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austajunk · 2 years

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Komanami for the ship ask? >:)

Komanami

-Whether I ship it or not

YES YES YES A MILLION TIMES YES DO YOU KNOW HOW THIS BLOG GOT STARTED? It was started with my weird interest in this ship.

-Why I ship it or not

Honestly, I just find them interesting as each other’s parallels. Both of them seem to really understand each other and still have the dynamic “rivalry” setup that Byakuya and Kyoko do. But more than that, Nagito genuinely cares about Chiaki, but I don’t think he knows how to really express it. There’s times where he’s just weirdly protective over her and times where Chiaki puts in more of the effort to actually understand him more than the others. She can empathize with him sometimes better than even Hajime and just never holds it against him for setting her up to kill him. Not to mention, when she cradles him lovingly in the anime…

Oh and don’t forget the sparks when Chiaki was like “Actually there’s still evidence here” in the first trial and Nagito was like “… … I’m sorry… what was that?!” After that, he drank his Respect Chiaki juice. It’s awesome and tense and I love writing smut/fics where they are at odds with one another. :3

-My opinion on their canon potential (chemistry, canon interactions, etc)

Obviously we didn’t have them as a canon thing. There’s plenty of secondary canon interactions with them. And several times where Nagito is protective over Chiaki and vice versa. We know Nagito idolized her human self as an amazing source of Hope and seemed to break down as he was being brainwashed, letting his true feelings poke through as he was crying. We can speculate that this is because he genuinely messed up which is seemingly backed up by his crying out and asking Chiaki to understand and forgive him. But of course, he washes it off with claiming she’ll be a pedestal for Hope. Whether or not this is because he deeply cared for Chiaki or because his emotions are amplified by the brainwashing is the question. Personally I think it’s a lot of both.

The AI version of this is just as complicated. Nagito seems to care for Chiaki immediately, telling Hajime off for being noisy around her while she’s trying to game and being the only one to be concerned that she would guard the party against Monokuma. He also tells her to be safe and later on in the second chapter, doubles down on telling her to be careful around Fuyuhiko, not to let him get rough with her. During the first chapter trial, the two head off and Chiaki’s suggestions back Nagito into a corner. I think this is where he really starts to respect her and knows she’s one to watch out for. Afterwards, Nagito will go out of his way to praise Chiaki. He even makes it a point to steal her from their respective bf, Hajime, in the fourth chapter. But alas, he seemingly and probably smothers her, so Chiaki fled to find Hajime… only for Nagito to rush after her immediately and whine that she could be in danger!

It’s just such a funny relationship with potential. I wish there was more to pick up on, but at the same time, I’m so happy for what’s there and I’ll always talk about it!

They have a genuine chill chemistry if you want to see them in a more platonic and friendly light in canon… which I do like a lot. Canonly, I feel with all my heart that Chiaki’s love and Hope even after her death led to her classmates being reborn and able to find love with each other again with Nagito and Hajime. I think both of them still love her too.

-My opinion on fanon interpretations/fandom around it (Favorite widespread hcs, pet-peeves, etc)

Again, I think KomaNami fans in general feel like they have to be defensive. They have such lovely art and wonderful headcanons. They’re all about exploring what is there and taking it further. But of course, it’s a divisive ship because Nagito is “only gay” and I feel like a lot of biphobic rhetoric gets thrown our way. In essence, like every other group in this fandom, we all need to chill and know that we’re all valid and it’s so much fun.

We KomaNami fans are small, but I think we have amazing fics and art! And posts too. :3

#danganronpa #danganronpa 2 goodbye despair #nagito komaeda #chiaki nanami #komanami #thanks for the ask!#of course I get the first ship my blog posted about #I’ll always love and treasure them

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dendrite-blues · 3 years

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For a relatively short exchange, this scene is jam packed with characterization for Loki.

It’s also our first reliable look into what Loki was like before Thor 1. Not as described by others, but first hand and from his own mouth. I think that deserves a closer look, to see what we can learn about Loki and how he thinks.

This scene is significant because it tells us what Loki’s personality is like when he’s not running for his life. It tells us who he was before his trauma and what his core beliefs are underneath those layers of humor and bravado.

Better yet, since he’s alone we can assume that every line in this scene is presumably true, or at least Loki believes it to be true since he has no audience but himself.

The dialogue centers mostly around the statement “You deserve to be alone, and you always will be.” I’m not going to focus too much on the “alone” motif since I already dedicated an entire meta post to it.

What I think is more interesting about this scene is actually the looping, and the stages Loki goes through in trying to deal with it. There’s a lot of really interesting character traits on display in that progression.

Loop 1: A Warm Bath and Glass of Wine

The first loop entails Sif lecturing Loki about cutting her hair, kicking him in the balls, and storming away. Loki kneels on the floor and he gives us this great line:

“A bad memory prison? How quaint. Some punishment. I remember exactly what I did after that. I went and had a nice, hot bath and a glass of wine, and I never thought about it again. Because it was just a bit of fun.”

So we can take this to be Loki’s default reaction to pain and criticism. When put into an unexpected conflict without any forethought or outside influence, this is what he says/does.

1) Downplay the damage/threat. How quaint. 2) Dispel/soothe the emotion. Nice hot bath. 3) Minimize the impact. Never thought about it again. 4) Deflect responsibility. Just a bit of fun.

Keep those in mind as we move forward, since we’ll be using them to make sense of what else Loki says in this scene.

Loops 2 and 3: Okay, Sif, Hang On

This bit is about Loki realizing just how bad his predicament is.

L: Okay. Okay, Sif. Hang on. S: No, you hear this. You deserve to be alone... And I always will be. L: Alright, I get it. Listen. You are a reconstruction of a past event created by the organization that controls all of time. So you need to trust me and you need to help me escape. Yeah? S: Pathetic. (she kicks him again) L: (winces and groans)

As we all would expect from him, Loki’s first impulse is to try and talk his way out of it. What he says to achieve that goal is pretty revealing though. Because he doesn’t try to ease Sif’s upset by apologizing or explaining or offering to magic her hair back.

Any of these would have been more likely to save his nads in the given circumstance, right? The present threat is Sif, and she’s mad about what Loki did to her hair. But Loki doesn’t really see that. Rather, he treats her as a means to an end.

“So you need to trust me and you need to help me escape. Yeah?”

To me, that choice reveals something of a blind spot Loki has to the feelings of others. Even if he doesn’t actively like hurting people, he does prioritize their problems below his, and quite shamelessly. And at least on his first impulse, he doesn’t seem to feel much remorse or empathy for them.

Usually in fanon we attribute this callousness to his trauma. He’s learned that no one can be trusted and no one cares, and so he doesn’t allow himself to care for others.

But between his Loop 1 sentiment of “It was just a bit of fun” for an event which caused real hurt to Sif, and his Loop 2/3 behavior of “you, stop being mad and help ME” I think it’s reasonable to say that selfishness/low empathy are traits Loki possessed pre-trauma.

Loop 4-????: Happens Off Screen

It’s unclear how many times Loki loops while the camera is following Mobius, but the implication is clear that it was been many, many repetitions. Somewhere in this his denial and deflection must break, because we come back to a much humbler, more pleading Loki.

The Final Loop: I Crave Attention

S: You conniving, craven... L: Sif. Sif. S: ...pathetic worm. L: Please, please, no more. Please, I beg you. I'm a horrible person. I get it. I really am. I cut off your hair because I thought it'd be funny. And it's not. Uh... I crave attention... because I'm... a narcissist. And I suppose it's... It's because I'm scared of being alone.

HOOO BOY, so this is quite a tough bit to analyze. There’s a lot of interpretations you could make, and a lot of topics to delve into. For the sake of focus, I’m going to ignore the narcissism question. That one really needs an entire post, and I want to focus on something else here.

That being, Loki’s way of processing conflict/punishment.

I’ve always found it strange how Loki takes such pride in being called a liar and cheat when he simultaneously has this chip on his shoulder about how nobody likes him.

Those two traits don’t seem to play well together, and I always scratched my head over how they coexist in his character. If he wants people to be nicer to him, maybe he should stop antagonizing them? Yeah?

Well, here we’re finally given a clear reason. Loki craves attention, he hates being alone. So how does he avoid it? Pranks and mischief.

Fair enough.

But then, if all his pranks lead to this outcome--outrage, retaliation, insult--why doesn’t he ever learn? How is it that after 1000 years of this behavior, he hasn’t found a better way to get the attention he craves?

Loop 1: Downplay, dispel, minimize, deflect. He accepts zero accountability for the impact of his actions, and doesn’t think at all about how they affect other people. Just a bit of fun. I had a hot bath and a glass of wine, and never thought about it again.

The only reason he reaches the level of self awareness on display in the Final Loop is because the looping forces him to contemplate his actions and the impulses within him that lead to that behavior.

This is projection on my part, but to me he acts as though this kind of deep reflection is a new thing for him. He sounds like someone sharing a revelation that he’s just had about himself. We’re being shown that Loki is a man of action. He will always move forward if he can, possibly because looking back to so painful that he can’t bring himself to do it.

Circling back around to the pride Loki has for his knavery, let’s suppose that he’s been on this negative reinforcement cycle since childhood. He’s always acted out to get attention, then received retaliation and insults for it, and then pushed the bad feelings out of his mind with creature comforts and mental gymnastics.

What happens over time, when you’re being constantly told that you’re a pain in the ass and no one likes you? Most of us would take it to heart, but Loki doesn’t. He has a big ego, big enough to resist that constant barrage of hate coming at him.

So how does he marry these two conflicting realities?

He turns it into an identity, the God of Mischief.

In his head, Loki excuses himself of blame by shifting the culpability to his moniker. It’s not that he’s immature and petty, he’s just a “trickster.” It’s in his nature to cause trouble, so he can’t help it. You wouldn’t dangle a steak in front of a tiger and blame the tiger for striking, would you? And if other people can’t take a “joke” then that’s not his fault, that’s on them for not having a sense of humor. It was just a bit of fun.

Here we see the union of these two halves of Loki, the lonely ice runt and the mischievous scamp. (And a little bit of the original Loki who Thor accused of being incapable of growth!)

By refusing to think about others, and excusing himself from responsibility, Loki successfully preserves his self worth and insulates himself to most of the negative emotions he experiences.

Pain, embarrassment, and grief aren’t pointless emotions though. They are vital feelings that serve to regulate our behavior, and that push us to conform to the ways of our social circles. Without them, we annoy and upset others. Be annoying for long enough and you will eventually find yourself, well, alone. As Loki is.

Thus “Mischief” is a self-defeating loop, and Loki is just as caught in it as the cell Mobius trapped him in.

In order to be free of both traps, Loki has to stop running. He has to take a deeper look at himself and realize how much he is getting in his own way. The entire scene is one big parallel between these two “loops.” Pretty neat, huh?

Sadly these kinds of thought loops are really difficult to break, they’re buried so deeply in our personalities and habits that we usually don’t notice them until life forces us to address them.

The cell is Loki’s wake up call, and thankfully he does seem to rise to the occasion. He tells Sif quite clearly what his problem is, and he does it with beautiful, painful honesty.

Which is why it’s so fucking awesome for Mobius to acknowledge that, and to finally give Loki a taste of positive attention.

You don’t deserve to be alone. I believe you can be anything, even something good. Whatever you two did, it was powerful enough to bring this whole place down.

It’s a beautiful scene. Well written, meticulously acted. The clarity of vision in the pacing and shot selection, it’s really something special.

#loki spoilers #loki #mcu #mobius #meta #discussion #discourse #scene study #long post #sif #time loop #tva #character study

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im-still-watching-anime · 3 years

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warning: this post is just me ranting about the writing of the naruto women for far too long

i honestly feel that one of the most frustrating/vaguely hilarious aspects of naruto is how naruto ended up being - and bear with me here - the best example of the extremely specific female archtype that kishimoto seemed to be obsessed with.

like when you focus on sakura and hinata - arguably the most important female characters in the show as the two male leads’ respective end game love interests - you can break them both down into the same general mold:

- both devoted to the same boy their entire lives

- both are shown chasing after their crush in order to stand on “equal” footing (i.e. sakura’s “i finally caught up to them” and hinata’s “no longer chasing but standing by your side” mentalities)

- both suffer and try to overcome feelings of inferiority in their respective character arcs

and i want to be clear that while female characters who fit this mold aren’t usually my favorite thing it can definitely still work when written carefully and written well - to be blunt i personally think both hinata and sakura are awesome character concepts and both had SO MUCH potential and i love their fanon interpretations but i feel that canonically they were poorly written, underdeveloped, and flat characters

most of their canonical character motivations revolve around their love interests - which really sucks because i would have KILLED for a deeper look at everything involving hinata and the hyuuga or even more about sakura’s development of her medical ninjustsu so much got skipped when it came to them which definitely didn’t help anything - that aside this is especially true in og naruto though to be fair - sasuke was still in konoha in og naruto and team seven was together for most episodes which made it especially prevalent in sakura’s case

the point is by the time shippuden came around it was extremely obvious that efforts were being made to improve the female characters - sakura now had much higher combat ability from the start of shippuden and, though she gets much less focus hinata is repeatedly shown doing brave acts and pushing herself to become stronger. and while i really loved the effort and it was definitely an improvement from especially sakura’s original character - it still fell flat to me.

sakura’s fight with sasori was perfect and a great way to revive her character but then she was pretty stagnant in a lot of the following arcs - i.e. injured in the reunion arc, not very important during the two saviors arc, her weird fake love confession during the assembly of the five kage arc, etc. - she constantly bounces between “now i’m strong” and “i still don’t measure up” making her character development - especially pre-war - virtually nonexistent because every step forward gets followed by a step back.

hinata is a bit more difficult simply because she’s such a minor character for so much of shippuden which is insane since she’s literally the protagonist’s future wife. regardless, looking at hinata’s big moments: her fight with neji in og naruto, blocking naruto from pain in shippuden, and the Smack during the war (there’s a few i’m missing i’m sure but those are really what constitutes her biggest moments to me during the meat of shippuden’s actual development phase - not the post war resolution phase) two of three of these moments precede her getting very heavily and soundly beaten which personally irks me - even if i don’t particularly like it i can see why and it makes sense to me she didn’t win the fight with neji or her pain confrontation and it definitely shows that she is brave and emphasizes the all-important devotion to her love interest aspect of her character BUT it’s also a little obnoxious that we never get to see her be REALLY victorious in her major moments.

so to sum up so far: sakura and hinata are both meant to be perceived as innovative and strong female characters but this perception doesn’t work in sakura’s case because she immediately repeatedly reverts back to the damsel in distress archtype and it doesn’t work in hinata’s case because the few strong moments she has are highlighted by failure.

and also the all important point that the majority of their “strong moments” are driven by their love interests - not a bad motivation except for the fact that that is one of their ONLY motivations

to the main point i’m trying to make: lets compare naruto (obviously take this with the understanding that naruto has a MAJOR advantage of having way more screen time and development as the titular character)

in regards to sasuke, naruto:

- is extremely devoted

- repeatedly chases after sasuke to match-up with him and improve

- and, especially in og, struggles with feeling inferior to sasuke

the context is a little different and the motivation behind some of the points changes between the two but it’s the exact same mold as sakura and hinata

the major difference between the two and the main reason that so many more people get frustrated with sakura’s devotion to sasuke and not naruto’s really boils down to development

sakura barely had her own character outside of loving sasuke and when she did, it immediately got downplayed in some way - just look at the war arc and her triumphant “i finally caught up to them” right before both sasuke and naruto essentially gain godlike powers, she then spends the war constantly distracted by sasuke even when fighting “sasuke isn’t worried about me at all” which really downplays her role.

on the flip side, even with his main goal of bringing sasuke back to the village, naruto has tons of motivation and character building outside of sasuke - ex. becoming hokage, gaining everyone’s acceptance, fixing konoha, living up to his parents/jiraiya’s expectations, bringing peace, protecting everyone he can, freeing the tailed beasts, etc. etc. you could go on forever the show is named after him after all.

we are told that sakura always chooses sasuke and nothing else about it but then we are told that naruto chooses sasuke despite everything else.

to sum up: the traditional female love interest that kishimoto wants to invent is the woman who is devoted. she puts the person she loves above everything else because she loves him. she’d do anything for that person even if it puts her at risk, etc. but at the end of the day there’s still the tired trait of still relying on the man in her life for certain things. and he doesn’t bother to expand characters like sakura and hinata beyond that. (great examples of characters who are almost completely separate from this mold are tsunade and temari - though one might argue about the way they were written designed to fit specific tropes for comedic moments - personally i think they manage to dodge that for the most part though)

with naruto and sasuke - naruto manages to fulfill every roll sakura is meant to in a much more elaborated and better way all without the curse of the female love interest that sakura and hinata bear. it’s hard to accept sakura and hinata’s “i’ll love you no matter what” when naruto is already actively outright doing that with sasuke. the roots of sakura’s feelings for sasuke, hinata’s feelings for naruto, and naruto’s feelings for sasuke are all exceptionally similar to one another which is what shoots kishimoto’s main romances in the foot - because it’s hard for them to measure up to the main “platonic brotherly” relationship he built between sasuke and naruto.

this post is obviously disregarding a lot of the Other really deep parts of sasuke and naruto’s relationship and some important points about the other women of naruto. also it’s important to think on the time period naruto and naruto shippuden were written in. we’re in a major incline period for improvement in how women are presented in fiction - just look at the difference of women between og and shippuden. obviously it doesn’t completely excuse anything but it’s a point to consider.

sorry for the rant and sorry if this is all really obvious to you or if it’s worded poorly, kinda just needed to word vomit my thoughts. i really like analyzing how women are represented in fiction and how the representations have developed over the years. i wrote a few essays about it for some of my courses and now i think about it all the time. obviously i’m not claiming this is how everyone should view these characters or anything i just had lots of my own thoughts about the entire situation and dynamics that i had to put SOMEWHERE. if you have any thoughts about it or points you wanna bring up feel free to do so i love fiction analysis a lot so i love hearing other people’s opinions

#naruto #naruto shippuden #naruto analysis #20 years old and doing naruto analysis in my spare time rip #long post #pls ignore my messy thought process i haven't been sleeping super well so i'm not sure about the clarity on this one tbh #also sorry i know this isn't like my usual posts was just in a Mood #if any of you like my awful takes let me know because i have tons of them i just never post any because the posts end up stupid long like so #anyone who read the whole thing im sorry are u okay?#my posts #also i know sometimes these posts can bother some people so let me know if i need to add any tags to help with that! i gladly will

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panharmonium · 4 years

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I like good romantic pairings as much as anyone else but lbr viewing media solely thru the lens of “shipping” is rly reductive, so I appreciate ur view on romance not being a priority in merlin. Like, I’ve seen too many posts abt Merlin mocking Arthur at their first meeting w ppl saying things like “that is not a straight thing to say 👀” Guys. You’re missing the point, which is that Merlin is brave and cheeky and rn Arthur is a bully. It’s a good moment, but an obsession w shipping ruins it yk?

god, yes. thank you.

i'm putting the rest of this under a cut just because i know for a lot of people the above kind of fandom experience is fun, and i'm not here to harsh anyone's vibe. i'm glad that people are able to enjoy fandom in their own way, and me talking about my own preferences does not mean i think anyone else should change what they're doing. i am comfortable curating my own fandom experience to suit my needs - @ everyone else, please continue to do your thing and have fun with it!

I’ve seen too many posts abt Merlin mocking Arthur at their first meeting w ppl saying things like “that is not a straight thing to say”

YES. this is my least favorite shipping-related trend ever.

it's not just that scene. it's every single moment in the show (and not just between merlin and arthur, either). every possible interaction gets pulled out and twisted to be about how in love two characters must be, when the actual point is Clearly Not That, and it's exhausting. i know other people find it fun, and i'm glad they're having fun, but for me, it's exhausting.

for a show where the main character canonically demonstrates virtually zero interest in romantic attachment, it's really...difficult for me sometimes to fully immerse myself in this fandom, because almost all of the fannish content is about shipping merlin with arthur. and if you don't think arthur is good enough for merlin (valid lol), you ship him with gwaine, or somebody else who you think would treat him better. merlin without a love interest - the merlin i know from canon - is so hard for me to find. i don’t really see him anywhere.

(also, to clarify: the PEOPLE in this fandom are fantastic. everyone I've encountered in my limited experience has been beyond lovely; and pretty much everyone I've met has always seemed totally warm and welcoming of various ships and opinions, which obviously isn't something you find in every fandom, so in that sense, my experience with the merlin fandom has been consistently awesome. what i'm musing about now isn't individual shippers or their preferences; it's about the overarching content-related experience of being a non-shipper in a fandom where, content-wise, shipping is The Main Thing To Do.)

and of course, this isn't just a merlin fandom trend. this is the way things have been done in every fandom i've ever been involved in. every single interaction between two characters always ends up getting pulled out and viewed through a shipping lens, and suddenly everything about the characters as individuals is made to be about the relationship. EVERYTHING. things that very clearly have actual, non-romantic explanations get taken out of their context and framed as "they're in LOVE."

and again, as I said before - there's nothing inherently wrong with that, and if people have fun with it, good! that's what fandom is for. but it's not my jam, and it can be a bit frustrating sometimes, because a) it’s a reductive analysis, like you said, and b) as someone who is deeply invested in all the friendships on this show, i'm not sure what the institution of friendship is even supposed to look like in this fandom. does it actually exist? because a character can't do anything even remotely kind without immediately having it captioned "they're so in love" or "today in totally platonic things, winkwink nudgenudge"

what tiny smidgen of caring is small enough to fall under the category of friendship? how cold and unfeeling do characters have to be with each other for their interactions to qualify as friendship? literally everything that happens in merlin bbc is, in fact, a product of the love merlin feels for his friends, and nothing about that fact was ever difficult for me to believe while i was watching the show, but once i got out into the wider fandom, it was like that just wasn’t possible. nobody would do these things for "just" friends. nobody would be that gentle or caring or loving with "just" friends. nobody would look at "just" friends like that. nobody would grieve for “just” friends like that.

to borrow a phrase from one of george lucas's discussions about a different media issue - "i don't like that and i don't believe that."

nothing about that philosophy is interesting to me, or remotely realistic. and i don’t necessarily think it’s what shipping as an institution is actively trying to communicate, but it is still what’s actually being said in those kind of *wink wink, nudge nudge* posts.

[it’s worth noting also that the *wink wink, nudge nudge*, “every little thing is romantic” lens only applies when people want it to. i see a lot of the following two modes in the merlin fandom: when it comes to merlin/arthur, fanon interpretation of the show is twisted to make every single one of their interactions serve as evidence for an imaginary romance, but when it comes to arthur and gwen's actual, demonstrated romantic attraction for each other, fandom twists everything the opposite way. i constantly see posts that are like "i think arthur and gwen loved each other, but they weren't IN love" - uh-huh. ok. convenient, that. suddenly we’ve lost the ability to perceive romance in every single innocuous gesture? apparently we can fabricate romance out of two people blinking at each other, but only when the relationship in question is a pretend pairing we wish was real. otherwise, the canonical romance and all of its attendant acts of devotion just don’t register.]

and you know, it's whatever. i've been involved in fandom long enough to know that this kind of shipping is just how things always go, and i’m happy enough keeping to my own area and trying to curate my fandom experience in a way that brings me the most enjoyment. but i 100% feel you on ubiquitous shipping goggles being a difficult thing to constantly navigate.

#fandom #replies #the once and future slowburn #this is another episode of 'pan is tired of constant shipping' so if you know that's gonna bug you - scroll by!#<< fair warning has been given and the read-more has been applied #that's as much as i can do

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 4 years

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for the celestial ball asks: 3, 4, 10, 17, & 18.

Oh thank you so much for asking! Let’s get this party started!

3: How did your MC get asked to the Ball {or} How did they ask someone to the Ball (even just as friends or as a group)

In the canon Celestial Ball, I’m definitely going with Ben for Gail because it’s the one time he’s actually an available option and he’s the person that she’s closest to - but it’s probably just as friends. Gail will bide her time until Badeea is available. As for Luca, I may just go with Merula for every quest across the board, or I might go with Tulip for as long as she’s available first. We all know how the Asking plays out for the Celestial Ball, but I figure Gail would be the one to do the asking, Luca would probably get asked because they’re shy. Though I can genuinely see something like...I dunno, Luca trying to write Merula a song. It would be absolute trash. But a sweet effort. I can see Gail not even asking Ben and more like, telling him. She can be a tad controlling, but she means well.

For the Yule Ball/Circle of Khanna class reunion idea, I figure it would go something like this. Luca and Penny meet up with Ismelda and they all go to visit Beatrice as she’s getting out of Potions class or something. (You’ve seen enough of my posts to know where this is going.) Cue Luca and Bea awkwardly trying to catch each other’s eye because they’ve been writing to each other for a while but probably haven’t seen each other for several months. Beatrice off-handedly mentions that no one asked her to the Celestial Ball. Penny catches on and makes an excuse to drag Ismelda away. There’s no official asking because I feel like these two have a lot of non-verbal communication, but before leaving Beatrice gets frustrated and says something to the effect of “Just promise that I can depend on you for a dance or two.” Luca takes the hint and offers, “Maybe more than that?”

4: Did your Jacob ask anyone or get asked to the Ball (even just as friends)? If so, how?

Assuming some kind of dance happened pre-HPHM for this one. I am, and I have always been, a major fan of Duncan/Jacob. In my head-canons, these two are constantly competing and trying to one-up each other, but also trusting one another with their lives. Jacob is the one Fawley that I can see Beating, and I think Duncan would have too. They’d try to outdo each other constantly - but also defend each other from outside threats with no hesitation. There’s only one brain cell on site and Olivia is the one to hold it. I figure she would push both of them into acting on their feelings. Try to encourage them to rise to the “challenge” of making their feelings known. Beating the other to the punch in asking them to the dance. Essentially, I interpret this dynamic as being like a blend between MC’s bond with Rowan, and their bond with Merula.

Jacob and Duncan both launch into convoluted plans to try and lead the other into a “trap” where they can be asked out and they’ll say yes. It comes to a head when they argue about all the previous tricks they’ve pulled on each other and Olivia, ever the Harry to this Romione romance, bursts into the room and yells “Oh my god, you two fancy each other! Duncan, you’re taking Jacob to the Ball and that’s final!” Or something to that effect. At which point the two boys start to stammer and be all flustered and shy around each other for the next few days. It’s great. Of course, once they actually get to the Ball, all bets are off and they try to out-dance each other, because that’s just what they do. It’s like Fred and Angelina but even more intense.

10: Do your MC and Jacob have a “routine”? (Aka song and/or dance they perform together?)

I’m gonna be real with you. Luca adores Jacob. Gail cannot stand him. Oh sure, she loves her brother, of course she does. But Luca would say that Jacob is their favorite person in the world. Gail would say “He shares my blood so I’m obligated to hang out with him, even though he’s infuriating.” All that being said, Luca is exceptionally shy and doesn’t know how to dance, but I feel like Gail would actually really like dancing even if she’s low-key about it and never really mentions it. And then there’s Jacob. He would be the child that jams out when music is playing in the house and starts a concert every time. I’ve said before that my Jacob has more in common with the fanon version of young Sirius Black than anyone else, and...yeah, it would take a lot of coaxing but he would convince Luca to rock out with him in some kind of duet. Maybe Gail would go first, just to help Luca feel less shy. Only to tell Jacob afterward “Yeah, this never happened.” And push Luca onto the dance floor. Course, once they actually start dancing, they forget their social anxiety because Jacob always makes them feel better.

As to what the songs would be? Well, we only know like, a handful of songs that wizards actually listen to because Celestina Warbeck and the Weird Sisters are the only two artists we really know of. But there are several invented musical artists that I’ve heard of “Stupify’d” is one, as well as the “Bent-Winged Snitches” seriously, that one makes me crack up. The Fawleys all grow up listening to Wizarding Wireless Network. But there are also the songs that the Frog Choir uses, and because the Fawleys all adore Professor Flitwick and I’m such a stan for the Prisoner of Azkaban film, I feel like a perfect song for any two of the three Fawleys to duet a dance to, would be “Double Trouble.” Seriously, Jacob and their Sibling dancing to that song. Tell me it’s not perfect.

17: If your MC had an Entrance/Walkout song (that played when they walked into a room, such as entering the Ball, or the Great Hall after break, or onto the Quidditch pitch if they play - guess this could also be considered a “theme” song) what would it be?

I feel like this is getting a bit more meta, and would have less to do with songs that actually play in-universe. But for cinematic moments, there’s always an awesome background music, right? If you think I haven’t widely considered the various background themes for the Fawleys in various situations, you are quite mistaken my friend! So let’s get to it!

First of all, Luca’s overall theme. It wouldn’t really work for the faster paced, more exciting moments...but this is the song of their soul. I found it fitting because “emotion” is the name of the game with Luca. Their greatest strength is the freedom of their emotions and the kindness they express. Gail’s overall theme is likewise pretty emotional, but quieter, and a bit more sinister because she tends to flirt with the dark side a little more, but she’s one of those characters who doesn’t believe that she’s done anything wrong. Ironically, I used the theme of a character who I’ve compared to Jacob in the past.

As for more victorious, happy moments...like Quidditch games or special events like the Ball, it’s a bit more difficult to say, but I know what Luca’s theme would be. Seriously, I can imagine this playing during a Quidditch game where they’re a chaser. It’s just perfect. Exciting but light hearted. Gail’s theme is still a bit up in the air, because she’s so much more ambiguous. Actually, I think I know just the song. This captures the erratic turmoil in her heart, that she always hides under calm elegance. Rakepick taught her well, after all.

18: If your Jacob had an Entrance/Walkout song, what would it be?

Speaking of ambiguity, I know what Jacob’s overall theme would be. This is the song that I can hear playing in all of the moments where Luca and/or Gail investigate his disappearance and learn about all the shady activities he was getting up to. Imagine this song playing when MC reads the note from R to Jacob, or his notebook where he talks about Rakepick. Meanwhile, I do have a song in mind for his more exciting scenes as well, like where he’s dancing, making an entrance, or flying in to a Quidditch game. You’re probably going to think I’m silly if you know this song, and even if you don’t - but it matches what a badass Jacob is, what a broken hero he’s always been. The ultimate renegade. This song signals that Duncan is dead and R has made a serious mistake. They’ve made an enemy of Jacob Fawley. He’s coming for them. The one they fear.

#Fandom Asks #Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery #HPHM Jacob's Sibling #HPHM Jacob #Hogwarts Mystery OC #Luca Fawley #Gail Fawley #The Fawley Twins

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yumi-michiyo · 6 years

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[The Shortest Distance] - extended author’s notes and meta

Watch this space! Instead of making a whole new post for each chapter, I'll be compiling everything here as I post the chapters. [Updated 27th January 2019]

Rating: M for language and explicit sexual content. TW for mentions of eating disorders and anxiety

Genre: Slice of Life/Angst/Friendship/Humour/Hurt/Comfort/Fluff/Romance/Friends to Lovers

Couples: Marley Rose/Quinn Fabray (main), side Santana Lopez/Rachel Berry, side Finn Hudson/Brittany Pierce, side Wade "Unique" Adams/OMC

Pairings: Marley Rose/Quinn Fabray, mentioned Marley Rose/Jake Puckerman, Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray friendship, Quinn Fabray/Santana Lopez friendship, Marley Rose/Wade "Unique" Adams friendship, all the friendships okay

Summary: It starts with a friendship composed of books, lazy summer afternoons, and understanding; and blossoms into more. Slowburn Fabrose. Season 4 canon divergence!AU.

Links: FF.net | AO3

On the origins:

This. Work. Took. Too. Long.

Seriously, the plot got written, scrapped, revived and revised, scrapped, etc. far too many times to count. From being a slight supernatural!AU like For You I'd Burn the Length and Breadth of Sky, to a fic running parallel to canon, to a canon fix-it fic... I'd all but thrown in the towel on this. Most of it only existed in a scraps folder in my Google Drive, and I'd go add more unconnected scraps whenever I needed a break from other WIPs.

Eventually, the scraps accumulated such that there was some semblance of plot, and I got very fond of some long scenes; enough that there was motivation to turn it into a fic on its own.

On the writing process:

A few scraps and loose ends from my other Fabrose fic found their way inside, but quickly grew into their own thing. I think the reason why I've struggled so much with this fic is because I don't have a good handle of Marley's character. I'll be the first to admit that I don't even like many of the canon main characters, and that my headcanons are mostly derived from other fanfic, but there isn't much Marley in the first place, meaning I had to work hard lol.

Most of the actual writing took place in transit, on my weeny iPhone 6s screen, with my overworked thumbs. Not something I recommend to casual writers. I upgraded my phone! Now I have a much larger screen for on-the-go writing, and a new mechanical keyboard for editing/more stream-of-consciousness ramblings.

On the chapter titles:

A special mention! I don't think I've written much about how I choose my fic titles; I think it's because half the time it's a slapdash process, and the other half comes with a lot of thinking.

I love music, and it shows when I use plenty of song lyrics in fics and titles. My taste in music is pretty eclectic, but I can assure you that I actually like all the songs I pick for my writing, and I'm not just picking random profound-sounding lyrics off the Interwebs lol.

I do have a few criteria for picking song lyrics. One, it has to be relevant to the subject lol. Two, it has to have some depth which alludes to whatever hidden message is in the fic. Three, of course it's something I actually enjoy, as mentioned earlier. I think this is really important because I do pick up music recommendations from fanfic, and treasure them for the positive assocations brought from fic I've enjoyed. I think it's important to do the same.

Instead of linking endlessly, I've created a YouTube playlist collecting all the music used in this fic. Find it here.

Prologue: Title is from Marina and the Diamonds. I loved her first album Electra Heart and not because she was covered on Glee; Marina has this punchy, catchy style with awesome lyrics. She later released Froot, another genius work that needs a lot more attention than it's gotten.

Part One: Another Marina and the Diamonds lyric. Can I just take this opportunity to plug her album?

Part Two: Sam Smith, my love. His music always makes me want to write the angstiest, most heartbreaking things. He's one of the few artists out there now who writes the most obscure and complicated feelings into music.

Part Three: This was supposed to be the title of the entire fic, but I forgot lol. I like the Charles Bukowski quote better, but at the very least this wonderful song from Leonard Cohen gets a mention.

Part Four: Very different in tone from all the previous songs mentioned. I found the Arctic Monkeys' lyrics to be deep and intriguing, which is interesting compared to their melodies and catchy beat.

Part Five: This was a struggle! There are so many good songs out there with really great lyrics that could fit into the chapter and the themes I was going for, but in the end, I went back to Lea (as I tend to do for my fics). I wanted that aimless feeling Marley has for most of the chapter.

Part Six: I love Yellowcard. I've been a fan for more than a decade, for their excellent lyrics and wonderful melodies, their instrumentation and their creativity. Most of their songs deal with heartbreak, so it's rare that I come across a song of theirs that encapsulates so well what I wanted to convey in their early relationship.

Part Seven: One of my best buddies, IRL and in fandom, loves K-pop. She's been trying to brainwash me for years, and so far she's been having quite a lot of success; I've written a few things that are inspired by K-pop lyrics. The inspiration for this fic came from a new song from Mamamoo, which is made up of four very talented ladies.

Part Eight: I haven't been discovering music for a while, but Paramore's latest album was a pretty refreshing find. I was looking for something light that described the mood of this chapter.

Part Nine: Apparently, Vienna Teng's work has been something of a mainstay in fandom; which makes sense, with her poignant lyrics and soulful piano ballads. I discovered her through the Studio Ghibli fanfics written by Saddletank, who makes extensive use of her music with great effect.

Part Ten: I discovered the genius of Fleetwood Mac through Glee. It was the perfect time, now that I was going through things IRL that made the music relatable and meaningful. While not one of my favourite songs, the lyrics resonate best with the chapter.

Part Eleven: William Ryan Key (better known as the frontman of the pop-punk band Yellowcard) recently launched a solo career. He writes the gentlest, most profound acoustic ballads I have ever heard. Most of what I envision Marley's music to be is his work (with elements of Kina Grannis' artistry and Sara Bareilles' lyrics), and I would pay good money to hear Melissa actually perform his songs.

Part Twelve: Those who read my fics can definitely tell that I'm a massive Sara Bareilles fan. The woman is a delightful human being, and an immensely talented singer-songwriter (is it obvious I have a thing for talented people?). Again, the reasons for picking songs is really to set the mood and atmosphere for the chapter; the lyrics may or may not be directly relevant to the story.

Part Thirteen: Kina Grannis recently rose to fame performing a cover of Elvis' Can't Help Fallin' in Love With You in the movie Crazy Rich Asians. I love her style and interpretation of songs.

Part Fourteen: It's rare when canon and fanon intersect, and I'm always very happy to make a big production out of it. I loved Melissa's performance of this song, and I was actively looking for some way I could give it a nod. And so when I was writing this chapter, I listened to it on repeat.

Part Fifteen: It's always nice when things work out :) earlier I had a Marley song, and now it's Quinn's turn (conveniently ignoring Puck's part lol). While Marley's part was about taking the plunge, Quinn's was about getting over past hurts and building a stronger relationship.

Epilogue: I've used Sara Bareilles' music plenty of times in my work. Normally, I hate reusing music, but it was impossible to pass up the opportunity to use this beautiful song to wrap up a giant labour of love.

General Meta:

Prologue-Part One: These two chapters were intended to set the tone of the early relationship between canon!Marley and canon!Quinn, which then contrasts their new/old relationship when they meet again a few years later. They establish a friendship out of common interests (and a lack of anything better to do) which I think also gets them to understand each other a little better. I hope.

I took this opportunity to also set the friendship between Marley and Unique. Strong female (?) friendships are something always lacking in Glee, and I wanted to pay homage to these two awesome ladies. Also, Unique and Marley's friendship acts as a foil to the one Quinn and Marley start to forge here - because, clearly, the latter two are gonna end up together lol.

Part Two: Rachel gets introduced! Again, more comparing and contrasting: Quinn and Rachel's friendship vs Marley and Unique's, Quinn and Marley's friendship vs Quinn and Rachel's. Our girls also start to open up to each other. Recently, I've been following Chuck Palahniuk's writing advice (which I have printed out and stuck on my wall): Instead of characters knowing anything, you must now present the details that allow the reader to know them. Instead of a character wanting something, you must now describe the thing so that the reader wants it.

Part Three: A bit more background, a bit more development. In the previous chapter Marley opened up to Quinn about her eating disorder, in this one Quinn starts to open up about some of her past. It was hard writing this one mostly because Marley, unlike Rachel, wasn't privy to a lot of the things Quinn went through (this plays a big part in their relationship after they get together later down the line).

Rachel and Santana are together in this one! I would say more stuff about foils, comparing and constrasting, but by now you should've noticed it's something I do a lot. It's crucial that they're together in this fic because the girls do help our clueless pair move things along.

Also, I think y'all are pleased that I finally had Quinn dump her (off-screen) boyfriend lol.

Part Four: I loved writing this chapter. Now that we've established the friendship between our girls, I panned out a bit to cover more of the world they live in, and the people and events that shape their lives. It was a bit of a challenge since Quinn is now working, and Marley still a college student, but I hope I've done a decent job.

I get the feeling y'all hate me for putting Marley with some random man, but I think it's important. Marley is still very underdeveloped as a character herself, with loads of confused feelings. She needs to mature a little more emotionally, make decisions for herself, experience a little heartbreak, before she can be ready for an emotional minefield like Quinn Fabray.

It's not a coincidence that Quinn's ex is named Blake, and Marley's (soon to be ex?) is named Alex, by the way... Also, speaking of names, it will likely never be mentioned in the fic but Stan's full first name is Æthelstan (poor dude). Valentino is an arowana because of that fantastic expression. I headcanon that he's always judging the goings-on in that apartment.

Part Five: THEY FINALLY KISSED ALKSFHO

In which the girls take a step forward after nearly 60k+ words of slowburn - trust me, it was killing me almost as much as it was killing you guys. But I was trying to make it was organic as possible, and as y'all know Marley doesn't have much of a stable romantic background to draw from, and her closest role models are all certifiably insane.

There are a lot of challenges upcoming for them, which I will have to spend a good deal of time delineating. I am really invested in these two at this point.

Part Six: After all that slowburn, my brain kinda went into overdrive. The draft I had for this fic originally ended here, but I couldn't do that to you guys aren't you glad I didn't. So the first half came into being, with its gratituous fluff and their friends' reactions.

The second half came while I was developing Millie's reaction; I wanted to make a comparison between Millie and Judy as single moms. But to be a foil to how open Millie is, Judy had to be the bad mom. I hadn't intended her to come off as so cruel, but she's not truly evil. Quinn has to get her sharp tongue from somewhere LOL.

Also! Finn and Brittany! I gave them a brief moment in my other fic For You I'd Burn the Length and Breadth of Sky but killed Finn off uwu. I've been fond of this rarepair for a long time now, and it seemed fitting to put another rarepair into this fic. Additionally, I am such a sucker for couple angst, like the Rachel/Santana/Finn/Brittany dynamic. They really deserve a fic of their own, the poor things, but we'll see how it goes. This fic is primarily a Marley/Quinn, and will remain that way because I lack the mental capacity and patience to write a fic with two main couples without wanting to gouge my eyes out.

Some of you active and astute readers might notice a lot of mentions of stuff foreshadowed earlier in the fic, with extremely tiny throwaway moments being revisited in this chapter. I assure you this wasn't intentional, and I'm in no way the awesome and masterful writer all this makes me out to be.

Part Seven: Dear god, I was so busy with life I totally forgot to write the author's notes for this chapter... Anyway, the entire thing is about tying up loose ends. They're dealing with their problems while the shadow of Marley leaving hangs over them, and making the best of their time together.

And yes! I heard a lot of happy squeals when this fic finally earned its M rating. For those of you who are wondering about the sudden sexytimes in the middle of bigger issues, well... let's just say that it has consequences.

On a side note, I hope none of you out there were rooting for Marley to stay in NY. Don't worry, this is a romance fic, and there will be a happy ending.

Part Eight: When you don't have time to update the author's notes when you update the story... This was a pretty interesting chapter to write. Mostly because I was figuring out how they build up after the loose ends in the previous chapter have been taken care of.

Not really knowing Marley's canon character has been an obstacle in writing this fic, right from the beginning. She's also not a popular fanfic character but I do like a challenge.

Can you tell I watched La La Land as research for life in LA for this chapter? The music has been pretty stuck in my head too but none of it really fit the mood for this chapter, so I was forced to omit it. But yes, some of the bits and locales in the movie sneak into this fic.

Part Nine: Quinn's trip to LA, and the various things they get up to. Lots of indulgent fluff and smut, and a dash of plot at the end...

Part Ten: I love the friendship Marley and Santana have in this story. My headcanon for Santana is that she's the tough, worldly big sister type, and she's taken Marley under her wing. This is my attempt at advancing the plot by exploring the conflict in the long-distance relationship, with plenty of Marley-Santana-Rachel interaction (and throwing in loads of foreshadowing). Since there's so much heavy content, there's plenty of fluff to go around, padding the spaces between character development and plot. The Skype cooking idea was taken directly from my real life :)

Part Eleven: Mostly fallout from the drama in the previous chapter, and more advancement of the plot. It's intentional that there's so much drama, because it's something they both have (thanks canon) and I believe it's important for a healthy long-term relationship that they are able to resolve it. Also, Shelby is a convenient villain here, though I loved putting Beth into the mix, and having the characters react to the non-canon pairings in this fic. Doctor C makes a reappearance, as does Millie. Their growing absence from the main story is also intentional; Marley is growing into a character of her own, and she becomes less reliant on them.

Part Twelve: Initially I thought this chapter was going to be filler ahead of the big decision, but I was wrong. There was so much plot in this one ugh. I wanted Finn and Brittany to get their turn in the spotlight, but it had to be relevant to the plot as well. I wanted Marley to show us how much she'd grown over the course of the story, and from her canon self.

Part Thirteen: A lot of people thought they'd broken up in the previous chapter. I made them properly break up in this one >:) I wasn't going for a big dramatic shake-up or anything; the point was that people have relationship troubles. A lot of people have difficulty being an us, and this was supposed to be the result of the major cracks hinted at earlier, and the final part of their development as individuals before they can be in a relationship with each other. There's a lot of fluff and recovery; they have to break up to figure out how to be together, if that makes sense (but they do get their happy ending!)

Part Fourteen: The timeskip is important. It shows how far they've come, and the difference in how they now interact. While I can't show you how much Quinn's grown since this fic is from Marley's POV, I put as much of it into the story as humanly possible, and without making Marley into some mind-reading alien. Things are different now. The first break-up was necessary to put their past behind, and by getting together again, they're both prepared to work hard to grow from that. I do believe that it was absolutely necessary for them to break up to know exactly what they've lost.

Part Fifteen: The idea for this chapter came when watching Bones, and when talking to some friends. I needed to have them overcome what happened in the past, and symbolically walk forward together. Then I remembered a throwaway line about Rachel workshopping Jesse St James' musical, and the chapter pretty much wrote itself from there.

Epilogue: Not much in this one, honestly. I wanted to tie up loose ends, represent them moving forward without hesitation, and bring the story to a conclusion worthy of such a long journey. The smut was a bonus treat for everyone that's been following this.

On Marley Rose:

Confession: I don't watch Supergirl. There's only so much my poor heart can take from shipping non-canon lesbian couples who have a ton of onscreen chemistry, but who are paired off with guys. Bitter? Not I

So I take canon!Marley, pad her personality with a lot of extrapolation, add a hearty dose of logical explanation for inexplicable quirks from canon, and toss her into this fic to do a lot of growing up. If this sounds like a recipe, I think I'm too hungry.

Melissa's current turn on Broadway is inspiring a lot of the fic's direction.

On Quinn Fabray:

If it isn't already obvious that I'm in love with Quinn Fabray (and Dianna Agron for giving her so much depth), this fic should just help you reach that conclusion lol. no thanks to R*** M*****

The other Fabrose I wrote is from Quinn's POV, who basically spends the whole time sorting out her issues and stumbling into something she had never imagined could happen to her. This one is from Marley's POV, and also features her sorting out a ton of personal issues.

A lot of Quinn's character and experiences with her mother is taken from real life LOL.

#fabrose #quinn fabray/marley rose #quinn fabray #marley rose #fanfic #my writing #yumi_michiyo #the shortest distance #glee #fanfiction #music

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linguisticparadox · 6 years

Text

@bronweathanharthad I'm answering this as a new post because tumblr's ask-answering format is shit on mobile

So for Sam (presumably Gamgee :3):

Headcanon A: realistic

Sam is autistic, or at least has some form of learning disability. He's once described as having a "slow but shrewd mind." And he's canonically clumsy, and super into Elves. Like. Come on.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Man how can I improve on actual canon? Sam is the most wholesomely funny character I've ever seen in my life.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

Ok I know we all love the Gaffer and we love that Sam loves the Gaffer but...I mean I wouldn't go so far as to say he's abusive...but he really seems to have fucked up Sam's sense of self-worth with all the "nowt but a ninnyhammer" talk. I guess it came from a place of "tough love", like the Gaffer was like "Okay Sam you are not exactly bright and you were born into the working class so I need to make sure you do okay in life and that means getting in good with the Bagginses."

Which is probably a big part of what made Sam so fiercely protective and lbr fiercely servile towards Frodo. The movies glossed over the latter and that I think has affected the wider fanon interpretations (possibly for the better tbh), but in the book we have stuff like Sam begging to wait on Frodo at the feast in Rivendell. But also, Tolkien said in one letter that Sam was "deep-down very conceited" but this was transformed by his love for Frodo.

So it's like...I think the Gaffer got it ingrained in Sam that "all you're good for is to serve your betters" so Sam was like "fuck yeah I'm gonna serve the SHIT out of Mr. Frodo, I'm gonna be the best servant EVER" but then fortunately Frodo (like Bilbo before him) was a genuinely good person (remember when Sam fell asleep on watch I think and Frodo told him not to think of any of his Gaffer's hard names?) and so it became less "I'm gonna be the best servant because I'm awesome and so my dad will be proud of me" and more "I'm gonna be the best servant because Mr. Frodo is wonderful and deserves to be cared for and protected."

Uh this got a little off-track but basically I don't think Sam's relationship with the Gaffer was all that healthy and it gave him kind of a Complex and thank Eru for Frodo honestly.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own.

My own headcanon for FrodoxSam is that over the course of the Quest they grow into a qpr, probably by the time of the beautiful little "I love him whether or no" scene, because I get a vibe from Sam there that's like "Idk what exactly I'm feeling rn but it's definitely some kind of love and that's good enough for me." Also I hc Frodo as aroace, for a lot of different reasons including but not limited to "it's a free country and I wanna see the a-spec side of me in a hero I love." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But I also think it's more than reasonable to think Sam had a huge hero-worship blush-inducing ridiculous crush on Frodo at the beginning of the book, before they got closer during the Quest and their feelings for each other shifted and synced up into qpr territory. Merry (I think?) says something like "Sam would jump down a dragon's throat to save you, Frodo, if he didn't trip over his own feet," and that's when they're still in the Shire (and that goes well beyond just being a good servant honestly, whatever excuse Sam himself might give)!

So even if Frodo is aroace and even if their relationship ended up as a qpr I do think Sam is bi or pan (even leaving aside alterous attraction). Idk about split-attraction model specifics like demiromantic or asexual but Sam is definitely into women (Rosie mostly) and into men (unless Frodo's nb which is a hc I toy with sometimes, but regardless Sam's into multiple genders).

Ofc if Sam and Frodo are romantically (and/or sexually) involved then I quite like the idea of poly Frodo/Sam/Rosie, with or without anything going on between Frodo and Rosie. Sam/Rosie is too adorable and pure to write off as a cover-up and Sam has 2 hands.

Of course the main reason this all falls under Unrealistic is because I have no idea how Tolkien would have felt about all this Queer Nonsense. Given he was a Catholic I'm not too hopeful for a more positive reaction than "wow well that sure is a theory and you have every right to it even though it's not what I was really going for." I've heard he apparently knew queer people and thought highly of some queer literature, but there's a difference between that and actually writing queer characters or accepting queer interpretations of your own characters.

I'm actually really curious what might come out over the years, as Tolkien's immediate relatives die off and his writings are left in the hands of more distant relatives and scholars. God knows Christopher Tolkien seems to have been keen on publishing and thoroughly analyzing every scrap of his father's writing, but who knows what he might have held back, or what his father might have hidden away from him (eg extra chapters with lots of smooches)? So, I'm hopeful, but not really expecting too much.

#tolkien #my headcanons #long post #uh #q word #i guess #prob anybody still following me will be ok with it but u never know #i use it a lot and it's right at the end #it's not a slur 👀👀👀 but ppl can't help it if they have trauma #frodo #sam #original

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seyaryminamoto · 7 years

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Who do you think are the most overrated characters in ATLA?

What a controversial question xD Well, probably under the cut, for the best.

DISCLAIMER: if you adore any of the characters on this list, this is NOT an attempt to attack you or your peers, merely criticism on how the fandom behaves regarding certain characters.

Undeniably, the #1 overrated character is Iroh. A lot of people give him much more credit than he’s due, and he’s much more problematic than he seems on first sight. No doubt he has his fair share of good points, but he is far from perfect and he definitely isn’t the soul of the show for me, despite it seems he is for a lot of people. Proof of how overrated he is? His mere reappearance in LOK made people who had dropped the show return to it just because of him. Because SOMEHOW Iroh being there makes it all better.Truth is, no, it doesn’t make LOK all better. But how to argue with people who adore Iroh and refuse to see his faults?Iroh is not all wisdom, and he’s definitely not infallible. He’s also not the strongest firebender ever, sorry not sorry to burst that bubble but it’s a fact. Iroh was very questionable at many points in the show, and his relationship with his family is very complicated to say the least. Assuming he’s the only pure and good person in the Fire Nation Royal Family just because he was nice to Zuko is one of the fandom’s biggest mistakes and one of my biggest gripes with this character’s interpretations. Not because Bryke decided to sanctify him in LOK, and make him the franchise’s most enlightened character of all, does it mean he really was that perfect. A genuine analysis of who he is and what he did during ATLA can prove as much. So… Iroh is very overrated. Very. I’m certainly interested in hearing about his past, as any fan would be, but I do think there are far more important things the show and comics should deal with than expanding on Iroh’s life. People who would rather hear about his past than about the grown-up lives of the Gaang (… or about Azula’s uncertain future) really baffle me as Iroh’s endgame is clearly what the show gave us. Do we really need to know more about his past than we need to know about everyone else’s futures? I’d like to know more about his past, as I said, but it is far from a priority for me compared to every other main character on the show.

Zuko would be my #2, of course, only because Iroh’s fans tend to be louder and more annoying when you get them going. But the constant praise to Zuko’s development, and ESPECIALLY the praise to his extremely flawed redemption that still leaves a ton of room for him to improve, and that also made him worse in many ways, makes me roll my eyes more often than not. That recent viral tweet about him getting the best redemption arc in the history of TV makes me wonder how much TV did that person watch at all. If Zuko’s the best redemption TV can do, I guess we’re really facing a terrible time for television shows.Mainly, Zuko is overrated because, just as Iroh, he’s credited for a ton of things that aren’t true. There’s a lot of problems with his character that go unaddressed, and a lot of people are happy to describe him with a lot of praising adjectives that I have no idea what relation they could possibly have with his character. Proof of the messed-up understanding fans have of Zuko can be found easily in fanfiction: have you ever wondered why Zuko’s characterization varies so drastically from fic to fic? Whether fics trying to portray him in a good light or in a bad one, more often than not it feels like people are portraying him as who they think he should be, and not who he really is. Having a grasp on his character is difficult, way more difficult than many people believe, but it’s on great measure because of how hard so many people have it to actually see his flaws for what they are.I am not saying loving Zuko is a terrible thing, it isn’t, but some people love and praise the idea of him, and not who he really is. Careful, less biased inspection of his character can reveal he leaves a lot to be desired for a man who changed his ways and became the ruler that would bring peace to a nation he hardly knows or understands. His character development is a rollercoaster, and that’s mainly because of how deeply flawed he is: but you ask the fandom and he’s a cinnamon roll who never did anything wrong, or at least, whose every misdeed can and should be blamed on everyone but him. Because he is perfect, and so is his character arc. So, overrated, or misunderstood character? Hell knows, but the fandom really has turned me off Zuko’s character altogether.

The third most overrated character would be Toph, who, for all her great traits, often gets praised as a fully rounded character when, uh… to put it bluntly, out of the five top-billed Gaang members, Toph is the one who evolved the least. Her growth was exclusively about developing more bending skills, about becoming a stronger fighter, but she has some serious personality flaws that are never explored the way they should be. She barely ever faces consequences for her wrongdoings, which are often framed as funny, and when she’s in the middle of serious conflicts, she is absolutely never in the wrong, just as it is with her every conflict with Katara. In the end… she barely grows in anything but power level. Yet you look around and find a ton of people praising her as the greatest character of the franchise. While I see the appeal, and in her case I like her a lot better as a character than either Iroh or Zuko, I also think she’s not given a chance by the story to actually grow, and that stunted her as a character. Which doesn’t seem to bother anyone because she’s praised for anything and everything to no end. I appreciate her comic relief moments, the message she gives in regards of disabilities, but the show could have made better use of her character and didn’t, and nobody really seems to notice or care.

This one’s going to get me stoned I’m sure (if the first ones didn’t already :’DDDD) but my #4 goes to Kyoshi. Yep. You read that right.Kyoshi is no doubt a hardass, I’ve seen a ton of people praising her as the greatest Avatar of all. There’s a million Chuck Norris-esque memes with her, presenting her as the most unstoppable force in the Avatarverse, and you see people everywhere dissing Avatars like Kuruk, for being so lazy, or Roku, for not being decisive, blah blah blah, and saying she’s awesome for being 100% the opposite of that.What these funny people fail to notice, or maybe they simply don’t know the Avatarverse’s timeline, is that Kyoshi allowed Chin the Conqueror to take over the entire Earth Kingdom and only made a move against him to save HER island. She didn’t act until then, allowing Chin to take over whatever the hell he wanted to take during his rebellion, which, as far as I know, was practically the entire continent, with only Kyoshi Island and Ba Sing Se as exceptions.And the whole thing to help the Earth King to deal with the Earth Kingdom’s problems, by creating the Dai Li for his protection? It happened AFTER Chin died, she didn’t even do this to save Ba Sing Se from him because this is posterior to Chin’s mad quest. She did NOT act to protect the Earth Kingdom from a raving, rising tyrant until it affected herdirectly, and didn’t involve herself with the politics of HER OWN NATION until after they had boiled over and the Earth King had a peasant revolt in his hands. If she couldn’t be bothered to move to save her own people until the last moment, what guarantees that she did anything to help anyone else? How is she that great an Avatar?Sure, people think that, since she actually got involved in worldly events no matter how late she did, she was better than Roku or Kuruk. But in Kuruk’s favor he apparently had no war to deal with, and his wife’s loss is an unexpected tragedy for him. Roku actually kept Sozin at bay for years, and Sozin only dared act openly with his conquest of the world once Roku was out of the way. Kyoshi had a major war brewing in her nation and her best idea to deal with it was to split off her island so she wouldn’t have anything more to do with it. Because a separatist mentality is the best way to handle your Avatar duties (the greatest illusion is the illusion of separation, anyone?). Seriously, if Chin had been standing just a bit futher back? If he hadn’t fallen to his death? He probably would have taken Ba Sing Se later anyways and Kyoshi would’ve been chilling in her village until she noticed that the Earth King was dead. Oops.Long story short, Kyoshi is considered way too great for the reality of her actions and decisions. The fandom’s concept on her duty as an Avatar is absurdly messed up, and as cool as her character design is, as great as her displays of power were, she was actually a pretty bad Avatar if you get objective about what she allowed Chin to do for so long. So in my very humble opinion, the fandom’s circlejerk around her is more than undeserved.

I was planning on making this a top 5, but tbh I don’t think anyone else gets acclaim to the extreme in the way these four do. Everyone else seems to have a more moderate fanbase, or at least enough detractors that the people who praise them don’t come off as loud and annoying as they do for these four.

I’m not saying loving any of them is wrong, but there’s such abundance of praise for them, often for things they never even did, let alone for values they never represented, and yet they get interpreted by the fandom in whichever way the fans decide they like best. And somehow, the fanon interpretations grow more popular than what’s really there… which is truly annoying because these characters are fine the way the show actually portrayed them. They’re flawed, they make mistakes, their actions can be judged, they’re far from perfect: yet the fandom would have you believe otherwise.

#wingsfreedom #if I get an onslaught of hate for this you're responsible okay (?)

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dapokemonmadster · 7 years

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all primary numbers for the fic ask meme!!

Wow okay it’s really summer break I had to look up prime numbers to remember what they were HHHHHHH

2, 3 and 5 have been done!

7. What’s the fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)?:Mmmm that’s a hard one, because the answer is, A FEW. The two at the top of that list are My safe Haven is With You and Avatar Special. Like I’ve said in the earlier asks, I love AS and really want to continue it, the problem is that, going back, I really don’t like what I’ve written for it so far. To fix it, I’d have to go back and rewrite a lot of it, which I don’t have the energy for right now. And MSHWY? Well... I just need to make myself do that, haha! I’ve got no good reason for postponing that one! I also hope to make a sequel for Enter the Fans some day. And make it much better than its predecessor.

11. Have you ever written a fic for a concept you know someone else has done before? How did it impact your writing process or feelings after posting?: YES, TOTALLY. Fresh and original concepts are very hard to come up with. Like our writing teachers always like to say, there are only a limited number of plotlines in the world. To be honest, I like to disagree with that, but the fact remains that even if you come up with something that you’ve never heard of, odds are somebody has already written something with an extremely similar plot or concept. However, a problem that many writers face (or really, I wouldn’t call it a problem but more of a challenge), is accidentally (or purposefully) including elements of some of your favorite pieces. I find that happens more often in fanfics, since you’re all working with the same characters. I ran into this problem most often with my (never posted) Overwatch fics. I’d read so many Pharmercy fics that they’d kind of gotten all jumbled together in my brain, and I couldn’t really recall which ideas were from which fic! And when I started writing my own, I was heavily influenced by this jumble of ideas to the point where I felt that I was just rewriting, in some ways, scenes that had happened in other people’s fics.

13 has been done!

17. In your opinion, what’s your most overrated fic?:FFFFFF ENTER THE FANS. Yeah sure, it was decently written and funny, but like, it totally catered to fanon expectations and I could’ve written it so much better honestly. I mean, I had a lot of fun writing it, and I’ll be keeping it up forever so more people can enjoy it if it’s up their alley, and I can see how far I’ve come, but it was so... bleh. I dunno. And I think in some ways, my younger self was kind of offensive and uneducated about a few things which makes me a little less proud of it nowadays.

19 has been done!

23. What’s the nicest review you’ve ever gotten?:OH MAN, THAT’S HARD SINCE I’VE GOTTEN A LOT OF REALLY NICE AND SWEET ONES (I love my followers, thank you so much!!), BUT LEMME TRY AND FIND A GOOD ONE!! (Also please note that a lot of my really nice ones were sent in by @beanmaster-pika, @vradmic, and @viktvr-nikiforov) Okay, but one that’s still pretty fresh on my mind and made me smile like crazy was from Wolvesrock14 on Fanfiction.net! “Dude. Dude! You see what you've written here? Well guess what, it's freaking amazing! Like, just, wow! You've written literally everything so–... Perfectly! And I mean everything. From the way the story's written to the way the characters think and interact– Just awesome. I teared up while reading this chapter. It was that freaking heartfelt and emotional. So yeah, GREAT job on that, and I can't wait to see what other heart wrenching things you've got in store. Until then, keep up the awesome work 'cause you're doing great!” THAT MADE ME SO HAPPY!!!

29. Does the division of your writing across fandoms line up with your reading? What’s the biggest discrepancy?:HONESTLY, NO. The most fics I read are for RWBY nowadays, and I’ve got what, 4 fics? (That’s actually more than I thought but whatever) I’ve published 10 fics, and 6 of those are for pokespe. So yeah, I’m slacking on those RWBY fics!! Also I’m going to publish a new story soon for a fandom I’ve never written for before (side eyes Fire Emblem), and I’ve only read like 2 fics for it, haha. But those two fics were both REALLY GOOD. Very high quality.

31. Who’s the one character you’ve just never managed to get perfectly right?:Hmmmm. HMMMM. That’s a tough one. I’ve never felt like I’ve had a hard time with any pokespe characters (reader, am I right? Or have I gotten some of them wrong?), but I also haven’t written for every spe character. Concerning RWBY... I feel like I haven’t written enough for it yet to give an honest opinion, but I feel like I’ve hit the mark on our four girls, at least, for how I interpret them. But you know what, I’m having a difficult time with Owain for my Fire Emblem fic. I think I’m getting his relationships and banter right, I just... I DON’T THINK I’M WRITING HIM ‘DRAMATIC’ ENOUGH. IT’S HARD TO FOLLOW HIS SPEECH PATTERNS, OKAY.

37. Have you ever purposefully bashed a character/ship in a fic?:I can’t remember too well, but I think I did actually bash like, Tenthshipping (not purposefully, just the way it was written) and Morganiteshipping (in the AN) in Enter the Fans and Avatar Special. I really regret doing that, and hate how my narrow-mindedness when it came to ships affected me like that when I first began to write. Also I’ve probably bashed Sird but I DON’T REGRET THAT AT ALL LMAO. As a RWBY and Bu//mbl//eby fan/writer, I’m making sure to never bash Sun or Bl//ac//ksun because the fans and character really don’t deserve that and I like Sun plenty as a character, and some BB shippers can be really rude.

41. If you cross-post your fics on multiple sites, do you have a favorite? Are there certain fics you would only post on certain site?:I post all my fics on FFN, Ao3, and Wattpad. Though Wattpad’s fallen off the map a little. I like Ao3 the best, in terms of it being easy to manage and nice to look at, though I always seem to get more attention on FFN!!

43. Your least popular?:Uuuh am I allowed to look this one up it’s A Night of Diamonds. (I’m still pissed at myself for not coming up with a better name, ugh) Ambershipping isn’t too popular in the spe fandom, so I’m not surprised, and RWBY fics tend to get more attention that spe fics (though my two most popular fics are pokespe hahaha).

47. If someone you know in real life who isn’t involved in fandoms asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first?:

DEPENDS ON WHO THEY ARE. MY MOM’S ACTUALLY ASKED TO READ MY SAFE HAVEN IS WITH YOU AND I’M GONNA LET HER I JUST NEED TO POST THE BEES REUNION HAHAHAI had my mom watch all of RWBY with me, so I’m actually fine with her reading my stuff. And I’d let a few other friends read my fics, though it depends on how close to me they are. Also, for the record, if any of my irl friends WANTED to find me, I’m pretty sure they could. My username for everything is... very consistent so I’m not hard to find. Also I’d probably recommend Flirting 101 because it’s not essential to have context to enjoy.

#Asks #THANK YOU!#SORRY IT TOOK ME A WHILE THAT AS A LOT OF WRITING #americanjack

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