#Me trying to keep shipping out of this: Only canon crush interactions and no pushing specific ships | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

overobsessedfanboy23 · 1 year

Text

My Opinions on Every VRAINS Ship

Well, every VRAINS ship that has an official ship name here on Tumblr, plus three bonus ships at the end that don’t have names but I’m familiar enough with to talk about. Gonna go in alphabetical order by their ship names because that’s the easiest and most unbiased way to do it. Gonna be rating them on a scale from: NO, not my thing, funny or cute idea, like, and love.

Because fair warning, I really don’t like some of these ships.

Abyssalshipping (Ai x Aqua)

NO. The one thing I dislike about Manjome in GX is his weird, sometimes creepy crush on Asuka and… yeah, it’s the same thing here. Not nearly as bad, as it’s less focused on and Ai doesn’t try to make her be with him or anything, but still, really weird and unappealing ship. I much prefer them platonically, which is what they are in Flame of Life.

Aiballshipping (Ai x Yusaku)

This is my OTP of VRAINS, and probably in all of Yugioh if I’m being honest with myself. I love their dynamic, their back and forths, all the build up and little moments throughout the series leading up to that gut punch of a finale. Their relationship is also the one thing keeping the VRAINS storyline of Duel Links afloat for me don’t @ me.

Algorithmshipping (Kengo x Shoichi)

Honestly, I had never heard of this ship before I read the list so I have no real opinion on it. Not really sure how it would work but I don’t mind its existence I suppose.

Altarshipping (Aoi x Ema)

NO. I always saw Ema as more of an older sister figure to Aoi, emphasis on “older” because Aoi is a minor and Ema… never had her age confirmed to my knowledge but watching the show, I always interpreted her as in her twenties. Early twenties sure, but too old to be with a minor.

Almondshipping (Aoi x Miyu x Yusaku)

Each of these individual ships are coming up and I have wildly different opinions on each of them so for now I’ll say I’m indifferent to this specific throupple, but throupples in general are nice to have.

Angelmakershipping (Aoi x Yusaku)

No. Out of all the ships here that aren’t like… illegal or messed up on this list, this is the one I hate the most. Because it feels so obligatory. Like in the blissful days before the god awful VRAINS dub, it was only a ship because “he was a boy she was a girl can I make it any more obvious” when they don’t have that kind of relationship at all. I think it’s actually novel and really nice that despite some pointless teasing early on, they were only ever friends and Aoi had a character arc and development completely separate from Yusaku. I feel like making their relationship romantic would’ve just ruined that. It’s not my bias to Aiball, trust me, I ship both Yusaku and Ai with other characters as well (as you’ll see coming up). This ship just really rubs me the wrong way, especially because the dub warped the text of the show to push this ship more, which coupled with their gay erasure, comes off as gross to me.

Blueghostshipping (Aoi x Spectre) NO. Even harder NO than the last one, jesus christ. Spectre is a huge creep to her, psychoanalysing her out of nowhere, manipulating her, and then beating her to death… in a card game but that’s basically assault in the YGO universe.

Blackholeshipping (Jin x Ryoken)

Really random (with only one canon interaction that is not good) but I honestly really like this ship. It has some really fun content here on Tumblr and the way I personally characterise Jin is this really cheerful upbeat person, who isn’t fazed by others’ rudeness. So Ryoken’s bluntness wouldn’t faze them at all. I just really like the whole “the sunshine one lifts up the grumpy one” trope and this ship, and really any Jin ship for that matter, is that dynamic to me. Plus I love Ryoken so putting him in that dynamic is really fun.

Braveangelshipping (Aoi x Shima)

No. I don’t have a strong take on this one like I do some of the other no’s, it’s just… no. He certainly has a crush on her, but I can’t see her ever requiting.

Bulletstormshipping (Ryoken x Windy)

Okay so this one’s tricky. I enjoy shipping Ryoken with Ignis and I really love both of these characters. There’s also pretty good content for this ship out there. But… the way I characterise purple eyes Windy (aka: Windy’s true personality) is really sensitive and kind of clingy, and he would be especially emotionally vulnerable after finding out that after his data was rewritten, he killed his origin. And blunt Ignis racist Ryoken would not be a good match for that. This is why the only WindRyo piece I’ve written is set at a point where they’re far into their relationship for the record. Ryoken taking in Windy as his partner (in the Ignis way but potentially the human way eventually) is a very cute potentially funny concept as long as one or both of these sides of them are scaled back. So while I like this ship, it’s not one I can see myself writing much.

Canineshipping (Akira x Kengo)

Like the ship name, don’t care for anything else about it. Okay come to think of it, maybe I just don’t care much about Kengo, because his ships are the only ones I’ve had virtually no opinion on so far…

Cauterizeshipping (Flame x Takeru x Ryoken)

My most recent currently ongoing fanfic, Flame of Life, is about this throupple. I love every individual ship in it, and I love the dynamic the three of them have. (Especially Flame and Takeru teasing the hell out of Ryoken, last week’s chapter was probably my favourite to write in the whole fic.) This is my favourite polyship in Yugioh, by a landslide. It doesn’t have any basis in canon, but the potential was enough to suck me in and write my own narrative for them that I’m really in love with.

Celebshipping (Go Onizuka x Yusaku)

I don’t really like Go Onizuka because he’s a different person every time we see him so it’s hard to get invested in him but this ship is fine. Go is a bit old for him but three years isn’t as bad as some of the other ships’ age gaps. It is a ship that exists I suppose.

Charismashipping (Aoi x Go Onizuka)

Same as above. This is indeed a ship that exists.

Chatshipping (Shima x Yusaku)

Similar to Braveangel, I think Shima has a crush on Playmaker, but I can’t see Yusaku ever requiting that, especially since he canonically finds Shima stupid and annoying. So no.

Chesspieceshipping (Go Onizuka x Queen)

No. She was willing to let him die with that AI chip implant stunt. Also, I don’t like either of them, but I hate Queen far more.

Cobrashipping (Go Onizuka x Ryoken)

I love Ryoken and am not attached to mister Go so this ship is not my thing. Their duel was pretty good though.

Coexistshipping (Ai x Pandor)

Uuuuuuuuuuh.

I mean, I see Ai as gay (or attracted to men I guess) but if I had to ship him with a girl, Pandor is probably the best option? So I don’t ship it but it’s fine. It’s harmless.

Conduitshipping (Akira x Ema x Shoichi)

No. I’ll elaborate on why in the Ema/Shoichi section.

Crystalheartshipping (Aqua x Earth)

Finally another ship I like. Earth’s crush on Aqua was cute, as much as I make fun of the whole “pushing Aqua off the hoverboard” thing. Still, it’s cute. Basic, but cute.

Cybersedragonshipping (Firewall Dragon x Topologic Bomber Dragon)

I have no idea why this is a ship, but I’m glad it is because it’s really funny. I don’t like Datastorm, but I can get behind this.

Darkcrystalshipping (Ai x Aqua x Earth)

Normally, I would say/joke that the best solution to a love triangle is polyamory but in this case… Aqua does not like Ai, and I do not like that ship. So I don’t care for this one.

Darkfireshipping (Ai x Flame)

Meh. I only ever saw this as platonic but it’s perfectly harmless. Would make a funny enemies to lovers fic honestly.

Datastormshipping (Yusaku x Ryoken)

I never saw the appeal of this one. I still don’t get why Yusaku was so desperate to reform/reach out to Ryoken after Ryoken said to his face that he regretted saving his life and the fact that this ship is just… everywhere and often characterises these two in ways I don’t personally agree with makes me really not care for it. I don’t hate it like I hate some of these other ships but I do feel nothing toward it. So it’s a no.

Daybreakshipping (Yusaku x Jin)

Nah. I always think of these two as siblings so I can’t see a romantic relationship between them.

Any Haru ship

I have this opinion for every ship involving Haru: I know he’s an AI, but he looks and acts like a little kid so I don’t feel comfortable shipping him with any of the teens or adults. So all of his ships are a no.

Dischargeshipping (Jin x Lightning)

This one’s weird for me. I really ship my version of it in Blissful Ignorance: where Lightning isn’t a human hating serial killer that tortures children, they’re just kind of a jerk and Jin has no memory of them so their dynamic is essentially a “tsundere/deredere” and “the cheerful one lifts up the grumpy one” dynamic and also Jin is getting revenge without either of them realising it. And that’s how I like the ship. Other renditions of the ship… vary because the canon foundation is just awful and fucked up. So this ship is a yes in very specific circumstances.

Disastershipping (Ryoken x Takeru x Yusaku)

Really funny name and throupples are fun but I really only care for one of the pairings in this set romantically so it’s not my thing.

Elfinshipping (Ema x Hayami)

I hate Hayami so no. Ema is a lesbian probably, but Ema also deserves better.

Embershipping (Ryoken x Flame)

My favourite Ryoken/Ignis ship. Not really for anything canon (although I do like the scene where Flame tells Takeru that it’s possible Ryoken was trying to apologise to him) by throwing their duel but because of how I wrote in my story, Flame of Life. It’s just both precious and hilarious.

Emissaryshipping (Yusaku x Playmaker)

…what? No.

Entrustshipping (Takeru x Kiku)

Confession time: the first time I watched VRAINS, I thought Takeru and Kiku were brother and sister. Now that I know they’re not, I just find it really odd that Takeru asked this random friend of his to look after his grandparents while he fucked off to another city with no indication he intended to ever return until the very end of the series when he’d already been gone for a long time. Maybe Kiku was just his only friend at the time, the only person he could trust with something as big as this, which… sure, okay. But still, not telling her he intended to return and just taking off like that? That’s weird.

So I never really got into this ship. It feels like another obligatory “he was a boy she was a girl,” though I don’t vehemently hate this ship like I do Yusaku/Aoi. So it’s… fine. It’s a ship that exists.

Extinguishshipping (Flame x Windy)

Again, I really like these two platonically, and I can see where the ship comes from, but I don’t quite see it romantically.

Fireballshipping (Flame x Takeru)

Yeeees, love these little beans. I’ve always loved their canon dynamic and I always love reading fics about them. I love that Flame supports him but also isn’t above roasting him.

Firestormshipping (Takeru x Yusaku)

…yeah, I never got into this one. I honestly expected to ship it more than I did, but I vastly prefer it platonically than romantically. Nothing wrong with the ship, it’s just not my cup of tea.

Gateshipping (Ema x Ryoken)

No. She seems a little too old for him. I know Ryoken is 18 but that still seems too young to be dating someone who’s seemingly in her mid twenties.

Hireshipping (Ema x Akira)

I mean… I admittedly shipped this a bit on my first viewing, despite my meme about Ema being a lesbian. But like… I can kinda see this ship and her being bi instead. So, this is a very light “I ship it” but… yeah, I kinda do.

Hotdogshipping (Yusaku x Shoichi)

No. They’re stupidly far apart in age (with Yusaku also being a minor) and I always interpreted their relationship as more of a brotherly one.

Hydrogenshipping (Lightning x Aqua)

Absolutely freaking not, I might like Lightning as a character but Aqua deserves way better than them!

Ignisshipping (Ai x Aqua x Earth x Flame x Lightning x Windy)

…okay, I don’t particularly ship any pair in this romantically (besides Aqua/Earth) but I’m gonna say I ship it out of the humour and chaos factors alone. This is hilarious.

Infectshipping (Aso x Kyoko)

Yeah sure. I get behind this. I can especially get behind these two being a couple and also acting like parental or older sibling figures to Ryoken. That’s cute.

Lieutenantshipping (Aso x Genome x Kyoko)

I don’t like Genome. This ship is better without him.

Manipulateshipping (Ema x Kengo)

HARD NO. THEY ARE SIBLINGS.

Yes, half siblings, but they’re still related by blood and know they’re siblings. If this ship came about before it was revealed they were siblings, then I get it, but they’re siblings now so this ship is a hard no for me.

Mascotshipping (Ai x Shoichi)

Nah. Although the reason behind the name is funny.

Monkeyshipping (Ryoken x Shima)

Again, really funny ship name but I don’t particularly ship it. I wouldn’t be adverse to reading about it though. I have plenty of ships that revolve around the concept of annoying the shit out of Ryoken and honestly? The more the merrier. It’s what he deserves.

Monopolyshipping (Poly SOL executives)

…okay this is the best ship name out of all of them. It’s funny as shit but also legitimately clever. I’m won over to it by that fact alone… even though I don’t know exactly what the ship entails XD

Moonlightshipping (Miyu x Yusaku)

Wow. What a pretty ship name for a ship I give absolutely no shits about. I’d take it over Yusaku/Aoi, mostly because I can imagine Miyu’s adult personality to be whatever I want it to be (which for me is very positive and extroverted, so a good contrast to Yusaku’s introverted pessimism) so I can see them having actual chemistry beyond friendship. Plus Aoi and Ai acting as wingmen to Miyu and Yusaku respectively is a really cute idea, especially if it’s with the intent of inducing them into a polycule.

…actually you know what? I take it back, I can actually get behind this ship. It’s obviously not one of my favourites or anything, but I could see it being potentially cute.

Motherearthshipping (Earth x Spectre)

Yeah, I ship it. Spectre needs someone in his life he can feel close to who doesn’t have power over him in some way. Uh… spoilers for a later take I guess. This ship is good though.

Pathwayshipping (Ema x Shoichi)

No. I’m pretty sure the only reason this is a ship is because of that dub exclusive scene where Kusanagi… really crosses the customer service line and flirts with one of his customers. Gross. No. Bad.

Patronshipping (Ryoken x Shoichi)

Speaking of shipping Kusanagi with his customers! Yeah, I don’t like this one either. I’m sorry, the art is really pretty and some of the concepts are neat but Kusanagi is waaay too old for him. An 8 year age gap might not be a big deal for people who are 30 and 38 or something but Ryoken is 18 and Kusanagi is 26. You can argue Ryoken acts older but within the show, it is plot relevant that he is around the same age as the lost incident kids, one of which is Kusanagi’s little brother. Ryoken is closer in age to Jin than Kusanagi, who is also a lot older than Jin. So it’s uncomfortable.

Perennialshipping (Aoi x Kiku)

Huh. I didn’t know Kiku was shipped with anyone other than Takeru to be honest. Blue Maiden and Swift Storm should duel. Maybe date I dunno. Cute idea.

Phoenixshipping (Aoi x Takeru)

Okay, super dope ship name, don’t really care for the ship itself. Though that being said, out of the “Superhero” throupple (which I’ll get to) this is probably the pairing I can most understand. Takeru’s fanboying over and admiration for Blue Girl could easily turn into a crush and post canon they could comfort each other over the losses of their Ignis. And maybe bond over them if they ever got them back. I like that better platonically since I prefer other ships, but I can understand this ship.

Pistolshipping (Kengo x Ryoken)

Great ship name but like Kusanagi/Ryoken, Kengo is too old for him. Actually, I think it’s even worse in Kengo’s case because he’s quite a bit older than Ema, who’s also too old for Ryoken, something we learned was the case before these two even met. I’m sorry but a character being “legally of age” does not make large age gaps like these less uncomfortable for me.

Piushipping (Ai x Ryoken)

Ha. And I thought TakeRyo was a hate ship before this ship made its way into my life. I just think that the funniest way for Ai to get his revenge on the Ignis hating dirtbag would be for Ryoken to catch feels for him. Especially if Ai… well, I want to keep this post SFW so let’s just say that while I do ship this, it’s mostly for the memes and *clears throat* NSFW reasons.

Poltergeistshipping (Ema x Yusaku)

No. She’s too old for him. Moving on.

Proveshipping (Aoi x Akira)

No. That’s incest and has a stupidly large age gap of ten years, not to mention he sort of raised her. That’s gross. Moving on.

Rainwatershipping (Aoi x Aqua x Miyu)

Yes! Water throupple! The two water ladies should absolutely have shared custody of the sweet water bean!

Respectfulshipping (Spectre x Ryoken)

I am so sorry, MerryFortune, I love your work, but uh… Ryokie here has too much power over Spectre and recently (while writing Flame of Life especially), I’ve been thinking of these two like siblings. I’m not gonna cry incest or anything, as that’s just my interpretation of their relationship but that and the power imbalance make it really hard for me to see this as a romantic pair like I once did.

Yeah about that… this is actually the only Yugioh ship I’ve ever fallen out of love with. I shipped it when I first watched late season 2, as I disliked both of them at the time and those episodes made me take notice of the fact that despite everything, Spectre and Ryoken actually cared about each other, which I thought was really cute. And I still do, it just… doesn’t work romantically for me. I’d take it over Datastorm though.

Recoilshipping (Takeru x Ryoken)

Damn. Going right from my first Ryoken ship to the one I dropped that ship for. Well, okay, it’s not that simple, but I did start getting into TakeRyo around the time that SpecRyo began falling from grace in my mind. So TakeRyo is like the foundation of what I want out of a Ryoken ship: someone who’s his opposite, who’s willing to call him out on his BS, and be forward enough to annoy/fluster him. Well, in my writing at least, Ryoken was the more forward one at first, and for this particular ship, both work for me but yes I do have a preference for Takeru being the more forward/confident one, at least when they actually start dating. So yeah anyways I ship it. I like how they went from hating each other to being actually kinda okay with each other by the end of the series and damn is their second duel one of my favourites in the whole series.

Roboaishipping (Ai x Roboppi)

No. The jokes about them uh… being intimate in early season 1 feels like early series weirdness with their relationship in season 2 and especially season 3 shifting to more of a brotherly bond. And unlike SpecRyo, that is actually canon: at least to an extent, Roboppi calls Ai “big bro” and just generally looks up to him like an older brother. Even if they aren’t blood related, that is still the relationship they have so I can’t bring myself to ship it. Plus like Haru, Roboppi is baby, he is my son, I can’t ship him with someone who’s far more mature and just older seeming!

Wait a minute… Haru and Roboppi… Haru and… Roboppi… okay, new ship. Haru/Roboppi, Robobroshipping, named so for them both being robots with older brother figures, who’s with me? :D

Rockdustshipping (Earth x Ryoken x Spectre)

Merry, is this ship name your handiwork? :) I know you ship it and as much as I don’t like SpecRyo, I can actually kind of get behind this. Because shipping Ryoken with Ignis is a fun pastime plus EarthSpec and polyamory are certified bangers.

…I just realised it might have been important to note that I’m polyamorous earlier in this post.

Royalghostshipping (Queen x Ema)

No. Ema deserves better. I don’t ship her with Hayami either but even that would be better. Although the most ideal outcome from this set of characters would be the two mean girls getting together and creating the most toxic workplace on earth… okay I probably shouldn’t have described that as ideal. Oops.

Safeshipping (Akira x Shoichi)

Uuuuuuuuugh. Soft nah on this one. There’s nothing wrong with it, I just don’t see the appeal.

Saviorshipping (Ryoken x Spectre x Yusaku)

I don’t like either of these two with Ryoken because he has too much power over both of them, Spectre more so but Ryoken/Yusaku also has the problem of Yusaku putting Ryoken up on a pedestal, just to a lesser degree. And, it’s an issue that would probably be exacerbated by putting the three of them together. So this ship is a no from me.

Scytheshipping (Ema x Kyoko)

Yay! A decent lady for Ema! I ship it!

Yeah, she was a cyber terrorist I guess but she eventually did the right thing :)

Stauroliteshipping (Earth x Aoi)

I am confused why this is a ship (because Aoi took in Aqua maybe?) Cool ship name though, really creative.

Subservientshipping (Jin x Spectre)

Back when I disliked Spectre I hated this ship. Now I’m pretty neutral to it. I can’t think of a particular reason to dislike it but I can’t say I care for it either.

Superheroshipping (Aoi x Takeru x Yusaku)

I love these three as a group of platonic friends. These three plus Ai, Ryoken, and Miyu are pretty much a clique in my VRAINS long fics but I don’t particularly care for it being romantic.

Teardropshipping (Aoi x Aqua)

I mean as you could probably tell from my cheers of “water throupple! :D” earlier, I ship this. I think it’s cute how Aoi took her in and how supportive Aqua was of her in their duels. I wish we could’ve seen more of them together. Duel Links, I’m still pissed at you for fucking up Revolver so badly, but make this happen!

Tornadoshipping (Windy x Lightning)

No. Lightning is so bad at making friends they have to either create them or brainwash them. Sweet lil Wimdy would never have gone along with Lightning’s plans if not for them brainwashing him! Which is 100% canon, rewatch Lightning vs Revolver, they explicitly say this.

But yeah anyways my point is Windy deserves better.

Trickmirrorshipping (Ryoken x Aoi)

Eeeeeeeeh. Ryoken did try to kill her back when he was evil, but I ship pairings who’ve done far worse to each other. And having another character on team Ignis punching Revolver in the face with their lips is always a good thing…

Wait, am I only considering this because I ship Ryoken/Aqua?

Okay, well, uh, I’d never write this (because I see Ryoken as a gay man who only initially made an exception for Aqua cuz tentacles) but this is honestly a decent ship. Like, if I was tasked with shipping Ryoken with a girl, and it had to be a ship with an official name, this would be my pick.

Vaporshipping (Flame x Aqua)

Meh. They get along pretty well so I can understand where this came from. Not my thing though.

Vestashipping (Ema x Flame)

I’m not surprised this ship exists since they’ve canonically flirted. But uh. No.

Wildfireshipping (Takeru x Spectre)

This seems like it would be very messy. Could work I suppose, though it’s not a ship I’m all that drawn to.

Wisteriashipping (Yusaku x Spectre)

One of my newest ships. I got into this one while straight up searching for characters to ship Spectre with and out of the human pairings, this one stuck out to me the most. So I read a fic about it and… yeah I really like it. I’m very into opposites attract narratives if you can’t tell and these two had the exact opposite reaction to the Lost Incident. Interesting drama :)

Zinniashipping (Aoi x Miyu)

More flowers. Guess these two are water girls and flower girls. Maybe they’re mermaids? :D Anyways, Aoi/Miyu is a yes. They were the tertiary ship in The Lost is Found (even in the bonus chapters) and are featured again and Flame of Life so I think that was obvious. Maybe childhood friends to lovers is also just a favourite trope of mine because I started shipping it pretty much as soon as it was introduced. Maybe it’s the Lion King fan in me.

Okay, bonus ship time! Disclaimer: these are all Ryoken ships, he’s probably my most shipped character in anything.

First off, Ryoken/Miyu. Aka: a rarepair I respect enough to not steal its name, Watergunshipping, after I realised it was being unofficially used for them. Like Ryoken/Aoi, it’s not my thing at all due to my preferences/headcanons but like if people wanna make it an official ship I’d vote in the polls for its name.

Next, Ryoken/Lightning. I suggested a ship name for them but it was generic and I didn’t care enough about this pairing to come up with a new name or push any harder for it to have an official name. Because the only reason I wrote about it was to complete a set, it is not a functioning pairing in the slightest for many reasons. They cannot stand each other. And between the two of them, I actually root for Ryoken more than Lightning so the concept of Lightning getting revenge isn’t even particularly appealing.

Finally, Ryoken/Aqua. My one true exception to Ryoken being exclusively into men. Came for her tentacles, stayed for her cute, beautiful, wonderful soul- I have a crush on Aqua, I admit it. But also pairing the lying gruff tsundere disaster man with the sweet gentle living lie detector Ignis is just a hilarious idea to me. Some of the other Ignis might openly flirt with and try to seduce him, Aqua would just exist around him and watch with a smile as he falls further in love. This is probably the reason I’m a little more okay with Ryoken/Aoi and Ryoken/Miyu. I don’t ship either of them but if he’s with them, Aqua will be close by. Neeheehee :)

#yugioh #ygo #yugioh vrains #ygo vrains #vrains #anti shipping #shipping

13 notes · View notes

torchickentacos · 2 years

Text

Pokemon Character Analysis- Hoenn

So, I was going to release all of these at once and then I realized I would surpass the character limit, so I’ll do it by region. THIS IS A LONG POST! I analyze and explain my interpretations and writing of Drew, May, Max, Harley, and Soldiad in this one but I invite everyone to add whatever they want- I know some of you have stuff to say about Drew and Caroline/Norman. Please feel free to add on! I LOVE seeing everyone’s opinions. Disclaimer, this is contestshippy. Not because of my bias, thought hat plays into it, but these two’s arcs and stories are just so interconnected that I can’t really talk about one without the other. Respectshippers, Advanceshippers, Sapphirepearlshippers, I see you and I love you, but I’m sorry because canon examples are what I use to back myself up here and canon examples are pretty explicitly contestshippy-but what I say here can be theoretically applied to the respective character in any ship. I’m doing Hoenn first because I hve them all finished.

Max: Max is slightly more interesting than I think people pick up on. Like, yeah, he’s Max, but hear me out. He’s a nerd who likes to push people’s buttons, and he’s good at booksmarts. But he’s actually really far from the typical nerd stereotype in one big way- Thinking versus Feeling. Max acts emotionally. Like his sister, he’s a huge feeler rather than a thinker. He wants to form friendships with pokemon, more so than people. Everything else with him is fairly surface level and not worth going over, but I do like him as a character. There just isn’t much there aside from that.

May: May is interesting, because a lot of people seem to not know where to go with her aside from food and being sweet. I think that the one thing people miss out on with her is that she reaches out to people. She initiates friendships and conversations and sometimes arguments, though usually Drew baited her into it. With Drew especially we see an interesting push and pull- a pattern of her trying to get him to talk to her or any variation of trying to interact with him, and he pulls away from her pushing. (Until he doesn’t.) She actively seeks out new things and people and relationships. She also sees the best in people even when they’ve done nothing to deserve it, as seen with Harley-who she put up with for entirely too long, but it speaks to her optimism and open-mindedness. She’ll forgive time and time again. This is getting more into headcanon territory, but I perceive her as someone who is really good at reading people emotionally (Drew’s crush aside lmao). She’s incredibly attuned to her mom as seen in Love, Petalburg Style!. She can read Max really well, as seen in the Jirachi Movie. We see her comforting Dawn after May perceives Dawn’s distress in the Wallace Cup arc. She’s empathetic. She feels someone else’s pain and wants to help them. Alternately, if she feels someone else’s excitement or happiness or anything, she mirrors that. So, when writing her, I tend to take other character’s emotions more into consideration because she picks up on them. She’s like an emotional sponge. I think she’s overall just a very emotionally intuitive person-even with Drew, though she couldn’t see the crush that everyone else could see clear as day. I think Drew knows that she’s intuitive, hence why he has a habit of trying to keep the upper hand in their interactions-so he can avoid her using that intuition on him- but let’s move on to Drew and get more into that.

Drew: Alright, play some old Fall Out Boy songs, go to your local florist, and bring out the aqua pants. Time for this emotionally complicated dork. This is an interesting one, so prepare for a LONG section. Not that you guys would expect anything less from me at this point, I love analysing this guy. This is a little shippy but that’s only because I use canon examples of situations and tbh Drew doesn’t really talk to anyone but May. Overall, Drew is pretty introverted, a little pessimistic I think, and would rather sit back and analyze a situation, going over possibilities before making his move. He likes to be in control. We see this with him walking away after giving May roses- he’s controlling the situation by not giving her time to respond, therefore not putting him in an emotionally vulnerable situation. @lostlegendarie has some GREAT posts that analyze his body language, and all of it points to someone closed off. It’s worth noting those walls and the exterior seem to be mostly/only around May, which I’ll get to later. However, once those walls fall down, you’re left with someone gentle and pleasant, as seen most prominently in The Unbeatable Lightness of Seeing, also known as Contestshipping Crack Cocaine. And life is but a seedy bathroom counter in a party. Anyways. Spiky walls aside, he’s actually pretty mild-mannered. Maybe not affectionate, but we’ve seen him being thoughtful and caring, going as far as to basically invite May to Johto with him (which, for him being an introvert who travels alone, feels really big to me. Essentially his way of saying ‘I want to spend time with you/I want you with me’.) With him, I think a lot of it is about reading into what he does-which May can do, hence why she puts up with his prickly exterior more than most people probably would. I think she can see that undercurrent of support. As far as affection goes, though, like most of his emotions it mostly happens inwardly. I think the biggest proof of this that we have in in Who, What, When, Where, Wynaut as well as The Unbeatable Lightness of Seeing. So, shipping agenda aside (feel free to replace May with whoever you want, idc), he looks at May, fond expression on his face. He doesn’t reach out to her or vocally say anything, but the look on his face is enough. Inwardly, I’m sure there’s a lot more going on, but he’s the type to just sit back and look at someone, keeping the thoughts and hands to himself. Which sounded cleaner in my head. Should probably reword that. Okay, trying again at that, he’s more likely to just look and inwardly think about someone lovingly than to hug them or hold hands. There we go. I wrote this section at 2 AM if it isn’t clearly evident. Alright, moving on from that lmao. Finally, I said I’d get to this later- the walls and prickliness seem to only be around May. This falls over time, and I think you could go two ways about it- either it’s just him maturing as a character, or (in my opinion) it’s a vy for attention. He knows May reacts to his taunting, and he likes getting that attention. So, disclaimer, boys shouldn’t be mean to girls to get their attention, not cool. These two are my exception because it’s not him being mean to assert dominance or whatever-it’s him desperately trying to get a reaction out of her in the way he knows works, putting her in control (which is, I’m sure, an unintended consequence on his part). It may seem contradictory to what I said earlier about him being in control, but that’s the thing- it switches back and forth. Honestly? I truly believe if May had ignored him in some scenarios and not given in, it would be an entirely different dynamic-but that’s not in her nature, and he knows that. Overall, this creates a really fascinating power dynamic-a constant push and pull from both sides that makes every single interaction fascinating and something worth delving into and analyzing. When writing him, the main things I keep in mind are that the prickliness is mostly a facade, he’s really big on internalizing emotions and putting them in a little neat box that will eventually overflow, and he will analyze and overthink everything possible to ensure the best outcome. He likes to have control over his life and situations.

Harley: So, here’s another interesting one. Harley is quick-witted, driven, individualistic, and far more intelligent emotionally and intellectually than people give him credit for. He can see a situation and see all of the openings for him to take advantage of it to make it go in his favor. He’s an opportunistic person. But emotionally, he’s incredibly skilled at getting under people’s skin. Where May is intuitive of reading people’s emotions, Harley is intuitive when it comes to causing emotions. He knows what makes people tick, and he knows how to take advantage of that. I’d say the only person Harley had a learning curve with is Drew- if I recall (and I very well may not), Harley first tries to get under Drew’s skin by mentioning Drew’s crush, which gets no reaction from Drew because Drew doesn’t really give a damn what Harley has to say about it. Then in one of the contest episodes, Harley takes to insulting May to Drew instead which does prompt a snarky remark back. That aside, we see this the most with May. HArley knows exactly how to get to her-ethough, she wears her emotions on her sleeve and it’s easier to see when he gets to her, so Drew may be more bothered by things than he lets on and we just can’t see it as easily. Back to Harley. He’s also a very- hear me out- justice-oriented person. He has a really strong sense of justice and righteousness-it just happens to be on his terms. He has a strong sense of justice, it just aligns to his morals which tend to differ from everyone else’s. If he feels that someone has done wrong by him, he will take action to bring about his perceived justice. An eye for an eye, revenge served cold. His sense of justice may not hold up in court, but it’s definitely an integral part of his personality. He believes in retribution.

Solidad: Solidad is pretty clear to me, despite our lack of information on her. She sees someone having a problem and she wants to fix it, whether they asked-or wanted-her to or not. And she’ll do it in whatever way she sees fit. Most evidently seen when she straight up tells May Drew has feelings for her, because Solidad sees that as the best way to get May to understand him. She perceived an issue. She saw a way to fix it. She tries to fix it, even though Drew would not be happy with that. Usually it seems to work out in her favor, but this has huge potential to backfire. She does not run her fixing by anyone else-she just does it. Solidad is also very intuitive-she can read Drew very well, which is a skill next to nobody has. He’s usually about as clear as a brick wall to most people, aside from his blatant crush. But Solidad is likely the big sister type who can get almost anyone to open up to her- and even if they don’t open up, she can read them anyways. But where May is an intuitive emotional reader who picks up on things without any thought or without even realising it, I think Solidad is more intentional with her reading. She’s the type to consciously psychoanalyze someone. She has intention behind reading their emotions-it’s purposeful. May feels other people’s emotions. Solidad thinks about them and reads them. So again, writing Solidad means keeping tabs on everyone else’s emotions–but with more intentional action cues, like ‘Solidad caught (character) tense his shoulders’ or ‘she smiled as she saw (character) give a small laugh’. She actively sees and hears these things. May just picks up on it subconsciously. An important distinction, in my opinion-because they’re similar in that aspect but they go about it completely differently.

#pokemon #pokeani #anipoke #pokemon drew #pokemon may #pokemon harley #pokemon solidad #pkmn #taylor's tag

26 notes · View notes

egg-emperor · 2 years

Note

My dude, its not that your content is boring, or you are a bad writer, or that people hate you. Quite the contrary, you are incredibly creative and passionate and that is always a delight to see. The thing is you are on a dying website on a fandom that tends to be the butt of jokes (so most people dont want to be associated with it) and you write about one of the last popular characters there. Its a niche community, thats why your posts dont reach a big audience. (1/2)

I can't help but feel that way lately ever since my instrusive thoughts came back bad the worst they've ever been and it feels like everyone is proving all the horrible things my mind is telling me about myself and my work to be true. It just seems like people don't really care about what I have to offer anymore, like I can't entertain anymore so now I'm worthless. The idea that my creations that make me happy makes others happy too is one of the only things that kept me going and motivated to share more but it feels like it's dwindling. I appreciate you and everyone else that has been supporting me and I'm glad you still enjoy my content. I don't want to seem ungrateful but my mind is being nasty to me and seeing how a lot of people seem to be losing interest across all three of my blogs more than ever is getting me down even more.

It's a shame that the site is dying when Twitter is garbage that kills the passion and creativity of many. Yeah that might be a part of it but I definitely have a more active follower base than it seems most of the time. I notice this when a bunch of people following me only like/rb/interact with stuff I reblog and clearly scroll past my self made posts in between. And yeah Eggman isn't that popular, especially not modern/game canon. But I'm even starting to feel like an outcast to the Eggman fandom space here (despite being here before most since 2015 when there were barely any Eggman posting blogs. I was the one accused of gatekeeping for not liking jimbotnik but I'm the one feeling pushed out and alienated now lol) because I don't like the movie and I'm not big on the popular romantic ships, headcanons, and fanon interpretations now. It just feels like everything I do is wrong and what I have to offer is never good enough, or the interest doesn't last because I don't do all the new things that are considered cool now.

Undoubtedly part of it is also that I write more. But fuck man, art is hard and even harder when you have to digitalize it on a phone. It's become more stressful than fun so I can't do it a lot. I just wish that fandoms didn't always make creators feel like writing doesn't matter and isn't as good as art. I've seen people entirely disregard writing and automatically assume it to be trash just because it isn't art. And a lot of people don't tend to support writing like they do with art, even if they do like it. But I wish people understood that creators need at least some support if they want them to keep creating, otherwise they won't think it's worth it or anyone cares. We're not mindless content machines to pump out content and entertain until people get bored of us. Both art and writing takes time, passion, and effort and a bit of support goes a long way but sometimes you get nothing but silence and it can be more crushing than hate at times, left to wonder if your creations were even worth your time to create or anyone else's to consume.

But aside from that, what also gets me down is that I do actually see people supporting other's writing and encourage more from them but I don't get any of that type of support, feedback, or criticism from those very same people when it comes to mine, despite them being so similar. I tend to get brushed off or ignored or nowhere near as much hype. And I know it sounds like jealousy but it honestly just makes wonder what, is it just my stuff specifically that's just not good enough for them? And it just never seems good enough, no matter how hard I try. I realize there are times it is in fact personal and I have no idea why because they don't tell me and I feel terrible when it ends up confirming my fears, then I worry if it's always the case. That's the stuff that hurts the most, more than people just outright telling me if they don't like or aren't interested in my stuff anymore, which would hurt less.

I know not everyone thinks I should die really but it's easy to think that way in times where I get insults and suicide bait from people shitting on me and what I do more than I get positive or supportive comments. So that's why it feels like people just want me to die, I'm told so in my inbox. I'm not saying I demand endless high praise but just someone simply saying they enjoyed something I posted instead of just silence has a way bigger positive impact than they think but some don't anymore. And if there's a reason why or it isn't personal, I wish they'd tell me so it puts my mind to rest, instead of pretending I don't see blatant disinterest or the ignoring that drives me mad and kills motivation. The hateful people are more vocal and then it feels like nobody else cares and it drags me down.

I swear some people, both general followers and some people I'm closer to are just losing interest and getting sick of me personally and it's hard seeing it happen and seemingly being unable to do anything, making it feel like my time of being capable of doing anything good and likable in their eyes has passed. And it's just hard accepting that and letting it go, especially when you never get the real answers and you're left wondering what went wrong and why you're not good enough anymore. I've had moments of realization where my heart sinks when I present something I'm proud of and I get unenthusiastic responses or silence. And feeling either people drift away or being insulted more often than anything positive gives my sick brain a lot to work with in further attacking me with nasty intrusive thoughts too. But like I said, that last part is on me and I feel I'm just genuinely too mentally ill to handle being on the internet.

I appreciate all of you that do support me and my passion and creations, it might just look silly on the surface with my rambling and gushing but what I create is important to me and it means the world to me that it's enjoyed by anyone else. It gets tough with my mind and negativity I receive but I try not to lose sight of the positive things or forget people enjoy my work, which makes it worth turning my passion and ideas into something I can share. I'm trying to get better at not letting negative and hateful stuff matter and only value the good but sometimes when I'm already dealing with enough privately and come online and see this happening too, it's the little extra push I need to reach the breaking point. But at the same time, when I'm in some of my darkest places with things I don't talk about, coming online and seeing kind words and knowing my stuff is enjoyed means everything and manages to put a smile on my face, no matter how awful I feel. And that's what keeps me creating and sharing for as long as I'm here. Thank you. 💜

#asks #vent

16 notes · View notes

arbitrarygreay · 2 years

Text

So I was rereading my Legacies Shipping Megapost and this part of my take on Panda Squad stood out to me:

The problem, as usual, is that in canon Hope ditches them quite a lot! It’s almost like Hope is the Lizzie to the twins’ M.G.

And I started thinking more about it, and it really is true. The pattern of history with the twins, based on what I've seen in canon, is thus: Alaric and/or Caroline pushes the twins to make friends with Hope. The twins try to. It doesn't take (as Josie put it in S1E3, Hope "pokes", picking fights). The twins back off to respect the boundaries Hope has established. Alaric and/or Caroline try to force Hope into their activites anyways, which makes both the twins and Hope angry and lash out with each other (e.g. 11th birthday party). This further entrenches their very mixed feelings such that even when the twins do feel affection (such as Josie's crush), their good-odds prediction that Hope will rebuff them makes them stay defensive. It's easy to imagine a world where the twins were mean girls vs. Hope, but the way Hope treats them even after reconciliation seems to bear out the twins' side of things: that the twins did keep making sincere overtures, and Hope never took them up on it. On the other hand, there is the very real possibility that the twins indirectly bullied Hope, as we know the other witches laughed at Hope being the villain in Lizzie's Star Wars story. Others may have bullied Hope on the twins' behalf, as the twins complained to them about the situation, and the twins certainly had more social sway than Hope (similar to how we saw the witches treat Sebastian). That might explain why Hope would never trust the twins' direct attempts at friendship. But yeah, in canon, even after they've reconciled, Hope really is the Lizzie to the twins’ M.G. She rarely chooses to interact with the twins unless she wants something from them. When the twins ask for her help, she'll give it, and they work quite well together, but when Hope has free time, they aren't her top picks. Which, there is a very family vibe to that (family as the people you can take for granted), but it's also a bit of a buzzkill for certain ship metrics, particularly for teenage romance. It's off-putting how one-sided it is that the twins chase Hope, but not vice-versa. This is why the Cleo-Hope dynamic has a spark to it, as she's basically the only person besides Landon that Hope chases. (The reason that I love Panda Squad OT3 and not Lizzie-MG despite this similarity is that for all of that, the Pandas are dynamite when they are together, whereas Lizzie and MG don't accomplish much as a team, or enjoy it when they do, in the case of football. The Pandas are even fun when they're at odds with each other, while Lizzie-MG conflict only further sinks their ship.)

#not tagging this properly for reasons #category: tv #category: femslash #4 #5 #legacies #hope mikaelson #lizzie saltzman #josie saltzman #cleo sowande #I suppose it's impressive that the writing was so utterly consistent about the panda squad dynamic in this way #their childhood dynamic doesn't really change even after they've become friends lol

3 notes · View notes

thekisforkeats · 3 years

Text

Love Languages

Info: The Magnus Archives, JonMartin, rated T probably for swears. Canon-Compliant. Set post-MAG 22, with a coda post-MAG 159. Everyone is ND and everyone is trans because that’s just how my personal S1 Archives gang rolls.

CWs: Mentions of ableism and Martin’s mother. I’d say canon-typical worms but the worms don’t really come up except in passing.

I do not know anything about BSL, so I did not try to describe the signs.

Summary: A love language is not just about how you best show love and affection; it is also about the ways you best receive love and affection. And so, for someone like Martin, who shows love by going out of his way to help others, someone going out of their way to help him, well. What better way for him to realize just how loved he is?

--------------------------------------------

The first time Martin went completely non-verbal after starting work in the Archives, it was the morning after giving Jon the statement about Jane Prentiss.

It wasn’t a surprising development, really. Martin didn’t go fully non-verbal that often, but when he did it was almost always a thing that started in the morning and lasted most of the day. Sometimes it wore off by the time he went to bed, sometimes it lasted until the next morning.

After his mother’s diagnosis, he’d been unable to speak for an entire week. That hadn’t gone over well--as much as his mother wanted him to be quiet, she didn’t like the “silent treatment,” as she called it.

Martin hated that she’d called it that, as though his non-verbal episodes were anything he did on purpose. Some days talking just felt like a chore; those days he could get by only forcing words out when he had to. But some days, the worst days, he just couldn’t talk. He could understand other people just fine, he could make noises, sometimes he could even hum. And he could definitely read and write. But speaking words, aloud? No. He could not speak, on these days, however much he may have wanted to.

As Martin grew older and learned more about himself, he learned words and reasons and coping mechanisms. He realized that some of the problem came from dysphoria and the longer he was on hormones the less often it happened. He realized that he was autistic (even if he never got diagnosed), and learned how to handle the episodes that still occurred. He took sign languages classes because it was a good and useful thing to know regardless, to be able to communicate with more people.

As many Deaf people had learned before Martin, he’d found himself in plenty of situations when nobody around him knew BSL, so he’d found a phone app that let him type out things he wanted to say and repeated them in a tinny, mechanical voice. Feminine, but he found it didn’t cause dysphoria; it wasn’t his voice. It was the app speaking for him, a robot lady translating his words.

Martin was fairly certain he was going to need the robot lady to speak for him today, and he was dreading the whole idea. The app got him a range of reactions from scorn to derision to faux sympathy. The last time he’d done so at work, the Institute library staff had regarded him with such pity that he’d called in sick the two other times it had happened since.

He’d woken early, because he was always awake fairly early, to ensure he looked presentable and got to work on time. He did not want Jonathan “Crisply Professional At All Times” Sims giving him that look again. The particular look that was “I highly disapprove of your sartorial choices but I’m not going to get into it right now because I have so very much else to do. Nonetheless, if I could fire you for what you’re wearing I would.”

Jon had a lot of looks. Martin fervently wished he could stop categorizing them; he very much disliked his boss, and very much wanted to stop thinking about Jon quite as much as he did.

Jon was attractive, that much Martin had noticed the first day he’d come in, with a jawline Martin would’ve loved to trace with his fingers, eyes sharp and deep and intelligent, salt-and-pepper hair that Martin would have tangled his fingers in gladly.

Except, of course, that Jon was also a prick who didn’t like Martin one bit and made that very clear. He’d put down on record that he thought Martin would “contribute nothing but delays.” Martin was not such a sucker for punishment that he would put up with someone who hated him just for a pretty face. The tiny potential blossom of a crush had been, well, crushed five seconds after it had poked its head above ground, by Jon’s declaration that he could dismiss Martin if he didn’t resolve the “dog situation” immediately.

Martin counted his lucky stars every day that Jon had not, in fact, dismissed him, despite having had to deal with a doggy mess. The luck was really in having Tim around, Martin figured; Jon actually seemed fond of Tim, and the other man had managed to smooth the entire situation over.

Martin had fallen asleep last night thinking about the new look Jon had given him yesterday: concerned. Truly, genuinely concerned, which had rather taken Martin aback. He’d been certain Jon wouldn’t believe him, would scoff and roll his eyes at the entire statement, and instead he’d just looked… concerned.

And then Jon had offered Martin the cot that he’d woken up in this morning.

It wasn’t the look of concern that had Martin non-verbal, though; of that he was certain. It was the stress of the last two weeks, and dumping out the statement yesterday, and all the whirl of figuring out how to live in the Archives. Jon’s insistence on going with him to pick up basics with a toothbrush at the convenience store, and then coming back to be sure he was okay. Jon finding clean sheets and discussing how he’d do his laundry. Jon had expensed clothing bought online to the Institute, including next-day shipping, because he’d “lost access to his flat and thus his wardrobe in the line of duty.” It had all been bewildering and overwhelming and it was no real surprise that Martin was in the state he found himself when he woke.

Martin had known as soon as he’d opened his eyes. It was just there, the feeling of nope can’t talk today. He’d pulled on his binder and the same clothing he’d worn the day before and then fumbled around for his phone. Which… he didn’t have. The damn worm-hive-lady had stolen it from him. Well, shit.

He managed to avoid having to figure out how to talk while he went out to get breakfast, just pointing at a scone in the display and smiling at the guy behind the counter as if he wasn’t secretly irritated by the price of everything in Chelsea. By the time Martin got back, Jon was already in his office, so thank God he’d avoided that awkward interaction. He went to make himself tea, and had his breakfast in the breakroom, and brushed his teeth, and then went to get started on…

Wait. He didn’t even know what they were working on right now.

Well, he wasn’t going to bother Jon about it; however nice he’d been last night it surely must have worn off by now, and Martin had no interest in summoning one of his boss’ looks this early in the morning. Normally he’d still be on his commute at this hour.

After a moment’s thought, he went to go see what they’d recorded in his absence, and soon had a stack of statements on his desk. They’d gotten through five statements in the two weeks he’d been gone. Maybe Jon was right. Maybe Martin did contribute “nothing but delays.”

Pushing the thought aside, Martin focused on listening to the tapes, and was just finishing up listening to the second half of Father Edwin Burroughs’ statement when Tim came into the shared office the assistants used.

“Hey, you’re in early. You get the email?”

Martin raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

Tim snorted. “Jon claims he’s got something to warn us about, something that ‘won’t parse properly through digital means.’” He rolled his eyes. “Which is Jon-speak for ‘it’s a weird thing and I don’t want to admit it’s a weird thing because I have to keep my skeptic hat on to preserve my self-image.”

Martin chuckled in solidarity, then gestured toward the door to Jon’s office, to indicate that’s where their boss was.

“Not coming?” Tim asked, his own eyebrow raised. When Martin shrugged, he said, “Well, I guess if you didn’t get the email…” Tim also shrugged, then said, “Guess I’d better get it over with. Wish me luck!”

Martin gave him a thumbs up.

When Sasha came in, Martin silently directed her to Jon’s office as well, then heaved a sigh of relief. He hadn’t had to explain being non-verbal at all yet, and it was already nine o’clock. Maybe if he was lucky, Jon would warn them off talking to him and he’d manage to make it the entire day without having to explain the whole “non-verbal” business to anyone he saw on a regular basis.

Alas, it was barely thirty minutes later that Tim and Sasha returned to talk to him, both wearing expressions of mingled concern and guilt. When they spoke it was a flood of the usual, expected platitudes:

“We’re so sorry!”

“We didn’t know!”

“Are you okay??”

And such like.

Martin shrugged and nodded and shook his head in all the right places, and evidently Jon had played them the tape of his statement so he didn’t have to explain it all again (thank God), and he thought maybe, maybe he could even figure out what statement they were working on right now if he just listened to their chatter after they were done with the niceties, but then…

Well. Then Timothy Stoker happened.

Which is to say, Tim actually looked at Martin, and said, “You’re being awfully quiet. You sure you’re okay?”

And then he and Sasha just… sat there, looking at him expectantly.

Martin sighed and reached for a piece of scrap paper and wrote, I’m autistic and sometimes I go non-verbal. Today’s one of those days, but I don’t have my phone anymore, so no communication app.

As he held up the paper so the others could read the words, Martin braced himself for the ensuing reactions. Pity, probably, like those in the Institute library, and he couldn’t even call in sick to avoid it; he’d rather have scorn and derision. At least those reactions were honest.

What he got from them was not pity, however, nor even scorn.

Sasha hummed. “Autism explains a lot, actually. Don’t worry, it’s not a problem.”

Tim grinned and clapped Martin on the shoulder. “Yeah, why didn’t you just say so? It’s fine, you’ve been through an ordeal. And so you know--you’re hardly the only neurodivergent in the Archives.”

Martin blinked at Tim, then wrote: Wait, what? Who…?

“Would you believe me if I said all of us?” Tim said with a grin. “I have ADD, Jon’s… well… he’s Jon, and as for Sasha…”

Sasha sighed in fond exasperation and cut in, “Tim…”

“I contend that you cannot be neurotypical, Ms. James. You fit in too well around here.”

“I am not admitting to anything on Institute property,” Sasha said with aplomb. “And you shouldn't have either, but here we are.” She looked at Martin. “If HR finds out and they give you any trouble, let us know and we’ll figure out what to do.”

Tim, in the meanwhile, pulled out his phone. “Here, go ahead and use mine for now, until your replacement gets here or whatever. What’s the app so I can install it for you?”

Martin’s jaw had dropped open. Tim having ADD made sense; what did he mean about Jon, though? And Sasha? And what did Sasha mean about HR? And… and why were they being so… nice? So… understanding? It wasn’t an act, or at least he didn’t think it was. They seemed… genuinely fine with it. Accepting, even.

It was the strangest thing Martin had experienced in a while, and that was including the worm-riddled woman who’d stood outside his door for two straight weeks.

From there the day just… went on as normal. Tim installed the app on the phone, Martin’s robot phone lady spoke for him, the three of them did their work, and everything was fine.

Until, of course, the nature of their work reared its ugly head. They were discussing the statement of Leanne Denikin, case #0051701, which they had yet to attach a pithy name to; hence the discussion. It had long since become standard practice to attach a name to the “weirder” statements, to make them easier to discuss. (Jon insisted on using the case numbers on tape still, which was annoying, given that was the only place he did that.)

Martin was reading through the statement, and he typed into Tim’s phone: What do you think of this bit? “Be still, for there is strange music.”

What came out of the phone’s speakers, however, was garbled static followed by high-pitched screeching that startled Martin so much he actually dropped the phone.

Jon was walking in just as this happened; he stopped in the doorway, blinking. “What on Earth was that?”

“Martin’s robot lady gave Tim’s phone an aneurysm, I think,” Sasha said, eyeing Martin as well.

Martin scrabbled on the floor for the phone, pulled up the app (which had crashed), and typed, I don’t know what happened!! I was just typing in something from one of the statements!

Jon frowned at him sharply. “What are you doing with Tim’s phone? Are you quite well?”

“No, Martin is not ‘quite well,’” Tim said. “Non-verbal for the day.”

Then Jon did something that stunned Martin: Jon signed at him, specifically, “Do you know sign language?” He spoke aloud as he said this, too, but also raised his eyebrows and gave a quizzical tilt to his head to convey that he was asking a question.

Martin blinked rapidly, then signed back: “Yes, actually. But Tim and Sasha don’t.”

Jon nodded, then said aloud, along with signing, “Why are you non-verbal, exactly?”

“I have autism,” Martin signed. “Sometimes talking is overwhelming and sometimes, especially in stressful situations, I can’t talk at all. Woke up that way today. It should be gone by tomorrow morning.” Why was he explaining so much more to Jon than he had to the others? Maybe just because Jon knew sign, and thus could communicate in a language Martin found much easier than even the typing.

Jon frowned thoughtfully, then nodded again. Then, still speaking and signing both, “What were you typing into your phone?”

“Be still, for there is strange music. From the statement.” Martin gestured to the statement on his desk.

Jon’s frown deepened and he repeated the words. “‘Be still, for there is strange music….’” His expression went slack for a moment, and then he shook himself. “Right. Well. Just… just… I’ll be right back.” Then he abruptly turned and left the room.

Tim and Sasha exchanged bewildered looks. Then Sasha asked, “Do you know what that was all about?”

“I forgot Jon knows BSL,” Tim replied thoughtfully. “Hard of hearing on one side. Not that he’d have agreed to interpret all day or anything.”

Martin shrugged. It’s alright, he typed. This works just fine.

“Well, no, obviously not for some things.” Jon had reappeared as suddenly as he’d disappeared, holding a small brown notebook the size of Martin’s hand. “Here,” he said, thrusting the notebook at Martin. “This will work better, for communicating about the statements. You needn’t use it with me, of course, unless signing is also taxing.”

Martin stared up at Jon. There was an entirely new look on his boss’ face. Not any level of scorn or sneer, nor even concern. He was… nervous. Fidgety. Like he was offering a gift that he was afraid might be rejected.

Something went flip in Martin’s stomach and it was like the entire world turned upside down. Suddenly, in light of Jon’s actions in the last 24 hours, he saw the way his boss had acted toward him the last six months for what it was: a defense mechanism. Armor pulled up around someone fragile and soft and sweet, someone so terrified of rejection that he went about making sure it happened preemptively so he wouldn’t be hurt.

Martin had a sudden, fierce desire to hug Jon and tell him everything would be okay. It was so bewildering a sensation--he didn’t even like the man! At all!--that he just took the notebook with a nod and a signed “Thank you,” eyes still very wide.

Jon nodded in return. “You’re welcome.” He let out a breath, and seemed to relax a little. “Well. Then. I think we’ve found the name for this one, given the way Tim’s phone reacted to those words. ‘Strange Music’ it is.” He straightened himself. “Tim, you said something about the organ reminding you of articles you’ve read…?”

Tim nodded, expression suddenly serious. “Yeah. I’ll see if I can find them for you.”

“Right. Well, then, Sasha, if I could ask you to look through the Archive like we talked about? I’m certain we’ve had a statement from Jane Prentiss.” Jon then turned to Martin. “And if you wouldn’t mind helping me with ‘Schwarzwald?’ You used to work in the library, right?”

Martin was still staring at Jon in confusion, but nodded.

Jon actually smiled at him. Faintly. “Well, then, I’m certain you must know where to find the German history reference books, if you could go grab whatever they’ll let you bring down?”

The strangest thing about it was, Jon seemed sincere. Like he actually believed Martin did, indeed, know the library well enough to just… go up there and find the German history reference books. The faint, confident-in-his-assistant smile was a new look, at least directed at Martin; he’d seen Jon look at Tim and Sasha that way many times before.

Martin’s stomach was doing cartwheels. There were butterflies taking up residence in his intestines. His heart was pounding. How had he never noticed how nice Jon’s smile was? Soft and small, like he was afraid to let it actually take up residence on his face for too long.

Oh, God, oh, no. Martin could not fancy his boss. Jon hated him. Or, well, no, evidence suggested that perhaps Jon did not hate him, but Jon most certainly did not fancy him. This crush had to disappear, just as fast as it had come. This would not do.

He was going to be writing poetry again tonight, wasn’t he? Crap.

“Martin?” Jon’s tone was concerned rather than sharp, and the way Jon said his name made Martin want to sink into the floor.

Instead, he scribbled furiously in the notebook and held it up so all three of the others could see: Yeah, sorry, was just thinking about where that’d be. I’ll bring them down as soon as I find them.

Jon practically beamed at Martin’s use of the notebook and he nodded briskly. “Right! I’ll be in my office when you have the books, then.” He started to turn away.

Martin’s heart went pound pound pound because oh wow Jon was really cute when he let that smile take up more of his face. Throwing caution to the wind, he made a noise to get the other man’s attention.

Jon turned around, quirking a brow. “Yes, Martin?”

Martin signed, “Tea?” He, too, raised his eyebrows and tilted his head to indicate the question.

Jon nodded. “Tea would be lovely, yes.” He smiled at Martin for a brief moment, and then suddenly looked flustered. He glared at them all. “Anyway,” he snapped in his ‘boss’ voice, the impact of which was ruined by the flush rising in his cheeks, “there’s still work to be done. So let’s… do it.” And with that, he turned on his heel and left the office.

Had Jon blushed because Martin had offered him tea? Did Jon like his tea that much? Was Martin imagining things? He had to be imagining things. He put his head down on the desk and wrapped his arms over it so he could grab at handfuls of hair. What was happening to him?

Sasha tried to make her voice serious, but couldn't quite manage it past quite clearly holding back giggles. “Mourn for poor Martin, working alone with Jon.” She looked at Tim. “We should call HR preemptively, it’ll be a bloodbath.”

“Nah, I think Jon’s softening on our boy,” Tim said with a laugh. He reached over to ruffle Martin’s hair with one hand while he took his phone back with the other. “Don’t worry, Marto. I told you he’d come around one day.”

Martin looked up at Tim with a stricken, betrayed expression. In the notebook: Is this how you comfort me in my hour of need??

Sasha shook her head. “For once, Tim’s being serious. You weren’t in the room when Jon explained things to us. He’s worried about you, he doesn’t want you to have to leave the Institute alone, he doesn’t want you to have to look for the Prentiss statement in case it’s ‘too traumatic’ for you to run across on your own. He actually asked us if we thought we should avoid any mention of Prentiss altogether in your presence.”

“I told him no,” Tim said. “I hope that was okay. You seem like you’d rather deal with trauma by facing it and figuring it out, rather than avoiding it entirely.”

Matin gaped at them. Really? he wrote. Jon’s… worried about me? Really? As if he hadn’t seen the evidence just now that Jon was, indeed… softening.

Tim gave Martin a very serious look. “I’ve told you before… I’ve known Jon, well, not as long as I’ve known Sasha, but for a long while now. He’s prickly and thorny, even to people he cares about, but that’s a front and I’ve said so. You just didn’t believe me.”

“In Martin’s defense,” Sasha put in, “Jon’s been awfully ‘prickly and thorny’ to him specifically.”

Tim put up a hand. “Oh, I agree. I have had words with our dear boss about the way he treats Martin, largely because I’m one of the few people he might actually listen to.” He looked at Martin. “I don’t want to take the credit, because it’s really been a remarkably fast turnaround, but I’d like to think I helped, a little.”

Martin frowned thoughtfully. Thank you, he wrote. If Jon’s at ‘I can stand Martin’ instead of ‘Martin is the source of all bad that happens in the Archives’ work might be… better than tolerable, for once.

“That’s the spirit!” Tim said with a grin. “Now, then, Jon did say to get back to work…”

Jon gave Martin another of those soft smiles when Martin brought in the tea, a smile which widened on seeing the stack of books he carried in right after. That afternoon, spent sitting and going through books and discussing the Schwarzwald statement, was the first of many they’d spend together, reading and talking and comparing notes.

Martin was feeling verbal again the next morning, but he kept the notebook. If nothing else, it was a good place to jot down poetry. And it came in handy when he found himself unable to speak the morning after Jane Prentiss’ attack on the Archives.

And the morning after Jon confronted him about his CV.

And the morning after Jon disappeared, leaving Jurgen Leitner’s body at his desk. (Martin blamed that on the corridors more than the body, really.)

Funnily enough, he didn’t need it the morning after the Unknowing. But he kept it with him that day all the same, the first gift Jon had ever given him, and one of the few things he had left of him with Jon in a coma.

--------------------------------------------

When they reached Daisy’s safehouse in Scotland, Martin had hoped he’d somehow manage to dodge the threat of going non-verbal. He’d been the one to drive the car, over Jon’s protests; it was something to focus on, to keep him remembering he was alive and real. He’d clutched the wheel and driven north north north with Jon giving directions in the passenger seat.

Martin had finally figured out that it was the chance to stop and think about trauma that led to his being non-verbal, which was why it was almost always a thing that hit in the morning. Adrenaline would keep him running after a stressful event, and then he’d carry himself through the rest of the day trying to clean up whatever mess had been caused. But sleep was enough for his body and brain to both tell him to stop, to process, to deal with whatever he’d run into.

It was possible, in hindsight, that he’d gone non-verbal more than once since the Unknowing and just hadn’t noticed because he’d been barely interacting with anyone. He’d certainly had a bad bout the morning after his mother’s funeral, dealing with so much misgendering and fake smiles. And there had been more than enough trauma to try to process in the past year, so it must have happened before.

He’d just really, really hoped it wouldn’t now, because he didn’t want to put Jon through that. (Why he thought he was putting Jon through anything he didn’t really want to examine. It made him feel Lonely, and that was bad.)

At any rate, the realization of why he went non-verbal had led to him keeping busy in order to hold it off, in order to hold himself together. So he drove, and he puttered about the cabin poking into cupboards, and he talked to Jon, and he talked to the shop lady in the village, and he brought back food and made dinner with Jon, and everything was good and fine.

And then he woke up the next morning, in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room, and he could not speak.

There was the smell of bacon and eggs and pancakes cooking, and Martin made his bleary way out into the main room of the cabin and peered at Jon, already up and dressed and cooking.

His boyfriend turned to look at him and smiled, one of those soft smiles Martin had come to love so much. “Sleep well?”

"Not really,” Martin signed. “I mean…” He gestured at his throat.

Jon nodded. “I figured you might feel that way this morning. I, uhh… hold on a moment, I need to….” He grabbed the pan of bacon and moved it off the heat, pulled a pancake off the griddle and deposited it on a plate, then turned off the stove and went to poke around in one of the bags.

Martin chuckled fondly. “What’re you looking for?”

Jon was still digging through his bag. “When I was grabbing essentials at the store, back in London, I was thinking, you’ve been through a lot, and the notebook I gave you before must be full if you even have it anymore. I know you were writing poetry in it, and… oh, here we go.”

Jon came up with another small notebook. This one was not plain and brown, the way the first one he’d gifted Martin all those years ago had been. This one was black, and had silvery stars on its cover that, as Jon held out the book and thus tilted it through the light, shimmered into rainbows.

“Just in case, you know, the shop lady doesn’t know BSL.”

Martin blinked at the notebook.

“It, uhh… I know it’s not your usual style,” Jon said, his voice suddenly nervous. He was looking down at the notebook as he spoke, instead of at Martin. “Not… retro. But… I saw it and I thought of you.” He paused. “That tape, where you were talking to Simon Fairchild. He talked about the ‘cosmic scale,’ and how we’ve never even been alive on that time frame, and you said… what was it? You said, ‘I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever.’ And I just… that was… maybe the most… it was very… you. And there were other options, flowers or cursive writing, o-or… I don’t know, they all seemed so obvious, but this…”

Jon swallowed, and finally looked up at Martin. “I thought, after the Lonely, you might like a reminder that, you have value. That… that to me, you shine as bright as any star.” And then he flushed, and Martin knew it was for him, just as he now knew the flushes about tea all those years ago had also been for him.

Martin was gaping. Oh. Oh. Jon… loved him. Which he’d known, intellectually, but the emotional knowledge of it hit him suddenly, took his breath away. He knew it, all at once, in that “oh we could spend the rest of our lives together” way he’d never really thought he’d ever feel.

Jon had clearly misinterpreted the expression; he started stammering, “I-if… it it’s bad, I can… well, no, I can’t take it back, stupid, I should’ve just grabbed the one that had--”

Martin cut him off by reaching out to take the notebook from Jon and reached out with his other hand to cup the shorter man’s cheek. He smiled, and because he’d realized long ago how well Jon responded to physical touch, he leaned in to plant a soft kiss on his boyfriend’s forehead.

Then he pulled back to put the notebook aside on the counter and signed, “It’s perfect. Thank you.” A pause, and then, “I love you.”

Jon smiled, both speaking and signing, “I love you, too.”

And for once in his life, Martin knew that to be true, and trusted that knowledge. He was loved. He had been loved, and he would be loved for the rest of his life, whatever state his voice was in.

#the magnus archives #tma #jonmartin #jon sims #jonathan sims #jon the archivist #martin blackwood #tim stoker #sasha james #archives gang #otp: one way or another together #fanfic #my fanfic #ableism tw #jmart #canon tma fic

308 notes · View notes

firelxdykatara · 3 years

Note

Katara x Aang :3c

are you trying to get me in trouble

-cough-

no but in all honesty, my genuine feelings about kataang boil down to three major points: 1. it's boring, and does not jive thematically with either of their character arcs, to the point of, 2. actively hampering character development on both sides, and 3. katara deserved better.

points expanded under the cut. (please, if you're a kataang shipper and you see this, just keep scrolling. i've tagged it appropriately and put the bulk under a cut and at this point that's literally all i can do lmfao.)

send me a ship and get my (brutally) honest opinion!

1. It's Boring: This is the most subjective point on the list (I mean, in fairness, it's all subjective, but I have evidence from the show and post-canonical materials to support my other points; this one is just preference), but there's just... nothing to kataang. It's cute (when it's not actively aggravating), and... that's about it. It's not even that I dislike friends-to-lovers as a shipping trope (though it's not my overall preference), because there are a lot of friends-to-lovers couples that I do ship (kanej comes to mind, also will/elizabeth from potc, karolsen from supergirl, romione and hinny from hp, among others), but one thing that I think all of those couples have that kataang doesn't is that both sides of the pairing are teens or adults when they get together, with teen/adult dynamics and issues and stories to deal with, rather than one half being a teenager and the other being literally prepubescent.

And don't get me wrong, I have no problem with age gap ships in general. And as far as atla goes, Katara, at 14, has the same age difference from Zuko (16) as Aang has from her, and it's never stopped me--because both Katara and Zuko are well into puberty when they meet and I have no problem picturing them being into one another and growing together as they enter adulthood. Aang, on the other hand, is a child. And he acts like it. Which wouldn't be a problem, if the show weren't expecting me to believe he is a) ready for a romantic relationship, and b) ready for one specifically with Katara, who is not only older and far more mature but is specifically cast as his caretaker in a very maternal role for the entire show's run.

This show asks me to believe that a teenage girl well into adolescence is going to be attracted to and develop romantic feelings for a pre-adolescent child--and it asks me to believe this while showing us otherwise that Katara's type is actually older boys with fabulous hair and angsty pasts in all of her other potential romantic dalliances--and then enter into a relationship with him, all while ignoring the elephant in the room that is the fact that she was basically acting like his mother for the entire series to that point. (Something that is heavily lampshaded earlier in the very same season.) That just stretches the bounds of credulity way too far for me, especially when there's no evidence that Katara herself would get anything out of their romantic relationship.

There's nothing there for me to sink my teeth into. No delicious development, no parallels where they help each other grow, no internal conflicts that they have to work through together, nothing. Certainly no reason for me to actually believe Katara feels (or would grow to feel) anything for him other than the platonic affection of a caretaker. I can easily believe she loves him dearly, as a friend and quasi-little-brother, but I just can't see that developing naturally into romantic love--not the way it's presented in the show.

And even if they did manage to at least make the development of Katara's feelings believable, unless they changed something fundamental about the nature of their relationship, it'd still be boring, so.

2. It Actively Hampers Their Character Development--On Both Sides: I've written before (extensively lol im so sorry) about how kataang is actively detrimental to Katara and to Aang. In short (because ye gods this post is already getting long enough), Katara is narratively harmed by being shoved into a relationship that completely ignores her stated feelings--a relationship that had been presented as a one-sided puppylove crush for the vast majority of the series--and it inhibits her growth as a character in ways that become far more obvious in the comics and lok, where the very same creative forces that lead to her beginning a relationship with Aang in the first place reduce her to 'the Avatar's girl' and very little else, all the way through to the end of LoK (where she is a Healer and the Avatar's wife and, again, very little else).

As for Aang:

As to how this relationship is detrimental to Aang (other than the comics and LoK nonsense)? Just take a look at book 2, when he’s trying to learn Earthbending from Toph. Katara constantly coddles him. Much of the time, she’s afraid to be anything other than gentle and understanding with Aang--partly because of her fear that if she pushes him too far, he’ll run away. (Which he does, several times.) But sometimes, what Aang needs to grow is a sharp kick in the slats, which Toph was more than willing to provide--and which worked. Katara was great for teaching Aang to waterbend, but he needed more than that to grow as a person. And he can’t get that while he’s in a relationship with someone who will apologize for getting upset when he was very explicitly neglecting her.

In addition, it is pointed out by Guru Pathik at the end of Book 2 that one of Aang's chakras is blocked by his attachment to Katara. Aang takes this to mean (incorrectly) that he has to stop loving her in order to become fully realized as an Avatar, but this is actually part of the problem--because the issue isn't that he is in love with Katara, it's that he's possessively attached to her. He believes himself entitled to her love in return, rather than selflessly loving someone regardless of whether or not they return that affection. (This is obvious come the EIP episode, where Aang demands to know why he and Katara aren't in a relationship already--because he kissed her without asking [or even checking to see if she'd be ok with kissing him], which he phrases as mutual even though it very much was not, and he gets angry and violates her boundaries when she says that she is confused and doesn't want to think about it right then.)

It is his attachment to Katara--the need for her to return his love, the belief that she will and it is only a matter of time before he gets what he wants--that he was supposed to let go of, not his feelings for her in general. Unfortunately, while he pays lipservice to doing this (far too late for it to be useful--if he'd stayed with the Guru for five more minutes and unlocked his chakra there, that battle would've gone very differently), he almost immediately backtracks on that development come book 3, and there isn't another single whisper of Aang maybe growing up and moving past his one-sided and possessive crush and realizing that even if Katara doesn't feel the same way, it doesn't mean she loves him less or that their friendship is less important.

What really needed to happen, for Aang to grow as a person and become fully realized as an Avatar, was for him to grow up. To realize that his feelings were not of paramount importance, and that even if he was in love with Katara, he was not entitled to her love in return. He should have been able to move past his need for her to love him back, in order to get past that stumbling block, unlock his chakras, and regain the Avatar State in time to face the Firelord. But he didn't. As a result, they had to find some other way to just give him the Avatar State (a well-placed rock) and the means to defeat Ozai without killing him (the deus ex lionturtle) and his entire character arc just fell apart in the third act rather than reaching a satisfying conclusion.

3. Katara Deserved Better: This really ties into how her romantic relationship with Aang hampered her own development, but I'm still bitter enough about it that it gets its own bullet-point. And the biggest single reason I could never ship kataang--the thing that would've turned me off even if there were substance and a halfway decent storyline for them--is the fact that Aang kisses her without her consent (for the second time) in Ember Island Players, Katara gets angry at him and storms off, and then..... she walks out onto the balcony to make out with him.

With nothing to bridge that gap.

It's bad enough that a show aimed at children had a scene where the child protagonist kissed the object of his affections without her consent when she didn't want him to (made explicit by her angry reaction)--and this is absolutely an issue when the show is aimed at children and it may well be the first experience they've had with consent issues portrayed in media--but this moment is never addressed again. Katara just decides--completely off-screen--that she does love him Really and walks out to make out with him in the epilogue. There's no conversation, no apology for violating her boundaries, no discussion of why that was wrong or any indication that Aang understands what he did and why it upset her. They don't have a single one-on-one interaction between that kiss and the epilogue, and the only other time they are on screen together, Aang yells at her and storms off.

So, even leaving the comics and lok aside, Katara deserved much better from her own romantic plotline. In fact, she deserved to have one, rather than simply being the oblivious object of Aang's affections, given a couple moments where she blushes but otherwise remains completely ignorant of his feelings (she looks shocked and upset when he kisses her prior to the invasion, and then she completely forgets that even happened because she's confused as to what Aang is even talking about during EIP until he brings it up; that's not the behavior of a fourteen-year-old girl who was kissed by someone she was developing romantic feelings for), before the epilogue where it becomes clear that she figured all of that out off-screen and had feelings for him after all.

She's a main character, not a side-character written in solely to give one of the mains a love interest. She deserved a romantic plotline of her own. (She could have had one with someone else, with very few changes made to what was actually on-screen prior to the epilogue, but that's another conversation entirely.) She deserved to have her feelings considered at all important by the person she was going to be paired with in the end, rather than having him just assume she felt the same way and then get mad at her for never giving any indication of it when he'd never asked about her feelings to begin with. She deseserved agency in her own romantic narrative, and she just didn't get that with Aang.

So yeah, at the end of the day, my biggest issue with kataang is that it involved doing Katara dirty, and she's my favorite character and she deserved so much better damnit.

#atla #katara #aang salt #kataang salt #anti kataang #atla meta #katara deserved better #salt for ts #ask meme #invincibleweasel #asked

138 notes · View notes

paranaturalpop · 3 years

Text

I rate your pnat ships by how well they work as foils

I’m Professor Pops, welcome to Literature 405: comparing and contrasting in pnat ships. Love is in the air but all that really matters is narrative symmetry!

Mina and Agent Day (submitted by @anxanhh)

two women on missions who need a confidante.

Mina is a calculating woman of science with a tender, vulnerable heart deep down that she guards. Day is a fun, giggly love goddess but beneath the surface she is just as calculating.

They are both focused on their prospective goals to the point of subterfuge.

They have similar missions, to solve the many mysteries of Mayview, but they’re at odds instead of working together. Will these lone wolves learn to let their walls down and work towards a common goal?

Their spectral energies are complementary colors!!!!!!!!!!!!

9/10 so different yet so alike. They should kiss and also develop as people.

Spendcia

Where's that post about paranatural having what my hero academia wants?

These two had interacted in cannon only once before we found out they were dating, power move on Zack’s part

The cousinhood and the consortium seem to have bad blood…. Enemies to lovers????

As teachers, Garcia is tired and phoning it in while spender is energetic and committed. But when it comes to mystery solving Spender is burning himself out while Garcia keeps him grounded.

Garcia does things like pack spender lunches with little hearts drawn on the bag but was surprised to be called his boyfriend. He acts chill but inside he is deeply invested in spender but also knows about spender’s isolating tendencies.

8/10 there's a reason these two have been off and on again for 6ish years, they’re walking a tightrope of vulnerability.

Imaax (submitted by Rubyya)

The Destiel of Paranatural. No I will not elaborate.

Here’s a pnat history lesson, the original ship name was Maxaac, but Zack weighed in on twitter with a much better alternative: Imaax. Also sometimes called Team Lightning Rod.

Black and blue colors, just like the emotional bruises they leave on the people around them.

Isaac wants to be seen as heroic and Max wants to be seen as aloof. It presents in different ways but deep down they both really care what other people think.

They both fear sincerity. Isaac protects himself with theatrics and Max with sarcasm.

Isaac puts on a big show of having strong ethics but he’s a little mean on instinct. Max puts on a big show of cutting people down with his snark and devil-may-care attitude, but when push comes to shove he’s kind and cares how other people feel.

Max immediately insults every person he meets and they still want to be best friends with him, while Issac tries so hard to be cool and nice but people just can’t stand him.

The meta tension between Isaac, who wants so badly to be the protagonist, and Max “magnetic personally” Puckett who is exhausted with being the protagonist, is delicious.

There’s a reason official art tends to portray them together. They bring out the best in each other. Isaac brakes through Max’s performative pessimism and Max brings Isaac down to earth.

10/10 these two were written as a pair and it shows.

Suzabel (submitted by Rubyya)

One of my fav tropes is ‘enemies to friends’ where the enemy part is completely one-sided. Isabel probably thinks she and Suzy get along great.

Both the heads of their respective clubs, but with very different leadership styles.

Isabel only studies her grandfather's spectral style to please him and is a near master of it, while Suzy is incredibly self-motivated even though her actual skills are lacking.

Isabel is at a crucial time in her life where she’s learning to distance herself from adult authority figures in order to take on more personal responsibility. Suzy is already blazing with independence and could help her adjust.

Inversely, Isabel could teach Suzy a thing or two about treating your club members with respect and doing the emotional labor necessary to prevent future conflict.

Red and pink! Valentines colors!

Isabel could kill you but would never, Suzy would actually try to kill you.

Investigative reporter/person living mysterious double life is a great dynamic.

Back when Izzy had Eightfold they had the ship name ‘Paper Girls’ which is awesome

7/10 Don’t ask me how I know this but they would kill at karaoke together. And they’re ok foils.

Bullymagnet

Max ‘too cool for clubs’ vs a boy who defines himself by his tight knit group.

Max is learning to be less passive aggressive and johnny is learning to be less aggressive aggressive.

Max’s entry to spectral life was when he injured Johnny and saw a shade of a doctopi on him, and Johnny's first shade was Max's doctopi after the hit ball game.

Johnny refuses to commit to not bullying max anymore even though he really likes him, and max is working on being nicer but he’s still gonna be snarky with people even though they’re his friends. Old habits die hard.

If he hadn't seen that shade, Max might have joined Johnny's gang. He has the style, the stunts, the snark.

8/10 Just two bros whose lives are changing forever.

Isaac and Dimitri (submitted by Rubyya)

Here’s my pitch for a ship name: Brainstorm

Orange and blue are complementary colors.

Isaac hurt Dimitri accidentally somehow. Hurting others accidentally is the central theme of chapter 5.

Idealist/pragmatist is a classic dynamic

They both have relationships with their spirit partners that are rooted in fear.

Dimitri’s self concept is overly dependent on his sense of intellectual superiority, and Isaac’s on ethical superiority.

7/10 have not directly interacted in the comic yet but the narrative symmetry is there

Johnny and Isabel (submitted by Rubyya)

Burnhound Vs Shockadile

These two are natural leaders who know how to treat their friends with respect.

These jocks are both lethal weapons, but while Isabel is a master martial artist, Johnny is a passionate but blunt instrument.

They’re both going through similar identity crises.

Isabel is struggling to reconcile her violent and disciplined upbringing with a good, gentle heart and Johnny is trying to reconcile his violent and self-centered lifestyle with a developing respect and empathy for other people.

Johnny dies his hair red, so he would think it’s cool how Izzy emits a fiery red aura when excited.

8/10 there's a reason these two were the team leaders in the hit ball arch.

Violet and Lisa (submitted by Rubyya)

People have been theorizing about what kind of cryptid Lisa is since day one meanwhile Violet gives off big normie energy.

Lisa is very plugged into all the Mayview weirdness as the queen of the school underground, while Violet was the only person who thought to go get a teacher during the hit ball arch. Lisa was also the only one who really spoke openly about how something was clearly very wrong with Jeff, everyone else talked around it and played by the so called ‘rules’. Lisa’s secret brokering Vs. Violet’s ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’ attitude presents two different approaches to trying to survive in a school run by a mysterious shadow organization within a town that contains several other mysterious shadow organizations.

“If you were, I’d have to be jealous too.” just two middle schoolers pinning over their crushes.

7/10 two girls against the world.

Isaac and Johnny

ship name: Firestorm?

Just 2 fiery redheaded mediums with anger management issues that command primal forces and wanna be best friends with max

Johnny chooses to have red spiky hair, Issac has had red spiky hair thrust upon him.

Both met Maxwell Pucket and decided they needed to change for the better.

I’ve said this before but Johnny and Issac have equal and opposite philosophies. Johnny doesn't care about the greater good, he just cares about a small group of people who he loves. Issac cares about the greater good, but can’t connect with individuals and ends up hurting them. Together they form one GoodTM boy.

Both their spirit partners want revenge on Spender. This spells trouble.

If there’s anyone to teach Isaac about unconditional friendship, it’s Johnny

Isaac has sworn off violence and Johnny worships at the altar of it.

9/10 they’ve only interacted in canon once so far but I’ve think we’ve got a big storm coming.

Suzy and Collin (submitted by Rubyya)

The Bakudeku of pnat. I will continue to not elaborate.

Suzy once stole Collin's phone which prompted Collin to try to cut her hair which prompted Suzy to stab Collin and at no point did either of them think to move to a different bus seat. As different as they are they are also very much the same.

Collin is the definition of mouth service (constantly disapproving of suzy’s antics but going along with it anyway.) while suzy is all action.

Despite their different attitudes they both seem genuinely passionate about the journalism club.

Fashion icons. Suzy’s sunglasses and legwarmers, Collins sweater vests and wrist bands, this duo could walk for Paris fashion week: middle school edition.

We’ve gotten an indication that Collin cares a lot about what Suzy thinks of him (taking off his wrist bands when she made fun of Max's) but we haven't gotten any sign yet that the feelings are mutual.

5/10 I think their story is yet to be told and we’ll get to know more about how they compare/contrast to each other in the future. Maybe brought on by Dimitri's betrayal?????

Cody and Isabel (Submitted by @a-bitchtm)

Cody is gay by WOG but that doesn't matter here since we are evaluating thematic compatibility, not romantic compatibility.

Red Vs. Blue

Izzy’s arch about stepping into her role as leader through communication and honesty contrasts Cody’s role as the secret class president. Izzy finally told Isaac the truth about the consortium, while Cody blatantly lied to max about being president.

Both seem to have generally good motivations and the skills/talent to back those motivations up.

Isabel is in the process of unlearning the ‘firm hand’ philosophy that she learned from her grandpa and Cody’s dad straight up tried to mind control him into murdering a toddler.

They were both taught to fall back on their capacity for violence and intimidation but those teachings conflict with the people they really want to be.

6/10 just two kids who are being led astray by authority figures trying to learn to be themselves.

Cody and Collin (Submitted by @gatortavern)

They both like vests.

Both beholden to blood thirsty predators

Collin is a journalist, Cody is a vampire/leader of the shadow government. It’s a huge power move on Cody’s part to hang out with Collin.

Cody’s support of his friends is enthusiastic while Collin would have you believe Suzy has kidnapped him.

4/10 they hang out for a reason but those reasons have yet to be fully developed

Isabel and Max (submitted by @Paranatural-goofiness)

They’re both people who have learned to put up walls to keep people out. Isabel through violence and intimidation, max through sarcasm and mockery. T

he other side of this is their mutual journey to let their walls down and connect with other people more genuinely, starting with each other.

Their search for acceptance and identity has led them both to become incredible athletes. Spectral fist martial arts = shred eagle stunts

As we saw in the hit ball game, Izzy faces things head on while Max is all about evasion. However we’ve seen how Izzy has actually learned to be evasive and guarded about her feelings while Max is a little more forthcoming.

8/10 Never has there been faster friends.

Isaac and Cody (submitted by Rubyya)

Drama kings

Isaac wants the likability Cody has.

Parallels of power: Isaac with power he didn't choose and cant control vs. Cody who also didn’t choose to have his power (elected), but wields it like an instrument.

Involuntary anime hair and involuntary glowing monster eyes

These two definitely both fall under the category of “lawful”.

I can see these two ending up on opposite sides of a conflict because they both have such rigid personal codes and an intense sense of duty.

I know I’ve been approaching almost all of these platonically but Isaac probably really wants a cool vampire boyfriend deep down

7/10 Unstoppable force, meet immovable object. You two should watch anime together.

Hijack and PJ (submitted by @gatortavern)

They both wanna join the activity club so bad

Both have immature ideas about heroism and villainy.

Both aspire to heroism while at the same time understanding that they aren't that yet and maybe never will be.

They both, like many people in this comic, wanna be friends with max.

5/10 Two supernatural babies who should play wii sports together

Stephen and Isaac (@Gatortavern)

Two boys who are easily overwhelmed

Lawful vs. chaotic

Isaac has enough secrets to give Stephen his conspiracy fix for a long time.

In their own ways they both just want everything out in the open.

Isaac is Stephen's dream, someone actually living a secret double life, and Stephen is Issac's dream, someone with a cool scar who would think he’s actually very interesting.

5/10 these two are both very intense in their own way.

Johnny and Ed (Submitted by @theevilbrainman)

Two souls lost in the wind

Two people for whom friendship and loyalty is central to their character, and they’re both struggling with personal growth because of it. Johnny is afraid to change because his friends have always liked the person he already is, and Ed is struggling to even define himself outside of Isabel, the person he cares about the most.

Both impulsive and uninhibited.

They both live lives free from expectation. Johnny’s wild bully persona means no one is surprised by his antics or cruelty, while Grandpa Guerra doesn't really care if Ed takes up phantom fist like Isabel. He actually calls him a freeloader. Not having much expected of you can feel free but it’s also lonely and can warp your self-perception.

6/10 these two crossed paths at exactly the right time.

I didn't cover every submission because even though only 9 people submitted you sent in 34 ships between you. Pnat’s fanbase is small but very dedicated.

Honorable mentions:

Johnny and clear sinuses, submitted by @gaul-the-unmitigated

Isaac and therapy, submitted by both @squidgeons and @somethingfishysgoingon

PJ and Johnny, submitted by @gatortavern, who seems to be under the impression that Johnny Would protect PJ and not destroy him just by breathing near him.

Day and Scabs, submitted by @gatortavern, because funny.

Special thanks to everyone who sent in ship between people who have never interacted in cannon, which was a lot of you. My eyes are opened now, so many possibilities.

#paranatural #pnat #q #ships #valentines #dr. zarei/agent day #imaax #spendcia #suzabel #bullymagnet #shipping #pnat spoilers

130 notes · View notes

frogsandcookies · 3 years

Text

Cat Hoodies and Flirting

I bring you flirty Logan, flustered Patton, and dash of Patton angst. Accompanying this is a strange plot that takes a bunch of weird twists and platonic Prinxiety.

___

Set after Moving On Parts 1 & 2

___

After doing his normal morning routine which consisted of washing his face, combing his hair, and changing into a suitable outfit for the day, Logan walked out of his room and down the stairs to the unusually quiet kitchen where Patton was sitting slumped over a bowl of cereal.

"I see the gift I got you fits well." Logan commented as he walked into the room, noticing Patton was wearing the cat hoodie the logical side had gifted him several days earlier. The sight of the moral side in the hoodie made Logan feel strangely proud; the look of joy on Patton's face when he had first gotten it a prize worth slaying an army for.

Patton looked up from his cereal bowl where a bunch of cheerios sat soggy in the milk, untouched. He gave a small smile, replying with,"Yeah, it's very fluffy and soft on the inside. And of course, a cat hoodie."

"I'm glad you like it." Logan said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. Patton hummed in response, turning back to his cheerios which he was pushing around with a spoon in a disinterested and distracted manner.

Logan frowned, noticing Patton's lack of energy and pep. The moral side would have normally made several puns at this point and have lectured Logan about staying up until unholy hours of the night/technically morning.

He decided that his work could wait and joined Patton at the table, the latter looking up from his cereal once again.

"Don't you have work to do?" Patton asked, trying to conceal his dejected attitude with a happy facade.

"Yes but it can wait. Patton, I notice your usually bright demeanor is more forced today, is something wrong?" Logan questioned, a concerned expression making its way onto his face.

Patton forced a smile onto his face and said,"No, everything's okay!"

Logan sighed and placed his hand on Patton's, a gesture that shocked the latter. "Patton, I might not be Deceit--er Janus but I can tell that you're lying. What's wrong?"

"I...I have romantic feelings for someone." Patton said, letting his fake smile drop as he revealed the cause for his miserable attitude.

Logan steeled, his heart aching for some reason but he kept a neutral face as he asked,"What's the matter with that?"

"I don't this person feels the same way." Patton said. Logan frowned. Anyone who didn't requite Patton's feeling was an idiot, he thought.

"I wouldn't say they're an idiot." Patton said, causing Logan to flush. "Did I say that aloud?" He asked. Patton nodded, looking a bit amused.

"I just mean, you're so amazing and thoughtful so I don't see why anyone wouldn't return your feelings." Logan elaborated, looking confused as Patton blushed.

"I'm glad you hold me in such high regards." Patton said, still flushed. Logan smiled. "Of course I do, despite our disagreements and differences, you are among my best acquaintances."

"We've known each other for decades Lo, I'd call us friends as this point." Patton said, smiling. Logan felt another wave of unexplainable sadness wash over him at the word 'friends' but kept smiling despite that.

"That makes us sound so old." Logan commented. Patton laughed, his cheery demeanor beginning to return. "Well Thomas is 28." He said.

Logan nodded, looking at Patton and their intertwined hands. He though about the strange ache that kept coming whenever Patton mentioned his crush. This wasn't the only time his heart ached like that but the common link seemed to be Patton. For some reason, whenever he and the moral side interacted, he felt unexplainably nervous, his face often burned at compliments, and further symptoms of an unknown disease showed.

Patton smiled and said,"Thanks for cheering me up, Lo."

Logan snapped out of his stupor and looked back at Patton, giving a small smile before saying,"It was my pleasure Patton. ...If you don't mind me asking, who is this person who has earned your affections?" Patton blushed once again and he said,"I'd rather not say the name but I'll describe him."

Logan nodded and Patton began talking once again. "Well he's handsome. I know that we all have the same face but all of us have different aspects that differentiate us and his just make butterflies form in my stomach."

"That's concerning, you shouldn't have insects forming in your stomach as a result of your infatuation." Logan said, frowning. "It's just a saying, it just means he causes me to be a bit nervous." Patton explained kindly.

"Ah. Well, what else do you like about him?" Logan asked, pushing down the sadness once again.

"Some people see him as cold but that's because they haven't gotten to know him. When you get to know him, you get to see how passionate he is and his caring side." Patton said, a lovesick smile gracing his lips.

"Are you talking about Virgil?" Logan asked, trying to connect the clues to a side. "What? No, he's my best friend. I don't feel anything other than platonic love for him." Patton said.

"Oh." Logan said. "What made you think I was talking about Virgil?" Patton asked.

"The description sounded a bit like him but since you have denied this then I am once again confused." Logan replied.

"Oh. Well, here's another clue of sorts. He's smart and most definitely the wisest side of Thomas." Patton said, a lovesick face once again worming its way onto the moral side's face as he thought about the side.

Logan frowned. "Deceit?" He questioned.

"No." Patton said, snapping out of his daydream at the question. "Roman? Emile? Remy?" Logan said.

"No, no, and no." Patton responded, a vaguely nervous expression making its way onto his face.

Logan was both relieved and more confused at this answer. "There's no one left, unless you're referring to someone from the Imagination though that is doubtful considering how Roman always makes sure to lock his door."

"There's one person left." Patton said softly, pulling his hand back. Logan thought for a moment before realization struck. He looked over to Patton a wide eyed expression and said,"Are you talking about me?"

Patton looked down and Logan took this as confirmation. "Why would you like me? I'm harsh and cold and emotionless and--"

Patton looked up with a serious expression. "You are not emotionless Logan. You have emotions and you don't have to hide them. Having feelings doesn't make you any less smart." He said.

"I...But why me?" Logan asked.

"I can't exactly control who I love, Lo." Patton said, looking almost embarrassed. Logan blushed a bit and said,"You love me?"

Patton flushed and said,"Uh--Yes?"

"Earlier you said I wouldn't requite your feelings, why would you assume that?" Logan asked, once again confused.

"I just--well it doesn't seem like you're interested?" Patton said, internally debating about whether to run away or keep talking with Logan.

"Oh. Well you would be wrong." Logan said. Patton looked at him with a surprised expression, his eyes fairly wide.

"Wait really?" Patton said.

Logan smiled and took Patton's hand, kissing it softly. Patton's face burned and he hid his face with his free hand. Logan smiled a bit wider and said,"Yes."

Patton blushed darker and Logan took the latter's face in his hand. "Don't hide your pretty face from me, Pat." Logan said.

"Since when were you so charming, Lo?" Patton said, his face a shade of bubblegum pink thanks to Logan's words.

"I can be romantic, I just choose not to be. But now, maybe I should do it a bit more because it seems that you are very easy to fluster." Logan quipped, winking.

"I am not that easy to fluster!" Patton said half heartedly, his complexion contradicting the statement.

"It's not a bad thing, in fact I find it quite adorable." Logan said, blushing a bit as well. "You're going to kill me. Logan, I'm going to die and when I do, you're going to kill my ghost." Patton said, smiling and blushing.

"Well then I'll just have to revive you. Will a kiss do?" Logan said. Patton sputtered for a moment before closing his mouth and nodding.

Logan laughed and pressed his lips against Patton's. They pulled away after a few seconds and Patton mumbled,"I'm going to die now. Tell my son I love him."

"Love you too dad." Virgil said, walking into the living room, Roman following behind him.

Both the moral and logic side shot up, the former asking,"How long were you watching us for?!"

"Long enough that we learned what a flirt Logan is and that you are the most blushy side in the Mindscape." Roman replied, smirking a bit.

"We also know that Logicality is now canon." Virgil added, a matching smirk adorning his face.

"Logicality?" Logan asked, him and Patton both looking equally confused.

"Logic and Morality. Logan and Patton." Virgil explained.

"Oh. OH." Patton said. "Is this one of those "ship" things you were telling me about?" Logan questioned.

"Mhm." Virgil replied, eating a couple chips.

"I told you I wasn't talking about a boat!" Patton said, smiling a bit. "Fair enough." Logan said, giving him a matching smile.

"Ew, go be romantic somewhere else. We're trying to eat." Roman said, his nose wrinkling.

"Pat and I were here first." Logan pointed out.

"Get a room." Virgil said.

"Fine. Patton, it seems we are in the presence of several heathens who don't have manners. Would you like to accompany me to my room? We could watch a movie." Logan said, turning to the shorter side.

"I would love too." Patton said, grinning. Logan smiled and said,"Perfect. Much like you."

Patton flushed again and all three of the other sides laughed. Logan offered his hand to Patton who took it and followed Logan.

"Congrats on getting together! And if you hurt dad, I will send Remus after you." Virgil said, the last part directed and Logan who nodded in understanding.

"I wouldn't dare." Logan said, giving Patton a loving look that caused the moral side to melt.

As they walked up the rest of the stairs, Virgil turned to Roman. "You owe me five bucks, I told you they'd get together by the end of the month."

"Fine though I don't see why you need the money." Roman said, fishing out his wallet from on of his pockets.

"It's more the satisfaction of winning." Virgil replied.

Roman rolled his eyes and handed Virgil a five dollar which the anxious side took and put in his hoodie pocket.

#sanders sides #patton sanders #ts patton #logan sanders #ts logan #virgil sanders #ts virgil #roman sanders #ts roman #mentioned janus and remus #logicality #ts logicality #patton angst #mutual pining #flirty logan #flustered patton #platonic prinxiety #tw minor food mention

113 notes · View notes

theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 3 years

Note

Hey, hope you’re doing well and staying sane! It’s been a year and one week since my city went into lockdown mode and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Question regarding your wonderfully zany HP fics - I’m a personal fan of “When Harry...” and “October” - have you ever considered an AU where Tom was the one born a girl, or would the crushing patriarchy of the 1940s Muggle Britain and the Wizarding World (witches must have babies!) in general doom that sort of premise?

You ask a very interesting question.

I’ve dithered with this idea off and on but I’ve always concluded it’d be such an overwhelming task that it invariably gets set to the side.

Because I think it’s highly likely that a female Tom Riddle would not have become Voldemort. Or, at least, not as we know him.

So here’s some general thoughts.

Female Tom Riddle’s Name Would Not Be Derivative of Tom

I imagine that Merope, dying on the orphanage floor, would still blindly name her son Tom Marvolo Riddle, after his father and her father, nevermind that the child is a girl.

Now, Mrs. Cole is a harsh woman with a difficult job, but I imagine she’s not needlessly cruel to infants. She’s not going to name this poor girl “Tom Marvolo” even if it is her mother’s dying wish.

I imagine, as a result, Tom ends up with a very normal, English, girl’s name like Susan, Elizabeth, Jane, Victoria, etc. (We’ll go with Susan so I can just keep a consistent name for the rest of this post).

This of course means right away that, even if Lord Voldemort does happen he’s not called Lord Voldemort, because Tom’s name isn’t Tom and we don’t get the same anagram.

As I’m terrible at anagrams, personally, one of you can look at Susan Elizabeth Riddle and tell me what you come up with.

Susan’s Antichrist Orphan Years

I doubt Susan’s antichrist years would have been quite the same as Tom’s. She probably won’t be getting in the same kind of physical scraps every other day of the week. That said, I’m sure she’s a hellion on wheels and just as if not more psychologically vicious than Tom ever was. Girls can be mean and I imagine Susan lets this fly.

She may also end up being more careful, though, than Tom was. Although she’s a little girl and witches are traditionally women, that may make it less easy to spot, she’s a very pretty thing and probably very charming.

I think, for example, Dumbledore’s misogyny will work against him. Tom Riddle he recognized as an immediate threat, I’m sure Susan will just remind him of Arianna (who suffered similar outbursts, had a similar impoverished upbringing, and Dumbledore just never takes women seriously).

He’d still be disapproving when she gets sorted into Slytherin but we’d likely see him react to that in the manner he interacts with Leta Lestrange in Crimes of Grindelwald: where he just lectures to her about what a shame it is she has traveled down this path of Slytherinhood and she can still be saved.

As a result, and this is where things go haywire in my head, Susan will likely not have the same antagonistic relationship with Dumbledore. Oh, I think she likely loathes him entirely for looking down on her, but I don’t think he’d light her wardrobe on fire for example. I also don’t know if she’d make the parseltongue reveal.

Hogwarts

Given what we do see of sexism among the purebloods (it seems like a very patriarchical society) I imagine that Susan is treated a lot more like, say, Lily Evans. She’s brilliant, but never acknowledged as the most brilliant student in Hogwarts, always as the most brilliant witch and then compared to her male peers who are in fact far dumber than she is.

Slughorn probably still loves her, but no matter what she does, Malfoy will always be treated as better than she is.

This, combined with her effectively being muggleborn, I’m sure makes for a very angry Susan. However, I don’t know if she’d let loose the basilisk.

To me, that always screamed a nervous breakdown and existential crisis on Tom Riddle’s part. He finally finds the truth, that he is in fact the heir of this great family legacy, and it doesn’t matter at all.

Susan faces not only the issues over her blood but also that she is a woman. So, I think in that, she might not open the chamber of secrets. Instead she’d just be even angrier that she’s the heir of Slytherin but knows damn well the man himself would never acknowledge her because she’s a woman.

Post Hogwarts

I imagine that Susan would not be able to find employment where even Tom was able to. She might, that said, be able to get the Defense (or perhaps Muggle Studies, I’m sorry I can’t help it) position as Dumbledore wouldn’t be actively working against her. In this position I imagine she’d sit and stew for a long time, trying to decide what it is she wants to do here and knowing this isn’t quite it.

If she wants to climb into power, I imagine she’d have to do so through marriage, and the likely candidate for that is Alphard Black, who never otherwise married. I always pictured Alphard was very likely gay, and I imagine Susan would figure that out, and act as his beard and help (somewhat) appease his family. They probably aren’t thrilled he married a muggleborn.

She then pushes Alphard to run for minister, essentially makes herself Eva Peron, and fabulouses her way into power and before we all know it Susan is essentially minister and how do you like them apples, Malfoy?!

If she dreams up a Lord Voldemort persona... I am not sure she would, given everything. But if she did, I think she’d realize that Lord Voldemort is a man, not a woman, and would cross dress. The pureblood aristocracy, despite respecting figures like Morgan le Fey, would never follow a woman’s revolution. This would make things very awkward when Bellatrix Black starts hitting on her.

I imagine Dumbledore would never quite figure out who Voldemort is either, because it could never occur to him that it was sad little Susan Riddle. And Harry of course would be floored that it’s a woman.

But, again, I don’t think the Voldemort future as we know it from canon would be all that likely to happen.

Ships

That said, I’m not sure why since I consider Tom Riddle bisexual, but I imagine Susan is a raging lesbian. No real reason, except perhaps that I don’t think she could abide being romantically entangled with someone who had a natural superior position to society than she did. Which means of course if I ever wrote this it’d turn into femslash Lily Evans/Susan Riddle somehow.

Because that’s what I do.

Conclusion

But yes, the long and short is I have thoughts, but once I get thinking about it I go “whoa, we’re getting far from our source material here” and decide to focus back on what I’m writing right now.

It’s an interesting thought experiment but one that would yield not only an entirely different character but an entirely different world.

#ask #anon

132 notes · View notes

sacredonlybyname · 3 years

Text

marichat needs to happen okay

hear me out, I'm going to try and articulate my thoughts on marinette x chat noir on this post and I highlight key differences between our lovely character

Marichat is the other aspect of each other that they don't have feelings for and haven't completely known yet. Marinette/Ladybug likes Adrien, Adrien/Chat Noir likes Ladybug. Ladybug and Adrien like each other. In the other three ships, there are feelings involved, and we see how those feelings hold them back from fully being themselves. Meanwhile, whenever Marinette and Chat Noir interact, they share playful banter as well as meaningful moments like the Balcony Scene™. Marinette isn't commanding towards Chat Noir as her civillian self. Meanwhile, Chat is able to show a bit from his sensitive side to her, something he struggles to do as both Chat Noir and Adrien.

I don't like the idea of Adrien falling in love with Marinette because she's Ladybug and Ladybug falling in love with Chat because he's Adrien. They need to be able to accept the other sides of each other. Something Marichat offers that the rest of the ships don't are slowburn feelings that are built on growing understanding and respect for each other. I mean, let's be real, Adrien's crush on Ladybug and Marinette's crush on Adrien happened instantly (not love at first sight, but they still happened pretty quickly).

Individual character growth! Marinette falling for Chat Noir means she'll finally see his worth, more than just her crime fighting partner and more than just in the battle. She seems to forget or not think much about how he has a life outside of being a superhero. Since Chat/Adrien is growing distant from Ladybug, he might lean more onto his friendship with Marinette, who he knows would never let him down. Meanwhile, Chat Noir/Adrien would finally start opening up about himself, how lonely he feels, and how he just wants to feel like he matters. We all know Adrien uses Chat Noir as an escape from his daily life. He thinks it's the real him. If he sees that Marinette understands and sees what he perceives as his "true self", he'll be touched.

Side note on the "true self" thing: I don't think Chat Noir is "the real Adrien", but simply a side of him, a version of him who doesn't care about rules, authority, and does things at his own will. However, it is when he is Chat Noir that he feels most happy, because he has the freedom AND Ladybug is technically his best friend. But that doesn't mean who he is as Adrien is less real than who he is as Chat Noir. In fact, we slowly see him integrating his double life's personality (flirting, teasing, being a jokester) into his civillian life in later seasons.

Adrienette and Ladrien are stuck in the one-sided infatuation phase. Sure, Adrien and Marinette say they're friends, but a lot of their screentime together involves Marinette tripping over her words–sometimes literally tripping–and Adrien getting mixed signals. They do have times where they hang out and start to get comfortable around each other, but they still have a long way to go. Ladrien? I've yet to see them interact outside of fight scenarios (at least Marichat had the quiet Balcony Scene™...before it got interrupted by a new akuma)

Ladynoir, on the other hand, has Chat Noir at first being infatuated with Ladybug. Because they spend so much time together as a crime-fighting duo as well as Paris' superheroes patrol, I believe he's developed far deeper feelings than when he first met her.

In "Desperada", Marinette/Ladybug has double standards when it comes to Chat Noir vs. Adrien making a lame joke and his confusion in whether or not he should be offended or flattered makes it 100x funnier It's mentioned once in an episode which name I forgot that Ladybug does like Chat Noir's jokes, but she just reacts to it in her usual eyeroll because she's...Ladybug.

When Marinette is Ladybug, her personality doesn't change as drastically as Chat Noir's, but she's clearly less of a klutz, it's how she learns to be more confident and stand up for herself. However, she's also much more sarcastic, bossy, and serious, in contrast to Chat's easygoing attitude (except when it's his loved ones are at stake). As Marinette, she's sweeter and softer with the occasional jokes.

Miscommunication is such a prevalent theme in the show that it might as well be the title. Miscommunication: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir. See? It fits! The problem here is that there is miscommunication both internally and externally with these two characters. They're having a hard time reconciling their identities AND openly talking about things to each other. The first time we actually see them talk about sensitive personal matters to each other is the fabled Balcony Scene™. Ladybug and Chat Noir may be close partners, but it's clear she doesn't want to discuss her civillian life with him (as Ladybug, anyway) in order to keep their identities secret (and with her knowledge of Chat Blanc, it's not surprising). Which leads me to...

The Balcony Scene™ and take a shot each time I mentioned this. I love how in contrast that scene is with the rest of the show. There's no action sequences, it's nighttime, it's quiet, and it's a slow moment for our characters. Chat Noir isn't acting like his goofy self, but is openly acknowledging his serious feelings for Ladybug and that he's hurt that she didn't show up. Seeing this side of him lets Marinette understand that all the flirtations were him being serious. However, since she's not Ladybug, there's nothing holding her back from sharing a part of her personal life with him. She already trusts Chat Noir. They lament their respective heartbreaks, and Chat gets an idea to bring her to the place to cheer her up. Not because he liked her, but because he genuinely wanted her to be happy. Chat/Adrien clearly values Marinette as a friend, and he even goes out of his way in "Puppeteer 2" to make her feel at ease around him. Taking Marinette to the rooftop with the candles and roses to cheer her up rather than woo her was a very sweet and rare gesture from him. It was a moment of vulnerability from both sides. AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THESE TWO NEED TO SEE FROM EACH OTHER

The difference between Chat and Ladybug as heroes is that Chat always protects the people first. Ladybug is more focused on solving the problem. Chat puts himself at the civillians' level and takes time to make them feel alright or safe. Even as civillians they exhibit this trait; in "Guiltrip", Marinette sees the problem and immediately tries to find a solution. She thinks of the bigger picture and acts to prevent the worst. Adrien, on the other hand, takes time to approach Juleka and ask her what's wrong, taking time to make her feel comfortable enough to share her problem. Chat Noir being a superhero is just a mantle; he's just your everyday guy who just happens to have superpowers. Ladybug has to be Marinette to even display the same kind of vulnerability she showed to Chat Noir in "Glaciator", because as Ladybug she's too fixated on saving Paris and keeping her identity a secret

Marichat would mean the start of the reverse love square. Marinette either has to start being less fumbly around Adrien or move on. Think about it: Marinette starts to have feelings for Chat Noir, so she's once again conflicted. But if she starts to maybe move on, she'd be less insecure around Adrien and they'd finally share scenes where they talk longer than 1 minute. This will then prompt Adrien to knowing who Marinette really is and notice even more qualities in her that she shares with Ladybug (wEll), qualities he likes and appreciates. So now, Adrien is falling for Marinette and she is falling for Chat Noir, but THIS time, the foundation of their feelings are FRIENDSHIP, UNDERSTANDING, RESPECT AND APPRECIATION rather than infatuation.

that might make The Reveal™ a bit angsty as well, since Adrien/Chat leaning closer to Marinette means sort of distancing himself from Ladybug. At least from Marinette's side, it wouldn't be as shocking. She'd be mortified that she'd been fighting crime with Adrien all along, yes, but it doesn't come with the weight of realizing the person who you thought would never let you down is the same person who pushed you aside in favor of a new partner. The fact that Adrien counts Chat Noir as his true self and lowkey considers those who like him as "Adrien" are shallow (okay this isn't canon but his life as Adrien is basically exploited as a brand which is why he thinks people only like him for being famous) doesn't help. But hey, I'm sure the writers won't mess this potential up. Right? Right?

#this was...long #miraculous #miraculous ladybug meta #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #chat noir #cat noir #ladybug #marichat

40 notes · View notes

silvysartfulness · 3 years

Text

I got tagged by @ameliarating and @veliseraptor to do this writer meme thing!

How many works do you have on AO3?

Six. I only started posting fic on AO3 last year. Before that, many long years ago, I used my own websites and LiveJounal.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

177481. The absolute majority of which is of course Heaven Has A Road.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

On AO3, only The Untamed.

But before that, I've written for Disney Afternoon's Aladdin, Slayers, Kingdom Hearts, Assassin's Creed, and one-shot fics for my own original verses as well as my friends'.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Heaven Has A Road But No One Walks It at 1194, unsurprisingly. It's my magnum opus on AO3.

Blanket Statement at 302. The first fic I wrote for the Untamed, and the first thing I posted on AO3 (Thank you, Lise, for holding my hand and walking me through it!)

And To Many More at 169

High Noon In Deserted City at 96, which is sort of funny, since it's just a picture and about 1000 words. But the premise is fun! Still hoping for some hungry writer to adopt it and write something for it. :)

Self-Inflicted at 75.

Which checks out, I guess – the longest fic with the most readers comes first, then the fluff, then the funny and finally the angsty and fucked up. XD

I still suspect The Plotbunny of Doom / The Renegades for Kingdom Hearts would score as my all time highest, though, if LJ likes and comments translated to the AO3 format. That fic took me and two friends three whole years to write together, was 104 chapters long and over 300k.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I really try! Comments mean everything to me, and I want to reply to them all! But when I'm low on spoons (which is unfortunately often) I fall hopelessly behind, and then the catching up becomes an impossible-looking chore in and of itself.

I should really set some time aside every day to catch up on the last few chapters' worth of comments... I do love the interaction and discussion a good comment can spawn!

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Hm... I write a ton of angst, but only a few actually have sad endings. I'd say Eaten counts, as does Self-Inflicted, I guess. TPBoD had a very open ending that was still definitely on the somewhat hopeless side.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Mm, it's not usually my favourite genre (though I mean, the whole Kingdom Hearts verse is a crossover in and of itself) but it depends a lot on the source material. I guess TPBoD might soft-count, since we tossed in a bunch of non-canon references with all the world-jumping.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not as such? Oh yeah, I do recall getting a very upset comment on a non-con fic I wrote back in the KH days, by someone who couldn't conceive how you could claim to love a character and then write such horrible things happening to them. But you get those occasionally. Look, crushing my favourite characters is therapy. Doesn't mean I don't love them.

The Russian fandom are loudly aggressive in their comments on some chapters of Heaven Has A Road, but that's more focused on the characters, not me personally.

On the whole, I've been pretty spared. But then, there's little point in sending hate; I just block.

Do you write smut? if so what kind?

Oh, absolutely. Haven't really gotten to that point in the posted chapters of Heaven Has A Road yet, but we're about to unleash it aplenty in the upcoming ones.

What kind? Most kinds, I guess? Soft and fluffy, aggressive and snarly, consensual, dubcon, non-con. Mostly mlm but I've written het, too. Can't remember if I've written wlw, but I've certainly headcanoned/drawn it. A bit of kink is nice.

I prefer focusing on the chemistry and sensations when I write porn, rather than detailed physical smacking and squelching and body fluids, but that's just my personal preference and writing style.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of? Not that I can remember? I have my art stolen regularly, and I've had my online identity stolen, but I don't think anyone's stolen anything I've written...

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Heaven Has A Road is being translated into Russian, and I'm insanely honoured and flattered!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes – TPBoD aka The Plot Bunny of Doom, aka The Renegades, for Kingdom Hearts. I wrote it over ten years ago together with a friend and my now wife. It was a monster of a fic, I think about 320k, and the fact that we were three people helping and pushing and encouraging each other really helped keep it going!

I don't know if I would have the focus for something like it now, but it was an amazing experience I'll always treasure.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Oh man, that changes with each hyperfixation... I may have to say Marluxia/Vexen for Kingdom Hearts, simply because it's a ship that's been around in my life for so long. I still occasionally go back to read favourite bits of the fics I wrote for them, including TPBoD.

Currently it's SongXueXiao from The Untamed, of course, and a very strong contender overall! I've dabbled a bit in poly ships before, but this is the first time I have one as my main, and I'm love them.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Uh. I don’t really have any? Because of my burnout-brain, I can only really focus on one major project at a time, and that's currently heaven has A Road. And I'm really, really hoping I will be able to finish it!

It's all plotted out, I just need to write the stupid thing. Working on it.

What are your writing strengths?

Hm, I'd say that I've developed a voice/prose over the years that I'm actually quite happy with! And I'm good at conveying/invoking emotion, if going solely by how many people comment that I've made them cry. :D

I enjoy writing dialogue, and I love working with layers of symbolism.

What are your writing weaknesses?

The actual writing process. 🙄 I'm extremely uneven and unstructured in getting the actual words down. Also convoluted and inflated text at times - sometimes I write a lot of words without actually saying anything. And English is my second language, so just nailing the correct phrasing and grammar can be a headache at times.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

If it impacts the plot – like the POV character not understanding it, then maybe. And using terms that can't be translated, absolutely! Other than that, there's little point in making a text harder for the reader to grasp by tossing in whole sections in another language for clout. Is my personal view, at least, of course other writers may disagree.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

My first online fandom that I wrote fic for was Disney Afternoon's Aladdin show. Before that, I wrote original fic. And before that, before the internet was A Thing, I'd write and draw for stories that captivated me, just for my own entertainment. If you count that, I'd probably say Phantom of the Opera was my first – I had a whole ”everyone is a horse because that's what I know how to draw” AU when I was about 10 or so, that I'd draw lots of pictures for. When I was even younger, I used to make up stories for my younger brothers, based on movies and series we had watched together. I've always been a storyteller, one way or another, if only in my own head. I wouldn't know how not to.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I would have to say Heaven Has A Road, even though it's still unfinished. It's the first work of that sheer scope I have ever attempted by myself, and I'm honestly insanely proud of myself for what I have accomplished already!

Second would be TPBoD – The Renegades. Even though that was a shared effort, it's a very long fic that we managed to bring all the way to its intended conclusion, and I'm very proud of that, too!

Plus there are bits of both these fics I really like, and that I will go back and read for my own enjoyment occasionally.

tagging: @orodrethsgeek, @ebonykain, @fromaliminalspace, @chigrima, @soawen

#asksilvy #i guess #long post

8 notes · View notes

flailingkittylover · 4 years

Text

How Aruani happened

I posted this on reddit but I’d like to put this here as there are understandable issues/criticism of Aruani and it’s execution within SNK. Let me be the first to say I welcome discussion :) There will also be a delay in responses if there are any as this upcoming week is busy for me but I will do my best to answer those who are curious.

What I will not tolerate is clear and outright hate. It will be ignored. So if you try, please don’t. You will not be answered.

Hereeee we go!

[xx]

I’d like to expand on these really well done threads here and here but with interviews/canon scenes/movies which inspired Yams to help explain why Annie spared Armin, Armin resisted turning her in, and how the ship even came to be. I’ll tackle some points on what AA are on a colleague level then on crush-level, as well.

For those who are impatient like me, there is a TL;DR at the end ahahah.

1. Why didn’t Armin say anything?

At the colleague level, he struggled to believe a comrade he respected was a traitor.

At the crush/interest level, Armin had respect and possibly feelings for Annie and it clouded his judgement.

However, what pushes me to the second explanation is there was an Armin Smartpass interview where he admitted he would not tell anyone if he loved/liked someone.

Armin is a strategist and a forward thinker. He has seen how the Garrison works and how corrupt and quick to attack authority figures and other people are—his bullies during childhood, for example, and the Garrison officials who beat up 9 year old Eren after the first attack.

Armin will keep his secrets close as evidenced here/in the story.Is it any wonder then why he not only said nothing but his “bond” with Annie was very “read between the lines” in FT arc?

2. Why did Annie look “uncomfortable” around Armin though? And there aren’t many interactions with them?

The first question stems from some remarks I saw after chapter 131. They did hang out quite a bit too but that's better explained in the threads in the first paragraph.

At the colleague level—Annie is horrifically sheltered and emotions seem difficult for her to handle especially when in a scenario she is not used to-like most people. She also actively avoided everyone. It’s no wonder then she’s awkward around Armin when he compliments her for being nice when their gear is getting inspected. Annie is comfortable with fighting and killing per her upbringing as a Warrior, not pleasantries or compliments.

At the crush/interest level—like the above point states, Annie doesn’t understand/is not used to basic interaction. Seeing how 132 suggests the crush is mutual - wouldn’t any teenager be awkward and uncomfortable around a first-time crush? Especially when talking to them? The only time comfort in approaching an interest sets in is when one is experienced at dating or have had a couple relationships. Or maybe they are just confident. So Annie not being “comfortable” in the boat scene or gear scene makes sense as being vulnerable and experiencing a situation you are not used to IS uncomfortable, especially for a sheltered person like her.

Moreover, sometimes attraction doesn’t need many interactions, just situations to observe as I will address in a moment. Execution of all of the above, however, is another argument.

3. Why is Annie drawn to Armin?

Using Eren as an example, Yams said Eren is egotistical/self-centered, and makes decisions with self-preservation in mind.

So basically...Eren is exactly like Annie; egotistical because of her pride in fighting and selfish to get back home.

Armin, however, is the opposite and is far softer than Eren, something Annie has hardly seen from strong male figures in her life—Magath, her father, Eren, Zeke. That does not mean Armin is a push-over though—Armin has proven he has strong will and a tendency to go against the current( again, the bullies who beat him up and Armin not backing down). Annie has been shown to respect people who go against the current and seeing a boy who has those traits and is softer than the harsher ones she grew up with may have been appealing to Annie.

4. How would Annie know about Armin’s care for his friends/strong resolve though? They hardly spoke!

One is the Trost Canonfire scene when the Garrison threatened to kill EMA.

Another is Armin’s plan to kill the titans in the basement storing gas for their gear.

All of these moments were observational proof to Annie (what she does all day as a spy) and everyone else of Armin’s capabilities/strong resolve. Another would be Armin's idea to lead Eren's titan to the supply base.

Those scenes are absolutely not an explicit one-on-one interaction but to say Annie barely knows anything about Armin is false. Even Armin put her on the spot for knowing not killing him would cause him to inevitably catch her. Annie has seen through the battle in Trost what Armin is capable of. She also saw through his mental breakdown when Armin said Eren's squad was dead just how devastated he would be if he lost his close friends.

5. Why is Armin drawn to Annie?

The proof to Armin of Annie’s good nature/skill is not so much calling her “nice” but what happened in the background: Annie achieved all of what Armin wanted to do—she was in the top ten and stood “shoulder-to-shoulder” physically to EM like Armin desperately wanted (physically or figuratively) and was strong like EM.

She also showed Eren her moves out of her own free will and this saved Eren down the line. Annie is TINY and “weaker” than Armin but she was a force to be reckoned with and battled Mikasa too, another thing he couldn’t do.

In training, Eren saw that Mikasa was better than him and he was bitter about it but Armin—in my heavily biased opinion��possibly admired Annie for doing everything he wanted to do to match up to his friends and with her bored attitude, Annie likely made it look easy.

6. Why does all that crap above matter?

Armin and Annie’s attraction reminds me of The Comedian and Silk Spectre’s relationship from The Watchmen—an inspiration to SNK origin per Isayama—although not so traumatic and vile in its beginnings like the aforementioned characters. But The Comedian’s and Spectre’s bond emphasizes that human attraction can be strange and powerful—inexplicable even—as they have every reason to hate each other—just like Armin and Annie— but they don’t and Dr. Manhattan explains the benefit of said contradiction to Silk Spectre’s daughter wonderfully:

“Millions upon millions of cells fight to create life until finally, your mother loves a man who she has every reason to hate and out of that contradiction, against unfathomable odds, it’s you—only you that emerged. To distill so specific a form in all that chaos, it’s like turning air into gold...a miracle.” —Dr. Manhattan, The Watchman

The above quote relates back to Isayama’s theme in SNK—”this world is cruel but beautiful”. Out of what should be a sick bond, two people loved each other still and their child who grew into an inspirational person that is loved by many came out of it.

What's the above quote’s relationship to SNK? Annie led herself into Armin’s trap and had to crystallize for four years thus losing time to see her father. Armin lost his home, his friends were traumatized, and because of RBA’s attack, he lost his last surviving relative. AA have done irreparable harm to each other and by pure logic, hate should exist between them but as evidenced by 131 and possibly 132(this is TBD until official comes out), this doesn’t appear to be true. Like in a relationship, the positives of the other/circumstances of a moment can overpower the negative actions/behaviors performed by the partner.

From Vegeta to Bulma in DBZ, to The Breakfast Club’s John Bender and Claire Standish (Yams used the movie's cover for a issue cover), and The Comedian and Silk Spectre in Watchmen, the toxicity caused to each other before or during attraction is nothing new but is often something to be further expanded upon and sometimes results in the most interesting and passionate relationships. Although I admit, I’m not sure we will get too much of that with Armin and Annie given the manga’s current speed.

TL;DR:

Given Isayama’s movies inspirations and their themes paired with SNK completed arcs, it’s not surprising he took two Eldians from different worlds—Paradis and Marley—had them train together and see their hidden qualities but made it so neither could communicate well because Armin would not admit feelings due to fear of it being used against him and Annie being an undercover spy + being too sheltered to fully understand how she feels—Yam’s own cruel yet beautiful world.

These two have every reason to hate the other and Annie was propagandized to hate the island devils, but she doesn't and Armin doesn't hate her either. Given this situation they were handed, it is why Armin and Annie never interacted too much - because Annie kept away from talking to everyone for personal preservation to complete her mission and Armin is overly cautious.

Moreover, Annie was gone for 7 years, and as such, we got her cold, emotion-repressed undercover self as the poster image when Yams always emphasizes what's "underneath". Wouldn't it be OOC for Annie to go out of her way to talk to/address feeling anything when she has been 100% dedicated to the mission? She has always been an observer and is so frighteningly perceptive, she saw how Eren's determination/aggression could lead to downfall. Is it then out of the ordinary she would perceive how Armin is the opposite and embodies something more peaceful?

The same could be said for Armin who doubted the walls staying up even as a child. With Eren and Mikasa at his center, why would he voice a crush let alone trust anyone other than those close to him when there is so much danger around them? It would be OOC for him, as once more, Armin is overly cautious.

So to answer those asking: how could these two feel anything pre-time skip? It is through watching each other, as both Annie and Armin have been doing all their lives (Armin noticing Bert's feelings, the Colossal's weakness and Annie understanding how Eren's determination could be warped and telling Eren during training how the best and brightest live farthest away from the titans.)

More of my dumb opinion:

Is all this a reach? Probably. My ship goggles could be on farrr too tight and I do wish there were more interactions. But given how both needed to keep their mouths shut during the FT arc, it makes sense why aruani bond was so concealed.

It's also dynamics like Aruani where there is deception and hurt but acknowledgement and respect of each other’s hidden kindness (Annie) and strength (Armin) which make them so interesting. It’s not surprising how at this stage-at the end of the world- when everyone had to do horrible things, the mindset of “why bother bringing up the past?” seems to be present now when all it will do is bring pain as evidenced by Marco’s death reveal to Jean. (The reveal was very necessary but oof, hurts)

#snk 132 #snk spoilers #annie leonhardt #annie leonhart #armin arlert #Snk spoilers 132 #snk

118 notes · View notes

norgestan · 3 years

Note

crisana, norandro, jorgeva and amira x dani

ha, anon just wanted all the canon couples. fair enough!

CRISANA:

see, skam s3 is my favorite season of all time, but it has never been because of the love story. isak's story hits in a lot of sensitive places for me, and isak was also the first main character i encountered that was my age. i have a really special connection to him for that reason. on the other hand... i enjoy evak for what it is, but i never saw a future for their relationship after the season ended. in a lot of ways, isak's season ended just as their relationship started, a trope that i've never liked because how am i supposed to think that they will last? how am i supposed to know how they will work as a couple? it's just, ugh.

i had similar thoughts about crisana when i watched s2, except that the love confession scene and cris as a character made it even harder to get into the couple. moreover, the way people brush other characters' roles and presence on other seasons because they're so caught up on cris and joana is like... blegh. like it makes me forget that they're actually a well-written couple at times. because imo, og they never did anything really interesting with evak once they got together. but eskam........ oh, dear eskam.

there's something so beautiful about thinking of all the girls, the teenagers that will grow up watching a relationship like theirs on popular media. their entire subplot (??? can i even call it that) in s4 is proof of how GREAT of a relationship they turned out to be. like, i just wanna SCREAM thinking about it because, how is it possible that eskam saw evak and said "we're gonna make this SO good and we'll take our time and then tie it up in an incredibly satisfying and emotional way" and then did exactly that!!!!!! the way they respect each other, communicate, genuinely try to get to each other without dumb miscommunication. the way they understand each other and lift each other up! the way joana knew how to recognize cris' intelligence when everyone was telling her she's dumb, the way cris knows how to make joana feel worth it and show her affection in such a selfless, loving way. their last scene on joana's pov in s4 was the first time i cried during that season, just because it was all wrapped up so beautifully. because eskam understood that although the appeal of their relationship comes from the soulmate status of every evak couple, they had to also put in serious work to make it all work and they also managed to get that across with grounded drama, and also a hopeful message for people struggling with mental disorders. like AAAAAAAAAAAAA god what a great couple they are. maybe i'm too much of an eskam bootlicker but they're genuinely the best evak there is. i'll die on this hill. i'm so happy young wlw get to watch them as a guideline of what they should expect of a relationship.

NORANDRO: already done :)

JORGEVA:

i mean... it's eskam's fault, without a doubt. i love what eskam did with them in s1: the change of pacing, the way they created jorge, the little story changes to make it more nuanced, i think come together in a pretty satisfying way to show a teenage romance with no real support to last for more than a while. i don’t think eskam fully got the gist of what jonas was supposed to be, but it’s for the better if we think of the message in season 1. for that reason, jorge is like the one jonas who i really wouldn’t mind coming back to his eva. so why don’t i like them?

the answer is simply that i don’t enjoy their trope and i don’t think eskam made a real case of eva and jorge getting back together. they work well as friends, sure, and it’s clear as day that jorge still has feelings for eva, sure. but like, what tells me that they’re just ready to go all in again? eva goes through a really great arc and i would definitely agree she’s in a good place to be in a relationship again, but we know NOTHING about jorge’s journey. he’s just, silently pining on eva and that’s it. i do think it’s sweet and the hints of their lost romance throughout the show are wholesome, but there’s just nothing more to it. jorge and eva work AMAZINGLY as friends! i don’t see why they should push a romantic endgame for them. in my head, eva kissing jorge at that party was just a mesh of the excitement of a new era, the nostalgia of ending highschool, the high of being on this place with someone she really cares about, stuff like that, but it just ends there, and it’s great that way. nothing about eva’s character really led to her aching to be in a relationship again, and for me it feels right to end things with her being single and surrounded by great friends.

MAYBE if eskam had devoted some time showing us their progress and romantic potential instead of trying to convince us that kasim was a real, compelling character. maybe. lol.

DAMIRA:

(god, i don’t know how long this will be LOL)

i have. so many thought about this fucking pairing. let’s see what we can do LOL. the thing about damira is that i don’t think it’s a pairing that eskam had in mind when they laid out the first two seasons. the little hints of a friendship/childhood crush that happened during cris’ season really got the fandom and they quickly became the most popular non-canon ship in the show, so that’s where i think eskam said “okay, let’s run with this”. but it’s just...... meh. like i can tell that relationships like crisana were carefully crafted (well implemented in nora’s season, greatly wrapped up in amira’s season) but i cannot say the same for dani and amira. it’s almost like virihugo, where they just started giving each other Eyes on the middle of season 3, out of NOWHERE. it just feels forced to me and so i never really felt anything for the couple in question... like, for starters, i think nora and miquel were WAY more shippable than those two, strictly talking about their setup.

if you ever saw any of my posts during s4 then you should know how i actually feel about how they developed their romance (check my anti damira tag for more?) and i don’t wanna go through all those specific points again... but damira is not only an infuriating romance, but also a bad pairing in a narrative setting. like, damira clearly exists to answer amira’s questions about how would the future of a romance with a white guy would be, right? does she get an answer? no she fucking doesn’t, their final clip is like “after all these weeks, we still have no idea so we’re gonna cut things short, go back to our initial dynamic, and wait to see if amira any of us change our minds <3″. so like, even in that sense damira is a HUGE waste of time, and just like everything that happens to amira during her season it has no lasting impacts on her character or her settings.

and personally, i love couples where they’re both equal, and communicate at last, and both make great efforts to change so the relationship can flourish. this is why i offer so much praise to norandro and crisana, where in the first couple both character go through tremendous character growth and work through their problems individually before getting together, and in the second couple they show them clashing and fighting just to display their resolutions and show how willing they are to actually talk to each other and keep their relationship stable. dani and amira, on the other hand.... blegh. eskam wants me to think dani is a knight in shining armor for liking amira but that’s all he ever does. he doesn’t defend her in front of his friends, he doesn’t make efforts to get to know her and her world, he doesn’t communicate his real feelings to her, and the one time he did he humiliated her in public. like, idk, like, even MIQUEL explicitly defended nora when his roommates berated her for not drinking alcohol LOL.

at the end of the day the problem with damira is that it completely misses the point of yousana and its target audience. making yousef a white guy is not necessarily a bad choice if you implement it well (which eskam didn’t do btw), but you have to take into account that sana’s season exists to make a primarily white christian-raised audience relate and stand up for the muslim characters in the show. when the lazier partner of the main couple who makes zero efforts to work on the relationship happens to be white, it just means people will be sympathetic of him, and nor amira - and that’s exactly what happened in the show. people either thought amira was being too harsh by laying conditions for dani before they even began dating and making sure he respected her boundaries, or just wanted all the drama to go away soon so amira could kiss dani by the end of the season. so like, yeah. terrible stuff.

i would’ve liked damira’s impact on the season and amira’s journey a lot more if it had been about a one sided childhood crush from amira’s part. i thought their friendship was charming up to s3, and i simply hate that dani is literally in no way an older brother figure for the girl squad, since it’s a dynamic that’s lacking in the show and it would be a nice way to make dani be some sort of non-creepy eskild for the girl squad (but noooo, his only interactions w the gs are hooking up with eva and dating amira. smh). it would’ve been fun to have amira intimately dealing with those feelings just to learn a lesson by the end of it, at the time that she also falls for her muslim love interest - which is actually the isak/jonas/even dynamic when you think about it, also something that eskam didn’t really do with cris’ season. but also, all of this would mean that eskam had to do the good writing thing for s4, which they kinda forgot to do throughout the entirety of the season so, yeah.

#answered #skam españa #crisana #jorgeva #damira #i don't think this warrants the a/nti tag but let me know if you think otherwise!

14 notes · View notes

stomp-that-ho-regard · 3 years

Text

I typically don’t do asks (I've only ever gotten a few), but a recent one got my gears turning and I wanted to reply.

(This is a secondary blog, so I can’t answer asks in the usual way.)

Your post about the retcon is so fucking good, I wish every critter saw it and actually thought about how shitty it was done, but then their belief in the cast and show would probably start cracking.

Thank you for liking the retcon post. I’ve seen various people in the tags thank me for making that post and have said that it’s helped them ‘feel less insane’. None of us are insane. We are not delusional. We didn’t experience a mass hallucination. These things happened, and they’ve been thoroughly documented. Hundreds of hours of material over the course of three years.

The people who should read that post won’t ever see it because I have all those assholes blocked lol. If they did manage to find it somehow, I know they would just mock it, as they’re wont to do with any of our criticisms. They’re so far up CR’s ass, they’ve convinced themselves that a retcon didn’t happen. Even shoving the literal definition of the word in their faces wouldn’t wake them up.

It's just so fucking weird to see how the group is acting now, and I'm pretty sure we're never gonna get a Laura&Marisha episode picture and a TM episode with those 2 for the rest of the campaign. It feels like when a non-canon wlw ship gets big on a TV show and suddenly the actresses can't be seen or interact with each other anymore🙄 it's the same fucking pattern and like you, I thought I wouldn't have to deal with this on a d&d show.

I specifically want to address the “It feels like when a non-canon wlw ship gets big on a TV show and suddenly the actresses can't be seen or interact with each other anymore” because I’ve thought about that pattern too. (Not so much with Marisha/Laura ‘cause them being on TM together is already a rare combo. If they don’t appear much or at all going forward, I don’t think it’s because of this, though it really wouldn’t surprise me. But, I have been thinking about that specific pattern in regard to their characters.)

I can make a comparison between this situation and what happened with the show A/gent Carter and the way the ship Cart/inelli was handled.

I know that might sound weird, but stay with me here lol...

I want to make it clear that I’m not comparing the relationships at all. Cart/inelli did not have nearly the same amount of build-up and depth as Beaujester, (or quite frankly, their level of possibility.) What I am comparing is the creators over-the-top reactions to these characters being shipped so hard and the extreme measures they went to in order to ‘remedy’ that.

The ship included P/eggy Carter and A/ngie Martinelli. The show was set in New York. Angie was a waitress (who wanted to be an actress/be on Broadway) at the diner that Peggy frequented. They ended up talking quite a bit and became fairly close. That ended up kind of becoming the core relationship in the entire first season, and LOTS of people started shipping it.

At the time, no one was calling us crazy or delusional. At most it was, “This is ABC! They’re not gonna pair her with a woman!” and of course the obligatory “But Peggy’s not gay!”. But no one was calling us names or being generally cruel. And anyone who tried it was ignored because everyone else drowned them out. The ship became extremely popular on Tumblr and Twitter. Both actresses were very positive and supportive. They regularly liked/retweeted romantic Cart/inelli fanart on Twitter. Even one of the female writers on the show got behind it too. It was asked about frequently at conventions and no one booed or rolled their eyes. The questions were never dismissed or made into a joke. (Honestly, this was one of the better overall fandom experiences I’ve had on here.)

And all of us were super excited for S2. Not just because of all the support, but because they had ended S1 with Peggy and Angie moving in together. Peggy had purchased, either it was a really fancy apartment or house (my memory is fuzzy on this), and she literally asked Angie to stay with her. Needless to say, that fueled the flames even more.

But despite the actresses and at least one writer being on board, between S1 and S2, something shifted.

Clearly, the showrunner and/or the execs, took a look at all of this and deemed it a ‘problem’. When S2 finally came around, suddenly everything was different. Instead of both of them living together in New York, instead of it being an organic (I’m beginning to hate that word) continuation from where they left off, Peggy decided to move to Los Angeles to do work for some agency out there or something, and Angie stayed in New York. It’s never explained why. It’s never explained why a woman who so badly wanted to be an actress would NOT want to go to LA, where Hollywood is. LA was never mentioned in S1. There were no hints that Peggy might want to fly out to the West Coast at some point. She seemed perfectly happy in NY, basically setting up house with Angie.

And they didn’t even ease into the change. They just got rid of the character. The actress was bummed about it and Cart/inelli fans tried to put pressure on the showrunner/writers to bring Angie back, which the actress completely supported, but even that fell on deaf ears. So, Angie was simply no longer an entity on that show. Conveniently removed. All the excitement we had was crushed. And of course, the second that Peggy got out to LA, she suddenly had a very obvious male love interest. What a surprise.

The showrunner/writers were not subtle about what they thought about our ship and us. They made the most extreme, nonsensical writing decision in order to permanently separate these two characters. Because, hey, that’s the only way to get the shippers to STOP, right?

This was what I was reminded of when I started seeing the turn that post-hiatus CR was taking. It ended up being a weird combination of kneejerk erasure (BJ) and heavy-handed overcompensation (BY).

But of course, CR is not a TV show, it’s D&D. And they can’t force one of their PCs to just disappear, so what do they have to resort to? Not interacting.

We all know how severely neutered Beau and Jester’s general relationship has become. It’s clear to me that both Marisha and Laura felt they had to do that. They had to suddenly have their characters stay away from each other as much as possible so they could prioritize Fjord and Yasha, and speed-run into romances with them. They started acting as if either of them giving the other one ounce of affectionate attention (like they had been doing so often and so naturally before), would be breaking some sort of hidden ‘relationship code’. Almost like if they ever hugged again, the studio would go down in flames.

The very obvious fact that they went to these lengths, to me, proves two things...

One, it proves the retcon even more, because you can tell that the way they behaved with each other DID in fact change. The frequency of interactions and the way those interactions would play out. Whenever they interact now, it seems like they’re trying to keep it as short, thin, and almost comedic (to the point of goofiness, and not in a good way) as possible. Their engagement seems half-assed and dull. The sounds of their voices, their facial expressions... completely sanitized. Even all the physicality they had is gone; the touches, the hugs, the cuddling. Every single aspect is different and they absolutely did that intentionally. This had to happen because they needed to dupe the viewers into believing that despite overall interest waning, their threadbare connections to Fjord and Yasha are more important, and were always more important then their connection to each other, that we all watched them steadily build. (And watched them pick up steam from about ep70 onwards.)

And two, that whole intentional decision to cut themselves off from each other, proves to me that their interactions pre-hiatus were indeed tinged with ‘something extra’, that was more than just friendship. They both recognized it and that’s why they pulled back so hard. That’s why soft touches and hugs and cuddling are no longer ‘allowed’. That’s why quiet, heartfelt conversations are no longer ‘allowed’. Because if there was absolutely nothing there, if they didn’t see/feel any romantic chemistry simmering underneath, and it was all just platonic BFF stuff, why would they suppress their behavior so drastically?

I think that all of this really does cement what I said in my retcon post: That there are disingenuous patterns being used here that I’ve seen far too often in media. In A/gent Carter, it was a character separation, in CR it was a character dynamic separation. Both done on purpose, to make the shippers shut up, and to push a different plot.

One is scripted, the other is unscripted, but the situations feel disgustingly similar, don’t they?

#op #ask #long post #i feel like i'm just retreading old ground here #still cathartic though

16 notes · View notes