#with a fandom that needs more from their pieces of media

[meyerlansky]

>vent about antisemitism in the hbo war fandom last night

>wake up and check activity page

>"oh a few new likes on my mota gifsets from a blog i don't recognize! ...and they followed and unfollowed very quickly. hm."

>check their blog

>literal neonazi shit two posts down

this is what i'm fucking talking about. if you're going to participate in a fanbase for a piece of media that deals directly with wwii in europe, you need to get way better at recognizing neofash propaganda, especially the flavor that valorizes the american war machine and uses media that does the same valorizing—like every hbowar installment—to further their rhetoric. you need to be thinking much more critically about the ways groups like this are using rising antisemitism to disseminate genocidal beliefs to people who otherwise wouldn't find those ideas palatable. you need to be a lot more fucking careful. there is a neonazi presence on this website, and fascist groups WANT images like those in the post i'm talking about to spread without commentary to solidify their ideas in public discourse. you need to be able to recognize it when you see it, and you need to be not only prepared and willing but ACTIVELY SEEKING to shut it the fuck down immediately.

in terms of practical things you can do to learn to recognize fash and nazi propaganda, this document is a good starting point, though it's from 2021 and some of the entries are dated. online fash iconography co-opts things—like the american war machine, as mentioned—that will make it easier for nonfash people to digest, and can be very quick to shift to stay ahead of the public awareness that it IS in fact fascist. staying aware not a one-and-done thing. you have to keep doing it.

[signed-sapphire]

An idea came to mind, how about drawing a crossover between rottmnt and your Wish Au? It could be Michelangelo and Asha sharing their drawings!

My Apple Pencil is back but now my iPad is dead… so take this traditional doodle of TFS!Asha and Rise!Mikey sharing drawings of their best friends! Well, Meat Sweats is Mikey’s best friend, and Asha is Cielo’s best friend.

Believe it or not this is my first actual Rise fanart

[chushanye]

"my interpretation is more meaningful than yours" this "___ piece of media is objectively bad" that. yeah, well have you considered I'm having fun? 🤨 have you considered that I strive to be joyful rather than striving to prove the worth of my opinions? 🙄

[mantisgodsdomain]

Fun fact about us: we really, really like doing crossovers, whether between different Things or just between different AUs of the same Thing. We deeply enjoy throwing things into each other and seeing the relative "normal" interact, tinkering with different potential outcomes of the same general thing, fucking around with culture clash and alternate realities, and all of that fun stuff.

Unfortunately, we also get into flavors of media that isn't quite finished a lot, and we often really want to throw together AUs that we have to write ourself together with things, which means that we're nearly constantly running into the same handful of roadblocks: it's really hard to write about stuff when people have no idea what you're talking about, and it's also really hard to write about stuff when you don't know half of what's going on.

This means that a decent chunk of our writing that is finished tends to stay in drafts - fics based on information that needs to be revealed in stuff we haven't yet written, fics based on media where half of the things we need to know aren't yet revealed in canon, and similar situations easily make up our second most common category of "finished but unpublished" and "finished except for That One Thing" fic (our first most common category is "we need to come up with a decent opening and writing a good hook is hard")

This is, of course, a hell of our own creation. A problem of our own authorship, that we still consistently fail to escape because of our sense of pride and unwillingness to turn out anything that isn't at least half-decent. Similar to the way that we force ourself to reread any media that we write fic of for the sake of accuracy before we can publish it. It makes things take longer, but allows us to ensure quality - though it may hold us back from a certain degree of self-indulgence, mischaracterization is the thing that bothers us most, and if we release a misreading or mischaracterization, that'll haunt us more than any level of soul-baring ever count.

Anyways, all of this is to say that peak self-indulgence for us looks like an isekai Dungeon Meshi/Runaway to the Stars crossover where we stick a handful of characters into the dungeon and let them just kind of cope with that for the forseeable future and the only thing stopping us from doing this is a sense of pride and the fact that Runaway to the Stars doesn't actually have finished & published books right now.

[fondwand]

not to be brave and controversial but rw&rb the movie is exactly what antis and puritanical fandom wants from queer media like the most bland sanitized rote dull unsexy no tension no chemistry unfunny surface level romance and representation. give me dirt give me real bodies give me imperfect humans give me natural dialog give me complex relationships explored in the silences give me kink and complicated sex and guilt and anger and selfishness and imperfection, imperfection, imperfection. and most of all give me forgiveness for imperfection and the knowledge that an imperfect thing becomes beautiful because it communicates with the imperfection all fallible beings experience on a day to day, not because the beholder is morally corrupt.

anyway. sorry if you liked it there's nothing wrong with that. go forth and live your life.

[habits-white-rabbit]

Every time I see someone use Purple Haze Feedback for 'UwU FuGio real!!' or paint Giorno as a coldhearted sadistic master manipulator I feel myself coming closer and closer to snapping

[alma-artts]

One of my favorite things ever about finishing a show or smth is looking up all the meta discussions about it on tumblr. Like that’s more than half the fun of it.

[pipermca]

New AO3 Tag Wrangling Policy and the Transformers Fandom

(This is a long one, folks, but I think it's important.)

A new tag-wrangling policy on AO3 has the potential to create some massive confusion and chaos in the Transformers fanfic community, with regards to fandom tags. There is a Reddit post about it here with a focus on anime fandoms, but I want to give some concrete examples for the Transformers fandom on why we DO NOT WANT this, and why I think it's a horrible idea.

The Problem

Basically, AO3 is looking to get rid of the "All Media Types" fandom tag across the board, either by dismantling them or just not maintaining them. The Transformers - All Media Types tag has been an all-purpose tag that you could select when your story doesn't fall into any one specific continuity. Additionally, all most (see below) TF continuities on AO3 are considered a subtag of the Transformers - All Media Types tag. For example, if you look at the link above for all works in the All Media Types tag, you will see fics that are also tagged ONLY with Transformers: Animated, because it falls under the All Media Types tag.

One exception: With the upcoming Transformers: One movie coming out imminently, there will likely be a big influx of stories tagged with Transformers: One. In fact, there are several already. However, it hasn't been linked to the larger Transformers - All Media Types tag yet. I wasn't worrying about it though, because I know these things can take time.

With information about this new tagging policy, however, I'm now wondering whether it'll EVER get linked to the All Media Types tag. If that happens, and when more continuities are developed in the coming years (since you know Hasbro loves creating new universes) this has the potential to cause massive confusion when looking for stories to read.

Searching for Stories with the New Tagging System

So let's say the All Media Types fandom tag isn't accurate anymore, because it no longer includes ALL of the continuities (such as TF:One). You will need to include ALL the Transformers continuities when browsing for TF fics.

How many tags is that? Well, here are all of the tags currently listed under the Transformers - All Media Types tag:

Note that this doesn't include Transformers: One since it hasn't been categorized yet.

You will potentially have to have 40 or more different fandom tags in your search, just in case the author tagged their story with something you weren't expecting.

This massively decreases the findability of a story.

Tagging with the New System

The email response from the Tag Wrangling group (see the linked Reddit post above) seems to be a bit flip in the response to the user's concern. "...encourages creators to tag with the media they intend."

While I appreciate what they are attempting to do, this policy change feels like a solution in search of a problem, especially in larger fandoms with multiple continuities, versions, and media types that are all cross-pollinated in both canon and fanon. While I'm focusing on Transformers fandom, imagine a creator in the DC comic universe writing a story that incorporates bits and pieces from a dozen different reboots.

For example, let's say that I am writing a fic about Ratchet. I am using the setting of the original G1 episodes, but I also am using the characterization of him as a bit of an old man grump. That characterization originated in the Animated continuity, but I want to incorporate bits of pieces of his other characterizations as well (old friend of Optimus from TFP, Ratchet ran a faction-free clinic like he did in the War for Cybertron series, he's got a Decepticon boyfriend like in IDW1 - or maybe even Cyberverse, etc.)

With this new tagging structure, I might potentially have to tag the story with ALL of those continuities. So instead of just slapping down the "All Media Types" tag (and maybe one other fandom tag that matches the characters as best I can), I'll have to analyze my story and try to figure out how best to tag for the characters I used.

And what if you're doing a completely AU version of the story? For example, a humanformers story, or merformers? Using the All Media Types tag along with a Alternate Universe - Human or Alternate Universe - Mermaid tag worked perfectly, since you weren't writing the story to fit into one specific continuity. But now, that might not be an option.

What To Do??

The first thing I would suggest is to contact AO3 (using the Feedback and Support page) and let them know (nicely) that you think this is a horrible idea. Give them some examples on how you use the All Media Types tag to find stories to read, or to help you tag a story. People outside of the Transformers fandom don't always appreciate how absolutely tangled the continuities can be with each other, and providing examples might help them see why this would be a really messy change.

Readers: Be aware that when you are looking in the All Media Types tag, it will no longer show newer continuities. And if AO3 starts dismantling that tag like they suggested they are doing, be aware that some stories won't show up in that tag like they used to. You can also create and then bookmark a custom search page that includes all 40+ continuities. REALLY annoying, but it's a workaround.

Writers: Until they start dismantling the All Media Types tag, ALWAYS ALWAYS tag your stories using Transformers - All Media Types... Especially for newer continuities. This will be especially important if you are writing a Transformers: One story. Right now, anyone who is only browsing the All Media Types tag will not see a story tagged only with Transformers: One. Make sure you're aware of how tags work and how they can affect the visibility and findability of your story.

Epilogue

Ugh. That's a lot of words for a long-weekend Saturday. And maybe I'm overreacting a tiny bit. But my work involves information architecture, and this change just absolutely baffles me. It's almost as though they want to make it harder to find stories. Considering that AO3 won a Hugo partially because of its fantastic tagging system, this change seems like AO3 is doing its best to shoot itself in the foot.

When you have a square hole, a round hole, and a rectangular hole… Yeah, you DO want each peg to go in the "right" hole. But if all of the pegs fit in the square hole, who cares? You got the job done.

I love you @ao3org, but please reconsider this change... Especially for IPs that are as old and are as varied as Transformers.

[end-otw-racism]

End OTW Racism: A Call To Action

A fan protest against the lack of action from the OTW on addressing issues of harassment and racism on AO3 and within the organization

This is a Call To Action for Fans of Color and Allies

AO3 has acknowledged that they have a harassment & racism problem that its parent organization, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), needs to address. Currently, people can use AO3 to harass others through fanworks, comments, and tags. Just a few examples include: racist Untamed “spitefic” that used anti-Indigenous slurs and was written specifically to lash out at fans of color; a Transformer fic that used its Black-coded character to reenact George Floyd’s murder in July 2020; someone naming a fandom scholar who criticized their Nazi omegaverse fic in the tags of the fic specifically to incite harassment to the scholar; writers using racial slurs against commenters who pointed out racism in their hockey fic; and so much more.

In June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, the OTW committed to addressing these issues. It has been nearly three years and they have not yet implemented any of the changes they promised, other than a blocking/muting tool that was already in development before 2020. We need to hold the OTW accountable to their own promises. (See the section further down on “Why Are We Doing This” for even more detail.)

As fans, together, we are powerful. We are organizing to protest the lack of action on promises made by the Organization for Transformative works to deal with issues of racism and harassment on their platform, Archive of Our Own.

We call on fans to do any or all of the following actions any time between May 17 to 31, 2023 to send a message to AO3 and OTW that we will hold them to their promises.

On AO3

Change the title of ten (or more!) of your most recent or most popular fanworks to include ‘End Racism in the OTW’ in the beginning, and provide a link to this post in your summary or first/top creator’s note

Post a new fanwork any time between May 17th to 31st with “End Racism in the OTW” either as the title or at the beginning of the title. The fanwork does not have to be long - it can be a 100-word fic, a quick sketch, a podfic of a ficlet, a 20-second vid/edit, a short piece of meta, etc. In the summary or first/top creator’s note, provide a link to this post

If updating any WIPs with a new chapter, add ‘End Racism in the OTW’ to the title and provide a link back to this post in your summary or first/top author’s note

Update your AO3 icon using the profile pic graphic in our Social Media Toolkit

Plan to maintain these changes until May 31, 2023, or longer if you wish

Send a message to the OTW asking for an update on their 2020 commitments!

For Readers: leave encouraging comments on fanworks with the "End Racism in the OTW" title to show your support of this initiative.

On tumblr

Reblog this Call to Action with the tag #End OTW Racism

Update your profile pics and banners using the graphics in our Social Media Toolkit

Follow this account for updates and signal boost our posts

On Twitter

Follow @/EndOTWRacism (remove the backslash) and signal boost our pinned tweet

Update your profile pics and banners using our graphics, and change your display name to include #EndOTWRacism

Use sample tweets and graphics from our Social Media Toolkit to tweet about your fanworks, and use the hashtag #EndOTWRacism

Help us make this a long-term campaign - sign up to help with other anti-racism projects and future actions!

What Do We Want?

Since their June 2020 statement, OTW has been working on updating their Terms of Service (TOS) to address racist and bigoted harassment, but with little transparency and only the vaguest of updates. It has been three years since their commitment to this update - we want to see the results of their work implemented in the next 6-12 months. Their TOS updates and complementary policies should include:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Team to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

These points are not particularly new and are not our own innovation; please refer to Stitch's article written over two years ago, asking for several of these very things.

OTW has also already committed to various process-based actions for longer-term works towards centering antiracism, including hiring a Diversity Consultant. The last update that OTW published said that the consultant would be hired within the next five years (after already having had three years to work on it since their original commitment). That is not soon enough. We want to see the following process-based actions implemented:

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

Why Are We Doing This?

16 years ago, Astolat famously published her manifesto calling for a fandom Archive of One’s Own. In that time, AO3 has grown to be a central pillar of fandom, likely far outstripping its founders’ original vision. It is more than just an archive now; it is a central hub of the modern fannish experience. AO3 and the OTW must continue to grow and evolve with fandom over time to remain a healthy and functioning pillar of fandom. To that end, there are several areas in which the organization, as it admits itself, is lacking.

In June 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests and the uprising of the Black Lives Matter Movement, The OTW published a “This Week in Fandom” referencing the works of Dr. Rukmini Pande and Stitch, among others in which they discussed ‘making change for a better society’ through ‘conversations about race and racism’. In response, Dr. Pande and Stitch submitted a letter to the OTW calling for a more formal public statement than an offhand reference in a News Roundup that only served to call for thoughts and discussion without any indication the organization intended to do anything, policy wise, to address the issues being raised.

Eventually, the organization did remove the references to the works of Dr. Pande and Stitch and then made an official statement on the issue of racism within the organization and AO3. In it, they identified several things they would be prioritizing to combat harassment and benefit users. Some of those have been implemented (notably those that were already under development). However as of this writing, little else has been done especially in regards to:

Improving admin tools for the Policy & Abuse team

Reassessing the current mandatory archive warnings with the possibility of implementing others

And, most importantly, reviewing the Terms of Service (TOS) to allow the Policy & Abuse team to address harassment that is currently not covered by the existing TOS

By their own admission, the current tools and policies of the OTW are not sufficient to deal with issues of harassment and racism.

Several people who were involved in the founding of the OTW, including previous OTW Board members and staff on the original OTW Content Policy Committee, acknowledge that the founding of the OTW in 2008 and early board iterations failed us as a fandom by not doing enough, and by not even considering the way racism is perpetuated in fannish spaces, despite a long history of racism in fandom.

It has been nearly three years since the original commitment by the organization with little visible, measurable progress on these three crucial issues and a complete lack of transparency on where they are in regards to even beginning to deal with these issues. In fact, in Q&As, it was heavily implied by a member of the board that those calling for OTW to deal with issues of racism (which OTW had already acknowledged as a problem!) were not really fans but outside agitators.

This has cast significant doubt on the organization's sincerity and commitment to their stated goals, and on their position as leaders of a central fan tent-pole. Fans of color are not outsiders. They are right here, members of our community, and they are being harassed and targeted and driven out while space and platforms are being given to racists.

We, as fans of color and our allies, find the current state of fandom and current actions (and lack thereof) unacceptable. Fandom is our space, all of ours. We, as a fandom, have a right to a racism-free space and have a duty to our fellow fans to create that space. Unlike so much of the world, this is a space we can control and make better. It is a space we must make better. To read even more about this movement, visit our FAQs.

[sea-salted-wolverine]

my mutual, my love dove, my baby girl (gender neutral) we do not share the same tastes, and that is okay. You are responsible for at least one if not more of the filtered tags on my dash. I love you, but I do not love the things that you love. I fully believe that you said something clever and witty and insightful about one of the most deranged derivative pieces of media on earth. I do not know if you actually said something witty and clever because I have the tag blocked. I appreciate your tagging habits that allow me to do this.

Apple of my eye, delight of my heart, you have recently gotten into a new thing. I did my research. I went into the tag. My darling this is the magic of online friendship. Because by God it is bad. And if I knew you in real life I would have to politely smile at a spot just behind your ear whilst you ramble on, but thank God for the tools that allow me to literally filter out your fascinations that I have no interest in.

Sweetheart, I strive to match your meticulous tagging habits that you may do the same to me. You do not need to hear me ramble on about redneck bullshit if you do not wish to. You may ignore my weird art shit with no ill will from me. My lukewarm takes on whatever fandom I've toppled into ass first need not mar your day. The power of the filter makes you a God and you may interact with the version of me that never talks about rocks for hours on end. Admittedly, if you filter out all of it I may be kind of quiet but if that is the version of me you wish to encounter upon the wild plains of this hellsite we call home, all power to you.

And do you know, my beloved, what the best part of all of this is?

We never need to bring it up because not once in a million years will I notice that you haven't interacted with some random genre of posts. Truly we are the masters of our fates. Blacklist that bitch.

[bixels]

The Ryoko Kui interview's reception is such a disaster over a pretty normal (yet still flawed) interview between a non-Japanese fan and Japanese artistic. This is discourse for discourse's sake, and it's no surprise that almost every Twitter user I've looked at who's using this interview to parade Kui around as a goated mangaka standing strong against Western ideology is anti-trans.

Like, I do think the interview was kinda wonky with its focus on fandom culture, which Kui clearly didn't have much interest in. But sometimes that happens. Sometimes interactions between two people, especially a fan and a creator, two people who view and interact with a piece of media in completely opposite perspectives, don't click. Does this really need to get blown up into a "West vs. East culture war" issue.

Anyways, Kui saying "I don't consider my audience's interpretations when writing. I leave it to their imaginations, but I have my own read on things too" is the healthiest, most normal thing an artist/writer who wants a non-parasocial audience could say. Artists and writers use this line all the time. If Kui didn't enjoy autistic Laius or Farcille headcanons, she would have probably voiced/signalled her discomfort, like she did on the topic of Senshi fanservice. Overall, Kui handled the interview really well. Props to her to sticking to her guns and keeping a healthy disconnect from the fandom. While I think the interviewer could've/should've been more tactful and restrained, the flaws in their questions is not a symptom of the woke mind virus trying to wriggle its way into the pure Japanese psyche. It's the sign of an over-eager fan who sees a piece of fiction differently than its creator.

[chibsandchill]

Stolen moments under silk sheets (18+)

Fandom: HOTD (House of the dragon)

Pairing: Aemond x AFAB!reader

Summary: Aemond is touch starved. That’s it. That’s the whole story. Kind of. 

Masterlist

My requests are open! 

MDNI NSFW (warnings under the page break). SFW version here!

Warnings: Including but not exclusively slivers of angst sprinkled here and there, fluff, oral sex (m & f receiving), p in v sex, creampie, obsessive behavior, obsessive thoughts, descriptions of metaphorical self-harm, very brief mentions of the dance and the events that happened (some canon divergence), Aemond is his own warning, canon typical themes, the beginning is a bit slow, grammatical and spelling errors (English is not my first language)

I am not responsible for your media consumption 

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

The roses in your garden have begun to wilt. Summer is leaving, and winter claims all, but you remain untouched by the darkness that crept ever closer with each passing cycle. Your roses may have lost their vibrant colors but your face remained as bright and beautiful as ever. You thrive even in desolation – the harsh winds cannot steal the warmth from your cheeks or the spark from your eyes. 

“And you say you do not care for gardening, my love.” 

He’s almost startled by your presence, but since the war very little caught him off guard. But that look in your eyes? The overwhelming affection? That was something Aemond reckoned he would never get used to. And yet he could not get enough, you had awakened a beast inside him that fed and craved all things you. A smile did not satiate him like it used to, a night spent together felt like a fleeting moment spirited away by vengeful gods. 

Aemond hums. “Your passions are my passions.” 

You wrap your arms around his waist, resting your face on his shoulder. He felt, in that moment, as if he was standing on jelly, his knees threatening to buckle and his spine like liquid. There was not enough of you pressed against him. He felt burning hot and freezing cold at the same time, his skin crawling with want and desire, his cock half-hard already and his mind buzzing. 

“Clever.” You chuckle into the crook of his neck. Aemond shivers as your warm breath hits the sensitive skin there. 

“Did I wake you?”

His words are a whisper. Soft and with underlying guilt. You do not sleep well anymore, not without him. Too much has happened. The death of Jaehaerys proved that there is no sanctuary that cannot be breached, not a lock that cannot be broken, and not a part of you that will not suffer.  

You shake your head. 

“Liar.” 

“I was already awake. I like to…” 

“Hm? There is no judgment here.”

There was not an inch of you that he would part from – not a sliver of you he would not take, and not a piece of you he did not dream of devouring. The opposite was also true, for he craved to be taken, to be devoured and kept more than he ever dreamt of possessing. Aemond would have all of you, had woven that promise into the very fabrics of your marriage, embedded the words as if they were a spell into his vows, and oh, how sweetly you had smiled upon hearing them. He doubted you heard them for what they truly were. Are. 

“I watch you,” you confess, “when you sleep. You look so… so peaceful. The war has yet to poison that.” 

He blinks. Seconds tick by, but Aemond is too busy staving off the greedy blush from turning him red to respond. He is unable to respond, truly, even were he not practically glowing at your words. Words clump together on his tongue. 

“I should speak to the Housekeeper then,” Aemond clears his throat, “ if the room is so lacking you need to resort to staring at me. Though, perhaps I should thank her for her oversight that surely allows you to fall asleep quickly.” 

The corners of your lips fall, barely, but there is nothing about you he does not notice. There is nothing you can hide from his greedy eyes. 

“Twas a compliment, husband.”

“Perhaps a visit to the Maester is needed-”

You press a hand flat against his cheek and he falls silent. Your thumb brushes across his cheekbone to the apple of his cheek, to under his eye. There it rests, caressing him. He wants more. Your touch is only skin-deep, and it is not enough. If he could, he would press himself against your skin until all that remained of him was fading heat. Until he was but a faint whisper on the wind and his memory lived on only in you, for there was not a part of him he did not wish to give you. He would carve a place for him in you – in your heart, so that he would be close always. You would beat as one, breathe as one.  

“Yours is a beauty that the gods go to war for.”

“Perhaps once.” Aemond looks away. 

“Scars are stories of hardships overcome. They are marks of victory, do not think they make you less. They never will. Not to me.”

“Perhaps so, but I am not whole. There is a piece of me that was stolen and I can never get it back. The gods would not even glance at a man such as I for anything other than a feat of greatness.”

“And you have shown them many,” you press a short kiss against his neck. “You claimed the Queen of all Dragons,” another kiss, “you won many battles on dragonback,” another kiss, “you showed mercy to your enemies,” a series of kisses follow that claim, all inching up his neck. “You saved your brother and Sunfyre,” a kiss on his cheek, “you were crowned King by the smallfolk”, this kiss fell on the corner of his lips, “and you have been a most attentive husband.” 

A kiss straight on his lips. Aemond melts into it, pressing himself into you. You pull away too soon and he finds himself chasing after you, desperate for one more touch. 

“The gods give the toughest battles to their strongest soldiers.” You thumb the skin under his eye, “and you have won them all. Take pride in that. Gods know I do.”

“You do?” He asks. 

He did not think himself strong, or a champion of god given battles. His weaknesses tower over the oasis of strength, and so they are hidden to him. But he is not a vain man, that is not why he hates Luke for stealing his eye. 

You smile. “Of course. And I think all the beauty in the world fades compared to yours. Scars and all.”

Aemond is not sure he believes your words, but he believes you. It is a conflicting mess of jumbled thoughts mingling with the words of others. He was never the beauty of the family, his dragon was not the beauty of her kin. His life was one of hiding, of pride hidden beneath compliance, of hatred festering under blushing skin. 

“You flatter me, my love.” He says before his eyes wander back to your roses. “Yours is the only opinion worth hearing. The only one that matters.” 

You hum. “Come back to bed, Aemond.” 

“As my Queen commands.” 

The draping curtains flutter in the soft autumn wind, and from Aemond’s side of the bed he could see out across the Blackwater Bay. Sometimes when the wind is harsh and the rain plenty, Aemond is back in the skies above Storm’s End. He dreams of thousands of ways he could have saved Luke, though he does not wish he lived, not truly. In some dreams he thought of ways he could harm him further – truly punish him for what he took from Aemond that night. 

You can never have all of him. Not anymore. Though he dares not tell you that is why he cannot look at himself in mirrors. He would not show you the twisted being that hid under his skin. The one that would gouge out his other eye without hesitation were you to ask and smile as he did so. 

He could never, would never forgive Luke for what he stole from you. It is a hatred so woven into his very being that he would carry that with him even in all Seven Hells. 

“Come,” you beckon, kneeling on the bed. “If my words alone are not enough, I will prove it to you.” 

“Prove what?” 

His voice is low, filled with desires transcending earthly flesh. His is one of hunger for your very soul. 

“Come here and I will show you.” Your smile is coy, playful even. There are half-wilted petals from your roses on the bed behind you. They form no pattern, haphazardly thrown across the sheets.

He wonders when you put them there. 

Aemond comes to a stop in front of you, hands clasped behind his back, posture ramrod straight. He feels as though he is standing in front of the gods themselves, awaiting judgment. He hopes that he is enough, even if he cannot offer you all of him. There will always be a piece of him enduring the times alone. 

He does not feel worthy of you. No amount of petals carefully gathered off prickly stems will soften the harsh edges of his being. The love he grew up around was conditional, and though he was rarely struck, their words were as sharp as daggers, and left deep scars that will never heal. It left him jagged, bleeding, tearing at the seams with a beast untamed. In the image of you he tried to mend himself, with your love he patched the holes left by cruel words. He tore the flames from his breath so that his wrath could never burn you, the claws from his hands so that his touch would always be gentle. Not a piece of him was worth suffering in the absence of anything you. 

He was a dragon playing at being a lover. 

But he broke his wings for just a glimpse of you, then forced himself to fly when you desired to feel the wind against your face. You could not see the darkness oozing from the cracks of him, of your husband as you knew him. 

If it meant losing you, he would be a dragon no longer. 

He could simply be him. 

Aemond. 

But Aemond knew not who he was anymore. He knew who he was forced to become, and who war made him. But war was no longer, and yet the man rising from the ashes of his kin’s pyres remained. 

“Aemond?”

“Yes?”

“Where do you go when you get so lost in your head?” 

He does not wish to reveal to you how deep his longing for you goes. It is etched into the walls of his heart, it is a bottomless pit that calls only your name. He can never fill it. It aches and aches, and he longs and longs. His envy knows no bound, it is endless in its hunger for you. He would have all of you if he could, just as he wants you to have all of him. Every thought in your head, every feeling, every sensation. 

“Lost. I get… lost.” He confesses. The words are raw and a piece of his armor is cracked open to reveal mangled flesh of all Aemond’s that has been and will be. His recreation of himself in your image is as endless as his need to please. 

“Oh, my love,” you whisper. “Let me take care of you.”

You reach for the strings on his trousers before you pull them down. He steps out of them easy enough, though he feels awkward standing there with his tunic on. Though you did not leave him to suffer for long before you pulled his shirt off as well. You palm at his chest, touching every divot and lean muscle on his chest. It is overwhelming. He almost feels like crying. 

Your fingers massage, they scratch, they soothe and they burn his feverish skin. Your touch sets him alight. He can feel your love through every pass of your fingers over his skin. You press against the lean muscle, caress the slopes and divots of his flesh. Though you have long since memorized each other’s bodies, you touch him as if it is your first. His mind is dizzy with you, he feels as if he’s falling and drowning at the same time. The pleasure fills his throat, his lungs, and yet it also sweeps him off his feet, knocks the breath out of his chest. He wants more. He wants you to press harder, to mark him. You could press through his skin, through his muscles and ribs, and grasp his very heart, and you would still be so far away he wanted to weep.

His cock stiffens, though you keep touching him. You brush over his right nipple, then the left, then both. It is a strange sensation – one he’s not wholly against. 

Then, 

your fingers brush against his abdomen, trace the outline of his abs, then dips below. You grasp him firm in hand, and Aemond thinks he sees stars. You are so very soft, and he is so very very hard. 

The whore Aegon forced on him at his thirteenth name-day held him tightly, too tightly, then rubbed his skin raw, and still he could not force himself to come. He remained flaccid and cold in her calloused hands, even as Aegon jeered and leered from his place on the dais. 

But you showed none of her cruelty, none of the cold indifference. Just your presence took him halfway to completion, and he doubted it would take much more. Your other hand reaches below to cup his balls. That touch is less gentle, more firm. You start to twist the hand holding his cock, bringing it back and then forth in long, slow movements. You switch between firm, soft, fast, and then slower. But it is never not gentle. And you never look away from his eyes.

Though half-lidded, jaw slack and chest heavy, he stares at you. Pleasure of the flesh is second to the connection he finds in your eyes. 

His eye blinks wide open at the new sensation. Your mouth is warm and soft like silk. It is heaven made flesh, and it makes his knees tremble. You envelop him, tongue hot on his cock. You pay special attention to his head; trace the veins and the weeping slit with extra care. And, oh, is he weeping. 

Aemond needs more. 

He wraps his fingers around your hair, then gently guides you back and forth. A single shake of your head would free you from him, should you wish, but you don’t. Your tear-filled eyes plead with him for a tighter hold, and he complies. A bit. But he is soon lost to the pleasure of your mouth, and so as his eye flutter shut and he shudders, he finds himself guiding you all the way down so that your nose meets the short hairs at his base, and then back up just far enough that your lips wrap around his head. 

The reverence of a septon to the gods are nothing compared to that which he whispers your name.

Though if he finds the most pleasure from your sucking his cock or from knowing that a piece of him was inside you, he would never know. You swallow him down so easily, and with so much enthusiasm he is mournful that there is not more he can give. 

There is a knife on the chest by his feet. He wonders, would you swallow all of him as easily as his seed? If he cut himself would you lap at his wounds? 

Then, you pull away. You crawl up the bed until you fall down on the many pillows at the top of the bed. He follows without thought, kicking off his shoes and socks. His hair tie is next and his pale hair falls down his back. You are not prey, and he is not a predator, but he feels a thrill chasing after you into your marital bed. It sets his blood alight with desire. 

“That was cruel.” He says. “I was close.” 

He wasn’t. Your passions are his passion, your pleasure his pleasure. 

“Then I suppose you should get revenge.” You bite your lip. 

Your nightwear is thin. It is easily swept away from your body and thrown on the floor. 

“Yours is the beauty gods would die for.”

“It is all for you.” You tell him as you lean back against the pillows. 

His eye rove over you. Not an inch of you is not perfect, not an inch he did not love. All of you on display for him; an offering for a vengeful man. You are not unmarred by the war, and there is not a scar he does not kiss. He feels your pain as if it was his, and each wound on your body is his failure. 

“We match,” you told him once. 

He did not have the heart to tell you that this was done in your honor, to take the pain from you and deliver it upon him. He cut himself open for all the gods to see, then demanded they scar him as they did you. 

Aemond runs his hands along your form with the same careful love as you did him. His hands caress the skin on your ribs, dance around your sensitive nipples to lay flat over your heart. It pounds against your skin, calling out to him. His beats in turn. Then, he turns his attention to your breasts. You are most sensitive there. His lips wrap around a nipple, and you gasp. His hand wanders down your stomach, through the hair covering your cunt, and then he presses down on your clit. You jump into his touch, eyes widening at the sudden pleasure. 

“Aemond.” You moan. 

His mouth comes off your nipple with a wet ‘pop’ before he leans down and claims the other. He presses tight circles into your clit, alternating directions, then he moves his index finger to nudge at your entrance. His thumb stays on your clit, but the motions are lazy. He spells his name, then yours, then he stops. 

Aemond pulls away, but not for long. 

He moves down your body, about to put his lips against your cunt, when you pull at his hair. Aemond groans into your flesh. His desire for you is akin to drunkenness. He is dizzy with it, crazed with a need that can never be satisfied. Still, he presses himself against your folds, tongue darting out to lap at the wetness there. 

It trickles down the abyss of his desire, and in turn it grows. The hunger deepens, hollows out his chest. 

His thumb stays on your clit, but only for a moment before his nose replaces it. He grabs your hips and brings you closer to him. His face is all but buried in you, and yet it is not enough. Your wetness covers his lips, his chin, his cheeks. His tongue digs inside you for more, tip of his nose pressing against your clit in that way that makes your head spin. 

Time seems to stop, your pleasure endless, his chase bringing him closer and closer, and deeper. He presses a finger inside your entrance, before you give way and he thrusts it inside. He pumps it when his tongue darts away, so that you are never empty of him. 

Then, just as your hips start to shake, and your moans grow louder, you pull him away. He protests, loudly, but it falls on deaf ears. You pull him up to you, and he is reluctant to follow. Aemond feels cold and lost, but is then altogether found and warm when your hands wrap around his cock again. 

And the next moment he’s burning. 

You guide his cock inside you, and he sputters to life. His lips press down on yours, uncaring of the taste of him inside your mouth. He needs the connection, needs you. Aemond thrusts wildly against you for a few moments, his cock driving in and out of you with filthy wet sounds. 

You hold his face in your hands as you kiss, and his thrusts grow more controlled. Aemond wants it to last. Wants to drag out your connection for as long as he can, but he can feel his orgasm building already. His lower back aches with it, his toes curling against the bedsheets. He moves to slow down but the second he tries, you wrap your legs around his hips, pressing your feet against his buttocks to slam him into you. It is the same when he tries again, until he drives back with the same force as you drive him back in. 

The pace is maddening, your sounds so sweet he feels like he’s drowning. He knows not where he ends and you start, but he would have it no other way. If he pushes into you hard enough would you truly become one? In body as you are in soul? 

“Gods, Aemond,” you gasp at a particularly hard thrust.

Aemond brings his finger back down to thumb at your clit as apology, and you sing even sweeter for it. 

Time means nothing, there is only you and him. And then you’re falling over the cliff of pleasure, and he dives after you, clinging to you with bleeding fingers. Your pleasure is his pleasure, two halves of a whole finally forcing themselves together. There is not a crack in your connection, and Aemond thinks he sees stars as his vision goes white. He gasps and moans into your mouth, your pants and sounds of pleasure drowned by his need to bring himself closer to you. 

He lets himself fall upon you, cock softening inside you. His head spins still, but his heart beats like a drum in his chest at knowing that he’s once again been claimed by you. Even when he pulls himself free (reluctantly) there is still a piece of him in you. A piece that would never blossom into something more, for Aemond would not part with a single part of you, not even for himself. 

“I love you,” you pant into his ear. 

“Not as much as I love you,” he says in return. 

You laugh. “‘Tis not a competition, husband.” 

“No.” He agrees, with an easy smile. It is the truth. 

Aemond had won the war, and he had proven himself. And so he would never part from you again, even were the gods to try and force him from your side. The threads of your destiny are weaved together into one singular past, present, future. 

His beauty may be what gods fought for, 

but Aemond? 

Aemond would fight all the Gods, both old and new, 

for just one more stolen moment under silk sheets. 

[evie-doesnt-write]

Me @ literally anyone who can make one pls-

[bobbiedebruyn]

So you just joined Tumblr?

Tumblr basics + Fandoms/Gifmaking

Congratulations, you just landed at Tumblr! This hellsite (affectionate) can seem intimidating and complicated at first, but once you grasp the basics of it it’ll quickly turn into your own personal little hut in the forest. Tumblr is a website where you and only you curate your dashboard, you’ll see the content that you seek on your own. In this post, I’ll explain the basics of Tumblr and the basics of how fandoms function here with the help of Bob. Okay, let’s get started.

1. Blog customization

The first thing you should do as soon as you land on Tumblr is add a profile picture and header before you interact with people. You want to be distinguishable from bots and therefore avoid getting blocked. You can also add anything to your bio, there's no character limit. Some folks add their name and pronouns, but there are no rules about that. There are also no rules about profile pictures. It can be a picture of you, a picture of your dog, a picture of a rock, or a picture of your favorite character. If you plan on staying on the fandom side, you might notice that a lot of fandom blogs have colorful-looking icons (a cutout of a character on a colorful background), for these icons and also headers I suggest checking out source blogs that make those icons. For starters, @iconheadersource is a goldmine where you definitely going to find something that’d suit you and your blog.

Tumblr on mobile and Tumblr on desktop are two different creatures when it comes to customization. On the desktop, you can customize your blog with coding (HTML + JS). Now Bob will demonstrate to us some examples of blogs on desktop.

If you want to customize your desktop blog, I suggest checking out @phantomcodes and @glenthemes for the codes.

Tutorial on how to install themes

Using javascript on Tumblr pages

2. Search Engine

Nice! You've made your blog look pretty! Now, let's shift our focus to the search engine and ways to discover content. As mentioned earlier, you curate your dashboard by looking for things you enjoy and like. Search using hashtags or the names of your interests (TV shows, movies, birds, music, etc.) to find your piece of cake. For instance, folks who create posts about TV shows you like use tags to ensure their posts reach others interested in the same thing. So, let's go ahead and search for something right now.

Once you search for that specific tag, you are redirected to the corresponding tag page. Here, you can see that posts are sorted by "Latest" or "Top" (indicating posts with the most notes). On the right side, you will find related tags and blogs which are frequently using the searched tag. By following the tag, both the tag itself and the posts tagged with it will automatically appear on your dashboard in the "Your tags" section. You have the option to filter tags according to your preferences. In the settings, you can choose to block specific tags if you prefer not to see content related to some particular topics.

The only method for sharing posts and content on this website is through reblogging. On Tumblr, reposting others' content, including art, gifs, and fics, is not accepted. Reposting means downloading art, gifs, etc., creating your own post, and then sharing it. And that's a big no-no, strongly discouraged. Your likes essentially function as bookmarks, and you have the option to set them to be private. When you save something, it doesn't appear on your friends' dashboards.

We don't censor things here, and I advise you not to do so too. If you need to mention a word that might be potentially triggering or could be flagged on another social media, feel free to say it. Many users have specific topics and tags filtered out, so if you use variations like "K!tKat" instead of "KitKat" in the tags, it can bypass the tag filter, potentially causing more harm as people will see content that triggers them. And remember to always tag posts that have flickering or flashing!!!

If you want to organize your reblogs or make comments on a reblog, use the tags section and not the comments section itself. This is called "#add tags." Feel free to type whatever you want, but keep in mind that the original poster receives notifications when someone reblogs their post and adds tags. Yes, all tags are visible to us.

Okay, so let's quickly recap this information with the help of our dear friend, Bob.

3. Social interactions

So let's move on to one of the crucial topics - how to make friends on Tumblr? Personally, I don't think there's one particular formula for that. Sometimes you just see a funny bloke posting about something as random as desert rain frogs, grab them, and go "You're my friend now" and that's how you become mutuals. 

However, there are other, more common ways to become friends with someone. You can start by reblogging someone's post, adding tags to the reblog, and then following the person. Create your own posts, tag them to ensure they reach the folks who are interested in the same things as you, and participate in fandom events and challenges if you're into that. Interact with people you want to befriend, message them, send them asks. You will eventually find your crowd. You'll also find swifties, and fans of supernatural who never moved on from that destiel love confession four years ago, they also can be your friends, at some point, you will become friends and chill with each other. Be open to new interests to make sure your dashboard is not dull and boring.

Tumblr doesn't have the supposed hierarchy, and you don't have to listen to anyone who tells you otherwise, you curate your own experience and blocking is pretty normalized here. Notes and followers (which are private for everyone) don't really matter, stick to your beliefs and your vibe and you'll be fine. We're all equal losers here.

4. Fandom / Gifmaking

Fandoms play a significant role on Tumblr, they're closely tied with gifmaking. As a fellow creature of fandom, I'm adding this part because we don't gatekeep - more gifmakers and fandom enthusiasts mean a better fandom experience. As I mentioned earlier, everything has its tag, making it easy to find your favorite TV show fandom by searching for the tag. This is also how you can connect with people who share an interest in that specific TV show. Upon entering the tag, you'll stumble upon numerous moving pictures – these are GIFs. People create GIFs of everything, from their "blorbo" (the term for favorite character) to beloved ships and favorite moments. There are also plenty of creative GIFs with different coloring and complicated effects. And the best part? You can do it too!

There are a lot of ways to make GIFs. Some people use Photoshop, and some use Photopea which is an excellent accessible option. I'll be linking posts for Photoshop under this text. For Photopea tutorials and guides, please check out @photopeablr.

I've been making GIFs for three years at this point, and those are the tutorials I used when I was just starting out:

how to make a gif:

comprehensive guide 101

basic gif making tutorial + mvp player installation 

gifmaking for beginners

how to install MVP player on a PC

film downloading & screen-capping tips

correct photoset dimensions 

coloring

how to fix orange-washed characters

how to: coloring east & southeast asian celebs

channel mixer

colored background

color manipulation

vibrant coloring

how to brighten dark scenes

color isolation

effects

glitch effect

blending

crossfade transition

gradient effect in the text

gradient text

red colour accent on the b&w gifs

how to add a gif in a template

blurring gif backgrounds

using templates

text

text tutorial 1

font resources

understanding fonts and typefaces

split text

subtitles

other

icon tutorial

gif headers 

For more tutorials, inspirations, and resources - please check out @usergif. It's a good source blog for all gifmakers.

Wait but what's a source blog? These are blogs that center around a specific theme, creating content for a particular topic. They are managed by multiple editors, these blogs track their own tags to reblog content related to the theme. They can be source blogs dedicated to gifmaking (just like @usergif), a TV show, a movie, a character, a celebrity, a sports team, or literally anything else. Typically, these blogs incorporate terms like "network," "source," "central," "creators," "hub," or "daily" in their usernames, making them easily distinguishable from regular personal blogs. Examples of source blogs that come to my mind right now are @dailyanakin, @heartstoppercentral, and @nancywheelercentral.

Let's also talk about tracking tags, which are often included in blogs's bios, whether they're from source blogs or solo gifmakers. You can add these tags to your posts when creating a gifset related to a specific source blog or something you know a particular gifmaker would appreciate. Basically, the gifmaker can search their tracking tag, much like a regular Tumblr tag, and view the most recent sets in which someone used their tag.

The last thing I want to talk about are usernames, and main and side blogs. On Tumblr, we have two types of blogs: the main blog and the side blog. The main blog is the initial blog created when you sign up for your account. This blog has full functionality and all features, allowing you to follow other blogs, like posts, and send asks to other blogs. In addition to the main blog, you can create side blogs on your account. Side blogs lack some of the features of main blogs; you can't like posts, follow other blogs, or send asks from a side blog. They have slightly different functionality – a side blog can be password-protected, have multiple users, and allow you to send direct messages to people. Other users can follow your side blog, and you can receive asks from them.

Many people use side blogs as URL holders. For instance, when a new TV show is announced, someone might be the quickest to save all canonical character names. You can then message that empty side blog to inquire if they're willing to trade that specific URL or if it's available for a giveaway. Canonical URLs are often challenging to obtain, so many people add letters in between or at the end or use symbols like "-", and they also mix names and surnames of different characters.

5. The End

Okay, so we've just covered how Tumblr works, how fandoms operate, and how to get into gifmaking. I hope this guide by me and Bob has been helpful to you. If you have any questions, feel free to send them to my ask box or simply ask Bob. I hope you enjoy your stay here, and that your experience with this website will be a positive one.

[thankskenpenders]

Amy's fortune cards

The Sonic fandom has long been the kind of fandom that takes minor details very seriously, for better or worse. On the one hand, this means fans will really dig for the diamonds in the rough, latching onto fun character interactions, animations, bits of background worldbuilding, and more in pieces of Sonic media that many would write off as "the bad ones." But it also feels like every week another needlessly hostile debate over Sonic minutia erupts on Twitter, whether it's over individual lines of dialogue, fanart that makes Tails' shoes blue, or the ideal length and volume for Sonic's quills.

So it was probably inevitable that a fandom-wide debate would erupt upon seeing Amy's new gameplay style in the DLC for Sonic Frontiers, which takes the once-obscure fact that she enjoys reading tarot and shines a spotlight on it like never before.

I mean:

The thing is, while I basically always try to tune out Sonic fandom bickering... for once, I kind of sympathize with the detractors? Don't get me wrong, I like Amy's tarot stuff, and people on all sides of the discussion are being overly nasty about their opinions, as usual. (Sonic Twitter remains my personal hell.) But when I set aside the hyperbole and zoom out, I do think I understand why some fans are put off by the sudden shift in focus for the character, even if I think it's cool.

It's complicated. Let me attempt to present the cases for and against Amy's fortune cards

For years, I was always one of those fans who thought it could be fun if they played with Amy's tarot reading, or even leaned into some kind of magic with her. Part of that is my own biases showing, but there's just something that makes sense there, especially when you look at Sonic, Tails, and Amy as a trio. (I would argue that's the real "Team Sonic" these days, especially in the comics where Knuckles is more likely to be stuck on Angel Island or otherwise doing his own thing.)

You could argue that Tails is all about logic, relying on science and technology and deductive reasoning to solve problems. But Amy is all about emotion. She wears her heart on her sleeve, is extremely empathetic, and is very prone to magical thinking - both figuratively and sometimes literally. Her origin story has always been that her tarot cards told her it was her destiny to meet Sonic on Little Planet. She's claimed to be able to "sense" peoples' presences - particularly Sonic's. She's the type to believe that The Power of Love is a literal magical force. So, on some level, it makes sense to mirror Tails's science by having Sonic's other best friend believe in magic. And then Sonic is somewhere in the middle, primarily following his own gut instincts but taking advice from both of them as needed. This isn't totally accurate to how their dynamics actually function in canon stories, but I think it's a mode that could work for them.

Going off of that, it's fun to lean all the way into Amy being a magical girl, or even a witch, using her fortune telling as a foundation. Take, for example, this version of Amy from Diana Skelly's old Sonic cast redesigns from before she freelanced for Archie and IDW. This is one of MANY such redesigns for Amy.

Fast forward to the 2020s, and Amy's tarot cards are, in fact, finally getting brought up again in canon. Which is fun! I like seeing that. I like all of the individual stories involving Amy's fortune cards. This is a fun character trait for Amy, a fun nod to old lore, AND a fun storytelling device, all in one. It's really cool that the Sonic universe has its own thematically appropriate arcana, and that the cards are getting made as physical merch. And sure enough, the official card backs and borders were designed by none other than Diana Skelly, in yet another cool example of an ascendant fan leaving their mark on the series.

BUT... when you step back and look at the big picture, I get why some fans find this shift in focus jarring. At the moment, it's starting to feel like every new story about Amy involves her fortune cards to some degree.

The most recent mainline comic arc to feature Amy as the lead character, 2021's Trial by Fire arc, prominently features a sequence where she reads fortunes while camping with the girls. The Origins version of Sonic CD now bookends the game with scenes of Amy and her tarot cards. Sonic randomly mentioned it in a scene in Frontiers. And now, just this week, we got the (very cute, gorgeously illustrated) Amy's 30th Anniversary comic with a story revolving around Amy's tarot cards, followed the very next day by the Frontiers DLC in which she gets a brand new tarot-based moveset. Even her base melee attack now has her throwing tarot cards instead of swinging her hammer. Again, I like all of these individual things, but after years of it almost never coming up at all, it's VERY noticeable that Amy's tarot cards are suddenly everywhere.

To be fair, I'm looking at this from the perspective of a superfan who's actively following ALL Sonic media. Casual fans - especially kids - aren't necessarily going to be reading the comics every month, buying the thousandth rerelease of the Genesis games, or playing the ultra-hard new alternate ending DLC for a game that came out last year. Each of these stories is going to be someone's introduction to the idea that Amy can read tarot, and that's probably part of the idea behind this unified push.

But to play devil's advocate, for my fellow superfans, I understand why it feels like a very minor footnote of Amy's character is suddenly becoming the entire focus of her personality. While Amy has always been said to enjoy fortune telling, that wasn't really a character trait in and of itself, but rather an example of her being a typical girl who hopes she'll be able to find true love one day. It's less that Amy can literally predict the future and more like her using a cootie catcher or going "he loves me, he loves me not" while picking the petals off of a flower. So I get not vibing with this stuff, or feeling like it's being pushed very hard out of nowhere.

What I don't agree with are comparisons like "it's like if they made Knuckles' moveset revolve around him liking grapes." Like, I get it. Ian Flynn loves shoehorning in his little winking references for us nerds, and mentions of Amy's tarot cards were previously on the same level as other random bullet points from old Japanese manuals. But a multifaceted hobby like fortune telling that opens up so many narrative and aesthetic possibilities is obviously very different from having a favorite food. It's ALWAYS been a part of her story, not just a random fact, and there's no reason why the fortune telling can't be elevated to something more.

And, hell, even if it wasn't an established character trait, there's nothing inherently wrong with injecting new ideas into a character. One of the best Amy stories in recent years, the Free Comic Book Day special "Amy's New Hobby" written by Gale Galligan, came up with the idea that Amy's secretly been drawing little comics about her and her friends. Is this based on Lore? No. But it's cute, and helps tell the story of a younger Amy who's still coming out of her shell as both a hero and a friend.

Certain fans are also looking at Amy's Frontiers moveset and using it as evidence that once again the Vile American Contributors like Ian are CORRUPTING Sonic Team's perfect vision of Sonic with their misinterpretations. And like. Come on. Ian does not control the gameplay. He's a freelance writer. The tarot stuff is clearly something that Sonic Team likes if they made it the basis of Amy's new moveset - and, you know, if they keep approving comics and animations about Amy's fortune telling. None of this gets made without their blessing, and lord knows how much they can micromanage shit and shoot down ideas over the most minor of details.

Like, yeah, Amy's fortune telling was probably conceived less as a sign that she Knows Magic and more as a pretty mundane hobby for a lovesick young Japanese girl to have. But you're gonna sit there and tell me that using Amy's tarot cards for more than that could only be the result of a cultural misunderstanding? That nobody in Japan uses tarot card theming and aesthetics (or the general idea of magical cards) for the cool factor? Stardust Crusaders? Persona? The Astrologian class in FFXIV? Cardcaptor Sakura?? Hello??? Do you think Capcom put Gambit in Marvel vs. Capcom ironically because they thought using magic to throw cards at people was stupid? There's tons of precedent for this! It's nothing like Knuckles throwing grapes at people, be for real.

Giving Amy a very magical girl-esque moveset also just makes a lot of sense. For decades her hammer attacks have literally made sparkly heart shapes appear around her. Leaning into both that and her tarot cards in her new moveset makes a lot of sense to me.

But, admittedly... I do think it's very odd that her hammer is treated as a secondary element here, rather than having her primarily use her hammer and adding the cards for extra flair. If hitting the attack button made her swing her hammer instead of throwing cards, I'm not sure we'd even be having this discussion right now.

But the tarot-cycle and Amy riding her hammer like a witch's broom are fucking SICK and I will not concede on this point

The thing is, this whole fortune card discourse is but a small piece of a bigger problem. Amy's been a character who needed some work for ages, but there's basically nothing you can do with her without pissing SOMEONE off.

Years of stories where Amy's crush was her primary motivator and Sonic went "Ew, cooties!" have lead many casual fans to believe that being Sonic's obsessive fangirl is Amy's entire personality. At best people might call her Sonic's Minnie Mouse. This isn't just a matter of Amy having haters within the fandom - venture outside of that bubble and you'll realize that this is how MOST video game playing people seem to see her to this day. I don't feel like this is a fair assessment of the character, but this idea didn't come from nowhere. No matter how much good deeply entrenched Sonic fans may see in their old dynamic where Amy perpetually chases Sonic, this is a very real problem that Sonic Team has to contend with for their leading girl. Of course all those games where the way-past-cool protagonist thought Amy was annoyingly clingy and tried to get away from her made people think less of her.

If new stories were to go back to emphasizing Amy's crush on Sonic a little more, they'd probably be taken as confirmation that Amy's just the girl with a crush on Sonic and that this is her entire personality. Conversely, when the crush is played down, you piss off the hardcore SonAmy fans who don't seem to understand that they're Charlie Brown and Sega is Lucy holding the football. You can't win.

And so here we are. In the absence of what was once her defining trait, now reduced to an occasional blush or wink in Sonic's direction, new stories are trying to mine Amy's past for additional material to work with. Having been a thing fans wanted to see for years, right now we're getting a lot of tarot, but we're also getting reminders of her compassionate nature and her desire to go out of her way to help the little guy. This is an ongoing process. I continue to hope that her bubbly, exuberant demeanor can shine more in future stories. Now, I also hope that the tarot stuff gets balanced out a little better with other traits of hers. But I don't want it to go away. I think it's fun.

This course correcting is far from exclusive to Amy. Knuckles is getting stories that remind us that he's a competent fighter, an experienced treasure hunter, and even a self-taught archaeologist after years of him being perceived as either the dumb one or just the guy who stands in front of the Master Emerald all day. And Tails has been getting some stories reminding folks that he's a capable hero in his own right and not just Sonic's timid kid sidekick.

But no supporting character will ever compete with the sheer number of new ideas Sega has tried with Sonic himself. Like Amy, his Frontiers moveset has also given him half a dozen new superpowers that he never had before, from the Cyloop to air-slicing projectile attacks to his own take on Shadow Clone Jutsu and beyond. He's also been a hoverboarder, a swordsman, a time traveler, an Olympic athlete, a racecar driver, cursed with a Flame of Judgment, imbued with alien power, a fucking Werehog with stretchy powers, and on and on and on.

If Sonic can do all that, Amy can try out using a tarot-cycle.

Anyway TL;DR the REAL problem with Amy's current characterization... is where the FUCK is Amy's bestie, Honey the Cat???????

[arkhammaid]

— ˚₊‧⁺˖ DEFINITIONS OF MUSIC.

fandom. formula one

pairing. charles leclerc x professional pianist fem!reader (fc: none)

about. y/n y/l/n is one of the celebreties who has gone viral during lockdown. when she publishes her first album, she raises a few eyebrows with a featured artist

content warnings. social media au, not edited/proofread

notes. this is a very self-indulgent fic... so you all better love it or else 🫵

YOURUSERNAME AND 3 OTHERS

liked by zendaya, hanszimmer and 14'083'874 others

yourusername and 3 others we're proud to announce the album DEFINITIONS. each of the 26 original composed pieces embrace the title itself, the feeling of these words. they're defined by our language and passion, a gift from us to you.

yourusername so happy our baby is finally out, thank you adrian, charles and jamie, for this partnership. i couldn't have done this without you!

hanszimmer This is music.

charles_leclerc And it's finally here! I had so much fun working on this, thank you @/yourusername for allowing me to be part of your project🥰

jamieduffyy absolutely incredible!! stream definitions now!!!

zendaya I'm sobbing over the whole alphabeth, who would've thought... this is 🤯🤯

user holyyyyy shittttttt

user 26 SONGS??? AND MOST OF THEM ARE OVER 4 MINS LONG WE'RE GETTING SPOILED FR

haileybieber listening this on repeat and still getting shivers, this is incredible work 💗

user the butterfly effect is so real here...

⤷ user if you told me i'd follow this one tiktoker because she went viral with her piano only to become a fan of men who drive in fancy circles...

⤷ user SO I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO'S NOW AN F1 FAN??

user sobbing over nepenthe on repeat

user CHARLES WITH LEMAN?? HELLO??? AND THEN ALSO PHILOCALY??? MY MAN STAND UP AND STOP WRITING LOVE LETTERS

⤷ user what.

⤷ user for the love of god, please look up what the words mean... charles really thought he was slick with this one

⤷ user oh my god.

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Y/N Y/L/N SHOCKS MUSIC WORLD WITH CLASSICAL ALBUM AND FEATURED ARTISTS! FIVE PIECES OF THE 26-PIECE ALBUM ARE IN THE INTERNATIONAL CHARTS. EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT 'DEFINITIONS'.

From Viral TikToker to Record Holder, Y/n brings Classical Music back in Trend.

By Sara Ristan | Published February 24, 2024

If you know anything about music, you know the current trends. Pop and Rap is what the current generation likes, with a few outliners. From the very beginning, Y/n seemed to be one of them as well. Her first release, 'A Sailor's Wish', has been trending along with 'Solas', by her fellow artist Jamie Duffy for many weeks.

Her other composed pieces never hit the same numbers, that was until she released a full album. 'Definitions' has 26 original composed pieces, mixed with piano and full orchestra. It's an album full of masterpieces, fully deserving the high praise it has been receiving the past few days.

Every piece in the Album is named after a rare word, each one of them beginning with a letter of the Alphabet. Most of them were composed by Y/n herself, her signature moves regognizable, if you're familiar with her music. If you wish to read a full analysis of the whole album, click here.

Notable, besides the mindblowing compositions, are also the featured artists. We have Adrian Berenguer, Charles Leclerc and Jamie Duffy- each of them well known in their niche. What has raised eyebrows however, is that unlike Adrian and Jamie, Charles himself. He's an athlete, a Formula One driver in fact and very well known. While his fans knew about his releases, singles and even an album with Sofiane Pamart, no one was prepared for the partnership with Y/n.

Especially the titles of the pieces, two of them speaking about love, one is even titled as 'Leman', which means lover. Are these two trying to give us hints?

Beside that, five of the 26 pieces are currently in the charts, having already gathered millions of streams within days. Absolutely mindblowing!

click to read more

CHARLES_LECLERC

liked by yourusername, zendaya and 3'099'738 others

charles_leclerc P1 in Driver Championship Standings, P1 in International Charts, P1 in your heart... I love you, mon amour

yourusername ugh, ugly sobbing crying rn, no one talk to me

yourusername i love you too you sap

⤷ charles_leclerc Guilty hehe

⤷ charles_leclerc Doesn't stop me from loving you, cherié

⤷ yourusername i never told you to stop

jamieduffy fucking finally

zendaya @/tomholland2013 why don't you write you love songs for me??

⤷ tomholland2013 you're the one who sings?

user WE WON!!! Y/N NATION WE FUCKING WON

user if you squint you can see me fucking dead BECAUSE WTF IS THIS THEYRE ACTUALLY TOGETHER I CAN NOT IM DEAD OH MYGOOODDDDDD

⤷ user lmao felt

user now we know how charles even agreed to y/n asking for a collab... he has always been down bad for her

⤷ yourusername you're so right

⤷ user OH MY GOD???

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taglist. @keyz-writes , @obsidianjewel , @aimixx , @themercyverse , @lem-hhn , @lupicalbestwolf , @akiraquote , @lpap , @lilypadlover , @adorablezhui , @peqch-pie , @namgification

DO YOU WANT TO JOIN THE TAGLIST? please send a non-anon ask to be added to the taglist. taglist can be general taglist (all fandoms and all works), fandom taglist (all works within the fandom), series (all works for specific series) or nsfw taglist (all nsfw works and all fandoms).

crossed off tags mean i can't tag you!

ARKHAM MAID 2024