#when its the same shit where anyone can do whatever they want with their fanon designs bc canon is a hellhole

[vaugarde]

bc i mentioned it to trixie last night btw i hope i dont come across as being anti realistic designs in warrior cats. i love making certain cats be different real breeds the erins didnt consider and i think getting creative and changing coats to match real genetics can be fun. i just hate the attitude that thats what you HAVE to do and not doing it is cringe culture and the only thing wc has ever done wrong is have a tortie born from two gray cats and not everything else

[zoologicalcartoonvampire]

just rambling abt Ripper cuz its my blog and i can do whatever the hell i like

So yeah!

Just gonna start rambling about Ripper here cause i have some thoughts on him as a character and how hes seen by others within the show and in the fandom. Ill just-

Ill start with the fact that he's very clearly affected by the way he was treated as a child, through my interpretation of his character at least, it seems to me he had very neglectful family by the way he speaks whenever he mentions them. (Like his comments of him and his brothers being being dropped as kids, or how his "mother was right about babies- they ruin everything!!" Throughout season 1).

I feel this can also be seen with the way he's trying (and failing) so hard to impress others? Like all the time. Yet lacks the social awareness/understanding/empathy to realise that his actions make others uncomfortable or aren't the right thing to do (like thinking that showing off his muscles will make girls like him, or using Priya as a shield, or leaving Zee behind when he pretended to be a bird and failing to see it as an issue)

So like everyone clearly and understandably dislikes him for this.

He doesn't register how what he does is wrong. And when he does see everyone mad at him he suddenly realises that *something* hes done is wrong and tries making himself look better, cause he still want others to validate him or at least notice him in some way.

Again, that could be chalked up to his shitty parenting. Didn't teach him how to behave, he went for the ways in which he could get attention to make up for the attention he didn't get at home, all classmates hate him, shit at socialising, boom!

[[Also when it comes to his farts n stuff, yeah. I get why people could dislike him for it- but also- its total drama?? There are excessive fart "jokes" like all the time what where you expecting 😭 and its not rare for the writers to latch the "jokes" onto a specific character.]]

I actually headcanon that he has an undiagnosed intestinal/Bowel disorder of some kind (Like IBS for example) and his mother/father told him his farts were "his talent" (sarcastically, which he didn't pick up cause he has the brain capacity of a banana) and took it reaaally to heart and latching hard to it due to his parents usual neglect.

On a side note, ive seen a lot of people make a lot of jokes that hes a misogynist, homophobe, ect ect. Personally while i get they are jokes, i don't really see it.

He's never actually hateful towards anyone, he makes fun of people, i interpret as his sense of humour (calling Millie and Damien Nerds), or how he hurt Priya/Zee. But hes not really... A bully to anyone necessarily?? Like he doesn't make fun, physically or verbally abuse or repeatedly bother someone Or even be hateful towards others at all?? In fact the others hate Ripper more (using his name as an insult to Millie), than Ripper hates any of them.

Like Ripper is low-key constantly offering help and ideas ... Even if a bit unethical, gross or outright stupid. But hes ALWAYS trying to push the teams forward??

I think he just doesn't understand empathy and only understands others actions if they would act the same way he would or if its something that is noticeable visually (Like the episode in S2 where they had to cross those would you rather questions!)

And no hes not a homophobe he literally doesn't care and even asks Bowie for Dating advice 😭😭I hate the Fanon HCs that he wants to say a slur or smth

[midnightlovestories]

Arguably, there are few things that we would call an indisputable canon in the Addams Family:

- they are close, loving and very supportive family unit - Gomez and Morticia are madly in love - they love all things macabre - they are not afraid of violence, death, dying, fighting etc. (Yes, yes I'm still salty about that bullshit swordfighting scene in Netflix's Wednesday)

And of course, Christina Ricci pretty much established what is perceived as canon for the character of Wednesday Addams.

Other than that? There's not much set in stone. Continuity? Please, TAF wouldn't know continuity if it stepped on it, things are all over freaking ship, so it's very likely that, as a fan, you will love some iterations of Addams Family and hate others, that is completely normal, not all content is created for you. Let's accept that.

At this point, with the success of Netflix Wednesday this fandom reached its, arguably, largest audience. Whether you hate or love the new show, is irrelevant - it's success is indisputable, and it brought a lot of new fans, often completely new generation of fans who will interact with the Addams Family in a completely new and different way than you or me or Jerry next door.

Does it irk you that creators and more and more fans focus on Morticia solely as a mother figure? Yeah, it irks me too, no really, it annoys the hell out of me but at the same time... it's my freaking problem not anyone else's, the least of all the new fans, and allow me to explain why:

How we react to any given character is deeply, deeply personal. We come to the show with our own, unique set of experiences and those experiences will largely inform which characters we're going to relate to and what those character will mean to us. It can be and, very very often is, completely irrelevant to canon.

So say, each iteration of Mortcia is slightly or even vastly different from the other but some people will inevitably see her as a surrogate mother figure (or Gomez and Morticia as dream parents, whatever) and there can be a number of reasons for that, maybe some folks just didn't have great parents, maybe they had no parents, maybe... whatever - it doesn't matter, they are allowed to see that character as parent figures even if others don't.

Do I see Morticia as a mother figure? Nope. Never did, never will, although she's a fantastic mother. To me personally, she was always a representation of bad ass, empowered femininity - a strong female role model. I adored her since I was about 6 or 8 years old but she was never a mother figure to me. I love how she's happy and content in her role as a wife and a mother - that's her thing, she adores her family and that's where her focus is and she's absolutely unapologetic about it.  She's like a really awesome, badass housewife, she's telling you to do you, irregardless what the current trends for women in society are, but especially, at the time when women were told to have it all blah blah blah, and being a housewife was all but frowned upon -  Morticia's like no thank you, fuck that shit (except those odd times when she wants to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade). And I always loved that, to me she exemplified the true meaning of feminism - the right to chose whatever the hell you want to do in life as a woman. Career woman? Go girl. Housewife? Awesome, if that's what makes you happy.

Where am I going with all this?

Bottom line, do you want to ship Wenclair - hon, ship them to your heart content if that's what brings you joy or helps you feel represented. Do you want to ship Gomez and Morticia ? - bless your little, tender heart, join the club! You want Morticia to be your surrogate mother - go ahead, enjoy! Do you want those characters to be the representation of your experience as a gay, trans, neurodivergent person? - baby, go for it. Especially if it helps you go through some really tough shit.

Yes, your personal fanon might disagree with mine, it might even piss me off - I might hate everything about it and secretely bitch about it to likeminded fandom members, and I do. I might hate your take on the Addams Family altogether - but remember! that's not your problem, it's mine. You do you, whoever you are.

[d34thbr34th]

Imo you are completely in the right taking about other nico ships cuz they are toxic and disgusting but it is hilarious you actually like weird abusive shit like solangelo 💀💀

ill start off by saying i dont necassarily need to explain myself to you, but ill take this as a chance to express how i feel about the ship.

i dont love solangelo. i dont hate it either. but you cant call it abusive. its not abusive.

im pretty neutral on solangelo, maybe some fanart i see is cute and ill reblog it, and i sometimes (barely) post hcs, but that doesnt mean im all for what goes on in the community. i know of the ableism that alot of solangelo truthers are desensitized to and promote without KNOWING it.

actually, for a long time i explicitly showed im against solangelo. ive actually once sat down and deleted all the solangelo content on my blog to PROVE IT. ive privated alot of the hcs i came up with as an 11 year old. you can LITERALLY go look in my tags, will solace is waaaaayyyy down. solangelo is practically nonexistent. IVE PUT EFFORT INTO SHOWING WHERE I STAND. seriously?

but now ive grown not to care. i dont hate it, i dont love it. its just eh. if i reblog something solangelo, okay. if i reblog something anti solangelo, okay. at the end of the day its my blog.

when i first entered the pjo fandom i was like.. what? 10 i think? and i found myself in nicos character. i related to him ALOT. i then found out about solangelo and thought it was the cutest shit ever. i reread every piece of media with them. i came up with headcanons. i had a whole ass phase where i was "in love" with will solace. now i realise that i found myself in nico, and seeing him in what seemed to be a happy relationship made me really really happy. now, ive grown. ive reread the series. i KNOW how solangelo is potrayed. sometimes i reblog anti solangelo takes that i agree with, other times solangelo content. its FINE.

now let me explain why i dont like jasico. jason is the first person that nico actually starts becoming friends with, and i find their friendship very sweet. when people tend to turn platonic dynamics into romantic ones it irks me alot. (my same issue with nipollo, even though thats already weird) nico should be able to have friends without constantly being shipped.

i dont like percico because of the obvious age gap, and the fact that nico developing a crush on percy was a major plot point to his arc. it makes his feelings complicated because nicos confused about how he feels about percy. he doesnt know whether to love or hate him, since, well, bianca's death.

i dont like solangelo either, because obviously, its disgusting the way will acts like hes nicos 'savior'. however, will's technically not really his healer. when it comes to mental health and such, will urges nico to talk to dionysos about it. sooooo... u cant really say they have the patient/healer trope, even though in fanon and fanfics it may seem that way

alot of other posts that I REBLOGGED explain this in further detail, if you want me to link some of them, ill go ahead and do that for you. but you shouldnt be asking me to justify why i reblog solangelo shit.

either way, ill redirect you to where user arabnico talks about it, here and here. i completely agree with her takes.

and anyway, the hcs i come up with use the basis of a pretty watered down version of solangelo. i dont keep in mind canon when i think of solangelo. i dont think anyone does, fairly enough. their og characters have been so lost and watered down. heck, i last reread hoo last year.

tldr; im neutral on the ship. jasico sucks because theyre bffs. percico sucks because pedophilia and a majority of nico's tragic arc was based off of liking percy.

i would like to add a final comment: ive previously stated that ALL nico ships suck, INCLUDING solangelo. so idk where this really came from but whatever. have a good day.

[nut-in-me-jojo]

If I may keep complimenting you, i just wanna say your Gyutaro feels really spot on.

You made him exactly how he should be, his entire flow chills me in all the ways demons should act in their audience's eyes; a demon, someone ruined. Who's only means of coping with abuse is fierce hostility, and in the poor environment Gyutaro was born in, it's not unexpected to turn into a violent and mean individual as a result of extreme abuse and discomfort. Especially when it comes to the ways of survival, the world stomps on the weak and poor masses, it never cared for him and/or his sister. So why should he give a rat's ass?

He's cold, he's cruel, he's mean and incredibly demeaning to the degree where he uses insults heartlessly thrown at him as a youngling on other people (I'd argue it isn't only for evil sadist's sake, but also a coping mechanism). The very people he viewed as monsters, he became worse in canon.

You know that meme where it says, "when you see a dude write a character differently than how you see them"? I adore writers, as a developing writer myself I maintain a massive respect for them. And i ain't gonna shit on them for their own thoughts and fanon (It's called headcanons for a reason. Bloggers can do whatever they like, it's their blog, their content after all), but when someone makes a society-abused literal demon like Gyutaro all love hearts and sweet like candy for little to no reason it makes me die a bit on the inside.

As I mentioned, it's their blog and all. I won't tell them how to run their shit, as it's not my place. But I never understood why anyone writes or reads OOC!charas. OOC just takes all the attractiveness of that character and...makes them not that character.

When you search up writing for a character you expect to read that character to act the way you've seen them. The reason why people read/follow certain characters it's because their traits are appealing, personality or otherwise. Not to say the characterization and research has to be totally 100% spot on or the writer has to mentally and/or physically understand the character. There are flaws in everyone's writing, perfection only exists in practice. But when I read a character, I do expect the writing to understand what their role was in the story.

I love Gyutaro but from a realistic standpoint, I utterly despise him. Tanjiro gave him and Daki exactly what they deserve, death. Why? Because Gyutaro is clearly written as a terrifying villain. A demon, corrupted by inhuman blood, who takes great joy and excitement from the fear of unfortunate victims. Gyutaro plays with his food, like cats do to mice; he canonly admitted more than a fair number of times he actively enjoys bringing torture and will absolutely give chase if it'll strike even more fright in their hearts. And Daki is only worse because of how picky, entitled princess she is. When I read villainous dudes I expect/want to read villainous things, and when there are lovey-dovey things there has to be corresponding reasons for it. By all means it doesn't have to be justified because in villain cases it almost never is, but it does have to make sense, needs to fit.

Yeah, I know. Love don't need to be complex, but complexity should be expected in characters written specifically as complex, right? KnY is deep in it's subjects. It's a demon-filled world, the demons are the bad guys of its entire story, so when love and demons mix you know it ain't anything normal or easy.

(Douma for example, is canonly stated as emotionless and psychopathic. Love in his demonic state seems down-right impossible, but should he ever 'experience' it, I'm pretty sure he's gonna be real awkward about it in standard Douma fashion. A stream of confusing and whole stage of denial following suit, seeing he grew accustomed and content with "nothing" for so many centuries despite a broken upbringing.)

Connecting love and villains together is fun for the same reason why people adjust their emotional connections for the consideration and comfort of other people. Because villains often want almost nothing to do with it. They are dark, selfish and very unnerving, predictably becoming of their lifestyles. True villains are distant-hearted, to the degree that distance directs how they act to themselves and other people. Unfeeling and unmoving even in front of opposing forces.

Gyutaro is a mega-asshole and romance stories with him are fascinating to explore, as stated above, because he's a villain (And because we all love a sleazy man done right).

So once more, I clap and throw hearts at your story. The gremlin man is green, mean and the proud owner of this poor woman's soul. I'm truly excited to see what you plan next in general. Don't mind me just gonna eat up all your other stuff. I' am more than honored to be a follower (And you're following me too?? Like whATT?) and enjoyer of this sweet sweet content.

so sorry for rambling i just really love your shit ok, just lemme know whenever i get to be too much.

Let me start by saying this is very incredibly sweet and totally made my day. Thank you so much for taking the time to leave such a nice review! Also, I could never ever ever get tired of people telling me how much they love my stuff, the encouragement is wonderful fuel for inspiration. So definitely don’t worry!!

I’m very glad you can appreciate my take on Gyutaro’s character. Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes to everything you said. You’ve listed off every little thing I’ve always strived for in this series which is a pretty big ego boost ngl lol.

But yes, I watched the entertainment arc as it aired and I got this idea for this story pretty much immediately before there were many fics for Gyutaro at all. But I knew most people who WERE gonna write for him would probably water him down and make him all fluffy like most people do with villains. Which I mean, nothing really wrong with that of course. I’ve certainly been one to enjoy those before.

But I wanted to have a story where he’s portrayed as the monster he really is. I wanted people to remember my fic as, “that one really fucked up one.” Lmao. Because as a reader, I feel like I’m always looking for a fic that has the true villain I actually signed up for, with all or most of their complexities in tact lol. So I wanted to deliver that to my dear readers.

I’m so very glad you’re enjoying the ride. Thank you again for the kind words! Ily5ever🥹

[thealexanderfiles]

Okay so let’s talk Superboy Prime and his connection to Jason Todd.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t read the comic in full, exclusively because I haven’t found a copy. I want to though. But I have done extensive reading and research.

In some alternate universe, there is a boy named Clark Kent who loves comics. One day, he gets all the powers of Superman, yay! Somewhere along he gets the name Superboy Prime.

But, he is a comic book fan that is an amalgamation of every angry fanboy during 70s/80s/90s comics who wanted to see DC return to its golden-age/early silver age roots.

This was post-Dark Knight Returns, which if you ever hear that it means the era when DC decided it was time to give everyone Dark and Edgy and Angsty stories. Superboy Prime pointedly Did Not Like That. So, with his new powers, he somehow (and, again, I haven’t read this in full so this is something I don’t know for sure) gets into the main DC universe.

(Now back to what I do know).

Superboy Prime takes out his anger on the entire DC universe. He punches the universe so hard it breaks. Literally.

Essentially, DC does this thing a lot called reboots. Stories will reset, timelines will change, etc. There have only been two full reboots (Crisis on Infinite Earths and Flashpoint), but that’s a conversation for another day.

Superboy Prime’s punch essentially acted as a soft or semi reboot to the universe. Some things changed, some stayed the same.

Probably the biggest, most notable change was this punch brought Jason Todd back to life. He then proceeded to climb out of his grave.

Eventually, the League of Assassins (run by Damian’s grandfather and mother- also happy to explain that lore if you’d like) took him in and restored his body and his mind to a degree in the Lazarus Pit, a pit of green liquid with the power to keep someone immortal. It has some side effects I believe, but it is important to note that Pit Madness is fanon-made, and not a real side effect, at least to the extent fanon had made it out to be. There may be levels of more tendencies toward violence, but nothing like being taken over by only rage and whatever that fanon has made it out to be.

It took the entire Justice League to stop Superboy Prime, and he developed a debilitating fear of any of the Flashes in the process.

It’s all a metaphor for angry fandom and the power that an angry or mean fan can have.

Please please let me know if you have more questions, I’m more than happy to help clear up anything DC-related you might want!!

Hi Mystery Informant! (Is it alright if I call u that? It sounds MUCH cooler than Anon.)

First up, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on the DC comics/universe, I've mentioned it before idk anyone who isn't either an avid marvel fan or not interested in this sorta genre. Even though you've said you've got gaps in ur knowledge, you're already, like, fifteen steps ahead of me.

I've got a few questions regarding the whole Flash situation. Like, there are a confusing amount. I'm pretty sure there's one in the justice league, one called kid flash and some sort of time traveller knocking around and I have NO CLUE how they all fit together.

Secondly, I keep hearing like, Tim drake has a fake uncle (not sure if this was ever adressed. Where is this kids parent btw???) and no spleen, and I'm certain they aren't connected but if you'd elaborate on this that would be great

Thirdly, it has come to my attention that I don't know who Green Lantern is, nor if he's from earth. I sounds like there's more??? People keep mentioning GL corps

Who is Green Arrow? Please. I'm so confused

There is a man called the Penguin running around. Cannot see how that name would evoke terror in the masses but pop off ig.

Dick Greyson kills the Joker?

Batman revives the Joker?

Does Dick become nightwing b4 or after jason rocks up?

Does america just have shit luck and have aconcerning amount of heroes?

Take ur pick, Mystery Informant. Also. What movies/comics should I read. I've been told Wayne family adventures (I think it's called that) is a good place to start for the batfam, but other than that I'm not sure.

Thanks :)

Oh. P.S. this whole Superboy prime thing is WILD. I love it. Thanks for the explanation.

[slytherinsnekxvii]

let's talk about lily evans and the marauders, aka moony, wormtail, padfoot and prongs. given that i didn't use their actual names, i think you can figure out where this is going. it's also long as hell, so. canon vs fanon, marauder edition, except snek is sleep deprived.

now, before we begin, i don't dislike the marauders. or lily, tbh. if I'm being perfectly, genuinely honest, i still go back and forth sometimes but they've been growing on me for a while now. the canon versions, at least. fanon does them real dirty, and that's part of why i'm writing this, because i'm genuinely tired of it. it's an injustice.

you can at least make excuses for james and lily, who were so undeveloped that jkr practically dropped a fill-in-the-blank sheet of character information in our laps, but sirius, remus and peter were around long enough for y'all to get real acquainted with them.

in canon, sirius black is an unhinged mf. genuinely. this isn't to say he's a bad guy, in fact, we see that he's still capable of doing good things, still capable of love, still capable of all the things that prove he's actually not bad at heart, just,,, severely traumatised and very steeped in negativity from his time with the dementors. what i'm saying is that this man is absolutely, no questions asked, no holds barred demented, and how could he not be? the guy sat wrongfully imprisoned in azkaban for twelve years, a good portion of which he spent as a dog in order to protect himself from the dementors. he certainly wasn't completely insane, but you cannot tell me that he was all there. he got out of azkaban fuelled almost solely by the intent to get revenge on pettigrew, tried to commit murder in front of three witnesses who were also children—one of whom was his godson—ate rats and was also malnourished, which i'm certain did not help the situation any. this man is off his goddamn rocker, and you know what? you love to see it. good for him.

oh, but, snek, that's what he's like as an adult. what about when they were at school? before azkaban? my guy, the reaction he has to grimmauld place is not the reaction of someone without trauma. i don't believe that walburga and orion were the type to physically abuse their children, but whatever happened in that house helped to fuck him up enough that he skipped the joke of part of practical joke, and pranked snape by telling him how to meet a werewolf that he knew would be fully transformed and dangerous to humans. more than that, the werewolf was remus, whom he's friends with, and who—best case scenario—would be facing a trial if james hadn't stepped in. you can say that maybe he didn't think about or understand the gravitas of his actions, but at the end of it, that's not how properly sane people react to people they dislike, and that's not how they treat their friends. if anything, it reads like he was in the middle of a breakdown and absolutely losing his shit and he wasn't thinking at all.

my guy went through some serious shit, and was in no way completely mentally stable. we can see pretty clearly that he's got a serious dark side to him that probably would have gone unbridled had he not disagreed with his family, and yet, fanon took one look at him and went, "teehee, uwu bad boi go vroom."

fanon said padfoot is a pretty boy with nice hair who is tastefully traumatised from his horribly abusive household. sirius rides his motorcycle and plays jokes and flirts with anything that moves, but he can do no real wrong and always comes back to his soft, bookish, chocolate-loving boyfriend remus, who will laugh about his lycanthropy and quietly disapprove but secretly laugh at his friends' antics while hiding his smile in his cardigan.

respectfully, what in the absolute fuck.

i'd put that meme in here if i could, the one that's like, "well done, you've broken _______ down to its bare essentials," but no. i can't bc it doesn't even apply. this isn't a meme, it's theseus' fucking ship.

fanon broke it down, and replaced the pieces one by one until we got to this point, where we need to sit down and ask ourselves, "is this even the same character?"

the answer is no, by the way. it isn't. when people talk about woobifying characters—you know, taking away every flaw they have, romanticising everything they do and making them only capable of doing good, wonderful, lovely things?—this is what we mean.

and it'd be one thing if it was just the one character, but, no. fanon went all in and made them all squeaky clean and boring, especially peter, who draws the shortest of the straws.

remus got fucked, too. not just because fanon insists on sticking him into a relationship with sirius. which, we'll tackle wolfstar in a bit, but that's not even the worst of it. here, we have yet another example of blatant, rampant woobifying. again, is he a bad person? no. we know he's a good guy, we know he's generally kind and well-mannered, we know that he wants to fo the right thing but hey, fun fact. did you know that you can be nice and a coward? did you know that you can be benevolent and good and kindly and have the greatest of intentions and still be shady as fuck? no? ask dumbledore. the man played people like chess pieces when he needed to, and he was a twinkly grandpa. these are things that can coexist.

teenage remus is a coward who, understandably, does not stand up to his friends, likely for fear of being ostracised, and doesn't uphold his prefect duties as he should and takes part in their bullying of snape as a result. he lets them romp with him in werewolf form while they are in their animagus forms and then, he lets them continue to do so even after they have multiple close calls, which, again, had anything happened, would have resulted in a trial in the best case scenario.

grownup remus is still a coward, he tells no one that sirius can move about the school in his animagus form despite wholeheartedly believing that he's a mass murderer, he tries to run out on his wife and unborn kid. he isn't deliberately making attempts to harm anyone, but he's content to sit back and let things happen to him and around him so he doesn't rock the boat, although he is capable of action, which we see when he is more than willing to help sirius merk pettigrew in the shack. he can be careless, he runs out to the shack knowing he hasn't taken his wolfsbane and ends up transforming in front of the students he, as a teacher, is meant to be protecting. of course, this doesn't negate his good qualities, it just bears repeating that his flaws do exist, and they're pretty serious.

fanon moony is always pleasant and kind and soft-spoken and bookish, and he always has to have his chocolate. he knows when to tell off his friends, and he'll do it, even if he's secretly amused by everything they do and laughs about it with his best friend, lily evans, who coincidentally spends all her time with them so he and sirius can go on double dates with james and lily and no one has to remember peter exists.

why. theseus' ship 2.0. does the actual character still exist or is this something entirely different thing bearing the same name?

as for peter, who needs peter pettigrew, the actual, legitimate, fourth marauder when you have lily evans? canon pettigrew is opportunistic as fuck. he's latching himself to the biggest bad on the block and he's going all in. for teenage peter, that was james and sirius, and for adult peter, that's voldemort. canon peter is good enough at transfiguration to master the animagus transformation, just like his friends, and he's good enough at potions to brew the potion that gives voldemort a body. and honestly, you can't say he wasn't brave. he could've run off somewhere and died, or changed his identity or something after he faked his death and framed sirius, but, no. he goes and resurrects voldemort. that's fucked up, yeah, but it happened and honestly, i respect that it. he stuck to his guns.

fanon wormtail is lucky if he exists beyond being a spineless sycophant for james and sirius, or an evil conniving little rat who's looking to toss his entire friend group to the wolves at eleven.

of course, this isn't meant to negate his bad qualities, he still murdered people and framed sirius and sold out the potters to die, but his good characteristics do exist, and james, sirius and remus genuinely were his friends.

and now, we get to lily and james.

we have hardly any information on either of them. they're a pair of cardboard cutouts that we can paint and stick flyers to and colour outside the lines however we want. we can do whatever the fuck, as long lily is brave and smart and somewhat kind and james is brave and willing to die for his family. we were essentially handed a pair of ocs.

and yet.

what little bits of canon we have are thrown out of the window regardless.

james is privileged and rich, and he throws hexes for fun. he's willing to hex lily when she disagrees with him, and then, he goes behind her back to continue hexing snape after she believes that he's stopped doing so. and that's all we know about him until he dies for his family at twenty-one years old. once again, say it with me: this does not negate his good qualities. he definitely had them, he took sirius in when sirius ran away from home, he became an animagus to keep remus company as a wolf, and he saved snape in the shack, thereby saving remus and sirius by extension. him having flaws does not make him a bad person.

fanon prongs is a feminist. he fights for equal rights for women everywhere, and he constantly treats his girlfriend, lily, like an absolute queen. he's the hottest boy in school and everyone claps when he walks through the halls. mcgonagall and dumbledore are always patting him on the back and making jokes with him. he has a built-in dark detector that helps him sense when someone is a evil and needs to he punished.

give me a break. the dude's cool and all, but was the gary stu treatment necessary?

...oh, he needed to match fanon lily? right, right.

canon lily is a contradiction unto herself. she's supposedly a great friend, but since we see her at a point where they were already drifting apart, we see her putting little effort into keeping their friendship afloat. she victim blames based on rumours, she doesn't seem to care over much about what snape has to say about the people who have been tormenting him since day one. and she's justified, of course, she doesn't have to stick around. canon lily is a bit of hypocrite, she says that snape calls everyone of her birth mudblood, but then that begs the question why she still hangs around with him if that's the case. he calls her mudblood, she retaliates by calling him snivellus, and finishes up with a dig about his underwear, which, sure, it's kicking a man with a rusty spoon and pouring salt in the wound, but she's, again, justified. i get where she was coming from. and then, of course, she dies for her kid after marrying the guy who relentlessly bullied her quote-unquote best friend for their entire school careers. but, like i said, canon lily is, in many ways, a contradiction.

lily is basically a plot device. she pushes everyone's narrative but her own, and does little else.

of course, this trend would continue in fanon. fanon lily exists to be the perfect girl who gets really angry over the slightest injustice, and of course, she gets to be one half of one of the oldest enemies-to-lovers "it was just sexual tension" cliche pairings in the book. she's just,,, a mary sue. in so many fics, so many headcanons, she's just pettigrew's stand-in, a girl to form a gang with marlene, mary and dorcas—who happen to be more undeveloped ocs who also get the woobify mary sue treatment—to parallel the marauders. there is nothing compelling about her character when she's presented as a saint, and even less when she's supposedly the other moral compass for the marauders that doesn't actually work because she thinks that james is cute.

and this brings me to the next topic. jily. what, why, how. this was supposed to be a healthy, happy relationship that would have lasted in the long run? absolutely not. even for its time, i can't say that i see it lasting.

first of all, jkr presents james' crush on lily as just that: a crush. a mildly obsessive one, but a crush nonetheless, which she tries to liken to the pulling of pigtails. and then, we see that james' way of getting her to go out with him consists of blackmail, and when that doesn't work, he resorts to threatening her. this could have been set aside if he had actually, genuinely changed when they started spending more time together, but as we're told by sirius and remus, he didn't. he just got better at hiding what he was up to. and it has to be that he hid it, because if she knew, this further damages the character that she's set up to have and paints her out to be either unable to stand up to him or an enabler.

regardless, they get married. and while i have trouble believing that it was out of genuine love, there are scenarios that could make some semblance of sense. it's wartime, after all, and maybe lily is worried about her stability in the wizarding world, so why not marry into an established family whose son is already showing interest? or perhaps, she falls into the trap of every bad boy cliche ever, and she thinks to herself, well, i got him to be better then, maybe i can get him to do even better in the future. or maybe, she doesn't get into a relationship with him immediately and sees him on and off, until eventually, she accidentally gets pregnant and they scramble to have a shotgun wedding so as not to leave lily alone at nineteen with a baby. or maybe they marry each other because they're there and sure, neither of then is ready and they don't know what love even is but what else is there to do when there's a dark lord about? anyways, the point is, they get married.

and then what? if we count pottermore into canon, he goes on to further damage her relationship with petunia and vernon, to the point where she ends up crying. if we don't, she fades into the background enough that nobody has anything to say about her. she's harry's mum, she's james' wife, lily potter, she was kind and smart and brave and that's it. her agency is gone, anything else we have of her personality is gone.

jily just,,, wasn't built to last. and, yeah, this,,, this is a hill i'll die on.

same with wolfstar, honestly. there are so many reasons why it wouldn't work, but fanon has made it so fucking prevalent that it's literally everywhere no matter where you look.

first of all, i've said it before and i'll say it again. sirius is more likely to get with james that he is to ever end up in a relationship with remus. their chemistry is just,,, underdeveloped. net zero for a relationship.

secondly, sirius instigated the werewolf prank, and lupin would have paid the price for it. this could have been overlooked, but he doesn't seem the slightest bit guilty about any of it when it's brought up in poa. he could have been responsible for lupin losing the security of his place at hogwarts in the best case scenario, and in the worst case, his life. and he seems to look forward to full moons, even though they clearly aren't pleasant for remus, which,,, yeah, you're going to have fun, but like, maybe be concerned about the fact that your friend undergoes excruciating pain and it isn't a pleasant time for him? read the room, my g.

thirdly, they don't trust each other as much as fanon seems to think they do. they were both willing to believe each other the traitor before ever suspecting pettigrew. sirius thought remus gave away the potters, hell, he thought remus was a spy for voldemort, and remus was convinced that sirius was a mass murderer. neither of them needed to be convinced.

fourthly, maybe i'm reading too much into it, but like. sirius had money. remus had no money, since, yk, he was a werewolf and struggling for cash and still, sirius,,, did not leave him any money. i feel like if you had money to spare, you would give to your friend who is literally poor. but, again, maybe i'm reading too much into it and this isn't as valid a point as i think it is.

and ehh, the fifth reason is that it's,,, actually very much not the representation for the ltgbt community that fanon says it is but y'all aren't ready for that conversation.

anyways, just,,, even when you set the couple shit aside, the power dynamics between everyone here is fucked. like, james and sirius are clearly at the top of food chain calling the shots and egging each other on. then there's lily, who isn't even a marauder, but is always ever-so-slightly above remus but still not on their level, because, well. neither of them actually listen to her. remus is the novelty friend, the friend who's,,, alright, i guess, but you keep them around specifically because they're funny or they can dance or they have something that you can either show off to other people or keep as your little inside joke, your little secret, yk? and peter is just sort of there. like, yeah, he can do what we can but does that make him as good as we are? no. does he have a funny little something about him that we can exploit? nah. therefore he sits at the bottom. and like, yeah, james and sirius are on the same level, but james is yanking sirius' chain, not the other way around. anyways, like i said. power dynamic's fucked and it bothers me that we were given all of this, and fanon decided to take it all and throw it away so they could give us flamboyant!badboi!sirius black x softboi!motherhen!remus lupin going on double dates with feminist!trustfundbaby!james potter and saint!lily evans while ignoring peter pettiwho?

theseus' fucking ship, indeed.

anyways, this needed to be said. it might not make as much sense as i want it to, considering it's 4:12 in the morning as i'm posting this, after taking a break from writing to do some research and coming across way too much content about fanon marauders, but it's here and it still makes enough sense that you can read it and understand what i mean. and like, at the end of the day, you can go ahead and headcanon whatever you please, you can write fic and make art and do whatever you like, just,,, remember that they're exactly that. headcanons. stop presenting fanon as canon. please. i'm literally begging. we actually have evidence against it. just,,, acknowledge that they're headcanons and stop putting them forward as though they're able to fit into canon. please.

[shig-a-shig-ah]

LAYING CLAIM

» pairing: dabi x fem!reader

» cw: dubcon, revoked consent, noncon (we’re going on a journey, okay?), rimming, anal fingering, anal sex, crying, gratuitously fanon characterization. 18+, minors DNI.

» a/n: Started this months and months ago, and since I’m finally getting around to wrapping some WIPs, I guess you can have it now. Thanks @thebiggergroove​ for beta-reading!

» wc: 5.3k

» ao3 mirror

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The thing about Dabi is he's not usually a possessive guy. Fucking is fucking, as far as he's concerned—it doesn't really matter who is doing it with whom as long as everyone is getting off on it. But goddamn if there isn't something about you that makes him want to make you his.

And he's gotten that, more or less. It took some sweet talking and cajoling, and a few late nights where he made you come until you couldn't see straight, but you agreed not to go sleeping with anyone else. Sure, you've made him promise the same, but that's fine. Not that he's going to actually stop, of course, but he goes out on recruiting missions alone and he figures what you don't know won't hurt you.

That's all enough to satisfy him, at least for a little while. But then a few weeks pass and there it is again: that stupid jealousy and all those unbidden thoughts about the people you were with before him. People he knows. You never talk in too much detail about your past hookups, but he's not stupid, is all too aware that he's not the first one in this ragged band of miscreants that you've crawled into bed with. You've fucked Jin, and Shigaraki, and probably even Magne, god rest her soul—Dabi hadn't missed the way the two of you had huddled up giggling in the corner of the old bar one night, disappearing together unusually early, making those bedroom eyes at each other. And in theory that's fine. Nothing wrong with two girls having fun together, after all. Hell, bi chicks are hot and Dabi wouldn't mind taking advantage of that someday.

But first he needs to find a way to get the image of you with your legs spread for half the League out of his goddamn head.

If he's being honest, it's Shigaraki who bothers him the most. Magne is dead. Jin is a decent dude and, Dabi has to imagine, tame as a kitten in the sack. But Shigaraki, well...Dabi can tell just by looking at the guy that he's a freak, and the idea of you riding Shigaraki's dry, crusty dick, of letting him do who-knows-what filthy shit to you? It just gets to him.

And then Toga has to suggest that stupid game and go putting ideas in his head.

You're all sitting around the crumbling office space that passes for a hideout, drinking to celebrate the League's first successful double-amputation (because fuck that germophobic, transphobic prick), and blondie is just begging to play a drinking game. Normally Dabi doesn't go for that shit—why anyone needs an excuse to get wasted is beyond him—but he's in a good mood, and you make that adorable pouty face as you tell him that you played in college, that it's really fun, and somehow he finds himself sitting in a circle on the dusty floor with the rest of you losers playing 'I haven't' or whatever the fuck it's called.

It's all bland shit to start. Toga's never driven a car, Shigaraki's never gone to school. But, after you've made your way around the circle once, everyone seems to be loosening up and Spinner takes one for the team by getting to the interesting shit and admitting he's never slept with a girl. It spurs a moment of awkward silence made all the worse by his red face and obvious self-consciousness about being a virgin, but then Compress stage-whispers "Neither have I," before winking salaciously at the blushing lizard and taking a dramatic pull from his beer bottle. It's enough to lighten the mood.

After that, Dabi's forced to admit it's a decent game. There's not much he hasn't done sexually or criminally, and since those are the two topics everyone focuses on, he finds himself getting hammered faster than usual. It's a good thing too—his buzz makes it easier to ignore the look you and Shigaraki exchange when Jin announces that he's never tried watersports, easier to pretend his gut isn't twisting at the knowing smirk on your leader's face as he raises his beer bottle to drink and you follow suit.

That particular moment makes it all the more surprising when, on your next turn, you hide an embarrassed face behind your hand and announce that you've never taken it in the ass.

Dabi can't stop thinking about it the rest of the night. Obsessing over it, and the idea of being your first, your only, even if only in some less than conventional way. The thing is, it's downright tame in comparison to a lot of what you two get up to, so barely even kinky that it's almost impossible to believe you've never tried it. Sure, you've never done it together, but he'd just figured neither of you were all that into it, since it hadn't come up when you were doing lewd shit to each other.

That kind of sex is fine from his perspective, but only fine. He doesn't actively seek it out because in his mind nothing beats the feel of being balls-deep in a warm pussy, but that doesn't mean he hasn't done it. He's hooked up with plenty of girls that were into it and has always been happy to oblige; hell, he's even taken it more than once, on account of the fact that when it comes to the bedroom he's willing to try anything twice.

But doing it with you? Well, that thought sticks. The two of you finally go to bed and Dabi's so turned on by the idea of your virgin ass that he can't help testing the waters, prodding teasingly at that tight hole with one spit-slicked finger until you're squirming away and whining. He doesn't manage to convince you right then, but he makes those puppy dog eyes that are far more effective than they have any right to be, and you agree to give it a go in the future.

"Not here," you specify, the words fuzzy on your drunken tongue. "Someplace nicer, with a real bed." You already have your reservations, and you certainly don't relish the idea of undertaking that particular venture now, on a worn mattress in this falling apart building, with its paper-thin walls and complete lack of hot water. Between your booze-fueled haze and the seeming interminability of the League's poverty, you mostly forget about that casual promise by the following morning.

But Dabi doesn't. He picks up a small bottle of lube the next day and carries it around in his pocket shamelessly, a little reminder that he has something to look forward to besides roasting that prick Endeavor, and he strokes himself off to the idea more than he's proud to admit as he waits for the League to move on to better things. He can be patient, when he needs to be.

That patience takes a toll though, and the minute the League settles into their new digs in Re-Destro's sprawling villa, where there's actually privacy and clean, comfortable beds, Dabi shows up at your door with a cheshire grin and every intention of finally getting something from you that's just for him.

You grimace when you remember that promise, try briefly to talk him out of it even, but he isn't so easily dissuaded. It's made all the harder by the fact that you can't give him a specific reason why you've never tried it, beyond that it seems uncomfortable and you hadn't particularly enjoyed the couple instances when you'd allowed someone to slip a finger or two in there.

"C'mon, baby girl," Dabi coos, his breath hot in your ear as he pins you to the wall, working two unnaturally warm fingers into your cunt. "I'll make sure it's good for you. Be gentle, get you nice and warmed up first, all that sweet shit."

It really is unfair how persuasive he can be when he fixes those pleading turquoise eyes on you. The way the pads of his fingers are curling just right deep inside isn't helping either, and he teases you like that until you give in to his cajoling, though you still insist on waiting a couple nights so that you can do your research and make sure you're entirely prepared. Dabi demonstrates his appreciation by burying his face in your cunt and not surfacing for air until you've come three times and are begging for a break.

When the night finally arrives, Dabi's feeling positively giddy. He slips into your bedroom with a bottle of wine and a couple glasses he's brought, a little something to help you relax because he's a gentleman when he wants to be. It should be good booze too—he lifted it from Re-Destro's private stash, and he's certain baldy doesn't drink anything that costs less than ¥30,000. Of course, Re-Destro doesn't love sharing either, but the uptight prick is too scared of Shigaraki to complain about anything the League does. They all take advantage of that, because they can and because it's fun to watch him bite his tongue when they piss him off.

You don't make it easy for Dabi to focus on pouring the drinks though, not when you're reclining in that armchair by the window, freshly showered and fidgeting nervously. He was half-erect before he got here from just thinking about what he was going to do to you, and the sight of you acting like you're some blushing virgin spurs him all the way to rock-hard. By the time your glasses are close to empty, he's straining uncomfortably in his pants, and can't fight back his impatience any longer.

"What do you think, doll?" he murmurs, setting his glass to the side and standing up, shrugging his jacket off before leaning down to ghost his lips over your neck. "You ready to move this to the bed?"

The way you chew at your lower lip anxiously before nodding makes his dick throb.

You empty your glass with one final, large swallow, your heart racing as you rise. You know it's stupid—you and Dabi have fucked countless times and a lot of it hasn't exactly been vanilla—but it's been a long time since you've actually tried anything new. His obvious excitement doesn't help either, paradoxically; it leaves you fretting about what will happen if you're somehow bad at this, or if you can't take it and have to stop. You've never really worried about disappointing him before, but now the thought weighs acutely on your mind.

It's with halting steps that you approach the bed and then, when you can't realistically drag your feet any longer, you finally tug the nightgown you're wearing off your shoulders, letting it fall to the floor to reveal what's underneath.

"Damn, baby girl," Dabi breathes, looking you up and down. You'd figured that since it was a special occasion you might as well dress up, donning a strappy bra and panties. They're little more than elaborate, crisscrossing pieces of lace, all white since he'd seemed so fixated on this pseudo-innocent, first-time act. His reaction doesn't disappoint, eyes lighting up as he stares at you hungrily.

You let yourself fall back on the bed, nestling against the many pillows. The look on his face has your stomach fluttering, and the wine has helped you to relax a bit despite your nerves, a pleasant warmth spreading throughout your body. It's joined by a different kind of heat when you feel the mattress dip beneath Dabi's weight as he positions himself over you, one knee resting between your thighs, just barely brushing against your center, a hint of what's to come.

"You look so good I could just eat you up," Dabi whispers hotly against your ear before tracing his lips over your jaw. Even though he wants to take his time, let himself savor this, it's taking every ounce of patience he has to keep the promise he made to get you worked up and ready for him, to not to tear those pretty bits of satin and lace off and have his way with you right then.

You whine eagerly when his mouth slants hungrily over yours, savoring the feel of those mismatched lips, the way the rough skin of the bottom one contrasts so deliciously with the top. Hot hands run over your sides as the kiss deepens, your tongues tangling together, and you moan against him.

When you finally break for air, Dabi moves his lips to your throat, his tongue lapping at your pulse before he sinks his teeth into you. He loves to mark you up, loves making sure everyone can see that you're indisputably his, and it's even hotter now that he knows he's going to fuck you in a way no one else has. You're shivering beneath him as he works, your hand tugging insistently at his hair, and Dabi lets out a low, throaty growl.

"Guess I'm not the only one who's eager, huh?"

Your hips tilt in response, pressing needily into his firm thigh, and Dabi can feel the skin on his cheeks straining against his staples as he grins. He traces one hand up over your ribs, cupping at your supple breasts, teasing your hardening nipple through the flimsy fabric of your bra. Those deft fingers work under the seam of your lingerie as he shifts his weight, increasing the pressure against your center while he pinches and tugs at the peaks of your breasts until you're whimpering, spreading slick along his leg even through your thin panties.

Dabi pulls away abruptly, rolling onto his back and tugging at you to change positions, shaking his head when you move to mount his hips.

"Come here, baby girl," he says, his tongue tracing over his bottom lip. "Like I said, I wanna eat you up."

The promise in those words sends a bolt of heat straight through your core as he guides you to straddle his face, hot breath tickling your inner thighs. One calloused thumb brushes your clit lightly through your underwear, blue eyes sparkling when your breath hitches at that soft touch. When he pulls that useless fabric to the side and runs his tongue over your already-damp slit, you shudder.

Dabi lets out a pleased groan at your reaction and gets to work more earnestly, lapping at your sensitive nub, licking and sucking until you're moaning and only then shifting a little so that he can lap at your insides, that same rough thumb replacing the pressure of his tongue on your clit. It strokes firm circles as he buries that hot, wet muscle inside you, the metal barbell there teasing your inner walls as you grind involuntarily against it. You can't help but whine when he withdraws it, but that disappointment is quickly replaced by you startling as that same wet muscle extends further back to tease at your puckered entrance.

"A-ah, Dabi, wait," you protest, your face heating up self-consciously almost at once.

Dabi pauses, shifting just enough to keep his reply from being muffled as one warm hand runs reassuringly up your thigh. "I don't think I can help myself, doll," he says, his slick-coated lips splitting into a wide grin, "you just taste too good."

That heat in your face worsens as he dives back in, not even waiting for you to respond before he's flexing his tongue to poke at that tight ring of muscle. You still try to squirm away, feeling unprepared for this. You hadn't even considered it among the possible activities were volunteering to participate in, but Dabi is holding you firmly in place with the hand not working at your clit, and when another whine of protest escapes you, it's weaker than the first. The foreign sensation of his tongue against your neglected hole has you hyperaware of the press of his thumb at your apex, and you can feel tension building in your core even as you writhe in embarrassment.

It's as though he knows, too, and you suppose maybe he does; after all, he's the one who's done this before. He thrusts his tongue a little deeper, rolling your clit between two hot fingers with enough pressure to cut off any further protests. A long moan is the only sound you can muster as you spill over the edge, your thighs clenching around his head and your hips jerking shakily as you ride out your climax with his tongue still buried obscenely in your rear.

Dabi's face is covered in your juices by the time he slides from between your thighs, and he wipes it away carelessly with one arm as he repositions you again, pinning you on your back and wasting no time peeling away your now-soaked panties. He grins at the sight of your glistening folds and swollen clit before stripping off most of his own clothes, kicking them unceremoniously to the side and relaxing between your legs, kissing at your still-trembling thighs.

He teases at your sensitive cunt with his fingers, coating them in your juices as you whimper. "Ready for a little more?" he asks, and you nod despite the fact that your cheeks are still burning from before and your stomach is knotting with nerves.

"Just...go slow, okay?"

"Of course, baby girl," he promises, "I told you I'd take good care of you." With that, he starts to work you open, dipping one finger into your tight hole just until he reaches the first knuckle, working it in and out slowly. His other hand toys at your clit, stroking and rolling that puffy nub again, making you mewl.

Dabi waits until you're relaxed before trying any more, pulling away from you just long enough to dig the lube from the pocket of his discarded pants, coating his fingers with it. He works that lone finger deeper this time, in and out until it's buried to the last knuckle.

The sensation is strange, but not entirely unpleasant; even if you think you'd rather have that finger curling in your cunt, the slight stretch is still adding to the faint throb already growing inside you, the one that worsens when his thumb returns to your apex.

"Fuck, you're so tight," Dabi growls when one well-placed stroke of his thumb has you clenching lightly around his finger. He ruts his hips against the sheets, trying vainly to find some relief for his aching member, but it's not enough—he needs to feel you, needs the vice-like grip clutching his fingers to be wrapped around his cock, and he needs it soon.

You feel him withdraw to add more lube, and then he's fingering you again, adding another digit to stretch you wider. It comes with a stab of discomfort when he forces his way past the second knuckle, and you reflexively try to pull back. "Dabi, that's too much."

He abandons his soothing attentions to your clit, one warm palm pressing you tight against the mattress to keep you in place, stroking soothingly at your hip. His breath tickles over your inner thigh as he chuckles softly. "If you can't take this, how are you ever gonna take me, hmm?" he says teasingly. "You're doing great, baby, just relax."

You will yourself to unclench, trying to picture Dabi's satisfied face once you're taking him, that adoring look he sometimes gives you, the one that you relish. Your efforts are only marginally effective, but Dabi keeps pushing deeper, fucking you slowly but insistently with those fingers, and when you don't complain again, his thumb returns to caressing your sex.

"That's a good girl." Dabi picks up the pace, cursing under his breath. "You're doing so good."

You're wriggling against his hand now, trying to increase the friction at your center, not quite minding the foreign sensation of his fingers and the uncanny fullness they bring so much now that there's heat thrumming in your core. "Y-yeah, like that," you pant encouragingly, and Dabi grins.

"That doing it for you?" he purrs. "Think you can take more?"

You start to shake your head—the stretch now feels like all you can handle—but Dabi's already adding a third slick finger, shoving it in with less restraint than before. You feel more than discomfort this time when three knuckles breach your asshole, and it quickly dampens the arousal that had been steadily building. "Dabi, slow down," you gasp.

"Aw, are you sure you can't handle it?" His blue eyes meet yours, pupils blown wide with arousal as he looks you over with the hungry gaze. "'Cause if I'm being honest, it feels like you're trying to suck me in. Like this greedy little hole wants to get fucked."

The huskiness of his voice sends a shiver down your spine, even as another whine of discomfort escapes you. For just a second his expression darkens slightly, but then he's slowing his movements, twisting his fingers instead of thrusting them in and out.

"Better?" he asks, and you think you catch an edge of impatience in his voice.

It is better though, a little at least, enough that you can focus on the way your cunt flutters every time his thumb strokes over your clit. So you just nod; it's not like this wasn't bound to be a little unpleasant at points, right?

Dabi's smile stretches wider, his thumb working faster. A mewl slips from between your lips and Dabi takes that as encouragement, his fingers resuming their persistent thrusts. It's still uncomfortable, though not quite as bad as when he started, and your teeth sink into your lower lip to bite back your complaints. You let your eyes fall closed instead, trying to focus on his attentions to your hooded nub, on the heat that's pooling in your lower belly. You're inching towards another release, and you let a hand lift to your breast, tweaking at the pebbled flesh of one nipple to help yourself along.

"D-dabi, I'm close," you stammer, your hips bucking against his hand.

"Yeah?" His movements speed up, his voice breathy and excited. "Do it, baby girl. Come for me and then I'm gonna fuck this tight little ass of yours."

You swallow hard, trying not to dwell on those words for now—you can tell you've loosened up more, tolerating the jab of his fingers, but his cock is substantially larger than those, all too intimidating. Thankfully, it's not hard to remain distracted, to focus only on your approaching peak.

Dabi can feel that orgasm rip through you when it hits, your asshole clenching around his fingers as you keen, and it's then that he reaches the limits of his patience. He needs you now, needs the thrill of burying himself in your tight ass and claiming you for his own, of reaching his own release deep inside and then watching his seed spill out afterwards. What a satisfying sight that will be.

He scrambles up from between your legs to catch your lips with his, fumbling his boxers off as his tongue invades your mouth. When he pulls away, his eyes are bright, needy. "Ready for me?" he asks.

You're not, not really, but you can see the fervor in his eyes, hear the urgency in his voice, and you convince yourself that he won't be able to work you open much more with his fingers no matter what. Your agreement doesn't matter anyway—he's already rolling you onto your side and slotting his chest against your back, his straining erection poking at the cleft between your thighs.

"Like this?" you ask, surprised by the choice of position.

"Just like this," he pants in your ear. His teeth nibble at your lobe as he slicks his cock generously with lube. "Want you spooned against me so I can see those cute faces you make, feel you squirming when you take me."

And fuck, when he slips one hand back down to finger your asshole one last time, it doesn't disappoint—your body ripples against him when that invasion catches you off guard, and he can see the way your lips part obscenely as you gasp at his touch. His fingers abandon your tight hole almost as quickly as they'd entered, and then Dabi is aligning himself with your entrance, using the last of his restraint not to slam his hips forward and bury himself inside with a single thrust.

You can feel the spongy head of his glans, and the slick coolness of the ring that adorns his tip, prodding at your rear. One of his arms worms its way under your side, his hand groping distractedly at your breasts as you tense in anticipation.

"Relax, baby girl," he murmurs, but he doesn't wait for you to even try. He's already slipping in, moving slowly until he encounters resistance an inch or so inside, and then pausing.

He has to struggle to keep his composure. Even like this, with not even the full head of his cock in your ass, his balls are tightening, just the thought of what he's doing nearly enough to send him over the brink. He waits until he's sure that won't happen and then starts moving, pushing insistently to work you open around his length with shallow thrusts.

"A-ah, Dabi, g-go easy," you stutter, already squirming. You can feel your body resisting the intrusion, so much larger than his fingers, and it aches slightly every time he tries to breach that inner ring.

"I am, baby, don't worry. I'll take care of you." His cheek is nuzzling against yours, his lips kissing and sucking wherever he can reach, but his motions don't change at all even as he murmurs so sweetly. He only slings one arm over your hips, toying lazily at your clit. That attention helps you relax, helps distract you a little, but it's not enough to prepare you for when he drives himself in further, finally surging past that taut band of muscle.

The invasion brings a sharp pain, one that has you crying out. Tears prick at the corners of your eyes, your body reflexively contorting to try and escape the cause of that hurt, but his arms tighten around you, holding you in place as he continues to work himself deeper with every thrust.

"Dabi, that hurts." Your words are sharper this time as each stroke sends another unpleasant throb through your overstretched hole, but his only response is to plunge the fingers rubbing at your clit into your dripping cunt.

"Shh, you're doing great." He curls his fingers, stroking against that spongy spot deep inside. It makes you writhe, but that does nothing to address the pain between your legs as he fucks you.

"Dabi, don't, that's not helping, I—"

"It's okay, baby girl, you're taking me so well," Dabi coos. You'll adjust, he knows you will—you're usually up for anything, of course you can take this. And fuck, there's no way he can stop now, not when it's even better than he'd imagined—hotter and softer, your pillowy walls enveloping his length every time he plunges into you, the exquisite tightness of your entrance massaging his shaft with each thrust.

"I'm not— I don't— I don't want to do this anymore." You can hear the desperate edge in your voice now. Your heart is racing and there's a cold sweat forming on your skin as tears of pain and confusion start to leak down your cheeks. "Dabi, stop."

"Shh, shh, you're fine. You—fuck—you feel so amazing. 'S never been this good with anyone else, fuck."

"I don't care, I don't want this." You can't understand what's happening, why he's not listening. You twist your head to look at him, pleading with your eyes, but he's barely even focusing on you. His blue eyes are glazed and half-lidded as his lips wander over your shoulders and your neck, all the while murmuring those useless reassurances against your skin. You're thrashing now, your feet scrambling for purchase on the sheets as you try frantically to pull away, but he keeps his tight grip on you, one of his legs hooking around your own to hold you in place. "Dabi, I said stop!"

He shushes you again, rutting into you harshly, and a choked sob escapes you when he bottoms out inside you, his hips flush against your backside as you struggle against him. You feel sick to your stomach, and it only worsens when he pulls out until nothing but his tip remains, then drives himself back in with one agonizingly rough thrust.

You keep begging, pleading, wracking your brain and trying every past safe word you can recall, but he only continues to pound into you, his breathing erratic as he pants in your ear. "It's okay, baby. You're taking my cock like such a good girl. You're—ngh—making me feel so good."

The ache between your legs is diminishing slightly as you adjust to his girth, your body entirely unconcerned with whether you want that or not. He's still fingering your sopping cunt too, his palm grinding against your oversensitive clit with each plunge of his long digits, the lewd squelching sound of those attentions mingling with the sharp slap of his hips against your ass as he fucks you.

"You like this?" he asks, but you know he's not really asking. "You like knowing I'm the only one? That I'm making you mine, just mine, just like how it should be?"

"Dabi, stop. Please stop." Your appeals are feeble now, far more for yourself than for him as you continue to utter them between quiet sobs. Dabi's somewhere far away, awash in the tight heat of your ass and the satisfaction of finally staking his claim on you, aware of your supplications but not hearing them, not really.

You slump, still sobbing, and let him take what he wants. His attentions to your cunt have a coil tightening in your gut, but when your climax hits it's perfunctory and mechanical, no real pleasure to be found even as your hips jerk and your holes spasm, a joyless whine passing from your lips.

No real pleasure for you, at least. But fuck, the feel of you squeezing around his cock as you come is what Dabi has been waiting for, your insides massaging his length as though desperate for him to decorate your walls with his cum. It's a gift he's glad to grant—he rocks his hips more urgently, keeping his thrusts shallow now so that he's sure to get it all deep inside.

"Fuck," he groans against your neck. "Gonna make me come, baby girl. That what you want? Want me to fill you up?" You shake your head, but his movements are already growing spurtive and erratic, his grunts louder and throatier, and then you can feel his cock jerking inside you, a hot rush of cum flooding your guts.

Dabi doesn't stop then, either, keeps fucking his seed into you until he's softening, not quite able to work himself in and out of your tight, abused hole any longer, and only then does he finally pull out, a dribble of cum leaking obscenely down your thigh.

You're sniffling, drawing shaky breaths, and you try to pull away the moment his arms relax around you. They only tighten again, his lips planting soft kisses along your temple.

"Shh," he murmurs. The sound of his shushing makes you want to scream. One hand lifts to wipe at the tears on your cheeks. "You were so good, baby girl, there's no need to cry. You were fucking incredible." He means it too, doesn't think he's ever come so hard in his life as he did now, making you his.

Dabi can't wait to do it again.

[bigskydreaming]

Hi! I was reading a fanfic and it brought up Roy and Dick's fight, which I see a lot of in fics but never what they fought about and consequently why they don't talk. I thought it was a vague excuse/reason why Roy was Jason's friend not Dick's anymore but this fic brought up when Dick was batman so I was wondering if there was actually a fight between them? Btw I really enjoy your metas! They're v thought out and well articulated. Also it's v easy to separate what's your opinion and what's fact which is. Very helpful for me

Yeah this is one hundred percent a fanon thing that's kept deliberately vague to justify why Roy in his friendship with Jason seems to have no positive thoughts or concerns about Dick whatsoever. Now granted, Dick and Roy are not nearly as close in the New 52 as they were pre-Reboot. The lack of their friendship there is definitely one of the things I disliked most about the Reboot - and I actually don't care if Jason and Roy are friends tbh, its the total erasure of his history with Dick as if he can't be friends with both, that like, bugs most.

But so like, yeah, Roy and Dick aren't super close when they interact on the Titans in the New 52, but there's literally nothing in any of their interactions that explains the complete absence of him from Roy's life or a reason that Roy would like, hate him the way he tends to in a lot of Jason-centric fics.

When you factor in pre-Reboot stuff though, it starts to get a LOT more.....uh wyd? And this is why I have trouble buying that people just write Roy and Jason the way they do because its the only thing they know from recent comics. Like one, most fans talk about how they don't even read the source comics, so there's no reason their knowledge of the characters or events would be limited to just recent comics if they're going off wiki summaries and scans anyway. And second, most fans AREN'T limited in their knowledge to just recent comics.

Like, the second people start writing Roy and Jason and Kori but with their pre-52 characterizations and references to events from THAT timeline, it all gets very messy, the way they're like, completely antagonistic towards Dick a lot of the time. Because Roy and Dick were always solid. Yes, they fought. A lot. But they always, ALWAYS made up afterwards. They had conflict about Roy's drug addiction - it didn't stop Dick from being there to support him through rehab, or Dick being the first person Roy called to help him get Lian after he learned of her existence. Dick literally held Lian before Roy ever did? He's the one who first put her in Roy's arms for the first time.

(Which is the prime grudge I and most Dick Grayson fans have about Roy and Jason fics which make Jason like, the absolute apple of Lian's eye. If you want to expand Lian's circle of loved and trusted ones to include Jason as Roy's friend and thus her uncle, like go for it! But there's zero reason that should require invalidating and erasing the fact that Dick was this little girl's adored godfather and uncle for pretty much her entire life. And the way Dick is just shoved offstage from Lian's life entirely, to slot Jason into his place as though they're completely interchangeable, its like....THAT'S the kind of thing that gets people irey about how Jason 'steals' Dick's dynamics and character relationships.

Because there's nothing saying they both can't be major players in Roy and Lian's lives! But just that they're not interchangeable! You need to develop the specific role Jason plays there WITHOUT just overwriting everything Dick actually did in relation to the two of them pre-Flashpoint, which is what you're drawing from the second you write Lian, unless you're specifically going with the few appearances we've had of her within literally just the last year.

But I mean, when people just search and replace Dick Grayson in all Roy and Lian's pre-Reboot stories and act like Jason was the one doing all of that instead.....why wouldn't fans of the source material be annoyed by a character getting credit for interactions and things done for Lian and Roy that Jason literally NEVER DID, while at the EXACT SAME TIME, conjuring some mysterious, unnamed 'Falling Out' that Roy and Dick had, that was clearly all Dick's fault, and resulted from him being basically excised entirely from Roy and Lian's lives?

Same with Kori, for the record, and like despite being Dick's ex, she and Dick have NEVER been like, estranged? She and Dick have often been close even after their breakup. None of it makes any sense, and the fact that a lot of fans don't even try to make it make sense or justify it, and expect other fans to just be fine with settling for an inexplicable reversal of Dick's every actual dynamic with these characters while setting up Jason to occupy the exact same role Dick played in these other characters' lives, like.....lol. Its fun.)

Anyway, back to your question, like, there are fights you can go with pre-Reboot as the source of various conflicts between Dick and Roy - but again, I maintain its just as crucial that they're always written as getting past them. They have a very tempestuous relationship because they are the two people MOST likely to call each other on their shit, two of the two people WITH the most shit in common due to the parallels in their childhoods and the roles they've occupied in the Titans and the superhero community in general, and the two people most resistant to being called out on their shit by each other, lol. Mostly in that case because like, they do recognize that they have a lot in common and understand each other very well, so the second the other is calling them out for something, they're usually like "ugh, if HE'S saying this, its probably true and I am just not prepared yet to be wrong about this. I need more time being unjustifiably rawr about things." Its like that thing where they both look at each other doing something that feels familiar or calls back to their own reasons for doing something and they're like ugh I'm in this picture and I don't like it.

So they clash. A lot. But always with the implicit bedrock of like, there's nothing either of them can do or say to the other that will push the other away for good.

They fought over Roy replacing Dick as leader of the Titans when Dick's wedding fell apart, even though Roy actually didn't want to do it and was kinda pushed into it by the government, but again, Dick like, got over it and realized it was for the best and forgave Roy for it that very same issue. And on and on. It always went like that. So there's plenty of stuff that can be used or pointed at as a source of conflict between the two, but the part I'll always call unbelievable is the idea that they never make up after one of these fights. Why now? What fight, specifically, is so bad between them that despite everything else they've gone through AND gotten past, they can't get past this one? Y'know?

So yeah, that's my take on this. There is no definitive falling out between Dick and Roy as many fics like to point to in order to shove him offscreen and make room for Jason in Roy and Lian's lives, and personally, I just don't find it necessary and I actually think it makes Roy look REALLY bad. Because when you're not specifically detailing all the things that Dick has actually DONE for Roy, the lengths to which he's been there for his friend, and like, specifically invalidating each and every one of them as something that never happened in a particular fic, then literally anyone who reads that fic and has their own awareness of Dick and Roy's friendship is kiiiiiinda likely to be reading that and thinking wow what an ungrateful asshole, when Roy's just written as bitching about Dick with Jason and sandbagging him without any real explanation as to WHY, beyond just 'oh they had a fight years ago.'

(And coming up with some random awful thing that Dick did to justify Roy hating him now isn't like, a superior alternative, lmao, because again, its still just trashing one character for the sake of getting him out of the way of two other characters' friendship and people are going to think what they think about that).

Anyway, my now standard stock disclaimer that like, there doesn't actually need to be a canon fight obviously, for people to just write things this way and handwave that Dick and Roy had an epic falling out years ago and now they just hate one another or whatever, or just Roy hates him or vice versa. Obviously people are free to do what they want. They don't need a reason other than "I want to write it this way so Jason and Roy are friends and Jason doesn't have to 'share' him with Dick or have his friendship be overshadowed by their greater history together." That just happens to be a reason that no Dick Grayson fan is ever really going to be happy about, lol, for what should be perfectly obvious reasons, so it honestly shouldn't be surprising to people that fans of the source material often gripe about it.

Because yeah fanfic is a tremendous opportunity to transform the source material into something better, but if what's better for some fans actively takes away what was working perfectly well for other fans the original way, they're going to say that. Especially in a fandom where so many new fans take their view of the characters and their dynamics from fics rather than the source material - when fandom has that much of an influence on what new fans perceive to be 'canon,' fans are perfectly within their right to emphasize what is ACTUALLY canon and what isn't, so that new fans at least have the opportunity to determine for themselves what take they want to go with, instead of just accepting at face value that the nature of say, Dick and Roy's relationship is just that Roy hates Dick because of some mumble mumble ancient history vague mumble details not found mumble mumble fight.

[kakitysax]

Being a Christian is kinda like saying you’re obsessed with Undertale or some such shit because no matter how genuinely and responsibly you enjoy the source material you’re now associated with every freak that has ever been into it

Only also now you’re responsible for all those freaks’ actions past and present somehow????

Its like could you imagine if conversations went “you like Undertale? I was traumatized as a minor seeing smut of that online and now I hate that game and everything it stands for and I also hate you.”

As if Undertale is not a creative and well-made game about pacifism and forgiveness and acceptance and love!

Actually fucking. Nevermind. Conversations DO go like that, it's part of the problem!!!

But it's pretty well understood that that's Not a Good Thing to Do, so why is it still okay to act like all Christians must be shitty people???

LIKE FIRST OF ALL ABOUT THE TRAUMA THING YEAH ME TOO, I am ALSO in "the fandom" and I know how shitty the "fans" can be and I ALSO have been hurt by it AND I CAN SEE WHY THAT WOULD MAKE YOU NOT LIKE THE "SOURCE" AND THAT'S VALID AS HELL

BUT WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT??? WHY IS THAT OKAY???

I want to be educated and I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I try not to hurt anyone!!! And I know that I have the ability to hurt people and that my beliefs do not automatically make me a good person and I’m doing my best!!!

But why am I personally being made responsible for thousands of years of hate in the first place?

ESPECIALLY when all that shit was based on Christian Fanon and I KNOW it was based on Fanon and I can tell you ALL ABOUT how it's shitty and wrong and all the ways it's not like Canon and how cool the Canon actually is if you actually look at it

And people are probably going to read this post as me being holier-than-thou but it's like bro, it's not the implication that I could be a shitty person that makes me upset!!! I KNOW I'm a shitty person! I'm not in denial about it!

It's the HYPOCRISY that fucking bothers me.

See, stupid me, I thought that being quicker to judge than to understand was a church thing, that I would escape in the world at large.

But ever since I've gotten on here, I've seen the communities where I hoped to find unconditional acceptance judging people separately from their individual experiences and motivations in lieu of making sweeping generalizations about their beliefs and why they hold them, in order to alienate and vilify them.

Which is the exact same thing they're mad at Christians for doing.

I'm not saying people who do that sinners destined for the fire or whatever, I'm just saying it’s a dick move.

[ectonurites]

My least favorite type of fic!Tim is when he’s portrayed as depressed/very mentally and emotionally unstable, but also at the same time as someone who is like lauded as being super dangerous/the most skilled or something like that?? Those fics where Tim is chugging caffeine and barely sleeping, but characters are still like “oh I wouldn’t wanna piss off Tim he is Dangerous” and that’s annoying enough but then there are fics that at the same time as that portray him as like on the edge of a breakdown. It’s very irritating even if I’m not sure I can articulate exactly why, it just really rubs me the wrong way. Like, I definitely do think Tim has some issues with depression and stuff, but in fics like those it’s treated more like a quirk sort of instead of a serious issue

LMAOO I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT i’m not a fan of that either. I’m apologizing in advance if I sound mean in any of this critique i’m about to give of that fanon version of him. I want to preface this by saying that people can write whatever the hell they want, like, they’re allowed to! And I’m not referencing/calling out any specific works here. Just trends. But I’m gonna bitch about some things I’ve noticed that annoy me, personally. (so again, not saying other people can’t enjoy this stuff! just. not for me)

so like sorry if im mean but this is just me ranting and also this is my blog anyways so:

(nobody take this as an attack on them please because it’s really not)

The problem is a lot of those fics seem to interpret Tim’s behavior in Red Robin (& especially like that last whole arc of his Robin run also by FabNic) as if that’s his normal, rather than the result of a few years of CONSTANT traumatic incidents pushing him to a breaking point (because while all the shit he went through with his Dad, Steph, Kon, Bart, and then Bruce dying was spread out over several years for us as readers, it’s regarded as like within two years in canon! It all happens when he’s 16 and 17. According to the Batman comic right after War Games, Jack was murdered only days after Steph died.

(Batman #634)

That’s a LOT to process for one kid jesus christ) 

I love Red Robin honestly, I do, but it is about Tim at the lowest points in his life. It’s the grand finale of Tim’s story, and everything crumbles, that’s kinda the point! The end leaves him in a position to either rebuild himself or fall apart. It’s all about how he chooses to continue after this point!

(Red Robin #26)

The way he acts and the things he does in that comic should be regarded as such. He can’t live the way he does in Red Robin forever or he will literally burn himself out/become something unrecognizable, like, jesus it’s kinda even acknowledged in the comic when he thinks about what his potential futures would be if he keeps it up like he’s doing:

(Red Robin #25)

He sees himself as dead, as Batman (which he has countless times said he doesn’t want to be and at this point in his history almost every time he’s seen a future he became Batman in he had become a killer), or needing to retire and taking over an Oracle-esque role, likely because he exerted himself too much to continue. 

When you look at him around this same timeframe when he’s not isolating himself/too deep into the mission and is instead working with his friends back on the Titans, you can see that he is starting to heal and work in a more positive direction. He’s choosing to work on coming out of this rough period by being together with his friends who he loves.

(Teen Titans (2003) #100)

Not to say that you can’t write about situations in which he doesn’t start to come out of it, but if you are doing so it’s something you should be taking seriously because that’s the idea you want to explore, not just acting like it’s perfectly okay or normal? (And again, there are a lot of works that do explore it in good ways, there’s just also a LOT that don’t)

Like, so much content I see just make any sadness and depression and tendency to over-work himself that’s rooted in his traumas (which! those do have a basis in canon!) into a quirky personality trait rather than a response to trauma. Acting as if he’s always been this way and it’s normal for him. That’s what bothers me. If people want to seriously explore the effects of all these incidents and how that plays into his ability to do his job as a hero, then hell yes do it! But when it all gets brushed off as ‘oh thats just tim, he just doesnt eat or sleep or feel any happiness but like its fine he’s just always been like that’ I feel my blood boil. 

This also often strikes me as related/tied to fanon’s seemingly never-ending quest to make Tim into this victim of so many things he really wasn’t. They make his childhood 10x worse than it actually was (yes he was lonely because he was sent to boarding schools rather than having his parents around, but he was NOT just left home alone all the time as a child. 

(Batman #441)

He snuck away during a school vacation week to follow Bruce one (1) time and to then track down Dick. This is established in his introduction story! PLEASE read Lonely Place of Dying!) and it just... going with those fanon assumptions as being true changes so much of how people characterize him! 

Some people will also (not to call out tim/kon shippers especially because I  literally am also one but) vilify the shit out of Steph and make their relationship out to be some abusive thing rather than just... a messy teen relationship between vigilantes because they had really complicated lives and baggage with one another? Which they both acknowledge they made mistakes in!

(Red Robin #10)

Or people will vilify the shit out of Dick in regards to the situation at the start of Red Robin, or literally just make anyone who Tim ever had a disagreement with out to be the bad guy despite the actual situations always being way more complex and multi-faceted than that.

And then on top of all that, aside from making him into this ‘im broken 24/7 and not doing anything to fix it also everyone around me is terrible to me’ type of character, because he’s a lot of people’s favorite, they also want him to be as cool and strong as he is at his high points. So they’re projecting all this stuff onto him that makes him what should be a barely functioning person but then also act like that’s fine and he’s able to be a dangerous badass on top of it. 

Like I’m sorry but someone who is going out and actively acting as a vigilante like that which is incredibly physically taxing is NOT surviving on coffee alone and no sleep. That’s literally not possible, he’d fucking collapse. (And like, again, if you want to explore him pushing himself to that point, that’s one thing! but acting like he can manage all of that for more than a few days at a time/maybe while working on one really tough case is nuts!) and like, even canon can be a little guilty of this type of thing particularly since the New 52 (Detective Comics 2016 had more than a few references to him barely sleeping, but at least they also made references to him eating normally/healthily and he wasn’t completely self isolating or anything) (and also that comic had him be so self sacrificial he was ready to die to save everyone and only didn’t die because of Mr.Oz’s interference, he’s definitely not in his best place there) but usually it’s still within some realm of possibility.

Also like. The fanon ‘chugging coffee to survive thing’ just annoys the shit out of me because, like, yes there’s a few moments in canon where he’s under a lot of pressure and pushing himself further than he normally would and had some coffee (one of the only times I can even remember him having it on panel is... oh... during that last Robin arc I just mentioned a little while ago shouldn’t be where you source your normal characterization of him because it’s a very difficult situation that pushes him further than he normally would go! huh!) But the thing is like, people play it off for laughs, or like it’s a normal thing he would do at any time in his life! If you want to explore him pushing himself and using coffee as a crutch, like, there’s ways you can write it that takes it seriously, but almost every time I see it come up in fics it is like a core part of his personality and just ‘oh haha silly tim always with his entire pot of coffee he must chug every morning or he’ll die :^)’ And that bothers the hell out of me. 

In general it’s just... people treat Tim so weird. They want him to be so many different things that he’s shown himself to be at different times for very specific reasons, except they want him to do all of it at the same time which just doesn’t work. A person can’t function like that, and it’s not even close to who he is in canon. 

Again, people can do what they want, and this is just my opinion obviously, but yeah. My two cents on the matter.  Read Lonely Place of Dying, read Young Justice, read his Robin run. Read his comics and get a feel for who he was before all the rest of his trauma, and see how he canonically reacts to it along the way. I know reading comics can be tough for some people but so much stuff just echo chambers and becomes barely recognizable in this fandom and it’s just... a shame when it happens with a character ya love. 

[drops-of-moonlights]

What are your issues with S3 of Winx Club?

Okay, so. I am going to get long and ranty and annoyed overall on this post. I shouldn’t even have to preface this, half of the people that follow me have critical thinking skills I hope, but you can have whatever opinion on S3 and all the things I’m gonna touch on this post, I do not care and you should not either, live your life however the fuck you want yadda yadda yadda. Now:

The first thing that comes to mind is the pacing, and just how fucking terrible it is. Every single event takes so long and its so slow for the first 18-or-so episodes (a lot of situations really did not require two episodes), only to be suddenly kicked into high gear and have 7 different “final” battles one after another. It felt like it was just happening to end the season already and so they could keep working on SOTLK, and like I get you’re working on both and all but you COULD have afforded to at least PRETEND you gave a shit, Rainbow.

Next topic is Valtor, who is my absolute least favorite villain in the series, and yes, I am including the S5-S7 villains on this. This is where it’s not much a fault of the character itself (well. not ENTIRELY a fault of the character), but a fault of both the narrative and (and for this I am petty) the fanbase. Valtor, to me, is the most generic villain in the franchise, a different flavor than Darkar but by no means less bland - Valtor is your standard “hot” prettyboy villain who tries to charm the protagonist to his side with the empty promise of answers, and THAT COULD HAVE BEEN INTERESTING... if the show ever bothered to do anything with it other than Valtor creeping on a senior highschool student for 26 episodes. Because it’s all a farce, there’s not an actual connection between them outside of Valtor feeding her lies about her retconned parent’s backstory (we’ll talk about this more later) and both of them having God’s power inside them. My second point on Valtor is that he singlehandedly ruined the Trix’s characterization to simply be your standard evil henchwomen that thirst after Valtor’s dick because truly they all have terrible taste in men, and nothing else, and it’s annoying as all fuck, ESPECIALLY when you compare the Trix as Darkar’s lackeys a season earlier, where they stayed mostly the same personality-wise and only allied with the Phoenix out of necessity and survival. And the worst part? Valtor doesn’t do shit in the season! Like, at all! He only ever gets Chimera, Cassandra and Diaspro on his side, blinds Aisha and that’s literally it as far as confrontations with the Winx go - outside of fighting them when they get the Water Stars and the three last battles, he spends most of the show’s time fucking around random planets getting weird magic and sitting broodily on a chair, and apparently this makes him a good villain???? Okay, sure.

And since I mentioned them, let’s get on the Water Stars for a bit, and while yes, this is the one part everyone agrees on that was weak as fuck, it still brings attention because WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. All this time there was this antithetical force to the Dragon’s Flame, super-mega-ultra powerful little thingies that could douse the Flame’s power almost permanently, AND YOU ONLY BRING THEM TO ATTENTION NOW AGAINST VAMPIRE AESTHETIC. Do you have any idea how fucking useful they could have been against the Trix in S1???? If they had gotten the little squishy motherfuckers two seasons earlier the War of Magix would have been over quicker. And it’s not like Bloom would have been in much risk, she barely had any Flame left in her.

In a similar situation, we have Enchantix, which is my second most-hated form after Tynix for similar reasons. One, where in the fuck were all the Enchantix fairies during S1? Fairy Dust is supposed to be this OP magic, and could have also been very useful against the Army of Decay. Two, the way to earn Enchantix, for what is retroactively just the final base fairy form, is far too obtuse and complicated for the average fairy, not to mention incredibly limiting - you just have to hope someone from your realm is in a dangerous situation so you can fling yourself into danger and probably die, and all you get for it are some opera gloves and a pair of barefoot sandals. Like sure a super powerful magic upgrade also happens but still, it’s such a specific situation to find yourself in that it’s no wonder no one ever graduates Alfea, it’s literally borderline impossible unless you like traveling. My last point on the transformation, and this one is a bit YMMV, 3 of the 6 Winx did not actually earn Enchantix. Bloom counts for this, but it’s an actual plot point (though it was terribly handled) so I let it slide most of the time, but Musa and Tecna? Musa didn’t even get to sacrifice anything, she just suddenly got the form and that’s it, GALATEA was doing more of a sacrifice to let everyone leave the burning library without her than Musa was. Tecna also got Enchantix without saving anyone from Zenith, and before you even type it out, no, it was never said Tecna saved the entire universe by closing the Omega Portal. None of the three English dubs nor the original Italian ever say this. That’s entirely just fanon. I have headcanonned it away as “some of the prisoners were Zenithian” to justify it for myself, but overall it was very obviously just shoehorned in because as always, the writers don’t know what to do with Tecna.

“But Drops! What about Nabu???” I can already hear you type, and no, I do not like Nabu. I don’t hate him either, outside of the fact I reject the idea of Aisha being into men in any way, shape or form, but he is very much worshipped as the Golden Child in the fandom and I’m tired of it. You can see a better description on my feelings about Nabu (as well as how the fandom loves to demonize Sky for the shit he pulled in S1 but hold nothing against either Brandon or Nabu, who pulled the same shit) here.

There *is* a part of S3 I like, that being the Solaria Usurpation arc, but it’s the one sole thing that I legitimately enjoy in the season and I’m not gonna stick around the fuckton of episodes that interrupt the arc just for that.

But what I hate the most about S3, above all this, is how goddamn irrelevant it is. Outside of getting the Winx Enchantix, NOTHING about the season is remotely relevant lore-wise or plot-wise, and the show itself acknowledges this! Even SOTLK pretends S3 never happened and the girls just got Enchantix somehow! Because of the drive Rainbow had to end the franchise’s original arc with fancy shitty CGI, they ended up making the original last season of the show, what was supposed to be the best thing before the movie, into the biggest waste of time instead. You can really just watch the episodes each girl gets Enchantix and then the final episode and you wouldn’t miss anything at all.

So the TL;DR for all this is “I hate S3 because Valtor sucks, Enchantix sucks, the pacing is garbage and there’s really nothing nice in it outside of like 3 episodes”, and I refuse to rewatch it ever again.

[cryptocism]

Sorry if this is out of the blue, but when you say you always thought Tim was less academically inclined, I thought Tim was really good with tech and computers and stuff? Is that just a fandom thing? I’m still working through the comics rn but I’m also reading fanfic already 😅 (this is about your robin 80 post). Thank you 💕

its kind of a fandom thing? but its also canon. the nature of comics is that popular fanon tends to influence future comics, so like: yes in some interpretations and canonical comics tim is a super smarty smart boy who gets super good grades and is also a tech genius and is also a car genius and is also a genius genius in whatever field the plot requires him to be a genius genius in.

a fun thing about comics though is because theres so many different writers writing so many different versions of the same character is you can get a lot of variance in the interpretation of that character. so literally anything is valid, if you want tim to be a booksmart boy then hell yeah, and theres also tons of canon comics to support that, so im not gonna say its wrong.

personally though, i like it when he’s a clever/outside the box thinker rather than an academic. theres a couple comics where he’s shown sleeping in class, skipping school, not doing his homework, not because he doesn’t care but because he prioritizes robin more. its hard to picture him really gunning for something like valedictorian when school is obviously not the big thing on his radar.

i like it when he finds interests in trades: building his own car, his own skateboard, fun gadgets he can use in his crime fighting time. his ‘smarts’ being in more hands-on practical stuff.

i like it when he uses common sense and deductive reasoning that i as a reader can follow the logic of rather than complicated technical lingo that’s only there to make him sound smart. in terms of tech stuff, tim is still pretty damn good when compared to your average joe, but the person i remember being his support and the real wiz with computers was always barbara. 

tim’s strengths usually came down to just being an observant people person. like the time he “hacked” lonnie’s computer, first by guessing every famous anarchist thinker, then when that didn’t work, just inputting “codeword” and fucking got through because lonnie is a petty little shit and tim figured that out. its technically hacking, but its not like tim had to know anything about computers to do it. 

a lot of times tim could just like, have a conversation with whatever villain was attacking, figure out exactly what they wanted, and in some cases do his best to compromise. he’s an empathetic kid with a knack for reading people, and it was his coolest asset.

imo the thing that makes tim drake as a character great is the fact that he makes anyone feel like they could be a hero. his best moments are when he can solve mysteries and figure out puzzles by using methods that the reader might not have thought of but could definitely follow.

tim being a Genius Child Computer Boy is fine, but i don’t have the same connection with a character who uses his computer magic purely to get the story from point a to z with only some handwavey explanation that tim is “a genius” and that’s why. it also lowers the stakes when at any moment he could just Hack The System and avert the danger. it also massively takes away from the believability of tim as a Regular Kid Doing His Best, which is my favourite version of him.

i know he’s commonly characterized in popular fandom as like, a tortured genius who never sleeps and injects caffeine into his fucking bloodstream or something, and thats fine and valid, but that’s not how i read him. 

[mochuelovelli]

Lilith for the character ask?

Oh boy, a controversial character! Gotta say, I stan James Charles /J

How do I feel about this character?:

On a real note, I do like Lilith as a character. When we first meet her, she's pompous and proud. Oozing with entitlement, she's easy to route against and you like to see her get worked up and "brought down" to Eda's level as the wild which so eloquently put it. Later on, but not too much later that it feels disingenuous, we really get to see her show that she cares for her sister. One might believe it is *Eda* being ridiculous, as far as the audience is aware, Lilith's offer holds little downsides. Eda would be cured and be afforded the luxuries of the upper class AND keep her magic. All she had to do was be the Emperor's soldier.

As to not get off track by talking about Eda, (im sure Lilith herself would loathe that lol) Lilith's reveal to have cursed her sister over a spot in the emperor's coven was...controversial to say the least. I don't think it's unpopular to voice that, yeah. It could've been communicated better to the audience since I saw plenty of commentators and regular fans themselves either thought Lilith cursing her sister was *needlessly* petty and not at all thought out (which yeah it kinda was).

From where I stand on that issue is, yeah, Lilith's whole reason to curse her sister could've been avoided by just talking to her sister and asking her to let her have this. BUT, I think a lot of people forget that the Emperor's coven would want to limit the number of powerful witches in their coven. Sure, Belos would want to be protected by a bunch of loyal soldiers, but he wouldn't want too much of the population to ever have a much power as him. So limiting the number of members in not just his coven but possible in the other major covens, would aid in controlling that population.

This might be pure hogwash but like, there are a ton of other "lesser" covens. So in my mind, it's more likely that the general population of witches gets sorted into one of the various miscellaneous. If you think limiting yourself to only practicing Illusion magic sucks, imagine only practicing whatever the fuck the "swag coven" does.

Lol gonna add a page break this shit is getting too long

Romantic Ships for this character?:

Hm, it's only s1 and we haven't seen her interact w/ many characters outside of her fam/Belos/actual children. I kinda jokingly ship here with Steve lol. Kikimora and her also have a funny dynamic but in all actuality, I don't ship her w/ anyone rn.

Non-Romantic Ships for this character?:

Her and Hooty lol. I mean Eda is an obvious answer but like, Hooty fucking with Lilith is too funny to not want to see. Her and King would be great too, probably get some good B plots out of it. It would be a good contrast since they both can be petty but in different ways and I think that would help flesh out their characters a bit more and maybe cause some introspection (at least on Lilith’s end lol)

Unpopular opinion about this character?:

Lol. I feel like she is such a divisive character in general that most opinions about her aren’t too out of the main stream. I guess a more meta take is that when she’s portrayed in fanworks, usually fanfic but not exclusively, very...one note lol. She’s usually a pretty flat, boring character in an attempt to highlight the contrast between her and Eda. She’s the straight-laced, “responsible” sibling who has a chip on her shoulder. In fanon, that equates to her characterization to either be like, completely and utterly apologetic to the point where it becomes unbelievable for any person to do. Her apologizing or making amends is usually quickly forgiven by Luz/and or Eda. Sure, Luz is very forgiving person naturally but like?? She’s wasn’t mad in canon too much about THEIR well being (almost getting impaled), she was specifically pissed about Lilith betraying Eda. 

So, if Lilith is a big part of your story (and it’s working in the realm of canon), then this should be a problem which doesn’t get resolved by just ONE big action. I also feel like her being on better terms with Eda would come BEFORE Luz since Eda’s main gripe with her would be about her being annoyed by Lilith’s controlling nature and the fact that she didn’t trust her enough to talk about her feelings back when she was first cursed (also her using Luz against her but I feel like that would probably be a hurdle that wouldn’t really be over come until Lilith in turn would be willing to sacrifice herself for Luz while also making an effort to care for Luz as a person not just see her as a “pet”). Hhhh this section is so long and its kinda bleeding over in the next question so-

Something I wish will happen or would have wanted to happen in canon?:

yall if you are still reading I am so sorry sksk

I want Lilith in general, not to be forgiven by either Luz or Eda. Eda probably early on stating about how she is unsure if she could EVER forgive her sister for what she has done. BUT, critically, Eda would see that Lilith is trying and she is willing to work with her (with a unhelpful dose of teasing) because at the end of the day she still loves her sister. For the relationship they had before everything with south, for knowing her side of the story even though she believes it doesn’t justify her actions. She understands and sympathizes, she’s grown a bit softer thanks to Luz, which is very funny since I want Luz to be the one who is the hardest to convince Lilith actually had a change of heart but more on that later. 

Before I move on to what I want her path towards forgiveness with Luz looks like, I want to bring up a parallel that I haven’t seen many people make. Fans always talk about the parallel between the Clawthornes and Luz/Amity, and rightly so because there is a lot to extrapolate there, but I think another interesting dynamic that might be interesting to see in s2 would be an episode that focuses on lost friendship/sisterhood with the Clawthornes and Amity and Willow. It’s kinda funny that Amity and Willow’s friendship was ruined because Willow was too “weak” while Eda was too “powerful”. In a potential episode, it can show the progression both Eda/Lilith and Willow/Amity are making in rekindling their relationship with each other. For Eda and Lilith this would be a lot more rough around the edges since it both be either the first or one of the first attempts at doing so while Willow/Amity would maybe be further along yet still have some major/minor hang ups with one another. With Willow/Amity, their relationship would either be rounding the bend of fully moving past the “idk how to feel about you stage” or it is stated outright that Willow forgives Amity, (and by forgive, I mean in the “we both know what you did, you’ve actually changed. we won’t have the same relationship that we once had but I’m okay with trying again”). In contrast, Lilith and Eda would reach a understanding and come up with some ground rules on how to handle each other (Eda’s main take away from this “episode” would be what I previously stated in the last question), ones that will be more like guidelines cuz its Eda lol. Also what separates the Clawthornes conflict from the Willow/Amity one (besides the obvious) is that the Clawthornes both know how the other works. Which buttons to push and all that so both of them are going to have to learn to resist doing that, at least a bit, in order to actually progress. 

ANYWAYS, I also want Luz to be the one to regard Lilith the coldest. Luz refusing to let Lilith teach her anything despite probably having more practical/book smarts knowledge on magic theory than Eda because she doesn’t trust her. If they are gonna use that masked dude as a spy, I want Luz to assume Lilith is somehow a coconspirator. This plot thread doesn’t have to be going at 100% the whole time, (in fact I would want it to be a temp thing maybe lasting a couple eps at most or like, just something that is hinted at but not dived deeply until the second half of the season). Really, Lilith has a hard time because Luz straight up doesn’t give her the opportunity to really express her regret/remorse. Lilith probably won’t at first give her a ton of reasons to forgive her as she usually attempts at coming back at Luz’s snide remarks with her own quippy comebacks. Sksk a really angsty end to an attempt could include Lilith saying something to Luz after going on a small talk with her (where yeah Lilith has improved but still needs noticeable work) that she “reminds her a lot of Eda” and Luz bites back with something like “Oh yeah? You going to curse me too? You want another person you can force to do what YOU want?”. 

Hell maybe “parental problems” could have Lilith poke at, either on purpose or accidentally, Luz’s feelings about going back to the human world and Camila. Lilith reminding her, maybe unknowingly, reminds her a lot of her mom and that causes her to blow up on her. Luz would hate that comparison, thinking about how similar her mom and Lilith are to one another. That because she still has such a strong dislike of Lilith, it bleeds over into how Luz views Camila and vice versa. In that, both Camila and Lilith value respect, an adherence to the rules, have a great sense of wisdom (arguably for Lilith lol /hj), and (eventually for Lilith once she gets to know Luz better) a genuine want for Luz to succeed and belief in her even though they are critical of her actions at times. Sure Eda reminds her of that more, motherly protective kind of love, in which she would do anything for her to be happy and healthy. Lilith can be the other side of that, the worry and slight doubt. That familiar way they each go about trying to understand and get close to Luz yet not quite getting it yet would still do whatever she’d ask for her sake. Luz at first would take Lilith being disappointed in her actions as an accomplishment. As they grow closer and the more Lilith reminds her of her mom, it becomes scary. The disappointment hurts and in an effort not to feel like that again and to not want to think about the comparison between Lilith and her mother she will snap back at her. Eventually Lilith would then have to change again and reassure her that she cares and by extent, her mother cares to. It is here Lilith is willing to let go of being so constantly controlling and learns to encourage first (or do some form of the compliment sandwich) and Luz comes to peace with her feelings about her mother and understands her position better. To be able to love herself even if she knows that she will always try to do her best. 

oh my fucking god you made it im so sorry i guess i had a lot of thoughts. fffffff

[undertalethingies]

In Defense Of Chara

  I was writing something else, but as it slowly turned into a long winded and off topic defense of Chara as a character, I realized that writing something specifically geared to that and just linking it when it’s relevant is probably a better idea than having to individually defend them every time I bring them up.

  So let’s talk about why I think that Chara is, at worst, a sympathetic villain, and, at best, a hero almost as tragic as Sans.

  But first, we have to talk about the assumptions fandom makes about them, so I can more easily explain why I disagree.

  Fanon Chara is often portrayed as a one dimensional villain and, even more confusingly, the story’s main antagonist.

  Fanon Chara is a messed up little fucker. Some of the more common headcanons include:

Poisoning Asgore on purpose

Creating the plan with Asriel in hopes of either starting another war or eradicating humanity entirely

Inspiring Frisk/the player to perform the genocide run (frisk and the player in fandom often aren’t truly separate even when they nominally are, and I do plan to analyze that eventually because it’s very interesting and also has some interesting implications aaaand I’m getting off topic)

Possessing Frisk/the player for the entirety of the genocide run

Being the one responsible for skipping Papyrus’ puzzles (I do believe this one, but I think a lot of people forget that there’s no proof Chara is the one responsible for this, and also skipping Papyrus’ puzzles is a sin worse than murder)

  These aren’t necessarily incorrect, but the widespread acceptance they receive is more than a little concerning.

  Admittedly, Chara certainly plays into the villain role. They literally refer to themselves as “the demon that comes when people call its name”. Of course, this belies the existence of a caller, but taking responsibility for your actions within a game where you are clearly a canon character? Ridiculous. Insane. How could you suggest such a thing.

  And that’s the thing here. Chara says it to your face, even, when you reload the game after a genocide route. And since I don’t think I can really say it better, here’s their dialogue:

  “You want to go back to the world you destroyed.

  It was you who pushed everything to its edge.

  It was you who led this world to its destruction.

  But you cannot accept it.

  You think you are above consequences.”

  And the thing is? I can’t speak for gamers as a whole, I don’t have those stats, but in most of the let’s plays I’ve seen?

  They say no, or they’re joking when they say yes, but that’s pretty clearly exactly what they think.

  And well… they aren’t necessarily wrong. Undertale, despite its deep, entrancing story and occasional fourth wall breaks, really is just a game. Even the corruption of the true pacifist ending after a genocide route is something you can avoid via fucking with the files, complicated as it may be.

  But even if you can fuck up the files, you know what you did.

  You know that despite every warning, every character who practically begs you not to reset, you took away their happy ending just so you could see for yourself what would happen if you slaughtered them.

  You weren’t necessarily wrong to. Let me get that out of the way. All of the hate toward people who play the genocide run is utterly ridiculous and I do not endorse it in any way. (though I admit to being it that camp once upon a time until I remembered that it’s a video game)

  But you still feel bad, yeah? You did something amoral. 

  And there’s this convenient scapegoat right here to push all of those bad feelings off on…

  I mean, they destroyed the world! What’s more evil than that, right?

  Even if you’re the one who guided them to that point in the first place. The one who guided them down the dark path of LV.

  “My “human SOUL”.

  My “determination”.

  They were not mine, but YOURS.”

  In Undertale, your stats are tied to your SOUL. And Sans says that LV is a measure of emotional detachment. And if their SOUL is your SOUL…

  Do you see what I’m getting at here?

  This goes into headcanon territory, but it’s my personal hypothesis that as you gain LV, you’re slowly but forcefully uncoupling them from their compassion and ability to care about other people. 

  Put yourself in their head for a moment. You’re a human who climbed mt. Ebott for ‘an unhappy reason’. You hate humanity due to whatever mysterious things you’ve suffered. But you’re taken in by this kind monster family, and treated as an equal to the prince of all monsters without hesitation. Then you accidentally poison your new dad. You laugh it off, but…

  You’re told of a prophecy about an angel freeing the monsters. Apparently, they all think it’s about you. Your dad calls you “the hope of humans and monsters”.

  So you try to fulfill it. Only fitting that you die from the same flowers you poisoned your dad with, right? It’s nothing more than what you deserve, after all. Your last request is to see the flowers in your hometown, in hopes that Asriel will carry your body there and see what humans are really like, since you know he has his doubts.

  But something unexpected happens. When he absorbs your SOUL, you share control! Now you don’t have to worry about it!

  However, despite your best efforts, you both die horribly, and you leave this mortal coil with just one question. “What did I do wrong?”

  And then you’re back!

  You don’t understand… Your plan failed, didn’t it?

  Why are you still here?

  In this weak moment of moral quandary, as you question everything you thought you knew, still caught up in the spectacular failure that caused your death, and weakened even more by the fact that this human you’re following keeps killing everything, and oh gods, was I brought back to aid this piece of shit? And the yet further weak moment caused by your steadily increasing LV, and seeing them kill your mother- you give up. You give in. You close yourself off from caring about anything or anyone, because where has that gotten you? Dead, and everything you loved turned to ruins is what. Clearly, the whole world is a pointless endeavor, and you’ve been brought back to end its misery.

  And then this shitbag wants to bring it back?

  Then why the fuck did they do the whole thing in the first place?

  What kind of sadist would kill everyone you’ve ever loved just for shits and giggles?

  I’m not saying that Chara is a hero. I’m not even saying they aren’t a villain, however coerced. What I’m saying is that there’s more to them than meets the eye. 

  They aren’t a two dimensional character, yeah?

  (haha Character)

[shinneth]

SUF as a whole just left me with an empty feeling.

I feel you there, anon. In Dreams aside, I could take or leave the rest of this series (and in most cases, leaning well towards the latter sentiment). 

But I guess that’s to be expected when 90% of SUF focused squarely on Steven’s PTSD and need for therapy and the many, many red flags shown as early on as the beginning that signaled his eventual breakdown to where he ended up in the climax.

Especially with the fanbase itself constantly screeching that Steven needs therapy, Steven has PTSD, Steven’s gonna corrupt, et cetera… like, it was all laid on far too thick. So when we got to Growing Pains, it really didn’t move me like it did so many others because it came off as such a “No shit, Sherlock” moment for me when Priyanka finally addressed the underlying issues the show itself really didn’t even bother trying to be subtle about.

Don’t get me wrong; a lot of people who have suffered (or are presently suffering) from the same problems as Steven irl have been helped a lot by these kinds of episodes, and I do appreciate that.

But from my personal standpoint, yeah… I knew from the start that Steven’s underlying issues alone were not gonna be enough to sustain a full series, and sure enough, it wasn’t. We got to see some bits here and there with the other characters, but we also had a few choice characters be really shitty people in season 5 that never got properly addressed before it concluded, and with the timeskip in SUF, all of that just got handwaved off as “dealt with offscreen”, which is the laziest BS ever. 

And worst of all, at the end, they really didn’t stick the landing well at all. I’ll at least say SUF’s resolution wasn’t the mega levels of offensively terrible as Change Your Mind - but then again, it’s hard to out-do giving totalitarian space dictators with countless lives lost under their watch a fucking FACE-TURN out of nowhere. 

Like, really, the Diamonds’ presence (White especially) in SUF actively made my viewing experience even worse towards the end. Yes, I should be glad they’re establishing that the Diamonds are at least starting to use their powers for good and rebuild some of the lives they ruined.

But, y’know… doesn’t change the fact that they’re all responsible for multiple counts of global genocide. Like, any living creatures native to their colony planets? They’re still fucking gone. And the Diamonds themselves just come off VERY unnatural as “nice” guys - and in many cases, they’re even creepier now than they were as villains. Good god, White’s blubbering in the climax was fucking insufferable, though. 

Partially I think this comes from SU being a “kids show” so there’s this pressing need to end things as cleanly as possible. I’m more miffed that in the end, Steven still got pretty much everything he wanted.

They had some admittedly good set-ups to Steven’s growth, like having him accept that people grow up, change, and move on with their lives. We see the clear evidence that Steven’s got an unhealthy clinginess towards his human friends - and Connie’s no exception. 

And considering they took the time to establish that:

Connie has friends other than Steven. She gets along with them just fine, so it’s not like she’s totally lonely or isolated without him.

Connie is ambitious with many goals and aspirations when it comes to her education and potential career paths. She’s shown to have put a lot of thought into her options and at no point comes off as feeling pressured by her parents or friends into this.

Connie knows she has to work hard and often to achieve her dreams, and despite that rigid lifestyle, it doesn’t seem to bother her in the least. That would imply she really wants to reach these goals she set for herself, whether or not Steven’s in the picture at all.

Connie and Steven’s dynamic is a far cry from how it was when they started out in the original series. You can tell Steven has no clue what Connie’s talking about when it comes to her goals and just plays along, pretending he understands anything coming out of her mouth.

Connie, despite what her speech would lead you to believe, has been every bit as insufferably dense as the gems in SUF when it comes to Steven’s issues. In Bismuth Casual, Steven’s very specifically-worded concerns were misconstrued as a fear of skating (or his inability to, whatever) - and in the end, they just became Stevonnie rather than properly talked things through. You know, something PERIDOT 100% did in the prior episode.

Connie is very firm about wanting to live her life as herself. She’s not against being Stevonnie from time to time, but like hell does she want to be Stevonnie for the long term. 

Connie knows marrying in general at her age is a stupid-stupid-stupid idea, even if it is Steven. And considering her well-established commitment to her studies and reaching her lofty goals, Connie - at least at the time - seemed to know a relationship with anyone just wasn’t in the cards for her at this point in her life. There’s no need to rush that shit, and she won’t compromise her life just to give her needy friend this thing he wants that he doesn’t even fully understand truly is. 

Or, you know… just have Connie backpedal hard on a good chunk of that and date Steven so that he won’t become a monster again. I’m mostly kidding with that - but by kissing his monstrous self and that triggering his restoration, then soon later we see that even though Steven and Connie can only have a long-distance relationship at best, she’s dating him right now anyway even though this needlessly makes her life way more complicated than it needed to be - like seriously, how can I not take that as Canon Connverse being founded on the condition of “Okay, if it’ll keep you from losing your shit, going pink, and turning into a monster, I’ll date you”?!

And in the end it yet again gives Steven more-or-less exactly what he wants, even if it isn’t something he really needs. 

I’m glad Rebecca clarified that Steven would still visit Beach City often, because I had a very hard time buying him just traveling by himself on the road. And maybe it would have worked better if he was just doing it short-term to “find himself” or something along those lines, but nope! They’re basically saying this is what Steven wants to do.

And honestly, even that is dampened with his clearly-stated intention of visiting Connie way more than he intends to visit the gems. Even though Connie’s gonna be busy. With college.

This just… wasn’t a good ending. It had plenty of good moments - his goodbye to Bismuth, Lapis, and Peridot especially was very well-executed and the closest this finale came to drawing out any real emotion out of me. I loved the scene of Steven giving Greg his room; that was adorable. The last meeting with Tsundere Jasper was amusing.

But everything else… ehhh.

I mean, what can we really take from this season that I haven’t already outlined? The biggest takeaways were the plot points everyone saw coming a mile away that weren’t even executed all that well. 

In Dreams, as great at is was, might as well have not even happened - because what really carried over from that episode through to the end? Even though Peridot was the only one who got through to Steven, legitimately comforted him and addressed his fears, and the episode for once ended with Steven being happy with no underlying concerns about his problems - immediately he’s back to being awkward and depressed and frustrated by Bismuth Casual.

And I get that shit like trauma shouldn’t be resolved so easily, but for what In Dreams accomplished, I expected there to at least be a semblance of progress. Steven’s known since that episode he can hang out with Peridot and talk to her about whatever without needing a reason to do it, but he never ever takes her up on that again. 

So again, what was the point? 

You really get the impression that the quality of writing took a backseat just to emphasize the symbolism of an issue people commonly have, but SUF’s execution stretched my suspension of disbelief far beyond its limits. 

And nothing stretched that farther than Connie’s insufferable fucking speech in I Am My Monster; that pretty much completely made In Dreams feel like it never really happened in SUF’s continuity. 

In some ways, I just prefer to believe In Dreams was just a dream itself. An AU offshoot in SUF itself. Considering it’s so ridiculously good compared to the other nineteen episodes and by far the most pure and wholesome, maybe that’s the best way to see it. 

In Dreams was too good for its own series. That’s literally the only thing I personally took from SUF as a whole (at least in terms of lasting impact). 

So yeah, I guess for only one episode of twenty to really hit me in the feels, “empty” is an apt way to describe the series, anon. 

Seriously, if I didn’t have my own massive SU-AU to mess around in and do things properly, this probably would have upset me more. 

Instead, I just chuckle at Rebecca’s Monster Steven and raise her to what I’m putting my version of Steven through in my current story. Where I’m pulling all the stops to make other characters matter even though the stars are undoubtedly Peridot and Steven. 

And I’m actually making actions yield serious, lasting consequences.

(yeah, part of me wishes Jasper wasn’t revived - or alternatively, have Steven accidentally shatter White Diamond instead of Jasper since he came awfully close in canon

or even better, shatter Jasper and revive her, then accidentally shatter White and not be able to revive her since Steven used up ALL that diamond essence on Jasper…

yeah I’m kind of a monster)

Your pain is mutually felt, anon. So I’ll prescribe you endless refills of better-written and better-executed SU fanon to heal the emptiness SUF left inside you.