#xenoshadel

Donation Request for @xenoshadel of two OCs, Asbel (left), and Derrick (right), with weapons.

Thank you!

Thanks! I’m really enjoying it!

And I might! That was my original plan, that I’d go with Seven first, and then do either Jaehee or Jumin---but honestly, I’m not so sure I can do that anymore. Like, there’s a part of me that would feel bad if I wasn’t going down Seven’s route, haha. I’m way too attached to him now. Like I said, it’s Chrom all over again, asdjfksafdsa.

T --- Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

Answered here!

W --- A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

Oh god, I feel like there are a lot . . . but the first one that comes to mind is probably the Toxic Rivals / Enemies to Lovers trope, because god, I can’t think of a single time when I’ve actually enjoyed that in recent years.

This one crops up a lot, in a lot of different forms, and it’s present both in canon as well as fandom works. We see it in the people who ship Naruto and Sasuke in Naruto, but we see it also in the relationship between Wyldstyle and Emmet in The Lego Movie, even though they’re never properly rivals (or enemies). But it doesn’t matter that they’re not properly rivals or enemies, because it’s not the fact that they’re rivals / enemies that I have a problem with. No, what I have a problem with is that the relationships are toxic; they’re negative, filled with actual heated arguing and (such as in the case of Wyldstyle and Emmet) objectification, and yet they’re romanticized and treated as if these are #relationshipgoals or ideals.

Don’t get me wrong: It’s perfectly fine to be interested in unhealthy relationships in fiction. I myself have some foetps that I like examining. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. What I’m talking about here is that we see, for instance, that Naruto is completely obsessed with Sasuke; we see him say that he’ll “break every bone in Sasuke’s body and drag him back to Konoha,” and that’s treated by some people as being not only okay, but romantic. What I’m talking about is the fact that Sasuke says that Naruto is the last bond he has to break, and so he wants to murder him, and people again see this as a sign of True Love™ because Naruto is the only bond Sasuke feels he has left. While it’s true that, at that point, Naruto is the only person Sasuke still cares about in a sense, that’s not a good thing at the moment. This isn’t a healthy relationship. It’s full of vitriol and obsession. It’s not healthy, it’s not romantic, and it’s certainly not an ideal. And if people recognized that, that would be great, but what I see instead is a lot of romanticization and fawning. What I see instead is that, when Sasuke insults and disparages Naruto, people take that as a form of endearment, when it isn’t. What I see instead is that when Sasuke says “leave me the fuck alone” and Naruto says “no,” people take that as a sign of how much Naruto ~loves~ Sasuke, when the truth of the matter is that if Naruto honestly loved Sasuke, then the healthy and respectable thing to do would be to let him go, rather than continuing to stalk, harass, and abuse him.

And this is but one example. Time and again, in both canon and fanon things, I see constant fighting (not playful bickering, but out and out fighting), harassment, and in some cases stalking and abuse romanticized. People call this “belligerent sexual tension,” because it can’t be that two characters are just genuinely incompatible and don’t like each other. No, clearly they’re fighting and insulting each other because they love each other. Meanwhile, healthy, supportive relationships are dismissed wholesale as either being “boring” or “purely platonic” regardless of what other factors go into that relationship. I’m not saying that platonic relationships don’t exist too (of course they do), but I am saying that there’s a serious problem with reading negative interactions as being “sexy and True Love™” and reading positive interactions as “boring and platonic,” and that bugs me to no end.

(Oh, and as far as Wyldstyle and Emmet go---honestly, that relationship ruined The Lego Movie for me. I left the theater hating that movie because of how bad that relationship was. Not only was she far more qualified to be the hero than he was every step of the way, but he constantly objectified her, to the point where he couldn’t even hear what she was saying because he was too busy drooling. She’s then damseled purely so he can save her and she can swoon into his arms. Disgusting. The fact that he showed absolutely zero respect for her, yet still won her like a trophy, disgusted me, and falls straight into the same “belligerent sexual tension = True Love” nonsense I’m bitching about here.)

There are examples of rivalries that are healthy, of course. Rin and Suguro from Blue Exorcist are a perfect example of this. They’re rivals, yes, but they also support and build each other up. Even though they bicker sometimes, their arguments don’t come from a place of true aggravation or dislike. They’re equals. They’re friends, on top of being rivals. Drew and May from Pokémon are another example of this. Yes, they’re rivals, but they have a healthy, friendly rivalry. If they ended up entering into a romantic relationship later, it would be fine.

But by and large I see toxic rivalries (or straight up hateships) romanticized, and it bothers me to no end. And again, it’s not just fandom; if one character is a woman and the other is a man, there’s a high probability canon will hook them up. It’s awful and I’m really not here for it.

X --- A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Conversely, BEST FRIENDS TO LOVERS!!!

OMG THAT’S RIGHT YOU LIKE MM OMG

EXPECT FANART CUZ IM 👌👌

send me a:“☀” and i’ll handwrite my favorite seasonsend me a:“✦” and i’ll handwrite my favorite animal

This post actually made me smile and I’m happy that you’re happy!! I gotta thank you for spreading the love. :D