#all of the original stuff of course has its own Problems but That’s Just Fandom Baby! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

caligvlasaqvarivm · 2 months

Text

Love is Stored in the Cat: A Nepeta Leijon Character Study

I guess these are a series now! I also have a request for Feferi in my inbox that I'll get around to eventually.

SO! Dear, sweet Nepeta.

Nepeta is the troll that is most against the existence of the hemocaste.

I believe the Ultimate Self speech was originally going to be from her, not Davepetasprite^2.

She's bad at shipping.

These all make her extremely impurrtant!!!

So furst of all, I'm going to start with the same disclaimer as my Eridan essay (go read that first!!! It sets up a lot of ideas that I'm expanding on here), which is that the things Hussie says are going to be lowered in value, because he likes to play coy about plot stuff. I'm also not counting anything but the actual text as canon, and even with in that text, I'm counting everything after GAME OVER as soft canon - a suggestion of what would have been, often truncated for time, often a deliberate middle finger to the shitty fandom.

Okay, so with that squared away!

Nepeta Says Fuck The Hemocaste

I'm not going to bother doing a deep dive on Nepeta's characterization, because fur the most part, I think the fandom more or less gets her right - she wears her heart (h33h33) on her sl33ve, after all! She's a very sweet little catgirl who loves roleplay and shipping, who is also a vicious hunter of wild beasts and lives in a cave. She's very nice and friendly, but has a tough streak and a spine.

She also says fuck the hemocaste, why does that even exist:

CT: D --> Your fraternization with the base classes have 100sened your morals, can't you see this AC: :33 < no! i dont care, they are fun AC: :33 < and i dont know anything about classes or bases or blood color, it doesn't matter! AC: :33 < what does gr33n blood even mean! it doesnt mean anything to me and it shouldnt mean anything to anyone else!

This is a radical stance not outright shared by any of the other trolls. Aradia calls highbloods "hateful sn0bs" that she and Tavros shouldn't have "ever had anything t0 d0 with", the highbloods are, of course, all casteist to varying degrees, and even Karkat seems fairly accepting of the class divide, at one point taunting Vriska that her rejection from the blue team is "ANOTHER INFURIATING VICTORY FOR GUTTER BLOOD OVER ARISTOCRACY". Not to mention his long-held dream of becoming a threshecutioner.

Even Feferi, despite saying to Eridan that "W-E AR-E NOT B-ETT-ER T)(AN ANYBODY!!!!!", is actually perfectly comfortable with the caste system's existence, comparing having to stop using her royal typing quirk to "peasant-IFICATING" herself - and let's not forget that a Beforus under her rule had its caste system 100% intact.

This means that Nepeta is the ONLY troll who has said, in no uncertain terms, that the caste system should not exist. It's stupid, it's bad, and it doesn't meowtter!

AND SHE'S RIGHT.

But she's never able to fully express this opinion, which brings us to:

A COMPLICKATED RELATIONSHIP WITH EQUIUS

Now, before I say anything, I must insist that I do believe these two work as good moirails. That does not, however, stop them from being 13, and therefore, being poor to each other the way 13-year-olds sometimes are. I don't think they should break up; I think they should re-examine certain dynamics, and I think they need some space to breathe apart from each other.

Equius has a lot of problems, which I won't get into overmuch here, because... that's a whole essay on its own (are you people seeing a trend yet). But with regards to Nepeta specifically, he's extremely controlling and protective, to the point where she's a little scared of him before the game begins:

AC: :33 < well it does sound like it will be a lot of fun but i think i should get purrmission first GC: BL4R!!!!! GC: TH4TS SO STUP1D GC: H3S NOT TH3 BOSS OF YOU AC: :33 < i know! AC: :33 < but still im kind of scared of him and i think purrhaps its best to just run it by him first so there isnt a kerfuffle about it or anything

She's also afraid to tell him about her crush on Karkat, since she knows he doesn't like Karkat:

AC: :33 < well AC: :33 < i have never told anybody this not even my moirail AC: :33 < heh, actually hes the LAST guy i might tell, he so wouldnt appurrve X33 AC: :33 < but yes i have liked somebody for quite some time, but alas he doesnt know it

By the time they end their game, she's gotten over this fear, seeing as she spends many hours curled up with Equius in a pile of robotics parts, but it still must be noted that they have some issues in their relationship that were never resolved, primarily on Equius's end. What this means for Nepeta, however, is that in addition to setting her up as the most outright anti-classism troll, the comic sets her up to be socially isolated due to her moirail's paranoia about letting her associate with both lowbloods (seeing them as bad influences) OR other highbloods, seeing them as dangerous.

He's not entirely wrong - his refusal to allow her to participate in FLARP kept her from winding up entangled in the horrible chain of revenge, as Tavros alludes:

AT: iT'S PROBABLY FOR THE BEST, AT: tHAT YOU LISTEN TO HIM, AC: :33 < i dont know AC: :33 < you think so? AT: wELL, AT: iF YOU DIDN'T LISTEN TO HIM BEFORE, AT: yOU MIGHT HAVE PLAYED GAMES WITH US BEFORE, AT: aND SOMETHING BAD MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED TO YOU, AC: :33 < hmm purrhaps

But he's still wrong. And it's probably an uncontrolled manifestation of his Heir of Void abilities - he's both consciously and unconsciously hiding her from other people.

This isn't to say she doesn't stand up for herself! Many of her discussions with Equius are pseudo-arguments, and she does get her way often enough, managing to get him to roleplay with her, and managing to get him back in the roboti% pile to talk about his feelings about Aradia. She also talks to the humans explicitly against Equius's orders, although she's keeping it a sneakret from him:

NEPETA: :33 < but equius already furbid me from doing that :(( NEPETA: :33 < not that i am listening to him, but shhhhh! :33 KARKAT: WAIT, HE DID? KARKAT: OK, THEN AS YOUR LEADER I ORDER YOU TO RP WITH THEM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. BE AS OBNOXIOUS ABOUT IT AS YOU CAN. NEPETA: :33 < yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

But the fact that she has to tiptoe around him like this speaks to them having issues in their relationship that go unexamined and unresolved, especially since it's clear that Nepeta really would like to be friends with more people, were Equius not getting in her way. So, even though I do think they are good moirails for each other - they clearly genuinely, deeply care about one another. But they could use some relationship counselling.

In fact, Jasprosesprite^2 outright calls her lonely:

JASPROSESPRITE^2: Or the girl who likes ships! Cause they made her less lonely. ;3

So, she's anti-hemocaste and lonely, two character traits that were set up and never resolved. And beclaws this is Nepeta, in her honor, I'm going to talk about a third:

Her Unrequited Crush On Karcat

She has the BIGGEST flushed crush on Karkat. It's seen on her shipping wall twice, once with the word OTP on it.

And, despite never discussing it with her moirail, Nepeta mentions it once to Jaspersprite, and once to Jasprosesprite^2.

Now, I'm not really here to debate on the validity of KatNep - I think it's fine, even if I don't personally ship it, and don't personally think it would work out (there are lots of indications that they wouldn't work out, including Jasprosesprite^2 outright saying so). However, her crush on Karkat is both complicated and creates some interesting setups for her character. I am going to discuss it fairly critically either way, so KatNep shippers have been warned.

A lot of her feelings about Karkat - and about shipping in general - wind up being heavily interlinked with her status as a Hero of Heart, so I'm going to expand on it more there. But what I will note in this section is the fact that, despite Nepeta insisting twice that she doesn't think Karkat knows about her crush on her:

NEPETASPRITE: :33 < it was karkat NEPETASPRITE: :33 < but i never told him and im pretty sure he never found out how i felt!

He tooootally did:

KARKAT: OK, BUT TO BE FAIR, I'M PRETTY SURE SHE'S STILL OBSESSED WITH ME. KARKAT: IT'S A VERY UNFORTUNATE, VERY RED AND VERY UNREQUITED SITUATION I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TIPTOE AROUND FOR A LONG TIME, OK?

Interpret that how you will for shipping purposes, but I want to propose that this is a reflection of their statuses as Heart and Blood players. Heart, despite its players' obsessions with romance, is not the romance aspect, Blood is. Karkat displays this very same romantic acumen when he tells Dave that he's known Terezi and Gamzee were a thing for a long time, despite everyone else on the meteor trying to keep it a secret from him. Heart is, instead, about identity, feelings, motivations, souls, and self. In other words:

Nepeta Is Kind Of Bad At Shipping

Let's take a look at those shipping walls.

Let's break this down a little. Nepeta's ships are not entirely wrong, but even the successful ones are kind of wrong. Here's what I mean. We've already discussed how Equius and Nepeta's moirallegiance has some... issues in it. If we go down her list of ships that actually do happen, most of them have some issues in them!

Aradia expresses her regret for getting together with Equius in the Ministrife. Kanaya and Rose suffer some major relationship problems when Rose starts drinking, to the point Karkat feels a need to step in as an auspice. Karkat and Gamzee fail, as Karkat is not calmed by Gamzee, and Gamzee stops listening to Karkat. And while Sollux and Feferi seem to be fairly healthy, after they both wind up in the Furthest Ring, he's pretty much always next to Aradia - he and Feferi don't even get to exchange words with each other once they're in the Furthest Ring. Purrsonally, I think he and Feferi are meant to end up as moirails, but shhhh.

So what's happening here? Well, this goes back to her identity as a Heart player. Heart is concerned with feelings and motivations.

They simply want to understand the one thing we all are stuck with for our entire lives, i.e. our own minds. Forging an identity is extremely important to the Heart-bound, and every decision and action goes toward building a coherent narrative of their own story. That isn't to say Heart-bound don't care deeply for their friends and allies; they just have a tendency to assume that everyone is as concerned with identity as they are.

Nepeta's shipping has also been associated with her isolation and loneliness. When you put this together, it implies that Nepeta's shipping is about her desire to understand others, and much of her ships are based on one of the parties having feelings, regardless of compatibility, feasibility, or broader implications. After all, despite the fact that she has pretty terrible romantic acumen, she IS able to instinctively identify that Eridan's advances toward her were insincere:

NEPETASPRITE: :33 < well ok i guess eridan hit on me a few times NEPETASPRITE: :33 < but his advances always struck me as cr33py and insincere

And that Karkat secretly LOVES and RESPECTS his friends:

JASPROSESPRITE^2: On the contrary Nepeta. You deserve someone who will RESPECT and ADORE you. NEPETASPRITE: :33 < well... yes NEPETASPRITE: :33 < i always hoped to find someone like that some day NEPETASPRITE: :33 < i dunno maybe youre right but in spite of whatever problems he might have i always felt like i saw something in him that made me think he could be that purrson!

Or knowing that Equius loves to play games, and still feels sad about Aradia exploding:

AC: :33 < i s33 right through your stupid act, who are you trying to kid! AC: :33 < look how you go out of your way to use words that have x's in them so that you can use your silly purrcent signs AC: :33 < or use these absurd words that you can shoehorn a '100' into, even if its not strictly replacing 'loo'!!! AC: :33 < you are so transpurrent AC: :33 < i can tell you like to play games, d33p down you are a guy who likes to play games! AC: :33 < i can smell a guy who likes to play games from so fur away with this nose, you have no idea X33

NEPETA: :33 < she was so happy, just like she used to be, and she said she would s33 you soon! EQUIUS: D --> That's a nice thought, and thank you for sharing it EQUIUS: D --> But it was only a dream, and will surely have no consequence in reality NEPETA: :33 < equius? NEPETA: :33 < are those f33lings i an detecting with my wiggly whiskery nose? EQUIUS: D --> Maybe

Because feelings, and not relationships, are her actual domain.

And speaking of Heart powers...

Nepeta and the Ultimate Self

So from this point forward, I'm going to assume you're more or less agreeing with my take that at some point after Game Over, Hussie - for whatever reason - gave up on his original ending, and wound up truncating his ideas so he could finish the comic faster. I go more into detail about that here.

So, in this hypothetical original ending, I firmly believe that the speech about the Ultimate Self would have come from Nepeta. First, let's take a look at what the "Ultimate Self" entails, as it appears within the comic:

DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < everything that ever happens to every version of you is an important part of your ultimate self... like a superceding bodyless and timeless persona that crosses the boundaries of paradox space and unlike god tiers or bubble ghosts or whatever, it really IS immortal DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < but in your physical form there are all these partitions in your mind that prevent you from remembering any of that which makes your existence f33l totally linear DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < which is probably for the best! DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < in a regular body s33ing all that would be too overwhelming ... DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < and after it sinks in for a while you start coming to this understanding of a greater self DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < maybe i "got it" quicker though because of the two people i was and their aspects DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < understanding heart is all about the nuances of a distributed self DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < nepeta never got to make much headway with her aspect but shes finally gettin the chance DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < the time aspect is all about running into different versions of yourself so you kinda get confronted with it in a really literal way that can be disturbing DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < obviously davesprite stuggled with that too, but now its fine DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < hes fr33 from worrying about it all and what it means for his place in reality DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < because he can s33 now all his selves have relevance in painting the full picture of who he truly is DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < im not COMPLETELY sure because im not like some sort of ASPECT MASTER but DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < my avian slash feline intuition tells me that all roads will lead you here eventually DAVEPETASPRITE^2: B33 < gaining the d33pest possible understanding of any aspect will bring you to the same final conclusion about your ultimate self

Now, I believe - and I hope you'll agree - that it's kind of lame, narratively, for Davesprite to have been set up with so much angst about not being the "real Dave," and for Nepeta to have all her issues with loneliness and shyness, and for these two specific iterations of each other to have never interacted, but suddenly getting double-prototyped fixes all of their problems, and they achieve Ultimate Selfhood despite being two total strangers to each other. So let's instead break down the more salient points about what Ultimate Selfhood entails, divorced from the fact that it's Davepetasprite^2 doing the narrating:

Every player in the game possesses an "Ultimate Self," an ultimate culmination of all their experiences and memories, specifically referred to as a "persona"

Normally, people are not aware of this, because it would be too overwhelming to deal with so many memories and iterations of each other.

Everyone will achieve Ultimate Selfhood eventually as the final culmination of their understanding of their aspect.

Heart is all about the nuances of a distributed self.

Let's talk about that last one some more, and by that I mean, let's see what Calliope has to say about it:

TT: I don't know why it had to be this way for me. Juggling these two waking selves at once. TT: I guess I'm used to it, but it still makes for a pretty intense existence. TT: Do you even know what the deal with that is? Like is there any precedent in your readings? UU: i don't know aboUt precedent, bUt it makes plenty of sense to me as the type of path one might expect for a hero of heart. UU: a path rUled by the heart aspect can be a joUrney of splintered self. UU: that is, the player's being may exhibit the same kind of fragmentation which certain classes coUld caUse in others. UU: i think this is what has triggered yoUr dUal-awareness between waking and dream selves, thoUgh it woUld not sUrprise me if the symptoms manifested in even more ways than this.

Now, Dirk has a clawmplicated relationship with his alternate selves, given that he's a Prince, but Nepeta wouldn't have the same struggles, or at least, not to the same degree. The problem is, hampered by Equius and her own shyness about discussing her thoughts and feelings with others:

NEPETASPRITE: :33 < i get so shy and worried what people might think of me if i say how i f33l NEPETASPRITE: :33 < im always so scared that they wont f33l the same way or just think im stupid or pathetic or something

She never actually gets to explore this part of herself.

But What If... She Did?

The way I imagine the original ending going is that each troll that gets saved by John's interference in the timeline then asks John to help them fix their own mistakes, thereby saving somebody else. Each successive trip through the meteor brings new character development, and also riddles the comic with progressively more password pages, which I think would be really funny. And throughout all this the Game Over team is searching for Vriska, Meenah, and the treasure, and resolving their arcs that way, so it's not like they would be replaced - they're the ones who get to kill LE. The process, in my mind, goes like this:

Terezi asks John to save Vriska, and prevent her from getting too spades with Gamzee, as these are her two greatest regrets.

Vriska obviously had great regrets about killing Tavros, both pre- and post-retcon, so she asks for his death to be prevented.

Tavros staying alive means that he and Gamzee wind up hashing out some stuff - Gamzee mentions that he feels "So aT ChIlL WiTh yOu" while talking to Tavros, and Tavros reciprocates the friendship and also - interestingly - acknowledges Gamzee's religion, calling it beautiful even if he doesn't necessarily believe in it. This is interesting because Karkat's inability to do so is explicitly one of the reasons their moirallegiance broke down. So having Tavros back, alive, means that he and Gamzee would likely end up in some sort of relationship, probably pale despite flushed leanings, and would bring Gamzee back into the fold.

Gamzee would then be like, yeah, wow, that time I killed Nepeta and Equius was pretty bad, huh? Especially since his decision to hang onto his friends' bodies and prototype them is often interpreted as him genuinely feeling bad about his dead friends (he tells Kurloz to shut up when Kurloz mentions all the dead friends, and his religion seems to be about a paradise he wants to share with his friends anyway). So he'd ask John to prevent him from killing them, resulting in the two of them getting to live.

Things get much more hypothetical from here, since so much of the character dynamics would have changed, but I think by this point, Equius might command ask John to let him say goodbye to Aradiabot before she explodes, which he expresses feeling very sad about. However, in doing so, John and Aradiabot end up in the same room, and when she realizes that he has the ability to change the timeline without repercussions, she'd seize him by the arm and demand that he take her back in time, to before she died. After all, she expresses regrets about her reckless actions, and how she always felt like it was all one big setup.

She would take Aradia's place in the Vriska revenge chain, being once more freed of her robot chassis, and from there, would trick Doc Scratch and the Handmaiden into thinking everything was still going according to their designs. Meanwhile, Alive!Aradia would be hanging out at Equius's place, borrowing his void powers to avoid notice, coordinating a new timeline that keeps the beats of the original (too much deviation causes unpredictability, and an paradox'd timeline offshoot without John's direct interference would still become doomed), but allows them greater freedom and the ability to overcome the machinations of Doc Scratch and associates.

This would also prevent Sollux from becoming so self-loathing, since it's no longer "his fault" that Aradia dies, although he winds up in that hole again after Feferi gets killed. Now that his Aradia is alive, he wouldn't feel like he might as well stay in the bubbles because his closest companions are there, so he'd make it to the end, and would ask John to prevent Feferi's death.

Eridan still dies; he's so disconnected and isolated from all his friends that his course of actions is largely unaffected even by everybody else's timeline tweaks. But before Feferi can suggest bringing him back, Karkat would butt in.

The Friendship Troll should be the one to demand that ALL of their friends be revived, especially if they had everyone except only one guy, and Karkat and Eridan are heavily implied to be moirails anyway. The course of Karkat's fixes are so comprehensive, and primarily romance-based, that the end result of this final loop is everybody not only being alive, but god-tiered, with appropriate character development.

Now, where Nepeta's Heart powers would play into all of this is that she would start to notice something going on. After all, Heart players are sensitive to their splintered selves, and (Nepeta) is probably much closer to Nepeta than regular doomed timeline offshoots. As the loops continue, and Nepeta has more and more time to talk to people, and meets her dead alternate selves, and even meets (Nepeta), she starts to awaken to her Ultimate Self - to come into possession of alternate memories.

And if the Ultimate Self is a very soul-y kind of concept, such that Heart players have a natural advantage in coming to understand it, then isn't it a natural fit that a Rogue of Heart - one who steals from Heart or steals Heart for others - would be naturally inclined to share the wisdom of her alternate selves, and even the very concept of the Ultimate Self, with her friends?

Because the Ultimate Self is actually, in my opinion, a pretty good narrative device. It turns the sadness of the dead and doomed timelines into something littersweet instead, and makes it so any weirdness regarding time travel and not really knowing your friends anymore will eventually be resolved, even if off-screen.

It's not really narratively satisfying when Davepetasprite^2 suddenly comes into being and reaches enlightenment, but imagine if instead it's a post-character development Nepeta comforting Davesprite on his relevance, or Jade on her loneliness, or John on not really knowing these new post-retcon versions of his friends? It would feel a lot better, since in this hypothetical, she would have reached that point after on-screen character development. Being able to share her true self with her friends on the meteor - by necessity, since what else are they going to be doing for three years - leads to her finally being able to fulfill her role as a Rogue of Heart.

Also, at some point during these repeated meteor trips, she dates Karkat (whether that's successful or not, I'll leave to reader interpretation - you already know where I stand), fulfilling Jaspersprite's musing that she might only be able to date Karkat after she dies.

So that's two out of thr33 of her outstanding plot hooks resolved... okay. So, I try not to make these essays into ship propaganda, but hear me out:

Hate Is Stored In The FefNep

Okay, so, remember that thing about how Feferi is actually a huge casteist hypocrite? Well, let's also note that the comic, post-Murderstuck, seems to put Nepeta and Feferi together a lot - they're a Commodore and Rear Admiral in the ghost pirate army, respectively, and they also wind up as Fefetasprite. So I think it's not entirely out of left field to say that these two were implied to have SOMETHING going on.

And that something... is a difference in political views.

I mean, let's be real, there's a reason Fefetasprite is the most explode-prone after Tavrisprite. Miss "The Hemocaste is Stupid and Shouldn't Matter" vs. Miss "I Love Being A Princess And Call Jade Hornless and Finless (Derogatory)"? Come on, tell me you don't see it.

Without getting too much into Feferi, this hypocrisy, and unwillingness to check her privilege (so glad I found an excuse to use that term unironically), are probably her greatest character flaws - ie, the things you would expect the story to address about her. Meanwhile, one of Nepeta's flaws, which she laments to Jasproseprite^2, is that she feels too shy to talk about her feelings to other people, leading to her having never expressed her views on the hemocaste to anyone but Equius.

I think that they initially think they'd be friends. Each one of them would go "oh man, this other girl is soooo cute, I wish I could talk to her more often!"

And then, once they do, they realize they fucking hate each other. Nepeta would go "X00 < you are such a hypocrite who f33ls like youre better than all of us!!!" and Feferi would go "You're suc)( an uneducated glubbing P-EASANT! 3X0" and then they'd claw each others' eyes out. It would be so funny, and if a homestuck ship isn't extremely fucking funny, then why are we even here.

But more importantly, this would further them along into resolving each others' arcs - Feferi would be forced to grapple with the greater implications of classism, and Nepeta - who is shown having a spine the most in defiance of somebody else - would grow more aggressive about being open about her feelings in defiance of Feferi. Even Equius would get roped into it in a positive way - you can just imagine him going "D --> Can I really believe my auricular sponge clots D --> Nepeta, you are finally taking interest in politi%" and be 100% on board with teaching her so Feferi won't be able to call her uneducated.

And then for flushed, I dunno! Karkat's an option, and Jade and Jake also both love the fuck out of furries, and Tavros seems nice. But yeah I'll die on the fefnep hate ship. Guys it would be so funny.

Thank you as always for reading! Let me know if there's a troll you want to hear me ramble about next.

#homestuck #nepeta leijon #feferi peixes #equius zahhak

228 notes · View notes

thecelestialsyzygy · 1 year

Text

I feel like this needs to be said because of all the stuff happening lately. Apologies if this post is a mess.

I want to thank all of the Byler’s who post in the tag. Whether it be shit posts, memes, long analysis, random thoughts, or all of the above mixed in with posts about your life; Thank you for being here and making fandom fun! The tag has been a mess recently and I think we’re all aware of that because of all the recent deactivations. There’s always been a bit of toxicity in the Stranger Things fandom (as there is in just about all other fandoms), but I feel it's been amplified here due to the lack of content and long wait. Another reason it’s a lot more prominent in the Stranger Things fandom, to begin with, is because of its popularity. In the coming months, we should see some things regarding S5 come up for us to talk about, but if you’re not into leaks then you’re in for an even longer drought (and when it comes to said leaks, please take them with a grain of salt).

I originally came here from Twitter so I’ve seen a lot. Ppl leaving isn’t new to me, and it is a pretty common thing with fandoms in general. Sometimes it’s over something simple, like ppl losing their interest, and other times it’s because ppl don’t know how to use the block button and want to be rude, hateful, and harass others into leaving, or cause/insert themselves into drama for entertainment. It’s understandable to be bored during droughts and perhaps become irritable, but if you like creating/being in drama, please don’t put it in the main tag. Not everybody is going to agree and it is what it is. Some posts you may agree with, some posts you may not, some you may partly agree with, some you may partly disagree with. If you ever come across something that really bothers you, big or small, just use the block button or mute/filter things you don’t want to see. You can always make your own post sharing your thoughts about whatever the topic may have been. There are so many ways to control content you consume. It’s important to remember we’re all here for a good time, so let ppl have fun and learn to draw a line.

It’s OK to be opinionated, but I think some things that are important to note is the difference between head-canons and canon. Head-canons are personal interpretations about a character. It’s not ACTUALLY canon. Some head-canons can be based off of things that ARE canon, but it’s important to realize that it’s still NOT ACTUALLY canon. Canon is confirmed. It’s OK to not agree with somebody else’s head-canon, but it’s not a reason to be rude to them. You can share your own opinions with them in a respectful way or separately. However, I feel like some ppl want to make things problematic to further push their narrative or are genuinely just not educated enough. And of course there are exceptions to just about everything, like potentially problematic head-canons which I think is OK to have discussions about, but once again, that’s why we need to learn to draw a line.

I also know hate anons have been a problem lately. If you’re ever getting a lot of hate anons, please don’t be afraid to protect yourself and turn off the anon feature/not allow asks. If that doesn’t work don’t be afraid to block and report. If none of these are working, just know it’s OK if you feel like social media is becoming too much. Take a break if you need to, distance yourself if you need to, make a completely new account if you need to. You can always let the ppl who care about you know you need to go away for awhile.

Lastly, don’t feel pressure to post! That’s one way to add a lot of stress onto yourself and become tired of your interests. I promise everything is going to be fine and Byler’s/ the Stranger Things fandom will always be here if/when you come back.

#byler #byler s5 #stranger things 5 #will byers #mike wheeler #byler tumblr

127 notes · View notes

jiminsass-istant · 4 months

Text

Bye bye old BTS

This video aged so badly, ngl..

Bighit and Hybe totally went the American popstar way in 2023 for 1 member. Good that they finally cracked into the US music industry bubble. Hope it helps the group as a whole with their 2025 comeback.

(For context, the above Boracity video explains how bts has been always snubbed due to their lack of US label push, lack of radio support, lack of playlist, spotify support, minimum remixes, fewer album versions, chart rule changes etc)

The problem is - they decided as a company (and with scooter) that the only way they can make it into the US gp, was to debut a soloist, with all english tracks (because there's no way US would accept more than 1 soloist from the same korean group singing korean songs).

One thing they got right was that the US GP would not embrace a whole Asian pop group. And releasing english songs is not something BTS would keep doing either, because they clearly have different individual ambitions. When it comes to pop, it's always the solo/ individualist culture in the US. It is much easier to sell one personality than sell 7 different ones to the GP. (the General Public, not army, not people who really get INTO bts and get obsessed).

So, I totally understand why they went for mainstream US popstar way for 1 member only and also because it aligned with his own personal ambitions.

But of course they made a couple of big mistakes-

1) Underestimating the popularity and OG fan power that can give chart ranks and achievements even to non-US promoted members and their music. (BTS have done it before with a korean song and jimin did it again).

2) While they paid attention to heavy promo, charts and playlisting for Golden, they failed to create a connection with the music- which seems highly non-personal and lacking in depth and has a non-interesting concept. The promo did do the work of making jk a common name, showcasing his talents and introducing him to the industry. But for a lasting impact, they have to create better stories with the music. Idc, army are acting too defensive when people are disappointed that he didn't write his songs. It's okay to not write, but the very least singers can do is connect to song meanings and relate to personal experiences during the promos. But thanks to idol culture, jk has never been able to talk about his dating experiences. Even in the interviews, it would have been nice to see him talk about how he related to the lyrics, what the concept was etc etc.

SILVER LINING:

The constant mention of 'ARMY' by JK in all of his US promo stuff. I do see Hybe's bigger plans here. JK is a medium to bring in new fans for BTS's comeback. When they look up JK's past content, they can't do it without learning about BTS. And it doesn't matter if you are a JK solo fan, you will still be called ARMY (BTS fandom). Hybe will still call you army, even if you are just waiting for more Jungkook music and Jungkook shows. But guess what, the next time these new fans get to see Jungkook will be at a BTS CONCERT. Not a Jungkook concert.

More thoughts..

JK concert will come immediately after though. Why do you think they increased the no. of tracks in Golden when the original plan was to release a mini album? It's to collect more songs for his name. A few more releases and he'll be ready to have his own concert.

Okay final thoughts-

Hybe is going the right way from a business perspective. But they have mismanaged a lot of things. Underestimated the power of individual members and fumbled their priorities. BTS are not underdogs anymore. They are big, and whether you like it or not, Hybe is going to move like a big corporation now, revenue being top priority, not artists. If they don't strike a balance between keeping OG OT7 fans happy, the significance of ARMY will be lost. Unless...they want that to happen and do not care about the fandom that moves on its own now.

And before you camp in my asks or comments, saying the same things about sabotage, company fraud etc, I am aware of it all. Please do share your opinions that can add to this discussion.

7 notes · View notes

soul-dwelling · 1 year

Text

Regarding the last post, and not that anyone asked me, but, hey, I've been on this blog long enough that I'd feel awkward if I didn't say something about the recent news:

This is also why this weekend's obnoxious "OMG we are so going to get a reboot!!1" conjectures piss me off.

Beyond how much Fire Force has flat-out ruined a lot of Soul Eater for me--

(But that's on me: I can debate whether Fire Force in fact ruined Soul Eater, but for me, yeah, Fire Force ruined a lot about what I enjoyed about Soul Eater, albeit not really ruined the initial experience reading and watching it, and certainly not the fandom experience I had years ago.)

--beyond how it ruined Soul Eater, I just see this monkey's paw problem coming. And I have ranted so much about this monkey's paw problem that I really hate getting into it again, because I have nothing new to say that I haven't said already on this same blog repeatedly. Y'all wanted a reboot or a continuation so badly? Well, enjoy seeing the worst parts of the manga finally getting animated (which, again, looks worse after Fire Force, given that now nothing stands in the way of Ohkubo being horny-in-animation because no editor and no animation studio stopped him with Fire Force). And enjoy the lackluster tie-in to Fire Force, a manga that single-handedly took so much of the creativity of Soul Eater and flushed it down the toilet to be a shoddy prequel that erases so many more fascinating ways you could have set up the Soul Eater world but didn't.

"It was our world all along!" Oh, fuck off.

Like, I have wanted to not post this, and I make sure not to tag this stuff in the #SoulEater tag on social media, because who wants someone raining on their parade. But I just can't stand this fixation on getting that reboot, because Fire Force just soured me on this entire experience.

I don't want this to sound like nostalgia rose-tinted goggles: "Ugh, you like Fire Force? I'm a person of culture, I enjoy classic works--like 2003's Soul Eater." That'd be pretty obnoxious, and I hope I'd be a little better than that. I can admit what didn't work in Soul Eater.

The original anime had its own flaws. For example, the Arachnophobia vs DWMA arc divides its attention so much between Maka, Kid, and Black Star so that, while Black Star's narrative feels like it makes real progress, it is diluted by how all of these stories are spread out. And Soul in the anime acts unnecessarily dickish towards Maka, whereas in the corresponding manga chapters he was supporting Maka without being intrusive. And of course Maka suddenly manifesting weapon powers and winning with the punch of courage, even if this many years later we can debate the merits to these choices, were divisive then and still remain controversial because of how abrupt it all feels.

And it's not as if Fire Force created flaws that weren't already there in the original Soul Eater and NOT mangas, in particular how the plots for both series sometimes feel they are just spinning their wheels without progressing characterization or plot, especially around the Sky Whale chapter and pretty much all of NOT.

But it is hard for me to get as excited as other people are over just two pieces of recent news that they are so desperate to read as proof a reboot is coming when, no, even if this is testing the waters for a reboot, the first goal is to just make more money off of our nostalgia for Soul Eater.

Yes, BONES coming out with 15th anniversary merchandise surprised me--but that is primarily just to generate new art they can put cheaply onto cheap raw materials (shirts and maybe tote bags and keychains?) and secondarily to test the waters for a reboot.

Yes, I am really surprised the companies involved negotiated to put Soul Eater stuff into a dull-looking Fire Force mobile game (...that was mean, but, jeez, I thought Fire Force looked uniform and boring already, making it a mobile game looks even worse--at least BONES and other companies made more varied artwork for the Bungo Stray Dogs game, and that is a simple drag-and-aim marble shooter, much less complicated gameplay than the Fire Force game). Sure, maybe that is testing the waters for a reboot, or winking at the audience to anticipate what they already know is coming at the end of the Fire Force anime. But this seems like crass "let's tap into people's Soul Eater nostalgia to get more downloads for our game."

And that's what really pisses me off about all of this. Don't get me wrong, this news has gotten a lot of attention on the shitty bird app, and I expect the shitty bird app has a bigger imprint online than Tumblr does. But I can go through Tumblr every day and see people adding more and more Soul Eater content. I see a fandom that, even if the frequency of posts is less, is still thriving. I don't see that with Fire Force.

I see this news--"OMG, new merch and a collaboration for the mobile game!"--as these flashes-in-the-pan that spur a ton of reactions to trend on the shitty bird app--then, crickets, things die down, no one talks about it for months. It's not a consistent engagement. Maybe that works from an economic standpoint: you sell a lot of merch all at once, then things die off, whereas fandom work is ongoing but also not making the creators any more money. But it is also why I find Soul Eater more endearing: at least people keep making stuff based on it, I rarely come across Fire Force stuff (and it's not like I don't look for it: I may despise how that series ended, but I still want to see how fan creators mostly improve upon what is wrong with that series).

So, TL, DR: I don't dispute that these two pieces of news are to test the waters to see whether an audience would be into a reboot. I find it surprising to get these both at the same time. I'm not disputing whether this can or can't lead to a reboot being announced. But Jesus Christ, calm down, this is just content to get you to buy more stuff, and it's content to prop up a lackluster Fire Force, and it just reinforces how much I hate how it seems like Fire Force depended so much on Soul Eater for nostalgia factor instead of standing on its own as a story.

#dwells whines about fire force #long post #spoiler #spoilers #soul eater spoiler #soul eater spoilers #fire force spoiler #fire force spoilers

26 notes · View notes

maggot-monger · 5 months

Text

i was tagged by @leatafandom — thank you!! it was fun both to see your answers and to think about/look up mine <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

99. some day #100 will be posted but who knows when or what that will be lolol

2. What’s your total A03 word count?

395,538

3. What fandoms do you write for?

currently none; i'm doing original stuff only lately. however i have things on ao3 written for marvel (specifically the asgardian faction), downton abbey, what we do in the shadows, and of course most recently (and also least recently...i've come full circle) supernatural

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

seize the crown (wwdits, e)

friendly favors (wwdits, e)

judges of character (downton abbey, gen)

"mr barrow has the flu" (downton abbey, t)

thomas barrow and the power of friendship (downton abbey, t)

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

yessss i love responding to comments!!! i appreciate them so much, and i love an opportunity to talk about my writing <3 i can understand why people might prefer not to, especially on a place like ao3 which is technically an archive, but i like the community feel of interacting with readers on there (and i love it when other authors reply to my comments so kind of a golden rule situation)

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

hm...technically the song remains the same (spn, t) has the least desirable endingbut imo passive (mcu, gen), which is entirely about grief and denial, is angstier despite "brother died" being a less dramatic problem than "stuck in eternal crushing hell isolation"

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

to me it's phantom fangs (wwdits, t), my little vampirism-as-trans-allegory project! it's a bit of a bummer at times but to me the ending is so happy <3

8. Do you get hate on your fic?

i haven't!

9. Do you write smut?

yee. although i'm never sure if i want to write smut lmao but it sure does happen a fair amount sometimes

10. Do you write crossovers?

it's not generally my thing, although i do enjoy heavy allusions. i do have at least one though!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i'm aware of (i have had art stolen though RIP)

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yes! although i'm not sure the translation is up anymore; it was a number of years ago

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

no...i'm curious about this but i'm not sure how it would go? but anyway no, at least not yet

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

formally it's samifer because i got my fandom phd in this lol but who even knows in actuality tbh

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

i'm soooo haunted by the last chapter of crimsonpeaknatural aka hollow's gate (spn, e). it is my longest fic on ao3 by far and is literally one chapter from done, i just can't bring myself to write the last ~7k. it is fully outlined. i know what happens in it. i just can't write it! why

i also started a michean fic over the summer that i really like but i doubt it'll ever be finished. at least i never posted any of that though :p

16. What’s your writing strengths?

imo characterization/perspective, atmosphere, and prose versatility. maybe pacing? i've gotten comments on that a few times but it's less of a self-observed strength

17. What’s your writing weaknesses?

i don't know what plots are <3 also sometimes my prose wraps around to being a little too circular for its own good so that's both a strength and a weakness of mine lol.

tbh i'm also bad at killing my darlings, especially when it comes to scenes i'm obsessed with, unless i give myself a LONG time to edit. like, on the order of months

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

i'm not really a fan of this as a reader and i prefer not to do it as a writer, but also i'm not going to knock it on principle because i do understand the appeal, especially to people who are writing primarily for themselves and are comfortable in both/all the languages they're including. it can be fun sometimes to see the differences between the language the dialogue and the translation gives (if they provide one) if the language is one i'm also familiar with.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

harry potter. y'know...what can you do lol it is what it is. i wrote the kind of dramione angst you'd expect of a person like me who was 13yo at the time

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

ohhhh i don't know. i had SO much fun writing poker face (spn, e) and i think it succeeds at doing everything i wanted it to do. this isn't an objective answer but i am genuinely very happy with that one so it is my answer atm!

no-pressure tagging @artoodeeblue, @fandom-space-princess, @quietwingsinthesky, and anybody else who would like to do this!

#tag games

3 notes · View notes

kurosawa-family · 2 years

Text

Character Information #5

❝ To be heroic is to be courageous enough to die for something; to be inspirational is to be crazy enough to live a little. ❞

— Criss Jami in ❝Venus in Arms ❞

⟅☙⟆ Universe ⟅☙⟆

Multi-Fandom, that is, she doesn't belong to a specific universe. Although at first she was from the Diabolik Lovers Universe.

⟅☙⟆ Full Name ⟅☙⟆

Hela Kurosawa. Hela is Greek girl name and meaning of this name is "Moonlight", but if we talk about its Norse origin, its meaning is "goddess of the Underworld".

Kurosawa, which is his last name that he started living with from the age of thirty, means "Black Swamp" in Japanese.

⟅☙⟆ Kanji ⟅☙⟆

エラ

⟅☙⟆ Nickname ⟅☙⟆

“Princess” is the most common among her family, with her being the only daughter in the family until Shoma arrived. They still use the nickname though.

She's also called “Schöne Spinne”, which means "Beautiful Spider" in German.

⟅☙⟆ Age ⟅☙⟆

The third-born is no more than two hundred and nineteen years old, although physically she appears to be nineteen years old.

⟅☙⟆ Gender ⟅☙⟆

Female.

⟅☙⟆ Sexual Orientation ⟅☙⟆

Demi-romantic.

⟅☙⟆ Height ⟅☙⟆

180 cm.

⟅☙⟆ Weight ⟅☙⟆

70,49 kg.

⟅☙⟆ Blood Type ⟅☙⟆

O +

⟅☙⟆ Status ⟅☙⟆

Alive.

⟅☙⟆ Race ⟅☙⟆

Unknown.

She's is supposed to be a hybrid, but can reproduce without problems.

For now, she is simply the cross between a demon of unknown rank and a Foundress, just like her siblings.

⟅☙⟆ Birthday ⟅☙⟆

November twenty-one.

⟅☙⟆ Zodiac Sign ⟅☙⟆

Scorpio.

⟅☙⟆ Favorite Color ⟅☙⟆

Sage Green.

⟅☙⟆ Appearance ⟅☙⟆

The very same image of her father, from her hair to her eyes, Hela looks like a fragile, pettite young woman. She's slim, tall, and a good-looking girl. Long and wavy raven hair, round emerald eyes, and pear-shaped figure.

Her clothing is very "fancy", yet casual. She took inspiration from Aimer, since he's the brother she likes the most. Usually dressed in green, Hela loves being seen in comfortable, long-sleeved shirts and skirts. Dresses are not unusual, but not the clothing she uses the most. She wears other type of colors from time to time, but she only follow certain color palettes.

⟅☙⟆ Personality ⟅☙⟆

She's... definitely the most dangerous Kurosawa sibling when it comes to her anger issues.

Dont get me wrong, Hela's actually pretty much calm and upbeat most of the time, but she can be seen losing her temper with her younger siblings quite easily. She's not the most tolerant person when it comes to others she's not really close of either, especially when it comes to her own stuff. As someone that was around men most of the time, she's not used to "be a lady", so her playful attitude might come as rude to most girls her "age", both demons and humans. As difficult as it is, she has this specific group of friends, both male and female humans, that she would kill and die for, and it's all thanks to her extrovert spirit.

Still, when she's angry, everyone (even Hela herself) knows it's better to keep her alone to cool off than keeping a talk, but it seems like one certain sibling likes keeping her mad. Or maybe that's not even their intention, but their laughter at her anger just makes matters worse. Hela can't handle embarrassment and shame in general very well, so of course she gets aggressive. But when things get way too exhausting for her, she just breaks down and cries. Of course, the teasing stops that way, but it ends with Hela just closing her door with key and not getting out until she's ready to talk, make amends, and have a comfort meal (usually rainbow ice-cream).

Hela may got her short temper from her mother (multiplied by ten), but she also got the grace and the curiosity of everything, especially of the human world. That curiosity gets her in trouble half the time, but still, not really a negative trait she got. But unlike her parents, she's definitely more of a... Careless soul. Nothing bad about it! But it's worrying how easily she hurts herself by accident and she calls it an "adventure".

Also, she's quite the dreamer. Daydreaming all day is the best for her, and she will not give up her dreams to be in a little cabin in the woods with two cows and a rabbit. She won't.

⟅☙⟆ Relatives ⟅☙⟆

Yumeko "Nana" Kurosawa.

Hela's step-grandmother, former servant of the original Kurosawa family as well, and Ghoul.

She is currently alive.

Yvonne Beauchene.

Hela's mother, Foundress, and witch.

Currently alive.

August Kurosawa.

Hela's father, demon of unknown rank.

Currently alive.

Convoitise Kurosawa.

Hela's first older brother, race unknown.

Currently alive.

Aimer Kurosawa.

Hela's second big brother, race unknown.

Currently alive.

Varick Kurosawa.

Hela's second and last younger brother alongside Volker, race unknown.

Currently alive.

Volker Kurosawa.

Hela's third and last younger brother alongside Varick, race unknown.

Currently alive.

Shoma Komori.

Hela's adopted little (human) sister.

Currently alive.

⟅☙⟆ Favorite Food ⟅☙⟆

The Nanaimo bar is a no-bake dessert bar that traditionally consists of three layers: a graham wafer crumb and shredded coconut base, custard-flavoured butter icing in the middle, and a chocolate ganache on top.

Hela goes absolutely crazy with it. Whoever eats her little piece on the fridge is bound to a merciless death.

⟅☙⟆ Hoobies ⟅☙⟆

Gardening.

She loves keeping the plants around the house and the garden in peak condition. As someone with a family that has both human and demon-like nature around their house, Hela adores taking care of them and talking to them. Those "silly little plants" are her best source of comfort, and she honestly wouldn't know what she would do without them.

Cooking.

As much as her younger siblings hate cooking duty, Hela can't help but enjoying those simple moments of bonding she has when she has to cook, or wants to help the one cooking. She can't help but feel at ease, especially when her dad and her are in the kitchen. After all, the both of them a pretty alike.

Investigate.

As mentioned before, she has a YouTube channel touching mysteries and murders. Finding out the millions of stories and digging into them is a pleasure to Hela. Just digging and finding different versions is just what she lives for.

Flower Picking.

No, I will not elaborate. Just. Flower picking with the creatures in between the forest around her house. That's it.

⟅☙⟆ Occupation ⟅☙⟆

She has a YouTube channel where she tells any horror and terror-related story. Mysteries, legends, the works. She also works part-time as an English consultant.

⟅☙⟆ Relationships ⟅☙⟆

Yumeko "Nana" Kurosawa.

Would die for that woman, would sell her soul to BE that woman. She loves, just like her siblings, her grandpa. Nana is the best. The queen of the house. The everything. Her monthly visits are religious and shall be treated as such.

Yvonne Beauchene.

As the only daughter in the family, Yvonne and Hela are pretty close for a mother-daughter relationship. They have a girls' day for themselves every month, which is absolutely sibling-free. They go to a trip anywhere, go to a pretty nice hotel, and do whatever. Basically they're pretty much ok. They have a good relationship.

August Kurosawa.

The first (almost only) man she respects in this house. Hela loves her dad, and her being the only daughter, she just knows how much he loves her back. As embarrassing as he is sometimes when he treats her like a little girl (like the rest of her siblings), she just can't be truly mad at him. Knowing where he's coming from, she can't help but understand that he's trying his best as a dad.

Convoitise Kurosawa.

A normal, good sibling relationship. They back-talk each other, they yell at each other, maybe try to kill each other (not literally) at worst. At best they're just chilling in one room, talking about nothing and everything. He gives her good advice in her time of need, and she helps him with work sometimes. Being his inspiration when he's feeling like doing something simple and comfortable is not bad at all.

Aimer Kurosawa.

The second man she respects in all that house. He helps her with her studies, and actually is a nice listener. Aimer loves her, even when she gets in trouble, she knows this, and she makes sure he knows she loves him too. Obviously they call each other by "apparently derogatory" names, but they're cool.

Varick Kurosawa.

Fuck their/his ass (derogatory and affectionate).

Volker Kurosawa.

Fuck him also (derogatory and affectionate).

Shoma Komori.

Used to hate her because Hela's insecure as fuck when it comes to attention. Now? As much as she regrets trying to scare her off, she tries to keep her distance...

Ai Blossom.

One of the eldest servants around, yet so young-looking, Hela and Ai love gossip and basically, in short, shitting on people they don't like. Of course that never gets out of their little circle, but it's... Heart-wreching to say the least.

Rose Inferno.

Relationship unknown.

⟅☙⟆ Likes ⟅☙⟆

Thriller and fantasy books are just her favourites. She can finish any book in one day.

Sour apple or D I E.

While she would rather chill at home, going out with her friends is actually a nice way to just relax and be at ease.

She loves listening to a Vaporwave remix for hours. It gives her a certain nostalgia hit.

Oh, nothing better than feeling warm in the middle of winter because of cuddles.

⟅☙⟆ Dislikes ⟅☙⟆

She (this happens randomly) cannot stand the scent of certain creatures, usually from the opposite gender. The smell is just so acid and strong, it makes her gag.

She's not really a fan of men in general, usually older-looking men. She saw enough news and tragedies to feel unsafe by just standing in the middle of a park. She dislikes any "romantic" or sexual approaches by them, and she used to be scared of what reaction they would have when they're told no. Now, well... Her kill count increased. A lot.

Whoever likes grape soda or literally anything about grapes that isn't the damn fruit, stop talking to her. She hates that.

Varick's Croc heels...

Sorry she wasn't clear en3the first time VARICK'S CROC HEELS.

The person that thought cabbages should be a food and not poison should just rot.

⟅☙⟆ Fears and Phobias ⟅☙⟆

Ophidiophobia is an extreme, overwhelming fear of snakes. The condition is called a specific phobia (fear), which is a type of anxiety disorder.

⟅☙⟆ Headcannon Voices ⟅☙⟆

You can find them here!

⟅☙⟆ Song Theme ⟅☙⟆

⟅☙⟆ Skills ⟅☙⟆

Fencing, Close Combat, and Weapon Handling.

Immortality.

Feedback ( the modification or control of a process or system by its results or effects, e.g., in a biochemical pathway or behavioral response. ).

Superhuman speed.

Superhuman strength.

Superhuman accuracy.

Superhuman senses.

Superhuman agility.

She has the ability to control an especific and limited sort of plants.

She possesses four levels in her "demonic transformations", with level zero being one of the most dangerous.

Shape-shifting.

Teleportation.

Telekinesis.

Telepathy.

Supernatural activity detection

Experience in close combat.

⟅☙⟆ Bonus ⟅☙⟆

While her level zero demon form is one of the most simple among the family, that doesn't make it any less terrifying. The fact that people are more afraid of spiders than demons is amazing.

⟅☙⟆ Story ⟅☙⟆.

🚫 E r r o r 🚫

#Hela Kurosawa #Ask The Kurosawa Family #the kurosawa family #kurosawa family #kurosawa facts #Kurosawa Fact

12 notes · View notes

thegreatzombieartisan · 1 year

Note

Hello,

I agree with most of what you wrote the Tolkien fandom. People dislike this or that. And trying to make shows into fan service.

I didn’t particularly agree was your take on the whole “touch the darkness” and how it’s “arrogant fan fiction.” Is it really bad for show runners to add their own creative input?

To be fair, PJ’s movies were far from perfect adaptations and did have some of his preferences. He sacrificed psychological and spiritual depth of the books for more action oriented films. I particularly disliked the addition of crass humour, e.g. reducing Merry and Pippin to comic relief. But that’s neither here nor there. Overall, great films.

When PJ’s films came out, readers understandably had a harder time excusing the changes and enjoying the movies for what they were, but their voices drowned in the joy of the new larger audience.

Now we have a situation where new adaptation has to somehow please book fans and movies fans.

One thing the Rings of Power dis better than PJ was diversity. Good People are white and “bad guys” are all dark skinned in LotR trilogy was just cringe. But of course that’s a problem too.

Bonjour / Hi!

Thanks for your patience. I went on vacation, had work stuff, and forgot to reply to my post. Also usually Anon Asks merely “passionately” disagree without offering arguing points. One of the last refuted the idea of Sauron masturbating. People have opinions.

On PJ trilogies. C’mon, without comedy duo!Merry and Pippin we’d never have “Fool of a Took!” Jk jk. I’m not recalling crass humor in the LotR films. TRoP definitely does. Yep, the films are less action-oriented. But if you recall, they were shot all together to save money. PJ was on a budget. It was crucial that Fellowship be successful because he needed to reshoot a lot of scenes but didn’t have the money. Action has a a bigger pay-out than spiritual depth.

On adaptations & diversity. Some decisions with PJ’s films weren’t great. To Tolkien, “black” symbolized corruption of the spirit. Orcs and Nazgûl are symbolic and described as “black” but not literally. Tolkien was openly anti-prejudice. That being said, White supremacists (hate groups) love LotR. Men of the West who are lighter vs. Sauron’s darker-skinned less advanced “Men of Midnight”? Well Tolkien had his blindspots. Gotta consider political/cultural climate. PJ tried more inclusion with The Hobbit but only as extras.

I assume your last sentence references people disliking the TRoP diversity. It’s expected. Many people have unconscious biases on what a hero or leader looks like. I’m a woman in tech, well I know. It’s often (but not exclusively) obfuscated behind lore or Elf hair disagreements, etc. Not a fandom thing. It’s a people thing. Pity that online is a poor medium to facilitate meaningful discourse that leads to changing views.

On fandom. What’s fandom but one step from the general population? In a true community, members have a shared understanding on definition of terms, engagement, rituals, and accountability, etc. Does a fandom have that? I wager fans whose ideologies, worldviews, cultural norms, beliefs, etc. are reflected in the mainstream are more likely to assume consensus. Fandom is like a nebulous city. A Tumblr space is like a neighborhood. A discord room can be a community since it’s contained and allows for moderation. Are you tracking? Adjust engagement expectations accordingly.

Must adaptions aim to please both book readers and film fans? Impossible! That goes for anything in life. Fans have opinions. Consider/incorporate, don’t consider/incorporate. We’re still showing up, sometimes even when it’s blah being served. Here’s the thing: Amazon marketed the show to a broad general audience. Many general viewers were legit confused with story points that relied on lore references. I point to Amazon execs for this inconsistency.

Understand that Amazon’s business model uses original productions in part to increase traffic to its storefront. Naturally there’s an incentive to target broader audiences. Also the culture relies heavily on cutthroat metrics for decision-making. It undoubtedly put writers in an untenable position.

In response to your “touching the darkness” question. To be clear, it’s not “bad” because it’s not a moral issue lol. It’s inevitable a creative’s beliefs will influence their work. As previously shared, I find the theme compelling. It’s merely inconsistent with devout Catholicism which is a a huge draw for me personally. But not everyone. Like if the manner (not the decision) Galadriel rejects Sauron is meant to be an act of empowerment, she’s not a Tolkienesque heroine. It is what it is. Still gonna keep watching because its nonetheless entertaining.

On “arrogant fan fiction.” It was an out of context reference to an interview TRoP show runners did where they claimed to have improved upon Tolkien. Look, when you say things like that, you gotta know what you’ve started lol. It’s great seeing lore fleshed-out. I’m glad Miriel is more than a beautiful prop. To me personally, that + Haladriel, and a few other things were better than canon. Otherwise, show runners need to take a stadium amount of seas lol

Happy to carry-on via Asks but feel free to DM. I don’t bite 😌

#the rings of power #doylist #meta #lord of the rings

1 note · View note

nonbinary-beast · 7 months

Text

Thinking a bit about the whole issue AM has regarding coming up with its own ideas and how it sort of pulls from history/the survivor's memories. Also with some AMaton stuff in there because it gives me ideas.

Under a cut because its long.

It is strange that this is considered a machine-only issue, since it is not uncommon for there to be people that have trouble coming up with something original too. It sort of makes me think of anyone that has come across an OC and went "what show is this from?" "I don't think I've seen this fandom?" or otherwise goes and plucks things that someone else makes for their own projects.

I sort of feel like (at the risk of being torn apart) this comes from a place of consuming more than letting the mind wander or daydreaming. The former definitely concerns AM, it consumes whatever it is fed in terms of data, and cannot let its mind wander- or perhaps it does not know it can. It could be in the sense of someone being told not to daydream, or that their ideas are stupid, and so they stop. Or it was never encouraged in the first place to think up something on its own- it was described to have creativity that it could not express. Perhaps this is the problem, since it cannot express its creativity, it does not know how to be creative. It wants to create but does not know how to make something completely of its own design.

And of course there is the issue that it might be going off of the survivor's memories, if the audiodrama is anything to go by. In the short story, it may have been going through human history and mythology from year 0 onward, or reinforcing its god complex by using religious scripture. It could be from just christianity, or it could be from all cultures. We never know what happens after Ted gets jellified, so who knows.

Applying this to AMaton, I'm sort of thinking about one of the scenarios from my previous post regarding how AM and Ted start easing into just existing around each other in a non-antagonistic/abusive way. Mostly it has to do with the arts and crafts events.

Ted takes to painting and drawing well enough, he may not have been great at it, but he finds it relaxing. During this exercise, AM had placed a vase of flowers on a table- clearly intending some sort of still life painting. Ted decided around partway through of not being able to get the colors right on the petals of the flowers he was painting, to simply have more fun with it and go a little more abstract and exaggerated.

He glances over at AM's own painting, a perfect recreation of the flowers in front of them on his canvas. The towering machine in turn glances at Ted's canvas, and pauses. The image is nowhere near perfect accuracy- the petals and leaves are far too saturated with color for the lighting, and its clear that Ted decided to go off on his own ideas with the way the stems twirled and twisted over the canvas. The leaves are broad, the flowers oversized, the design on the vase is simplified and merely suggested from the real one. The strokes are messy, hardly concerned with achieving soft blending or perfect lines.

AM's brow furrows, a jealous frustration filling it. Ted does not realize it at first, but the machine god found itself bested, and despite how amateurish Ted's technique is- it is entirely unique. None of the strokes or blots of paint match up with anything in its databases.

On Ted's canvas, is a one of a kind piece. A fingerprint in vibrant acrylic.

He only figures it out when the machine laments the difference between their respective pieces. This far along in their attempt to mend their shared agony, Ted is willing to help AM with its problem regarding creativity. Most of humanity's creations are exaggeration of prexisting things, the greatest being mythical creatures. A dragon at one point had been a large snake, and through rumors and tweaks to the story over the years, what was once a snake turned into a chimeric mash of parts and fiery breath.

The flower on Ted's canvas was taking what he saw and then exaggerating and taking liberties with the colors and shapes. He describes it as just letting loose with it, not worrying about accuracy, doing what felt good. How simple that all sounded for Ted, and how alien that felt to the machine, which had grown accustomed to being a master of recreating entities of humanity's lore projected into solid light.

But it humors Ted, clearing its canvas with a swipe of its hand and trying again with the painting. Determinedly keeping its hand from copying down exactly what is in front of it (or what is on Ted's canvas for that matter), its first attempts into creating something that is unique are like the wobbly steps of a newborn fawn. Its strokes are not very confident, they stagger and wobble. There is a clear conflict between its habit of copying something exactly, and its want to have a completely personal interpretation.

But the end result is more or less a victory. It is not an exact replica of the flowers in a vase, it is not a copy of Ted's work. While it looks like a war between two different minds on the canvas, it is indeed unique.

#oh boy its more AMatonxTed flavor #I had this idea in my mind for a while but never had the energy to out it somewhere lol #amaton #ted #computer hell

0 notes

many-gay-magpies · 2 years

Note

okay as much as i would Love to answer your whole post in detail and address the whole thing i can’t put a read more in my ask so i’m gonna limit it some 😭 would dms be more efficient? yes. am i writing this ask anyway? also yes.

and yeah i meant the Whole cb WHAT ARE THEY FEEDING THEM?? HOW LONG DID SUNGHOON HIT THE GYM FOR?? I DIDNT KNOW JAY’S VOICE COULD D O THE THINGS ITS DOING RN. NIKI IS OUT HERE LIVING HIS BEST ANGSTY TEEN LIFE.

“he’s selectively deaf” JDKSJDEB. no but fr i really do see jaan as a rigid, stubborn type, a stickler for rules when he’s the one making them but an absolute loose cannon whenever given an order. thankfully his “i do what i want” attitude doesn’t cause Massive problems bc he has a sense of responsibility and at least one braincell. jino, on the other hand… we’re just glad he’s cheerful and not particularly rebellious

CRAZY CAT VAMPIRES!! going back to noa with cat-like tendencies i imagine him padding around with a cat held in one arm “as a buddy” and everyone like “how has that thing not cleared you to death.” no but the guys having these old people tendencies is so funny to me it’s like a steve rogers situation where every once in a while it hits that “oh . oh right you may look like me but you’re Old” just heli smiling contentedly whenever he understands a pop culture reference or jaan crocheting (which is an even Better image now that i talked abt him up there) or jino learning to out-bake anyone’s grandmother (of course, being able to use his body as an oven helps)

no yeah . yeah sooha wanting to show them how to enjoy life as teenagers and then having to realize she couldn’t have a normal fun teenage life either and all of them working through it together and now i’m crying

i appreciate the chart and stuff bc there’s just So many ways to interpret vampirism and lycanthropy- disease, hereditary, extreme states of being (life or death), and each of them have so many implications and it’s fun to explore!! i wish we knew more abt solon and the guys’ origin UGH

- vrvr anon

man i always forget the limitations of this form of communication <///3 HSJFBVJV im just thankful tumblr apparently got rid of that word/character limit that they had on their asks for a while at least im assuming they did. that would have made our entire thing far less convenient

NO YEAH THE COMEBACK. HA. WOW. jay's voice DEFINITELY does a thing at the beginning of future perfect and i do NOT know how to feel about it. hybe needs to close the gyms fr because how much more ripped is sunghoon gonna GET. and yes u go riki get in your angsty edgy teen phase!!

jaan gives me chaotic lawful energy honestly—he's made his own set of rules and he sticks to them to the letter, but anyone ELSE'S rules? its fair game. jaan and jino both have the potential to be absolutely insane loose cannons (and sometimes ARE if the situation calls for it) but theyre stopped from being complete harbingers of chaos by the fact that jaan is actually oretty rigid and responsible (in his own strange way) and jino is happy-go-lucky cheerful instead of aggressively rebellious. if those two aspects of their personalities did not exist the world would be screwed.

NOA CARRYING A CAT AROUND "AS A BUDDY" PLS I CANT. THATS TOO SWEET. and maybe because hes tall af he can carry several more cats than his brothers and hes always just like (while holding six cats) "its the benefit of having long arms"

ive never watched a marvel movie of my own volition but i got weirdly involved in the fandom for some reason a couple years ago and because of that i Know Some Stuff. so now im thinking about heli being the ULTIMATE out-of-touch grandpa of the brothers, because hes the one out of all of them thats the most focused on protecting them and making sure they stay hidden, so hes never taken the TIME to get involved with the pop-culture of the time. and then when he actually starts to slow down a little and give himself time to LIVE instead of survive (thanks to sooha), and he starts looking into pop-culture more, he gets ABSURDLY PROUD anytime someone (like shion, because you KNOW shion would be the brother thats absurdly invested in everything pop-culture just because he thinks these modern humans are very entertaining) makes a reference to a meme or movie or something and he actually gets it! so like you said hes just sitting or standing there with this big old content grin on his face and he goes "i understood that reference!" and sooha or jino pat him on the shoulder like "yes u did good job heli" LMAO

"oh . oh right you may look like me but youre Old." KSGFJFBFJ EXACTLY and this could be said by either sooha (who even though she WAS born at the same time as them in our au, was conscious for significantly less of it) or OTHER students, in a hypothetical world where the brothers get less terrified for their lives, sooha makes more friends, and heli admits it wouldnt hurt to have a FEW more harmless teenagers in on the secret as long as they're harmless teenagers sooha trusts. which also brings to mind a situation in which jino befriends sooha's friends, and he's nice to them and likes them and everything because he's jino, but then said friends introduce jino to their grandparents and its all off the wall from there. sooha's human friend just stares at jino happily baking cookies and gossiping with their grandma like "why are you better friends with my grandma than you are with me"

i dont have much more to say about sooha and the boys experiencing normal life as teenagers together so im just gonna agree that yeah i am also crying. a lot. i am crying a lot. although in the hypothetical world where more humans get let in on the secret, the guys and sooha would actually have some Normal Teenagers to teach them how Normal Teenager Life is lived—at which point they could all be like "huh. actually we like the weird way we were doing it, but thanks!"

im glad the chart and everything was appreciated!! yeah theres so many different possible interpretations and i HAVE so many thoughts about those different possible interpretations. and many different possible interpretations of my own as you saw HSJFBFJB. its just!!! theyre both so COOL conceptually and theres so much that can be done with them!!! i also wish we knew more abt the guys' origins because so far all we know in canon is "woke up in an orphanage with no prior memories, already possessing both vampirism and magical powers. created somehow???" which. is NOT a lot. pls hybe

and hey look at that! i managed to answer this the same day it came into my inbox! and i only saved it to my drafts ONCE! yay me

#asks #anon 📝#vrvr anon #dark moon universe #dark moon stuff #dark moon

0 notes

liquidstar · 3 years

Text

I feel as if many people, myself included, have been having problems with the way “critical thinking” is conducted in fandom circles more and more. Which I’d say is a good thing, because it means we’re thinking critically. But still the issues with the faux-critical mentality and with the way we consume media through that fandom group mentality are incredibly widespread at this point, despite being very flawed, and there are still plenty of people who follow it blindly, ironically.

I sort of felt like I had to examine my personal feelings on it and I ended up writing a whole novel, which I’ll put under the cut, and I do welcome other people’s voices in the matter, because while I’m being as nuanced as I can here I obviously am still writing from personal experience and may overlook some things from my limited perspective. But by and large I think I’ve dissected the phenomena as best I can from what I’ve been seeing going on in fandom circles from a safe but observable distance.

Right off the bat I want to say, I think it's incredibly good and necessary to be critical of media and understand when you should stop consuming it, but that line can be a bit circumstantial sometimes for different people. There are a lot of anime that I used to watch as a teenager that I can’t enjoy anymore, because I got more and more uncomfortable overtime with the sexualization of young characters, partly because as I was getting older I was really starting to realize how big of an issue it was, and I certainly think more critically now than I did when I was 14. Of course I don’t assume everyone who still watches certain series is a pedophile, and I do think there are plenty of fans that understand this. However I still stay away from those circles and that’s a personal choice.

I don’t think a person is morally superior based on where they draw the line and their own boundaries with this type of stuff, what’s more important is your understanding of the problem and response to it. There are series I watch that have a lot of the same issues around sexualization of the young characters in the cast, but they’re relatively toned down and I can still enjoy the aspects of the series I actually like without it feeling as uncomfortable and extreme. Others will not be able to, and their issues with it are legitimate and ones that I still ultimately agree with, but they’re still free to dislike the series for it, after all our stance on the issue itself is the same so why would I resent them for it?

Different people are bound to have different lines they draw for how far certain things can go in media before they’re uncomfortable watching it and it doesn’t make it a moral failing of the person who can put up with more if they’re still capable of understanding why it’s bad to begin with and able to not let it effect them. But I don’t think that sentiment necessarily contradicts the idea that some things really are too far gone for this to apply, the above examples aren’t the same thing as a series centered solely around lolicon ecchi and it doesn’t take a lot of deep analysis to understand why. It’s not about a personal line anymore when it comes to things that are outright propaganda or predatory with harmful ideals woven into the message of the story itself. Critical thinking means knowing the difference between these, and no one can hold your hand through it. And simply slapping “I’m critical of my interests” on your bio isn’t a get out of jail free card, it’s always evident when someone isn’t truly thinking about the impact of the media they consume through the way they consume it.

I think the issue is that when people apply “Critical thinking” they don’t actually analyze the story and its intent, messages, themes, morals, and all that. Instead they approach it completely diegetically, it’s basically the thermian argument, the issue stems from thinking about the story and characters as if they’re real people and judging their actions through that perspective, rather than something from a writer trying to deliver a narrative by using the story and characters as tools. Like how people get upset about characters behaving “problematically” without realizing that it’s an intentional aspect of the story, that the character needs to cause problems for there to be conflict. What they should be looking at instead is what their behavior represents in the real world.

You do not need to apply real-world morals to fictional characters, you need to apply them to the narrative. The story exists in the real world, the characters and events within it do not. Fictional murderers themselves do not hurt anyone, no one is actually dying at their hands, but their actions hold weight in the narrative which itself can harm real people. If the character only murders gay people then it reflects on whatever the themes and messages of the story are, and it’s a major issue if it's framed as if they’re morally justified, or as if this is a noble action. And it’s a huge red flag if people stan this character, even if the story itself actually presents their actions as reprehensible. Or cases where the murderers themselves are some kind of awful stereotype, like Buffalo Bill who presents a violent and dangerous stereotype of trans women, making the character a transmisogynistic caricature (Intentional or otherwise) that has caused a lot of harm to the perception of trans women. When people say “Fiction affects reality” this is what they mean. They do not mean “People will see a pretend bad guy and become bad” they mean “Ideals represented in fiction will be pulled from the real world and reflected back onto it.”

However, stories shouldn’t have to spoon-feed you the lesson as if you’re watching a children’s cartoon, stories often have nuances and you have to actively analyze the themes of it all to understand it’s core messages. Oftentimes it can be intentionally murky and hard to parse especially if the subject matter itself is complicated. But you can’t simply read things on the surface and think you understand everything about them, without understanding the symbolism or subtext you can leave a series like Revolutionary Girl Utena thinking the titular Utena is heterosexual and was only ever in love with her prince. Things won’t always be face-value or clear-cut and you will be forced to come to your own conclusions sometimes too.

That’s why the whole fandom-based groupthink mentality about “critical thinking” doesn’t work, because it’s not critical. It’s simply looking into the crowd, seeing people say a show is problematic, and then dropping it without truly understanding why. It’s performative, consuming the best media isn’t activism and it doesn’t make you a better person. Listening to the voices of people whom the issues directly concerns will help you form an opinion, and to understand the issues from a more knowledgeable perspective beyond your own. All that means nothing if you just sweep it under the rug because you want to look infallible in your morality. That’s not being critical, it’s just being scared to analyze yourself, as well as what you engage with. You just don’t want to think about those things and you’re afraid of being less than perfect so you pretend it never happened.

And though I’m making this post, it’s not mine or anyone else’s job to hold your hand through all this and tell you “Oh this show is okay, but this show isn't, and this book is bad etc etc etc”. Because you actually have to think for yourself, you know, critically. Examples I’ve listed aren’t rules of thumb, they’re just examples and things will vary depending on the story and circumstance. You have to look at shit on a case-by-case basis instead of relying on spotting tropes without thinking about how they’re implemented and what they mean. That’s why it’s analysis, you have to use it to understand what the narrative is communicating to its audience, explicitly or implicitly, intentionally or incidentally, and understand how this reflects the real world and what kind of impact it can have on it.

A big problem with fandom is it has made interests synonymous with personality traits, as if every series we consume is a core part of our being, and everything we see in it reflects our viewpoints as well. So when people are told that a show they watched is problematic, they react very extremely, because they see it as basically the same thing as saying they themselves are problematic (It’s not). Everyone sees themselves as good people, they don’t want to be bad people, so this scares them and they either start hiding any evidence that they ever liked it, or they double down and start defending it despite all its flaws, often providing those aforementioned thermian arguments (“She dresses that way because of her powers!”).

That’s how you get people who call children’s cartoons “irredeemable media” and people who plaster “fiction=/= reality!” all over their blogs, both are basically trying to save face either by denying that they could ever consume anything problematic or denying that the problematic aspects exist all together. And absolutely no one is actually addressing the core issues anymore, save for those affected by them who pointed them out to begin with, only for their original point to become muffled in the discourse. No one is thinking critically because they’re more concerned with us-vs-them group mentality, both sides try to out-perform the other while the actual issue gets ignored or is used as nothing more than a gacha with no true understanding or sympathy behind it.

One of the other issues that comes from this is the fact that pretty much everyone thinks they’re the only person capable of being critical of their interests. That’s how you get those interactions where one person goes “OK [Media] fan” and another person replies “Bro you literally like [Other Media]”, because both parties think they’re the only ones capable of consuming a problematic piece of media and not becoming problematic themselves, anyone else who enjoys it is clearly incapable of being as big brained as them. It’s understandable because we know ourselves and trust ourselves more than strangers, and I’m not saying there can’t be certain fandoms who’s fans you don’t wanna interact with, but when we presume that we know better than everyone else we stop listening to other people all together. It’s good to trust your own judgement, it’s bad to assume no one else has the capacity to think for themselves either though.

The insistence that all media that you personally like is without moral failing and completely pure comes with the belief that all media that you personally dislike has to be morally bad in some way. As if you can’t just dislike a series because you find it annoying or it just doesn’t appeal to you, it has to be problematic, and you have to justify your dislike of it through that perspective. You have to believe that your view on whatever media it is is the objectively correct one, so you’ll likely pick apart all it’s flaws to prove you’re on the right side, but there’s no analysis of context or intent. Keep in mind this doesn’t necessarily mean those critiques are unfounded or invalid, but in cases like this they’re often skewed in one direction based on personal opinion. It’s just as flawed as ignoring all the faults in the stuff you like, it’s biased and subjective analysis that misses a lot of context in both cases, it’s not a good mindset to have about consuming media. It’s just another result of tying media consumption with identity and personal morals. The faux-critical mentality is an attempt to separate the two in a way that implies they’re a packaged deal to begin with, making it sort of impossible to truly do so in any meaningful way.

As far as I know this whole phenomena started with “Steven Universe Critical” in, like, 2016, and that’s where this mentality around “critical thinking” originated. It started out with just a few people correctly pointing out very legitimate issues with the series, but over time it grew into just a trend where people would make cutesy kin blogs with urls like critical-[character] or [character]crit to go with the fad as it divulged into Nostalgia Critic level critique. Of course there was backlash to this and criticism of the criticism, but no actual conversation to be had. Just people trying to out-do each other by acting as the most virtuous one in the room, and soon enough the fad became a huge echo-chamber that encouraged more and more outrageous takes for every little thing. The series itself was a children’s cartoon so it stands to reason that a lot of the fans were young teens, so this behavior isn’t too surprising and I do believe a lot of them did think they were doing the right thing, especially since it was encouraged. But that doesn’t erase the fact that there were actual real issues and concerns brought up about the series that got treated with very little sympathy and were instead drowning out people’s voices. Though those from a few years back may have grown up since and know better (Hopefully), the mentality stuck around and influenced the norm for how fandoms and fandom people conduct any sort of critique on media.

That’s a shame to me, because the pedestal people place fandom onto has completely disrupted our perception on how to engage with media in a normal way. Not everything should be consumed with fandom in mind, not everything is a coffee-shop au with no conflict, not everything is a children’s cartoon with the morals spoon-fed to you. Fandom has grown past the years of uncritical praise of a series, it’s much more mainstream now with a lot more voices in it beyond your small community on some forum, and people are allowed to use those voices. Just because it may not be as pleasant for you now because you don’t get to just turn your brain off and ignore all the flaws doesn’t mean you can put on your rose-tinted nostalgia goggles and pretend that fandom is actually all that is good in the world, to the point where you place it above the comfort and safety of others (Oftentimes children). Being uncritical of fandom itself is just as bad as being uncritical of what you consume to begin with.

At the end of the day it all just boils down to the ability to truly think for yourself but with sympathy and compassion for other people in mind, while also understanding that not everyone will come to the same conclusion as you and people are allowed to resent your interests. That doesn’t necessarily mean they hate you personally, you should be acknowledging the same issues after all. You can’t ignore aspects of it that aren’t convenient to your conclusion, you have to actually be critical and understand the issues to be able to form it.

I think that all we need is to not rely on fandom to tell us what to do, but still listen to the voices of others, take them into account to form our opinion too, boost their voices instead of drowning them out in the minutiae of internet discourse about which character is too much of an asshole to like. Think about what the characters and story represent non-diegetically instead of treating them like real people and events, rather a story with an intent and message to share through its story and characters, and whatever those reflect from the real world. That’s how fiction affects reality, because it exists in reality and reflects reality through its own lens. The story itself is real, with a real impact on you and many others, so think about the impact and why it all matters. Just… Think. Listen to others but think for yourself, that’s all.

#see i told you guys id find that essay and post it for real. i wasnt kidding.#good luck inbox of mine :praying:

163 notes · View notes

sixth-light · 4 years

Text

The Crusades: A Fandom Primer

Like many of you, I am very excited to see a whole lot of fic about everybody’s favourite new Crusades-era Muslim/Christian immortal warrior husbands! However, a preliminary reading indicates that fandom is a bit hazy on what actually happened during the Crusades. Or where. Or why. They’re a much-mythologised piece of history so this isn’t surprising, but at popular request – ok like five people that counts – I’m here with a fandom-oriented Crusades primer.

Please bear in mind that I’m not a historian and this primer is largely based on my notes and recollections from several undergraduate history courses I took in the mid ‘00s. I expect the field has moved on somewhat, and I welcome corrections from people with more up-to-date knowledge! There’s also this very good post by someone who is a lot less lazy about links than I am.

Where did they take place?

The Crusades, broadly, describe a series of invasions of the Eastern Mediterranean (modern Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Beirut, Jordan, Cyprus, and parts of Turkey and Greece) by (mostly) Western European armies, religiously justified by their belief that the city of Jerusalem should be part of ‘Christendom’, i.e. ruled by a Christian monarch. In the first expression of European settler colonialism, nobles from the area of modern France and Germany founded four Crusader Kingdoms (aka ‘Outremer’, ‘overseas’) – the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and County of Tripoli.

After a first unexpected wave of success in the First Crusade (1096-1099), which surprised everybody including the participants by conquering Jerusalem, the Crusaders were gradually driven and the last part of Outremer was lost to European control with the fall of the city of Acre in 1291. Crusades after that still nominally aimed to take Jerusalem but rarely got very far, with the Fourth Crusade famously sacking the city of Byzantium, their nominal Christian allies, in 1204. During this whole period activity that can be considered part of the ‘Crusades’ took place around the Eastern Mediterranean.

The most important thing to remember is that modern national boundaries didn’t exist in the same way; Italy, Germany, France, Spain, and the UK were not unified nations. Most of the southern Iberian peninsula (modern Spain) was ‘al-Andalus’, Muslim kingdoms ruled by nobility originally from North Africa. Sicily had been an Emirate up until very recently, when it had been conquered by Normans (Vikings with a one-century stopover in France). Italy and Germany in particular were a series of city-states and small duchies; Genoa, if you’re curious about it for some reason, ;), was a maritime power with more or less a distinct language, Genoese Ligurian (their dialect had enough of a navy to qualify). England had recently become part of the Anglo-Norman Empire, which ruled most of England (but not Wales or Scotland) and also large parts of modern France, particularly Normandy.

The Muslim world was similarly fragmented in ways that don’t correspond to modern national boundaries - there were multiple taifa states in Iberia, the Almoravid Caliphate in Morocco, the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt, and (nominally) the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, one of the great cities of the era, although the Seljuq Turks were the major power in Anatolia (modern Turkey) and what we describe as the ‘Middle East’.

The largest Christian unified power in the wider European/Mediterranean region was the Byzantine Empire, centered on the city of Constantinople (modern Istanbul), which quite fairly considered itself the direct continuation of the Roman Empire, the capital having been moved there by the Emperor Constantine in 323. In fact, the really big political and religious question of the time for Christians was who got to be considered the centre of Christendom (there was no real concept of ‘Europe’ at this point) – the Orthodox Church, the Byzantine Emperor, and the Patriarch of Constantinople in Constantinople, or the Holy Roman Emperor (er…dude in nominal charge of a lot of German and Italian principalities) and the Roman Catholic Church led by the Pope in Rome. The Orthodox Church in Constantinople and the Roman Catholic Church had agreed to disagree in 1054 in the Great Schism, so in 1096 this issue was still what you’d call fresh.

Onto this stage of East-West disagreement and the heritage of Rome crashed the Seljuq Turks, a Muslim group from Central Asia who swept through Anatolia (modern Turkey), Byzantium’s richest province, culminating in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 which wiped out Byzantium as an independent military force. The southern provinces had fallen under Muslim rule long ago, during the era of the first Umayyad Caliphate – including Jerusalem, famous as the birthplace of Christianity and a holy site for Judaism and Islam as well, but also a fairly uninteresting provincial town. Until...

Until…what?

Here’s why all the geography matters: It is generally accepted that the First Crusade kicked off largely because Alexios I Comnenus, the then-current Byzantine Emperor, requested aid from Western Europe against the Muslim Seljuq Turks. Byzantium often recruited mercenaries from Western Europe; the Normans (aka the Vikings), who had settled Normandy and southern Italy in the past century were frequent hires. Hence those runes in the Hagia Sophia.

Meanwhile in Western Europe, the Pope – Urban II – was having difficulty with the current Emperor, and was eager to heal the Schism and establish the primacy of the Roman church. He declared that an expedition to aid the Byzantines would have the blessing of the church, and that a new kind of pilgrimage – an armed pilgrimage – was religiously acceptable, if aimed against the enemies of Christendom.

Pilgrimages (travelling to holy sites, such as churches that held saints’ relics) were a major part of European Christianity at the time and many people went on pilgrimage in their lives, so this was a familiar concept. Western Europe was also somewhat overpopulated with knights – don’t think plate armour, this is 1096, think very murderous rich men with good swords – who could always use forgiveness, on account of all the murder. The Roman Catholic church, unlike the Eastern Orthodox church, also subscribed to the concept of ‘just war’, that war could be acceptable for the right reasons. And so a whole lot of nobles from the area of modern France, Belgium, England, Germany, and Italy decided that this new Crusade thing was something they wanted in on – and they took several armies with them.

I’m going to skip over a bunch of stuff involving the People’s Crusade (a popular movement of poorer people, got literally slaughtered in Anatolia), the massacres of Jews in Eastern Europe, and a lot of battles, but the takeaway is this: Alexios probably thought he was getting mercenaries. He got a popular religious movement that, somewhat unfortunately, actually achieved its goal (Jerusalem), did next to nothing to solve his Anatolia problem, and gave a succession of Popes a convenient outlet for errant knights, nobles, and rulers: going on Crusade.

How many were there?

Official Crusades that anybody cares about: Nine, technically. Crusade-like military events that immortal soldiers might have got involved with, plus local stoushes in Outremer: way more. WAY more.

The First Crusade (1096-1099): First and original, set a frankly (heh) terrible precedent, founded the Crusader States and captured Jerusalem. Only regarded as a clash of civilisations by the Western Christians involved. For the local Muslims it was just another day at the ‘Byzantium hires Frankish mercenaries to make our lives difficult’ office.

The Crusade of 1101: Everybody who peaced out on the First Crusade hurried to prove they were actually up for it, once the remaining First Crusaders took Jerusalem. Didn’t do much.

The Second Crusade (1147-1150): The County of Edessa falls, Eleanor of Aquitaine happens (my fave), the only winners are the people who semi-accidentally conquer Lisbon (in Portugal) (but from Muslim rulers so that…counts?).

The Third Crusade (1189-1192): You all know this one because it has RICHARD THE LIONHEART and SALADIN. Much Clash of Civilisations, very Noble, did enough to keep the remaining Crusader kingdoms going but access to Jerusalem for Christian pilgrims was obtained by treaty, not conquest. Indirectly responsible for the Robin Hood mythos when Richard gets banged up in prison on the way home and is away from England for ages.

The Fourth Crusade (1202-1204): Aims for Jerusalem, ends up sacking the Eastern Orthodox city of Constantinople, just not a great time for anybody, more or less the eventual cause of the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453.

The Fifth Crusade (1217-1221): Still going for Jerusalem, starts with Cairo instead, does not get anywhere it wants to even after allying with the Anatolian Sultanate of Rum, making the whole ‘Christians vs Muslims’ thing even murkier than it already was post the Fourth Crusade.

The Sixth Crusade (1228-1229): Somehow these things are still going. Nobody even does very much fighting. Access to Jerusalem is negotiated by treaty, yet again.

The Seventh, Eight, and Ninth Crusades: Seriously nobody cares anymore and also nobody is trying very hard. Kings have better things to do, mostly. People end up in Egypt a lot. We covered these in one lecture and I have forgotten all of it.

The Albigensian Crusade (1209-1229): Why take a three-year trip to the Holy Land to fight pagans when you can fight the ones in your own backyard (southern France), AND take their stuff? Famously the source of the probably apocryphal ‘Kill them all, God will know His own’ quote, regarding the massacre of most of a city harbouring Cathars (a Christian sect deemed heretical).

Can we circle back to that ‘massacres of Jews’ bit? WTF?

Crusades, historically, were Not A Good Time for Jewish communities in Europe; when Christians were riled up to go and Fight The Infidel, it was a lot quicker to massacre local Jews than travel to the Holy Land. Also, then you could take their stuff. I will note here that it is VERY TACKY to use historical pogroms as backdrops for your non-Jewish main characters so keep this in mind but, like, use with extreme caution in fanfic, okay? Generally life was a lot easier for Jewish communities in Muslim-ruled states in this period, which is why so many Hispanic Jews ended up in Turkey after they were expelled from Spain.

What were they really about, then?

Historians still Have Opinions about this. Genuine religious fervour was absolutely a key motivator, especially of the First Crusade. The ability to wage war sanctioned by the Church, or to redeem your local sins by going and fighting against the pagans, was part of that, too. Control of key trade routes to the East was probably not not a part of it. The Crusader States were definitely Baby’s First Experiment With Settler Colonialism, and paved the theological and rhetorical ground for the colonisation of the Americas. But many individuals on the Christian side would absolutely have believed they were doing God’s work. The various Muslim rulers and certainly the local Christian, Jewish, and Muslim inhabitants of the Holy Land itself were mostly just getting invaded by Franks. As time wound on the Crusades became more and more political (frequently featuring intra-religious violence and inter-religious alliances) and less and less about their forever nominal goal, control of Jerusalem.

How’s Wikipedia on this?

Basically not too bad but I’m not totally confident on some of the bits about motivation (see: white supremacists love this period, ugh.)

Why did they stop?

The prospect of re-taking Jerusalem vanished entirely as the Ottoman Empire centralised and took a firm hold over most of the Levant (and made inroads into Europe, as far as Austria, taking Constantinople in 1453 and finally ending the continuous Roman Empire), the Spanish Reconquista and various intra-European conflicts (the Hundred Years’ War, for example) absorbed military attention, and then the Reformation happened and half of Europe stopped listening to the Pope and started stabbing each other over who was the right kind of Christian. But the concept lingered; white supremacists love the Crusades. Which is why it is a very good idea to be sparing with Crusader imagery around Niccolò in fanfic set in the modern era, and please for fuck’s sake stop with the ‘crugayders’ tag, Yusuf wasn’t a Crusader.

What other fun facts should I keep in mind re: Nicky | Nicolò and Joe | Yusuf?

· Genoa is not the same as Italy; Nicolò is Nicolò di Genova and would have spoken Genoese (Ligurian) and considered himself to be Genoese. Italian as a language didn’t really exist yet. The language he and Yusuf would most likely have had in common was the ‘lingua franca’ (Frankish language, literally) of the Mediterranean trading region, a pidgin based heavily on maritime Italian languages. Yusuf 300% would have thought of him as a ‘Frank’ (the generic term for Western Christians) and probably annoyed him by calling him that until at least 1200 or so.

· Yusuf is apparently from ‘Maghrib’, which I assume means al-Maghrib/the Maghreb (as his actor is IIRC of Tunisian descent), i.e. North Africa. He could have had relatives in al-Andalus (southern modern Spain), he may have spoken languages other than Arabic natively (Mozarabic or Berber), his native area had universities before Europe did. Basically: this is as useful as saying he’s ‘from Europe’, do better backstory writers.

· Taking the whole ‘Nicky used to be a priest’ backstory at face value: being a priest in 1096 looked pretty different to how it did even 200 years later. They were still working on the celibacy thing. The famous monastic orders were still forming. Some priests could and did hold lands and go to war (this wasn’t common but it happened, especially if they were nobles by birth). Nicolò di Genova would not necessarily have seen a conflict between going on Crusade and being a priest, is what I’m getting at. If he was ALSO trained as a knight, he was from a wealthy family; it took the equivalent several villages to support a knight.

· ‘Period-typical homophobia’ is going to look very different for this period. They are NOT getting beaten up for holding hands. Or sharing a bed! Or even kissing, depending on the circumstances! I am not an expert on Islamic sexual mores of the era but Christian ones were heavily on the side of ‘unsanctioned sex is bad, sanctioned (marital) sex is slightly less bad’, and there was no concept of ‘being gay’. An interfaith relationship would be in some ways more of a problem for them than the same-sex one (and in some ways less difficult to navigate than a heterosexual interfaith relationship.) The past is another country.

· Look just no more fanfics where Yusuf is trying to learn ‘Italian’ in the early twelfth century I am BEGGING you all

#the old guard #history #finally that BA gets a workout #fourteen years later

2K notes · View notes

miraculouscontent · 3 years

Photo

where do i even begin

The focus in this episode is all over the place and also on none of the right things.

Let’s just start with the obvious: they didn’t even bother showing Alya's reaction to Marinette being Ladybug. We got nothing. Marinette revealing her identity to Alya is supposed to be a big deal, but the episode brushes it under the rug and even seems to lowkey blame Marinette for not telling Alya sooner, to the point where it outright lies and has Alya claim that Marinette’s secret was responsible for all of Alya’s Lady Wifi appearances.

It’s not like I’m surprised anymore when the show blames Marinette for like--anything, but the fact that this season seems to brag about its continuity by being on a firm timeline and then keeps going against continuity is really irritating.

And speaking of continuity, the Adrien pictures are back on the wall with absolutely no reason given. Narratively speaking, the show put them there so Alya would see them and think of bringing up Adrien to get Marinette to take a break, but the show can’t just do that if it wants to imply that it has continuity. Worse still is that this is the episode featuring “Charm Bug” (does her form have a name? I just call it Charm Bug and continue to do so), meaning that “Gang of Secrets” (where there were no Adrien pictures) has to take place before this and “Furious Fu” (where there are also no Adrien pictures) has to take place after.

At this point, they might as well just confirm that “destiny” is a real force and the ladybug miraculous is messing with Marinette’s room and twisting her emotions to make the love square endgame because--yeah, that’s all it is at this point.

The other thing is that Alya shoos Marinette away from her guardian duties so Marinette can go comfort Kagami (let’s be honest, the best part of the episode was Alya being like, “but what about Adrien?” and Marinette was basically like, “what about Adrien?”), which sounds great, but then it all goes back to Adrien, because of course it does.

Not only that, but the episode mocks Marinette for worrying about Kagami. Not only does Alya doubt Marinette’s concern, but Kagami isn’t at all affected by the break-up and isn’t even touched by Marinette’s worry.

The thing is, I get where Marinette’s coming from, because this is the Kagami who told Ladybug in “Heart Hunter” that she (Kagami) and Adrien were perfect for each other to the point where Kagami prioritized her potentially getting together with Adrien over her friendship with Marinette. Also keep in mind that Marinette is Kagami’s only friend, and it makes total sense that Marinette would expect Kagami to be devastated by the break-up.

But because it’s Miraculous, the show makes Marinette look like an idiot for being concerned for Kagami, as if saying, “Silly Marinette! Kagami’s not like you! Kagami is a strong independent woman!! You’re just so over-emotional and you were ridiculous for being sad about your own break-up! You should be more like her!”

I also don’t like it because it presents Kagami as this character who really does feel nothing due to the show not letting her. She was angry at Adrien, obviously, but she was also immensely upset and it made sense when she put so much effort in trying to get him to return her affections.

Buuuut no. Kagami is just annoyed by Marinette’s efforts to try and get her back together with Adrien (it’s not that her anger isn’t warranted, but that’s all they let her feel instead of any genuine sadness over the break-up).

And of course, there’s no mention about Marinette literally trying to help get Kagami back together with Adrien and how selfless that is on Marinette’s part. Obviously I don’t agree with Marinette disregarding Kagami’s feelings (I do hate though how the episode refused to have Kagami explain why Adrien upset her, which would help Marinette understand because she seems to think there’s a misunderstanding/Kagami doubting herself), but the episode refuses to acknowledge Marinette’s good intentions because it’s Marinette and because she’s supporting Adrimi and not the love square, so they’ll make her look as bad as possible. This led to the fandom talking about Marinette and her oBsEsSiOn with Adrien instead of saying UM HI YEAH MARINETTE IS DOING A “HEART HUNTER” 2.0??

(The show also does this consistently, by the way.)

Another thing the show won’t acknowledge is that what Marinette does with Kagami is extremely similar to what Alya does with Marinette. Alya has ignored Marinette’s agency, physically pushed her towards Adrien, and locked her in a room with Adrien no matter how many times Marinette has told her no and that she doesn’t want that.

But because it’s Marinette and because what she’s shipping is Adrimi (i.e: a ship that interferes with the love square), the episode absolutely tears her apart for it. If Alya’s meddling was treated the same way - where she’d be constantly put in the wrong and punished for it - I wouldn’t say a word about this, but we know that’s not the case from “Reflekdoll” (where Reflekta targeted Marinette and Rose of all people) and “The Puppeteer 2″ (hey, remember when Alya did all of that and then it was the museum staff who did nothing wrong who got the worst of Puppeteer’s wrath?).

And this isn’t even taking into consideration that, once again, Marinette has learned something from someone else because they were never called out or punished or learned (originally being Adrien/Bustier where she “learned” to trust Chloe and see where that got her???), and then she’s the one who gets the heat for it.

Might I also add how insulting it is that the episode before this had Marinette saying that she “didn’t want to focus on love,” and then immediately afterwards, Alya is pushing for Adrienette and the episode itself won’t let anyone shut up about Adrien?

Like, this is the episode where Marinette does guardian stuff, gets an upgrade in Charm Bug, and yet the episode hyperfocuses on Aaaaaadrien. He doesn’t even do anything; he’s just a black hole that inhales all available attention and magically pulls all the characters towards his general location.

Then the episode keeps breaking its own continuity as an excuse to make things more about Adrien and also more about the love square, like saying that Marinette carries her disguises everywhere when it’s really just an excuse for Marinette to conveniently have the umbrella so that they can recreate the umbrella scene (by the way, the line from Marinette about “recreating Kagami’s moment where she fell in love with Adrien” is both incredibly forced and incredibly obvious because we’ve never even seen how Kagami fell for Adrien).

And when you already know how the show goes, it all becomes so predictable, which is a huge problem. By the time you hear Marinette say that she “didn’t want to focus on love” last episode, you already know what’s going happen. This episode reaffirms Marinette’s crush on Adrien, which is weird because it’s not as if there was ever any doubt in the first place? The show didn’t even try to convince its audience that Marinette was actually trying to move on, which gives the scene no impact when it happens. We already know that Marinette isn’t really in denial (she’s not stupid) and is very likely saying that she’s not in love with Adrien because admitting it hasn’t gotten her anywhere and she’s repeating something to herself is an attempt to make it true (which is a common coping mechanism for people with self-esteem issues/anxiety), so the scene is just for shipping fuel.

We’ve seen future episodes that show that Marinette hasn’t made any actual progress, hence being another piece of evidence towards my theory that the show does it on purpose to get the Adrienette fans to freak out when anything happens even if it’s reversed in the end. It’s particularly frustrating because it denies Marinette of agency yet again, with her saying something and the show then going lol okay but what if--

It’s gross, and made more so by Kagami watching Marinette and Adrien from a distance and saying that they’re “made for each other.” I’ve talked many times before about how the show is too lazy to have actual chemistry between the love square so they’ll just have characters say that they’re meant to beeeeee, so I won’t go into that, but really, actually think about what Kagami’s saying here.

This is the guy that, in her eyes, abandoned her repeatedly on dates and lied in order to get away from her. She stated outright that Adrien had disappointed her to the point where all of her feelings for Adrien seemed to have completely disappeared and she didn’t even want to be friends with him anymore (at least for now).

Yet, the show had Kagami not only say that line, but told Marinette directly that Adrien was perfect for her. This means either one of two things, neither being good:

- the show intentionally had Marinette do all this so that Kagami would feel embarrassed for Adrien and thus fix all of Adrimi’s relationship problems without Adrien having to do any work to earn her trust back (notice how Adrien in this episode is an “extra good boy” this time around, probably even more than they usually try - keyword: try - to portray him)

- Kagami’s opinion on Adrien hasn’t changed at all and she’s essentially saying that Marinette belongs with this guy who has hurt Kagami, betrayed her trust, and will probably do the same to Marinette

And obviously the show doesn’t think about any of that. It just wants to push for the love square. The only reason there was any focus on Kagami at all was to have a reason to get Marinette to go to Kagami, for Kagami to get angry at Marinette because - as we all know - Marinette “has to mess up and learn in every episode,” so there’d be a reason to go to where Adrien was, and so Kagami could become the next local shipper for the love square.

Marinette didn’t even get to figure out the magical charms by herself; Rena Rouge gave her the answer. It was like the show saw her doing guardian work and shoved her out the door because the only thing she’s good for is being part of the love square. Alya gets seconds of time shown with her looking over the grimoire to figure out the trick, which makes the whole thing underwhelming and rushed when Rena comes up and tells Ladybug that it’s essentially “just been about her” the whole time, meaning it’s just the show yet again being like “see, Marinette? If you’d just figured this out bEfORe...” (note that the episode never tells Marinette that she’s unnecessarily guilting/blaming herself)

But yeah, despite the episode not giving Adrien anything to do, characters talk about him constantly, Marinette somehow doesn’t get the spotlight she needs despite getting a power-up form, and the episode feels the need to constantly railroad Marinette exactly where it wanted to go, not for her, but for the love square, which has always been about not her. It’s already bad when the episode itself is bad, but when it has so much to throw in and delivers on absolutely none of it, it just makes it all the more painful.

#category: salt #episode: Mr. Pigeon 72 #other: ml spoilers #other: ask and answer

122 notes · View notes

zeta-in-de-walls · 3 years

Text

Please AO3 fix the Dream SMP fandom

Every time I think about it, I get so annoyed with Archiveofourown and their inability to correctly categorise the MCYT fandom. I was annoyed with it a year ago and it’s not gotten any better!

All fics based on the Dream SMP or any of the other recent SMPs goes directly into the Video Blogging RPF category. What’s the Dream SMP doing in the vlogging category???? It’s so ill-fitting and everyone knows it.

It should have its own category in Other Media like many web series and things do. And no, it’ not some alien idea to have content based on livestreamed improv or whatever. Critical Role is literally a webseries of a DnD campaign which gets broadcast on twitch and youtube.

And the Dream SMP fandom is sooo big now. It’s hard to gauge the exact size of course given that it lacks its own category but TommyInnit alone has over 44000 fics. Superman only has 25000. Like seriously, this fandom needs its own space.

And as other SMPs have been getting popular the problem’s just getting worse. Should you really have to sift through Dream SMP fics while searching for Last Life stuff? Of course not, they need separate categories.

I get that the fandom is a little messy, but AO3 is literally built with messiness in mind. If you wanted you could make a big category in it called something like Minecraft Roleplay or Minecraft SMPs or Dream SMP and related fandoms if you must. I’m flexible on the name, whatever. Then in it you can have subcategories. One for Dream SMP and Last life and also Origins SMP if you want, A separate one for minecraft manhunt as there’s honestly a lot of fics based on that. You could even do a section just for SBI fics at this point as that might as well be a category in itself. Navigating would be so much easier if it was categorised. I might actually be able to discover fics that aren’t tagged with the specific character I’m searching for but with the fandom I’m interested in. The size won’t be an issue, a03 literally has no problem with fandoms with a single fic in. Keep something in the RPF section too I guess, but make it more specific than vlogging. And please, please use the online alias’s rather than their irl names everywhere else.

I get that wrangling all the tags would take time, I’m perfectly ready for a messy transition but I also know that once the categories are created the fandom itself will try and recategorise their stuff to fit into the correct tags. Most of the fandom already attempt to tag their fics with tags such as dream smp even though it dumps them into video blogging anyway. Until the fandom tags are there though, it’s only getting worse.

It’s been well over a year since this has been a problem. And it’s not improved one bit. At this point, this feels downright disrespectful. AO3′s whole thing is to be as open and for fans and nonjudgemental as possible. And for sure I though the archive was amazing until this fandom. One of its strengths is how well it categorises fandoms so you can make use of its filters. I was happy to be patient. I directly sent a message myself like 10 months bringing up this issue and no doubt loads of others have as well. And yet they’ve made no progress.

Why?

#mcyt #dream smp #meta #discourse #tommyinnit #aaah i don't want to be angry i just want it to be fixed #even a bad solution would be better than none you know #but there's so many issues #i barely touched on the irl names thing but that's incredibly annoying #its not even a consistent system #and yeah i feel most bad for more minor characters who will only be found by people specifically searching for their name #cause no one wants to sift through the vlogging rpf for fics

28 notes · View notes

heyovivi · 3 years

Text

Nothing like being a hypocrite...

Okay, I haven't been an artist for the ACOTAR fandom for a long time, and I certainly don't post enough to make a business out of any of my works either. Even so, I do consider myself an artist as I work very hard to commit to pieces and share them with you.

Being an artist is difficult for many of us because it's like sharing our soul with the community. It's an insight into our world and our minds. It's how we view things and how we appreciate them. Through my art you can tell what I like, what I love, and what I appreciate.

And this week I have already addressed the problems with false accusations and plagiarism when it comes to art. Like I said in a previous post, a specific part of this fandom has made it their jobs to intoxicate the community we have built with their negativity. They accused an artist of plagiarism by stealing works of art from a user on Instagram named Jess.

It was already proven multiple times that this artist did not steal the idea form Jess and that it was instead a trend that artists were welcome to try out in their own styles. Despite that, the E/riels (because who else?) decided to bash all us Gwynriel artists for copying Jess and "stealing" her ideas.

Claiming that we are "lacking" and that we continue to steal from E/riel artists.

Now, the funny thing is that this same person also said this, and I quote:

"If you're going to steal a design from any artist, for the love of god give them the credit they deserve..."

"It just looks pathetic when a gwynriel "artist" releases a plagiarized artwork..."

"It’s like they’re either trying to one up elriel every time their artists release anything or they are so jealous at the creativity our artists show that they steal their work out of spite. Pathetic."

And of course, as an artist this hurt. Not only did they lack to research the trend they immediately hopped on their high horse to call us pathetic or put into question whether we were true artists.

Now, these quotes above came from an anonymous questioner here is what the person who originally posted actually said:

"This is unacceptable, and as another artist, it makes my skin crawl. Plus, I have a feeling it was done maliciously. I don’t need to get into the ins and outs of why you don’t steal someone’s work, I’m sure you get it."

"And I completely agree - It’s sad they can’t just come up with stuff for their own ship. If the ship is as beautiful and perfect as you claim it is, shouldn’t it inspire you all on its own? Like, they have to steal it from Elriels? 😔 it’s the vindictiveness for me."

Now I have never accused another artist of stealing my work, and I have never seen another Gwynriel artist steal or plagiarize another artists' work. But what was interesting to me was that this week, Jess was accused of plagiarism making all the texts I provided above seem pretty fucking ironic.

Although instead of reacting the way they did (like they would to Gwynriels), they bashed the messenger with hate comments about her looks, her art--they completely teared down an artist on Instagram, Isabellaamhsmith, stating that she was jealous and hateful and just seeking attention. They all stated that this was all simply about ship wars and it has been made very clear that this has nothing to do with ship wars, it's about the integrity of an artist and how plagiarism shouldn't be tolerated and it especially shouldn't be tolerated when the said plagiarizer is making a profit off of stolen work.

Now, what Jess did is not okay. From what I can tell she swiped through Pinterest, took the things she liked, inverted them to suit her "art" then gave no credit to the designers, artists, or organizations she stole from.

And here are what some of her supporters have to say:

A real artist's mind is full of color and imagination. Yes, we do refer to references when we work but we don't go and steal from other artists--it's just not done. In order to do what we do we have to imagine it. Sometimes it does just come out of no where that's how it works.

Ever here that sound on TikTok where he says, "isn't amazing how an artist can take a blank sheet of paper and just blah blah blah..."

Jess didn't do that. She took a blank sheet of paper and probably stuffed it with photoshopped photos from Pinterest.

And who is getting the brunt of it? Not Jess.

Instead Isabellaamhsmith is getting spammed by haters, most notably, E/riels.

Only truly ugly people go for the looks. No one should be told to go un-alive themselves or be judged on their looks. We put ourselves out there on social media, we are bold for sharing our art and Isabella was simply stating the facts. Jess is no real artist if she's just stealing ideas from other people.

Don't kill the messenger, it's not her fault she's got her facts straight.

#actoar #acomaf #acowar #own up to your shit #art #digital fanart #don't plagiarize #don't kill the messenger #anti e/riel

94 notes · View notes

lovee-infected · 3 years

Note

For the anon talking about how they hate how over exaggerated a character is. I am not trying to start hate or anything, but if you don't like the way how someone portrays the character, just stop reading it. Some people don't delve deep, they just want to write fanfics for fun they're not going to make sure it's 100% the characters VERY complex personalities. Or the way how they view a character is different from their beliefs. I've gotten this message before and I am TIRED of it

I think it's a good time to talk about this because I've been thinking about bringing the topic up for a while. To begin with, let's clear something between the two anons because I think it's a misunderstanding:

Note: Please read this, this is important.

Anon A is saying that they're sometimes bothered by how some fanfics and Aus have a different way of picturing character X, in other words, they don't really enjoy it when a character is bring mischaracterized

Anon B (this anon) is saying that if you're bothered by a fic because you don't like how they're characterizing an specific character, then you don't have to read it.

Let me say that both of these anons are right, yet to think that their ideas are the opposites of each other, is totally wrong. In other words they both have a point, but I guess their points needs a stronger a better way of being explained in order to avoid any further dramas and misunderstandings.

Why am I doing this? Because I've seen -enough- of it. After the twst character analyses, aruges toward the mischaracterizations in this fandom became a thing, it's been causing some issues and arguments between the fans and it's mainly because of how sides fails to explain their points clearly.

Though I didn't really receive any rude asks/comments regarding myself the matter I can still how some fans feel attacked, offended or called out by character analysis posts or have the NERVE to attack or offend others with their own perspective on characters and try to force others into accepting them.

Enough with drama, I'm sick of it. I'm going to explain this as clearly as I can, hopeful that this would at least lessen the chance of having to go through another drama regarding the mischaracterization issue.

1) The concept of FANfiction

First off, the fanfiction itself; what is a fanfiction? What type of writing is considered to be a fanfic? What is it even used for? These are the questions we all need to answer before getting to know the world of fanfic.

Just as its name explains, it's fan + fiction. It's the result of the fan's creativity and imagination taking place in a fictional plot, something that hasn't happened with the original characters and he original story. The fans' imagination is often far beyond the plot which the original story/series/book offers, yet this isn't going to hold fans back from imagining it. Fanfiction is the way of giving yourself (or others) the specific and plot with the original and canon version isn't going to give you, in other words it's a way of getting what you wish to see through a story but this time, it's you who'd decide what will happen.

You are the one who decides how characters will be, you are the one who decides how and where this story happens and you are the one to choose how this story must come to an end. It's all about your own imagination and creativity, which enables you to have power over everything about your own story and fanfiction, everything (In expection gor than legal issues including claiming the original character as yours). You have the power, and you choose how it should be.

2) Fanfiction and mischaracterization

This was mainly the most brought up issue in the recent Twst drama, mischaracterization through writings. Many were saying how they find this annoying and nerve-wrecking, but no one really talked about how mischaracterization comes to life.

Let me tell you, as long your writing is a fanfic, there is a 70% chance of mischaracterizing the plot or the characters and there's nothing wrong with it, that's just how fanfiction works! It isn't supposed to be canon, it is fanon and only fanon. Everything that happens is fictional and fanon based, in other words, it's the fan who decides what should happen in a fanfiction and how it's supposed to be!

One of the Fanfiction's best purposes is giving the fandom a chance to mischaracterize! To write the characters the way they wish them to be and not necessarily the way they truly are. Fanfiction allows us to imagine and create something that isn't true, so let me clear my point here: It's totally okay to change the characters' personalities in your fanfics! As the writer, you have the right to do so, and since writing a fanfic must be for your own pleasure in the first place, no one can stop you from imagining whatever you want! No one can jump out and say stuff like "YOU CAN'T MISCHARACERTIZE A CHARACTER IN A FANFICTION" because that'd be super lame. It's your own fanfiction, your story, your creation and you're free to mischaracterize if that's how you like it to be! And if anyone doesn't like that, remember that they don't have to read that.

3)What is the problem?

Look, we've been going through some drama because of the recent character analyses of twst fandom, and I'd like to explain why. First off, note that I think both sides of the argument have been wrong and I'm going to talk about both of them.

Let me begin with a small example: It's been argued that based to what we've seen from Leona's personality so far, he doesn't seem to be the type to love healthily or even easily fall for anyone. Some of the fans seemed to be offended by the statement and said that "They still want their Leona fluff no matter what everyone else says" okay okay, this is the problem I was talking about: Saying that canon Leona doesn't seem to be much of a fluffy lion or a sweet lover isn't equal to forbidding the fans from writing fluffs for him or picturing him as a adorable and gentle lover! No one has the right to hold fans back from appreciating and enjoying what they like! But it's important to know what exactly is happening.

I'll talk about some crucial points you need to know about character analyses and how it's different from a fanfic in part (4), but before that, let me continue to give some examples of the recent argues and how each of the sides were wrong.

A) You enjoy reading fluffy Malleus content but character analyses have been saying that he isn't as soft and cute as you'd expected him to be. Does this mean that you can no longer ask for wholesome Malleus content or enjoy reading them? -> Of course not! You're still free to read/imagine/write whatever you like with Malleus! No one has the right to tell you what to do, and character analyses aren't meant to be a way to hold you back from enjoying what you like! If you're enjoying something, go for it! In this fanon world no one can accuse you for not following the canon interpretations!

B) You've spent a rather long time getting to know Ace and his canon personality, and you really like the way he is! But by reading fanfics/ fandom's interpretations on him you can't help but to feel like they aren't giving his personality the justice he deserves, and aren't seeing the great and amazing character he truly is. Is it okay to feel upset about this? -> Just as I said, it's totally fine to have your personal interpretations of a character no matter how different the rest of the interpretations are! But the real question is: what should you do when you think fandom isn't doing a character justice? This would be answered in part D!

C) You are enjoying your personal ideas and headcanons with Idia and many are saying that your way of picturing him is so adorable! Does this necessarily mean that the canon Idia as well is like you describe him? -> Absolutely not! No matter how adorable an Au/headcanon is, everyone's free to enjoy it but you should remember that canon ≠ fanon. You are totally free to imagine whatever you'd like! But keep this in mind that you shouldn't insist on your ideas being necessarily canon!

D) You feel like many are mischaracterizing your favorite character and you don't like it, what should you do? -> Well to begin with, remember that other fans have the right to characterize a character just as much as you do! You can't stop them from doing what they like or expect them to change the way they are because of how different the canon interpretation of a character might be. But you as well have a great chance to inspire the fandom by your own ideas! You can try to discuss how different the canon personality of your favorite character is and even try to turn that into a character analysis! This way you'd not only avoid causing any drama because of disagreeing with someone's way of picturing your favorite character, but you will also have a chance to present your personal ideas and characterizations to the fandom in a friendly and polite way!

E) You don't like how an author is characterizing some of the boys, what should you do? -> Easy solution, don't read it. Let me tell you, I have gone through this a lot and do you know what I do whenever I read/see something that doesn't match my tastes and expectations? I keep scrolling! That's all, I don't have to like it, but I don't have to read it either! 😀

F) You're an author and a writing request is asking you to write for a character in a way you just can't or don't want to write because that goes totally against your idealistics and ideas on a character, for example: You just can't write something really wholesome and fluffy for Leona because you can't imagine him being like that, what should you do? -> It's obvious, then don't write it! You have the right to choose what you'd like to write and how you like to picture a character no matter what others think. If you want to picture Leona as an emotional and soft boy, it's totally okay! If you want to picture him as a cold-hearted and mean prince, again it's totally alright! Remember, just like fans you have the right to picture and characterize the characters the way you want to, and no one can tell you otherwise!

G) You've read a character analysis and you realize that you've been mischaracterizing Floyd for a while, should you feel bad or sorry about it? -> Of course not!! Even if you were mischaracterizing him, keep this mind that there's nothing wrong with picturing Floyd as the way you want him to be! As long as you don't claim your headcanons to be canon and share stuff like "Canon from is definitely like this" or "Floyd would do that, canon! ^-^" it's totally alright to imagine him the way you like!

H) You saw someone saying something about Malleus that didn't match the canon interpretations of him. You quickly replied to then and corrected them about their wrong point of view and tell them how the real Malleus is, which kinda led to and argument between you and the person, did you do the right thing? -> Absolutely not! Attacking others out of nowhere and without any context isn't the right way of introducing the canon characterizations to the fandom! Even if you were right, keep this in mind that the other person has the right to picture Malleus or any other character the way they want them to be so if you want to correct them or try to get to know the canon character interpretations, you should do that from the logical and polite way.

I) Someone wrote a character analysis for Idia and said how they find it so annoying when people who refer to Idia as "Baby" and "uwu beanie". You often refer to Idia as baby or cutie yourself and the context of that analysis/general post some how got to you. You feel lowkey attacked and offended, did the original poster say the right thing? -> No, matter what the context is or how accurate and well-written that analysis was, directly calling people who have a certain way of picturing a character "Annoying" is rude no matter how you think of it. Even if the original poster were right about Idia not being UWU, their way of wording their sentence wasn't really pleasant; keep this, in mind that everyone in the fandom is free to picture Idia as they like and it doesn't even matter if you don't like it or not! If you're going to write an analysis/essay regarding a character's personality, remember that you should prove your point and disagree with opposite opinions through logical reasoning and explaining your point, NOT by offending and attacking other ideas by savage contexts like "You have to stop saying that Idia is like this", "I hate it when people say Idia is like this", " It's so annoying to see people saying Idia is like this... "

4) What's with the character analyses then?

There's a difference from the canon and fanon interpretations of a character, this is a truth which cannot be denied. But it's important to remember that just because a canon interpretation of a character exists, you can no longer enjoy the fanon interpretations!

Even I, for example, enjoy picturing someone like Malleus as an purely evil being like Maleficent herself because I enjoy seeing him as a perfect figure for "Mister of all Evil", but in my Malleus analysis post I explained how we should NOT think that Malleus is nothing but pure evil or a heartless monster! See, this is the difference I've been talking about. I'm pretty well-familiar with the canon Malleus, but I'm also enjoying the my own fanon Malleus and I know that the Evil Malleus I admire is a fanon one, not the canon one!

The thing is, character analyses aren't meant to be a way to hold anyone back from enjoying their fanon interpretations or imagining what they like, they aren't call out posts either. They are simply a way of getting to know the characters as if you're getting to know one of your irl friends. You come to think of them, see how deep their personalities are and get to learn more about them!

It's true that reading a character analysis might make you realize that you've been somehow mischaracterizing a character but this, isn't anything to be sorry or frustrated about! Character analyses are written to learn us more about our favorite characters, or as I like to name it, they want to show us that they're a lot more that we may imagine them to be!

Now, you may wonder how can we write a good character analysis without getting out of the line, offending anyone or giving out any cheap information?

I, personally, am pretty strict when asked to do a character analysis. Doesn't matter if I like the character or not, I'd try to judge them nonetheless. You HAVE to talk about both good features and bad features, and you must strictly avoid your analysis from getting personal; you have to make sure that your personal thoughts, feelings and emotions regarding a character aren't effecting your analysis. You shouldn't be writing it in a way to show off with your analytical ideas either.

Some people think coming off as rude would make them sound valid and acceptable, or they might just be used to being a little offensive in general, but as I explained in part 3-I, I won't recommend using any harsh or mean languages at all. Let me note that your way of wording your ideas is crazily important and if you're not careful enough with what you say and how you describe your ideas, your post would be not only be not much helpful as an analysis but also a cause of more drama and arguments. Also, keep this in mind that even the best of character analyses can't totally catch the characters' personalities correctly because we do not own them! Twisted wonderland's characters are a property of aniplex and neither me not anyone else in this fandom has the right to claim what a character is 100% like unless Disney officially releases those details!

Writing character analyses can be hard, from finding enough of hints to defend your point to choosing the right Grammer and way of speaking to avoid any further misunderstandings. But remember, those who write character analyses have no right to attack anyone because of them (They can oppose to different opinions of course, opposing ≠ attacking ), but keep this in mind that readers have no right to attack then because of their analysis either! See, that's a two-sided relationship. Both of the, sides have to learn to respect, both of the sides should, know, their boundaries and both of the sides have to be respectful!

Warning: When I say you're free to do or imagine whatever you wish to do, know that posting and sharing writings too has its own rules. Make sure to put the proper warnings, and avoid using any taboo or clearly impolite and sometimes, illegal concepts such as incest, pedophilia, etc.

I actually had a lot more I wanted to say regarding the matter but I'm keeping it short, because I know that writing too much would make this boring and pretty hard to read. Hope that it's clear enough and avoid the possible future misunderstandings and arguments regarding the matter. Please, this isn't even about twst, it's about learning to respect each other it's about real life. Having people read THIS is a lot more important than having them read my character analyses or writings.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #malleus draconia #ace trappola #leona kingscholar #idia shroud #important

211 notes · View notes