#the fandom has taken this incredible concept and ran with it in a way the show never could | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mikaze-discord · 3 years

Text

Quartet Night: Love letters

Annnnnd these are the love letters written for Quartet Night!!!

Please enjoy under the cut~

REIJI KOTOBUKI

From Anon:

I've always been drawn to characters with complex (and fairly dark) personalities, so liking Rei-chan was honestly inevitable for me.

He looks like a very bright and cheerful character at first, which he is, but sometimes that part of him is a little misleading because, in actuality, he's a character that holds a lot of negative feelings about himself due to a past that he can't seem to move on from. He holds a lot of those feelings to himself because he doesn't want to burden anyone else with them. He's a reliable, cunning, and ultimately selfless character that chooses to shoulder a lot on his own out of his infinite care for others, and perhaps a secret sense of atonement, all hidden behind his bright demeanor and goofy smile, and it's endlessly interesting to me.

Besides the duality of his personality, he has a lot of other endearing quirks to love about him. He loves his mom a lot and is a mama's boy. His old-man jargon and catchphrases never fail to amuse (I still can't get over the way he says "my girl"). His obsession with anything even remotely British is something my APH England phase can relate to. His style of music brings a lot of pleasant feelings of nostalgia for me, and his pretty voice suits them a lot. And most of all he's just a very good boy overall. I rate 99999 out of 10 would love and support him and also maybe pay for his therapy because god knows he needs it. Happy anniversary!!

From another anon:

Would you like to hear a story? You do? Very well then, may this story be one you enjoy.

What do I like about Reiji kotobuki? A Lot of things actually!

Well, I've always really liked Reiji as a character as he seemed to be one of the more interesting characters to me, due to how complex he is with his backstory and general just personality.

I have always really enjoyed how Reiji just solves problems too? Like he is just such an outgoing person who deserves all the support!!!

Like the best word I can use for Reiji is just, unique. Everything about him is just so Reiji. From the way he talks, to his nicknames or even his texting style. Like have you seen how many people use emoticons when texting as Reiji? It's just so him.

I like his way of thinking too! I feel like some of the interactions in the games are just so interesting, just seeing Reiji’s point of view. How he deals with a sort of survivor’s guilt and all of that.

Personally, some of my most memorable roleplaying moments were watching a Reiji rper in action, like just seeing them interact and flow so seamlessly with the other characters was just so fascinating to wee baby rper me. Such a large part of playing Reiji is just how you flow with the people around you and comedic timing. I have so many funny moments where Reiji was just interacting with people and it was just so inspirational (?) like I couldn't stop the smile on my face. I had learnt alot from them. I still consider them my roleplaying senpai almost! I don't talk to them anymore but I really had an amazing time just seeing their spin on the character.

I don't find him to be a romantic partner towards me nor do I see any of the characters in that light, but I've always found Reiji as such a personal character. Not even just towards me, like even with other utapri stans. The most relatable character always seems to be Reiji.

I've always been pretty similar in many aspects to him and I often find myself relating to him in numerous ways like his vibe is just relatable! I have often found myself trying to make other people laugh and have fun that many times I'm spreading myself thin and feel unappreciated...Reiji really helped with that.

This is where i start getting into the really personal stuff LOL feel free to skip if you dont wanna hear the angsty backstory.

I had really come to love Reiji when I had just...hit a low. I had a group of friends who I enjoyed hanging out with and just talking to, but they weren't very good friends per say. I often had to schedule every activity we did and I spent days and nights trying to think of concepts that might be fun. They took it for granted.. I had spent 4 months trying to make a game for them, and they had constantly pushed back times that we would play it. Using excuses to not play it, without telling me out right what they did not like or even why. The site I used was later taken down without notice and thus I had lost all my progress. Later, they had mentioned how they would like to play it except that later ended up being two years later. I really wish I could've solved things with that friend group like Quartet Night did but that didn't happen. That is when I started seeing things Reiji’s way? Not to say that it was the same or similar scenario to Reiji but I had just associated it with him.

RANMARU KUROSAKI

From Anon:

Ran is such a fun character! He sounds like a "rough outside, soft inside" kind of character, but his roughness is more like an integral part of him and it's through it that he shows he cares rather than setting it aside. That's what made me want to rp him. I also like how he is such a strong guy who's always determined to do his best in everything he does despite so much having gone wrong in his past. And it's very satisfying to see him form bonds and start to trust people.

From @mikaze-san:

Originally, my favourite Utapri boy was Ai, and it had been the robot boy for several years upon entering the fandom. In fact, it only switched to Ranmaru sometime late last year but regardless, I would still die for this man. Part of the reason why I switched is because I’ve always been a fan of Suzuki Tatsuhisa and I have a huge bias towards any man who wears nail polish without fearing being “feminine” because fuck gender roles.

As someone who studies fashion, I think Ranmaru is very coordinated and confident when it comes to portraying himself that way. He knows he’s not very good at expressing his emotions and utilises his passion for rock and playing the bass to portray those feelings through his songs. It’s also incredibly inspiring to know that he bounces back from pretty much anything considering his backstory and the stuff he deals with in the game/anime.

But my main reason for loving Ranmaru so much stems from the fact that I admire him a lot and want to be more like him. For a long time last year, I got to roleplay as Ranmaru in a few Utapri groups and through those experiences, I gained a better understanding and appreciation of the characters that I wrote for. In some weird way, by highlighting his flaws, character progression and how he dealt with different emotions, I ended up providing insight into how I dealt with similar issues by looking at them from a 3rd person perspective.

I used to be very shy and was very shut off from friends and family, and due to this I’ve always admired people in my life or fictional characters that are so confident in being who they are. Ranmaru particularly struck that chord in me because his bluntness knows no end. He’s very opinionated and doesn’t fear confrontation, in most cases being the one to provoke it. He speaks his mind openly without being overly anxious of the consequences. This is something that I feel is especially relevant today with being your authentic/unapologetic self is such a trend.

It’s something I’ve also noticed with having met people in or outside of this fandom, the notion of idolising a fictional character containing traits that we want to see in ourselves. Which made me think about a lot of my favourite kinds of characters which at the end of the day all boil down to sharing one similar trait: Being a bitch.

And in Utapri, Ranmaru embodies that. So naturally it’s very easy for me to idolise him.

(Tldr: I like his bitchy attitude.)

AI MIKAZE

From Arashi:

It's hard to put into words why I love Ai Mikaze, perhaps it's because I'm subconsciously drawn to him, maybe it's because his hair and eyes are my favorite color, maybe it's because his voice is that of an angels, there are many reasons why I love him. I couldn't tell you a definite, "These one or two reasons are the entire reason I love him", but I'll try to sum it up.

I grew to love him by admiring his personality, his smile, his determination to reach his goals, everything about him made me happy. He's strict and a little scary at times, but when he sees people caring for him, he becomes happy and in a way, sentimental. He's not sure how to explain the way he feels, but he tries. I think I admire how he holds all the little things precious to his heart as he learns about them, and he wants to understand how to care for others and how they care for them in return. Even after six years, he still remains the most dear to me. I think that he now has a sentimental value to me, because even if I 'loved' another character more for a while, I will always come back to Ai. Ai deserves the world, and I'd give it to him if I could. He'll always be special to me, and I think that he very much deserves that.

From Maronda:

My love for Ai started after I found Shining Live by chance and started to play. At first I wasn't particularly attached to any of the characters and decided to go back and watch the anime to maybe remember some context other than who Starish was. When I got to the episode focused on Ai and his "secret" I was absolutely thrown off by it all. I ended up feeling like I had so many questions and I knew that the anime would give me little to no answers, so I frequently turned to rambling on the internet about it. Eventually, this fixation on weird things about him seemed to turn into a clear fondness for him, and friends made me realize just how much I liked him. Knowing the cold and often strange aspects of his personality was due to something out of his control was something I resonated with as someone on the autism spectrum. He reminded me of some of the ways I used to think and behave.

I also began to notice other things I loved about him. Things like how soothing I found his voice, the pleasant shade of light blue in his hair and eyes, how ridiculously pretty he is... but the best things are the endearing parts of his personality. Though he's somewhat harsh, he's still entirely genuine. His curiosity is absolutely precious and his occasional awkwardness in expressing emotion or understanding the emotions of others made me empathize with him. And if you look at the Ai in Shining Live and compare it to the Ai in the anime and games... he really has changed a lot and grown as a person. He now seems so much gentler and understanding, and he clearly values the friendships he has now too! I think he's a wonderful character and ever since friends of mine encouraged me to selfship I've essentially been in love with him, but it also makes me happy to see other people appreciate him for other reasons as well. He's just so lovable!

CAMUS

From @uta-no-fakku-sama:

At the very beginning of my UtaPri interest, Camus never really caught my attention. That is until he became my first My Only Prince UR. I’ve come to appreciate him a lot more ever since, and now he’s become my favorite QUARTET NIGHT member! Along the way, I learned more about him and realized he’s one of the more complicated characters to understand. Nonetheless, I absolutely adore him. I tend to tease and make fun of him a lot, but deep down I truly do like him a whole bunch!

From @/waddamaloooon on twt:

A little Camus appreciation post

(alternatively known as; how this guy managed to harshly take my heart and step on it like the gumin I am.)

Hello, this is Suikamaru, here to share a tiny story of why I, and eventually you, love Camus Rondo Cryzard.

At first glance, his looks appealed to me, but not his behavior (and ironically enough, his voice) so I didn't bat an eye on him. I've always been on a neutral leaning to dislike opinion on Camus, which is quite understandable because have you SEEN the way he acts. Unfathomable.

…..To a Young Suikamaru, that is.

I've grown, so naturally I've changed preferences regarding characters, ikemen, and who to stan and who to avoid like the plague. I will lie if I said that I expected to like that blonde confectionery devouring machine at any point of my life.

But it did happen so who are we fooling here.

It dawned on me that Camus is the type of character that you cannot appreciate unless you go in depth into his lore, backstory, and see him for who he really is. Because then everything else will make sense. And that never happened in my case until I started roleplaying as him.

I realized that he's not just a two faced, sweet toothed mean man. He's a perfectionist, someone who's always been raised since his childhood days to be nothing less than complete, who has locked on his heart and emotions to devote himself completely to the purpose given to him. He has the looks and brains for what though? He should be a little stupid honestly.

But his intelligence gave him the complexity that he just needed for his characteristics. Because as aforementioned, he's not someone to easily like or fall in love with. And I think that's quite rare in characters, and very much appreciated due to the fact it gives the fans a chance to not actually stay on a flat level of knowledge regarding their favorite characters.

I've slowly started to see myself in some aspects of him, which was the number one factor of liking him. Then came the Maeno magic when I realized Camus shares the same VA as another character that I love as well. (Hamelin, from SinoAlice.) From then, everything went downhill.

In a good way. I think..

Well, that is all from me, please read about this handsome man and appreciate his hard work both as an individual and as an idol. There is SO much to him that's p much overlooked and I'm getting broke from spending my money on his living expenses rent free in my head. Take him off my head.

#utapri #utanoprincesama #uta no prince sama #Reiji kotobuki #Kotobuki reiji #Ranmaru kurosaki #utapri camus #ai mikaze #mikaze ai #quartet night

22 notes · View notes

honkster · 4 years

Text

Why the Dream SMP’s way of storytelling is IMPOSSIBLE to recreate in any other medium.

This has been in the back of my mind for the longest time. I think I finally got it.

People have talked about this before, and they’ve put forward some good points, and good for them – most of them are correct. It’s the way the ccs interact with each other, it’s how plot is mixed in with banter, that’s all good! I wanna put more out there.

So you know how you open a book to read, you start a new show, you sit down to watch a movie – that’s all produced by some sort of company, someone who made it specifically for you to enjoy. You expect a certain dramatic flair to it, certain cinematic choices, certain ways of writing, certain camera angles, certain reactions to things. That’s just ingrained expectations of things now.

The DSMP? Doesn’t have that.

The low expectations work very much in its favor. It’s a Minecraft role-playing server with a bunch of famous youtubers/streamers, who are all good friends and have great dynamics with each other. So when you expect “just another Minecraft video” but in stream form, or you watch the videos because there are certain people in them, you don’t expect to be dropped into extreme lore and sensitive topics, realistic situations proposed in game form, a combination of serious stuff and just fun times with friends goofing around – and you’re pleasantly surprised.

We, the fandom, are used to it a bit more now. How excellently they manage to make a serious story in such a “ridiculous” medium, how much it affects us all and gets our creative juices flowing. But even the ccs can’t predict some of the things that happen. And that’s fun.

The whole election ending the way it has? That was on us. And it made some of the most angsty content there has been in the DSMP. People still theorize about the arc and make connections to now – that’s pog!

Fundy being adopted by Eret – that sparked the whole “Fundy just wants a dad – let’s get him some love” thing that made FundyWasTaken and other Fundy+someone ships happen. I see a different person paired with Fundy every week, and somehow, I agree with all of them. I really got into Fundy because of that stream where Eret “slept through the adoption” and Fundy confronted his real dad and spent time with his granddad. That little stream gave us more insight into Fundy’s whole character (Nevermind Fundy showing off his acting skills – you go you funky little fox), but also justifies some of his actions now. DryWaters? Wanting to kill Technoblade? Fucked up reasons, but we still love him.

Phil being broken out of house arrest ahead of time – still made a great stream and Phil agreeing with Techno’s want for revenge – that made us all very happy. The SBI!!! The AE! And that’s also a thing!

That even if we do know or have predicted what’s going to happen, begged it out of the ccs basically, it is still incredibly fun to watch. Where some books/shows/movies fall short and reveal too much and end up being “too predictable”, they’re not fun anymore. I read this somewhere before, that sometimes holding back EVERYTHING from the reader, and relying on shock value to make a good story is just bad. Whereas if you progress the story naturally and let the reader make some predictions of their own and then they end up being right – that’s a lot of serotonin right there. It’s the re-readability that makes it slightly better the second time.

The DSMP takes this concept and fucking yeets with it. Letting fans engage in the story, letting them theorize and then be right, even acknowledging the fanart that was made, just engaging with the community that their roleplay created – that makes it so much more fun. I bet that even if the whole script was revealed to the fandom we would still watch every plot stream. Even if we knew vaguely what happens in the stream, we would tune in and enjoy every second of it. Because the ccs are just that good, we love them that much, we love this plot that much.

Oh and the unpredictability helps too. Tommy in exile was the vague concept of a lot of the streams – it’s taken that and ran with it in a lot of different directions. All quite enjoyable.

Having said all of that… The fact that this type of telling a story is impossible to recreate in any other medium is… kinda saddening? It is incredibly unique, and I’d say has things that not a lot of the people that produce mainstream media would even consider. “Just friends hanging out” – how would that make the script progress? “Engagement with the fandom, even considering their wishes for the characters” – but we’re telling a story here!

The only thing I can think of that would come close to the vibe, would be just a bunch of writer friends coming together, thinking up a universe and general plot, and then each deciding to write a few of their own characters in that universe. When one author focuses on their main characters, the side ones can feel left in the dust, or not fleshed out. The DSMP is just “every character can write their own story”, which takes a lot of the strain from the “main writers”. But the general thing of “just friends hanging out” would be taken away from it. We’re being serious here, why would we change the tone so quick?

With all of that in mind… I kinda wanna make some predictions? And I don’t know if they’re correct, but it’s fun to theorize. See?

1. L’manburg will die.

And not just because Techno has 54 withers. The country is cursed – it definitely is. There is little sentimental value that can be felt for a few flimsy stilts built on top of a crater. It might go out in a blaze of glory, with the withers (Is history repeating itself an interesting enough plot point to recycle a whole arc?), but it might just be forgotten. Yeah there have been some angsty headcanons about how “no one cares about L’manburg anymore, save for two people” and it just gets abandoned, but how about it just becoming irrelevant?

This all comes back to Dream, it always does! His want, need for the server to be “one happy family again”, it just means one thing. He wants the server to return to the peaceful anarchy that it was before L’manburg. No rulers, no factions, no nothing.

That’s never going to happen.

Try as he might, Dream cannot affect that change that L’manburg did to the server. The introduction of a faction, one that can exist without the interference of a higher power – why do you think so many factions have sprouted up since? And it’s not even serious factions a lot of the time, it’s just a few friends deciding to build their bases on a plot of land that they claim is a nation now. L’manburg has changed the mindset of these people, now an alliance with somebody is a political move. An alliance doesn’t exist if it doesn’t have a faction, and that faction can remain neutral for only so long.

Basically, L’manburg introduced the factions mod into the server.

And the fact that every faction now has enough relevance to hold weight in a war also means that every nation on the server is doomed to follow the downfall of L’manburg. Eventually, they will get into a fight they can’t win, go up against the wrong people, anger someone they shouldn’t have. All factions will either be destroyed, or lose relevance, until their creators, residents and such just… move on.

(And really you can go into meta and talk about real governments and compare them, but it’s far more simple than that. The server isn’t built for peace, it isn’t meant to be a relaxing place where you can just vibe, it may have been made for a few friends to play Minecraft together, but it has turned into An Author’s Curse. The curse that follows any kind of story being told – the fact that peace is boring. People watched the first streams of the DSMP because they liked the ccs, and that’s valid. But how many more people tuned in to watch the war streams because there was PLOT and there was CHAOS and there WASN’T CALM PEACE ANYMORE – that’s the curse of every writer. That you can write about someone just living their life drama-free, you can make interesting peace with characters or circumstances, but it’s always leading to one inevitable conclusion – war, drama, because people read that. And at this point, it’s just a predictable outcome. No matter how much you say that you are retired, that you’re done with violence (Technoblade), something will happen that will prove to you that you believed in people too much. No matter how “neutral” you may be in the matter, no matter how much you claim that you have no allegiance (Philza), you will be forced to pick one, because out of all the bad things, you pick the least worst one, the most appealing to you, the one that can benefit your want of revenge.

And I can go on, but this is far too deep for one simple reason – The Author’s Curse is so prevalent here because THERE ARE ABSOLUTELY NO STAKES. It’s a video game – you die? You respawn. Something gets destroyed? You can just rebuild. Sure, you’ll want to kill the person who did wrong to you, but whatever they did wrong can just be replaced, remade, recreated. So why not have wars? Why not cause massive amounts of destruction “for the plot”?

It’s literally a playground. How all authors have their little playground with their characters that they meticulously plan out, the DSMP is that playground for all of these people.

And it’s fun! Sure! I like it! I’m just really skeptical whenever someone in character says that they “just want peace”, “are retired”, “swear off violence”, “are building just a little city for themselves”. Because you can do that, nothing wrong. But eventually, no matter how much you distance yourself from all of the chaos happening, all of the wars, you will return.

Because it is just much more fun.

It’s the curse. A cursed cycle.

And everyone is in it.)

2. The prison.

I don’t have anything on the prison because I don’t have anything on the book. Yeah I’ve done a whole post where I overanalyze what it could be, but it doesn’t make it any clearer. Whatever it is, it’s made out to be a huge plot point, something that can only be revealed when the prison is finished.

Cursed. The prison’s reason for being constructed is the book, but the book is only relevant when the prison is finished. We can only wait, and theorize, as we do.

(My only theory is that the book is information about another op on the server. Or at least something related to op or creative mode. Dream only fears one thing on this server, and that’s Technoblade, so if his one fear is the most skilled player on the server, what else could give him existential fear?)

3. The SBI.

Again, I don’t have anything! Yeah the reunion seems to be going smoothly, one member at a time, but there is already conflict in their beliefs among each other. And all that’s happened is a vague “maybe one day we’ll strike”.

Is history repeating itself an interesting enough plot point to recycle a whole arc?

Is L’manburg’s destruction AGAIN really necessary to hammer home the idea that no one likes that place anymore?

I don’t know. Whatever happens, no one’s in the right. No one’s in the wrong either. They’re all not good people and that’s that on that.

4. The Clingy Duo.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

That’s all.

(Okay seriously? All of these arcs are connected. You know what happens when everything seems to be connected to one another?

A giant, dramatic final showdown between the two opposing sides.

Cause it’s just Chaos vs L’manburg. Those are the sides. People that want L’manburg to exist and people that want it gone. There are no other sides, there isn’t someone who’s like “Well maybe it can exist if we do this and this” cause no one wants to put in anymore effort into this cursed country. The only people were the clingy duo and now they’re separated and everyone is just leaving and Tommy is on the Chaos side like at this point he doesn’t care about L’manburg he just cares about Tubbo but he has to convince Tubbo to leave L’manburg but will Tubbo be convinced but will Tommy even consider leaving L’manburg and breaking free from its curse AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

Goddamit.)

5. The Egg?

Dunno shit about it. Like the prison – it seems important, but we’re just not being given enough information. Is it a coincidence that the moment Dream commissioned the prison the Egg popped up? Or are the two directly related?

I don’t know. But as long as someone is finding ways to fight the Egg, that’s fantastic. Bad juju indeed.

6. Oh the Butcher Army want to kill Dream!

Hah.

Okay I’ve seen people make the case that the Army is just a bunch of people with trauma repeating the cycle of ab*se that they went through and yes.

Just yes.

And the fact that no one is actually looking at it that way and no one is there to like.. help them or even help them understand that what they are doing is just irrational, even though their reason for doing it and the result they hope to achieve is YES and the only thing that a lot of the people of the server who want peace should try to go for as well, they cannot stand up to Dream on their own. They just can’t, they will get punted into exile. They need allies, and they need powerful ones, people that have also been wronged by Dream and want him gone.

But the cycle continues, and no one knows where it ends.

(Okay but from a writing perspective? Getting rid of Dream is the end goal. It is the be all end all of all conflict, well… most of it, at least most that’s related to the supposed “good side”, or “the side that’s been most victimized”. But from the same perspective, that side is just… no longer. It has proven that is just as bad, if not worse than the final boss. I have to agree that Techno has to pay for his crimes, even though I like him a lot, but Techno did in fact cause insane damage. Yeah L’manburg rebuilt, yeah Wilbur probably caused more – still he isn’t completely free.

But that’s a discussion on morality more than laws.

L’manburg is doomed to die. Dream is doomed to be fought, and probably won against (simply because he has won far too many times already, you know how everyone seems to hate OP characters…). But the Butcher Army is doomed to fail against Dream. So how does that work?

Welp.

Is history repeating itself and interesting enough plot point to recycle a whole arc?

The answer is no.

I’ve repeated that question three times now, and the answer to it is no. No it is not. L’manburg can be destroyed again, and it can be rebuilt again, but the sentimentality that people feel for it will not remain. The cycle of history ends somewhere, and it’s not too far a fetch that it ends here.

So what happens when Technoblade, Philza and Tommy roll up to L’manburg with withers and a destruction wish, only to be met with a bunch of traumatized children with axes and a death wish?

Well, I’ll spare the details, but from a purely writing standpoint…

The two sides team up.

Think about it – The Butcher Army doesn’t care about Technoblade anymore. They’ve seen that Dream is the one pulling the strings, they know that even if they do care about trying to eliminate Technoblade again, they have to get rid of his strongest ally – Dream. But through their anger, they’ve lost their fear. You should fear Dream, he’s a fuckin op. Techno is correct in not wanting to go against him.

But after Tommy? After seeing the Butcher Army at their lowest, screeching about Dream being the villain?

Will Techno finally go past his thinking of “government is evil, always government is source of problem” and realize that Dream has the most evil government in mind for his rule?

I’m still kinda sad that Techno isn’t making the conclusions he should about Dream. But he’s starting to – and really, the SBI-Butcher Army team up is the most logical thing that could happen.

Watch me be completely wrong or miss something and I’ve got ALL of it wrong. I would love that.)

(Also it’s very funny to me that Dream is literally simping for Techno while he’s just here like “Listen bud I would stab you on sight if you didn’t have creative mode”. Dream KNOWS that Techno can and will kill him given the opportunity. Techno knows that that opportunity may never arise.

It’s a weird type of stalemate, to be sure. But goddamn is it interesting.)

Anyway... if you read through all of this... I could bake you a cookie? Thank you! I like to ramble.

#dream smp #gooood its just a block game #ITS JUST A BLOCK GAME #...dammit #anyway #debate me #on everything please

153 notes · View notes

itsclydebitches · 4 years

Note

I think the problem with Rhodes is that there’s a divide between realism and idealism in regards to his choices. realistically you sometimes can’t do much for victims of abuse that won’t put them in a worse situation. Not because the law is automatically evil (though can be corrupted) but because it’s complicated. It’d be great to remove kids from terrible situations, but having (possibly) unknown adults rip kids away from their families? Taking them who knows where? Letting them decide, by their own perception, what constitutes a terrible home? And whose to say that adult really has the kids best interest at heart? And what happens if they get caught and now the victim is in even more danger? There’s a reason adults can’t just take kids as they see fit. On the other hand, RWBY is a show and idealistic, and I agree completely that I would prefer Rhodes, who seems like a good man, taking the risk rather than play long game. Especially cause it’s a common trope in media and because it is nice to see corrupted laws that hurt victims (the shock collar on a child/“worker”) be broken. Idk, I find myself torn between knowing Rhodes may not have been in a strong position to help but also wishing more could have been done, while also knowing that this stance is common for outsiders witnessing (or having suspicions) about abuse. Sometimes, depending on the situation, we don’t have power to help people

I think that’s absolutely the divide - realism vs. idealism - but, for me, the issue is that RWBY isn’t writing an idealistic show anymore. Key word being “anymore.” Since the final arc of Volume 3, RWBY has double-downed on a line they originally only pretended to take seriously: “Life isn’t a fairy tale.” It started asking us to approach the show in a realistic manner, such as:

Insisting that discrimination is a pervasive problem in this world that cannot be solved by, idk, hugging people and asking them to be nice. It’s a structural issue just like in real life.

People will now be dying in this world, including the best and brightest who absolutely did not deserve it (Pyrrha). Life isn’t idealistic, it’s harsh and cruel and unpredictable.

Characters will no longer bounce back from the horrors they’ve seen, but rather respond to them in a realistic manner, such as developing PTSD (Yang).

The concept of lies, secrets, and manipulation took center stage as themes, highlighting the complex nature of this plot and, as a result, undermining any simple, idealistic solutions.

We even saw a change in details: characters can curse now, blood is shown, we’ve had two episodes back-to-back where long scenes of child torture is the focus, ensuring that we stare at the kids’ agonized expressions rather than just cutting away and implying that this awful thing is happening.

RWBY was an idealistic show (“I want to help people!”), now it’s a very dark, realistic (you know, within the bounds of fantasy) show that shoe-horns in idealism when it’s convenient. The problem with that isn’t just the number of ways in which that has parts of the show contradicting each other - Ozpin’s secrets are dangerous (realism), Ruby’s secrets are fine (idealism); the group is given space and sympathy for the horrific events they’re working through (realism); Ironwood and Ozpin are expected to bounce back and never falter (idealism), etc. - but also that it expects the viewer to randomly switch between realism and idealism with no indication of when that switch took place or, more importantly, why. If I’m supposed to accept the nuance in all these other aspects of the show, why would I suddenly ignore the nuance of Rhode’s situation? If I’m supposed to accept the unspoken circumstances of a character like Yang (she won’t tell the group about her Mom being the Maiden because that’s emotionally hard), why does that suddenly not extend to Rhodes (he won’t just whisk Cinder away because that’s emotionally and practically hard)? RWBY and/or the fandom can’t keep telling us to treat this show seriously and then randomly go, “Oh, but not when it comes to them. Every single situation has nuance except for that guy’s.”

I’ve also been trying to think of other stories that do give us that idealistic “Adult rescues a traumatized and/or abused child” and everything I’ve managed to recall has radically different circumstances. Specifically: the parents are out of the picture, in one way or another. Matilda? Her parents flee to Guam, giving Honey the chance to adopt her. Mako? Her family was killed in the Kaiju attack, giving Stacker the chance to adopt her. Eleven? She was a government experiment who ran away, giving Hopper the chance to adopt her. Ciri? Her parents supposedly died at sea, she was taken in by her grandparents, then her grandparents die, giving Geralt the chance to adopt her while he also has a magical right to her via the Law of Surprise. In every example I can think of the guardians are gone, the child is actively working to leave, or the new parent in question has some other tie to the child that justifies them stepping in (or all three). I don’t think I know of another fictional resolution like the one the fandom wants Rhodes to have taken: “I may know about this child’s physical abuse, or I may just think she’s an employee treated badly, but either way I’m going to take her away from her still living, still present, still powerful family, despite her being a stranger to me and her never asking that I do this.” Which doesn’t mean that story doesn’t exist - it absolutely must given the wealth of media out there. I’m positive we could create a list - but I’m not so sure this is some obvious, pervasive trope that Rhodes “should” have followed. Even if it is an incredibly common plot and I’ve just missed those stories (absolutely possible), RWBY is not so idealistic that we should essentially be going, “How dare Rhodes not kidnap this child at great risk to him and to her! That’s obviously the only choice here.”

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #abuse tw #mymetas #Anonymous

59 notes · View notes

nekrotiize · 4 years

Text

About Bert’s Homicidal Tendencies...

Hey gang! Let’s get analyzing!

The perception/reception of Bert as a character has changed a lot this past season, with us in the main Chipspeech fandom/Sovereign Station slowly unpacking and realizing the monumental amount of mental health issues he actually faces and has been facing since even before Season 1. So, I’ve decided to start dissecting certain things and topics we find, with proof provided, just to show that Bert is so much more than the comic relief character that we all thought he was in the past.

Today, we will be covering the topic of Bert’s Homicidal Ideation/Tendencies.

Bert is, despite how he presents himself, possibly one of the more violent characters in Chipspeech. He’s had many displays of both violent thoughts (even if played off comedically) and full on violent action- like the nearly attempted blind-rage assault/murder of a child. We will not be covering the violence he displays towards himself in this. That will be covered at a later date.

>Possible Origins of Homicidal Ideation

It is very important to note that dealing with homicidal ideation does not make you a monster. It is also important to note that it’s pretty similar to suicidal ideation/tendencies, but instead of directed to yourself, it is directed towards others in some form. Be it a specific person, or just... The concept of people in general. Bert is a very mentally ill character with a notably heavy amount of trauma, and it is incredibly likely that his homicidal ideation stems from that. My personal theory is that it is mainly rooted in his PTSD.

Bert came from a strained home with his creator, Mr. Gotrax, who we know well tried to “fix” him into his idea of a perfect son. The situation got strained enough that Bert eventually ran away, and at some point met Dandy 704 and Otto Mozer. This is not necessarily a good thing. It is important to mention here, while it won’t be covered too heavily in this post, that Bert was abused by Dandy, and that appears to be a huge point of trauma for him. Due to this, a lot of Bert’s violence tends to be either directed to or somehow involving Dandy.

>Ideation Alone

There’s a very big difference between homicidal ideation and the concept of homicidal tendencies. Ideation is, obviously, just the thought of it. Oftentimes, when people refer to “homicidal tendencies,” it’s given the same meaning as suicidal tendencies- which is being known to make attempts. Let’s dissect just his ideation first.

This much has been played off for laughs. Not necessarily in a bad way or anything, but things are disturbing in hindsight. Let me bring up one example here in particular.

You ever notice how, during Season 2, Bert booted up The Sims with the express purpose of creating Cider and Dandy and then killing them? The first time, back in Season 1, was more... Lighthearted. The deaths were more of a consequence of a bug. Uncoincidentally, this was also before things were more serious and before Bert’s relationship with Dandy got more outwardly, noticeably traumatic (though it still was to a degree,) and before Bert gained a sudden fear of Cider.

SPOILER ALERT! This is not the last time we will see Bert smile at the prospect of harming Dandy in some way, fictional or not.

Well someone has issues. Fun fact! Drowning is one of the hardest types of homicides to prove. Evidence gets washed away. It also takes quite a while. It’s like strangulation in that aspect.

This isn’t exactly... Normal behavior, is it? It’s a little weird. I’m not calling him crazy or saying this isn’t justified, but it’s just. Off-putting. Especially compared with his trademark Season 2 incoherence that was literally the result of brain damage and trauma-induced age regression.

This is probably coping.

Jesus.

Dark humor and the concept of it is not lost on me. It’s context that matters here. If the context of Bert, his mental health, and his relationships with these characters weren’t there, I honestly wouldn’t think twice about it. And I didn’t really think to hard about this when this happened. Hindsight is a powerful tool.

One thing I find interesting is... One of his methods of trying to kill Dandy in-game lines up perfectly with a way he is physically violent with Dandy outside of the game.

A stab to the chest.

>Homicidal Tendencies / Actual Violence

Bert is a mess. He is a violent, destructive, self destructive little mess. But again, we aren’t covering his self destruction in this. We’ll get there, though. It’s important to note that Bert... Is definitely funny! He’s one of the more “comedic” characters. But his comic relief status has come at a detriment to him, and it has led to a lot of... Issues. He wasn’t taken seriously. So whenever he lashed out... It wasn’t even noticed as an extreme behavior.

Remember that time he nearly assaulted Pedro?

This was how they first met. VODER almost killed Dandy. Which, you know what, fine. Drama! Intrigue! But there’s something we need to keep in mind. Bert, despite basically having his mental state entirely tanked by Dandy, has a severe attachment to him. Which is... Very reminiscent of actual abuse victims, but that’s besides the point.

So what does Bert do upon learning that this 13 year old child hurt Dandy?

THIS IS CONCERNING! This is a very concerning response!! This is not how you respond to that! Oh no!

Fun note! Whenever he starts typing in a way that’s really messed up, he is having a breakdown!

Okay. Taking a step back here. Bert, upon given the information that someone could have hurt Dandy- with the information that he is FINE- goes into a blind rage directed at that person and nearly commits assault, but then snaps out of it when the person he’s targeting, who is a child, begs for him to stop and covers their face. It’s implied that Dandy has physically abused Bert before.

His immediate breakdown was probably the realization that he was becoming just like him.

... Anyways, side note! Pedro saying that they have seen a cat make that exact same face at them before it attacked them? Yeah, that’s an interesting statement! Have you seen a cat about to strike?

Bert looked pissed! Great first impression! Nearly attempted crimes of passion are a great way to introduce yourself to a child. Somehow, they’re like siblings now. Trauma bonding!

Speaking of Bert being pissed and violent...

Remember that time he literally stabbed Dandy?

A wonderful start to the chaos.

Let’s dissect this! Because this sure is an interaction!

The way this is framed is interesting. “I have a knife” “Where did it go?” implies that Bert walked up to Dandy announcing this, all while hiding the knife in some way. Then... There’s Bert stabbing Dandy in the chest with a smile on his face. There’s a couple things to keep in mind with that. One of them is that you don’t just randomly stab people.

Stabbing is a very personal way to kill someone. Very personal. There’s this inherent implication in it that you want that person to hurt, and you want them to hurt by your hands. It’s up close and personal. It’s messy. It’s heated. And in this circumstance, this is beyond a crime of passion. This seems... premeditated.

And this does not at all seem to be the first time Bert has done this.

The calm reaction. Just... Keeping the knife. This is a response that basically chalks up to “[heavy sigh] not this shit again.” This just implies that this has happened enough times for Dandy to not even be phased by Bert literally stabbing him in the chest. I’m not even going OVER the maneuvering needed for Bert to stab him in the first place, with Dandy being 7′04″ and Bert being 5′03″.

Like, this is their height difference! Bert either had to, off-screen, yank him down by the shirt, knock him down by the legs, or literally swing upwards, which is a really weird motion (I tried it, you know, for science,) and the body really doesn’t like doing it! And that’s not even taking into account the FORCE that’s needed to stab a blade through DANDY! He’s an automaton! THERE IS A LOT GOING ON HERE! And we do NOT have time to unpack all that!

-----

That’s my essay! Again, it’s not going into other aspects of his violence, which... Honestly, I feel would enhance the argument, but we’d be here ALL DAY and I’m not about to lengthen the post any further by going into Bert’s self destructive habits!

14 notes · View notes

trans-droid · 5 years

Text

I think we as a fandom have a tendency to gloss over the confirmed nine to twelve "disgusting people. traitors, traitors to this great Empire." (each!) that bren, astrid, and eodwulf literally tortured to death during their time at the manor.

Folks like the pharmacist Dolan and his husband, political dissenters in Zadash. The dwarvish man who assasinated the High Richter for imprisoning his wife for life for something she didn't do. Kara. Bryce's friend who ran The Leaky Tap and safehoused meetings to happen in her basement, the Knights of Requital advocating for a more just system.

Prolly also a mix of some truly horrifying people to drive home the association that this was necessary work, protective work - slave traders from the north, torturers for The Myriad, criminal underbelly of Rexxentrum (folks like Zoran Kluthidol, former Tombtaker).

[TW: sexual violence for this bullet point, pimping out of minors] Bren's honeypot jobs may have involved being trained to entertain and interact with underworld contacts for field operatives (or black market suppliers of residuum, like the goblin woman in roshana's back warehouse), to smooth over business deals and get information from them via pillowtalk. Also, exposing young people to sexual violence at the hands of a brutal person then adding that person to the line up of "people we should torture and kill" is a good way to make them hate any other person you add to that list by association.

That all being said, I think it's fair to concept that torture in a simillar vein to The Spanish Inquisition. Medival torture in general is vicious, and you've got the priorities of information extraction and a level of brutality "justified" by being used to make dangerous people suffer to save the righteous at any cost, while also being an easy skip and a jump into "silencing the people I don't agree with or who won't politically conform and are therefore threats to public safety and protection from the evils kept at bay by the law and order of this nation"

[would put pictures of such devices and methods, but its a lot, also the additional application of the arcane]

idk it is easier maybe to focus on the murder of their birth families as the cardinal sins, but imo these are even worse, because at least in those murders, they lost something dear to them in the process. those are dual tragedies, in that the innocent were murdered, and that those kids' families and chance at a regular, human life and uncondemned mortal soul were taken from them, forever, BUT.

yeah, the rest was completely fucked up too, and i think it does the narrative a disservice when the fandom goes all "uwu soft cinnamon roll" on caleb and gets annoyed with his inability to forgive himself for the horrible shit he's done.

maybe some of those people deserved what happened to them, maybe they didn't.

i think it's super compelling that he operates from a place of "i am already damned, there is no grace for me, i have forfeited that life, i don't get to have an easy happy ending, i am not doing this to save myself because that ship has sailed, the consequences of the horrors you have commited for those people and their loved ones don't go away just because you learn desperately to regret what you did, BUT still, you can fucking put on the work to try and atone by putting something good and useful into the world that remains."

this all got on my mind again after his recent talk with yasha, but yeah. just some thoughts.

(also, obviously the ethics here are incredibly complicated underneath all the layers and layers of grooming, gaslighting, torture, and propaganda drip the kids were subjected to in order to get to this point, i fault ikithon first and foremost for building that gun, but you can't be irritated with caleb for refusing to forgive himself for willingly pulling the trigger.)

#critical role #critrole #critical role meta #caleb widogast #the mighty nein #mel talks

74 notes · View notes

shima-draws · 5 years

Note

Remember that one episode in Gravity Falls where Stan loses a bet to Mabel and does that stan-wrong-dance?? Can you write a drabble where Ford finds the footage pls the imagery is so freaking funny lmao

[[Send me a fandom/ship/prompt and I’ll write a drabble for it!]]

I’M SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG BUT I FINALLY FINISHED…I had a total blast writing it tho!!

I kinda took your prompt and went way beyond the original concept anjsakbnda so there’s some angst in here because Stan’s a self-sacrificial idiot and Ford almost loses his shit, but I hope you like it nonetheless :’)

Also this ended up being nearly 4k words so. Yeah. That’s why it took so long LOL but hopefully you got more than what you asked for!

This is also on Archive, if you’d rather read it there!

——————————————————–

Ford is absolutely furious.

Now, he’s no stranger to anger, having fallen victim to it many, many times throughout his life. His bouts of rage usually result in catastrophe if he isn’t careful. A prime example: letting Stan get kicked out of the house forty years ago. Or, when his irritation caused a fight between them that ended up in Stan’s permanently scarred shoulder and his own thirty year trip into the multiverse. It’s never simple and it usually doesn’t end well, especially if Stan happens to be on the other side of the argument.

This time, however, is a bit different.

It’s one thing if his brother has done something to piss him off. It’s another if Stanley does something so unbelievably stupid it scares the absolute shit out of Ford. He doesn’t like being angry. He doesn’t like being angry as a result of him being terrified even more.

And so, he’s taken to pacing in his study, trying to let off some steam. He’d separated himself from Stan after lecturing at him for twenty-five minutes about the very many reasons why Stan shouldn’t have charged right into battle against a particularly violent group of bullasps (an enormous wasp-bull anomaly hybrid, helpfully named by Mabel). Stan had come this close to being pierced by one of their enormous stingers—and if he had, well. The venom they secrete works so quickly Ford doubts he would have been able to do anything about it in time. And that is what had triggered his hysteria.

Mabel sits on one of the oversized chairs in the room, munching on a bag of popcorn. She’d followed him after his frustration had shot through the ceiling, needing to get away before he said anything he’d come to regret. Dipper had stayed behind to admonish Stan further, but not as harshly as Ford originally had.

It’s been almost a year since Ford and Stan left Gravity Falls to travel the world together. They’ve had plenty of arguments and heated late night discussions on board the Stan O’ War II, but they’d never escalated to this level. The two of them hashed out all of their past history and mistakes, and they’ve been attached at the hip ever since—but Stanley’s always had a bit of a reckless steak, and Ford will never admit it, but he’s unbelievably overprotective of his twin, especially after the whole shooting-him-with-a-memory-gun thing. (They try not to talk about that, much, mostly because it makes Ford feel so guilty it brings him to tears, and Stan hates seeing him like that.) This sort of takes the cake for every previous situation where Stan has willingly put himself in danger on their journey out at sea. Ford can’t remember the last time he’s felt so high strung.

“I just can’t believe him,” Ford hisses, his fingers tangled in his hair. His heart is still pounding, fear spiking through his veins and making him as taught as a bowstring. “Out of all the reckless, most monumentally moronic—”

“I know you’re upset, Grunkle Ford, but we took care of it!” Mabel points out, trying to be helpful. She does sound worried, though, if her expression has anything to say about it. “Those things ran right off after I used that cannon to shoot that t-shirt into the woods! Who knew bullasps are actually attracted to red things? I thought regular bulls hated the color red!”

Ford can’t help but smile a bit at her observation. “Actually, regular bulls are red-green colorblind, Mabel. It’s not that they particularly dislike the color red, it’s the action of a matador moving their cape that stimulates hyper aggression in—wait, wait, that’s not the point!” He heaves out a sigh. He turns to her and frowns. “Do you—do you even know why I’m so furious with Stanley right now?”

Mabel makes a funny sound with her mouth, her legs kicking back and forth, and then she answers. “‘Cause he shook his butt at them and told them to shove it where the sun don’t shine?”

Ford groans and pinches the bridge of his nose. Could Stan have any less tact? The children are almost 14 now, but still.

“That’s part of it,” he grumbles. “But it’s his insistence on constantly throwing himself headlong into danger before even considering the consequences of doing so. Stanley is—he’s ridiculously defensive of his family, which isn’t a bad quality to have at all, but…it gets him into unnecessary trouble. A lot.”

Mabel looks truly concerned now, which is good. “Is that why you looked like Dipper in the middle of a Wendy crisis when Grunkle Stan almost got hit by one of those super giant sharp and pointy stingers?”

Ford considers telling her that the venom would have killed Stanley in minutes, but then decides he should probably spare her those morbid details.

“Yes. It would have been…very catastrophic if he’d actually come into contact with one.” Ford slumps, suddenly feeling exhausted. “I’ve come this close to losing him once, I…the mere thought of possibly losing him again, and him ending up somewhere I couldn’t ever possibly reach…”

His throat tightens and he feels pressure building behind his eyelids. Emotion makes his heart feel like it’s being constricted, squeezed tight, and he swallows. He’d gone half his life without his brother and he regrets every single minute he didn’t spend by Stanley’s side. Almost losing him to Bill was a huge wake up call, and Ford’s barely been without him since then.

“So that’s why you’re so frowny,” Mabel chirps. Ford can’t tell if she’s totally oblivious to the seriousness of the situation or if she’s just trying to act upbeat for his sake—but he appreciates it either way. “You were pretty scared for him, huh, Grunkle Ford?”

Ford wipes his eyes and nods wordlessly. In the past he might have brushed her off but he knows better now—his family is the most important thing he has, and confiding in them when times are difficult is usually the best course of action.

The young teen hums thoughtfully, scratching her chin, and then her eyes practically light up.

“Wait, hold on! I have an idea,” she says excitedly. Her smile turns wicked. Oh, no. Ford knows that look. He’s been on the receiving end of it many times before.

“Grunkle Ford, have you seen the Stan Wrong Song?”

Ford tilts his head. “The…what?”

Mabel giggles insanely. “The Stan Wrong Song! It’s a song we forced Grunkle Stan to sing after he lost a bet to me.”

“Stanley lost a bet.”

“Uh-huh!”

“To you.” If Ford didn’t know her so well, he’d think she was lying. It’s extremely hard to believe, knowing how brilliant his twin is in the conning department.

Her grin becomes wider, if that’s even possible. Her braces glint in the dim light. “We bet to see who could make more money—me, taking over Grunkle Stan’s position as a morally ambiguous tour guide, or him on vacation. And I won the bet by a dollar! A dollar, Grunkle Ford!”

“Incredible,” Ford breathes, shaking his head.

“We made him sing it at least thirty-six times,” his nibling tells him. She really could give Stan a run for his money with how mischievous she is.

“Or, wait, maybe it was thirty-eight? Anyway, it was a whole lot! We were all singing it for weeks. The power of catchy made up songs prevailed! Grunkle Stan says he hates it, but I hear him singing it in the bathroom sometimes when he thinks I can’t hear him!”

The older man chuckles at that, amused.

“Anyway,” Mabel sing-songs. “Since Grunkle Stan was a dumb-dumb and almost got speared today and scared the bejeebers out of all of us, I think this is a good opportunity to bust that video out and give him a good ol’ dose of shame!”

“You truly are a peculiar girl, Mabel,” Ford says in wonder.

The brunette beams at this, her smile almost blinding.

“Come on,” she says, grabbing his wrist. Her grip is surprisingly strong, and so is the way she tugs him along with her. “It’s payback time! Revenge tastes sweet, like gummy worms!”

——————————————————–

Ten minutes later they’re seated together in the living room, prepared for the show. Mabel has already plugged her phone into the TV, which can broadcast anything she wants, thanks to a helpful little device Fiddleford had made for the family a while back. (It definitely helped when Ford wanted to show off all the videos he’d taken while he and Stan were out at sea on a larger screen for the whole family to watch.)

Stan is nowhere to be seen—which Ford supposes is a good sign as any. He’d rather not have Stan confiscate Mabel’s phone before Ford even gets to watch whatever the young girl is intent on showing him. Dipper’s probably still keeping watch over Stan, so that’s reassuring. He’s sure that there’s nobody more capable of watching his twin, except maybe Soos.

Mabel is practically vibrating in her seat, posture tense with excitement, and Ford fidgets. He’s honestly not sure what to expect—but when the video finally loads and the first thing he sees is Stan in a neon orange track suit covered with sparkles, Ford blinks in shock. He definitely didn’t expect that.

His twin looks like he’d rather be chased by a horrendous monster of the deep than perform in front of the camera, and the deadpan expression on his face has Ford releasing an amused snort.

Stan glances offscreen, gruff and irritated. “Ugh, l-look, I’m not gonna—”

Mabel’s voice interjects before he can finish protesting. “Do it!”

Stan begins to bounce as a song plays in the background. He looks so goofy doing it that Ford starts to giggle a little, the stress of the day rolling off his shoulders.

“I’m Stan and I was wrong.” Stan sings, dryly, with all the emotion of a desert cactus. “I’m singing the Stan Wrong Song.”

Something in Ford breaks, then—and he’s laughing, incredulously, sort of struck dumb by the whole situation. Mabel sniggers beside him. Stan starts to swing his arms, and Ford wheezes. His brother looks so foolish. Ford is absolutely reveling in it. (He’s so using this for blackmail material later.)

“I shouldn’t have taken that chance. Now here’s my remorseful dance,” Stan finishes, pouty and clearly embarrassed.

“Do the kicks!” Mabel’s voice calls out again, and Stan makes a feeble attempt at performing a kick, to which she demands them to be “Jazzier!”

It’s when Gompers comes in and starts a tug of war match with Stan that’s one for the history books that Ford loses it completely. The entire thing is just so wild and hysterical that he can’t help it, clutching at his side as he laughs and laughs and laughs. The video resets, going back to the beginning, and Ford happily sits through it again.

By the time the video loops for the fifth round Ford is howling with laughter, nearly bowled over by the force of it. His side has a stitch and it hurts and he’s pretty sure he’s crying but he can’t stop, too overwhelmed at the hilarity of his brother in a sparkly suit singing a song clearly meant to humiliate him—and maybe it’s the fact that Stan had had another close brush with death earlier and the built up tension from the incident that has him letting it all out through his chortles. Mabel is giggling madly beside him—whether she’s laughing at Stan or laughing at him laughing at Stan is unclear, but it’s contagious, and Ford can’t stop smiling.

God, how utterly ridiculous this all is. He loves his family.

The video is on its eighth loop and Ford is pretty sure he’s going to pass out from lack of oxygen when Stan bursts into the room, his eyes wide. Dipper follows close behind.

“What’s going on in—Ford?!”

Stan rushes over to him, his face drawn up in concern, and Ford’s heart melts a little. He might still be angry at his twin for scaring him half to death, but really, Stan’s mother hen tendencies never fail to make him smile.

“Ford—Jesus, you’re cryin’, Sixer! What the hell happened?”

Ford giggles and wipes the tears from his eyes, struggling to get his breathing back under control. “I’m—ahaha! I’m fine, Stanley.”

“With all the noise you were making, I thought you were dying,” Stan says with a worried frown. “It sounded like you were in pain or—”

Ford playfully rolls his eyes and nudges him in the shin with his foot.

“Now you know how I feel.”

Once he finally settles down, and when Mabel’s tittering fades, Stan finally registers the video playing behind him. His face immediately goes ash white, his expression quickly morphing into one of utter horror, and if Ford weren’t so wiped out by nearly laughing his ass into unconsciousness he’d probably start doing it again.

Dipper sees what they’re watching and he snorts, covering his mouth to hide any further giggles from coming out.

"Mabel, pumpkin?”

Mabel is the picture of pure innocence, her smile sickly sweet. “Yes, Grunkle Stan?”

“Either I’m having memory issues again or I swear I made you promise me in confidence that you would never ever show this video to Ford,” Stan says, slowly. His grin is wide and almost terrifying. If Ford didn’t know how much Stan loves Mabel he would have thought his twin was seriously considering strangling her. “And what did you do?”

“I showed the video to Ford,” Mabel says, looking shameful. She twirls a piece of long brown hair around her finger. Ford chokes back a bark of laughter at how well she’s pulling this off.

“Don’t be too hard on her, Stan,” Ford soothes in an attempt to curb his brother’s embarrassment. “She was only trying to help.”

Stan simply pouts, and suddenly all Ford can see is a young boy, cheeks bright red from the sun, childishly complaining about having to wear glasses because he thinks it’ll make him look like a nerd. Something warm blooms inside Ford’s chest and he bites his cheek, trying not to get lost in the memory of their childhood.

“How is this helping anything,” Stan mumbles, his cheeks flushing a charming shade of pink.

“It’s teaching you some humility,” Ford states, crossing his arms. “Maybe you should sing it again, Stanley.”

“What?!” His twin barks in outrage.

“He does have a point, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper provides helpfully from where he’s now lounging on the couch with Mabel. The video continues to loop, much to Stan’s chagrin. “You did do something wrong today.”

“Wh—are you still on about that? My god,” Stan groans, throwing his head back. “I was trying to be, ya know, heroic! Live up to my title.”

Ford is tempted to kick him again, but harder. His glare makes the other man wilt slightly.

“You already live up to your title, Stan,” Ford points out. “You don’t have to throw yourself in front of a beast with a toxicity level of 94 percent to prove that.”

“94? Holy crow, that’s high,” Dipper squeaks.

“You’ve already saved the world and paid the price for it once,” Ford continues. He slumps a bit in his chair, the exhaustion of the day finally catching up to him. “Please, Stan, you have to understand—there’s no point in trying to protect us if we lose you in the process. It’s just…just…” And he shakes his head, frustrated that he can’t put it into words properly.

“Okay, alright,” Stan says sheepishly, edging closer to where he’s sitting. “I get it. I didn’t mean to scare ya. It’s just habit for me to be self-sacrificial at this point.”

“That’s a terrible habit!” Mabel accuses.

“She’s right,” Ford mumbles. “If you hadn’t…if that stinger had come into contact, you would have…and then I…I…” He chokes up, his eyes watering. His heart clenches painfully, fear making his body feel like it’s encased in ice. “If I lost you…”

“Hey, easy there on the waterworks, Poindexter,” Stan teases lightly. He holds his hands out in a pacifying gesture. “I’m fine, see? Still in one piece. Mostly.”

“This isn’t funny, Stanley! How can you still refuse to comprehend—ugh!”

Ford is nearly tearing his hair out in frustration now, his teeth grinding together. Seriously, how can his brother still be such an idiot? He thought the lecturing and the clear distress the rest of the family is expressing would be enough to make Stan realize, but—

Stan folds his arms, huffing, and Ford notes that his face is coloring again. Mabel and Dipper gaze at him curiously, and before Ford can question his twin, Stan releases a soft, irritated noise from his throat.

“I’m Stan and I was wrong,” Stan mutters.

Ford blinks in shock.

The other man sighs, a deep-sounding one that slackens his posture. “I’m singing…the Stan Wrong Song.”

Mabel makes a high-pitched keen of excitement, and Dipper grins. Ford almost falls right out of his chair.

He isn’t sure what’s more surprising—Stan willingly putting his pride on the line, or begrudgingly singing about his mistake in front of the family, who he knows are more than capable of holding this against him.

“I shouldn’t have taken that chance…”

Stan edges closer until he’s standing over Ford, his cheeks the color of a ripe apple.

“I’m sorry, okay? Now will you please forgive me already?”

Something lodges itself in Ford’s throat, and his whole body feels as if it’s being flooded with warmth. Even after all this time, Stan still puts his want for Ford’s forgiveness over everything else. His heart glows.

“Stanley…”

“Don’t gimme that look,” Stan grumbles, refusing to meet his eyes.

The older twin beams and launches himself out of his chair, scooping his brother up in a hug.

“Wh—Ford?!”

Ford nuzzles happily into Stan’s hair, grinning wide.

“Thank you, Stanley.”

“What! You cannot leave me out of this family hug action!” Mabel cries, leaping off the couch to run over and throw her arms around her Grunkles’ legs.

“Squeeeeze!” She says, squeezing them tight. Ford laughs jubilantly and Stan rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile that refuses to go away on his face.

Mabel presses her nose into Stan’s leg for a moment, and then she looks over her shoulder at Dipper.

“Come on, Dippin Dots, you know you want in on this!”

Dipper rolls his eyes but slides off the couch nonetheless, coming over to circle them before ending up beside Ford in the group hug.

The young girl starts giggling, a happy, wonderful sound that makes Ford’s heart swell like a balloon. He feels all sorts of fuzzy, the euphoria of being with the people he loves the most—and with his twin, his other half, the person who almost gave his life for him today—making him burst into merry laughter as well. Soon enough Dipper joins them, and finally, Stan is roped into it, their laughter too contagious to ignore.

When they finally all calm down, Ford nudges his head against Stan’s temple. So maybe he’s feeling a bit clingy now, so what?

“Next time you do something like that again I will sneak horrifying body-altering concoctions into your coffee,” Ford tells him way too cheerfully for someone who’s threatening possible disfiguration.

“Yikes, Sixer. What sort of crap did you learn how to do on the other side of that portal?”

“I know how to disembody someone in a total of 103 unique ways,” Ford responds brightly while he rubs his cheek against Stan’s shoulder, hiding a grin into his shirt.

Much to his delight, Stan stiffens beneath him, and Ford almost laughs.

“Remind me not to get on your bad side,” Stan gruffs, patting him on the back. He pauses. “…Again.”

“Hey,” Dipper playfully elbows Stan. “Grunkle Stan, you didn’t finish.”

Mabel’s entire face lights up, and her smile is blinding—and devilish. “Oh, that’s right! You didn’t finish, Grunkle Stan! You have to commit to it all the way!”

Stan looks down at them, puzzled. He tries to squirm out of Ford’s hold but Ford just hums and hugs him tighter, his forehead pressing against the man’s shoulder.

Stan promptly gives up on getting free (because he knows from experience once Ford starts clinging it’s all over). Instead, he addresses the younger twins with an air of confusion.

“What are you gremlins going on about? Finish what?”

“Your song, silly!” Mabel chirps.

Dipper nods, his smirk matching his sister’s. “Yeah, you didn’t sing the entire thing. Or even do the dance! That was a pretty lackluster performance if you ask me.”

Stan’s face draws up in horror. “Oh, no.”

Ford leans back, but doesn’t detach himself from their interwoven limbs. Giving Stan another dose of shame, as Mabel put it, sounds thrilling right about now.

“You know, they do have a point,” he says, pretending to mull it over. He can’t stop grinning. “I’d love to see the most recent rendition of the Stan Wrong Song, from start to finish. Wouldn’t you, kids?”

“Abso-lutely!” Mabel almost screams. “I’ll have to go get my camera!”

Dipper nods, a hand on his chin. “Oh, yes, yes. Gotta have it.”

“You are the worst,” Stan hisses, his entire face matching the color of Ford’s sweater.

Ford laughs for the millionth time that day, his body feeling lighter than air.

——————————————————–

After that, they make him sing it a total of seven times before finally giving mercy. Stan swears he’s never going to do anything super dangerous again until he does two days later. Then the whole process repeats. LMAO

I can never get enough of Pines family fluff it makes me weak in the knees and oh so happy

265 notes · View notes

fansplaining · 6 years

Text

Transcript: Episode 72: Alternate Universes

(episode | show notes)

[Intro music: Awel by Stefsax]

Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth!

Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!

FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!

ELM:: This is Episode 72, "Alternate Universes."

FK: I'm excited about this because we have both been falling down an alternate universe rabbit hole, and we are inviting Morgan Leigh Davies to come and fall down that rabbit hole with us this time.

ELM: OK, first, Morgan. She is the cohost of Overinvested with Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, and she is a critic and a fanfiction writer, author of at least one very popular high school AU.

FK: True.

ELM:: So that's point one, and I'm very excited to talk to her about this. Point two, you've been falling down an AU rabbit hole? I didn't know this.

FK: It's mostly been you but you dragged me with you.

ELM: Oh! [laughs] I'm so proud!

FK: For people who haven't followed along Elizabeth ran into X-Men: First Class like a freight train.

ELM: No no no! It was last month, in the beginning of March, I had to fly first across the Atlantic and then across the country within 48 hours of each other. And I always try to do some work on the plane, but on the second one I was just like, fuck it, I'm watching as many movies as possible.

FK: Reasonable!

ELM: So I watched Finding Dory. Made me cry. Frozen, made me cry. Lego Batman movie. [FK laughs] Did not make me cry, but I enjoyed. So at this point I was telling my friend this and she was like "were the parental controls on? And did everyone around you think that you had a problem?" And then I watched X-Men: Days of Future Past, which I had not seen and I had only ever seen First Class also on a plane and only half-watched it and barely remembered it.

FK: And then it hit you like a freight train and then you fell down a rabbit hole and in the rabbit hole in addition to the rabbit was also a lot of AUs and then you dragged me down too.

ELM: You know, yes. [laughs]

FK: And so now...

ELM:: There is a disproportionate number of AUs in the X-Men. It's like the new franchise. Right? There is some acknowledgement of the 2000s movies, but it's a separate premise. And it seems to be a fairly dormant fandom, a stagnant fandom, because most of this was done 6-7 years ago. Right?

FK: Right. X-men is sort of fragmented into, I feel like it's people who care about the comics and the 2000s movies; there's a small number of people who care a LOT about Wolverine...I mean, they're not a small number, but anyway.

ELM: Yeah, a lot of people seem to care about him! But then yeah, there's a separate...it seems like kind of a separate fandom from people who are into X-Men as a concept. Or teens. It's not really about teens. Anyway, so for context, I think people know this who listen to this, I am not historically...have not really been an AU person. I love canon-divergent AUs. Right? Love them. But...

FK: You're all about them.

ELM: I think when I took our Tropes Survey, I think I said "no" to most of the AUs. And it was like, if you can really sell me on it, I would read a... I don't know. Actor AU, or a...whatever. I'm trying to think of some examples of ones on the list.

FK: Yeah, but you were not like, Oh yeah. AUs. I love 'em.

ELM: No, in fact I said I do not love them! I dislike them. Right?

FK: Yeah!

ELM: And I still feel this way for a bunch of the fandoms I've been in! I just, no. So when I initially looked at this I was like, oh, that's disappointing that they're all AUs. But then I started reading some of them. There are so many good stories! I really don't understand it! I'm so confused! Because I have read tons of AUs in the past. Just cause I dislike them, it's not like I dislike them sight unseen, you know? I'll be like, agh, this has nothing to do with the characters! Or, this is trivializing everything that was important about the original stories! Or whatever. And I don't feel this way at all right now, and it's very confusing to me.

FK: I hope that we can clear up some of that confusion. I...

ELM: You've been reading the stories I sent you!

FK: Yeah, and also because you've been having this crisis [ELM: laughs] I've been thinking more, because I have also written some extremely canon-divergent AUs, like I had this big project of incredibly canon-divergent Harry Potter, which is so far that it's almost not even a canon-divergent AU, right? Literally everything is different from the moment of Harry's birth, so...what happens at that point?

ELM: That's a canon divergent AU!

FK: It still is, but it's definitely very far away. And I've been thinking about all the other AUs I've liked, [silly voice] The AUs I've loved and left [ELM laughs] you know. So I'm really excited to talk about this. I don't think, until recently I don't think that I ever really thought of this as such a divisive or...I don't know. We've talked about AUs a bunch in the past but I've always taken it from the perspective of "yeah those jerks outside of fandom dissing coffeeshop AUs!" Whereas now I'm like "do they have a different role in fandom than other kinds of fic? Let's think about this!" So. Let's think about this!

ELM: Great, OK. So I'm excited to talk to Morgan. Who, by the way, also...Morgan has been my guide through X-Men AU.

FK: Like she's the Virgil to your Dante?

ELM: That's the most accurate and true.

FK: [laughing] Does this...I'm not Beatrice or something in this metaphor, am I? I can't be Beatrice! That's not how this works!

ELM: No, you're coming too! Sorry, you're comin' down. I don't know what to tell you.

FK: OK.

ELM: Yeah.

FK: Well, shall we call Morgan and enter the underworld?

ELM: Let's do it. Let's call Virgil.

[Interstitial music is by Jahzzar]

FK: OK! I think it's time to welcome Morgan to the podcast! Hello Morgan!

Morgan Leigh Davies: Hello!

ELM! Thank you for coming on. I'm really excited about this.

MLD: Very happy to be here!

ELM: OK before we talk about the most important topic ever, the alternate universe fanfiction, you should introduce yourself first, just so people know who you are.

MLD: My name is Morgan Leigh Davies, I am a writer and podcaster, I cohost a podcast Overinvested about pop culture with Gavia Baker Whitelaw, with whom Elizabeth also does a sort of fandom newsletter every week. So that is why I am here. To talk about fanfiction.

FK: In order to close this circle, Morgan, you realize that you and I have to have a project together and then...

ELM: It's true.

MLD: To truly incestuously make this happen. People frequently will tweet at me about The Rec Center, which is your newsletter...

FK: Happens to me all the time also!

MLD: I don't do this! But thank you! [laughing]

ELM: Do people also think that the Rec Center is a project of your podcast? Cause people...

MLD: No.

ELM: People think that it is, which makes more sense with us because it's about fandom. The podcast is as well, right. But they'll be like "on the Fansplaining newsletter..." and I'll be like "No!"

MLD: No, I don't think so, I think they just get confused because I think in their heads Gav and I are, like, two extensions of one person because they listen to the podcast and so we're very intimately connected in their brains.

FK: See, whereas I feel like people think that Gav and I are the same person somehow even though she's literally been on the podcast with me and Elizabeth and we're nothing alike, but...

ELM: It's fine, it's fine. I hope this is setting the record straight for everyone.

FK: Alright alright already. AUs though. I'm really excited to hear what you have to say about them, because I think you're the one among us three who's actually written a significant AU story in addition to reading them copiously.

MLD: I have, I did, I wrote one called "Middletown" in the Captain America: Winter Soldier fandom four years ago. Which is terrifying. And it was I think it's safe to say very popular, and it was an interesting experience because I wrote it because I hate high school AUs and it was a high school AU. And so I suspect it was a slightly different exercise than when most people set out to do this, although perhaps I'm wrong? But it was kind of like an anti, sort of anti-AU AU writing experience. Although I think a lot of my fanfiction writing, which I haven't been doing recently, tends to be kind of reacting against things in fandom as opposed to embracing them. I suppose I'm a contrarian. [all laugh]

ELM: OK wait. I also hate high school AUs. Flourish, I don't know how you feel about them.

FK: Mostly not great.

ELM: I'm curious to know Morgan why you hated them and what was the subversion happening, and I don't want this to sound like you wrote a fancy subversive one and all the other ones are garbage. I think that...

FK: I feel certain that there are things to like about high school AUs!

ELM: Something about the trope just doesn't work for me.

MLD: I mean I have not read all of them. I'm sure there are other good ones out there. The ones that I have read in the past, not in many years, some of them I enjoyed, many of them I did not. The one I wrote sprang out of conversations I was having at the time with gyzym, Kady Morrison, who I was working on something with then and we kind of just were having this ridiculous chat conversation about "what if all the Captain America characters were in this ridiculous high school?" but she also is not a huge fan of high school AUs, as I recall it, from those conversations, and the thing that always really bothered me about them was that the characters never acted like they were actual teenagers, and then at the end of the story everything was really great and the romance was resolved and it was perfect.

Whereas most people do not wind up married to their high school girlfriend or boyfriend. That's not how it works.

ELM: I don't know if you've read Harry Potter but I thought that's what happens actually always! So...

MLD: [laughing] Right. So it was just kind of the falsity of those narratives, which I get can be comforting to some people and if that's what you want that's fine but it's not appealing to me particularly, so the high school AU that I wrote really heavily features zits and body odor and teenagers acting like real assholes, in an unpleasant way. And when I was writing it, I thought that only adults would like it, because it's kind of...very lovingly rude to teenagers. In a way, it literally explicitly says "teenagers are dumb," which they are, and I say that totally lovingly, teenagers are amazing but they're also idiots, I was completely stupid at age sixteen, it's fine.

It was really interesting seeing the reaction to that once I'd put it up, because the people who responded the most intensely were obviously teenagers who were like "this is my life! Oh my God!" and I was very moved by this. But I was thinking about this topic before we started recording, and the sort of different fandoms I've been really deep into at various times and the ways I've engaged with fanfiction around them because you, Elizabeth, have been reading all this X-men fanfic and we've talked about it a little bit and the last fandom I think I was really crazy into in an insane way was Captain America several years ago, and I read a lot of fanfiction and I don't think I read almost any AUs, despite writing one myself, and I don't think I was very interested in them, and I was thinking about what made that not appealing to me in that context vs. X-Men, which is the AU heaven?

FK: It's interesting to me because I also said I didn't like high school AUs but I think that for me the reason I don't like them is I don't want to go back to high school. Nothing was good there. And I also don't have a strong positive feeling about the tropes of high school...I mean, who doesn't like, whatever, Rock N' Roll High School or Mean Girls or whatever. but...

ELM: I've never even heard of the first thing you said.

FK: Rock N' Roll High School, the greatest high school movie ever made?

ELM: Morgan, do you know this? I don't know this.

FK: I'm gonna make you watch this.

ELM: You said this in the same breath as Mean Girls, which is a masterpiece.

FK: This is so good.

ELM: Better than Mean Girls?!

FK: In a very different way.

ELM: OK.

FK: It's about fandom, too!

ELM: OK now I'm scared of this.

FK: It's about a girl who is a fan of a band and brings them to her high school.

ELM: OK?

FK: It's great! Anyway, I don't have a super super positive...that's not a trope that I love, and also I think it's really hard to translate characters into high school in a way that feels real or that it's saying something important to me. Do you know what I mean? There's some tropes where I'm like, "yeah, haha, it's not really saying anything that he's a duke now..." [everyone cracks up] "...and this is Regency England, but I fuckin' love Regency England, so I'm gonna go and enjoy this." Almost always there's no deeper meaning there, but it's a trope that I love, so who cares?

But in order to bring someone along into an AU space that's not already that, I feel like I want to get something...I want it to have meaning that they've been put into an AU. I want it to uncover something about the characters for me. I don't know.

ELM: That's funny, cause you're saying...and I think it's interesting, Morgan's saying she doesn't like high school AUs because they don't act like teens, and I agree with...not that there's any opposition here. I feel the same way as Flourish, in that when I've read them I've found that they also don't feel likethe characters. So then what are they? You slapped some names on the cast of Saved by the Bell? [laughing] I'm trying to think of a high school show. 90210? These are two absurd examples.

FK: Dawson's Creek...?

ELM: Did they act like teens? I don't think so!

MLD: Most shows about teenagers do not feature characters who remotely resemble teenagers, for instance, I have never seen an episode of Riverdale but everything I see from Riverdale I'm just like what is happening?! Who are these people?! I feel so old watching it. I'm just like, this is a culture that is beyond me and yet despite me feeling old watching it it's not that this is what the teens act like now, it's clearly [laughing] there's just, this is an alien thing that no human has ever behaved in this way at all, right? I feel like teen shows tend to be like that. They're just not of this world, and I think that AUs are kind of like that too, although in a different way. And that's not appealing to me, because even if really good AUs where the characters are kind of just original characters but written really well, sometimes I can enjoy that, but if they're just nonsense in whatever the specific genre is...I don't care.

FK: I guess that regardless of how the characters are written, and how much relationship they have to canon or not, I feel like if you're not interested in the location they're put in...I also don't want to read a college AU because college to me is neither aspirational nor a rosy time to look back on and dream about. Maybe someday it will be.

ELM: Wait, pause, do you feel like...have you guys read many college AUs? I've read some. College AUs to me always seem to be just about dorms, and...has this been everyone else's experience, or have you not read many of them?

MLD: I have only read a few. I feel like there are way more, at least recently - in quotes, "recently" - grad school fics and that is because more people writing fanfic [laughter] today are graduate students! And I can appreciate a grad school fanfiction. That's fine. College, no thank you, I do not need this. And I went to school in New York City so my experience was very different from the big state school or small liberal arts college type, "you're in the middle of nowhere and theres a dorm."

ELM: Dorms and quads. I just feel like there's a lot of dorms in these.

FK: What I wanna know is why do we stop at grad school? Why don't we have some college professor AUs where people are really getting into it with the conflict, some people have tenure, you're stuck with each other forever, you've got some pretty high stakes in this situation!

ELM: Flourish, I don't know if you're aware that in 95% of all X-men AUs Charles Xavier is still a professor.

FK: Well that's true. [all laughing]

ELM: They literally never, ever can give him a different job. It's extraordinary to me. Sure. Professor. Of the same subject.

FK: But they don't really get into, like, him fighting with someone over tenure cases in my experence.

ELM: Sometimes!

FK: Really?

ELM: Well, not over tenure. He always has tenure.

FK: Over other people's tenure cases!

MLD: I also have an answer for this: it's because the people writing fanfiction are graduate students. [all laugh]

FK: In graduate school did you not put your professors under even more of a magnifying glass to try and figure out the politics? I feel like I was way more invested in departmental politics as a grad student.

ELM: Is this cause you ended up marrying your professor?

FK: Well, that is how it ended. [all laughing]

MLD: I was totally fascinated by all my professors during my master's but that particular kind of thing was not so interesting to me and it was not the kind of thing that we had access to. You do get more access as a grad student, but...

ELM: Also in the UK, both Morgan and I went to grad school in the UK, and the system is quite different and so my grad school professors...I don't think any of them were full professors. You can have been teaching for 20 years and not have the title "professor."

FK: Yeah it's a much bigger deal which is fun when you go to the UK with someone who's a full professor here, like my husband, and then he gets treated really nicely.

ELM: They just handed it to him! To be fair he has been a professor for a long time at this point.

FK: That's true thank you.

ELM: Yeah. [all laughing] Now I'm calling him old.

FK: Good thing he doesn't listen to this podcast.

ELM:: He does not listen to it! Don't worry. OK. So do you guys, Morgan, you brought this up, you feel like in some fandoms you do it some fandoms you don't. Prior to dying and going to Hell and only reading X-men fic [all laughing] it's more of a purgatory right now. I was personally staunchly, who cares if other people do it, but personally I was like "oh I don't read stuff like that. I don't read X is a blank and Y is a blank." Or here's this scenario. And now I cannot stop and I'm worried about myself. and I'm wondering if it's...I don't know. I'm wondering about those as texts, working across fandoms or within fandoms or that kind of thing. Those are the questions I have about that.

MLD:: I was trying to think about these general topics before we started recording and I think the way I tend to read AUs is that I run through all the good canon fic in a fandom and reject the AUs and then when I get really desperate I start reading the AUs [laughing] And some of them are really good! But at first I'm like "ugh, I don't want to read that!" [grouchy noises] And then in some fandoms I just can't do it, it just will not click in my brain, but it tends to be a step...a last resort thing.

And for some reason, X-men, there's...I don't know what it is, there's a property that it has that is...the AU is actually the preferred object for me. [laughter] The platonic ideal of the X-men fic is not a canon fic, it is a ridiculous AU.

FK: But I think this actually may relate to stakes and ethics, though, because I too have this thing...I love One Direction and 99% of all One Direction fanfic is AUs and I cannot read them. I just can't. I can't do it. Don't make me. I know they're great. I know. I've been recommended all of them. [all laughs]

But. When I'm reading Reylo fanfic, like you, the preferred version of Reylo fanfic is definitely an AU for me. I'm like yeah, obviously they are both rising music stars in the late 90s. Why... [all laughing] It's a great story by the way I will put it in the show notes. It's really good.

ELM:: What kind of music stars I need to know!!!

FK: He was a really good...he had an album of folk, but it was all stolen from his grandfather's, things his grandfather had written and he never told anybody, and then he got snookered into making a deal with Snoke and had to become the front man of this awful Linkin Park like band, which is miserable, and she is a folk singer-songwriter like Jewel sort of, and there's a lot of butterfly hair clips. And it made me so nostalgic. [all laughing]

ELM:: OH MAN.

FK: The point I was trying to make was, I think there's something in both of these cases where you've got these weird messed up ethical situations and it's sort of easier to just enjoy a story when no one's killing anybody, you know?

MLD:: Here's my response to that: I also enjoy the Reylo dynamic in the Star Wars films [all continuing to chuckle] but I absolutely cannot read AU fics because the whole point is that it's bad and AU fic would make me feel gross. Sorry! Because if you have to acknowledge the badness... I have not found almost any good fic period because it's just very hard to do, right? The whole dynamic is just very complicated.

FK: Yeah, it is.

MLD:: Whereas X-men also has this complicated ethical stuff, but in the X-men films, it is treated so nonsensically [all laugh] that it just doesn't matter! The basic tone of those movies is just garbage. So you can write whatever the fuck you want! There are some fics that treat stuff seriously, with much more weight than the actual movies do, that do a really good job of it, and then there are some AUs that are just so dumb but in a smart way that are also really fun. But I think again the tone of those films is just...this is so absurd that you can kind of get away with doing anything, and I think that that's why I like all those AUs so much. You have these two characters who are really really compelling, the queerbaiting is so through the roof that you're dying to read SOMETHING.

ELM:: It's shocking, honestly.

MLD:: So whatever! It's fine. Whereas I think the Star Wars stuff for me, I don't think those movies are perfect but the pathos of the stuff in them seems more real to me than X-men which is just like "BLEAH! Whatever! I guess Magneto blew up a city or something this time! Whatever, he's gonna be back, it's fine." [all laughing]

ELM:: He always comes back, don't worry about it!

MLD:: Exactly! It feels fake.

FK: I don't disagree with you...I think that the reason that I like AUs in the Reylo space is because they consciously are like "nope, we're not dealing with that! We're not even gonna try to deal with the question of is he or is he not... he didn't kill anyone in this universe! He maybe ruined a couple of musical careers, but whatever it's fine! We're just gonna live with it." You know what I mean? It sounds like whereas with X-men it never mattered in the first place, so.

ELM:: Yeah, I mean, you can treat it seriously. Like you said, there's definitely some fics that take it much more seriously than others. I read the Quicksilver fic, by the way. The Septembriseur fic. It made me cry.

MLD:: This is a good friend of mine who wrote one about Quicksilver and it is a genuine work of art.

ELM:: It's a work of art.

MLD:: Seriously deals with trauma...she's the best writer I know. In any genre, anything. She's so gifted. You read that and you're like, this is both a piece of fiction craft-wise genius, but also all the emotional stuff is so deep and affecting and then you can just go read for instance the X-men fic that I wrote which is none of those things!

ELM:: Morgan, I love your fic so much!

MLD:: I'm very proud of it, and it's perfectly well written, it's fine, but in terms of the deep emotional stakes? Not so much!

FK: I have not read your X-men fic so I cannot speak to this.

ELM:: You should read it immediately afterwards. It's a delight. Genuine delight.

FK: OK. I will read it.

ELM:: I read it before I knew, I did not realize who had written it because it was very highly rated on the AO3. I'm not biased.

FK: I was away, this is following on from something aways back in the conversation, you're gonna have to forgive me. Your point that you can treat it seriously is true. One of the fics you recced me that I hadn't read before, I think you recced it as "they're dicking around in Amsterdam being dicks"?

ELM:: Douchebags, douchebags.

FK: Douchebags, not dicks.

ELM:: Morgan recommended this to me so that's a passed-along rec.

FK: What's the title of it?

ELM:: It's called "i guess i should say thanks or some shit." And the author, I think we know the author but it's been orphaned on the AO3, so it's by no one.

FK: It's orphaned, so it's by orphaned.

ELM:: Anonymous genius.

FK: Anonymous genius. So this story is, you know, Charles and Erik have their powers and they're bumping around Amsterdam being douchebags, but there's no killing of people, there's no Holocaust backstory it's strongly implied, I think, although I only read it once so...

ELM:: No, it's set in the relatively recent...

FK: Right! It's set recently.

ELM:: There's no Holocaust.

FK: I didn't think so, I was trying... oh, you're right, they have cell phones. So it's set recently. Whatever. So all the stuff that's super super super high stakes is gone, but they're still talking about reading people's minds and stealing bikes and ethical questions about having powers.

ELM:: The classical ethical question: Should you steal a bike?

MLD:: If you can and no one will catch you... [all laugh]

FK: So it treats telepathy very seriously in a way that literally nothing in X-men ever has in canon!

MLD:: That's one of my favorite fics ever in any canon, I've read it so many times, I love it so much! And I think what you're saying is totally right about it dealing with these questions in an interesting way, and I also think that what makes it so good is that it does not present either Charles or Erik as a remotely appealing person.

ELM:: Yes, which is canonical!

MLD:: They are just awful, in a way - exactly. In a way that's really fun to read about! They're very entertaining, and it's not like you hate them anything, cause obviously then why would you want to read this romance story about them? But they're both plainly just dreadful people. And that to me is so much more enjoyable as just writing period, as a general statement, than a story that tries to make the characters really good. Obviously it's, you can write fiction about good people that's also really compelling, that's fine, but I just read something I'm not going to say what it is that definitely did the thing where it's sort of like, "this person believes in all the right social justice stuff!" and I was like "this is boring to me." That can sort of weigh on a story after awhile, whereas this one in particular was just like, no. [all laugh] They're just assholes!

FK: I think part of that has to do wtih the changing of the stakes. I think it can be really tempting, if you're in a super super super hyper dramatic situation, like, OK, we have to have a hero in here, someone's blowing up a city! I read a lot of post-apocalyptic books just because I like the setting and almost always there's a man and he's the embodiment of American manhood and he's doing all the right things. [everyone laughs] I'm like OK great. And depending on what someone's political views are the embodiment of American manhood could be a lot of different things. Sometimes he's an antiracist, sometimes he's a gun nut! Depends who's writing it!

ELM:: Flourish, what books are you reading?! I didn't know about this secret love of yours!

FK: I just like postapocalyptic stories!

ELM:: Starring American men. Continue.

FK: I had actually never read Stephen King's The Stand because it's 10 million long but I have an Audible account now so I was like "let's maximize my Audible account," so obviously I got The Stand, because it's really long and I pay as much for it as I do for a short book. And every character in that so far is miserable. I'm like, I hate you all, this is glorious, Stephen King you did a good thing! But it's hard because you can see there's these moments in the story you want the person to be a hero, because the stakes are so high, like, surely this is gonna be the moment! ...no. But I think that in AUs it's like that. If the stakes are really high you're like "make him a hero."

ELM:: Not necessarily. If we bring it back to...I love that we're extensively discussing one fanfiction that everyone should pause and go read it and then you'll know what we're talking about [all laughing] but I also feel like the moral grey areas that both of those characters can occupy even in canonical situations or high stakes canonical-ish situations where there's some sort of supervillain or whatever, obviously they're still going to be occupying those moral grey spaces and they are both kind of douchebags always. But when they are saving the world, it's not necessarily that you get a pass, it's just that it's a little less stark I feel like. Whereas an AU can kind of strip that away and give you more space to sit with that ambiguity in a way that...I don't know. This is how I feel about a lot of blockbustery stuff too. It doesn't really give you that space and that's one thing I think fanfiction does. Maybe not always just AUs. Obviously lots of fanfiction does this.

FK: You mean, like, you're watching a two hour movie and it's like blam blam blam we have this story and it's action-packed and then OK, I didn't have any time to think about whether it was a good idea to do that or not...right? Is that it?

ELM:: I don't know, can you think of any...even Black Panther which I really liked, I don't think had enough time to sit with the complex moral questions they were asking. I think they did a better job than a lot of other big blockbustery superhero movies but I still feel like they had to go relatively quickly.

MLD:: I think a lot of that is also just a function of being a film versus...

ELM:: Being a hundred thousand word fanfiction?

MLD:: Or a novel or whatever. I think Black Panther was really incredible, I don't think it was the most politically deep movie I had ever seen in my life... this is very off topic. But it's a movie made directly for children. So that's fine. But I think something like X-men, as I was saying, you watch the movies and they're nonsense with occasional moments of "oh that could be interesting if they actually did something with it," and that's what all the fanfic does, is mine those occasional moments of potential insight. [laughing] For hundreds of thousands of words! Which is great.

ELM:: But then what's that distance when it's just brought over into an AU?

MLD:: Well, that's the question and I think that's why I tend to avoid reading them until I'm so desperate that I [laughing] can't get away from it. With X-men as we were just saying there is something bizarrely compelling about all of them that I don't even know that I have the full answer except what I was proposing. And in other fandoms it gets interesting cause I think there can be a tendency to write generic romance novels about white men under the auspices of a fandom which is risky.

ELM:: This is something that I actually kinda wanna dig into and I'm wondering if we should take a break, cause we're kind of at a halfway point, and pick up from there.

FK: Sounds good, let's do it.

[Interstitial music by Jahzzar]

FK: OK, we're back, and we're gonna talk a little bit about Any Two Guys stories, because this is an important question in the world of AUs. For those of you who don't read a lot of fanfic, of which I think there are some, Any Two Guys stories are stories that could be about any two guys! Not just the people you're supposedly in the fandom for.

ELM:: So this is a long time criticism of slash fandom in general, not just with AUs, right? The dark haired man and the light haired man. [all laugh] The taller man and the shorter man.

FK: The older man and the younger man.

ELM:: It's true! [MLD: hooting]

MLD:: We could go on and on!

ELM:: I will admit, this is one of the reasons I've always had a low key bias against this kind of AU. This is not the first time that I've read AUs, obviously, but it's just like...when you hit a point not too far in where you're like "this has nothing to do with the characters, you've just slapped their names on it," that's the point where I get to feel a little resentful, and I don't know if that's fair, because I kind of feel like there's plenty of people who know...it's deliberate. It's not like they think they're doing some deep read on the original characters; they're just telling a story. But then it's like, what am I reading? I'm just reading a story starring the actors of the canon [laughing], the namesakes of these two characters. All right.

FK: I feel like one question is, what is fanfic for? Because part of fanfic is for interrogating the original text, obviously, but part of fanfic is also sometimes about desire or emotional... when I say desire I don't mean just lust. I mean also emotional engagement in fantasy people, who may or may not be the characters in the story. The characters in the story might be the starting point for those fantasy people, but let's be real, my headcanon of Scully is definitely not canon Scully. She's just not. She's better. [laughs] I wonder sometimes whether "any two guys" stories are also about the stuff that people bring to reading it, as much as they are...it's more like, here is a story that could be just a gay romance novel, but I know that you're going to paratextually bring this stuff to it, and therefore it's different than if you were reading it just as a romance novel.

MLD:: Well, obviously this stuff gets written in the groupthink of a fandom. Usually. Some people write things...

ELM:: I love what I would call "intertextuality" you just called "groupthink." It's really good. [all laugh]

MLD:: That is the way I think about fandom! It's all groupthink. I wrote quite a bit by my standards of Captain America fanfic, I think more than for any other fandom, and that was definitely the most clearcut experience I have had of fandom groupthink in the sense that...

ELM:: Engaging as fanon as much as canon.

MLD:: Right. There were certain trends that would happen and then I would push back against certain things in my writing, but it wasn't just me, you could sense that there would be this push back against something and then something else would come up and it was...I think that happens in most fandoms once you get to a certain size, but it was the most clearcut and visible to me in that one, which was really interesting to observe, and I think I conceptualized it most clearly in that. I was like "oh, everyone is putting their brains into the same space and stuff is coming out." Which was really fun, even if some of the stuff coming out I found very aggravating [laughing] A lot of the appeal of writing this stuff was that experience of knowing that everyone that was going to read your thing would be informed by all the other stuff that they were writing.

Which is kind of interesting for me to think now, cause I still get comments on some of that stuff, obviously sporadically, and I know that people coming to it now if they're coming to it cold are having a very different experience. Which is fine, it's just not the same thing. So if you're writing a two guys AU in that context, obviously it is a different thing. But for me that's still not massively appealing because it strays away from the questions that were appealing to me. For instance, in the Captain America stuff, which tended to have to do at some point with canon even if they had spiraled out to fanon stuff that we'd all made up and agreed upon collectively, even though it...you know? I'm rambling at this point but I think you get what I mean.

ELM:: That makes total sense.

FK: What you just said makes complete sense, and it's interesting to me when I think of an AU that I really love that many people really love, "The Student Prince," which is a Merlin AU, but I hate Merlin. I watched the first episode [over laughter] and I turned it off in anger because what did you do.

ELM:: Wait, you've only seen one episode?

FK: Yeah, I hate it!

ELM:: That's the foundation of your hatred?

FK: It was not good. I couldn't. It was like a Did Not Finish book. Sometimes you get into a book and you're like, Did Not Finish. Exactly like that. I settled in planning on watching all of it because I liked some of the fic, and no. But it's also a Kate and Wills AU...

ELM:: Because it's set at St. Andrews, right?

FK: So I was coming at it as the Kate and Wills AU that happens to have gay Merlin and Arthur in it [all cackle] and everyone else who read that I'm pretty sure was coming at it from the Merlin AU that happens to be about royals, and now it makes so much more sense to me the things that I liked and cared about in that fic were very different!

ELM:: It's really good. But do you think that people were coming into it because of Merlin? That story was in the Rec Center last week, and probably not for the first time, and when I looked and checked the link, that has half a million hits on AO3.

FK: I don't think all those people watched Merlin.

ELM:: I don't think those are all Merlin fans. Obviously it's a relatively popular fandom but still. What a compelling concept!

MLD:: This is interesting too though is the phenomenon of people reading AUs when they aren't familiar with the source material at all, which people definitely do and I've had people send me things and be like "this is so amazing, it doesn't matter that you haven't seen the thing, it's an AU, it's so good," and I just can't bring myself to do it. I just...it doesn't. I'm sure they're right, but I just can't, I don't care.

FK: For whatever reason people do this with me for SGA all the time, Stargate Atlantis, and I have seen more SGA than Merlin but somehow it just doesn't, I can't, no.

ELM:: But I feel like there are a lot of people for whom that works, right?

FK: Yeah, well, obviously it works for me for some things, because I read the Merlin fic! [all laugh]

ELM:: So why does it work for you for some things and not others? It needs to push your buttons in some other way then. Apparently it needs to be about dukes or princes or something, cause you're a total monarchist.

FK: Monarchist all the way down. Well, I think also with Merlin it helps because it is itself based on something. I think that if I had never seen Sherlock, but I had read Sherlock Holmes, I could probably read some Sherlock fanfic and be like "OK! This is just an AU of an AU, fine. We're moving on."

ELM:: So, but, is that a problem? This isn't meant to be a referendum on any one given fic.

FK: Can I just say we have managed to go this entire time without mentioning Fifty Shades of Grey and I'm really proud of us but I had to break the streak?

MLD:: That literally did not enter my mind.

ELM:: I never think about Fifty Shades of Grey.

FK: That's because you guys are slash only and I'm draggin' the het in here!

ELM:: It's true.

MLD:: I have definitely read and written het fanfic! [all laugh]

ELM:: Oh wow!

MLD:: BUT FIFTY SHADES OF GREY IS NOT ON MY RADAR IN ANY CAPACITY AT ALL!

FK: Well, I feel like Twilight was one of the earliest fandoms that was mostly AU fic, though. I mean, I would propose that. I don't think I ever saw a fandom that was mostly AU fanfic before Twilight. I did read Twilight fic, by the way, I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm not a huge Twilight fan, but it was everywhere.

ELM:: You wrote your master's thesis on Twilight, I think you're a huge fan.

FK: No...I didn't write it on Twilight, I wrote it on Twilight fans.

ELM:: Wasn't it also Twilight anti-fans?

FK: Yeah. Twilight anti-fans. [all laugh]

ELM:: Sorry. I twisted that deliberately. I apologies.

FK: In an ONTD community called ONTD_Twatlight. But anyway.

ELM:: I'm glad that MIT gave you a degree for that. Delightful. Really good. Yeah, I mean, if you wanna talk about Fifty Shades we can, I was gonna talk about whether Any Two Guys is problematic.

MLD:: [laughing] Two roads diverge, et cetera, et cetera.

FK: This is how our roads ALWAYS diverge. Elizabeth is like, "but is it problematic?" and I'm like "but did it make a lot of money?"

ELM:: Those are the questions?! Are those the questions right now?

FK: Not really the question! Well, it is a little bit the question though. This is a little related. Is Any Two Guys problematic, but also don't Any Two Guys fics where you file off the serial numbers lead us into that monetization of fandom question.

ELM:: That is a connection you can make between those two things. But I don't know if that's the problematic element of it. I think that the problems there are this kind of idea of it beyond fanfiction, slotting in and out of all the issues that surround slash. Whether it's systemic bias and racism or fetishization or etc etc. I think all of that comes into focus when you have this idea that all you need to do is slap two names onto a male/male romance and then people will say "fine with me!" You know? Isn't that just a full expression of all of those issues?

FK: But why is that much different than...I think there are many het romance fics, like Fifty Shades, where it could be any two people. Is it different, materially, from that? I know it is because there's issues around male/male romance, but...

ELM:: So then any two man and woman... [laughing] I don't know what the phrase would be.

FK: Any two hets?

ELM:: Any two hets! Any two straights. Well, we don't know if they're straight or het, that's true. I was trying to go with just their sex to start. Is that a space of diversity? Or do you often find the same sorts of bodies being interchanged? Slapping the same sorts of names onto the same two man and woman? Same single man and single woman. [laughing] Same two men and women would be much more fun. Quads all over. Do we call them quads?

MLD:: This is just taking a turn!

FK: Doesn't this get us back to the fact that...I think it is, and I think one of the ways we know that is looking at Sleepy Hollow, with an African American female lead and the fights people had about allowing her to have romance, right? And right now in the het romance world there's a huge, huge, huge racism fight going on. For people who don't follow this world, historically lines of romance novels have been segregated, yes segregated like it is the Jim Crow south because people are disgusting and this has continued to exist into literally 2000. Sometimes literally today!

ELM:: Wasn't the recent controversy because someone had crunched the numbers because one of the big prizes in the romance world, was it no black characters?

FK: I believe it was writer but that was only one...there was a thing about the RITAs, which there's multiple categories and there have been multiple characters nominated in different categories...but...weirdly? If I recall correctly? Which probably I don't because I'm not looking at the thing right now and there were so many issues that got wrapped up in each other too. This year there was a woman who was nominated for prizes and got...she was black and got no support at all from her publisher whereas all the white authors did. Very blatant racism going on throughout this.

So I'm just saying, I think it's broader than a slash issue. For once it's not just the slashers! It's everyone! We're all horrible racists!

ELM:: Sorry, I always claim slash first. You know. Trying to claim responsibility.

FK: Any Two Guys, people also have a term for that and people don't use that term for het romance. I'm not sure why.

MLD:: Maybe it's just that there's something very obvious about it when there's two men and it's the same!

ELM:: The dark haired one and the light haired one. [all laugh]

MLD:: It becomes very clear in a way where maybe it's also the tradition of het romance looking like that has gone on for a very very very long time. Whereas male/male romance being a thing in this thing is obviously quite recent. So there's probably...I'm completely thinking out loud right now! But there's probably more discourse like this because it's being invented in this way over the past many years in real time and we're seeing it.

FK: That makes perfect sense. When I think about it, there's all these terms in the romance space, not necessarily in the fanfic space. He's another alpha hero, he's another...there's all these terms for categories of types of characters, stock characters.

ELM:: Tell me some more of the romance words. Alpha hero?

FK: Yeah! If he's an alpha, he's masterful! He's commanding! And many people don't like him because he tends to kiss you against your will! [all chortle]

ELM:: He sounds very problematic!

FK: It's slightly dubcony but it's okay! [all still laughing] And this is a type! You read romance and you're like, yup, that dude. There he is. People subvert it, most of the time people subvert it now, it's not super popular. But it's a thing, there's all these tropes. I guess you're right. I don't know enough about the male/male romance space but I assume they're developing but it's a larger portion of the market.

MLD:: Also there's academic books I was using in grad school last year tying the het romance novels to Jane Austen and the entire history of romance as a genre. This is not something romance publishers made up in the 50s or 60s or whatever. This has gone on for a long time in the Western world with white people. Almost always been the leads in those stories. It's the cultural default mode, obviously, which of course people are now discussing aggressively a lot. But there's a lot of ground to make up from the early decades of the last millennium, right? [laughing]

ELM:: Whereas I think in slash also if you think about it in a sort of shortened time frame, and I just want to clarify that I think that there's obviously a lot of robust discourse in the male/male romance original, and some of it crosses over but some of it doesn't. And I think this Any Two Guys thing is specifically a fandom thing. This is specifically about AUs and shipping. AUs and shipping, two separate things intersecting. I don't wanna go too far into this.

FK: Well, I guess that is different, because...maybe it is to do also with queerphobia to some degree because I think there is an assumption that people who are shipping are interested in finding the ship, and they go looking for it, as opposed to "these two characters just seemed like they had..." I think people get very cynical about slashers in a way they're not as cynical about het shippers.

ELM:: That's interesting, wait, I wanna know more about this. Tell me.

FK: Maybe because het romance is so frequently canonical, or possibly canonical, or understood as potentially canonical.

ELM:: And the idea that there's a guy and a girl in this moviea nd they're probably going to get together, that kind of thing?

FK: Yeah, and I think that then there's not an assumption... "oh, you just went to this to find an object to cling to." No, of course, everybody does that. If it's het, it's assumed you're going to go find it, whereas slashers, you're just looking for something. You're reading too far into it and you're doing it for your own tastes, not for what's in the work.

ELM:: Hm. I love that you say "slashers." It makes me feel really old school. [MLD: laughs]

FK: Well, what else? "slash readers"? "people who enjoy male/male romance in fandom"?

ELM:: As you know, the kids don't use the term slash anymore! Yeah. Those relationshippers. That's right. On Wattpad they don't know those words.

MLD:: We're just all very old.

FK: They definitely know those words on Wattpad cause they also say "don't like don't read" as though it's nineteen ninety fuckin' nine!

ELM:: They say that? That's incredible! Those kids. Teens! Who are dumb. I'm glad we established that. I always try to support teens, but you're right, teens are dumb.

FK: I too did those things.

ELM:: Did anyone not?

FK: Everyone did. We all passed through this period of time.

ELM:: Dumb things you did. It's OK. I do dumb things now too, it's fine. We just do different some things.

MLD:: Exactly. Sort of aged into a new thing.

FK: I think we're going to have to wrap up fairly soon but before we do, we have talked almost not at all about canon divergent AUs or fusions or anything like that, so maybe we should [laughing] talk about that a little bit, guys?

ELM:: Canon divergent AUs, my favorite, actually one of my favorite things literally in all of fanfiction. Ironically, after disparaging the other kind for so long.

MLD:: Right, I love them. And I love fusion fics depending on what the fandom is so that's interesting.

ELM:: OK define fusion fic.

MLD:: The one that immediately springs to mind is His Dark Materials.

ELM:: OK. You know I've read a bunch of those about... daemon? You say dee-mon AUs? And I haven't read His Dark Materials. Very confusing to me.

FK: You would be really into His Dark Materials and should probably read it. I don't know if you'd love the writing but there's a lot of things in it...

MLD:: That shocks me.

FK: ...that I feel like you would be into. You should.

ELM:: My friend gave me his old copies because he works at Scholastic and so he got the new ones, just a few months ago, and they're on my shelf, I'm literally looking at them. The one thing that concerns me is I don't know if I wanna read novels with the perspective of smug atheism, and that's how they've been described to me, so you can disabuse me of this impression.

FK: I did not find them that bad. He is that bad, but I did not find them that bad.

ELM:: Great!

MLD:: I don't feel that they read that way, but.

ELM:: Great! That's two. Alright.

FK: He is that bad but I don't think these novels are that bad.

ELM:: Actually I just heard him on the radio recently and it seems like he's not that bad anymore.

FK: Well, he went through a period.

ELM:: He said he's come to see that you can be dogmatic about anything, even non-belief, and I was like good. Call Richard Dawkins, he must know.

MLD:: He was extremely charming at the reading I went to when I was nine years old. He was very nice to all of us and very funny. So I am a partisan. Those were my favorite books when I was nine, so.

FK: It's funny that you say this though because to me fusion fics are almost like the other kind of AU. It's almost like, great, you found another setting, another thing to fuse into this. It's almost like a setting. But canon divergence is different, because it's almost like you've got all fanfic on a spectrum from "this is mildly canon divergent because it happens in the future, we don't have next season so we're writing it now," to the very canon divergent, Sirius didn't go to...

ELM:: Where you make a very deliberate turn.

FK: Sirius didn't go to prison and therefore everything in the Harry Potter books is different, and everything is really different.

ELM:: A literal turn. Maybe he turned in the opposite direction and that was the butterfly, you know? There's definitely stories like that. [all laugh]

FK: Absolutely. But they're all on this spectrum. All fanfic is canon divergent at some point, and is therefore kind of AU, even if it's just a fill in fic.

ELM:: You wouldn't want fic if it wasn't canon divergent. But I think the difference is usually if it says it's canon divergent, that usually means it's that kind of deliberate choice. Right? So...or alternate meetings, or fix-its, or any of these things. This is some of my favorite stuff about fanfiction!

FK: It seems to me almost like the canon divergent, when it's being chosen intentionally, plays a similar role to the kind of AU when you put them in a different situation so there can be heightened or lowered stakes, so you're almost revealing something about canon by changing something in it, right? If I change this one thing in canon, we see how much else changed.

ELM:: I don't think it necessarily lowers stakes...

FK: Oh I didn't mean that, I just meant lowering the stakes can be one way to...it's almost like changing one thing in canon. If you lower the stakes, you're changing one thing about canon and keeping everything else the same and you see something more clearly, right?

ELM:: Hmm. Hmmmmm.

FK: If you change something in the plot...

[all] HMMMMM.

ELM:: I'm thinking right now!

FK: It's the same butterfly effect idea, potentially.

ELM:: But now I'm struggling to think of any other kind of fic [laughing] there's something, I enjoy the kind that follows the canonical time frame, say, of the length of a movie, and pulls back a curtain or shows what's happening to the characters in between the scenes, I enjoy that, but isn't...

FK: THEY'RE ALL AUS UNDER THE SKIN. [all laugh]

ELM:: Yeah, if it wasn't in some way an...but this is the thing, maybe we shouldn't be turning around the term AU so lightly, AU means alternate universe, right? What is fanfiction? What is the nature of fanfiction?

[all talking over each other awhile]

FK: But in an alternate universe, in a world about alternate universes, if you're reading alternate universe fiction, some of them are very mildly different! Isn't there that theory that in every other alternate universe you died in every millisecond from a different thing? There's millions of alternate universes that are exactly like this one except that you died in a different millisecond in each of them, if there's truly infinite alternate universes out there?

ELM:: Is this what physicists do with their spare time?

FK: When they're high. [laughing]

ELM:: You know, whenever I talk to physicists and I'm like "really, really?" it's always something like this. I'm like, this counts as science?! Shouldn't you be measuring something? In a test tube?

FK: Measuring the numbers of horrible ways you could die in any millisecond!

ELM:: That's just a fun theory! I just don't...if we have any physicists listening to this they should write in and defend to me theoretical physics [MLB is dying in the background] It just sounds to me like they have fun imaginations and good vocabulary and they were in school for like eight years. I'll contact my physics friends and ask. Yeah. I don't know.

FK: I feel like this may be just where we came to at the end of this episode, Elizabeth. It may be that it's all, it was all an AU.

ELM:: Do you think there's...how many seconds. 60 times 60. 3600 alternate universes of this episode where every second a new episode spun out into a different direction?

FK: Yes. That's how many ideas about what alternate universes are work. That's how they work.

ELM:: We didn't even get to talk about soulmate AUs. [FK sighs happily]

MLD:: That's good because I don't have good thoughts about those, so...

ELM:: I know and that would be a point of discourse. Flourish loves them, obviously.

FK: I love them, obviously.

ELM:: She swooned. Cause she loves forced marriages.

FK: I do.

ELM:: She loves when agency is removed.

FK: I love it.

ELM:: Morgan and I are on the same page of almost everything here.

MLD:: [laughing] We're just on the same X-men plane right now and that's synced our brains up.

FK: I also feel like there are situations in which I would not like a soulmate AU, it's just that coming out of One Direction fanfic the only kind of good AU in it is soulmate AUs that are very canonical except for the soulmate thing. So. I think I've been destroyed by that.

ELM:: If it's your favorite trope that's fine but you also love arranged marriages and things like that so...

FK: Yeah they're interesting it's true.

ELM:: You like the lack of agency and having to work within it.

FK: That's true. That is accurate.

ELM:: I'm gonna psychoanalyze you now. Whereas Morgan and I like people being douchebags to each other. [everyone laughs]

MLD:: That's my preference!

FK: Well OK so things we've learned: everything is an AU, there are two choices, you can like people being douchebags or you can want to have agency taken away from people... [all laugh] Why not both?! is a question.

ELM:: OH NO. Where they have it written on their hands but then they just shout at each other the entire time? I could write that. I could write that one very easily for you.

FK: Yes. And everyone was an idiot when they were a teenager and that's OK. And teenagers are being idiots right now. That's it. That's our takeaways.

MLD:: I think that's a great set of takeaways [all laughing] We've solved the question!

FK: In some other alternate universe, this was a different way but this is how it went in this universe.

ELM:: That's right. Alright. We'll write it differently next time. [all laughing]

FK: Thank you so much for coming on Morgan, this was amazing.

MLD:: Thank you so much for having me, this was so much fun!

[Interstitial music by Jahzzar]

FK: OK I think that was more laughs per minute than any interview we've ever done.

ELM:: Good times. [laughing] And it's not just because, full disclosure, we recorded that a few days ago, I was at the height of a cold then, which I still have remnants of, and I was drinking scotch.

FK: And Dayquil!

ELM:: No! No. I had the Dayquil many hours earlier, you should not combine them. Top tip. Don't combine alcohol and any 'quil because it has acetominophen.

FK: I love that you call them a 'quil.

ELM:: Yeah they're 'quils. But here's what I'm gonna admit to right now because it's been a few days.

FK: OK...

ELM:: In the intervening five days since we recorded that...

FK: Oh no.

ELM:: I read and loved a high school AU. [FK gasps, ELM: laughs]

FK: Wooooooooah. I am, I don't know what to say! First of all we're gonna put it in the show notes and I need to read it and find out if I agree with you or not. That was actually one of the things I really liked about this interview was I felt like Morgan was great but also I disagreed with her fundamentally on some basic things and yet it was great. Anyway. I wanna find out if I disagree with you on this!

ELM:: Disagree? I mean like...

FK: I mean, whatever, if I don't like it...I guess I can't say that. That would be mean. I'll read it but I'm sure I'll love it.

ELM:: Did you, we didn't actually discuss this in the conversation but did you read the Rageprufrock fic that I sent you? That I think is my favorite probably in the X-men fandom? Limited Release.

FK: Yes.

ELM:: Did you like that?

FK: I read it. Yes.

ELM:: This hits a lot of the same notes.

FK: OK. I mean it wasn't, I will say I liked it, it was not my favorite fic that I have ever read, but I really enjoyed it.

ELM:: It didn't have to be your favorite fic ever...

FK: I don't mean to be an asshole, it's just sometimes you read a fic and you're like THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIS.

ELM:: Yeah. I love that story. So this hit a lot of similar notes. And I don't know that I would say that the teens...do they act like real teens? Unclear.

FK: You may not care.

ELM:: Do I care? They didn't act like 90210 characters.

FK: I certainly don't care. I like Riverdale.

ELM:: Yes. The name of the story I believe it was "If You Liked The Book You'll Hate The Movie." So we'll put that in the show notes and people can see. It's about mental illness.

FK: OK!

ELM:: And about how no one ever gets better.

FK: That's true. Sort of.

ELM:: [laughs] Good! Good.

FK: We also had one thing that we didn't get to in our interview, which is that we got an ask from dzamieponders. "jamieponders" maybe? Not sure how to say their name. "Dz" is sometimes said like a J? So it could be Jamie? The ask is this. What do you think of the theory that fanworks often rely on significantly changing the plot, characters, and/or setting (but usually not all three),a nd that how much each fandom c hanges each thing can tell you about the fandom itself? Like, coffeeshop AUs change plot and setting but not characters, side character perspective stuff changes character but not plot or setting, and other species!character fics, I guess like mermaid fics or centaurification or something, change setting but not plot or characters. That's the ask. And we didn't get to it.

ELM:: We did not get to it. I don't necessarily disagree with this but I think it may be a little...I don't think it's as simple as that? I am intrigued by the idea of, and I think we touched on this many a time in this conversation, about why certain fandoms can lend themselves to this and not necessarily for everyone. Like what you were talking about with Star Wars and what you think is a really peak ripe for AU land Morgan was like absolutely not.

FK: [laughs] Other people also, clearly there's a deep divide in this because everybody it seems like has one of the two responses. When I wrote about Reylo and when we had the Problem of Reylo episode, it's really interesting. It's so divisive. I wonder if everything else is like that too. I wonder if X-men is like that, it's just that all the people we know love the AUs.

ELM:: I don't think there's any way that's possible. Just if you actually look at the numbers on AO3.

FK: Yeah but if you look at the numbers on AO3 of Reylo there's so many AUs too, right?

ELM:: Look, I've been deep in the Archive.

FK: I don't mean to challenge your knowledge. I am sure that you are correct. I think you really are.

ELM:: It just also, it's like, I don't think it's just what has been kudosed to the top, it really does seem like...and actually a lot of the writers I've been encountering I've read in other fandoms too. A lot of good... that sounds shitty to say. "All the good writers are writing AUs!" or whatever. But it does seem like that was, and I'm sure people who were in that fandom at the time these stories were being written could speak more to these conversations. But I have to wonder, I think it's probably reading too much into saying that what the choices around these shifting plot/setting/character questions say much about the fandom itself. I feel like it's somewhat of an individual thing.

FK: I don't know, I think there is something to be said for there almost being different communities of writers being interested in different things, especially if you get a big enough fandom. In Harry Potter there's huge communities of people who write certain types of fics that I would basically never read. People who are writing not just self-inserts but also things that hew very closely to the story of the books, that are continuing the story in ways that are very canon-compliant, and a lot of those people seem to be interested in things about the world, worldbuilding details and all this stuff, in ways that are different fundamentally than people writing a coffeeshop AU where the focus is on the characters. And there's some fandoms I find that are like this too. There are some fandoms where the stories are interested in different kinds of things. In general. Most people's stories. So I don't disagree with this, I just don't know how to quantify that.

ELM:: Yeah, but I also do think there's something...character is a tricky thing and it's a lot harder to pin down than plot and setting. It's very easy to say if the plot diverges from what happens in the canon, and I think at the heart of a lot of my critiques of a lot of AU culture is that from what I've read in the past there are times when I'm like "what is character anymore?" This feels so distant, this doesn't seem...the character can be internally consistent to the story, and still feel like an utterly different character. To the point where it's different than if I take Harry Potter and I stick him in a different situation, obviously he's going to say different things than the things he said in the book. But fundamentally if I can deconstruct his character I should be able to write that situation, right?

FK: I agree with you, and I think that the idea that...coffeeshop AUs change plot and setting, but not characters, well, bringing it back to my current pet fandom, when I think about even the Reylo AUs that I've enjoyed a great deal, part of the point is that they change the character, I think. The Kylo Ren in these books is not a mass murderer. That's part of the point.

ELM:: But that's action, that's not necessarily character, right? That's, I mean, what is character then?

FK: He doesn't have the opportunity, he's not in a setting where he's a force master, therefore he doesn't do it, maybe.

ELM:: Is he a petulant child in all of them? Then that's still canonical.

FK: He is a petulant child in all of them. But I do think there's something, there's a question about how much does your action make up your character. I think there is something fundamental about the actions that we take, even though they're impacted by circumstance.

ELM:: Oh a thousand percent! Obviously I've been thinking about this a lot when you have a canon where one of the characters does wind up murdering a lot of people but he's also the victim of explicit torture in a concentration camp, you know? Trigger warning, that's a little...

FK: Not to mention that he's half of your ship. [laughing]

ELM:: No but that's part of it! And it's interesting to see the good AUs find other, if it's moved into modern era, need to find another way to make him...you can't just say "he's grumpy." [laughs] Almost always there's some other kind of trauma and not in a way that excuses any of the behavior, but because it's so intrinsically wrapped up in what a character is...

FK: Otherwise the character isn't coherent. People aren't just like that unless...you know?

ELM:: Well it might be. Some people are tempermentally quite grumpy. But it does feel like, what is this character when you take away the circumstances? It's easy to see in an X-men story because it's very blunt circumstances. But it's a little harder to see when it's something less traumatic, I think.

FK: Yeah. I agree.

ELM:: So it's hard.

FK: Alright, well, I think that was a great ask. Thank you, dzamie or jamieponders or however your name is said and I'm really sorry that we've destroyed it.

ELM:: So, I think that's it for AUs! I'm probably gonna, after we wrap up, gonna go read some more. But I'm curious to know people's thoughts.

FK: Yeah! I look forward to hearing from people on this as well, and it's very easy to send us your thoughts! You can email us, [email protected], our website fansplaining.com is a Tumblr, the askbox is on, and so is anon, please don't be a jerk. You can send us fanmail but please don't, because that's...I don't know. You can.

ELM:: You can, it's a hard...it's a hard thing to respond to.

FK: It's a hard medium because it's...

ELM:: Tumblr's fanmail feature, if you're not familiar. Don't be familiar with it if you're not familiar.

FK: Send us an email instead.

ELM:: An email will do it. You can also send an ask, and if you want to use your username but you don't want us to reply just say so in the ask. Say just respond privately please. We'll obviously always respect that.

FK: We've also got Twitter, @fansplaining on Twitter, we've also got Facebook if you really feel the need to communicate in that fashion then I guess you can, that's also @fansplaining, and as always, a really good way to support us is to pledge to our Patreon which is at patreon.com/fansplaining, we are very soon going to have a tiny zine for you!

ELM:: Very soon.

FK: So get in your pledge now and get access to all kinds of special episodes, tiny zine, lots of stuff. Please enjoy it.

ELM:: That's right and if you do not have any cash right now you could also, or if you have cash! This isn't just for people with no cash. You could leave us a review and a rating on iTunes. That really helps other people find us. Yeah! Or share us with your friends.

FK: All right! I think that's it.

ELM:: I'm literally gonna go read an AU right now.

FK: OK go enjoy your AU.

ELM:: Flourish, I read a story...

FK: I will talk to you later, Elizabeth! [all laugh]

[Outro music, thank yous and disclaimers]

12 notes · View notes

losingsiide-archive-blog · 8 years

Note

@@@

SEND ME @ AND I’LL TALK ABOUT PEOPLE I LIKE: ACCEPTING.

okay. first is first. so, anyone that talks to me or reads my ooc stuff knows i am an anxious mess like always. i constantly worry about being liked by my friends. there have been so very few cases of me never experiencing this anxiety about someone, and @adler-thewoman is one of them. sophie and i met on my first or second day writing sherlock. i was super new and had no idea what i was doing. i still don’t, but that’s beside the point. sophie and i hit it off immediately; by the end of the day we had an entire relationship built for sherlock and irene and i was completely comfortable with her. any anxiety i had about writing sherlock went away because she never let me feel like i was anything less than great at what i was doing. maybe its because she’s a teacher or maybe its because she shares a similar love of nickleback album covers, but sophie has never once failed to make me feel infinitely important even when i was loathe to believe that and there are few things you can do to make that up to someone. but a concept: sophie is an amazing irene. she’s been doing this for five years, granted with a long hiatus in between, and her experience shows in her writing. irene’s voice rings through in every reply i’ve ever read from her. she is -- and i say this in completely confidence -- very possibly the actual irene adler. there is nobody i would rather write witty dialogue with, nobody i have more dumb inside jokes and references with. sophie is absolutely fantastic and i adore her and her irene and am so so so thankful for her. without the martha to my snoop, i honestly probably wouldn’t still be writing sherlock.

second is second. @mvcrofts is someone that for a while, i had heard about but never actually endeavored to write with. hayden always seemed to take that extra step in his writing that i was hesitant to approach for fear of not being good enough. that changed the minute we started talking. i found that our headcanons lined up in an amazing way, and that we worked together beautifully ic. not that we have many threads, but there’s something to be said for long conversations about how the holmes boys grew up and grew around each other before branching off; hayden seemed to get everything i threw at him without me needing to explain things, and he always took what i said and ran with it. he’s an amazing mycroft and that goes without saying; anyone who has seen him write or taken the time to talk to him can tell you that. he’s also a brilliant person. bear in mind that i haven’t been talking to hayden for a very long time. maybe a week or a little more, at least thats what it feels like. but in that time hayden has made me laugh so hard i’ve snorted soda out of nose, cried in the middle of a restaurant, developed not one but two lumps on my head from throwing my head back in laughter and banging it against a wall, and on one occasion i actually physically choked on a potato and i wasn’t even talking to him at the time. so that’s how incredible hayden is. he has an affect on people and stays in your mind long after the conversation is over, but in a good way. in the kind of way that makes you want to continue being a part of his life too. he’s incredibly sweet and caring and god knows he needs a break from real life sometimes. i genuinely hope he sees me as a friend, because i haven’t gotten clarification on that yet, but he lets me call him denny, so i think thats okay. (don’t call him denny btw. i have dibs on denny and pretty potato boy as far as nicknames go.)

so. @fxrechild / @moongifted / @itsjustak / @irregularitiies. kacie. i always come back to kacie because kacie is my eternal rock in life. i’m shit at keeping friends. she can tell you this because she has been there for me through the loss of so many close friends of mine, yet here she is. kacie makes me smile without her needing to be there. she’s a thirteen-hour drive away from me and yet i’ve never felt closer to anyone and right now, it feels like i never will, and that is okay with me. kacie and i met a very long time ago in a fandom i don’t associate with anymore. her ocs were popular and i hated ocs because i used to write shitty ones. let me tell you, the first time i read some of kacie’s writing, i was blown away. i was shocked that someone who wrote an oc could possibly write like she did; even three years ago, kacie was incredibly gifted and had an understanding of her characters that comes with novels and screenplays, not shitty 2014 threads on tumblr. we started talking over her oc, k. k was different then, she wasn’t an alcoholic and she wasn’t nearly as cool as she is now. then it was rain. the ocs over at her other blogs came later. i have seen kacie make too many ocs, and i’ve fallen in love with every single one of them. rain the pyrokinetic and her roommate/girlfriend, ray, a superhero who fights in pajamas. her best friends, liam and freddie and dustin, a mermaid and a werewolf and a cursed fox. her badass aunt, k. pip, a new addition, part of freddie’s pack. leaf the forest man. a whole network of ocs that she has put so much time and effort into. i’ve never known kacie to half-ass anything. she is fiercely protective of her characters, and when it calls for it, of me. i cannot count the number of times she has threatened to take a flight down and beat someone up for me. all joking, of course; she’s very small and i would worry for her health. out of everyone i’ve met, whether its on tumblr or irl, kacie is the one person who i would be completely lost without. i don’t know what i’ll be doing in five years, ten years, twenty, but i daresay i don’t give a fuck as long as i’m doing whatever it is with kacie. (excluding death, of course. kacie isn’t allowed to do that with me.)

#⦍ ᴋᴀᴄɪᴇ ɪs ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇsᴛ ʙᴜᴛ ɪ'ᴍ ᴀ ᴅᴀᴍɴ ᴄʟᴏsᴇ sᴇᴄᴏɴᴅ. ⇾ ( ooc )#⦍ ʜᴇ sᴏʟᴠᴇs ᴄᴀsᴇs ᴀɴᴅ ᴊᴏʜɴ ʙʟᴏɢs ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ɪᴛ. ⇾ ( answered. )

2 notes · View notes

notjustagirltattoopodcast · 4 years

Text

Not Just A Girl: Literary Ink

You can listen to the third episode with Jennifer Edge here. Or you can view the footage of this interview on YouTube with English subtitles/closed captions here.

NOT JUST A GIRL: Tattoo Podcast

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Season 1, Episode 3: Literary Ink

Eddy: [00:00:00] Hello friends and welcome to not just to go the tattoo podcast where every week I give you a glimpse into the lives and art practice of some of my favourite people in tattooing. I'm Eddy, and for the third episode of not just to girl, we'll be discussing keeping busy in lockdown, tattoo conventions and Harry Potter fandom.

Before we begin, I would like to acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are the traditional custodians of this land that was stolen and never ceded. I am honored to be on the ancestral land of the Awabakal people. I pay my respect to their Elders past and present and extend my recognition to their descendants.

Our guest [00:01:00] today is the wonderful Jennifer edge all the way from Chattanooga, Tennessee. She is the co-owner of Main Line Ink and known for her colorful watercolor and abstract tattoos. She's also the mastermind behind my favorite convention. Literary Ink. I had the great pleasure of meeting Jen last year when I attended the convention for the first time. And I've honestly never felt more welcome at a tattoo event then I did there

Thank you for taking the time out of your very busy schedule to be here. It's always so good to chat to you. How are you doin?

Jennifer: [00:01:40] I'm great. I appreciate you asking me on the show and thank you for the kind words. I'm glad you enjoy our show Literary Ink because it is one of my favorite things to do.

Eddy: [00:01:50] It's honestly so good. It's funny cause I was like thinking about doing this podcast for a little while, but I was a bit scared because I have no idea what [00:02:00] I'm doing, but when I got to be on your podcast, your Literary Ink podcast a few weeks back that's so much fun. That it really gave me the kick I needed to do this. So thank you for inspiring me.

Jennifer: [00:02:14] You're welcome. And I still don't know what I'm doing. Help. Um, but it is something that's a lot of fun. I'm glad. I'm glad you jumped on board with that. A lot of the creatives right now with us being stuck at home. It's becoming a chance to see what outlets we are wanting to try. I want to dabble in this. I want to dip over there and that, let me see how colorful this can be. I'm going to totally do my work backwards of what I normally do. I think it's been awesome to see everybody kind of rising up in their areas and just testing out the waters and just, I don't know, not even really testing just like full on belly flopping in there. It's been great.

Eddy: [00:02:51] Absolutely, well I mentioned before that you're the creator of Literary Ink which for our [00:03:00] listeners is a Harry Potter themed Convention. How did that come about and how did you make it so big?

Jennifer: [00:03:08] Um, as for the making it big, that was a liquid luck. I drank it right before the convention, and that's what happened there. Um, actually the, how it came about, um, uh, the, the real story behind it was, um, my business partner now, Danny Siviter, he's the other co-owner of my Main Line. We were talking about possibly doing a convention, and I started talking about theme in a convention, and then at the same time I was wanting to get tattooed by one particular person, and he never really came near the East coast. And I was afraid of flying at the time, but in the past two and a half years because of Literary Ink, and he can because of Explorer Tattoo Conference, my happy but has been on several, several planes. So I got over that real quick. But, um, I wanted to get tattooed by Jonathan Penchoff, which on Instagram is [00:04:00] earth grasper. And he is one of the biggest Harry Potter fans out there. And I was like. How do we get him here? How do we talk? Oh my gosh. We have to have a Harry Potter themed tattoo convention. Just kidding y'all. It's wizardry. Please Warner Brothers and J K Rowling they don't endorse us don't come sue me. Wizardry tattoo convention.

But yes, that was at the beginning. That was my goal. I'm going to make this show. That's the Harry Potter theme, just so I can get this guy to come tattoo me, so I don't have to fly to him.

Eddy: [00:04:31] I can't believe you started a convention just to get tattooed.

Jennifer: [00:04:34] Well, you know, and then the other thought is if the convention worked out well, you can get tattooed by all your favorites. It's all, but that was kind of the loose, what started it? And, uh, I jumped in, I belly flopped. Um, uh, I was just like, Oh, it's only gonna cost this much. This isn't that big of a deal.

No, it was a little different, a little bit more than I expected. Um, but as for [00:05:00] how it grew, uh, the first year we were really lucky, like, you know what I mean? With that being said, you say Harry Potter theme, people get excited, which is awesome. And that's what we were looking for. We had gotten a very, very small hotel, which was kind of the biggest hotel space we could get for everybody, but there were only like 50 booths.

So we didn't think, you know, we're just like I'm telling Danny. I'm like, maybe 20 people will sign up and come. It'll be okay. But, uh, a few people noticed it then the diehard Harry Potter fans got involved and they showed up. And a lot of them just were really, you know, big name folks, and a lot of folks were just really awesome, huge Harry Potter fans, and it was just an eclectic mix of really different folks and it was just really awesome.

Eddy: [00:05:45] The Harry Potter fans are definitely a separate kind of people like we are the ultimate nerds i think.

Jennifer: [00:05:55] I agree with you because most Harry Potter fans are both, they, they've watched the movies, they've [00:06:00] watched the books. They do have their favorites. They have their favorite movie. They have their favorite book. They have how they like to watch them. How, you know, one one thing. I love watching them during Christmas. They always, most of the time came out around there. So that's kind of embedded in my brain. Um. Yeah, it's, it's one of those fandoms that it, she just did so well. She did well, not so much sometimes on what she says on Twitter, but she did well with showing you how to get through crisis, how to get through being alone, how to get through all of us, get bullied like everybody, even the bully gets bullied and how you choose to live your life, I guess. I feel like she kind of just. She brought out a good Luke Skywalker character. We hadn't had one of those in a minute. Just I'm going to do good for the sake of doing good.

Eddy: [00:06:46] I think the fandoms really taken the concepts behind it and ran with it and made it something else like I think she's not even relevant in it anymore, a little bit. We've just [00:07:00] made it this whole wonderful universe of accepting and loving and like kindness and community.

Jennifer: [00:07:07] And dirty with some of that fanfiction that's out there. I've heard about that. You guys, there's some crazy shit out there. I've read some of it.

Eddy: [00:07:17] Well like talking about like I guess the themes of Harry Potter, I found that you know, that whole idea of like, love and kindness, friendship and stuff that carried across into the convention because it was hands down the most inclusive convention I've ever attended. Um, and like, what stood out to me was. How welcome everyone seemed to feel. And I certainly felt incredibly welcome. And, um, I also didn't feel like objectified, or I feel like as a woman I was separate as I have felt at [00:08:00] other conventions. Was that a part of your goal or is that just something that came about because of who you are?

Jennifer: [00:08:06] Um, uh, another fun story and to just throw out there, uh, we, we got our first 30 people in after the first year. Like we opened up the first year, we've sent out all these invitations and we got our first 30 people in, and my wife was like, do you see what's happening? And I'm like, Oh my God, yes, they're all Hufflepuffs. and Jessica goes, no, they're all women. And it kinda hit me a little then. I think sometimes it still strikes me as Holy cow, but our convention is about 70 to 80% women. Um, and our tattoo industry as a whole is 80% men, so 20% women. So it wasn't intentional in the beginning, but it's, it's. It's a theme that has carried on and carried over. Um, women are the first people to sign up. I mean, every time we've sent out the invites and just, that's, that's no kiddig and like everybody's on [00:09:00] board. They are getting their, their seat. And that's been a big part of it. The other thing is, um, I was, uh, I was at the Explorer Tattoo Conference women's summit in California this last year and I was talking to them about their numbers too. And the women's summit was open to anyone, like five guys showed up. And I'm proud to say that one of the guys from my shop was there, and another one would have been, but he just got his wife in town. I only have two guys at the shop, but you know, the support that was going on there and just seeing kind of what was happening and you know, hearing from the presenters there and the owners, you know, women are the first people to buy seats.

It's like right now we're, we're in our industry and we have a hunger for knowledge. We have a desire to get where we're wanting to go, and we're really pushing forward with that. And you know, there are a bunch of guys out there who are super awesome and they're helping facilitate this ride. And I think that's something that's great. And you, you see them as for some of the other crazier stuff that's happened in the past. I think those [00:10:00] things are being moved now. They, you know, everything is being shifted. People are watching.

Eddy: [00:10:05] Yeah, absolutely. I think our allies are understanding the importance of the role they need to play that they do need to be more vocal and to come forward with their support of marginalized groups but like it is, it's a little sad that there were only five men who showed up to the women's summit. Like, we've got things to say too.

Jennifer: [00:10:28] I agree. I think there were transgender people who showed up, so I thought that was really awesome too. I mean, it's, they're wanting everything to be open and kind of moving forward. And I think that, you know, at times it's still a an interesting industry at times. It's still, you know, seeing the places where some people think you should be. And I have been very, very lucky. Um, I've heard some crazy stories from women that it never touched me that way. I mean, have I been made to feel uncomfortable? Yes. Had I been outright touched, groped, or [00:11:00] pushed down or done something bad to, no? And some of the people that I've heard have had God awful stories.

Eddy: [00:11:05] Yeah.

Jennifer: [00:11:06] Um, you know, the guys that I worked with, they were just a bunch of dirty, dirty jokes and at the same time, like I know that if anybody ever came in and offended me or said something about me being a lesbian, they would have taken up. And that's been almost every shop I've worked in. Like I've been lucky though. I've only had three shops and the third one was the one I opened. So, um, you know, that experience and kind of going through those bits has been wild to hear. And getting in front of all these women who are coming to Literary Ink and you can getting these stories. I'm sitting there going, Oh my gosh, that happened. And they're like, well, yeah, more than once. If, and I'm just flabbergasted. But you know, I don't know.

Eddy: [00:11:45] That whats good about Literary though because the way you present yourself on Instagram and the way that you present Literary Ink is that it is inclusive and safe. So you know, those of us in the industry who maybe haven't had such [00:12:00] pleasant experiences. We look at what you're doing with that and go, Oh, I'm going to be okay if I go there. I'm going to be welcome, and no one's going to grope me or take weird pictures of me from like up skirt angles, you know, like all of the kinds of things that happen at conventions.

Jennifer: [00:12:16] I'm pretty sure if something like that happened. We've had a couple of undercover officers at both the shows. We never told anybody, so there's always been somebody around, and I've had a lot of the people who are on the doors, they're very aware. Um, I think, I think I would have a big cow, if anything did like that, like that happened. It would be taken care of immediately, but it's weird the show's a little different. I think that, you know most Harry Potter fans, most people who read the books, who watched the movies, who put so much time and devotion into learning more about it and then putting it into their art. Like, you know the folks we invited, I found them off of Hogwarts tattoo on Instagram. I found them off of hashtags where I was just looking and found them on Instagram. And just how many Harry Potter tattoos and wizardry tattoos have they done [00:13:00] to see that. And when you're doing that, you also get a good, good look at how somebody, like you said, if you've looked at somebody's Instagram and you know there's 45 pages of something you don't want to read, you're not going to, you're not going to go back and see past five of those posts or whatever. But if you're like, Oh my gosh, and this person is doing stuff like, you know, raising money for the homeless, and Oh my gosh, this person did cat donations. It's awesome to see the good in the world and do your best to pluck that out and put it all in one place for a weekend.

Eddy: [00:13:28] We have, we're very fortunate being artists and being on instagram where we have a platform to reach people and do good work. You know, we can do fundraisers. You know, we can spread kindness, love. Even just encourage other people to spread kindness and love. You know, again, that's what I found at Literary Ink, like how I made more friends at that convention than I've ever made at any tattoo event ever. And they're people I still talk to a year later [00:14:00] and will probably continue to talk to, especially the Hogwash crew.

Jennifer: [00:14:05] Yeah, they're crazy. I had Chelsea on the podcast last week, and she goes, do you realize that Hogwash American had all these people from overseas in it? And Hogwash London had all these people who weren't, and I was like, shit. But, uh, that's a fun group to talk about. And, and yeah, we've been the last few podcasts, we've had a chance to talk a little bit about all of that. So.

Eddy: [00:14:38] That's so good

Jennifer: [00:14:39] It was a fun one. She burned some Sage. We talked about exercise and death eaters. We talked a little bit about the documentary coming up, or we hinted at it. We didn't talk much about it. Um, we hinted at it and, uh, you know, we just talked about year one and year two and it being what it is. You know? I think that that's the other [00:15:00] thing, Chelsea, from the very get go, like before the show even opened, she goes, you don't know what you got. And I was like, what do you mean? She goes, you don't know what you got. And I'm like, okay, um, I feel like this, this, this pause, you know, it was 12 days before the show happened and it got stopped. And this pause has kind of allowed me to really take a break. Like I put it off the shelf or I put it on the shelf.

I put, I put, I put this box that literary was in on the shelf for a few minutes and, or about a month and a half. And just kind of napped and painted and just didn't think about work. And, uh, I think it was a much needed break. That's allowed me to get to a really cool refocus. I cannot wait until three and three quarters y'all, it's going to be awesome.

Eddy: [00:15:45] That must've been pretty intense. Like, you know, we've all been affected by the COVID crisis in different ways that you literally had to cancel an entire convention of [00:16:00] international artists, at the very last minute. Thats insane.

Jennifer: [00:16:01] Put the lemon juice on top of it Eddy-Lou, what the heck. Ouch Yeah, it was difficult. And it's funny cause I've chatted with some people and one lady was just like, it was awesome. She's like, could you imagine if we all had it? And then one of the tattoo wizards would've died and I was like, Oh my God, yes, that's so fucked up. But anyway. Um, it was funny. I thought it was really, I mean, it was, it was funny, but not really, um, in the overall sense of, I think that everything happens for a reason and sometimes we're just meant to. Um, especially now, like how long everybody that I've talked to has not ever taken this long and not tattooing as a forced break, as a normal break. And I tattoo, um, this week I get a tattoo this week. The day that I go back, it will literally be 60 days from the last day that I tattooed. And, um, I'm, I've been [00:17:00] telling everybody in the group, don't worry, we haven't forgotten what we're doing. It's, we're going to go back. It's just like riding a bike and I'm just excited. It's not even like I'm nervous. I'm like, I cannot wait to draw on you and tattoo you and sit there and our facial mask and all of our gloves and our bubonic plague spray, it's going to be great.

Eddy: [00:17:18] Its gonna be different and like this whole thing must've been really different for you because I think you're one of the hardest working people I know. When I, when I was like, with you guys in Chattanooga for a week, I don't think I saw you even sit down like at all. It was constant, like just constant. You're like a windup toy who gets wound up every like five minutes or something, Yeah, like and always on instagram, painting, with your coffe, with your wife in the background building something. You never stop. You needed this.

Jennifer: [00:17:58] I'll have to add you to the coffee club. You'll have to argue, are you a coffee drinker and more [00:18:00] of a tea person,

Eddy: [00:18:01] But when you're drinking coffee ready for bed.

Jennifer: [00:18:05] Doesn't matter. You tag yours in at my bedtime and we'll be like, look, she finally, finally joined. We're good. The coffee club has been another thing that has been one of my favorites. I've actually made, um, uh, stories on my, on my, my, my main page so you can watch all of them. Um, Jessica and I've started getting a little more fun with them when we do them. Now it's, we did like a tic toc of us drinking coffee the other day, and it's just a few different people that have been reposting their coffee and just saying hello to each other and kind of, you know, sometimes you can't text everybody that you love all the time. So if you see a little coffee text and you've been tagged in it, it's just fun. But yes, during quarantine, I've painted about 27 pieces. I paint fast. It's like I tattoo. There's, it's, I have lots of layers, so there's always about 13 pieces that are drying and I'm swapping them out. [00:19:00] Um, we did one, one thing with, uh, I ended up painting a Bob Ross with Kitty Koniption and Azha. And that was a blast to the point now where I'm like, I would love to do this with the group.

Like, you know, get on zoom, there's like 10 of us and we're all painting the same Bob Ross. Um, it was so much fun. Yeah, it was just crazy. And you know, it doesn't have to be perfect. Mine did not look like his photo at all. And then I ended up adding the, uh, the Ford from, from Harry Potter to it. And I'm like, I'm going to do all my Bob Ross's and then I'm going to put my fandom shit in it just for fun. Um, but you know, it's, it's been great. It's, I haven't painted in a year and a half, so getting back to it, I call, that's been probably one of the most amazing things. Me and my wife, uh, she actually planted and did all this crazy shit for the garden, but I keep telling everybody, we did a garden, she did a garden.

I'm going to eat from the garden. We redid our studio. Um, yes, I am busy, but at the same time, I keep myself there so I don't get to some crazy ass place that I can't come [00:20:00] out of. Um, I did take four days and stayed on the couch and had four days of, I just can't get up. I just can't paint. I just can't podcast. But, um, you know, I pulled myself out of it. We're all allowed a moment. We all need a moment. So.

Eddy: [00:20:17] Well thats the biggest thing I've learnt coming out of this that it's okay to take a moment when you need it if you want it. You know, there's no shame in working your ass off if that's what feels good for you. But there's no shame in doing absolutely nothing.

Jennifer: [00:20:33] Exactly. And I will, and that's something too, like I have a bigger appreciation because you know, you talk about being a workaholic like I am. I know you are too. But those four days on the couch when I just couldn't get up, you know, I have friends who are, who have told me I just have a hard time and I can't get up. And I'm like, I don't understand. Just just work it out. And those four days, I was like, I get it. You know? And I, and I have a bigger appreciation or a better understanding of [00:21:00] sometimes you just can't get up and that's, that's okay. It's do what is comfortable for you. That's what life's about right.

Eddy: [00:21:04] At the end of the day you know all of these ideas of how we have to achieve things or productivity, they're external, it's really got nothing to do with art. And yeah, I mean, for me personally, I'm not a religious person. So for me, life is just about finding joy in any moment and doing what feels good for you. As long as you never had another human and or animal. Even like anything, just be nice and friendly and don't hurt anyone.

Jennifer: [00:21:40] I think that's a good way. Um, I keep telling everybody, I'm a big fan of the golden rule. My grandmother raised me up, do unto others as you'd have others do unto you. And I think until you understand that or get a true appreciation for it. I have so much more joy in trying to help out other people and doing things that [00:22:00] just, you know, puts a smile on somebody else's face whether they know you did it or not. It's, it's an amazing thing to be helpful to just, you know, kind of do more cause people don't, um, do enough. Uh, I've always preached, I think the good people need to get a little gooder. And the people who weren't so great need to be better. Um, we have a lot going on in the world and, you know, and, and now even more, like I was saying that last year, we have so much going on in our world because of things in our presidency. And, um. We now have COVID and you know, the bubonic plague that we've been stuck in and it's, it's forced us to take this break. I think it's forced us to see a lot of things about ourselves. Um, a lot of things about our partners if you have one or you know, your kids, even like, I've talked to a lot of people who, you know, tattoo artists, clients who just been like, they're different struggles and stories you know we're all going through this together. We're all having our ups and downs with it. But at the end of the day. We are all [00:23:00] getting through it and that's, that's the part for me where, I mean it is encouraging. We are going to get through it. That is what our race does. We get back up and we push on brute,

Eddy: [00:23:09] We're essentially glorified cockroaches ,

Jennifer: [00:23:15] So can Cher . The apocalypse it'll be Cher and the cockroaches. I'm good with it. Shoot.

Eddy: [00:23:26] Amazing. Well, um talking about the golden rule and stuff. Um, you know, I, I noticed that in your studio as well because I, I got to guest there when I visited Literary Ink everyone at your studio is really kind and welcoming too. And I found that even, you know, your clients and your friends and everyone wanted to be involved. And I think because you do a lot for other people that in turn attracts them to you when people want to do things for you. And I've heard you talk about Amanda Palmer's "The Art of Asking", and [00:24:00] that seems to be like a really, really important part of your like life in general, but especially in your work practice.

Jennifer: [00:24:08] Yes. And, uh, I've actually sent her an email and I'm hoping one day I've met her once before she signed my leg and it's tattooed on me permanently. Um, there's a story there we're not going to get into it today. And, uh, wait, uh, I'm hoping one day to, I don't know, I feel like our paths are supposed to cross with Literary somehow. We'll see. Um, but you know, who knows, uh, as for The Art of Asking my aunt, uh, ever since I've been little, you know, you're always at a, no if you don't ask, you're at a 50, 50 if you do, you might get a yes. And I think with that, um, you know. If you're kind to people, if you just tell them the truth. Um, I have, I've only been tattooing for 10 years. I'm now 43. Um, [00:25:00] I got into this game a little later and when I first started tattooing, and there would be people who would come in and, you know, I knew enough about tattoos I had, I had enough to know what's a good tattoo, what's not a good tattoo.

And in the beginning, people would come in, they're like, well, my tattoo artist said I heal this out bad, but I'm about ready to get it covered up. And I'm kind of like, Ooh, no, that's just a shitty tattoo. They lied to you. Just being honest with your clients. Um, you know, be honest with who you're taking care of. And there's been people who've come in, I really want to get this. It's. It's this part and I want it to be realistic, and I'm like, not me, but Hey and Aneil or Kay would be happy to do that for you. You know, you can't tattoo your whole town. And if you just do good business, good business will come to you. Or at least that's, that's my belief. I'm a big, you know, the karma thing, the golden rule. Live your best life as good as you can. And I think, I think you will get your best life and you'll also look at it a little half full because if you don't expect anybody to repay you or if you don't expect anybody to give you [00:26:00] what you think you deserve, you'll be happier. Like just live your life and do the best you can do.

Eddy: [00:26:06] Yeah thats it and being honest is I think so crucial especially in what we do like I am always horrified at the amount of artists who lie to their customers because they want the money or they couldn't be bothered. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. I'm not here to take all their money and do every tattoo. I'm just here to do this small amount of tattoos that I am comfortable doing to the best of my abilities

Jennifer: [00:26:36] Mine still looks great by the way, y'all, she tattoos amazingly. I mean, I know y'all know this cause you're already watching her and stuff. My wife is so excited. I'm excited for my wife. This lady gets to tattoo her at three and three quarters or right before um a bad-ass Bow Peep from Toy Story. We are so excited. She got a ... arm here. It looks so good. I mean, it's shes gonna be like.

Eddy: [00:26:58] I had it drawn up ready to [00:27:00] go like two or three weeks before I was even on my way to the US. I was so bummed out I didn't get to do it.

Jennifer: [00:27:09] She's ready. I'm ready to do. I told her, I was like, you let her have that whole arm. Just let her have the rest of your forearm. She's like, I'm gonna cause it's just, it's going to look so great. She's got a lot of animals and stuff on her and this is her black and gray arm, which you predominantly do. But I decided I'm going to get a colored piece from you one day cause you rarely do them and they look so nice. I want another thing to go with my other horcrux. We'll have to just figure it out.

Eddy: [00:27:32] That was fun that we got to do a little Harry Potter tatt swap

Jennifer: [00:27:41] Last year was so crazy. It was just crazy. We had, we had, we had tripled on the numbers. We got more than we were supposed to. I went away for a cruise and came back and we had oversold and I was like, Oh shit. It was a, it should have been the numbers we would have been at this year. And we would have stopped. So we're gonna, we're doing the same number again this year, [00:28:00] which are what would have happened, but yet again, now it's just on repeat this upcoming year. Um, but I'm really excited to see how it's all pulled together. We've been working on new sets. We've been working on some crazy ass behind the scene. Shit. Um, it should be really, really rad. So.

Eddy: [00:28:16] For our listeners, they build entire sets like It's like actually stepping into the wizarding world its insane.

Jennifer: [00:28:27] That's been one of the best parts. That's where I was like when I was talking about like rethinking the show. Um, I want to really tune in on the experience while you're there. Like we're still gonna have some after party scenes and stuff, but I think really making it worth like you walking through and in your cosplay, you can get a photo in front of this and then there's the broom and there's all these other pieces. And what Kay's? Talking about doing it, it just, it's insane. I can't wait to see it. I've seen little pieces of it being built. Um, all the vendors from last year, half of it ended up getting squished during the move. So [00:29:00] we have we have some pieces of it, so it'll be kind of gone. But we've got this other new thing that's coming in and we've got a better way of storing it. So I hope to continually add sets and pieces where when you do walk in, you're kind of like, are we, are we here? Yes. You've stepped through the magic.

Eddy: [00:29:17] I love that everyone rocks up in their cosplay too.

Jennifer: [00:29:23] I know we had a lot of tattoo artists. We had a ton of just people attending. I was really excited. The Kuwaii Kuwaii team, they live in Knoxville, but they come up and take care of our cosplay section of the show. They're really good friends with Kitty Koniption. Um, Kitty works in my shop and, uh, they've just done a really good job of kind of bringing it all together and having the different events. And then one thing we did, um, whereas conventions are, uh very similar. You get, you know, any convention, tattoos, a blanket convention, you could be any convention. You, you have all these people there in the booth then you have people come in to check everything out. [00:30:00] So the biggest thing was what can we do to make everybody feel a little more, like you said, welcomed or a little more. What's happening at this show? Um, so we kinda did different things. We had a room of requirement and just, you know, bringing in the different bits of more fun stuff and that the attendee experience, we had Hagrid's motorbike there last year and we let people hop in and take photos. And that was one of the biggest things that everybody was so excited about. And it was just a box with a sidecar. I mean, it really wasn't Hagrid's vibe. We all may believe do what.

Eddy: [00:30:29] Yeah and Gracie was dressed as Dragrid

Jennifer: [00:30:35] Yeah. She's got two photos on, on that bike that are just like, you know, she, she got some epic photos from last year show. Um, it was wild to see her and it was, that was when she was with us, cause you know, we met her at the first show and then I snatched her up about four months after the first show and started training her in Chattanooga and she moved here. Um, now it feels like a year ago, but it hadn't been a full on year. [00:31:00] Uh. October before October, August, June. I don't know. She got here and it's been wild. I actually posted a photo of her today. Um, I watched the documentary again today and I there at the end. You see her and Betsy and Jess White and I was like, how funny. I had no idea then that that girl was going to be working on our team a year later. It's just, it's crazy who you meet, how you meet folks, um, when you're kind of like, you should totally come and work here. It's, it's good stuff.

Eddy: [00:31:28] She's a beautiful human.

Jennifer: [00:31:32] I like to collect those.

Eddy: [00:31:35] So when, um, with the documentary, like, so that, that was about the first year and like the start of Literary Ink, when do you think that's going to be out in the world for everyone to watch.

Jennifer: [00:31:47] We have actually sold it to a company and they're supposed to be dropping it. Um, I believe in October, um, I've seen the first poster. Uh, I've seen the first trailer. Uh, [00:32:00] it's going through a documentary company. It's going to be, I think it'll be like on Apple and you know, where you can find certain things. Um, I'm not for sure everything for sure yet, cause I'm just in it. I talked to the director a little, but I'm just in it, y'all. Um, but it is in the works. It will be coming out this year. And yes, it was actually filmed. Uh, so I met Axel first. I met Axel at the Chattanooga film festival in town, and he came up and he's like, I love your work. And I was like, awesome. You want to get a tattoo? And he's like, Oh no. No, no. And I was like, Oh, okay, but you love my work. And he's like, I like what you're doing. So he was one of those, I didn't know at the time. He was a film director and he looked through my Instagram and started seeing some of the things that we did with Main Line and some of the things that we do for our community.

And so that's all that he was talking about. And then about two minutes later, I get this message from him when it's like, Hey, I've got a friend who wants to tattoo, will you talk to him? And I said, I'll totally talk to him. I'm not taking on an apprentice, but I'll talk to him. I talked to him and I was like, God dang it, it's you. So that was my first [00:33:00] apprentice. And so then we had Literary Ink coming up and Axel was like, we need to do something together. And I was like, yeah, we do. I've got the show coming up. What do you want to do? And he's like, I don't know, what do you want to do? And I was like, you want to do a documentary? And he's like, of what? And I'm like, tattoos and Harry Potter. And it kind of got smashed into all this crazy stuff. And. The film is more like you actually get to follow me, Ebony Mellowship, Chelsea Hamilton, and a Aniel through our experience of, you see me, it's starting the show you see a Aniel of going to Cuba and talking to his wife who's stuck there, who's been stuck there, who's now finally here.

But you don't know that in the film. You see Ebony from overseas coming over here and talking about tattooing, and then you see Chelsea from California and it's, it's kind of almost like you're seeing these people in this very unique state. You've got all these tattoos in the background and literally were filmed for like seven days. You don't realize what it's like to have a camera in your face for seven days. You don't think about the [00:34:00] shit you say until you see it on an iMAX screen with all your tattoo wizardry friends sitting there going, ha you said that, and you know it it's crazy. Our first year we filmed a documentary. We had a dinner the night before we opened our second year we we rented out an IMAX and we showed everybody that film and we had butterbeer crunch icecream. And what's really fucking funny too, is the second year we had got that snowstorm, there were like 10 people who couldn't make it because of that crazy snow storm that happened. And then year three, we've got, you know, death eaters coming in with COVID-19 bubonic bunny foo foo spray plague, and we get totally bumped. So it's awesome death eaters be damned. Everybody needs to be pulling out their charms and shit.

Eddy: [00:34:47] We got this, we got this, get our patronus out

Jennifer: [00:34:57] I hope so

Eddy: [00:34:58] I loved in the, when [00:35:00] you did the kind of the preview of the documentary in year two. There was a moment where Chelsea made this, I can't remember exactly what she said but it was an awesome feminist statement, and I was like yeah, and I could hear all the women around me just like clapping and be like yeah Chelsea. and then all of the like I guess not all of them but some of the boys just went completely silent because she just called the entire industry the fuck out.

Jennifer: [00:35:25] It was a very bold statement. Um, I remember when she said it, I looked at her and I we're filming. I was there when it happened, and at the end of it I was like. Are you okay with saying that? And she's like, somebody has to, then I was like, you have balls. Yeah, you're right. Um, she, she basically, she called out a lot of, uh, male tattooers who, you know, she's, she, you know, you're touching people you shouldn't be, and if you're trying to get them in touch with you, they shouldn't be. And she really, she kind of landed on it. And, you know, like I said, a lot of things have happened with the #metoo stuff. [00:36:00] Um. Tattoo artists everything is kind of coming to a light now because of just the all in industries. Everything is become hyper aware of what's going on, and I think it's because you have so many women that are using their voice now, and it's not about being silenced anymore. It's about, I've got two sisters over here, we've got this.

Eddy: [00:36:18] Yeah, I'm so thankful for the #metoo movement and how much it has had a positive on the tattoo community.

Jennifer: [00:36:27] Definitely. I mean, like you said, in a lot of the folks I've talked to, a lot of the ladies I've talked to as well, um, about Literary Ink and all of them saying that there's so many women here. Um, I didn't, I didn't even think about it. I didn't realize it. And when you start seeing it hitting you in the face, it's kind of like whether you know what you got or not, you know? Now it's time to talk about it. And it's something I've actually, most of the ladies on the Literary Ink podcast, I've been like, this is a big deal, and it still gets me because you just don't think, Oh my gosh, we are 20% of our [00:37:00] industry. Not at this show, this show we're like 70 to 80% full on. And it is an amazing thing. And you know, when Danny and I were looking for somebody and we put out that we were hiring most, I think 90% 80% of our, um, applicants that were wanting to come and tattoo with us were women. And he's like, Jennifer, everybody feels safe here. And I was just like that's, you just don't think about it. But that's an amazing thing to point out. Cause you know the first thing, if anybody were to do anything weird to any artists that Main Line, Oh Lord, you know, you can get out. We're going to call it the cops. It just, that's not going to happen here. It's not what it's about. We are artists that instead of putting anything on canvas we're choosing to put it on people, and I want every client to feel comfortable from, you know, um, females, males, um, them, they, whoever is in the chair, males fe, just whoever's in the chair, you should feel comfortable.

You're paying a lot of money. If you go and talk to somebody and your artist is just being rude to you. [00:38:00] Don't let them tattoo you. Walk out. Find somebody who makes you feel comfortable. This is, this is your body for forever and it is worth the extra five or $600 like it's worth it. Look at your phone you dropped 1200 bucks on your phone. Think about doing that for a forearm. You'll end up with a beautiful masterpiece.

Eddy: [00:38:21] Absolutely, I'm always really interested by how people devalue art and tattooing. I've had um somebody wearing a $600 pair of shoes. Say to me that a $400 tattoo was too expensive. And I was just like, bitch please, dollar per use. You'll wear this tattoo every day for the rest of your life there is no better value for money. And aside from that it's something empowering that you, you are making a choice to change your body in your image. And become more of who you want to be through art it's fucking [00:39:00] powerful.

Jennifer: [00:39:01] I think that's, that's one of the best parts of our job. Um, also, you know, getting those personal relationships. Like when we were talking last a couple of weeks ago on the podcast, and I was talking about hugging, it was the quote they pulled out and they were like, you know, and I was like, what are we supposed to do? Stop hugging? And your comment was like, no, you can't. That's what we do. You know, seeing all those pieces fall through and together right now and seeing how people are changing and how they do open up to tattoo artists. And you know, people joke, well, you're like a therapist. Well, yeah, you're in a lot of extreme pain. Here I am, and you are touching them. You're holding the back of their arms. You can tattoo the top of it and it's a memorial piece and it's about their grandmother. And they're telling you the story. Like it's, it's an emotional thing. And if you find the right artist, you know, you stick with them. I have, I have two or three that I have constantly gotten tattooed by cause it's an enjoyable experience. I feel very comfortable in their chair. Um, I've been wanting to get stuff done on my back.

I had a Jonathan do, the big piece from Literary Ink, year one and I'm going to [00:40:00] add an additional piece to it. And you know, feeling comfortable with somebody to get. I'm going to have to get more naked that time to make sure that, you know, this is all taken care of. It's a big thing to make sure that you feel comfortable with a guys tattoo and you a female's tattooing you that you just, you are comfy in that chair and you are walking away with that product that, you know, I looked at your book and 45 pages in I knew that everything you did was great for me. Um, I think that's also shifting. Whereas, you know, people, the people who are spending more money now, they get that whole it is a lifetime. It's not just whatever. And the people who aren't in 10 more years when they're still wearing those expensive shoes and they say that their arm shitty, they'll go and get it covered up.

Eddy: [00:40:41] Yeah I'm not I can't really gatekeep tattooing and tell you what a good or bad tattoo is but I do I am very passionate about picking the right artist for you and getting a good quality tattoo and that it is worth the wait, like absolutely.

Jennifer: [00:40:58] I think that's part of the [00:41:00] fun too. You know, cause now it's, um, I get tattooed by "Find Your Smile". And I've gotten tattooed by Betsy Wets on insta. It's like at both of those, but Betsy Butler in Charleston and I chomp at the bit where I'm like, have your books opened back up yet? Because with my schedule, I book out this many months. I'm trying to wait for her schedule open up to make sure I can get that one date so I can go down there, you know? But it's, it's part of the game. Um, I know I'm going to get my tattoo at some point. I'll wait. She's got this one particular arm I'm having her work on so I can call this other person. Or, Hey Aniel, today's the day he started working on me too. So I'm just like, Hey, I'm going to see once a month for two hours. Let's just kind of knock this stuff out.

Eddy: [00:41:39] Aniel's um your apprentice as well isn't he?

Jennifer: [00:41:43] Not anymore. Yeah. He, uh, he's been signed off and so's Gracie, both of them. I've got two apprentices which have been signed off and, and they're still working with me. Is that not just the craziest shit you've ever heard apprentices leave [00:42:00] everybody? I don't, I don't know what people are doing wrong. Um, uh. Um, I'm very blessed. I have two very amazing apprentices. But yes, Aniel is the first one. Um, he's been with us now I think a little over three years. Um, he's kicking the tattoo games ass man. He came in and he picked up very quickly. He's got an education from Cuba. He taught at, um, university in Cuba. Um, he paints insanely, if you've been watching his stories on Instagram this whole time we've been in quarantine, he's painted about 15 dogs. And they just, every three days you see his new painting. He's working on a cosplay right now. If this guy in cosplay, I cannot wait to see it. It looks like some more, you're from some crazy ass Xbox game, like God of War it is insane or Viking something. I was like, Oh my God, and you know, he goes, I know it is so big. It's like, I get to do some massive work Oh Jesus, that's great buddy. Um, but it is, it's really awesome. And to see [00:43:00] that, um, to be blessed with that, to have a friendship out of something. When, you know, most apprentice situations they do, they turn out horrible and people leave. They always leave. And I think a lot of that comes down to the person who is training them does not just, it. It's a respect factor. You know, back to the golden rule. You don't have to go wash my car and go wash my clothes. That's not training them to be a tattoo artist. That's, you know, grunt work. Um, I did more things like, you know, I properly asked him how to clean out my car. Like, you know, I'm just kidding. I never asked him to do anything though.

One day he went and he cleaned out my car. I thought that was the sweetest thing ever. He's like, I cleaned out your car. And I said, because I've made jokes about it. And he's like, yeah. And I was like, that's so awesome. But, uh, you know, we did more fun things. We, uh, I took him. One of my favorite memories is, uh, I took him to his first show. It was before the first literary ink. It's a smaller show. It was about the size of what we did for first year, and it's in Nashville, it's called Full Moon Tattoo Horror Fest. And they bring in people from the movies [00:44:00] and they have a, just different kind of fun things there. And there were about 30 booths and the second day we go in. No, wait, it's the first day. The first day we go in, I ended up winning tattoo of the day, first place, and the second day he won tattoo of the day, second place, and I was just like, this is happening. And it was his and he's still a tattoo baby. He had been, he was, he was a month away from being signed off. So he was even there as an apprentice.

It was great. It was just like, I'm so proud of you. We both cried on the way home. We're just a big bunch of babies. But it was one of those moments where, you know, you start start realizing everything that led up to him getting to the United States, if you want to believe in this weird voodoo shit, which I kind of do sometimes. And everything that led me to say we weren't going to do an apprentice. Danny and I were even talking about it cause we jointly share them. I want everybody to learn as much as they can. And we're both like, you know, doing our best to try to teach. But, um. Just, it's amazing to find a friendship within it and know that it's not going to go [00:45:00] anywhere. Whether he chooses to venture off and do his own thing one day, or whether he chooses to stay with Main Line and we just continue to build. Um, which I hope is the case. It's, it's really well to, to meet those folks and know that you're just supposed to make a little extra room in your heart. Did that with Gracie too. You know, there's, there's people that are coming into. My road from Literary Ink and from Main Line that just these people are meant to be around ya'll are all mean to grow together and do things, you know, good to the world.

Eddy: [00:45:28] It's funny how it can, it just like, It just kind of ends up with the right people. Like I had no intention of ever taking on an apprentice. I was always like I would never do an apprenticeship theres enough of us around. I've been Alana for a while and she always talked about how much she wanted to be a tattooer, and I've never met anyone who so desperately and passionately wanted to do it and genuinely did the research and put the effort in to get there. And then I was just like, you know [00:46:00] what? I've never met anyone who deserves it more so you know, hey Alana. Come on in and it's really funny. I take the responsibility so seriously, like I kind of writing up lessons and a curriculum. I was like, I need to do everything right by this girl to make sure that she has the best experience possible, but she doesn't. She doesn't even need that. She's very good at self guiding that all I need to do is just all the support. It all comes really naturally.

Jennifer: [00:46:30] Has it opened you up as an artist? Have you gotten better because of it?

Eddy: [00:46:34] Definitely, because I have to think more about my process, the way I tattoo felt a bit like a happy accident. Like I just kind of. I'm very technical, but I've never really thought about

Jennifer: [00:46:49] You are so technical.

Eddy: [00:46:49] What I do you know? But now I'm actually having to break it down into steps and like the how I do things, the timing, the rhythm, the depth, the speed, [00:47:00] everything, every little aspect of it. Why I use a particular machine. And what is it about the makeup of that machine that effects, you know, the way I pull this line and everything, like really breaking down every last little bit of what I do and then having to explain it to someone else. And help them understand it, its been amazing actually

Jennifer: [00:47:25] I, uh, I feel like training him and teaching him and go into Explorer, turned me 180. Like there was a twist. It was a, because you do have to slow down and it. It's funny cause I was saying something when I was like, well you got to do it like this, but I do it like this. And he goes, why? And that's because that's just the way I do it. And then he left and I looked and I was like, Oh shit. Why? And so me pulling back like grey shading got better. My line work got stronger because sometimes you get into your, your rhythm and you're like other, when it's like, wait. And there it [00:48:00] is. Um, that's been those pieces of of learning that you just don't expect to get. And I don't think you're going to find it unless you choose to train somebody. And that's a big thing in itself. I wasn't supposed to have another one. Gracie was already half trained, but the person that was training her wasn't going to finish it. And you know, I just, it was one of those moments where I'm like, your loss, dumb ass, you know, boom. You got to snatch that up. That's insane. If you have someone that's good and you have someone that's trying and they just need more guidance, or like you said, just being there for somebody who really wants it. That's about all you need.

Eddy: [00:48:35] Absolutely, and I mean it makes for a better future in tattooing I think. You know, I used to be a bit of a gatekeeper, like you know theres enough of us we don't need any more, and then I realized, Oh wait, if I'm sitting here saying, no, we don't need any more the only kinds of people that are going to be coming into tattooing are people who are self taught which you know. Like I had a bad apprenticeship where I basically had to teach myself. [00:49:00] And I had limitations that have taken years and years to overcome. So that's not the best way to do it for me, in my opinion, for me personally. And then you know, a lot of studios in my local area that were taking on apprentices they were just looking for cheap labour, they weren't in a position to train or educate someone. So when I've got a studio full of really skilled artists and we've got something to offer. It's almost like we have a responsibility to ensure the next generation of tattooers have not only come through it without any of the abuse we experienced, but to be like highly technical, highly knowledgeable, and highly respectful of our traditions.

Jennifer: [00:49:43] I think that's a big thing with, with a lot moving forward um watching the Explorer conferences happening, watching what's happening out of other folks who are doing seminars and putting them up and saying that, you know, the education game it is being turned up. The things that, [00:50:00] you know, even hearing some of the stuff from our government, what they're wanting to talk about, possibly bringing in, we have like a, the tattoo co the coalition for tattooing now and they're looking into these laws and they're doing their best to go and talk to these people to say, you do not know what we're doing. We are actually like, you know. Really playing. We are trained every year to be able to handle this stuff. Um, bloodborne pathogens. You know, we, we were trying to do that, like when, when people have shut down because of quarantine, you know, the whole time Danny and I have been constantly researching. I have a friend who she works, um, through, you know, UTC, but she's also working with our ... and like I was getting, can you give me as much information? Can you explain this to me in layman's terms where I know what's going on so that when we go back we know what we're doing. We were allowed to go back the sixth of this month and the, the rules and regulations they set aside, we felt as though it wasn't enough. So we added stuff. We're like to keep us safe.

We're going to do this, this, and this. We're following their guidelines, but we've added a couple extra [00:51:00] cause we are as close to you because we are opening skin. Um, I think that moving forward, a lot of places are going to have to tune it in and turn it up, you know, cause this is not going to be the same world when we come back. We're probably going to either A, always have to wear a mask or wear them for a really long time. Um, and I hate wearing them, but I wear them every time I go out now, you know, I'm safety first.

Eddy: [00:51:27] Yeah, well and you know I think a lot of tattooers have been getting angry about the shutdown because they're scared obviously. It's coming from a place of fear, they're saying, we know about bloodborne pathogens so we know how to keep safe but this is an entirely different thing so we do have the responsibility like you've done to do more.

Jennifer: [00:51:52] It's just flat out scary. One of my favorite memes that I have seen has been the, uh, wearing your mask compared to [00:52:00] peepee on your pants. Have you seen that yet? No, I'm going to send it to you. It's like here, let me explain. If somebody pees on you and they're not wearing pants, it goes on you. But if you're wearing pants, it kinda stops it. If you're both wearing pants. I was dying. It was it's a little stick figure man and its. So if you both wear pants and he peepees he peepees just on himself. But I mean, it's, it's a really good analogy of, Hey, this is what's going on, but this is why we want you to wear a mask.

Eddy: [00:52:34] Definitely and there's a lot we can do to ensure the safety of our clients because I guess it's not just about us and our need to pay our bills, it's about our client and then them going home to their family and making sure that we do our bit to keep the community safe.

Jennifer: [00:52:56] I agree. And I think. I think that's what a lot of [00:53:00] tattoos are doing right now. I mean that, that concern is there for everybody. And I think you're right. A lot of fear. We don't know what's going on. Um, I saw a gentleman post, uh, something the other day where he was talking about, I see all these people who are on the front lines and they're saying, we're supposed to be scared. And then I see all these people protesting who are not, you know, who are also on the front lines and that. I'm asking, they're saying that this is fake. What am I supposed to believe? Um, we have so much shit going on in every direction and we had all this stuff on the media and they're slowly pulling away.

I mean, the United States is opening back up and you know, people are still dying. And I think that a lot of things are going to shift. You know, we're probably not going to be seeing concerts for a few more months, if not several more months. We're not going to have a lot of people getting together for a lot, you know, a long period of time. And. Had it been, you know, any, just, I think we made, we, we as soon as we, we, we closed down Literary Ink our shop closed and we had two weeks and that's when I [00:54:00] think had everybody just shut down then we would have been even getting back a little sooner. But you know, New Zealand out of everybody, from what I've seen has been one of the most, Oh, we're locking this shit down y'all. We have five whole cases now. It's been crazy to say, but they did it so early. They were like so ahead of the curve. They saw this shit coming in. They're like, we got you bud and I think they just opened back up like a couple things like, um, today or yesterday. Um, but it's, it's just moving forward. Everybody keeping knowledgeable and I think tattoo shops are going to have to, like I said, tune in and turn it up. Like it's changing out there and I want to do the best job I can to keep my clients safe. And me too. I mean, I come home to people so.

Eddy: [00:54:40] ...we have to look after ourselves.

Jennifer: [00:54:53] It's, it's, it's hard cause you got, you know, you've got folks who have kids and they might not have had as much savings. That's [00:55:00] the part where it's really scary. On a side note, I have seen so many tattoo artists Instagram's turn into I made this, I painted this, I'm taking commissions, I'm doing this. I went back to doing this and it's been amazing to see the creativity still pop through. I mean, you're trying to podcast, you're like, I want to see what this does. I think I'm going to enjoy this. And I try to podcast because I didn't know either. I was just like, we have all these people here. We've got to talk to them. Cause that's what I do I talk y'all. And uh, it's, it's, it's that part and it's just kind of venturing out.

You know, I told my wife, I was like, I took guitar lessons 20 years ago. I still have the guitar. It's an amazing guitar. Oh my gosh. It's an ovation. It's gorgeous. She's red. I call her the red headed bitch. Um, and I start guitar lessons next week because we need to, you know, I want to do something artistic that's not painting, that's not tattoo or any, or just not tattooing [00:56:00] something else that I'm sitting down 35 minutes to, to learn and just be more.

Eddy: [00:56:06] It's really helpful doing that I think because from what I understand about the way our mind works, whan we do become really one track it really limits our brain and as we get older, like, you know, we're not learning new things. I think it has the potential to stunt our growth as humans. So having like lots of things and lots of directions and really like expanding and pushing your mind, it really benefits your life and your experience as a whole.

Jennifer: [00:56:37] I agree with you completely. When we were on the podcast with, did my wife come in as the storm trooper for you? Did that happen?

Eddy: [00:56:47] I think I've seen pictures on Instagram of that.

Jennifer: [00:56:52] This is the storm trooper comments that work. So apparently it was going to happen. There we go. [00:57:00] Okay. We have a Stormtrooper helmet and it seems to be making appearances everywhere. Um, when we went, when Aniel and I went to Tattoo The Lou last year, I brought it and he goes, what is that for? And I said, Stormtrooper trooper ice breaker.

And he's like, okay. We took photos with everybody in the mask we're being idiots. It was awesome. Um, at what point in your age, are you supposed to stress more about being cool than just having fun? Um, you know, we as kids, I've gotta be cool. I gotta look cool. I was thinking about this the other day and I'm just like, but it's so much more fun just to go ahead and be a little stupid. It's just, you know, having that fun, stupid humor, just laughing, you know, why couldn't Snape, um, teach herbology cause he couldn't even keep a Lily alive. There's so many there. It's awful. Have you not heard that one its wrong, wrong.

Eddy: [00:57:59] Shit

[00:58:00] Jennifer: [00:57:59] Nope, you haven't. Thats awesome.

Eddy: [00:58:01] I feel awkwards laughing at that

Jennifer: [00:58:07] I know it's so bad, but you're like, it's true. The first time I heard it, I was like, too soon. But it's true.

Eddy: [00:58:19] Amazing. Okay well, I guess we've covered a lot of things today hey?

Jennifer: [00:58:33] Wait, are we supposed to finally start recording? Nope. Well

Eddy: [00:58:35] Um before we finish up is there anything that you wanted to add or do you wanted to share with our listeners?

Jennifer: [00:58:48] Um, guys, be sure to tune in we're going to be announcing the date soon for Literary Ink three and three quarters, it will be in 2021. Um, we decided to push it off far enough to make sure our lovely people from [00:59:00] overseas get to come. And we all have a chance to recoup from the incredibly insane pause that the world has put upon us. I hope that everyone out there is being good to each other and washing your hands. Um, thank you again for being on, like letting me be on the show this has been awesome. Um, maybe we can, we can talk to the boys and we can swap up episodes and share them on our on our podcast together. If you want to, I think that'd be kind of fun

Eddy: [00:59:27] We'll be putting the footage up on YouTube. So for our listeners, if you head over to Instagram and follow us on Not Just A Girl underscore tattoo, you'll be able to find regular updates and where to find everything, I'll put all the details for Jen, for Literary Ink for Main Line in the show notes and anything else you need to know. So make sure you subscribe, follow and share, and follow and share Literary Ink as well just to spread the love of tattooing. Thanks so much, Jen for your time.

Jennifer: [00:59:57] You're welcome.

Eddy: [00:59:57] Thank you to our listeners for taking [01:00:00] the time. We really appreciate it. I hope, hope you all have a wonderful day and stay safe and as Jen said, wash your hands. Wash your damn hands, bloody hell.

Jennifer: [01:00:18] Wash your hands. Wash your hands, wear your mask, wash your hands. I want to be able to stay tattooing. I want to have a show next year.

Eddy: [01:00:32] Yes I want to start travelling again.

Jennifer: [01:00:40] Have a good one guys.

Eddy: [01:00:46] Bye

0 notes