#find another fandom to write for and promote and embrace

[beanieman]

How do you think each character would react to having fans/a fandom. I feel like all of them except like. The already famous ones would be utterly horrified

(Realistically I think all of them would be horrified that people enjoyed or related to their personalities when they were in a death game. However, let's pretend they would be chill with it for a minute because I want to write headcanon's about how the YTTD characters would handle having fans.)

Sara Chidouin - Sara is really flustered. She's embarrassed about how many people know about her, and mostly worried that they've seen her do something embarrassing. She tries to keep the weird girl energy in check around strangers. Unfortunately.

Joe Tazuna - Joe thinks it's cool and is a bit giddy about it. He thinks it's so neat how many people like his personality and he does like to brag to Sara that he's famous. (Even though she's famous as well. Which he's quick to admit to!)

More Undercut

Gin Ibushi - Gin is quick to tell his Mom about his newfound fame and the power of stardom rushes to his head before you could even say "Spa Penguin."

Keiji Shinogi - Keiji's first reaction is "Why?" but then he shrugs it off. Having that many eyes on him makes him nervous.

Alice Yabusame - Alice is shocked that he has a fandom. If anyone would have fans he assumed it would be Reko. He doesn't really know what to do with the information and suddenly feels like a socially awkward young man on stage again.

Reko Yabusame - A part of Reko thinks it's cool. Another wishes she'd be more well known for her music instead of a death game. She appreciates everyone who takes an interest in her craft rather then her predicament.

Nao Egokoro - Nao yells about it because how is she able to handle THAT? Mishima and Sara calm her down and eventually convince her to embrace it.

Kazumi Mishima - Mishima is very self conscious very quickly. He wants to set a good example for his fans and wants to make sure his behavior is worthy of someone with eyes on them.

Q-taro Burgerberg - Q-Taro is shocked by how flustered he feels. He wishes people didn't see him at his worse, but is still really thankful that people liked him anyways and were understanding to his actions. Eventually he becomes excited about this because it means more people are cheering him on.

Kai Satou - Kai is a little freaked out but mostly doesn't acknowledge the situation in hopes it'll go away. He's not comfortable with how many people know he's an assassion.

Kanna Kizuchi - Kanna is incredibly touched that so many people appreciate her. She has such a low view of herself that it's amazing to hear about the amount of fans who love her character.

Shin Tsukimi - Shin spirals into paranoia. He doesn't like that people were watching him nor that they know him now. It makes him feel watched, and he only needs to find one meta blog overanalyzing his every action to loose his mind.

Dolls

Ranmaru Kageyama - Ranmaru handles it in the most mentally unhealthy way possible. He starts viewing everyone who likes him as a friend, and quickly develops unhealthy parasocial relationships.

Naomichi Kurumada - Naomichi is really excited because this is really going to help his career. He starts "casually" trying to show off his strength just to make a point about how good one of his matches would be.

Anzu Kinashi - Anzu is overwhelmed immediately. She doesn't know how to handle so many people having eyes on her, so she tries to run away. She hits the wall and knocks herself out.

Mai Tsurugi - Mai bats her eyelashes and puts on the most charming smile possible before promoting her bakery.

Shunsuke Hayasaka - Shunsuke gives a very sheepish and nervous "Thank you?" while hoping that people won't think about him cursing out Sara too much.

Hinako Mishuku - Hinako is mostly nervous that people know her secret now. She'd rather have kept that under wraps.

[bearkunin]

Outside of the Locked Tomb Fandom I'm going to inevitably end up writing a lot about political concepts, so I'm just going to kick things off by posting about my understanding (at the very least) of the historic context of some of the key movements for easy future reference. I'll kick off with a post on...

Social Democracy

Social Democracy arose in the late 19th century as a socialist movement with the aim to abolish capitalism. The first main party was the German Social Democrat Workers Party in Germany (later, the Social Democratic Party), which adopted Marxism into its platform. This was not a moderate position. A colourful quote from the revolutionary Zaichnevsky calling for a social democratic Republic in Russia in 1862:

To your axes!' and we shall kill the imperial party with no more mercy than they show for us now. We shall kill them in the squares, if the dirty swine ever dare to appear there; kill them in the avenues of the capitals; kill them in the villages. Remember: anyone who is not with us is our enemy, and every method may be used to exterminate our enemies.

Following Marx's (and Engel's) death, the two big names that emerged in Marxism were Kautsky and Bernstein. Kautsky led the school now known as Orthodox Marxism and was basically mainstream socialism until a little upstart revolutionary called Vladimir Lenin came onto the scene.

After Vladimir Lenin shot to worldwide fame with the Russian Revolution, he would have a very prominent feud with "the renegade Kautsky" about the role of violent revolution in achieving socialism. Kautsky would come to use "social democracy" and "socialism" for his movement, and "communism" to refer to Lenin's Bolshevism. Social Democracy according to Kautsky was a workers' led socialism, building up a mass party, while "communism" was dictatorial and in the vein of the Blanquists. This feud is when you began seeing a real split and animosity between "Social Democrats" and "Communists"

Bernstein, the other then-big figure but now even less known than Kautsky, is probably the person who drove the break between "Social Democrats" and "socialism" as a whole. Although a socialist, and a prominent Social Democrat, Bernstein would reject a number of key points of Marxism - most notably the need for revolution and dialectical materialism. Instead, he entrenched socialism in ethics and promoted the possibility for achieving socialism through reform. Rosa Luxembourg's *Reform or Revolution?* is a response largely to Bernstein, where she chastised his reformist approach. This marks another significant tiff in socialism.

Social Democracy then became synonymous with a reformist movement, with an emphasis on ethics rather than historical materialism, and counterposed to USSR style communism. It would quickly find an ally in social liberalism, in particular due to the shared antagonism to Soviet authoritarianism. By the 1970s, social democracy had all but abandoned its Marxist roots. It's focus on the ethical increase of workers' wellbeing, rather than transforming the mode of production, saw it adopt third-way policies and work within the bounds of capitalism. From then on, social democracy became synonymous with capitalism with a hefty welfare state.

With the triumphant economic turn around of Thatcher's Britain and Reagan's America, shortly followed by the utter discrediting of Soviet communism with the collapse of the USSR, a large number of parties with roots in social democracy embraced markets as the driver of welfare. This is essentially when social democratic parties like Labor and Labour in Australia and the UK became "neoliberal", because they fully accepted the underlying belief in the benefits of competitive markets.

This is also why you can find some political parties which are pretty clearly pro-capitalist still have references to "socialism" in their platforms or manifestos, or in some cases, their names like the French Socialist Party.

So for my purposes: social democracy is, at least now, a capitalist ideology albeit not wedded to the idea. Rather, it seeks the material improvement of the conditions of the working class, and is happy to use a free market liberal economy towards these ends. It now has many overlaps with "liberalism" broadly, but had a different starting point: not with individual liberal rights, but a more utilitarian approach to welfare.

[absent-angel]

Writing on the Wall

Chapter 31: Silver Linings

Fandom: Inuyasha

Summary: Inuyasha doesn’t believe in haunted houses—until he actually buys one. Figures. A story told in drabbles. [Ghost AU] [InuKag]

Read it on ff.net

AN: And Inuyasha makes things right again. Also I have no idea where I'm going from here. *hysterical laughter*

Also also, it's been brought to my attention that I'm super terrible at self promotion! :D If you're trying to find my original novel, you can find it HERE.

If you want to stay up to date on the ghostly paranormal romance WIP I'm on schedule to publish next Spring (and any other original work), you can find me on Twitter or Tumblr @RRaeta or subscribe/check on my website at www.rraeta.com where I'll be posting release dates, cover reveals, deleted scenes, and all that fun stuff. :)

As always, thank you so much for reading and reviewing! You're support means everything!

Word Count: 512

Warnings: Inuyasha’s potty mouth and, uh, character death. Because, you know, ghost story.

Chapter 31: Silver Linings

He finds her in the attic, curled up in the corner beneath one of the trusses. Outside, the storm has calmed—the pattering of rain soft against the shingles. “Kagome?”

She hides her face against her tucked knees, shifting her body away from him. “Go away.”

He winces. Yeah, she’s still pissed alright. He hoists himself up onto the attic floor even though he knows the dust is probably going to be murder on his nose. He doesn't miss the layers of footprints stamped into the dust as he crawls over to her. When he gets close enough to sit beside her, she turns her head and Inuyasha sighs. “Look, I'm sorry. Alright?”

She’s quiet for a long time—long enough for him to start thinking she isn't going to answer. “You're the first,” she whispers.

Inuyasha hates that he can hear the tears in her voice. “First what?”

“The first to speak to me.” She gives a watery, vulnerable laugh as she turns those blue, blue eyes to him. “The first to see me that wasn't...”

She trails off. Inuyasha thinks of bloodied teeth smiling with her mouth.

His heart splinters—another wave of self-hatred crashing around him. Of course he’s the first. No one has lived here since she died. No one has stayed long enough to care. She’s been alone for twenty-seven years with no one but herself for company, and like a fucking asshole he had gone and thrown it all in her face.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, but it doesn't feel like enough. Sorry doesn't do shit to make make it better. Maybe it's just instinct, or maybe he just wants to feel her too, but he rests his hand on top of hers. Beneath his palm she isn't nearly as cold as he remembers, and her skin is soft but solid beneath his touch.

When her stuttering, pleased sigh reaches his ears—when her hand turns to return the embrace—he fights to keep the flush from his cheeks. His pulse is pounding in his ears, and he almost loses his courage until she looks at him with so much hope that it just about tears him apart. He can't not tell her. “I don't want you to go.”

Doesn’t want her to be silent; doesn’t want her to be gone.

Her face crumples and for a split second Inuyasha thinks he fucked it all up again, but then her arms are over his shoulders and her face is buried in his neck. He can feel phantom tears rolling down the skin beneath his collar. Somehow, he knows if he touched it his fingers would come back dry.

“I don't want to either,” she whimpers. “I like talking to you. I like being seen.”

He holds her tighter, pulls her into his lap and rocks her as she falls apart. There’s no storm outside, but the attic is dark and the floorboards creek with every shift, and he thinks of what his mother whispered to him in between the loud claps of thunder.

Don't be afraid.

[captainbeverlycrusher]

An Open Letter to the Star Trek Community

To the Star Trek Community,

I write this from a place of deep respect, gratitude and compassion, and with hope that what I have to say will be received in good faith and be heard.

I am an immigrant woman of colour who found Star Trek at a time when I was at my lowest and stuck in what seemed like perpetual darkness, and it was this wonderful franchise and its powerful message which uplifted me and brought me back into the light so that today I can truly say that I am at my strongest. As such, Star Trek’s positive influence in my life has been no small thing. Star Trek has taught me to be the captain of my life, to reach for the stars, to stand up for what is right no matter the cost, and, above all, to be brave and bold.

And so, in the spirit of boldly going, I humbly call on ALL white members of the Star Trek Community — creators, platform curators, prominent fans and figures, including and especially Star Trek cast members, past and present — who believe in the underlying mission and vision of Star Trek to formally denounce all forms of racism and bigotry and those who uphold such abhorrent beliefs; I call on you to condemn the actions of those who have harmed Black and Indigenous people, and all People of Colour (BIPOC); and I call on you to strive to do more and do better for the sake of BIPOC in both the Star Trek community and in your own lives who have been subjected to racism. Finally, I encourage you to urge your supporters in this community to do the same, particularly those who are now finally waking up to the injustices perpetrated against BIPOC.

I am, of course, aware that the official Star Trek entity released a statement in this vein recently. I know many of you have expressed one way or another your support for the Black Lives Matter movement. I see you. It’s a good start. But it is not enough. I need each of you who hold so much influence within this community to do this, to say once and for all that you will not condone racism and anti-Blackness from your supporters, fans and followers any longer. It is important for this to happen.

I know you support the vision of the great Gene Roddenberry and the powerful philosophy of Star Trek and what it stands for. I know you believe in these words as much as I do:

“Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms.”

But many white supporters within the Trek community truly do not share these sentiments, and they have proven this time and again, especially as they have belittled and driven fans of colour like me away instead of putting the mission of Star Trek into practice and welcoming us with open arms. Both on-and-offline, there are those who have insulted and degraded BIPOC involved in the Trek community— and not just fans but creatives, actors, and notable figures of colour alike. We have been treated as inferior and dismissed.

I have seen and witnessed it with my own eyes. I have endured this myself and I cannot explain to you how hurtful it has been for many of us. I am a fan who has experienced so much harm from many white people I have come across in Trek spaces, at conventions and events, even among those I had considered friends, and for it to come from within a franchise that promotes love, hope and acceptance, it has been devastating. What I once looked to as a safe haven no longer is.

I can only speak for myself and from my own experiences. And based on my experience, my call to action here is completely necessary. Because something I never say aloud, something I constantly have to process and reprocess in therapy is that 6 years ago when I was 24, the night before I first met my Trek heroes, I cried bitter tears because I felt that they would not accept me because I wasn’t white, that I was unlovable by even the most amazing people because I was not white like them. 24 years old. A grown adult. And I felt that way. So many white Trek supporters contributed to making me feel that way every time they overtly and subtly implied that their whiteness made them superior. I have remained silent about this and numerous other incidents for many years, but living in silence has only served to intensify the painful experiences I’ve had, and so I share this to stress the urgency with which this community-wide issue needs to be addressed. We cannot allow damage like this to continue towards BIPOC in this community.

Racism destroys the soul. Racism is why I hurt myself for so long and why so many white supporters have harmed fans of colour like me, despite their claims that they believe in all that Star Trek stands for. Racism hurts us all. This is just a small part of my story. Imagine how many more there are like it or even worse. As white people, you will never experience racism and you may not see the abominable treatment BIPOC in the Trek community encounter, but it is happening.

With the Black Lives Matter protests gaining momentum worldwide, it couldn’t be more clear that now is not the time to find the middle ground on issues like this, because there is none when it comes to racism. Either you are against it or not. And I promise you, the Trek community does not need the support of people who go out of their way to justify any and all racist acts, because as we can clearly see, even the smallest racial microaggressions and biases can ultimately lead to murder. The desire to keep the peace in the fandom and franchise is not more important than Black lives. Especially because the truth is, as far as I have observed, there has never been actual peace.

We are presently witnessing a global reckoning in which many are finally starting to acknowledge the existing ways racism and white supremacy are upheld. As a community that claims to value all beings and embrace all differences, it only makes sense for Star Trek and all its community members to lead the way to a better future in the entertainment and creative industries and beyond, and to start doing so by looking within ourselves and our own backyard. We MUST clean up this community so that all People of Colour can truly feel safe and welcomed and be embraced and celebrated in every Trek space.

As I issue my call to action, I urge you to consider doing the following:

First, in particular for prominent white cast and creatives, please let the Trek community know where you stand. If you have not already done so, please let people know that you will not tolerate any further bigotry and racist behaviour from anyone. Please let your Black fans and all fans of colour know that you are with us. And please don’t mince words.

Amplify the voices of BIPOC within this community. So many of us are constantly silenced and drowned out and it is time for us to be heard. Our presence only enhances the Trek community. Uplift and embrace us. We matter.

If you manage any online Trek-related spaces and platforms, it is your responsibility to moderate and remove speech that is racist against BIPOC. It is imperative for you to enforce stricter commenting policies and do all that you can to protect BIPOC from further harm. And for those participating in these spaces, it is equally your duty to call out and report any such speech you encounter.

Educate your fellow white Trekkies who don’t yet understand why this is important. BIPOC have expended a lot of labor attempting to do so already but we have been dismissed, ignored, and cast aside. The onus is now on you to ease us of this burden and do the work given your positions of influence.

Hold yourselves and other white people in your Trek networks accountable to BIPOC community members. Make this part of your norm so that it becomes second nature to you, especially so these issues don’t ever fade into the background as they have often done in the past. This is an opportunity to improve and get it right.

Continue supporting the Black Lives Matter movement even after it stops trending. Visit https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ to find helpful resources, make donations, sign petitions, and to get more involved in this work beyond the Trek community. This work is ongoing. It is lifelong.

Committing to doing every one of these would be small yet meaningful steps in the ongoing struggle for racial justice and it would make a significant difference. So with great respect and love, I implore you to use your power and privilege to do this for BIPOC, for yourselves, for all of us.

Stand up with and speak up for all BIPOC fans, friends and colleagues, far and wide. Be loud about it.

Be as loud and unrelenting as LeVar Burton. He has always been at the helm of this struggle, has always been upfront about it, and I love and admire him for it. Follow his lead.

Naturally, fear courses through me as I write all this, but I think of Gates McFadden, a great hero of mine, who once rocked the boat and spoke up against the sexism and racism she witnessed while working on TNG and was actually fired for it. If she can do that, then I think I can do this regardless of the risk. Because I know what I’m asking for and ultimately fighting for is right. Because what we can no longer deny is that lives are at stake. Black lives. And they matter.

Now it is up to you to do your part. Boldly go, in hope and with love.

And may you Live Long and Prosper.

— Originally published on Women at Warp

[duhragonball]

Disinterpretation

I finally finished the Sarah Z video about “pro vs. anti”.   It’s pretty long, and I ended up watching it in chunks over several days, but I think it’s worth watching, especially if you’re sort of partially connected to online fandom, but not enough to be aware of all the lingo. 

As I expected, the whole thing was vague and confusing because the people involved in the conflict made it vague and confusing.   In theory, the full terms would be “pro-shipping” and “anti-shipping”, but it seems like it’s more about particular kinds of ships that could be considered controversial.  But that’s a slippery slope, and apparently the whole conflict mutated into both sides deciding that every hypothetical relationship between fictional characters is either equally valid or equally dangerous.  

Long story short, it’s just purity culture, which was what everyone on Tumblr was calling it around 2012.  But now, if you’re a sane person who genuinely asks: “Who gives a fuck about Voltron?”, these people will jump your ass and accuse you of being on the side of their enemies.  “Children have died over the importance of Lotor/Hagger!   Your callous indifference proves that you yourself must have murdered children!” 

I think what Sarah Z really hit upon in this video was that media consumption has become so ingrained in our culture that people feel like it has to go hand-in-hand with our morality.   That is, it’s not enough for me to watch Star Trek, I have to justify Star Trek as evidence that I’m a good person.  Maybe this is where the expression “guilty pleasure” comes from.   Conversely, it’s not enough for me to not watch Dr. Who, I have to somehow convince everyone that Dr. Who was invented by the devil.

I’m pretty sure the Reylo ship has a lot to do with this, since it’s kind of understood to be a dark, problematic concept, and fans either embrace its flaws or recoil in horror because of them.   Star Wars itself is a dumb story about space wizards, so people try to give the debate more weight by linking it to freedom of self expression and/or enabling real world harm.   Suddenly it’s not enough to just think two actors would look cute making out instead of fighting.   Now it’s this battlefield for the soul of civilization or something.

I grew up in the 80′s, when “concerned parents” and grifters would accuse the Smurfs and metal bands of promoting satanism and witchcraft.   I used to hear stories of teens going out into the woods in the middle of the night to do occult stuff, and all I could ever think about was: “Why would anyone bother wandering out in the woods in the middle of the night?”  Which is why “concerned parents” turned their attention to things that were closer to home, like Saturday morning cartoons.   It had nothing to do with the content; it was just about finding a safe, accessible target for their hysteria.   Some people want to go on a crusade without leaving the house, so they pick a fight with Papa Smurf instead of confronting the real evils in the world.  Even as a kid, I knew this was a con, because I’d watched the show for myself and knew it was too saccharine to be threat to anyone.

The pro/anti folks have tried to disguise this with a lot of terminology.   I wondered why they seemed to reluctant to use the full terms “pro-shipper” and “anti-shipper”, and it’s probably a couple of things.   First, the word “shipper” is basically an admission that this is pointless bullshit that doesn’t matter, and they’d like to avoid that connotation.   Second, they seem to have decided that this goes beyond shipping itself, into practically anything else they want it to involve.  It’s all part of the con, which is to make you believe that it’s “us vs. them”, and you can be part of “us” by curating specific attitudes about Steven Universe.

Seriously, “about Steven Universe” is such an incredible punchline.  You can make anything funnier by adding those three words to the end of a sentence.   “Do not interact if you blog about Steven Universe.”   “Hey, what’s up, YouTube, this is SSJ3RyokoLover69, and this is going to be kind of a serious video about Steven Universe.”   “Mrs. Johnson, the results of your biopsy are in, and I have some bad news about Steven Universe.”   It’s a fucking kids show.   “Oh no, all the characters look like the characters in all the other kids shows!”   Yeah, that’s because it’s a kids show.   Marvin looks like Garfield, this isn’t new.

The common denominator here seems to be that both sides try to wrap themselves in the flag of vulnerable groups: impressionable minors, trauma survivors, harassment victims, etc.   The “pros” want to protect those people so that they can feel free to explore weird subject matter on their own terms, and the “antis” want to protect the same people from being exposed to weird subject matter that they might not want to see.   It’s all about establishing a moral high ground.   Back in the day, it was called “sanctimony”. 

But people get roped into this, because at their core, people want approval, and this stupid conflict offers them a sense of community.  As long as you support the cause, whatever it may be, you’ll have this online friend network that appears to support anything you do.   But if you deviate from their norm, you’ll be cast out.    Does this sound familiar?

To use a more familiar example, I still sometimes find people clamoring about Gochi vs. Vegebul.   I’ve never understood this, because both ships were canon, and I never saw much direct evidence of a war between them, but people would still talk about how crazy the Vegebul shippers were, and how crazy the Gochi shippers were, and it was like some huge thing going on just over the hills.   It’s the same idea, since the idea that you could like both or neither never seems to occur to anyone involved.   I never gave a shit, because I used to see the same dumb agendas in the Harry Potter fandom.

Okay, so let me take you back.  It’s 2005 through 2011, and I’m hateblogging all seven Harry Potter novels, because fuck you, that’s why.  The funny thing I encountered was that occasionally fans seemed to want to pretend like my bashing of certain characters was proving them right somehow.    They were like “See?  He hates Ron Weasley too!  That proves that Seamus Finnegan is the coolest guy ever.”   The Slytherin stans would do this all the time, because I would constantly take the piss out of the Gryffindor characters for being self-important dopes.   I think they just liked hearing it from an outside perspective.   But I had to keep reminding them all that I hated all of them.   Every character from Harry Potter sucks ass. Voldemort was my favorite, but only because he was the one guy who wanted to kill all of the others.   But he sucks too because he failed. 

And the shippers were the same way.   I’d say something shitty about Ron, because Ron sucks, and some smartass Joss Whedon fan would be like “Yes!  Boost the signal!  That is why Harry/Hermione is the best ship!”  And I’d be like “No, Harry and Hermione suck at least as bad as Ron does.  They’re all terrible and I hate them.”   I really do think there was some sort of Stockholm Syndrome going on with Harry Potter books, where everyone secretly knows they suck, but the fans sort of latch on to one or two characters and go like “Well, he’s not as shitty as the rest.”   Like finding spaghetti in the trash and picking out the meatball with the least amount of lint on it.   Then you’d go and start a flamewar with some other starving person over whether your meatball is shittier than theirs.  This is what people mean when they say to read another book. 

Anyway, the big thing I picked up from Sarah Z’s video is “disinterpretation”, a term coined by MSNBC columnis Zeeshan Aleem.   The Twitter thread is worth a read, but the short version is that he once remarked that a Julia Louis-Dreyfus routine wasn’t very good, and someone got mad at him for insinuating that women are incapable of being funny.    They just took his dissatisfaction with one performance by one comedian as being a universal condemnation of women comedians in general.  And this sort of thing is all over the internet.   Everyone sees what they want to see and then they take it as permission to overreact.  

I ran into this myself a while back, because someone saw who I interacted with on Twitter and decided that they’re all bad guys and if I have any interaction with them, then that makes me a bad guy too.   At the time I tried to play it cool, but the more I think about it, the more it ticks me off.   And over the course of that conversation, it was said that I don’t talk about myself much, and that’s kind of funny, because all I ever do on social media is write long-ass blog posts like this one.  I don’t expect anyone to memorize them, or even read them all the way through, but when I write all this stuff and someone goes out of their way to say they don’t know anything about me, the message is that they just didn’t pay attention to what I was saying, and they didn’t bother to try.

So I’m a little jaded from that, because I got called out for a bunch of stuff I didn’t even do or say, and apparently that’s just a thing that happens.   People will reject you for completely arbitrary reasons, not because of anything you actually said or did, and you’re left thinking you made some terrible mistake.   Except, no, I’ve seen it happen to other people, people a lore more conscientious than I am, and if they can’t satisfy the bullshit purity standards, then I never stood a chance.   If the game is rigged so I can’t win, then I’m not going to play.  

And it’s that same condition that probably draws people into these online holy wars, because if you declare yourself for the pro or anti side, at least then you’ll have a posse backing you up.   Only they don’t support you, they support your willingness to support them.    Once your commitment to their agenda wavers, even in the slightest, they will turn against you.   

Sarah Z suggests that both sides of the war drop the pro and anti terms, since they lost all meaning long ago.   But that just invites a new set of useless terms to perpetuate the same cycle.   Her more useful advice is for fandom people to broaden their horizons.   She got a lot of flak for tweeting “Go outside” once, but the ironic thing is that it’s sound advice.   I had lunch with my mom yesterday and it was just nice getting away from things for a while.   People need to do that more often, and unfortunately it feels like it’s harder to do than ever before.

But “go outside” isn’t just a literal thing.   It can mean going beyond your usual haunts, reading the same books, watching the same shows, rehashing the same conversations.   I think the reason this stuff always revolves around “shipping” is because there seems to be this deep-seated compulsion to pair fictional characters off like this, and for a lot of folks it’s the only way they can consume a story, so they do.   And they do it lot, and there’s a lot of them, and they do it the same way every time, and lo and behold the same old conflicts start up.   So maybe “go outside” should mean “go outside of that cycle once in a while.”   Just a thought. 

[aelin-queen-of-terrasen]

"Are you going to be okay?" + "Please stop lying to me" for either Rowaelin or someone from the Cadre (Rowan and Lorcan or Fenrys and Connal)

note: so like, since we need more Lorcan and Aelin brotp fics, I'm gonna do them for this one. hope you don't mind. if you'd like to check out my other fics, here's the masterlist.

---------------

Lorcan hated how much he was used to Terrasen now, hated how it felt like home more than Doranelle ever had. In the five centuries he had been alive, he had never imagined this is where he would end up. Bloodsworn to a queen of fire and ash, as wild as she was reckless. A queen who actually cared for her people and her court. A queen who no doubt hated his guts ever since that cursed day on the beach. He had nightmares about that gods damned day sometimes, of Aelin being bruised and battered. Aelin may have forgiven him but he couldn't forgive himself.

He had tried to avoid her as much as he could, didn't want to get close to the wicked queen and had done a good job at keeping away from her until today.

"You're sure there's no one else who can do this?" he asked, hesitant.

Emrys, the cook, quirked an eyebrow at that. The storykeeper had a bowl of steaming soup in his hand. "Prince Rowan isn't here and she's sick. Do you want to be the one to tell him why I let just some servant into close quarters with her when she was ill disposed?" The man had a point. The Fae part of him wanted to growl at the mere thought of letting anyone near her, not when she was probably passed out.

Lorcan sighed in resignation before he was making his way towards her private chambers, the bowl of soup in his hand. He knocked twice on the door of her private chambers and entered when a muffled voice replied, 'The door's open.' She had likely heard him arrive with her fae senses. He almost wished she hadn't let him in.

He didn't know what he expected but the fire breathing bitch queen hunched over papers, her quarters resembling a trash bin was not it.

She had her head propped up with one hand, another holding a piece of parchment that her eyes skimmed through. She half turned in her seat and gave him a wry smile when she spotted the bowl of soup in his hand. "First my bloodsworn warrior, now my personal servant? I'm impres—" the words were cut off by a sneeze, then another and another in quick succession.

She rose from her seat, then flicked a hand in dismissal. "Thank you. You can leave now." But then she was stumbling, eyes half shut and Lorcan barely caught her in time.

She righted herself soon, pulling away from him. Her cheeks and nose were pink from the cold outside, face uncharacteristically pale and turquoise eyes lacking their usual gleam of wickedness.

He frowned. "Are you going to be fine?" It was a stupid question. The woman was trying to work when she was so sick. She was anything but fine.

"Yeah, just a cold. You'd think after all the shit with Maeve and Erawan, I'd be immune to something as trivial as cold." Her humour failed to hit it's mark when a coughing fit seized her. She said, "You can leave. I'll be fine."

Lorcan didn't know what came over him, only that she was being an idiot and he needed her to rest if she was going to recover. "Stop lying to me! You aren't fine, you should rest." He pushed her back on the chair she had been sitting in, shoved the papers aside and slammed the bowl of soup in front of her. "Finish this."

"I don't—"

"Aelin, finish this now."

Short of using the blood oath to make him leave, there was nothing she could do that would make him leave. Lorcan doubted she'd use the oath and he wasn't leaving until he was sure she was fine, even if she did try to kill him a lot of times. For all he knew, she still did want to kill him.

Aelin grumbled but obeyed. "Damn you overprotective fae bastards."

While she ate, Lorcan drew the curtains shut to keep the cold air out, lit the fireplace when she didn't light it herself and tidied up the bed, making space for her to lay down between all the dresses sprawled on it. He could call in a servant to clean all that up but his fae instincts wouldn't let anyone within a hundred feet of her until he was sure his queen was safe and protected. Whatever reason Lorcan had for taking the blood oath, she was his queen now. It was his duty to protect her.

Aelin was back to working by the time he was done. "You're not working anymore, Aelin. Finish that tomorrow."

"I won't finish in time if I stop now."

"You will," he nudged her to rise. "If it's so important, I'll help you finish. For now, you need to go to bed."

She looked ready to protest and Lorcan was prepared to throw her over his shoulder, then chain her to her bed if that's what it took. Aelin must have known that because she surrendered and moved to lay down in her bed. Lorcan watched her closely should she stumble again. He didn't want to explain to Rowan why and how his wife fell face first onto the floor when the prince returned.

Aelin cocked her head at him when Lorcan moved to pull up the covers. "What, now you're tucking me in? Are you going to kiss my forehead, then sing me to sleep next, father?"

Insufferable, as always. "Can you please stop, Aelin?" he asked.

But of course, she couldn't stop. When had she ever stopped? "You didn't even call me bitch! Look at us bonding together! Elide bribed you into this, didn't she?" A pointed look at that. "You're going soft on me, Salvaterre."

He ignored the jibes, then turned to leave the room once he made sure she was safe and warm. "I'll be right outside, call me if you need something." Then he pulled back, scanning the room for any safety hazards before he left.

Aelin cleared her throat, stopping him with a hand on his wrist. "You don't have to do this. I know you don't like me, it's alright. I understand."

She didn't understand shit. He wished Elide had bribed him into doing this or something so he could claim he was here against his will. He didn't want to care for anyone else, not now, not after all that he had done and seen and lived. Especially not for another queen, one just as powerful—if not more—than Maeve. Sometimes, Lorcan had nightmares about that too—about serving in Maeve's court still, wreaking havoc in her name. He didn't want to end up devoted to this new queen as he'd been to Maeve even if he knew the two of them were nothing alike.

Maybe it was that realisation that made Lorcan want to say it. "I've never said it before, not like this but I'm sorry for what happened with Maeve." His voice wobbled as an image of a blood drenched shirt lying in the sad flashed across his vision. Lorcan steeled himself and went on. Aelin had saved his life and Elide's countless times. He owed her this truth, "...you were a foreign queen, a stranger I didn't care about. Now, Aelin? Now, you're my queen and I promise, oath or no oath, I will always protect you." Then, just to lift the mood, he added with a scowl: "Even if you are a raging pain in the ass most times."

Aelin snorted, nudging him to sit beside her. Hellas damn him, he did. "And here I was, thinking we'd become friends after that speech."

"The only way we'll be friends is if you use the blood oath to do that."

Aelin shot him a glare before she snuggled closer, head resting on his chest as if she was trying to leech off his warmth. "It won't be the worst thing in the world to have you around the palace sometimes, I suppose," she mused, her voice muffled and soft. Lorcan didn't move even when her breathing turned soft and steady, his arm wrapped around her.

He didn't regret a thing until the court returned to find the two of them wrapped in a warm embrace. Needless to say, no one let Lorcan forget about it for the next few weeks.

----------------

note: oof, hope y'all liked reading that. it was fun to write Lorcan and Aelin. Would totally do it again. also, not to self promote but join the 1K celebration if you haven't already!

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[mangolover]

Hi! So I see that you’re happy to write for all IkeRev suitors which I’m so excited about!

I was wondering if I could please request headcanons for Harr and Dalim? How would they feel if their fem S/O was also a scholar at the tower, but is one of the few women there?

Thank you! 🤗

Hey!

Thank You so much for the request! You’re actually the first one to ever request something written from me so I really want to thank you for making my day! 💖🥰

Furtermore, I really tried my best to portrait Dalim and Harr as they are and I really hope I grasped Dalim’s personality even slightly correct. As for Harr, it has been some time since I played his route so I don’t remember anything other than him being a shy, adorable, protective, blushy mess. 🥺💖

I tried to do my research today during my math class at 8am so let’s just say that was ✨fun!✨

But I really hope you do enjoy these and that I did both of them and this request a justice. 💖

Lots of love and thank You once again for the request, please enjoy the following:

Dalim and Harr finding out their female s/o is a magic disciple

Fandom: Ikemen Revolution / Ikerev

Warnings: none

Spoilers: Some major spoilers for Harr’s route, I suggest you read it before you read this because his route is amazing and Harr is adorable.

Dalim

Dalim and you met in his bar few months back. He was his flirty self as usual until you told him you are in a hurry and need a coffee to go before you’re late to your new job. Your dedication to your work piqued his interest, after all with your beauty you could easily have any man.

But you, Princess, decided that you don’t need saving and that you’ll work with the dragon that was watching your tower that you were supposed to be locked in.

Eventually, you gave into his courting and you two started dating. Only, he kept his secret identity as Amon’s right-hand man to himself for now and you kept yours.

You were working hard and proving yourself despite all the hardships you experienced as a woman working as a magic disciple. Not many ladies wanted to fight and work hard to earn the respect of others, but you’re strong willed and you did it.

When you finally proved to Lord Amon himself, you earned a promotion and Dalim’s interest. After all, a woman was possibly trying to take his job, becoming Amon’s left-hand woman.

The right-hand man approached you, asking you to follow him so he can show you your duties at such a high rank of duty. He took you to one of the more secret rooms and took off his hood, revealing his identity to you.

Your breath hitched in your throat as you realized it was your boyfriend Dalim, the barkeeper. How was this possible? You were trying so hard to process this new information, deep in your thought. You were glad the hood covered your eyes so he couldn’t see the panic arising in them

You were however rudely pulled back to reality when Dalim cleared his throat and soon you had seen his hand in front of you. It was a polite gesture to introduce himself, his trademark smile apparent on his lips.

You were reluctant at first, but after a few seconds you shook his hand.

“Dalim, but please feel free to call me ‘Dum’, Princess.” You didn’t answer, instead you pulled back your hood and you could see his mouth opening and closing in disbelief, surprise evident on his face.

He didn’t know what to think for a few seconds.

Magic tower wasn’t really the most honest civil agency ever and he knew how dirty things could get.

He was torn between being protective of you and making you quit before you get hurt and being supportive of you. After all you proved yourself even before Amon, earning the place of his left hand.

But one thing’s for sure.

This man has fallen even harder for you now.

Not only could he be his real self with you, but he also saw who your really were. And he must admit that he found your strong will extremely hot  appealing.

Be sure that he will always have your back when the other guys start doubting you, making sure they pay.

“Y/n?” He stared at you for a few seconds as you averted your gaze, you were scared of how he would react. What if he didn’t want you to be his girlfriend anymore because you work at the same place? Or what if he didn’t want to tell you of his other identity in this way? “But how didn’t I notice before?”

“To be honest, these hoods really do good job of hiding our faces” you tried to make this situation a bit lighter by stating facts in an arrogant way, acting like you know it all by placing one hand on your hips and rolling your eyes.

“I honestly didn’t think you could be any more attractive to me Princess.” His comment made you flustered and you focused on the floor in front of you until you felt his fingers under your chin, tilting it upwards so you were looking him in the eyes. He slowly placed a gentle, lingering kiss full of emotions on your lips.

“Your determination really is hot, I‘m proud of you” he would say with a smile on his lips and you would find yourself returning it, feeling happy that you two finally came clean to one another.

He really is proud of you. He knew all along that you were special and he is so proud to call such a hard-working lady his Princess.

Harr

You and Harr accidentally met one day in the Forbidden Forest when you were going on a walk and got lost, finding yourself staring at his back as he was fishing with Loki at the Lake of Tears. The two of them turned around, ready to stood their ground when they realized it was just some lost girl.

Loki first had the pleasure of meeting you as he immediately took an interest at such a cute young lady you were. But you weren’t interested in the young man that was extending his hand to you. Instead, you were pulled to the mysterious man that refused to even look you in the eye, half of his face hidden by a mask with intricate design.

So, you made sure to introduce yourself to him and try to make small talk to him, but his shyness made it seem like he was really cold to you.

Despite that, your stubbornness made you visit the Lake of Tears and Forbidden Forest more and more in the next few months.

After all, Harr had opened up to you bit by bit and you learned he was the so-called Joker that was planning on overthrowing Amon from his position as the leader of the Magic Tower.

He pushed you away in case he didn’t get back, but you knew he had feelings for you just like you had for him.

So, when he did take over Amon’s place and started making some progress, changing the Magic Tower to finally be the civil agency the Cradle deserved, you knew you wanted to be at his side to help him make his dream come true.

One day your acquaintance Dalim came to your door, telling you of how Harr has returned and how he was now in charge. He even managed to make you join them both in making this place a better place. So, you arranged to meet him in front of the tower one morning so you could start working there.

You and Dalim walked up the floating stairs, your head held high as you felt a fuzzy feeling in your chest. You were doing this for the man you love so he can help the whole country, he was a hero now and you were proud of him, being there for him very step of the way so far. It was only logical to continue giving him your full support.

He however was absent for a few days, having to go around the whole country without using his own magic so he could recover. That’s why you two haven’t seen each other for more than a week now. But still you put on the hood and started working from the lowest rank, which made other disciples there that were mostly men doubt and disrespect you. But you weren’t the one to quit and you quickly started to earn everyone’s respect when they saw your dedication and will.

Harr had meanwhile returned and he wasn’t aware of your new job. So, when you ran up to him and enveloped him in a bone crushing embrace, you could feel him stiffen under you, but you didn’t get to see how his eyes widened with pure shook and disbelief as your hood fell back from your head, revealing your face and top of your head.

In an instant heat spread across Harr’s cheek and a warm, fuzzy feeling of affection bloomed in his chest, he wrapped his arms around you only for a moment before he pulled you back to look you in the eyes.

“Surprised Harr?” a male voice echoed behind you and you turned your head only too see Dalim staring directly into eyes of man that was once his underling.

“What did you do this time Dalim?” Harr asked with a serious tone, earning a small chuckle from the barkeeper.

“I only helped your Princess settle around here and start working.”

“What? Y/n you’re a magic disciple?” Harr’s eyes widened; surprise written all over his handsome facial features.

“Yes. I wanted to help you make Magic Tower an honest civil agency and what’s better way to do that then to start working and researching magic properly?”

This wizard is really taken aback by your declaration.

He cared for you deeply and he was extremely happy that you wanted to support him in any way you can, no matter the difficulties you may occur while doing so.

He knew you were a strong woman, and you just proved it to him even more when you decided to work hard to earn your place and respect of others and prove everyone who was doubting you wrong.

He just smiled and pulled you into a tight embrace which you gladly returned. Dalim took that as a cue to leave you two lovebirds alone.

“Thank you, y/n,” he whispered as he placed a soft kiss on top of your head. “It really means a lot to me to have your support.”

His sincere voice filled with affection made your heart flutter and your legs feel like jelly.

“Of course, you will always have my support Harr” you pulled back to gaze into his grey eyes, not even paying attention to his scar. “I love you Harr.”

He got flustered a bit, but he slowly leaned in to kiss you gently on the lips and you met him halfway. “I love you too y/n,” he whispered to you as he pulled away, quickly leaning back in to kiss you again a bit harder this time, expressing all his love in it.

You can be sure that this man is supportive as heck and really proud to have such strong s/o by his side.

And he really does love you, only he just now realized that his love for apricots isn’t even nearly as strong as his love for you.

[samswinchesters]

something just doesn’t sit right knowing that today marks the two year anniversary of detroit: become human and the main actors who played crucial figures in the game, jesse williams and valorie curry, are excluded from such celebration. their characters, markus and kara, have never been truly embrace by the fandom and many forget their significant impact in DBH. 

without kara, you wouldn’t even have a game. valorie was the one who set the precedent, she is the one who kickstarted this whole thing. without her short film, this game wouldn’t even be possible. without markus, you wouldn’t have a plot. you wouldn’t have a revolution to which the story lines of kara and connor are contingent on the consequences of this revolution. to be honest, the way the response of the game was centered around connor and his story shouldn’t really come as a shock to me or anyone because in our society, we are made to pay more attention to white people than people of color. that’s the plain simple fact: our implicit biases are shaped by the racist society that we live in.

the fact of the matter is that to have connor and bryan (along with his wife) at the helm of marketing for dbh, to have people care more about connor than the black character? to only care about a white cop in a game that is exploiting the traumas and profiting off of the painful history of african americans during the civil rights movement? in a game that bases elements off of jewish history from those triangles and armbands to help differentiate androids from humans to literal fucking concentration camps? that’s just good ole racism (and bias) that’s sugared as “look at this cute connor character! his story line is written well because the writer and director doesn’t know any other plot to write!” as an easier pill to swallow.

you all choose to only “stan” the white character because they’re more “interesting” and you “empathize more” with them? don’t even start with that bullshit of “markus was boring” or whatever anti-black reason you got because there isn’t a good reason for you to only focus on connor and not markus and kara. the way y’all lack empathy for black and brown folks is racist (and unsettling) and unless you unlearn and actively choose to fight against your implicit biases brought by your racist environment/upbringing then you are going to continue to exhibit racist behaviors.

like, i DOUBT y’all couldn’t find a SINGLE interesting about markus, the black main protagonist, throughout his entire narrative arc bitch i FUCKING doubt it. i’m sorry to be te one to tell you but if you’re white, you’re racist and all your white faves are racist. even if you are person of color and want to defend white people by saying “i’m not white and I find markus boring and I stan connor” then i got some news for you: please check your anti-blackness. if you find a character of color bland once, that’s okay. if you find out that you often find characters of color as plain and boring, then it’s not a coincidence, it’s a pattern of your own biases.

bryan and amelia dechart are racist because they enable their fandom’s (it’s essentially their fandom name manifest destiny teas) racist behaviors. david cage is racist because he chose to write about a game as a civil rights allegory and made androids as placeins for people of color, specifically black people, and made us feel as be viewed as anything but human. if you are a gavin reed stan and/or ship reed900, you’re racist because you have this man the WORKS for a minor white character that spoke less than ten lines yet consider markus as monotonous and dull...youve could’ve put that energy into fixing his character but y’all didn’t. if you are a rk900/nines stan and create fan works like fanfiction about a white character with no lines and is found in the worst ending where the revolution fails and millions of androids die? that’s racism. before y’all say anything, yes, i did contribute to this behavior but i learned from it. the way that the fandom continued to foster this culture of paying more attention to connor to the point where the only works that gained attention were of connor is to blame. we must all step back to think about it, learn from this experience, and to do better next time however the more i watch the fandom from a distance, i know it’s hopeless optimism because racism has consumed the DBH fandom whole.

the exclusion of markus and kara is the direct result of the brain rot within the DBH community. there is no excuse for y’all not to include them when you talk about Detroit because they put in just as much work as bryan did. just because they don’t engage with the fandom as bryan does, it doesn’t mean that you should blatantly erase them from the narrative. how dare you put community engagement as some sort of requisite to be given attention? in y’all’s clouded minds you forget that these are actors who have other projects that they’re passionate about and want to explore instead of staying stagnant by continuing to promote and talk about a shit slavery simulator game that has very little redeeming qualities to it? where they have personalities not built around a character they play in a game from two years ago? it’s one thing to acknowledge you were in this project and humbly respond to stans, praising their fanart and showcasing them from time to time and it’s another to continue to profit off a game that is not rightfully your own.

markus and kara were let down by the fandom.

jesse and valorie were let down by the fandom.

[illfoandillfie]

ok sorry but how many people do yall think rog has ever slept with cos i’m guessing four figures no lie

okay, i don’t normally respond to messages like this because, frankly, i dont really feel like its my place to speculate on roger’s sex life. Theres a difference between writing a fiction story with a character named after and inspired by him and discussing his actual personal life which i have no real knowledge about. What he gets up to in his free time is between him and the women he does it with. but i didn’t really feel able to ignore this one. please don’t take this as me telling you off or shutting you down or anything like that. If you want to speculate about roger’s body count thats up to you, go nuts with it. and i love when you guys message me and I don’t want to discourage you from feeling like you can talk to me or just send me your random thoughts or whatever about any subject. But I feel like I need to address why I disagree with this sentiment. Also so I can ask ya’ll to please stop asking me questions like this. 

So firstly, just to get this out of the way. 1000 is a lot. even 100 is a lot. I think if rog had slept with 1000+ people he’d have a least a few illegitimate kids and probably would have been checked into rehab for sex addiction (not to mention STIs and such because lbr people in the 70s specifically probs werent the most careful especially if drugs were involved). I mean even if we were going to say Rog got lucky with a different woman after every show we wouldn’t reach 1000. According to google, Queen played around 700 shows in their entire career. If we add shows played by The Cross thats only another 67 odd shows (according to wikipedia). 

now, i think there are 3 things that contribute to this idea of roger as especially promiscuous. 1. His attitude/demeanour/general way he sells himself. 2. the generally held conceptions about rock stars and rock star behaviour. and 3. what i’m going to call fandom dumbassery (but i mean that with a lot of love) 

So lets start with the man himself. Roger Taylor is loud and opinionated and not particularly humble. He knows he’s talented and attractive though for at least some time he was a little self-conscious about how feminine he looked. He’s always up for a laugh, likes to party and has admitted to enjoying his drink and his women. He’s had kids with two different women, who’s relationships “overlapped”, and is currently married to a third. At least that’s the perception we can gleam from his interviews, behind the scenes videos, and other public appearances. 

It’s easy to see how that image leads to accusations of being a womaniser and a cheater and basically a bit of a slut lmao. But here’s the thing. I think Roger, in part, markets himself that way. The thing is, if you look at his solo songs and the relationships he currently has with his kids and their mothers, and things other people have said about him/his relationships over the years, I think it’s fair to say he also has a bit of a romantic streak maybe? idk if thats the best way of describing it...he’s self confessed to not being a fan of marriage and the like but he’s not opposed to writing and singing love songs and seems to believe in ~love~ as a concept/power. He certainly cares deeply for those closest to him. Whether or not that translates to an agreement with monogamy I can’t say for certain. It’s hard to draw conclusions here because a lot of what we know of his personal life was fed to us through magazines and news paper gossip column articles and they were never looking for the truth, they were looking for scandal and sensationalism. 

For instance the whole thing with the overlapping relationships. I think most people who have read anything about roger and dom and debbie realise that it’s not as cut and dry as “he was cheating with debbie and left dom for her” even though that was the story being sold by the press at the time. The reality (or at least the version closer to reality since obviously no one outside of them and whoever they were closest with knows all the nitty gritty details) is that rog and dom had already split when they got married. it was a marriage of convenience to make sure her and the kids would be looked after financially etc even after he’d moved out. So while it looked to the public like he married one chick and 30 odd days later was spotted with another, there really wasn’t anything untoward happening.  I’m not saying he never had casual hookups or one night stands and i’m not saying he never cheated, but I do think some of it’s been exaggerated, whether by him to encourage the rock star perception or by newspaper/magazine articles.

Now, obviously, we have stories of rog, particularly in the late 60s and into the 70s, being with multiple women. There’s that bit in the Interview with a Queen “Groupie” (which is a fantastic read and i defs recommend checking it out if you havent already) where she talks about roger being a chick magnet and says that, at the time, it was pretty common to sleep about. But, she also says she didnt notice him doing it more or less than anyone else and seemed to mostly be with Jo (his girlfriend at the time). This is the same Jo that got a mention in the Queen in 3D book (”i think we all had the feeling that these two were together for life, but it was not to be”). Conversely, we have that quote (which i cannot find rn but i’ll link it when i do) about roger sometimes having one girl upstairs while another waited in the garage for them to be finished. I think it was about Rog in the mid-late 60s in Truro but whatever. Obviously he wasn’t anywhere near celibate and it’s likely was sleeping with people outside of his relationship(s). But one has to assume that as he got older those kinds of antics stopped happening, at least as frequently.

There is one potential story that I remember reading somewhere along the way about Roger cheating on Debbie while she was pregnant. But, take that with a grain of salt because I can’t find the article again and also I think it was from like The Sun or something equally as rubbish. The press was notoriously always printing mean shit about the boys and that might have been another thing they published to create scandal. Even so, if we assume it’s legit that is still only 1 story. Not to throw him under the bus but Brian is the one with multiple confirmed affairs, who literally wrote songs about it all. So why is Roger the one with sleazy reputation? 

This is where my second and third points come in. There is a pervasive idea about what it means to be a rock star. The whole trashing hotel rooms, sleeping with groupies, passing out drunk every night thing. And I’m sure that Queen was like that to an extent. I think it’s pretty common knowledge that all of them got up to shit on the road. Between innuendo laden interviews and songs, videos and accounts of their parties, stories CT has put online, and other stories like the one of Roger bringing out lines of coke as dessert when he was having dinner with motley crue. They definitely embraced the rock and roll lifestyle. And I think with Roger’s personality being what it is, it’s easy to link him to those traditional rock star tropes and say it was all true all the time. I also think Roger has done nothing to counter those beliefs. He’s been open about how he wanted to be a rock star since the minute he picked up a guitar, he’s labelled himself as a great lay in magazines, he’s joked about girls pulling their tits out over dinner in interviews (though he said he didnt take her home), he’s written songs like One Night Stand and Dirty Mind and Airheads which explicitly mention his preference for women and alcohol. I think it’s fair to say he’s kind of encouraged that view of himself. Whether it was just a side effect of being part of such a well known band and having such a boisterous demeanour/personality, or whether it was intentional as a version of promotion i don’t know. maybe a mix of them? I mean I’m sure it didn’t hurt sales and stuff. it’s the whole guys want to be him, girls want to be with him thing, right? Maybe that’s just me being cynical though lmao. 

Anyway, the fandom brain has taken all of that and compressed it into memes and jokes about rog being the band slut. Which i’m not complaining about, lord knows i’ve made the same jokes and reblogged the same posts and used those tropes in my fics. They’re funny and lend themselves to interesting fic concepts. Plus, i think roger is the sort of person who would probably laugh about most of it. But it’s an idea that keeps feeding into itself through fandom, perpetuating what is probably a misguided view of his personal life.

Again, I am sure he’s had his fair share of fun and I’m not trying to make out that he was always perfect or whatever, but I don’t think he’s been with as many women as the popular discourse would imply and I certainly don’t think he’s in the 4 digit numbers. 

[dragon-ball-meta]

Just discovered your blog today and am enjoying it immensely. I do have some questions about which is more "valid" between the DBS anime and manga though. The manga at least on a surface level has a tighter adherence to the manga's continuity, such as the lack of Gregory, no showing the Trunks' first SS transformation from the anime version of his past, and the SS Caulifla and Kale fusion churning out a SS fusion, which would seem to be what Old Kai meant when warning Goku and Vegeta 1/2

“2/2 But those are ultimately minor I suppose and perhaps they have explanations like "Trunks wasn't transforming for the first time in the Super flashback". I'm not a Toyo stan by any stretch and can't stand how he butchered my boi GOATku among other things but it seems like the manga would be just as valid/canonical as the anime. Toriyama works closely with Toyo as with the anime team and calls the manga a continuation. Sorry if this has been asked before, and keep up the good work“

Well first and foremost, welcome. Glad you’re enjoying this blog. As for the question, I’ve touched on it before, but I’ll dip into it again.  There’s definitely a bit more of a hierarchy than people want to admit, at least in terms of which would be “more canon” when it comes to the mediums of Super. To that end, I like to look at continuity, characterization, and lead platform.  See, the thing about Super, as it stands, is that it was never meant to have an ongoing manga. At all. It was written, conceived, and meant to be an anime series with Toriyama’s involvement. The “manga”, as it were, was originally meant solely to be a preview/promotional series for said anime, something to hint at things to come. That’s why the Beerus arc is so short and rushed.  When it came to the Resurrection F arc, however, that was when Toyotaro pitched the idea of letting him turn the series into an actual, full-fledged series, something Toriyama was ok with more or less because it meant that at least he wouldn’t have to draw it, and because he was interested in seeing how the anime and manga writers respectively would adapt his storyline ideas.  In that sense, the anime was the original, intended medium and means by which the series was meant to be carried forward, hence why I would consider that the lead platform. Beyond that, let’s look at continuity. Truth be told, neither manga nor anime are 100% flawless in it, making references to things that were filler in the name of comedy, or simply forgetting or ignoring a detail or two from the past. But even in cases of references to filler, I’d argue that they don’t INHERENTLY represent continuity errors per se, as they don’t directly contradict events depicted, and on occasion don’t even necessarily indicate that the exact filler events actually happened; in some cases, they’re just in-jokes or references for longtime fans and viewers.   Trunks’ “first time” transformation also doesn’t necessarily pin it as his first time in continuity, so much as simply reuse the animation and have the boy transform in a moment of grief. Don’t recall any direct reference to that being his first transformation at all. Similarly, I wouldn’t say Gregory inherently means Filler Gregory is meant to be who this one is, as Gregory in Super really doesn’t speak or have anything close to the same personality.  Similarly, Android 18 being as mad as she was about the mispronunciation of Marron as Maron can be seen as a nod to Krillin’s filler ex-girlfriend without actually acknowledging her. (As well as clearing up the whole “she’s named after her” thing since even the pronunciation is different in Japanese.) They’re not necessarily baking these things into continuity, just referencing them. One big problem the Super MANGA has, however, in an internal continuity issue. Toyotaro often feels a need to EXPLAIN things that don’t necessarily need to be explained, in an effort to feel like he’s fleshing things out more. The problem is... he often writes himself into a corner that way, as he doesn’t seem to run his ideas by Toriyama or check them against the man’s notes as much as he should, and thus finds himself in trouble later. Case-in-point: His decision that Super Saiyan Blue’s use had a mandatory cooldown period between uses, or else the multiplier the user receives from the form drops exponentially each time. Seemed a good way to potentially limit the form at the time, keep it from being “overused”, except... they very quickly found themselves in situations where it would HAVE to be used, to say nothing of the narrative issue of having Vegeta be in a reduced state of Blue by the time he faced Hit, thus making Hit’s win less shocking, and Hit himself a bit less formidable, to say nothing of downplaying Goku’s skill and reaction to it; he should have had a far easier time naturally, after all. This also causes some issues with Vegeta’s tactic vs Zamasu of popping into SSG for a speed advantage and then quickly in and out of SSB to strike, as that should have lowered the effectiveness each time, and THAT was done to deal with ANOTHER restriction Toyotaro had baked into the form of it draining ki almost as quickly as SSJ3 had back in the Buu arc, and that Godly Aura was actually just wasted ki. All of this then had to be negated via Toyotaro’s own version of SSB Kaioken, which was just... “Perfected” Blue. Which is just Blue without an aura. Which then leads into Goku knowing how to use Hakai despite not actually being a God of Destruction, not having ever even practiced it to know if he could do it, and only allegedly having seen Beerus use it once offscreen, which has to be inferred by the reader.   These are actually just a FEW of said issues in the manga version of things, but in my opinion, the biggest signifier and offender comes in the final category: Characterization.   It’s no real secret that Super does retread some characterization ground, but there’s a reason for that. New viewers, same characters, etc. Vegeta was sort-of given a full arc already, but due to popularity and ‘demand’, he has to be given a central role and can’t sort of fade back like Piccolo, Krillin, Tien, etc. were able to do once their respective arcs were done. (This also allows their own mini-arcs in the anime to feel more fulfilling as they’re not constantly shoved in your face, and they can touch on things happening or building up in the background of episodes, BUT, let’s move on.) As a result, one of the purposes of Battle of Gods, and how it was handled as an arc and the eps that followed it, was to establish a new sort of rivalry between Goku and Vegeta so as to renew that arc/dynamic for this particular series.  

And that’s where the manga... sort of falls flat. Vegeta is kept in prominence despite a lack of any sort of established/renewed rivalry with Goku; BoG was done in shorthand, after all, and the events following that, as well as the entire Resurrection F arc, were skipped wholesale. In fact, Vegeta himself seems to have gone through a VERY radical personality shift in that... he’s... nice. And I don’t mean nice-ER, he’s outright nice. He shows open affection for his family, he literally runs over to embrace his baby in happiness and rejoices that it’s a girl, he engages in pleasantries with the rest of the cast before the Tournament of Power and asks about their wellbeing, he’s got almost none of his original character traits other than a flair for the dramatic... and bear in mind, Vegeta still has that hardass-ness to himself in the End of Z, which these events are supposed to lead into. And this isn’t even touching on how the narrative seems to shift frequently toward him being THE hero of the series, often actually placing Goku in near-helpless situations and having Vegeta inexplicably bail him out, or just have Goku be in awe or starstruck at how awesome Vegeta is now. The Future Trunks arc, for example, has Vegeta healed only to the point of being able to stand, yet when Goku is shrinking back in fear at the sight of TWO Fused Zamasus coming at him, Vegeta... transforms, swoops in, rescues Goku, AND nukes both Fused Zamasus with a single blow. (It doesn’t “win the day”, no, but it’s a mite riduculous). The current arc is also trying to wholesale shift focus away from Goku onto Vegeta in a leading role, which is a distinctly non-Toriyama move.   And now, let’s talk Goku himself. HOO boy, where to begin...   For all the talk of flanderization of Goku in the Super anime (which I could write entire rants on but I’ll refrain for now), the manga does him ten times worse. Almost every negative fandom meme or interpretation of Goku is reinforced in this arc, sometimes even to the point of literal, direct lampshading of it. For example: Goku in the anime makes a comment on how he doesn’t see why Bulma would “kill” Vegeta if he’s not right there when Bulma starts labor, as he was dead when Goten was born and Chi-Chi doesn’t hold ill will over it. The manga? It quite literally has Goku state he wasn’t around for the birth of Goten OR GOHAN. He couldn’t even be bothered to be there for the birth of his son he was alive to see. When Whis pops baby Bra out via magic so Vegeta can attend the ToP, Goku is... apparently still so dumb that he legitimately wonders aloud if that’s how ALL babies are born. Goku, in this same tournament, has ZERO strategic or technical skill, and relies solely on brute force and powerups (which is actually how VEGETA typically fights but I digress) and even has both Roshi admonish him for it and even has Goku agree with it and declare himself a “bad student” and say that he’s “done letting everyone around him down”. This manga also has Goku and Gohan’s relationship visibly strained, with Goku seemingly trying to cut himself out of Gohan’s life completely as the kid has no interest in fighting. To top this off, rather than attending the tournament in a gi fashioned after his father, whom Gohan canonically does admire, the manga has him deliberately ask to have another carbon copy of Piccolo’s. Hell, Gohan is so far from Manga!Goku’s mind here, that it doesn’t even occur to Goku to ASK Gohan if he wants to fight in the ToP after Buu falls asleep. In fact, Piccolo suggests it... and Goku PROTESTS the idea, saying the kid’s got no stomach for fighting and they should look elsewhere. The only time Goku seems to show an interest in Gohan is when he shows off his power in a fight vs Kefla. This is distinctly, demonstrably, simply NOT Toriyama’s Goku, in any way, shape, or form.   Now, to speak on the other characters and their characterization... when it does exist, it’s one-dimensional and also often based around fan conceptions and memes. Krillin? Comedic coward who can’t fight. Goku even says that he thinks Krillin’s sole usefulness in the ToP might come in the form of him “being really good at running away”. He’s literally only in because Toriyama said so, and is literally immediately ringed out before he can so much as move. Tee hee so funny. Tien, who has no personality of note, is then also immediately out. Piccolo is just Gohan’s coach, really. Android 18 shows no emotion at all, even for her brother’s apparent death; this is later played off as her knowing he didn’t have his bomb anymore (something even Krillin somehow forgot???) so knowing he couldn’t have self-destructed... even though there are other ways to do that besides a bomb but w/e. 17 literally shows more care and affection for 18′s husband than she herself does as well, and their bond is pretty much non-existent. Chi-Chi and Goten pretty much do not exist. Trunks’ reunion with Gohan, meeting his family? Never happens. And Bulma... OH BULMA. What he did to that woman is criminal. She mostly plays the role of the worried Soldier’s Wife, fretting as she awaits her dashing husband’s return from war! The Bulma that wouldn’t take no for an answer? The Bulma that always insisted on going to the front lines to try to see things for herself? The Bulma who would be eager to see this future and see if she could find the notes of her other self and what else she may have discovered? That Bulma does not exist in this manga. HELL, the Bulma who was the smartest woman in the world barely does; what was Pilaf noticing one small math error in an equation in the Super anime becomes Pilaf “WELL ACKSHUALLY”-ing both Bulma and Future Bulma here and PERFECTING Time Travel so they can go to any point they desire, with Bulma being visibly upset about being upstage-aaaaaand she’s pregnant. It’s just... not good at all in this arena.   Now one last thing to mention: Toriyama himself actually did explicitly state that his canon Broly movie, which he did write himself, was set to follow the events of the Super anime specifically, with him saying the manga would probably continue telling its own story. And indeed, there are things about the Broly movie that do tie into what people thought to be just “filler” in the anime, such as the number of wishes Shenron had left tying into the episode where they summoned him and then fought over wishes. The fact that he DOES specify that he wrote it to follow the anime, however, seems like a firm establishment of heirarchy to me personally. I’m sure some will disagree but... that’s life. lol Anyways, hope that helped clarify my stance on it, at least.

[yoobangdaengi]

[ENG TRANS] Monsta X @Star1 Magazine November 2019 Issue Interview - FOLLOW, MONSTA X!

Monsta X met their overseas fans in 20 cities all over the world and wrapped up their third world tour successfully. The group finished the tour after five months and start to do their Korean promotion in full-scale. Monsta X is settling down as global idol through their big international fandom and their collaboration with famous international artists, such as wi..i.am, French Montana, and Steve Aoki. The expectation towards their constant growth and leap is increasing, as a group who broaden their stage to worldwide from Korea. Monsta X, who will start Korean promotion this winter after eight months, will show their improvement through their new mini album “FOLLOW : FIND YOU”.

How does it feel doing a photoshoot together with all members?

Minhyuk: We think it’s more fun and joyful because it’s been a long time since we shot a beauty pictorial together like this, beside jacket album photoshoot.

As beauty models, it looks like you prepared a lot so that the picture for the beauty pictorial comes out well.

Minhyuk: Because we are beauty models, we did many experiments so that our beauty pictorial will come out well. Basically, we pay attention to our skincare routine and looking at the other pictorials as reference for the sake of looking good visually. If we go to the studio for the photoshoot after learning for a bit, we’re able to show the pose more naturally in the studio.

You guys are active as beauty models, is there any Monsta X’s only secret method to take care of your skin at the change of season?

Minhyuk: The very first thing that happens in change of seasons is everyone’s skins become rough and dry. So we pay attention to the basics a lot. Especially, we apply moisturizer cream very carefully. Sometimes before sleep or when we wake up in the morning, we put on peel-off mask while moisturizing our skin. We spray mist occasionally while working to keep our skin moisturized. 

I.M: I’m the type of person who drinks a lot of water. It’s a fact that if you drink enough water, your skin would feel less dry. Also, even on days when we don’t have any schedule and our face is free from makeup, I always apply sunscreen. Even though the recent weather is cool, the sunlight is still hot so we need sunscreen. 

You’re going to have a comeback soon. You might feel nervous since it’s your Korean comeback after a long time, are you fully prepared for it?

Hyungwon: We anticipate it a lot since we will release a new album after 8 months. So we prepared a lot to show people our good side. It’d be nice if you are looking forward to our comeback. Wonho, Jooheon, and I.M’s self-composed songs are included in this album. Wonho’s self-composed song, “MIRROR”, is the song that he and Shownu performed on the recent world tour stage as a unit. I think fans would anticipate this song so much since this time we prepare it as the song that’s being sung by seven people. Shownu participated in writing the lyrics so it adds more meaning to the song.  Also, people will be able to enjoy the album more if they focus to learn the genre of “SEE YOU AGAIN”, Jooheon’s self-composed song, who previously showed various genre of music, and the charms from I.M’s self-composed song, “U R”, after the release of “MOHAE” that he composed in last year album. 

Shownu: Especially the title song “FOLLOW”, you can feel other different charms from Monsta X’s music up until now. The existing powerful vibe of Monsta X meets with a special sound and becomes a song with such a unique color. Besides, it’s certain that if you watch the stage together, you might enjoy Monsta X-like-style with your heart content. We finished our world tour and prepared the album so I felt the development of all the members.

You guys just wrapped up your world tour and prepared the album and it seems like we can feel the members’ development.

I.M: I think it’s true that various experiences allow for broad growth. While doing multiple overseas activities including world tour, I get to feel and learn many things. As we meet Monbebes from many countries, I get the feeling that there are so many people who love us. As much as my gratefulness for them, they make me determined to work hard to show them the good side of me in the future. Of course there are many people whom we haven’t met yet, we have to work hard so we can visit more countries, that goal becomes the stepping stone for our growth. Those reasons helped me a lot to think positively when we make a new album. Working together with international artists for our album influenced me a lot as well. The artists who receive so much love from all over the world like Steve Aoki, French Montana, and will.i.am, pouring great amounts of efforts and passions towards their own music. While watching them closely beside them, I think I know the direction Monsta X will take to move forward in the future. Even though I gained the lesson of musical skills, it went beyond that and made my thoughts about music get stronger. 

You’re receiving so much love from overseas. What is the secret of your global popularity? 

Jooheon: Actually since there are so many seniors who receive so much love from all over the world, it’s a big exaggeration to talk about the secret of our global popularity. But I think the reason why global audiences show their  interest in us is maybe because Monsta X’s music concept or visual. Monsta X is the group with the explosive energy on stage, that’s our attractive point. Our music colour is strong and the performance is powerful so when the fans see us, they’d think, ‘it’s so cool, the stage is full of fun’. Also in visual aspect, because we have solid and sexy vibe, that might be the reason why people love Monsta X.

What is Monsta X’s only method to overcome fatigue, since you guys frequently do world tours?

Wonho: When we are overseas, if the condition is okay, we go to good local restaurants and eat delicious food. It is one of our methods to relieve fatigue. Even though we can’t visit multiple places due to limited time, at least we go to one famous local restaurant and eat popular food. When we do that, it feels like we came for a trip and we feel happy. Also for me and Shownu’s case, we overcome our fatigue by going to the gym and working out.  But the most joyful method to heal the fatigue for us is communicating with Monbebe through live broadcast. Even when we’re overseas, we meet our fans by turning on the live broadcast at least 3-4 times a week. When talking with fans, even though I felt a bit tired or exhausted, those feelings disappeared, it’s so fun.

Are there any charms from each member that you want to take away from?

Kihyun→Wonho: When people think about Wonho hyung, mostly start to think about his muscular and sturdy body and also his work out hobby. But I hope people know that there are so many talents in him. You might already know if you listen to b-side tracks in Monsta X’s albums, there are many easy listening self-composed songs that Wonho hyung produced. The charm I want to take away from him is his skill of producing songs that are full of emotions. 

Wonho→ Kihyun: Kihyun has outstanding vocal and musical skill, but even without those skills, there are so many things that he is good at. For example, since his body balance is so great, when he does sport, he always wins. So even if he doesn’t sing and does things toward sports or physical education, he’ll be great.

Minhyuk→I.M: In front of the hyungs, I.M has energetic and cute appeals, yet on normal days, like when he works on his music or in daily life, he shows sensitive and genuine charms. I think I.M makes people feel at ease since he shows a calm and honest vibe. So I really like his naively honest side that everyone wants to be with.

I.M→Minhyuk: I like Minhyuk hyung’s ability to judge and understand something in a flash. When some problems occur, he grasps the situation quickly and he makes good decisions since he understands the situation.  We trust and follow those decisions as well. Also, he makes people around him feel delighted because of his cheerful and very bright personality.   

Shownu→Hyungwon: Hyungwon is very honest and has deep thoughts. So when we tell him about our worries, he listens well since he focuses on our story, and he gives suitable and wise answers for our worries. We lean on him a lot whenever we worry about something. He’s a friend who has unexpected charms since he is very bold and generous.  

Hyungwon→Jooheon: Jooheon has a personality that makes people around him happy. Because he is always smiling brightly and full of explosive great energy, he draws in a lively atmosphere whenever he goes. Also since he has good social skills, he approaches everyone in a friendly way and embraces those people well.

Jooheon→Shownu: Usually Shownu hyung is a trustworthy and honest person, but he’s also a witty and fun hyung. He has various charms, of course. Because he has warm nature, I think he makes people feel comfortable around him. That’s why it’s so nice being next to him. 

As a group of seven people with various personalities and charms, is there any hidden hobby you want to recommend to one another?

Kihyun→ Wonho: Hobby I want to recommend to Wonho hyung is rock climbing! His physical strength is already good by nature and since he likes physical strength, I think it'll be good for him. Also I want to go to a ski resort together with all members. It’ll be so fun if all of us gather together and ski.

Wonho→ Kihyun: I want to recommend surfing to Kihyun. Because both of us like active sports, I think it will be so great to go to the beach together, surf and eat delicious food.

Minhyuk→ I.M: I.M is good at speaking by nature and his English is great, too, so he has many cases of becoming our representative when we do overseas activity. Based on that, I think speech academy would be fun for him and it matches him well.

I.M→ Minhyuk: I want to recommend swimming to Minhyuk hyung. First, it’s counted as sport, and it’s a hobby that you can do constantly without minding the weather so even when we do our overseas schedule, he can keep doing it, that’s why I recommend swimming.

Shownu→ Hyungwon: I want to recommend jazz dance to Hyungwon. It might look awkward at first, but since he’s tall and has a good proportion, I think he’d look cool if he did jazz dance.

Hyungwon→ Jooheon: Because in daily life I like playing games and enjoying it so much, I think about how I do it together with Jooheon. It will be a nice hobby if we play it while relieving our stress and eating good food.

Jooheon→ Shownu: I want to go to an exhibition with Shownu hyung. Recently there are so many exhibitions, I think it’ll be fun if I silently go there with Shownu hyung, view various artworks and share related stories about them together!

The hardest point in a busy schedule like yours is to synchronize different opinions from the members. How do you guys solve the disagreement or to reach an agreement over a conflict?

Kihyun: At first, of course there are many conflicting opinions since we’re close in age and we always together in most of the schedules. At that time, we told and held conversation with each other openly, we shared about our struggles. I think because the members are not the type of person who scare of telling their honest feeling, it was easy to chat with them. Actually, from my opinion, in reality the only way to solve it is to meet and have conversations with the related person face-to-face. Come to think of it, now we harmonize our opinions naturally even when our opinions clash, based on the times we spent together. We knew about each other very well, so when one member has an opinion, we can sense roughly what the other members think of it. Now we’re very comfortable with each other.

One of Monsta X’s distinct charms is ‘masculine beauty’. You guys have sturdy body from working out so we can’t take out the masculine charm out of Monsta X, but what makes Monsta X more masculine?

Jooheon: Actually, Monsta X is closer to ‘intense wild beauty’ than masculine beauty’. I think the sexy and charismatic side of Monsta X stands out in our  music and visual, also highlighting that appeal. On the stage of our recent songs like ‘Shoot Out’ and ‘Alligator’, the members perform while paying attention to everything such as the gaze or choreography details. Those parts create an intense and wild vibe.

Shownu: We have many charms aside those mentioned. People might know by watching our special stage or concert that we can perform a groovy and dreamy vibe or sweet and soft image. So I hope people will remember Monsta X as the group who can absorb various concepts. 

We want to hear your plan for future activity or for the rest of the year

Wonho: I hope we can promote the soon-to-be-released “FOLLOW : FIND YOU” album successfully. Also after this, we will cooperate for the “Jingle Ball Tour” in the US in December for two consecutive years. So I wish we work hard together with the fans with great stage and nobody gets hurt in “Jingle Ball” concert until year-end stages.

What is your goal for  future activity?

All: We hope we can wrapped up this year well and pay back our fans who wait long with great promotion because it’s been a long time since we comeback with new album in Korea. In 2020, we want to show our cool, more various, and unexpected side of us, including overseas activity. Last year, when we talked about our goals for 2019, none of the members were able to imagine all the great things we achieved this year. We only talked about doing our best and working hard. But since many things came true, we’re praying those aspirations that are beyond our expectation and mind will come true in 2020 as well.

What is the thing you want to say to local and international Monbebes who always support you?

All: We think all of Monsta X’s happiness is made by Monbebe. We hope we can be together with Monbebe for a long time while leaning on Monbebe, sometimes as friends, family, or  loved one like now, no matter where you are and what kind of person you are. We always feel thankful and love you always.

Korean to English translated by: Tim (@yookiihyun)

[courtinginsanity]

An Open Letter to Negative Reviewers

Let me preface this by saying thank you. Thank you for taking the time out of your day to drop me a comment. We live in a fast-paced world so I do appreciate you choosing to reach out to me when you could be doing something far more worthwhile, like cutting your toenails.

We teach our kids not to give out personal information on the internet to keep them safe, and we teach them about the importance of the block button in a bid to prevent them from becoming another statistic of cyberbullying. When do we teach them not to be the asshole? And for that matter, why is it that I feel like I need to write this open letter to grown women who should know better than to choose nastiness over kindness? Why do we need reminding that if you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face, you shouldn’t be typing it online?

As a fanfiction writer, I’m no stranger to critical reviews and downright horrible comments. The culture we’ve cultivated teaches us that we should embrace this meanness, that if we receive a ‘flame’, that’s how we know we’ve ‘made it’. While this is well and good in private groups and chats between writer friends, how do we really feel when we lay in bed at night wondering if we should even bother posting the next chapter of the multi-chapter we’ve spent months, perhaps even years, planning and writing and editing? At what point did we give our power over to the reader, and should we be demanding it back?

Now let me say that you, dear reader, are absolutely entitled to your opinion. Absolutely. I’ve read fanfiction I don’t like—hell, I’ve read actual published books I don’t care for. Do I feel the need to tell the author I didn’t like their story? No. Why? Because honestly, I have better things to do with my time. Also, I’m a proud feminist and I believe that as women we should be focused on supporting each other rather than finding reasons to tear each other down. Call me crazy!

Dramione is my home. I feel a little bit like Sybill Trelawney here, standing in the Hogwarts courtyard all teary, begging not to be kicked out of the one place she truly felt like she belonged. Think about that for a second. Think about the analogy and what it represents—the reality that some of our writers face; this is their home. This is their safe space. You have no right to enter it and attempt to tear it down. Sure, come in and enjoy the warmth and sense of family by all means, but don’t go putting on your fluffy pink cardigan and strutting about like Dolores Umbridge; the world is definitely too small for more than one of her.

“But it’s the internet—writer’s know what they’re getting into when they post online.”

We do. And maybe the reason the fandom isn’t even bigger is because potential writers see the shit we deal with on a daily basis and (perhaps wisely) make the decision not to post their work. Reflect for a moment. You may actually be responsible for someone feeling like they can’t share their craft because of the comments you make online. And you know who that affects? YOU. You, as the reader, are missing out on what could be some of the most amazing Dramione fics, because you are actively discouraging people from either joining the ranks of Dramione writers, or continuing to produce Dramione stories that you claim to love so much.

Reviews are not there for you to dump unsolicited opinions and advice. If you really want to help a writer improve, PM them and start a conversation. Don’t open with ‘hey, I think you need to work on these areas of your writing…’ Actually get to know them! Tell them what you enjoyed about their story, and then ask if they’d be open to hearing some constructive critique. If you want to offer some solutions, be prepared to offer your services. Don’t dump your opinions on the writer and then walk away; you clearly have knowledge and skills that could be valuable, so offer to beta or alpha.

The Specify and Respect Movement

I’m making it my mission to promote this at every opportunity. This was actually started by a friend of mine and it is so powerful. As writers and readers, we should all adopt it. The S&R movement lets writers signpost whether they are open to constructive criticism or not. It is your responsibility, as readers, to respect the wishes of the writer. So writers, let your readers know if you’re open to concrit or not, that way if you do receive a not-so-nice review, you can refer them back to your request that they don’t offer unkind opinions.

There is no excuse for being nasty. You get to choose your actions and behaviour in life, and no one is forcing you to leave a review at all. There is another human being on the other side of the screen and it is not okay to use your opinion to hurt their feelings. I’ll reiterate—there is no excuse for being an asshole. Your opinion is not necessary and not helpful, no matter how much you may think otherwise. If you have the knowledge and skills, then use that to make a better decision about how you interact with people you may be able to help. Yes, they made a choice to post their story online, and YOU are making a choice whether or not to be a decent person.

Choose wisely.  

My writer sisters

I see you. I see you slaving over that multi-chapter fic that just won’t come together the way you thought it would, the multi-chapter fic that feels like it will never be done. I see you comparing yourselves to other writers; I see you obsessively checking your emails for reviews. I feel your elation when someone fangirls in your inbox, and my heart breaks along with yours when someone has chosen not to be kind to you and your awesome talent.

I’m here to tell you that you are my sister and I love you and appreciate what you do for this fandom. Without you, there wouldn’t be a fandom, simple as that. You are incredible and amazing, and you deserve to have people read and praise your work.

Let’s start a kindness movement. Use S&R, and tell your friends about it. Link it in your response to nasty reviews, and call people out on their bullshit. Don’t answer with emotion, but rather the womanly intelligence that can only come from being a powerful freaking goddess. Find your friends and support them with a fierce fire; lean on them for support when you need it.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by a negative review, please reach out to me. I’m happy to chat, to help you cultivate a response, to talk to you until 3am when the tears have finally stopped. We are a family and I will support you with everything I am.

If I can leave you with one final, parting thought, I want you to remember something: Hermione wouldn’t take this crap, and neither should you.

Love always,

CourtingInsanity xx

Link to S&R movement: http://malreviews.blogspot.com/p/the-s-movement.html

[morethanaprincess-a]

Shipping meme 15 to 20

Shipping Meme

15. if your muse is uncomfortable in a relationship, will they address the problem or keep quiet?

Barring the safety of herself and others, Sonia would be the person to politely, respectfully, and tactfully raise her concerns to her significant other. She is used to being a leader and being expected to take on big problems and difficult questions, eventually reaching sometimes hard decisions in order to make Novoselic a better, thriving, happier place. So yes, she’d take it upon herself to begin negotiations to find a solution both parties can accept, barring harm to humans and animals, as well as infidelity. She is particularly sensitive to that.

16. does your muse believe in soulmates?

In general, especially in fiction and for most people, yes. She adores the idea of having one person so fully love and understand another, and prefers not to think about those people having to ever separate or worse, not ever meet.

But for Sonia herself, that’s a more complicated question. Mostly, she tries not to worry too much about finding one singular person who will be the sole individual to fully embrace everything she is. From her complicated family dynamic to the implications entering a relationship with anyone has for her, from how that person will be received by the public and press to if her intended significant other can tolerate, much less thrive, thrust into a public life of rules and expectations, there’s a lot she has to consider. Now, that doesn’t mean she’s never taken steps to a romance, choosing to prioritize her heart and raw emotion over the reality of who and what she is, but such issues will arise in nearly every verse of hers. It would be a miracle of sorts for her to find someone who loves her for everything she is, whom she loves in return, and who can become part of her professional and personal life with relative ease and comfort. It’s a lot to ask of anyone who pretty much isn’t born into it and familiar with the expectations of it all, and Sonia’s aware of that. 

17. would your muse forgive their partner for cheating on them?

I want to say that would vary by situation, but in general, no. Infidelity and open relationships is the family dynamic she was raised in, with two parents who had an advantageous marriage for the country but ultimately never truly loved one another. They adore their daughter, but refuse to divorce as they must maintain a public image of happily married couple and family. But in private, they both have taken plenty of lovers over the years. While Sonia would rather have her parents just divorce, especially now that she’s nearly an adult in plenty of verses, the King and Queen still maintain a facade in order to promote the country’s traditions of true love and Makango Catch. My headcanon has Novoselic itself having very low divorce rates, something the country is quite proud of.

18. how many ships do you currently have with your muse?

In order to answer this question, I’m going to define ships as the following: romantic relationships Sonia has entered with another muse. They have, to some degree, have confessed feelings for one another, are dating, and may or may not be engaging in sexual intercourse.

With that in mind, I have three defined ships currently. And all of them are very different, fun, and engaging! I have one ship with a Danganronpa canon character, one with a character from a crossover fandom, and one with an original character.

However, I have discussed potential ships with other muns and their muses, but threads have not approached relationship territory yet. However, both muns are open to the possibility of our muses entering a relationship. With this in mind, I have around three additional (or more?) possible relationships for Sonia. 

19. is there someone your muse has a crush on, but who you don’t actually have a ship with?

I don’t think Sonia necessarily has a crush on anyone she’s not already shipping with right now, but she has friendships she values highly and doesn’t quite understand why just yet. 

I think the better answer is this: there are certain interpretations of fandom muses (Danganronpa and others. It’s less of a need to ship Sonia with a canon character in general and more of my interest in a mun’s specific take on a muse, as well as compatible writing styles and development) and/or OCs that I would enjoy exploring a potential romantic relationship with for Sonia, but I’m not great at approaching a mun for such a plotline. Mostly, I hate making anyone feel like their muse is ship fodder only. That’s a terrible feeling. But as much as I like watching unintended sparks fly, I do prefer it when muns run the possibility of a ship by me.

20. what would push you to drop a ship?

Of course, the things that make me drop a thread in general: pestering me about reply speed, godmodding, and a writing style I just can’t work with (mostly, not giving me enough to go off of. I’m the worst one-liner roleplayer, so I just don’t write in that style).

Beyond that, I don’t like on-the-fly shipping. Mostly as my muse isn’t much of a love-at-first-sight sort of person, so it just doesn’t make sense. Friendship and an interest in getting to know others, sure. But not love. Also in the same vein, ships that form too quickly. One or two interactions doesn’t equal deep romantic tension for my muse.

I also ship and smut selectively, with various levels of descriptive intimacy for both. Sonia will not act in the exact same way with every potential partner, and if I’m not comfortable writing scenes of the more sexy and lewd variety with someone, I don’t want to be pushed into that. If I’m going to write that content, I need to be very comfortable with the mun and their muse.

And finally/most importantly, people who insist on forcing my muse into a ship, especially when my headcanons for her romantic and sexual preferences are outright ignored. I’m fine with writing unrequited love, either from another muse to Sonia or Sonia to another muse, but when a mun expects my muse to fall for theirs when she just has no interest and never will, that’s the quickest way for me to drop a ship. I have some romantic NOTPs for Sonia, especially concerning canon Danganronpa characters, that are otherwise pretty popular in the fandom. I try to be very clear about such preferences in my rules so no one gets their hopes dashed for their OTP after I start threading with them.

[catie-does-things]

On My Way to Steal Yo...Seat: Ember Island Players & Zutara Shipbaiting

(Or: The best time for a Zutara Rant(TM) is all the time.)

Ah, Zutara, the ship of dreams, technically sunk ten years ago but still afloat in countless shipper hearts. The ways in which the creators of AtLA did the fans dirty on this one could be an entire discussion unto itself, but right now I want to focus on a particular episode, which I think suggests that, when it came to the show’s romantic relationships, the showrunners’ priorities were not where they should have been.

That episode is The Ember Island Players. And the trouble all starts with one little comedic moment.

An extremely awkward moment they went out of the way to include.

Before we dive in, let’s take a step back and establish our priorities here. I’m not going to use this post to make claims about secret Zutara subtext, or even argue the merits of Zutara as a ship, really. Conversely, to the extent that I critique Kataang, it’s going to focus strictly on writing choices and leave aside the question of whether Aang and Katara are romantically suited for each other as characters or not. For the purposes of this post, we will take as granted that Kataang was the intended endgame pairing from the beginning, and romantic Zutara was never intended at all, and look at how the showrunners went about handling that.

(under a cut because woah this got long)

The Ember Island Players is an entire episode built around the show parodying itself and its fandom. In such an episode, it would be almost impossible to avoid at least alluding to the ship wars, which for those of you not part of the fandom back then, were absolutely massive. (And encouraged by the show’s promotion - but that’s another story.) Whatever Bryke’s intentions, the Zutara phenomenon had grown so influential that Zuko was perceived by fans as Aang’s main rival for Katara’s affections - in spite of never being presented as such in the show. That’s begging for a joke or two, isn’t it?

So before the parody play even starts, we get the moment in the gif above, a joke which is painfully dragged out by Aang shyly pointing out that he wanted to sit next to Katara, and Zuko’s utter obliviousness as to why. (Katara herself shows no reaction to any of this fumbling - perhaps unintentionally foreshadowing some of the problems to come.) Aang relents, and sits on the other side of Zuko.

In practical terms, there are two things that justify this gag beyond a bit of awkward humor. The first is that subsequent moments in the episode where the characters comment on the play involve both Katara and Zuko interacting with each other, and Zuko and Aang interacting with each other, making it most effective for Zuko to be seated between Katara and Aang for blocking purposes. 

Aang and Katara don’t interact much during the play. More unintentional foreshadowing? You be the judge.

The other reason is that this moment of making a fuss over seating arrangements sets up early on what is actually going to be a significant theme addressed in the episode - the question of whether Zuko is going to figuratively come between Aang and Katara the way he literally does here. And make no mistake, the episode is very concerned with this question.

After a brief spoof of Jetara that gets only a mild reaction of embarrassment from Katara, the first time the play-within-the-show really dives into shipping is its sendup of ridiculous Zutara expectations of the crystal cave scene in The Crossroads of Destiny. Actress!Katara declares the Avatar to be like a little brother, professes her attraction to actor!Zuko, and the two embrace. This is, of course, absurd for these characters at this point in the story, but to be fair, it’s a pretty accurate rendition of the wildest Zutara fandom predictions for the episode. The silliest of enemies-to-lovers tropes have always had their place in Zutara fandom. Capture!fic was very much a thing. Haha, it’s good for us all to laugh at ourselves sometimes. 

Pictured: Artist’s reconstruction of Zutara fan fic c. December 1, 2006

Aang, however, is not laughing. After growing increasingly frustrated with his own portrayal in the play, this scene makes him so angry that he storms out of the theater. It’s clear that, to Aang, this is no joking matter - and that means it’s quickly going to become more serious for the audience as well, as we soon move into what might be the episode’s most controversial scene, and certainly the one that has the largest dramatic impact on the actual narrative of the show. The tone of this scene is a stark contrast to the majority of the light-hearted, self-referential, tongue-in-cheek episode.

When Katara goes to find Aang, he confronts her about what her actress counterpart said, and we finally, after fifty-six episodes, get a scene where Aang and Katara directly talk about their relationship. This is a big moment, not just because it’s a weighty scene in the middle of a fluff episode, but also because it’s a huge opportunity to push forward the relationship that, remember, we’re accepting as intended endgame all along. The writers know Aang and Katara are going to end up together. They’ve known it for years. After playing coy about Katara’s feelings for nearly three full seasons, they must have been dying to get to this moment. 

This isn’t a shy kiss-or-die scenario. (Let it never be said that Zutara has the monopoly on silly tropes.) This isn’t a heat of the moment, one-sided pre-battle kiss that will be ignored later because of more pressing concerns. This is the chance for these characters to have a frank conversation about where they stand and what the nature of their relationship should be.

Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t go well.

Obviously we can’t have any actual Kataang resolution in this episode - we have to save that for the finale. Fair enough. So what do we do instead? We muddy the waters a bit more, make things even more complicated to resolve in the four episodes we have left, after giving this relationship little to no serious development in the previous fifty-six episodes.

Katara dismisses what her actress counterpart said in the play, but admits she’s confused about her own feelings. When Aang tries to kiss her again, she’s upset by it and storms away. This is the first and last time we ever see Katara address the possibility of her romantic feelings for Aang, until they kiss in the final seconds of the very last episode, her confusion apparently resolved off-screen.

Zuko isn’t mentioned in this scene, but from the perspective of showrunners trying to set up Kataang and unexpectedly confronting a popular rival ship they never intended, in the context of the previous scenes discussed above, this having Katara be dismissive of the play’s portrayal of her also seems like a pretty clear dismissal of Zutara. In fact, arguably this scene is a better casual dismissal of Zutara than it is a setup of the last-minute Kataang endgame.

And then, when the gaang returns to the theater for the final act of the play with the seating arrangements now reshuffled, we get one last awkward reaction shot of Aang and Katara when their stage counterparts declare their platonic affection for each other. And look who’s also in the frame for some reason.

Since they’ve all left the theater and come back, Zuko doesn’t need to be sitting next to Katara at this point. 

So the overall effect of the “shipping” subplot of this episode comes across as the writers assuring us that Zutara is silly, and that in spite of fandom expectations Zuko is not a romantic rival for Aang, while at the same time maintaining enough ambiguity between Katara and Aang so as not to preempt the resolution of them getting together in the finale.

What’s bizarre about it is...they didn’t actually have to do any of that? Within the world of the show, nobody had ever raised the possibility of Zuko and Katara being romantically involved prior to this episode. If it was never going to happen, it wasn’t something that needed to be addressed. Instead of taking this opportunity to give us reasons why Katara is going to get together with Aang - perhaps the review of their past adventures helps her clarify some of her own feelings, while still leaving her reservations about the timing? - this subplot seems more interested in trying to tell us that she’s not going to get together with Zuko. 

This is writing to the fandom, rather than writing to the narrative. From a storytelling perspective, it’s a waste of time. If the Zuko/Katara/Aang triangle is just a product of silly fans and doesn’t actually exist in the show, then there’s no need to make such a big deal of it. Rather than a throwaway gag, the seating shenanigans and dramatic weight given to Aang’s insecurities make the on-stage Zutara romance a central feature of the episode. There was no reason this had to be the case. 

So why was it?

Welcome to the realm of speculation.

One possibillity is that the writers of this episode (or Bryke themselves, directing them) simply got carried away with spoofing the fandom and lost sight of the actual narrative work they should have been doing. This is a case of bad priorities and poor judgement, but it’s fairly innocent.

The other possibility, and the less innocent one, is that it was deliberate shipbaiting. The shipping subplot seems meant to dismiss the possibility of Zutara in hindsight, working under the assumption that Kataang was always intended and Zutara never was - but it obviously wasn’t read that way by Zutara fandom at the time. With Zuko and Katara’s dramatic reconciliation in The Southern Raiders coming immediately prior to this episode, now the question of romantic Zutara is introduced and Katara’s feelings for Aang are less clear than Kataang shippers had assumed? Sounds pretty promising for Zutara when you look at it that way.

Was this actually intentional? As mentioned earlier, promotional material for the show did outright encourage the idea of the love triangle, even though the show itself hadn’t before. If the idea of this subplot wasn’t explicitly to give Zutara shippers false hope and set them up for disappointment, it may yet have been the last effort to throw kerosene on the fire of the ship wars before the show’s finale. 

It’s hard to believe that fan reactions wouldn’t have been considered when writing such a metatextual episode that engaged with the fandom so directly, but I do hate to assign malice as a motive where incompetence is a suitable explanation, so let’s assume that if this was the case, Bryke thought it was all in good fun. It still reflects poor judgement and priorities, because egging on drama among your fans shouldn’t be more important than developing the narrative you’re actually trying to tell.

So whatever the reasoning, in this episode, on the eve of the show’s finale, it seems that dissing Zutara was more important than developing Kataang.

YMMV on whether this is better or worse than the finale itself, where developing Zutara was more important than developing Kataang.

[aroworlds]

Aro-Spec Artist Profile: Signe

Today’s awesome aro-spec creator is Signe, better known to aro-spec Tumblr as @fluffyllamacorn!

Signe is a busy aroace writer, visual and textile artist! She writes for the Young Avengers, The Shadowhunter Chronicles/Shadowhunters, Hawkeye Comics and New X-Men: Academy fandoms in addition to developing diverse original fiction. You can find her growing collection of fanworks on AO3 under the name FluffyLlamacorn and her gorgeous art at @llamacorn-productions.

She also posts and reblogs fashion and accessories at @clothing-inspiration, and some of her cosplays can be seen throughout this post!

With us Signe talks about her passion for textile arts and how they allowed her to reclaim her femininity, the importance of non-romantic relationships in creative media, the difficulty of writing kissing scenes, and the need for works and discussions that celebrate our aromanticism. Her love of making, crafting and designing just shines through this post, so please let’s give her all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.

Can you share with us your story in being aro-spec?

I just sort of … never cared? I’ve never wanted to get married and have children, and I never really had crushes growing up. I partly figured that was because I was surrounded by assholes who weren’t worth crushing on, but even when I graduated and moved to better schools where I actually had friends, I still didn’t care. I’ve always had a lot of confidence, so I’ve never bothered feeling insecure about not dating. I spent a while identifying as a straight person “who doesn’t care about romance” before eventually identifying with the ace and then aroace identifiers after having known them for a while, but there was never any big moments in the journey that really stand out.

Currently, I see my aromanticism as more important to my identity than my asexuality – being aro is what I do, while being ace is what my body does – but I also don’t really see them as separate. It’s hard to put into words because it requires cementing some stuff that I don’t mind leaving fluid, but while my lack of attraction is a package deal, it’s the lack of romantic attraction that defines my lifestyle the most. I know which I would choose if I had to, but I prefer not having to. That’s the only good thing about the ace discourse: It’s made me very protective of my ace identity again after having let somewhat go of it after I came to identify as aro.

Can you share with us the story behind your creativity?

I’m the type of person who has a thousand different hobbies and therefore doesn’t have time to actually do any of them. The three I care most about are writing, drawing and textile work.

I’ve always told myself a lot of stories. Walking home from school, I would develop my stories, acting out scenes in my mind and developing huge universes. When I decided to share them with the world, it was initially as comics. I drew a lot, so I had developed the characters’ visual identities along with their personalities. While I’ve switched to planning my stories as books, drawing and writing is still pretty linked in my mind and I can’t imagine creating a character that I don’t know how to draw.

I got into textile work through cosplay, but have spread out into knitting, sewing, embroidery, cross stitch, weaving, crocheting, bobbin lace… Pretty much everything I can get my hands on, which is why I give it such a broad name. (This is part of my too many hobbies deal!) I love everything about textiles, from the look and feel of it, to how many different things can be created out of one simple material. Looking at clothes and knowing not just how it’s been sewn, but also how the fabric was made, is so cool. Creating things from scratch can make me feel like something akin to a god, recreating this corner of the universe as I see fit. A big part of my love for textile work is also reclaiming my femininity in a way that’s so different from the girly girl image I was taught to look down on as a girl. This is a way to enjoy being feminine that doesn’t force me to embrace things I don’t enjoy.

One thing I’ve realized recently is that I love the freedom to design my own work. My cosplays have moved further and further away from canon, from human versions to characters without a firm design or completely redesigning a canon design. On the other hand, I rarely feel the need to sew completely original things, and without the built in deadline of a con, I’m not very likely to get it done. I tend to rarely do the things I can just do whenever, but I’m getting better at that.

Are there any particular ways your aro-spec experience is expressed in your art?

It’s easy to spot in my stories. I have a lot of a-spec characters. The two main characters who were specifically designed to get most of my heart – Shizuka, the shy girl who didn’t know how to make friends, and Diana, the confident girl who’s never cared what anyone thinks of her – both ended up being a-spec even though I created them long before I started identifying as aroace. Shizuka is demi and I don’t know whether it’s sexually and/or romantically or if it even matters. Diana ended up being aroace because I was thinking about her future and my mind nope’d out of the possibility of her ever dating. I also made a conscious choice not to include much romance until I got interested in queer love stories and that sorta fell by the way side. Even then, I try to keep the love stories from being the only defining feature of the stories and the characters involved in them and never to devalue other types of relationship. You will never hear the term “just friends” in my work unless I’m trying to make a point about the person who uses it.

(This is not to pass a value judgement on anyone who uses that expression, but to help normalize language that doesn’t devalue platonic relationships.)

What challenges do you face as an aro-spec artist?

The recent anti-a-spec discourse has made me worried about posting about aromantic things too publicly, as aphobic comments and opinions seem way to commonly accepted these days.

Also, writing kissing scenes. What the hell. “And then their mouths squished together for a little while, which apparently made fireworks go off in their brains.” Like. What? Why does society think this is the epitome of every relationship?

How do you connect to the aro-spec and a-spec communities as an aro-spec person?

Building communities about a lack of something is always hard. Once you’ve written the first story about being aro, it can be hard to write the next one, unless you consciously try to write about a different way of being aro-spec. It’s also a hard orientation to include quickly as being single isn’t as clear an indicator as having a romantic partner of the same gender. While I follow a bunch of aro-blogs and I have a bunch of a-spec friends, I wouldn’t say I’m strongly integrated in the a-spec communities on Tumblr.

Part of it is that most content I see is validations that every sort of aro is alright. I see a lot of content aimed at people who feel bad. That’s important, definitely, but I don’t need it. I’ve always known I’m amazing, both independently of and intersecting with my aromantic identity. I’m interested in work that celebrates being aro, work that doesn’t say I’ll be happy “even though” I’m aro, but “while” I’m aro, maybe even “because” I’m aro and don’t need to waste my life on amatonormativity. At the very least, work that spends more than a sentence on reassuring me. I see a lot of content that implies the basic state of an aro-spec person is sad, and I object to that idea.

I have also recently seen a whole lot of posts about QPRs and that’s really cool! I’m happy to see they’re becoming more and more accepted, at least in some circles. I’m less happy to see them become so prominent and so expected that they start feeling like a new shape of amatonormativity. It’s not that bad right now, but I definitely got allo aces saying “at least we can still feel love” vibes from some QPR posts earlier this year. Because here’s the thing: I’m aroace. I won the lottery. I don’t need to define myself by relationships to other people.* I refuse to take another label that sounds like I don’t want friends because of people pushing QPRs to be the new norm. Again, I’m super happy QPRs seem to have become more accepted, just please don’t present them as something every aro-spec person is interested in unless we specifically opt out.

There’s also the question of what kind of aro stories should be told. I mean, as many as possible, obviously, but that’s going to take a while. But the whole deal with being aro-spec is to have less interest in romance, so too many stories that focus on the lack of it become … counterproductive? I think the Jughead comics are pretty perfect in that regard. The main character is aroace and there are several stories that’s hella important to, but mainly it’s just about him going on adventures with his friends.

(P.S. I hate Riverdale. I’ve seen two different Jughead cosplays these last two weekends, but I didn’t dare fangirl, because what if they were based on the wrong version?)

Honestly, my main way of interacting with the a-spec community is befriending people at random and later finding out they’re a-spec. It’s … almost a superpower? It’s pretty great.

* No one needs to define themselves by relationships to other people, but I imagine it’s much easier when you don’t feel the desire to.

How do you connect to your creative community as an aro-spec person?

I don’t feel very connected to creative communities, but that’s more because I’m not very good at reaching out and promoting myself unless I know I have exactly what’s being asked for. I mainly stick to one or two people I can bounce ideas off of for my different projects before I post it and hope it finds an audience. It might also be because I’m juggling so many things and don’t spend enough time on the social connections needed to connect with a community.

How can the aro-spec community best help you as a creative?

Feedback, feedback, feedback! I love it! I live on it! Telling me you like X or Y part of my work can keep me floating for days and makes me so much more motivated to keep arting! So please, check out my art and leave a comment and/or share it with your friends/followers, if you like it.

(Also, if anyone has good tips on how to reach a larger audience, let me know.)

Can you share with us something about your current project?

I just finished my newest cosplay, which is Lup from The Adventure Zone in her lich form! I had a lot of fun designing her – the podcast doesn’t have very specific descriptions and the creators encourage fans to come up with their own designs – and got a lot of positive reactions at the con last weekend. I went for a very non-human design, including hiding my face, and added a bunch of fire details to reflect her evocation magic. I would have added more, but then my sewing machine broke in the last second, and I had to finish everything by hand, so I just aimed for the basic version. I’ll be updating her for the next con and will have much more fire with me then. I have yet to finish editing the pictures, but they should be up soon.

Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?

My next project, one I’ve alluded to a couple of times in this profile already, in fact combines all three of my passions. I was considering cosplaying Pixie, one of the underrated students from X-Men, relegated to the background since their series ended, but I kept bumping up against the problem that her uniform was just too … generic to be fun. Besides, what’s the point of cosplaying the pink girl, and then not getting to work with pink fabric?

So I just redesigned her and gave her an individual outfit. And then I decided to redesign all of her teammates. I wanted them all to go together, but still keep an individual feeling, and I achieved that by giving them a rainbow theme when they’re together. Obviously, the next stop was figuring out a story for that to take place in, of which I’ve posted the first chapter. The idea is that they get out in their bright colors and visibly help everyday people with everyday problems to stop people from hating and fearing mutants and maybe actually making a positive change, unlike all of the superhero battles that don’t get anyone anywhere.

The project has three parts: Individual drawings for every member where I develop their outfits further, chapters of fic describing their adventures and a cosplay that I aim to finish for Genki in August, the next big con in Denmark.

[mc-dude]

gabe hc

im making a list of gabe hc that i have thought of in the past few days for future reference if i ever start to write some gabe fics or somethin

gabe’s go-to order at starbucks (which im assuming will survive into the year 2050 bc.. y’know.. coffee is eternal) is pumpkin spice latte during the fall, green tea latte the rest of the year. he likes his fukin sugary drinks and when someone tells him they thought he would like black coffee like all those soldier types he sips on his latte and raises an eyebrow and deadpans ‘that’s racist’

ive embraced the fandom hc that gabe is always cold. im from cali and am also always cold. my anecdotal evidence is pilin up. beneath his wrinkled faded motorhead hoodie is another, equally faded and wrinkled band hoodie. when jack wants him to get naked it takes him like 10 minutes to get all the layers off

wears his beanie partially bc his ears are cold but mostly because he just doesn’t have the gotdamn time to fix his hair in the morning so he just shoves a beanie on his head and calls it a day. on the rare occasion where he has the time to style his hair people are Stunned

gabe is a super sarcastic asshole but will only joke around with you if he trusts you, which leads to a lot of scenarios where someone tries to shittalk with gabe and he just turns to them very slowly and menacingly ‘.. what did you say’ ‘i- i didn’t-’ ‘... im just fucking with u lol’

doesn’t like being called gabe unless its from people that he knows really well. ‘that’s sir to u’

the longest HC i have which i was gonna write as a fic but probably never will is that gabe wasn’t actually bitter abt jack getting command of overwatch over him, in fact he was kind of relieved because he hates being in the spotlight. he’s proud of his boo and lets him know it all the time when jack’s feeling insecure. i hc (and theorize) that the most likely scenario to turn gabe against jack was talon infiltration overwatch from the beginning.

it starts off with just little things- scheduling changes so gabe is cut off from his team he had during the omnic crisis. talon basically chooses him as the greatest potential asset and tries to prey on his insecurities as much as possible to turn him against jack (who is his life partner & love so it’s gonna take a while)

moira was a plant by talon from the get-go whose mission was to try and corrupt gabe and isolate him as much as possible. mccree and genji sort of stave off the isolation for a while but being separated from jack, ana, reinhardt & co really starts to weigh on him. his insecurities start to spring back up– they’re all too busy for him, they got better shit to be doing than to come see how their old commander is doing, etc. :( it’s exactly what talon wants; him to feel isolated, to start feeling a little bit bitter. they can foster that bitterness into what they need.

there’s a mission where mccree loses his arm (he was only 19) and gabe takes it really hard– he blames himself, wishes he could have been faster, stronger etc. moira uses this opportunity to introduce the possibility of genetic experimentation, tells him with her unorthodox methods he could be faster, could better protect his team and the people he cares about.

gabe thinks about it for a long time, and he really wants to ask jack what he thinks but he hasn’t talked to jack for a long time–he’s been stationed out in god knows where for months. he doesn’t have anyone to confide in, doesn’t want to burden anyone when he’s such a failure, so he accepts. this gives talon direct access to mold gabe however they want.

he degenerates slowly over time, becoming more and more of a ‘monster’ in his eyes but it’s all worth it for him because no one else has gotten hurt on his watch, just him. he’s pleased with the results in terms of efficiency and allows moira to keep on doing her experiments. he reasons that if SEP and the omnic crisis didn’t kill him, a few little experiments won’t either. he hides his new abilities from jack and the rest of his friends because he doesn’t want them to see him like this.

after a year or two of genetic altering the widowmaker incident occurs. talon has gained the ability to completely brainwash someone and remold them to how they like. widowmaker was a test, one that succeeded, and gabe is the final target.

all the meanwhile moira is saying tiny things, just little mentions like ‘looking a bit monstrous today, aren’t we?’ to get it in gabe’s head, to make him think he’s a monster. it starts to work. during her sessions she introduces phase 2 of his genetic altering, which includes, unbeknownst to gabe, the start of a long brainwashing regime prescribed by talon. they don’t want to do it all at once, they want to keep overwatch functioning in their best interests for as long as possible

he begins to lose things-- he’ll find himself standing somewhere he doesn’t remember going, doing something he doesn’t remember starting, and it freaks him out. he thinks it’s a side effect of his genetic altering and confronts moira, who feigns concern and promises to figure it out. little does gabe know but moira is being funded on the side by talon during all of this on the condition that gabe be delivered when he’s ready to work under talon.

gabe becomes more paranoid the longer the momentary lapses in his memory goes on. he feel like he needs help but none of his friends call him, no one checks on him. he’s been purposefully isolated from everyone and the walls start to close in around him. he hates what he’s become, finds himself ghosting as a bunch of particles more often, finds it harder to keep his form.

one defining moment is when he goes to speak to jack after not remembering the last few hours and waking up in a panic. he has to tell him that something’s wrong. but jack has a meeting, he promises they’ll talk afterwards, says he misses him, etc. and walks away, right when gabe needed him the most. gabe realises that he’s alone.

he knows talon is planning something. they’ve been increasing their presence lately and he knows they have an informer somewhere in overwatch. he doesn’t suspect his team because he trusts them; they’ve been here for so long, it couldn’t possibly be them. he gets a nagging sensation that something big is about to happen, something is going to go Down- has some half-remembered dream of someone planning something (which is a memory from a talon meeting he attended when he was in a brainwashing episode) and so he sends genji and mccree away on some bullshit mission; it’s the only thing he can do. he tries to see jack one more time but he’s not due back until tomorrow.

talon brainwashes him into planting the bomb in the swiss hq. they recover him from the carnage, brainwash him into thinking that it was mercy who did this to him and not moira (which explains all of his voice lines in game); that overwatch left him to die alone and forgotten. that jack was against him. he’s lost everything and everyone, and he works with talon willingly, memories of his past life almost forgotten but still there, like some half-remembered dream.

ITS ALL VERY TRAGIC OKAY BASICALLY gabe really needed help but talon made is so that he was completely isolated from all of his support while simultaneously turning him into a vapeman

gabe family HC:

gabe has 3 sisters. idk why this is widely accepted as canon in fandom but i like it so i accept it in my heart. he would die for all of them and would sew them shit all the time back at home. his dad died when he was young and his mom and grandmother raised him while he helped to raise his sisters.

this also makes me have feelings for that christmas comic where gabe is stalking that family in the rain because in my mind he’s vaguely remembering some sort of family but can’t remember the specifics and it makes his heart ache

gabe was part of the theatre club in high school and always hung out at the skatepark doing tricks on his shitty 2nd-hand bmx bike

gabe joined the military so that they would pay for his college. he majored in design, but decided to stay in the military after because he realises that he’s good at what he does and he can make a difference. he gets promoted quickly bc of his tactical genius and is quickly nominated for SEP. he accepts because of the war he can see brewing and the shitstorm he knows is about to come. he hates being separated from his family and not being able to contact them

gonna add more later when i think abt them