#.sorry for the long rambling op but i have So Many Thoughts on how comics fans are obnoxious as hell when they think they're helping ppl lol

[jercythesiscrying]

for better or worse, the tone re: comic choices and recommendations also influence people

i hesitate saying which comics i like bc sometimes it differs from what greater fandom says. comics fans who've been around longer are very open with their vitriol (and praise) about certain runs, and it is very alienating when you're a new fan and happen to have different opinions

(under a cut bc this got long lol 😅😅)

valid criticism aside, which can be disheartening on its own, i think anyone would feel a bit discouraged when a loud portion of the community you're trying to join goes: "[X] SUCKS AND ANYONE WHO DISAGREES IS A MORON AND HORRIBLE PERSON!!!" or "IF YOU DON'T DO [X] THEN YOU'RE A DUMB, FAKE FAN!!!"

the opposite is the same too: there have been times that fans wildly enjoy certain runs that i thought didn't live up to the hype. again, it is just as alienating to go: "i don't think i like this one" when so many people are like: "IF YOU DISLIKE [X] YOU'RE WRONG AND WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND [Y]!!!!"

i exaggerate a bit with the word choice, but i promise the passion and fury are the same. i've seen this most commonly from people hating fans from tv shows bc the show took a different approach to certain characters/storylines than how it's depicted in the comics

and then there's the baffling subset of fans who think getting into comics from different adaptations are stupid, which is SO wild to me. that one post of someone getting whiplash from reading utrh after coming from wfa has people criticizing op for reading wfa at all.............even though op is now reading the canon comics, which is what i thought people wanted. calling new fans dumbasses (a real thing i've seen) for starting canon comics bc what got them interested in the first place is from a different (if non-canon) comic, or any other adaptation, is one of the wildest things i've seen from a fandom in a while

there's also the reality that even if a certain run or creator sucks, there are still aspects that can be compelling. overall, i dislike tom king's batman for many reasons but y'all can pry that batcat/clois double date out of my cold dead hands. i dislike the n52 green arrow books but i still find ollie's parent's new backstory way more interesting for green arrow lore than them getting eaten by lions. outright excluding these runs when recommending comics deprives new fans from finding these kinds of details they could also like

and that's not even getting into how to "properly" read comics in any "correct" order, especially when it's given without context of the character's other histories (or context of that writer, or that editorial team, or the world in general at the time of its publishing) just bc "that run sucks so don't read it" or "to understand the character quickly—" (ie: correctly) "—just read these comics"

policing what people are allowed to like and how they choose to engage with their content is a hill apparently many people are willing to die on, even if they swear that's not what they're doing. shouting "i'm NOT gatekeeping!!! i'm just saying engage with canon!!!" doesn't really come across as encouraging when in the next sentence you're alienating the very people who WANT to get into the medium with what is, at the end of the day, a personal opinion being heralded as fact

i'm not saying fans should stop telling people to read the comics, bc i DO want people to read them!! reading comics is fun and the stories can add nuance/layers that you haven't considered before, which is also fun!! and i'm not saying to start tone policing, bc that's problematic for its own reasons

i'm just personally more interested in reading when someone says, "i like the comics and i wanna share these stories with others" instead of: "read the comics bc people who don't are annoying and need to stfu since they don't know anything." i'm also way more open to judging things for myself when people aren't yelling about how the thing i want to like comes with a bunch of terms and conditions

or idk maybe i'm just being too sensitive bc i do have a lot of problems in general lmao

In terms of 'people haven't read comics' I actually think there's a nuanced position people sort of instinctively understand and don't spell out:-

A lot of people enter comics fandom via an adaption medium (be that movies, video games, tv shows, cartoons)

That means they come in with a level of background understanding of various characters existing and some knowledge of them via osmosis, either from adapted stories or reading fic

General fandom discussion tends to coalesce around a small subset of characters and story runs

Because getting into comics is expensive, people preference what's easily available and/or what's most highly recommended in an attempt to maximise a story they will like

This is where all the panicking about 'where to start' comes in - it's overwhelmingly huge to look at and people are scared of 'getting it wrong'

They then read a run of a comic. Given all of the above for DC it's probably going to be a Bat comic, and there's a good chance it's UTRH, Red Robin 1-12, Batgirl 2000, Robin: Son of Batman, or The Court of Owls. They want the best storyline after all and that's what people tell them are favourites

They have also from being peripheral to the fandom noticed discourse about how certain stories/writers 'don't get' or 'ruin' characters and then avoid reading those stories

Because people are likely to only have read this small subset of stories, the discussion then focuses further on that subset

Echo chamber, the narrative that there's no such thing as a consistent canon in comics causes people to continue to avoid reading further, because they've been told Not To Read certain writers, and what they read doesn't really match how the fandom describes it

Because they're enjoying the fandom, they lean into the fanon and just...never read more comics. Sometimes pride themselves on not doing so

You end up with people who have 'read comics' but they mean about 3 famous runs totalling well under 100 issues, and very little comfort with even DC teams or families outside of the Bats

The current situation compounds because people aren’t comfortable with reading characters written by different writers and how that changes the story, even though that’s a huge part of comics

[crystaldoodler]

A very long post of doodles relating to @theminecraftbee ‘s smallishsona AU (sorry for the tag again). I think of this AU while wandering Tartarus, so, I’ve had a lot of time to think. This post is really long and has a lot of rambling so, I’m putting it all under the cut. I’m sorry world I have too many words and rambles in me

First up, character designs!

I used primarily their mc skins for design, with only a few rl things thrown in. But, I didn’t bring them up so the colors are off a bit.

Starting off with Joel:

He’s following the persona protagonist tradition of mostly wearing the school uniform correctly, but with some minor embellishments. I’m still debating whether or not to add more, but w/e. His signature color is green.

Then Skizz and Impulse:

The greatest dichotomy of time to design, Impulse I knocked out on the second go, but I’ve done many iterations of Skizz and I still am not satisfied with this design. The ripped sleeves looked too out there (to me, at least) but nothing else seems to work so I settled for the shirt under uniform shirt look. Something I struggled with that these two emphasize is making them look like teenagers, and what they look like, and also keep to the anime style, and also my own incompetence with drawing facial features so It’s something all of these lack in. Impulse is yellow, and Skizz is blue.

Scar and Grian are next up, Scar’s facial Scar is from summoning his persona, because he stabbed himself in the face lol. Not much to say about these guys, I settled on orange for Scar and red for grian, which I am still struggling with beacause mumbo:

is ALSO red. So I guess they are just, both? red? If you look at the party select screens in persona though, the characters have pretty strong color coding, so I guess I’ll figure something out. If anyone is still reading: help. Anyway, mumbo wins the award for wearing the uniform the most normal (except for the tie)

Last but not least, Gem!

She’s wearing a longer skirt than the usual uniforms and also some big-ass boots. Also, she’s a sea monster thing? So, I was thinking, staring at SEES cool new uniform things and thinking about the Phantom Thieves and how cool their outfits are and realized the persona games have at least some design change to separate their daily looks from shadow hunting. Even if it is only glasses in p4 lol. So, I thought maybe weapon holsters? but, that seemed a little too generic. So! I decided to combine how I normally draw the hermits (and a lot of the fandom does) as having non-human traits as the big things setting their combat looks apart. It is both a) fun to draw, b) creates an eye catching and distinctive design for combat and c) is really funny. I thought it was funny so I drew a comic about it:

and here’s a sketch of what everyone looks like and also the transformation gives them very distinct eyes, for no reason other than I think it looks cool:

mumbo is a normal human btw (or at least, he appears to be)

Welp,that’s all I got. If I look at these drawings any longer I will hate them so here they are, yippee. Also, Bee/OP, sorry for exploding; I am into persona and hermitcraft right now so this AU is like a perfect storm to give me brain rot.

[floatyhands]

I hope I can structure my thought process that I can articulate my scrambled head. First, I really enjoy and dig your interpretation of DC characters cause like if writers don't poke in the well of their characters. You can always rely on someone reading way more in-depth. Plus, it always nice to see art. Second, I thought why not ramble a bit since I was heavily intrigued with your yin and yang text. Maybe not as similar since it how I view two different characters, but both means very dear to one another. I am referring to Gilda and Harvey, since the name of Apollo is used yadda yadda. Randomly I would think how Gilda would be represented with the moon. Sounds pretty generic, though usually I work with many different meanings. (Ideas like longing, cycles, habits, different perspective of phrases, and other story that revolved around the sun and moon). As I said before scrambled head.

I won't yap as much, I thought to humor the phrase of giving you my brain juice. But keep cooking op.

Hi! I'm so sorry for the late response, I completely forgot Tumblr asks exist.

Thanks for liking my silly DC interpretations! I'm still very fresh to the comics, and there's often a fear I have that actually my interpretations go against the spirit of the canon or that actually the writers have fixed stuff for the better and I've missed this entirely and my takes ruin it somehow, so I'm glad that people do vibe with my ideas. :D

As for the "Gilda as Moon" thing, ooooh! On "Moon symbolising longing", I'm only familiar with the full moon symbolising (family) reunion in Chinese culture and also the whole Chang'e being isolated from humanity thing, so I'd love to hear your thoughts. About the phases, cycles, and habits, I'm guessing this is about her potential as a character who transcends binary thinking through multiple facets, and also her dealing with the cycles of separation and reunion that comes with Harvey's cycles of relapse and recovery? There's also maybe the meta level thing where Gilda as a supporting character of a supporting character usually only gets to shine from the sun (Harvey's) light haha.

The motif of contrasting but complementary halves of lovers, combined with the yin-yang thing, also reminds me of the similar sounding yuenyeung (鴛鴦), or mandarin duck, which in symbolises conjugal love and fidelity in East Asia because of how they're culturally considered to mate for life (which is sadly not true IRL, guess that's just nature for you), but in Cantonese specifically(?) has the additional connotation of "odd couple" due to how sexually dimorphic the birds air, hence the Hong Kong coffee-tea mixed drink also called yuenyeung, and yin yang fried rice/yuenyeung fried rice (鴛鴦炒飯, no relation to yin and yang, that's 陰陽), also sometimes called lovers' fried rice, a fried rice made with two contrasting sauces. (Oh look at me, forcefully pushing my Hong Kong food agenda again.)

Either way, thanks for the support, please send me more brain juice and sun-moon things!

[harrynightingales]

Straight male writer: 6 years is nothing to an immortal! Their relationship needs ANGST to be interesting!! Me: am I supposed to believe that these two men, who have been together for almost a millennium, who KNOW that any death could be their last because their immortality isn’t guaranteed, wouldn’t speak for SIX YEARS??? (If the unspeakable happened during that time period the survivor would never forgive himself!)

i'm with you anon!!! i actually have a lot of rambly thoughts on this and now feel enabled to share them because hey, you started it! under the cut because this is long as hell

edit: just as a heads up i read this as anon referring to the writer of the ttt3 moon landing story who to be fair i don't know if he is straight, or just as a general ~straight man writer~ perspective

first of all hard agree that the idea of angst = complex and interesting is really frustrating. i say that as someone who definitely can and does enjoy angsty miscommunication based fic but it definitely strikes me as something a) quite rare for them and b) not at all required for an interesting story. there are so many potential experiences for the anthology writers to explore that focusing on conflict all the time seems. uncreative.

anyways the 6 years comment has been fully disregarded by me. in general i have the approach of picking the canon/word of god comments that i like and ignoring the rest. specifically, it strikes me as the type of thought a writer would have when first writing about immortals, the whole idea that years pass like its nothing because they live so long. i imagine the writer was guilty of the same thing that grucka himself admitted to, of picking something that sounded cool because it was ~possible with immortal characters (in grucka's case, randomly picking 6000 as an age for andy) without actually thinking through the implications and whether it makes sense.

because as i mentioned in my reply (which i assume you saw?), the human experience of fighting with someone you love and not speaking to them fucking sucks. it feels good and satisfying for all of what? a day? and beyond that you just miss that person, especially when they are so intertwined with your every day life the way joe and nicky are. and exactly like you said, why on earth would they willingly put themselves through that when we canonically know how much they value and love each other?? because the way i see it you can fully disagree with someone and be angry with them but still make it clear that you love them by communicating. and the silent treatment is truly just the absence of any sort of communication and i can't imagine a scenario where an argument would be so very important to justify that level of anger to avoid any communication for more than a few days.

to be clear the actual events of the comic are not the main concern for me. i do think the philosophical differences between joe and nicky that are highlighted are interesting and would naturally bring some tension. i even can kind of understand the choice to go silent on each other - joe really eloquently explains his point to andy, but maybe he hadn't quite figured out his own thought process enough to explain it at the time of the original argument with nicky. and the hill i will die on re: joe/nicky's relationship is that it is built on respect, i imagine they would be emotionally mature enough to not lash out in anger and potentially say something hurtful that they can't take back. so choosing to remove themselves from the situation and not speak so as to not make things worse makes sense, as an initial reaction. where it loses me personally is that you can see that both ~activities if you can call them that are really important to joe and nicky. for joe, seeing the moon landing and appreciating beauty and progress in the world, and for nicky, serving justice to more people that caused innocent people harm (the "more" very consciously there because joe obviously also believes in their work and stopping injustice, but in this case they have different priorities past a certain baseline). and going back to my idea as respect as foundational for them, part of that in a relationship is recognizing that what is important and of value to your partner becomes important to you, even if you don't fully understand it. the way that joe so earnestly talked about wanting to experience the beauty of the moon landing and wanting to experience it with nicky makes me believe that nicky would reconsider his priorities, especially taking into account the "once in a lifetime" nature of watching the first the moon landing vs simply the convenience of having the hitlist targets all at home. and similarly, even if joe isn't fully convinced that everyone on nicky's hitlist needs to get taken out, he would recognize how and why that is important to nicky and not allow it to be something that comes between them, because like i said earlier fighting for justice is something they have in common. so in my mind the most in-character ideal response would be "argument of what to do next after taking out the serial killer -> both explain their positions and why that is their priority -> COMPROMISE". 

but ANYWAYS that huge ramble aside, the main plot "fight" of their's is not such a big deal to me, especially since its clear that joe knows nicky will call and its implied that he does shortly after the event of the comics. if anything, as others have said, it just seems FAR better suited for early days in their relationship rather than multiple centuries into it when they would have PLENTY of opportunity to iron out their moral approaches to killing plus gone through Communication In Relationships 101.

it really is just the 6 years comment that grinds my gears. again, a 6 year silent treatment argument could maybeee make sense in like, the first century of their relationship, as they were figuring stuff out and also before they discovered the fact that they can lose their immortality. like you said anon, once they have that information, i truly cannot believe they would willingly waste that much time over something that can't have been all that consequential. and i really don’t understand the argument that “because they’re immortal time doesn’t mean the same thing to them and 6 years is nothing!!” because imo that’s just.. not how the brain works. like they are fully human and process emotions as humans, and the human way is that conflict/anger/stress feel BAD, especially when you’re in the middle of it. your emotions are heightened which would put you on edge and feeling irritable and the brain is absolutely NOT meant to be in that state for an extended period of time. and again, why would they put themselves through that when they could just?? do the grown up thing and have a conversation. what would be the motivation to experience those shitty feelings for 6 years when an alternative exists?? not to mention greg's comment that the two of them had never willingly spent time apart, and even if they were still (indirectly) interacting while not speaking, the emotional distance it would require to be physically next to someone and disregard them like that for MULTIPLE YEARS runs really contrary to the way the relationship is presented. 

that being said i do find this post super funny and i definitely can imagine them going through the motions of "negative" relationship experiences (can you say jealousy and lorenzo???) entirely for the sexual payoff. but again, to take it kinda seriously, even that in my mind would be based on a foundation of understanding that they do love each other and they're not really REALLY mad at each other, just

p.s. i wrote almost this whole thing in a daze about 24 hours ago and then i saw this post which makes a lot of the same points as me so hopefully this isn’t repetitive and i’m sorry op i promise i wasn’t stealing your ideas. nice to be on the same page as others though!

[yuli-the-bi]

It took me a while to recollect myself after today's chapter. After excitedly getting up super early (went to bed around 4am, woke up at 7) and waiting patiently for the episode to come out, I had such high hopes, y'know? (Warning: this gets a bit long.)

But that quickly ended in a punch to the gut that, honestly, left me speechless and with full-body tremors. I haven't had an anxiety attack in a while but it hit me hard and took me some time to calm down. I'm used to disappointment from series I watched in the past, but I sincerely did have faith in this one. V7 was what got me back into rwby, mainly because I had dropped it after skipping around the events of V5. I had noticed Qrow getting attention on this site, and went "sure, why not?" and checked the tag. This was when chapter 3 aired, and man, was everyone going wild over it-- for completely good reason. I've always been attached to Qrow as a character. I've had the lowest times in my life where I didn't think I would get back up, and here he was, the character that I saw parts of myself reflected in-- suddenly earning a potential partner that, for once, could balance his semblance and quite possibly everything else. We weren't wrong in the least in that regard.

Speaking from a narrative design point, the outer, cinematic dialogue for c12 was just... so wrong in many ways. It felt like characterization was thrown out the window, Tyrian aside. I've written countless scripts for games, and as a writer you are responsible for forming an immersive dialogue/monologue that will direct the audience into experiencing specific emotions. The lines here, while beautifully delivered by the amazing voice actors, gave me the feeling of two utter, complete strangers that were pitted against each other rather than two people who have been together for quite some time and have developed a bond. The words, especially from Clover, were visceral, cold, and almost robotic. Completely OOC actions aside, the tone set in the scenes were so unnatural it caused me to pause the video several times to digest what had been said.

It hurt to hear Clover of all people, the same man throughout the volume show his concern for ALL civilians, including Mantle (cue back to c9 where he was the one to panic about rushing the rwbyjnr + ace ops/qrow to Mantle to save the people, as well as his stern orders to prioritize the safety of the people), to suddenly become a callous soldier set in his ways. He turned his back on the people that depended on him, which seems to be a reoccurring theme in these past few episodes. That doesn't reflect the man I've seen, admired, and analyzed throughout the volume. This one today felt unnatural and lacked all empathy that he had once shown (literally just in c11 you can *hear* the relief and joy in his voice once he reports that they've apprehended Tyrian, the psycho who has been out on a killing spree and Clover explicitly expressed malice to). This episode just completely forgoes the warmth I've been hearing in his voice.

I'm angry, depressed, and quite frankly, so fucking annoyed at how this episode was handled, from the standpoint of a narrative design/script writer and a fan of the show since high school. There were so many other routes they could have taken, granted, that could have given us just as much angst/shock value without the cost of a character that was a major pillar of support for Qrow. There has been so much wonderful development throughout the volume that sincerely gave me hope that it was going to be okay for him, and in turn, be okay for me and many other individuals who see themselves in Qrow's shoes. But that hope was demolished the moment I heard Clover speak so coldly, just barely showing reluctance he had so boldly delivered in previous chapters. I knew something was wrong, but didn't want to believe it. When I write dialogue for my scripts, I always envision myself as the character speaking, including gestures, facial expressions, and tone/pitch used to create a 'realistic' voice for them. I'm not one of the writers, but they demonstrated a very transparent purpose of closing off the possibilities of character growth with just those few lines. The intention was there. It probably has been from the start. And that isn't okay.

Not when there has been, admittedly, so many scenes where it touched upon gentler, more open emotions like trust, which is supposed to be such a huge factor in this volume. It was used horribly in this chapter, as it was meant to twist Clover's words, making it seem as though Qrow was completely in the wrong when we all fucking know it's two sides of the same coin. Not one side is completely right or wrong. "I wanted to trust you too" really hit me in all the wrong places. It crushed the hope for their bond, and all for what? Dramatic flair? If that's the case, then it was a real poor stylistic choice. Qrow was spot on when he said Clover was being manipulative-- because those words, while they sounded as if they were filled with pain, were all transparent in terms of closing off any more development between them. All these lines served one purpose, and that was to stamp out whatever had been blooming underneath all their previous interactions. Very melodramatic, I've seen about a thousand of these used, and none of them ever get me to react the way the writer intended for. It just left the worst taste in my mouth. (And don't even get me started on that ending. It might've appeased whatever audience they were going for, but bluntly put I've seen commercials that delivered stronger emotional impact than that. It clearly shows even more how Clover is distanced from Qrow in that regard. The "Good luck" at the end is a call back sure but the words exchanged really just... left me feeling so empty rather than a heart full of emotions. I only started crying once I heard Qrow's anguished scream and saw the light fade from Clover's eyes.)

I've seen all the wonderful AUs and fix-it scenarios that many of you have been posting and I really appreciate all your positivity through this horrible misstep in show production. (Thank you to those who are liking and reblogging my fair game comic I made a while back.) This has hurt me so badly that I know I probably won't open up and trust shows like this for quite some time, if ever. I'm skeptical about any changes that might occur in the finale, but I'll be looking at it with cold indifference nonetheless. I'll probably take a break from the series again afterward, but will definitely continue basking in the absolute joy of the fair game community and ignoring... whatever the hell that was. (I actually have some WIPs for fics saved that I might work on and publish once I get time off work). I'm sorry for my rambling and that it might not make much sense, but I had to voice my thoughts on the situation today. It is not okay by any means, and everyone who is upset by this is valid.