me wanting to write an update for my wip I haven’t touched in four months versus me also being in a Really Weird stage of my relationship with the fandom the wip is based in

kakashi for the ask game! :D

Oh this is gonna be dangerous xD (and also really fucking long I’m so sorry lmfao)

send me a character and i’ll list...

favorite thing about them It’s so hard to pick, but I think his resilience. Kakashi has genuinely been through hell and back and yet he keeps going. His character development in Naruto is one of my absolute favorite things, the way he starts out as this seemingly apathetic but deep down very guarded character who ultimately grows to love his students and make peace with his past and finally find some happiness. He’s the man who lost everything and still keeps going and maybe it’s just because I, too, am a depressed bitch but that’s always bee super comforting to me and felt very reassuring. Like if Kakashi can hit rock bottom but pull himself up out of that pit and find happiness and success, then so can I.

least favorite thing about them I don’t even know if I have a least favorite thing about him. I honestly love everything about him. I guess the closest thing I can get to a least favorite thing would be that I wish we saw more of him goofing off and having tons of fun like when he and Guy raced in Shippuden. Hearing Kakashi laugh and joke around was just so good for my soul.

favorite line Oh no there are so many, I can’t pick just one. My favorite contenders are: “Leaf Village Secret Finger Jutsu: One Thousand Years of Death!” “Behind this mask...is another mask! Pretty cool, huh?” “I’m telling you this because you don’t get it. You think you get it which is not the same as actually getting it, get it?” “Those who break the rules are scum but those who would abandon a comrade are worse than scum” “I won’t allow my comrades to die. I’ll protect you with my life. Trust me.” “It’s like an acorn.” “Sorry I’m late, I’m afraid I got lost on the path of life.” “Sorry I’m late, a black cat crossed my path and I had to take the long way around.” “For those who follow the path of revenge, it never ends well. You’ll only tear yourself apart and even if you succeed and you get your revenge, what will you get then? Nothing. Emptiness.” “So it looks like neither of us have led a charmed life exactly. But still, we’re not all that bad off. At least you and I have found new comrades to help fill the void.” “Calm down, Naruto. Slow your breathing down” (mainly because this scene just gets me every time as someone who has had severe panic attacks for twenty years lmfao) There was also another “sorry I’m late” excuse that I don’t remember exactly and cannot for the life of me find but it was from a picture I saw somewhere, looked like it was maybe from a video game? Where Kakashi said something to genin Naruto and Sakura about the path of love or something? And they’re staring at him flustered pointing insisting “That’s...a lie!” Like I can recall the image clear as day in my head but I cannot for the life of me find it.

brOTP Hands down Guy. I mean, I ship them, too, but I just really love their friendship especially. Guy just really brings out the best in him and provides this really nice foil to Kakashi’s personality. I genuinely think Kakashi would’ve been done for if not for Guy’s loyalty and optimism. Their friendship is so fun and the two of them together never fail to make me smile.

OTP Does my KakashixOC ship count? Because if it does, then that’s my OTP. I have spent way too much time and energy on their relationship for it to not be. That probably sounds super cliche and maybe a little Mary-Sue-ish but I don’t even care, Rei and Kakashi are my magnus opum and I love them. I’m also just really, really proud of the way I’ve written their relationship. So much of their bond is informed by my own relationship with my fiance, and I think my own experiences have really evolved my understanding of what real intimacy in a romantic relationship looks like. It’s not so much about flowers and chocolates and date nights as it is about caring for and comforting the person you love, spending quality time with them, making them laugh and smile, being 110% yourself around them, and providing for them in their times of need. I have never written a relationship so real and specifically raw before, and there’s a lot of intricacies that I’ve worked in as well, that just overall make me incredibly proud of the progress I’ve made on their story, and proud of the story I’ve been creating for them in general. But if an OC ship doesn’t count for OTP, I really like Kakashi with Shizune, Guy, Yamato/Tenzo, and Iruka.

nOTP Oh god I have quite a few. I really don’t enjoy focusing on negatives nor do I want to start ship wars so I’ll keep these explanations brief. I can’t stand Kakashi and Sakura, the mere thought of it makes me *this close* to puking. I take big issue with ships in general between characters that met when one of them was a child and the other an adult, though. It just comes off incredibly pedophilic to me and makes me nauseous. The other big ship I take issue with is Kakashi and Rin but that’s more of a personal issue because their relationship, and Rin’s character in general, hit way too close to home (in a very warped and psychotically symbolic way) to some really traumatic stuff I dealt with in the past that took me years and lots of therapy to deal with, and it still trips me up to this day. It’s not anything that anyone in fandom has done or anyone who ships Kakashi and Rin with each other, it’s just a matter of me noticing parallels between the ship and my own trauma that make it incedibly hard for to tolerate content of it. Just to tack these on, as well, but I also really dislike him with Hanare from the filler episode and with Kahyo from the book Lightning in the Icy Sky. The romance with Hanare just felt really disingenuous to me like I can tolerate it, but it’s not my favorite. And as for Kahyo, I blame bad writing. The fact that the book was referring to her as “the woman who has Kakashi’s heart” literally within like two pages of them meeting really pissed me off. I couldn’t even finish the book so I can’t even speak on the rest of the relationship but I just got so turned off by the entire story in general because the romance was so unbelievable and abrupt. I feel like anyone who has read my fic, though, likely has picked up on my opinions on these, though. Not that I’m writing ship hate or anything because I’m not, but there have been little plot points here and there that have kind of touched on my feelings on these ships.  

random headcanon I have way too many but here’s one of them, I guess, though this is more a musing than a headcanon. I think, when the war is over and Kakashi can finally catch his breath, he goes through a bit of an identity crisis as he comes to terms with the fact that he no longer has his sharingan. After all, he had Obito’s eye for almost twenty years. Learning to function without it is going to be incredibly difficult but not only that, so much of his identity was founded on his secondhand sharingan. Who even is he without it? Does he even recognize himself anymore? And how can he ever live up to the reputation he’s garnered over so many years now that the source of all of his power is gone for good? Yes, he was a prodigy before the sharingan and he is still capable without it, but it’s going to be a big change and take a huge toll on him and his perception of himself.

unpopular opinion I’m glad Kakashi has never been given an explicitly canon love interest. Honestly, I don’t want him to have one. As much as he deserves to find love and start a family with someone, from a fandom perspective I much prefer him being open and available. It creates a much more flexible interpretation of him and his love life so that we, the fans, can write him however we damn well please and I think that’s pretty fantastic. I think it’s safe to say that Kakashi is one of if not the most heavily shipped character in the fandom and everyone has very strong opinions on who he belongs with and even how he idenifies from a sexuality perspective. I can only imagine the uproar that would come from finally giving him a canon love interest because you absolutely cannot please everyone. In a way, I feel like Kakashi is just a character who belongs to all of us. He is something different for every single person in fandom whether that’s someone to look up to and seek guidance from, someone to protect and root for, someone to relate to and find comfort in, someone to love and/or lust after. Or in my case a precious emotional support ninja husbando. I don’t know if he would’ve had quite the same effect on fandom if he had been canonically shipped with someone from the get-go, but I’m grateful that he never was and I hope he never will be so he can continue playing the role in fandom that he has been for so many years. That probably sounds selfish, though, but I just really want him to remain a character that belongs to all of us and is not inhibited by canon in terms of who he loves and how he identifies.

song i associate with them Again, there’s so fucking many so I’m just gonna list some of my favorites. Sign by Flow Friendships by Pascal Letoublon Hospital for Souls by Bring Me the Horizon SCARECROW by My Chemical Romance Disguise by Motionless in White-- this is a big one, especially the line “sick of wearing a mask, sick of hiding my face, sick of every motherfucker that is in my way, sick of digging for answers while you bury the truth, fuck your method to my sadness, I will bury you” like it just reminds me of ANBU Kakashi specifically, but overall his character development in coming to terms with his past and crawling out of his depression, too.

favorite picture of them Again...there’s multiple x_x

August 9: The 100 2x01, The 48

Okay, settling down to rewatch 2x01, the start of my favorite season...

I love this Clarke so much. Badass Clarke, sneaky Clarke, a Clarke who will fearlessly do what she has to in order to escape and to get to her friends. A Clarke with convictions and guts.

How DO they know everyone’s names lol? Is that ever explained? (ETA: Monty was obviously the informant.)

Mount Weather is one of my favorite parts of this show, honestly. I love that their mission is in part to preserve the beautiful things humanity created, like art; they gave their prisoner Starry Night. The ORIGINAL Starry Night. I just find that very moving. All of these non-essential parts of being human... the show has abandoned them and that’s part of why it’s so hollow for me now, I think.

Level 5: where it all begins and it all ends.

The Clarke/Maya relationship could have been so much more, tbh. Like they had their good moments, like threatening to kill each other etc., but they could have gone deeper.

Surprise! Underground executive branch family dinner! This is the sort of twist I can get behind.

Haha remember when actual delinquents still existed? I joke but truly the later canon has ruined parts of this show for me.

I forgot Tristan survived into 2x01. Not for long. Such Grounder hypocrisy: “That’s one. I lost 300.” He makes it sound as if Finn marched into a village and killed 300 people--they were fucking soldiers on the attack you dum-dum.

“Only our warriors speaking English.” Well that sounds like bullshit based on literally everything we see after this point.

The statue of Lincoln is “the place we go to settle disputes.” First, please don’t say they settle disputes to the death or some nonsense, and second, that’s his namesake... Significant? I mean, objectively, no, but can I make something out of it somehow?

I disliked Luna but she COULD have been so interesting and she and Lincoln COULD have had quite a dynamic. I headcanon them as exes. I want to know their whole backstory tbh. When they met. How. If he wanted to go with her to the sea. If he did perhaps and then came back.

Drink every time someone cauterizes a wound.

You know what else they should have done? Story line about the meeting of Grounder and Sky People medicine. Oh wait that would have taken away from the repetitive war story lines never mind.

That dropship is so fucking impressive. WHERE ARE THE AWARDS FOR THE SET PEOPLE?

And the costume people for those awesome masks.

Am I supposed to feel bad for this Grounder and his charred friend? I do not. Next time, don’t attack the children for no reason and you won’t get burned to a crisp. Easy.

The thing is I can never get behind the Raven + Murphy friendship 100% even though their S5 dynamic looked interesting because he literally fucking shot her and that’s just not a bygones are bygones thing. But they do have personalities that mesh well together so in that way it’s sort of a shame. Also he 10000000000000% had a crush on her don’t even try to argue.

She fired that gun at him. I forgot that. She fired but was out of bullets, that’s the only reason he didn’t die right there. “Yeah I would have shot me too.”

I’m p. sure that’s the real Mount Weather?

I know the Mount Weather people have no leg to stand on when it comes to the Grounders and that they’re...pretty obviously racist, but in their defense--the Grounders were written to be pretty savage, so “savages,” while unforgivably racially tinged, is a fair descriptor of them.

I know I’ve harped on this before but Mount Weather has a judicial system of some sort and it’s possible to press charges there. Somehow. The world building on this show sucks balls.

“They also said you were their leader” is like some retconning, okay. Because you will not convince me that for most of S1 BELLAMY wasn’t the leader in the eyes of the delinquents.

“Kiddo.”

Fucking love Dante. Where are my Dante + Clarke mentor/mentee or ex-mentor/mentee or different-gen-rivals fics?

“We prioritize safety over sentimentality.” As Maya takes blood she absolutely doesn’t need but is having just in case and that she knows comes from someone else’s tortured body because she’s accepted this as something they do, because she’s not sentimental. But she already feels guilty.

Clarke is already using the word “capture.” I had a discussion with someone once about Clarke’s vision of Mount Weather versus, say, Jasper’s, and why it was different and I said some poorly phrased stuff that didn’t really reflect my thoughts and opinions and it still haunts me but I feel like this is...relevant to that. How she immediately feels ‘captured,’ trapped.

Clarke’s devotion to her friends and her people was still so pure and right here.

Dante really does believe he “saved” them. I wonder what his thought process was... I really hate the “savages” so I must save these children? These children look interesting, let’s meet some new friends? She’s right of course that if they were really guests, they could leave.

Multiple crash sites over 100 square miles = I should go on google maps to confirm my Pennsylvania/Farm Station theory but I’m too lazy.

GOD THOSE CLOTHES. I love that Clarke picks the pants and the high heel shiv.

There’s no way there’s actually time for natural selection to work that fast in 97 years and also I’m pretty sure the Sky People are genetically modified because their original pool was way too small for the process Dante is describing but whatever this show is all la-di-da science.

Also: this is how you run an underground Bunker OCTAVIA.

Dante was the only rival/antagonist/whatever Clarke has ever had that rivals her instincts and intelligence yeah I said it; fight me. I know she needed to be on the outside for this season to work but he should have been her mentor. He basically set her up to be mentored and then she ran off and into L who basically destroyed her and she’s never recovered.

THAT REUNION. Heartwarming. Though hard to watch too because this show did both Jasper and Monty so dirty. (Yeah I said that too WHAT OF IT.)

“Dying. Same as you.” Murphy gets all the good lines. That’s why people like him, forget this “redemption arc.”

The Grounder Raven killed was Murphy’s guard and honestly--hilarious. He abandons his post, realizes all his friends are skeletons, pickpockets one, then is shot by what he must initially assume is a dead body. Better character than almost anyone introduced from S3 on.

This cake scene is the most iconic. Jonty were scene stealers stfu. They’re children--basically. They get to act their age. They get to be happy and silly and they loved each other so much.

“Pretend like you’re happy to see me.” / “We are happy to see you.” See? Adorable. I know he’s no cinnamon roll but gosh, adorable.

And then Clarke comes in like secret espionage time and they just look so Tired TM.

I feel like Monty knew, or suspected on some level, that Jasper wasn’t just ‘bummed out’ by Clarke’s suspicions, he was panicking a little.

I can’t believe Jasper and Maya have known each other for like 10 seconds and she’s already seen his O face.

“Clarke’s the only reason we survived.” Um ex-CUSE me but I know you didn’t forget Bellamy’s existence, Jasper.

Clarke’s so smart!

Maya brings out the big guns, literally.

“I’m the one who fired the rockets. Should I not have done that?” is so heartbreaking. Mostly because of the delivery. I love this entire scene. There are like 8 different scenes I love in this episode, like whole-heartedly and truly love.

Clarke’s suspicions really do look like paranoia. Like I see what she’s picking up on, saw it even the first time I watched this ep, but there’s a sense in which she does appear irrational.

There’s actually something kinda funny about Bellamy running out with a spear in one scene, looking around blankly, and then getting chained up as a prisoner in the next scene. At least he inspired his little protege Monroe. Scenes like this are the reason she joined Pike in S3.

Tristan’s like “Who are these fucking children running at me and screaming?” Then he gets shot in the head. Goodbye Tristan you won’t be missed.

“We’re here now. Everything’s going to be okay.” This sounds like Kane playing out a hero fantasy he’s had since he was a child. Except he’s talking to two mud-stained kids who are looking at him skeptically instead of, like, a captured heroine or something.

I feel like they set up this conflict where the adults/Sky People elite come in and, like Kane says explicitly, assume they’re in charge and everyone will fall in line, but then the delinquents don’t see it that way or want that: they have their own priorities (their friends) and their own relationships (Finn and Bell don’t even LIKE each other but they’re still communicating by look) and their own knowledge (the pipes that allow them to move through the dropship camp quickly and without permission). But then... it sort of plays into the rest of the season...but not that much?? Not as much as I would like.

“You are not animals. There are rules. Laws. You are not in control here anymore.”

This show sacrificed a lot of complex relationships to just either make people buddy-buddy who had no reason to be or just arbitrarily assign relationships to scenes or episodes without regard for continuity at all.

Raven took Jasper’s goggles.... never over this.

How was bringing Octavia to TonDC faster than collecting some beetles for her to eat?

“Loss, pain, regret. Time eases these things.” I’d say this is the sort of line the show should be repeating but God when it gets a line in its teeth it never lets the fuck go so I guess it’s better this one remains pristine.

I find Dante very sympathetic but also so creepy.

They weren’t really patrolling for other people, were they? Because like...surely they would have found them. They’re at the dropship and close by. He was just bullshitting here. But why don’t they want to make even more new friends?

Dante’s stationery is presidential themed lol. Glad we stocked up the bunkers properly with the important stuff.

The crashed Alpha Station is beautiful. I believe this was the first time it was shown on the show? Ugh, this whole sequence with the music, it’s perfect and so touching.

Jaha is the most tragic and heartbreaking figure on this show. He also doesn’t get the appreciation he deserves. Just...the image of a man alone in space, talking to his loved ones, hoping they can hear them, not knowing if they can... I almost can’t handle it. I used to be very unsure if I liked where his story line went after this (seeing it in its entirety, I defend it) but surely he could not have died this way.

....I really gotta sleep now.

5, 7, 9, 11 and 21 for all three pairings within Romana/Leela/Narvin, and also for the OT3 as a whole please!

Oh sweet Jesus. That’s a lot. Okay.5)Favorite canon moment with them?I’m going to have a MASSIVELY hard time choosing favorite moments because literally everything these people do is perfect so I’m just going to list the first ones I think of that I really like -Romana/Leela: All of Spirit????? Does that count????? I’m also super passionate about “There will always be a place for you here with me, whatever face I wear.”-Romana/Narvin: when he calls her magnificent in a voice choked with emotion -Narvin/Leela: a really underrated early moment between them is in The Inquiry when he’s holding back information about Andred and I can’t think of any reason he’d be doing that besides genuine concern for her feelings. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time in the series you ever hear him speak somewhat gently to someone too so that’s pretty impressive. Also I still don’t feel like we talk about her being his exotic dancer enough, like that’s fucking hilarious and I think about it all the time.-Ot3: Idk why but the first fuckin thing I thought of is how in series 5 when Romana knows Leela is too mad to talk to her so she just. Sends Narvin instead and Narvin has to reason with her. No idea if that counts as shippy but holy lord it’s funny to me.7)Favorite headcanon trope/idea?-Romana/Leela: I like the idea that they go on secret vacations together all the time. Romana definitely took Leela to Paris once.-Romana/Narvin: I just made this up on the spot but I think the idea of him being literally incapable of not calling her “Madam” 80% of the time is pretty hilarious -Narvin/Leela: We were just talking about this in the chat yesterday so it’s fresh in my mind, but hc that he’s obsessed with the color of her hair, as in he thinks it’s beautiful and nice to look at but he can’t FUCKING think of what color to describe it as and it pisses him off. Romana was like “It’s reddish-brown, Narvin.” but THAT WAS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR HIM and he spent ages trying to think of a precise color word for it like a nerd. One day he thinks of the exact right word and he yells it out suddenly in the middle of an important meeting and then runs to go tell Leela about what color her hair is. She says thank you.-Ot3: Romana and Leela call Narvin REALLY STUPID pet names because it annoys him, including variations on “black and white pet dinosaur”9)Favorite aspect of them/their relationship dynamics?-Romana/Leela: Just that they’re so married????? They kind of automatically started the series married didn’t they. And they’re such badasses.-Romana/Narvin: the fact that Narvin is so destructively loyal to Romana is just. Yeah.-Narvin/Leela: they try SO FUCKING HARD to hate each other but you can tell they’re TOTALLY into each other despite it. Also the fact that they have so many incredibly tender and gentle moments despite how much they enjoy verbally tearing each other to shreds on a regular basis. Plus them being attracted to each other makes absolutely zero sense on paper yet here we are and it’s AMAZING.-Ot3: Just that they all love each other so much, I like having an ot3 that can be shipped any which way and still be totally plausible and make sense. They’re all so different but they care about each other anyway. The fact that Leela and Romana are like the only people Narvin gives a damn about, or that Leela has a set of immortal aliens who’d do anything for her. It’s great. Let them all get married Big Finish.11)If they aren’t a canon pairing, how would you get them together?These stupid ships are about half a step away from being explicitly canon anyway but -Romana/Leela: I’d have Leela kiss Romana tbh, probably because Romana was saying something stupid and angsty about being unlovable. Well Leela loves you, dummy.-Romana/Narvin: Narvin needs to spit it out and tell Romana he loves her because I don’t think Romana believes it at the moment. It’d be something like “Dammit Romana I love you” but imagine it in Narvin’s loudest, angriest voice.-Narvin/Leela: Jesus Christ these two are the WORST. At this point I think they just need to have a sudden mutual love confession in the middle of an action sequence followed by a long passionate kiss, and then they need to escape the drama of everything and go have a rest for a bit. And they get married eventually, I don’t know how or when but that definitely happens. Just get it over with for god’s sake.-Ot3: some combination of the above. They all escape from the Time War and then peacefully run a bed and breakfast together on Earth and they’re happy. I don’t make the rules. (This bed and breakfast AU is something we regularly talk about in the group chat for some reason so at this point it’s like the go-to thing. Ace is usually there too, she’s their kid.)21)Favorite genre for them?I don’t actually read a huge amount of fic, but-Leela/Romana: Fluff is good, I also really like good gen stuff with them because I just like how they interact in canon.-Romana/Narvin: Angst because this ship is torture -Narvin/Leela: I will read Narvin/Leela fluff forever until the day I die. They’re also the only Gallifrey pairing I’ve ever read anything remotely smutty about, so. Yeah. Most of the fic I read is about these two idiots.-Ot3: AUs!!!!!! I am trash for Gallifrey AUs. I haven’t really read many but I like imagining them and I’d like to find more I enjoy reading.

rant time?

Soooo I get triggered really badly by a/nti content and blogs. That happened again just now, and I’m gonna rant about it. Feel free to read/reblog/whatever and talk to me about it if you’d like. I definitely would like to commiserate with other people who experience this kind of thing. I’m just putting it under a read more so I don’t accidentally trigger somebody else, or expose someone to discourse if they don’t want that.

I’m not explicitly discussing sexual assault or anything. I’m just mentioning abusive relationships with age gaps that I’ve had in the past. I’m also talking about how I feel when I’m triggered, so feel free to skip out on this if you’re afraid that’ll send you into a similar mindset.

A blog I was following just reblogged a post from an a/nti blog. I looked at a couple of their other posts, which also came from a/nti blogs. Conclusion: they are a super quiet a/nti, or person who’s okay with a/ntis, who doesn’t say anything about being a/nti-Shaladin in their blog description but follows a/nti blogs.

I’ve just blocked them, and a couple of the a/nti blogs their posts came from. This is the first time I’ve ever done this. I try to avoid blocking people on principle. I don’t like to cut myself off from other people’s perspectives. I like to be able to learn from them. But I just don’t see myself learning anything from perspectives that say I’m supporting abuse by shipping Sheith.

I’ve been in two different abusive relationships with significant age gaps. The first one started when I was 15 and the other person was 20. The second one was when I was 20 and the other person was in their 40s. (They never mentioned their exact age to me. They seemed like they’d rather not think about it and just relive their youth through me, making up for all the things they missed out on at my age.)

I am super, super triggered by a/ntis saying that by shipping Shiro and Keith, I am approving of everything that happened to me.

I started shipping them in the first episode of season 2, where Keith was jetting across a barren, rocky planet to save Shiro. I loved the way they worked together and smiled at each other and reassured each other through a scary situation. I always go for the “tragic best friends” ships. I also ship Stucky (Steve and Bucky from Captain America) real hard. Gimme that good “two dudes just being bros loving and supporting each other unconditionally and fighting impossible odds just to stand at each other’s side again” shit.

Today I thought, “I guess Sheith is like healthy relationship porn for me.” I also enjoy Kl/ance, but my heart goes to ships where people who are life partners in every other sense start to realize that they’re in love with each other too. I’ve seen a post where someone said they shipped Sheith because they’d never been in a healthy relationship, and they liked seeing Keith and Shiro’s dynamic. I relate to that. I like to see that it’s possible for two people to love and respect each other and come together to form something greater than the sum of their parts. I want to believe that something like that can exist.

I relate to Keith and project myself onto him. I love headcanoning him as a gay, autistic trans guy like me. Dating is so hard for me as an autistic and trans person. Even without taking systemic oppression into account, it’s hard to allow people in when I’m scared of being traumatized again. I’ve got some walls up too.

I want to believe that someone like Shiro can love someone like Keith despite all of his social awkwardness and pain and rage, or maybe even because of it. I want to believe that there are good guys like Shiro out there somewhere, amidst all of the creepy, misogynistic, transphobic guys who keep messaging me on gay dating apps. I want to believe that it’s possible for someone like me to find a healthy, loving relationship. Sometimes it feels like a fucking pipe dream.

I am deeply triggered by people saying that the relationship is inherently unhealthy because of an age gap. I don’t even view Shiro and Keith as having a significant age difference. I thought of them as being maybe three-ish years apart from each other before the guidebook came out, with Keith in his late teens or early twenties. After hearing that the guidebook wasn’t even made by the Voltron showrunners and some of the information is inconsistent or out-of-date, I’m not inclined to change my headcanons. If Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos are confused about the Keith and hippos thing, how do I know for sure what is true in the book? When Star Wars fans are confused about a certain aspect of canon, we don’t go to a book written for kids called “The Official Star Wars Handbook” or whatever and take what it says as gospel. It’s fun to enjoy this stuff, but I’m not going to take it too seriously.

But some people do, and they call people like me pedophiles. And I get triggered, because I start feeling like I must have somehow supported what happened to me, and like I’m supporting similar things happening to other people. I get so angry to have this happen when I don’t even see them as having a big age gap, when I don’t want to see them that way because that triggers me too. I don’t want to imagine a 17-year-old Keith meeting a 24-year-old Shiro at the Garrison and feeling sexual tension build between them. That freaks me the fuck out.

I’ve tried so hard to convince myself that I didn’t ask for what happened to me. It’s hard to believe that when a post pushes my Trauma Brain™ into “this happened to you because you deserved it and you’re a bad person and you secretly wanted it” mode. It starts feeling like maybe I’m just broken and I naturally gravitate towards things that hurt people. Now that I’m closer to Shiro’s age in the guidebook than Keith’s, it also starts feeling like I might hurt someone else the way I was hurt. Trauma Brain™ is not logical. It doesn’t care that I know for a fact, deep in my core, that I would never hang out with and date a fucking 15-year-old.

I like Sheith a lot, but I don’t have any problem with people who like b/roganes. If you find comfort from seeing Shiro and Keith’s relationship as brotherly, just like I find comfort from seeing it as romantic, please keep doing what makes you happy. I’mma stay in my corner and you stay in yours, and we don’t have to bother each other. But god, my Trauma Brain™ goes nuts when I see a/nti blogs that also have b/roganes. Like, not only am I approving of abusive relationships with age gaps, but I’m approving of incest?? Sometimes literal incest, because some b/roganes content portrays Shiro and Keith as literally being brothers?? My brain just starts shitting itself. And I hate it so much, because I’m autistic and Voltron is my special interest right now. This is supposed to be soothing me, not triggering the fuck out of me.

I especially resent that I can’t search for autistic Keith or trans Keith content without finding a bunch of a/nti blogs. I just want to be able to find this representation without shit saying “shaladins don’t interact.” Seeing that just sends me on a fucking roller coaster with my brain being like, “Right, I’m a fucking Shaladin, because I approve of Shiro being shipped with literally any of the other paladins, who are all apparently underage or barely legal, and he would be taking advantage of them if they ever actually dated, and apparently I fucking secretly support pedophilia and don’t even know it.”

Again, Trauma Brain™ is not logical. It doesn’t care that I know I don’t support abusive relationships with age gaps, or any abusive relationships at all, or pedophilia. Even though it’s illogical and just plain incorrect, it fucks with my mindset a lot. It’s past 1am and I’ve been writing this damn rant for a couple of hours. I got up at 6:30 this morning to go to work, and I haven’t gotten any sleep since. I know I need to go to bed, but I just want to get all of these feelings out. Otherwise I feel like I’m going to choke on them while I’m trying to fall asleep.

I’m just angry, tired, and bitter as hell that people are the way they are, and that my Trauma Brain™ is the way it is. I fucking love this show. I’ve seen all the episodes at least three times. Reading fanfic where Shiro and Keith are being sweet to each other has helped me get through a brutal year. I’ll even admit that the NSFW/explicit fics have helped me too. It’s pretty damn cool to see people having sex while keeping each other’s comfort and boundaries in the forefront of their minds at all times. Even the weird, kinky shit is healing for me when many of my experiences with sex haven’t had my comfort or boundaries in mind at all.

I just wish that I could have all of that without also being prompted to stay up late when I’m fucking exhausted in order to process being triggered by the fandom. I hate that a subset of the fandom fucks with my mental health so much when the show has been really good for me otherwise. I guess I just have to keep blocking a/nti blogs and hope I stop seeing them someday? Maybe? One can dream, I guess?

If you read all of this, I really appreciate it. I’m totally up for talking about this kind of thing together if you’ve had similar experiences and want to talk to someone. Have a good night!

I'm curious about your trans headcanons now. I see occasional fic with CP characters as trans men who are already fully transitioned by the time they get to college, but I would be really interested to see the dynamics of a character coming out as a woman. Especially a character who presents very masculine in the comic, like Jack.

Hiiiii, Ilove this ask, come here, let’s be friends.

I’m not muchof a headcanon person, by which I mean, when I have ideas about characters Itend to put them into stories instead of “what if” informal posts. Thiscomplicates my cool fannish image because I look very inactive when really I’vejust been writing tens of thousands of words that, like a dodo, I absolutelywill not post as WIPs. On the other hand, it does mean I’ve written 20,000words about Jack being trans. I’ve mentioned it here,but I’m not sure to what extent it’ll end up as a story that gets posted.

At theoutset I should say that I take a center-liberal approach to fic writing, whichis to say, I like things to be canon-compliant when they’re not straight-upAUs, but I’m not fundamentalist about what canon-compliant means. I think there’sroom to write a story that adheres to the comic canon but posits that the circumstancesof the characters’ lives and relationships might shift in the future, beyondwhere canon takes them. In that sense I think you have to look at who Jack isif you’re going to do this, and there isn’t a lot of overt evidence that he’ssuffering gender confusion.

There is,however, a lot of subtext. Jack’s story is, in a lot of ways, about strugglingto conform to a neat performance of masculinity. He works incredibly hard tomeet these social expectations; the kind of person Jack is supposed to be doesn’tdeal with mental illness, or drug dependency, or like boys. There is a lot oftextual evidence in the comic that he is consciously or subconsciously fightingagainst these things by controlling the aspects of his life that he can bringin line with expectations: how he spends his days, what his body looks like,and what he reveals about himself to other people. He’s vague and sometimesobfuscating about that, and puts his experiences in terms of what he doesrather than who he is, which I find to be an interesting kind of detachment. Hegoes around telling people he is dating Bitty, but in the comic so far hasn’t identifiedas gay or bi or even something more general like queer or not straight.

I liked thatmoment where he was talking about thecosts of playing hockey that he’s willing to endure, and he mentions, “The expectations and the spotlight …. The anxiety…” Obviouslyhe has expectations for himself, but by and large “the expectations and thespotlight” are things that are external to Jack, things happening to him; Ithink given the recurring theme of people speculating on and assessing him,fairly or unfairly, it seems like he is thinking of these expectations as thoseheld by other people, not ones he’s placing on himself. His anxiety is not anexternal thing, though; it’s something that’s real but is only ever happening inhis brain, that he’s doing to himself. It might be exacerbated by a toxicsports media culture and the general drag that is patriarchal heteronormative bullshit,but his brain is something for him to own, and he’s putting some distancebetween himself, and that.

It’s interestingto me that Jack comes out to George when they’re running. Some of this ispractical; Jack wants to talk to her in as private a place as he can, and heprobably doesn’t have a lot of opportunities to get her alone at work, and itmight have been too much build-up for him to reach out and say, “I need to getyou alone so I can talk to you.” At the same time you have to look at all thethings Jack is tacitly communicating to George: I’m dating a dude, but, I’m still an elite athleteconforming to all of the other expectations of masculinity, I’ll go on this runwith you, I’m down for whatever you put on me, I’m the same person I was the last time we went on a run. He even puts on a dude-ish baseball cap before he gets out of the car, like he’sputting on his dude drag to go have this conversation. God forbid hisconfession that he’s with Bitty undermine George’s view of him as one of herhockey players.

Even hischoice of Bitty as a romantic partner is something I don’t think the fandomexamines enough. Partly it’s because Check,Please! is a yaoi slash heart-eyes adoraboo webcomic, so a good portion ofthe audience is going to just accept this canon couple as a given withoutlooking into it too deeply. I remember Ngozi saying somewhere, at some point,that Jack needs someone really special to get through to him, with theimplication being that Bitty is that special person, he is a flawless angel childwho straddles both ends of the gender-presentation spectrum with his tinyperfect ass bisecting the middle, god bless him. But I’m cynical so I can’tjust take that as a given, and I have to think about the way in which thepeople we associate with, and especially, the people we are attracted to, areways in which we practice our own identity construction. How does standing nextto Bitty make Jack look? Maybe Jack doesn’t think about it in thatstraightforward a manner, but he must be aware on some level that this is goingto reflect back on him. Why does he send Bitty a zillion roses for Valentine’sDay? I mean, the comic isn’t there yet, but let’s think this out for a second: it’sa textbook male gesture to send the person you’re dating flowers. So, Jacksends Bitty shitloads of flowers. It’stoo easy to just say that Jack is super intense and he gives 110 percent, he’sso extra, etc. Like, yes, he is extra, but why is he so extra? Because he canbe? Or because Bitty will be 110 percent happier with 110 extra roses? Or because he’strying to perform 110 percent masculinity?

Writingabout Jack coming out as a woman and transitioning is an interesting way toneedle at his character. (And also, an interesting way to needle at myself, youknow, that’s writing for you.) Back to my center-liberal mode of fannish participation:I do not think that Jack is fundamentally being written this way, but rather,that it’s one way to interpret and examine how Jack relates to himself andparticipates in traditional masculinity. There are a zillion other ways to dothis, and I find that almost every OMGCP fic I write or post I make is essentiallygetting at the problem of Jack’s character from a different angle. (Except onefic that’s the same, except, Kent Parson instead.)

For me, a majorissue in the problem of Jack’s character is that trying to establish himself inthe echelons of professional hockey caused him to suffer greatly, to the pointof almost dying, possibly intentionally—but he decided, for some reason, thathe wanted to go back for more, and try again. So much of the work I see in thisfandom is about how Jack pushing himself to overcome his issues and succeed inhockey is a positive character trait, and readers are proud of him. But Ithink, within the canon and within the fandom, there is a major unansweredquestion in the form of, what the heck is going on with this character that hecannot and will not stop doing things that have the potential to cause himserious harm? Is he just autistic, and unable to detach from this thing he’sfixated on? Is it that he has literally never thought about anything else hemight do with his life? Or is it that he cannot stop thinking of himself as ahockey player? What would happen if he did? How would he start to think abouthimself, if he stopped thinking of himself as a hockey player and began to thinkof himself as anyone or anything else, and stopped compartmentalizing hisidentity and his experiences?

His brain ishorribly roadblocked. “I don’t think about this stuff too much,” he tellsShitty.And, sure, that’s normal, especially among men raised in hyper-masculinecontexts. But it’s normal because those men exist in a social context wherethey should be afraid of what they might find out about themselves if theythought about it too much. He then makes a joke about how he’s a robot andmakes fun of Shitty’s arguably less fraught romantic life, as if Shitty havingfeelings for Lardo is some kind of weakness. He then picks up Shitty and throwshim in a pile of leaves, which is so painfully overt and demonstrative adisplay of masculine and dominant behavior that Bitty notices from inside andyells at him. I don’t think this is what Ngozi intended, but it’s a fair enoughinterpretation of what’s going on: Shitty made Jack feel a little too much, ora little too conscious of himself, and so he has to respond by emasculatingShitty. Shitty’s like, “Love has changed you,” but like, I dunno, has it, or,how has it?

Granted, alot of this is nebulous, because we don’t know and probably won’t find out muchabout what happened to Jack when he was in juniors, what happened to Jack whenhe was in rehab, or what Jack’s decision-making process was when he applied tocollege—by which I mean, it’s unclear if he just saw it as a means to an end.It’s also unclear how Jack handles his anxiety—is he in therapy, is he takingmeds? It’s unclear how he thinks of himself in terms of drug use—for the mostpart, ending up in rehab at 18 is incongruous with having a beer every now andthen, though it’s also worth asking how having a beer at key moments makes himlook to other people, or how it makes him feel about himself. We just don’tknow that much about Jack, for all the comic is largely about him. It can bedifficult to pinpoint exactly how much he knows about himself, and why he’smade the choices he’s made, because many of those decisions are opaque toreaders.

But, that’swhere fandom gets to work. So I come back to the trans Jack thing here. Jackhas spent most of his life, probably, being told (perhaps implicitly more thanexplicitly) that he needed to do certain things and seem a certain way in orderto be taken seriously, and not be suspected of any kind of femmey or queerinclinations. (He knows that being with Kent Parson could have “really messedwith” their hockey careers, for one thing.) Am I saying that butch people, like, don’treally exist, and it’s all a construct? I don’t want to stick my nose into anature/nurture thing, but it’s undeniable that the style you project is part ofa complex network of influences, some of which are prejudices. To write Jack astrans is to ask questions about how those prejudices have affected him, andwhat might happen if he discarded them.

In terms ofhow a story about trans Jack would look, I can tell you what I’m interested inexamining: biology is destiny, and Jack’s body is pretty materially mannish. Towhat extent would it be possible to conform to that, reject it, subvert it?Jack’s attraction to Bitty is probably fixed, but Bitty is gay, and being withJack is an aspect of his constructionof self. How does Bitty cope with having someone else’s decisions destabilizehow he thinks and what he thinks he knows about himself? Jack is a publicfigure with a lot of privilege, but nor does Jack seem like an ideal or enthusiasticspokesperson or model for trans (or gay, or mental health) visibility. We don’tknow if Jack has any awareness of queer discourse or narratives, or how Jack wouldeasily fit into those, or not. How long does Jack think about this—is itsomething that occurs to Jack slowly, over many years, unsure how to act on it?Or is it something Jack realizes, suddenly, and wants to act on immediately? Howdoes this change how Jack relates to Jack’s parents? To the idea of being a parent? Would Jack want to playin the NHL as a woman? How does retirement and a life after hockey fit intoJack’s process?

Ultimately Idon’t think this fandom does that great a job at interrogating characters, orthe general situations they’re in. I’m kind of shocked at how little discussionthere is of what being a not-straight-guy paying hockey means. There’s a lot oftalk about how toxic masculinity is bad and learning to love yourself is good,but I don’t think the fandom is honest about just how physically andpsychologically damaging a hyper-aggressive sport can be, and why thesecharacters put themselves in harm’s way to endure it. It’s not just makingfriends and the thrill of winning and being Canadian; there are socially coded valuesinvolved. Bitty wrestling with his fear of checking to become marginally betterat hockey (if not at NHL-level) is, through one lens, a story about personaltriumph over adversity. But through another lens it’s a story about someoneputting themselves through hell and exposing themselves to harm over and over again,voluntarily—and for what? For camaraderie, for some scholarship dollars, forJack’s ass, sure—but that’s not all Bitty’s getting out of this.

So too withJack, is the thing, but times a zillion. And I wish the fandom did a better orat least more open job of addressing this. Writing a story where Jack is atrans woman is one means of doing so, or asking, why is he so freaking extra? What’she getting out of this? What does all that extra jocular dudeishness and hockeyfervor compensate for?

What’s itdistracting him from?

And whatwould happen if you took that away?

You used to be anti "A Long Way from Home". What happened to change that?

The extended explanation, which I strongly encourage everyone to read(YES, EVEN IF YOU’RE DEFINITELY NEVER READING THE FIC), but scroll to the bottom bolded part if you must:

First, it’s important to understand my initial introduction to the fic and why my reaction was so severe: Someone who will not be named, who I am no longer in contact with, recommended it to me. This was knowing I deeply identified with Pearl, knowing I was an assault victim, and knowing that I was using jaspearl with Pearl being a survivor to help cope with that. I wasn’t warned about the contents, just told that it was a good jaspearl story, and given the illustrated version to read.

Being easily triggered by graphic images, this did not end well. Without knowing anything else about the story, and the initial assault scene very nicely mirroring my own experiences, AND it involving the rape of a character I identified with by a character I was shipping her with to heal that pain, I was, as you said, VERY against the fic. I was under the immediate impression that it was rape-as-entertainment porn. I got nauseous every time I saw the title, or even mention of the author’s name. NONE of this is her fault, and it’s important to remember that. I know a lot of people say things about her, and they really aren’t fair, because I know for a fact that reactions such as mine are not something she wishes on anyone, because she’s said just that to me. I’m only mentioning them again to show how significant and sincere the rest of the story is.

I was(and still am!) in a discord chat centered on an SU character, one of the first people who were in it, and I became a regular voice in it. Around mid/late October, Butts got added to it. I immediately got upset and worried, and I went to the creator of the discord chat for help. I knew it was rude of me to be so upset, since she seemed nice and others were excited about her being there. I had the idea to try and talk to her. Maybe knowing why she wrote what she did, and what the purpose of it was, and an affirmation that it wasn’t “rape is hawt lol” junk, would help stop my irrational fear of her. But since I wasn’t sure what she was like or how the rest of the VERY long fic outside of that first chapter progressed(plus a few snippets of the early chapters that were also sent to me to mess me up), I was way too nervous to do that. Thankfully, the chat mod had read it, and assured me that it was all about survival and subversion, and NOT what I had been led to believe it was. Still something I was sure I’d never want to read, but I still wanted to talk to her.

And I am very, VERY glad I did. She immediately apologized. Yes, apologized for the fact that someone else made their own choice to use her content to hurt me. After a bit of conversation she said this, which I’m putting copied from that convo since I couldn’t say it better myself(with her permission):

“ No, it makes sense. I understand coming into it and not expecting it must have been jarring. The first 6-7 chapters have some very difficult, hard-to-swallow content. There are themes there that point out and enunciate every ugly, demeaning trope that we have become normalized to. And it’s on purpose. Because I wanted to explore the characters in the context of a society that condones that behavior. I want Homeworld’s culture and flaws to reflect ours in an acute, unmistakable way. Building up these issues and the society that breeds them in the first ~7 Chapters or so is only for the explicit purpose of later tearing it down from the inside out. I wanted to show Jasper unravel herself from the Homeworld mindset and I wanted Pearl to come into her own through the experience as well. I’m currently in Act II of a three-act fic, so it’s quite a long game I’m playing. And yes, it’s not always pretty. It’s a hard fic to read and stomach for some. I won’t deny that. But it’s the fic I needed to write for myself as an artist and a creator to deconstruct some of these themes.I apologize–I know hearing about it might upset you. But I also hope it will help explain some of the choices made from my perspective. Know not every fic I write as those themes.  But when I do write about them, I write them for a purpose.I’ll be honest, it can be a little upsetting that there are a lot of conclusions draw about me and my writing before I’ve finished it. I’ve had people call it “that fancy rape fic” and other such things that really make me uncomfortable. Yes, there is non-con in the fic, but that’s not what it’s ABOUT. Not to me.”

There was much more to our conversation, but that’s the bit that helped take away the majority of my fears. And even after accepting and thanking her for her explanation, she not only told me to let her know if she ever did anything else to make me uncomfortable, but offered right there to excuse herself from the server if I felt her presence would be too much for me. That wasn’t something she had to do. She could have just given her explanation and left it at that, and I wouldn’t have blamed her for doing so! But she still offered. I declined, and we’re still both in the server.

It would have ended there, except for two things:

1. A friend of mine who also didn’t want to read the fic or hear about any of the darker parts, but did think Butts had a lovely art style, mentioned looking at the later chapters for the pretty art.

2. I was still getting much milder but still irritating reactions when I came across mentions of the fic or looked in the art tag of tumblrs that reblogged some of the earlier art and stumbled across it. Not to mention, tumblr savior and blacklist are just plain shitty sometimes, and people also just don’t feel like tagging their reblogs either.

Because of that, I decided maybe some mild exposure therapy would help, on my own terms. If I looked just at the later chapter art, and saw the pretty things my friend liked, which I knew wouldn’t be triggering because she was avoiding the fic itself for similar reasons, maybe I’d be able to associate content and talk about it with things that weren’t immediately disturbing.

And of course, I made the mistake of not asking to clarify WHICH chapter art that friend thought was pretty, or going to Butts herself or any other fans for direction to which illustrations would be safe for me to view. So I looked a liiiittle too early, and saw things like Pearl in her cell/the nursery Pearl(”Hello”) next to her, and the three Pearls in the brothel. These weren’t enough to be triggering or that upsetting, but I didn’t like them at first and was annoyed that this time I didn’t take the right precautions to avoid them.

But I’m glad I messed up, because it got me intrigued. From those pictures(and some others) plus snippets of sentences I caught while scrolling, I got the feeling this wasn’t just a fic that subverted awful tropes and handled the idea of a society that has no concept of sexual assault well. It was one which also had themes and worldbuilding elements around that main concept that I, specifically, would enjoy and appreciate. Remember, I’m currently working on two projects involving Pearls that are sexually abused and either healing from or fighting to escape said abuse, though all of the assault happens off-screen. Take all the written/drawn instances of it out, and replace Jasper with an OC since I don’t like thinking of canon characters as assailants, and you have something I might write myself!

I thought, ok, what if I try reading part of the fic? I remembered that Butts had said it was the earlier chapters that had all of the especially hard to swallow things before the subversion and tearing down of tropes started. It wasn’t a guarantee, but if the world she’d made was as captivating as I thought it might be, that could help with my lingering issues. With the few snippets I saw, I really, REALLY wanted to try. After some debate, I decided to go to Butts for advice on where I should start. She was the person with the most information on how badly the earlier versions had triggered me + an extra intimate knowledge of where certain themes were.

And hoooly shit am I glad I went to her. I explained that I’d seen snippets of middle/later chapters, both from being linked to earlier/middle stuff and from looking at middle/later stuff myself. I wanted to try reading the fic, just for the exploration into the Homeworld she created. I had a lot of questions. I wanted to know if it was possible to read from a later point, and if she would be ok with just telling me important plot bits of the earlier chapters, and if she would be ok with me asking questions while I read if I was confused about anything.

She did that, and WAY more. This wasn’t long ago, just over a week; looking at our convo shows my questions about reading started on the 9th. We talked for hours about the things I was intrigued by, the concerns I had, and what scenes exactly would be hard or impossible for me to read. We literally talked for HOURS about the themes she had, what her intentions were with them, worldbuilding stuff that other fans had never asked but I was curious about, seeing if I was understanding the mindset of the characters properly, etc. I even spoke a lot about the similarities/differences between her headcanon for Gem reproduction and mine, and a lot of my own original ideas in general.

She suggested I start at a specific point in chapter 7, gave me a phrase to ctrl + f to start from, and EXPLICITLY warned me of some future things that may have been upsetting, since she wasn’t sure what other things I was triggered by. This resulted in, from mid-chapter 7 to chapter 13, over several days, my reading what I could in short bursts and stopping both when I needed a break and when I was confused/had questions.

And Butts happily and enthusiastically answered every. Single. One.She was very attentive to my concerns, and even gave me a spoiler for something I was very worried about and said I would have to mentally prepare myself if handled a certain way(No, I’m not saying what it was or whether it’ll be handled that certain way or not, don’t bug her about it either, it was a personal issue for me). My questions even prompted the idea of a chapter-by-chapter reading guide for those who like me would enjoy the plot but needed to be careful about certain scenes! No guarantee on that, just bringing it up as that is the kind of genuine concern and thoughtfulness Butts has about these things.

It got to the point where I was pausing in my reading not because I had to or I was confused, but because the way something was being handled or something a character did had me very excited due to how WELL it was done, and I just had to fangirl over it to her directly. I even did a “liveblog” to her of my reading the latest chapter(14) via private messaging, again because I was just so damn excited(hence my partial analysis of the chapter). There are still rough themes, still things I have trouble reading, but now it’s all done with the knowledge that the author truly understands the gravity of these things, and how serious they are, and how delicately they ought to be handled.

That said, it’s still a very dark, very heavy fic. A lot of people won’t like it, and just plain won’t be able to read any of it. That’s fine! But I want to assure everyone that no, Butts does not write rape as entertainment. She doesn’t treat sexual assault lightly. She doesn’t want anyone to be hurt by her writing, and knows the importance of taking harmful tropes associated with assault and tearing them down. And, in the eyes of someone who once had full-blown panic attacks at just the words “A Long Way From Home”, she’s doing it EXTREMELY well.

In short: Yes, by no fault of the author, ALWFH once hurt me terribly, due in part to the noncon elements and how they are at first portrayed. Now, after just a week of careful guidance from Butts, those same exact elements are helping me to heal.