [perfectly harmless thing] are gross/cringe. touch grass” and “stop being so damn [ableist slur]”. Those are the things I need to protect and shield my followers from, not the thirst confessions about the villain who manipulated and betrayed the female character. I also have an extensive tag system that allows people to avoid things they don't want to see. I get inbox that I don't like every day and still, as long as they aren't harmful to real people, I publish them all because it's not about what I want from my blog, it's about enriching my fandom and giving a voice to everybody. I've fucked up occasionally, but I am proud to say that mostly I have been praised for keeping a welcoming, safe, and positive space.

This is what I mean when I say that @elainarcheronweek's mods that have pushed for the decision to have certain Elain ships banned are partial, biased, and unfit to run an event that's supposed to belong to all Elain fans, not just the mods, not just the ones who they believe ship her with the correct character. It's not Healthy Elain Week, it's just Elain Week. And it's despicable that they can just decide to reject fanworks on which real people spent time and energy and feelings, just because they don't like the pairing or they make them feel icky. Because it's just that, right? You said it yourself. Not "fans feel uncomfortable about tamlain and beronlain", it's "the mods have the right to lead their event how they want to". And I say no, it's not only their event, it's Elain's event, Elain's fans's event, and no, they don't have the right to lead that event how they want to if that means punishing fans and creators because of a personal dislike. As I said, they didn't like the "icky" ships and decided to make it everyone else's problem. They "eliminated" the threat of big bad "toxic" elain ships, but they've done nothing to silence the people who accuse tamlain and beronlain shippers of being abuse apologists even when those works contain Tamlin and/or Beron redemption. This is not letting darkfic have the right to exist, it's purity culture. Denying those works a place on the platform out of a personal preference is quite literally censorship.

"But fans really have been feeling uncomfortable with tamlain and beronlain! What about them?" So use the fucking tag system. Make a post where you explain there will be works thay might trigger people and tell them to block the tamlain and beronlain tags. Ask people to suggest other potential triggers so you can update the list. Include the list of potential triggering tags in the master post. It's that simple and it would have saved the whole fandom a lot of drama and disappointment. It's always so baffling for me to think that grown ass people refuse to curate their own browsing experience or ignore the things that they dislike.

[lucozadehulahoop]

Star-crossed. Lo'ak x fem!human!reader

This was originally posted on my side blog @thankeywa. It's a brand new blog and tumblr thinks it's a bot so it's not giving it visibility. Please go give it some love, I want all my avatar!related stuff to be on there.

PART 2 HERE PART 3 HERE PART 4 HERE

I know that literally nobody asked for this, but I've noticed a disturbing lack of Lo'ak fics out there, so I've decided to give my input. I've had a story in mind for a while now, and I needed to get it out there. It will be a reader insert to make it more accessible, but it's somewhat based around an original f!character, so I apologize for that in advance if it gets too specific.

WARNINGS: Lo'ak is 20 years old in this and so is the reader, I do not write about minor characters. There will be eventual mature themes in this so MINORS DO NOT INTERACT WITH THIS WORK.

For everyone else, if you like my writing, please let me know if you want to be on the tag list for future installments and SEND ME REQUESTS (head canons, imagines, sfw/nsfw, ecc.) ! I love that shit.

words: around 1.200

summary: reader is a human left behind on pandora, she grew up with the remaining humans who'd been aloud to stay on the planet after the war and has been friends with the Sully clan her entire life. She and Lo'ak were best friends until he began to pull away from her in their teen years for seemingly no reason. This story is about them reconnecting on the day of her twentieth birthday, and dealing with the feelings they have for each other and the obstacles that come with them being from two different worlds.

TW for this chapter: angst, smoking (don't do it, ever), brief mentions of alcohol, brief mention of war and death, brief mention of child birth, reader can breathe on pandora.

Y/n looked at the 'birthday cake' made out of cookie rations that Norm and Max had made for her. No matter how many years would pass, her dads always knew how to get creative.

"I'm twenty years old, you guys don't have to keep throwing me a birthday party." She reprimanded them softly, though her heart was filled with joy. Y/n was so thankful to have people in her life who cared enough to make her day special every single year.

"Considering you spent most of your early existence tied to test tubes to stay alive, we're merely celebrating the scientific marvel your continued survival has been." Norm joked, raising a beer, and y/n shoved him, before blowing out the single candle that had been meticulously re-used each year. It was a wonder how there was any wax still left on it.

"What did the birthday girl wish for?" Max asked, reaching for a dried-up cookie and cringing slightly at the taste as he chewed on it slowly. "The whole point of a birthday wish is to keep it to myself... or it won't come true. Honestly, I question your two's knowledge of Earth's traditions." y/n shook her head, before taking a celebratory sip of alcohol.

Norm and Max left eventually, back to the main base. They were more than capable of piloting a helicopter those days, and y/n was all grown up. More than capable of living by herself. What once had been an avatar lab, smack dab in the middle of the forests of Pandora, had been converted into her home. Pandora's rapidly repopulating fauna had surprisingly left her residence alone, well... mostly. There were still some creatures who couldn't help but keep themselves away. And by creatures, she meant Spider. Y/n was also friends with actual people like Neteyam, Kiri, Tuk, and... Lo'ak. Truth be told, she didn't know whether or not she and Lo'ak were even friends anymore. They'd been thick as thieves for as long as she could remember, always getting him out of trouble and fixing him up after a scuffle with his siblings. But then, around her sixteenth birthday, he'd started pulling away, and y/n had never understood why. They'd had a big fight about it, bottom line, he hadn't wanted to be around her anymore and y/n had to accept it.

"Open up! It's fucking freezing out here!" Came Spider's loud voice followed by an incessant banging on the door that immediately pulled y/n out of her reverie. "Alright, alright..." she laughed a little as she went to let them all inside. The Sullys were always insisting on spending birthdays together, even though some of them were now getting too big to even fit inside her 'home'. Neteyam had to walk around with his back bent forward, and Kiri knocked over quite a few things before they made it to y/n's main living space, which was more or less Na've-proof. "Happy birthday!" Tuk hugged her and y/n struggled not to feel crushed by the embrace. Even the littlest Sully was now nearly as tall as her.

Y/n let them all inside, already giving them dirty looks at the sight of gifts. "I told you guys not to..."

She stayed on the doorstep a little longer, gazing out into the night, desperately hoping one last uninvited guest would turn up. She felt Neteyam's hand on her shoulder. "He's not coming. I tried to talk to him but he was being a skxawng as usual..." Y/n blushed, not really wanting Neteyam to know she was pining for his younger brother. "Oh, right! I was—just checking you were all here..." she closed the door and they both went back to join the others.

___

"Alright come on, your mom is going to kill me if you get back late and I don't have enough space in here for all of you. Spider would have to sleep outside." Y/n teased, trying to let Tuk understand it was time to go. "Hey!" Spider protested at her lighthearted jab, but knew it was time for them to get going. Nobody wanted to get on Neytiri's bad side. Y/n hugged them all goodbye and thanked them for the presents: Tuk had made her a lovely drawing, and the others had collectively made her a rather beautiful necklace, which she immediately wore. Y/n waited on her doorstep till she could no longer hear the sounds of her friends chatting, and then proceeded to do two incredibly dangerous things: she sat outside of the protection of her bunker, all alone in the cold Pandora night air, and lit up a cigarette.

She'd discovered a terrifyingly endless supply of cigarette cartoons back at the base almost a year prior, and as soon as she'd tried her first one, she'd gotten addicted. Y/n hadn't told Norm or Max, of course, as it would have broken their hearts, especially because of how fragile she was. Y/n's mother had gone into labor in the aftermath of the battle for Pandora between the Na'vi and the Sky people. The soldier had lost her life giving birth, but her baby had survived, taking her first breath in the inhospitable Pandora air. Norm was convinced Eywa herself had kept her alive, had given her the ability to take in the air that hadn't previously failed to kill any other human. Sure, it had come at the price of being particularly fragile her entire life. And how was y/n repaying that gift? By cutting her miraculous existence short more and more each day. Thankfully, it was a while since she'd been used as a test rat, or had check ups of any sort. As far as the Sullys were concerned... they were way better off not even knowing what she was doing to herself.

A sudden rustling in the trees instantly made y/n alert and she didn't waste any time getting back inside. She showered, and shamefully hid her smokes somewhere her dads or the Sullys wouldn't look. When she had nothing else left to do, y/n forced herself to crawl into bed, placing a hand over her necklace. Her wish to see Lo'ak hadn't come true in the end, and while not surprising, it still hurt like hell.

"A pack of viperwolves? Seriously, Lo'ak?" Y/n groaned in frustration as she cleared her table for her best friend to lie on.

"I thought I could take them." He hissed as she doused him with disinfectant. "Yeah, well, you know human medical treatment hurts like a bitch, so it's either my way, or you're going to have to fess up to your parents about what you did." Y/n tried to sound cold, but she'd always been too soft on him.

When they were younger, and Lo'ak still hadn't grown to be double her size, they would often fall asleep together in her bed. "You don't have to keep doing this shit to prove something, you know?" She whispered to him one night, turning over to look at him and gently touch his face. "Your parents love you. And so do Neteyam, Kiri, Tuk and Spider. Lo'ak, I— we— don't want to lose you."

Y/n was almost asleep when a loud 'thud' coming from outside woke her. Something was moving on her roof, or rather, someone... Y/n didn't show whether she was dreaming or not as she looked out the window and locked eyes with Lo'ak, because the second she did, he seemed to slide off the top of her bucker, falling down into the grass below with a loud groan.

He'd probably just woken up half of the animals on Pandora.

[chipchopclipclop]

i just started rewatching soul eater for the first time since i was 15 and Stein is so much more interesting to me than he was then... what are ur soul eater thoughts chip if youre willing to share

i did not experience soul eater as a wee youth, the first time i watched (and then read it) was 4 years ago (give or take) so i do not have the beautifully tinged nostalgia for the series others might. i say this only bc it colours my thoughts of the series pretty well lmao.

the anime is alot better than the manga just by virture of bones' animation being incredible but also its like 40% less painfully fucking horny (though still is its shounen) and the way some of that plot goes in the second half is so fucking bad in the manga (though not all, but god). It's not like the anime gets rid of everything like that stupid ass argument black star has with maka still makes me want to murder him but ultimately i like the anime and its writing more. i think my minds canon is just a meld of parts i like from both lol.

ohkubo is also just on my top ten list of mangaka i need to actually kill like hes a solid #3 on the needs to die list. his designs and art improvement were fun to watch and i do love halloween world and his toony stuff, undeniably bangs, but you can really tell by the end where his transformation into horny moe artist came from. sometimes i see people shocked by this and soul eater not's existence and i have to think did we read the same fucking manga...??

sorry i needed to get my bitching out before talking about stein. i love stein. so many things wrong with him. he is 70% of the reason i got around to watching it and 95% of the reason i kept reading it. i think how expressive he is is alot of his charm, like he does alot of moe body language you might not expect of his type of chara.

hes #crazy and #madscientist and #edgy and #insaneasylum but also very silly and whimsical... kind of emblematic of the world of soul eater at large actually, this is also alot of the other characters appeal in this universe too (DEATH THE KID).

he's obsessive, hes empathetic, hes also sadistic, hes got a screw in his head, megane, fun with kids, perfect man. hes also got both an equal capacity for getting worse and better in him which can be fun to think about in either direction, and you've got characters that do influence him either way for that in the series. im also kind of remembering clicking the screw in his head is to help somewhat deal with his mental state actually, king of the disability aid...(?)

you can treat his character very seriously or lightheartedly, i think the writing in both versions maintains that balance well. It also makes everyone else who actually sticks around him somewhat deranged too (the fact he did surgery on spirit at school but spirit still interacts like pretty normally at work with him after meeting again. lmfao. THEY WENT DRINKING TOO) the fact he still calls spirit senpai also is so funny. its like 40% a dig at him but also 60% genuine. i hate gay people btw.

i like the thought that he was more stoic when he was younger but as he got older stopped trying to hide his eccentricities as much, and became more expressive lol. younger stein to me is a guy screaming in his head 247 but looking like 😐 while spirit stares at him trying to decipher what his eyelid twitching today means.

[cr-ok]

contains some spoilers for the ARG

Bill Ci. My Brainrot Guy.

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill List Overview & Entry Syntax

a little disorganized

yell at me if I’m missing codes or if something is wrongly categorized

do not worry about spaces/some punctuation marks (",", ".", "-", "+", "&", "@", parenthesis, quotation marks, and slashes)

i. e. "THEYLLSEE"/"THEYLL SEE"/"THEY'LL SEE" all work & have the same output

site does not accept entries with "?"

all characters are capitalized automatically

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill You All are Wonderful People

Busy_Abroad370 CranberrySoft8335 DCode Dog_core fishy--friend FRAMER_FRAMER Hacker88774770 Global-Pepper-5823 marzinstarz moonwytte mothford ohnoimonfire RiotingSpectre themoonweaversden themysteryofgravityfalls thisisnotawebsitedotcom-com wolsalwastaken

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Where to Click

book button below the screen dagger dial below the screen “McGucket Labs” above the screen gold tooth on skeleton jar link below the prism

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Relevant to The Book of Bill

BOYFRIEND/LONELY/LOVE/MARRY ME/ROMANCE/SOULMATE/TRUE LOVE CRYPTOGRAM CODEX DESTRUCTION IS A FORM OF CREATION SCARY/SPOOKS/SPOOKY/SPOOKEMUPS T. J. ECKLEBURG

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Bill, Past & Present

BABY/BABY BILL/DADDY/LALALA/LALALALALA/MOMMY DIVORCE/BREAKUP/ROCK BOTTOM EUCLID/SCALENE/SCRIMBLES EUCLYDIA FAMILY MATTERS FORGET THE PAST IRREGULAR JUST FIT IN RUBBER HOSE

it ends, eventually

SEVEN EYES TANTRUM THERAPRISM VALLIS CINERIS WELL WELL WELL BEING

three outputs

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Stanford, Past & Present

AD ASTRA PER ASPERA DOES GOD EXIST/FACE OF GOD/FRILLIAM/GOD/HELP ME/IS GOD REAL/IS RELIGION REAL/REVEAL GOD/REVEAL GOD TO ME/SAVE ME/SHOW ME GOD/WHAT DOES GOD LOOK LIKE/WHAT IS GOD/WHO IS GOD EVEN HIS LIES ARE LIES I’M STILL ON YOUR MIND/ON YOUR MIND OROBOROUS SORRY

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Riddles

answers in book

RIDDLE

NO/YES

MOUNTAIN DON'T

LYRE LIAR

HAROLD'S RAMBLINGS

UNION MADE

29121239168518

GREBLEY HEMBERDRECK

A RAT/RAT

3466554

TINSEL SNAKE

TORTURE MENTALLY

XGQRTHX

333 SUNDAPPLE LANE, COZY CREEK, IL, 60714-94611

CAESAR, ATBASH, & VIGENERE/MULTILEVEL MARK

EMMALINE BUTTERNUBBINS/BUTTERNUBBINS

DISPENSE MY ANSWER

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Zodiac

DIPPER

enter five times

FORD/SIXER/STANFORD/STANFORD PINES GIDEON

two outputs

GRUNKLE STAN/STAN/STANLEY/STANLEY PINES/STAN PINES

enter eight times

MASON MABEL - enter thirteen times FIDDLEFORD/FIDDLEFORD HADRON MCGUCKET/FIDDLEFORD MCGUCKET/MCGUCKET PACIFICA PLATINUM PAZ ROBBIE SOOS WENDY

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Bill Addressing the User

BAAAA/SAY BAAAA BLACK SHEEP BOO BERRY DESTRUCTION IS A FORM OF CREATION NAITSUAF

use the button and the knob

UNREALITY

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Canon to Universe

ALGEBRA/GEOMETRY/GREECE/GREEK/SHAPE/SHAPES/MATH/PLATO/PYTHAGORUS/TRIGONOMETRY BABBA/DISCO GIRL BLENDIN/BLENDIN BLENJAMIN BLANDIN/BLENDIN BLANDIN BLIND EYE CLONE/PAPER JAM/PAPER JAM DIPPER/TYRONE DUCKTECTIVE FORDTRAMARINE HECTORING HOTXOLOTL JUST BLENDIN KINGS OF NEW JERSEY KOOK KUBRICK L IS REAL 2401 LOVE YA BRO PINES PORTAL REALITY R34LITY SEVERAL TIMES/SEV'RAL TIMES SUCK IT, MERLIN

use Cipher Font B

WEIRDMAGEDDON YOU'RE INSANE

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Directly from "Gravity Falls"

AM I BLANCHIN' BYE GOLD DEER TEETH FILBRICK

Stans's father's name

FIXINIT1 DUCHESS APPROVES/THE DUCHESS APPROVES HOLOGRAM REALITY UNIVERSE/THE UNIVERSE

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Unsure of the Canonicity

ANALOG HORROR/CREEPYPASTA/HORROR/URBAN LEGEND/URBAN LEGENDS BURNED INSIDE BURNSIDE CARD/MY CARD

two outputs

CURSED CURSE WITTEBANE HEY NERD LIES OCCURREMUSITERUM OWL TROWEL PAPER IS BOOKSKIN SHAVE YOUR GRANDMA

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Ciphertology

CIPHERTOLOGY

two outputs

DIONARAP GOODNIGHT SALLY STOD EHT TCENNOC TOURIST TRAP WHICH RELIGION IS RIGHT YOU CAN'T KILL AN IDEA

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Easter Eggs

ALEX/ALEX HIRSCH/ALEXANDER ROBERT HIRSCH/HIRSCH ANSWER ASSHOLE/BITCH/CUM/CUNT/DICK/FUCK/FUCK YOU/GANG BANG/GLORY HOLE/JIZZ/MILF/PUSSY/SEX/SHIT/TITS/SLUT/TED CRUZ/WHORE BOOK OF BILL/THE BOOK OF BILL CHIP/DORITO/NACHO

jumpscare warning

CRYPTO/DOGE/ELON/FORTNITE/GYATT/NFT/RIZZ/SKIBIDI DEATH DISNEY/DISNEYLAND/EPCOT/MICKEY/MICKEY MOUSE/WALT DISNEY EASTER EGG FUCK YOU ALEX/FUCK ALEX HIRSCH GUN/THE GUN HISTORY

four outputs

HOW DO I DIE? HOW WILL I DIE? I SEE/THEY’LL SEE/THEY’LL ALL SEE IS HELL REAL? IS THERE AN AFTERLIFE/WHAT HAPPENS AFTER I DIE/WHAT HAPPENS AFTER WE DIE/WHAT HAPPENS AFTER YOU DIE/WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIE/WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE LIFE MEOW/MEOW WOW MONSTER MORALITY NOT A PHASE NOTHING PEAK PINATA OH YES THEY BOTH ONE-EYED KING QUESTION SCREEN SCIENTOLOGY SEASON 3 SEASON 2 SEASON 1 SKELETON SOMETHING TELL ME HOW I'LL DIE TITANS BLOOD TRIANGLE

two outputs.

I'm convinced one is a typo

VIRUS WHO ARE YOU

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Reference to the Show

ABUELITA AXOLOTL BILL/BILL CIPHER/CIPHER/LLIB/LLIB REHPIC/REHPIC

three outputs

BLANCHIN/BLANCHING CARYN

Stans's mother's name

CIA/FBI/NSA CRAY CRAY CRAZ/XYLER DIPPY FRESH GIFFANY

enter this six times

GLASS SHARD BEACH GLOBNAR GRAVITY FALLS JOURNAL 1 JOURNAL 2 JOURNAL 3 MYSTERY MYSTERY SHACK TAD STRANGE TOBY DETERMINED WADDLES

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Cameos

CONSPIRACY GAME THEORY/HELP ME MATPAT/HELP US MATPAT/MATPAT/THAT’S JUST A/THEORY WEIRD

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Does Not Work; I'm in Shambles

ASS BILL IS SANS BLIND IVAN DRAKE FIDDLEFORD H. MCGUCKET/HADRON FINGERS IN HIS ASS HENCHMAINIACS LEBAM LIGMA LUCIFER MERMANDO OVERLOOK/OVERLOOK HOTEL PLEASE SATAN SEXYMAN SEVRAL TIMEZ SIGMA THEY WILL ALL SEE TOOT TOOT MCBUMBERSNAZZLE TWINK JULY 4/7-4-1921

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill I Have Been Mislead/Fuck You, Internet

BRAINROT BUBBLE

eye in the jar element ID

CUSSES FOURTRAMARINE

spelling error

GOD BUBBLE MCSUCKIT OK KO REPHIC

spelling error

SMALL STILL ON YOUR MIND

incorrectly-remembered

[violetasteracademic]

Hi , I want to ask if you think Lucien was always meant to have a rejected mating bond with an Archeron sister ?

Hello lovely anon!

So.... this is a tough question to answer- because where does always begin in the writing process?

Does it begin in the first draft? Does it begin in the wild prophetic visions you have at three am that you want to scribble down but you don't because you are trying to sleep, but still, it lingers? Does it begin in a beat sheet, a plot outline, a Pinterest board?

I'm not sure if SJM always intended a rejected mating bond. To be completely honest, I go back and forth. I think that Sarah has let a lot of things slip that she wrote that were never going to even be submitted to her editor on a first draft (like the famed Nesta/Cassian/Azriel batwich, RIP and I'm still waiting on SJM to write a threesome). And yet when she shares those things, people almost consider it canon and analyze it to death and use it to prove certain things. At some point, she probably really genuinely considered making Lucien and one of the sisters a couple, but I can't say for sure where in the process that died.

I remember seeing Emily Henry share on her stories recently an addition to her "RIP" character list- as in characters that she had written that literally did not even make it into the book. The first draft of Beach Read was actually a love triangle, involving some local guy who owns an ice cream business or something of the sort who is also trying to romance January. I can see what she might have been trying to do there- give January two options reflecting two sides of her. Ice Cream Steve (not sure if those details are correct but we'll go with it) would have served as a perfect foil to Grave Digging, Bleak Literary Fiction Author Gus. But ultimately, Ice Cream Steve did not even make it to the book. Do we treat him as real? Do we wonder if he may have been a better fit for January? Do we analyze what this means for January and Gus?

I'll get a little bit into the technicality of what developmental editing is and how it can completely reshape a story, erase characters, create characters, and shift their storylines, but what I do know is this- the function of Lucien being assigned an Archeron sister, any Archeron sister, is completely clear: To win him over to the Night Court as an ally and embolden him to help Feyre get away from Tamlin. This is absolutely critical. Lucien's role in the story since this hasn't developed romantically because he is mated to one of the Archeron sisters, it has spun off in a new direction plot wise with the Band of Exiles, Vassa, Koschei, and the human queens- which also develops a tentative relationship between himself and his brother Eris again, with his mating bond hovering in the background. However, his mating bond began this new direction, and it wouldn't have existed without it:

Lucien would not have left if it were not for the mating bond. I believe that is the element that was always true. Lucien's mating bond, be it with Elain, or Nesta as originally planned, was always going to be a plot device. And I can answer where I believe the story of a love triangle at the very least began its groundwork- which is A Court of Mist and Fury. I personally think that as of publishing ACOMAF Lucien and Elain were already done, fizzling out in the developmental editing process, and Azriel and Elain were endgame, but I'm open to those who see it differently.

Before we move on, here are the different types of editors:

A development editor basically edits the story at large. They focus on elements like theme, character development, plot holes, ECT. When dealing with a series, often times an author will provide a detailed packet to their developmental editor before doing dev runs. This is because the developmental editor needs to understand where the story is headed. They need to understand what needs to be appropriately foreshadowed, what themes to highlight, and keep their eye on the big picture so that everything comes to a well developed, emotionally charged, and thematically satisfying conlcusion.

What is clear to me is that Azriel and Elain were being developed emotionally and thematically in ACOMAF:

These are the types of passages that focus on the big picture. Before Feyre's sisters have become Fae, Feyre is musing on what her sisters would be like in Velaris. She thinks about how Nesta would like it, despite herself, and become fast friends with Amren (true) and how Elain would like Velaris, but she would cling to Azriel for peace and quiet. True. Feyre considers how handsome Elain and Azriel would be together if he ever stopped loving Mor.

Developmentally- what is the purpose of this? It's the same book that Lucien and Elain's mating bond is revealed, so why muse on Elain and Azriel as a couple if Azriel could get over Mor, which he now has because of Elain? Meanwhile, Elain is engaged. Feyre doesn't say a word about that. She sees how her sister would want to be with someone like Azriel, and Feyre doesn't even think twice about Graysen because Azriel is right for her sister. This isn't Feyre being an unreliable narrator. Everything else in this passage came to be true.

These are the types of moments developmental editors hone in on to make sure theme and foreshadowing are strong and successful.

Of course this is already after the beautiful moments Azriel and Elain have together- Azriel getting shy and self conscious before dropping one of the most beautiful lines in all the books about being born hearing the song of the wind. Elain already being able to read Azriel- looking to him and smiling and finding comfort and assessing his countenance to see if everything is going okay.

If I'm a developmental editor, and I wanted it to be really clear why Lucien and Elain were right for each other- why would I keep all of this in? Why tie Elain and Azriel together thematically and emotionally? So again, this is where the question "where does always begin" comes into play. Did SJM realize in her first draft that Nesta and Lucien weren't going to work, so she switched to Elain, only to realize that Elain and Lucien don't have chemistry either? Was it after a developmental edit? I can't say for sure on that end. Maybe ACOMAF truly was just setting up a love triangle, but personally I think Elain and Az were always endgame as of the books being published, and trying to explore Elain and Lucien as a couple probably died out before the final draft of ACOMAF and SJM realized Lucien still needed to be mated to one of the sisters, thus ideas about the rejected mating bond started stirring instead and then were hit HARD in ACOWAR. I can see the argument that the door was being kept open for Lucien in ACOMAF, though I personally think Lucien's mating bond reveal was strictly a plot device. But what is extremely clear is that as of ACOWAR the path was set in stone.

Again- these are the things where, not to take credit away from Sarah, a developmental editor really comes into play. If Sarah is going, okay- who is Lucien going to end up with? Nesta? No, it can't be Nesta, even though that was originally the plan. Elain? Maybe, it could be Elain. What does that look like? Maybe it was Lucien and Elain in the pitch packet. Then a developmental editor goes, okay- where are we headed? What are the themes? What are the character arcs and growth we are looking for?

Then we move on to ACOWAR, and both of them were developed to have a theme of choice threaded into their interactions:

What these moments make clear is that the mating bond makes it impossible for Elain and Lucien to get what they truly want out of love with each other- for someone to love and choose them beyond the circumstances placed on them. Lucien wants this just as much as Elain does. They are now thematically connected in that way- in wanting to be chosen above all, despite everything. That's where this Facebook comment makes soooo much sense:

Nesta didn't have any growth or healing to offer Lucien, because thematically there was not really anything there between them. Nesta and Cassian also had this instant, intense connection that could not be ignored or played slowly. Nesta also didn't lose her fiance, she herself saying she had as little at stake in Velaris as she did on the other side of the wall. Nesta had anger and resentment. Elain had loss, which on the surface could thematically match Lucien, but then we dig deeper to learn that they aren't only needing to heal from the loss of love, they are needing to heal from the loss of choice.

Elain was engaged to a man who hates fae. And Elain was always going to become Fae.

Lucien had his history and story with Jesminda since book one. He thought Jesminda was his mate. The woman who loved him for him, not because he was a High Lord's son or because of any other High Fae customs Lucien rejects. This is where you see the development. Lucien and Elain could have worked on an incredibly surface level, both of them having lost their first loves, but deeper themes revealed themselves that showed they mirror each other in a way that doesn't make them right for each other, but that allows them to face what needs to be faced: being strong and brave enough to choose for themselves instead of letting the world control them.

For Elain and Lucien to have made sense together thematically, everything should have been reversed. Elain should have been mated to Azriel, and then Elain and Lucien should have met somehow and fallen in love, and the choosing each other above all, love trumping even a mating bond, Lucien being chosen and loved without question, without hesitation, would have belonged to them.

But again, without the mating bond, Lucien and Elain wouldn't even have met in the first place and Lucien would not have left Spring. So where does that leave us? The mating bond as a plot device. It was literally required to move the story forward, but thematically is anticlimactic for both parties in terms of the kind of love they want for themselves.

So- was Lucien always going to have a mating bond rejection? Probably not. But where in the years long process did all of this reveal itself? Only Sarah knows that. But I think what is quite clear is that it was always going to happen if we start from what is published in the books between him and Elain.

I think it's very possible that SJM did really intend for Lucien to wind up with one of the sisters. But if you've ever gone through the writing process yourself, you realize pretty quickly how many things fall apart and don't work/make sense/are actually anti-thematic to the characters you've created. Maybe she'll tell us one day exactly when Elain and Lucien fell apart, just like Nesta and Lucien fell apart. But we do have to keep in mind that an author like SJM, who was able to sell a trilogy all at once, probably had to have at least a 25 page packet outlining the trilogy and it's development. So- was it Nesta and Lucien in the pitch packet? Was it Elain and Lucien, because even while structuring a pitch she realized Nesta and Lucien would never work while outlining, but thought Elain and Lucien would? Only to discover Elain and Azriel connecting while drafting ACOMAF?

Writing a book is years of plotting, outlining, writing, rewriting, editing, writing again, and sometimes what you come up with is unrecognizable from the plan. And considering SJM contracted a trilogy, she would have pitched in pretty significant detail what would happen in book two and book three. We'll see what Sarah does and does not choose to reveal!

I think that's everything! I love getting these questions from you guys. I still have a cue in my inbox, and I am sorry it's kind of random when my inspiration strikes and I have a clear answer and can quickly think of the passages and ideas! But I will try to get to my older ones that have been sitting for a minute, I promise!

What do you guys think? I know everyone has different thoughts on this and I love to hear them!

[princeescaluswords]

Almost Universally Accepted

If you ever wonder why people like me think the Teen Wolf fandom has become fundamentally corrupted by racism, you simply need to recall that there is, as one person on this site remarked recently, an 'almost universally accepted' headcanon among the fandom. Based on a single glance near the end of the first episode of the third season, Tattoo, a large number of people in this fandom believe that Stiles Stilinski helped Derek Hale and his pack look for their kidnapped betas over the summer between Scott's and Stiles's sophomore and junior years. In terms of the television production, this would be the hiatus between Season 2 and Season 3.

At first, it seems a perfectly harmless headcanon, but I believe it's a blatant example of how fandom racism degrades media literacy. Allow me to walk you through my reasoning. To start, most headcanons exist in a neutral state with regards to canon. When you speculate on a character's favorite ice cream flavor or whether they spend Christmases with their grandparents, it is most likely not going to affect how you view the canon. This particular one, however, modifies a crucial canon event, one which establishes both the relationships and a major part of the plot for an entire season. Coincidentally, those relationships and that plot are primary motive forces for the lead protagonist's character arc. Thus, accepting this headcanon requires the viewer to radically reinterpret the starting point of an entire season differently than the production's actual intention. It's such a radical change that any critical thinking requires a person to ask what the goal of this headcanon could possibly be, since it simply cannot fit within the canon itself.

Point One: The headcanon is entirely unsupported. Consider the image at the top of this post. That look on Stiles's face is, as far as I can tell, the sole trigger behind the creation of this suspect headcanon. Stiles makes eye contact with Derek and, apparently, looks guilty to the fandom. From this, Stiles is supposed to be sharing a private moment of remorse with Derek, to which Scott is not privy, about their inability to find Boyd and Erica over the summer.

Even given the possibility that the look on Stiles's face could also be interpreted as genuine concern for the fates of Boyd and Erica, regret that something new is coming for Beacon Hills, or even frustration that Scott is getting involved once more in something dangerous, the headcanon's interpretation does not in any way mesh with the actual lines spoken in the scene.

Derek: A pack of 'em. An Alpha pack. Stiles: All of them? How does that even work? Derek: I hear there's some kind of a leader. He's called Deucalion. We know they have Boyd and Erica. Peter, Isaac, and I have been looking for him for the last four months. Scott: Let's say you find them. How do you deal with an Alpha pack? Derek: With all the help I can get.

If Stiles has been working with Derek all summer to find and rescue Boyd and Erica, this dialogue makes no sense. Wouldn't Stiles already know about the alpha pack and how it works? Why would Derek not list Stiles among the people searching? It would require Stiles and Derek (and later Peter and Isaac) to deliberately decide to exclude Scott. Those who adhere to the headcanon never actually explain why that Stiles and Derek would want to conceal Stiles's participation in the search from Scott, but that's not their point.

Yet, while a conspiracy might explain why they don't reveal the secret here, it doesn't even begin to address while it is never mentioned elsewhere during the season (or any season). It also renders the dialogue between Derek and Stiles and between Peter and Stiles in Chaos Rising (3x02) incongruous. It makes the relationships between Stiles and Isaac and Stiles and Boyd incoherent. It makes the way Stiles treats Derek throughout the rest of the season nonsensical. But that's not all.

Point Two: It shreds characterizations for everyone but Scott. Take Stiles. In the last appearance of Stiles in Season 2, he tells Scott that "you still have me," in an incontrovertible statement of support. Why would a Stiles who made that promise hide this information from Scott; not just in this scene but in every scene about the Alpha Pack to come. If he was trying to keep Scott out of the supernatural things, then he didn't do a very good job; after all, he's the one who tells Scott about the Darach once Stiles discovers it. If he's secretly angry at Scott for something (whether it be not finding him when Gerard kidnapped him or some other fandom-conjured reason such as Scott 'ignoring' him all summer), then why wouldn't he use it when he argues with Scott in Unleashed (3x04), Frayed (3x05), Motel California (3x06) or Currents (3x07)? For this headcanon to be even remotely valid, it has to suppose that Derek and Stiles established a positive working relationship, but Derek is the one person to whom Stiles doesn't bring his ideas about the Darach. Why the sudden and unexplained change in regard?

Take Derek. If Derek trusted Stiles enough to have him help his pack look for Boyd and Erica over the summer, why would Derek so casually and cruelly dismiss Stiles's assistance after the recovery of Isaac ("Not You!"). If Derek is simply trying to keep Scott out of this -- which is actually seen on the screen -- isn't it callous of him to not have tried to keep Stiles out of it? And if Derek is angry enough with Scott not to seek his help over the summer (though this emotions doesn't stop him from accepting and asking for Scott's help visually on the screen), why doesn't Derek ever bring up that he trust Stiles enough to help but not Scott?

Keeping this a secret throughout the entire season doesn't match anyone else's character, either. Why didn't Peter use it to needle Stiles in Chaos Rising or needle Scott in Unleashed? Why does Peter, who is consistently portrayed as manipulative and using other people's misdeeds to excuse his actions ("I'm not the only dysfunctional family member.") not use it to undermine Derek's or Isaac's trust in Scott? For that matter, why doesn't Isaac use it in any of the conflicts he has with Stiles? It simply doesn't fit in with anyone else's behavior or characterizations.

Part Three: It does, however, serve to undermine Scott's role as lead protagonist. This is, at the base, the point. It's not really a starting point for Sterek that they claim it to be; a massive conspiracy doesn't really establish the impetus for their relationship considering how they both canonically treat Scott later. It does, however, serve as a coded way to establish the white male characters in the show as a social group in and of themselves, one from which Scott must be excluded, perhaps because of his inadequacies (he has to go summer school, see, which in Beacon Hill seems to be envisioned as a boot camp-slash-gulag) or his sins (not sacrificing Allison) but there has to be a reason. When you take in the way it doesn't fit into anything happen and doesn't really help what they want to happen, the only logical reason for the creation of this headcanon is that it demonstrates their belief that Scott does not deserve his position as lead protagonist, and that Stiles's professed loyalty is slowly being transferred to a man he had on a list of people responsible for human sacrifices twice.

But it is inevitable that such headcanons go against the themes of the show, the plot of the show, and the established characterizations of the cast, because consistency is not really important to parts of the fandom. What is important is that it suggests the true focus of the story should be where the believe it belongs: any white male character. This ill-fitting whim has become almost universally accepted, to remove a character of color form his position as lead protagonist with a subtext so deep it appears for exactly 2 seconds.

It is indeed racism.