#and they’re super critical of their appearance so I knew that this would be a make-or-break thing

[justbreakonme]

I’m a writer cause I’m a manipulator, that is all.

[mustainegf]

Hi! So I was thinking and got an idea.

So, in my mind, this went with Current James but feel free to do whatever era you want:). So basically James has a girlfriend who is somehow always touching him cause she gets anxious when in public with him with all the cameras and stuff. Holding his hand, having her arm wrapped around his, really just always close to him whenever they’re in public and he brings her to a lot of events.

Metallica’s doing an interview and somehow Then interviewer managed to start questioning James about why his girlfriend is constantly next to him, blah blah blah, really just criticizing the fact that his girlfriend is always next to him, and James just gets all defensive and stuff.

This is so cute, I decided to make it black album era James because I feel like this scenario is more in line with him!!

𝐃𝐄𝐅𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 ¹⁹⁹²

The spotlight is something you get used to, but it doesn't mean you ever really feel comfortable in it. It's like standing in front of a furnace, hot, blinding, and it makes you sweat in places you didn't know you could sweat. But it's part of the gig, part of being in a band like Metallica. We've all learned to deal with it in our own ways. It's just easier for me when she's with me.

We never talk much about it, but she has this thing with crowds and cameras. But it's not really a fear, she just gets this anxious vibe, like she's on edge. And wherever we are, doing interviews or appearances, she's always with me. Sometimes she has my hand in hers, sometimes she's holding my arm, but she holds on to me.

It's one of those days today. We have nothing really in plan. We are going to be interviewed about the tour and the new album. The guys and I are always overly casual, we wait for the interviewer to prepare stuff. We all sat down for it. It's supposed to be a laid back thing and not that intense. I knew the rolling cameras, blaring lights above us. It's a scene we've been through a million times.

She wasn't with me today, she had some stuff to deal with, and I told her to take the day off. She deserved it, anyway, and it's not like she has to be there for every single thing. But I felt her absence. Funny how you get used to things and then, when they're not there, you really start to notice.

The interviewer finally began, and it was all pretty standard at first: talking about the music, the shows, the fans, all the regular shit. But then, out of nowhere, the guy throws this curveball question at me: "James, we've seen that your girlfriend is with you all the time at these events. What's up with that? Is she, like, super clingy, or somethin'?"

There was a pause in which the room went kind of quiet. The guys waited to see what my reaction would be. I kind of laughed it off, you know, those annoying interviewers, they like to yank your chain a little bit. The guy wouldn't let it go, though. He pressed on with stuff like, "It's just, she always just seems to be hanging on you. Doesn't that get a little annoying?"

I'm not that great with words, never have been. I'm more of a 'let the music do the talking' kind of person, so something in the way he said it, like he was trying to make her out to be needy or something, really grinded on my nerves.

"'Annoying? That's a pretty shitty take, dude,'" I said, leaning back just a bit.

He blinked, maybe not really expecting me to fire back. "I just mean, she's always there. Doesn't she trust you? Or is it the alcohol?"

That was it. My clenched jaw told me I had to breathe deep. "She's not a fan of all this crap, not at all," I gestured around, at the cameras, the lights, the whole circus. "But she still shows up and yeah, maybe she gets a little bit anxious, but who the hell wouldn't with all this goin' on?"

I could tell the guy wasn't backing down, though. He leaned in, like he smelled blood in the water. "Does it get exhausting? Having someone so dependent?"

"Dependent?" I snorted, shaking my head. "Dude, she's strong as hell. She's got her own life, her own shit to deal with. She's not hanging on to me because she needs me to survive or some crap like that. She's there because she wants to be. And if holding my hand makes her feel better, then hell yeah, I'm all for it. It's called being a fuckin' partner, somethin' you don't seem to know much about."

I knew I had to cool it, but the further he pushed, the more I wanted. The room went silent for a moment, and I could feel the thick air. The interviewer gave me a shaky smile, not so sure anymore that he knew where this was heading, as if that's the only apology he could dish..

I leaned back, crossing my arms, some of the heat in my chest starting to cool. "Big deal. If that's the most interesting thing you've got to ask about, maybe you should find a new line of work 'cause clearly, you're missin' the point."

I'd just drawn a line in the sand and dared anyone to cross it.

[the-phantom-author]

also i know i’ve been super MIA but i’ve been on my popstar!gf shit 🤞🏻🤞🏻😔😔

i’ve been thinking that maybe when hasan went to disney w fear& she goes to because they literally love her and want her to do something gahdammit go outside!! stop writing!!! (cue hamilton lyrics “WHY DO YOU WRITE LIKE YOURE RUNNING OUT OF TIME WHY DO YOU WRITE LIKE YOU NEED IT TO SURVIVE!!!”)

and they didn’t actively put her on camera like not purposefully but she would be seen holding hands w hasan or he would have his arm around her shoulder in the background and fans were like OMGGGG we miss her!!!!

she slowly started making some super small appearances on stream, maybe she’d just come and sit with him, she’d put her feet in his lap while she’s out of frame and writing in her journal, always new lyrics. chatters can see he’s rubbing her legs or feet or whatever

maybe when he has something non political on to watch she will come and sit, and just rarely speak but it’s always so funny when she does, she just kinda sitting back and letting him lead and just enjoying sitting w him and his hand on her thigh (not that he doesn’t do it off stream but its always nice to be touched by hasan)

one night she walks in to sit with him but it’s a night that shit is really popping off in politics and he’s started having so many maggots (MAGA followers, that’s what i call them🫶🏻) and the hate and criticism starts and the disrespect because she’s a woman, she’s much younger, her career and dating life, literally anything, and hasan is PISSED after the stream. he saw the chat, he knew you did but you’re always great at ignoring that stuff. but ultimately hasan is like no, i don’t want you on any streams right now

which angers her because um hello she can make her own choices he can fuck right off with that

and it makes him angry that she isn’t listening and understanding his side

they have a few days of pouting, space, but inevitably he misses her and he knows neither of them communicated it well so she comes over and make up and ⚡️make up⚡️

so it’s back to not being on stream but hasan IS NOT going to allow his stream to become a place for hate to fester for her. all of these chatters saying that shit?? permabanned, you’re done.

when it’s something super important like say when the election is actually happening, she will make the rare appearance and he’s closing chat for the duration or having mods go through and approve/disapprove of each comment

to sum it up::::: they’re still the hottest couple known to man and boy does he engage in pda and she still has so so many people that love her. she just needs space from the public eye.

Maggots is insane

The amount of small blips of her that chat gets to see in the Disney stream. Like, if Fear& can't get their gay to come, they might as well get popstar!gf, who is a close second.

They see glimpses of her, on the small word ride, she goes with Will to watch the fireworks, at the gift shop, sharing snacks she's bought from the vendors, ect ect.

And yes, smaller stream appearances, especially when hasan doesn't have a guess, she's just beside him with her journal, he mic is one, just incase she ever wants to say things, so it's no uncommon for chat to hear her mumble lyrics, or for her random no filter commentary.

She gets so upset by his banning of her in his stream room, if only because it makes her feel like hasan doesn't trust her ability to know how she's feeling about things. It does evolve into a fight/argument between the two of you. You take yourself and your cat and leave his place for a bit. It's a lot of silence on both of your ends. Hasan, as much as he likes to communicate about those kinds of things, feels like he's justified and doesn't want to be the first to cave. And popstar!gf, she knows that she is right. He caves first. And yes, the two of them do makeup and /make up/

Her making a full camera appearance! Chat is down and heavily moderated. She's on camera, and in Hasan's chair, hasan is next to her and not the main focus.

They are both happy and healthy and hot as fuck. All is right for that moment in time, even if she does go back to being offline afterward.

[elodieunderglass]

Referring to you "anxieties of the culture" horror tropes post, I just watched the 1990 adaptation of IT and this comes less than a month after watching both Kolchak movies & starting the TV show. What do you think it was about the late-70s/early-80s that led to "the killer is a monster that hibernates for a set number of years before returning to perform the killings again, as a grim echo of the past, and it's up to the heroes to stop it now before it rears its ugly head again"? There's gotta be some "pass-the-buck" crisis that PEAKED in that time period, something that was a long time coming before that and may or may not have continued since. I don't think it's climate change, that wasn't really at Critical Mass yet until the HFC hairspray crisis of the mid-80s. Your thoughts?

(In reference to this post: https://www.tumblr.com/elodieunderglass/729604545735458816)

Oh that is SO interesting! I also like the Horrors of the Past that Re-Emerge. You get them in fantasy too. To some extent they’re quite nice, because they displace responsibility, allowing the heroes to grapple with something distanced. necromantically resurrected Zombie Nazis will always be a more appealing enemy, for a broad market, than your present-day actual real life QAnon uncle. You can blow up an Ancient Horror as much as you like, can’t you? You don’t need to worry about the tricky present-day political circumstances that birthed the serial killer if it’s actually an ancient time-travelling monster. Monsters are often articulated and described and used because they are “safe” in this way: a displaced thing that can be used. Separate from us in species, appearance, home planet, history of origin, motives, spacetime - the farther they are from us and our shared background, the more justifiable it is to nuke them from orbit, to make a splashy movie.

HOWEVER. As I said in that post - “horror reflects social anxieties” is a SUPER well-described piece of media study and you can read proper writing about that anywhere. I encourage you to seek it out! They say it much better than I do.

I also said in that post that I, myself, don’t watch horror/movies/film. It isn’t due to contempt for the genre, or fear of the content - I just can’t get into it or get immersed, which defeats the point of an immersive genre meant to provoke response. (For example, despite being explicitly told that I would love Stranger Things Season 4 and that I was required to write fic about it for a friend, I gave out at the beginning of season 2; despite being really fond of Welcome to Night Vale at a formative time of my life, I dropped out before StrexCorp. And those are things I generally liked, wanted to consume, and knew I would enjoy! It’s a me problem, and I’m not bothered by it. I am TOO BUSY.)

That’s just to say that I could spitball some thoughts, but I’d be out of my depth.

But here’s an idea. A very small minority of people in the notes took offence to me having meta thoughts about horror when I don’t consume the genre - and worse, saying them out loud, while also openly admitting that I’m out of my depth and would prefer an expert to say it better. “YOU are a COWARD,” they say. “The audacity of commenting on a trend in a genre that you don’t even watch.” “You complain so much but don’t even watch these films” “imagine writing all this with such a bad attitude about horror.” etc.

I think those people have effectively volunteered to write you an essay. They clearly have the horror-consuming chops! Perhaps not the reading comprehension … or analysis skills… but they definitely watch a lot more horror media than I do, so why not give them a crack at it? (This is jokes, don’t bother them.)

Alternatively - there are a lot of clever and savvy people with good takes around here, so they’re welcome to spin out some answers on this post.

[capitalisticveins]

Guy meeting Honey Headcanons (Ft. Geordi)

i REALLY wanted to write this as a oneshot but I can’t write oneshots, so hopefully this isn’t bad? It’s also my first time writing dialogue so go easy on me? Maybe? Constructive criticism is encouraged, and GENERAL headcanons will either. be released tonight or tomorrow since I still have to write DAMN headcanons

Also this features the headcanon that “Geordi and Guy are friends”

- Okay well to start these off

- Guy and Honey attended the same college within the same year, but neither ever noticed each other

- Until Honey and their “friends” (Honey would call them acquaintances) ordered a pizza while having a sleepover

- Guy, wanting a little more pay, took the order and drove over to the designated address

- Honey was busy complaining to their friends about how expensive the pizza was compared to another pizzeria’s pizza, but they already ordered it, so it’s not like they could cancel it

- Even though they very much could

- Guy eventually made it to the address after 15 minutes, and rang the bell

- One of Honey’s friends piped up and said “Since you’re not willing to play Smash with us, why don’t you get the pizza?

- It was supposed to be a joke, but Honey was willing to do it if it meant they didn’t have to hear anyone else yell about falling off the stage

- Honey gathered the money, still muttering about “expensive and shitty pizza”. Although they were going to tip the delivery guy because it was a quick delivery.

- When the door opened, Guy couldn’t help but stare at the absolutely gorgeous sight displayed in front of him. Honey hadn’t looked at him yet, making sure they had the right amount of money

- “It’s $31.89, right? Seems pretty expensive, especially for 2 boxes of pizza.” Honey couldn’t help but unconsciously pout, which only made Guy blush a tad bit harder.

- “Uh, no! No it’s actually just uh, $15! We’re currently, uh, having a discount on Thursdays so it’s just $15.” His lie wasn’t obvious, but it was ridiculous.

- “Really?” Honey looked at him for the first time, and took the tie to stop counting the money to look for any hint of a joke on his face. “But the lady on the phone said-”

- “Oh she’s new, she doesn’t know about the discounts, we’ll look into it, but yeah it’s a small $15 for tonight!” Guy hated how awkward he was being, but as long as this was the only time he’d have to interact with them, it’s fine.

- But he didn’t want this to be the last time he spoke to them! He delivered to attractive people before, but this was a whole new level of wow. 

- Honey was a bit more content that the pizza was cheaper than they thought, and paid for it without any more complaint, even giving him a $7 tip for telling them about the discount.

- Guy stood at the door for a solid 2 minutes after it shut, still in awe at the person he just saw. 

- ‘What was their name? Are they single? Oh GOD, are they my age or are they some super old person obsessed with looking young?’

- Thoughts raced around his head like a train, until he realized he had to cover the other $16 they didn’t pay because of him.

- The next day, Guy was ranting to his friend about the person he delivered to, describing their appearance as if it were from a poem

- Geordi, his friend, raised an eyebrow and questioned him, “You mean Honey?”

- Guy was surprised Geordi knew someone who fit his description, or in the least knew their name. “Who’s Honey?”

- Geordi looked around the hallway swiftly before pointing to his left. “Them.”

- He glanced to the direction Geordi pointed at, yet only saw a crowd around a locker, before noticing the person from last night being inside of the crowd, opening their locker and chatting with one of their friends, a tiny smile evident on their face

- Guy was in shock with his face read ‘They’re HERE? Then they must be my age. Why is that what I’m worried about, what if I make a fool of myself? What if they don’t remember me? Well no SHIT they don’t remember me I’m just a pizza guy from last night!’

- Geordi, being a chronic overthinker, noticed Guy’s mind was running a mile a minute, and snapped his fingers in front of Guy’s face

- “Y’know you could just…talk to them, right? Honey’s a little off-putting from what I’ve heard, but they’re still just another person here.” Geordi wasn’t lying, Honey usually has a RBF towards anyone they didn’t know- scratch that, Honey usually has a RBF towards everyone, but they were just another student that attended the university, even they knew that.

- “Talk to them? TALK TO THEM?” Guy said that last part a little louder than he wished, so he began to whisper the rest.

- “I can’t just talk to them! I’m not someone you just casually talk to, not even you talk to me casually. How do I even talk to them? Just go up like a 5 year old and ask to be friends?” He whisper-yelled in Geordi’s direction. Geordi would’ve flinched at the tone if Guy wasn’t his panicking best friend of 4 years

- Geordi took a moment to think before responding. “Well, Honey’s a smart person, maybe they’re a tutor? That way you could find a reason to talk to them and get some help with your classes. Lord knows you need the help.”

- Guy chuckled at the joke, or at least he hoped it was.

Taglist: @niyahbear

This took hours to write so part 2 to the meeting will be released within a week

[declanowo]

31 Days of Horror - Day 12 - Martyrs

12/10/23 

I begin most mornings at the moment by spinning the wheel to see which film I will watch - I like to know when I should start the film, for example, if I land on a three hour long movie, I won’t start it at midnight. Today when I first landed on Martyrs, I respun the wheel. After everything I had heard about this film, I felt that it wasn’t the best day to watch it, as before I had a family dinner out which I knew would leave me exhausted, therefore, something easier and lighter would be far nicer. 

After landing on another film I wanted to watch, Blood Rage, which was exactly the type of movie I was hoping for, I thought about the free time I had today as a result of looking after my friend's cat, who is bound to my bedroom, and therefore, I am too. After sitting on it for a while, I decided to watch both! And I am glad I did :) 

Martyrs is a French film directed by Pascal Laugier. The plot is ever changing as it unfolds, and has been hailed as one of the scariest horror movies ever. I see that perspective, although it feels like a weird and impossible thing to award a film. I believe I have also seen Sinister called the scariest movie ever during a long survey, which I bring up because of how different these films are! I’m curious whether people find Sinister scary solely for the jumpscares, which are amazing, or also the plot too? I think it is primarily the jumpscares, which mirrors Martyrs, which I think people find so scary because of how visceral and gross the gore is. It paired nicely with Blood Rage, which has super fun and bloody kills, whereas this film has very bloody and disgusting kills. I find the way a film can frame kills super interesting, based on how the effects are done, how long it lingers etc… Usually, slashers have creative deaths where you don’t linger on the action, they aren’t drawn out or too gross to imagine, but they’re fun to watch, and can still make you wince. There is not a single death in Martyrs that is fun.

I want to start by discussing the way the films acts work - they are incredibly divisive amongst the reviews I have read, and weirdly enough that is the most common criticism, as opposed to the fiendish gore that Saw is often criticised for! Anyway, the film's acts feel unpredictable as far as where the story goes, but I would argue the film never loses its tone, nor its purpose! The first act is a home invasion style film, where we follow a family that appears sweet and innocent as their house is broken into, and they are subsequently killed. For starters, this is such a fun juxtaposition to the grim cold open, showing our protagonist as a child, escaping from the abusive group we learn more about later in the movie. We go from that gritty exposition, to a timeskip which shows us a happy family, to a sudden series of murders. Watching the parents die, you begin to understand their innocence may not be whole, yet as we watch Lucie kill the families two children, the sequence is long, uncomfortable and deeply dark, yet unlike a film such as Cannibal Holocaust, which I will say I haven’t seen, this doesn’t feel like gore for gores sake. It was born in the New Extremity era of filmmaking, which was especially popular in France, and that shines through. My bottom line is that the gore doesn’t feel unnecessary here, it’s uncomfortable, but it is purposeful. 

Quickly, I will mention that while many people liken this film to being a part of the New Extremity Wave of films, it lacks many key features of these films. The most glaring, is the absence of any sexual violence or messaging, the former I was relieved to find out, and only watched the film after researching if there was any. Ultimately, the film does retain some features from this wave, such as having a female lead, as well as centering around women as a whole, alongside the theme of spectatorship. Okay so after writing all this, I read an article that says the director in fact denounces the likening of the film to the wave of filmmaking, but I will leave it in as a result of the constant comparisons. He instead discussed this film being about a world that rotted a long time ago, which I think is a perfect explanation of the film. 

Returning to the first act, we also are introduced to our protagonist, Anna, played by Morjana Alaoui. Both our leads (for this act) are excellent, showing a contrasting conflict as they deal with revenge, and who they want to be. Their relationship is also deeply interesting to me, given how little we see of it. As of yet, I haven’t been able to decide whether they are friends or lovers, Lucie is dismissive of their kiss early on, while a later phone call from Anna’s mother indicates that they are together. Either Way, I think they work well off of eachother, and have very interesting differing views. 

My final thoughts on this act are left with the visions Lucie has, which are grotesque and excellent, some real fun imagery of the corpse that follows her around, attempting to kill her, and I didn’t find Anna’s dismissal of this lifelong plague Lucie has had to live with to be too bad, although thinking about it more kind of bugs me - like why not just believe she is seeing this?! 

In the second act, we follow the two as they inhabit the house over night, and as Lucie deals with the vision returning. I really enjoy this section of the film, just watching them live while disputing what is best to do. Sure, it feels somewhat strange as to how lax they are about not leaving the house, but I don’t mind too much! The attempted clean up and realisation that the matriarch of the family is still alive is terrifying, as she sees a glimmer of hope, before Lucie snuffs out her life. Truly, it is dark, and the film offers no more signs of hope for anyone, as Lucie wrestles with her demon, until eventually, we watch her slit her own throat.

Despite how dark this film is, I never felt bad while watching it, which a film like Human Centipede did make me feel. Once again, intent is the key point for me! Martyrs is exposing you to a dark and twisted world, and while we don’t yet understand quite what the meaning of all this is, it does have one. In contrast, The Human Centipede seeks only to shock you, it is designed to make you feel uncomfortable, and nothing more, which isn’t my kind of film at all!

The third act follows the reveal of the torturous group, but not before one of the most spine curdling sequences! Inside the house, we find a basement, where a person is being kept. Their body is withered, but the more frightening aspect is that she has a metal clasp nailed into her eyes. Gross. After this, the group’s goal is revealed, their scale is vast and all the more terrifying! Having the film open up more works nicely in its favour, the horror is amplified when we understand that they are attempting to create a Martyr, a person who can see beyond death through torture. Knowing that they started over fifteen years ago, makes this even more chilling as we are left imagining how many people have been placed into this system. 

For me, the three act structure works perfectly, each one offers us something new and different, yet they all flow together perfectly. I think of it similarly to 28 Days Later, where we switch locations and tones three distinct times, which aids in the character's development, and the scale of the scenario.

Before moving onto a more general overview, I want to mention the ending, which delivers on everything I had hoped it would. The montage of Anna growing stronger, repeating the words of Lucie in her head is deeply moving and powerful; the eventual conclusion to the film is hideously dark, and I love it.

Martyrs is a weird film, it’s one that isn’t created to make you happy or fulfil you - some of the time I was clueless as to what I was being told, yet it was sharing something, and I like it for that. 

After watching the film I went to my family dinner, the tables surrounding us were filled to the brim with old people! All I could think about while I was there was the ending to the movie, as all the elderly people await their martyr that will never deliver her vision. I already know this one will latch onto me, in the short time since watching it, I can already feel its effects shiver down my spine. 

7/10

[weienw]

Book Notes: How to Win Friends & Influence People (HTWF&IP)

How to Win Friends & Influence People, by Dale Carnegie

I saw this book hanging around when I visited my parents' house. It’s so famous, but I’ve never read it. I cracked it open somewhere in the middle and found that I couldn’t stop reading. Carnegie’s style just sucks you in. And then there’s historical tidbits everywhere, plus the book itself is basically a historical artifact, so you feel like you’re reading a management book that belongs in a museum.

The afterword in my version talks about how before this book (1936), there basically weren’t any books on people management. So Carnegie kinda blew everyone’s minds with this stuff.

1. Major Themes

Don’t criticize or argue or say they’re wrong.

Praise a lot. Be really friendly.

Figure out what people are interested in, leverage that. Let them do the talking. Ask questions.

Smile/say their name/be a good listener.

These seem obvious but also counterintuitive because today’s corporate culture is much more into FEEDBACK (e.g. Radical Candor). Carnegie’s not that into Feedback. He’s much more into judo moves that somehow “inception” other people toward desired behavior.

Instead of directing or arguing, you ask questions about the person to draw out the deepest kernel of who they really are and then, voila, inception, they realize what they should’ve done all along about their big problem and you never had to fight them on it. You “let the other person feel that the idea was his or hers.” Hmm...

In contrast, later in the book, Carnegie advocates for starting with praise before critical feedback (which is super unpopular nowadays), and also says to “Call attention to people’s mistakes indirectly.” But everyone today’s beggin' for direct feedback! Makes me wonder. Do they really want direct feedback? Who’s right here?

2. Stuff I Dog-Eared

On page 164 Carnegie talks about admitting that you’re wrong – but in such an emphatic way that the other person ends up defending you. “…[W]hen I began to condemn myself, the only way he could nourish his self-esteem was to take the magnanimous attitude of showing mercy.” I’m into it.

Page 185: I didn’t realize that the Socratic method is not simply “ask a lot of questions,” but – “ask questions that the other person will answer with ‘yes’.” Socrates “asked questions with which his opponent would have to agree. He kept on winning one admission after another until he had an armful of yeses. He kept on asking questions until finally, almost without realizing it, his opponents found themselves embracing a conclusion they would have bitterly denied a few minutes previously.” JUDO MOVE

Page 216: There’s this crazy story where customers aren’t paying bills on their car mechanic servicing. “I made it clear that, until I had heard the customer’s story, I had no opinion to offer… I told him… that he knew more about his car than anyone else in the world; that he was the authority on the subject… I let him talk…” and so on, until they let the customer decide what to do with the bill. The end result – they paid their bills and became ever-more loyal customers. JUDO MOVE but also, seriously? This works?? (This chapter ends with: “Appeal to the nobler motives.” Basically, assume the other person is “sincere, honest, truthful,” etc…).

3. Summary

I think what’s most powerful about Carnegie’s advice is what’s hardest to practice. It’s resisting your own ego. You can’t do all of the above without first quashing the desire to appear smart/helpful/wise/right. Try being a competitive wrong-admitter and still hang onto your pride! It can’t be done. So, the way of HTWF&IP is, like many classics, simple but not easy!

Bonus: A Couple Pages That I Scanned for Later

I ended up adapting these “Questions for Myself” into my work journal, to help me think about what I did well/not well each week.

I love thinking about this trait – whether or not someone likes people. It’s something I look for in interviews but I never thought to put it this way.

[shipcestuous]

FUBAR (submission)

I don’t think you’ve mentioned the Arnold Schwarzenegger series Netflix released in May called FUBAR, but, while obviously nothing canon or even intended, the whole premise is father/daughter relationship and there are a ton of moments either with vibes if you put on your incest shipper’s goggles (I always have them on), or with potential for AU F/D shipping with different ways it could go.

The premise is that Ahnold is Luke Brunner, CIA agent on the verge of retirement. He’s called in for One Last Job to extract another agent who’s cover has been blown and is in danger… turns out it’s his daughter Emma, who he believed was his perfect daughter, never drinks, smokes, cusses… who does all of these things, actually, and her work for an international charitable organization that he’s so proud of is just a cover to let her go on dangerous missions, like his supposed career selling exercise equipment. Neither knew about the other, the agency kept them isolated fearing that worry for each other would compromise their mission, but once this mission goes FUBAR his retirement is put off and they’re assigned to work with each other to handle the fallout, even though there’s a lot of tension and issues come up now that she realizes why he was always away on trips growing up, and she’s not the perfect little girl he always believed. 

In the first ep alone they have him and her having to pretend to a sexual affair to explain why they were seen in the woods together, him discovering her vibrator, and going to couples therapy with a CIA psyche who’s trying to help them work together smoothly, and plenty of vibes of him being super critical of men she’s into.

Sadly, most of the really good vibes are in the first few episodes. After that the series drifts to The Mission and their individual romantic lives more than their personal F/D relationship, issues, but it continues to be a theme that pops up now and then, and the way it ends, I can see potential for more good material in a S2 (or, should it not get one, to allow fans to headcanon and fanfic a REALLY cesty S2).

It’s a generally fun series, not great by any means and a little ridiculous and self-referential of Schwarzenegger’s career a fair bit, but might be worth checking out just for the F/D relationship.

//

No, this series has not appeared on the blog before. I had heard of it but I didn’t realize it had such a father/daughter premise! It’s a shame that the later episodes shift away from their relationship but it sounds like the earlier episodes give a shipper plenty to enjoy. Thank you so much for all of these details. I can’t get over the fact that they had to pretend to have had a tryst and the inevitable couple vibes of their therapy. 

[kmp78]

Piggybacking off K’s post, pray tell what you think Jared deserves? Has he changed that much

Why would he deserve any less then any human being? He doesn't need to change. He is who he is. You're bitchin isn't going to change him.

This is a man, that just this week, said women are sleeping with him because of his brain. Lol

Maybe he does.

A man that feels so much disdain for women that doesn’t look like his preference he can’t stand to be near enough to give a proper pic or smile?

Its funny. Everytime I have run into him and gotten a selfie, he talks very sweetly and kind and smiles. Always super kind. But yet the picture he always appears to scowl. He teuly isn't like that prior to the picture. I believe. He is photograpped so much, it starts to get old. But he does it because he wants too. He is human and has feelings.

A person that you think that has never hurt another? I’m not talking about relationships with his girlfriends.

Please do point out where I gave any mention to him hurting anyone? Or thinking he never has? I bet you have. I think we all can look back on some failed Relationships and encounters & see where we could have done better.

So you would discount all of the, very recent, tales about his behavior?

Where did i say that? I didn't. Don't put words in my mouth.

Not everybody is lying about him. Not everyone is talking shit just because they’re jealous of him.

Has he ever done anything you were pleased with?

None of the bullshit that you sprout off about Jared makes him worthy of being called a, “a good person.”

Then do tell exactly what would? Cause there Re plenty of things he has done in the shadows that do not require applause or anyone needing to know. If you only knew the things he does, you wouldn't act like he was a wretch. But he doesn't live to please you or even me. He does what he feels he should. That is enough. He doesn't have to prove shit to you or anyone else for that matter.

Nothing you list makes him worthy of not receiving criticism. His, “friends,” don’t know him either… “Hurt people hurt people.” OR some people, Jared, hurts people, behaves like an asshole, because he just can.

Oh if you only knew....I feel bad for you, ...truly.

*THAN

*YOUR

#Welcome 🙇🏼‍♀️

And these kilometer long posts with 8 different topics in one are fucking HIDEOUS. 🙄

[allmightluver]

**bnha spoilers** I'm just sat here with renewed realisation of what All Might is going through. 40 years. /40 years/ he held and refined that power and dedicated his every waking (and sleeping if Vigilantes is anything to go by) moment towards the goal of defeating AfO and creating a society in which people could feel happy and safe. And now as it turns out AfO is still alive, society is broken and he has given a literal piece of his soul to this young boy leaving himself with only phantoms

Yes. I don’t think people quite grasp what all he’s going through.

It’s been shown recently to us that some, if not most, heroes have underlying ambitions in becoming a hero. Whether for money, glory, fame, popularity, doesn’t matter. They’re ultimately in it for themselves. Toshinori’s intentions from the beginning have been the most pure- he wanted to be a symbol that people can look to and know things will be ok. A symbol of hope. This boy was only around 14 years old when he decided this. What kind of 14 year old sees the world that clearly? Sees that people have no hope, that a veil of darkness covers them. The only thing I can think of is- Toshinori did not have a good childhood. Something had to have happened to a boy that young to stop seeing the joy in life so early, and see the world’s flaws. Truthfully, I believe he was an outcast- due to his quirklessness. Most likely an orphan, perhaps abandoned by his parents, as we’ve never seen him have any family. I do truly believe Toshinori has been alone all his life. I don’t doubt more could have happened to him as a child before he met Nana. 

Some may argue that Izuku is the same age, and therefore it shouldn’t be that hard to see why Toshinori wanted to be a hero at such a young age. BUT, Izuku had someone to look up to, ever since he was a child of four years old, to inspire him to be a hero his whole life *cough cough* All Might. Izuku also was quirkless, much like Toshinori, and an outcast because of it (hence where I assume Toshinori was much the same). But ultimately, Izuku wanted to save people because he saw his hero do it. It really wasn’t until Izuku was a bit older, has been in UA, has been on rescue missions, has seen what the heroes see, that I think he’s truly realized how dark the world really is. Toshinori didn’t have that. He didn’t have someone to inspire him as a child, someone to look up to, a hero to inspire him to help others. At that time, heroes hadn’t become as popular as they are in present times. Toshinori saw the world for what it was, on his own, at a tender age. I think that day Nana ran into this blonde hair kid, she eyed him up, noticed his scraggly form, looked into those captivating blue eyes, and saw a man who’s lived through the world’s horrors- experienced the worst it has to offer-, and wants to save everyone he can from the same fate, all in a 14 year old boy. 

Then after only a few short years with the woman he saw as his mother, she’s killed in front of him because of his own weakness- he wasn’t strong enough yet to protect her. The only other person his life, Gran Torino, literally abused him. He beat him to a pulp, taking his own emotions out on a teenager, and I doubt Toshinori said anything of it. He probably thought he deserved it. He’s still afraid of Gran Torino to this day, remembering the beatings and expecting more for his failures- even if he doesn’t know what they are surely he’s at fault for something, but he’s the only person who’s stood by his side for this long. Even while at a distance, and spouting nothing but criticisms along the way. But Toshinori had to put aside his own emotions to be that hope for everyone. He left everything he knew to go to a new country on his own, to learn how to be a hero, to be that hope for someone.

Vigilantes showed us just how hard he worked. Toshinori literally stayed awake with no sleep for days on end- 3 in the chapter I’m referencing- because people needed help, people needed saving, and no one else stepped up. He fought villains, rescued civilians, repaired damage, cleared rubble, (even accept and eat food that was against his dietary restrictions after his injury) whatever the public needed, all while draining himself further. He worked himself to the point of exhaustion because he had no help, once literally falling asleep while mid-leap across the city because he simply could go no further. 

^^These happen in succession of each other^^

No one stepped up to say “Hey, Mr. Number 1, you’ve been working hard lately. Let me help you!” No one tried to take over his position. Even the Number 2 hero, Endeavor, never tried to take some of his burden. His only goal was to try to be better than All Might in terms of power- he was never trying to be the hero that the people relied on All Might for. Everyone relied on him when things looked grim. He was the back up plan. And all of this happened before Toshinori’s injury. 

The only thing he ever wanted to do- help people- he can’t do (at least the way he’s always known how to). The ability to save people has been taken from him in the most gruesome way. He was finally able to fight the man that killed Nana, and in a rage that I’m sure echoed with all of the emotions of the previous users, he smashed that man’s head like a grape. But not without consequence. Several organs are gone. The pain is excruciating. He wears that man’s mark on his body for the rest of his life, never truly able to rid himself of the filth.

Then we have Nighteye’s betrayal. The man that helped him as a sidekick, the man that grew to be his only friend. Now some people may ask why Toshinori flipped like he did to Nighteye looking into his future when he was concerned about him making it through his injury. What I believe is Toshinori didn’t want to know when he would die (and really, who does). Now he knows he’s on a time limit, knows the clock is ticking. Time is running out to keep the world at peace, and with him as he is now, how long can this go on? 

I think the betrayal, doing something that Toshinori specifically asked him not to do, is what hurt the most. How can he trust Nighteye anymore? He already can only count on one hand the people he can trust, let alone befriend.

He’s wasted away into a skeleton, a shell of the man he used to be. He can’t over exert himself without his only lung bleeding in protest. It’s canon in the side books that he really doesn’t eat much, which isn’t good for his diet without a stomach now (he’s supposed to have several small meals a day). He is quite literally punishing himself by starving. (Granted, he doesn’t feel hunger anymore.) He’s a sick man, beyond medical help at this point. They can only stabilize him and hope for the best. For five years now he’s in constant pain, every day. He loses blood like sweat. Surely his veins are bruised and collapsed with how many times he would have needed to be hospitalized. Whether from losing too much blood, being too dehydrated or starved from “forgetting” to eat, or an organ failing as body continues to fall apart. “...even as my body rots and grows frail...” - Toshinori People are bound to stare at him as he walks down the street. A tall, willowy, skeleton with a grimace on his face and blood stains on his clothes as he coughs up more into his own hands. There would be the ones who outright ignore him when they walk by, the people who offer pitying smiles and sympathetic glances or just outright stare, and then ones who are afraid of his appearance- children screaming at the mere sight of him and running to their parents to hide from the monster. Each one is another knife in Toshinori’s side, an ache in his chest. If only they knew who I really am.

Losing Nighteye took a toll on his hero work as well. Mirai was a huge help in the past, and took care of all Toshinori’s paperwork, while also reminding him to take care of himself. Without him, Toshinori was even more buried beneath his responsibilities. Plus, now he was on a time limit. He even snapped briefly in his first meeting with Tsukauchi, accidentally revealing himself as All Might because he was under too much pressure, and telling the detective he literally couldn’t handle doing everything by himself (who graciously took over the paperwork side of things for him). 

He was living a double life now, having to lie to people left and right about who he was while in his small form, about how he became so sickly, why he was here in the first place who the heck is this skinny old guy. Surely he had multiple visits to the doctor while continuing to repair the damage done by AFO (there’s a limit to how much the body can handle at once. And things I’m sure continued to fail as time went on). Then he would be bedridden for as long as the doctors could keep him strapped to a bed, until he couldn’t take the people’s cries for help any longer, and would jump into action. (It’s also revealed he has something of a super hearing- able to hear danger- which may have been a form of danger sense of OFA that was never fully unlocked?. Either way, he surly could sense disasters happening while he could only lay and heal from his latest surgery. Those poor doctors must have had to re-stitch him several times). People blame him for not preparing society for his retirement, that he failed in passing on the torch so to speak, but in reality he did everything possible to keep society from falling for 40 years, doing all within his power just to keep things afloat. He is only one person. One human being, he can’t do everything despite trying to. Society failed All Might.

People blame him for not being a good teacher. He didn’t exactly have the greatest teacher himself to learn from. He’s never had to teach anyone anything, he just punches! He’s learning. And for his own credit, he’s an incredibly wise man, he has years of experience under his belt, and an intelligence score of 6/6, scoring up there with Nezu! He may not always have the right way to bring something up, but he’s doing his best. Yet even he blames himself for Izuku not being able to control his quirk better. Every time the boy hurts himself, it’s just another tally on the chalkboard of Toshinori’s failures. He himself knows the boy deserves better, better than him. Useless. Pathetic.

Then his friend from America, Dave, essentially became a villain trying to preserve Toshinori’s legacy after Toshinori told him about his injury. Dave went behind his back, threatened people, injured people (pretty sure people died), all for Toshinori’s sake. Something he didn’t want to begin with. Having to put your only other friend in jail for trying to help you surely couldn’t have been easy.

Oh, by the way? All For One isn’t dead. All Might will fight him again, publicly, have his weakened form exposed to the world, and have his own emotions toyed with as he finds out about his master’s grandson in the villain’s hands. Would Nana hate him for leaving her son alone like she’d asked, and dooming her grandchild to be raised by the greatest villain? Could he have done anything to save him? But Toshinori isn’t allowed to feel, he has to smile and push his own feelings aside once again, because there’s a villain to be fought, and only he can fight him. Despite coming out on top, he’ll have suffered severe head trauma, broken left arm, destroyed right arm, and several cuts and bruises that are sure to scar. And then, his quirk, the only thing that’s been allowing him to help people, the gift given to him that he carefully held for 40 years and molded into his own until his very consciousness was permanently carved into it, blows out like a match in the wind. And he’s done. Used up. Empty. Broken. Hollow. Alone, again.

He overhears his student, Bakugo, admit that he blames himself for All Might’s retirement. If he hadn’t been captured, All Might wouldn’t have had to save him, and he wouldn’t have had to fight AFO. Of course Toshinori knows that’s not true, his time was about to run out anyway. It would have happened one way or another. But how can he explain to this child that he wasn’t the cause of his hero, the world’s greatest hero, fighting for his sake, bleeding for his sake, being forced into retirement to keep him safe. Every time Bakugo sees the bandages covering Toshinori’s body is another reminder of the pain and sacrifice Toshinori willingly gave to keep him safe. Toshinori wasn’t held when his mentor died. He wasn’t told it was ok to be sad, that grief and mourning was a natural process, that it takes time to heal. He wasn’t told it was ok to cry. Instead his feelings were beaten out of him as he wondered if Gran Torino blamed him for Nana’s death. He already blamed himself How then, does he comfort a child mourning for him? For what he lost.

And then he gets the call to come to the hospital. Mirai, Nighteye, his old sidekick friend, has been gravely injured, much like he himself was only a few years ago, and most likely won’t survive the night. And to his horror, Nighteye is happy to see him, smiles at him, says he doesn’t hate him for what happened, only wants Toshinori to be happy. He can’t accept that, at least let him apologize, reconcile his sins before it’s too late! But it is. Another fractured piece of his heart gone.

Of course, seeing your students beat up and their arms completely destroyed must have hurt. Instead of being able to save these kids, they’re the ones that hurt themselves to save everyone else. And if Bakugo had kept OFA, things could have been very different (especially with what we know now of OFA and people with quirks). Toshinori wasn’t mad at Izuku for transferring it away, he’d never regret choosing Izuku, and I believe he still would have stayed by Izuku and Bakugo’s side should it have stayed in Bakugo, doing whatever he could to help.

As he tells Aizawa, “I’ve decided to live,” -that statement seems so melancholy, besides obvious reasons. It sounds more like another task he has to accomplish. He didn’t die he was supposed to die with the AFO fight, and now the whole life he lived is over. The world has no use for him anymore. If not for Izuku, he’d have nothing left keeping him here. But because his boy made him promise to live, he’ll do so. Though it almost seems like he says those words with regret. “I’ve decided to live.” Not, “I’m going to live!” “Nothing can kill me!” “I won’t go down without a fight!” No. “I’ll live if I have to, only because you asked me to.” The man is obviously and outwardly depressed. He has so many things against him. No doubt has severe PTSD, anxiety, among others. Not to mention his own physical health. Every day hurts. It’s painful to be alive. Why would he torture himself if he doesn’t have to? For you, my boy. You’re the only thing keeping me here. The only light in my dark world.

He tries to help Izuku find out the previous holder’s quirks, to help his boy in any way he can now that he’s worthless, and goes days on end without sleep, running his body into the ground. He even forgets Christmas. Only to find that by giving the boy the same gift he had received, he may have just doomed him to an early death, among psychological torture (danger detection). (Granted, he really doesn’t know how everything works, and he’s afraid to talk to anyone about it). His boy could live only half a life.

It’s only been a few months since he retired, and society has fallen into shambles. People are blaming him. People are dying. He watches helplessly as his colleague fight his fight for him, and end up battered, bruised, crippled, dead. He students, his boy, battle the monster he should have killed. Children are bleeding. This shouldn’t happen. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Is everything he worked for, everything he fought to protect, to build up, to inspire, is all for naught?! Did he live a foolish dream and doom the world? Was all the the friends he lost, tears he shed, the organs he destroyed, the pain he endures on a daily basis from the hole in his side, and the blood he continues to bleed every day, for nothing? The public, the ones he protected for so long, mourn his absence, but surely there are those among them who also blame him. The statue from his last fight in Kamino one that he never asked for was decimated in a mock of his catch phrase- the one that was supposed to give hope.

Now he can feel his own vestige speaking with Izuku in the OFA realm, even with out OFA in his own body anymore. His clock as nearly reached it’s limit, Nighteye’s prediction is due any day now. The only thing he wants is to see his boy smile at him, to give him some shred of hope. Yet the child remains unconscious, and Toshinori can’t even hold his hand from the bandages covering his arms. Will he still be able to fight? Is there any coming back from this now? Did I break him?

With all Toshinori has been through, I’m honestly surprised we haven’t seen him just outright break down. Anyone, anyone, else should have crumbled under the pressure of holding up the world for 40 years alone. And instead of being able to pass it on to someone when he can no longer bear its weight, it simply falls to into the abyss. People don’t credit All Might enough for everything he’s done. Most don’t realize the sacrifices he’s made. His character is so unbelievably profound and deep, it’s more than just the “I am here!” people focus on. He’s a deeply troubled, layered, complex character. And I can’t find fault within him.

[floral-poisons]

twst characters: idols

who knew you could have so many shower thoughts! i was listening to some music when i began to trail off and think about how the twisted wonderland cast would be as idols. so here’s another shower thought post.

for reference, we are going with each dorm being its own idol group/act that is under one company, nrc. you just happen to be the new manager of all these groups.

NRC STAFF

the senior group. they’re the super juniors of nrc. except for mozus who’s their manager. dire crowley is the member that’s appeared the least on variety shows after the group called for retirement. no doubt the visuals used to be sam and divus. ashton joined after their debut and even though he was older, he was still considered the baby of the group. nowadays they all specialize in helping train new idols and trainees.

DIASOMNIA

diasomnia is the idol group that everyone forgets is an idol group. rather, they’re a band instead similar to day6 and the rose. their music takes direct inspiration from rock. their key visual and leader is malleus draconia, who also is the lead vocalist in the band. lilia vanrouge is the eccentric guitarist who’s bat themed fashion has taken over the alt space. younger members sebek zigvolt and silver occupy the drums and keyboard interchangably. it has stirred a lot of debate within the fandom over who is better at which instrument.

HEARTSLABYUL

heartslabyul is probably nrc’s newest and coolest group. currently they have a pop sound but their leader riddle rosehearts has expressed he wants to branch into different sounds later on in their career. heartslabyul is probably the most idol group out there. all members are trained in singing and dancing. they sound like current day bts. trey clover is their primary songwriter and music producer. cater diamond is seen as the visual of the group and he’s also the most active on social media and hosts the most lives. younger members ace trappola and deuce spade are vocalists and both are treated as the maknae of the group. it’s also very humorous to watch them not get along.

POMEFIORE

pomefiore is a powerhouse of a group. not only are they all beautiful but they’re all extremely talented. all of them are triple threats. pomefiore’s music leans more towards a bubblegum pop sound with a mature undertone. despite being a music group, each individual member has branched into separate solo careers. vil schoenheit, while an amazing singer with immense charisma, is an actor and has been cited to be BETTER as an actor. rook hunt became qualified for being a national archer and is expected to participate in the next olympics. epel felmier has started a career as a social media influencer and a model. some people have criticized that pomefiore is more like a collaboration between soloists than it is a group.

SAVANACLAW

savanaclaw is quite similar to diasomnia in that it’s more of a band than an idol group. the group specializes in pop punk music (sometimes dipping their toes in emo) and due to their similarities, the fandoms of savanaclaw and diasomnia clash about which group is the better one. leona kingscholar is their extremely talented songwriter and singer who plays the guitar. he’s a ladies’ man and women go wild over him. ruggie bucchi is tech savvy and the bassist for the band, often hosting lives in order to let the fans get to know the band more. he is a popular idol due to being transparent about his origins which makes him more relatable. jack howl, the youngest member, is a talented drummer who was rejected by multiple companies before being taken in by nrc.

OCTAVINELLE

octavinelle is a group that puts a new spin on jazz. the smooth songs are songs that everyone can fall asleep too not to mention they’re also really long. octavinelle has the famous leech twins jade and floyd. floyd’s instrument of choice differs depending on his mood but he does specialize in the drums and is very good at it. sometimes he even collaborates with the scarabia duo. jade has been a prodigy in the saxophone since he was a child. the way he can hold air in his lungs is truly amazing. azul ashengrotto is their poster boy and the singer of the band. he truly has a smooth, amazing voice and a charm that a lot of people cannot ignore.

SCARABIA

scarabia is a duo group that stands out for their colorful music videos and their very pop sound and the fact that they’re unapologetic with leaning into their female fanbase. they’re also known as the best dancers in nrc. kalim al-asim is a particularly extremely talented dancer who seems to have an unlimited amount of stamina. how he sings and dances so intensely is truly incomprehensible. jamil viper writes the songs and choreographs the dances but usually will take suggestions from kalim.

IGNIHYDE

ignihyde is a one man show. idia shroud is a soloist and he takes his younger brother ortho with him everywhere to help ease his anxiety. his music is known to be more electronic than pop centric. nevertheless, he’s quite popular due to his shyness. there’s not a lot of information out there and the mystique only adds to the number of fans.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 308: VIBE: CHECKED

Previously on BnHA: Lots and lots of Shindou idk what else to tell you.

Today on BnHA: Tired Nomad Deku rescues Shindou from Muscular, and us from Shindou. Muscular is all “OH BOY I SURE CAN’T WAIT TO FIGHT DEKU AGAIN AFTER HE TOTALLY KICKED MY ASS THE LAST TIME!! I’M SURE THIS TIME WILL GO DIFFERENTLY SEEING AS HE’S HAD ALMOST AN ENTIRE YEAR’S WORTH OF ADDITIONAL TRAINING, AND ALSO HAS SIX FOURQUIRKS NOW, IN ADDITION TO THE CONFIDENCE THAT COMES WITH HAVING EIGHT OTHER PEOPLE’S SOULS CHILLING OUT INSIDE HIM OFFERING MORAL SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT.” Deku is all, “[kicks Muscular’s ass effortlessly].” Muscular is all, “[gets his ass totally kicked].” I for one am very satisfied with this, and with respect to all, I would like to hereby declare this post a discourse-free zone. I’m just happy to see my son out here making good use of his FOURQUIRKS, and more importantly beating Muscular in less than seventeen pages so we can all go on with our lives lol.

damn Deku since when were you allowed to look this cool

from this perspective and with the smoke, cape, backpack, and mask more or less obscuring his actual profile, he looks less like a sixteen-year-old boy and more like a grownass man

OH SNAP

we got a glimpse of this in the cleaned-up scan of 307, but seeing both of his eyes looking so distinctively All Might-esque here is... whoa. I mean we know that his face still looks pretty normal underneath the mask and he doesn’t actually have the black sclera, but still, this is an awesome look. mini-Might

lol Muscular

you and me both. I mean no offense, but yeah

so Deku is just standing there silently

typical Deku. tight-lipped and expressionless. mum’s the word. quiet as a mouse. silent as a grave

okay no but seriously this is so weird and creepy though you guys. Deku please say something or else I’m just gonna mindlessly say whatever stupid things come into my head in an effort to make things less awkward

so Muscular is all “I should probably make a cool speech about revenge but Horikoshi couldn’t think of anything good so I’m just going to stand here clenching my fist real slowly”

“I’m not here to go on a monologue” he says, as he monologues about not monologuing

okay you guys I confess I have only read through/watched the Deku VS Muscular fight once because the arm-breaking is just way too uncomfortable for me to revisit. and so as a result, I have completely forgotten Whatever The Deal Is with Muscular’s eye lmao so let me go look it up real quick

okay so it’s a prosthetic, obviously, and he changes it out according to his mood. that part does sound familiar. I just can’t remember which eye is supposed to indicate which mood. don’t tell me I actually have to go back and reread this shit

lol I’m skimming through chapter 75 now and remembering/realizing that I hardly paid any attention to this the first time around because as soon as I found out the villains were after Kacchan my brain was like “TIME TO FOCUS ON THIS AND ONLY THIS NOW AND FOREVER” and yeah. ah memories

anyway so he started out with the flower-looking eye, and then later on he was all

which begs the question, how on earth could I have ever forgotten the most ridiculous panel I’ve ever read lmao

anyway, but so after all of that, I'm only just now realizing that this isn't one of his previous eye prosthetics in the current chapter; this is an ACTUAL FUCKING ROCK that he's just randomly shoved into his eye socket fkdsjlk

so basically (1) I did all of that painstaking research for nothing, five whole minutes of my life wasted THANKS A LOT, and (2) what, and I have never meant this more emphatically, THE FUCK

anyway so now he's leaping at the building that Deku is standing on top of. but he’s not aiming anywhere near Deku though, wtf

(ETA: HAHA YOU BROKE ALL YOUR MUSCLES YOU LOSER.)

...huh

lmao okay then. I hope those annoying citizens in the building next door are watching this go down and rethinking their life choices

dlkdkljk

just keep standing there pressed right up against the window, why don’t you. “WHAT’S GOING ON THIS SUPER CLOSE COLLAPSING BUILDING IS BLOCKING OUR VIEW.” well, folks, we’ve long since known there’s a critical shortage of hero and villain brain cells, but what we’re learning now is that civilian brain cells are also in short supply

OH THANK GOD DEKU IS FINALLY TALKING THAT WAS ACTUALLY UNSETTLING AS FUCK

SO HE’S STILL OUR GOOD, POLITE, WORRIED, CONSIDERATE DEKU UNDERNEATH THAT COOL AND MYSTERIOUS VENEER. for real, thank fuck, because I swear to god if he suddenly started acting like the Dekus in all of the vigilante AUs my interest in this series would have dropped something like 50% lol. just because he dropped out of school and ran away from home and is currently dressed like the physical manifestation of a Linkin Park playlist doesn’t mean he’s not still the WORLD’S BIGGEST DORK okay

I MEAN, THIS RIGHT HERE. THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. HE’S APOLOGIZING FOR THE DELAY

PLEASE FIND THE ATTACHED SHINDOU YOU REQUESTED. BEST REGARDS!!!

OH MY GOD WHY IS HE SUCH A BADASS

something about making bold, confident statements while obscured in smoke?? idk but damn it fucking works

ffjkkl

more importantly, should you tell him you actually need your copy of Shindou in excel format and not pdf?? on the one hand you don’t want to sound ungrateful, but on the other hand what are you even supposed to do with this

this chapter so far consists of like 50% smoke, but on the other hand Deku VS Kacchan 2 had a lot of cinematic smoke too so who am I to complain

OMG IS IT HIS ARMS

IDK DID YOU?! TELL ME YOUR SECRETS. PLEASE, AT SOME POINT THIS FIGHT HAS GOT TO ACTUALLY ADVANCE THE PLOT

OHHHHHHH

IT’S EN’S QUIRK!! OH MY GOD OKAY THAT’S ACTUALLY AWESOME

I CAN HEAR THE SOUND OF DISCOURSE RUMBLING IN THE BACKGROUND BUT I DON’T CARE LOL. WON’T CATCH ME EVER SAYING NO TO ANOTHER SIXQUIRK. GO AHEAD, BRING THEM ON, I WANT TO SEE THEM ALL but take it easy though Deku. don’t want to give yourself lung cancer or anything

also it’s good to see that in a very real sense he’s not fighting alone. the Vestiges really did mean it when they said they could appear more easily now. this is on a whole other level

so is this whole next page still En talking, or someone else? because whoever it is sure is chatty

okay, several things

pretty sure it is En, because he keeps saying “I suppose.” for someone who never said two words until one page ago, this guy sure never shuts up. we can’t all follow Muscular’s lead I suppose. oh my god now I’m doing it too

really like the suggestion of Deku using the SIXQUIRKS like tools in an arsenal, because that’s what he’s good at! it’s almost like he’s been training for this his entire life. “you value quirks too much” LOOK HE JUST THINKS THEY’RE COOL OKAY IS THAT A CRIME

where the fuck did all this rope come from

not gonna ask what the fuck that thing is sticking out from the back of his utility belt. Horikoshi will surely explain this

is that a fucking jetpack. I’m sorry Deku were six fucking quirks not enough for you. you can fucking float??? but JUST TO BE SAFE, LET’S STRAP A PAIR OF ROCKETS TO OUR SHOULDERS IDK

-- or wait, is this all supposed to be like a visual representation of En’s metaphor?? OH MY GOD AM I JUST STUPID LOL, DON’T ANSWER THAT. NEVER MIND. NEW LIST!!

rope = blackwhip

jetpack = float

radio = danger sense

and so I’m guessing that this ridiculously phallic thing is supposed to be a flare or something?? and that = the new quirk, smokescreen. well that was a fucking ride lmao we now return you to our regularly scheduled chapter

so now Deku is floating to his heart’s content and thinking that he’ll just sneak up on Muscular and vibe check his ass or whatever

WOOOOOOOO DANGER SENSE YESSSS I LOVE THIS FOR HIM

okay guys, I'm gonna press pause here for a sec to make a serious note, because I am loving the shit out of this, but tbh I'm having trouble enjoying it as much as I want to because I keep getting anxious thinking about the discourse. I know that a lot of the fandom has very strong opinions on Deku's character development one way or the other, and I want to respect that. but I also really have no spoons to debate this topic at all beyond what I’ve already weighed in on. so if it’s all the same to everyone, I plan on staying out of this discussion, at least this week

anyway! that said, YEAH BOI GET HIS ASS

VIBE: CHECKED. CURB: STOMPED. HOTEL: TRIVAGO

-- OF COURSE HE’S STILL FUCKING FINE LOL HE CRASHES INTO BUILDINGS FOR FUN IDK WHAT I WAS EXPECTING

dammit Muscular. how many fucking quirks does it take to beat you?! the annoying thing is that even with all of his cool new powers, Deku is still something of a mismatch against him. anyway r.i.p. to all these poor buildings

OOOOOHHHHH

you guys have no idea how intrigued I am at the prospect of watching Deku try to play both good cop and bad cop here lmao

anyway so Muscular says he doesn’t know, go figure

“I’m not here to make small talk or anything” he says as he small talks about not small talking

OH MY GOD DEKU

are you really gonna talk no jutsu all of these villains from now on?? that last battle really did have a profound impact on you, huh! interesting

you guys he’s really doing it omg

Deku this guy tried to murder a five-year-old literally just for fun. I mean more power to you, but holy shit you’re really gonna try to defeat Muscular with anger management therapy huh

I MEAN

WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THAT RESPONSE COMING dlkjslkjk

FUCK’S SAKE DEKU, I KNOW YOU MEAN WELL BUT THEY CAN’T ALL HAVE TRAGIC PASTS KIDDO

but. I have to admit, I do still like that he tried. probably knew just as well as we did what the end result was going to be, but still. he made the effort in good faith and I respect that

uh oh

why do I get the feeling Muscular just got a whole lot deader

oh my god oh my god he’s doing the “powering up” stance ffff don’t fucking tell me you can still use your fucking arms here, Deku

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY WHAT’S THIS??

okay so basically he’s saying that whatever it was he sensed in Tomura, he doesn’t sense from Muscular. which, yeah, that sounds exactly right. good judge of character here lol

AHHHHAHAHA YESS

WHOOPS, GET FUCKED I GUESS

WOOOOHOOOOOOOO

lmao so apparently this is the belated result of Shindou’s attack from chapter 307?? I’ll be damned. good for you Shindou!! I always liked you buddy. please just take my word on that and don’t fact check that statement

okay lol the one tiny bit of discourse I will allow is that it’s bullshit that he just did that with his right arm. like, I’ll fully acknowledge that. that makes no fucking sense, and I demand an explanation from the Great Plot Hole Filler himself. he’s never let us down before when it comes to continuity so I’m trusting him not to suddenly start now

that said, we love to see a rematch against a boring guy settled quickly and decisively within the span of a single chapter. THANK YOU

I like that Deku implies that his power is being a smart nerd who battles villains using the power of ANALYTICS. he basically didn’t do anything except restrain Muscular and wait for Shindou’s attack to take effect while halfheartedly checking to see if he regretted any of that murder and stuff

(ETA: and almost forgot to mention, he made excellent use of all four of his active SIXQUIRKS. it’s like the chapter title said; this is basically him fighting all-out, and it’s a sight to see.)

also, as cool as the mask was, this just feels right. like, we had our fun, now let us see his face, yes good

anyway, I think this was a good start towards establishing What’s Up With Deku Right Now! so if it’s all the same to Horikoshi, I would next like to take some time to explore Why’s Up With Deku. that, and What’s Up With Everyone Else, Especially Kacchan. por favor

[army-of-mai-lovers]

in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough. 

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.” 

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!” 

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role. 

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all. 

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.” 

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.” 

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka  repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--   

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~” 

y’all WHAT. 

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back. 

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai. 

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too. 

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!” 

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse. 

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.) 

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal  adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out. 

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)  

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”  

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show. 

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.” 

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process. 

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring. 

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what? 

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her. 

Conclusion    

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked. 

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here. 

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice. 

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us. 

[foli-vora]

more than words, pt.3

A/N: Thank you for all the love! 🥺🥰 overwhelmed by the reaction I’ve had to this story! Super excited that so many of you are coming along for the ride! There is a tag list for this—let me know if you’d like to be added! (I apologise if I’ve missed anyone!) I hope you enjoy! ❤️

Pairing: Francisco ‘Catfish’ Morales x f!reader, best friend!Benny Miller x f!reader

Word count: 3.3k

Warnings: swearing, alcohol, general first date nerves that trigger my anxiety x10

pt.1 / pt.2 / pt.4 / pt.5 / pt.6

+

He was trying to listen. He really was, but God, how many times can you hear the same thing over and over and over again before you start to drift away from the conversation? He knew the answer. He had a very short attention span when it came to certain subjects – he’ll admit that freely – so when you continued to gush about his best friend, his main man, naturally his attention fell to the couple seemingly having an argument by their truck in the parking lot. Hmm… wonder what they’re fighting about? He purses his lips, watching the girl deliver one hell of a slap across her boyfriend’s face and strut away, tears streaking mascara down her face. Cheater. Definitely a cheater.

“Benny? Are you even listening to me?”

His eyes roll back to you, taking in your narrowed eyes and angry chewing as a slice of pizza dangles from your hand. Was he listening? Well, he did for the first few minutes… does that still count?

He finally answers, tone flat and uninterested. “No.”

“Ben.”

He shrugs, gesturing to the scene outside the window with a flick of his head. “Malibu barbie just smacked the shit out of her beau.”

Your head snaps to where he was looking, shamelessly curious. “Cheater?”

“That’s my bet.”

You both fall quiet, watching the strangers play out a scene that really should belong in a cringe-worthy daytime reality show while you chew. It’s almost depressing, how eagerly you both watch someone else’s life seemingly crumble in public. But the longer they scream and cry, the longer they yell and fight, the harder it is to tear your eyes away.

“Shit.” Benny sighs, reclining in the booth and stretching his arms up and behind him once the couple in conflict goes their separate ways. “That was the most interesting thing that happened to me all week.”

“Not me,” you sing with a smile, fondly remembering the phone calls and texts you had been sharing with Frankie the past few days. Benny sighs in irritation, neck cracking as he rolls his head on his shoulders.

“I swear, if you talk any more about Fish, I’m gonna throw myself out of this fuckin’ window.” He levels you with a challenging stare, lips twitching as you eye the glass critically. “I’ll do it, too. Try me.”

Deflating, you sag in your seat and fiddle with the peeling label on your beer bottle, realising with a wave of slight shame that you had been talking about Frankie ever since you sat down at the table. “I’m sorry, Benny. I’m just excited. He seems really cool, and nice, and –”

“Alright then.” He stands abruptly, kneeling on the worn leather to brace a shoulder against the glass panel with a look of severe concentration.

“Okay! I’m sorry, I’m sorry – sit down, you idiot!” Laughing loudly, you tug at his shirt until he sits with a lazy grin and you shake your head. “God, you are such a child, Benjamin.”

He snorts, pinching a cold fry from the basket in the middle of the table and waving it at you. “You love me.”

Grinning, you snatch it from his fingers, and chew it loudly, grinning at his pout. “I sure do, especially when you set me up with your gorgeous fri–”

He groans loudly, “Enough, woman. I’ll throw you out of this fuckin’ window in a minute. Get me another beer.”

-

“You’re callin’ the wrong friend, angel.” Benny drawls lazily, “I’m no good with these kinds of pep talks.”

“Benny, I’m freaking out, please –”

The car feels small, cramped. The open windows letting in the cool evening air does nothing for you trying to suck in a lungful of oxygen as you pull nervously at your jacket. Have you overdressed? Underdressed? What would he be wearing? You hadn’t been on a first date in months.

“Look, I can almost guarantee you he’s somewhere having this exact conversation with another friend of mine. You’re both stress heads. Just relax – he’s gonna love you.”

You stare vacantly at your steering wheel, swallowing around the lump of anxiety stuck in your throat. “I think I’m gonna puke.”

He snorts in amusement, “Well, if you���re gonna do it, do it now – puking on the poor guy isn’t a first date thing. And don’t forget to rinse your mouth out.”

Leave it to the younger Miller to make you feel ten times worse. “Oh God. Ben –”

“You’ll be fine. Now get out of your car.”

“But –”

“Get. Out. of your car.” He waits, listening intently to the mechanical whirr of your windows as they close, smiling when he hears the loud thump of your car door shutting. “There we go. Now breathe, and get marchin’ – you got this. And don’t call me again – I’m watching a fight. Pay per view isn’t cheap.”

“Right. Sorry. Thanks Benny.”

“Anytime, angel. Have fun.”

You ring your hands as you start walking the short distance to the bar, running through a last-minute check of your appearance. Nothing in your teeth. No stains on your clothes. You fidget with the hem of your skirt, brushing the non-existent dirt from the fabric and making sure it’s not horrifically tucked in to your underwear at the back.

Oh God, your palms are so sweaty. What if he shakes your hand? His hand will slide right off. He’d be mortified. Who even goes for a handshake on a first date anyways? You’re being silly. Everything’s fine. You look great. Did you put deodorant on?

The twisting of your stomach and panicked rush of thoughts thankfully pause when your eyes catch Frankie standing outside the bar, hands buried deep in his pockets and dark eyes flickering around at the passers-by somewhat nervously. When they land on you, the apprehension seems to melt from his shoulders and he grins. Unable to stop the smile creeping on your face in response, you now walk without the sick feeling of anxiety creeping up your throat.

He strides forward to greet you, and for a brief second, you wonder how you should greet him. It’s not like you were strangers, per se, you had been talking on the phone all week, but where did you stand in the physical sense? Certainly not a handshake.

Throwing caution to the wind, you bounce forward and greet him with a hug, hoping to high heaven he doesn’t push you away and call the whole thing off.

He doesn’t.

Inwardly screaming, you melt at the feeling of a pair of strong arms winding around your waist, a small quiet chuckle brushing past your ear. Oh shit, oh fuck… he smells divine.

“Hi,” you mutter shyly when you pull away, a flush of warmth flooding through you from top to toe when he smiles kindly and hovers only a step away.

“Hi,”

You can’t help but admire his features up close; the ones that were lost on the photo Ben had shown you when first trying to convince you into this arrangement. His eyes were a lot darker, tousled curls longer than they had looked when they were hidden under a well-loved hat. A light flush of pink sweeps up his neck and along his cheeks, and you watch it fondly with a wild flutter of your heart.

Okay, you could just stand here all night and stare at him, but that might freak him out a little… maybe try speaking. Talk. Just talk. Say something smart – something stimulating. First date impressions and all that.

“It’s fucking freezing.”

What? No. You did not just say that. Seriously? That’s what had to bubble from your mouth? Are you kidding?

You want to face palm, want to just turn around and march right back to your car with a text to Benny saying ‘thanks, but we can’t be friends anymore’ and just disappear from the face of the Earth. God, he’s going to give you so much shit for this.

Thankfully though, Frankie doesn’t seem bothered by your blurted out statement in the slightest, and even grins, nodding in agreement.

“Yeah, it is.” He watches you shift on your feet, smile widening just a little more at the look of complete horror that had just washed your features before he had spoken, and then half turns, “Shall we?” Oh God, what was that? Pope’s gonna kill him. You’ve got his head in a complete spin and now he’s forgotten Pope’s whole pep talk. Shit. Shit. Be cool. Be cool... what the fuck does ‘be cool’ even mean?

The bar’s warm when you both walk in side by side, Frankie’s hand placed softly on your lower back as he leads you to the bar, and then through to a spare table, nestled out of the way and tucked into the farthest corner after he buys your drinks. He lets you sit first, and you’re pleasantly surprised when he stays close and, instead of sitting opposite you, he sits to your right, knees bumping yours softly under the table.

It’s not until you both sit, quiet and fiddling with your beers while sharing nervous smiles, that you remember something you had been meaning to ask all day.

“Oh. How did Mena’s appointment go?” You ask immediately, recalling his slight worry the day before over her slightly warmer than normal forehead and uncharacteristic crankiness. Your stomach plummets when he shoots you a startled look.

Oh no… have you blown it? Were you not meant to ask about kids on the first date or something? What were the rules for this kind of thing? You’d never dated someone with a baby, you had no idea what was okay to ask and what wasn’t. You guys had literally only just sat down, and here you were, ruining it already. That’s got to be the quickest end to a date, well… ever.

Panic creases your features and you frown in worry, “Sorry, should I – should I not have said anything? I’m sorry, I’ve never –”

“No, no – you’re fine! I just… I didn’t expect you to remember.” And then he smiles. Blindingly. The dread crushing your chest quickly morphs into something sweeter, something that has your heart quickening. “She’s okay – she’s getting her molars. Thank you for asking.”

You smile, turning bashful under the pure admiration shining in his eyes, and shrug lightly.

“It’s alright. I was worried for you.” You’re quiet when you admit it, unsure if that’s something you should be upfront about with only knowing him for such a short period, but he seems to take it in stride, smiling fondly at you and reaching a hand to cover yours softly. The immediate heat from his skin encompasses yours, shooting wave after wave of electric tingles up your arm and straight to your chest.

If your pulse was racing before, it’s downright wild now.

He flushes when your fingers part ever so slightly, letting his nestle in between yours, and then you’re smiling at each other, laughing quietly as the awkwardness all but evaporates.

You talk about everything. Growing up, moving around, Frankie’s time in the military being a pilot. You have so many questions, but pick up on the wave of tension that rolls through him at the mention of flying. For a short moment, you wonder why he didn’t want to talk about such an achievement – being a pilot was incredible, but not wanting to ruin the easy-going atmosphere that had fallen over you both, you leave the topic of flying instantly, and switch for talking about Mena, thankful to see the light return immediately to his eyes as he gushes about his little girl.

“Can I ask a question?” You ask sometime later in the evening, now comfortably closer to Frankie as your legs tangle under the table.

He hums, sipping on his third beer and nodding, “Of course.”

You watch your fingers play with his on the table, before grinning up at him slyly, “Why ‘Catfish’?”

He groans, throwing his head back with a chuckle, and wipes a hand across his face.

“My whiskers.” He finally admits with a playfully defeated sigh. When you frown in confusion, his grin widens, and he scratches his fingers along his jaw and through the patch of facial hair. “The guys used to give me shit because I can’t grow much more than this.” He gestures to his face, rolling his eyes. “Used to say I had whiskers – like a catfish, apparently.” He chuckles, shrugging light heartedly. “It just seemed to stick after a while.”

You’re laughing, and it keeps the smile planted firmly on his face. What a sound.

“Well, it’s an interesting nickname, but I think I prefer Frankie.”

He softens, unable to resist melting closer to you, and nods, “Me too.”

He likes the way you say it… sweetly, softly. He’s desperate to hear it fall from your lips more, in all sorts of ways.

Disappointment floods you both when you notice the late hour, Frankie explaining dejectedly that he should probably go and relieve his babysitter before said babysitter gets too comfortable with his refrigerator and the beer in there. You can hear the fondness in his voice when he tells you about his sitter for the evening, Mena’s tío – another close friend of Benny’s apparently – as you leave the bar, his hand automatically falling to tangle with yours.

“I’m this way,” you point a thumb over your shoulder, fully expecting to say your goodbyes outside the brightly lit bar, but frowning in slight confusion when he merely nods and starts to walk the way to your car.

“Oh – are you parked over here, too?”

He shakes his head, pointing to the complete opposite direction. “No, I’m over there. I don’t want you to walk to your car alone.”

Your insides turn to jelly, smiling to yourself as you grip his hand a little tighter. Thoughtful. He returns your smile, but hates that you seem so surprised by the notion of being walked to your car in the dark. What kind of losers had you dated previously that either didn’t walk you safely to your car?

“Thank you for tonight, Frankie.”

He grins, thumb rubbing soft circles over your knuckles. “Thank you – I had a great time.”

“Next time, it’s my treat.” You say, hoping you weren’t thinking too much of something that wasn’t there. Would he even want a second date? Was he just being polite saying he had a good time? Is that what people said before never calling them again?

Unbeknownst to you, Frankie was having a hard time reigning in the enthusiastic excitement that had flooded through him the second you had spoken. You wanted another date? With him? He had to mash his teeth together to stop the eager grin threatening to break his face completely in half. Thank God he hadn’t blown it. You were… God. You were fucking incredible. He owed Benny – big time.

“I can deal with that,” he eventually agrees, face warm and giddy at the prospect of taking you out again.

You turn and envelope him in a hug when you reach your car, breathing in one final lungful of whatever delicious aftershave he had used, and smile to yourself against his shirt when he folds his arms around you, a hand cupping the back of your head to keep you pressed tightly against him.

Pulling back to say one final goodbye, you’re struck by how close his face seems, eyes flicking across his face before meeting his dark ones.

Suddenly trapped in a gaze that had a fire licking up your spine, your breath goes in a stuttered exhale. Rough fingertips trace your jaw, and then you’re holding your breath entirely as he leans in closer. Anticipation kicks in, heart thumping through your chest as he closes the distance much slower than you would like, and you fight away the wave of impatience that screams at you to just push forward and kiss him.

You don’t expect him to stop however, only a breath away from your lips, and you panic for a small second, wondering if you’re doing something wrong, but when he murmurs a quiet question, it takes all the strength in your legs to not fall to the fucking ground in a lump of melted goo.

“Can I kiss you?”

God yes. Please.

Unable to stop the shy smile that tugs at your lips, you try not to nod too eagerly and definitely fail miserably. You want this, more than what you’ve ever felt with anyone else. Frankie had you feeling like a giddy teenager with a huge crush and you were desperate to feel more of it, to see where it goes and what it could develop into.

At your nod of approval, he moves in the rest of the way, hand moving to cup the side of your neck below your ear, and he sighs lightly when your soft lips finally meet his. The kiss is tender, warm, and does nothing to soothe your raging pulse. He can’t hear your heartbeat, can he? God, can you hear his? He briefly worries, but when your lips move against his, his mind blanks.

His moustache tickles your lip, nose bumps gently with yours. Your hands find his chest, fingers gripping at the soft material, and for a moment it feels like you two are the only ones in existence, floating in a hazy whirl of space.

You take a minute to open your eyes when he eventually pulls away, and when you do, you find him gazing at you with a shy smile and a rosy flush across his cheeks. Lashes fluttering as you blink, you try to get a hold of your heart beating heavily against your ribs while your lips tingle from the aftershocks of his kiss.

Holy shit.

Before you can even think it through, his shirt tangles in your scrunched fist and you pull him back to you, replanting your lips against his with a desperate urgency he meets head on and returns eagerly. His hands, previously gentle, now grip at your waist, squeezing the flesh greedily as you let him walk you back into the side of your car. The metal is cold, even through your jacket, and you arch into him, moaning softly when his tongue traces your lip.

Your knees buckle when his tongue tangles with yours, and he presses you harder into the car to stop you dropping.

“Holy shit.” He breathes huskily after separating, lips widening into a grin when he sees you mirroring his breathlessness. You giggle softly, the fire roaring in your stomach turning into an affectionate warmth that floods your system when he brushes his nose along yours tenderly. “You’re so beautiful.”

“Stop.” Your smile turns shy, teeth digging into your lips as he chuckles again, dark eyes shining. He watches you wrangle your breathing into something semi normal, glad he wasn’t the only one that got swept up and carried away with the moment. 

He traces your cheek, planting one more, less hungry and more affectionate, kiss to your lips.

“Goodnight, mystery girl.”

“Goodnight, Frankie.”

He backs away, face split as he smiles, eyes admiring you before he turns and starts to meander away to wherever he was parked, turning to look at you over his shoulder every few steps. You climb into your car, grinning at the final wave he sends you before disappearing around the corner.

Finally alone in your car, you let out the disbelieving chuckle you’ve been keeping in all night, face feeling hot as the aftereffects of such a great date rests pleasantly in your stomach, mind running through every little moment of the night. Starting your car, you start the drive home, unable to stop touching your lips every so often, insides clenching at the memory of his lips moving against yours.

+

Tags: @anu-simps @seasonschange-butpeopledont @withasideofmeg @you-got-me-starry-eyed @emilykjh @peterhollandkait @sara-alonso @starlightsearches @bookishofalder @empress-palpat1ne @shadowolf993 @rosiefridayrogersunday @canyonmirrors​ @eoz-stuff @blackonemasie​ @layniapetrovnaaa @alberta-sunrise @goldielocks2004 @betterthanbucky​ @linkpk88​ @afootnoteofhappiness​ @livilottie​

[missjanjie]

Let's hear the tdi lgbtq+ hcs then 👀

oh work i didn’t think i had followers that would be interested in this but leggo

ezekiel — a blank canvas if you think about it. if he comes out of goblin mode, he could be anything, and with his previous super old fashioned upbringing, he’ll probably end up deconstructing a lot and that isn’t a terribly uncommon queer backstory

eva — if i have to explain why eva is a lesbian you’re too far gone lol

noah — same as eva but gay

justin — delays coming out bcs he loves the attention he gets from girls, but he knows deep down he’s not capable of reciprocating that affection and ends up a club-hopping party gay

katie/sadie — bi, have or will explore each other’s bodies under the pretense of practicing for boys

tyler — pan but doesn’t know the word. he’s happy if they’re nice and pretty

izzy — pan and is very aware of it, helps owen come out as bi. also i refuse to believe she’s cis. that’s a she/they enby right there

cody — disaster bisexual

beth — just… so much comphet. maybe im projecting but she gives me the vibes of someone that is trying to appear boy crazy while secretly crushing on her bestie

courtney — starts off experimenting with girls in college fueled by the same urge for rebellion that drew her to duncan, but clings onto ‘heteroflexible’ for a few years longer than she needs to before eventually settling on ‘sapphic’. it sounds better to her

harold — already indifferent to gender roles but also pretty indifferent to gender. agender, mainly uses he/him bcs he knows that’s how he’s always gonna be addressed anyway

trent — big ‘hearts not parts’ energy. kinda cringey but harmless

bridgette — i cannot tell you how many bisexual girls ive met that are just like her. geoff has bi wife energy by proxy

lindsay — she thought ‘everyone likes boys and girls’ until she brought home her first gf in college and nearly gave her parents a heart attack (they’re supportive, just shocked)

dj — a ‘loves people for their souls’ type, like trent but not cringe. lowkey he/they vibes too

geoff — just likes to have a good time, not into labels. def in an open relationship w bridgette

leshawna — bi but only dates studs/mascs when it comes to girls

duncan — you can’t be punk and cishet. sorry i don’t make the rules. he thought he was kissing dudes to be edgy but quickly realized he liked it

heather — knew she was gay since she was like eleven but thought it’d hinder her ability to climb the social ladder so she got herself deep into comphet that takes a good therapist to pull her out of

gwen — bisexual she/they goth. i will not accept criticism

owen — was already pretty bad at hiding his attraction to guys, but being with izzy gave him the tools to understand his identity

[rantrambles]

Ever get so upset you make a Tumblr account to vent?

I haven’t even listened to The Penumbra Podcast yet but it’s on my list because it’s insanely popular and the cosplays I’ve seen are hot as hell (A+ to all the cosplayers I’ve seen you’ve done great work). Now, with the recent news surrounding the podcast, I’ll wait till it’s done if I ever do get into it. I’m Asian and part of the LGBT community but I’m not nonbinary so I can’t say much about the trans represention in the art but I wanted to add my two cents on the matter as a person of color and someone examining the situation from the outside. Also, before I get deeply into it, I’m not the only person of color with opinions on this matter so if people have their own frustrations and criticism with the racism in The Penumbra Podcast and/or the new artist they hired, definitely listen to them too. These are my own personal opinions, and I’m sure other people will disagree and that’s fine. We’re all going to have different views on this so bear that in mind. Also, feel free to correct me or add anything if I’ve missed some information. Here’s a great breakdown of the whole situation for those that don’t know what happened. Finally, I was very hesitant to post this, but I felt it was important because I make a statement at the end on how race should be presented in a podcast format so if you are interested in making a podcast and want to have a diverse range of characters, please skip to the end to read those thoughts.

I’ll start off by saying, I’m not even that upset with the new artist that The Penumbra Podcast hired. I know that statement alone is controversial but I don't personally know them, and I’m not going to judge who they are as a person by a few pieces of art they’ve made. They are the least of the problems that I have here. Since the announcement and the backlash, I’ve been scrolling through the artist’s Instagram account and I can tell why people find the designs offensive, but I’m also comparing the designs to the artist’s other work, and I honestly believe that’s just their style. They’ve exaggerated the features of just about every character they’ve made, regardless of race or gender. From what I’ve seen the sharp angles and overly round curves in the anatomy that make some of the character’s features more jarring are how they prefer to draw. I’m sure they’re capable of drawing more realistic proportions but for the most part they’re art aims to call attention, be bold, and create distinguished features. Not inherently a bad thing on its own.

And yeah I’d understand the issue if this were a scenario where the artist heard how these characters acted in the podcast and thought “hey, obviously this character is a black woman because they are super strong and therefore must have big muscles, no other woman could look like that” or “hey, this character has to be Asian because they act super seductive sometimes better draw them as such.” But from my understanding the race was already decided by previous official artists and a general description of the characters were already generated by the audience, similar to how The Magnus Archives leaned towards drawing scrawny Jon with black, greying hair and dark skin. The new artists couldn’t really change those features even if those features aren’t described in canon because a depiction that strayed too far from popular fandom interpretation would make the character’s unrecognizable to the fanbase. 

I think the reason this became such a big issue for most people is because the new Penumbra artist used their exaggerated art style when making these characters and people of color and nonbinary folks already see themselves drawn as these exaggerated caricatures all the time (with those images being used to further discriminate against them). I’m sure the artist didn’t mean for their art to be offensive, but that of course doesn’t change how it was received. 

According to some, the poses and expressions the artists chose did not fully represent the characters entirely and only served to further perpetuate harmful stereotypes, and I’ll have to take their word for it because I still haven’t listened to the podcast so I have no idea how the characters act. But again much of the criticism is based on the one line-up and doing a deeper dive into the artist’s work I managed to find artwork that was much less offensive. Here some art where Vespa is depicted in a non-violent pose and one where Vespa is in a threatening pose but not an overly violent one. Here is Peter drawn in a non-seductive pose. Hopefully, the artist truly does keep the criticisms in mind as they work on the new official art. I’m just not the type of person that wants to get the pitchforks out and cause this particular person to lose a job they seemed really excited about over their old character line-up, especially when that person is also part of a marginalized group.

Again, that’s just my opinion on that particular artist. Those who are offended by their art are still valid in how they feel, and the artist should absolutely take their criticism to heart to better how they represent the characters.

What I’m more upset about is that I think The Penumbra Podcast should never have released official art for their characters in the first place and that’s their mistake that they refuse to own up about. They have made it clear that the story was never meant to portray characters of colors, a fact emphasized by the fact they hired mostly white actors from the start. They only started releasing art of the characters to get a profit. And the thing is they know what they did was wrong. All I had to do was search Penumbra Podcast racism and there is a note on their website saying that they archived some old official art.

“We have discontinued all Penumbra merchandise that uses the original character designs, and in the meantime, any profits on the sales of that merchandise will go to the For The Gworls project. We also realize that the depiction of these characters as POC, while not appropriate for us to use in our marketing and merchandise, has nonetheless become personally meaningful to many POC listeners. For that reason, and because we do not wish to distance ourselves from our mistake, we are keeping these images on our website for archival purposes. Though we do want to make it clear that many of the main/featured voice actors are white and that we did not write the characters to represent any specific POC experience, you are, as always, free to imagine these characters in any way that you like.”

I went to their shop and they still sell posters and pins with the character’s faces on them, but they are donating it to a good cause so hopefully that stays the same. However, I still find it a little uncomfortable that they are still selling character merch and have plans to continue selling character merch. They have no right to dissuade the fans that already found representation in the characters, but they also have no right to profit off the representation that was built, regardless if they made the story. 

Let’s compare this to another piece of popular media. I love Avatar the Last Airbender and, I liked the ATLA voice actors just fine but there should have been more people of color doing voice acting behind the screen too. The voice actors for that show were mainly white too, however, the creators knew that they would be making poc characters. That’s what makes the difference. Did they still choose to go with mostly white voice actors? Yes. Could they have done better and pay more people of color? Also yes. But I’m not as furious at them because they did their research on the cultures they were basing the ATLA world off of and intentionally gave us a show where Asians could see characters that looked like them represented on the screen. The Penumbra Podcast did not do any of that. Again, they openly admitted that it was never their intention to make the character’s people of color when they made the podcast so that goes to show no research was made to properly represent specific cultures. The color of the character’s skin in their official designs therefore became more of aesthetic choice rather than representation, and it wasn’t even their aesthetic choice to begin with!

Race isn’t a color you can just throw onto the character because you feel like it. So I want this to be a lesson to anyone that wants to make a podcast: if you want to include poc characters please do some research into the cultures you plan to represent the way you would with any other form of media. Just because the audience can’t see the characters and just because it’s harder to smoothly introduce the character’s appearance doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be lazy on how you present the characters. Do research before you start writing the first episode and take the time to hire poc actors. Hiring poc actors is actually the least that can be done to show representation. Also, since the audience cannot visually see the race of the characters on a podcast and it can’t typically be described the way you would in a book, you’ll have to be creative. It’s not my job to say how, but my suggestions would be, before the fans come up with their own image of the character, you need to establish race in the first few episodes or release character profiles on a website so that the fans know you canonically intended the characters to be of a certain race even if you aren’t able to mention it in the actual podcast. If you are unwilling to do any of these then the best route is to avoid stating race at all and allow the audience to build their own representation into your form of media. However, once this happens, you are not allowed to profit off popular fan interpretations. You lose all rights to create official art or images of the characters. You cannot use “we have a diverse cast of characters” when you market your story. It doesn’t matter whether you created the content or not, you did not create the representation for those minority groups.

It’s one thing for fans to build their own inclusivity into a form of art like a podcast, but it’s another thing for the creators who never worked to make the representation happen to take advantage of the representation that the listeners built for themselves. Thank you for attending my TedTalk.