#lumalaise

[cirqueduroyale]

I've been rereading some older comics and I just wanna say you've really improved a lot at art! Awesome to see skills get better over time.

Thanks! I'm glad

It's embarrassing even thinking about people looking at those old pages, but I'm not gonna kill myself redrawing them either 🤷🏾‍♀️

[trauma-express]

Hey I just want you to know that your analysis posts are top notch! Have a good day.

thank you, that's so kind! Have a good day as well!

[elias-rights]

Hello, I'm not really active in the TMA fandom, but I just want to say I really like your takes! This fandom often (sometimes jokingly, sometimes not) portrays Jon as a rather weak, small, 'pathetic' man, and that's something that never quite sat right with me. He gets attacked and thrown into perilous situations constantly by powerful, supernatural beings, doing the best he can to survive, so this feels like people are kinda mocking his vulnerability, there. What are your thoughts on this?

Hello! I'm glad you enjoy my posts. I have raged a lot against fanon conceptions of Jon, so I do have some thoughts.

First of all, as others more equipped than me to have that particular conversation have pointed out, it's very telling that Jon gets this treatment when he is canonically asexual and universally headcanonned and drawn as ambiguously brown. I haven't been checking the tags in a while, but as far as I'm aware, the phenomenon of him being constantly belittled and infantilised by the fandom (most often for the sake of JM) is ongoing.

To me, aside from the aforementioned racism and aphobia, the biggest problem is the reduction of characters to memeable traits. As a person, Jon has horrible things happen to him, is pushed past any average person's breaking point, and is implied to be physically on the weaker side. And this is a fun space to play around in. But it's (1) boring, (2) in poor taste, and (3) often carrying implicit biases (see: racism and aphobia) when they take these facts and use them to write Jon as a helpless yaoi boyfriend who is unable to bite back and who starts crying because he saw a picture of a penis online (yes, that is something I have seen).

Add to this the "Jon is so dumb, lol" jokes that cheapen the themes of the show by implying that there is a way out but that he is just too incompetent to see it (see: Archivist Sasha fix-its) and the racist jokes about him not showering or whatever, and you have concocted the Jon you see in the memes. This mischaracterization also leads to things like the wider fandom reaction to MAG 199-200, when fans dismissed Jon's perspective just as quickly as the characters, and everyone seemed to believe that everything would've been fine if Jon "just had listened to Martin".

And it's so pernicious because Jon wouldn't be alive if he weren't resilient past what should be required of him: Elias spells it out himself in MAG 160 that he needed to test Jon's ability to survive if he was going to use him as a lynchpin. Plus, he is also very intelligent (as seen when he finds Gertrude's hiding place off the creak of a floorboard in a recording), so the claims about him being stupid for not immediately grasping the rules of a horrific world when he has none of the privileges afforded to the audience don't hold any water either.

I could go on about this, but I'm already having trouble structuring the post at this length, so I'll leave it at that. As you see, this is a topic I've thought about a lot since fighting in the trenches when the show was still airing and people insisted he was an idiot, aha. Have a good day!

[babycharmander]

have you ever seen TF2 fan movie Emesis Blue? It's quite amazing, imo!

Yes I have!! It’s still INCREDIBLE to me that people have created a feature-length film in SFM. The sheer dedication and skills that took is wild.

The movie itself is really good too! HECKA dark—like I’m not sure I could watch it a second time because WOW it’s a lot—but man it’s really really good.

[brainplaguerewind]

The divorce idea probably comes from the simple fact the Batter opposes the queen. Plus he dissappeared form the Room to go on his quest and all. It's fanon, not much to it. The fans like to imagine them as a normal family (as seen in a lot of fanart depicting them as such), so the idea that the Batter went on his mission after divorcing and abandoning them makes sense.

Makes sense. Thank you.

[arotaro]

FYA has erased one of my comments once. They were arguing with an exclusionist (who thought of us cringy ‘cause we “couldn’t love”...), replying to them with the “aces can still love“ rhetoric which I’ve criticised as amatonormative. Right after they deleted it, I send an ask explaining my point. They responded to me in private to thank me for my “helpful criticism” and changed their argument in the aformentioned rebuttal to “aces can still love romantically“, completely missing my point...

God. They really do have every opportunity to learn at their disposal and just don’t care enough to do so...

[squishsupportgroup]

Hey hey! I recently found your blog and it has already been a big help in figuring out my feelings (a strong interest in another without any want for romantic intimacy?? What's going on here!?). I'm very glad that in this community we've been able to analyse our experiences more effectively. Much love! 💚🤍🖤

hii thank you for the kind ask! you all are so sweet, it makes me super happy🥰

yeah, it’s really cool that we both actually examine our experiences and have a community to do it with!! i think people who get squishes (and are aware we get squishes) are more in tune with our feelings bc it definitely takes a level of self-awareness to realize and identify what it is that you’re experiencing

[arotechno]

oh wait it was #2 Basil fan @lumalaise who sent the ask!!

a long, LOOOOONG time ago someone sent me a message telling me i should play Omori because there's a character (Basil) who reminds them of my character (also Basil). WELL. thanks to the steam summer sale i have finally started playing Omori and i've put 2 hours into it so far and i must say whoever you were you're EXTREMELY CORRECT!!!!

[dailyzote]

@lumalaise @askvoidbearandfriends

This is exactly what I was getting at, I just lack the ability to articulate sometimes but! I appreciate your inputs a lot 💙

I’ll try not to keep on this topic too long after this but like. I can, unfortunately, relate on the abused thing, and thats what got me attached to him. And yes I’m explaining that willingly, but I don’t owe anyone that explanation. It’s like asking people why they like Grimm, or Radiance, or PK, or Collector, or Hornet, or again Tiso, or almost anyone in hk

Either way, my liking Zote isn’t hurting anyone or anything, its completely harmless. There was no need for the question to be phrased the way it was

[raavenb2619]

Do a lot of aromantics also get some kind of aversive gut reaction when a character you headcanon as aro and/or relate to get shipped a lot to the point that a majority of the fandom starts believing the ship is "meant to be" or "basically canon" or am i alone in this

It definitely depends. I’ve felt this before, but I don’t always feel this. For me it depends a lot on how intense the shippers are. If they’re enjoying their ship and I’m able to put some space between me and them so I can enjoy my headcanon in peace it doesn’t bother me too much. If they try to force the ship onto me or use it to invalidate my headcanon, then yeah it gets uncomfortable. 

[cirqueduroyale]

Have a grumpy Claudette!

Omg! She's a precious baby! 😍💕

Thank you for this!

[greed-the-dorkalicious]

lumalaise replied to your post: Yknow I know FMA feels like it takes place in The...

He definitely did in the 2003 anime version.

In the manga too! Ed dies in 1987

[arodabi]

Do you ever feel guilt for headcanoning characters as aro when, in the fandom, almost everyone sees them as gay? Since "queer-coding" usually means "gay-coding" and barey ever "aro-coding", I feel like I'm wrong to see myself in them, despite finding them relatable. I know how unreasonable this is, though, since most cis dyadic straight creators don't really intend to represent any of us, and coding could be accidental on their part.

i think i don’t feel guilty as much as nervous bc I've been harassed in the past over specifically aro headcanons. like even ace headcanons don't give me as much shit as aro ones did tbh. and i totally agree with a lot of “queer coding” is treated like almost canon gay rep and not as something that can be interpreted to fit a lot of identities. like ofc im not saying that there's anything wrong w seeing a queer coded character as gay, but if someone sees them as aro or any other identity that’s just as valid a take too and some people don’t get that. like a couple weeks back i saw posts about the will kid from strange things and how ppl were fighting over him being gay or aro. if his identity isnt confirmed then he can be both, or neither, or whatever, Schrodinger's headcanon if you will.

and yeah i totally agree that a lot of coding is 100% unintentional, or maybe coding isnt the right word to use for this but i cant think of another. like how butch hartmen keeps accidentally coding his characters as trans even tho hes like transphobic

[babycharmander]

I saw the aro week post you reblogged yesterday, it's a good message, I think.

I'm unclear about something, though. If it's okay to ask/not too personal, what do you mean when you say you 'thought' you had crushes, but didn't actually? It's usually the other way around, for most people! It's a common aro experience, I've heard.

I think I've talked about this before, but I don't mind explaining again.

Well, to start, when I was younger, I assumed crushes were things you consciously chose. I would hear about people getting crushes, and thought I had to do that too, so I picked a random boy in my class to be my "crush." Once people found out who my "crush" was, I was like "ah darn they found out" and stopped making him my "crush."

I ... don't remember at what point I realized people didn't consciously choose people to have crushes on.

And then like, MUCH later when I was in highschool, I decided to ask one of my guy-friends on a date, and I was very nervous about the whole thing. He turned me down, which I was just like "oh okay" about, but then a few years later, he asked me on a date. I remember feeling some emotion I couldn't describe at the time. I DID draw it, though:

[ID: An drawing of a Kirby-styled Charmander with eyelashes. She is standing and facing right. Her long tail is resting on the ground, her arms are hanging at her sides, her mouth is in a wobbly frown, and her visible eye is wide and the pupil is very small to indicate shock. Above her are ellipses, followed by a red heart, followed by three question marks. /end ID]

(That is what my sona looked like back then.)

I remember shaking and finding it hard to speak, and my heart was hammering in my chest. I didn't know what I was experiencing, but I thought "this must be romantic love--I've never experienced that before, but my friend asked me out on a date and I said yes, so that's what it MUST be, right? I think..."

Well, we went on our date and proceeded to have one other date after that. I had a good time, but the strange feeling from before wasn't there--I just felt like I was having a good time hanging out with my friend. Sometime after the second date, he called me and said he wanted to just go back to being friends. I agreed, with no hard feelings, and that's what we did.

Looking back, what I thought had been romantic attraction was actually... anxiety. Because I had never dated before, and, deep down, did not want to (though I didn't realize this yet), and society dictates that dating is the first step toward getting married and having kids and so on--also something I very much did not want, but thought I had to do.

I guess that goes a bit beyond crushes, but I hope that answers your question.

[shedhogs]

Hey, I liked your ace flag redesign and as an aroace, I'm really sorry you have to deal with this nonsense. People on Tumblr are too quick to jump to conclusions and often react immaturely (by vagueing people and refusing to actually engage in constructive criticism). Hope you're doing well and good luck with your flag redesigns! They look lovely.

Thank you. I hope my next redesign doesn’t get discoursed and vagued about.

[arotechno]

Was Marcus the one who broke Basil's leg? Also, is there any significance to how characters are named at all? Love this story thus far, I'm glad you were able to keep working on this project.

It’s unclear if it was Marcus or one of the other kids who ganged up on him, but Marcus is the one who started it. All my homies hate Marcus

As for the names, to some extent, yes! Petra and Bertrand’s names don’t have any particular significance. Ace is I guess obvious, I’m ace and 2015-me was not keen on separating my being ace from being aro, and I also just thought it sounded like a cool name for a protagonist lol. As for the others, Marcus is derived from Mars, the god of war, and Basil is derived from the Greek for “king”, so do with that what you will ;) And although they’re both minor characters, Marley means “pleasant wood” and Carita is derived from the same Latin roots as the English name “Charity”. Apparently Frida also means “peace”, but I don’t think I knew that when I was writing. (If you couldn’t tell, I just googled these because I couldn’t remember what I was thinking lmao)

By the way, the king’s name is Brutus, like yeah the Brutus who stabbed Julius Caesar, whose first name happened to be Marcus. Do with that what you will.

Place names (however few of them I thought to give) have significance for sure, though! Amistadia came from the Spanish amistad, or friendship. Verdigris is the color of oxidized copper (like the Statue of Liberty). As for Swallow’s Point, I was basing that on the symbolism of swallows as described here.