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mylovelies-docx · 9 months

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Sorry, I Love You - Part 9

Oh wow, a new chapter? Who'd have thunk it.

My posting schedule is all off and I honestly don't know if I can get it back under control. I have no idea when I'll get time to sit down and write and when inspiration will strike, so I can't assure weekly updates. But I'll try my hardest to get this story out! I have future chapters written, it's just that I have no way of connecting them right now :/ Oops.

Plot: You and Bucky have a good thing going - best of friends that also have more than a little chemistry between the sheets. Everything is fine until you develop feelings for the man who doesn't want a relationship. What will happen when Bucky finds out?

C/W: Ah shit, here we go again. Angst, arguments, jealousy

Word Count: 2,250

Tag List: NOW CLOSED! If you'd like to keep up with this story, please follow my blog and turn on notifications! ❤️ you :)

[Prologue][Part 1][Part 2][Part 3][Part 4][Part 5][Part 6][Part 7][Part 8]

Some moments are easier than others. Sometimes you feel like you’re not pining like a love-sick teenager enough to think that you can actually do this – you can actually be friends with the man you love.

But then there are moments like tonight.

A few weeks have passed since community get-together, and you and Bucky are the new kids in town. Everyone drops by to say hello, leave you with enough food to last the winter, and invite you both back to their homes for dinner. It’s all very sweet, and you would appreciate the hospitality in any other situation.

But the amount of mothers trying to marry their daughters off to Bucky is insane.

Several have not-so-subtley seated Bucky next to daughters of marriageable age, while everyone else is silently discouraged from interrupting their conversations. It skeezes you out when the girls are barely out of their teens, but most of the girls are around your age or older. Morality-wise, that’s a whole lot more appropriate. Internal monologue-wise, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh doesn’t even begin to cover it. What you feel whenever he laughs at something they say, or looks at them with his intense blue eyes – it hurts. That’s how he used to look at you, once upon a time. Like his life wouldn’t be the same without you in it, like you’re one of the most important people in his world.

To be fair to Bucky, you probably read waaaay more into it than he ever meant. And you only ever really saw that look come out when you were straddling his waist and grinding hard on his cock, skin mottled with his teeth marks and wearing his metal hand as a necklace.

Stop, stop, stop, stop!

Anyway,

You’re usually placed next to older, widowed relatives, as most of the young men in the town have already settled down and popped out a few kids with their spouses except for Petre. Tessa foists the two of you together at every possible opportunity, hoping you’ll hit it off and decide to get married in the near future.

Petre is nice, smart, cute, but not really your type. You’re convinced that you’ve only ever had one type and he’s off-limits. But Petre’s company is much more enjoyable than the sad, lonely older men they try to pair you with – it never feels great to be compared to someone’s long lost love – so you don’t mind having someone around your age to talk during these things.

Speaking of.

“It’s a nice night, yeah?” Petre comments. The night is warmer than expected, but you and Petre are still bundled up in your coats as you stroll through the dead copse of trees near the latest dinner party. The sun had set only minutes ago and the stars are making their presence known. There’s next to no light pollution in this area, so you always take the time to admire the night sky when you have the chance.

You often take walks with Bucky up and down your street as a way to decompress after your shifts at the HYDRA facility. After the first week or so of being everyone’s errand-runner, they’ve slowly built up your workload to include calculations and deductions based on redacted data – it’s not as much information as you’d like, but it’s enough to build a foundational understanding of what the experiment was about.

You hum in agreement and continue walking. It’s about time to turn around and head back, but you can’t bring yourself to return only to watch Bucky flirt with the pretty girls that were also invited.

“Is something the matter?” Petre asks you.

You startle out of your petty, jealous thoughts. “Hm? Oh, no. Nothing’s wrong,” you reply with a smile.

“It’s just that you seem very distracted tonight,” he responds.

With your hands in your pocket, the only thing you can do is shrug your shoulders. “Just tired, is all. It’s been a long week at the office.”

“Ah, I know the feeling,” Petre commiserates.

All of the sudden, a wailing, piercing shriek ricochets between the tree trunks and reverberates in your ears. Tensing with adrenaline, you take two steps forward, ready to intervene in whatever events are unfolding in the darkness.

Before you get much further, Petre reaches out and takes hold of your elbow. Turning you around, he starts leading the way back. You try to tug your arm from his grip, but he holds firm.

“The cry of a vixen who is looking to mate. They’re rather vicious creatures this time of year, foxes. We don’t want to get in her way,” Petre deters.

“But…” you begin, looking back over your shoulders and watching for unexpected movement among the swaying branches. “It sounds so real.”

“Terrifying, really. I was just as concerned when they began, as well.” Petre gives you a tight smile and relaxes his grip slightly when you stop trying to pull away.

“What do you mean?” you question.

“What?” Petre’s eyes flash around quickly, looking through the woods that surround you.

“‘When they began’. What do you mean by that?”

“Ah,” Petre replies. “When mating season began.”

There’s no more discussion on the eerily accurate sound of a woman in distress. You can only trust that Petre would know the local fauna and their habits better than you, since you’ve never spent an extended period of time in areas such as this.

***

The neighbor’s house finally comes into view. A lone figure stands silhouetted against the porch as they lean against the railings, their arms braced against the banister and posture rigid. When you get closer, you realize that the figure is Bucky.

You can’t see his face, but you can feel his eyes on you. And apparently Petre can as well.

“He doesn’t like me?” Petre asks.

“Why do you say that?” The question puzzles you because Bucky has no reason to dislike Petre. He’s been incredibly helpful so far, allowing you to ask as many questions as you want about himself and others and he doesn’t seem bothered by it at all. In fact, you feel as if you and Petre have become friends.

“It just seems like he’s never happy to see me.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that – James just has RBF,” you reply nonchalantly.

“RBF?” Petre replies.

You laugh as you and Petre climb the stairs, only now realizing that he still has a hand on your arm. You’d forgotten all about it, but you miss the slight warmth that permeated through your jacket when he removes his touch. You turn to look at him, but Petre is looking away, his hands now deep in his pockets. Turning your focus onto Bucky, you see him watching Petre, his eyes squinted.

A large smile returns to your face as you reach up and grab Bucky’s chin, squishing his cheeks and making his lips pucker from the pressure. “This –” you say triumphantly, “is an RBF.”

Bucky glares down at you and swats your hand away. You cackle at the perfect example of Resting Bitch Face™ in front of you, throwing your head back in joy. When you right your posture again, you can see a small smile on Bucky’s face as he laughs along with you.

“Whatever,” he murmurs. He shakes his head in exasperation before circling his arm around your shoulders. Bucky begins dragging you back down the steps you had just ascended and you grunt in protest. “It’s time to go,” he says simply.

“Ugh, you’re so rude,” you say to him. Craning your neck as much as possible, you look back towards Petre who remains on the porch. “I’ll see you later!” you call backwards with a wave. Petre raises a hand in return, face hidden in shadow as Bucky’s had been.

Focusing back on the road in front of you, you can practically feel what little mirth Bucky had drains away. Looking up, you notice that his jaw is clenched and a hard look has entered his eye.

“What’s wrong?” Now you’re worried that something happened to Bucky while you were gone that has put him in a bad mood. Did someone say something to him? Did one of the women reject his advances? You can’t see who in their right mind would turn him down, but not everyone feels the same way about him as you do. But if it’s the latter, the guilt you feel only slightly outweighs the relief.

“You don’t think you’re spendin’ too much time with him?” Bucky says between clenched teeth.

A frown appears between your eyebrows as you continue to look up at him. “No?” you respond. “He doesn’t seem to mind.”

“Ofcoursehedoesn’t,” Bucky mutters under his breath, but you can still hear him.

You slide out from under Bucky’s hold, his agitation sparking flames of your own. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t think you’re leadin’ him on a bit, Y/N?” Bucky asks you.

You scoff. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You’re always hangin’ around him!” Bucky quips back. “You’re flirting with him and walking out of parties together. All these people, Petre included, are going to think you’re pitching for an engagement.”

The hurt and pitiful feelings from earlier tonight come flooding back. Only this time, instead of feeling them for what they are, you combine them with the anger his comment brings. How dare he accuse you of leading Petre on? As if he isn’t doing the same thing to all those girls?!

“And what about you?!” you yell, the last word ripping its way between your lips and setting your tongue ablaze. “You don’t think you’re stringing all these girls along behind you? You don’t have any intention of getting into a relationship with any of them, either, do you?”

As the words escape, you remember how Bucky sat you down and asked for a friends-with-benefits situation. Said he wasn’t ready for a real relationship, but tired of one night stands. How the two of you could help each other out since you weren’t seeing anyone either. The old resentment towards yourself and how you let yourself fall for someone wholly unavailable whiplashes back into your mind after months of repressing it.

If he could ask that of you, does that mean he’s asked someone else? You usually arrive home later than him, but on some occasions that you are released early, he’s not there. Instead of asking where he’s been, you had just let it slide since it could have been construed as possessiveness. Like your feelings – that Bucky believes to be long gone – entitle you to his life. You hadn’t wanted to risk anything at the time, but now your mind can’t help running wild at the possibilities.

“It’s not like I’m screwing his brains out every time we’re gone!” You shout at Bucky. You had been walking down the road away from the house party which was on a street with few homes, so there’s nobody around to hear your fight. “We’re not in the bathrooms having quickies, he’s not fucking me against a wall, or bending me over his motorcycle! He hasn’t proposed we fuck around with each other until someone better comes along!”

Your chest heaves with the effort of expelling these vicious words from deep within your heart, and you can feel a burning beginning to creep behind your eyes. You hate getting angry – hate that any strong emotion makes your eyes well with tears and makes you look weak. And in this situation, you are weak – weak against Bucky, weak against yourself, weak against the knowledge that the one man you’ve ever loved never felt the same way and never will. Your inability to keep yourself from falling for someone you knew you could never have? Your jealousy that he is probably sleeping with one or more of the women in town? That makes you weak.

And you can’t stand to be weak in front of Bucky again.

“Newsflash, Buck: I know how it feels to be lead on by you and it fucking sucks!” You lower your voice slightly and take another step away from him. “I know that wasn’t your intention, and I didn’t feel that way at first, but that’s how I feel now.”

“You were my best friend, Y/N – I didn’t want to lose that!” Bucky exclaims. “And I genuinely thought we were on the same page!” He takes a deep breath and clasps his hands over his eyes before saying, “And seeing you run off with Petre all the time just reminds me of us – how we’d always sneak away to get some time alone. It’s just –” He drops his hands and sighs heavily, looking up at the star-studded sky and then back down to you. “I’m jealous.”

“You’re jealous?” You ask incredulously. “Why?”

“Because –” You can tell that he’s struggling to get this out, and if he hadn’t started this argument and accused you of wronging Petre, you might have been more receptive to what he’s saying. More understanding. But right now, your anger swallows all empathy and hope that his words would usually supply. “Because that could have been us,” he breathes. Bucky takes a tentative step in your direction, but freezes solid at the icy glare you send his way.

“No,” you say flatly, “No, it couldn’t have. You made that abundantly clear when I asked.”

You turn your back on him and start running, ignoring the sound of your name as you leave Bucky behind.

Part 10

Taglist: @jackiehollanderr @rabbitrabbit12321 @12345sebby @blackwood-bodecker-housewifeife @lauraashley93 @themorningsunshinee @happinessinthebeingg @nash-dara @calwitch @stany0url0calwh0res111 @pono-pura-vida @learisa @introverbatim @kentokaze @marvelogic @kaz11283

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky fanfic #sorry i love you

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finnlongman · 1 year

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Keep thinking about that one KJ Charles interview where she's talking about the challenges of being a historical romance novelist when you sort of believe the whole aristocracy should've been executed, and the delicate balancing act of writing historically accurate and interesting characters who don't have awful politics and values. And, crucially, she challenged the typical rich love interest idea by asking, "But where does the money come from?"

Once you think about it, you can't stop thinking about it. Every historical romance I read now, I can tell whether the author has thought about it. Sometimes they've thought about it but tried not to deal with it and hoped we wouldn't notice that the rich aristocrat probably owns a plantation. Sometimes they've actually dealt with it. And sometimes they have not considered it and It Shows.

But I also don't want historical novels where characters have modern sensibilities! I want them to feel historical... I just also want the "desirable" characters to not be, you know, involved in the slave trade or whatever, because that seriously undermines everything the book is doing to make them seem attractive. (One does not generally read this flavour of historical romance for morally grey antiheroes, and even if you did, that would be a fairly tasteless way of developing such a character, imo.)

I really enjoyed a detail in one of Cat Sebastian's books where the love interest is a Quaker, and he refuses dessert because he's boycotting sugar. It's a way of signalling to us that this character has particular values, but one that's rooted in the historical context and doesn't feel like a modern character wearing period clothing. His Quakerism also influences a few other details – his use of first names rather than titles, for example – but it's not a major plot point and he's no intense political campaigner. It's just one facet of his character, and one that made me like him more.

This sort of thing becomes a problem, too, with medieval settings and retellings and anything where you start having to deal with kings. A king of some tiny little pseudohistorical country whose major concerns revolve around not getting invaded and ensuring his people survive the winter is a very different prospect from a king intent on conquering his neighbours and expanding his glorious kingdom, of course. Still a king, though. What do you do with that, if you're someone who doesn't approve of kings?

I ran into this problem with a book I was working on a few years back, and it's one of the reasons I shelved it. I was trying to write a book about community and friendship. I was also trying to write an Arthurian retelling. And while a brotherhood of knights is a great starting point for a story about community and friendship, in order to have knights, you need to have a king for them to pledge fealty to. Problematic. My Arthur figure did not believe in hierarchy, but the story demanded that he perpetuated one anyway, because it was baked into the building blocks of story I was using to build mine. Eventually I realised I could not write that story as an Arthurian retelling without stripping it of everything recognisably Arthurian, and set it aside to be remade into something else.

I still think about this, though. I think about my Bisclavret retelling, which by necessity has a king in it. Bisclavret is a story about feudal loyalty, about oaths, about hierarchies. Take that away and you no longer have Bisclavret; it is a story that cannot exist without a king for the knight-wolf to be loyal to. Does that mean that as a story it always inherently supports a monarchist ideal, though? Or is its portrayal of kingship (a relationship that is, crucially, reciprocal) sufficiently detached from colonialist systems of monarchy to be distinct from those?

What systems and ideals form the assumptions a story is rested on? What happens once you start to question them? Can you still tell the same stories once you ask where the money comes from, or why the king is owed loyalty? Or does there come a point where you realise there are ideas woven into the very fabric of those narratives that you can't see past?

I don't have answers. I'm just thinking aloud. Thinking about having written a book with a king who isn't the bad guy, and what that means when I approve of neither kings nor hierarchies in general. Thinking about writing the past with the eyes of the present. Thinking about the unexamined assumptions in so many historical novels I've read, and how it feels as a reader not to be able to stop examining them.

(I have also read a number of contemporary romance novels where, after working my way through half an author's backlist, I've been forced to acknowledge that despite everything, the author does in fact think rich people are inherently attractive. Not sure what the solution to that one is, but it's certainly a different, if related, problem.)

#writing #historical fiction #historical romance #kj charles

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powdermelonkeg · 9 months

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I want to write a world that is explicitly ablist in its design, but I don't wanna come off as endorsing it in any way. Any tips on how I could do that?

The trick with that is to separate the tone of the narration from the world itself. You want your setting's background characters to accept something as normal, but you want to unsettle your audience with what the characters are willing to ignore.

This is how I would go about it.

Let's say, for instance, you want to make a world that's actively hostile to blind and low-vision people. By design, nothing would be catered to them; crosswalks wouldn't have sound cues, braille doesn't exist, tripping hazards are everywhere, service dogs aren't allowed.

That's, unfortunately, already reality for a lot of the blind community, so you're already basing it on something realistic. Making a world like that and not doing anything with it would come across as endorsing it on your part, because it looks like you just didn't consider blind people when making your setting.

So you do have to do something with it.

Let's take it a step further.

Lean into the tragedies this makes and the callousness of the everyday person. A blind man got hit with a car while crossing the street—your reader feels sympathy for them. But your main character overhears people discussing it, and the passers-by sound blunt and cruel: "It's his own fault he got hit, he should have gotten someone to walk him." "Didn't he have anyone who can take care of him?" "I hope the driver didn't get fined too badly, they really should just make hazardous people stay home."

Stigmatize things over-the-top: Glasses are a sign of moral failing, because the local religion equates lack of vision with punishment from the gods. Why would a god forbid its creation from seeing its world, if not to punish them? So people forego glasses. They have to examine things uncomfortably close, they laugh off their bad reading skills, they get into crashes more often. A hospital patient starts going blind and has a panic attack, they were such a good person, how could this happen to them? It'll get better soon, right? Right?!

Make people go to harder lengths to avoid falling into the traps the setting has laid for them. People willing to shell out their life savings to get expensive surgery to restore their sight—except it doesn't always work, sometimes it messes your brain up further, but hey, that's a risk you need to take. Gran didn't survive the procedure, but Gran was old, those things happen to other people, not to you. Then have your setting capitalize on it—it's not just that you can restore your sight with the risky surgery, but you socially have no choice. Everyone is pestering you until you get it, your parents are looking down on you for not having perfect sight, and companies won't hire you, but there are ads in the paper for three different acclaimed doctors, and you know a guy who knows someone in a back alley that does it for half the cost, but is notorious for scarring their patients.

Your reader doesn't live in this reality. They'll read these and collectively go "What fresh hell is this."

An ableist author writing an ableist setting doesn't do this. Their setting is detrimental to their disabled characters, if they have any at all, but the detriment is either never touched on or is framed as "necessary."

If an author endorsing this kind of setting were to place a story in it, they would have a token blind character on the side that needs help constantly, that's patronized but never has a problem with it, who gets the pricey surgery, gets out of it scot-free, and is so SO happy to be "normal" again.

An author that doesn't endorse the setting and wants you to be unhappy with it has that same character scared of the procedure, but their friends and family urge them to get it anyways. They face hardships because they can't see, to the point where they finally cave in and get it, except it doesn't go perfectly—even if they have sight now, they also have to deal with constant pain, overstimulation, and light sensitivity. And yes, everyone treats them "better" now that they can see, but that's a gut-wrenching thing; they get into arguments with their parents because "you didn't love me until I had sight," they go quiet in job interviews because a job they fought so hard for before is just handed to them now, they receive blessings they don't want from a religion that "calls them home" from the sin of being blind.

THAT is how you write an ableist setting explicitly portrayed as ableist. You make the setting cause hardship and pain, and you write it in such a way that your reader would never want to endure that aspect of it.

Cheat code checklist:

Add features/remove aids to get in the disability's way

Have background characters victim-blame the disabled that live in it

Make the social setting unbearable for a disabled character

Show the struggles of a character WITH that disability living in that setting

#disability #writeblr #ask bee

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veliseraptor · 1 year

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I feel like presently there is a lot of focus in fandom, one way or another, on the question of whether or not a characters' actions were "justified" or not, and I have begun to find it increasingly exhausting, not just because it tends to end with really bad takes about characters I like and/or what strike me as shallow misreadings of the text, but because at its base I don't think it is either a productive or interesting line of conversation.

The question "is this character justified in doing [x]?" is inherently one that is going to have a yes or no answer. I suppose one could make an argument for there also being a "maybe" in there. From there, someone can dig into the evidence as to why they chose their yes or no answer, why they believe their answer is correct and somebody else's alternative response is wrong.

There might be an endless proliferation of arguments that could hypothetically be made, but typically I find that they end up boiling down to maybe three or four "themes" that then repeat and iterate across a fandom. Sometimes fandom laws of gravity will also cause one influential fan's strained reading of canon to become so ingrained in broader understanding of a text in a way that makes people start to play a game of telephone that then relates increasingly less to the source text than it does to the fandom conversation. Whatever happens, though, however people choose to argue their point, the fact remains that the conversation is set up so that there is a right/wrong claim being made. Furthermore, because "justification" most often rests on a question of ethical or moral standards, that claim is going to have a moral dimension, which leads very rapidly to people both (a) tying their own morality or their opponent's morality to their position on the question ("you must be a bad person because you think [x character] was justified!") and consequently (b) making the argument itself no longer about the character's justification but also a form of self justification.

All of this results in a lot of very acrimonious back and forth with no real results and which doesn't generate interesting new conversation, and the point I'm trying to make here is that, while "people yelling at each other on the internet" is of course an integral part of fandom that will always be present, I think this line of argument in particular generates a lot of circular arguments that just end with people convinced of their righteousness and their opponents' moral degeneracy.

Contrast this with other potential questions or considerations about fictional characters and the role they play in the story - "why did they do [x]? what drove this decision?" for instance, or "what are the influences that shaped this character the most?" or even, if one must consider the question of justification, what about "why did this character think they were justified, or, if they didn't believe they were in the right, why did they make the choices they did anyway?" These kinds of questions refuse a binary axis of yes/no, right/wrong, and therefore open up conversations that can both dig more deeply into a character and don't position people on two opposing sides, while also stepping back from an analytic practice that is built on trying to unearth the morals of a text.

I know that one text post by me, a relatively insignificant villain blogger on tumblr.com, isn't going to change the tenor of fandom arguments. There might not be a point in me writing this up at all. But I just think it might be worth considering, when engaging with fandom, thinking about other ways to interrogate a text than questions of whether or not x character was "justified."

#lise has opinions #who knew!#just was thinking about this after my post...was it yesterday? sometime recently #important text posts #anyway returning to writing fucked up fic where everybody suffers

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kitkatopinions · 7 months

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The biggest instances of hypocrisy in RWBY mostly have to do with characters getting mad at Ozpin for something they themselves do (and sometimes they're really irrational about blaming Oz anyway) and it's funny that it feels like the RWBY writers just haven't even realized they're doing it.

Jaune: "How dare Oz involve Pyrrha in his war without telling her all the details, she's dead because of him and not because of any choice she made!" Also Jaune: "Yeah, let's try to recruit everyone in the world to the war with Salem via video message without telling them all the details and also I will kill Penny for the Maiden Powers because 'it's her choice.'"

The entirety of RWBYJNROQ: "How dare Ozpin keep secrets, give half truths, and not tell us everything!" Also the entirety of RWBYJNROQ: *Proceed to keep secrets, give half truths, and not tell everyone everything.*

Raven: "Ozpin keeps secrets, prioritizes what he wants, and also uses people for their powers." Also Raven: *Doesn't tell anyone what happened with Summer, barely does anything to help people and even works with Cinder and Salem out of selfishness and cowardice, and it's heavily implied that she took in and befriended the last spring maiden only to murder her for her power so Raven could have it herself plus essentially uses Vernal as a human shield while keeping her Maiden powers a secret.*

Hazel: "Ozpin's attempt to teach willing specialists how to fight Grimm resulted in my sister choosing to try to learn and then dying on the field of battle, therefore he's evil and monstrous and deserves death and torture and I'm going to blame him for her death. How dare he-" *checks notes* "Try to stop the Grimm from killing innocent people indiscriminately by asking for willing participants who don't get their hunter licenses until age twenty one to learn to fight them to defend said innocent people?" Also Hazel: *Literally kills tons of people and wants to kill a child and tortures a child on screen while working for the murderous woman actively attacking cities full of helpless innocent children who also partially controls the very monsters that killed his sister in the first place.*

Like, the show is entirely unconcerned with checking any of this hypocrisy either despite the fact that outside of Ruby and maybe Oscar who regretted keeping secrets (and Ruby regretted more than keeping secrets) Ozpin is the only one who ever seems apologetic or uncertain about the things he does. It's only ever Ozpin who is treated as bad for doing... anything that isn't one hundred percent perfect and flawless, no matter if his back is to a wall and no matter how uncertain or unhappy he seems in his choices. Then there's Raven and Hazel over here acting superior and totally sure of themselves and yet they're the ones who pretty much go unchallenged. Like I said, it's like they don't even realize they're doing it, like they wanted their 'morally gray mentor' story, forgot to actually include it in a convincing way, and then just do not actually give a damn about the morals and lessons involved so they write the rest of the story as if it doesn't matter at all. RWBY is like this in a lot of ways, where you have to actively pretend that the rest of the story didn't happen in order to enjoy moments that contradict it (whether morally or just through story beats.) But the Oz thing is just so frustrating because it's like.... Okay, so I'm not supposed to have any sympathy for the cursed abuse victim out here doing his best and acting heartbroken while in extremely bad lose-lose conditions, but I'm supposed to have all the sympathy in the world for the screaming murderer electrocuting teenage girls and trying to murder children while victim-blaming the guy he's trying to kill for all his own actions.... And the reason for why I'm supposed to be angry at Oz is because he was attempting to help the world in sometimes flawed ways with the weight of the world on his shoulders? But I'm supposed to have no problems at all with like, Jaune or Yang because they're trying to help the world in sometimes flawed ways?

Once again, RWBY as a show has no actual real morals to follow and zero consistency.

#rwde #pro ozpin

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bthump · 8 months

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Ik what your stance is on liking Griffs character and I have nothing against it because Griffith's character is arguably one of the best written characters in Berserk, he's actually my guilty favorite.

But sometimes, I catch myself SILENTLY judging ppl who like characters that do morally incorrect things like Mori from Bungou Stray Dogs who's a straight up p*do or same with Hisoka or many other characters who tend to be p*dos and r*pists.

so i guess my question sorta fall in, when do you draw the line in liking a character?

I mean, Griffith did unfortunately rape casca (a horrible writing decision, really). anyways, I guess I sorta try to seek justification like "Oh but Miura wrote the rape scene in such a ridiculous way that I can't seem to really fully have the idea that Griff is a rapist in mind"

or sometimes i just yk, love the character design and how he was written (esp post eclipse god, he is awesome!!)

but sometimes...I see ppl who are justifably upset that I like a character that happens to SADLY have a stupidly written key point where he rapes a character.

And I don't blame ppl who hate Griff for raping her, bc theres been times where I also hate charcters for how they were pedos or also SA'd someone...so why is the line so blurry when it comes to liking Griffith and how can I ig put myself in a position where I don't feel bad for liking him?

tbh I don't have a line when it comes to fictional characters.

Or maybe more accurately, my line isn't which characters people like, but how they discuss them. I wouldn't judge someone (morally, I might judge their taste lol) for liking any character ever, no matter how awful, because I don't know what they like about them, what their lines are, what they feel comfortable ignoring or reasoning away or happily playing up because they like dark shit in fiction, etc. It's all fair game as far as I'm concerned. If they like a rapist I don't assume they love real rape, I assume they like dark fiction and consider them a really well-written villain, or they like other aspects of the character and the rape doesn't ruin it for them, or they like the character design and don't care that much about fictional crimes, or maybe they have a rape kink which is also perfectly fine, etc.

But yk, when people use harmful rhetoric to discuss a character they like, that's when I start judging. Eg I'm fine with people who love Guts. I'm not fine with people who say things like "Casca should forgive Guts for the assault because he stopped himself before going too far," eg. I'd be fine if they said "Casca should forgive Guts because it would make for a more satisfying story" though - I'd judge their taste in fiction and ability to analyze the story lol, but I don't think that opinion would make them a bad person. I'm fine with people who love Farnese, I'm fine with people who prefer her to Casca, but I'm not fine with anyone who might frame it like, Farnese is better than Casca because she's rich and white and from a respectable family. (I've never seen this take lol, but yk, as a hypothetical.)

Also in my personal experience I find that people who like characters due to their own offensive biases tend to have a hard time hiding it, so it's pretty easy to judge them by their own character, rather than their fictional preferences. And in my own experience the worst kinds of people tend to like heroic characters more than villains lol. If anything I find that liking characters who do "morally incorrect things" is often a sign that I'll get along with that person.

There's also something to be said here re: watsonian vs doylist perspectives. I think people who view media from a purely watsonian perspective, ie kind of buying into the fictional story as if it's real, attempting to understand the characters the way someone would understand a real person and relate to them on those terms, are going to have a harder time dealing with morally dark characters.

I tend to view media from a doylist perspective, which means I view the characters as constructions that help tell a story, and I generally judge them on what they bring to that story and how effectively they serve it. I wouldn't want to be friends with most of my faves, and I like a lot of characters who do terrible things, because those characters are fun to watch and read about. So disliking a character just because they did a bad thing doesn't really make sense to me on a personal level. I get why other people feel that way, but I don't care about fictional harm. I'll hate a character for being mildly annoying when they're on screen, but I generally won't hate a character for committing atrocities, unless they're depicted in a way that pisses me off lol. Like, I love Femto, I hate Isidro. Femto is cool even with the obnoxious rape scene, Isidro is annoying even though he's an innocent kid.

(Also I guess to be completely fair I'd judge someone for liking a character who exists solely as like, fascist political propaganda. But I do mean solely, like I'm talking shit like The Turner Diaries, not like the MCU or cop shows lol. Or like, if someone says they love the protag of Atlas Shrugged they'd better clarify that they disagree with the political messaging and they like him for xyz reasons, because it's such an infamously libertarian story that I'm gonna side-eye anyone who likes it by default, bc I feel like in this day and age very few people are reading Ayn Rand for the story lol. So I do technically have some lines in terms of judging fans of characters, but they're pretty uncommon lines.)

tl;dr I don't think you should feel bad for liking Griffith and idt you should even feel like you have to justify it by saying the rape scene was badly written. It was, and I think it's totally fair if that helps you like Griffith more, but even if the rape scene was super well-written and respectful to Casca and thematically significant etc etc Griffith would still be a fantastically written character imo.

And I don't know the other examples you gave personally, but as a general rule I think it's better to judge people for how they behave than for what kinds of fiction they enjoy. I do at least have friends who like Hisoka, presumably because he's a fun, entertaining character give or take the creepiness, and they're awesome people.

I don't think you should have to like those characters yourself ofc, rape/pedophilia/etc etc is a pretty understandable line to draw in terms of your own enjoyment of a fictional character, but other people have different lines and I think that's reasonable too.

#ask #anonymous #b #theme: fandom

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super-hero-confessions · 6 months

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Okay. I don't understand how it's gotten to this point with fans pulling made up shit about Loki from their asses but no.

NO.

Loki is not POC coded. He's not Jewish coded. He's not neurodivergent coded or whatever the fuck else.

HE IS 100% NORSE.

BASED OFF A NORSE TRICKSTER GOD WHO IS A KNOWN LIAR AND POT STIRRER THAT FUCKS WITH PEOPLE FOR FUNSIES.

CREATED BY NORSE FUCKING WHITE ASS WHITE PEOPLE WHO KNEW ICE AND SNOW AND FROST TO BE FUCKING DEADLY.

HE IS NOT "OTHER".

HE'S AN ASSHOLE WHO ENJOYS BEING AN ASSHOLE AND HAS ALSO SUFFERED SOME HARDSHIP BECAUSE HE IS SURROUNDED BY ASSHOLES AND PLAYS RIGHT INTO THAT HAND.

Big. Fucking. Whoop.

ALL GODS IN ALL CULTURES ARE NEEDLESSLY CRUEL AND NEEDLESSLY SUFFER BECAUSE THEY WERE SYMBOLIC AND MADE TO EXPLAIN WHAT PEOPLE COULDN'T FULLY UNDERSTAND.

LOKI IS NOT SPECIAL BECAUSE HE RAPES A HORSE.

But you know what that really means? Loki plays into the cycle of abuse just like a normal person and then goes on and makes it worse by dishing it out on unrelated people who never did anything to him. Like, I dunno, all the goddamn humans he kills?

He's that psycho kid with a psycho dad who tortures ants because he can't find healthy ways to cope and it doesn't get much deeper than that.

Stop making shit up that.

EVEN IF IT WERE TRUE IN ANYWAY WOULD NEVER EXCUSE HIM BEING A GENOCIDAL MANIAC WHO CARES NOTHING FOR HUMAN OR JOTUN LIFE YOU FASCIST ILLITERATE FUCKS.

AND GUESS WHAT. LOKI OF MYTH NEEDLESSLY STARTS ALL THE SHIT THAT HAPPENS WITH THE OTHER GODS BY GETTING BALDR KILLED.

If you have to write paragraphs upon paragraphs of made up bullshit you call meta and headcanons or whatever the fuck to defend the idea of liking this guy beyond the shallow fact that you would never dare go this hard for someone ugly or god forbid actual myth Loki?

You do not actually give a shit about the character. At all. Because you don't actually see the character. At all.

Personally, I love Loki for what he is. A dark grey chaos loving trickster diva and selfish asshole god that fucks with people for fun and gets the story rolling. All of that is what makes him fun as a character while paying appropriate homage to the stories he came from in a way that still feels respectful of what ancient cultures were trying to convey.

But I also love the actual good Loki that people write in fanfic sometimes.

I don't love the posturing people use him for to inadvertently spread misogyny or even white supremacy that slips under the radar because fandom can't accept that their shit does stink and there ARE bad actors.

It is okay to like or love Loki. It is okay to want things to be better for him or to be written better for him. It is okay to write fanfic where he is all of the things you want him to be.

It is not okay to culturally appropriate and deny what he is canonically with made up bullshit pulled from your ass to pretend that Loki was justified when he was ATTEMPTING GENOCIDE. And it is especially not okay to then have the audacity to deny the fact that Loki has pretty privilege.

Fuck you people doing this shit. At this point I prefer those that actually admit they like him because he's hot. Because at least they don't go rabid and are fucking HONEST with themselves about this shit and about his character.

And above all?

LOKI IS FICTIONAL.

PEOPLE DON'T OWE YOU AN EXPLANATION FOR DISLIKING OR HATING HIM. DOING SO IS NOT AN ATTACK ON YOU. THEIR EXISTENCE DOES NOT CHALLENGE YOURS AND THEIR PERSPECTIVES ARE JUST AS VALID.

JUST LIKE YOU DON'T OWE THEM AN EXPLANATION FOR LIKING HIM. YOU DON'T EVEN NEED ONE. BECAUSE HE'S FICTIONAL.

Have civil discourse and discussion if you want to, try and get more people to like Loki and see the lighter grey in him even. But you do that by being NICE.

Not by being a dismissive, denying, bullying asshole that then pretends you have the moral high road over ultimately meaningless. Fictional. Bullshit.

I guarantee a majority of people who hate Loki now? It's not because Loki is imperfect or the "other". It's because his stans do everything they can to be toxic, hostile, and in turn make him look bad.

Even Loki's never attempted to justify his attempts at genocide. Escape accountability, sure. But not justify it.

#confession #rant #loki

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 1 year

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I’m not sure if I ever asked you this question or not, but I’ve always wanted to: how do you come to the conclusions you do about the characters in Twilight and other works?

Actually I guess my question is how do I learn to do it myself lol

Is there a way I can train myself to? Is it just that you take a story and start digging? Did something just seem off about the characters and you took a bigger look at it?

I’m an aspiring writer, which is why I want to know; I feel like it would make me better in my own writing if I could do the things you do, because, well… you’re rather good authors, you and Vinelle I mean.

Frankly, Painting Red Madonnas is one of my favorite books ever.

Anyway… thank you lol

Look, @therealvinelle, praise!

It just seems to be the way I'm wired. I don't even realize it's heresy until I hear other people talking about the same thing and realize "well, shit, I can't talk about this at Christmas parties". There's a lot of, "Muffin, what did you think of X?" "... I thought generic normal things that wouldn't offend anyone's blorbo."

I guess I can give some pointers on how I end up in the bizarre places I do:

Completely Ignore the Existence of the Author

Much of the time it's obvious why Character X does Y in a piece of media and you can point fingers at the author. The author loves this trope, the producers wanted to draw in a certain audience, doing Z would be much too spicy for the viewership, etc.

In the @therealvinelle and Muffin world, that's not allowed. The work has to make internal sense with internal logic. Which means that if something doesn't seem right or doesn't match up, you have to find a reason for why it is what it is.

More, you can't take the author's word for what a character is supposed to be or what they're supposed to be doing and thinking.

As a rough example, JKR clearly tells us that Dumbledore is a good man and a firmly moral character. However, within the story, he does very questionable things all the time (I'm actually struggling to think of anything he did that is remotely moral).

So, you can't take the author's word for anything.

Characters Can and Do Lie

All narrators are on some level unreliable. They each have an agenda, their own biases, their own goals and desires that sometimes conflict with what's actually happening in the world. You view things through the narrator so always take what they say with a grain of salt.

Take Bella Swan, she tells us that Jessica Stanley is the worst. That Jessica is only interested in Bella to further her own ends and is, at the end of the day, a cheap friend who is envious of everything Bella has and is (such as Mike's attraction to Bella).

However, if we discount Bella for a moment and really take a look at Jessica. While the girl is chatty and does talk about things like the Cullens, her gossip is the normal amount I'd expect if someone looks incestuous in high school and she always makes an effort to be with Bella.

What Bella conveys to us, the readers, is a very skewed perception of Jessica framed entirely by Bella.

We hear only what the narrator wishes for us to hear.

Another is the Tom Riddle memories. We later learn why Dumbledore is doing this, he is dying and needs Harry to eventually kill himself so as to rid the world of Voldemort. To this end, the memories are very carefully selected and narrated to show Tom Riddle as the worst human being on the planet who is irredeemably evil and must be killed at all costs.

Harry doesn't ever question this, though, because he takes Dumbledore at face value and eagerly considers himself a Dumbledore loyalist. And so, if you don't think to question Harry, you'll never question just why Albus would ever do this.

Similarly, characters can be wrong and misinformed. They have access only to certain information, covered by bias, which means it's entirely possible they could be incorrect about something even if they firmly believe it.

Look at What the Characters Actually Say and Do

Ignore what you're supposed to think about the characters (either from other people, the author, or the characters themselves) and instead look at what they say and what they do to inform your opinion about them.

What does Edward actually say about his grand love with Bella Swan? What is it that actually seems to draw him to her from his own perspective and from what he tells to Bella?

#about this blog #vinelle #therealvinelle #praise #painting red madonnas

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sophieinwonderland · 7 months

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Omg so we just finished the main story in a new game and have a plural headcanon for you!

Tiny Tina

From the Borderlands series.

Okay so, it's been a while since we played BL2, but if we recall correctly, in that she treats her stuffed animals as people and talks to them. Ofc, this could be read as fairly normal (for Borderlands) pretend play, but we read it as somewhat POSIC and/or plural.

But what really confirms it for us is her standalone game: Tiny Tina's Wonderlands. If you haven't played or heard of it, the games premise is that Tina is running a dungeons and dragons like game, and the player is playing a character in the fantasy world of her invention.

So aside from the player, as well as two characters that don't play characters and more act like moral support, Tina is the one playing all of the NPCs. Of course, that's not abnormal. Singlet dungeon masters have played massive casts of characters before.

What singlets don't often experience are the characters going off script and completely upending the plans for their campaign. Which happens. Nor do the NPCs talk about and to the DM playing those characters.

I'll try not to spoil anything, but towards the end of the game we learn that one of the NPCs doesn't want to be treated like an NPC anymore. They talk about their own memories of being created by Tina. They talk about feeling abandoned and ignored by her.

These characters surprise Tina. They contradict her. They, in her own words, "have a mind of their own".

And as a little bonus plural thing about her, when we see a flashback of her first learning how to play B&B her bunker master tells her that she'll need to have creativity and imagination, and she tells him she has "a whole wonderland up here". The context of the scene and the whole game gives us a feeling that she's referring to wonderland/headspace/inner world here.

Anyways, we were so happy to see her plurality just plastered all over this really fun game. So we wanted to share with you!

Thanks for reading my rambles and have a great day!

-Faye

That sounds amazing! Thank you for the amazing write-up!😊

Wait... Is it doing that thing? You know, the thing I said not too long ago that more stories should do?

I'll need to check this game out sometime!

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kingboohoo37 · 4 months

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KBH RANDOM RANT

I'M BACK... at least I try to post more often. Streams will also come more regularly (surely...).

I'm slowly getting back to work so my time is still very limited. I thought this was a good time to bring back my random rants about fandoms since I just revisited an old classic from my childhood.

YEP we're talking about Kim Possible one of the most ludicrous fictional universes I've ever seen... In a good way!

First up: This show is FUDGING 22 YEARS OLD THIS YEAR... I'm really getting old...

The funny part about that is it was made during the peak of the 2000s... and you really notice that. The language that most teenagers use in this show is so stereotypical for that time it feels so nostalgic even watching it XD

Anyway, let's get the obvious out of the way. I know this is supposed to be a kids cartoon and I know that I'm an adult man but that doesn't stop me from watching it.

So, why is this show so great?

Good question! Its primary charm probably comes from its simple comedic attitude of telling a story.

The characters are so ridiculous that you should never be able to take this show seriously simply because most of their actions or the situations around them don't even make sense. This show just requires you to take in its vibe and go with the flow. I mean... a teenager knowing 16 forms of Kung Fu and saving the world on any given occasion is nothing that can possibly make sense. Don't forget: "Anything's possible for a Possible!"

Let's get into the characters:

Kim is your basic teenage girl, and she's here to save the world. You can't stop her 'cause...

Okay I'll stop xD

Apart from her being an ass-kicking girl boss, her main character traits are kinda the things you expect from a main character. She saves the world out of sheer will to stick to her morals. In short: she wants to help people. That obviously doesn't always work out and she sometimes ends up judging people by what they are instead of who they are. On top of that, she gets jealous easily.

BUT she is brave, smart, and makes usually good choices in the heat of the moment (except when it comes to love xD), and is otherwise very mature for her age.

Well... the opening song didn't lie. She really is your basic teenage girl. That doesn't mean she isn't cool xD

Well, obviously I can't end it without talking about the man and his very smart and hungry naked little friend.

What makes this show so funny is well... its ability to deliver comedy simply by a character existing and Ron Stoppable plays a big part in that.

He is pretty much a normal guy who just happens to be Kim's childhood friend and later somehow steals her heart xD

He is an absolute doofus. He is silly and rarely takes anything seriously. He is also lazy and loves his favorite junk food joint Bueno Nacho.

Despite all that he still cares for his friends, his naked mole rat Rufus, and usually learns a very important lesson after an episode.

He accompanies Kim on pretty much every mission and is usually more of a hindrance than a help. Despite all that Kim still loves him in her own way. And he also saves the day a couple of times, so it's not like he is a complete slob.

Rufus is just the cherry on top. Both of these guys are hilarious and I was honestly surprised by how much I laughed watching this show.

I could go on and on but I'm gonna try to finish up this post here before it gets too long xD

Even though every episode has kind of a similar structure, it never gets boring. The villains, the side characters... all of them add something very unique to the table. You just throw some characters together and boom the story kind of writes itself XD

Season 4 was my absolute favorite part of the show since guess what ... that was when Kim and Ron started dating and BOY DO THEY MAKE A CUTE COUPLE.

Ahem... anyways. I do not regret watching all 87 episodes in the last 2-3 weeks. If you're looking for a comfortable. goofy and funny way to escape reality for a moment I can only recommend this old classic.

#kim possible #show #rant #kingboohoorants #fandom #recommendation

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floof-writes · 1 year

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Officially Declaring War On The Canon V Fanon Debate in DC (it's fundamentally flawed, they are interdependent)

"Actually in canon" "fanon always gets this wrong" "Dick's the golden child" "Jason's the golden child" "In canon Alfred's an enabler" "Actually Bruce is abusive" "Hate when people pretend Tim cared about Jason as a kid"

Look, if being in the DC fandom has taught me anything, it's that canon has so many retcons and reboots that they made up an in-universe mechanic for when the world resets. Why are we pretending that Fanon is anything less than another branch of this world? Golden Age, Silver Age, Pre-New 52, Fanon. Who are we to say that if Superboy Prime punched reality hard enough or Flash fucked up enough, we wouldn't end up here anyway? Comics as a medium are messy and worked on by hundreds of people across the decades.

DC comics is almost a century old. The Justice League wasn't always called that and Batman wasn't always part of it, there's a Batman rogue named 'Condiment King' and one of his most recent appearances was in a fucking LEGO movie, Dick is named Dick. These characters and their stories are living artifacts- time capsules of decades long gone, but also undergoing constant and soul-deep change.

Moral of the story: If DC canon is your golden standard then you're measuring against a piece of cooked spaghetti.

And we expect canon to evolve, to be inconsistent. When they made Dick they didn't know about Jason, when they made Jason they didn't know there would be a Tim, and when they made Tim they didn't know Jason would come back. These characters are inherently fluid because they weren't created with each other in mind, so when the Batfam is all together today, their characterizations are adjusted to make them a more interesting group for the given storyline and genre. Canon has always just been an attempt at expanding on and experimenting with what has already been built, and it has always been influenced by the fans of the time. The most famous example being the phone in vote on Jason Todd's death that literally defines canon today. Characters are killed and resurrected and given comic runs based entirely on popular demand. Fans and fanon have power- and rightly so.

DC canon is simply the constant interpretation and reinvention of the work of hundreds of artists and writers over the years, all compiled into this conglomeration of Stuff- and guess what? That's exactly what fanon is.

"Fanon loses their mind when they see actual complexity" Guess what? Storytelling is based on archetypes. Fanon isn't a 'dumb it down' machine- it's a purifier. It boils things down to their essence. It takes the contradictory, awful, beautiful mess that is canon and turns it into something usable. Fanon characters tend to be an approximate average of all the different interpretations, and they separate the characters into the parts that people find the most compelling. It identifies the pieces of a character that define it to the audience and gives canon something reliable to work off of the next time they decide to rewrite the universe.

And yes, often times Fanon doesn't make it out without a heavy dose of optimism. The erasure of certain abuses, the resolution of certain arguments. Because let's face it: moral grayness is Uncomfy. And people engage in fandom largely for comfort- that is one of the main functions of all entertainment. In other forms of media, problems are given finality. Complexity is given a rest with an ending, happy or not- but comic books don't do that, and in the next run with the next writer they may just ignore it happened at all. Fanon's rose tinted glasses aren't always rose, sometimes they're a sickly green- it's just that to write the next story with nuance you have to have a solid starting point.

I'm not denying the power of working within the restraints of a predefined timeline, nor the power of something being officially canon. Returning to the source material can inspire new nuance, new details, new opportunities- but using the source material to disqualify nuance made by fanon is counterproductive and frankly dumb. We're all building off of eachother- why are you retconning something that existed only as an experiment? It's important to acknowledge that an audience is half the art, and once something is published, there's no way to take it back and make it definitionally pure again. It is the property of all those who consume it.

TL;DR- 1. Canon is absolutely fucked anyway. 2. Fanon and canon have always been and will always be intertwined and interdependent.

#dc comics #dcu #batfam #meta #discourse #fanon vs canon

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princeescaluswords · 10 months

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I wanted to make a little thing about Teen Wolf teen as the Mystery Inc. Gang and my first thought was to make Scott Scooby because wolf - dog hehe (and I'd be using Stiles, Kira, Lydia and Allison so no other werewolves) and then I realised there are maybe some Implications(TM) to having the only Latino character depicted as a dog and I decided against it.

Anyway, I wish fanfic authors were capable of putting that much thought into their stories where Scott is written out or turned into a villain for no good reason

There are indeed implications, and that's something that fanfiction writers have to come to terms with: there are always implications.

One of the worst aspects of fandom is that content creators try to exert absolute control how their work is received after it is made public. They have this in common with every artist who ever lived, so it's understandable, but it's also unachievable. The only answer I have found is to work as hard as I can to understand these implications and accommodate them into your work.

I'm not speaking from a position of moral purity. Earlier this year, I wrote a story that I thought was an exploration of Mason Hewitt's role in the Teen Wolf movie, and someone whose opinion I trust argued that I botched the implications of what I wrote in terms of racism. Things like that are going to happen, regardless of intent, and the best thing content creators can do is not only be aware of how their work will exist within a greater cultural context but be open to criticism about it. I am always willing to grapple with implications I didn't foresee, including accepting the responsibility to defend my own writing. (Including this post!)

So let's talk about your idea. Why is it precarious to emphasize the animal-like aspects of a Latino character, even if he is a werewolf? This.

History cannot be erased, and it should not be ignored.

In the history of the United States, Latinos, among other disadvantaged groups, have been likened to animals in order to impose a social order that insists that they have to submit to white control. It's not arguable whether this has happened or not. When you write a story that emphasizes the animal-like traits of a Latino character (or any similar disadvantaged group), you must grapple with the historical and cultural context.

And the Teen Wolf fandom has not only failed to do that repeatedly, they've often doubled down on the implications. Think about how many times that Scott has been portrayed in fanfiction as having issues with self-control, more than any other beta, which serves as a condemnation for his refusal to submit to a white male character (either Derek or Stiles or even Peter). This requires a change to the original story, because the writers choose to ignore that other betas have problems with self-control as the adjust to the shift, and they choose to ignore multiple instances of Scott having significant self-control, such as Magic Bullet (1x04), Heart Monitor (1x06), Shapeshifted (2x02), and Party Guessed (2x09).

Think about how many times Scott has been given animalistic traits in fanfiction that he doesn't have in the show, especially traits which serve to emphasize his inferiority, and these traits are not shared by the other werewolves? He is a voracious eater! He can't cook, or clean, or take care of himself! He is oblivious to the sophisticated emotional and social states of his white peers. He's obsessed with sexual gratification and constantly indulges in sexual behavior in public. He's an indifferent student at best, frequently requiring assistance in even basic subjects. None of these are supported even remotely by the show. As an aside, many of these are also part of the same stereotypes given to Latinos: sexually voracious, passionately aggressive, lazy, uneducated, and ruled by appetite.

Now, a possible counterargument is that the show itself sometimes emphasized the animalistic traits that Scott gained through his transformation into a werewolf. The wolf run in Seasons 1 and 2. Sticking his head out the window to get Lydia's scent in Omega (2x01). Sleeping at the foot of his mother's bed to protect her in Currents (3x07). The dog bowl scene in Lunatic (1x08).

There is an important difference. In the show the white werewolves have scenes like that as well, such as the dog whistle Deaton uses on Derek in Fury (2x10) and the fact that Isaac, too, is sleeping at the foot of the bed. But the most important part is that these instances aren't used to position Scott or anyone else as inferior because they have the traits of an animal. They're not used to impose a racially-influenced social order. Even the scene in Lunatic (which, as a caveat, I personally do not like at all) is more about Stiles than about Scott being animal-like, demonstrating that Stiles's standard tactics of good-natured bullying and cruel sarcasm are no longer appropriate for his relationship with Scott, which Stiles must confront.

So my point is, if you want to create content for a Mystery Inc. AU, I don't think that there's any reason you absolutely cannot do it, but I feel you would have to pay very close attention to HOW you create that content. Are you ignoring the historical and cultural context of your work? Are you ignoring power dynamics inherent in your choices? What's the message you're sending by your changes? While I don't see the need or even the applicability of this AU, I'm relatively confident that it could be done, as long as you don't use your intent as a shield for the finished product. Intention does not guarantee freedom from offense, a concept that fandom has had trouble with again and again.

#fandom racism #teen wolf fandom racism #scott mccall #scott mccall defense squad #history

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quietbluejay · 3 days

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Lion Son of the Forest

Iiii've been putting off talking about this one because I didn't like it. I think there's a lot that's good about it, but, the reason I brought up some of my issues with Master of the Maelstrom when they didn't bug me that much then, was that they were a lot more present here and did bother me in Son of the Forest.

I think Brooks is a superb short story writer, but that he's got issues with adapting the short story approach in terms of plot structure to novels, so the novels really read as long short stories.

Anyways. As always, it's just my take.

apparently sometimes you can Just Say No To Chaos For Ten Thousand Years and not be especially strong willed gw have consistency or draw 20 this guy doesn't seem to be getting tempted at all meanwhile his boyfriend is a chaos sorcerer

like the other guy, zabriel, it makes sense, he hasn't been doing anything w.r.t. the warp he's just been running around as a fugitive for 400 years so it makes sense also on a side note REALLY not a fan of how it switches tense and person between POV scenes

me: there should be more renegades who don't turn to chaos this book: has that me: no not like this i…i don't know why i'm not liking it am i just salty because it's not one of my favourite factions? maybe i'm just in a bad mood ….i think i've put my finger on what bothers me about Brooks' writing when he's not a bad writer! i think he's more technically proficient than mcneill or abnett tbh, in a lot of ways but it's…he's writing tie in books for the game that's what these are primarily that's the perspective they're written from which is why they don't have thematic consistency with the other writers maybe not quite the right term but it's like, and i kind of hate using this as an example, but it's like trying to mesh together Sins of the Wreckers and Barber's writing (Transformers, I will elaborate on this for anyone who is curious)

…okay enough meta, I am now understanding why people say Lion is autistic-coded i will also say this, Lion is definitely more of, hm, how to put it more morally upright than Guilliman

like this should be everything i want, it's got forgiveness, renegades, protecting the little people as a first priority…why is it leaving me cold?

i think also because it's standing in stark contrast to the themes of the Ahriman trilogy, or Black Legion it just feels unfair? the whole thing is predicated on there being no good choices but then here it's like "yeah actually these guys went and somehow became unambiguous good guys offscreen problem with chaos what problem with chaos their main issue is being hunted by their loyalist brothers" despite them also starting out from the base state as the "final solution" legion

i will say i do very much vibe with this in theory

okay so like, i will be fair part of the reason most of these guys managed to avoid chaos was because they time travelled to the future and skipped most of the intervening years

im finally getting some resonance here

okay that's a hook

like the whole situation with the Fallen is "stuck as traitors due to tragic misunderstanding" which i mean, that's astraeos but these guy get lucky enough to land in places offscreen where they can become people's protectors? also again, i don't think it really follows from what i saw of the dark angels in 30k but im not a dark angels expert lol and I've only seen a bit of them it just doesn't feel earned

also lion's character arc happened offscreen

i think i'm probably going to have to reread this book in a different mood and see how i feel then

lion has gifted kid syndrome as i suspect all the primarchs do note from future bluejay, as I read this like a month before AE: lol, though I meant it a different way for Perturabo none of them ever had to practice anything so finding something he can't do immediately is very troublesome to deal with lol -_- ahriman: my existence feels pointless and the only thing that keeps me going is the hope that i will be able to make things right zabriel: have you tried meditating it worked for me

this is who Lion is! and now he's changed to this offscreen:

one heck of a nap

also we have our second forehead kiss the subtextual relationship here is probably the most blatant space marine romance i've seen so far like even more so than loken/mersadie oh hey actual acknowledgement that how the imperium treats mutants make them super easily turn to chaos apparently lion can also no-sell magic attacks somehow lol

like the whole tragedy of Guilliman in Dark Imperium is that he is unable to recognize that he's repeating the past and hasn't learned but this kind of seems to be going in the direction of "it's fine as long as he's pointed in the right direction"?

lion is having a two paragraph struggle about "is the emperor actually a god" guilliman divinity wrestling speedrun

like that sounds contrary to what chaos energies actually do but okay mmm, still not a fan of mercy kills especially in this context which is redemption equals death

wait wait lion is being worshipped as a god even if he's not a fan lion: better me than the alternative maybe that's what turned him into a good guy okay this is kind of cool lion is fighting all his brothers i think structurally this should have been at the beginning, though but the book isn't quite over so maybe im wrong expansion: fighting all his brothers and they're poking into his weak spots

>kurze appears out of the shadows >says something cutting >refuses to elaborate >leaves

okay this is fun

like okay i do get that it's not exactly super realistic to expect lion to go "the emperor's entire methodology was completely flawed" but also given the tone of this whole thing i kind of expected it if we were to have any kind of good resolution here

lion: have any of you tried not being doomed by the narrative?

Not a bad way to end it though!

I'll come back to this after I've read Unremembered Empire, maybe, and re-evaluate.

#bluejay reads warhammer

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zeawesomebirdie · 6 months

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Going insane in your askbox again <3 true friendship right there. Anyway so you've probably noticed I am so so into Baldur's Gate 3 right now so I just want to let the thoughts out in a discombobulated fashion. There are no fun parallels here (or are there? I think I can do fun parallels) this is just word vomit because I can't play the game until either my dad finds a way to let me play from across the Channel or until Christmas. Because I couldn't bring my good PC all the way to England and my laptop sure as fuck doesn't have the specs to play it. So.

I don't know how much you've seen of it but one of my favourite things is explaining media to people in too much detail so I will pretend you only know that there's hot characters in it. It's an RPG based on the D&D system (and set in a D&D world) where you're an adventurer kidnapped by one of those yucky psychic-powered tentacle monsters, a mindflayer. You and the whole ship of kidnappees have those nasty little mindflayer tadpoles inserted in your brain (like in TCW on Geonosis, this time it's through the eye), and even though you blow up the mindflayer ship and save yourself by the end of the tutorial, that little tadpole is going to make you into a mindflayer in a few days (that's how they reproduce). So you embark, originally, on a quest to not transform into an actual monster, and it all spirals from there. On the way, you get to meet other people who have common interests with you, the main ones being six other people with a tadpole in their brain, who can team up with you & become your companions because they also don't want to become mindflayers, but there's also lots of cool NPCs of course.

The game plays pretty close to actual D&D, if you've played it/seen people play it, so there's all the classes (except artificer alas), the spells, the combat is turn-by-turn, and you roll dice for a lot of stuff that requires skills. There's a lot of options for how you play things, dialogue, actions, etc, and it doesn't feel as "good normal thing to do vs the most cartoonishly cruel thing ever" as a lot of those immersive RPGs do (it does sometimes but way less). The story looks pretty insane from what I've seen trying not to spoil myself too much, and I say that in a very positive way.

And okay, I'm going insane about the story, sure, but mostly it's the companions. The main six are really fleshed out and interesting, their voice actors all did a great job, their writing is great, and they're so so compelling aargh. In order of when you meet them, we have... 1) Lae'zel the Githyanki, a race of alien looking green guys from a different plane of reality with a very warrior culture. They have a deep hatred of mindflayers, so Lae'zel is extremely intense about finding a cure for the tadpole issue, and they're very ferocious, so she's pretty abrasive if you haven't befriended her. 2) Shadowheart the cleric, who's a bit racist at first to be honest, and very mysterious... In part because she doesn't remember much of her life, in part because she's secretive about the bits she does remember. Then the next two are in the same area and you can see whichever first, but 3) Gale of Waterdeep, the scrungly wizard, and yes he really is so scrungly. Wizards in D&D are the spellcasters who weren't born with magic but who studied it and who owe their powers to hours of reading books, consequently he's kind of a nerd. He also asks to eat your magic items pretty early on because he's got a condition where he needs to eat magic or bad things happen. 4) Astarion, my beloved, the pale elf, the vampire spawn. Yes, him, you know who it is everyone posts about him and they're correct to do so, I mean what's not to love? He's a vampire, he's hot, he's judgy and flirty and fucked up, his morals are atrocious, absolutely great character. 5) Wyll Ravengard, the Blade of Frontiers, a charming knight in shining armour type, who given his skill with a rapier you'd think is some kind of fighter, but actually he's a warlock with a patron who's both hot and suspect. And 6) Karlach (pronounced Kar-lack, not Kar-lash), a tiefling with a burning engine for a heart and the nicest personality of any of the companions honestly. She's tall, she's strong, all the lesbians want her, and because of the engine-for-a-heart thing she runs really really hot and subsequently she can't touch things (or people) or they burn.

That's the main guys, which you can also play as if you want (but it's not the best idea for a main playthrough, you're better off creating your own adventurer and then maybe on a second/third/etc. playthrough trying one of the origins characters, or the Dark Urge, which, that's something else entirely, ignore that). They're all interesting and fun and I want to do their quests so bad and I would romance all of them at the same time if I could, but alas they're not all into polyamory. My first run is 100% going to be romancing Astarion, because I love them all but I am positively insane about him.

Now I've tried not to spoil myself too much but let's be honest I still managed to, so, eh, but it's more like sunlight through the leaves of a tree, there's still a lot of shadows, I just have a clear-ish picture of a certain amount of stuff. From that picture, I'll say that I love interactions between the companions especially, like I find all the similarities and differences between them so interesting, and the different relationships they could have fascinate me.

For example, and yes I have Astarion tunnel vision, there's an interesting dynamic with him and Wyll, or him and Karlach, there's room for fun stuff with him and Gale as well, and honestly if I knew Shadowheart and Lae'zel well enough I could say there's something there as well but I don't - except that Lae'zel and Astarion are often together in the morals thing. Oh yeah there's a companions approval thing, so sometimes when you do an action they'll approve or disapprove, and it's weighted based on how important the issue is to them. Lae'zel approves of violence, Wyll approves of helping people, etc. Well Lae'zel loves violence, because that's her culture, and Astarion - also likes violence lol, and he doesn't like stopping to save all the pathetic lifeforms you encounter. So in that way they're both focused on the goal, curing themselves from the tadpole, unwilling to stop and help every damsel in distress, and they think the best resolution to a conflict is someone's blood outside of their body.

Shadowheart and Lae'zel have this hate relationship where at the start of the game Shadowheart is kind of against Lae'zel's people (kind of rightfully so, their reputation as fierce warriors who'll destroy anything as long as it means getting rid of a mindflayer isn't exactly wrong), and Lae'zel isn't nice to anyone but especially not those who antagonise her (and people love to make them fuck about it, which. Yeah. Yeah, make them fuck about it). Karlach is part of Wyll's backstory, he was meant to kill her because she killed people but you can like, smooth things over and uncover truths or something (I haven't played that part yet!) and she can join your party and it's good now, but there's a connection there. I'm trying to connect Gale to someone but honestly I don't know now that I think about it, I need to look into him some more he's so fun to me.

But you could argue that there's things that they all have in common - I feel like, off the top of my head, they all have this authority figure who sucks in their life? Gale has Mystra, the goddess he follows (followed?) who apparently sucks violently as a person, Astarion has Cazador, the vampire who turned him and abused him for centuries, Shadowheart has I think Shar, her goddess, Wyll has Mizora, his patron who's hot and shitty, I mean she's a warlock patron, Karlach has I believe Zariel, who - kept her trapped in one of the nine Hells?, and Lae'zel has whatever the fuck is happening with the Githyanki and their queen Vlaakith which honestly sounds like a shitty cult. Like they've all got fucked up authority figures <3 it's different flavours, like Astarion and Karlach actually have a fair bit in common with the way they were treated (but they're opposites in the way they reacted, which to be fair they weren't in the exact same situation so y'know - Karlach is joyful and passionate and pretty straightforward, Astarion is sarcastic and secretive and guarded, and also he approves of you letting children get hurt), or Gale and Shadowheart who both have religion/deity issues, and Wyll and Karlach share a person from their past that sucks, but like. Lil group of fucked up homies <3 I can't wait to hold all of their hands while we decimate whoever hurt them.

I'm not kidding btw there's a scene at the start where you can literally crush the skull of the mindflayer who abducted you (off screen but it does make a crunch) and I can't wait to do the closest thing to that that the game will allow to Cazador :) I think I'm also going to have a Reaction to Gale's storyline but I've managed to keep the details fuzzy for now so I don't know more.

So hi this is me chewing at drywall desperately waiting to get to play the game <3 how's it going in DC land, having fun with all the Robins? I personally think you should look at Gale a little, he has a vibe in common with Obi-Wan (the "looks like an english professor, is actually pretty slutty" vibe) and also he says pish posh unironically and he wears pyjamas at camp (everyone else just takes off some layers and looks kind of dressed for the club, he full on gets the velvet pj top out, it's incredible). Though Wyll is also very charming, like I keep going on about how Astarion is incredible because of course I think that, and Gale has the nerd charm, and next to that Wyll looks a little Less (and he has hours less of content I think), but the man has a charm. And the ladies are great too, it's just that you're less into women, but -

Oh wait I forgot to say: you know how in D&D there's 6 stats, strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma, and the highest any of your stats can be at character creation is 17 and the lowest is 8? Astarion, unsurprisingly, has an 8 in strength, he's a rogue, it's normal; Gale also has an 8, but he's a nerd who loves books, so that's fair; and Karlach and Lae'zel both have 17 in strength, because they're great warriors, so that tracks. Shadowheart has a 13, which is fair for a cleric, and Wyll - Wyll, even though he's great with a rapier, is a warlock, and warlocks cast with their charisma, so it's not his highest stat, but it's fine, it's not going to be the dump stat either, right? Wrong. 8 strength for Wyll. It kills me every time. You've got those three women, two of whom could snap you in half and the third who could probably win at arm wrestling against random men, and three men, all with 8 in strength. 8 for an adventurer is pathetic, to be clear. 8 is your dump stat. The human average is 8 or 9. Adventurers are well above human in terms of stats. 8 in strength is normal for a wizard, but man, Wyll on his own, but also the combo of all of them having 8 in that one stat? It kills me.

(for the anecdote, their stats are roughly as follows: Astarion has an 8 in strength and a 17 in dexterity, normal for a rogue, and only 10 in charisma, which is truly enough to get him into bad situations and not enough to get out of them; Gale is a squishy wizard who, obviously, put all his points into intelligence, which - in D&D intelligence is book smarts and wisdom is street smarts, and it's the casting stat for wizards, so that tracks, his charisma manages to be higher than Astarion's also; Lae'zel has a 17 in strength and an 8 in charisma, which also tracks, she's a warrior and she doesn't need words to make people pay attention to her, she's also got a good constitution; Karlach also has the 17 strength, but her 8 is in intelligence, normal for her background and normal for a barbarian, and she has the same constitution as Lae'zel, a respectable 15; Shadowheart has a 17 in wisdom, which actually shines an interesting light on her character now that I think about it, and she's got the same 8 in charisma as Lae'zel, which, they should kiss about it; and Wyll's 17 is in charisma, which makes him the most charismatic of the group, which tracks with his vibe and the way he behaves on top of making sense for game mechanics, because once again warlocks cast with charisma. This game is turning me into a D&D player the way 3½ years of my bestie talking my ears off about the TTRPG didn't)

Actually I didn't even get to the fun point of Karlach and Astarion being contrasts in so many ways!! Because she's nice, he's mean, okay, but also. They're both kinda touch starved, but she's once again very open about it, she's overtly sad she can't touch people or pets because of her burning skin, and it feels like if you helped her with that she'd be trying to start a cuddle pile every evening at camp with zero shame about it, and also apparently there's a horny aspect to the no touch frustration thing if you're in a romance with her, because you both want to go for it but her skin says no. Astarion has spent 200 years obeying every order of a very cruel vampire lord, and he's both kind of desperate for someone to be nice to him, but also really really against people getting close to him in every sense of the term. He does also like cuddles though <3 and then there's the Wyll-Astarion thing, where Wyll is this very prince charming kinda guy, saves the widow and the innocent, just goes around helping people all the time, absolute bleeding heart, and Astarion spent 200 years suffering, hoping that someone would help, and nobody came - which is part of why he disapproves of you helping people, seeing people be so nice everywhere makes him mad, because he certainly didn't get any kindness for most of him life! You're saying that there are kind adventurers who help poor victims of fate, that there's actually a lot of those guys, it's just that none of them crossed his path, ever, in 200 years, when he was one of many and his sire is somewhat notorious?

Actually, thinking of that, there's a dialogue with Gale where Astarion says that the others can go pray to their deities if they want, but he won't, and Gale asks him if he's every prayed to any of them. He just goes "oh, I did, every one of them. None answered" and like. Arghhhh. The god worldbuilding in those two sentences!! Because there's gods of lots of things in the setting. Gods of the forgotten, the downtrodden, the victims, the abused, and the implications of that!!! I love the idea of deities actually existing, but them being both very human and also completely inhuman. Human in that they are Like Us, prone to the same fits of temper, the same cruelty, the same extremes as us, including also kindness, but inhuman in that it's pushed to eleven and distorted, because they're not actually human, either they never were or they aren't anymore. This shines a light on the human facet of them, because here it's about people, even well intentioned, kind people, turning away from suffering because it's complex and nuanced and difficult to help. Astarion was a vampire spawn, and he'd done terrible things, and his master was powerful, so... The gods are like us, they look away from pain and misery too. Insane sentences. Especially because the other gods we see also suck: Gale's goddess seems very shitty, and Shadowheart's also looks uuuh bad. I love the "gods suck" because in D&D lore those aren't just the christian god, they're kind of human, and a little bit of greek mythology vibes I would assume, and for real some of them just ascended to godhood from humanity, it's a thing that happens. So. Yeah. Sucks for Astarion obviously but that makes my brain effervescent. It's so crunchy for the worldbuilding. None of them answered..... Chewing on drywall!!

ANYWAY this is a BEAST holy shit. I have many thoughts about this game. Crunch crunch crunch. Good night beloved sleep well thank you for at least reading the unhinged ramblings, when I get the game I'll be back with even less hinges <3 can't wait for the wedding I'm going to be honest <3 <3

Ram my beloved. This is me rn:

Thank you for the hinges in my inbox!!! This was a delight to wake up to!!! No I don't understand at all but I am loving this for you!!!! May you get this game soon!!!!!!

(And thanks for all the context, like half my dash is this game and I think my boyfriend is playing it but I have somehow remained Unknowledgable about everything, so I appreciate it!!)

You asked how things are going in DC land. So. Funny story.

I'm still recovering from covid, like I'm negative now but by the Force I'm still so sick. I can't write. Like at all. Like I can't even tell you the last time I was too sick to write, it never happens. So my current fanfic reading word count is a 1.5 million words in the last three weeks. And I now have plans to make a rec list. And that's not even all!

I've also written three folk songs for superbat. Because I am Totally Normal about themb. I have spent the last several months trying to write songs In General and then three weeks of covid later I have three. About stupid idiots being in love. Because I'm Clearly Normal about them. And I low key am now just going to write a whole entire album because why not, and because none of the songs are explicitly fansongs they just sound like normal folk songs, so who's gonna know but me anyway (and all of tumblr. Bc if I manage to finish this thing I will never shut up about it)

AND. And I've also watched several movies, and started another TV show, exclusively so I could understand more fic. And that is. Going. My parents are very confused. The librarians probably get a kick out of my requests. My brothers have already started teasing me. I am having the time of my life

Also Dick is my favourite character, he's beautiful and wonderful and such a good oldest brother I love himb he is baby. I'm still working on learning about the other Robins, but I've read enough fic and seen enough comics to know sort of who the others are, it's just that my interest in things tends to fall in the pre-90's category, which means Dick is the only Robin for a lot of what I'm reading/watching

I love you, I hope you are enjoying your weekend and you and your hinges are always welcome in my inbox <3

#anon ☂️#i just want to watch the animated 90s batman tv show #but my dad is so. so judgmental about animated stuff #and its very obviously a 90s kids show #(and thats what i love about it i love stuff from the 90s and before it is So Wonderful)#but i loathe watching things with him because he Has to comment on Everything #and i just want to suspend my belief a little #and he isnt even one to talk!!!#he watches shitty low budget horror movies!!!!!#i should be able to watch quote unquote classic movies and tv!!!!!!#(i feel so old saying something from the 90s is classic but)#anyway #hi im still clearly sick i love you

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