#and that fandom had so much genuine love in it. it really shaped me as a person and i'm glad i was a part of it
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Why I Think The Fandom Has Been Doing Aziraphale Dirty Ever Since Season 1 And It's Only Gotten Worse With Season 2 And It's Killing Me Inside
Before we get into the subject matter of the title let me preface a couple of things:
1- All that will follow is, big surprise, my opinion and my interpretation of this character. Do I think I am The One And Only Who Gets The Blorbo Right and that my ideas are 100% the way the author(s) intended to convey the character? No.
More likely than not the way I see Aziraphale could be intensely different from the way Authorman sees him, or Actorman sees him, and I don't think that my interpretation is necessarily any more correct than anybody's else.
That said, if I also did not think that I am, in fact, correct on a certain level, I wouldn't have bothered forming such a thought out opinion of Aziraphale in the first place, nor would be sitting here, writing this post that I can already tell is going to be entirely too long and might probably ruffle some feathers.
So I'll be writing the rest of this post with the caveat that I while I do think my interpretation correct, I'm also not trying to change anybody's mind nor to discredit anybody's else interpretation of Aziraphale. We can sit here in the sandpit and hold different opinions and still be able to build sandcastles together, it really isn't that deep at the end of the day; I can assure you, I'm not here to fight nor cause fights with this one.
2- With the above point, comes also the fact that I won't bother continuously saying "In my opinion" for the rest of this post. You already know that. So, if something will come across as a bit caustic, do know that it is very much tongue in cheek and I am poking a bit of fun at general fannish habits that I am also very much quote-unquoute 'guilty' of having partaken into, and will partake into again plenty of times in the future, I'm sure.
So, with that: Here's Why I Think The Fandom Has Been Doing Aziraphale Dirty Ever Since Season 1 And It's Only Gotten Worse With Season 2 And It's Killing Me Inside
A large part of the people comprising this fandom prefers Crowley. There, I said it.
This fandom's preference blatantly skews toward Crowley. Can we admit that openly? Let's admit that openly.
To be clear, this isn't meant to be an accusation or recrimination or any other -ation you can think of, I am merely stating matter-of-factly a phenomena I've observed in the last four years.
It is also not a wrong nor bad thing in any way, shape or form. I adore Crowley myself. I love them both so much it's unreal.
But I started with that because I think it is very much a symptom of the fact that a lot of people don't get Aziraphale.
I remember back with S1 there had been plenty of times when I found myself reading discussions and opinion exchanges about Aziraphale and Crowley, their dynamics, all the things that went unsaid behind the things that were said, and found myself genuinely surprised by seeing how some people interpreted certain moments wildly different from how I personally saw them.
I look back at that and I think "Oh, sweet summer child". Nothing could have prepared me from the onslaught of takes about Aziraphale that make me go "Good lord, what???" in the wake of S2, and the infamous Last Fifteen.
Now because I don't want to be pointing fingers at specific things and risk upsetting somebody more than I already am by being open in admitting that, guys, yes, some of the takes y'all have been sharing make me go "Yikes(tm)", I'll move on the interesting part and what I would actually love to discuss, aka cracking Aziraphale's head open and see what that actual fuck is going on in there.
Another preface: Because this duo is intrinsically linked and woven together it is downright impossible to only focus on Aziraphale without also mentioning Crowley, so... Let me circle back to our fav demon bae for a sec, here.
I think the reason why it seems that a larger part of the fandom favors Crowley is because I feel like Crowley is a much easier character to grasp. He is very open in his thoughts and feelings, at any given moment us, the audience, have a much easier time watching a scene and sort of ruminating in the back of our heads about Crowley's motivations for saying the things he says and doing the things he does.
That isn't to say Crowley is a less complex character than Aziraphale. They are very much equally complex and multifaceted individuals with their strengths and weaknesses, their issues and the way they each cope with them, how differently they approach their existence and so on and so forth.
But whereas Crowley as a character presents itself with a certain dynamism and a far more outward openness about his complexity, Aziraphale does the exact opposite; we can say Aziraphale is downright hermetic about it.
For us, the audience, he presents a challenge that requires a good deal of thought being put into him to see over the facade he presents at a more superficial level; he requires time and effort to fully dismantle him in our minds to try and see what makes him thick (other than his thighs), and thus I think it is entirely natural that more people latch on the far easier to identify-with, and relate-to, Crowley.
And that is the inevitable consequence of everything that makes Aziraphale... Well, Aziraphale.
So, where to start? Let's try and jot down what Aziraphale truly is at his core.
He is a contradiction.
This man-shaped being is a walking contradiction, constantly existing in a state of being coated in three thousand layers of misdirection and obfuscation and double thinking.
Why is that? Well. He's an angel.
Aziraphale loves being an angel. It is a tenet of his entire existence and something he cherishes. He wants, so very much, to be his ideal of what a good angel is: An entity who is kind and loving and understanding and forgiving.
Of course us, the audience, know that is utter bullshit, because we know angels can be individuals just as complex as the humans Aziraphale loves so much, with all their inherent flaws and capability for cruelty. And, on a certain level, Aziraphale knows that too.
So there we have it, one element of contradiction: Aziraphale wants to think that angels are always Good and Righteous and Never Wrong; Aziraphale knows that angels aren't, in fact, always Good and Righteous and, by god, can they make plenty of mistakes, too.
What else? How about Aziraphale sitting there, being in love with a demon, fully knowing that at the end of the day demons really ain't that different from angels, and also desperately hanging onto the concept of Good vs Bad.
And he sits there, existing with these two contrasting idea equally taking space in his mind, neither side ever capable of taking over the other.
What else do we have? Aziraphale loves God and wants so hard to believe in Her love for humanity and Her ineffable plan, and Aziraphale also time and again does things that very blatantly go against Her will, lies to Her face, and Doubts. He Doubts, a lot, and that requires the capital letter because those Doubts are what spur him in going against everything he's ever told to believe in order to do the right thing.
Aziraphale's very existence is a constant push-and-pull of things he wants to believe and things he knows are real; things he's told to do and things he wants to do. That's how we get "My side" and "there's a bit of good in you" and "you are the bad guys".
And nothing he's lived through has managed to break him out of this unhealthy way of existing quite yet; that's why he acts the way we see him act in the Edinburgh flashback in S2, or at the start of S1 when Crowley has to ease Aziraphale into the idea of trying to stop Armageddon with the usual song and dance of "temptation" and "plausible deniability" and "you'd be thwarting me", even though from the start we can tell there's a little part of Aziraphale who is clearly not at ease with the idea of the end of the world, and once he's been given 'permission' by Crowley nudging him, he is all the way in with the whole saving the world business, not take-backsies.
Both the moments I mentioned here are very important for different reasons, but of the two is very much the Edinburgh flashback that gets a lot more flack by the fandom and is blatantly misunderstood, which I think is the inevitable consequence of that minisode immediately following the glorious, beautiful, heartbreaking piece of art that is the "A companion to owls" minisode.
I've seen a lot of people lamenting that Aziraphale acts obnoxiously in the Edinburgh flashback and, yeah. He does. But I feel like the fact that we are seeing this after watching Aziraphale struggle his way through saving Job's children, even being willing to go to Hell for it, is a though act to follow and probably soured Edinburgh-Aziraphale for a lot of people, made them think that the character had regressed instead of progressing.
But, see, the way he acts is wholly congruous with who Aziraphale is and has always been and keeps being up to the very end of S2. Yes, even after what he does for Job's children.
If you get down to it, Aziraphale had been ready to give up and let the children die, in episode 2. For a brief moment, after Crowley told him he 'longed to destroy the blameless children', Aziraphale was walking away, having tried all he thought he could try to do to stop this senseless act. That was until Crowley tested him by making the crows bleat, cuing Aziraphale to the fact that his impression of Crowley wasn't wrong, and the he could count on him to do the right thing.
To be clear, I don't want to undermine Aziraphale's action by only giving the credit to Crowley but... It is, also, only thanks to Crowley cajoling him and giving him the right excuses, that Aziraphale feels safe in doing what he's always wanted to do all along.
He'd wanted to save Job's children, and thought he couldn't until Crowley threw him that hell of a lifesaver. He wanted to save the world and thought he couldn't until Crowley nudged him on the path of plausible deniability.
He wanted to save Elspeth's eternal soul, blinding himself to the hardships she'd have to endure in her not-eternal life, and was smacked right in the face by the reality of human suffering multiple times.
The way Aziraphale acts in that flashback can't be a regression, because there never was a progression in the first place: He'd always walked the line between Heaven's and God's will and his own, personal morality and sense of justice.
By all means, if we look at Uz-Aziraphale and modern-day-Aziraphale at the start of S1, his reticence about the whole saving the world business should, by all means, appear as a regression as well. You mean to tell me that he'd been ready to become a demon for the sake of three mortal children, and then suddenly a handful of thousands years later when faced with the prospect of the whole world going up in flames he'd just be all like "Heaven will triumph over Hell and it will be all rather lovely"? Like, fuck off, Aziraphale, you lying double-thinker, you (/pos)
Aziraphale constantly exist while being at war with himself. Circumstances have allowed him to rebel the will of Heaven and God more or less safely time and again, but he never quite managed to break free entirely. He'd always ended up being reeled back in, being fed the party lines, being made to feel shame for his independent thinking, until it all becomes too much and he is forced to step back from that freedom he'd been inches away from grasping.
Back and forth, back and forth, never stopping.
And all of this, all of what he is, makes it so hard for us, the audience, to truly see him. To truly grasp him. To truly watch any given scene with him and figure out what he might be thinking or feeling.
To understand Aziraphale is to understand what he is not saying when he says something, which is a good deal harder to do than it is to understand and relate to a character like Crowley, who very much revel in saying exactly whatever the heck he thinks whenever he damn well pleases.
All those layers of obfuscation and misdirection and double thinking that Aziraphale coats himself in are as much an armor that makes it harder for the audience to understand him as they are his very own downfall because, good lord, if you exist like that, if you exist forced to keep things hidden from yourself, well... It's inevitable that at some point you are going to stumble into pitfalls of your own making.
And I love him for it.
So, there? I hope I managed to explain something with this post, and that it wasn't just the rambling of someone who spends way too much time thinking about her blorbos. To be clear, I don't think people who haven't spent as much time as me trying to dissect and better understand Aziraphale's character are like, dumber than me or anything. It's just that this pair of angelic-demonic blorbos take too much real estate in my mind, lol.
Feel free to let me know your opinion and if you think I am wildly off mark and my Take Is Bad. I might answer, I might not, it all depends on time and my mood ◝(ᵔᵕᵔ)◜
#good omens#good omens 2#meta#aziraphale#I love one(1) hypocritical angel#flaws and all#I want to create an Aziraphale protection squad sometimes
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I’ll never not mourn that we didn’t get the zenitsu arc that was set up, because I truly believe it would have done wonders for how the fandom views Zenitsu.
It makes me quite angry that he’s dumbed down to nothing more than a pervert and a coward, now. I wouldn’t even go as far to say Zenitsu is a pervert, a coward sure, he even says so himself. But a pervert is someone who purposely creeps on women, tries to feel them up, tries to be a peeping Tom.
Zenitsu does literally none of that, he’s a girl lover/chaser when we meet him, I’ll admit. But he in no way shape or form harasses a woman from the point on where Tanjirou rips him off the woman he’s begging to marry him. After that, he’s very kind to the women he meets, cringe sure, but still polite and respectful,and he’s extremely devoted to Nezuko. Even if she cannot reciprocate, and even then he’s not a fucking creep, he just has a puppy crush on a pretty girl.
So to compare him to someone like, let’s say mineta from MHA, is not only extreme but just plain wrong.
Back to Zenitsu’s cowardice, I think it’s actually pretty cool he’s a coward. We get to see him grow from it, we get to see him learn to be more confident with the support of Tanjirou and Inosuke behind him, the most noticeable moment of this is when he defends the girl that Daki is harming in anger, even if at this point he’s semi aware he’s found the uppermoon, he still steps in front of her and tells her off.
Even during the actual confrontation with Daki, he still tells her she’s wrong, and cruel. And tells her to apologize to the poor girl she hurt.
And Zenitsu is intimately aware of his own flaws, even going as far to say “I hate myself more than anyone else” and listing off that when he’s scared, he freezes or runs. But he also mentions that he’s hurt that Inosuke and Tanjirou just left him at the mountain, he says that if they had tried to coax him, he more than likely would have went. And this claim is 100% supported by the flashbacks we see with Jigoro Kuwajima who was the only character to never give up on Zenitsu and constantly push him to be better and stronger.
If Zenitsu truly wanted to leave the demon slayer corps, he would, now that he’s a full fledged demon slayer and out from under Jigoro’s thumb he had every single opportunity to leave the core and go pursue an actual life outside of it, and yet he doesn’t. Because he wants to make his gramps proud, because he wants to help Tanjirou, because he finds a support system/family with Inosuke and Tanjirou that he’s never had with even Jigoro and Kaigaku.
He’s insecure, he has anxiety, he has anger issues, he wants to honor his mentor and help and protect his friends, he wants to live a happy life, he wants to be respected, he wants to be genuinely loved. He’s so much fucking more than a “pervert” and a coward, but the fandom still sticks to this perception of him because we never got the Zenitsu backstory, I don’t like the term “there’s always a duo in a trio” but at times it really felt like Zenitsu was just kind of there, while Inosuke and Tanjioru continued to get more depth and he didn’t.
#he’s like#my third favorite character too#I’ll always be a zenitsu defender the series AND FANS do him no justice#zenitsu agatsuma#Tanjirou kamado#jigoro kuwajima#kaigaku inadama#inosuke hashibira#demon slayer#kny#blue rambles
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i honestly dont know hoe to say this, but you really had a hand in shaping my brai chemistry while i was growing up, no kidding. i remember when i was 13 or so and whenever you posted a pearl rap career chapter it would unironicaly make my day (specially when you dropped the peridot chapter i had a stomach infection or smth, so that video and the last one out of beach city episode were on replay for me for a few days). its really weird seeing that rebecca managed to make a safe space for lgbt folks (it was really hard for me to accept myself as gay, it seems really simple nowadays but back then it was so discomforting to even thinm about it so su and its fandom, and by some extent, your vids, helped me externalize some feelings or queernes i guess, do you remeber when someone said your video editing was raw and masculine? lol). anyways, its wild to think i was in 5th grade when i first watched laser light canon and now im finishing my journalism course in college and seeing how this show raised me in some way and helped me to be aware of my own mental health i only have good memories, thankfully, and its really sad to see that it ended, but i honestly wouldnt have had it any other way. its kind of a long rant but id like to thank you, mackenzie, your videos made me laugh a lot when i was a teen and they still make me now. this show was truly a gift, it made us connect to something bigger and magical. this was kind of a long rant since ive kinda forgotten that su existed and remined that it existed because of some dreams lol. i remembered back then when i was super anxious about the cluster episode, i remeber checking your tumblr everyday and seeing fanon content. i really dont know how to express myself since english is not my first language and i tend to ramble on a lot on my native one, but id like to say youve made me smile a lot, it was so cool seeing you present the su podcast and being an intern at CN. i honestly wish you the best.
Dude it means so much to hear that my lil shitposts have had an impact on people!!!! I completely understand where youre coming from re: SU's impact on your life (and acceptance of queer identity) and feel the same way!!! im so grateful for this show and everything it represents. in a world without Steven Universe my current life would be completely unrecognizable. like genuinely I dont think any single aspect of my life would be the way it is without SU. which is nuts but it's true!!!
I love engaging with this community and it gave me a lot of support when I was at a place in my life where I felt pretty isolated. I'm kind of rambling now too but this seriously has been sitting in my inbox for a bit now and I just knew i needed to respond and say thank you for sharing. <3
ALSO LMAO I FORGOT ABT THE RAW AND MASCULINE COMMENT THANK YOU FOR REMINDING ME HAHA
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i was listening to the fanficmaverick podcast episode you did on fanfiction history, in which you mentioned (~55 min in) that you were one of the main people writing the terms of service for AO3 and bringing up the types of "would this be allowed" test cases, that these were not "oh it's a slightly problematic kink" but "violent snuff porn of gillian anderson, not scully, but gillian anderson" — and that you all eventually landed on "kinda gross, but legal in the US, and therefore would host." question: was this the most contentious case? any other memorable/notable test cases, or other interesting discussions you can remember?
i'd also love to hear more about how the major archive warnings were decided on — on what basis were these chosen? which others were considered? — if you happen to know!
sincerest thank you for all the work you've done for fandom and the preservation of fandom history. ❤️ seriously, such a feat, and so interesting!
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I think even then my personal level of wallowing in annoying wank or looking at horrifying fic was vastly higher than everyone else's, so this was pretty much the example we looked at.
Though, if you want to laugh, astolat's original post is still up on LJ with the comments, and there were totally people going "I'd be interested in this new archive project, but not if it includes RPF!" or "Not if it includes any underage fic at all!" etc.
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On usenet in the 90s, there was somebody or somebodies who were reaaaaally into that specific type of snuff story. I remember noticing how many of them involved not only hangings but very specific imagery of one high heel falling off. I was 13, so I really couldn't tell you if it was one dude with a specific fetish or genuinely super widespread. But it made an impression.
The alt.sex.stories hierarchy was a wild time.
Anyway, in practice, badwrong RPF of female celebs that sounds like it's aimed at straight dudes ends up on fetish sites for whatever the fetish is, not on fic archives for the most part, but I thought it was a useful example because it was so far into actually offensive to AO3y types. We're not talking the weaksauce shit people are always asking me about on here like "Oooh, what if someone posted [bog standard slash trope] to AO3?" as though it's a gotcha.
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Man... were there other test cases? I'm trying to remember. This was all in like 2008, and of course, I didn't keep internal documents when I left OTW. Not that half of this was stuff I'd have had documented on my computer anyway.
My memory is that the general shape of the content policy had been decided by the founding Board before Content Policy started up. I don't think we were actually making the ruling on RPF ourselves.
I'm pretty sure most of what we were up to was looking at wank and trying to determine how to head off shitty behavior with the ToS. Trying to define harassment is a mega pain in the ass, let me tell you.
One major internal wank there was was deciding whether to allow Original Work. I was the one who'd been in anime fandom, and I was very used to archives that have an original section, often for the "original slash" and "original yaoi" that had nowhere else to go at the time. (These days, you'd just become a "m/m romance" author, as I in fact have.) Fanfiction.net had spun off its original years ago at that point, but a lot of the non-English archives and a lot of the archives in other parts of English-speaking fandom found fannish-but-original to be a normal thing.
I am a grudgy bitch, and I am still not over how much pushback I got on this.
AO3 went live with a ban on original work, but the policy never ended up being heavily enforced. We waited to see what would happen with posting, and it was predictably that people from those backgrounds outside of US Media Fandom posted some original without even thinking it might be banned, but they didn't post so much it overwhelmed the archive.
The big fears had been that #1 people would flood AO3 and drown out the fic. This was predicated on the idiotic notion that original = inherently not fannish, so there's no dividing line. In reality, the people who were used to posting original to fic archives had an internal sense of what belongs and what doesn't. Fear #2 was that people would try to post chapter 1 of a commercial story and then go "See here to buy the rest". Little did we know that this would soon be a problem with fucking fan fiction itself. (Also, commercial spam was always against the rules and needed no extra anti-original work rule.)
People didn't just disagree with me: they looked at me blankly.
Pretty sure I vented about this on that podcast too though. Anyway, most of the shit people find contentious now was already decided before we started writing the ToS, I think... though I don't really remember clearly. We were more looking to plug up holes in the rules that nitpicking trolls could use to harass.
The kinds of things we were deciding were often like the policy that AO3 doesn't necessarily tell you if someone reported you. If they need info, they'll contact you, and if they decide you broke the ToS, you'll hear about it, but obviously bogus reports don't get passed on. This is to remove the temptation to use the team as a proxy to harass a target. An official e-mail, even if it's "You're fine, actually", can be disturbing.
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Re the warnings themselves, I know I'd done a survey of what archives were out there at the time and had come up with a list of a few dozen. This was early on in OTW's development process, not just for Content Policy. You can still find the list somewhere on that LJ group. Anyway, for the ToS writing, we looked at the commonplace warnings from archives past, which were basically character death, character death, and also character death.
It always cracks me up when people are like "Um, rape makes sense, but how dare they downplay these other bad things with a character death warning?" Old fandom places were full of unwarned for rape, but woe betide the person who posted surprise character death of a main ship!
We needed an under-18 warning because we had a lot of Australian fans who were like "Dude, my government is a bitch, and I cannot use this archive at all if I can't filter that out". Past archives had mostly just banned it entirely or been full of death eaters raping teenage Harry Potter characters with nary an underage warning in sight.
I don't remember why we picked the violence one. It really wasn't common, but maybe we wanted to make a philosophical point that sex doesn't have more cooties than violence.
CNTW was a compromise with older fandom standards where people objected to literally any warnings existing. A lot of the really oldschool warnings debates aren't about which ones you should have but about whether you should have them at all.
I think people around here miss how non-universal warnings are and how many other communities and spaces even today don't think you need all that.
I don't recall if we seriously considered any specific others. I don't think we had a big list, then ruled them out. It's more like we accreted a few must-haves as we went along. We probably looked at the metadata for the eFiction archives that actually had ticky boxes for search (as opposed to the very low-metadata norm on many archives). But a lot of those filters would have been fandom-specific or redundant or hella vague.
One thing to keep in mind is that this was an Era of Archives, so there were fucktons of examples to look at, though only a few flavors of example since a bunch used eFiction or otherwise copied each other's design. It was possible to make some judgements about past norms on archives, not just go "Are we copying FFN or not?" A lot of fans now see fic hosting as the big three or see AO3 as the only option, but we were used to having many archives with many designs.
I know we wanted a short and manageable list of warnings, and we wanted unambiguous things that could be effectively enforced. If I'm populating my hard-coded 90s website with other people's fics, I can go through each for dubcon before I post it (not that you'd ever have warned for dubcon in the 90s). On a big fic archive, making judgement calls on vague ass categories like dubcon is a nightmare.
We did do some focus groups where other interested fans came in and critiqued our work. I can't recall how much was about our ToS wording and how much was about the actual policies. But we did workshop this shit extensively with people who were around at the time. I think many of the whiners now assume it wasn't enough of a community effort (since we didn't decide things they like). But actually, a bunch of people weighed in. Maybe elf remembers what we actually asked them. I think she was in a focus group.
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You know what? I'm bored, so here's a list of my favorite ship names
I bully ship names, but I like a lot of them because some of them sound really pretty and are genuinely creative, and some are just funny, and I like the way they sound. Imma try to be multi fandom here, but my hyperfixations will show, since ill obviously know the ships in my own fandoms better. I'll also be explaining them here. There's also no order here, it's by the order I remeber it by.
Honeymoon (Beelzebub x Loona, Helluva Boss)
This shape name is super cute and super pretty, and I love it, and it also makes sense. Bee is a honeybee, and Loona is designed to look like the moon.
Dragonfruit (Mei x Red Son, Lego Monkie Kid)
I didn't get it at first because the fruit at the end didn't make sense, but apparently it takes the first characters in their Mandarin names which can be combined with other characters to make it translates to dragin fruit, and their color schemes also resemble one, which I think is pretty neat. Also, draginfruitsblook pretty
-Stolitz (Stolas x Blitzø, Helluva Boss)
A combination of their names that sounds like 'stole it', which is what Blitzø did with the grimoire. I love it
-Bluetooth (Caine x Moon, The Amazing Digital Circus)
The ship was named by @dovewingkinnie and has been growing in popularity, and I love it that I got to see a ship name being born. They're named Bluetooth because Moon is blue, the blue moon cycle, Caine is dentures, and Bluetooth is a way to connect wifi, which makes sense in a digital world.
-Amourshipping (Ash x Serena, Pokemon XY anime)
It's simple, but I like it. It's called Amourshipping because Amour means love in French, and Kalos (the region the series takes place in) is based on France
-Lumity (Luz x Amity, The Owl House)
It's another combination of names, but it sounds super pretty! To me, it sounds like illuminate, which fits because Luz's name means light and Luz literally showed Amity a light glyph when they were first becoming friends.
Goldengarden (Hunter x Willow, The Owl House)
It sounds so pretty omg
BurningLeafshipping (Red x Leaf, Pokemon [adventures manga])
The name sounds so pretty actually I love this name sm
Royallectureshipping (Cheren x Lear, Pokemon Masters)
Because Lear is a royal and Cheren constantly lectures him. It's litteraly perfect
Verbie (Barbie Wire x Verosika Mayday, Helluva Boss)
It's a combination of names. It sounds like furby. I will be bullying this name later.
Trainwreckshipping (Emmet x Volo, Pokemon)
This is such a perfect name for them. A lot of the fanon interactions stem from Emmet finding Volo to try and get revenge or force him to help him find Ingo, and then they have a whole enemies to lovers thing. It's called trainwreck shipping because ITD BE A GODDAMN TRAINWRECK. And Emmet's a subway boss, and Volo wanted to destroy the world
MedievalStoryShipping
(Gardevoir x Gallade, Pokemon): I didn't even know this ship had a name until I found a blog dedicated to it a couple of months ago. They were names MedievalStoryShippimg because Gardevoir was based off a princess and a knight and gallade was based on a prince and a knight. Also, not to put my own opinions, but I have such a sentimental attachment to this ship because I shipped it so hard in 5th grade and made so much (very bad) fanart of it
-Goldenheart (Ballister Boldheart/Blackheart x Ambrosious Goldenloin, Nimona)
It's another combination of names, but it sounds super cute and very angelic.
-Vorbee (Vortex x Beelzebub, Helluva Boss)
It's a combination Bee and Vortex's name, but it sounds like Vore, and considering Bee's whole thing with eating to excess, I can see that
#honeymoon#dragonfruit#stolitz#tadc bluetooth#bluetooth#amourshipping#lumity#goldengarden#royallectureshipping#burningleafshipping#verbie#trainwreckshipping#medievalstoryshipping#goldenheart#vorbee#helluva boss#lmk#lego monkie kid#tadc#the amazing digital circus#pokemon#toh#the owl house#owl house#nimona
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whats one thing that bill loves that absolutely NO ONE wouldve guessed? like not in a TRILLION YEARS cause thats how out-of-pocket it is for him to like said thing???
also love your work <33 :) its one of the very few fanfictions where i can feel the true essence of bill cipher and that is very important to me
Thanks! I've tried to squeeze in as much Bill essence as I can.
"What's the most unexpected thing he likes" depends entirely on what you expect, and I feel like that's subjective. You could argue some of the things he likes in canon are pretty unexpected; while, on the other hand, even the unexpected stuff "makes sense" if you have the reason for it. So here's a list of random things that, while they make sense for Bill, might be surprising if you're trying to think of what would fit the image of an evil chaos party god:
First the canon. I feel like "silly straws" isn't exactly SURPRISING for Bill, but I doubt anyone would have expected him to like them enough to voluntarily bring it up if he hadn't. Like there's a long list of likable things he skipped over specifically to give silly straws a shout out.
Some people headcanon he can't actually play the piano and his little performance for Ford was all magic, but I like to headcanon he actually knows how to play and enjoys it. Which implies an unexpected amount of patience and dedicated practice out of a pretty flighty guy.
I mean I don't think anyone would have assumed that meditation fits his vibe.
Fandom's got a pretty good handle on associating him with brightly-colored busy patterns, but only with traditionally masculine or gender neutral aesthetics. Think bowling alley carpets patterns, lava lamps, Hot Wheels-style paint jobs, fire and lightning and lasers. But there's a tendency to overlook aesthetics that are associated with femininity. He WOULD be into Lisa Frank, decora, intricate neon nail art, magical girls that look like they're wearing hyper-saturated overly-complicated dance outfits covered in 24k gold and jewels as big as your thumb, extravagant hats, extravagant jewelry, girly drinks, girly desserts, glam fashion & decor, bubbles, bouquets, rainbows, and hot pink. To Bill, everything is gender neutral.
I think most people wouldn't expect Bill to be into surreal cerebral art films rather than, like, juvenile slapstick or action. But on the other hand, the line between "this is haunting" and "this is boring" is razor thin for him, so he doesn't always like the cerebral films.
He hasn't discovered this yet but he'd love the beach. Sunshine and swimming. The lake would do too.
I don't think anyone would anticipate that Gravity Falls is, actually, in fact, one of his favorite places in the dimension. He mainly keeps complaining about the town because every time he's there, he's TRAPPED AND CAN'T GET OUT.
He's really into math, just recreationally. He would read a whole book about proving Fermat's Last Theorem. He probably proved the theorem himself by 1700. Told no one. He was just bored that week.
Ford got him into DD&MD. Bill wasn't just humoring his human pawn, he genuinely enjoys it. Gets really into the roleplaying and storytelling. He hasn't had anyone to play with in thirty years. Prefers the 90s edition.
Everyone assumes Bill's just humoring Mabel by letting her put on Color Critters tapes. It's like Care Bears crossed with Rainbow Brite and the morals are twice as heavy-handed. But he actually does enjoy the show, it's just for the wrong reasons.
You'd expect the guy who destroyed his home dimension to hate it. There are books, songs, instruments, cars, plays, hotels, cities, convention centers, dams, field trip destinations, even rocks that he misses dearly and will never see again. He still writes to himself and talks to other shapes in his native language. He still constructs houses without ceilings. He still hugs with one arm and shakes hands sideways. He loves his dead dimension. Few people outside of the other surviving shapes know this.
So you decide which is most unexpected!!
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welcome to...starleska's f/o round-up 2023! 🥳🥳🥳
below the cut is every single character i've had a crush on in 2023...and there are 30 in total!! 🙈💖 these are given in chronological order of fixation, and they are all new crushes (so re-entering a fixation for a character i've simped for previously doesn't count 😂)
now be warned, this is a genuinely unhinged list. they are largely villains. one is a mushroom. one is a vehicle. one is a casino-themed duck-shaped robot. my autism is indiscriminate in the characters it fixates on, and they are all suitably embarrassing 😭💖
without further ado, here we go...
1. James the Red Engine | Thomas the Tank Engine
...shut up 😂💖 at the start of this year i truly lost my mind and fell headfirst into the Thomas the Tank Engine fandom (everyone there is so lovely and creative!!)...and of course, the vain train is my favourite 🙈💖 James is cute okay!! i don't need to justify myself!!!
2. 'Big' Jack Horner | Puss in Boots: The Last Wish
there's no way anyone missed this one - we are quite the tight-knit and dedicated group in the 'Big' Jack Horner fandom 😳💖 come on, look at him...a huge, powerful, obsessive, fancy-bastard collector with an affinity for magic??? he's stunning 🥴💖 i made so many lovely friends through gushing about this horrible man!!! we had so much fun making OCs to ship with him 🙈 one of the most intense fixations i've had all year, and one of the best villains we've seen in years...he is fantastic 🥰
3. Pizzahead | Pizza Tower
i don't know what's in the water of Pizza Tower but it's impossible to be normal about any character you like from that game 🙈💖 of course the evil sentient pizza slice took the top spot, he's so cartoony and ridiculous!!! the amount of power he exerts is also quite the draw 🤭💖 i'm not gonna lie there's a couple other characters from this game i may get into later...we'll see 😉
4. Fingers | Dead End: Paranormal Park
have you heard this guy's voice. can you blame me. deliciously evil fruity monstrosity with supernatural powers? sign me up to whatever sinister scheme Fingers has going on now or in the future 👉👈 he hits a lot of boxes...between the cabaret-style makeup, the posh, dismissive and manipulative personality and the inexplicable Eldritch body, he was always gonna be a crush 🤭
5. M.O.D.O.K. | Marvel
wheeze okay, this was originally a JOKE!!! @thelighttasteslikelasagna sent in this message joking that i look like i'd find M.O.D.O.K. hot, and i was really angry about it for five minutes...and then i discovered the stop-motion cartoon where he's exactly the kind of cringefail malewife villain i enjoy (in the Augustus St. Cloud vein), and the rest is history 🙈💖 definitely one of the silliest crushes i had this year, but he holds a special place in my heart :3c
6. Gargamel | The Smurfs
nah man i was on some serious mental illness at the start of this year 💀 i just can't help it when bad guys are like this, alright!!! Hank Azaria's performance as Gargamel is sooo silly and over-the-top, i couldn't help but love every second he was on screen 🙈💖 Gargamel's just a whole lot of fun!!! who doesn't love a magic-wielding freak hellbent on the destruction of a group of little creatures?? (i cannot and will not be taking any questions at this time 😶)
7. Wally Darling | Welcome Home
my God, the Wally Darling fixation hit the entire Internet like a train 🤭💖 soft-voiced, ambiguously-moraled rizz puppet that he is, how could we not all fall head-over-heels? i have to thank this guy for throwing me headfirst back into fanfic writing, as the whole Welcome Home story really inspired me...not to mention all the lovely folks who wanted to imagine different ways of getting to hold Wally's hand 🥰 hooray for our pretty puppet boy!!
8. Killa Harkan | John Wick: Chapter 4
...yes, i know, it's funny that Killa's the first of two cartoonishly evil German-accented bad guys with sleight of hand tricks and gold teeth on the list this year 😂💖 sitting in the cinema, the second he opened his mouth my partner just turned and stared at me, because they knew. i refuse to apologise for appreciating a really awful bastard - especially one who dresses so sharply 😉
9. Ian Hawke | Alvin and the Chipmunks
yet another member of the 'it started off as a joke...' club 🤭💖 listen, Ian serves!!! we can't resist a smarmy music producer/manage type, can we? Ian's in the same camp as Gargamel for being a deeply evil man whose capacity for doing harm is directed at little creatures. all i'm saying is, he can sign me up for a dodgy deal any day 🥴
10. Myc Cellium | Inside Job
i can't tell if it's my monsterfucker tendencies or my consummate attraction to Brett Gelman but the crass sentient mushroom got me down bad 😭💖 he's just such a menace!! he's got that intoxicating combo of being horribly socially inappropriate and an actual outcast...fellas, Myc was fixation bait for me 😭
11. Klaus Kickenklober | Sing 2
i don't care if you think you're not a furry, someone can and will get you from the Sing franchise, and that is a threat 🙈💖 yesss laugh it up, Star's got another stern and vaguely European cartoon villain added to the list 😂 i just find Klaus so impossibly delightful!!! he'd be a terrible teacher to have in real life, but in fiction, i think i could fix him :3c
12. The Spot | Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
ohoho, i know you guys were living for The Spot fixation because i remember your reaction to the x Readers 😉 look at him and his incredible design!!! the transformation of The Spot from weak laughable villain to reality-bending monstrosity had me by the throat...and i can't wait to see more of him when the next Spider-Verse drops 👀
13. Mad Mod | Teen Titans
MAD. BLOODY. MOD!!!!! i think our favourite British bastard has to take the crown (literally and figuratively) as my strongest fixation out of the whole of 2023, i lost my mind over this guy. he just consumed my every waking thought!!! 🙈 the style, the voice, the unbelievable engineering skill...Mad Mod is one of those once-in-a-lifetime f/os that you know you'll be obsessed with for a very long time 😳💖 i look back so fondly on those wonderful few months of Mad Mod fandom resurgence, and how that still continues today...here's hoping even more people find out about him and develop their own crushes 😉 shout-out to the lovely @iriso-page who suggested him and Music Meister to me 🙈💖
14. Control Freak | Teen Titans
sdfgdf okay back on form with the fat dweebs, i know, i know!!!! my ravenous Mad Mod fixation wasn't enough to ignore Control Freak, one of the most delightfully stupid villains in Teen Titans...!!! he hits all my buttons (ha!) and i genuinely think his design and powers are kind of epic. would love to see him utilised in the future 😉 (i am never beating the Discord kitten allegations...)
15. Ken | Barbie
well, this particular blond himbo was quite the surprise!! 🤭💖 i'm not usually the one to go for such a stereotypical hottie, but Ryan Gosling plays Ken as so unhinged and...off for the whole movie, he activated the same neurons which come with the weirdest of my crushes 🙈💖 Ken's a misguided sweetheart and i'd love to help him feel a little bit wanted;;;
16. Buck Ruffler the Duck Shuffler | Toontown: Corporate Clash
fell into the wonderful world of Toontown: Corporate Clash and imprinted on this fucker like...well, like a baby duck 😂💖 is this not the most spectacular design for an original Cog you've ever seen?! i love that Buck is an absolutely scrambled robot with a gambling addiction, and i think he'd be lovely (and hilarious) company 🥰
17. Barnaby | Billie Bust Up
ohhhh yesssss Billie Bust Up caught my attention with this sinister goofball!!!! fancy, flamboyant and very into murder...Barnaby has all the traits for any Tumblr Sexyman, and i cannot wait for the full game to drop so we can see even more of him 👀
18. The Mad Hatter/Jervis Tetch | Batman
Jervis Tetch my beloved!! this has been the year of fancy blonds in top-hats, as well as deeply silly hypnotists, and Jervis kicked off this trend with a bang 🙈💖 i'm a Mad Hatter fan generally but B:TAS Jervis is a special kind of pretty stalker, and that voice is delicious 🥴 thanks to him for kicking off an Alice in Wonderland fixation and for finally getting me into drinking tea...the things we do for our crushes, eh? 🥰
19. Music Meister/Darius Chapel | Batman
and here is the first character played by Neil Patrick Harris who made it onto this year's list!!! 🙈💖 another camp, theatrical Batman villain to add to my collection...gorgeous voice, such an immense sense of style, and wonderfully good fun!! i think more people should get a little obsessed with the Music Meister 😉
20. Buggy the Clown | One Piece
none of you can judge me for this one - i remember all the TikTok edits!!! 😂💖 Buggy is pathetic and so much fun - i wasn't expecting to enjoy him as much as i did!! although my fixation for him may have been short-lived, my love for him certainly isn't 🥰
21. Pat Butcher | BBC Ghosts
ohhhh, every now and again a little sweetheart will get me right in the feelings, and Pat Butcher is added proudly to my f/o collection as the second Yorkshireman (next to Salad Fingers 😭). i just love what an upbeat, lovely man he is!! he's so soft and warm to everyone he meets and tries his best to do everything right by his friends...i'd love to cuddle with him 🥺
22. Josh Levy | The Eltingville Club
a classic return to form with Josh Levy, à la Comic Book Guy and Control Freak...really telling on myself by collecting these horrible greasy nerds who would 100% call me something derogatory if i tried to talk to them 💀 i appreciate every last one of The Eltingville Club but Josh, as a failed writer who remains just as toxic as he was when he was a teen, is my undisputed favourite 🙈💖
23. Swan | Phantom of the Paradise
oh God, reawakening my crush on Paul Williams by discovering Swan damn near killed me!!!! 😭💖 i was so obsessed with this man as a kid and the moment i saw him as Swan in POTP i felt intense attraction and gender envy in equal parts;;;; Swan's whole aesthetic and demeaning, inhuman approach to people is impossibly sensual, and i can't overstate enough how little evil dudes in tinted shades will always get me down bad 🙈💖
24. Kinger | The Amazing Digital Circus
my love for Kinger was such a pleasant surprise!! 🤭💖 sweet, anxious fella that he is, all i want to do is get him out of that digital hellscape and ensure he can wrap up in as many blankets as he likes!!! i love his always-on-the-edge-of-a-breakdown portrayal and am so eager to learn more about him and his backstory 👀
25. Peter Gregory | Silicon Valley
ahhh, kicking it the old-fashioned way by getting extremely invested in the most autistic character on the show (and that's saying something, given the high neurodivergent coding of everyone in Silicon Valley 🙈💖). Peter's style and methods of communication are traits i simply find attractive in real life, and although he sadly wasn't with us long, he absolutely stole the show ✨
26. 'Action' Jack Barker | Silicon Valley
given my love of nerds it's no shocker that Silicon Valley hit me with two f/os, and 'Action' Jack Barker - the tech-field Colin Robinson - was a surefire entry 😳💖 what is it about these milquetoast men who are so whitebread yet are capable of such terrible things which gets me every time?! Jack is such a fun character and i'm glad we got as much of him as we did 🙈
27. Avery | Pokémon: Sword and Shield
i cannot believe none of you guys told me about Avery, the most amazingly dressed character i've ever seen in the whole of Pokémon 🙈💖 shhhh he is so very pretty and petty and his powers are incredibly cool. i just love everything about him and would delight in helping him develop a real sense of self-esteem, because he does not deserve the dismissal he receives from his family 😭💖
28. Matthew Patel | Scott Pilgrim
oh my God, heart in my MOUTH seeing Matthew Patel get the glow-up villain arc he so desperately deserved!!!!! 😭💖💖💖 Matthew is just the epitome of style and power in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, and it was so fantastic getting to see him grow as a character and get self-actualised. plus his fight scenes were some of the coolest things i've ever seen. Matthew can i have your number please 🥺
29. The Toymaker | Doctor Who
!!!!!!!!!! i don't know if you guys can tell, but i really love the Toymaker...and even predicted that he'd completely consume my mind months before we got The Giggle 🙈💖 e v e r y t h i n g about him just gets me so bad. his reality-bending, his teasing attitude, his ridiculous accents, his gorgeous costumes, his emotional inconsistency, his tragic backstory...god, if i so much as look at him smiling i melt 🥴💖 characters played by Neil Patrick Harris really get me!! i'm so proud to be modding a server dedicated to the Toymaker now, and have met so many brilliant, wonderful friends through him and falling back into Doctor Who!!! i think we're all going to be brainrotting over him for quite some time 😉💖
30. Dr Mark Fry | Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget
Dr Fry, rushing in at the finish line!!! 🤭 the second my pals saw this guys they were all spamming me, begging me to watch Dawn of the Nugget!!! and ooooh i was noooot prepared for the specific brand of soft creepy genius he is 💖 even if they'd played Dr Fry purely as your run-of-the-mill mad scientist he would've gotten me bad, but they just had to make him equal parts freaky and brilliant with just a touch of arrogance, didn't they?? Melisha scored well 🤤 (also, three whole Yorkshiremen in my collection now!! is it the accent? 😭)
aaaaand that's everyone!!! phew, is anyone else out of breath? 🥵 what a wonderful, silly year of fixations this has been 🤭💖
thank you all for being here, brainrotting happily alongside me for some of these characters, and for all the other characters you love!!! i hope 2024 is awesome to you, and that many more fictional characters are around the corner, ready to make you smile 😉
#f/os#f/o roundup#james the red engine#'big' jack horner#pizzahead#depp fingers#modok#gargamel#wally darling#killa harkan#ian hawke#myc cellium#klaus kickenklober#the spot#mad mod#control freak#ken#buck ruffler#barnaby#jervis tetch#music meister#buggy the clown#pat butcher#josh levy#swan#kinger#peter gregory#'action' jack barker#avery#matthew patel
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Hi Bel,
I keep seeing comments about people complaining about the quality of destiny’s writing and story in the last few weeks. I haven’t really engaged with destiny since season of defiance, what’s currently gotten everyone so riled up? I thought that people were enjoying Season of the Deep/Witch in terms of narrative, why is Season of the Wish causing people to deride the destiny writing staff again?
I don't know!
Deep and Witch have been absolute bangers in every aspect to me. I've been enjoying all interactions and lore tabs we've received. A lot of them are stuff that we've never had before, a lot of reunions and closures, a lot of development and interactions between characters who you wouldn't really think would have much in common.
Sloane's return and healing from what she's been through has been fantastic, Drifter opening up with her to help her because he also got help from others was fantastic, Sloane reuniting with Aisha and Shayura brought me to tears (Shayura's descent into madness was triggered by immense trauma of Sloane staying on Titan and Titan disappearing), everything with Sloane and Zavala...
Witch was just incredible in every single way; the focus on Eris, the amount of Eris and Ikora content!!!!! Everything about Xivu and Savathun and their interactions together!! Eris finally fulfilling her goal she promised Savathun YEARS ago, getting that closure.
Wish so far has been equally great to me. All the new stuff about Ahamkara is amazing, finally giving us proof for long-standing speculation about Ahamkara and how they aren't universally evil creatures and expanding on them as a species. I love all interactions we've had so far; finally we have Petra back, Mara's singleminded focus on figuring out how to defeat the Witness and her continuous work to improve as a person, ALL SJUR MENTIONS!!!!! I won't talk about the "leak" because we have no context for it so I will wait for the full story to be revealed before I can pass judgment; something that I think should be a lesson to learn from this entire year. Maybe wait for the story to finish before judging the story.
Literally everything this past year that involves Osiris, but especially this season now that he's back in his element with the Vex. And of course every little detail we get of him and Saint. Osiris honestly shaped this year for me with everything that he's done to uncover the biggest mysteries. I think a big reason is that a lot of people just don't like Osiris, which I consider a massive skill issue.
Other than that, I don't know what are the issues people have besides just not being interested in any of these storylines and attributing it to a nebulous "bad writing" claim. I also genuinely believe that way too many people get wrapped up too much in fandom, imagine storylines they want to see and then get disappointed when the actual story doesn't go there. Almost like people forget that this isn't their story and these aren't their characters. A lot of it is also fandom completely warping characters into not what they actually are and then feeling like the canon story is the one that's wrong.
Whatever is the reason, I guess everyone is entitled to their perspective of the story and everyone is free to explore the story in different ways through fanfics and AUs and whatever. I do that too!
But I would definitely ask people to be normal with how they engage in criticism, especially in the current state of affairs. Writers are developers; they experience a ton of harassment and negativity from the community and also from inside the company. And they are online: they can see what we're saying. It's been documented that community commentary has been used to harass writers:
Imprint this into your brain and never forget what these people had to go through. Let's not forget also the way people treated Seth Dickinson on social media when he was active with Destiny fans. "Fans" were actively arguing with him about his own work (telling him that HE is wrong) and were utterly disgusting towards him when he tried explaining what he wrote. His works are now hailed as the best writing in Destiny and people want him back. If I were him, I wouldn't want to come back ngl, not with how he was treated and not with how fans are still treating writers (and hey, Seth wrote LF Collector's Edition! So he was back, technically, this year!). Let's not forget that a lot of writers are members of various marginalised groups. And I'd definitely not want to go back with zero support from leadership.
Which is also an important aspect for all developers, including writers: sometimes they have orders they may not like, but can't argue against. They do the best they can with what they're given, the time they have and directions they receive. And with that in mind, I am enjoying everything we've gotten this year, obviously with some specific complaints about things I didn't particularly enjoy (like the universally mid reception of Defiance; I've spoken about my gripes with it before, a big one being the shafting of Suraya who should've at least been mentioned in a lore tab).
I can tell that there is passion in their work, even if maybe they would prefer to do more with it, but can't. Maybe even if they want to take different routes, but can't. But from what we got, I can feel that they care about this world and these characters. I can tell that someone lovingly wrote about Sloane and her friendships with two grieving women. I can tell that they deeply cared about Sloane's friendship with Zavala and that they loved showing us Saint and Drifter caring about a fellow trauma survivor.
I can tell that the writers are immensely careful and loving towards Eris; everything she went through was crafted with love and passion from both writers and her VA. Eris' story is such a fundamental aspect of Destiny and I can tell that this was important to the writing team and that they gave her everything they could to do justice to her character and her arc and her healing and her release from the cycle she was trapped in for so long.
I can tell that there are writers who care a lot about Osiris and Saint and their relationship. I can tell that someone cared a lot about expanding on Ahamkara and giving them more personalities. I can tell that someone cared DEEPLY about Sjur and Mara and that her repeated mentions are the passionate work of writers who want us to remember her.
I could go on. And I know that not everyone sees it this way, which is fine; we all have different ways of perceiving stories. I enjoy discussing things we in the fandom disagree on and I enjoy hearing different perspectives! Unfortunately, this has recently become rarer and rarer. And for the love of god, please try and treat writers with some respect, especially now, especially those who are still working and doing their best with the shitty situation they're in. None of the cries of "poor devs" ring true to me unless the same is given to writers, instead of treating them like punching bags.
#destiny 2#long post#for the record: yeah i also have some gripes with some writing decisions. it's normal#but i feel like those are things that i can learn to accept or let go or even have my mind changed with a different perspective#or by just accepting that the writing team was limited in some way and that this was the best they could do#it happens to every story at some point#and yeah capitalism is the death of art. destiny's story would be better from start to finish if it weren't a shooter mmo#but that ship has sailed a long time ago. like. in 2014.#it's honestly a miracle that we got even a fraction of the stuff we got considering the target audience of fps mmos#and it's fine if this just isn't good enough to some. happens#but i think we can move on without being shitty about devs yeah?#in all likelihood writers may even agree that some of the stuff they had to write isn't the best or isn't what they wanted#calling them bad writers over circumstances we don't understand is just shitty#just like it's shitty to do it to any other dev over bugs in the game or badly implemented features or whatever#none of these people are sitting at their desks maliciously laughing while deliberately creating 'bad' things#and this is especially bothering me for writers because of how atrocious people are to artists of all kinds#almost like writers had to strike this year to be respected and treated as people that matter
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From Criminial Mastermind to Fairy Tale Hero: The End of Artemis Fowl
Here we are, everyone: The final Artemis Fowl book. It has been a journey revisiting the first series I was old enough to follow and fandom, and it's wild to me that we're finally at the end. Especially since I picked up the first Artemis Fowl book in late elementary school (I'm genuinely not sure when though, because the first book came out in April of 2001, when I was in fifth grade and it's very possible I didn't pick the book up until sixth grade, which would have put me at 11, same age as Artemis in that first book) and the final book came out in 2012, when I was in my junior year of undergrad. So at that point, Artemis, Holly, and Butler had been part of my life for a long time. And now here we are, to say goodbye to them again after this leisurely re-listen/read. Let's talk Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian.
Artemis grew and changed so much across eight books, which makes sense because holy cow do kids change a LOT between 11 and 15. We get so busy living life in those years that we don't really think about how much we truly learn and grown between prepubescence and full-on teenagerhood, but that is a time of massive change, and I think that more than anything else really justifies how Artemis goes from a chillingly vampiric child to a teenager with enough compassion and empathy to understand that sometimes the right choice is a heroic self-sacrifice for the people that your people (both humans and the people, in this case) love. Artemis also did a really interesting version of that thing so many teenagers do where they hit a point where they can't just phone in their abilities anymore and have to actually put effort in, but for Artemis it was emotional rather than intelligence. And yet even when making said heroic sacrifice, we have the absolutely beautiful callback to the end of book one, where Artemis drugs his mother, Butler, and Juliet to keep them from being harmed by the bio-bomb. To stop Holly from preventing him from stopping Opal, Artemis sedates her. The more things change, the more they stay the same...
Except where best villain ever Opal Koboi is concerned. By this book, Opal is so disconnected from reality that she is willing to risk literally going nuclear to escape captivity, and then just...casually sparks off the apocalypse because if there is one thing our girl wants, it's to be Empress of the World, and if that means using spirit zombies and an ancient fairy doomsday device, then I guess it's a good thing she's already versed in black magic. Or something. Opal is fully and completely off the rails at this point, and if you catch yourself referring to yourself as "Mommy" in reference to the spirits of several scores of ancient elven berserkers who would--barring a geas--murder you for it, you might want to stop and take a long, hard look at your life choices. And maybe don't forget that you've cloned yourself, because that's the kind of little detail that can completely ruin your chances of being Empress of the World.
Holly quite possibly deserves every medal that exists for managing to drag Artemis's extremely out-of-shape butt through increasingly dangerous and high-stakes missions while navigating fairy politics and *checks notes* breaking up with her commanding officer after a disastrous date where they both got kicked out of a crunchball match. (And once again...HOW DARE Colfer leave this in exposition and not show us this amazing disaster of a date!?!?) Holly has also just been through the emotional wringer with Artemis and every time he decided to double-cross or lie by omission to bring off a plan and every time he does something infuriatingly human that drives up her blood pressure and yet makes the mission succeed. And then she has to sit there and watch him die to save humans and fairies. Seriously, the fact that Holly Short is a functional being rather than a hot mess is nothing short of a miracle.
And then we come to Butler. Long-suffering, super fucking over it, broken-hearted Domovoi Butler. Artemis got DAMN lucky that the whole "put my spirit in a clone of me" plan panned out, because if it hadn't, Holly was entirely correct: Butler would never have recovered. Butler and Opal might be my two favorite characters in the entire series at this point. That's not where I started--for a very long time, Holly was my favorite character, and Commander Root still gets an honorable mention--but as a grown-ass adult (I'm not doing that math for you, if you want to know that I'm old, you do the math), I cannot escape how dedicated, competent, kind, and just AWESOME Butler is. I feel like the vibe here is very similar to the thing that happens when you watch Sound of Music as a kid and either Maria or one of the kids is your favorite character, but when you come back to it as an adult, Captain Von Trapp is EVERYTHING (RIP Christopher Plummer, we loved you). Butler has a similar vibe but in a different genre.
So, I was an adult and had enough experience of watching fandoms to see the mixed reactions to this book being released. People were sad the series was ending, people were disappointed because the series had seemingly drifted, and people loved it. My reaction was pretty mixed, because I had a lot going on, I knew there were good things here but I was also kind of missing the heisty, criminal mastermind vibes, but also OPAL KOBOI. So I was pretty unsure how to feel about this book when it came out, and then I didn't reread it for literal years because I went to grad school.
Returning to this book now, I have suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch respect for how Colfer tied up the series and how he pulled off a new Irish mythological cycle, but updated for the twenty-first century. I have enough life on me to appreciate the changes Artemis goes through, and enough literature degrees to have a new and deeply fulfilling perspective on the series structure. Last Guardian is not my favorite book of the series--it's not even in the top three--but I think that what it does is genuinely impressive and I love how you can finish this book and go instantly back into the OG Artemis Fowl. The story does not, strictly speaking, have to end. And that is a vibe I can 100% get behind.
I deeply love the Artemis Fowl books, and I cannot recommend the series enough. They have so many strengths, are incredibly well-written, and they live rent-free in my head even now as an adult.
#artemis fowl#eoin colfer#artemis fowl the last guardian#artemis fowl and the last guardian#domovoi butler#holly short#opal koboi#children's literature#children's books#books and reading#books & libraries#books and novels#books#book recommendations#middle grade sci fi#middle grade books#middle grade fantasy#middle grade fiction
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Yuno Kashiki's Lover - An Analysis
I apologize for any typos or wonky wording; English is not my first language.
Yuno has stated in Trial 2 that she never had feelings for the people she was going on dates with. However, that contradicts with Umbilical, because these–
–are not the words of someone who's just in it for the fun or for the money. So, I'd like to propose something else: Yuno, before becoming a rental girlfriend, had a partner whom she genuinely loved, and that person is the one who she (nearly) had a child with.
TW: abortion and pregnancy talk
PART 1: Yuno's Personality (+ Haruka Connection)
Yuno is a very cynical person, and has stated that she hates "cold"– this can also be seen in Umbilical (Just me alone, the warmth starts to fade / Let's reload the warmth) (Just me alone, it really is lonely / Let's reload the warmth) and Tear Drop (The fading warmth makes me anxious again / Tear drops succumb and fall)
Despite this, she has stated in her second voice drama that her family life is stable, and often mentions playing with her brothers in MINIGRAM.
Something worth taking note is that she also states she found compensated dating to be something she felt was "necessary"– likely to stave off the "cold".
But if such traits didn't come from her home life, where did they come from? I believe it was from disillusionment in a relationship.
I'd also like to present a new theme to connect her and Haruka: abandonment.
PART 2: Umbilical
2.1: The Towers
During the MV, there can be seen towers composed of a spiralling stairway: at first, there is one. Then, a second one is introduced. Those two come together to form one, and so there is only one left. That tower crumbles. In the end, we can see that there are more towers in the background.
They represent Yuno and her lovers.
Up until the end of the first chorus, there is only one tower: Yuno's. She is then seen staring at a second, more distant tower. This is her partner.
On the second chorus, they are together. Yuno can be seen on hers, but the other is empty; we can, however, see someone's shoes left on it. They seem to be men's shoes, so not Yuno's.
It's as if someone is supposed to be there, but they've left, or Yuno now refuses to acknowledge them.
In this scene, they both come together; this is either when the pregnancy happens, or when Yuno tells them about it (I messed up, I found out)
Also, the shoes are now gone, meaning they have left her completely.
In the third chorus, we see Yuno's tower again, alone.
Fourth chorus, the tower crumbles; this represents Yuno's old self "breaking". She, however, grabs onto the balloon (which we will discuss later) and saves herself.
(Alternatively, the tower that crumbles could also represent her child and its death.)
At the very end, she stares off at new towers in the background. This is when she started to be a rental girlfriend; she is looking at her possible suitors.
PART 2.1: The Balloon
I've heard the theory that it represents her body, and while I think that is possible, I'd like to present something new: it represents her feelings/her mind.
In the beginning, it's empty: she hasn't caught feelings. As the song progresses, it becomes full of other balloons, one even shaped like a heart: those are her newfound feelings.
Eventually, the pressure becomes too much, and her mind "bursts"; this happens right before her tower crumbles and right after the pregnancy.
When she falls, she grabs onto a now-empty balloon, which represents a mind that's free of feelings. She is saving herself from death by grabbing onto numbnees, by rejecting the feelings that got her here in the first place.
Something else that's interesting: during the "fu fu" part, she is hiding her face behind an empty balloon; hiding behind a stoic face.
PART 3: Tear Drop
I don't have much to say about Tear Drop, since I agree with most of the fandom about it. I'd like to mention, though, that Yuno is very adamant about not being a "naive little girl", and following this theory, it makes sense.
She had to build herself back up from the ground and, judging by the multiple Yunos in the MV, it looks like she did it by herself. To reduce her to someone pitiful would be insulting, after she went through so much trouble to lock her old self away.
Still, in a brief moment of vulnerability, she shows that once the cold starts to seep in, she's still hurting.
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@chrumblr-whumblr Day Four: Watching while a loved one is hurt
Fandom: Endeavour. Post 4x04 Harvest. I watched the episode like a week ago and Forgot Details and haven't rewatched it to fact check anything so if something doesn't line up with canon oh well ignore that. I just love Morse and Miss Frazil's friendship SO MUCH i wanted to explore it a little. (May cannibalism this scene if i ever get around to writing my 'joan says yes' au)
word count: 1,563
___
Dorothea wasn’t sure when it had happened, exactly, but somewhere through the years her acquaintance with Morse had shifted from a respectful professional relationship to genuine friendship. It was a development that hadn’t been entirely intentional, but there was something about the young man that made her think he hadn’t had much friendship in his life. There was a hungriness about him, a desperate desire to be loved that she was sure he didn’t admit even to himself.
She found him almost on accident, the day after everything at the Bramford power plant had been wrapped up. He was sitting at the bar of the pub, nursing a pint and staring morosely at an untouched crossword in front of him. Dorothea took him in for a long moment, seeing the bags under his eyes, the exhaustion in the way he sat, leaned over the bar. He was staring at nothing, eyes dull and half glazed over, clearly lost in thought.
He looked positively worn out, and Dorothea felt her heart clench at the sight of him. He was so brilliant, so young and full of energy. Had a brain so fast and wonderful, but life had beaten him down so quickly. He didn't share much, but Dorothea had years of investigative journalism behind her--she could read between the lines, could pick out a story in the shapes left behind by absence. Not for the first time she thought he was a man too used to caring and not used to being cared for.
To break the ice, she cleared her throat and sat down at the stool beside him. He started, torn out of his thoughts and the lost expression on his face shifted into a small smile.
“Miss Frazil,” he greeted, shifting his newspaper aside to give her room. She smiled back at him, placing her handbag on the bar. “Can I get you a drink?”
“I'm alright, thank you Morse,” Dorothea answered. She eyed the mostly empty glass in his hands, wondering how many he'd finished before she had arrived. Best not to bring more alcohol into the equation--heaven knows he could drink enough without encouragement.
She started with work, knowing he would close himself off immediately if she pushed too hard too quickly.
“You were at the plant, were you not?” she asked. A wary expression crossed Morse's face, but he seemed to relax a little nonetheless. She thought back to their last conversation, when she had dropped him off by an empty field. He'd opened up then, just a little. Bared himself just enough to show his hurt, but not quite enough for her to do anything about it. “Anything you can tell me?”
The request pulled a small smile from him, something Dorothea was grateful to see. He rolled his pint between his hands and shook his head, turning to look at her. There was a cut along his hairline she noted--that hadn't been there last she saw him.
“I'm afraid not,” he said. He still seemed distant, mind on other things. Not fully engaging in their usual dance as they tried to tease information out of the other.
“The official story is a fire,” she said. His hand drifted to the cut. He nodded.
“Best to leave it at that,” he said. She waited, long years of experience telling her the best way to get information out of someone was to wait. Let him tell her in his own time.
Though it wasn't really what had happened at the plant she wanted to know. Not right now, at least. Like as not, it wasn't going to be anything she could publish anyway.
What she really wanted to know was what was bothering him. It was more than this current case, more even than his flat being burgled earlier in the week. She knew him well enough to see it in the way he sat, the line of his shoulders, the shadows in his eyes.
“Off the record, sabotage,” he said finally. This time he did press his hand to the cut on his forehead. “Some plot by Bagley, planning to leak radiation into the nearby area to prove just how dangerous nuclear energy is.”
Now that would be a juicy story. The part of Dorothea that was pure journalist wanted to dig deeper into it, chase the story, share it with the world. But from the way Morse was hunched, from the sensitivity of the situation, she knew that this would be another story by the wayside. Another time societal requirements won over the truth.
Sometimes she felt a little bitter about that. But she told herself to keep looking forward, finding the next story, uncovering the next truth.
“And you stopped it,” she said and he nodded, his attention still wandering. “You alright?”
It was an innocent enough question, one she knew wouldn't shut him down immediately. There were a lot of ways to answer that, and Morse could choose how much he shared.
“I'll live,” he said. She wasn't surprised by the answer; it was a dismissal, his way of saying he didn't want to talk. Not quite fully a lie, not quite fully vulnerable.
He infuriated her, sometimes. He was so clearly in need of someone looking out for him, but he was so stubborn he refused to accept help, let alone ask for it.
Sometimes she wanted to force him to stop, put him up in her small apartment for a week so she could put some meat on his bones and light in his eyes. Drive it into his stubborn skull that people cared and he didn't have to go at life alone.
“Really?” she asked gently.
He let out a long breath and emptied the last of his beer.
“Still don’t feel entirely safe at home,” he admitted. “Feels too empty.”
She nodded sympathetically. She knew a little about feeling vulnerable in a place that was supposed to be safe--it had been a few months since her kidnapping by Leyton-Asprey, and she still felt uneasy being alone in her office. Coming home to find his space invaded so violently had clearly shaken Morse and she couldn’t find fault in that.
But he was using it as a shield, holding up the reasonable excuse so she didn’t dig any deeper, uncover the actual source of his hurt. Always hiding himself, was Morse. And Dorothea hated not knowing the truth.
She let the silence sit for another moment, pondering her next course of action. It was always a delicate balance with Morse, finding the line between getting him to open up to her without shutting down fully. He needed to come at his own pace, but he needed to know she wanted to know. She wanted to share whatever his hurt was, help him in whatever way she could.
She thought maybe he didn’t have many people he could feel safe opening up to, and she didn’t want to break the trust they had built over the years.
“There was a girl.”
His words came as a surprise, and it took Dorothea a second to process them. He spoke them softly, a mix of hurt and bitterness mingling in his voice.
She thought back to that last conversation in the car on the country road. He’d denied a girl then, a scoffing almost-bitter voice proclaiming he didn’t have anyone. She’d thought it was a laden admission at the time, and now she felt a little vindication.
It wasn’t sweet vindication. Not seeing how he was hunched into himself, not seeing the heaviness in his eyes. Heartbreak, she realised. Not something new to him, she concluded.
“Ah,” she said softly. Morse stared into his empty pint glass.
“She… had some trouble,” he said finally, looking anywhere but at Dorothea. “I couldn’t help her. She didn’t let me help her.”
‘Sounds familiar,” Dorothea thought, expression soft and understanding as she looked at Morse.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally, not knowing how else to help. She was glad he had let her in, glad he had shared at least something. Gently, she reached across the bar to squeeze his forearm.
He started, looking down at her hand and then back up at her, seeming unsure what to do with the unexpected touch. Again, Dorothea couldn’t help but feel he had been so starved of everything a persons should have--love, intimacy, friendship. The knowledge that people care.
For just a moment, he let her in fully. She saw the despair behind his eyes, the grief and loss. The hurt that informed every part of his life, walls and barriers and scars built up after a childhood starved of love and an adulthood seeing the worst of humanity.
Then he shifted, pulling his arm away and looked back down at the newspaper in front of him. The moment was over, the walls were back up. Once again, he locked her out and was alone in his hurt.
Dorothea knew there was nothing she could do for him except just wait until the next time he was brave enough to be vulnerable. For now, maybe that would be enough.
“I’ll buy you a drink,” she said, sensing the companionship would be of more use than anything else right now. He flickered a small, forced smile in her direction and picked up a pen to start filling out the crossword.
#wren writes#endeavour#endeavour morse#itv endeavour#dorothea frazil#endeavour fanfiction#chrumblr whumblr challenge#UGUHGHUG these two#i LOVE their friendship#i LOVE that shes one of the few people he opens up to#eating it#i DO need to rewatch harvest to make sure this lines up fjdhfjd#the scene with morse and miss frazil in the car means so much to me#holding them carefully#anyway took liberties with this prompt#because hurt isnt just physical hehe#and i think the people who care about morse are used to seeing him hurt#or at least seeing him try to hide the hurt
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BRO I FEEL STARVED! I love Azul and the way you write him but you know what I love a lot more? THE WAY YOU WRITE IDIA!
I need- I need more thoughts for Idia aka.the ultimate discord mod™(affectionate)
—can I be the Eel anon?
Omg I’m happy to know you like the way I write Idia! He’s so filthy and shameless. orz I’ll share some very scattered ideas!
✧ Idia feels like the type to be a danganronpa mastermind (he would be a Tsumugi fan). He gives me Mikan vibes—someone who is shy and always anxious but becomes bolder when pushed to the edge. I think he’d subject everyone to a death game if it was an au in which that happened. It would be run and funded by STYX, but all anyone knows is that if they can survive a few days and escape death they’ll be rewarded in more ways than just monetarily. Maybe you’re the prize or maybe you’re forced to participate. Magic use is not allowed, but most of NRC’s students are little cheats so someone’s going to break that rule eventually.
✧ I remember how wild the Japanese side of the fandom went when book 6 was just beginning (when STYX had kidnapped the students) and I remember seeing so many theories and art about what he might do to study and torture them. Thinking about how clinically detached Idia might be if he’s studying you. Maybe you’re a creature born from Overblot, but you take on a human appearance and seem to genuinely think you’re human. Dangerous creatures like you have to be contained and properly observed, but for some reason you act just like a harmless human. Idia knows blot is dangerous, but he can’t help slowly falling for you the more time he spends on the other side of the glass.
✧ Idia but he and Azul swap personalities, so now you have a very confident, silver-tongued Idia and a very gloomy, sleep-deprived Azul who thinks everyone is a normie. >:)
✧ Idia who, when he finds out you’re a female, decides to kidnap you alongside the NRC students. But he keeps you in a separate enclosure and it’s not to study you. It’s to train you to be a perfect housewife for him, starting with chores and working the way up to pregnancy once you seem more willing. Idia definitely has a breeding kink, but it’s more that he just likes the concept of filling you up until you’re so cock-drunk and watching your body shape itself around pregnancy. The trio’s breeding kinks are more rooted in mer instincts because the goal is to have children with you, whereas Idia’s not really a big fan of that. But if it’s you he can try to do his best.
✧ Idia has a voice line about how he wouldn’t be able to live with another person, as having a roommate was terrible enough (very paraphrased from his ghost marriage home screen lines). So imagine being his roommate or housemate and he rarely leaves his room, only contributes monetarily (he probably pays for the entire apartment because he’s rich), and you never truly get to talk to or connect with him. But unbeknownst to you, Idia is watching you through the cameras he’s situated in your room and he’s been stealing things from you (undergarments, jewelry, makeup, a shirt, a sock, etc). He’s so creepy, but he becomes even creepier if you bring someone back to the apartment, whether a friend or a hook-up.
✧ thinking about fwb with Idia, but it’s online. So lots of phone sex, lots of exchanging of explicit images (imagine talking to this guy who calls you his kitten and has the smallest dick energy, but when he finally sends a photo back he’s massive. T-T), and even occasionally playing online games together. Idia becomes obsessed with you and quickly gets jealous if he knows you’re out actually living your life when you should be spending it talking to him at all hours of the day.
✧ something something apocalypse au and you take shelter with Idia, who becomes very obsessed with you and won’t let you leave because it’s so dangerous out in the real world.
✧ Idia who is researching a mer darling! He keeps you confined and finds that interacting with you is much easier than interacting with others. Maybe it’s because you don’t speak much of his language or it’s because you never seem to judge him critically. Either way, he loves his mer and wants to keep you forever.
#twisted chit chat#yandere twst#and yes you may be#eel anon#tw: pregnancy mention#tw: breeding#n/sfw
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As a fellow Marius lover, I always find it kind of disheartening how most of the content/fandom talk about him (meta, fic, fanart, etc.) revolves around m/m ships (Marius/Armand in particular but I’d even go as far to include Marius/Daniel here) when, in my opinion, Marius is like the one male character in the VC universe whose relationships with women are far more interesting than his relationships with other men (the only other character might be Lestat but even then it’s pretty 50/50). They’re so monumental and so full of complexities and pain and so much love and they define him and inform his character in ways that I think, his relationships with men simply do not. Interesting/hot under the right circumstances? Sure but like ARE YOU GUYS SEEING THIS MAN??? AND HOW HE RELATES TO WOMEN??? It’s one of the best things Anne ever wrote and I can never get enough of it and it makes me sad how little content there is of it and I feel I can never say this out loud because I would never want to make people feel bad about what they ship (truly not my intention here) but ugh SO MUCH potential there for life changing discourse and meta about Marius and the women he’s loved and lost and have shaped who he is and there’s like… nothing.
Tl;dr the reason I’m sending this ask is because I’m a firm believer that you must be the change you want to see in this world and because YOU get it! And every time you post or write about Marius/Pandora (or Marius/Akasha! Or talk about Marius/Bianca) an angel gets its (black) wings. You are seen, you are loved and appreciated tysm <3
OKAY FIRST OF ALL THIS WAS SUCH A DELIGHT TO GET IN MY INBOX, SECOND IM GOING TO BE COMPLETELY HONEST AND ADMIT I FEEL TOO INCOHERENT TO TACKLE THIS TOPIC HAHA. I don’t feel articulate enough to do it justice. And I don’t say that to be obnoxious and self deprecating but like in all honesty idk how to synthesize it neatly but I think you’re sharing some GREAT IDEAS.
I have to say this in bullet points because I don’t feel equipped to string this into a cohesive post:
Marius was based on Anne’s husband, and Marius/Pandora was based on their marriage!!!!! And I think it explains a lot about why their relationship feels so fuckin POTENT to me, like it’s so genuine!!!!!!! And like knowing that I think it makes sense why she wrote him so HOT lol. Like she’s just writing thirsty stuff about her husband right? LOL
Also like insofar as there’s a lot of genderfluidity in VC there’s also something vaguely misogynist about it at times. And Anne Rice was a mega feminist and her work had so much womens lib in it!!!!! So I don’t think it’s intended as misogyny at all vs. Anne having conversations about gender and maybe her own relationship to gender. I think enough characters have said vaguely misogynist stuff that it makes me think it’s an Anne Problem vs being Watsonian. (This is also a historical/time period issue and we can discuss another time if and when vampires are supposed to break out of that when they transcend humanity and social constructs even when they’re still saying weird sexist shit at their big ages.) But I say that to say all VC characters are a tad sexist, even if perhaps she was writing with the intention of her own male power fantasy/male superiority/penis envy. AND THAT MAKES MARIUS VERY INTERESTING.
Cause like really the three main ladies in his life (Akasha, Pandora, Bianca) DO define him so much! And we don’t see him pine for Armand the way he did for any of them! Why!!!
Like there’s that aspect of sexism where women can be infantilized by men who don’t think they’re being unkind and it makes me wonder, especially when the author is a boomer, like where is that line between condescension and respect? I don’t have an answer here, this is too big-brained for me LOL but like he is SO devoted to the women in his life and I just wonder like if he sees them as creatures unlike himself, you know?
This is headcanon territory but I bet he’s such a fucking sub to Pandora lol and it just thrills me that he spent 2000 years begging Akasha for affection and she ignored him the whole damn time wow. And he continued to simp!
AND ALSO LIKE, I think people DO NOT DISCUSS THIS OFTEN ENOUGH, but did we forget that he chose Armand because he needed a Bianca rebound? He was absolutely TORTURED by his love for Bianca and picked Armand because he didn’t want to kill her oh my god. Oh my god!!! HE KEPT HER LETTER IN HIS POCKET OVER HIS HEART OKAY??? HE DIDN’T WANT TO DRAG HER INTO HIS COLD AND FATAL DOMAIN????? Fuck lol
It’s so fucked up that he didn’t go after Armand but spent like actual fucking millennia trying to find Pandora. HE KNEW EXACTLY WHERE ARMAND WAS AND LEFT HIM THERE LOL BUT PANDORA HAUNTED HIM EVERY NIGHT OF HIS LIFE FOR CENTURIES.
After everything he wound up spending like 200 years with Bianca or something and ?????? CORRECT because Bianca was the fledgling he actually wanted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But it’s odd, I know I’ve said this 337589235 times, but Marius like. Has an idea of the person he wants to be and he tries SO HARD to live by logic & reason and he just can’t reconcile with the fact that he has EMOTIONS. And so like part of the person he wants to be like, open/empathetic/wise and he begs his lovers/students/fledglings to CHALLENGE HIM when he’s not actually healed enough to be challenged? And to me there’s something kinda like, extra spicy about it when you’re in Rice World and you’re a lil sexist; how much that burns EXTRA when it’s Pandora or Bianca sticking up to you or AKASHA FUCKIN IGNORING YOU.
Just really incredible that this person who is like the epitome of a patriarch has such fucked up relationships with all the women in his life. And like he underestimates these women, like the way he tries to manipulate Bianca and she leaves him! PANDORA AND AKASHA ARE UNAVAILABLE TO HIM AND BIANCA FUCKIN LEAVES.
akasSHA JUST IGNROING HIM!! JUST STRAIGHT UP FUCKIN IGNORING HIM FOR 2,000 YEARS!!!! HE'S OBSESSED WITH HER!
Anyway Enkil is ignoring him too but he doesn’t give a shit about that guy tbh lol
Also the amount of space he gives Eudoxia and Zenobia in his book like there’s more here too but tbh it’s midnight and I can’t start unpacking. I just think like, in 2000 years it’s interesting how Eudoxia wound up having such a lasting impact on his life.
I did just peek at the Eudoxia part and I’m dying, he goes “Her face was small, oval, and as close to perfection as anything I've ever beheld, even though she bore no resemblance to Pandora who was for me perfection itself.” CERTIFIED WIFE GUY.
What kinda mommy issues are we dealing with here? HIS MOTHER WAS A SLAVE THAT DIED IN CHILDBIRTH AND HE INHERITED HER GENES AND LOOKED LIKE HER AND DIDN’T LOOK LIKE HIS FATHER & BROTHERS? AND HE’S SORT OF AN OUTCAST AS A HUMAN LIKE ? THE STIGMA HERE? AND THEN HE SPENDS 2000 YEARS WORSHIPPING HIS NEW MOTHER??? PERHAPS YOU COULD SAY ENSLAVED TO HER? IDK MAN.
IS THIS ALSO WHY HE WAS SO OBSESSED WITH LOSING PANDORA?
The irony too, and something I think a lot of people miss, is that he DIDN’T WANT TO MARRY PANDORA LOL. He wanted to be betrothed to a child so that he could FUCK OFF and NOT get married because she wasn’t old enough to get married! He fucked off! He went exploring! He said this is not for me!
AND TO GO OUT INTO THE WORLD AND BE MURDERED BY HIS MOTHERS PEOPLE???? IDK.
I’m not sure how these last two points tie into anything but I just wanted to mention his complicated relationship with Pandora and his own heritage lol. And then Akasha like DELIVERS Pandora to him because she’s like “wow this guy needs somebody lol and I am not emotionally available” — Akasha who was famously a violent genocidal radfem and who would not approve of his relationship with Armand but explicitly allowed him to have Pandora and Bianca. IDK WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN!
Did Akasha approve of these women because she knew Marius was completely pussywhipped and would worship them and she wanted to see someone mommydom the fuck out of him and she knew that Armand would never be that person? 🫢
And again I want to say like, taking the author into consideration!! Anne Rice had a HORRIFIC relationship with her mom so you see these themes pop up occasionally in her work. DESPITE ALL OF THAT SHE IS STILL A FEMINIST AND WRITES ABOUT MATRILINEAR FAMILIES like The Great Family or the Mayfairs. But thinking about Mothers in Anne Rice Works makes me think a lot about this like, the damage they can do and the voids they can leave even when you’re a feminist and love women! You see a TON of this with Gabrielle and I always think that Lestat & Marius are such similar characters that you can do a lot of extrapolating or backwards engineering to ask questions about them and how they work, since we get SO MUCH Lestat POV in this series to work with and how we can zoom out sometimes and ask like, what is common across her entire body of work and what is more specifically common between Lestat & Marius and WHAT EVEN MORE INTERESTINGLY is a result that they were both based on her husband in their inceptions.
Like how much of this has to do with Marius’s actual feelings towards men vs women on purpose, or how much was subconscious author bias, how much was simply that Anne Rice based him on her husband and she was THIRSTY, idk. It’s always hard to say in VC because Anne was such an intuitive and self-indulgent author and the stories are so weird!!! So your mileage may vary!
But I agree with you that these are FASCINATING relationships!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I like Marius/Armand too (I recently made a post about how I didn’t “””””ship”””” them but then I spent 2 months working on a M/A fic every day and now I think I’ve corrupted and converted myself LMAO) but yeah like. There’s such a lack of substance between them in the end. He treats Armand like he’s temporary, fucks up and moves on, and it’s such a departure from how DEVOTED he was with all his other partners.
Wow I didn’t think I had a lot to say, sorry about that. !!! EVERY TIME I BROUGHT A POINT UP I THOUGHT OF 5 MORE POINTS GOSH I COULD TALK ABOUT MARIUS ALL DAY.
#tldr he has mommy issues#marius de romanus#vampire chronicles#thank you hekateinhell for discussing this with me in DM so that i could scream and yell and make sense of it!#hekate is mommy issues expert she helped unlock some bonus points!#deep ass thoughts about vampires#also i wanted to keep fandom discourse out of this bc i dont got time but this is like#such a timeless topic in fandom spaces about the popularity of mlm ships vs het or wlw ships#and like what that all means#it's been discussed to death and i don't think it's a condemnation of fandom at all#it just is what it is#so this is always going to be the case when it comes to fandoms & female characters#but i think people need to stop complaining about shit like that HAHA#fandom is a potluck yknow#like you gotta participate and make your own contributions too#marius is already such a divisive character i'm not gonna split hairs about who we're shipping him with LMAO THE POOL IS ALRAEDY TOO SHALLO#but i would love to put more bianca & pandora content into the world!!!#and like you i do not want this to sound like i'm being salty abotu what anyone ships! it's all good my dudes!#akasha#akasha/marius#bianca solderini#marius/bianca#pandora#marius/pandora
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I've been pretty curious about the LO Critical side. I'm asking genuinely but what are the reasons why LO has such a strong anti Fandom.
Do people not like it? I was curious because it seems like a lot of lo critical/anti lo blogs seem to enjoy certain aspects and characters. Is it the author people don't enjoy?
Like I said I'm really being genuine. I think people have the right to have like their own critical space for a free webcomic. It's just interesting because it's like. This Fandom has a second Fandom of people who seem to hate the comic.
The anti community for any fandom is sure to be a complex place that’s usually, in my experience, more built on pain and disappointment than anything else. Pain because something important to you no longer provides comfort, maybe even perpetrates harmful themes for your own personal experiences, and disappointment because this is something you used to love and you wish could be better.
There’s two parts of the anti community for LO. There’s one part that, as you said, still holds some affection for the series, for memories attached to it and for some characters. There’s also another part that, again as you said, straight up just hate it.
I’ll briefly touch on the first part. They can see so clearly how LO could be infinitely better and that’s frustrating. They can see all the flaws they didn’t notice or didn’t want to see before and are exasperated by why it’s allowed to continue this way. Let’s not forget that a significant number of LO’s critics are people who were young teens and read it in their formative years without realising what they were being so carelessly exposed to.
With that realisation, there’s a level of anger and horror at learning what was put in front of them, marketed as safe and heavily promoted at every turn, and it’s only gotten worse over time. That must be an absolutely gut-wrenching thing to feel over something you loved once.
So in that sense, you’re correct; a big part of the anger comes down to Rachel herself and her choices.
Then there’s the other part of the anti fandom, the part that just out and out hates it and always has. This is where yours truly fits in.
Now, I was super active on tumblr during 2014-2017, when fandoms like Steven Universe, FNAF and Undertale were at their peak. I had to learn, trial by fire, how to be real critical of any media I consumed. There is certainly a downside to this, I tend to see the negatives of anything I enjoy first and then find positives later. The upside is it’s certainly been one helluva way to improve my media literacy and spot the bs from a mile away.
A lot of people don’t believe when I say I got skeevy, uncomfortable, gross vibes from LO from chapter one, but I did. I don’t know what it was, but it set me off so bad that I couldn’t get past “her butt is shaped like a heart” and never read it again.
Now I’m willing to admit that this part of the fandom, like me, are the way we are because we were never the target demographic for LO.
Therefore, when it came out and got popular, we were the ones who were absolutely baffled and the ones who got dog piled and called every name under the sun by fans for a long time…that is, of course, until a lot of those fans grew up, realised what they were reading and turned on the series.
As I said, the critical side of any fandom is complicated and this is just my two cents.
I could do a much longer post about how fucking angry I am at Rachel personally for the fact she’s from my country, a country who constantly gets ignored, and given this amazing chance that so many of us wish we could have, yet chose to peddle her self insert x celebrity crush jailbait fantasy.
I could talk all day about how physically sickened I am that she’s taken so many aspects of trauma experiences by myself and millions of others and used it as ignorant, glamourised, fetishised shock-material.
I could go on at length about what a racist, misogynistic, homophobic piece of baggage she is and how she’s permanently done damage to another culture while completely misrepresenting ours…but I won’t.
I’ll just draw more mean art of Persephone’s giant lips and Hades accidentally letting the air out of them with his mosquito nose instead.
What’s Rachel going to do? Draw a goofy, technicolor caricature of me in her comic that’ll blend into the background, be only half finished and look like a recoloured Persephone in her otherwise pristine and totally professional looking masterpiece that’s definitely not losing readers? Oh wait—
#antiloreolympus#lo critical#lore olympus critical#lo criticism#anti lore olympus#lore olympus criticism#ooh girl#I had things to say
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Tumblr Fandom: A Year in Review 2023
i was tagged by @captain-hen, thank you! 🥰
i was tempted to skip the top five blorbos/fandoms/pairings section because let's be honest, it's really only been buck and eddie for the entire year, but i do have other interests even if i'm not as involved in them as i am in buddie. so enjoy learning more about my ao3 history, i guess? 😂
top 5 blorbos:
evan "buck" buckley (9-1-1)
eddie diaz (9-1-1)
roy kent (ted lasso)
clint barton (marvel)
billy butcher (the boys) (i literally started watching this show two weeks ago but y'know what? i'm adding it. butcher is just so blorbo shaped.)
top 5 fandoms:
9-1-1
avatar: the last airbender (for anyone who doesn't know, my atla sideblog is @zukkababey!)
marvel
ted lasso
teen wolf
top 5 pairings:
evan buckley/eddie diaz (9-1-1)
roy kent/jamie tartt (ted lasso)
clint barton/bucky barnes (marvel)
arthur/eames (inception)
billy butcher/hughie campbell (the boys)
shoutout to some new friends:
i've talked to so many new people this year who have really made me feel included in the 9-1-1 fandom, namely @devirnis, @colonoscopys, @shitouttabuck, @housewifebuck, @eddiebabygirldiaz, @vampbuckley and @buck2eddie. i love seeing you all in my notifications, and so many of you have been so encouraging, especially during my writing drought that's been persisting for months. y'all are great 🥹🫶
shoutout to some old friends:
i'm kinda new here but @eddiediaaz, i'm pretty sure you were my first ever 9-1-1 mutual that i talked to and you really made me feel so so welcome in the fandom when i posted my first buddie fic back in 2022. i will always be grateful for that and you!!! ❤️
favourite creation you posted this year:
it's definitely gotta be what a heart can do. i love dad buck so much, i had such a fun time writing it, and i think it's some of my best storytelling. it makes me really happy that so many people have read and enjoyed it!
favourite creation posted by someone else this year:
THIS VIDEO by @butchdiaz. holy fucking shit. i'm sure everyone reading this has already seen it, but ohhhhh my god. this video rearranged my molecules. i can't listen to ceilings without thinking about it. the way you edited it to match so many important buddie moments, it genuinely makes me feel so insane. i re-watched it last night and i'm still vibrating just thinking about it.
people who brightened your year:
so many people!!! @negansmiith made a graphic for hurt locker that basically made my whole year! it is saved in my camera roll and i look back on it frequently. 🥰 @housewifebuck made a beautiful hat that i am genuinely obsessed with. check out their shop!!! anyone who has ever read my silly tags on a post i reblogged and dm'd me to chat about it—i love you.
anyone else you'd like to mention:
everyone who has read my fics or commented on them telling me your thoughts, thank you. seriously. just know that when i read your comment(s), i was twirling my hair and kicking my feet back and forth and squealing and smiling so hard my cheeks started to hurt. every single comment made 2023 that much brighter.
five of your favourite authors this year:
@gayhoediaz - every time i get an email that you've posted a buddie fic, i know that i have a bedtime story for that night. i know it's gonna be a good one, every single time.
@devirnis - i read your fic about buck and eddie ring shopping and getting caught up in a robbery and i've never looked back. i've read so many of your fics this year (and tbh, thank god i still have more to read) and i'm looking forward to reading all the ones that you have in the works!!!
@colonoscopys - i’m pretty sure that i binged basically all of your fics this year and i don’t regret a single thing (except maybe going through them too fast). god, i love your writing.
@rewritetheending - gosh the way you’re able to get to the heart of emotions and describe them in a way that puts an ache in my chest makes me want to claw the ground until my fingernails break off. my fave fic of yours is still while we do what lovers do and i know it wasn’t posted in 2023 but i needed to shout it out here because goddddddd. i still think about it all the time.
@letmetellyouaboutmyfeels - i enjoyed reading your halloween fics this year so much, particularly your dark buddie au. sometimes you just gotta imagine your wholesome, already in love blorbos be absolutely unhinged and crazy about each other, and that’s perfectly normal. i actually remember looking for a dark buddie fic when i first joined the fandom and there were none, so i’m glad my wish was fulfilled, especially when it was done so damn well.
five of your favourite artists/gifmakers/podficcers/etc. this year:
@try-set-me-on-fire - you could have gone under fave authors too, but i fucking love your art style. i don't know art terms so forgive me, but something about the messiness and abstractness scratches this itch deep in my brain and they evoke such unnameable feelings that want to burst out of my ribcage. ugh!!!!!! if you sold prints i'd be checking out in two seconds flat.
@butchdiaz - i know i already waxed poetic about your ceilings edit, but i love your edits/gifs too, particularly this one. it's so simple but so beautiful and fucking devastating. the gif aspect is subtle but intentional (buck fading to black and white while the blood stays red?????? KILL ME!). i'd eat your gifs if i could.
@shitouttabuck - you could go under fave authors too (hello i love you like a dog fic) but i wanted to shout you out here because you are so fucking funny. every single edit you post makes me giggle out loud. tbh i didn't even realize they were all from you until i started scrolling through your edit tag looking for this post. i can't get over it. i literally laughed at it AGAIN when i found it.
@eddiediaaz - you are constantly feeding the 911 fandom. you make so many gifsets on so many different sideblogs that i'm sure no one actually knows how many gifs you're constantly making. and every single one is so goddamn good??? and they're so creative. like this one??? there are so many things going on, i can't even fathom how the hell you did it. gifmakers are magic, i swear.
@iinryer - YOUR ART FUELS ME. your style is so *clenches fist* fucking cool. the lines are simple but they still look like the characters?? i admire that so, so much because i know if i ever tried that they'd look so wonky, lol. i think about juice box chim all the damn time and i don't know where i've been lately but this one with buck and chris??? it's so soft and sweet and vulnerable, with the way buck is holding him and chris is nestled. GOD. everything you make is gold.
three (+1) things you're looking forward to in 2024:
getting my masters degree!
getting a job, maybe???
posting more buddie fic 👀
+ season 7 of 911, obviously.
i’m sure i’ve missed some people inadvertently but this was really fun to do! at this time of year, with the short days and cold weather (at least for some of us), i think we could all do with a little bit of joy and a brighter day. i really love this fandom and i'm so grateful to be a part of it!
tagging everyone i mentioned in this post, if you haven’t already done it and want to participate! ❤️
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hi! for the choose violence asks: 7 and 13
Hi you!!! Thanks for stopping by ❤️
7: the character I hate not because of canon but because of how fandom acts about them
...well, this is the violence game on the getting too personal website, so I'll get a little too violently personal.
Honestly, a big part of why I stopped writing fic and ultimately left the fandom for over a decade was that I started to hate Dooku. I felt so fed up with having to justify and explain writing him as a Good Master, as a steadfast Jedi, when it felt like the much more popular version was to write him as a grimdark asshole who mainly existed to give angst and whump to Padawan Qui-Gon. (At the time, a major blorbo.) And yes, I got that the guy ultimately becomes a villain, I loved me some Sith era badness fics, but there were so few people writing in pre-prequels era/Dooku's Jedi years as it was, and that idea felt really pervasive.
I say "felt." It's funny, over the years I've wondered how accurate my perceptions even were: I had great, supportive friends and a small but wonderful handful of readers, and I was writing mainly in a community of people who cared about the character as much as I did. You know, who was this mean cabal of people who I thought were judging me for not writing him evil enough in his Jedi era?? Was that real, or did I just have that perception because I was an insecure teenager uncomfortable with my own writing and projecting on it?
Over the weekend, I got Boli's kind tag in the WIP Graveyard and I looked at my old account to see about maybe pulling a snippet from my one big WIP from that era. Kind of a cute throwback post. You know, "wanna read my writing from when I was a baby Jess?!" But reading it again made me so unhappy! Not because it was bad or because of not loving my younger self enough or whatever, but that tension in how I was writing Dooku, the way that I could tell how much I was frustrated with and agonizing between how I wanted to write him and how I felt I should write him. How "the good writers" were writing him. The inconsistency all over the page. That's sounds SO dramatic but you know, it was a big deal to me at the time, and I could remember hating that feeling.
I will say now I feel totally differently. Jedi-era Dooku being a categorically good guy or bad guy is missing the point. He isn't an idea I'm defending in an essay, he's a character, he has good days and bad days, triumphs and failures, times when he gets it and times when he totally wipes out. Flaws, loves, moments of valor and moments of ugliness, contradictions, humor, rare sweetness, and above all, the strangeness that makes me love the guy.
13. Worst blorbofication
Have you SEEN me with Sifo-Dyas?! My friend, I have no room to be hurling stones about blorbos from my glass house, which is itself shaped like the tragic, yet beautiful figure of Sifo-Dyas.
But probably Obi-Wan. :D I genuinely love him, but just saying... Fandom king blorbo? Probably Obi-Wan.
#and let's be fair CANON Legends Jedi Dooku was a real asshole#he's an absolute walking miserable shit in that damn legacy of the Jedi book#thanks for the ask!!!#and thanks for letting me go kind of wide with my answer I've been thinking about this all weekend#sometimes really nice people who remember me from back when are like why do you not bring your old fics over to your new account#and I think this is what makes me sad about those stories?#it's probably not a coincidence that canon providing a few sympathetic Jedi-era Dooku stories was what got me back into the fandom
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