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sad kaka portaits the blog

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I was very tired when I made this, as you can tell by those AWFUL HANDS UGH

based on this vine [x]

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ASL print I’ll have available at Anime California!

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nothing but respect for MY president!!!!

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Mello: order a pizza 

Matt: nah babey im chef tonight 

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Stop Me 

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Itachi

Ngl, this color scheme made me feel a bit like an edgelord, but it’s all worth it in the end for best ninja brother.

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Uhhh hi! I was wondering if you could doodle some Kakashi? I've been having a bad week and he always cheers me up. (Sorry to bother you)

Hope you feel better!! :D

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Guest post: Nicolle Lamerichs on shipping, cosplay and affect

You might remember that last week we posted a quote by Nicolle Lamerichs from Creative Business (HU Utrecht) from her conversation on the state of fan studies. Because we are super clever and on the ball (or possibly through sheer serendipity), we managed to yoink Nicolle and ask her to give us a more personal, behind-the-scenes view of her work on affect, fandom, and cosplay. Think of this as the things that she can’t necessarily say as an academic but can say as a fan.

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Doing research on cosplay has made me aware of how much bodies, affect and identity matter in fandom. Offline spaces are still relevant to fans. Conventions are for instance spaces where social interaction, hierarchy and connectivity within fandom take place. We form meaningful connections with each other both online and in the flesh. In my research, I love speaking about affect and characters. One thing that I find hard to speak about though, is how visceral this affect in fandom can be. As a fan, I often fall in love with characters falling in love. I use the word love, because that is truly how it feels. A good portrayal of characters slowly falling in love makes me sing. I feel it in my heart, body and soul. My OTPs raise sensations in me - I long for them to be together so much, that I feel it deep down in my gut, and in my throat. In fact, it feels more like love than many of the relationships that I have been in. Shipping is my thing, but I have never been able to truly voice the importance and sensation of it in my academic work. How I feel about Roslin/Adama, Janeway/Seven or some of my oldest OTPs like Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd cuts to the core of my fandom, passions and even sexuality. I fall in love with the idea of love, and its ambiguity. What I edit out of my work, and find hard to have a true dialogue about with my informants, is this deep relationship with characters. In my studies on affect and cosplay, I got a glimpse of how deep this goes, but I would love to talk much more with fans about what it means to have a one true pairing, and how we represent this pairing in different media, which range from cosplay to fan fiction. When I have time again, this is something I would love to dive deeper into. Shipping is an important phenomenon in fandom, and beyond it. Mass media are aware of it, adapt it and make jokes about it. Fandom and shipping are very related to me. We are all voyeurs, in a way. How can we capture these emotions, dynamics and sexual responses? We feel connected to characters and relationships so intimately and sincerely. If research could somehow capture these feelings, fan studies would progress immensely in its analysis of fandom.

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So I’ve been thinking a lot about the popularity of Matt as a character, which is something that is met with a lot of ??? by those in the fandom who aren’t matt/mello shippers or generally don’t like the second arc of DN (which is… reasonable in and of itself but not something I’m gonna get into atm). And I think that most of the Matt love comes from an initial love of/identification with Mello. Mello on his own is kind of a tough sell - he’s a vain, selfish, manipulative, murdering asshole - he’s insecure, gaudy, self-loathing, and can’t control his emotions. Which, like other than the murder part, there’s a lot going on here to see myself in, whether I want to or not. And that’s where Matt comes in.

Ohba made Matt specifically to give someone for Mello to bounce dialogue off of, and though I’m sure this was done as a throw-away thing, Matt as a sounding board for Mello as a character is something that extends into fandom as well. I’d say that it was that tiny act of establishing Matt as a Wammy’s kid in HtR13 that really did it though, as it establishes a past between the two and mobilizes a dozen drawable conclusions about their relationship. Suddenly we have this character who canonically knows Mello from childhood, and thus can be understood to readily know what a crap person Mello is, but chooses to be a part of Mello’s life/weirdo anti-kira operation even after all these years. Is this loyalty? Friendship? Love? Boredom? Who is this ride-or-die kid in a stupid furry vest?? Whatever way you spin it, Matt is a character who puts up with Mello and his bullshit, and coupled with the blank slate of knowing literally nothing else about him, he’s the perfect projection ground for wish fulfillment/validation. Mello represents a lot aspects we hate about ourselves (don’t even get me started on the queer coding) but Matt redeems him. Matt as established in fanon (and squint-and-you’ll-miss-it in canon) says you’re still lovable! You are worth sticking by and coming home to! Mello’s kind of scary to identify so fiercely with but Matt makes it safer and softer and draws the poison from it.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk

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blue choclety boi

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also, on the topic of Linda, what would be considered a “successful” artist in the context of Wammy’s house? Or like a child art prodigy? Are we talking that that little girl who paints tacky photorealistic Jesuses or like Tahani’s sister in The Good Place churning out Brancusi inspired conceptual work at age 7

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(ノ・∀・)ノ kids 

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he’s a cold desert boy ((it’s a naruto kinda doodle week -__-))