#headcanons and video edits and Twitter threads and

[treacherousrift]

The supernatural fandom is so full of rich absolutely unhinged history. So much so that I’ll sit there and ask “did that actually happen or did I read that in a fanfiction or on a tumblr post about homoerotic biblically accurate angels?” we are SO beyond canon

[rifari2037]

I found this thread on Twitter and it's so refreshing to know that Zutara fandom actually has strong allies.

Zuko - (my captain) Dante Basco

Katara - Mae Whitman

Sokka - Jack de Sena

Toph - Michaela Jill Murphy

Azula - Grey DeLisle

Uncle Iroh - Greg Baldwin

(even) Cabbage Man - James Sie

It's funny because this fact made me suddenly create a headcanon :

Of course Zuko and Katara shipping themselves, they fell in love with each other.

Then almost all the members of the Gaang except Aang (we don't know for sure about Suki) also ship Zutara because they know Zuko and Katara are secretly making out, while Aang denies it because well, you know why…

Sokka as Katara's brother approve their relationship!

Then Uncle Iroh, he must've ship Zutara since stubborn Zuko asked Katara to help him defeat Azula.

Uncle Iroh as father figure for Zuko definitely approve their relationship!

Azula shipped Zutara? She must've known that Katara meant a lot to Zuko, otherwise why would she direct the lightning at her? She know that either Katara would lose or Zuko would sacrifice himself for her.

I can say, that's the way Azula as Zuko's sister approve their relationship!

And the Cabbage Man. This time I didn't expect it. Maybe he really is a Zutara shipper. Maybe he was the one who told the Ember Island player director that the two of them had a special relationship? (I'm making things up this time) 😂😂

Okay, back to Zutara fandom who has strong allies from the ATLA writers too.

John O'Brian (the one who confirming that they talked about Zutara endgame in writing room)

Joshua Hamilton (the one who fight alongside John O'Brian to make Zutara endgame)

I'm sure the list won't end there

I also wont forget that Zutara fandom has great writers and artists with fanarts, fanfics, video edits, meta and analysis, etc., which makes Zutara never boring. Thanks to y'all 💙❤️

They did get canon, but I can still enjoy the victory!

[rinashinki]

Survey Corps vets as content creators:

Hange: you know damn well they're making the most unhinged YouTube videos of insane science experiments like mythbusters and talking endlessly about their interests and theories on anything. 0/10 editing skills but goes on live every other week and has a strong following nonetheless. Has been banned multiple times off several platforms but just keeps coming back. Has some haters but they're mostly too bemused by the content to know how to troll so they give up

Moblit: runs hange's website, updates his twitter and IG for fans to find out which platform/username they're posting on next. Blocks/reports users posting hate comments. Posts BTS clips of hange's filming and experimenting

Erwin: youtuber with video essay content about politics, history, English, and a healthy dose of anti-capitalism and socialist views. Attracts a lot of right wing/incel/neo n@zi/alpha bro red pill viewers who assume he shares the same values and he greatly enjoys dismantling their views. Also has a big following of people who just think he's hot and have no idea what's he's talking about. 8/10 editing BC it's fairly simple face-the-camera-and-talk but he also posts on a weekly schedule and breaks down the videos to reupload as short form content. No longer invited to guest on podcasts BC he takes over the conversation and wins every debate or argument. Runs multiple successful side businesses but doesn't care about selling merch BC he doesn't need to. 8 books under his name (all NY times bestsellers), 2 more books on the way.

Levi: never shows his face. Rarely responds to comments or questions. Makes calming content about types of tea and lifestyle content and it's unintentionally ASMR. 0 post schedule, either he's making content or he's gone for 5 months. Strong cult following and a billion conspiracies about who he is and Reddit threads of people taking screen caps of the backgrounds in his videos to try and work out where he is, but no ones ever figured it out. Never takes sponsorships so if you see him recommended a brand, you know it's good and the item sells out in 24hrs. 0 merch, he doesn't give a fuck, but participates in fundraiser's for good causes, especially for children coming from impoverished backgrounds.

Mike: gym bro thirst traps and workout tips on tiktok and IG reels. Occasionally posts talking vids for sponsorships, mostly protein shakes and charity fundraisers. Sometimes does cooking content and mens lifestyle like fashion and book/film recs. Likes to troll alpha bro viewers. 7/10 editing skills but mostly uses premade capcut templates to the latest trending tiktok audio clip.

Nanaba: editing queen 10/10. Day in the life of/GRWM/chatty vids, no particular angle for her content, SHE is the content. Takes no shit. Huge following. Big sis energy. Always has the most in depth and hilarious clap backs to hate comments. Rumoured to be dating Mike but neither of them confirm it (they've been together for years).

bonus Eruri headcanons- Erwin has his own office to film his videos whilst Levi pretty much used the rest of their house. Erwin always has a mug of tea when he films despite being known as a coffee drinker. It's always a tea blend that Levi has recommended before. No one's put 2 and 2 together yet.

[heph]

Hey, I remember you mentioning on your IG something about two types of popular artists and one being good at social media and the other being good at art or something like that (I can't really remember lol). But it got me thinking, any tips for how to be good at social media? Cuz I'm certainly not even after posting art for six years lol

Heya!

What I meant by that is that there are traits that allow you to grow on social media, and traits that determine what a highly skilled artist is, and those traits do not always necessarily overlap.

I've seen so many amazing artists that post artwork that blow my head off, and yet they don't have many likes. On the other hand, some artists at the same skill level who draw more popular things will get way more attention.

That is not to say that either is the correct way to create art, but there is definitely a formula to social media that is in play.

There are a lot of posts about how to grow a social media account, particularly on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram art spheres, and imo you really need to examine what you want from your art before jumping into social media mode

The stuff you create to pander to social media might not be art that you want to create at all - I'm lucky, because I am less artist more storyteller, and what I enjoy is telling jokes and silly stories to liven up people's moods :] this, of course, conveniently does well on social media. On a personal note, I have a history of being a recluse and not connecting well with people, and art is my way of trying to communicate my feelings, one way or another.

So of course, if you draw for any reason other than my own, my approach to art and it's relation to social media might be inappropriate for you.

All that being said, if u take a look at those "get big on social media" videos they always cite the same few points... And you can look into that, for sure, but this video sums up how I feel about all that.

I spent like 20 minutes drafting words after the above paragraph, but I really ended up regurgitating sentiments from the video... So really don't listen to me, listen to that video

EDIT:

I just realised I didnt actually answer the question with my anecdotal experience, so here's a list of things I did

1. Posted like 3 doodles a day on social media

I did this for 6 months on a side account on Twitter recently and got the account to 11k followers... And I did this for 3 months on Instagram a few years ago and I think got 3.5k followers. Of course, do not spam maliciously and make sure your art is still of good quality, but for those artworks I posted quickly, I did not colour, and mostly did clean sketches. This also trains you in the matter of line confidence haha. Again, this worked for me because of my set of circumstances (love for the media, want to tell stories, simple art style)

2. Focus on my favourite aspects of media

This helps with respect to burnout - kinda hard to burnout when you love what you're making! For me, it's character interactions and comics. I want to see my blorbos kiss and if I'm not the one drawing it who will?!

3. Interact with people

People eat up work that they can interact with. A choose your own story situation, one of those like/rt to strip a character 😭 those do numbers for a reason.

Additionally, if you post stuff people love, people will respond to it with comments, maybe their own headcanons, adding on to the work... I've gone into long looong Twitter thread conversations with people who added onto my ideas that I threw up onto the screen and I think it's also a nice thing to do to respond to positive comments haha... I'm not very good at this (read: bad at communication)

I think that's the key points... Hope this helps!

[sn4pozu]

my headcanons of Eddie Gluskin if he had a twitter :

he'd repost those RETVRN incel trad memes where its like a woman doing house chores & man doing job stuff

would get into arguments with a woman and subscribe to her onlyfans at the same time (gets mad when blocked)

tries to be professional and a know-it-all but also his entire likes tab is porn (he doesnt know it shows publicly)

calls someone a whore & drops a bible verse in the same thread arguing with them

idk if he'd be delighted with minion memes or viscerally hate them

USES DISNEY REACTION GIFS WITH NO SHAME , USES A CRYING STITCH GIF AT A DODO VIDEO OF A DOG DYING

If twitter bans his account mid argument he'd flip the fuck out and make 3 gmails & alts at the same hour

100% posts creepy comments under peoples post and gets upset if it gets hidden

flirts so much you'd think hes a bot but no he's just sending random women his number (does he care if they're married or not is completely dependant on his mood)

uses the nice guy card whenever shit starts going south

he gets doxxed he goes like "that's not me" (lies, is scared)

either that or he lashes out and start sending them death threats who knows

menace with the twitter Voice Note feature

not even a mutual KYS no hes going to write out his whole murder fantasy in a person's DMs and blocks them before they could respond

gets IP banned on twitter like, weekly, he just figures out VPN apps and finds a way to harrass people constantly

media tab is his breakfast and someones mutilated genitals, bi-weekly photo updates maybe

im not saying he would complain about hairloss but he would complain about hairloss

"i got declined by the pharmacist for asthma medication, fucking bitch *insert something mysogonistic*"

thinks bitcoin is stupid and not a real "manly job" so he dogs on them pretty horribly

thinks tech jobs are for NERDS and says it outloud whenever them NFT bros are commenting under his shit attacking him for calling them nerds

Cracked phone screen with blood in the cracks (he tried to clean it with soapy water on a towel but it just ruined the lcd now its forever stained yellow) ((free bluescreen eye protector mode ?)) (((also has to violently tap the home button because its already broken & that part of the screen died))) ((((has an odd smell))))

he wishes he'd have glasses for the phone screen but all he does is squint

would post dress updates though <3 maybe retweets sewing patterns and videos of old women knitting and go "my grandmother used to do that pattern, ❤️ Wow."

goes back to shitting on women

*posts black coffee with 2 fruitflies in it* "A Good Way To Start A Morning ☕"

posts half eaten food and the dirty plate and would be like "Delicious food today 😋 i almost forgot to pots." -- deletes & reposts because of the typo. PEOPLE CANNOT THINK HE'S WEAK.

His vest would 100% be posted on those gimmick accounts and gets picked on for it being crusty & grody 😔

DMs like multiple women at the same time and either gets immediately blocked or ghosted after a face reveal

he Has cried because of twitter comments before, never again......

has twitter warning threads made of him and has tried to draw a stupid fucking wojack on paper with pencil & pen because he doesnt know how to edit photos but he still wants to own the haters

posts gore to own the haters as well and then got mass reported to death when people found 0 similar images of the gore he posted

'A Thread On @/Eddie287367927 TW: Gore, Mutilation, Harassment, Transphobia, Misogyny'

probably had a youtube documentary made about his twitter acc and all the drama he got himself into (either by accident or for fun)

ok this idea kinda came up to me after i saw a trad meme come up on my tl and i just HAD to dump this all out somewhere

[theworldwalkerswols]

HELLO AND WELCOME TO ~THE UNHINGED ZONE~

I am Old and full of debaucherous thoughts. You have been warned/curate your experience appropriately!

Follows, Likes, and Replies come from @theworldwalkersdiaries

To those of you who reblog/like my original stuff, I see u, I offer u a great big /DOTE ˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗ ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ ˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

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And, for no reason in particular,

Glaze | Nightshade | Cara App (integrated with WebGlaze CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE)

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PSA

I am not here to yuck anybody’s yums! Interpretations of canon, headcanons, ships, kinks, etc.: you do you! I like interpreting and analyzing and contextualizing things I like. That does not mean my takes are good or correct or right for you. I like seeing other people’s takes because all of us bring our own lens to the things we interpret.

Our mileage will vary. This is fine. Chase your bliss. I am here to vibe and collect things like a little Anxious dragon.

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Links for Browsing

Stuff I Made (disambiguation) | Drawings & Visual Art | Writing & Fic

DEBAUCHERY | Haurchefant Leather Kink Truther Files

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Art I Commissioned | Ask Games | Ask Responses

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OCs & Ships

WoL!Kyler Drake | WoL!Zane Drake | Klynrhot "Rhot" Hyltklinsyn

Kyler's NPC Polycule | Playlist: The Warrior of Light and his Loves

Kyler & Cherry | Amrielle & Zane | Kyler & Wesley

Want more? My WoLs have their own website, because I'm that person. It's perpetually under construction, please pardon the dust etc etc

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OC Boundaries

SFW visual Fanart: Yes! I will cry (positive)! Want to depict our OCs being friends? GO FORTH, I WILL CRY MORE (VERY POSITIVE)!!

NSFW visual Fanart: Maybe! If it's something depicted in my fics, go for it! Anything else, please ask!

Writing: Please do not write my OCs unless it's a brief cameo. Please feel free to ask though!

RP: Not right now. I used to RP a lot, and still do from time to time, but my social anxiety often renders RPing a negative experience for me unless I know my RP partner(s) already. Who knows? This may change in the future.

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Fic Corner

I write a lot of XIV fic, much of it featuring my main WoL, Kyler Drake. Some of it I'm even rather proud of. If you are interested, I made a Reading Guide as a place to get started! As always tho, you do you and mind the tags! ♡

Although I know there is no fully preventing it, I have locked all of my ao3 works to guard against AI scraping. NEVER use anything of mine with AI.

Please never hesitate to absolutely obliterate my notifications, regardless of platform. In Ao3's case, I hoard every kudo and comment like a serotonin- and dopamine-starved dragon. They really make my day!

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...and of course -_-;;

I am fundamentally against monetization of every skill and passion and art form, but unfortunately I live in a capitalist hellscape. So if for some reason you like my work and wanna kick me a tip, you may do that here.

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I'll edit this post as I want and as time allows. Thanks for stopping by!!

[madrigalcest-camp]

Madrigalcest Camp: Prompts and Dates

Hello and welcome to Madrigalcest Camp. This idea was brought up in both Twitter and Tumblr because the community showed interest in holding another fandom event this year. This time, the prompts were selected randomly from a list of fan suggestions, and they are weekly rather than daily, with two prompts for every seven days, ordered as to match a certain winter/summer dichotomy and represent the different parts of the fandom, from the different halves of the world. Since this event was originally conceived as a "ship season" (as to not say "[Ship] Summer" or [Ship] Winter and priorize fans from the northern hemisphere over fans in the south), it will range from this solstice (the summer or winter solstice, depending on your location) to the next equinox (the spring or autumn equinox).

That means it starts today, on June 21th, and it will end on September 21th.

The prompts are as follows:

Week 1: Past/Future

Week 2: Embarrassment/Propriety

Week 3: Glass/Family tree

Week 4: Shelter/Labyrinth

Week 5: Hanahaki/“The miracle isn’t worth your life”

Week 6: Memory/Longing

Week 7: Monster/Tale

Week 8: Sick/Limerence

Week 9: River/Claws

Week 10: Phoebis philea/Control

Week 11: Doll/Animal

Weel 12: Curse/Birds of a feather

Week 13: Tradition/Unconventional

Week 14: Change/Thread

Guidelines:

Anyone can create fanwork based on any of the prompts, regardless of location. You can create for one, both, or neither. You can combine them or ignore them completely and post something completely unrelated. There is no time limit, either. While it's fun to create together, you can pick and choose whichever prompt you want and share your work whenever. The only requirement to participate in Madrigalcest Camp and have your work reblogged to this blog is to tag it as such. We recommend using the tags #madrigalcestcamp, #Madrigalcest Camp, #Madrigalcest Camp 2022 or #madrigalcestcamp2022. You can also tag this blog and we will reblog it. If you do not wish for us to reblog it, please clarify.

We welcome all and any kind of fanwork: fanfiction, fanart, fansongs, playlists, aesthetic moodboards, headcanon posts, cosplay, video edits, etc. As long as it is fictional, it is allowed.

Both public and anonymous submissions are allowed if you wish to share something via this blog but don't want to associate it to your own blog.

All Madrigalcest ships are allowed, including those between family members who aren't related by blood, but which are still generally considered Madrigalcest (for example, Agustín/Bruno, etc).

This is a pro-fiction event. All kind of fictional content is allowed. We encourage you to tag your work properly and have in mind possible triggers.

N/S/F/W is allowed. Again, please tag accordingly. This blog will use the tag #not safe for casita.

Minors may participate, but we encourage them to navigate the event carefully and stay away from nsfc content. If you create nsfc content and we know you are a minor, we will not reblog or aknowledge it in any way.

We have an ao3 collection. If you wish to add your work to the collection, you need to type precisely "madrigalcest_camp_2022".

This is not a discourse blog. Antis looking for a fight will get instantly blocked.

You can contact us through our ao3 collection and our twitter page as well.

Happy creating!

[ghoste-catte]

I was curious what advice would you give to someone new to writing fics? I've been wanting to get back into it but haven't seriously written something since high school. I hope this isn't an annoying question or anything!

Not an annoying question at all! I'm just a little worried that I won't have terribly good or useful advice. To be honest, I also sort of stopped writing in earnest right as I finished high school, and didn't pick it back up until my late 20s. It's certainly an adjustment! But I think the few things that really helped me get back into writing fic as a hobby and something I spend quite a bit of time on would be:

Write for yourself first, then find your other motivations. My original inspiration in getting back into fic writing was that there just were not that many fics I liked for my favorite pairing, and I wanted more of them, and I especially wanted more with the tropes and characterizations I wanted to see. I think at the very core of anything you need that internal spark that drives you. At the same time, for me at least, if I just relied on my own drive, I would not get much done; I need some external guardrails. So having people send prompts, or writing for particular events, or writing stuff for friends really helps me to get my ass in gear and finish stuff. That may not be the perfect motivator for you, and that's fine! You just gotta figure out what is.

Be open to inspiration. Anything and everything can be spun out into a story with the right tweaking. Obviously stuff like music is a classic inspiration source, but I've also pulled ideas from poetry, from memes, from Reddit threads, from YouTube videos, from rambling conversations on Discord and from real life to make fics out of. So many times, someone will post a silly Twitter screencap, and I'll think, There's a fic in this. And a lot of the time, there is! Research is a wonderful thing, but so is serendipity. If you're out there actively looking for ideas, eventually one that you like will stumble past you.

Find your community. I can genuinely say I never would have finished more than one fic if I didn't have fandom friends to talk to about even stupid headcanons, to bounce ideas off of, and to encourage me (and to encourage them in turn!). Discord has been a godsend, and some of my closest online friends are people I met in the GaaLee discord server. As I've gotten more comfortable as a writer, I've also joined general writing servers and Reddit communities and have found them immensely helpful on both a motivational level (bingos, sprints, owe-me challenges) and on a craft level (plot workshopping and writing ethics and live grammar help). It's a lot easier to think about fic ideas and hash through problem moments when I have a constant stream of fandom-related chatter coming from the little people who live in my phone! Ao3 is an amazing website, and it's great as, well, an archive, but it isn't social media by design. If you want conversation and human connection and cheerleading, you've gotta forge out and find it.

Make it a habit ... If you want to produce anything longer than a couple hundred words, you really have to set aside time for it. And writing is just like knitting or dirt biking or painting little model figurines: the more you do it, the more easily it comes. When I was first getting back into the proper swing of things, I committed myself to 30 minutes of writing per week. Just 30 minutes. I didn't even hit that goal every week, but there were tons of weeks I got on a roll and went over that amount, and by the end of the year I'd written over 200,000 words. I used to spend an hour laboriously tip-tapping out 200 words, but now I can easily blow through 1k in a 50 minute sprint. It's all about training that muscle.

... But don't make it a chore. With fanfic, you aren't doing this as a job, and you aren't ultimately doing it for anyone other than you. That means you can take breaks when you need them, you can set deadlines and then fail to meet them, you can write stuff and then decide to never post it. When you start getting burnt out, when the practice loses the joy and energy, stop. There's no 'hustle' here. In our capitalist society we're so trained to push past our limits and keep going even when it hurts us, but the hobby you do for connection and relaxation and whatever else shouldn't be like that.

Ignore metrics. Sometimes stuff isn't gonna get hits, or kudos, or comments. There are some basic 'rules' as to the stuff that does and doesn't get traction, but every time you post something it's a roll of the dice. If you're focused on watching that kudos counter tick up, you will get bummed out fast. And any writer will tell you that the stuff you think is your best work will never be the stuff that gets the most accolades. So you have to find something else to give you a sense of success. For me, it's watching my wordcount go up in my stats and those occasional comments where someone has a lot to say and that one person who always leaves me a <3 emoji (and, shout out to @egregiousderp, having someone to have long one-on-one conversations with about the stuff that never made it to page).

Don't strive for perfection. It's really easy to want your first ever fic to be a complete showstopper, the best fic fandom has ever seen, hitting all the tropes and the ideas and the characterization that you just know fandom is missing and would be everyone's top favorite if only it was written. This is a trap. No one fic can be all things. Most people who want to write an epic as their very first venture will not see the end of that epic, because they haven't put in the practice hours to make something on that scale work. That's not to say you can't start out with a big, sprawling multichap, just don't expect it to be the greatest thing since sliced bread if you're just starting out, and be okay with abandoning it for greener pastures if you get to that point. Think of the first time someone makes a vase out of clay or bakes a loaf of bread. That's never their best vase or their best bread. If they keep up with it, they'll make more and better vases and loaves. Likewise, your first fic is probably not gonna be your best fic. See it for what it is: your launchpad.

You can't edit an empty page, but you can over-edit a full one. This kind of spins off of #7, but if the words aren't there, you can't fix them. Daydreams and headcanons are fantastic (and god, how many times have I wished for a speech-to-text engine that projected my falling asleep thoughts onto a Google doc for later perusal), but they aren't fic. If you want to write fic, you've gotta get comfortable with the idea of sloppy outlines and rough first drafts. You can't build a house without a frame and you can't build a man without a skeleton (I mean, you can, I guess, but he'd be one floppy man). The nice thing about fic is that it doesn't matter if that frame is structurally unsound or the skeleton has 18 too many bones, you can clean that up in the editing process. But you can't start hanging curtains and arranging furniture in something that doesn't even have walls. That's the process. But! Also know when to set down the editor's pen and say, "Okay, this is good enough for government work", and call it done. ("Done" doesn't have to mean "posted", but it does mean, "I'm done picking at this for now, and I'm gonna go write some more stuff".) Over-editing can make stuff seem laborious and forced, and it prevents you from actually improving. To continue belaboring the house metaphor, you can spend your whole life rearranging furniture in just one room, but the end result of that is a pretty narrow existence and a room with a lot of footprints and tracks in the carpet.

Write shit down. When you have ideas, jot them down--in a notebook, in a Google Doc, in the Notes app of your phone, in pen on the back of your hand. You think you will remember that brilliant line of dialogue or sparkling snippet of narration or genius plot that came to you in a dream, but you Will Not. Write it down. Write it down. Write it down! There have been so many times when a fic was completely saved by past!me having written down my shower thoughts about what happens next in the fic, that present!me had completely forgotten about and was floundering over.

Have fun with it! Try different stuff. Try stupid stuff. Try experimental stuff. Do stuff you've never done before that you aren't sure will work. It's important to get comfortable with your niche (for example, I know I'm never going to be the sort of person who writes intricate plots of intrigue or super long 100k epics or detailed battles), but you can't find that niche unless you explore lots of different niches! Figure out what you love and what you absolutely hate, and then keep doing the stuff you love.

Okay, so that was actually TEN things, but ... I hope you still found this helpful. Feel free to send another ask if any of this was confusing or unclear. Good luck with your fic writing and, if you want, send me a link to what you've written once you've written it! I'd love to read it.

[hisomachiweek]

Welcome to the HisoMachi Week!

The event will be held from September 13th to 19th and we expect to gather shippers so we can have a good time creating and enjoying new contents on this lovely pairing!

General Rules:

❥ The event will take place on Tumblr, Instagram, AO3 and Twitter. You can choose which platform will work better for your content.

❥ You can post your work on other sites as well, such as DeviantArt, Pixiv or YouTube, as long as you can share the link in one of the official platforms with a preview for your work.

❥ We'll accept fanfics in any format (from drabbles to multi chapters), headcanons, scenarios, fanarts, imagine edits, aesthetics, video edits etc.

❥ The week has 6 themes, each theme has 3 prompts, and a free day.

❥ There are no limits for your participation: you can take part for a single day using only one prompt, or you can join us in multiple days and using multiple prompts combined. For example, if you want to create something using the prompts Cards + Threads on Day 3, go for it! If the day's theme inspires you there's no problem in using it as well.

❥ Use the tag #hisomachiweek21 for your submissions. Tag our profile as well in your post so we won't miss it.

❥ If you're using Twitter or Instagram, make sure your profile is public.

❥ NSFW are allowed as long as you pay attention to the following points:

- Tumblr and Instagram's policies are against NSFW images. In this case, please, post the work in a site that allows them, such as Pixiv, and share the link with a censored, SFW preview.

- For NSFW written content, if you're posting it on Tumblr, write a summary and place the content itself under cut.

- In any case, if your content has sensitive topics, write warnings + tag them properly so people can choose to check it or not.

- Minors, please, don't submit or interact with NSFW contents.

❥ If you dislike the ship, filter/block the tag #hisomachiweek21. Hate, drama and discourse won't be tolerated.

❥ Any doubts? Contact us!

❥ We're on the mentioned social medias as @hisomachiweek and you can check our AO3 collection clicking here.

Let's check the prompts?

Have fun!

[calciumcryptid]

{ Ibara Shiozaki | Streamer AU }

Ibara Shiozaki, also known as ThornsOfEden, is a Spanish YouTuber and Twitch streamer who makes videos discussing religion whether the history, media, or beliefs.

Career History

Ibara Shiozaki created her channel in **** under the original name of MariaVine which she used as her signoff name. Her first videos were a series of her reading pages from the Bible, but later evolved into video essays discussing different passages and teaching lessons she taught as a youth pastor.

After a year haitus, she renamed her channel ThornsOfEden and changed her content to discussing the representation of religion in media. This caused her to gain more followers when she covered more then Catholism, and came down hard on those who purposely misrepresent other religions to make them seem less pure.

Ibara branched out more when she said she was looking for someone to help with a video about the sanitation of Greek myths for westerns audience. Her fans threw it around Twitter, where it got noticed by Kendou Itsuka, better known as TheLastAmazon. Kendou has gone on the record to say she was thrilled that someone wanted to talk about her country's history, and messaged Ibara with her creditionals.

Kendou's feature helped boost Ibara's popularity, but it also caused her to be the new name on everyone's hate accounts. Due to her status as a Catholic, many didn't like the idea of Kendou hanging out with 'a converter'.

Ibara continued on to talk about other religions with features from those who practiced said religions (such as Tokoyami Fumikage for episodes over Wicca, and Yanagi Reiko for the spiritual beliefs in Japan).

Due to her gaining more recognition, and in turn being invited for gaming sessions, fans got more and more angry about her invading their space and started a huge smear campaign against her (see Criticisms and Controversies for more).

Currently Ibara's highest viewed playlist is the 'Sanitation/Corruption of' which discusses the misrepresentation of certain aspects of religion within modern media. She is also known for her VeggieTales deep dive series.

Personal Life

Ibara Shiozaki resides in Spain.

Ibara Shiozaki identifies as Catholic.

When asked on stream, Ibara Shiozaki stated she identified by she/her pronouns and said she'll discover her sexuality when God decides she will.

In ****, she started to date fellow streamer Yanagi Reiko, also known as Poltergeist.

Controversies and Criticism

Due to Ibara Shiozaki being a devout Catholic, there have been criticisms directed at her from outsiders to her content.

In ****, twitter users started to compile a thread of out of context clips in order to try to paint Ibara Shiozaki in a homophobic light. A mix of Ibara posting a long thought out video going through and debunking these claims, and a lot of Ibara's friends who identify as a part of the LGBT+ community coming to her defense.

After Ibara started to date fellow streamer Yanagi Reiko, she was accused of not being a true Catholic due to entering a (presumably) same sex relationship. Ibara's only remarks about this controversy is that her true fans knew to live by God's ultimate decree of 'love thy neighbor'.

There have been plenty of other hate campaigns that have targeted Ibara, usually due to her befriending a certain content creator and fans throwing a fit because they fear she will ruin streams with gospel teachings.

Bonus Trivia + Headcanons

Ibara Shiozaki is multilingual, knowing Spanish, Spanish Sign Language, English, and a little bit of Pourtaguese.

She has pet snakes that will hang around her neck while she is editing or filming. Their names are Virgin, Virtue, and Valor.

Ibara Shiozaki is a plant expert, and has her own garden where she grows a variety of plants from flowers to vegetables.

She is a vegetarian.

She has squirt bottle on her at all time filled with bleach, and calls it her holy water.

[glimbowweek]

During the glimbow week how if you're not writing fanfics how else can you participate?

Thank you for this ask because it's a really great question! My answer is a little long so I'll put it after the jump but it really applies to any shipweek so feel free to reblog!

The spirit of a ship week is to celebrate your favorite pairing by creating more content. The most common way to do this is by making fanart or writing fanfic but there are a lot of other ways to participate. While the prompts are a great place to start, we're happy to take ANY content so don't feel like you have to stick to them if you have a better idea. Also keep in mind that something doesn't have to be long or substantial to be welcome!

If you've got the talent, one great option is to create screenshot edits, GIF sets or AMVs/famcams/short video clips set to music. Do a cosplay, make a TikTok, do a twitter thread or record a song (parody or otherwise) about the ship! Don't have it in you make any of the above? No problem. We also welcome silly memes and trashposts!

And while writing a full fic is great, of course, you can also just write a short drabble of a few hundred words or even something as short as a single joke or incorrect quotes type post. If you've got a cool idea for an AU or fic idea but just don't have it in you to actually write it, please feel free to just write a summary of the idea and share that! You never know when your idea might inspire someone else! (Yay, outsourcing!)

If you're more comfortable talking about the show, you could share meta or headcanons posts. Meta is where you discuss your interpretation of a scene or theme in the show, often accompanied by screenshots or GIFs to illustrate your points but not always. Headcanons are just a list of what you like to imagine for the character either behind the scenes of what we saw in canon, in the future or in an alternate universe. Some examples would be a post of what you think Glimbow always did for birthdays growing up, what their life would be like post canon or what mobile games they'd all be into if they lived in our world.

And if you're really not comfortable taking the spotlight, another fantastic way to participate is to support your fellow fans! Not just by reblogging and sharing the stuff they post for the week (which we hope you'll do!) but also by writing reviews and compiling recommendation lists. Because this fandom has been around for a while, there's already a lot of content out there so you could probably make a top three list of your favorite Glimbow fics or fanart (or individual artists and writers) for each of the prompts without running out. Not only would that be a helpful and welcome post for the ship week, fandom creators always appreciate a boost on their older content! (Just make sure, with fanart, you link to the original post and don't repost without permission!).

Or write an extended review (doesn't have to be anything fancier than a gushing list of things you love) of just one piece or even a creator themselves.

And these are just a few ideas to get you started. At the most basic, we're using this week to fill up the tags for our ship with lots of new content to keep us going in the months ahead and whatever you can do to contribute to that is fantastic by us!

Hope that helps!

[aspaceformbf]

.. Looks like a lot has been going on in the fandom since 2021, what with the grooming + rape allegations (Video) of the creator and other large artists in the fandom and how Boyfriend turned out in Day 3.

---

My YB, Magus is based on YBs initial Tumblr version. I don't affiliate him with how he is depicted in the game from Day 3 onwards.

This is our space.

---

> Main Twitter / Second Twitter (Magus' own vibe space!)

> Twitter #yblore Post Directory

> YB TikTok (Most of the videos are in the likes tab, I store videos that fit his characterization or just remind me of him.)

> YB Playlist

---

YB Playlist (Spotify) / Music Tag / Piano Theme

Posts that seem like something YB would say

Art Tag / Outfits!

Writing / AU Tag

Reblogs from y0urb0yfriend / Lore

Lore Compilation Tag

Video Transcripts

Headcanons / Writing from other users

itch.io Lore Archive - Progress : Jan 2019 (first post) - May 2021

Pinterest archive of official yourboyfriend sketches

---

Twitter Directory

#yblore - Snippets of Tumblr yb lore if you wanna know more about him

#ybcompilation - Collections of my art / edits

#ybwriting - For my headcanon posts / short stories

#yourboyfriendprompt - YB related writing prompts

#ybgamedisclaimer - Threads with my opinion on the fandom / rants

#magusvibes - An ongoing thread about my YB, Magus / Valentine (sometimes Eros / Callisto).

#ybvibes - Twitter posts that make me think of YB

#ybwithhair - What the tag says

[shirlleycoyle]

How 9/11 Became Fan Fiction Canon

Every fictional character you can think of has experienced 9/11 in fanfiction.

A Clone Wars veteran with two lightsabers is on United Airlines Flight 93 and prevents it from crashing. Ron and Hermione get caught up in the chaos as the towers fall. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and her friends watch the attacks unfold on TV from Sunnydale. We have spent 20 years trying to process what happened on 9/11 and its fallout, and that messy process can be tracked through the countless, sad, disturbing, and sometimes very funny fanfiction left across the internet.

Many of the fanfics written in the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks seemed to directly respond to the news as it happened, processing the tragedy in real-time through the eyes of characters they loved. In the absence of a canon episode where Daria Morgendorffer paid respects to those lost, writing fanfic about these characters also experiencing trauma helped fans cope.

One YuGiOh fanfic published on fanfiction.net in May 2002 could have been ripped exactly from what this writer experienced that Tuesday morning. ���It started as a normal day,” user Gijinka Renamon wrote. Yugi and his friends were in school, where their teacher informed them of the attacks and sent everyone home from school.

“After reading people’s 9/11 fics, I decided to write my own, and put a certain character in it. And Yugi and his pals were my first choice,” the author's note reads, explaining the connection they felt to United flight 93 and the World Trade Center attacks. Given that they lived in Pennsylvania, and “it’s close to New York, I felt really sad about it.”

Stitch, a fandom journalist for Teen Vogue, told Motherboard that this reaction to 9/11 is not at all uncommon in fandom.

"Fandom has always been a place that positions nothing as 'off limits,'" she said. "Historical tragedies like the Titanic sinking and atrocities like… all of World War 2 show up regularly across the past 30 years of people creating stories and art about the characters they love. So, on some level, it makes sense that 9/11 and the following 20-year military installation in the Middle East has joined the ranks of things people in different fandoms turn into settings for their fan fiction."

Reactions depicted in a handful of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfics published in the weeks after the attacks ring a little truer to the characters. “Tuesday, 11th September 2001,” written by Anna K, almost echoes the lyrics from “I’ve Got a Theory,” one of the songs in the musical episode that aired in November 2001. “We have seen the apocalypse. We have prevented it. Actually, we’ve prevented quite a few. So we know what they look like,” they write, before taking a darker turn. “They look a lot like…New York today.”

Killing demons and vampires doesn’t phase the Scooby Gang, but when preventable human death is brought into the picture, it’s gut wrenching.

“What am I supposed to do…When I can’t do anything to save the world?” Buffy cries  into Spike’s chest, watching the attacks unfold on TV in a fanfic the author described as being “about feeling numb and helpless.”

In “Blood Drive,” Kirayoshi writes about Buffy and her friends saving a van full of donated blood meant for victims of the attacks from a group of thirsty vampires. One Buffy the Vampire Slayer fic even takes a blindly patriotic turn, where noted lesbian witch Tara McClay helps Xander hang an American flag from the window of the magic shop to make Anya feel better.

Experiencing 9/11 as a young teenager was overwhelming not just because of the loss of life. Almost immediately after the event itself, it was as if the entirety of American culture re-oriented itself towards an overtly jingoistic stance. As we get distance from the attacks, seeing the tone of television and movies from the early 2000s is jarring, and some have gone viral on Twitter. In the world of pop music, mainstream musicians like the Chicks, formerly known as the Dixie Chicks, were blacklisted from the radio while Toby Keith sang about putting a boot up the ass of terrorists. On the Disney Channel, a young Shia Labeouf reading a poem he supposedly wrote about the events. The poem concludes with the line, "it's awesome to be an American citizen."

In a world so completely saturated with this messaging, it is not surprising that fanfic authors started including 9/11 in their work so soon after the event. Even The West Wing had a strange, out of continuity, fanfic-esque episode where the characters reacted to 9/11. In some cases, it made sense that the characters in the stories would be close to or a part of the events themselves.

"For characters like John Watson or Captain America, the idea works to an extent," Stitch told Motherboard. "In the original Sherlock Holmes works and the 2011 BBC series, Watson had just returned from Afghanistan. For Captain America and other Marvel heroes, 9/11 was something that was addressed in-universe in The Amazing Spider-Man volume 2 #36. Technically, 9/11 is 'canon' to the Marvel universe."

In “Early Warning: Terrorism,” a fanfiction for the TV show Early Edition in which a man who mysteriously receives tomorrow's newspaper, predicting the future, avoids jingoism, but tries to precent 9/11 from happening. This fanfic remains unfinished; it’s unclear if the characters successfully prevent 9/11 in this retelling.

Largely in fanfic from the era just after 9/11, when many young authors were trying to emotionally grapple with it, the characters don't re-write or undo the events themselves. It's this emphasis on the reaction to tragedy that colors the fanfiction that features 9/11 going forward.

Although fanfiction authors have been writing about 9/11 consistently since soon after the event, whenever that fanfiction reaches outside of its intended audience, it looks bizarre.

A screenshot of a Naruto 9/11 fanfic on the Tumblr subreddit comes without any context, or even more than two lines and an author's note. It’s impossible to suss out if this falls into the category of sincere fanfic without the rest of the piece or a publication date, but modern-day commenters on the Reddit thread see it as classic Tumblr trash.

Screenshot from r/Tumblr

“Bin Laden/Dick Cheney, enemies to lovers, 10k words, slow burn,” one user joked in the replies, underscoring the weirdness of Naruto being in the Twin Towers by comparing it to a What If story about Cheney and Bin Laden slowly falling deeply in love.

It’s hard to tell how much of the 9/11 fanfic and fanart starting a few years after the attacks is sincere, and how much of it is ironic, and trying to make fun of the very concept of writing fanfiction about 9/11.

A 2007 anime music video (in which various clips, usually from anime, are cut together to music) that combines scenes from The Lion King with Linkin Park’s “Crawling” and clips from George Bush’s speeches immediately after the attacks feels like the perfect example of this. Even the commenters can’t seem to suss out if this person is a troll or not.

There’s no way that My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic 9/11 fanart could be serious, right? Especially if the description pays tribute to “some of the nation's most memorable buildings,” and features five of the main characters as child versions of themselves. The comments again are split between users thanking the artist for a thoughtful remembrance post, and people making their own headcanon for why Twilight Sparkle is surreptitiously absent from the scene.

Screengrab via DeviantArt

There’s Phineas and Ferb fanfic that combines a 9/11 tribute concert with flashbacks to Ferb being rescued from the towers as a baby, written on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. It jumps from introspection to lines like, “‘Quiet Perry the Platypus. I’m trying to listen to these kids singing a 9/11 tribute.’”

The author's notes make it more likely that they meant for this to be a tribute piece, but it doesn’t quite make sense until watching a YouTube dramatic reading of it from 2020, fully embracing the absurdity of it all.

“For me, 9/11 is synonymous with war. It completely changed the course of my life," Dreadnought, the author of a Captain America fanfic Baghdad Waltz that sees Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes fall in love over the course of the war on terror, told Motherboard. "It’s the reason I joined the military, and I developed deep connections with people who would go on to deploy to Afghanistan and Iraq. These very much felt like my generation’s wars, perhaps because people I graduated high school with were the youngest folks eligible to serve at the time.”

Dreadnought told Motherboard that although they didn't deploy, their career has kept 9/11 and the trauma from it in their mind. After seeing that people who fantasize about Steve and Bucky getting together seemed particularly interested in reading fanfiction that related to 9/11, they decided to try their hand at it.

"I had to do something with all of that emotionally, and I’m admittedly a bit emotionally avoidant. So I learned through fic that it’s easier for me to process those feelings and the knowledge of all the awful stuff that can happen in war if I can turn it into something creative," Dreadnought said. "Give the feelings to fake people and then have those fake people give the feelings to readers!"

To Dreadnought, who is a queer man, the experience of researching and writing this was more cathartic than they first expected, especially as a way to navigate feelings about masculinity, military culture, and queer identity. But they said the research they did, which included watching footage of first responders at ground zero, was what helped them finally process the event itself.

"It was like a delayed horror, and it was more powerful than I expected it would be." Dreadnought said. "When I was eighteen, I was pretty emotionally divorced from 9/11; I just knew I wanted to do something about it. So coming back to it in my 30s while writing this fic, it was a very different experience. Even the research for this story ended up being an extraordinarily valuable exercise in cognitively and emotionally processing 9/11 and all of its second and third order effects."

Fanfiction that features 9/11 provides an outlet for people who still grapple with the trauma from that day. But Stitch warns that the dynamics of fandom and how it relates to politics can also create fiction that's less respectful and more grotesque.

"With years of distance between the stories written and the original events of 9/11, there seems to be some sort of cushion for fans who choose to use those events as a catalyst for relationships—and Iraq and Afghanistan for settings," Stitch said. "The cushion allows them room to fictionalize real world events that changed the shape of the world as we know it, but it also insulates them from having to think about what they may be putting into the world."

The tendency of turning these events into settings or backgrounds for mostly white, male characters to fall in love has the unintended effect of displacing the effects that the war on terror has had on the world over. Steve and Bucky might fall in love during the war on terror, but they would also be acting as a part of the American military in a war that has been criticized since it started. Fanfic writers in other fandoms have come under fire for using real world tragedy as settings for fic before. In the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake Supernatural fanfiction about the actors Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki going to the island to do aid became controversial within the fandom. There have also been fics where characters grapple with the death of George Floyd that is written in a way that displaces the event from the broader cultural context of race in America.

"A Captain America story where Steve Rogers is a 'regular' man who joins the US Army and 'fights for our freedom' post-9/11 is unlikely to deal with the war’s effect on locals who are subject to US military intervention," Stitch said. "It’s unlikely to sit with what Captain America has always meant and what a writer is doing by dropping Steve Rogers into a then-ongoing conflict in any capacity."

After enough time, “never forget” can even morph into “but what if it never happened?” A 19k+ word Star Wars alternate universe fanfic asks this question, wondering what would have unfolded if someone with two lightsabers was on United Flight 93. This fic, part of a larger fanfic series with its own Wikia, considers what would have happened if Earth was a military front in the Clone Wars.

In this version of events, a decorated general who served in the Clone Wars is able to take back control of Flight 93 before it crashes, landing safely and preventing even more tragedy from happening that day. In the end, all of the passengers who made harrowing last calls to their loved ones before perishing in a Pennsylvania field survive thanks to the power of the Force, and are awarded medals of honor by President Bush.

Twenty years after the attacks, it’s painful to think about what would have happened if people got to work 15 minutes later, or missed their trains that morning. There weren’t Jedi masters deployed to save people in real life, but for some of the fanfic writers working today, the world of Star Wars might feel just as removed as the world before September 11, 2001.

Fiction serves as a powerful playground for processing cultural events, especially generational trauma. The act isn't neutral though; a decade's worth of fanfiction that takes place on or around 9/11 shows how our own understanding of a traumatic event can shift with time.

How 9/11 Became Fan Fiction Canon syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

[fukurodani2020]

HEY HEY HEY!!

i decided to organize another fukurodani fanweek, as it’s been years since the last one. the week goes from the 6th of july to the 12th.

it would be nice to see content that’s not exclusively bokuaka, so i’m going to ask to include as many team members as you can (and want).

here’s all you need to know:

upload your work on tumblr and/or twitter, using the tag #fukurodaniweek2020. and mention me! i’d love to see your work and retweet/reblog it!

each day has four prompts, you can choose one of them or combine as many as you want, as long as they belong to the same day. 

 NO NSFW! i swear, i’d do it, but i don’t want to get anyone in trouble as admin is a minor lol

triggering content (blood, general violence, alcohol, death, etc.) must be tagged properly. while talking about this, here's a reminder: fics on ao3 that don't have archive warnings might or might not contain sensitive content. in any case, be careful of the tags and notes.

your content can be focused on: the whole team; a single fukurodani vbc member; fukurodani ships; ships between characters from fukurodani and others from other schools (which, of course, must be focused on fukurodani’s point of view).

as for ships: f/f, m/m, m/f, polyamory, ships including non-binary characters (using your headcanons about it) are all welcomed!

you can submit: art, fanfictions (no word minimum/maximum), threads, edits (pictures or videos), cosplays, etc. as long as you don’t use someone else’s work (this is mostly for edits, as i saw art being used without permission often), you can create anything.

that's it. if you have any questions, my dms are always open!

and remember that you don’t have to participate every day! if it makes you stressed, take a break. your health is more important. if you still want to send the work, you can do it anyway a few days later, as long it follows the given prompt(s).

time is relative lol 

just follow the prompts of the day and you're alright.

[drangues]

There was no pressure, don’t worry!!! I just felt bad, haha. Either way, it sucks that you have so much to do- That sounds exhausting. Try not to push yourself too hard, and make sure to take care of yourself, alright? Anyways! I could definitely see Kyouka as being very good with technology like that, and she’d definitely be the sort to make both serious stuff and Joke Stuff. Dazai, of course, would be flattered to be one of her subjects, and also that Atsushi saved that edit. (Nyanon, 1/5)

All three of them are nerds and I love it (ALSO I feel like Dazai would jokingly start referring to himself and Atsushi as husbands and Kyouka as their daughter and it just. Catches on, haha). Dazai is a meme king no matter the universe and I love it. I feel like there are. SO. Many different ones he could send??? Some funny ones, some cute-funny ones, etc. And! I feel like Kyouka’s videos are, in part, so fucking funny because the only Weird Thing is the voice? (Nyanon, 2/5)

And a few edits and cuts! But she says everything in a straight tone, she clearly knows what she’s talking about, and the juxtaposition would just. Be so well done. Also I may or may not have been self projecting onto Kunikida a bit whenever I get into an Interest with Deep Lore but huuush. Either way I bet Dazai teases him about what is essentially a Fandom Library endlessly (don’t let it fool you, genius or not, as an author, Dazai uses that extensively. (Nyanon, 3/5)

Everyone Knows because he doesn’t make a secret of it). And poor Kunikida keeps trying to play the straight man to his circle’s chaos,,, Rest In Peace, Kunikida, it’s a valiant effort. And! That’s a good point, Atsushi would probably feel bad but Chuuya’s his friend so he trusts him? Kinda??? As long this doesn’t end with Akutagawa murdering him it should be good, at least. Dazai... Would absolutely spill the beans, if only as Revenge on Chuuya for fake dating Atsushi. (Nyanon, 4/5)

Maybe not his crush, because Dazai isn’t a complete ass, but he’d definitely be a brat. Also real talk I could see Atsushi and Chuuya as the type to get married for the tax benefits? Anyways! Onto another Concept: Please consider it being a slow day at the office, so Dazai and Ranpo decide that the best solution is... Playing dumb simulator games with everyone for kicks. I don’t know why, but it’s on my mind and I can imagine them freaking out over Bad Controls and stuff. (Nyanon, 5/5)

I AM TAKING CARE DONT WORRY, YOU DO AS WELL THO. 

dude dazai will definitely jokingly ask atsushi out (not much joking on his part) and “pretend” theyre a couple with kyouka being their child who could talk about the darkest stuff in a show and dissect it to pieces while having a cute voice. also dont wORRY about self projection, kunikida is 4 The Nerds and youre a nerd, so it doesnt surprise me (youre very valid btw, like very valid so dont be feeling bummed out dude) 

dazai: lol nerd ass also dazai in the middle of the night on kunikida’s account: Give Me The Info gIVE M-

i have a headcanon that dazai refuses to write for a fandom that kunikida hasnt done in depth research and info dumping of because hes too lazy to google too much, he ANNOYS kunikida by asking the dude to look up (for example) what every part of a boat is named (kunikida’s twitter is FILLED with threads upon threads and is very aesthetic and his tumblr is ultimately perfectly tagged where everything is easy to navigate)

atsushi and chuuya marrying for tax benefits? yes please. chuuya would rub it in so hard “you mightve finally gotten the balls to ask him out but i asked him to marry me first”

DUMB SIMULATOR GAMES AFGHEJKSHDJK they would annoy the office with it 

[heartsyhawk]

It is thoroughly my intent to go on with my life enjoying Dragon Age exactly as I always have, especially with the new content we just got from Gamescon. But unfortunately in the same week we also had The Mess and a whole new round of fandom chaos and I am bothered by a lot of it Behind a cut because it’s long and wordy and some people need to be done with The Mess for their own mental health and safety.

Content warnings for discussion of sexual content, sexual assault/rape, Cullen Rutherford, and very briefly Fenris and Danarius.

For starters, I gotta preface this with I’m not trying to speak over  any POC members of the fandom at all. I am acutely aware that I have a white face, a white name, and I live in one of the whitest towns in my state. Celebrating my grandmother’s heritage got...complicated after September 11th 2001, especially living as close to New York City as I do. I’m not trying to imply anything with that other than acknowledging that with this white name, white face, and white place there’s a lot of white American privilege attached, but I can also understand that usually racial things are not quite as black and white as fandom likes to make them. I know it is really not my place to talk about or over other people’s lived experiences and so I will make every effort not to do so. Mostly by not addressing the racism parts.

That said I’ve been reading and digesting a lot of different stances on the whole mess. When racism accusations pop up the first thing I do is listen to the POC I trust. There genuinely is a *lot* of racism in fandom in general and Dragon Age in particular. It’s worth a nuanced discussion and pointing out things that are actively or even just casually harmful. However in this particular incident the consensus has been that a lot of the things being called out as racist...aren’t. Many wonderful fandom voices in the fandom with a vested interest in the situation have weighed in on those parts, so I’ll move on. Despite using a lot of loaded language and cherry picked (reluctantly provided) “evidence” those doing the calling out mostly seem upset about specific sexual content. In a fandom of a game series rated mature explicitly because of violence, gore, and sexual content it is...obnoxious to see as much pearl clutching about OCs and characters that are canonically sexually enthusiastic with their partners as there is. Considering that Cullen of all people came up most frequently, I am baffled. There’s plenty of video from the in game player angle and also the flycam alternate angles to show that Cullen very much initiated the desk sex. I...don’t understand the idea that he must be treated with kidgloves in sexual situations. Yes he was uncomfortable at the stupid WInter Palace when he had throngs of admirers aggressively flirting and harassing him and someone pinched his butt but...that’s not really enough to invalidate the fact that he is shown in game being sexual and enjoying it with his romanced partner. As for Kinloch Hold, there’s a popular headcanon that has reached a widespread fanon status that he was raped during his torture. To the best of my knowledge, and this series has been a firmly locked hyperfixation for over seven years at this point so I’ve played it dozens of times and read all of the interviews I could find as well as twitter threads and extra material, that has never been confirmed to be canon (unlike say Fenris’s situation with Danarius, which Gaider confirmed if I am remembering correctly). If it was, I’ll happily take the evidence and edit this.

I don’t care much for situations when headcanons are force-fed to other people as undeniable fact. While it wasn’t funny, Cullen was harassed and uncomfortable at the Winter Palace, but even that situation (and whatever did or did not happen at Kinloch) wasn’t enough to make him unenthusiastic about sex with the Inquistor, or unwilling to bet his clothes and risk nudity in front of his coworkers during a game. If your headcanon conflicts so strongly with seeing him portrayed in fanart or fic as having and enjoying sex with someone or not being averse to or triggered by nudity, it is conflicting with what is actually depicted in game and this might sound mean but that is a you problem, not a problem of people who don’t share that headcanon and portray him having sex or being naked. There are plenty of people who do in fact enjoy sex even after harassment or assault--especially with someone they trust. There is no one arbiter of what survivors can and cannot enjoy.

On that note absolutely nobody in or out of fandom owes anyone any details on whether they are survivors or victims of any kind of assault. That is private and privileged information and frankly probably shouldn’t be trusted to people who are willing to air and misrepresent everyone’s dirty laundry or perceived “crimes” and “problematic behavior” in a callout post like this is middle school and someone flirted with their crush on the school bus. I really DO NOT have much patience for this recent trend of demanding a person divulge their entire racial, medical, sexual, identity, and trauma history before they are considered valid or given “permission” to engage with certain content. That’s not okay and it needs to stop. This mess has had several people who had to expound on their traumas and racial identities (largely because the initial problem makers liked to deflect questions and criticisms with shutdowns proclaiming anyone who disagreed with their shenanigans as white) when they really shouldn’t have had to reveal everything to random assholes on the internet.

The last thing I feel like I want to discuss is the agism inherent to the mess. It seems that some of the people perpetuating it, and many of the people who agree with and support it, believe that 30+ year olds in fandom are (to misuse the word the same way these people are, although it is with extreme distaste) “hypersexualizing” certain male characters in Dragon Age (read: Cullen, mostly, but sometimes Fenris and Zevran) and it’s inappropriate for them to have OCs (especially if they aren’t POC in the ((arbitrarily decided by these specific people I guess)) “right way”) engaging sexually with the characters in this video game series. No matter how you look at that it’s frustrating. Very very few of these characters are “too young” for someone thirty or older to be interested in. You can maybe make a case for Origins Alistair I suppose, being that in Origins he’s 20 (but by Inquisition he’s 30), and since the Warden is meant to be roughly the same age, Merrill might also be a similar age along with Bethany and Carver at the start of DA2 (which does last for roughly seven years for what it’s worth). And Origins and start of DA2 Cullen counts for the same reason. But by Inquisition, Cullen (and Dorian who is the same age) is a whole entire 30 year old man. It’s...not weird for a 30 year old or a 35 year old or even a 40 or 50 year old to be sexually interested in or attracted to a man that age. It’s actually quite normal and appropriate. In fact, friends, I ask you this earnestly. Which is more appropriate: a 17/18 year old and their character/self insert and a 30 year old man having a sexual relationship or someone who is say 33 having a a character and the same 30 year old having a sexual relationship. I am reasonably confident which one most people offline would think is the creepier relationship. For some reason younger parts of fandom don’t consider people older than like 25 to be sexual beings allowed to express sexual thoughts or create sexual art and I think that is weird and stupid.

I don’t know if anything I’ve said has necessarily added to the conversation at hand, but I’ve needed to say something since it happened. The fallout is still on going and hurting people. We need to do better by each other and I don’t know how to make that happen. I still love Dragon Age and the wonderful people I’ve met through it. The fandom has its problems clearly but I’m for heavily curating my experience so that the parts I love are more present than the ogrecrap crazy parts. I plan to continue to do that and urge others to as well.

Edit: reblogs/replies are fine here if you want.