#there's a whole wide world of just media in general that gets ignored because you focus on what you consider the modern (blank) industry

[ceejaytwoyoshi]

“urghrguhrg gaming isn’t fun anymore” stfu

"oh boy i do remember when gaming was driven by passion, not monetary gain, and devs that wanted to make good games" I say as I wax nostalgic over a yearly release sports game for the playstation 1 

[epicbuddieficrecs]

Weekly Recap | July 29th-August 4th 2024

Against my best intentions, I've been seduced by the dark side 🙈 (the infideleddie/buckfidelity trend).

Complete

i swear it will get easier by lecornergirl/ @clusterbuck (Post-S7, Chris&Buddie | 1,8K | General): “Chris texted me last night.” Tension slams into Eddie’s body. “Is he okay?” “He’s fine,” Buck says quickly. “There’s nothing wrong. He just—” he looks up, meets Eddie’s eyes. “He asked me how you’re doing.” Eddie’s face falls. “I’ve been texting,” he says, voice small. “Just—checking in, you know? Every day. But yesterday I thought—maybe I should give him some space—” he scrubs a hand across his face. “Did he think—” He doesn’t complete the sentence, but Buck fills in the blanks. Did he think I’d given up on him?

Jeep Talking by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Chim POV | 2K | Teen): A ride in the backseat of Buck's Jeep with Buck and Eddie in the front gives Chim new perspective on his brother-in-law's strange dynamic with his so-called "best friend.' And Chim is sick of them being so oblivious.

I'm falling apart (and all I want is to trust you) by diaz_evan (3x03: The Searchers | 2K | General): OR Eddie and Christopher's reactions to Buck collapsing in 3x03: The Searchers.

unless you're choosing me by bucksclipboard/ @excuseme-greentea (Post-S7, Misunderstandings | 4K | Teen): “Could you check that?”, Eddie called from the kitchen. He had insisted to make something for them tonight instead of ordering their usual pizza and ice cream dinner. “Sure”, Buck replied and snatched the phone off the coffee table. He knew the pass code – it was the day Eddie had started working at the 118. There was no new text, just a message from his phone provider, but an earlier conversation was still opened. Before Buck could place the phone back on the table, something caught his eye. Why was Eddie talking to Hen about him? or: buck reads a text he wasn’t supposed to read

can't ignore the crazy visions of me in la by wafflesofdoom/ @capseycartwright (Post-S7, Getting Together, Pride | 4K | General): Margarita-drunk Buck ruminates on how beautiful Eddie Diaz is while his best friend is dancing to Chappell Roan. That's what LA pride is for, right? - or, alternatively: Eddie spends his first pride as an out queer man in a gay club, and Buck is in love with him about it.

the one where buck finds out by weewooforever (Post-S7, Misunderstandings, Getting Together | 5K | Teen): “You’re — You’re over me?” Buck manages to choke out, looking towards Eddie with wide eyes. “When were you… “ He says, his voice barely above a whisper as he tries to make sense of this whole situation. “When were you under me?” or the one where buck listens to a voicemail that turns his whole life upside down.

nothing wrong with me loving you by cranberrymoons/ @cranberrymoons (Post-S7, Cheating, Sexting | 5K | Explicit): He’s not thinking about it. He’s not. He’s definitely not. Buck leaves for the night, gets in his car and drives away like everything’s normal – normal because it is, it literally is, it’s the most normal night in the world, and Eddie is the most normal he’s ever been, and then maybe an hour later, he gets a text. * buck and eddie watch red white and royal blue together; one thing leads to another (aka: the sexting fic) (Part 1 of 🔥buck and eddie's red hot infidelity summer)

i'll come to you and drop my bags (you'll help me unpack them) by farfromthstars/ @doeeyeseddie (Post-S7, Media fic | 5K | General): eddie has some important conversations via text over the course of the worst(?) summer of his life.

🔥Down to the Bones of Me by giselleslash/ @gigi-gigi (Post-S7, Road Trip | 5K | Teen): The morning after Christopher leaves Eddie gets in his truck and drives. Buck lets him go, and Eddie fights to come back for both of them.

Oopsie Daisy (Never Knew That Was Your Boo, Baby) by ameliahart (Post-S7, Cheating | 5K | Explicit): The first time it happens, it’s Tommy’s fault. Maybe that’s unfair, all things considered, but Eddie certainly isn’t going to blame Buck for it. And Eddie’s single, so it can’t be his fault. But Tommy sent Buck a dick pic while Buck was at Eddie’s house, so Eddie feels secure in blaming Tommy for everything that happened after. * Or, five times Buck cheats on Tommy with Eddie, and one time he doesn't.

I Always Wanted My Own Spark by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Future Fic | 5K | Teen): In 2040, during the midst of a family crisis, Christopher Diaz and his younger brother butt heads. (Part 5 of 🔥Anywhere I Want, Just Not Home)

it's a small crime (i got no excuse) by justhockey (Post-S7, Cheating | 6K | Mature): It’s a dangerous game they’re playing. Buck doesn’t care. He’d like to blame it on the alcohol running through his blood and loosening his inhibitions. On the rough shift, or the even rougher week he’s had. He’d like to blame it on Eddie, or Tommy, or anything at all that could absolve him of what he’s about to do. But the truth is, Buck just wants. He wants, and he wants, and he wants. So he takes.

hang me up on your bedroom wall by hrudayam/ @eddiegettingshot (Post-S7, PWP, Cheating, Breeding kink | 6K | Explicit): “You’re going to be a great father someday,” Eddie says eventually, because he’s worse than he used to be and Buck’s reverent eyes make him feel—they just make him feel. “Eddie, I—” “You are,” he repeats, firm. “Don’t you think I’d know better than anyone?”

drink up (you're wasted on me) by okanus/ @buddieism (7x06: There Goes The Groom, PWP, Cheating | 9K | Explicit): Or: Eddie and Buck hook up at the bachelor party. Difficulties ensue.

close ain't close enough (til we cross the line) by cranberrymoons/ @cranberrymoons (Post-S7, Cheating, Sexting | 10K | Explicit): Eddie thinks about it for a minute. He really does, because he’s more clear-headed now than he was last night, so he thinks better of it for maybe thirty seconds. Remembers the inarguable fact that Buck has a boyfriend and that Eddie is – well. Learning some things about himself, maybe, but is very specifically not Buck’s boyfriend, so. He shouldn’t. Right? Except. (Part 2 of 🔥buck and eddie's red hot infidelity summer)

all my little words by youbetsya/ @maddiebuckettebuckley (Post-S7, Epistolary | 11k | Teen): Eddie: Did you just send me an email? Buck: yeah lol. Eddie: Why… I dont think you’ve ever emailed me actual words before. Just stuff to print when your printer is broken Buck: did you read it? Eddie: Not yet. Too busy trying to figure out why the fuck you’re emailing me. Buck: just read it dude 🙄

🔥treat an opportunity like it's treating you by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon Divergent, Post-S2 | 12K | Teen): After losing his leg as a result of the fire engine bombing, Buck is presented with the opportunity to have a service dog donated to him.

🔥 Operation: Keep Eddie Diaz Busy and Annoyed by giselleslash/ @gigi-gigi (Post-S7, Getting Together | 15K | General): Or, the one where Buck forces Eddie to keep busy while Chris is gone, but ends up catching a bad case of The Feelings in the middle of Eddie learning to love pickling things to irritate Chim and charming old ladies through square dancing.

🔥I think if you're lucky by colonoscopys/ @colonoscopys (Prince Buck/Firefighter Eddie | 19K | Teen): Evan hits him with his car.

mask over my eyes and an arrow through the heart by youbetsya/ @maddiebuckettebuckley (Post-S7, Cheating | 35K | Explicit): “Look, you’re my family, a-and I want you guys to be on board with this.” Buck is tense, anxious. Eddie should really say something. Be supportive. “But it’s happening either way. So.” Bobby leans over to clap Buck on the shoulder, staring him straight in the eye as he does. “I am happy for you, Buck. As long as you’re sure.” Some of the tension falls away from Buck’s posture. He smiles. “I am. Sure. I’m super sure.” “Alright then.” Bobby pats Buck’s shoulder once more before he pulls away. “Congratulations, kid.” Buck visibly exhales in relief, which Eddie finds solace in despite the fact that he’s currently being stabbed with a thousand tiny knives. Or: Buck is getting married. He is.

drift past the flowers. by dylaesthetics (Post-S6, (Un)requited Love | 45K | Teen): OR Buck and Natalia get engaged, and Eddie flees the state about it. A petty email correspondence ensues.

WIP

Where there's smoke by rainbow_nerds/ @rainbow-nerdss (Multiverses | 4/31 | 5K | Teen): His eyelids are heavy. His lungs ache. The smoke is dense and thick, slowly suffocating him. Eddie feels himself drift as Buck’s voice penetrates the smoke, cuts through the fog in his brain. “Eddie, stay with me. Stay with me, Eds.” Eddie wants to stay. He wants to open his eyes and see Buck. He doesn’t want to leave. But he’s so tired, and sleep is calling him. Maybe it will be okay. Maybe his dreams will be sweet. Maybe there’ll be peace, there. And maybe, if he just rests for a little while, he’ll be able to find his way back.

E & E: A Buddie Drabble Collection by Tizniz (Prompt fic | 108/? | 24K | General): A collection of drabbles for Buck and Eddie.

Best Case Scenario by lesbianrobin/ @lesbianrobin (Podcast, Multimedia fic | 2/? | 4K | Teen): Buck and Eddie start a podcast. a multimedia epistolary fic

🔥 Things We're All Too Young to Know by Daisies_and_Briar / @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon S1-S6, Divergent Post-S6 | 132/? | 419K | Mature): This is a love story. Even if it doesn’t always look like it. Even if it doesn’t always feel like it. A look back on Eddie and Buck's lives up to now, and what led them to each other, interpreted from the current 9-1-1 canon.

[bbotan]

Headcanon/Ramble ask

Anything about the Swans/Fans I am begging /hj

it took me long enough to get to this .. my sincerest apologies waa

okay ! as reimbursement i will write for all of them , thank you for asking~

The fans headcanons !

starting off with ...

Alex and Ash

Alex and Ash are probably some of the closest siblings you'll ever meet, but that doesn't mean they don't have their fair share of sibling rivalry. They're twins, but Ash is more of a little brother to Alex and loves to torment him with that sort of dynamic [with love!!!]

Ash is sort of a fuckboy type of guy and posts thirst traps on social media but never really gets any kind of engagement on his posts, Alex will humiliate him by asking him in front of the rest of the fans if his latest post got any women in his DMs yet.

Alex also has her drivers license, but Ash doesn't [he's tried so many times and failed …], so she has to put up with him begging her to stop at McDonald's on the way home or to their next mission. If she feels like lovingly bullying Ash that day, she'll just order a coffee for herself and nothing for her brother.

But the worst [and most fatal] mistake you can make is hurting either one of them. Ash is very protective of his sister as Alex is of him, as much as they like being dicks to one another, they're really each others best friends in the whole wide world. Alex was catcalled once and Ash responded by beating the absolute shit out of the guy until he was an unrecognizable pulp. They also got Ash's burger king order wrong once so Alex yelled at the cashiers for him [EQUALITY]

Corey

Though she has the potential to be a pretty vicious killer, Corey is quiet most of the time and doesn't speak unless she's prompted to or she just really to get a word or two in. She'll go along quietly with the rest of the gang's plans, but that doesn't mean she's submissive or anything, she's actually quite capable of standing up for herself when the time comes.

Corey has heavy anxiety and depression that she keeps hidden because she doesn't want to be worried about, the fans were her first real group of friends which keeps her contemplating if she really wanted to be part of this or not.

She wishes she could get closer to Alex, mostly because she's the only other girl in the group and she admires the swan for being much more courageous than Corey could ever see herself being. Corey wishes she could become better friends with the rest of the fans in general.

She's a lone drinker rather than a typically social one, she'll tag along if asked specifically but outside of that she feels too embarrassed and self conscious to be seen in a vulnerable state like that.

Tony

Tony grew up in a military family and was taught in his youth that as a man, he shouldn't show his emotions at all unless it was anger or bravery. Without someone to properly support him, he ended up projecting his emotions onto everyone and tends to be quite stubborn in what he believes in. Everything has to be traditional. He has to be strong. If he doesn't die for his country than what more is he than a cowardly bastard?

He spent his childhood living on a military base so he was always quite isolated and never was able to make real friends if it weren't in things like football or other "masculine" activities. Ironically though, he was always really shy about talking to the girls he liked.

Beneath that hard, confident shell lies an emotional and caring man, but he doesn't feel like he has the means to truly express just how much he appreciates his friends.

He likes Corey but doesn't know how to approach her without scaring her off... So he just watches from a distance and hopes in silence that one day he'll get the confidence to talk to her.

Mark

Mark is one of the coolest people you could ever meet, if you ignore the obvious fact that he kills people. He's also a very non-judgmental person, so you can talk to him about almost anything without feeling like he's criticizing you secretly.

He's definitely the father/big brother figure of the group so a lot of the fans, even Corey at times, will go to him for advice. If he sees two of his friends fighting he'll peacefully break it up as well if he thinks it's possible, if not then he'll just mind his own business.

He smokes a lot of weed with Alex after missions, he tried [and failed] to get the others into it as a nice way to relax after committing mass murder but nobody else really accepts. Ash will tag along though occasionally.

thank you so much for the ask !! if anyone is interested , my inbox is still open for requests and i appreciate anything i get :]

[satorugojjo]

I’m just gonna say it, but I think current kids younger than 15 are almost incapable of dissecting anything with critical nuance. Because there is a HUGE difference to the 15 year olds BEFORE lockdown, and after. I’ve seen Gen Z teenagers on tiktok and tumblr have the most empathic, kind, amazingly supportive and intelligent opinions in 2020 who have now grown up and are in college absolutely killing it - they’ve gone into lockdown already having developed their emotional skills and come out of it with a lot more depth and growth. But YOU guys were 12 and younger when the pandemic started, you spent YEARS of it online without interacting with a wide variety of people and learning to read between the lines as you HAVE to in order to navigate the real world and peoples speech patterns and behaviours. You grew up alone in your house behind your screen, without being able to bond with classmates or friends, and most importantly, without anyone to temper your thoughts, or have rational and calm discussions in person. Half the teens I see on tiktok and tumblr NOW are so full of hate, so quick to put down and dismiss peoples choices, so quick to troll and voice really bizarrely conservative and ignorant opinions as if they’re entitled to do so, and so anti-empowerment and anti-ENJOYMENT in general. And I’m gonna be real with you and say it’s because of lockdown. It’s not entirely your fault bc y’all are still kids.

Your literature programs would have been cut, you’re just reading for the assignment, you’re not engaging in seminars and debates and classroom exercises the way you would in class, and all the while you’re just being increasingly exposed to sensationalist media that boils down complex and nuanced topics to a black and white, yes or no, 7 second hook. And it’s made you incapable of approaching anything with logic and empathy, because you just didn’t HAVE that the way everyone else did during their formative middle school puberty years. So now the moment you have a singular negative opinion of something, it’s all encompassing. There is no give, no flex, everyone is guilty until innocent. And why wouldn’t you think that? That’s what people have been doing online during the whole pandemic, cancelling people for 1 comment taken out of context, or being so quick to say something negative first instead of positive. You got comfortable behind your screen instead of being taught the consequences of saying shit things, and now when it comes to exploring all angles to a situation like you should be taught how to the way EVERYONE is, you take it at the most basic, surface, face value.

And when it now comes to fandom spaces where you have older fans in the same space as younger fans, there’s so many more instances where something will get an inordinate and undeserved amount of hate or hype based on a very surface level of understanding. Inherently, this isn’t a good or bad thing, it’s just a thing. What IS bad is when people come under someone’s obviously thought out and nuanced opinion to be like “you’re wrong for liking this bc (insert a completely unrelated logical fallacy of a reason)”. “If you like this book that happens to be a straight romance, you’re homophobic” IT DOESNT WORK THAT WAY AND IM SICK AND TIRED OF ARGUING WITH PEOPLE WHO NEVER BOTHERED TO DEVELOP READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS EVEN AFTER FINDING OUT THEY DON’T HAVE ANY.

Please for the love of GOD I am begging you guys to learn how to analyze literature. Like in an enforced curriculum at a high school level way. Please. YOU will be better off for it, and in turn the rest of us. This isn’t the new wave of boomer-esque hate against the kids. Gen Z is the goddamn future!!! This is a very specific, very VALID gripe, about a very small subset of kids who spent their formative years chronically online. And please! I am BEGGING teachers to recognize this and help their kids out to fix this. There is already a lot of hate in this world and we don’t need a new wave of people spewing hate under the guise of pseudointellectual liberalism because they don’t know how to see any deeper. This is one of the main reasons puritanism in the younger generation is exponentially on the rise! We’ve taken away the ability for them to form a fully informed opinion, and it’s now a self serving spiral. BREAK OUT OF IT, I AM PLEADING.

[chaos-in-bright-pink-hair-dye]

hey i'm new to the fandom uhh. what's the general kinda. commonly-known lore. like i know the bare minimum and i would like to know more if that's alright :D thanks!!

Hi and welcome! I hope you're having fun so far :D

But commonly known lore, that's a tough one because honestly there's very little official lore, ofc the music videos are great base followed by the comic(definitely go read it, many of us still ignore the lore from it but it's great starting point) but from there most of us just run completely of the rails.

I have compiled some basics like important characters, main ideas and believes, some resources etc. but probably the best way to learn more is to discover. Look through different blogs, enjoy fanart, read fics, talk to people, this fandom has wide range and no two people have the same version of the world and that's the most beautiful part. And ofc you are always welcome here if you have questions or just to chat! Maybe don't even read all these boring paragraphs and go explore instead if you want. And here's a link to a masterpost by vinyls-and-valentines with even more links. Oh and definitely read the comic before this post if you haven't yet, there are some spoilers here and it will be more enjoyable that way.

There are archives of the twitter accounts which many use as a reference but the posts themselves are kinda incomprehensive and the only important part are some characters that are not included in any other media but I'll mention those later

Besides the main characters - The Fabulous Killjoys often also called The Fabulous Four and the Girl who they hope will save them all we also have:

Dr Death Defying, a radio host and as many believe, adoptive father of every lost kid he finds

Agent Cherri Cola, killjoy as old as the fab four, he's both in the comic and on twitter but his personality completely changes between these two medias, it's wildly accepted he hosts Cherri Cola's poetry corner on the radio

Tommy Chow Mein, runs a shop in the zones - the shop where the Girl finds Party Poison's mask in the comic, he is the seller, wildly overpriced, also robs corpses for anything that's still usable, popular joke is that he and Dr Death used to be married

The Ultra Vs, the gang from the comic, not really that popular since the characters are very underdeveloped, but many people still write awesome fics with them and do them justice, highly recommend if you get tired of the usual fab four stuff at some point, also we hate Val Velocity

Red and Blue, the two droids from the comic, they are girlfriends obviously

Korse (the bald bad guy, a Scarecrow=agent specially trained to hunt killjoys), Exterminators (soldiers with white sacks over their heads) and Draculoids (guys with ugly latex masks, usually believed to be dead people/killjoys that got turned by the mask) if you need bad guys for your fan work these are your people, no danger days fanart can exist without them

Show Pony, the killjoy on roller-skates from na na na music video, believed to be non-binary by many

NewsaGoGO, a character from twitter, also a radio host

DJ Hot Chimp, a character from twitter and a radio host as well

When someone mentions the Radio crew or something in that sense they usually mean Dr Death, Cherri Cola, Show Pony, Newsie, Hot Chimp

Also as you can notice pretty much no one uses the full names they are too long but you'll get used to it in no time

Mad Gear, probably the most popular singer in the zones, has a band called Mad Gear and the Missile Kid, sometimes Missile Kid is an actual member other times it's more of an imaginary concept, here's an EP MCR released

Oh yeah also the desert is often referred to as the zones, here's a map as well. The zones surround Battery City which is run by Better Living Industries, shortly BL/Ind, how the whole situation came to be is explained shortly here. Killjoys are people who escaped the city because of the way it's run (different versions but usually brain washing, propaganda, pills etc.) and obviously BL/Ind is not very happy about that so they send scarecrows, exterminators and draculoids to catch/kill the runaways. Also the city turns souls of dead people into electricity.

Big part of killjoy lore are also their masks and bad luck beads, masks tie their owner's soul to them and so when the owner dies (gets ghosted, dusted etc in killjoy slang) the mask is put into a special mailbox where a deity called Phoenix Witch saves them from being turned into electricity in the city. In many cases she can also return people back to life if she wants to. (also Witchfucker Wednesday is a thing I think you can guess what that's about) Bad luck beads are beads killjoys wear around their wrists and they are supposed to keep them lucky

Forementioned Phoenix Witch and Destroya are deities, both are quite well explained in the comic.

Also people often mention Graffiti bible in their works, that's a book similar to bible created by droids, but when I say book it's more of an idea usually it doesn't have an actual physical form of a book rather some scattered pages at best.

And if you see someone talking about Party Poison's piss kink that relates to hanky code and Party's yellow bandana they wore around their leg

That reminds me of another thing, go wild with pronouns and gender when forming your versions of the characters, some people use he for one character, other use she or neo pronouns for the same character and it's all fine and gender is fake there's only sand but also everything is very gender and everyone is very queer, it's a lot of fun

Some more interesting stuff to look into:

Little list I made with common headcanons (since venom brothers isn't explained people often use it to refer to Party and Kobra)

Dr Death listening Party

Sing outtake version (the story goes slightly different here)

Mousekat episode (Mousekat is presumably a show for kids made by BL/Ind as a form of propaganda. It's also Party Poison's furry head)

playlist of few other interesting videos

[notafraidofredyellowandblue]

I'm opening this up again so I can understand. This latest announcement, does this mean that the article about 'a band member's daughter' is fake or exaggerated? I liked what you said about this when it all came out. I think though if it's a bandmembers daughter I am not sure how everyone would react to that. I can't picture any of them brushing it off, we all know who has daughters.

Why would the daughter of someone in the band go to a newspaper when none of them have ever approached the press before? That article to me seems so far-fetched and grasping at rumors. The press is casting a wide net and reeling in whatever tiny tidbit they can then making something more of it.

hi anon 🌺

No, the latest announcement says nothing about the 'bandmate's daughter's best friend' article.

we're on legal turf now, and this is all about details that the average person would gloss over, but that's how it is conducted.

The latest ruling is about 4 specific cases on 4 specific phrases in 4 specific articles by 4 different media. So not even about the articles as a whole, but about specific bits in them.

Take the '5 other Rammstein members' and 'the party in Berlin' (which must have been the party at the Kit Kat club, because that was the party that was reported about quoting an employee of that club); i'll take this one, because nothing actually illegal is contested here, the club is perfectly legal and going there is as well.

What the case is, is that the 5 other Rammstein members stated this "The applicants have stated that, contrary to the description in the article, they have not visited the club alone or together with Till Lindemann. The Respondent had the opportunity to comment, but did not comment on the application. "

And that was granted. So it is not about if Till visited the club on that day, but whether the others members were there as well, either by themselves, or with Till. It's just about that specific detail.

---

We don't know in detail if the 'best friend' article is contested by Till's lawyers, if it is, the case is still ongoing. If it is really completely bogus, it would be a pretty easy case, but reality is that it may not be completely bogus. Ofcourse one could wonder if the 'best friend' exists, why go to the media and not have mutual friends arrange a session to clear the air. But vice versa: if the best friend does exist, and maybe there is a grain of truth in the story, does one want to filet the article to have specific parts contested? Because that would also mean the other parts that are not contested will still stand..

In general, or in my personal case where nothing happened. Right now i think back with some fondness to the situation, but if it turned out the guy did indeed go to far with others (or for instance underage persons), would dismiss or deny the situation, or made disparaging remarks about women in general...that would totally change my view of the situation.. so hypothetically i can follow the thoughtproces there..

---

why the German press all of a sudden is so interested in Rammstein is maybe my biggest questionmark in all this. They basically ignored the band for years, i think in 2022 (may have been 2019) when Rammstein went on worldtour, fellow Berlin band Die Ärzte did a Germany tour, and Die Ärzte were everywhere in the media for a short while. Don't get me wrong, i like that band, and they are friends with Rammstein, going to eachother's shows and such, but they have a much smaller following globally than Rammstein...

Interestingly, at the moment some German media have actually changed tune and first speculated on "Rammstein guitarist hints at end of band" (Thank you Richard for that Kruspe-caption) and are now reporting on Rammstein going on world tour in 2024 (a rumour originating from Rammmexicanos i think, who are often well informed, but also a bit over excited at times, not everything they said in the past actually happens) (not even going into the fact that some fans say 'Rammstein' and mean 'Till and his band')

But as in all countries 'the media' is actually very varied with regards to reliability and gossip-level, so like the allegations, we'll take this with a grain of salt until facts are there to support it 🌺

[larry-hiatus]

Keep posting lies about Taylor R! So we can all mass report your racist tinhat and PR blogs! "Stereotypes permeate our society through media depictions and social interactions. Experiencing both a combination of race and gender, Black women are faced with stereotypes of being mean, aggressive, or overly assertive. A perception that created the “Angry Black Woman,” a label that stereotypes Black women and manipulates characteristics about them into a negative light."

Sorry anon, I'm really not sure what you're talking about???

I don't really post about the women that the boys are seen with, other than the occasional reblog, and I don't share anything mean about them. I checked through the last ten days worth of posts on my blog, and I only saw one reblog about it being a PR stunt, but I believe that about every girl, not just this one.

PR stunts are real things in the celeb world, and there have been many of them throughout history. And they make sense from a marketing standpoint! It's a way to get people talking about a celebrity, which their PR team might one for one reason or another. For H0livia, it was to promote their movie. This time, some people think it's to keep Harry relevant during his break, and possibly to further TayR's career (but I know nothing about that). Another wide belief/reason for Harry's connections to women is for bearding purposes. In any case, whether these relationships are truly PR or if they are real, we usually never know the truth. However, it's okay to have opinions as long as they are respectful, which I always try to be. I also always keep my thoughts and feelings away from the celebrities themselves, as in, I don't tweet them directly. Like I said though, I honestly don't really post about the women in general. But believing this to be a PR stunt, personally for me, definitely doesn't have anything to do with TayR's race. I held the same belief with TaySwift, EmRatta, H0livia, pretty much everyone.

It appears that you have pulled a quote from this article, The "Angry" Black Woman. I did not read the whole article, but I was curious what you were quoting. I am aware of the stereotype, and if TayR is receiving any racist hate from hate fandom, I definitely disagree with it and do not condone it. Regardless of whether people think it's a real relationship, or whether or not people like her, racism is never okay. I haven't seen any posts depicting her as "angry" or "mean" (I haven't really seen anything about her personality/actions at all), but my online experience definitely isn't the only one, so I'm not saying I don't believe that it's happening. Racism will be found pretty much anywhere, unfortunately, but I do try to not be involved in it. If I were to see that content on my dash from someone I follow who held those beliefs, I would definitely unfollow them.

The only post I can remember seeing regarding her race was something about how it's nice to see Harry with a POC because just about all of the women he's been connected to have been white. I don't remember what else the post said, and I don't remember if I shared it. But if I did share something racist, please know that it was not my intention, and I would appreciate if you would tell me which post so that I can remove it. I try my best, but I was raised in an ignorant bubble, so sometimes I make mistakes that I correct when I can.

All of that being said, I know nothing about TayR, so I really don't have any opinions about her as a person. I don't have any plans to get to know her or learn more about her because it doesn't really matter to me. I'm a fan of the boys; who they're seen with is just kind of extra stuff that I don't have much interest in. I don't really care to partake publicly in conversations regarding relationships (whether real or not) with women in the boys' lives, but I felt that it was important to respond to this message.

But anyway, I hope I cleared some things up. And if you don't like my "tinhatting," or anybody else's, please remember that the block button is your friend. You can report genuine racism or hate speech if you come across it, but in terms of just things you don't agree with, you're better off blocking and moving on. You will become tired and miserable if you try to fight every Larrie you find.

Have a good day!

[writingwithcolor]

What Does Our "Motivations” PSA Mean?

@luminalalumini said:

I've been on your blog a lot and it has a lot of really insightful information, but I notice a theme with some of your answers where you ask the writer reaching out what their 'motivation for making a character a certain [race/religion/ethnicity/nationality] is' and it's discouraging to see, because it seems like you're automatically assigning the writer some sort of ulterior motive that must be sniffed out and identified before the writer can get any tips or guidance for their question. Can't the 'motive' simply be having/wanting to have diversity in one's work? Must there be an 'ulterior motive'? I can understand that there's a lot of stigma and stereotypes and bad influence that might lead to someone trynna add marginalized groups into their stories for wrong reasons, but people that have those bad intentions certainly won't be asking for advice on how to write good representation in the first place. Idk its just been something that seemed really discouraging to me to reach out myself, knowing i'll automatically be assigned ulterior motives that i don't have and will probably have to justify why i want to add diversity to my story as if i'm comitting some sort of crime. I don't expect you guys to change your blog or respond to this or even care all that much, I'm probably just ranting into a void. I'm just curious if theres any reason to this that I haven't realized exists I suppose. I don't want y'all to take this the wrong way because I do actually love and enjoy your blog's advice in spite of my dumb griping. Cheers :))

We assume this is in reference to the following PSA:

PSA to all of our users - Motivation Matters: This lack of clarity w/r to intent has been a general issue with many recent questions. Please remember that if you don’t explain your motivations and what you intend to communicate to your audience with your plot choices, character attributes, world-building etc., we cannot effectively advise you beyond the information you provide. We Are Not Mind Readers. If, when drafting these questions, you realize you can’t explain your motivations, that is likely a hint that you need to think more on the rationales for your narrative decisions. My recommendation is to read our archives and articles on similar topics for inspiration while you think. I will be attaching this PSA to all asks with similar issues until the volume of such questions declines. 

We have answered this in three parts.

1. Of Paved Roads and Good Intentions

Allow me to give you a personal story, in solidarity towards your feelings:

When I began writing in South Asia as an outsider, specifically in the Kashmir and Lahore areas, I was doing it out of respect for the cultures I had grown up around. I did kathak dance, I grew up on immigrant-cooked North Indian food, my babysitters were Indian. I loved Mughal society, and every detail of learning about it just made me want more. The minute you told me fantasy could be outside of Europe, I hopped into the Mughal world with two feet. I was 13. I am now 28.

And had you asked me, as a teenager, what my motives were in giving my characters’ love interests blue or green eyes, one of them blond hair, my MC having red-tinted brown hair that was very emphasized, and a whole bunch of paler skinned people, I would have told you my motives were “to represent the diversity of the region.” 

I’m sure readers of the blog will spot the really, really toxic and colourist tropes present in my choices. If you’re new here, then the summary is: giving brown people “unique” coloured eyes and hair that lines up with Eurocentric beauty standards is an orientalist trope that needs to be interrogated in your writing. And favouring pale skinned people is colourist, full stop.

Did that make me a bad person with super sneaky ulterior motives who wanted to write bad representation? No.

It made me an ignorant kid from the mostly-white suburbs who grew up with media that said brown people had to “look unique” (read: look as European as possible) to be considered valuable.

And this is where it is important to remember that motives can be pure as you want, but you were still taught all of the terrible stuff that is present in society. Which means you’re going to perpetuate it unless you stop and actually question what is under your conscious motive, and work to unlearn it. Work that will never be complete.

I know it sounds scary and judgemental (and it’s one of the reasons we allow people to ask to be anonymous, for people who are afraid). Honestly, I would’ve reacted much the same as a younger writer, had you told me I was perpetuating bad things. I was trying to do good and my motives were pure, after all! But after a few years, I realized that I had fallen short, and I had a lot more to learn in order for my motives to match my impact. Part of our job at WWC is to attempt to close that gap.

We aren’t giving judgement, when we ask questions about why you want to do certain things. We are asking you to look at the structural underpinnings of your mind and question why those traits felt natural together, and, more specifically, why those traits felt natural to give to a protagonist or other major character.

I still have blond, blue-eyed characters with sandy coloured skin. I still have green-eyed characters. Because teenage me was right, that is part of the region. But by interrogating my motive, I was able to devalue those traits within the narrative, and I stopped making those traits shorthand for “this is the person you should root for.” 

It opened up room for me to be messier with my characters of colour, even the ones who my teenage self would have deemed “extra special.” Because the European-associated traits (pale hair, not-brown-eyes) stopped being special. After years of questioning, they started lining up with my motive of just being part of the diversity of the region.

Motive is important, both in the conscious and the subconscious. It’s not a judgement and it’s not assumed to be evil. It’s simply assumed to be unquestioned, so we ask that you question it and really examine your own biases.

~Mod Lesya

2. Motivations Aren't Always "Ulterior"

You can have a positive motivation or a neutral one or a negative one. Just wanting to have diversity only means your characters aren't all white and straight and cis and able-bodied -- it doesn't explain why you decided to make this specific character specifically bi and specifically Jewish (it me). Yes, sometimes it might be completely random! But it also might be "well, my crush is Costa Rican, so I gave the love interest the same background", or "I set it in X City where the predominant marginalized ethnicity is Y, so they are Y". Neither of these count as ulterior motives. But let's say for a second that you did accidentally catch yourself doing an "ulterior." Isn't that the point of the blog, to help you find those spots and clean them up?

Try thinking of it as “finding things that need adjusting” rather than “things that are bad” and it might get less scary to realize that we all do them, subconsciously. Representation that could use some work is often the product of subconscious bias, not deliberate misrepresentation, so there's every possibility that someone who wants to improve and do better didn't do it perfectly the first time. 

--Shira

3. Dress-Making as a Metaphor

I want to echo Lesya’s sentiments here but also provide a more logistical perspective. If you check the rubber stamp guide here and the “Motivation matters” PSA above, you’ll notice that concerns with respect to asker motivation are for the purposes of providing the most relevant answer possible.

It is a lot like if someone walks into a dressmaker’s shop and asks for a blue dress/ suit (Back when getting custom-made clothes was more of a thing) . The seamstress/ tailor is likely to ask a wide variety of questions:

What material do you want the outfit to be made of?

Where do you plan to wear it?

What do you want to highlight?

How do you want to feel when you wear it?

Let’s say our theoretical customer is in England during the 1920s. A tartan walking dress/ flannel suit for the winter is not the same as a periwinkle, beaded, organza ensemble/ navy pinstripe for formal dress in the summer. When we ask for motivations, we are often asking for exactly that: the specific reasons for your inquiry so we may pinpoint the most pertinent information.

The consistent problem for many of the askers who receive the PSA is they haven’t even done the level of research necessary to know what they want to ask of us. It would be like if our English customer in the 1920s responded, “IDK, some kind of blue thing.” Even worse,  WWC doesn’t have the luxury of the back-and-forth between a dressmaker and their clientele. If our asker doesn’t communicate all the information they need in mind at the time of submission, we can only say, “Well, I’m not sure if this is right, but here’s something. I hope it works, but if you had told us more, we could have done a more thorough job.”

Answering questions without context is hard, and asking for motivations, by which I mean the narratives, themes, character arcs and other literary devices that you are looking to incorporate, is the best way for us to help you, while also helping you to determine if your understanding of the problem will benefit from outside input. Because these asks are published with the goal of helping individuals with similar questions, the PSA also serves to prompt other users.

I note that asking questions is a skill, and we all start by asking the most basic questions (Not stupid questions, because to quote a dear professor, “There are no stupid questions.”). Unfortunately, WWC is not suited for the most basic questions. To this effect, we have a very helpful FAQ and archive as a starting point. Once you have used our website to answer the more basic questions, you are more ready to approach writing with diversity and decide when we can actually be of service. This is why we are so adamant that people read the FAQ. Yes, it helps us, but it also is there to save you time and spare you the ambiguity of not even knowing where to start.

The anxiety in your ask conveys to me a fear of being judged for asking questions. That fear is not something we can help you with, other than to wholeheartedly reassure you that we do not spend our unpaid, free time answering these questions in order to assume motives we can’t confirm or sit in judgment of our users who, as you say, are just trying to do better.

Yes, I am often frustrated when an asker’s question makes it clear they haven’t read the FAQ or archives. I’ve also been upset when uncivil commenters have indicated that my efforts and contributions are not worth their consideration. However, even the most tactless question has never made me think, “Ooh this person is such a naughty racist. Let me laugh at them for being a naughty racist. Let me shame them for being a naughty racist. Mwahaha.”

What kind of sad person has time for that?*

Racism is structural. It takes time to unlearn, especially if you’re in an environment that doesn’t facilitate that process to begin with. Our first priority is to help while also preserving our own boundaries and well-being. Though I am well aware of the levels of toxic gas-lighting and virtue signaling that can be found in various corners of online writing communities in the name of “progressivism*”, WWC is not that kind of space. This space is for discussions held in good faith: for us to understand each other better, rather than for one of us to “win” and another to “lose.”

Just as we have good faith that you are doing your best, we ask that you have faith that we are trying to do our best by you and the BIPOC communities we represent.

- Marika.

*If you are in any writing or social media circles that feed these anxieties or demonstrate these behaviors, I advise you to curtail your time with them and focus on your own growth. You will find, over time, that it is easier to think clearly when you are worrying less about trying to appease people who set the bar of approval so high just for the enjoyment of watching you jump. “Internet hygiene”, as I like to call it, begins with you and the boundaries you set with those you interact with online.

[absolutebl]

hi, thank you for seeing this.

i'm not about disputing other people's opinion over a show, however, since blueming has become a darling of mine, i wanted to know your thoughts on this review

apparently they thought that the weakness of the show is "emitting the discussion of homosexuality" for it could've added another layer to both character's love story. they also wrote that it ignored gender issues and "over romanticize the idea of unconditional love"

personally, i think it's great that stories with same-sex couples like blueming exists and it not having conversations about their gender and sexual identities shouldn't feel like less of a representation. the pressure that people put on queer media to just portray the authentic, particularly the bad, queer experience (whatever that is) is appalling to think about sometimes

*whines*

But, Korea just doesn't DO this.

Coming out narratives are extremely rare in Korean BL. They don't want to address the homophobia of their own culture so they don't bother to put it on screen.

Eh, that's kinda blasé.

Sigh, okay. Look. 

We're all buying into the BL fantasy, whatever it my be.

For Korea that BL fantasy world is one where the gayness doesn't ever even have to be outright mentioned by the characters, let alone dealt with by plot. I mean some of their stuff sidles up to it (Light On Me, Cherry Blossoms). But its rarely dealt with directly (because family is rarely depicted.) Just because a show features gay characters doesn’t mean it has to tackle gay issues. Ya know, many of us queers spend most of our days not giving a shit what the hets think of us. It’s not always about some rando het person’s reaction to a gay relationship, sometimes it’s allowed to be just about that gay relationship. 

I don't see why Blueming needs to be taken to account or blamed for something that all KBL shows avoid. In fact, I'd call it a hallmark of the KBL genre. Why should it have to include angst over queerness in the name of realism? For what purpose, so it feels more authentic? To whom? Why are they value judging realism as a better? Why would anyone?

Ugh, the last thing I want in my entertainment is realism. I exist in reality. It’s a TERRIBLY unpleasant place. I would like to escape it on occasion, thank you very much. 

That’s not why I’m watching Blueming, KBL or BL in general. Authenticity is not why any romance exists. 

Frankly, kids finding their soulmates in college is about as unrealistic as you can get. 

Tell those critics that there's a whole wide world of angst, dark tortured coming out, HIV trauma, and gay bashing just waiting for them to pick their own scars with and wallow in. 

It's disguised as high cinema and considered art and it's lurking on the fringes of BL on GaGa and in movie from on Netflix with poetic titles and sex scenes so dark it's like they forgot to take damn lens cap off.

I don't want my nice fluffy bright shiny sanitized alt-reality Korean BL sullied by coming out trauma. Blueming was already daring enough to deal with fat shaming and self worth. That was a lot of teen folderol already for a KBL. What do they want, Your Name Engraved Herein?

Then they should WATCH Your Name Engrave Herein. It's why it exists, presumably, for.... the delicious AGONY of it all.

Pah.

*waves hand in air*

I don't like my BL traumatic, okay? Especially not KBL. There's more than enough traumatic queer cinema lurking in the shadows to be going on with. Thank you very much. 

[arhvste]

❝ miya atsumu - @notatsumu ❞

in which your boyfriend has a finsta, he just doesn’t know that you know about it,, until you slip up

an - this is for @4kinor1 because she got married to atsumu today and she’s hot <3

giggling to himself, atsumu let himself fall back on the spacious shared bed with his phone in his hands above his face. a wide smile was spread across his face as he stared at the screen. the luminous light flickered in reflection to his eyes as he failed to tear his eyes away.

to anyone else, it’s would’ve looked like the blonde was just staring at any old instagram feed. you on the other hand, knew exactly what he was staring at and it warmed your heart everytime you caught him on his phone staring at certain content. recently, you had discovered atsumu had a whole finsta account only he allowed himself to follow. how you found it? his username wasn’t exactly complex and considering he only followed 96 people on the social media platform on his main account, it wasn’t a surprise the account name ‘@notatsumu’ had come up in your suggestions.

you didn’t mean to discover he had a whole finsta account littered of and with you photos of you, but you did and the fact was confirmed to you a while ago when atsumu had handed you his phone to search something up, but had forgotten to close out of the account. obviously it caught your eye and it would’ve been weirder to not look; so you did just that. a faint guilt crept up inside of you as you scrolled through the multiple photos your boyfriend had captured and posted for himself to look back on, but it simultaneously filled your heart knowing he thought to do such a thing. to keep a social diary for himself of the thing he loved the most; you.

that was the first and last time you saw the account. you never opened it again because atsumu never left an open opportunity to do so like he did the first time. you already felt fulfilled enough knowing exactly what it was that brought him so much joy whilst looking at his phone. there was a particular glint the setter caught in his eye whenever you noticed him looking at his own account or uploading a thread of new photos to it.

“tsumu!” you called out making him jump. the phone slipped out of his hands and landed flat on his face resulting in a very distressed atsumu. “fuck!” he yelped letting the phone slide off his face and onto the floor as he brought both hands up to cup his own face.

immediately, you rushed over to his side where you replaced his hands with your own, cooing soft apologies and pressing warm kisses over his face. “i forgive ya don’t worry.” he assured you, relishing in the attention you were showering him with.

phone nearly forgotten about on the floor, atsumu brought his hands up to cup your own face as he smiled warmly at you. his whole world right above his head, your eyes providing as the universe with twinkling stars. grabbing for the device on the floor, atsumu held the phone up and shamelessly snapped the sight before him as you laughed. “mugshot.” he muttered as if it would cover his tracks.

you smiled and shook your head. “caption it something nice okay?” your comment just a passing one but atsumu’s eyes widened as he halted. “pardon?” he quirked an eyebrow as you stated at him from below. realising your mistake, you hands flew to your mouth.

“what?” you airily laughed in attempts to brush off your slip up hoping he wouldn’t notice. “caption it? why would i caption it?” his tone curious with traces of panic.

“just in case you wanna post it on your instagram or something.” you cautiously spoke, each sentence risky as if your words were keeping you on thin ice and one wrong move could send you through and into the cold and piercing water.

“my main?” he pressed on unknowingly leaving you an opening. “you have another account other than your main?” you feigned curiosity as atsumu’s frown tugged a little more.

“hm maybe.” he replied turning his phone off and putting it down on the bedside table beside him. catvcube you off guard, atsumu’s hand reached your waist as he suddenly pulled you onto the bed on top of him where he held your hips firmly in place. “but ya knew that already, didn’t ya?” a smirk crept on on his face as you felt your cheeks warm up.

you didn’t know how to reply. should you confess to your knowledge of his account? should you keep feigning ignorance? you weren’t too sure but your boyfriends grip on you told you he was going to get the responses he wanted one way or another. his fingers began moving as you felt the familiar feeling of your boyfriends persistence begin. you squirmed on top of him as he bang tickling your sides.

“admit it, ya knew i had another instagram.” he demanded, smirk still present on his face. your laughs filled the room as atsumu’s heart filled with joy. “n-no!” you continued ignorance as you felt your body begin to ache from the constant distraction of atsumu’s fingers. “liar!” he whined as he showed no mercy.

tears began streaming down your face as your stomach began to hurt. giving in you held your hands up and tried to catch your breath. “o-okay! okay t-tsumu i-i knew!” you sighed in relief as atsumu’s movements came to a halt, an embarrassed smile now taking form on his face.

“it was an accident though, you left it open when you gave me your phone one time and i, well i saw.” you admitted, heat rising to your face once more.

atsumu bit the inside of his cheek as he turned away a little, bashfulness building up. “ya don’t think... it’s weird... do ya?” he queered, eyes averting from your own.

dismissing his insecurity you gasped and shook your head profusely. “no, no, no! tsumu, no it’s not weird! i actually think... it’s kinda cute.” your voice genuine threaded with the thinnest thread of embarrassment yourself. to have someone love you as much as atsumu did, you were bound to get a little flustered sometimes. he was good at doing that.

“ya sure? cause i can delete it if you-“

“-atsumu. i love you. it’s not weird.” you cupped the sides of his face as he stared up at you with adoration. his love grew for you by the second. the lengths he had gone to in attempts to cover his social activity seemed stupid now. there was never a need to hide it from you. this was just his love language and now he felt bad from depriving you of hearing it.

“sorry.” he muttered, calloused hand reaching up to interlock with one of your own resting on his face. you smiled as shook your head. “no, i’m sorry for intruding on your personal things. i should’ve closed it down myself.” you assured him as his eyes twinkled, his love for you forever expanding.

lowering yourself so you were pressed against his chest, you pressed your lips upon atsumu’s warm ones as he melted into your touch. only you had this effect on him. nobody else ever able to compare to the way you made him feel. you were the only one with the key to the cage of butterflies situated inside of him, unlocked whenever you were around him. the feeling of his heart glowing only ever occurred when you were involved. you quite literally made him brighter. his smile wider and crinkles under his eyes more prominent. miya atsumu was hopeless when it came to you.

pulling away, atsumu sighed as he rested a hand against your cheek, thumb lovingly swiping over your cheekbone.

“i love ya.” he confirmed, nothing but genuine and raw love evident in his tone.

“i love you too tsumu.” you replied softly, the same adoration he held for you clear in your own eyes.

you stayed like that just for a few moments, the feeling of natural but solid love blanketing over the two of you as your boyfriend held you tighter in his arms, his whole world exactly where he needed it to be.

“i’d love you even more if you let me be your second follower though.” you spoke up cheekily, a grin creeping up on your face.

and how was atsumu’s supposed to say no when you looked like that?

general taglist → @atsumuwoah @bloody-bella @bbymilkbread @miracleboy420 @doggonudez @tsumue @peteunderoos @tsukkisbean @saturnfarie @dear-kozume @zumisace @boosyboo9206 @totorosleaff @27kei @dai-tsukki-desu @angrylittleriri @dearestmegumi @kuxredere @warakou @iss6s @lovinnoya @sophiashortcake @wompwomphq @waitforitillwritemywayout @webworld @brokeasshoee @sunasbabie @rowley-with-ackerman

ALL CONTENT BELONGS TO @KUROOSKULT ON TUMBLR 2020 PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, CHANGE OR PLAGIARISE

[citrina-posts]

Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. This is pretty long, so if you want to keep reading, it’s under the cut.

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!

[fandom-oracle]

Wait wdym? Do you think fic is bad?

i'm getting canceled tonight i guess.

if you actually did a good a faith interpretation of my post you know it's not really ABOUT fanfiction at all, i actually write fanfiction myself. i'm not sharing here because it's overwhelmingly bad fic that i write exclusively as wish-fulfilment or for self-projection, but at least i'm self-aware about it. i am ALSO one of the people who reads ze Books™️, although most of the academic material i consume are nonfiction, so this whole thing is particularly annoying to me. the crux of the matter is that, if you're a little younger you might've missed it, but this website was a hotbed of scalding takes like 'dante's divine comedy is literally fanfiction', 'something something is literally fanfiction' when the thing in question barely counts as a transformative work and, in fact, it weakens the definition of transformative work in itself to try to apply it to literally anything that exhibits an ounce of intertextuality. plenty of takes that are... true, but require some nuance, focused on the idea of transformative fandom as a place defined by its presence of overwhelmingly female and disproportionately queer (occasionally, though disputedly, nonwhite) content creators and the ways in which transformative fan content could be interpreted as a space of defiance to cisheteropatriarchy in the way it permeates traditional media. a third, less common but still relevant take was the focus on how certain fandoms such as trek and doctor who have a long history of involvement in real-world civil rights issues and progressive politics. so this kind of take has been the dominant view on tumblr and transformative fandom for a good decade now, perhaps longer, and the people with this kind of takes can sometimes be a little... obnoxious. and the majority of people on transformative fandom (regardless of wether or not the fandom is disproportionately composed of nonwhite individuals or not, by sheer virtue of american demographics and this site`s heaily skewed userbase, the majority will still be white) are white, and like any other space dominated by white people, fandom has often been a vehicle for white supremacy. "Stitch Media Mix" talks about this in-depth. the discourse on fandom racism and ways in which transformative fandom as a whole contribute to racialized stereotypes, hierarchies, and deeper problems within online culture has led to a lot of people with grievances with fandom, many of whom are women of color, to develop an entire online identity built around the concept of being "critical of fandom", which is a very weird thing to do with fandom is literally billions of people, not a unified demographic, and that being critical of something can mean a WIDE amount of things; which in turn has led to a lot of people insulating themselves completely from any criticism of fandom as being inherently in bad faith, which a weird thing to do when literally ANY sphere of society should be open to criticism. people taking critiques of media they consume and taking critiques of their own critiques as personal attacks are abound here and make everything worse. so a fairly recent (mid2018ish, definitely post the insanity of reylo discourse but before sarah z blew up in popularity) trend has been that people in these communities isolate more and more and the general discourse has effetively resulted in people with differing takes in fanfiction specifically but fandom as a Whole (which is, again very weird to say because fandom is not 'a Whole' because there's no unifying element to different fandoms) only interacting with each other in hostile ways. and increasingly, in my personal sphere, a lot of people are positioning themselves in the "fandom critical" (AGAIN, WEIRD THING TO SAY, WHAT DOES IT EVEN MEAN, PLEASE USE WORDS WITH PRECISION) sphere, and I tend to take that "side" myself, but i specifically do not think framing this as a team A or team B thing is useful. this culture war was in the buildup.

last week a post by a user i follow recently became popular. the post itself was a critique that i.. do not necessarily agree with. it was ultimately about the idea of easily-consumable popular media being seen as an acceptable form of exclusive media engagement by people in the "pro-fandom" sphere, and how the insidiousness of this line of thinking has to do with how capitalist media production is designed to spread, and how fandom AS A TREND, not specifically any individuals or any fanworks, can empower capitalism. the post specifically did NOT use the kindest possible words, but that was what they were trying to say. howelljenkins also has really good takes on the subject, albeit from a different angle.

anyway because this is a circular culture war, the result was as follows: 1) a bunch of pro-fandom types refuse to actually make a charitable reading of the post and insist the user in question hates fandom and thinks people under capitalism shouldn't have things that are Fun, and should Only Read Theory and keep sending anon hate to several blogs in the opposing sphere, therefore proving the point that fandom sometimes prevent people from being able to engage critically with things; 2) a bunch of anti-fandom types who defined their entire identity on hating fandom being like "haha look at these cringe people" instead of trying to understand why a demographic overwhelmingly composed of marginalized people would feel strongly to posts that use inflammatory language against an interest of theirs, thereby proving the point that most criticism of fandom is divorced from actual fan content and is vaguely defined. the reason this is a culture war that actually deserves attention (unlike most fandom culture wars, which are just really granular ship wars made into social justice issues for clout) is that, for the most part, both of these groups are mostly people with college degrees, many of whom will contirbute to academia in the coming years. fan studies is a relevant field. these discussions have repercussions in wider media criticism trends, and this is why i can't really stand it or just passively ignoring it the way i do with most other inconsequential discourse. like it's genuinely upsetting seeing almost every single tumblr user, most of whom should know better, patting themselves in the back for their inability to read things in a way that doesn't feed into preexisting cultural hostilities in fan spaces.

[rollflasher]

Another Sonic ramble

So once again I’m here with one of my rambles about my incredibly subjective view of how the Sonic series should be handled! *Beat*

...anyway.

So, one of the more recurring opinions on the fandom is that Sonic games should be written by Ian Flynn, I have talked before about the gripes I have with his writing and why I disagree with this but this post is not entirely about him, but rather a more general topic that has been bugging me for a long time.

The other day I was watching a video speculating about the upcoming Sonic Rangers, there’s not much to write home since it was pretty well made but there’s a particular part that inspired me to do this post and talk about it with other fans to discuss it.

See, at one point the video critisized the fact that Sonic Forces was written by a Japanese writer because they have to re-write the script in English and that can cause problems with localization, and that it would be better to have western writers from the get-go since Sonic’s main demographic comes from there, while making an off-hand suggestion that Ian Flynn could be a main choice. While I can see where they’re coming from, my response was a simple:

‘‘Absolutely, not’‘

See, I have a lot of issues with this to put it bluntly and I’ll try to break them down and explain them the best I can since they’re pretty subjective in nature, but I’m bringing this up because I want you guys to share your thoughts as well.

So, why does it bug me so much the idea of Sonic being handled by western creators?

In my case, the main reasons are because Sonic loses a core part of it’s appeal because of this, the fact that SEGA of Japan seems to have a better grasp of the franchise’s tone and characters and there’s the very subjective point that, in my eyes, American versions of Japanese franchises were always nothing more than dumbed down products of the source material.

To start with my first point, whenever someone talks about Sonic’s creation, a lot of people are quick to point out that our favorite blue hedgehog and his games were inspired by western pop culture and cartoons, and that is true, however oftenly they forget to mention a core thing that not only inspired, but also formed part of the core identity of this franchise.

Sonic is very inspired on anime, and at heart this franchise is a shonen.

(This image by The Great Lange expresses more clearly what I mean)

Generally, the most acknowledgement anime gets on it’s hand on Sonic is the mentions of Sonic being inspired by Dragon Ball, particularly the Super Saiyan, but there’s so much more than that, as Sonic blatantly takes inspiration from Studio Ghibli films specially in games like Sonic 3, which draws a lot of inspiration from Laputa: Castle in the Sky, this great post shows proof that this is not a coincidence.

And it doesn’t stop there, Shiro Maekawa himself has stated that SA2′s story (and in particular, the characters of Shadow and Maria) draw a lot of inspiration from the manga Please Save My Earth.

Even Sonic’s character design resembles shonen protagonists moreso than the main characters of silent cartoons, don’t believe me?

Sure, Sonic has a cartoony anatomy, no one can deny that, but he also exhibits a lot of traits from shonen characters such as spiky hair/quills (?), dynamic posing, a confident, courageous and energetic personality and most importantly, fighting spirit.

If you compare Sonic’s personality and more specifically, his abilities and moves to, say, cartoon speedy characters like the Road Runner, there’s a pretty big disconnection between him and western cartoon characters. Hell, this disconnection is even just as present if you compare him with a character like The Flash from DC.

Simply put, Sonic acts, moves and more importantly, fights like a shonen anime character. He doesn’t just go Super Saiyan and that’s it. Here’s even a quick comparison if necessary.

And this is important because this doesn’t apply just to him, but the whole franchise as a whole and when it takes a more western approach, all of these details are kinda lost or more downplayed, of course this depends on the artists and there’s YMMV at hand, but I think my point is clear.

My second point is...SoJ has consistently proven they have a much clearer grasp on how Sonic’s world and characters are compared to SoA.

Hear me out, yes, Sonic 06 and ShtH exist and yes, SoJ is not perfect by any means. But hear me out...when did the characters start to get flanderized and turned into parodies of themselves? In the 2010s...and when did SEGA move from Japanese to western writers in the games?

Of course it was more then that since there’s a whole tone shift that came with this decade and the new writers, but it’s not a coincidence that when writing in Sonic started to decay, western writers also happened to get on board with the games.

Besides that, SoA has a wide history of not getting Sonic’s tone and characters, from how they made media without much of Sonic Team’s input, to altering how characters are seen in the west. (Such as how they amped up Sonic’s attitude in their media or how the English scripts of the games featured things like Sonic seemingly barely tolerating Amy while the JP scripts portrayed this as Sonic just not understanding girls all that well instead, or for more recent examples, the addition of the ‘’torture’’ line in Forces). Not only that, but even ignoring obvious infamous writers like Ken Penders, even the ‘’best’’ writers from the western side of Sonic are still not above of giving us Pontaff-esque gems.

Like this one.

Or alternatively, I feel like sometimes western writers on Sonic rely a bit too much on their personal vision about Sonic which may or may not be a good thing, clear examples of this are Ian Flynn himself and Pontaff.

By contrast, while SoJ has it’s own share of notorious inconsistencies when dealing with writing (The 2000s era is a big offender), it seems that for them Sonic hasn’t changed much and this is visible not only on the JP scripts of the Modern games which are for the most part better than the ENG ones, but also things like the Sonic Channel comics and the recent one-shots they made with Sonic interacting with the cast show that for all intents and purposes, the Japanese’s staff vision of Sonic is much more clear and consistent compared to the west. Because of this, I’d rather have a good Japanese writer on Sonic games with the localization being focused on being faithful with the original script than have a more western writers dramatically changing the characters. (I don’t mention the tone since either way, SEGA is the one in charge of that and the writers have to follow that)

My last and very subjective point is that, at least for me, everything SoA does with Sonic involving the writing and canon feels like a dumbed down version of the source material. One of the reasons it bugs me so much that in the latest decade Sonic has taken a more western direction is because a lot of what I pointed out gets lost as a result, even if some of those elements are still there, you can tell they’re more downplayed with products like the Tyson Hesse shorts having a more predominant cartoon direction. If any of you have been following my blog for a long time, you should be aware that just because I prefer the Japanese Sonic content doesn’t mean I won’t give the western products a chance, my enjoyment for Mania, the Tyson Hesse shorts and the movie should be a testament of that, but at the same time I can’t help but being sour about the fact that because of these products, we don’t have stuff like a new anime for Sonic or even a serialized ‘’main’’ manga as an alternative for the comics, and my hype for these products is generally more subdued as a result since I’d wish SEGA rather spent that money and resources on more Japanese content than just merchandise.

In particular, because Sonic is a Japanese franchise with a notorious inspiration from anime, what I get from this is a pretty big contradiction. I know Sonic is much more popular on the west but...is it really necessary for his game or products to be handled by western creators to keep their appeal?

For instance, imagine if Dragon Ball’s manga and anime got replaced by western comics and animated series because of it’s world-wide appeal, would that really be the same?

Or imagine the same thing with Fullmetal Alchemist, a pretty aclaimed anime that has a lot of western influence. Would it really not matter at all if it’s Japanese products were replaced with western ones?

At least for me, it wouldn’t.

And what I said about American versions of Japanese franchises being nothing more than watered down versions of the source material? I have that view because of countless examples.

Mega Man and how the English manuals removed a lot of important information about the story of the Blue Bomber’s game and world, causing a lot of plot holes in the process.

American remakes like Godzilla 1998 or Dragon Ball Evolution being an in-name only version of the source material.

Or the many censored anime English dubs from the 2000s, for instance, whenever I see the Yu-Gi-Oh! dubs, I only see a very dumbed down and childish version of a show that was originally a shonen.

And I know that all of these things don’t have to necessarely get lost since every creator is different and there’s franchises like Avatar which are made on the west but draw a lot of inspiration from anime and I’m aware of that, and I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to say that American writers are not allowed to work on Sonic, what I’m trying to say is that inevitably there’s always gonna be some culture dissonance and clash when writers from another culture handle a foreign franchise. And even with examples like ATLA, I think being made by one culture while being inspired by the other is actually a big part of these franchises appeal and it’s something that can’t simply be replicated by handing it to creators from that specific culture they draw inspiration from.

I think James Rolfe’s quote about the same thing with the Godzilla franchise sums up how I feel about this.

‘‘It’s like champagne, anybody can make their own and call it champagne, but unless it’s from Champagne France, it’s not real champagne’‘

So, this last part was very subjective, but I think this post in general sums up why I dislike so much the idea of Sonic having western writers specifically in the games or just focusing more on that side in general.

But what do you guys think? I guess I am too biased so that’s why I wanted to ask for opinions and discuss this topic.

[vulgarloon]

Trust my fucking rage, bro

Apart from general reasons, I have some very personal ones why I HATE antis and people saying:

dont ship xx shipping xx is bad you encourage and promote xx by liking these ships tHiNk AbOuT mInOrS!

First of all, can we please talk about the hypocrisy of people saying that shipping some fictional characters is A SIN, immorality and a pure transgression, while there are THOUSANDS of people who LOVE Game of Thrones with all the bloody and horrific mess it includes, or Cannibal or Silence of the lambs, or many other twisted and abnormal fictional stuff which are considered okay to be widely broadcasted? How do these things differ in any way and why fictional ships promote socialy unaccaptable behaviour, and fictional stories in books or tv shows don't?

Do y'all want to go and eat people after watching that 'sexy cannibal dude' doing shit like that? Do y'all want to become doctor and go slaughter criminals like Dexter? Have children with your daughters like that fucker from GOT? No? Then why shipping Thor and Loki or Tony and Peter or whatever pairing is not quite 'normal' will instantly make you 'not normal'? It reminds me of this fucking ridiculous and gross homophobic statement that some people are trying to push forward, the idea that if you show homosexual characters in some shows then children will ALL INSTANTLY BECOME GAY, because apparently that's how some people's world works - you just look at the fucking chair and then BECOME THE CHAIR YOURSELF. Fuck this, aight?

Do you guys understand what fiction and fantasy are? Does anyone has any idea about humans' imagination properties and how our psyche uses it? Have you heard about sexual fantasies and people NEVER EVER wanting to implement even the tiniest of details from these fantasies into their lives, because they are just FANTASIES? I bet no, and this enormous gap in our knowledge about orselves makes us angry, anxious, when we encounter something we can't exlain due to lack of knowledge. We are scared of stuff we don't understand and people want to destroy things they are afraid of.

Secondly, would you kindly stop the fuss about minors? Show me someone who ever said that any social media is definitely for minors and 100% safe and is made out of rainbows and cotton candy. Since when internet in general and websites such as tumblr, ao3, twitter are for children? Also shouldn't it be parents' responsibility to keep their children safe and teach them about internet safety rules? Or maybe 24-h available and totally free pornhub is somehow less harmful for them then fanfictions or art? I mean that's definitely the place to get some super healthy behavior examples.

And lastly, my personal reason for such an unexpected outlash. I recently understood that all my life I was told to do everyhting considering only what others will think or feel and ignoring myself. I was always forced to keep my thoughts and feelings locked inside, just to make sure no one will be hurt. I wasn't allowed to show my anger, my tears, my resentment because it could have somehow 'break' people around me, who apparently were so much weaker than myself, a distressed child with smothered emotions.

Long story short, I have learned to hide my real emotions flawlessly, immaculately, to degree where I couldn't even understand what I was feeling and the only thing I had inside me was apathy and emptiness. Thanks to my friends and my psychologist I am slowly learning how to feel as myself again and how to let my emotions just be there. And now I want to tear apart anyone who is trying to strangle me and my feelings. And since I have strong feelings for the ships I like, this kind of fuckery and antis with their very important and very relevant opinion on stuff no one asked them about makes me bloody ferocious.

Take care of your own safety, you sugar princessess and princes, get the fuck out of the places you don't like and take all the minors with you. Block shit you don't want to see, nobody owes you nothing, and the whole community, a whole bunch of adult people with their interests won't change or shut up or stop existing just to ensure your comfort.

[yourgalaxy]

~FINDING HOME~ (Part 3)

Pairing: Taehyung x female O/C

Genre: Fluffyest Fluffy Fluff, a little bit of angst if you squint really hard.

Summary: After getting used to the idea of just being her and her little daughter against the world. Autumn is proven wrong once again when fate has different plans for them.

Warnings: None

Word count: 3470

A/N: The original prompt is from @hybridfanfiction ( their prompts are the cutest, check them out!) This is my first attempt on sharing some of my work and is also my first hybrid fic. I love the reader inserts but not a fan of the Y/N type thing so feel free to just imagine your name instead if you prefer! I have material to make this a series but will leave it as a one shot for now to see if you guys like it! I totally don’t own the gifts.

Disclaimer: English is not my first language. Read at your own risk 😂

Ch. 1 Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 4 Ch. 5

" No señorita, you are going to school" - Autumn was having a really hard time to not let her daughter win this little battle. She wasn't planning on letting her know about the trip to the store that she had planned to take Taehyung to, and couldn't believe that it had slipped her mouth. But when the little evil genius decided to team up with the boy with fluffy ears and literal doggy eyes, she knew that she was done for it. - " Ok, you win, but just for this one time!’’ - The level of excitement skyrocket -

 Autumn soon realized that she had created a monster. At the beginning, Taehuyng was really apprehensive to take anything from the store, afraid that if he took the wrong thing or asked for too much, he would break this dream-like chance that whoever was in charge up there had given him. But after a lot of convincing and praising from both mother and daughter, he started to open up to the idea of being spoiled by them. Autumn made him try every piece of clothing that she put her eye on to try and figure out his style and what he felt comfortable on. 

 Taehyung realized how much he loved trying on new clothes and he was awfully good at combining them, but that wasn’t really the problem… The problem was that he looked way too good in every single piece he tried on, and even though he wasn’t really asking for anything verbally, Autumn couldn’t stop herself from buying anything and everything that made his eyes sparkle a little bit brighter. It was most definitely going to take a blow on her finances but it wasn’t anything that a few extra hours at the shop wouldn’t fix, right?

 ‘’ Yes, Taehyung, I’m sure. We need to get you the stuff that you need, and honestly in this household you will have to get used to be pampered with gifts because as soon as you meet the boys, they will be head over toes for you’’ - She laughed to herself as if it was an inside joke that only her was able to understand, and in reality it kinda was. At the mention of some guys that he didn’t know, Taehyung’s head was filled with questions and apprehensions. He knew that Haneul’s dad wasn’t in the picture any more, Haneul had said so with a bright smile adorning her face so he assumed that it wasn’t a traumatic experience for her, meaning that it probably happened when she was really small, so these other men were probably not really related to them by blood or anything… 

 Taehyung wasn’t sure if he was very fond of the prospect of meeting these guys. He wasn’t a fan of men in general. But the smile on her face that made his heart skip a beat was enough indication of the fact that he would end up complying to whatever request she would send his way.

 ‘’ ICE CREAM! Mamma, Mamma, can we pretty please get ice cream’’ - Haneul was basically bouncing on Autumn’s arms, buzzing with excitement at the sight of her favorite treat, she wasn’t really expecting a verbal response, noticing how her mom’s steps redirected was enough for her.- ‘’ Do you want some ice cream Taehyung?’’ - If he wanted some they could just seat in the parlor to enjoy the ice cream but if he wanted to keep going she could just buy Haneul a cup- ‘’ I have never had it… is it good?’’ - At this both mom and daughter sharply turned their heads towards him, the sudden attention making him want to disappear. -

 Haneul crawled from her mom’s arms, wanting to be held by Taehyung, which he complied to immediately, not really expecting the little hands to squish his cheeks, Haneul’s eyes comically wide, looking at him like some kind of anomaly. ‘’ Ice cream is the best, Tata!’’ - Autumn had never heard a more melodic laugh than Taehyung’s and it was pretty contagious too.- 

 Taehyung loved Ice cream, in fact it immediately became his second new favorite thing, the first one being the soft smile that appeared on Autumn’s lips whenever she was watching Haneul enjoying something and because of that he started to feel afraid. Afraid of this new normal that he was getting so used to so fast, afraid of the feeling of attachment that he could already feel growing in his chest. It all came back, he realized, to the fact that he was actually afraid of losing it all… Right there and then he decided that he would be the best boy and just enjoy this dream for as long as it lasted. 

 ‘’Ok, Taehyung would you wait for us here while I take her to the bathroom? I promise we will be fast’’ - Autumn didn’t really like the idea of leaving Taehyung alone in a territory that was unknown to him but she couldn’t do much with Haneul needing a bathroom urgently. Taehyung in the other hand tried his hardest not to let out the whine that tickled his throat, nodding his head quickly instead, he didn’t want to burden her even if the idea of being left alone in that huge place petrified him.-

 The scene that Autumn walked out to, made her blood run cold. The small tremor from Haneul’s boy and the way her pretty eyes immediately filled with tears, didn't help at all. The way that the man was viciously pushing Taehyung into the corner made her sick to her stomach. Taehyung was trying his best to seem smaller, trying his best not to react or make a sound, the same way he would do it while in the streets, they eventually got tired of not receiving any response from him and after a few harsh words and hits, they always left…

 He saw the blow coming before he could even actually feel it, white noise plugging his ears and soon he could identify the irony taste of blood in his mouth. He didn’t hear the scream that came out of Autumn or the incessant cries from Haneul, his senses disoriented and the anxiety surrounding him like a suffocating blanket.

 ‘’ Are you freaking crazy?!’’ - Autumn couldn’t remember the last time she got so mad to raise her voice like that, especially not around Haneul, but her blood was boiling and the way this guy was trying to disregard her for being a woman was getting on her nerves.- ‘’Is this mud yours? You better keep a leash on him, sweetie,I was about to call hybrid control on that thing.’’ - The anger was making her dizzy, she couldn’t comprehend how there were still people out there that still treated hybrids this way, she knew Hybrid control were fishy but seeing the relationship her friends had with their hybrids, often made her forget how much hate and prejudice was out there still, after years of hybrid rights approval, there were still so many of them suffering more than what the media was willing to admit. -

  ‘’ You know what, I’m just going to go ahead and call the police’’ - She threatened through her teeth, her jaw so tight that it started to hurt after she put herself in between the little ball that Taehyung had become and the man when he tried to kick the boy. The guy laughed a humorless laugh claiming that he was just defending himself from an aggressive stray dog and that the police couldn’t do anything about it, Autumn could see right through his lies. - Oh, yeah? let us see what they say when we show them the security tapes.’’ - Was all she had to say for his face to go pale and for his friends to finally step up and retrieve him, whispering a reluctant apology before disappearing, the crowd that had formed disappearing with them.-

 It was then that Autumn had the chance to focus on Taehyung's state. Haneul was already by his side, crying his name over and over to no avail, he was curled on that corner in fetal position, barely breathing, trying to move as little as physically possible and the sight crushed her heart to pieces… She sat on the ground next to him, ignoring the noisy looks she was getting and dismissing the complaints of the security guards of the mall about public disturbance with a heated look and a sharp comment about them just looking past the abusive display that had him in that state. 

 ‘’ Hey sweetheart’’ - Her voice was barely above a whisper when she tentatively placed a hand on his back, he didn’t flinch or move in any form whatsoever to acknowledge her presence, but she knew that any sudden move would frighten him. She was grateful that HaNeul had calmed down, she was probably exhausted from the whole ordeal, her little sobs the only sound heard from her as she curled against her mom’s side with her face partially hidden against her neck. Autumn’s hand started tracing patterns in Taehyung’s back after a couple minutes of no response. ‘’Hey honey boy, you are safe now’’ - She whispered, dedicating him her best attempt of a smile when he finally uncovered his face to look at her. His face devoid of any emotion, but as realization hit him his eyes filled with tears. She softly pulled his head towards her allowing him to hide his face on the other side of her neck, her scent immediately filling his senses, he started sobbing when he felt the little chubby hands of a five year old petting his ears. He let go of everything, he had never cried after an assault before, at least not in the scene, not right away, he didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction, but right there, in between their arms, with their comforting scents and Autumn’s calming touch and words, he felt the safest he had felt in forever. -

 ‘’ Yoongi, I need your help...There is nothing to worry about. I just need to get the paperwork for sponsorship and I don’t want to go through a shelter to get them… Yeah, I know, I’m 100% sure this is what I want to do...thank you so much! Tell Hobi I love him… and I love you too even if you can’t say it back, Yoongs. I’ll see you guys soon." - Autumn ended the call with a lighter heart, she knew what she needed to do and the sight of the sleeping boy holding a sleeping Haneul in his arms both of them tightly hugging each other in the back seat of her car, just served to reaffirm her decision. Taehyung was already part of her little family, and he fitted right in, like a piece of a puzzle she didn’t realize was incomplete.

 …

 " Not this time, little one. You need to go to school, Tata will be waiting for you to play afterwards, ok?" - After 10 solid minutes at the kindergarten's door, Haneul finally gave up on convincing her mom to let her skip class to spend time with her best friend, she waved sadly to the boy sitting in the front passenger seat. Autumn send a silent plea to the teacher as she took her daughter's hand, asking to keep an eye on her, she had called Mrs. Lee and explained the bullying issue so all the teachers were notified and asked to be more careful regarding the matter.-

 " The house is all yours, there is lots of food in the fridge and here…". - She pulled out a phone from her backpack- "I just changed my phone last week, so you can use this one until we get you a new one, it's not the most advanced one but it will do the trick. My number is already saved there, if anything happens or you have any questions, call me, ok? " - He nodded, he tried to convince himself that he was prepared for this, she had told him that she would be going to work on Tuesday because Monday was a holiday that he couldn't remember the name of but that he was really grateful for because it granted him another full day with Autumn and Haneul. But the truth was that he wanted to cry at the prospect of being all by himself after getting so used to their presence during the last 3 days. It was actually concerning to him how attached he had become in such a short time, he had lived in the streets for a whole year by himself before meeting them, but now a few hours seemed like too long.-

 "When are you… When are you coming back? " - She sensed his distress and started to feel guilty for letting him by himself so soon after bringing him home, but there was not a lot she could do if she wanted to make sure that all of their needs were covered. - " I'll pick Haneul up at 4pm so we will be here at around 4:30pm, time will fly and before you notice we will be back!" -She tried her best to cheer him up, only getting a hesitant nod as a response before she had to go. - 

 " Noona, is your lover boy again!" - Jimin shouted from the main room where Autumn had left her phone by mistake. She rolled her eyes but the soft smile that danced on her lips betrayed her, Jimin was as cheeky as they could get and after 6 years of friendship his antics didn’t really surprise her anymore. She took what was probably Taehyung’s 6th call that day, she could feel that he was getting more and more restless. The first few calls were filled with shy questions about where to find certain things in the house but by now she knew that he was just feeling lonely and probably just wanted to hear a familiar voice.- 

 Taehuyng kept telling himself that he knew that this was going to happen, that he shouldn’t be surprised and should be thankful that whoever was in charge of his destiny had been considerate enough to let him enjoy his time with the most amazing people he had ever met even if it was just for a few days. And even when something in him tried to point out how irrational he was being, he couldn’t help it, he couldn’t help how much it hurt him. They weren't coming back, they were leaving him behind. Autumn had said they were coming back at 4:30pm but it was already past 6pm and they weren’t home, his phone had died a few hours ago, so he couldn’t call them to apologise and beg for them to come back. He felt utterly helpless.

 Ah, he was going back to the streets faster than he expected and for a second he wondered if it would be easier to die than to go back to that life after having a taste of this piece of Heaven… The stubborn tears rolled down his face without his permission.

 …

 ‘’ That’s enough, honey bear. We need to hurry. We have left Tata alone for too long, he probably misses you a ton!’’ - At this the little girl’s eyes widened and now she is almost running to the cashier. Autumn cursed herself for being so careless, she had decided to stop for take out and after mentioning a movie night to Haneul she would quiet down about buying popcorn and movie treats, by the time she realized how late it was, she knew that Taehuyng was probably worried sick and by the sound of it, his phone probably died and he didn't know where to find the charger, which was also her fault, her conscience reminded her.

 "Taehyung? Sweetheart, we are really sorry, you probably were… Hmp" - She was getting used to being interrupted mid sentence and hit full force by his body as he embraced her. This time though, it wasn't excitement what had rushed him over to her, if the wetness on her shoulder and the violent sobs that he was trying to suppress were any indication.-

  "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I promise I'll be a good boy from now on, I won’t call you while you are at work and I will do whatever you say, just please don’t leave me’’ - Autumn wanted to join the crying party when Haneul started crying too, not really understanding what was going on but pleading not to leave Taehyung.- "Hey, hey, calm down, shhh, calm down honey boy, nobody is leaving." - After around 10 minutes of soft whispers and comforting caressing, Autumn felt Taehuyng start to calm down.- "Can you show me your face Pup" - The endearing name made him blush but he complied after a few seconds. As soon as his eyes rested on her face again he wanted to cry once more, he kept thinking that he really didn’t want to give up this time, but her eyes were so full of loving care and concern that he wondered for a second if there was any way to really change that, to really mess up enough to change that look in her eyes. It seemed impossible and the thought comforted him. - 

 ‘’ I wasn’t planning on telling you about it like this but the last thing I want you to believe is that you are not wanted here’’ - Autumn lovingly cleaned his faces with the paws of her sweater, the man before her was an overgrown puppy and it warmed her heart to think that he was about to officially become a member of her family. She took him and HaNeul to the sofa, the little girl quickly finding a place to sit on his lap.- ‘’ I’ve been thinking about this ever since we offered you to stay with us’’ - She started to feel anxious, fidgeting with her fingers, unable to look at him in the eye which in return made him nervous too, he holded Haneul a little closer to him, finding comfort in the little one’s scent. - ‘’ I would like to be your sponsor… ‘’ - 

 Anxiety creeped over her as she noticed the way his body tensed, and the silence that followed, she hated the fact that even after the approval of laws an all of the social movements to grant Hybrids some sort of independence, their rights were still attached to the will of another person, they were granted the possibility to become an independent citizen just after a 3 year sponsorship process for hybrids over 18 years old, which meant that in order for them to fully gain their freedom they had to depend on the rights of an sponsor and at the end of the 3 years, the sponsor could decide whether the Hybrid deserved citizenship or if the probationary period needed to be extended. It was sickening the amount of people that took advantage of this process to practically slave their hybrids. But it was still better than the owner title that some still insisted on keeping- 

 The last time Taehyung had accepted an sponsorship deal, he had to run away from an abusive household right before the sponsorship deal was over, he knew that they were not going to keep their end of the deal and would probably keep him hostage until he was no longer useful for them, that’s how he ended in the streets a year ago after living his whole life in a shelter, never being adopted as a kid, always too hyper or too clumsy or too odd for the family. He had never really had a family to call his own after his parents died when he was around Haneul’s age. He would be lying if he said that the idea of having another sponsor scared him but right there, with the two girls that had stolen his heart patiently waiting for him, he could imagine a future for the first time and that made all the difference. 

 ‘’ Yes, please... ‘’ - The eagerness in his voice made Autumn smile, that soft smile that had become his favorite in such a short time making his heart race - ‘’ I’ll arrange things with my friend’s attorney later, but right now we have a movie night to get started with’’ - The excited scream that came from Haneul who had zoned out of the conversation a while ago, finding Taehyung’s tail way more interesting, had both of them laughing their hearts out.- 

[winterhawkremix]

The time has come!

The collection has been opened up and all of the fics we have received are now available to be read... except no one knows who wrote what!

Here’s the full list of all the remixes that were created for this year’s Winterhawk Remix in alphabetical order. There are 18 fics in total, so that should keep you all going for a while, and maybe you’ll rediscover some old favourites when you see what has been remixed!

Note that, while we’ve included ratings, to conserve space, we have not included tags, so make sure you check them out when you click through! Fic responsibly, folks.

And now, without further ado...

Go forth and read!

[Remix of] Is That The Fangs I Get? (Rating: Teen) A remix of @downwarddnaspiral’s Is That the Fangs I Get? “He does know, right?” “Know what?” “That I’m a vampire.” “Oh! Yeah. He’d have to, right?” Behind Bars (On The Other Side Remix) (Rating: Explicit) A remix of @captn-sara-holmes’s Behind Bars If Clint had known that hooking up with his cellmate would lead to escaping prison, making it all the way to Wakanda without being recaptured, and convincing King T'Challa and Captain America to let him stay once he got there, then he'd...well, he'd probably still have kissed the guy. Bucky was smoking hot, after all. Clint just really hopes he doesn't get mad when he finds out that Clint's been telling everyone he's Bucky boyfriend. Bottom of the Sea (just don’t go without me remix) (Rating: Teen) A remix of @verdantmoth’s bottom of the sea It was on his way out that he saw it. It looked pretty innocuous, like a bedroll or someone's discarded coat, but he knew it as soon as he saw it. His mom's had looked the same way, too long unworn and faded around the edges, but still silky smooth and beautiful in the right light. Clint limped over and grabbed the skin, draping it over his arms as best he could, trying not to touch it too much with his hands and the crusted-in blood under his fingernails. By Faith Alone (Rating: Teen) A remix of @badacts’ sola fide Bucky's daemon knows full well what he wants, but it's going to take a while for his head to get onboard with his heart.

Fractured, a Splintered Remix (Rating: Explicit) A remix of @flawedamythyst’s Splintered Clint touches something mystical at Dr. Strange's place and next thing Bucky knows, there are four extra Clints running around. He takes it upon himself to gather them up and help them come to some important realizations about the world. You know. Sexually. I dreamed I held you in my arms (Rating: Teen) A remix of @fadedsepia’s Like Sunshine He’s just about managed to focus on the mission, mentally reviewing the details of the target, when Clint strolls out of the bathroom, long and lean and — “You’re wearing that?” James finds himself saying. Clint stops short as he loops the purple aid around his ear and presses the earmold in, sky-blue eyes wide and startled. “Yeah? Why — is there something wrong with it?” James can’t help himself, his eyes wandering the slow course from head to toe. The dress shirt is mustard-yellow, linen so fine that it’s practically transparent. The collar is unbuttoned almost midway, showing the sharp jut of Clint’s collarbone and a slice of freckled chest below. The residual steam from the shower is already making the fabric cling to Clint’s incredible musculature. It’s fucking obscene. i hope i'll see you when it's light (the remix) (Rating: Teen) A remix of @nightwideopen’s i hope i’ll see you when it’s light After the fifth time they sleep together, Clint knows he’s in too deep. I Still Choose You (The Public Domain Remix) (Rating: Teen) A remix of @1000-directions’ i don’t have a choice (but i still choose you) Clint really didn't intend to do anything more than make a joke, but when his stupid 'soulmate' comment gets posted on social media, he ends up in a fake relationship with the one person he wishes really were his soulmate. Just Being Neighbourly (The Remix) (Rating: Teen) A remix of @mariana-oconnor’s Just Being Neighbourly Bucky can’t remember the last time he worked this hard to get somebody’s attention. He lowered the beaters into the mixing bowl with the speed setting turned up a little too fast, making his batter fling up in tiny flecks. “Jesus, again? What are you baking for now?” “Shut up, Stevie, and hand me the vanilla, damn it.” Make You Feel At Ease (Rating: General) A remix of @tintedglasses’ tell you truth, but never goodbye Just because it was Memorial Day and things in the past had definitely not been as kind to Bucky as they should have been didn’t mean that Steve needed to worry. But he also knew that man deserved a whole lot more good than that world had decided to give him. Novel Recognition (Rating: Teen) A remix of @lissadiane’s Blame It On Bad Luck Bucky tries to ignore the sudden change, the words that push to the surface of his skin some time between getting off work and getting Steve’s rail-thin ass up the stairs without falling or bruising any more of his best friend’s ribs, but… Why the fuck would it show up now? Bucky Barnes finally has a soulmate; someone he knows, but has yet to meet. Organic Chemistry (the remix of Improper Fractions) (Rating: Explicit) A remix of @cloud--atlas’s Improper Fractions Natasha's got a hot new roomate, and Clint's got a staring problem. The guy's a science teacher for fucks' sake. But if Clint doesn't get to suck his dick, he might actually die. Personal Security (Let's Go Steal Ourselves a Remix) (Rating: Teen) A remix of @kangofu-cb’s Personal Security Whatever his intentions, right now Clint’s a thief and a liar, and Bucky has worked hard to leave this kind of life behind him. It wouldn’t be fair to make a move right now. Push and Pull (Rating: Mature) A remix of @flowerparrish’s hey there, demons Bucky really wasn't expecting to see his one night stand at work the next day. right here, empty for days [a Written On My Heart remix] (Rating: Not Rated) A remix of @supervillainny’s Written on My Heart Soulmarks are funky lil' things. He can’t feel the lines on his skin, doesn’t know they’re there until he spots them. (Sometimes he thinks that’s a bit of a fluke on fate's part. What happens if ya miss ‘em? Or ya can’t see ‘em? Maybe fate knows though, which ones are meant to be seen.) safe and sound (finally safe remix) (Rating: Teen) A remix of @loonyloopylisa’s Finally Safe “I’m so sorry,” Clint says and it feels inadequate, but he doesn’t know what else to say. He thought he had a rough time waking up in that HYDRA cell, but at least he woke up somewhere else. He can’t imagine what it would be like to wake up in the same place he went to sleep, knowing that there’s no one else out there for him. “It wasn’t rare,” Bucky says, ducking his head slightly. “It was the thirties and healthcare wasn’t great and so it wasn’t rare for people’s soulmates to die before either of them reached twenty-one.” Bucky swallows hard again, his voice the quietest it’s been when he says, “But I guess I just never thought that it could happen to me.” susurrus (the one touch to know remix) (Rating: Teen) A remix of @drgrlfriend’s A Murmur in the Trees Sam Wilson has a nice place. It’s also conveniently located across the street from a small park with several old, heavily-in-leaf trees with an excellent vantage of his windows. Clint, settled high in the canopy in the vee between two sturdy branches, watches a weary, limping Cap arrive fresh from the hospital through binoculars. It’s embarrassing that this is what his life has come to. take a snapshot (dirty laundry remix) (Rating: Explicit) A remix of @thescarletwitch’s Take a Snapshot (If It Makes You Feel More At Home) You know this is basically soft porn, right?” Clint murmurs with a sly grin, cupping his own dick through his pants before shaking his head and laughing. Clint, like Clint Barton. Like the Avenger. Fuckin’ Hawkeye, for fuck’s sake. The not-so-secret love of Bucky’s very gay life. “Nothing soft about it,” Bucky mutters to himself. Clint and Bucky get dirty at the laundromat.

-

Author reveals will take place on 30th June. Until then, have fun reading and enjoy the mystery!