#wanted it to be more inspired by the gay one

[tiredsmashbros]

SMG34: LIPBITE COMIC WIP UPDATE

oh boy... i know a bunch of folks are hyped for this comic... and boy oh boy are ya'll's prayers going to be heard... kind of... butt for the celebration milestone, and granted majority are from this comic, i thought it was best to give EVERYTHING that i have currently.

starting off STRONG with what you freaks most want: the completed pages. andddd yep that's it that all that i have done LMAO. i've been fixated on my own smg4 oc: tsb, and during the end of my summer was unfortunately fucked over by some personal issues that fortunately got resolved last minute good grief the anxiety prevented me from drawing the gays sigh... aNYWAYS LINEART WIPS!!!!

here are linearts i have completed / in the progress of!! want to aim like i did in the past by finishing up lineart first, and then speed through with color + minor rendering. the reason i have a few colored is to test out what it would look polished and my god... i have improved A LOT. THESE GAY PEOPLE GIVE POWER I AM NOT KIDDING BELIEVE ME IM NOT CRAY- anyways onto wip pages!

jumpscare: tsb stickman sketches. oh yeah. this is how i sketch and i blame sensei eiichiro oda /j. and in case anyone is unable to understand it {i don't blame u LMAO}, smg4 wakes up from the dream and is startled to see mario by his bed. they have a short convo before mario leaves, and we get a job to smg4 in the bathroom trying to put up a brave face. until the moment he leaves he's stunned due to seeing smg3 at his front door. will i elaborate more on specifics or unwritten dialogue? NOPE! gotta keep secrets to make it even more enjoyable at the end!!

currently at 13 sketched pages total, but this is probably gonna be reaching towards 20-ish pages, surpassing part two, but it will depend on how i come up with how to end it. additionally to confirm there will be a PART FOUR / chapter 3, to end this story. my goal is to have it done before i finish my senior year, or at least during the summer after i graduate bc good lord who knows whats gonna happen.

and lastly, before i end this crazy update, SCRAPPED PAGESSS!!!!!

CONTENT WARNING : NSFW SKETCHES !!!! PLEASE LOOK AWAY IF YOU ARE A MINOR OR DON'T LIKE THIS TYPE OF STUFF!!!

oh boy... dont draw comics while sleep-deprived at 6am... idek what i was even aiming with this ngl other than just for fun, but i scrapped it due to not being what i had in mind for the story. if it doesn't serve a purpose or narrative, its bye bye YEAH BYE BYE THIS IS THE CLOSEST NSFW UR GONNA GET FROM ME HAHAHAHAHA- i say that despite writing a nsfw jojo wattpad smh im only confident doing it in words good lord. btw not watermarking these bc i gen don't care since they're legit scrapped {left top part was kept and completed} so idk what to do with these. im just throwing it and walkin away

now to end with this update, i can hear your question, "when will this be done?" and to answer that question: i'm not entirely sure due to my heavy focus on my smg4 oc: tsb, but my best chance is postponing my oc lore a bit and complete this before november UOIYGJDSIUHJKDWSXYUGHJKCS but we shall have too see...

if you want to join the ping list comment on this post LMAO [click]

ignore below if you're not from the tsb birthday partydddjdhdhdjd

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thurs: smg34 is canon in the tsb universe / au. though most of their encounters are platonic or best-friendy-way, they eventually express their feelings to one another and start dating 3/4’s way of the tsb storyline arc. tsb is a supporter of his friend's relationship and admires and takes inspiration from their relationship heavily to input his future love life. yearning to be in a similar position... to learn what is to really love someone... or what it's truly like to be loved...

[storytellering]

Do you think DMC has a incestuous subtext? I am kind of new to the franchise (and also the fandom... Which isn't really respectful that I can see) and I want to know if I am not the only one who thinks that it's pretty obvious why the ships between DVN have many believers.

First of all, welcome to DMC, anon! And OH BOY, you'll definitely find that that's the majority opinion, at least within the Spardacest circles - honestly, most "normie" circles too. Every grass-touching, non-internet poisoned dudebro I've ever met and talked dmc with has made one or two incest jokes at me about it, definitely noting how the rivalry between the twins is very charged - the only people I've found who flat out deny it are the antis. To go more in depth about the actual subtext there - well, one should start with the roots of dmc in dmc1, right? DMC1 is definitely a gothic game - it's everywhere in the aesthetics, the inspirations, the imagery and the environment, and what is gothic horror without the incest? The initial incest in Kamiya's dmc, before Itsuno stepped in, was definitely obvious in Dante and Trish (who I'm pretty sure according to kamiya at least were supposed to be endgame) - and like, c'mon. You can say all you want that she only looks like his mom, she isn't actually Eva, she doesn't even have her personality... but from a moral perspective, that's still weird as fuck if we're going by real life standards, right? You wouldn't fuck a clone of your mom without it being at least a little bit incestuous.

Then Itsuno stepped in from 3 on, and the incestuous undertones became more focused on the immediate Sparda family - the twins, and eventually, Nero.

...Do I need to even explain it? Sure, in 3 the twins bicker and banter like real brothers, but there's definitely a suggestive edge to it - so many quips between them that really cannot be explained by "oh haha brotherly banter" without it getting at least a little bit weird. Not to mention all the "impalement as penetration" comparisons that can be drawn, and I'll leave a nice little video that goes deeper into a lot of that (as well as the gothic inspirations in the dmc franchise) so you can hear it from the mouth of someone far more eloquent than me.

And then in 4... I mean, if the amount of people who almost ubiquitously shipped Dante and Nero as soon as 4 dropped and continued doing so until 5 officially confirmed their relation (which, to be fair, Nero being Dante's nephew had actually been hinted at all along, but exactly because of so many people shipping them and not wanting it to be incestuous/the dudebros not liking Nero very much when 4 was new, pretty much everyone in the english speaking side of the fandom had been in denial about it until 5 spelled it out in big, bold letters) is kind of the test, no? That the tension and chemistry is so obvious the moment the incest element is hidden or unclear, everyone is suddenly in agreement about it. I could go on and on and on about Nero's obvious puppy crush/hero worship on Dante, Dante's immediate fondness of Nero, how if you read the 4 novels it's even more blatant and in your face... but all I'm gonna say is that that initial fight scene was softcore porn and no one can convince me otherwise, lmao. Listen, I'm just saying that if the intention wasn't to be suggestive, having Nero wrap his legs around Dante to pull him closer, bite his gun, and then straddle him like that was a very poor choice. Honorable mention for the reboot, whose devs were VERY aware of the tension between the Spardas in the og franchise, called it out by saying their game wasn't gonna do "all that gay shit" (obviously in the early 2010s the issue wasn't the incest, but it being GAY incest 🙄) and then accidentally made their version of the twins SO very....... whatever the hell is going on with the reboot twins. Not not-incestuous and definitely not straight, I'll tell you that.

And then 5, again. Do I need to explain it? Nero and V are, once again, a perfect textbook example of "couple that had so much natural chemistry everyone was flocking to it before it was revealed to be incest", plus the way everything about Dante's story, at the end, now that he's a weathered old man, is made to revolve around Vergil... yes, Dante is a depressed old alcoholic because he pushed everyone away, because of the laundry list of issues he ended up with because of everything that happened in his life, BUT Vergil was always front and center within it, even when he wasn't there. That Dante's story quite literally begins and ends with Vergil... well. I dunno about you, that just doesn't feel like your regular siblings dynamic. Also another honorable mention: "I'll make you submit" is a totally normal thing to say to your estranged father. Not weird at all with absolutely zero implications. OH, not to mention, even if we stay purely within canon and don't even look deeper at any implications or subtext... the literal only canon couple is incestuous, too. Let's not forget Kyrie and Nero are adopted siblings, Nero was raised as her brother, and the game itself calls it out in the character descritption (in 4's character bios it says Kyrie is at once Nero's "lover and family") + it's quite literally spelled out in the novels (having Nero think that "well, while it's true that he's been raised with Kyrie as siblings, he would've liked her even if they weren't family"). There's SO much more I could still go into, I have quite literally spent the past 3 years replaying the games over and over and overthinking/hyperanalizing every single frame, rereading the novels and the mangas to the point I could cite them by memory, and it's just... I dunno. I saw someone else say this somewhere, but if you're into DMC and grossed out by incest... this might not be the franchise for you.

[sunnymainecoonx]

I was goin to say "man I'm rambling a lot" but then remembered I have birth so I am legally allowed to ramble however I want

Anyways I think Dream and Nightmare should grow up in a gendered, homophobic society. Because that's silly... and it's also silly considering how lgbt+ inclusive Undertale and its multiverse is....... them discovering these things................ anyways, monsters and humans live side by side. Essentially, no one sees any difference in the other species, minimum racism!! Still, humans have the most power, and by having the most power they are pushing their standards onto the monsters.

A lot of monsters are gender defying, so if they're born without any indication of gender the parents can quite literally just pick a gender for their child, and the child is forced to stay that gender. To indicate genders, they use clothes or perhaps makeup for girls, stereotypical things ig. And humans also say they have to like opposite gender, liking the same gender is atrocious and probably also illegal!!

These things also end up getting pushed onto the twins, at first having no sense of gender in the first place but then the villagers decided they're boys(they don't have anything typical to indicate they're girls, so it's a quick assumption). Tbh I think they'd just roll with it, we use pronouns now(he/him) and ye that's cool. The villagers push their societal norms onto the twins, and now they both have internalised homophobia!1 Nightmare less so than Dream. This is fun bc I like gay Dream, where in the stories, he likes the knight more than the princess. Not in an inspiration way, but in a crush way. And he's so freaked out and disgusted by himself...

Nightmare doesn't care too much about this. It's the norm anyways, he's like, probably used to it and stuff idk. Anyways then the whole incident happens and then erm Nightmares out in the multiverse. He's like, woah. I thought these things were disgusting and weird and illegal but I guess not. He doesn't learn more than a few basics because god there are so many details to all of this... Then we have Dream in the multiverse, and finding out it's normal he's like, trying to be so respectful. He's meant to be positive yk. His internalised homophobia.. sighs... but he's also very gay, bro would never admit it but.

Ye anyways idk I just like where erm idk smth about character development....

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

I'm aroacespec (and honestly confused about where I fall on that spectrum, but I do know I'm sex/romance favorable) and tbh my relationship with shipping is weird.

There are some ships I look at and I'm like "how can you see this as anything but romantic" and there are other ships where I'm like "okay but why do we have to ship them, can't they just be friends?" and it's almost always the total opposite of what the fandom majority's view is. For example, my Sonic "how can you see this as anything but romantic" ship is Espilver, and my "okay but why do we have to ship them, can't they just be friends?" ship is Silvaze.

I will say that something I've noticed is there tends to be a double-standard with allo people (specifically cishet people) when it comes to ships. You get a ton of "why can't they just be friends" with slash and femslash ships, but then those same people will ship a het pairing that look at each other in a single frame. I don't know if it's something that's more obvious to me because I'm gay myself (or even if it's more obvious because I'm aroacespec specifically), but it's weird to me. I choose to look at it this way: if this was a het ship with the same character dynamic, would people still say "why can't they just be friends?"

That's not to say aroace people are in the wrong for looking at a pairing and saying "can't they just be friends? Why do we have to ship them?" but with a lot of cishet people specifically, it feels like there's a lot of people perpetuating a borderline homophobic double-standard. I get it when it's something like Scott and Jay from Ninjago, but so many masc characters' dynamics are canonically given homoerotic or even just romantic undertones (a good example of this being, in my opinion, Sonadow; there's not an almost 3 and a half hour long Sonadow iceberg video on YouTube for no reason. As far as I'm aware it's the longest Sonic-related iceberg video on YouTube that covers exclusively official content) which is why people tend to gravitate towards those ships. I could do an entire analysis on why gay ships tend to have bigger followings than het ships but if I did this would get too long lmao. I will once again point to the Sonadow iceberg video though.

I generally use shipping to explore my own relationship with my aroace-ness, and usually I do that using characters I either headcanon as aroace in some way or who are canonically aroace, because I can relate to those experiences. It's kinda weird to me to see other aroace people acting like doing that is bad or wrong, because usually that's what people are doing, and even if that's not what's going on, fanfiction doesn't affect canon.

There is no right or wrong way to participate in fandom (unless you're harassing people and/or actively putting people in danger), no matter what you identify as.

Basically: People should be allowed to do what they want, if something bothers you that bad there's nothing wrong with blocking a person or tag.

(I might've gotten off subject a few times, sorry lol)

Okay, that thing about blocking tags inspired me to look through my blocked tags to see what ships I've blocked and here's my petty aroace thoughts on all of them without naming names lmao

Fanon het ship. They've never given any indication that they know of each other's existence. Her girlfriend is right there.

Canon het ship. Had the chemistry of two wet paper bags. Literally just shoehorned in there because god forbid any story exist without a romance subplot.

Semi-canon het ship. I'm mostly neutral about them. Just unnecessary.

Fanon mlm ship. Literally brothers?? I don't care that one of them is adopted, they grew up together?? As brothers??

Fanon het ship. I don't care what you call their relationship. You can call it professional, platonic, familial, just please don't call it romantic.

Semi-canon het ship. Again, completely unnecessary. God forbid a man convince a woman to become a villain without there being ~attraction~

Fanon het ship. She is 14?? And he is like 30??

Semi-semi-canon het ship. He did have a crush on her when he was, like, 14 but he's a grown adult now and she's the most lesbian-looking woman to ever exist and they're the most found family siblings to ever find a family

Fanon het ship. LET MEN AND WOMEN BE FRIENDS. LET MEN AND WOMEN BE PLATONICALLY MARRIED.

Fanon mlm ship. I personally see them more as brothers. But whatever floats your boat.

Semi-canon het ship. Just really shoehorned. I don't like the woman very much. I liked her more when she was allowed to be a badass without being a ~flirty badass~

Fanon mlm ship. Again. Adopted brothers. Gross.

Canon het ship. I've seen many things from this director. He's a creative man. He couldn't think of a way to move the plot forward without a smooch?? He couldn't create a series that didn't have an unnecessary love triangle??

Semi-canon het ship. The man isn't coming back for S2 and boy folly gee am I glad

Fanon het ship. Not my cup of tea. Just let them be friends

good lord I have a lot more ship tags blocked than I thought

anyway, this is your daily reminder to just block stuff you don't want to see and move on

[edgelord-png]

redid my jane design because i wasnt happy with the last one, here's a quick sketch of that w/ a filter and the original colors

[rainbowpufflez]

“We belong together

Lying here forever

In the cold, cold, cold”

You’ll never believe which gays Bo’s drawing again

Song inspo if anyone wants it (aka uh-oh I gotta add another song to their playlist)

[trentcrimminallybeautiful]

yknow i enjoy tedependent as much as the next guy, and i get the temptation, i truly do, but i think implying or outright saying trent imploded his career and told the truth about giving up his source only or mainly because he had romantic feelings for ted takes away from what actually happened there?? like. him being willing to throw away his career and in such a spectacular way (not just quitting but actually probably fucking his chances of working further as a journalist at all, i gather) wasn't necessarily a rom-com moment in the sense that it was for ted or about his feelings for ted alone. it was about himself, his own growing dissatisfaction with the toxic world of sports journalism and the kind of writing he was doing, the desire for "something deeper". that's not to say there's no tedependent take on this, or that hypothetical feelings for ted couldn't or didn't play a role. but like, it's also about his own character development, even if it is driven by ted (as many of the characters' developments are)

[cyellolemon]

On a more serious note i'm super proud if the improvement i had this year, i just want to keep going for 2024!

I'd also like to draw more backgrounds, i almost haven't drawn any this year (mostly in my webcomic which is good already but i used to draw more)

i want to be better at compostion

Use more various color palettes

And have fun ig,, i had a lot of fun with art this year :))

[wetbananapeel]

First gourd (and radish) I carved in my life 31 October 2019

[hyenasheep]

[amtrak12]

*runs back to Tumblr dash and slips it over my mouth like an oxygen mask*

*gasping*

You don't even know what they're doing out there, you guys. Those fans… okay, those fans, eeeeee :S ….. They want to punish Eve for kind-of-definitely instigating a demon mutiny after her boyfriend broke up with her -- WHEN WE ALL KNOW SHE'S VALID FOR THAT! Even if it wasn't her very first break up in the history of humanity, she's a woman with really pretty brown eyes! That's an automatic get-out-of-jail free card in TV land, we all know that. Don't we all know that!??

(Breathe, breathe)

*slips mask back on*

*rips it back off*

Oh, but then -- BUT THEN YOU SEE! -- these same people also want to woobify Michael and make him a misunderstood twin instead of the shittiest angel to ever shit. HE FUCKING KILLED CHLOE!!! Stabbed her right in the gut with a super blunt object so it probably hurt like a bitch on top of the dying! So how is him being played by the same actor as Lucifer make him redeemable? Huh? HUH?? RIDDLE ME THIS BATMAN!! Why is it oh so fucking sad that MICHAEL, the evil scum, was treated appropriately as scum in the show, but MY FUCKING BEAUTIFUL EVE WHO NEVER DID ANYTHING WRONG IN HER LIFE is the true criminal who should have obviously been punished after S4 if the writers knew anything?

THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD?! 😱😫😭

[smol-grey-tea]

Secret Ending Three - Chapter Five: We Think We Know You

Don't judge books by their covers!!

The wind bites my face as we exit the cafe. The owner led the way, paws in hand, leaving myself and the red head following. She and her bear fall into conversation, pointing out every shop on the way and explaining everything in great detail.

It is impossible to describe the experience of watching her. She is someone with an undeniably one-track mind, incredibly simple in a strangely charming way. Her round and soft, gentle features dance in the midst of her excitement, hopping slightly and with a permanent beam from ear to ear.

I'm not sure how I might handle it if I'm to lose this sight. Watching is satisfactory, but not at all enough, especially after how much our relationship has grown, and us along with it. My appreciation for my owner has only brightened since becoming human and I don't see it's light dimming any time soon. I am determined to win this war with the other dolls.

The other dolls... I do hope that my apology earlier today was to the owner's liking, as well as her bear's. I want to make the best impression I can of myself, not just for my own sake, but so that the new addition to our family may feel at home too.

However, if I'm to ensure my success, I can't just focus on displaying my own strengths, but assessing the competition as well. My attention is drawn to my right, where Red walks beside me, slightly faster than myself. I'd tell him to slow down, but I'm not sure he's physically capable of that. My shins hurt to keep up with him, still.

He looks at me, looking at him, and cracks an awkward smile. I blink back. It's hard to know how to act around the others already, but even more now that all of them have dated the same girl I have.

I've noticed a considerable change in Red since the realities converged and it's changed our relationship. Or it will, at least. In truth, we haven't been alone together until now. We've slept in the same bedroom already of course, but being asleep or busy is hardly time to get to know someone.

Despite this, I've made the observations that Red is now more level headed and less hyperactive than he was before. He also has a notably weaker obsession with that cartoon though. I'm not sure I've even heard him mention it once yet.

What exactly occurred in his version of events? He's rarer and has much stronger of a personality than mine, but he has always been slow and positively delusional. What specifically made the owner choose him over me in that reality, and how can I prevent it from happening again?

"So, Lance." I was running through several ways to interrogate my rival, but he began the conversation before I could even decide on a topic to start with. "You guys never explained about that cross dressing thing. What did they mean?"

Oh... That again...

"... I have already explained that it is none of your concern... And besides, it's not as big of a deal as people are making it seem. I simply took actions to prevent someone else in taking the owner's first kiss in my version of reality. That is all."

"... Really?" A laugh played on his lips as he scratched his cheek at my answer. "And you dressed up as a girl to do that? I assumed someone forced you into it or something. It doesn't sound like something you would do just for fun."

"I did not do it for fun. The version of yourself in my reality was there, and he did not find it very fun either. I can assure you."

"Okay..." This conversation mortifies me, but the look on the red head's stunned face as he assumedly tries to imagine such a situation is exceptionally amusing.

"On the topic of that though," I said to change the subject as we rounded a corner where our destination was finally in sight. "Did you also act in that nonsensical play in your world?"

"I did actually!" His entire face lit up at the mention of the play, as expected. "And so did the Heroine!" Unfortunately, also just as expected. Had he achieved what I had tried to prevent in my own world?

"It was so fun! You only signed her up for the play for her safety, since she'd been attacked by some girls before that, and the drama club members always walk home together. But when she started attending it with me, it was like it was always meant to be.

"It was difficult sometimes, but I think the practicing the lines over and over really helped bring her memories back when she was struggling with losing them. It felt like I'd really accomplished something good when I finally went up on stage with her and performed after working so hard to get it right. I hope we'll be able to do it again in the future."

This man is awfully good at talking endlessly, especially about such pointless things... It struck me as a surprise to hear that I was the one to sign the owner up for that ridiculous play in Red's version of events. He didn't pester her to join, but it was instead my own decision? In what kind of danger could she possibly have been that I would agree to such idiocy..? I dread to think.

But the rest of this news doesn't sound good either. Because I was the one who decided it, of course the owner would join a club she has no personal interest or experience in. Maybe the appeal that Red has for her is that the two of them are, in some ways, equally as slow as each other.

Two slow people in love... It's at least cute on Eri. On Red, it's... Well...

"We're here!" my owner calls. In front of us stands the stationery shop we were looking for. I admit that it lifts my spirits to see a place so organised.

"Let's go in then," I say, greatly looking forward to the venture. I say this to Red, but upon hearing no response, I turn around to realise that he is nowhere I can see him.

I am left, standing alone outside the shop. I scan my surroundings, but see no trace of him.

If I could have it my way, I'd say good riddance. The owner must have grown quite close to him after how much time they spent together in the drama club. Plus, because he helped her overcome her memory loss issues, she may even feel indebted to him, or even obligated to choose him as her one true love.

A simple minded, slow man with ridiculous dreams and aspirations, yet a vibrant personality. A man who enjoys showing off and effortlessly exceeds at entertaining a crowd of people atop a stage. A man who cures the owner's magical illness without even trying. A man who has never known struggle, who successes come to with ease.

As expected, he is someone to be very wary of in this fight for the right to stand by the owner's side. I should be careful not to let my guard down around fierce competition such as himself.

As I'm about to give up and follow Eri into the shop, I catch the sound of Red's voice behind me and instead make haste to find it's source. I end up walking back the way we came for a moment before finding him seated in an alley, similar to how Yeonho was found when he was chasing that cat.

In this instance though, Red was not kneeling in front of a cat, but in front of someone who was bundled up in warm clothes, seated on a sheet of cardboard under the overhanging roof of an abandoned restaurant. I hadn't even noticed they were there. I don't think anyone else had either.

But there Red was. He'd bought cookies to go from Banjul when we left, but they were now in his hands, being offered to the complete stranger in front of him. The stranger looked incredibly thankful.

I watched them speak briefly before Red soon returned, looking relieved. Had the person told him they were going to be okay?

"... What were you doing?" I asked him.

"Oh..! Sorry for leaving like that. I just saw that guy and he looked like he needed help."

"Right... That was...very thoughtful. People don't usually think to help."

"Oh, well... It wasn't really that thoughtful... I just know what it's like..."

I know what it's like..? To be...homeless..?

It is impossible to describe the experience of watching him say nothing else and return back on track to the stationery shop with a skip in his step, as though the entire exchange never occurred.

I'm left in a stunned silence. He couldn't possibly have done such a thing to boast about how kind he is; I didn't even know he was doing it. And he never even accepted my regretful attempt at a compliment.

Besides, what could he have meant by knowing what it's like..? I've spent almost the entirety of my human life sharing a bedroom with him, but this only defies all expectations.

What else is there about him that I do not know? This new knowledge of Red makes me feel sick. It brings back the same sickness I felt on the day I performed with him on stage in Eri's stead. And what a wonderful, detestable, life-changing day.

[softgrungeprophet]

one of these days i'll draw some of the other dancers....

[loafingway]

if anyone is interested in following more personal sideblogs of mine, my ffxiv one is @forgeabread and my good omens/general one is @tablerockantichrist 💖🪽

[nerdvi]

In the wake of the whole james somerton fiasco and inspired by this post, I wanted to share a few of my um, soft signs, like, orange flags to detect when someone is bullshitting you.

First of all, I am on the spectrum which means 1) I tend to take what people say at face value and 2) I have a strong sense of justice which makes me prone to biases, all of which combined means I am at perpetual risk of swallowing the bullshit.

So, what to do about it? You turn on the critical thinking and pay attention.

As one of my favorite youtubers, Hannah Alonzo, likes to say: "consider the source, remember the motive". Who is talking to you?? What do you know about them?? What biases might they have?? How do they interact with your own biases?? Where are they talking from?? Is it anger?? happinness? boredom?? Also, why are they talking to you? Are they trying to sell you something?? Are they trying to convince you and why?? How do they go about the finantial motivation, if present? If you have, in this case, a white cis gay man talking to you as it he has it the worst of the worst in the world, there's probably some exaggeration and you should start to wonder. There's a good chance he's bullshitting you.

How they talk about women and POC No, no, stay with me. There's a rule I had back when I was dating men: Always beware of how they treat their mother. With the exception of extremes like mama's boys and cases of abuse, how a man treats the woman with whom they have that familial bond is a good indicator of how they are going to treat you. Do they berate her? speak ill of her? are aggressive or controlling? do they dismiss her opinions? Same with creators, and by god I tell you, specially cis male creators, queer or otherwise, always always beware of how they speak of women, how they treat women, how they treat POC. Somerton had a weird vendetta against straight women. It went mostly unnoticed. Then, he was dismissive towards lesbians and other queer women and it was once again overlooked. Then he went ahead and made sinophobic content about genres and cultures he knows NOTHING about. Again, it went unchecked. What I am telling you is IT'S NOT NORMAL. Contempt about women and non white-western cultures is not normal and if someone has them as them as an enemy or a scapegoat, they're probably bullshitting you. Take what they say and fact check it, see for yourself.

If at any point in a video or an essay you find yourself thinking "wait, really??" then it's time to fact check. Is it a bit suspicious?? is your logic telling you that's not quite how this works?? Then take to google, my friend, they might be bullshitting you. At worst, you dodge a fake fact, at best, you learn way too much about a topic you were already interested in.

Beware of the lack of nuance. I can not stress this enough. We all love monochrome, but life and societal issues are never black and white. It's just impossible, there's too many factors to consider. If you are being presented situations or anecdotes as absolute truths, you're probably being bullshitted. If it's too good to be true, it is. If it sounds waaay too convenient, it probably is. A good researcher, a serious investigator, will always have some nuance because they have done the work and checked the sources. If someone provides you 1) no nuance and 2) no sources, THEY'RE BULLSHITTING YOU.

These are the ones I can come up with just of the top of my head, I'm sure there's more and please, add them. Remember that naivité isn't a crime, I'm fairly naive and that's made me distrustful, and these are some of the techniques I've found that help me navigate through a world of information without losing myself.

[tossawary]

That "even if you're writing a non-canon pairing in fanfiction, you have to respect that these characters will probably still care on a basic level about their original love interest" post was inspired by a lot of things. But foremost inspired by any "Fullmetal Alchemist" fanfiction that tries to convince me that Edward Elric doesn't actually like Winry Rockbell at all.

Like, uh, no. Ed would die for Winry, so jot that down. Even if you're writing an AU where one or both of them are gay, which is fun and fine, Ed and Winry are ride or die for each other. They've known each other for so long. They trust each other so much. When they're arguing with each other or annoying the other, it's because THEY CARE. This is basic characterization for them.

I was amusing myself by thinking about an AU in which Ed's romantic interest is someone like Ling Yao, in which there's some dangerous situation where Ed has to choose between saving Winry (his sister figure in this AU) and saving Ling. I was immediately like, "Oh, he would FOR SURE pick Winry in most scenarios. Sorry, Ling." Which would suck for Ed, because he hates failing to save anyone, but is also funny to think about with Ling specifically, because I think that Ling would actually respect this decision more.

Unlike Winry, Ling is a combatant with bodyguards, and so can be trusted to handle himself in dangerous situations. (Which obviously does not make Ling a BETTER love interest for Ed than Winry, Winry doesn't need to be good at fighting, it's just a different skillset.) Ling is also a leader, someone who wants to be an emperor someday, and I think he has opinions on loyalty. Despite feeling grateful to be saved, I think Ling might think quite poorly of Ed choosing him (a relative stranger, even if he is a legit snack) over Winry (functionally a member of Ed's family / clan, a skilled specialist who is necessary to Ed's own combat capabilities), because Ed sure as shit wouldn't be considering future political advantages with Xing here, so it would be choosing a new love over family / a loyal friend. Depending on the scenario (it all depends on the specific situation for all of these cases), I also think that Ling might choose to save someone like Lan Fan or even Mei Chang over Ed in a lot of situations, especially because Ed would HATE IT SO MUCH if Ling knowingly sacrificed anyone for his sake.

Non-canon pairings and their AUs are interesting to me partially for how they interact with the existing canonical relationships and how they negotiate with canonical motivations. For some characters, romantic relationships are just not as important as familial ones or their own goals. Obviously, for Edward Elric, (depending on the specific situation at hand, of course) he's going to choose Alphonse over nearly anyone else.