#but i haven't seen jojo and these are only examples from things i've seen

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Same voice actor...

[theheightofdishonor]

I have a couple more shows on my watchlist and once that's done i think i'll be taking a (probably brief) break from asian dramas to focus on some of the other dozen watchlists i have (anime maybe? i might skip jojo and try daiya no ace again- we'll see though)

I'm hitting the 300 dramas mark soon (that's 300 completed mind you, not counting movies, and not counting things i've dropped) so i'll probably write something later in the year too reflecting on both the shows that've come out this year and the ones i've watched

For now i thought i'd jot down a couple notes about the currently airing shows i'm keeping up with since i haven't had time to do that in a while. I'll be doing this in the order I watch them in.

Middleman's Love- ngl I'm solely watching this for King and Uea. I know some of you like this show but the main couple just don't work for me and the side couple are only mildly more interesting. I'll keep watching it to the end but it's a skim watch.

Twins- A great example of how silly is fine when it's enjoyable. I fucking adore this show right now. This has volleyball in it and I'm a haikyuu!! fan before i'm a person so of course i was going to watch this show no matter how dumb it is but it's great. I'm having a blast. I like the family dynamics, I like Sprite, I like how they're committing to the 'slow' part of 'slow burn', I like all the stupid hijinks, I like that I can watch this show and be like "oh he's a Setter, like Kageyama!", I just like it. Poor First though, doing all this work of unlearning his hatred for Zee for no damn good reason.

My Dear Gangster Oppa- This one used to be first on my list but after the dumb breakup last week, it's dropped down. I hate the noble idiocy trope as @lurkingshan calls it. It's stupid, it's annoying and I don't think this week's episode made up for it. Shame really, I was quite enjoying this show at first. The chemistry's good and cliches are fine when they're enjoyable. If it wasn't ending next week, I would drop it.

Last Twilight- Saving the best for last because a) it's a heavier show with more to think about than any of the above and b) youtube's interface annoys me.Tbh I only started watching this in the hopes that it might rewrite my current reflex of wincing everytime I see Jimmy's face in a gifset but it's such an excellent show. Aof's directing and storytelling is excellent as usual and he really does deserve credit for how handles his actors. Watching JimmySea in this and then vv is like whiplash.

ps. Pit Babe- i'm not invested in keeping up with this show and my desire to do so depends on factors such as the amount of free time I have and how reluctant I am to use youtube to watch Last Twilight. It seems to have inklings of an interesting plot + obviously it's fandom history cuz of the a/b/o but the way they only half lean into the omegaverse aspects of it without explaining anything makes me wonder what people who aren't familiar with the concept of omegaverse think about this show and how they understand it. Like it has to be confusing without context, right? Mostly, i'm just watching for Nut Supanut and Nut Supanut only though it remains to be seen whether my affection for him will eventually be worn down by how annoying his character is. I swear, if it were played by anyone else or if I cared about the main characters to any extent, I'd find Way insufferable. But so far, i'm supporting all his wrongs. Especially when he looks so damn pretty doing it.

[cy-cyborg]

I've read a lot of stories with disabled characters, and I've enjoyed some of them more than others. I'm wondering, can non-disabled people write disabled people in stories? Is it possible to do it respectfully and accurately?

I recently read the book "Me Before You" by Jojo Moyes. I really enjoyed the story, but I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed it as much if I had been disabled myself. The main character, Will, is a quadriplegic, and the story explores his relationship with his caretaker, Louisa. I thought the book did a good job of portraying Will's physical limitations, but I'm not sure if it did a good job of portraying his emotional and psychological journey.

What do you think? Can non-disabled people write disabled people in stories?

Sorry for the late reply, I thought I posted the answer to this already, but I saved it to my queue instead 😅

This is a really hotly debated topic in disability circles, but in my opinion, there's nothing wrong with non-disabled folks telling stories featuring disability, so long as you're respectful and do your research/hire sensitivity readers. Stories where a character (even the main character) is disabled, or becomes disabled during the story, but that's not what the core of the story is about. Disability is a natural part of life, the disabled community makes up nearly 20% of the total population according to some sources (though many people think this is an under-estimate and the real numbers are much higher, since what is considered a disability isn't universally agreed on), it's unrealistic to just straight-up not include it.

But stories that are specifically about the disabled experience, about what life as a disabled person is like, about learning to live with disability and learning how to adapt to it, where any of those themes are a part of the main plot, then I think that's usually best left to disabled people to tell those stories. There are some things that, unless you've lived through it, you can never truly understand, and I do think disability is one of those things (this doesn't just apply to non-disabled people, but also to people with disabilities different from your own. I know what life for an amputee with autism is like, but that doesn't mean I also know what living with DID or paraplegia is like). If you try to tell a story where those things you haven't lived through are the centre focus, the holes become very visible to those who have. I do say usually though, I've seen some exceptions where people still do a good job, but they're usually from very well-established writers who have a team of people like sensitivity readers, consultants etc, and a lot of them who are able to pull it off.

The irony that you used Me Before You as an example though is a little funny. I try not to talk about that story specifically because I couldn't even finish the movie, let alone the book 😅 but the online disabled community has made their thoughts on both known. The general consensus as I've seen it is it is a perfect example of the author doing everything wrong, but getting it close enough that most non-disabled folks won't notice, and the movie just following in its footsteps. Take this with a grain of salt of course, but I've heard that the author didn't even talk to anyone with Will's disability directly, she only spoke to and consulted with healthcare workers/carers who worked with people like Will, which will always give you a very incomplete view of life with a disability at best and a very jaded and pessimistic view of things at worst - both in regards to the emotional side of things and the ability of the disabled person. I'm not here to say you can't enjoy it, but it does play into a lot of very harmful tropes and stereotypes. I'm not the best person to discuss it in any real detail though, sorry. There's some great video essays on YouTube though, including a few from people with the same disability as will, so I'd definitely recommend taking a look at them if you want to know more!

TLDR: I don't think there's anything wrong with non-disabled folks telling stories that contain disabled characters, but stories about our lived experience should be left to those with that lived experience.

[earthbovndmisfit]

I hope this isn't too weird of a message to send, but doesn't it seem like Jonawagon doujinshi are pretty uncommon? I've only seen maybe 3 posted online & I have a copy of a SpeedJona doujin but aside from those I haven't come across any. Is it like a rare pairing or something? I thought they were fairly popular

It isn’t weird at all, anon! All the opposite actually, cause I love getting asks even if i'm not always around or it sometimes takes me a hot minute to get to them gfjhkjh

This is gonna be long and probs gonna have bits that might sound rant-ish to some, but I hope that’s alright! :'D

For starters, sadly, jonawagon/jonaspeed/speedjona or however you call the ship is quite an underrated ship. This has to do partly with the wrong perceptions some folks have built around it and around the characters as well (that them both and the couple itself are the epitome of "purity" and "innocence", sometimes even labelling them as "boring" as a result even though both characters are far from that, that "it could only be a one-sided thing" on Spw's end despite both showing and sharing a certain bond/closeness towards each other -closeness that sometimes Jonathan didn't show towards anyone else-, etc), partly because of the many timeskips in PB and all the scenes the anime cut out and people wrongly assuming that the main events happened in the span of a few days and thus people dropping the ball on the ship/characters when Jonathan and Speedwagon actually knew each other for as long -sometimes even longer- than other more popular characters/ships in jjba did, partly because neither Jonathan or Speedwagon are as popular as other characters in the franchise as a whole, and also partly because, as sad as it is to say this, the ship lacks a LOT of support, especially from it's own fanbase. While jonawagon is a popular and well liked ship overall (in the sense that even general fans who don't care much about shipping, or those who are still on the fence about mlm ships, or those who just don't actively ship jonawagon actually like and support the ship or the idea of it upon seeing the actual dynamics between the characters and their potential and the fact that the ship can actually coexist with jonaeri without altering the characters/making them ooc, nor altering the story and so on), it still lacks a lot of support from it's fans. I often see most other ships/characters get lots of reblogs and exposure from their fans on literally any and all platforms, helping those ships/characters reach new audiences and gaining more popularity and drawing interest from potential new fans, while jonawagon stuff as well as solo Jonathan or Speedwagon stuff usually only get likes and a few reblogs at most from their fans, which is nice and all, but it doesn't give the artists/writers any exposure nor get those works or the ship any farther than that and just keeps them within part of the already existing fanbase at best, which often times makes the artists/content creators lose interest in continuing to create stuff for the ship/characters. This is also why I always strongly ask -almost beg at this point ngl- for people to support the artists/writers/etc via reblogs!! The ship having a bunch of different names also might have an impact on all of this, as it's not always as 'easy' to tag/find contents if you don't know how to tag/search for it. Jonawagon (normally used in the western parts of the fandom), JonaSpeed/SpeedJona (Western version of the ship's most popular names in Japanese: ジョナスピ/スピジョナ or JonaSupi/SupiJona respectively], SpeedStar (a name that became a bit more popular more recently after a mini jonawagon event in 2019), being the most common ones afaik, asides from the standard JonathanxSpeedwagon/SpeedwagonxJonathan ie and others. In short, Jonathan and Speedwagon as well as jonawagon are quite well liked and even popular to an extent, but they lack a massive amount of support from the fans, which also usually translates into artists and content creators for this ship losing interest in continuing to create new material for it and thus end up not making any more contents.

In regards to doujinshi more specifically, I’m a bit disconnected when it comes to Jojo doujinshi in general, but it seems to be a bit like that for most of the non "crazy popular" Jojo ships if you ask me, which is kinda normal considering the massive amount of characters in the whole series. Putting my experience as example, if it helps, I used to collect doujinshi from one of my previous fandoms, which had a shit ton of them for plenty of it’s ships and it was somewhat easy to acquire hard copies of despite it being an “old anime” basically while most Jojo doujinshi (especially anything that is not parts 3, 4 and 5) seems to be a bit hard to come across regardless of the ship(s) in them, even in auction sites or places like pixiv that sell digital copies if the author puts them up on sale, which is understandable since the aforementioned parts are some of the most popular parts in Japan, where most doujinshi is created, and thus take most of the fandom's interest -authors’ and readers’ alike-, as well as the hype for parts like Phantom Blood being long dead (with it being dead/dormant since the original airing of the anime ended in 2013, and it coming back ocassionally whenever there's a 'special' re-airing of PB in Japan or when events such as the Joestar Radio take place), so maybe my parameters on the whole subject are somewhat disproportionate?

This is also gonna sound all boomer-like, but I’ve also noticed, or it seems to me at least (still in comparison to the doujinshi from my previous fandom), that doujinshi books as we knew them aren’t /as/ common nowadays as they used to be a while back. Even the works themselves don’t seem to be much that way either. For example, doujinshi anthologies used to be a big thing a while back and, while they still exist, they don’t seem to be too common anymore (these worked as "promo books" of sorts for all the artists featured and they also helped lesser known/popular artists and ships to get some exposure to newer audiences). Nowadays such thing still exists, and I actually recall seeing a Jonaspeed/Speedjona anthology being made “recently” (recently as in 2019, if I’m not mistaken? it was published and sold during the mini Jonaspeed event they held at a Jojo con in Japan that year), but they aren’t nearly as common as they used to be, since now most artists can post any samples they want (much more reduced tho, cause you normally get a few pages instead of a full mini story) in places like Twitter or Pixiv. And it’s kinda the same with regular doujinshi. Before, most doujinkas had to publish a book in order to get their stuff out and get some exposure, so they were always working on new stories and making new books to sell and promoing their stuff, sometimes one after the other and even creating multi-volume stories in some cases. Now, thanks to how "easy" it is to get some exposure on social media, it’s much more common to see doujinkas for any ships/characters making short stories (1-4 pages, sometimes more) or just 1 page illustrations instead and posting them on their social media every now and then as a promo for their works. They also still make and sell their books (a few jonawagon artists on twitter do, at least), and these short stories/illustrations serve to boost their works instead, which is not a complain at all cause I think it's amazing tbqh! But this also translates into less stories/doujinshi being created as many of these artists often opt for leaving those stories that years ago would have been their own book or a mini story in a book as a prompt or a short story only.

As for actual jonawagon doujinshi, while it is not as common as say pt 3 doujinshi, there is quite a bunch of it. Some date from 2012-2013 (when the PB anime was originally aired), some are much older than that and some others are much more recent (as there are still some active jonawagon doujinkas around). There are also "fanfic books" that are also considered doujinshi and that seem to be a thing sometimes, but these contain little to no art at all and are usually written 100% in Japanese. The problem here is that not many of them have been scanlated/translated yet, sometimes because they aren't easy to find on sale online, sometimes because re-sellers who do have them set high prices for them plus shipping costs, sometimes because the artists/online shops won't sell stuff overseas, sometimes because those who do own doujinshi copies don't always know how to properly share them (since scanning a doujinshi in high or decent quality without destroying the book can be hard af) among other reasons.

All that said, there is a bunch of jonawagon doujinshi that has been scanned and is available online! but it can be tricky to get sometimes due to the different names this ship can go by and because of the "translations" of said names into different languages (as some doujinshi can only be found in Chinese sites, or Russian ones, and so on for example, so it can take some serious time to figure that out and have a successful search).

In all honesty, anon, I'm a dumdum and I had never thought about doing so in a more public manner until now, since I've already shared my entire jonawagon collection (pics, doujins, etc) with friends who have requested it more privately, but I can upload the doujins I have scans of if anyone's interested?? (I’d post the links where I found most of them but since my hd is pretty much dead and I can’t access Windows or my windows/mozilla profile, I’ve p much lost all my old bookmarks). They were only like... 8 last time I checked (9/10 if you count the Japanese and English versions of the "Joestarsaaaaan" one), but it's something :D Just be aware that some of them are nsfw! and that a couple are either part of a book that has stories from other ships in them (I only have the jonawagon parts tho) or contain other ships implied or openly shown in the jonawagon story.

I also have about 4 more, but the scanlator of one of them openly requested for the file to not be reuploaded, so Idk if it'd be alright to share it? (and they also deactivated their blog, so there's no way to ask them for permission). The other 3 are scans a friend sent to me of their own doujinshi copies, so I also don't know if it would be okay for me to post them?? (i haven't seen this friend in over a year so idk gfhgjkjlkñ). 2 of those 3 are nsfw.

[stuckinakillingjar]

jjba asks - 19 & 22

thank you for the ask!!

19. least favorite thing about the jojo fandom?

tbh something about the way every part has it's own fans that behave wildly different from each other kind of confuses me and makes me feel kind of unwelcome if i can say it like that. for example something about part 4 fans is SO weird like they're so obessed with it 😭 and in comparison, the battle tendency fans that i've seen are the chillest people ever. when you're a stardust crusaders fan or if it's your favorite part (aka me) people just automatically assume that you're a dudebro who only likes it for jotaro punching every enemy he comes across. part 5 fans are weird all in all and then there are the people that are crazy about purple haze feedback and treat fugo like a god 💀 (can't really talk about that since i haven't read it yet). jojolion fans just think they're better than everyone for even reading the part in its entirety, at least from what i've seen on tiktok.

also there's the whole thing that i've only seen on tiktok until now, with fans canceling other fans left and right for shit that they took out of context or just isn't really that deep. i don't want to get too deep into this.

22. do you prefer stands or hamon/ripple?

stands because there's a lot more creativity and variety in what they can do in comparison to hamon. but i still lost my mind whenever joseph used hamon past part 2