🔥 choose violence ask game 🔥

the character everyone gets wrong

a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

worst discord server and why

which ship fans are the most annoying?

what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

worst part of canon

worst part of fanon

number of fandom-related words you've filtered

the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

worst blorboficiation

that one thing you see in fics all the time

that one thing you see in fanart all the time

you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

there should be more of this type of fic/art

it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...

part of canon you found tedious or boring

part of canon you think is overhyped

your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

ship you've unwillingly come around to

topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

1. for the choose violence ask game?

1. the character everyone gets wrong

ONE THOUSAND YEARS JAIL FOR TCW WRITERS for getting that absolutely GOLDEN layup in AotC and then NOT doing jack fuck with Dooku. They looked right at Christopher Lee's deliberately nuanced portrayal in that movie (within the script's and direction's limitations which were indeed very limiting. Have I ever mentioned that George wasn't too good at writing Dooku either?) and did NOTHING. They made him a Saturday evening cartoon guy in the Saturday evening cartoon and I am inconsolable

I cannot get over how they squandered his potential!! And Asajj's by extension, too. And why do I have to cling to CW 03 for any screentime of them both even just existing in the same room? Like genuinely do we ever see them physically next to each other? They're supposed to be master and apprentice bro something went terribly wrong here!!

Also to bend this back to the fandom and to beat a dead bloated decomposing horse: Obi-Wan. Novels have been written about his fanon alter-ego so I'll just say that most people actually write him just fine until any type of relationship emerges! Ppl want to swaddle this spiritual master and veteran shock formation leader in a blanket so bad they gotta nerf him to hell so someone can take loving care of the shadow of his former self lmao

1,8,18,21,22

thank you very much for the ask, @ashesandhackles. let's see how these go down...

[choose violence ask game here]

1. who is the character everyone gets wrong?

the last time i answered this question i said sirius - both fanon sirius and dark!sirius - and i stand by it, so this time, let's say... dumbledore.

and, actually, i think this for many of the same reasons which inspired my sirius answer. i really dislike dumbledore bashing, since it’s so frequently based in a complete misunderstanding of his character and the role he serves within the series’ narrative conventions - above all, the fact that the omniscient vibe he gives off in books 1-6 is not actually omniscience at all, as book 7 reveals; dumbledore doesn’t know that sirius is innocent, or that moody is barty crouch jr., or that kreacher is passing information to voldemort, because he’s just a human being. far too many criticisms of dumbledore don’t take this into account, ascribing to malice what is clearly just fallibility.

but, with this said, i dislike the anti-bashing turn in dumbledore-centric fics just as much, because many of these pair the idea that dumbledore is fallible (good and correct) with the idea that he is - for want of a better term - harry-ish. and this is just as bad a misreading of the character. dumbledore is not impulsive or reckless or radical - he holds radical views, but he does nothing to actually advance them in society (this is a man who is at the heart of the establishment for half a century, who does nothing with that power to dismantle the oppressive social structures which drive wizarding politics and prop up blood-supremacy). dumbledore is a hypocrite - he’s happy to be depended on by fudge, he is appalled that fudge might depend on lucius malfoy. dumbledore lives in an ivory tower. dumbledore projects his shame and self-loathing onto others in a way which is detrimental to their own happiness. and so on.

none of these things preclude dumbledore being courageous, but his ‘gryffindor courage’ is remarkably un-gryffindorish, and a lot of pro-dumbledore writing is surprisingly unwilling to confront this.

[also, there’s the other layer of pro-dumbledore writing i dislike - when authors make him hyper-whimsical. the man is stylish, rather than dressed like he ran into a charity shop and fell over. his sweet tooth is an incidental detail - and a trait which harry also shares - rather than his entire personality. he is not dithering and indecisive - he is a creature of inaction, but he tends to have settled on a single ‘right’ course very quickly in his mind. he is not silly. he is not a blushing fool in his relationships - all evidence is that he had just as much power over grindelwald as grindelwald had over him. he is not particularly emotionally demonstrative. he is physically strong. he is taller than voldemort. and, crucially, his mask of benign good humour is fake. all of his ‘whimsical’ traits are part of the act, the real dumbledore is ruthless and damaged and a nerd who loves reading and it’s iconic. let him be that way.]

8. what is the common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about?

there is no such thing as canon compliance.

by which i mean that ‘canon compliant’ is a useful tag to have on ao3 as an indicator of chronology - it’s a good shorthand for ‘the people who die in the series will die in this fic too’, ‘the main events which happen in the books will be mentioned here’, and so on. but i’m not sure that i think it goes beyond that.

and the reason for that, is that i have never seen anything which purports to be canon compliant beyond chronology - including my own work - which actually is.

there are several reasons for this:

the first is something which, if you’ve read other posts on this blog, you will know is a common refrain of mine - that the series is bound by specific genre conventions. if authors are transferring the action into a genre different from the ones the series makes use of, they are not writing something which is canon compliant, but canon coherent.

the second is that if authors are filling in gaps which are missing from the series - above all, the marauders-era or post-war-pre-epilogue timeline - they are doing something which is materially no different from writing a non-canon ship. i.e. writing exactly what they want. if your fic is crammed with original characters, or your marauders listen to cool muggle music, or you’ve spent more than twenty seconds thinking about the wizarding political or legal system then i love that for you - this is good and everyone should do it. but it’s not canon compliant. it’s canon coherent.

the third - and undoubtedly most controversial - is that you cannot write something canon compliant and hold the principle that the author is dead. because we know exactly how jkr thinks that canon should be interpreted, and this is often in ways which are - to borrow a phrase from ursula le guin - rather ethically mean-spirited. jkr’s views on fairness, violence, class, motherhood, love, and - of course - gender weave themselves into the narrative in ways which cannot simply be written off as ‘oh, it’s just harry’s perspective.’

i believe we have a moral imperative to know what she thinks and to interrogate the ways in which this appears in the canon text. i also think - obviously - that we don’t have to agree with what she thinks in order to write things which feel close to canon. and i don’t agree with her - not only when it comes to her views on trans people, which are actively harmful - but also when it comes to things like the fact that she’s clearly someone who’s rather vindictive, but who believes that this vindictiveness is really a strong sense of fairness (look, for example, at the dichotomy between how the text presents violence against people it thinks ‘deserve’ it - harry using the cruciatus curse on amycus carrow being a great example, neither harry, nor mcgonagall, nor the narrative give a fuck - and those it thinks don't). or the fact that her own experience of both motherhood and daughterhood - an experience which was clearly very traumatic for her (her mother died of multiple sclerosis, her first husband was violent towards her, she has an extremely difficult relationship with her father) - drives the series’ prioritisation of sacrificial motherhood, criticism towards mothers who don’t make their children the focus of their entire world, and certain coolness towards fathers (especially absentee ones - who will be blamed by the narrative for being murdered by their own sons). or the fact that she has extremely narrow views on cisgender women, even before her views on trans women are taken into account, which turn up again and again in how female characters we are not supposed to be sympathetic towards are written.

i am not, of course, suggesting that writing a fic which is heavily based in canon means that an author supports jkr’s views. what i am saying instead is that fics which engage with questions such as how harry understands violence against the bad guys in ways which go beyond ‘lol, lmao’ or which write lavender as a person whose fondness for stereotypical femininity doesn’t make her insubstantial or which point out that the narrative blaming merope gaunt for dying directly justifies everything voldemort believes are canon coherent.

and, actually, i think that this broader term - canon coherent - is a better one to talk about the non-chronological aspects of canon compliance. because the dividing line between canon compliant fics and canon divergent ones is incredibly arbitrary, and often doesn’t take into account how close to canon the writing in otherwise canon divergent stories often is. after all, if someone writes a story in which harry feels exactly like his canon self, except that the romantic partner he ends up with isn’t ginny, that is arguably more canon compliant than a piece of happy-ever-after hinny in which ginny is a doormat who gives up her career to be harry’s bang maid and harry speaks like he’s had twenty years of therapy. but only one of these pieces will be welcomed onto canon compliant rec-lists and into canon compliant discussion spaces.

[and it’s worth mentioning that plenty of canon compliant only spaces do allow flexibility - above all in being open to interpretations of characters such as james, harry, and hermione in which they are not white. this is good and they should continue to do this, but we can go further, especially in accepting queer interpretations of the main characters into canon compliant discussion.]

i also think - and i’m aware this may sound cruel - that thinking in terms of canon coherence, rather than compliance and divergence, would be good for everybody’s ego. i can acknowledge that plenty of people who diverge from canon can be dicks about it - and i think that the criticism people who prefer the canon endgame ships often get for being ‘boring’ (and, in the case of ships such as remadora, ‘homophobic’) is bullshit - but the canon compliant girlies (gender neutral) are, in many cases, no better. it is not harder to write something ‘canon compliant’ - not least because, as discussed, you’re not - and it is not evidence of an author engaging more seriously with the text and its themes. there is a tendency i have noticed in the fandom spaces i inhabit, many of which feature people whose preference is for the canon ships etc., for non canon pairings to be treated as - essentially - crack ships, especially in stories which are light or whimsical in tone. but when i say that writing on tomarry or snarry or snack or snapemort or drarry or riddledore or wolfstar or what have you can deliver characterisation and worldbuilding and narrative construction which feels infinitely more plausible than many ‘canon compliant’ pieces of writing, i mean this entirely seriously.

and i think it would be good if the dividing line which leads many people to say ‘i don’t read canon divergent fics’ or ‘i don’t read canon compliant fics’ was instead blended into a preference for fics which are canon coherent or otherwise. we would all learn something.

18. it’s absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on…

delphini.

another reason why canon coherence over canon compliance is valuable is it means that one can pretend the cursed child doesn’t exist.

but i would like to make a case for the fact that delphini as a concept (so, nothing like the way she’s written in that play…) makes sense and is a character i’d like to see added to more stuff. she works within both voldemort and bellatrix’s canonical arcs, she gives rodolphus something to do post-war after he spends canon being futile, imagine how funny it would be if teddy had a crush on her, george-michael and maeby style (truly les cousins dangereux), imagine how funny it would be if she is the spitting image of her muggle grandfather and her dad’s having a crisis every time he sees her, imagine her trying to parent trap voldemort and bellatrix into actually falling in love…

you can do serious things with her too - in fact, i have - but, as someone who thinks anything is improved by someone spindly and vaguely sinister, i think she’s a hoot and she deserves to turn up in more things.

21: what part of canon do you think is overhyped?

my eyes were bone dry when dobby-ex-machina died.

22: what is your favourite part of canon, which everyone else ignores?

that harry is a luxury boy. let my man buy his solid gold cauldron, hagrid, don’t be a narc.

[in general, i don't love versions of harry which show him as really abstemious or austere - he's pretty careless with his possessions and he doesn't regard the expensive things he owns as something to be unusually protective over. in his adulthood, he's 100% making sure his shed is stocked with the best brooms on the market and buying himself a little treat whenever he's feeling spenny.]

For the ask game, svsss + 22?

[ your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores ]

It's gotten better lately, probably thanks to the easily available English translation, but: SQQ's Binghe Syndrome (when instead of brain there is a Binghe).

Listen, this man is obsessed. In the beginning of the book he is obsessed with Luo Binghe the character, and sort of projecting it onto bby Binghe; by the Immortal Alliance Conference however, he is firmly the irl Binghe's stan (though ofc our king of not being in touch with his feelings does not process that at all). Literally every time Binghe appears, his internal narration devolves into Binghe Appreciation Hour. He forgets family and friends when they are not right in front of his face but he will think of Binghe, unprompted, three thousand times a chapter. He is, honestly, just as weird about Binghe as Binghe is about him, it's just expressed differently.

And for me, this is like... a load-bearing element of Shen Yuan / Shen Qingqiu's character. As in, if he is not at least a little bit insane about Binghe, he just does not come off as a version of SY to me. Might as well be an OC with the name. So you can imagine the kind of stress I'm under when starting to read a new SVSSS fic. Like, "a little bit insane" is already my expectations lowered as much as possible. If there's not even that?? ? How am I expected to handle this. I am running away. I am packing my little rucksack and going out to explore the world as a lone vagabond—

8&24

8. ehe... so not to be a hater (I am definitely a hater), I despise the "death note corrupts the user" take. I wont argue that it isn't canonically plausible, because it unfortunately is, particularly in the manga, but its just so,,, pointless? all this theory does is water Light down from a complex, morally conflicted, tragic character to. literally just some guy who happened to get cursed by a scary magic notebook.

24. I wouldn't really know to be honest, I try to avoid fandom discourse as much as I can. but from what I have seen, I'd have to say either near just. existing or the whole L vs Light intelligence debate because holy shit, outside of lawlight circles the fandom seems to be incapable of concluding that they were both smart

18 on the choose violence 😏

EDIT: As y'all may have guessed, my queue I was saving drafts of these in was running last night and I forgot to switch the time over so here's the real answer.

18 - It's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on: you want me to CHOOSE?!? You expect me to CHOOSE just ONE character from Sandman that the fandom sleeps on?!?!?!? Oh, jail for 1000 years - well let me spin the roulette wheel Rose and Jed.

ROSE. God I'm emotional about her. She's been through so much, the loss of her baby brother with a father who it's implied was not the nicest, lost her mother and her best friend in the same year, and she nearly destroyed the world but yknow what, she literally did nothing wrong here. She called Dream an asshole and totally got away with it. She's got gay hair and gayer friends (fellow bi!Rose truthers anyone???? Hello??? Someone else please discuss, queer people do all tend to flock together) and I hope she gets everything she wants.

I really want to explore the possibilities of a growing relationship with her and her immortal family sometime. Morpheus isn't just going to forget about her and Jed and him looking out for her baby brother is the only way I can see her kind of starting to warm up to him again. Like I WANT to see that weird tense but possibly loving relationship explored. Dream clearly respected her intelligence and wanted to give her more information (even if he was also using her to find the Corinthian which. Not cool).

(Also I think she'd go NUTS for the library of Dreams. Like she's a writer and suddenly she's seeing all the books never published?? Who wouldn't want to read them all?)

I have feelings about the parallels between her and Death. Plus I have a hc as some of my friends already know, that in one of Rose's low moments Despair finds her and something about the fact that this girl is family tugs at her. She has her function and her duties but she also has a sense of loyalty. So that could cause some seriously juicy potential internal conflict for her AND Rose honestly kind of needs an outlet for her bottled up grief and the weightof responsibility she feels. For Jed, for Lyta and her son...feel free to ask or dm me if you want to know more this post is already long enough xD

(And the fact that in a series where she's ONE OF THE MAIN FUCKING CHARACTERS for multiple episodes of this series she gets so much less attention ON HER OWN SELF - I'm talking art and fic overall PERIOD, let alone stuff where she gets any interiority of her own or her character taken seriously is just. I don't even know man)

jED. My precious baby boy my son. I want to give him a hug. I want to wrap him in a warm blanket and give him cocoa and as much popcorn as he wants. Dream's reaction to Jed was in fact channeling me. This kid has been through too much and he deserves to live a happier life with his sister, so thank God he's gonna get it.

(But also does anyone wanna talk to me about the fact that Jed is a possible candidate for Dream's successor when he's older and might be even more viable than MASSIVE COMIC SPOILER ALERT Daniel Hall and all the ways this could complicate things HELLO.)

Miranda Walker - either the gif search function is broken which isn't beyond the realm of possibility here, or I couldn't find one gif of her in this show. And I KNOW people have made them I just can't find one...sigh

But I really want her to get more attention because her story is so potentially fascinating even if she barely got any screen time. Like this girl is the granddaughter of Desire, that must've massively impacted her life. I want to know how she dealt with the relationship with her children's father going sour and him taking Jed away and her struggling to raise her kids.

And last but certainly not least drumroll please...UNITY. That's right we're giving the whole Walker-Kincaid family some love!!

HER. The queen the legend the moment.

Her story man...it gets me emotional every time. She could've had a life in the waking world. I really want to see more about what her dream life (which we know she experienced as real, with time passing and all, because of the things she said about it) was like. Even without Desire, how did she handle basically growing up in Wonderland surrounded by dreams? (I can't take credit for the Alice in Wonderland vibes that was @violetoftheendless 's great idea.) Did she make friends and a new found family there? Did she see signs she didn't understand at the time of dreams and nightmares falling into chaos and eventually leaving the realm in a slow trickle?

But also she's just such a genuinely lovely person. She took Rose into her heart without a second thought and was prepared to take Jed - I'm sure she didn't know how much more time she had but she knew she didn't have forever, and she wanted a family again and she'd lost her own parents long ago and never gotten to say goodbye...and the kicker is, unlike in the comic where she's basically on her deathbed already, she COULD have possibly lived a little longer. But she chose to sacrifice her new life to save Rose's. If this woman doesn't deserve the Spirit of Love label like I've seen in some truly beautiful meta from @windsweptinred I don't know who does. BUT ALSO she's not a perfect inhuman angel either, she is capable of being charmed by the Corinthian, which - looking around at the fandom, one can see she's not alone so I for one can't blame her too much, but also she met the king of dreams and nightmares and within less than 5 minutes called him a himbo to his face. She's beautifully human with icon behavior and Sandra James-Young deserves all the credit in the world for this role.

1 for the ask game

from: choose violence ask game

1. the character everyone gets wrong

Err... all of them? I'm not even kidding. More on this here.

Bellatrix: fortunately there's been progress in the fandom, but for years everyone loved to describe her as an overly sexualized, crazy, shrieking mindless slave, when she's actually quite the opposite. She is sadistic, but not insane, she's passionate but not irrational (she is the only one who knew Snape was a traitor; to me, it's because of a peculiar mix of rationality and intuition that shows her to be actually quite intelligent). Nothing suggests her being promiscuous in the text and I would actually argue the opposite of her (why would she ever lower herself to sleep with someone who she deems her inferior - so basically everyone -, even just to satisfy mere physical desires? This post, to me, is Bella at her core).

Narcissa: this is canon Narcissa, all of you are perfectly entitled to your soft babygirl headcanons, of course, but then again you are perfectly entitled to be wrong <3 [also, shameless self-promo: x]

The blorboification continues for every single member of the Black family and I hate it so much you have no idea:

Andromeda: somehow described as a soft little girl who loved her mean, mean sisters so much and had to run away? Bitch stood up to seven centuries of tradition, and abandoned her sisters and parents, to marry a boy she had fallen in love with maybe two years prior (we know this based on Tonks' age). Good for her, but as I have said previously, both Narcissa and Andromeda (and Sirius, really) strike me as a bit selfish. The one with the romantic attachment to the idea of her family, the child most like Walburga, is Bellatrix.

But this is nothing, NOTHING, compared to what this fandom does to Regulus and Sirius.

Regulus: canonically a Voldemort fanboy, with newspaper clippings of him everywhere, and a blood supremacist. Sirius says it better than anyone: Reggie is soft. But not in the way the fandom believes, nope. He's just a coward who, much like Draco years later, was super excited to be like Bellatrix (Lucius) until he realized what killing really meant, what fighting a war really was, and most importantly because Voldemort touched him personally (Kreacher, whom he loved). Voldemort was probably a little more deranged than he had been at the beginning of the First War, and someone that had inherited the Black pride/haughtiness probably didn't like being branded like cattle and treated like a slave, on top of everything else.

Sirius: fanon Sirius is basically another character. Canon!Sirius is: tall, canonically incredibly handsome, quite masculine (in an explicit and toxic way, especially as a teenager in the fucking 1970s - the skirt-wearing, feminist one-liners spouting version of Sirius is something I just cannot get behind), a dick, a bit classist ((don't come @ me with your "oh, but what about Moony?!" because a) we don't know Remus' wealth when Lyall and Hope were still alive, we only know he can't get a job as an adult because of his condition and b) Remus is Sirius' exception, in the same way Lily is Snape's when he calls her a Mudblood - everyone else is in his eyes)), brave to the point of recklessness, quite cruel, funny, witty, magically talented, loyal to a fault, extremely charismatic and everything else outlined here. For the same reasons, I'll say Remus too.

Don't even get me started on Severus Snape. Other people have spoken on this better than I could ever. At least here on Tumblr, though, it seems to me that things are getting a little better after years of absolutely bizarre takes. Or maybe I've blocked all of the idiots idk.

Dumbledore. More on this here and maybe I'll outline my ideas better in a future post.

Also: I do not accept any characterization of Evan Rosier, Barty Crouch jr, Reggie, and Rabastan Lestrange as anything less than violent blood supremacists. Yes, they can be nuanced and gay (and only for each other might I add), but these people are the KKK (metaphorically, of course, because I hate comparing real-world tragedies to completely fictional ones, but still).

Lucius: a complete dick, but definitely not abusive. The man couldn't raise a hand to Draco if the Dark Lord threatened to kill him over it.

Speaking of which: my darling Lord Voldemort. Not much to say about him really because I know that some people do write him in a very interesting way (and I am open to interpretations of his character even if they are different from how I see him - and I have a very fucking specific vision of him). The problem is that perhaps three (3) of these people write him with Bellatrix and that saddens me.

Now, I mostly read First Wizarding War stuff or Death Eater stuff so I can't really speak to many other characters, especially in Harry's generation, but anything other than cowardly Draco is not a good Draco characterization to me. Ron is hands-down the best one in the Golden Trio and Ron Weasley bashing is pathetic. Hermione has faults but is ultimately a strong, take-no-bullshit girl and I'll take that over basically any and all female YA protagonists. And Harry is sassiness personified, but with a heart of gold, and oh-so-caring. Which is also why I can't read dark!Harry for the life of me. It just makes me giggle.

Hiya! For the ask game, how about no. 17?

Hi! We'll go with Star Wars, since that's our overlap. 💖 17. there should be more of this type of fic/art Always, always, always: MORE JEDI WORLDBUILDING. I want to know what kind of games they play in the creche to teach baby Jedi about connecting with the Force! Different abilities manifesting meaning different kinds of games, like sure push-feather is adorable, but crechemasters imbuing fuzzy lothcat plushies with feelings of safety and calm for the babies to cuddle up with at night?? PLEASE, I NEED IT. I want to know what kind of shenanigans the younglings get up to in those endless rooms in the Jedi Temple, there's probably entire floors that aren't in use for years at a time, do little younglings dare each other to go in there and explore? Supplementary canon has touched a bit on their art classes or the beautiful art around the Temple, but I want to know how they use the Force for art. Force-sculpting is amazing, but what about something like splatter art with the Force? I want to know more about how their sacred rituals are woven into their lives--so much is based on how the Force sends them tests (like the Force testing the kids on Ilum or Luke on Dagobah or Ezra, Kanan, and Ahsoka on Lothal, etc.), what are the other rituals they have? What Trials do they have all throughout their lives? What makes a Jedi go from being a Knight to a Master? I want so much more Jedi worldbuilding based on the way the Force works established in the movies+TCW+Lucas commentary, how the Force is your emotions is something that would deeply affect the way a culture builds itself around that energy field, like the core Jedi philosophy is: Check yourself before you wreck yourself, basically, because that's how the Force works, so how does that influence the way classes are taught or careers are marked, you know? I want sooooo much Jedi philosophy (though, I'm pleased with some of what we've gotten in canon!) and how it would play out in little things--like they have the ability to move things with their minds, how does that affect their day to day lives? I loved that scene of a security door requiring the Force to unlock it in the episode where Cad Bane infiltrated the Temple, like, you have to be able to use the Force to open a secure door? Yeah, of course that makes perfect sense! WHAT ELSE IS LIKE THAT?? I MUST KNOW.

ask game

hp

1 and 21 perhaps? <3

1.Sirius Black! My poor man! To quote the Godfather "look how they massacred my boy!"

Also Severus Snape.

21. I can't say I've seen a canon event overhyped to the extent that it became 'a thing'. But if I had to give an example, it's Harry as Master of Death. Canonically it helped him survive Voldemort at the end, but sometimes I do see Master of Death Harry capable of doing ...everything with this 'title'.

#1 (from the violence ask game) for dhmis! 😁🤸

I have to explain this? Of course Warren, that poor man was twinkdified and infantilized as hell for teenegers that think they can excuse their horrible & disgusting actions for being autistic or having anxiety. Warren is the representation of a toxic friend, not an innocent autistic boytoy!

( (small parenthesis: it feels incredibly insulting and inhumanizing that the excuse to justify his actions is "he's autistic". )

6, 12, 14, and 21 for the Star Wars Violence Ask Game!

Thank you wifey! 💙💚 I'm gonna enjoy these

6. Opinion on canon and/or fanon use of the secret child trope? Discuss

I don't mind it. The secret child can be a good trope if the context is right for it. I mean Star Wars is centered on secret child trope pretty much. Where I'm not so into it is the Korkie headcanon that he is Obi Wan and Satine's son. It's a bit too crackhead for me and also it's not my ship so I'm biased against it.

12. Name a common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing.

Anything about Rey tbh. I may not be a big sequels person but anytime the fandom tries reduce her to an overpowered female Luke and say she's unoriginal I roll my eyes.

Like they are nothing alike. Luke got to live comfortably taken care of by his aunt and uncle. He never had to scavage scraps just to be able to eat. And before anyone comes for me, I'm NOT ripping on Luke. He had what anyone should have.

What I'm saying is Rey didn't get to have guardians or a comfortable house or regularly even be able eat. She was abandoned and did what she had to to survive. As for the overpowered thing like she's able to fly ships or fight back, like come on. I repeat, she. was. a. scavanger. She got to know ship parts and as for fighting, she's had to fight dickheads like Teedo and probably worse to keep food, homes, etc. After rewatching TFA, i notice she learns from OBSERVATION. She mimics what others do around. This is a survival skill she had her whole life.

Of course Luke is going to take a little more time to learn things. He was never put in that situation where it was do or die (as any child shouldn't). Rey was and however fast she was at learning a skill is a result of basic survival instincts.

She and Luke ENTIRELY different characters and to say she's a female version of him cuz she's from a desert????? Reductive and a big lack in media literacy tbh.

14. What's the most egregious example of fridging in canon?

God which one? 😅 Fridging is probably one of Star Wars biggest crimes. Leia is the first that comes to mind because she died to redeem her piece of shit son that she did not deserve.

But then again, Anakin's turn to the dark side is also due to fridging with his mother and his wife. Especially with Padme since there's an old version where she actually gets to live a little bit longer with the Rebellion and tried to kill Anakin.

I may not be a big Satine person, but that's fridging too to give Obi Wan angst and more Maul animosity.

I'm still going to say Leia in the sequels though as the most egregious. Because it was so out of nowhere (yes I'm aware that Carrie's death was probably the reason but I don't care. There are better ways to kill off/write out a character than fridging). Her death served no purpose other than Kyle Ron no accountability. Like what in "Jesus died for our sins" is this bullshit? Why must Star Wars' most iconic woman have to go out for a man that did nothing but hurt and betray her? It's insulting tbh.

Edit: Luminara's death was fucking awful too. Like ain't no reason to have it be so horrific. Sigh... can Star Wars like not hate women for once.

21. Best canon example of a healthy relationship in Star Wars

Romantically that is a tough one. Honestly I'm coming up short with this one. Can't say Han and Leia cuz we only see their rocky start and end and nothing in between.

Maybe Kanan and Hera but their relationship kinda got ruined for me when suddenly at the end, he wasnt aware if Hera felt the same about him??? I just thought they were basically married and I'm supposed to be believe they haven't even had that conversation by THAT point in time??? Plus the ghost baby thing creeped me the fuck out. Can Star Wars please stop with the out of nowhere pregnancies please?

So yeah canon romances, nothing comes to mind. In fact Star Wars is kind of built on toxic romance.

The crackhead in me wants to say Owen and Beru 🤣

Ooo! Wait I found my answer! Cal and Merrin from the Jedi games! They are perfect 🥺 Idk what the next game will have in store for them but so far, the way they empower and comfort each other. They accept and love each other's differences. And just adorable all around. Sweet ginger boy with spicy witch lady 👌

13, 17 for violence

13. worst blorboficiation

IDK if it counts as blorbofication but whatever the GOT fandom did to Jon Snow... that was boring. Why is he a clever smooth darkfuckprince now. Sad

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

Half the omegaverse fic should be good old fashioned BDSM AU / sex pollen tropes / werewolves — all the quote unquote vintage tropes omegaverse has replaced. It's time.

8 and 17 pls for the violence asks >:D --catboydogma

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

Hiii! Ok possibly actually choosing violence with this one. MORE FUCKED UP CODYWAN PLEASE

Listen I love the sound reasoning that these two are both mature, professional and pragmatic enough to have a very wholesome relationship. A tempered foil to Anidala. There's a lot of evidence for this in their behavior.

But at the same time haha yeah Obi-Wan still *is* Cody's SO (Superior Officer) and Cody still *does* have vastly less autonomy while at the same time being isolated from his brothers by his own rank while his duties push him closer to Obi-Wan. Uh-oh.

They are high-ranking officers and frontline grunts at the same time, living through those hell-on-earth situations that psychologically superglue you to your fellow man AND later sitting in the command tent planning their next move. You know they've made some dark strategic decisions together. They share terrible knowledge and being soft about it may not always be an option. (ig the constant romanticization of Jedi/Clone military leadership is kinda iffy, war leaves no-one with a clean conscience, especially not officers)

The vast majority of meta posts, art and fics are very soft or sweet or wistful and we love to see it but honestly? Let's tackle that power imbalance. Let's talk about that experience gap. Let's dig into that inequality. Let's really consider the mental toll of war outside of fluffy hurt/comfort. Codywan is VERY versatile and they have the full potential to be turbulent and rough and knife's edge and a little bit repulsive :D Their environment really doesn't do them any favors! I'd like to see some more BITE

Answered 8 here :)

For choosing violence, 3.

thank you very much for the ask, @thecasualauthor18!

[choose violence ask game here]

3. what is the worst take you’ve seen on tumblr?

that snape would be sexually violent towards a female harry, especially if she looked like lily.

this one seems to do the rounds every so often and it annoys me beyond belief. firstly, because there’s no evidence that snape is sexually violent at all (and i really do beg any of you who like to throw around the word ‘incel’ when speaking about him to look up what that actually means…), let alone that he is sexually violent towards children.

secondly, because people can be unpleasant and that can be that - snape is a dick, you don’t need to amp up his crimes.

thirdly, because unrequited love and obsessive love are different things and it is crucial that all of us learn that, in order to make sure that the experience of the former we are extremely likely to have in our lives doesn’t turn into the latter.

and fourthly, because snape is clearly upset by any aspect of harry’s personality which reminds him of lily. there are multiple instances in canon when harry glares at him and the sight of anger in lily’s eyes clearly saddens and ashames him. harriet potter, if she walks into potions with long red hair and big green eyes, is getting ignored for seven years.

[plus, snape fancies sirius. neither a harry who looks like james nor one who looks like lily can compete with an age-appropriate, formerly-incarcerated stud. making snape a creep in one’s writing is tired. making him a simp is fresh.]

17, for the ask game? 👀

*for svsss

[ there should be more of this type of fic/art ]

(funny as hell that this came right when i started to compose the previous answer btw)

Oh I have a LIST:

Binghe POV. There's simply. not. enough.

Sopping wet cat Bing-ge as previously mentioned

Whoever actually explores assault survivor Bing-ge in fic will have my entire soul fr fr

Literally anything that would capitalize on the conflict (lit analysis meaning) built into SQQ and LQG's relationship - that one of them treats it as a regular friendship and the other as an epic xianxia bromance (at the very least). I think it would be cool if LQG was given more role than just "a loyal guy with unrequited feelings" from time to time. And I would be especially interested in the iteration where LQG's feelings are entirely platonic and still this intense.

Less pressing than previous because I've actually seen a fic referencing it, but a similar situation in cucumber/plane friendship, where SQQ unquestioningly takes SQH as an ally based on their shared background, but SQH is actually. not at all more loyal to him than to anyone else? Like he'll help, but he'll also sell him out without suffering much guilty conscience too. I think it's a fun discrepancy!

Explore SY!SQQ projecting his older siblings feelings onto YQY. (In more detail than canon does, because this is literally. canon. I've been rereading and there are at least two lines referencing this in early chapters.)

Anything about the parallels between ZZL's loyalty to SQQ and SQQ's loyalty to LBH. I might write meta about this myself one day, but I wish someone else did, I'm lazy okay. The tldr is that in both relationships one person's loyalty hurts rather than helps the other, ultimately because they are trying to do what they think is right for the other without understanding them first.

Shen Yuan's family, esp in reverse transmigration or Bing-ge comes to modern world fics. This is clearly something that shaped SY's character a lot and I think you could get a lot of fun interaction out of it.

For fics that have both Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan without them being siblings: more SY being a bitch to the guy who was mean to his blorbo. Not necessarily for the entire fic, but I think shen vs. shen dynamic is vastly underrepresented, we gotta get onto that. (Also a bit of an aside, but I've seen the idea in fic that SJ is much more powerful than SY as a cultivator, and that... listen, while I agree that SJ would have the benefit of experience, I feel this kinda ignores the fact that SY fixed SQQ's damaged cultivation in several months - before being nerfed by Without a Cure for his efforts, ofc, but still, this implies some level of talent.)

Oh, and last but not least: fics that would explore Binghe's love for SQQ being complicated and not-unfaltering. I tried to imply that a bit in Transmigrator Time Traveler, but I would love a more direct look from someone with more love for angst than me, maybe.

Hello. For violence, number 12 & 13 please. Have a wonderful day! Rose💜

Hello Rose! Thank you for choosing violence today.

12. The unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

Dynamite Chuchok. 

(I love you baby boy, don't you worry)

I do not understand why so many people hated that boy. I love me a happy!sad, and that boy was one of them. I loved how vibrant and open he was about his sexuality, with how vocal he was about his feelings for Fire, that boy is so so brave. He has suffered a lot, he has lost so much, and he refuses to live his life inauthentically. He knows when to push, when to back off, he knows where the boundaries are, where to take space, make space, give space, and he understands exactly why Fire is scared to come out to his Mom. I mean, Dynamite (and Prem) jeopardizes his friendship with Unky in order to keep his relationship with Fire secret and experiences the consequences of Unky being mad that Dynamite didn’t out Fire. 

It is very rare that I feel compelled to write posts about characters in order to defend them, but that is exactly what I was doing when I wrote this Dynamite body language post.

Also, because this is the Choose Violence Ask Game. I will throw out a hot take:

if Mark Pakin had played Dynamite and the character had been exactly the same, we would not have seen the level of hate for Dynamite we saw for Aungpao's Dynamite. So.

Other characters I love with my whole being but that seem to have some contentious relationships to fandom are: Sailom from Wedding Plan, Patts from La Pluie, and Teh from I Told Sunset About You and I Promised You The Moon.

13. Worst blorboficiation

First Kanaphan. 

Not a character I know, but it has to be said. 

I love that man, but holy shit we need to stop baby-girl-ifying him. And when I say ‘we’ here I don’t just mean BL fans. I mean GMMTB themselves. First is an incredible actor, but the writers and directors always end up babygirl-ifying his characters by the end of their shows. Let! That! Man! Act! 

He can cry so well, it’s true. I understand the desire to let him cry on camera. I understand that his face and those stupid big brown baby cow eyes make it really really easy for him to become blorbo-able but dear GOD I am BEGGING someone to LET THAT MAN HAVE A CONSISTENT CHARACTER. I love Akk, I love him, but the way they handled his character makes him mushy, Sand started out really sarcastic with a kind of take no bullshit attitude and then became this simp, Yok was a phenomenal little slut who FUCKED A FUCKING COP and then cried when the cop (surprise surprise) betrayed him. 

As a point of comparison, the first show I saw Khaotung in was The Eclipse, so you could color me surprised when he showed up all tiny and timid and kind in A Tale of 1000 Stars. Because Ayan was kinda an asshole the entire show. He had a very specific personality that was sustained throughout the show. First did not have the same luxury.

Make Me Choose Violence