#I have a lot to say about my OCs and their ships DO NOT PERCEIVE ME

[cashmoneyyysstuff]

ring pop proposal ♡

fem reader, pure fluff, childhood friends to lovers lemme alone do not perceive me yk the drill by now, lil self indulgent fic cus i love childhood friends to lovers and puppy crushes, polar opposite’s trope, this reeks of my oc x canon katsu ship sooooo shh shh do not perceive.

the first person who realizes katsuki has a crush on you is his mom because when she comes to pick him up one day from kindergarten he suddenly mentions you. it’s an innocent little interaction he had with you that mitsuki doesn’t think much about at first, simply surprised her son managed to befriend someone outside of his little group of friends until he starts mentioning you more and more.

soon you’re the only thing he talks about and katsuki even starts begging her to have you come over to play. mitsuki is extremely curious to know what kind of person you are to have been able to enchant her son the way you have, she says it’s fine as long as you’re parents agree.

you’re a sweet little thing, almost the complete opposite of her little devil’s spawn. you’re polite and a little shy when you ask “ is it okay if i come to play at katsu’s house, please miss katsuki’s mom ?” and how could she say no to you ? she pulls at your cheek lovingly and her son almost snarls at her.

“no touchin’ !” he snarks, pulling you against him like you were his teddy bear.

mitsuki was the first to realize her son had a crush on you when you were always around. when he found something cool during a class trip you were there and whenever he was upset it was always because you had argued about something irrelevant that seemed so much bigger in the eyes of a child.

she realized because katsuki had, and in some ways, will always be rowdy. he’s rough and temperamental and moody—basically, he can be quite the brat. (she wonders where he gets that from a lot) but he’s different with you.

he’ll always be a little rough around the edges but it’s the thought that counts. he drags you around a little too hard but it's to show you something he knows you'd like and you repay him by being patient with him and letting him drag you around to his hearts content. he let’s you use the crayons he’d just denied another classmate seconds ago and when it’s really early in the morning and you’re still sleepy unlike your more energetic friend, he waits for you. sitting with you in the reading corner quietly commenting on a little bit of everything in the book you’re sharing until you’re awake enough to start the day because katsuki wanted you to be together through anything no matter what, starting the day without you was simply unimaginable.

you offer him your kindness and he repays you with his loyalty. acting like your guard dog, protecting you from everything and everyone he considers a threat to you. he goes a bit overboard but it’s the thought that counts and he’s definitely got the right intentions.

“ i’m g’nna marry yn when i grow up !” katsuki proclaims from the backseat of the car after mitsuki had come to pick him up. she looks at him through the rear view mirror only to see he’s not even looking at her, looking out the window somewhat longingly, watching as his school fades away from his sight, further and further and further away from you. she smiles to herself.

“yeah ?” she asks “yeah !” he responds proudly, crossing his arms “ i asked yn if she wanted to be my wife an’ she said yeah, so we’re gettin’ married !”

“huh. how’d you propose ? you don’t have a ring.” she jests.

katsuki responds immediately and exclaims he does have one, shuffling around to reach for something in his pocket. he pulls out a plastic ring pop holder, the candy on top is missing and mitsuki can imagine what happened to it.

“gave her one of these !”

“so that’s why you had me buy those from the store last time,” she hums. “ you ate it, though.”

katsuki tries to roll his eyes but just ends up looking up and to the side, mitsuki recognizes it as him trying to mimic what she does a lot and she snorts.

“well duh, we both did ! ‘f i kept it in my pocket it woulda gotten gross !” he defends. mitsuki simply responds with a hum, smile on her face growing larger as she hears her son happily chatting about the rest of his day with you.

she knows her katsuki is hard to handle. extremely so. but when she sees the way you both interact she can tell something is there. you don’t ‘handle’ him. you like being around him. you like playing and talking with him, she sees how happy you make him whenever you come over for playdates. he holds your hand when you get scared and you hug him tight and beam when you see him again after he’s gotten over a nasty cold.

she can tell you make her son happy and he does the same for you in the way children do with pinky promises and shy cheek kisses, kisses over tiny wounds and refusing to be separated whenever the rowdier one of you both gets his recess time taken away for being naughty.

mitsuki hopes this crush, this love you have for her son can grow along with you. she hopes you’ll stick around as katsuki grows up more and potentially more rowdy and rougher around the edges but even more enamored with you. and with the way her son is squirming around in his seat and tugging at his seatbelt, giddy about you accepting his ring pop proposal, she has a funny feeling you’ll be sticking around for a long time.

[captainzigo]

Welcome to me blog

If you are a mutual, DM me for an invite to discord server and subsequently to minecraft server

that’s a bunch of pictures of oc(/ponysona) Prickly Pear. she’s a cowgirl

FAQ below the break

i do take requests. i do not currently take commissions, but don’t be shy about sending requests. i can always say no. or fuck it up really bad.

you can send me asks and DMs at my sideblog @snapewife-divorce-lawyer any asks you send me should be like Strongbad emails. one paragraph. no attachments. unless you are sending me refs.

i reblog most stuff at my other sideblog: @3amgaypotion

you are fine to DM me, but remember i am not obligated to respond at all.

in any interactions, please keep in mind that i am a stranger on the internet and act accordingly

i am autistic. i say this because representation matters, but also because i would like to ask that you please be very frank with me. i don’t even really need your patience. just say what you mean and we will get along fine.

you most certainly can draw any of my ocs. i’d love that acually. tag me

you can redraw, dub or do whatever to my works with credit. i expect credit to include clickable links. also please try to keep the spirit of the original work. don’t add nsfw subtext for example. don’t redraw a ship art as a ship with an inappropriate age gap, and so on.

do not post my art on other platforms. do not repost my art period. I don’t really exist on other platforms since I deleted Twitter. So if you see my stuff on other platforms, it’s not me. 

i’m in my twenties. i keep my blog SFW as a strict rule. PG13 except i swear a lot more. i do not keep myself that way, and i have no aversion to that sort of content, but i keep all of my posts SFW.

in my opinion, all romance real or fictional should be between people who are not related, similar in age, doing age appropriate things, all with mutual consent. i am not interested in witnessing or interacting with anything outside of these parameters.

i am a trans woman. i am also bisexual. i am also poly and demi since im listing things. i am out online becasue i know how important it is to know that you aren’t alone.

if you follow me and you post art, regardless of frequency or perceived quality, i want to be mutuals. shoot me a message or something

do i take constructive criticism? NO 🖕👹🖕 FUCK YOU!!!!!!! GET BLOCKED IDIOT!! unless you are a marginalized person who feels i have unintentionally made you uncomfortable somehow with my art or otherwise. in that case i am sorry and you do me a great favor by calling me out. OTHERWISE FUCK YOU DUMBASS IF YOU DONT LIKE MY ART GO DRAW YOUR OWN 🖕🖕🖕🖕

i don’t have a DNI list, but i am pretty left politically so you can probably imagine what’s on there.

“i hate bronies” i don’t necessarily hate you if you self identify with that label. i like to make myself off-putting to keep creeps away

i don’t hold a lot of nostalgia for old brony stuff. infact it’s quite the opposite

i like all generations of mlp including the new stuff. gen 4 is just the one i grew up with

why is my header aurora, bori and alice from the best gift ever? well that would be because i hate them like a mother hates a child. like the sun hates the moon. like sickly victorian child hates the slightest morsel of bread.

i often draw stuff about cozy glow x flurry heart. this is with the understanding that cozy glow spends about a decade turned to stone. nullifying the age gap.

i am dyslexic. i spell stuff wrong all the time and i type weird. please don’t bother correcting me. wooptydoo your brain is wired normally. sending you a medal.

[madfantasy]

Dears;

Sleepless

I didn't know that I could be more sleep deprived, more in the sense that the nightmares of death and murder wakes me up in fever and chest burn now.

I thought I was okay and I was just witnessing and grieving over everything happening in this world, I can't much speak on it but with my siblings, my guardians ofc know and part of our family even affected by the "wars" that raged in and around 🍉, I still feel just as suffocated, useless, helpless and isolated as I feel everyday if not more. The internet remains my only window to the world..

The only thing I could able to talk to my guardians about is that telling them I feel immense guilt, my other half, my other home is being wiped out, land stripped of human warmth, from recent and ancient memories, all the structures old and new, the nature that hugged it tightly and the music that floated from it's midst. And here I am carrying nothing but a blood connection and writing in immaculate Arabic, one thing I was consistently praised on and ment alot to me in terms of belonging, but literally can't understand the casual/slang part of it no matter how I think I get it. Which I understand finally is what called: a late diagnosis of autism, possible related to those specific speaking patterns.

I'm 80% nonverbal, and when I find my voice, specifically when it comes to expressing myself, everything I say sounds like riddles or poems instead of plain direct speech with clear indication and values. I take so long revising these little writings to make sure at least they are coherent. It's often frustrating as suddenly not being able to scream when u need..

In the same time, I can't deal with being perceived, I can not even interact with what I've shared on my TT or @madmanii because my brain just shuts down, it doesn't matter what's the situation, as long there's social interactions, my rational blanks and stops translating sense to me.. it might be so good I can't even say how much intensely I love it, same as bad.. Even through art, and I thought because it is in art form, something I feel more able expressing, I can't say more or do more or give more engagement than this. While engagement with my art shocks me each time as if It was the first time. It takes all my remaining soul to make this art, this last tether to my sanity and humanity, so I have unmeasured gratitude..

The only release to this raging sense of belonging and grief I had all my life is to make stories, OCs. Those two are just fantasy-ed version of the 2 homes I'm from. But never shared more drawings of them because I did not want to be identified and get any "anything-against-mainstream" phobia towards me as I've been punished for it severely lots in real life. They are even not a romantic pair, just bromancing and 'too' beautiful, and I still drew many other romantic ships and posts them, regardless..

But I worry too much and often my art, posts or whatever is never seen..

Whatever it's the algorithm or doing communication, I can't not do more of what is socially 'required' to be seen and heard, my art is all I can offer and as it always shows me it's never enough, I tried so hard that my art for the first time in my life became just another burden and chore instead of a sanctuary and brain food. Whatever I did, I don't have a presence online, I only have the few Snape fans who truly care about me and showed me humanity I've never known. But I still don't have numbers or popularity, and at this point I'm so burn out from trying that I don't care I'm losing followers or have no likes, it's silence on both ends now...

I wish I could achieve more and be more helpful and not worry about fearing anything, my existence here online is done by secret to begin with and not consistent cuz I have trash net, and I don't know how to do more.. even for myself..

It's my birthday month, and that's ticks down one year of six..

About perception I relate to Hard: https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSNQeJy8u/

Thank u for reading, Sweet dreams, precious 🖤❤️

[shysublimecoffee]

Itachi would've been fine to me tbh if like the story just let him be humbled lol. The main issue is that nobody called out Itachi for his actions, except for Itachi himself, which ironically serves to make him seem even more virtuous and flawless. "I understand feeling upset when some people in the fandom community don't use critical thinking. However, imagine investing a lot of time following a story you read since you were a kid. Many people simply follow the story as presented, and can you blame them when the story validates Itachi? I can't really blame them that much when even the writer seems to be bending over backwards to portray the character as a well-meaning hero, like in the case of Itachi." Now, I don't really know how well something like reading a piece of Naruto media can translate to real life but the saying the things we read and watch can influence on how we perceive the world rings true in my opinion because unfortunately some people really do believe in the Uchiha curse b.s and to me reflects a lot when it comes to how marginalized groups are stigmatized like the idea of a group having the curse of hatred inside of them is fucked if you are so set to believe in something based on a fictional group in a piece of media well... it raises questions about how that might influence real-life beliefs and attitudes towards marginalized groups

I think it's important to be at an age where you have developed critical thinking skills to engage with complex narratives like this. Many people are influenced by nostalgia and are such huge fans of certain characters that they are inclined to make elaborate analyses justifying their actions. For example, some might argue that because Itachi was just a kid when he committed certain acts, it excuses his behavior. However, if we start using age or other factors as excuses for heinous actions, where do we draw the line? What other circumstances would you be willing to bend over backwards to justify committing heinous crimes similar to what Itachi did?

Naruto is a bitch. I don't really want to extend to much with this character since I just feel disappointment. I wanted him to do more then he failed. He's become a politician I don't know what else to say lol. So many people say he inspired them how? What did he accomplish besides obtaining Hokage their world is still fucked up man the shinobi system still rotten. I thought this kid would grow up to do something about it but he remained complacent and changed nothing only difference is he's on top. I realized about later that was Sasuke role as an antagonist and it wouldn't make much sense lol there need to being 2 opposing sides but yeah... He was a whole lotta nothing as a protagonist he was cute kid but he grew up to be a dumb fuck who can't figure out why his "dearest friend" is siding against him and became man who can't keep promises.

It makes sense he had a hunger for acknowledgement I'm not discrediting that since he was a child but he wanted validation from everyone that he has such an obsession with his own self-image and how everyone thinks of him that I find it portrayal to be unhealthy. Sasuke at the end was just a checklist a reward at the end of the day that he wanted to gain for his personal goal.

Naruto talk no jutsu is so manipulative to me sometimes that instead of directly confronting Sasuke's ideas or opinions as equals would in a debate or discussion he would indirectly undermined them. He did this by ignoring Sasuke's valid arguments and instead focusing on exploiting Sasuke's emotional vulnerability, particularly his feelings of loneliness and despair stemming from the loss of family. Like his approach to me suggests a tactic to manipulate Sasuke's emotions rather than engaging with his ideas or concerns directly. But, I ain't sure if he's doing this deliberately since I don't know if he's that smart or I'm looking to much closely.

I'd rather ship his character with fucking OC's. I feel like each member of Team 7 are obsessed and want something from the guy but they don't care for Sasuke personally because if they did it would show but they're after him for what they want from him as a goalpost and hey they won.

[alynnl]

🔥 for whatever's been bugging you lately

Oh, boy. I'm about to touch on a topic I have ranted about extensively in private spaces. Only now I'm going to make my opinion public because I feel like I need to take a stand.

"Across media fandoms, so many fans refuse to stay in their lane and it leads to a lot of unnecessary trouble."

Allow me to explain.

Perhaps I'm only seeing the loudest of the vocal minority, but this behavior is grating to me. In general I come to my fan spaces to have fun, discuss media with others who've viewed it, and relax after taking care of my real life responsibilities.

I've seen shipping wars since my earliest days in fandom, and those have not died down in the slightest. In some ways, they've actually gotten worse, because people bring in purity culture and real life politics where I feel like they don't belong. (People who act like it's a moral duty to ship their rare pair instead of a more popular ship, as an example.)

This mentality of only having the most "morally correct" opinions on a piece of media goes beyond shipping too, when it comes to discussing individual characters or the (perceived) message of the media overall. Who and what is "problematic" is a dominating theme in many fan discussions on this website and others. There's this idea that a person's taste in media, characters, and even ships gives any indication of their real life morality. When really, most people (if not all) I've met who are into the darker, tragic and more dramatic themes in media are just interested in that part of storytelling and would never condone acts like murder, genocide or abuse in real life.

On the other side of the coin, there are other fans who try and label what is and isn't "cringe." I've seen them take aim at self-shippers, OC x Canon shippers, or even themes within the media itself that they've deemed "cliched" or "predictable." There's this smugness that comes with pointing out flaws CinemaSins style. It's very elitist in its way and to me translates to "I see what you don't, Sheeple!"

I'm sure there are other details of annoying fandom behavior that I have left out, but these are the main ideas to me.

It all comes down to one thing.

"When people dislike something, they turn around and make it everybody else's problem."

This is in spite of the widely available blacklisting tools and block button that are very easy to use to curate one's Tumblr experience. (I cannot speak for other websites and how easy or difficult it is to curate one's feed there, but I imagine there is something similar to Tumblr's system.)

Instead of accepting that a ship, piece of media, OC, or even an entire user's feed isn't their cup of tea and moving on, people have to say something rude about it.

And it just seems like a waste of time and energy. I think it would be better spent with things that actually spark joy.

All in all I feel like I’m getting too old for this sort of thing. Or maybe since I have more life experience, I’m more aware of what I want and what I’m better off without. Having to balance work and home life will do that. I’ll keep on sharing my thoughts with people who I feel I can truly be myself around. I hope everybody has at least one person, if not a few people like that. Because I think everyone should have a chance to be happy, in fan spaces and elsewhere.

[dirty-bosmer]

~Writerly Thumbprint Challenge~

Rules: look back on your work, both past and present, finished and unfinished. what are five (or more!) narrative elements, themes, topics or tropes that continuously pop up in your work?

Thanks to @thana-topsy for the tag! I was admittedly a bit intimidated by this one, but it was so illuminating. It's been a long time since I've taken a step back to evaluate my stories through a critical lens, and sometimes I forget what I've written 😅 I know a lot of people have already been tagged, so I'm tagging: @wispstalk @atypicalacademic @thequeenofthewinter @chennnington @rainpebble3 @justafoxhound @dumpsterhipster @skyrim-forever @sylvienerevarine @gilgamish @burningsilence

I'm a baby writer. Only two fics, both TES. Here is what I came up with:

1. An Inner Darkness, A Downward Spiral — Most of my OCs have a secret (sometimes not-so-secret) viscousness that's always simmering under the surface, threatening to ooze free. They're not necessarily mean, but they're not good people. They may not be evil, but they all do very bad things. Why? Because 1) thieving and necromancing and murder for hire are kinda fun in-game, and if our Hero is doing all of that while saving the world, it needs to be explained with something other than whimsy lol, and 2) I like the challenge of writing morally grey characters who are flawed and fucked up and unforgivable while simultaneously asking readers to root for them. I've found it quite difficult to make them likable and deserving of sympathy while not overlooking their wrongdoings or writing them inconsistently, but it makes for such interesting conflict.

2. The Pursuit of Knowledge — My protagonists and their close friends are mage-nerds because I am a nerd, and perhaps this is a case of it's easier to write what's close to home?? I love University settings and the looseness of the elder scrolls magic system. There is so much great lore to work with but in many cases it's not so rigid that you can't also twist it and grow it and shape it to your own desire. Knowledge is power as the Telvanni say. Most of my protagonists are not physically strong and rely on cunning and/or magic for defense. In that way, knowledge is the primary avenue by which they assert control over the world around them, which facilitates a lot of conversations surrounding the ethics of magical use cause well... given the way my OCs use it, it deserves to be questioned.

3. Identity — How does a character perceive themselves? How does this compare to what is perceived by those around them? I love exploring the discrepancies between these two and often write arcs that involve a character breaking through the facades they've constructed to conform to what is expected of them and/or shield themselves from the discomfort they feel in their own skin.

4. Loneliness, A Desperate Need for Love — I write characters who have been placed or place themselves on the fringes of society, yet long for acceptance and a place to belong. This leads to a lot of unhealthy and messy relationships, both familial, platonic, and romantic. Often times they hurt people they care about. They let others hurt them too, but it's okay as long as they're not alone, right? It's angst all the way to the top baby.

5. Romance is not the End Goal — Yeah, my work features ships. I'd say it's actually a huge part of the stories, but mostly because the relationships my characters are involved in "fail." People break up or they die tragically. They become incompatible and move on (sometimes lol). Maybe they endure, but romantic love is not the only kind nor the highest valued, and most importantly, I want to write characters whose self-worth is not tied up in whether they're loved by someone else.

Bonus is Awkard Bisexual Losers because all my OCs are cringe-fail and have no game.

This was such an informative exercise! I encourage everyone to take a stab at it. Please tag me if you do. I'm so excited to see what you come up with :))

[katyspersonal]

Seluvis for character ask! >:D

(From this ( x ) ask meme)

First impression: Wow, this guy is a TOTAL creep! This specific snobby, arrogant aura also makes him even MORE British than his accent! xD Also his face data looks like that one guy who """accidentally""" touches women in weird places in the crowded bus :/ You know, THAT one guy. He has really good voice acting though, and his pretentious, arrogant manner of talking is cute.... oh no 😳

Impression now: I still think he has the sexiest voice acting in the entire game, I am slightly less obsessed with him by now but if given the reason, I can write essays simply analyzing his character and making suggestions about his personality, backstory and what-if scenarios with other characters! He is just so goddamn fun to rotate in my mind. (And yeahhh well, I really really really love wizard aesthetic. Sorry guys, Willem will always be more thicc than Gehrman could EVER.)

Favorite moment: As great as his descent into mania was, I simply love the transition from being cold, condescending and mean with us to getting warmer with us because he "hadn't had an apprentice for a while"... It becomes painfully obvious that he admires himself so much because no one else ever would, and I am just such a sucker for mean character showing that secret gentle side. Like.. He needs approval and attention just like every other human being, this is a sweet moment x)

Idea for a story: I actually didn't think of scenarios all that much. However, I did have a guilty daydreaming period about an OC that was his apprentice, but she was showing a lot more creativity, intellect and talent than he'd teach her, and it started to seriously wound his ego. So he'd like, start to belittle her ideas and discoveries, try to gaslight her into thinking her inventions were dumb and he knew better, and in the end just... send her to get him some stuff that doesn't exist (as means to never see her again). I don't know enough about the lore to tell whether she is out there still or no, and yes, awful pettiness, I know. It is less a story and more deep dive into his insecurity and narcissism by using an abstract other person for a display.

Unpopular opinion: As much as I like to joke about him being sexist, in the end, I don't REALLY think that. He makes male puppets too, you know. xD Basically, he will be a creep to ANYONE, regardless of gender. Bi/Pan representation we deserve ;-; xDDDD :')

Favorite relationship: Him and Sellen really deserve each other tbh. I do not mean it like in a ship way; Seluvis is uhhh...... well, a simp in such a way that he doesn't deserve a chance, to say the least, and Sellen seems to be completely disinterested in relationship period because studying cosmos just takes her ENTIRE focus. But I mean like, a mix of rivalry (he is with the Carians and she is with the primevial current) and actually helping each other with crimes x) They share more in common than meets the eye! And both have foolish plans going against Ranni of all people, like the overly-confident idiots that they are ;-;

Favorite headcanon: He feels exact proximity with the puppets as what he says! Starlight Shards that "control fate of humans" are used to make his potion, so naturally, drinking his potion binds the person's fate with him (or with someone else, depends on what he's doing). It is, well... incredibly intimate experience on its own, but he perceives it much deeper than just creating servants. He is desperate for human bonds, but his snarky narcissistic personality makes him not be liked by anyone with their free will unaffected. :(

[sapphire-weapon]

what are your thoughts on the horniness and thirst around leon since the remake came out? and all of the content that comes with it (reader inserts, actual animated p0rn etc)? i saw some teens complaining that it was weird and 'ruining the fandom' - but i didn't really think anything of it since, yk, fandoms are gonna fandom, it is what it is (and it's leon so, it's not surprising).

i remember you mentioning that back in 2005, it was very hard for RE fans to talk abt leon outside of his relationship to ada, so i was also wondering how the fandom dealt with general leon-induced horniness back in the day

oh, this might be my favorite ask I've gotten in a while.

/gleefully rubs hands together

First off, teenagers need to shut the fuck up about the fandom. There used to be a time when you'd go into the Resident Evil tag here on Tumblr and you'd get a bunch of weird model viewer porn of Chris banging Dante or someshit. Early RE fandom was filled with a bunch of zombie-on-Jill (and later, Claire) porn. Sometimes it was even zombie dog porn. I don't wanna hear shit about anything porn-related from some fuckin kids who don't know just how depraved this fandom has been. This fandom was built on fucked up porn.

So, in a similar vein, that Leon thirst has always been there. Always, always, always. Do you think that Leon almost overthrew Chris as the face of Resident Evil because fans just... "liked his character"? NO. IT'S BECAUSE WE WANTED TO FUCK HIM. We wanted him in every hole, in every position, and we didn't care what we had to do to get Capcom to give him to us. The only reason why Chris was never dethroned was because the gays circled the wagons around him with RE5's release.

However.

Reader fics and self-inserts are a very new and recent phenomenon in fandom spaces. Even as recently as the mid-2010s, this was something unheard of. Fandom OCs were not okay. If you had a fandom OC, or if the fandom even suspected that you were self-inserting in any way, you got publicly shamed and sometimes even exiled from fandom spaces.

But there was one big, hypocritical problem with that mindset.

If you can't already see where this is going, let me help.

This is the reason why Aeon vs Cleon got as toxic and volatile as it was, back in the day.

Oh, yes. Fans would pick which of the two women they identified with more, and that ship became their vehicle for Leon smut. So, now, it wasn't just a ship. Now, it was personal -- because fans were using Ada or Claire to self-insert in a socially acceptable way. So, if someone rejected Cleon, and you were Team Cleon, chances are, you took that as someone saying "You're not good enough for Leon. You don't deserve him." -- even if you didn't consciously realize that that's what you were doing or how you were perceiving things.

Back in the days of LiveJournal, you found so many fics of just blatant OOC shit, because it wasn't really about Claire or Ada as characters. It never really was. Ada and Claire were just a means to the end goal that was Leon's cock.

So, if nothing else, modern-day fandom is a lot more honest.

Personally? I'll never be interested in reader fics because of how taboo it was for literally my entire life -- I will always see it as cringe, and I will always question that person's grasp on the line between fiction and reality, even though I know consciously that that's not fair for me to do, and that author isn't doing anything that I wasn't thinking about at their age. But prejudices gonna prejudice.

But I'm fucking stoked that I can talk openly about Leon's cock these days, and I don't have to filter it through some fucking ship that I don't care about. I can just sit here and say to you guys -- hey. I think Leon's into edging, and he secretly wants someone to make him beg, but he's too much of a control freak to allow it, so he just makes his partner beg instead. And no one fucking gives a shit!

It's so freeing. I'm so happy.

[queen--of--maggots]

I hate hate that matt is seen as a main character by the fandom. Why does the white boy with a minute screentime get more attention than almost the entire Japanse cast

Hi anon! I can see why Matt is popular as a side character. But I also have problems with the extent of Matt’s popularity. To this day, I still don’t understand why people mention Matt among the main characters. Everyone who has watched the anime or read the manga should have seen how little he’s present in the story. It would make sense if these people only consumed fan content and got a wrong impression about his importance, but this is unlikely. Most people in the fandom seem to have consumed at least one version of DN. So, yes, that’s very weird. I can’t offer you a real explanation, but I can give you some aspects that contribute to Matt’s popularity, in my opinion.

Mellodramattic: Mello is a popular character, and this ship is one of the most popular ships for him. Matt gets automatically credit for it. Plus, the lack of his in-depth characterization allows it to turn Matt into an OC or use him as a self-insert.

Wammy’s kid: Many fans seem to love the Wammy’s kids. Again, Matt gets credit for being one of them.

Comprehensibility: Based on my fandom experience, it seems like younger fans, in particular, often prefer characters they have something in common with. On one hand, Light, L, Mello, and Near have some relatable aspects, but on the other, they are also these unapproachable geniuses. And the Task Force, for example, with the exception of Matsuda, are middle-aged adults who usually behave accordingly. (Not very comprehensible if you are a teenager.) Matt is this down-to-earth, chill dude who smokes and likes video games. It’s easy to identify with Matt, easier than with a lot of the other characters.

Fan content: Passionate fans can actually contribute a lot to how people perceive their favorite characters. They add more depth to the characterization, give these characters backstories, and fill in the gaps. There is a lot of fan content for Matt and a lot of quality content. (Usually, when someone says they like Matt, I assume it’s the fanon version since, well, the canon version barely exists.)

His death: Most side characters die unspectacularly of a heart attack. Matt is perforated by bullets after he’s like: “You wouldn’t really do this, right?” This likely doesn’t increase his popularity, but it is pretty iconic and memorable.

Looks like anon was a troll who never wanted a real answer.

[starry-eyed-fag]

Would unironically love to see a writeup about the anti-rpf movement and how it connects to ableism. Homophobia I can kind of see, people seem to take way more issue with m/m rpf than of f/m from what i've seen, especially in classic rock. But ableism? (Genuine curiosity btw! )

-a curious rpf lover

so i normally don't get into shipcourse, but this is something I actually feel passionate about. RPF writers and readers are attacked for a lot of reasons, some of them fair and a matter of personal opinion, a lot of them very obviously bigoted. (also I will be reblogging this on my discourse blog @political-faggotry, if you want to send me asks in response to this post send them there!)

People take way more issue with m/m and f/f RPF than m/f RPF, as you said. This is because fanfiction and other forms of "shitty literature" have always been associated with queer people. This has been the case since at least the 1960s, when queer authors were forced to write shitty tragic stories that can't really be classified as love stories in order to have their stories told at all. A lot of queer-coded media was like this too, and cishet people caught on.

My informed opinion is that modern-day RPF was created because of an intersection of neurodivergence and queerness. Basically, ND queer people who felt out of place in society came together and formed fandoms around bands, actors, celebs, etc. Due to the increasing popularity of fanfiction in the 2000s, it was only natural that this would eventually bleed into fandoms of bands.

I think that the reason that M/M RPF fic was/is so popular is because of the trans eggs in fandom that 1) liked to project onto male characters and 2) viewed women as competition. Back when I was an egg, this was definitely what drew me to RPF. I did not like reading about Pete Wentz with his actual girlfriend, or with some female OC, I liked reading about him with a man I could project onto and who didn't feel like competition.

Anti-RPF "movements" during the 2000s was very obviously homophobic, misogynistic, and transphobic. Readers & writers would regularly get called homophobic slurs, get misogynist and transandrophobic comments, and otherwise be attacked for being queer and/or perceived female.

In the late 2010s was when the rise of calling things "problematic" because cringe culture died truly happened. Instead of saying "I don't like what you write because you're a faggot", people would say "actually you're problematic for writing that". It was literally the same shit we would get told in the 2000s, replacing words like "faggot" and the r-slur with "problematic".

I'm not saying that all people who call media problematic are like this - far from it. I call some media problematic too! However, media perceived as queer was targeted with accusations of being problematic far more than media without queerness attached, and many people who were already homophobic used this as an excuse to be homophobic while still being seen as "progressive".

I have an entire other rant about how non-MLM "progressives" can be and are homophobic sometimes, but I don't really have the spoons to write all that out right now - I will do it later though!

It would be misleading of me to not also talk about how TEHMs played a big part in the homophobia and transphobia that was directed at the (queer) RPF community. For those unaware, TEHM stands for Trans Exclusionary Homosexual Male. They are basically the TERF lesbians of the MLM gay community. They believe that gay trans men, especially nonbinary trans men and autistic trans men, are straight female fetishizers trying to invade the gay community.

TEHMs often come after transmasculine fans of yaoi anime, queer fanfiction, and yes, RPF. TEHMs will claim that the fact that transmasculine people tend to be in fandoms with a lot of M/M ships somehow "proves" that we are just fetishizing. So. Fucking. Many. Of the most common anti-RPF arguments use TEHM talking points, either intentionally or unintentionally.

TEHMs make use of dogwhistles to spread their messages even to people who are often trans-inclusionary. Claims of fetishizing MLM relationships are more often than not TEHM dogwhistles. A very common claim that I see among people who are VERY anti-RPF (not as in "i do not think RPF is good, but i don't really care all that much", but more as in "if you have ever read RPF in your life you should die") is that RPF is basically sexual assault.

Why would you accuse an entire fandom of young, queer, transmasculine people of sexually assaulting people who are usually 20+ years older than them? This is TEHM rhetoric.

I also want to touch on the ableism a little. Many RPF writers are neurodivergent, as one might expect. The majority of the ones I've interacted with are. The internet loves to get mad at neurodivergent people for having "problematic" interests, and with RPF it is no different.

We are singled out and our interests are seen as inherently disordered, immoral, etc. Those who are very strongly against RPF either do not know this, or they know this and are fine with harassing neurodivergent people over what amounts to a non-issue.

Now, that's the end of my point, but I have a few things to clarify. I am not trying to say that if you personally don't like RPF that you are actually transphobic, homophobic, and/or ableist. You are allowed to dislike anything for any reason and I don't care. My problem is with the people who hate RPF so much that they believe that reading it is a moral failing, or that it is okay to harass those that like it.

It is incredibly important to have boundaries writing RPF, which means not doing it anywhere that it is likely the people you are writing about will see. It is also okay to believe that RPF is inherently breaking a boundary; I disagree, but I see where your (not at anon) opinion is coming from and I respect it. It is not at all bigoted to dislike a thing for those reasons, as they are valid reasons to dislike something.

There is also a larger discussion to be had about the commodification of humans themselves in the music industry, but that is beyond the scope of this post.

I really only have a problem with the people who believe that it is a moral failing, or literal sexual assault, to be in a mostly harmless community that has been historically associated with queerness. That is all.

Please don't bring proship/anti discourse to this post.

[ctrsara]

Author question tag game thing

Thanks for the tag, @waitingondaisies!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

- 76

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

- 619,841

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I've only written for Marvel, and most specifically Irondad. I'm curious to see if that will change at some point.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Emergency Contacts 1684 words

Cutting Remarks 5754 words

Better Than I Was 1969 words

Sick Day Shouldas 2631 words

Outside Insights 3201 words (All of these are from my Strands in the Rope series!)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try really hard to respond to almost every comment. But I'm slow sometimes.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Pretty sure none of my fics are angsty at the end. But there's a lot still up in the air in Visiting Hours and it's not a real fix-it. Mostly just some comfort after a bunch of bad (thanks, Marvel) stuff.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Um, they pretty much all have happy endings. But maybe From the Same Star, or its sequel, Cracks in the Soul.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No? Not yet? But a few people who have disagreed with things, or pointed some weaknesses out, which is fine.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do not.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

They don't usually appeal to me.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not completely

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Maybe Spock and Uhura (from the reboot)? Or honestly, Peter and Hallie from my soulmate stories. I'm a little more into found family than romance right now, but I still enjoy it.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The AU of my AU. I started writing it because I was so curious about it, but I don't know if I'll ever post it or not, and if I never post it, I won't have any perceived pressure to help me finish it. ADHD (for me) means

16. What are your writing strengths?

Communication and characterization? I've had some good look with my OC's so far, and people (including me) have really liked them, so that's fun.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Brevity, action scenes, favoring best-outcomes instead of realism, plot in general.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

It's rough. I'll do short phrases in Italian (and I've been studying it in duolingo for like 5 months now, just because I wish I was better at it) but I usually opt to write it out in English and delineate that they're speaking something else.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Marvel

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

How could I possibly choose? Several are favorites for different reasons. I feel like I just want to cheat here and say Strands in the Rope. If it wasn't split into different stories, it'd just be a 180k story... (encompassing like 2 years)

I tag @itsmechara426, @celestialseawitch-ff, @niniblack, @jadeys-world, @grumperella, @fotibrit, @katinamoon

[daemiurges]

    ROLL UP LIKE A HOT WHEEL, I FUCK A BITCH UP WITH A HIGH HEEL

    ALL LOVE FOR MY SAVIOR, BUT YOU DON’T EVER WANNA MEET A GAY GANGSTA

    IND. SEL. FANDOM OC BLOG WRITTEN BY HEBBY 🔞

ABOUT AND RULES UNDER THE CUT

ABOUT

    It’s the 2020s, babes, let’s embrace our cringiest deviantart OCs. He’s a Divine that fell from grace–kind of a huge troublemaker who kept wanting to make the Mortal Realm interesting. He maaaaaay be the one who flirted the idea of Power from the Emeralds to the ancient tribes so they’d all start fighting each other. Turns out the other Divines weren’t wild about that, and had Neerco banished to the Mortal Realm.

    He had his rank and devotion stripped from him, and his temples were defaced–which means the less worship he was getting, the less influence he had. And to top it all off, his true angelic form (a horrifying 50ft spider) was contained inside of a small mobian body. When first waking properly on Earth, he had no memories of who he was, and ended up making friends with a Dandelion and a Nightingale. However, as time passed, his memories returned and what he perceived as betrayal fueled his madness.

    Abilities wise, Neerco was most heavily inspired by Q from Star Trek. He’s ridiculously OP, and we love him for that. Queen shit. Thing is, though, most of his magic and abilities in general don’t let him go TOO CRAZY. He can use his powers to give other creatures mutated forms and grotesque powers, but he can’t really use it on himself. So he likes to affect the world around him, but he can be resisted if a person’s convictions are pure enough. Which he hates. Hates that! Gross! Imagine being pure of heart. Couldn’t be him.

    Neerco’s current place of residence is an old, abandoned Temple that used to be in worship of him, but was abandoned and discarded by mortals and divines alike. He’s been working his influence as much as he can to bring it back, and he’s got some followers that embrace chaos just as much as him. That voice whispering in your ear to do your nails and claw some motherfucker’s face off? That’s probably him.

voice claim: Todrick Hall

RULES

Hi, I’m Hebby! I’m in my 30s, my pronouns are they/them. I like to think of myself as pretty friendly and patient, but I’ve seen a lot of BS in my years RPing on this webbed site, so here’s some rules!

1. This blog is 21+ ONLY because I don’t want to write with immature people or minors.

2. LEAVE ME OUT OF FANDOM DRAMA. LEAVE ME OUT OF POLITICAL DRAMA. LEAVE ME OUT OF DRAMA! (“It’s not Drama, it’s–” LEAVE ME OUT OF IT, THIS IS AN RP BLOG!!!)

3. FANDOM COPS STAY TF AWAY! WE DON'T MORALIZE OVER FICTION HERE!

4. 90% of the art used on this blog was drawn by me, the rest was giftart. Please don’t use my icons or my art without explicit, current permission from me.

actual RP stuff:

5. Neerco may be OP but I will NEVER godmode or use that OPness against your characters without explicit permission. I usually have him use it to fuck with NPCs.

6. Do NOT godmode my character or metagame information yours shouldn’t know. That’s rude.

7. IC =/= OOC, I don’t use my characters as mouthpieces. If I have a problem with you or an issue I need to bring you, I will bring it to you in private.

8. PLEASE don’t reblog my drabbles!! Or my headcanon posts. This is a roleplay blog, not a fandom blog. If it doesn’t say ‘okay to reblog’ then don’t reblog it!!!

9. OPEN TO SHIPPING! Characters MUST be over 18 for personal comfort reasons. Toxic yaoi is the only way Neerco here flies!

10. I am an impulse roleplayer, that means I reply or I don’t sometimes. Teehee. I will also unfollow for any reason, and I will not tell you why. For my own sanity’s sake.

11. Potentially triggering themes: torture, possession, abuse, controlling, behaviour, jealousy, sexual scenarios etc.

12. OH BTW I LOVE BEING MULTI-FANDOM FRIENDLY!!! that’s my bread and butter!

[mmollymercury]

For the Ask Game, maybe Luisa?

EEEEE LUISA TIMMMEEEE!

Luisa

⚧ - Pronoun hc: she/her

🏳️‍⚧️- Gender hc: cis female

🏳️‍🌈- Orientation hc: straight or bi with a preference for men. Idk she just gives that vibeeee.

🌌- zodiac sign hc: Luisa was born on November 14th, making her a scorpio! I was actually quite surprised by that, she doesn't really give major scorpio energy lol.

🧠- MBTI/Enneagram hc: with my novice knowledge, I think she'd be a INFP

Idealistic is a pretty good description for Luisa I think. I mean:

She likes to dream🥺🥺🥺

Factors that influenced my decision:

Are you outwardly or inwardly focused? Extraversion or introversion?

Despite Luisa being seen around town a lot; interacting with people, she still chooses to do so alone and with as little interaction with the villagers as possible. She doesn't have any small talk with them or even speaks first, she just answers to the calls of "Luisa! X needs fixing." And says, "Okay!" Then does it. Also, her dream is to just relax and sleep, she's a poor introvert with a extroverts job.

How do you prefer to take in information? Sensing or intuition?

I chose intuition for this one; despite how Luisa feels very stuck in her job and believes that it is what she needs to do, she still enjoys imagining the possibilities of how things could be, based on how easily she talked about her dream scenarios with Mirabel, like she's already very familiar with them and only now has had a chance to be open about them.

How do you prefer to make decisions? Thinking or feeling?

Feeling. We're talking about Luisa here.

A thinking person, would be described as: making decisions in an impersonal way, using logical reasoning. Enjoy finding the flaws in an argument. Could be described as reasonable, level-headed.

Luisa is a very emotional person, which can come as a surprise to some people who just judge her on looks. The decisions she makes aren't logical: she resorts to hurting herself and working to exhaustion to protect other people. Believing that not carrying all the donkeys 'properly' would "let everyone down."

How do you prefer to live your outer life? Judging or perceiving?

Perceiving. I like to think Luisa would settle into a outright 'perceiving' role after the movie. I feel like it'd really benefit her and make her feel less stressed if she tuned into that more spontaneous and flexible side we only see when she quickly takes on tasks. I think because of all the stress she doesn't allow herself to live how she is actually programmed to, instead modifying it to a detrimental degree to fulfil others needs.

❤- OTP hc: don't have one and although I don't usually make love interest ocs(correction: I've never made one lol), I think it'd be so cute for her to have a major simp of a boyfriend, who'd be the opposite of her in every way lol.

🧡- Everyone I ship with this character: 0

💛- Brotp: the blue sisters 💙 they deserve to be bffs😭 (this isn't romantic tho. Dont get it TWISTED😤😤)

💚- Notp: anything gross🤢

💙- Crossover ship: 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

💜- Crossover non-ship relationship I like: imagine her and merida hanging out. Think about it😌😳

📖- AU I'd like to see them in: HERCULES AU COME THROUGHHHH

❤🩹- Angsty hc: she's a naturally angsty girl. I think, even though she doesn't physically feel the weight of things, carrying things and overworking her muscles can cause her to come out in bruises and pains. She has a lot of tense muscles, this girl could use a good massage😌😌😌

💖- Happy hc: she loves princess stories and disgustingly romantic stuff 💖 she often daydreams about handsome princes and stuff, she's never really grown out of it lol. she seems like the type to stim a lot, like me AHH🤪🤪. Like, if she's happy and can't stay still, I feel like she'd pace around the room and jump about. I'm exposing myself here lol😭😭

😋- Funny/stupid hc: when she was little she could burp the alphabet. Isabela taught her how.

🥖- Food hc: she eats like an athlete, she definitely makes sure she's eating enough so she can continue to work out. Still, its somehow not as much as what Camilo eats😭 I think she'd have a big breakfast, a big lunch and a big dinner, with snacks in between, of course.

🪞- Appearance hc: she has 0 or very little acne, making all her siblings and cousins very jealous and confused. I like to think, because of working out, she'd have some visible viens on her hands or arms, she has high blood pressure, yall.

🏡- Domestic hc: Agustín and Julieta still call her a little girl or their little Luisa🥰💗 Agustín still buys fairytale things he sees in town for her🥰

🛌- Sleep hc: she was always jealous of Isabelas princess bed. I think after the fall of Casita, she'd get a canopy bed instead. She sleeps on her back and snores silently. The epitome of a sleeping beauty😭

🗡- Badass hc- she'll jump in front of anyone to protect them, as seen in the movie. She also knows her gymnastics and can make a jaw dropping, back flipping entrance if she wants too.

She can be very graceful as she does it too.

❓- Anything else you want: if this was a modern au, this girl would watch toy unboxings and collect toys 🥰 I already think she'd collect dolls anyway lol, as I said, Agustín would see them and still buy them for her, she'd set them up on a shelf above her bed. Now that she has free time, she'd go out in town and buy some herself and maybe, take part in hilarious, very serious doll trading debates with the village kids, Mirabel would be witness to these and be very enthralled.

💗💗💗

[reiverreturns]

[20 Question Fic Writer Tag]

Tagged by my darling @milfeivor. I may not have written consistently in months but BOY do I like talking about it.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Twelve

2. What is your AO3 word count?

122,303

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Well I'm not writing much at all at the moment (bad menty health innit) but over the last year it's been pretty much entirely Top Gun Maverick, with some Assassin's Creed in the background just for funsies

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Quiet Promises (TGM) - 418

For Those We Left Behind  (ACV) - 383

Calefaction (TGM) - 292

Attrition (ACV) - 225

When We Collide (We Come Together) (TGM) - 184

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to respond to every comment I get because I think it's common courtesy when someone's taken the time and effort to leave one. I'm a little bit out of practice though (kiss kiss kiss grovel grovel grovel @ those left on read in my inbox)

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Blessed Are The Meek (FC5) maybe? A canon-compliant character study of Jacob Seed and his fucked up cult family has no iteration where things turn out well in the end.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I don't know actually - maybe Quiet Promises because I just really enjoy that ending and it's one of the only bits of published fic I've written I can reread and not want to edit more. If I ever finished writing the last chapter of Swim Until You Can't See Land it would probably be that but I'm just so very very lazy.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I had a tumblr anon one give me shit for not putting icemav in a fic but it was so fuckin weird to get I just deleted the ask. My brother/sister/comrade in christ I am the most niche rarepair stay-in-my-lane kind of fic writer. I am not a popular author in any fandom I write in. Why on earth would you think I care.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I try to write smut once a year when Eurovision sends me into my annual bisexual frenzy. It's not very good (my smut, not Eurovision)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Short answer is no. Long answer is no with the exception of a Pacific Rim/Assassin's Creed crossover which I keep as a never-to-publish deliriously self-indulgent writing exercise to dip into when I don't feel like being perceived through words. I've got a whole Hytham/Jacob thing going that I'm fucking feral for which is soooooooo big brained of me imo.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I'm aware of. I've read fics before where I can pick up a clear influence from my work on theirs but nothing like a straight up copy + paste.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nah. I've considered translating my own fics into Scots but it feels like a lot of effort for the sprinkle of folks who might read it.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No but I wouldn't be against it. I did a lot of rp writing back in the day with OCs and I really liked the collaborative aspect of it.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I don't pick favourites I love all my insane children equally. I will say most ships I gravitate towards have a doomed by the narrative / love doesn't conquer all but it's enough in the moment kind of dynamic and I can trace that back to some of my early favourites (Ten/Rose, Merthur) to now (Kassidas, Eivor/Vili, RebelCaptain, so on)

15. What's a WIP you'd like to finish but doubt you ever will?

For Those We Left Behind. I have a lot of love for that fic but it is very reflective of the time in my life when I started writing it (bouncing off the walls bored out my tits under lockdown.) Lots of enthusiasm and energy to pour into it but little patience or planning. I look back on it as an unwieldy, rambly thing. I still do pick at it (and want to keep updating) but if we're honest I don't think I'll ever quite reach the finish line beyond the pieces that are already firmed up in my head.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I can turn a tasty metaphor on occasion. I tend to think I have a strong handle on the characters I write the perspective of and put a lot of effort into making them feel true and honest to the source material.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Plot - there's a reason why I tend to write canon compliant/canon adjacent and it's because it gives me the bones of the canon to work from. Pacing is a perpetual struggle. My attempts at smut are laughable.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

If it's done to serve a narrative purpose and/or show something about a character, sure why not. Absolutely abhor written out accents though (unless, again, for a very specific narrative/character purpose.)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter and Stargate. There's probably still some 12/13 year-old Reiver fic floating around in the internet ether that I hope no one is ever subjected to again.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

I honestly don't have one - everything I've published I've loved at one point or another for a variety of reasons. Gun to my head I'll say Quiet Promises because I think it's one of the highest quality fics in my catalogue from an editing, pacing, and character perspective. Writing isn't about the technical skill to me though, it's about how it makes me feel and the audience feel, so no favourites here.

Tagging is still dogshit on desktop so consider this an open tag to anyone who wants to do it (but @ me I'm so nosy and want to read the responses)

[godblooded]

okay. so i just gotta write a psa about INTERACTION, WHAT CONSTITUTES GODMODDING, WHAT DOESN’T, & WHY WE SHOULD ADDRESS THIS AS A COMMUNITY. 

first off, years ago the rpc quit being a community. it became a structure, with widely accepted rules and widely discourages practices. most of them completely logical (predators in the rpc, scammers, consistent abusers, etc.) and some of them completely illogical (like the time everyone went out of their mind about lesbians using male pronouns). it’s become a place where the danger of it is: some people think they have authority, some people live in fear of having themselves targeted for any which reason, even if it’s a perceived sleight. 

by and large we’re a lot of neurodivergent people. we’re a lot of mentally ill people. we’re all living in a society where anxiety is widespread to the point of normalcy. which means i cannot count the number of times people have said ‘i want to do this, but i’m afraid i’ll be thrown out for it’. and this sometimes happens to the smallest things.

i was once criticized for how my genderfluid character identified when they were genderfluid leaning toward transmasc and i am enby transmasc, myself, both of us being afab. this happened because instead of considering something, they made a blanket generalization and said what you’re doing isn’t clear enough in your writing.

the entirety of this place has a general fear of everything. it’s become less of a comfort and more of an area where people hesitate to interact. and honestly, i think some of this has to do with the fact that we think of rp as an isolated experience instead of what it should be, which is sort of collaborative fanfiction. we forget there are two people involved and we assume the other person will be upset about the choices we make. any actions at all you write another person’s character doing either get called ‘godmodding’, or never get written because the person writing is too anxious to make a presumption. this phenomena was a lot more present in force-shipping, which is the practice of pushing your own ship agenda on another person, even if they’re either not into it/aren’t into shipping. which is shitty. but there has to be a discussion of where the line between showing interest in a shipping possibility and manipulating someone into a ship. it, frankly, only makes people with exacerbated anxiety or panic feel like every interest they take strongly will be misconstred as force-shipping. when maybe you’re just excited about the idea and wanna see if the other person digs it.

what it comes down to is: collaboration and communication. which we do not do enough anymore. the stigma around excitement in an idea or a thread often stops in one’s brain at ‘i don’t want to come off as annoying’. and herein is where it needs to become more lax and more collaborative at once. let me explain.

rp is a collaborative fanfic experience. fight me. we’re writing direct responses to one another, basically putting down another page or another chapter. it’s naturally collaborative as a practice. or should be. 

ages ago in the dinosaur years of fanfiction.net, i wrote a fanfic with an oc for a batman fic that got relatively big. someone approached me and asked if they could write an off-shot of my fic with me, an au, basically, and we would alternatively write chapters. which means. gasp. we had to write each other’s characters. 

and you know what? it was some of my best work. because nobody really considers the fact that the more you write with someone, the more you acclimate to their character. the more you get to know them. the more you get to know someone else’s character, the easier it is to hear them in your head, too.

what i’m saying is that if your characters have discussed coffee, it’s not a stretch for yours to write mine walking into the kitchen. if it was going in that direction, it’s not godmodding if you’re just following a straight path that’s a totally logical assumption. and now, the collab comes in.

if you don’t know, ask!  if you feel like you should run it by the person you’re writing with because you feel like you might be taking ooc liberties, ask! if you’re not sure if you’re capturing the essence of the other person’s character correctly, ask! 

rp isn’t a single road. it’s a two-way street, and a lot of people get discouraged feeling like ‘others don’t care about their characters’. but the problem is: nobody reaches outside their realm of comfort to make, say, the assumption that the other person’s character was doing something simple, like looking at something presented to them that’s their favorite color, etc. sometimes you let someone know you pay attention to their character and you better the storytelling by allowing the flow to become more natural.

there needs to be less structure and more collaboration, communication, and freedom to creativity. 

godmodding is something i’ve been victim to in a few extreme cases. once, in a thread, my partner’s character lost a whole fucking leg without telling me and this obviously became a lasting plot point that affected the rest of the verse. another time i went on a cruise to barcelona for three weeks with my parents (i was also rping on a forum at the time) and had no internet. upon my return my character had a time travel plot, a baby, and a relationship with my friend’s character who she had almost no contact with. i wasn’t available at the time and was a canon player in the plot (and they knew i’d be gone), but still went on with a big assuming plot that i had zero say in using my character as a vessel. THIS IS GODMODDING. WHEN YOU DO SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE OF WRITING THAT HAS HUGE BEARING ON YOUR INTERACTIONS/STORY AND IT INVOLVES SOMEONE ELSE’S CHARACTER WITHOUT YOU CONTACTING THE OTHER PERSON FIRST, IT’S GODMODDING. 

it is not godmodding to write out a conversation you know your character and someone else’s have had. it’s not godmodding to write someone else’s character following a normal route of routine. just make sure for big choices, you’re actually in communication. or if you think the other person plans for the other character to act differently, approach the other writer and ask if that’s fine. hell, run dialogue by one another. these things enrich writing, foster communication, and make other people feel like you’re actually paying attention to them. so many of us make it an enclosed experience where it’s quantity over quality, and getting as much out as is possible, when it should be about why you enjoy writing, and what work makes you feel best (obviously within reason do not be disgusting).

characters have pasts. histories. maybe the both of yours went to dinner. maybe they blew up a fucking car. maybe they stole a baby. i don’t know. but if it happened, don’t be afraid to write those allusions just because ‘they involve the other person’s character’. again, communicate! 

it’s become too self-reflective in here and it’s made all of us afraid to reach out to one another and truly be creatives. and that really needs to change, because it’s bad for everyone’s mental health and it makes people give up long before they even start.

anyway, that’s my two cents as someone who’s been here through the rise and fall of the hannibal fandom.

[azumetapraline]

My Feelings about Kirby Gijinkas, an Essay

I’ve always told myself I was not really a fan of gijinkas (in general, but in this context I will talk about this fandom specifically), and I have realized that it is both true and false.

More under the cut!

The thing is, when there’s a character I love, especially when they’re not human, the very things that make me love them, especially for Kirby characters (since they have much less character development than other media), are their visual features.

When a lot of features of a blorbo of mine are removed or strongly altered from their design, I struggle a lot to see this character’s “essence” through it. Therefore, most of the time, when someone makes a gijinka design of XYZ, what I will likely perceive is not “literally XYZ but human”, but “an original character that has features referencing XYZ”. 

What does that mean in practice? Usually, if I see art of characters or ships I love, I won’t get the same feeling I do when they are in their canon forms. I have trouble seeing them as them, per say. Of course if there is good characterization (like in a comic), it will feel a bit more “in character”, but for me it will feel a bit off and it’s, like I said, because I will struggle to see them as the character they are based on. 

Now we’re going to the most interesting part of this analysis: the exceptions. As you all know, I am an avid gijinka specialist (no), but from experience at not making, but observing all sorts of gijinka designs, I think it’s very, very hard to make a good gijinka design. By that I don’t mean creating a good character design, but rather a human design so carefully faithful that when I look at it, I feel it’s the character (the “essence”). I can count on my fingers the number of Meta Knight gijinka designs I’ve looked at and said, “yes, this is Meta Knight.”

That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate looking at gijinka designs, not at all. When I am looking at someone’s art, I see their feelings, ideas, perceptions, and I can see the skills and time they put in their designs. I feel the vibe, and for the most part I will appreciate the aesthetic and the details, a bit like, well, when someone makes a cool OC. Sometimes even, although I won’t get the very specific "character essence" from a design, I will appreciate its aesthetic. 

I feel like most gijinkas take a portion of the appealing elements of a design and puts them into a human form; it’s the very fact it’s not the totality of the elements that makes me struggle to see them as the character per say (the fact they are humans already makes that harder). That’s why gijinka designs that are not committed to make them “actual humans”, as well as “non-human anthro” designs, already feel much more appealing to me, personally. That’s also why some design alterations of Kirby characters will give me that “off” feeling too, without it being gijinkas. 

That’s why I always (genuinely) say that, while I don’t enjoy gijinkas the same way a lot of folks do, I truly don’t want them to stop. After all, intellectual property is a capitalist scam and, since the dawn of time, we have made art based on other people’s creations. Greek Gods are literally characters people shipped together, made “fanart” of and wrote “fanfics” about, and now we call all that “mythology”. Disney’s success literally relies on them making movie fanfics from already existing stories. So gijinkas are literally just people taking characters and making their own creations based on them. Of course someone like me, who is fixating on characters because of specific features, might not get the same feelings from different takes of that character. It makes sense, both logically and emotionally. We all see things differently, and the way I see Kirby fanart is probably very far from being perfect or “universal”.

This being said, I still have one thing about gijinkas that make me feel a bit uneasy; however, it’s more a global thing than anything else and, frankly, no one is to blame for that. Gijinkas are, for some reason, unbelievably popular in the fandom so, very often, they prevail over art of their canon forms. When I specifically want art of my blorbos, I get a bit disappointed when it’s just gijinkas. I don’t really want to blame people or tell them to stop, it’s just something I get to feel at times, and I just keep scrolling and find other things to feed my hyperfixation. (I just wished I didn’t feel pressured to appreciate gijinka art the same way I enjoy “canon-forms” art.)

I am not sure how this could be fixed or if it even needs to be, unless a lot of people feel the way I do. If so, then I would suggest to maybe find a universal tag for kirby gijinkas so people can follow or mute them, like an unwritten rule? But that means I won’t get to see art my gijinka mutuals do, and often they draw really good art! After all, I want to see gijinka art the same way I want to see original/other-fandom art. Because of that, I think status quo is fine; I’ve always dealt with this pet peeve and I can still keep on doing that, since that’s the solution that will bring the most happiness in the world. 

In conclusion, I see the majority of gijinka designs as “original character” designs, so while I genuinely enjoy seeing artists elaborating design ideas and creating personal works, only a little portion of them can capture the “essence” of a certain character so, when I need to “feed my hyperfixation”, it’s harder for me to get that from gijinkas, since I see them as their own thing. 

Always remember the true reason you are creating the art you do. Are you aiming at making “character essence”-faithful gijinka designs, or do you want to make designs you will like and enjoy drawing? That should tell you whether or not your designs need to be changed or improved! Keep being the awesome artists you are, no matter what!

Sincerely,  Azu🦋