#but i'm mostly saying this to people who hate modern art

[antholozities]

art is allowed to be lazy btw

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

so 96% of you wanted to see me do a redesign of mermista. and while i can draw, i've been stuck in an art block so i opted to just draw over her current design. i don't hate all of it so i'm not changing everything.

let me go through the complaints i do have about her design.

first off, she does not look like royalty in the slightest. she just looks like some girl who likes the color blue. even the gold accents don't really help. i'm not saying she has to walk around in a gown and tiara but at least add something to her design to indicate that she's a princess?

secondly, those clown shoes are NOT IT. who even thought of that? they look uncomfortable and ridiculous, and doesn't make sense for her character design.

those sleeves/armor (??? i honestly don't know what those are) and gold gauntlets also do not look practical in the slightest. they look like they'd be a hindrance for a swimmer. and guess what, she still has them in her mermaid form.

the OG mermista design wasn't the greatest but at least it looked like she could swim comfortably.

so my objectives were:

give her outfit a more streamlined look so it would make sense for her powers

make her look like actual royalty and not some girl with a cool color palette

expand more on the indian-inspired design and reflect that in her usual outfit, instead of putting her in a saree-inspired dress for one episode and calling it a day (i say saree-inspired because it's not really a traditional saree, but more like a modern and slightly western rendition)

i made two versions of her redesign - one with a dupatta and one without. the dupatta, i understand, could be a hindrance in certain situations but i just wanted to give an example of how to take inspiration from a culture instead of just using it for brownie points. a dupatta is something indians would wear with their casual attire, mostly with salwars, unlike sarees which are generally reserved for special occasions (there are sarees that are casual wear, but they're still not the most convenient).

secondly, i gave her a headwear inspired from desi wedding attire and older indian tiaras. mind you, indian tiaras themselves are a lot more complex and beautifully crafted, but 1. it would take me ages to draw all the details and 2. i figured mermista would go for a simpler look, especially when she's not at her palace. also, while indian headwears are usually made with gold and jewels, i gave mermista's headwear pearls because.. pearls, oysters, ocean. mermaid vibes.

i changed the shoes and gave her a pair that are inspired by water shoes. i know that she would transform into a mermaid while swimming anyway, but these still look more comfortable without serving clowncore.

i replaced her gold accents with silver because the gold doesn't really mesh well with the teal, in my opinion. while indians are known for their love of gold, a lot of people nowadays opt for silver, because it is less expensive and more compatible with casual wear.

i highlighted the fishscale pattern in her outfit since you could barely see them in the original.

i gave her a bindi and the necklace that 80s mermista wore, as a tribute to the OG show, and the design is complete. i know that some of these may not be the easiest to animate but if they could animate perfuma's cape thing, entrapta's hair and a hundred different outfits for catra; this design is just child's play.

let me know what you think of the redesign and if you want me to do the same for the other characters!

[bluegekk0]

⇾ PINNED POST ⇽

Hi! You can call me Gekko. I make art, primarily for my Hollow Knight AU, named Feral PK AU, but I also occasionally draw fanart or reblog posts related to other media.

(Some of the media I reblog: Hades, The Elder Scrolls, Horizon Zero Dawn/Forbidden West, Overwatch, Assassin's Creed, Team Fortress 2, Doctor Who, My Little Pony, Stardew Valley)

That being said, the AU is the main focus of this blog. It is a slice of life AU for my favorite characters which mostly takes place in Dirtmouth, though over time it also evolved into a personal worldbuilding and character driven project.

Just a heads up, it does stray quite a bit from the canon and many popular fanon interpretations, so please approach with an open mind! If you have any questions, check the FAQ below first and don't be afraid to send me asks about it!

»»———-　 　———-««

Other places to find me:

» twitter // 🔞

» bluesky

» ko-fi

Art tag: #gekko.art

»»———-　 　———-««

✦ AU SUMMARY & TIMELINE ✦

✦ AU INFO PAGE (WIP) ✦

AU RELATED TAGS:

#feral pk au - the main AU tag, contains all related art, posts and ask responses

#modern fpk au - tag for the modern spin-off of the AU; same as above

#au designs - tag for all the AU character design sheets and other related posts

#au character bios - similarly to above, this tag includes written down descriptions for the AU characters

#au worldbuilding - tag for all posts/ask responses related to the general AU worldbuilding headcanons

#au character posts - for separate text posts about the AU characters

#save - this is how I tag AU related posts which I find to be worth reading for a better understanding of the characters, or anything else I want to easily access in the future

#ask stuff - tag for all ask responses. If you only want those related to the AU, I recommend browsing through the main AU tag instead

#art guide - tag for any art tips and guides that I posted

*If you're interested in reading about a specific character in the AU, I recommend using #[character name] in the search bar on my blog. This is mostly for most notable ask responses, but also posts that remind me of said characters as well as art pieces (mainly those which aren't outdated)

( Here are the tags for the more prominent characters: #fpk | #grimm / #nkg | #hornet | #holly | #zote | #lewk | #asta | #milo | #wl | #brumm | #divine | #bretta | #lurien | #jiji | #ogrim )

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(disclaimers about the blog and the AU below)

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DISCLAIMERS:

» Please do not reupload my art anywhere. I'm okay with people using it as their icons/banners, but please remember to credit me.

» Since this is a primarily AU related blog, anything I say about the characters is from a headcanon lens. Some of my headcanons might be quite different from the most popular fanon interpretations, so please be aware of that before you respond, especially in regards to fandom jokes and character hate.

» Although I might occasionally touch upon topics that are in the suggestive territory, this blog is still SFW. I will not be posting any explicit artwork, and I try to keep the suggestive topics somewhat tasteful. If you are interested in my NSFW art, do not ask me to post it here, instead head over to my Twitter private alt.

» Some of my art includes blood and mild gore, though I try to tag it whenever there's excessive amounts of it in the artwork (I use the tags #blood and #gore). There may also be very occasional mentions/depictions of pregnancy, please block the tags #pregnancy (for art) and #pregnancy mention (for text posts) if you would prefer not to see it/read about it. Please let me know if there are any other things that you would like me to tag!

» A large chunk of my drawings and posts features the ship Pale Nightmare, so if you dislike it I would not recommend following my blog. It's the only ship I'm invested in, and while I avoid ship discourse, there are some that I find uncomfortable, particularly those between the characters that I consider family within the AU (Grimm/Hornet and Grimm/Hollow being the primary ones).

»»———-　 　———-««

AU RELATED DISCLAIMERS/FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

» The AU takes place after the Embrace the Void ending, and so The Knight/Ghost is not present. Here is a post detailing what happened to them (and the other shade siblings in the Abyss).

» Feral PK's name in the AU is Vyrm (an alternate spelling of Wyrm that he uses as his name), though for the purpose of the asks and other posts I call him FPK. Also, I headcanon him as gay (demi-gay to be more precise). At the current point in the AU he and The White Lady are separated.

» As you probably noticed, most of my designs stray very far from insect-like interpretations. That is very much intentional. In the AU, I see "bug" as a general term for "people", not an implication that they are all insects. While some characters do have more insect-like anatomy, there are others which possess reptilian, mammalian or even plant-like traits. I go a little more in detail on how I see that term in this post. So while I'm not bothered by people referring to for example, Grimm or FPK as insects, keep in mind that this is not how I personally view them.

» Additionally, I see the characters as much larger than real life insects. As a reference point, FPK is similar in height to a raccoon standing on two legs. For this reason, most of the characters have skeletal structures to support larger body mass. There are some exceptions, notably characters such as Unn.

» Please keep in mind that the AU originated as something I found comfort in, and it remains that way. There may be inconsistencies, I might retcon things on the go, and some things may simply not be well written. I also have no plans to turn this into a fanfic or a comic.

» I'm always open to answer questions about the AU and the characters! So if you have any, please don't be afraid to send me an ask, I absolutely love responding to them. 💖

» I am currently working on a separate page for a more detailed AU write-up, link at the top of the post!

[aurorawest]

Reading update

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers - 3.75/5 stars

I hate myself a little bit for using this word to describe this book, but it's a meditation on modern (western) culture, the drumbeat of living a purposeful life, and, imo, the millennial condition.

It also, separately from that, made me think of the song 'New Constellations' by Ryn Weaver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13EX7qGdUGI

The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen by KJ Charles - 5/5 stars

This book features Gareth Inglis, a member of the gentry whose father shipped him off to his uncle when his mother died. Gareth never saw or heard from his father (who remarried and had another child) again, and no one knew he existed because his father was a piece of human garbage. Which meant I couldn't stop thinking about my former father-in-law, who had two sons from his first marriage whom he, as far as I could tell, never had any contact with after remarrying and having another child. Life imitates art?

Anyway, it's KJ Charles, so you pretty much can't go wrong. I saw someone refer to this as enemies-to-lovers and realized my toxic trait is railing against people who want to apply enemies-to-lovers to everything. Spoiler alert, this is not enemies-to-lovers. But it is lovely, and includes Gareth and Joss Doomsday (a smuggler) bonding over beetles.

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by SA Chakraborty - 4.5/5 stars

It was no Daevabad Trilogy, but then again, I remember finishing City of Brass and being like, yeah, it was fine, I'll probably pick up the sequel at some point. It wasn't until Kingdom of Copper that I grew to really love the series, so I'm hoping the same happens with this. This book was a lot of fun, and the fact that all the characters were middle-aged was pretty delightful. I'm definitely excited to see where this series goes.

The Long Run by James Acker - 5/5 stars

Excellent YA book about two lonely jocks in New Jersey.

Feel the Fire by Annabeth Albert - 3.75/5 stars

His Accidental Cowboy by AM Arthur - 4/5 stars

Brida by Paul Coelho - 1/5 stars

One of the reviews for this book on Storygraph says it 'aged like milk' and I can't put it better than that. This is a soul mate AU where souls undergo cell division, essentially, and your soul mate is from your same base soul from before the soul split in half. Okay, great. Oh but wait, the soul always divides into male and female. And your soul mate is always someone of the opposite sex, even though that doesn't make sense because as souls divide again and again, that means there are a lot of people out there who came from the same original soul as you. Also, witchcraft? Also also, even though the book is called Brida and is ostensibly about the title character, her whole journey was really just to serve the unnamed male character, the Magus. This isn't implicit either, it's completely explicit. At the end it's like, 'sometimes young women come along to show men the way' (I'm paraphrasing but...not much).

This went straight to my give away pile, and I hated it so much that the rest of my Coelho books joined it (except The Alchemist).

Enlightened by Joanna Chambers - 5/5 stars

Or, For The Love Of God Please Give David Lauriston And Murdo Balfour A Break, And Preferably A Happy Ending.

They got one, btw.

Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao - DNF

Honestly, the Mad Libs YA title should have warned me off of this one, but I always give my Illumicrate books a try. Cartoonish villains and protagonists I find myself liking less the more we get to know them. The prose is quite good but not enough to make up for the character deficiencies.

Solomon's Crown by Natasha Siegel - 5/5 stars

Blurbed by no less than Tamora Pierce (Song of the Lioness supremacy!), Rainbow Rowell, Freya Marske, and CS Pacat. Did I go into this book with insanely high expectations? Yes. Did it mostly meet them? Yes! If you're a Captive Prince fan, this one's for you.

Siegel tells us up front, before the book even starts, that it's a romance and not historically accurate. So don't go into this expecting a historically accurate love story between King Richard of England and King Philip of France. It is, however, a gorgeous romance. The world-building is top notch. Even if it's not totally accurate to the High Middle Ages, it feels accurate, if that makes sense? Siegel really captures the feeling of being in a different world. Lush writing, amazing sexual/romantic tension, lovely sad boys. Highly, highly recommend.

Daniel Cabot Puts Down Roots by Cat Sebastian - 4.75/5 stars

I docked .25 stars because it bugged me that they didn't move in together at the end. Idk, just felt too 'look, I'm subverting romance conventions!' Still good, obviously.

Like Real People Do by EL Massey - 4/5 stars

A very wholesome and low stakes hockey romance. I found myself often thinking that the interactions of the men on the hockey teams seemed unrealistic, but it was charming and sweet enough that I didn't care.

The book reads like fanfiction, which is because it was fanfiction—but it's in a mostly good way, not a bad way (*cough* All The Way Happy *cough*). Apparently the original version was Check, Please! fanfiction, which I am vaguely familiar with as a thing that exists. Apparently it's a web comic? Anyway, I enjoyed the book enough to pick up the sequel.

[luigiblood]

Game Ownership

In sort of a response to the Ubisoft director of subscriptions where he said that we need to get more confortable not owning games...

Well, reading that interview from GamesIndustry.biz, turns out he never really said that. It's more of an observation of the gaming subscription services, and comparing different views. It's actually a pretty interesting read.

But the negative response to the more clickbait part where the gamers went very much against this from the get go was something that particularly striked me as how I really just didn't feel like I was part of those who responded like this.

I do not care about owning games that much. I may be a owner of retro consoles, games, and about 50 Switch physical games, but the reasons ranges from passion to just practical and economical.

Taking the example of the Switch, what currently makes me attached to physical games are more of how it's usually cheaper in my country (like, first party games day one tend to be 25% off brand new), and the practicality when you live in a household with 2 Switch systems, it's just easier to share the games that way with your family. If I could just buy digitally with the same advantages, I'd just do that.

This view on game ownership has mostly to do with my past of a guy who pirated games and movies like crazy before we got a little more comfortable paying for stuff. But this past also comes with a deeper importance on the presence of data locally. Cloud gaming is something I hate on passionately if the industry keeps going on that as a means to play games exclusively. It would be the kind of thing that would make my heart broken about modern gaming as a whole, but thankfully we're not even close to there, and I suspect we'll never be.

But I could also not need to pay for the games, I don't really see a lack of ownership as a problem on its own. The only thing that matters is if it's practical or not, and that's the part that feels like it tends to be skipped when explained. That's how it went about movies and music.

That practicality is critical, and that is the part that's the most in danger. The big reason why is how companies can decide on a whim what is accessible to suit their needs. That WILL be completely in the process of enshittification due to how companies have to keep growing until it makes no more sense. You don't even need to look very far to understand this, video streaming services are already very good at doing absolutely this, but I also dare say the Game Pass and PlayStation Plus are on a similar boat to a different extent, though.

One of the recent examples of how bad shit is HBO Max's removal of a huge amount of content just for a massive tax write down. There is financial incentive to fuck us all, and I consider the future to do absolutely that in the long term for gaming.

That kind of thing SUCKS. That is what we're actually scared of as a consumer. I hate seeing art being considered as a throwaway product.

I even saw a french article that was so complacent with this and kept saying complete bullshit things like "oh if they remove that game from the service, just take it as an opportunity to play another one" just, fuck off. That's not how I see this kind of service.

I love Nintendo Switch Online, despite a lot of its flaws, and hate on Virtual Console's overall legacy personally. I'm all for ways to allow discoverability and pick the curiosity of people. That's the kind of shit that I love in having some ease of access to catalogs, despite not owning them.

Wasn't it the dream to just access to everything with less money though? Don't tell me otherwise because I wouldn't believe you. I do think there's something nice in this kind of service, but we also need to figure how to keep companies from the inevitable enshittification that will ensue on the constant need for growth beyond any reasonable sense.

[i-would-get-in-the-water-naked]

Athena character design and headcanons

the quality is shit I know, I'm sorry :((

(ART BY ME)

istg if Tumblr fucks up again I will throw my PC out of the window.

anyway.

Headcanons

She's an outsider among the other Gods. They tend to underestimate her, sometimes even humiliate her, especially the men - because she's strong, smart, beautiful, and a woman. They feel like she threatens their status.

Ares is her younger brother (they're just a few years apart, which doesn't really matter now that they're adults because Gods age differently and slower than humans). They cannot stand each other. Ares hates the fact that one of Athena's purposes is being responsible for the fairness of wars - because he feels controlled by her.

Speaking of which, Ares often annoys her in any way he can think of. Athena hates that and it often ends up in her beating Ares' ass.

One more thing about Athena and Ares' relationship: they actually care about each other very much but won't admit it to anyone - not even themselves. They might piss each other off, but they'd never EVER hurt each other. They fight a lot but they make sure blood never gets involved.

The only person who has ever shown her any open support was Poseidon. They spent a lot of time together when Athena was young, he trained her in the skill of fighting, which is one of the reasons she's so good at it.

In the modern-day world, you could say she most definitely is on the autism spectrum. She doesn't understand emotion, hers, or others. The concept of love - both romantic and physical - just doesn't make sense to her (mostly because nobody has ever shown her any).

She probably thinks she's aroace in the way "I don't need love or sex" but if someone hugged her and told her they love her, she would either giggle and kick her feet or cry. Depends on the situation.

She hardly ever cries. She bottles up her emotions because she has always been told nobody cared. She overall is very calm and collected until something or someone hurts her pride and/or ego - which she uses as a defense mechanism because she figured that others don't like her because she's better than them.

She has white owl-like wings which she keeps hidden with a spell inside of the two scars she has on her back - she got the wings in a very painful process and they are very sensitive. She can also turn into an owl and she sometimes does it just to avoid talking to people.

Oh, and she LOVES birds. Like. In her chamber in the Olympus palace, she has a whole collection of sketchbooks which she used to draw birds into when she was little. Whenever she finds out any fact about one of the birds she has drawn, she finds the page it's on and writes the fact down next to it.

She's probably panromantic? But she has never gotten the opportunity to find out (and me neither so I don't have any idea what sexuality to give her).

[franki-lew-yo]

I kinda hate Dreamworks-stans (

No, not Dreamworks films persay, especially the ones I haven’t seen that everyone is so hyped that I do see (The Last Wish, Rise of the Guardians, Kung Fu Panda 2-3). It’s just...

The attitude -some- Dreamworks fans have about these franchises is a real turn off for me. They mostly say only good things about these movies but...they're kinda...snooty? I don’t want another Paranorman situation, is all. Before I go any further I will say, I definitely think Dreamworks films objectively look better than Disney’s modern movies-.Dreamworks’ artists are more at home with cgi where Disney’s fantasy films don’t look or feel right in that medium, compared to How to Train Your Dragon, that is. And yet...

I’ve really never liked Kung Fu Panda as a series. I disliked the first and didn’t feel anything for it all, so I've never watched the second even though everyone assures me it's better. Yeah. I'm sure it is. Part of this is all because of inner-fandom petty nonsense; baby-faced KFP stans were saying Skunk Fu! is a ripoff of KFP. Objectively YES, KFP is a better moviestory but what if I just straight up don't like it or feel obligated to like it ((this debate was always stupid regardless of what franchise was 'better' or 'worse' than the other. The idea of furries doing martial arts is a popular trope in animation cuz different styles or martial arts are even NAMED after animals sometimes.)). Either way, despite it looking cool and having a peacock as the main villain I have no desire to give KFP any attention kind of BECAUSE you all are so obsessed with it being "JUST SO GOOD".

But the thing that really irks me about Dreamworks fans is how obsessed they are with design and aesthitics >> character development and appeal.

While I liked How to Train Your Dragon a lot, I really didn’t like the second movie. That film had WAY too much going on in it. It was overstuffed and gave me a headache. It had no room to develop itself properly and sns I hate the character of Valka. I hate how she’s written to be this actually a loving mother to Hiccup and really loved Stoic deep down. To me, that cheapens her character and her son’s uniqueness for bonding with Toothless if it’s really just that his mom is just like him. I read somewhere that she was actually supposed to be a distant, kind of “wild” character who was more interested in dragons and didn’t feel that natural maternal instinct because not all women are motherly and that’s fine, and now with Stoic changed (and then dead) and Hiccup needing her she’s got to face her past and connect her dragonrider side with her family. No idea if any of that's true but WOW. I would have like that way more. But instead- I found Valka really bland and kind of awfully written, just like the rest of her movie. Oh, but everyone just "LOVED" that movie because Stoic died or whatever. I didn’t feel anything for Stoic’s death despite me liking him in the first film. I thought the second movie was a good story in theory, BUT the execution was so bad I'm sorry. It all went by so fast and so clunk that I didn't actually feel anything for this shocking and dramatic character from the first film at the hand of his son's hypnotized dragon. Believe me, I GET where people are coming from about this scene. Again I get what the emotions were supposed to be. I’m saying I found the storytelling and pacing horrid and it, by virtue, ruined the character(s). Just to add salt in my wound, everyone and their mom seems to love Valka cuz she doesn’t have same-face syndrome like the modern Disney women all have. Again, objectively Dreamworks has a better eye for style. BUT YA KNOW WHAT? I really think some of you are way too locked into this “looks generic/basic pretty woman = bad character” philosophy which kinda makes me want to scream.

Sns Moana, Maribel and Elsa > characters than Valka and that girl from the Croods.

You don’t have to love or even like them or those movies, but I mean objectively I think they’re better written story-wise. To better explain it’s the same logic that badfaith reviewers apply to Illumination: people hate the characters for their made-to-be-appealing designs and grafted personalities as opposed to their actual shortcomings as characters in the writing. Same face syndrome, manic pixie dream protagonists and EVERY Disney movie being about a man and a woman going on a wacky three-day long adventure is annoying, but if the blowback from Wish is any kind of indication, people are not going to love it “no matter what” and Disney-adults aren't sheeple.

I’ll believe fans when they tell me How to Train your Dragon 3 is awful. Yeah, I don't doubt that. Bu,t can you all kindly eff off with the implication that everything wrong with that movie stems from how Toothless’s mate is a pretty girl whitedragon version of him? Can you all shut up about how the 'Light Fury' (stupid name) ruined your life?

I too hate the trope of “girl = lighter and pretty”, but of what I’ve read that’s not the problem with her, character wise. Frankly, given how some of you act, I’m not convinced you would have any of these hang ups about her had she been better designed and not just white-Toothless. From the way some of you sound, it kinda feels like if her design was actually good, you would be stanning her character even after her movie/character turned out to be bad. It's why I also don't trust ya'll when it comes to that Elsa-looking fox girl in the new KFP 4 movie and how 'bad' she looks. Yeah, she DOES look bad...but I don't know by what margin you're talking about.

In the end, where Disney adults are their own kind of hivemind of shallow - believe me, I know - I kinda hate the unself-awareness of Dreamworks fans. They remind me of that side character in Mean Girls who gets the main character to spy on the Plastics because she hates them. They’re their own kind of shallow and mean. I wish they would at least be aware of that. 

Also, Jeffry Katzenberg is NOT your friend. He's an AI-advocate and it's his fault Disney made Pocahontas.

[roobylavender]

considering what you have spoken about regarding selina do you also get frustrated with like…i cant quite explain it but sometimes especially in more recent years shes been posed or positioned like some sort of damsel that needs a big strong man to save her and like im not saying she should be portrayed with the “hollywood level feminism” for lack of a better term im just think about how old versions of selina would have hated that. like im just thinking of anytime in the reeves movie where bruce grabs her or forces her mouth shut or even when he didnt allow her to kill falcone and im just thinking she should claw the fuck out of him for that. i just miss a version of selina who wouldnt allow anyone to walk all over her personal autonomy like that

oh absolutely! in fact this is specifically why i can't stand loeb's take on her character lol (and as we both know that was a significant point of reference for the reeves film). it's really jarring to transition from her volume one and two canon to the long halloween / dark victory / when in rome. i think a lot of people tend to latch onto these books because tim sale's art is to die for and it's obv hard not to enjoy a good murder mystery. in that aspect they're still books i can enjoy in isolation. but i find it very difficult to enjoy them as a selina fan specifically because in every single one it's like she's looking for solace and security in a man and i'm not sure why. like what was so bad about her original backstory of having a deadbeat dad (whether you ascribe to the volume one or volume two version of him) and why did she need to go looking for her "real" father in carmine falcone. why did she need to seek out temporary boytoy relief in italy. why did she dream about being saved by bruce. none of it really has a reason other than to create a "lack" in her for the sake of it being there, because she'd never needed a man like that before in her post-crisis narrative. as you mentioned it was quite to the contrary and she was fiercely independent and protective of her own peace, esp from men. when she felt empty or without a connection or lifeline to someone real, it was mostly about people like maggie or holly or arizona. her people

what i think it ultimately comes down to are two things: the first thing is the diminishment of her post-crisis origins. after all, it's convenient to ignore how distrustful selina is of people, and of men with power at their leisure to abuse specifically, when her post-crisis origins are no longer relevant to her personal characterization. although selina's status as a sex worker is more prominent now, it was more or less completely swept under the rug for the bulk of volume two. loeb also refused to engage with it in any capacity. it only really resurfaced with the conclusion to volume two because it drew direct parallels to how we initially found her in volume one, and then brubaker expanded on it once again in his take on the character, which was notably juxtaposed against a pre-existing romance with bruce and brings me to the second thing. i've already waxed about this at length so this may very well be recap but i really don't think selina's lack of control over her personal autonomy can be divorced of the modern portrayal of the romance. when selina looking for security and understanding and comfort in bruce is what drives the romance forward there's not much room to maintain her original values and guarded demeanor, if not her outright defensiveness and hostility. a lot of people look at the extensive trauma selina has experienced and argue that she deserves to be in a relationship with someone who allows her to let those walls down. this isn't incorrect in theory. but it does repeatedly ignore who she is. it's kind of like the point i was making about bruce yesterday. exploring the inherently abusive nature of robin or of bruce's right to his children in light of that fact is interesting to do, but the actual execution has rarely managed to take into account who bruce actually is

for however nice it might be for selina to let her walls down romantically and look for solace in bruce—and i say this mostly for the sake of argument, personally i would argue against its necessity—it's realistically not something she's actually going to do. at least not as willfully as she's been portrayed to. realistically she's going to make it extremely hard, which if anything is precisely the appeal. i love it when selina gives bruce a hard time. i love that it's not supposed to be easy or maybe even a possibility for him to win her over bc there's so much about his own ideological stances that's flawed and in opposition to her own. she doesn't have to be any less unrelenting in her principles and worldview for that romance between them to be compelling bc at the end of the day the entire crux of it is that against all odds bruce cares. for however wrong he thinks she might be in a given moment or in her stance against the government, he knows who she is and how hard she's fought and what she's survived and it makes him sympathetic to her because she's real. she's a wonderful character through which to explore the logical limits of bruce's self-righteousness and categorization of crime, as well as a wonderful mirror to hold up to his face as he starts to ask himself whether what he's doing is really the only means of keeping the city safe. and the novelty of it all is that you don't have to sacrifice her character for any of that to be true. writers have simply deluded themselves into believing that they have to and that's why we are where we are today

[spaceofentropy]

20 questions for fic writers (and artists)

I was tagged by @dragonflylady77 and, why not? Why not procrastinate a bit? :P

1. How many works do you have on ao3(Tumblr)?

14.

2. What's your total ao3 (Tumblr) word count?

253,035 as of right the fuck now. Holy moly that's a lot.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I've written for Why R U? and now for Stranger Things.

4.What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Of soulmates and colors (a chonky metalsandwich soulmates AU)

What happens in Vegas... (a WhyRU? canon divergence with Tor waking up in Vegas, married to his ex)

I just came to say... (modern era Harringrove meet cute)

Amok (modern era Harringrove thing about Billy meeting his mom by chance and being conflicted as fuck)

Like a curse (the WhyRU? heist AU nobody had asked for but they still had to face)

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

I try. Sometimes I'm slow as fuck and sometimes I'm perched on my inbox like a starving hawk, but I always try.

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

Probably What doesn't kill you makes you a monster, which is an angst fest built around body horror and body mutation which ends with Steve having basically no hope about the future. But then, months after, I went and wrote a follow up fic where Steve gets to find another monster and fall in love with him and have a HEA, so I guess it only half-counts ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Uh... I honestly don't know. I mean, I mostly write fics with a good ending or at worst a hopeful ending (like Come Close) and I honestly don't think I can't rank which of my HEA fics is the happiest, so, all the happy ones? I guess?

8. Do you get hate on any fics (Art)?

So far, never.

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

Yep, I do, even if it's hard as hell and I always feel like it sucks. As for what kind... uh... I don't know how to answer... The smutty kind? Sometimes it's soft. and sometimes it's hurried, and sometimes it's filthy monsterfucking because monsters, too, deserve to get laid.

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

My heist AU is a crossover between one show, a different show, and an AU of the first show. Two actors from the first show play minor parts in the second show. It's a wild, wild thing.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No.

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

No.

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

Harringrove.

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Probably that one Gallavich thing I wrote 90k words of because I had to put it out of my head and is close to the end but when I look at it makes me feel eh because Ian's part of the plot feels to passive and NOPE!, that's so fucking wrong, vade retro Satana!

16. What are your writing strengths?

Plotting and dialogue. And wild ideas.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions. Smut.

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

To quote Guin, "get it checked by a person who speaks that language before you post". Preferably a native speaker who can tell you if it sounds like your easy going teenager was possessed by the ghost of a stuffy academic from the 1820s. Also, it's a hard balance to make it not too distracting, to make sure it doesn't kill the pace of the story, so good luck in your endeavours, fellow writers!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Honestly no idea.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I love them all, they are my self-indulgent nuggets of entertainment and I won't pit them one against the other trying to choose a favorite. I reject this question. U_U

I should tag people, theoretically, but honestly I don't have the brain power for it tonight. If you read this and want to do this, consider yourself tagged. Have fun! :3

[turtlemagnum]

i think my first exposure to AI art might've been this video where somebody was testing out this new, weird thing where they automatically generate a song using AI, and i couldnt help but feel that it was an indictment of the modern music scene that a goddamn computer could effortlessly and accurately replicate the generic swill that passes for popular music nowadays. didnt have a vocalist synthesized yet but those have been becoming a thing too, or so i hear.

i saw a little article about how the newer generations of gamers are turning more and more to retro games. as somebody technically belonging to the "newer generations" this felt self evident, as frankly most of the gaming i do nowadays is almost invariably in an emulator. i think that to a certain extent, most of the best mainstream games that are going to be made already have been, at least for the forseeable future of major developers with games made scientifically perfect for milking you for the most money possible rather than as an art form. im sure it's all gonna collapse in on itself eventually, from what i hear some of the older folks who lived through more than i have we've been here before. hell, pretty much anybody who cares even a bit about gaming history knows first and foremost about the gaming crash of the early 80s, mostly spurred on by the temporal equivalent of modern cheap asset flip garbage that floods most stores these days. it's hard not to feel like we're about to see a massive crash yet again, with the ones inheriting the earth being the little fellas, and of course nintendo. which, makes sense, their earliest history is of weathering shit just like this, of course they'd know when to spot enshittification and stay clear of it. i'm in no way saying that nintendo is exempt of being a shitty corporation, but i will say that from a business standpoint they're one of the only ones i know of that actually seem to understand the idea of sustainability on a broad scale. hell of a lot better than the likes of activision, thats for damn sure. but back to what i was actually trying to get at before i adhd tangent'd, i think it makes a lot of sense that when the majority of the shit being put on the market is corporatist, design by comittee, prefab trash with aggressive monetization and a consistent attitude of fixing any problems in patches, it makes a hell of a lot of sense that we'd go back to our roots. NES mario is the same as its ever been, has been for over 30 years, and will be in another 30. you dont gotta worry about them patching it to make it actually function as advertised, or patching it from being something you enjoyed into something you hate, or having fomo marketing based microtransaction bullshit. the most that's gonna change is that every now and again, nintendo will make the only version they give not have flashing lights for epileptic folks, or patch out mike tyson because he sucks and replace him with a white guy, and the white guy's less hard but thats ok because it's still pretty hard, and either way it's a good game, fun, and you can still find the original on rom sites and also probably ebay if you dont have a vpn but do have a disposable income, so dont worry about it. getting sidetracked again, ANYWAYS-

what i wanted to get at is that i wonder if we're gonna see a similar resurgence in other old kinds of media just like, in general, for the mainstream. like why watch the 22nd reboot of ghost busters when the originals are right there. king crimson's still good, why dont you listen to them instead of bemoaning how your new favs are problematic, even though i dont think fripp can reclaim the fag slur (im gay, i can it's fine). i've recently been watching fist of the north star and original dragon ball, ilike the m. there are books. lots of those, actually,. you can read em! if you have the attention span. i honestly think we might be seeing more and more of this, now that im looking out for it. like i see just like, random people mention how much they like prog rock or 1930s dracula. relatively normals talk about how they like lemon demon these days. those stupid aestheticized classic anime accounts on twitter get sososo many likes. can you tell im sleep deprived writing this? i can, and im writing thjis. im writing this SO HARD. send poast.

[bwv572]

This woman's Facebook page keeps showing up on my feed. She's this super resentful bassoonist who goes around looking at the music faculty of every school she can find and shames them for having mostly men or for performing classical music by male composers instead of God awful 20th/21st century music by female composers. Then, her sycophant followers will harass the people involved and campaign for them to fire their male staff and replace them with women. If a male educator, composer, or performer comments on her posts negatively, her followers will dox him and contact their employer with allegations of sexism.

It's so demoralizing to think that if I ever got a major work premiered at a university, that I could potentially be harassed in such a way by a mob of resentful people who hate men and who hate explicitly traditional art.

And it's also so contrary to my experiences. Every ensemble I have been in has been majority female. Tenors and basses are outnumbered by altos and sopranos in every choir I've been in, and every orchestra has female string players outnumbering male string players by 3 to 1. All of the new pieces the local orchestras are premiering are all by female composers. They hate the classics and they deprioritize any up and coming male composers.

And do I hate the pieces by women? Somewhat. Not because they are by women but because they are overtly political and they have the worst possible political messages that are nothing but virtue signals about how cruel men are. We're doing some piece in a choir I'm in about the European refugee crisis, and the perspective found in the poem could only ever come from a woman's. The poem is basically "men are worried about the future of the economy and culture and they have no concern for foreign children". This is misplaced maternal instinct. It handwaves all the problems that come from this crisis and instead shames and guilt trips you into unconditionally supporting the problem because it would be heartless to say no to a child. Also, the piece musically is generic and ugly. Would it kill a modern composer to just write a singable tune? It always has to be ugly, dissonant, "atmospheric", and it always has to have a political message - it can never just be a beautiful melody for the sake of having a beautiful melody.

I saw a similar outrage about some major university in England canceling one of their mixed choirs. Everybody cried out sexism, completely ignoring that the main choir is already a mixed choir and they all just joined that one - but that one has a male conductor, for the time being. There is no outrage that choirs with boy sopranos and boy altos are almost extinct. They are found only in the highest universities, and people hate those too. They only resentfully support the few that exist because they know it is a 1,000 year old tradition, but they also complain about the tradition and frequently campaign to turn them into mixed choirs.

[meatcatt]

Some Important Things

So I have a few... boundaries(???)/ thoughts I want to put down real quick because I feel as if their important!

I do not own cult of the lamb modern AUs!! A lot of people (Mostly young people) have come to me asking for permission to make a modern cult of the lamb au. And I just wanna make it very clear that I'm not the arbiter of who and who doesn't get to make a modern au. I'm not sure if Redo AU was the first modern AU(??) but modern AUs are not some fantastical thing only one person can make! It's such a broad concept! Do what you want I want to see all of your cool modern AUs flourish!! You can even feel inspired or borrow my ideas! Want them to forget their memories of their past godhood- go for it! Have them be reincarnated- Hell yeah! Have Lamb be a god in their stead, why the fuck not! AUs should be fun, having neat concepts should be fun, not restricted by "oh so and so did it first" I don't own these concepts!! The only thing I "own" is the redo au designs, OCs I made for the world, and maybe how the plot points are linked together! Everything else is anyone's for the taking to take their own spin on it!! And hey if redo AU inspired you in anyway, show me your AU!!! I'd love to see it :) On that topic though- 2. Don't police other AUs because that seem similar to mine. I had someone come to me recently claiming an AU (that I actually follow pretty closely and have drawn fanart for) is a "copy of mine". Redo and the au in question had a few similar plot points, but the way we wrote the bishops, had the story set up, etc etc, where completely different. I think I made it very clear that I HATE policing ideas or concepts. Currently artists as a whole, especially on tiktok, love policing each other. Everything has to be original etc etc. Personally, fuck that!! Art is always inspired by other art! And again I don't own the concept of reincarnation! Just let people have fun pretty please!! Lasty! 3. Please don't send asks that have not been answered by Bishops-of-the-old-faith to my personal ask box in the hopes I'll draw them! So a lil bit of backstory, I'm a mod for the popular ask blog stated above, and that's all fine and cool. Their is a lot of overlap of the followers of that blog and mine, so I understand maybe people feeling like their being ignored by the bigger ask blog would come to my personal ask box in the hopes of getting their question answered. And technically theirs nothing wrong with that it's just a personal annoyance. I have access to the Bishops-of-the-old-faith's ask box, I do see all of your guys' asks over there. I don't need them repeated in my personal ask box. If I wanted to answer them on the ask blog I would! And I might actually be, or one of the other mods might be! Their are so many asks in that box that it gets a bit hard to get to all of them,,,,!

Anyways that's all I wanted to say!! Sorry for the long post ;;!

[rakuya-nikki]

Oshi no Ko - Entry #7

Just caught up to Oshi no Ko.

Man

First of all, it feels almost unfair to compare it to other shows when its first episode was basically a movie. No, not "basically", it was like an hour and 20 minutes long, so that is a movie LOL

God and it was so gripping too, it had so much development and motion, so many twists that I genuinely didn't expect coming, and it made me feel truly involved in the plot of the world. It's almost unfair to the rest of the show, given how after the movie prologue, it essentially turns into a slice of life, romance typed thing. Perhaps not as typical as your usual shows of those genres, but it's definitely similar to it.

Yet, even when it starts devolving into that sort of stuff, it destroys the competition compared to the others given how much effort they put into the themes and topics of the world. Those being "show business". Acting, idols, YouTubers, the shady shit behind the scenes of it all, the difficulties that these human beings face trying to do these jobs, the emotional struggles, the moral quandary of faking your emotions.

As someone in the YouTube industry right now, some of the ideas really hit a note with me. Even if I'm not particularly "big", I'm definitely in a position where I can see just how human my fellow YouTube creators are, and thus, I can also see just how inhumane some people can be on the internet towards these people.

I'm not gonna lie, the little arc with Akane becoming public enemy #1 in the forums and comment sections of the show really, really struck a chord with me. Like... my god, the utter, visceral rage I felt seeing those comments. It really did not feel like made up, exaggerated shit. That really is how people can act online.

I've hated people for a lot of reasons in my life, but it's that ability to stick to such unnecessarily vitriolic comments, despite knowing less than nothing about any of the important details. The only thing stopping me from viewing the people who make those types of comments as subhuman (other than the fear of becoming just like those people), is knowing that I've made those types of comments before too. Hell, sometimes I can even get wrapped up in drama and make snap judgements about things I don't know much about.

It's in that sense that what I hate is just the culture of it all. I really, truly, despite show business. I loathe how people treat these actors and content creators as people they can just say anything about, whose worth only goes as far as their productivity in views/high ratings. The show doesn't put too much focus on hating this side of the culture, it mostly mentions it with an "it can't be helped" sort of mentality. Though reading between the lines, you can definitely tell they're condemning that nature. Looking down on it. Because that's what it's worth, being looked down at. It makes me look back on my past self, who would leave hurtful comments in YouTube videos, or judge creators harshly for no apparent reason, and it makes me think of that past self as just despicable.

Anyways, the show proved to be great for studying too. The language was very complex, and it featured a lot of modern-day lingo that I can definitely make use of, especially as someone who normally specializes in media/marketing anyways. Knowing vocabulary for it is nice.

Not to mention, even if a big emotional point was me feeling disgusted at the anonymous hate wagons, the show also does an amazing job at showcasing the... beauty of show business, as an art form. If anything, that's the main focus of which it criticizes the "business" aspect of it all. How it takes away the soul of the process, and how the characters strive to shine despite the darkness in the industry.

Really, that's just it. The strength to shine, give hope, and have fun, despite everything holding you back and wishing for you to fail, is a strength that really resonated with me. Ruby didn't get too much time in the spotlight yet, but she's a great character in this regard.

I admit, it gave me newfound courage and motivation for my YouTube career. If anything, it made me wish I had more personal friends in the field to be able to talk with, and have fun with. I do have a lot of YouTube friends online, of course, but the setting takes place in the city. A city where these people can easily meet in person and do their things. Man... wouldn't that be so fun?

I'm torn, really. On the one hand, I truly despise the industry. I hate how it strips the humanity away from these people, and how fans can grow such toxic, insane mindsets that, in my eyes, tarnishes their own sense of humanity. Viewing people and lives as a form of "business" has always put a metaphorical black hole in my stomach. It's why I stopped following the money-hungry, business drive, "stock market" typed mentality shit. Viewing life as a commodity, to me, ends up ironically stripping it of any value.

Yet... there's something I truly resonate with the strength of will that comes from being able to destroy the norms of the industry and just have fun doing what you want, or putting a lot of heart into things as an art form.

Perhaps my biggest takeaway is to be 100% concrete in my views of not being a bitch about content creators. Someone uploads something I think is cringe? Who gives a shit, go work out or something instead, fatass. Someone gets involved in some big drama? Either leave it to the police or ignore it altogether, this isn't high school anymore. Someone makes a point I heavily disagree with in a video? Okay? Who cares?

It's one thing to criticize a product, but criticizing a person under the guise that they're a content creator or whatever inherently implies that they're being treated like a product, and I can't stand for that. Life really isn't that serious. It's more important to have fun with things, and if something isn't your vibe, then unless that person is doing something truly morally apprehensible (which does happen, of course), then just let things happen.

I feel like that idea wasn't even that much of a focus of the show, but it's still the major thing I took away from it. Famous actor, famous YouTuber, famous composer, they're just dudes. Sure, they're worth looking up to. Sure, you can get happy if you meet them. But they're not gods. A "fall from grace" should never be possible, for they never had grace in the first place. They've always been one of us. No, even more, because despite being one of us, they still put in so much time and effort to make us smile or laugh or cry or what have you, and I think taking away the humanity of such efforts is just a shame.

Back to Oshi no Ko, it definitely feels like it's going down "harem" route, which is... ehhhhhh. To be honest, there are a few elements of the show that I can see a lot of people being put off of. I'm a bit numb to those types of things (which might not be a good thing), and frankly romance has always been a guilty pleasure of mine, but I'm definitely not gonna be recommending this show to everyone like I do for other things like One Piece or Haikyuu.

Speaking of which, there's been a lot of shows that I've wanted to continue consuming after catching up to the anime, but so far I've only done that with the One Piece manga. Haikyuu has gotten close to making me want to, but I guess the kinetic flow of the animation with the volleyball games made me think I'd rather keep waiting for the anime than read the manga.

Oshi no Ko is getting... pretty close to making me wanna keep up. A season 2 was announced already, but there's no telling when that's gonna release. I wanna start reading, so maybe I'll do that. As much as the animation was absolutely gorgeous, I also think I could get by with just reading the manga and not lose too much, so it could work out. We'll see how I feel...

This is the part where I'm in emotional turmoil. Where I don't want to move on from a certain piece of fiction, yet know that I should probably starting moving on soon lol... Man, this never gets easy.

Maybe I will read the manga, if it's easy to access.

Anyways, favorite character is either Kana or Ruby, though I think Aqua is a solid main role too. In terms of... that kind of favorite, Mem definitely checks off all the boxes.

Though... to be honest, another element that this show makes me really think about is idol culture (though perhaps calling that "another element" is off, given how intrinsically connected it is to the things I ranted about before). That and "waifu" culture, though perhaps the fictional nature of "waifu" cultures puts it in a less serious league when compared to people treating real women in that sort of way.

I've always been hesitant of it. Not from a purist stance, I absolutely have a lot of fictional characters that I get those types of feelings for. But... for real people? Isn't that just... weird? Parasocial relationships are a topic that's... still a bit beyond me, but just the culture around obsessing over these people, judging them as if they're flavors, where you pick your favorite, and move on if it spoils or you find something better. It goes back to how it makes everything lose its humanity. Yet... the idea of it being a source of comfort and inspiration for these people, and that the actresses are a strong source of light, makes me look up to them all the same. It makes me understand why some people look up to and love idols, to an extent.

It's complicated, huh...

Anyways, love the show. It left several impressions onto me, which is always the mark of some great media. Good time to be alive.

[pnw-steet-art]

So this will probably be the only post you'll find of pure text on this blog until it shuts down.

I'm a guy who came to the pacific northwest for love & a different life. I am very much someone who appericate art even the more off beat stuff including graffiti. To me graffiti, especially as the modern form is the written form of expression that the youth (and sometimes not so young ) do to get their message recognized. This understanding came from the documentry "style wars" where it mostly focused on the late 1970s hip hop scene and how graffiti was the written word of Hop hop along side breaking as the physical expression and rapping as the spoken word.

I ,as someoene who grew up in that culture and the Rap culture that followed it in the 80s and 90s, noticed that: it wasn't just the hip-hop /rap kids, but people from all strips who tagged and had their own message to say wether it was promoting their music, a cry for help, getting out their rage or just their poltical messages.

I just want to share you some artist expressing themselves and with that said, know this blog will have elements of violence , gore , blood , human and other animal body parts and human and other animal waste may be depicted in the art. I do not flinch away from most of those subjects also being a horror fan & a self-styled goth. But I'll try and keep that behind explicit tags.

I ask that you do not scan any QR codes the art may have as I have no idea where they may lead or do to your device.

Few things I'll avoid :

-Hateful messages & calls for violence (have to stay within Tumblr's guild lines)

- Lazy "x was here " type work & line work similar to that

-Anything with phone numbers or personal info

- Scratch work (it's hard to capture and most of it is gang stuff).

[rosenecklaces]

a soap bar that smells good?

do you use lip balm?

did you have any snacks today?

how do you take your coffee?

an app you frequently use besides this godforsaken site?

what’s your take on spicy foods?

you get a free pass to kill anyone, who is it?

can you remember what happened yesterday?

favorite holiday film?

Oh my God hiii Nike, you really came trought with this ones 💐

Soap bar that smell good – in my house we used to buy this one that was very Vanilla, like strong Vanilla sent and I love that one, but i must say I'm weak for apple/jasmine ones too

Do you use lip balm – Not really 😭 I use Vaseline for lips so close enough i think

Did you have any snacks today? – Yess some popcorn, and idk if it counts but strawberries too

How do you take your coffee? – practically any way, I'm addicted to caffeine like my dad before me 💀 though I don't really like it strong or cold

An app you frequently use besides this godforsaken app – I think pinterest or instagram, to get news and see edits/art

what's your take on spicy food? – pretty normal about it, don't love it or hate it but my tongue can't stand too spicy that's for sure

You get a free pass to kill anyone, who is it? – lmao too many people to count, mostly billionaire bitches and politicians (from my country and others) also a lot of celeb white men ( j**nny d**p especially so guess him first)

Can you remember what happened yesterday? – Oh probably not all. my memory is very short I forget too easily, most memorable thing I did was creating a group with my bestie and cousin to help me with my crush (long and embarrassing story)

Favorite holiday film? – I don't think I have one.. I also don't watch too much movies or shows 😅 I'm gonna go with Jennifer's body /Hereditary/ready or not/nope for Halloween, polar express for Christmas and all 2000s cheesy rom coms for valentin, especially the modern Cinderella ones

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

An unpopular take, maybe, but I simply don't find the Matty Healy / Taylor Swift discourse interesting or useful. I get the critique that modern political culture overvalues speech acts (a very trenchant critique I've heard in the past is that now people believe posting on the internet is activism), I get Matty's meta critique of consumption in the internet era, I get the ironic humor of The Adam Friedland Show podcast, I don't think Matty is vile or antisemitic or racist or whatever. I just, personally, find the way that those critiques are made and who they're turned on to be so navel-gazing. If you strip away the layers of meta commentary and irony, I feel like you just wind up in a place where you're saying, oh, the problem is that these people in marginalized communities who didn't understand that my statements were made in the context of an ironic meta commentary on performance of values on the internet are terminally online and got too upset on the internet. And like, honestly? sure. true to a certain extent. People have certainly gone way overboard in their responses to these things. But in the broader context of our current political state, it feels like it's just contributing to the Left once again eating itself, unable to distinguish between an imperfect ally and an enemy. Is the problem really terminally online teenagers who wrote a cringey, boundary-less open letter to Taylor Swift? Is that what we want to spend our time and mental energy calling attention to and critiquing? Or is that mostly just a problem for famous people who are slowly being driven crazy by having to see people constantly misunderstand them on the internet?

For what it's worth, my opinion is driven at least in part by my assumption that this attention and backlash is at least in part intentional. For as much as everyone has been talking about these two people, I guess not very many people have actually paid attention to what Matty Healy/The 1975 are currently doing, but they've been releasing a series of videos called "A theatrical performance of an intimate moment". In the second video in the series (ironically dropped the same day as the Taylor/Joe breakup news), Matty decides he wants to be transported in a suitcase to avoid attention (something Taylor Swift famously did) because the fame is getting to him, he doesn't want to be touched, and he "doesn't want any more bracelets that say that I'm gay", said while pointing to a bead bracelet that looks like the friendship bracelets that people are making for the Eras tour. And in a later episode, he specifically talks about needing to find a girlfriend. So, real relationship or not, it seems kind of clear to me that there is at least some level of performance/performance art occurring. I'm open to being happily surprised by whatever the point of this art turns out to be, but I'm not optimistic.

Lots of really interesting thoughts anon - and I think we come from slightly different perspectives, but I'll try and tease some of the points out.

I loved your summary - I don't quite agree, but it makes it very easy to discuss. You think these sort of discussions boil down to people saying: "The problem is that these people in marginalized communities who didn't understand that my statements were made in the context of an ironic meta commentary on performance of values on the internet are terminally online and got too upset on the internet."

And I have two different thoughts about that - which address quite different aspects. The first is that I would always reject the idea that it's a problem that people don't get 'ironic humour'. There is nothing more tedious than people wanting to be edgy, but also wanting everyone to love them. I think people can and should have whatever reaction they want to the Adam Friedland Show (I listened and I fucking hated it - quite boring on top of everything else). But that in order to do useful politics and understand the world there has to be a gap between someone's personal reaction and someone's political analysis. That's what I find the Gary Younge article 'racism is a system of power not a series of gaffes' so useful at articulating.

The other point is that I don't think it's useful to characterise the fandom response as coming from 'marginalised communities'. Some of the people talking are from marginalised communities, but nowhere near the majority. And I think it's really important to push back against fandom's tendency to paint itself as a whole as marginalised in some way (this is a much bigger issue that I was talking quite a lot about with the Niall and fanfic debate).

I do think that part of the problem of this discussion (and why I find it interesting - even if I agree that there are very tedious elements) - is that there can be so many different views and assumptions that underlie where people end up that aren't articulate.

I really reject the idea that this is the left eating its own - or that it has to be. Partly that's because I see this as being much more about fandom and how fandom operates than about politics. But it's also because I think there are really basic answers to the question of how you distinguish between the enemy and an imperfect ally. It's incredibly important to both solidarity and coalition building that we are able to say 'I disagree with this argument' without that automatically meaning 'the person who is making it is bad and wrong'. Collapsing the two together is fundamentally unuseful - and ultimately individualising.

You ask both what the problem is and what the stakes are - which are great questions. I don't think fans without boundaries are a political problem (although there are many political elements). I absolutely wouldn't write about this or draw attention to it in any other space but a fandom one.

But I do think the stakes are much higher than you do. If I thought this discourse was only having an impact of Taylor Swift and Matty Healy then I wouldn't think it was worth talking about. One of my opinions that I haven't necessarily spelled out - is that it's really important within fandom to understand that the objects of fandom and what people think of hte objects of fandom are not that important. I sometimes do get annoyed/frustrated/upset with other people's views about 1D members, but I do try and make sure that I remind myself that it's OK that people disagree about celebrities.

If there are stakes in fandom behaviour, it's not about the implications for the objects of fandom, but the implications for the fans. And I guess one thing that I assume, is that people are unlikely to treat themselves, or the people around them more generously than they treat celebrities. That a culture that encourages polarised thinking and responding to polarised thinking by attempting to control others - has an impact on the people who are participate. Now that's not necessarily evidence based - it's just a vibe. But it's the reason that I do think the only useful response to this is to emphasise that this isn't the only way to navigate the world. And anything else is just talking about the issues because they're interesting.

But I do think it's worth saying that the idea that you get a say in who someone else dates is really fucked up and can have really fucked up implications for people who believe it. Not just because of how they might treat people - because the corollary is that other people get a say in who you date.

Having said all that - I won't go fully into the second point. I'll just say that one of the things that I find interesting about both Taylor and Matty Healy is that they're both very aware of their image, but it manifests itself in different ways (Taylor is very controlled, Matty Healy is much more chaotic, but often more meta). And on top of that I think in this circumstance what we're seeing is also influenced by the fact that we're all people as well as images - and being human is a pretty messy reality.