my brain is being a doofus so i need you guys to do me a favor and throw art prompts at me. maybe it will like your guys' ideas better than mine

fandoms: mp100, opm, batfam

Destiel in 15x03: “WHY DOES THAT SOMETHING ALWAYS SEEM TO BE YOU?”

CAS: You used to trust me, give me the benefit of the doubt. Now you can barely look at me.

CAS: My powers are failing. I’ve tried to talk to you, over and over, and you just don’t wanna hear it. You don’t care. I’m...dead to you. You still blame me for Mary?

[DEAN tilts head; says nothing]

CAS: Well I don’t think there’s anything left to say.

[CAS turns to walk away]

DEAN: Where’re you going?

CAS: Jack’s dead. Chuck’s gone. You and Sam have each other. I think it’s time for me to move on.

Cred: @xSimply_Mishax

- - - - - - 

Me: 

OH MY GOSH!!

I hope to get a full 15x03 review going next week after my Pharmacology quiz Monday, so I’m copying and pasting my sloppy thread from Twitter again--

Y'all can look at that scene as platonic or shitty storytelling, and your feelings are entirely valid, but in my humble opinion, this friggin' scene, right here, peeps...QUALITY PERSONAL STORYTELLING. A PUNCH IN THE NARRATIVE GUT!! Close friends — deep platonic friends — don't experience such an extreme magnitude of intense pain, hurt, and confrontation re: tangled and complicated feelings. The intentional sombre ambience, with bright harsh lighting conveying the harsh nature of Dean and Cas’ current relationship? Cas walking away, subverted from 4x20 The Rapture, YES @castielslostwings​, in which Dean’s (and Cas’) ultimate failure to use their words broke them irreparably (temporarily)? Cas internalizing his duty-bound calling to Heaven and splitting up with Dean at the end of 4x20 while, at the same time, experiencing his fall from grace re: Dean Humanity Winchester’s influence; then, in paralleling contrast to 15x03, he leaves Dean behind again, this time completely devoid of any positive self-process and hope upon the false knowledge that Dean hates him and no longer wants anything to do with him? The framing between Dean and Cas, with a single table and lonely lamp, once upon a time fixtures of comfort and discussion, exposing the isolation they both feel (not to mention Dean’s holding his own cup of booze — the typical cue that he’s going to cope badly)?

*clutches chest*

Sam was, since last season, easily able to realize (purposely able, in part because unlike Dean, he has a platonic relationship with Cas which allows him to use his RATIONAL judgement, not clouded by strong emotions) that Cas had NOTHING TO DO with Mary's death. 

This explosive ROMANTIC breakup between Dean and Cas specifically -- Sam locked away in his room a la S12/13 era grieving!Dean -- was the culmination of YEARS of messy feelings and unsaid emotions; Dean, fearing that what he has with his family — with CAS, isn't real — finally drove Cas to the edge. It was the only common (TERRIBLE) way Dean knew how to protect himself from getting hurt again. Most of all, by driving Cas away, he thought he was protecting both of them. 

I mean, DEAN HAD UNSHED TEARS IN HIS EYES THE ENTIRE TIME. WHEN HE SAW CAS WALK AWAY — as he tightly gripped the table with his hand — HIS HEART BROKE, alongside the orchestral swell of DEAN’S THEME. THIS SCENE WAS MEANT TO HURT BADLY. IT WAS MEANT TO TEAR THE BOND BETWEEN DEAN AND CAS APART. THIS NARRATIVE IS CANON. BOBO EXECUTED IT BEAUTIFULLY, INTERSPERSING DEAN AND CAS' SCENES WITH SAM/ROWENA. They both lost their respective allies. Friends. LOVERS (potential in Sam and Rowena’s case) (jeez louise the visual intercut between both of their scenes!!! My heart’s still pounding.)

So, let's go over this again: if Dean and Cas’ relationship truly is platonic in nature and nothing else beyond that, how come it's not SAM telling Cas he's always the thing that goes WRONG? (Besides the obvious fact that he was preoccupied himself, absolutely shattered over Cas parallel-Rowena’s death, which was a WILLFUL CHOICE ROWENA MADE ON HER OWN?)

 How come it's not SAM who still wrongly blames Cas for Mary's death? 

(Dean could barely look Cas straight in the eye precisely because he knew that what he said was irrevocably false.)

That's right: we DON'T see Sam treating Cas horribly because SAM ISN'T IN LOVE WITH CAS.

DEAN IS. 

It’s the beauty of these structural romantic patterns the underlying cyclic metanarrative’s been spinning us all with!!

THE LOVE DEAN FEELS FOR CAS IS SO IRRATIONAL AND SO TURBULENT AND YET SO RIGHT. IT'S BEEN A ROMANCE TROPE FOR YEARS: BREAK THEM UP FOR A MUCH SWEETER MAKEUP *throws self off cliff 49854985 times*

For now, Dean and Sam lost their closest allies. For now, Dean lost Cas, the most important man in his life, his sunshine, his win, his confidante...his spouse (and I tell you, the negative spaces are SCREAMING here. The subtext is pushing against the wall of text hard in S15). This scene was, for all intents and purposes, a smack-dabb fest of breaking up to pursue the last stretches of individual growth before they reunite to form a stronger unit. Remember, you can’t properly give yourself to another nor love another if you can’t love yourself. At this point, after the phenomenal hurdles of growth they experienced throughout the last 3 seasons, Dean and Cas are close to achieving full self-actualization! Almost there! Final regression before progression!

I mean, we’ve all been saying this for years now, too! THEY MUST USE THEIR WORDS, OR ELSE MISCOMMUNICATION WILL BE THE DEATH OF THEM. Tonight, it finally unfolded. The necessary smiting of their son Jack’s body, then Rowena’s literal death (which I humbly think isn’t permanent at this time for reasons I hope to explain later), offset by Cas’ metaphorical death via his walking out on Dean as a semi-regressed, hopeless shell of himself who thinks he no longer holds any ties — or has any meaningful place — in Dean’s life, shattered Team Free Will (Cas’ quiet “I think it’s time for me to move on” was the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever heard from him in the romantic context of the moment! Dean and Cas’ marital discord/tension was deliberately reaching an ugly peak since 15x01; their relationship encountered its worst Rupture yet. The ep literally encapsulated RUPTURE...the rupture of trust, love, faith, and hope. The writers are highlighting it incredibly well, and I’m sitting here holding my breath!!)

Chuck, the ultimate Big Bad and toxic father figure, was still exerting his oppressive presence despite his physical absence within their dialogue (and tonight’s main plot). His actions in 14x20 led them to this, prying open their deepest insecurities and allowing despair to take over again (Belphegor, significant exposition, expectedly triggered Cas’ fears by referring to his sense of expendability under Sam and Dean’s wing). It’s what Chuck wanted: to destroy the found Winchester family who dared to defy him --> Cas believes he’s unwanted by Dean and has no family. Dean believes he deserves Cas leaving him. 

WHAT A MESS!!

CONGRATULATIONS AND HUUGE APPLAUSE BOBO FOR CREATING THE BEST ANGSTY MISCOMMUNICATIVE TROPED-UP EMOTION-CENTERED EP SO FAR FOR THIS FINAL SEASON YET AGAIN!!

No joke. I shed some nasty tears, hand cupped over my mouth. The raw anguish of Jensen and Misha’s chemistry radiated off the screen!!

RATING: 10/10

Things must get worse before they get better, and Dabb & Co know it. (I’m cautiously optimistic, and I’m one of the annoying positive believers who do not think Cas is going to die at the end of this show. It simply would be the bottom-line crap cop-out for him and TFW as a collective. We shall see!!) 

Because I’m that much of a completionist...

Part 4: 2020 Year in Review

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Introduction

For anyone who missed my fit of data-collection madness (for fun!) in August, I gave into my own curiosity and combed the entire Flommy tag on AO3 to take a look into various trends over time, how the tag breaks down in terms of ship categories, etc. Since I took on the project when the year was slightly more than half over, any data collected for 2020 was year-to-date (YTD) and as such incomplete, compared to previous years. This fact (combined with how attached I’d already grown to my spreadsheet for this study) got me to consider adding a 2020 end-of-year wrap-up datapost. Now that 2020 is finally getting kicked out the door, let’s take a look at how the year shaped up for Flommy works!

Methodology

As noted in Part 1, the overarching goal of the study was to examine and catalogue the contents specifically within the “Tommy Merlyn/Felicity Smoak” relationship tag on Archive of Our Own. All works featured in these results are tagged as (or otherwise wrangled under) this relationship tag; though it’s doubtful that this is the case, any works featuring this relationship that are not tagged in this way (and thus do not appear) will not be counted.

By final data collection on December 31, 2020, there are 445 works total (inclusive of hidden works viewable and accessible only with an AO3 login) within the Flommy tag. (For context, there were 441 works for the earlier parts of this study that examined 2013 through 2020 YTD, the data for which was collected on August 5.) Measures defined in Parts 1 and 2 of this study still apply; however, the following category has been added with this installment:

Creator Seniority: denotes whether or not a creator has previously published a work within the Flommy tag

First-Year Flommy Creators are those who first posted in the tag in the year in question; creators may post multiple works in their first year and will still be counted in this category until the following year(s)

Existing Flommy Creators are returning creators to the tag, having posted their first work(s) in an earlier year

Publish Year and Update Year

Let’s start by taking a look at these charts again, to see how 2020 Full Year netted out compared to previous years. Both the Publish Year (accounting for all works published within a given year) and Update Year (the most recent year in which a work was updated, which also includes the works published that year) are depicted here, as they make similar shapes overall, but with some slight differences:

The key change here from the original Part 1 chart is 2020, but the full timeline helps to provide context. Back in August, 2020 was still tracking under 2019′s work count for both works published and works most recently updated; in terms of Publish Year, 2020 YTD had a -21% decrease in published works over the previous year. By year’s end, though, there were exactly as many works published in 2020 as there were in 2019, and a one-work increase for Update Year! While not the significant YOY increases in the early years of the tag, it also isn’t the steep declines as of late--holding steady is a good sign, given series’s end and the fact that this is becoming an even rarer pair as time goes on.

Some other Publish and Update Year Fun Facts:

Of the works updated in 2020, 25% were from an earlier Publish Year (the remaining 75% were all published in 2020)

At least one work published each year between 2015 and 2019 was updated in 2020, with 2018 holding the most previously published works updated this year

Creator Seniority

2020 seems like a good year to give our newest measure a test drive:

This year saw a fair amount of new Flommy creators contributing to the tag (myself included, to be honest), accounting for just over 2/3 of the total individual creators who published at least one work in 2020. I may put up previous years’ breakdowns for comparison as supplemental material, but even 2020 in isolation tells an interesting story--that despite the end of the series, new creators have stories to tell within this rare pair tag. 

(Granted, as noted in Part 2 with the breakdown of Relationship Tagging, there is a potential that some works were improperly tagged as romantic [/] that should be platonic [&], or feature Flommy in a minor capacity, but categorization beyond that would be more qualitative and subject to researcher bias.)

Some other Creator Seniority Fun Facts:

Though the majority of creators in the tag are First-Year Flommiers, 58% of the works published in 2020 were by Existing Flommy Creators

All new creators published one Flommy work in 2020, while some returning creators contributed multiple offerings

Share of Work Category

We’ll look first at Publish Year, then Update Year, for where the works fall by relationship tagging:

2020 did not yield any new [Compilation] works (AKA works tagged for both Flommy and O/F, but which are meant as prompt collections, ficlets, etc. where pairings differ by installment), nor were any updated, so we’ll only be focusing on the remaining four categories for these charts.

In a delightfully surprising turn, the majority of all new works were tagged as [Flommy Only] (works with no other romantically-tagged relationships)! This is cool to see, knowing that there are still new works coming specifically for these two. [Smoaking Billionaires] (tagged for the other pairings of the OT3 and/or indicative that it’s an OT3 and not a love triangle) follows as a close second, and interestingly, there were very few [Other] (tagged for both Flommy and O/F, but are not ficlet compilations or OT3--i.e. love triangles, potential platonic/familial tagging errors, etc.) works published in 2020.

But that’s just the works published in 2020: let’s take a look at the story when we factor in the works updated as well:

The percentages for two of our categories haven’t changed at all, but now [Other] has taken a bit of share from [Flommy Only], knocking the latter out of the top spot. [Other], indeed, was the category with the most works from previous years that were updated in 2020, which made up ground for the category since there weren’t many newly published works. By contrast, [Flommy Only] works were solely from 2020--no previous works were updated, which decreased its Update Year share.

Work Length and Completion Status

We’ll stick with Update Year for these, to get an idea of all the works that had new material added in 2020.

There are some interesting patterns with our work categories! The top two--[Smoaking Billionaires] and [Flommy Only]--are both split 50/50 between Multichapter and Oneshot, so both work lengths have had fair representation for these two categories. [Other], meanwhile, is the sole category whose 2020 contributions were entirely Multichapter works. As that’s a more nebulous category in terms of Flommy-tagging, there could be an interesting story there, but that’s again beyond the quantitative measures used here.

Now for Completion Status:

Interestingly, while both [Flommy Only] and [Smoaking Billionaires] had the 50/50 split for Work Length, at least half of each of their Multichapter works are marked as Complete on AO3. [Non-O/F], on the other hand, matches back to the Work Lengths perfectly, with all Multichapters still Ongoing and only the Oneshot marked as Complete. Our [Other] category, entirely comprised of Multichapter works, shows that just under a third of them are Complete.

Additional Relationships

Wrapping up the year-in-review with one last measure, which closed out Part 1 and the bonus Part 3--the comparison of works also tagged for Oliver/Felicity to those without:

This serves as a narrowing down of the existing Work Categories--[Smoaking Billionaires] and [Other] are rolled into the “With O/F” category, and [Flommy Only] and [Non-O/F] are rolled into the “Without O/F” one--and reflects the Publish Year data. 

Compared to the full 2013-2020 YTD charts shared previously, where the “With O/F” category held the majority, if we isolate 2020 on its own, the “Without O/F” category edges out the win by a slight margin. This is a notable feat, as I examined the splits for previous years, and not only did “With O/F” come out on top every year, it was by a considerable difference (the closest split was all the way back in 2014, where 62% of the works were “With O/F” and the remaining 38% “Without O/F”). 2020 is the first and only year so far to turn the tables, at least in terms of newly published works.

Conclusion

And with that, The Great Flommy Tag Analysis 2020 comes to a close! I admittedly have assorted other measures that weren’t previously included in dataposts that could make an appearance if there’s interest, but with this 2020 year-end wrap-up, that’s the end of the planned data analysis. Hopefully this served up a couple interesting bits of info, word- and chart-heavy as this study wound up being.

Callout post: me

lying, manipulative, hold grudges, constantly paranoid, would absolutely 100% check out a teenager if nobody was looking because "it's a harmless crime", liar, cycle through idealization and devaluation, 'sick of fat people trying to be the next civil rights issue and making it that much harder to get civil rights for people who are ACTUALLY oppressed like gee idk poc and muslims and the mentally ill and queer people', frequently fantasizes about committing violent acts against people I rationalize they deserve it including family members, untruthful, attention whore, pedantic AND pretentious, tells lies, doesn't believe in one sister's claim of sexual assault (went to smoke weed with the alleged perpetrator), UNAPOLOGETICALLY AGAINST ASEXUAL EXCLUSIONISM (LITERALLY FUCK YOU DUMBASS FOURTEEN YEAR OLDS WHO SHRIEK THAT QUEER IS A SLUR, SHUT YOUR GODDAM FUCKING WHORE MOUTHS YOU DUMBASSES AND GO THE FUCK OUTSIDE OR READ A BOOK), would absolutely punch a child over an insignificant internet argument, secretly sought out sexual pleasure from two friendly seemingly platonic encounters with two girls I just met within twenty four hours, overreacts to the slightest provocations and has bitches at or vagueposted at several people who did not deserve it, has used mental illness and physical handicap to evade trouble from being late for work because video games and laziness and excessive sleep, has spent maybe a thousand dollars on fast food in 2018 alone, evades bills for medical care from an actually great clinic, lying sack of garbage, gave up on calling out family's bigotry and is now an accessory to prejudice, despises terfs predominantly for their refusal to fuck me because of being trans and yet meanwhile would not engage in sexual relationship with another trans woman or cis man unless reeeeeeeeally drunk, can and will blame being sexually assaulted as a child which probably didn't even happen because I don't think I remember it, unabashed furry, probably as addicted to video games and masturbation AND LIES as I almost was to alcohol, pretended to have almost been an alcoholic just to "win" facebook arguments about addiction, doesn't give a fuck my dad almost died from heroin JUST because he's a *little* homophobic and racist and classist and xenophobic because of a christian upbringing, would literally fucking murder him if he EVER PUTS HIS HANDS ON ME AGAIN, only slightly depressed because of laziness and a lack of drive and ungrateful to my family because hey they didn't kick me out for being trans so HEY THATS SUPPORTIVE ENOUGH FOR SOME OTHER PEOPLE SO WHY CANT I BE HAPPY WITH THAT, legitimately salty about ~the friendzone~ and just makes fun of incels because everybody else does, takes the moral high ground for not being a misogynist even though I don't deserve a pat on the back a lap dance and a blowjob for not hating women, overly sensitive about stupid things, thinking about faking having a trigger warning for more discourse credit, HUUUGE ASSHOLE to men I deem unattractive for no other reason than every single ugly fat guy I've ever met has been an asshole, rationalizes it after the fact because they eventually say something shitty because all men are terrible, probably a little bit of a cisnormative misandrist because trans men tend to be much better people, finds trans men attractive (specifically and significantly more so than cis men) so must clearly be fetishizing them, relatively okay with people referring to me as deadnamed and the wrong pronouns so probably just lying about being trans to everyone including myself, not 100% okay with the hijab for 'no reason other than all organized religion is evil and opposed to its mandate and the shame it forces on many women in many situations the exact same way I'm opposed to no sex before marriage and wives being subservient to their husbands and treating women as property in the torah and quran alike because ITS ALL BRAINWASHING' so is clearly not unlearning islamophobia and doesn't want to let that go, hypocrite because I believe in the basics of judeochristianity

and loathe atheism and atheists entirely because their smugness and smarm literally sets my blood pressure through the roof of what is safe and normal and yet claim to hate all organized religion, mansplains yet gets so pissed off when other people mansplain to me, judgmental of other cultures because they don't have the exact same values that I have, james gunn apologist, talks and talks and talks about anarchosocialism all damn day but would beat the shit out of a coworker for leaving me to do things because they're lazy because "any job worth doing is worth doing well" and other capitalismisms, literally couldn't give less of a fuck that his mother is dying because people die but it's no reason to make my life slightly harder and making me work hard when I work because BOO HOO MY LEGS HURT FROM THE LITERALLY MOST MILD CASE OF MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY I COULD'VE BEEN BORN WITH, hasn't actually performed real suicide attempt ever but still claims to have done so to attain sympathy that may result in physical affection, countless other shitty terrible things that yeah I recognize are bad but CANT SEEM TO CARE BECAUSE I HAVE DEPRESSION... WHICH IS THE WEAKEST FUCKING EXCUSE IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE GODDAMN WORLD

I am not a good person, okay?

I just pretend to be sometimes.

I'm sick of doing it, I'm sick of trying to do well and earn people's approval by doing and saying the right things only to just be ignored which is a step up from receiving many anons that hey, never actually told me to kill myself, but did take my words out of context to paint me as a racist. I am not the kind of racist who would vote for trump and march with the kkk. that is one of very few good things I can say about myself. but I'm an arrogant, violent, and angry opinionated perverted manipulative judgmental lying asshole. I'm not a good person. I have let myself fall so much and I deserve to be alone. my only connections to people were built on personal gain and I swear to myself that I do love them but those feelings fall away in direct correlation to how much they interact with me. I could love you to the point of obsession and stalking and one month later be completely and totally disinterested. I'm a bigot who pretends to not be bigoted and just parrots what other people say not because I believe it but because it's the right thing to say, and I only say what the right thing is to say because whenever I say a good thing something good will happen to me and if I say a bad thing something bad happens to me. it's all just self preservation, nothing else at all. but now I'm at the end of a road of just trying to do good and I'm alone. out of the only two friends that I can really say that I have left, one is far away and trapped in a guilt spiral that I caused by being too clingy, and the other has been behaving in a way my mind has decoded as defensive around me which makes sense as I have been very... the best way to describe it would be the way a dudebro incel interacts with any person who possesses a vagina/breasts but sneakier. in both relationships I've pushed my own wants and desires in extremis... I can't for the life of me recall the last time I have ever offered something in return other than my own company or paying for a meal at a restaurant or I guess transportation. and instead of sex I just want them to express even the slightest bit of intimate platonic physical affection towards me but that's still a lot to offer someone who has clearly expressed the existence of a sexual and maybe something near the realms of romantic in one of the cases physical attraction because for this aspec it's practically the same fucking thing.

and I've manipulated them to attain this goal. at this point my shit brain has considered just fucking going to town on my wrists with a razor blade to draw sympathy so that I'll get a hug or something beyond just a simply hello/goodbye, and finding a way to induce tears to concoct a sob story to reach the same end result, and one time very briefly via threat and intimidation so you can clearly see that I've gone far too into irredeemable territory. I've been playing and replaying cry of fear because it's just too similar to my own issues and the first ending where he just kills everyone he loves and then himself... I see me in that ending. and it scares me so much more than the sprinting screaming twitching one hit kill chainsaw guy ever will. I don't want that to be me, I want to change something, but I just can't get the help that I need. I had hoped to go for a domino effect, where if I could be cuddled for like five minutes or something, I'd have the energy to be more hygienic, which would make me feel capable enough to take on two jobs, which would get me the cash flow I need to pay my bills and take care of my hormones, which would put me in the headspace necessary to effectively use psychological help, which would let me get over my illnesses and actually become a more successful person instead of the pathetic husk I am here in non-fantasy land.

but that won't happen.

I'm just sitting here in the dark angsting about how nobody will touch me in a way that would produce oxytocin, and it's making me so sick, so physically sick, that it's affecting my brain too. I'm in pain, nauseous, vengeful, spiteful, paranoid, judgmental, and lonely. I'm stuck and I can't even kill myself because my mind wants me to stay alive and suffer through all of this because "oh it gets better" people have been saying that for well over half of my life. I was six or seven years old when I asked my mother to kill me, and that same level of desperation and bitterness has only gotten worse as time goes by. when does it get better? I'll tell you when it gets better, after I'm in prison or comatose or forty five years old with a cane and bad eyes and high blood pressure and lung cancer from all the secondhand smoke I've breathed in my life. when my life is over, that's when it gets better. I DONT WANT THAT. I WANT A NORMAL FUCKING LIFE RIGHT NOW. I WANT NORMAL FRIENDSHIPS AND A NORMAL HOME AND A NORMAL EDUCATION AND A NORMAL CAREER AND A NORMAL FAMILY. or at least I want someone to hold me and make me feel like I'm not so horrible and broken that I can't be touched.

but that's too much to ask for.

The reason I think Zoro is abusive to Sanji is because he treats him like he isn't even a human. It's gone BEYOND bickering. I get that friends argue, but friends don't treat friends as if they mean nothing. Zoro reminds me so much of so many of my childhood bullies; the things he does, says, and just the way he hold himself. They do have normal arguments, but they usually start or end with Zoro saying something awful. FRIENDS DON'T TREAT FRIENDS LIKE THEY'RE WORTHLESS

Also, I noticed that in the tags to that post you said that you weren’t sure if you had changed my mind or just spit in my face; do you really think THAT changed my mind? Maybe you would have, if you hadn’t been so mean and aggressive about it. I’m always open to changing my opinion if there is proper information to support it, but because you decided that my question warranted aggression I probably won’t. Personally I would have answered any ask more politely but that might just be me. 

First up, I would like to acknowledge two things: I was passive aggressive.  I was very frustrated at the time because I like to talk. I like to express myself in the written form and that frustration bled into my language. I apologise if my words read hatefully towards you. I also should have been conscious that I had no idea what sort of context you were speaking from but I would like to state given the information on you I had available at the time, I wrongfully assumed you were going to be speaking from sort of puritanical, anti-problematic anything stance. If that is not the case, I doubly apologise and I hope you feel as though this is coming from the bottom of my heart because I am genuinely apologising.

Secondly, I would like to acknowledge that I am definitely projecting onto canon for where i’m going to pull my interpretations on hence, why I included that reply - not because I think the person who left said reply is the same person has asked for an explanation as to how I perceive the canon dynamics and relationships of Sanji between the two Strawhats in question.

I one hundred percent wholly believe in the True Companions and Found Family tropes the Strawhats are built on. Are made of. I realise there is a lot of bias because I have an embarassingly deep desire to have a friendship group that emulates the Strawhats due to my own experiences in real life friendships. Perhaps I’ve been socialised to accept what goes beyond the boundaries of “normal friendships” and this is completely screwed bias talking but….

I refuse to let anyone slander their canon relationships of friendships, of nakama, of familial bonds.

Sanji and Zoro are built on the comical trope of bickering. One Piece is a comedy. Their friction is played for laughs because it is shown time and time again that when the going gets tough, well they stick it out together. That is the formula their platonic relationship works on. 

However, fanon is a completely different issue. Seeing your childhood bullies in Zoro is fanon. Seeing romantic relationships between most of the characters is fanon. Seeing abusive or hateful relationships between the Strawhats is most definitely fanon since time and time again, the Strawhats have proven they would go through Hell for each other. Each and everyone one of them would. Every single combination of them would because they love each other: they’re what I could consider platonic soul mates. Including Sanji and Zoro.

Unfortunately Anon, the best advice I can give to you to this ridiculous discourse to an end is that you have to learn to cherry pick your fanon better. Blacklist characters you don’t like. Blacklist ships and buzz words you hate. Avoid the stripes of artists and writers who don’t cut it for you. That’s okay. 

Everyone brings their personal context to a piece of media first and foremost and that affects how they will react and interpret. 

My next piece of advice is that if you think you’ll dislike something, don’t bother asking those who like it why they like it. Even if you have the intention of wanting to be open minded and wanting to change your own mind, it never ends well.

You’re allowed to have the most popular ships in fandom as your NOTPs and you’re allowed to say that. I have. On this very blog. I have mentioned time and time again that I dislike LawLu/most Luffy ships in general. So, I just avoid and blacklist whilst maintaining a belief of “ship and let ship” because I accept and acknowledge people will have differing perceptions of media. I love the diversity. Sometimes, it leads to conflict but sometimes, it can lead to something beautiful.

TLDR: blacklist, unfollow, block and avoid because we all have different experiences and those experiences will affect perceptions of media and surround yourself with fanon you agree with.

And please don’t try and find my main. I don’t want this there either.

So, to conclude: have a nice day, Anon.

- Mod Strawhat

i've never written sexual alec/lydia, period and anyone who is perpetuating that has not read the fic in question. i am a queer woman but not mlm, so i can't speak faithfully to whether any of my fics have come across as fetishistic, but if they have i would welcome the feedback on how to grow and improve

Hi! I (mod Ira) have taken the liberty of providing some pointers to your writing. First, and most importantly, I’d like to discuss non-platonic Alec/Lydia in fic. Something much of fandom seems unable to understand is that Lydia and Alec’s relationship is inherently toxic. In the beginning of season one, we see Alec as a terrified closeted gay man, willing to commit suicide before being outed to anyone. Lydia knows he has feelings for Magnus before they get married, and goes through with it anyway. She was in a position of power over him, because she never expected him to back out of the marriage, and so takes advantage of him. After the wedding kiss, Alec says that Lydia letting him go saved his life.

Many non-mlm have trouble understanding that writing non-platonic Alec/Lydia is inherently homophobic. Lydia was more than Alec’s temporary beard. Lydia was a manipulative person who took advantage of Alec’s trauma to gain an Institute. Creating au’s in which they are planning to marry is trivializing the trauma and internalized homophobia from Alec’s experiences of living in such a deeply homophobic society. Mlm can write this in order to relate it to their own experiences, and some even find it helpful to work through their own related trauma. People who are not mlm shouldn’t use it as a plot device to further Alec and Magnus’s relationship.

I’d also like to discuss a common trope in malec fics. The infantilization of Alec Lightwood in order to make him more desirable for sex is fetishistic. This is seen in your fics No Sweeter Innocence and blow me (one last kiss). Sexual inexperience is different from being bashful, blushing and embarrassed, especially when the Alec we see on screen is nothing like that. Alec in canon would resent being coddled and being seen as an innocent baby who doesn’t understand what he wants enough to articulate asking to be taken to bed, why do you write him that way? 

Another issue we see is Magnus as the Ever Giving Partner while Alec sits around sucking him dry of affection. The balance between their affection is concerning. Why is Magnus the one constantly smothering Alec in love and pet-names while Alec is allowed to eat it up and never give back? Furthermore, there is again not much evidence in canon to support this. Alec is the one seen giving Magnus gifts, initiating intimacy, confessing his feelings first, and seeking Magnus out for company. Rarely is it the other way around. Why do you see Magnus as the one who lives and breathes affection and waxes poetic about Alec, and why do you see Alec as the one who has most of the orgasms and let’s Magnus coddle him? 

On a more personal note, we never said your fics were garbage. Many of your fics are very sweet, I enjoyed your Found Family ‘Verse quite a lot! And yes, we’re giving you feedback to improve your writing, like you asked, even though mlm don’t exist to keep non-mlm from being fetishistic. The amount of entitlement to ask for an explanation and then vague us on your blog before actually receiving a response is astounding. I hope this was helpful!!!

Hey, it’s Tyler here. If you’re still reading I have commentary, too. First off, I am going to say that I am at fault - I should have read your works before taking the word of someone else (who was a mlm so I did trust his word, and still do). It is totally on me for not fact checking and I will remember to fact check before I state things as fact. However, he was not wrong to say your works were fetishistic nor was he wrong in suggesting we not rec your fics. (There was fetishization in your fics and while there was not sexual Alec/Lydia, there was romantic Alec/Lydia).

Onto your fic: First Comes Love. As Ira mentioned earlier, Alec is infantilized a lot. But most notably is how you write him as if he’s unable to make decisions or do anything for himself when that isn’t the Alec we see on screen. You make Lydia the decision maker (which she is, canonically, but so is Alec) and you make Magnus… well, I wouldn’t call it predatory but it’s really uncomfortable how he flirts with Alec, notices Alec’s uncomfortable, stops briefly, and then starts flirting again. Yes, Magnus is flirty but I don’t believe he would flirt with anyone when he knows they’re uncomfortable. (I mean, canonically Magnus told Alec he would back off if he [Alec] could say he was in love/loved Lydia and canonically Magnus did tell Maryse he would leave if Alec told him to).

I know Ira didn’t read “First Comes Love” but the whole dynamic between Alec and Magnus was… well, I wouldn’t say it is predatory because I’m not a 100% sure it is but it is uncomfortable. I think what makes it uncomfortable is how Alec has been infantilized to a point where it is completely out of character for him.

However, I’m not here to tell you how to better that fic because I actually discourage it. I read your disclaimer but ignoring canon, the relationship you have written is extremely unhealthy. It is very one-sided, Lydia seems to be the voice in the relationship and the one who ‘runs’ the relationship to the point Alec doesn’t really have an opinion on anything.

Anyway, I want to talk about your disclaimer.

Updated A/N: Just to clarify, I tagged this fic as ‘alec/lydia’ and added an extra warning tag because I know some people don’t want to read alec/women regardless of context and I want to respect that.

Ask yourself why do people not want to read Alec/women regardless of context? It’s not just a matter of it being uncomfortable. Yes, it is uncomfortable but it is also extremely disrespectful. It is disrespectful because it is taking an experience that a lot of gay men relate to and may have been through and turned it into a plot device. Our lives, our experiences, are not meant to be used as plot devices in fanfiction and they are not meant to be used by non-mlm.

And furthermore, if you wanted to respect us not wanting to read Alec/women (or, for some, not even wanting to see Alec/women) you would not write it. Period. Full stop.

As a gay man, when I watched that episode I can’t even describe the amount of pain and discomfort I experienced because I thought Alec was going to marry Lydia. Just imagine the pain and discomfort I experienced as an outsider, as someone just watching a tv show, now amplify that by a 1000 and you probably have the exact feeling that Alec felt, that every mlm who was forced into a straight marriage/relationship.

However, two things about this story, 1) Alec is gay, 2) the only pairing presented romantically is Alec/Magnus. Not offended if it’s still not your cup of tea, but just want to make that clear if people are trying to judge from tags alone.

It isn’t, though. Alec/Lydia is presented as a romantic pairing. In the fic, they are engaged- that is an inherently romantic relationship. You cannot write a relationship where two characters are engaged or even married and then turn around and say, “oh but it’s not romantic” because those are romantic relationships.

That’s all I have to say on that and if you’re still around I also read “Blow Me (One Last Kiss).” But I have to agree with Ira on literally everything that he said. Also one thing they didn’t address is… please if you’re going to write smut, please say ‘dick’ or ‘penis’ - not length.

Also not to critique a smut scene because that was the last thing I thought I’d be doing at 6 o’clock on a Monday morning but I feel like it would be physically impossible for Alec to do what you’re saying he is doing. Unless Alec just doesn’t have a gag reflex.

On a personal note. I would like to say something about the vaguing which I didn’t really appreciate when I saw your blog. You messaged us, probably seeking an apology, and feedback. Which we were both very happy to give but after we saw your blog we were kind of… thrown. I can’t speak for Ira but for me, personally, I found it childish. Why message us then vague us or vague us then message us? I get vaguing, I vague people all the time, but I don’t turn around and message them - or vice versa.

I’m gonna be frank, had you not messaged us we never would have seen your vague and you know what that’s perfectly fine. You can talk shit about us and spread lies and over-exaggerate what I said (not Ira, because they weren’t a mod at the time) and I frankly don’t give a fuck. I would rather someone not message me giving off the air of politeness and civility and then turn around and talk shit. That’s fake as hell.

But onto your vague posts which I have some problems with because some of the things really rubbed me the wrong way. Specifically the amount of entitlement.

“apparently a sh mlm blog rec’d one of my fics but then removed it and like made a recant post basically saying someone had told them i write fetishistic fic and ‘sexual alec/lydia’ so they would never post any of my fic again.”

Specifically the “so they would never post any of my fic again” part rubbed me the wrong way. You are not entitled to our spaces and we do not owe it to you to promote your fic, especially if we don’t feel the material you are writing is something that should be promoted. We are not here to promote the fics of people who fetishize mlm or portray Alec/Lydia. Actually, our blog’s purpose is to raise up the voices of mlm and we aren’t obligated to promote anyone who isn’t mlm. But the fact that you felt entitled to our spaces is just beyond infuriating.

i dunno how many followers they have but they posted my ao3 tag and everything

As of this posting we have 108. And I didn’t “post [your] ao3 tag and everything.” I stated your ao3 username, yes, but I hardly call that “everything.” I posted what I did because I choose to try and take responsibility for my actions - as I am doing right now.

(and like, tbf i would try to be open to whatever criticism this person has on the first point because i’m not mlm obvs so i’m sure i’m not perfect by any stretch, but the second point could only be made by someone who’s literally never read my fic so..)

On this part… if someone asks us for feedback, I will give it to them. However, it is not our job to go out of our way to educate every single fetishistic or homophobic fic writer. Your job, as a writer and as someone portraying mlm when you are not a mlm, is to go out and do the research and educate yourself and make sure you’re not portraying us in a negative/fetishistic light. Not to sit back and publish your work until someone comes along and tells you, “hey this is fetishistic” or “this is homophobic.” Your job, as a writer, is to make sure that doesn’t happen.

And our job, as mlm, is to make sure we aren’t promoting fics that are homophobic and/or fetishistic. (And yes, you can be homophobic despite being a queer woman and stating that you’re a queer woman is not a get out of jail free card).

if you don’t want to read my fics that’s awesome but since you haven’t actually read them can you maybe not tell everyone else they’re garbage? thanks

Neither of us has said your fics are garbage so again with the twisting of our words and over-exaggeration. All I said was that someone brought it to my attention that you write fetishistic portrayals of mlm (which you do) and sexual Alec/Lydia (which you don’t, but you do write romantic Alec/Lydia) and that I would not rec your fics on a blog by mlm for mlm. And that is fully within my rights. We do not have to cater to you or any non-mlm.

I said anyone could follow as long as they are respectful of the fact that this is a safe space for mlm because I feel non-mlm should be able to hear our thoughts on how mlm are portrayed and see proper portrayals of mlm.

But I will not tolerate people feeling entitled to our spaces because the only people entitled to this space is mlm.

Since I'm biased towards Slytherins and Gryffindor-Slytherins, could you tell us more about Suenya, Talxin and Nyrene?

Ooh! Yeah I can, but be warned, I could write a whole essay on any one of these characters. This is gonna be LONG, so I’m putting it under a cut for the sake of everyone’s feeds. (Also I’m sorry I didn’t get to this sooner, I don’t know when you sent it but tungle is eating my inbox notifications I guess...) 

Nyrene is.... kooky. In the words of the immortal TVTropes, she’s a cloudcuckoolander. Ny is weird and unabashedly so, partially because she’s actually Like That and partially as a tactic to unnerve and disarm the people around her. That’s why I think she’s a Slytherin, her entire gimmick is deception. People don’t lie well when they’re faced with something (or someone) that completely contradicts their understanding of reality. Ny’s one of my oldest non-fairy OCs and her original characterization was a direct manifestation of my most infamous ADHD-fueled manic episodes, if that gives you any idea of what we’re working with here. She probably does have actual ADHD but there’s more to her weirdness than that, she’s deliberately exaggerating stuff and she’s also just a super dramatic person. Very smart, surprisingly emotionally mature, but sometimes flips out over random stuff. Her ethics are questionable. 

Underneath the kookiness, Nyrene’s incredibly clever. Her main power as purple paladin is the ability to manipulate time, typically by traveling through closed loops. This takes a ton of coordination, memory, and clever improvisation. She’s constantly keeping a record of everywhere she goes, everything she touches, everything she sees and hears, so that she doesn’t overlap herself by mistake. Paradoxes are potentially lethal, after all. As a result, she can be a bit spacey, which reinforces how weird she is... but you can’t underestimate her. She’s paying attention to everything. Like, she’ll miss being spoken to or miss random information for the sole reason that she’s too busy memorizing everything else. The proof of her intelligence is the fact that she does this successfully and hasn’t broken reality yet. No dead timelines allowed here. In theory, she could jump forward through time or even pause it, but she’s never tried--it’s not safe to mess around with that stuff, the consequences could be even more devastating than those of the closed loops she currently works in. 

Way back in the day when I first made these characters, Nyrene and Syzyga had a really close relationship--sometimes I shipped them romantically, sometimes they were just platonic BFFs, but they were always stuck together as a duo. In the current iteration of the story they’re still very close, I think Syz is the only person who really gets what Nyrene’s deal is. Anlied knows in theory that Nyrene’s smarter than she looks, but Syzyga gets it. Syz is also pretty good at making Nyrene calm down when Ny loses her temper or just freaks out about something. They play well together. 

Another big part of why Nyrene’s Like That is her origin story, she’s from Nemmonay. Nemmonay is the weirdest setting in the Nymiaverse, it’s basically just one island off the coast of Kelrie, but it’s walled up and has survived attacks by all three of the other realms on the continent. Nemmonay’s  home to a lot of pirates and criminals, anyone fleeing the law in another country or who just doesn’t buy into the “system” of normal society. There’s a whole little hierarchy and social order to it, but the Nemmonese system grows out of pure anarchy and things could tip over at any time. Nyrene grew up there as the daughter of a major Nemmonese power family. Her mom is even smarter and more ruthless than she is, Pagala Enkeli is on another level of badass. Pagala also raised Nyrene with um.... with a really questionable set of ethics. I mean, they’re anarchist pirate gangsters, some of that’s just to be expected. Nyrene got her goofball act from her mother and took it up to 11, Nyrene also got her intelligence from Pagala--Pagala’s a chessmaster type and Nyrene is chessmaster junior. Ny knows a ton of different ways to kill people, pick pockets, manipulate a fight, and just generally get what she wants. What she’s lacking in is a sense of social awareness. She reads people like a book but doesn’t understand that she shouldn’t always do that, she has strong battlefield instincts but doesn’t always realize that she can’t punch or time-loop all her problems away. that’s why Syz is good for her. Pagala tried to teach Nyrene manipulation and social savvy, but Ny’s just not that good at it. Everyone’s bad at something. 

Soenya’s different...so she comes from a pretty remote area up in northern Sapir. The Sapiran Empire is the biggest realm of Nymia by far, but most of it is very sparsely populated because of how barren and cold it is. Sapir’s got a lot of mountains, a lot of tundra, and only a small handful of places where people could reasonably expect to live the year in one place. I want to take inspiration from IRL northern cultures to start building these remote settlements, I’m still deciding if I want to lean more towards Siberian cultures or American indigenous groups in terms of reference. Either way, the point is, Soenya’s from a tiny place up on the northern Sapiran coast that’s very small and close-knit and cold. Before the Academy she had very little exposure to anything beyond her village/group, and she was one of the only magic users she knew. 

She’s uh... she’s enthusiastic about people. Soenya’s a constant flirt, wants to get in everyone’s pants, and if she’s not attracted to you then she’s peppering you with random questions about whatever’s on her mind. She’s nosy and can’t mind her own business. She and Nyrene butt heads a lot because they’re both very strange people, but in different ways--Nyrene is reclusive and likes to be enigmatic for effect, where Soenya is nearly impossible to unnerve, at least not in the way Nyrene likes to unnerve people. Ny doesn’t know what to do when she genuinely can’t freak someone out? And of course Soenya’s noticed this and uses it to mess with Nyrene right back... Soenya’s pretty clever. She’s not that book smart (for reasons explained) but she’s good with people and has strong intuition. She’s got that good good folksy knowledge. She’s also pretty competitive, and she tends to provoke Nyrene’s competitive instincts whenever she gets going, because they just cannot STAND each other. Nyrene doesn’t like that Soenya won’t react to her weirdo act, Nyrene doesn’t like that Soenya keeps flirting with her (and everyone else). Soenya doesn’t like that Nyrene won’t give her a straight answer, and Soenya thinks Nyrene’s behavior means she’s a medical oddity--who’s ever heard of a person going senile by the age of 20? 

Soenya’s the paladin of yellow and that gives her some serious trickster instincts. She can control weather (within reason), talk to animals once in a blue moon (elk/deer and rabbits are the easiest bc she grew up around them), and she gets a power boost when somebody underestimates her or doesn’t take her seriously. She’s super annoying in a fight. 

I’m still developing Soenya as a character, because her role in the story has changed a lot since her creation--originally she was an antagonist, being mind controlled by the villain from the very beginning and fucking with the heroes all the time. she was also banging the villain (which given the context and character ages is gross and creepy, @past me WTF!!!), and then I deleted her entirely from the story for a while because I didn’t want to deal with the baggage of that original character dynamic. I’ve brought her back because she’s a really fun character and I like her, I want her to be part of the good guy team now, but I’m still figuring out who she is. You know? So pretty much everything I’ve said here could change. All I’m sure about is that she’s still a flirt, just with people worth flirting with, and she really hates Nyrene. (It’s mutual.)

Of the three you asked about, Talxin’s probably the most thoroughly developed, just because he’s a little more straightforward? He’s a beaten-down guy who’s been through shit and who’s fighting to make sure nobody else has to suffer the way he did. Archetypal antihero stuff. He’s brave, and stubborn, and smarter than he looks. He’s also impulsive and reckless, leaving him vulnerable to the darker side of his powers. Talxin’s what you get when I rewatch the Star Wars prequels and get pissed about how cool and morally ambiguous Anakin deserved to be. 

Talxin’s small, and for most of these characters’ early development he stays that way in his friends’ minds. Fair warning, his backstory is HEAVY and really dark, and one of the things I’m most worried about in terms of actually executing this story well. He grew up basically enslaved--Elcrin has a really really broken system of generational punishment. Talxin’s grandfather committed a crime, what he did is irrelevant, and so the family line got stuck as “indentured servants” to pay for the crime. Talxin’s dad Temerius was supposed to earn his freedom at age 20, but the owner of the farm where they all worked framed Temerius for another offense to lengthen the sentence and trap his children with him. So Talxin grew up in a horribly broken system, being told that this was justice, while his parents raised him worshiping the colorgod Red as a champion of true justice--all things equal in death. That later became Talxin’s mantra as a paladin. When Talxin was chosen as the red paladin in early childhood, he was attacked by the lord of the farm for having heathen magic, and he panicked and caused a ton of destruction. He got arrested and taken to an actual jail (this all when he was like four years old), escaped a few years later, and he’s been in and out of prison. Being called to the Academy for formal paladin training was a respite, and in his eyes, a chance for a fresh start and the tools to free his family. And then the Academy fell apart and he got sent right back to where he came from.

So what you end up with, after all of this, is a kid with a horribly fucked up traumatic history and a massive amount of power at his disposal. Because redmages are rare and persecuted, Talxin proportionally has a LOT more magic than the other paladins, he’s the strongest one of the lot. He’s got a strong sense of justice and he’s very much willing to kill to make things right--all things are equal in death, after all, and his patron deity is a god of plague and decay as well as justice. And he’s fixated on getting vengeance for the cruel and unjust treatment of his family, who’ve been scattered on the winds during the few years he was at the Academy. 

Talxin’s... really, really brave. Brave enough that when he’s sent back to Elcrin after the Academy falls apart he goes right back to the system and starts breaking it apart, rescuing people from the law and stealing shit from the corrupt government and making a big loud mess. In a demon AU I once nicknamed him��“frog Robin Hood.” He’s also smart enough to get away with it. He’s a minor antagonist for a little bit, even... he winds up losing control of his magic and going way too far. All of the colors have minds of their own to some degree, and Red is vengeful and destructive and bent towards revenge. Talxin goes on a killing spree, which is fine when he’s killing people who deserve to burn in hell, but he starts hurting innocents too in the process. He loses sight of why he’s fighting, the ideals and morals and drive for justice that led Red to choose him above anyone else. Plagues don’t just stop spreading once they’ve done away with your targets, famines hit the people he wants to protect so much harder than the people he wants to hurt. The other paladins have to step in and talk him down before he starts something he can’t stop. I feel like he’s stuck between Gryffindor and Slytherin in my head because although he’s so daring and brave, he’s also ambitious and willing to do some very unchivalrous things when pushed to the line. He’s got a difficult goal to reach but nothing’s gonna stop him. 

As you’d expect from a character with this kind of life story, he’s pretty serious. He’s quiet and keeps to himself, he’s always watching and listening... the main word I’d describe him with is intense. But at the same time, he’s got a great sense of humor when he feels safe enough to express it! He’s sweet and goofy, and he cares so so much about his family and friends and acquaintances and any random stranger on the street who looks sad enough. He also plays fantastic elaborate tricks on people who fuck with him, like, in a modern AU he’s the one who sneaks into your nasty ex’s house just to steal all their toilet paper and the batteries from the TV remotes. And then he leaves the doors open so they waste money on heating. He’s the god of April Fools’. When it comes to his primary objective, he takes himself and everything else very seriously, he’s willing to put aside minor moral issues for the greater good. But if you get him to come out of his angst shell and just be a person for a little while, he’s a genuinely good guy. He’s not quite at Batman levels, there’s still hope for him yet. He’s just lonely and angry and desperate for affection. 

Talxin’s very close with Nyrene and Syzyga, out of everyone at the Academy he probably trusts those two the most, but he gets along great with Pariya too once she shows up. He wants to like Soenya but he doesn’t trust her, something about her sets off his internal alarm bells. Anlied scares the living shit out of him. He may or may not have dated Syzyga at some point in the past, they were a couple in past versions of this story but I’m not sure their current iterations are compatible. He’s got an older sister named Elysia, Lyss for short, whom he hasn’t seen since he was very small. He’s been trying to reconnect with her ever since the Academy caved in but she’s nowhere to be found. Nyrene actually finds her first. 

So yeah! Those three! They’re a LOT, Talxin in particular is really fascinating to me. Nymia doesn’t really have a protagonist in the traditional sense, but I think Talxin’s the closest to playing that role, as his personal arc drives so much of the story so far. Whether he’s the hero or not, he exerts a major force of change on the world of Nymia, and everything he does is important. The others influence things, sure, but Talxin’s.... he’s that. He’s a big deal. He’s a symbol. 

Nyrene’s arguably the most fun to write, though, just because she’s so delightfully weird. It’s entirely in character for Nyrene to do something just because it’s funny, or just to see what happens next. She thrives on other people’s confusion.