#I draw the line at abusing fan artists over fictional characters

[funhouse-mirror-barbie]

I don’t think that EP 4 of Hazbin really romanticizes Angel’s abuse, but, personally, I am made MUCH more uncomfortable by the fact that the storyboard artist who was the lead for that episode has been very open about the fact that he has a rape fetish.

More discussion below, I’m really wanting this to be the only time I talk about this, as I really don’t like discussing “drama” and try to stick to writing and design critiques.

This felt like something I needed to address though, because it largely changed the lense through which I view Hazbin as a piece of media—please know that this is JUST me talking about my personal frustrations with the background information of this episode, and how it was made—see end of post for TLDR; CONTENT WARNING FOR DISCUSSIONS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND RAPE:

And. I just want to make it clear that, my issue is NOT with the storyboarder having rape fetish. I don’t understand it, but as long as they’re not ACTUALLY assaulting or hurting anyone, it’s not really mine or anyone else’s business. That goes for anyone with that kind of fetish, honestly.

The problem I have comes from not knowing whether or not any of the scenes depicting extreme abuse and rape in the show were done to explore a darker topic seriously, or if they were done for the artist’s own sexual gratification.

The scenes during “Poison”, to me, are an extremely uncomfortable look at the horrors of sexual abuse and assault and sex trafficking.

But I don’t know, and can’t know, if that’s how the creator of Hazbin and the lead storyboard artist see it, despite claiming they take the story seriously.

I really really want to believe that the scenes were storyboarded in good-faith, as a way to look at these things and help SA victims feel seen, because that’s how the episode has constantly been described by Hazbin’s creator.

However, I just CAN’T believe it knowing what I know about the storyboard artist’s tastes.

They have been very open about shipping Valentino, Angel Dust’s abuser and rapist, with Angel Dust, and have made multiple drawings, comics, and an animatic of Valentino abusing Angel Dust. The storyboard artist has confirmed that the context they see these character’s relationship in is non-consensual.

And AGAIN, I’m not saying that that makes the artist a terrible person or objectively bad or something. As I said, I personally don’t understand it, but I’m not here to be the “fictional character fetish police”.

I’m bringing these things up as examples of things that have caused me to believe that Poison may have been made as fetish material—something that really only upsets me this deeply due to Hazbin Hotel’s creator’s insistence that it was always meant to be “objectively” respectful victim representation somehow. Bringing up these examples is important because it potentially adds more context to the way the Episode 4 was written.

I have a REALLY hard time believing that when lines from one of the storyboarder’s fetish comics were adapted into the show itself in Episode 4.

This is the original fan comic the head storyboarder made vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

This is the dialogue that APPEARS to have been heavily influenced by or adapted into the show— vvvvvvvvvvv

I’ve previously explained how I believe that some of the discussion surrounding Episode 4 of Hazbin were really counterproductive, in that many people, fans and critics alike, were talking about it as if it could be proven objectively whether or not “Poison” was done respectfully.

Im not going back on that, because again, a survivor of SA feeling represented or not by something is EXTREMELY subjective, and I don’t think anyone should try and “disprove” their feelings and opinions. That’s not what I’m trying to do here, and that’s not what I’m about.

I wanted to talk about this to go over my own personal feelings about the situation, and how it’s caused me to lose any last little bit of remaining trust I had in the show runner’s abilities to portray serious topics maturely.

I want to believe so badly that Poison shows Angel’s Dust’s graphic abuse to say something about abuse as a whole, to show how awful it is, and to try and support victims and help them feel seen. I initially thought that was the case when I watched the episode.

But learning the context behind how the episode was made and who storyboarded that has changed my perspective.

In a lot of ways, the way I feel about it is very similar to how I now look back at shows like iCarly and the Amanda Show, which I loved as a kid. When I first watched iCarly when I was young, I thought the random foot jokes were funny. I thought it was just the kids being silly.

But now as an adult, knowing and understanding how much control the show’s creator had over the actors, and may have been putting his personal foot fetish into the show has changed it for me. I have the context now behind the reasons those sorts of jokes and scenes were written into the show. And it’s upsetting to know that. It’s changed how I view those scenes.

I experienced the exact same thing learning about the Hazbin storyboarder’s fetish

I can’t see Poison or think of episode 4 without wondering if it was made as fetish fuel for the artist. If so, it changes the way I see the episode, because it’s no longer a look at the horrors of SA and rape, it’s fetishizing the very thing it’s claiming to take seriously.

And if so, it makes the 3 days of Hazbin’s creator arguing with people online that the scene was done with victims in mind and to be respectful really frustrating.

I mean. If they WANTED to make a show with a rape fetish, then ok. Well. I wouldn’t want to watch it but like. That’s their prerogative, and as long as no one is actually being hurt, that’s fine. I don’t get it, but whatever.

But for me, the creator’s INSISTENCE that the portrayal of abuse was objectively respectful and not fetishizing abuse in any way, when we KNOW that the storyboard head of the episode and Poison has a rape fetish involving Angel Dust and Valentino, leaves an incredibly bad taste in my mouth.

It makes me doubt that the more mature themes in Hazbin are being written with real consideration for survivors. That, coupled with fans saying that SA survivors and viewers who were upset about Poison’s portrayal of abuse owed Hazbin’s creator an apology of all things…just because they were upset by or didn’t like the episode, makes me feel so gross about everything.

I just don’t know what else to make of it all.

Anyway TLDR/

-The Lead Storyboard artist of Episode 4 of Hazbin Hotel having a rape fetish they express through art of Angel Dust/Valentino doesn’t bother me personally. I don’t understand it, but I don’t think a fetish like that makes someone a terrible person.

-What DOES bother me is that, when many SA survivors discussed and brought up their very valid concerns about how the Episode would be handled given the above, they were largely dismissed by the creator and fans.

-The fact that I just don’t know if the episode was made as fetish material or not has changed the whole context of the episode for me. I want to believe the episode was made with good intentions like Hazbin’s creator claims, but I can’t knowing what I do about who was involved in making the episode.

-And FINALLY while everything I spoke about has changed the way I personally see the episode, if you, or anyone, still find comfort or strength in the episode or love it, I am NOT trying to take that from you. I am not trying to convince anyone that they need to have my same opinions or feelings on this. I am not trying to argue with anyone or act like I have a moral high ground over anyone else. I am talking ONLY about how learning more about the person in charge of a lot of Episode 4 of Hazbin made me feel personally, and changed my view on the episode as a whole, which may affect my future critiques and thoughts.

[theszarrpalace]

Is it just me or is Pinterest a cesspool for raging and sometimes truly incomprehensible anti-shipping behavior (in the BG3 fandom in this case) in the comment sections? 'Cuz...

A little vent under the cut.

Usually, I try to not let this get the better of me but today I'm kinda riled up so here we go. As one does, I was mindlessly browsing Pinterest, looking at pretty fan art in search of some creative inspiration myself as I came across one drawing depicting Orin and Minthara, the latter one giving Orin a peck on the back of her hand. (For anybody interested, here's the fan art.) I was like: "Oh, I like that art style, let me take a closer look at it!" and so I did just to stumble into the mess that is this comment section.

Let's not ship the abuser with the abused.

Genuine question regarding that: "Why not? It's fiction."

In addition, regarding that particular piece of fan work itself, I personally don't see the bright red neon sign that points towards that anything here is getting shipped. I, personally, don't think it is unrealistic for this exact scene to have happened in both character's history. To my eyes, there's nothing inherently "shippy" depicted, so why boo an artist for putting their time, focus and creativity into something that could be very much canon-compliant? It's mind-boggling.

I am open to the possibility that it's just my lack of understanding or sensitivity because I originate from a little friend group of high schoolers who spent their lunch break writing Thorki fanfic back in the days when non of us even knew the terms of pro- or anti-shipping.

Next up is a Cazador drawing I came across. Just the character, nothing else to be seen there (again, link here). Yet again, I clicked on it because I liked the art style and yet again I found myself looking at comments which are borderline shaming the artist for drawing Cazador. And please, I meant this in the most genuine and earnest way: "Why?"

Those are very aesthetically pleasing lines and colors on a (digital) piece of paper and I can't find it in me to see a problem with that.

Lastly, it is perfectly fine to not like something but what is so hard about being civil about it and just scrolling on? I don't get why some people think they have a moral high ground over someone else's opinion which is, at the end of the day, about pixels on a screen depicting something fictional.

[bananafishlovers]

what do you think about people who thinks sexualizing Ash is the biggest no-no? that doing so misses the main point of banana fish?

Let me tell you how I felt after reading Banana Fish for the first time a year ago. After reading it I was emotional mess, its 2017. 

Also people reading this keep in mind we are talking about fictional characters plz

Any idea of NSFW art of the series was something I personally didn’t want to see at the time. The canon was enough it was something and I didn’t want to see at the time ( it didn’t exists back then anyways ). My heart was broken and I was hurt ,the fanbase didn’t exist back then I was alone with my pain. 

Fast forward to 2018.

At this point I have read the manga multiple times, I had a lot of time to think about it and I was Ok with NSFW art now, the anime is 18 episodes in , the fan-base is thriving and huge, but we have a problem that I have dreading since early 2018, what do we do once NSFW content starts being made ?

The main discussion I have been seeing around the fanbase is “is NSFW art of Banana Fish Ok? is NSFW art of Ash OK ? “

What is the moral of the Banana Fish manga and story in general or  the main point?

Sexual abuse and abuse is general is bad, its a very clear message and we all got it. Rape is bad, abusers are bad. Ash is a victim of sexual violence but despite his trauma he finds love, Ash never once consented to sex in canon remember this bit , also the universe Banana Fish story takes place is very messed up and unfair . 

What does a fandom in general do ? 

Give you more content by fan-artist , shippers, fanfic writers that can be rooted in the canon of Banana Fish universe but also does not have to be. ( AUs, fanfics , OOC fics and so on ) 

So what does this mean for Banana Fish fan content ?

It just means different people will write, draw and ship things that aren't in canon. So if you enjoyed the manga and you feel like any additional content is not necessary for you then you don't have to consume it.   

I know some people are uncomfortable with NSFW art in general but I myself am not. 

NSFW art and the  sexualization of Ash Lynx

In canon ,sexulazing Ash with all his traumas seems like something nobody should do,  except the manga does it in canon and Ash is given no choice but to use his sex-appeal to get out of situations. ( It makes sense in canon and out of canon it can be even interrupted as fanservic keep this in mind , context maters here ).

We know from canon mentioned above that Ash never consented to anything sexual but fanart and fanfics are not a part of the canon ,they don’t represent the story of what Banana Fish is in canon, they represent the desires and wishes of the fans works and the people consuming them. 

So NSFW for Banana Fish exists and will continue existing no matter if somebody likes it or not.

It all comes down to how comfortable you are with NSFW in general. 

So if somebody draws a NSFW fan-art or writes fanfics where Ash has consensual sex with another character, I don’t see a problem there. Because fan works ARE NOT CANON ! 

You can like them or dislike them it doesn't matter how much fan content there is the Banana Fish canon is untouchable and still tells the same story, you can not ruin Ash by writing a NSFW fanfic or fanart.

–

Let me also address this gem I have been seeing around lately

“Ash is a minor and shipping him with Max, Blanca or Eiji is pedophilia “ or “If you ship Ash with anybody else but Eiji your an awful person “

Policing the fanbase on how they can or cant enjoy a specific work of fanfic or fan-art is a sigh of not being able to tell the difference between a fanwork and canon and that is a problem of an individual, not the fanbase. ( also saying that it does not matter if Ash is a fictional character is creepy as fuck, it makes all the difference ) 

If you don't know the difference between a fictional character and a real person then you have no right telling other people what they can or cant like in a fanbase.

As much as I love Ash Lynx as a character ( and I do trust me ), this white knighting and purity policing and calling shippers pedos is crossing the line of sanity. If you cant handle fan-works or NSFW , then DON'T CONSUME IT ! Its that simple. 

The Banana Fish fandom does not just exist for one persons taste or views, there are a lot of us here and we all have the right to do what we want., being salty does not change it. 

Fan works are meant to me enjoyed and consumed by people who want them , being in a fan-base is about fun not about hating things somebody else enjoys. 

So in short , if you like the idea of BF NSFW go for it , it doesn't change the canon , if you don't like it then just don’t consume it, block the artist , Blacklist NSFW , its non of your business if somebody else likes it , they have the right to do so just like you have the right to not like it. 

Always remember that being a part of a fan-base and its level of involvement is up to you , its a choice. 

[muchymozzarella]

Trigger warning: discussion of CSA, CSEM

@grossularia hope this helps.

The screenshots above involve the organisations "NCMEC" and "INHOPE" which, as you can see, were being inundated by false reports due to fandom ship wars as of 2019-2020, and possibly to this day

After I reblogged the post, I got this message:

and a clarification:

Think about it. 99.8% of ALL CONTENT reported to these organisations focused entirely on saving victims of child sexual abuse... is falsely reported.

That could be anything from an idiotic shipwar to even reprehensible, yet entirely inactionable, drawings of fictional underaged characters.

Here's an additional message from the anon (whose identity I will not reveal due to the nature of anonymity in these orgs).

And here's some research on incidences of child sexual abuse which details how most of it is committed by close and trustworthy people in a child's life:

It's important to note that the idea that fictional CP has a bigger impact on grooming or sexual manipulation is a false one, one that doesn't require any complex thought and makes people feel like they're doing something bigger than they are when they go after artists who create it.

Groomers don't NEED CP to groom. Literally destroy all fictional CP in the world and it won't even make a dent in the incidences of CSA, because most of it stems from seemingly innocent things - I don't know if you've heard the "cookie" story. I mean, of all the reports I've heard over years of actors and voice actors and animators and artists getting with underaged fans just through the totally innocent media they created that the fan consumed kind of proves that nothing needs to be wrong with the media for opportunistic assholes to take advantage.

Fictional CP is disgusting, sure. You can certainly report the content as being against TOS on most sites because most sites don't allow them and they can be taken down. But wasting the time of organisations dedicated to protecting kids with lines and colours is active harm against the kids that need protecting.

The real way you can protect kids from being groomed online (if not interpersonally in their lives) is internet literacy and safety. Unless you're a full grown adult with security around your home, don't tell people where you live. Don't give out personal information, etc. Don't trust people with anything until you're old enough and secure enough.

As someone who grew up on the internet knowing I could never ever trust anyone with my real info and not doing so until I was well into my twenties, the fact that so many people are willing to show their faces and home towns online as teens is terrifying.

tl;dr reporting fiction to child protective agencies just hurts kids. Don't do it. Stop.

[venusmages]

[cw, mentions of noncon, p*dophilia]

saw a rlly good post that i've been consistently thinking about regarding how you really cannot, and probably should not, be up in arms over properly tagged/gated off fan content if it happens to have dark themes.

and its like... the argument of "you can't do X unless you're Y" is really shitty because you have no idea what the other person has been through! and they shouldn't have to lay out all of their experiences and personal credentials for a fucking internet mob that was mad they wrote m/m smut or noncon or abuse or whatever else they've decided is a moral failing in the space of fiction.

am I allowed to write a character that self harms? you don't know if I've dealt with that, and I shouldn't have to tell you in order for you not to stake me for it. What about characters that experience homophobia? I'm a lesbian, but I see a lot of people get really up in arms if fantasy has homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, ableism, etc. in it. When often times, especially when it's not a big majorly published work but instead made by an individual artist - they HAVE experienced those things. And, again, I don't think it's worth having to re-traumatize victims 'just in case' the person writing something you don't like hasn't dealt with those specific issues.

the whole 'fiction impacts reality' concept really only works with mainstream media that can be widely and easily distributed to the rest of society. There's a difference between a super famous musician like Sia making a blockbuster movie that portrays autism incorrectly and is literally partnered with autism speaks (a hate group)...and some poor bitch on AO3 who wrote a fanfic with r*pe in it. Guess which one has a significantly smaller audience, isn't profiting millions off it, and usually is locked away behind tags and content warnings and 18+ only account barriers? Not the fucking shitty autism movie.

I think there's definitely an argument to be made for making sure people tag their content accordingly across the whole internet at large, and rightfully being upset if an actual legal line is being crossed, or it's something upsetting that anyone can stumble across without having the option to refuse it. Hell there are websites like that for mainstream media like does the dog die (which is good if you're like me and love watching horror content but have triggers!) But I think purposefully shit-stirring because you don't like the content itself isn't appropriate. You have triggers? I do too! Don't interact with it! Block and walk away! Use filtering extensions!

The internet is a LOT more properly sectioned off in terms of NSFW content today than it was when us 20/30-somethings were growing up online. I promise for most of this shit you're not being a beacon of purity and moral righteousness but are intentionally ruining someone's day/reputation/life over a fucking fanfic that does not matter in any way. I know sensitive subject matter can be hard to deal with, but nowadays there literally are so many tools at your disposal. Eventually exposing yourself to it over and over again DOES become your fault. The block button exists. Use it!

** do NOT derail this trying to soapbox about 'think of the children' or vague claims of 'cp'. People have turned whats supposed to be caring about the wellbeing of children into an ignorant whirlwind of 'gotchya' terminology about someone drawing aged up anime characters or age differences between a 21 year old and a 30 year old. aka shit that is NOT p*dophilia. Also if you try to soapbox about the evils of fujoshi's i'm going to spit on you.

[jeans-ong-ong]

Hi! I just wanted to say I adore your comic! The colours are so beautiful, your art style is lovely, and the care you put into this project is evident. With so many things to tackle, like using real life cultures, the effects of war on those in service and out of it, and mental health, How do you go about doing research for it?

Hello! Thank you for this wonderful ask - both for the compliments and the interesting questions. So, let’s dive right into it: apologies for the long answer, but when you ask a creator to talk about their projects, they love to do it.

I started planning Introspection of a Deserter right when I began attending my Bachelor course in Education and Pedagogy - I met a lot of philosophical concepts that tingled my creativity, and I had to read a lot of books, so I felt like I was in the right mental space to handle a project that was deep and complex. I was studying how people grow up and shape their life, and it felt relevant for me to write a fictional biography that hit a series of themes that were interesting for me. I was 19, and now I am 22, and in all honesty I don’t think I’ve done a good job on the needed research.

Cultures Well, this part was simplified by the show. I think the creators of Avatar did some decent research, especially aesthetic wise, but they didn’t really go for the authentic representation. The info I got by talking with some asian fans is that Avatar does not work according to determined social mechanics, for example, in Korea or Vietnam. From what I gather, it was felt closer by Asian Americans, due to the characters feeling quite american, but the aesthetic being non-western (in A:tla at least). Being pretentious as I am, I felt like I wanted to use a bit more authenticity, but I didn’t really get it right on several aspects. I watched some fantasy asian movies to get examples for the tone I wanted (fun fact: I’m working on a watchlist of 30 movies to find the root of the mood of Introspection), mostly chinese; I read some articles about daily lifestyles and so on. On a hindsight, I should have watched more documentaries. I actually planned a trip to Vietnam in the indefinite future to “feel” the vegetation more! Vegetation is one of those thing you tend to take for granted, but it gives an entirely different texture and feeling to the landscape. Take, for example, the webcomic Heart of Keol: I couldn’t do that just by watching some fantasy movies (the author is, indeed, Korean), I need to live it first. However, a lot of stuff was made up and conveniently placed there, and that ... that has some consequences. See, for example, the religion storyline. Now, this one is a sore spot for me, because I’m viscerally attached to it. I don’t actually plan to change it in the near future - even if I do have a pair of books about buddhism on my readlist. What I’m telling in the comic is fundamentally a story about pseudo-catholicism: the concept of sin doesn’t match the concept of karma, the “sinfulness” of homosexuality and the desire of redemption, that’s just something that does not make sense in the context of a Buddhist culture. Let’s not even get into reincarnation: I have not done the minimum amount of research necessary to get such a difficult concept. And yet, I feel like changing this side of the comic would distort it to an unrecognizable story, and if I want to keep drawing it, I believe I need to mantain a bond with it. Will I try to be more authentic nonetheless? Yes. The effect of war I must admit I am quite fashinated by war. There is actually a branch in Medical Anthropology that studies war! And not only in the Medical one. However, the academics that do that have a severely higher risk of getting shot so I’m... still considering it, yes? I started looking into it because of Introspection. I think reading stories is educational most of the time, if only for the spark of interest one might develop for certain themes. You create some basis neuronal connections that will make it easy to look into more reliable sources later. But what is even better for me is Writing Stories: perfectionism forces me to look into sources (and as I grow older, I get that more and more), and looking into those makes me wish to write a story in that setting. That being said, my personal connection to war has been pretty indirect so far. I’ve listened and read stories about people who have been in battles, soldiers, victims - and I’ve been reading a lot about colonization in the last 4 years; from the classics to current issues (think Palestine). I include this bit on colonization because it will/would be a very recurrent theme in the story, and yet I know I’m still not there yet, I need to be more informed. The interest started with the disciplined experience of being in the military as studied by Goffman, and later on by Foucault, but then came in the concept blood thirst, and how does one person manage to enjoy killing people? How does one’s conscience tolerate it? I still haven’t finished doing research for that, because that story line “has just started”, and I like to keep concepts fresh in my mind (probably a mistake. Artists: do the research before you start working on the story, not while you’re doing it - unless it’s a written piece, that you can rework and rework. I didn’t finish the script before starting to draw the comic, so uh ... that’s a consequence). Mental health This was probably the one I winged the most through experience and knowledge gathered over the years. I haven’t properly read a book about depression yet - but I’ve just got one pending in the reading list, and the same goes (spoilers!) for alcohol and drug addiction. I did read a lot of experiences told by those who have been there, and I’ve even done an internship (actually only half of it because of Covid-19) in a rehab center for alcohol and drug abuse. However I know depression a bit, I’ve had several people with a variation of it in my life, and part of this comic is a re-elaboration of what I and other people have gone through in a (not always) exaggerated way, and fictionalization. When I was in a very different mental place, I used to refer to this comic as my “self-therapy”. Just an example can be found in (planned) book 4, which will be an hypothesis of therapy for someone with serious suicidal thoughts. Never will the comic be about “complete healing!”, because that’s not something I believe in, however it will be used to experiment, and hope a bit for a better, if bittersweet, vision of life. As I got into doing the comic, some themes became more important than others because I felt more bound to them, and usually I do more research on those now. Academic paper reading, people who live them in first person experiences (through documentaries, autobiographies, or youtube videos), or even personal experiences are all sources I draw from in comic planning. This being said, I should either choose shorter stories or simpler subjects for my next comic. But will I? Who knows. Thank you for reading so far!

[rainbowloliofjustice]

Honestly live for how a artist I follow on Twitter and Instagram is openly and genuinely anti-anti and how the tides are turning and anti-shippers are going to realise the "normal people" don't actually like, stand for or understand their crackheadery at all lmao

Honestly yeah. (I also wanna know the name of this artist)

Any ideology that tries so hard to paint themselves as the “normal  people” and anyone else who isn’t like them as the “abnormal” ones, isn’t healthy. Any ideology that needs and relies on conflating things like “ pedophilia” and “incest” with fictional ships and characters to be the same as real-life incidents of those things, isn’t healthy. 

“Any normal person is against pedophilia.” Yes but is this about idk an actual  pedo sharing images of real children with other pedos and lusting after them or is this about someone who draws porn of a BNHA character?

Hell, in fact, their entire rhetoric is based around extreme conservative and radfem rhetoric. There’s been no shortage of radfems who’ve made side-fandom blogs that make Radfem Lite (TM) posts and watch as their mutuals/followers reblog them because these dolts can’t determine whether something is radfem or conservative rhetoric without it being obvious like an url or bio and to top it off some of them even copy- paste radfem posts without changing a single word and have the audacity to say “A radfem made this  post so I stole it” as if it being posted by someone “not a radfem” would change the meaning or anything presented in the post. 

Many of them are largely Radfem/Conservatives Lite (TM) but because radfems and conservatives are bad people and antis are good people, there is no way they could have bad opinions. Only good ones. And anything good is something that aligns with and is determined by them. 

If you are a bad person to them, you are less than human and undeserving of compassion or even being treated as human. In many of their rhetoric, there’s a huge dissonance between those who are antis “in name only” (I.e to appease and virtue signal to their friends, not be attacked, etc.) and the things they say. 

“It’s wrong to send death threats BUT...”

“It’s wrong to tell people to get raped BUT....”

and that “but” is always before what is effective “this person did something wrong and is deserving of punishment” and that “wrong” is drawing fictional characters, having certain ships, etc. 

Hell, even when you read threads and posts from  people who used to be around antis a lot, they mention how they found themselves doing it just because their friends were, so they wouldn’t be attacked, etc. how rumors from abusers are allowed to spread about the victims, etc. and how overall, they lived with a fear that if their friends found out that they shipped something or didn’t find something as bad as they all did, they’d more or less be outcasted and treated as if they’re less than human.

At no point is being treated like that over fictional characters normal. Someone’s fantasy in a word document or lines on a paper is not an indicator of their morality or what they’d do in real life, to an actual person. 

It’s also why if you notice, many of them are fans of dark fiction (Hannibal, etc.) but then have numerous ways of “justifying” it but none of those justifications apply to the fictional things they deem bad. 

[rem289]

Q: Why are you writing this post?

A: Because during the Christmas holidays I started to receive attention from the Zootopia fandom which led me to re-discover some concepts that I thought I had made clear, and since this didn’t turn out to be true, I am forced to reiterate them.

Q: What happened?

A: I discovered that someone had reposted, obviously without my consent, an old comic of Aoimotion and mine on reddit, a site I don't like and on which I had already said not to publish my actually and old contents. This repost "reminded" this fandom of my existence, and after this event some people came to ask us questions such as "when Nick and Judy would reappear in our work?" and the like.

You can imagine how much it bothered me, so I went to reddit and wrote to immediately delete the content. Unfortunately, doing this I couldn’t help but notice how the post had become a place to waste insinuations and insults aimed at me and Aoimotion. In particular, the comments of three users stood out: @ggctuk , @owningsuperset7​ and @hammytotherescue

Q: Why did these users get your attention?

A: ggctuk, which I have no idea who they are, have proclaimed themselves as the narrative voice of the events that have taken place between us and the fandom, providing a lot of incomplete and, in the worst case, completely wrong information, about why we left the fandom and about the alleged "abusive behaviors" we had against translators.

Owningsuperset7 spoke about us (like he does every time the occasion presents itself to him), defining us ungrateful towards the fandom "that had fed us". But "fed" in what sense? It seems to me that we have been those who have definitely "eaten" very little… or likes can be monetized, just like the views on youtube, and I didn't know it? Did they break the keyboard in order to put those likes on our works? If it’s so, I'm sorry, but I certainly wasn't the one who pointed the gun at their head to follow my work. Always remember that paying attention to a work is always and only a reader’s choice. No creator has power over these phenomena, we just create and publish, the rest is always an unknown factor. So expressing yourself as a seduced and abandoned lover on an old and free work doesn’t make you a victim, it only makes you ridiculous. Anyway, I know the subject, who had already decided in the past to talk on DeviantArt before I blocked him, and I decided not to tell him anything in that moment, also because, what can you say to a person who clearly has problems that go beyond fandom? Sometimes ignoring is the kindest choice you can make.

Hammytotherescue instead claimed that he and I were friends in the past, before the duo formed by me and aoimotion became toxic. Since I had no memory of this person and I hate when someone alludes to relationships with me that don't exist, I wrote to him privately on Tumblr asking him if he could kindly refresh my memory about this "friendship" he was bragging about.

Q: How did it end?

A: The conversation, which I report below because I, unlike him, have nothing to be ashamed of, is as follows:

As you can see, Hammy never replied to my last message . But in reality the story was not over. A few days ago, in fact, I discover that the user in question "vented" in the post of reddit, not under my comment (so that I received notification of his reply) but in response to another comment that had been left to me. Showing, as always, the incredible maturity of these people.

After reading this comment, I decided to act by reporting the user on reddit, but the answer I received can be summarized as: "since you are a content creator, you deserve insults regardless." In short, a response as useful and smart as the people who gave it to me. So don’t worry Hammy, you won't be banned from reddit because the only braincell shared by you users agrees that defining a toxic and manipulative person is, to quote one of the wise moderators I talked to, "a fairly typical level of criticism". All is well that ends well.

Q: You mentioned "concepts to reiterate". What would they be?

A: Let's start by denying what ggctuk wrote in that reddit's post, given how much popularity his comments have gained.

My split from this fandom started because I simply lost interest in Nick and Judy and preferred to do something else, something of my own. Black Jack gave us the opportunity to invent many original characters and they was those I wanted to work on. We have never worked for ulterior motives other than having fun together. When we recognized that we no longer have anything to give to this universe, we declared it openly and closed this chapter of our "artistic life". This split could take place in a peaceful and calm way, I would have taken my own path and you yours, since it was obvious, since BJ times, that you had very little interest in our original contents. You also reiterated this between the lines of these last comments, so really, I make a terrible effort to understand your logic of contents belonging to your fandom. It's not your fault, don't worry. You have been spoiled by this entrenched habit of creating any anthropomorphic animal and attributing it to your precious and super-nutritive fandom. Once you labeled this attitude at heresy, now everything is fine as long as it helps you keeping this universe going, honestly, I just pity you. However it seems that your obsession with me prevents you from accepting the fact that my life would have continued even without this fandom and that I would have lived very well even without the amount of likes that fanarts could give me. Indeed my life would be even more beautiful if I didn't have to waste time like I am doing now.

Both me and aoimotion together gave you a lot, and in the end we simply got it back. Jack is a prime example: yes, he is a character born from the scratches of Zootopia's artwork, but thanks to our work he has evolved to the point of becoming a completely original character. This fandom has not been able to accept it and until the end has tried to claim him as its own, and even now it can’t accept that we have instead taken him back, and even less can you bear that we are successfully using him in our original works, which is why you insist so much on his "Disney" origin, as if this defines his identity, and for months you have made fun of us saying that we were claiming something that belongs to Disney as our own. Unfortunately, beyond a doodle and a hint of a hypothetical background, Disney has absolutely nothing. Whatever weight you have attributed to "Jack Savage" is only thanks to our work, Disney has nothing to do with your mania and it has nothing to do with everything we've built up over the years. Still, you took our job and stuck it over the "Disney" label, and that was even when Black Jack was long gone, so don’t use that excuse anymore. You even tried to attribute Cynthia to the Disney universe by calling her "Skye", since you are so desperate to keep your fantasies going, and when you had nothing more to say, you said that my art style was "clearly inspired by Disney". Did you think I could condone such an attitude? I suppose these statements derive above all from the certainly very poor culture that you have of the world outside the fandom (or fandoms), however there are artists who WORKED for Disney, who TEACHED drawing techniques at the Disney Academy and who work at own productions with that style, without anyone attributing anything to the major. If you don't believe me, try using the web for something constructive, like doing some in-depth research on the subject.

As for the matter of our alleged abuses on translators, I will only say two things: the translations started because of my naivety, and we prohibited them because the translators abused their role and went out of control, acting as if the comics belonged to them and / or as if there was a special relationship of complicity between me and them. I'm sorry I gave false hopes to these people, unfortunately I didn't have time to realize the misunderstandings that were being created and how our work was being used. There is a clear difference between the fan content and the original content, so now more than even, less our work passes into the hands of others, the better it is for us.

Now let’s analyzing the brilliant messages of Hammy, both on Tumblr and on reddit:

In both cases, what I see is a desperate need to cling to Rem's "pretty" facade while simultaneously demolishing the person behind Aoimotion. These insinuations suggest that the only possible Rem to conceive for your narrow minds is the kind and lovely one, and everything I say and do that does not fall within this definition is the work of aoimotion.

I will never go into detail about the dynamics between me and her, because frankly it’s not your business and I don’t want to give you further ground to cultivate your absurd speculations and your degenerated ideas. If you have decided to treat us as two two-dimensional characters of some fourth category fan fiction born from your fragile minds and then feel disappointed or offended by my attitude or a severe response I can give you, you cannot help but blame yourself and not who is my friend .

But you have to get it into your heads that when you talk about us in a personal way, you refer only on the basis of two web profiles. You don't know us personally and above all you don't know me. Being an extremely reserved person, I always decided to use social networks to share my artistic side or my interests related to entertainment, nothing more, nothing less. "Rem289" has always been only a blog, a showcase on the web, I’ve never attributed a real emotional and above all personal value to it, even before Zootopia. For the rest I prefer to live my personal life off the web. Unfortunately, you have been so careless as to decide to hit my personal sphere, my friendships and my affections. So no, Aoi didn’t take over between you and me, but the person behind Rem289 took over and you paid the consequences.

Still on the subject of aoimotion, it seems that the moment this comment was written on DA has remained particularly impressed: https://www.deviantart.com/comments/1/765376682/4647911119

This great insult, which among other things is attributed to her as if I didn’t think the same (if not worse) about you, has become the new reason why aoimotion is ugly and bad and is the reason why she deserves to be insulted and disparaged at the slightest opportunity, even during a conversation with me in which she’s not involved in any way.

Now, since this term seems to me rather dated to be used as a matter of indignation during your debates, and since I still find it rather ”soft” to use to outline my intolerance towards you, in order to give you another thing to think over, I will give you an attribute which seems more correct to me: you are sick. Confronting you is like talking to someone who has been brainwashed. You are a broken record that always says the same things over and over again. I can't even feel sorry for you, what I feel is just a great sense of unease. (Of course there are people that still participate in this fandom and are perfectly normal, but those are exceptions and they already know we think good of them.)

And it’s precisely your illness that prompted me to dissociate myself so violently from the fandom. Not aoimotion, as you have been saying for months between an insult and another that you address to her because perhaps you are too afraid of me to address them directly to me, which is rather contradictory since I should be the sweet and pretty one of the duo. After all, it's better to treat me like a poor brainless fool who lets herself be manipulated rather than admit that I also have my own ideas and that, you don’t say, you don't like them.

Q: In any case, you have no right to deprive your fans of old content they love so much, you just want to be spiteful! Why did all your old WildeHopps comics disappear from the web?

A: The decision to delete the contents created by me relating to the fandom from my web platforms or those shared with my partner was not born in the least out of spite or "punishment" towards the members of the fandom. It was a decision made to dissociate my name and my current work from fandom, because unfortunately it created difficulties for my image and real difficulties for readers to understand (you can go on and say that if people think your work is still Zootopia-related is not a big deal, but I assure you it is). All that came after, are only and exclusively speculations built on purpose to find the most sinister reasons of why it happened. Publishing content is only an accessory part of the job itself, a percentage of the process. Deciding to publish, not publish or cancel a publication is at the pure expense of the author, and no consumer has the right to impose his will on the creator. I understand that they are perhaps too complex concepts for you, since it’s clear that you are used to measuring the value of things based on the likes they receive, but this current of thought also exists and I hope it will be useful to you someday, in the remote possibility that decide to take moments of deep reflection (which would be more and more useful than tapping your fingers on the keyboard).

(Little curiosity: in the last few weeks we have forwarded about twenty reports to various sites to remove our old contents posted there without our permission. Not only all twenty reports have been accepted, but the contents have all been removed in less than 12 hours from the date of reporting. This is to remind you that if we don’t want our content on the web, we have them removed and it’s the reposters who pay for it, not us.)

Q: Well, however you can't force us not to talk badly about you or aoimotion, in fact, you can't stop us from believing that she's been manipulating you for years. Almost certainly it’s she who is writing this post without your knowledge, isn't it?

A: The people of the web are notoriously lazy and are therefore often uninformed and constipated in developing their own concepts. They spit sentences without even knowing what they’re talking about, they choose "comfortable" truths, such as the fact of attributing to aoimotion every not nice word that comes from me, and when this phenomenon is reflected on real persons, unfortunately it’s quite difficult to manage.

We are attributed with labels, words, concepts, faults, relationships that don’t belong to us and that are difficult to get away from. A simple comment or a wrong statement towards a person can spread like wildfire and end up marking them for life. Needless to say, these conditions often prevent these same people from continuing with their activities, which instead are healthy, in a serene and peaceful way. Even now, instead of drawing, I’m writing this latest post to defend me and my partner from your sick slanders. Those who allow themselves the luxury of damaging the "active personalities" of the web are people who fully enjoy anonymity behind a screen, and often people who have the matter of regulating them (like the reddits moderators, who are a joke at best) limit themselves to considering certain behaviors "ordinary” in the creator / consumer relationship. The mere fact of normalizing certain behaviors doesn’t smooth out the rules of civilized life, makes these "authorities" complicit and therefore only adds a problem. It’s more than evident that some people are not yet able to distinguish the boundary that exists between objective opinion and direct and personal insult, but from people who lose sleep at night because they have been defined as “lunatic” I don’t expect anything less. Who knows what you will do now that I have called you sick.

I conclude with a message to the interested party:

@hammytotherescue​: I don't know how old you are, however, judging by what you write and how you write it and how you act, I deduce that you should not be more than 14-15 years old. Unfortunately I regret to tell you that the fact you are a minor doesn’t mean that you don’t have to take responsibility for your actions, and if you still have doubts about understanding where you have gone wrong I advise you to ask your parents for advice. I gave you the opportunity to confront me but you ran away to cry on a public platform. Hasn't anyone taught you that real life doesn't work like that? If, on the other hand, you are an adult, I sincerely feel sorry for you, I say this from the bottom of my heart.

I know how comfortable it is to hide behind a group or in this case a fandom to vent one's dislikes towards the individual. This time you and your friends have received the same treatment, you have not caught generic appellations addressed to the fandom but I decided to speak to you personally. My only advice is to use this experience to learn how it behaves on the web, and when you have learned it, you could teach it to all your friends, perhaps starting with @owningsuperset7​.

For @ggctuk: I hope you will appreciate my effort in writing this long post, as so the next time you talk about us again, you can use it as a reference to explain how things went 🤗

[microsuedemouse]

hhhhhhhhhhhhhwoof I hate fandom/ship drama

anyway I’ve been thinking about how. there is nothing, inherently wrong,, with being interested in exploring ships (or even non-romantic/non-sexual character dynamics!) that are unhealthy in-universe.

here’s something: there is value in recognising that a ship is unhealthy or toxic or abusive or whichever other descriptor you feel fits best. (I am going to be using ‘unhealthy’ as my umbrella word in this post; obviously it’s an understatement to call an abusive relationship ‘unhealthy’ but it’s still accurate and it encompasses the variety of things I’m talking about.) there is value in taking that as fact and acknowledging such in whatever exploratory work you may choose to create or engage in.

I wanna take a second here to clarify part of what I mean: it is not inherently wrong to enjoy an unhealthy ship, and you are not required to defend a ship as healthy/‘not abusive’ in order to justify your interest in it. this is a very weird result, imo, of purity culture and virtue signalling. when you have a healthy understanding of the difference between fiction and reality, and a recognition of what’s acceptable in reality and what’s compelling in fiction, it’s actually very worth exploring what interests and engages you about Fictional Bad Things.

you know that phenomenon where people love villains? a lot of discourse around purity culture naturally leads to the conclusion: “it is wrong to like villains.” most of us are capable of recognising that this... doesn’t make sense. because obviously, we aren’t - or at least, the great majority of us aren’t - claiming that we would like and support this person in reality, or that we would be entirely comfortable with the deeds they commit if those deeds took place in reality. we’re saying that the character appeals to and compels us for some reason, within fiction. that’s a different thing - and it’s usually a sign of good writing! it’s very worth exploring that experience: what about this villain makes you like them so much? what about them makes them relatable to you, or sympathetic to you, or perhaps even cathartic to you? these kinds of questions can offer both entertainment value and, possibly, some new insights into yourself as a person. those insights might turn out to be interesting and meaningless, or they might provide you with new ways to express yourself, or they might even offer you a new avenue for growth.

(moral purity often also extends to the conclusion ‘you shouldn’t enjoy stories in which the main character suffers, because it’s wrong to enjoy someone’s pain.’ we all know this makes no sense, because that includes most stories. a major reason human beings tell stories is to share in the emotional journey of a protagonist ultimately overcoming great obstacles. but anyway, this is a whole other issue, really.)

what I’m getting at is - the same can apply to ships. there are a few approaches to unhealthy ships, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say they stand on equal moral ground, but there are a variety of ways you might be able to explore them without it making you an inherently evil person, or whatever. it’s also worth noting that while, obviously, I’m expressing here what aligns with my moral position and encouraging you to think similarly - but, I also encourage you to think critically about your own moral positions. decide what is comfortable for you, and what feels right to engage with. it’s fine and it’s normal to draw your own lines in the sand and say, this is where the range of acceptable ends for me. I won’t support or engage with what’s on the other side.

to give a quick overview of some approaches I’m not as comfortable with: sometimes you’ll find a writer/artist/other fan who likes to depict a ship as totally healthy in a way that can only be described as out-of-character. sometimes this seems to be a denial of the actuality of the ship; I don’t like that so much because it’s often a refusal to acknowledge that their canonical behaviour/dynamic is bad. other times this is depicted as a sort of AU; this doesn’t bother me quite as much personally (often depending on what the writer’s overall attitudes seem to be) but it’s also often less interesting to me. in my experience, this is usually very self-indulgent work and has a lot more to do with the writer’s own experiences than with canon itself. which is fair, honestly. sometimes that’s cathartic for the writer and that’s enough - I don’t have to be into it personally to respect it.

another thing that crops up that’s kind of worrisome, imo, is when a writer/artist/etc. depicts the ship as in-character but denies that it’s unhealthy. now, in fairness, if you’re simply reading a fic or looking at a piece of fanart or something, you cannot always tell exactly how the creator thinks the ship actually operates. not everyone is always going to include a disclaimer that says ‘hey I don’t think this is actually Good.’ so try not to immediately ascribe intent to the writer/etc. unless you’ve seen them state outright somewhere: this isn’t abuse, it’s just cute! (or whatever it is they’re seeing.) at that point it is worth being concerned about what this person thinks constitutes a healthy relationship, and if you don’t feel good about supporting their work that’s entirely fair.

HOWEVER. there are also other approaches. two in particular stand out to me that I think are worth discussing. one is simply exploring the possibilities of an unhealthy relationship, with total acknowledgement of its flaws. one unhealthy dynamic that I admittedly find really engaging a lot of the time? ‘these two characters are Very obsessed with each other, and it sure ain’t healthy psychologically, but it’s definitely mutual.’ I love that shit. gimme a couple of unhinged, incredibly codependent pieces of shit, and you have my full attention. particularly if they’re on equal footing - if they’re damaging one another, it’s reciprocal, or at very least they’re both getting exactly what they want out of the relationship. obviously this would not be a dynamic I could support in real life! that’s terrible and I don’t want anyone to go through it! but in fictional characters it can be fascinating to explore. and if the content is going to upset or trigger certain fans: that’s why we use tags and warnings. AO3, where many of us go for a huge amount of our fan content, literally has a whole system in place for precisely this purpose: so we can let each other know what’s inside, and make informed choices about what we want to consume.

the other common approach is the redemption arc. it’s always gonna be up to you which characters you consider redeemable and which ones you don’t - that’s okay. again, it’s your choice what content to engage and what to pass over. but as people we’re traditionally very fond of the redemption arc story, and as fans we love to create the redemption arcs our favourite characters don’t get to live out in canon. because we love something about the character and want to explore them further. like I said earlier, that in itself is worth giving some thought to. sometimes we’ll even end up writing partial redemptions: this character goes from totally reprehensible to kind of appealingly awful. the ship goes from abusive to a much more regular level of fucked up. that can definitely be an interesting story in itself, and it’s okay if you want to explore it.

the main thing is that you always exercise your ability to think critically about what you’re consuming and why you like it - which, honestly, you should be trying to do all of the time, anyway. be clear about what you do and don’t endorse, about what your actual values are, about where you draw the line. (as both an example and a disclaimer, since I know I still have followers from A Certain Fandom where this cropped up a lot before I mostly dipped: one line that I personally draw, and always will, is at ships involving an adult and a literal child. I am not comfortable with exploring this even in the hypothetical space of fan content. it is too objectionable to be compelling.)

go forth. explore your unhealthy ships and shitty favourite characters. experiment and learn why they compel you. write properly-labelled fanfic about them hurting each other and loving it. just remember that everyone has different boundaries, and that fiction and reality are very separate spaces. acknowledge that what you’re enjoying is not inherently right or acceptable in real life just because you enjoy it in a story, and it doesn’t have to be. if you’re a content creator, consider portraying these things in such a way that your audience is well aware of your position on the matter, in order to help them also understand what is and isn’t healthy. be a ruthless writer and a kind person, and you’ll do just fine.

[gemini-system]

If you're a friend or a mutual that cares, please read if you like. Sorry it's a novel long..

TLDR: I have a split personality disorder. Please accept me for who I am. (Though I would really appreciate you reading this)

There's a lot about my battle with mental health that I never told a single soul, despite being an open book pretty much all of the time. There were things even I never told anyone about, or maybe only hinted at, because I either had no name for them and could not explain that, or just plain fear not a single person would believe me, or think that I just wanted attention.

A couple months ago, I met my current boyfriend, and upon opening up cautiously for the second time about these issues, was finally given a name for them, and what I could do to make life easier living with them, and it changed everything. I was originally gonna just drop an explanation in my friends group chat since I haven't talked to them in a long time and wanted to give a life update, but dropping it all just felt like kind of a lot and I still have the anxiety that they won't believe me. So I'm talking here instead (I'll probably link this to them) But I just have to let it all out, and this is my only non-streaming centric account that is not linked back to on any of my videos, so I feel like I can dump it here.

To brass tax:

Starting at the end of middle school, I started developing symptoms of a sister illness to DID (multiple personality disorder). This sister illness is little known about and while it doesn't have a concrete name, some call it Division. Division is when, due to trauma, a set of bottled up emotions, ideas, and anxieties form into a split personality with it's own identity and can manifest in various ways, pretty similar to DID. The thing is with these illnesses, since everyone who has them experiences them differently in their own way, it's hard to know EXACT symptoms. And that, coupled with the fact all my google searches bring up nothing about it, is why I have always feared no one will believe me.

"Why Division? Why not just say you have DID?" I was told, in order to have DID, there must be two separate and distinct personalities from the host. And so I would not qualify because I have only one separate personality. If I am wrong about this, I have no issue with you sending me a polite ask about it, as it would be a lot easier to just say "I have DID" and tell ppl to do their own google search lol.

Fair enough, so why do I have all this anxiety my loved ones won't believe me?

Here is the part where it might get a little cringey to some, but I am an artist and writer, and all my life, art has been the way I express all my feelings and vent things without having to state them outright.

I had always feared being a bad person. From the trauma of the CSA I endured for 2 years, from gaslighting, to my father verbally abusing and threatening me and my mother with physical violence from a young age, I feared being a bad person more than anything else.

Every time I got angry, or talked back, or even just tried to stand up for myself, I feared I was or would become a bad person, and I thought to myself that I just needed to take all of those things I deemed bad, and put them into something or someone else so that I would no longer fear being a bad person. This other thing could be bad so I wouldn't have to "risk hurting people I loved" I had no idea what 'splitting' was or that I was even doing it. And that personality began to form.

As I began to draw more often, my symptoms surfaced simultaneously. "Hearing" thoughts in my head that weren't mine (not really hearing but it's hard to explain), horrible intrusive visions and thoughts, and then finally a little ways down the line swapping with eachother time to time, and another occurrence I call "snapping" where I swap suddenly out of anger or distress and lash out at others or have some kind of meltdown. I learned how to fight and control the swapping, I tried with all my might to make sure no one ever found out I was "crazy". Even my therapists. As for snapping, I couldn't control it, so he mostly came out that way.

I needed to vent through art somehow or I was going to explode. He had named himself, and told me what he looked like, and so I basically started a game of 4D fucking chess and told everyone "this is my new OC haha" and started from there, deciding to take a fan comic I was making, and rework it to put him at the center and make it original. I figured toting him as just a character I created that was important to me was easier than trying to explain or possibly have to prove to people that I had a split personality who was very real, with his own identity. I thought maybe I cold vent without people thinking I was crazy or some kind of special snowflake. 

Looking back it's kind of funny because a lot of my venting was pretty on the nose with hints all over, so I'm surprised if at least one person didn't pick up on it lol. At one time during a breakdown, I even tried to explain that "Jet is mean and starting to scare me" and then realized my friends confusion as they reassured me he was a fictional character I made up. Which totally wasn't their fault because I totally dug that hole myself. I just felt a compulsive need to hide everything I was really going through.

For those who know about the character Jet, you may be a bit concerned because he is written to be a serial killer, but from years of writing development, Let me tell you, he is very overwritten and the Jet from the story is pretty different now from the "real" Jet in my head. If he wanted to actually end someone he would have done it by now and landed my ass in prison. He's mostly just a bully and goblin.

This post is already years long, so I won't bore you with our life story, especially if you think I'm making it all up. So here's my conclusion.

I hope you believe me, and accept me for who I am. This is the full and honest truth, and is a huge part of me that I just don't want to hide anymore. I want to be able to talk about my experience without sugar coating and leaving out information. I like being an open book, and this secret has been killing me. It took a lot of courage to type this all out to the world. I wouldn't mind telling you about our life together, what he's really like, and all the things I've learned from this strange, stressful, and sometimes wonderful journey.

If you don't believe me, that's fine. You can call me a liar, or say I'm delusional, or leave me. I'll never talk about it to you again, and I can just keep hiding it around you. I truly hope you realize that this is my truth.

Thank you for your time.

[eddtober]

EDDTOBER MASTERPOST 2019!

ABOUT:

Eddtober is a list of prompts made in an effort to encourage the Eddsworld Fandom to spread their wings of creativity beyond the norms that they are used to, during the month of October.

It is all without harming others or causing drama, a neutral ground for all fans of Eddsworld to come and have fun, no matter what side of a discourse they’re in. 

It hopes to promote inspiration beyond the usual over-dramatised content, to revive a spirit in Eddsworld that hasn’t been seen in many years, and to stretch the invitation to all who can create.

Eddtober calls not only the artists who have a talent for drawing and painting and so forth, but also: the authors (fanfics, journalists, essayists, diarists, poets, ramblers), the cosplayers, the video-makers (animators, video essays, memers, youtubers), the gamers (game devs, let’s plays) and more. Eddtober calls for all those who want to be inspired with unconventional creativity. 

So Eddheads: come forth, be inspired and make something new! 

With that out the way, steel yourselves - this post is gonna be a long one under the cut!

RULES:

Base Rules need to be set so everyone can participate in Eddtober safely and in a fun way. Please read them carefully!

Always tag it with #eddtober and tag appropriately! Of course, the first part is easy. In regards to the second part, there’s three categories. All they have in common is that they must be tagged with their own tag and NOT in the main eddtober tag. These specific tags musn’t be shortened or reimagined either, just to make sure. Side Note: If you don’t want to see ANY of these things mentioned in the categories, it’s recommended that you get some form of a blacklist extention, either Tumblr Savior, xKit, or even tumblr itself to hide those things from you. Though do beware - be careful when looking through the blog since… Yeah, it’s hard to blacklist stuff through there. a) Gore. Gore and related NSFW is allowed in the challenge, but please tag it as #Eddtober gore, alongside the appropriate trigger warnings of the subject as #tw -trigger here- . The creative piece should also be posted with a ‘keep reading’ redirection so it isn’t immediately seen by those who are repulsed by it. b) Shipping. As of 2019, shipping is now officially allowed and acceptable in the challenge! If you have any ships implied or shown in a prompt response, always use #eddtober shipping and what ship it is in a seperate tag. c) (In)Famous Fan Projects. As of 2019, a lot of dividing opinions have been flying around the community and splitting people apart. In an event of unity and neutrality, these opinions are still welcomed, but still have to be done carefully. If you’re in favour of a fan-project, go ahead and tag them alongside ’#eddtober fan project’. But if you’re not, then you don’t have to tag them - just use ’#eddtober fan project salt’. And yes, those are the exact tags. No need to alter them here.

Be Sensitive and Respectful to Others. I know many of us here in this fandom can take easy offence to certain creations, so please consider and think on your creative piece before you make and post it. If it’s intentionally insulting and offensive, don’t post or even create it at all.  

Credit Where Due. This should be blatantly obvious right now, but please, please don’t steal other’s creative fanwork or post it without credit. Always have permission from the creator to post something of their’s, regardless of the social media, and always have their username when you post it, not just ‘credit to the artist/original person’. If you do not follow this, actions will be taken for your consequences. This also goes for spreading Eddtober - always place a link to this blog if you spread the list to other social medias!

Keep your situation and life chill. You can do one prompt for Eddtober, some of the prompts or all of them - up to you! It’s understandable if life gets in the way. The goal of Eddtober is not to do every prompt, but to be inspired to create fan-content in a way you usually wouldn’t have.

Spread the word. This is less of a rule and more of a personal request from Admin Chris, but since she doesn’t have many social media accounts you’d expect, spreading word of Eddtober (with appropriate credit back to this blog) would mean a LOT, so they can join in the fun too!

Sharing is caring. Reblogging and sharing from your fellow creators doing Eddtober would be great to give them a motivation and confidence boost! (Keep in mind that reposting is not the same as reblogging, unless proper credit is given with the original artists’ permission.)

Go Beyond the Boundaries of Your Imagination. The whole purpose of Eddtober is to promote new, fresh things to come up in the Eddsworld fandom and break a cycle of the same old that’s been there for a while. Take a leap, spread your wings, do your best, and go have fun.

BOUNDARIES:

Most of this list will be related to Rule Two of Eddtober:

Be Sensitive and Respectful to Others.

Quote:

‘I know many of us here in this fandom can take easy offence to certain creations, so please consider and think on your creative piece before you post.‘

Whilst Eddtober is a fun, neutral place to spread our creative wings, there are boundaries that need to be taken in order to keep everyone safe. Which means certain parts that are usually seen as ‘common’ within the Eddsworld Fandom will not be acceptable in the challenge. This list is just to make sure that we as the Eddtober community can set a good standard for the fandom and for ourselves.

Edd Gould’s death. Admin Chris wishes to make it clear that creative pieces that draws clear lines to Edd’s passing IS NOT okay. This includes Edd (IRL and the character) in hospital for cancer, Angel Edd or any AU that depicts him as a divine being of any sort (including Blessworld), in Heaven or Hell (as an actual denizen there, not a tourist like in Hello Hellhole. There’s a strong difference).   Here at Eddtober, Edd's life is something to be celebrated, not his death. It’s uncomfortable to see this thing happen and should be steered clear of.

Fetishisation/Sexualisation of Religions and Faiths. This is another reason why AUs such as Blessworld aren’t okay. In regards to that AU, the sexualisation and the horrendous acts done within the Catholic church is a highly sensitive topic that’s still debated over even in real life. So things such as ‘sexy’ nuns and priests and so forth are a strong insult to them. This is only one example though, and I’m not saying you can’t explore faiths and combine them with Eddsworld, but I HIGHLY recommend doing your research on the faith or religion and its history before creating for Eddtober.

Edd’s old IRL Friends. This is regarding Prompts 27 and 28 for the most part. Whilst Edd Gould did draw his pals into comics and Eddisodes, making them their own characters (quite clearly), many of them might not want to be associated with Eddsworld or Edd after his passing or after the legacy season. So out of respect for their wishes, please do not involve Edd’s actual old IRL friends in your creative pieces unless they say they’re okay with it. This will vary from person to person, so do not also take one answer from one person and apply that as an umbrella motive. If you get no response from the person regarding this if you ask them yourself, then take it as a NO and don’t involve them in the creative piece. This doesn’t mean that you cannot use the Eddsworld character based off of them (unless they straight-up say so). You’re perfectly able to, but to avoid future confusion, a person’s Eddsworld character IS NOT the same as the real-life person. For example, using Tom from Eddsworld in a piece is okay, but using Thomas ‘TomSka’ Ridgewell himself for the same Eddsworld piece isn’t. (Disclaimer: Said example may not be 100% accurate unless there’s further information about this. This is a fictional example, after all.)

The real guys’ last names/surnames. I really didn’t want to say this in here and it hasn’t happened in Eddtober yet, but when Legacy ended, one of Tom’s last says was that the fans shouldn’t use the IRL last names of Eddsworld crewmembers (specifically actors and animators) for the characters. It’s an effort to seperate the characters from the real-life people. This means when creating your pieces, you don’t use: -Edd Gould -Tom Ridgewell -Matt Hargreaves -Tord Larsson And so forth. You’re welcome to come up with your own last names for the characters, but please don’t use the old IRL ones. Unfortunately since this habit is starting to pop back up in bits of the fandom, I want to make it clear that isn’t cool or tolerated, and action will be taken if I see it happen in here.

Sinsworld. Believe it or not, the sinsworld tag was specifically made back in the day to keep the porn out of the main. But due to a certain in-fandom event, this intended action has been long-lost. Because of all of these events, any sinsworld (porn, lewds and related sexual NSFW) that’s Sinspired by the Eddtober prompts WILL NOT be accepted into the blog or any other official Eddtober accounts by any means.   This is because many in this fandom are minors/underage and more who are 18+ are repulsed to porn and such (Admin Chris is part of the latter group). It is fine to be sexually inspired by the prompts and create stuff for them, but PLEASE don’t tag that Sinsworld content with Eddtober.

Abusive/Self-Harm Creative Content, Gorey or not. No. Just. No. I don’t wish to deny vent or darker creations. It is good to release your frustrations and express personal issues in what you create, but there are safe and appropriate ways to do so in the challenge. Death wishing, abuse, suicide/suicide idealisation, self-harm and/or similar are NOT allowed to be depicted in the challenge and should NEVER be romanticised or supported. Eddtober aims to be a safe and uplifting place for all creative people, no matter what their space is at the moment.

Shipping. On a similar note - whilst shipping is allowed, there are of course some things we don’t allow out of respect for everyone: -Shipping of the IRL people. -Sexual or abusive ship dynamics and tropes. -Ship-bashing or insulting ships. I’m sure there will be more to add to the list as I continue getting asks regarding this, but in the meantime, please don’t let yourself fall into creating for this.

Gore beyond Eddsworld’s levels. Gore has been a staple of Eddsworld since the early episodes, and it won’t be refused in the challenge. However, there are limits to how far this gore will go as of 2019, and it will be made clear here. -Guts This was allowed in Eddtober 2018, but as of now this is no longer the case. A lot of Eddheads expressed discomfort at the idea of guts hanging out of bodies as of the 2019 preparation survey, and I agree with them. This will also be extended to zombification/zombies. -Romanticised/‘Fashionable’ Gore. Absolutely not. Using the creative properties of gore to make someone look more ‘attractive’ in a sexualised manner is against the earlier boundaries. -Gore of Edd Gould, or his old IRL friends. This hasn’t happened, but it is good to make this clear in case some people are really naive about this: DO NOT DO THIS. That’s just straight-up offensive. -Gore of Prompts 27 to 30 (and potentially 31).   Obviously. Since these last few prompts are about expressing your love and appreciation to the fandom, it doesn’t make sense on why you’d make something gutsy-gorey about some wholesome times. Especially in regards to Prompts Twenty-Seven and Twenty-Eight (Which was also just technically mentioned above, but the point has been made).

(In)Famous fan-projects. In the past year or so, certain fan projects have gathered a strong following - both for love and hate. Unfortunately, due to this hate being especially loud in 2019, action had to be taken for this. It’s not to say that you can’t express your opinions of a project, but there’s a safe way for all in doing so. For the others around you, and for yourself too. So if you’re going to create things that relate to either side of the argument you’re on, I will NOT allow straight-up insulting stuff to either side. Be it horrendous caricatures of the creators, vaguing about others through a story, plain old bashing or other means, I will NOT let it be shared around. More so, if this is kept up, I’ll most likely disregard your creations entirely since I don’t wish to endorse hurtful people. Especially through this event.

With all that said and done, let’s get to the ACTUAL prompts!

Quick reminder: when this list says ‘create something for’, it’s not just referring to fanart. It refers to any medium - digital, traditional or unconventional - that can be used. The challenge here is to be creative as possible, not to stay conventional.

The List features Admin Chris’s Commentary. Some useless, some useful.

Create something for Edd. (Not his real-life counterpart, but the character. That needed some clearing up based on 2017’s results.)

Create something for Tom.

Create something for Matt

Create something for any pre-legacy season episode, except WTFuture. (You can do WTFuture if you want, but seeing that much of this fandom is currently made of people who came in after The End… It’d be worth having a crack at other pre-legacy episodes.)

Create something for or with the crew’s symbols. (An example of symbols being a cola can for Edd, something blue for Tom, a mirror for Matt, etc.)

Create something for Superhero Alter Egos! (It doesn’t have to stop at PowerEdd’s canon either! Go nuts! Give Edd and his friends new superhero alibis and outfits!)

Create something for Supervillain Alter Egos! (Reminder that it doesn’t have to stop at the ‘Green/Blue/Purple/Red Leader scenario! Again, go nuts! Get wacky if you must!)

Create something for Minor characters of the show. (Except the Neighbours - they already have their own prompt.)

Create something for descendants of the main four guys. (Sure, you can make it about the love children of your favourite ships, but the point of this prompt specifically is to not be ship-related. See if you can come up with descendant characters from the bloodlines of the main four. If not, shipping is fine.)

Create something for Tord. (He’s late in this list for a reason. Trust me.)

Create something for the neighbours of 29 Dirdum Lane. Are Kim and Katya still there, or are there newbies in the street?

Create something for the neighbours of 25 Dirdum Lane.

Create something for unlucky things happening to the guys, or one of them. Feel free to go as dark or as humourous as you like!

Create something for genderbends of the guys, maybe as if the Ellsworld we know never existed. Or you can stick to canon, up to you.

This prompt is a wild card. Do with it as you wish. (In 2017 everyone was told to quote: ‘go whole hog on this’. The next thing we all knew, everybody literally drew pigs with the guys. That wasn’t supposed to be literally taken, but by god it was hilarious.)

Create something for your crew. Whether you’re the main character with your friends or have OCs taking that place or a mix of both is up to you.

Create something for an AU of Eddsworld. You can make one up on the spot, or even fan content for an AU that already exists is cool too. (As of rule number two of Eddtober, the Blessworld AU will not be accepted for this prompt. I know it is popular, but if you have any issues with this, please contact me in the blog asks myself.)

Create something for Eddsworld as a video game. Whether it’s concepts and covers for your own ideas or fanart for games in the making such as Eddsworld Armageddon, up to you. Heck, why not make a demo?

Create something for Todd, or whoever the ‘Tord’ figure is of 25 Dirdum Lane.

Create something for a Saloonatics-WTFuture Crossover. (What? Shenanigans could be made here, guys. Just take it!)

Create something for the future selves of the guys. Or if you want to take it up a notch, make your own versions of them! Have them all be hobos (#HoBrosforlife), or have cola not be banned in the future… up to you!

The End who? Create something for and/or elaborate on how you would finish off the Eddsworld Legacy season. (For the purposes of this prompt, I can accept an angsty end for this, but I personally do not recommend it.)

Create something for Zanta. (I guess you could call him a Nightmare Before Christmas, then.)

Create something for an Eddsworld movie. Whether it’s stuff for the Eddsworld Fan Movie or your own ideas, up to you!

Create something for the deal with Tom’s eyes. If you want to call them that.

Pick a song, any song, and put that on repeat. Use it as inspiration to create something in relation to Eddsworld.

Create something for Edd Gould himself. Not his character in Eddsworld, the real-life person.

An obligatory prompt without Eddtober in the beginning: create something for Edd’s birthday. (This was made into a prompt and will permanently remain as one as Edd’s birthday shouldn’t be taken away from today.)

Create something for someone/multiple someones in the fandom who inspire you - even the small artists and writers and such who are just starting out!

Create something for who or what got you into EW. What's your story? How did you get here? (Do you have 90 minutes?)

Create something for you being inserted into Eddsworld in any way. (Because here in Eddtober, cringe culture is dead and we don’t hesitate to self-insert.) Be it you hanging with the guys or going on an eddventure, the context and situation is up to you!

VETERANS! Have you already done a prompt and don’t want to repeat yourself? Then check out the list of Eddstra Prompts here!

Phew! Alright, that’s everything. If you have any suggestions or questions about the challenge, please feel free to shoot an ask through the blog. Thanks for reading and have a safe and awesome Eddtober!

[nbapprentice]

there’s so, so, SO much nonsense surrounding this game that i’m gonna do my best to separate it into digestible bits, with its own categories. even then this is... wow. it’s big.

Warning tags will be added at the start of every section, but the general gist is: incest, pedophilia mentions, fetishization of rape and abuse, fetishization of mlm, fetishization of people of color, racism, ableism, nb erasure and transphobia. aside of the warnings, this post will also touch upon Scummy Business Practices

let’s get going

Dana Rune’s and Elle’s lack of moral fiber: #incest #pedophilia#rape and abuse fetishization #homophobia

tl;dr: dana loves incest porn, elle loves guy on guy rape, and the both of them are friends with at least one pedophile

dana rune has run, is still running an incest zine (please visit my faq on what i think about “thats not really incest” and “it’s just fictional!”). The Arcana, as a dev team, clearly does not care, as shown in their e-mail responses.

dana also very much doesn’t care and has reacted to any criticism on this by dismissing people and blocking actual incest victims who tried to contact her about it claiming it was for her “mental health”

in some tweets she claims she “interprets” the characters as not siblings, but she never really cared enough to cover her ass when it all began (she happily admits she’d “cross the incest line”)

dana has commissioned artists who also ship incest, draw near-pedophilic art that’s supposed to pass as acceptable because the character involved is supposedly not a minor despite looking like a child down to wearing pigtails (the character is also wearing a racist-ass belly dancer outfit), AND even made white-washed fanart of The Arcana.

dana follows twitter user kapymui who also produces incestuous Fire Emblem art

dana has retweeted omocat long after it came out that omocat is, at the very least, consuming pedophilic content (on “omocat didn’t know what shota meant!”: yes they did)

moving on, elle has a long, long, LONG history of fetishizing mlm and the rape and abuse that comes with yaoi and had a rich, RICH “yaoi” tag before they deleted their tumblr

they curiously deleted their tumblr right after i made this reblog

shortly after that, tumblr user thalassiq remade and started attacking and insulting any blogs criticizing them - even people providing support in IMs. Since this doesn’t match Dana and Elle’s normal pity parties I’m personally willing to believe they were just a person wanting to start shit - but it’s so telling how Elle used this chance to dismiss everyone who disagrees with them by calling them “children” and did not even bother to offer a kind word to people who were harassed and even had their trauma mocked by this person. It costs 0 dollars to say “that was not me but I’m sorry about people who were hurt.”

Dana and Elle are close with Ava’s Demon creator Michelle Czajkowski aka that one person who endorses child porn of her characters, and even had her draw a promo image for the game. Michelle has been creating highly sexualized content of her minor characters for a while now.

ok so elle and dana are gross freaks, how is that related to the game?

oh it’s very very related

Dana Rune’s and Elle’s lack of moral fiber that’s Actually Inside The Game or The Game’s Blog: now with more #racism #fetishization of poc and mlm #whitewashing #fat hate #pedophilia #nb erasure #transphobia

tl;dr: the arcana is filled to the brim with racism! so much of it! haha holy shit! and that’s not even where it ends!!!

their game is rated PG-13 but includes incredibly sexual situations such as Julian making this fucking face while getting off on pain. This isn’t the only time Dana and Elle use their videogame aimed at young teens to showcase their kinks and fetishes. I have no issue with NSFW or titillating content, as long as it’s rated accordingly. This content is NOT and it’s a blatant disregard for their audience just to have a larger, more pliable demographic and have more money sent their way.

if you start your argument with “well, teenagers look at porn” 1. shut up 2. theres a HUGE difference between teenagers going after adult content aimed at adults, and adults creating content they know will be seen by kids barely starting puberty

as pointed above, dana has 0 qualms literally commissioning people who make whitewashed fanart of her own fucking game that’s supposed to be all about the inclusivity and safe spaces

thearcanagame blog has a pattern of reblogging whitewashed fanart (before you come in swinging with the good ole “ITS THE LIGHTING”: 1. no it isnt 2. the artist should’ve picked better lightning then 3. i draw and post shit online too so dont come telling me i just dont understaaaand),

fanart of their fat characters showed skinnier than they are in their sprites (although to be real for a moment - Portia is curvy at most and them behaving she’s fat rep is HILARIOUS).

going back to NSFW content: nadia and asra are overwhemlingly sexualized in the game, and were the first to have sexualized CGs and sprites introduced.

CGs: Asra’s here, here aND HERE, Nadia’s here with a NSFW warning because she’s just got her whole fucking ass out. Sprites: Asra’s thank god for whoever compiled it all in one image, Nadia’s and once again, NSFW warning lmfao!

Julian’s sprites on the other hand are noticeably tamer, including the one where he’s fucking strapped in leather. His only sexual (NSFW warning because its literally softcore tentacle porn WHICH, ONCE AGAIN, SHOULDN’T BE PUT IN A GAME AIMED AT 13YOS) CGs were also included months after Nadia and Asra received any of theirs.

Through all of the updates, people have constantly requested that Asra and Nadia’s sexualization be toned down, and time after time The Arcana just churned out fetishistic, hypersexualized content at an absurd rate, especially when compared to the one white love interest.

Oh, speaking of the one white love interest: Julian is based off of Jeff Goldblum (this is not spectulation - they p much bring it up at any given time) but like. If Jeff Goldblum was white. They base their favorite love interest off their supposed favorite man in the world but casually leave his skin tone behind. Lmao.

they also play favorites very obviously - in the prologue, Nadia and Asra have a romance paid scene each. Julian has a scene... that requires no coins. Julian was also the first LI to receive three CGs, two of them requiring no coins, while both Asra’s and Nadia’s first CGs were behind a paywall

Dana and Elle have been notoriously skittish about confirming or denying their characters’ ethnicities. After hyping for weeks on thearcanagame that they would confirm the character’s races they basically made a post that amounted to “well they’re not white lol!”

they only relented after the perfectly understandable outrage... and posted a thread about it on Elle’s twitter. Nothing on the actual thearcanagame blog. Anyway, here’s the thread. Note how there’s mention of Julian being Jeff Goldblum... but nothing about him and Portia being Jewish (or “fantasy Jewish” as it were).

The one time they did confirm their jewishness dana then backpedaled and said she shouldn’t have done that lol.

another fun tidbit of how well The Arcana handles race and how much it cares about feedback from fans: an ask was sent about an anon begging for Nadia to step on them. The blog, with the finesse of a bunch of horny dumbasses, didn’t just publish the ask, but approved of it (even though the fans of color had long, long, LONG been telling everyone not to fetishize Nadia into a “step on me kween” wet dream). People were outraged, of course, and the blog ~apologized~ and said they were still learning.... then a new chapter included a scene of Nadia stepping on the Apprentice. 🙃

not to mention elle, on their twitter, made a passive aggressive “women can be doms?” tweet, trying to twist it into a “yr oppressing women” angle (when the issue is that women of color are always constantly portrayed as aggressive and domineering)

Now for a wombo combo of racism and Elle’s fetishization of mlm:

the devs have spoken at length of how Julian’s and Asra’s relationship was quite unhealthy. In a paid scene in Asra’s route, they’re depicted as Asra being disgusted w Julian touching him+Julian following Asra to his shop when Asra refused his offer to go with him (aka julian... stalked him lmfao).

.......... this scene is promptly followed by a highly sexual scenario where Julian’s pain fetish is played up. Remember how this game is rated PG-13? Me neither. Asra’s previous disgust with Julian is also forgotten, for some reason (and by some reason i mean Elle wants to make them fuck w/o buildup or logic).

Then Asra’s route has yet another paid scene dedicated to Asrian, even though he’s supposed to not even like Julian! And be head over heels with the Apprentice! But Elle just has to make these two be entangled despite insisting their relationship was not good for either of them!

Now here’s the kicker: Julian doesn’t have any paid scenes related to his romance with Asra. Note how it’s one of the brown LIs whose route is highjacked by the white LI, but not vice versa. Hmmmmm.

Now, on the topic of Asra: thearcanagame has said repeatedly that he’s nb and uses he/him pronouns, and promised (since last year) that there would be dialogue where he speaks about his gender

as of the making of this post such dialogue still does not exist

so basically asra is the nb to dumbledore’s gay: anyone who just plays the game w/o keeping up with the official blog has no idea of what asra’s gender is supposed to be.

aka he’s not nb. he’s just a cis guy. the arcana just doesn’t want to put its money where its mouth is, i dont care if elle is nb themself. the team made a promise which has not been fulfilled yet and i suspect will not be.

instead, our introduction to canon nb characters is... these two.

By “these two” i mean neither vulgora nor valdemar are even fucking human, and stick out like sore thumbs with their monstruousness.

so our nb rep is... non-human villains. a few books later one of Nadia’s sisters with they/them pronouns shows up, but that’s too little too late on top of the fact that we should’ve known Asra was nb from the first to begin with. It’s a fucking embarrassment and an insult.

at least two villains are visibly disabled (Lucio’s missing arm and Volta’s blind eye+intentionally asymmetrical face). Julian’s eye doesn’t count because, spoilers, he’s not lacking an eye and even if he was it’d still be hidden behind a dashing eyepatch instead of grotesquely displayed as a sign of his lacking morality.

BUT WAIT! IT DOESN’T EVEN END THERE!

The Arcana Exploits The App Business Model To Price Their Full Game at $500, $1000 if the three extra routes make it out, and they never delivered their Kickstarter rewards:

tl;dr: you heard me

the original price per route was planned on being $1.99

they took that “subject to change” really seriously, it seems, because now each route, once the game is fully out, is estimated to cost around $170 each.

both those screenshots are taken from this post which explains in detail just how truly scummy all of The Arcana’s business model and decisions are: https://mysticmicrotransactions.tumblr.com/post/174308723344/dishonesty-from-the-arcana

the tl;dr is basically what’s listed in the beginning of this section, but other highlights from that post are: the use of addictive gambling mechanics such the Wheel of Fortune, and the dazzling calls to action in the new mini-game.

something that The Arcana supporters forget (or choose to ignore) is the fact that for a long, long time the game did not have the mini-game or the log-in rewards for coins. Players depended only on the gambling of the WoF or paying absurd amounts of money for the new chapters.

the devs went from playing the victims who were unable of controlling prices to (as spoken of in the link from mysticmicrotransactions) saying the making of the game (a pathetic little app game backed by a studio and a kickstarter) justifies the prices

they also gave people false hope about maybe changing the prices in the future, all while bleeding money from loyal players in “micro” transactions

the arcana literally added a $99.99 coins option on their latest update

in case it hasn’t sunk in yet: you can pay a hundred dollars upfront to the arcana, and you still will not have access to the whole game

there is no defense to this

none

“it’s free stop whining” let me explain:

“spend months on end accumulating fake currency or pay hundreds of dollars up-front to be able to play” is a scummy business model no matter how you look at it

if i can spend $60 upfront to play an AAA game there’s no excuse to demand more than that for a game with much smaller and, honestly, inferior content

the combination of there being already far and few games featuring lgbt characters and characters of color AND the little cult of personality set up by Dana and Elle makes people feel that spending money to support them is an acceptable expense.

it’s not

manipulating people into spending ridiculous amounts of money and then claiming “it’s their choice” is just scummy business, baby, and thats all the arcana does

the devs are brats who instead of admitting $500 is absurd for a game instead write petty little caricatures into their game - like, lbr: dana, elle, if i could afford diamonds in my hair i wouldn’t have even bothered with your shitstain of a game

despite bragging that ppl would get the full story w/o needing to pay, the paid scenes are pretty much required - the first few books of julian’s route have no romance without accessing any of the paid options. you dont even get so much as a kiss in without handing coins over. many, many people were baffled when julian had a teary break-up scene when from their perspective they hadn’t even started building a relationship.

wow that’s more than i ever thought it’d be

and i’ve been aware of their bullshit for near a whole year now!

i don’t have much of a note to end this on, other than: the arcana just isn’t even that good. it suffers from weak writing, pathetic character development and above all actually harmful content. do not try to argue with me on any of these points unless you’ve read all of that, because whatever you have to say i’ve likely mentioned before. if you still are that determined to yell at a me on the internet, please preface your argument with the phrase “I’m a pee pee poo poo man” so I know you’ve read everything in here. thank you!

[thisgodwontforgiveyou]

Yang RWBY

i deliberated over how to do this for so long before relaizing i literally cant do her justice so im just gonna stream of consciousness all over this and its gonna be a mess and thats because i love her with my whole entire heart

favorite thing - yang’s writing is a work of meta genius that honestly outstrips anything even doki doki literature club did in my opinion, and if youve heard me talk about ddlc you know how big of a deal that is. her core character concept is that what you see isnt what you get, that she always hides her real personality, feelings, and ambitions behind a facade, but most importantly that this facade extends to what the audience is shown of her. we are no more privy to her inner thoughts than anyone else, and watching the rwby fandom have a fucking meltdown over the course of her arc as whats really going on comes to light has been absolutely wild. 

i also love that this results in her being an inversion of the typical ‘not like other girls’ story. character in the show itself have literally called her a bimbo like its not subtle what they were going for, and i think monty and the rest of the writing team on rwby knew exactly how a bunch of anime fans would react to a scantily clad anime girl whos combat style involves punching things. getting to see deeper and deeper into her real psyche and learning that she is one of the most psychologically damaged and darkest characters in the show on the inside has been by far the most enjoyable part of the entire show and shes one of my absolute favorite characters ever written

least favorite thing - much like ddlc you cant sexualize a teenage girl like that and then have it comes out being an epic artistic win. like you just directly contributed to pedophilia and thats fucked and no amount of cool writing will counterbalance that. except here its even worse because she wasnt even 18 when the story started.

in terms of writing within the show i think her relationship with her dad is really fucking dumb and they butchered that entire aspect of her character by having him treat her like shit and her not react to it in any real way. her relationship with her biological and adoptive mothers is way way way more important so its not a huge deal but sooooooo many fights in the rwby fandom wouldnt happen if they had just thought through the way they wrote tai a little better

favorite line - 

Gotcha.

her catching adam’s sword was probably the best moment in the entire show to date and that line was the icing on the cake and a perfect example of her using the way people misread her to her advantage, especially against the character that was her strongest foil. watching a female character derided for years by the fanbase for being too angry and too headstrong deliberately and precisely baiting an abusive male character into letting those traits consume him in a life or death situation was unbelievably satisfying

brotp - yang gets along with everybody extremely well but i think weiss is the only person who really understands her on a deeper level. i think theres just certain experiences of extreme parental neglect that only translate if youve been there, and weiss and yang are the two who can really connnect on that since yang basically became ruby’s mom after their mom died and their dad shut down. i think its a really unlikely friendship that became one of the strongest in the series and the moment where weiss leaps into yang’s arms after not seeing her for the better part of a year always fucks me up

otp - i dont have anything clever to say here its bumbleby. blake and yang’s slowburn romance is one of the best wlw stories in fiction right now and absolutely blows me away when i really think about. wlw romances literally never get treated the way the show is treating them and its genuinely heartwarming to watch

notp - she hasnt been word of god confirmed as a lesbian but everything about the way shes written and especially the way shes treated by the crew outside of fiction (specifically editing out references that could be interpreted as her being attracted to men in the japanese localization and manga adaptation) makes it a foregone conclusion as far as im concerned, but at the same time there arent really any men that people ship with yang as anything other than an attempt to be homophobic on purpose

so basically i guess winter/yang is the big one without being straight up horrific. please dont ship teenagers with people who are like 28 i dont care how ultra mature yang is thats weird on a real world level no matter how hard you try to justify it

random headcanon - ruby’s the only character ever shown listening to music but i KNOW yang is a skramz kid. i KNOW it

unpopular opinion - okay. people fucking LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE to draw yang in dresses like every single fucking opportunity they get you fucking breathe a single word about yang being a dyke in anyones direction and theyve got her femmed up the ass. and its fucking so transparent. like she isnt wildly GNC by any means but her clothing is consistently more masculine than the other female characters’ and her posture/body language SCREAMS butch. they wont let her be real butch because they hate me specifically but i know i know i know why people ALWAYS want to draw her in dresses and its because they hate gnc women with a burning passion and if i ever see that shit im blocking unless you do something really good to balance i out. “wouldnt it be so fun if we put blake in the suit and yang in the dress” shut the fuck up and die put them both in suits if you want it that bad literally stop doing this to gnc women

song i associate with them - i absolutely adore rwby’s music and there is no song on earth that can top her actual volume 5 theme

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favorite pictures of them -

[freifraufischer]

That Anti post forgot identity issues as a reason for being anti ship

There are lots of reasons for being anti a ship.  You don’t like the dynamics.  You don’t like the fans.  You don’t like the messaging.  You just don’t like the character.  There is nothing what so ever wrong with having a NoTP or even talking about why a ship isn’t good from your point of view.

The line gets crossed when:

You attack people who like the ship.  For any number of reasons.  You don’t like the messages?  Not a good reason for replying to a shippers post about how much they love their ship.  Not a good reason to be in their ask box or fic comments telling them how terrible they are (or far worse).  Not a good reason to doxx them (this seems like it shouldn’t be something that has to be said).  Not a good reason to accuse them of being the root of society’s ills.  For example … Rape Culture is a thing.  Someone shipping Reylo isn’t responsible for it.  The minute you use your feelings about fictional characters to attack a real person you become the bully.

You prioritize the feelings of fictional characters over those of real people.  If your X Character Defense League is belittling people who like Y character or even those who don’t like X character you became the bully.

You fail to realize that fictional people are not real.  Nothing I say is “an insult to Character Z” because character Z does not exist.  Say a shipper or an anti-shipper doesn’t like the name of a baby from a television show, or a wedding dress choice, criticizing it is not insulting the character’s agency.  Because that character is not a real person.  She doesn’t have agency.  The (fictional) child was named by the writers and the wedding dress was a costume choice.  When you demonize people for their opinions on your fictional faves you become the bully.

The minute you attack real people because they ship something that gets in the way of your ship (no matter which side of canon they or you fall on) you become the bully.

The minute you think your headcanons are mandatory.  You may read the material one way and see something as being very obvious (and it may be the author’s intent).  But the minute you say X shippers support abuse because they refuse to accept your interpretation of the material you become the bully.

The minute you attack a fan fiction author or fan artist for writing/drawing material you don’t approve, the minute you advocate for censoring content, the minute you accuse them of terrible crimes because you don’t like what they write you become the bully.

The minute you start using social justice language and psychological terms in order to win a ship war you become a bully.  

No one owes you an explanation for their shipping or their writing and the minute you demand someone defend themselves over fictional content you become the bully.

Don’t be the bully.

[studentsofshield]

Marvel's Captain Marvel: A Legacy of Failed Relaunches

This piece is about the history of the Captain Marvel name in superhero comic books. First we have to start with the originator, then how it was shut down, then we can get to how it was stolen and how it's been handled since. I will not be getting in to Miracleman/Marvelman, since that is a whole other layer of convoluted.

Fawcett Publications was a publisher of magazines in the 1920s and 30s. They wanted to break into the comic book business after seeing the insane success of Superman starting in 1938. So in 1940 writer Bill Parker and artist CC Beck came up with a superhero for this purpose. The character was to be called Captain Thunder and debut in Flash Comics #1. However, All-American Periodicals beat them to the punch with their own Flash Comics #1 with a cover date of January 1940, debuting the Flash, Hawkman, and other characters. So Fawcett switched the title to Thrill Comics. Which they couldn't use either when Standard/Nedor launched Thrilling Comics #1 with a cover date of February 1940. I guess even the "ing" was too close for trademark comfort. January 1940 also saw the first issue of Fiction House's Jungle Comics, which had a minor backup feature starring Captain Terry Thunder. So when their character was finally unveiled to the public, he was Captain Marvel and appearing in WHIZ Comics #2.

The parallels to Superman were there off the bat and intentional. The first cover features Captain Marvel throwing a car, in reference to the iconic Action Comics #1, but one-upping it. Their powers, costumes, and adventures were somewhat similar. Captain Marvel arguably improved on the Superman formula. Instead of the grown, nerdy Clark Kent, Captain Marvel's secret identity was the child Billy Batson. Rather than looking up to Superman, kids could put their selves in Billy Batson's shoes. The art of CC Beck and others was also more cartoony and the stories more outlandish and fun. While Superman was dealing with corrupt politicians and domestic abusers, Captain Marvel was fighting the moon and hanging out with anthropomorphic tigers.

Captain Marvel replicated the success of Superman, and for a while even outsold the poster boy of comic books. The character's success led to Fawcett creating a whole line of comics and superheroes like Bulletman, Spy Smasher, Minute-Man, Ibis the Invincible and so on in the titles Nickel Comics, Wow Comics, Master Comics, etc. Captain Marvel started multiplying himself with spinoff characters Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel (before DC created Supergirl). The publisher experienced great success through the 1940s.

This success bothered some people, namely competitor National (today's DC Comics). They had success earlier shutting down Fox Feature Syndicate's character Wonder Man for being too close to Superman. They even did the same thing to Fawcett with their character Master Man. Starting in 1941 National took Fawcett to court over Captain Marvel. The lawsuit and all its subsequent appeals lasted all the way to 1951. Meanwhile Superman was ripping off elements of Captain Marvel along the way, like starting to actually fly, Lex Luthor becoming a bald mad scientist (like Dr. Sivana), and introducing the adventures of Superboy akin to Captain Marvel Jr. The long legal struggle and the waning superhero popularity of the 1950s led to Fawcett giving up on the case and shutting down their entire comics line in 1953.

Of course, having won, DC took the opportunity to pull over Fawcett's talent and put them to work on Superman. DC then ended up licensing Fawcett's characters in the 1970s. Captain Marvel has been fully integrated to the DC Universe through the years, for better or worse.

There is just one ironic hiccup though. While Captain Marvel lay dormant in the 1960s, the trademark lapsed. Another comic publisher by the name of Timely Comics had went through a few eras and name changes to Atlas Comics and then to Marvel Comics. Marvel was becoming a major force in the early 1960s thanks to Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko. Publisher Martin Goodman demanded that they snatch up the trademark to Captain Marvel. Fitting I suppose given the name of the company.

So in December 1967 Marvel's version of Captain Marvel debuted in Marvel Super-Heroes 12. Rather than a Superman-like character, this version was Mar-Vell, an alien warrior who was tasked to spy on Earth but then decided to protect humanity. The stories were light science fiction fare.

This Captain Marvel would not become a sales juggernaut like Fawcett's. Marvel has to maintain their right to the trademark at least every two years though. So this has lead to dozens of relaunches and different characters under the Captain Marvel name. 

This is their legacy of failure.

After two appearances in Marvel Super-Heroes (12-13) Captain Marvel received his own self-titled comic in May 1968. From the first appearance through the fourth issue of the series, Gene Colan drew the character and Roy Thomas wrote him. Then not even a year in new creative team Arnold Drake and Don Heck hop on. Other creators like Gary Friedrich, Dick Ayers, and Archie Goodwin rotate through. The original green and white costume has a simplistic design that has become retroactively classic, but is really not too special.

With issue 17 in October 1969, Roy Thomas comes back and is joined this time by Gil Kane. The pair introduce a new costume and the unique dynamic of Captain Marvel playing switcheroo with perennial sidekick Rick Jones. The quality of the book vastly improves, but it only gets the chance to show it off for three issues.

After a six month hiatus, Captain Marvel resumes with issue 20 and the same creative team from before. This time they only get to pump out two issues. The book will now be bimonthly for the most part from here on out.

The character would feature prominently in the classic Kree/Skrull War storyline in Avengers, also written by Roy Thomas. This kept him relevant through 1971 even without a book.

And Mar-Vell is back again two years later in 1972 (recall the trademark rules). This time we have three uninspired issues written by three different writers. The only notable piece here is that they're drawn by Wayne Boring. Who was one of the definitive Superman artists of the 1940s and 50s in comic books and strips. In 1967 DC kicked him out, as they had done with most of their iconic Golden Age artists. Super fan and historian Roy Thomas hired him to do a few jobs for Marvel in the 70s. It's cool to see, but his style honestly was out of date by this point. The irony of these past two relaunches is that both returning issues use the cover text "the hero who wouldn't die!" The irony will become evident in a bit.

By this point DC has licensed the original Fawcett Captain Marvel. Due to Marvel's trademark usage, DC has to title the comic Shazam (the catchphrase Billy Batson uses to transform into the hero). Shazam runs from 1973 through 1978 and then the character moves to anthology backups. Superman even introduces the Big Red Cheese on the cover of the first issue. Within the pages of the comic, the character is still allowed to be called Captain Marvel. This alleged confusion has caused anxiety over the years for DC and with the New 52 reboot in 2011 they tried to officially change the icon's name to Shazam.

With issue 25 in 1973 Captain Marvel finally becomes a must-read comic when a young Jim Starlin jumps on board as artist. He had previously written and drawn fill-in issues of Iron Man that introduced the characters Thanos and Drax the Destroyer. He brought those characters with him and began writing as well, giving fans the iconic Thanos War arc. Starlin sticks around for less than a year. His final issue is 34, where Mar-Vell fights Nitro and the infamous cover text describes him as "the man who killed Captain Marvel." It's originally just supposed to be a sensational lie as is the tradition.

With Starlin gone, Captain Marvel still continues to issue 62 in 1979. Al Milgrom and Pat Broderick draw most of this run. Steve Englehart, Scott Edelman, and Doug Moench handle the writing. Nothing truly memorable or relevant happened, though by this point there were Mar-Vell fans who surely enjoyed it.

Supporting character Carol Danvers also got superpowers and got a spinoff title that ran two years. Mostly written by Chris Claremont. Ms. Marvel would have her own too-late creative reinvention in issue 20 thanks to artist Dave Cockrum. This book was arguably better than the book it spun out of at this point. Carol Danvers will become important again in this saga, but for the time being Claremont pulls her way to be an occasional presence in his vast X-Men run.

Captain Marvel was cancelled prematurely, so Marvel launched a new volume of Marvel Spotlight to pump out inventory issues. Captain Marvel appeared in Marvel Spotlight 1-4, and 8. Of curiosity is that Steve Ditko and Frank Miller drew the last two issues.

Outside of a few appearances, Mar-Vell doesn't make a major appearance between September 1980 and April 1982. When Jim Starlin was offered to write and draw the first installment of the Marvel Graphic Novel series and kill off a major character. One can presume he wasn't allowed to choose Spider-Man. He went with Captain Marvel, following up from his final issue on the series and revealing that the fight with Nitro gave him cancer. He died surrounded by all his fellow heroes and the book is a genuine emotional classic. It solidifies Mar-Vell as a legend, even if his original series never truly got him to deserve that reputation.

Mar-Vell would be featured in a reprint series titled The Life of Captain Marvel in 1985 focusing on the Starlin run. A three issue flashback series to his green and white era was published in 1997.

They need to maintain the trademark though, right? Enter Monica Rambeau in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #16 the same year. Her connection to Mar-Vell was nonexistent, but she took on the Captain Marvel name regardless. Creator Roger Stern carried her over to his legendary Avengers run and she even lead the team for a period. Monica has had tons of memorable appearances since, such as the brilliant Nextwave: Agents of HATE.

Monica would receive solo one-shots in 1989 and 1994. Both by the creative team of Dwayne McDuffie and M.D. Bright.

The third Marvel character to go by Captain Marvel was Genis-Vell. Originally introduced in Silver Surfer Annual #6 as Legacy, Genis is Mar-Vell's bastard child. Genis gets his father's Nega Bands and even is linked to Rick Jones. He got his own series written by Fabian Nicieza in late 1995 that was cancelled prematurely after six issues. In Avengers Unplugged #5 Genis officially takes the Captain Marvel name from Monica, who then suffers through several code names over the years.

After disappearing for about two years, Genis pops up again prominently in the Avengers Forever maxiseries. This launched a 2000 series written by Peter David and drawn by ChrissCross. The series was a critical darling and cult hit, but sales weren't perfect.

To try and boost sales, the book was relaunched in 2002 as part of the U-Decide Campaign. Which was a (marketing ploy) bet between David, Bill Jemas, and Joe Quesada. Fans helped to decide which of three books would survive. It helps that the other two books (Marville and Ultimate Adventures) were absolute trash, but Captain Marvel handily won. It lasted another 25 issues to bring the entire run to 60 issues. During the run, the fourth Captain Marvel Phyla-Vell is introduced as Genis' sister/clone. She uses the name briefly and then becomes Quasar and then Martyr in other stories. Genis eventually goes crazy, then dies.

In 2008 as part of the Secret Invasion crossover, Mar-Vell seems to come back to life in a self-titled miniseries. However, it's revealed that this character is a Skrull with fake memories.

The Skrull fake dies, but is able to pass on his wishes to the Kree hero Noh-Varr. Who was previously known as Marvel Boy, but then becomes Captain Marvel during the Dark Reign era. After discovering he's being manipulated, he abandons the Dark Avengers and takes on the Protector identity.

While the Avengers stock is rising in the 2000s thanks to Brian Michael Bendis, Carol Danvers is back as Ms. Marvel and her mission is to become the prominent hero she thinks she can be. To really promote her, in 2012 Marvel gives her the Captain Marvel name, redesigns her costume, and launches a new title. Kelly Sue DeConnick will shepard the character for the next few years. This series only lasts 17 issues.

By 2012 Marvel has now entered their relaunch trigger happy era. So in 2014 Captain Marvel is relaunched while keeping the same writer. This volume is even shorter at 15 issues.

As a tie-in to the alternate reality event Secret Wars in 2015, Carol Danvers gets her own miniseries still by KSD.

Coming out of Secret Wars, Captain Marvel gets another volume. This one lasts only 10 issues. Marvel brings in TV writers Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas. They leave halfway through and are replaced by Christos and Ruth Gage. The character is significantly entangled in the divisive crossover event Civil War II around this era.

In 2017 another relaunch is due and Carol gets the slight title change to The Mighty Captain Marvel. Prose writer Margaret Stohl is the writer. This series lasts nine issues before being renumbered/retitled as part of Marvel's Legacy initiative. Still with Stohl, renumbered for only five issues.

A soon to be released one-shot tie-in to Infinity Countdown promises Carol adventuring with Monica and possibly Mar-Vell. Marvel has been subtly teasing Mar-Vell's genuine return again recently.

With a Captain Marvel movie starring Carol Danvers just around the corner, Marvel obviously needs to relaunch again (SIGH). July 2018 will bring The Life of Captain Marvel #1. Still written by Stohl, the series promises to retell Carol Danver's origin. So maybe they'll decide to relaunch it again after the origin arc is over.

It's unclear whether DC would have been able to quickly grab the trademark back in the possibly free periods of 1984, 1987, 1992, 1998, and 2006. I don't know if the publication of collected editions fulfills the trademark requirements. If so, Masterworks and other collections could tick off some of those possible open spots.

To summarize, here are all of Marvel's Captain Marvel titles and relaunches:

Mar-Vell Marvel Super-Heroes 12-13 (December 1967-March 1968) Captain Marvel Vol 1 1-19 (May 1968-December 1969) Captain Marvel Vol 1 20-21 (June-August 1970) Captain Marvel Vol 1 22-62 (September 1972-May 1979) Marvel Spotlight 1-4, 8 (July 1979-September 1980) Death of Captain Marvel (April 1982) Life of Captain Marvel Vol 1 1-5 (August-December 1985) Untold Legend of Captain Marvel 1-3 (April-June 1997)

Monica Rambeau: Captain Marvel Vol 2 1 (November 1989) Captain Marvel Vol 2 1/2 (February 1994)

Genis-Vell: Captain Marvel Vol 3 1-6 (December 1995-May 1996) Captain Marvel Vol 4 0-35 (November 1999-October 2002) Captain Marvel Vol 5 1-25 (December 2002-September 2004)

Skrull Fake: Captain Marvel Vol 6 1-5 (January-June 2008)

Carol Danvers: Captain Marvel Vol 7 1-17 (September 2012-January 2014) Captain Marvel Vol 8 1-15 (May 2014-July 2015) Captain Marvel and the Carol Corps 1-4 (August-November 2015) Captain Marvel Vol 9 1-10 (March 2016-January 2017) Mighty Captain Marvel 0-9 (February-November 2017) Captain Marvel Vol 1 125-129 (December 2017-April 2018) Life of Captain Marvel Vol 2 1-? (September 2018-?)

*Dates used are cover dates.

[i-want-my-iwtv]

Hello! I'm hoping you are well. I just want to say I love your blunt/possitive posts about fiction not being reality, personal responsibility, authors' responsibility if it even applies...just all of it. Really, major kudos to you for being so blunt!

Aw thank you! Yes, I am doing well. Hope you’re doing well, too. I took a decent break from tumblr, and now I’m getting back into the swing of things, there are fanworks to reblog here

(I’m sorry that this response got kind of long, there are things in here I’ve expressed before, and some I may not have, or haven’t mentioned in awhile, and I kind of want to have these things out there for ppl to see where I’m coming from.)

Your message really means a lot, bc I feel like, if I have any responsibility to the fandom as a somewhat popular blog, that I have to stand up for shippers and creators of fanworks. Fanworks are the lifeblood of the fandom, both for the creators and the consumers. Fanworks are made for free (or on commission) by smaller creators who need the encouragement more. Being smaller and more accessible, they’re also easy & more responsive targets for harassment than the published creators :-P

And so when you see it from that perspective, you can understand that when I reblog those fiction =/= reality, pro-shipping, and anti anti posts, it’s coming from a place of good intention. I identify with those easy targets who are criticized for their creation/consumption of published works and fanworks. I was bullied for pretty superficial reasons in my formative years, not an unusual amount/degree of bullying, but it hurt. “Oh, but words can’t hurt you!”

And this part of the story is my own attachment to canon (and, later, fandom), before I was even aware of others. Do we sever our attachment to something bc smne else says that their connection to it is more valid? I feel like fandom is limitless, it’s big enough for all of us.

Media/Fiction was an escape from reality for me. It was a place I could find inspiration, could see characters beaten down (by antagonists and/or their own faults) and rise up again and again, in so many variations! Even the same plot points can yield different emotions when told in different ways, and/or involving different characters. Characters refusing to lay down and submit to their obstacles/antagonists was inspiring and helped me rebuild the self-confidence the bullies had crushed. 

So that was my story, as valid as any. I love stories of how ppl got into VC (or any fandoms/media really!), and there are so many. I don’t think that any reason is more valid than any other. 

There are those who saw themselves reflected in the fact that there are queer/LGBT+ characters, that they existed and had depth and could love and be loved in return. 

Someone told me that they shared a love of history with their father, especially of Rome. The father passed away when the person was young, and so they loved the historical explorations in canon, it seemed to bring them closer to that lost parent. In fact, the act of pointing out historical inaccuracies in canon was enjoyable to this person.

There are those who passionately adore Armand, for all his beauty, strength, and sass, the fact that he is a survivor of so much tragedy. “We must be beautiful, powerful, and without regret.”

There are those who love the quiet and dignified manner of Louis and how he burns everything down handles situations. 

There are those who live for the ~purple prose~ and ~wealth porn~, in the loving descriptions of luxury, the declarations of love and 3 pages of describing how pretty a character is.

… etc. etc.

^And fanworks based on the media consumed may relate to the fans’ reasons for getting into that fandom in the first place. I like to think my memes and fanfic show the same refusal to quit that I valued so much in the characters when I read canon. I would think that other writers/artists/etc. would say smtg similar, that their fanworks are their way of engaging with canon, whether it’s to have more of what they enjoy about it, fix and/or explore a character/ship/situation, or take the characters into different situations (like AU) and see how they might fare within changed parameters. Ppl analyze canon and critique it, comparing it to other fiction/non-fiction to lay out their ideas. Ppl might want to dress like the characters and act like them in cosplay! So many ways to engage with canon. And then you have comments on works and works inspired by fanworks and that’s p. much the definition of fandom, to my mind.

HOWEVER.

In my zeal for reblogging posts (and writing my own) about defending shippers and creators/consumers of published media and fanworks, I can be too blunt, and unintentionally injure others. I trust ppl to inform me privately if a post goes over the line in that regard, and I have responded by editing/deleting posts. This blog isn’t sacred, editing/deleting a post is not a sign of weakness, but of curating it to better serve my needs and those who come to it for whatever reason. 

Bc my blog really is at its core about entertainment and encouragement/sharing of fanworks.

It’s hard for me to sit in silence about attacks on shippers and creators/consumers of published media and fanworkswhen I feel like if I don’t speak up, silence is tacit agreement when ppl state, “Don’t draw/write/talk about X bc it is harmful to Y” I understand that some ppl do have real triggers and some fictional characters/ships are painful to them, but on the other hand, is it fair to restrict everyone else who wants to explore those characters/ships? 

We have to find ways to coexist, and that may mean everyone taking on some responsibility for their fandom experience and extending respect towards others. Someone asked me to tag a certain ship, and now I do, so that they can block it. I can’t tag every possible thing, but within reason, I will add tags on request.

I don’t believe in censorship when it comes to fiction, for many reasons, there are blogs out there who are much more eloquent than I am in their defense of it. I don’t have their rhetoric. But I feel like I need to defend those who are easy targets for bullying (as I had been).

^^^With all that said, I think it would be best for me to refrain from too much of this type of posting so as not to trample others. Instead, I want to focus on encouraging fanworks, reblogging posts about writing/art and advice about that.  

(If you are looking for more blogs that defend fanfiction, I can recommend more to you privately, or in a separate post.)