I'm finally reading Midnight Sun, and it's kind of insane how...Edward Edward blatantly is in this book. Like, somewhere on your blog you compare it to American Psycho, and I totally get what you mean. It's so fking long compared to Bella's POV, and if Edward wasn't whining and moaning about how terrible and damned he is the entire time, it would be 100 pages. (Oh, and this is while he continues to do the terrible and immoral things that he feels so bad about--like he's self aware, to a point, but it's all just for show, and he's not going to stop planning Mike's murder or sneaking into Bella's room and watching her sleep all night.)

Oh my God, and the other thing is that every SINGLE page, he takes some time to talk about how good Bella smells and how nice her skin is, and he's always sticking his face in her neck and inhaling like he's high. He doesn't say, "I find you & your [specific trait] so attractive", no, it's basically all about her flesh, her warmth, her 'delicateness' and fragility (e.g. humanity, e.g. the fact that he could kill her if he wanted to), and the CONSTANT SNIFFING is so uncomfy. Like, it's so blatant that his favorite thing about her is her ODOR, and everything else takes a backseat.

I remember the obligatory period of time (ages ago) I went through hating on Twilight for how much of a creep Edward is, but now I finally understand--I've seen the light!!!! The books are good, precisely because of how much of a creep Edward is, and because it's just so obvious and horrifying and entertaining, and the entire thing is such a shitshow. Midnight Sun is so much worse in that regard than Twilight, because he's basically ranting and deranged the entire time and we don't have any breaks.

I just wanna thank you for your metas, because I enjoy them so much, and now that I'm finally reading one of the books after having been indoctrinated over, I'm noticing all these crazy moments. Like, there was one scene where Bella forgives Edward for (I think this was what it was about) watching her sleep for months, and then right after, Edward compares the moment and the relief he felt then to when he came back from his "bender" and Carlisle forgave him, and I thought that was really telling that he was comparing those two situations and people...

Also, it's insane how melodramatic he is. Like every 10 pages, he'll say something that'll remind me of one of your or Muffin's metas, and it's giving me life.

Anyway, love your takes and fics!!!! <3

I'm so happy to hear this, and it's very validating (as three years on, it's easy to forget just how... Edward... Edward is). You're making me want to read the book again.

Thank you so much for the lovely words!

Look, @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin, a lovely anon!

probably didn't word this right, cause I'm seething so much but

honestly while I do like the "kidnap fam" since canonically the book says there was great love between the twins and maglor, I wouldn't go as far as boasting that as an achievement of the feanorians (like some posts and fics do) seeing as they destroyed doriath and then destroyed sirion, which is full of refugees cause like suddenly saving the twins (sorry elrond and elros, love you tho) absolves them of the sins of the many innocent people they killed like ??? it's a good thing the twins grew up nice tho I never gave that credit to the feanorians, I always assume since earendil was nice af, they inherited that from him

some would even go as far as portray the murderers as the good guys while the mother whose life was destroyed TWICE by these murderers is implied to be the fucking villain like they drove the twins mother into committing suicide (and I know some of y'all wouldn't admit that because despite whining about having less female characters in silm, y'all still hate complex female characters like elwing) and y'all were like THAT HORRENDOUS BITCH And the fact that there are less fic of elwing reuniting with elronds family says so much lol

im sorry for the rant, because as someone who discovered silmarillion recently, this hate towards elwing and earendil was THE greatest disappointment I've ever encountered in the fandom

Oh don't apologize anon, I basically agree with all of this lol

I was stunned to come into this fandom after finishing the book and find out that Elwing and Earendil are controversial characters. Headcanons and AUs all you want, but the book makes it very clear they are heroes and Tolkien portrays them as heroes (albeit tragic ones)--Earendil slaying Ancalagon and Elwing convincing the Teleri to aid the war effort is more proof of that.

The Feanorians are the closest thing we have to true protagonists in the book and they're fan favorites, so there's a tendency to see other characters (Turgon, Thingol, Dior, Elwing, etc.) through the lens of how well the Feanorians like them or get along with them. If a character has conflict with the Feanorians, they're likely to get the villain treatment in certain circles of the fandom no matter how reasonable their actions were.

Under the cut because I rambled also lol

Above the cut I'm just going to link here to my tag for Elwing metas from other people.

There's also in some cases, I think, a discomfort with rooting for characters who have done so much wrong (see: "stanning villains" discourse), so in some places there's an effort to downplay what the Feanorians did because of course you can't like a character who is genuinely terrible! So this is where we get into making Dior and Elwing look worse than they are, so that the Feanorians look less bad by comparison (here we get the "good thing the twins were saved from their shitty and neglectful mother!" ...by the dudes who just slaughtered their entire hometown).

This is made easier by the fact that since Silm is told in such an epic fairytale style, we as readers don't have to confront the personal level of the violence the Feanorians committed. We don't see Elwing's reaction to the twins being taken hostage (besides being told that "great was [her] sorrow" for their captivity), we don't see Dior and Nimloth discussing the decision not to respond to the Feanorians' threats, we don't get a description of what Menegroth looked like after it was sacked by the Feanorians, we aren't told about Elrond and Elros trembling in fear as they're taken away by these terrible, violent Elves who killed their grandparents and their uncles and just now their mother and who may very well kill them also. That makes it easier to gloss over the practical realities of what they did (which is why it's something I'm always interested in exploring in fic).

And you're right--there is a draw in the relationship between Elrond and Elros, and Maedhros and Maglor, just because it is so improbable that they would develop any affection at all for each other. And yet, a relationship can be loving and still abusive or unhealthy, and I just cannot buy that it was healthy for Elrond and Elros to be in Maglor's care. Given where Maedhros and Maglor are at this point, they are unlikely to be doing well mentally/emotionally, and even if they were, they can't just detach themselves in the twins' mind from being the monsters who have been haunting Thingol's line for generations (See: Kidnapping and attempted forced marriage of Luthien, attempted murder of Beren, threats to attack Doriath, the Second Kinslaying, killings of Dior and Nimloth, leaving Elured and Elurin to die of exposure in the woods, threats against Elwing, the Third Kinslaying, driving Elwing to suicide). There's also a significant level of cultural loss with Elrond and Elros, which Maedhros and Maglor simply do not have the knowledge to abate. E/E are deprived of being raised in either their maternal or paternal cultures, and with the virtual extinction of the Iathrim by the end of the Third Kinslaying, much of that knowledge is simply lost, and the few people who still hold it (Oropher and his people) are kept away from the twins. Is it any wonder Elrond becomes fascinated with collecting knowledge as an adult?

Personally, I see Maglor's having kept the twins (for however long you imagine, although most of us seem to picture until at least mid-adolescence, if not full adulthood) as a deeply selfish act. They could have released the twins to Gil-galad or Cirdan or Oropher--but they chose not to, for years. I think he loved them--and I think that's why he didn't want to let them go. I think the best and most redeeming thing Maglor ever did with the twins was allowing them to leave to join Gil-galad.

And I do agree with what you said there that Elrond and Elros grew up kindly and generous more in spite of their childhood than because of it.

The Feanorians' descent into villainy in pursuit of their oath is, imo, key to their arc, and one of the most interesting things about it, so I'm not here to downplay it. Even Maedhros and Maglor realize how far gone they are! Maglor himself calls continuing to follow the oath "evil" and says that "less evil shall we do in the breaking" and Maedhros stands with the Silmaril in the end and sees that all the violence and horror he's committed has been for nothing and finds it so unbearable he is one of only two named Elves to ever commit suicide (the other being his victim, Elwing). He literally kills himself because he can't deal with what they've become (or at least, that's how I read it).

The other fascinating thing about these two is how at the end Maglor makes a couple efforts to turn away, to let go of the oath, to do something better--but he can never quite manage it. He's not willing to do it alone, and Maedhros won't do it with him, so he keeps himself stuck on this path until he's the only one left.

Rewriting them as characters who did nothing wrong deprives them of all their complexity. And honestly, you (not you you, anon) just sound like a clown when you're arguing they were justified in sacking a refugee camp because uwu property rights.

With Elwing especially I think there's also a misunderstanding about how exactly things were handled.

I think people forget that Elwing did not make the decision to keep the Silmaril alone--it was Elwing "and the people of Sirion." This was a group choice, not something Elwing imposed on them.

I think people forget the Sirionites believed the Silmaril was protecting them. This would have been especially relevant in the minds of two refugee groups who had both survived a brutal and bloody sack of their cities.

I think people don't realize that the correspondence between Elwing and Maedhros prior to the Third Kinslaying all seems to have taken place during a single voyage of Earendil's. She tells the Feanorians she can't make a final decision on the Silmaril while Earendil (one of the rulers of this city!) is at sea--but they don't wait for his return, they just attack.

And of course, once she and Earendil reached Aman, they were literally prohibited from returning to Middle-earth, so it's not like they made a choice not to come back for the kids.

Earendil and Elwing are forced to look at the big picture--that after the Third Kinslaying, even if they did return a) How exactly are they supposed to get their kids back from these notably brutal and ruthless warlords?; b) Morgoth is still there. Doing his Morgoth thing. Someone has to make it to Aman to get them to intercede. If Earendil and Elwing turned home instead of continuing West, it would be dooming the rest of the continent--yes, their kids included--to eventual destruction by Morgoth. The fact that Elrond and Elros are able to live so long and raise such prosperous realms is directly related to Earendil and Elwing's decision to keep trying to reach Aman.

You might find it reassuring how in LotR how much connection Elrond is given and expresses with Earendil and Elwing. Clearly he still views them as his parents and if he harbored any resentment (which honestly wouldn't be unreasonable as a child/teenager with a less mature understanding of the situation), it's gone by then.

And finally I just think there's a general fannish fixation on the concept of found family, so people want to force Kidnap Fam into that dynamic so badly they'll completely rewrite Maedhros and Maglor to be E/E's "true" family and ignore all of the horror of what they did leading up to literally kidnapping the twins.

ALL of which is a long-winded way of saying: yeah! you're right.

My fandom’s main “shipwar” is between the canon m/f pairing and the non-canon but ten times more popular m/m pairing. I’m a multishipper and I like both, as well as the mmf threesome. So I don’t really have a dog in this fight, as it were. But one thing that continuously baffles me is how upset the canon m/f shippers get about the non-canon m/m shippers explaining why they don’t ship the canon ship.

The m/f shippers say because they never feel the need to mention the m/m ship on their posts, that the m/m shippers should not mention the m/f ship on their posts. But I think those are two very different circumstances. Like, of course there’s no reason to randomly bring up a non-canon ship when making meta about a canon pairing. The baseline assumption in most fandoms regarding transformative works is “like canon, unless noted” so that would be superfluous and feel targeted. But when discussing a non-canon ship, especially one which requires the canon ship to break up, I think, naturally, due to the same principle, those non-canon shippers are going to lay out what they personally don’t like about the canon ship, and why they think the non-canon ship is better.

I guess, what I’m saying is, I’ve always seen putting up with a lot of different people not liking your pairing and complaining loudly about it as part of the price of having a canon ship. In all the other fandoms I’ve been in, the canon ships have been almost universally reviled, and the handful of people who do ship them don’t seem all that surprised by all the meta that exists from non-canon shippers about why the canon ship doesn’t work. They just find solace in the fact that their pairing is the one that gets onscreen kisses, and seem adept at ignoring the haters.

But in this fandom, the canon m/f shippers act like anyone voicing dislike of their ship is a personal attack. And they frequently write rant posts about it, to the point that I have a hard time following the m/f ship tag, even though I ship it, because I’m tired of it being full of people complaining about the m/m shippers (of which, I am also a member).

To some extent, I understand the canon m/f shippers’ frustrations. The fandom tag is basically unnavigable without running into untagged content for the non-canon m/m ship. And there is unfortunately a swath of the non-canon m/m shippers who are rude, exhibit harassing behaviors, and harbor misogynistic attitudes toward the canon female love interest. Which I’ve called out multiple times on my blog as unacceptable. But one of the canon m/f shippers referred to simple meta discussing the media through the lens of the non-canon m/m pairing as “gaslighting”. And I just don’t think that’s a fair interpretation.

While there definitely have been bad actors on both sides of the “shipwar”, I don’t think just saying “I think the dynamic between the non-canon pairing is more interesting and well written than the canon pairing, and here’s some scenes from the original media that showcase why” on one’s own blog is an act of “ship hate” or “gaslighting” or contradictory to the principles of Ship and Let Ship. It’s just an opinion based on a different reading of the text.

I suppose my question is, do you think its contrary to the principles of Ship and Let Ship to explain why you personally don’t ship a pairing (assuming you’re not harassing or insulting the shippers of that pairing)? And why do canon shippers act like it’s an act of malice for other people to voice that they don’t like their ship for xyz reason?

--

Of course it's fine to explain your own tastes.

Canon shippers have always been prone to whining that their ship isn't the most popular and/or that it isn't the only one that's popular.

TIL that you can block anonymous users via your inbox! And if you do that, it also gets rid of any of their old messages! Which has the side effect of letting you know which anon wrote which messages!

Which I guess is nice because

It gave me confirmation that the one anon I suspected was the same one who keeps sending me stuff I just... do not wish to read (because it's so long-winded, passive-aggressive, and full of absolutely rancid takes) actually was that person, despite the fact that I have asked them repeatedly to just unfollow me. And now I'll never have to get one of their diatribes again.

Kind of a relief to know that actually, my inbox was not full of people who hate me! It was just full of like two people who were really dedicated to hating me! Which is very fucking weird of them!

I will never understand why people get so fucking mad because someone wrote some fandom takes they didn't agree with on their own blog. Just... block me and move on and read stuff from other users who agree with you. It's fandom, not WWII. It doesn't always have to be combative. I'm open to discussion, but if you're just here to curse at me or tell me I'm an idiot or go on a rant about "certain people in fandom" or just be a condescending douchebag... save your breath, maybe? I'm not going to change my mind; all you're doing is irritating us both.

I see takes I don't agree with all the time, but I am normal and well-adjusted (lmao) and I just... scroll. Or block them, if it happens repeatedly. Or if I really feel strongly about it, I make my own meta post about my own opinions without referencing theirs. If I feel irritated, I vent privately to friends. It is just never worth a fight on tumblr dot com. Everyone just comes out feeling bad.

Also like... very genuinely, I do not understand why people send me long anonymous rants via ask when they clearly don't actually want my input. I get that it's scary to make posts of your own with your own name attached (like... obviously, I am proving the risks of that rn) but like?? Stop trying to use me as a platform or something. Gather your courage and make your own fucking post. Surely that must be easier than sending me like 400 words in multiple asks whining about the ~state of fandom these days~ when I clearly disagree with you, then getting angry with me when I disagree with you.

I've pretty much decided to stop publishing those. I feel like it's probably just going to give people what they want? A platform for their vents without actually having to put their names on their ideas. I fully welcome anon asks (even very long ones!) that really want to discuss elements of canon or bring up ideas or ask me for my opinion. Even ones that don't necessarily agree with me, as long as they're respectful! But damn, some of you treat me like I'm not even a real person and I'm tired of it. You don't have to like my ideas, you don't even have to like me, but if you want me to engage with you, you gotta treat me with some semblance of respect.

Like... maybe I've been too nice? I try to answer all messages, even ones that are kind of shitty, as patiently as I can with as much good faith as I can muster, but like. maybe I do need to just tell some people to fuck off and/or delete their shitty bad-faith asks without reading them. Maybe I've emboldened people by engaging with these asks at all, idek. I really like ask culture on tumblr, but like. to be brutally frank, some of you are real shitheads with bad reading comprehension and terrible takes. You're not nice, and your ideas aren't interesting.

(I do just delete the ones that are just cursing or insults, typically, but I usually try to engage if there's any real content beyond that, and maybe that was a mistake...? Maybe you can't react to bad-faith actors with good faith...)

Anyway. This was a long and mystified post, but I really do feel much lighter knowing that the problem was less widespread than I thought (if... more concentrated than I'd anticipated) and that I will never have to hear from certain people again.

I'm probably going to leave anon off for a few more days just because I really do think I just need a mental break from wwdits for a few days, but I feel a lot safer turning it back on now. :')

It feels like DbD's devs are sacrificing Survivors' gameplay experience for the sake of trying to force Killers into learning how to actually play the game in unique ways instead of putting the same 4 Perks on every Killer they use.

But it isn't working. They keep getting handed everything on a silver platter and they still do the same shit. They still face camp, just conveniently right out of range. They still 3-Gen regardless of all the ways in which it's 'supposed' to be harder. They still tunnel a single person and then bitch like little babies about being Gen-Rushed when they refused to try and slow the match down despite being given ample opportunity.

The devs made Generators take 10 more seconds to complete. So now it's 90 seconds per Generator. Almost a minute more of work, and because of map size, Gen spread, RNG, and solo queue, it'll take a lot longer than that to get them done. This isn't even factoring in how there is a Killer trying to stop you.

They now added an additional regression mechanic to Gens that make it so if a Killer is the cause of regression greater than 2.5%, Survivors have to repair 5% of the Gen before the regression actually stops and they can progress the Gen. No more tapping to stop regression.

Flashlights were nerfed for the name of 'epilepsy' but the devs have done NOTHING about how other blinding items cause the same problems, and how many places on the maps have repetitive flashing lights that also bother people with light-sensitivity and epilepsy. And it's been ages since this change, and they still haven't made an effort to show the epileptic community that they actually gaf. Killers just whined about flashlights clicking too much and so they got nerfed. I don't even use flashlights cuz I could never got a hang of the timing or the controller being hard to use for them!

Don't forget Iron Will! It's not fair that Survivors were 100% quiet when they were Injured. We need to nerf that and rework it over and over to the point where it's basically useless now. As in, the sound of the pained cries does not actually change, at least on the Survivor's end.

The Clown's fucking gas is still impossible to deal with, when people have already made Mods that handle it better. Went on a whole self-righteous rant about helping disabled players and then did not in fact, do anything useful.

When a Survivor is downed within your radius when you're on the Hook, the camping timer stops moving. Killers are actually downing people nearby and dropping them in front of the Hook so they can still camp without issue. Cuz if another Survivor is too close, then it doesn't matter how close the Killer is, the timer will not move. They will camp you to death even with the chance of the other survivor wiggling free if they try to Hook them afterward. Hell, they even bait out other Survivors to get kills that way.

If you manage to get the anti-camp timer filled while on your 2nd Hook Stage, there is a high chance that taking a moment to swap from Struggling to unHooking, will actually just let the Entity kill you from missing the Struggle Skillcheck before you can get the unHook bar to fill all the way. Because for some reason it NEEDS to take 4 seconds?

They lowered the length of time that Killers are stunned by DS so that they can hopefully catch up with Survivors faster.

They lowered the speed in which Toolbox charges can be used on Gens.

Knight, Skull Merchant, Victor, Wraith, Ghost Face, Michael, Pig, and anyone using Insidious, and anyone who has the no terror radius thing built into their kit or add-ons, can also camp right up in your face and the timer never goes down at all.

Knight, Skull Merchant, and Twins all have something they can deploy that allows them to not only face camp you without affecting the timer, but they can still get Devour Hope stacks by doing it. Something left by the Hook that can Injure Survivors who come to help, still not being part of the anti-camp BS they claimed to care about, is really telling.

There are so many more things they have done to make Killer easier than ever before, while at the same time removing/nerfing everything interesting Survivors can do to make the gameplay exciting. It's getting so tired.

I mentioned my stats across 25 matches recently. 3 of those being with Me as the Killer without the meta Perks. Killers used 47of the 115 Perks available, Survivors used 90 of the 134 Perks available. And the top 4 Perks Killers used were the current meta.

This exact same build was used on 7 different Killers. Wesker, Huntress, Chucky, Sadako, Twins, Michael, and Trapper. All of them got 3Ks before all Gens were done, and the lone Escapee, me, only Escaped cuz the Hatch spawned near me each time.

Top Survivor Perks were Windows, Deja Vu, and Bond btw.

All remaining Killers outside me(who used a build on Michael to specifically sneak up on Survivors before they notice) had at least 2 of the current top 4 choice Perks for Killers along with other Gen-regression Perks.

This is how it is. Instead of fixing Killers with kits and add-ons that need work, they just take something from Survivors over and over to make things 'fair'. But they aren't fair, and they just suck the life out of the game.

EDIT: It's been a few days since I started writing this. We can add on 4 more Killers using the meta build rn. 1 Freddy, 1 Knight, 1 Skull Merchant, and 1 Xenomorph. It's a build that works on basically every type of Killer DbD has to offer, so of course people refuse to do anything different.

People are actually relieved to face a scratched mirror Meyers and a body block Hag for once.

https://russianspacegeckosexparty.tumblr.com/post/621031888022274048/racists-have-been-claiming-for-years-that-scott#notes LMFAO who are you trying to convince, Antis? Cishet white boy Scott McCall is literally the blandest, flattest, weakest, most irrelevant fictional character ever (there’s a reason everyone eclipsed him without even trying and Tyler Whiny Posey is the only one out of the whole Teen Wolf cast whose favorite character is Scott, ya know? Oops!) Then again, you Scott McCall delusional squad cesspit bunch know Scott isn’t actually anything special, which is why 99% of your wankfics and so-called “metas” is a case of Fanon!Scott where he has Derek’s, or Stiles’, or Lydia’s personality and traits, or is a Spark!Druid!Void!BAMF or whatever lol anyway @russianspacegeckosexparty why don’t you go back begging for some pedophilic Papa Hale/child!Scott content? We know that’s all you and your @liliaeth @princeescaluswords @brydeswhale buddies ever do in your little cesspit corner of fandom – besides harassing Sterek and Steter shippers on the internet and whining about how Dylan O’Brien and Tyler Hoechlin overshadowed Posey’s talentless ass without even trying, that is

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

I have no idea why someone submitted this to me a few months ago, but I agree with most if the rant. Tyler isn't white, though, so Scott isn't either.

ok. A new level of tumblr special snowflake appeared lol.

I reblogged an akatsuki fanart with shisui and sasuke from the artist ninedoqs. I tagged it as shisasu, pretty much because I tag every thing as ships, not even thinking about it much. it’s the way I find things after. Also lol it’s not like when I reblog something I have this mental movie of the characters in the fanart f*cking or smth. but ok.

I received this message, to which I replied just as politely, because it’s not the way they asked, it’s the request itself that baffled me.

I don’t even look at tags on reblogs usually....I mean. as an author myself I know we receive unpleasant comments and when I post fanarts (with permission of the artist) I might get pissed off when some ppl tag them as SS or pap*suke when there is no wife or daughter...but I wouldn’t contact the reblogger tbh. ofc I’m not the author but lol I didn’t even contact ppl who reblog my own meta adding thoughts I disagree with, and boy, it happened.

I would be very uncomfortable if, hypothetically, I was a canon fan and I posted some father&daughter content or some Nar with his children content and someone tagged it as ship, but I would not contact the person. I’d probably rant it on my blog.

So, now the fandom trend is to be uncomfortable when someone does something you dislike? Oh well. I’m very uncomfortable too. Very much. It’s not that because I post dark or weird stuff and I don’t whine about it I’m not uncomfortable when I see certain things actually. the fandom is not how it was when I first came into it but this is my problem.

I should start making the list of labels I identify with so if someone insists I can act like a victim pulling the oppressed card as well.

F*ck it, tbh. this fandom sucks.

i kinda get and kinda dont get what you mean when you say dragonfru1t is most likely to be canon? like i get they have a lot of interactions but i think its more accurate to say no ships will be canon, flying bark seems to really steer away from romance in their shows (glitch techs, rotmnt, 100% wolf). the company seems to super focus on platonic bonds and found family as a whole

off topic , do you think if calabash didnt make it explict that mei and mk are only friends do you think people would say they were endgame?

(sorry for ask dumping!)

Never apologize for sending me an ask like this, I love them!

I’m assuming this is coming from these tweets I sent recently out of frustration with some “my ship isn’t the most popular one!!” whining I saw going on so I’ll add a screenshot for anyone who’s curious about the full context here:

Just to help clarify right off the bat, my main point of bringing Dragonfruit up was to say that, if I were to be one of those people who genuinely felt I needed to ship the most “analytically “cOrReCt” ship”, I would be shipping Dragonfruit and Dragonfruit alone.

Yet here I am with Spicynoodles as my OTP (despite Dragonfruit being my first ship of the series and the one that I have the most AMV’s about as well as still being a ship I enjoy because I am a multishipper)

Because I’m not held down by the bitter bs of when I was a teenager thinking I had to be “Right” in how I approached things that are meant to be for fun. Like shipping in fandom. (See also - my whole rant towards those people who were whining about how “If all you do when you take in media is look for ways to ship in it, you are objectively missing out and thus are bad and stupid”)

NOW

To answer your questions:

My main point that I didn’t have the character space for in regards to “Which is most likely to become canon” would be better worded as “If any ship was in the running of possibly being canon, it would be Red Son x Xiaojiao/Mei.“

While I am of the opinion that - similar to my hot take that the LBD host does NOT need to become a major character - this series does not have enough time to waste on dealing with the complications romance would bring to a story already focused on complicated platonic relationships, I still can’t ignore the simple fact that the only couple that has the most on-screen reasoning AND out-of-universe meta elements lined up to make them canon is Dragonfruit.

(See also - my reasoning why “What Makes It Complicated” will never have romance in it outright. The story is about complicated relationships with those you care about but fear you SHOULDN’T care about despite their best efforts via Wukong and Kumi, and adding romance to it would muddy the whole thing up in ways I have no reason to put the audience through)

I haven’t seen anything else of Flying Bark’s unfortunately (please don’t suggest Rise to me. I do not care for TMNT. It has NEVER appealed to me in any iteration. I’ve seen clips from Rise already. Animation looks other worldly. The show’s not for me.) but I am definitely willing to take your word for it that they don’t include romance in their work.

My opinion that Dragonfruit is the most likely ship to become canon comes with a giant “IF” in front for “IF there is going to be ANY ship that becomes canon”.

And for the last question:

Yes and I would hate it and that’s exactly why I am in love with how Calabash shut down my nemesis before they could even get off the ground.

“Main guy should always get with main girl!” is the source of so much shipping drama - even when people don’t realize that that’s exactly what their “But they have the most screen time together!” arguments are based on - and more for more than one ship war that I have seen for myself and I am glad to have that explicitly avoided.

If someone still ships them, that’s fair.

I still ship spicynoodles despite, as I’ve said, there’s not a whole lot of in-universe reasons to see them as “correct” analytically speaking.

I’m just relieved to have avoided “Main Guy x Main Girl just ‘cause” arguments being thrown around in fights.

Been hearing some shit. Venting my spleen.

Citan's have been Citan's for fucking ever. Just cos they've been slept on for at least two years doesn't mean you assholes can go bitching about them now. It's weak, it's flat, and it's short-lived, it's already balanced. I'm sorry you fucks can't just boingy-boing over and shotgun down my neck like you used to, but you can learn to do it again, I promise. Same with you flying bastards with the fusion rifles, it's just harder, not impossible. You can do it.

Fucking whining assholes, leave my armor alone.

Sentiment expressed, mood still roiling, so --

To continue my rant, My Experience With Citan's Ramparts. Ahem.

From the beginning, I found the inability to shoot through my barricade a massive pain in the ass. I wanted nothing more, and I said it so fucking often. From my very first. I remember this so well that it's headcanon for my guardian to say it, too.

I had to go without. Not like I can just buy them, you know?

Playing Beyond Light, I was having a hell of a time with the Empire Hunt for Praxis, the Technocrat. I had been having a hell of a time and constantly running back to the little cubby holes and hiding behind a barricade until I could recover and run. I was so fucking sure that citan's was the answer.

When I got the arms, I was so fucking happy. I took them open world and shot some vex on Nessus and was having a great time. Sure, it was flat and didn't last as long as a normal barricade, but I was decent at angling and everyone was dead before the barrier fell, so whatever.

So! I return to the Technocrat fight, where Citan's was surely going to help. I could take the cover and fight back at the same time, because I was being pinged to death by the thousands of dregs, I figured some wave clear and the shield would be a great help.

That fucking thing lasted two and a half seconds. If that. It's weak as fuck, like I said, and with twenty five enemies firing on me in real content, it wouldn't last long enough for me to kill everything. This thing was tissue paper outside of open world wandering.

Tried in a strike later, same result. It just cannot take the beating that comes to it in PvE. Enemy accuracy is only meh on us tiny moving targets, but the shield is huge and still.

So I wrote it off as a PvP armor piece and disregarded, because I had no intention of ever getting into PvP.

Until random chance and friends of Rise talked us into Iron Banner for the gear, and I had a great fucking time. I have fun losing, even, if the match is good, and I didn't start great or anything, but several people mistook me for knowing what I was doing.

But I was not good at building. Rise has taught me much, but I'm still only eh and I only have so much patience. Back then, I didn't even know what to ask to help, so Rise helped.

I think I was maining Dunemarchers at the time, but I wasn't taking full advantage, plus I would die in my attempts, so we got off those. Tried One Eyed Mask and Mask of the Quiet One, as they were meta. Remembered Citan's and dug them out of the box.

And a fucking menace was born. Don't have to worry about peek shots if you don't have to peek. Crucible doesn't let you live with your barricade like PvE does, you WILL be pushed if you try-- so Citan's lifespan was not a problem (until I entered elimination. Holding position was a lot more of a time.), and the damage three guardians deal to a shield will take it down in a second (a sniper will take it out instantly) but with me and mine shooting back, they would still fall first. It still worked as an emergency cover, and in general, it fucking worked.

So I've been a Citan's main practically my entire crucible career. They've been through several outfit changes, I have two pairs, and I love them. And y'all whining assholes git gud. I'm not hard to flank, you can relearn the hop over, I'm not hard to wait out, and you will beat me in a real duel, you just have to wait six seconds.

(I haven't counted, but seriously, it's got like half the uptime as a solid one.)

Anyway.

Now I'm done.

*clears throat* Chesterton says in Orthodoxy, “The note of the fairy utterance always is, ‘You may live in a palace of gold and sapphire, if you do not say the word “cow”’; or ‘You may live happily with the King’s daughter, if you do not show her an onion.’ The vision hangs upon a veto. All the dizzy and colossal things conceded depend upon one small thing withheld. All the wild and whirling things that are let loose depend upon one thing that is forbidden....Remember, however, that to be breakable is not the same as to be perishable. Strike a glass, and it will not endure an instant; simply do not strike it, and it will endure a thousand years. Such, it seemed, was the joy of man, either in elfland or on earth; the happiness depended on not doing something which you could at any moment do and which, very often, it was not obvious why you should not do.”

and Lockwood & Co is very much set up as this kind of fairytale!! Lucy is presented with a vision of dizzy and colossal things - she can live in this cozy home, she can fight monsters alongside people who care for her, she can be free and powerful and unafraid, she can be understood and appreciated and saved. but she cannot open the door on the landing - she cannot even ask about it. everything she is gifted depends on that one prohibition. she’s Pandora, she’s Psyche, she’s Bluebeard’s wife. the closed door grates on her, because of its mystery but also (especially) just because of its forbiddenness. she can’t just leave it alone.

but the really interesting bit is!! she does. Lucy steps into a fairytale that we’re all familiar with. she’s welcomed into the home of a lover who could be a god or could be a monster. she’s told it can be her home, and they can belong to one another, so long as she doesn’t cross this one line - so long as she doesn’t open the door. and she toes the line - she brings it up, and asks about it - but she doesn’t go over. Lucy obeys the fairy prohibition, and so she gets to stay in fairyland. and grace abounding ever-more: her mythical lover didn’t intend to leave her in the dark forever. he’d wanted to bring her into the fullness of his truth for a long time. she’s able to step over the threshold, because he invites her.

This fandom is a shitfest. I literally have the words "lov apologist" in my bio and people still come in my askbox to whine at me how they have little sympathy for the villains. What makes you think I care?? Or that your whining is accepted?? Why the fuck are you complaining about villains on a villain stan account?? Can't you bother finding someone who at least shares your views before dumping your sad delusions about an ending that will never happen? You don't see me dunking on YOUR faves and say that they deserve to suffer because I dislike them in your askbox, do you?? Why do you think this is acceptable to do to me?

Just in case anyone philinda-minded hadn’t seen and maybe cares? Marvel seems to have decided on the semi-official wiki timeline that the Coulson and May flashback mission in Russia supposedly took place in 2003.

This... really doesn’t jive with timestamps previously provided in seasons 1 and 2 for their pasts. At all. Or those from season 3.

Like... at all. 

It’s a stupidass timestamp and it saddens me. However, it is on the wiki. Any show on longer than like, two seasons ends up contradicting itself. I get it with the pace they have to move at. 

Look, Marvel can put out official timeline statements till they’re all as blue in the face as any Kree to try and un-fuck the big retcon they’ve done to the movies and I am never going to give a shit. 

The whole Fury’s big week thing was a fun read but made no logistical sense, and the timeline for how they handled thawing Captain America was even worse. I stopped caring about a single word from Marvel as far as timelines long before Spiderman: Homecoming came out and they blatantly forgot how long it took for kids to grow.

I’ll just keep writing all my fic using a timeline that actually makes some logical sense, ok? Ok.

Like I’m excited for Captain Marvel because omfg Captain Marvel, but I’m excited and nervous as hell to see if we get some interesting 90′s timeline info from that movie or just more slop that’s never heard of something like fucking travel times. 

I really don’t get too hung up on complete accuracy in my damn superhero genre, I promise. But to quote one of my all-time favorite movies...

BUT YOU CAN STILL COUNT!!!

Things a lot of Skamfic writers seem to forget

Even isn’t that much taller than Isak. Isak doesn’t need to tiptoe to kiss Even! Seriously! I have read that in so many fics lately, and it just baffles me. 

Isak isn’t weaker than Even and Even isn’t stronger than Isak. In fact, Isak is probably stronger than Even is. Isak lifted Even up on his shoulders in that birthday video have you forgotten that?

Even isn’t that much bigger than Isak either. Even’s clothes would fit Isak almost perfectly, and Isak’s clothes fit Even’s, too. We see it in the show. Isak doesn’t have a smaller frame than Even!  Isak is a tall, lanky guy and he’s quite buff and muscular, too. 

Even isn’t dominating or taking the lead all the time and Isak isn’t shy and submissive! Isak is often the one to take the lead in their relationship. Sure, Even often get the ideas, especially in the beginning, but Even waits for Isak’s kiss in the pool, remember?

Isak isn’t a needy, whiney, grumpy kid and Even isn’t always the adult in their relationship. Why is Isak whining all the time? Why? I mean, seriously, have you seen the show at all?

Isak isn’t necessarily the bottom all the time. From the show, we know that Even goes down on Isak once, that he straddles Isak (in the hotel) and takes it in the butt, and we know that Isak does something interesting to Even in the shower. That’s what we know. That’s all. How we get from there to Even always written as the top and Isak as the bottom, I don’t know. 

And of course, Isak doesn’t always have to curl into Even or be the small spoon. He doesn’t always sit on Even’s lap. Isak is very good at taking care of Even. I want more of Even on Isak’s lap, Even wrapped up in Isak’s arms! Please!

I just had to say it, these thoughts have been boiling in me for a long time now. If you want to read something better written about this subject, check this out, and this. And this one, too! 

This fandom is exhausting:

"Her insecurity is not "wrong," so to speak. She knows, because Jiang Fengmian makes it extremely clear, that she is not Jiang Fengmian's first choice in a wife. She knows JFM loves someone else more than her, and always will, even after marrying Yu Ziyuan. Of course this hurts her. But to add fuel to the fire, Jiang Fengmian then makes things way worse by being a very hands-off father to Jiang Yanli and especially to Jiang Cheng. He only holds Jiang Cheng a handful of times in his entire childhood. Yu Ziyuan resents her husband for making vows to her but choosing his first love (who did not love him) and her child over his own children. He mistreats his own son, and there's nothing YZY can do about it."

Also JFM clearly "mistreated " Jiang Cheng because he help Wei Wuxien that one time and because Jiang Cheng thought so. He's just as bad as YZY. Morons writing metas.

ugh I'm so fucking tired of Yu Ziyuan discourse. She's an abuser. Her Clan pressured JFM to marry her. Just bc she said JFM was a bad dad doesn't mean it's true. Abusers lie. Her son decided to take her side and emulate her behavior even though he claimed to want his father's approval because it was easier to think JFM doesn't like him bc he's like his mother than that JFM doesn't like his behavior and he should maybe be a better person. She's just a piece of shit throwing her tantrums on everyone. That's why she was punishing and whipping Wei Wuxian all the time- because she wanted to use him as a scapegoat for why she was a miserable bitch that no one liked, and she could. She couldn't be a better cultivator than Cangse Sanren but she could whip her child now that the woman was dead. She could talk trash about his dead mother in front of him. She felt good whipping an orphan who couldn't defend himself. She felt good dumping her rants and venom on the people around her bc that's how abusive people are. There's no mistreatment. There's no "oh she would've been a peach if only-". It literally says she was an 'avoid if you can' from youth. Just like her shitty son who grew up to be like her with Jin Ling, dumping his rage and toxic personality on the people around him. Neither one of them wanted to resist their shitty nature, they embraced it. They reveled in it. They made it everyone else's problem. Stop blaming JFM for everything. "He miStrEAts his SoN" stfu. Dude tried to instill some values in the moral vacuum that was jiang cheng. jiang cheng prefered to whine about being told to not let ppl die in front of him, and to punch WWX in his fresh would to "teach him a lesson". Instead of being a son his father would be proud of, he chose to parrot all the venom his mother spewed.

[watches a small clip from brotherhood] OH OK SO THEY CHANGED THIS TOO????

i dont know why the brotherhood writers were so INSISTENT on making it seem like riza is one-sidedly in love with roy i dont. know. wHY. they added more from her perspective and TOOK AWAY shit from roy’s perspective, like ok. OK. OK?? WHY

previously i thought they just added hawkeye smiling to this scene, but nooooooooooooo

this line is a great little insight into how roy was super fucking paranoid and about to have a heart attack that he thought riza was gonna die on the phone with him just likes hughes did and its adorable that he just. he needs her to know that hes glad shes ok and her little “im sorry to have worried you, sir” is so CUTE

why did brotherhood feel the need to remove this and change it to

hawkeye: thanks for saving us roy: save it for later hawkeye: yes sir [cute tiny smile]

i dont get it??? what was the significance of changing this scene for any purpose other than making roy seem Better and More Professional and make hawkeye seem more lovestruck? i know the broho writers ship roy/riza a lot, i get it, i love it, but i dont like how they ship it lmao its annoying. this scene was great on its own. i never even realized that they changed it, i thought riza’s cute smile was after he says “im glad youre alive” but noooooooo. nOOOOOOOOOOO. FINE. completely unnecessary, saved no time, saved no animation, stupid